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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 813, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: 813
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+Release Date: December 27, 2010 [EBook #34758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 813 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You are the visitor I was expecting"]
+
+
+
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL
+ADVENTURE LIBRARY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THREE OWLS EDITION
+
+813
+
+BY MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+Author of "Arsene Lupin," "The Blonde Lady,"
+"The Hollow Needle," Etc.
+
+_Translated by Alexander Teixeira De Mottos_
+
+W. R. CALDWELL & CO.
+NEW YORK
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+      TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+      A zealous reader, collating the translation of this
+      book with the original, would hit upon certain
+      differences. These are due to alterations made, in
+      most case, by the author himself, and, in all cases,
+      with his full approval.
+
+      A. T. DE M.
+
+      CHELSEA, England, August, 1910.
+
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS
+                                                    CONTENTS
+    Translator's Note                                      v
+    I.          THE TRAGEDY AT THE PALACE HOTEL            3
+    II.         THE BLUE-EDGED LABEL                      31
+    III.        M. LENORMAND OPENS HIS CAMPAIGN           55
+    IV.         PRINCE SERNINE AT WORK                    75
+    V.          M. LENORMAND AT WORK                     114
+    VI.         M. LENORMAND SUCCUMBS                    137
+    VII.        PARBURY-RIBEIRA-ALTENHEIM                162
+    VIII.       THE OLIVE-GREEN FROCK-COAT               192
+    IX.         "SANTÉ PALACE"                           219
+    X.          LUPIN'S GREAT SCHEME                     254
+    XI.         CHARLEMAGNE                              272
+    XII.        THE EMPEROR'S LETTERS                    291
+    XIII.       THE SEVEN SCOUNDRELS                     324
+    XIV.        THE MAN IN BLACK                         352
+    XV.         THE MAP OF EUROPE                        379
+    XVI.        ARSÈNE LUPIN'S THREE MURDERS             405
+    EPILOGUE.   THE SUICIDE                              434
+
+
+
+
+
+813
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE TRAGEDY AT THE PALACE HOTEL
+
+
+Mr. Kesselbach stopped short on the threshold of the sitting-room, took
+his secretary's arm and, in an anxious voice, whispered:
+
+"Chapman, some one has been here again."
+
+"Surely not, sir," protested the secretary. "You have just opened the
+hall-door yourself; and the key never left your pocket while we were
+lunching in the restaurant."
+
+"Chapman, some one has been here again," Mr. Kesselbach repeated. He
+pointed to a traveling-bag on the mantelpiece. "Look, I can prove it.
+That bag was shut. It is now open."
+
+Chapman protested.
+
+"Are you quite sure that you shut it, sir? Besides, the bag contains
+nothing but odds and ends of no value, articles of dress. . . ."
+
+"It contains nothing else, because I took my pocket-book out before we
+went down, by way of precaution. . . . But for that. . . . No, Chapman,
+I tell you, some one has been here while we were at lunch."
+
+There was a telephone on the wall. He took down the receiver:
+
+"Hallo! . . . I'm Mr. Kesselbach. . . . Suite 415 . . . That's right.
+. . . Mademoiselle, would you please put me on to the Prefecture of
+Police . . . the detective department. . . . I know the number . . . one
+second . . . Ah, here it is! Number 822.48. . . . I'll hold the line."
+
+A moment later he continued:
+
+"Are you 822.48? I should like a word with M. Lenormand, the chief of
+the detective-service. My name's Kesselbach. . . . Hullo! . . . Yes, the
+chief detective knows what it's about. He has given me leave to ring him
+up. . . . Oh, he's not there? . . . To whom am I speaking? . . .
+Detective-sergeant Gourel? . . . You were there yesterday, were you not,
+when I called on M. Lenormand? Well, the same thing that I told M.
+Lenormand yesterday has occurred again to-day. . . . Some one has
+entered the suite which I am occupying. And, if you come at once, you
+may be able to discover some clues. . . . In an hour or two? All right;
+thanks. . . . You have only to ask for suite 415. . . . Thank you
+again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rudolf Kesselbach, nicknamed alternatively the King of Diamonds and the
+Lord of the Cape, possessed a fortune estimated at nearly twenty
+millions sterling. For the past week, he had occupied suite 415, on the
+fourth floor of the Palace Hotel, consisting of three rooms, of which
+the two larger, on the right, the sitting-room and the principal
+bedroom, faced the avenue; while the other, on the left, in which
+Chapman, the secretary, slept, looked out on the Rue de Judée.
+
+Adjoining this bedroom, a suite of five rooms had been reserved for Mrs.
+Kesselbach, who was to leave Monte Carlo, where she was at present
+staying, and join her husband the moment she heard from him.
+
+Rudolf Kesselbach walked up and down for a few minutes with a thoughtful
+air. He was a tall man, with a ruddy complexion, and still young; and
+his dreamy eyes, which showed pale blue through his gold-rimmed
+spectacles, gave him an expression of gentleness and shyness that
+contrasted curiously with the strength of the square forehead and the
+powerfully-developed jaws.
+
+He went to the window: it was fastened. Besides, how could any one have
+entered that way? The private balcony that ran round the flat broke off
+on the right and was separated on the left by a stone channel from the
+balconies in the Rue de Judée.
+
+He went to his bedroom: it had no communication with the neighboring
+rooms. He went to his secretary's bedroom: the door that led into the
+five rooms reserved for Mrs. Kesselbach was locked and bolted.
+
+"I can't understand it at all, Chapman. Time after time I have noticed
+things here . . . funny things, as you must admit. Yesterday, my
+walking-stick was moved. . . . The day before that, my papers had
+certainly been touched. . . . And yet how was it possible? . . .
+
+"It is not possible, sir!" cried Chapman, whose honest, placid features
+displayed no anxiety. "You're imagining things, that's all. . . . You
+have no proof, nothing but impressions, to go upon. . . . Besides, look
+here: there is no way into this suite except through the entrance-lobby.
+Very well. You had a special key made on the day of our arrival: and
+your own man, Edwards, has the only duplicate. Do you trust him?"
+
+"Of course I do! . . . He's been with me for ten years! . . . But
+Edwards goes to lunch at the same time that we do; and that's a mistake.
+He must not go down, in future, until we come back."
+
+Chapman gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. There was no doubt about
+it, the Lord of the Cape was becoming a trifle eccentric, with those
+incomprehensible fears of his. What risk can you run in an hotel,
+especially when you carry no valuables, no important sum of money on you
+or with you?
+
+They heard the hall-door opening. It was Edwards. Mr. Kesselbach called
+him:
+
+"Are you dressed, Edwards? Ah, that's right! . . . I am expecting no
+visitors to-day, Edwards . . . or, rather, one visitor only, M. Gourel.
+Meantime, remain in the lobby and keep an eye on the door. Mr. Chapman
+and I have some serious work to do."
+
+The serious work lasted for a few minutes, during which Mr. Kesselbach
+went through his correspondence, read three or four letters and gave
+instructions how they were to be answered. But, suddenly, Chapman,
+waiting with pen poised, saw that Mr. Kesselbach was thinking of
+something quite different from his correspondence. He was holding
+between his fingers and attentively examining a pin, a black pin bent
+like a fish-hook:
+
+"Chapman," he said, "look what I've found on the table. This bent pin
+obviously means something. It's a proof, a material piece of evidence.
+You can't pretend now that no one has been in the room. For, after all,
+this pin did not come here of itself."
+
+"Certainly not," replied the secretary. "It came here through me."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, it's a pin which I used to fasten my tie to my collar. I took it
+out last night, while you were reading, and I twisted it mechanically."
+
+Mr. Kesselbach rose from his chair, with a great air of vexation, took a
+few steps and stopped.
+
+"You're laughing at me, Chapman, I feel you are . . . and you're quite
+right. . . . I won't deny it, I have been rather . . . odd, since my
+last journey to the Cape. It's because . . . well . . . you don't know
+the new factor in my life . . . a tremendous plan . . . a huge thing
+. . . I can only see it, as yet, in the haze of the future . . . but
+it's taking shape for all that . . . and it will be something colossal.
+. . . Ah, Chapman, you can't imagine. . . . Money I don't care a fig
+for: I have money, I have too much money. . . . But this, this means a
+great deal more; it means power, might, authority. If the reality comes
+up to my expectations, I shall be not only Lord of the Cape, but lord of
+other realms as well. . . . Rudolf Kesselbach, the son of the Augsburg
+ironmonger, will be on a par with many people who till now have looked
+down upon him. . . . He will even take precedence of them, Chapman; he
+will, take precedence of them, mark my words . . . and, if ever I . . ."
+
+He interrupted himself, looked at Chapman as though he regretted having
+said too much and, nevertheless, carried away by his excitement,
+concluded:
+
+"You now understand the reasons of my anxiety, Chapman. . . . Here, in
+this brain, is an idea that is worth a great deal . . . and this idea
+is suspected perhaps . . . and I am being spied upon. . . . I'm
+convinced of it. . . ."
+
+A bell sounded.
+
+"The telephone," said Chapman.
+
+"Could it," muttered Kesselbach, "by any chance be . . . ?" He took down
+the instrument. "Hullo! . . . Who? The Colonel? Ah, good! Yes, it's I.
+. . . Any news? . . . Good! . . . Then I shall expect you. . . . You
+will come with one of your men? Very well. . . . What? No, we shan't be
+disturbed. . . . I will give the necessary orders. . . . It's as serious
+as that, is it? . . . I tell you, my instructions will be positive.
+. . . my secretary and my man shall keep the door; and no one shall be
+allowed in. . . . You know the way, don't you? . . . Then don't lose a
+minute."
+
+He hung up the receiver and said:
+
+"Chapman, there are two gentlemen coming. Edwards will show them in.
+. . ."
+
+"But M. Gourel . . . the detective-sergeant. . . . ?"
+
+"He will come later . . . in an hour. . . . And, even then, there's no
+harm in their meeting. So send Edwards down to the office at once, to
+tell them. I am at home to nobody . . . except two gentlemen, the
+Colonel and his friend, and M. Gourel. He must make them take down the
+names."
+
+Chapman did as he was asked. When he returned to the room, he found Mr.
+Kesselbach holding in his hand an envelope, or, rather, a little
+pocket-case, in black morocco leather, apparently empty. He seemed to
+hesitate, as though he did not know what to do with it. Should he put
+it in his pocket or lay it down elsewhere? At last he went to the
+mantelpiece and threw the leather envelope into his traveling-bag:
+
+"Let us finish the mail, Chapman. We have ten minutes left. Ah, a letter
+from Mrs. Kesselbach! Why didn't you tell me of it, Chapman? Didn't you
+recognize the handwriting?"
+
+He made no attempt to conceal the emotion which he felt in touching and
+contemplating that paper which his wife had held in her fingers and to
+which she had added a look of her eyes, an atom of her scent, a
+suggestion of her secret thoughts. He inhaled its perfume and, unsealing
+it, read the letter slowly in an undertone, in fragments that reached
+Chapman's ears:
+
+      "Feeling a little tired. . . . Shall keep my room
+      to-day. . . . I feel so bored. . . . When can I come
+      to you? I am longing for your wire. . . ."
+
+"You telegraphed this morning, Chapman? Then Mrs. Kesselbach will be
+here to-morrow, Wednesday."
+
+He seemed quite gay, as though the weight of his business had been
+suddenly relieved and he freed from all anxiety. He rubbed his hands and
+heaved a deep breath, like a strong man certain of success, like a lucky
+man who possessed happiness and who was big enough to defend himself.
+
+"There's some one ringing, Chapman, some one ringing at the hall door.
+Go and see who it is."
+
+But Edwards entered and said:
+
+"Two gentlemen asking for you, sir. They are the ones. . . ."
+
+"I know. Are they there, in the lobby?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Close the hall-door and don't open it again except to M. Gourel, the
+detective-sergeant. You go and bring the gentlemen in, Chapman, and tell
+them that I would like to speak to the Colonel first, to the Colonel
+alone."
+
+Edwards and Chapman left the room, shutting the door after them. Rudolf
+Kesselbach went to the window and pressed his forehead against the
+glass.
+
+Outside, just below his eyes, the carriages and motor-cars rolled along
+in parallel furrows, marked by the double line of refuges. A bright
+spring sun made the brass-work and the varnish gleam again. The trees
+were putting forth their first green shoots; and the buds of the tall
+chestnuts were beginning to unfold their new-born leaves.
+
+"What on earth is Chapman doing?" muttered Kesselbach. "The time he
+wastes in palavering! . . ."
+
+He took a cigarette from the table, lit it and drew a few puffs. A faint
+exclamation escaped him. Close before him stood a man whom he did not
+know.
+
+He started back:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+The man--he was a well-dressed individual, rather smart-looking, with
+dark hair, a dark moustache and hard eyes--the man gave a grin:
+
+"Who am I? Why, the Colonel!"
+
+"No, no. . . . The one I call the Colonel, the one who writes to me
+under that . . . adopted . . . signature . . . is not you!"
+
+"Yes, yes . . . the other was only . . . But, my dear sir, all this, you
+know, is not of the smallest importance. The essential thing is that I
+. . . am myself. And that, I assure you, I _am_!"
+
+"But your name, sir? . . ."
+
+"The Colonel . . . until further orders."
+
+Mr. Kesselbach was seized with a growing fear. Who was this man? What
+did he want with him?
+
+He called out:
+
+"Chapman!"
+
+"What a funny idea, to call out! Isn't my company enough for you?"
+
+"Chapman!" Mr. Kesselbach cried again. "Chapman! Edwards!"
+
+"Chapman! Edwards!" echoed the stranger, in his turn. "What are you
+doing? You're wanted!"
+
+"Sir, I ask you, I order you to let me pass."
+
+"But, my dear sir, who's preventing you?"
+
+He politely made way. Mr. Kesselbach walked to the door, opened it and
+gave a sudden jump backward. Behind the door stood another man, pistol
+in hand. Kesselbach stammered:
+
+"Edwards . . . Chap . . ."
+
+He did not finish. In a corner of the lobby he saw his secretary and his
+servant lying side by side on the floor, gagged and bound.
+
+Mr. Kesselbach, notwithstanding his nervous and excitable nature, was
+not devoid of physical courage; and the sense of a definite danger,
+instead of depressing him, restored all his elasticity and vigor.
+Pretending dismay and stupefaction, he moved slowly back to the
+chimneypiece and leant against the wall. His hand felt for the electric
+bell. He found it and pressed the button without removing his finger.
+
+"Well?" asked the stranger.
+
+Mr. Kesselbach made no reply and continued to press the button.
+
+"Well? Do you expect they will come, that the whole hotel is in
+commotion, because you are pressing that bell? Why, my dear sir, look
+behind you and you will see that the wire is cut!"
+
+Mr. Kesselbach turned round sharply, as though he wanted to make sure;
+but, instead, with a quick movement, he seized the traveling-bag, thrust
+his hand into it, grasped a revolver, aimed it at the man and pulled the
+trigger.
+
+"Whew!" said the stranger. "So you load your weapons with air and
+silence?"
+
+The cock clicked a second time and a third, but there was no report.
+
+"Three shots more, Lord of the Cape! I shan't be satisfied till you've
+lodged six bullets in my carcass. What! You give up? That's a pity . . .
+you were making excellent practice!"
+
+He took hold of a chair by the back, spun it round, sat down a-straddle
+and, pointing to an arm-chair, said:
+
+"Won't you take a seat, my dear sir, and make yourself at home? A
+cigarette? Not for me, thanks: I prefer a cigar."
+
+There was a box on the table: he selected an Upmann, light in color and
+flawless in shape, lit it and, with a bow:
+
+"Thank you! That's a perfect cigar. And now let's have a chat, shall
+we?"
+
+Rudolf Kesselbach listened to him in amazement. Who could this strange
+person be? . . . Still, at the sight of his visitor sitting there so
+quiet and so chatty, he became gradually reassured and began to think
+that the situation might come to an end without any need to resort to
+violence or brute force.
+
+He took out a pocket-book, opened it, displayed a respectable bundle of
+bank-notes and asked:
+
+"How much?"
+
+The other looked at him with an air of bewilderment, as though he found
+a difficulty in understanding what Kesselbach meant. Then, after a
+moment, he called:
+
+"Marco!"
+
+The man with the revolver stepped forward.
+
+"Marco, this gentleman is good enough to offer you a few bits of paper
+for your young woman. Take them, Marco."
+
+Still aiming his revolver with his right hand, Marco put out his left,
+took the notes and withdrew.
+
+"Now that this question is settled according to your wishes," resumed
+the stranger, "let us come to the object of my visit. I will be brief
+and to the point. I want two things. In the first place, a little black
+morocco pocket-case, shaped like an envelope, which you generally carry
+on you. Secondly, a small ebony box, which was in that traveling-bag
+yesterday. Let us proceed in order. The morocco case?"
+
+"Burnt."
+
+The stranger knit his brows. He must have had a vision of the good old
+days when there were peremptory methods of making the contumacious
+speak:
+
+"Very well. We shall see about that. And the ebony box?"
+
+"Burnt."
+
+"Ah," he growled, "you're getting at me, my good man!" He twisted the
+other's arm with a pitiless hand. "Yesterday, Rudolf Kesselbach, you
+walked into the Crédit Lyonnais, on the Boulevard des Italiens, hiding a
+parcel under your overcoat. You hired a safe . . . let us be exact: safe
+No. 16, in recess No. 9. After signing the book and paying your
+safe-rent, you went down to the basement; and, when you came up again,
+you no longer had your parcel with you. Is that correct?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Then the box and the pocket-case are at the Crédit Lyonnais?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Give me the key of your safe."
+
+"No."
+
+"Marco!"
+
+Marco ran up.
+
+"Look sharp, Marco! The quadruple knot!"
+
+Before he had even time to stand on the defensive, Rudolf Kesselbach was
+tied up in a network of cords that cut into his flesh at the least
+attempt which he made to struggle. His arms were fixed behind his back,
+his body fastened to the chair and his legs tied together like the legs
+of a mummy.
+
+"Search him, Marco."
+
+Marco searched him. Two minutes after, he handed his chief a little
+flat, nickel-plated key, bearing the numbers 16 and 9.
+
+"Capital. No morocco pocket-case?"
+
+"No, governor."
+
+"It is in the safe. Mr. Kesselbach, will you tell me the secret cypher
+that opens the lock?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Marco!"
+
+"Yes, governor."
+
+"Place the barrel of your revolver against the gentleman's temple."
+
+"It's there."
+
+"Now put your finger to the trigger."
+
+"Ready."
+
+"Well, Kesselbach, old chap, do you intend to speak?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'll give you ten seconds, and not one more. Marco!"
+
+"Yes, governor."
+
+"In ten seconds, blow out the gentleman's brains."
+
+"Right you are, governor."
+
+"Kesselbach, I'm counting. One, two, three, four, five, six . . ."
+
+Rudolph Kesselbach made a sign.
+
+"You want to speak?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You're just in time. Well, the cypher . . . the word for the lock?"
+
+"Dolor."
+
+"Dolor . . . Dolor . . . Mrs. Kesselbach's name is Dolores, I believe?
+You dear boy! . . . Marco, go and do as I told you. . . . No mistake,
+mind! I'll repeat it: meet Jérôme at the omnibus office, give him the
+key, tell him the word: Dolor. Then, the two of you, go to the Crédit
+Lyonnais. Jérôme is to walk in alone, sign the name-book, go down to the
+basement and bring away everything in the safe. Do you quite
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, governor. But if the safe shouldn't open; if the word Dolor . . ."
+
+"Silence, Marco. When you come out of the Crédit Lyonnais, you must
+leave Jérôme, go to your own place and telephone the result of the
+operation to me. Should the word Dolor by any chance fail to open the
+safe, we (my friend Rudolf Kesselbach and I) will have one . . . _last_
+. . . interview. Kesselbach, you're quite sure you're not mistaken?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That means that you rely upon the futility of the search. We shall see.
+Be off, Marco!"
+
+"What about you, governor?"
+
+"I shall stay. Oh, I'm not afraid! I've never been in less danger than
+at this moment. Your orders about the door were positive, Kesselbach,
+were they not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Dash it all, you seemed very eager to get that said! Can you have been
+trying to gain time? If so, I should be caught in a trap like a fool.
+. . ." He stopped to think, looked at his prisoner and concluded, "No
+. . . it's not possible . . . we shall not be disturbed . . ."
+
+He had not finished speaking, when the door-bell rang. He pressed his
+hand violently on Rudolf Kesselbach's mouth:
+
+"Oh, you old fox, you were expecting some one!"
+
+The captive's eyes gleamed with hope. He could be heard chuckling under
+the hand that stifled him.
+
+The stranger shook with rage:
+
+"Hold your tongue, or I'll strangle you! Here, Marco, gag him! Quick!
+. . . That's it!"
+
+The bell rang again. He shouted, as though he himself were Kesselbach
+and as though Edwards were still there:
+
+"Why don't you open the door, Edwards?"
+
+Then he went softly into the lobby and, pointing to the secretary and
+the manservant, whispered:
+
+"Marco, help me shift these two into the bedroom . . . over there . . .
+so that they can't be seen."
+
+He lifted the secretary. Marco carried the servant.
+
+"Good! Now go back to the sitting-room."
+
+He followed him in and at once returned to the lobby and said, in a loud
+tone of astonishment:
+
+"Why, your man's not here, Mr. Kesselbach. . . . No, don't move . . .
+finish your letter. . . . I'll go myself."
+
+And he quietly opened the hall-door.
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach?"
+
+He found himself faced by a sort of jovial, bright-eyed giant, who stood
+swinging from one foot to the other and twisting the brim of his hat
+between his fingers. He answered:
+
+"Yes, that's right. Who shall I say. . . ?"
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach telephoned. . . . He expects me. . . ."
+
+"Oh, it's you. . . . I'll tell him. . . . Do you mind waiting a minute?
+. . . Mr. Kesselbach will speak to you."
+
+He had the audacity to leave the visitor standing on the threshold of
+the little entrance-hall, at a place from which he could see a portion
+of the sitting-room through the open door, and, slowly, without so much
+as turning round, he entered the room, went to his confederate by Mr.
+Kesselbach's side and whispered:
+
+"We're done! It's Gourel, the detective. . . ."
+
+The other drew his knife. He caught him by the arm:
+
+"No nonsense! I have an idea. But, for God's sake, Marco, understand me
+and speak in your turn. Speak _as if you were Kesselbach_. . . . You
+hear, Marco! You _are_ Kesselbach."
+
+He expressed himself so coolly, so forcibly and with such authority that
+Marco understood, without further explanation, that he himself was to
+play the part of Kesselbach. Marco said, so as to be heard:
+
+"You must apologize for me, my dear fellow. Tell M. Gourel I'm awfully
+sorry, but I'm over head and ears in work. . . . I will see him
+to-morrow morning, at nine . . . yes, at nine o'clock punctually."
+
+"Good!" whispered the other. "Don't stir."
+
+He went back to the lobby, found Gourel waiting, and said:
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach begs you to excuse him. He is finishing an important
+piece of work. Could you possibly come back at nine o'clock to-morrow
+morning?"
+
+There was a pause. Gourel seemed surprised, more or less bothered and
+undecided. The other man's hand clutched the handle of a knife at the
+bottom of his pocket. At the first suspicious movement, he was prepared
+to strike.
+
+At last, Gourel said:
+
+"Very well. . . . At nine o'clock to-morrow. . . . But, all the same
+. . . However, I shall be here at nine to-morrow. . . ."
+
+And, putting on his hat, he disappeared down the passage of the hotel.
+
+Marco, in the sitting-room, burst out laughing:
+
+"That was jolly clever of you, governor! Oh, how nicely you spoofed
+him!"
+
+"Look alive, Marco, and follow him. If he leaves the hotel, let him be,
+meet Jérôme at the omnibus-office as arranged . . . and telephone."
+
+Marco went away quickly.
+
+Then the man took a water-bottle on the chimneypiece, poured himself out
+a tumblerful, which he swallowed at a draught, wetted his handkerchief,
+dabbed his forehead, which was covered with perspiration, and then sat
+down beside his prisoner and, with an affectation of politeness, said:
+
+"But I must really have the honor, Mr. Kesselbach, of introducing myself
+to you."
+
+And, taking a card from his pocket, he said: "Allow me. . . . Arsène
+Lupin, gentleman-burglar."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name of the famous adventurer seemed to make the best of impressions
+upon Mr. Kesselbach. Lupin did not fail to observe the fact and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Aha, my dear sir, you breathe again! Arsène Lupin is a delicate,
+squeamish burglar. He loathes bloodshed, he has never committed a more
+serious crime than that of annexing other people's property . . . a mere
+peccadillo, eh? And what you're saying to yourself is that he is not
+going to burden his conscience with a useless murder. Quite so. . . .
+But will your destruction be so useless as all that? Everything depends
+on the answer. And I assure you that I'm not larking at present. Come
+on, old chap!"
+
+He drew up his chair beside the arm-chair, removed the prisoner's gag
+and, speaking very plainly:
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach," he said, "on the day when you arrived in Paris you
+entered into relations with one Barbareux, the manager of a confidential
+inquiry agency; and, as you were acting without the knowledge of your
+secretary, Chapman, it was arranged that the said Barbareux, when
+communicating with you by letter or telephone, should call himself 'the
+Colonel.' I hasten to tell you that Barbareux is a perfectly honest man.
+But I have the good fortune to number one of his clerks among my own
+particular friends. That is how I discovered the motive of your
+application to Barbareux and how I came to interest myself in you and to
+make a search or two here, with the assistance of a set of false keys
+. . . in the course of which search or two, I may as well tell you, I
+did not find what I was looking for."
+
+He lowered his voice and, with his eyes fixed on the eyes of his
+prisoner, watching his expression, searching his secret thoughts, he
+uttered these words:
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach, your instructions to Barbareux were that he should find
+a man hidden somewhere in the slums of Paris who bears or used to bear
+the name of Pierre Leduc. The man answers to this brief description:
+height, five feet nine inches; hair and complexion, fair; wears a
+moustache. Special mark: the tip of the little finger of the left hand
+is missing, as the result of a cut. Also, he has an almost imperceptible
+scar on the right cheek. You seem to attach enormous importance to this
+man's discovery, as though it might lead to some great advantage to
+yourself. Who is the man?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+The answer was positive, absolute. Did he know or did he not know? It
+made little difference. The great thing was that he was determined not
+to speak.
+
+"Very well," said his adversary, "but you have fuller particulars about
+him than those with which you furnished Barbareux."
+
+"I have not."
+
+"You lie, Mr. Kesselbach. Twice, in Barbareux's presence, you consulted
+papers contained in the morocco case."
+
+"I did."
+
+"And the case?"
+
+"Burnt."
+
+Lupin quivered with rage. The thought of torture and of the facilities
+which it used to offer was evidently passing through his mind again.
+
+"Burnt? But the box? . . . Come, own up . . . confess that the box is at
+the Crédit Lyonnais."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what's inside it?"
+
+"The finest two hundred diamonds in my private collection."
+
+This statement did not seem to displease the adventurer.
+
+"Aha, the finest two hundred diamonds! But, I say, that's a fortune!
+. . . Yes, that makes you smile. . . . It's a trifle to you, no doubt.
+. . . And your secret is worth more than that. . . . To you, yes . . .
+but to me? . . ."
+
+He took a cigar, lit a match, which he allowed to go out again
+mechanically, and sat for some time thinking, motionless.
+
+The minutes passed.
+
+He began to laugh:
+
+"I dare say you're hoping that the expedition will come to nothing and
+that they won't open the safe? . . . Very likely, old chap! But, in that
+case, you'll have to pay me for my trouble. I did not come here to see
+what sort of figure you cut in an arm-chair. . . . The diamonds, since
+diamonds there appear to be . . . or else the morocco case. . . .
+There's your dilemma." He looked at his watch. "Half an hour. . . . Hang
+it all! . . . Fate is moving very slowly. . . . But there's nothing for
+you to grin at, Mr. Kesselbach. I shall not go back empty-handed, make
+no mistake about that! . . . At last!"
+
+It was the telephone-bell. Lupin snatched at the receiver and, changing
+the sound of his voice, imitated the rough accent of his prisoner:
+
+"Yes, Rudolf Kesselbach . . . you're speaking to him. . . . Yes, please,
+mademoiselle, put me on. . . . Is that you, Marco? . . . Good. . . . Did
+it go off all right? . . . Excellent! . . . No hitch? . . . My best
+compliments! . . . Well, what did you pick up? . . . The ebony box?
+. . . Nothing else? . . . No papers? . . . Tut, tut! . . . And what's in
+the box? . . . Are they fine diamonds? . . . Capital, capital! . . . One
+minute, Marco, while I think. . . . You see, all this. . . . If I were
+to tell you my opinion. . . . Wait, don't go away . . . hold the line.
+. . ."
+
+He turned round.
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach, are you keen on your diamonds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Would you buy them back of me?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"For how much? Five hundred thousand francs?"
+
+"Five hundred thousand . . . yes."
+
+"Only, here's the rub: how are we to make the exchange? A cheque? No,
+you'd swindle me . . . or else I'd swindle you. . . . Listen. On the day
+after to-morrow, go to the Crédit Lyonnais in the morning, draw out your
+five hundred bank-notes of a thousand each and go for a walk in the
+Bois, on the Auteuil side. . . . I shall have the diamonds in a bag:
+that's handier. . . . The box shows too much. . . ."
+
+Kesselbach gave a start:
+
+"No, no . . . the box, too. . . . I want everything. . . ."
+
+"Ah," cried Lupin, shouting with laughter, "you've fallen into the trap!
+. . . The diamonds you don't care about . . . they can be replaced.
+. . . But you cling to that box as you cling to your skin. . . . Very
+well, you shall have your box . . . on the word of Arsène . . . you
+shall have it to-morrow morning, by parcel post!"
+
+He went back to the telephone:
+
+"Marco, have you the box in front of you? . . . Is there anything
+particular about it? . . . Ebony inlaid with ivory. . . . Yes, I know
+the sort of thing. . . . Japanese, from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
+. . . No mark? . . . Ah, a little round label, with a blue border and a
+number! . . . Yes, a shop-mark . . . no importance. And is the bottom of
+the box thick? . . . Not very thick. . . . Bother! No false bottom,
+then? . . . Look here, Marco: just examine the ivory inlay on the
+outside . . . or, rather, no, the lid." He reveled with delight. "The
+lid! That's it, Marco! Kesselbach blinked his eyes just now. . . . We're
+burning! . . . Ah, Kesselbach, old chap, didn't you see me squinting at
+you? You silly fellow!" And, to Marco, "Well, what do you see? . . . A
+looking-glass inside the lid? . . . Does it slide? . . . Is it on
+hinges? . . . No! . . . Well, then, break it. . . . Yes, yes, I tell you
+to break it. . . . That glass serves no purpose there . . . it's been
+added since!" He lost patience. "Mind your own business, idiot! . . . Do
+as I say! . . ."
+
+He must have heard the noise which Marco made at the other end of the
+wire in breaking the glass, for he shouted, in triumph.
+
+"Didn't I tell you, Mr. Kesselbach, that we should find something? . . .
+Hullo! Have you done it? . . . Well? . . . A letter? Victory! All the
+diamonds in the Cape and old man Kesselbach's secret into the bargain!"
+
+He took down the second receiver, carefully put the two discs to his
+ears and continued:
+
+"Read it to me, Marco, read it to me slowly. . . . The envelope first.
+. . . Good. . . . Now, repeat." He himself repeated, "'Copy of the
+letter contained in the black morocco case.' And next? Tear the
+envelope, Marco. . . . Have I your permission, Mr. Kesselbach? It's not
+very good form, but, however . . . Go on, Marco, Mr. Kesselbach gives
+you leave. . . . Done it? . . . Well, then, read it out."
+
+He listened and, with a chuckle:
+
+"The deuce! That's not quite as clear as a pikestaff! Listen. I'll
+repeat: a plain sheet of paper folded in four, the folds apparently
+quite fresh. . . . Good. . . . At the top of the page, on the right,
+these words: 'Five feet nine, left little finger cut.' And so on. . . .
+Yes, that's the description of Master Pierre Leduc. In Kesselbach's
+handwriting, I suppose? . . . Good. . . . And, in the middle of the
+page, this word in printed capitals: 'APOON.' Marco, my lad, leave the
+paper as it is and don't touch the box or the diamonds. I shall have
+done with our friend here in ten minutes and I shall be with you in
+twenty. . . . Oh, by the way, did you send back the motor for me?
+Capital! So long!"
+
+He replaced the instrument, went into the lobby and into the bedroom,
+made sure that the secretary and the manservant had not unloosed their
+bonds and, on the other hand, that they were in no danger of being
+choked by their gags. Then he returned to his chief prisoner.
+
+He wore a determined and relentless look:
+
+"We've finished joking, Kesselbach. If you don't speak, it will be the
+worse for you. Have you made up your mind?"
+
+"What about?"
+
+"No nonsense, please. Tell me what you know."
+
+"I know nothing."
+
+"You lie. What does this word 'APOON' mean?"
+
+"If I knew, I should not have written it down."
+
+"Very well; but whom or what does it refer to? Where did you copy it?
+Where did you get it from?"
+
+Mr. Kesselbach made no reply. Lupin, now speaking in nervous, jerky
+tones, resumed:
+
+"Listen, Kesselbach, I have a proposal to make to you. Rich man, big man
+though you may be, there is not so much difference between us. The son
+of the Augsburg ironmonger and Arsène Lupin, prince of burglars, can
+come to an understanding without shame on either side. I do my thieving
+indoors; you do yours on the Stock Exchange. It's all much of a
+muchness. So here we are, Kesselbach. Let's be partners in this
+business. I have need of you, because I don't know what it's about. You
+have need of me, because you will never be able to manage it alone.
+Barbareux is an ass. I am Lupin. Is it a bargain?"
+
+No answer. Lupin persisted, in a voice shaking with intensity:
+
+"Answer, Kesselbach, is it a bargain? If so, I'll find your Pierre Leduc
+for you in forty-eight hours. For he's the man you're after, eh? Isn't
+that the business? Come along, answer! Who is the fellow? Why are you
+looking for him? What do you know about him?"
+
+He calmed himself suddenly, laid his hand on Kesselbach's shoulder and,
+harshly:
+
+"One word only. Yes or no?"
+
+"No!"
+
+He drew a magnificent gold watch from Kesselbach's fob and placed it on
+the prisoner's knees. He unbuttoned Kesselbach's waistcoat, opened his
+shirt, uncovered his chest and, taking a steel dagger, with a
+gold-crusted handle, that lay on the table beside him, he put the point
+of it against the place where the pulsations of the heart made the bare
+flesh throb:
+
+"For the last time?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach, it is eight minutes to three. If you don't answer
+within eight minutes from now, you are a dead man!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, Sergeant Gourel walked into the Palace Hotel
+punctually at the appointed hour. Without stopping, scorning to take the
+lift, he went up the stairs. On the fourth floor he turned to the right,
+followed the passage and rang at the door of 415.
+
+Hearing no sound, he rang again. After half-a-dozen fruitless attempts,
+he went to the floor office. He found a head-waiter there:
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach did not sleep here last night. We have not seen him
+since yesterday afternoon."
+
+"But his servant? His secretary?"
+
+"We have not seen them either."
+
+"Then they also did not sleep in the hotel?"
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"You suppose not? But you ought to be certain."
+
+"Why? Mr. Kesselbach is not staying in the hotel; he is at home here, in
+his private flat. He is not waited on by us, but by his own man; and we
+know nothing of what happens inside."
+
+"That's true. . . . That's true. . . ."
+
+Gourel seemed greatly perplexed. He had come with positive orders, a
+precise mission, within the limits of which his mind was able to exert
+itself. Outside those limits he did not quite know how to act:
+
+"If the chief were here," he muttered, "if the chief were here. . . ."
+
+He showed his card and stated his quality. Then he said, on the
+off-chance:
+
+"So you have not seen them come in?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you saw them go out?"
+
+"No, I can't say I did."
+
+"In that case, how do you know that they went out?"
+
+"From a gentleman who called yesterday afternoon."
+
+"A gentleman with a dark mustache?"
+
+"Yes. I met him as he was going away, about three o'clock. He said: 'The
+people in 415 have gone out. Mr. Kesselbach will stay at Versailles
+to-night, at the Reservoirs; you can send his letters on to him there.'"
+
+"But who was this gentleman? By what right did he speak?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Gourel felt uneasy. It all struck him as rather queer.
+
+"Have you the key?"
+
+"No. Mr. Kesselbach had special keys made."
+
+"Let's go and look."
+
+Gourel rang again furiously. Nothing happened. He was about to go when,
+suddenly, he bent down and clapped his ear to the keyhole:
+
+"Listen. . . . I seem to hear . . . Why, yes . . . it's quite distinct.
+. . . I hear moans. . . ."
+
+He gave the door a tremendous blow with his fist.
+
+"But, sir, you have not the right . . ."
+
+"Oh, hang the right!"
+
+He struck the door with renewed force, but to so little purpose that he
+abandoned the attempt forthwith:
+
+"Quick, quick, a locksmith!"
+
+One of the waiters started off at a run. Gourel, blustering and
+undecided, walked to and fro. The servants from the other floors
+collected in groups. People from the office, from the manager's
+department arrived. Gourel cried:
+
+"But why shouldn't we go in though the adjoining rooms? Do they
+communicate with this suite?"
+
+"Yes; but the communicating doors are always bolted on both sides."
+
+"Then I shall telephone to the detective-office," said Gourel, to whose
+mind obviously there existed no salvation without his chief.
+
+"And to the commissary of police," observed some one.
+
+"Yes, if you like," he replied, in the tone of a gentleman who took
+little or no interest in that formality.
+
+When he returned from the telephone, the locksmith had nearly finished
+trying the keys. The last worked the lock. Gourel walked briskly in.
+
+He at once hastened in the direction from which the moans came and hit
+against the bodies of Chapman the secretary, and Edwards the manservant.
+One of them, Chapman, had succeeded, by dint of patience, in loosening
+his gag a little and was uttering short, stifled moans. The other seemed
+asleep.
+
+They were released. But Gourel was anxious:
+
+"Where's Mr. Kesselbach?"
+
+He went into the sitting-room. Mr. Kesselbach was sitting strapped to
+the back of the arm-chair, near the table. His head hung on his chest.
+
+"He has fainted," said Gourel, going up to him. "He must have exerted
+himself beyond his strength."
+
+Swiftly he cut the cords that fastened the shoulders. The body fell
+forward in an inert mass. Gourel caught it in his arms and started back
+with a cry of horror:
+
+"Why, he's dead! Feel . . . his hands are ice-cold! And look at his
+eyes!"
+
+Some one ventured the opinion:
+
+"An apoplectic stroke, no doubt . . . or else heart-failure."
+
+"True, there's no sign of a wound . . . it's a natural death."
+
+They laid the body on the sofa and unfastened the clothes. But red
+stains at once appeared on the white shirt; and, when they pushed it
+back, they saw that, near the heart, the chest bore a little scratch
+through which had trickled a thin stream of blood.
+
+And on the shirt was pinned a card. Gourel bent forward. It was Arsène
+Lupin's card, bloodstained like the rest.
+
+Then Gourel drew himself up, authoritatively and sharply:
+
+"Murdered! . . . Arsène Lupin! . . . Leave the flat. . . . Leave the
+flat, all of you! . . . No one must stay here or in the bedroom. . . .
+Let the two men be removed and seen to elsewhere! . . . Leave the flat
+. . . and don't touch a thing . . .
+
+"_The chief is on his way! . . ._"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE BLUE-EDGED LABEL
+
+
+"Arsène Lupin!"
+
+Gourel repeated these two fateful words with an absolutely petrified
+air. They rang within him like a knell. Arsène Lupin! The great, the
+formidable Arsène Lupin. The burglar-king, the mighty adventurer! Was it
+possible?
+
+"No, no," he muttered, "it's not possible, _because he's dead_!"
+
+Only that was just it . . . was he really dead?
+
+Arsène Lupin!
+
+Standing beside the corpse, he remained dull and stunned, turning the
+card over and over with a certain dread, as though he had been
+challenged by a ghost. Arsène Lupin! What ought he to do? Act? Take the
+field with his resources? No, no . . . better not act . . . . He was
+bound to make mistakes if he entered the lists with an adversary of that
+stamp. Besides, the chief was on his way!
+
+_The chief was on his way!_ All Gourel's intellectual philosophy was
+summed up in that short sentence. An able, persevering officer, full of
+courage and experience and endowed with Herculean strength, he was one
+of those who go ahead only when obeying directions and who do good work
+only when ordered. And this lack of initiative had become still more
+marked since M. Lenormand had taken the place of M. Dudouis in the
+detective-service. M. Lenormand was a chief indeed! With him, one was
+sure of being on the right track. So sure, even, that Gourel stopped the
+moment that the chief's incentive was no longer behind him.
+
+But the chief was on his way! Gourel took out his watch and calculated
+the exact time when he would arrive. If only the commissary of police
+did not get there first, if only the examining-magistrate, who was no
+doubt already appointed, or the divisional surgeon, did not come to make
+inopportune discoveries before the chief had time to fix the essential
+points of the case in his mind!
+
+"Well, Gourel, what are you dreaming about?"
+
+"The chief!"
+
+M. Lenormand was still a young man, if you took stock only of the
+expression of his face and his eyes gleaming through his spectacles; but
+he was almost an old man when you saw his bent back, his skin dry and
+yellow as wax, his grizzled hair and beard, his whole decrepit,
+hesitating, unhealthy appearance. He had spent his life laboriously in
+the colonies as government commissary, in the most dangerous posts. He
+had there acquired a series of fevers; an indomitable energy,
+notwithstanding his physical weariness; the habit of living alone, of
+talking little and acting in silence; a certain misanthropy; and,
+suddenly, at the age of fifty-five, in consequence of the famous case of
+the three Spaniards at Biskra, a great and well-earned notoriety.
+
+The injustice was then repaired; and he was straightway transferred to
+Bordeaux, was next appointed deputy in Paris, and lastly, on the death
+of M. Dudouis, chief of the detective-service. And in each of these
+posts he displayed such a curious faculty of inventiveness in his
+proceedings, such resourcefulness, so many new and original qualities;
+and above all, he achieved such correct results in the conduct of the
+last four or five cases with which public opinion had been stirred, that
+his name was quoted in the same breath with those of the most celebrated
+detectives.
+
+Gourel, for his part, had no hesitation. Himself a favourite of the
+chief, who liked him for his frankness and his passive obedience, he set
+the chief above them all. The chief to him was an idol, an infallible
+god.
+
+M. Lenormand seemed more tired than usual that day. He sat down wearily,
+parted the tails of his frock-coat--an old frock-coat, famous for its
+antiquated cut and its olive-green hue--untied his neckerchief--an
+equally famous maroon-coloured neckerchief, rested his two hands on his
+stick, and said:
+
+"Speak!"
+
+Gourel told all that he had seen, and all that he had learnt, and told
+it briefly, according to the habit which the chief had taught him.
+
+But, when he produced Lupin's card, M. Lenormand gave a start:
+
+"Lupin!"
+
+"Yes, Lupin. The brute's bobbed up again."
+
+"That's all right, that's all right," said M. Lenormand, after a
+moment's thought.
+
+"That's all right, of course," said Gourel, who loved to add a word of
+his own to the rare speeches of a superior whose only fault in his eyes
+was an undue reticence. "That's all right, for at last you will measure
+your strength with an adversary worthy of you. . . . And Lupin will meet
+his master. . . . Lupin will cease to exist. . . . Lupin . . ."
+
+"Ferret!" said M. Lenormand, cutting him short.
+
+It was like an order given by a sportsman to his dog. And Gourel
+ferreted after the manner of a good dog, a lively and intelligent
+animal, working under his master's eyes. M. Lenormand pointed his stick
+to a corner, to an easy chair, just as one points to a bush or a tuft of
+grass, and Gourel beat up the bush or the tuft of grass with
+conscientious thoroughness.
+
+"Nothing," said the sergeant, when he finished.
+
+"Nothing for you!" grunted M. Lenormand.
+
+"That's what I meant to say. . . . I know that, for you, chief, there
+are things that talk like human beings, real living witnesses. For all
+that, here is a murder well and duly added to our score against Master
+Lupin."
+
+"The first," observed M. Lenormand.
+
+"The first, yes. . . . But it was bound to come. You can't lead that
+sort of life without, sooner or later, being driven by circumstances to
+serious crime. Mr. Kesselbach must have defended himself. . . ."
+
+"No, because he was bound."
+
+"That's true," owned Gourel, somewhat disconcertedly, "and it's rather
+curious too. . . . Why kill an adversary who has practically ceased to
+exist? . . . But, no matter, if I had collared him yesterday, when we
+were face to face at the hall-door . . ."
+
+M. Lenormand had stepped out on the balcony. Then he went to Mr.
+Kesselbach's bedroom, on the right, and tried the fastenings of the
+windows and doors.
+
+"The windows of both rooms were shut when I came in," said Gourel.
+
+"Shut, or just pushed to?"
+
+"No one has touched them since. And they are shut, chief."
+
+A sound of voices brought them back to the sitting-room. Here they found
+the divisional surgeon, engaged in examining the body, and M. Formerie,
+the magistrate. M. Formerie exclaimed:
+
+"Arsène Lupin! I am glad that at last a lucky chance has brought me into
+touch with that scoundrel again! I'll show the fellow the stuff I'm made
+of! . . . And this time it's a murder! . . . It's a fight between you
+and me now, Master Lupin!"
+
+M. Formerie had not forgotten the strange adventure of the Princesse de
+Lamballe's diadem, nor the wonderful way in which Lupin had tricked him
+a few years before.[1] The thing had remained famous in the annals of
+the law-courts. People still laughed at it; and in M. Formerie it had
+left a just feeling of resentment, combined with the longing for a
+striking revenge.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Arsène Lupin_. By Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc.
+(Doubleday, Page & Co.).]
+
+"The nature of the crime is self-evident," he declared, with a great air
+of conviction, "and we shall have no difficulty in discovering the
+motive. So all is well. . . . M. Lenormand, how do you do? . . . I am
+delighted to see you. . . ."
+
+M. Formerie was not in the least delighted. On the contrary, M.
+Lenormand's presence did not please him at all, seeing that the chief
+detective hardly took the trouble to disguise the contempt in which he
+held him. However, the magistrate drew himself up and, in his most
+solemn tones:
+
+"So, doctor, you consider that death took place about a dozen hours ago,
+perhaps more! . . . That, in fact, was my own idea. . . . We are quite
+agreed. . . . And the instrument of the crime?"
+
+"A knife with a very thin blade, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction,"
+replied the surgeon. "Look, the blade has been wiped on the dead man's
+own handkerchief. . . ."
+
+"Just so . . . just so . . . you can see the mark. . . . And now let us
+go and question Mr. Kesselbach's secretary and man-servant. I have no
+doubt that their examination will throw some more light on the case."
+
+Chapman, who together with Edwards, had been moved to his own room, on
+the left of the sitting-room, had already recovered from his
+experiences. He described in detail the events of the previous day, Mr.
+Kesselbach's restlessness, the expected visit of the Colonel and,
+lastly, the attack of which they had been the victims.
+
+"Aha!" cried M. Formerie. "So there's an accomplice! And you heard his
+name! . . . Marco, you say? . . . This is very important. When we've got
+the accomplice, we shall be a good deal further advanced. . . ."
+
+"Yes, but we've not got him," M. Lenormand ventured to remark.
+
+"We shall see. . . . One thing at a time. . . . And then, Mr. Chapman,
+this Marco went away immediately after M. Gourel had rung the bell?"
+
+"Yes, we heard him go."
+
+"And after he went, did you hear nothing else?"
+
+"Yes . . . from time to time, but vaguely. . . . The door was shut."
+
+"And what sort of noises did you hear?"
+
+"Bursts of voices. The man . . ."
+
+"Call him by his name, Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Arsène Lupin must have telephoned."
+
+"Capital! We will examine the person of the hotel who has charge of the
+branch exchange communicating with the outside. And, afterward, did you
+hear him go out, too?"
+
+"He came in to see if we were still bound; and, a quarter of an hour
+later, he went away, closing the hall-door after him."
+
+"Yes, as soon as his crime was committed. Good. . . . Good. . . . It all
+fits in. . . . And, after that?"
+
+"After that, we heard nothing more. . . . The night passed. . . . I fell
+asleep from exhaustion. . . . So did Edwards. . . . And it was not until
+this morning . . ."
+
+"Yes, I know. . . . There, it's not going badly . . . it all fits in.
+. . ."
+
+And, marking off the stages of his investigation, in a tone as though he
+were enumerating so many victories over the stranger, he muttered
+thoughtfully:
+
+"The accomplice . . . the telephone . . . the time of the murder . . .
+the sounds that were heard. . . . Good. . . . Very good. . . . We have
+still to establish the motive of the crime. . . . In this case, as we
+have Lupin to deal with, the motive is obvious. M. Lenormand, have you
+noticed the least sign of anything being broken open?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the robbery must have been effected upon the person of the victim
+himself. Has his pocket-book been found?"
+
+"I left it in the pocket of his jacket," said Gourel.
+
+They all went into the sitting-room, where M. Formerie discovered that
+the pocket-book contained nothing but visiting-cards and papers
+establishing the murdered man's identity.
+
+"That's odd. Mr. Chapman, can you tell us if Mr. Kesselbach had any
+money on him?"
+
+"Yes. On the previous day--that is, on Monday, the day before
+yesterday--we went to the Crédit Lyonnais, where Mr. Kesselbach hired a
+safe . . ."
+
+"A safe at the Crédit Lyonnais? Good. . . . We must look into that."
+
+"And, before we left, Mr. Kesselbach opened an account and drew out five
+or six thousand francs in bank-notes."
+
+"Excellent . . . that tells us just what we want to know."
+
+Chapman continued:
+
+"There is another point, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Mr. Kesselbach,
+who for some days had been very uneasy in his mind--I have told you the
+reason: a scheme to which he attached the utmost importance--Mr.
+Kesselbach seemed particularly anxious about two things. There was,
+first, a little ebony box, which he put away safely at the Crédit
+Lyonnais; and, next, a little black morocco note-case, in which he kept
+a few papers."
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Before Lupin's arrival, he put it, in my presence, into that
+travelling-bag."
+
+M. Formerie took the bag and felt about in it. The note-case was not
+there. He rubbed his hands:
+
+"Ah, everything fits in! . . . We know the culprit, the conditions and
+the motive of the crime. This case won't take long. Are we quite agreed
+upon everything, M. Lenormand?"
+
+"Upon not one single thing."
+
+There was a moment of stupefaction. The commissary of police had
+arrived: and, behind him, in spite of the constables keeping the door,
+a troop of journalists, and the hotel staff had forced their way in and
+were standing in the entrance-lobby.
+
+Notorious though the old fellow was for his bluntness--a bluntness which
+was not without a certain discourtesy and which had already procured him
+an occasional reprimand in high quarters--the abruptness of this reply
+took every one aback. And M. Formerie in particular appeared utterly
+nonplussed:
+
+"Still," he said, "I can see nothing that isn't quite simple. Lupin is
+the thief. . . ."
+
+"Why did he commit the murder?" M. Lenormand flung at him.
+
+"In order to commit the theft."
+
+"I beg your pardon; the witnesses' story proves that the theft took
+place before the murder. Mr. Kesselbach was first bound and gagged, then
+robbed. Why should Lupin, who has never resorted to murder, choose this
+time to kill a man whom he had rendered helpless and whom he had already
+robbed?"
+
+The examining-magistrate stroked his long, fair whiskers, with the
+gesture customary to him when a question seemed incapable of solution.
+He replied in a thoughtful tone:
+
+"There are several answers to that. . . ."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"It depends . . . it depends upon a number of facts as yet unknown.
+. . . And, moreover, the objection applies only to the nature of the
+motives. We are agreed as to the remainder."
+
+"No."
+
+This time, again, the denial was flat, blunt, almost impolite; so much
+so that the magistrate was absolutely nonplussed, dared not even raise
+a protest, and remained abashed in the presence of this strange
+collaborator. At last he said:
+
+"We all have our theories. I should like to know yours."
+
+"I have none."
+
+The chief detective rose and, leaning on his stick, took a few steps
+through the room. All the people around him were silent. . . . And it
+was rather curious, in a group in which, after all, his position was
+only that of an auxiliary, a subordinate, to see this ailing, decrepit,
+elderly man dominate the others by the sheer force of an authority which
+they had to feel, even though they did not accept it. After a long pause
+he said:
+
+"I should like to inspect the rooms which adjoin this suite."
+
+The manager showed him the plan of the hotel. The only way out of the
+right-hand bedroom, which was Mr. Kesselbach's, was through the little
+entrance-hall of the suite. But the bedroom on the left, the room
+occupied by the secretary, communicated with another apartment.
+
+"Let us inspect it," said M. Lenormand.
+
+M. Formerie could not help shrugging his shoulders and growling:
+
+"But the communicating door is bolted and the window locked."
+
+"Let us inspect it," repeated M. Lenormand.
+
+He was taken into the apartment, which was the first of the five rooms
+reserved for Mrs. Kesselbach. Then, at his request, he was taken to the
+rooms leading out of it. All the communicating doors were bolted on both
+sides.
+
+"Are not any of these rooms occupied?" he asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are the keys?"
+
+"The keys are always kept in the office."
+
+"Then no one can have got in? . . ."
+
+"No one, except the floor-waiter who airs and dusts the rooms."
+
+"Send for him, please."
+
+The man, whose name was Gustave Beudot, replied that he had closed the
+windows of five rooms on the previous day in accordance with his general
+instructions.
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"At six o'clock in the evening."
+
+"And you noticed nothing?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"And, this morning . . . ?"
+
+"This morning, I opened the windows at eight o'clock exactly."
+
+"And you found nothing?"
+
+He hesitated. He was pressed with questions and ended by admitting:
+
+"Well, I picked up a cigarette-case near the fireplace in 420. . . . I
+intended to take it to the office this evening."
+
+"Have you it on you?"
+
+"No, it is in my room. It is a gun-metal case. It has a space for
+tobacco and cigarette-papers on one side and for matches on the other.
+There are two initials in gold: an L and an M. . . ."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Chapman had stepped forward. He seemed greatly surprised and,
+questioning the servant:
+
+"A gun-metal cigarette-case, you say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With three compartments--for tobacco, cigarette-papers, and matches.
+. . . Russian tobacco, wasn't it, very fine and light?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go and fetch it. . . . I should like to see it for myself . . . to make
+sure. . . ."
+
+At a sign from the chief detective, Gustave Beudot left the room.
+
+M. Lenormand sat down and his keen eyes examined the carpet, the
+furniture and the curtains. He asked:
+
+"This is room 420, is it not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The magistrate grinned:
+
+"I should very much like to know what connection you establish between
+this incident and the tragedy. Five locked doors separate us from the
+room in which Mr. Kesselbach was murdered."
+
+M. Lenormand did not condescend to reply.
+
+Time passed. Gustave did not return.
+
+"Where does he sleep?" asked the chief detective.
+
+"On the sixth floor," answered the manager. "The room is on the Rue de
+Judée side: above this, therefore. It's curious that he's not back yet."
+
+"Would you have the kindness to send some one to see?"
+
+The manager went himself, accompanied by Chapman. A few minutes after,
+he returned alone, running, with every mark of consternation on his
+face.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"Murdered?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, by thunder, how clever these scoundrels are!" roared M. Lenormand,
+"Off with you, Gourel, and have the doors of the hotel locked. . . .
+Watch every outlet. . . . And you, Mr. Manager, please take us to
+Gustave Beudot's room."
+
+The manager led the way. But as they left the room, M. Lenormand stooped
+and picked up a tiny little round piece of paper, on which his eyes had
+already fixed themselves.
+
+It was a label surrounded with a blue border and marked with the number
+813. He put it in his pocket, on chance, and joined the others. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A small wound in the back, between the shoulder-blades. . . .
+
+"Exactly the same wound as Mr. Kesselbach's," declared the doctor.
+
+"Yes," said M. Lenormand, "it was the same hand that struck the blow and
+the same weapon was used."
+
+Judging by the position of the body, the man had been surprised when on
+his knees before the bed, feeling under the mattress for the
+cigarette-case which he had hidden there. His arm was still caught
+between the mattress and the bed, but the cigarette-case was not to be
+found.
+
+"That cigarette-case must have been devilish compromising!" timidly
+suggested M. Formerie, who no longer dared put forward any definite
+opinion.
+
+"Well, of course!" said the chief detective.
+
+"At any rate, we know the initials: an L and an M. And with that,
+together with what Mr. Chapman appears to know, we shall easily learn.
+. . ."
+
+M. Lenormand gave a start:
+
+"Chapman! But where is he?"
+
+They looked in the passage among the groups of people crowded together.
+Chapman was not there.
+
+"Mr. Chapman came with me," said the manager.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, but he did not come back with you."
+
+"No, I left him with the corpse."
+
+"You left him! . . . Alone?"
+
+"I said to him, 'Stay here . . . don't move.'"
+
+"And was there no one about? Did you see no one?"
+
+"In the passage? No."
+
+"But in the other attics? . . . Or else, look here, round that corner:
+was there no one hiding there?"
+
+M. Lenormand seemed greatly excited. He walked up and down, he opened
+the doors of the rooms. And, suddenly, he set off at a run, with an
+agility of which no one would have thought him capable. He rattled down
+the six storeys, followed at a distance by the manager and the
+examining-magistrate. At the bottom, he found Gourel in front of the
+main door.
+
+"Has no one gone out?"
+
+"No, chief."
+
+"What about the other door, in the Rue Orvieto?"
+
+"I have posted Dieuzy there."
+
+"With firm orders?"
+
+"Yes, chief."
+
+The huge hall of the hotel was crowded with anxious visitors, all
+commenting on the more or less accurate versions that had reached them
+of the crime. All the servants had been summoned by telephone and were
+arriving, one by one. M. Lenormand questioned them without delay. None
+of them was able to supply the least information. But a fifth-floor
+chambermaid appeared. Ten minutes earlier, or thereabouts, she had
+passed two gentlemen who were coming down the servants' staircase
+between the fifth and the fourth floors.
+
+"They came down very fast. The one in front was holding the other by the
+hand. I was surprised to see those two gentlemen on the servants'
+staircase."
+
+"Would you know them again?"
+
+"Not the first one. He had his head turned the other way. He was a thin,
+fair man. He wore a soft black hat . . . and black clothes."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Oh, the other was an Englishman, with a big, clean-shaven face and a
+check suit. He had no hat on."
+
+The description obviously referred to Chapman.
+
+The woman added:
+
+"He looked . . . he looked quite funny . . . as if he was mad."
+
+Gourel's word was not enough for M. Lenormand. One after the other, he
+questioned the under-porters standing at the two doors:
+
+"Did you know Mr. Chapman?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he always spoke to us."
+
+"And you have not seen him go out?"
+
+"No, sir. He has not been out this morning."
+
+M. Lenormand turned to the commissary of police: "How many men have you
+with you, Monsieur le Commissaire?"
+
+"Four."
+
+"That's not sufficient. Telephone to your secretary to send you all the
+men available. And please be so good as yourself to organize the closest
+watch at every outlet. The state of siege, Monsieur le Commissaire.
+. . ."
+
+"But I say," protested the manager, "my customers?"
+
+"I don't care a hang, sir, for your customers! My duty comes before
+everything; and my duty is at all costs to arrest. . . ."
+
+"So you believe . . ." the examining-magistrate ventured to interpolate.
+
+"I don't _believe_, monsieur . . . I am sure that the perpetrator of
+both the murders is still in the hotel."
+
+"But then Chapman . . ."
+
+"At this moment, I cannot guarantee that Chapman is still alive. In any
+case, it is only a question of minutes, of seconds. . . . Gourel, take
+two men and search all the rooms on the fourth floor. . . . Mr. Manager,
+send one of your clerks with them. . . . As for the other floors, I
+shall proceed as soon as we are reënforced. Come, Gourel, off with you,
+and keep your eyes open. . . . It's big game you're hunting!"
+
+Gourel and his men hurried away. M. Lenormand himself remained in the
+hall, near the office. This time, he did not think of sitting down, as
+his custom was. He walked from the main entrance to the door in the Rue
+Orvieto and returned to the point from which he had started. At
+intervals he gave instructions:
+
+"Mr. Manager, see that the kitchens are watched. They may try to escape
+that way. . . . Mr. Manager, instruct your young lady at the telephone
+not to put any of the people in the hotel into communication with
+outside subscribers. If a call comes from the outside, she can connect
+the caller with the person asked for, but she must take a note of that
+person's name. . . . Mr. Manager, have a list made out of all your
+visitors whose name begins with an L or an M."
+
+The tension caught the spectators by the throat, as they stood
+clustered in the middle of the hall, silent and gasping for breath,
+shaking with fear at the least sound, obsessed by the infernal image of
+the murderer. Where was he hiding? Would he show himself? Was he not one
+of themselves: this one, perhaps . . . or that one? . . .
+
+And all eyes were turned on the gray-haired gentleman in spectacles, an
+olive-green frock-coat and a maroon-colored neckerchief, who was walking
+about, with his bent back, on a pair of shaky legs.
+
+At times, one of the waiters accompanying Sergeant Gourel on his search
+would come running up.
+
+"Any news?" asked M. Lenormand.
+
+"No, sir, we've found nothing."
+
+The manager made two attempts to induce him to relax his orders
+regarding the doors. The situation was becoming intolerable. The office
+was filled with loudly-protesting visitors, who had business outside, or
+who had arranged to leave Paris.
+
+"I don't care a hang!" said M. Lenormand again.
+
+"But I know them all."
+
+"I congratulate you."
+
+"You are exceeding your powers."
+
+"I know."
+
+"The law will decide against you."
+
+"I'm convinced of that."
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction himself. . . ."
+
+"M. Formerie had better not interfere. He can mind his own business,
+which is to examine the servants, as he is doing now. Besides, it has
+nothing to do with the examining-magistrate, it has to do with the
+police. It's my affair."
+
+Just then a squad of police burst into the hotel. The chief detective
+divided them into several sections which he sent up to the third floor.
+Then, addressing the commissary of police:
+
+"My dear commissary, I leave the task of watching the doors to you. No
+weakness, I entreat you. I will take the responsibility for anything
+that happens."
+
+And, turning to the lift, he had himself conveyed to the second floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a difficult business and a long one, for they had to open the
+doors of the sixty bedrooms, to inspect all the bathrooms, all the
+recesses, all the cupboards, every nook and corner.
+
+And it was also fruitless. An hour later, on the stroke of twelve, M.
+Lenormand had just done the second floor; the other parties had not yet
+finished the upper floors; and no discovery had been made.
+
+M. Lenormand hesitated: had the murderer retreated to the attics?
+
+He was deciding, however, to go downstairs, when he was told that Mrs.
+Kesselbach had just arrived with her lady-companion. Edwards, the old
+confidential man-servant, had accepted the task of informing her of Mr.
+Kesselbach's death.
+
+M. Lenormand found her in one of the drawing rooms, overcome by the
+unexpected shock, dry-eyed, but with her features wrung with grief and
+her body trembling all over, as though convulsed with fever. She was a
+rather tall, dark woman; and her black and exceedingly beautiful eyes
+were filled with gold, with little gold spots, like spangles gleaming in
+the dark. Her husband had met her in Holland, where Dolores was born of
+an old family of Spanish origin, the Amontis. He fell in love with her
+at first sight; and for four years the harmony between them, built up
+of mutual affection and devotion, had never been interrupted.
+
+M. Lenormand introduced himself. She looked at him without replying; and
+he was silent, for she did not appear, in her stupor, to understand what
+he said. Then, suddenly, she began to shed copious tears and asked to be
+taken to her husband.
+
+In the hall, M. Lenormand found Gourel, who was looking for him and who
+rushed at him with a hat which he held in his hand:
+
+"I picked this up, chief. . . . There's no doubt whom it belongs to, is
+there?"
+
+It was a soft, black felt hat and resembled the description given. There
+was no lining or label inside it.
+
+"Where did you pick it up?"
+
+"On the second-floor landing of the servants' staircase."
+
+"Nothing on the other floors?"
+
+"Nothing. We've searched everywhere. There is only the first floor left.
+And this hat shows that the man went down so far. We're burning, chief!"
+
+"I think so."
+
+At the foot of the stairs M. Lenormand stopped:
+
+"Go back to the commissary and give him my orders: he must post two men
+at the foot of each of the four staircases, revolver in hand. And they
+are to fire, if necessary. Understand this, Gourel: if Chapman is not
+saved and if the fellow escapes, it means my resignation. I've been
+wool-gathering for over two hours."
+
+He went up the stairs. On the first floor he met two policemen leaving a
+bedroom, accompanied by a servant of the hotel.
+
+The passage was deserted. The hotel staff dared not venture into it.
+Some of the permanent visitors had locked themselves in their rooms; and
+the police had to knock for a long time and proclaim who they were
+before they could get the doors opened.
+
+Farther on, M. Lenormand saw another group of policemen searching the
+maid's pantry and, at the end of a long passage, he saw some more men
+who were approaching the turning, that is to say, that part of the
+passage which contained the rooms overlooking the Rue de Judée.
+
+And, suddenly, he heard these men shouting; and they disappeared at a
+run.
+
+He hurried after them.
+
+The policemen had stopped in the middle of the passage. At their feet,
+blocking their way, with its face on the carpet, lay a corpse.
+
+M. Lenormand bent down and took the lifeless head in his hands:
+
+"Chapman," he muttered. "He is dead."
+
+He examined the body. A white knitted silk muffler was tied round the
+neck. He undid it. Red stains appeared; and he saw that the muffler held
+a thick wad of cotton-wool in position against the nape of the neck. The
+wad was soaked with blood.
+
+Once again there was the same little wound, clean, frank and pitiless.
+
+M. Formerie and the commissary were at once told and came hastening up.
+
+"No one gone out?" asked the chief detective. "No surprise?"
+
+"No," said the commissary. "There are two men on guard at the foot of
+each staircase."
+
+"Perhaps he has gone up again?" said M. Formerie.
+
+"No! . . . No! . . ."
+
+"But some one must have met him. . . ."
+
+"No. . . . This all happened quite a long time ago. The hands are cold.
+. . . The murder must have been committed almost immediately after the
+other . . . as soon as the two men came here by the servants'
+staircase."
+
+"But the body would have been seen! Think, fifty people must have passed
+this spot during the last two hours. . . ."
+
+"The body was not here."
+
+"Then where was it?"
+
+"Why, how can I tell?" snapped the chief detective. "Do as I'm doing,
+look for yourself! You can't find things by talking."
+
+He furiously patted the knob of his stick with a twitching hand; and he
+stood there, with his eyes fixed on the body, silent and thoughtful. At
+last he spoke:
+
+"Monsieur le Commissaire, be so good as to have the victim taken to an
+empty room. Let them fetch the doctor. Mr. Manager, would you mind
+opening the doors of all the rooms on this passage for me?"
+
+On the left were three bedrooms and two sitting-rooms, forming an empty
+suite, which M. Lenormand inspected. On the right were four bedrooms.
+Two were occupied respectively by a M. Reverdat and an Italian, Baron
+Giacomini, who were both then out. In the third room they found an
+elderly English maiden lady still in bed; and, in the fourth, an
+Englishman who was placidly reading and smoking and who had not been in
+the least disturbed by the noises in the passage. His name was Major
+Parbury.
+
+No amount of searching or questioning led to any result. The old maid
+had heard nothing before the exclamations of the policeman: no noise of
+a struggle, no cry of pain, no sound of quarreling; and Major Parbury
+neither.
+
+Moreover, there was no suspicious clue found, no trace of blood, nothing
+to lead them to suppose that the unfortunate Chapman had been in one of
+those rooms.
+
+"It's queer," muttered the examining-magistrate, "it's all very queer.
+. . ." And he confessed, ingenuously, "I feel more and more at sea.
+. . . There is a whole series of circumstances that are partly beyond
+me. What do you make of it, M. Lenormand?"
+
+M. Lenormand was on the point of letting off one of those pointed
+rejoinders in which he was wont to give vent to his chronic ill-temper,
+when Gourel appeared upon the scene, all out of breath.
+
+"Chief," he panted, "they've found this . . . downstairs . . . in the
+office . . . on a chair. . . ."
+
+It was a parcel of moderate dimensions, wrapped up in a piece of black
+serge.
+
+"Did they open it?" asked the chief.
+
+"Yes, but when they saw what the parcel contained, they did it up again
+exactly as it was . . . fastened very tight, as you can see. . . ."
+
+"Untie it."
+
+Gourel removed the wrapper and disclosed a black diagonal jacket and
+trousers, which had evidently been packed up in a hurry, as the creases
+in the cloth showed. In the middle was a towel, covered with blood,
+which had been dipped in water, in order, no doubt, to destroy the marks
+of the hands that had been wiped on it. Inside the napkin was a steel
+dagger, with a handle encrusted with gold. This also was red with blood,
+the blood of three men stabbed within the space of a few hours by an
+invisible hand, amid the crowd of three hundred people moving about in
+the huge hotel.
+
+Edwards, the man-servant, at once identified the dagger as belonging to
+Mr. Kesselbach. He had seen it on the table on the previous day, before
+the assault committed by Lupin.
+
+"Mr. Manager," said the chief detective, "the restriction is over.
+Gourel, go and give orders to leave the doors free."
+
+"So you think that Lupin has succeeded in getting out?" asked M.
+Formerie.
+
+"No. The perpetrator of the three murders which we have discovered is in
+one of the rooms of the hotel, or, rather, he is among the visitors in
+the hall or in the reception-rooms. In my opinion, he was staying in the
+hotel."
+
+"Impossible! Besides, where would he have changed his clothes? And what
+clothes would he have on now?"
+
+"I don't know, but I am stating a fact."
+
+"And you are letting him go? Why, he'll just walk out quietly, with his
+hands in his pockets!"
+
+"The one who walks away like that, without his luggage, and who does not
+return, will be the criminal. Mr. Manager, please come with me to the
+office. I should like to make a close inspection of your visitors'
+book."
+
+In the office, M. Lenormand found a few letters addressed to Mr.
+Kesselbach. He handed them to the examining-magistrate. There was also a
+parcel that had just come by the Paris parcel-post. The paper in which
+it was packed was partly torn; and M. Lenormand saw that it held a small
+ebony box, engraved with the name of Rudolf Kesselbach. Feeling
+curious, he opened the parcel. The box contained the fragments of a
+looking-glass which had evidently been fixed to the inside of the lid.
+It also contained the card of Arsène Lupin.
+
+But one detail seemed to strike the chief detective. On the outside, at
+the bottom of the box, was a little blue-edged label, similar to the
+label which he had picked up in the room on the fourth floor where the
+cigarette-case was found, and this label bore the same number, 813.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+M. LENORMAND OPENS HIS CAMPAIGN
+
+
+"Auguste, show M. Lenormand in."
+
+The messenger went out and, a few seconds later, announced the chief of
+the detective-service.
+
+There were three men in the prime minister's private room on the Place
+Beauvau: the famous Valenglay, leader of the radical party for the past
+thirty years and now president of the council and minister of the
+interior; the attorney-general, M. Testard; and the prefect of police,
+Delaume.
+
+The prefect of police and the attorney-general did not rise from the
+chairs which they had occupied during their long conversation with the
+prime minister. Valenglay, however, stood up and, pressing the chief
+detective's hand, said, in the most cordial tones:
+
+"I have no doubt, my dear Lenormand, that you know the reason why I
+asked you to come."
+
+"The Kesselbach case?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Kesselbach case! Not one of us but is able to recall not only the
+main details of this tragic affair, the tangled skein of which I have
+set myself to unravel, but even its very smallest incidents, so greatly
+did the tragedy excite us all during these recent years. Nor is there
+one of us but remembers the extraordinary stir which it created both in
+and outside France. And yet there was one thing that upset the public
+even more than the three murders committed in such mysterious
+circumstances, more than the detestable atrocity of that butchery, more
+than anything else; and that was the reappearance--one might almost say
+the resurrection--of Arsène Lupin.
+
+Arsène Lupin! No one had heard speak of him for over four years, since
+his incredible, his astounding adventure of the Hollow Needle,[2] since
+the day when he had slunk away into the darkness before the eyes of
+Holmlock Shears and Isidore Beautrelet, carrying on his back the dead
+body of the woman whom he loved, and followed by his old servant,
+Victoire.
+
+[Footnote 2: See _The Hollow Needle_. By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by
+Alexander Teixeira de Mattos and published by Doubleday, Page & Co.]
+
+From that day onward he had been generally believed to be dead. This was
+the version put about by the police, who, finding no trace of their
+adversary, were content purely and simply to bury him.
+
+Some, however, believing him to be saved, described him as leading a
+placid, Philistine existence. According to them, he was living with his
+wife and children, growing his small potatoes; whereas others maintained
+that, bent down with the weight of sorrow and weary of the vanities of
+this world, he had sought the seclusion of a Trappist monastery.
+
+And here he was once more looming large in the public view and resuming
+his relentless struggle against society! Arsène Lupin was Arsène Lupin
+again, the fanciful, intangible, disconcerting, audacious, genial Arsène
+Lupin! But, this time, a cry of horror arose. Arsène Lupin had taken
+human life! And the fierceness, the cruelty, the ruthless cynicism of
+the crime were so great that, then and there, the legend of the popular
+hero, of the chivalrous and occasionally sentimental adventurer, made
+way for a new conception of an inhuman, bloodthirsty, and ferocious
+monster. The crowd now loathed and feared its former idol with more
+intensity than it had once shown in admiring him for his easy grace and
+his diverting good-humor.
+
+And, forthwith, the indignation of that frightened crowd turned against
+the police. Formerly, people had laughed. They forgave the beaten
+commissary of police for the comical fashion in which he allowed himself
+to be beaten. But the joke had lasted too long; and, in a burst of
+revolt and fury, they now called the authorities to account for the
+unspeakable crimes which these were powerless to prevent.
+
+In the press, at public meetings, in the streets and even in the tribune
+of the Chamber of Deputies there was such an explosion of wrath that the
+government grew alarmed and strove by every possible means to allay the
+public excitement.
+
+It so happened that Valenglay, the premier, took a great interest in all
+these police questions and had often amused himself by going closely
+into different cases with the chief of the detective-service, whose good
+qualities and independent character he valued highly. He sent for the
+prefect and the attorney-general to see him in his room, talked to them
+and then sent for M. Lenormand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, my dear Lenormand, it's about the Kesselbach case. But, before we
+discuss it, I must call your attention to a point which more
+particularly affects and, I may say, annoys Monsieur le Préfet de
+Police. M. Delaume, will you explain to M. Lenormand . . . ?
+
+"Oh, M. Lenormand knows quite well how the matter stands," said the
+prefect, in a tone which showed but little good-will toward his
+subordinate. "We have talked it over already and I have told him what I
+thought of his improper conduct at the Palace Hotel. People are
+generally indignant."
+
+M. Lenormand rose, took a paper from his pocket and laid it on the
+table.
+
+"What is this?" asked Valenglay.
+
+"My resignation, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
+
+Valenglay gave a jump:
+
+"What! Your resignation! For a well-meaning remark which Monsieur le
+Préfet thinks fit to address to you and to which, for that matter, he
+attaches no importance whatever--do you, Delaume? No importance
+whatever--and there you go, taking offence! You must confess, my dear
+Lenormand, that you're devilish touchy! Come, put that bit of paper back
+in your pocket and let's talk seriously."
+
+The chief detective sat down again, and Valenglay, silencing the
+prefect, who made no attempt to conceal his dissatisfaction, said:
+
+"In two words, Lenormand, the thing is that Lupin's reappearance upon
+the scene annoys us. The brute has defied us long enough. It used to be
+funny, I confess, and I, for my part, was the first to laugh at it. But
+it's no longer a question of that. It's a question of murder now. We
+could stand Lupin, as long as he amused the gallery. But, when he takes
+to killing people, no!"
+
+"Then what is it that you ask, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"What we ask? Oh, it's quite simple! First, his arrest and then his
+head!"
+
+"I can promise you his arrest, some day or another, but not his head."
+
+"What! If he's arrested, it means trial for murder, a verdict of guilty,
+and the scaffold."
+
+"No!"
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because Lupin has not committed murder."
+
+"Eh? Why, you're mad, Lenormand! The corpses at the Palace Hotel are so
+many inventions, I suppose! And the three murders were never committed!"
+
+"Yes, but not by Lupin."
+
+The chief spoke these words very steadily, with impressive calmness and
+conviction. The attorney and the prefect protested.
+
+"I presume, Lenormand," said Valenglay, "that you do not put forward
+that theory without serious reasons?"
+
+"It is not a theory."
+
+"What proof have you?"
+
+"There are two, to begin with, two proofs of a moral nature, which I at
+once placed before Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction and which the
+newspapers have laid stress upon. First and foremost, Lupin does not
+kill people. Next, why should he have killed anybody, seeing that the
+object which he set out to achieve, the theft, was accomplished and that
+he had nothing to fear from an adversary who was gagged and bound?"
+
+"Very well. But the facts?"
+
+"Facts are worth nothing against reason and logic; and, moreover, the
+facts also are on my side. What would be the meaning of Lupin's presence
+in the room in which the cigarette-case was discovered? On the other
+hand, the black clothes which were found and which evidently belonged to
+the murderer are not in the least of a size to fit Lupin."
+
+"You know him, then, do you?"
+
+"I? No. But Edwards saw him, Gourel saw him; and the man whom they saw
+is not the man whom the chambermaid saw, on the servants' staircase,
+dragging Chapman by the hand."
+
+"Then your idea . . ."
+
+"You mean to say, the truth, M. le Président. Here it is, or, at least,
+here is the truth as far as I know it. On Tuesday, the 16th of April, a
+man---Lupin--broke into Mr. Kesselbach's room at about two o'clock in
+the afternoon. . . ."
+
+M. Lenormand was interrupted by a burst of laughter. It came from the
+prefect of police.
+
+"Let me tell you, M. Lenormand, that you are in rather too great a hurry
+to state your precise facts. It has been shown that, at three o'clock on
+that day, Mr. Kesselbach walked into the Crédit Lyonnais and went down
+to the safe deposit. His signature in the register proves it."
+
+M. Lenormand waited respectfully until his superior had finished
+speaking. Then, without even troubling to reply directly to the attack,
+he continued:
+
+"At about two o'clock in the afternoon, Lupin, assisted by an
+accomplice, a man named Marco, bound Mr. Kesselbach hand and foot,
+robbed him of all the loose cash which he had upon him and compelled him
+to reveal the cypher of his safe at the Crédit Lyonnais. As soon as the
+secret was told, Marco left. He joined another accomplice, who,
+profiting by a certain resemblance to Mr. Kesselbach--a resemblance
+which he accentuated that day by wearing clothes similar to Mr.
+Kesselbach's and putting on a pair of gold spectacles--entered the
+Crédit Lyonnais, imitated Mr. Kesselbach's signature, emptied the safe
+of its contents and walked off, accompanied by Marco. Marco at once
+telephoned to Lupin. Lupin, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Kesselbach
+had not deceived him and that the object of his expedition was attained,
+went away."
+
+Valenglay seemed to waver in his mind:
+
+"Yes, yes . . . we'll admit that. . . . But what surprises me is that a
+man like Lupin should have risked so much for such a paltry profit: a
+few bank-notes and the hypothetical contents of a safe."
+
+"Lupin was after more than that. He wanted either the morocco envelope
+which was in the traveling-bag, or else the ebony box which was in the
+safe. He had the ebony box, because he has sent it back empty.
+Therefore, by this time, he knows, or is in a fair way for knowing, the
+famous scheme which Mr. Kesselbach was planning, and which he was
+discussing with his secretary a few minutes before his death."
+
+"What was the scheme?"
+
+"I don't exactly know. The manager of Barbareux's agency, to whom he had
+opened his mind about it, has told me that Mr. Kesselbach was looking
+for a man who went by the name of Pierre Leduc, a man who had lost
+caste, it appears. Why and how the discovery of this person was
+connected with the success of his scheme, I am unable to say."
+
+"Very well," said Valenglay. "So much for Arsène Lupin. His part is
+played. Mr. Kesselbach is bound hand and foot, robbed, but alive! . . .
+What happens up to the time when he is found dead?"
+
+"Nothing, for several hours, nothing until night. But, during the night,
+some one made his way in."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Through room 420, one of the rooms reserved by Mr. Kesselbach. The
+person in question evidently possessed a false key."
+
+"But," exclaimed the prefect of police, "all the doors between that room
+and Mr. Kesselbach's flat were bolted; and there were five of them!"
+
+"There was always the balcony."
+
+"The balcony!"
+
+"Yes; the balcony runs along the whole floor, on the Rue de Judée side."
+
+"And what about the spaces in between?"
+
+"An active man can step across them. Our man did. I have found marks."
+
+"But all the windows of the suite were shut; and it was ascertained,
+after the crime, that they were still shut."
+
+"All except one, the secretary's window, Chapman's, which was only
+pushed to. I tried it myself."
+
+This time the prime minister seemed a little shaken, so logical did M.
+Lenormand's version seem, so precise and supported by such sound facts.
+He asked, with growing interest:
+
+"But what was the man's object in coming?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Ah, you don't know!"
+
+"Any more than I know his name."
+
+"But why did he kill Mr. Kesselbach?"
+
+"I don't know. This all remains a mystery. The utmost that we have the
+right to suppose is that he did not come with the intention of killing,
+but with the intention, he too, of taking the documents contained in
+the morocco note-case and the ebony box; and that, finding himself by
+accident in the presence of the enemy reduced to a state of
+helplessness, he killed him."
+
+Valenglay muttered:
+
+"Yes, strictly speaking, that is possible. . . . And, according to you,
+did he find the documents?"
+
+"He did not find the box, because it was not there; but he found the
+black morocco note-case. So that Lupin and . . . the other are in the
+same position. Each knows as much as the other about the Kesselbach
+scheme."
+
+"That means," remarked the premier, "that they will fight."
+
+"Exactly. And the fight has already begun. The murderer, finding a card
+of Arsène Lupin's, pinned it to the corpse. All the appearances would
+thus be against Arsène Lupin . . . therefore, Arsène Lupin would be the
+murderer."
+
+"True . . . true," said Valenglay. "The calculation seemed pretty
+accurate."
+
+"And the stratagem would have succeeded," continued M. Lenormand, "if in
+consequence of another and a less favorable accident, the murderer had
+not, either in coming or going, dropped his cigarette-case in room 420,
+and if the floor-waiter, Gustave Beudot, had not picked it up. From that
+moment, knowing himself to be discovered, or on the point of being
+discovered . . ."
+
+"How did he know it?"
+
+"How? Why, through M. Formerie, the examining-magistrate, himself! The
+investigation took place with open doors. It is certain that the
+murderer was concealed among the people, members of the hotel staff and
+journalists, who were present when Gustave Beudot was giving his
+evidence; and when the magistrate sent Gustave Beudot to his attic to
+fetch the cigarette-case, the man followed and struck the blow. Second
+victim!"
+
+No one protested now. The tragedy was being reconstructed before their
+eyes with a realism and a probable accuracy which were equally striking.
+
+"And the third victim?" asked Valenglay.
+
+"He himself gave the ruffian his opportunity. When Beudot did not
+return, Chapman, curious to see the cigarette-case for himself, went
+upstairs with the manager of the hotel. He was surprised by the
+murderer, dragged away by him, taken to one of the bedrooms and murdered
+in his turn."
+
+"But why did he allow himself to be dragged away like that and to be led
+by a man whom he knew to be the murderer of Mr. Kesselbach and of
+Gustave Beudot?"
+
+"I don't know, any more than I know the room in which the crime was
+committed, or the really miraculous way in which the criminal escaped."
+
+"Something has been said about two blue labels."
+
+"Yes, one was found on the box which Lupin sent back; and the other was
+found by me and doubtless came from the morocco note-case stolen by the
+murderer."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't think that they mean anything. What does mean something is the
+number 813, which Mr. Kesselbach wrote on each of them. His handwriting
+has been recognized."
+
+"And that number 813?"
+
+"It's a mystery."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"I can only reply again that I don't know."
+
+"Have you no suspicions?"
+
+"None at all. Two of my men are occupying one of the rooms in the Palace
+Hotel, on the floor where Chapman's body was found. I have had all the
+people in the hotel watched by these two men. The criminal is not one of
+those who have left."
+
+"Did no one telephone while the murders were being committed?"
+
+"Yes, some one telephoned from the outside to Major Parbury, one of the
+four persons who occupied rooms on the first-floor passage."
+
+"And this Major Parbury?"
+
+"I am having him watched by my men. So far, nothing has been discovered
+against him."
+
+"And in which direction do you intend to seek?"
+
+"Oh, in a very limited direction. In my opinion, the murderer must be
+numbered among the friends or connections of Mr. and Mrs. Kesselbach. He
+followed their scent, knew their habits, the reason of Mr. Kesselbach's
+presence in Paris; and he at least suspected the importance of Mr.
+Kesselbach's plans."
+
+"Then he was not a professional criminal?"
+
+"No, no, certainly not! The murder was committed with extraordinary
+cleverness and daring, but it was due to circumstances. I repeat, we
+shall have to look among the people forming the immediate circle of Mr.
+and Mrs. Kesselbach. And the proof is that Mr. Kesselbach's murderer
+killed Gustave Beudot for the sole reason that the waiter had the
+cigarette-case in his possession; and Chapman for the sole reason that
+the secretary knew of its existence. Remember Chapman's excitement: at
+the mere description of the cigarette-case, Chapman received a sudden
+insight into the tragedy. If he had seen the cigarette-case, we should
+have been fully informed. The man, whoever he may be, was well aware of
+that: and he put an end to Chapman. And we know nothing, nothing but the
+initials L and M."
+
+He reflected for a moment and said:
+
+"There is another proof, which forms an answer to one of your questions,
+Monsieur le Président: Do you believe that Chapman would have
+accompanied that man along the passages and staircases of the hotel if
+he did not already know him?"
+
+The facts were accumulating. The truth or, at least, the probable truth
+was gaining strength. Many of the points at issue, the most interesting,
+perhaps, remained obscure. But what a light had been thrown upon the
+subject! Short of the motives that inspired them, how clearly
+Lenormand's hearers now perceived the sequence of acts performed on that
+tragic morning!
+
+There was a pause. Every one was thinking, seeking for arguments, for
+objections. At last, Valenglay exclaimed:
+
+"My dear Lenormand, this is all quite excellent. You have convinced me.
+. . . But, taking one thing with another, we are no further than we
+were."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. The object of our meeting is not to clear up a portion of
+the mystery, which, one day, I am sure, you will clear up altogether,
+but to satisfy the public demand as fully as we possibly can. Now
+whether the murderer is Lupin or another; whether there are two
+criminals, or three, or only one: all this gives us neither the
+criminal's name nor his arrest. And the public continues under the
+disastrous impression that the law is powerless."
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"Give the public the definite satisfaction which it demands."
+
+"But it seems to me that this explanation ought to be enough. . . ."
+
+"Words! The public wants deeds! One thing alone will satisfy it: an
+arrest."
+
+"Hang it all! Hang it all! We can't arrest the first person that comes
+along!"
+
+"Even that would be better than arresting nobody," said Valenglay, with
+a laugh. "Come, have a good look round! Are you sure of Edwards,
+Kesselbach's servant?"
+
+"Absolutely sure. Besides . . . No, Monsieur le Président, it would be
+dangerous and ridiculous; and I am sure that Mr. Attorney-General
+himself . . . There are only two people whom we have the right to
+arrest: the murderer--I don't know who he is--and Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There is no question of arresting Arsène Lupin, or, at least, it
+requires time, a whole series of measures, which I have not yet had the
+leisure to contrive, because I looked upon Lupin as settled down . . .
+or dead."
+
+Valenglay stamped his foot with the impatience of a man who likes to see
+his wishes realized on the spot:
+
+"And yet . . . and yet, my dear Lenormand, something must be done . . .
+if only for your own sake. You know as well as I do that you have
+powerful enemies . . . and that, if I were not there . . . In short,
+Lenormand, you can't be allowed to get out of it like this. What are you
+doing about the accomplices? There are others besides Lupin. There is
+Marco; and there's the rogue who impersonated Mr. Kesselbach in order
+to visit the cellars of the Crédit Lyonnais."
+
+"Would you be satisfied if you got him, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"Would I be satisfied? Heavens alive, I should think I would!"
+
+"Well, give me seven days."
+
+"Seven days! Why, it's not a question of days, my dear Lenormand! It's a
+question of hours!"
+
+"How many will you give me, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+Valenglay took out his watch and chuckled:
+
+"I will give you ten minutes, my dear Lenormand!"
+
+The chief took out his, and emphasizing each syllable, said calmly:
+
+"That is four minutes more than I want, Monsieur le Président."
+
+Valenglay looked at him in amazement.
+
+"Four minutes more than you want? What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean, Monsieur le Président, that the ten minutes which you allow me
+are superfluous. I want six, and not one minute more."
+
+"Oh, but look here, Lenormand . . . if you imagine that this is the time
+for joking . . ."
+
+The chief detective went to the window and beckoned to two men who were
+walking round the courtyard.
+
+Then he returned:
+
+"Mr. Attorney-General, would you have the kindness to sign a warrant for
+the arrest of Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, aged forty-seven? You
+might leave the profession open."
+
+He went to the door:
+
+"Come in, Gourel. You, too, Dieuzy."
+
+Gourel entered, accompanied by Inspector Dieuzy.
+
+"Have you the handcuffs, Gourel?"
+
+"Yes, chief."
+
+M. Lenormand went up to Valenglay:
+
+"Monsieur le Président, everything is ready. But I entreat you most
+urgently to forego this arrest. It upsets all my plans; it may render
+them abortive; and, for the sake of what, after all, is a very trifling
+satisfaction, it exposes us to the risk of jeopardizing the whole
+business."
+
+"M. Lenormand, let me remark that you have only eighty seconds left."
+
+The chief suppressed a gesture of annoyance, strode across the room and,
+leaning on his stick, sat down angrily, as though he had decided not to
+speak. Then, suddenly making up his mind:
+
+"Monsieur le Président, the first person who enters this room will be
+the man whose arrest you asked for . . . against my wish, as I insist on
+pointing out to you."
+
+"Fifteen seconds, Lenormand!"
+
+"Gourel . . . Dieuzy . . . the first person, do you understand? . . .
+Mr. Attorney, have you signed the warrant?"
+
+"Ten seconds, Lenormand!"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, would you be so good as to ring the bell?"
+
+Valenglay rang.
+
+The messenger appeared in the doorway and waited.
+
+Valenglay turned to the chief:
+
+"Well, Lenormand, he's waiting for your orders. Whom is he to show in?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"But the rogue whose arrest you promised us? The six minutes are more
+than past."
+
+"Yes, but the rogue is here!"
+
+"Here? I don't understand. No one has entered the room!"
+
+"I beg your pardon."
+
+"Oh, I say. . . . Look here, Lenormand, you're making fun of us. I tell
+you again that no one has entered the room."
+
+"There were six of us in this room, Monsieur le Président; there are
+seven now. Consequently, some one has entered the room."
+
+Valenglay started:
+
+"Eh! But this is madness! . . . What! You mean to say . . ."
+
+The two detectives had slipped between the messenger and the door. M.
+Lenormand walked up to the messenger, clapped his hand on his shoulder
+and, in a loud voice:
+
+"In the name of the law, Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, chief
+messenger at the Ministry of the Interior, I arrest you."
+
+Valenglay burst out laughing.
+
+"Oh, what a joke! What a joke! That infernal Lenormand! Of all the
+first-rate notions! Well done, Lenormand! It's long since I enjoyed so
+good a laugh."
+
+M. Lenormand turned to the attorney-general:
+
+"Mr. Attorney, you won't forget to fill in Master Daileron's profession
+on the warrant, will you? Chief messenger at the Ministry of the
+Interior."
+
+"Oh, good! . . . Oh, capital! . . . Chief messenger at the Ministry of
+the Interior!" spluttered Valenglay, holding his sides. "Oh, this
+wonderful Lenormand gets hold of ideas that would never occur to anybody
+else! The public is clamoring for an arrest. . . . Whoosh, he flings at
+its head my chief messenger . . . Auguste . . . the model servant!
+Well, Lenormand, my dear fellow, I knew you had a certain gift of
+imagination, but I never suspected that it would go so far as this! The
+impertinence of it!"
+
+From the commencement of this scene, Auguste had not stirred a limb and
+seemed to understand nothing of what was going on around him. His face,
+the typical face of a good, loyal, faithful serving-man, seemed
+absolutely bewildered. He looked at the gentlemen turn and turn about,
+with a visible effort to catch the meaning of their words.
+
+M. Lenormand said a few words to Gourel, who went out. Then, going up to
+Auguste and speaking with great decision, he said:
+
+"There's no way out of it. You're caught. The best thing to do, when the
+game is lost, is to throw down your cards. What were you doing on
+Tuesday?"
+
+"I? Nothing. I was here."
+
+"You lie. You were off duty. You went out for the day."
+
+"Oh, yes . . . I remember . . . I had a friend to see me from the
+country. . . . We went for a walk in the Bois."
+
+"Your friend's name was Marco. And you went for a walk in the cellars of
+the Crédit Lyonnais."
+
+"I? What an idea! . . . Marco! . . . I don't know any one by that name."
+
+"And these? Do you know these?" cried the chief, thrusting a pair of
+gold-rimmed spectacles under his nose.
+
+"No . . . certainly not. . . . I don't wear spectacles. . . ."
+
+"Yes, you do; you wear them when you go to the Crédit Lyonnais and when
+you pass yourself off as Mr. Kesselbach. These come from your room, the
+room which you occupy, under the name of M. Jérôme, at No. 50 Rue du
+Colisee."
+
+"My room? _My_ room? I sleep here, at the office."
+
+"But you change your clothes over there, to play your parts in Lupin's
+gang."
+
+A blow in the chest made him stagger back. Auguste reached the window at
+a bound, climbed over the balcony and jumped into the courtyard.
+
+"Dash it all!" shouted Valenglay. "The scoundrel!"
+
+He rang the bell, ran to the window, wanted to call out. M. Lenormand,
+with the greatest calm, said:
+
+"Don't excite yourself, Monsieur le Président . . ."
+
+"But that blackguard of an Auguste . . ."
+
+"One second, please. . . . I foresaw this ending . . . in fact, I
+allowed for it. . . . It's the best confession we could have. . . ."
+
+Yielding in the presence of this coolness, Valenglay resumed his seat.
+In a moment, Gourel entered, with his hand on the collar of Master
+Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, _alias_ Jérôme, chief messenger at
+the Ministry of the Interior.
+
+"Bring him, Gourel!" said M. Lenormand, as who should say, "Fetch it!
+Bring it!" to a good retriever carrying the game in its jaws. "Did he
+come quietly?"
+
+"He bit me a little, but I held tight," replied the sergeant, showing
+his huge, sinewy hand.
+
+"Very well, Gourel. And now take this chap off to the Dépôt in a cab.
+Good-bye for the present, M. Jérôme."
+
+Valenglay was immensely amused. He rubbed his hands and laughed. The
+idea that his chief messenger was one of Lupin's accomplices struck him
+as a most delightfully ludicrous thing.
+
+"Well done, my dear Lenormand; this is wonderful! But how on earth did
+you manage it?"
+
+"Oh, in the simplest possible fashion. I knew that Mr. Kesselbach was
+employing the Barbareux agency and that Lupin had called on him,
+pretending to come from the agency. I hunted in that direction and
+discovered that, when the indiscretion was committed to the prejudice of
+Mr. Kesselbach and of Barbareux, it could only have been to the
+advantage of one Jérôme, a friend of one of the clerks at the agency. If
+you had not ordered me to hustle things, I should have watched the
+messenger and caught Marco and then Lupin."
+
+"You'll catch them, Lenormand, you'll catch them, I assure you. And we
+shall be assisting at the most exciting spectacle in the world: the
+struggle between Lupin and yourself. I shall bet on you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning the newspapers published the following letter:
+
+      "_Open Letter to M. Lenormand, Chief of the
+      Detective-service._
+
+      "All my congratulations, dear sir and dear friend, on
+      your arrest of Jérôme the messenger. It was a smart
+      piece of work, well executed and worthy of you.
+
+      "All my compliments, also, on the ingenious manner in
+      which you proved to the prime minister that I was not
+      Mr. Kesselbach's murderer. Your demonstration was
+      clear, logical, irrefutable and, what is more,
+      truthful. As you know, I do not kill people. Thank you
+      for proving it on this occasion. The esteem of my
+      contemporaries and of yourself, dear sir and dear
+      friend, are indispensable to my happiness.
+
+      "In return, allow me to assist you in the pursuit of
+      the monstrous assassin and to give you a hand with the
+      Kesselbach case, a very interesting case, believe me:
+      so interesting and so worthy of my attention that I
+      have determined to issue from the retirement in which
+      I have been living for the past four years, between my
+      books and my good dog Sherlock, to beat all my
+      comrades to arms and to throw myself once more into
+      the fray.
+
+      "What unexpected turns life sometimes takes! Here am
+      I, your fellow-worker! Let me assure you, dear sir and
+      dear friend, that I congratulate myself upon it, and
+      that I appreciate this favor of destiny at its true
+      value.
+
+                                    "ARSÈNE LUPIN.
+
+      "P.S.--One word more, of which I feel sure that you
+      will approve. As it is not right and proper that a
+      gentleman who has had the glorious privilege of
+      fighting under my banner should languish on the straw
+      of your prisons, I feel it my duty to give you fair
+      warning that, in five weeks' time, on Friday, the 31st
+      of May, I shall set at liberty Master Jérôme, promoted
+      by me to the rank of chief messenger at the Ministry
+      of the Interior. Don't forget the date: Friday, the
+      31st of May.
+
+                                           "A. L."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PRINCE SERNINE AT WORK
+
+
+A ground-floor flat, at the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann and the
+Rue de Courcelles. Here lived Prince Sernine: Prince Sernine, one of the
+most brilliant members of the Russian colony in Paris, whose name was
+constantly recurring in the "Arrivals and Departures" column in the
+newspapers.
+
+Eleven o'clock in the morning. The prince entered his study. He was a
+man of thirty-eight or forty years of age, whose chestnut hair was
+mingled with a few silver threads on the temples. He had a fresh,
+healthy complexion and wore a large mustache and a pair of whiskers cut
+extremely short, so as to be hardly noticeable against the fresh skin of
+his cheeks.
+
+He was smartly dressed in a tight-fitting frock-coat and a white drill
+waistcoat, which showed above the opening.
+
+"Come on!" he said, in an undertone. "I have a hard day's work before
+me, I expect."
+
+He opened a door leading into a large room where a few people sat
+waiting, and said:
+
+"Is Varnier there? Come in, Varnier."
+
+A man looking like a small tradesman, squat, solidly built, firmly set
+upon his legs, entered at the summons. The prince closed the door behind
+him:
+
+"Well, Varnier, how far are you?"
+
+"Everything's ready for this evening, governor."
+
+"Good. Tell me in a few words."
+
+"It's like this. After her husband's murder, Mrs. Kesselbach, on the
+strength of the prospectuses which you ordered to be sent to her,
+selected as her residence the establishment known as the Retreat for
+Gentlewomen, at Garches. She occupies the last of the four small houses,
+at the bottom of the garden, which the management lets to ladies who
+prefer to live quite apart from the other boarders, the house known as
+the Pavillon de l'Impératrice."
+
+"What servants has she?"
+
+"Her companion, Gertrude, with whom she arrived a few hours after the
+crime, and Gertrude's sister Suzanne, whom she sent for to Monte Carlo
+and who acts as her maid. The two sisters are devoted to her."
+
+"What about Edwards, the valet?"
+
+"She did not keep him. He has gone back to his own country."
+
+"Does she see people?"
+
+"No. She spends her time lying on a sofa. She seems very weak and ill.
+She cries a great deal. Yesterday the examining-magistrate was with her
+for two hours."
+
+"Very good. And now about the young girl."
+
+"Mlle. Geneviève Ernemont lives across the way . . . in a lane running
+toward the open country, the third house on the right in the lane. She
+keeps a free school for backward children. Her grandmother, Mme.
+Ernemont, lives with her."
+
+"And, according to what you wrote to me, Geneviève Ernemont and Mrs.
+Kesselbach have become acquainted?"
+
+"Yes. The girl went to ask Mrs. Kesselbach for a subscription for her
+school. They must have taken a liking to each other, for, during the
+past four days, they have been walking together in the Parc de
+Villeneuve, of which the garden of the Retreat is only a dependency."
+
+"At what time do they go out?"
+
+"From five to six. At six o'clock exactly the young lady goes back to
+her school."
+
+"So you have arranged the thing?"
+
+"For six o'clock to-day. Everything is ready."
+
+"Will there be no one there?"
+
+"There is never any one in the park at that hour."
+
+"Very well. I shall be there. You can go."
+
+He sent him out through the door leading to the hall, and, returning to
+the waiting-room, called:
+
+"The brothers Doudeville."
+
+Two young men entered, a little overdressed, keen-eyed and
+pleasant-looking.
+
+"Good morning, Jean. Good morning, Jacques. Any news at the Prefecture?"
+
+"Nothing much, governor."
+
+"Does M. Lenormand continue to have confidence in you?"
+
+"Yes. Next to Gourel, we are his favorite inspectors. A proof is that he
+has posted us in the Palace Hotel to watch the people who were living on
+the first-floor passage at the time of Chapman's murder. Gourel comes
+every morning, and we make the same report to him that we do to you."
+
+"Capital. It is essential that I should be informed of all that happens
+and all that is said at the Prefecture of Police. As long as Lenormand
+looks upon you as his men, I am master of the situation. And have you
+discovered a trail of any kind in the hotel?"
+
+Jean Doudeville, the elder of the two, replied:
+
+"The Englishwoman who occupied one of the bedrooms has gone."
+
+"That doesn't interest me. I know all about her. But her neighbor, Major
+Parbury?"
+
+They seemed embarrassed. At last, one of them replied:
+
+"Major Parbury, this morning, ordered his luggage to be taken to the
+Gare du Nord, for the twelve-fifty train, and himself drove away in a
+motor. We were there when the train left. The major did not come."
+
+"And the luggage?"
+
+"He had it fetched at the station."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By a commissionaire, so we were told."
+
+"Then his tracks are lost?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"At last!" cried the prince, joyfully.
+
+The others looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Why, of course," he said, "that's a clue!"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Evidently. The murder of Chapman can only have been committed in one of
+the rooms on that passage. Mr. Kesselbach's murderer took the secretary
+there, to an accomplice, killed him there, changed his clothes there;
+and, once the murderer had got away, the accomplice placed the corpse in
+the passage. But which accomplice? The manner of Major Parbury's
+disappearance goes to show that he knows something of the business.
+Quick, telephone the good news to M. Lenormand or Gourel. The Prefecture
+must be informed as soon as possible. The people there and I are
+marching hand in hand."
+
+He gave them a few more injunctions, concerning their double rôle as
+police-inspectors in the service of Prince Sernine, and dismissed them.
+
+Two visitors remained in the waiting-room. He called one of them in:
+
+"A thousand pardons, Doctor," he said. "I am quite at your orders now.
+How is Pierre Leduc?"
+
+"He's dead."
+
+"Aha!" said Sernine. "I expected it, after your note of this morning.
+But, all the same, the poor beggar has not been long. . . ."
+
+"He was wasted to a shadow. A fainting-fit; and it was all over."
+
+"Did he not speak?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you sure that, from the day when the two of us picked him up under
+the table in that low haunt at Belleville, are you sure that nobody in
+your nursing-home suspected that he was the Pierre Leduc whom the police
+were looking for, the mysterious Pierre Leduc whom Mr. Kesselbach was
+trying to find at all costs?"
+
+"Nobody. He had a room to himself. Moreover, I bandaged up his left hand
+so that the injury to the little finger could not be seen. As for the
+scar on the cheek, it is hidden by the beard."
+
+"And you looked after him yourself?"
+
+"Myself. And, according to your instructions, I took the opportunity of
+questioning him whenever he seemed at all clear in his head. But I could
+never get more than an inarticulate stammering out of him."
+
+The prince muttered thoughtfully:
+
+"Dead! . . . So Pierre Leduc is dead? . . . The whole Kesselbach case
+obviously turned on him, and now he disappears . . . without a
+revelation, without a word about himself, about his past. . . . Ought I
+to embark on this adventure, in which I am still entirely in the dark?
+It's dangerous. . . . I may come to grief. . . ."
+
+He reflected for a moment and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, who cares? I shall go on for all that. It's no reason, because
+Pierre Leduc is dead, that I should throw up the game. On the contrary!
+And the opportunity is too tempting! Pierre Leduc is dead! Long live
+Pierre Leduc! . . . Go, Doctor, go home. I shall ring you up before
+dinner."
+
+The doctor went out.
+
+"Now then, Philippe," said Sernine to his last remaining visitor, a
+little gray-haired man, dressed like a waiter at a hotel, a very
+tenth-rate hotel, however.
+
+"You will remember, governor," Philippe began, "that last week, you made
+me go as boots to the Hôtel des Deux-Empereurs at Versailles, to keep my
+eye on a young man."
+
+"Yes, I know. . . . Gérard Baupré. How do things stand with him?"
+
+"He's at the end of his resources."
+
+"Still full of gloomy ideas?"
+
+"Yes. He wants to kill himself."
+
+"Is he serious?"
+
+"Quite. I found this little note in pencil among his papers."
+
+"Ah!" said Sernine, reading the note. "He announces his suicide . . .
+and for this evening too!"
+
+"Yes, governor, he has bought the rope and screwed the hook to the
+ceiling. Thereupon, acting on your instructions, I talked to him. He
+told me of his distress, and I advised him to apply to you: 'Prince
+Sernine is rich,' I said; 'he is generous; perhaps he will help you.'"
+
+"All this is first-rate. So he is coming?"
+
+"He is here."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I followed him. He took the train to Paris, and he is walking up and
+down the boulevard at this minute. He will make up his mind from one
+moment to the other."
+
+Just then the servant brought in a card. The prince glanced at it and
+said to the man:
+
+"Show M. Gérard Baupré in."
+
+Then, turning to Philippe:
+
+"You go into the dressing-room, here; listen and don't stir."
+
+Left alone, the prince muttered:
+
+"Why should I hesitate? It's fate that sends him my way. . . ."
+
+A few minutes later a tall young man entered. He was fair and slender,
+with an emaciated face and feverish eyes, and he stood on the threshold
+embarrassed, hesitating, in the attitude of a beggar who would like to
+put out his hand for alms and dares not.
+
+The conversation was brief:
+
+"Are you M. Gérard Baupré?"
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . . that is my name."
+
+"I have not the honor . . ."
+
+"It's like this, sir. . . . Some one told me . . ."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"A hotel servant . . . who said he had been in your service. . . ."
+
+"Please come to the point. . . ."
+
+"Well! . . ."
+
+The young man stopped, taken aback and frightened by the haughty
+attitude adopted by the prince, who exclaimed:
+
+"But, sir, there must be some . . ."
+
+"Well, sir, the man told me that you were very rich . . . and very
+generous. . . . And I thought that you might possibly . . ."
+
+He broke off short, incapable of uttering the word of prayer and
+humiliation.
+
+Sernine went up to him.
+
+"M. Gérard Baupré, did you not publish a volume of poetry called _The
+Smile of Spring_?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried the young man, his face lighting up. "Have you read
+it?"
+
+"Yes. . . . Very pretty, your poems, very pretty. . . . Only, do you
+reckon upon being able to live on what they will bring you?"
+
+"Certainly . . . sooner or later. . . ."
+
+"Sooner or later? Later rather than sooner, I expect! And, meantime, you
+have come to ask me for the wherewithal to live?"
+
+"For the wherewithal to buy food, sir."
+
+Sernine put his hand on the young man's shoulder and, coldly:
+
+"Poets do not need food, monsieur. They live on rhymes and dreams. Do as
+they do. That is better than begging for bread."
+
+The young man quivered under the insult. He turned to the door without a
+word.
+
+Sernine stopped him:
+
+"One thing more, monsieur. Have you no resources of any kind?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"And you are not reckoning on anything?"
+
+"I have one hope left: I have written to one of my relations, imploring
+him to send me something. I shall have his answer to-day. It is my last
+chance."
+
+"And, if you have no answer, you have doubtless made up your mind, this
+very evening, to . . ."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+This was said quite plainly and simply.
+
+Sernine burst out laughing:
+
+"Bless my soul, what a queer young man you are! And full of artless
+conviction, too! Come and see me again next year, will you? We will talk
+about all this . . . it's so curious, so interesting . . . and, above
+all, so funny! . . . Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+And, shaking with laughter, with affected bows and gestures, he showed
+him the door.
+
+"Philippe," he said, admitting the hotel-servant, "did you hear?"
+
+"Yes, governor."
+
+"Gérard Baupré is expecting a telegram this afternoon, a promise of
+assistance. . . ."
+
+"Yes, it's his last hope."
+
+"He must not receive that telegram. If it comes, intercept it and tear
+it up."
+
+"Very well, governor."
+
+"Are you alone at your hotel?"
+
+"Yes, with the cook, who does not sleep in. The boss is away."
+
+"Good. So we are the masters. Till this evening, at eleven. Be off."
+
+Prince Sernine went to his room and rang for his servant:
+
+"My hat, gloves, and stick. Is the car there?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He dressed, went out, and sank into a large, comfortable limousine,
+which took him to the Bois de Boulogne, to the Marquis and Marquise de
+Gastyne's, where he was engaged for lunch.
+
+At half-past two he took leave of his hosts, stopped in the Avenue
+Kléber, picked up two of his friends and a doctor, and at five minutes
+to three arrived at the Parc des Princes.
+
+At three o'clock he fought a sword duel with the Italian Major Spinelli,
+cut his adversary's ear in the first bout, and, at a quarter to four,
+took a bank at the Rue Cambon Club, from which he retired, at twenty
+minutes past five, after winning forty-seven thousand francs.
+
+And all this without hurrying, with a sort of haughty indifference, as
+though the feverish activity that sent his life whizzing through a whirl
+of tempestuous deeds and events were the ordinary rule of his most
+peaceful days.
+
+"Octave," he said to his chauffeur, "go to Garches."
+
+And at ten minutes to six he alighted outside the old walls of the Parc
+de Villeneuve.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although broken up nowadays and spoilt, the Villeneuve estate still
+retains something of the splendor which it knew at the time when the
+Empress Eugénie used to stay there. With its old trees, its lake and the
+leafy horizon of the woods of Saint-Cloud, the landscape has a certain
+melancholy grace.
+
+An important part of the estate was made over to the Pasteur Institute.
+A smaller portion, separated from the other by the whole extent of the
+space reserved for the public, forms a property contained within the
+walls which is still fairly large, and which comprises the House of
+Retreat, with four isolated garden-houses standing around it.
+
+"That is where Mrs. Kesselbach lives," said the prince to himself,
+catching sight of the roofs of the house and the four garden-houses in
+the distance.
+
+He crossed the park and walked toward the lake.
+
+Suddenly he stopped behind a clump of trees. He had seen two ladies
+against the parapet of the bridge that crossed the lake:
+
+"Varnier and his men must be somewhere near. But, by Jove, they are
+keeping jolly well hidden! I can't see them anywhere. . . ."
+
+The two ladies were now strolling across the lawns, under the tall,
+venerable trees. The blue of the sky appeared between the branches,
+which swayed in the peaceful breeze, and the scent of spring and of
+young vegetation was wafted through the air.
+
+On the grassy slopes that ran down to the motionless water, daisies,
+violets, daffodils, lilies of the valley, all the little flowers of
+April and May stood grouped, and, here and there, formed constellations
+of every color. The sun was sinking on the horizon.
+
+And, all at once, three men started from a thicket of bushes and made
+for the two ladies.
+
+They accosted them. A few words were exchanged. The ladies gave visible
+signs of dread. One of the men went up to the shorter of the two and
+tried to snatch the gold purse which she was carrying in her hand. They
+cried out; and the three men flung themselves upon them.
+
+"Now or never!" said the prince.
+
+And he rushed forward. In ten seconds he had almost reached the brink of
+the water. At his approach, the three men fled.
+
+"Run away, you vagabonds," he chuckled; "run for all you are worth!
+Here's the rescuer coming!"
+
+And he set out in pursuit of them. But one of the ladies entreated him:
+
+"Oh, sir, I beg of you . . . my friend is ill."
+
+The shorter lady had fallen on the grass in a dead faint.
+
+He retraced his steps and, anxiously:
+
+"She is not wounded?" he asked. "Did those scoundrels . . ."
+
+"No . . . no . . . it's only the fright . . . the excitement. . . .
+Besides you will understand . . . the lady is Mrs. Kesselbach. . . ."
+
+"Oh!" he said.
+
+He produced a bottle of smelling-salts, which the younger woman at once
+applied to her friend's nostrils. And he added:
+
+"Lift the amethyst that serves as a stopper. . . . You will see a little
+box containing some tabloids. Give madame one of them . . . one, no more
+. . . they are very strong. . . ."
+
+He watched the young woman helping her friend. She was fair-haired, very
+simply dressed; and her face was gentle and grave, with a smile that lit
+up her features even when she was not smiling.
+
+"That is Geneviève," he thought. And he repeated with emotion,
+"Geneviève . . . Geneviève. . . ."
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Kesselbach gradually recovered consciousness. She was
+astonished at first, seemed not to understand. Then, her memory
+returning, she thanked her deliverer with a movement of the head.
+
+He made a deep bow and said:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. . . . I am Prince Sernine. . . ."
+
+She said, in a faint voice:
+
+"I do not know how to express my gratitude."
+
+"By not expressing it at all, madame. You must thank chance, the chance
+that turned my steps in this direction. May I offer you my arm?"
+
+A few minutes later, Mrs. Kesselbach rang at the door of the House of
+Retreat and said to the prince:
+
+"I will ask one more service of you, monsieur. Do not speak of this
+assault."
+
+"And yet, madame, it would be the only way of finding out . . ."
+
+"Any attempt to find out would mean an inquiry; and that would involve
+more noise and fuss about me, examinations, fatigue; and I am worn out
+as it is."
+
+The prince did not insist. Bowing to her, he asked:
+
+"Will you allow me to call and ask how you are?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. . . ."
+
+She kissed Geneviève and went indoors.
+
+Meantime, night was beginning to fall. Sernine would not let Geneviève
+return alone. But they had hardly entered the path, when a figure,
+standing out against the shadow, hastened toward them.
+
+"Grandmother!" cried Geneviève.
+
+She threw herself into the arms of an old woman, who covered her with
+kisses:
+
+"Oh, my darling, my darling, what has happened? How late you are! . . .
+And you are always so punctual!"
+
+Geneviève introduced the prince:
+
+"Prince Sernine . . . Mme. Ernemont, my grandmother. . . ."
+
+Then she related the incident, and Mme. Ernemont repeated:
+
+"Oh, my darling, how frightened you must have been! . . . I shall never
+forget your kindness, monsieur, I assure you. . . . But how frightened
+you must have been, my poor darling!"
+
+"Come, granny, calm yourself, as I am here. . . ."
+
+"Yes, but the fright may have done you harm. . . . One never knows the
+consequences. . . . Oh, it's horrible! . . ."
+
+They went along a hedge, through which a yard planted with trees, a few
+shrubs, a playground and a white house were just visible. Behind the
+house, sheltered by a clump of elder-trees arranged to form a covered
+walk, was a little gate.
+
+The old lady asked Prince Sernine to come in and led the way to a little
+drawing-room or parlor. Geneviève asked leave to withdraw for a moment,
+to go and see her pupils, whose supper-time it was. The prince and Mme.
+Ernemont remained alone.
+
+The old lady had a sad and a pale face, under her white hair, which
+ended in two long, loose curls. She was too stout, her walk was heavy
+and, notwithstanding her appearance and her dress, which was that of a
+lady, she had something a little vulgar about her; but her eyes were
+immensely kind.
+
+Prince Sernine went up to her, took her head in his two hands and kissed
+her on both cheeks:
+
+"Well, old one, and how are you?"
+
+She stood dumfounded, wild-eyed, open-mouthed. The prince kissed her
+again, laughing.
+
+She spluttered:
+
+"You! It's you! O mother of God! . . . O mother of God! . . . Is it
+possible! . . . O mother of God! . . ."
+
+"My dear old Victoire!"
+
+"Don't call me that," she cried, shuddering. "Victoire is dead . . .
+your old servant no longer exists.[3] I belong entirely to Geneviève."
+And, lowering her voice, "O mother of God! . . . I saw your name in the
+papers: then it's true that you have taken to your wicked life again?"
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Arsène Lupin_, by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc,
+and _The Hollow Needle_, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander
+Teixeira de Mattos.]
+
+"As you see."
+
+"And yet you swore to me that it was finished, that you were going away
+for good, that you wanted to become an honest man."
+
+"I tried. I have been trying for four years. . . . You can't say that I
+have got myself talked about during those four years!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, it bores me."
+
+She gave a sigh and asked:
+
+"Always the same. . . . You haven't changed. . . . Oh, it's settled, you
+never will change. . . . So you are in the Kesselbach case?"
+
+"Why, of course! But for that, would I have taken the trouble to arrange
+for an attack on Mrs. Kesselbach at six o'clock, so that I might have
+the opportunity of delivering her from the clutches of my own men at
+five minutes past? Looking upon me as her rescuer, she is obliged to
+receive me. I am now in the heart of the citadel and, while protecting
+the widow, can keep a lookout all round. Ah, you see, the sort of life
+which I lead does not permit me to lounge about and waste my time on
+little questions of politeness and such outside matters. I have to go
+straight to the point, violently, brutally, dramatically. . . ."
+
+She looked at him in dismay and gasped:
+
+"I see . . . I see . . . it's all lies about the attack. . . . But then
+. . . Geneviève . . ."
+
+"Why, I'm killing two birds with one stone! It was as easy to rescue two
+as one. Think of the time it would have taken, the efforts--useless
+efforts, perhaps--to worm myself into that child's friendship! What was
+I to her? What should I be now? An unknown person . . . a stranger.
+Whereas now I am the rescuer. In an hour I shall be . . . the friend."
+
+She began to tremble:
+
+"So . . . so you did not rescue Geneviève. . . . So you are going to mix
+us up in your affairs. . . ." And, suddenly, in a fit of rebellion,
+seizing him by the shoulders, "No, I won't have it, do you understand?
+You brought the child to me one day, saying, 'Here, I entrust her to you
+. . . her father and mother are dead . . . take her under your
+protection.' Well, she's under my protection now and I shall know how to
+defend her against you and all your manœuvers!"
+
+Standing straight upright, in a very determined attitude, Mme. Ernemont
+seemed ready for all emergencies.
+
+Slowly and deliberately Sernine loosened the two hands, one after the
+other, that held him, and in his turn, took the old lady by the
+shoulders, forced her into an arm-chair, stooped over and, in a very
+calm voice, said:
+
+"Rot!"
+
+She began to cry and, clasping her hands together, implored him:
+
+"I beseech you, leave us in peace. We were so happy! I thought that you
+had forgotten us and I blessed Heaven every time a day had passed. Why,
+yes . . . I love you just the same. But, Geneviève . . . you see,
+there's nothing that I wouldn't do for that child. She has taken your
+place in my heart."
+
+"So I perceive," said he, laughing. "You would send me to the devil with
+pleasure. Come, enough of this nonsense! I have no time to waste. I must
+talk to Geneviève."
+
+"You're going to talk to her?"
+
+"Well, is that a crime?"
+
+"And what have you to tell her?"
+
+"A secret . . . a very grave secret . . . and a very touching one.
+. . ."
+
+The old lady took fright:
+
+"And one that will cause her sorrow, perhaps? Oh, I fear everything, I
+fear everything, where she's concerned! . . ."
+
+"She is coming," he said.
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Yes, yes, I hear her. . . . Wipe your eyes and be sensible."
+
+"Listen," said she, eagerly, "listen. I don't know what you are going to
+say, what secret you mean to reveal to this child whom you don't know.
+But I, who do know her, tell you this: Geneviève has a very plucky, very
+spirited, but very sensitive nature. Be careful how you choose your
+words. . . . You might wound feelings . . . the existence of which you
+cannot even suspect. . . ."
+
+"Lord bless me! And why not?"
+
+"Because she belongs to another race than you, to a different world.
+. . . I mean, a different moral world. . . . There are things which you
+are forbidden to understand nowadays. Between you and her, the obstacle
+is insurmountable. . . . Geneviève has the most unblemished and upright
+conscience . . . and you . . ."
+
+"And I?"
+
+"And you are not an honest man!"
+
+Geneviève entered, bright and charming:
+
+"All my babies have gone to bed; I have ten minutes to spare. . . . Why,
+grandmother, what's the matter? You look quite upset. . . . Is it still
+that business with the . . ."
+
+"No, mademoiselle," said Sernine, "I believe I have had the good fortune
+to reassure your grandmother. Only, we were talking of you, of your
+childhood; and that is a subject, it seems, which your grandmother
+cannot touch upon without emotion."
+
+"Of my childhood?" said Geneviève, reddening. "Oh, grandmother!"
+
+"Don't scold her, mademoiselle. The conversation turned in that
+direction by accident. It so happens that I have often passed through
+the little village where you were brought up."
+
+"Aspremont?"
+
+"Yes, Aspremont, near Nice. You used to live in a new house, white all
+over. . . ."
+
+"Yes," she said, "white all over, with a touch of blue paint round the
+windows. . . . I was only seven years old when I left Aspremont; but I
+remember the least things of that period. And I have not forgotten the
+glare of the sun on the white front of the house, nor the shade of the
+eucalyptus-tree at the bottom of the garden."
+
+"At the bottom of the garden, mademoiselle, was a field of olive-trees;
+and under one of those olive-trees stood a table at which your mother
+used to work on hot days. . . ."
+
+"That's true, that's true," she said, quite excitedly, "I used to play
+by her side. . . ."
+
+"And it was there," said he, "that I saw your mother several times.
+. . . I recognized her image the moment I set eyes on you . . . but it
+was a brighter, happier image."
+
+"Yes, my poor mother was not happy. My father died on the very day of my
+birth, and nothing was ever able to console her. She used to cry a great
+deal. I still possess a little handkerchief with which I used to dry her
+tears at that time."
+
+"A little handkerchief with a pink pattern."
+
+"What!" she exclaimed, seized with surprise. "You know . . ."
+
+"I was there one day when you were comforting her. . . . And you
+comforted her so prettily that the scene remained impressed on my
+memory."
+
+She gave him a penetrating glance and murmured, almost to herself:
+
+"Yes, yes. . . . I seem to . . . The expression of your eyes . . . and
+then the sound of your voice. . . ."
+
+She lowered her eyelids for a moment and reflected as if she were vainly
+trying to bring back a recollection that escaped her. And she continued:
+
+"Then you knew her?"
+
+"I had some friends living near Aspremont and used to meet her at their
+house. The last time I saw her, she seemed to me sadder still . . .
+paler . . . and, when I came back again . . ."
+
+"It was all over, was it not?" said Geneviève. "Yes, she went very
+quickly . . . in a few weeks . . . and I was left alone with neighbors
+who sat up with her . . . and one morning they took her away. . . . And,
+on the evening of that day, some one came, while I was asleep, and
+lifted me up and wrapped me in blankets. . . ."
+
+"A man?" asked the prince.
+
+"Yes, a man. He talked to me, quite low, very gently . . . his voice did
+me good . . . and, as he carried me down the road and also in the
+carriage, during the night, he rocked me in his arms and told me stories
+. . . in the same voice . . . in the same voice . . ."
+
+She broke off gradually and looked at him again, more sharply than
+before and with a more obvious effort to seize the fleeting impression
+that passed over her at moments. He asked:
+
+"And then? Where did he take you?"
+
+"I can't recollect clearly . . . it is just as though I had slept for
+several days. . . . I can remember nothing before the little town of
+Montégut, in the Vendée, where I spent the second half of my childhood,
+with Father and Mother Izereau, a worthy couple who reared me and
+brought me up and whose love and devotion I shall never forget."
+
+"And did they die, too?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "of an epidemic of typhoid fever in the district . . .
+but I did not know that until later. . . . As soon as they fell ill, I
+was carried off as on the first occasion and under the same conditions,
+at night, by some one who also wrapped me up in blankets. . . . Only, I
+was bigger, I struggled, I tried to call out . . . and he had to close
+my mouth with a silk handkerchief."
+
+"How old were you then?"
+
+"Fourteen . . . it was four years ago."
+
+"Then you were able to see what the man was like?"
+
+"No, he hid his face better and he did not speak a single word to me.
+. . . Nevertheless, I have always believed him to be the same one . . .
+for I remember the same solicitude, the same attentive, careful
+movements. . . ."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"After that, came oblivion, sleep, as before. . . . This time, I was
+ill, it appears; I was feverish. . . . And I woke in a bright, cheerful
+room. A white-haired lady was bending over me and smiling. It was
+grandmother . . . and the room was the one in which I now sleep
+upstairs."
+
+She had resumed her happy face, her sweet, radiant expression; and she
+ended, with a smile:
+
+"That was how she became my grandmother and how, after a few trials, the
+little Aspremont girl now knows the delights of a peaceful life and
+teaches grammar and arithmetic to little girls who are either naughty or
+lazy . . . but who are all fond of her."
+
+She spoke cheerfully, in a tone at once thoughtful and gay, and it was
+obvious that she possessed a reasonable, well-balanced mind. Sernine
+listened to her with growing surprise and without trying to conceal his
+agitation:
+
+"Have you never heard speak of that man since?" he asked.
+
+"Never."
+
+"And would you be glad to see him again?"
+
+"Oh, very glad."
+
+"Well, then, mademoiselle . . ."
+
+Geneviève gave a start:
+
+"You know something . . . the truth perhaps . . ."
+
+"No . . . no . . . only . . ."
+
+He rose and walked up and down the room. From time to time, his eyes
+fell upon Geneviève; and it looked as though he were on the point of
+giving a more precise answer to the question which she had put to him.
+Would he speak?
+
+Mme. Ernemont awaited with anguish the revelation of the secret upon
+which the girl's future peace might depend.
+
+He sat down beside Geneviève, appeared to hesitate, and said at last:
+
+"No . . . no . . . just now . . . an idea occurred to me . . . a
+recollection . . ."
+
+"A recollection? . . . And . . ."
+
+"I was mistaken. Your story contained certain details that misled me."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+He hesitated and then declared:
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"Oh," said she, greatly disappointed. "I had half guessed . . . that
+that man whom I saw twice . . . that you knew him . . . that . . ."
+
+She did not finish her sentence, but waited for an answer to the
+question which she had put to him without daring to state it completely.
+
+He was silent. Then, insisting no further, she bent over Mme. Ernemont:
+
+"Good night, grandmother. My children must be in bed by this time, but
+they could none of them go to sleep before I had kissed them."
+
+She held out her hand to the prince:
+
+"Thank you once more. . . ."
+
+"Are you going?" he asked quickly.
+
+"Yes, if you will excuse me; grandmother will see you out."
+
+He bowed low and kissed her hand. As she opened the door, she turned
+round and smiled. Then she disappeared. The prince listened to the sound
+of her footsteps diminishing in the distance and stood stock-still, his
+face white with emotion.
+
+"Well," said the old lady, "so you did not speak?"
+
+"No. . . ."
+
+"That secret . . ."
+
+"Later. . . . To-day . . . oddly enough . . . I was not able to."
+
+"Was it so difficult? Did not she herself feel that you were the
+stranger who took her away twice. . . . A word would have been enough.
+. . ."
+
+"Later, later," he repeated, recovering all his assurance. "You can
+understand . . . the child hardly knows me. . . . I must first gain the
+right to her affection, to her love. . . . When I have given her the
+life which she deserves, a wonderful life, such as one reads of in
+fairy-tales, then I will speak."
+
+The old lady tossed her head:
+
+"I fear that you are making a great mistake. Geneviève does not want a
+wonderful life. She has simple tastes."
+
+"She has the tastes of all women; and wealth, luxury and power give joys
+which not one of them despises."
+
+"Yes, Geneviève does. And you would do much better . . ."
+
+"We shall see. For the moment, let me go my own way. And be quite easy.
+I have not the least intention, as you say, of mixing her up in any of
+my manœuvers. She will hardly ever see me. . . . Only, we had to come
+into contact, you know. . . . That's done. . . . Good-bye."
+
+He left the school and walked to where his motor-car was waiting for
+him. He was perfectly happy:
+
+"She is charming . . . and so gentle, so grave! Her mother's eyes, eyes
+that soften you . . . Heavens, how long ago that all is! And what a
+delightful recollection! A little sad, but so delightful!" And he said,
+aloud, "Certainly I shall look after her happiness! And that at once!
+This very evening! That's it, this very evening she shall have a
+sweetheart! Is not love the essential condition of any young girl's
+happiness?"
+
+He found his car on the high-road:
+
+"Home," he said to Octave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Sernine reached home, he rang up Neuilly and telephoned his
+instructions to the friend whom he called the doctor. Then he dressed,
+dined at the Rue Cambon Club, spent an hour at the opera and got into
+his car again:
+
+"Go to Neuilly, Octave. We are going to fetch the doctor. What's the
+time?"
+
+"Half-past ten."
+
+"Dash it! Look sharp!"
+
+Ten minutes later, the car stopped at the end of the Boulevard Inkerman,
+outside a villa standing in its own grounds. The doctor came down at the
+sound of the hooter. The prince asked:
+
+"Is the fellow ready?"
+
+"Packed up, strung up, sealed up."
+
+"In good condition?"
+
+"Excellent. If everything goes as you telephoned, the police will be
+utterly at sea."
+
+"That's what they're there for. Let's get him on board."
+
+They carried into the motor a sort of long sack shaped like a human
+being and apparently rather heavy. And the prince said:
+
+"Go to Versailles, Octave, Rue de la Vilaine. Stop outside the Hôtel des
+Deux-Empereurs."
+
+"Why, it's a filthy hotel," observed the doctor. "I know it well; a
+regular hovel."
+
+"You needn't tell me! And it will be a hard piece of work, for me, at
+least. . . . But, by Jove, I wouldn't sell this moment for a fortune!
+Who dares pretend that life is monotonous?"
+
+They reached the Hôtel des Deux-Empereurs. A muddy alley; two steps
+down; and they entered a passage lit by a flickering lamp.
+
+Sernine knocked with his fist against a little door.
+
+A waiter appeared, Philippe, the man to whom Sernine had given orders,
+that morning, concerning Gérard Baupré.
+
+"Is he here still?" asked the prince.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The rope?"
+
+"The knot is made."
+
+"He has not received the telegram he was hoping for?"
+
+"I intercepted it: here it is."
+
+Sernine took the blue paper and read it:
+
+"Gad!" he said. "It was high time. This is to promise him a thousand
+francs for to-morrow. Come, fortune is on my side. A quarter to twelve.
+. . . In a quarter of an hour, the poor devil will take a leap into
+eternity. Show me the way, Philippe. You stay here, Doctor."
+
+The waiter took the candle. They climbed to the third floor, and,
+walking on tip-toe, went along a low and evil-smelling corridor, lined
+with garrets and ending in a wooden staircase covered with the musty
+remnants of a carpet.
+
+"Can no one hear me?" asked Sernine.
+
+"No. The two rooms are quite detached. But you must be careful not to
+make a mistake: he is in the room on the left."
+
+"Very good. Now go downstairs. At twelve o'clock, the doctor, Octave and
+you are to carry the fellow up here, to where we now stand, and wait
+till I call you."
+
+The wooden staircase had ten treads, which the prince climbed with
+definite caution. At the top was a landing with two doors. It took
+Sernine quite five minutes to open the one of the right without breaking
+the silence with the least sound of a creaking hinge.
+
+A light gleamed through the darkness of the room. Feeling his way, so as
+not to knock against one of the chairs, he made for that light. It came
+from the next room and filtered through a glazed door covered with a
+tattered hanging.
+
+The prince pulled the threadbare stuff aside. The panes were of ground
+glass, but scratched in parts, so that, by applying one eye, it was easy
+to see all that happened in the other room.
+
+Sernine saw a man seated at a table facing him. It was the poet, Gérard
+Baupré. He was writing by the light of a candle.
+
+Above his head hung a rope, which was fastened to a hook fixed in the
+ceiling. At the end of the rope was a slip-knot.
+
+A faint stroke sounded from a clock in the street.
+
+"Five minutes to twelve," thought Sernine. "Five minutes more."
+
+The young man was still writing. After a moment, he put down his pen,
+collected the ten or twelve sheets of paper which he had covered and
+began to read them over.
+
+What he read did not seem to please him, for an expression of discontent
+passed across his face. He tore up his manuscript and burnt the pieces
+in the flame of the candle.
+
+Then, with a fevered hand, he wrote a few words on a clean sheet, signed
+it savagely and rose from his chair.
+
+But, seeing the rope at ten inches above his head, he sat down again
+suddenly with a great shudder of alarm.
+
+Sernine distinctly saw his pale features, his lean cheeks, against which
+he pressed his clenched fists. A tear trickled slowly down his face, a
+single, disconsolate tear. His eyes gazed into space, eyes terrifying in
+their unutterable sadness, eyes that already seemed to behold the dread
+unknown.
+
+And it was so young a face! Cheeks still so smooth, with not a blemish,
+not a wrinkle! And blue eyes, blue like an eastern sky! . . .
+
+Midnight . . . the twelve tragic strokes of midnight, to which so many a
+despairing man has hitched the last second of his existence!
+
+At the twelfth stroke, he stood up again and, bravely this time, without
+trembling, looked at the sinister rope. He even tried to give a smile, a
+poor smile, the pitiful grimace of the doomed man whom death has already
+seized for its own.
+
+Swiftly he climbed the chair and took the rope in one hand.
+
+For a moment, he stood there, motionless: not that he was hesitating or
+lacking in courage. But this was the supreme moment, the one minute of
+grace which a man allows himself before the fatal deed.
+
+He gazed at the squalid room to which his evil destiny had brought him,
+the hideous paper on the walls, the wretched bed.
+
+On the table, not a book: all were sold. Not a photograph, not a letter:
+he had no father, no mother, no relations. What was there to make him
+cling to life?
+
+With a sudden movement he put his head into the slip-knot and pulled at
+the rope until the noose gripped his neck.
+
+And, kicking the chair from him with both feet, he leapt into space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ten seconds, fifteen seconds passed, twenty formidable, eternal seconds.
+. . .
+
+The body gave two or three jerks. The feet had instinctively felt for a
+resting-place. Then nothing moved. . . .
+
+A few seconds more. . . . The little glazed door opened.
+
+Sernine entered.
+
+Without the least haste he took the sheet of paper to which the young
+man had set his signature, and read:
+
+      "Tired of living, ill, penniless, hopeless, I am
+      taking my own life. Let no one be accused of my death.
+
+                                   "GÉRARD BAUPRÉ.
+      "_30 April._"
+
+He put back the paper on the table where it could be seen, picked up the
+chair and placed it under the young man's feet. He himself climbed up on
+the table and, holding the body close to him, lifted it up, loosened the
+slip-knot and passed the head through it.
+
+The body sank into his arms. He let it slide along the table and,
+jumping to the floor, laid it on the bed.
+
+Then, with the same coolness, he opened the door on the passage:
+
+"Are you there, all the three of you?" he whispered.
+
+Some one answered from the foot of the wooden staircase near him:
+
+"We are here. Are we to hoist up our bundle?"
+
+"Yes, come along!"
+
+He took the candle and showed them a light.
+
+The three men trudged up the stairs, carrying the sack in which the
+"fellow" was tied up.
+
+"Put him here," he said, pointing to the table.
+
+With a pocket-knife, he cut the cords round the sack. A white sheet
+appeared, which he flung back. In the sheet was a corpse, the corpse of
+Pierre Leduc.
+
+"Poor Pierre Leduc!" said Sernine. "You will never know what you lost by
+dying so young! I should have helped you to go far, old chap. However,
+we must do without your services. . . . Now then, Philippe, get up on
+the table; and you, Octave, on the chair. Lift up his head and fasten
+the slip-knot."
+
+Two minutes later, Pierre Leduc's body was swinging at the end of the
+rope.
+
+"Capital, that was quite simple! Now you can all of you go. You, Doctor,
+will call back here to-morrow morning; you will hear of the suicide of a
+certain Gérard Baupré: you understand, Gérard Baupré. Here is his
+farewell letter. You will send for the divisional surgeon and the
+commissary; you will arrange that neither of them notices that the
+deceased has a cut finger or a scar on one cheek. . . ."
+
+"That's easy."
+
+"And you will manage so as to have the report written then and there, to
+your dictation."
+
+"That's easy."
+
+"Lastly, avoid having the body sent to the Morgue and make them give
+permission for an immediate burial."
+
+"That's not so easy."
+
+"Try. Have you examined the other one?"
+
+He pointed to the young man lying lifeless on the bed.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor. "The breathing is becoming normal. But it was a
+big risk to run . . . the carotid artery might have . . ."
+
+"Nothing venture, nothing have. . . . How soon will he recover
+consciousness?"
+
+"In a few minutes."
+
+"Very well. Oh, by the way, don't go yet, Doctor. Wait for me
+downstairs. There is more for you to do."
+
+The prince, when he found himself alone, lit a cigarette and puffed at
+it quietly, sending little blue rings of smoke floating up to the
+ceiling.
+
+A sigh roused him from his thoughts. He went to the bed. The young man
+was beginning to move; and his chest rose and fell violently, like that
+of a sleeper under the influence of a nightmare. He put his hands to his
+throat, as though he felt a pain there; and this action suddenly made
+him sit up, terrified, panting. . . .
+
+Then he saw Sernine in front of him:
+
+"You?" he whispered, without understanding. "You? . . ."
+
+He gazed at him stupidly, as though he had seen a ghost.
+
+He again touched his throat, felt round his neck. . . . And suddenly he
+gave a hoarse cry; a mad terror dilated his eyes, made his hair stand on
+end, shook him from head to foot like an aspen-leaf! The prince had
+moved aside; and he saw the man's corpse hanging from the rope.
+
+He flung himself back against the wall. That man, that hanged man, was
+himself! He was dead and he was looking at his own dead body! Was this a
+hideous dream that follows upon death? A hallucination that comes to
+those who are no more and whose distracted brain still quivers with a
+last flickering gleam of life? . . .
+
+His arms struck at the air. For a moment, he seemed to be defending
+himself against the squalid vision. Then, exhausted, he fainted away for
+the second time.
+
+"First-rate," said the prince, with a grin. "A sensitive, impressionable
+nature. . . . At present, the brain is out of gear. . . . Come, this is
+a propitious moment. . . . But, if I don't get the business done in
+twenty minutes . . . he'll escape me. . . ."
+
+He pushed open the door between the two garrets, came back to the bed,
+lifted the young man and carried him to the bed in the other room. Then
+he bathed his temples with cold water and made him sniff at some salts.
+
+This time, the swoon did not last long.
+
+Gérard timidly opened his eyes and raised them to the ceiling. The
+vision was gone. But the arrangement of the furniture, the position of
+the table and the fireplace, and certain other details all surprised him
+. . . And then came the remembrance of his act, the pain which he felt
+at his throat. . . .
+
+He said to the prince:
+
+"I have had a dream, have I not?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How do you mean, no?" And, suddenly recollecting, "Oh, that's true, I
+remember. . . . I meant to kill myself . . . and I even . . ." Bending
+forward anxiously, "But the rest, the vision . . ."
+
+"What vision?"
+
+"The man . . . the rope . . . was that a dream? . . ."
+
+"No," said Sernine. "That also was real."
+
+"What are you saying? What are you saying? . . . Oh, no, no! . . . I
+entreat you! . . . Wake me, if I am asleep . . . or else let me die!
+. . . But I am dead, am I not? And this is the nightmare of a corpse!
+. . . Oh, I feel my brain going! . . . I entreat you. . . ."
+
+Sernine placed his hand gently on the young man's head and, bending over
+him:
+
+"Listen to me . . . listen to me carefully and understand what I say.
+You are alive. Your matter and your mind are as they were and live. But
+Gérard Baupré is dead. You understand me, do you not? That member of
+society who was known as Gérard Baupré has ceased to exist. You have
+done away with that one. To-morrow, the registrar will write in his
+books, opposite the name you bore, the word 'Dead,' with the date of
+your decease."
+
+"It's a lie!" stammered the terrified lad. "It's a lie! Considering that
+I, Gérard Baupré, am here!"
+
+"You are not Gérard Baupré," declared Sernine. And, pointing to the open
+door, "Gérard Baupré is there, in the next room. Do you wish to see
+him? He is hanging from the nail to which you hooked him. On the table
+is a letter in which you certify his death with your signature. It is
+all quite regular, it is all final. There is no getting away from the
+irrevocable, brutal fact: Gérard Baupré has ceased to exist!"
+
+The young man listened in despair. Growing calmer, now that facts were
+assuming a less tragic significance, he began to understand:
+
+"And then . . ." he muttered.
+
+"And then . . . let us talk."
+
+"Yes, yes . . . let us talk. . . ."
+
+"A cigarette?" asked the prince. "Will you have one? Ah, I see that you
+are becoming reconciled to life! So much the better: we shall understand
+each other; and that quickly."
+
+He lit the young man's cigarette and his own and, at once, in a few
+words uttered in a hard voice, explained himself:
+
+"You, the late Gérard Baupré, were weary of life, ill, penniless,
+hopeless. . . . Would you like to be well, rich, and powerful?"
+
+"I don't follow you."
+
+"It is quite simple. Accident has placed you on my path. You are young,
+good-looking, a poet; you are intelligent and--your act of despair shows
+it--you have a fine sense of conduct. These are qualities which are
+rarely found united in one person. I value them . . . and I take them
+for my account."
+
+"They are not for sale."
+
+"Idiot! Who talks of buying or selling? Keep your conscience. It is too
+precious a jewel for me to relieve you of it."
+
+"Then what do you ask of me?"
+
+"Your life!" And, pointing to the bruises on the young man's throat,
+"Your life, which you have not known how to employ! Your life, which you
+have bungled, wasted, destroyed and which, I propose to build up again,
+in accordance with an ideal of beauty, greatness and dignity that would
+make you giddy, my lad, if you saw the abyss into which my secret
+thought plunges. . . ." He had taken Gérard's head between his hands and
+he continued, eagerly: "You are free! No shackles! You have no longer
+the weight of your name to bear! You have got rid of that number with
+which society had stamped you as though branding you on the shoulder.
+You are free! In this world of slaves where each man bears his label you
+can either come and go unknown, invisible, as if you owned Gyges' ring
+. . . or else you can choose your own label, the one you like best! Do
+you understand the magnificent treasure which you represent to an artist
+. . . to yourself, if you like? A virgin life, a brand-new life! Your
+life is the wax which you have the right to fashion as you please,
+according to the whims of your imagination and the counsels of your
+reason."
+
+The young man made a gesture expressive of weariness:
+
+"Ah, what would you have me do with that treasure? What have I done with
+it so far? Nothing!"
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+"What can you do with it?"
+
+"Everything. If you are not an artist, I am; and an enthusiastic artist,
+inexhaustible, indomitable, exuberant. If you have not the Promethean
+fire, I have! Where you failed, I shall succeed. Give me your life."
+
+"Words, promises!" cried the young man, whose features began to glow
+with animation. "Empty dreams! I know my own worthlessness! I know my
+cowardice, my despondency, my efforts that come to nothing, all my
+wretchedness. To begin life anew, I should need a will which I do not
+possess. . . ."
+
+"I possess mine."
+
+"Friends. . . ."
+
+"You shall have them."
+
+"Means. . . ."
+
+"I am providing you with means . . . and such means! You will only have
+to dip, as one would dip into a magic coffer."
+
+"But who are you?" cried the young man, wildly.
+
+"To others, Prince Sernine. . . . To you . . . what does it matter? I am
+more than a prince, more than a king, more than an emperor. . . ."
+
+"Who are you? . . . Who are you?" stammered Baupré.
+
+"The Master . . . he who will and who can . . . he who acts. . . . There
+are no bounds to my will, there is none to my power. I am richer than
+the richest man alive, for his fortune is mine. . . . I am more powerful
+than the mightiest, for their might is at my service!"
+
+He took the other's head in his hands again and, looking deep into his
+eyes:
+
+"Be rich, too . . . be mighty. . . . I offer you happiness . . . and the
+joy of living . . . and peace for your poet's brain . . . and fame and
+glory also. . . . Do you accept?"
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . ." whispered Gérard, dazzled and overmastered. "What
+am I to do?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"Nothing, I say. The whole scaffolding of my plans rests on you, but
+you do not count. You have no active part to play. You are, for the
+moment, but a silent actor, or not even that, but just a pawn which I
+move along the board."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"Nothing. Write poetry. You shall live as you please. You shall have
+money. You shall enjoy life. I will not even bother my head about you. I
+repeat, you play no part in my venture."
+
+"And who shall I be?"
+
+Sernine stretched out his arm and pointed to the next room:
+
+"You shall take that man's place. _You are that man!_"
+
+Gérard shuddered with revolt and disgust:
+
+"Oh, no, he is dead! . . . And then . . . it is a crime! . . . No, I
+want a new life, made for me, thought out for me . . . an unknown name.
+. . ."
+
+"That man, I tell you!" cried Sernine, irresistible in his energy and
+authority. "You shall be that man and none other! That man, because his
+destiny is magnificent, because his name is illustrious, and because he
+hands down to you a thrice-venerable heritage of ancestral dignity and
+pride."
+
+"It is a crime!" moaned Baupré, faltering.
+
+"You shall be that man!" spoke Sernine, with unparalleled vehemence.
+"You shall be that man! If not, you become Baupré again; and over Baupré
+I own rights of life and death. Choose."
+
+He drew his revolver, cocked it and took aim at the young man:
+
+"Choose," he repeated.
+
+The expression of his face was implacable. Gérard was frightened and
+sank down on his bed sobbing:
+
+"I wish to live!"
+
+"You wish it firmly, irrevocably?"
+
+"Yes, a thousand times yes! After the terrible thing which I attempted,
+death appals me. . . . Anything . . . anything rather than death! . . .
+Anything! . . . Pain . . . hunger . . . illness . . . every torture,
+every shame . . . crime itself, if need be . . . but not death!"
+
+He shivered with fever and agony, as though the great enemy were still
+prowling round him and as though he felt himself powerless to escape
+from its clutches. The prince redoubled his efforts and, in a fervent
+voice, holding him under him like a prey:
+
+"I will ask nothing impossible of you, nothing wrong. . . . If there is
+anything, I am responsible. . . . No, no crime . . . a little pain at
+most. . . . A little of your blood must flow. But what is that, compared
+with the dread of dying?"
+
+"Pain is indifferent to me."
+
+"Then here and now!" shouted Sernine. "Here and now! Ten seconds of pain
+and that is all. . . . Ten seconds and the other's life is yours. . . ."
+
+He had seized him round the body and forced him down on a chair; and he
+now held the young man's left hand flat on the table, with his five
+fingers spread out. He swiftly took a knife from his pocket, pressed the
+blade against the little finger, between the first and second joints,
+and commanded:
+
+"Strike! Strike your own blow. One blow of the fist and that is all!"
+
+He had taken Gérard's right hand and was trying to bring it down upon
+the other like a hammer.
+
+Gérard writhed and twisted, convulsed with horror. He understood:
+
+"Never!" he stuttered. "Never!"
+
+"Strike! One blow and it's done! One blow and you will be like that man:
+no one will recognize you."
+
+"Tell me his name. . . ."
+
+"Strike first!"
+
+"Never! Oh, what torture! . . . I beseech you . . . presently. . . ."
+
+"Now. . . . I insist . . . you must . . ."
+
+"No . . . no . . . I can't do it. . . ."
+
+"Strike, you fool! It means fortune, fame, love. . . ."
+
+Gérard raised his fist with a sudden movement.
+
+"Love," he said, "yes . . . for that, yes. . . ."
+
+"You will love and be loved," said Sernine. "Your betrothed awaits you.
+I have chosen her myself. She is the purest of the pure, the fairest of
+the fair. But you must win her. Strike!"
+
+The lad's arm stiffened for the fatal blow; but the instinct of
+self-preservation was too strong for him. His body was wrung with a
+superhuman effort. He suddenly released himself from Sernine's hold and
+fled.
+
+He rushed like a madman to the other room. A yell of terror escaped him,
+at the sight of the abominable vision, and he came back and fell on his
+knees before Sernine, beside the table.
+
+"Strike!" said the prince, again spreading out the lad's fingers and
+fixing the blade of the knife.
+
+What followed was done mechanically. With an automatic movement, with
+haggard eyes and a livid face, the young man raised his fist and struck:
+
+"Ah!" he cried, with a moan of pain.
+
+A small piece of flesh was separated from the little finger. Blood
+flowed. For the third time, Gérard fainted.
+
+Sernine looked at him for a second or two and said, gently:
+
+"Poor little chap! . . . There, I'll reward you for what you've done;
+and a hundred times over. I always pay generously."
+
+He went downstairs and found the doctor waiting below:
+
+"It's done. Go upstairs, you, and make a little cut in his right cheek,
+similar to Pierre Leduc's. The two scars must be exactly alike. I shall
+come back for you in an hour."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To take the air. My heart feels anyhow."
+
+Outside he drew a long breath and lit another cigarette:
+
+"A good day's work," he muttered. "A little over-crowded, a little
+tiring, but fruitful, really fruitful. I am Dolores Kesselbach's friend.
+I am Geneviève's friend. I have manufactured a new Pierre Leduc, a very
+presentable one and entirely at my disposal. Lastly, I have found
+Geneviève a husband of the sort that you don't find by the dozen. Now my
+task is done. I have only to gather the fruit of my efforts. It's your
+turn to work, M. Lenormand. I, for my part, am ready." And he added,
+thinking of the poor mutilated lad whom he had dazzled with his
+promises, "Only--for there is an 'only'--I have not the slightest notion
+who this Pierre Leduc was, whose place I have magnanimously awarded to
+that good young man. And that's very annoying. . . . For when all is
+said, there's nothing to prove to me that Pierre Leduc was not the son
+of a pork-butcher! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+M. LENORMAND AT WORK
+
+
+On the morning of the 31st of May, all the newspapers reminded their
+readers that Lupin, in a letter addressed to M. Lenormand, had announced
+the escape of the messenger Jérôme for that date. And one of them summed
+up the situation, as it then stood, in very able terms:
+
+      "The horrible carnage at the Palace Hotel took place
+      as far back as the 17th of April. What has been
+      discovered since? Nothing.
+
+      "There were three clues: the cigarette-case, the
+      initials L and M and the parcel of clothes left behind
+      in the office of the hotel. What advantage has been
+      taken of these clues? None.
+
+      "It appears that the police suspect one of the
+      visitors who was staying on the first floor and who
+      disappeared in a doubtful manner. Have they found him?
+      Have they established his identity? No.
+
+      "The tragedy, therefore, remains as mysterious as at
+      the beginning, the gloom is impenetrable.
+
+      "To complete the picture, we are told that dissension
+      prevails between the prefect of police and his
+      subordinate, M. Lenormand, and that the latter,
+      finding himself less vigorously supported by the prime
+      minister, virtually sent in his resignation several
+      days ago. According to our information, the conduct of
+      the Kesselbach case is now in the hands of the
+      deputy-chief of the detective-service, M. Weber, a
+      personal enemy of M. Lenormand's.
+
+      "In short, disorder and confusion reign; and this in
+      the face of Lupin, who stands for method, energy and
+      steadfastness of mind.
+
+      "What conclusion do we draw from these facts? Briefly,
+      this: Lupin will release his accomplice to-day, the
+      31st of May, as he foretold."
+
+This conclusion, which was echoed in all the other newspapers, was also
+the conclusion at which the general public had arrived. And we must take
+it that the threat was not considered devoid of importance in high
+places, for the prefect of police and, in the absence of M. Lenormand,
+who was said to be unwell, the deputy-chief of the detective-service, M.
+Weber, had adopted the most stringent measures, both at the Palais de
+Justice and at the Santé Prison, where the prisoner was confined.
+
+They did not dare, for sheer reasons of shame, to suspend on that
+particular day the examinations conducted daily by M. Formerie; but,
+from the prison to the Boulevard du Palais, a regular mobilization of
+police-forces guarded the streets along the line.
+
+To the intense astonishment of one and all, the 31st of May passed and
+the threatened escape did not take place.
+
+One thing did happen, an attempt to execute the plan, as was betrayed by
+a block of tramway-cars, omnibuses and drays along the road taken by the
+prison-van and the unaccountable breaking of one of the wheels of the
+van itself. But the attempt assumed no more definite form.
+
+Lupin, therefore, had met with a check. The public felt almost
+disappointed and the police triumphed loudly.
+
+On the next day, Saturday, an incredible rumour spread through the
+Palais and the newspaper-offices: Jérôme the messenger had disappeared.
+
+Was it possible? Although the special editions confirmed the news,
+people refused to believe it. But, at six o'clock, a note published by
+the _Dépêche du Soir_ made it official:
+
+      "We have received the following communication signed
+      by Arsène Lupin. The special stamp affixed to it, in
+      accordance with the circular which Lupin recently sent
+      to the press, guarantees the genuineness of the
+      document:
+
+      "'_To the Editor of the_ Dépêche du Soir.
+
+      "SIR,
+
+      "'Pray make my apologies to the public for not keeping
+      my word yesterday. I remembered, at the last moment,
+      that the 31st of May fell on a Friday! Could I set my
+      friend at liberty on a Friday? I did not think it
+      right to assume that responsibility.
+
+      "'I must also apologize for not on this occasion
+      explaining, with my customary frankness, how this
+      little event was managed. My process is so ingenious
+      and so simple that I fear lest, if I revealed it,
+      every criminal should be inspired by it. How surprised
+      people will be on the day when I am free to speak! "Is
+      that all?" I shall be asked. That is all; but it had
+      to be thought of.
+
+         "'Permit me to be, Sir,
+                    "'Your obedient servant,
+                                 "'ARSÈNE LUPIN.'"
+
+An hour later, M. Lenormand was rung up on the telephone and informed
+that Valenglay, the prime minister, wished to see him at the Ministry of
+the Interior.
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How well you're looking, my dear Lenormand! And I who thought that you
+were ill and dared not leave your room!"
+
+"I am not ill, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"So you were sulking in your tent! . . . But you were always a
+bad-tempered fellow."
+
+"I confess to the bad temper, Monsieur le Président, but not to the
+sulking."
+
+"But you stay at home! And Lupin takes advantage of it to release his
+friends. . . ."
+
+"How could I stop him?"
+
+"How? Why, Lupin's trick was of the plainest. In accordance with his
+usual method, he announced the date of the escape beforehand; everybody
+believed in it; an apparent attempt was planned; the escape was not
+made; and, on the next day, when nobody is thinking about
+it--whoosh!--the bird takes flight."
+
+"Monsieur le Président," said the chief of the detective-service,
+solemnly, "Lupin disposes of such means that we are not in a position to
+prevent what he has decided on. The escape was mathematically certain. I
+preferred to pass the hand . . . and leave the laughter for others to
+face."
+
+Valenglay chuckled:
+
+"It's a fact that Monsieur le Préfet de Police and M. Weber cannot be
+enjoying themselves at the present moment. . . . But, when all is said,
+can you explain to me, M. Lenormand . . ."
+
+"All that we know, Monsieur le Président, is that the escape took place
+from the Palais de Justice. The prisoner was brought in a prison-van and
+taken to M. Formerie's room. He left M. Formerie's room, but he did not
+leave the Palais de Justice. And yet nobody knows what became of him."
+
+"It's most bewildering."
+
+"Most bewildering."
+
+"And has nothing else been discovered?"
+
+"Yes. The inner corridor leading to the examining magistrates' rooms was
+blocked by an absolutely unprecedented crowd of prisoners, warders,
+counsel and doorkeepers; and it was discovered that all those people had
+received forged notices to appear at the same hour. On the other hand,
+not one of the examining-magistrates who were supposed to have summoned
+them sat in his room that day; and this because of forged notices from
+the public prosecutor's office, sending them to every part of Paris
+. . . and of the outskirts."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No. Two municipal guards and a prisoner were seen to cross the
+courtyards. A cab was waiting for them outside and all three stepped in.
+
+"And your supposition, Lenormand, your opinion. . . ."
+
+"My supposition, Monsieur le Président, is that the two municipal guards
+were accomplices who, profiting by the disorder in the corridor, took
+the place of the three warders. And my opinion is that this escape
+succeeded only through such special circumstances and so strange a
+combination of facts that we must look upon the most unlikely cases of
+complicity as absolutely certain. Lupin, for that matter, has
+connections at the Palais that balk all our calculations. He has agents
+in your ministry. He has agents at the Prefecture of Police. He has
+agents around me. It is a formidable organization, a detective-service a
+thousand times more clever, more daring, more varied and more supple
+than that under my own orders."
+
+"And you stand this, Lenormand?"
+
+"No, I do not."
+
+"Then why this slackness on your part since the beginning of the case?
+What have you done against Lupin?"
+
+"I have prepared for the struggle."
+
+"Ah, capital! And, while you were preparing, he was acting."
+
+"So was I."
+
+"And do you know anything?"
+
+"I know a great deal."
+
+"What? Speak!"
+
+Leaning on his stick, M. Lenormand took a little contemplative walk
+across the spacious room. Then he sat down opposite Valenglay, brushed
+the facings of his olive-green coat with his finger-tips, settled his
+spectacles on his nose and said, plainly:
+
+"M. le Président, I hold three trump-cards in my hand. First, I know the
+name under which Arsène Lupin is hiding at this moment, the name under
+which he lived on the Boulevard Haussmann, receiving his assistants
+daily, reconstructing and directing his gang."
+
+"But then why, in heaven's name, don't you arrest him?"
+
+"I did not receive these particulars until later. The prince--let us
+call him Prince Dash--has disappeared. He is abroad, on other
+business."
+
+"And, if he does not return . . ."
+
+"The position which he occupies, the manner in which he has flung
+himself into the Kesselbach case, necessitate his return and under the
+same name."
+
+"Nevertheless . . ."
+
+"Monsieur le Président, I come to my second trump. I have at last
+discovered Pierre Leduc."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Or rather Lupin discovered him, and before disappearing, settled him in
+a little villa in the neighborhood of Paris."
+
+"By Jove! But how did you know . . ."
+
+"Oh, easily! Lupin has placed two of his accomplices with Pierre Leduc,
+to watch him and defend him. Now these accomplices are two of my own
+detectives, two brothers whom I employ in the greatest secrecy and who
+will hand him over to me at the first opportunity!"
+
+"Well done you! So that . . ."
+
+"So that, as Pierre Leduc, we may say, is the central point of the
+efforts of all those who are trying to solve the famous Kesselbach
+secret, I shall, sooner or later, through Pierre Leduc, catch, first,
+the author of the treble murder, because that miscreant substituted
+himself for Mr. Kesselbach in the accomplishment of an immense scheme
+and because Mr. Kesselbach had to find Pierre Leduc in order to be able
+to accomplish that scheme; and, secondly, Arsène Lupin, because Arsène
+Lupin is pursuing the same object."
+
+"Splendid! Pierre Leduc is the bait which you are throwing to the
+enemy."
+
+"And the fish is biting, Monsieur le Président. I have just had word
+that a suspicious person was seen, a short time ago, prowling round the
+little villa where Pierre Leduc is living under the protection of my
+officers. I shall be on the spot in four hours."
+
+"And the third trump, Lenormand?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, a letter arrived yesterday, addressed to Mr.
+Rudolf Kesselbach, which I intercepted. . . ."
+
+"Intercepted, eh? You're getting on!"
+
+"Yes, I intercepted it, opened it and kept it for myself. Here it is. It
+is dated two months back. It bears the Capetown postmark and contains
+these words: 'My dear Rudolf, I shall be in Paris on the 1st of June and
+in just as wretched a plight as when you came to my assistance. But I
+have great hopes of this Pierre Leduc affair of which I told you. What a
+strange story it is! Have you found the man I mean? Where do we stand? I
+am most anxious to know.' The letter is signed, 'Steinweg.' The first of
+June," continued M. Lenormand, "is to-day. I have ordered one of my
+inspectors to hunt me out this Steinweg. I have no doubt that he will
+succeed."
+
+"Nor I, no doubt at all," cried Valenglay, rising from his chair, "and I
+make you every apology, my dear Lenormand, and my humble confession: I
+was on the point of letting you slide . . . for good and all! To-morrow
+I was expecting the prefect of police and M. Weber."
+
+"I knew that, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"But for that, should I have put myself out? You now see my plan of
+campaign. On the one side, I am setting traps in which the murderer will
+be caught sooner or later. Pierre Leduc or Steinweg will deliver him
+into my hands. On the other side, I am on Arsène Lupin's heels. Two of
+his agents are in my pay and he believes them to be his most devoted
+helpers. In addition to this, he is working for me, because he is
+pursuing the perpetrator of the threefold crime as I am. Only, he
+imagines that he is dishing me, whereas it is I who am dishing him. So I
+shall succeed, but on one condition. . . ."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That I am given free scope and allowed to act according to the needs of
+the moment, without troubling about the public, who are growing
+impatient, or my superiors, who are intriguing against me."
+
+"I agree."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur le Président, in a few days from this I shall be
+the victor . . . or I shall be dead."
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Saint-Cloud. A little villa situated on one of the highest points of
+the upland, in an unfrequented road.
+
+It was eleven o'clock at night. M. Lenormand left his car at Saint-Cloud
+and walked cautiously along the road. A shadow appeared.
+
+"Is that you, Gourel?"
+
+"Yes, chief."
+
+"Did you tell the brothers Doudeville that I was coming?"
+
+"Yes, your room is ready, you can go to bed and sleep . . . unless they
+try to carry off Pierre Leduc to-night, which would not surprise me,
+considering the behavior of the fellow whom the Doudevilles saw."
+
+They walked across the garden, softly entered the house and went up to
+the first floor. The two brothers, Jean and Jacques Doudeville, were
+there.
+
+"No news of Prince Sernine?" asked Lenormand.
+
+"No, chief."
+
+"What about Pierre Leduc?"
+
+"He spends the whole day lying flat on his back in his room on the
+ground-floor, or else in the garden. He never comes up to see us."
+
+"Is he better?"
+
+"Much better. The rest has made a great change in his appearance."
+
+"Is he wholly devoted to Lupin?"
+
+"To Prince Sernine, rather, for he does not suspect that the two are one
+and the same man. At least, I suppose so. One never knows, with him. He
+does not speak at all. Oh, he's a queer fish! There's only one person
+who has the gift of cheering him up, of making him talk and even laugh.
+That's a young girl from Garches, to whom Prince Sernine introduced him.
+Geneviève Ernemont her name is. She has been here three times already
+. . . she was here to-day." He added, jestingly, "I believe there's a
+little flirting going on. . . . It's like his highness Prince Sernine
+and Mrs. Kesselbach. . . . It seems he's making eyes at her! . . . That
+devil of a Lupin!"
+
+M. Lenormand did not reply. But it was obvious that all these details,
+to which he seemed to attach no importance, were noted in the recesses
+of his memory, to be used whenever he might need to draw the logical
+inferences from them. He lit a cigar, chewed it without smoking it, lit
+it again and dropped it.
+
+He asked two or three more questions and then, dressed as he was, threw
+himself on his bed:
+
+"If the least thing happens, let me be awakened. . . . If not, I shall
+sleep through the night. . . . Go to your posts, all of you."
+
+The others left the room.
+
+An hour passed, two hours.
+
+Suddenly, M. Lenormand felt some one touch him and Gourel said to him:
+
+"Get up, chief; they have opened the gate."
+
+"One man or two?"
+
+"I only saw one . . . the moon appeared just then . . . he crouched down
+against a hedge."
+
+"And the brothers Doudeville?"
+
+"I sent them out by the back. They will cut off his retreat when the
+time comes."
+
+Gourel took M. Lenormand's hand, led him downstairs and then into a
+little dark room:
+
+"Don't stir, chief; we are in Pierre Leduc's dressing-room. I am opening
+the door of the recess in which his bed stands. . . . Don't be afraid
+. . . he has taken his veronal as he does every evening . . . nothing
+can wake him. Come this way. . . . It's a good hiding-place, isn't it?
+. . . These are the curtains of his bed. . . . From here you can see the
+window and the whole side of the room between the window and the bed."
+
+The casement stood open and admitted a vague light, which became very
+precise at times, when the moon burst through her veil of clouds. The
+two men did not take their eyes from the empty window-frame, feeling
+certain that the event which they were awaiting would come from that
+side.
+
+A slight, creaking noise . . .
+
+"He is climbing the trellis," whispered Gourel.
+
+"Is it high?"
+
+"Six feet or so."
+
+The creaking became more distinct.
+
+"Go, Gourel," muttered M. Lenormand, "find the Doudevilles, bring them
+back to the foot of the wall and bar the road to any one who tries to
+get down this way."
+
+Gourel went. At the same moment, a head appeared at the level of the
+window. Then a leg was flung over the balcony. M. Lenormand
+distinguished a slenderly-built man, below the middle height, dressed in
+dark colours and without a hat.
+
+The man turned and, leaning over the balcony, looked for a few seconds
+into space, as though to make sure that no danger threatened him. Then
+he stooped down and lay at full length on the floor. He appeared
+motionless. But soon M. Lenormand realized that the still blacker shadow
+which he formed against the surrounding darkness was coming forward,
+nearer.
+
+It reached the bed.
+
+M. Lenormand had an impression that he could hear the man's breathing
+and, at the same time, that he could just see his eyes, keen, glittering
+eyes, which pierced the darkness like shafts of fire and which
+themselves could see through that same darkness.
+
+Pierre Leduc gave a deep sigh and turned over.
+
+A fresh silence. . . .
+
+The man had glided along the bed with imperceptible movements and his
+dark outline now stood out against the whiteness of the sheets that hung
+down to the floor.
+
+M. Lenormand could have touched him by putting out his arm. This time,
+he clearly distinguished the breathing, which alternated with that of
+the sleeper, and he had the illusion that he also heard the sound of a
+heart beating.
+
+Suddenly, a flash of light. . . . The man had pressed the spring of an
+electric lantern; and Pierre Leduc was lit full in the face, but the man
+remained in the shade, so that M. Lenormand was unable to see his
+features.
+
+All that he saw was something that shone in the bright space; and he
+shuddered. It was the blade of a knife; and that thin, tapering knife,
+more like a stiletto than a dagger, seemed to him identical with the
+weapon which he had picked up by the body of Chapman, Mr. Kesselbach's
+secretary.
+
+He put forth all his will-power to restrain himself from springing upon
+the man. He wanted first to know what the man had come to do.
+
+The hand was raised. Was he going to strike? M. Lenormand calculated the
+distance in order to stop the blow. . . . But no, it was not a murderous
+gesture, but one of caution. The hand would only fall if Pierre Leduc
+stirred or tried to call out. And the man bent over the sleeper, as
+though he were examining something.
+
+"The right cheek," thought M. Lenormand, "the scar on the right cheek.
+. . . He wants to make sure that it is really Pierre Leduc."
+
+The man had turned a little to one side, so that only his shoulders were
+visible. But his clothes, his overcoat, were so near that they brushed
+against the curtains behind which M. Lenormand was hiding.
+
+"One movement on his part," thought the chief detective, "a thrill of
+alarm; and I shall collar him."
+
+But the man, entirely absorbed in his examination, did not stir. At
+last, after shifting the dagger to the hand that held the lantern, he
+raised the sheet, at first hardly at all, then a little more, then more
+still, until the sleeper's left arm was uncovered and the hand laid
+bare. The flash of the lantern shone upon the hand. The fingers lay
+outspread. The little finger was cut on the second joint.
+
+Again Pierre Leduc made a movement. The light was immediately put out;
+and, for an instant, the man remained beside the bed, motionless,
+standing straight up. Would he make up his mind to strike? M. Lenormand
+underwent the agony of the crime which he could so easily prevent, but
+which he did not want to forestall before the very last second.
+
+A long, a very long silence. Suddenly, he saw or rather fancied that he
+saw an arm uplifted. Instinctively he moved, stretching his hand above
+the sleeper. In making this gesture, he hit against the man.
+
+A dull cry. The fellow struck out at space, defended himself at random
+and fled toward the window. But M. Lenormand had leapt upon him and had
+his two arms around the man's shoulders.
+
+He at once felt him yielding and, as the weaker of the two, powerless in
+Lenormand's hands, trying to avoid the struggle and to slip from between
+his arms. Lenormand, exerting all his strength, held him flat against
+his chest, bent him in two and stretched him on his back on the floor.
+
+"Ah, I've got him, I've got him!" he muttered triumphantly.
+
+And he felt a singular elation at imprisoning that terrifying criminal,
+that unspeakable monster, in his irresistible grip. He felt him living
+and quivering, enraged and desperate, their two lives mingled, their
+breaths blended:
+
+"Who are you?" he asked. "Who are you? . . . You'll have to speak.
+. . ."
+
+And he clasped the enemy's body with still greater force, for he had an
+impression that that body was diminishing between his arms, that it was
+vanishing. He gripped harder . . . and harder. . . .
+
+And suddenly he shuddered from head to foot. He had felt, he still felt
+a tiny prick in the throat. . . . In his exasperation, he gripped harder
+yet: the pain increased! And he observed that the man had succeeded in
+twisting one arm round, slipping his hand to his chest and holding the
+dagger on end. The arm, it was true, was incapable of motion; but the
+closer M. Lenormand tightened his grip, the deeper did the point of the
+dagger enter the proffered flesh.
+
+He flung back his head a little to escape the point: the point followed
+the movement and the wound widened.
+
+Then he moved no more, remembering the three crimes and all the
+alarming, atrocious and prophetic things represented by that same little
+steel needle which was piercing his skin and which, in its turn, was
+implacably penetrating. . . .
+
+Suddenly, he let go and gave a leap backwards. Then, at once, he tried
+to resume the offensive. It was too late. The man flung his legs across
+the window-sill and jumped.
+
+"Look out, Gourel!" he cried, knowing that Gourel was there, ready to
+catch the fugitive.
+
+He leant out. A crunching of pebbles . . . a shadow between two trees,
+the slam of the gate. . . . And no other sound . . . no interference.
+. . .
+
+Without giving a thought to Pierre Leduc, he called:
+
+"Gourel! . . . Doudeville!"
+
+No answer. The great silence of the countryside at night. . . .
+
+In spite of himself, he continued to think of the treble murder, the
+steel dagger. But no, it was impossible, the man had not had time, had
+not even had the need to strike, as he had found the road clear.
+
+M. Lenormand jumped out in his turn and, switching on his lantern,
+recognized Gourel lying on the ground:
+
+"Damn it!" he swore. "If they've killed him, they'll have to pay dearly
+for it."
+
+But Gourel was not dead, only stunned; and, a few minutes later, he came
+to himself and growled:
+
+"Only a blow of the fist, chief . . . just a blow of the fist which
+caught me full in the chest. But what a fellow!"
+
+"There were two of them then?"
+
+"Yes, a little one, who went up, and another, who took me unawares while
+I was watching."
+
+"And the Doudevilles?"
+
+"Haven't seen them."
+
+One of them, Jacques, was found near the gate, bleeding from a punch in
+the jaw; the other a little farther, gasping for breath from a blow full
+on the chest.
+
+"What is it? What happened?" asked M. Lenormand.
+
+Jacques said that his brother and he had knocked up against an
+individual who had crippled them before they had time to defend
+themselves.
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"No; when he passed near us, he had a pal with him, shorter than
+himself."
+
+"Did you recognize the man who struck you?"
+
+"Judging by the breadth of his shoulders, I thought he might be the
+Englishman of the Palace Hotel, the one who left the hotel and whose
+traces we lost."
+
+"The major?"
+
+"Yes, Major Parbury."
+
+After a moment's reflection, M. Lenormand said:
+
+"There is no doubt possible. There were two of them in the Kesselbach
+case: the man with the dagger, who committed the murders, and his
+accomplice, the major."
+
+"That is what Prince Sernine thinks," muttered Jacques Doudeville.
+
+"And to-night," continued the chief detective, "it is they again: the
+same two." And he added, "So much the better. The chance of catching two
+criminals is a hundred times greater than the chance of catching one."
+
+M. Lenormand attended to his men, had them put to bed and looked to see
+if the assailants had dropped anything or left any traces. He found
+nothing and went back to bed again himself.
+
+In the morning, as Gourel and the Doudevilles felt none the worse for
+their injuries, he told the two brothers to scour the neighborhood and
+himself set out with Gourel for Paris, in order to hurry matters on and
+give his orders.
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+He lunched in his office. At two o'clock, he heard good news. One of his
+best detectives, Dieuzy, had picked up Steinweg, Rudolf Kesselbach's
+correspondent, as the German was stepping out of a train from
+Marseilles.
+
+"Is Dieuzy there?"
+
+"Yes, chief," said Gourel. "He's here with the German."
+
+"Have them brought in to me."
+
+At that moment, the telephone-bell rang. It was Jean Doudeville,
+speaking from the post-office at Garches. The conversation did not take
+long:
+
+"Is that you, Jean? Any news?"
+
+"Yes, chief, Major Parbury. . . ."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We have found him. He has become a Spaniard and has darkened his skin.
+We have just seen him. He was entering the Garches free-school. He was
+received by that young lady . . . you know, the girl who knows Prince
+Sernine, Geneviève Ernemont."
+
+"Thunder!"
+
+M. Lenormand let go the receiver, made a grab at his hat, flew into the
+passage, met Dieuzy and the German, shouted to them to meet him in his
+office at six o'clock, rushed down the stairs, followed by Gourel and
+two inspectors whom he picked up on the way, and dived into a taxi-cab:
+
+"Quick as you can to Garches . . . ten francs for yourself!"
+
+He stopped the car a little before the Parc de Villeneuve, at the turn
+of the lane that led to the school. Jean Doudeville was waiting for him
+and at once exclaimed:
+
+"He slipped away, ten minutes ago, by the other end of the lane."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"No, with the girl."
+
+M. Lenormand took Doudeville by the collar:
+
+"Wretch! You let him go! But you ought to have . . . you ought to have
+. . ."
+
+"My brother is on his track."
+
+"A lot of good that will do us! He'll stick your brother. You're no
+match for him, either of you!"
+
+He himself took the steering-wheel of the taxi, and resolutely drove
+into the lane, regardless of the cart-ruts and of the bushes on each
+side. They soon emerged on a parish-road, which took them to a crossway
+where five roads met. M. Lenormand, without hesitation chose the one on
+the left, the Saint-Cucufa Road. As a matter of fact, at the top of the
+slope that runs down to the lake, they met the other Doudeville brother,
+who shouted:
+
+"They are in a carriage . . . half a mile away."
+
+The chief did not stop. He sent the car flying down the incline, rushed
+along the bends, drove round the lake and suddenly uttered an
+exclamation of triumph. Right at the top of a little hill that stood in
+front of them, he had seen the hood of a carriage.
+
+Unfortunately, he had taken the wrong road and had to back the machine.
+When he reached the place where the roads branched, the carriage was
+still there, stationary. And, suddenly, while he was turning, he saw a
+girl spring from the carriage. A man appeared on the step. The girl
+stretched out her arm. Two reports rang out.
+
+She had taken bad aim, without a doubt, for a head looked round the
+other side of the hood and the man, catching sight of the motor-cab,
+gave his horse a great lash with the whip and it started off at a
+gallop. The next moment, a turn of the road hid the carriage from sight.
+
+M. Lenormand finished his tacking in a few seconds, darted straight up
+the incline, passed the girl without stopping and turned round boldly.
+He found himself on a steep, pebbly forest road, which ran down between
+dense woods and which could only be followed very slowly and with the
+greatest caution. But what did he care! Twenty yards in front of him,
+the carriage, a sort of two-wheeled cabriolet, was dancing over the
+stones, drawn, or rather held back, by a horse which knew enough only to
+go very carefully, feeling its way and taking no risks. There was
+nothing to fear; escape was impossible.
+
+And the two conveyances went shaking and jolting down-hill. At one
+moment, they were so close together that M. Lenormand thought of
+alighting and running with his men. But he felt the danger of putting on
+the brake on so steep a slope; and he went on, pressing the enemy
+closely, like a prey which one keeps within sight, within touch. . . .
+
+"We've got him, chief, we've got him!" muttered the inspectors, excited
+by the unexpected nature of the chase.
+
+At the bottom, the way flattened out into a road that ran towards the
+Seine, towards Bougival. The horse, on reaching level ground, set off at
+a jog-trot, without hurrying itself and keeping to the middle of the
+road.
+
+A violent effort shook the taxi. It appeared, instead of rolling, to
+proceed by bounds, like a darting fawn, and, slipping by the roadside
+slope, ready to smash any obstacle, it caught up the carriage, came
+level with it, passed it. . . .
+
+An oath from M. Lenormand . . . shouts of fury. . . . The carriage was
+empty!
+
+The carriage was empty. The horse was going along peacefully, with the
+reins on its back, no doubt returning to the stable of some inn in the
+neighborhood, where it had been hired for the day. . . .
+
+Suppressing his inward rage, the chief detective merely said:
+
+"The major must have jumped out during the few seconds when we lost
+sight of the carriage, at the top of the descent."
+
+"We have only to beat the woods, chief, and we are sure . . ."
+
+"To return empty-handed. The beggar is far away by this time. He's not
+one of those who are caught twice in one day. Oh, hang it all, hang it
+all!"
+
+They went back to the young girl, whom they found in the company of
+Jacques Doudeville and apparently none the worse for her adventure. M.
+Lenormand introduced himself, offered to take her back home and at once
+questioned her about the English major, Parbury.
+
+She expressed astonishment:
+
+"He is neither English nor a major; and his name is not Parbury."
+
+"Then what is his name?"
+
+"Juan Ribeira. He is a Spaniard sent by his government to study the
+working of the French schools."
+
+"As you please. His name and his nationality are of no importance. He is
+the man we are looking for. Have you known him long?"
+
+"A fortnight or so. He had heard about a school which I have founded at
+Garches and he interested himself in my experiment to the extent of
+proposing to make me an annual grant, on the one condition that he might
+come from time to time to observe the progress of my pupils. I had not
+the right to refuse. . . ."
+
+"No, of course not; but you should have consulted your acquaintances. Is
+not Prince Sernine a friend of yours? He is a man of good counsel."
+
+"Oh, I have the greatest confidence in him; but he is abroad at
+present."
+
+"Did you not know his address?"
+
+"No. And, besides, what could I have said to him? That gentleman behaved
+very well. It was not until to-day . . . But I don't know if . . ."
+
+"I beg you, mademoiselle, speak frankly. You can have confidence in me
+also."
+
+"Well, M. Ribeira came just now. He told me that he had been sent by a
+French lady who was paying a short visit to Bougival, that this lady
+had a little girl whose education she would like to entrust to me and
+that she wished me to come and see her without delay. The thing seemed
+quite natural. And, as this is a holiday and as M. Ribeira had hired a
+carriage which was waiting for him at the end of the road, I made no
+difficulty about accepting a seat in it."
+
+"But what was his object, after all?"
+
+She blushed and said:
+
+"To carry me off, quite simply. He confessed it to me after half an
+hour. . . ."
+
+"Do you know nothing about him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Does he live in Paris?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Has he ever written to you? Do you happen to have a few lines in his
+handwriting, anything which he left behind, that may serve us as a
+clue?"
+
+"No clue at all. . . . Oh, wait a minute . . . but I don't think that
+has any importance. . . ."
+
+"Speak, speak . . . please. . . ."
+
+"Well, two days ago, the gentleman asked permission to use my
+typewriting machine; and he typed out--with difficulty, for he evidently
+had no practice--a letter of which I saw the address by accident."
+
+"What was the address?"
+
+"He was writing to the _Journal_ and he put about twenty stamps into the
+envelope."
+
+"Yes . . . the agony-column, no doubt," said M. Lenormand.
+
+"I have to-day's number with me, chief," said Gourel.
+
+M. Lenormand unfolded the sheet and looked at the eighth page.
+Presently, he gave a start. He had read the following sentence, printed
+with the usual abbreviation:[4]
+
+      "To any person knowing Mr. Steinweg. Advertiser wishes
+      to know if he is in Paris and his address. Reply
+      through this column."
+
+[Footnote 4: Personal advertisements in the French newspapers are
+charged by the line, not by the word; and consequently nearly every word
+is clipped down to two, three or four letters.--_Translator's Note._]
+
+"Steinweg!" exclaimed Gourel. "But that's the very man whom Dieuzy is
+bringing to you!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said M. Lenormand, to himself, "it's the man whose letter to
+Mr. Kesselbach I intercepted, the man who put Kesselbach on the track of
+Pierre Leduc. . . . So they, too, want particulars about Pierre Leduc
+and his past? . . . They, too, are groping in the dark? . . ."
+
+He rubbed his hands: Steinweg was at his disposal. In less than an hour,
+Steinweg would have spoken. In less than an hour, the murky veil which
+oppressed him and which made the Kesselbach case the most agonizing and
+the most impenetrable that he had ever had in hand: that veil would be
+torn asunder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+M. LENORMAND SUCCUMBS
+
+
+M. Lenormand was back in his room at the Prefecture of Police at six
+o'clock in the evening. He at once sent for Dieuzy:
+
+"Is your man here?"
+
+"Yes, chief."
+
+"How far have you got with him?"
+
+"Not very. He won't speak a word. I told him that, by a new regulation,
+foreigners were 'bliged to make a declaration at the Prefecture as to
+the object and the probable length of their stay in Paris; and I brought
+him here, to your secretary's office."
+
+"I will question him."
+
+But, at that moment, an office-messenger appeared:
+
+"There's a lady asking to see you at once, chief."
+
+"Have you her card?"
+
+"Here, chief."
+
+"Mrs. Kesselbach! Show her in."
+
+He walked across the room to receive the young widow at the door and
+begged her to take a seat. She still wore the same disconsolate look,
+the same appearance of illness and that air of extreme lassitude which
+revealed the distress of her life.
+
+She held out a copy of the _Journal_ and pointed to the line in the
+agony-column which mentioned Steinweg:
+
+"Old Steinweg was a friend of my husband's," she said, "and I have no
+doubt that he knows a good many things."
+
+"Dieuzy," said M. Lenormand, "bring the person who is waiting. . . .
+Your visit, madame, will not have been useless. I will only ask you,
+when this person enters, not to say a word."
+
+The door opened. A man appeared, an old man with white whiskers meeting
+under his chin and a face furrowed with deep wrinkles, poorly clad and
+wearing the hunted look of those wretches who roam about the world in
+search of their daily pittance.
+
+He stood on the threshold, blinking his eyelids, stared at M. Lenormand,
+seemed confused by the silence that greeted him on his entrance and
+turned his hat in his hands with embarrassment.
+
+But, suddenly, he appeared stupefied, his eyes opened wide and he
+stammered:
+
+"Mrs. . . . Mrs. Kesselbach!"
+
+He had seen the young widow. And, recovering his serenity, smiling,
+losing his shyness, he went up to her and in a strong German accent:
+
+"Oh, I am glad! . . . At last! . . . I thought I should never . . . I
+was so surprised to receive no news down there . . . no telegrams. . . .
+And how is our dear Rudolf Kesselbach?"
+
+The lady staggered back, as though she had been struck in the face, and
+at once fell into a chair and began to sob.
+
+"What's the matter? . . . Why, what's the matter?" asked Steinweg.
+
+M. Lenormand interposed:
+
+"I see, sir, that you know nothing about certain events that have taken
+place recently. Have you been long travelling?"
+
+"Yes, three months. . . . I had been up to the Rand. Then I went back to
+Capetown and wrote to Rudolf from there. But, on my way home by the East
+Coast route, I accepted some work at Port Said. Rudolf has had my
+letter, I suppose?"
+
+"He is away. I will explain the reason of his absence. But, first, there
+is a point on which we should be glad of some information. It has to do
+with a person whom you knew and to whom you used to refer, in your
+intercourse with Mr. Kesselbach, by the name of Pierre Leduc."
+
+"Pierre Leduc! What! Who told you?"
+
+The old man was utterly taken aback.
+
+He spluttered out again:
+
+"Who told you? Who disclosed to you . . . ?"
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach."
+
+"Never! It was a secret which I confided to him and Rudolf keeps his
+secrets . . . especially this one . . ."
+
+"Nevertheless, it is absolutely necessary that you should reply to our
+questions. We are at this moment engaged on an inquiry about Pierre
+Leduc which must come to a head without delay; and you alone can
+enlighten us, as Mr. Kesselbach is no longer here."
+
+"Well, then," cried Steinweg, apparently making up his mind, "what do
+you want?"
+
+"Do you know Pierre Leduc?"
+
+"I have never seen him, but I have long been the possessor of a secret
+which concerns him. Through a number of incidents which I need not
+relate and thanks to a series of chances, I ended by acquiring the
+certainty that the man in whose discovery I was interested was leading a
+dissolute life in Paris and that he was calling himself Pierre Leduc,
+which is not his real name."
+
+"But does he know his real name himself?"
+
+"I presume so."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Yes, I know it."
+
+"Well, tell it to us."
+
+He hesitated; then, vehemently:
+
+"I can't," he said. "No, I can't."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"I have no right to. The whole secret lies there. When I revealed the
+secret to Rudolf, he attached so much importance to it that he gave me a
+large sum of money to purchase my silence and he promised me a fortune,
+a real fortune, on the day when he should succeed, first, in finding
+Pierre Leduc and, next, in turning the secret to account." He smiled
+bitterly. "The large sum of money is already lost. I came to see how my
+fortune was getting on."
+
+"Mr. Kesselbach is dead," said the chief detective.
+
+Steinweg gave a bound:
+
+"Dead! Is it possible? No, it's a trap. Mrs. Kesselbach, is it true?"
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+He seemed crushed by this unexpected revelation; and, at the same time,
+it must have been infinitely painful to him, for he began to cry:
+
+"My poor Rudolf, I knew him when he was a little boy. . . . He used to
+come and play at my house at Augsburg. . . . I was very fond of him."
+And, calling Mrs. Kesselbach to witness, "And he of me, was he not, Mrs.
+Kesselbach? He must have told you. . . . His old Daddy Steinweg, he used
+to call me."
+
+M. Lenormand went up to him and, in his clearest voice:
+
+"Listen to me," he said. "Mr. Kesselbach died murdered. . . . Come, be
+calm . . . exclamations are of no use. . . . He died murdered, I say,
+and all the circumstances of the crime prove that the culprit knew about
+the scheme in question. Was there anything in the nature of that scheme
+that would enable you to guess . . . ?"
+
+Steinweg stood dumfounded. He stammered:
+
+"It was my fault. . . . If I had not suggested the thing to him . . ."
+
+Mrs. Kesselbach went up to him, entreating him:
+
+"Do you think . . . have you any idea? . . . Oh, Steinweg, I implore
+you! . . ."
+
+"I have no idea. . . . I have not reflected," he muttered. "I must have
+time to reflect. . . ."
+
+"Cast about in Mr. Kesselbach's surroundings," said M. Lenormand. "Did
+nobody take part in your interviews at that time? Was there nobody in
+whom he himself could have confided?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Think well."
+
+Both the others, Dolores and M. Lenormand, leant toward him, anxiously
+awaiting his answer.
+
+"No," he said, "I don't see. . . ."
+
+"Think well," repeated the chief detective. "The murderer's Christian
+name and surname begin with an L and an M."
+
+"An L," he echoed. "I don't see . . . an L . . . an M. . . ."
+
+"Yes, the initials are in gold on the corner of a cigarette-case
+belonging to the murderer."
+
+"A cigarette-case?" asked Steinweg, making an effort of memory.
+
+"A gun-metal case . . . and one of the compartments is divided into two
+spaces, the smaller for cigarette-papers, the other for tobacco. . . ."
+
+"Two spaces, two spaces," repeated Steinweg, whose thoughts seemed
+stimulated by that detail. "Couldn't you show it to me?"
+
+"Here it is, or rather this is an exact reproduction," said M.
+Lenormand, giving him a cigarette-case.
+
+"Eh! What!" said Steinweg, taking the case in his hands.
+
+He looked at it with stupid eyes, examined it, turned it over in every
+direction and, suddenly, gave a cry, the cry of a man struck with a
+horrible idea. And he stood like that, livid, with trembling hands and
+wild, staring eyes.
+
+"Speak, come, speak!" said M. Lenormand.
+
+"Oh," he said, as though blinded with light, "now all is explained!
+. . ."
+
+"Speak, speak!"
+
+He walked across to the windows with a tottering step, then returned
+and, rushing up to the chief detective:
+
+"Sir, sir . . . Rudolf's murderer . . . I'll tell you. . . . Well . . ."
+
+He stopped short.
+
+"Well?"
+
+There was a moment's pause. . . . Was the name of the odious criminal
+about to echo through the great silence of the office, between those
+walls which had heard so many accusations, so many confessions? M.
+Lenormand felt as if he were on the brink of the unfathomable abyss and
+as if a voice were mounting, mounting up to him. . . . A few seconds
+more and he would know. . . .
+
+"No," muttered Steinweg, "no, I can't. . . ."
+
+"What's that you say?" cried the chief detective, furiously.
+
+"I say that I can't."
+
+"But you have no right to be silent. The law requires you to speak."
+
+"To-morrow. . . . I will speak to-morrow . . . I must have time to
+reflect. . . . To-morrow, I will tell you all that I know about Pierre
+Leduc . . . all that I suppose about that cigarette-case. . . .
+To-morrow, I promise you. . . ."
+
+It was obvious that he possessed that sort of obstinacy against which
+the most energetic efforts are of no avail. M. Lenormand yielded:
+
+"Very well. I give you until to-morrow, but I warn you that, if you do
+not speak to-morrow, I shall be obliged to go to the
+examining-magistrate."
+
+He rang and, taking Inspector Dieuzy aside, said:
+
+"Go with him to his hotel . . . and stay there. . . . I'll send you two
+men. . . . And mind you keep your eyes about you. Somebody may try to
+get hold of him."
+
+The inspector went off with Steinweg; and M. Lenormand, returning to
+Mrs. Kesselbach, who had been violently affected by this scene, made his
+excuses.
+
+"Pray accept all my regrets, madame. . . . I can understand how upset
+you must feel. . . ."
+
+He questioned her as to the period at which Mr. Kesselbach renewed his
+relations with old Steinweg and as to the length of time for which those
+relations lasted. But she was so much worn-out that he did not insist.
+
+"Am I to come back to-morrow?" she asked.
+
+"No, it's not necessary. I will let you know all that Steinweg says. May
+I see you down to your carriage? These three flights are rather steep.
+. . ."
+
+He opened the door and stood back to let her pass. At that moment shouts
+were heard in the passage and people came running up, inspectors on
+duty, office-messengers, clerks:
+
+"Chief! Chief!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Dieuzy! . . ."
+
+"But he's just left here. . . ."
+
+"He's been found on the staircase. . . ."
+
+"Not dead? . . ."
+
+"No, stunned, fainting. . . ."
+
+"But the man . . . the man who was with him . . . old Steinweg?"
+
+"He's disappeared. . . ."
+
+"Damn it!"
+
+He rushed along the passage and down the stairs, where he found Dieuzy
+lying on the first-floor landing, surrounded by people who were
+attending to him.
+
+He saw Gourel coming up again:
+
+"Oh, Gourel, have you been downstairs? Did you come across anybody?"
+
+"No, chief. . . ."
+
+But Dieuzy was recovering consciousness and, almost before he had opened
+his eyes, mumbled:
+
+"Here, on the landing, the little door. . . ."
+
+"Oh, hang it, the door of Court 7!"[5] shouted the chief detective.
+"Didn't I say that it was to be kept locked? . . . It was certain that,
+sooner or later . . ." He seized the door-handle. "Oh, of course! The
+door is bolted on the other side now!"
+
+[Footnote 5: Since M. Lenormand left the detective service, two other
+criminals have escaped by the same door, after shaking off the officers
+in charge of them; the police kept both cases dark. Nevertheless, it
+would be very easy, if this communication is absolutely required, to
+remove the useless bolt on the other side of the door, which enables the
+fugitive to cut off all pursuit and to walk away quietly through the
+passage leading to Civil Court 7 and through the corridor of the Chief
+President's Court.]
+
+The door was partly glazed. He smashed a pane with the butt-end of his
+revolver, drew the bolt and said to Gourel:
+
+"Run through this way to the exit on the Place Dauphine. . . ."
+
+He went back to Dieuzy:
+
+"Come, Dieuzy, tell me about it. How did you come to let yourself be put
+into this state?"
+
+"A blow in the pit of the stomach, chief. . . ."
+
+"A blow? From that old chap? . . . Why, he can hardly stand on his legs!
+. . ."
+
+"Not the old man, chief, but another, who was walking up and down the
+passage while Steinweg was with you and who followed us as though he
+were going out, too. . . . When we got as far as this, he asked me for a
+light. . . . I looked for my matches . . . Then he caught me a punch in
+the stomach. . . . I fell down, and, as I fell, I thought I saw him open
+that door and drag the old man with him. . . ."
+
+"Would you know him again?"
+
+"Oh yes, chief . . . a powerful fellow, very dark-skinned . . . a
+southerner of sorts, that's certain. . . ."
+
+"Ribeira," snarled M. Lenormand. "Always Ribeira! . . . Ribeira, _alias_
+Parbury. . . . Oh, the impudence of the scoundrel! He was afraid of what
+old Steinweg might say . . . and came to fetch him away under my very
+nose!" And, stamping his foot with anger, "But, dash it, how did he know
+that Steinweg was here, the blackguard! It's only four hours since I was
+chasing him in the Saint-Cucufa woods . . . and now he's here! . . . How
+did he know? . . . One would think he lived inside my skin! . . ."
+
+He was seized with one of those fits of dreaming in which he seemed to
+hear nothing and see nothing. Mrs. Kesselbach, who passed at that
+moment, bowed without his replying.
+
+But a sound of footsteps in the corridor roused him from his lethargy.
+
+"At last, is that you, Gourel?"
+
+"I've found out how it was, chief," said Gourel, panting for breath.
+"There were two of them. They went this way and out of the Place
+Dauphine. There was a motor-car waiting for them. There were two people
+inside: one was a man dressed in black, with a soft hat pulled over his
+eyes . . ."
+
+"That's he," muttered M. Lenormand, "that's the murderer, the accomplice
+of Ribeira,--Parbury. And who was the other?"
+
+"A woman, a woman without a hat, a servant-girl, it might be. . . . And
+good-looking, I'm told, with red hair."
+
+"Eh, what! You say she had red hair?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+M. Lenormand turned round with a bound, ran down the stairs four steps
+at a time, hurried across the courtyard and came out on the Quai des
+Orfèvres:
+
+"Stop!" he shouted.
+
+A victoria and pair was driving off. It was Mrs. Kesselbach's carriage.
+The coachman heard and pulled up his horses. M. Lenormand sprang on the
+step:
+
+"I beg a thousand pardons, madame, but I cannot do without your
+assistance. I will ask you to let me go with you. . . . But we must act
+swiftly. . . . Gourel, where's my taxi?"
+
+"I've sent it away, chief."
+
+"Well then, get another, quick!" . . .
+
+The men all ran in different directions. But ten minutes elapsed before
+one of them returned with a motor-cab. M. Lenormand was boiling with
+impatience. Mrs. Kesselbach, standing on the pavement, swayed from side
+to side, with her smelling-salts in her hand.
+
+At last they were seated.
+
+"Gourel, get up beside the driver and go straight to Garches."
+
+"To my house?" asked Dolores, astounded.
+
+He did not reply. He leant out of the window, waved his pass, explained
+who he was to the policeman regulating the traffic in the streets. At
+last, when they reached the Cours-la-Reine, he sat down again and said:
+
+"I beseech you, madame, to give me plain answers to my questions. Did
+you see Mlle. Geneviève Ernemont just now, at about four o'clock?"
+
+"Geneviève? . . . Yes. . . . I was dressing to go out."
+
+"Did she tell you of the advertisement about Steinweg in the _Journal_?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"And it was that which made you come to see me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Were you alone during Mlle. Ernemont's visit?"
+
+"Upon my word, I can't say. . . . Why?"
+
+"Recollect. Was one of your servants present?"
+
+"Probably . . . as I was dressing. . . ."
+
+"What are their names?"
+
+"Suzanne and Gertrude."
+
+"One of them has red hair, has she not?"
+
+"Yes, Gertrude."
+
+"Have you known her long?"
+
+"Her sister has always been with me . . . and so has Gertrude, for
+years. . . . She is devotion and honesty personified. . . ."
+
+"In short, you will answer for her?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely!"
+
+"Very well . . . very well."
+
+It was half-past seven and the daylight was beginning to wane when the
+taxi-cab reached the House of Retreat. Without troubling about his
+companion, the chief detective rushed into the porter's lodge:
+
+"Mrs. Kesselbach's maid has just come in, has she not?"
+
+"Whom do you mean, the maid?"
+
+"Why, Gertrude, one of the two sisters."
+
+"But Gertrude can't have been out, sir. We haven't seen her go out."
+
+"Still some one has just come in."
+
+"No, sir, we haven't opened the door to anybody since--let me see--six
+o'clock this evening."
+
+"Is there no other way out than this gate?"
+
+"No. The walls surround the estate on every side and they are very high.
+. . ."
+
+"Mrs. Kesselbach, we will go to your house, please."
+
+They all three went. Mrs. Kesselbach, who had no key, rang. The door was
+answered by Suzanne, the other sister.
+
+"Is Gertrude in?" asked Mrs. Kesselbach.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, in her room."
+
+"Send her down, please," said the chief detective.
+
+After a moment, Gertrude came downstairs, looking very attractive and
+engaging in her white embroidered apron.
+
+She had, in point of fact, a rather pretty face, crowned with red hair.
+
+M. Lenormand looked at her for a long time without speaking, as though
+he were trying to read what lay behind those innocent eyes.
+
+He asked her no questions. After a minute, he simply said:
+
+"That will do, thank you. Come, Gourel."
+
+He went out with the sergeant and, at once, as they followed the
+darkling paths of the garden, said:
+
+"That's the one!"
+
+"Do you think so, chief? She looked so placid!"
+
+"Much too placid. Another would have been astonished, would have wanted
+to know why I sent for her. Not this one! Nothing but the concentrated
+effort of a face that is determined to smile at all costs. Only, I saw a
+drop of perspiration trickle from her temple along her ear."
+
+"So that . . . ?
+
+"So that everything becomes plain. Gertrude is in league with the two
+ruffians who are conspiring round the Kesselbach case, in order either
+to discover and carry out the famous scheme, or to capture the widow's
+millions. No doubt, the other sister is in the plot as well. At four
+o'clock, Gertrude, learning that I know of the advertisement in the
+_Journal_, takes advantage of her mistress's absence, hastens to Paris,
+finds Ribeira and the man in the soft hat and drags them off to the
+Palais, where Ribeira annexes Master Steinweg for his own purposes."
+
+He reflected and concluded:
+
+"All this proves, first, the importance which they attach to Steinweg
+and their fear of what he may reveal; secondly, that a regular plot is
+being hatched around Mrs. Kesselbach; thirdly, that I have no time to
+lose, for the plot is ripe."
+
+"Very well," said Gourel, "but one thing remains unexplained. How was
+Gertrude able to leave the garden in which we now are and to enter it
+again, unknown to the porter and his wife?"
+
+"Through a secret passage which the rogues must have contrived to make
+quite recently."
+
+"And which would end, no doubt," said Gourel, "in Mrs. Kesselbach's
+house."
+
+"Yes, perhaps," said M. Lenormand, "perhaps . . . But I have another
+idea."
+
+They followed the circuit of the wall. It was a bright night; and,
+though their two forms were hardly distinguishable, they themselves
+could see enough to examine the stones of the walls and to convince
+themselves that no breach, however skilful, had been effected.
+
+"A ladder, very likely?" suggested Gourel.
+
+"No, because Gertrude is able to get out in broad daylight. A
+communication of the kind I mean can evidently not end out of doors. The
+entrance must be concealed by some building already in existence."
+
+"There are only the four garden-houses," objected Gourel, "and they are
+all inhabited."
+
+"I beg your pardon: the third, the Pavillon Hortense, is not inhabited."
+
+"Who told you so?"
+
+"The porter. Mrs. Kesselbach hired this house, which is near her own,
+for fear of the noise. Who knows but that, in so doing, she acted under
+Gertrude's influence?"
+
+He walked round the house in question. The shutters were closed. He
+lifted the latch of the door, on the off-chance; the door opened.
+
+"Ah, Gourel, I think we've struck it! Let's go in. Light your lantern.
+. . . Oh, the hall. . . . the drawing-room . . . the dining-room . . .
+that's no use. There must be a basement, as the kitchen is not on this
+floor."
+
+"This way, chief . . . the kitchen-stairs are here."
+
+They went down into a rather large kitchen, crammed full of wicker-work
+garden-chairs and flower-stands. Beside it was a wash-house, which also
+served as a cellar, and which presented the same untidy sight of objects
+piled one on the top of the other.
+
+"What is that shiny thing down there, chief?"
+
+Gourel stooped and picked up a brass pin with a head made of an
+imitation pearl.
+
+"The pearl is quite bright still," said M. Lenormand, "which it would
+not be if it had been lying in this cellar long. Gertrude passed this
+way, Gourel."
+
+Gourel began to demolish a great stack of empty wine-casks, writing
+desks and old rickety tables.
+
+"You are wasting your time," said M. Lenormand. "If that is the way out,
+how would she have time first to move all those things and then to
+replace them behind her? Look, here is a shutter out of use, which has
+no valid reason for being fastened to the wall by that nail. Draw it
+back."
+
+Gourel did so. Behind the shutter, the wall was hollowed out. By the
+light of the lantern they saw an underground passage running downwards.
+
+"I was right," said M. Lenormand.. "The communication is of recent date.
+You see, it's a piece of work hurriedly done, and not intended to last
+for any length of time. . . . No masonry. . . . Two planks placed
+cross-wise at intervals, with a joist to serve as a roof; and that is
+all. It will hold up as best it may: well enough, in any case, for the
+object in view, that is to say . . ."
+
+"That is to say what, chief?"
+
+"Well, first to allow of the going backwards and forwards between
+Gertrude and her accomplices . . . and then, one day, one day soon, of
+the kidnapping, or rather the total, miraculous, incomprehensible
+disappearance of Mrs. Kesselbach."
+
+They proceeded cautiously, so as not to knock against certain beams
+which did not look over-safe. It at once became evident that the tunnel
+was much longer than the fifty yards at most that separated the house
+from the boundary of the garden. It must, therefore, end at a fair
+distance from the walls and beyond the road that skirted the property.
+
+"We are not going in the direction of Villeneuve and the lake are we?"
+asked Gourel.
+
+"Not at all, the other way about," declared M. Lenormand.
+
+The tunnel descended with a gentle slope. There was a step, then
+another; and they veered toward the right. They at once knocked up
+against a door which was fitted into a rubble frame, carefully cemented.
+M. Lenormand pushed it and it opened.
+
+"One second, Gourel," he said, stopping. "Let us think. . . . It might
+perhaps be wiser to turn back."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We must reflect that Ribeira will have foreseen the danger and presume
+that he has taken his precautions, in case the underground passage
+should be discovered. Now he knows that we are on his track. He knows
+that we are searching the garden. He no doubt saw us enter the house.
+How do I know that he is not at this moment laying a trap for us?"
+
+"There are two of us, chief. . . ."
+
+"And suppose there were twenty of them?"
+
+He looked in front of him. The tunnel sloped upward again, closed by
+another door, which was at five or six yards' distance.
+
+"Let us go so far," he said. "Then we shall see."
+
+He passed through, followed by Gourel, whom he told to leave the first
+door open, and walked to the other door, resolving within himself to go
+no farther. But this second door was shut; and though the lock seemed to
+work, he could not succeed in opening it.
+
+"The door is bolted," he said. "Let us make no noise and go back. The
+more so as, outside, by remembering the position of the tunnel, we can
+fix the line along which to look for the other outlet."
+
+They therefore retraced their steps to the first door, when Gourel, who
+was walking ahead, gave an exclamation of surprise:
+
+"Why, it's closed! . . ."
+
+"How is that? When I told you to leave it open!"
+
+"I did leave it open, chief, but the door must have fallen back of its
+own weight."
+
+"Impossible! We should have heard the sound."
+
+"Then? . . ."
+
+"Then . . . then . . . I don't know . . ." He went up to the door.
+"Let's see, . . . there's a key . . . does it turn? . . . Yes, it turns.
+But there seems to be a bolt on the other side."
+
+"Who can have fastened it?"
+
+"They, of course! Behind our backs! . . . Perhaps they have another
+tunnel that runs above this one, alongside of it . . . or else they were
+waiting in that empty house. . . . In any case, we're caught in a trap.
+. . ."
+
+He grew angry with the lock, thrust his knife into the chink of the
+door, tried every means and then, in a moment of weariness, said:
+
+"There's nothing to be done!"
+
+"What, chief, nothing to be done? In that case, we're diddled!"
+
+"I dare say!" said M. Lenormand. . . .
+
+They returned to the other door and came back again to the first. Both
+were solid, made of hard wood, strengthened with cross-beams . . . in
+short, indestructible.
+
+"We should want a hatchet," said the chief of the detective-service, "or
+at the very least, a serious implement . . . a knife even, with which we
+might try to cut away the place where the bolt is most likely to be
+. . . and we have nothing. . . ."
+
+He was seized with a sudden fit of rage and flung himself upon the
+obstacle, as though he hoped to do away with it. Then, powerless,
+beaten, he said to Gourel:
+
+"Listen, we'll look into this in an hour or two. . . . I am tired out.
+. . . I am going to sleep. . . . Keep watch so long . . . and if they
+come and attack us . . ."
+
+"Ah, if they come, we shall be saved, chief!" cried Gourel, who would
+have been relieved by a fight, however great the odds.
+
+M. Lenormand lay down on the ground. In a minute, he was asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he woke up, he remained for some seconds undecided, not
+understanding; and he also asked himself what sort of pain it was that
+was tormenting him:
+
+"Gourel!" he called. "Come! Gourel!"
+
+Obtaining no reply, he pressed the spring of his lantern and saw Gourel
+lying beside him, sound asleep.
+
+"What on earth can this pain be?" he thought. "Regular twitchings. . . .
+Oh, why, of course, I am hungry, that's all. . . . I'm starving! What
+can the time be?"
+
+His watch marked twenty minutes past seven, but he remembered that he
+had not wound it up. Gourel's watch was not going either.
+
+Gourel had awoke under the action of the same inward pangs, which made
+them think that the breakfast-hour must be long past and that they had
+already slept for a part of the day.
+
+"My legs are quite numbed," said Gourel, "and my feet feel as if they
+were on ice. What a funny sensation!" He bent down to rub them and went
+on: "Why, it's not on ice that my feet were, but in water. . . . Look,
+chief . . . there's a regular pool near the first door. . . ."
+
+"Soaked through," M. Lenormand replied. "We'll go back to the second
+door; you can dry yourself . . ."
+
+"But what are you doing, chief?"
+
+"Do you think I am going to allow myself to be buried alive in this
+vault? . . . Not if I know it; I haven't reached the age! . . . As the
+two doors are closed, let us try to pass through the walls."
+
+One by one he loosened the stones that stood out at the height of his
+hand, in the hope of contriving another gallery that would slope upwards
+to the level of the soil. But the work was long and painful, for in
+this part of the tunnel, as he perceived the stones were cemented.
+
+"Chief . . . chief," stammered Gourel, in a stifled voice. . . .
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You are standing with your feet in the water."
+
+"Nonsense! . . . Why, so I am! . . . Well, it can't be helped. . . .
+I'll dry them in the sun. . . ."
+
+"But don't you see?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, it's rising, chief, it's rising! . . ."
+
+"What's rising?"
+
+"The water! . . ."
+
+M. Lenormand felt a shudder pass over his skin. He suddenly understood.
+It was not a casual trickling through, as he had thought, but a
+carefully-prepared flood, mechanically, irresistibly produced by some
+infernal system.
+
+"Oh, the scoundrel!" he snarled. "If ever I lay hands on him . . . !"
+
+"Yes, yes, chief, but we must first get out of this. . . . And, as far
+as I can see . . ."
+
+Gourel seemed completely prostrated, incapable of having an idea, of
+proposing a plan.
+
+M. Lenormand knelt down on the ground and measured the rate at which the
+water was rising. A quarter, or thereabouts, of the first door was
+covered; and the water was half-way toward the second door.
+
+"The progress is slow, but uninterrupted," he said "In a few hours it
+will be over our heads."
+
+"But this is terrible, chief, it's horrible!" moaned Gourel.
+
+"Oh, look here, don't come boring me with your lamentations, do you
+understand? Cry, if it amuses you, but don't let me hear you!"
+
+"It's the hunger that weakens me, chief; my brain's going round."
+
+"Bite your fist!"
+
+As Gourel said, the position was terrible; and, if M. Lenormand had had
+less energy, he would have abandoned the vain struggle. What was to be
+done? It was no use hoping that Ribeira would have the charity to let
+them out. It was no use either hoping that the brothers Doudeville would
+rescue them, for the inspectors did not know of the existence of the
+tunnel. So no hope remained . . . no hope but that of an impossible
+miracle. . . .
+
+"Come, come," said M. Lenormand, "this is too silly. We're not going to
+kick the bucket here! Hang it all, there must be something! . . . Show
+me a light, Gourel."
+
+Flattening himself against the second door, he examined it from top to
+bottom, in every corner. There was an enormous bolt on that side, just
+as there probably was on the other. He unfastened the screws with the
+blade of his knife; and the bolt came off in his hand.
+
+"And what next?" asked Gourel.
+
+"What next?" he echoed. "Well, this bolt is made of iron, pretty long
+and very nearly pointed. Certainly, it's not as good as a pick-axe, but
+it's better than nothing and . . ."
+
+Without finishing his sentence, he drove the implement into the
+side-wall of the tunnel, a little in front of the pillar of masonry that
+supported the hinges of the door. As he expected, once he had passed the
+first layer of cement and stones, he found soft earth:
+
+"To work!" he cried.
+
+"Certainly, chief, but would you explain . . . ?"
+
+"It's quite simple. I want to dig round this pillar a passage, three or
+four yards long, which will join the tunnel on the other side of the
+door and allow us to escape."
+
+"But it will take us hours; and meanwhile, the water is rising."
+
+"Show me a light, Gourel."
+
+"In twenty minutes, or half an hour at most, it will have reached our
+feet."
+
+"Show me a light, Gourel."
+
+M. Lenormand's idea was correct and, with some little exertion, by
+pulling the earth, which he first loosened with his implement, towards
+him and making it fall into the tunnel, he was not long in digging a
+hole large enough to slip into.
+
+"It's my turn, chief!" said Gourel.
+
+"Aha, you're returning to life, I see! Well, fire away! . . . You have
+only to follow the shape of the pillar."
+
+At that moment, the water was up to their ankles. Would they have time
+to complete the work begun?
+
+It became more difficult as they went on, for the earth which they
+disturbed was in their way; and, lying flat on their stomachs in the
+passage, they were obliged at every instant to remove the rubbish that
+obstructed them.
+
+After two hours, the work was perhaps three-quarters through, but the
+water now covered their legs. Another hour and it would reach the
+opening of the hole which they were digging. And that would mean the
+end!
+
+Gourel, who was exhausted by the want of food and who was too stout to
+move with any freedom in that ever-narrower passage, had had to give up.
+He no longer stirred, trembling with anguish at feeling that icy water
+which was gradually swallowing him up.
+
+As for M. Lenormand, he worked on with indefatigable ardor. It was a
+terrible job, this ants' work performed in the stifling darkness. His
+hands were bleeding. He was fainting with hunger. The insufficiency of
+the air hampered his breathing; and, from time to time, Gourel's sighs
+reminded him of the awful danger that threatened him at the bottom of
+his hole.
+
+But nothing could discourage him, for now he again found opposite him
+those cemented stones which formed the side-wall of the gallery. It was
+the most difficult part, but the end was at hand.
+
+"It's rising," cried Gourel, in a choking voice, "it's rising!"
+
+M. Lenormand redoubled his efforts. Suddenly the stem of the bolt which
+he was using leapt out into space. The passage was dug. He had now only
+to widen it, which became much easier once he was able to shoot the
+materials in front of him.
+
+Gourel, mad with terror, was howling like a dying beast. M. Lenormand
+paid no attention to him. Safety was at hand.
+
+Nevertheless, he had a few seconds of anxiety when he perceived, by the
+sound of the materials falling, that this part of the tunnel was also
+under water, which was natural, as the door did not form a sufficiently
+tight-fitting barrier. But what did it matter! The outlet was free. One
+last effort . . . he passed through.
+
+"Come, Gourel," he cried, returning to fetch his companion.
+
+He dragged him, half dead, by the wrists:
+
+"Come along, booby, pull yourself together! We are saved."
+
+"Do you really think so, chief? . . . The water's up to our chests.
+. . ."
+
+"Never mind, as long as it's not over our mouths. . . . Where's your
+lantern?"
+
+"It's not working."
+
+"No matter." He gave an exclamation of delight. "One step . . . two
+steps! . . . A staircase. . . . At last!"
+
+They emerged from the water, that accursed water which had almost
+swallowed them up; and it was a delicious sensation, a release that sent
+up their spirits.
+
+"Stop!" said M. Lenormand.
+
+His head had knocked against something. With arms outstretched, he
+pushed against the obstacle, which yielded at once. It was the flap of a
+trap-door; and, when this trap-door was opened, he found himself in a
+cellar into which the light of a fine night filtered through an
+air-hole.
+
+He threw back the flap and climbed the last treads.
+
+Then a veil fell over his eyes. Arms seized upon him. He felt himself as
+it were wrapped in a sheet, in a sort of sack, and then fastened with
+cords.
+
+"Now for the other one!" said a voice.
+
+The same operation must have been performed on Gourel; and the same
+voice said:
+
+"If they call out, kill them at once. Have you your dagger?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come along. You two, take this one . . . you two, that one. . . . No
+light . . . and no noise either. . . . It would be a serious matter.
+They've been searching the garden next door since this morning . . .
+there are ten or fifteen of them knocking about. . . . Go back to the
+house, Gertrude, and, if the least thing happens, telephone to me in
+Paris."
+
+M. Lenormand felt that he was being lifted up and carried and, a moment
+after, that he was in the open air.
+
+"Bring the cart nearer," said a voice.
+
+M. Lenormand heard the sound of a horse and cart.
+
+He was laid out on some boards. Gourel was hoisted up beside him. The
+horse started at a trot.
+
+The drive lasted about half an hour.
+
+"Halt!" commanded the voice. "Lift them out. Here, driver, turn the cart
+so that the tail touches the parapet of the bridge. . . . Good. . . . No
+boats on the river? Sure? Then let's waste no time. . . . Oh, have you
+fastened some stones to them?"
+
+"Yes, paving-stones."
+
+"Right away, then! Commend your soul to God, M. Lenormand, and pray for
+me, Parbury-Ribeira, better known by the name of Baron Altenheim. Are
+you ready? All right? Well, here's wishing you a pleasant journey, M.
+Lenormand!"
+
+M. Lenormand was placed on the parapet. Someone gave him a push. He felt
+himself falling into space and he still heard the voice chuckling:
+
+"A pleasant journey!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ten seconds later it was Sergeant Gourel's turn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PARBURY-RIBEIRA-ALTENHEIM
+
+
+The girls were playing in the garden, under the supervision of Mlle.
+Charlotte, Geneviève's new assistant. Mme. Ernemont came out,
+distributed some cakes among them and then went back to the room which
+served as a drawing-room and parlor in one, sat down before a
+writing-desk and began to arrange her papers and account-books.
+
+Suddenly, she felt the presence of a stranger in the room. She turned
+round in alarm:
+
+"You!" she cried. "Where have you come from? How did you get in?"
+
+"Hush!" said Prince Sernine. "Listen to me and do not let us waste a
+minute: Geneviève?"
+
+"Calling on Mrs. Kesselbach."
+
+"When will she be here?"
+
+"Not before an hour."
+
+"Then I will let the brothers Doudeville come. I have an appointment
+with them. How is Geneviève?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"How often has she seen Pierre Leduc since I went away, ten days ago?"
+
+"Three times; and she is to meet him to-day at Mrs. Kesselbach's, to
+whom she introduced him, as you said she must. Only, I may as well tell
+you that I don't think much of this Pierre Leduc of yours. Geneviève
+would do better to find some good fellow in her own class of life. For
+instance, there's the schoolmaster."
+
+"You're mad! Geneviève marry a schoolmaster!"
+
+"Oh, if you considered Geneviève's happiness first. . . ."
+
+"Shut up, Victoire. You're boring me with your cackle. I have no time to
+waste on sentiment. I'm playing a game of chess; and I move my men
+without troubling about what they think. When I have won the game, I
+will go into the question whether the knight, Pierre Leduc, and the
+queen, Geneviève, have a heart or not."
+
+She interrupted him:
+
+"Did you hear? A whistle. . . ."
+
+"It's the two Doudevilles. Go and bring them in; and then leave us."
+
+As soon as the two brothers were in the room, he questioned them with
+his usual precision:
+
+"I know what the newspapers have said about the disappearance of
+Lenormand and Gourel. Do you know any more?"
+
+"No. The deputy-chief, M. Weber, has taken the case in hand. We have
+been searching the garden of the House of Retreat for the past week; and
+nobody is able to explain how they can have disappeared. The whole force
+is in a flutter. . . . No one has ever seen the like . . . a chief of
+the detective-service disappearing, without leaving a trace behind him!"
+
+"The two maids?"
+
+"Gertrude has gone. She is being looked for."
+
+"Her sister Suzanne?"
+
+"M. Weber and M. Formerie have questioned her. There is nothing against
+her."
+
+"Is that all you have to tell me?"
+
+"Oh, no, there are other things, all the things which we did not tell
+the papers."
+
+They then described the incidents that had marked M. Lenormand's last
+two days: the night visit of the two ruffians to Pierre Leduc's villa;
+next day, Ribeira's attempt to kidnap Geneviève and the chase through
+the Saint-Cucufa woods; old Steinweg's arrival, his examination at the
+detective-office in Mrs. Kesselbach's presence, his escape from the
+Palais. . . .
+
+"And no one knows these details except yourselves?"
+
+"Dieuzy knows about the Steinweg incident: he told us of it."
+
+"And they still trust you at the Prefecture of Police?"
+
+"So much so that they employ us openly. M. Weber swears by us."
+
+"Come," said the prince, "all is not lost. If M. Lenormand has committed
+an imprudence that has cost him his life, as I suppose he did, at any
+rate he performed some good work first; and we have only to continue it.
+The enemy has the start of us, but we will catch him up."
+
+"It won't be an easy job, governor."
+
+"Why not? It is only a matter of finding old Steinweg again, for the
+answer to the riddle is in his hands."
+
+"Yes, but where has Ribeira got old Steinweg tucked away?"
+
+"At his own place, of course."
+
+"Then we should have to know where Ribeira hangs out."
+
+"Well, of course!"
+
+He dismissed them and went to the House of Retreat. Motor-cars were
+awaiting outside the door and two men were walking up and down, as
+though mounting guard.
+
+In the garden, near Mrs. Kesselbach's house, he saw Geneviève sitting on
+a bench with Pierre Leduc and a thick-set gentleman wearing a single
+eye-glass. The three were talking and none of them saw him. But several
+people came out of the house: M. Formerie, M. Weber, a magistrate's
+clerk, and two inspectors. Geneviève went indoors and the gentleman with
+the eye-glass went up and spoke to the examining-magistrate and the
+deputy-chief of the detective-service and walked away with them slowly.
+
+Sernine came beside the bench where Pierre Leduc was sitting and
+whispered:
+
+"Don't move, Pierre Leduc; it's I."
+
+"You! . . . you! . . ."
+
+It was the third time that the young man saw Sernine since the awful
+night at Versailles; and each time it upset him.
+
+"Tell me . . . who is the fellow with the eye-glass?"
+
+Pierre Leduc turned pale and jabbered. Sernine pinched his arm:
+
+"Answer me, confound it! Who is he?"
+
+"Baron Altenheim."
+
+"Where does he come from?"
+
+"He was a friend of Mr. Kesselbach's. He arrived from Austria, six days
+ago, and placed himself at Mrs. Kesselbach's disposal."
+
+The police authorities had, meanwhile, gone out of the garden; Baron
+Altenheim also.
+
+The prince rose and, turning towards the Pavillon de l'Impératrice,
+continued:
+
+"Has the baron asked you many questions?"
+
+"Yes, a great many. He is interested in my case. He wants to help me
+find my family. He appealed to my childhood memories."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"Nothing, because I know nothing. What memories have I? You put me in
+another's place and I don't even know who that other is."
+
+"No more do I!" chuckled the prince. "And that's just what makes your
+case so quaint."
+
+"Oh, it's all very well for you to laugh . . . you're always laughing!
+. . . But I'm beginning to have enough of it. . . . I'm mixed up in a
+heap of nasty matters . . . to say nothing of the danger which I run in
+pretending to be somebody that I am not."
+
+"What do you mean . . . that you are not? You're quite as much a duke as
+I am a prince . . . perhaps even more so. . . . Besides, if you're not a
+duke, hurry up and become one, hang it all! Geneviève can't marry any
+one but a duke! Look at her: isn't she worth selling your soul for?"
+
+He did not even look at Leduc, not caring what he thought. They had
+reached the house by this time; and Geneviève appeared at the foot of
+the steps, comely and smiling:
+
+"So you have returned?" she said to the prince. "Ah, that's a good
+thing! I am so glad. . . . Do you want to see Dolores?"
+
+After a moment, she showed him into Mrs. Kesselbach's room. The prince
+was taken aback. Dolores was paler still and thinner than on the day
+when he saw her last. Lying on a sofa, wrapped up in white stuffs, she
+looked like one of those sick people who have ceased to struggle against
+death. As for her, she had ceased to struggle against life, against the
+fate that was overwhelming her with its blows.
+
+Sernine gazed at her with deep pity and with an emotion which he did not
+strive to conceal. She thanked him for the sympathy which he showed her.
+She also spoke of Baron Altenheim, in friendly terms.
+
+"Did you know him before?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, by name, and through his intimacy with my husband."
+
+"I have met an Altenheim who lives in the Rue de Rivoli. Do you think
+it's the same?"
+
+"Oh, no, this one lives in . . . As a matter of fact, I don't quite
+know; he gave me his address, but I can't say that I remember it. . . ."
+
+After a few minutes' conversation, Sernine took his leave. Geneviève was
+waiting for him in the hall:
+
+"I want to speak to you," she said eagerly, "on a serious matter. . . .
+Did you see him?"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"Baron Altenheim. . . . But that's not his name . . . or, at least, he
+has another. . . . I recognized him . . . he does not know it."
+
+She dragged him out of doors and walked on in great excitement.
+
+"Calm yourself, Geneviève. . . ."
+
+"He's the man who tried to carry me off. . . . But for that poor M.
+Lenormand, I should have been done for. . . . Come, you must know, for
+you know everything. . . ."
+
+"Then his real name is . . ."
+
+"Ribeira."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"It was no use his changing his appearance, his accent, his manner: I
+knew him at once, by the horror with which he inspires me. But I said
+nothing . . . until you returned."
+
+"You said nothing to Mrs. Kesselbach either?"
+
+"No. She seemed so happy at meeting a friend of her husband's. But you
+will speak to her about it, will you not? You will protect her. . . . I
+don't know what he is preparing against her, against myself. . . . Now
+that M. Lenormand is no longer there, he has nothing to fear, he does as
+he pleases. Who can unmask him?"
+
+"I can. I will be responsible for everything. But not a word to
+anybody."
+
+They had reached the porter's lodge. The gate was opened. The prince
+said:
+
+"Good-bye, Geneviève, and be quite easy in your mind. I am there."
+
+He shut the gate, turned round and gave a slight start. Opposite him
+stood the man with the eye-glass, Baron Altenheim, with his head held
+well up, his broad shoulders, his powerful frame.
+
+They looked at each other for two or three seconds, in silence. The
+baron smiled.
+
+Then the baron said:
+
+"I was waiting for you, Lupin."
+
+For all his self-mastery, Sernine felt a thrill pass over him. He had
+come to unmask his adversary; and his adversary had unmasked him at the
+first onset. And, at the same time, the adversary was accepting the
+contest boldly, brazenly, as though he felt sure of victory. It was a
+swaggering thing to do and gave evidence of no small amount of pluck.
+
+The two men, violently hostile one to the other, took each other's
+measure with their eyes.
+
+"And what then?" asked Sernine.
+
+"What then? Don't you think we have occasion for a meeting?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I want to talk to you."
+
+"What day will suit you?"
+
+"To-morrow. Let us lunch together at a restaurant."
+
+"Why not at your place?"
+
+"You don't know my address."
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+With a swift movement, the prince pulled out a newspaper protruding from
+Altenheim's pocket, a paper still in its addressed wrapper, and said:
+
+"No. 29, Villa Dupont."
+
+"Well played!" said the other. "Then we'll say, to-morrow, at my place."
+
+"To-morrow, at your place. At what time?"
+
+"One o'clock."
+
+"I shall be there. Good-bye."
+
+They were about to walk away. Altenheim stopped:
+
+"Oh, one word more, prince. Bring a weapon with you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I keep four men-servants and you will be alone."
+
+"I have my fists," said Sernine. "We shall be on even terms."
+
+He turned his back on him and then, calling him back:
+
+"Oh, one word more, baron. Engage four more servants."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have thought it over. I shall bring my whip."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At one o'clock the next day, precisely, a horseman rode through the gate
+of the so-called Villa Dupont, a peaceful, countrified private road,
+the only entrance to which is in the Rue Pergolèse, close to the Avenue
+du Bois.
+
+It is lined with gardens and handsome private houses; and, right at the
+end, it is closed by a sort of little park containing a large old house,
+behind which runs the Paris circular railway. It was here, at No. 29,
+that Baron Altenheim lived.
+
+Sernine flung the reins of his horse to a groom whom he had sent on
+ahead and said:
+
+"Bring him back at half-past two."
+
+He rang the bell. The garden-gate opened and he walked to the front-door
+steps, where he was awaited by two tall men in livery who ushered him
+into an immense, cold, stone hall, devoid of any ornament. The door
+closed behind him with a heavy thud; and, great and indomitable as his
+courage was, he nevertheless underwent an unpleasant sensation at
+feeling himself alone, surrounded by enemies, in that isolated prison.
+
+"Say Prince Sernine."
+
+The drawing-room was near and he was shown straight in.
+
+"Ah, there you are, my dear prince!" said the baron, coming toward him.
+"Well, will you believe--Dominique, lunch in twenty minutes. Until then,
+don't let us be interrupted--will you believe, my dear prince, that I
+hardly expected to see you?"
+
+"Oh, really? Why?"
+
+"Well, your declaration of war, this morning, is so plain that an
+interview becomes superfluous."
+
+"My declaration of war?"
+
+The baron unfolded a copy of the _Grand Journal_ and pointed to a
+paragraph which ran as follows:
+
+      "We are authoritatively informed that M. Lenormand's
+      disappearance has roused Arsène Lupin into taking
+      action. After a brief enquiry and following on his
+      proposal to clear up the Kesselbach case, Arsène Lupin
+      has decided that he will find M. Lenormand, alive or
+      dead, and that he will deliver the author or authors
+      of that heinous series of crimes to justice."
+
+"This authoritative pronouncement comes from you, my dear prince, of
+course?"
+
+"Yes, it comes from me."
+
+"Therefore, I was right: it means war."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Altenheim gave Sernine a chair, sat down himself and said, in a
+conciliatory tone:
+
+"Well, no, I cannot allow that. It is impossible that two men like
+ourselves should fight and injure each other. We have only to come to an
+explanation, to seek the means: you and I were made to understand each
+other."
+
+"I think, on the contrary, that two men like ourselves are not made to
+understand each other."
+
+The baron suppressed a movement of impatience and continued:
+
+"Listen to me, Lupin. . . . By the way, do you mind my calling you
+Lupin?"
+
+"What shall I call you? Altenheim, Ribeira, or Parbury?"
+
+"Oho! I see that you are even better posted than I thought! . . . Hang
+it all, but you're jolly smart! . . . All the more reason why we should
+agree." And, bending toward him, "Listen, Lupin, and ponder my words
+well; I have weighed them carefully, every one. Look here. . . . We two
+are evenly matched. . . . Does that make you smile? You are wrong: it
+may be that you possess resources which I do not; but I have others of
+which you know nothing. Moreover, as you are aware, I have few scruples,
+some skill and a capacity for changing my personality which an expert
+like yourself ought to appreciate. In short, the two adversaries are
+each as good as the other. But one question remains unanswered: why are
+we adversaries? We are pursuing the same object, you will say? And what
+then? Do you know what will come of our rivalry? Each of us will
+paralyze the efforts and destroy the work of the other; and we shall
+both miss our aim! And for whose benefit? Some Lenormand or other, a
+third rogue! . . . It's really too silly."
+
+"It's really too silly, as you say," Sernine admitted. "But there is a
+remedy."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"For you to withdraw."
+
+"Don't chaff. I am serious. The proposal which I am going to make is not
+one to be rejected without examination. Here it is, in two words: let's
+be partners!"
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Of course, each of us will continue free where his own affairs are
+concerned. But, for the business in question, let us combine our
+efforts. Does that suit you? Hand in hand and share alike."
+
+"What do you bring?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you know what I'm worth; I've delivered my proofs. In the alliance
+which you are proposing, you know the figure, so to speak of my
+marriage-portion. What's yours?"
+
+"Steinweg."
+
+"That's not much."
+
+"It's immense. Through Steinweg, we learn the truth about Pierre Leduc.
+Through Steinweg, we get to know what the famous Kesselbach plan is all
+about."
+
+Sernine burst out laughing:
+
+"And you need me for that?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Come, old chap, your offer is childish. You have Steinweg in your
+hands. If you wish for my collaboration, it is because you have not
+succeeded in making him speak. But for that fact, you would do without
+my services."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"I refuse."
+
+The two men stood up to each other once more, violent and implacable.
+
+"I refuse," said Sernine. "Lupin requires nobody, in order to act. I am
+one of those who walk alone. If you were my equal, as you pretend, the
+idea of a partnership would never have entered your head. The man who
+has the stature of a leader commands. Union implies obedience. I do not
+obey."
+
+"You refuse? You refuse?" repeated Altenheim, turning pale under the
+insult.
+
+"All that I can do for you, old chap, is to offer you a place in my
+band. You'll be a private soldier, to begin with. Under my orders, you
+shall see how a general wins a battle . . . and how he pockets the
+booty, by himself and for himself. Does that suit you . . . Tommy?"
+
+Altenheim was beside himself with fury. He gnashed his teeth:
+
+"You are making a mistake, Lupin," he mumbled, "you are making a
+mistake. . . . I don't want anybody either; and this business gives me
+no more difficulty than plenty of others which I have pulled off. . . .
+What I said was said in order to effect our object more quickly and
+without inconveniencing each other."
+
+"You're not inconveniencing me," said Lupin, scornfully.
+
+"Look here! If we don't combine, only one of us will succeed."
+
+"That's good enough for me."
+
+"And he will only succeed by passing over the other's body. Are you
+prepared for that sort of duel, Lupin? A duel to the death, do you
+understand? . . . The knife is a method which you despise; but suppose
+you received one, Lupin, right in the throat?"
+
+"Aha! So, when all is said, that's what you propose?"
+
+"No, I am not very fond of shedding blood. . . . Look at my fists: I
+strike . . . and my man falls. . . . I have special blows of my own.
+. . . But _the other one_ kills . . . remember . . . the little wound in
+the throat. . . . Ah, Lupin, beware of him, beware of that one! . . . He
+is terrible, he is implacable. . . . Nothing stops him."
+
+He spoke these words in a low voice and with such excitement that
+Sernine shuddered at the hideous thought of the unknown murderer:
+
+"Baron," he sneered, "one would think you were afraid of your
+accomplice!"
+
+"I am afraid for the others, for those who bar our road, for you,
+Lupin. Accept, or you are lost. I shall act myself, if necessary. The
+goal is too near . . . I have my hand on it. . . . Get out of my way,
+Lupin!"
+
+He was all energy and exasperated will. He spoke forcibly and so
+brutally that he seemed ready to strike his enemy then and there.
+
+Sernine shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Lord, how hungry I am!" he said, yawning. "What a time to lunch at!"
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Lunch is served, sir," said the butler.
+
+"Ah, that's good hearing!"
+
+In the doorway, Altenheim caught Sernine by the arm and, disregarding
+the servant's presence:
+
+"If you take my advice . . . accept. This is a serious moment in your
+life . . . and you will do better, I swear to you, you will do better
+. . . to accept. . . ."
+
+"Caviare!" cried Sernine. "Now, that's too sweet of you. . . . You
+remembered that you were entertaining a Russian prince!"
+
+They sat down facing each other, with the baron's greyhound, a large
+animal with long, silver hair, between them.
+
+"Let me introduce Sirius, my most faithful friend."
+
+"A fellow-countryman," said Sernine. "I shall never forget the one which
+the Tsar was good enough to give me when I had the honor to save his
+life."
+
+"Ah, you had that honor . . . a terrorist conspiracy, no doubt?"
+
+"Yes, a conspiracy got up by myself. You must know, this dog--its name,
+by the way, was Sebastopol. . . ."
+
+The lunch continued merrily. Altenheim had recovered his good humor and
+the two men vied with each other in wit and politeness. Sernine told
+anecdotes which the baron capped with others; and it was a succession of
+stories of hunting, sport and travel, in which the oldest names in
+Europe were constantly cropping up: Spanish grandees, English lords,
+Hungarian magyars, Austrian archdukes.
+
+"Ah," said Sernine, "what a fine profession is ours! It brings us into
+touch with all the best people. Here, Sirius, a bit of this truffled
+chicken!"
+
+The dog did not take his eyes off him, and snapped at everything that
+Sernine gave it.
+
+"A glass of Chambertin, prince?"
+
+"With pleasure, baron."
+
+"I can recommend it. It comes from King Leopold's cellar."
+
+"A present?"
+
+"Yes, a present I made myself."
+
+"It's delicious. . . . What a bouquet! . . . With this _pâté de foie
+gras_, it's simply wonderful! . . . I must congratulate you, baron; you
+have a first-rate chef."
+
+"My chef is a woman-cook, prince. I bribed her with untold gold to leave
+Levraud, the socialist deputy. I say, try this hot chocolate-ice; and
+let me call your special attention to the little dry cakes that go with
+it. They're an invention of genius, those cakes."
+
+"The shape is charming, in any case," said Sernine, helping himself. "If
+they taste as good as they look. . . . Here, Sirius, you're sure to like
+this. Locusta herself could not have done better."
+
+He took one of the cakes and gave it to the dog. Sirius swallowed it at
+a gulp, stood motionless for two or three seconds, as though dazed,
+then turned in a circle and fell to the floor dead.
+
+Sernine started back from his chair, lest one of the footmen should fall
+upon him unawares. Then he burst out laughing:
+
+"Look here, baron, next time you want to poison one of your friends, try
+to steady your voice and to keep your hands from shaking. . . .
+Otherwise, people suspect you. . . . But I thought you disliked murder?"
+
+"With the knife, yes," said Altenheim, quite unperturbed. "But I have
+always had a wish to poison some one. I wanted to see what it was like."
+
+"By Jove, old chap, you choose your subjects well! A Russian prince!"
+
+He walked up to Altenheim and, in a confidential tone, said:
+
+"Do you know what would have happened if you had succeeded, that is to
+say, if my friends had not seen me return at three o'clock at the
+latest? Well, at half-past three the prefect of police would have known
+exactly all that there was to know about the so-called Baron Altenheim;
+and the said baron would have been copped before the day was out and
+clapped into jail."
+
+"Pooh!" said Altenheim. "Prison one escapes from . . . whereas one does
+not come back from the kingdom where I was sending you."
+
+"True, but you would have to send me there first; and that's not so
+easy."
+
+"I only wanted a mouthful of one of those cakes."
+
+"Are you quite sure?"
+
+"Try."
+
+"One thing's certain, my lad: you haven't the stuff yet which great
+adventurers are made of; and I doubt if you'll ever have it,
+considering the sort of traps you lay for me. A man who thinks himself
+worthy of leading the life which you and I have the honor to lead must
+also be fit to lead it, and, for that, must be prepared for every
+eventuality: he must even be prepared not to die if some ragamuffin or
+other tries to poison him. . . . An undaunted soul in an unassailable
+body: that is the ideal which he must set before himself . . . and
+attain. Try away, old chap. As for me, I am undaunted and unassailable.
+Remember King Mithridates!"
+
+He went back to his chair:
+
+"Let's finish our lunch. But as I like proving the virtues to which I
+lay claim, and as, on the other hand, I don't want to hurt your cook's
+feelings, just pass me that plate of cakes."
+
+He took one of them, broke it in two and held out one half to the baron:
+
+"Eat that!"
+
+The other gave a movement of recoil.
+
+"Funk!" said Sernine.
+
+And, before the wondering eyes of the baron and his satellites, he began
+to eat the first and then the second half of the cake, quietly,
+conscientiously, as a man eats a dainty of which he would hate to miss
+the smallest morsel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They met again.
+
+That same evening, Prince Sernine invited Baron Altenheim to dinner at
+the Cabaret Vatel, with a party consisting of a poet, a musician, a
+financier and two pretty actresses, members of the Théâtre Français.
+
+The next day, they lunched together in the Bois and, at night, they met
+at the Opéra.
+
+They saw each other every day for a week. One would have thought that
+they could not do without each other and that they were united by a
+great friendship, built up of mutual confidence, sympathy and esteem.
+
+They had a capital time, drinking good wine, smoking excellent cigars,
+and laughing like two madmen.
+
+In reality, they were watching each other fiercely. Mortal enemies,
+separated by a merciless hatred, each feeling sure of winning and
+longing for victory with an unbridled will, they waited for the
+propitious moment: Altenheim to do away with Sernine; and Sernine to
+hurl Altenheim into the pit which he was digging for him.
+
+Each knew that the catastrophe could not be long delayed. One or other
+of them must meet with his doom; and it was a question of hours, or, at
+most, of days.
+
+It was an exciting tragedy, and one of which a man like Sernine was
+bound to relish the strange and powerful zest. To know your adversary
+and to live by his side; to feel that death is waiting for you at the
+least false step, at the least act of thoughtlessness: what a joy, what
+a delight!
+
+One evening, they were alone together in the garden of the Rue Cambon
+Club, to which Altenheim also belonged. It was the hour before dusk, in
+the month of June, at which men begin to dine before the members come in
+for the evening's card-play. They were strolling round a little lawn,
+along which ran a wall lined with shrubs. Beyond the shrubs was a small
+door. Suddenly, while Altenheim was speaking, Sernine received the
+impression that his voice became less steady, that it was almost
+trembling. He watched him out of the corner of his eye. Altenheim had
+his hand in the pocket of his jacket; and Sernine _saw_ that hand,
+through the cloth, clutch the handle of a dagger, hesitating, wavering,
+resolute and weak by turns.
+
+O exquisite moment! Was he going to strike? Which would gain the day:
+the timid instinct that dare not, or the conscious will, intense upon
+the act of killing?
+
+His chest flung out, his arms behind his back, Sernine waited, with
+alternate thrills of pleasure and of pain. The baron had ceased talking;
+and they now walked on in silence, side by side.
+
+"Well, why don't you strike?" cried the prince, impatiently. He had
+stopped and, turning to his companion: "Strike!" he said. "This is the
+time or never. There is no one to see you. You can slip out through that
+little door; the key happens to be hanging on the wall; and good-bye,
+baron . . . unseen and unknown! . . . But, of course, all this was
+arranged . . . you brought me here. . . . And you're hesitating! Why on
+earth don't you strike?"
+
+He looked him straight in the eyes. The other was livid, quivering with
+impotent strength.
+
+"You milksop!" Sernine sneered. "I shall never make anything of you.
+Shall I tell you the truth? Well, you're afraid of me. Yes, old chap,
+you never feel quite sure what may happen to you when you're face to
+face with me. You want to act, whereas it's my acts, my possible acts
+that govern the situation. No, it's quite clear that you're not the man
+yet to put out my star!"
+
+He had not finished speaking when he felt himself seized round the
+throat and dragged backward. Some one hiding in the shrubbery, near the
+little door, had caught him by the head. He saw a hand raised, armed
+with a knife with a gleaming blade. The hand fell; the point of the
+knife caught him right in the throat.
+
+At the same moment Altenheim sprang upon him to finish him off; and they
+rolled over into the flower-borders. It was a matter of twenty or thirty
+seconds at most. Powerful and experienced wrestler as he was, Altenheim
+yielded almost immediately, uttering a cry of pain. Sernine rose and ran
+to the little door, which had just closed upon a dark form. It was too
+late. He heard the key turn in the lock. He was unable to open it.
+
+"Ah, you scoundrel!" he said. "The day on which I catch you will be the
+day on which I shed my first blood! That I swear to God! . . ."
+
+He went back, stooped and picked up the pieces of the knife, which had
+broken as it struck him.
+
+Altenheim was beginning to move. Sernine asked:
+
+"Well, baron, feeling better? You didn't know that blow, eh? It's what I
+call the direct blow in the solar plexus; that is to say, it snuffs out
+your vital sun like a candle. It's clean, quick, painless . . . and
+infallible. Whereas a blow with a dagger . . . ? Pooh! A man has only to
+wear a little steel-wove gorget, as I do, and he can set the whole world
+at defiance, especially your little pal in black, seeing that he always
+strikes at the throat, the silly monster! . . . Here, look at his
+favorite plaything . . . smashed to atoms!"
+
+He offered him his hand:
+
+"Come, get up, baron. You shall dine with me. And do please remember
+the secret of my superiority: an undaunted soul in an unassailable
+body."
+
+He went back to the club rooms, reserved a table for two, sat down on a
+sofa, and while waiting for dinner, soliloquized, under his breath:
+
+"It's certainly an amusing game, but it's becoming dangerous. I must get
+it over . . . otherwise those beggars will send me to Paradise earlier
+than I want to go. The nuisance is that I can't do anything before I
+find old Steinweg, for, when all is said, old Steinweg is the only
+interesting factor in the whole business; and my one reason for sticking
+to the baron is that I keep on hoping to pick up some clue or other.
+What the devil have they done with him? Altenheim is in daily
+communication with him: that is beyond a doubt; it is equally beyond a
+doubt that he is doing his utmost to drag out of him what he knows about
+the Kesselbach scheme. But where does he see him? Where has he got him
+shut up? With friends? In his own house, at 29, Villa Dupont?"
+
+He reflected for some time, then lit a cigarette, took three puffs at it
+and threw it away. This was evidently a signal, for two young men came
+and sat down beside him. He did not seem to know them, but he conversed
+with them by stealth. It was the brothers Doudeville, got up that day
+like men of fashion.
+
+"What is it, governor?"
+
+"Take six of our men, go to 29, Villa Dupont and make your way in."
+
+"The devil! How?"
+
+"In the name of the law. Are you not detective-inspectors? A search.
+. . ."
+
+"But we haven't the right. . . ."
+
+"Take it."
+
+"And the servants? If they resist?"
+
+"There are only four of them."
+
+"If they call out?"
+
+"They won't call out."
+
+"If Altenheim returns?"
+
+"He won't return before ten o'clock. I'll see to it. That gives you two
+hours and a half, which is more than you require to explore the house
+from top to bottom. If you find old Steinweg, come and tell me."
+
+Baron Altenheim came up. Sernine went to meet him:
+
+"Let's have some dinner, shall we? That little incident in the garden
+has made me feel hungry. By the way, my dear baron, I have a few bits of
+advice to give you. . . ."
+
+They sat down to table.
+
+After dinner, Sernine suggested a game of billiards. Altenheim accepted.
+When the game was over, they went to the baccarat-room. The croupier was
+just shouting:
+
+"There are fifty louis in the bank. Any bids?"
+
+"A hundred louis," said Altenheim.
+
+Sernine looked at his watch. Ten o'clock. The Doudevilles had not
+returned. The search, therefore, had been fruitless.
+
+"Banco," he said.
+
+Altenheim sat down and dealt the cards:
+
+"I give."
+
+"No."
+
+"Seven."
+
+"Six. I lose," said Sernine. "Shall I double the stakes?"
+
+"Very well," said the baron.
+
+He dealt out the cards.
+
+"Eight," said Sernine.
+
+"Nine," said the baron, laying his cards down.
+
+Sernine turned on his heels, muttering:
+
+"That costs me three hundred louis, but I don't mind; it fixes him
+here."
+
+Ten minutes later his motor set him down in front of 29, Villa Dupont;
+and he found the Doudevilles and their men collected in the hall:
+
+"Have you hunted out the old boy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dash it! But he must be somewhere or other. Where are the four
+servants?"
+
+"Over there, in the pantry, tied up, with the cook as well."
+
+"Good. I would as soon they did not see me. Go all you others. Jean,
+stay outside and keep watch: Jacques, show me over the house."
+
+He quickly ran through the cellar, the ground floor, the first and
+second floors and the attic. He practically stopped nowhere, knowing
+that he would not discover in a few minutes what his men had not been
+able to discover in three hours. But he carefully noted the shape and
+the arrangement of the rooms, and looked for some little detail which
+would put him on the scent.
+
+When he had finished, he returned to a bedroom which Doudeville had told
+him was Altenheim's, and examined it attentively:
+
+"This will do," he said, raising a curtain that concealed a dark closet,
+full of clothes. "From here I can see the whole of the room."
+
+"But if the baron searches the house?"
+
+"Why should he?"
+
+"He will know that we have been here, through his servants."
+
+"Yes, but he will never dream that one of us is putting up here for the
+night. He will think that the attempt failed, that is all, so I shall
+stay."
+
+"And how will you get out?"
+
+"Oh, that's asking me more than I can tell you! The great thing was to
+get in. Here I am, and here I stay. Go, Doudeville, and shut the doors
+as you go."
+
+He sat down on a little box at the back of the cupboard. Four rows of
+hanging clothes protected him. Except in the case of a close
+investigation, he was evidently quite safe.
+
+Two hours passed. He heard the dull sound of a horse's hoofs and the
+tinkling of a collar-bell. A carriage stopped, the front door slammed
+and almost immediately he heard voices, exclamations, a regular outcry
+that increased, probably, as each of the prisoners was released from his
+gag.
+
+"They are explaining the thing to him," he thought. "The baron must be
+in a tearing rage. He now understands the reason for my conduct at the
+club to-night and sees that I have dished him nicely. . . . Dished? That
+depends. . . . After all, I haven't got Steinweg yet. . . . That is the
+first thing that he will want to know: did they get Steinweg? To find
+this out, he will go straight to the hiding-place. If he goes up, it
+means that the hiding-place is upstairs. If he goes down, then it is in
+the basement."
+
+He listened. The sound of voices continued in the rooms on the ground
+floor, but it did not seem as if any one were moving. Altenheim must be
+cross-examining his confederates. It was half an hour before Sernine
+heard steps mounting the staircase.
+
+"Then it must be upstairs," he said to himself. "But why did they wait
+so long?"
+
+"Go to bed, all of you," said Altenheim's voice.
+
+The baron entered his room with one of his men and shut the door:
+
+"And I am going to bed, too, Dominique. We should be no further if we
+sat arguing all night."
+
+"My opinion is," said the other, "that he came to fetch Steinweg."
+
+"That is my opinion, too; and that's why I'm really enjoying myself,
+seeing that Steinweg isn't here."
+
+"But where is he, after all? What have you done with him?"
+
+"That's my secret; and you know I keep my secrets to myself. All that I
+can tell you is that he is in safe keeping, and that he won't get out
+before he has spoken."
+
+"So the prince is sold?"
+
+"Sold is the word. And he has had to fork out to attain this fine
+result! Oh, I've had a good time to-night! . . . Poor prince!"
+
+"For all that," said the other, "we shall have to get rid of him."
+
+"Make your mind easy, old man; that won't take long. Before a week's out
+you shall have a present of a pocket-book made out of Lupin-skin. But
+let me go to bed now. I'm dropping with sleep."
+
+There was a sound of the door closing. Then Sernine heard the baron push
+the bolt, empty his pockets, wind up his watch and undress. He seemed in
+a gay mood, whistling and singing, and even talking aloud:
+
+"Yes, a Lupin-skin pocket-book . . . in less than a week . . . in less
+than four days! . . . Otherwise he'll eat us up, the bully! . . . No
+matter, he missed his shot to-night. . . . His calculation was right
+enough, though . . . Steinweg was bound to be here. . . . Only, there
+you are! . . ."
+
+He got into bed and at once switched off the light.
+
+Sernine had come forward as far as the dividing curtain, which he now
+lifted slightly, and he saw the vague light of the night filtering
+through the windows, leaving the bed in profound darkness.
+
+He hesitated. Should he leap out upon the baron, take him by the throat
+and obtain from him by force and threats what he had not been able to
+obtain by craft? Absurd? Altenheim would never allow himself to be
+intimidated.
+
+"I say, he's snoring now," muttered Sernine. "Well, I'm off. At the
+worst, I shall have wasted a night."
+
+He did not go. He felt that it would be impossible for him to go, that
+he must wait, that chance might yet serve his turn.
+
+With infinite precautions, he took four or five coats and great-coats
+from their hooks, laid them on the floor, made himself comfortable and,
+with his back to the wall, went peacefully to sleep.
+
+The baron was not an early riser. A clock outside was striking nine when
+he got out of bed and rang for his servant.
+
+He read the letters which his man brought him, splashed about in his
+tub, dressed without saying a word and sat down to his table to write,
+while Dominique was carefully hanging up the clothes of the previous day
+in the cupboard and Sernine asking himself, with his fists ready to
+strike:
+
+"I wonder if I shall have to stave in this fellow's solar plexus?"
+
+At ten o'clock the baron was ready:
+
+"Leave me," said he to the servant.
+
+"There's just this waistcoat. . . ."
+
+"Leave me, I say. Come back when I ring . . . not before."
+
+He shut the door himself, like a man who does not trust others, went to
+a table on which a telephone was standing and took down the receiver:
+
+"Hullo! . . . Put me on to Garches, please, mademoiselle. . . . Very
+well, I'll wait till you ring me up. . . ."
+
+He sat down to the instrument.
+
+The telephone-bell rang.
+
+"Hullo!" said Altenheim. "Is that Garches? . . . Yes, that's right.
+. . . Give me number 38, please, mademoiselle. . . ."
+
+A few seconds later, in a lower voice, as low and as distinct as he
+could make it, he began:
+
+"Are you 38? . . . It's I speaking; no useless words. . . . Yesterday?
+. . . Yes, you missed him in the garden. . . . Another time, of course;
+but the thing's becoming urgent. . . . He had the house searched last
+night. . . . I'll tell you about it. . . . Found nothing, of course.
+. . . What? . . . Hullo! . . . No, old Steinweg refuses to speak. . . .
+Threats, promises, nothing's any good. . . . Hullo! . . . Yes, of
+course, he sees that we can do nothing. . . . We know just a part of the
+Kesselbach scheme and of the story of Pierre Leduc. . . . He's the only
+one who has the answer to the riddle. . . . Oh, he'll speak all right;
+that I'll answer for . . . this very night, too . . . If not . . . What?
+. . . Well, what can we do? Anything rather than let him escape! Do you
+want the prince to bag him from us? As for the prince, we shall have to
+cook his goose in three days from now. . . . You have an idea? . . .
+Yes, that's a good idea. . . . Oh, oh, excellent! I'll see to it. . . .
+When shall we meet? Will Tuesday do? Right you are. I'll come on Tuesday
+. . . at two o'clock. . . . Good-bye."
+
+He replaced the receiver and went out.
+
+A few hours later, while the servants were at lunch, Prince Sernine
+strolled quietly out of the Villa Dupont, feeling rather faint in the
+head and weak in the knees, and, while making for the nearest
+restaurant, he thus summed up the situation:
+
+"So, on Tuesday next, Altenheim and the Palace Hotel murderer have an
+appointment at Garches, in a house with the telephone number 38. On
+Tuesday, therefore, I shall hand over the two criminals to the police
+and set M. Lenormand at liberty. In the evening, it will be old
+Steinweg's turn; and I shall learn, at last, whether Pierre Leduc is the
+son of a pork-butcher or not and whether he will make a suitable husband
+for Geneviève. So be it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning Valenglay, the prime minister, sent
+for the prefect of police and M. Weber, the deputy-chief of the
+detective-service, and showed them an express letter which he had just
+received:
+
+      "MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL,
+
+      "Knowing the interest which you take in M. Lenormand,
+      I am writing to inform you of certain facts which
+      chance has revealed to me.
+
+      "M. Lenormand is locked up in the cellars of the Villa
+      des Glycines at Garches, near the House of Retreat.
+
+      "The ruffians of the Palace Hotel have resolved to
+      murder him at two o'clock to-day.
+
+      "If the police require my assistance, they will find
+      me at half-past one in the garden of the House of
+      Retreat, or at the garden-house occupied by Mrs.
+      Kesselbach, whose friend I have the honor to be.
+
+        "I am, Monsieur le Président du Conseil,
+                      "Your obedient servant,
+                                 "PRINCE SERNINE."
+
+"This is an exceedingly grave matter, my dear M. Weber," said Valenglay.
+"I may add that we can have every confidence in the accuracy of Prince
+Sernine's statements. I have often met him at dinner. He is a serious,
+intelligent man. . . ."
+
+"Will you allow me, Monsieur le Président," asked the deputy-chief
+detective, "to show you another letter which I also received this
+morning?"
+
+"About the same case?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+He took the letter and read:
+
+      "SIR,
+
+      "This is to inform you that Prince Paul Sernine, who
+      calls himself Mrs. Kesselbach's friend, is really
+      Arsène Lupin.
+
+      "One proof will be sufficient: _Paul Sernine_ is the
+      anagram of _Arsène Lupin_. Not a letter more, not a
+      letter less.
+
+                                           "L. M."
+
+And M. Weber added, while Valenglay stood amazed:
+
+"This time, our friend Lupin has found an adversary who is a match for
+him. While he denounces the other, the other betrays him to us. And the
+fox is caught in the trap."
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, I shall take two hundred men with me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE OLIVE-GREEN FROCK-COAT
+
+
+A quarter past twelve, in a restaurant near the Madeleine. The prince is
+at lunch. Two young men sit down at the next table. He bows to them and
+begins to speak to them, as to friends whom he has met by chance.
+
+"Are you going on the expedition, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How many men altogether?"
+
+"Six, I think. Each goes down by himself. We're to meet M. Weber at a
+quarter to two, near the House of Retreat."
+
+"Very well, I shall be there."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Am I not leading the expedition? And isn't it my business to find M.
+Lenormand, seeing that I've announced it publicly?"
+
+"Then you believe that M. Lenormand is not dead, governor?"
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"Do you know anything?"
+
+"Yes, since yesterday I know for certain that Altenheim and his gang
+took M. Lenormand and Gourel to the bridge at Bougival and heaved them
+overboard. Gourel sank, but M. Lenormand managed to save himself. I
+shall furnish all the necessary proofs when the time comes."
+
+"But, then, if he's alive, why doesn't he show himself?"
+
+"Because he's not free."
+
+"Is what you said true, then? Is he in the cellars of the Villa des
+Glycines?"
+
+"I have every reason to think so."
+
+"But how do you know? . . . What clue? . . ."
+
+"That's my secret. I can tell you one thing: the revelation will
+be--what shall I say--sensational. Have you finished?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My car is behind the Madeleine. Join me there."
+
+At Garches, Sernine sent the motor away, and they walked to the path
+that led to Geneviève's school. There he stopped:
+
+"Listen to me, lads. This is of the highest importance. You will ring at
+the House of Retreat. As inspectors, you have your right of entry, have
+you not? You will then go to the Pavillon Hortense, the empty one. There
+you will run down to the basement and you will find an old shutter,
+which you have only to lift to see the opening of a tunnel which I
+discovered lately and which forms a direct communication with the Villa
+des Glycines. It was by means of this that Gertrude and Baron Altenheim
+used to meet. And it was this way that M. Lenormand passed, only to end
+by falling into the hands of his enemies."
+
+"You think so, governor?"
+
+"Yes, I think so. And now the point is this: you must go and make sure
+that the tunnel is exactly in the condition in which I left it last
+night; that the two doors which bar it are open; and that there is
+still, in a hole near the second door, a parcel wrapped in a piece of
+black cloth which I put there myself."
+
+"Are we to undo the parcel?"
+
+"No, that's not necessary. It's a change of clothes. Go; and don't let
+yourselves be seen more than you can help. I will wait for you."
+
+Ten minutes later, they were back:
+
+"The two doors are open," said one of the Doudevilles.
+
+"And the black cloth parcel?"
+
+"In its place near the second door."
+
+"Capital! It is twenty-five past one. Weber will be arriving with his
+champions. They are to watch the villa. They will surround it as soon as
+Altenheim is inside. I have arranged with Weber that I shall ring the
+bell; the door will be opened; and I shall have my foot inside the
+citadel. Once there, I have my plan. Come, I've an idea that we shall
+see some fun."
+
+And Sernine, after dismissing them, walked down the path to the school,
+soliloquizing as he went:
+
+"All bodes well. The battle will be fought on the ground chosen by
+myself. I am bound to win. I shall get rid of my two adversaries and I
+shall find myself alone engaged in the Kesselbach case . . . alone, with
+two whacking trump-cards: Pierre Leduc and Steinweg. . . . Besides the
+king . . . that is to say, Bibi. Only, there's one thing: what is
+Altenheim up to? Obviously, he has a plan of attack of his own. On which
+side does he mean to attack me? And how does it come that he has not
+attacked me yet? It's rather startling. Can he have denounced me to the
+police?"
+
+He went along the little playground of the school. The pupils were at
+their lessons. He knocked at the door.
+
+"Ah, is that you?" said Mme. Ernemont, opening the door. "So you have
+left Geneviève in Paris?"
+
+"For me to do that, Geneviève would have to be in Paris," he replied.
+
+"So she has been, seeing that you sent for her."
+
+"What's that?" he exclaimed catching hold of her arm.
+
+"Why, you know better than I!"
+
+"I know nothing. . . . I know nothing. . . . Speak! . . ."
+
+"Didn't you write to Geneviève to meet you at the Gare Saint-Lazare?"
+
+"And did she go?"
+
+"Why, of course. . . . You were to lunch together at the Hôtel Ritz."
+
+"The letter. . . . Show me the letter."
+
+She went to fetch it and gave it to him.
+
+"But, wretched woman, couldn't you see that it was a forgery? The
+handwriting is a good imitation . . . but it's a forgery. . . . Any one
+can see that." He pressed his clenched hands to his temples with rage.
+"That's the move I was wondering about. Oh, the dirty scoundrel! He's
+attacking me through her . . . . But how does he know? No, he does not
+know. . . . He's tried it on twice now . . . and it's because of
+Geneviève, because he's taken a fancy to her. . . . Oh, not that! Never!
+Listen, Victoire, are you sure that she doesn't love him? . . . Oh, I'm
+losing my head! . . . Wait . . . wait! . . . I must think . . . this
+isn't the moment. . . ."
+
+He looked at his watch:
+
+"Twenty-five minutes to two. . . . I have time. . . . Idiot that I am!
+Time to do what? How do I know where she is?"
+
+He walked up and down like a madman; and his old nurse seemed astounded
+at seeing him so excited, with so little control of himself:
+
+"After all," she said, "there is nothing to prove that she did not
+suspect the trap at the last moment. . . ."
+
+"Where could she be?"
+
+"I don't know . . . perhaps at Mrs. Kesselbach's."
+
+"That's true . . . that's true. . . . You're right," he cried, filled
+with sudden hope.
+
+And he set out at a run for the House of Retreat.
+
+On the way, near the gate, he met the brothers Doudeville, who were
+entering the porter's lodge. The lodge looked out on the road; and this
+enabled them to watch the approaches to the Villa des Glycines. Without
+stopping, he went straight to the Pavillon de l'Impératrice, called
+Suzanne and told her to take him to Mrs. Kesselbach.
+
+"Geneviève?" he asked.
+
+"Geneviève?"
+
+"Yes; hasn't she been here?"
+
+"No, not for several days. . . ."
+
+"But she is to come, is she not?"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Why, I'm certain of it. Where do you think she is? Can you remember?
+. . ."
+
+"It's no use my trying. I assure you that Geneviève and I had made no
+arrangement to see each other." And, suddenly alarmed: "But you're not
+anxious, are you? Has anything happened to Geneviève?"
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+He had already left the room. An idea had occurred to him. Suppose
+Altenheim were not at the Villa des Glycines? Suppose the hour of the
+meeting had been changed!
+
+"I must see him," he said to himself. "I must, at all costs."
+
+And he ran along with a disordered air, indifferent to everything. But,
+in front of the lodge, he at once recovered his composure: he had caught
+sight of the deputy-chief of the detective-service talking to the
+brothers Doudeville in the garden.
+
+Had he commanded his usual acute discernment, he would have perceived
+the little start which M. Weber gave as he approached; but he saw
+nothing:
+
+"M. Weber, I believe?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. . . . To whom have I the honor . . . ?"
+
+"Prince Sernine."
+
+"Ah, very good! Monsieur le Préfet de Police has told me of the great
+service which you are doing us, monsieur."
+
+"That service will not be complete until I have handed the ruffians over
+to you."
+
+"That won't take long. I believe that one of those ruffians has just
+gone in; a powerful-looking man, with a swarthy complexion. . . ."
+
+"Yes, that's Baron Altenheim. Are your men here, M. Weber?"
+
+"Yes, concealed along the road, at two hundred yards from this."
+
+"Well, M. Weber, it seems to me that you might collect them and bring
+them to this lodge. From here we will go to the villa. As Baron
+Altenheim knows me, I presume they will open the door to me and I will
+go in . . . with you."
+
+"It is an excellent plan," said M. Weber. "I shall come back at once."
+
+He left the garden and walked down the road, in the opposite direction
+to the Villa des Glycines.
+
+Sernine quickly took one of the brothers Doudeville by the arm:
+
+"Run after him, Jacques . . . keep him engaged . . . long enough for me
+to get inside the Glycines. . . . And then delay the attack as long as
+you can. . . . Invent pretexts. . . . I shall want ten minutes. . . .
+Let the villa be surrounded . . . but not entered. And you, Jean, go and
+post yourself in the Pavillon Hortense, at the entrance to the
+underground passage. If the baron tries to go out that way, break his
+head."
+
+The Doudevilles moved away, as ordered. The prince slipped out and ran
+to a tall gate, barred with iron, which was the entrance to the
+Glycines.
+
+Should he ring? . . .
+
+There was no one in sight. With one bound, he leapt upon the gate,
+placing his foot on the lock; and, hanging on to the bars, getting a
+purchase with his knees and hoisting himself up with his wrists, he
+managed, at the risk of falling on the sharp points of the bars, to
+climb over the gate and jump down.
+
+He found a paved courtyard, which he crossed briskly, and mounted the
+steps of a pillared peristyle, on which the windows looked out. These
+were all closed to the very top, with full shutters. As he stood
+thinking how he should make his way into the house, the door was half
+opened, with a noise of iron that reminded him of the door in the Villa
+Dupont, and Altenheim appeared:
+
+"I say, prince, is that the way you trespass on private property? I
+shall be forced to call in the gendarmes, my dear fellow!"
+
+Sernine caught him by the throat and, throwing him down on a bench:
+
+"Geneviève? . . . Where is Geneviève? If you don't tell me what you've
+done with her, you villain. . . ."
+
+"Please observe," stammered the baron, "that you are making it
+impossible for me to speak."
+
+Sernine released his hold of him:
+
+"To the point! . . . And look sharp! . . . Answer. . . . Geneviève?"
+
+"There is one thing," replied the baron, "which is much more urgent,
+especially where fellows like you and me are concerned, and that is to
+feel one's self at home. . . ."
+
+And he carefully closed the front door, which he barricaded with bolts.
+Then, leading Sernine to the adjoining drawing-room, a room without
+furniture or curtains, he said:
+
+"Now I'm your man. What can I do for you, prince?"
+
+"Geneviève?"
+
+"She is in perfect health."
+
+"Ah, so you confess . . . ?"
+
+"Of course! I may even tell you that your imprudence in this respect
+surprised me. Why didn't you take a few precautions? It was inevitable.
+. . ."
+
+"Enough! Where is she?"
+
+"You are not very polite."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Between four walls, free. . . ."
+
+"Free?"
+
+"Yes, free to go from one wall to another."
+
+"Where? Where?"
+
+"Come, prince, do you think I should be fool enough to tell you the
+secret by which I hold you? You love the little girl . . ."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" shouted Sernine, beside himself. "I forbid you.
+. . ."
+
+"What next? Is there anything to be ashamed of? I love her myself and I
+have risked . . ."
+
+He did not complete his sentence, frightened by the terrific anger of
+Sernine, a restrained, dumb anger that distorted the prince's features.
+
+They looked at each other for a long time, each of them seeking for the
+adversary's weak point. At last, Sernine stepped forward and, speaking
+very distinctly, like a man who is threatening rather than proposing a
+compact:
+
+"Listen to me," he said. "You remember the offer of partnership which
+you made me? The Kesselbach business for the two of us . . . we were to
+act together . . . we were to share the profits. . . . I refused. . . .
+To-day, I accept. . . ."
+
+"Too late."
+
+"Wait! I accept more than that: I give the whole business up. . . . I
+shall take no further part in it. . . . You shall have it all. . . . If
+necessary, I'll help you."
+
+"What is the condition?"
+
+"Tell me where Geneviève is."
+
+The baron shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You're driveling, Lupin. I'm sorry for you . . . at your age. . . ."
+
+There was a fresh silence between the two enemies, a terrible silence.
+Then the baron sneered:
+
+"All the same, it's a holy joy to see you like that, sniveling and
+begging. I say, it seems to me that the private soldier is giving his
+general a sound beating!"
+
+"You ass!" muttered Sernine.
+
+"Prince, I shall send you my seconds this evening . . . if you are still
+in this world."
+
+"You ass!" repeated Sernine, with infinite contempt.
+
+"You would rather settle the matter here and now? As you please, prince:
+your last hour has struck. You can commend your soul to God. You smile!
+That's a mistake. I have one immense advantage over you! I kill . . .
+when it's necessary. . . ."
+
+"You ass!" said Sernine once more. He took out his watch. "It is two
+o'clock, baron. You have only a few minutes left. At five past two, ten
+past at the very latest, M. Weber and half-a-dozen sturdy men, without a
+scruple amongst them, will lay hands on you. . . . Don't you smile,
+either. The outlet on which you're reckoning is discovered; I know it:
+it is guarded. So you are thoroughly caught. It means the scaffold, old
+chap."
+
+Altenheim turned livid. He stammered:
+
+"You did this? . . . You have had the infamy . . ."
+
+"The house is surrounded. The assault is at hand. Speak . . . and I will
+save you."
+
+"How?"
+
+"The men watching the outlet in the Pavillon Hortense belong to me. I
+have only to give you a word for them and you are saved. Speak!"
+
+Altenheim reflected for a few seconds and seemed to hesitate; but,
+suddenly, resolutely, declared:
+
+"This is all bluff. You would never have been simple enough to rush into
+the lion's mouth."
+
+"You're forgetting Geneviève. But for her, do you think I should be
+here? Speak!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Very well. Let us wait," said Sernine. "A cigarette?"
+
+"Thank you."
+
+A few seconds passed.
+
+"Do you hear?" asked Sernine.
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . ." said Altenheim, rising.
+
+Blows rang against the gate. Sernine observed:
+
+"Not even the usual summons . . . no preliminaries. . . . Your mind is
+still made up?"
+
+"More so than ever."
+
+"You know that, with the tools they carry, they won't take long?"
+
+"If they were inside this room I should still refuse."
+
+The gate yielded. They heard it creak on its hinges.
+
+"To allow one's self to get nabbed," said Sernine, "is admissible. But
+to hold out one's own hands to the handcuffs is too silly. Come, don't
+be obstinate. Speak . . . and bolt!"
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I shall remain. What have I to be afraid of?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+The baron pointed to a chink between the shutters. Sernine put his eye
+to it and jumped back with a start:
+
+"Oh, you scoundrel, so you have denounced me, too! It's not ten men that
+Weber's bringing, but fifty men, a hundred, two hundred. . . ."
+
+The baron laughed open-heartedly:
+
+"And, if there are so many of them, it's because they're after Lupin;
+that's obvious! Half-a-dozen would have been enough for me."
+
+"You informed the police?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What proof did you give?"
+
+"Your name: _Paul Sernine_, that is to say, _Arsène Lupin_."
+
+"And you found that out all by yourself, did you? . . . A thing which
+nobody else thought of? . . . Nonsense! It was the other one. Admit
+it!"
+
+He looked out through the chink. Swarms of policemen were spreading
+round the villa; and the blows were now sounding on the door. He must,
+however, think of one of two things: either his escape, or else the
+execution of the plan which he had contrived. But to go away, even for a
+moment, meant leaving Altenheim; and who could guarantee that the baron
+had not another outlet at his disposal to escape by? This thought
+paralyzed Sernine. The baron free! The baron at liberty to go back to
+Geneviève and torture her and make her subservient to his odious love!
+
+Thwarted in his designs, obliged to improvise a new plan on the very
+second, while subordinating everything to the danger which Geneviève was
+running, Sernine passed through a moment of cruel indecision. With his
+eyes fixed on the baron's eyes, he would have liked to tear his secret
+from him and to go away; and he no longer even tried to convince him, so
+useless did all words seem to him. And, while pursuing his own thoughts,
+he asked himself what the baron's thoughts could be, what his weapons,
+what his hope of safety?
+
+The hall-door, though strongly bolted, though sheeted with iron, was
+beginning to give way.
+
+The two men stood behind that door, motionless. The sound of voices, the
+sense of words reached them.
+
+"You seem very sure of yourself," said Sernine.
+
+"I should think so!" cried the other, suddenly tripping him to the floor
+and running away.
+
+Sernine sprang up at once, dived through a little door under the
+staircase, through which Altenheim had disappeared, and ran down the
+stone steps to the basement. . . .
+
+A passage led to a large, low, almost pitch-dark room, where he found
+the baron on his knees, lifting the flap of a trap-door.
+
+"Idiot!" shouted Sernine, flinging himself upon him. "You know that you
+will find my men at the end of this tunnel and that they have orders to
+kill you like a dog. . . . Unless . . . unless you have an outlet that
+joins on to this. . . . Ah, there, of course, I've guessed it! . . . And
+you imagine . . ."
+
+The fight was a desperate one. Altenheim, a real colossus, endowed with
+exceptional muscular force, had caught his adversary round the arms and
+body and was pressing him against his own chest, numbing his arms and
+trying to smother him.
+
+"Of course . . . of course," Sernine panted, with difficulty, "of course
+. . . that's well thought out. . . . As long as I can't use my arms to
+break some part of you, you will have the advantage . . . Only . . . can
+you . . . ?"
+
+He gave a shudder. The trap-door, which had closed again and on the flap
+of which they were bearing down with all their weight, the trap-door
+seemed to move beneath them. He felt the efforts that were being made to
+raise it; and the baron must have felt them too, for he desperately
+tried to shift the ground of the contest so that the trap-door might
+open.
+
+"It's 'the other one'!" thought Sernine, with the sort of unreasoning
+terror which that mysterious being caused him. "It's the other one.
+. . . If he gets through, I'm done for."
+
+By dint of imperceptible movements, Altenheim had succeeded in shifting
+his own position; and he tried to drag his adversary after him. But
+Sernine clung with his legs to the baron's legs and, at the same time,
+very gradually, tried to release one of his hands.
+
+Above their heads great blows resounded, like the blows of a
+battering-ram. . . .
+
+"I have five minutes," thought Sernine. "In one minute this fellow will
+have to . . ." Then, speaking aloud, "Look out, old chap. Stand tight!"
+
+He brought his two knees together with incredible force. The baron
+yelled, with a twisted thigh. Then Sernine, taking advantage of his
+adversary's pain, made an effort, freed his right arm and seized him by
+the throat:
+
+"That's capital! . . . We shall be more comfortable like this. . . . No,
+it's not worth while getting out your knife. . . . If you do, I'll wring
+your neck like a chicken's. You see, I'm polite and considerate. . . .
+I'm not pressing too hard . . . just enough to keep you from even
+wanting to kick about."
+
+While speaking he took from his pocket a very thin cord and, with one
+hand, with extreme skill, fastened his wrists. For that matter, the
+baron, now at his last gasp, offered not the least resistance. With a
+few accurate movements, Sernine tied him up firmly:
+
+"How well you're behaving! What a good thing! I should hardly know you.
+Here, in case you were thinking of escaping, I have a roll of wire that
+will finish off my little work. . . . The wrists first. . . . Now the
+ankles. . . . That's it! . . . By Jove, how nice you look!"
+
+The baron had gradually come to himself again. He spluttered:
+
+"If you give me up, Geneviève will die."
+
+"Really? . . . And how? . . . Explain yourself."
+
+"She is locked up. No one knows where she is. If I'm put away, she will
+die of starvation."
+
+Sernine shuddered. He retorted:
+
+"Yes, but you will speak."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Yes, you will speak. Not now; it's too late. But to-night." He bent
+down over him and, whispering in his ear, said, "Listen, Altenheim, and
+understand what I say. You'll be caught presently. To-night, you'll
+sleep at the Dépôt. That is fatal, irrevocable. I myself can do nothing
+to prevent it now. And, to-morrow, they will take you to the Santé; and
+later, you know where. . . . Well, I'm giving you one more chance of
+safety. To-night, you understand, I shall come to your cell, at the
+Dépôt, and you shall tell me where Geneviève is. Two hours later, if you
+have told the truth, you shall be free. If not . . . it means that you
+don't attach much value to your head."
+
+The other made no reply. Sernine stood up and listened. There was a
+great crash overhead. The entrance-door yielded. Footsteps beat the
+flags of the hall and the floor of the drawing room. M. Weber and his
+men were searching.
+
+"Good-bye, baron. Think it over until this evening. The prison-cell is a
+good counsellor."
+
+He pushed his prisoner aside, so as to uncover the trap-door, and lifted
+it. As he expected, there was no longer any one below on the steps of
+the staircase.
+
+He went down, taking care to leave the trap-door open behind him, as
+though he meant to come back.
+
+There were twenty steps, at the bottom of which began the passage
+through which M. Lenormand and Gourel had come in the opposite
+direction. He entered it and gave an exclamation. He thought he felt
+somebody's presence there.
+
+He lit his pocket-lantern. The passage was empty.
+
+Then he cocked his revolver and said aloud:
+
+"All right. . . . I'm going to fire."
+
+No reply. Not a sound.
+
+"It's an illusion, no doubt," he thought. "That creature is becoming an
+obsession. . . . Come, if I want to pull off my stroke and win the game,
+I must hurry. . . . The hole in which I hid the parcel of clothes is not
+far off. I shall take the parcel . . . and the trick is done. . . . And
+what a trick! One of Lupin's best! . . ."
+
+He came to a door that stood open and at once stopped. To the right was
+an excavation, the one which M. Lenormand had made to escape from the
+rising water. He stooped and threw his light into the opening:
+
+"Oh!" he said, with a start. "No, it's not possible . . . Doudeville
+must have pushed the parcel farther along."
+
+But, search and pry into the darkness as he might, the parcel was gone;
+and he had no doubt but that it was once more the mysterious being who
+had taken it.
+
+"What a pity! The thing was so neatly arranged! The adventure would have
+resumed its natural course, and I should have achieved my aim with
+greater certainty. . . . As it is, I must push along as fast as I can.
+. . . Doudeville is at the Pavillon Hortense. . . . My retreat is
+insured. . . . No more nonsense. . . . I must hurry and set things
+straight again, if I can. . . . And we'll attend to 'him' afterward.
+. . . Oh, he'd better keep clear of my claws, that one!"
+
+But an exclamation of stupor escaped his lips; he had come to the other
+door; and this door, the last before the garden-house, was shut. He
+flung himself upon it. What was the good? What could he do?
+
+"This time," he muttered, "I'm badly done!"
+
+And, seized with a sort of lassitude, he sat down. He had a sense of his
+weakness in the face of the mysterious being. Altenheim hardly counted.
+But the other, that person of darkness and silence, the other loomed up
+before him, upset all his plans and exhausted him with his cunning and
+infernal attacks.
+
+He was beaten.
+
+Weber would find him there, like an animal run to earth, at the bottom
+of his cave.
+
+"Ah, no!" he cried, springing up with a bound. "No! If there were only
+myself, well and good! . . . But there is Geneviève, Geneviève, who must
+be saved to-night. . . . After all, the game is not yet lost. . . . If
+the other one vanished just now, it proves that there is a second outlet
+somewhere near. . . . Come, come, Weber and his merry men haven't got me
+yet. . . ."
+
+He had already begun to explore the tunnel and, lantern in hand, was
+examining the bricks of which the horrible walls were formed, when a
+yell reached his ears, a dreadful yell that made his flesh creep with
+anguish.
+
+It came from the direction of the trap-door. And he suddenly remembered
+that he had left the trap-door open, at the time when he intended to
+return to the Villa des Glycines.
+
+He hurried back and passed through the first door. His lantern went out
+on the road; and he felt something, or rather somebody, brush past his
+knees, somebody crawl along the wall. And, at that same moment, he had a
+feeling that this being was disappearing, vanishing, he knew not which
+way.
+
+Just then his foot knocked against a step.
+
+"This is the outlet," he thought, "the second outlet through which 'he'
+passes."
+
+Overhead, the cry sounded again, less loud, followed by moans, by a
+hoarse gurgling. . . .
+
+He ran up the stairs, came out in the basement room, and rushed to the
+baron.
+
+Altenheim lay dying, with the blood streaming from his throat! His bonds
+were cut, but the wire that fastened his wrists and ankles was intact.
+_His accomplice, being unable to release him, had cut his throat._
+
+Sernine gazed upon the sight with horror. An icy perspiration covered
+his whole body. He thought of Geneviève, imprisoned, helpless, abandoned
+to the most awful of deaths, because the baron alone knew where she was
+hidden.
+
+He distinctly heard the policemen open the little back door in the hall.
+He distinctly heard them come down the kitchen stairs.
+
+There was nothing between him and them save one door, that of the
+basement room in which he was. He bolted the door at the very moment
+when the aggressors were laying hold of the handle.
+
+The trap-door was open beside him; it meant possible safety, because
+there remained the second outlet.
+
+"No," he said to himself, "Geneviève first. Afterward, if I have time, I
+will think of myself."
+
+He knelt down and put his hand on the baron's breast. The heart was
+still beating.
+
+He stooped lower still:
+
+"You can hear me, can't you?"
+
+The eyelids flickered feebly.
+
+The dying man was just breathing. Was there anything to be obtained from
+this faint semblance of life?
+
+The policemen were attacking the door, the last rampart.
+
+Sernine whispered.
+
+"I will save you. . . . I have infallible remedies. . . . One word only
+. . . Geneviève? . . ."
+
+It was as though this word of hope revived the man's strength. Altenheim
+tried to utter articulate sounds.
+
+"Answer," said Sernine, persisting. "Answer, and I will save you. . . .
+Answer. . . . It means your life to-day . . . your liberty to-morrow.
+. . . Answer! . . ."
+
+The door shook under the blows that rained upon it.
+
+The baron gasped out unintelligible syllables. Leaning over him,
+affrighted, straining all his energy, all his will to the utmost,
+Sernine panted with anguish. He no longer gave a thought to the
+policemen, his inevitable capture, prison. . . . But Geneviève. . . .
+Geneviève dying of hunger, whom one word from that villain could set
+free! . . .
+
+"Answer! . . . You must! . . ."
+
+He ordered and entreated by turns. Altenheim stammered, as though
+hypnotized and defeated by that indomitable imperiousness:
+
+"Ri . . . Rivoli. . . ."
+
+"Rue de Rivoli, is that it? You have locked her up in a house in that
+street . . . eh? Which number?"
+
+A loud din . . . followed by shouts of triumph. . . . The door was down.
+
+"Jump on him, lads!" cried M. Weber. "Seize him . . . seize both of
+them!"
+
+And Sernine, on his knees:
+
+"The number . . . answer. . . . If you love her, answer. . . . Why keep
+silence now?"
+
+"Twenty . . . twenty-seven," whispered the baron.
+
+Hands were laid on Sernine. Ten revolvers were pointed at him.
+
+He rose and faced the policemen, who fell back with instinctive dread.
+
+"If you stir, Lupin," cried M. Weber, with his revolver leveled at him,
+"I'll blow out your brains."'
+
+"Don't shoot." said Sernine, solemnly. "It's not necessary. I
+surrender."
+
+"Humbug! This is another of your tricks!"
+
+"No," replied Sernine, "the battle is lost. You have no right to shoot.
+I am not defending myself."
+
+He took out two revolvers and threw them on the floor.
+
+"Humbug!" M. Weber repeated, implacably. "Aim straight at his heart,
+lads! At the least movement, fire! At the least word, fire!"
+
+There were ten men there. He placed five more in position. He pointed
+their fifteen right arms at the mark. And, raging, shaking with joy and
+fear, he snarled:
+
+"At his heart! At his head! And no pity! If he stirs, if he speaks . . .
+shoot him where he stands!"
+
+Sernine smiled, impassively, with his hands in his pockets. Death was
+there, waiting for him, at two inches from his chest, at two inches from
+his temples. Fifteen fingers were curled round the triggers.
+
+"Ah," chuckled M. Weber, "this is nice, this is very nice! . . . And I
+think that this time we've scored . . . and it's a nasty look-out for
+you, Master Lupin! . . ."
+
+He made one of his men draw back the shutters of a large air-hole, which
+admitted a sudden burst of daylight, and he turned toward Altenheim.
+But, to his great amazement, the baron, whom he thought dead, opened his
+eyes, glazed, awful eyes, already filled with all the signs of the
+coming dissolution. He stared at M. Weber. Then he seemed to look for
+somebody and, catching sight of Sernine, had a convulsion of anger. He
+seemed to be waking from his torpor; and his suddenly reviving hatred
+restored a part of his strength.
+
+He raised himself on his two wrists and tried to speak.
+
+"You know him, eh?" asked M. Weber.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's Lupin, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. . . . Lupin. . . ."
+
+Sernine, still smiling, listened:
+
+"Heavens, how I'm amusing myself!" he declared.
+
+"Have you anything more to say?" asked M. Weber, who saw the baron's
+lips making desperate attempts to move.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"About M. Lenormand, perhaps?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you shut him up? Where? Answer! . . ."
+
+With all his heaving body, with all his tense glance, Altenheim pointed
+to a cupboard in the corner of the room.
+
+"There . . . there . . ." he said.
+
+"Ah, we're burning!" chuckled Lupin.
+
+M. Weber opened the cupboard. On one of the shelves was a parcel wrapped
+in black cloth. He opened it and found a hat, a little box, some
+clothes. . . . He gave a start. He had recognized M. Lenormand's
+olive-green frock-coat.
+
+"Oh, the villains!" he cried. "They have murdered him!"
+
+"No," said Altenheim, shaking his head.
+
+"Then . . . ?"
+
+"It's he . . . he . . ."
+
+"What do you mean by 'he'? . . . Did Lupin kill the chief?"
+
+"No. . . ."
+
+Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to
+speak and to accuse. . . . The secret which he wished to reveal was at
+the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate
+it into words.
+
+"Come," the deputy-chief insisted. "M. Lenormand is dead, surely?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He's alive?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't understand. . . . Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat?
+. . ."
+
+Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:
+
+"Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand's clothes and reckoned upon using
+them to escape with. . . ."
+
+"Yes . . . yes. . . ."
+
+"Not bad," cried the deputy-chief. "It's quite a trick in his style. In
+this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained
+up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn't time.
+That's it, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . ."
+
+But, by the appearance of the dying man's eyes, M. Weber felt that there
+was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then?
+What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to
+explain before dying?
+
+He questioned him again:
+
+"And where is M. Lenormand himself?"
+
+"There. . . ."
+
+"What do you mean? Here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But there are only ourselves here!"
+
+"There's . . . there's . . ."
+
+"Oh, speak!"
+
+"There's . . . Ser . . . Sernine."
+
+"Sernine! . . . Eh, what?"
+
+"Sernine . . . Lenormand. . . ."
+
+M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.
+
+"No, no, it's not possible," he muttered. "This is madness."
+
+He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly
+diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is
+thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to
+end.
+
+Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length.
+Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his
+strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible
+surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his
+mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:
+
+"Explain the thing to us. . . . What's at the bottom of it? What
+mystery?"
+
+The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.
+
+M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting
+great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to
+the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:
+
+"Listen. . . . I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M.
+Lenormand. . . ."
+
+He needed an effort to continue, so monstrous did the words appear to
+him. Nevertheless, the baron's dimmed eyes seemed to contemplate him
+with anguish. He finished the sentence, shaking with excitement, as
+though he were speaking blasphemy:
+
+"That's it, isn't it? You're sure? The two are one and the same? . . ."
+
+The eyes did not move. A little blood trickled from one corner of the
+man's mouth. . . . He gave two or three sobs. . . . A last spasm; and
+all was over . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long silence reigned in that basement room filled with people.
+
+Almost all the policemen guarding Sernine had turned round and,
+stupefied, not understanding or not willing to understand, they still
+listened to the incredible accusation which the dying scoundrel had been
+unable to put into words.
+
+M. Weber took the little box which was in the parcel and opened it. It
+contained a gray wig, a pair of spectacles, a maroon-colored neckerchief
+and, in a false bottom, a pot or two of make-up and a case containing
+some tiny tufts of gray hair: in short, all that was needed to complete
+a perfect disguise in the character of M. Lenormand.
+
+He went up to Sernine and, looking at him for a few seconds without
+speaking, thoughtfully reconstructing all the phases of the adventure,
+he muttered:
+
+"So it's true?"
+
+Sernine, who had retained his smiling calmness, replied:
+
+"The suggestion is a pretty one and a bold one. But, before I answer,
+tell your men to stop worrying me with those toys of theirs."
+
+"Very well," said M. Weber, making a sign to his men. "And now answer."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Are you M. Lenormand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Exclamations arose. Jean Doudeville, who was there, while his brother
+was watching the secret outlet, Jean Doudeville, Sernine's own
+accomplice, looked at him in dismay. M. Weber stood undecided.
+
+"That takes your breath away, eh?" said Sernine. "I admit that it's
+rather droll. . . . Lord, how you used to make me laugh sometimes, when
+we were working together, you and I, the chief and the deputy-chief!
+. . . And the funniest thing is that you thought our worthy M. Lenormand
+dead . . . as well as poor Gourel. But no, no, old chap: there's life in
+the old dog yet!" He pointed to Altenheim's corpse. "There, it was that
+scoundrel who pitched me into the water, in a sack, with a paving-stone
+round my waist. Only, he forgot to take away my knife. And with a knife
+one rips open sacks and cuts ropes. So you see, you unfortunate
+Altenheim: if you had thought of that, you wouldn't be where you are!
+. . . But enough said. . . . Peace to your ashes!"
+
+M. Weber listened, not knowing what to think. At last, he made a gesture
+of despair, as though he gave up the idea of forming a reasonable
+opinion.
+
+"The handcuffs," he said, suddenly alarmed.
+
+"If it amuses you," said Sernine.
+
+And, picking out Doudeville in the front row of his assailants, he put
+out his wrists:
+
+"There, my friend, you shall have the honour . . . and don't trouble to
+exert yourself. . . . I'm playing square . . . as it's no use doing
+anything else. . . ."
+
+He said this in a tone that gave Doudeville to understand that the
+struggle was finished for the moment and that there was nothing to do
+but submit.
+
+Doudeville fastened the handcuffs.
+
+Without moving his lips or contracting a muscle of his face, Sernine
+whispered:
+
+"27, Rue de Rivoli . . . Geneviève. . . ."
+
+M. Weber could not suppress a movement of satisfaction at the sight:
+
+"Come along!" he said. "To the detective-office!"
+
+"That's it, to the detective-office!" cried Sernine. "M. Lenormand will
+enter Arsène Lupin in the jail-book; and Arsène Lupin will enter Prince
+Sernine."
+
+"You're too clever, Lupin."
+
+"That's true, Weber; we shall never get on, you and I."
+
+During the drive in the motor-car, escorted by three other cars filled
+with policemen, he did not utter a word.
+
+They did not stay long at the detective office. M. Weber, remembering
+the escapes effected by Lupin, sent him up at once to the finger-print
+department and then took him to the Dépôt, whence he was sent on to the
+Santé Prison.
+
+The governor had been warned by telephone and was waiting for him. The
+formalities of the entry of commitment and of the searching were soon
+got over; and, at seven o'clock in the evening, Prince Paul Sernine
+crossed the threshold of cell 14 in the second division:
+
+"Not half bad, your rooms," he declared, "not bad at all! . . . Electric
+light, central heating, every requisite . . . capital! Mr. Governor,
+I'll take this room."
+
+He flung himself on the bed:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Governor, I have one little favor to ask of you!"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Tell them not to bring me my chocolate before ten o'clock in the
+morning. . . . I'm awfully sleepy."
+
+He turned his face to the wall. Five minutes later he was sound asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"SANTÉ PALACE"
+
+
+There was one wild burst of laughter over the whole face of the world.
+
+True, the capture of Arsène Lupin made a big sensation; and the public
+did not grudge the police the praise which they deserved for this
+revenge so long hoped-for and now so fully obtained. The great
+adventurer was caught. That extraordinary, genial, invisible hero was
+shivering, like any ordinary criminal, between the four walls of a
+prison cell, crushed in his turn by that formidable power which is
+called the law and which, sooner or later, by inevitable necessity
+shatters the obstacles opposed to it and destroys the work of its
+adversaries.
+
+All this was said, printed, repeated and discussed _ad nauseam_. The
+prefect of police was created a commander, M. Weber an officer of the
+Legion of Honor. The skill and courage of their humblest coadjutors were
+extolled to the skies. Cheers were raised and pæans of victory struck
+up. Articles were written and speeches made.
+
+Very well. But one thing, nevertheless, rose above the wonderful concert
+of praise, these noisy demonstrations of satisfaction; and that was an
+immense, spontaneous, inextinguishable and tumultuous roar of laughter.
+
+Arsène Lupin had been chief of the detective-service for four years!!!
+
+He had been chief detective for four years and, really, legally, he was
+chief detective still, with all the rights which the title confers,
+enjoying the esteem of his chiefs, the favor of the government and the
+admiration of the public.
+
+For four years, the public peace and the defence of property had been
+entrusted to Arsène Lupin. He saw that the law was carried out. He
+protected the innocent and pursued the guilty.
+
+And what services he had rendered! Never was order less disturbed, never
+was crime discovered with greater certainty and rapidity. The reader
+need but take back his mind to the Denizou case, the robbery at the
+Crédit Lyonnais, the attack on the Orléans express, the murder of Baron
+Dorf, forming a series of unforeseen and overwhelming triumphs, of
+magnificent feats of prowess fit to compare with the most famous
+victories of the most renowned detectives.[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: The murder of Baron Dorf, that mysterious and disconcerting
+affair, will one day be the subject of a story which will give an idea
+of Arsène Lupin's astonishing qualities as a detective.]
+
+Not so very long before, in a speech delivered at the time of the fire
+at the Louvre and the capture of the incendiaries, Valenglay, the prime
+minister, had said, speaking in defence of the somewhat arbitrary manner
+in which M. Lenormand had acted on that occasion:
+
+"With his great powers of discernment, his energy, his qualities of
+decision and execution, his unexpected methods, his inexhaustible
+resources, M. Lenormand reminds us of the only man who, if he were still
+alive, could hope to hold his own against him: I mean Arsène Lupin. M.
+Lenormand is an Arsène Lupin in the service of society."
+
+And, lo and behold, M. Lenormand was none other than Arsène Lupin!
+
+That he was a Russian prince, who cared! Lupin was an old hand at such
+changes of personality as that. But chief detective! What a delicious
+irony! What a whimsical humor in the conduct of that extraordinary life!
+
+M. Lenormand! . . . Arsène Lupin! . . .
+
+People were now able to explain to themselves the apparently miraculous
+feats of intelligence which had quite recently bewildered the crowd and
+baffled the police. They understood how his accomplice had been juggled
+away in the middle of the Palais de Justice itself, in broad daylight
+and on the appointed day. Had he himself not said:
+
+"My process is so ingenious and so simple. . . . How surprised people
+will be on the day when I am free to speak! 'Is that all?' I shall be
+asked. That is all; but it had to be thought of."
+
+It was, indeed, childishly simple: all you had to do was to be chief of
+the detective-service.
+
+Well, Lupin was chief of the detective-service; and every police-officer
+obeying his orders had made himself the involuntary and unconscious
+accomplice of Arsène Lupin.
+
+What a comedy! What admirable bluff! It was the monumental and consoling
+farce of these drab times of ours. Lupin in prison, Lupin irretrievably
+conquered was, in spite of himself, the great conqueror. From his cell
+he shone over Paris. He was more than ever the idol, more than ever the
+master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Arsène Lupin awoke next morning, in his room at the "Santé Palace,"
+as he at once nicknamed it, he had a very clear vision of the enormous
+sensation which would be produced by his arrest under the double name of
+Sernine and Lenormand and the double title of prince and chief of the
+detective-service.
+
+He rubbed his hands and gave vent to his thoughts:
+
+"A man can have no better companion in his loneliness than the approval
+of his contemporaries. O fame! The sun of all living men! . . ."
+
+Seen by daylight, his cell pleased him even better than at night. The
+window, placed high up in the wall, afforded a glimpse of the branches
+of a tree, through which peeped the blue of the sky above. The walls
+were white. There was only one table and one chair, both fastened to the
+floor. But everything was quite nice and clean.
+
+"Come," he said, "a little rest-cure here will be rather charming. . . .
+But let us see to our toilet. . . . Have I all I want? . . . No. . . .
+In that case, ring twice for the chambermaid."
+
+He pressed the button of an apparatus beside the door, which released a
+signaling-disc in the corridor.
+
+After a moment, bolts and bars were drawn outside, a key turned in the
+lock and a warder appeared.
+
+"Hot water, please," said Lupin.
+
+The other looked at him with an air of mingled amazement and rage.
+
+"Oh," said Lupin, "and a bath-towel! By Jove, there's no bath-towel!"
+
+The man growled:
+
+"You're getting at me, aren't you? You'd better be careful!"
+
+He was going away, when Lupin caught him roughly by the arm:
+
+"Here! A hundred francs if you'll post a letter for me."
+
+He took out a hundred-franc note, which he had concealed during the
+search, and offered it to him.
+
+"Where's the letter?" said the warder, taking the money.
+
+"Just give me a moment to write it."
+
+He sat down at the table, scribbled a few words in pencil on a sheet of
+paper, put it in an envelope and addressed the letter:
+
+      _"To Monsieur S. B. 42,_
+               _"Poste Restante,_
+                         "PARIS."
+
+The warder took the letter and walked away.
+
+"That letter," said Lupin to himself, "will reach destination as safely
+as if I delivered it myself. I shall have the reply in an hour at
+latest: just the time I want to take a good look into my position."
+
+He sat down on his chair and, in an undertone, summed up the situation
+as follows:
+
+"When all is said and done, I have two adversaries to fight at the
+present moment. There is, first, society, which holds me and which I can
+afford to laugh at. Secondly, there is a person unknown, who does not
+hold me, but whom I am not inclined to laugh at in the very least. It is
+he who told the police that I was Sernine. It was he who guessed that I
+was M. Lenormand. It was he who locked the door of the underground
+passage and it was he who had me clapped into prison."
+
+Arsène Lupin reflected for a second and then continued:
+
+"So, at long last, the struggle lies between him and me. And, to keep up
+that struggle, that is to say, to discover and get to the bottom of the
+Kesselbach case, here am I, a prisoner, while he is free, unknown, and
+inaccessible, and holds the two trump-cards which I considered mine:
+Pierre Leduc and old Steinweg. . . . In short, he is near the goal,
+after finally pushing me back."
+
+A fresh contemplative pause, followed by a fresh soliloquy:
+
+"The position is far from brilliant. On the one side, everything; on the
+other, nothing. Opposite me, a man of my own strength, or stronger,
+because he has not the same scruples that hamper me. And I am without
+weapons to attack him with."
+
+He repeated the last sentence several times, in a mechanical voice, and
+then stopped and, taking his forehead between his hands, sat for a long
+time wrapped in thought.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Governor," he said, seeing the door open.
+
+"Were you expecting me?"
+
+"Why, I wrote to you, Mr. Governor, asking you to come! I felt certain
+that the warder would give you my letter. I was so certain of it that I
+put your initials, S. B., and your age, forty-two, on the envelope!"
+
+The governor's name, in point of fact, was Stanislas Borély, and he was
+forty-two years of age. He was a pleasant-looking man, with a very
+gentle character, who treated the prisoners with all the indulgence
+possible.
+
+He said to Lupin:
+
+"Your opinion of my subordinate's integrity was quite correct. Here is
+your money. It shall be handed to you at your release. . . . You will
+now go through the searching-room again."
+
+Lupin went with M. Borély to the little room reserved for this purpose,
+undressed and, while his clothes were inspected with justifiable
+suspicion, himself underwent a most fastidious examination.
+
+He was then taken back to his cell and M. Borély said:
+
+"I feel easier. That's done."
+
+"And very well done, Mr. Governor. Your men perform this sort of duty
+with a delicacy for which I should like to thank them by giving them a
+small token of my satisfaction."
+
+He handed a hundred-franc note to M. Borély, who jumped as though he had
+been shot:
+
+"Oh! . . . But . . . where does that come from?"
+
+"No need to rack your brains, Mr. Governor. A man like myself, leading
+the life that I do, is always prepared for any eventuality: and no
+mishap, however painful--not even imprisonment--can take him unawares."
+
+Seizing the middle finger of his left hand between the thumb and
+forefinger of the right, he pulled it off smartly and presented it
+calmly to M. Borély:
+
+"Don't start like that, Mr. Governor. This is not my finger, but just a
+tube, made of gold-beater's skin and cleverly colored, which fits
+exactly over my middle finger and gives the illusion of a real finger."
+And he added, with a laugh, "In such a way, of course, as to conceal a
+third hundred-franc note. . . . What is a poor man to do? He must carry
+the best purse he can . . . and must needs make use of it on occasions.
+. . ."
+
+He stopped at the sight of M. Borély's startled face:
+
+"Please don't think, Mr. Governor, that I wish to dazzle you with my
+little parlor-tricks. I only wanted to show you that you have to do with
+a . . . client of a rather . . . special nature and to tell you that you
+must not be surprised if I venture, now and again, to break the ordinary
+rules and regulations of your establishment."
+
+The governor had recovered himself. He said plainly:
+
+"I prefer to think that you will conform to the rules and not compel me
+to resort to harsh measures. . . ."
+
+"Which you would regret to have to enforce: isn't that it, Mr. Governor?
+That's just what I should like to spare you, by proving to you in
+advance that they would not prevent me from doing as I please: from
+corresponding with my friends, from defending the grave interests
+confided to me outside these walls, from writing to the newspapers that
+accept my inspiration, from pursuing the fulfilment of my plans and,
+lastly, from preparing my escape."
+
+"Your escape!"
+
+Lupin began to laugh heartily:
+
+"But think, Mr. Governor, my only excuse for being in prison is . . . to
+leave it!"
+
+The argument did not appear to satisfy M. Borély. He made an effort to
+laugh in his turn:
+
+"Forewarned is forearmed," he said.
+
+"That's what I wanted," Lupin replied. "Take all your precautions, Mr.
+Governor, neglect nothing, so that later they may have nothing to
+reproach you with. On the other hand, I shall arrange things in such a
+way that, whatever annoyance you may have to bear in consequence of my
+escape, your career, at least, shall not suffer. That is all I had to
+say to you, Mr. Governor. You can go."
+
+And, while M. Borély walked away, greatly perturbed by his singular
+charge and very anxious about the events in preparation, the prisoner
+threw himself on his bed, muttering:
+
+"What cheek, Lupin, old fellow, what cheek! Really, any one would think
+that you had some idea as to how you were going to get out of this!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Santé prison is built on the star plan. In the centre of the main
+portion is a round hall, upon which all the corridors converge, so that
+no prisoner is able to leave his cell without being at once perceived by
+the overseers posted in the glass box which occupies the middle of that
+central hall.
+
+The thing that most surprises the visitor who goes over the prison is
+that, at every moment, he will meet prisoners without a guard of any
+kind, who seem to move about as though they were absolutely free. In
+reality, in order to go from one point to another--for instance, from
+their cell to the van waiting in the yard to take them to the Palais de
+Justice for the magistrate's examination--they pass along straight lines
+each of which ends in a door that is opened to them by a warder. The
+sole duty of the warder is to open and shut this door and to watch the
+two straight lines which it commands. And thus the prisoners, while
+apparently at liberty to come and go as they please, are sent from door
+to door, from eye to eye, like so many parcels passed from hand to hand.
+
+Outside, municipal guards receive the object and pack it into one of
+the compartments of the "salad-basket."[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: The French slang expression for its prison-van or "black
+Maria."--_Translator's Note._]
+
+This is the ordinary routine.
+
+In Lupin's case it was disregarded entirely. The police were afraid of
+that walk along the corridors. They were afraid of the prison-van. They
+were afraid of everything.
+
+M. Weber came in person, accompanied by twelve constables--the best he
+had, picked men, armed to the teeth--fetched the formidable prisoner at
+the door of his cell and took him in a cab, the driver of which was one
+of his own men, with mounted municipal guards trotting on each side, in
+front and behind.
+
+"Bravo!" cried Lupin. "I am quite touched by the compliment paid me. A
+guard of honor. By Jove, Weber, you have the proper hierarchical
+instinct! You don't forget what is due to your immediate chief." And,
+tapping him on the shoulder: "Weber, I intend to send in my resignation.
+I shall name you as my successor."
+
+"It's almost done," said Weber.
+
+"That's good news! I was a little anxious about my escape. Now I am easy
+in my mind. From the moment when Weber is chief of the detective-service
+. . . !"
+
+M. Weber did not reply to the gibe. At heart, he had a queer, complex
+feeling in the presence of his adversary, a feeling made up of the fear
+with which Lupin inspired him, the deference which he entertained for
+Prince Sernine and the respectful admiration which he had always shown
+to M. Lenormand. All this was mingled with spite, envy and satisfied
+hatred.
+
+They arrived at the Palais de Justice. At the foot of the "mouse-trap,"
+a number of detectives were waiting, among whom M. Weber rejoiced to see
+his best two lieutenants, the brothers Doudeville.
+
+"Has M. Formerie come?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, chief, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction is in his room."
+
+M. Weber went up the stairs, followed by Lupin, who had the Doudevilles
+on either side of him.
+
+"Geneviève?" whispered the prisoner.
+
+"Saved. . . ."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"With her grandmother."
+
+"Mrs. Kesselbach?"
+
+"In Paris, at the Bristol."
+
+"Suzanne?"
+
+"Disappeared."
+
+"Steinweg?"
+
+"Released."
+
+"What has he told you?"
+
+"Nothing. Won't make any revelations except to you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We told him he owed his release to you."
+
+"Newspapers good this morning?"
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"Good. If you want to write to me, here are my instructions."
+
+They had reached the inner corridor on the first floor and Lupin slipped
+a pellet of paper into the hand of one of the brothers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M. Formerie uttered a delicious phrase when Lupin entered his room
+accompanied by the deputy-chief:
+
+"Ah, there you are! I knew we should lay hands on you some day or
+other!"
+
+"So did I, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction," said Lupin, "and I am glad
+that you have been marked out by fate to do justice to the honest man
+that I am."
+
+"He's getting at me," thought M. Formerie. And, in the same ironical and
+serious tone as Lupin, he retorted, "The honest man that you are, sir,
+will be asked what he has to say about three hundred and forty-four
+separate cases of larceny, burglary, swindling and forgery, blackmail,
+receiving and so on. Three hundred and forty-four!"
+
+"What! Is that all?" cried Lupin. "I really feel quite ashamed."
+
+"Don't distress yourself! I shall discover more. But let us proceed in
+order. Arsène Lupin, in spite of all our inquiries, we have no definite
+information as to your real name."
+
+"How odd! No more have I!"
+
+"We are not even in a position to declare that you are the same Arsène
+Lupin who was confined in the Santé a few years back, and from there
+made his first escape."
+
+"'His first escape' is good, and does you credit."
+
+"It so happens, in fact," continued M. Formerie, "that the Arsène Lupin
+card in the measuring department gives a description of Arsène Lupin
+which differs at all points from your real description."
+
+"How more and more odd!"
+
+"Different marks, different measurements, different finger-prints. . . .
+The two photographs even are quite unlike. I will therefore ask you to
+satisfy us as to your exact identity."
+
+"That's just what I was going to ask you. I have lived under so many
+distinct names that I have ended by forgetting my own. I don't know
+where I am."
+
+"So I must enter a refusal to answer?"
+
+"An inability."
+
+"Is this a thought-out plan? Am I to expect the same silence in reply to
+all my questions?"
+
+"Very nearly."
+
+"And why?"
+
+Lupin struck a solemn attitude and said:
+
+"M. le Juge d'Instruction, my life belongs to history. You have only to
+turn over the annals of the past fifteen years and your curiosity will
+be satisfied. So much for my part. As to the rest, it does not concern
+me: it is an affair between you and the murderers at the Palace Hotel."
+
+"Arsène Lupin, the honest man that you are will have to-day to explain
+the murder of Master Altenheim."
+
+"Hullo, this is new! Is the idea yours, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Very clever! Upon my word, M. Formerie, you're getting on!"
+
+"The position in which you were captured leaves no doubt."
+
+"None at all; only, I will venture to ask you this: what sort of wound
+did Altenheim die of?"
+
+"Of a wound in the throat caused by a knife."
+
+"And where is the knife?"
+
+"It has not been found."
+
+"How could it not have been found, if I had been the assassin,
+considering that I was captured beside the very man whom I am supposed
+to have killed?"
+
+"Who killed him, according to you?"
+
+"The same man that killed Mr. Kesselbach, Chapman, and Beudot. The
+nature of the wound is a sufficient proof."
+
+"How did he get away?"
+
+"Through a trap-door, which you will discover in the room where the
+tragedy took place."
+
+M. Formerie assumed an air of slyness:
+
+"And how was it that you did not follow that useful example?"
+
+"I tried to follow it. But the outlet was blocked by a door which I
+could not open. It was during this attempt that 'the other one' came
+back to the room and killed his accomplice for fear of the revelations
+which he would have been sure to make. At the same time, he hid in a
+cupboard, where it was subsequently found, the parcel of clothes which I
+had prepared."
+
+"What were those clothes for?"
+
+"To disguise myself. When I went to the Glycines my plan was this: to
+hand Altenheim over to the police, to suppress my own identity as Prince
+Sernine and to reappear under the features. . . ."
+
+"Of M. Lenormand, I suppose?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"No."
+
+"What!"
+
+M. Formerie gave a knowing smile and wagged his forefinger from left to
+right and right to left:
+
+"No," he repeated.
+
+"What do you mean by 'no'?"
+
+"That story about M. Lenormand. . . ."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Will do for the public, my friend. But you won't make M. Formerie
+swallow that Lupin and Lenormand were one and the same man." He burst
+out laughing. "Lupin, chief of the detective-service! No, anything you
+like, but not that! . . . There are limits. . . . I am an easy-going
+fellow. . . . I'll believe anything . . . but still. . . . Come, between
+ourselves, what was the reason of this fresh hoax? . . . I confess I
+can't see . . ."
+
+Lupin looked at him in astonishment. In spite of all that he knew of M.
+Formerie, he could not conceive such a degree of infatuation and
+blindness. There was at that moment only one person in the world who
+refused to believe in Prince Sernine's double personality; and that was
+M. Formerie! . . .
+
+Lupin turned to the deputy-chief, who stood listening open-mouthed:
+
+"My dear Weber, I fear your promotion is not so certain as I thought.
+For, you see, if M. Lenormand is not myself, then he exists . . . and,
+if he exists, I have no doubt that M. Formerie, with all his acumen,
+will end by discovering him . . . in which case . . ."
+
+"We shall discover him all right, M. Lupin," cried the
+examining-magistrate. "I'll undertake that, and I tell you that, when
+you and he are confronted, we shall see some fun." He chuckled and
+drummed with his fingers on the table. "How amusing! Oh, one's never
+bored when you're there, that I'll say for you! So you're M. Lenormand,
+and it's you who arrested your accomplice Marco!"
+
+"Just so! Wasn't it my duty to please the prime minister and save the
+cabinet? The fact is historical."
+
+M. Formerie held his sides:
+
+"Oh, I shall die of laughing, I know I shall! Lord, what a joke! That
+answer will travel round the world. So, according to your theory, it was
+with you that I made the first enquiries at the Palace Hotel after the
+murder of Mr. Kesselbach? . . ."
+
+"Surely it was with me that you investigated the case of the stolen
+coronet when I was Duc de Chamerace,"[8] retorted Lupin, in a sarcastic
+voice.
+
+[Footnote 8: See _Arsène Lupin_ by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc.]
+
+M. Formerie gave a start. All his merriment was dispelled by that odious
+recollection. Turning suddenly grave, he asked:
+
+"So you persist in that absurd theory?"
+
+"I must, because it is the truth. It would be easy for you to take a
+steamer to Cochin-China and to find at Saigon the proofs of the death of
+the real M. Lenormand, the worthy man whom I replaced and whose
+death-certificate I can show you."
+
+"Humbug!"
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I don't care one way or
+the other. If it annoys you that I should be M. Lenormand, don't let's
+talk about it. We won't talk about myself; we won't talk about anything
+at all, if you prefer. Besides, of what use can it be to you? The
+Kesselbach case is such a tangled affair that I myself don't know where
+I stand. There's only one man who might help you. I have not succeeded
+in discovering him. And I don't think that you . . ."
+
+"What's the man's name?"
+
+"He's an old man, a German called Steinweg. . . . But, of course, you've
+heard about him, Weber, and the way in which he was carried off in the
+middle of the Palais de Justice?"
+
+M. Formerie threw an inquiring glance at the deputy-chief. M. Weber
+said:
+
+"I undertake to bring that person to you, Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction."
+
+"So that's done," said M. Formerie, rising from his chair. "As you see,
+Lupin, this was merely a formal examination to bring the two duelists
+together. Now that we have crossed swords, all that we need is the
+necessary witness of our fencing-match, your counsel."
+
+"Tut! Is it indispensable?"
+
+"Indispensable."
+
+"Employ counsel in view of such an unlikely trial?"
+
+"You must."
+
+"In that case, I'll choose Maître Quimbel."
+
+"The president of the corporation of the bar. You are wise, you will be
+well defended."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first sitting was over. M. Weber led the prisoner away.
+
+As he went down the stairs of the "mouse-trap," between the two
+Doudevilles, Lupin said, in short, imperative sentences:
+
+"Watch Steinweg. . . . Don't let him speak to anybody. . . . Be there
+to-morrow. . . . I'll give you some letters . . . one for you . . .
+important."
+
+Downstairs, he walked up to the municipal guards surrounding the
+taxi-cab:
+
+"Home, boys," he exclaimed, "and quick about it! I have an appointment
+with myself for two o'clock precisely."
+
+There were no incidents during the drive. On returning to his cell,
+Lupin wrote a long letter, full of detailed instructions, to the
+brothers Doudeville and, two other letters.
+
+One was for Geneviève:
+
+      "Geneviève, you now know who I am and you will
+      understand why I concealed from you the name of him
+      who twice carried you away in his arms when you were a
+      little girl.
+
+      "Geneviève, I was your mother's friend, a distant
+      friend, of whose double life she knew nothing, but
+      upon whom she thought that she could rely. And that is
+      why, before dying, she wrote me a few lines asking me
+      to watch over you.
+
+      "Unworthy as I am of your esteem, Geneviève, I shall
+      continue faithful to that trust. Do not drive me from
+      your heart entirely.
+
+                                   "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+The other letter was addressed to Dolores Kesselbach:
+
+      "Prince Sernine was led to seek Mrs. Kesselbach's
+      acquaintance by motives of self-interest alone. But a
+      great longing to devote himself to her was the cause
+      of his continuing it.
+
+      "Now that Prince Sernine has become merely Arsène
+      Lupin, he begs Mrs. Kesselbach not to deprive him of
+      the right of protecting her, at a distance and as a
+      man protects one whom he will never see again."
+
+There were some envelopes on the table. He took up one and took up a
+second; then, when he took up the third, he noticed a sheet of white
+paper, the presence of which surprised him and which had words stuck
+upon it, evidently cut out of a newspaper. He read:
+
+      "You have failed in your fight with the baron. Give up
+      interesting yourself in the case, and I will not
+      oppose your escape.
+
+                                           "L. M."
+
+Once more, Lupin had that sense of repulsion and terror with which this
+nameless and fabulous being always inspired him, a sense of disgust
+which one feels at touching a venomous animal, a reptile:
+
+"He again," he said. "Even here!"
+
+That also scared him, the sudden vision which he at times received of
+this hostile power, a power as great as his own and disposing of
+formidable means, the extent of which he himself was unable to realize.
+
+He at once suspected his warder. But how had it been possible to corrupt
+that hard-featured, stern-eyed man?
+
+"Well, so much the better, after all!" he cried. "I have never had to do
+except with dullards. . . . In order to fight myself, I had to chuck
+myself into the command of the detective-service. . . . This time, I
+have some one to deal with! . . . Here's a man who puts me in his pocket
+. . . by sleight of hand, one might say. . . . If I succeed, from my
+prison cell, in avoiding his blows and smashing him, in seeing old
+Steinweg and dragging his confession from him, in setting the Kesselbach
+case on its legs and turning the whole of it into cash, in defending
+Mrs. Kesselbach and winning fortune and happiness for Geneviève . . .
+well, then Lupin will be Lupin still! . . ."
+
+Eleven days passed. On the twelfth day, Lupin woke very early and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Let me see, if my calculations are correct and if the gods are on my
+side, there will be some news to-day. I have had four interviews with
+Formerie. The fellow must be worked up to the right point now. And the
+Doudevilles, on their side, must have been busy. . . . We shall have
+some fun!"
+
+He flung out his fists to right and left, brought them back to his
+chest, then flung them out again and brought them back again.
+
+This movement, which executed thirty times in succession, was followed
+by a bending of his body backwards and forwards. Next came an alternate
+lifting of the legs and then an alternate swinging of the arms.
+
+The whole performance occupied a quarter of an hour, the quarter of an
+hour which he devoted every morning to Swedish exercises to keep his
+muscles in condition.
+
+Then he sat down to his table, took up some sheets of white paper, which
+were arranged in numbered packets, and, folding one of them, made it
+into an envelope, a work which he continued to do with a series of
+successive sheets. It was the task which he had accepted and which he
+forced himself to do daily, the prisoners having the right to choose the
+labor which they preferred: sticking envelopes, making paper fans, metal
+purses, and so on. . . .
+
+And, in this way, while occupying his hands with an automatic exercise
+and keeping his muscles supple with mechanical bendings, Lupin was able
+to have his thoughts constantly fixed on his affairs. . . .
+
+And his affairs were complicated enough, in all conscience!
+
+There was one, for instance, which surpassed all the others in
+importance, and for which he had to employ all the resources of his
+genius. How was he to have a long, quiet conversation with old Steinweg?
+The necessity was immediate. In a few days, Steinweg would have
+recovered from his imprisonment, would receive interviews, might blab
+. . . to say nothing of the inevitable interference of the enemy, 'the
+other one.' And it was essential that Steinweg's secret, Pierre Leduc's
+secret, should be revealed to no one but Lupin. Once published, the
+secret lost all its value. . . .
+
+The bolts grated, the key turned noisily in the lock.
+
+"Ah, it's you, most excellent of jailers! Has the moment come for the
+last toilet? The hair-cut that precedes the great final cut of all?"
+
+"Magistrate's examination," said the man, laconically.
+
+Lupin walked through the corridors of the prison and was received by the
+municipal guards, who locked him into the prison-van.
+
+He reached the Palais de Justice twenty minutes later. One of the
+Doudevilles was waiting near the stairs. As they went up, he said to
+Lupin:
+
+"You'll be confronted to-day."
+
+"Everything settled?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Weber?"
+
+"Busy elsewhere."
+
+Lupin walked into M. Formerie's room and at once recognized old
+Steinweg, sitting on a chair, looking ill and wretched. A municipal
+guard was standing behind him.
+
+M. Formerie scrutinized the prisoner attentively, as though he hoped to
+draw important conclusions from his contemplation of him, and said:
+
+"You know who this gentleman is?"
+
+"Why, Steinweg, of course! . . ."
+
+"Yes, thanks to the active inquiries of M. Weber and of his two
+officers, the brothers Doudeville, we have found Mr. Steinweg, who,
+according to you, knows the ins and outs of the Kesselbach case, the
+name of the murderer and all the rest of it."
+
+"I congratulate you, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Your examination
+will go swimmingly."
+
+"I think so. There is only one 'but': Mr. Steinweg refuses to reveal
+anything, except in your presence."
+
+"Well, I never! How odd of him! Does Arsène Lupin inspire him with so
+much affection and esteem?"
+
+"Not Arsène Lupin, but Prince Sernine, who, he says, saved his life, and
+M. Lenormand, with whom, he says, he began a conversation. . . ."
+
+"At the time when I was chief of the detective-service," Lupin broke in.
+"So you consent to admit."
+
+"Mr. Steinweg," said the magistrate, "do you recognize M. Lenormand?"
+
+"No, but I know that Arsène Lupin and he are one."
+
+"So you consent to speak?"
+
+"Yes . . . but . . . we are not alone."
+
+"How do you mean? There is only my clerk here . . . and the guard . . ."
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, the secret which I am about to reveal
+is so important that you yourself would be sorry . . ."
+
+"Guard, go outside, please," said M. Formerie. "Come back at once, if I
+call. Do you object to my clerk, Steinweg?"
+
+"No, no . . . it might be better . . . but, however . . ."
+
+"Then speak. For that matter, nothing that you reveal will be put down
+in black on white. One word more, though: I ask you for the last time,
+is it indispensable that the prisoner should be present at this
+interview?"
+
+"Quite indispensable. You will see the reason for yourself."
+
+He drew the chair up to the magistrate's desk, Lupin remained standing,
+near the clerk. And the old man, speaking in a loud voice, said:
+
+"It is now ten years since a series of circumstances, which I need not
+enter into, made me acquainted with an extraordinary story in which two
+persons are concerned."
+
+"Their names, please."
+
+"I will give the names presently. For the moment, let me say that one of
+these persons occupies an exceptional position in France, and that the
+other, an Italian, or rather a Spaniard . . . yes, a Spaniard . . ."
+
+A bound across the room, followed by two formidable blows of the fist.
+. . . Lupin's two arms had darted out to right and left, as though
+impelled by springs and his two fists, hard as cannon balls, caught the
+magistrate and his clerk on the jaw, just below the ear.
+
+The magistrate and the clerk collapsed over their tables, in two lumps,
+without a moan.
+
+"Well hit!" said Lupin. "That was a neat bit of work."
+
+He went to the door and locked it softly. Then returning:
+
+"Steinweg, have you the chloroform?"
+
+"Are you quite sure that they have fainted?" asks the old man, trembling
+with fear.
+
+"What do you think! But it will only last for three or four minutes.
+. . . And that is not long enough."
+
+The German produced from his pocket a bottle and two pads of
+cotton-wool, ready prepared.
+
+Lupin uncorked the bottle, poured a few drops of the chloroform on the
+two pads and held them to the noses of the magistrate and his clerk.
+
+"Capital! We have ten minutes of peace and quiet before us. That will
+do, but let's make haste, all the same; and not a word too much, old
+man, do you hear?" He took him by the arm. "You see what I am able to
+do. Here we are, alone in the very heart of the Palais de Justice,
+because I wished it."
+
+"Yes," said the old man.
+
+"So you are going to tell me your secret?"
+
+"Yes, I told it to Kesselbach, because he was rich and could turn it to
+better account than anybody I knew; but, prisoner and absolutely
+powerless though you are, I consider you a hundred times as strong as
+Kesselbach with his hundred millions."
+
+"In that case, speak; and let us take things in their proper order. The
+name of the murderer?"
+
+"That's impossible."
+
+"How do you mean, impossible? I thought you knew it and were going to
+tell me everything!"
+
+"Everything, but not that."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"Later on."
+
+"You're mad! Why?"
+
+"I have no proofs. Later, when you are free, we will hunt together.
+Besides, what's the good? And then, really, I can't tell you."
+
+"You're afraid of him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well," said Lupin. "After all, that's not the most urgent matter.
+As to the rest, you've made up your mind to speak?"
+
+"Without reserve."
+
+"Well, then, answer. Who is Pierre Leduc?"
+
+"Hermann IV., Grand Duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, Prince of Berncastel,
+Count of Fistingen, Lord of Wiesbaden and other places."
+
+Lupin felt a thrill of joy at learning that his _protégé_ was definitely
+not the son of a pork-butcher!
+
+"The devil!" he muttered. "So we have a handle to our name! . . . As far
+as I remember, the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz is in Prussia?"
+
+"Yes, on the Moselle. The house of Veldenz is a branch of the Palatine
+house of Zweibrucken. The grand-duchy was occupied by the French after
+the peace of Luneville and formed part of the department of
+Mont-Tonnerre. In 1814, it was restored in favor of Hermann I., the
+great grandfather of Pierre Leduc. His son, Hermann II., spent a riotous
+youth, ruined himself, squandered the finances of his country and made
+himself impossible to his subjects, who ended by partly burning the old
+castle at Veldenz and driving their sovereign out of his dominions. The
+grand-duchy was then administered and governed by three regents, in the
+name of Hermann II., who, by a curious anomaly, did not abdicate, but
+retained his title as reigning grand-duke. He lived, rather short of
+cash, in Berlin; later, he fought in the French war, by the side of
+Bismarck, of whom he was a friend. He was killed by a shell at the siege
+of Paris and, in dying, entrusted Bismarck with the charge of his son
+Hermann, that is, Hermann III."
+
+"The father, therefore, of our Leduc," said Lupin.
+
+"Yes. The chancellor took a liking to Hermann III., and used often to
+employ him as a secret envoy to persons of distinction abroad. At the
+fall of his patron Hermann III., left Berlin, travelled about and
+returned and settled in Dresden. When Bismarck died, Hermann III., was
+there. He himself died two years later. These are public facts, known to
+everybody in Germany; and that is the story of the three Hermanns,
+Grand-dukes of Zweibrucken-Veldenz in the nineteenth century."
+
+"But the fourth, Hermann IV., the one in whom we are interested?"
+
+"We will speak of him presently. Let us now pass on to unknown facts."
+
+"Facts known to you alone," said Lupin.
+
+"To me alone and to a few others."
+
+"How do you mean, a few others? Hasn't the secret been kept?"
+
+"Yes, yes, the secret has been well kept by all who know it. Have no
+fear; it is very much to their interest, I assure you, not to divulge
+it."
+
+"Then how do you know it?"
+
+"Through an old servant and private secretary of the Grand-duke Hermann,
+the last of the name. This servant, who died in my arms in South Africa,
+began by confiding to me that his master was secretly married and had
+left a son behind him. Then he told me the great secret."
+
+"The one which you afterwards revealed to Kesselbach."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"One second . . . Will you excuse me? . . ."
+
+Lupin bent over M. Formerie, satisfied himself that all was well and the
+heart beating normally, and said:
+
+"Go on."
+
+Steinweg resumed:
+
+"On the evening of the day on which Bismarck died, the Grand-duke
+Hermann III. and his faithful manservant--my South African friend--took
+a train which brought them to Munich in time to catch the express for
+Vienna. From Vienna, they went to Constantinople, then to Cairo, then to
+Naples, then to Tunis, then to Spain, then to Paris, then to London, to
+St. Petersburg, to Warsaw . . . and in none of these towns did they
+stop. They took a cab, had their two bags put on the top, rushed through
+the streets, hurried to another station or to the landing-stage, and
+once more took the train or the steamer."
+
+"In short, they were being followed and were trying to put their
+pursuers off the scent," Arsène Lupin concluded.
+
+"One evening, they left the city of Treves, dressed in workmen's caps
+and linen jackets, each with a bundle slung over his shoulder at the end
+of a stick. They covered on foot the twenty-two miles to Veldenz, where
+the old Castle of Zweibrucken stands, or rather the ruins of the old
+castle."
+
+"No descriptions, please."
+
+"All day long, they remained hidden in a neighboring forest. At night,
+they went up to the old walls. Hermann ordered his servant to wait for
+him and himself scaled the wall at a breach known as the Wolf's Gap. He
+returned in an hour's time. In the following week, after more
+peregrinations, he went back home to Dresden. The expedition was over."
+
+"And what was the object of the expedition?"
+
+"The grand-duke never breathed a word about it to his servant. But
+certain particulars and the coincidence of facts that ensued enabled the
+man to build up the truth, at least, in part."
+
+"Quick, Steinweg, time is running short now: and I am eager to know."
+
+"A fortnight after the expedition, Count von Waldemar, an officer in the
+Emperor's body-guard and one of his personal friends, called on the
+grand-duke, accompanied by six men. He was there all day, locked up with
+the grand-duke in his study. There were repeated sounds of altercations,
+of violent disputes. One phrase even was overheard by the servant, who
+was passing through the garden, under the windows: 'Those papers were
+handed to you; His imperial Majesty is sure of it. If you refuse to give
+them to me of your own free will . . .' The rest of the sentence, the
+meaning of the threat and, for that matter, the whole scene can be
+easily guessed by what followed; Hermann's house was ransacked from top
+to bottom."
+
+"But that is against the law."
+
+"It would have been against the law if the grand-duke had objected; but
+he himself accompanied the count in his search."
+
+"And what were they looking for? The chancellor's memoirs?"
+
+"Something better than that. They were looking for a parcel of secret
+documents which were known to exist, owing to indiscretions that had
+been committed, and which were known for certain to have been entrusted
+to the Grand-duke Hermann's keeping."
+
+Lupin muttered, excitedly:
+
+"Secret documents . . . and very important ones, no doubt?"
+
+"Of the highest importance. The publication of those papers would lead
+to results which it would be impossible to foresee, not only from the
+point of view of home politics, but also from that of Germany's
+relations with the foreign powers."
+
+"Oh!" said Lupin, throbbing with emotion. "Oh, can it be possible? What
+proof have you?"
+
+"What proof? The evidence of the grand-duke's wife, the confidences
+which she made to the servant after her husband's death."
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . ." stammered Lupin. "We have the evidence of the
+grand-duke himself."
+
+"Better still," said Steinweg.
+
+"What?"
+
+"A document, a document written in his own hand, signed by him and
+containing . . ."
+
+"Containing what?"
+
+"A list of the secret papers confided to his charge."
+
+"Tell me, in two words. . . ."
+
+"In two words? That can't be done. The document is a very long one,
+scattered all over with annotations and remarks which are sometimes
+impossible to understand. Let me mention just two titles which obviously
+refer to two bundles of secret papers: _Original letters of the Crown
+Prince to Bismarck_ is one. The dates show that these letters were
+written during the three months of the reign of Frederick III. To
+picture what the letters may contain, you have only to think of the
+Emperor Frederick's illness, his quarrels with his son . . ."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. . . . And the other title?"
+
+"_Photographs of the letters of Frederick III., and the Empress Victoria
+to the Queen of England._"
+
+"Do you mean to say that that's there?" asked Lupin, in a choking voice.
+
+"Listen to the grand-duke's notes: _Text of the treaty with Great
+Britain and France._ And these rather obscure words: 'Alsace-Lorraine.
+. . . Colonies. . . . Limitation of naval armaments. . . ."
+
+"It says that?" blurted Lupin. "And you call that obscure? . . . Why,
+the words are dazzling with light! . . . Oh, can it be possible? . . .
+And what next, what next?"
+
+As he spoke there was a noise at the door. Some one was knocking.
+
+"You can't come in," said Lupin. "I am busy. . . . Go on, Steinweg."
+
+"But . . ." said the old man, in a great state of alarm.
+
+The door was shaken violently and Lupin recognized Weber's voice. He
+shouted:
+
+"A little patience, Weber. I shall have done in five minutes."
+
+He gripped the old man's arm and, in a tone of command:
+
+"Be easy and go on with your story. So, according to you, the expedition
+of the grand duke and his servant to Veldenz Castle had no other object
+than to hide those papers?"
+
+"There can be no question about that."
+
+"Very well. But the grand-duke may have taken them away since."
+
+"No, he did not leave Dresden until his death."
+
+"But the grand-duke's enemies, the men who had everything to gain by
+recovering them and destroying them: can't they have tried to find out
+where the papers were?"
+
+"They have tried."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You can understand that I did not remain inactive and that my first
+care, after receiving those revelations, was to go to Veldenz and make
+inquiries for myself in the neighboring villages. Well, I learnt that,
+on two separate occasions, the castle was invaded by a dozen men, who
+came from Berlin furnished with credentials to the regents."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, they found nothing, for, since that time, the castle has been
+found closed to the public."
+
+"But what prevents anybody from getting in?"
+
+"A garrison of fifty soldiers, who keep watch day and night."
+
+"Soldiers of the grand-duchy?"
+
+"No, soldiers drafted from the Emperor's own body-guard."
+
+The din in the passage increased:
+
+"Open the door!" a voice cried. "I order you to open the door!"
+
+"I can't. Weber, old chap; the lock has stuck. If you take my advice,
+you had better cut the door all round the lock."
+
+"Open the door!"
+
+"And what about the fate of Europe, which we are discussing?"
+
+He turned to the old man:
+
+"So you were not able to enter the castle?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you are persuaded that the papers in question are hidden there?"
+
+"Look here, haven't I given you proofs enough? Aren't you convinced?"
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Lupin, "that's where they are hidden . . . there's
+no doubt about it . . . that's where they are hidden. . . ."
+
+He seemed to see the castle. He seemed to conjure up the mysterious
+hiding-place. And the vision of an inexhaustible treasure, the dream of
+chests filled with riches and precious stones could not have excited him
+more than the idea of those few scraps of paper watched over by the
+Kaiser's guards. What a wonderful conquest to embark upon! And how
+worthy of his powers! And what a proof of perspicacity and intuition he
+had once more given by throwing himself at a venture upon that unknown
+track!
+
+Outside, the men were "working" at the lock.
+
+Lupin asked of old Steinweg:
+
+"What did the grand-duke die of?"
+
+"An attack of pleurisy, which carried him off in a few days. He hardly
+recovered consciousness before the end; and the horrible thing appears
+to have been that he was seen to make violent efforts, between his fits
+of delirium, to collect his thoughts and utter connected words. From
+time to time, he called his wife, looked at her in a desperate way and
+vainly moved his lips."
+
+"In a word, he spoke?" said Lupin, cutting him short, for the "working"
+at the lock was beginning to make him anxious.
+
+"No, he did not speak. But, in a comparatively lucid moment, he summoned
+up the energy to make some marks on a piece of paper which his wife
+gave him."
+
+"Well, those marks . . . ?"
+
+"They were illegible, for the most part."
+
+"For the most part? But the others?" asked Lupin, greedily. "The
+others?"
+
+"There were, first, three perfectly distinct figures: an 8, a 1, and a
+3. . . ."
+
+"Yes, 813, I know . . . and next?"
+
+"And next, there were some letters . . . several letters, of which all
+that can be made out for certain are a group of three followed,
+immediately after, by a group of two letters."
+
+"'APO ON,' is that it?"
+
+"Oh, so you know! . . ."
+
+The lock was yielding; almost all the screws had been taken out. Lupin,
+suddenly alarmed at the thought of being interrupted, asked:
+
+"So that this incomplete word 'APO ON' and the number 813 are the
+formulas which the grand-duke bequeathed to his wife and son to enable
+them to find the secret papers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What became of the grand-duke's wife?"
+
+"She died soon after her husband, of grief, one might say."
+
+"And was the child looked after by the family?"
+
+"What family? The grand-duke had no brothers or sisters. Moreover, he
+was only morganatically and secretly married. No, the child was taken
+away by Hermann's old man-servant, who brought him up under the name of
+Pierre Leduc. He was a bad type of boy, self-willed, capricious and
+troublesome. One day, he went off and was never seen again."
+
+"Did he know the secret of his birth?"
+
+"Yes; and he was shown the sheet of paper on which Hermann III. had
+written the letters and figures."
+
+"And after that this revelation was made to no one but yourself?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"And you confided only in Mr. Kesselbach?"
+
+"Yes. But, out of prudence, while showing him the sheet of letters and
+figures and the list of which I spoke to you, I kept both those
+documents in my own possession. Events have proved that I was right."
+
+Lupin was now clinging to the door with both hands:
+
+"Weber," he roared, "you're very indiscreet! I shall report you! . . .
+Steinweg, have you those documents?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are they in a safe place?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"In Paris?"
+
+"No."
+
+"So much the better. Don't forget that your life is in danger and that
+you have people after you."
+
+"I know. The least false step and I am done for."
+
+"Exactly. So take your precautions, throw the enemy off the scent, go
+and fetch your papers and await my instructions. The thing is cut and
+dried. In a month, at latest, we will go to Veldenz Castle together."
+
+"Suppose I'm in prison?"
+
+"I will take you out."
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"The very day after I come out myself. No, I'm wrong: the same evening
+. . . an hour later."
+
+"You have the means?"
+
+"Since the last ten minutes, an infallible means. You have nothing more
+to say to me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I'll open the door."
+
+He pulled back the door, and bowing to M. Weber:
+
+"My poor old Weber, I don't know what excuse to make . . ."
+
+He did not finish his sentence. The sudden inrush of the deputy-chief
+and three policeman left him no time.
+
+M. Weber was white with rage and indignation. The sight of the two men
+lying outstretched quite unsettled him.
+
+"Dead!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it," chuckled Lupin, "only asleep!
+Formerie was tired out . . . so I allowed him a few moments' rest."
+
+"Enough of this humbug!" shouted M. Weber. And, turning to the
+policemen, "Take him back to the Santé. And keep your eyes open, damn
+it! As for this visitor . . ."
+
+Lupin learnt nothing more as to Weber's intentions with regard to old
+Steinweg. A crowd of municipal guards and police constables hustled him
+down to the prison-van.
+
+On the stairs Doudeville whispered:
+
+"Weber had a line to warn him. It told him to mind the confrontation and
+to be on his guard with Steinweg. The note was signed 'L. M.'"
+
+But Lupin hardly bothered his head about all this. What did he care for
+the murderer's hatred or old Steinweg's fate? He possessed Rudolf
+Kesselbach's secret!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+LUPIN'S GREAT SCHEME
+
+
+Contrary to his expectations, Lupin had no sort of annoyance to undergo
+in consequence of his assault on M. Formerie.
+
+The examining-magistrate came to the Santé in person, two days later,
+and told him, with some embarrassment and with an affectation of
+kindness, that he did not intend to pursue the matter further.
+
+"Nor I, either," retorted Lupin.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I mean that I shall send no communication to the press about this
+particular matter nor do anything that might expose you to ridicule,
+Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. The scandal shall not be made public, I
+promise. That is what you want, is it not?"
+
+M. Formerie blushed and, without replying, continued:
+
+"Only, henceforth, your examinations will take place here."
+
+"It's quite right that the law should put itself out for Lupin!" said
+that gentleman.
+
+The announcement of this decision, which interrupted his almost daily
+meetings with the Doudevilles, did not disturb Lupin. He had taken his
+precautions from the first day, by giving the Doudevilles all the
+necessary instructions and, now that the preparations were nearly
+completed, reckoned upon being able to turn old Steinweg's confidences
+to the best account without delay and to obtain his liberty by one of
+the most extraordinary and ingenious schemes that had ever entered his
+brain.
+
+His method of correspondence was a simple one; and he had devised it at
+once. Every morning he was supplied with sheets of paper in numbered
+packets. He made these into envelopes; and, every evening, the
+envelopes, duly folded and gummed, were fetched away. Now Lupin,
+noticing that his packet always bore the same number, had drawn the
+inference that the distribution of the numbered packets was always
+affected in the same order among the prisoners who had chosen that
+particular kind of work. Experience showed that he was right.
+
+It only remained for the Doudevilles to bribe one of the employees of
+the private firm entrusted with the supply and dispatch of the
+envelopes. This was easily done; and, thenceforward, Lupin, sure of
+success, had only to wait quietly until the sign agreed upon between him
+and his friends appeared upon the top sheet of the packet.
+
+On the sixth day, he gave an exclamation of delight:
+
+"At last!" he said.
+
+He took a tiny bottle from a hiding-place, uncorked it, moistened the
+tip of his forefinger with the liquid which it contained and passed his
+finger over the third sheet in the packet.
+
+In a moment, strokes appeared, then letters, then words and sentences.
+
+He read:
+
+      "All well. Steinweg free. Hiding in country. Geneviève
+      Ernemont good health. Often goes Hôtel Bristol to see
+      Mrs. Kesselbach, who is ill. Meets Pierre Leduc there
+      every time. Answer by same means. No danger."
+
+So communications were established with the outside. Once more, Lupin's
+efforts were crowned with success. All that he had to do now was to
+execute his plan and lead the press campaign which he had prepared in
+the peaceful solitude of his prison.
+
+Three days later, these few lines appeared in the _Grand Journal_:
+
+      "Quite apart from Prince Bismarck's _Memoirs_, which,
+      according to well-informed people, contain merely the
+      official history of the events in which the great
+      chancellor was concerned, there exists a series of
+      confidential letters of no little interest.
+
+      "These letters have been recently discovered. We hear,
+      on good authority, that they will be published almost
+      immediately."
+
+My readers will remember the noise which these mysterious sentences made
+throughout the civilized world, the comments in which people indulged,
+the suggestions put forward and, in particular, the controversy that
+followed in the German press. Who had inspired those lines? What were
+the letters in question? Who had written them to the chancellor or who
+had received them from him? Was it an act of posthumous revenge? Or was
+it an indiscretion committed by one of Bismarck's correspondents?
+
+A second note settled public opinion as to certain points, but, at the
+same time, worked it up to a strange pitch of excitement. It ran as
+follows:
+
+      "_To the Editor of the Grand Journal_,
+                                  "SANTÉ PALACE,
+                           "Cell 14, Second Division.
+
+      "SIR,
+
+      "You inserted in your issue of Tuesday last a
+      paragraph based upon a few words which I let fall, the
+      other evening, in the course of a lecture, which I was
+      delivering at the Santé on foreign politics. Your
+      correspondent's paragraph, although accurate in all
+      essential particulars, requires a slight correction.
+      The letters exist, as stated, and it is impossible to
+      deny their exceptional importance, seeing that, for
+      ten years, they have been the object of an
+      uninterrupted search on the part of the government
+      interested. But nobody knows where they are hidden and
+      nobody knows a single word of what they contain.
+
+      "The public, I am convinced, will bear me no ill-will
+      if I keep it waiting for some time before satisfying
+      its legitimate curiosity. Apart from the fact that I
+      am not in possession of all the elements necessary for
+      the pursuit of the truth, my present occupation does
+      not allow me to devote so much time as I could wish to
+      this matter.
+
+      "All that I can say for the moment is that the letters
+      were entrusted by the dying statesman to one of his
+      most faithful friends and that this friend had
+      eventually to suffer the serious consequences of his
+      loyalty. Constant spying, domiciliary visits, nothing
+      was spared him.
+
+      "I have given orders to two of the best agents of my
+      secret police to take up this scent from the start in
+      a position to get to the bottom of this exciting
+      mystery.
+
+            "I have the honor to be Sir,
+                     "Your obedient servant,
+                                   "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+So it was Arsène Lupin who was conducting the case! It was he who, from
+his prison cell, was stage-managing the comedy or the tragedy announced
+in the first note. What luck! Everybody was delighted. With an artist
+like Lupin, the spectacle could not fail to be both picturesque and
+startling.
+
+Three days later the _Grand Journal_ contained the following letter from
+Arsène Lupin:
+
+      "The name of the devoted friend to whom I referred has
+      been imparted to me. It was the Grand-Duke Hermann
+      III., reigning (although dispossessed) sovereign of
+      the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz and a confidant
+      of Prince Bismarck, whose entire friendship he
+      enjoyed.
+
+      "A thorough search was made of his house by Count von
+      W----, at the head of twelve men. The result of this
+      search was purely negative, but the grand-duke was
+      nevertheless proved to be in possession of the papers.
+
+      "Where had he hidden them? This was a problem which
+      probably nobody in the world would be able to solve at
+      the present moment.
+
+      "I must ask for twenty-four hours in which to solve
+      it.
+
+                                   "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+And, twenty-four hours later, the promised note appeared:
+
+      "The famous letters are hidden in the feudal castle of
+      Veldenz, the capital of the Grand-duchy of
+      Zweibrucken. The castle was partly destroyed in the
+      course of the nineteenth century.
+
+      "Where exactly are they hidden? And what are the
+      letters precisely? These are the two problems which I
+      am now engaged in unravelling; and I shall publish the
+      solution in four days' time.
+
+                                   "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+On the day stated, men scrambled to obtain copies of the _Grand
+Journal_. To the general disappointment, the promised information was
+not given. The same silence followed on the next day and the day after.
+
+What had happened?
+
+It leaked out through an indiscretion at the Prefecture of Police. The
+governor of the Santé, it appeared, had been warned that Lupin was
+communicating with his accomplices by means of the packets of envelopes
+which he made. Nothing had been discovered; but it was thought best, in
+any case, to forbid all work to the insufferable prisoner.
+
+To this the insufferable prisoner replied:
+
+"As I have nothing to do now, I may as well attend to my trial. Please
+let my counsel, Maître Quimbel, know."
+
+It was true. Lupin, who, hitherto, had refused to hold any intercourse
+with Maître Quimbel, now consented to see him and to prepare his
+defence.
+
+On the next day Maître Quimbel, in cheery tones, asked for Lupin to be
+brought to the barristers' room. He was an elderly man, wearing a pair
+of very powerful spectacles, which made his eyes seem enormous. He put
+his hat on the table, spread out his brief-case and at once began to put
+a series of questions which he had carefully prepared.
+
+Lupin replied with extreme readiness and even volunteered a host of
+particulars, which Maître Quimbel took down, as he spoke, on slips
+pinned one to the other.
+
+"And so you say," continued the barrister, with his head over his
+papers, "that, at that time . . ."
+
+"I say that, at that time . . ." Lupin answered.
+
+Little by little, with a series of natural and hardly perceptible
+movements, he leant elbows on the table. He gradually lowered his arms,
+slipped his hand under Maître Quimbel's hat, put his finger into the
+leather band and took out one of those strips of paper, folded
+lengthwise, which the hatter inserts between the leather and the lining
+when the hat is a trifle too large.
+
+He unfolded the paper. It was a message from Doudeville, written in a
+cipher agreed upon beforehand:
+
+      "I am engaged as indoor servant at Maître Quimbel's.
+      You can answer by the same means without fear.
+
+      "It was L. M., the murderer, who gave away the
+      envelope trick. A good thing that you foresaw this
+      move!"
+
+Hereupon followed a minute report of all the facts and comments caused
+by Lupin's revelations.
+
+Lupin took from his pocket a similar strip of paper containing his
+instructions, quietly substituted it in the place of the other and drew
+his hand back again. The trick was played.
+
+And Lupin's correspondence with the _Grand Journal_ was resumed without
+further delay.
+
+      "I apologize to the public for not keeping my promise.
+      The postal arrangements at the Santé Palace are
+      woefully inadequate.
+
+      "However, we are near the end. I have in hand all the
+      documents that establish the truth upon an
+      indisputable basis. I shall not publish them for the
+      moment. Nevertheless, I will say this: among the
+      letters are some that were addressed to the chancellor
+      by one who, at that time, declared himself his
+      disciple and his admirer and who was destined, several
+      years after, to rid himself of that irksome tutor and
+      to govern alone.
+
+      "I trust that I make myself sufficiently clear."
+
+And, on the next day:
+
+      "The letters were written during the late Emperor's
+      illness. I need hardly add more to prove their
+      importance."
+
+Four days of silence, and then this final note, which caused a stir that
+has not yet been forgotten:
+
+      "My investigation is finished. I now know everything.
+
+      "By dint of reflection, I have guessed the secret of
+      the hiding-place.
+
+      "My friends are going to Veldenz and, in spite of
+      every obstacle, will enter the castle by a way which I
+      am pointing out to them.
+
+      "The newspapers will then publish photographs of the
+      letters, of which I already know the tenor; but I
+      prefer to reproduce the whole text.
+
+      "This certain, inevitable publication will take place
+      in a fortnight from to-day precisely, on the 22nd of
+      August next.
+
+      "Between this and then I will keep silence . . . and
+      wait."
+
+The communications to the _Grand Journal_ did, in fact, stop for a time,
+but Lupin never ceased corresponding with his friends, "_via_ the hat,"
+as they said among themselves. It was so simple! There was no danger.
+Who could ever suspect that Maître Quimbel's hat served Lupin as a
+letter-box?
+
+Every two or three mornings, whenever he called, in fact, the celebrated
+advocate faithfully brought his client's letters: letters from Paris,
+letters from the country, letters from Germany; all reduced and
+condensed by Doudeville into a brief form and cipher language. And, an
+hour later, Maître Quimbel solemnly walked away, carrying Lupin's
+orders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, one day, the governor of the Santé received a telephone message,
+signed, "L. M.," informing him that Maître Quimbel was, in all
+probability, serving Lupin as his unwitting postman and that it would be
+advisable to keep an eye upon the worthy man's visits. The governor told
+Maître Quimbel, who thereupon resolved to bring his junior with him.
+
+So, once again, in spite of all Lupin's efforts, in spite of his fertile
+powers of invention, in spite of the marvels of ingenuity which he
+renewed after each defeat, once again Lupin found himself cut off from
+communication with the outside world by the infernal genius of his
+formidable adversary. And he found himself thus cut off at the most
+critical moment, at the solemn minute when, from his cell, he was
+playing his last trump-card against the coalesced forces that were
+overwhelming him so terribly.
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 13th of August, as he sat facing the two counsels, his attention
+was attracted by a newspaper in which some of Maître Quimbel's papers
+were wrapped up.
+
+He saw a heading in very large type
+
+                            "813"
+
+The sub-headings were:
+
+                       "A FRESH MURDER
+
+                  "THE EXCITEMENT IN GERMANY
+
+       "HAS THE SECRET OF THE 'APOON' BEEN DISCOVERED?"
+
+Lupin turned pale with anguish. Below he read the words:
+
+      "Two sensational telegrams reach us at the moment of
+      going to press.
+
+      "The body of an old man has been found near Augsburg,
+      with his throat cut with a knife. The police have
+      succeeded in identifying the victim: it is Steinweg,
+      the man mentioned in the Kesselbach case.
+
+      "On the other hand, a correspondent telegraphs that
+      the famous English detective, Holmlock Shears, has
+      been hurriedly summoned to Cologne. He will there meet
+      the Emperor; and they will both proceed to Veldenz
+      Castle.
+
+      "Holmlock Shears is said to have undertaken to
+      discover the secret of the 'APOON.'
+
+      "If he succeeds, it will mean the pitiful failure of
+      the incomprehensible campaign which Arsène Lupin has
+      been conducting for the past month in so strange a
+      fashion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps public curiosity was never so much stirred as by the duel
+announced to take place between Shears and Lupin, an invisible duel in
+the circumstances, an anonymous duel, one might say, in which everything
+would happen in the dark, in which people would be able to judge only by
+the final results, and yet an impressive duel, because of all the
+scandal that circled around the adventure and because of the stakes in
+dispute between the two irreconcilable enemies, now once more opposed to
+each other.
+
+And it was a question not of small private interests, of insignificant
+burglaries, of trumpery individual passions, but of a matter of really
+world-wide importance, involving the politics of the three great western
+nations and capable of disturbing the peace of the world.
+
+People waited anxiously; and no one knew exactly what he was waiting
+for. For, after all, if the detective came out victorious in the duel,
+if he found the letters, who would ever know? What proof would any one
+have of his triumph?
+
+In the main, all hopes were centred on Lupin, on his well-known habit
+of calling the public to witness his acts. What was he going to do? How
+could he avert the frightful danger that threatened him? Was he even
+aware of it?
+
+Those were the questions which men asked themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between the four walls of his cell, prisoner 14 asked himself pretty
+nearly the same questions; and he for his part, was not stimulated by
+idle curiosity, but by real uneasiness, by constant anxiety. He felt
+himself irrevocably alone, with impotent hands, an impotent will, an
+impotent brain. It availed him nothing that he was able, ingenious,
+fearless, heroic. The struggle was being carried on without him. His
+part was now finished. He had joined all the pieces and set all the
+springs of the great machine that was to produce, that was, in a manner
+of speaking, automatically to manufacture his liberty; and it was
+impossible for him to make a single movement to improve and supervise
+his handiwork.
+
+At the date fixed, the machine would start working. Between now and
+then, a thousand adverse incidents might spring up, a thousand obstacles
+arise, without his having the means to combat those incidents or remove
+those obstacles.
+
+Lupin spent the unhappiest hours of his life at that time. He doubted
+himself. He wondered whether his existence would be buried for good in
+the horror of a jail. Had he not made a mistake in his calculations? Was
+it not childish to believe that the event that was to set him free would
+happen on the appointed date?
+
+"Madness!" he cried. "My argument is false. . . . How can I expect such
+a concurrence of circumstances? There will be some little fact that
+will destroy all . . . the inevitable grain of sand. . . ."
+
+Steinweg's death and the disappearance of the documents which the old
+man was to make over to him did not trouble him greatly. The documents
+he could have done without in case of need; and, with the few words
+which Steinweg had told him, he was able, by dint of guess-work and his
+native genius, to reconstruct what the Emperor's letters contained and
+to draw up the plan of battle that would lead to victory. But he thought
+of Holmlock Shears, who was over there now, in the very centre of the
+battlefield, and who was seeking and who would find the letters, thus
+demolishing the edifice so patiently built up.
+
+And he thought of "the other one," the implacable enemy, lurking round
+the prison, hidden in the prison, perhaps, who guessed his most secret
+plans even before they were hatched in the mystery of his thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 17th of August! . . . The 18th of August! . . . The 19th! . . . Two
+more days. . . . Two centuries rather! Oh, the interminable minutes!
+. . .
+
+Lupin, usually so calm, so entirely master of himself, so ingenious at
+providing matter for his own amusement, was feverish, exultant and
+depressed by turns, powerless against the enemy, mistrusting everything
+and everybody, morose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 20th of August! . . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He would have wished to act and he could not. Whatever he did, it was
+impossible for him to hasten the hour of the catastrophe. This
+catastrophe would take place or would not take place; but Lupin would
+not know for certain until the last hour of the last day was spent to
+the last minute. Then--and then alone--he would know of the definite
+failure of his scheme.
+
+"The inevitable failure," he kept on repeating to himself. "Success
+depends upon circumstances far too subtle and can be obtained only by
+methods far too psychological. . . . There is no doubt that I am
+deceiving myself as to the value and the range of my weapons. . . . And
+yet . . ."
+
+Hope returned to him. He weighed his chances. They suddenly seemed to
+him real and formidable. The fact was going to happen as he had foreseen
+it happening and for the very reasons which he had expected. It was
+inevitable. . . .
+
+Yes, inevitable. Unless, indeed, Shears discovered the hiding-place.
+. . .
+
+And again he thought of Shears; and again an immense sense of
+discouragement overwhelmed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last day. . . .
+
+He woke late, after a night of bad dreams.
+
+He saw nobody that day, neither the examining magistrate nor his
+counsel.
+
+The afternoon dragged along slowly and dismally, and the evening came,
+the murky evening of the cells. . . . He was in a fever. His heart beat
+in his chest like the clapper of a bell.
+
+And the minutes passed, irretrievably. . . .
+
+At nine o'clock, nothing. At ten o'clock, nothing.
+
+With all his nerves tense as the string of a bow, he listened to the
+vague prison sounds, tried to catch through those inexorable walls all
+that might trickle in from the life outside.
+
+Oh, how he would have liked to stay the march of time and to give
+destiny a little more leisure!
+
+But what was the good? Was everything not finished? . . .
+
+"Oh," he cried, "I am going mad! If all this were only over . . . that
+would be better. I can begin again, differently. . . . I shall try
+something else . . . but I can't go on like this, I can't go on. . . ."
+
+He held his head in his hands, pressing it with all his might, locking
+himself within himself and concentrating his whole mind upon one
+subject, as though he wished to provoke, as though he wished to create
+the formidable, stupefying, inadmissible event to which he had attached
+his independence and his fortune:
+
+"It must happen," he muttered, "it must; and it must, not because I wish
+it, but because it is logical. And it shall happen . . . it shall
+happen. . . ."
+
+He beat his skull with his fists; and delirious words rose to his lips.
+. . .
+
+The key grated in the lock. In his frenzy, he had not heard the sound of
+footsteps in the corridor; and now, suddenly, a ray of light penetrated
+into his cell and the door opened.
+
+Three men entered.
+
+Lupin had not a moment of surprise.
+
+The unheard-of miracle was being worked; and this at once seemed to him
+natural and normal, in perfect agreement with truth and justice.
+
+But a rush of pride flooded his whole being. At this minute he really
+received a clear sensation of his own strength and intelligence. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Shall I switch on the light?" asked one of the three men, in whom
+Lupin recognized the governor of the prison.
+
+"No," replied the taller of his companions, speaking in a foreign
+accent. "This lantern will do."
+
+"Shall I go?"
+
+"Act according to your duty, sir," said the same individual.
+
+"My instructions from the prefect of police are to comply entirely with
+your wishes."
+
+"In that case, sir, it would be preferable that you should withdraw."
+
+M. Borély went away, leaving the door half open, and remained outside,
+within call.
+
+The visitor exchanged a few words with the one who had not yet spoken;
+and Lupin vainly tried to distinguish his features in the shade. He saw
+only two dark forms, clad in wide motoring-cloaks and wearing caps with
+the flaps lowered.
+
+"Are you Arsène Lupin?" asked the man, turning the light of the lantern
+full on his face.
+
+He smiled:
+
+"Yes, I am the person known as Arsène Lupin, at present a prisoner in
+the Santé, cell 14, second division."
+
+"Was it you," continued the visitor, "who published in the _Grand
+Journal_ a series of more or less fanciful notes, in which there is a
+question of a so-called collection of letters . . . ?"
+
+Lupin interrupted him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, but, before pursuing this conversation, the
+object of which, between ourselves, is none too clear to me, I should be
+much obliged if you would tell me to whom I have the honour of
+speaking."
+
+"Absolutely unnecessary," replied the stranger.
+
+"Absolutely essential," declared Lupin.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For reasons of politeness, sir. You know my name and I do not know
+yours; this implies a disregard of good form which I cannot suffer."
+
+The stranger lost patience:
+
+"The mere fact that the governor of the prison brought us here shows
+. . ."
+
+"That M. Borély does not know his manners," said Lupin. "M. Borély
+should have introduced us to each other. We are equals here, sir: it is
+no case of a superior and an inferior, of a prisoner and a visitor who
+condescends to come and see him. There are two men here; and one of
+those two men has a hat on his head, which he ought not to have."
+
+"Now look here . . ."
+
+"Take the lesson as you please, sir," said Lupin.
+
+The stranger came closer to him and tried to speak.
+
+"The hat first," said Lupin, "the hat. . . ."
+
+"You shall listen to me!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No."
+
+Matters were becoming virulent, stupidly. The second stranger, the one
+who had kept silent, placed his hand on his companion's shoulder and
+said, in German:
+
+"Leave him to me."
+
+"Why, it was understood . . ."
+
+"Hush . . . and go away!"
+
+"Leaving you alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But the door?"
+
+"Shut it and walk away."
+
+"But this man . . . you know who he is. . . . Arsène Lupin. . . ."
+
+"Go away!"
+
+The other went out, cursing under his breath.
+
+"Pull the door!" cried the second visitor. "Harder than that. . . .
+Altogether! . . . That's right. . . ."
+
+Then he turned, took the lantern and raised it slowly:
+
+"Shall I tell you who I am?" he asked.
+
+"No," replied Lupin.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I know."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You are the visitor I was expecting."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHARLEMAGNE
+
+
+"Silence!" said the stranger, sharply. "Don't use that word."
+
+"Then what shall I call Your . . ."
+
+"Call me nothing."
+
+They were both silent; and this moment of respite was not one of those
+which go before the struggle of two adversaries ready for the fray. The
+stranger strode to and fro with the air of a master accustomed to
+command and to be obeyed. Lupin stood motionless. He had abandoned his
+usual provocative attitude and his sarcastic smile. He waited, gravely
+and deferentially. But, down in the depths of his being, he revelled,
+eagerly, madly, in the marvellous situation in which he found himself
+placed: here, in his cell, he, a prisoner; he, the adventurer; he, the
+swindler, the burglar; he, Arsène Lupin . . . face to face with that
+demi-god of the modern world, that formidable entity, the heir of Cæsar
+and of Charlemagne.
+
+He was intoxicated for a moment with the sense of his own power. The
+tears came to his eyes when he thought of his triumph. . . .
+
+The stranger stood still.
+
+And at once, with the very first sentence, they came to the immediate
+point:
+
+"To-morrow is the 22nd of August. The letters are to be published
+to-morrow, are they not?"
+
+"To-night, in two hours from now, my friends are to hand in to the
+_Grand Journal_, not the letters themselves, but an exact list of the
+letters, with the Grand-duke Hermann's annotations."
+
+"That list shall not be handed in."
+
+"It shall not be."
+
+"You will give it to me."
+
+"It shall be placed in the hands of Your . . . in your hands."
+
+"Likewise, all the letters?"
+
+"Likewise, all the letters."
+
+"Without any of them being photographed?"
+
+"Without any of them being photographed."
+
+The stranger spoke in a very calm voice, containing not the least accent
+of entreaty nor the least inflection of authority. He neither ordered
+nor requested; he stated the inevitable actions of Arsène Lupin. Things
+would happen as he said. And they would happen, whatever Arsène Lupin's
+demands should be, at whatever price he might value the performance of
+those actions. The conditions were accepted beforehand.
+
+"By Jove," said Lupin to himself, "that's jolly clever of him! If he
+leaves it to my generosity, I am a ruined man!"
+
+The very way in which the conversation opened, the frankness of the
+words employed, the charm of voice and manner all pleased him
+infinitely.
+
+He pulled himself together, lest he should relent and abandon all the
+advantages which he had conquered so fiercely.
+
+And the stranger continued:
+
+"Have you read the letters?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But some one you know has read them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"In that case . . ."
+
+"I have the grand-duke's list and his notes. Moreover, I know the
+hiding-place where he put all his papers."
+
+"Why did you not take them before this?"
+
+"I did not know the secret of the hiding-place until I came here. My
+friends are on the way there now."
+
+"The castle is guarded. It is occupied by two hundred of my most trusty
+men."
+
+"Ten thousand would not be sufficient."
+
+After a minute's reflection, the visitor asked:
+
+"How do you know the secret?"
+
+"I guessed it."
+
+"But you had other elements of information which the papers did not
+publish?"
+
+"No, none at all."
+
+"And yet I had the castle searched for four days."
+
+"Holmlock Shears looked in the wrong place."
+
+"Ah!" said the stranger to himself. "It's an odd thing, an odd thing!
+. . ." And, to Lupin, "You are sure that your supposition is correct?"
+
+"It is not a supposition: it is a certainty."
+
+"So much the better," muttered the visitor. "There will be no rest until
+those papers cease to exist."
+
+And, placing himself in front of Arsène Lupin:
+
+"How much?"
+
+"What?" said Lupin, taken aback.
+
+"How much for the papers? How much do you ask to reveal the secret?"
+
+He waited for Lupin to name a figure. He suggested one himself:
+
+"Fifty thousand? . . . A hundred thousand?"
+
+And, when Lupin did not reply, he said, with a little hesitation:
+
+"More? Two hundred thousand? Very well! I agree."
+
+Lupin smiled and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"It is a handsome figure. But is it not likely that some sovereign, let
+us say, the King of England, would give as much as a million? In all
+sincerity?"
+
+"I believe so."
+
+"And that those letters are priceless to the Emperor, that they are
+worth two million quite as easily as two hundred thousand francs . . .
+three million as easily as two?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"And, if necessary, the Emperor would give that three million francs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it will not be difficult to come to an arrangement."
+
+"On that basis?" cried the stranger, not without some alarm.
+
+Lupin smiled again:
+
+"On that basis, no. . . . I am not looking for money. I want something
+else, something that is worth more to me than any number of millions."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"My liberty."
+
+"What! Your liberty. . . . But I can do nothing. . . . That concerns
+your country . . . the law. . . . I have no power."
+
+Lupin went up to him and, lowering his voice still more:
+
+"You have every power, Sire. . . . My liberty is not such an exceptional
+event that they are likely to refuse you."
+
+"Then I should have to ask for it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+"Of Valenglay, the prime minister."
+
+"But M. Valenglay himself can do no more than I."
+
+"He can open the doors of this prison for me."
+
+"It would cause a public outcry."
+
+"When I say, open . . . half-open would be enough . . . We should
+counterfeit an escape. . . . The public so thoroughly expects it that it
+would not so much as ask for an explanation."
+
+"Very well . . . but M. Valenglay will never consent. . . ."
+
+"He will consent."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you will express the wish."
+
+"My wishes are not commands . . . to him!"
+
+"No . . . but an opportunity of making himself agreeable to the Emperor
+by fulfilling them. And Valenglay is too shrewd a politician. . . ."
+
+"Nonsense! Do you imagine that the French government will commit so
+illegal an act for the sole pleasure of making itself agreeable to me?"
+
+"That pleasure will not be the sole one."
+
+"What will be the other?"
+
+"The pleasure of serving France by accepting the proposal which will
+accompany the request for my release."
+
+"I am to make a proposal? I?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+"What proposal?"
+
+"I do not know, but it seems to me that there is always a favorable
+ground on which to come to an understanding . . . there are
+possibilities of agreement. . . ."
+
+The stranger looked at him, without grasping his meaning. Lupin leant
+forward and, as though seeking his words, as though putting an imaginary
+case, said:
+
+"Let me suppose that two great countries are divided by some
+insignificant question . . . that they have different points of view on
+a matter of secondary importance . . . a colonial matter, for instance,
+in which their self-esteem is at stake rather than their interest. . . .
+Is it inconceivable that the ruler of one of those countries might come
+of his own accord to treat this matter in a new spirit of conciliation
+. . . and give the necessary instructions . . . so that . . ."
+
+"So that I might leave Morocco to France?" said the stranger, with a
+burst of laughter.
+
+The idea which Lupin was suggesting struck him as the most comical thing
+that he had ever heard; and he laughed heartily. The disparity was so
+great between the object aimed at and the means proposed!
+
+"Of course, of course!" he resumed, with a vain attempt to recover his
+seriousness. "Of course, it's a very original idea: the whole of modern
+politics upset so that Arsène Lupin may be free! . . . The plans of the
+Empire destroyed so that Arsène Lupin may continue his exploits! . . .
+Why not ask me for Alsace and Lorraine at once?"
+
+"I did think of it, Sire," replied Lupin, calmly. The stranger's
+merriment increased:
+
+"Splendid! And you let me off?"
+
+"This time, yes."
+
+Lupin had crossed his arms. He, too, was amusing himself by
+exaggerating the part which he was playing; and he continued, with
+affected seriousness:
+
+"A series of circumstances might one day arise which would put in my
+hands the power of _demanding_ and _obtaining_ that restitution. When
+that day comes, I shall certainly not fail to do so. For the moment, the
+weapons at my disposal oblige me to be more modest. Peace in Morocco
+will satisfy me."
+
+"Just that?"
+
+"Just that."
+
+"Morocco against your liberty!"
+
+"Nothing more . . . or, rather--for we must not lose sight entirely of
+the main object of this conversation--or, rather, a little good will on
+the part of one of the countries in question . . . and, in exchange, the
+surrender of the letters which are in my power."
+
+"Those letters, those letters!" muttered the stranger irritably. "After
+all, perhaps they are not so valuable. . . ."
+
+"There are some in your own hand, Sire; and you considered them valuable
+enough to come to this cell. . . ."
+
+"Well, what does it matter?"
+
+"But there are others of which you do not know the authorship and about
+which I can give you a few particulars."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" said the stranger, rather anxiously.
+
+Lupin hesitated.
+
+"Speak, speak plainly," said the stranger. "Say what you have in your
+mind."
+
+In the profound silence of the cell, Lupin declared, with a certain
+solemnity:
+
+"Twenty years ago a draft treaty was prepared between Germany, Great
+Britain, and France."
+
+"That's not true! It's impossible! Who could have done such a thing?"
+
+"The Emperor's father and the Queen of England, his grandmother, both
+acting under the influence of the Empress Frederick."
+
+"Impossible! I repeat, it is impossible!"
+
+"The correspondence is in the hiding-place at Veldenz Castle; and I
+alone know the secret of the hiding-place."
+
+The stranger walked up and down with an agitated step. Then he stopped
+short:
+
+"Is the text of the treaty included in that correspondence?"
+
+"Yes, Sire. It is in your father's own hand."
+
+"And what does it say?"
+
+"By that treaty, France and Great Britain granted and promised Germany
+an immense colonial empire, the empire which she does not at present
+possess and which has become a necessity to her, in these times, to
+ensure her greatness."
+
+"And what did England demand as a set-off against that empire?"
+
+"The limitation of the German fleet."
+
+"And France?"
+
+"Alsace and Lorraine."
+
+The Emperor leant against the table in silent thought. Lupin continued:
+
+"Everything was ready. The cabinets of Paris and London had been sounded
+and had consented. The thing was practically done. The great treaty of
+alliance was on the point of being concluded. It would have laid the
+foundations of a definite and universal peace. The death of your father
+destroyed that sublime dream. But I ask Your Imperial Majesty, what
+will your people think, what will the world think, when it knows that
+Frederick III., one of the heroes of 1870, a German, a pure and loyal
+German, respected by all, generally admired for his nobility of
+character, agreed to the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine and therefore
+considered that restitution just?"
+
+He was silent for an instant leaving the problem to fix itself in its
+precise terms before the Emperor's conscience, before his conscience as
+a man, a son and a sovereign. Then he concluded:
+
+"Your Imperial Majesty yourself must know whether you wish or do not
+wish history to record the existence of that treaty. As for me, Sire,
+you can see that my humble personality counts for very little in the
+discussion."
+
+A long pause followed upon Lupin's words. He waited, with his soul torn
+with anguish. His whole destiny was at stake, in this minute which he
+had conceived and, in a manner, produced with such effort and such
+stubbornness, an historic minute, born of his brain, in which "his
+humble personality," for all that he might say, weighed heavily upon the
+fate of empires and the peace of the world.
+
+Opposite him, in the shadow, Cæsar stood meditating.
+
+What answer would he make? What solution would he give to the problem?
+
+He walked across the cell for a few moments, which to Lupin seemed
+interminable. Then he stopped and asked:
+
+"Are there any other conditions?"
+
+"Yes, Sire, but they are insignificant."
+
+"Name them."
+
+"I have found the son of the Grand-duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz. The
+grand-duchy must be restored to him."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"He loves a young girl, who loves him in her turn. She is the fairest
+and the most virtuous of her sex. He must marry her."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"That is all."
+
+"There is nothing more?"
+
+"Nothing. Your majesty need only have this letter delivered to the
+editor of the _Grand Journal_, who will then destroy, unread, the
+article which he may now receive at any moment."
+
+Lupin held out the letter, with a heavy heart and a trembling hand. If
+the Emperor took it, that would be a sign of his acceptance.
+
+The Emperor hesitated and then, with an abrupt movement, took the
+letter, put on his hat, wrapped his cloak round him and walked out
+without a word.
+
+Lupin remained for a few seconds, staggering, as though dazed. . . .
+
+Then, suddenly, he fell into his chair, shouting with joy and pride.
+. . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I am sorry to say good-bye to you
+to-day."
+
+"Why, M. Lupin, are you thinking of leaving us?"
+
+"With the greatest reluctance, I assure you, Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction. Our relations have been so very pleasant and cordial! But
+all good things must come to an end. My cure at the Santé Palace is
+finished. Other duties call me. I have resolved to make my escape
+to-night."
+
+"Then I wish you good luck, M. Lupin."
+
+"A thousand thanks, M. le Juge d'Instruction."
+
+Arsène Lupin waited patiently for the hour of his escape, not without
+asking himself how it would be contrived and by what means France and
+Germany, uniting for the joint performance of this deserving work, would
+succeed in effecting it without creating too great a scandal.
+
+Late in the afternoon, the warder told him to go to the entrance-yard.
+He hurried out and was met by the governor, who handed him over to M.
+Weber. M. Weber made him step into a motor-car in which somebody was
+already seated.
+
+Lupin had a violent fit of laughter:
+
+"What, you, my poor old Weber! Have they let you in for this tiresome
+job? Are you to be responsible for my escape? Upon my word, you are an
+unlucky beggar! Oh, my poor old chap, what hard lines! First made famous
+through my arrest, you are now to become immortal through my escape!"
+
+He looked at the other man:
+
+"Well, well, Monsieur le Préfet de Police, so you are in the business
+too! That's a nasty thing for you, what? If you take my advice, you'll
+stay in the background and leave the honor and glory to Weber! It's his
+by right! . . . And he can stand a lot, the rascal!"
+
+The car travelled at a fast pace, along the Seine and through Boulogne.
+At Saint-Cloud, they crossed the river.
+
+"Splendid!" cried Lupin. "We're going to Garches! You want me there, in
+order to reënact the death of Altenheim. We shall go down into the
+underground passage, I shall disappear and people will say that I got
+through another outlet, known to myself alone! Lord, how idiotic!"
+
+He seemed quite unhappy about it:
+
+"Idiotic! Idiotic in the highest degree! I blush for shame! . . . And
+those are the people who govern us! . . . What an age to live in! . . .
+But, you poor devils, why didn't you come to me? I'd have invented a
+beautiful little escape for you, something of a miraculous nature. I had
+it all ready pigeon-holed in my mind! The public would have yelled with
+wonder and danced with delight. Instead of which . . . However, it's
+quite true that you were given rather short notice . . . but all the
+same . . ."
+
+The programme was exactly as Lupin had foreseen. They walked through the
+grounds of the House of Retreat to the Pavillon Hortense. Lupin and his
+two companions went down the stairs and along the underground passage.
+At the end of the tunnel, the deputy-chief said:
+
+"You are free."
+
+"And there you are!" said Lupin. "Is that all? Well, my dear Weber,
+thank you very much and sorry to have given you so much trouble.
+Good-bye, Monsieur le Préfet; kind regards to the missus!"
+
+He climbed the stairs that led to the Villa des Glycines, raised the
+trap-door and sprang into the room.
+
+A hand fell on his shoulder.
+
+Opposite him stood his first visitor of the day before, the one who had
+accompanied the Emperor. There were four men with him, two on either
+side.
+
+"Look here," said Lupin, "what's the meaning of this joke? I thought I
+was free!"
+
+"Yes, yes," growled the German, in his rough voice, "you are free . . .
+free to travel with the five of us . . . if that suits you."
+
+Lupin looked at him, for a second, with a mad longing to hit him on the
+nose, just to teach him. But the five men looked devilish determined.
+Their leader did not betray any exaggerated fondness for him; and it
+seemed to him that the fellow would be only too pleased to resort to
+extreme measures. Besides, after all, what did he care?
+
+He chuckled:
+
+"If it suits me? Why, it's the dream of my life!"
+
+A powerful covered car was waiting in the paved yard outside the villa.
+Two men got into the driver's seat, two others inside, with their backs
+to the motor. Lupin and the stranger sat down on the front seat.
+
+"_Vorwarts!_" cried Lupin, in German. "_Vorwarts nach Veldenz!_"
+
+The stranger said:
+
+"Silence! Those men must know nothing. Speak French. They don't know
+French. But why speak at all?"
+
+"Quite right," said Lupin to himself. "Why speak at all?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car travelled all the evening and all night, without any incident.
+Twice they stopped to take in petrol at some sleepy little town.
+
+The Germans took it in turns to watch their prisoner, who did not open
+his eyes until the early morning.
+
+They stopped for breakfast at an inn on a hillside, near which stood a
+sign-post. Lupin saw that they were at an equal distance from Metz and
+Luxemburg. From there, they took a road that slanted north-east, in the
+direction of Treves.
+
+Lupin said to his travelling-companion:
+
+"Am I right in believing that I have the honor of speaking to Count von
+Waldemar, the Emperor's confidential friend, the one who searched
+Hermann III.'s house in Dresden?"
+
+The stranger remained silent.
+
+"You're the sort of chap I can't stand at any price," muttered Lupin.
+"I'll have some fun with you, one of these days. You're ugly, you're
+fat, you're heavy; in short, I don't like you." And he added, aloud,
+"You are wrong not to answer me, Monsieur le Comte. I was speaking in
+your own interest: just as we were stepping in, I saw a motor come into
+sight, behind us, on the horizon. Did you see it?"
+
+"No, why?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Still. . . ."
+
+"No, nothing at all . . . a mere remark. . . . Besides, we are ten
+minutes ahead . . . and our car is at least a forty-horse-power."
+
+"It's a sixty," said the German, looking at him uneasily from the corner
+of his eye.
+
+"Oh, then we're all right!"
+
+They were climbing a little slope. When they reached the top, the count
+leant out of the window:
+
+"Damn it all!" he swore.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Lupin.
+
+The count turned to him and, in a threatening voice:
+
+"Take care! If anything happens, it will be so much the worse for you."
+
+"Oho! It seems the other's gaining on us! . . . But what are you afraid
+of, my dear count? It's no doubt a traveller . . . perhaps even some
+one they are sending to help us."
+
+"I don't want any help," growled the German.
+
+He leant out again. The car was only two or three hundred yards behind.
+
+He said to his men, pointing to Lupin.
+
+"Bind him. If he resists. . . ."
+
+He drew his revolver.
+
+"Why should I resist, O gentle Teuton?" chuckled Lupin. And he added,
+while they were fastening his hands, "It is really curious to see how
+people take precautions when they need not and don't when they ought to.
+What the devil do you care about that motor? Accomplices of mine? What
+an idea!"
+
+Without replying, the German gave orders to the driver:
+
+"To the right! . . . Slow down! . . . Let them pass. . . . If they slow
+down also, stop!"
+
+But, to his great surprise, the motor seemed, on the contrary, to
+increase its speed. It passed in front of the car like a whirlwind, in a
+cloud of dust. Standing up at the back, leaning over the hood, which was
+lowered, was a man dressed in black.
+
+He raised his arm.
+
+Two shots rang out.
+
+The count, who was blocking the whole of the left window, fell back into
+the car.
+
+Before even attending to him, the two men leapt upon Lupin and finished
+securing him.
+
+"Jackasses! Blockheads!" shouted Lupin, shaking with rage. "Let me go,
+on the contrary! There now, we're stopping! But go after him, you silly
+fools, catch him up! . . . It's the man in black, I tell you, the
+murderer! . . . Oh, the idiots! . . ."
+
+They gagged him. Then they attended to the count. The wound did not
+appear to be serious and was soon dressed. But the patient, who was in a
+very excited state, had an attack of fever and became delirious.
+
+It was eight o'clock in the morning. They were in the open country, far
+from any village. The men had no information as to the exact object of
+the journey. Where were they to go? Whom were they to send to?
+
+They drew up the motor beside a wood and waited. The whole day went by
+in this way. It was evening before a squad of cavalry arrived,
+dispatched from Treves in search of the motor-car.
+
+Two hours later, Lupin stepped out of the car, and still escorted by his
+two Germans, by the light of a lantern climbed the steps of a staircase
+that led to a small room with iron-barred windows.
+
+Here he spent the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, an officer led him, through a courtyard filled with
+soldiers, to the centre of a long row of buildings that ran round the
+foot of a mound covered with monumental ruins.
+
+He was shown into a large, hastily-furnished room. His visitor of two
+days back was sitting at a writing-table, reading newspapers and
+reports, which he marked with great strokes of red pencil:
+
+"Leave us," he said to the officer.
+
+And, going up to Lupin:
+
+"The papers."
+
+The tone was no longer the same. It was now the harsh and imperious tone
+of the master who is at home and addressing an inferior . . . and such
+an inferior! A rogue, an adventurer of the worst type, before whom he
+had been obliged to humiliate himself!
+
+"The papers," he repeated.
+
+Lupin was not put out of countenance. He said, quite calmly:
+
+"They are in Veldenz Castle."
+
+"We are in the out-buildings of the castle. Those are the ruins of
+Veldenz, over there."
+
+"The papers are in the ruins."
+
+"Let us go to them. Show me the way."
+
+Lupin did not budge.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, Sire, it is not as simple as you think. It takes some time to
+bring into play the elements which are needed to open that
+hiding-place."
+
+"How long do you want?"
+
+"Twenty-four hours."
+
+An angry movement, quickly suppressed:
+
+"Oh, there was no question of that between us!"
+
+"Nothing was specified, neither that nor the little trip which Your
+Imperial Majesty made me take in the charge of half a dozen of your
+body-guard. I am to hand over the papers, that is all."
+
+"And I am not to give you your liberty until you do hand over those
+papers."
+
+"It is a question of confidence, Sire. I should have considered myself
+quite as much bound to produce the papers if I had been free on leaving
+prison; and Your Imperial Majesty may be sure that I should not have
+walked off with them. The only difference is that they would now be in
+your possession. For we have lost a day, Sire. And a day, in this
+business . . . is a day too much. . . . Only, there it is, you should
+have had confidence."
+
+The Emperor gazed with a certain amazement at that outcast, that
+vagabond, who seemed vexed that any one should doubt his word.
+
+He did not reply, but rang the bell:
+
+"The officer on duty," he commanded.
+
+Count von Waldemar appeared, looking very white.
+
+"Ah, it's you, Waldemar? So you're all right again?"
+
+"At your service, Sire."
+
+"Take five men with you . . . the same men, as you're sure of them.
+Don't leave this . . . gentleman until to-morrow morning." He looked at
+his watch. "Until to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. No, I will give him
+till twelve. You will go wherever he thinks fit to go, you will do
+whatever he tells you to do. In short, you are at his disposal. At
+twelve o'clock, I will join you. If, at the last stroke of twelve, he
+has not handed me the bundle of letters, you will put him back in your
+car and, without losing a second, take him straight to the Santé
+Prison."
+
+"If he tries to escape. . . ."
+
+"Take your own course."
+
+He went out.
+
+Lupin helped himself to a cigar from the table and threw himself into an
+easy chair:
+
+"Good! I just love that way of going to work. It is frank and explicit."
+
+The count had brought in his men. He said to Lupin:
+
+"March!"
+
+Lupin lit his cigar and did not move.
+
+"Bind his hands," said the count.
+
+And, when the order was executed, he repeated:
+
+"Now then, march!"
+
+"No."
+
+"What do you mean by no?"
+
+"I'm wondering."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Where on earth that hiding-place can be!"
+
+The count gave a start and Lupin chuckled:
+
+"For the best part of the story is that I have not the remotest idea
+where that famous hiding-place is nor how to set about discovering it.
+What do you say to that, my dear Waldemar, eh? Funny, isn't it? . . .
+Not the very remotest idea! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE EMPEROR'S LETTERS
+
+
+The ruins of Veldenz are well known to all who visit the banks of the
+Rhine and the Moselle. They comprise the remains of the old feudal
+castle, built in 1377 by the Archbishop of Fistingen, an enormous
+dungeon-keep, gutted by Turenne's troops, and the walls, left standing
+in their entirety, of a large Renascence palace, in which the
+grand-dukes of Zweibrucken lived for three centuries.
+
+It was this palace that was sacked by Hermann II.'s rebellious subjects.
+The empty windows display two hundred yawning cavities on the four
+frontages. All the wainscoting, the hangings and most of the furniture
+were burnt. You walk on the scorched girders of the floors; and the sky
+can be seen at intervals through the ruined ceilings.
+
+Lupin, accompanied by his escort, went over the whole building in two
+hours' time:
+
+"I am very pleased with you, my dear count. I don't think I ever came
+across a guide so well posted in his subject, nor--which is rare--so
+silent. And now, if you don't mind, we will go to lunch."
+
+As a matter of fact, Lupin knew no more than at the first moment and his
+perplexity did nothing but increase. To obtain his release from prison
+and to strike the imagination of his visitor, he had bluffed, pretending
+to know everything; and he was still seeking for the best place at
+which to begin to seek.
+
+"Things look bad," he said to himself, from time to time. "Things are
+looking about as bad as they can look."
+
+His brain, moreover, was not as clear as usual. He was obsessed by an
+idea, the idea of "the other one," the murderer, the assassin, whom he
+knew to be still clinging to his footsteps.
+
+How did that mysterious personality come to be on his tracks? How had he
+heard of Lupin's leaving prison and of his rush to Luxemburg and
+Germany? Was it a miraculous intuition? Or was it the outcome of
+definite information? But, if so, at what price, by means of what
+promises or threats was he able to obtain it?
+
+All these questions haunted Lupin's mind.
+
+At about four o'clock, however, after a fresh walk through the ruins, in
+the course of which he had examined the stones, measured the thickness
+of the walls, investigated the shape and appearance of things, all to no
+purpose, he asked the count:
+
+"Is there no one left who was in the service of the last grand-duke who
+lived in the castle?"
+
+"All the servants of that time went different ways. Only one of them
+continued to live in the district."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He died two years ago."
+
+"Any children?"
+
+"He had a son, who married and who was dismissed, with his wife, for
+disgraceful conduct. They left their youngest child behind, a little
+girl, Isilda."
+
+"Where does she live?"
+
+"She lives here, at the end of these buildings. The old grandfather
+used to act as a guide to visitors, in the days when the castle was
+still open to the public. Little Isilda has lived in the ruins ever
+since. She was allowed to remain out of pity. She is a poor innocent,
+who is hardly able to talk and does not know what she says."
+
+"Was she always like that?"
+
+"It seems not. Her reason went gradually, when she was about ten years
+old."
+
+"In consequence of a sorrow, of a fright?"
+
+"No, for no direct cause, I am told. The father was a drunkard and the
+mother committed suicide in a fit of madness."
+
+Lupin reflected and said:
+
+"I should like to see her."
+
+The count gave a rather curious smile:
+
+"You can see her, by all means."
+
+She happened to be in one of the rooms which had been set apart for her.
+Lupin was surprised to find an attractive little creature, too thin, too
+pale, but almost pretty, with her fair hair and her delicate face. Her
+sea-green eyes had the vague, dreamy look of the eyes of blind people.
+
+He put a few questions to which Isilda gave no answer and others to
+which she replied with incoherent sentences, as though she understood
+neither the meaning of the words addressed to her nor those which she
+herself uttered.
+
+He persisted, taking her very gently by the hand and asking her in an
+affectionate tone about the time when she still had her reason, about
+her grandfather, about the memories which might be called up by her life
+as a child playing freely among the majestic ruins of the castle.
+
+She stood silent, with staring eyes; impassive, any emotion which she
+might have felt was not enough to rouse her slumbering intelligence.
+
+Lupin asked for a pencil and paper and wrote down the number 813.
+
+The count smiled again.
+
+"Look here, what are you laughing at?" cried Lupin, irritably.
+
+"Nothing . . . nothing. . . . I'm very much interested, that's all.
+. . ."
+
+Isilda looked at the sheet of paper, when he showed it to her, and
+turned away her head, with a vacant air.
+
+"No bite!" said the count, satirically.
+
+Lupin wrote the letters "APOON."
+
+Isilda paid no more attention than before.
+
+He did not give up the experiment, but kept on writing the same letters,
+each time watching the girl's face.
+
+She did not stir, but kept her eyes fixed on the paper with an
+indifference which nothing seemed to disturb. Then, all at once, she
+seized the pencil, snatched the last sheet out of Lupin's hands and, as
+though acting under a sudden inspiration, wrote two "L's" in the middle
+of a space left open by Lupin.
+
+He felt a thrill.
+
+A word had been formed: "APOLLON."
+
+Meanwhile, Isilda clung to both pencil and paper and, with clutching
+fingers and a strained face, was struggling to make her hand submit to
+the hesitating orders of her poor little brain.
+
+Lupin waited, feverishly.
+
+She rapidly wrote another word, the word "DIANE."
+
+"Another word! . . . Another word!" shouted Lupin.
+
+She twisted her fingers round the pencil, broke the lead, made a big "J"
+with the stump and, now utterly exhausted, dropped the pencil.
+
+"Another word! I must have another word!" said Lupin, in a tone of
+command, catching her by the arm.
+
+But he saw by her eyes, which had once more become indifferent, that
+that fleeting gleam of intelligence could not shine out again.
+
+"Let us go," he said.
+
+He was walking away, when she ran after him and stood in his path. He
+stopped:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+She held out the palm of her hand.
+
+"What? Money? . . . Is she in the habit of begging?" he asked the count.
+
+"No," said Waldemar, "and I can't understand."
+
+Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together,
+gleefully.
+
+Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the
+date of that year.
+
+"Where did you get these?" asked Lupin, excitedly.
+
+"French money! . . . Who gave it you? . . . And when? . . . Was it
+to-day? Speak! . . . Answer! . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. "Fool
+that I am! As though she could answer! . . . My dear count, would you
+mind lending me forty marks? . . . Thanks . . . Here, Isilda, that's for
+you."
+
+She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her
+hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the
+Renascence palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more
+particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.
+
+Was it a mechanical movement? Or must it be looked upon as a grateful
+acknowledgment for the two gold coins?
+
+He glanced at the count. Waldemar was smiling again.
+
+"What makes the brute keep on grinning like that?" said Lupin to
+himself. "Any one would think that he was having a game with me."
+
+He went to the palace on the off-chance, attended by his escort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ground-floor consisted of a number of large reception-rooms, running
+one into the other and containing the few pieces of furniture that had
+escaped the fire.
+
+On the first floor, on the north side, was a long gallery, out of which
+twelve handsome rooms opened all exactly alike.
+
+There was a similar gallery on the second floor, but with twenty-four
+smaller rooms, also resembling one another. All these apartments were
+empty, dilapidated, wretched to look at.
+
+Above, there was nothing. The attics had been burnt down.
+
+For an hour, Lupin walked, ran, rushed about indefatigably, with his
+eyes on the look-out.
+
+When it began to grow dusk, he hurried to one of his twelve rooms on the
+first floor, as if he were selecting it for special reasons known to
+himself alone. He was rather surprised to find the Emperor there,
+smoking and seated in an arm-chair which he had sent for.
+
+Taking no notice of his presence, Lupin began an inspection of the room,
+according to the methods which he was accustomed to employ in such
+cases, dividing the room into sections, each of which he examined in
+turn.
+
+After twenty minutes of this work, he said:
+
+"I must beg you, Sire, to be good enough to move. There is a fireplace
+here. . . ."
+
+The Emperor tossed his head:
+
+"Is it really necessary for me to move?"
+
+"Yes, Sire, this fireplace . . ."
+
+"The fireplace is just the same as the others and the room is no
+different from its fellows."
+
+Lupin looked at the Emperor without understanding. The Emperor rose and
+said, with a laugh:
+
+"I think, M. Lupin, that you have been making just a little fun of me."
+
+"How do you mean, Sire?"
+
+"Oh, it's hardly worth mentioning! You obtained your release on the
+condition of handing me certain papers in which I am interested and you
+have not the smallest notion as to where they are. I have been
+thoroughly--what do you call it, in French?--_roulé_ 'done'!"
+
+"Do you think so, Sire?"
+
+"Why, what a man knows he doesn't have to hunt for! And you have been
+hunting for ten good hours! Doesn't it strike you as a case for an
+immediate return to prison?"
+
+Lupin seemed thunderstruck:
+
+"Did not Your Imperial Majesty fix twelve o'clock to-morrow as the last
+limit?"
+
+"Why wait?"
+
+"Why? Well, to allow me to complete my work!"
+
+"Your work? But it's not even begun, M. Lupin."
+
+"There Your Imperial Majesty is mistaken."
+
+"Prove it . . . and I will wait until to-morrow."
+
+Lupin reflected and, speaking in a serious tone:
+
+"Since Your Imperial Majesty requires proofs in order to have
+confidence in me, I will furnish them. The twelve rooms leading out of
+this gallery each bear a different name, which is inscribed in
+French--obviously by a French decorative artist--over the various doors.
+One of the inscriptions, less damaged by the fire than the others,
+caught my eye as I was passing along the gallery. I examined the other
+doors: all of them bore hardly legible traces of names caned over the
+pediments. Thus I found a 'D' and an 'E' the first and last letters of
+'Diane.' I found an 'A' and 'LON' which pointed to 'Apollon.' These are
+the French equivalents of Diana and Apollo, both of them mythological
+deities. The other inscriptions presented similar characteristics. I
+discovered traces of such names as Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and
+so on. This part of the problem was solved: each of the twelve rooms
+bears the name of an Olympian god or goddess; and the letters APOON,
+completed by Isilda, point to the Apollo Room or Salle d'Apollon. So it
+is here, in the room in which we now are, that the letters are hidden. A
+few minutes, perhaps, will suffice in which to discover them."
+
+"A few minutes or a few years . . . or even longer!" said the Emperor,
+laughing.
+
+He seemed greatly amused; and the count also displayed a coarse
+merriment.
+
+Lupin asked:
+
+"Would Your Imperial Majesty be good enough to explain?"
+
+"M. Lupin, the exciting investigation which you have conducted to-day
+and of which you are telling us the brilliant results has already been
+made by me . . . yes, a fortnight ago, in the company of your friend
+Holmlock Shears. Together we questioned little Isilda; together, we
+employed the same method in dealing with her that you did; and together
+we observed the names in the gallery and got as far as this room, the
+Apollo Room."
+
+Lupin turned livid. He spluttered:
+
+"Oh, did Shears get . . . as far as . . . this?"
+
+"Yes, after four days' searching. True, it did not help us, for we found
+nothing. All the same, I know that the letters are not here."
+
+Trembling with rage, wounded in his innermost pride, Lupin fired up
+under the gibe, as though he had been lashed with a whip. He had never
+felt humiliated to such a degree as this. In this fury, he could have
+strangled the fat Waldemar, whose laughter incensed him. Containing
+himself with an effort, he said:
+
+"It took Shears four days, Sire, and me only four hours. And I should
+have required even less, if I had not been thwarted in my search."
+
+"And by whom, bless my soul? By my faithful count? I hope he did not
+dare . . . !"
+
+"No, Sire, but by the most terrible and powerful of my enemies, by that
+infernal being who killed his own accomplice Altenheim."
+
+"Is he here? Do you think so?" exclaimed the Emperor, with an agitation
+which showed that he was familiar with every detail of the dramatic
+story.
+
+"He is wherever I am. He threatens me with his constant hatred. It was
+he who guessed that I was M. Lenormand, the chief of the
+detective-service; it was he who had me put in prison; it was he, again,
+who pursued me, on the day when I came out. Yesterday, aiming at me in
+the motor, he wounded Count von Waldemar."
+
+"But how do you know, how can you be sure that he is at Veldenz?"
+
+"Isilda has received two gold coins, two French coins!"
+
+"And what is he here for? With what object?"
+
+"I don't know, Sire, but he is the very spirit of evil. Your Imperial
+Majesty must be on your guard: he is capable of anything and
+everything."
+
+"It is impossible! I have two hundred men in the ruins. He cannot have
+entered. He would have been seen."
+
+"Some one has seen him, beyond a doubt."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Isilda."
+
+"Let her be questioned! Waldemar, take your prisoner to where the girl
+is."
+
+Lupin showed his bound hands:
+
+"It will be a tough battle. Can I fight like this?"
+
+The Emperor said to the count:
+
+"Unfasten him. . . . And keep me informed."
+
+In this way, by a sudden effort, bringing the hateful vision of the
+murder into the discussion, boldly, without evidence, Arsène Lupin
+gained time and resumed the direction of the search:
+
+"Sixteen hours still," he said to himself, "it's more than I want."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reached the premises occupied by Isilda, at the end of the old
+out-buildings. These buildings served as barracks for the two hundred
+soldiers guarding the ruins; and the whole of this, the left wing, was
+reserved for the officers.
+
+Isilda was not there. The count sent two of his men to look for her.
+They came back. No one had seen the girl.
+
+Nevertheless, she could not have left the precincts of the ruins. As for
+the Renascence palace, it was, so to speak, invested by one-half of the
+troops; and no one was able to obtain admittance.
+
+At last, the wife of a subaltern who lived in the next house declared
+that she had been sitting at her window all day and that the girl had
+not been out.
+
+"If she hadn't gone out," said Waldemar, "she would be here now: and she
+is not here."
+
+Lupin observed:
+
+"Is there a floor above?"
+
+"Yes, but from this room to the upper floor there is no staircase."
+
+"Yes, there is."
+
+He pointed to a little door opening on a dark recess. In the shadow, he
+saw the first treads of a staircase as steep as a ladder.
+
+"Please, my dear count," he said to Waldemar, who wanted to go up, "let
+me have the honor."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There's danger."
+
+He ran up and at once sprang into a low and narrow loft. A cry escaped
+him:
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"What is it?" asked the count, emerging in his turn.
+
+"Here . . . on the floor. . . . Isilda. . . ."
+
+He knelt down beside the girl, but, at the first glance, saw that she
+was simply stunned and that she bore no trace of a wound, except a few
+scratches on the wrists and hands. A handkerchief was stuffed into her
+mouth by way of a gag.
+
+"That's it," he said. "The murderer was here with her. When we came, he
+struck her a blow with his fist and gagged her so that we should not
+hear her moans."
+
+"But how did he get away?"
+
+"Through here . . . look . . . there is a passage connecting all the
+attics on the first floor."
+
+"And from there?"
+
+"From there, he went down the stairs of one of the other dwellings."
+
+"But he would have been seen!"
+
+"Pooh, who knows? The creature's invisible. Never mind! Send your men to
+look. Tell them to search all the attics and all the ground-floor
+lodgings."
+
+He hesitated. Should he also go in pursuit of the murderer?
+
+But a sound brought him back to the girl's side. She had got up from the
+floor and a dozen pieces of gold money had dropped from her hands. He
+examined them. They were all French.
+
+"Ah," he said, "I was right! Only, why so much gold? In reward for
+what?"
+
+Suddenly, he caught sight of a book on the floor and stooped to pick it
+up. But the girl darted forward with a quicker movement, seized the book
+and pressed it to her bosom with a fierce energy, as though prepared to
+defend it against any attempt to take hold of it.
+
+"That's it," he said. "The money was offered her for the book, but she
+refused to part with it. Hence the scratches on the hands. The
+interesting thing would be to know why the murderer wished to possess
+the book. Was he able to look through it first?"
+
+He said to Waldemar:
+
+"My dear count, please give the order."
+
+Waldemar made a sign to his men. Three of them threw themselves on the
+girl and, after a hard tussle, in which the poor thing stamped, writhed
+and screamed with rage, they took the volume from her.
+
+"Gently, child," said Lupin, "be calm. . . . It's all in a good cause.
+. . . Keep an eye on her, will you? Meanwhile, I will have a look at the
+object in dispute."
+
+It was an odd volume of Montesquieu's _Voyage au temple de Guide_, in a
+binding at least a century old. But Lupin had hardly opened it before he
+exclaimed:
+
+"I say, I say, this is queer! There is a sheet of parchment stuck on
+each right hand page; and those sheets are covered with a very close,
+small handwriting."
+
+He read, at the beginning:
+
+      "_Diary of the Chevalier GILLES DE MALRÊCHE, French
+      servant to His Royal Highness the Prince of
+      ZWEIBRUCKENVELDENZ, begun in the Year of Our Lord
+      1794._"
+
+"What! Does it say that?" asked the count.
+
+"What surprises you?"
+
+"Isilda's grandfather, the old man who died two years ago, was called
+Malreich, which is the German form of the same name."
+
+"Capital! Isilda's grandfather must have been the son or the grandson of
+the French servant who wrote his diary in an odd volume of Montesquieu's
+works. And that is how the diary came into Isilda's hands."
+
+He turned the pages at random:
+
+      "_15 September, 1796._ His Royal Highness went
+      hunting.
+
+      "_20 September, 1796._ His Royal Highness went out
+      riding. He was mounted on Cupidon."
+
+"By Jove!" muttered Lupin. "So far, it's not very exciting."
+
+He turned over a number of pages and read:
+
+      "_12 March, 1803._ I have remitted ten crowns to
+      Hermann. He is giving music-lessons in London."
+
+Lupin gave a laugh:
+
+"Oho! Hermann is dethroned and our respect comes down with a rush!"
+
+"Yes," observed Waldemar, "the reigning grand-duke was driven from his
+dominions by the French troops."
+
+Lupin continued:
+
+      "_1809. Tuesday._ Napoleon slept at Veldenz last
+      night. I made His Majesty's bed and this morning I
+      emptied his slops."
+
+"Oh, did Napoleon stop at Veldenz?"
+
+"Yes, yes, on his way back to the army, at the time of the Austrian
+campaign, which ended with the battle of Wagram. It was an honor of
+which the grand-duchal family were very proud afterwards."
+
+Lupin went on reading:
+
+      "_28 October, 1814._ His Royal Highness returned to
+      his dominions.
+
+      "_29 October, 1814._ I accompanied His Royal Highness
+      to the hiding-place last night and was happy to be
+      able to show him that no one had guessed its
+      existence. For that matter, who would have suspected
+      that a hiding-place could be contrived in . . ."
+
+Lupin stopped, with a shout. Isilda had suddenly escaped from the men
+guarding her, made a grab at him and taken to flight, carrying the book
+with her.
+
+"Oh, the little mischief! Quick, you! . . . Go round by the stairs
+below. I'll run after her by the passage."
+
+But she had slammed the door behind her and bolted it. He had to go down
+and run along the buildings with the others, looking for a staircase
+which would take them to the first floor.
+
+The fourth house was the only one open. He went upstairs. But the
+passage was empty and he had to knock at doors, force locks and make his
+way into unoccupied rooms, while Waldemar, showing as much ardor in the
+pursuit as himself, pricked the curtains and hangings with the point of
+his sword.
+
+A voice called out from the ground-floor, towards the right wing. They
+rushed in that direction. It was one of the officers' wives, who
+beckoned to them at the end of a passage and told them that the girl
+must be in her lodging.
+
+"How do you know?" asked Lupin.
+
+"I wanted to go to my room. The door was shut and I could not get in."
+
+Lupin tried and found the door locked:
+
+"The window!" he cried. "There must be a window!"
+
+He went outside, took the count's sword and smashed the panes. Then,
+helped up by two men, he hung on to the wall, passed his arm through the
+broken glass, turned the latch and stumbled into the room.
+
+He saw Isilda huddled before the fireplace, almost in the midst of the
+flames:
+
+"The little beast!" he said. "She has thrown it into the fire!"
+
+He pushed her back savagely, tried to take the book and burnt his hands
+in the attempt. Then, with the tongs, he pulled it out of the grate and
+threw the table cloth over it to stifle the blaze.
+
+But it was too late. The pages of the old manuscript, all burnt up, were
+falling into ashes.
+
+Lupin gazed at her in silence. The count said:
+
+"One would think that she knew what she was doing."
+
+"No, she does not know. Only, her grandfather must have entrusted her
+with that book as a sort of treasure, a treasure which no one was ever
+to set eyes on, and, with her stupid instinct, she preferred to throw it
+into the fire rather than part with it."
+
+"Well then. . . ."
+
+"Well then what?"
+
+"You won't find the hiding-place."
+
+"Aha, my dear count, so you did, for a moment, look upon my success as
+possible? And Lupin does not strike you as quite a charlatan? Make your
+mind easy, Waldemar: Lupin has more than one string to his bow. I shall
+succeed."
+
+"Before twelve o'clock to-morrow?"
+
+"Before twelve o'clock to-night. But, for the moment, I am starving with
+hunger. And, if your kindness would go so far. . . ."
+
+He was taken to the sergeants' mess and a substantial meal prepared for
+him, while the count went to make his report to the Emperor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twenty minutes later, Waldemar returned and they sat down and dined
+together, opposite each other, silent and pensive.
+
+"Waldemar, a good cigar would be a treat. . . . I thank you. . . . Ah,
+this one crackles as a self-respecting Havana should!"
+
+He lit his cigar and, after a minute or two:
+
+"You can smoke, count; I don't mind in the least; in fact, I rather like
+it."
+
+An hour passed. Waldemar dozed and, from time to time, swallowed a glass
+of brandy to wake himself up.
+
+Soldiers passed in and out, waiting on them.
+
+"Coffee," asked Lupin.
+
+They brought him some coffee.
+
+"What bad stuff!" he grumbled. "If that's what Cæsar drinks! . . . Give
+me another cup all the same, Waldemar. We may have a long night before
+us. Oh, what vile coffee!"
+
+He lit a second cigar and did not say another word. Ten minutes passed.
+He continued not to move or speak.
+
+Suddenly, Waldemar sprang to his feet and said to Lupin, angrily:
+
+"Hi! Stand up, there!"
+
+Lupin was whistling a tune at the moment. He kept on whistling,
+peacefully.
+
+"Stand up, I say!"
+
+Lupin turned round. His Imperial Majesty had just entered. Lupin rose
+from his chair.
+
+"How far are we?" asked the Emperor.
+
+"I think, Sire, that I shall be able to satisfy Your Imperial Majesty
+soon."
+
+"What? Do you know . . ."
+
+"The hiding-place? Very nearly, Sire. . . . A few details still escape
+me . . . but everything will be cleared up, once we are on the spot: I
+have no doubt of it."
+
+"Are we to stay here?"
+
+"No, Sire, I will beg you to go with me to the Renascence palace. But we
+have plenty of time; and, if Your Imperial Majesty will permit me, I
+should like first to think over two or three points."
+
+Without waiting for the reply, he sat down, to Waldemar's great
+indignation.
+
+In a few minutes, the Emperor, who had walked away and was talking to
+the count, came up to him:
+
+"Are you ready now, M. Lupin?"
+
+Lupin kept silence. A fresh question. His head fell on his chest.
+
+"But he's asleep; I really believe that he's asleep!"
+
+Waldemar, beside himself with rage, shook him violently by the shoulder.
+Lupin fell from his chair, sank to the floor, gave two or three
+convulsive movements and then lay quite still.
+
+"What's the matter with him?" exclaimed the Emperor. "He's not dead, I
+hope!"
+
+He took a lamp and bent over him:
+
+"How pale he is! A face like wax! . . . Look, Waldemar. . . . Feel his
+heart. . . . He's alive, is he not?"
+
+"Yes, Sire," said the count, after a moment, "the heart is beating quite
+regularly."
+
+"Then what is it? I don't understand. . . . What happened?"
+
+"Shall I go and fetch the doctor?"
+
+"Yes, run. . . ."
+
+The doctor found Lupin in the same state, lying inert and quiet. He had
+him put on a bed, subjected him to a long examination and asked what he
+had had to eat.
+
+"Do you suspect a case of poisoning, doctor?"
+
+"No, Sire, there are no traces of poisoning. But I am thinking . . .
+what's on that tray and in that cup?"
+
+"Coffee," said the count.
+
+"For you?"
+
+"No, for him. I did not have any."
+
+The doctor poured out some coffee, tasted it and said:
+
+"I was right. He has been put to sleep with a narcotic."
+
+"But by whom?" cried the Emperor, angrily. "Look here, Waldemar; it's
+exasperating, the way things happen in this place!"
+
+"Sire? . . ."
+
+"Well, yes, I've had enough of it! . . . I am really beginning to
+believe that the man's right and that there is some one in the castle.
+. . . That French money, that narcotic. . . ."
+
+"If any one had got into this enclosure, Sire, it would be known by this
+time. . . . We've been hunting in every direction for three hours."
+
+"Still, I didn't make the coffee, I assure you. . . . And, unless you
+did. . . ."
+
+"Oh, Sire!"
+
+"Well, then, hunt about . . . search. . . . You have two hundred men at
+your disposal; and the out-houses are not so large as all that! For,
+after all, the ruffian is prowling round here, round these buildings
+. . . near the kitchen . . . somewhere or other! Go and bustle about!"
+
+The fat Waldemar bustled about all night, conscientiously, because it
+was the master's order, but without conviction, because it was
+impossible for a stranger to hide among ruins which were so
+well-watched. And, as a matter of fact, the event proved that he was
+right: the investigations were fruitless; and no one was able to
+discover the mysterious hand that had prepared the narcotic drink.
+
+Lupin spent the night lifeless on his bed. In the morning, the doctor,
+who had not left his side, told a messenger of the Emperor's that he was
+still asleep.
+
+At nine o'clock, however, he made his first movement, a sort of effort
+to wake up.
+
+Later on, he stammered:
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Twenty-five to ten."
+
+He made a fresh effort; and it was evident that, in the midst of his
+torpor, his whole being was intent upon returning to life.
+
+A clock struck ten.
+
+He started and said:
+
+"Let them carry me; let them carry me to the palace."
+
+With the doctor's approval, Waldemar called his men and sent word to the
+Emperor. They laid Lupin on a stretcher and set out for the palace.
+
+"The first floor," he muttered.
+
+They carried him up.
+
+"At the end of the corridor," he said. "The last room on the left."
+
+They carried him to the last room, which was the twelfth, and gave him a
+chair, on which he sat down, exhausted.
+
+The Emperor arrived: Lupin did not stir, sat looking, unconscious, with
+no expression in his eyes.
+
+Then, in a few minutes, he seemed to wake, looked round him, at the
+walls, the ceilings, the people, and said:
+
+"A narcotic, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes," said the doctor.
+
+"Have they found . . . the man?"
+
+"No."
+
+He seemed to be meditating and several times jerked his head with a
+thoughtful air: but they soon saw that he was asleep.
+
+The Emperor went up to Waldemar:
+
+"Order your car round."
+
+"Oh? . . . But then, Sire . . . ?"
+
+"Well, what? I am beginning to think that he is taking us in and that
+all this is merely play-acting, to gain time."
+
+"Possibly . . . yes . . ." said Waldemar, agreeing.
+
+"It's quite obvious! He is making the most of certain curious
+coincidences, but he knows nothing; and his story about gold coins and
+his narcotic are so many inventions! If we lend ourselves to his little
+game any longer, he'll slip out of your fingers. Your car, Waldemar."
+
+The count gave his orders and returned. Lupin had not woke up. The
+Emperor, who was looking round the room, said to Waldemar:
+
+"This is the Minerva room, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+"But then why is there an 'N' in two places?"
+
+There were, in fact, two "N's," one over the chimneypiece, the other
+over an old dilapidated clock fitted into the wall and displaying a
+complicated set of works, with weights hanging lifeless at the end of
+their cords.
+
+"The two 'N's' . . ." said Waldemar.
+
+The Emperor did not listen to the answer. Lupin had moved again, opening
+his eyes and uttering indistinct syllables. He stood up, walked across
+the room and fell down from sheer weakness.
+
+Then came the struggle, the desperate struggle of his brain, his nerves,
+his will against that hideous, paralyzing torpor, the struggle of a
+dying man against death, the struggle of life against extinction. And
+the sight was one of infinite sadness.
+
+"He is suffering," muttered Waldemar.
+
+"Or at least, he is pretending to suffer," declared the Emperor, "and
+pretending very cleverly at that. What an actor!"
+
+Lupin stammered:
+
+"An injection, doctor, an injection of caffeine . . . at once. . . ."
+
+"May I, Sire?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Certainly. . . . Until twelve o'clock, do all that he asks. He has my
+promise."
+
+"How many minutes . . . before twelve o'clock?" asked Lupin.
+
+"Forty," said somebody.
+
+"Forty? . . . I shall do it. . . . I am sure to do it. . . . I've got to
+do it. . . ." He took his head in his two hands. "Oh, if I had my brain,
+the real brain, the brain that thinks! It would be a matter of a second!
+There is only one dark spot left . . . but I cannot . . . my thoughts
+escape me. . . . I can't grasp it . . . it's awful."
+
+His shoulders shook. Was he crying?
+
+They heard him repeating:
+
+"813 . . . 813. . . ." And, in a lower voice, "813 . . . an '8' . . . a
+'1' . . . a '3' . . . yes, of course. . . . But why? . . . That's not
+enough. . . ."
+
+The Emperor muttered:
+
+"He impresses me. I find it difficult to believe that a man can play a
+part like that. . . ."
+
+Half-past eleven struck . . . a quarter to twelve. . . .
+
+Lupin remained motionless, with his fists glued to his temples.
+
+The Emperor waited, with his eyes fixed on a chronometer which Waldemar
+held in his hand.
+
+Ten minutes more . . . five minutes more . . .
+
+"Is the car there, Waldemar? . . . Are your men ready?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+"Is that watch of yours a repeater, Waldemar?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+"At the last stroke of twelve, then. . . ."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"At the last stroke of twelve, Waldemar."
+
+There was really something tragic about the scene, that sort of grandeur
+and solemnity which the hours assume at the approach of a possible
+miracle, when it seems as though the voice of fate itself were about to
+find utterance.
+
+The Emperor did not conceal his anguish. This fantastic adventurer who
+was called Arsène Lupin and whose amazing life he knew, this man
+troubled him . . . and, although he was resolved to make an end of all
+this dubious story, he could not help waiting . . . and hoping.
+
+Two minutes more . . . one minute more . . .
+
+Then they counted by seconds.
+
+Lupin seemed asleep.
+
+"Come, get ready," said the Emperor to the count.
+
+The count went up to Lupin and placed his hand on his shoulder.
+
+The silvery chime of the repeater quivered and struck . . . one, two,
+three, four, five . . .
+
+"Waldemar, old chap, pull the weights of the old clock."
+
+A moment of stupefaction. It was Lupin's voice, speaking very calmly.
+
+Waldemar, annoyed at the familiarity of the address, shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Do as he says, Waldemar," said the Emperor.
+
+"Yes, do as I say, my dear count," echoed Lupin, recovering his powers
+of chaff. "You know the ropes so well . . . all you have to do is to
+pull those of the clock . . . in turns . . . one, two . . . capital!
+. . . That's how they used to wind it up in the old days."
+
+The pendulum, in fact, was started; and they heard its regular ticking.
+
+"Now the hands," said Lupin. "Set them at a little before twelve . . .
+Don't move . . . Let me . . ."
+
+He rose and walked to the face of the clock, standing two feet away, at
+most, with his eyes fixed, with every nerve attentive.
+
+The twelve strokes sounded, twelve heavy, deep strokes.
+
+A long silence. Nothing happened. Nevertheless, the Emperor waited, as
+though he were sure that something was going to happen. And Waldemar did
+not move, stood with wide-open eyes.
+
+Lupin, who had stooped over the clock-face, now drew himself up,
+muttering:
+
+"That's it . . . I have it. . . ."
+
+He went back to his chair and commanded:
+
+"Waldemar, set the hands at two minutes to twelve again. Oh, no, old
+chap, not backwards! The way the hands go! . . . Yes, I know, it will
+take rather long . . . but it can't be helped."
+
+All the hours struck and the half hours, up to half-past eleven.
+
+"Listen, Waldemar," said Lupin.
+
+And he spoke seriously, without jesting, as though himself excited and
+anxious:
+
+"Listen, Waldemar. Do you see on the face of the clock a little round
+dot marking the first hour? That dot is loose, isn't it? Put the
+fore-finger of your left hand on it and press. Good. Do the same with
+your thumb on the dot marking the third hour. Good. With your right
+hand, push in the dot at the eighth hour. Good. Thank you. Go and sit
+down, my dear fellow."
+
+The minute-hand shifted, moved to the twelfth dot and the clock struck
+again.
+
+Lupin was silent and very white. The twelve strokes rang out in the
+silence.
+
+At the twelfth stroke, there was a sound as of a spring being set free.
+The clock stopped dead. The pendulum ceased swinging.
+
+And suddenly, the bronze ornament representing a ram's head, which
+crowned the dial, fell forwards, uncovering a sort of little recess cut
+out of the stone wall.
+
+In this recess was a chased silver casket.
+
+Lupin took it and carried it to the Emperor:
+
+"Would Your Imperial Majesty be so good as to open it yourself? The
+letters which you instructed me to look for are inside."
+
+The Emperor raised the lid and seemed greatly astonished.
+
+_The casket was empty._
+
+The casket was empty.
+
+It was an enormous, unforeseen sensation. After the success of the
+calculation made by Lupin, after the ingenious discovery of the secret
+of the clock, the Emperor, who had no doubt left as to the ultimate
+success, appeared utterly confounded.
+
+Opposite him was Lupin, pallid and wan, with drawn jaws and bloodshot
+eyes, gnashing his teeth with rage and impotent hate.
+
+He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, then snatched up the
+casket, turned it over, examined it, as though he hoped to find a false
+bottom. At last, for greater certainty, in a fit of fury, he crushed it,
+with an irresistible grip.
+
+That relieved him. He breathed more easily.
+
+The Emperor said:
+
+"Who has done this?"
+
+"Still the same man, Sire, the one who is following the same road as I
+and pursuing the same aim: Mr. Kesselbach's murderer."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night. Ah, Sire, why did you not leave me free when I came out of
+prison! Had I been free, I should have come here without losing an hour.
+I should have arrived before him! I should have given Isilda money
+before he did! I should have read Malreich, the old French servant's
+diary, before he did!"
+
+"So you think that it was through the revelations in the diary . . . ?"
+
+"Why, yes, Sire! He had time to read them. And, lurking I don't know
+where, kept informed of all our movements by I don't know whom, he put
+me to sleep last night, in order to get rid of me."
+
+"But the palace was guarded."
+
+"Guarded by your soldiers, Sire. Does that count with a man like him?
+Besides, I have no doubt that Waldemar concentrated his search upon the
+out-buildings, thus thinning the posts in the palace."
+
+"But the sound of the clock! Those twelve strokes in the night!"
+
+"It was mere child's play, Sire, mere child's play, to him, to prevent
+the clock from striking!"
+
+"All this seems very impossible to my mind."
+
+"It all seems monstrous clear to mine, Sire! If it were possible to feel
+in every one of your soldiers' pockets here and now, or to know how much
+money they will each of them spend during the next twelve months, we
+should be sure to find two or three who are, at this moment, in
+possession of a few bank-notes: French bank-notes, of course."
+
+"Oh!" protested Waldemar.
+
+"But yes, my dear count, it is a question of price; and that makes no
+difference to 'him.' If 'he' wished, I am sure that you yourself . . ."
+
+The Emperor, wrapped up in his own thoughts, was not listening. He
+walked across the room from left to right and right to left, then
+beckoned to one of the officers standing in the gallery:
+
+"My car. . . . And tell them to get ready. . . . We're starting."
+
+He stopped, watched Lupin for a moment and, going up to the count:
+
+"You too, Waldemar, be off . . . Straight to Paris, without a break
+. . ."
+
+Lupin pricked up his ears. He heard Waldemar reply:
+
+"I should like to have a dozen additional guards. . . . With that devil
+of a man. . . ."
+
+"Take them. And look sharp. You must get there to-night."
+
+Lupin stamped his foot violently on the floor:
+
+"Well, no, Sire! No, no, no! It shan't be, I swear it shan't! No, no
+never!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"And the letters, Sire? The stolen letters?"
+
+"Upon my word! . . ."
+
+"So!" cried Lupin, indignantly folding his arms. "So your Imperial
+Majesty gives up the struggle? You look upon the defeat as
+irretrievable? You declare yourself beaten? Well, I do not, Sire. I have
+begun and I mean to finish."
+
+The Emperor smiled at this display of mettle:
+
+"I do not give up, but my police will set to work."
+
+Lupin burst out laughing:
+
+"Excuse me, Sire! It is so funny! Your police! Your Imperial Majesty's
+police! Why, they're worth just about as much as any other police, that
+is to say, nothing, nothing at all! No, Sire, I will not return to the
+Santé! Prison I can afford to laugh at. But time enough has been wasted
+as it is. I need my freedom against that man and I mean to keep it."
+
+The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You don't even know who the man is."
+
+"I shall know, Sire. And I alone can know. And he knows that I am the
+only one who can know. I am his only enemy. I am the only one whom he
+attacks. It was I whom he meant to hit, the other day, when he fired his
+revolver. He considered it enough to put me and me only to sleep, last
+night, to be free to do as he pleased. The fight lies between him and
+me. The outside world has nothing to say to it. No one can help me and
+no one can help him. There are two of us; and that is all. So far,
+chance has favored him. But, in the long run, it is inevitable, it is
+doomed that I should gain the day."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am the better man."
+
+"Suppose he kills you?"
+
+"He will not kill me. I shall draw his claws, I shall make him perfectly
+harmless. And you shall have the letters, Sire. They are yours. There is
+no power on earth than can prevent me from restoring them to you."
+
+He spoke with a violent conviction and a tone of certainty that gave to
+the things which he foretold the real appearance of things already
+accomplished.
+
+The Emperor could not help undergoing a vague, inexplicable feeling in
+which there was a sort of admiration combined with a good deal of that
+confidence which Lupin was demanding in so masterful a manner. In
+reality, he was hesitating only because of his scruples against
+employing this man and making him, so to speak, his ally. And,
+anxiously, not knowing what decision to take, he walked from the gallery
+to the windows without saying a word.
+
+At last, he asked:
+
+"And who says that the letters were stolen last night?"
+
+"The theft is dated, Sire."
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"Look at the inner side of the pediment which concealed the
+hiding-place. The date is written in white chalk: 'Midnight, 24 August.'
+. . ."
+
+"So it is," muttered the Emperor, nonplussed. "How was it that I did not
+see?" And he added, betraying his curiosity, "Just as with those two
+'N's' painted on the wall. . . . I can't understand. This is the
+Minerva Room."
+
+"This is the room in which Napoleon, the Emperor of the French slept,"
+said Lupin.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Ask Waldemar, Sire. As for myself, when I was turning over the old
+servants' diary, it came upon me as a flash of light. I understood that
+Shears and I had been on the wrong scent. APOON, the imperfect word
+written by the Grand-duke Hermann on his death-bed, is a contraction not
+of Apollon, but of Napoleon."
+
+"That's true . . . you are right," said the Emperor. "The same letters
+occur in both words and in the same order. The grand-duke evidently
+meant to write 'Napoleon.' But that figure 813? . . ."
+
+"Ah, that was the point that gave me most trouble. I always had an idea
+that we must add up the three figures 8, 1 and 3; and the number 12,
+thus obtained, seemed to me at once to apply to this room, which is the
+twelfth leading out of the gallery. But that was not enough for me.
+There must be something else, something which my enfeebled brain could
+not succeed in translating into words. The sight of that clock, situated
+precisely in the Napoleon Room, was a revelation to me. The number 12
+evidently meant twelve o'clock. The hour of noon! The hour of midnight!
+Is this not the solemn moment which a man most readily selects? But why
+those three figures 8, 1 and 3, rather than any others which would have
+given the same total? . . . It was then that I thought of making the
+clock strike for the first time, by way of experiment. And it was while
+making it strike that I saw the dots of the first, third and eighth
+hour were movable and that they alone were movable. I therefore obtained
+three figures, 1, 3 and 8, which, placed in a more prophetic order, gave
+the number 813. Waldemar pushed the three dots, the spring was released
+and Your Imperial Majesty knows the result. . . . This, Sire, is the
+explanation of that mysterious word and of those three figures 8, 1, 3
+which the grand-duke wrote with his dying hand and by the aid of which
+he hoped that his son would one day recover the secret of Veldenz and
+become the possessor of the famous letters which he had hidden there."
+
+The Emperor listened with eager attention, more and more surprised at
+the ingenuity, perspicacity, shrewdness and intelligent will which he
+observed in the man.
+
+"Waldemar," he said, when Lupin had finished.
+
+"Sire?"
+
+But, just as he was about to speak, shouts were heard in the gallery
+outside.
+
+Waldemar left the room and returned:
+
+"It's the mad girl, Sire. They won't let her pass."
+
+"Let her come in." cried Lupin, eagerly. "She must come in, Sire."
+
+At a sign from the Emperor, Waldemar went out to fetch Isilda.
+
+Her entrance caused a general stupefaction. Her pale face was covered
+with dark blotches. Her distorted features bore signs of the keenest
+suffering. She panted for breath, with her two hands clutched against
+her breast.
+
+"Oh!" cried Lupin, struck with horror.
+
+"What is it?" asked the Emperor.
+
+"Your doctor, Sire. There is not a moment to lose."
+
+He went up to her:
+
+"Speak, Isilda. . . . Have you seen anything? Have you anything to say?"
+
+The girl had stopped; her eyes were less vacant, as though lighted up by
+the pain. She uttered sounds. . . . but not a word.
+
+"Listen," said Lupin. "Answer yes or no . . . make a movement of the
+head . . . Have you seen him? Do you know where he is? . . . You know
+who he is. . . . Listen! if you don't answer. . . ."
+
+He suppressed a gesture of anger. But, suddenly, remembering the
+experiment of the day before and that she seemed rather to have retained
+a certain optical memory of the time when she enjoyed her full reason,
+he wrote on the white wall a capital "L" and "M."
+
+She stretched out her arm toward the letters and nodded her head as
+though in assent.
+
+"And then?" said Lupin. "What then? . . . Write something yourself."
+
+But she gave a fearful scream and flung herself to the ground, yelling.
+
+Then, suddenly, came silence, immobility. One last convulsive spasm. And
+she moved no more.
+
+"Dead?" asked the Emperor.
+
+"Poisoned, Sire."
+
+"Oh, the poor thing! . . . And by whom?"
+
+"By 'him,' Sire. She knew him, no doubt. He must have been afraid of
+what she might tell."
+
+The doctor arrived. The Emperor pointed to the girl. Then, addressing
+Waldemar:
+
+"All your men to turn out . . . Make them go through the houses . . .
+telegraph to the stations on the frontier. . . ."
+
+He went up to Lupin:
+
+"How long do you want to recover the letters?"
+
+"A month, Sire . . . two months at most."
+
+"Very well. Waldemar will wait for you here. He shall have my orders and
+full powers to grant you anything you wish."
+
+"What I should like, Sire, is my freedom."
+
+"You are free."
+
+Lupin watched him walk away and said, between his teeth:
+
+"My freedom first. . . . And afterward, when I have given you back the
+letters, O Majesty, one little shake of the hand! Then we shall be
+quits! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SEVEN SCOUNDRELS
+
+
+"Will you see this gentleman, ma'am?"
+
+Dolores Kesselbach took the card from the footman and read:
+
+"André Beauny. . . . No," she said, "I don't know him."
+
+"The gentleman seems very anxious to see you, ma'am. He says that you
+are expecting him."
+
+"Oh . . . possibly. . . . Yes, bring him here."
+
+Since the events which had upset her life and pursued her with
+relentless animosity, Dolores, after staying at the Hôtel Bristol had
+taken up her abode in a quiet house in the Rue des Vignes, down at
+Passy. A pretty garden lay at the back of the house and was surrounded
+by other leafy gardens. On days when attacks more painful than usual did
+not keep her from morning till night behind the closed shutters of her
+bedroom, she made her servants carry her under the trees, where she lay
+stretched at full length, a victim to melancholy, incapable of fighting
+against her hard fate.
+
+Footsteps sounded on the gravel-path and the footman returned, followed
+by a young man, smart in appearance and very simply dressed, in the
+rather out-of-date fashion adopted by some of our painters, with a
+turn-down collar and a flowing necktie of white spots on a blue ground.
+
+The footman withdrew.
+
+"Your name is André Beauny, I believe?" said Dolores.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"I have not the honor . . ."
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame. Knowing that I was a friend of Mme.
+Ernemont, Geneviève's grandmother, you wrote to her, at Garches, saying
+that you wished to speak to me. I have come."
+
+Dolores rose in her seat, very excitedly:
+
+"Oh, you are . . ."
+
+"Yes."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"Really? . . . Is it you? . . . I do not recognize you."
+
+"You don't recognize Prince Paul Sernine?"
+
+"No . . . everything is different . . . the forehead . . . the eyes.
+. . . And that is not how the . . ."
+
+"How the newspapers represented the prisoner at the Santé?" he said,
+with a smile. "And yet it is I, really."
+
+A long silence followed, during which they remained embarrassed and ill
+at ease.
+
+At last, he asked:
+
+"May I know the reason . . . ?"
+
+"Did not Geneviève tell you? . . ."
+
+"I have not seen her . . . but her grandmother seemed to think that you
+required my services . . ."
+
+"That's right . . . that's right. . . ."
+
+"And in what way . . . ? I am so pleased . . ."
+
+She hesitated a second and then whispered:
+
+"I am afraid."
+
+"Afraid?" he cried.
+
+"Yes," she said, speaking in a low voice, "I am afraid, afraid of
+everything, afraid of to-day and of to-morrow . . . and of the day after
+. . . afraid of life. I have suffered so much. . . . I can bear no
+more."
+
+He looked at her with great pity in his eyes. The vague feeling that had
+always drawn him to this woman took a more precise character now that
+she was asking for his protection. He felt an eager need to devote
+himself to her, wholly, without hope of reward.
+
+She continued:
+
+"I am alone now, quite alone, with servants whom I have picked up on
+chance, and I am afraid. . . . I feel that people are moving about me."
+
+"But with what object?"
+
+"I do not know. But the enemy is hovering around and coming closer."
+
+"Have you seen him? Have you noticed anything?"
+
+"Yes, the other day two men passed several times in the street and
+stopped in front of the house."
+
+"Can you describe them?"
+
+"I saw one of them better than the other. He was tall and powerful,
+clean-shaven and wore a little black cloth jacket, cut quite short."
+
+"A waiter at a café, perhaps?"
+
+"Yes, a head-waiter. I had him followed by one of my servants. He went
+down the Rue de la Pompe and entered a common-looking house. The
+ground-floor is occupied by a wine-shop: it is the first house in the
+street, on the left. Then, a night or two ago, I saw a shadow in the
+garden from my bedroom window."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He thought and then made a suggestion:
+
+"Would you allow two of my men to sleep downstairs, in one of the
+ground-floor rooms?"
+
+"Two of your men? . . ."
+
+"Oh, you need not be afraid! They are decent men, old Charolais and his
+son,[9] and they don't look in the least like what they are. . . . You
+will be quite safe with them. . . . As for me . . ."
+
+[Footnote 9: See _Arsène Lupin_, by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc.]
+
+He hesitated. He was waiting for her to ask him to come again. As she
+was silent, he said:
+
+"As for me, it is better that I should not be seen here. . . . Yes, it
+is better . . . for your sake. My men will let me know how things go on.
+. . ."
+
+He would have liked to say more and to remain and to sit down beside her
+and comfort her. But he had a feeling that they had said all that they
+had to say and that a single word more, on his side, would be an insult.
+
+Then he made her a very low bow and went away.
+
+He went up the garden, walking quickly, in his haste to be outside and
+master his emotion. The footman was waiting for him at the hall-door. As
+he passed out into the street, somebody rang, a young woman.
+
+He gave a start:
+
+"Geneviève!"
+
+She fixed a pair of astonished eyes upon him and at once recognized him,
+although bewildered by the extreme youthfulness of his appearance; and
+this gave her such a shock that she staggered and had to lean against
+the door for support. He had taken off his hat and was looking at her
+without daring to put out his hand. Would she put out hers? He was no
+longer Prince Sernine: he was Arsène Lupin. And she knew that he was
+Arsène Lupin and that he had just come out of prison.
+
+It was raining outside. She gave her umbrella to the footman and said:
+
+"Please open it and put it somewhere to dry."
+
+Then she walked straight in.
+
+"My poor old chap!" said Lupin to himself, as he walked away. "What a
+series of blows for a sensitive and highly-strung creature like
+yourself! You must keep a watch on your heart or . . . Ah, what next?
+Here are my eyes beginning to water now! That's a bad sign. M. Lupin:
+you're growing old!"
+
+He gave a tap on the shoulder to a young man who was crossing the
+Chaussee de la Muette and going toward the Rue des Vignes. The young man
+stopped, stared at him and said:
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but I don't think I have the honor . . ."
+
+"Think again, my dear M. Leduc. Or has your memory quite gone? Don't you
+remember Versailles? And the little room at the Hôtel des
+Trois-Empereurs?"
+
+The young man bounded backwards:
+
+"You!"
+
+"Why, yes, I! Prince Sernine, or rather Lupin, since you know my real
+name! Did you think that Lupin had departed this life? . . . Oh, yes, I
+see, prison. . . . You were hoping . . . Get out, you baby!" He patted
+him gently on the shoulder. "There, there, young fellow, don't be
+frightened: you have still a few nice quiet days left to write your
+poems in. The time has not yet come. Write your verses . . . poet!"
+
+Then he gripped Leduc's arm violently and, looking him full in the face,
+said:
+
+"But the time is drawing near . . . poet! Don't forget that you belong
+to me, body and soul. And prepare to play your part. It will be a hard
+and magnificent part. And, as I live, I believe you're the man to play
+it!"
+
+He burst out laughing, turned on one foot and left young Leduc
+astounded.
+
+A little further, at the corner of the Rue de la Pompe, stood the
+wine-shop of which Mrs. Kesselbach had spoken to him. He went in and had
+a long talk with the proprietor.
+
+Then he took a taxi and drove to the Grand Hotel, where he was staying
+under the name of André Beauny, and found the brothers Doudeville
+waiting for him.
+
+Lupin, though used to that sort of pleasure, nevertheless enjoyed the
+marks of admiration and devotion with which his friends overwhelmed him:
+
+"But, governor, tell us . . . what happened? We're accustomed to all
+sorts of wonders with you; but still, there are limits. . . . So you are
+free? And here you are, in the heart of Paris, scarcely disguised.
+. . . !"
+
+"Have a cigar," said Lupin.
+
+"Thank you, no."
+
+"You're wrong, Doudeville. These are worth smoking. I have them from a
+great connoisseur, who is good enough to call himself my friend."
+
+"Oh, may one ask . . . ?"
+
+"The Kaiser! Come, don't look so flabbergasted, the two of you! And tell
+me things: I haven't seen the papers. What effect did my escape have on
+the public?"
+
+"Tremendous, governor!"
+
+"What was the police version?"
+
+"Your flight took place at Garches, during an attempt to reënact the
+murder of Altenheim. Unfortunately, the journalists have proved that it
+was impossible."
+
+"After that?"
+
+"After that, a general fluster. People wondering, laughing and enjoying
+themselves like mad."
+
+"Weber?"
+
+"Weber is badly let in."
+
+"Apart from that, no news at the detective-office? Nothing discovered
+about the murderer? No clue to help us to establish Altenheim's
+identity?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What fools they are! And to think that we pay millions a year to keep
+those people. If this sort of thing goes on, I shall refuse to pay my
+rates. Take a seat and a pen. I will dictate a letter which you must
+hand in to the _Grand Journal_ this evening. The world has been waiting
+for news of me long enough. It must be gasping with impatience. Write."
+
+He dictated:
+
+      "To the Editor of the _Grand Journal_:
+
+      "SIR,
+
+      "I must apologize to your readers for disappointing
+      their legitimate impatience.
+
+      "I have escaped from prison and I cannot possibly
+      reveal how I escaped. In the same way, since my
+      escape, I have discovered the famous secret and I
+      cannot possibly disclose what the secret is nor how I
+      discovered it.
+
+      "All this will, some day or other, form the subject
+      of a rather original story which my
+      biographer-in-ordinary will publish from my notes. It
+      will form a page of the history of France which our
+      grandchildren will read with interest.
+
+      "For the moment, I have more important matters to
+      attend to. Disgusted at seeing into what hands the
+      functions which I once exercised have fallen, tired of
+      finding the Kesselbach-Altenheim case still dragging
+      along, I am discharging M. Weber and resuming the post
+      of honor which I occupied with such distinction and to
+      the general satisfaction under the name of M.
+      Lenormand.
+
+        "I am, Sir,
+                       "Your obedient servant.
+                                    "ARSÈNE LUPIN,
+                   "_Chief of the Detective-service_."
+
+At eight o'clock in the evening, Arsène Lupin and Jean Doudeville walked
+into Caillard's, the fashionable restaurant, Lupin in evening-clothes,
+but dressed like an artist, with rather wide trousers and a rather loose
+tie, and Doudeville in a frock-coat, with the serious air and appearance
+of a magistrate.
+
+They sat down in that part of the restaurant which is set back and
+divided from the big room by two columns.
+
+A head-waiter, perfectly dressed and supercilious in manner, came to
+take their orders, note-book in hand. Lupin selected the dinner with the
+nice thought of an accomplished epicure:
+
+"Certainly," he said, "the prison ordinary was quite acceptable; but,
+all the same, it is nice to have a carefully-ordered meal."
+
+He ate with a good appetite and silently, contenting himself with
+uttering, from time to time, a short sentence that marked his train of
+thought:
+
+"Of course, I shall manage . . . but it will be a hard job. . . . Such
+an adversary! . . . What staggers me is that, after six months'
+fighting, I don't even know what he wants! . . . His chief accomplice is
+dead, we are near the end of the battle and yet, even now, I can't
+understand his game. . . . What is the wretch after? . . . My own plan
+is quite clear: to lay hands on the grand-duchy, to shove a grand-duke
+of my own making on the throne, to give him Geneviève for a wife . . .
+and to reign. That is what I call lucid, honest and fair. But he, the
+low fellow, the ghost in the dark: what is he aiming at?"
+
+He called:
+
+"Waiter!"
+
+The head-waiter came up:
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"Cigars."
+
+The head-waiter stalked away, returned and opened a number of boxes.
+
+"Which do you recommend?"
+
+"These Upmanns are very good, sir."
+
+Lupin gave Doudeville an Upmann, took one for himself and cut it. The
+head-waiter struck a match and held if for him. With a sudden movement,
+Lupin caught him by the wrist:
+
+"Not a word. . . . I know you. . . . Your real name is Dominique Lecas!"
+
+The man, who was big and strong, tried to struggle away. He stifled a
+cry of pain: Lupin had twisted his wrist.
+
+"Your name is Dominique . . . you live in the Rue de la Pompe, on the
+fourth floor, where you retired with a small fortune acquired in the
+service--listen to me, you fool, will you, or I'll break every bone in
+your body!--acquired in the service of Baron Altenheim, at whose house
+you were butler."
+
+The other stood motionless, his face pallid with fear. Around them, the
+small room was empty. In the restaurant beside it, three gentlemen sat
+smoking and two couples were chatting over their liquors.
+
+"You see, we are quiet . . . we can talk."
+
+"Who are you? Who are you?"
+
+"Don't you recollect me? Why, think of that famous luncheon in the Villa
+Dupont! . . . You yourself, you old flunkey, handed me the plate of
+cakes . . . and such cakes!"
+
+"Prince. . . . Prince. . . ." stammered the other.
+
+"Yes, yes, Prince Arsène, Prince Lupin in person. . . . Aha, you breathe
+again! . . . You're saying to yourself that you have nothing to fear
+from Lupin, isn't that it? Well, you're wrong, old chap, you have
+everything to fear." He took a card from his pocket and showed it to
+him. "There, look, I belong to the police now. Can't be helped: that's
+what we all come to in the end, all of us robber-kings and emperors of
+crime."
+
+"Well?" said the head-waiter, still greatly alarmed.
+
+"Well, go to that customer over there, who's calling you, get him what
+he wants and come back to me. And no nonsense, mind you: don't go trying
+to get away. I have ten men outside, with orders to keep their eyes on
+you. Be off."
+
+The head-waiter obeyed. Five minutes after, he returned and, standing in
+front of the table, with his back to the restaurant, as though
+discussing the quality of the cigars with his customers, he said:
+
+"Well? What is it?"
+
+Lupin laid a number of hundred-franc notes in a row on the table:
+
+"One note for each definite answer to my questions."
+
+"Done!"
+
+"Now then. How many of you were there with Baron Altenheim?"
+
+"Seven, without counting myself."
+
+"No more?"
+
+"No. Once only, we picked up some workmen in Italy to make the
+underground passage from the Villa des Glycines, at Garches."
+
+"Were there two underground passages?"
+
+"Yes, one led to the Pavillon Hortense and the other branched off from
+the first and ran under Mrs. Kesselbach's house."
+
+"What was the object?"
+
+"To carry off Mrs. Kesselbach."
+
+"Were the two maids, Suzanne and Gertrude, accomplices?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"Abroad."
+
+"And your seven pals, those of the Altenheim gang?"
+
+"I have left them. They are still going on."
+
+"Where can I find them?"
+
+Dominique hesitated. Lupin unfolded two notes of a thousand francs each
+and said:
+
+"Your scruples do you honor, Dominique. There's nothing for it but to
+swallow them like a man and answer."
+
+Dominique replied:
+
+"You will find them at No. 3, Route de la Revolte, Neuilly. One of them
+is called the Broker."
+
+"Capital. And now the name, the real name of Altenheim. Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes, Ribeira."
+
+"Dominique, Dominique, you're asking for trouble. Ribeira was only an
+assumed name. I asked you the real name."
+
+"Parbury."
+
+"That's another assumed name."
+
+The head-waiter hesitated. Lupin unfolded three hundred franc notes.
+
+"Pshaw, what do I care!" said the man. "After all, he's dead, isn't he?
+Quite dead."
+
+"His name," said Lupin.
+
+"His name? The Chevalier de Malreich."
+
+Lupin gave a jump in his chair:
+
+"What? What do you say? The Chevalier--say it again--the Chevalier
+. . . ?"
+
+"Raoul de Malreich."
+
+A long pause. Lupin, with his eyes fixed before him, thought of the mad
+girl at Veldenz, who had died by poison: Isilda bore the same name,
+Malreich. And it was the name borne by the small French noble who came
+to the court of Veldenz in the eighteenth century.
+
+He resumed his questions:
+
+"What country did this Malreich belong to?"
+
+"He was of French origin, but born in Germany . . . I saw some papers
+once . . . that was how I came to know his name. . . . Oh, if he had
+found it out, he would have wrung my neck, I believe!"
+
+Lupin reflected and said:
+
+"Did he command the lot of you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he had an accomplice, a partner?"
+
+"Oh hush . . . hush . . . !"
+
+The head-waiter's face suddenly expressed the most intense alarm. Lupin
+noticed the same sort of terror and repulsion which he himself felt when
+he thought of the murderer.
+
+"Who is he? Have you seen him?"
+
+"Oh, don't let us talk of that one . . . it doesn't do to talk of him."
+
+"Who is he, I'm asking you."
+
+"He is the master . . . the chief. . . . Nobody knows him."
+
+"But you've seen him, you. Answer me. Have you seen him?"
+
+"Sometimes, in the dark . . . at night. Never by daylight. His orders
+come on little scraps of paper . . . or by telephone."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"I don't know it. We never used to speak of him. It was unlucky."
+
+"He dresses in black, doesn't he?"
+
+"Yes, in black. He is short and slender . . . with fair hair. . . ."
+
+"And he kills, doesn't he?"
+
+"Yes, he kills . . . he kills where another might steal a bit of bread."
+
+His voice shook. He entreated:
+
+"Let us stop this . . . it won't do to talk of him. . . . I tell you
+. . . it's unlucky."
+
+Lupin was silent, impressed, in spite of himself, by the man's anguish.
+He sat long thinking and then rose and said to the head-waiter:
+
+"Here, here's your money; but, if you want to live in peace, you will do
+well not to breathe a word of our conversation to anybody."
+
+He left the restaurant with Doudeville and walked to the Porte
+Saint-Denis without speaking, absorbed in all that he had heard. At
+last, he seized his companion's arm and said:
+
+"Listen to me, Doudeville, carefully. Go to the Gare du Nord. You will
+get there in time to catch the Luxemburg express. Go to Veldenz, the
+capital of the grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz. At the town-hall, you
+will easily obtain the birth-certificate of the Chevalier de Malreich
+and further information about the family. You will be back on the day
+after to-morrow: that will be Saturday."
+
+"Am I to let them know at the detective-office?"
+
+"I'll see to that. I shall telephone that you are ill. Oh, one word
+more: on Saturday, meet me at twelve o'clock in a little café on the
+Route de la Revolte, called the Restaurant Buffalo. Come dressed as a
+workman."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day, Lupin, wearing a short smock and a cap, went down to
+Neuilly and began his investigations at No. 3, Route de la Revolte. A
+gateway opened into an outer yard; and here he found a huge block of
+workmen's dwellings, a whole series of passages and workshops, with a
+swarming population of artisans, women and brats. In a few minutes, he
+had won the good-will of the portress, with whom he chatted for an hour
+on the most varied topics. During this hour, he saw three men pass, one
+after the other, whose manner struck him:
+
+"That's game," he thought, "and gamy game at that! . . . They follow one
+another by scent! . . . Look quite respectable, of course, but with the
+eye of the hunted deer which knows that the enemy is all around and that
+every tuft, every blade of grass may conceal an ambush."
+
+That afternoon and on the Saturday morning, he pursued his inquiries and
+made certain that Altenheim's seven accomplices all lived on the
+premises. Four of them openly followed the trade of second-hand
+clothes-dealers. Two of the others sold newspapers; and the third
+described himself as a broker and was nicknamed accordingly.
+
+They went in and out, one after the other, without appearing to know one
+another. But, in the evening, Lupin discovered that they met in a sort
+of coach-house situated right at the back of the last of the yards, a
+place in which the Broker kept his wares piled up: old iron, broken
+kitchen-ranges, rusty stove-pipes . . . and also, no doubt, the best
+part of the stolen goods.
+
+"Come," he said, "the work is shaping nicely. I asked my cousin of
+Germany for a month and I believe a fortnight will be enough for my
+purpose. And what I like about it is that I shall start operations with
+the scoundrels who made me take a header in the Seine. My poor old
+Gourel, I shall revenge you at last. And high time too!"
+
+At twelve o'clock on Saturday, he went to the Restaurant Buffalo, a
+little low-ceilinged room to which brick-layers and cab-drivers resorted
+for their mid-day meal. Some one came and sat down beside him:
+
+"It's done, governor."
+
+"Ah, is it you, Doudeville? That's right! I'm dying to know. Have you
+the particulars? The birth-certificate? Quick, tell me."
+
+"Well, it's like this: Altenheim's father and mother died abroad."
+
+"Never mind about them."
+
+"They left three children."
+
+"Three?"
+
+"Yes. The eldest would have been thirty years old by now. His name was
+Raoul de Malreich."
+
+"That's our man, Altenheim. Next?"
+
+"The youngest of the children was a girl, Isilda. The register has an
+entry, in fresh ink, 'Deceased.'"
+
+"Isilda. . . . Isilda," repeated Lupin. "That's just what I thought:
+Isilda was Altenheim's sister. . . . I saw a look in her face which I
+seemed to recognize. . . . So that was the link between them. . . . But
+the other, the third child, or rather the second?"
+
+"A son. He would be twenty-six by now."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Louis de Malreich."
+
+Lupin gave a little start:
+
+"That's it! Louis de Malreich. . . . The initials L. M. . . . The awful
+and terrifying signature! . . . The murderer's name is Louis de
+Malreich. . . . He was the brother of Altenheim and the brother of
+Isilda and he killed both of them for fear of what they might reveal."
+
+Lupin sat long, silent and gloomy, under the obsession, no doubt, of the
+mysterious being.
+
+Doudeville objected:
+
+"What had he to fear from his sister Isilda? She was mad, they told me."
+
+"Mad, yes, but capable of remembering certain details of her childhood.
+She must have recognized the brother with whom she grew up . . . and
+that recollection cost her her life." And he added, "Mad! But all those
+people were mad. . . . The mother was mad. . . . The father a
+dipsomaniac. . . . Altenheim a regular brute beast. . . . Isilda, a poor
+innocent . . . . As for the other, the murderer, he is the monster, the
+crazy lunatic. . . ."
+
+"Crazy? Do you think so, governor?"
+
+"Yes, crazy! With flashes of genius, of devilish cunning and intuition,
+but a crack-brained fool, a madman, like all that Malreich family. Only
+madmen kill and especially madmen of his stamp. For, after all . . ."
+
+He interrupted himself; and his face underwent so great a change that
+Doudeville was struck by it:
+
+"What's the matter, governor?"
+
+"Look."
+
+A man had entered and hung his hat--a soft, black felt hat--on a peg. He
+sat down at a little table, examined the bill of fare which a waiter
+brought him, gave his order and waited motionless, with his body stiff
+and erect and his two arms crossed over the table-cloth.
+
+And Lupin saw him full-face.
+
+He had a lean, hard visage, absolutely smooth and pierced with two
+sockets in the depths of which appeared a pair of steel-gray eyes. The
+skin seemed stretched from bone to bone, like a sheet of parchment, so
+stiff and so thick that not a hair could have penetrated through it.
+
+And the face was dismal and dull. No expression enlivened it. No thought
+seemed to abide under that ivory forehead; and the eye-lids, entirely
+devoid of lashes, never flickered, which gave the eyes the fixed look
+of the eyes in a statue.
+
+Lupin beckoned to one of the waiters:
+
+"Who is that gentleman?"
+
+"The one eating his lunch over there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is a customer. He comes here two or three times a week."
+
+"Can you tell me his name?"
+
+"Why, yes . . . Leon Massier."
+
+"Oh!" blurted Lupin, very excitedly. "L. M. . . . the same two letters
+. . . could it be Louis de Malreich?"
+
+He watched him eagerly. Indeed, the man's appearance agreed with Lupin's
+conjectures, with what he knew of him and of his hideous mode of
+existence. But what puzzled him was that look of death about him: where
+he anticipated life and fire, where he would have expected to find the
+torment, the disorder, the violent facial distortion of the great
+accursed, he beheld sheer impassiveness.
+
+He asked the waiter:
+
+"What does he do?"
+
+"I really can't say. He's a rum cove . . . He's always quite alone.
+. . . He never talks to anybody . . . We here don't even know the sound
+of his voice. . . . He points his finger at the dishes on the bill of
+fare which he wants. . . . He has finished in twenty minutes; then he
+pays and goes. . . ."
+
+"And he comes back again?"
+
+"Every three or four days. He's not regular."
+
+"It's he, it cannot be any one else," said Lupin to himself. "It's
+Malreich. There he is . . . breathing . . . at four steps from me. There
+are the hands that kill. There is the brain that gloats upon the smell
+of blood. There is the monster, the vampire! . . ."
+
+And, yet, was it possible? Lupin had ended by looking upon Malreich as
+so fantastic a being that he was disconcerted at seeing him in the
+flesh, coming, going, moving. He could not explain to himself how the
+man could eat bread and meat like other men, drink beer like any one
+else: this man whom he had pictured as a foul beast, feeding on live
+flesh and sucking the blood of his victims.
+
+"Come away, Doudeville."
+
+"What's the matter with you, governor? You look quite white!"
+
+"I want air. Come out."
+
+Outside, he drew a deep breath, wiped the perspiration from his forehead
+and muttered:
+
+"That's better. I was stifling." And, mastering himself, he added, "Now
+we must play our game cautiously and not lose sight of his tracks."
+
+"Hadn't we better separate, governor? Our man saw us together. He will
+take less notice of us singly."
+
+"Did he see us?" said Lupin, pensively. "He seems to me to see nothing,
+to hear nothing and to look at nothing. What a bewildering specimen!"
+
+And, in fact, ten minutes later, Leon Massier appeared and walked away,
+without even looking to see if he was followed. He had lit a cigarette
+and smoked, with one of his hands behind his back, strolling along like
+a saunterer enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air and never suspecting
+that his movements could possibly be watched.
+
+He passed through the toll-gates, skirted the fortifications, went out
+again through the Porte Champerret and retraced his steps along the
+Route de la Revolte.
+
+Would he enter the buildings at No. 3? Lupin eagerly hoped that he
+would, for that would have been a certain proof of his complicity with
+the Altenheim gang; but the man turned round and made for the Rue
+Delaizement, which he followed until he passed the Velodrome Buffalo.
+
+On the left, opposite the cycling-track, between the public tennis-court
+and the booths that line the Rue Delaizement, stood a small detached
+villa, surrounded by a scanty garden. Leon Massier stopped, took out his
+keys, opened first the gate of the garden and then the door of the house
+and disappeared.
+
+Lupin crept forward cautiously. He at once noticed that the block in the
+Route de la Revolte stretched back as far as the garden-wall. Coming
+still nearer, he saw that the wall was very high and that a coach-house
+rested against it at the bottom of the garden. The position of the
+buildings was such as to give him the certainty that his coach-house
+stood back to back with the coach-house in the inner yard of No. 3,
+which served as a lumber-room for the Broker.
+
+Leon Massier, therefore, occupied a house adjoining the place in which
+the seven members of the Altenheim gang held their meetings.
+Consequently, Leon Massier was, in point of fact, the supreme leader who
+commanded that gang; and there was evidently a passage between the two
+coach-houses through which he communicated with his followers.
+
+"I was right," said Lupin. "Leon Massier and Louis de Malreich are one
+and the same man. The situation is much simpler than it was."
+
+"There is no doubt about that," said Doudeville, "and everything will be
+settled in a few days."
+
+"That is to say, I shall have been stabbed in the throat."
+
+"What are you saying, governor? There's an idea!"
+
+"Pooh, who knows? I have always had a presentiment that that monster
+would bring me ill-luck."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thenceforth it became a matter of watching Malreich's life in such a way
+that none of his movements went unobserved. This life was of the oddest,
+if one could believe the people of the neighborhood whom Doudeville
+questioned. "The bloke from the villa," as they called him, had been
+living there for a few months only. He saw and received nobody. He was
+not known to keep a servant of any kind. And the windows, though they
+were left wide open, even at night, always remained dark and were never
+lit with the glow of a lamp or candle.
+
+Moreover, Leon Massier most often went out at the close of day and did
+not come in again until very late . . . at dawn, said people who had
+come upon him at sunrise.
+
+"And does any one know what he does?" asked Lupin of his companion, when
+they next met.
+
+"No, he leads an absolutely irregular existence. He sometimes disappears
+for several days together . . . or, rather, he remains indoors. When all
+is said, nobody knows anything."
+
+"Well, we shall know; and that soon."
+
+He was wrong. After a week of continuous efforts and investigations, he
+had learnt no more than before about that strange individual. The
+extraordinary thing that constantly happened was this, that, suddenly,
+while Lupin was following him, the man, who was ambling with short steps
+along the streets, without ever turning round or ever stopping, the man
+would vanish as if by a miracle. True, he sometimes went through houses
+with two entrances. But, at other times, he seemed to fade away in the
+midst of the crowd, like a ghost. And Lupin was left behind, petrified,
+astounded, filled with rage and confusion.
+
+He at once hurried to the Rue Delaizement and stood on guard outside the
+villa. Minutes followed upon minutes, half-hour upon half-hour. A part
+of the night slipped away. Then, suddenly, the mysterious man hove in
+sight. What could he have been doing?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"An express message for you, governor," said Doudeville, at eight
+o'clock one evening, as he joined him in the Rue Delaizement.
+
+Lupin opened the envelope. Mrs. Kesselbach implored him to come to her
+aid. It appeared that two men had taken up their stand under her
+windows, at night, and one of them had said:
+
+"What luck, we've dazzled them completely this time! So it's understood;
+we shall strike the blow to-night."
+
+Mrs. Kesselbach thereupon went downstairs and discovered that the
+shutter in the pantry did not fasten, or, at least, that it could be
+opened from the outside.
+
+"At last," said Lupin, "it's the enemy himself who offers to give
+battle. That's a good thing! I am tired of marching up and down under
+Malreich's windows."
+
+"Is he there at this moment?"
+
+"No, he played me one of his tricks again in Paris, just as I was about
+to play him one of mine. But, first of all, listen to me, Doudeville. Go
+and collect ten of our men and bring them to the Rue des Vignes. Look
+here, bring Marco and Jérôme, the messenger. I have given them a holiday
+since the business at the Palace Hotel: let them come this time. Daddy
+Charolais and his son ought to be mounting guard by now. Make your
+arrangements with them, and at half-past eleven, come and join me at the
+corner of the Rue des Vignes and the Rue Raynouard. From there we will
+watch the house."
+
+Doudeville went away. Lupin waited for an hour longer, until that quiet
+thoroughfare, the Rue Delaizement, was quite deserted, and then, seeing
+that Leon Massier did not return, he made up his mind and went up to the
+villa.
+
+There was no one in sight. . . . He took a run and jumped on the stone
+ledge that supported the railings of the garden. A few minutes later, he
+was inside.
+
+His plan was to force the door of the house and search the rooms in
+order to find the Emperor's letters which Malreich had stolen from
+Veldenz. But he thought a visit to the coach-house of more immediate
+importance.
+
+He was much surprised to see that it was open and, next, to find, by the
+light of his electric lantern, that it was absolutely empty and that
+there was no door in the back wall. He hunted about for a long time, but
+met with no more success. Outside, however, he saw a ladder standing
+against the coach-house and obviously serving as a means of reaching a
+sort of loft contrived under the slate roof.
+
+The loft was blocked with old packing-cases, trusses of straw and
+gardener's frames, or rather it seemed to be blocked, for he very soon
+discovered a gangway that took him to the wall. Here, he knocked up
+against a cucumber-frame, which he tried to move. Failing to effect his
+purpose, he examined the frame more closely and found, first, that it
+was fixed to the wall and, secondly, that one of the panes was missing.
+He passed his arm through and encountered space. He cast the bright
+light of the lantern through the aperture and saw a big shed, a
+coach-house larger than that of the villa and filled with old iron-work
+and objects of every kind.
+
+"That's it," said Lupin to himself. "This window has been contrived in
+the Broker's lumber-room, right up at the top, and from here Louis de
+Malreich sees, hears and watches his accomplices, without being seen or
+heard by them. I now understand how it is that they do not know their
+leader."
+
+Having found out what he wanted, he put out his light and was on the
+point of leaving, when a door opened opposite him, down below. Some one
+came in and lit a lamp. He recognized the Broker. He thereupon resolved
+to stay where he was, since the expedition, after all, could not be done
+so long as that man was there.
+
+The Broker took two revolvers from his pocket. He tested the triggers
+and changed the cartridges, whistling a music-hall tune as he did so.
+
+An hour elapsed in this way. Lupin was beginning to grow restless,
+without, however, making up his mind to go.
+
+More minutes passed, half an hour, an hour. . . .
+
+At last, the man said aloud:
+
+"Come in."
+
+One of the scoundrels slipped into the shed; and, one after the other, a
+third arrived and a fourth. . . .
+
+"We are all here," said the Broker. "Dieudonne and Chubby will meet us
+down there. Come, we've no time to lose. . . . Are you armed?"
+
+"To the teeth."
+
+"That's all right. It'll be hot work."
+
+"How do you know, Broker?"
+
+"I've seen the chief. . . . When I say that I've seen him, no . . . but
+he spoke to me. . . ."
+
+"Yes," said one of the men, "in the dark, at a street-corner, as usual.
+Ah, Altenheim's ways were better than that. At least, one knew what one
+was doing."
+
+"And don't you know?" retorted the Broker. "We're breaking in at the
+Kesselbach woman's."
+
+"And what about the two watchers? The two coves whom Lupin posted
+there?"
+
+"That's their look-out: there's seven of us. They had better give us as
+little trouble as possible."
+
+"What about the Kesselbach?"
+
+"Gag her first, then bind her and bring her here. . . . There, on that
+old sofa. . . . And then wait for orders."
+
+"Is the job well paid?"
+
+"The Kesselbach's jewels to begin with."
+
+"Yes, if it comes off . . . but I'm speaking of the certainty."
+
+"Three hundred-franc notes apiece, beforehand, and twice as much again
+afterwards."
+
+"Have you the money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's all right. You can say what you like, but, as far as paying
+goes, there's no one to equal that bloke." And, in a voice so low that
+Lupin could hardly hear, "I say, Broker, if we're obliged to use the
+knife, is there a reward?"
+
+"The same as usual, two thousand."
+
+"If it's Lupin?"
+
+"Three thousand."
+
+"Oh, if we could only get him!"
+
+One after the other, they left the lumber-room. Lupin heard the Broker's
+parting words:
+
+"This is the plan of attack. We divide into three lots. A whistle; and
+every one runs forward. . . ."
+
+Lupin hurriedly left his hiding-place, went down the ladder, ran round
+the house, without going in, and climbed back over the railings:
+
+"The Broker's right; it'll be hot work. . . . Ah, it's my skin they're
+after! A reward for Lupin! The rascals!"
+
+He passed through the toll-gate and jumped into a taxi:
+
+"Rue Raynouard."
+
+He stopped the cab at two hundred yards from the Rue des Vignes and
+walked to the corner of the two streets. To his great surprise,
+Doudeville was not there.
+
+"That's funny," said Lupin. "It's past twelve. . . . This business looks
+suspicious to me."
+
+He waited ten minutes, twenty minutes. At half-past twelve, nobody had
+arrived. Further delay was dangerous. After all, if Doudeville and his
+men were prevented from coming, Charolais, his son and he, Lupin,
+himself were enough to repel the attack, without counting the assistance
+of the servants.
+
+He therefore went ahead. But he caught sight of two men who tried to
+hide in the shadow of a corner wall.
+
+"Hang it!" he said. "That's the vanguard of the gang, Dieudonne and
+Chubby. I've allowed myself to be out-distanced, like a fool."
+
+Here he lost more time. Should he go straight up to them, disable them
+and then climb into the house through the pantry-window, which he knew
+to be unlocked? That would be the most prudent course and would enable
+him, moreover, to take Mrs. Kesselbach away at once and to remove her to
+a place of safety.
+
+Yes, but it also meant the failure of his plan; it meant missing this
+glorious opportunity of trapping the whole gang, including Louis de
+Malreich himself, without doubt.
+
+Suddenly a whistle sounded from somewhere on the other side of the
+house. Was it the rest of the gang, so soon? And was an offensive
+movement to be made from the garden?
+
+But, at the preconcerted signal, the two men climbed through the window
+and disappeared from view.
+
+Lupin scaled the balcony at a bound and jumped into the pantry. By the
+sound of their footsteps, he judged that the assailants had gone into
+the garden; and the sound was so distinct that he felt easy in his mind:
+Charolais and his son could not fail to hear the noise.
+
+He therefore went upstairs. Mrs. Kesselbach's bedroom was on the first
+landing. He walked in without knocking.
+
+A night-light was burning in the room; and he saw Dolores, on a sofa,
+fainting. He ran up to her, lifted her and, in a voice of command,
+forcing her to answer:
+
+"Listen. . . . Charolais? His son . . . Where are they?"
+
+She stammered:
+
+"Why, what do you mean? . . . They're gone, of course! . . ."
+
+"What, gone?"
+
+"You sent me word . . . an hour ago . . . a telephone-message. . . ."
+
+He picked up a piece of blue paper lying beside her and read:
+
+      "Send the two watchers away at once . . . and all my
+      men. . . . Tell them to meet me at the Grand Hotel.
+      Have no fear."
+
+"Thunder! And you believed it? . . . But your servants?"
+
+"Gone."
+
+He went up to the window. Outside, three men were coming from the other
+end of the garden.
+
+From the window in the next room, which looked out on the street, he saw
+two others, on the pavement.
+
+And he thought of Dieudonne, of Chubby, of Louis de Malreich, above all,
+who must now be prowling around, invisible and formidable.
+
+"Hang it!" he muttered. "I half believe they've done me this time!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MAN IN BLACK
+
+
+At that moment, Arsène Lupin felt the impression, the certainty, that he
+had been drawn into an ambush, by means which he had not the time to
+perceive, but of which he guessed the prodigious skill and address.
+Everything had been calculated, everything ordained; the dismissal of
+his men, the disappearance or treachery of the servants, his own
+presence in Mrs. Kesselbach's house.
+
+Clearly, the whole thing had succeeded, exactly as the enemy wished,
+thanks to circumstances almost miraculously fortunate; for, after all,
+he might have arrived before the false message had sent his friends
+away. But then there would have been a battle between his own gang and
+the Altenheim gang. And Lupin, remembering Malreich's conduct, the
+murder of Altenheim, the poisoning of the mad girl at Veldenz, Lupin
+asked himself whether the ambush was aimed at him alone or whether
+Malreich had not contemplated the possibility of a general scuffle,
+involving the killing of accomplices who had by this time become irksome
+to him.
+
+It was an intuition, rather, a fleeting idea, that just passed through
+his mind. The hour was one for action. He must defend Dolores, the
+abduction of whom was, in all likelihood, the first and foremost reason
+of the attack.
+
+He half-opened the casement window on the street and levelled his
+revolver. A shot, rousing and alarming the neighborhood, and the
+scoundrels would take to their heels.
+
+"Well, no," he muttered, "no! It shall not be said that I shirked the
+fight. The opportunity is too good. . . . And, then, who says that they
+would run away! . . . There are too many of them to care about the
+neighbors."
+
+He returned to Dolores' room. There was a noise downstairs. He listened
+and, finding that it came from the staircase, he locked the door.
+
+Dolores was crying and throwing herself about the sofa.
+
+He implored her:
+
+"Are you strong enough? We are on the first floor. I could help you
+down. We can lower the sheets from the window. . . ."
+
+"No, no, don't leave me. . . . I am frightened. . . . I haven't the
+strength . . . they will kill me. . . . Oh, protect me!"
+
+He took her in his arms and carried her to the next room. And, bending
+over her:
+
+"Don't move; and keep calm. I swear to you that not one of those men
+shall touch you, as long as I am alive."
+
+The door of the first room was tried. Dolores, clinging to him with all
+her might, cried:
+
+"Oh, there they are! There they are! . . . They will kill you . . . you
+are alone! . . ."
+
+Eagerly, he said:
+
+"No, I am not alone. . . . You are here. . . . You are here beside me.
+. . ."
+
+He tried to release himself. She took his head in her two hands, looked
+him deep in the eyes and whispered:
+
+"Where are you going? What are you going to do? No . . . you must not
+die. . . . I won't have it . . . you must live . . . you must."
+
+She stammered words which he did not catch and which she seemed to
+stifle between her lips lest he should hear them; and, having spent all
+her energy, exhausted, she fell back unconscious.
+
+He leant over her and gazed at her for a moment. Softly, lightly, he
+pressed a kiss upon her hair.
+
+Then he went back to the first room, carefully closed the door between
+the two and switched on the electric light.
+
+"One second, my lads!" he cried. "You seem in a great hurry to get
+yourselves smashed to pieces! . . . Don't you know that Lupin's here?
+I'll make you dance!"
+
+While speaking, he unfolded a screen in such a way as to hide the sofa
+on which Mrs. Kesselbach had been lying; and he now spread dresses and
+coverings over it. The door was on the point of giving way under the
+blows of the men outside.
+
+"Here I am! Coming! Are you ready? Now, gentlemen, one at a time! . . ."
+
+He briskly turned the key and drew the bolt.
+
+Shouts, threats, a roar of infuriated animals came through the open
+doorway.
+
+Yet none of them dared come forward. Before rushing at Lupin, they
+hesitated, seized with alarm, with fear. . . .
+
+This was what he had reckoned on.
+
+Standing in the middle of the room, full in the light, with outstretched
+arm, he held between his fingers a sheaf of bank-notes, which he
+divided, counting them one by one, into seven equal shares. And he
+calmly said:
+
+"Three thousand francs' reward for each of you, if Lupin is sent to his
+last account? That's what you were promised, isn't it? Here's double the
+money!"
+
+He laid the bundles on the table, within reach of the scoundrels.
+
+The Broker roared:
+
+"Humbug! He's trying to gain time. Shoot him down!"
+
+He raised his arm. His companions held him back.
+
+And Lupin continued:
+
+"Of course, this need not affect your plan of campaign. You came here,
+first, to kidnap Mrs. Kesselbach and, secondly, to lay hands on her
+jewels. Far be it from me to interfere with your laudable intentions!"
+
+"Look here, what are you driving at?" growled the Broker, listening in
+spite of himself.
+
+"Aha, Broker, I'm beginning to interest you, am I? . . . Come in, old
+chap. . . . Come in, all of you. . . . There's a draught at the top of
+those stairs . . . and such pretty fellows as you mustn't run the risk
+of catching cold. . . . What, are we afraid? Why, I'm all by myself!
+. . . Come, pull yourselves together, my lambs!"
+
+They entered the room, puzzled and suspicious.
+
+"Shut the door, Broker . . . we shall be more comfortable. Thanks, old
+man. Oh, by the way, I see the notes are gone. Therefore we're agreed.
+How easy it is for honest men to come to terms!"
+
+"Well . . . and next?"
+
+"Next? Well, as we're partners . . ."
+
+"Partners?"
+
+"Why, haven't you accepted my money? We're working together, old man,
+and we will carry off the young woman together first and carry off the
+jewels after."
+
+The Broker grinned:
+
+"Don't want you for that."
+
+"Yes, you do, old man."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you don't know where the jewels are hidden and I do."
+
+"We'll find out."
+
+"To-morrow. Not to-night."
+
+"Well, let's hear. What do you want?"
+
+"My share of the jewels."
+
+"Why didn't you take the lot, as you know where they are?"
+
+"Can't get at them by myself. There's a way of doing it, but I don't
+know it. You're here, so I'm making use of you."
+
+The Broker hesitated:
+
+"Share the jewels. . . . Share the jewels. . . . A few bits of glass and
+brass, most likely. . . ."
+
+"You fool! . . . There's more than a million's worth."
+
+The men quivered under the impression made upon them.
+
+"Very well," said the Broker. "But suppose the Kesselbach gets away?
+She's in the next room, isn't she?"
+
+"No, she's in here."
+
+Lupin for a moment pulled back one of the leaves of the screen,
+revealing the heap of dresses and bed-clothes which he had laid out on
+the sofa:
+
+"She's here, fainting. But I shan't give her up till we've divided."
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"You can take it or leave it. I don't care if I am alone. You know what
+I'm good for. So please yourselves. . . ."
+
+The men consulted with one another and the Broker said:
+
+"Where is the hiding-place you're talking of?"
+
+"Under the fireplace. But, when you don't know the secret, you must
+first lift up the whole chimneypiece, looking-glass, marble and all in a
+lump, it seems. It's no easy job."
+
+"Pooh, we're a smart lot, we are! Just you wait and see. In five minutes
+. . ."
+
+He gave his orders and his pals at once set to work with admirable vigor
+and discipline. Two of them, standing on chairs, tried to lift the
+mirror. The four others attacked the fireplace itself. The Broker, on
+his knees, kept his eyes on the hearth and gave the word of command:
+
+"Cheerily, lads! . . . Altogether, if you please! . . . Look out! . . .
+One, two . . . ah, there, it's moving! . . ."
+
+Standing behind them, with his hands in his pockets, Lupin watched them
+affectionately and, at the same time, revelled with all his pride, as an
+artist and master, in this striking proof of his authority, of his
+might, of the incredible sway which he wielded over others. How could
+those scoundrels for a second accept that improbable story and lose all
+sense of things, to the point of relinquishing every chance of the fight
+in his favor?
+
+He took from his pockets two great massive and formidable revolvers and,
+calmly, choosing the first two men whom he would bring down and the two
+who would fall next, he aimed as he might have aimed at a pair of
+targets in a rifle-gallery.
+
+Two shots together and two more. . . .
+
+Loud yells of pain. . . . Four men came tumbling down, one after the
+other, like dolls at a cockshy.
+
+"Four from seven leaves three," said Lupin. "Shall I go on?"
+
+His arms remained outstretched, levelled at the Broker and his two pals.
+
+"You swine!" growled the Broker, feeling for a weapon.
+
+"Hands up," cried Lupin, "or I fire! . . . That's it. . . . Now, you
+two, take away his toys. . . . If not . . . !"
+
+The two scoundrels, shaking with fear, caught hold of their leader and
+compelled him to submit.
+
+"Bind him! . . . Bind him, confound it! . . . What difference does it
+make to you? . . . Once I'm gone, you're all free. . . . Come along,
+have you finished? The wrists first . . . with your belts. . . . And the
+ankles. . . . Hurry up! . . ."
+
+The Broker, beaten and disabled, made no further resistance. While his
+pals were binding him, Lupin stooped over them and dealt them two
+terrific blows on the head with the butt-end of his revolver. They sank
+down in a heap.
+
+"That's a good piece of work," he said, taking breath. "Pity there are
+not another fifty of them. I was just in the mood. . . . And all so
+easily done . . . with a smile on one's face. . . . What do you think of
+it, Broker?"
+
+The scoundrel lay cursing. Lupin said:
+
+"Cheer up, old man! Console yourself with the thought that you are
+helping in a good action, the rescue of Mrs. Kesselbach. She will thank
+you in person for your gallantry."
+
+He went to the door of the second room and opened it:
+
+"What's this?" he said, stopping on the threshold, taken aback,
+dumfounded.
+
+The room was empty.
+
+He went to the window, saw a ladder leaning against the balcony, a
+telescopic steel ladder, and muttered:
+
+"Kidnapped . . . kidnapped . . . Louis de Malreich. . . . Oh, the
+villain! . . ."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reflected for a minute, trying to master his anguish of mind, and
+said to himself that, after all, as Mrs. Kesselbach seemed to be in no
+immediate danger, there was no cause for alarm.
+
+But he was seized with a sudden fit of rage and flew at the seven
+scoundrels, gave a kick or two to those of the wounded who stirred, felt
+for his bank-notes and put them back in his pocket, then gagged the
+men's mouths and tied their hands with anything that he could
+find--blind-cords, curtain-loops, blankets and sheets reduced to
+strips--and, lastly, laid in a row on the carpet, in front of the sofa,
+seven bundles of humanity, packed tight together and tied up like so
+many parcels:
+
+"Mummies on toast!" he chuckled. "A dainty dish for those who like that
+sort of thing! . . . You pack of fools, how does this suit you, eh?
+There you are, like corpses at the Morgue. . . . Serves you right for
+attacking Lupin, Lupin the protector of the widow and orphan! . . . Are
+you trembling? Quite unnecessary, my lambs! Lupin never hurt a fly yet!
+. . . Only, Lupin is a decent man, he can't stand vermin; and the Lupin
+knows his duty. I ask you, is life possible with a lot of scamps like
+you about? Think of it: no respect for other people's lives; no respect
+for property, for laws, for society; no conscience; no anything! What
+are we coming to? Lord, what are we coming to?"
+
+Without even taking the trouble to lock them in, he left the room, went
+down the street and walked until he came to his taxi. He sent the driver
+in search of another and brought both cabs back to Mrs. Kesselbach's
+house.
+
+A good tip, paid in advance, avoided all tedious explanations. With the
+help of the two men, he carried the seven prisoners down and plumped
+them anyhow, on one another's knees, into the cabs. The wounded men
+yelled and moaned. He shut the doors, shouting:
+
+"Mind your hands!"
+
+He got up beside the driver of the front cab.
+
+"Where to?" asked the man.
+
+"36, Quai des Orfevers: the detective-office."
+
+The motors throbbed, the drivers started the gear and the strange
+procession went scooting down the slopes of the Trocadero.
+
+In the streets, they passed a few vegetable-carts. Men carrying long
+poles were turning out the street-lamps.
+
+There were stars in the sky. A cool breeze was wafted through the air.
+
+Lupin sang aloud:
+
+The Place de la Concorde, the Louvre. . . . In the distance, the dark
+bulk of Notre Dame. . . .
+
+He turned round and half opened the door:
+
+"Having a good time, mates? So am I, thank you. It's a grand night for a
+drive and the air's delicious! . . ."
+
+They were now bumping over the ill-paved quays. And soon they arrived at
+the Palais de Justice and the door of the detective-office.
+
+"Wait here," said Lupin to the two drivers, "and be sure you look after
+your seven fares."
+
+He crossed the outer yard and went down the passage on the right leading
+to the rooms of the central office. He found the night inspectors on
+duty.
+
+"A bag, gentlemen," he said, as he entered, "a fine bag too. Is M. Weber
+here? I am the new commissary of police for Auteuil."
+
+"M. Weber is in his flat. Do you want him sent for?"
+
+"Just one second. I'm in a hurry. I'll leave a line for him."
+
+He sat down at a table and wrote:
+
+      "MY DEAR WEBER,
+
+      "I am bringing you the seven scoundrels composing
+      Altenheim's gang, the men who killed Gourel (and
+      plenty of others) and who killed me as well, under the
+      name of M. Lenormand.
+
+      "That only leaves their leader unaccounted for. I am
+      going to effect his arrest this minute. Come and join
+      me. He lives in the Rue Delaizement, at Neuilly and
+      goes by the name of Leon Massier.
+
+        "Kind regards.
+                    "Yours,
+                                    "ARSÈNE LUPIN,
+                    "_Chief of the Detective-service_."
+
+He sealed the letter:
+
+"Give that to M. Weber. It's urgent. Now I want seven men to receive the
+goods. I left them on the quay."
+
+On going back to the taxis, he was met by a chief inspector:
+
+"Ah, it's you M. Lebœuf!" he said. "I've made a fine haul. . . . The
+whole of Altenheim's gang. . . . They're there in the taxi-cabs."
+
+"Where did you find them?"
+
+"Hard at work kidnapping Mrs. Kesselbach and robbing her house. But I'll
+tell you all about it when the time comes."
+
+The chief inspector took him aside and, with the air of surprise:
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but I was sent for to see the commissary
+of police for Auteuil. And I don't seem to . . . Whom have I the honor
+of addressing?"
+
+"Somebody who is making you a handsome present of seven hooligans of the
+finest quality."
+
+"Still, I should like to know. . . ."
+
+"My name?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Arsène Lupin."
+
+He nimbly tripped the chief inspector up, ran to the Rue de Rivoli,
+jumped into a passing taxi-cab and drove to the Porte des Ternes.
+
+The Route de la Revolte was close by. He went to No. 3.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For all his coolness and self-command, Arsène Lupin was unable to
+control his excitement. Would he find Dolores Kesselbach? Had Louis de
+Malreich taken her either to his own place or to the Broker's shed?
+
+Lupin had taken the key of the shed from the Broker, so that it was easy
+for him, after ringing and walking across the different yards, to open
+the door and enter the lumber-shop.
+
+He switched on his lantern and took his bearings. A little to the right
+was the free space in which he had seen the accomplices hold their last
+confabulation. On the sofa mentioned by the Broker he saw a black
+figure, Dolores lay wrapped in blankets and gagged.
+
+He helped her up.
+
+"Ah, it's you, it's you!" she stammered. "They haven't touched you!"
+
+And, rising and pointing to the back of the shop:
+
+"There . . . he went out that side . . . I heard him. . . . I am sure.
+. . . You must go . . . please!"
+
+"I must get you away first," he said.
+
+"No, never mind me . . . go after him. . . . I entreat you. . . . Strike
+him!"
+
+Fear, this time, instead of dejecting her, seemed to be giving her
+unwonted strength; and she repeated, with an immense longing to place
+her terrible enemy in his power:
+
+"Go after him first. . . . I can't go on living like this. . . . You
+must save me from him. . . . I can't go on living. . . ."
+
+He unfastened her bonds, laid her carefully on the sofa and said:
+
+"You are right. . . . Besides, you have nothing to fear here. . . . Wait
+for me, I shall come back."
+
+As he was going away, she caught hold of his hand:
+
+"But you yourself?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If that man . . ."
+
+It was as though she dreaded for Lupin the great, final contest to which
+she was exposing him and as though, at the last moment, she would have
+been glad to hold him back.
+
+He said:
+
+"Thank you, have no fear. What have I to be afraid of? He is alone."
+
+And, leaving her, he went to the back of the shed. As he expected, he
+found a ladder standing against the wall which brought him to the level
+of the little window through which he had watched the scoundrels hold
+their meeting. It was the way by which Malreich had returned to his
+house in the Rue Delaizement.
+
+He, therefore, took the same road, just as he had done a few hours
+earlier, climbed into the loft of the other coach-house and down into
+the garden. He found himself at the back of the villa occupied by
+Malreich.
+
+Strange to say, he did not doubt, for a moment that Malreich was there.
+He would meet him inevitably; the formidable battle which they were
+waging against each other was nearing its end. A few minutes more and,
+one way or another, all would be over.
+
+He was amazed, on grasping the handle of a door, to find that the handle
+turned and the door opened under his pressure. The villa was not even
+locked.
+
+He passed through a kitchen, a hall and up a staircase; and he walked
+deliberately, without seeking to deaden the sound of his footsteps.
+
+On the landing, he stopped. The perspiration streamed from his forehead;
+and his temples throbbed under the rush of his blood. Nevertheless, he
+remained calm, master of himself and conscious of his least thoughts. He
+laid two revolvers on a stair:
+
+"No weapons," he said to himself. "My hands only, just the effort of my
+two hands. . . . That's quite enough. . . . That will be better. . . ."
+
+Opposite him were three doors. He chose the middle one, turned the
+handle and encountered no obstacle. He went in. There was no light in
+the room, but the rays of the night entered through the wide-open window
+and, amid the darkness, he saw the sheets and the white curtains of the
+bed.
+
+And somebody was standing beside it.
+
+He savagely cast the gleam of his lantern upon that form.
+
+Malreich!
+
+The pallid face of Malreich, his dim eyes, his cadaverous cheek-bones,
+his scraggy neck. . . .
+
+And all this stood motionless, opposite him, at five steps' distance;
+and he could not have said whether that dull face, that death-face,
+expressed the least terror or even a grain of anxiety.
+
+Lupin took a step forward . . . and a second . . . and a third. . . .
+
+The man did not move.
+
+Did he see? Did he understand? It was as though the man's eyes were
+gazing into space and that he thought himself possessed by an
+hallucination, rather than looking upon a real image.
+
+One more step. . . .
+
+"He will defend himself," thought Lupin, "he is bound to defend
+himself."
+
+And Lupin thrust out his arms.
+
+The man did not make a movement. He did not retreat; his eyelids did not
+blink.
+
+The contact took place.
+
+And it was Lupin, scared and bewildered, who lost his head. He knocked
+the man back upon his bed, stretched him at full length, rolled him in
+the sheets, bound him in the blankets and held him under his knee, like
+a prey . . . whereas the man had not made the slightest movement of
+resistance.
+
+"Ah!" shouted Lupin, drunk with delight and satisfied hatred. "At last I
+have crushed you, you odious brute! At last I am the master!"
+
+He heard a noise outside, in the Rue Delaizement; men knocking at the
+gate. He ran to the window and cried:
+
+"Is that you, Weber? Already? Well done! You are a model servant! Break
+down the gate, old chap, and come up here; delighted to see you!"
+
+In a few minutes, he searched his prisoner's clothes, got hold of his
+pocket-book, cleared the papers out of the drawers of the desk and the
+davenport, flung them on the table and went through them.
+
+He gave a shout of joy: the bundle of letters was there, the famous
+bundle of letters which he had promised to restore to the Emperor.
+
+He put back the papers in their place and went to the window:
+
+"It's all finished, Weber! You can come in! You will find Mr.
+Kesselbach's murderer in his bed, all ready tied up. . . . Good-bye,
+Weber!"
+
+And Lupin, tearing down the stairs, ran to the coach-house and went back
+to Dolores Kesselbach, while Weber was breaking into the villa.
+
+Single-handed, he had arrested Altenheim's seven companions!
+
+And he had delivered to justice the mysterious leader of the gang, the
+infamous monster, Louis de Malreich!
+
+A young man sat writing at a table on a wide wooden balcony.
+
+From time to time, he raised his head and cast a vague glance toward the
+horizon of hills, where the trees, stripped by the autumn, were shedding
+their last leaves over the red roofs of the villas and the lawns of the
+gardens. Then he went on writing.
+
+Presently he took up his paper and read aloud:
+
+    Nos jours s'en vont à la dérive,
+    Comme emportés par un courant
+    Qui les pousse vers une rive
+    Où l'on n'aborde qu'en mourant.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10:  Our days go by, adrift, adrift,
+               Borne along by current swift
+               That urges them toward the strand
+               Where not until we die, we land.]
+
+"Not so bad," said a voice behind him. "Mme. Amable Tastu might have
+written that, or Mrs. Felicia Hemans. However, we can't all be Byrons or
+Lamartines!"
+
+"You! . . . You! . . ." stammered the young man, in dismay.
+
+"Yes, I, poet, I myself, Arsène Lupin come to see his dear friend Pierre
+Leduc."
+
+Pierre Leduc began to shake, as though shivering with fever. He asked,
+in a low voice:
+
+"Has the hour come?"
+
+"Yes, my dear Pierre Leduc: the hour has come for you to give up, or
+rather to interrupt the slack poet's life which you have been leading
+for months at the feet of Geneviève Ernemont and Mrs. Kesselbach and to
+perform the part which I have allotted to you in my play . . . oh, a
+fine play, I assure you, thoroughly well-constructed, according to all
+the canons of art, with top notes, comic relief and gnashing of teeth
+galore! We have reached the fifth act; the grand finale is at hand; and
+you, Pierre Leduc, are the hero. There's fame for you!"
+
+The young man rose from his seat:
+
+"And suppose I refuse?"
+
+"Idiot!"
+
+"Yes, suppose I refuse? After all, what obliges me to submit to your
+will? What obliges me to accept a part which I do not know, but which I
+loathe in advance and feel ashamed of?"
+
+"Idiot!" repeated Lupin.
+
+And forcing Pierre Leduc back into his chair, he sat down beside him
+and, in the gentlest of voices:
+
+"You quite forget, my dear young man, that you are not Pierre Leduc, but
+Gérard Baupré. That you bear the beautiful name of Pierre Leduc is due
+to the fact that you, Gérard Baupré, killed Pierre Leduc and robbed him
+of his individuality."
+
+The young man bounded with indignation:
+
+"You are mad! You know as well as I do that you conceived the whole
+plot. . . ."
+
+"Yes, I know that, of course; but the law doesn't know it; and what will
+the law say when I come forward with proof that the real Pierre Leduc
+died a violent death and that you have taken his place?"
+
+The young man, overwhelmed with consternation, stammered:
+
+"No one will believe you. . . . Why should I have done that? With what
+object?"
+
+"Idiot! The object is so self-evident that Weber himself could have
+perceived it. You lie when you say that you will not accept a part which
+you do not know. You know your part quite well. It is the part which
+Pierre Leduc would have played were he not dead."
+
+"But Pierre Leduc, to me, to everybody, was only a name. Who was he? Who
+am I?"
+
+"What difference can that make to you?"
+
+"I want to know. I want to know what I am doing!"
+
+"And, if you know, will you go straight ahead?"
+
+"Yes, if the object of which you speak is worth it."
+
+"If it were not, do you think I would take all this trouble?"
+
+"Who am I? Whatever my destiny, you may be sure that I shall prove
+worthy of it. But I want to know. Who am I?"
+
+Arsène Lupin took off his hat, bowed and said: "Hermann IV., Grand-duke
+of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, Prince of Berncastel, Elector of Treves and lord
+of all sorts of places."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three days later, Arsène Lupin took Mrs. Kesselbach away in a motor-car
+in the direction of the frontier. The journey was accomplished in
+silence, Lupin remembered with emotion Dolores's terrified conduct and
+the words which she spoke in the house in the Rue des Vignes, when he
+was about to defend her against Altenheim's accomplices. And she must
+have remembered also, for she remained embarrassed and evidently
+perturbed in his presence.
+
+In the evening they reached a small castle, all covered with creepers
+and flowers, roofed with an enormous slate cap and standing in a large
+garden full of ancestral trees.
+
+Here Mrs. Kesselbach found Geneviève already installed, after a visit to
+the neighboring town, where she had engaged a staff of servants from
+among the country-people.
+
+"This will be your residence, madame," said Lupin. "You are at Bruggen
+Castle. You will be quite safe here, while waiting the outcome of these
+events. I have written to Pierre Leduc and he will be your guest from
+to-morrow."
+
+He started off again at once, drove to Veldenz and handed over to Count
+von Waldemar the famous letters which he had recaptured:
+
+"You know my conditions, my dear Waldemar," said Lupin. "The first and
+most important thing is to restore the House of Zweibrucken-Veldenz and
+to reinstate the Grand-duke Hermann IV., in the grand-duchy."
+
+"I shall open negotiations with the Council of Regency to-day. According
+to my information, it will not be a difficult matter. But this
+Grand-duke Hermann. . . ."
+
+"His Royal Highness is at present staying at Bruggen Castle, under the
+name of Pierre Leduc. I will supply all the necessary proofs of his
+identity."
+
+That same evening, Lupin took the road back to Paris, with the intention
+of actively hurrying on the trial of Malreich and the seven scoundrels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be wearisome to recapitulate the story of the case: the facts,
+down to the smallest details, are in the memory of one and all. It was
+one of those sensational events which still form a subject of
+conversation and discussion among the weather-beaten laborers in the
+remotest villages.
+
+But what I wish to recall is the enormous part played by Lupin in the
+conduct of the case and in the incidents appertaining to the preliminary
+inquiry. As a matter of fact, it was he who managed the inquiry. From
+the very start, he took the place of the authorities, ordering
+police-searches, directing the measures to be taken, prescribing the
+questions to be put to the prisoners, assuming the responsibility for
+everything.
+
+We can all remember the universal amazement when, morning after morning,
+we read in the papers those letters, so irresistible in their masterly
+logic, signed, by turns:
+
+      "ARSÈNE LUPIN, _Examining-magistrate_."
+
+      "ARSÈNE LUPIN, _Public Prosecutor_."
+
+      "ARSÈNE LUPIN, _Minister of Justice_."
+
+      "ARSÈNE LUPIN, _Copper_."
+
+He flung himself into the business with a spirit, an ardor, a violence,
+even, that was astonishing in one usually so full of light-hearted chaff
+and, when all was said, so naturally disposed by temperament to display
+a certain professional indulgence.
+
+No, this time he was prompted by hatred.
+
+He hated Louis de Malreich, that bloodthirsty scoundrel, that foul
+brute, of whom he had always been afraid and who, even beaten, even in
+prison, still gave him that sensation of dread and repugnance which one
+feels at the sight of a reptile.
+
+Besides, had not Malreich had the audacity to persecute Dolores?
+
+"He has played and lost," said Lupin. "He shall pay for it with his
+head."
+
+That was what he wanted for his terrible enemy: the scaffold, the bleak,
+dull morning when the blade of the guillotine slides down and kills.
+. . .
+
+It was a strange prisoner whom the examining-magistrate questioned for
+months on end between the four walls of his room, a strange figure, that
+bony man, with the skeleton face and the lifeless eyes!
+
+He seemed quite out of himself. His thoughts were not there, but
+elsewhere. And he cared so little about answering!
+
+"My name is Leon Massier."
+
+That was the one sentence to which he confined himself.
+
+And Lupin retorted.
+
+"You lie. Leon Massier, born at Perigueux, left fatherless at the age of
+ten, died seven years ago. You took his papers. But you forgot his
+death-certificate. Here it is."
+
+And Lupin sent a copy of the document to the public prosecutor.
+
+"I am Leon Massier," declared the prisoner, once again.
+
+"You lie," replied Lupin. "You are Louis de Malreich, the last surviving
+descendant of a small French noble who settled in Germany in the
+eighteenth century. You had a brother who called himself Parbury,
+Ribeira and Altenheim, by turns: you killed your brother. You had a
+sister, Isilda de Malreich: you killed your sister."
+
+"I am Leon Massier."
+
+"You lie. You are Malreich. Here is your birth-certificate. Here are
+your brother's and your sister's."
+
+And Lupin sent the three certificates.
+
+Apart from the question of his identity, Malreich, crushed, no doubt, by
+the accumulation of proofs brought up against him, did not defend
+himself. What could he say? They had forty notes written in his own
+hand--a comparison of the handwritings established the fact--written in
+his own hand to the gang of his accomplices, forty notes which he had
+omitted to tear up after taking them back. And all these notes were
+orders relating to the Kesselbach case, the capture of M. Lenormand and
+Gourel, the pursuit of old Steinweg, the construction of the underground
+passages at Garches and so on. What possibility was there of a denial?
+
+One rather odd thing baffled the law officers. The seven scoundrels,
+when confronted with their leader, all declared that they did not know
+him, because they had never seen him. They received his instructions
+either by telephone, or else in the dark, by means of those same little
+notes which Malreich slipped into their hands without a word.
+
+But, for the rest, was not the existence of the communication between
+the villa in the Rue Delaizement and the Broker's shed an ample proof of
+complicity? From that spot, Malreich saw and heard. From that spot, the
+leader watched his men.
+
+Discrepancies? Apparently irreconcilable facts? Lupin explained them all
+away. In a celebrated article, published on the morning of the trial, he
+took up the case from the start, revealed what lay beneath it,
+unravelled its web, showed Malreich, unknown to all, living in the room
+of his brother, the sham Major Parbury, passing unseen along the
+passages of the Palace Hotel and murdering Mr. Kesselbach, murdering
+Beudot the floor-waiter, murdering Chapman the secretary.
+
+The trial lingers in the memory. It was both terrifying and gloomy:
+terrifying because of the atmosphere of anguish that hung over the crowd
+of onlookers and the recollection of crime and blood that obsessed
+their minds: gloomy, heavy, darksome, stifling because of the tremendous
+silence observed by the prisoner.
+
+Not a protest, not a movement, not a word. A face of wax that neither
+saw nor heard. An awful vision of impassive calmness! The people in
+court shuddered. Their distraught imaginations conjured up a sort of
+supernatural being rather than a man, a sort of genie out of the Arabian
+Nights, one of those Hindu gods who symbolize all that is ferocious,
+cruel, sanguinary and pernicious.
+
+As for the other scoundrels, the people did not even look at them,
+treated them as insignificant supers overshadowed by that stupendous
+leader.
+
+The most sensational evidence was that given by Mrs. Kesselbach. To the
+general astonishment and to Lupin's own surprise, Dolores, who had
+answered none of the magistrate's summonses and who had retired to an
+unknown spot, Dolores appeared, a sorrow-stricken widow, to give damning
+evidence against her husband's murderer.
+
+She gazed at him for many seconds and then said, simply:
+
+"That is the man who entered my house in the Rue des Vignes, who carried
+me off and who locked me up in the Broker's shed. I recognize him."
+
+"On your oath?"
+
+"I swear it before God and man."
+
+Two days later, Louis de Malreich, _alias_ Leon Massier was sentenced to
+death. And his overpowering personality may be said to have absorbed
+that of his accomplices to such an extent that they received the benefit
+of extenuating circumstances.
+
+"Louis de Malreich have you nothing to say?" asked the presiding judge.
+
+He made no reply.
+
+One question alone remained undecided in Lupin's eyes: why had Malreich
+committed all those crimes? What did he want? What was his object?
+
+Lupin was soon to understand; and the day was not far off when, gasping
+with horror, struck, mortally smitten with despair, he would know the
+awful truth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the moment, although the thought of it constantly hovered over his
+mind, he ceased to occupy himself with the Malreich case. Resolved to
+get a new skin, as he put it; reassured, on the other hand, as to the
+fate of Mrs. Kesselbach and Geneviève, over whose peaceful existence he
+watched from afar; and, lastly, kept informed by Jean Doudeville, whom
+he had sent to Veldenz, of all the negotiations that were being pursued
+between the court of Berlin and the regent of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, he
+employed all his time in winding up the past and preparing for the
+future.
+
+The thought of the different life which he wished to lead under the eyes
+of Mrs. Kesselbach filled him with new ambitions and unexpected
+sentiments, in which the image of Dolores played a part, without his
+being able to tell exactly how or why.
+
+In a few weeks, he got rid of all the proofs that could have compromised
+him sooner or later, all the traces that could have led to his ruin. He
+gave each of his old companions a sum of money sufficient to keep them
+from want for the rest of their lives and said good-bye to them, saying
+that he was going to South America.
+
+One morning, after a night of careful thought and a deep study of the
+situation, he cried:
+
+"It's done. There's nothing to fear now. The old Lupin is dead. Make way
+for the young one."
+
+His man brought him a telegram from Germany. It contained the news for
+which he had been waiting. The Council of Regency, greatly influenced by
+the Court of Berlin, had referred the question to the electors; and the
+electors, greatly influenced by the Council of Regency, had declared
+their unshaken attachment to the old dynasty of the Veldenz. Count von
+Waldemar was deputed, together with three delegates selected from the
+nobility, the army and the law, to go to Bruggen Castle, carefully to
+establish the identity of the Grand-duke Hermann IV. and to make all the
+arrangements with His Royal Highness for his triumphal entry into the
+principality of his fathers, which was to take place in the course of
+the following month.
+
+"This time, I've pulled it off," said Lupin to himself. "Mr.
+Kesselbach's great scheme is being realized. All that remains for me to
+do is to make Waldemar swallow Pierre Leduc; and that is child's play.
+The banns between Geneviève and Pierre shall be published to-morrow. And
+it shall be the grand-duke's affianced bride that will be presented to
+Waldemar."
+
+Full of glee, he started in his motor for Bruggen Castle.
+
+He sang in the car, he whistled, he chatted to his chauffeur:
+
+"Octave, do you know whom you have the honor of driving? The master of
+the world! . . . Yes, old man, that staggers you, eh? Just so, but it's
+the truth. I am the master of the world."
+
+He rubbed his hands and went on soliloquizing:
+
+"All the same, it was a long job. It's a year since the fight began.
+True, it was the most formidable fight I ever stood to win or lose.
+. . . By Jupiter, what a war of giants!" And he repeated, "But this
+time, I've pulled it off! The enemies are in the water. There are no
+obstacles left between the goal and me. The site is free: let us build
+upon it! I have the materials at hand, I have the workmen: let us build,
+Lupin! And let the palace be worthy of you!"
+
+He stopped the car at a few hundred yards from the castle, so that his
+arrival might create as little fuss as possible, and said to Octave:
+
+"Wait here for twenty minutes, until four o'clock, and then drive in.
+Take my bags to the little chalet at the end of the park. That's where I
+shall sleep."
+
+At the first turn of the road, the castle appeared in sight, standing at
+the end of a dark avenue of lime trees. From the distance, he saw
+Geneviève passing on the terrace.
+
+His heart was softly stirred:
+
+"Geneviève, Geneviève," he said, fondly. "Geneviève . . . the vow which
+I made to the dying mother is being fulfilled as well. . . . Geneviève a
+grand-duchess! . . . And I, in the shade, watching over her happiness
+. . . and pursuing the great schemes of Arsène Lupin!"
+
+He burst out laughing, sprang behind a cluster of trees that stood to
+the left of the avenue and slipped along the thick shrubberies. In this
+way, he reached the castle without the possibility of his being seen
+from the windows of the drawing-room or the principal bedrooms.
+
+He wanted to see Dolores before she saw him and pronounced her name
+several times, as he had pronounced Geneviève's, but with an emotion
+that surprised himself:
+
+"Dolores. . . . Dolores. . . ."
+
+He stole along the passages and reached the dining-room. From this room,
+through a glass panel, he could see half the drawing-room.
+
+He drew nearer.
+
+Dolores was lying on a couch; and Pierre Leduc, on his knees before her,
+was gazing at her with eyes of ecstasy. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MAP OF EUROPE
+
+
+Pierre Leduc loved Dolores!
+
+Lupin felt a keen, penetrating pain in the depths of his being, as
+though he had been wounded in the very source of life; a pain so great
+that, for the first time, he had a clear perception of what Dolores had
+gradually, unknown to himself, become to him.
+
+Pierre Leduc loved Dolores! And he was looking at her as a man looks at
+the woman he loves.
+
+Lupin felt a murderous instinct rise up within him, blindly and
+furiously. That look, that look of love cast upon Dolores, maddened him.
+He received an impression of the great silence that enveloped Dolores
+and Pierre Leduc; and in silence, in the stillness of their attitude
+there was nothing living but that look of love, that dumb and sensuous
+hymn in which the eyes told all the passion, all the desire, all the
+transport, all the yearning that one being can feel for another.
+
+And he saw Mrs. Kesselbach also. Dolores' eyes were invisible under
+their lowered lids, the silky eyelids with the long black lashes. But
+how she seemed to feel that look of love which sought for hers! How she
+quivered under that impalpable caress!
+
+"She loves him . . . she loves him," thought Lupin, burning with
+jealousy.
+
+And, when Pierre made a movement:
+
+"Oh, the villain! If he dares to touch her, I will kill him!"
+
+Then, realizing the disorder of his reason and striving to combat it, he
+said to himself:
+
+"What a fool I am! What, you, Lupin, letting your self go like this!
+. . . Look here, it's only natural that she should love him. . . . Yes,
+of course, you expected her to show a certain emotion at your arrival
+. . . a certain agitation. . . . You silly idiot, you're only a thief, a
+robber . . . whereas he is a prince and young. . . ."
+
+Pierre had not stirred further. But his lips moved and it seemed as
+though Dolores were waking. Softly, slowly, she raised her lids, turned
+her head a little and her eyes met the young man's eyes with the look
+that offers itself and surrenders itself and is more intense than the
+most intense of kisses.
+
+What followed came suddenly and unexpectedly, like a thunder-clap. In
+three bounds, Lupin rushed into the drawing-room, sprang upon the young
+man, flung him to the ground and, with one hand on his rival's chest,
+beside himself with anger, turning to Mrs. Kesselbach, he cried:
+
+"But don't you know? Hasn't he told you, the cheat? . . . And you love
+him, you love that! Does he look like a grand-duke? Oh, what a joke!"
+
+He grinned and chuckled like a madman, while Dolores gazed at him in
+stupefaction:
+
+"He, a grand-duke! Hermann IV., Grand-duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz! A
+reigning sovereign! Elector of Treves! But it's enough to make one die
+of laughing! He! Why, his name is Baupré, Gérard Baupré, the lowest of
+ragamuffins . . . a beggar, whom I picked up in the gutter! . . . A
+grand-duke? But it's I who made him a grand-duke! Ha, ha, ha, what a
+joke! . . . If you had seen him cut his little finger . . . he fainted
+three times . . . the milksop! . . . Ah, you allow yourself to lift your
+eyes to ladies . . . and to rebel against the master! . . . Wait a bit,
+Grand-duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, I'll show you!"
+
+He took him in his arms, like a bundle, swung him to and fro for a
+moment and pitched him through the open window:
+
+"Mind the rose trees, grand-duke! There are thorns!"
+
+When he turned round, Dolores was close to him and looking at him with
+eyes which he had never seen in her before, the eyes of a woman who
+hates and who is incensed with rage. Could this possibly be Dolores, the
+weak, ailing Dolores?
+
+She stammered:
+
+"What are you doing? . . . How dare you? . . . And he. . . . Then it's
+true? . . . lied to me? . . ."
+
+"Lied to you?" cried Lupin, grasping the humiliation which she had
+suffered as a woman. "Lied to you? He, a grand-duke! A puppet, that's
+all, a puppet of which I pulled the string . . . an instrument which I
+tuned, to play upon as I chose! Oh, the fool, the fool!"
+
+Overcome with renewed rage, he stamped his foot and shook his fist at
+the open window. And he began to walk up and down the room, flinging out
+phrases in which all the pent-up violence of his secret thought burst
+forth:
+
+"The fool! Then he didn't see what I expected of him? He did not suspect
+the greatness of the part he was to play? Oh, I shall have to drive it
+into his noddle by force, I see! Lift up your head, you idiot! You shall
+be grand-duke by the grace of Lupin! And a reigning sovereign! With a
+civil list! And subjects to fleece! And a palace which Charlemagne shall
+rebuild for you! And a master that shall be I, Lupin! Do you understand,
+you numskull? Lift up your head, dash it! Higher than that! Look up at
+the sky, remember that a Zweibrucken was hanged for cattle-lifting
+before the Hohenzollerns were ever heard of. And you are a Zweibrucken,
+by Jove, no less; and I am here, I, I, Lupin! And you shall be
+grand-duke, I tell you! A paste-board grand-duke? Very well! But a
+grand-duke all the same, quickened with my breath and glowing with my
+ardor. A puppet? Very well. But a puppet that shall speak _my_ words and
+make _my_ movements and perform _my_ wishes and realize _my_ dreams
+. . . yes . . . my dreams."
+
+He stood motionless, as though dazzled by the glory of his conception.
+Then he went up to Dolores and, sinking his voice, with a sort of mystic
+exaltation, he said:
+
+"On my left, Alsace-Lorraine. . . . On my right, Baden, Wurtemburg,
+Bavaria. . . . South Germany . . . all those disconnected, discontented
+states, crushed under the heel of the Prussian Charlemagne, but restless
+and ready to throw off the yoke at any moment. . . . Do you understand
+all that a man like myself can do in the midst of that, all the
+aspirations that he can kindle, all the hatred that he can produce, all
+the angry rebellion that he can inspire?"
+
+In a still lower voice, he repeated:
+
+"And, on my left, Alsace-Lorraine! . . . Do you fully understand? . . .
+Dreams? Not at all! It is the reality of the day after to-morrow, of
+to-morrow! . . . Yes. . . . I wish it. . . . I wish it. . . . Oh, all
+that I wish and all that I mean to do is unprecedented! . . . Only
+think, at two steps from the Alsatian frontier! In the heart of German
+territory! Close to the old Rhine! . . . A little intrigue, a little
+genius will be enough to change the surface of the earth. Genius I have
+. . . and to spare. . . . And I shall be the master! I shall be the man
+who directs. The other, the puppet can have the title and the honors.
+. . . I shall have the power! . . . I shall remain in the background. No
+office: I will not be a minister, nor even a chamberlain. Nothing. I
+shall be one of the servants in the palace, the gardener perhaps. . . .
+Yes, the gardener. . . . Oh, what a tremendous life! To grow flowers and
+alter the map of Europe!"
+
+She looked at him greedily, dominated, swayed by the strength of that
+man. And her eyes expressed an admiration which she did not seek to
+conceal.
+
+He put his hands on Dolores' shoulders and said:
+
+"That is my dream. Great as it is, it will be surpassed by the facts:
+that I swear to you. The Kaiser has already seen what I am good for. One
+day, he will find me installed in front of him, face to face. I hold all
+the trumps. Valenglay will act at my bidding. . . . England also. . . .
+The game is played and won. . . . That is my dream. . . . There is
+another one. . . ."
+
+He stopped suddenly. Dolores did not take her eyes from him; and an
+infinite emotion changed every feature of her face.
+
+A vast joy penetrated him as he once more felt, and clearly felt, that
+woman's confusion in his presence. He no longer had the sense of being
+to her . . . what he was, a thief, a robber; he was a man, a man who
+loved and whose love roused unspoken feelings in the depths of a
+friendly soul.
+
+Then he said no more, but he lavished upon her, unuttered, every known
+word of love and admiration; and he thought of the life which he might
+lead somewhere, not far from Veldenz, unknown and all-powerful. . . .
+
+A long silence united them. Then she rose and said, softly:
+
+"Go away, I entreat you to go. . . . Pierre shall marry Geneviève, I
+promise you that, but it is better that you should go . . . that you
+should not be here. . . . Go. Pierre shall marry Geneviève."
+
+He waited for a moment. Perhaps he would rather have had more definite
+words, but he dared not ask for anything. And he withdrew, dazed,
+intoxicated and happy to obey, to subject his destiny to hers!
+
+On his way to the door, he came upon a low chair, which he had to move.
+But his foot knocked against something. He looked down. It was a little
+pocket-mirror, in ebony, with a gold monogram.
+
+Suddenly, he started and snatched up the mirror. The monogram consisted
+of two letters interlaced, an "L" and an "M."
+
+An "L" and an "M!"
+
+"Louis de Malreich," he said to himself, with a shudder.
+
+He turned to Dolores:
+
+"Where does this mirror come from? Whose is it? It is important that I
+should . . ."
+
+She took it from him and looked at it:
+
+"I don't know. . . . I never saw it before . . . a servant, perhaps.
+. . ."
+
+"A servant, no doubt," he said, "but it is very odd . . . it is one of
+those coincidences. . . ."
+
+At that moment, Geneviève entered by the other door, and without seeing
+Lupin, who was hidden by a screen, at once exclaimed:
+
+"Why, there's your glass, Dolores! . . . So you have found it, after
+making me hunt for it all this time! . . . Where was it?" And the girl
+went away saying, "Oh, well, I'm very glad it's found! . . . How upset
+you were! . . . I will go and tell them at once to stop looking for it.
+. . ."
+
+Lupin had not moved. He was confused, and tried in vain to understand.
+Why had Dolores not spoken the truth? Why had she not at once said whose
+the mirror was?
+
+An idea flashed across his mind; and he asked, more or less at random:
+
+"Do you know Louis de Malreich?"
+
+"Yes," she said, watching him, as though striving to guess the thoughts
+that beset him.
+
+He rushed toward her, in a state of intense excitement:
+
+"You know him? Who was he? Who is he? Who is he? And why did you not
+tell me? Where have you known him? Speak . . . answer. . . . I implore
+you. . . ."
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"But you must, you must. . . . Think! Louis de Malreich! The murderer!
+The monster! . . . Why did you not tell me?"
+
+She, in turn, placed her hands on Lupin's shoulders and, in a firm
+voice, declared:
+
+"Listen, you must never ask me, because I shall never tell. . . . It is
+a secret which I shall take with me to the grave. . . . Come what may,
+no one will ever know, no one in the wide world, I swear it!"
+
+He stood before her for some minutes, anxiously, with a confused brain.
+
+He remembered Steinweg's silence and the old man's terror when Lupin
+asked him to reveal the terrible secret. Dolores also knew and she also
+refused to speak.
+
+He went out without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The open air, the sense of space, did him good. He passed out through
+the park-wall and wandered long over the country. And he soliloquized
+aloud:
+
+"What does it mean? What is happening? For months and months, fighting
+hard and acting, I have been pulling the strings of all the characters
+that are to help me in the execution of my plans; and, during this time,
+I have completely forgotten to stoop over them and see what is going on
+in their hearts and brains. I do not know Pierre Leduc, I do not know
+Geneviève, I do not know Dolores. . . . And I have treated them as so
+many jumping-jacks, whereas they are live persons. And to-day I am
+stumbling over obstacles."
+
+He stamped his foot and cried:
+
+"Over obstacles that do not exist! What do I care for the psychological
+state of Geneviève, of Pierre? . . . I will study that later, at
+Veldenz, when I have secured their happiness. But Dolores . . . she knew
+Malreich and said nothing! . . . Why? What relation united them? Was she
+afraid of him? Is she afraid that he will escape from prison and come to
+revenge himself for an indiscretion on her part?"
+
+At night, he went to the chalet which he had allotted to his own use at
+the end of the park and dined in a very bad temper, storming at Octave,
+who waited on him and who was always either too slow or too fast:
+
+"I'm sick of it, leave me alone. . . . You're doing everything wrong
+to-day. . . . And this coffee. . . . It's not fit to drink."
+
+He pushed back his cup half-full and, for two hours, walked about the
+park, sifting the same ideas over and over again. At last, one
+suggestion took definite shape within his mind:
+
+"Malreich has escaped from prison. He is terrifying Mrs. Kesselbach. By
+this time, he already knows the story of the mirror from her. . . ."
+
+Lupin shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"And to-night he's coming to pull my leg, I suppose! I'm talking
+nonsense. The best thing I can do is to go to bed."
+
+He went to his room, undressed and got into bed. He fell asleep at once,
+with a heavy sleep disturbed by nightmares. Twice he woke and tried to
+light his candle and twice fell back, as though stunned by a blow.
+
+Nevertheless, he heard the hours strike on the village clock, or rather
+he thought that he heard them strike, for he was plunged in a sort of
+torpor in which he seemed to retain all his wits.
+
+And he was haunted by dreams, dreams of anguish and terror. He plainly
+heard the sound of his window opening. He plainly, through his closed
+eyelids, through the thick darkness, _saw_ a form come toward the bed.
+
+And the form bent over him.
+
+He made the incredible effort needed to raise his eyelids and look
+. . . or, at least, he imagined that he did. Was he dreaming? Was he
+awake? He asked himself the question in despair.
+
+A further sound. . . .
+
+He took up the box of matches by his bedside:
+
+"Let's have a light on it," he said, with a great sense of elation.
+
+He struck a match and lit the candle.
+
+Lupin felt the perspiration stream over his skin, from head to foot,
+while his heart ceased beating, stopped with terror. _The man was
+there._
+
+Was it possible? No, no . . . and yet he _saw_. . . . Oh, the fearsome
+sight! . . . The man, the monster, was there. . . .
+
+"He shall not . . . he shall not," stammered Lupin madly.
+
+The man, the monster was there, dressed in black, with a mask on his
+face and with his felt hat pulled down over his fair hair.
+
+"Oh, I am dreaming. . . . I am dreaming!" said Lupin, laughing. "It's a
+nightmare! . . ."
+
+Exerting all his strength and all his will-power, he tried to make a
+movement, one movement, to drive away the vision.
+
+He could not.
+
+And, suddenly, he remembered: the coffee! The taste of it . . . similar
+to the taste of the coffee which he had drunk at Veldenz!
+
+He gave a cry, made a last effort and fell back exhausted. But, in his
+delirium, he felt that the man was unfastening the top button of his
+pajama-jacket and baring his neck, felt that the man was raising his
+arm, saw that the hand was clutching the handle of a dagger, a little
+steel dagger similar to that which had struck Kesselbach, Chapman,
+Altenheim and so many others. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few hours later, Lupin woke up, shattered with fatigue, with a
+scorched palate.
+
+He lay for several minutes collecting his thoughts and, suddenly,
+remembering, made an instinctive defensive movement, as though he were
+being attacked:
+
+"Fool that I am!" he cried, jumping out of bed. "It was a nightmare, an
+hallucination. It only needs a little reflection. Had it been 'he,' had
+it really been a man, in flesh and blood, who lifted his hand against me
+last night, he would have cut my throat like a rabbit's. 'He' doesn't
+hesitate. Let's be logical. Why should he spare me? For the sake of my
+good looks? No, I have been dreaming, that's all. . . ."
+
+He began to whistle and dressed himself, assuming the greatest calmness,
+but his brain never ceased working and his eyes sought about. . . .
+
+On the floor, on the window-ledge, not a trace. As his room was on the
+ground-floor and as he slept with his window open, it was evident that
+his assailant would have entered that way.
+
+Well, he discovered nothing; and nothing either at the foot of the wall
+outside, or on the gravel of the path that ran round the chalet.
+
+"Still . . . still . . ." he repeated, between his teeth. . . .
+
+He called Octave:
+
+"Where did you make the coffee which you gave me last night?"
+
+"At the castle, governor, like the rest of the things. There is no range
+here."
+
+"Did you drink any of it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you throw away what was left in the coffee-pot?"
+
+"Why, yes, governor. You said it was so bad. You only took a few
+mouthfuls."
+
+"Very well. Get the motor ready. We're leaving."
+
+Lupin was not the man to remain in doubt. He wanted to have a decisive
+explanation with Dolores. But, for this, he must first clear up certain
+points that seemed to him obscure and see Jean Doudeville who had sent
+him some rather curious information from Veldenz.
+
+He drove, without stopping, to the grand-duchy, which he reached at two
+o'clock. He had an interview with Count de Waldemar, whom he asked, upon
+some pretext, to delay the journey of the delegates of the Regency to
+Bruggen. Then he went in search of Doudeville, in a tavern at Veldenz.
+
+Doudeville took him to another tavern, where he introduced him to a
+shabbily-dressed little gentleman, Herr Stockli, a clerk in the
+department of births, deaths and marriages. They had a long
+conversation. They went out together and all three passed stealthily
+through the offices of the town-hall. At seven o'clock, Lupin dined and
+set out again. At ten o'clock he arrived at Bruggen Castle and asked for
+Geneviève, so that she might take him to Mrs. Kesselbach's room.
+
+He was told that Mlle. Ernemont had been summoned back to Paris by a
+telegram from her grandmother.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Could I see Mrs. Kesselbach?"
+
+"Mrs. Kesselbach went straight to bed after dinner. She is sure to be
+asleep."
+
+"No, I saw a light in her boudoir. She will see me."
+
+He did not even wait for Mrs. Kesselbach to send out an answer. He
+walked into the boudoir almost upon the maid's heels, dismissed her and
+said to Dolores:
+
+"I have to speak to you, madame, on an urgent matter. . . . Forgive me
+. . . I confess that my behavior must seem importunate. . . . But you
+will understand, I am sure. . . ."
+
+He was greatly excited and did not seem much disposed to put off the
+explanation, especially as, before entering the room, he thought he
+heard a sound.
+
+Yet Dolores was alone and lying down. And she said, in her tired voice:
+
+"Perhaps we might . . . to-morrow. . . ."
+
+He did not answer, suddenly struck by a smell that surprised him in that
+boudoir, a smell of tobacco. And, at once, he had the intuition, the
+certainty, that there was a man there, at the moment when he himself
+arrived, and that perhaps the man was there still, hidden somewhere.
+. . .
+
+Pierre Leduc? No, Pierre Leduc did not smoke. Then who?
+
+Dolores murmured:
+
+"Be quick, please."
+
+"Yes, yes, but first . . . would it be possible for you to tell me
+. . . ?"
+
+He interrupted himself. What was the use of asking her? If there were
+really a man in hiding, would she be likely to tell?
+
+Then he made up his mind and, trying to overcome the sort of timid
+constraint that oppressed him at the sense of a strange presence, he
+said, in a very low voice, so that Dolores alone should hear:
+
+"Listen, I have learnt something . . . which I do not understand . . .
+and which perplexes me greatly. You will answer me, will you not,
+Dolores?"
+
+He spoke her name with great gentleness and as though he were trying to
+master her by the note of love and affection in his voice.
+
+"What have you learnt?" she asked.
+
+"The register of births at Veldenz contains three names which are those
+of the last descendants of the family of Malreich, which settled in
+Germany. . . ."
+
+"Yes, you have told me all that. . . ."
+
+"You remember, the first name is Raoul de Malreich, better known under
+his _alias_ of Altenheim, the scoundrel, the swell hooligan, now dead
+. . . murdered."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Next comes Louis de Malreich, the monster, this one, the terrible
+murderer who will be beheaded in a few days from now."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, lastly, Isilda, the mad daughter. . . ."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So all that is quite positive, is it not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well," said Lupin, leaning over her more closely than before, "I have
+just made an investigation which showed to me that the second of the
+three Christian names, or rather a part of the line on which it is
+written, has at some time or other, been subjected to erasure. The line
+is written over, in a new hand, with much fresher ink; but the writing
+below is not quite effaced, so that. . . ."
+
+"So that . . . ?" asked Mrs. Kesselbach, in a low voice.
+
+"So that, with a good lens and particularly with the special methods
+which I have at my disposal, I was able to revive some of the
+obliterated syllables and, without any possibility of a mistake, in all
+certainty, to reconstruct the old writing. I then found not Louis de
+Malreich, but . . ."
+
+"Oh, don't, don't! . . ."
+
+Suddenly shattered by the strain of her prolonged effort of resistance,
+she lay bent in two and, with her head in her hands, her shoulders
+shaken with convulsive sobs, she wept.
+
+Lupin looked for long seconds at this weak and listless creature, so
+pitifully helpless. And he would have liked to stop, to cease the
+torturing questions which he was inflicting upon her. But was it not to
+save her that he was acting as he did? And, to save her, was it not
+necessary that he should know the truth, however painful?
+
+He resumed:
+
+"Why that forgery?"
+
+"It was my husband," she stammered, "it was my husband who did it. With
+his fortune, he could do everything; and he bribed a junior clerk to
+have the Christian name of the second child altered for him on the
+register."
+
+"The Christian name and the sex," said Lupin.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Then," he continued, "I am not mistaken: the original Christian name,
+the real one, was Dolores?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But why did your husband . . . ?"
+
+She whispered in a shame-faced manner, while the tears streamed down her
+cheeks.
+
+"Don't you understand?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But think," she said, shuddering, "I was the sister of Isilda, the mad
+woman, the sister of Altenheim, the ruffian. My husband--or rather my
+affianced husband--would not have me remain that. He loved me. I loved
+him too, and I consented. He suppressed Dolores de Malreich on the
+register, he bought me other papers, another personality, another
+birth-certificate; and I was married in Holland under another maiden
+name, as Dolores Amonti."
+
+Lupin reflected for a moment and said, thoughtfully:
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . . I understand. . . . But then Louis de Malreich does
+not exist; and the murderer of your husband, the murderer of your
+brother and sister, does not bear that name. . . . His name. . . ."
+
+She sprang to a sitting posture and, eagerly:
+
+"His name! Yes, that is his name . . . yes, it is his name nevertheless.
+. . . Louis de Malreich. . . . L. M. . . . Remember. . . . Oh, do not
+try to find out . . . it is the terrible secret. . . . Besides, what
+does it matter? . . . They have the criminal. . . . He is the criminal.
+. . . I tell you he is. Did he defend himself when I accused him, face
+to face? Could he defend himself, under that name or any other? It is he
+. . . it is he . . . He committed the murders. . . . He struck the
+blows. . . . The dagger. . . . The steel dagger. . . . Oh, if I could
+only tell all I know! . . . Louis de Malreich. . . . If I could only
+. . ."
+
+She fell back on the sofa in a fit of hysterical sobbing; and her hand
+clutched Lupin's and he heard her stammering, amid inarticulate words:
+
+"Protect me . . . protect me. . . . You alone, perhaps. . . . Oh, do not
+forsake me. . . . I am so unhappy! . . . Oh, what torture . . . what
+torture! . . . It is hell! . . ."
+
+With his free hand, he stroked her hair and forehead with infinite
+gentleness; and, under his caress, she gradually relaxed her tense
+nerves and became calmer and quieter.
+
+Then he looked at her again and long, long asked himself what there
+could be behind that fair, white brow, what secret was ravaging that
+mysterious soul. She also was afraid. But of whom? Against whom was she
+imploring him to protect her?
+
+Once again, he was obsessed by the image of the man in black, by that
+Louis de Malreich, the sinister and incomprehensible enemy, whose
+attacks he had to ward off without knowing whence they came or even if
+they were taking place.
+
+He was in prison, watched day and night. Tush! Did Lupin not know by his
+own experience that there are beings for whom prison does not exist and
+who throw off their chains at the given moment? And Louis de Malreich
+was one of those.
+
+Yes, there was some one in the Santé prison, in the condemned man's
+cell. But it might be an accomplice or some victim of Malreich . . .
+while Malreich himself prowled around Bruggen Castle, slipped in under
+cover of the darkness, like an invisible spectre, made his way into the
+chalet in the park and, at night, raised his dagger against Lupin asleep
+and helpless.
+
+And it was Louis de Malreich who terrorized Dolores, who drove her mad
+with his threats, who held her by some dreadful secret and forced her
+into silence and submission.
+
+And Lupin imagined the enemy's plan: to throw Dolores, scared and
+trembling, into Pierre Leduc's arms, to make away with him, Lupin, and
+to reign in his place, over there, with the grand-duke's power and
+Dolores's millions.
+
+It was a likely supposition, a certain supposition, which fitted in with
+the facts and provided a solution of all the problems.
+
+"Of all?" thought Lupin. "Yes. . . . But then, why did he not kill me,
+last night, in the chalet? He had but to wish . . . _and he did not
+wish_. One movement and I was dead. He did not make that movement. Why?"
+
+Dolores opened her eyes, saw him and smiled, with a pale smile:
+
+"Leave me," she said:
+
+He rose, with some hesitation. Should he go and see if the enemy was
+behind the curtain or hidden behind the dresses in a cupboard?
+
+She repeated, gently:
+
+"Go . . . I am so sleepy. . . ."
+
+He went away.
+
+But, outside, he stopped behind some trees that formed a dark cluster in
+front of the castle. He saw a light in Dolores' boudoir. Then the light
+passed into the bedroom. In a few minutes, all was darkness.
+
+He waited. If the enemy was there, perhaps he would come out of the
+castle. . . .
+
+An hour elapsed. . . . Two hours. . . . Not a sound. . . .
+
+"There's nothing to be done," thought Lupin. "Either he is burrowing in
+some corner of the castle . . . or else he has gone out by a door which
+I cannot see from here. Unless the whole thing is the most ridiculous
+supposition on my part. . . ."
+
+He lit a cigarette and walked back to the chalet.
+
+As he approached it, he saw, at some distance from him, a shadow that
+appeared to be moving away.
+
+He did not stir, for fear of giving the alarm.
+
+The shadow crossed a path. By the light of the moon, he seemed to
+recognize the black figure of Malreich.
+
+He rushed forward.
+
+The shadow fled and vanished from sight.
+
+"Come," he said, "it shall be for to-morrow. And, this time. . . ."
+
+Lupin went to Octave's, his chauffeur's, room, woke him and said:
+
+"Take the motor and go to Paris. You will be there by six o'clock in the
+morning. See Jacques Doudeville and tell him two things: first, to give
+me news of the man under sentence of death; and secondly, as soon as the
+post-offices open, to send me a telegram which I will write down for you
+now. . . ."
+
+He worded the telegram on a scrap of paper and added:
+
+"The moment you have done that, come back, but this way, along the wall
+of the park. Go now. No one must suspect your absence."
+
+Lupin went to his own room, pressed the spring of his lantern and began
+to make a minute inspection. "It's as I thought," he said presently.
+"Some one came here to-night, while I was watching beneath the window.
+And, if he came, I know what he came for. . . . I was certainly right:
+things are getting warm. . . . The first time, I was spared. This time,
+I may be sure of my little stab."
+
+For prudence's sake, he took a blanket, chose a lonely spot in the park
+and spent the night under the stars.
+
+Octave was back by ten o'clock in the morning:
+
+"It's all right, governor. The telegram has been sent."
+
+"Good. And is Louis de Malreich still in prison?"
+
+"Yes. Doudeville passed his cell at the Santé last night as the warder
+was coming out. They talked together. Malreich is just the same, it
+appears: silent as the grave. He is waiting."
+
+"Waiting for what?"
+
+"The fatal hour of course. They are saying, at headquarters, that the
+execution will take place on the day after to-morrow."
+
+"That's all right, that's all right," said Lupin. "And one thing is
+quite plain: he has not escaped."
+
+He ceased to understand or even to look for the explanation of the
+riddle, so clearly did he feel that the whole truth would soon be
+revealed to him. He had only to prepare his plan, for the enemy to fall
+into the trap.
+
+"Or for me to fall into it myself," he thought, laughing.
+
+He felt very gay, very free from care; and no fight had ever looked more
+promising to him.
+
+A footman came from the castle with the telegram which he had told
+Doudeville to send him and which the postman had just brought. He opened
+it and put it in his pocket.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little before twelve o'clock, he met Pierre Leduc in one of the
+avenues and said, off-hand:
+
+"I am looking for you . . . things are serious. . . . You must answer me
+frankly. Since you have been at the castle, have you ever seen a man
+there, besides the two German servants whom I sent in?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Think carefully. I'm not referring to a casual visitor. I mean a man
+who hides himself, a man whose presence you might have discovered or,
+less than that, whose presence you might have suspected from some clue
+or even by some intuition?"
+
+"No. . . . Have you . . . ?"
+
+"Yes. Some one is hiding here . . . some one is prowling about. . . .
+Where? And who is it? And what is his object? I don't know . . . but I
+shall know. I already have a suspicion. Do you, on your side, keep your
+eyes open and watch. And, above all, not a word to Mrs. Kesselbach.
+. . . It is no use alarming her. . . ."
+
+He went away.
+
+Pierre Leduc, taken aback and upset, went back to the castle. On his
+way, he saw a piece of blue paper on the edge of the lawn. He picked it
+up. It was a telegram, not crumpled, like a piece of paper that had been
+thrown away, but carefully folded: obviously lost.
+
+It was addressed to "Beauny," the name by which Lupin was known at
+Bruggen. And it contained these words:
+
+      "We know the whole truth. Revelations impossible by
+      letter. Will take train to-night. Meet me eight
+      o'clock to-morrow morning Bruggen station."
+
+"Excellent!" said Lupin, who was watching Pierre Leduc's movements from
+a neighboring coppice. "Excellent! In two minutes from now, the young
+idiot will have shown Dolores the telegram and told her all my fears.
+They will talk about it all day. And 'the other one' will hear, 'the
+other one' will know, because he knows everything, because he lives in
+Dolores' own shadow and because Dolores is like a fascinated prey in his
+hands. . . . And, to-night. . . ."
+
+He walked away humming to himself:
+
+"To-night . . . to-night . . . we shall dance. . . . Such a waltz, my
+boys! The waltz of blood, to the tune of the little nickel-plated
+dagger! . . . We shall have some fun, at last! . . ."
+
+He reached the chalet, called to Octave, went to his room, flung himself
+on his bed, and said to the chauffeur:
+
+"Sit down in that chair, Octave, and keep awake. Your master is going to
+take forty winks. Watch over him, you faithful servant."
+
+He had a good sleep.
+
+"Like Napoleon on the morning of Austerlitz," he said, when he woke up.
+
+It was dinner-time. He made a hearty meal and then, while he smoked a
+cigarette, inspected his weapons and renewed the charges of his two
+revolvers:
+
+"Keep your powder dry and your sword sharpened, as my chum the Kaiser
+says. Octave!"
+
+Octave appeared.
+
+"Go and have your dinner at the castle, with the servants. Tell them you
+are going to Paris to-night, in the motor."
+
+"With you, governor?"
+
+"No, alone. And, as soon as dinner is over, make a start, ostensibly."
+
+"But I am not to go to Paris. . . ."
+
+"No, remain outside the park, half a mile down the road, until I come.
+You will have a long wait."
+
+He smoked another cigarette, went for a stroll, passed in front of the
+castle, saw a light in Dolores' rooms and then returned to the chalet.
+
+There he took up a book. It was _The Lives of Illustrious Men_.
+
+"There is one missing: the most illustrious of all. But the future will
+put that right; and I shall have my Plutarch some day or other."
+
+He read the life of Cæsar and jotted down a few reflections in the
+margin.
+
+At half-past eleven, he went to his bedroom.
+
+Through the open window, he gazed into the immense, cool night, all
+astir with indistinct sounds. Memories rose to his lips, memories of
+fond phrases which he had read or uttered; and he repeatedly whispered
+Dolores's name, with the fervor of a stripling who hardly dares confide
+to the silence the name of his beloved.
+
+He left the window half open, pushed aside a table that blocked the way,
+and put his revolvers under his pillow. Then, peacefully, without
+evincing the least excitement, he got into bed, fully dressed as he was,
+and blew out the candle.
+
+_And his fear began._
+
+It was immediate. No sooner did he feel the darkness around him than his
+fear began!
+
+"Damn it all!" he cried.
+
+He jumped out of bed, took his weapons and threw them into the passage:
+
+"My hands, my hands alone! Nothing comes up to the grip of my hands!"
+
+He went to bed again. Darkness and silence, once more. And, once more,
+his fear. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The village clock struck twelve. . . .
+
+Lupin thought of the foul monster who, outside, at a hundred yards, at
+fifty yards from where he lay, was trying the sharp point of his dagger:
+
+"Let him come, let him come?" whispered Lupin, shuddering. "Then the
+ghosts will vanish. . . ."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One o'clock, in the village. . . .
+
+And minutes passed, endless minutes, minutes of fever and anguish. . . .
+Beads of perspiration stood at the roots of his hair and trickled down
+his forehead; and he felt as though his whole frame were bathed in a
+sweat of blood. . . .
+
+Two o'clock. . . .
+
+And now, somewhere, quite close, a hardly perceptible sound stirred, a
+sound of leaves moving . . . but different from the sound of leaves
+moving in the night breeze. . . .
+
+As Lupin had foreseen, he was at once pervaded by an immense calm. All
+his adventurous being quivered with delight. The struggle was at hand,
+at last!
+
+Another sound grated under the window, more plainly this time, but still
+so faint that it needed Lupin's trained ear to distinguish it.
+
+Minutes, terrifying minutes. . . . The darkness was impenetrable. No
+light of star or moon relieved it.
+
+And, suddenly, without hearing anything, he _knew_ that the man was in
+the room.
+
+And the man walked toward the bed. He walked as a ghost walks, without
+displacing the air of the room, without shaking the objects which he
+touched.
+
+But, with all his instinct, with all his nervous force, Lupin saw the
+movements of the enemy and guessed the very sequence of his ideas.
+
+He himself did not budge, but remained propped against the wall, almost
+on his knees, ready to spring.
+
+He felt that the figure was touching, feeling the bed-clothes, to find
+the spot at which it must strike. Lupin heard its breath. He even
+thought that he heard the beating of its heart. And he noticed with
+pride that his own heart beat no louder than before . . . whereas the
+heart of the other . . . oh, yes, he could hear it now, that disordered,
+mad heart, knocking, like a clapper of a bell, against the cavity of the
+chest!
+
+The hand of the other rose. . . .
+
+A second, two seconds. . . .
+
+Was he hesitating? Was he once more going to spare his adversary?
+
+And Lupin, in the great silence, said:
+
+"But strike! Why don't you strike?"
+
+A yell of rage. . . . The arm fell as though moved by a spring.
+
+Then came a moan.
+
+Lupin had caught the arm in mid-air at the level of the wrist. . . .
+And, leaping out of bed, tremendous, irresistible, he clutched the man
+by the throat and threw him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was all. There was no struggle. There was no possibility even of a
+struggle. The man lay on the floor, nailed, pinned by two steel rivets,
+which were Lupin's hands. And there was not a man in the world strong
+enough to release himself from that grip.
+
+And not a word. Lupin uttered none of those phrases in which his
+mocking humor usually delighted. He had no inclination to speak. The
+moment was too solemn.
+
+He felt no vain glee, no victorious exaltation. In reality, he had but
+one longing, to know who was there: Louis de Malreich, the man sentenced
+to death, or another? Which was it?
+
+At the risk of strangling the man, he squeezed the throat a little more
+. . . and a little more . . . and a little more still. . . .
+
+And he felt that all the enemy's strength, all the strength that
+remained to him, was leaving him. The muscles of the arm relaxed and
+became lifeless. The hand opened and dropped the dagger.
+
+Then, free to move as he pleased, with his adversary's life hanging in
+the terrible clutch of his fingers, he took his pocket-lantern with one
+hand, laid his finger on the spring, without pressing, and brought it
+close to the man's face.
+
+He had only to press the spring to wish to know and he would know.
+
+For a second, he enjoyed his power. A flood of emotion upheaved him. The
+vision, of his triumph dazzled him. Once again, superbly, heroically, he
+was the master.
+
+He switched on the light. The face of the monster came into view.
+
+Lupin gave a shriek of terror.
+
+Dolores Kesselbach!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ARSÈNE LUPIN'S THREE MURDERS
+
+
+A cyclone passed through Lupin's brain, a hurricane in which roars of
+thunder, gusts of wind, squalls of all the distraught elements were
+tumultuously unchained in the chaotic night.
+
+And great flashes of lightning shot through the darkness. And, by the
+dazzling gleam of those lightning-flashes, Lupin, scared, shaken with
+thrills, convulsed with horror, saw and tried to understand.
+
+He did not move, clinging to the enemy's throat, as if his stiffened
+fingers were no longer able to release their grip. Besides, although he
+now _knew_, he had not, so to speak, the exact feeling that it was
+Dolores. It was still the man in black, Louis de Malreich, the foul
+brute of the darkness; and that brute he held and did not mean to let
+go.
+
+But the truth rushed upon the attack of his mind and of his
+consciousness; and, conquered, tortured with anguish, he muttered:
+
+"Oh, Dolores! . . . Dolores! . . ."
+
+He at once saw the excuse: it was madness. She was mad. The sister of
+Altenheim and Isilda, the daughter of the last of the Malreichs, of the
+demented mother, of the drunken father, was herself mad. A strange
+madwoman, mad with every appearance of sanity, but mad nevertheless,
+unbalanced, brain-sick, unnatural, truly monstrous.
+
+That he most certainly understood! It was homicidal madness. Under the
+obsession of an object toward which she was drawn automatically, she
+killed, thirsting for blood, unconsciously, infernally.
+
+She killed because she wanted something, she killed in self-defence, she
+killed because she had killed before. But she killed also and especially
+for the sake of killing. Murder satisfied sudden and irresistible
+appetites that arose in her. At certain seconds in her life, in certain
+circumstances, face to face with this or that being who had suddenly
+become the foe, her arm had to strike.
+
+And she struck, drunk with rage, ferociously, frenziedly.
+
+A strange madwoman, not answerable for her murders, and yet so lucid in
+her blindness, so logical in her mental derangement, so intelligent in
+her absurdity! What skill, what perseverance, what cunning contrivances,
+at once abominable and admirable!
+
+And Lupin, in a rapid view, with prodigious keenness of outlook, saw the
+long array of bloodthirsty adventures and guessed the mysterious paths
+which Dolores had pursued.
+
+He saw her obsessed and possessed by her husband's scheme, a scheme
+which she evidently understood only in part. He saw her, on her side,
+looking for that same Pierre Leduc whom her husband was seeking, looking
+for him in order to marry him and to return, as queen, to that little
+realm of Veldenz from which her parents had been ignominiously driven.
+
+And he saw her at the Palace Hotel, in the room of her brother,
+Altenheim, at the time when she was supposed to be at Monte Carlo. He
+saw her, for days together, spying upon her husband, creeping along the
+walls, one with the darkness, undistinguishable and unseen in her
+shadowy disguise.
+
+And, one night, she found Mr. Kesselbach fastened up . . . and she
+stabbed him.
+
+And, in the morning, when on the point of being denounced by the
+floor-waiter . . . she stabbed him.
+
+And, an hour later, when on the point of being denounced by Chapman, she
+dragged him to her brother's room . . . and stabbed him.
+
+All this pitilessly, savagely, with diabolical skill.
+
+And, with the same skill, she communicated by telephone with her two
+maids, Gertrude and Suzanne, both of whom had arrived from Monte Carlo,
+where one of them had enacted the part of her mistress. And Dolores,
+resuming her feminine attire, discarding the fair wig that altered her
+appearance beyond recognition, went down to the ground-floor, joined
+Gertrude at the moment when the maid entered the hotel and pretended
+herself to have just arrived, all ignorant of the tragedy that awaited
+her.
+
+An incomparable actress, she played the part of the wife whose life is
+shattered. Every one pitied her. Every one wept for her. Who could have
+suspected her?
+
+And then came the war with him, Lupin, that barbarous contest, that
+unparalleled contest which she waged, by turns, against M. Lenormand and
+Prince Sernine, spending her days stretched on her sofa, ill and
+fainting, but her nights on foot, scouring the roads indefatigable and
+terrible.
+
+And the diabolical contrivances: Gertrude and Suzanne, frightened and
+subdued accomplices, both of them serving her as emissaries, disguising
+themselves to represent her, perhaps, as on the day when old Steinweg
+was carried off by Baron Altenheim, in the middle of the Palais de
+Justice.
+
+And the series of murders: Gourel drowned; Altenheim, her brother,
+stabbed. Oh, the implacable struggle in the underground passages of the
+Villa des Glycines, the invisible work performed by the monster in the
+dark: how clear it all appeared to-day!
+
+And it was she who tore off his mask as Prince Sernine, she who betrayed
+him to the police, she who sent him to prison, she who thwarted all his
+plans, spending her millions to win the battle.
+
+And then events followed faster: Suzanne and Gertrude disappeared, dead,
+no doubt! Steinweg, assassinated! Isilda, the sister, assassinated!
+
+"Oh, the ignominy, the horror of it!" stammered Lupin, with a start of
+revulsion and hatred.
+
+He execrated her, the abominable creature. He would have liked to crush
+her, to destroy her. And it was a stupefying sight, those two beings,
+clinging to each other, lying motionless in the pale dawn that began to
+mingle with the shades of the night.
+
+"Dolores. . . . Dolores. . . ." he muttered, in despair.
+
+He leapt back, terror-stricken, wild-eyed. What was it? What was that?
+What was that hideous feeling of cold which froze his hands?
+
+"Octave! Octave?" he shouted, forgetting that the chauffeur was not
+there.
+
+Help, he needed help, some one to reassure him and assist him. He
+shivered with fright. Oh, that coldness, that coldness of death which he
+had felt! Was it possible? . . . Then, during those few tragic minutes,
+with his clenched fingers, he had. . . .
+
+Violently, he forced himself to look. Dolores did not stir.
+
+He flung himself on his knees and drew her to him.
+
+She was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He remained for some seconds a prey to a sort of numbness in which his
+grief seemed to be swallowed up. He no longer suffered. He no longer
+felt rage nor hatred nor emotion of any kind . . . nothing but a stupid
+prostration, the sensation of a man who has received a blow with a club
+and who does not know if he is still alive, if he is thinking, or if he
+is the sport of a nightmare.
+
+Nevertheless, it seemed to him that an act of justice had taken place,
+and it did not for a second occur to him that it was he who had taken
+life. No, it was not he. It was outside him and his will. It was
+destiny, inexorable destiny that had accomplished the work of equity by
+slaying the noxious beast.
+
+Outside, the birds were singing. Life was recommencing under the old
+trees, which the spring was preparing to bring into bud. And Lupin,
+waking from his torpor, felt gradually welling up within him an
+indefinable and ridiculous compassion for the wretched woman, odious,
+certainly, abject and twenty times criminal, but so young still and now
+. . . dead.
+
+And he thought of the tortures which she must have undergone in her
+lucid moments, when reason returned to the unspeakable madwoman and
+brought the sinister vision of her deeds.
+
+"Protect me. . . . I am so unhappy!" she used to beg.
+
+It was against herself that she asked to be protected, against her
+wild-beast instincts, against the monster that dwelt within her and
+forced her to kill, always to kill.
+
+"Always?" Lupin asked himself.
+
+And he remembered the night, two days since, when, standing over him,
+with her dagger raised against the enemy who had been harassing her for
+months, against the indefatigable enemy who had run her to earth after
+each of her crimes, he remembered that, on that night, she had not
+killed. And yet it would have been easy: the enemy lay lifeless and
+powerless. One blow and the implacable struggle was over. No, she had
+not killed, she too had given way to feelings stronger than her own
+cruelty, to mysterious feelings of pity, of sympathy, of admiration for
+the man who had so often mastered her.
+
+No, she had not killed, that time. And now, by a really terrifying
+vicissitude of fate, it was he who had killed her.
+
+"I have taken life!" he thought, shuddering from head to foot. "These
+hands have killed a living being; and that creature is Dolores! . . .
+Dolores! . . . Dolores! . . ."
+
+He never ceased repeating her name, her name of sorrow, and he never
+ceased staring at her, a sad, lifeless thing, harmless now, a poor hunk
+of flesh, with no more consciousness than a little heap of withered
+leaves or a little dead bird by the roadside.
+
+Oh! how could he do other than quiver with compassion, seeing that of
+those two, face to face, he was the murderer, and she, who was no more,
+the victim?
+
+"Dolores! . . . Dolores! . . . Dolores! . . ."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The daylight found Lupin seated beside the dead woman, remembering and
+thinking, while his lips, from time to time, uttered the disconsolate
+syllables:
+
+"Dolores! . . . Dolores! . . ."
+
+He had to act, however, and, in the disorder of his ideas, he did not
+know how to act nor with what act to begin:
+
+"I must close her eyes first," he said.
+
+The eyes, all empty, filled only with death, those beautiful
+gold-spangled eyes, had still the melancholy softness that gave them
+their charm. Was it possible that those eyes were the eyes of a monster?
+In spite of himself and in the face of the implacable reality, Lupin was
+not yet able to blend into one single being those two creatures whose
+images remained so distinct at the back of his brain.
+
+He stooped swiftly, lowered the long, silky eyelids, and covered the
+poor distorted face with a veil.
+
+Then it seemed to him that Dolores was farther away and that the man in
+black was really there, this time, in his dark clothes, in his
+murderer's disguise.
+
+He now ventured to touch her, to feel in her clothes. In an inside
+pocket were two pocket-books. He took one of them and opened it. He
+found first a letter signed by Steinweg, the old German. It contained
+the following lines:
+
+      "Should I die before being able to reveal the terrible
+      secret, let it be known that the murderer of my
+      friend Kesselbach is his wife, whose real name is
+      Dolores de Malreich, sister to Altenheim and sister to
+      Isilda.
+
+      "The initials L. and M. relate to her. Kesselbach
+      never, in their private life, called his wife Dolores,
+      which is the name of sorrow, but Letitia, which
+      denotes joy. L. M.--Letitia de Malreich--were the
+      initials inscribed on all the presents which he used
+      to give her, for instance, on the cigarette-case which
+      was found at the Palace Hotel and which belonged to
+      Mrs. Kesselbach. She had contracted the smoking-habit
+      on her travels.
+
+      "Letitia! She was indeed the joy of his life for four
+      years, four years of lies and hypocrisy, in which she
+      prepared the death of the man who loved her so well
+      and who trusted her so whole-heartedly.
+
+      "Perhaps I ought to have spoken at once. I had not the
+      courage, in memory of my old friend Kesselbach, whose
+      name she bore.
+
+      "And then I was afraid. . . . On the day when I
+      unmasked her, at the Palais de Justice, I read my doom
+      in her eyes.
+
+      "Will my weakness save me?"
+
+"Him also," thought Lupin, "him also she killed! . . . Why, of course,
+he knew too much! . . . The initials . . . that name, Letitia . . . the
+secret habit of smoking!"
+
+And he remembered the previous night, that smell of tobacco in her room.
+
+He continued his inspection of the first pocket-book. There were scraps
+of letters, in cipher, no doubt handed to Dolores by her accomplices, in
+the course of their nocturnal meetings. There were also addresses on
+bits of paper, addresses of milliners and dressmakers, but addresses
+also of low haunts, of common hotels. . . . And names . . . twenty,
+thirty names . . . queer names: Hector the Butcher, Armand of Grenelle,
+the Sick Man . . .
+
+But a photograph caught Lupin's eye. He looked at it. And, at once, as
+though shot from a spring, dropping the pocket-book, he bolted out of
+the room, out of the chalet and rushed into the park.
+
+He had recognized the portrait of Louis de Malreich, the prisoner at the
+Santé!
+
+Not till then, not till that exact moment did he remember: the execution
+was to take place next day.
+
+And, as the man in black, as the murderer was none other than Dolores
+Kesselbach, Louis de Malreich's name was really and truly Leon Massier
+and he was innocent!
+
+Innocent? But the evidence found in his house, the Emperor's letters,
+all, all the things that accused him beyond hope of denial, all those
+incontrovertible proofs?
+
+Lupin stopped for a second, with his brain on fire:
+
+"Oh," he cried, "I shall go mad, I, too! Come, though, I must act . . .
+the sentence is to be executed . . . to-morrow . . . to-morrow at break
+of day."
+
+He looked at his watch:
+
+"Ten o'clock. . . . How long will it take me to reach Paris? Well . . .
+I shall be there presently . . . yes, presently, I must. . . . And this
+very evening I shall take measures to prevent. . . . But what measures?
+How can I prove his innocence? . . . How prevent the execution? Oh,
+never mind! Once I am there, I shall find a way. My name is not Lupin
+for nothing! . . . Come on! . . ."
+
+He set off again at a run, entered the castle and called out:
+
+"Pierre! Pierre! . . . Has any one seen M. Pierre Leduc? . . . Oh,
+there you are! . . . Listen. . . ."
+
+He took him on one side and jerked out, in imperious tones:
+
+"Listen, Dolores is not here. . . . Yes, she was called away on urgent
+business . . . she left last night in my motor. . . . I am going too.
+. . . Don't interrupt, not a word! . . . A second lost means irreparable
+harm. . . . You, send away all the servants, without any explanation.
+Here is money. In half an hour from now, the castle must be empty. And
+let no one enter it until I return. . . . Not you either, do you
+understand? . . . I forbid you to enter the castle. . . . I'll explain
+later . . . serious reasons. Here, take the key with you. . . . Wait for
+me in the village. . . ."
+
+And once more, he darted away.
+
+Five minutes later, he was with Octave. He jumped into the car:
+
+"Paris!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The journey was a real race for life or death. Lupin, thinking that
+Octave was not driving fast enough, took the steering-wheel himself and
+drove at a furious, break-neck speed. On the road, through the villages,
+along the crowded streets of the towns they rushed at sixty miles an
+hour. People whom they nearly upset roared and yelled with rage: the
+meteor was far away, was out of sight.
+
+"G--governor," stammered Octave, livid with dismay, "we shall be stuck!"
+
+"You, perhaps, the motor, perhaps; but I shall arrive!" said Lupin.
+
+He had a feeling as though it were not the car that was carrying him,
+but he carrying the car and as though he were cleaving space by dint of
+his own strength, his own will-power. Then what miracle could prevent
+his arriving, seeing that his strength was inexhaustible, his will-power
+unbounded?
+
+"I shall arrive because I have got to arrive," he repeated.
+
+And he thought of the man who would die, if he did not arrive in time to
+save him, of the mysterious Louis de Malreich, so disconcerting with his
+stubborn silence and his expressionless face.
+
+And amid the roar of the road, under the trees whose branches made a
+noise as of furious waves, amid the buzzing of his thoughts, Lupin, all
+the same, strove to set up an hypothesis. And this hypothesis became
+gradually more defined, logical, probable, certain, he said to himself,
+now that he knew the hideous truth about Dolores and saw all the
+resources and all the odious designs of that crazy mind:
+
+"Yes, it was she who contrived that most terrible plot against Malreich.
+What was it she wanted? To marry Pierre Leduc, whom she had bewitched,
+and to become the sovereign of the little principality from which she
+had been banished. The object was attainable, within reach of her hand.
+There was one sole obstacle. . . . I, Lupin, who, for weeks and weeks,
+persistently barred her road; I, whom she encountered after every
+murder; I, whose perspicacity she dreaded; I, who would never lay down
+my arms before I had discovered the culprit and found the letters stolen
+from the Emperor. . . . Well, the culprit should be Louis de Malreich,
+or rather, Leon Massier. Who was this Leon Massier? Did she know him
+before her marriage? Had she been in love with him? It is probable; but
+this, no doubt, we shall never know. One thing is certain, that she was
+struck by the resemblance to Leon Massier in figure and stature which
+she might attain by dressing up like him, in black clothes, and putting
+on a fair wig. She must have noticed the eccentric life led by that
+lonely man, his nocturnal expeditions, his manner of walking in the
+streets and of throwing any who might follow him off the scent. And it
+was in consequence of these observations and in anticipation of possible
+eventualities that she advised Mr. Kesselbach to erase the name of
+Dolores from the register of births and to replace it by the name of
+Louis, so that the initials might correspond with those of Leon Massier.
+. . . The moment arrived at which she must act; and thereupon she
+concocted her plot and proceeded to put it into execution. Leon lived in
+the Rue Delaizement. She ordered her accomplices to take up their
+quarters in the street that backed on to it. And she herself told me the
+address of Dominique the head-waiter, and put me on the track of the
+seven scoundrels, knowing perfectly well that, once on the track, I was
+bound to follow it to the end, that is to say, beyond the seven
+scoundrels, till I came up with their leader, the man who watched them
+and who commanded them, the man in black, Leon Massier, Louis de
+Malreich. . . . As a matter of fact, I came up with the seven scoundrels
+first. Then what would happen? Either I should be beaten or we should
+all destroy one another, as she must have hoped, that night in the Rue
+des Vignes. In either case Dolores would have been rid of me. But what
+really happened was this: I captured the seven scoundrels. Dolores fled
+from the Rue des Vignes. I found her in the Broker's shed. She sent me
+after Leon Massier, that is to say, Louis de Malreich. I found in his
+house the Emperor's letters, _which she herself had placed there_, and I
+delivered him to justice and I revealed the secret communication, _which
+she herself had caused to be made_, between the two coach-houses, and I
+produced all the evidence _which she herself had prepared_, and I
+proved, by means of documents _which she herself had forged_, that Leon
+Massier had stolen the social status of Leon Massier and that his real
+name was Louis de Malreich. . . . And Louis de Malreich was sentenced to
+death. . . . And Dolores de Malreich, victorious at last, safe from all
+suspicion once the culprit was discovered, released from her infamous
+and criminal past, her husband dead, her brother dead, her sister dead,
+her two maids dead, Steinweg dead, delivered by me from her accomplices,
+whom I handed over to Weber all packed up, delivered, lastly, from
+herself by me, who was sending the innocent man whom she had substituted
+for herself to the scaffold, Dolores de Malreich, triumphant, rich with
+the wealth of her millions and loved by Pierre Leduc, Dolores de
+Malreich would sit upon the throne of her native grand-duchy. . . . Ah,"
+cried Lupin, beside himself with excitement, "that man shall not die! I
+swear it as I live: he shall not die!"
+
+"Look out, governor," said Octave, scared, "we are near the town now.
+. . . the outskirts . . . the suburbs. . . ."
+
+"What shall I care?"
+
+"But we shall topple over. . . . And the pavement is greasy . . . we are
+skidding. . . ."
+
+"Never mind."
+
+"Take care. . . . Look ahead. . . ."
+
+"What?"
+
+"A tram-car, at the turn. . . ."
+
+"Let it stop!"
+
+"Do slow down, governor!"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"But we have no room to pass!"
+
+"We shall get through."
+
+"We can't get through."
+
+"Yes, we can."
+
+"Oh, Lord!"
+
+A crash . . . outcries. . . . The motor had run into the tram-car,
+cannoned against a fence, torn down ten yards of planking and, lastly,
+smashed itself against the corner of a slope.
+
+"Driver, are you disengaged?"
+
+Lupin, lying flat on the grass of the slope, had hailed a taxi-cab.
+
+He scrambled to his feet, gave a glance at his shattered car and the
+people crowding round to Octave's assistance and jumped into the cab:
+
+"Go to the Ministry of the Interior, on the Place Beauvau . . . Twenty
+francs for yourself. . . ."
+
+He settled himself in the taxi and continued:
+
+"No, no, he shall not die! No, a thousand times no, I will not have that
+on my conscience! It is bad enough to have been tricked by a woman and
+to have fallen into the snare like a schoolboy. . . . That will do! No
+more blunders for me! I have had that poor wretch arrested. . . . I have
+had him sentenced to death. . . . I have brought him to the foot of the
+scaffold . . . but he shall not mount it! . . . Anything but that! If he
+mounts the scaffold, there will be nothing left for me but to put a
+bullet through my head."
+
+They were approaching the toll-house. He leant out:
+
+"Twenty francs more, driver, if you don't stop."
+
+And he shouted to the officials:
+
+"Detective-service!"
+
+They passed through.
+
+"But don't slow down, don't slow down, hang it!" roared Lupin. "Faster!
+. . . Faster still! Are you afraid of running over the old ladies? Never
+mind about them! I'll pay the damage!"
+
+In a few minutes, they were at the Ministry of the Interior. Lupin
+hurried across the courtyard and ran up the main staircase. The
+waiting-room was full of people. He scribbled on a sheet of paper,
+"Prince Sernine," and, hustling a messenger into a corner, said:
+
+"You know me, don't you? I'm Lupin. I procured you this berth; a snug
+retreat for your old age, eh? Only, you've got to show me in at once.
+There, take my name through. That's all I ask of you. The premier will
+thank you, you may be sure of that . . . and so I will. . . . But, hurry
+you fool! Valenglay is expecting me. . . ."
+
+Ten seconds later, Valenglay himself put his head through the door of
+his room and said:
+
+"Show the prince in."
+
+Lupin rushed into the room, slammed the door and, interrupting the
+premier, said:
+
+"No, no set phrases, you can't arrest me. . . . It would mean ruining
+yourself and compromising the Emperor. . . . No, it's not a question of
+that. Look here. Malreich is innocent. . . . I have discovered the real
+criminal. . . . It's Dolores Kesselbach. She is dead. Her body is down
+there. I have undeniable proofs. There is no doubt possible. It was
+she. . . ."
+
+He stopped. Valenglay seemed not to understand.
+
+"But, look here, Monsieur le President, we must save Malreich. . . .
+Only think . . . a judicial error! . . . An innocent man guillotined!
+. . . Give your orders . . . say you have fresh information . . .
+anything you please . . . but, quick, there is no time to lose. . . ."
+
+Valenglay looked at him attentively, then went to a table, took up a
+newspaper and handed it to him, pointing his finger at an article as he
+did so.
+
+Lupin cast his eye at the head-line and read:
+
+      "EXECUTION OF THE MONSTER"
+
+      "Louis de Malreich underwent the death-penalty this
+      morning. . . ."
+
+He read no more. Thunderstruck, crushed, he fell into the premier's
+chair with a moan of despair. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How long he remained like that he could not say. When he was outside
+again, he remembered a great silence and then Valenglay bending over him
+and sprinkling water on his forehead. He remembered, above all, the
+premier's hushed voice whispering:
+
+"Listen . . . you won't say anything about this will you? Innocent,
+perhaps, I don't say not. . . . But what is the use of revelations, of a
+scandal? A judicial error can have serious consequences. Is it worth
+while? . . . A rehabilitation? For what purpose? He was not even
+sentenced under his own name. It is the name of Malreich which is held
+up to public execration . . . the name of the real criminal, as it
+happens. . . . So . . ."
+
+And, pushing Lupin gradually toward the door, he said:
+
+"So go. . . . Go back there. . . . Get rid of the corpse. . . . And let
+not a trace remain, eh? Not the slightest trace of all this business.
+. . . I can rely on you, can I not?"
+
+And Lupin went back. He went back like a machine, because he had been
+told to do so and because he had no will left of his own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He waited for hours at the railway-station. Mechanically, he ate his
+dinner, took a ticket and settled down in a compartment.
+
+He slept badly. His brain was on fire between nightmares and half-waking
+intervals in which he tried to make out why Malreich had not defended
+himself:
+
+"He was a madman . . . surely . . . half a madman. . . . He must have
+known her formerly . . . and she poisoned his life . . . she drove him
+crazy. . . . So he felt he might as well die. . . . Why defend himself?"
+
+The explanation only half satisfied him, and he promised himself sooner
+or later to clear up the riddle and to discover the exact part which
+Massier had played in Dolores' life. But what did it matter for the
+moment? One fact alone stood out clearly, which was Massier's madness,
+and he repeated, persistently:
+
+"He was a madman . . . Massier was undoubtedly mad. Besides, all those
+Massiers . . . a family of madmen. . . ."
+
+He raved, mixing up names in his enfeebled brain.
+
+But, on alighting at Bruggen Station, in the cool, moist air of the
+morning, his consciousness revived. Things suddenly assumed a different
+aspect. And he exclaimed:
+
+"Well, after all, it was his own look-out! He had only to protest. . . .
+I accept no responsibility. . . . It was he who committed suicide. . . .
+He was only a dumb actor in the play. . . . He has gone under. . . . I
+am sorry. . . . But it can't be helped!"
+
+The necessity for action stimulated him afresh. Wounded, tortured by
+that crime of which he knew himself to be the author for all that he
+might say, he nevertheless looked to the future:
+
+"Those are the accidents of war," he said. "Don't let us think about it.
+Nothing is lost. On the contrary! Dolores was the stumbling-block, since
+Pierre Leduc loved her. Dolores is dead. Therefore Pierre Leduc belongs
+to me. And he shall marry Geneviève, as I have arranged! And he shall
+reign! And I shall be the master! And Europe, Europe is mine!"
+
+He worked himself up, reassured, full of sudden confidence, and made
+feverish gestures as he walked along the road, whirling an imaginary
+sword, the sword of the leader whose will is law, who commands and
+triumphs:
+
+"Lupin, you shall be king! You shall be king, Arsène Lupin!"
+
+He inquired in the village of Bruggen and heard that Pierre Leduc had
+lunched yesterday at the inn. Since then, he had not been seen.
+
+"Oh?" asked Lupin. "Didn't he sleep here?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But where did he go after his lunch?"
+
+"He took the road to the castle."
+
+Lupin walked away in some surprise. After all, he had told the young man
+to lock the doors and not to return after the servants had gone.
+
+He at once received a proof that Pierre had disobeyed him: the park
+gates were open.
+
+He went in, hunted all over the castle, called out. No reply.
+
+Suddenly, he thought of the chalet. Who could tell? Perhaps Pierre
+Leduc, worrying about the woman he loved and driven by an intuition, had
+gone to look for her in that direction. And Dolores' corpse was there!
+
+Greatly alarmed, Lupin began to run.
+
+At first sight, there seemed to be no one in the chalet.
+
+"Pierre! Pierre!" he cried.
+
+Hearing no sound, he entered the front passage and the room which he had
+occupied.
+
+He stopped short, rooted to the threshold.
+
+Above Dolores' corpse, hung Pierre Leduc, with a rope round his neck,
+dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lupin impatiently pulled himself together from head to foot. He refused
+to yield to a single gesture of despair. He refused to utter a single
+violent word. After the cruel blows which fate had dealt him, after
+Dolores' crimes and death, after Massier's execution, after all those
+disturbances and catastrophes, he felt the absolute necessity of
+retaining all his self-command. If not, his brain would undoubtedly give
+way. . . .
+
+"Idiot!" he said, shaking his fist at Pierre Leduc. "You great idiot,
+couldn't you wait? In ten years we should have had Alsace-Lorraine
+again!"
+
+To relieve his mind, he sought for words to say, for attitudes; but his
+ideas escaped him and his head seemed on the point of bursting.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" he cried. "None of that, thank you! Lupin mad too! No, old
+chap! Put a bullet through your head, if you like; and, when all is
+said, I don't see any other way out. But Lupin drivelling, wheeled about
+in a bath-chair . . . no! Style, old fellow, finish in style!"
+
+He walked up and down, stamping his feet and lifting his knees very
+high, as certain actors do when feigning madness. And he said:
+
+"Swagger, my lad, swagger! The eyes of the gods are upon you! Lift up
+your head! Pull in your stomach, hang it! Throw out your chest! . . .
+Everything is breaking up around you. What do you care? . . . It's the
+final disaster, I've played my last card, a kingdom in the gutter, I've
+lost Europe, the whole world ends in smoke. . . . Well . . . and what of
+it? Laugh, laugh! Be Lupin, or you're in the soup. . . . Come, laugh!
+Louder than that, louder, louder! That's right! . . . Lord, how funny it
+all is! Dolores, old girl, a cigarette!"
+
+He bent down with a grin, touched the dead woman's face, tottered for a
+second and fell to the ground unconscious.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After lying for an hour, he came to himself and stood up. The fit of
+madness was over; and, master of himself, with relaxed nerves, serious
+and silent, he considered the position.
+
+He felt that the time had come for the irrevocable decisions that
+involve a whole existence. His had been utterly shattered, in a few
+days, under the assault of unforeseen catastrophes, rushing up, one
+after the other, at the very moment when he thought his triumph assured.
+What should he do? Begin again? Build up everything again? He had not
+the courage for it. What then?
+
+The whole morning, he roamed tragically about the park and gradually
+realized his position in all its slightest details. Little by little,
+the thought of death enforced itself upon him with inflexible rigor.
+
+But, whether he decided to kill himself or to live, there was first of
+all a series of definite acts which he was obliged to perform. And these
+acts stood out clearly in his brain, which had suddenly become quite
+cool.
+
+The mid-day Angelus rang from the church-steeple.
+
+"To work!" he said, firmly.
+
+He returned to the chalet in a very calm frame of mind, went to his
+room, climbed on a stool, and cut the rope by which Pierre Leduc was
+hanging:
+
+"You poor devil!" he said. "You were doomed to end like that, with a
+hempen tie around your neck. Alas, you were not made for greatness: I
+ought to have foreseen that and not hooked my fortune to a rhymester!"
+
+He felt in the young man's clothes and found nothing. But, remembering
+Dolores' second pocket-book, he took it from the pocket where he had
+left it.
+
+He gave a start of surprise. The pocket-book contained a bundle of
+letters whose appearance was familiar to him; and he at once recognized
+the different writings.
+
+"The Emperor's letters!" he muttered, slowly. "The old chancellor's
+letters! The whole bundle which I myself found at Leon Massier's and
+which I handed to Count von Waldemar! . . . How did it happen? . . .
+Did she take them in her turn from that blockhead of a Waldemar?" And,
+suddenly, slapping his forehead, "Why, no, the blockhead is myself.
+These are the real letters! She kept them to blackmail the Emperor when
+the time came. And the others, the ones which I handed over, are copies,
+forged by herself, of course, or by an accomplice, and placed where she
+knew that I should find them. . . . And I played her game for her, like
+a mug! By Jove, when women begin to interfere . . . !"
+
+There was only a piece of pasteboard left in the pocket-book, a
+photograph. He looked at it. It was his own.
+
+"Two photographs . . . Massier and I . . . the two she loved best, no
+doubt . . . For she loved me. . . . A strange love, built up of
+admiration for the adventurer that I am, for the man who, by himself,
+put away the seven scoundrels whom she had paid to break my head! A
+strange love! I felt it throbbing in her the other day, when I told her
+my great dream of omnipotence. Then, really, she had the idea of
+sacrificing Pierre Leduc and subjecting her dream to mine. If the
+incident of the mirror had not taken place, she would have been subdued.
+But she was afraid. I had my hand upon the truth. My death was necessary
+for her salvation and she decided upon it." He repeated several times,
+pensively, "And yet she loved me. . . . Yes, she loved me, as others
+have loved me . . . others to whom I have brought ill-luck also. . . .
+Alas, all those who love me die! . . . And this one died too, strangled
+by my hand. . . . What is the use of living? . . . What is the use of
+living?" he asked again, in a low voice. "Is it not better to join
+them, all those women who have loved me . . . and who have died of their
+love . . . Sonia, Raymonde, Clotilde, Destange, Miss Clarke? . . ."
+
+He laid the two corpses beside each other, covered them with the same
+sheet, sat down at a table and wrote:
+
+      "I have triumphed over everything and I am beaten. I
+      have reached the goal and I have fallen. Fate is too
+      strong for me. . . . And she whom I loved is no more.
+      I shall die also."
+
+And he signed his name:
+
+      "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+He sealed the letter and slipped it into a bottle which he flung through
+the window, on the soft ground of a flower-border.
+
+Next, he made a great pile on the floor with old newspapers, straw and
+shavings, which he went to fetch in the kitchen. On the top of it he
+emptied a gallon of petrol. Then he lit a candle and threw it among the
+shavings.
+
+A flame at once arose and other flames leapt forth, quick, glowing,
+crackling.
+
+"Let's clear out," said Lupin. "The chalet is built of wood, it will all
+flare up like a match. And, by the time they come from the village,
+break down the gates and run to this end of the park, it will be too
+late. They will find ashes, the remains of two charred corpses and,
+close at hand, my farewell letter in a bottle. . . . Good-bye, Lupin!
+Bury me simply, good people, without superfluous state . . . a poor
+man's funeral . . . No flowers, no wreaths. . . . Just a humble cross
+and a plain epitaph; 'Here lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.'"
+
+He made for the park wall, climbed over it, and turning round, saw the
+flames soaring up to the sky. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He wandered back toward Paris on foot, bowed down by destiny, with
+despair in his heart. And the peasants were amazed at the sight of this
+traveller who paid with bank-notes for his fifteen-penny meals.
+
+Three foot-pads attacked him one evening in the forest. He defended
+himself with his stick and left them lying for dead. . . .
+
+He spent a week at an inn. He did not know where to go. . . . What was
+he to do? What was there for him to cling to? He was tired of life. He
+did not want to live. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Is that you?"
+
+Mme. Ernemont stood in her little sitting-room in the villa at Garches,
+trembling, scared and livid, staring at the apparition that faced her.
+
+Lupin! . . . It was Lupin.
+
+"You!" she said. "You! . . . But the papers said . . ."
+
+He smiled sadly:
+
+"Yes, I am dead."
+
+"Well, then . . . well, then . . ." she said, naïvely.
+
+"You mean that, if I am dead, I have no business here. Believe me, I
+have serious reasons, Victoire."
+
+"How you have changed!" she said, in a voice full of pity.
+
+"A few little disappointments. . . . However, that's over. . . . Tell
+me, is Geneviève in?"
+
+She flew at him, in a sudden rage:
+
+"You leave her alone, do you hear? Geneviève? You want to see Geneviève,
+to take her back? Ah, this time I shall not let her out of my sight! She
+came back tired, white as a sheet, nervous; and the color has hardly yet
+returned to her cheeks. You shall leave her alone, I swear you shall."
+
+He pressed his hand hard on the old woman's shoulder:
+
+"I _will_--do you understand?--I _will_ speak to her."
+
+"No."
+
+"I mean to speak to her."
+
+"No."
+
+He pushed her about. She drew herself up and, crossing her arms:
+
+"You shall pass over my dead body first, do you hear? The child's
+happiness lies in this house and nowhere else. . . . With all your ideas
+of money and rank, you would only make her miserable. Who is this Pierre
+Leduc of yours? And that Veldenz of yours? Geneviève a grand-duchess!
+You are mad. That's no life for her! . . . You see, after all, you have
+thought only of yourself in this matter. It was your power, your fortune
+you wanted. The child you don't care a rap about. Have you so much as
+asked yourself if she loved your rascally grand-duke? Have you asked
+yourself if she loved anybody? No, you just pursued your object, that is
+all, at the risk of hurting Geneviève and making her unhappy for the
+rest of her life. . . . Well, I won't have it! What she wants is a
+simple, honest existence, led in the broad light of day; and that is
+what you can't give her. Then what are you here for?"
+
+He seemed to waver, but, nevertheless, he murmured in a low voice and
+very sadly:
+
+"It is impossible that I should never see her again, it is impossible
+that I should not speak to her. . . ."
+
+"She believes you dead."
+
+"That is exactly what I do not want! I want her to know the truth. It is
+a torture to me to think that she looks upon me as one who is no more.
+Bring her to me, Victoire."
+
+He spoke in a voice so gentle and so distressed that she was utterly
+moved, and said:
+
+"Listen. . . . First of all, I want to know. . . . It depends upon what
+you intend to say to her. . . . Be frank, my boy. . . . What do you want
+with Geneviève?"
+
+He said, gravely:
+
+"I want to say this: 'Geneviève, I promised your mother to give you
+wealth, power, a fairy-like existence. And, on the day when I had
+attained my aim, I would have asked you for a little place, not very far
+from you. Rich and happy, you would have forgotten--yes, I am sure of
+it--you would have forgotten who I am, or rather who I was.
+Unfortunately, fate has been too strong for me. I bring you neither
+wealth nor power. And it is I, on the contrary, who have need of you.
+Geneviève, will you help me?'"
+
+"To do what?" asked the old woman, anxiously.
+
+"To live. . . ."
+
+"Oh!" she said. "Has it come to that, my poor boy? . . ."
+
+"Yes," he answered, simply, without any affectation of sorrow, "yes, it
+has come to that. Three human beings are just dead, killed by me, killed
+by my hands. The burden of the memory is more than I can bear. I am
+alone. For the first time in my life, I need help. I have the right to
+ask that help of Geneviève. And her duty is to give it to me. . . . If
+not . . ."
+
+"If not . . . ?"
+
+"Then all is over."
+
+The old woman was silent, pale and quivering with emotion. She once more
+felt all her affection for him whom she had fed at her breast and who
+still and in spite of all remained "her boy." She asked:
+
+"What do you intend to do with her?"
+
+"We shall go abroad. We will take you with us, if you like to come.
+. . ."
+
+"But you forget . . . you forget. . . ."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Your past. . . ."
+
+"She will forget it too. She will understand that I am no longer the man
+I was, that I do not wish to be."
+
+"Then, really, what you wish is that she should share your life, the
+life of Lupin?"
+
+"The life of the man that I shall be, of the man who will work so that
+she may be happy, so that she may marry according to her inclination. We
+will settle down in some nook or other. We will struggle together, side
+by side. And you know what I am capable of. . . ."
+
+She repeated, slowly, with her eyes fixed on his:
+
+"Then, really, you wish her to share Lupin's life?"
+
+He hesitated a second, hardly a second, and declared, plainly:
+
+"Yes, yes, I wish it, I have the right."
+
+"You wish her to abandon all the children to whom she has devoted
+herself, all this life of work which she loves and which is essential to
+her happiness?"
+
+"Yes, I wish it, it is her duty."
+
+The old woman opened the window and said:
+
+"In that case, call her."
+
+Geneviève was in the garden, sitting on a bench. Four little girls were
+crowding round her. Others were playing and running about.
+
+He saw her full-face. He saw her grave, smiling eyes. She held a flower
+in her hand and plucked the petals one by one and gave explanations to
+the attentive and eager children. Then she asked them questions. And
+each answer was rewarded with a kiss to the pupil.
+
+Lupin looked at her long, with infinite emotion and anguish. A whole
+leaven of unknown feelings fermented within him. He had a longing to
+press that pretty girl to his breast, to kiss her and tell her how he
+respected and loved her. He remembered the mother, who died in the
+little village of Aspremont, who died of grief.
+
+"Call her," said Victoire. "Why don't you call her?"
+
+He sank into a chair and stammered:
+
+"I can't. . . . I can't do it. . . . I have not the right. . . . It is
+impossible. . . . Let her believe me dead. . . . That is better. . . ."
+
+He wept, his shoulders shaking with sobs, his whole being overwhelmed
+with despair, swollen with an affection that arose in him, like those
+backward flowers which die on the very day of their blossoming.
+
+The old woman knelt down beside him and, in a trembling voice, asked:
+
+"She is your daughter, is she not?"
+
+"Yes, she is my daughter."
+
+"Oh, my poor boy!" she said, bursting into tears. "My poor boy! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+THE SUICIDE
+
+
+"To horse!" said the Emperor.
+
+He corrected himself, on seeing the magnificent ass which they brought
+him:
+
+"To donkey, rather! Waldemar, are you sure this animal is quiet to ride
+and drive?"
+
+"I will answer for him as I would for myself, Sire," declared the count.
+
+"In that case, I feel safe," said the Emperor, laughing. And, turning to
+the officers with him, "Gentlemen, to horse!"
+
+The market-place of the village of Capri was crowded with sight-seers,
+kept back by a line of Italian carabiniers, and, in the middle, all the
+donkeys of the place, which had been requisitioned to enable the Emperor
+to go over that island of wonders.
+
+"Waldemar," said the Emperor, taking the head of the cavalcade, "what do
+we begin with?"
+
+"With Tiberius's Villa, Sire."
+
+They rode under a gateway and then followed a roughly-paved path, rising
+gradually to the eastern promontory of the island.
+
+The Emperor laughed and enjoyed himself and good-humoredly chaffed the
+colossal Count von Waldemar, whose feet touched the ground on either
+side of the unfortunate donkey borne down under his weight.
+
+In three-quarters of an hour, they arrived first at Tiberius's Leap, an
+enormous rock, a thousand feet high, from which the tyrant caused his
+victims to be hurled into the sea. . . .
+
+The Emperor dismounted, walked up to the hand-rail and took a glance at
+the abyss. Then he went on foot to the ruins of Tiberius's Villa, where
+he strolled about among the crumbling halls and passages.
+
+He stopped for a moment.
+
+There was a glorious view of the point of Sorrento and over the whole
+island of Capri. The glowing blue of the sea outlined the beautiful
+curve of the bay; and cool perfumes mingled with the scent of the
+citron-trees.
+
+"The view is finer still, Sire," said Waldemar, "from the hermit's
+little chapel, at the summit."
+
+"Let us go to it."
+
+But the hermit himself descended by a steep path. He was an old man,
+with a hesitating gait and a bent back. He carried the book in which
+travellers usually write down their impressions.
+
+He placed the book on a stone seat.
+
+"What am I write?" asked the Emperor.
+
+"Your name, Sire, and the date of your visit . . . and anything you
+please."
+
+The Emperor took the pen which the hermit handed him and bent down to
+write.
+
+"Take care, Sire, take care!"
+
+Shouts of alarm . . . a great crash from the direction of the chapel.
+. . . The Emperor turned round. He saw a huge rock come rolling down
+upon him like a whirlwind.
+
+At the same moment, he was seized round the body by the hermit and flung
+to a distance of ten yards away.
+
+The rock struck against the stone seat where the Emperor had been
+standing a quarter of a second before and smashed the seat into
+fragments. But for the hermit, the Emperor would have been killed.
+
+He gave him his hand and said, simply:
+
+"Thank you."
+
+The officers flocked round him.
+
+"It's nothing, gentlemen. . . . We have escaped with a fright . . .
+though it was a fine fright, I confess. . . . All the same, but for the
+intervention of this worthy man . . ."
+
+And, going up to the hermit:
+
+"What is your name, my friend?"
+
+The hermit had kept his head concealed in his hood. He pushed it back an
+inch or so and, in a very low voice, so as to be heard by none but the
+Emperor, he said:
+
+"The name of a man, Sire, who is very pleased that you have shaken him
+by the hand."
+
+The Emperor gave a start and stepped back. Then, at once controlling
+himself:
+
+"Gentlemen," he said to the officers, "I will ask you to go up to the
+chapel. More rocks can break loose; and it would perhaps be wise to warn
+the authorities of the island. You will join me later. I want to thank
+this good man."
+
+He walked away, accompanied by the hermit. When they were alone, he
+said:
+
+"You! Why?"
+
+"I had to speak to you, Sire. If I had asked for an audience . . . would
+you have granted my request? I preferred to act directly and I intended
+to make myself known while Your Imperial Majesty was signing the book,
+when that stupid accident . . ."
+
+"Well?" said the Emperor.
+
+"The letters which I gave Waldemar to hand to you, Sire, are forgeries."
+
+The Emperor made a gesture of keen annoyance:
+
+"Forgeries? Are you sure?"
+
+"Absolutely sure, Sire."
+
+"Yet that Malreich . . ."
+
+"Malreich was not the culprit."
+
+"Then who was?"
+
+"I must beg Your Imperial Majesty to treat my answer as secret and
+confidential. The real culprit was Mrs. Kesselbach."
+
+"Kesselbach's own wife?"
+
+"Yes, Sire. She is dead now. It was she who made or caused to be made
+the copies which are in your possession. She kept the real letters."
+
+"But where are they?" exclaimed the Emperor. "That is the important
+thing! They must be recovered at all costs! I attach the greatest value
+to those letters. . . ."
+
+"Here they are, Sire."
+
+The Emperor had a moment of stupefaction. He looked at Lupin, looked at
+the letters, then at Lupin again and pocketed the bundle without
+examining it.
+
+Clearly, this man was puzzling him once more. Where did this scoundrel
+spring from who, possessing so terrible a weapon, handed it over like
+that, generously, unconditionally? It would have been so easy for him to
+keep the letters and to make such use of them as he pleased! No, he had
+given his promise and he was keeping his word.
+
+And the Emperor thought of all the astounding things which that man had
+done.
+
+"The papers said that you were dead," he said.
+
+"Yes, Sire. In reality, I am dead. And the police of my country, glad to
+be rid of me, have buried the charred and unrecognizable remains of my
+body."
+
+"Then you are free?"
+
+"As I always have been."
+
+"And nothing attaches you to anything?"
+
+"Nothing, Sire."
+
+"In that case . . ."
+
+The Emperor hesitated and then, explicitly:
+
+"In that case, enter my service. I offer you the command of my private
+police. You shall be the absolute master. You shall have full power,
+even over the other police."
+
+"No, Sire."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I am a Frenchman."
+
+There was a pause. The Emperor was evidently pleased with the answer. He
+said:
+
+"Still, as you say that no link attaches you . . ."
+
+"That is, one, Sire, which nothing can sever." And he added, laughing,
+"I am dead as a man, but alive as a Frenchman. I am sure that Your
+Imperial Majesty will understand."
+
+The Emperor took a few steps up and down. Then he said:
+
+"I should like to pay my debt, however. I heard that the negotiations
+for the grand-duchy of Veldenz were broken off. . . ."
+
+"Yes, Sire, Pierre Leduc was an imposter. He is dead."
+
+"What can I do for you? You have given me back those letters. . . . You
+have saved my life. . . . What can I do?"
+
+"Nothing, Sire."
+
+"You insist upon my remaining your debtor?"
+
+"Yes, Sire."
+
+The Emperor gave a last glance at that strange man who set himself up in
+his presence as his equal. Then he bowed his head slightly and walked
+away without another word.
+
+"Aha, Majesty, I've caught you this time!" said Lupin, following him
+with his eyes. And, philosophically, "No doubt it's a poor revenge . . .
+and would rather have recovered Alsace-Lorraine. . . . But still . . ."
+
+He interrupted himself and stamped his foot on the ground:
+
+"You confounded Lupin! Will you never change, will you always remain
+hateful and cynical to the last moment of your existence? Be serious,
+hang it all! The time has come, now or never, to be serious!"
+
+He climbed the path that leads to the chapel and stopped at the place
+where the rock had broken loose. He burst out laughing:
+
+"It was a good piece of work and His Imperial Majesty's officers did not
+know what to make of it. But how could they guess that I myself loosened
+that rock, that, at the last moment, I gave the decisive blow of the
+pick-axe and that the aforesaid rock rolled down the path which I had
+made between it and . . . an emperor whose life I was bent on saving?"
+
+He sighed:
+
+"Ah, Lupin, what a complex mind you have! All that trouble because you
+had sworn that this particular Majesty should shake you by the hand! A
+lot of good it has done you! 'An Emperor's hand five fingers has, no
+more,' as Victor Hugo might have said."
+
+He entered the chapel and, with a special key, opened the low door of a
+little sacristy. On a heap of straw, lay a man, with his hands and legs
+bound and a gag in his mouth.
+
+"Well, my friend, the hermit," said Lupin, "it wasn't so very long, was
+it? Twenty-four hours at the most. . . . But I have worked jolly hard on
+your behalf! Just think, you have saved the Emperor's life! Yes, old
+chap. You are the man who saved the Emperor's life. I have made your
+fortune, that's what I've done. They'll build a cathedral for you and
+put up a statue to you when you're dead and gone. Here, take your
+things."
+
+The hermit, nearly dead with hunger, staggered to his feet. Lupin
+quickly put on his own clothes and said:
+
+"Farewell, O worthy and venerable man. Forgive me for this little upset.
+And pray for me. I shall need it. Eternity is opening its gate wide to
+me. Farewell."
+
+He stood for a few moments on the threshold of the chapel. It was the
+solemn moment at which one hesitates, in spite of everything, before the
+terrible end of all things. But his resolution was irrevocable and,
+without further reflection, he darted out, ran down the slope, crossed
+the level ground of Tiberius's Leap and put one leg over the hand-rail:
+
+"Lupin, I give you three minutes for play-acting. 'What's the good?' you
+will say. 'There is nobody here.' Well . . . and what about you? Can't
+you act your last farce for yourself? By Jove, the performance is worth
+it. . . . _Arsène Lupin_, heroic comedy in eighty scenes. . . . The
+curtain rises on the death-scene . . . and the principal part is played
+by Lupin in person. . . . 'Bravo, Lupin!' . . . Feel my heart, ladies
+and gentlemen . . . seventy beats to the minute. . . . And a smile on my
+lips. . . . 'Bravo, Lupin! Oh, the rogue, what cheek he has!' . . .
+Well, jump, my lord. . . . Are you ready? It's the last adventure, old
+fellow. No regrets? Regrets? What for, heavens above? My life was
+splendid. Ah, Dolores, Dolores, if you had not come into it, abominable
+monster that you were! . . . . . . And you, Malreich, why did you not
+speak? . . . And you, Pierre Leduc. . . . Here I am! . . . My three dead
+friends, I am about to join you. . . . Oh, Geneviève, my dear Geneviève!
+. . . Here, have you done, you old play-actor? . . . Right you are!
+Right you are! I'm coming. . . ."
+
+He pulled his other leg over, looked down the abyss at the dark and
+motionless sea and, raising his head:
+
+"Farewell, immortal and thrice-blessed nature! _Moriturus te salutat!_
+Farewell, all that is beautiful on earth! Farewell, splendor of things.
+Farewell, life!"
+
+He flung kisses to space, to the sky, to the sun. . . . Then, folding
+his arms, he took the leap.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sidi-bel-Abbes. The barracks of the Foreign Legion. An adjutant sat
+smoking and reading his newspaper in a small, low-ceilinged room.
+
+Near him, close to the window opening on the yard, two great devils of
+non-commissioned officers were jabbering in guttural French, mixed with
+Teutonic phrases.
+
+The door opened. Some one entered. It was a slightly-built man, of
+medium height, smartly-dressed.
+
+The adjutant rose, glared angrily at the intruder and growled:
+
+"I say, what on earth is the orderly up to? . . . And you, sir, what do
+you want?"
+
+"Service."
+
+This was said frankly, imperiously.
+
+The two non-coms burst into a silly laugh. The man looked at them
+askance.
+
+"In other words, you wish to enlist in the Legion?" asked the adjutant.
+
+"Yes, but on one condition."
+
+"Conditions, by Jove! What conditions?"
+
+"That I am not left mouldering here. There is a company leaving for
+Morocco. I'll join that."
+
+One of the non-coms gave a fresh chuckle and was heard to say:
+
+"The Moors are in for a bad time. The gentleman's enlisting."
+
+"Silence!" cried the man, "I don't stand being laughed at."
+
+His voice sounded harsh and masterful.
+
+The non-com, a brutal-looking giant, retorted:
+
+"Here, recruity, you'd better be careful how you talk to me, or . . ."
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"You'll get something you won't like, that's all!"
+
+The man went up to him, took him round the waist, swung him over the
+ledge of the window and pitched him into the yard.
+
+Then he said to the other:
+
+"Go away."
+
+The other went away.
+
+The man at once returned to the adjutant and said:
+
+"Lieutenant, pray be so good as to tell the major that Don Luis
+Perenna, a Spanish grandee and a Frenchman at heart, wishes to take
+service in the Foreign Legion. Go, my friend."
+
+The flabbergasted adjutant did not move.
+
+"Go, my friend, and go at once. I have no time to waste."
+
+The adjutant rose, looked at his astounding visitor with a bewildered
+eye and went out in the tamest fashion.
+
+Then Lupin lit a cigarette and, sitting down in the adjutant's chair,
+said, aloud:
+
+"As the sea refused to have anything to say to me, or rather as I, at
+the last moment, refused to have anything to say to the sea, we'll go
+and see if the bullets of the Moors are more compassionate. And, in any
+case, it will be a smarter finish. . . . Face the enemy, Lupin, and all
+for France! . . ."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+The original edition contained a large number of ellipses of various
+lengths. All two-dot ellipses have been corrected to three dots,
+five-dot ellipses have been corrected to four dots, and some three- and
+four-dot ellipses have been altered, either by adding a space, removing
+a space, or adjusting the length of the ellipsis based on the context.
+
+On the title page, "Alexander Teixeira De Mottos" was changed to
+"Alexander Teixeira De Mattos".
+
+In Chapter I, "aimed it at the man and pulled trigger" was changed to
+"aimed it at the man and pulled the trigger", "In Kesselbach's
+handwriting, suppose?" was changed to "In Kesselbach's handwriting, I
+suppose?", and missing quotation marks were added after "you can send
+his letters on to him there" and before "The chief is on his way".
+
+In Chapter II, "There is another point, Monsiuer le Juge d'Instruction"
+was changed to "There is another point, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction",
+a missing quotation mark was added before "it's all very queer", "Mr.
+Manager instruct your young lady" was changed to "Mr. Manager, instruct
+your young lady", and "Did they open it!" was changed to "Did they open
+it?".
+
+In Chapter IV, "the house known as the Pavillon de l'Imperatrice" was
+changed to "the house known as the Pavillon de l'Impératrice", a
+quotation mark was moved from the middle of the sentence "By a
+commissionaire, so we were told" to the end, a quotation mark was added
+in front of "Yes, yes. . . . I seem to", a quotation mark was removed
+after "Would he speak?", "revolt and digust" was changed to "revolt and
+disgust", "For the third time, Gerard fainted" was changed to "For the
+third time, Gérard fainted", and "he said to his chaffeur" was changed
+to "he said to his chauffeur".
+
+In Chapter V, "In that case, Monsieur le Prèsident" was changed to "In
+that case, Monsieur le Président".
+
+In Chapter VI, a duplicate quotation mark was removed after "Not dead?",
+a missing period was added after "There were two of them", "No, The
+walls surround the estate" was changed to "No. The walls surround the
+estate", and a quotation mark was removed after "in a stifled voice.
+. . .".
+
+In Chapter VII, a quotation mark was added after "And no one knows these
+details except yourselves?", a comma was added after "he sneered", "it's
+name, by the way, was Sebastopol" was changed to "its name, by the way,
+was Sebastopol", "Austrain archdukes" was changed to "Austrian
+archdukes", "hurl Atlenheim into the pit" was changed to "hurl Altenheim
+into the pit", a duplicate quotation mark was removed before "But why
+did they wait so long?", and "a suitable husband for Geneviéve" was
+changed to "a suitable husband for Geneviève".
+
+In Chapter VIII, "as to freinds whom he has met by chance" was changed
+to "as to friends whom he has met by chance", "to end be falling into
+the hands of his enemies" was changed to "to end by falling into the
+hands of his enemies", "ten past at the very lastest" was changed to
+"ten past at the very latest", "A cigarrette?" was changed to "A
+cigarette?", "Today, I accept" was changed to "To-day, I accept",
+"another outler at his disposal" was changed to "another outlet at his
+disposal", "through which Altenheim had disappeared" was changed to
+"though which Altenheim had disappeared", a quotation mark was removed
+after "the stone steps to the basement. . . .", "the parcel of clothes
+is not far aff" was changed to "the parcel of clothes is not far off",
+"He open it and found a hat" was changed to "He opened it and found a
+hat", and "Sernine's own acccomplice" was changed to "Sernine's own
+accomplice".
+
+In Chapter IX, "go on with you story" was changed to "go on with your
+story", ="No,"= was changed to ="No."=, a missing quotation mark was added
+before "No, soldiers drafted from the Emperor's own body-guard", and "on
+which Hermann III., had written" was changed to "on which Hermann III.
+had written".
+
+In Chapter X, a comma was added after "Maître Quimbel's hat", "they will
+both proceed to Vendenz Castle" was changed to "they will both proceed
+to Veldenz Castle", and "Was is not childish" was changed to "Was it not
+childish".
+
+In Chapter XI, a quotation mark was removed after "what did he care?",
+"No nothing at all" was changed to "No, nothing at all", "down into the
+under-ground passage" was changed to "down into the underground
+passage", and a single quote (') was changed to a double quote (") after
+"O gentle Teuton?".
+
+In Chapter XII, a quotation mark was removed after "They were all
+French", "What it is?" was changed to "What is it?", "I know that the
+latters are not here" was changed to "I know that the letters are not
+here", "the French servant who wrote his dairy" was changed to "the
+French servant who wrote his diary", "It's qiute obvious" was changed to
+"It's quite obvious", "Bacause I am the better man" was changed to
+"Because I am the better man", and a question mark was added after "Have
+you seen anything".
+
+In Chapter XIII, "How the newspapers represented the prisoner at the
+Sante" was changed to "How the newspapers represented the prisoner at
+the Santé", and "a little cafè on the Route de la Revolte" was changed
+to "a little café on the Route de la Revolte", "on the Saturday morning,
+he pursued his inquries" was changed to "on the Saturday morning, he
+pursued his inquiries", "Consequently. Leon Massier was, in point of
+fact" was changed to "Consequently, Leon Massier was, in point of fact",
+"two hundred yards from the Rue des Vinges" was changed to "two hundred
+yards from the Rue des Vignes", "Listen. . . . Charloais?" was changed
+to "Listen. . . . Charolais?", and "the public tenniscourt" was changed
+to "the public tennis-court".
+
+In Chapter XIV, "a a fine bag too" was changed to "a fine bag too",
+"felt for his banknotes" was changed to "felt for his bank-notes", "the
+necessary proofs of his indentity" was changed to "the necessary proofs
+of his identity", and "not Pierre Leduc, but Gerard Baupré" was changed
+to "not Pierre Leduc, but Gérard Baupré".
+
+In Chapter XV, quotation mark was removed after "the tears streamed down
+her cheeks" and "Which was it?", "hysterical sobing" was changed to
+"hysterical sobbing", and "They are saying at, headquarters, that" was
+changed to "They are saying, at headquarters, that".
+
+In Chapter XVI, "ARSENE'S LUPIN'S THREE MURDERS" was changed to "ARSÈNE
+LUPIN'S THREE MURDERS", "by the dazzling gleam of those
+lighning-flashes" was changed to "by the dazzling gleam of those
+lightning-flashes", "a diffierent aspect" was changed to "a different
+aspect", "had hailed a taxicab" was changed to "had hailed a taxi-cab",
+"look for her in that dirction" was changed to "look for her in that
+direction", "slipped in into a bottle" was changed to "slipped it into a
+bottle", and a double quote (") was changed to a single quote (') before
+"Geneviève, I promised your mother".
+
+In the Epilogue, "What am I write?" was changed to "What am I to
+write?", and a missing quotation mark was added after "as Victor Hugo
+might have said".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 813, by Maurice Leblanc
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+
+Project Gutenberg’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you’ll
+have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
+this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
+
+Author: William Shakespeare
+
+Release Date: November, 1998 [Etext #1514]
+Last Updated: February 14, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM ***
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by the PG Shakespeare Team,
+a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers.
+HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
+
+
+
+cover 
+
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
+
+
+
+by William Shakespeare
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+ACT I
+Scene I.
+Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
+Scene II.
+The Same. A Room in a Cottage
+
+ACT II
+Scene I.
+A wood near Athens
+Scene II.
+Another part of the wood
+
+ACT III
+Scene I.
+The Wood.
+Scene II.
+Another part of the wood
+
+ACT IV
+Scene I.
+The Wood
+Scene II.
+Athens. A Room in Quince’s House
+
+ACT V
+Scene I.
+Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
+
+
+
+Dramatis Personæ
+
+THESEUS, Duke of Athens
+HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus
+EGEUS, Father to Hermia
+HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander
+HELENA, in love with Demetrius
+LYSANDER, in love with Hermia
+DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia
+PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
+
+QUINCE, the Carpenter
+SNUG, the Joiner
+BOTTOM, the Weaver
+FLUTE, the Bellows-mender
+SNOUT, the Tinker
+STARVELING, the Tailor
+
+OBERON, King of the Fairies
+TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies
+PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a Fairy
+PEASEBLOSSOM, Fairy
+COBWEB, Fairy
+MOTH, Fairy
+MUSTARDSEED, Fairy
+
+PYRAMUS, THISBE, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION; Characters in the Interlude
+performed by the Clowns
+
+Other Fairies attending their King and Queen
+Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta
+
+SCENE: Athens, and a wood not far from it
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
+
+ Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate and Attendants.
+
+THESEUS.
+Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
+Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
+Another moon; but oh, methinks, how slow
+This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
+Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
+Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
+Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
+And then the moon, like to a silver bow
+New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
+Of our solemnities.
+
+THESEUS.
+Go, Philostrate,
+Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
+Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
+Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
+The pale companion is not for our pomp.
+
+ [_Exit Philostrate._]
+
+Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
+And won thy love doing thee injuries;
+But I will wed thee in another key,
+With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
+
+ Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius.
+
+EGEUS.
+Happy be Theseus, our renownèd Duke!
+
+THESEUS.
+Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
+
+EGEUS.
+Full of vexation come I, with complaint
+Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
+Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
+This man hath my consent to marry her.
+Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
+This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
+Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
+And interchang’d love-tokens with my child.
+Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
+With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
+And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
+With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
+Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers
+Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth)
+With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart,
+Turn’d her obedience (which is due to me)
+To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
+Be it so she will not here before your grace
+Consent to marry with Demetrius,
+I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
+As she is mine I may dispose of her;
+Which shall be either to this gentleman
+Or to her death, according to our law
+Immediately provided in that case.
+
+THESEUS.
+What say you, Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid.
+To you your father should be as a god;
+One that compos’d your beauties, yea, and one
+To whom you are but as a form in wax
+By him imprinted, and within his power
+To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
+Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
+
+HERMIA.
+So is Lysander.
+
+THESEUS.
+In himself he is.
+But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
+The other must be held the worthier.
+
+HERMIA.
+I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
+
+THESEUS.
+Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
+
+HERMIA.
+I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
+I know not by what power I am made bold,
+Nor how it may concern my modesty
+In such a presence here to plead my thoughts:
+But I beseech your Grace that I may know
+The worst that may befall me in this case,
+If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
+
+THESEUS.
+Either to die the death, or to abjure
+For ever the society of men.
+Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
+Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
+Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,
+You can endure the livery of a nun,
+For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,
+To live a barren sister all your life,
+Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
+Thrice-blessèd they that master so their blood
+To undergo such maiden pilgrimage,
+But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d
+Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
+Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
+
+HERMIA.
+So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
+Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
+Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke
+My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
+
+THESEUS.
+Take time to pause; and by the next new moon
+The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
+For everlasting bond of fellowship,
+Upon that day either prepare to die
+For disobedience to your father’s will,
+Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
+Or on Diana’s altar to protest
+For aye austerity and single life.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
+Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
+
+LYSANDER.
+You have her father’s love, Demetrius.
+Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.
+
+EGEUS.
+Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
+And what is mine my love shall render him;
+And she is mine, and all my right of her
+I do estate unto Demetrius.
+
+LYSANDER.
+I am, my lord, as well deriv’d as he,
+As well possess’d; my love is more than his;
+My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,
+If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;
+And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
+I am belov’d of beauteous Hermia.
+Why should not I then prosecute my right?
+Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
+Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
+And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
+Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
+Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
+
+THESEUS.
+I must confess that I have heard so much,
+And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
+But, being over-full of self-affairs,
+My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,
+And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.
+I have some private schooling for you both.—
+For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
+To fit your fancies to your father’s will,
+Or else the law of Athens yields you up
+(Which by no means we may extenuate)
+To death, or to a vow of single life.
+Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?
+Demetrius and Egeus, go along;
+I must employ you in some business
+Against our nuptial, and confer with you
+Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
+
+EGEUS.
+With duty and desire we follow you.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia._]
+
+LYSANDER.
+How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
+How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
+
+HERMIA.
+Belike for want of rain, which I could well
+Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
+Could ever hear by tale or history,
+The course of true love never did run smooth.
+But either it was different in blood—
+
+HERMIA.
+O cross! Too high to be enthrall’d to low.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Or else misgraffèd in respect of years—
+
+HERMIA.
+O spite! Too old to be engag’d to young.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
+
+HERMIA.
+O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes!
+
+LYSANDER.
+Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
+War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
+Making it momentany as a sound,
+Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
+Brief as the lightning in the collied night
+That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
+And, ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’
+The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
+So quick bright things come to confusion.
+
+HERMIA.
+If then true lovers have ever cross’d,
+It stands as an edict in destiny.
+Then let us teach our trial patience,
+Because it is a customary cross,
+As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
+Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
+
+LYSANDER.
+A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
+I have a widow aunt, a dowager
+Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
+From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
+And she respects me as her only son.
+There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
+And to that place the sharp Athenian law
+Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
+Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night;
+And in the wood, a league without the town
+(Where I did meet thee once with Helena
+To do observance to a morn of May),
+There will I stay for thee.
+
+HERMIA.
+My good Lysander!
+I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
+By his best arrow with the golden head,
+By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,
+By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
+And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen
+When the false Trojan under sail was seen,
+By all the vows that ever men have broke
+(In number more than ever women spoke),
+In that same place thou hast appointed me,
+Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
+
+ Enter Helena.
+
+HERMIA.
+God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
+
+HELENA.
+Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
+Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
+Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air
+More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
+When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
+Sickness is catching. O were favour so,
+Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.
+My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
+My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
+Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
+The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
+O, teach me how you look, and with what art
+You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
+
+HERMIA.
+I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
+
+HELENA.
+O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
+
+HERMIA.
+I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
+
+HELENA.
+O that my prayers could such affection move!
+
+HERMIA.
+The more I hate, the more he follows me.
+
+HELENA.
+The more I love, the more he hateth me.
+
+HERMIA.
+His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
+
+HELENA.
+None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
+
+HERMIA.
+Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
+Lysander and myself will fly this place.
+Before the time I did Lysander see,
+Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me.
+O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
+That he hath turn’d a heaven into hell!
+
+LYSANDER.
+Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
+Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
+Her silver visage in the watery glass,
+Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
+(A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
+Through Athens’ gates have we devis’d to steal.
+
+HERMIA.
+And in the wood where often you and I
+Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
+Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
+There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
+And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
+To seek new friends and stranger companies.
+Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,
+And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
+Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight
+From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight.
+
+LYSANDER.
+I will, my Hermia.
+
+ [_Exit Hermia._]
+
+Helena, adieu.
+As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
+
+ [_Exit Lysander._]
+
+HELENA.
+How happy some o’er other some can be!
+Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
+But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
+He will not know what all but he do know.
+And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
+So I, admiring of his qualities.
+Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
+Love can transpose to form and dignity.
+Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
+And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
+Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste.
+Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
+And therefore is love said to be a child,
+Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.
+As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
+So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere.
+For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
+He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
+And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
+So he dissolv’d, and showers of oaths did melt.
+I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
+Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
+Pursue her; and for this intelligence
+If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
+But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
+To have his sight thither and back again.
+
+ [_Exit Helena._]
+
+
+SCENE II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage
+
+ Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout  and Starveling.
+
+QUINCE.
+Is all our company here?
+
+BOTTOM.
+You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the
+scrip.
+
+QUINCE.
+Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit through
+all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and Duchess, on
+his wedding-day at night.
+
+BOTTOM.
+First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the
+names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
+
+QUINCE.
+Marry, our play is _The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of
+Pyramus and Thisbe_.
+
+BOTTOM.
+A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter
+Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread
+yourselves.
+
+QUINCE.
+Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
+
+QUINCE.
+You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
+
+BOTTOM.
+What is Pyramus—a lover, or a tyrant?
+
+QUINCE.
+A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.
+
+BOTTOM.
+That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let
+the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms; I will condole in
+some measure. To the rest—yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could
+play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.
+
+    The raging rocks
+    And shivering shocks
+    Shall break the locks
+           Of prison gates,
+    And Phibbus’ car
+    Shall shine from far,
+    And make and mar
+           The foolish Fates.
+
+This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein,
+a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling.
+
+QUINCE.
+Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
+
+FLUTE.
+Here, Peter Quince.
+
+QUINCE.
+Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
+
+FLUTE.
+What is Thisbe? A wandering knight?
+
+QUINCE.
+It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
+
+FLUTE.
+Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a beard coming.
+
+QUINCE.
+That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small
+as you will.
+
+BOTTOM.
+And I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a
+monstrous little voice; ‘Thisne, Thisne!’—‘Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear!
+thy Thisbe dear! and lady dear!’
+
+QUINCE.
+No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisbe.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Well, proceed.
+
+QUINCE.
+Robin Starveling, the tailor.
+
+STARVELING.
+Here, Peter Quince.
+
+QUINCE.
+Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother.
+Tom Snout, the tinker.
+
+SNOUT
+Here, Peter Quince.
+
+QUINCE.
+You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisbe’s father;
+Snug, the joiner, you, the lion’s part. And, I hope here is a play
+fitted.
+
+SNUG
+Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I
+am slow of study.
+
+QUINCE.
+You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart
+good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say ‘Let him
+roar again, let him roar again.’
+
+QUINCE.
+If you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the
+ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.
+
+ALL
+That would hang us every mother’s son.
+
+BOTTOM.
+I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their
+wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us. But I will
+aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking
+dove; I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.
+
+QUINCE.
+You can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a
+proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely
+gentleman-like man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?
+
+QUINCE.
+Why, what you will.
+
+BOTTOM.
+I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your
+orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
+French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
+
+QUINCE.
+Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play
+bare-faced. But, masters, here are your parts, and I am to entreat you,
+request you, and desire you, to con them by tomorrow night; and meet me
+in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will
+we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg’d with
+company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of
+properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.
+
+BOTTOM.
+We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and
+courageously. Take pains, be perfect; adieu.
+
+QUINCE.
+At the Duke’s oak we meet.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Enough. Hold, or cut bow-strings.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT II
+
+SCENE I. A wood near Athens
+
+ Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.
+
+PUCK.
+How now, spirit! Whither wander you?
+
+FAIRY
+    Over hill, over dale,
+        Thorough bush, thorough brier,
+    Over park, over pale,
+        Thorough flood, thorough fire,
+    I do wander everywhere,
+    Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
+    And I serve the Fairy Queen,
+    To dew her orbs upon the green.
+    The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
+    In their gold coats spots you see;
+    Those be rubies, fairy favours,
+    In those freckles live their savours.
+I must go seek some dew-drops here,
+And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
+Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone.
+Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
+
+PUCK.
+The King doth keep his revels here tonight;
+Take heed the Queen come not within his sight,
+For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
+Because that she, as her attendant, hath
+A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;
+She never had so sweet a changeling.
+And jealous Oberon would have the child
+Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
+But she perforce withholds the lovèd boy,
+Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
+And now they never meet in grove or green,
+By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
+But they do square; that all their elves for fear
+Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
+
+FAIRY
+Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
+Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
+Call’d Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
+That frights the maidens of the villagery,
+Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
+And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
+And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
+Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
+Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
+You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
+Are not you he?
+
+PUCK.
+Thou speak’st aright;
+I am that merry wanderer of the night.
+I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
+When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
+Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
+And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl
+In very likeness of a roasted crab,
+And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
+And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
+The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
+Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
+Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
+And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
+And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe
+And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
+A merrier hour was never wasted there.
+But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.
+
+FAIRY
+And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
+
+ Enter Oberon at one door, with his Train, and Titania at another, with
+ hers.
+
+OBERON.
+Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
+
+TITANIA.
+What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
+I have forsworn his bed and company.
+
+OBERON.
+Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
+
+TITANIA.
+Then I must be thy lady; but I know
+When thou hast stol’n away from fairyland,
+And in the shape of Corin sat all day
+Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
+To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
+Come from the farthest steep of India,
+But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
+Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
+To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
+To give their bed joy and prosperity?
+
+OBERON.
+How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
+Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
+Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
+Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
+From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
+And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
+With Ariadne and Antiopa?
+
+TITANIA.
+These are the forgeries of jealousy:
+And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
+Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
+By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook,
+Or on the beachèd margent of the sea,
+To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
+But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport.
+Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
+As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea
+Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
+Hath every pelting river made so proud
+That they have overborne their continents.
+The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
+The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
+Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard.
+The fold stands empty in the drownèd field,
+And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
+The nine-men’s-morris is fill’d up with mud,
+And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
+For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
+The human mortals want their winter here.
+No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
+Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
+Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
+That rheumatic diseases do abound.
+And thorough this distemperature we see
+The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
+Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
+And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
+An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
+Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
+The childing autumn, angry winter, change
+Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
+By their increase, now knows not which is which.
+And this same progeny of evils comes
+From our debate, from our dissension;
+We are their parents and original.
+
+OBERON.
+Do you amend it, then. It lies in you.
+Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
+I do but beg a little changeling boy
+To be my henchman.
+
+TITANIA.
+Set your heart at rest;
+The fairyland buys not the child of me.
+His mother was a vot’ress of my order,
+And in the spicèd Indian air, by night,
+Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;
+And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
+Marking th’ embarkèd traders on the flood,
+When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive,
+And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
+Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
+Following (her womb then rich with my young squire),
+Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
+To fetch me trifles, and return again,
+As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
+But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
+And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
+And for her sake I will not part with him.
+
+OBERON.
+How long within this wood intend you stay?
+
+TITANIA.
+Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.
+If you will patiently dance in our round,
+And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
+If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
+
+OBERON.
+Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
+
+TITANIA.
+Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
+We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
+
+ [_Exit Titania with her Train._]
+
+OBERON.
+Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
+Till I torment thee for this injury.—
+My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
+Since once I sat upon a promontory,
+And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
+Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
+That the rude sea grew civil at her song
+And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
+To hear the sea-maid’s music.
+
+PUCK.
+I remember.
+
+OBERON.
+That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not),
+Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
+Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
+At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west,
+And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow
+As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
+But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
+Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
+And the imperial votress passed on,
+In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
+Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
+It fell upon a little western flower,
+Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
+And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
+Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once:
+The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
+Will make or man or woman madly dote
+Upon the next live creature that it sees.
+Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
+Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
+
+PUCK.
+I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
+In forty minutes.
+
+ [_Exit Puck._]
+
+OBERON.
+Having once this juice,
+I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
+And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
+The next thing then she waking looks upon
+(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
+On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
+She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
+And ere I take this charm from off her sight
+(As I can take it with another herb)
+I’ll make her render up her page to me.
+But who comes here? I am invisible;
+And I will overhear their conference.
+
+ Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
+Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
+The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
+Thou told’st me they were stol’n into this wood,
+And here am I, and wode within this wood
+Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
+Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
+
+HELENA.
+You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant,
+But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
+Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
+And I shall have no power to follow you.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
+Or rather do I not in plainest truth
+Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
+
+HELENA.
+And even for that do I love you the more.
+I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
+The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
+Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
+Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
+Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
+What worser place can I beg in your love,
+(And yet a place of high respect with me)
+Than to be usèd as you use your dog?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
+For I am sick when I do look on thee.
+
+HELENA.
+And I am sick when I look not on you.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+You do impeach your modesty too much
+To leave the city and commit yourself
+Into the hands of one that loves you not,
+To trust the opportunity of night.
+And the ill counsel of a desert place,
+With the rich worth of your virginity.
+
+HELENA.
+Your virtue is my privilege: for that.
+It is not night when I do see your face,
+Therefore I think I am not in the night;
+Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
+For you, in my respect, are all the world.
+Then how can it be said I am alone
+When all the world is here to look on me?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
+And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
+
+HELENA.
+The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
+Run when you will, the story shall be chang’d;
+Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
+The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind
+Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed,
+When cowardice pursues and valour flies!
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
+Or if thou follow me, do not believe
+But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
+
+HELENA.
+Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
+You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
+Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
+We cannot fight for love as men may do.
+We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
+
+ [_Exit Demetrius._]
+
+I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
+To die upon the hand I love so well.
+
+ [_Exit Helena._]
+
+OBERON.
+Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
+Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
+
+ Enter Puck.
+
+Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
+
+PUCK.
+Ay, there it is.
+
+OBERON.
+I pray thee give it me.
+I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
+Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
+Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
+With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
+There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
+Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
+And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
+Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
+And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
+And make her full of hateful fantasies.
+Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
+A sweet Athenian lady is in love
+With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes;
+But do it when the next thing he espies
+May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
+By the Athenian garments he hath on.
+Effect it with some care, that he may prove
+More fond on her than she upon her love:
+And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
+
+PUCK.
+Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+SCENE II. Another part of the wood
+
+ Enter Titania with her Train.
+
+TITANIA.
+Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
+Then for the third part of a minute, hence;
+Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
+Some war with reremice for their leathern wings,
+To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
+The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
+At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
+Then to your offices, and let me rest.
+
+Fairies sing.
+
+FIRST FAIRY.
+    You spotted snakes with double tongue,
+       Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
+    Newts and blind-worms do no wrong,
+       Come not near our Fairy Queen:
+
+CHORUS.
+    Philomel, with melody,
+    Sing in our sweet lullaby:
+Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
+    Never harm, nor spell, nor charm,
+    Come our lovely lady nigh;
+    So good night, with lullaby.
+
+FIRST FAIRY.
+    Weaving spiders, come not here;
+       Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence.
+    Beetles black, approach not near;
+       Worm nor snail do no offence.
+
+CHORUS.
+    Philomel with melody, &c.
+
+SECOND FAIRY.
+Hence away! Now all is well.
+One aloof stand sentinel.
+
+ [_Exeunt Fairies. Titania sleeps._]
+
+ Enter Oberon.
+
+OBERON.
+What thou seest when thou dost wake,
+
+ [_Squeezes the flower on  Titania’s eyelids._]
+
+Do it for thy true love take;
+Love and languish for his sake.
+Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
+Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
+In thy eye that shall appear
+When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
+Wake when some vile thing is near.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+ Enter Lysander and Hermia.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood.
+And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way.
+We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
+And tarry for the comfort of the day.
+
+HERMIA.
+Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
+For I upon this bank will rest my head.
+
+LYSANDER.
+One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
+One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
+
+HERMIA.
+Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
+Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.
+
+LYSANDER.
+O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
+Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
+I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
+So that but one heart we can make of it:
+Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath,
+So then two bosoms and a single troth.
+Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
+For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
+
+HERMIA.
+Lysander riddles very prettily.
+Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
+If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
+But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
+Lie further off, in human modesty,
+Such separation as may well be said
+Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
+So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend:
+Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
+
+LYSANDER.
+Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
+And then end life when I end loyalty!
+Here is my bed. Sleep give thee all his rest!
+
+HERMIA.
+With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be pressed!
+
+ [_They sleep._]
+
+ Enter Puck.
+
+PUCK.
+Through the forest have I gone,
+But Athenian found I none,
+On whose eyes I might approve
+This flower’s force in stirring love.
+Night and silence! Who is here?
+Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
+This is he, my master said,
+Despisèd the Athenian maid;
+And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
+On the dank and dirty ground.
+Pretty soul, she durst not lie
+Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
+Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
+All the power this charm doth owe;
+When thou wak’st let love forbid
+Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
+So awake when I am gone;
+For I must now to Oberon.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+ Enter Demetrius and Helena, running.
+
+HELENA.
+Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
+
+HELENA.
+O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Stay, on thy peril; I alone will go.
+
+ [_Exit Demetrius._]
+
+HELENA.
+O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
+The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
+Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies,
+For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.
+How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.
+If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.
+No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
+For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
+Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
+Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
+What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
+Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?
+But who is here? Lysander, on the ground!
+Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
+Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
+
+LYSANDER.
+[_Waking._] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
+Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
+That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
+Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
+Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
+
+HELENA.
+Do not say so, Lysander, say not so.
+What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
+Yet Hermia still loves you. Then be content.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Content with Hermia? No, I do repent
+The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
+Not Hermia, but Helena I love.
+Who will not change a raven for a dove?
+The will of man is by his reason sway’d,
+And reason says you are the worthier maid.
+Things growing are not ripe until their season;
+So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
+And touching now the point of human skill,
+Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
+And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook
+Love’s stories, written in love’s richest book.
+
+HELENA.
+Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
+When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
+Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,
+That I did never, no, nor never can
+Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,
+But you must flout my insufficiency?
+Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
+In such disdainful manner me to woo.
+But fare you well; perforce I must confess,
+I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
+O, that a lady of one man refus’d,
+Should of another therefore be abus’d!
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+LYSANDER.
+She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,
+And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
+For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
+The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;
+Or as the heresies that men do leave
+Are hated most of those they did deceive;
+So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
+Of all be hated, but the most of me!
+And, all my powers, address your love and might
+To honour Helen, and to be her knight!
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+HERMIA.
+[_Starting._] Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
+To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
+Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
+Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
+Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
+And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
+Lysander! What, removed? Lysander! lord!
+What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?
+Alack, where are you? Speak, and if you hear;
+Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
+No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
+Either death or you I’ll find immediately.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+
+ACT III
+
+SCENE I. The Wood.
+
+ The Queen of Fairies still lying asleep.
+
+ Enter Bottom, Quince, Snout, Starveling, Snug and Flute.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Are we all met?
+
+QUINCE.
+Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal.
+This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our
+tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the
+Duke.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Peter Quince?
+
+QUINCE.
+What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
+
+BOTTOM.
+There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never
+please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the
+ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
+
+SNOUT
+By’r lakin, a parlous fear.
+
+STARVELING.
+I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and
+let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and
+that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the more better assurance,
+tell them that I Pyramus am not Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This
+will put them out of fear.
+
+QUINCE.
+Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight
+and six.
+
+BOTTOM.
+No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
+
+SNOUT
+Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
+
+STARVELING.
+I fear it, I promise you.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves, to bring in (God shield
+us!) a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing. For there is not a
+more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to
+it.
+
+SNOUT
+Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the
+lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the
+same defect: ‘Ladies,’ or, ‘Fair ladies, I would wish you,’ or, ‘I
+would request you,’ or, ’I would entreat you, not to fear, not to
+tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it
+were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men
+are’: and there, indeed, let him name his name, and tell them plainly
+he is Snug the joiner.
+
+QUINCE.
+Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things: that is, to bring
+the moonlight into a chamber, for you know, Pyramus and Thisbe meet by
+moonlight.
+
+SNOUT
+Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
+
+BOTTOM.
+A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out moonshine, find
+out moonshine.
+
+QUINCE.
+Yes, it doth shine that night.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where
+we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.
+
+QUINCE.
+Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and
+say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Then
+there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for
+Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a
+wall.
+
+SNOUT
+You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
+
+BOTTOM.
+Some man or other must present Wall. And let him have some plaster, or
+some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him
+hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe
+whisper.
+
+QUINCE.
+If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son,
+and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your
+speech, enter into that brake; and so everyone according to his cue.
+
+ Enter Puck behind.
+
+PUCK.
+What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,
+So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
+What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor;
+An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
+
+QUINCE.
+Speak, Pyramus.—Thisbe, stand forth.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+_Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet_
+
+QUINCE.
+Odours, odours.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+_. . . odours savours sweet.
+So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.
+But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
+And by and by I will to thee appear._
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+PUCK.
+A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here!
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+THISBE.
+Must I speak now?
+
+QUINCE.
+Ay, marry, must you, For you must understand he goes but to see a noise
+that he heard, and is to come again.
+
+THISBE.
+_Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
+Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
+Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
+As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire,
+I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb._
+
+QUINCE.
+Ninus’ tomb, man! Why, you must not speak that yet. That you answer to
+Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues, and all.—Pyramus enter!
+Your cue is past; it is ‘never tire.’
+
+THISBE.
+O, _As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire._
+
+ Enter Puck and Bottom with an ass’s head.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+_If I were fair, Thisbe, I were only thine._
+
+QUINCE.
+O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters, fly, masters!
+Help!
+
+ [_Exeunt Clowns._]
+
+PUCK.
+I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round,
+   Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;
+Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
+   A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
+And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
+Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+BOTTOM.
+Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard.
+
+ Enter Snout.
+
+SNOUT
+O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?
+
+BOTTOM.
+What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
+
+ [_Exit Snout._]
+
+ Enter Quince.
+
+QUINCE.
+Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! Thou art translated.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+BOTTOM.
+I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me, to fright me, if
+they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I
+will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am
+not afraid.
+[_Sings._]
+       The ousel cock, so black of hue,
+          With orange-tawny bill,
+       The throstle with his note so true,
+          The wren with little quill.
+
+TITANIA.
+[_Waking._] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
+
+BOTTOM.
+[_Sings._]
+       The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
+          The plain-song cuckoo gray,
+       Whose note full many a man doth mark,
+          And dares not answer nay.
+for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give
+a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’ never so?
+
+TITANIA.
+I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
+Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note.
+So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape;
+And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me,
+On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to
+say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
+The more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them
+friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
+
+TITANIA.
+Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I
+have enough to serve mine own turn.
+
+TITANIA.
+Out of this wood do not desire to go.
+Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
+I am a spirit of no common rate.
+The summer still doth tend upon my state;
+And I do love thee: therefore, go with me.
+I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
+And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
+And sing, while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep.
+And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
+That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.—
+Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
+
+ Enter four Fairies.
+
+PEASEBLOSSOM.
+Ready.
+
+
+COBWEB.
+And I.
+
+
+MOTH.
+And I.
+
+
+MUSTARDSEED.
+And I.
+
+
+ALL.
+Where shall we go?
+
+TITANIA.
+Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
+Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
+Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
+With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
+The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
+And for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs,
+And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
+To have my love to bed and to arise;
+And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
+To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
+Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
+
+
+PEASEBLOSSOM.
+Hail, mortal!
+
+
+COBWEB.
+Hail!
+
+
+MOTH.
+Hail!
+
+
+MUSTARDSEED.
+Hail!
+
+BOTTOM.
+I cry your worships mercy, heartily.—I beseech your worship’s name.
+
+COBWEB.
+Cobweb.
+
+BOTTOM.
+I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb. If I cut
+my finger, I shall make bold with you.—Your name, honest gentleman?
+
+PEASEBLOSSOM.
+Peaseblossom.
+
+BOTTOM.
+I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and to Master
+Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of
+more acquaintance too.—Your name, I beseech you, sir?
+
+MUSTARDSEED.
+Mustardseed.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That same cowardly
+giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house. I
+promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire you
+of more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.
+
+TITANIA.
+Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
+   The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye,
+And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
+   Lamenting some enforced chastity.
+Tie up my love’s tongue, bring him silently.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+SCENE II. Another part of the wood
+
+ Enter Oberon.
+
+OBERON.
+I wonder if Titania be awak’d;
+Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
+Which she must dote on in extremity.
+
+ Enter Puck.
+
+Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit?
+What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
+
+PUCK.
+My mistress with a monster is in love.
+Near to her close and consecrated bower,
+While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
+A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
+That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
+Were met together to rehearse a play
+Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial day.
+The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort
+Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
+Forsook his scene and enter’d in a brake.
+When I did him at this advantage take,
+An ass’s nole I fixed on his head.
+Anon, his Thisbe must be answerèd,
+And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
+As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
+Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
+Rising and cawing at the gun’s report,
+Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
+So at his sight away his fellows fly,
+And at our stamp, here o’er and o’er one falls;
+He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
+Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears, thus strong,
+Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
+For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
+Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
+I led them on in this distracted fear,
+And left sweet Pyramus translated there.
+When in that moment, so it came to pass,
+Titania wak’d, and straightway lov’d an ass.
+
+OBERON.
+This falls out better than I could devise.
+But hast thou yet latch’d the Athenian’s eyes
+With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
+
+PUCK.
+I took him sleeping—that is finish’d too—
+And the Athenian woman by his side,
+That, when he wak’d, of force she must be ey’d.
+
+ Enter Demetrius and Hermia.
+
+OBERON.
+Stand close. This is the same Athenian.
+
+PUCK.
+This is the woman, but not this the man.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+O why rebuke you him that loves you so?
+Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
+
+HERMIA.
+Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
+For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
+If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
+Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
+And kill me too.
+The sun was not so true unto the day
+As he to me. Would he have stol’n away
+From sleeping Hermia? I’ll believe as soon
+This whole earth may be bor’d, and that the moon
+May through the centre creep and so displease
+Her brother’s noontide with th’ Antipodes.
+It cannot be but thou hast murder’d him.
+So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+So should the murder’d look, and so should I,
+Pierc’d through the heart with your stern cruelty.
+Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
+As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
+
+HERMIA.
+What’s this to my Lysander? Where is he?
+Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
+
+HERMIA.
+Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou driv’st me past the bounds
+Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
+Henceforth be never number’d among men!
+O once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!
+Durst thou have look’d upon him, being awake,
+And hast thou kill’d him sleeping? O brave touch!
+Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
+An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
+Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+You spend your passion on a mispris’d mood:
+I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood;
+Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
+
+HERMIA.
+I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+And if I could, what should I get therefore?
+
+HERMIA.
+A privilege never to see me more.
+And from thy hated presence part I so:
+See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+There is no following her in this fierce vein.
+Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
+So sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier grow
+For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;
+Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
+If for his tender here I make some stay.
+
+ [_Lies down._]
+
+OBERON.
+What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,
+And laid the love-juice on some true-love’s sight.
+Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
+Some true love turn’d, and not a false turn’d true.
+
+PUCK.
+Then fate o’er-rules, that, one man holding troth,
+A million fail, confounding oath on oath.
+
+OBERON.
+About the wood go swifter than the wind,
+And Helena of Athens look thou find.
+All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer
+With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear.
+By some illusion see thou bring her here;
+I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear.
+
+PUCK.
+I go, I go; look how I go,
+Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+OBERON.
+    Flower of this purple dye,
+    Hit with Cupid’s archery,
+    Sink in apple of his eye.
+    When his love he doth espy,
+    Let her shine as gloriously
+    As the Venus of the sky.—
+    When thou wak’st, if she be by,
+    Beg of her for remedy.
+
+ Enter Puck.
+
+PUCK.
+    Captain of our fairy band,
+    Helena is here at hand,
+    And the youth mistook by me,
+    Pleading for a lover’s fee.
+    Shall we their fond pageant see?
+    Lord, what fools these mortals be!
+
+OBERON.
+    Stand aside. The noise they make
+    Will cause Demetrius to awake.
+
+PUCK.
+    Then will two at once woo one.
+    That must needs be sport alone;
+    And those things do best please me
+    That befall prepost’rously.
+
+ Enter Lysander and Helena.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
+Scorn and derision never come in tears.
+Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
+In their nativity all truth appears.
+How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
+Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?
+
+HELENA.
+You do advance your cunning more and more.
+When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!
+These vows are Hermia’s: will you give her o’er?
+Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:
+Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
+Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.
+
+LYSANDER.
+I had no judgment when to her I swore.
+
+HELENA.
+Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+[_Waking._] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
+To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
+Crystal is muddy. O how ripe in show
+Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
+That pure congealèd white, high Taurus’ snow,
+Fann’d with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
+When thou hold’st up thy hand. O, let me kiss
+This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
+
+HELENA.
+O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
+To set against me for your merriment.
+If you were civil, and knew courtesy,
+You would not do me thus much injury.
+Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
+But you must join in souls to mock me too?
+If you were men, as men you are in show,
+You would not use a gentle lady so;
+To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
+When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
+You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
+And now both rivals, to mock Helena.
+A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
+To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
+With your derision! None of noble sort
+Would so offend a virgin, and extort
+A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.
+
+LYSANDER.
+You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so,
+For you love Hermia; this you know I know.
+And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
+In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part;
+And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
+Whom I do love and will do till my death.
+
+HELENA.
+Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.
+If e’er I lov’d her, all that love is gone.
+My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn’d;
+And now to Helen is it home return’d,
+There to remain.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Helen, it is not so.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
+Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.
+Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.
+
+ Enter Hermia.
+
+HERMIA.
+Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
+The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
+Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
+It pays the hearing double recompense.
+Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
+Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
+But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
+
+HERMIA.
+What love could press Lysander from my side?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,
+Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
+Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
+Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know
+The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?
+
+HERMIA.
+You speak not as you think; it cannot be.
+
+HELENA.
+Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
+Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three
+To fashion this false sport in spite of me.
+Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid!
+Have you conspir’d, have you with these contriv’d,
+To bait me with this foul derision?
+Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d,
+The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,
+When we have chid the hasty-footed time
+For parting us—O, is all forgot?
+All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
+We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
+Have with our needles created both one flower,
+Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
+Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
+As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
+Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
+Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
+But yet a union in partition,
+Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
+So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
+Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
+Due but to one, and crownèd with one crest.
+And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
+To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
+It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly.
+Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
+Though I alone do feel the injury.
+
+HERMIA.
+I am amazèd at your passionate words:
+I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.
+
+HELENA.
+Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
+To follow me, and praise my eyes and face?
+And made your other love, Demetrius,
+Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
+To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
+Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
+To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
+Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
+And tender me, forsooth, affection,
+But by your setting on, by your consent?
+What though I be not so in grace as you,
+So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
+But miserable most, to love unlov’d?
+This you should pity rather than despise.
+
+HERMIA.
+I understand not what you mean by this.
+
+HELENA.
+Ay, do. Persever, counterfeit sad looks,
+Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
+Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up.
+This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
+If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
+You would not make me such an argument.
+But fare ye well. ’Tis partly my own fault,
+Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;
+My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
+
+HELENA.
+O excellent!
+
+HERMIA.
+Sweet, do not scorn her so.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;
+Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
+Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;
+I swear by that which I will lose for thee
+To prove him false that says I love thee not.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I say I love thee more than he can do.
+
+LYSANDER.
+If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Quick, come.
+
+HERMIA.
+Lysander, whereto tends all this?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Away, you Ethiope!
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+No, no. He will
+Seem to break loose. Take on as you would follow,
+But yet come not. You are a tame man, go!
+
+LYSANDER.
+Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,
+Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
+
+HERMIA.
+Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
+Sweet love?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Thy love? Out, tawny Tartar, out!
+Out, loathèd medicine! O hated potion, hence!
+
+HERMIA.
+Do you not jest?
+
+HELENA.
+Yes, sooth, and so do you.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+I would I had your bond; for I perceive
+A weak bond holds you; I’ll not trust your word.
+
+LYSANDER.
+What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
+Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
+
+HERMIA.
+What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
+Hate me? Wherefore? O me! what news, my love?
+Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
+I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
+Since night you lov’d me; yet since night you left me.
+Why then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!—
+In earnest, shall I say?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Ay, by my life;
+And never did desire to see thee more.
+Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
+Be certain, nothing truer; ’tis no jest
+That I do hate thee and love Helena.
+
+HERMIA.
+O me! You juggler! You cankerblossom!
+You thief of love! What! have you come by night
+And stol’n my love’s heart from him?
+
+HELENA.
+Fine, i’ faith!
+Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
+No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
+Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
+Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
+
+HERMIA.
+Puppet! Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
+Now I perceive that she hath made compare
+Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height;
+And with her personage, her tall personage,
+Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him.
+And are you grown so high in his esteem
+Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
+How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak,
+How low am I? I am not yet so low
+But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
+
+HELENA.
+I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
+Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
+I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
+I am a right maid for my cowardice;
+Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
+Because she is something lower than myself,
+That I can match her.
+
+HERMIA.
+Lower! Hark, again.
+
+HELENA.
+Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
+I evermore did love you, Hermia,
+Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you,
+Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
+I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
+He follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;
+But he hath chid me hence, and threaten’d me
+To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
+And now, so you will let me quiet go,
+To Athens will I bear my folly back,
+And follow you no further. Let me go:
+You see how simple and how fond I am.
+
+HERMIA.
+Why, get you gone. Who is’t that hinders you?
+
+HELENA.
+A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
+
+HERMIA.
+What! with Lysander?
+
+HELENA.
+With Demetrius.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
+
+HELENA.
+O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd.
+She was a vixen when she went to school,
+And though she be but little, she is fierce.
+
+HERMIA.
+Little again! Nothing but low and little?
+Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
+Let me come to her.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Get you gone, you dwarf;
+You minimus, of hind’ring knot-grass made;
+You bead, you acorn.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+You are too officious
+In her behalf that scorns your services.
+Let her alone. Speak not of Helena;
+Take not her part; for if thou dost intend
+Never so little show of love to her,
+Thou shalt aby it.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Now she holds me not.
+Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,
+Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Follow! Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jole.
+
+ [_Exeunt Lysander and Demetrius._]
+
+HERMIA.
+You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
+Nay, go not back.
+
+HELENA.
+I will not trust you, I,
+Nor longer stay in your curst company.
+Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray.
+My legs are longer though, to run away.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+HERMIA.
+I am amaz’d, and know not what to say.
+
+ [_Exit, pursuing Helena._]
+
+OBERON.
+This is thy negligence: still thou mistak’st,
+Or else commit’st thy knaveries willfully.
+
+PUCK.
+Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
+Did not you tell me I should know the man
+By the Athenian garments he had on?
+And so far blameless proves my enterprise
+That I have ’nointed an Athenian’s eyes:
+And so far am I glad it so did sort,
+As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
+
+OBERON.
+Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
+Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
+The starry welkin cover thou anon
+With drooping fog, as black as Acheron,
+And lead these testy rivals so astray
+As one come not within another’s way.
+Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
+Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
+And sometime rail thou like Demetrius.
+And from each other look thou lead them thus,
+Till o’er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
+With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
+Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye,
+Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
+To take from thence all error with his might
+And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
+When they next wake, all this derision
+Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;
+And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
+With league whose date till death shall never end.
+Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
+I’ll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
+And then I will her charmèd eye release
+From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace.
+
+PUCK.
+My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
+For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;
+And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,
+At whose approach, ghosts wandering here and there
+Troop home to churchyards. Damnèd spirits all,
+That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
+Already to their wormy beds are gone;
+For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
+They wilfully themselves exile from light,
+And must for aye consort with black-brow’d night.
+
+OBERON.
+But we are spirits of another sort:
+I with the morning’s love have oft made sport;
+And, like a forester, the groves may tread
+Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
+Opening on Neptune with fair blessèd beams,
+Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams.
+But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay.
+We may effect this business yet ere day.
+
+ [_Exit Oberon._]
+
+PUCK.
+    Up and down, up and down,
+    I will lead them up and down.
+    I am fear’d in field and town.
+    Goblin, lead them up and down.
+Here comes one.
+
+ Enter Lysander.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
+
+PUCK.
+Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
+
+LYSANDER.
+I will be with thee straight.
+
+PUCK.
+Follow me then to plainer ground.
+
+ [_Exit Lysander as following the voice._]
+
+ Enter Demetrius.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Lysander, speak again.
+Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
+Speak. In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
+
+PUCK.
+Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
+Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
+And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child!
+I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defil’d
+That draws a sword on thee.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Yea, art thou there?
+
+PUCK.
+Follow my voice; we’ll try no manhood here.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+ Enter Lysander.
+
+LYSANDER.
+He goes before me, and still dares me on;
+When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
+The villain is much lighter-heel’d than I:
+I follow’d fast, but faster he did fly,
+That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
+And here will rest me.  Come, thou gentle day!
+[_Lies down._] For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
+I’ll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.
+
+ [_Sleeps._]
+
+ Enter Puck and Demetrius.
+
+PUCK.
+Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com’st thou not?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Abide me, if thou dar’st; for well I wot
+Thou runn’st before me, shifting every place,
+And dar’st not stand, nor look me in the face.
+Where art thou?
+
+PUCK.
+Come hither; I am here.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Nay, then, thou mock’st me. Thou shalt buy this dear
+If ever I thy face by daylight see:
+Now go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
+To measure out my length on this cold bed.
+By day’s approach look to be visited.
+
+ [_Lies down and sleeps._]
+
+ Enter Helena.
+
+HELENA.
+O weary night, O long and tedious night,
+    Abate thy hours! Shine, comforts, from the east,
+That I may back to Athens by daylight,
+    From these that my poor company detest.
+And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye,
+Steal me awhile from mine own company.
+
+ [_Sleeps._]
+
+PUCK.
+    Yet but three? Come one more.
+    Two of both kinds makes up four.
+    Here she comes, curst and sad.
+    Cupid is a knavish lad
+    Thus to make poor females mad.
+
+ Enter Hermia.
+
+HERMIA.
+Never so weary, never so in woe,
+   Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,
+I can no further crawl, no further go;
+   My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
+Here will I rest me till the break of day.
+Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
+
+ [_Lies down._]
+
+PUCK.
+         On the ground
+         Sleep sound.
+         I’ll apply
+         To your eye,
+       Gentle lover, remedy.
+
+ [_Squeezing the juice on Lysander’s eye._]
+
+         When thou wak’st,
+         Thou tak’st
+         True delight
+         In the sight
+       Of thy former lady’s eye.
+       And the country proverb known,
+       That every man should take his own,
+       In your waking shall be shown:
+         Jack shall have Jill;
+         Nought shall go ill;
+The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
+
+ [_Exit Puck._]
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+SCENE I. The Wood
+
+ Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia still asleep.
+
+ Enter Titania and Bottom; Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed and
+ other Fairies attending; Oberon behind, unseen.
+
+TITANIA.
+Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
+   While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
+And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
+   And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Where’s Peaseblossom?
+
+PEASEBLOSSOM.
+Ready.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?
+
+COBWEB.
+Ready.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand and
+kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
+monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the
+action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break
+not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.
+Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?
+
+MUSTARDSEED.
+Ready.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy,
+good monsieur.
+
+MUSTARDSEED.
+What’s your will?
+
+BOTTOM.
+Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must
+to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the
+face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must
+scratch.
+
+TITANIA.
+What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
+
+BOTTOM.
+I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let us have the tongs and the
+bones.
+
+
+TITANIA.
+Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks
+I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no
+fellow.
+
+TITANIA.
+I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
+The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
+
+BOTTOM.
+I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let
+none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon
+me.
+
+TITANIA.
+Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
+Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.
+So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
+Gently entwist, the female ivy so
+Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
+O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!
+
+ [_They sleep._]
+
+ Oberon advances. Enter Puck.
+
+OBERON.
+Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?
+Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
+For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
+Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
+I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
+For she his hairy temples then had rounded
+With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
+And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
+Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
+Stood now within the pretty flouriets’ eyes,
+Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
+When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
+And she in mild terms begg’d my patience,
+I then did ask of her her changeling child;
+Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
+To bear him to my bower in fairyland.
+And now I have the boy, I will undo
+This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
+And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalp
+From off the head of this Athenian swain,
+That he awaking when the other do,
+May all to Athens back again repair,
+And think no more of this night’s accidents
+But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
+But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
+
+ [_Touching her eyes with an herb._]
+
+    Be as thou wast wont to be;
+    See as thou was wont to see.
+    Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
+    Hath such force and blessed power.
+Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
+
+TITANIA.
+My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
+Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.
+
+OBERON.
+There lies your love.
+
+TITANIA.
+How came these things to pass?
+O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
+
+OBERON.
+Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head.
+Titania, music call; and strike more dead
+Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.
+
+TITANIA.
+Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep.
+
+PUCK.
+Now when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.
+
+OBERON.
+Sound, music.
+
+ [_Still mucic._]
+
+Come, my queen, take hands with me,
+And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
+Now thou and I are new in amity,
+And will tomorrow midnight solemnly
+Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,
+And bless it to all fair prosperity:
+There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
+Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
+
+PUCK.
+    Fairy king, attend and mark.
+    I do hear the morning lark.
+
+OBERON.
+    Then, my queen, in silence sad,
+    Trip we after night’s shade.
+    We the globe can compass soon,
+    Swifter than the wand’ring moon.
+
+TITANIA.
+    Come, my lord, and in our flight,
+    Tell me how it came this night
+    That I sleeping here was found
+    With these mortals on the ground.
+
+ [_Exeunt. Horns sound within._]
+
+ Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train.
+
+THESEUS.
+Go, one of you, find out the forester;
+For now our observation is perform’d;
+And since we have the vaward of the day,
+My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
+Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
+Dispatch I say, and find the forester.
+
+ [_Exit an Attendant._]
+
+We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,
+And mark the musical confusion
+Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
+When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear
+With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear
+Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
+The skies, the fountains, every region near
+Seem’d all one mutual cry. I never heard
+So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
+
+THESEUS.
+My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
+So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung
+With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
+Crook-knee’d and dewlap’d like Thessalian bulls;
+Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,
+Each under each. A cry more tuneable
+Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
+In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
+Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these?
+
+EGEUS.
+My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
+And this Lysander; this Demetrius is;
+This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena:
+I wonder of their being here together.
+
+THESEUS.
+No doubt they rose up early to observe
+The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
+Came here in grace of our solemnity.
+But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
+That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
+
+EGEUS.
+It is, my lord.
+
+THESEUS.
+Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
+
+ Horns, and shout within. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena wake
+ and start up.
+
+Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.
+Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
+
+LYSANDER.
+Pardon, my lord.
+
+ He and the rest kneel to  Theseus.
+
+THESEUS.
+I pray you all, stand up.
+I know you two are rival enemies.
+How comes this gentle concord in the world,
+That hatred is so far from jealousy
+To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
+
+LYSANDER.
+My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
+Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
+I cannot truly say how I came here.
+But, as I think (for truly would I speak)
+And now I do bethink me, so it is:
+I came with Hermia hither. Our intent
+Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be,
+Without the peril of the Athenian law.
+
+EGEUS.
+Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough.
+I beg the law, the law upon his head.
+They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,
+Thereby to have defeated you and me:
+You of your wife, and me of my consent,
+Of my consent that she should be your wife.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
+Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
+And I in fury hither follow’d them,
+Fair Helena in fancy following me.
+But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,
+(But by some power it is) my love to Hermia,
+Melted as the snow, seems to me now
+As the remembrance of an idle gaud
+Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
+And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
+The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
+Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
+Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia.
+But like a sickness did I loathe this food.
+But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
+Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
+And will for evermore be true to it.
+
+THESEUS.
+Fair lovers, you are fortunately met.
+Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
+Egeus, I will overbear your will;
+For in the temple, by and by with us,
+These couples shall eternally be knit.
+And, for the morning now is something worn,
+Our purpos’d hunting shall be set aside.
+Away with us to Athens. Three and three,
+We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
+Come, Hippolyta.
+
+ [_Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train._]
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+These things seem small and undistinguishable,
+Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.
+
+HERMIA.
+Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
+When everything seems double.
+
+HELENA.
+So methinks.
+And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
+Mine own, and not mine own.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Are you sure
+That we are awake? It seems to me
+That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
+The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
+
+HERMIA.
+Yea, and my father.
+
+HELENA.
+And Hippolyta.
+
+LYSANDER.
+And he did bid us follow to the temple.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him,
+And by the way let us recount our dreams.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+BOTTOM.
+[_Waking._] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is
+‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender!
+Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God’s my life! Stol’n hence, and left me
+asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit
+of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to
+expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what.
+Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if
+he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not
+heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste,
+his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I
+will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be
+called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it
+in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it
+the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+
+SCENE II. Athens. A Room in Quince’s House
+
+ Enter Quince, Flute, Snout and Starveling.
+
+QUINCE.
+Have you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home yet?
+
+STARVELING.
+He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
+
+FLUTE.
+If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward, doth it?
+
+QUINCE.
+It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able to discharge
+Pyramus but he.
+
+FLUTE.
+No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.
+
+QUINCE.
+Yea, and the best person too, and he is a very paramour for a sweet
+voice.
+
+
+FLUTE.
+You must say paragon. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.
+
+ Enter Snug.
+
+SNUG
+Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three
+lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we had
+all been made men.
+
+FLUTE.
+O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life;
+he could not have ’scaped sixpence a day. An the Duke had not given him
+sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged. He would have
+deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.
+
+ Enter Bottom.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
+
+QUINCE.
+Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
+
+BOTTOM.
+Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell
+you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it
+fell out.
+
+QUINCE.
+Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
+
+BOTTOM.
+Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the Duke hath
+dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new
+ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look
+o’er his part. For the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In
+any case, let Thisbe have clean linen; and let not him that plays the
+lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And
+most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet
+breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy.
+No more words. Away! Go, away!
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT V
+
+SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
+
+ Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, Lords and Attendants.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
+
+THESEUS.
+More strange than true. I never may believe
+These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
+Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
+Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
+More than cool reason ever comprehends.
+The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
+Are of imagination all compact:
+One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
+That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
+Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
+The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
+Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
+And as imagination bodies forth
+The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
+Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
+A local habitation and a name.
+Such tricks hath strong imagination,
+That if it would but apprehend some joy,
+It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
+Or in the night, imagining some fear,
+How easy is a bush supposed a bear?
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+But all the story of the night told over,
+And all their minds transfigur’d so together,
+More witnesseth than fancy’s images,
+And grows to something of great constancy;
+But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
+
+ Enter lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena.
+
+THESEUS.
+Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
+Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love
+Accompany your hearts!
+
+LYSANDER.
+More than to us
+Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
+
+THESEUS.
+Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
+To wear away this long age of three hours
+Between our after-supper and bed-time?
+Where is our usual manager of mirth?
+What revels are in hand? Is there no play
+To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
+Call Philostrate.
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+Here, mighty Theseus.
+
+THESEUS.
+Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?
+What masque? What music? How shall we beguile
+The lazy time, if not with some delight?
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+There is a brief how many sports are ripe.
+Make choice of which your Highness will see first.
+
+ [_Giving a paper._]
+
+THESEUS.
+[_Reads_] ‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
+By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.’
+We’ll none of that. That have I told my love
+In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
+‘The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
+Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage?’
+That is an old device, and it was play’d
+When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
+‘The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
+Of learning, late deceas’d in beggary.’
+That is some satire, keen and critical,
+Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
+‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
+And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.’
+Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
+That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
+How shall we find the concord of this discord?
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
+Which is as brief as I have known a play;
+But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
+Which makes it tedious. For in all the play
+There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
+And tragical, my noble lord, it is.
+For Pyramus therein doth kill himself,
+Which, when I saw rehears’d, I must confess,
+Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
+The passion of loud laughter never shed.
+
+THESEUS.
+What are they that do play it?
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
+Which never labour’d in their minds till now;
+And now have toil’d their unbreath’d memories
+With this same play against your nuptial.
+
+THESEUS.
+And we will hear it.
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+No, my noble lord,
+It is not for you: I have heard it over,
+And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
+Unless you can find sport in their intents,
+Extremely stretch’d and conn’d with cruel pain
+To do you service.
+
+THESEUS.
+I will hear that play;
+For never anything can be amiss
+When simpleness and duty tender it.
+Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
+
+ [_Exit Philostrate._]
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,
+And duty in his service perishing.
+
+THESEUS.
+Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+He says they can do nothing in this kind.
+
+THESEUS.
+The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
+Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
+And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
+Takes it in might, not merit.
+Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
+To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
+Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
+Make periods in the midst of sentences,
+Throttle their practis’d accent in their fears,
+And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
+Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
+Out of this silence yet I pick’d a welcome;
+And in the modesty of fearful duty
+I read as much as from the rattling tongue
+Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
+Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
+In least speak most to my capacity.
+
+ Enter Philostrate.
+
+PHILOSTRATE.
+So please your grace, the Prologue is address’d.
+
+THESEUS.
+Let him approach.
+
+ Flourish of trumpets. Enter the Prologue.
+
+PROLOGUE
+If we offend, it is with our good will.
+That you should think, we come not to offend,
+But with good will.  To show our simple skill,
+That is the true beginning of our end.
+Consider then, we come but in despite.
+We do not come, as minding to content you,
+Our true intent is.  All for your delight
+We are not here.  That you should here repent you,
+The actors are at hand, and, by their show,
+You shall know all that you are like to know.
+
+THESEUS.
+This fellow doth not stand upon points.
+
+LYSANDER.
+He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A
+good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder; a
+sound, but not in government.
+
+THESEUS.
+His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all
+disordered. Who is next?
+
+ Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine and Lion as in dumb show.
+
+PROLOGUE
+Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
+But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
+This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
+This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.
+This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
+Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sunder;
+And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content
+To whisper, at the which let no man wonder.
+This man, with lanthern, dog, and bush of thorn,
+Presenteth Moonshine, for, if you will know,
+By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
+To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo.
+This grisly beast (which Lion hight by name)
+The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night,
+Did scare away, or rather did affright;
+And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;
+Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
+Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth, and tall,
+And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain;
+Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
+He bravely broach’d his boiling bloody breast;
+And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,
+His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
+Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,
+At large discourse while here they do remain.
+
+ [_Exeunt Prologue, Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion and Moonshine._]
+
+THESEUS.
+I wonder if the lion be to speak.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+No wonder, my lord. One lion may, when many asses do.
+
+WALL.
+In this same interlude it doth befall
+That I, one Snout by name, present a wall:
+And such a wall as I would have you think
+That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
+Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
+Did whisper often very secretly.
+This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show
+That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
+And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
+Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
+
+THESEUS.
+Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.
+
+THESEUS.
+Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.
+
+ Enter Pyramus.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black!
+O night, which ever art when day is not!
+O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
+I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!
+And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
+That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine;
+Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
+Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
+
+ [_Wall holds up his fingers._]
+
+Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
+But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
+O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,
+Curs’d be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
+
+THESEUS.
+The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+No, in truth, sir, he should not. ‘Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s cue: she
+is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see it
+will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
+
+ Enter Thisbe.
+
+THISBE.
+O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
+For parting my fair Pyramus and me.
+My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,
+Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+I see a voice; now will I to the chink,
+To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.
+Thisbe?
+
+THISBE.
+My love thou art, my love I think.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace;
+And like Limander am I trusty still.
+
+THISBE.
+And I like Helen, till the fates me kill.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
+
+THISBE.
+As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
+
+THISBE.
+I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
+
+THISBE.
+’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.
+
+WALL.
+Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
+And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
+
+ [_Exeunt Wall, Pyramus and Thisbe._]
+
+THESEUS.
+Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
+
+THESEUS.
+The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if
+imagination amend them.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
+
+THESEUS.
+If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass
+for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
+
+ Enter Lion and Moonshine.
+
+LION.
+You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
+The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
+May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
+When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
+Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
+A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam;
+For if I should as lion come in strife
+Into this place, ’twere pity on my life.
+
+THESEUS.
+A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.
+
+LYSANDER.
+This lion is a very fox for his valour.
+
+THESEUS.
+True; and a goose for his discretion.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Not so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the
+fox carries the goose.
+
+THESEUS.
+His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose
+carries not the fox. It is well; leave it to his discretion, and let us
+listen to the moon.
+
+MOONSHINE.
+This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+He should have worn the horns on his head.
+
+THESEUS.
+He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the
+circumference.
+
+MOONSHINE.
+This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present;
+Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.
+
+THESEUS.
+This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into
+the lantern. How is it else the man i’ the moon?
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+He dares not come there for the candle, for you see, it is already in
+snuff.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
+
+THESEUS.
+It appears by his small light of discretion that he is in the wane; but
+yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Proceed, Moon.
+
+MOON
+All that I have to say, is to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I
+the man i’ the moon; this thorn-bush my thorn-bush; and this dog my
+dog.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Why, all these should be in the lantern, for all these are in the moon.
+But silence; here comes Thisbe.
+
+ Enter Thisbe.
+
+THISBE.
+This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
+
+LION.
+Oh!
+
+ [_The Lion roars, Thisbe runs off._]
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Well roared, Lion.
+
+THESEUS.
+Well run, Thisbe.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.
+
+ [_The Lion tears Thisbe’s mantle, and exit._]
+
+THESEUS.
+Well moused, Lion.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+And then came Pyramus.
+
+LYSANDER.
+And so the lion vanished.
+
+ Enter Pyramus.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
+I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
+For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,
+I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
+             But stay! O spite!
+             But mark, poor knight,
+         What dreadful dole is here!
+             Eyes, do you see?
+             How can it be?
+         O dainty duck! O dear!
+             Thy mantle good,
+             What, stained with blood?
+         Approach, ye Furies fell!
+             O Fates, come, come;
+             Cut thread and thrum;
+         Quail, rush, conclude, and quell!
+
+THESEUS.
+This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a
+man look sad.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
+
+PYRAMUS.
+O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame,
+Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear?
+Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
+That liv’d, that lov’d, that lik’d, that look’d with cheer.
+             Come, tears, confound!
+             Out, sword, and wound
+         The pap of Pyramus;
+             Ay, that left pap,
+             Where heart doth hop:
+         Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
+             Now am I dead,
+             Now am I fled;
+         My soul is in the sky.
+             Tongue, lose thy light!
+             Moon, take thy flight!
+         Now die, die, die, die, die.
+
+ [_Dies. Exit Moonshine._]
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
+
+LYSANDER.
+Less than an ace, man; for he is dead, he is nothing.
+
+THESEUS.
+With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and prove an ass.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her
+lover?
+
+
+THESEUS.
+She will find him by starlight.
+
+ Enter Thisbe.
+
+Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.
+
+HIPPOLYTA.
+Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she
+will be brief.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the
+better: he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us!
+
+LYSANDER.
+She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+And thus she means, _videlicet_—
+
+THISBE.
+             Asleep, my love?
+             What, dead, my dove?
+         O Pyramus, arise,
+             Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
+             Dead, dead? A tomb
+         Must cover thy sweet eyes.
+             These lily lips,
+             This cherry nose,
+         These yellow cowslip cheeks,
+             Are gone, are gone!
+             Lovers, make moan;
+         His eyes were green as leeks.
+             O Sisters Three,
+             Come, come to me,
+         With hands as pale as milk;
+             Lay them in gore,
+             Since you have shore
+         With shears his thread of silk.
+             Tongue, not a word:
+             Come, trusty sword,
+         Come, blade, my breast imbrue;
+             And farewell, friends.
+             Thus Thisbe ends.
+         Adieu, adieu, adieu.
+
+ [_Dies._]
+
+THESEUS.
+Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
+
+DEMETRIUS.
+Ay, and Wall too.
+
+BOTTOM.
+No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it
+please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between
+two of our company?
+
+THESEUS.
+No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse;
+for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. Marry,
+if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and hanged himself in Thisbe’s
+garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly; and
+very notably discharged. But come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue
+alone.
+
+ [_Here a dance of Clowns._]
+
+The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
+Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.
+I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
+As much as we this night have overwatch’d.
+This palpable-gross play hath well beguil’d
+The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
+A fortnight hold we this solemnity
+In nightly revels and new jollity.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+ Enter Puck.
+
+PUCK.
+   Now the hungry lion roars,
+      And the wolf behowls the moon;
+   Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
+      All with weary task fordone.
+   Now the wasted brands do glow,
+      Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
+   Puts the wretch that lies in woe
+      In remembrance of a shroud.
+   Now it is the time of night
+      That the graves, all gaping wide,
+   Every one lets forth his sprite,
+      In the church-way paths to glide.
+   And we fairies, that do run
+      By the triple Hecate’s team
+   From the presence of the sun,
+      Following darkness like a dream,
+   Now are frolic; not a mouse
+      Shall disturb this hallow’d house.
+   I am sent with broom before,
+      To sweep the dust behind the door.
+
+ Enter Oberon and Titania with their Train.
+
+OBERON.
+   Through the house give glimmering light,
+        By the dead and drowsy fire.
+   Every elf and fairy sprite
+        Hop as light as bird from brier,
+   And this ditty after me,
+   Sing and dance it trippingly.
+
+TITANIA.
+   First rehearse your song by rote,
+        To each word a warbling note;
+   Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
+   Will we sing, and bless this place.
+
+ [_Song and Dance._]
+
+OBERON.
+   Now, until the break of day,
+   Through this house each fairy stray.
+   To the best bride-bed will we,
+   Which by us shall blessèd be;
+   And the issue there create
+   Ever shall be fortunate.
+   So shall all the couples three
+   Ever true in loving be;
+   And the blots of Nature’s hand
+   Shall not in their issue stand:
+   Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
+   Nor mark prodigious, such as are
+   Despised in nativity,
+   Shall upon their children be.
+   With this field-dew consecrate,
+   Every fairy take his gait,
+   And each several chamber bless,
+   Through this palace, with sweet peace;
+   And the owner of it blest.
+   Ever shall it in safety rest,
+   Trip away. Make no stay;
+   Meet me all by break of day.
+
+ [_Exeunt Oberon, Titania and Train._]
+
+PUCK.
+   If we shadows have offended,
+   Think but this, and all is mended,
+   That you have but slumber’d here
+   While these visions did appear.
+   And this weak and idle theme,
+   No more yielding but a dream,
+   Gentles, do not reprehend.
+   If you pardon, we will mend.
+   And, as I am an honest Puck,
+   If we have unearnèd luck
+   Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,
+   We will make amends ere long;
+   Else the Puck a liar call.
+   So, good night unto you all.
+   Give me your hands, if we be friends,
+   And Robin shall restore amends.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupin b/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupin
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupin
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+Project Gutenberg's Arsene Lupin, by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Arsene Lupin
+
+Author: Edgar Jepson
+        Maurice Leblanc
+
+Posting Date: June 4, 2009 [EBook #4014]
+Release Date: May, 2003
+First Posted: March 15, 2002
+[Last updated. September 21, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSENE LUPIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ARSENE LUPIN
+
+
+BY
+
+
+EDGAR JEPSON AND MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+
+
+Frontispiece by H. Richard Boehm
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. THE MILLIONAIRE'S DAUGHTER
+    II. THE COMING OF THE CHAROLAIS
+   III. LUPIN'S WAY
+    IV. THE DUKE INTERVENES
+     V. A LETTER FROM LUPIN
+    VI. AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS
+   VII. THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS
+  VIII. THE DUKE ARRIVES
+    IX. M. FORMERY OPENS THE INQUIRY
+     X. GUERCHARD ASSISTS
+    XI. THE FAMILY ARRIVES
+   XII. THE THEFT OF THE PENDANT
+  XIII. LUPIN WIRES
+   XIV. GUERCHARD PICKS UP THE TRUE SCENT
+    XV. THE EXAMINATION OF SONIA
+   XVI. VICTOIRE'S SLIP
+  XVII. SONIA'S ESCAPE
+ XVIII. THE DUKE STAYS
+   XIX. THE DUKE GOES
+    XX. LUPIN COMES HOME
+   XXI. THE CUTTING OF THE TELEPHONE WIRES
+   XII. THE BARGAIN
+ XXIII. THE END OF THE DUEL
+
+
+
+
+ARSENE LUPIN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MILLIONAIRE'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+The rays of the September sun flooded the great halls of the old
+chateau of the Dukes of Charmerace, lighting up with their mellow glow
+the spoils of so many ages and many lands, jumbled together with the
+execrable taste which so often afflicts those whose only standard of
+value is money.  The golden light warmed the panelled walls and old
+furniture to a dull lustre, and gave back to the fading gilt of the
+First Empire chairs and couches something of its old brightness.  It
+illumined the long line of pictures on the walls, pictures of dead and
+gone Charmeraces, the stern or debonair faces of the men, soldiers,
+statesmen, dandies, the gentle or imperious faces of beautiful women.
+It flashed back from armour of brightly polished steel, and drew dull
+gleams from armour of bronze.  The hues of rare porcelain, of the rich
+inlays of Oriental or Renaissance cabinets, mingled with the hues of
+the pictures, the tapestry, the Persian rugs about the polished floor
+to fill the hall with a rich glow of colour.
+
+But of all the beautiful and precious things which the sun-rays warmed
+to a clearer beauty, the face of the girl who sat writing at a table in
+front of the long windows, which opened on to the centuries-old turf of
+the broad terrace, was the most beautiful and the most precious.
+
+It was a delicate, almost frail, beauty. Her skin was clear with the
+transparent lustre of old porcelain, and her pale cheeks were only
+tinted with the pink of the faintest roses. Her straight nose was
+delicately cut, her rounded chin admirably moulded. A lover of beauty
+would have been at a loss whether more to admire her clear, germander
+eyes, so melting and so adorable, or the sensitive mouth, with its
+rather full lips, inviting all the kisses. But assuredly he would have
+been grieved by the perpetual air of sadness which rested on the
+beautiful face--the wistful melancholy of the Slav, deepened by
+something of personal misfortune and suffering.
+
+Her face was framed by a mass of soft fair hair, shot with strands of
+gold where the sunlight fell on it; and little curls, rebellious to the
+comb, strayed over her white forehead, tiny feathers of gold.
+
+She was addressing envelopes, and a long list of names lay on her left
+hand. When she had addressed an envelope, she slipped into it a
+wedding-card. On each was printed:
+
+    "M. Gournay-Martin has the honour to inform
+     you of the marriage of his daughter
+     Germaine to the Duke of Charmerace."
+
+She wrote steadily on, adding envelope after envelope to the pile ready
+for the post, which rose in front of her. But now and again, when the
+flushed and laughing girls who were playing lawn-tennis on the terrace,
+raised their voices higher than usual as they called the score, and
+distracted her attention from her work, her gaze strayed through the
+open window and lingered on them wistfully; and as her eyes came back
+to her task she sighed with so faint a wistfulness that she hardly knew
+she sighed. Then a voice from the terrace cried, "Sonia! Sonia!"
+
+"Yes. Mlle. Germaine?" answered the writing girl.
+
+"Tea! Order tea, will you?" cried the voice, a petulant voice, rather
+harsh to the ear.
+
+"Very well, Mlle. Germaine," said Sonia; and having finished addressing
+the envelope under her pen, she laid it on the pile ready to be posted,
+and, crossing the room to the old, wide fireplace, she rang the bell.
+
+She stood by the fireplace a moment, restoring to its place a rose
+which had fallen from a vase on the mantelpiece; and her attitude, as
+with arms upraised she arranged the flowers, displayed the delightful
+line of a slender figure. As she let fall her arms to her side, a
+footman entered the room.
+
+"Will you please bring the tea, Alfred," she said in a charming voice
+of that pure, bell-like tone which has been Nature's most precious gift
+to but a few of the greatest actresses.
+
+"For how many, miss?" said Alfred.
+
+"For four--unless your master has come back."
+
+"Oh, no; he's not back yet, miss. He went in the car to Rennes to
+lunch; and it's a good many miles away. He won't be back for another
+hour."
+
+"And the Duke--he's not back from his ride yet, is he?"
+
+"Not yet, miss," said Alfred, turning to go.
+
+"One moment," said Sonia. "Have all of you got your things packed for
+the journey to Paris? You will have to start soon, you know. Are all
+the maids ready?"
+
+"Well, all the men are ready, I know, miss. But about the maids, miss,
+I can't say. They've been bustling about all day; but it takes them
+longer than it does us."
+
+"Tell them to hurry up; and be as quick as you can with the tea,
+please," said Sonia.
+
+Alfred went out of the room; Sonia went back to the writing-table. She
+did not take up her pen; she took up one of the wedding-cards; and her
+lips moved slowly as she read it in a pondering depression.
+
+The petulant, imperious voice broke in upon her musing.
+
+"Whatever are you doing, Sonia? Aren't you getting on with those
+letters?" it cried angrily; and Germaine Gournay-Martin came through
+the long window into the hall.
+
+The heiress to the Gournay-Martin millions carried her tennis racquet
+in her hand; and her rosy cheeks were flushed redder than ever by the
+game. She was a pretty girl in a striking, high-coloured, rather
+obvious way--the very foil to Sonia's delicate beauty. Her lips were a
+little too thin, her eyes too shallow; and together they gave her a
+rather hard air, in strongest contrast to the gentle, sympathetic face
+of Sonia.
+
+The two friends with whom Germaine had been playing tennis followed her
+into the hall: Jeanne Gautier, tall, sallow, dark, with a somewhat
+malicious air; Marie Bullier, short, round, commonplace, and
+sentimental.
+
+They came to the table at which Sonia was at work; and pointing to the
+pile of envelopes, Marie said, "Are these all wedding-cards?"
+
+"Yes; and we've only got to the letter V," said Germaine, frowning at
+Sonia.
+
+"Princesse de Vernan--Duchesse de Vauvieuse--Marquess--Marchioness?
+You've invited the whole Faubourg Saint-Germain," said Marie, shuffling
+the pile of envelopes with an envious air.
+
+"You'll know very few people at your wedding," said Jeanne, with a
+spiteful little giggle.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my dear," said Germaine boastfully. "Madame de
+Relzieres, my fiance's cousin, gave an At Home the other day in my
+honour. At it she introduced half Paris to me--the Paris I'm destined
+to know, the Paris you'll see in my drawing-rooms."
+
+"But we shall no longer be fit friends for you when you're the Duchess
+of Charmerace," said Jeanne.
+
+"Why?" said Germaine; and then she added quickly, "Above everything,
+Sonia, don't forget Veauleglise, 33, University Street--33, University
+Street."
+
+"Veauleglise--33, University Street," said Sonia, taking a fresh
+envelope, and beginning to address it.
+
+"Wait--wait! don't close the envelope. I'm wondering whether
+Veauleglise ought to have a cross, a double cross, or a triple cross,"
+said Germaine, with an air of extreme importance.
+
+"What's that?" cried Marie and Jeanne together.
+
+"A single cross means an invitation to the church, a double cross an
+invitation to the marriage and the wedding-breakfast, and the triple
+cross means an invitation to the marriage, the breakfast, and the
+signing of the marriage-contract. What do you think the Duchess of
+Veauleglise ought to have?"
+
+"Don't ask me. I haven't the honour of knowing that great lady," cried
+Jeanne.
+
+"Nor I," said Marie.
+
+"Nor I," said Germaine. "But I have here the visiting-list of the late
+Duchess of Charmerace, Jacques' mother. The two duchesses were on
+excellent terms. Besides the Duchess of Veauleglise is rather worn-out,
+but greatly admired for her piety. She goes to early service three
+times a week."
+
+"Then put three crosses," said Jeanne.
+
+"I shouldn't," said Marie quickly. "In your place, my dear, I shouldn't
+risk a slip. I should ask my fiance's advice. He knows this world."
+
+"Oh, goodness--my fiance! He doesn't care a rap about this kind of
+thing. He has changed so in the last seven years. Seven years ago he
+took nothing seriously. Why, he set off on an expedition to the South
+Pole--just to show off. Oh, in those days he was truly a duke."
+
+"And to-day?" said Jeanne.
+
+"Oh, to-day he's a regular slow-coach. Society gets on his nerves. He's
+as sober as a judge," said Germaine.
+
+"He's as gay as a lark," said Sonia, in sudden protest.
+
+Germaine pouted at her, and said: "Oh, he's gay enough when he's making
+fun of people. But apart from that he's as sober as a judge."
+
+"Your father must be delighted with the change," said Jeanne.
+
+"Naturally he's delighted. Why, he's lunching at Rennes to-day with the
+Minister, with the sole object of getting Jacques decorated."
+
+"Well; the Legion of Honour is a fine thing to have," said Marie.
+
+"My dear! The Legion of Honour is all very well for middle-class
+people, but it's quite out of place for a duke!" cried Germaine.
+
+Alfred came in, bearing the tea-tray, and set it on a little table near
+that at which Sonia was sitting.
+
+Germaine, who was feeling too important to sit still, was walking up
+and down the room. Suddenly she stopped short, and pointing to a silver
+statuette which stood on the piano, she said, "What's this? Why is this
+statuette here?"
+
+"Why, when we came in, it was on the cabinet, in its usual place," said
+Sonia in some astonishment.
+
+"Did you come into the hall while we were out in the garden, Alfred?"
+said Germaine to the footman.
+
+"No, miss," said Alfred.
+
+"But some one must have come into it," Germaine persisted.
+
+"I've not heard any one. I was in my pantry," said Alfred.
+
+"It's very odd," said Germaine.
+
+"It is odd," said Sonia. "Statuettes don't move about of themselves."
+
+All of them stared at the statuette as if they expected it to move
+again forthwith, under their very eyes. Then Alfred put it back in its
+usual place on one of the cabinets, and went out of the room.
+
+Sonia poured out the tea; and over it they babbled about the coming
+marriage, the frocks they would wear at it, and the presents Germaine
+had already received. That reminded her to ask Sonia if any one had yet
+telephoned from her father's house in Paris; and Sonia said that no one
+had.
+
+"That's very annoying," said Germaine. "It shows that nobody has sent
+me a present to-day."
+
+Pouting, she shrugged her shoulders with an air of a spoiled child,
+which sat but poorly on a well-developed young woman of twenty-three.
+
+"It's Sunday. The shops don't deliver things on Sunday," said Sonia
+gently.
+
+But Germaine still pouted like a spoiled child.
+
+"Isn't your beautiful Duke coming to have tea with us?" said Jeanne a
+little anxiously.
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm expecting him at half-past four. He had to go for a ride
+with the two Du Buits. They're coming to tea here, too," said Germaine.
+
+"Gone for a ride with the two Du Buits? But when?" cried Marie quickly.
+
+"This afternoon."
+
+"He can't be," said Marie. "My brother went to the Du Buits' house
+after lunch, to see Andre and Georges. They went for a drive this
+morning, and won't be back till late to-night."
+
+"Well, but--but why did the Duke tell me so?" said Germaine, knitting
+her brow with a puzzled air.
+
+"If I were you, I should inquire into this thoroughly. Dukes--well, we
+know what dukes are--it will be just as well to keep an eye on him,"
+said Jeanne maliciously.
+
+Germaine flushed quickly; and her eyes flashed. "Thank you. I have
+every confidence in Jacques. I am absolutely sure of him," she said
+angrily.
+
+"Oh, well--if you're sure, it's all right," said Jeanne.
+
+The ringing of the telephone-bell made a fortunate diversion.
+
+Germaine rushed to it, clapped the receiver to her ear, and cried:
+"Hello, is that you, Pierre? ... Oh, it's Victoire, is it? ... Ah, some
+presents have come, have they? ... Well, well, what are they? ... What!
+a paper-knife--another paper-knife! ... Another Louis XVI.
+inkstand--oh, bother! ... Who are they from? ... Oh, from the Countess
+Rudolph and the Baron de Valery." Her voice rose high, thrilling with
+pride.
+
+Then she turned her face to her friends, with the receiver still at her
+ear, and cried: "Oh, girls, a pearl necklace too! A large one! The
+pearls are big ones!"
+
+"How jolly!" said Marie.
+
+"Who sent it?" said Germaine, turning to the telephone again. "Oh, a
+friend of papa's," she added in a tone of disappointment. "Never mind,
+after all it's a pearl necklace. You'll be sure and lock the doors
+carefully, Victoire, won't you? And lock up the necklace in the secret
+cupboard.... Yes; thanks very much, Victoire. I shall see you
+to-morrow."
+
+She hung up the receiver, and came away from the telephone frowning.
+
+"It's preposterous!" she said pettishly. "Papa's friends and relations
+give me marvellous presents, and all the swells send me paper-knives.
+It's all Jacques' fault. He's above all this kind of thing. The
+Faubourg Saint-Germain hardly knows that we're engaged."
+
+"He doesn't go about advertising it," said Jeanne, smiling.
+
+"You're joking, but all the same what you say is true," said Germaine.
+"That's exactly what his cousin Madame de Relzieres said to me the
+other day at the At Home she gave in my honour--wasn't it, Sonia?" And
+she walked to the window, and, turning her back on them, stared out of
+it.
+
+"She HAS got her mouth full of that At Home," said Jeanne to Marie in a
+low voice.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Marie broke it:
+
+"Speaking of Madame de Relzieres, do you know that she is on pins and
+needles with anxiety? Her son is fighting a duel to-day," she said.
+
+"With whom?" said Sonia.
+
+"No one knows. She got hold of a letter from the seconds," said Marie.
+
+"My mind is quite at rest about Relzieres," said Germaine. "He's a
+first-class swordsman. No one could beat him."
+
+Sonia did not seem to share her freedom from anxiety. Her forehead was
+puckered in little lines of perplexity, as if she were puzzling out
+some problem; and there was a look of something very like fear in her
+gentle eyes.
+
+"Wasn't Relzieres a great friend of your fiance at one time?" said
+Jeanne.
+
+"A great friend? I should think he was," said Germaine. "Why, it was
+through Relzieres that we got to know Jacques."
+
+"Where was that?" said Marie.
+
+"Here--in this very chateau," said Germaine.
+
+"Actually in his own house?" said Marie, in some surprise.
+
+"Yes; actually here. Isn't life funny?" said Germaine. "If, a few
+months after his father's death, Jacques had not found himself hard-up,
+and obliged to dispose of this chateau, to raise the money for his
+expedition to the South Pole; and if papa and I had not wanted an
+historic chateau; and lastly, if papa had not suffered from rheumatism,
+I should not be calling myself in a month from now the Duchess of
+Charmerace."
+
+"Now what on earth has your father's rheumatism got to do with your
+being Duchess of Charmerace?" cried Jeanne.
+
+"Everything," said Germaine. "Papa was afraid that this chateau was
+damp. To prove to papa that he had nothing to fear, Jacques, en grand
+seigneur, offered him his hospitality, here, at Charmerace, for three
+weeks."
+
+"That was truly ducal," said Marie.
+
+"But he is always like that," said Sonia.
+
+"Oh, he's all right in that way, little as he cares about society,"
+said Germaine. "Well, by a miracle my father got cured of his
+rheumatism here. Jacques fell in love with me; papa made up his mind to
+buy the chateau; and I demanded the hand of Jacques in marriage."
+
+"You did? But you were only sixteen then," said Marie, with some
+surprise.
+
+"Yes; but even at sixteen a girl ought to know that a duke is a duke. I
+did," said Germaine. "Then since Jacques was setting out for the South
+Pole, and papa considered me much too young to get married, I promised
+Jacques to wait for his return."
+
+"Why, it was everything that's romantic!" cried Marie.
+
+"Romantic? Oh, yes," said Germaine; and she pouted. "But between
+ourselves, if I'd known that he was going to stay all that time at the
+South Pole--"
+
+"That's true," broke in Marie. "To go away for three years and stay
+away seven--at the end of the world."
+
+"All Germaine's beautiful youth," said Jeanne, with her malicious smile.
+
+"Thanks!" said Germaine tartly.
+
+"Well, you ARE twenty-three. It's the flower of one's age," said Jeanne.
+
+"Not quite twenty-three," said Germaine hastily. "And look at the
+wretched luck I've had. The Duke falls ill and is treated at
+Montevideo. As soon as he recovers, since he's the most obstinate
+person in the world, he resolves to go on with the expedition. He sets
+out; and for an age, without a word of warning, there's no more news of
+him--no news of any kind. For six months, you know, we believed him
+dead."
+
+"Dead? Oh, how unhappy you must have been!" said Sonia.
+
+"Oh, don't speak of it! For six months I daren't put on a light frock,"
+said Germaine, turning to her.
+
+"A lot she must have cared for him," whispered Jeanne to Marie.
+
+"Fortunately, one fine day, the letters began again. Three months ago a
+telegram informed us that he was coming back; and at last the Duke
+returned," said Germaine, with a theatrical air.
+
+"The Duke returned," cried Jeanne, mimicking her.
+
+"Never mind. Fancy waiting nearly seven years for one's fiance. That
+was constancy," said Sonia.
+
+"Oh, you're a sentimentalist, Mlle. Kritchnoff," said Jeanne, in a tone
+of mockery. "It was the influence of the castle."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Germaine.
+
+"Oh, to own the castle of Charmerace and call oneself Mlle.
+Gournay-Martin--it's not worth doing. One MUST become a duchess," said
+Jeanne.
+
+"Yes, yes; and for all this wonderful constancy, seven years of it,
+Germaine was on the point of becoming engaged to another man," said
+Marie, smiling.
+
+"And he a mere baron," said Jeanne, laughing.
+
+"What? Is that true?" said Sonia.
+
+"Didn't you know, Mlle. Kritchnoff? She nearly became engaged to the
+Duke's cousin, the Baron de Relzieres. It was not nearly so grand."
+
+"Oh, it's all very well to laugh at me; but being the cousin and heir
+of the Duke, Relzieres would have assumed the title, and I should have
+been Duchess just the same," said Germaine triumphantly.
+
+"Evidently that was all that mattered," said Jeanne. "Well, dear, I
+must be off. We've promised to run in to see the Comtesse de Grosjean.
+You know the Comtesse de Grosjean?"
+
+She spoke with an air of careless pride, and rose to go.
+
+"Only by name. Papa used to know her husband on the Stock Exchange when
+he was still called simply M. Grosjean. For his part, papa preferred to
+keep his name intact," said Germaine, with quiet pride.
+
+"Intact? That's one way of looking at it. Well, then, I'll see you in
+Paris. You still intend to start to-morrow?" said Jeanne.
+
+"Yes; to-morrow morning," said Germaine.
+
+Jeanne and Marie slipped on their dust-coats to the accompaniment of
+chattering and kissing, and went out of the room.
+
+As she closed the door on them, Germaine turned to Sonia, and said: "I
+do hate those two girls! They're such horrible snobs."
+
+"Oh, they're good-natured enough," said Sonia.
+
+"Good-natured? Why, you idiot, they're just bursting with envy of
+me--bursting!" said Germaine. "Well, they've every reason to be," she
+added confidently, surveying herself in a Venetian mirror with a petted
+child's self-content.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE COMING OF THE CHAROLAIS
+
+
+Sonia went back to her table, and once more began putting wedding-cards
+in their envelopes and addressing them. Germaine moved restlessly about
+the room, fidgeting with the bric-a-brac on the cabinets, shifting the
+pieces about, interrupting Sonia to ask whether she preferred this
+arrangement or that, throwing herself into a chair to read a magazine,
+getting up in a couple of minutes to straighten a picture on the wall,
+throwing out all the while idle questions not worth answering.
+Ninety-nine human beings would have been irritated to exasperation by
+her fidgeting; Sonia endured it with a perfect patience. Five times
+Germaine asked her whether she should wear her heliotrope or her pink
+gown at a forthcoming dinner at Madame de Relzieres'. Five times Sonia
+said, without the slightest variation in her tone, "I think you look
+better in the pink." And all the while the pile of addressed envelopes
+rose steadily.
+
+Presently the door opened, and Alfred stood on the threshold.
+
+"Two gentlemen have called to see you, miss," he said.
+
+"Ah, the two Du Buits," cried Germaine.
+
+"They didn't give their names, miss."
+
+"A gentleman in the prime of life and a younger one?" said Germaine.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"I thought so. Show them in."
+
+"Yes, miss. And have you any orders for me to give Victoire when we get
+to Paris?" said Alfred.
+
+"No. Are you starting soon?"
+
+"Yes, miss. We're all going by the seven o'clock train. It's a long way
+from here to Paris; we shall only reach it at nine in the morning. That
+will give us just time to get the house ready for you by the time you
+get there to-morrow evening," said Alfred.
+
+"Is everything packed?"
+
+"Yes, miss--everything. The cart has already taken the heavy luggage to
+the station. All you'll have to do is to see after your bags."
+
+"That's all right. Show M. du Buit and his brother in," said Germaine.
+
+She moved to a chair near the window, and disposed herself in an
+attitude of studied, and obviously studied, grace.
+
+As she leant her head at a charming angle back against the tall back of
+the chair, her eyes fell on the window, and they opened wide.
+
+"Why, whatever's this?" she cried, pointing to it.
+
+"Whatever's what?" said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the
+envelope she was addressing.
+
+"Why, the window. Look! one of the panes has been taken out. It looks
+as if it had been cut."
+
+"So it has--just at the level of the fastening," said Sonia. And the
+two girls stared at the gap.
+
+"Haven't you noticed it before?" said Germaine.
+
+"No; the broken glass must have fallen outside," said Sonia.
+
+The noise of the opening of the door drew their attention from the
+window. Two figures were advancing towards them--a short, round, tubby
+man of fifty-five, red-faced, bald, with bright grey eyes, which seemed
+to be continually dancing away from meeting the eyes of any other human
+being. Behind him came a slim young man, dark and grave. For all the
+difference in their colouring, it was clear that they were father and
+son: their eyes were set so close together. The son seemed to have
+inherited, along with her black eyes, his mother's nose, thin and
+aquiline; the nose of the father started thin from the brow, but ended
+in a scarlet bulb eloquent of an exhaustive acquaintance with the
+vintages of the world.
+
+Germaine rose, looking at them with an air of some surprise and
+uncertainty: these were not her friends, the Du Buits.
+
+The elder man, advancing with a smiling bonhomie, bowed, and said in an
+adenoid voice, ingratiating of tone: "I'm M. Charolais, young
+ladies--M. Charolais--retired brewer--chevalier of the Legion of
+Honour--landowner at Rennes. Let me introduce my son." The young man
+bowed awkwardly. "We came from Rennes this morning, and we lunched at
+Kerlor's farm."
+
+"Shall I order tea for them?" whispered Sonia.
+
+"Gracious, no!" said Germaine sharply under her breath; then, louder,
+she said to M. Charolais, "And what is your object in calling?"
+
+"We asked to see your father," said M. Charolais, smiling with broad
+amiability, while his eyes danced across her face, avoiding any meeting
+with hers. "The footman told us that M. Gournay-Martin was out, but
+that his daughter was at home. And we were unable, quite unable, to
+deny ourselves the pleasure of meeting you." With that he sat down; and
+his son followed his example.
+
+Sonia and Germaine, taken aback, looked at one another in some
+perplexity.
+
+"What a fine chateau, papa!" said the young man.
+
+"Yes, my boy; it's a very fine chateau," said M. Charolais, looking
+round the hall with appreciative but greedy eyes.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"It's a very fine chateau, young ladies," said M. Charolais.
+
+"Yes; but excuse me, what is it you have called about?" said Germaine.
+
+M. Charolais crossed his legs, leant back in his chair, thrust his
+thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and said: "Well, we've come
+about the advertisement we saw in the RENNES ADVERTISER, that M.
+Gournay-Martin wanted to get rid of a motor-car; and my son is always
+saying to me, 'I should like a motor-car which rushes the hills, papa.'
+He means a sixty horse-power."
+
+"We've got a sixty horse-power; but it's not for sale. My father is
+even using it himself to-day," said Germaine.
+
+"Perhaps it's the car we saw in the stable-yard," said M. Charolais.
+
+"No; that's a thirty to forty horse-power. It belongs to me. But if
+your son really loves rushing hills, as you say, we have a hundred
+horse-power car which my father wants to get rid of. Wait; where's the
+photograph of it, Sonia? It ought to be here somewhere."
+
+The two girls rose, went to a table set against the wall beyond the
+window, and began turning over the papers with which it was loaded in
+the search for the photograph. They had barely turned their backs, when
+the hand of young Charolais shot out as swiftly as the tongue of a
+lizard catching a fly, closed round the silver statuette on the top of
+the cabinet beside him, and flashed it into his jacket pocket.
+
+Charolais was watching the two girls; one would have said that he had
+eyes for nothing else, yet, without moving a muscle of his face, set in
+its perpetual beaming smile, he hissed in an angry whisper, "Drop it,
+you idiot! Put it back!"
+
+The young man scowled askance at him.
+
+"Curse you! Put it back!" hissed Charolais.
+
+The young man's arm shot out with the same quickness, and the statuette
+stood in its place.
+
+There was just the faintest sigh of relief from Charolais, as Germaine
+turned and came to him with the photograph in her hand. She gave it to
+him.
+
+"Ah, here we are," he said, putting on a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.
+"A hundred horse-power car. Well, well, this is something to talk over.
+What's the least you'll take for it?"
+
+"_I_ have nothing to do with this kind of thing," cried Germaine. "You
+must see my father. He will be back from Rennes soon. Then you can
+settle the matter with him."
+
+M. Charolais rose, and said: "Very good. We will go now, and come back
+presently. I'm sorry to have intruded on you, young ladies--taking up
+your time like this--"
+
+"Not at all--not at all," murmured Germaine politely.
+
+"Good-bye--good-bye," said M. Charolais; and he and his son went to the
+door, and bowed themselves out.
+
+"What creatures!" said Germaine, going to the window, as the door
+closed behind the two visitors. "All the same, if they do buy the
+hundred horse-power, papa will be awfully pleased. It is odd about that
+pane. I wonder how it happened. It's odd too that Jacques hasn't come
+back yet. He told me that he would be here between half-past four and
+five."
+
+"And the Du Buits have not come either," said Sonia. "But it's hardly
+five yet."
+
+"Yes; that's so. The Du Buits have not come either. What on earth are
+you wasting your time for?" she added sharply, raising her voice. "Just
+finish addressing those letters while you're waiting."
+
+"They're nearly finished," said Sonia.
+
+"Nearly isn't quite. Get on with them, can't you!" snapped Germaine.
+
+Sonia went back to the writing-table; just the slightest deepening of
+the faint pink roses in her cheeks marked her sense of Germaine's
+rudeness. After three years as companion to Germaine Gournay-Martin,
+she was well inured to millionaire manners; they had almost lost the
+power to move her.
+
+Germaine dropped into a chair for twenty seconds; then flung out of it.
+
+"Ten minutes to five!" she cried. "Jacques is late. It's the first time
+I've ever known him late."
+
+She went to the window, and looked across the wide stretch of
+meadow-land and woodland on which the chateau, set on the very crown of
+the ridge, looked down. The road, running with the irritating
+straightness of so many of the roads of France, was visible for a full
+three miles. It was empty.
+
+"Perhaps the Duke went to the Chateau de Relzieres to see his
+cousin--though I fancy that at bottom the Duke does not care very much
+for the Baron de Relzieres. They always look as though they detested
+one another," said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the letter she
+was addressing.
+
+"You've noticed that, have you?" said Germaine. "Now, as far as Jacques
+is concerned--he's--he's so indifferent. None the less, when we were at
+the Relzieres on Thursday, I caught him quarrelling with Paul de
+Relzieres."
+
+"Quarrelling?" said Sonia sharply, with a sudden uneasiness in air and
+eyes and voice.
+
+"Yes; quarrelling. And they said good-bye to one another in the oddest
+way."
+
+"But surely they shook hands?" said Sonia.
+
+"Not a bit of it. They bowed as if each of them had swallowed a poker."
+
+"Why--then--then--" said Sonia, starting up with a frightened air; and
+her voice stuck in her throat.
+
+"Then what?" said Germaine, a little startled by her panic-stricken
+face.
+
+"The duel! Monsieur de Relzieres' duel!" cried Sonia.
+
+"What? You don't think it was with Jacques?"
+
+"I don't know--but this quarrel--the Duke's manner this morning--the Du
+Buits' drive--" said Sonia.
+
+"Of course--of course! It's quite possible--in fact it's certain!"
+cried Germaine.
+
+"It's horrible!" gasped Sonia. "Consider--just consider! Suppose
+something happened to him. Suppose the Duke--"
+
+"It's me the Duke's fighting about!" cried Germaine proudly, with a
+little skipping jump of triumphant joy.
+
+Sonia stared through her without seeing her. Her face was a dead
+white--fear had chilled the lustre from her skin; her breath panted
+through her parted lips; and her dilated eyes seemed to look on some
+dreadful picture.
+
+Germaine pirouetted about the hall at the very height of triumph. To
+have a Duke fighting a duel about her was far beyond the wildest dreams
+of snobbishness. She chuckled again and again, and once she clapped her
+hands and laughed aloud.
+
+"He's fighting a swordsman of the first class--an invincible
+swordsman--you said so yourself," Sonia muttered in a tone of anguish.
+"And there's nothing to be done--nothing."
+
+She pressed her hands to her eyes as if to shut out a hideous vision.
+
+Germaine did not hear her; she was staring at herself in a mirror, and
+bridling to her own image.
+
+Sonia tottered to the window and stared down at the road along which
+must come the tidings of weal or irremediable woe. She kept passing her
+hand over her eyes as if to clear their vision.
+
+Suddenly she started, and bent forward, rigid, all her being
+concentrated in the effort to see.
+
+Then she cried: "Mademoiselle Germaine! Look! Look!"
+
+"What is it?" said Germaine, coming to her side.
+
+"A horseman! Look! There!" said Sonia, waving a hand towards the road.
+
+"Yes; and isn't he galloping!" said Germaine.
+
+"It's he! It's the Duke!" cried Sonia.
+
+"Do you think so?" said Germaine doubtfully.
+
+"I'm sure of it--sure!"
+
+"Well, he gets here just in time for tea," said Germaine in a tone of
+extreme satisfaction. "He knows that I hate to be kept waiting. He said
+to me, 'I shall be back by five at the latest.' And here he is."
+
+"It's impossible," said Sonia. "He has to go all the way round the
+park. There's no direct road; the brook is between us."
+
+"All the same, he's coming in a straight line," said Germaine.
+
+It was true. The horseman had left the road and was galloping across
+the meadows straight for the brook. In twenty seconds he reached its
+treacherous bank, and as he set his horse at it, Sonia covered her eyes.
+
+"He's over!" said Germaine. "My father gave three hundred guineas for
+that horse."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LUPIN'S WAY
+
+
+Sonia, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, in a reaction from her fears,
+slipped back and sat down at the tea-table, panting quickly, struggling
+to keep back the tears of relief. She did not see the Duke gallop up
+the slope, dismount, and hand over his horse to the groom who came
+running to him. There was still a mist in her eyes to blur his figure
+as he came through the window.
+
+"If it's for me, plenty of tea, very little cream, and three lumps of
+sugar," he cried in a gay, ringing voice, and pulled out his watch.
+"Five to the minute--that's all right." And he bent down, took
+Germaine's hand, and kissed it with an air of gallant devotion.
+
+If he had indeed just fought a duel, there were no signs of it in his
+bearing. His air, his voice, were entirely careless. He was a man whose
+whole thought at the moment was fixed on his tea and his punctuality.
+
+He drew a chair near the tea-table for Germaine; sat down himself; and
+Sonia handed him a cup of tea with so shaky a hand that the spoon
+clinked in the saucer.
+
+"You've been fighting a duel?" said Germaine.
+
+"What! You've heard already?" said the Duke in some surprise.
+
+"I've heard," said Germaine. "Why did you fight it?"
+
+"You're not wounded, your Grace?" said Sonia anxiously.
+
+"Not a scratch," said the Duke, smiling at her.
+
+"Will you be so good as to get on with those wedding-cards, Sonia,"
+said Germaine sharply; and Sonia went back to the writing-table.
+
+Turning to the Duke, Germaine said, "Did you fight on my account?"
+
+"Would you be pleased to know that I had fought on your account?" said
+the Duke; and there was a faint mocking light in his eyes, far too
+faint for the self-satisfied Germaine to perceive.
+
+"Yes. But it isn't true. You've been fighting about some woman," said
+Germaine petulantly.
+
+"If I had been fighting about a woman, it could only be you," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Yes, that is so. Of course. It could hardly be about Sonia, or my
+maid," said Germaine. "But what was the reason of the duel?"
+
+"Oh, the reason of it was entirely childish," said the Duke. "I was in
+a bad temper; and De Relzieres said something that annoyed me."
+
+"Then it wasn't about me; and if it wasn't about me, it wasn't really
+worth while fighting," said Germaine in a tone of acute disappointment.
+
+The mocking light deepened a little in the Duke's eyes.
+
+"Yes. But if I had been killed, everybody would have said, 'The Duke of
+Charmerace has been killed in a duel about Mademoiselle
+Gournay-Martin.' That would have sounded very fine indeed," said the
+Duke; and a touch of mockery had crept into his voice.
+
+"Now, don't begin trying to annoy me again," said Germaine pettishly.
+
+"The last thing I should dream of, my dear girl," said the Duke,
+smiling.
+
+"And De Relzieres? Is he wounded?" said Germaine.
+
+"Poor dear De Relzieres: he won't be out of bed for the next six
+months," said the Duke; and he laughed lightly and gaily.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Germaine.
+
+"It will do poor dear De Relzieres a world of good. He has a touch of
+enteritis; and for enteritis there is nothing like rest," said the Duke.
+
+Sonia was not getting on very quickly with the wedding-cards. Germaine
+was sitting with her back to her; and over her shoulder Sonia could
+watch the face of the Duke--an extraordinarily mobile face, changing
+with every passing mood. Sometimes his eyes met hers; and hers fell
+before them. But as soon as they turned away from her she was watching
+him again, almost greedily, as if she could not see enough of his face
+in which strength of will and purpose was mingled with a faint, ironic
+scepticism, and tempered by a fine air of race.
+
+He finished his tea; then he took a morocco case from his pocket, and
+said to Germaine, "It must be quite three days since I gave you
+anything."
+
+He opened the case, disclosed a pearl pendant, and handed it to her.
+
+"Oh, how nice!" she cried, taking it.
+
+She took it from the case, saying that it was a beauty. She showed it
+to Sonia; then she put it on and stood before a mirror admiring the
+effect. To tell the truth, the effect was not entirely desirable. The
+pearls did not improve the look of her rather coarse brown skin; and
+her skin added nothing to the beauty of the pearls. Sonia saw this, and
+so did the Duke. He looked at Sonia's white throat. She met his eyes
+and blushed. She knew that the same thought was in both their minds;
+the pearls would have looked infinitely better there.
+
+Germaine finished admiring herself; she was incapable even of
+suspecting that so expensive a pendant could not suit her perfectly.
+
+The Duke said idly: "Goodness! Are all those invitations to the
+wedding?"
+
+"That's only down to the letter V," said Germaine proudly.
+
+"And there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet! You must be
+inviting the whole world. You'll have to have the Madeleine enlarged.
+It won't hold them all. There isn't a church in Paris that will," said
+the Duke.
+
+"Won't it be a splendid marriage!" said Germaine. "There'll be
+something like a crush. There are sure to be accidents."
+
+"If I were you, I should have careful arrangements made," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, let people look after themselves. They'll remember it better if
+they're crushed a little," said Germaine.
+
+There was a flicker of contemptuous wonder in the Duke's eyes. But he
+only shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Sonia, said, "Will you be
+an angel and play me a little Grieg, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff? I heard
+you playing yesterday. No one plays Grieg like you."
+
+"Excuse me, Jacques, but Mademoiselle Kritchnoff has her work to do,"
+said Germaine tartly.
+
+"Five minutes' interval--just a morsel of Grieg, I beg," said the Duke,
+with an irresistible smile.
+
+"All right," said Germaine grudgingly. "But I've something important to
+talk to you about."
+
+"By Jove! So have I. I was forgetting. I've the last photograph I took
+of you and Mademoiselle Sonia." Germaine frowned and shrugged her
+shoulders. "With your light frocks in the open air, you look like two
+big flowers," said the Duke.
+
+"You call that important!" cried Germaine.
+
+"It's very important--like all trifles," said the Duke, smiling. "Look!
+isn't it nice?" And he took a photograph from his pocket, and held it
+out to her.
+
+"Nice? It's shocking! We're making the most appalling faces," said
+Germaine, looking at the photograph in his hand.
+
+"Well, perhaps you ARE making faces," said the Duke seriously,
+considering the photograph with grave earnestness. "But they're not
+appalling faces--not by any means. You shall be judge, Mademoiselle
+Sonia. The faces--well, we won't talk about the faces--but the
+outlines. Look at the movement of your scarf." And he handed the
+photograph to Sonia.
+
+"Jacques!" said Germaine impatiently.
+
+"Oh, yes, you've something important to tell me. What is it?" said the
+Duke, with an air of resignation; and he took the photograph from Sonia
+and put it carefully back in his pocket.
+
+"Victoire has telephoned from Paris to say that we've had a paper-knife
+and a Louis Seize inkstand given us," said Germaine.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the Duke in a sudden shout that made them both jump.
+
+"And a pearl necklace," said Germaine.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the Duke.
+
+"You're perfectly childish," said Germaine pettishly. "I tell you we've
+been given a paper-knife, and you shout 'hurrah!' I say we've been
+given a pearl necklace, and you shout 'hurrah!' You can't have the
+slightest sense of values."
+
+"I beg your pardon. This pearl necklace is from one of your father's
+friends, isn't it?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes; why?" said Germaine.
+
+"But the inkstand and the paper-knife must be from the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain, and well on the shabby side?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes; well?"
+
+"Well then, my dear girl, what are you complaining about? They balance;
+the equilibrium is restored. You can't have everything," said the Duke;
+and he laughed mischievously.
+
+Germaine flushed, and bit her lip; her eyes sparkled.
+
+"You don't care a rap about me," she said stormily.
+
+"But I find you adorable," said the Duke.
+
+"You keep annoying me," said Germaine pettishly. "And you do it on
+purpose. I think it's in very bad taste. I shall end by taking a
+dislike to you--I know I shall."
+
+"Wait till we're married for that, my dear girl," said the Duke; and he
+laughed again, with a blithe, boyish cheerfulness, which deepened the
+angry flush in Germaine's cheeks.
+
+"Can't you be serious about anything?" she cried.
+
+"I am the most serious man in Europe," said the Duke.
+
+Germaine went to the window and stared out of it sulkily.
+
+The Duke walked up and down the hall, looking at the pictures of some
+of his ancestors--somewhat grotesque persons--with humorous
+appreciation. Between addressing the envelopes Sonia kept glancing at
+him. Once he caught her eye, and smiled at her. Germaine's back was
+eloquent of her displeasure. The Duke stopped at a gap in the line of
+pictures in which there hung a strip of old tapestry.
+
+"I can never understand why you have left all these ancestors of mine
+staring from the walls and have taken away the quite admirable and
+interesting portrait of myself," he said carelessly.
+
+Germaine turned sharply from the window; Sonia stopped in the middle of
+addressing an envelope; and both the girls stared at him in
+astonishment.
+
+"There certainly was a portrait of me where that tapestry hangs. What
+have you done with it?" said the Duke.
+
+"You're making fun of us again," said Germaine.
+
+"Surely your Grace knows what happened," said Sonia.
+
+"We wrote all the details to you and sent you all the papers three
+years ago. Didn't you get them?" said Germaine.
+
+"Not a detail or a newspaper. Three years ago I was in the
+neighbourhood of the South Pole, and lost at that," said the Duke.
+
+"But it was most dramatic, my dear Jacques. All Paris was talking of
+it," said Germaine. "Your portrait was stolen."
+
+"Stolen? Who stole it?" said the Duke.
+
+Germaine crossed the hall quickly to the gap in the line of pictures.
+
+"I'll show you," she said.
+
+She drew aside the piece of tapestry, and in the middle of the panel
+over which the portrait of the Duke had hung he saw written in chalk
+the words:
+
+ARSENE LUPIN
+
+"What do you think of that autograph?" said Germaine.
+
+"'Arsene Lupin?'" said the Duke in a tone of some bewilderment.
+
+"He left his signature. It seems that he always does so," said Sonia in
+an explanatory tone.
+
+"But who is he?" said the Duke.
+
+"Arsene Lupin? Surely you know who Arsene Lupin is?" said Germaine
+impatiently.
+
+"I haven't the slightest notion," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, come! No one is as South-Pole as all that!" cried Germaine. "You
+don't know who Lupin is? The most whimsical, the most audacious, and
+the most genial thief in France. For the last ten years he has kept the
+police at bay. He has baffled Ganimard, Holmlock Shears, the great
+English detective, and even Guerchard, whom everybody says is the
+greatest detective we've had in France since Vidocq. In fact, he's our
+national robber. Do you mean to say you don't know him?"
+
+"Not even enough to ask him to lunch at a restaurant," said the Duke
+flippantly. "What's he like?"
+
+"Like? Nobody has the slightest idea. He has a thousand disguises. He
+has dined two evenings running at the English Embassy."
+
+"But if nobody knows him, how did they learn that?" said the Duke, with
+a puzzled air.
+
+"Because the second evening, about ten o'clock, they noticed that one
+of the guests had disappeared, and with him all the jewels of the
+ambassadress."
+
+"All of them?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes; and Lupin left his card behind him with these words scribbled on
+it:"
+
+"'This is not a robbery; it is a restitution. You took the Wallace
+collection from us.'"
+
+"But it was a hoax, wasn't it?" said the Duke.
+
+"No, your Grace; and he has done better than that. You remember the
+affair of the Daray Bank--the savings bank for poor people?" said
+Sonia, her gentle face glowing with a sudden enthusiastic animation.
+
+"Let's see," said the Duke. "Wasn't that the financier who doubled his
+fortune at the expense of a heap of poor wretches and ruined two
+thousand people?"
+
+"Yes; that's the man," said Sonia. "And Lupin stripped Daray's house
+and took from him everything he had in his strong-box. He didn't leave
+him a sou of the money. And then, when he'd taken it from him, he
+distributed it among all the poor wretches whom Daray had ruined."
+
+"But this isn't a thief you're talking about--it's a philanthropist,"
+said the Duke.
+
+"A fine sort of philanthropist!" broke in Germaine in a peevish tone.
+"There was a lot of philanthropy about his robbing papa, wasn't there?"
+
+"Well," said the Duke, with an air of profound reflection, "if you come
+to think of it, that robbery was not worthy of this national hero. My
+portrait, if you except the charm and beauty of the face itself, is not
+worth much."
+
+"If you think he was satisfied with your portrait, you're very much
+mistaken. All my father's collections were robbed," said Germaine.
+
+"Your father's collections?" said the Duke. "But they're better guarded
+than the Bank of France. Your father is as careful of them as the apple
+of his eye."
+
+"That's exactly it--he was too careful of them. That's why Lupin
+succeeded."
+
+"This is very interesting," said the Duke; and he sat down on a couch
+before the gap in the pictures, to go into the matter more at his ease.
+"I suppose he had accomplices in the house itself?"
+
+"Yes, one accomplice," said Germaine.
+
+"Who was that?" asked the Duke.
+
+"Papa!" said Germaine.
+
+"Oh, come! what on earth do you mean?" said the Duke. "You're getting
+quite incomprehensible, my dear girl."
+
+"Well, I'll make it clear to you. One morning papa received a
+letter--but wait. Sonia, get me the Lupin papers out of the bureau."
+
+Sonia rose from the writing-table, and went to a bureau, an admirable
+example of the work of the great English maker, Chippendale. It stood
+on the other side of the hall between an Oriental cabinet and a
+sixteenth-century Italian cabinet--for all the world as if it were
+standing in a crowded curiosity shop--with the natural effect that the
+three pieces, by their mere incongruity, took something each from the
+beauty of the other. Sonia raised the flap of the bureau, and taking
+from one of the drawers a small portfolio, turned over the papers in it
+and handed a letter to the Duke.
+
+"This is the envelope," she said. "It's addressed to M. Gournay-Martin,
+Collector, at the Chateau de Charmerace, Ile-et-Vilaine."
+
+The Duke opened the envelope and took out a letter.
+
+"It's an odd handwriting," he said.
+
+"Read it--carefully," said Germaine.
+
+It was an uncommon handwriting. The letters of it were small, but
+perfectly formed. It looked the handwriting of a man who knew exactly
+what he wanted to say, and liked to say it with extreme precision. The
+letter ran:
+
+    "DEAR SIR,"
+
+    "Please forgive my writing to you without our having
+     been introduced to one another; but I flatter myself
+     that you know me, at any rate, by name."
+
+    "There is in the drawing-room next your hall a
+     Gainsborough of admirable quality which affords me
+     infinite pleasure. Your Goyas in the same drawing-room
+     are also to my liking, as well as your Van Dyck. In the
+     further drawing-room I note the Renaissance cabinets--a
+     marvellous pair--the Flemish tapestry, the Fragonard,
+     the clock signed Boulle, and various other objects of
+     less importance. But above all I have set my heart on
+     that coronet which you bought at the sale of the
+     Marquise de Ferronaye, and which was formerly worn by
+     the unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe. I take the
+     greatest interest in this coronet: in the first place,
+     on account of the charming and tragic memories which it
+     calls up in the mind of a poet passionately fond of
+     history, and in the second place--though it is hardly
+     worth while talking about that kind of thing--on
+     account of its intrinsic value. I reckon indeed that
+     the stones in your coronet are, at the very lowest,
+     worth half a million francs."
+
+    "I beg you, my dear sir, to have these different
+     objects properly packed up, and to forward them,
+     addressed to me, carriage paid, to the Batignolles
+     Station. Failing this, I shall Proceed to remove them
+     myself on the night of Thursday, August 7th."
+
+    "Please pardon the slight trouble to which I am putting
+     you, and believe me,"
+
+    "Yours very sincerely,"
+
+    "ARSENE LUPIN."
+
+    "P.S.--It occurs to me that the pictures have not glass
+     before them. It would be as well to repair this
+     omission before forwarding them to me, and I am sure
+     that you will take this extra trouble cheerfully. I am
+     aware, of course, that some of the best judges declare
+     that a picture loses some of its quality when seen
+     through glass. But it preserves them, and we should
+     always be ready and willing to sacrifice a portion of
+     our own pleasure for the benefit of posterity. France
+     demands it of us.--A. L."
+
+
+The Duke laughed, and said, "Really, this is extraordinarily funny. It
+must have made your father laugh."
+
+"Laugh?" said Germaine. "You should have seen his face. He took it
+seriously enough, I can tell you."
+
+"Not to the point of forwarding the things to Batignolles, I hope,"
+said the Duke.
+
+"No, but to the point of being driven wild," said Germaine. "And since
+the police had always been baffled by Lupin, he had the brilliant idea
+of trying what soldiers could do. The Commandant at Rennes is a great
+friend of papa's; and papa went to him, and told him about Lupin's
+letter and what he feared. The colonel laughed at him; but he offered
+him a corporal and six soldiers to guard his collection, on the night
+of the seventh. It was arranged that they should come from Rennes by
+the last train so that the burglars should have no warning of their
+coming. Well, they came, seven picked men--men who had seen service in
+Tonquin. We gave them supper; and then the corporal posted them in the
+hall and the two drawing-rooms where the pictures and things were. At
+eleven we all went to bed, after promising the corporal that, in the
+event of any fight with the burglars, we would not stir from our rooms.
+I can tell you I felt awfully nervous. I couldn't get to sleep for ages
+and ages. Then, when I did, I did not wake till morning. The night had
+passed absolutely quietly. Nothing out of the common had happened.
+There had not been the slightest noise. I awoke Sonia and my father. We
+dressed as quickly as we could, and rushed down to the drawing-room."
+
+She paused dramatically.
+
+"Well?" said the Duke.
+
+"Well, it was done."
+
+"What was done?" said the Duke.
+
+"Everything," said Germaine. "Pictures had gone, tapestries had gone,
+cabinets had gone, and the clock had gone."
+
+"And the coronet too?" said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, no. That was at the Bank of France. And it was doubtless to make
+up for not getting it that Lupin stole your portrait. At any rate he
+didn't say that he was going to steal it in his letter."
+
+"But, come! this is incredible. Had he hypnotized the corporal and the
+six soldiers? Or had he murdered them all?" said the Duke.
+
+"Corporal? There wasn't any corporal, and there weren't any soldiers.
+The corporal was Lupin, and the soldiers were part of his gang," said
+Germaine.
+
+"I don't understand," said the Duke. "The colonel promised your father
+a corporal and six men. Didn't they come?"
+
+"They came to the railway station all right," said Germaine. "But you
+know the little inn half-way between the railway station and the
+chateau? They stopped to drink there, and at eleven o'clock next
+morning one of the villagers found all seven of them, along with the
+footman who was guiding them to the chateau, sleeping like logs in the
+little wood half a mile from the inn. Of course the innkeeper could not
+explain when their wine was drugged. He could only tell us that a
+motorist, who had stopped at the inn to get some supper, had called the
+soldiers in and insisted on standing them drinks. They had seemed a
+little fuddled before they left the inn, and the motorist had insisted
+on driving them to the chateau in his car. When the drug took effect he
+simply carried them out of it one by one, and laid them in the wood to
+sleep it off."
+
+"Lupin seems to have made a thorough job of it, anyhow," said the Duke.
+
+"I should think so," said Germaine. "Guerchard was sent down from
+Paris; but he could not find a single clue. It was not for want of
+trying, for he hates Lupin. It's a regular fight between them, and so
+far Lupin has scored every point."
+
+"He must be as clever as they make 'em," said the Duke.
+
+"He is," said Germaine. "And do you know, I shouldn't be at all
+surprised if he's in the neighbourhood now."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" said the Duke.
+
+"I'm not joking," said Germaine. "Odd things are happening. Some one
+has been changing the place of things. That silver statuette now--it
+was on the cabinet, and we found it moved to the piano. Yet nobody had
+touched it. And look at this window. Some one has broken a pane in it
+just at the height of the fastening."
+
+"The deuce they have!" said the Duke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DUKE INTERVENES
+
+
+The Duke rose, came to the window, and looked at the broken pane. He
+stepped out on to the terrace and looked at the turf; then he came back
+into the room.
+
+"This looks serious," he said. "That pane has not been broken at all.
+If it had been broken, the pieces of glass would be lying on the turf.
+It has been cut out. We must warn your father to look to his treasures."
+
+"I told you so," said Germaine. "I said that Arsene Lupin was in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+"Arsene Lupin is a very capable man," said the Duke, smiling. "But
+there's no reason to suppose that he's the only burglar in France or
+even in Ile-et-Vilaine."
+
+"I'm sure that he's in the neighbourhood. I have a feeling that he is,"
+said Germaine stubbornly.
+
+The Duke shrugged his shoulders, and said a smile: "Far be it from me
+to contradict you. A woman's intuition is always--well, it's always a
+woman's intuition."
+
+He came back into the hall, and as he did so the door opened and a
+shock-headed man in the dress of a gamekeeper stood on the threshold.
+
+"There are visitors to see you, Mademoiselle Germaine," he said, in a
+very deep bass voice.
+
+"What! Are you answering the door, Firmin?" said Germaine.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle Germaine: there's only me to do it. All the servants
+have started for the station, and my wife and I are going to see after
+the family to-night and to-morrow morning. Shall I show these gentlemen
+in?"
+
+"Who are they?" said Germaine.
+
+"Two gentlemen who say they have an appointment."
+
+"What are their names?" said Germaine.
+
+"They are two gentlemen. I don't know what their names are. I've no
+memory for names."
+
+"That's an advantage to any one who answers doors," said the Duke,
+smiling at the stolid Firmin.
+
+"Well, it can't be the two Charolais again. It's not time for them to
+come back. I told them papa would not be back yet," said Germaine.
+
+"No, it can't be them, Mademoiselle Germaine," said Firmin, with
+decision.
+
+"Very well; show them in," she said.
+
+Firmin went out, leaving the door open behind him; and they heard his
+hob-nailed boots clatter and squeak on the stone floor of the outer
+hall.
+
+"Charolais?" said the Duke idly. "I don't know the name. Who are they?"
+
+"A little while ago Alfred announced two gentlemen. I thought they were
+Georges and Andre du Buit, for they promised to come to tea. I told
+Alfred to show them in, and to my surprise there appeared two horrible
+provincials. I never--Oh!"
+
+She stopped short, for there, coming through the door, were the two
+Charolais, father and son.
+
+M. Charolais pressed his motor-cap to his bosom, and bowed low. "Once
+more I salute you, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+His son bowed, and revealed behind him another young man.
+
+"My second son. He has a chemist's shop," said M. Charolais, waving a
+large red hand at the young man.
+
+The young man, also blessed with the family eyes, set close together,
+entered the hall and bowed to the two girls. The Duke raised his
+eyebrows ever so slightly.
+
+"I'm very sorry, gentlemen," said Germaine, "but my father has not yet
+returned."
+
+"Please don't apologize. There is not the slightest need," said M.
+Charolais; and he and his two sons settled themselves down on three
+chairs, with the air of people who had come to make a considerable stay.
+
+For a moment, Germaine, taken aback by their coolness, was speechless;
+then she said hastily: "Very likely he won't be back for another hour.
+I shouldn't like you to waste your time."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter," said M. Charolais, with an indulgent air; and
+turning to the Duke, he added, "However, while we're waiting, if you're
+a member of the family, sir, we might perhaps discuss the least you
+will take for the motor-car."
+
+"I'm sorry," said the Duke, "but I have nothing to do with it."
+
+Before M. Charolais could reply the door opened, and Firmin's deep
+voice said:
+
+"Will you please come in here, sir?"
+
+A third young man came into the hall.
+
+"What, you here, Bernard?" said M. Charolais. "I told you to wait at
+the park gates."
+
+"I wanted to see the car too," said Bernard.
+
+"My third son. He is destined for the Bar," said M. Charolais, with a
+great air of paternal pride.
+
+"But how many are there?" said Germaine faintly.
+
+Before M. Charolais could answer, Firmin once more appeared on the
+threshold.
+
+"The master's just come back, miss," he said.
+
+"Thank goodness for that!" said Germaine; and turning to M. Charolais,
+she added, "If you will come with me, gentlemen, I will take you to my
+father, and you can discuss the price of the car at once."
+
+As she spoke she moved towards the door. M. Charolais and his sons rose
+and made way for her. The father and the two eldest sons made haste to
+follow her out of the room. But Bernard lingered behind, apparently to
+admire the bric-a-brac on the cabinets. With infinite quickness he
+grabbed two objects off the nearest, and followed his brothers. The
+Duke sprang across the hall in three strides, caught him by the arm on
+the very threshold, jerked him back into the hall, and shut the door.
+
+"No you don't, my young friend," he said sharply.
+
+"Don't what?" said Bernard, trying to shake off his grip.
+
+"You've taken a cigarette-case," said the Duke.
+
+"No, no, I haven't--nothing of the kind!" stammered Bernard.
+
+The Duke grasped the young man's left wrist, plunged his hand into the
+motor-cap which he was carrying, drew out of it a silver
+cigarette-case, and held it before his eyes.
+
+Bernard turned pale to the lips. His frightened eyes seemed about to
+leap from their sockets.
+
+"It--it--was a m-m-m-mistake," he stammered.
+
+The Duke shifted his grip to his collar, and thrust his hand into the
+breast-pocket of his coat. Bernard, helpless in his grip, and utterly
+taken aback by his quickness, made no resistance.
+
+The Duke drew out a morocco case, and said: "Is this a mistake too?"
+
+"Heavens! The pendant!" cried Sonia, who was watching the scene with
+parted lips and amazed eyes.
+
+Bernard dropped on his knees and clasped his hands.
+
+"Forgive me!" he cried, in a choking voice. "Forgive me! Don't tell any
+one! For God's sake, don't tell any one!"
+
+And the tears came streaming from his eyes.
+
+"You young rogue!" said the Duke quietly.
+
+"I'll never do it again--never! Oh, have pity on me! If my father knew!
+Oh, let me off!" cried Bernard.
+
+The Duke hesitated, and looked down on him, frowning and pulling at his
+moustache. Then, more quickly than one would have expected from so
+careless a trifler, his mind was made up.
+
+"All right," he said slowly. "Just for this once ... be off with you."
+And he jerked him to his feet and almost threw him into the outer hall.
+
+"Thanks! ... oh, thanks!" said Bernard.
+
+The Duke shut the door and looked at Sonia, breathing quickly.
+
+"Well? Did you ever see anything like that? That young fellow will go a
+long way. The cheek of the thing! Right under our very eyes! And this
+pendant, too: it would have been a pity to lose it. Upon my word, I
+ought to have handed him over to the police."
+
+"No, no!" cried Sonia. "You did quite right to let him off--quite
+right."
+
+The Duke set the pendant on the ledge of the bureau, and came down the
+hall to Sonia.
+
+"What's the matter?" he said gently. "You're quite pale."
+
+"It has upset me ... that unfortunate boy," said Sonia; and her eyes
+were swimming with tears.
+
+"Do you pity the young rogue?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes; it's dreadful. His eyes were so terrified, and so boyish. And, to
+be caught like that ... stealing ... in the act. Oh, it's hateful!"
+
+"Come, come, how sensitive you are!" said the Duke, in a soothing,
+almost caressing tone. His eyes, resting on her charming, troubled
+face, were glowing with a warm admiration.
+
+"Yes; it's silly," said Sonia; "but you noticed his eyes--the hunted
+look in them? You pitied him, didn't you? For you are kind at bottom."
+
+"Why at bottom?" said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, I said at bottom because you look sarcastic, and at first sight
+you're so cold. But often that's only the mask of those who have
+suffered the most.... They are the most indulgent," said Sonia slowly,
+hesitating, picking her words.
+
+"Yes, I suppose they are," said the Duke thoughtfully.
+
+"It's because when one has suffered one understands.... Yes: one
+understands," said Sonia.
+
+There was a pause. The Duke's eyes still rested on her face. The
+admiration in them was mingled with compassion.
+
+"You're very unhappy here, aren't you?" he said gently.
+
+"Me? Why?" said Sonia quickly.
+
+"Your smile is so sad, and your eyes so timid," said the Duke slowly.
+"You're just like a little child one longs to protect. Are you quite
+alone in the world?"
+
+His eyes and tones were full of pity; and a faint flush mantled Sonia's
+cheeks.
+
+"Yes, I'm alone," she said.
+
+"But have you no relations--no friends?" said the Duke.
+
+"No," said Sonia.
+
+"I don't mean here in France, but in your own country.... Surely you
+have some in Russia?"
+
+"No, not a soul. You see, my father was a Revolutionist. He died in
+Siberia when I was a baby. And my mother, she died too--in Paris. She
+had fled from Russia. I was two years old when she died."
+
+"It must be hard to be alone like that," said the Duke.
+
+"No," said Sonia, with a faint smile, "I don't mind having no
+relations. I grew used to that so young ... so very young. But what is
+hard--but you'll laugh at me--"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said the Duke gravely.
+
+"Well, what is hard is, never to get a letter ... an envelope that one
+opens ... from some one who thinks about one--"
+
+She paused, and then added gravely: "But I tell myself that it's
+nonsense. I have a certain amount of philosophy."
+
+She smiled at him--an adorable child's smile.
+
+The Duke smiled too. "A certain amount of philosophy," he said softly.
+"You look like a philosopher!"
+
+As they stood looking at one another with serious eyes, almost with
+eyes that probed one another's souls, the drawing-room door flung open,
+and Germaine's harsh voice broke on their ears.
+
+"You're getting quite impossible, Sonia!" she cried. "It's absolutely
+useless telling you anything. I told you particularly to pack my
+leather writing-case in my bag with your own hand. I happen to open a
+drawer, and what do I see? My leather writing-case."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Sonia. "I was going--"
+
+"Oh, there's no need to bother about it. I'll see after it myself,"
+said Germaine. "But upon my word, you might be one of our guests,
+seeing how easily you take things. You're negligence personified."
+
+"Come, Germaine ... a mere oversight," said the Duke, in a coaxing tone.
+
+"Now, excuse me, Jacques; but you've got an unfortunate habit of
+interfering in household matters. You did it only the other day. I can
+no longer say a word to a servant--"
+
+"Germaine!" said the Duke, in sharp protest.
+
+Germaine turned from him to Sonia, and pointed to a packet of envelopes
+and some letters, which Bernard Charolais had knocked off the table,
+and said, "Pick up those envelopes and letters, and bring everything to
+my room, and be quick about it!"
+
+She flung out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.
+
+Sonia seemed entirely unmoved by the outburst: no flush of
+mortification stained her cheeks, her lips did not quiver. She stooped
+to pick up the fallen papers.
+
+"No, no; let me, I beg you," said the Duke, in a tone of distress. And
+dropping on one knee, he began to gather together the fallen papers. He
+set them on the table, and then he said: "You mustn't mind what
+Germaine says. She's--she's--she's all right at heart. It's her manner.
+She's always been happy, and had everything she wanted. She's been
+spoiled, don't you know. Those kind of people never have any
+consideration for any one else. You mustn't let her outburst hurt you."
+
+"Oh, but I don't. I don't really," protested Sonia.
+
+"I'm glad of that," said the Duke. "It isn't really worth noticing."
+
+He drew the envelopes and unused cards into a packet, and handed them
+to her.
+
+"There!" he said, with a smile. "That won't be too heavy for you."
+
+"Thank you," said Sonia, taking it from him.
+
+"Shall I carry them for you?" said the Duke.
+
+"No, thank you, your Grace," said Sonia.
+
+With a quick, careless, almost irresponsible movement, he caught her
+hand, bent down, and kissed it. A great wave of rosy colour flowed over
+her face, flooding its whiteness to her hair and throat. She stood for
+a moment turned to stone; she put her hand to her heart. Then on hasty,
+faltering feet she went to the door, opened it, paused on the
+threshold, turned and looked back at him, and vanished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A LETTER FROM LUPIN
+
+
+The Duke stood for a while staring thoughtfully at the door through
+which Sonia had passed, a faint smile playing round his lips. He
+crossed the hall to the Chippendale bureau, took a cigarette from a box
+which stood on the ledge of it, beside the morocco case which held the
+pendant, lighted it, and went slowly out on to the terrace. He crossed
+it slowly, paused for a moment on the edge of it, and looked across the
+stretch of country with musing eyes, which saw nothing of its beauty.
+Then he turned to the right, went down a flight of steps to the lower
+terrace, crossed the lawn, and took a narrow path which led into the
+heart of a shrubbery of tall deodoras. In the middle of it he came to
+one of those old stone benches, moss-covered and weather-stained, which
+adorn the gardens of so many French chateaux. It faced a marble basin
+from which rose the slender column of a pattering fountain. The figure
+of a Cupid danced joyously on a tall pedestal to the right of the
+basin. The Duke sat down on the bench, and was still, with that rare
+stillness which only comes of nerves in perfect harmony, his brow
+knitted in careful thought. Now and again the frown cleared from his
+face, and his intent features relaxed into a faint smile, a smile of
+pleasant memory. Once he rose, walked round the fountains frowning,
+came back to the bench, and sat down again. The early September dusk
+was upon him when at last he rose and with quick steps took his way
+through the shrubbery, with the air of a man whose mind, for good or
+ill, was at last made up.
+
+When he came on to the upper terrace his eyes fell on a group which
+stood at the further corner, near the entrance of the chateau, and he
+sauntered slowly up to it.
+
+In the middle of it stood M. Gournay-Martin, a big, round, flabby hulk
+of a man. He was nearly as red in the face as M. Charolais; and he
+looked a great deal redder owing to the extreme whiteness of the
+whiskers which stuck out on either side of his vast expanse of cheek.
+As he came up, it struck the Duke as rather odd that he should have the
+Charolais eyes, set close together; any one who did not know that they
+were strangers to one another might have thought it a family likeness.
+
+The millionaire was waving his hands and roaring after the manner of a
+man who has cultivated the art of brow-beating those with whom he does
+business; and as the Duke neared the group, he caught the words:
+
+"No; that's the lowest I'll take. Take it or leave it. You can say Yes,
+or you can say Good-bye; and I don't care a hang which."
+
+"It's very dear," said M. Charolais, in a mournful tone.
+
+"Dear!" roared M. Gournay-Martin. "I should like to see any one else
+sell a hundred horse-power car for eight hundred pounds. Why, my good
+sir, you're having me!"
+
+"No, no," protested M. Charolais feebly.
+
+"I tell you you're having me," roared M. Gournay-Martin. "I'm letting
+you have a magnificent car for which I paid thirteen hundred pounds for
+eight hundred! It's scandalous the way you've beaten me down!"
+
+"No, no," protested M. Charolais.
+
+He seemed frightened out of his life by the vehemence of the big man.
+
+"You wait till you've seen how it goes," said M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+"Eight hundred is very dear," said M. Charolais.
+
+"Come, come! You're too sharp, that's what you are. But don't say any
+more till you've tried the car."
+
+He turned to his chauffeur, who stood by watching the struggle with an
+appreciative grin on his brown face, and said: "Now, Jean, take these
+gentlemen to the garage, and run them down to the station. Show them
+what the car can do. Do whatever they ask you--everything."
+
+He winked at Jean, turned again to M. Charolais, and said: "You know,
+M. Charolais, you're too good a man of business for me. You're hot
+stuff, that's what you are--hot stuff. You go along and try the car.
+Good-bye--good-bye."
+
+The four Charolais murmured good-bye in deep depression, and went off
+with Jean, wearing something of the air of whipped dogs. When they had
+gone round the corner the millionaire turned to the Duke and said, with
+a chuckle: "He'll buy the car all right--had him fine!"
+
+"No business success of yours could surprise me," said the Duke
+blandly, with a faint, ironical smile.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin's little pig's eyes danced and sparkled; and the
+smiles flowed over the distended skin of his face like little ripples
+over a stagnant pool, reluctantly. It seemed to be too tightly
+stretched for smiles.
+
+"The car's four years old," he said joyfully. "He'll give me eight
+hundred for it, and it's not worth a pipe of tobacco. And eight hundred
+pounds is just the price of a little Watteau I've had my eye on for
+some time--a first-class investment."
+
+They strolled down the terrace, and through one of the windows into the
+hall. Firmin had lighted the lamps, two of them. They made but a small
+oasis of light in a desert of dim hall. The millionaire let himself
+down very gingerly into an Empire chair, as if he feared, with
+excellent reason, that it might collapse under his weight.
+
+"Well, my dear Duke," he said, "you don't ask me the result of my
+official lunch or what the minister said."
+
+"Is there any news?" said the Duke carelessly.
+
+"Yes. The decree will be signed to-morrow. You can consider yourself
+decorated. I hope you feel a happy man," said the millionaire, rubbing
+his fat hands together with prodigious satisfaction.
+
+"Oh, charmed--charmed," said the Duke, with entire indifference.
+
+"As for me, I'm delighted--delighted," said the millionaire. "I was
+extremely keen on your being decorated. After that, and after a volume
+or two of travels, and after you've published your grandfather's
+letters with a good introduction, you can begin to think of the
+Academy."
+
+"The Academy!" said the Duke, startled from his usual coolness. "But
+I've no title to become an Academician."
+
+"How, no title?" said the millionaire solemnly; and his little eyes
+opened wide. "You're a duke."
+
+"There's no doubt about that," said the Duke, watching him with
+admiring curiosity.
+
+"I mean to marry my daughter to a worker--a worker, my dear Duke," said
+the millionaire, slapping his big left hand with his bigger right.
+"I've no prejudices--not I. I wish to have for son-in-law a duke who
+wears the Order of the Legion of Honour, and belongs to the Academie
+Francaise, because that is personal merit. I'm no snob."
+
+A gentle, irrepressible laugh broke from the Duke.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" said the millionaire, and a sudden lowering
+gloom overspread his beaming face.
+
+"Nothing--nothing," said the Duke quietly. "Only you're so full of
+surprises."
+
+"I've startled you, have I? I thought I should. It's true that I'm full
+of surprises. It's my knowledge. I understand so much. I understand
+business, and I love art, pictures, a good bargain, bric-a-brac, fine
+tapestry. They're first-class investments. Yes, certainly I do love the
+beautiful. And I don't want to boast, but I understand it. I have
+taste, and I've something better than taste; I have a flair, the
+dealer's flair."
+
+"Yes, your collections, especially your collection in Paris, prove it,"
+said the Duke, stifling a yawn.
+
+"And yet you haven't seen the finest thing I have--the coronet of the
+Princesse de Lamballe. It's worth half a million francs."
+
+"So I've heard," said the Duke, a little wearily. "I don't wonder that
+Arsene Lupin envied you it."
+
+The Empire chair creaked as the millionaire jumped.
+
+"Don't speak of the swine!" he roared. "Don't mention his name before
+me."
+
+"Germaine showed me his letter," said the Duke. "It is amusing."
+
+"His letter! The blackguard! I just missed a fit of apoplexy from it,"
+roared the millionaire. "I was in this very hall where we are now,
+chatting quietly, when all at once in comes Firmin, and hands me a
+letter."
+
+He was interrupted by the opening of the door. Firmin came clumping
+down the room, and said in his deep voice, "A letter for you, sir."
+
+"Thank you," said the millionaire, taking the letter, and, as he fitted
+his eye-glass into his eye, he went on, "Yes, Firmin brought me a
+letter of which the handwriting,"--he raised the envelope he was
+holding to his eyes, and bellowed, "Good heavens!"
+
+"What's the matter?" said the Duke, jumping in his chair at the sudden,
+startling burst of sound.
+
+"The handwriting!--the handwriting!--it's THE SAME HANDWRITING!" gasped
+the millionaire. And he let himself fall heavily backwards against the
+back of his chair.
+
+There was a crash. The Duke had a vision of huge arms and legs waving
+in the air as the chair-back gave. There was another crash. The chair
+collapsed. The huge bulk banged to the floor.
+
+The laughter of the Duke rang out uncontrollably. He caught one of the
+waving arms, and jerked the flabby giant to his feet with an ease which
+seemed to show that his muscles were of steel.
+
+"Come," he said, laughing still. "This is nonsense! What do you mean by
+the same handwriting? It can't be."
+
+"It is the same handwriting. Am I likely to make a mistake about it?"
+spluttered the millionaire. And he tore open the envelope with an air
+of frenzy.
+
+He ran his eyes over it, and they grew larger and larger--they grew
+almost of an average size.
+
+"Listen," he said "listen:"
+
+"DEAR SIR,"
+
+"My collection of pictures, which I had the pleasure of starting three
+years ago with some of your own, only contains, as far as Old Masters
+go, one Velasquez, one Rembrandt, and three paltry Rubens. You have a
+great many more. Since it is a shame such masterpieces should be in
+your hands, I propose to appropriate them; and I shall set about a
+respectful acquisition of them in your Paris house tomorrow morning."
+
+"Yours very sincerely,"
+
+"ARSENE LUPIN."
+
+"He's humbugging," said the Duke.
+
+"Wait! wait!" gasped the millionaire. "There's a postscript. Listen:"
+
+"P.S.--You must understand that since you have been keeping the coronet
+of the Princesse de Lamballe during these three years, I shall avail
+myself of the same occasion to compel you to restore that piece of
+jewellery to me.--A. L."
+
+"The thief! The scoundrel! I'm choking!" gasped the millionaire,
+clutching at his collar.
+
+To judge from the blackness of his face, and the way he staggered and
+dropped on to a couch, which was fortunately stronger than the chair,
+he was speaking the truth.
+
+"Firmin! Firmin!" shouted the Duke. "A glass of water! Quick! Your
+master's ill."
+
+He rushed to the side of the millionaire, who gasped: "Telephone!
+Telephone to the Prefecture of Police! Be quick!"
+
+The Duke loosened his collar with deft fingers; tore a Van Loo fan from
+its case hanging on the wall, and fanned him furiously. Firmin came
+clumping into the room with a glass of water in his hand.
+
+The drawing-room door opened, and Germaine and Sonia, alarmed by the
+Duke's shout, hurried in.
+
+"Quick! Your smelling-salts!" said the Duke.
+
+Sonia ran across the hall, opened one of the drawers in the Oriental
+cabinet, and ran to the millionaire with a large bottle of
+smelling-salts in her hand. The Duke took it from her, and applied it
+to the millionaire's nose. The millionaire sneezed thrice with terrific
+violence. The Duke snatched the glass from Firmin and dashed the water
+into his host's purple face. The millionaire gasped and spluttered.
+
+Germaine stood staring helplessly at her gasping sire.
+
+"Whatever's the matter?" she said.
+
+"It's this letter," said the Duke. "A letter from Lupin."
+
+"I told you so--I said that Lupin was in the neighbourhood," cried
+Germaine triumphantly.
+
+"Firmin--where's Firmin?" said the millionaire, dragging himself
+upright. He seemed to have recovered a great deal of his voice. "Oh,
+there you are!"
+
+He jumped up, caught the gamekeeper by the shoulder, and shook him
+furiously.
+
+"This letter. Where did it come from? Who brought it?" he roared.
+
+"It was in the letter-box--the letter-box of the lodge at the bottom of
+the park. My wife found it there," said Firmin, and he twisted out of
+the millionaire's grasp.
+
+"Just as it was three years ago," roared the millionaire, with an air
+of desperation. "It's exactly the same coup. Oh, what a catastrophe!
+What a catastrophe!"
+
+He made as if to tear out his hair; then, remembering its scantiness,
+refrained.
+
+"Now, come, it's no use losing your head," said the Duke, with quiet
+firmness. "If this letter isn't a hoax--"
+
+"Hoax?" bellowed the millionaire. "Was it a hoax three years ago?"
+
+"Very good," said the Duke. "But if this robbery with which you're
+threatened is genuine, it's just childish."
+
+"How?" said the millionaire.
+
+"Look at the date of the letter--Sunday, September the third. This
+letter was written to-day."
+
+"Yes. Well, what of it?" said the millionaire.
+
+"Look at the letter: 'I shall set about a respectful acquisition of
+them in your Paris house to-morrow morning'--to-morrow morning."
+
+"Yes, yes; 'to-morrow morning'--what of it?" said the millionaire.
+
+"One of two things," said the Duke. "Either it's a hoax, and we needn't
+bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to stop
+the robbery."
+
+"Of course we have. Whatever was I thinking of?" said the millionaire.
+And his anguish cleared from his face.
+
+"For once in a way our dear Lupin's fondness for warning people will
+have given him a painful jar," said the Duke.
+
+"Come on! let me get at the telephone," cried the millionaire.
+
+"But the telephone's no good," said Sonia quickly.
+
+"No good! Why?" roared the millionaire, dashing heavily across the room
+to it.
+
+"Look at the time," said Sonia; "the telephone doesn't work as late as
+this. It's Sunday."
+
+The millionaire stopped dead.
+
+"It's true. It's appalling," he groaned.
+
+"But that doesn't matter. You can always telegraph," said Germaine.
+
+"But you can't. It's impossible," said Sonia. "You can't get a message
+through. It's Sunday; and the telegraph offices shut at twelve o'clock."
+
+"Oh, what a Government!" groaned the millionaire. And he sank down
+gently on a chair beside the telephone, and mopped the beads of anguish
+from his brow. They looked at him, and they looked at one another,
+cudgelling their brains for yet another way of communicating with the
+Paris police.
+
+"Hang it all!" said the Duke. "There must be some way out of the
+difficulty."
+
+"What way?" said the millionaire.
+
+The Duke did not answer. He put his hands in his pockets and walked
+impatiently up and down the hall. Germaine sat down on a chair. Sonia
+put her hands on the back of a couch, and leaned forward, watching him.
+Firmin stood by the door, whither he had retired to be out of the reach
+of his excited master, with a look of perplexity on his stolid face.
+They all watched the Duke with the air of people waiting for an oracle
+to deliver its message. The millionaire kept mopping the beads of
+anguish from his brow. The more he thought of his impending loss, the
+more freely he perspired. Germaine's maid, Irma, came to the door
+leading into the outer hall, which Firmin, according to his usual
+custom, had left open, and peered in wonder at the silent group.
+
+"I have it!" cried the Duke at last. "There is a way out."
+
+"What is it?" said the millionaire, rising and coming to the middle of
+the hall.
+
+"What time is it?" said the Duke, pulling out his watch.
+
+The millionaire pulled out his watch. Germaine pulled out hers. Firmin,
+after a struggle, produced from some pocket difficult of access an
+object not unlike a silver turnip. There was a brisk dispute between
+Germaine and the millionaire about which of their watches was right.
+Firmin, whose watch apparently did not agree with the watch of either
+of them, made his deep voice heard above theirs. The Duke came to the
+conclusion that it must be a few minutes past seven.
+
+"It's seven or a few minutes past," he said sharply. "Well, I'm going
+to take a car and hurry off to Paris. I ought to get there, bar
+accidents, between two and three in the morning, just in time to inform
+the police and catch the burglars in the very midst of their burglary.
+I'll just get a few things together."
+
+So saying, he rushed out of the hall.
+
+"Excellent! excellent!" said the millionaire. "Your young man is a man
+of resource, Germaine. It seems almost a pity that he's a duke. He'd do
+wonders in the building trade. But I'm going to Paris too, and you're
+coming with me. I couldn't wait idly here, to save my life. And I can't
+leave you here, either. This scoundrel may be going to make a
+simultaneous attempt on the chateau--not that there's much here that I
+really value. There's that statuette that moved, and the pane cut out
+of the window. I can't leave you two girls with burglars in the house.
+After all, there's the sixty horse-power and the thirty horse-power
+car--there'll be lots of room for all of us."
+
+"Oh, but it's nonsense, papa; we shall get there before the servants,"
+said Germaine pettishly. "Think of arriving at an empty house in the
+dead of night."
+
+"Nonsense!" said the millionaire. "Hurry off and get ready. Your bag
+ought to be packed. Where are my keys? Sonia, where are my keys--the
+keys of the Paris house?"
+
+"They're in the bureau," said Sonia.
+
+"Well, see that I don't go without them. Now hurry up. Firmin, go and
+tell Jean that we shall want both cars. I will drive one, the Duke the
+other. Jean must stay with you and help guard the chateau."
+
+So saying he bustled out of the hall, driving the two girls before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS
+
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the millionaire when the head of M.
+Charolais appeared at one of the windows opening on to the terrace. He
+looked round the empty hall, whistled softly, and stepped inside.
+Inside of ten seconds his three sons came in through the windows, and
+with them came Jean, the millionaire's chauffeur.
+
+"Take the door into the outer hall, Jean," said M. Charolais, in a low
+voice. "Bernard, take that door into the drawing-room. Pierre and
+Louis, help me go through the drawers. The whole family is going to
+Paris, and if we're not quick we shan't get the cars."
+
+"That comes of this silly fondness for warning people of a coup,"
+growled Jean, as he hurried to the door of the outer hall. "It would
+have been so simple to rob the Paris house without sending that
+infernal letter. It was sure to knock them all silly."
+
+"What harm can the letter do, you fool?" said M. Charolais. "It's
+Sunday. We want them knocked silly for to-morrow, to get hold of the
+coronet. Oh, to get hold of that coronet! It must be in Paris. I've
+been ransacking this chateau for hours."
+
+Jean opened the door of the outer hall half an inch, and glued his eyes
+to it. Bernard had done the same with the door opening into the
+drawing-room. M. Charolais, Pierre, and Louis were opening drawers,
+ransacking them, and shutting them with infinite quickness and
+noiselessly.
+
+"Bureau! Which is the bureau? The place is stuffed with bureaux!"
+growled M. Charolais. "I must have those keys."
+
+"That plain thing with the brass handles in the middle on the
+left--that's a bureau," said Bernard softly.
+
+"Why didn't you say so?" growled M. Charolais.
+
+He dashed to it, and tried it. It was locked.
+
+"Locked, of course! Just my luck! Come and get it open, Pierre. Be
+smart!"
+
+The son he had described as an engineer came quickly to the bureau,
+fitting together as he came the two halves of a small jemmy. He fitted
+it into the top of the flap. There was a crunch, and the old lock gave.
+He opened the flap, and he and M. Charolais pulled open drawer after
+drawer.
+
+"Quick! Here's that fat old fool!" said Jean, in a hoarse, hissing
+whisper.
+
+He moved down the hall, blowing out one of the lamps as he passed it.
+In the seventh drawer lay a bunch of keys. M. Charolais snatched it up,
+glanced at it, took a bunch of keys from his own pocket, put it in the
+drawer, closed it, closed the flap, and rushed to the window. Jean and
+his sons were already out on the terrace.
+
+M. Charolais was still a yard from the window when the door into the
+outer hall opened and in came M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+He caught a glimpse of a back vanishing through the window, and
+bellowed: "Hi! A man! A burglar! Firmin! Firmin!"
+
+He ran blundering down the hall, tangled his feet in the fragments of
+the broken chair, and came sprawling a thundering cropper, which
+knocked every breath of wind out of his capacious body. He lay flat on
+his face for a couple of minutes, his broad back wriggling
+convulsively--a pathetic sight!--in the painful effort to get his
+breath back. Then he sat up, and with perfect frankness burst into
+tears. He sobbed and blubbered, like a small child that has hurt
+itself, for three or four minutes. Then, having recovered his
+magnificent voice, he bellowed furiously: "Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace!
+Charmerace!"
+
+Then he rose painfully to his feet, and stood staring at the open
+windows.
+
+Presently he roared again: "Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!"
+
+He kept looking at the window with terrified eyes, as though he
+expected somebody to step in and cut his throat from ear to ear.
+
+"Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!" he bellowed again.
+
+The Duke came quietly into the hall, dressed in a heavy motor-coat, his
+motor-cap on his head, and carrying a kit-bag in his hand.
+
+"Did I hear you call?" he said.
+
+"Call?" said the millionaire. "I shouted. The burglars are here
+already. I've just seen one of them. He was bolting through the middle
+window."
+
+The Duke raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Nerves," he said gently--"nerves."
+
+"Nerves be hanged!" said the millionaire. "I tell you I saw him as
+plainly as I see you."
+
+"Well, you can't see me at all, seeing that you're lighting an acre and
+a half of hall with a single lamp," said the Duke, still in a tone of
+utter incredulity.
+
+"It's that fool Firmin! He ought to have lighted six. Firmin! Firmin!"
+bellowed the millionaire.
+
+They listened for the sonorous clumping of the promoted gamekeeper's
+boots, but they did not hear it. Evidently Firmin was still giving his
+master's instructions about the cars to Jean.
+
+"Well, we may as well shut the windows, anyhow," said the Duke,
+proceeding to do so. "If you think Firmin would be any good, you might
+post him in this hall with a gun to-night. There could be no harm in
+putting a charge of small shot into the legs of these ruffians. He has
+only to get one of them, and the others will go for their lives. Yet I
+don't like leaving you and Germaine in this big house with only Firmin
+to look after you."
+
+"I shouldn't like it myself, and I'm not going to chance it," growled
+the millionaire. "We're going to motor to Paris along with you, and
+leave Jean to help Firmin fight these burglars. Firmin's all
+right--he's an old soldier. He fought in '70. Not that I've much belief
+in soldiers against this cursed Lupin, after the way he dealt with that
+corporal and his men three years ago."
+
+"I'm glad you're coming to Paris," said the Duke. "It'll be a weight
+off my mind. I'd better drive the limousine, and you take the
+landaulet."
+
+"That won't do," said the millionaire. "Germaine won't go in the
+limousine. You know she has taken a dislike to it."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'd better bucket on to Paris, and let you follow slowly
+with Germaine. The sooner I get to Paris the better for your
+collection. I'll take Mademoiselle Kritchnoff with me, and, if you
+like, Irma, though the lighter I travel the sooner I shall get there."
+
+"No, I'll take Irma and Germaine," said the millionaire. "Germaine
+would prefer to have Irma with her, in case you had an accident. She
+wouldn't like to get to Paris and have to find a fresh maid."
+
+The drawing-room door opened, and in came Germaine, followed by Sonia
+and Irma. They wore motor-cloaks and hoods and veils. Sonia and Irma
+were carrying hand-bags.
+
+"I think it's extremely tiresome your dragging us off to Paris like
+this in the middle of the night," said Germaine pettishly.
+
+"Do you?" said the millionaire. "Well, then, you'll be interested to
+hear that I've just seen a burglar here in this very room. I frightened
+him, and he bolted through the window on to the terrace."
+
+"He was greenish-pink, slightly tinged with yellow," said the Duke
+softly.
+
+"Greenish-pink? Oh, do stop your jesting, Jacques! Is this a time for
+idiocy?" cried Germaine, in a tone of acute exasperation.
+
+"It was the dim light which made your father see him in those colours.
+In a bright light, I think he would have been an Alsatian blue," said
+the Duke suavely.
+
+"You'll have to break yourself of this silly habit of trifling, my dear
+Duke, if ever you expect to be a member of the Academie Francaise,"
+said the millionaire with some acrimony. "I tell you I did see a
+burglar."
+
+"Yes, yes. I admitted it frankly. It was his colour I was talking
+about," said the Duke, with an ironical smile.
+
+"Oh, stop your idiotic jokes! We're all sick to death of them!" said
+Germaine, with something of the fine fury which so often distinguished
+her father.
+
+"There are times for all things," said the millionaire solemnly. "And I
+must say that, with the fate of my collection and of the coronet
+trembling in the balance, this does not seem to me a season for idle
+jests."
+
+"I stand reproved," said the Duke; and he smiled at Sonia.
+
+"My keys, Sonia--the keys of the Paris house," said the millionaire.
+
+Sonia took her own keys from her pocket and went to the bureau. She
+slipped a key into the lock and tried to turn it. It would not turn;
+and she bent down to look at it.
+
+"Why--why, some one's been tampering with the lock! It's broken!" she
+cried.
+
+"I told you I'd seen a burglar!" cried the millionaire triumphantly.
+"He was after the keys."
+
+Sonia drew back the flap of the bureau and hastily pulled open the
+drawer in which the keys had been.
+
+"They're here!" she cried, taking them out of the drawer and holding
+them up.
+
+"Then I was just in time," said the millionaire. "I startled him in the
+very act of stealing the keys."
+
+"I withdraw! I withdraw!" said the Duke. "You did see a burglar,
+evidently. But still I believe he was greenish-pink. They often are.
+However, you'd better give me those keys, Mademoiselle Sonia, since I'm
+to get to Paris first. I should look rather silly if, when I got there,
+I had to break into the house to catch the burglars."
+
+Sonia handed the keys to the Duke. He contrived to take her little
+hand, keys and all, into his own, as he received them, and squeezed it.
+The light was too dim for the others to see the flush which flamed in
+her face. She went back and stood beside the bureau.
+
+"Now, papa, are you going to motor to Paris in a thin coat and linen
+waistcoat? If we're going, we'd better go. You always do keep us
+waiting half an hour whenever we start to go anywhere," said Germaine
+firmly.
+
+The millionaire bustled out of the room. With a gesture of impatience
+Germaine dropped into a chair. Irma stood waiting by the drawing-room
+door. Sonia sat down by the bureau.
+
+There came a sharp patter of rain against the windows.
+
+"Rain! It only wanted that! It's going to be perfectly beastly!" cried
+Germaine.
+
+"Oh, well, you must make the best of it. At any rate you're well
+wrapped up, and the night is warm enough, though it is raining," said
+the Duke. "Still, I could have wished that Lupin confined his
+operations to fine weather." He paused, and added cheerfully, "But,
+after all, it will lay the dust."
+
+They sat for three or four minutes in a dull silence, listening to the
+pattering of the rain against the panes. The Duke took his
+cigarette-case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette.
+
+Suddenly he lost his bored air; his face lighted up; and he said
+joyfully: "Of course, why didn't I think of it? Why should we start
+from a pit of gloom like this? Let us have the proper illumination
+which our enterprise deserves."
+
+With that he set about lighting all the lamps in the hall. There were
+lamps on stands, lamps on brackets, lamps on tables, and lamps which
+hung from the roof--old-fashioned lamps with new reservoirs, new lamps
+of what is called chaste design, brass lamps, silver lamps, and lamps
+in porcelain. The Duke lighted them one after another, patiently,
+missing none, with a cold perseverance. The operation was punctuated by
+exclamations from Germaine. They were all to the effect that she could
+not understand how he could be such a fool. The Duke paid no attention
+whatever to her. His face illumined with boyish glee, he lighted lamp
+after lamp.
+
+Sonia watched him with a smiling admiration of the childlike enthusiasm
+with which he performed the task. Even the stolid face of the ox-eyed
+Irma relaxed into grins, which she smoothed quickly out with a
+respectful hand.
+
+The Duke had just lighted the twenty-second lamp when in bustled the
+millionaire.
+
+"What's this? What's this?" he cried, stopping short, blinking.
+
+"Just some more of Jacques' foolery!" cried Germaine in tones of the
+last exasperation.
+
+"But, my dear Duke!--my dear Duke! The oil!--the oil!" cried the
+millionaire, in a tone of bitter distress. "Do you think it's my object
+in life to swell the Rockefeller millions? We never have more than six
+lamps burning unless we are holding a reception."
+
+"I think it looks so cheerful," said the Duke, looking round on his
+handiwork with a beaming smile of satisfaction. "But where are the
+cars? Jean seems a deuce of a time bringing them round. Does he expect
+us to go to the garage through this rain? We'd better hurry him up.
+Come on; you've got a good carrying voice."
+
+He caught the millionaire by the arm, hurried him through the outer
+hall, opened the big door of the chateau, and said: "Now shout!"
+
+The millionaire looked at him, shrugged his shoulders, and said: "You
+don't beat about the bush when you want anything."
+
+"Why should I?" said the Duke simply. "Shout, my good chap--shout!"
+
+The millionaire raised his voice in a terrific bellow of "Jean! Jean!
+Firmin! Firmin!"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS
+
+
+The night was very black; the rain pattered in their faces.
+
+Again the millionaire bellowed: "Jean! Firmin! Firmin! Jean!"
+
+No answer came out of the darkness, though his bellow echoed and
+re-echoed among the out-buildings and stables away on the left.
+
+He turned and looked at the Duke and said uneasily, "What on earth can
+they be doing?"
+
+"I can't conceive," said the Duke. "I suppose we must go and hunt them
+out."
+
+"What! in this darkness, with these burglars about?" said the
+millionaire, starting back.
+
+"If we don't, nobody else will," said the Duke. "And all the time that
+rascal Lupin is stealing nearer and nearer your pictures. So buck up,
+and come along!"
+
+He seized the reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the
+steps. They took their way to the stables. A dim light shone from the
+open door of the motor-house. The Duke went into it first, and stopped
+short.
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!" he cried,
+
+Instead of three cars the motor-house held but one--the hundred
+horse-power Mercrac. It was a racing car, with only two seats. On them
+sat two figures, Jean and Firmin.
+
+"What are you sitting there for? You idle dogs!" bellowed the
+millionaire.
+
+Neither of the men answered, nor did they stir. The light from the lamp
+gleamed on their fixed eyes, which stared at their infuriated master.
+
+"What on earth is this?" said the Duke; and seizing the lamp which
+stood beside the car, he raised it so that its light fell on the two
+figures. Then it was clear what had happened: they were trussed like
+two fowls, and gagged.
+
+The Duke pulled a penknife from his pocket, opened the blade, stepped
+into the car and set Firmin free. Firmin coughed and spat and swore.
+The Duke cut the bonds of Jean.
+
+"Well," said the Duke, in a tone of cutting irony, "what new game is
+this? What have you been playing at?"
+
+"It was those Charolais--those cursed Charolais!" growled Firmin.
+
+"They came on us unawares from behind," said Jean.
+
+"They tied us up, and gagged us--the swine!" said Firmin.
+
+"And then--they went off in the two cars," said Jean.
+
+"Went off in the two cars?" cried the millionaire, in blank
+stupefaction.
+
+The Duke burst into a shout of laughter.
+
+"Well, your dear friend Lupin doesn't do things by halves," he cried.
+"This is the funniest thing I ever heard of."
+
+"Funny!" howled the millionaire. "Funny! Where does the fun come in?
+What about my pictures and the coronet?"
+
+The Duke laughed his laugh out; then changed on the instant to a man of
+action.
+
+"Well, this means a change in our plans," he said. "I must get to Paris
+in this car here."
+
+"It's such a rotten old thing," said the millionaire. "You'll never do
+it."
+
+"Never mind," said the Duke. "I've got to do it somehow. I daresay it's
+better than you think. And after all, it's only a matter of two hundred
+miles." He paused, and then said in an anxious tone: "All the same I
+don't like leaving you and Germaine in the chateau. These rogues have
+probably only taken the cars out of reach just to prevent your getting
+to Paris. They'll leave them in some field and come back."
+
+"You're not going to leave us behind. I wouldn't spend the night in the
+chateau for a million francs. There's always the train," said the
+millionaire.
+
+"The train! Twelve hours in the train--with all those changes! You
+don't mean that you will actually go to Paris by train?" said the Duke.
+
+"I do," said the millionaire. "Come along--I must go and tell Germaine;
+there's no time to waste," and he hurried off to the chateau.
+
+"Get the lamps lighted, Jean, and make sure that the tank's full. As
+for the engine, I must humour it and trust to luck. I'll get her to
+Paris somehow," said the Duke.
+
+He went back to the chateau, and Firmin followed him.
+
+When the Duke came into the great hall he found Germaine and her father
+indulging in recriminations. She was declaring that nothing would
+induce her to make the journey by train; her father was declaring that
+she should. He bore down her opposition by the mere force of his
+magnificent voice.
+
+When at last there came a silence, Sonia said quietly: "But is there a
+train? I know there's a train at midnight; but is there one before?"
+
+"A time-table--where's a time-table?" said the millionaire.
+
+"Now, where did I see a time-table?" said the Duke. "Oh, I know;
+there's one in the drawer of that Oriental cabinet." Crossing to the
+cabinet, he opened the drawer, took out the time-table, and handed it
+to M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+The millionaire took it and turned over the leaves quickly, ran his eye
+down a page, and said, "Yes, thank goodness, there is a train. There's
+one at a quarter to nine."
+
+"And what good is it to us? How are we to get to the station?" said
+Germaine.
+
+They looked at one another blankly. Firmin, who had followed the Duke
+into the hall, came to the rescue.
+
+"There's the luggage-cart," he said.
+
+"The luggage-cart!" cried Germaine contemptuously.
+
+"The very thing!" said the millionaire. "I'll drive it myself. Off you
+go, Firmin; harness a horse to it."
+
+Firmin went clumping out of the hall.
+
+It was perhaps as well that he went, for the Duke asked what time it
+was; and since the watches of Germaine and her father differed still,
+there ensued an altercation in which, had Firmin been there, he would
+doubtless have taken part.
+
+The Duke cut it short by saying: "Well, I don't think I'll wait to see
+you start for the station. It won't take you more than half an hour.
+The cart is light. You needn't start yet. I'd better get off as soon as
+the car is ready. It isn't as though I could trust it."
+
+"One moment," said Germaine. "Is there a dining-car on the train? I'm
+not going to be starved as well as have my night's rest cut to pieces."
+
+"Of course there isn't a dining-car," snapped her father. "We must eat
+something now, and take something with us."
+
+"Sonia, Irma, quick! Be off to the larder and see what you can find.
+Tell Mother Firmin to make an omelette. Be quick!"
+
+Sonia went towards the door of the hall, followed by Irma.
+
+"Good-night, and bon voyage, Mademoiselle Sonia," said the Duke.
+
+"Good-night, and bon voyage, your Grace," said Sonia.
+
+The Duke opened the door of the hall for her; and as she went out, she
+said anxiously, in a low voice: "Oh, do--do be careful. I hate to think
+of your hurrying to Paris on a night like this. Please be careful."
+
+"I will be careful," said the Duke.
+
+The honk of the motor-horn told him that Jean had brought the car to
+the door of the chateau. He came down the room, kissed Germaine's
+hands, shook hands with the millionaire, and bade them good-night. Then
+he went out to the car. They heard it start; the rattle of it grew
+fainter and fainter down the long avenue and died away.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin arose, and began putting out lamps. As he did so, he
+kept casting fearful glances at the window, as if he feared lest, now
+that the Duke had gone, the burglars should dash in upon him.
+
+There came a knock at the door, and Jean appeared on the threshold.
+
+"His Grace told me that I was to come into the house, and help Firmin
+look after it," he said.
+
+The millionaire gave him instructions about the guarding of the house.
+Firmin, since he was an old soldier, was to occupy the post of honour,
+and guard the hall, armed with his gun. Jean was to guard the two
+drawing-rooms, as being less likely points of attack. He also was to
+have a gun; and the millionaire went with him to the gun-room and gave
+him one and a dozen cartridges. When they came back to the hall, Sonia
+called them into the dining-room; and there, to the accompaniment of an
+unsubdued grumbling from Germaine at having to eat cold food at eight
+at night, they made a hasty but excellent meal, since the chef had left
+an elaborate cold supper ready to be served.
+
+They had nearly finished it when Jean came in, his gun on his arm, to
+say that Firmin had harnessed the horse to the luggage-cart, and it was
+awaiting them at the door of the chateau.
+
+"Send him in to me, and stand by the horse till we come out," said the
+millionaire.
+
+Firmin came clumping in.
+
+The millionaire gazed at him solemnly, and said: "Firmin, I am relying
+on you. I am leaving you in a position of honour and danger--a position
+which an old soldier of France loves."
+
+Firmin did his best to look like an old soldier of France. He pulled
+himself up out of the slouch which long years of loafing through woods
+with a gun on his arm had given him. He lacked also the old soldier of
+France's fiery gaze. His eyes were lack-lustre.
+
+"I look for anything, Firmin--burglary, violence, an armed assault,"
+said the millionaire.
+
+"Don't be afraid, sir. I saw the war of '70," said Firmin boldly,
+rising to the occasion.
+
+"Good!" said the millionaire. "I confide the chateau to you. I trust
+you with my treasures."
+
+He rose, and saying "Come along, we must be getting to the station," he
+led the way to the door of the chateau.
+
+The luggage-cart stood rather high, and they had to bring a chair out
+of the hall to enable the girls to climb into it. Germaine did not
+forget to give her real opinion of the advantages of a seat formed by a
+plank resting on the sides of the cart. The millionaire climbed heavily
+up in front, and took the reins.
+
+"Never again will I trust only to motor-cars. The first thing I'll do
+after I've made sure that my collections are safe will be to buy
+carriages--something roomy," he said gloomily, as he realized the
+discomfort of his seat.
+
+He turned to Jean and Firmin, who stood on the steps of the chateau
+watching the departure of their master, and said: "Sons of France, be
+brave--be brave!"
+
+The cart bumped off into the damp, dark night.
+
+Jean and Firmin watched it disappear into the darkness. Then they came
+into the chateau and shut the door.
+
+Firmin looked at Jean, and said gloomily: "I don't like this. These
+burglars stick at nothing. They'd as soon cut your throat as look at
+you."
+
+"It can't be helped," said Jean. "Besides, you've got the post of
+honour. You guard the hall. I'm to look after the drawing-rooms.
+They're not likely to break in through the drawing-rooms. And I shall
+lock the door between them and the hall."
+
+"No, no; you won't lock that door!" cried Firmin.
+
+"But I certainly will," said Jean. "You'd better come and get a gun."
+
+They went to the gun-room, Firmin still protesting against the locking
+of the door between the drawing-rooms and the hall. He chose his gun;
+and they went into the kitchen. Jean took two bottles of wine, a
+rich-looking pie, a sweet, and carried them to the drawing-room. He
+came back into the hall, gathered together an armful of papers and
+magazines, and went back to the drawing-room. Firmin kept trotting
+after him, like a little dog with a somewhat heavy footfall.
+
+On the threshold of the drawing-room Jean paused and said: "The
+important thing with burglars is to fire first, old cock. Good-night.
+Pleasant dreams."
+
+He shut the door and turned the key. Firmin stared at the decorated
+panels blankly. The beauty of the scheme of decoration did not, at the
+moment, move him to admiration.
+
+He looked fearfully round the empty hall and at the windows, black
+against the night. Under the patter of the rain he heard
+footsteps--distinctly. He went hastily clumping down the hall, and
+along the passage to the kitchen.
+
+His wife was setting his supper on the table.
+
+"My God!" he said. "I haven't been so frightened since '70." And he
+mopped his glistening forehead with a dish-cloth. It was not a clean
+dish-cloth; but he did not care.
+
+"Frightened? What of?" said his wife.
+
+"Burglars! Cut-throats!" said Firmin.
+
+He told her of the fears of M. Gournay-Martin, and of his own
+appointment to the honourable and dangerous post of guard of the
+chateau.
+
+"God save us!" said his wife. "You lock the door of that beastly hall,
+and come into the kitchen. Burglars won't bother about the kitchen."
+
+"But the master's treasures!" protested Firmin. "He confided them to
+me. He said so distinctly."
+
+"Let the master look after his treasures himself," said Madame Firmin,
+with decision. "You've only one throat; and I'm not going to have it
+cut. You sit down and eat your supper. Go and lock that door first,
+though."
+
+Firmin locked the door of the hall; then he locked the door of the
+kitchen; then he sat down, and began to eat his supper. His appetite
+was hearty, but none the less he derived little pleasure from the meal.
+He kept stopping with the food poised on his fork, midway between the
+plate and his mouth, for several seconds at a time, while he listened
+with straining ears for the sound of burglars breaking in the windows
+of the hall. He was much too far from those windows to hear anything
+that happened to them, but that did not prevent him from straining his
+ears. Madame Firmin ate her supper with an air of perfect ease. She
+felt sure that burglars would not bother with the kitchen.
+
+Firmin's anxiety made him terribly thirsty. Tumbler after tumbler of
+wine flowed down the throat for which he feared. When he had finished
+his supper he went on satisfying his thirst. Madame Firmin lighted his
+pipe for him, and went and washed up the supper-dishes in the scullery.
+Then she came back, and sat down on the other side of the hearth,
+facing him. About the middle of his third bottle of wine, Firmin's
+cold, relentless courage was suddenly restored to him. He began to talk
+firmly about his duty to his master, his resolve to die, if need were,
+in defence of his interests, of his utter contempt for
+burglars--probably Parisians. But he did not go into the hall.
+Doubtless the pleasant warmth of the kitchen fire held him in his chair.
+
+He had described to his wife, with some ferocity, the cruel manner in
+which he would annihilate the first three burglars who entered the
+hall, and was proceeding to describe his method of dealing with the
+fourth, when there came a loud knocking on the front door of the
+chateau.
+
+Stricken silent, turned to stone, Firmin sat with his mouth open, in
+the midst of an unfinished word. Madame Firmin scuttled to the kitchen
+door she had left unlocked on her return from the scullery, and locked
+it. She turned, and they stared at one another.
+
+The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking
+there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at
+one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling
+hands, and the movement seemed to set his teeth chattering. They
+chattered like castanets.
+
+The knocking still went on, and so did the roaring.
+
+It had gone on at least for five minutes, when a slow gleam of
+comprehension lightened Madame Firmin's face.
+
+"I believe it's the master's voice," she said.
+
+"The master's voice!" said Firmin, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.
+
+"Yes," said Madame Firmin. And she unlocked the thick door and opened
+it a few inches.
+
+The barrier removed, the well-known bellow of the millionaire came
+distinctly to their ears. Firmin's courage rushed upon him in full
+flood. He clumped across the room, brushed his wife aside, and trotted
+to the door of the chateau. He unlocked it, drew the bolts, and threw
+it open. On the steps stood the millionaire, Germaine, and Sonia. Irma
+stood at the horse's head.
+
+"What the devil have you been doing?" bellowed the millionaire. "What
+do you keep me standing in the rain for? Why didn't you let me in?"
+
+"B-b-b-burglars--I thought you were b-b-b-burglars," stammered Firmin.
+
+"Burglars!" howled the millionaire. "Do I sound like a burglar?"
+
+At the moment he did not; he sounded more like a bull of Bashan. He
+bustled past Firmin to the door of the hall.
+
+"Here! What's this locked for?" he bellowed.
+
+"I--I--locked it in case burglars should get in while I was opening the
+front door," stammered Firmin.
+
+The millionaire turned the key, opened the door, and went into the
+hall. Germaine followed him. She threw off her dripping coat, and said
+with some heat: "I can't conceive why you didn't make sure that there
+was a train at a quarter to nine. I will not go to Paris to-night.
+Nothing shall induce me to take that midnight train!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said the millionaire. "Nonsense--you'll have to go! Where's
+that infernal time-table?" He rushed to the table on to which he had
+thrown the time-table after looking up the train, snatched it up, and
+looked at the cover. "Why, hang it!" he cried. "It's for June--June,
+1903!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Germaine, almost in a scream. "It's incredible! It's one of
+Jacques' jokes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DUKE ARRIVES
+
+
+The morning was gloomy, and the police-station with its bare,
+white-washed walls--their white expanse was only broken by
+notice-boards to which were pinned portraits of criminals with details
+of their appearance, their crime, and the reward offered for their
+apprehension--with its shabby furniture, and its dingy fireplace,
+presented a dismal and sordid appearance entirely in keeping with the
+September grey. The inspector sat at his desk, yawning after a night
+which had passed without an arrest. He was waiting to be relieved. The
+policeman at the door and the two policemen sitting on a bench by the
+wall yawned in sympathy.
+
+The silence of the street was broken by the rattle of an uncommonly
+noisy motor-car. It stopped before the door of the police-station, and
+the eyes of the inspector and his men turned, idly expectant, to the
+door of the office.
+
+It opened, and a young man in motor-coat and cap stood on the threshold.
+
+He looked round the office with alert eyes, which took in everything,
+and said, in a brisk, incisive voice: "I am the Duke of Charmerace. I
+am here on behalf of M. Gournay-Martin. Last evening he received a
+letter from Arsene Lupin saying he was going to break into his Paris
+house this very morning."
+
+At the name of Arsene Lupin the inspector sprang from his chair, the
+policemen from their bench. On the instant they were wide awake,
+attentive, full of zeal.
+
+"The letter, your Grace!" said the inspector briskly.
+
+The Duke pulled off his glove, drew the letter from the breast-pocket
+of his under-coat, and handed it to the inspector.
+
+The inspector glanced through it, and said. "Yes, I know the
+handwriting well." Then he read it carefully, and added, "Yes, yes:
+it's his usual letter."
+
+"There's no time to be lost," said the Duke quickly. "I ought to have
+been here hours ago--hours. I had a break-down. I'm afraid I'm too late
+as it is."
+
+"Come along, your Grace--come along, you," said the inspector briskly.
+
+The four of them hurried out of the office and down the steps of the
+police-station. In the roadway stood a long grey racing-car, caked with
+muds--grey mud, brown mud, red mud--from end to end. It looked as if it
+had brought samples of the soil of France from many districts.
+
+"Come along; I'll take you in the car. Your men can trot along beside
+us," said the Duke to the inspector.
+
+He slipped into the car, the inspector jumped in and took the seat
+beside him, and they started. They went slowly, to allow the two
+policemen to keep up with them. Indeed, the car could not have made any
+great pace, for the tyre of the off hind-wheel was punctured and
+deflated.
+
+In three minutes they came to the Gournay-Martin house, a wide-fronted
+mass of undistinguished masonry, in an undistinguished row of exactly
+the same pattern. There were no signs that any one was living in it.
+Blinds were drawn, shutters were up over all the windows, upper and
+lower. No smoke came from any of its chimneys, though indeed it was
+full early for that.
+
+Pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket, the Duke ran up the steps. The
+inspector followed him. The Duke looked at the bunch, picked out the
+latch-key, and fitted it into the lock. It did not open it. He drew it
+out and tried another key and another. The door remained locked.
+
+"Let me, your Grace," said the inspector. "I'm more used to it. I shall
+be quicker."
+
+The Duke handed the keys to him, and, one after another, the inspector
+fitted them into the lock. It was useless. None of them opened the door.
+
+"They've given me the wrong keys," said the Duke, with some vexation.
+"Or no--stay--I see what's happened. The keys have been changed."
+
+"Changed?" said the inspector. "When? Where?"
+
+"Last night at Charmerace," said the Duke. "M. Gournay-Martin declared
+that he saw a burglar slip out of one of the windows of the hall of the
+chateau, and we found the lock of the bureau in which the keys were
+kept broken."
+
+The inspector seized the knocker, and hammered on the door.
+
+"Try that door there," he cried to his men, pointing to a side-door on
+the right, the tradesmen's entrance, giving access to the back of the
+house. It was locked. There came no sound of movement in the house in
+answer to the inspector's knocking.
+
+"Where's the concierge?" he said.
+
+The Duke shrugged his shoulders. "There's a housekeeper, too--a woman
+named Victoire," he said. "Let's hope we don't find them with their
+throats cut."
+
+"That isn't Lupin's way," said the inspector. "They won't have come to
+much harm."
+
+"It's not very likely that they'll be in a position to open doors,"
+said the Duke drily.
+
+"Hadn't we better have it broken open and be done with it?"
+
+The inspector hesitated.
+
+"People don't like their doors broken open," he said. "And M.
+Gournay-Martin--"
+
+"Oh, I'll take the responsibility of that," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, if you say so, your Grace," said the inspector, with a brisk
+relief. "Henri, go to Ragoneau, the locksmith in the Rue Theobald.
+Bring him here as quickly as ever you can get him."
+
+"Tell him it's a couple of louis if he's here inside of ten minutes,"
+said the Duke.
+
+The policeman hurried off. The inspector bent down and searched the
+steps carefully. He searched the roadway. The Duke lighted a cigarette
+and watched him. The house of the millionaire stood next but one to the
+corner of a street which ran at right angles to the one in which it
+stood, and the corner house was empty. The inspector searched the road,
+then he went round the corner. The other policeman went along the road,
+searching in the opposite direction. The Duke leant against the door
+and smoked on patiently. He showed none of the weariness of a man who
+has spent the night in a long and anxious drive in a rickety motor-car.
+His eyes were bright and clear; he looked as fresh as if he had come
+from his bed after a long night's rest. If he had not found the South
+Pole, he had at any rate brought back fine powers of endurance from his
+expedition in search of it.
+
+The inspector came back, wearing a disappointed air.
+
+"Have you found anything?" said the Duke.
+
+"Nothing," said the inspector.
+
+He came up the steps and hammered again on the door. No one answered
+his knock. There was a clatter of footsteps, and Henri and the
+locksmith, a burly, bearded man, his bag of tools slung over his
+shoulder, came hurrying up. He was not long getting to work, but it was
+not an easy job. The lock was strong. At the end of five minutes he
+said that he might spend an hour struggling with the lock itself;
+should he cut away a piece of the door round it?
+
+"Cut away," said the Duke.
+
+The locksmith changed his tools, and in less than three minutes he had
+cut away a square piece from the door, a square in which the lock was
+fixed, and taken it bodily away.
+
+The door opened. The inspector drew his revolver, and entered the
+house. The Duke followed him. The policemen drew their revolvers, and
+followed the Duke. The big hall was but dimly lighted. One of the
+policemen quickly threw back the shutters of the windows and let in the
+light. The hall was empty, the furniture in perfect order; there were
+no signs of burglary there.
+
+"The concierge?" said the inspector, and his men hurried through the
+little door on the right which opened into the concierge's rooms. In
+half a minute one of them came out and said: "Gagged and bound, and his
+wife too."
+
+"But the rooms which were to be plundered are upstairs," said the
+Duke--"the big drawing-rooms on the first floor. Come on; we may be
+just in time. The scoundrels may not yet have got away."
+
+He ran quickly up the stairs, followed by the inspector, and hurried
+along the corridor to the door of the big drawing-room. He threw it
+open, and stopped dead on the threshold. He had arrived too late.
+
+The room was in disorder. Chairs were overturned, there were empty
+spaces on the wall where the finest pictures of the millionaire had
+been hung. The window facing the door was wide open. The shutters were
+broken; one of them was hanging crookedly from only its bottom hinge.
+The top of a ladder rose above the window-sill, and beside it,
+astraddle the sill, was an Empire card-table, half inside the room,
+half out. On the hearth-rug, before a large tapestry fire-screen, which
+masked the wide fireplace, built in imitation of the big, wide
+fireplaces of our ancestors, and rose to the level of the
+chimney-piece--a magnificent chimney-piece in carved oak-were some
+chairs tied together ready to be removed.
+
+The Duke and the inspector ran to the window, and looked down into the
+garden. It was empty. At the further end of it, on the other side of
+its wall, rose the scaffolding of a house a-building. The burglars had
+found every convenience to their hand--a strong ladder, an egress
+through the door in the garden wall, and then through the gap formed by
+the house in process of erection, which had rendered them independent
+of the narrow passage between the walls of the gardens, which debouched
+into a side-street on the right.
+
+The Duke turned from the window, glanced at the wall opposite, then, as
+if something had caught his eye, went quickly to it.
+
+"Look here," he said, and he pointed to the middle of one of the empty
+spaces in which a picture had hung.
+
+There, written neatly in blue chalk, were the words:
+
+ARSENE LUPIN
+
+"This is a job for Guerchard," said the inspector. "But I had better
+get an examining magistrate to take the matter in hand first." And he
+ran to the telephone.
+
+The Duke opened the folding doors which led into the second
+drawing-room. The shutters of the windows were open, and it was plain
+that Arsene Lupin had plundered it also of everything that had struck
+his fancy. In the gaps between the pictures on the walls was again the
+signature "Arsene Lupin."
+
+The inspector was shouting impatiently into the telephone, bidding a
+servant wake her master instantly. He did not leave the telephone till
+he was sure that she had done so, that her master was actually awake,
+and had been informed of the crime. The Duke sat down in an easy chair
+and waited for him.
+
+When he had finished telephoning, the inspector began to search the two
+rooms for traces of the burglars. He found nothing, not even a
+finger-mark.
+
+When he had gone through the two rooms he said, "The next thing to do
+is to find the house-keeper. She may be sleeping still--she may not
+even have heard the noise of the burglars."
+
+"I find all this extremely interesting," said the Duke; and he followed
+the inspector out of the room.
+
+The inspector called up the two policemen, who had been freeing the
+concierge and going through the rooms on the ground-floor. They did not
+then examine any more of the rooms on the first floor to discover if
+they also had been plundered. They went straight up to the top of the
+house, the servants' quarters.
+
+The inspector called, "Victoire! Victoire!" two or three times; but
+there was no answer.
+
+They opened the door of room after room and looked in, the inspector
+taking the rooms on the right, the policemen the rooms on the left.
+
+"Here we are," said one of the policemen. "This room's been recently
+occupied." They looked in, and saw that the bed was unmade. Plainly
+Victoire had slept in it.
+
+"Where can she be?" said the Duke.
+
+"Be?" said the inspector. "I expect she's with the burglars--an
+accomplice."
+
+"I gather that M. Gournay-Martin had the greatest confidence in her,"
+said the Duke.
+
+"He'll have less now," said the inspector drily. "It's generally the
+confidential ones who let their masters down."
+
+The inspector and his men set about a thorough search of the house.
+They found the other rooms undisturbed. In half an hour they had
+established the fact that the burglars had confined their attention to
+the two drawing-rooms. They found no traces of them; and they did not
+find Victoire. The concierge could throw no light on her disappearance.
+He and his wife had been taken by surprise in their sleep and in the
+dark.
+
+They had been gagged and bound, they declared, without so much as
+having set eyes on their assailants. The Duke and the inspector came
+back to the plundered drawing-room.
+
+The inspector looked at his watch and went to the telephone.
+
+"I must let the Prefecture know," he said.
+
+"Be sure you ask them to send Guerchard," said the Duke.
+
+"Guerchard?" said the inspector doubtfully.
+
+"M. Formery, the examining magistrate, does not get on very well with
+Guerchard."
+
+"What sort of a man is M. Formery? Is he capable?" said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, yes--yes. He's very capable," said the inspector quickly. "But he
+doesn't have very good luck."
+
+"M. Gournay-Martin particularly asked me to send for Guerchard if I
+arrived too late, and found the burglary already committed," said the
+Duke. "It seems that there is war to the knife between Guerchard and
+this Arsene Lupin. In that case Guerchard will leave no stone unturned
+to catch the rascal and recover the stolen treasures. M. Gournay-Martin
+felt that Guerchard was the man for this piece of work very strongly
+indeed."
+
+"Very good, your Grace," said the inspector. And he rang up the
+Prefecture of Police.
+
+The Duke heard him report the crime and ask that Guerchard should be
+sent. The official in charge at the moment seemed to make some demur.
+
+The Duke sprang to his feet, and said in an anxious tone, "Perhaps I'd
+better speak to him myself."
+
+He took his place at the telephone and said, "I am the Duke of
+Charmerace. M. Gournay-Martin begged me to secure the services of M.
+Guerchard. He laid the greatest stress on my securing them, if on
+reaching Paris I found that the crime had already been committed."
+
+The official at the other end of the line hesitated. He did not refuse
+on the instant as he had refused the inspector. It may be that he
+reflected that M. Gournay-Martin was a millionaire and a man of
+influence; that the Duke of Charmerace was a Duke; that he, at any
+rate, had nothing whatever to gain by running counter to their wishes.
+He said that Chief-Inspector Guerchard was not at the Prefecture, that
+he was off duty; that he would send down two detectives, who were on
+duty, at once, and summon Chief-Inspector Guerchard with all speed. The
+Duke thanked him and rang off.
+
+"That's all right," he said cheerfully, turning to the inspector. "What
+time will M. Formery be here?"
+
+"Well, I don't expect him for another hour," said the inspector. "He
+won't come till he's had his breakfast. He always makes a good
+breakfast before setting out to start an inquiry, lest he shouldn't
+find time to make one after he's begun it."
+
+"Breakfast--breakfast--that's a great idea," said the Duke. "Now you
+come to remind me, I'm absolutely famished. I got some supper on my way
+late last night; but I've had nothing since. I suppose nothing
+interesting will happen till M. Formery comes; and I may as well get
+some food. But I don't want to leave the house. I think I'll see what
+the concierge can do for me."
+
+So saying, he went downstairs and interviewed the concierge. The
+concierge seemed to be still doubtful whether he was standing on his
+head or his heels, but he undertook to supply the needs of the Duke.
+The Duke gave him a louis, and he hurried off to get food from a
+restaurant.
+
+The Duke went upstairs to the bathroom and refreshed himself with a
+cold bath. By the time he had bathed and dressed the concierge had a
+meal ready for him in the dining-room. He ate it with the heartiest
+appetite. Then he sent out for a barber and was shaved.
+
+He then repaired to the pillaged drawing-room, disposed himself in the
+most restful attitude on a sofa, and lighted an excellent cigar. In the
+middle of it the inspector came to him. He was not wearing a very
+cheerful air; and he told the Duke that he had found no clue to the
+perpetrators of the crime, though M. Dieusy and M. Bonavent, the
+detectives from the Prefecture of Police, had joined him in the search.
+
+The Duke was condoling with him on this failure when they heard a
+knocking at the front door, and then voices on the stairs.
+
+"Ah! Here is M. Formery!" said the inspector cheerfully. "Now we can
+get on."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+M. FORMERY OPENS THE INQUIRY
+
+
+The examining magistrate came into the room. He was a plump and pink
+little man, with very bright eyes. His bristly hair stood up straight
+all over his head, giving it the appearance of a broad, dapple-grey
+clothes-brush. He appeared to be of the opinion that Nature had given
+the world the toothbrush as a model of what a moustache should be; and
+his own was clipped to that pattern.
+
+"The Duke of Charmerace, M. Formery," said the inspector.
+
+The little man bowed and said, "Charmed, charmed to make your
+acquaintance, your Grace--though the occasion--the occasion is somewhat
+painful. The treasures of M. Gournay-Martin are known to all the world.
+France will deplore his losses." He paused, and added hastily, "But we
+shall recover them--we shall recover them."
+
+The Duke rose, bowed, and protested his pleasure at making the
+acquaintance of M. Formery.
+
+"Is this the scene of the robbery, inspector?" said M. Formery; and he
+rubbed his hands together with a very cheerful air.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the inspector. "These two rooms seem to be the only
+ones touched, though of course we can't tell till M. Gournay-Martin
+arrives. Jewels may have been stolen from the bedrooms."
+
+"I fear that M. Gournay-Martin won't be of much help for some days,"
+said the Duke. "When I left him he was nearly distracted; and he won't
+be any better after a night journey to Paris from Charmerace. But
+probably these are the only two rooms touched, for in them M.
+Gournay-Martin had gathered together the gems of his collection. Over
+the doors hung some pieces of Flemish tapestry--marvels--the
+composition admirable--the colouring delightful."
+
+"It is easy to see that your Grace was very fond of them," said M.
+Formery.
+
+"I should think so," said the Duke. "I looked on them as already
+belonging to me, for my father-in-law was going to give them to me as a
+wedding present."
+
+"A great loss--a great loss. But we will recover them, sooner or later,
+you can rest assured of it. I hope you have touched nothing in this
+room. If anything has been moved it may put me off the scent
+altogether. Let me have the details, inspector."
+
+The inspector reported the arrival of the Duke at the police-station
+with Arsene Lupin's letter to M. Gournay-Martin; the discovery that the
+keys had been changed and would not open the door of the house; the
+opening of it by the locksmith; the discovery of the concierge and his
+wife gagged and bound.
+
+"Probably accomplices," said M. Formery.
+
+"Does Lupin always work with accomplices?" said the Duke. "Pardon my
+ignorance--but I've been out of France for so long--before he attained
+to this height of notoriety."
+
+"Lupin--why Lupin?" said M. Formery sharply.
+
+"Why, there is the letter from Lupin which my future father-in-law
+received last night; its arrival was followed by the theft of his two
+swiftest motor-cars; and then, these signatures on the wall here," said
+the Duke in some surprise at the question.
+
+"Lupin! Lupin! Everybody has Lupin on the brain!" said M. Formery
+impatiently. "I'm sick of hearing his name. This letter and these
+signatures are just as likely to be forgeries as not."
+
+"I wonder if Guerchard will take that view," said the Duke.
+
+"Guerchard? Surely we're not going to be cluttered up with Guerchard.
+He has Lupin on the brain worse than any one else."
+
+"But M. Gournay-Martin particularly asked me to send for Guerchard if I
+arrived too late to prevent the burglary. He would never forgive me if
+I had neglected his request: so I telephoned for him--to the Prefecture
+of Police," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, well, if you've already telephoned for him. But it was
+unnecessary--absolutely unnecessary," said M. Formery sharply.
+
+"I didn't know," said the Duke politely.
+
+"Oh, there was no harm in it--it doesn't matter," said M. Formery in a
+discontented tone with a discontented air.
+
+He walked slowly round the room, paused by the windows, looked at the
+ladder, and scanned the garden:
+
+"Arsene Lupin," he said scornfully. "Arsene Lupin doesn't leave traces
+all over the place. There's nothing but traces. Are we going to have
+that silly Lupin joke all over again?"
+
+"I think, sir, that this time joke is the word, for this is a burglary
+pure and simple," said the inspector.
+
+"Yes, it's plain as daylight," said M. Formery "The burglars came in by
+this window, and they went out by it."
+
+He crossed the room to a tall safe which stood before the unused door.
+The safe was covered with velvet, and velvet curtains hung before its
+door. He drew the curtains, and tried the handle of the door of the
+safe. It did not turn; the safe was locked.
+
+"As far as I can see, they haven't touched this," said M. Formery.
+
+"Thank goodness for that," said the Duke. "I believe, or at least my
+fiancee does, that M. Gournay-Martin keeps the most precious thing in
+his collection in that safe--the coronet."
+
+"What! the famous coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe?" said M.
+Formery.
+
+"Yes," said the Duke.
+
+"But according to your report, inspector, the letter signed 'Lupin'
+announced that he was going to steal the coronet also."
+
+"It did--in so many words," said the Duke.
+
+"Well, here is a further proof that we're not dealing with Lupin. That
+rascal would certainly have put his threat into execution, M. Formery,"
+said the inspector.
+
+"Who's in charge of the house?" said M. Formery.
+
+"The concierge, his wife, and a housekeeper--a woman named Victoire,"
+said the inspector.
+
+"I'll see to the concierge and his wife presently. I've sent one of
+your men round for their dossier. When I get it I'll question them. You
+found them gagged and bound in their bedroom?"
+
+"Yes, M. Formery; and always this imitation of Lupin--a yellow gag,
+blue cords, and the motto, 'I take, therefore I am,' on a scrap of
+cardboard--his usual bag of tricks."
+
+"Then once again they're going to touch us up in the papers. It's any
+odds on it," said M. Formery gloomily. "Where's the housekeeper? I
+should like to see her."
+
+"The fact is, we don't know where she is," said the inspector.
+
+"You don't know where she is?" said M. Formery.
+
+"We can't find her anywhere," said the inspector.
+
+"That's excellent, excellent. We've found the accomplice," said M.
+Formery with lively delight; and he rubbed his hands together. "At
+least, we haven't found her, but we know her."
+
+"I don't think that's the case," said the Duke. "At least, my future
+father-in-law and my fiancee had both of them the greatest confidence
+in her. Yesterday she telephoned to us at the Chateau de Charmerace.
+All the jewels were left in her charge, and the wedding presents as
+they were sent in."
+
+"And these jewels and wedding presents--have they been stolen too?"
+said M. Formery.
+
+"They don't seem to have been touched," said the Duke, "though of
+course we can't tell till M. Gournay-Martin arrives. As far as I can
+see, the burglars have only touched these two drawing-rooms."
+
+"That's very annoying," said M. Formery.
+
+"I don't find it so," said the Duke, smiling.
+
+"I was looking at it from the professional point of view," said M.
+Formery. He turned to the inspector and added, "You can't have searched
+thoroughly. This housekeeper must be somewhere about--if she's really
+trustworthy. Have you looked in every room in the house?"
+
+"In every room--under every bed--in every corner and every cupboard,"
+said the inspector.
+
+"Bother!" said M. Formery. "Are there no scraps of torn clothes, no
+blood-stains, no traces of murder, nothing of interest?"
+
+"Nothing!" said the inspector.
+
+"But this is very regrettable," said M. Formery. "Where did she sleep?
+Was her bed unmade?"
+
+"Her room is at the top of the house," said the inspector. "The bed had
+been slept in, but she does not appear to have taken away any of her
+clothes."
+
+"Extraordinary! This is beginning to look a very complicated business,"
+said M. Formery gravely.
+
+"Perhaps Guerchard will be able to throw a little more light on it,"
+said the Duke.
+
+M. Formery frowned and said, "Yes, yes. Guerchard is a good assistant
+in a business like this. A little visionary, a little
+fanciful--wrong-headed, in fact; but, after all, he IS Guerchard. Only,
+since Lupin is his bugbear, he's bound to find some means of muddling
+us up with that wretched animal. You're going to see Lupin mixed up
+with all this to a dead certainty, your Grace."
+
+The Duke looked at the signatures on the wall. "It seems to me that he
+is pretty well mixed up with it already," he said quietly.
+
+"Believe me, your Grace, in a criminal affair it is, above all things,
+necessary to distrust appearances. I am growing more and more confident
+that some ordinary burglars have committed this crime and are trying to
+put us off the scent by diverting our attention to Lupin."
+
+The Duke stooped down carelessly and picked up a book which had fallen
+from a table.
+
+"Excuse me, but please--please--do not touch anything," said M. Formery
+quickly.
+
+"Why, this is odd," said the Duke, staring at the floor.
+
+"What is odd?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Well, this book looks as if it had been knocked off the table by one
+of the burglars. And look here; here's a footprint under it--a
+footprint on the carpet," said the Duke.
+
+M. Formery and the inspector came quickly to the spot. There, where the
+book had fallen, plainly imprinted on the carpet, was a white
+footprint. M. Formery and the inspector stared at it.
+
+"It looks like plaster. How did plaster get here?" said M. Formery,
+frowning at it.
+
+"Well, suppose the robbers came from the garden," said the Duke.
+
+"Of course they came from the garden, your Grace. Where else should
+they come from?" said M. Formery, with a touch of impatience in his
+tone.
+
+"Well, at the end of the garden they're building a house," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Of course, of course," said M. Formery, taking him up quickly. "The
+burglars came here with their boots covered with plaster. They've swept
+away all the other marks of their feet from the carpet; but whoever did
+the sweeping was too slack to lift up that book and sweep under it.
+This footprint, however, is not of great importance, though it is
+corroborative of all the other evidence we have that they came and went
+by the garden. There's the ladder, and that table half out of the
+window. Still, this footprint may turn out useful, after all. You had
+better take the measurements of it, inspector. Here's a foot-rule for
+you. I make a point of carrying this foot-rule about with me, your
+Grace. You would be surprised to learn how often it has come in useful."
+
+He took a little ivory foot-rule from his waist-coat pocket, and gave
+it to the inspector, who fell on his knees and measured the footprint
+with the greatest care.
+
+"I must take a careful look at that house they're building. I shall
+find a good many traces there, to a dead certainty," said M. Formery.
+
+The inspector entered the measurements of the footprint in his
+note-book. There came the sound of a knocking at the front door.
+
+"I shall find footprints of exactly the same dimensions as this one at
+the foot of some heap of plaster beside that house," said M. Formery;
+with an air of profound conviction, pointing through the window to the
+house building beyond the garden.
+
+A policeman opened the door of the drawing-room and saluted.
+
+"If you please, sir, the servants have arrived from Charmerace," he
+said.
+
+"Let them wait in the kitchen and the servants' offices," said M.
+Formery. He stood silent, buried in profound meditation, for a couple
+of minutes. Then he turned to the Duke and said, "What was that you
+said about a theft of motor-cars at Charmerace?"
+
+"When he received the letter from Arsene Lupin, M. Gournay-Martin
+decided to start for Paris at once," said the Duke. "But when we sent
+for the cars we found that they had just been stolen. M.
+Gournay-Martin's chauffeur and another servant were in the garage
+gagged and bound. Only an old car, a hundred horse-power Mercrac, was
+left. I drove it to Paris, leaving M. Gournay-Martin and his family to
+come on by train."
+
+"Very important--very important indeed," said M. Formery. He thought
+for a moment, and then added. "Were the motor-cars the only things
+stolen? Were there no other thefts?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, there was another theft, or rather an
+attempt at theft," said the Duke with some hesitation. "The rogues who
+stole the motor-cars presented themselves at the chateau under the name
+of Charolais--a father and three sons--on the pretext of buying the
+hundred-horse-power Mercrac. M. Gournay-Martin had advertised it for
+sale in the Rennes Advertiser. They were waiting in the big hall of the
+chateau, which the family uses as the chief living-room, for the return
+of M. Gournay-Martin. He came; and as they left the hall one of them
+attempted to steal a pendant set with pearls which I had given to
+Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin half an hour before. I caught him in the
+act and saved the pendant."
+
+"Good! good! Wait--we have one of the gang--wait till I question him,"
+said M. Formery, rubbing his hands; and his eyes sparkled with joy.
+
+"Well, no; I'm afraid we haven't," said the Duke in an apologetic tone.
+
+"What! We haven't? Has he escaped from the police? Oh, those country
+police!" cried M. Formery.
+
+"No; I didn't charge him with the theft," said the Duke.
+
+"You didn't charge him with the theft?" cried M. Formery, astounded.
+
+"No; he was very young and he begged so hard. I had the pendant. I let
+him go," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, your Grace, your Grace! Your duty to society!" cried M. Formery.
+
+"Yes, it does seem to have been rather weak," said the Duke; "but there
+you are. It's no good crying over spilt milk."
+
+M. Formery folded his arms and walked, frowning, backwards and forwards
+across the room.
+
+He stopped, raised his hand with a gesture commanding attention, and
+said, "I have no hesitation in saying that there is a connection--an
+intimate connection--between the thefts at Charmerace and this
+burglary!"
+
+The Duke and the inspector gazed at him with respectful eyes--at least,
+the eyes of the inspector were respectful; the Duke's eyes twinkled.
+
+"I am gathering up the threads," said M. Formery. "Inspector, bring up
+the concierge and his wife. I will question them on the scene of the
+crime. Their dossier should be here. If it is, bring it up with them;
+if not, no matter; bring them up without it."
+
+The inspector left the drawing-room. M. Formery plunged at once into
+frowning meditation.
+
+"I find all this extremely interesting," said the Duke.
+
+"Charmed! Charmed!" said M. Formery, waving his hand with an
+absent-minded air.
+
+The inspector entered the drawing-room followed by the concierge and
+his wife. He handed a paper to M. Formery. The concierge, a bearded man
+of about sixty, and his wife, a somewhat bearded woman of about
+fifty-five, stared at M. Formery with fascinated, terrified eyes. He
+sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, read the paper through, and then
+scrutinized them keenly.
+
+"Well, have you recovered from your adventure?" he said.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," said the concierge. "They hustled us a bit, but they
+did not really hurt us."
+
+"Nothing to speak of, that is," said his wife. "But all the same, it's
+a disgraceful thing that an honest woman can't sleep in peace in her
+bed of a night without being disturbed by rascals like that. And if the
+police did their duty things like this wouldn't happen. And I don't
+care who hears me say it."
+
+"You say that you were taken by surprise in your sleep?" said M.
+Formery. "You say you saw nothing, and heard nothing?"
+
+"There was no time to see anything or hear anything. They trussed us up
+like greased lightning," said the concierge.
+
+"But the gag was the worst," said the wife. "To lie there and not be
+able to tell the rascals what I thought about them!"
+
+"Didn't you hear the noise of footsteps in the garden?" said M. Formery.
+
+"One can't hear anything that happens in the garden from our bedroom,"
+said the concierge.
+
+"Even the night when Mlle. Germaine's great Dane barked from twelve
+o'clock till seven in the morning, all the household was kept awake
+except us; but bless you, sir, we slept like tops," said his wife
+proudly.
+
+"If they sleep like that it seems rather a waste of time to have gagged
+them," whispered the Duke to the inspector.
+
+The inspector grinned, and whispered scornfully, "Oh, them common
+folks; they do sleep like that, your Grace."
+
+"Didn't you hear any noise at the front door?" said M. Formery.
+
+"No, we heard no noise at the door," said the concierge.
+
+"Then you heard no noise at all the whole night?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, we heard noise enough after we'd been gagged," said the
+concierge.
+
+"Now, this is important," said M. Formery. "What kind of a noise was
+it?"
+
+"Well, it was a bumping kind of noise," said the concierge. "And there
+was a noise of footsteps, walking about the room."
+
+"What room? Where did these noises come from?" said M. Formery.
+
+"From the room over our heads--the big drawing-room," said the
+concierge.
+
+"Didn't you hear any noise of a struggle, as if somebody was being
+dragged about--no screaming or crying?" said M. Formery.
+
+The concierge and his wife looked at one another with inquiring eyes.
+
+"No, I didn't," said the concierge.
+
+"Neither did I," said his wife.
+
+M. Formery paused. Then he said, "How long have you been in the service
+of M. Gournay-Martin?"
+
+"A little more than a year," said the concierge.
+
+M. Formery looked at the paper in his hand, frowned, and said severely,
+"I see you've been convicted twice, my man."
+
+"Yes, sir, but--"
+
+"My husband's an honest man, sir--perfectly honest," broke in his wife.
+"You've only to ask M. Gournay-Martin; he'll--"
+
+"Be so good as to keep quiet, my good woman," said M. Formery; and,
+turning to her husband, he went on: "At your first conviction you were
+sentenced to a day's imprisonment with costs; at your second conviction
+you got three days' imprisonment."
+
+"I'm not going to deny it, sir," said the concierge; "but it was an
+honourable imprisonment."
+
+"Honourable?" said M. Formery.
+
+"The first time, I was a gentleman's servant, and I got a day's
+imprisonment for crying, 'Hurrah for the General Strike!'--on the first
+of May."
+
+"You were a valet? In whose service?" said M. Formery.
+
+"In the service of M. Genlis, the Socialist leader."
+
+"And your second conviction?" said M. Formery.
+
+"It was for having cried in the porch of Ste. Clotilde, 'Down with the
+cows!'--meaning the police, sir," said the concierge.
+
+"And were you in the service of M. Genlis then?" said M. Formery.
+
+"No, sir; I was in the service of M. Bussy-Rabutin, the Royalist
+deputy."
+
+"You don't seem to have very well-defined political convictions," said
+M. Formery.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, I have," the concierge protested. "I'm always devoted to
+my masters; and I have the same opinions that they have--always."
+
+"Very good; you can go," said M. Formery.
+
+The concierge and his wife left the room, looking as if they did not
+quite know whether to feel relieved or not.
+
+"Those two fools are telling the exact truth, unless I'm very much
+mistaken," said M. Formery.
+
+"They look honest enough people," said the Duke.
+
+"Well, now to examine the rest of the house," said M. Formery.
+
+"I'll come with you, if I may," said the Duke.
+
+"By all means, by all means," said M. Formery.
+
+"I find it all so interesting," said the Duke,
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+GUERCHARD ASSISTS
+
+
+Leaving a policeman on guard at the door of the drawing-room M.
+Formery, the Duke, and the inspector set out on their tour of
+inspection. It was a long business, for M. Formery examined every room
+with the most scrupulous care--with more care, indeed, than he had
+displayed in his examination of the drawing-rooms. In particular he
+lingered long in the bedroom of Victoire, discussing the possibilities
+of her having been murdered and carried away by the burglars along with
+their booty. He seemed, if anything, disappointed at finding no
+blood-stains, but to find real consolation in the thought that she
+might have been strangled. He found the inspector in entire agreement
+with every theory he enunciated, and he grew more and more disposed to
+regard him as a zealous and trustworthy officer. Also he was not at all
+displeased at enjoying this opportunity of impressing the Duke with his
+powers of analysis and synthesis. He was unaware that, as a rule, the
+Duke's eyes did not usually twinkle as they twinkled during this solemn
+and deliberate progress through the house of M. Gournay-Martin. M.
+Formery had so exactly the air of a sleuthhound; and he was even
+noisier.
+
+Having made this thorough examination of the house, M. Formery went out
+into the garden and set about examining that. There were footprints on
+the turf about the foot of the ladder, for the grass was close-clipped,
+and the rain had penetrated and softened the soil; but there were
+hardly as many footprints as might have been expected, seeing that the
+burglars must have made many journeys in the course of robbing the
+drawing-rooms of so many objects of art, some of them of considerable
+weight. The footprints led to a path of hard gravel; and M. Formery led
+the way down it, out of the door in the wall at the bottom of the
+garden, and into the space round the house which was being built.
+
+As M. Formery had divined, there was a heap, or, to be exact, there
+were several heaps of plaster about the bottom of the scaffolding.
+Unfortunately, there were also hundreds of footprints. M. Formery
+looked at them with longing eyes; but he did not suggest that the
+inspector should hunt about for a set of footprints of the size of the
+one he had so carefully measured on the drawing-room carpet.
+
+While they were examining the ground round the half-built house a man
+came briskly down the stairs from the second floor of the house of M.
+Gournay-Martin. He was an ordinary-looking man, almost insignificant,
+of between forty and fifty, and of rather more than middle height. He
+had an ordinary, rather shapeless mouth, an ordinary nose, an ordinary
+chin, an ordinary forehead, rather low, and ordinary ears. He was
+wearing an ordinary top-hat, by no means new. His clothes were the
+ordinary clothes of a fairly well-to-do citizen; and his boots had been
+chosen less to set off any slenderness his feet might possess than for
+their comfortable roominess. Only his eyes relieved his face from
+insignificance. They were extraordinarily alert eyes, producing in
+those on whom they rested the somewhat uncomfortable impression that
+the depths of their souls were being penetrated. He was the famous
+Chief-Inspector Guerchard, head of the Detective Department of the
+Prefecture of Police, and sworn foe of Arsene Lupin.
+
+The policeman at the door of the drawing-room saluted him briskly. He
+was a fine, upstanding, red-faced young fellow, adorned by a rich black
+moustache of extraordinary fierceness.
+
+"Shall I go and inform M. Formery that you have come, M. Guerchard?" he
+said.
+
+"No, no; there's no need to take the trouble," said Guerchard in a
+gentle, rather husky voice. "Don't bother any one about me--I'm of no
+importance."
+
+"Oh, come, M. Guerchard," protested the policeman.
+
+"Of no importance," said M. Guerchard decisively. "For the present, M.
+Formery is everything. I'm only an assistant."
+
+He stepped into the drawing-room and stood looking about it, curiously
+still. It was almost as if the whole of his being was concentrated in
+the act of seeing--as if all the other functions of his mind and body
+were in suspension.
+
+"M. Formery and the inspector have just been up to examine the
+housekeeper's room. It's right at the top of the house--on the second
+floor. You take the servants' staircase. Then it's right at the end of
+the passage on the left. Would you like me to take you up to it, sir?"
+said the policeman eagerly. His heart was in his work.
+
+"Thank you, I know where it is--I've just come from it," said Guerchard
+gently.
+
+A grin of admiration widened the already wide mouth of the policeman,
+and showed a row of very white, able-looking teeth.
+
+"Ah, M. Guerchard!" he said, "you're cleverer than all the examining
+magistrates in Paris put together!"
+
+"You ought not to say that, my good fellow. I can't prevent you
+thinking it, of course; but you ought not to say it," said Guerchard
+with husky gentleness; and the faintest smile played round the corners
+of his mouth.
+
+He walked slowly to the window, and the policeman walked with him.
+
+"Have you noticed this, sir?" said the policeman, taking hold of the
+top of the ladder with a powerful hand. "It's probable that the
+burglars came in and went away by this ladder."
+
+"Thank you," said Guerchard.
+
+"They have even left this card-table on the window-sill," said the
+policeman; and he patted the card-table with his other powerful hand.
+
+"Thank you, thank you," said Guerchard.
+
+"They don't think it's Lupin's work at all," said the policeman. "They
+think that Lupin's letter announcing the burglary and these signatures
+on the walls are only a ruse."
+
+"Is that so?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Is there any way I can help you, sir?" said policeman.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard. "Take up your post outside that door and admit
+no one but M. Formery, the inspector, Bonavent, or Dieusy, without
+consulting me." And he pointed to the drawing-room door.
+
+"Shan't I admit the Duke of Charmerace? He's taking a great interest in
+this affair," said the policeman.
+
+"The Duke of Charmerace? Oh, yes--admit the Duke of Charmerace," said
+Guerchard.
+
+The policeman went to his post of responsibility, a proud man.
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind him when Guerchard was all
+activity--activity and eyes. He examined the ladder, the gaps on the
+wall from which the pictures had been taken, the signatures of Arsene
+Lupin. The very next thing he did was to pick up the book which the
+Duke had set on the top of the footprint again, to preserve it; and he
+measured, pacing it, the distance between the footprint and the window.
+
+The result of this measuring did not appear to cause him any
+satisfaction, for he frowned, measured the distance again, and then
+stared out of the window with a perplexed air, thinking hard. It was
+curious that, when he concentrated himself on a process of reasoning,
+his eves seemed to lose something of their sharp brightness and grew a
+little dim.
+
+At last he seemed to come to some conclusion. He turned away from the
+window, drew a small magnifying-glass from his pocket, dropped on his
+hands and knees, and began to examine the surface of the carpet with
+the most minute care.
+
+He examined a space of it nearly six feet square, stopped, and gazed
+round the room. His eyes rested on the fireplace, which he could see
+under the bottom of the big tapestried fire-screen which was raised on
+legs about a foot high, fitted with big casters. His eyes filled with
+interest; without rising, he crawled quickly across the room, peeped
+round the edge of the screen and rose, smiling.
+
+He went on to the further drawing-room and made the same careful
+examination of it, again examining a part of the surface of the carpet
+with his magnifying-glass. He came back to the window to which the
+ladder had been raised and examined very carefully the broken shutter.
+He whistled softly to himself, lighted a cigarette, and leant against
+the side of the window. He looked out of it, with dull eyes which saw
+nothing, the while his mind worked upon the facts he had discovered.
+
+He had stood there plunged in reflection for perhaps ten minutes, when
+there came a sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs. He awoke from
+his absorption, seemed to prick his ears, then slipped a leg over the
+window-ledge, and disappeared from sight down the ladder.
+
+The door opened, and in came M. Formery, the Duke, and the inspector.
+M. Formery looked round the room with eyes which seemed to expect to
+meet a familiar sight, then walked to the other drawing-room and looked
+round that. He turned to the policeman, who had stepped inside the
+drawing-room, and said sharply, "M. Guerchard is not here."
+
+"I left him here," said the policeman. "He must have disappeared. He's
+a wonder."
+
+"Of course," said M. Formery. "He has gone down the ladder to examine
+that house they're building. He's just following in our tracks and
+doing all over again the work we've already done. He might have saved
+himself the trouble. We could have told him all he wants to know. But
+there! He very likely would not be satisfied till he had seen
+everything for himself."
+
+"He may see something which we have missed," said the Duke.
+
+M. Formery frowned, and said sharply "That's hardly likely. I don't
+think that your Grace realizes to what a perfection constant practice
+brings one's power of observation. The inspector and I will cheerfully
+eat anything we've missed--won't we, inspector?" And he laughed
+heartily at his joke.
+
+"It might always prove a large mouthful," said the Duke with an
+ironical smile.
+
+M. Formery assumed his air of profound reflection, and walked a few
+steps up and down the room, frowning:
+
+"The more I think about it," he said, "the clearer it grows that we
+have disposed of the Lupin theory. This is the work of far less expert
+rogues than Lupin. What do you think, inspector?"
+
+"Yes; I think you have disposed of that theory, sir," said the
+inspector with ready acquiescence.
+
+"All the same, I'd wager anything that we haven't disposed of it to the
+satisfaction of Guerchard," said M. Formery.
+
+"Then he must be very hard to satisfy," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, in any other matter he's open to reason," said M. Formery; "but
+Lupin is his fixed idea; it's an obsession--almost a mania."
+
+"But yet he never catches him," said the Duke.
+
+"No; and he never will. His very obsession by Lupin hampers him. It
+cramps his mind and hinders its working," said M. Formery.
+
+He resumed his meditative pacing, stopped again, and said:
+
+"But considering everything, especially the absence of any traces of
+violence, combined with her entire disappearance, I have come to
+another conclusion. Victoire is the key to the mystery. She is the
+accomplice. She never slept in her bed. She unmade it to put us off the
+scent. That, at any rate, is something gained, to have found the
+accomplice. We shall have this good news, at least, to tell M,
+Gournay-Martin on his arrival."
+
+"Do you really think that she's the accomplice?" said the Duke.
+
+"I'm dead sure of it," said M. Formery. "We will go up to her room and
+make another thorough examination of it."
+
+Guerchard's head popped up above the window-sill:
+
+"My dear M. Formery," he said, "I beg that you will not take the
+trouble."
+
+M. Formery's mouth opened: "What! You, Guerchard?" he stammered.
+
+"Myself," said Guerchard; and he came to the top of the ladder and
+slipped lightly over the window-sill into the room.
+
+He shook hands with M. Formery and nodded to the inspector. Then he
+looked at the Duke with an air of inquiry.
+
+"Let me introduce you," said M. Formery. "Chief-Inspector Guerchard,
+head of the Detective Department--the Duke of Charmerace."
+
+The Duke shook hands with Guerchard, saying, "I'm delighted to make
+your acquaintance, M. Guerchard. I've been expecting your coming with
+the greatest interest. Indeed it was I who begged the officials at the
+Prefecture of Police to put this case in your hands. I insisted on it."
+
+"What were you doing on that ladder?" said M. Formery, giving Guerchard
+no time to reply to the Duke.
+
+"I was listening," said Guerchard simply--"listening. I like to hear
+people talk when I'm engaged on a case. It's a distraction--and it
+helps. I really must congratulate you, my dear M. Formery, on the
+admirable manner in which you have conducted this inquiry."
+
+M. Formery bowed, and regarded him with a touch of suspicion.
+
+"There are one or two minor points on which we do not agree, but on the
+whole your method has been admirable," said Guerchard.
+
+"Well, about Victoire," said M. Formery. "You're quite sure that an
+examination, a more thorough examination, of her room, is unnecessary?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Guerchard. "I have just looked at it myself."
+
+The door opened, and in came Bonavent, one of the detectives who had
+come earlier from the Prefecture. In his hand he carried a scrap of
+cloth.
+
+He saluted Guerchard, and said to M. Formery, "I have just found this
+scrap of cloth on the edge of the well at the bottom of the garden. The
+concierge's wife tells me that it has been torn from Victoire's dress."
+
+"I feared it," said M. Formery, taking the scrap of cloth from him. "I
+feared foul play. We must go to the well at once, send some one down
+it, or have it dragged."
+
+He was moving hastily to the door, when Guerchard said, in his husky,
+gentle voice, "I don't think there is any need to look for Victoire in
+the well."
+
+"But this scrap of cloth," said M. Formery, holding it out to him.
+
+"Yes, yes, that scrap of cloth," said Guerchard. And, turning to the
+Duke, he added, "Do you know if there's a dog or cat in the house, your
+Grace? I suppose that, as the fiance of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin,
+you are familiar with the house?"
+
+"What on earth--" said M. Formery.
+
+"Excuse me," interrupted Guerchard. "But this is important--very
+important."
+
+"Yes, there is a cat," said the Duke. "I've seen a cat at the door of
+the concierge's rooms."
+
+"It must have been that cat which took this scrap of cloth to the edge
+of the well," said Guerchard gravely.
+
+"This is ridiculous--preposterous!" cried M. Formery, beginning to
+flush. "Here we're dealing with a most serious crime--a murder--the
+murder of Victoire--and you talk about cats!"
+
+"Victoire has not been murdered," said Guerchard; and his husky voice
+was gentler than ever, only just audible.
+
+"But we don't know that--we know nothing of the kind," said M. Formery.
+
+"I do," said Guerchard.
+
+"You?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard.
+
+"Then how do you explain her disappearance?"
+
+"If she had disappeared I shouldn't explain it," said Guerchard.
+
+"But since she has disappeared?" cried M. Formery, in a tone of
+exasperation.
+
+"She hasn't," said Guerchard.
+
+"You know nothing about it!" cried M. Formery, losing his temper.
+
+"Yes, I do," said Guerchard, with the same gentleness.
+
+"Come, do you mean to say that you know where she is?" cried M. Formery.
+
+"Certainly," said Guerchard.
+
+"Do you mean to tell us straight out that you've seen her?" cried M.
+Formery.
+
+"Oh, yes; I've seen her," said Guerchard.
+
+"You've seen her--when?" cried M. Formery.
+
+Guerchard paused to consider. Then he said gently:
+
+"It must have been between four and five minutes ago."
+
+"But hang it all, you haven't been out of this room!" cried M. Formery.
+
+"No, I haven't," said Guerchard.
+
+"And you've seen her?" cried M. Formery.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard, raising his voice a little.
+
+"Well, why the devil don't you tell us where she is? Tell us!" cried M.
+Formery, purple with exasperation.
+
+"But you won't let me get a word out of my mouth," protested Guerchard
+with aggravating gentleness.
+
+"Well, speak!" cried M. Formery; and he sank gasping on to a chair.
+
+"Ah, well, she's here," said Guerchard.
+
+"Here! How did she GET here?" said M. Formery.
+
+"On a mattress," said Guerchard.
+
+M. Formery sat upright, almost beside himself, glaring furiously at
+Guerchard:
+
+"What do you stand there pulling all our legs for?" he almost howled.
+
+"Look here," said Guerchard.
+
+He walked across the room to the fireplace, pushed the chairs which
+stood bound together on the hearth-rug to one side of the fireplace,
+and ran the heavy fire-screen on its casters to the other side of it,
+revealing to their gaze the wide, old-fashioned fireplace itself. The
+iron brazier which held the coals had been moved into the corner, and a
+mattress lay on the floor of the fireplace. On the mattress lay the
+figure of a big, middle-aged woman, half-dressed. There was a yellow
+gag in her mouth; and her hands and feet were bound together with blue
+cords.
+
+"She is sleeping soundly," said Guerchard. He stooped and picked up a
+handkerchief, and smelt it. "There's the handkerchief they chloroformed
+her with. It still smells of chloroform."
+
+They stared at him and the sleeping woman.
+
+"Lend a hand, inspector," he said. "And you too, Bonavent. She looks a
+good weight."
+
+The three of them raised the mattress, and carried it and the sleeping
+woman to a broad couch, and laid them on it. They staggered under their
+burden, for truly Victoire was a good weight.
+
+M. Formery rose, with recovered breath, but with his face an even
+richer purple. His eyes were rolling in his head, as if they were not
+under proper control.
+
+He turned on the inspector and cried savagely, "You never examined the
+fireplace, inspector!"
+
+"No, sir," said the downcast inspector.
+
+"It was unpardonable--absolutely unpardonable!" cried M. Formery. "How
+is one to work with subordinates like this?"
+
+"It was an oversight," said Guerchard.
+
+M. Formery turned to him and said, "You must admit that it was
+materially impossible for me to see her."
+
+"It was possible if you went down on all fours," said Guerchard.
+
+"On all fours?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes; on all fours you could see her heels sticking out beyond the
+mattress," said Guerchard simply.
+
+M. Formery shrugged his shoulders: "That screen looked as if it had
+stood there since the beginning of the summer," he said.
+
+"The first thing, when you're dealing with Lupin, is to distrust
+appearances," said Guerchard.
+
+"Lupin!" cried M. Formery hotly. Then he bit his lip and was silent.
+
+He walked to the side of the couch and looked down on the sleeping
+Victoire, frowning: "This upsets everything," he said. "With these new
+conditions, I've got to begin all over again, to find a new explanation
+of the affair. For the moment--for the moment, I'm thrown completely
+off the track. And you, Guerchard?"
+
+"Oh, well," said Guerchard, "I have an idea or two about the matter
+still."
+
+"Do you really mean to say that it hasn't thrown you off the track
+too?" said M. Formery, with a touch of incredulity in his tone.
+
+"Well, no--not exactly," said Guerchard. "I wasn't on that track, you
+see."
+
+"No, of course not--of course not. You were on the track of Lupin,"
+said M. Formery; and his contemptuous smile was tinged with malice.
+
+The Duke looked from one to the other of them with curious, searching
+eyes: "I find all this so interesting," he said.
+
+"We do not take much notice of these checks; they do not depress us for
+a moment," said M. Formery, with some return of his old grandiloquence.
+"We pause hardly for an instant; then we begin to reconstruct--to
+reconstruct."
+
+"It's perfectly splendid of you," said the Duke, and his limpid eyes
+rested on M. Formery's self-satisfied face in a really affectionate
+gaze; they might almost be said to caress it.
+
+Guerchard looked out of the window at a man who was carrying a hod-full
+of bricks up one of the ladders set against the scaffolding of the
+building house. Something in this honest workman's simple task seemed
+to amuse him, for he smiled.
+
+Only the inspector, thinking of the unexamined fireplace, looked really
+depressed.
+
+"We shan't get anything out of this woman till she wakes," said M.
+Formery, "When she does, I shall question her closely and fully. In the
+meantime, she may as well be carried up to her bedroom to sleep off the
+effects of the chloroform."
+
+Guerchard turned quickly: "Not her own bedroom, I think," he said
+gently.
+
+"Certainly not--of course, not her own bedroom," said M. Formery
+quickly.
+
+"And I think an officer at the door of whatever bedroom she does sleep
+in," said Guerchard.
+
+"Undoubtedly--most necessary," said M. Formery gravely. "See to it,
+inspector. You can take her away."
+
+The inspector called in a couple of policemen, and with their aid he
+and Bonavent raised the sleeping woman, a man at each corner of the
+mattress, and bore her from the room.
+
+"And now to reconstruct," said M. Formery; and he folded his arms and
+plunged into profound reflection.
+
+The Duke and Guerchard watched him in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE FAMILY ARRIVES
+
+
+In carrying out Victoire, the inspector had left the door of the
+drawing-room open. After he had watched M. Formery reflect for two
+minutes, Guerchard faded--to use an expressive Americanism--through it.
+The Duke felt in the breast-pocket of his coat, murmured softly, "My
+cigarettes," and followed him.
+
+He caught up Guerchard on the stairs and said, "I will come with you,
+if I may, M. Guerchard. I find all these investigations extraordinarily
+interesting. I have been observing M. Formery's methods--I should like
+to watch yours, for a change."
+
+"By all means," said Guerchard. "And there are several things I want to
+hear about from your Grace. Of course it might be an advantage to
+discuss them together with M. Formery, but--" and he hesitated.
+
+"It would be a pity to disturb M. Formery in the middle of the process
+of reconstruction," said the Duke; and a faint, ironical smile played
+round the corners of his sensitive lips.
+
+Guerchard looked at him quickly: "Perhaps it would," he said.
+
+They went through the house, out of the back door, and into the garden.
+Guerchard moved about twenty yards from the house, then he stopped and
+questioned the Duke at great length. He questioned him first about the
+Charolais, their appearance, their actions, especially about Bernard's
+attempt to steal the pendant, and the theft of the motor-cars.
+
+"I have been wondering whether M. Charolais might not have been Arsene
+Lupin himself," said the Duke.
+
+"It's quite possible," said Guerchard. "There seem to be no limits
+whatever to Lupin's powers of disguising himself. My colleague,
+Ganimard, has come across him at least three times that he knows of, as
+a different person. And no single time could he be sure that it was the
+same man. Of course, he had a feeling that he was in contact with some
+one he had met before, but that was all. He had no certainty. He may
+have met him half a dozen times besides without knowing him. And the
+photographs of him--they're all different. Ganimard declares that Lupin
+is so extraordinarily successful in his disguises because he is a great
+actor. He actually becomes for the time being the person he pretends to
+be. He thinks and feels absolutely like that person. Do you follow me?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but he must be rather fluid, this Lupin," said the Duke; and
+then he added thoughtfully, "It must be awfully risky to come so often
+into actual contact with men like Ganimard and you."
+
+"Lupin has never let any consideration of danger prevent him doing
+anything that caught his fancy. He has odd fancies, too. He's a
+humourist of the most varied kind--grim, ironic, farcical, as the mood
+takes him. He must be awfully trying to live with," said Guerchard.
+
+"Do you think humourists are trying to live with?" said the Duke, in a
+meditative tone. "I think they brighten life a good deal; but of course
+there are people who do not like them--the middle-classes."
+
+"Yes, yes, they're all very well in their place; but to live with they
+must be trying," said Guerchard quickly.
+
+He went on to question the Duke closely and at length about the
+household of M. Gournay-Martin, saying that Arsene Lupin worked with
+the largest gang a burglar had ever captained, and it was any odds that
+he had introduced one, if not more, of that gang into it. Moreover, in
+the case of a big affair like this, Lupin himself often played two or
+three parts under as many disguises.
+
+"If he was Charolais, I don't see how he could be one of M.
+Gournay-Martin's household, too," said the Duke in some perplexity.
+
+"I don't say that he WAS Charolais," said Guerchard. "It is quite a
+moot point. On the whole, I'm inclined to think that he was not. The
+theft of the motor-cars was a job for a subordinate. He would hardly
+bother himself with it."
+
+The Duke told him all that he could remember about the millionaire's
+servants--and, under the clever questioning of the detective, he was
+surprised to find how much he did remember--all kinds of odd details
+about them which he had scarcely been aware of observing.
+
+The two of them, as they talked, afforded an interesting contrast: the
+Duke, with his air of distinction and race, his ironic expression, his
+mobile features, his clear enunciation and well-modulated voice, his
+easy carriage of an accomplished fencer--a fencer with muscles of
+steel--seemed to be a man of another kind from the slow-moving
+detective, with his husky voice, his common, slurring enunciation, his
+clumsily moulded features, so ill adapted to the expression of emotion
+and intelligence. It was a contrast almost between the hawk and the
+mole, the warrior and the workman. Only in their eyes were they alike;
+both of them had the keen, alert eyes of observers. Perhaps the most
+curious thing of all was that, in spite of the fact that he had for so
+much of his life been an idler, trifling away his time in the pursuit
+of pleasure, except when he had made his expedition to the South Pole,
+the Duke gave one the impression of being a cleverer man, of a far
+finer brain, than the detective who had spent so much of his life
+sharpening his wits on the more intricate problems of crime.
+
+When Guerchard came to the end of his questions, the Duke said: "You
+have given me a very strong feeling that it is going to be a deuce of a
+job to catch Lupin. I don't wonder that, so far, you have none of you
+laid hands on him."
+
+"But we have!" cried Guerchard quickly. "Twice Ganimard has caught him.
+Once he had him in prison, and actually brought him to trial. Lupin
+became another man, and was let go from the very dock."
+
+"Really? It sounds absolutely amazing," said the Duke.
+
+"And then, in the affair of the Blue Diamond, Ganimard caught him
+again. He has his weakness, Lupin--it's women. It's a very common
+weakness in these masters of crime. Ganimard and Holmlock Shears, in
+that affair, got the better of him by using his love for a woman--'the
+fair-haired lady,' she was called--to nab him."
+
+"A shabby trick," said the Duke.
+
+"Shabby?" said Guerchard in a tone of utter wonder. "How can anything
+be shabby in the case of a rogue like this?"
+
+"Perhaps not--perhaps not--still--" said the Duke, and stopped.
+
+The expression of wonder faded from Guerchard's face, and he went on,
+"Well, Holmlock Shears recovered the Blue Diamond, and Ganimard nabbed
+Lupin. He held him for ten minutes, then Lupin escaped."
+
+"What became of the fair-haired lady?" said the Duke.
+
+"I don't know. I have heard that she is dead," said Guerchard. "Now I
+come to think of it, I heard quite definitely that she died."
+
+"It must be awful for a woman to love a man like Lupin--the constant,
+wearing anxiety," said the Duke thoughtfully.
+
+"I dare say. Yet he can have his pick of sweethearts. I've been offered
+thousands of francs by women--women of your Grace's world and wealthy
+Viennese--to make them acquainted with Lupin," said Guerchard.
+
+"You don't surprise me," said the Duke with his ironic smile. "Women
+never do stop to think--where one of their heroes is concerned. And did
+you do it?"
+
+"How could I? If I only could! If I could find Lupin entangled with a
+woman like Ganimard did--well--" said Guerchard between his teeth.
+
+"He'd never get out of YOUR clutches," said the Duke with conviction.
+
+"I think not--I think not," said Guerchard grimly. "But come, I may as
+well get on."
+
+He walked across the turf to the foot of the ladder and looked at the
+footprints round it. He made but a cursory examination of them, and
+took his way down the garden-path, out of the door in the wall into the
+space about the house that was building. He was not long examining it,
+and he went right through it out into the street on which the house
+would face when it was finished. He looked up and down it, and began to
+retrace his footsteps.
+
+"I've seen all I want to see out here. We may as well go back to the
+house," he said to the Duke.
+
+"I hope you've seen what you expected to see," said the Duke.
+
+"Exactly what I expected to see--exactly," said Guerchard.
+
+"That's as it should be," said the Duke.
+
+They went back to the house and found M. Formery in the drawing-room,
+still engaged in the process of reconstruction.
+
+"The thing to do now is to hunt the neighbourhood for witnesses of the
+departure of the burglars with their booty. Loaded as they were with
+such bulky objects, they must have had a big conveyance. Somebody must
+have noticed it. They must have wondered why it was standing in front
+of a half-built house. Somebody may have actually seen the burglars
+loading it, though it was so early in the morning. Bonavent had better
+inquire at every house in the street on which that half-built house
+faces. Did you happen to notice the name of it?" said M. Formery.
+
+"It's Sureau Street," said Guerchard. "But Dieusy has been hunting the
+neighbourhood for some one who saw the burglars loading their
+conveyance, or saw it waiting to be loaded, for the last hour."
+
+"Good," said M. Formery. "We are getting on."
+
+M. Formery was silent. Guerchard and the Duke sat down and lighted
+cigarettes.
+
+"You found plenty of traces," said M. Formery, waving his hand towards
+the window.
+
+"Yes; I've found plenty of traces," said Guerchard.
+
+"Of Lupin?" said M. Formery, with a faint sneer.
+
+"No; not of Lupin," said Guerchard.
+
+A smile of warm satisfaction illumined M. Formery's face:
+
+"What did I tell you?" he said. "I'm glad that you've changed your mind
+about that."
+
+"I have hardly changed my mind," said Guerchard, in his husky, gentle
+voice.
+
+There came a loud knocking on the front door, the sound of excited
+voices on the stairs. The door opened, and in burst M. Gournay-Martin.
+He took one glance round the devastated room, raised his clenched hands
+towards the ceiling, and bellowed, "The scoundrels! the dirty
+scoundrels!" And his voice stuck in his throat. He tottered across the
+room to a couch, dropped heavily to it, gazed round the scene of
+desolation, and burst into tears.
+
+Germaine and Sonia came into the room. The Duke stepped forward to
+greet them.
+
+"Do stop crying, papa. You're as hoarse as a crow as it is," said
+Germaine impatiently. Then, turning on the Duke with a frown, she said:
+"I think that joke of yours about the train was simply disgraceful,
+Jacques. A joke's a joke, but to send us out to the station on a night
+like last night, through all that heavy rain, when you knew all the
+time that there was no quarter-to-nine train--it was simply
+disgraceful."
+
+"I really don't know what you're talking about," said the Duke quietly.
+"Wasn't there a quarter-to-nine train?"
+
+"Of course there wasn't," said Germaine. "The time-table was years old.
+I think it was the most senseless attempt at a joke I ever heard of."
+
+"It doesn't seem to me to be a joke at all," said the Duke quietly. "At
+any rate, it isn't the kind of a joke I make--it would be detestable. I
+never thought to look at the date of the time-table. I keep a box of
+cigarettes in that drawer, and I have noticed the time-table there. Of
+course, it may have been lying there for years. It was stupid of me not
+to look at the date."
+
+"I said it was a mistake. I was sure that his Grace would not do
+anything so unkind as that," said Sonia.
+
+The Duke smiled at her.
+
+"Well, all I can say is, it was very stupid of you not to look at the
+date," said Germaine.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin rose to his feet and wailed, in the most heartrending
+fashion: "My pictures! My wonderful pictures! Such investments! And my
+cabinets! My Renaissance cabinets! They can't be replaced! They were
+unique! They were worth a hundred and fifty thousand francs."
+
+M. Formery stepped forward with an air and said, "I am distressed, M.
+Gournay-Martin--truly distressed by your loss. I am M. Formery,
+examining magistrate."
+
+"It is a tragedy, M. Formery--a tragedy!" groaned the millionaire.
+
+"Do not let it upset you too much. We shall find your masterpieces--we
+shall find them. Only give us time," said M. Formery in a tone of warm
+encouragement.
+
+The face of the millionaire brightened a little.
+
+"And, after all, you have the consolation, that the burglars did not
+get hold of the gem of your collection. They have not stolen the
+coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe," said M. Formery.
+
+"No," said the Duke. "They have not touched this safe. It is unopened."
+
+"What has that got to do with it?" growled the millionaire quickly.
+"That safe is empty."
+
+"Empty ... but your coronet?" cried the Duke.
+
+"Good heavens! Then they HAVE stolen it," cried the millionaire
+hoarsely, in a panic-stricken voice.
+
+"But they can't have--this safe hasn't been touched," said the Duke.
+
+"But the coronet never was in that safe. It was--have they entered my
+bedroom?" said the millionaire.
+
+"No," said M. Formery.
+
+"They don't seem to have gone through any of the rooms except these
+two," said the Duke.
+
+"Ah, then my mind is at rest about that. The safe in my bedroom has
+only two keys. Here is one." He took a key from his waistcoat pocket
+and held it out to them. "And the other is in this safe."
+
+The face of M. Formery was lighted up with a splendid satisfaction. He
+might have rescued the coronet with his own hands. He cried
+triumphantly, "There, you see!"
+
+"See? See?" cried the millionaire in a sudden bellow. "I see that they
+have robbed me--plundered me. Oh, my pictures! My wonderful pictures!
+Such investments!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THEFT OF THE PENDANT
+
+
+They stood round the millionaire observing his anguish, with eyes in
+which shone various degrees of sympathy. As if no longer able to bear
+the sight of such woe, Sonia slipped out of the room.
+
+The millionaire lamented his loss and abused the thieves by turns, but
+always at the top of his magnificent voice.
+
+Suddenly a fresh idea struck him. He clapped his hand to his brow and
+cried: "That eight hundred pounds! Charolais will never buy the Mercrac
+now! He was not a bona fide purchaser!"
+
+The Duke's lips parted slightly and his eyes opened a trifle wider than
+their wont. He turned sharply on his heel, and almost sprang into the
+other drawing-room. There he laughed at his ease.
+
+M. Formery kept saying to the millionaire: "Be calm, M. Gournay-Martin.
+Be calm! We shall recover your masterpieces. I pledge you my word. All
+we need is time. Have patience. Be calm!"
+
+His soothing remonstrances at last had their effect. The millionaire
+grew calm:
+
+"Guerchard?" he said. "Where is Guerchard?"
+
+M. Formery presented Guerchard to him.
+
+"Are you on their track? Have you a clue?" said the millionaire.
+
+"I think," said M. Formery in an impressive tone, "that we may now
+proceed with the inquiry in the ordinary way."
+
+He was a little piqued by the millionaire's so readily turning from him
+to the detective. He went to a writing-table, set some sheets of paper
+before him, and prepared to make notes on the answers to his questions.
+The Duke came back into the drawing-room; the inspector was summoned.
+M. Gournay-Martin sat down on a couch with his hands on his knees and
+gazed gloomily at M. Formery. Germaine, who was sitting on a couch near
+the door, waiting with an air of resignation for her father to cease
+his lamentations, rose and moved to a chair nearer the writing-table.
+Guerchard kept moving restlessly about the room, but noiselessly. At
+last he came to a standstill, leaning against the wall behind M.
+Formery.
+
+M. Formery went over all the matters about which he had already
+questioned the Duke. He questioned the millionaire and his daughter
+about the Charolais, the theft of the motor-cars, and the attempted
+theft of the pendant. He questioned them at less length about the
+composition of their household--the servants and their characters. He
+elicited no new fact.
+
+He paused, and then he said, carelessly as a mere matter of routine: "I
+should like to know, M. Gournay-Martin, if there has ever been any
+other robbery committed at your house?"
+
+"Three years ago this scoundrel Lupin--" the millionaire began
+violently.
+
+"Yes, yes; I know all about that earlier burglary. But have you been
+robbed since?" said M. Formery, interrupting him.
+
+"No, I haven't been robbed since that burglary; but my daughter has,"
+said the millionaire.
+
+"Your daughter?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes; I have been robbed two or three times during the last three
+years," said Germaine.
+
+"Dear me! But you ought to have told us about this before. This is
+extremely interesting, and most important," said M. Formery, rubbing
+his hands, "I suppose you suspect Victoire?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Germaine quickly. "It couldn't have been Victoire.
+The last two thefts were committed at the chateau when Victoire was in
+Paris in charge of this house."
+
+M. Formery seemed taken aback, and he hesitated, consulting his notes.
+Then he said: "Good--good. That confirms my hypothesis."
+
+"What hypothesis?" said M. Gournay-Martin quickly.
+
+"Never mind--never mind," said M. Formery solemnly. And, turning to
+Germaine, he went on: "You say, Mademoiselle, that these thefts began
+about three years ago?"
+
+"Yes, I think they began about three years ago in August."
+
+"Let me see. It was in the month of August, three years ago, that your
+father, after receiving a threatening letter like the one he received
+last night, was the victim of a burglary?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes, it was--the scoundrels!" cried the millionaire fiercely.
+
+"Well, it would be interesting to know which of your servants entered
+your service three years ago," said M. Formery.
+
+"Victoire has only been with us a year at the outside," said Germaine.
+
+"Only a year?" said M. Formery quickly, with an air of some vexation.
+He paused and added, "Exactly--exactly. And what was the nature of the
+last theft of which you were the victim?"
+
+"It was a pearl brooch--not unlike the pendant which his Grace gave me
+yesterday," said Germaine.
+
+"Would you mind showing me that pendant? I should like to see it," said
+M. Formery.
+
+"Certainly--show it to him, Jacques. You have it, haven't you?" said
+Germaine, turning to the Duke.
+
+"Me? No. How should I have it?" said the Duke in some surprise.
+"Haven't you got it?"
+
+"I've only got the case--the empty case," said Germaine, with a
+startled air.
+
+"The empty case?" said the Duke, with growing surprise.
+
+"Yes," said Germaine. "It was after we came back from our useless
+journey to the station. I remembered suddenly that I had started
+without the pendant. I went to the bureau and picked up the case; and
+it was empty."
+
+"One moment--one moment," said M. Formery. "Didn't you catch this young
+Bernard Charolais with this case in his hands, your Grace?"
+
+"Yes," said the Duke. "I caught him with it in his pocket."
+
+"Then you may depend upon it that the young rascal had slipped the
+pendant out of its case and you only recovered the empty case from
+him," said M. Formery triumphantly.
+
+"No," said the Duke. "That is not so. Nor could the thief have been the
+burglar who broke open the bureau to get at the keys. For long after
+both of them were out of the house I took a cigarette from the box
+which stood on the bureau beside the case which held the pendant. And
+it occurred to me that the young rascal might have played that very
+trick on me. I opened the case and the pendant was there."
+
+"It has been stolen!" cried the millionaire; "of course it has been
+stolen."
+
+"Oh, no, no," said the Duke. "It hasn't been stolen. Irma, or perhaps
+Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, has brought it to Paris for Germaine."
+
+"Sonia certainly hasn't brought it. It was she who suggested to me that
+you had seen it lying on the bureau, and slipped it into your pocket,"
+said Germaine quickly.
+
+"Then it must be Irma," said the Duke.
+
+"We had better send for her and make sure," said M. Formery.
+"Inspector, go and fetch her."
+
+The inspector went out of the room and the Duke questioned Germaine and
+her father about the journey, whether it had been very uncomfortable,
+and if they were very tired by it. He learned that they had been so
+fortunate as to find sleeping compartments on the train, so that they
+had suffered as little as might be from their night of travel.
+
+M. Formery looked through his notes; Guerchard seemed to be going to
+sleep where he stood against the wall.
+
+The inspector came back with Irma. She wore the frightened,
+half-defensive, half-defiant air which people of her class wear when
+confronted by the authorities. Her big, cow's eyes rolled uneasily.
+
+"Oh, Irma--" Germaine began.
+
+M. Formery cut her short, somewhat brusquely. "Excuse me, excuse me. I
+am conducting this inquiry," he said. And then, turning to Irma, he
+added, "Now, don't be frightened, Mademoiselle Irma; I want to ask you
+a question or two. Have you brought up to Paris the pendant which the
+Duke of Charmerace gave your mistress yesterday?"
+
+"Me, sir? No, sir. I haven't brought the pendant," said Irma.
+
+"You're quite sure?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes, sir; I haven't seen the pendant. Didn't Mademoiselle Germaine
+leave it on the bureau?" said Irma.
+
+"How do you know that?" said M. Formery.
+
+"I heard Mademoiselle Germaine say that it had been on the bureau. I
+thought that perhaps Mademoiselle Kritchnoff had put it in her bag."
+
+"Why should Mademoiselle Kritchnoff put it in her bag?" said the Duke
+quickly.
+
+"To bring it up to Paris for Mademoiselle Germaine," said Irma.
+
+"But what made you think that?" said Guerchard, suddenly intervening.
+
+"Oh, I thought Mademoiselle Kritchnoff might have put it in her bag
+because I saw her standing by the bureau," said Irma.
+
+"Ah, and the pendant was on the bureau?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Irma.
+
+There was a silence. Suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to have
+become charged with an oppression--a vague menace. Guerchard seemed to
+have become wide awake again. Germaine and the Duke looked at one
+another uneasily.
+
+"Have you been long in the service of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin?"
+said M. Formery.
+
+"Six months, sir," said Irma.
+
+"Very good, thank you. You can go," said M. Formery. "I may want you
+again presently."
+
+Irma went quickly out of the room with an air of relief.
+
+M. Formery scribbled a few words on the paper before him and then said:
+"Well, I will proceed to question Mademoiselle Kritchnoff."
+
+"Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is quite above suspicion," said the Duke
+quickly.
+
+"Oh, yes, quite," said Germaine.
+
+"How long has Mademoiselle Kritchnoff been in your service,
+Mademoiselle?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Let me think," said Germaine, knitting her brow.
+
+"Can't you remember?" said M. Formery.
+
+"Just about three years," said Germaine.
+
+"That's exactly the time at which the thefts began," said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes," said Germaine, reluctantly.
+
+"Ask Mademoiselle Kritchnoff to come here, inspector," said M. Formery.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the inspector.
+
+"I'll go and fetch her--I know where to find her," said the Duke
+quickly, moving toward the door.
+
+"Please, please, your Grace," protested Guerchard. "The inspector will
+fetch her."
+
+The Duke turned sharply and looked at him: "I beg your pardon, but do
+you--" he said.
+
+"Please don't be annoyed, your Grace," Guerchard interrupted. "But M.
+Formery agrees with me--it would be quite irregular."
+
+"Yes, yes, your Grace," said M. Formery. "We have our method of
+procedure. It is best to adhere to it--much the best. It is the result
+of years of experience of the best way of getting the truth."
+
+"Just as you please," said the Duke, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+The inspector came into the room: "Mademoiselle Kritchnoff will be here
+in a moment. She was just going out."
+
+"She was going out?" said M. Formery. "You don't mean to say you're
+letting members of the household go out?"
+
+"No, sir," said the inspector. "I mean that she was just asking if she
+might go out."
+
+M. Formery beckoned the inspector to him, and said to him in a voice
+too low for the others to hear:
+
+"Just slip up to her room and search her trunks."
+
+"There is no need to take the trouble," said Guerchard, in the same low
+voice, but with sufficient emphasis.
+
+"No, of course not. There's no need to take the trouble," M. Formery
+repeated after him.
+
+The door opened, and Sonia came in. She was still wearing her
+travelling costume, and she carried her cloak on her arm. She stood
+looking round her with an air of some surprise; perhaps there was even
+a touch of fear in it. The long journey of the night before did not
+seem to have dimmed at all her delicate beauty. The Duke's eyes rested
+on her in an inquiring, wondering, even searching gaze. She looked at
+him, and her own eyes fell.
+
+"Will you come a little nearer, Mademoiselle?" said M. Formery. "There
+are one or two questions--"
+
+"Will you allow me?" said Guerchard, in a tone of such deference that
+it left M. Formery no grounds for refusal.
+
+M. Formery flushed and ground his teeth. "Have it your own way!" he
+said ungraciously.
+
+"Mademoiselle Kritchnoff," said Guerchard, in a tone of the most
+good-natured courtesy, "there is a matter on which M. Formery needs
+some information. The pendant which the Duke of Charmerace gave
+Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin yesterday has been stolen."
+
+"Stolen? Are you sure?" said Sonia in a tone of mingled surprise and
+anxiety.
+
+"Quite sure," said Guerchard. "We have exactly determined the
+conditions under which the theft was committed. But we have every
+reason to believe that the culprit, to avoid detection, has hidden the
+pendant in the travelling-bag or trunk of somebody else in order to--"
+
+"My bag is upstairs in my bedroom, sir," Sonia interrupted quickly.
+"Here is the key of it."
+
+In order to free her hands to take the key from her wrist-bag, she set
+her cloak on the back of a couch. It slipped off it, and fell to the
+ground at the feet of the Duke, who had not returned to his place
+beside Germaine. While she was groping in her bag for the key, and all
+eyes were on her, the Duke, who had watched her with a curious
+intentness ever since her entry into the room, stooped quietly down and
+picked up the cloak. His hand slipped into the pocket of it; his
+fingers touched a hard object wrapped in tissue-paper. They closed
+round it, drew it from the pocket, and, sheltered by the cloak,
+transferred it to his own. He set the cloak on the back of the sofa,
+and very softly moved back to his place by Germaine's side. No one in
+the room observed the movement, not even Guerchard: he was watching
+Sonia too intently.
+
+Sonia found the key, and held it out to Guerchard.
+
+He shook his head and said: "There is no reason to search your
+bag--none whatever. Have you any other luggage?"
+
+She shrank back a little from his piercing eyes, almost as if their
+gaze scared her.
+
+"Yes, my trunk ... it's upstairs in my bedroom too ... open."
+
+She spoke in a faltering voice, and her troubled eyes could not meet
+those of the detective.
+
+"You were going out, I think," said Guerchard gently.
+
+"I was asking leave to go out. There is some shopping that must be
+done," said Sonia.
+
+"You do not see any reason why Mademoiselle Kritchnoff should not go
+out, M. Formery, do you?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, no, none whatever; of course she can go out," said M. Formery.
+
+Sonia turned round to go.
+
+"One moment," said Guerchard, coming forward. "You've only got that
+wrist-bag with you?"
+
+"Yes," said Sonia. "I have my money and my handkerchief in it." And she
+held it out to him.
+
+Guerchard's keen eyes darted into it; and he muttered, "No point in
+looking in that. I don't suppose any one would have had the audacity--"
+and he stopped.
+
+Sonia made a couple of steps toward the door, turned, hesitated, came
+back to the couch, and picked up her cloak.
+
+There was a sudden gleam in Guerchard's eyes--a gleam of understanding,
+expectation, and triumph. He stepped forward, and holding out his
+hands, said: "Allow me."
+
+"No, thank you," said Sonia. "I'm not going to put it on."
+
+"No ... but it's possible ... some one may have ... have you felt in
+the pockets of it? That one, now? It seems as if that one--"
+
+He pointed to the pocket which had held the packet.
+
+Sonia started back with an air of utter dismay; her eyes glanced wildly
+round the room as if seeking an avenue of escape; her fingers closed
+convulsively on the pocket.
+
+"But this is abominable!" she cried. "You look as if--"
+
+"I beg you, mademoiselle," interrupted Guerchard. "We are sometimes
+obliged--"
+
+"Really, Mademoiselle Sonia," broke in the Duke, in a singularly clear
+and piercing tone, "I cannot see why you should object to this mere
+formality."
+
+"Oh, but--but--" gasped Sonia, raising her terror-stricken eyes to his.
+
+The Duke seemed to hold them with his own; and he said in the same
+clear, piercing voice, "There isn't the slightest reason for you to be
+frightened."
+
+Sonia let go of the cloak, and Guerchard, his face all alight with
+triumph, plunged his hand into the pocket. He drew it out empty, and
+stared at it, while his face fell to an utter, amazed blankness.
+
+"Nothing? nothing?" he muttered under his breath. And he stared at his
+empty hand as if he could not believe his eyes.
+
+By a violent effort he forced an apologetic smile on his face, and said
+to Sonia: "A thousand apologies, mademoiselle."
+
+He handed the cloak to her. Sonia took it and turned to go. She took a
+step towards the door, and tottered.
+
+The Duke sprang forward and caught her as she was falling.
+
+"Do you feel faint?" he said in an anxious voice.
+
+"Thank you, you just saved me in time," muttered Sonia.
+
+"I'm really very sorry," said Guerchard.
+
+"Thank you, it was nothing. I'm all right now," said Sonia, releasing
+herself from the Duke's supporting arm.
+
+She drew herself up, and walked quietly out of the room.
+
+Guerchard went back to M. Formery at the writing-table.
+
+"You made a clumsy mistake there, Guerchard," said M. Formery, with a
+touch of gratified malice in his tone.
+
+Guerchard took no notice of it: "I want you to give orders that nobody
+leaves the house without my permission," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"No one except Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, I suppose," said M. Formery,
+smiling.
+
+"She less than any one," said Guerchard quickly.
+
+"I don't understand what you're driving at a bit," said M. Formery.
+"Unless you suppose that Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is Lupin in disguise."
+
+Guerchard laughed softly: "You will have your joke, M. Formery," he
+said.
+
+"Well, well, I'll give the order," said M. Formery, somewhat mollified
+by the tribute to his humour.
+
+He called the inspector to him and whispered a word in his ear. Then he
+rose and said: "I think, gentlemen, we ought to go and examine the
+bedrooms, and, above all, make sure that the safe in M.
+Gournay-Martin's bedroom has not been tampered with."
+
+"I was wondering how much longer we were going to waste time here
+talking about that stupid pendant," grumbled the millionaire; and he
+rose and led the way.
+
+"There may also be some jewel-cases in the bedrooms," said M. Formery.
+"There are all the wedding presents. They were in charge of Victoire."
+said Germaine quickly. "It would be dreadful if they had been stolen.
+Some of them are from the first families in France."
+
+"They would replace them ... those paper-knives," said the Duke,
+smiling.
+
+Germaine and her father led the way. M. Formery, Guerchard, and the
+inspector followed them. At the door the Duke paused, stopped, closed
+it on them softly. He came back to the window, put his hand in his
+pocket, and drew out the packet wrapped in tissue-paper.
+
+He unfolded the paper with slow, reluctant fingers, and revealed the
+pendant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LUPIN WIRES
+
+
+The Duke stared at the pendant, his eyes full of wonder and pity.
+
+"Poor little girl!" he said softly under his breath.
+
+He put the pendant carefully away in his waistcoat-pocket and stood
+staring thoughtfully out of the window.
+
+The door opened softly, and Sonia came quickly into the room, closed
+the door, and leaned back against it. Her face was a dead white; her
+skin had lost its lustre of fine porcelain, and she stared at him with
+eyes dim with anguish.
+
+In a hoarse, broken voice, she muttered: "Forgive me! Oh, forgive me!"
+
+"A thief--you?" said the Duke, in a tone of pitying wonder.
+
+Sonia groaned.
+
+"You mustn't stop here," said the Duke in an uneasy tone, and he looked
+uneasily at the door.
+
+"Ah, you don't want to speak to me any more," said Sonia, in a
+heartrending tone, wringing her hands.
+
+"Guerchard is suspicious of everything. It is dangerous for us to be
+talking here. I assure you that it's dangerous," said the Duke.
+
+"What an opinion must you have of me! It's dreadful--cruel!" wailed
+Sonia.
+
+"For goodness' sake don't speak so loud," said the Duke, with even
+greater uneasiness. "You MUST think of Guerchard."
+
+"What do I care?" cried Sonia. "I've lost the liking of the only
+creature whose liking I wanted. What does anything else matter? What
+DOES it matter?"
+
+"We'll talk somewhere else presently. That'll be far safer," said the
+Duke.
+
+"No, no, we must talk now!" cried Sonia. "You must know.... I must tell
+... Oh, dear! ... Oh, dear! ... I don't know how to tell you.... And
+then it is so unfair.... she ... Germaine ... she has everything," she
+panted. "Yesterday, before me, you gave her that pendant, ... she
+smiled ... she was proud of it.... I saw her pleasure.... Then I took
+it--I took it--I took it! And if I could, I'd take her fortune, too....
+I hate her! Oh, how I hate her!"
+
+"What!" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, I do ... I hate her!" said Sonia; and her eyes, no longer gentle,
+glowed with the sombre resentment, the dull rage of the weak who turn
+on Fortune. Her gentle voice was harsh with rebellious wrath.
+
+"You hate her?" said the Duke quickly.
+
+"I should never have told you that.... But now I dare.... I dare speak
+out.... It's you! ... It's you--" The avowal died on her lips. A
+burning flush crimsoned her cheeks and faded as quickly as it came: "I
+hate her!" she muttered.
+
+"Sonia--" said the Duke gently.
+
+"Oh! I know that it's no excuse.... I know that you're thinking 'This
+is a very pretty story, but it's not her first theft'; ... and it's
+true--it's the tenth, ... perhaps it's the twentieth.... It's true--I
+am a thief." She paused, and the glow deepened in her eyes. "But
+there's one thing you must believe--you shall believe; since you came,
+since I've known you, since the first day you set eyes on me, I have
+stolen no more ... till yesterday when you gave her the pendant before
+me. I could not bear it ... I could not." She paused and looked at him
+with eyes that demanded an assent.
+
+"I believe you," said the Duke gravely.
+
+She heaved a deep sigh of relief, and went on more quietly--some of its
+golden tone had returned to her voice: "And then, if you knew how it
+began ... the horror of it," she said.
+
+"Poor child!" said the Duke softly.
+
+"Yes, you pity me, but you despise me--you despise me beyond words. You
+shall not! I will not have it!" she cried fiercely.
+
+"Believe me, no," said the Duke, in a soothing tone.
+
+"Listen," said Sonia. "Have you ever been alone--alone in the world?
+... Have you ever been hungry? Think of it ... in this big city where I
+was starving in sight of bread ... bread in the shops .... One only had
+to stretch out one's hand to touch it ... a penny loaf. Oh, it's
+commonplace!" she broke off: "quite commonplace!"
+
+"Go on: tell me," said the Duke curtly.
+
+"There was one way I could make money and I would not do it: no, I
+would not," she went on. "But that day I was dying ... understand, I
+was dying ....I went to the rooms of a man I knew a little. It was my
+last resource. At first I was glad ... he gave me food and wine ... and
+then, he talked to me ... he offered me money."
+
+"What!" cried the Duke; and a sudden flame of anger flared up in his
+eyes.
+
+"No; I could not ... and then I robbed him.... I preferred to ... it
+was more decent. Ah, I had excuses then. I began to steal to remain an
+honest woman ... and I've gone on stealing to keep up appearances. You
+see ... I joke about it." And she laughed, the faint, dreadful, mocking
+laugh of a damned soul. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she cried; and, burying
+her face in her hands, she burst into a storm of weeping.
+
+"Poor child," said the Duke softly. And he stared gloomily on the
+ground, overcome by this revelation of the tortures of the feeble in
+the underworld beneath the Paris he knew.
+
+"Oh, you do pity me ... you do understand ... and feel," said Sonia,
+between her sobs.
+
+The Duke raised his head and gazed at her with eyes full of an infinite
+sympathy and compassion.
+
+"Poor little Sonia," he said gently. "I understand."
+
+She gazed at him with incredulous eyes, in which joy and despair
+mingled, struggling.
+
+He came slowly towards her, and stopped short. His quick ear had caught
+the sound of a footstep outside the door.
+
+"Quick! Dry your eyes! You must look composed. The other room!" he
+cried, in an imperative tone.
+
+He caught her hand and drew her swiftly into the further drawing-room.
+
+With the quickness which came of long practice in hiding her feelings
+Sonia composed her face to something of its usual gentle calm. There
+was even a faint tinge of colour in her cheeks; they had lost their
+dead whiteness. A faint light shone in her eyes; the anguish had
+cleared from them. They rested on the Duke with a look of ineffable
+gratitude. She sat down on a couch. The Duke went to the window and
+lighted a cigarette. They heard the door of the outer drawing-room
+open, and there was a pause. Quick footsteps crossed the room, and
+Guerchard stood in the doorway. He looked from one to the other with
+keen and eager eyes. Sonia sat staring rather listlessly at the carpet.
+The Duke turned, and smiled at him.
+
+"Well, M. Guerchard," he said. "I hope the burglars have not stolen the
+coronet."
+
+"The coronet is safe, your Grace," said Guerchard.
+
+"And the paper-knives?" said the Duke.
+
+"The paper-knives?" said Guerchard with an inquiring air.
+
+"The wedding presents," said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, your Grace, the wedding presents are safe," said Guerchard.
+
+"I breathe again," said the Duke languidly.
+
+Guerchard turned to Sonia and said, "I was looking for you,
+Mademoiselle, to tell you that M. Formery has changed his mind. It is
+impossible for you to go out. No one will be allowed to go out."
+
+"Yes?" said Sonia, in an indifferent tone.
+
+"We should be very much obliged if you would go to your room," said
+Guerchard. "Your meals will be sent up to you."
+
+"What?" said Sonia, rising quickly; and she looked from Guerchard to
+the Duke. The Duke gave her the faintest nod.
+
+"Very well, I will go to my room," she said coldly.
+
+They accompanied her to the door of the outer drawing-room. Guerchard
+opened it for her and closed it after her.
+
+"Really, M. Guerchard," said the Duke, shrugging his shoulders. "This
+last measure--a child like that!"
+
+"Really, I'm very sorry, your Grace; but it's my trade, or, if you
+prefer it, my duty. As long as things are taking place here which I am
+still the only one to perceive, and which are not yet clear to me, I
+must neglect no precaution."
+
+"Of course, you know best," said the Duke. "But still, a child like
+that--you're frightening her out of her life."
+
+Guerchard shrugged his shoulders, and went quietly out of the room.
+
+The Duke sat down in an easy chair, frowning and thoughtful. Suddenly
+there struck on his ears the sound of a loud roaring and heavy bumping
+on the stairs, the door flew open, and M. Gournay-Martin stood on the
+threshold waving a telegram in his hand.
+
+M. Formery and the inspector came hurrying down the stairs behind him,
+and watched his emotion with astonished and wondering eyes.
+
+"Here!" bellowed the millionaire. "A telegram! A telegram from the
+scoundrel himself! Listen! Just listen:"
+
+  "A thousand apologies for not having been
+   able to keep my promise about the coronet.
+   Had an appointment at the Acacias. Please
+   have coronet ready in your room to-night. Will
+   come without fail to fetch it, between a quarter
+   to twelve and twelve o'clock."
+
+  "Yours affectionately,"
+
+  "ARSENE LUPIN."
+
+"There! What do you think of that?"
+
+"If you ask me, I think he's humbug," said the Duke with conviction.
+
+"Humbug! You always think it's humbug! You thought the letter was
+humbug; and look what has happened!" cried the millionaire.
+
+"Give me the telegram, please," said M. Formery quickly.
+
+The millionaire gave it to him; and he read it through.
+
+"Find out who brought it, inspector," he said.
+
+The inspector hurried to the top of the staircase and called to the
+policeman in charge of the front door. He came back to the drawing-room
+and said: "It was brought by an ordinary post-office messenger, sir."
+
+"Where is he?" said M. Formery. "Why did you let him go?"
+
+"Shall I send for him, sir?" said the inspector.
+
+"No, no, it doesn't matter," said M. Formery; and, turning to M.
+Gournay-Martin and the Duke, he said, "Now we're really going to have
+trouble with Guerchard. He is going to muddle up everything. This
+telegram will be the last straw. Nothing will persuade him now that
+this is not Lupin's work. And just consider, gentlemen: if Lupin had
+come last night, and if he had really set his heart on the coronet, he
+would have stolen it then, or at any rate he would have tried to open
+the safe in M. Gournay-Martin's bedroom, in which the coronet actually
+is, or this safe here"--he went to the safe and rapped on the door of
+it--"in which is the second key."
+
+"That's quite clear," said the inspector.
+
+"If, then, he did not make the attempt last night, when he had a clear
+field--when the house was empty--he certainly will not make the attempt
+now when we are warned, when the police are on the spot, and the house
+is surrounded. The idea is childish, gentlemen"--he leaned against the
+door of the safe--"absolutely childish, but Guerchard is mad on this
+point; and I foresee that his madness is going to hamper us in the most
+idiotic way."
+
+He suddenly pitched forward into the middle of the room, as the door of
+the safe opened with a jerk, and Guerchard shot out of it.
+
+"What the devil!" cried M. Formery, gaping at him.
+
+"You'd be surprised how clearly you hear everything in these
+safes--you'd think they were too thick," said Guerchard, in his gentle,
+husky voice.
+
+"How on earth did you get into it?" cried M. Formery.
+
+"Getting in was easy enough. It's the getting out that was awkward.
+These jokers had fixed up some kind of a spring so that I nearly shot
+out with the door," said Guerchard, rubbing his elbow.
+
+"But how did you get into it? How the deuce DID you get into it?" cried
+M. Formery.
+
+"Through the little cabinet into which that door behind the safe opens.
+There's no longer any back to the safe; they've cut it clean out of
+it--a very neat piece of work. Safes like this should always be fixed
+against a wall, not stuck in front of a door. The backs of them are
+always the weak point."
+
+"And the key? The key of the safe upstairs, in my bedroom, where the
+coronet is--is the key there?" cried M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+Guerchard went back into the empty safe, and groped about in it. He
+came out smiling.
+
+"Well, have you found the key?" cried the millionaire.
+
+"No. I haven't; but I've found something better," said Guerchard.
+
+"What is it?" said M. Formery sharply.
+
+"I'll give you a hundred guesses," said Guerchard with a tantalizing
+smile.
+
+"What is it?" said M. Formery.
+
+"A little present for you," said Guerchard.
+
+"What do you mean?" cried M. Formery angrily.
+
+Guerchard held up a card between his thumb and forefinger and said
+quietly:
+
+"The card of Arsene Lupin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+GUERCHARD PICKS UP THE TRUE SCENT
+
+
+The millionaire gazed at the card with stupefied eyes, the inspector
+gazed at it with extreme intelligence, the Duke gazed at it with
+interest, and M. Formery gazed at it with extreme disgust.
+
+"It's part of the same ruse--it was put there to throw us off the
+scent. It proves nothing--absolutely nothing," he said scornfully.
+
+"No; it proves nothing at all," said Guerchard quietly.
+
+"The telegram is the important thing--this telegram," said M.
+Gournay-Martin feverishly. "It concerns the coronet. Is it going to be
+disregarded?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," said M. Formery in a soothing tone. "It will be taken
+into account. It will certainly be taken into account."
+
+M. Gournay-Martin's butler appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room:
+"If you please, sir, lunch is served," he said.
+
+At the tidings some of his weight of woe appeared to be lifted from the
+head of the millionaire. "Good!" he said, "good! Gentlemen, you will
+lunch with me, I hope."
+
+"Thank you," said M. Formery. "There is nothing else for us to do, at
+any rate at present, and in the house. I am not quite satisfied about
+Mademoiselle Kritchnoff--at least Guerchard is not. I propose to
+question her again--about those earlier thefts."
+
+"I'm sure there's nothing in that," said the Duke quickly.
+
+"No, no; I don't think there is," said M. Formery. "But still one never
+knows from what quarter light may come in an affair like this. Accident
+often gives us our best clues."
+
+"It seems rather a shame to frighten her--she's such a child," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Oh, I shall be gentle, your Grace--as gentle as possible, that is. But
+I look to get more from the examination of Victoire. She was on the
+scene. She has actually seen the rogues at work; but till she recovers
+there is nothing more to be done, except to wait the discoveries of the
+detectives who are working outside; and they will report here. So in
+the meantime we shall be charmed to lunch with you, M. Gournay-Martin."
+
+They went downstairs to the dining-room and found an elaborate and
+luxurious lunch, worthy of the hospitality of a millionaire, awaiting
+them. The skill of the cook seemed to have been quite unaffected by the
+losses of his master. M. Formery, an ardent lover of good things,
+enjoyed himself immensely. He was in the highest spirits. Germaine, a
+little upset by the night-journey, was rather querulous. Her father was
+plunged in a gloom which lifted for but a brief space at the appearance
+of a fresh delicacy. Guerchard ate and drank seriously, answering the
+questions of the Duke in a somewhat absent-minded fashion. The Duke
+himself seemed to have lost his usual flow of good spirits, and at
+times his brow was knitted in an anxious frown. His questions to
+Guerchard showed a far less keen interest in the affair.
+
+To him the lunch seemed very long and very tedious; but at last it came
+to an end. M. Gournay-Martin seemed to have been much cheered by the
+wine he had drunk. He was almost hopeful. M. Formery, who had not by
+any means trifled with the champagne, was raised to the very height of
+sanguine certainty. Their coffee and liqueurs were served in the
+smoking-room. Guerchard lighted a cigar, refused a liqueur, drank his
+coffee quickly, and slipped out of the room.
+
+The Duke followed him, and in the hall said: "I will continue to watch
+you unravel the threads of this mystery, if I may, M. Guerchard."
+
+Good Republican as Guerchard was, he could not help feeling flattered
+by the interest of a Duke; and the excellent lunch he had eaten
+disposed him to feel the honour even more deeply.
+
+"I shall be charmed," he said. "To tell the truth, I find the company
+of your Grace really quite stimulating."
+
+"It must be because I find it all so extremely interesting," said the
+Duke.
+
+They went up to the drawing-room and found the red-faced young
+policeman seated on a chair by the door eating a lunch, which had been
+sent up to him from the millionaire's kitchen, with a very hearty
+appetite.
+
+They went into the drawing-room. Guerchard shut the door and turned the
+key: "Now," he said, "I think that M. Formery will give me half an hour
+to myself. His cigar ought to last him at least half an hour. In that
+time I shall know what the burglars really did with their plunder--at
+least I shall know for certain how they got it out of the house."
+
+"Please explain," said the Duke. "I thought we knew how they got it out
+of the house." And he waved his hand towards the window.
+
+"Oh, that!--that's childish," said Guerchard contemptuously. "Those are
+traces for an examining magistrate. The ladder, the table on the
+window-sill, they lead nowhere. The only people who came up that ladder
+were the two men who brought it from the scaffolding. You can see their
+footsteps. Nobody went down it at all. It was mere waste of time to
+bother with those traces."
+
+"But the footprint under the book?" said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, that," said Guerchard. "One of the burglars sat on the couch
+there, rubbed plaster on the sole of his boot, and set his foot down on
+the carpet. Then he dusted the rest of the plaster off his boot and put
+the book on the top of the footprint."
+
+"Now, how do you know that?" said the astonished Duke.
+
+"It's as plain as a pike-staff," said Guerchard. "There must have been
+several burglars to move such pieces of furniture. If the soles of all
+of them had been covered with plaster, all the sweeping in the world
+would not have cleared the carpet of the tiny fragments of it. I've
+been over the carpet between the footprint and the window with a
+magnifying glass. There are no fragments of plaster on it. We dismiss
+the footprint. It is a mere blind, and a very fair blind too--for an
+examining magistrate."
+
+"I understand," said the Duke.
+
+"That narrows the problem, the quite simple problem, how was the
+furniture taken out of the room. It did not go through that window down
+the ladder. Again, it was not taken down the stairs, and out of the
+front door, or the back. If it had been, the concierge and his wife
+would have heard the noise. Besides that, it would have been carried
+down into a main street, in which there are people at all hours.
+Somebody would have been sure to tell a policeman that this house was
+being emptied. Moreover, the police were continually patrolling the
+main streets, and, quickly as a man like Lupin would do the job, he
+could not do it so quickly that a policeman would not have seen it. No;
+the furniture was not taken down the stairs or out of the front door.
+That narrows the problem still more. In fact, there is only one mode of
+egress left."
+
+"The chimney!" cried the Duke.
+
+"You've hit it," said Guerchard, with a husky laugh. "By that
+well-known logical process, the process of elimination, we've excluded
+all methods of egress except the chimney."
+
+He paused, frowning, in some perplexity; and then he said uneasily:
+"What I don't like about it is that Victoire was set in the fireplace.
+I asked myself at once what was she doing there. It was unnecessary
+that she should be drugged and set in the fireplace--quite unnecessary."
+
+"It might have been to put off an examining magistrate," said the Duke.
+"Having found Victoire in the fireplace, M. Formery did not look for
+anything else."
+
+"Yes, it might have been that," said Guerchard slowly. "On the other
+hand, she might have been put there to make sure that I did not miss
+the road the burglars took. That's the worst of having to do with
+Lupin. He knows me to the bottom of my mind. He has something up his
+sleeve--some surprise for me. Even now, I'm nowhere near the bottom of
+the mystery. But come along, we'll take the road the burglars took. The
+inspector has put my lantern ready for me."
+
+As he spoke he went to the fireplace, picked up a lantern which had
+been set on the top of the iron fire-basket, and lighted it. The Duke
+stepped into the great fireplace beside him. It was four feet deep, and
+between eight and nine feet broad. Guerchard threw the light from the
+lantern on to the back wall of it. Six feet from the floor the soot
+from the fire stopped abruptly, and there was a dappled patch of
+bricks, half of them clean and red, half of them blackened by soot,
+five feet broad, and four feet high.
+
+"The opening is higher up than I thought," said Guerchard. "I must get
+a pair of steps."
+
+He went to the door of the drawing-room and bade the young policeman
+fetch him a pair of steps. They were brought quickly. He took them from
+the policeman, shut the door, and locked it again. He set the steps in
+the fireplace and mounted them.
+
+"Be careful," he said to the Duke, who had followed him into the
+fireplace, and stood at the foot of the steps. "Some of these bricks
+may drop inside, and they'll sting you up if they fall on your toes."
+
+The Duke stepped back out of reach of any bricks that might fall.
+
+Guerchard set his left hand against the wall of the chimney-piece
+between him and the drawing-room, and pressed hard with his right
+against the top of the dappled patch of bricks. At the first push, half
+a dozen of them fell with a bang on to the floor of the next house. The
+light came flooding in through the hole, and shone on Guerchard's face
+and its smile of satisfaction. Quickly he pushed row after row of
+bricks into the next house until he had cleared an opening four feet
+square.
+
+"Come along," he said to the Duke, and disappeared feet foremost
+through the opening.
+
+The Duke mounted the steps, and found himself looking into a large
+empty room of the exact size and shape of the drawing-room of M.
+Gournay-Martin, save that it had an ordinary modern fireplace instead
+of one of the antique pattern of that in which he stood. Its
+chimney-piece was a few inches below the opening. He stepped out on to
+the chimney-piece and dropped lightly to the floor.
+
+"Well," he said, looking back at the opening through which he had come.
+"That's an ingenious dodge."
+
+"Oh, it's common enough," said Guerchard. "Robberies at the big
+jewellers' are sometimes worked by these means. But what is uncommon
+about it, and what at first sight put me off the track, is that these
+burglars had the cheek to pierce the wall with an opening large enough
+to enable them to remove the furniture of a house."
+
+"It's true," said the Duke. "The opening's as large as a good-sized
+window. Those burglars seem capable of everything--even of a
+first-class piece of mason's work."
+
+"Oh, this has all been prepared a long while ago. But now I'm really on
+their track. And after all, I haven't really lost any time. Dieusy
+wasted no time in making inquiries in Sureau Street; he's been working
+all this side of the house."
+
+Guerchard drew up the blinds, opened the shutters, and let the daylight
+flood the dim room. He came back to the fireplace and looked down at
+the heap of bricks, frowning:
+
+"I made a mistake there," he said. "I ought to have taken those bricks
+down carefully, one by one."
+
+Quickly he took brick after brick from the pile, and began to range
+them neatly against the wall on the left. The Duke watched him for two
+or three minutes, then began to help him. It did not take them long,
+and under one of the last few bricks Guerchard found a fragment of a
+gilded picture-frame.
+
+"Here's where they ought to have done their sweeping," he said, holding
+it up to the Duke.
+
+"I tell you what," said the Duke, "I shouldn't wonder if we found the
+furniture in this house still."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" said Guerchard. "I tell you that Lupin would allow for
+myself or Ganimard being put in charge of the case; and he would know
+that we should find the opening in the chimney. The furniture was taken
+straight out into the side-street on to which this house opens." He led
+the way out of the room on to the landing and went down the dark
+staircase into the hall. He opened the shutters of the hall windows,
+and let in the light. Then he examined the hall. The dust lay thick on
+the tiled floor. Down the middle of it was a lane formed by many feet.
+The footprints were faint, but still plain in the layer of dust.
+Guerchard came back to the stairs and began to examine them. Half-way
+up the flight he stooped, and picked up a little spray of flowers:
+"Fresh!" he said. "These have not been long plucked."
+
+"Salvias," said the Duke.
+
+"Salvias they are," said Guerchard. "Pink salvias; and there is only
+one gardener in France who has ever succeeded in getting this shade--M.
+Gournay-Martin's gardener at Charmerace. I'm a gardener myself."
+
+"Well, then, last night's burglars came from Charmerace. They must
+have," said the Duke.
+
+"It looks like it," said Guerchard.
+
+"The Charolais," said the Duke.
+
+"It looks like it," said Guerchard.
+
+"It must be," said the Duke. "This IS interesting--if only we could get
+an absolute proof."
+
+"We shall get one presently," said Guerchard confidently.
+
+"It is interesting," said the Duke in a tone of lively enthusiasm.
+"These clues--these tracks which cross one another--each fact by
+degrees falling into its proper place--extraordinarily interesting." He
+paused and took out his cigarette-case: "Will you have a cigarette?" he
+said.
+
+"Are they caporal?" said Guerchard.
+
+"No, Egyptians--Mercedes."
+
+"Thank you," said Guerchard; and he took one.
+
+The Duke struck a match, lighted Guerchard's cigarette, and then his
+own:
+
+"Yes, it's very interesting," he said. "In the last quarter of an hour
+you've practically discovered that the burglars came from
+Charmerace--that they were the Charolais--that they came in by the
+front door of this house, and carried the furniture out of it."
+
+"I don't know about their coming in by it," said Guerchard. "Unless I'm
+very much mistaken, they came in by the front door of M.
+Gournay-Martin's house."
+
+"Of course," said the Duke. "I was forgetting. They brought the keys
+from Charmerace."
+
+"Yes, but who drew the bolts for them?" said Guerchard. "The concierge
+bolted them before he went to bed. He told me so. He was telling the
+truth--I know when that kind of man is telling the truth."
+
+"By Jove!" said the Duke softly. "You mean that they had an accomplice?"
+
+"I think we shall find that they had an accomplice. But your Grace is
+beginning to draw inferences with uncommon quickness. I believe that
+you would make a first-class detective yourself--with practice, of
+course--with practice."
+
+"Can I have missed my true career?" said the Duke, smiling. "It's
+certainly a very interesting game."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to search this barracks myself," said Guerchard.
+"I'll send in a couple of men to do it; but I'll just take a look at
+the steps myself."
+
+So saying, he opened the front door and went out and examined the steps
+carefully.
+
+"We shall have to go back the way we came," he said, when he had
+finished his examination. "The drawing-room door is locked. We ought to
+find M. Formery hammering on it." And he smiled as if he found the
+thought pleasing.
+
+They went back up the stairs, through the opening, into the
+drawing-room of M. Gournay-Martin's house. Sure enough, from the other
+side of the locked door came the excited voice of M. Formery, crying:
+
+"Guerchard! Guerchard! What are you doing? Let me in! Why don't you let
+me in?"
+
+Guerchard unlocked the door; and in bounced M. Formery, very excited,
+very red in the face.
+
+"Hang it all, Guerchard! What on earth have you been doing?" he cried.
+"Why didn't you open the door when I knocked?"
+
+"I didn't hear you," said Guerchard. "I wasn't in the room."
+
+"Then where on earth have you been?" cried M. Formery.
+
+Guerchard looked at him with a faint, ironical smile, and said in his
+gentle voice, "I was following the real track of the burglars."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE EXAMINATION OF SONIA
+
+
+M. Formery gasped: "The real track?" he muttered.
+
+"Let me show you," said Guerchard. And he led him to the fireplace, and
+showed him the opening between the two houses.
+
+"I must go into this myself!" cried M. Formery in wild excitement.
+
+Without more ado he began to mount the steps. Guerchard followed him.
+The Duke saw their heels disappear up the steps. Then he came out of
+the drawing-room and inquired for M. Gournay-Martin. He was told that
+the millionaire was up in his bedroom; and he went upstairs, and
+knocked at the door of it.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin bade him enter in a very faint voice, and the Duke
+found him lying on the bed. He was looking depressed, even exhausted,
+the shadow of the blusterous Gournay-Martin of the day before. The rich
+rosiness of his cheeks had faded to a moderate rose-pink.
+
+"That telegram," moaned the millionaire. "It was the last straw. It has
+overwhelmed me. The coronet is lost."
+
+"What, already?" said the Duke, in a tone of the liveliest surprise.
+
+"No, no; it's still in the safe," said the millionaire. "But it's as
+good as lost--before midnight it will be lost. That fiend will get it."
+
+"If it's in this safe now, it won't be lost before midnight," said the
+Duke. "But are you sure it's there now?"
+
+"Look for yourself," said the millionaire, taking the key of the safe
+from his waistcoat pocket, and handing it to the Duke.
+
+The Duke opened the safe. The morocco case which held the coronet lay
+on the middle shell in front of him. He glanced at the millionaire, and
+saw that he had closed his eyes in the exhaustion of despair. Whistling
+softly, the Duke opened the case, took out the diadem, and examined it
+carefully, admiring its admirable workmanship. He put it back in the
+case, turned to the millionaire, and said thoughtfully:
+
+"I can never make up my mind, in the case of one of these old diadems,
+whether one ought not to take out the stones and have them re-cut. Look
+at this emerald now. It's a very fine stone, but this old-fashioned
+cutting does not really do it justice."
+
+"Oh, no, no: you should never interfere with an antique, historic piece
+of jewellery. Any alteration decreases its value--its value as an
+historic relic," cried the millionaire, in a shocked tone.
+
+"I know that," said the Duke, "but the question for me is, whether one
+ought not to sacrifice some of its value to increasing its beauty."
+
+"You do have such mad ideas," said the millionaire, in a tone of
+peevish exasperation.
+
+"Ah, well, it's a nice question," said the Duke.
+
+He snapped the case briskly, put it back on the shelf, locked the safe,
+and handed the key to the millionaire. Then he strolled across the room
+and looked down into the street, whistling softly.
+
+"I think--I think--I'll go home and get out of these motoring clothes.
+And I should like to have on a pair of boots that were a trifle less
+muddy," he said slowly.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin sat up with a jerk and cried, "For Heaven's sake,
+don't you go and desert me, my dear chap! You don't know what my nerves
+are like!"
+
+"Oh, you've got that sleuth-hound, Guerchard, and the splendid Formery,
+and four other detectives, and half a dozen ordinary policemen guarding
+you. You can do without my feeble arm. Besides, I shan't be gone more
+than half an hour--three-quarters at the outside. I'll bring back my
+evening clothes with me, and dress for dinner here. I don't suppose
+that anything fresh will happen between now and midnight; but I want to
+be on the spot, and hear the information as it comes in fresh. Besides,
+there's Guerchard. I positively cling to Guerchard. It's an education,
+though perhaps not a liberal education, to go about with him," said the
+Duke; and there was a sub-acid irony in his voice.
+
+"Well, if you must, you must," said M. Gournay-Martin grumpily.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, then," said the Duke. And he went out of the
+room and down the stairs. He took his motor-cap from the hall-table,
+and had his hand on the latch of the door, when the policeman in charge
+of it said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but have you M. Guerchard's
+permission to leave the house?"
+
+"M. Guerchard's permission?" said the Duke haughtily. "What has M.
+Guerchard to do with me? I am the Duke of Charmerace." And he opened
+the door.
+
+"It was M. Formery's orders, your Grace," stammered the policeman
+doubtfully.
+
+"M. Formery's orders?" said the Duke, standing on the top step. "Call
+me a taxi-cab, please."
+
+The concierge, who stood beside the policeman, ran down the steps and
+blew his whistle. The policeman gazed uneasily at the Duke, shifting
+his weight from one foot to the other; but he said no more.
+
+A taxi-cab came up to the door, the Duke went down the steps, stepped
+into it, and drove away.
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later he came back, having changed into
+clothes more suited to a Paris drawing-room. He went up to the
+drawing-room, and there he found Guerchard, M. Formery, and the
+inspector, who had just completed their tour of inspection of the house
+next door and had satisfied themselves that the stolen treasures were
+not in it. The inspector and his men had searched it thoroughly just to
+make sure; but, as Guerchard had foretold, the burglars had not taken
+the chance of the failure of the police to discover the opening between
+the two houses. M. Formery told the Duke about their tour of inspection
+at length. Guerchard went to the telephone and told the exchange to put
+him through to Charmerace. He was informed that the trunk line was very
+busy and that he might have to wait half an hour.
+
+The Duke inquired if any trace of the burglars, after they had left
+with their booty, had yet been found. M. Formery told him that, so far,
+the detectives had failed to find a single trace. Guerchard said that
+he had three men at work on the search, and that he was hopeful of
+getting some news before long.
+
+"The layman is impatient in these matters," said M. Formery, with an
+indulgent smile. "But we have learnt to be patient, after long
+experience."
+
+He proceeded to discuss with Guerchard the new theories with which the
+discovery of the afternoon had filled his mind. None of them struck the
+Duke as being of great value, and he listened to them with a somewhat
+absent-minded air. The coming examination of Sonia weighed heavily on
+his spirit. Guerchard answered only in monosyllables to the questions
+and suggestions thrown out by M. Formery. It seemed to the Duke that he
+paid very little attention to him, that his mind was still working hard
+on the solution of the mystery, seeking the missing facts which would
+bring him to the bottom of it. In the middle of one of M. Formery's
+more elaborate dissertations the telephone bell rang.
+
+Guerchard rose hastily and went to it. They heard him say: "Is that
+Charmerace? ... I want the gardener.... Out? When will he be back? ...
+Tell him to ring me up at M. Gournay-Martin's house in Paris the moment
+he gets back.... Detective-Inspector Guerchard ... Guerchard ...
+Detective-Inspector."
+
+He turned to them with a frown, and said, "Of course, since I want him,
+the confounded gardener has gone out for the day. Still, it's of very
+little importance--a mere corroboration I wanted." And he went back to
+his seat and lighted another cigarette.
+
+M. Formery continued his dissertation. Presently Guerchard said, "You
+might go and see how Victoire is, inspector--whether she shows any
+signs of waking. What did the doctor say?"
+
+"The doctor said that she would not really be sensible and have her
+full wits about her much before ten o'clock to-night," said the
+inspector; but he went to examine her present condition.
+
+M. Formery proceeded to discuss the effects of different anesthetics.
+The others heard him with very little attention.
+
+The inspector came back and reported that Victoire showed no signs of
+awaking.
+
+"Well, then, M. Formery, I think we might get on with the examination
+of Mademoiselle Kritchnoff," said Guerchard. "Will you go and fetch
+her, inspector?"
+
+"Really, I cannot conceive why you should worry that poor child," the
+Duke protested, in a tone of some indignation.
+
+"It seems to me hardly necessary," said M. Formery.
+
+"Excuse me," said Guerchard suavely, "but I attach considerable
+importance to it. It seems to me to be our bounden duty to question her
+fully. One never knows from what quarter light may come."
+
+"Oh, well, since you make such a point of it," said M. Formery.
+"Inspector, ask Mademoiselle Kritchnoff to come here. Fetch her."
+
+The inspector left the room.
+
+Guerchard looked at the Duke with a faint air of uneasiness: "I think
+that we had better question Mademoiselle Kritchnoff by ourselves," he
+said.
+
+M. Formery looked at him and hesitated. Then he said: "Oh, yes, of
+course, by ourselves."
+
+"Certainly," said the Duke, a trifle haughtily. And he rose and opened
+the door. He was just going through it when Guerchard said sharply:
+
+"Your Grace--"
+
+The Duke paid no attention to him. He shut the door quickly behind him
+and sprang swiftly up the stairs. He met the inspector coming down with
+Sonia. Barring their way for a moment he said, in his kindliest voice:
+"Now you mustn't be frightened, Mademoiselle Sonia. All you have to do
+is to try to remember as clearly as you can the circumstances of the
+earlier thefts at Charmerace. You mustn't let them confuse you."
+
+"Thank you, your Grace, I will try and be as clear as I can," said
+Sonia; and she gave him an eloquent glance, full of gratitude for the
+warning; and went down the stairs with firm steps.
+
+The Duke went on up the stairs, and knocked softly at the door of M.
+Gournay-Martin's bedroom. There was no answer to his knock, and he
+quietly opened the door and looked in. Overcome by his misfortunes, the
+millionaire had sunk into a profound sleep and was snoring softly. The
+Duke stepped inside the room, left the door open a couple of inches,
+drew a chair to it, and sat down watching the staircase through the
+opening of the door.
+
+He sat frowning, with a look of profound pity on his face. Once the
+suspense grew too much for him. He rose and walked up and down the
+room. His well-bred calm seemed to have deserted him. He muttered
+curses on Guerchard, M. Formery, and the whole French criminal system,
+very softly, under his breath. His face was distorted to a mask of
+fury; and once he wiped the little beads of sweat from his forehead
+with his handkerchief. Then he recovered himself, sat down in the
+chair, and resumed his watch on the stairs.
+
+At last, at the end of half an hour, which had seemed to him months
+long, he heard voices. The drawing-room door shut, and there were
+footsteps on the stairs. The inspector and Sonia came into view.
+
+He waited till they were at the top of the stairs: then he came out of
+the room, with his most careless air, and said: "Well, Mademoiselle
+Sonia, I hope you did not find it so very dreadful, after all."
+
+She was very pale, and there were undried tears on her cheeks. "It was
+horrible," she said faintly. "Horrible. M. Formery was all right--he
+believed me; but that horrible detective would not believe a word I
+said. He confused me. I hardly knew what I was saying."
+
+The Duke ground his teeth softly. "Never mind, it's over now. You had
+better lie down and rest. I will tell one of the servants to bring you
+up a glass of wine."
+
+He walked with her to the door of her room, and said: "Try to
+sleep--sleep away the unpleasant memory."
+
+She went into her room, and the Duke went downstairs and told the
+butler to take a glass of champagne up to her. Then he went upstairs to
+the drawing-room. M. Formery was at the table writing. Guerchard stood
+beside him. He handed what he had written to Guerchard, and, with a
+smile of satisfaction, Guerchard folded the paper and put it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Well, M. Formery, did Mademoiselle Kritchnoff throw any fresh light on
+this mystery?" said the Duke, in a tone of faint contempt.
+
+"No--in fact she convinced ME that she knew nothing whatever about it.
+M. Guerchard seems to entertain a different opinion. But I think that
+even he is convinced that Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is not a friend of
+Arsene Lupin."
+
+"Oh, well, perhaps she isn't. But there's no telling," said Guerchard
+slowly.
+
+"Arsene Lupin?" cried the Duke. "Surely you never thought that
+Mademoiselle Kritchnoff had anything to do with Arsene Lupin?"
+
+"I never thought so," said M. Formery. "But when one has a fixed idea
+... well, one has a fixed idea." He shrugged his shoulders, and looked
+at Guerchard with contemptuous eyes.
+
+The Duke laughed, an unaffected ringing laugh, but not a pleasant one:
+"It's absurd!" he cried.
+
+"There are always those thefts," said Guerchard, with a nettled air.
+
+"You have nothing to go upon," said M. Formery. "What if she did enter
+the service of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin just before the thefts
+began? Besides, after this lapse of time, if she had committed the
+thefts, you'd find it a job to bring them home to her. It's not a job
+worth your doing, anyhow--it's a job for an ordinary detective,
+Guerchard."
+
+"There's always the pendant," said Guerchard. "I am convinced that that
+pendant is in the house."
+
+"Oh, that stupid pendant! I wish I'd never given it to Mademoiselle
+Gournay-Martin," said the Duke lightly.
+
+"I have a feeling that if I could lay my hand on that pendant--if I
+could find who has it, I should have the key to this mystery."
+
+"The devil you would!" said the Duke softly. "That is odd. It is the
+oddest thing about this business I've heard yet."
+
+"I have that feeling--I have that feeling," said Guerchard quietly.
+
+The Duke smiled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+VICTOIRE'S SLIP
+
+
+They were silent. The Duke walked to the fireplace, stepped into it,
+and studied the opening. He came out again and said: "Oh, by the way,
+M. Formery, the policeman at the front door wanted to stop me going out
+of the house when I went home to change. I take it that M. Guerchard's
+prohibition does not apply to me?"
+
+"Of course not--of course not, your Grace," said M. Formery quickly.
+
+"I saw that you had changed your clothes, your Grace," said Guerchard.
+"I thought that you had done it here."
+
+"No," said the Duke, "I went home. The policeman protested; but he went
+no further, so I did not throw him into the middle of the street."
+
+"Whatever our station, we should respect the law," said M. Formery
+solemnly.
+
+"The Republican Law, M. Formery? I am a Royalist," said the Duke,
+smiling at him.
+
+M. Formery shook his head sadly.
+
+"I was wondering," said the Duke, "about M. Guerchard's theory that the
+burglars were let in the front door of this house by an accomplice.
+Why, when they had this beautiful large opening, did they want a front
+door, too?"
+
+"I did not know that that was Guerchard's theory?" said M. Formery, a
+trifle contemptuously. "Of course they had no need to use the front
+door."
+
+"Perhaps they had no need to use the front door," said Guerchard; "but,
+after all, the front door was unbolted, and they did not draw the bolts
+to put us off the scent. Their false scent was already prepared"--he
+waved his hand towards the window--"moreover, you must bear in mind
+that that opening might not have been made when they entered the house.
+Suppose that, while they were on the other side of the wall, a brick
+had fallen on to the hearth, and alarmed the concierge. We don't know
+how skilful they are; they might not have cared to risk it. I'm
+inclined to think, on the whole, that they did come in through the
+front door."
+
+M. Formery sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," said the Duke. "But the accomplice?"
+
+"I think we shall know more about the accomplice when Victoire awakes,"
+said Guerchard.
+
+"The family have such confidence in Victoire," said the Duke.
+
+"Perhaps Lupin has, too," said Guerchard grimly.
+
+"Always Lupin!" said M. Formery contemptuously.
+
+There came a knock at the door, and a footman appeared on the
+threshold. He informed the Duke that Germaine had returned from her
+shopping expedition, and was awaiting him in her boudoir. He went to
+her, and tried to persuade her to put in a word for Sonia, and
+endeavour to soften Guerchard's rigour.
+
+She refused to do anything of the kind, declaring that, in view of the
+value of the stolen property, no stone must be left unturned to recover
+it. The police knew what they were doing; they must have a free hand.
+The Duke did not press her with any great vigour; he realized the
+futility of an appeal to a nature so shallow, so self-centred, and so
+lacking in sympathy. He took his revenge by teasing her about the
+wedding presents which were still flowing in. Her father's business
+friends were still striving to outdo one another in the costliness of
+the jewelry they were giving her. The great houses of the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain were still refraining firmly from anything that savoured
+of extravagance or ostentation. While he was with her the eleventh
+paper-knife came--from his mother's friend, the Duchess of Veauleglise.
+The Duke was overwhelmed with joy at the sight of it, and his delighted
+comments drove Germaine to the last extremity of exasperation. The
+result was that she begged him, with petulant asperity, to get out of
+her sight.
+
+He complied with her request, almost with alacrity, and returned to M.
+Formery and Guerchard. He found them at a standstill, waiting for
+reports from the detectives who were hunting outside the house for
+information about the movements of the burglars with the stolen booty,
+and apparently finding none. The police were also hunting for the
+stolen motor-cars, not only in Paris and its environs, but also all
+along the road between Paris and Charmerace.
+
+At about five o'clock Guerchard grew tired of the inaction, and went
+out himself to assist his subordinates, leaving M. Formery in charge of
+the house itself. He promised to be back by half-past seven, to let the
+examining magistrate, who had an engagement for the evening, get away.
+The Duke spent his time between the drawing-room, where M. Formery
+entertained him with anecdotes of his professional skill, and the
+boudoir, where Germaine was entertaining envious young friends who came
+to see her wedding presents. The friends of Germaine were always a
+little ill at ease in the society of the Duke, belonging as they did to
+that wealthy middle class which has made France what she is. His
+indifference to the doings of the old friends of his family saddened
+them; and they were unable to understand his airy and persistent
+trifling. It seemed to them a discord in the cosmic tune.
+
+The afternoon wore away, and at half-past seven Guerchard had not
+returned. M. Formery waited for him, fuming, for ten minutes, then left
+the house in charge of the inspector, and went off to his engagement.
+M. Gournay-Martin was entertaining two financiers and their wives, two
+of their daughters, and two friends of the Duke, the Baron de Vernan
+and the Comte de Vauvineuse, at dinner that night. Thanks to the Duke,
+the party was of a liveliness to which the gorgeous dining-room had
+been very little used since it had been so fortunate as to become the
+property of M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+The millionaire had been looking forward to an evening of luxurious
+woe, deploring the loss of his treasures--giving their prices--to his
+sympathetic friends. The Duke had other views; and they prevailed.
+After dinner the guests went to the smoking-room, since the
+drawing-rooms were in possession of Guerchard. Soon after ten the Duke
+slipped away from them, and went to the detective. Guerchard's was not
+a face at any time full of expression, and all that the Duke saw on it
+was a subdued dulness.
+
+"Well, M. Guerchard," he said cheerfully, "what luck? Have any of your
+men come across any traces of the passage of the burglars with their
+booty?"
+
+"No, your Grace; so far, all the luck has been with the burglars. For
+all that any one seems to have seen them, they might have vanished into
+the bowels of the earth through the floor of the cellars in the empty
+house next door. That means that they were very quick loading whatever
+vehicle they used with their plunder. I should think, myself, that they
+first carried everything from this house down into the hall of the
+house next door; and then, of course, they could be very quick getting
+them from hall to their van, or whatever it was. But still, some one
+saw that van--saw it drive up to the house, or waiting at the house, or
+driving away from it."
+
+"Is M. Formery coming back?" said the Duke.
+
+"Not to-night," said Guerchard. "The affair is in my hands now; and I
+have my own men on it--men of some intelligence, or, at any rate, men
+who know my ways, and how I want things done."
+
+"It must be a relief," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, no, I'm used to M. Formery--to all the examining magistrates in
+Paris, and in most of the big provincial towns. They do not really
+hamper me; and often I get an idea from them; for some of them are men
+of real intelligence."
+
+"And others are not: I understand," said the Duke.
+
+The door opened and Bonavent, the detective, came in.
+
+"The housekeeper's awake, M. Guerchard," he said.
+
+"Good, bring her down here," said Guerchard.
+
+"Perhaps you'd like me to go," said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, no," said Guerchard. "If it would interest you to hear me question
+her, please stay."
+
+Bonavent left the room. The Duke sat down in an easy chair, and
+Guerchard stood before the fireplace.
+
+"M. Formery told me, when you were out this afternoon, that he believed
+this housekeeper to be quite innocent," said the Duke idly.
+
+"There is certainly one innocent in this affair," said Guerchard,
+grinning.
+
+"Who is that?" said the Duke.
+
+"The examining magistrate," said Guerchard.
+
+The door opened, and Bonavent brought Victoire in. She was a big,
+middle-aged woman, with a pleasant, cheerful, ruddy face, black-haired,
+with sparkling brown eyes, which did not seem to have been at all
+dimmed by her long, drugged sleep. She looked like a well-to-do
+farmer's wife, a buxom, good-natured, managing woman.
+
+As soon as she came into the room, she said quickly:
+
+"I wish, Mr. Inspector, your man would have given me time to put on a
+decent dress. I must have been sleeping in this one ever since those
+rascals tied me up and put that smelly handkerchief over my face. I
+never saw such a nasty-looking crew as they were in my life."
+
+"How many were there, Madame Victoire?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Dozens! The house was just swarming with them. I heard the noise; I
+came downstairs; and on the landing outside the door here, one of them
+jumped on me from behind and nearly choked me--to prevent me from
+screaming, I suppose."
+
+"And they were a nasty-looking crew, were they?" said Guerchard. "Did
+you see their faces?"
+
+"No, I wish I had! I should know them again if I had; but they were all
+masked," said Victoire.
+
+"Sit down, Madame Victoire. There's no need to tire you," said
+Guerchard. And she sat down on a chair facing him.
+
+"Let's see, you sleep in one of the top rooms, Madame Victoire. It has
+a dormer window, set in the roof, hasn't it?" said Guerchard, in the
+same polite, pleasant voice.
+
+"Yes; yes. But what has that got to do with it?" said Victoire.
+
+"Please answer my questions," said Guerchard sharply. "You went to
+sleep in your room. Did you hear any noise on the roof?"
+
+"On the roof? How should I hear it on the roof? There wouldn't be any
+noise on the roof," said Victoire.
+
+"You heard nothing on the roof?" said Guerchard.
+
+"No; the noise I heard was down here," said Victoire.
+
+"Yes, and you came down to see what was making it. And you were seized
+from behind on the landing, and brought in here," said Guerchard.
+
+"Yes, that's right," said Madame Victoire.
+
+"And were you tied up and gagged on the landing, or in here?" said
+Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, I was caught on the landing, and pushed in here, and then tied
+up," said Victoire.
+
+"I'm sure that wasn't one man's job," said Guerchard, looking at her
+vigorous figure with admiring eyes.
+
+"You may be sure of that," said Victoire. "It took four of them; and at
+least two of them have some nice bruises on their shins to show for it."
+
+"I'm sure they have. And it serves them jolly well right," said
+Guerchard, in a tone of warm approval. "And, I suppose, while those
+four were tying you up the others stood round and looked on."
+
+"Oh, no, they were far too busy for that," said Victoire.
+
+"What were they doing?" said Guerchard.
+
+"They were taking the pictures off the walls and carrying them out of
+the window down the ladder," said Victoire.
+
+Guerchard's eyes flickered towards the Duke, but the expression of
+earnest inquiry on his face never changed.
+
+"Now, tell me, did the man who took a picture from the walls carry it
+down the ladder himself, or did he hand it through the window to a man
+who was standing on the top of a ladder ready to receive it?" he said.
+
+Victoire paused as if to recall their action; then she said, "Oh, he
+got through the window, and carried it down the ladder himself."
+
+"You're sure of that?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, yes, I am quite sure of it--why should I deceive you, Mr.
+Inspector?" said Victoire quickly; and the Duke saw the first shadow of
+uneasiness on her face.
+
+"Of course not," said Guerchard. "And where were you?"
+
+"Oh, they put me behind the screen."
+
+"No, no, where were you when you came into the room?"
+
+"I was against the door," said Victoire.
+
+"And where was the screen?" said Guerchard. "Was it before the
+fireplace?"
+
+"No; it was on one side--the left-hand side," said Victoire.
+
+"Oh, will you show me exactly where it stood?" said Guerchard.
+
+Victoire rose, and, Guerchard aiding her, set the screen on the
+left-hand side of the fireplace.
+
+Guerchard stepped back and looked at it.
+
+"Now, this is very important," he said. "I must have the exact position
+of the four feet of that screen. Let's see ... some chalk ... of
+course.... You do some dressmaking, don't you, Madame Victoire?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I sometimes make a dress for one of the maids in my spare
+time," said Victoire.
+
+"Then you've got a piece of chalk on you," said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Victoire, putting her hand to the pocket of her dress.
+
+She paused, took a step backwards, and looked wildly round the room,
+while the colour slowly faded in her ruddy cheeks.
+
+"What am I talking about?" she said in an uncertain, shaky voice. "I
+haven't any chalk--I--ran out of chalk the day before yesterday."
+
+"I think you have, Madame Victoire. Feel in your pocket and see," said
+Guerchard sternly. His voice had lost its suavity; his face its smile:
+his eyes had grown dangerous.
+
+"No, no; I have no chalk," cried Victoire.
+
+With a sudden leap Guerchard sprang upon her, caught her in a firm grip
+with his right arm, and his left hand plunged into her pocket.
+
+"Let me go! Let me go! You're hurting," she cried.
+
+Guerchard loosed her and stepped back.
+
+"What's this?" he said; and he held up between his thumb and forefinger
+a piece of blue chalk.
+
+Victoire drew herself up and faced him gallantly: "Well, what of
+it?--it is chalk. Mayn't an honest woman carry chalk in her pockets
+without being insulted and pulled about by every policeman she comes
+across?" she cried.
+
+"That will be for the examining magistrate to decide," said Guerchard;
+and he went to the door and called Bonavent. Bonavent came in, and
+Guerchard said: "When the prison van comes, put this woman in it; and
+send her down to the station."
+
+"But what have I done?" cried Victoire. "I'm innocent! I declare I'm
+innocent. I've done nothing at all. It's not a crime to carry a piece
+of chalk in one's pocket."
+
+"Now, that's a matter for the examining magistrate. You can explain it
+to him," said Guerchard. "I've got nothing to do with it: so it's no
+good making a fuss now. Do go quietly, there's a good woman."
+
+He spoke in a quiet, business-like tone. Victoire looked him in the
+eyes, then drew herself up, and went quietly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SONIA'S ESCAPE
+
+
+"One of M. Formery's innocents," said Guerchard, turning to the Duke.
+
+"The chalk?" said the Duke. "Is it the same chalk?"
+
+"It's blue," said Guerchard, holding it out. "The same as that of the
+signatures on the walls. Add that fact to the woman's sudden
+realization of what she was doing, and you'll see that they were
+written with it."
+
+"It is rather a surprise," said the Duke. "To look at her you would
+think that she was the most honest woman in the world."
+
+"Ah, you don't know Lupin, your Grace," said Guerchard. "He can do
+anything with women; and they'll do anything for him. And, what's more,
+as far as I can see, it doesn't make a scrap of difference whether
+they're honest or not. The fair-haired lady I was telling you about was
+probably an honest woman; Ganimard is sure of it. We should have found
+out long ago who she was if she had been a wrong 'un. And Ganimard also
+swears that when he arrested Lupin on board the Provence some woman,
+some ordinary, honest woman among the passengers, carried away Lady
+Garland's jewels, which he had stolen and was bringing to America, and
+along with them a matter of eight hundred pounds which he had stolen
+from a fellow-passenger on the voyage."
+
+"That power of fascination which some men exercise on women is one of
+those mysteries which science should investigate before it does
+anything else," said the Duke, in a reflective tone. "Now I come to
+think of it, I had much better have spent my time on that investigation
+than on that tedious journey to the South Pole. All the same, I'm
+deucedly sorry for that woman, Victoire. She looks such a good soul."
+
+Guerchard shrugged his shoulders: "The prisons are full of good souls,"
+he said, with cynical wisdom born of experience. "They get caught so
+much more often than the bad."
+
+"It seems rather mean of Lupin to make use of women like this, and get
+them into trouble," said the Duke.
+
+"But he doesn't," said Guerchard quickly. "At least he hasn't up to
+now. This Victoire is the first we've caught. I look on it as a good
+omen."
+
+He walked across the room, picked up his cloak, and took a card-case
+from the inner pocket of it. "If you don't mind, your Grace, I want you
+to show this permit to my men who are keeping the door, whenever you go
+out of the house. It's just a formality; but I attach considerable
+importance to it, for I really ought not to make exceptions in favour
+of any one. I have two men at the door, and they have orders to let
+nobody out without my written permission. Of course M. Gournay-Martin's
+guests are different. Bonavent has orders to pass them out. And, if
+your Grace doesn't mind, it will help me. If you carry a permit, no one
+else will dream of complaining of having to do so."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind, if it's of any help to you," said the Duke
+cheerfully.
+
+"Thank you," said Guerchard. And he wrote on his card and handed it to
+the Duke.
+
+The Duke took it and looked at it. On it was written:
+
+     "Pass the Duke of Charmerace."
+
+     "J. GUERCHARD."
+
+"It's quite military," said the Duke, putting the card into his
+waistcoat pocket.
+
+There came a knock at the door, and a tall, thin, bearded man came into
+the room.
+
+"Ah, Dieusy! At last! What news?" cried Guerchard.
+
+Dieusy saluted: "I've learnt that a motor-van was waiting outside the
+next house--in the side street," he said.
+
+"At what time?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Between four and five in the morning," said Dieusy.
+
+"Who saw it?" said Guerchard.
+
+"A scavenger. He thinks that it was nearly five o'clock when the van
+drove off."
+
+"Between four and five--nearly five. Then they filled up the opening
+before they loaded the van. I thought they would," said Guerchard,
+thoughtfully. "Anything else?"
+
+"A few minutes after the van had gone a man in motoring dress came out
+of the house," said Dieusy.
+
+"In motoring dress?" said Guerchard quickly.
+
+"Yes. And a little way from the house he threw away his cigarette. The
+scavenger thought the whole business a little queer, and he picked up
+the cigarette and kept it. Here it is."
+
+He handed it to Guerchard, whose eyes scanned it carelessly and then
+glued themselves to it.
+
+"A gold-tipped cigarette ... marked Mercedes ... Why, your Grace, this
+is one of your cigarettes!"
+
+"But this is incredible!" cried the Duke.
+
+"Not at all," said Guerchard. "It's merely another link in the chain.
+I've no doubt you have some of these cigarettes at Charmerace."
+
+"Oh, yes, I've had a box on most of the tables," said the Duke.
+
+"Well, there you are," said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, I see what you're driving at," said the Duke. "You mean that one
+of the Charolais must have taken a box."
+
+"Well, we know that they'd hardly stick at a box of cigarettes," said
+Guerchard.
+
+"Yes ... but I thought ..." said the Duke; and he paused.
+
+"You thought what?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Then Lupin ... since it was Lupin who managed the business last
+night--since you found those salvias in the house next door ... then
+Lupin came from Charmerace."
+
+"Evidently," said Guerchard.
+
+"And Lupin is one of the Charolais."
+
+"Oh, that's another matter," said Guerchard.
+
+"But it's certain, absolutely certain," said the Duke. "We have the
+connecting links ... the salvias ... this cigarette."
+
+"It looks very like it. You're pretty quick on a scent, I must say,"
+said Guerchard. "What a detective you would have made! Only ... nothing
+is certain."
+
+"But it IS. Whatever more do you want? Was he at Charmerace yesterday,
+or was he not? Did he, or did he not, arrange the theft of the
+motor-cars?"
+
+"Certainly he did. But he himself might have remained in the background
+all the while," said Guerchard.
+
+"In what shape? ... Under what mask? ... By Jove, I should like to see
+this fellow!" said the Duke.
+
+"We shall see him to-night," said Guerchard.
+
+"To-night?" said the Duke.
+
+"Of course we shall; for he will come to steal the coronet between a
+quarter to twelve and midnight," said Guerchard.
+
+"Never!" said the Duke. "You don't really believe that he'll have the
+cheek to attempt such a mad act?"
+
+"Ah, you don't know this man, your Grace ... his extraordinary mixture
+of coolness and audacity. It's the danger that attracts him. He throws
+himself into the fire, and he doesn't get burnt. For the last ten years
+I've been saying to myself, 'Here we are: this time I've got him! ...
+At last I'm going to nab him.' But I've said that day after day," said
+Guerchard; and he paused.
+
+"Well?" said the Duke.
+
+"Well, the days pass; and I never nab him. Oh, he is thick, I tell
+you.... He's a joker, he is ... a regular artist"--he ground his
+teeth--"The damned thief!"
+
+The Duke looked at him, and said slowly, "Then you think that to-night
+Lupin--"
+
+"You've followed the scent with me, your Grace," Guerchard interrupted
+quickly and vehemently. "We've picked up each clue together. You've
+almost seen this man at work.... You've understood him. Isn't a man
+like this, I ask you, capable of anything?"
+
+"He is," said the Duke, with conviction.
+
+"Well, then," said Guerchard.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," said the Duke.
+
+Guerchard turned to Dieusy and said, in a quieter voice, "And when the
+scavenger had picked up the cigarette, did he follow the motorist?"
+
+"Yes, he followed him for about a hundred yards. He went down into
+Sureau Street, and turned westwards. Then a motor-car came along; he
+got into it, and went off."
+
+"What kind of a motor-car?" said Guerchard.
+
+"A big car, and dark red in colour," said Dieusy.
+
+"The Limousine!" cried the Duke.
+
+"That's all I've got so far, sir," said Dieusy.
+
+"Well, off you go," said Guerchard. "Now that you've got started,
+you'll probably get something else before very long."
+
+Dieusy saluted and went.
+
+"Things are beginning to move," said Guerchard cheerfully. "First
+Victoire, and now this motor-van."
+
+"They are indeed," said the Duke.
+
+"After all, it ought not to be very difficult to trace that motor-van,"
+said Guerchard, in a musing tone. "At any rate, its movements ought to
+be easy enough to follow up till about six. Then, of course, there
+would be a good many others about, delivering goods."
+
+"You seem to have all the possible information you can want at your
+finger-ends," said the Duke, in an admiring tone.
+
+"I suppose I know the life of Paris as well as anybody," said Guerchard.
+
+They were silent for a while. Then Germaine's maid, Irma, came into the
+room and said:
+
+"If you please, your Grace, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff would like to speak
+to you for a moment."
+
+"Oh? Where is she?" said the Duke.
+
+"She's in her room, your Grace."
+
+"Oh, very well, I'll go up to her," said the Duke. "I can speak to her
+in the library."
+
+He rose and was going towards the door when Guerchard stepped forward,
+barring his way, and said, "No, your Grace."
+
+"No? Why?" said the Duke haughtily.
+
+"I beg you will wait a minute or two till I've had a word with you,"
+said Guerchard; and he drew a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and
+held it up.
+
+The Duke looked at Guerchard's face, and he looked at the paper in his
+hand; then he said: "Oh, very well." And, turning to Irma, he added
+quietly, "Tell Mademoiselle Kritchnoff that I'm in the drawing-room."
+
+"Yes, your Grace, in the drawing-room," said Irma; and she turned to go.
+
+"Yes; and say that I shall be engaged for the next five minutes--the
+next five minutes, do you understand?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, your Grace," said Irma; and she went out of the door.
+
+"Ask Mademoiselle Kritchnoff to put on her hat and cloak," said
+Guerchard.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Irma; and she went.
+
+The Duke turned sharply on Guerchard, and said: "Now, why on earth? ...
+I don't understand."
+
+"I got this from M. Formery," said Guerchard, holding up the paper.
+
+"Well," said the Duke. "What is it?"
+
+"It's a warrant, your Grace," said Guerchard.
+
+"What! ... A warrant! ... Not for the arrest of Mademoiselle
+Kritchnoff?"
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, come, it's impossible," said the Duke. "You're never going to
+arrest that child?"
+
+"I am, indeed," said Guerchard. "Her examination this afternoon was in
+the highest degree unsatisfactory. Her answers were embarrassed,
+contradictory, and in every way suspicious."
+
+"And you've made up your mind to arrest her?" said the Duke slowly,
+knitting his brow in anxious thought.
+
+"I have, indeed," said Guerchard. "And I'm going to do it now. The
+prison van ought to be waiting at the door." He looked at his watch.
+"She and Victoire can go together."
+
+"So ... you're going to arrest her ... you're going to arrest her?"
+said the Duke thoughtfully: and he took a step or two up and down the
+room, still thinking hard.
+
+"Well, you understand the position, don't you, your Grace?" said
+Guerchard, in a tone of apology. "Believe me that, personally, I've no
+animosity against Mademoiselle Kritchnoff. In fact, the child attracts
+me."
+
+"Yes," said the Duke softly, in a musing tone. "She has the air of a
+child who has lost its way ... lost its way in life.... And that poor
+little hiding-place she found ... that rolled-up handkerchief ...
+thrown down in the corner of the little room in the house next door ...
+it was absolutely absurd."
+
+"What! A handkerchief!" cried Guerchard, with an air of sudden, utter
+surprise.
+
+"The child's clumsiness is positively pitiful," said the Duke.
+
+"What was in the handkerchief? ... The pearls of the pendant?" cried
+Guerchard.
+
+"Yes: I supposed you knew all about it. Of course M. Formery left word
+for you," said the Duke, with an air of surprise at the ignorance of
+the detective.
+
+"No: I've heard nothing about it," cried Guerchard.
+
+"He didn't leave word for you?" said the Duke, in a tone of greater
+surprise. "Oh, well, I dare say that he thought to-morrow would do. Of
+course you were out of the house when he found it. She must have
+slipped out of her room soon after you went."
+
+"He found a handkerchief belonging to Mademoiselle Kritchnoff. Where is
+it?" cried Guerchard.
+
+"M. Formery took the pearls, but he left the handkerchief. I suppose
+it's in the corner where he found it," said the Duke.
+
+"He left the handkerchief?" cried Guerchard. "If that isn't just like
+the fool! He ought to keep hens; it's all he's fit for!"
+
+He ran to the fireplace, seized the lantern, and began lighting it:
+"Where is the handkerchief?" he cried.
+
+"In the left-hand corner of the little room on the right on the second
+floor. But if you're going to arrest Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, why are
+you bothering about the handkerchief? It can't be of any importance,"
+said the Duke.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Guerchard. "But it is."
+
+"But why?" said the Duke.
+
+"I was arresting Mademoiselle Kritchnoff all right because I had a very
+strong presumption of her guilt. But I hadn't the slightest proof of
+it," said Guerchard.
+
+"What?" cried the Duke, in a horrified tone.
+
+"No, you've just given me the proof; and since she was able to hide the
+pearls in the house next door, she knew the road which led to it.
+Therefore she's an accomplice," said Guerchard, in a triumphant tone.
+
+"What? Do you think that, too?" cried the Duke. "Good Heavens! And it's
+me! ... It's my senselessness! ... It's my fault that you've got your
+proof!" He spoke in a tone of acute distress.
+
+"It was your duty to give it me," said Guerchard sternly; and he began
+to mount the steps.
+
+"Shall I come with you? I know where the handkerchief is," said the
+Duke quickly.
+
+"No, thank you, your Grace," said Guerchard. "I prefer to go alone."
+
+"You'd better let me help you," said the Duke.
+
+"No, your Grace," said Guerchard firmly.
+
+"I must really insist," said the Duke.
+
+"No--no--no," said Guerchard vehemently, with stern decision. "It's no
+use your insisting, your Grace; I prefer to go alone. I shall only be
+gone a minute or two."
+
+"Just as you like," said the Duke stiffly.
+
+The legs of Guerchard disappeared up the steps. The Duke stood
+listening with all his ears. Directly he heard the sound of Guerchard's
+heels on the floor, when he dropped from the chimney-piece of the next
+room, he went swiftly to the door, opened it, and went out. Bonavent
+was sitting on the chair on which the young policeman had sat during
+the afternoon. Sonia, in her hat and cloak, was half-way down the
+stairs.
+
+The Duke put his head inside the drawing-room door, and said to the
+empty room: "Here is Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, M. Guerchard." He held
+open the door, Sonia came down the stairs, and went through it. The
+Duke followed her into the drawing-room, and shut the door.
+
+"There's not a moment to lose," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, what is it, your Grace?" said Sonia anxiously.
+
+"Guerchard has a warrant for your arrest."
+
+"Then I'm lost!" cried Sonia, in a panic-stricken voice.
+
+"No, you're not. You must go--at once," said the Duke.
+
+"But how can I go? No one can get out of the house. M. Guerchard won't
+let them," cried Sonia, panic-stricken.
+
+"We can get over that," said the Duke.
+
+He ran to Guerchard's cloak, took the card-case from the inner pocket,
+went to the writing-table, and sat down. He took from his waist-coat
+pocket the permit which Guerchard had given him, and a pencil. Then he
+took a card from the card-case, set the permit on the table before him,
+and began to imitate Guerchard's handwriting with an amazing exactness.
+He wrote on the card:
+
+     "Pass Mademoiselle Kritchnoff."
+     "J. GUERCHARD."
+
+Sonia stood by his side, panting quickly with fear, and watched him do
+it. He had scarcely finished the last stroke, when they heard a noise
+on the other side of the opening into the empty house. The Duke looked
+at the fireplace, and his teeth bared in an expression of cold
+ferocity. He rose with clenched fists, and took a step towards the
+fireplace.
+
+"Your Grace? Your Grace?" called the voice of Guerchard.
+
+"What is it?" answered the Duke quietly.
+
+"I can't see any handkerchief," said Guerchard. "Didn't you say it was
+in the left-hand corner of the little room on the right?"
+
+"I told you you'd better let me come with you, and find it," said the
+Duke, in a tone of triumph. "It's in the right-hand corner of the
+little room on the left."
+
+"I could have sworn you said the little room on the right," said
+Guerchard.
+
+They heard his footfalls die away.
+
+"Now, you must get out of the house quickly." said the Duke. "Show this
+card to the detectives at the door, and they'll pass you without a
+word."
+
+He pressed the card into her hand.
+
+"But--but--this card?" stammered Sonia.
+
+"There's no time to lose," said the Duke.
+
+"But this is madness," said Sonia. "When Guerchard finds out about this
+card--that you--you--"
+
+"There's no need to bother about that," interrupted the Duke quickly.
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+"A little hotel near the Star. I've forgotten the name of it," said
+Sonia. "But this card--"
+
+"Has it a telephone?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes--No. 555, Central," said Sonia.
+
+"If I haven't telephoned to you before half-past eight to-morrow
+morning, come straight to my house," said the Duke, scribbling the
+telephone number on his shirt-cuff.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Sonia. "But this card.... When Guerchard knows ...
+when he discovers.... Oh, I can't let you get into trouble for me."
+
+"I shan't. But go--go," said the Duke, and he slipped his right arm
+round her and drew her to the door.
+
+"Oh, how good you are to me," said Sonia softly.
+
+The Duke's other arm went round her; he drew her to him, and their lips
+met.
+
+He loosed her, and opened the door, saying loudly: "You're sure you
+won't have a cab, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff?"
+
+"No; no, thank you, your Grace. Goodnight," said Sonia. And she went
+through the door with a transfigured face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE DUKE STAYS
+
+
+The Duke shut the door and leant against it, listening anxiously,
+breathing quickly. There came the bang of the front door. With a deep
+sigh of relief he left the door, came briskly, smiling, across the
+room, and put the card-case back into the pocket of Guerchard's cloak.
+He lighted a cigarette, dropped into an easy chair, and sat waiting
+with an entirely careless air for the detective's return. Presently he
+heard quick footsteps on the bare boards of the empty room beyond the
+opening. Then Guerchard came down the steps and out of the fireplace.
+
+His face wore an expression of extreme perplexity:
+
+"I can't understand it," he said. "I found nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" said the Duke.
+
+"No. Are you sure you saw the handkerchief in one of those little rooms
+on the second floor--quite sure?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Of course I did," said the Duke. "Isn't it there?"
+
+"No," said Guerchard.
+
+"You can't have looked properly," said the Duke, with a touch of irony
+in his voice. "If I were you, I should go back and look again."
+
+"No. If I've looked for a thing, I've looked for it. There's no need
+for me to look a second time. But, all the same, it's rather funny.
+Doesn't it strike you as being rather funny, your Grace?" said
+Guerchard, with a worried air.
+
+"It strikes me as being uncommonly funny," said the Duke, with an
+ambiguous smile.
+
+Guerchard looked at him with a sudden uneasiness; then he rang the bell.
+
+Bonavent came into the room.
+
+"Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, Bonavent. It's quite time," said Guerchard.
+
+"Mademoiselle Kritchnoff?" said Bonavent, with an air of surprise.
+
+"Yes, it's time that she was taken to the police-station."
+
+"Mademoiselle Kritchnoff has gone, sir," said Bonavent, in a tone of
+quiet remonstrance.
+
+"Gone? What do you mean by gone?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Gone, sir, gone!" said Bonavent patiently.
+
+"But you're mad.... Mad!" cried Guerchard.
+
+"No, I'm not mad," said Bonavent. "Gone! But who let her go?" cried
+Guerchard.
+
+"The men at the door," said Bonavent.
+
+"The men at the door," said Guerchard, in a tone of stupefaction. "But
+she had to have my permit ... my permit on my card! Send the fools up
+to me!"
+
+Bonavent went to the top of the staircase, and called down it.
+Guerchard followed him. Two detectives came hurrying up the stairs and
+into the drawing-room.
+
+"What the devil do you mean by letting Mademoiselle Kritchnoff leave
+the house without my permit, written on my card?" cried Guerchard
+violently.
+
+"But she had your permit, sir, and it WAS written on your card,"
+stammered one of the detectives.
+
+"It was? ... it was?" said Guerchard. "Then, by Jove, it was a forgery!"
+
+He stood thoughtful for a moment. Then quietly he told his two men to
+go back to their post. He did not stir for a minute or two, puzzling it
+out, seeking light.
+
+Then he came back slowly into the drawing-room and looked uneasily at
+the Duke. The Duke was sitting in his easy chair, smoking a cigarette
+with a listless air. Guerchard looked at him, and looked at him, almost
+as if he now saw him for the first time.
+
+"Well?" said the Duke, "have you sent that poor child off to prison? If
+I'd done a thing like that I don't think I should sleep very well, M.
+Guerchard."
+
+"That poor child has just escaped, by means of a forged permit," said
+Guerchard very glumly.
+
+"By Jove, I AM glad to hear that!" cried the Duke. "You'll forgive my
+lack of sympathy, M. Guerchard; but she was such a child."
+
+"Not too young to be Lupin's accomplice," said Guerchard drily.
+
+"You really think she is?" said the Duke, in a tone of doubt.
+
+"I'm sure of it," said Guerchard, with decision; then he added slowly,
+with a perplexed air:
+
+"But how--how--could she get that forged permit?"
+
+The Duke shook his head, and looked as solemn as an owl. Guerchard
+looked at him uneasily, went out of the drawing-room, and shut the door.
+
+"How long has Mademoiselle Kritchnoff been gone?" he said to Bonavent.
+
+"Not much more than five minutes," said Bonavent. "She came out from
+talking to you in the drawing-room--"
+
+"Talking to me in the drawing-room!" exclaimed Guerchard.
+
+"Yes," said Bonavent. "She came out and went straight down the stairs
+and out of the house."
+
+A faint, sighing gasp came from Guerchard's lips. He dashed into the
+drawing-room, crossed the room quickly to his cloak, picked it up, took
+the card-case out of the pocket, and counted the cards in it. Then he
+looked at the Duke.
+
+The Duke smiled at him, a charming smile, almost caressing.
+
+There seemed to be a lump in Guerchard's throat; he swallowed it loudly.
+
+He put the card-case into the breast-pocket of the coat he was wearing.
+Then he cried sharply, "Bonavent! Bonavent!"
+
+Bonavent opened the door, and stood in the doorway.
+
+"You sent off Victoire in the prison-van, I suppose," said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, a long while ago, sir," said Bonavent.
+
+"The van had been waiting at the door since half-past nine."
+
+"Since half-past nine? ... But I told them I shouldn't want it till a
+quarter to eleven. I suppose they were making an effort to be in time
+for once. Well, it doesn't matter," said Guerchard.
+
+"Then I suppose I'd better send the other prison-van away?" said
+Bonavent.
+
+"What other van?" said Guerchard.
+
+"The van which has just arrived," said Bonavent.
+
+"What! What on earth are you talking about?" cried Guerchard, with a
+sudden anxiety in his voice and on his face.
+
+"Didn't you order two prison-vans?" said Bonavent.
+
+Guerchard jumped; and his face went purple with fury and dismay. "You
+don't mean to tell me that two prison-vans have been here?" he cried.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Bonavent.
+
+"Damnation!" cried Guerchard. "In which of them did you put Victoire?
+In which of them?"
+
+"Why, in the first, sir," said Bonavent.
+
+"Did you see the police in charge of it? The coachman?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Bonavent.
+
+"Did you recognize them?" said Guerchard.
+
+"No," said Bonavent; "they must have been new men. They told me they
+came from the Sante."
+
+"You silly fool!" said Guerchard through his teeth. "A fine lot of
+sense you've got."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" said Bonavent.
+
+"We're done, done in the eye!" roared Guerchard. "It's a stroke--a
+stroke--"
+
+"Of Lupin's!" interposed the Duke softly.
+
+"But I don't understand," said Bonavent.
+
+"You don't understand, you idiot!" cried Guerchard. "You've sent
+Victoire away in a sham prison-van--a prison-van belonging to Lupin.
+Oh, that scoundrel! He always has something up his sleeve."
+
+"He certainly shows foresight," said the Duke. "It was very clever of
+him to foresee the arrest of Victoire and provide against it."
+
+"Yes, but where is the leakage? Where is the leakage?" cried Guerchard,
+fuming. "How did he learn that the doctor said that she would recover
+her wits at ten o'clock? Here I've had a guard at the door all day;
+I've imprisoned the household; all the provisions have been received
+directly by a man of mine; and here he is, ready to pick up Victoire
+the very moment she gives herself away! Where is the leakage?"
+
+He turned on Bonavent, and went on: "It's no use your standing there
+with your mouth open, looking like a fool. Go upstairs to the servants'
+quarters and search Victoire's room again. That fool of an inspector
+may have missed something, just as he missed Victoire herself. Get on!
+Be smart!"
+
+Bonavent went off briskly. Guerchard paced up and down the room,
+scowling.
+
+"Really, I'm beginning to agree with you, M. Guerchard, that this Lupin
+is a remarkable man," said the Duke. "That prison-van is
+extraordinarily neat."
+
+"I'll prison-van him!" cried Guerchard. "But what fools I have to work
+with. If I could get hold of people of ordinary intelligence it would
+be impossible to play such a trick as that."
+
+"I don't know about that," said the Duke thoughtfully. "I think it
+would have required an uncommon fool to discover that trick."
+
+"What on earth do you mean? Why?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Because it's so wonderfully simple," said the Duke. "And at the same
+time it's such infernal cheek."
+
+"There's something in that," said Guerchard grumpily. "But then, I'm
+always saying to my men, 'Suspect everything; suspect everybody;
+suspect, suspect, suspect.' I tell you, your Grace, that there is only
+one motto for the successful detective, and that is that one word,
+'suspect.'"
+
+"It can't be a very comfortable business, then," said the Duke. "But I
+suppose it has its charms."
+
+"Oh, one gets used to the disagreeable part," said Guerchard.
+
+The telephone bell rang; and he rose and went to it. He put the
+receiver to his ear and said, "Yes; it's I--Chief-Inspector Guerchard."
+
+He turned and said to the Duke, "It's the gardener at Charmerace, your
+Grace."
+
+"Is it?" said the Duke indifferently.
+
+Guerchard turned to the telephone. "Are you there?" he said. "Can you
+hear me clearly? ... I want to know who was in your hot-house yesterday
+... who could have gathered some of your pink salvias?"
+
+"I told you that it was I," said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," said Guerchard. And he turned again to the
+telephone. "Yes, yesterday," he said. "Nobody else? ... No one but the
+Duke of Charmerace? ... Are you sure?... quite sure?... absolutely
+sure? ... Yes, that's all I wanted to know ... thank you."
+
+He turned to the Duke and said, "Did you hear that, your Grace? The
+gardener says that you were the only person in his hot-houses
+yesterday, the only person who could have plucked any pink salvias."
+
+"Does he?" said the Duke carelessly.
+
+Guerchard looked at him, his brow knitted in a faint, pondering frown.
+Then the door opened, and Bonavent came in: "I've been through
+Victoire's room," he said, "and all I could find that might be of any
+use is this--a prayer-book. It was on her dressing-table just as she
+left it. The inspector hadn't touched it."
+
+"What about it?" said Guerchard, taking the prayer-book.
+
+"There's a photograph in it," said Bonavent. "It may come in useful
+when we circulate her description; for I suppose we shall try to get
+hold of Victoire."
+
+Guerchard took the photograph from the prayer-book and looked at it:
+"It looks about ten years old," he said. "It's a good deal faded for
+reproduction. Hullo! What have we here?"
+
+The photograph showed Victoire in her Sunday best, and with her a boy
+of seventeen or eighteen. Guerchard's eyes glued themselves to the face
+of the boy. He stared at it, holding the portrait now nearer, now
+further off. His eyes kept stealing covertly from the photograph to the
+face of the Duke.
+
+The Duke caught one of those covert glances, and a vague uneasiness
+flickered in his eyes. Guerchard saw it. He came nearer to the Duke and
+looked at him earnestly, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
+
+"What's the matter?" said the Duke. "What are you looking at so
+curiously? Isn't my tie straight?" And he put up his hand and felt it.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing," said Guerchard. And he studied the photograph
+again with a frowning face.
+
+There was a noise of voices and laughter in the hall.
+
+"Those people are going," said the Duke. "I must go down and say
+good-bye to them." And he rose and went out of the room.
+
+Guerchard stood staring, staring at the photograph.
+
+The Duke ran down the stairs, and said goodbye to the millionaire's
+guests. After they had gone, M. Gournay-Martin went quickly up the
+stairs; Germaine and the Duke followed more slowly.
+
+"My father is going to the Ritz to sleep," said Germaine, "and I'm
+going with him. He doesn't like the idea of my sleeping in this house
+to-night. I suppose he's afraid that Lupin will make an attack in force
+with all his gang. Still, if he did, I think that Guerchard could give
+a good account of himself--he's got men enough in the house, at any
+rate. Irma tells me it's swarming with them. It would never do for me
+to be in the house if there were a fight."
+
+"Oh, come, you don't really believe that Lupin is coming to-night?"
+said the Duke, with a sceptical laugh. "The whole thing is sheer
+bluff--he has no more intention of coming tonight to steal that coronet
+than--than I have."
+
+"Oh, well, there's no harm in being on the safe side," said Germaine.
+"Everybody's agreed that he's a very terrible person. I'll just run up
+to my room and get a wrap; Irma has my things all packed. She can come
+round tomorrow morning to the Ritz and dress me."
+
+She ran up the stairs, and the Duke went into the drawing-room. He
+found Guerchard standing where he had left him, still frowning, still
+thinking hard.
+
+"The family are off to the Ritz. It's rather a reflection on your
+powers of protecting them, isn't it?" said the Duke.
+
+"Oh, well, I expect they'd be happier out of the house," said
+Guerchard. He looked at the Duke again with inquiring, searching eyes.
+
+"What's the matter?" said the Duke. "IS my tie crooked?"
+
+"Oh, no, no; it's quite straight, your Grace," said Guerchard, but he
+did not take his eyes from the Duke's face.
+
+The door opened, and in came M. Gournay-Martin, holding a bag in his
+hand. "It seems to be settled that I'm never to sleep in my own house
+again," he said in a grumbling tone.
+
+"There's no reason to go," said the Duke. "Why ARE you going?"
+
+"Danger," said M. Gournay-Martin. "You read Lupin's telegram: 'I shall
+come to-night between a quarter to twelve and midnight to take the
+coronet.' He knows that it was in my bedroom. Do you think I'm going to
+sleep in that room with the chance of that scoundrel turning up and
+cutting my throat?"
+
+"Oh, you can have a dozen policemen in the room if you like," said the
+Duke. "Can't he, M. Guerchard?"
+
+"Certainly," said Guerchard. "I can answer for it that you will be in
+no danger, M. Gournay-Martin."
+
+"Thank you," said the millionaire. "But all the same, outside is good
+enough for me."
+
+Germaine came into the room, cloaked and ready to start.
+
+"For once in a way you are ready first, papa," she said. "Are you
+coming, Jacques?"
+
+"No; I think I'll stay here, on the chance that Lupin is not bluffing,"
+said the Duke. "I don't think, myself, that I'm going to be gladdened
+by the sight of him--in fact, I'm ready to bet against it. But you're
+all so certain about it that I really must stay on the chance. And,
+after all, there's no doubt that he's a man of immense audacity and
+ready to take any risk."
+
+"Well, at any rate, if he does come he won't find the diadem," said M.
+Gournay-Martin, in a tone of triumph. "I'm taking it with me--I've got
+it here." And he held up his bag.
+
+"You are?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, I am," said M. Gournay-Martin firmly.
+
+"Do you think it's wise?" said the Duke.
+
+"Why not?" said M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+"If Lupin's really made up his mind to collar that coronet, and if
+you're so sure that, in spite of all these safeguards, he's going to
+make the attempt, it seems to me that you're taking a considerable
+risk. He asked you to have it ready for him in your bedroom. He didn't
+say which bedroom."
+
+"Good Lord! I never thought of that!" said M. Gournay-Martin, with an
+air of sudden and very lively alarm.
+
+"His Grace is right," said Guerchard. "It would be exactly like Lupin
+to send that telegram to drive you out of the house with the coronet to
+some place where you would be less protected. That is exactly one of
+his tricks."
+
+"Good Heavens!" said the millionaire, pulling out his keys and
+unlocking the bag. He opened it, paused hesitatingly, and snapped it to
+again.
+
+"Half a minute," he said. "I want a word with you, Duke."
+
+He led the way out of the drawing-room door and the Duke followed him.
+He shut the door and said in a whisper:
+
+"In a case like this, I suspect everybody."
+
+"Everybody suspects everybody, apparently," said the Duke. "Are you
+sure you don't suspect me?"
+
+"Now, now, this is no time for joking," said the millionaire
+impatiently. "What do you think about Guerchard?"
+
+"About Guerchard?" said the Duke. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Do you think I can put full confidence in Guerchard?" said M.
+Gournay-Martin.
+
+"Oh, I think so," said the Duke. "Besides, I shall be here to look
+after Guerchard. And, though I wouldn't undertake to answer for Lupin,
+I think I can answer for Guerchard. If he tries to escape with the
+coronet, I will wring his neck for you with pleasure. It would do me
+good. And it would do Guerchard good, too."
+
+The millionaire stood reflecting for a minute or two. Then he said,
+"Very good; I'll trust him."
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the millionaire and the Duke, when
+Guerchard crossed the room quickly to Germaine and drew from his pocket
+the photograph of Victoire and the young man.
+
+"Do you know this photograph of his Grace, mademoiselle?" he said
+quickly.
+
+Germaine took the photograph and looked at it.
+
+"It's rather faded," she said.
+
+"Yes; it's about ten years old," said Guerchard.
+
+"I seem to know the face of the woman," said Germaine. "But if it's ten
+years old it certainly isn't the photograph of the Duke."
+
+"But it's like him?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's like the Duke as he is now--at least, it's a little like
+him. But it's not like the Duke as he was ten years ago. He has changed
+so," said Germaine.
+
+"Oh, has he?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Yes; there was that exhausting journey of his--and then his illness.
+The doctors gave up all hope of him, you know."
+
+"Oh, did they?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Yes; at Montevideo. But his health is quite restored now."
+
+The door opened and the millionaire and the Duke came into the room. M.
+Gournay-Martin set his bag upon the table, unlocked it, and with a
+solemn air took out the case which held the coronet. He opened it; and
+they looked at it.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" he said with a sigh.
+
+"Marvellous!" said the Duke.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin closed the case, and said solemnly:
+
+"There is danger, M. Guerchard, so I am going to trust the coronet to
+you. You are the defender of my hearth and home--you are the proper
+person to guard the coronet. I take it that you have no objection?"
+
+"Not the slightest, M. Gournay-Martin," said Guerchard. "It's exactly
+what I wanted you to ask me to do."
+
+M. Gournay-Martin hesitated. Then he handed the coronet to Guerchard,
+saying with a frank and noble air, "I have every confidence in you, M.
+Guerchard."
+
+"Thank you," said Guerchard.
+
+"Good-night," said M. Gournay-Martin.
+
+"Good-night, M. Guerchard," said Germaine.
+
+"I think, after all, I'll change my mind and go with you. I'm very
+short of sleep," said the Duke. "Good-night, M. Guerchard."
+
+"You're never going too, your Grace!" cried Guerchard.
+
+"Why, you don't want me to stay, do you?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard slowly.
+
+"I think I would rather go to bed," said the Duke gaily.
+
+"Are you afraid?" said Guerchard, and there was challenge, almost an
+insolent challenge, in his tone.
+
+There was a pause. The Duke frowned slightly with a reflective air.
+Then he drew himself up; and said a little haughtily:
+
+"You've certainly found the way to make me stay, M. Guerchard."
+
+"Yes, yes; stay, stay," said M. Gournay-Martin hastily. "It's an
+excellent idea, excellent. You're the very man to help M. Guerchard,
+Duke. You're an intrepid explorer, used to danger and resourceful,
+absolutely fearless."
+
+"Do you really mean to say you're not going home to bed, Jacques?" said
+Germaine, disregarding her father's wish with her usual frankness.
+
+"No; I'm going to stay with M. Guerchard," said the Duke slowly.
+
+"Well, you will be fresh to go to the Princess's to-morrow night." said
+Germaine petulantly. "You didn't get any sleep at all last night, you
+couldn't have. You left Charmerace at eight o'clock; you were motoring
+all the night, and only got to Paris at six o'clock this morning."
+
+"Motoring all night, from eight o'clock to six!" muttered Guerchard
+under his breath.
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," said the Duke carelessly. "This
+interesting affair is to be over by midnight, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, I warn you that, tired or fresh, you will have to come with me
+to the Princess's to-morrow night. All Paris will be there--all Paris,
+that is, who are in Paris."
+
+"Oh, I shall be fresh enough," said the Duke.
+
+They went out of the drawing-room and down the stairs, all four of
+them. There was an alert readiness about Guerchard, as if he were ready
+to spring. He kept within a foot of the Duke right to the front door.
+The detective in charge opened it; and they went down the steps to the
+taxi-cab which was awaiting them. The Duke kissed Germaine's fingers
+and handed her into the taxi-cab.
+
+M. Gournay-Martin paused at the cab-door, and turned and said, with a
+pathetic air, "Am I never to sleep in my own house again?" He got into
+the cab and drove off.
+
+The Duke turned and came up the steps, followed by Guerchard. In the
+hall he took his opera-hat and coat from the stand, and went upstairs.
+Half-way up the flight he paused and said:
+
+"Where shall we wait for Lupin, M. Guerchard? In the drawing-room, or
+in M. Gournay-Martin's bedroom?"
+
+"Oh, the drawing-room," said Guerchard. "I think it very unlikely that
+Lupin will look for the coronet in M. Gournay-Martin's bedroom. He
+would know very well that that is the last place to find it now."
+
+The Duke went on into the drawing-room. At the door Guerchard stopped
+and said: "I will just go and post my men, your Grace."
+
+"Very good," said the Duke; and he went into the drawing-room.
+
+He sat down, lighted a cigarette, and yawned. Then he took out his
+watch and looked at it.
+
+"Another twenty minutes," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE DUKE GOES
+
+
+When Guerchard joined the Duke in the drawing-room, he had lost his
+calm air and was looking more than a little nervous. He moved about the
+room uneasily, fingering the bric-a-brac, glancing at the Duke and
+looking quickly away from him again. Then he came to a standstill on
+the hearth-rug with his back to the fireplace.
+
+"Do you think it's quite safe to stand there, at least with your back
+to the hearth? If Lupin dropped through that opening suddenly, he'd
+catch you from behind before you could wink twice," said the Duke, in a
+tone of remonstrance.
+
+"There would always be your Grace to come to my rescue," said
+Guerchard; and there was an ambiguous note in his voice, while his
+piercing eyes now rested fixed on the Duke's face. They seemed never to
+leave it; they explored, and explored it.
+
+"It's only a suggestion," said the Duke.
+
+"This is rather nervous work, don't you know."
+
+"Yes; and of course you're hardly fit for it," said Guerchard. "If I'd
+known about your break-down in your car last night, I should have
+hesitated about asking you--"
+
+"A break-down?" interrupted the Duke.
+
+"Yes, you left Charmerace at eight o'clock last night. And you only
+reached Paris at six this morning. You couldn't have had a very
+high-power car?" said Guerchard.
+
+"I had a 100 h.-p. car," said the Duke.
+
+"Then you must have had a devil of a break-down," said Guerchard.
+
+"Yes, it was pretty bad, but I've known worse," said the Duke
+carelessly. "It lost me about three hours: oh, at least three hours.
+I'm not a first-class repairer, though I know as much about an engine
+as most motorists."
+
+"And there was nobody there to help you repair it?" said Guerchard.
+
+"No; M. Gournay-Martin could not let me have his chauffeur to drive me
+to Paris, because he was keeping him to help guard the chateau. And of
+course there was nobody on the road, because it was two o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+"Yes, there was no one," said Guerchard slowly.
+
+"Not a soul," said the Duke.
+
+"It was unfortunate," said Guerchard; and there was a note of
+incredulity in his voice.
+
+"My having to repair the car myself?" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, of course," said Guerchard, hesitating a little over the assent.
+
+The Duke dropped the end of his cigarette into a tray, and took out his
+case. He held it out towards Guerchard, and said, "A cigarette? or
+perhaps you prefer your caporal?"
+
+"Yes, I do, but all the same I'll have one," said Guerchard, coming
+quickly across the room. And he took a cigarette from the case, and
+looked at it.
+
+"All the same, all this is very curious," he said in a new tone, a
+challenging, menacing, accusing tone.
+
+"What?" said the Duke, looking at him curiously.
+
+"Everything: your cigarettes ... the salvias ... the photograph that
+Bonavent found in Victoire's prayer-book ... that man in motoring dress
+... and finally, your break-down," said Guerchard; and the accusation
+and the threat rang clearer.
+
+The Duke rose from his chair quickly and said haughtily, in icy tones:
+"M. Guerchard, you've been drinking!"
+
+He went to the chair on which he had set his overcoat and his hat, and
+picked them up. Guerchard sprang in front of him, barring his way, and
+cried in a shaky voice: "No; don't go! You mustn't go!"
+
+"What do you mean?" said the Duke, and paused. "What DO you mean?"
+
+Guerchard stepped back, and ran his hand over his forehead. He was very
+pale, and his forehead was clammy to his touch:
+
+"No ... I beg your pardon ... I beg your pardon, your Grace ... I must
+be going mad," he stammered.
+
+"It looks very like it," said the Duke coldly.
+
+"What I mean to say is," said Guerchard in a halting, uncertain voice,
+"what I mean to say is: help me ... I want you to stay here, to help me
+against Lupin, you understand. Will you, your Grace?"
+
+"Yes, certainly; of course I will, if you want me to," said the Duke,
+in a more gentle voice. "But you seem awfully upset, and you're
+upsetting me too. We shan't have a nerve between us soon, if you don't
+pull yourself together."
+
+"Yes, yes, please excuse me," muttered Guerchard.
+
+"Very good," said the Duke. "But what is it we're going to do?"
+
+Guerchard hesitated. He pulled out his handkerchief, and mopped his
+forehead: "Well ... the coronet ... is it in this case?" he said in a
+shaky voice, and set the case on the table.
+
+"Of course it is," said the Duke impatiently.
+
+Guerchard opened the case, and the coronet sparkled and gleamed
+brightly in the electric light: "Yes, it is there; you see it?" said
+Guerchard.
+
+"Yes, I see it; well?" said the Duke, looking at him in some
+bewilderment, so unlike himself did he seem.
+
+"We're going to wait," said Guerchard.
+
+"What for?" said the Duke.
+
+"Lupin," said Guerchard.
+
+"Lupin? And you actually do believe that, just as in a fairy tale, when
+that clock strikes twelve, Lupin will enter and take the coronet?"
+
+"Yes, I do; I do," said Guerchard with stubborn conviction. And he
+snapped the case to.
+
+"This is most exciting," said the Duke.
+
+"You're sure it doesn't bore you?" said Guerchard huskily.
+
+"Not a bit of it," said the Duke, with cheerful derision. "To make the
+acquaintance of this scoundrel who has fooled you for ten years is as
+charming a way of spending the evening as I can think of."
+
+"You say that to me?" said Guerchard with a touch of temper.
+
+"Yes," said the Duke, with a challenging smile. "To you."
+
+He sat down in an easy chair by the table. Guerchard sat down in a
+chair on the other side of it, and set his elbows on it. They were
+silent.
+
+Suddenly the Duke said, "Somebody's coming."
+
+Guerchard started, and said: "No, I don't hear any one."
+
+Then there came distinctly the sound of a footstep and a knock at the
+door.
+
+"You've got keener ears than I," said Guerchard grudgingly. "In all
+this business you've shown the qualities of a very promising
+detective." He rose, went to the door, and unlocked it.
+
+Bonavent came in: "I've brought you the handcuffs, sir," he said,
+holding them out. "Shall I stay with you?"
+
+"No," said Guerchard. "You've two men at the back door, and two at the
+front, and a man in every room on the ground-floor?"
+
+"Yes, and I've got three men on every other floor," said Bonavent, in a
+tone of satisfaction.
+
+"And the house next door?" said Guerchard.
+
+"There are a dozen men in it," said Bonavent. "No communication between
+the two houses is possible any longer."
+
+Guerchard watched the Duke's face with intent eyes. Not a shadow
+flickered its careless serenity.
+
+"If any one tries to enter the house, collar him. If need be, fire on
+him," said Guerchard firmly. "That is my order; go and tell the others."
+
+"Very good, sir," said Bonavent; and he went out of the room.
+
+"By Jove, we are in a regular fortress," said the Duke.
+
+"It's even more of a fortress than you think, your Grace. I've four men
+on that landing," said Guerchard, nodding towards the door.
+
+"Oh, have you?" said the Duke, with a sudden air of annoyance.
+
+"You don't like that?" said Guerchard quickly.
+
+"I should jolly well think not," said the Duke. "With these
+precautions, Lupin will never be able to get into this room at all."
+
+"He'll find it a pretty hard job," said Guerchard, smiling. "Unless he
+falls from the ceiling, or unless--"
+
+"Unless you're Arsene Lupin," interrupted the Duke.
+
+"In that case, you'd be another, your Grace," said Guerchard.
+
+They both laughed. The Duke rose, yawned, picked up his coat and hat,
+and said, "Ah, well, I'm off to bed."
+
+"What?" said Guerchard.
+
+"Well," said the Duke, yawning again, "I was staying to see Lupin. As
+there's no longer any chance of seeing him--"
+
+"But there is ... there is ... so stay," cried Guerchard.
+
+"Do you still cling to that notion?" said the Duke wearily.
+
+"We SHALL see him," said Guerchard.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the Duke.
+
+Guerchard lowered his voice and said with an air of the deepest
+secrecy: "He's already here, your Grace."
+
+"Lupin? Here?" cried the Duke.
+
+"Yes; Lupin," said Guerchard.
+
+"Where?" cried the astonished Duke.
+
+"He is," said Guerchard.
+
+"As one of your men?" said the Duke eagerly.
+
+"I don't think so," said Guerchard, watching him closely.
+
+"Well, but, well, but--if he's here we've got him.... He is going to
+turn up," said the Duke triumphantly; and he set down his hat on the
+table beside the coronet.
+
+"I hope so," said Guerchard. "But will he dare to?"
+
+"How do you mean?" said the Duke, with a puzzled air.
+
+"Well, you have said yourself that this is a fortress. An hour ago,
+perhaps, Lupin was resolved to enter this room, but is he now?"
+
+"I see what you mean," said the Duke, in a tone of disappointment.
+
+"Yes; you see that now it needs the devil's own courage. He must risk
+everything to gain everything, and throw off the mask. Is Lupin going
+to throw himself into the wolf's jaws? I dare not think it. What do you
+think about it?"
+
+Guerchard's husky voice had hardened to a rough harshness; there was a
+ring of acute anxiety in it, and under the anxiety a faint note of
+challenge, of a challenge that dare not make itself too distinct. His
+anxious, challenging eyes burned on the face of the Duke, as if they
+strove with all intensity to pierce a mask.
+
+The Duke looked at him curiously, as if he were trying to divine what
+he would be at, but with a careless curiosity, as if it were a matter
+of indifference to him what the detective's object was; then he said
+carelessly: "Well, you ought to know better than I. You have known him
+for ten years ...." He paused, and added with just the faintest stress
+in his tone, "At least, by reputation."
+
+The anxiety in the detective's face grew plainer, it almost gave him
+the air of being unnerved; and he said quickly, in a jerky voice: "Yes,
+and I know his way of acting too. During the last ten years I have
+learnt to unravel his intrigues--to understand and anticipate his
+manoeuvres.... Oh, his is a clever system! ... Instead of lying low, as
+you'd expect, he attacks his opponent ... openly.... He confuses
+him--at least, he tries to." He smiled a half-confident, a
+half-doubtful smile, "It is a mass of entangled, mysterious
+combinations. I've been caught in them myself again and again. You
+smile?"
+
+"It interests me so," said the Duke, in a tone of apology.
+
+"Oh, it interests me," said Guerchard, with a snarl. "But this time I
+see my way clearly. No more tricks--no more secret paths ... We're
+fighting in the light of day." He paused, and said in a clear, sneering
+voice, "Lupin has pluck, perhaps, but it's only thief's pluck."
+
+"Oh, is it?" said the Duke sharply, and there was a sudden faint
+glitter in his eyes.
+
+"Yes; rogues have very poor qualities," sneered Guerchard.
+
+"One can't have everything," said the Duke quietly; but his languid air
+had fallen from him.
+
+"Their ambushes, their attacks, their fine tactics aren't up to much,"
+said Guerchard, smiling contemptuously.
+
+"You go a trifle too far, I think," said the Duke, smiling with equal
+contempt.
+
+They looked one another in the eyes with a long, lingering look. They
+had suddenly the air of fencers who have lost their tempers, and are
+twisting the buttons off their foils.
+
+"Not a bit of it, your Grace," said Guerchard; and his voice lingered
+on the words "your Grace" with a contemptuous stress. "This famous
+Lupin is immensely overrated."
+
+"However, he has done some things which aren't half bad," said the
+Duke, with his old charming smile.
+
+He had the air of a duelist drawing his blade lovingly through his
+fingers before he falls to.
+
+"Oh, has he?" said Guerchard scornfully.
+
+"Yes; one must be fair. Last night's burglary, for instance: it is not
+unheard of, but it wasn't half bad. And that theft of the motorcars: it
+was a neat piece of work," said the Duke in a gentle, insolent voice,
+infinitely aggravating.
+
+Guerchard snorted scornfully.
+
+"And a robbery at the British Embassy, another at the Treasury, and a
+third at M. Lepine's--all in the same week--it wasn't half bad, don't
+you know?" said the Duke, in the same gentle, irritating voice.
+
+"Oh, no, it wasn't. But--"
+
+"And the time when he contrived to pass as Guerchard--the Great
+Guerchard--do you remember that?" the Duke interrupted. "Come, come--to
+give the devil his due--between ourselves--it wasn't half bad."
+
+"No," snarled Guerchard. "But he has done better than that lately....
+Why don't you speak of that?"
+
+"Of what?" said the Duke.
+
+"Of the time when he passed as the Duke of Charmerace," snapped
+Guerchard.
+
+"What! Did he do that?" cried the Duke; and then he added slowly, "But,
+you know, I'm like you--I'm so easy to imitate."
+
+"What would have been amusing, your Grace, would have been to get as
+far as actual marriage," said Guerchard more calmly.
+
+"Oh, if he had wanted to," said the Duke; and he threw out his hands.
+"But you know--married life--for Lupin."
+
+"A large fortune ... a pretty girl," said Guerchard, in a mocking tone.
+
+"He must be in love with some one else," said the Duke.
+
+"A thief, perhaps," sneered Guerchard.
+
+"Like himself.... And then, if you wish to know what I think, he must
+have found his fiancee rather trying," said the Duke, with his charming
+smile.
+
+"After all, it's pitiful--heartrending, you must admit it, that, on the
+very eve of his marriage, he was such a fool as to throw off the mask.
+And yet at bottom it's quite logical; it's Lupin coming out through
+Charmerace. He had to grab at the dowry at the risk of losing the
+girl," said Guerchard, in a reflective tone; but his eyes were intent
+on the face of the Duke.
+
+"Perhaps that's what one should call a marriage of reason," said the
+Duke, with a faint smile.
+
+"What a fall!" said Guerchard, in a taunting voice. "To be expected,
+eagerly, at the Princess's to-morrow evening, and to pass the evening
+in a police-station ... to have intended in a month's time, as the Duke
+of Charmerace, to mount the steps of the Madeleine with all pomp and to
+fall down the father-in-law's staircase this evening--this very
+evening"--his voice rose suddenly on a note of savage triumph--"with
+the handcuffs on! What? Is that a good enough revenge for
+Guerchard--for that poor old idiot, Guerchard? The rogues' Brummel in a
+convict's cap! The gentleman-burglar in a gaol! For Lupin it's only a
+trifling annoyance, but for a duke it's a disaster! Come, in your turn,
+be frank: don't you find that amusing?"
+
+The Duke rose quietly, and said coldly, "Have you finished?"
+
+"DO you?" cried Guerchard; and he rose and faced him.
+
+"Oh, yes; I find it quite amusing," said the Duke lightly.
+
+"And so do I," cried Guerchard.
+
+"No; you're frightened," said the Duke calmly.
+
+"Frightened!" cried Guerchard, with a savage laugh.
+
+"Yes, you're frightened," said the Duke. "And don't think, policeman,
+that because I'm familiar with you, I throw off a mask. I don't wear
+one. I've none to throw off. I AM the Duke of Charmerace."
+
+"You lie! You escaped from the Sante four years ago. You are Lupin! I
+recognize you now."
+
+"Prove it," said the Duke scornfully.
+
+"I will!" cried Guerchard.
+
+"You won't. I AM the Duke of Charmerace."
+
+Guerchard laughed wildly.
+
+"Don't laugh. You know nothing--nothing, dear boy," said the Duke
+tauntingly.
+
+"Dear boy?" cried Guerchard triumphantly, as if the word had been a
+confession.
+
+"What do I risk?" said the Duke, with scathing contempt. "Can you
+arrest me? ... You can arrest Lupin ... but arrest the Duke of
+Charmerace, an honourable gentleman, member of the Jockey Club, and of
+the Union, residing at his house, 34 B, University Street ... arrest
+the Duke of Charmerace, the fiance of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin?"
+
+"Scoundrel!" cried Guerchard, pale with sudden, helpless fury.
+
+"Well, do it," taunted the Duke. "Be an ass.... Make yourself the
+laughing-stock of Paris ... call your coppers in. Have you a proof--one
+single proof? Not one."
+
+"Oh, I shall get them," howled Guerchard, beside himself.
+
+"I think you may," said the Duke coolly. "And you might be able to
+arrest me next week ... the day after to-morrow perhaps ... perhaps
+never ... but not to-night, that's certain."
+
+"Oh, if only somebody could hear you!" gasped Guerchard.
+
+"Now, don't excite yourself," said the Duke. "That won't produce any
+proofs for you.... The fact is, M. Formery told you the truth when he
+said that, when it is a case of Lupin, you lose your head. Ah, that
+Formery--there is an intelligent man if you like."
+
+"At all events, the coronet is safe ... to-night--"
+
+"Wait, my good chap ... wait," said the Duke slowly; and then he
+snapped out: "Do you know what's behind that door?" and he flung out
+his hand towards the door of the inner drawing-room, with a mysterious,
+sinister air.
+
+"What?" cried Guerchard; and he whipped round and faced the door, with
+his eyes starting out of his head.
+
+"Get out, you funk!" said the Duke, with a great laugh.
+
+"Hang you!" said Guerchard shrilly.
+
+"I said that you were going to be absolutely pitiable," said the Duke,
+and he laughed again cruelly.
+
+"Oh, go on talking, do!" cried Guerchard, mopping his forehead.
+
+"Absolutely pitiable," said the Duke, with a cold, disquieting
+certainty. "As the hand of that clock moves nearer and nearer midnight,
+you will grow more and more terrified." He paused, and then shouted
+violently, "Attention!"
+
+Guerchard jumped; and then he swore.
+
+"Your nerves are on edge," said the Duke, laughing.
+
+"Joker!" snarled Guerchard.
+
+"Oh, you're as brave as the next man. But who can stand the anguish of
+the unknown thing which is bound to happen? ... I'm right. You feel it,
+you're sure of it. At the end of these few fixed minutes an inevitable,
+fated event must happen. Don't shrug your shoulders, man; you're green
+with fear."
+
+The Duke was no longer a smiling, cynical dandy. There emanated from
+him an impression of vivid, terrible force. His voice had deepened. It
+thrilled with a consciousness of irresistible power; it was
+overwhelming, paralyzing. His eyes were terrible.
+
+"My men are outside ... I'm armed," stammered Guerchard.
+
+"Child! Bear in mind ... bear in mind that it is always when you have
+foreseen everything, arranged everything, made every combination ...
+bear in mind that it is always then that some accident dashes your
+whole structure to the ground," said the Duke, in the same deep,
+thrilling voice. "Remember that it is always at the very moment at
+which you are going to triumph that he beats you, that he only lets you
+reach the top of the ladder to throw you more easily to the ground."
+
+"Confess, then, that you are Lupin," muttered Guerchard.
+
+"I thought you were sure of it," said the Duke in a jeering tone.
+
+Guerchard dragged the handcuffs out of his pocket, and said between his
+teeth, "I don't know what prevents me, my boy."
+
+The Duke drew himself up, and said haughtily, "That's enough."
+
+"What?" cried Guerchard.
+
+"I say that that's enough," said the Duke sternly. "It's all very well
+for me to play at being familiar with you, but don't you call me 'my
+boy.'"
+
+"Oh, you won't impose on me much longer," muttered Guerchard; and his
+bloodshot, haggard eyes scanned the Duke's face in an agony, an anguish
+of doubting impotence.
+
+"If I'm Lupin, arrest me," said the Duke.
+
+"I'll arrest you in three minutes from now, or the coronet will be
+untouched," cried Guerchard in a firmer tone.
+
+"In three minutes from now the coronet will have been stolen; and you
+will not arrest me," said the Duke, in a tone of chilling certainty.
+
+"But I will! I swear I will!" cried Guerchard.
+
+"Don't swear any foolish oaths! ... THERE ARE ONLY TWO MINUTES LEFT,"
+said the Duke; and he drew a revolver from his pocket.
+
+"No, you don't!" cried Guerchard, drawing a revolver in his turn.
+
+"What's the matter?" said the Duke, with an air of surprise. "You
+haven't forbidden me to shoot Lupin. I have my revolver ready, since
+he's going to come.... THERE'S ONLY A MINUTE LEFT."
+
+"There are plenty of us," said Guerchard; and he went towards the door.
+
+"Funk!" said the Duke scornfully.
+
+Guerchard turned sharply. "Very well," he said, "I'll stick it out
+alone."
+
+"How rash!" sneered the Duke.
+
+Guerchard ground his teeth. He was panting; his bloodshot eyes rolled
+in their sockets; the beads of cold sweat stood out on his forehead. He
+came back towards the table on unsteady feet, trembling from head to
+foot in the last excitation of the nerves. He kept jerking his head to
+shake away the mist which kept dimming his eyes.
+
+"At your slightest gesture, at your slightest movement, I'll fire," he
+said jerkily, and covered the Duke with his revolver.
+
+"I call myself the Duke of Charmerace. You will be arrested to-morrow!"
+said the Duke, in a compelling, thrilling voice.
+
+"I don't care a curse!" cried Guerchard.
+
+"Only FIFTY SECONDS!" said the Duke.
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Guerchard huskily. And his eyes shot from the
+coronet to the Duke, from the Duke to the coronet.
+
+"In fifty seconds the coronet will be stolen," said the Duke.
+
+"No!" cried Guerchard furiously.
+
+"Yes," said the Duke coldly.
+
+"No! no! no!" cried Guerchard.
+
+Their eyes turned to the clock.
+
+To Guerchard the hands seemed to be standing still. He could have sworn
+at them for their slowness.
+
+Then the first stroke rang out; and the eyes of the two men met like
+crossing blades. Twice the Duke made the slightest movement. Twice
+Guerchard started forward to meet it.
+
+At the last stroke both their hands shot out. Guerchard's fell heavily
+on the case which held the coronet. The Duke's fell on the brim of his
+hat; and he picked it up.
+
+Guerchard gasped and choked. Then he cried triumphantly:
+
+"I HAVE it; now then, have I won? Have I been fooled this time? Has
+Lupin got the coronet?"
+
+"It doesn't look like it. But are you quite sure?" said the Duke gaily.
+
+"Sure?" cried Guerchard.
+
+"It's only the weight of it," said the Duke, repressing a laugh.
+"Doesn't it strike you that it's just a trifle light?"
+
+"What?" cried Guerchard.
+
+"This is merely an imitation." said the Duke, with a gentle laugh.
+
+"Hell and damnation!" howled Guerchard. "Bonavent! Dieusy!"
+
+The door flew open, and half a dozen detectives rushed in.
+
+Guerchard sank into a chair, stupefied, paralyzed; this blow, on the
+top of the strain of the struggle with the Duke, had broken him.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Duke sadly, "the coronet has been stolen."
+
+They broke into cries of surprise and bewilderment, surrounding the
+gasping Guerchard with excited questions.
+
+The Duke walked quietly out of the room.
+
+Guerchard sobbed twice; his eyes opened, and in a dazed fashion
+wandered from face to face; he said faintly: "Where is he?"
+
+"Where's who?" said Bonavent.
+
+"The Duke--the Duke!" gasped Guerchard.
+
+"Why, he's gone!" said Bonavent.
+
+Guerchard staggered to his feet and cried hoarsely, frantically: "Stop
+him from leaving the house! Follow him! Arrest him! Catch him before he
+gets home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LUPIN COMES HOME
+
+
+The cold light of the early September morning illumined but dimly the
+charming smoking-room of the Duke of Charmerace in his house at 34 B,
+University Street, though it stole in through two large windows. The
+smoking-room was on the first floor; and the Duke's bedroom opened into
+it. It was furnished in the most luxurious fashion, but with a taste
+which nowadays infrequently accompanies luxury. The chairs were of the
+most comfortable, but their lines were excellent; the couch against the
+wall, between the two windows, was the last word in the matter of
+comfort. The colour scheme, of a light greyish-blue, was almost too
+bright for a man's room; it would have better suited a boudoir. It
+suggested that the owner of the room enjoyed an uncommon lightness and
+cheerfulness of temperament. On the walls, with wide gaps between them
+so that they did not clash, hung three or four excellent pictures. Two
+ballet-girls by Degas, a group of shepherdesses and shepherds, in pink
+and blue and white beribboned silk, by Fragonard, a portrait of a woman
+by Bastien-Lepage, a charming Corot, and two Conder fans showed that
+the taste of their fortunate owner was at any rate eclectic. At the end
+of the room was, of all curious things, the opening into the well of a
+lift. The doors of it were open, though the lift itself was on some
+other floor. To the left of the opening stood a book-case, its shelves
+loaded with books of a kind rather suited to a cultivated, thoughtful
+man than to an idle dandy.
+
+Beside the window, half-hidden, and peering through the side of the
+curtain into the street, stood M. Charolais. But it was hardly the M.
+Charolais who had paid M. Gournay-Martin that visit at the Chateau de
+Charmerace, and departed so firmly in the millionaire's favourite
+motor-car. This was a paler M. Charolais; he lacked altogether the
+rich, ruddy complexion of the millionaire's visitor. His nose, too, was
+thinner, and showed none of the ripe acquaintance with the vintages of
+the world which had been so plainly displayed on it during its owner's
+visit to the country. Again, hair and eyebrows were no longer black,
+but fair; and his hair was no longer curly and luxuriant, but thin and
+lank. His moustache had vanished, and along with it the dress of a
+well-to-do provincial man of business. He wore a livery of the
+Charmeraces, and at that early morning hour had not yet assumed the
+blue waistcoat which is an integral part of it. Indeed it would have
+required an acute and experienced observer to recognize in him the
+bogus purchaser of the Mercrac. Only his eyes, his close-set eyes, were
+unchanged.
+
+Walking restlessly up and down the middle of the room, keeping out of
+sight of the windows, was Victoire. She wore a very anxious air, as did
+Charolais too. By the door stood Bernard Charolais; and his natural,
+boyish timidity, to judge from his frightened eyes, had assumed an
+acute phase.
+
+"By the Lord, we're done!" cried Charolais, starting back from the
+window. "That was the front-door bell."
+
+"No, it was only the hall clock," said Bernard.
+
+"That's seven o'clock! Oh, where can he be?" said Victoire, wringing
+her hands. "The coup was fixed for midnight.... Where can he be?"
+
+"They must be after him," said Charolais. "And he daren't come home."
+Gingerly he drew back the curtain and resumed his watch.
+
+"I've sent down the lift to the bottom, in case he should come back by
+the secret entrance," said Victoire; and she went to the opening into
+the well of the lift and stood looking down it, listening with all her
+ears.
+
+"Then why, in the devil's name, have you left the doors open?" cried
+Charolais irritably. "How do you expect the lift to come up if the
+doors are open?"
+
+"I must be off my head!" cried Victoire.
+
+She stepped to the side of the lift and pressed a button. The doors
+closed, and there was a grunting click of heavy machinery settling into
+a new position.
+
+"Suppose we telephone to Justin at the Passy house?" said Victoire.
+
+"What on earth's the good of that?" said Charolais impatiently. "Justin
+knows no more than we do. How can he know any more?"
+
+"The best thing we can do is to get out," said Bernard, in a shaky
+voice.
+
+"No, no; he will come. I haven't given up hope," Victoire protested.
+"He's sure to come; and he may need us."
+
+"But, hang it all! Suppose the police come! Suppose they ransack his
+papers.... He hasn't told us what to do ... we are not ready for
+them.... What are we to do?" cried Charolais, in a tone of despair.
+
+"Well, I'm worse off than you are; and I'm not making a fuss. If the
+police come they'll arrest me," said Victoire.
+
+"Perhaps they've arrested him," said Bernard, in his shaky voice.
+
+"Don't talk like that," said Victoire fretfully. "Isn't it bad enough
+to wait and wait, without your croaking like a scared crow?"
+
+She started again her pacing up and down the room, twisting her hands,
+and now and again moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
+
+Presently she said: "Are those two plain-clothes men still there
+watching?" And in her anxiety she came a step nearer the window.
+
+"Keep away from the window!" snapped Charolais. "Do you want to be
+recognized, you great idiot?" Then he added, more quietly, "They're
+still there all right, curse them, in front of the cafe.... Hullo!"
+
+"What is it, now?" cried Victoire, starting.
+
+"A copper and a detective running," said Charolais. "They are running
+for all they're worth."
+
+"Are they coming this way?" said Victoire; and she ran to the door and
+caught hold of the handle.
+
+"No," said Charolais.
+
+"Thank goodness!" said Victoire.
+
+"They're running to the two men watching the house ... they're telling
+them something. Oh, hang it, they're all running down the street."
+
+"This way? ... Are they coming this way?" cried Victoire faintly; and
+she pressed her hand to her side.
+
+"They are!" cried Charolais. "They are!" And he dropped the curtain
+with an oath.
+
+"And he isn't here! Suppose they come.... Suppose he comes to the front
+door! They'll catch him!" cried Victoire.
+
+There came a startling peal at the front-door bell. They stood frozen
+to stone, their eyes fixed on one another, staring.
+
+The bell had hardly stopped ringing, when there was a slow, whirring
+noise. The doors of the lift flew open, and the Duke stepped out of it.
+But what a changed figure from the admirably dressed dandy who had
+walked through the startled detectives and out of the house of M.
+Gournay-Martin at midnight! He was pale, exhausted, almost fainting.
+His eyes were dim in a livid face; his lips were grey. He was panting
+heavily. He was splashed with mud from head to foot: one sleeve of his
+coat was torn along half its length. The sole of his left-hand pump was
+half off; and his cut foot showed white and red through the torn sock.
+
+"The master! The master!" cried Charolais in a tone of extravagant
+relief; and he danced round the room snapping his fingers.
+
+"You're wounded?" cried Victoire.
+
+"No," said Arsene Lupin.
+
+The front-door bell rang out again, startling, threatening, terrifying.
+
+The note of danger seemed to brace Lupin, to spur him to a last effort.
+
+He pulled himself together, and said in a hoarse but steady voice:
+"Your waistcoat, Charolais.... Go and open the door ... not too quickly
+... fumble the bolts.... Bernard, shut the book-case. Victoire, get out
+of sight, do you want to ruin us all? Be smart now, all of you. Be
+smart!"
+
+He staggered past them into his bedroom, and slammed the door. Victoire
+and Charolais hurried out of the room, through the anteroom, on to the
+landing. Victoire ran upstairs, Charolais went slowly down. Bernard
+pressed the button. The doors of the lift shut and there was a slow
+whirring as it went down. He pressed another button, and the book-case
+slid slowly across and hid the opening into the lift-well. Bernard ran
+out of the room and up the stairs.
+
+Charolais went to the front door and fumbled with the bolts. He bawled
+through the door to the visitors not to be in such a hurry at that hour
+in the morning; and they bawled furiously at him to be quick, and
+knocked and rang again and again. He was fully three minutes fumbling
+with the bolts, which were already drawn. At last he opened the door an
+inch or two, and looked out.
+
+On the instant the door was dashed open, flinging him back against the
+wall; and Bonavent and Dieusy rushed past him, up the stairs, as hard
+as they could pelt. A brown-faced, nervous, active policeman followed
+them in and stopped to guard the door.
+
+On the landing the detectives paused, and looked at one another,
+hesitating.
+
+"Which way did he go?" said Bonavent. "We were on his very heels."
+
+"I don't know; but we've jolly well stopped his getting into his own
+house; and that's the main thing," said Dieusy triumphantly.
+
+"But are you sure it was him?" said Bonavent, stepping into the
+anteroom.
+
+"I can swear to it," said Dieusy confidently; and he followed him.
+
+Charolais came rushing up the stairs and caught them up as they were
+entering the smoking-room:
+
+"Here! What's all this?" he cried. "You mustn't come in here! His Grace
+isn't awake yet."
+
+"Awake? Awake? Your precious Duke has been galloping all night," cried
+Dieusy. "And he runs devilish well, too."
+
+The door of the bedroom opened; and Lupin stood on the threshold in
+slippers and pyjamas.
+
+"What's all this?" he snapped, with the irritation of a man whose sleep
+has been disturbed; and his tousled hair and eyes dim with exhaustion
+gave him every appearance of being still heavy with sleep.
+
+The eyes and mouths of Bonavent and Dieusy opened wide; and they stared
+at him blankly, in utter bewilderment and wonder.
+
+"Is it you who are making all this noise?" said Lupin, frowning at
+them. "Why, I know you two; you're in the service of M. Guerchard."
+
+"Yes, your Grace," stammered Bonavent.
+
+"Well, what are you doing here? What is it you want?" said Lupin.
+
+"Oh, nothing, your Grace ... nothing ... there's been a mistake,"
+stammered Bonavent.
+
+"A mistake?" said Lupin haughtily. "I should think there had been a
+mistake. But I take it that this is Guerchard's doing. I'd better deal
+with him directly. You two can go." He turned to Charolais and added
+curtly, "Show them out."
+
+Charolais opened the door, and the two detectives went out of the room
+with the slinking air of whipped dogs. They went down the stairs in
+silence, slowly, reflectively; and Charolais let them out of the front
+door.
+
+As they went down the steps Dieusy said: "What a howler! Guerchard
+risks getting the sack for this!"
+
+"I told you so," said Bonavent. "A duke's a duke."
+
+When the door closed behind the two detectives Lupin tottered across
+the room, dropped on to the couch with a groan of exhaustion, and
+closed his eyes. Presently the door opened, Victoire came in, saw his
+attitude of exhaustion, and with a startled cry ran to his side.
+
+"Oh, dearie! dearie!" she cried. "Pull yourself together! Oh, do try to
+pull yourself together." She caught his cold hands and began to rub
+them, murmuring words of endearment like a mother over a young child.
+Lupin did not open his eyes; Charolais came in.
+
+"Some breakfast!" she cried. "Bring his breakfast ... he's faint ...
+he's had nothing to eat this morning. Can you eat some breakfast,
+dearie?"
+
+"Yes," said Lupin faintly.
+
+"Hurry up with it," said Victoire in urgent, imperative tones; and
+Charolais left the room at a run.
+
+"Oh, what a life you lead!" said Victoire, or, to be exact, she wailed
+it. "Are you never going to change? You're as white as a sheet....
+Can't you speak, dearie?"
+
+She stooped and lifted his legs on to the couch.
+
+He stretched himself, and, without opening his eyes, said in a faint
+voice: "Oh, Victoire, what a fright I've had!"
+
+"You? You've been frightened?" cried Victoire, amazed.
+
+"Yes. You needn't tell the others, though. But I've had a night of it
+... I did play the fool so ... I must have been absolutely mad. Once I
+had changed the coronet under that fat old fool Gournay-Martin's very
+eyes ... once you and Sonia were out of their clutches, all I had to do
+was to slip away. Did I? Not a bit of it! I stayed there out of sheer
+bravado, just to score off Guerchard.... And then I ... I, who pride
+myself on being as cool as a cucumber ... I did the one thing I ought
+not to have done.... Instead of going quietly away as the Duke of
+Charmerace ... what do you think I did? ... I bolted ... I started
+running ... running like a thief.... In about two seconds I saw the
+slip I had made. It did not take me longer; but that was too
+long--Guerchard's men were on my track ... I was done for."
+
+"Then Guerchard understood--he recognized you?" said Victoire anxiously.
+
+"As soon as the first paralysis had passed, Guerchard dared to see
+clearly ... to see the truth," said Lupin. "And then it was a chase.
+There were ten--fifteen of them on my heels. Out of breath--grunting,
+furious--a mob--a regular mob. I had passed the night before in a
+motor-car. I was dead beat. In fact, I was done for before I started
+... and they were gaining ground all the time."
+
+"Why didn't you hide?" said Victoire.
+
+"For a long while they were too close. They must have been within five
+feet of me. I was done. Then I was crossing one of the bridges. ...
+There was the Seine ... handy ... I made up my mind that, rather than
+be taken, I'd make an end of it ... I'd throw myself over."
+
+"Good Lord!--and then?" cried Victoire.
+
+"Then I had a revulsion of feeling. At any rate, I'd stick it out to
+the end. I gave myself another minute... one more minute--the last, and
+I had my revolver on me... but during that minute I put forth every
+ounce of strength I had left ... I began to gain ground ... I had them
+pretty well strung out already ... they were blown too. The knowledge
+gave me back my courage, and I plugged on ... my feet did not feel so
+much as though they were made of lead. I began to run away from them
+... they were dropping behind ... all of them but one ... he stuck to
+me. We went at a jog-trot, a slow jog-trot, for I don't know how long.
+Then we dropped to a walk--we could run no more; and on we went. My
+strength and wind began to come back. I suppose my pursuer's did too;
+for exactly what I expected happened. He gave a yell and dashed for me.
+I was ready for him. I pretended to start running, and when he was
+within three yards of me I dropped on one knee, caught his ankles, and
+chucked him over my head. I don't know whether he broke his neck or
+not. I hope he did."
+
+"Splendid!" said Victoire. "Splendid!"
+
+"Well, there I was, outside Paris, and I'm hanged if I know where. I
+went on half a mile, and then I rested. Oh, how sleepy I was! I would
+have given a hundred thousand francs for an hour's sleep--cheerfully.
+But I dared not let myself sleep. I had to get back here unseen. There
+were you and Sonia."
+
+"Sonia? Another woman?" cried Victoire. "Oh, it's then that I'm
+frightened ... when you get a woman mixed up in your game. Always, when
+you come to grief ... when you really get into danger, there's a woman
+in it."
+
+"Oh, but she's charming!" protested Lupin.
+
+"They always are," said Victoire drily. "But go on. Tell me how you got
+here."
+
+"Well, I knew it was going to be a tough job, so I took a good rest--an
+hour, I should think. And then I started to walk back. I found that I
+had come a devil of a way--I must have gone at Marathon pace. I walked
+and walked, and at last I got into Paris, and found myself with still a
+couple of miles to go. It was all right now; I should soon find a cab.
+But the luck was dead against me. I heard a man come round the corner
+of a side-street into a long street I was walking down. He gave a yell,
+and came bucketing after me. It was that hound Dieusy. He had
+recognized my figure. Off I went; and the chase began again. I led him
+a dance, but I couldn't shake him off. All the while I was working my
+way towards home. Then, just at last, I spurted for all I was worth,
+got out of his sight, bolted round the corner of the street into the
+secret entrance, and here I am." He smiled weakly, and added, "Oh, my
+dear Victoire, what a profession it is!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE CUTTING OF THE TELEPHONE WIRES
+
+
+The door opened, and in came Charolais, bearing a tray.
+
+"Here's your breakfast, master," he said.
+
+"Don't call me master--that's how his men address Guerchard. It's a
+disgusting practice," said Lupin severely.
+
+Victoire and Charolais were quick laying the table. Charolais kept up a
+running fire of questions as he did it; but Lupin did not trouble to
+answer them. He lay back, relaxed, drawing deep breaths. Already his
+lips had lost their greyness, and were pink; there was a suggestion of
+blood under the skin of his pale face. They soon had the table laid;
+and he walked to it on fairly steady feet. He sat down; Charolais
+whipped off a cover, and said:
+
+"Anyhow, you've got out of the mess neatly. It was a jolly smart
+escape."
+
+"Oh, yes. So far it's all right," said Lupin. "But there's going to be
+trouble presently--lots of it. I shall want all my wits. We all shall."
+
+He fell upon his breakfast with the appetite but not the manners of a
+wolf. Charolais went out of the room. Victoire hovered about him,
+pouring out his coffee and putting sugar into it.
+
+"By Jove, how good these eggs are!" he said. "I think that, of all the
+thousand ways of cooking eggs, en cocotte is the best."
+
+"Heavens! how empty I was!" he said presently. "What a meal I'm making!
+It's really a very healthy life, this of mine, Victoire. I feel much
+better already."
+
+"Oh, yes; it's all very well to talk," said Victoire, in a scolding
+tone; for since he was better, she felt, as a good woman should, that
+the time had come to put in a word out of season. "But, all the same,
+you're trying to kill yourself--that's what you're doing. Just because
+you're young you abuse your youth. It won't last for ever; and you'll
+be sorry you used it up before it's time. And this life of lies and
+thefts and of all kinds of improper things--I suppose it's going to
+begin all over again. It's no good your getting a lesson. It's just
+thrown away upon you."
+
+"What I want next is a bath," said Lupin.
+
+"It's all very well your pretending not to listen to me, when you know
+very well that I'm speaking for your good," she went on, raising her
+voice a little. "But I tell you that all this is going to end badly. To
+be a thief gives you no position in the world--no position at all--and
+when I think of what you made me do the night before last, I'm just
+horrified at myself."
+
+"We'd better not talk about that--the mess you made of it! It was
+positively excruciating!" said Lupin.
+
+"And what did you expect? I'm an honest woman, I am!" said Victoire
+sharply. "I wasn't brought up to do things like that, thank goodness!
+And to begin at my time of life!"
+
+"It's true, and I often ask myself how you bring yourself to stick to
+me," said Lupin, in a reflective, quite impersonal tone. "Please pour
+me out another cup of coffee."
+
+"That's what I'm always asking myself," said Victoire, pouring out the
+coffee. "I don't know--I give it up. I suppose it is because I'm fond
+of you."
+
+"Yes, and I'm very fond of you, my dear Victoire," said Lupin, in a
+coaxing tone.
+
+"And then, look you, there are things that there's no understanding. I
+often talked to your poor mother about them. Oh, your poor mother!
+Whatever would she have said to these goings-on?"
+
+Lupin helped himself to another cutlet; his eyes twinkled and he said,
+"I'm not sure that she would have been very much surprised. I always
+told her that I was going to punish society for the way it had treated
+her. Do you think she would have been surprised?"
+
+"Oh, nothing you did would have surprised her," said Victoire. "When
+you were quite a little boy you were always making us wonder. You gave
+yourself such airs, and you had such nice manners of your
+own--altogether different from the other boys. And you were already a
+bad boy, when you were only seven years old, full of all kinds of
+tricks; and already you had begun to steal."
+
+"Oh, only sugar," protested Lupin.
+
+"Yes, you began by stealing sugar," said Victoire, in the severe tones
+of a moralist. "And then it was jam, and then it was pennies. Oh, it
+was all very well at that age--a little thief is pretty enough. But
+now--when you're twenty-eight years old."
+
+"Really, Victoire, you're absolutely depressing," said Lupin, yawning;
+and he helped himself to jam.
+
+"I know very well that you're all right at heart," said Victoire. "Of
+course you only rob the rich, and you've always been kind to the
+poor.... Yes; there's no doubt about it: you have a good heart."
+
+"I can't help it--what about it?" said Lupin, smiling.
+
+"Well, you ought to have different ideas in your head. Why are you a
+burglar?"
+
+"You ought to try it yourself, my dear Victoire," said Lupin gently;
+and he watched her with a humorous eye.
+
+"Goodness, what a thing to say!" cried Victoire.
+
+"I assure you, you ought," said Lupin, in a tone of thoughtful
+conviction. "I've tried everything. I've taken my degree in medicine
+and in law. I have been an actor, and a professor of Jiu-jitsu. I have
+even been a member of the detective force, like that wretched
+Guerchard. Oh, what a dirty world that is! Then I launched out into
+society. I have been a duke. Well, I give you my word that not one of
+these professions equals that of burglar--not even the profession of
+Duke. There is so much of the unexpected in it, Victoire--the splendid
+unexpected.... And then, it's full of variety, so terrible, so
+fascinating." His voice sank a little, and he added, "And what fun it
+is!"
+
+"Fun!" cried Victoire.
+
+"Yes ... these rich men, these swells in their luxury--when one
+relieves them of a bank-note, how they do howl! ... You should have
+seen that fat old Gournay-Martin when I relieved him of his
+treasures--what an agony! You almost heard the death-rattle in his
+throat. And then the coronet! In the derangement of their minds--and it
+was sheer derangement, mind you--already prepared at Charmerace, in the
+derangement of Guerchard, I had only to put out my hand and pluck the
+coronet. And the joy, the ineffable joy of enraging the police! To see
+Guerchard's furious eyes when I downed him.... And look round you!" He
+waved his hand round the luxurious room. "Duke of Charmerace! This
+trade leads to everything ... to everything on condition that one
+sticks to it ....I tell you, Victoire, that when one cannot be a great
+artist or a great soldier, the only thing to be is a great thief!"
+
+"Oh, be quiet!" cried Victoire. "Don't talk like that. You're working
+yourself up; you're intoxicating yourself! And all that, it is not
+Catholic. Come, at your age, you ought to have one idea in your head
+which should drive out all these others, which should make you forget
+all these thefts.... Love ... that would change you, I'm sure of it.
+That would make another man of you. You ought to marry."
+
+"Yes ... perhaps ... that would make another man of me. That's what
+I've been thinking. I believe you're right," said Lupin thoughtfully.
+
+"Is that true? Have you really been thinking of it?" cried Victoire
+joyfully.
+
+"Yes," said Lupin, smiling at her eagerness. "I have been thinking
+about it--seriously."
+
+"No more messing about--no more intrigues. But a real woman ... a woman
+for life?" cried Victoire.
+
+"Yes," said Lupin softly; and his eyes were shining in a very grave
+face.
+
+"Is it serious--is it real love, dearie?" said Victoire. "What's she
+like?"
+
+"She's beautiful," said Lupin.
+
+"Oh, trust you for that. Is she a blonde or a brunette?"
+
+"She's very fair and delicate--like a princess in a fairy tale," said
+Lupin softly.
+
+"What is she? What does she do?" said Victoire.
+
+"Well, since you ask me, she's a thief," said Lupin with a mischievous
+smile.
+
+"Good Heavens!" cried Victoire.
+
+"But she's a very charming thief," said Lupin; and he rose smiling.
+
+He lighted a cigar, stretched himself and yawned: "She had ever so much
+more reason for stealing than ever I had," he said. "And she has always
+hated it like poison."
+
+"Well, that's something," said Victoire; and her blank and fallen face
+brightened a little.
+
+Lupin walked up and down the room, breathing out long luxurious puffs
+of smoke from his excellent cigar, and watching Victoire with a
+humorous eye. He walked across to his book-shelf, and scanned the
+titles of his books with an appreciative, almost affectionate smile.
+
+"This is a very pleasant interlude," he said languidly. "But I don't
+suppose it's going to last very long. As soon as Guerchard recovers
+from the shock of learning that I spent a quiet night in my ducal bed
+as an honest duke should, he'll be getting to work with positively
+furious energy, confound him! I could do with a whole day's
+sleep--twenty-four solid hours of it."
+
+"I'm sure you could, dearie," said Victoire sympathetically.
+
+"The girl I'm going to marry is Sonia Kritchnoff," he said.
+
+"Sonia? That dear child! But I love her already!" cried Victoire.
+"Sonia, but why did you say she was a thief? That was a silly thing to
+say."
+
+"It's my extraordinary sense of humour," said Lupin.
+
+The door opened and Charolais bustled in: "Shall I clear away the
+breakfast?" he said.
+
+Lupin nodded; and then the telephone bell rang. He put his finger on
+his lips and went to it.
+
+"Are you there?" he said. "Oh, it's you, Germaine.... Good morning....
+Oh, yes, I had a good night--excellent, thank you.... You want to speak
+to me presently? ... You're waiting for me at the Ritz?"
+
+"Don't go--don't go--it isn't safe," said Victoire, in a whisper.
+
+"All right, I'll be with you in about half an hour, or perhaps
+three-quarters. I'm not dressed yet ... but I'm ever so much more
+impatient than you ... good-bye for the present." He put the receiver
+on the stand.
+
+"It's a trap," said Charolais.
+
+"Never mind, what if it is? Is it so very serious?" said Lupin.
+"There'll be nothing but traps now; and if I can find the time I shall
+certainly go and take a look at that one."
+
+"And if she knows everything? If she's taking her revenge ... if she's
+getting you there to have you arrested?" said Victoire.
+
+"Yes, M. Formery is probably at the Ritz with Gournay-Martin. They're
+probably all of them there, weighing the coronet," said Lupin, with a
+chuckle.
+
+He hesitated a moment, reflecting; then he said, "How silly you are! If
+they wanted to arrest me, if they had the material proof which they
+haven't got, Guerchard would be here already!"
+
+"Then why did they chase you last night?" said Charolais.
+
+"The coronet," said Lupin. "Wasn't that reason enough? But, as it
+turned out, they didn't catch me: and when the detectives did come
+here, they disturbed me in my sleep. And that me was ever so much more
+me than the man they followed. And then the proofs ... they must have
+proofs. There aren't any--or rather, what there are, I've got!" He
+pointed to a small safe let into the wall. "In that safe are the
+coronet, and, above all, the death certificate of the Duke of
+Charmerace ... everything that Guerchard must have to induce M. Formery
+to proceed. But still, there is a risk--I think I'd better have those
+things handy in case I have to bolt."
+
+He went into his bedroom and came back with the key of the safe and a
+kit-bag. He opened the safe and took out the coronet, the real coronet
+of the Princesse de Lamballe, and along with it a pocket-book with a
+few papers in it. He set the pocket-book on the table, ready to put in
+his coat-pocket when he should have dressed, and dropped the coronet
+into the kit-bag.
+
+"I'm glad I have that death certificate; it makes it much safer," he
+said. "If ever they do nab me, I don't wish that rascal Guerchard to
+accuse me of having murdered the Duke. It might prejudice me badly.
+I've not murdered anybody yet."
+
+"That comes of having a good heart," said Victoire proudly.
+
+"Not even the Duke of Charmerace," said Charolais sadly. "And it would
+have been so easy when he was ill--just one little draught. And he was
+in such a perfect place--so out of the way--no doctors."
+
+"You do have such disgusting ideas, Charolais," said Lupin, in a tone
+of severe reproof.
+
+"Instead of which you went and saved his life," said Charolais, in a
+tone of deep discontent; and he went on clearing the table.
+
+"I did, I did: I had grown quite fond of him," said Lupin, with a
+meditative air. "For one thing, he was so very like one. I'm not sure
+that he wasn't even better-looking."
+
+"No; he was just like you," said Victoire, with decision. "Any one
+would have said you were twin brothers."
+
+"It gave me quite a shock the first time I saw his portrait," said
+Lupin. "You remember, Charolais? It was three years ago, the day, or
+rather the night, of the first Gournay-Martin burglary at Charmerace.
+Do you remember?"
+
+"Do I remember?" said Charolais. "It was I who pointed out the likeness
+to you. I said, 'He's the very spit of you, master.' And you said,
+'There's something to be done with that, Charolais.' And then off you
+started for the ice and snow and found the Duke, and became his friend;
+and then he went and died, not that you'd have helped him to, if he
+hadn't."
+
+"Poor Charmerace. He was indeed grand seigneur. With him a great name
+was about to be extinguished.... Did I hesitate? ... No.... I continued
+it," said Lupin.
+
+He paused and looked at the clock. "A quarter to eight," he said,
+hesitating. "Shall I telephone to Sonia, or shall I not? Oh, there's no
+hurry; let the poor child sleep on. She must be worn out after that
+night-journey and that cursed Guerchard's persecution yesterday. I'll
+dress first, and telephone to her afterwards. I'd better be getting
+dressed, by the way. The work I've got to do can't be done in pyjamas.
+I wish it could; for bed's the place for me. My wits aren't quite as
+clear as I could wish them to deal with an awkward business like this.
+Well, I must do the best I can with them."
+
+He yawned and went to the bedroom, leaving the pocket-book on the table.
+
+"Bring my shaving-water, Charolais, and shave me," he said, pausing;
+and he went into the bedroom and shut the door.
+
+"Ah," said Victoire sadly, "what a pity it is! A few years ago he would
+have gone to the Crusades; and to-day he steals coronets. What a pity
+it is!"
+
+"I think myself that the best thing we can do is to pack up our
+belongings," said Charolais. "And I don't think we've much time to do
+it either. This particular game is at an end, you may take it from me."
+
+"I hope to goodness it is: I want to get back to the country," said
+Victoire.
+
+He took up the tray; and they went out of the room. On the landing they
+separated; she went upstairs and he went down. Presently he came up
+with the shaving water and shaved his master; for in the house in
+University Street he discharged the double functions of valet and
+butler. He had just finished his task when there came a ring at the
+front-door bell.
+
+"You'd better go and see who it is," said Lupin.
+
+"Bernard is answering the door," said Charolais. "But perhaps I'd
+better keep an eye on it myself; one never knows."
+
+He put away the razor leisurely, and went. On the stairs he found
+Bonavent, mounting--Bonavent, disguised in the livery and fierce
+moustache of a porter from the Ritz.
+
+"Why didn't you come to the servants' entrance?" said Charolais, with
+the truculent air of the servant of a duke and a stickler for his
+master's dignity.
+
+"I didn't know that there was one," said Bonavent humbly. "Well, you
+ought to have known that there was; and it's plain enough to see. What
+is it you want?" said Charolais.
+
+"I've brought a letter--a letter for the Duke of Charmerace," said
+Bonavent.
+
+"Give it to me," said Charolais. "I'll take it to him."
+
+"No, no; I'm to give it into the hands of the Duke himself and to
+nobody else," said Bonavent.
+
+"Well, in that case, you'll have to wait till he's finished dressing,"
+said Charolais.
+
+They went on up to the stairs into the ante-room. Bonavent was walking
+straight into the smoking-room.
+
+"Here! where are you going to? Wait here," said Charolais quickly.
+"Take a chair; sit down."
+
+Bonavent sat down with a very stolid air, and Charolais looked at him
+doubtfully, in two minds whether to leave him there alone or not.
+Before he had decided there came a thundering knock on the front door,
+not only loud but protracted. Charolais looked round with a scared air;
+and then ran out of the room and down the stairs.
+
+On the instant Bonavent was on his feet, and very far from stolid. He
+opened the door of the smoking-room very gently and peered in. It was
+empty. He slipped noiselessly across the room, a pair of clippers ready
+in his hand, and cut the wires of the telephone. His quick eye glanced
+round the room and fell on the pocket-book on the table. He snatched it
+up, and slipped it into the breast of his tunic. He had scarcely done
+it--one button of his tunic was still to fasten--when the bedroom door
+opened, and Lupin came out:
+
+"What do you want?" he said sharply; and his keen eyes scanned the
+porter with a disquieting penetration.
+
+"I've brought a letter to the Duke of Charmerace, to be given into his
+own hands," said Bonavent, in a disguised voice.
+
+"Give it to me," said Lupin, holding out his hand.
+
+"But the Duke?" said Bonavent, hesitating.
+
+"I am the Duke," said Lupin.
+
+Bonavent gave him the letter, and turned to go.
+
+"Don't go," said Lupin quietly. "Wait, there may be an answer."
+
+There was a faint glitter in his eyes; but Bonavent missed it.
+
+Charolais came into the room, and said, in a grumbling tone, "A
+run-away knock. I wish I could catch the brats; I'd warm them. They
+wouldn't go fetching me away from my work again, in a hurry, I can tell
+you."
+
+Lupin opened the letter, and read it. As he read it, at first he
+frowned; then he smiled; and then he laughed joyously. It ran:
+
+"SIR,"
+
+"M. Guerchard has told me everything. With regard to Sonia I have
+judged you: a man who loves a thief can be nothing but a rogue. I have
+two pieces of news to announce to you: the death of the Duke of
+Charmerace, who died three years ago, and my intention of becoming
+engaged to his cousin and heir, M. de Relzieres, who will assume the
+title and the arms."
+
+"For Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin," "Her maid, IRMA."
+
+"She does write in shocking bad taste," said Lupin, shaking his head
+sadly. "Charolais, sit down and write a letter for me."
+
+"Me?" said Charolais.
+
+"Yes; you. It seems to be the fashion in financial circles; and I am
+bound to follow it when a lady sets it. Write me a letter," said Lupin.
+
+Charolais went to the writing-table reluctantly, sat down, set a sheet
+of paper on the blotter, took a pen in his hand, and sighed painfully.
+
+"Ready?" said Lupin; and he dictated:
+
+"MADEMOISELLE,"
+
+"I have a very robust constitution, and my indisposition will very soon
+be over. I shall have the honour of sending, this afternoon, my humble
+wedding present to the future Madame de Relzieres."
+
+"For Jacques de Bartut, Marquis de Relzieres, Prince of Virieux, Duke
+of Charmerace."
+
+"His butler, ARSENE."
+
+"Shall I write Arsene?" said Charolais, in a horrified tone.
+
+"Why not?" said Lupin. "It's your charming name, isn't it?"
+
+Bonavent pricked up his ears, and looked at Charolais with a new
+interest.
+
+Charolais shrugged his shoulders, finished the letter, blotted it, put
+it in an envelope, addressed it, and handed it to Lupin.
+
+"Take this to Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin," said Lupin, handing it to
+Bonavent.
+
+Bonavent took the letter, turned, and had taken one step towards the
+door when Lupin sprang. His arm went round the detective's neck; he
+jerked him backwards off his feet, scragging him.
+
+"Stir, and I'll break your neck!" he cried in a terrible voice; and
+then he said quietly to Charolais, "Just take my pocket-book out of
+this fellow's tunic."
+
+Charolais, with deft fingers, ripped open the detective's tunic, and
+took out the pocket-book.
+
+"This is what they call Jiu-jitsu, old chap! You'll be able to teach it
+to your colleagues," said Lupin. He loosed his grip on Bonavent, and
+knocked him straight with a thump in the back, and sent him flying
+across the room. Then he took the pocket-book from Charolais and made
+sure that its contents were untouched.
+
+"Tell your master from me that if he wants to bring me down he'd better
+fire the gun himself," said Lupin contemptuously. "Show the gentleman
+out, Charolais."
+
+Bonavent staggered to the door, paused, and turned on Lupin a face
+livid with fury.
+
+"He will be here himself in ten minutes," he said.
+
+"Many thanks for the information," said Lupin quietly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE BARGAIN
+
+
+Charolais conducted the detective down the stairs and let him out of
+the front door, cursing and threatening vengeance as he went. Charolais
+took no notice of his words--he was the well-trained servant. He came
+back upstairs, and on the landing called to Victoire and Bernard. They
+came hurrying down; and the three of them went into the smoking-room.
+
+"Now we know where we are," said Lupin, with cheerful briskness.
+"Guerchard will be here in ten minutes with a warrant for my arrest.
+All of you clear out."
+
+"It won't be so precious easy. The house is watched," said Charolais.
+"And I'll bet it's watched back and front."
+
+"Well, slip out by the secret entrance. They haven't found that yet,"
+said Lupin. "And meet me at the house at Passy."
+
+Charolais and Bernard wanted no more telling; they ran to the book-case
+and pressed the buttons; the book-case slid aside; the doors opened and
+disclosed the lift. They stepped into it. Victoire had followed them.
+She paused and said: "And you? Are you coming?"
+
+"In an instant I shall slip out the same way," he said.
+
+"I'll wait for him. You go on," said Victoire; and the lift went down.
+
+Lupin went to the telephone, rang the bell, and put the receiver to his
+ear.
+
+"You've no time to waste telephoning. They may be here at any moment!"
+cried Victoire anxiously.
+
+"I must. If I don't telephone Sonia will come here. She will run right
+into Guerchard's arms. Why the devil don't they answer? They must be
+deaf!" And he rang the bell again.
+
+"Let's go to her! Let's get out of here!" cried Victoire, more
+anxiously. "There really isn't any time to waste."
+
+"Go to her? But I don't know where she is. I lost my head last night,"
+cried Lupin, suddenly anxious himself. "Are you there?" he shouted into
+the telephone. "She's at a little hotel near the Star. ... Are you
+there? ... But there are twenty hotels near the Star.... Are you there?
+... Oh, I did lose my head last night. ... Are you there? Oh, hang this
+telephone! Here I'm fighting with a piece of furniture. And every
+second is important!"
+
+He picked up the machine, shook it, saw that the wires were cut, and
+cried furiously: "Ha! They've played the telephone trick on me! That's
+Guerchard.... The swine!"
+
+"And now you can come along!" cried Victoire.
+
+"But that's just what I can't do!" he cried.
+
+"But there's nothing more for you to do here, since you can no longer
+telephone," said Victoire, bewildered.
+
+Lupin caught her arm and shook her, staring into her face with
+panic-stricken eyes. "But don't you understand that, since I haven't
+telephoned, she'll come here?" he cried hoarsely. "Five-and-twenty
+minutes past eight! At half-past eight she will start--start to come
+here."
+
+His face had suddenly grown haggard; this new fear had brought back all
+the exhaustion of the night; his eyes were panic-stricken.
+
+"But what about you?" said Victoire, wringing her hands.
+
+"What about her?" said Lupin; and his voice thrilled with anguished
+dread.
+
+"But you'll gain nothing by destroying both of you--nothing at all."
+
+"I prefer it," said Lupin slowly, with a suddenly stubborn air.
+
+"But they're coming to take you," cried Victoire, gripping his arm.
+
+"Take me?" cried Lupin, freeing himself quietly from her grip. And he
+stood frowning, plunged in deep thought, weighing the chances, the
+risks, seeking a plan, saving devices.
+
+He crossed the room to the writing-table, opened a drawer, and took out
+a cardboard box about eight inches square and set it on the table.
+
+"They shall never take me alive," he said gloomily.
+
+"Oh, hush, hush!" said Victoire. "I know very well that you're capable
+of anything ... and they too--they'll destroy you. No, look you, you
+must go. They won't do anything to her--a child like that--so frail.
+She'll get off quite easily. You're coming, aren't you?"
+
+"No, I'm not," said Lupin stubbornly.
+
+"Oh, well, if you won't," said Victoire; and with an air of resolution
+she went to the side of the lift-well, and pressed the buttons. The
+doors closed; the book-case slid across. She sat down and folded her
+arms.
+
+"What, you're not going to stop here?" cried Lupin.
+
+"Make me stir if you can. I'm as fond of you as she is--you know I am,"
+said Victoire, and her face set stonily obstinate.
+
+Lupin begged her to go; ordered her to go; he seized her by the
+shoulder, shook her, and abused her like a pickpocket. She would not
+stir. He abandoned the effort, sat down, and knitted his brow again in
+profound and painful thought, working out his plan. Now and again his
+eyes flashed, once or twice they twinkled. Victoire watched his face
+with just the faintest hope on her own.
+
+It was past five-and-twenty minutes to nine when the front-door bell
+rang. They gazed at one another with an unspoken question on their
+lips. The eyes of Victoire were scared, but in the eyes of Lupin the
+light of battle was gathering.
+
+"It's her," said Victoire under her breath.
+
+"No," said Lupin. "It's Guerchard."
+
+He sprang to his feet with shining eyes. His lips were curved in a
+fighting smile. "The game isn't lost yet," he said in a tense, quiet
+voice. "I'm going to play it to the end. I've a card or two left
+still--good cards. I'm still the Duke of Charmerace." He turned to her.
+
+"Now listen to me," he said. "Go down and open the door for him."
+
+"What, you want me to?" said Victoire, in a shaky voice.
+
+"Yes, I do. Listen to me carefully. When you have opened the door, slip
+out of it and watch the house. Don't go too far from it. Look out for
+Sonia. You'll see her coming. Stop her from entering, Victoire--stop
+her from entering." He spoke coolly, but his voice shook on the last
+words.
+
+"But if Guerchard arrests me?" said Victoire.
+
+"He won't. When he comes in, stand behind the door. He will be too
+eager to get to me to stop for you. Besides, for him you don't count in
+the game. Once you're out of the house, I'll hold him here for--for
+half an hour. That will leave a margin. Sonia will hurry here. She
+should be here in twelve minutes. Get her away to the house at Passy.
+If I don't come keep her there; she's to live with you. But I shall
+come."
+
+As he spoke he was pushing her towards the door.
+
+The bell rang again. They were at the top of the stairs.
+
+"And suppose he does arrest me?" said Victoire breathlessly.
+
+"Never mind, you must go all the same," said Lupin. "Don't give up
+hope--trust to me. Go--go--for my sake."
+
+"I'm going, dearie," said Victoire; and she went down the stairs
+steadily, with a brave air.
+
+He watched her half-way down the flight; then he muttered:
+
+"If only she gets to Sonia in time."
+
+He turned, went into the smoking-room, and shut the door. He sat
+quietly down in an easy chair, lighted a cigarette, and took up a
+paper. He heard the noise of the traffic in the street grow louder as
+the front door was opened. There was a pause; then he heard the door
+bang. There was the sound of a hasty footstep on the stairs; the door
+flew open, and Guerchard bounced into the room.
+
+He stopped short in front of the door at the sight of Lupin, quietly
+reading, smoking at his ease. He had expected to find the bird flown.
+He stood still, hesitating, shuffling his feet--all his doubts had
+returned; and Lupin smiled at him over the lowered paper.
+
+Guerchard pulled himself together by a violent effort, and said
+jerkily, "Good-morning, Lupin."
+
+"Good-morning, M. Guerchard," said Lupin, with an ambiguous smile and
+all the air of the Duke of Charmerace.
+
+"You were expecting me? ... I hope I haven't kept you waiting," said
+Guerchard, with an air of bravado.
+
+"No, thank you: the time has passed quite quickly. I have so much to do
+in the morning always," said Lupin. "I hope you had a good night after
+that unfortunate business of the coronet. That was a disaster; and so
+unexpected too."
+
+Guerchard came a few steps into the room, still hesitating:
+
+"You've a very charming house here," he said, with a sneer.
+
+"It's central," said Lupin carelessly. "You must please excuse me, if I
+cannot receive you as I should like; but all my servants have bolted.
+Those confounded detectives of yours have frightened them away."
+
+"You needn't bother about that. I shall catch them," said Guerchard.
+
+"If you do, I'm sure I wish you joy of them. Do, please, keep your hat
+on," said Lupin with ironic politeness.
+
+Guerchard came slowly to the middle of the room, raising his hand to
+his hat, letting it fall again without taking it off. He sat down
+slowly facing him, and they gazed at one another with the wary eyes of
+duellists crossing swords at the beginning of a duel.
+
+"Did you get M. Formery to sign a little warrant?" said Lupin, in a
+caressing tone full of quiet mockery.
+
+"I did," said Guerchard through his teeth.
+
+"And have you got it on you?" said Lupin.
+
+"I have," said Guerchard.
+
+"Against Lupin, or against the Duke of Charmerace?" said Lupin.
+
+"Against Lupin, called Charmerace," said Guerchard.
+
+"Well, that ought to cover me pretty well. Why don't you arrest me?
+What are you waiting for?" said Lupin. His face was entirely serene,
+his eyes were careless, his tone indifferent.
+
+"I'm not waiting for anything," said Guerchard thickly; "but it gives
+me such pleasure that I wish to enjoy this minute to the utmost,
+Lupin," said Guerchard; and his eyes gloated on him.
+
+"Lupin, himself," said Lupin, smiling.
+
+"I hardly dare believe it," said Guerchard.
+
+"You're quite right not to," said Lupin.
+
+"Yes, I hardly dare believe it. You alive, here at my mercy?"
+
+"Oh, dear no, not yet," said Lupin.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard, in a decisive tone. "And ever so much more than
+you think." He bent forwards towards him, with his hands on his knees,
+and said, "Do you know where Sonia Kritchnoff is at this moment?"
+
+"What?" said Lupin sharply.
+
+"I ask if you know where Sonia Kritchnoff is?" said Guerchard slowly,
+lingering over the words.
+
+"Do you?" said Lupin.
+
+"I do," said Guerchard triumphantly.
+
+"Where is she?" said Lupin, in a tone of utter incredulity.
+
+"In a small hotel near the Star. The hotel has a telephone; and you can
+make sure," said Guerchard.
+
+"Indeed? That's very interesting. What's the number of it?" said Lupin,
+in a mocking tone.
+
+"555 Central: would you like to telephone to her?" said Guerchard; and
+he smiled triumphantly at the disabled instrument.
+
+Lupin shock his head with a careless smile, and said, "Why should I
+telephone to her? What are you driving at?"
+
+"Nothing ... that's all," said Guerchard. And he leant back in his
+chair with an ugly smile on his face.
+
+"Evidently nothing. For, after all, what has that child got to do with
+you? You're not interested in her, plainly. She's not big enough game
+for you. It's me you are hunting ... it's me you hate ... it's me you
+want. I've played you tricks enough for that, you old scoundrel. So
+you're going to leave that child in peace? ... You're not going to
+revenge yourself on her? ... It's all very well for you to be a
+policeman; it's all very well for you to hate me; but there are things
+one does not do." There was a ring of menace and appeal in the deep,
+ringing tones of his voice. "You're not going to do that, Guerchard....
+You will not do it.... Me--yes--anything you like. But her--her you
+must not touch." He gazed at the detective with fierce, appealing eyes.
+
+"That depends on you," said Guerchard curtly.
+
+"On me?" cried Lupin, in genuine surprise.
+
+"Yes, I've a little bargain to propose to you," said Guerchard.
+
+"Have you?" said Lupin; and his watchful face was serene again, his
+smile almost pleasant.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard. And he paused, hesitating.
+
+"Well, what is it you want?" said Lupin. "Out with it! Don't be shy
+about it."
+
+"I offer you--"
+
+"You offer me?" cried Lupin. "Then it isn't true. You're fooling me."
+
+"Reassure yourself," said Guerchard coldly. "To you personally I offer
+nothing."
+
+"Then you are sincere," said Lupin. "And putting me out of the
+question?"
+
+"I offer you liberty."
+
+"Who for? For my concierge?" said Lupin.
+
+"Don't play the fool. You care only for a single person in the world. I
+hold you through her: Sonia Kritchnoff."
+
+Lupin burst into a ringing, irrepressible laugh:
+
+"Why, you're trying to blackmail me, you old sweep!" he cried.
+
+"If you like to call it so," said Guerchard coldly.
+
+Lupin rose and walked backwards and forwards across the room, frowning,
+calculating, glancing keenly at Guerchard, weighing him. Twice he
+looked at the clock.
+
+He stopped and said coldly: "So be it. For the moment you're the
+stronger.... That won't last.... But you offer me this child's liberty."
+
+"That's my offer," said Guerchard; and his eyes brightened at the
+prospect of success.
+
+"Her complete liberty? ... on your word of honour?" said Lupin; and he
+had something of the air of a cat playing with a mouse.
+
+"On my word of honour," said Guerchard.
+
+"Can you do it?" said Lupin, with a sudden air of doubt; and he looked
+sharply from Guerchard to the clock.
+
+"I undertake to do it," said Guerchard confidently.
+
+"But how?" said Lupin, looking at him with an expression of the gravest
+doubt.
+
+"Oh, I'll put the thefts on your shoulders. That will let her out all
+right," said Guerchard.
+
+"I've certainly good broad shoulders," said Lupin, with a bitter smile.
+He walked slowly up and down with an air that grew more and more
+depressed: it was almost the air of a beaten man. Then he stopped and
+faced Guerchard, and said: "And what is it you want in exchange?"
+
+"Everything," said Guerchard, with the air of a man who is winning.
+"You must give me back the pictures, tapestry, Renaissance cabinets,
+the coronet, and all the information about the death of the Duke of
+Charmerace. Did you kill him?"
+
+"If ever I commit suicide, you'll know all about it, my good Guerchard.
+You'll be there. You may even join me," said Lupin grimly; he resumed
+his pacing up and down the room.
+
+"Done for, yes; I shall be done for," he said presently. "The fact is,
+you want my skin."
+
+"Yes, I want your skin," said Guerchard, in a low, savage, vindictive
+tone.
+
+"My skin," said Lupin thoughtfully.
+
+"Are you going to do it? Think of that girl," said Guerchard, in a
+fresh access of uneasy anxiety.
+
+Lupin laughed: "I can give you a glass of port," he said, "but I'm
+afraid that's all I can do for you."
+
+"I'll throw Victoire in," said Guerchard.
+
+"What?" cried Lupin. "You've arrested Victoire?" There was a ring of
+utter dismay, almost despair, in his tone.
+
+"Yes; and I'll throw her in. She shall go scot-free. I won't bother
+with her," said Guerchard eagerly.
+
+The front-door bell rang.
+
+"Wait, wait. Let me think," said Lupin hoarsely; and he strove to
+adjust his jostling ideas, to meet with a fresh plan this fresh
+disaster.
+
+He stood listening with all his ears. There were footsteps on the
+stairs, and the door opened. Dieusy stood on the threshold.
+
+"Who is it?" said Guerchard.
+
+"I accept--I accept everything," cried Lupin in a frantic tone.
+
+"It's a tradesman; am I to detain him?" said Dieusy. "You told me to
+let you know who came and take instructions."
+
+"A tradesman? Then I refuse!" cried Lupin, in an ecstasy of relief.
+
+"No, you needn't keep him," said Guerchard, to Dieusy.
+
+Dieusy went out and shut the door.
+
+"You refuse?" said Guerchard.
+
+"I refuse," said Lupin.
+
+"I'm going to gaol that girl," said Guerchard savagely; and he took a
+step towards the door.
+
+"Not for long," said Lupin quietly. "You have no proof."
+
+"She'll furnish the proof all right herself--plenty of proofs," said
+Guerchard brutally. "What chance has a silly child like that got, when
+we really start questioning her? A delicate creature like that will
+crumple up before the end of the third day's cross-examination."
+
+"You swine!" said Lupin. "You know well enough that I can do it--on my
+head--with a feeble child like that; and you know your Code; five years
+is the minimum," said Guerchard, in a tone of relentless brutality,
+watching him carefully, sticking to his hope.
+
+"By Jove, I could wring your neck!" said Lupin, trembling with fury. By
+a violent effort he controlled himself, and said thoughtfully, "After
+all, if I give up everything to you, I shall be free to take it back
+one of these days."
+
+"Oh, no doubt, when you come out of prison," said Guerchard ironically;
+and he laughed a grim, jeering laugh.
+
+"I've got to go to prison first," said Lupin quietly.
+
+"Pardon me--if you accept, I mean to arrest you," said Guerchard.
+
+"Manifestly you'll arrest me if you can," said Lupin.
+
+"Do you accept?" said Guerchard. And again his voice quivered with
+anxiety.
+
+"Well," said Lupin. And he paused as if finally weighing the matter.
+
+"Well?" said Guerchard, and his voice shook.
+
+"Well--no!" said Lupin; and he laughed a mocking laugh.
+
+"You won't?" said Guerchard between his teeth.
+
+"No; you wish to catch me. This is just a ruse," said Lupin, in quiet,
+measured tones. "At bottom you don't care a hang about Sonia,
+Mademoiselle Kritchnoff. You will not arrest her. And then, if you did
+you have no proofs. There ARE no proofs. As for the pendant, you'd have
+to prove it. You can't prove it. You can't prove that it was in her
+possession one moment. Where is the pendant?" He paused, and then went
+on in the same quiet tone: "No, Guerchard; after having kept out of
+your clutches for the last ten years, I'm not going to be caught to
+save this child, who is not even in danger. She has a very useful
+friend in the Duke of Charmerace. I refuse."
+
+Guerchard stared at him, scowling, biting his lips, seeking a fresh
+point of attack. For the moment he knew himself baffled, but he still
+clung tenaciously to the struggle in which victory would be so precious.
+
+The front-door bell rang again.
+
+"There's a lot of ringing at your bell this morning," said Guerchard,
+under his breath; and hope sprang afresh in him.
+
+Again they stood silent, waiting.
+
+Dieusy opened the door, put in his head, and said, "It's Mademoiselle
+Kritchnoff."
+
+"Collar her! ... Here's the warrant! ... collar her!" shouted
+Guerchard, with savage, triumphant joy.
+
+"Never! You shan't touch her! By Heaven, you shan't touch her!" cried
+Lupin frantically; and he sprang like a tiger at Guerchard.
+
+Guerchard jumped to the other side of the table. "Will you accept,
+then?" he cried.
+
+Lupin gripped the edge of the table with both hands, and stood panting,
+grinding his teeth, pale with fury. He stood silent and motionless for
+perhaps half a minute, gazing at Guerchard with burning, murderous
+eyes. Then he nodded his head.
+
+"Let Mademoiselle Kritchnoff wait," said Guerchard, with a sigh of deep
+relief. Dieusy went out of the room.
+
+"Now let us settle exactly how we stand," said Lupin, in a clear,
+incisive voice. "The bargain is this: If I give you the pictures, the
+tapestry, the cabinets, the coronet, and the death-certificate of the
+Duke of Charmerace, you give me your word of honour that Mademoiselle
+Kritchnoff shall not be touched."
+
+"That's it!" said Guerchard eagerly.
+
+"Once I deliver these things to you, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff passes out
+of the game."
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard.
+
+"Whatever happens afterwards. If I get back anything--if I escape--she
+goes scot-free," said Lupin.
+
+"Yes," said Guerchard; and his eyes were shining.
+
+"On your word of honour?" said Lupin.
+
+"On my word of honour," said Guerchard.
+
+"Very well," said Lupin, in a quiet, businesslike voice. "To begin
+with, here in this pocket-book you'll find all the documents relating
+to the death of the Duke of Charmerace. In it you will also find the
+receipt of the Plantin furniture repository at Batignolles for the
+objects of art which I collected at Gournay-Martin's. I sent them to
+Batignolles because, in my letters asking the owners of valuables to
+forward them to me, I always make Batignolles the place to which they
+are to be sent; therefore I knew that you would never look there. They
+are all in cases; for, while you were making those valuable inquiries
+yesterday, my men were putting them into cases. You'll not find the
+receipt in the name of either the Duke of Charmerace or my own. It is
+in the name of a respected proprietor of Batignolles, a M. Pierre
+Servien. But he has lately left that charming suburb, and I do not
+think he will return to it."
+
+Guerchard almost snatched the pocket-book out of his hand. He verified
+the documents in it with greedy eyes; and then he put them back in it,
+and stuffed it into the breast-pocket of his coat.
+
+"And where's the coronet?" he said, in an excited voice.
+
+"You're nearly standing on it," said Lupin.
+
+"It's in that kit-bag at your feet, on the top of the change of clothes
+in it."
+
+Guerchard snatched up the kit-bag, opened it, and took out the coronet.
+
+"I'm afraid I haven't the case," said Lupin, in a tone of regret. "If
+you remember, I left it at Gournay-Martin's--in your charge."
+
+Guerchard examined the coronet carefully. He looked at the stones in
+it; he weighed it in his right hand, and he weighed it in his left.
+
+"Are you sure it's the real one?" said Lupin, in a tone of acute but
+affected anxiety. "Do not--oh, do not let us have any more of these
+painful mistakes about it. They are so wearing."
+
+"Yes--yes--this is the real one," said Guerchard, with another deep
+sigh of relief.
+
+"Well, have you done bleeding me?" said Lupin contemptuously.
+
+"Your arms," said Guerchard quickly.
+
+"They weren't in the bond," said Lupin. "But here you are." And he
+threw his revolver on the table.
+
+Guerchard picked it up and put it into his pocket. He looked at Lupin
+as if he could not believe his eyes, gloating over him. Then he said in
+a deep, triumphant tone:
+
+"And now for the handcuffs!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE END OF THE DUEL
+
+
+"The handcuffs?" said Lupin; and his face fell. Then it cleared; and he
+added lightly, "After all, there's nothing like being careful; and, by
+Jove, with me you need to be. I might get away yet. What luck it is for
+you that I'm so soft, so little of a Charmerace, so human! Truly, I
+can't be much of a man of the world, to be in love like this!"
+
+"Come, come, hold out your hands!" said Guerchard, jingling the
+handcuffs impatiently.
+
+"I should like to see that child for the last time," said Lupin gently.
+
+"All right," said Guerchard.
+
+"Arsene Lupin--and nabbed by you! If you aren't in luck! Here you are!"
+said Lupin bitterly; and he held out his wrists.
+
+Guerchard snapped the handcuffs on them with a grunt of satisfaction.
+
+Lupin gazed down at them with a bitter face, and said: "Oh, you are in
+luck! You're not married by any chance?"
+
+"Yes, yes; I am," said Guerchard hastily; and he went quickly to the
+door and opened it: "Dieusy!" he called. "Dieusy! Mademoiselle
+Kritchnoff is at liberty. Tell her so, and bring her in here."
+
+Lupin started back, flushed and scowling; he cried: "With these things
+on my hands! ... No! ... I can't see her!"
+
+Guerchard stood still, looking at him. Lupin's scowl slowly softened,
+and he said, half to himself, "But I should have liked to see her ...
+very much ... for if she goes like that ... I shall not know when or
+where--" He stopped short, raised his eyes, and said in a decided tone:
+"Ah, well, yes; I should like to see her."
+
+"If you've quite made up your mind," said Guerchard impatiently, and he
+went into the anteroom.
+
+Lupin stood very still, frowning thoughtfully. He heard footsteps on
+the stairs, and then the voice of Guerchard in the anteroom, saying, in
+a jeering tone, "You're free, mademoiselle; and you can thank the Duke
+for it. You owe your liberty to him."
+
+"Free! And I owe it to him?" cried the voice of Sonia, ringing and
+golden with extravagant joy.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle," said Guerchard. "You owe it to him."
+
+She came through the open door, flushed deliciously and smiling, her
+eyes brimming with tears of joy. Lupin had never seen her look half so
+adorable.
+
+"Is it to you I owe it? Then I shall owe everything to you. Oh, thank
+you--thank you!" she cried, holding out her hands to him.
+
+Lupin half turned away from her to hide his handcuffs.
+
+She misunderstood the movement. Her face fell suddenly like that of a
+child rebuked: "Oh, I was wrong. I was wrong to come here!" she cried
+quickly, in changed, dolorous tones. "I thought yesterday ... I made a
+mistake ... pardon me. I'm going. I'm going."
+
+Lupin was looking at her over his shoulder, standing sideways to hide
+the handcuffs. He said sadly. "Sonia--"
+
+"No, no, I understand! It was impossible!" she cried quickly, cutting
+him short. "And yet if you only knew--if you knew how I have
+changed--with what a changed spirit I came here.... Ah, I swear that
+now I hate all my past. I loathe it. I swear that now the mere presence
+of a thief would overwhelm me with disgust."
+
+"Hush!" said Lupin, flushing deeply, and wincing. "Hush!"
+
+"But, after all, you're right," she said, in a gentler voice. "One
+can't wipe out what one has done. If I were to give back everything
+I've taken--if I were to spend years in remorse and repentance, it
+would be no use. In your eyes I should always be Sonia Kritchnoff, the
+thief!" The great tears welled slowly out of her eyes and rolled down
+her cheeks; she let them stream unheeded.
+
+"Sonia!" cried Lupin, protesting.
+
+But she would not hear him. She broke out with fresh vehemence, a
+feverish passion: "And yet, if I'd been a thief, like so many others...
+but you know why I stole. I'm not trying to defend myself, but, after
+all, I did it to keep honest; and when I loved you it was not the heart
+of a thief that thrilled, it was the heart of a poor girl who
+loved...that's all...who loved."
+
+"You don't know what you're doing! You're torturing me! Be quiet!"
+cried Lupin hoarsely, beside himself.
+
+"Never mind...I'm going...we shall never see one another any more," she
+sobbed. "But will you...will you shake hands just for the last time?"
+
+"No!" cried Lupin.
+
+"You won't?" wailed Sonia in a heartrending tone.
+
+"I can't!" cried Lupin.
+
+"You ought not to be like this.... Last night ... if you were going to
+let me go like this ... last night ... it was wrong," she wailed, and
+turned to go.
+
+"Wait, Sonia! Wait!" cried Lupin hoarsely. "A moment ago you said
+something.... You said that the mere presence of a thief would
+overwhelm you with disgust. Is that true?"
+
+"Yes, I swear it is," cried Sonia.
+
+Guerchard appeared in the doorway.
+
+"And if I were not the man you believe?" said Lupin sombrely.
+
+"What?" said Sonia; and a faint bewilderment mingled with her grief.
+"If I were not the Duke of Charmerace?"
+
+"Not the Duke?"
+
+"If I were not an honest man?" said Lupin.
+
+"You?" cried Sonia.
+
+"If I were a thief? If I were--"
+
+"Arsene Lupin," jeered Guerchard from the door.
+
+Lupin turned and held out his manacled wrists for her to see.
+
+"Arsene Lupin! ... it's ... it's true!" stammered Sonia. "But then, but
+then ... it must be for my sake that you've given yourself up. And it's
+for me you're going to prison. Oh, Heavens! How happy I am!"
+
+She sprang to him, threw her arms round his neck, and pressed her lips
+to his.
+
+"And that's what women call repenting," said Guerchard.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, went out on to the landing, and called to
+the policeman in the hall to bid the driver of the prison-van, which
+was waiting, bring it up to the door.
+
+"Oh, this is incredible!" cried Lupin, in a trembling voice; and he
+kissed Sonia's lips and eyes and hair. "To think that you love me
+enough to go on loving me in spite of this--in spite of the fact that
+I'm Arsene Lupin. Oh, after this, I'll become an honest man! It's the
+least I can do. I'll retire."
+
+"You will?" cried Sonia.
+
+"Upon my soul, I will!" cried Lupin; and he kissed her again and again.
+
+Guerchard came back into the room. He looked at them with a cynical
+grin, and said, "Time's up."
+
+"Oh, Guerchard, after so many others, I owe you the best minute of my
+life!" cried Lupin.
+
+Bonavent, still in his porter's livery, came hurrying through the
+anteroom: "Master," he cried, "I've found it."
+
+"Found what?" said Guerchard.
+
+"The secret entrance. It opens into that little side street. We haven't
+got the door open yet; but we soon shall."
+
+"The last link in the chain," said Guerchard, with warm satisfaction.
+"Come along, Lupin."
+
+"But he's going to take you away! We're going to be separated!" cried
+Sonia, in a sudden anguish of realization.
+
+"It's all the same to me now!" cried Lupin, in the voice of a conqueror.
+
+"Yes, but not to me!" cried Sonia, wringing her hands.
+
+"Now you must keep calm and go. I'm not going to prison," said Lupin,
+in a low voice. "Wait in the hall, if you can. Stop and talk to
+Victoire; condole with her. If they turn you out of the house, wait
+close to the front door."
+
+"Come, mademoiselle," said Guerchard. "You must go."
+
+"Go, Sonia, go--good-bye--good-bye," said Lupin; and he kissed her.
+
+She went quietly out of the room, her handkerchief to her eyes.
+Guerchard held open the door for her, and kept it open, with his hand
+still on the handle; he said to Lupin: "Come along."
+
+Lupin yawned, stretched himself, and said coolly, "My dear Guerchard,
+what I want after the last two nights is rest--rest." He walked quickly
+across the room and stretched himself comfortably at full length on the
+couch.
+
+"Come, get up," said Guerchard roughly. "The prison-van is waiting for
+you. That ought to fetch you out of your dream."
+
+"Really, you do say the most unlucky things," said Lupin gaily.
+
+He had resumed his flippant, light-hearted air; his voice rang as
+lightly and pleasantly as if he had not a care in the world.
+
+"Do you mean that you refuse to come?" cried Guerchard in a rough,
+threatening tone.
+
+"Oh, no," said Lupin quickly: and he rose.
+
+"Then come along!" said Guerchard.
+
+"No," said Lupin, "after all, it's too early." Once more he stretched
+himself out on the couch, and added languidly, "I'm lunching at the
+English Embassy."
+
+"Now, you be careful!" cried Guerchard angrily. "Our parts are changed.
+If you're snatching at a last straw, it's waste of time. All your
+tricks--I know them. Understand, you rogue, I know them."
+
+"You know them?" said Lupin with a smile, rising. "It's fatality!"
+
+He stood before Guerchard, twisting his hands and wrists curiously.
+Half a dozen swift movements; and he held out his handcuffs in one hand
+and threw them on the floor.
+
+"Did you know that trick, Guerchard? One of these days I shall teach
+you to invite me to lunch," he said slowly, in a mocking tone; and he
+gazed at the detective with menacing, dangerous eyes.
+
+"Come, come, we've had enough of this!" cried Guerchard, in mingled
+astonishment, anger, and alarm. "Bonavent! Boursin! Dieusy! Here! Help!
+Help!" he shouted.
+
+"Now listen, Guerchard, and understand that I'm not humbugging," said
+Lupin quickly, in clear, compelling tones. "If Sonia, just now, had had
+one word, one gesture of contempt for me, I'd have given way--yielded
+... half-yielded, at any rate; for, rather than fall into your
+triumphant clutches, I'd have blown my brains out. I've now to choose
+between happiness, life with Sonia, or prison. Well, I've chosen. I
+will live happy with her, or else, my dear Guerchard, I'll die with
+you. Now let your men come--I'm ready for them."
+
+Guerchard ran to the door and shouted again.
+
+"I think the fat's in the fire now," said Lupin, laughing.
+
+He sprang to the table, opened the cardboard box, whipped off the top
+layer of cotton-wool, and took out a shining bomb.
+
+He sprang to the wall, pressed the button, the bookshelf glided slowly
+to one side, the lift rose to the level of the floor and its doors flew
+open just as the detectives rushed in.
+
+"Collar him!" yelled Guerchard.
+
+"Stand back--hands up!" cried Lupin, in a terrible voice, raising his
+right hand high above his head. "You know what this is ... a bomb....
+Come and collar me now, you swine! ... Hands up, you ... Guerchard!"
+
+"You silly funks!" roared Guerchard. "Do you think he'd dare?"
+
+"Come and see!" cried Lupin.
+
+"I will!" cried Guerchard. And he took a step forward.
+
+As one man his detectives threw themselves upon him. Three of them
+gripped his arms, a fourth gripped him round the waist; and they all
+shouted at him together, not to be a madman! ... To look at Lupin's
+eyes! ... That Lupin was off his head!
+
+"What miserable swine you are!" cried Lupin scornfully. He sprang
+forward, caught up the kit-bag in his left hand, and tossed it behind
+him into the lift. "You dirty crew!" he cried again. "Oh, why isn't
+there a photographer here? And now, Guerchard, you thief, give me back
+my pocket-book."
+
+"Never!" screamed Guerchard, struggling with his men, purple with fury.
+
+"Oh, Lord, master! Do be careful! Don't rile him!" cried Bonavent in an
+agony.
+
+"What? Do you want me to smash up the whole lot?" roared Lupin, in a
+furious, terrible voice. "Do I look as if I were bluffing, you fools?"
+
+"Let him have his way, master!" cried Dieusy.
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Bonavent.
+
+"Let him have his way!" cried another.
+
+"Give him his pocket-book!" cried a third.
+
+"Never!" howled Guerchard.
+
+"It's in his pocket--his breast-pocket! Be smart!" roared Lupin.
+
+"Come, come, it's got to be given to him," cried Bonavent. "Hold the
+master tight!" And he thrust his hand into the breast of Guerchard's
+coat, and tore out the pocket-book.
+
+"Throw it on the table!" cried Lupin.
+
+Bonavent threw it on to the table; and it slid along it right to Lupin.
+He caught it in his left hand, and slipped it into his pocket. "Good!"
+he said. And then he yelled ferociously, "Look out for the bomb!" and
+made a feint of throwing it.
+
+The whole group fell back with an odd, unanimous, sighing groan.
+
+Lupin sprang into the lift, and the doors closed over the opening.
+There was a great sigh of relief from the frightened detectives, and
+then the chunking of machinery as the lift sank.
+
+Their grip on Guerchard loosened. He shook himself free, and shouted,
+"After him! You've got to make up for this! Down into the cellars, some
+of you! Others go to the secret entrance! Others to the servants'
+entrance! Get into the street! Be smart! Dieusy, take the lift with me!"
+
+The others ran out of the room and down the stairs, but with no great
+heartiness, since their minds were still quite full of the bomb, and
+Lupin still had it with him. Guerchard and Dieusy dashed at the doors
+of the opening of the lift-well, pulling and wrenching at them.
+Suddenly there was a click; and they heard the grunting of the
+machinery. There was a little bump and a jerk, the doors flew open of
+themselves; and there was the lift, empty, ready for them. They jumped
+into it; Guerchard's quick eye caught the button, and he pressed it.
+The doors banged to, and, to his horror, the lift shot upwards about
+eight feet, and stuck between the floors.
+
+As the lift stuck, a second compartment, exactly like the one Guerchard
+and Dieusy were in, came up to the level of the floor of the
+smoking-room; the doors opened, and there was Lupin. But again how
+changed! The clothes of the Duke of Charmerace littered the floor; the
+kit-bag was open; and he was wearing the very clothes of
+Chief-Inspector Guerchard, his seedy top-hat, his cloak. He wore also
+Guerchard's sparse, lank, black hair, his little, bristling, black
+moustache. His figure, hidden by the cloak, seemed to have shrunk to
+the size of Guerchard's.
+
+He sat before a mirror in the wall of the lift, a make-up box on the
+seat beside him. He darkened his eyebrows, and put a line or two about
+his eyes. That done he looked at himself earnestly for two or three
+minutes; and, as he looked, a truly marvellous transformation took
+place: the features of Arsene Lupin, of the Duke of Charmerace,
+decomposed, actually decomposed, into the features of Jean Guerchard.
+He looked at himself and laughed, the gentle, husky laugh of Guerchard.
+
+He rose, transferred the pocket-book to the coat he was wearing, picked
+up the bomb, came out into the smoking-room, and listened. A muffled
+roaring thumping came from the well of the lift. It almost sounded as
+if, in their exasperation, Guerchard and Dieusy were engaged in a
+struggle to the death. Smiling pleasantly, he stole to the window and
+looked out. His eyes brightened at the sight of the motor-car,
+Guerchard's car, waiting just before the front door and in charge of a
+policeman. He stole to the head of the stairs, and looked down into the
+hall. Victoire was sitting huddled together on a chair; Sonia stood
+beside her, talking to her in a low voice; and, keeping guard on
+Victoire, stood a brown-faced, active, nervous policeman, all
+alertness, briskness, keenness.
+
+"Hi! officer! come up here! Be smart," cried Lupin over the bannisters,
+in the husky, gentle voice of Chief-Inspector Guerchard.
+
+The policeman looked up, recognized the great detective, and came
+bounding zealously up the stairs.
+
+Lupin led the way through the anteroom into the sitting-room. Then he
+said sharply: "You have your revolver?"
+
+"Yes," said the young policeman. And he drew it with a flourish.
+
+"Put it away! Put it away at once!" said Lupin very smartly. "You're
+not to use it. You're not to use it on any account! You understand?"
+
+"Yes," said the policeman firmly; and with a slightly bewildered air he
+put the revolver away.
+
+"Here! Stand here!" cried Lupin, raising his voice. And he caught the
+policeman's arm, and hustled him roughly to the front of the doors of
+the lift-well. "Do you see these doors? Do you see them?" he snapped.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the policeman, glaring at them.
+
+"They're the doors of a lift," said Lupin. "In that lift are Dieusy and
+Lupin. You know Dieusy?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the policeman.
+
+"There are only Dieusy and Lupin in the lift. They are struggling
+together. You can hear them," shouted Lupin in the policeman's ear.
+"Lupin is disguised. You understand--Dieusy and a disguised man are in
+the lift. The disguised man is Lupin. Directly the lift descends and
+the doors open, throw yourself on him! Hold him! Shout for assistance!"
+He almost bellowed the last words into the policeman's ear.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the policeman. And he braced himself before the doors
+of the lift-well, gazing at them with harried eyes, as if he expected
+them to bite him.
+
+"Be brave! Be ready to die in the discharge of your duty!" bellowed
+Lupin; and he walked out of the room, shut the door, and turned the key.
+
+The policeman stood listening to the noise of the struggle in the lift,
+himself strung up to fighting point; he was panting. Lupin's
+instructions were whirling and dancing in his head.
+
+Lupin went quietly down the stairs. Victoire and Sonia saw him coming.
+Victoire rose; and as he came to the bottom of the stairs Sonia stepped
+forward and said in an anxious, pleading voice:
+
+"Oh, M. Guerchard, where is he?"
+
+"He's here," said Lupin, in his natural voice.
+
+Sonia sprang to him with outstretched arms.
+
+"It's you! It IS you!" she cried.
+
+"Just look how like him I am!" said Lupin, laughing triumphantly. "But
+do I look quite ruffian enough?"
+
+"Oh, NO! You couldn't!" cried Sonia.
+
+"Isn't he a wonder?" said Victoire.
+
+"This time the Duke of Charmerace is dead, for good and all," said
+Lupin.
+
+"No; it's Lupin that's dead," said Sonia softly.
+
+"Lupin?" he said, surprised.
+
+"Yes," said Sonia firmly.
+
+"It would be a terrible loss, you know--a loss for France," said Lupin
+gravely.
+
+"Never mind," said Sonia.
+
+"Oh, I must be in love with you!" said Lupin, in a wondering tone; and
+he put his arm round her and kissed her violently.
+
+"And you won't steal any more?" said Sonia, holding him back with both
+hands on his shoulders, looking into his eyes.
+
+"I shouldn't dream of such a thing," said Lupin. "You are here.
+Guerchard is in the lift. What more could I possibly desire?" His voice
+softened and grew infinitely caressing as he went on: "Yet when you are
+at my side I shall always have the soul of a lover and the soul of a
+thief. I long to steal your kisses, your thoughts, the whole of your
+heart. Ah, Sonia, if you want me to steal nothing else, you have only
+to stay by my side."
+
+Their lips met in a long kiss.
+
+Sonia drew herself out of his arms and cried, "But we're wasting time!
+We must make haste! We must fly!"
+
+"Fly?" said Lupin sharply. "No, thank you; never again. I did flying
+enough last night to last me a lifetime. For the rest of my life I'm
+going to crawl--crawl like a snail. But come along, you two, I must
+take you to the police-station."
+
+He opened the front door, and they came out on the steps. The policeman
+in charge of the car saluted.
+
+Lupin paused and said softly: "Hark! I hear the sound of wedding bells."
+
+They went down the steps.
+
+Even as they were getting into the car some chance blow of Guerchard or
+Dieusy struck a hidden spring and released the lift. It sank to the
+level of Lupin's smoking-room and stopped. The doors flew open, Dieusy
+and Guerchard sprang out of it; and on the instant the brown-faced,
+nervous policeman sprang actively on Guerchard and pinned him. Taken by
+surprise, Guerchard yelled loudly, "You stupid idiot!" somehow
+entangled his legs in those of his captor, and they rolled on the
+floor. Dieusy surveyed them for a moment with blank astonishment. Then,
+with swift intelligence, grasped the fact that the policeman was Lupin
+in disguise. He sprang upon them, tore them asunder, fell heavily on
+the policeman, and pinned him to the floor with a strangling hand on
+his throat.
+
+Guerchard dashed to the door, tried it, and found it locked, dashed for
+the window, threw it open, and thrust out his head. Forty yards down
+the street a motor-car was rolling smoothly away--rolling to a
+honeymoon.
+
+"Oh, hang it!" he screamed. "He's doing a bunk in my motor-car!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Arsene Lupin, by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSENE LUPIN ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupinvsherlocksholmes b/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupinvsherlocksholmes
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/arsenelupinvsherlocksholmes
@@ -0,0 +1,9480 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes, by Maurice LeBlanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes
+
+Author: Maurice LeBlanc
+
+Translator: George Moorehead
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2012 [EBook #40203]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSENE LUPIN VS HERLOCK SHOLMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sr Bianca Tempt & Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin
+
+ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+VERSUS HERLOCK SHOLMES
+
+BY
+
+MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+Translated from the French
+
+By GEORGE MOREHEAD
+
+M.A. DONOHUE & CO.
+
+CHICAGO
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   CHAPTER I. Lottery Ticket No. 514
+   CHAPTER II. The Blue Diamond
+   CHAPTER III. Herlock Sholmes Opens Hostilities
+   CHAPTER IV. Light in the Darkness
+   CHAPTER V. An Abduction
+   CHAPTER VI. Second Arrest of Arsène Lupin
+   CHAPTER VII. The Jewish Lamp
+   CHAPTER VIII. The Shipwreck
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+LOTTERY TICKET NO. 514.
+
+
+On the eighth day of last December, Mon. Gerbois, professor of
+mathematics at the College of Versailles, while rummaging in an old
+curiosity-shop, unearthed a small mahogany writing-desk which pleased
+him very much on account of the multiplicity of its drawers.
+
+"Just the thing for Suzanne's birthday present," thought he. And as he
+always tried to furnish some simple pleasures for his daughter,
+consistent with his modest income, he enquired the price, and, after
+some keen bargaining, purchased it for sixty-five francs. As he was
+giving his address to the shopkeeper, a young man, dressed with elegance
+and taste, who had been exploring the stock of antiques, caught sight
+of the writing-desk, and immediately enquired its price.
+
+"It is sold," replied the shopkeeper.
+
+"Ah! to this gentleman, I presume?"
+
+Monsieur Gerbois bowed, and left the store, quite proud to be the
+possessor of an article which had attracted the attention of a gentleman
+of quality. But he had not taken a dozen steps in the street, when he
+was overtaken by the young man who, hat in hand and in a tone of perfect
+courtesy, thus addressed him:
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur; I am going to ask you a question that you
+may deem impertinent. It is this: Did you have any special object in
+view when you bought that writing-desk?"
+
+"No, I came across it by chance and it struck my fancy."
+
+"But you do not care for it particularly?"
+
+"Oh! I shall keep it--that is all."
+
+"Because it is an antique, perhaps?"
+
+"No; because it is convenient," declared Mon. Gerbois.
+
+"In that case, you would consent to exchange it for another desk that
+would be quite as convenient and in better condition?"
+
+"Oh! this one is in good condition, and I see no object in making an
+exchange."
+
+"But----"
+
+Mon. Gerbois is a man of irritable disposition and hasty temper. So he
+replied, testily:
+
+"I beg of you, monsieur, do not insist."
+
+But the young man firmly held his ground.
+
+"I don't know how much you paid for it, monsieur, but I offer you
+double."
+
+"No."
+
+"Three times the amount."
+
+"Oh! that will do," exclaimed the professor, impatiently; "I don't wish
+to sell it."
+
+The young man stared at him for a moment in a manner that Mon. Gerbois
+would not readily forget, then turned and walked rapidly away.
+
+An hour later, the desk was delivered at the professor's house on the
+Viroflay road. He called his daughter, and said:
+
+"Here is something for you, Suzanne, provided you like it."
+
+Suzanne was a pretty girl, with a gay and affectionate nature. She threw
+her arms around her father's neck and kissed him rapturously. To her,
+the desk had all the semblance of a royal gift. That evening, assisted
+by Hortense, the servant, she placed the desk in her room; then she
+dusted it, cleaned the drawers and pigeon-holes, and carefully arranged
+within it her papers, writing material, correspondence, a collection of
+post-cards, and some souvenirs of her cousin Philippe that she kept in
+secret.
+
+Next morning, at half past seven, Mon. Gerbois went to the college. At
+ten o'clock, in pursuance of her usual custom, Suzanne went to meet him,
+and it was a great pleasure for him to see her slender figure and
+childish smile waiting for him at the college gate. They returned home
+together.
+
+"And your writing desk--how is it this morning?"
+
+"Marvellous! Hortense and I have polished the brass mountings until they
+look like gold."
+
+"So you are pleased with it?"
+
+"Pleased with it! Why, I don't see how I managed to get on without it
+for such a long time."
+
+As they were walking up the pathway to the house, Mon. Gerbois said:
+
+"Shall we go and take a look at it before breakfast?"
+
+"Oh! yes, that's a splendid idea!"
+
+She ascended the stairs ahead of her father, but, on arriving at the
+door of her room, she uttered a cry of surprise and dismay.
+
+"What's the matter?" stammered Mon. Gerbois.
+
+"The writing-desk is gone!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the police were called in, they were astonished at the admirable
+simplicity of the means employed by the thief. During Suzanne's absence,
+the servant had gone to market, and while the house was thus left
+unguarded, a drayman, wearing a badge--some of the neighbors saw
+it--stopped his cart in front of the house and rang twice. Not knowing
+that Hortense was absent, the neighbors were not suspicious;
+consequently, the man carried on his work in peace and tranquility.
+
+Apart from the desk, not a thing in the house had been disturbed. Even
+Suzanne's purse, which she had left upon the writing-desk, was found
+upon an adjacent table with its contents untouched. It was obvious that
+the thief had come with a set purpose, which rendered the crime even
+more mysterious; because, why did he assume so great a risk for such a
+trifling object?
+
+The only clue the professor could furnish was the strange incident of
+the preceding evening. He declared:
+
+"The young man was greatly provoked at my refusal, and I had an idea
+that he threatened me as he went away."
+
+But the clue was a vague one. The shopkeeper could not throw any light
+on the affair. He did not know either of the gentlemen. As to the desk
+itself, he had purchased it for forty francs at an executor's sale at
+Chevreuse, and believed he had resold it at its fair value. The police
+investigation disclosed nothing more.
+
+But Mon. Gerbois entertained the idea that he had suffered an enormous
+loss. There must have been a fortune concealed in a secret drawer, and
+that was the reason the young man had resorted to crime.
+
+"My poor father, what would we have done with that fortune?" asked
+Suzanne.
+
+"My child! with such a fortune, you could make a most advantageous
+marriage."
+
+Suzanne sighed bitterly. Her aspirations soared no higher than her
+cousin Philippe, who was indeed a most deplorable object. And life, in
+the little house at Versailles, was not so happy and contented as of
+yore.
+
+Two months passed away. Then came a succession of startling events, a
+strange blending of good luck and dire misfortune!
+
+On the first day of February, at half-past five, Mon. Gerbois entered
+the house, carrying an evening paper, took a seat, put on his
+spectacles, and commenced to read. As politics did not interest him, he
+turned to the inside of the paper. Immediately his attention was
+attracted by an article entitled:
+
+"Third Drawing of the Press Association Lottery.
+
+"No. 514, series 23, draws a million."
+
+The newspaper slipped from his fingers. The walls swam before his eyes,
+and his heart ceased to beat. He held No. 514, series 23. He had
+purchased it from a friend, to oblige him, without any thought of
+success, and behold, it was the lucky number!
+
+Quickly, he took out his memorandum-book. Yes, he was quite right. The
+No. 514, series 23, was written there, on the inside of the cover. But
+the ticket?
+
+He rushed to his desk to find the envelope-box in which he had placed
+the precious ticket; but the box was not there, and it suddenly occurred
+to him that it had not been there for several weeks. He heard footsteps
+on the gravel walk leading from the street.
+
+He called:
+
+"Suzanne! Suzanne!"
+
+She was returning from a walk. She entered hastily. He stammered, in a
+choking voice:
+
+"Suzanne ... the box ... the box of envelopes?"
+
+"What box?"
+
+"The one I bought at the Louvre ... one Saturday ... it was at the end
+of that table."
+
+"Don't you remember, father, we put all those things away together."
+
+"When?"
+
+"The evening ... you know ... the same evening...."
+
+"But where?... Tell me, quick!... Where?"
+
+"Where? Why, in the writing-desk."
+
+"In the writing-desk that was stolen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, mon Dieu!... In the stolen desk!"
+
+He uttered the last sentence in a low voice, in a sort of stupor. Then
+he seized her hand, and in a still lower voice, he said:
+
+"It contained a million, my child."
+
+"Ah! father, why didn't you tell me?" she murmured, naively.
+
+"A million!" he repeated. "It contained the ticket that drew the grand
+prize in the Press Lottery."
+
+The colossal proportions of the disaster overwhelmed them, and for a
+long time they maintained a silence that they feared to break. At last,
+Suzanne said:
+
+"But, father, they will pay you just the same."
+
+"How? On what proof?"
+
+"Must you have proof?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"And you haven't any?"
+
+"It was in the box."
+
+"In the box that has disappeared."
+
+"Yes; and now the thief will get the money."
+
+"Oh! that would be terrible, father. You must prevent it."
+
+For a moment he was silent; then, in an outburst of energy, he leaped
+up, stamped on the floor, and exclaimed:
+
+"No, no, he shall not have that million; he shall not have it! Why
+should he have it? Ah! clever as he is, he can do nothing. If he goes to
+claim the money, they will arrest him. Ah! now, we will see, my fine
+fellow!"
+
+"What will you do, father?"
+
+"Defend our just rights, whatever happens! And we will succeed. The
+million francs belong to me, and I intend to have them."
+
+A few minutes later, he sent this telegram:
+
+     "Governor Crédit Foncier
+
+     "rue Capucines, Paris.
+
+     "Am holder of No. 514, series 23. Oppose by all legal means any
+     other claimant.
+
+     "GERBOIS."
+
+Almost at the same moment, the Crédit Foncier received the following
+telegram:
+
+     "No. 514, series 23, is in my possession.
+
+     "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every time I undertake to relate one of the many extraordinary
+adventures that mark the life of Arsène Lupin, I experience a feeling of
+embarrassment, as it seems to me that the most commonplace of those
+adventures is already well known to my readers. In fact, there is not a
+movement of our "national thief," as he has been so aptly described,
+that has not been given the widest publicity, not an exploit that has
+not been studied in all its phases, not an action that has not been
+discussed with that particularity usually reserved for the recital of
+heroic deeds.
+
+For instance, who does not know the strange history of "The Blonde
+Lady," with those curious episodes which were proclaimed by the
+newspapers with heavy black headlines, as follows: "Lottery Ticket No.
+514!" ... "The Crime on the Avenue Henri-Martin!" ... "The Blue
+Diamond!" ... The interest created by the intervention of the celebrated
+English detective, Herlock Sholmes! The excitement aroused by the
+various vicissitudes which marked the struggle between those famous
+artists! And what a commotion on the boulevards, the day on which the
+newsboys announced: "Arrest of Arsène Lupin!"
+
+My excuse for repeating these stories at this time is the fact that I
+produce the key to the enigma. Those adventures have always been
+enveloped in a certain degree of obscurity, which I now remove. I
+reproduce old newspaper articles, I relate old-time interviews, I
+present ancient letters; but I have arranged and classified all that
+material and reduced it to the exact truth. My collaborators in this
+work have been Arsène Lupin himself, and also the ineffable Wilson, the
+friend and confidant of Herlock Sholmes.
+
+Every one will recall the tremendous burst of laughter which greeted the
+publication of those two telegrams. The name "Arsène Lupin" was in
+itself a stimulus to curiosity, a promise of amusement for the gallery.
+And, in this case, the gallery means the entire world.
+
+An investigation was immediately commenced by the Crédit Foncier, which
+established these facts: That ticket No. 514, series 23, had been sold
+by the Versailles branch office of the Lottery to an artillery officer
+named Bessy, who was afterward killed by a fall from his horse. Some
+time before his death, he informed some of his comrades that he had
+transferred his ticket to a friend.
+
+"And I am that friend," affirmed Mon. Gerbois.
+
+"Prove it," replied the governor of the Crédit Foncier.
+
+"Of course I can prove it. Twenty people can tell you that I was an
+intimate friend of Monsieur Bessy, and that we frequently met at the
+Café de la Place-d'Armes. It was there, one day, I purchased the ticket
+from him for twenty francs--simply as an accommodation to him.
+
+"Have you any witnesses to that transaction?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, how do you expect to prove it?"
+
+"By a letter he wrote to me."
+
+"What letter?"
+
+"A letter that was pinned to the ticket."
+
+"Produce it."
+
+"It was stolen at the same time as the ticket."
+
+"Well, you must find it."
+
+It was soon learned that Arsène Lupin had the letter. A short paragraph
+appeared in the _Echo de France_--which has the honor to be his official
+organ, and of which, it is said, he is one of the principal
+shareholders--the paragraph announced that Arsène Lupin had placed in
+the hands of Monsieur Detinan, his advocate and legal adviser, the
+letter that Monsieur Bessy had written to him--to him personally.
+
+This announcement provoked an outburst of laughter. Arsène Lupin had
+engaged a lawyer! Arsène Lupin, conforming to the rules and customs of
+modern society, had appointed a legal representative in the person of a
+well-known member of the Parisian bar!
+
+Mon. Detinan had never enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Arsène Lupin--a
+fact he deeply regretted--but he had actually been retained by that
+mysterious gentleman and felt greatly honored by the choice. He was
+prepared to defend the interests of his client to the best of his
+ability. He was pleased, even proud, to exhibit the letter of Mon.
+Bessy, but, although it proved the transfer of the ticket, it did not
+mention the name of the purchaser. It was simply addressed to "My Dear
+Friend."
+
+"My Dear Friend! that is I," added Arsène Lupin, in a note attached to
+Mon. Bessy's letter. "And the best proof of that fact is that I hold the
+letter."
+
+The swarm of reporters immediately rushed to see Mon. Gerbois, who could
+only repeat:
+
+"My Dear Friend! that is I.... Arsène Lupin stole the letter with the
+lottery ticket."
+
+"Let him prove it!" retorted Lupin to the reporters.
+
+"He must have done it, because he stole the writing-desk!" exclaimed
+Mon. Gerbois before the same reporters.
+
+"Let him prove it!" replied Lupin.
+
+Such was the entertaining comedy enacted by the two claimants of ticket
+No. 514; and the calm demeanor of Arsène Lupin contrasted strangely with
+the nervous perturbation of poor Mon. Gerbois. The newspapers were
+filled with the lamentations of that unhappy man. He announced his
+misfortune with pathetic candor.
+
+"Understand, gentlemen, it was Suzanne's dowry that the rascal stole!
+Personally, I don't care a straw for it,... but for Suzanne! Just think
+of it, a whole million! Ten times one hundred thousand francs! Ah! I
+knew very well that the desk contained a treasure!"
+
+It was in vain to tell him that his adversary, when stealing the desk,
+was unaware that the lottery ticket was in it, and that, in any event,
+he could not foresee that the ticket would draw the grand prize. He
+would reply;
+
+"Nonsense! of course, he knew it ... else why would he take the trouble
+to steal a poor, miserable desk?"
+
+"For some unknown reason; but certainly not for a small scrap of paper
+which was then worth only twenty francs."
+
+"A million francs! He knew it;... he knows everything! Ah! you do not
+know him--the scoundrel!... He hasn't robbed you of a million francs!"
+
+The controversy would have lasted for a much longer time, but, on the
+twelfth day, Mon. Gerbois received from Arsène Lupin a letter, marked
+"confidential," which read as follows:
+
+     "Monsieur, the gallery is being amused at our expense. Do you not
+     think it is time for us to be serious? The situation is this: I
+     possess a ticket to which I have no legal right, and you have the
+     legal right to a ticket you do not possess. Neither of us can do
+     anything. You will not relinquish your rights to me; I will not
+     deliver the ticket to you. Now, what is to be done?
+
+     "I see only one way out of the difficulty: Let us divide the
+     spoils. A half-million for you; a half-million for me. Is not that
+     a fair division? In my opinion, it is an equitable solution, and an
+     immediate one. I will give you three days' time to consider the
+     proposition. On Thursday morning I shall expect to read in the
+     personal column of the Echo de France a discreet message addressed
+     to _M. Ars. Lup_, expressing in veiled terms your consent to my
+     offer. By so doing you will recover immediate possession of the
+     ticket; then you can collect the money and send me half a million
+     in a manner that I will describe to you later.
+
+     "In case of your refusal, I shall resort to other measures to
+     accomplish the same result. But, apart from the very serious
+     annoyances that such obstinacy on your part will cause you, it will
+     cost you twenty-five thousand francs for supplementary expenses.
+
+     "Believe me, monsieur, I remain your devoted servant, ARSÈNE
+     LUPIN."
+
+In a fit of exasperation Mon. Gerbois committed the grave mistake of
+showing that letter and allowing a copy of it to be taken. His
+indignation overcame his discretion.
+
+"Nothing! He shall have nothing!" he exclaimed, before a crowd of
+reporters. "To divide my property with him? Never! Let him tear up the
+ticket if he wishes!"
+
+"Yet five hundred thousand francs is better than nothing."
+
+"That is not the question. It is a question of my just right, and that
+right I will establish before the courts."
+
+"What! attack Arsène Lupin? That would be amusing."
+
+"No; but the Crédit Foncier. They must pay me the million francs."
+
+"Without producing the ticket, or, at least, without proving that you
+bought it?"
+
+"That proof exists, since Arsène Lupin admits that he stole the
+writing-desk."
+
+"But would the word of Arsène Lupin carry any weight with the court?"
+
+"No matter; I will fight it out."
+
+The gallery shouted with glee; and wagers were freely made upon the
+result with the odds in favor of Lupin. On the following Thursday the
+personal column in the _Echo de France_ was eagerly perused by the
+expectant public, but it contained nothing addressed to _M. Ars. Lup_.
+Mon. Gerbois had not replied to Arsène Lupin's letter. That was the
+declaration of war.
+
+That evening the newspapers announced the abduction of Mlle. Suzanne
+Gerbois.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most entertaining feature in what might be called the Arsène Lupin
+dramas is the comic attitude displayed by the Parisian police. Arsène
+Lupin talks, plans, writes, commands, threatens and executes as if the
+police did not exist. They never figure in his calculations.
+
+And yet the police do their utmost. But what can they do against such a
+foe--a foe that scorns and ignores them?
+
+Suzanne had left the house at twenty minutes to ten; such was the
+testimony of the servant. On leaving the college, at five minutes past
+ten, her father did not find her at the place she was accustomed to wait
+for him. Consequently, whatever had happened must have occurred during
+the course of Suzanne's walk from the house to the college. Two
+neighbors had met her about three hundred yards from the house. A lady
+had seen, on the avenue, a young girl corresponding to Suzanne's
+description. No one else had seen her.
+
+Inquiries were made in all directions; the employees of the railways and
+street-car lines were questioned, but none of them had seen anything of
+the missing girl. However, at Ville-d'Avray, they found a shopkeeper who
+had furnished gasoline to an automobile that had come from Paris on the
+day of the abduction. It was occupied by a blonde woman--extremely
+blonde, said the witness. An hour later, the automobile again passed
+through Ville-d'Avray on its way from Versailles to Paris. The
+shopkeeper declared that the automobile now contained a second woman
+who was heavily veiled. No doubt, it was Suzanne Gerbois.
+
+The abduction must have taken place in broad daylight, on a frequented
+street, in the very heart of the town. How? And at what spot? Not a cry
+was heard; not a suspicious action had been seen. The shopkeeper
+described the automobile as a royal-blue limousine of twenty-four
+horse-power made by the firm of Peugeon & Co. Inquiries were then made
+at the Grand-Garage, managed by Madame Bob-Walthour, who made a
+specialty of abductions by automobile. It was learned that she had
+rented a Peugeon limousine on that day to a blonde woman whom she had
+never seen before nor since.
+
+"Who was the chauffeur?"
+
+"A young man named Ernest, whom I had engaged only the day before. He
+came well recommended."
+
+"Is he here now?"
+
+"No. He brought back the machine, but I haven't seen him since," said
+Madame Bob-Walthour.
+
+"Do you know where we can find him?"
+
+"You might see the people who recommended him to me. Here are the
+names."
+
+Upon inquiry, it was learned that none of these people knew the man
+called Ernest. The recommendations were forged.
+
+Such was the fate of every clue followed by the police. It ended
+nowhere. The mystery remained unsolved.
+
+Mon. Gerbois had not the strength or courage to wage such an unequal
+battle. The disappearance of his daughter crushed him; he capitulated
+to the enemy. A short announcement in the _Echo de France_ proclaimed
+his unconditional surrender.
+
+Two days later, Mon. Gerbois visited the office of the Crédit Foncier
+and handed lottery ticket number 514, series 23, to the governor, who
+exclaimed, with surprise:
+
+"Ah! you have it! He has returned it to you!"
+
+"It was mislaid. That was all," replied Mon. Gerbois.
+
+"But you pretended that it had been stolen."
+
+"At first, I thought it had ... but here it is."
+
+"We will require some evidence to establish your right to the ticket."
+
+"Will the letter of the purchaser, Monsieur Bessy, be sufficient!"
+
+"Yes, that will do."
+
+"Here it is," said Mon. Gerbois, producing the letter.
+
+"Very well. Leave these papers with us. The rules of the lottery allow
+us fifteen days' time to investigate your claim. I will let you know
+when to call for your money. I presume you desire, as much as I do, that
+this affair should be closed without further publicity."
+
+"Quite so."
+
+Mon. Gerbois and the governor henceforth maintained a discreet silence.
+But the secret was revealed in some way, for it was soon commonly known
+that Arsène Lupin had returned the lottery ticket to Mon. Gerbois. The
+public received the news with astonishment and admiration. Certainly, he
+was a bold gamester who thus threw upon the table a trump card of such
+importance as the precious ticket. But, it was true, he still retained a
+trump card of equal importance. However, if the young girl should
+escape? If the hostage held by Arsène Lupin should be rescued?
+
+The police thought they had discovered the weak spot of the enemy, and
+now redoubled their efforts. Arsène Lupin disarmed by his own act,
+crushed by the wheels of his own machination, deprived of every sou of
+the coveted million ... public interest now centered in the camp of his
+adversary.
+
+But it was necessary to find Suzanne. And they did not find her, nor did
+she escape. Consequently, it must be admitted, Arsène Lupin had won the
+first hand. But the game was not yet decided. The most difficult point
+remained. Mlle. Gerbois is in his possession, and he will hold her until
+he receives five hundred thousand francs. But how and where will such an
+exchange be made? For that purpose, a meeting must be arranged, and then
+what will prevent Mon. Gerbois from warning the police and, in that way,
+effecting the rescue of his daughter and, at the same time, keeping his
+money? The professor was interviewed, but he was extremely reticent. His
+answer was:
+
+"I have nothing to say."
+
+"And Mlle. Gerbois?"
+
+"The search is being continued."
+
+"But Arsène Lupin has written to you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Do you swear to that?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then it is true. What are his instructions?"
+
+"I have nothing to say."
+
+Then the interviewers attacked Mon. Detinan, and found him equally
+discreet.
+
+"Monsieur Lupin is my client, and I cannot discuss his affairs," he
+replied, with an affected air of gravity.
+
+These mysteries served to irritate the gallery. Obviously, some secret
+negotiations were in progress. Arsène Lupin had arranged and tightened
+the meshes of his net, while the police maintained a close watch, day
+and night, over Mon. Gerbois. And the three and only possible
+dénouements--the arrest, the triumph, or the ridiculous and pitiful
+abortion--were freely discussed; but the curiosity of the public was
+only partially satisfied, and it was reserved for these pages to reveal
+the exact truth of the affair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Monday, March 12th, Mon. Gerbois received a notice from the Crédit
+Foncier. On Wednesday, he took the one o'clock train for Paris. At two
+o'clock, a thousand bank-notes of one thousand francs each were
+delivered to him. Whilst he was counting them, one by one, in a state of
+nervous agitation--that money, which represented Suzanne's ransom--a
+carriage containing two men stopped at the curb a short distance from
+the bank. One of the men had grey hair and an unusually shrewd
+expression which formed a striking contrast to his shabby make-up. It
+was Detective Ganimard, the relentless enemy of Arsène Lupin. Ganimard
+said to his companion, Folenfant:
+
+"In five minutes, we will see our clever friend Lupin. Is everything
+ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How many men have we?"
+
+"Eight--two of them on bicycles."
+
+"Enough, but not too many. On no account, must Gerbois escape us; if he
+does, it is all up. He will meet Lupin at the appointed place, give half
+a million in exchange for the girl, and the game will be over."
+
+"But why doesn't Gerbois work with us? That would be the better way, and
+he could keep all the money himself."
+
+"Yes, but he is afraid that if he deceives the other, he will not get
+his daughter."
+
+"What other?"
+
+"Lupin."
+
+Ganimard pronounced the word in a solemn tone, somewhat timidly, as if
+he were speaking of some supernatural creature whose claws he already
+felt.
+
+"It is very strange," remarked Folenfant, judiciously, "that we are
+obliged to protect this gentleman contrary to his own wishes."
+
+"Yes, but Lupin always turns the world upside down," said Ganimard,
+mournfully.
+
+A moment later, Mon. Gerbois appeared, and started up the street. At the
+end of the rue des Capucines, he turned into the boulevards, walking
+slowly, and stopping frequently to gaze at the shop-windows.
+
+"Much too calm, too self-possessed," said Ganimard. "A man with a
+million in his pocket would not have that air of tranquillity."
+
+"What is he doing?"
+
+"Oh! nothing, evidently.... But I have a suspicion that it is
+Lupin--yes, Lupin!"
+
+At that moment, Mon. Gerbois stopped at a news-stand, purchased a paper,
+unfolded it and commenced to read it as he walked slowly away. A moment
+later, he gave a sudden bound into an automobile that was standing at
+the curb. Apparently, the machine had been waiting for him, as it
+started away rapidly, turned at the Madeleine and disappeared.
+
+"Nom de nom!" cried Ganimard, "that's one of his old tricks!"
+
+Ganimard hastened after the automobile around the Madeleine. Then, he
+burst into laughter. At the entrance to the Boulevard Malesherbes, the
+automobile had stopped and Mon. Gerbois had alighted.
+
+"Quick, Folenfant, the chauffeur! It may be the man Ernest."
+
+Folenfant interviewed the chauffeur. His name was Gaston; he was an
+employee of the automobile cab company; ten minutes ago, a gentleman had
+engaged him and told him to wait near the news-stand for another
+gentleman.
+
+"And the second man--what address did he give?" asked Folenfant.
+
+"No address. 'Boulevard Malesherbes ... avenue de Messine ... double
+pourboire.' That is all."
+
+But, during this time, Mon. Gerbois had leaped into the first passing
+carriage.
+
+"To the Concorde station, Metropolitan," he said to the driver.
+
+He left the underground at the Place du Palais-Royal, ran to another
+carriage and ordered it to go to the Place de la Bourse. Then a second
+journey by the underground to the Avenue de Villiers, followed by a
+third carriage drive to number 25 rue Clapeyron.
+
+Number 25 rue Clapeyron is separated from the Boulevard des Batignolles
+by the house which occupies the angle formed by the two streets. He
+ascended to the first floor and rang. A gentleman opened the door.
+
+"Does Monsieur Detinan live here?"
+
+"Yes, that is my name. Are you Monsieur Gerbois?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I was expecting you. Step in."
+
+As Mon. Gerbois entered the lawyer's office, the clock struck three. He
+said:
+
+"I am prompt to the minute. Is he here?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+Mon. Gerbois took a seat, wiped his forehead, looked at his watch as if
+he did not know the time, and inquired, anxiously:
+
+"Will he come?"
+
+"Well, monsieur," replied the lawyer, "that I do not know, but I am
+quite as anxious and impatient as you are to find out. If he comes, he
+will run a great risk, as this house has been closely watched for the
+last two weeks. They distrust me."
+
+"They suspect me, too. I am not sure whether the detectives lost sight
+of me or not on my way here."
+
+"But you were--"
+
+"It wouldn't be my fault," cried the professor, quickly. "You cannot
+reproach me. I promised to obey his orders, and I followed them to the
+very letter. I drew the money at the time fixed by him, and I came here
+in the manner directed by him. I have faithfully performed my part of
+the agreement--let him do his!"
+
+After a short silence, he asked, anxiously:
+
+"He will bring my daughter, won't he?"
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"But ... you have seen him?"
+
+"I? No, not yet. He made the appointment by letter, saying both of you
+would be here, and asking me to dismiss my servants before three o'clock
+and admit no one while you were here. If I would not consent to that
+arrangement, I was to notify him by a few words in _the Echo de France_.
+But I am only too happy to oblige Mon. Lupin, and so I consented."
+
+"Ah! how will this end?" moaned Mon. Gerbois.
+
+He took the bank-notes from his pocket, placed them on the table and
+divided them into two equal parts. Then the two men sat there in
+silence. From time to time, Mon. Gerbois would listen. Did someone
+ring?... His nervousness increased every minute, and Monsieur Detinan
+also displayed considerable anxiety. At last, the lawyer lost his
+patience. He rose abruptly, and said:
+
+"He will not come.... We shouldn't expect it. It would be folly on his
+part. He would run too great a risk."
+
+And Mon. Gerbois, despondent, his hands resting on the bank-notes,
+stammered:
+
+"Oh! Mon Dieu! I hope he will come. I would give the whole of that money
+to see my daughter again."
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Half of it will be sufficient, Monsieur Gerbois."
+
+These words were spoken by a well-dressed young man who now entered the
+room and was immediately recognized by Mon. Gerbois as the person who
+had wished to buy the desk from him at Versailles. He rushed toward him.
+
+"Where is my daughter--my Suzanne?"
+
+Arsène Lupin carefully closed the door, and, while slowly removing his
+gloves, said to the lawyer:
+
+"My dear maître, I am indebted to you very much for your kindness in
+consenting to defend my interests. I shall not forget it."
+
+Mon. Detinan murmured:
+
+"But you did not ring. I did not hear the door--"
+
+"Doors and bells are things that should work without being heard. I am
+here, and that is the important point."
+
+"My daughter! Suzanne! Where is she!" repeated the professor.
+
+"Mon Dieu, monsieur," said Lupin, "what's your hurry? Your daughter will
+be here in a moment."
+
+Lupin walked to and fro for a minute, then, with the pompous air of an
+orator, he said:
+
+"Monsieur Gerbois, I congratulate you on the clever way in which you
+made the journey to this place."
+
+Then, perceiving the two piles of bank-notes, he exclaimed:
+
+"Ah! I see! the million is here. We will not lose any time. Permit me."
+
+"One moment," said the lawyer, placing himself before the table. "Mlle.
+Gerbois has not yet arrived."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Is not her presence indispensable?"
+
+"I understand! I understand! Arsène Lupin inspires only a limited
+confidence. He might pocket the half-million and not restore the
+hostage. Ah! monsieur, people do not understand me. Because I have been
+obliged, by force of circumstances, to commit certain actions a little
+... out of the ordinary, my good faith is impugned ... I, who have
+always observed the utmost scrupulosity and delicacy in business
+affairs. Besides, my dear monsieur if you have any fear, open the window
+and call. There are at least a dozen detectives in the street."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+Arsène Lupin raised the curtain.
+
+"I think that Monsieur Gerbois could not throw Ganimard off the
+scent.... What did I tell you? There he is now."
+
+"Is it possible!" exclaimed the professor. "But I swear to you--"
+
+"That you have not betrayed me?... I do not doubt you, but those fellows
+are clever--sometimes. Ah! I can see Folenfant, and Greaume, and
+Dieuzy--all good friends of mine!"
+
+Mon. Detinan looked at Lupin in amazement. What assurance! He laughed as
+merrily as if engaged in some childish sport, as if no danger threatened
+him. This unconcern reassured the lawyer more than the presence of the
+detectives. He left the table on which the bank-notes were lying. Arsène
+Lupin picked up one pile of bills after the other, took from each of
+them twenty-five bank-notes which he offered to Mon. Detinan, saying:
+
+"The reward of your services to Monsieur Gerbois and Arsène Lupin. You
+well deserve it."
+
+"You owe me nothing," replied the lawyer.
+
+"What! After all the trouble we have caused you!"
+
+"And all the pleasure you have given me!"
+
+"That means, my dear monsieur, that you do not wish to accept anything
+from Arsène Lupin. See what it is to have a bad reputation."
+
+He then offered the fifty thousand francs to Mon. Gerbois, saying:
+
+"Monsieur, in memory of our pleasant interview, permit me to return you
+this as a wedding-gift to Mlle. Gerbois."
+
+Mon. Gerbois took the money, but said:
+
+"My daughter will not marry."
+
+"She will not marry if you refuse your consent; but she wishes to
+marry."
+
+"What do you know about it?"
+
+"I know that young girls often dream of such things unknown to their
+parents. Fortunately, there are sometimes good genii like Arsène Lupin
+who discover their little secrets in the drawers of their writing
+desks."
+
+"Did you find anything else?" asked the lawyer. "I confess I am curious
+to know why you took so much trouble to get possession of that desk."
+
+"On account of its historic interest, my friend. Although despite the
+opinion of Monsieur Gerbois, the desk contained no treasure except the
+lottery ticket--and that was unknown to me--I had been seeking it for a
+long time. That writing-desk of yew and mahogany was discovered in the
+little house in which Marie Walêwska once lived in Boulogne, and, on one
+of the drawers there is this inscription: '_Dedicated to Napoleon I,
+Emperor of the French, by his very faithful servant, Mancion_.' And
+above it, these words, engraved with the point of a knife: 'To you,
+Marie.' Afterwards, Napoleon had a similar desk made for the Empress
+Josephine; so that the secretary that was so much admired at the
+Malmaison was only an imperfect copy of the one that will henceforth
+form part of my collection."
+
+"Ah! if I had known, when in the shop, I would gladly have given it up
+to you," said the professor.
+
+Arsène Lupin smiled, as he replied:
+
+"And you would have had the advantage of keeping for your own use
+lottery ticket number 514."
+
+"And you would not have found it necessary to abduct my daughter."
+
+"Abduct your daughter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My dear monsieur, you are mistaken. Mlle. Gerbois was not abducted."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Certainly not. Abduction means force or violence. And I assure you that
+she served as hostage of her own free will."
+
+"Of her own free will!" repeated Mon. Gerbois, in amazement.
+
+"In fact, she almost asked to be taken. Why, do you suppose that an
+intelligent young girl like Mlle. Gerbois, and who, moreover, nourishes
+an unacknowledged passion, would hesitate to do what was necessary to
+secure her dowry. Ah! I swear to you it was not difficult to make her
+understand that it was the only way to overcome your obstinacy."
+
+Mon. Detinan was greatly amused. He replied to Lupin:
+
+"But I should think it was more difficult to get her to listen to you.
+How did you approach her?"
+
+"Oh! I didn't approach her myself. I have not the honor of her
+acquaintance. A friend of mine, a lady, carried on the negotiations."
+
+"The blonde woman in the automobile, no doubt."
+
+"Precisely. All arrangements were made at the first interview near the
+college. Since then, Mlle. Gerbois and her new friend have been
+travelling in Belgium and Holland in a manner that should prove most
+pleasing and instructive to a young girl. She will tell you all about it
+herself--"
+
+The bell of the vestibule door rang, three rings in quick succession,
+followed by two isolated rings.
+
+"It is she," said Lupin. "Monsieur Detinan, if you will be so kind--"
+
+The lawyer hastened to the door.
+
+Two young women entered. One of them threw herself into the arms of Mon.
+Gerbois. The other approached Lupin. The latter was a tall woman of a
+good figure, very pale complexion, and with blond hair, parted over her
+forehead in undulating waves, that glistened and shone like the setting
+sun. She was dressed in black, with no display of jewelled ornaments;
+but, on the contrary, her appearance indicated good taste and refined
+elegance. Arsène Lupin spoke a few words to her; then, bowing to Mlle.
+Gerbois, he said:
+
+"I owe you an apology, mademoiselle, for all your troubles, but I hope
+you have not been too unhappy--"
+
+"Unhappy! Why, I should have been very happy, indeed, if it hadn't been
+for leaving my poor father."
+
+"Then all is for the best. Kiss him again, and take advantage of the
+opportunity--it is an excellent one--to speak to him about your cousin."
+
+"My cousin! What do you mean? I don't understand."
+
+"Of course, you understand. Your cousin Philippe. The young man whose
+letters you kept so carefully."
+
+Suzanne blushed; but, following Lupin's advice, she again threw herself
+into her father's arms. Lupin gazed upon them with a tender look.
+
+"Ah! Such is my reward for a virtuous act! What a touching picture! A
+happy father and a happy daughter! And to know that their joy is your
+work, Lupin! Hereafter these people will bless you, and reverently
+transmit your name unto their descendants, even unto the fourth
+generation. What a glorious reward, Lupin, for one act of kindness!"
+
+He walked to the window.
+
+"Is dear old Ganimard still waiting?... He would like very much to be
+present at this charming domestic scene!... Ah! he is not there.... Nor
+any of the others.... I don't see anyone. The deuce! The situation is
+becoming serious. I dare say they are already under the porte-cochere
+... talking to the concierge, perhaps ... or, even, ascending the
+stairs!"
+
+Mon. Gerbois made a sudden movement. Now, that his daughter had been
+restored to him, he saw the situation in a different light. To him, the
+arrest of his adversary meant half-a-million francs. Instinctively, he
+made a step forward. As if by chance, Lupin stood in his way.
+
+"Where are you going, Monsieur Gerbois? To defend me against them! That
+is very kind of you, but I assure you it is not necessary. They are more
+worried than I."
+
+Then he continued to speak, with calm deliberation:
+
+"But, really, what do they know? That you are here, and, perhaps, that
+Mlle. Gerbois is here, for they may have seen her arrive with an unknown
+lady. But they do not imagine that I am here. How is it possible that I
+could be in a house that they ran-sacked from cellar to garret this
+morning? They suppose that the unknown lady was sent by me to make the
+exchange, and they will be ready to arrest her when she goes out--"
+
+At that moment, the bell rang. With a brusque movement, Lupin seized
+Mon. Gerbois, and said to him, in an imperious tone:
+
+"Do not move! Remember your daughter, and be prudent--otherwise--As to
+you, Monsieur Detinan, I have your promise."
+
+Mon. Gerbois was rooted to the spot. The lawyer did not stir. Without
+the least sign of haste, Lupin picked up his hat and brushed the dust
+from off it with his sleeve.
+
+"My dear Monsieur Detinan, if I can ever be of service to you.... My
+best wishes, Mademoiselle Suzanne, and my kind regards to Monsieur
+Philippe."
+
+He drew a heavy gold watch from his pocket.
+
+"Monsieur Gerbois, it is now forty-two minutes past three. At forty-six
+minutes past three, I give you permission to leave this room. Not one
+minute sooner than forty-six minutes past three."
+
+"But they will force an entrance," suggested Mon. Detinan.
+
+"You forget the law, my dear monsieur! Ganimard would never venture to
+violate the privacy of a French citizen. But, pardon me, time flies, and
+you are all slightly nervous."
+
+He placed his watch on the table, opened the door of the room and
+addressing the blonde lady he said:
+
+"Are you ready my dear?"
+
+He drew back to let her pass, bowed respectfully to Mlle. Gerbois, and
+went out, closing the door behind him. Then they heard him in the
+vestibule, speaking, in a loud voice: "Good-day, Ganimard, how goes it?
+Remember me to Madame Ganimard. One of these days, I shall invite her to
+breakfast. Au revoir, Ganimard."
+
+The bell rang violently, followed by repeated rings, and voices on the
+landing.
+
+"Forty-five minutes," muttered Mon. Gerbois.
+
+After a few seconds, he left the room and stepped into the vestibule.
+Arsène Lupin and the blonde lady had gone.
+
+"Papa!... you mustn't! Wait!" cried Suzanne.
+
+"Wait! you are foolish!... No quarter for that rascal!... And the
+half-million?"
+
+He opened the outer door. Ganimard rushed in.
+
+"That woman--where is she? And Lupin?"
+
+"He was here ... he is here."
+
+Ganimard uttered a cry of triumph.
+
+"We have him. The house is surrounded."
+
+"But the servant's stairway?" suggested Mon. Detinan.
+
+"It leads to the court," said Ganimard. "There is only one exit--the
+street-door. Ten men are guarding it."
+
+"But he didn't come in by the street-door, and he will not go out that
+way."
+
+"What way, then?" asked Ganimard. "Through the air?"
+
+He drew aside a curtain and exposed a long corridor leading to the
+kitchen. Ganimard ran along it and tried the door of the servants'
+stairway. It was locked. From the window he called to one of his
+assistants:
+
+"Seen anyone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then they are still in the house!" he exclaimed. "They are hiding in
+one of the rooms! They cannot have escaped. Ah! Lupin, you fooled me
+before, but, this time, I get my revenge."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At seven o'clock in the evening, Mon. Dudonis, chief of the detective
+service, astonished at not receiving any news, visited the rue
+Clapeyron. He questioned the detectives who were guarding the house,
+then ascended to Mon. Detinan's apartment. The lawyer led him into his
+room. There, Mon. Dudonis beheld a man, or rather two legs kicking in
+the air, while the body to which they belonged was hidden in the depths
+of the chimney.
+
+"Ohé!... Ohé!" gasped a stifled voice. And a more distant voice, from on
+high, replied:
+
+"Ohé!... Ohé!"
+
+Mon. Dudonis laughed, and exclaimed:
+
+"Here! Ganimard, have you turned chimney-sweep?"
+
+The detective crawled out of the chimney. With his blackened face, his
+sooty clothes, and his feverish eyes, he was quite unrecognizable.
+
+"I am looking for _him_," he growled.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Arsène Lupin ... and his friend."
+
+"Well, do you suppose they are hiding in the chimney?"
+
+Ganimard arose, laid his sooty hand on the sleeve of his superior
+officer's coat, and exclaimed, angrily:
+
+"Where do you think they are, chief? They must be somewhere! They are
+flesh and blood like you and me, and can't fade away like smoke."
+
+"No, but they have faded away just the same."
+
+"But how? How? The house is surrounded by our men--even on the roof."
+
+"What about the adjoining house?"
+
+"There's no communication with it."
+
+"And the apartments on the other floors?"
+
+"I know all the tenants. They have not seen anyone."
+
+"Are you sure you know all of them?"
+
+"Yes. The concierge answers for them. Besides, as an extra precaution, I
+have placed a man in each apartment. They can't escape. If I don't get
+them to-night, I will get them to-morrow. I shall sleep here."
+
+He slept there that night and the two following nights. Three days and
+nights passed away without the discovery of the irrepressible Lupin or
+his female companion; more than that, Ganimard did not unearth the
+slightest clue on which to base a theory to explain their escape. For
+that reason, he adhered to his first opinion.
+
+"There is no trace of their escape; therefore, they are here."
+
+It may be that, at the bottom of his heart, his conviction was less
+firmly established, but he would not confess it. No, a thousand times,
+no! A man and a woman could not vanish like the evil spirits in a fairy
+tale. And, without losing his courage, he continued his searches, as if
+he expected to find the fugitives concealed in some impenetrable
+retreat, or embodied in the stone walls of the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE BLUE DIAMOND.
+
+
+On the evening of March 27, at number 134 avenue Henri-Martin, in the
+house that he had inherited from his brother six months before, the old
+general Baron d'Hautrec, ambassador at Berlin under the second Empire,
+was asleep in a comfortable armchair, while his secretary was reading to
+him, and the Sister Auguste was warming his bed and preparing the
+night-lamp. At eleven o'clock, the Sister, who was obliged to return to
+the convent of her order at that hour, said to the secretary:
+
+"Mademoiselle Antoinette, my work is finished; I am going."
+
+"Very well, Sister."
+
+"Do not forget that the cook is away, and that you are alone in the
+house with the servant."
+
+"Have no fear for the Baron. I sleep in the adjoining room and always
+leave the door open."
+
+The Sister left the house. A few moments later, Charles, the servant,
+came to receive his orders. The Baron was now awake, and spoke for
+himself.
+
+"The usual orders, Charles: see that the electric bell rings in your
+room, and, at the first alarm, run for the doctor. Now, Mademoiselle
+Antoinette, how far did we get in our reading?"
+
+"Is Monsieur not going to bed now?"
+
+"No, no, I will go later. Besides, I don't need anyone."
+
+Twenty minutes later, he was sleeping again, and Antoinette crept away
+on tiptoe. At that moment, Charles was closing the shutters on the lower
+floor. In the kitchen, he bolted the door leading to the garden, and, in
+the vestibule, he not only locked the door but hooked the chain as well.
+Then he ascended to his room on the third floor, went to bed, and was
+soon asleep.
+
+Probably an hour had passed, when he leaped from his bed in alarm. The
+bell was ringing. It rang for some time, seven or eight seconds perhaps,
+without intermission.
+
+"Well?" muttered Charles, recovering his wits, "another of the Baron's
+whims."
+
+He dressed himself quickly, descended the stairs, stopped in front of
+the door, and rapped, according to his custom. He received no reply. He
+opened the door and entered.
+
+"Ah! no light," he murmured. "What is that for?"
+
+Then, in a low voice, he called:
+
+"Mademoiselle?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Are you there, mademoiselle? What's the matter? Is Monsieur le Baron
+ill?"
+
+No reply. Nothing but a profound silence that soon became depressing. He
+took two steps forward; his foot struck a chair, and, having touched it,
+he noticed that it was overturned. Then, with his hand, he discovered
+other objects on the floor--a small table and a screen. Anxiously, he
+approached the wall, felt for the electric button, and turned on the
+light.
+
+In the centre of the room, between the table and dressing-case, lay the
+body of his master, the Baron d'Hautrec.
+
+"What!... It can't be possible!" he stammered.
+
+He could not move. He stood there, with bulging eyes, gazing stupidly at
+the terrible disorder, the overturned chairs, a large crystal candelabra
+shattered in a thousand pieces, the clock lying on the marble
+hearthstone, all evidence of a fearful and desperate struggle. The
+handle of a stiletto glittered, not far from the corpse; the blade was
+stained with blood. A handkerchief, marked with red spots, was lying on
+the edge of the bed.
+
+Charles recoiled with horror: the body lying at his feet extended itself
+for a moment, then shrunk up again; two or three tremors, and that was
+the end.
+
+He stooped over the body. There was a clean-cut wound on the neck from
+which the blood was flowing and then congealing in a black pool on the
+carpet. The face retained an expression of extreme terror.
+
+"Some one has killed him!" he muttered, "some one has killed him!"
+
+Then he shuddered at the thought that there might be another dreadful
+crime. Did not the baron's secretary sleep in the adjoining room! Had
+not the assassin killed her also! He opened the door; the room was
+empty. He concluded that Antoinette had been abducted, or else she had
+gone away before the crime. He returned to the baron's chamber, his
+glance falling on the secretary, he noticed that that article of
+furniture remained intact. Then, he saw upon a table, beside a bunch of
+keys and a pocketbook that the baron placed there every night, a
+handful of golden louis. Charles seized the pocketbook, opened it, and
+found some bank-notes. He counted them; there were thirteen notes of one
+hundred francs each.
+
+Instinctively, mechanically, he put the bank-notes in his pocket, rushed
+down the stairs, drew the bolt, unhooked the chain, closed the door
+behind him, and fled to the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles was an honest man. He had scarcely left the gate, when, cooled
+by the night air and the rain, he came to a sudden halt. Now, he saw his
+action in its true light, and it filled him with horror. He hailed a
+passing cab, and said to the driver:
+
+"Go to the police-office, and bring the commissary. Hurry! There has
+been a murder in that house."
+
+The cab-driver whipped his horse. Charles wished to return to the house,
+but found the gate locked. He had closed it himself when he came out,
+and it could not be opened from the outside. On the other hand, it was
+useless to ring, as there was no one in the house.
+
+It was almost an hour before the arrival of the police. When they came,
+Charles told his story and handed the bank-notes to the commissary. A
+locksmith was summoned, and, after considerable difficulty, he succeeded
+in forcing open the garden gate and the vestibule door. The commissary
+of police entered the room first, but, immediately, turned to Charles
+and said:
+
+"You told me that the room was in the greatest disorder."
+
+Charles stood at the door, amazed, bewildered; all the furniture had
+been restored to its accustomed place. The small table was standing
+between the two windows, the chairs were upright, and the clock was on
+the centre of the mantel. The debris of the candelabra had been removed.
+
+"Where is.... Monsieur le Baron?" stammered Charles.
+
+"That's so!" exclaimed the officer, "where is the victim?"
+
+He approached the bed, and drew aside a large sheet, under which reposed
+the Baron d'Hautrec, formerly French Ambassador at Berlin. Over him, lay
+his military coat, adorned with the Cross of Honor. His features were
+calm. His eyes were closed.
+
+"Some one has been here," said Charles.
+
+"How did they get in?"
+
+"I don't know, but some one has been here during my absence. There was a
+stiletto on the floor--there! And a handkerchief, stained with blood, on
+the bed. They are not here now. They have been carried away. And some
+one has put the room in order."
+
+"Who would do that?"
+
+"The assassin."
+
+"But we found all the doors locked."
+
+"He must have remained in the house."
+
+"Then he must be here yet, as you were in front of the house all the
+time."
+
+Charles reflected a moment, then said, slowly:
+
+"Yes ... of course.... I didn't go away from the gate."
+
+"Who was the last person you saw with the baron?"
+
+"Mademoiselle Antoinette, his secretary."
+
+"What has become of her?"
+
+"I don't know. Her bed wasn't occupied, so she must have gone out. I am
+not surprised at that, as she is young and pretty."
+
+"But how could she leave the house?"
+
+"By the door," said Charles.
+
+"But you had bolted and chained it."
+
+"Yes, but she must have left before that."
+
+"And the crime was committed after her departure?"
+
+"Of course," said the servant.
+
+The house was searched from cellar to garret, but the assassin had fled.
+How? And when? Was it he or an accomplice who had returned to the scene
+of the crime and removed everything that might furnish a clue to his
+identity? Such were the questions the police were called upon to solve.
+
+The coroner came at seven o'clock; and, at eight o'clock, Mon. Dudouis,
+the head of the detective service, arrived on the scene. They were
+followed by the Procureur of the Republic and the investigating
+magistrate. In addition to these officials, the house was overrun with
+policemen, detectives, newspaper reporters, photographers, and relatives
+and acquaintances of the murdered man.
+
+A thorough search was made; they studied out the position of the corpse
+according to the information furnished by Charles; they questioned
+Sister Auguste when she arrived; but they discovered nothing new. Sister
+Auguste was astonished to learn of the disappearance of Antoinette
+Bréhat. She had engaged the young girl twelve days before, on excellent
+recommendations, and refused to believe that she would neglect her duty
+by leaving the house during the night.
+
+"But, you see, she hasn't returned yet," said the magistrate, "and we
+are still confronted with the question: What has become of her?"
+
+"I think she was abducted by the assassin," said Charles.
+
+The theory was plausible, and was borne out by certain facts. Mon.
+Dudouis agreed with it. He said:
+
+"Abducted? ma foi! that is not improbable."
+
+"Not only improbable," said a voice, "but absolutely opposed to the
+facts. There is not a particle of evidence to support such a theory."
+
+The voice was harsh, the accent sharp, and no one was surprised to learn
+that the speaker was Ganimard. In no one else, would they tolerate such
+a domineering tone.
+
+"Ah! it is you, Ganimard!" exclaimed Mon. Dudouis. "I had not seen you
+before."
+
+"I have been here since two o'clock."
+
+"So you are interested in some things outside of lottery ticket number
+514, the affair of the rue Clapeyron, the blonde lady and Arsène
+Lupin?"
+
+"Ha-ha!" laughed the veteran detective. "I would not say that Lupin is a
+stranger to the present case. But let us forget the affair of the
+lottery ticket for a few moments, and try to unravel this new mystery."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ganimard is not one of those celebrated detectives whose methods will
+create a school, or whose name will be immortalized in the criminal
+annals of his country. He is devoid of those flashes of genius which
+characterize the work of Dupin, Lecoq and Sherlock Holmes. Yet, it must
+be admitted, he possesses superior qualities of observation, sagacity,
+perseverance and even intuition. His merit lies in his absolute
+independence. Nothing troubles or influences him, except, perhaps, a
+sort of fascination that Arsène Lupin holds over him. However that may
+be, there is no doubt that his position on that morning, in the house of
+the late Baron d'Hautrec, was one of undoubted superiority, and his
+collaboration in the case was appreciated and desired by the
+investigating magistrate.
+
+"In the first place," said Ganimard, "I will ask Monsieur Charles to be
+very particular on one point: He says that, on the occasion of his
+first visit to the room, various articles of furniture were overturned
+and strewn about the place; now, I ask him whether, on his second visit
+to the room, he found all those articles restored to their accustomed
+places--I mean, of course, correctly placed."
+
+"Yes, all in their proper places," replied Charles.
+
+"It is obvious, then, that the person who replaced them must have been
+familiar with the location of those articles."
+
+The logic of this remark was apparent to his hearers. Ganimard
+continued:
+
+"One more question, Monsieur Charles. You were awakened by the ringing
+of your bell. Now, who, do you think, rang it?"
+
+"Monsieur le baron, of course."
+
+"When could he ring it?"
+
+"After the struggle ... when he was dying."
+
+"Impossible; because you found him lying, unconscious, at a point more
+than four metres from the bell-button."
+
+"Then he must have rung during the struggle."
+
+"Impossible," declared Ganimard, "since the ringing, as you have said,
+was continuous and uninterrupted, and lasted seven or eight seconds. Do
+you think his antagonist would have permitted him to ring the bell in
+that leisurely manner?"
+
+"Well, then, it was before the attack."
+
+"Also, quite impossible, since you have told us that the lapse of time
+between the ringing of the bell and your entrance to the room was not
+more than three minutes. Therefore, if the baron rang before the attack,
+we are forced to the conclusion that the struggle, the murder and the
+flight of the assassin, all occurred within the short space of three
+minutes. I repeat: that is impossible."
+
+"And yet," said the magistrate, "some one rang. If it were not the
+baron, who was it?"
+
+"The murderer."
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"I do not know. But the fact that he did ring proves that he knew that
+the bell communicated with the servant's room. Now, who would know that,
+except an inmate of the house?"
+
+Ganimard was drawing the meshes of his net closer and tighter. In a few
+clear and logical sentences, he had unfolded and defined his theory of
+the crime, so that it seemed quite natural when the magistrate said:
+
+"As I understand it, Ganimard, you suspect the girl Antoinette Bréhat?"
+
+"I do not suspect her; I accuse her."
+
+"You accuse her of being an accomplice?"
+
+"I accuse her of having killed Baron d'Hautrec."
+
+"Nonsense! What proof have you?"
+
+"The handful of hair I found in the right hand of the victim."
+
+He produced the hair; it was of a beautiful blond color, and glittered
+like threads of gold. Charles looked at it, and said:
+
+"That is Mademoiselle Antoinette's hair. There can be no doubt of it.
+And, then, there is another thing. I believe that the knife, which I saw
+on my first visit to the room, belonged to her. She used it to cut the
+leaves of books."
+
+A long, dreadful silence followed, as if the crime had acquired an
+additional horror by reason of having been committed by a woman. At
+last, the magistrate said:
+
+"Let us assume, until we are better informed, that the baron was killed
+by Antoinette Bréhat. We have yet to learn where she concealed herself
+after the crime, how she managed to return after Charles left the house,
+and how she made her escape after the arrival of the police. Have you
+formed any opinion on those points Ganimard?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Well, then, where do we stand?"
+
+Ganimard was embarrassed. Finally, with a visible effort, he said:
+
+"All I can say is that I find in this case the same method of procedure
+as we found in the affair of the lottery ticket number 514; the same
+phenomena, which might be termed the faculty of disappearing. Antoinette
+Bréhat has appeared and disappeared in this house as mysteriously as
+Arsène Lupin entered the house of Monsieur Detinan and escaped therefrom
+in the company of the blonde lady.
+
+"Does that signify anything?"
+
+"It does to me. I can see a probable connection between those two
+strange incidents. Antoinette Bréhat was hired by Sister Auguste twelve
+days ago, that is to say, on the day after the blonde Lady so cleverly
+slipped through my fingers. In the second place, the hair of the blonde
+Lady was exactly of the same brilliant golden hue as the hair found in
+this case."
+
+"So that, in your opinion, Antoinette Bréhat--"
+
+"Is the blonde Lady--precisely."
+
+"And that Lupin had a hand in both cases?"
+
+"Yes, that is my opinion."
+
+This statement was greeted with an outburst of laughter. It came from
+Mon. Dudouis.
+
+"Lupin! always Lupin! Lupin is into everything; Lupin is everywhere!"
+
+"Yes, Lupin is into everything of any consequence," replied Ganimard,
+vexed at the ridicule of his superior.
+
+"Well, so far as I see," observed Mon. Dudouis, "you have not discovered
+any motive for this crime. The secretary was not broken into, nor the
+pocketbook carried away. Even, a pile of gold was left upon the table."
+
+"Yes, that is so," exclaimed Ganimard, "but the famous diamond?"
+
+"What diamond?"
+
+"The blue diamond! The celebrated diamond which formed part of the royal
+crown of France, and which was given by the Duke d'Aumale to Leonide
+Lebrun, and, at the death of Leonide Lebrun, was purchased by the Baron
+d'Hautrec as a souvenir of the charming comedienne that he had loved so
+well. That is one of those things that an old Parisian, like I, does not
+forget."
+
+"It is obvious that if the blue diamond is not found, the motive for the
+crime is disclosed," said the magistrate. "But where should we search
+for it?"
+
+"On the baron's finger," replied Charles. "He always wore the blue
+diamond on his left hand."
+
+"I saw that hand, and there was only a plain gold ring on it," said
+Ganimard, as he approached the corpse.
+
+"Look in the palm of the hand," replied the servant.
+
+Ganimard opened the stiffened hand. The bezel was turned inward, and, in
+the centre of that bezel, the blue diamond shone with all its glorious
+splendor.
+
+"The deuce!" muttered Ganimard, absolutely amazed, "I don't understand
+it."
+
+"You will now apologize to Lupin for having suspected him, eh?" said
+Mon. Dudouis, laughing.
+
+Ganimard paused for a moment's reflection, and then replied,
+sententiously:
+
+"It is only when I do not understand things that I suspect Arsène
+Lupin."
+
+Such were the facts established by the police on the day after the
+commission of that mysterious crime. Facts that were vague and
+incoherent in themselves, and which were not explained by any subsequent
+discoveries. The movements of Antoinette Bréhat remained as inexplicable
+as those of the blonde Lady, and the police discovered no trace of that
+mysterious creature with the golden hair who had killed Baron d'Hautrec
+and had failed to take from his finger the famous diamond that had once
+shone in the royal crown of France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The heirs of the Baron d'Hautrec could not fail to benefit by such
+notoriety. They established in the house an exhibition of the furniture
+and other objects which were to be sold at the auction rooms of Drouot &
+Co. Modern furniture of indifferent taste, various objects of no
+artistic value ... but, in the centre of the room, in a case of purple
+velvet, protected by a glass globe, and guarded by two officers, was the
+famous blue diamond ring.
+
+A large magnificent diamond of incomparable purity, and of that
+indefinite blue which the clear water receives from an unclouded sky, of
+that blue which can be detected in the whiteness of linen. Some admired,
+some enthused ... and some looked with horror on the chamber of the
+victim, on the spot where the corpse had lain, on the floor divested of
+its blood-stained carpet, and especially the walls, the unsurmountable
+walls over which the criminal must have passed. Some assured themselves
+that the marble mantel did not move, others imagined gaping holes,
+mouths of tunnels, secret connections with the sewers, and the
+catacombs--
+
+The sale of the blue diamond took place at the salesroom of Drouot & Co.
+The place was crowded to suffocation, and the bidding was carried to the
+verge of folly. The sale was attended by all those who usually appear at
+similar events in Paris; those who buy, and those who make a pretense of
+being able to buy; bankers, brokers, artists, women of all classes, two
+cabinet ministers, an Italian tenor, an exiled king who, in order to
+maintain his credit, bid, with much ostentation, and in a loud voice, as
+high as one hundred thousand francs. One hundred thousand francs! He
+could offer that sum without any danger of his bid being accepted. The
+Italian tenor risked one hundred and fifty thousand, and a member of the
+Comédie-Française bid one hundred and seventy-five thousand francs.
+
+When the bidding reached two hundred thousand francs, the smaller
+competitors fell out of the race. At two hundred and fifty thousand,
+only two bidders remained in the field: Herschmann, the well-known
+capitalist, the king of gold mines; and the Countess de Crozon, the
+wealthy American, whose collection of diamonds and precious stones is
+famed throughout the world.
+
+"Two hundred and sixty thousand ... two hundred and seventy thousand ...
+seventy-five ... eighty...." exclaimed the auctioneer, as he glanced at
+the two competitors in succession. "Two hundred and eighty thousand for
+madame.... Do I hear any more?"
+
+"Three hundred thousand," said Herschmann.
+
+There was a short silence. The countess was standing, smiling, but pale
+from excitement. She was leaning against the back of the chair in front
+of her. She knew, and so did everyone present, that the issue of the
+duel was certain; logically, inevitably, it must terminate to the
+advantage of the capitalist, who had untold millions with which to
+indulge his caprices. However, the countess made another bid:
+
+"Three hundred and five thousand."
+
+Another silence. All eyes were now directed to the capitalist in the
+expectation that he would raise the bidding. But Herschmann was not
+paying any attention to the sale; his eyes were fixed on a sheet of
+paper which he held in his right hand, while the other hand held a torn
+envelope.
+
+"Three hundred and five thousand," repeated the auctioneer. "Once!...
+Twice!... For the last time.... Do I hear any more?... Once!...
+Twice!... Am I offered any more? Last chance!..."
+
+Herschmann did not move.
+
+"Third and last time!... Sold!" exclaimed the auctioneer, as his hammer
+fell.
+
+"Four hundred thousand," cried Herschman, starting up, as if the sound
+of the hammer had roused him from his stupor.
+
+Too late; the auctioneer's decision was irrevocable. Some of
+Herschmann's acquaintances pressed around him. What was the matter? Why
+did he not speak sooner? He laughed, and said:
+
+"Ma foi! I simply forgot--in a moment of abstraction."
+
+"That is strange."
+
+"You see, I just received a letter."
+
+"And that letter was sufficient--"
+
+"To distract my attention? Yes, for a moment."
+
+Ganimard was there. He had come to witness the sale of the ring. He
+stopped one of the attendants of the auction room, and said:
+
+"Was it you who carried the letter to Monsieur Herschmann?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who gave it to you?"
+
+"A lady."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Where is she?... She was sitting down there ... the lady who wore a
+thick veil."
+
+"She has gone?"
+
+"Yes, just this moment."
+
+Ganimard hastened to the door, and saw the lady descending the stairs.
+He ran after her. A crush of people delayed him at the entrance. When
+he reached the sidewalk, she had disappeared. He returned to the auction
+room, accosted Herschmann, introduced himself, and enquired about the
+letter. Herschmann handed it to him. It was carelessly scribbled in
+pencil, in a handwriting unknown to the capitalist, and contained these
+few words:
+
+_"The blue diamond brings misfortune. Remember the Baron d'Hautrec."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The vicissitudes of the blue diamond were not yet at an end. Although it
+had become well-known through the murder of the Baron d'Hautrec and the
+incidents at the auction-rooms, it was six months later that it attained
+even greater celebrity. During the following summer, the Countess de
+Crozon was robbed of the famous jewel she had taken so much trouble to
+acquire.
+
+Let me recall that strange affair, of which the exciting and dramatic
+incidents sent a thrill through all of us, and over which I am now
+permitted to throw some light.
+
+On the evening of August 10, the guests of the Count and Countess de
+Crozon were assembled in the drawing-room of the magnificent château
+which overlooks the Bay de Somme. To entertain her friends, the countess
+seated herself at the piano to play for them, after first placing her
+jewels on a small table near the piano, and, amongst them, was the ring
+of the Baron d'Hautrec.
+
+An hour later, the count and the majority of the guests retired,
+including his two cousins and Madame de Réal, an intimate friend of the
+countess. The latter remained in the drawing-room with Herr Bleichen,
+the Austrian consul, and his wife.
+
+They conversed for a time, and then the countess extinguished the large
+lamp that stood on a table in the centre of the room. At the same
+moment, Herr Bleichen extinguished the two piano lamps. There was a
+momentary darkness; then the consul lighted a candle, and the three of
+them retired to their rooms. But, as soon as she reached her apartment,
+the countess remembered her jewels and sent her maid to get them. When
+the maid returned with the jewels, she placed them on the mantel without
+the countess looking at them. Next day, Madame de Crozon found that one
+of her rings was missing; it was the blue diamond ring.
+
+She informed her husband, and, after talking it over, they reached the
+conclusion that the maid was above suspicion, and that the guilty party
+must be Herr Bleichen.
+
+The count notified the commissary of police at Amiens, who commenced an
+investigation and, discreetly, exercised a strict surveillance over the
+Austrian consul to prevent his disposing of the ring.
+
+The château was surrounded by detectives day and night. Two weeks passed
+without incident. Then Herr Bleichen announced his intended departure.
+That day, a formal complaint was entered against him. The police made an
+official examination of his luggage. In a small satchel, the key to
+which was always carried by the consul himself, they found a bottle of
+dentifrice, and in that bottle they found the ring.
+
+Madame Bleichen fainted. Her husband was placed under arrest.
+
+Everyone will remember the line of defense adopted by the accused man.
+He declared that the ring must have been placed there by the Count de
+Crozen as an act of revenge. He said:
+
+"The count is brutal and makes his wife very unhappy. She consulted me,
+and I advised her to get a divorce. The count heard of it in some way,
+and, to be revenged on me, he took the ring and placed it in my
+satchel."
+
+The count and countess persisted in pressing the charge. Between the
+explanation which they gave and that of the consul, both equally
+possible and equally probable, the public had to choose. No new fact was
+discovered to turn the scale in either direction. A month of gossip,
+conjectures and investigations failed to produce a single ray of light.
+
+Wearied of the excitement and notoriety, and incapable of securing the
+evidence necessary to sustain their charge against the consul, the count
+and countess at last sent to Paris for a detective competent to unravel
+the tangled threads of this mysterious skein. This brought Ganimard into
+the case.
+
+For four days, the veteran detective searched the house from top to
+bottom, examined every foot of the ground, had long conferences with the
+maid, the chauffeur, the gardeners, the employees in the neighboring
+post-offices, visited the rooms that had been occupied by the various
+guests. Then, one morning, he disappeared without taking leave of his
+host or hostess. But a week later, they received this telegram:
+
+"Please come to the Japanese Tea-room, rue Boissy d'Anglas, to-morrow,
+Friday, evening at five o'clock. Ganimard."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At five o'clock, Friday evening, their automobile stopped in front of
+number nine rue Boissy-d'Anglas. The old detective was standing on the
+sidewalk, waiting for them. Without a word, he conducted them to the
+first floor of the Japanese Tea-room. In one of the rooms, they met two
+men, whom Ganimard introduced in these words:
+
+"Monsieur Gerbois, professor in the College of Versailles, from whom,
+you will remember, Arsène Lupin stole half a million; Monsieur Léonce
+d'Hautrec, nephew and sole legatee of the Baron d'Hautrec."
+
+A few minutes later, another man arrived. It was Mon. Dudouis, head of
+the detective service, and he appeared to be in a particularly bad
+temper. He bowed, and then said:
+
+"What's the trouble now, Ganimard? I received your telephone message
+asking me to come here. Is it anything of consequence?"
+
+"Yes, chief, it is a very important matter. Within an hour, the last two
+cases to which I was assigned will have their dénouement here. It
+seemed to me that your presence was indispensable."
+
+"And also the presence of Dieuzy and Folenfant, whom I noticed standing
+near the door as I came in?"
+
+"Yes, chief."
+
+"For what? Are you going to make an arrest, and you wish to do it with a
+flourish? Come, Ganimard, I am anxious to hear about it."
+
+Ganimard hesitated a moment, then spoke with the obvious intention of
+making an impression on his hearers:
+
+"In the first place, I wish to state that Herr Bleichen had nothing to
+do with the theft of the ring."
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Mon. Dudouis, "that is a bold statement and a very
+serious one."
+
+"And is that all you have discovered?" asked the Count de Crozon.
+
+"Not at all. On the second day after the theft, three of your guests
+went on an automobile trip as far as Crécy. Two of them visited the
+famous battlefield; and, while they were there, the third party paid a
+hasty visit to the post-office, and mailed a small box, tied and sealed
+according to the regulations, and declared its value to be one hundred
+francs."
+
+"I see nothing strange in that," said the count.
+
+"Perhaps you will see something strange in it when I tell you that this
+person, in place of giving her true name, sent the box under the name of
+Rousseau, and the person to whom it was addressed, a certain Monsieur
+Beloux of Paris, moved his place of residence immediately after
+receiving the box, in other words, the ring."
+
+"I presume you refer to one of my cousins d'Andelle?"
+
+"No," replied Ganimard.
+
+"Madame de Réal, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You accuse my friend, Madam de Réal?" cried the countess, shocked and
+amazed.
+
+"I wish to ask you one question, madame," said Ganimard. "Was Madam de
+Réal present when you purchased the ring?"
+
+"Yes, but we did not go there together."
+
+"Did she advise you to buy the ring?"
+
+The countess considered for a moment, then said:
+
+"Yes, I think she mentioned it first--"
+
+"Thank you, madame. Your answer establishes the fact that it was Madame
+de Réal who was the first to mention the ring, and it was she who
+advised you to buy it."
+
+"But, I consider my friend is quite incapable--"
+
+"Pardon me, countess, when I remind you that Madame de Réal is only a
+casual acquaintance and not your intimate friend, as the newspapers have
+announced. It was only last winter that you met her for the first time.
+Now, I can prove that everything she has told you about herself, her
+past life, and her relatives, is absolutely false; that Madame Blanche
+de Réal had no actual existence before she met you, and she has now
+ceased to exist."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well?" replied Ganimard.
+
+"Your story is a very strange one," said the countess, "but it has no
+application to our case. If Madame de Réal had taken the ring, how do
+you explain the fact that it was found in Herr Bleichen's tooth-powder?
+Anyone who would take the risk and trouble of stealing the blue diamond
+would certainly keep it. What do you say to that?"
+
+"I--nothing--but Madame de Réal will answer it."
+
+"Oh! she does exist, then?"
+
+"She does--and does not. I will explain in a few words. Three days ago,
+while reading a newspaper, I glanced over the list of hotel arrivals at
+Trouville, and there I read: 'Hôtel Beaurivage--Madame de Réal, etc.'
+
+"I went to Trouville immediately, and interviewed the proprietor of the
+hotel. From the description and other information I received from him, I
+concluded that she was the very Madame de Réal that I was seeking; but
+she had left the hotel, giving her address in Paris as number three rue
+de Colisée. The day before yesterday I went to that address, and learned
+that there was no person there called Madame de Réal, but there was a
+Madame Réal, living on the second floor, who acted as a diamond broker
+and was frequently away from home. She had returned from a journey on
+the preceding evening. Yesterday, I called on her and, under an assumed
+name, I offered to act as an intermedium in the sale of some diamonds to
+certain wealthy friends of mine. She is to meet me here to-day to carry
+out that arrangement."
+
+"What! You expect her to come here?"
+
+"Yes, at half-past five."
+
+"Are you sure it is she?"
+
+"Madame de Réal of the Château de Crozon? Certainly. I have convincing
+evidence of that fact. But ... listen!... I hear Folenfant's signal."
+
+It was a whistle. Ganimard arose quickly.
+
+"There is no time to lose. Monsieur and Madame de Crozon, will you be
+kind enough to go into the next room. You also, Monsieur d'Hautrec, and
+you, Monsieur Gerbois. The door will remain open, and when I give the
+signal, you will come out. Of course, Chief, you will remain here."
+
+"We may be disturbed by other people," said Mon. Dudouis.
+
+"No. This is a new establishment, and the proprietor is one of my
+friends. He will not let anyone disturb us--except the blonde Lady."
+
+"The blonde Lady! What do you mean?"
+
+"Yes, the blonde Lady herself, chief; the friend and accomplice of
+Arsène Lupin, the mysterious blonde Lady against whom I hold convincing
+evidence; but, in addition to that, I wish to confront her with all the
+people she has robbed."
+
+He looked through the window.
+
+"I see her. She is coming in the door now. She can't escape: Folenfant
+and Dieuzy are guarding the door.... The blonde Lady is captured at
+last, Chief!"
+
+A moment later a woman appeared at the door; she was tall and slender,
+with a very pale complexion and bright golden hair. Ganimard trembled
+with excitement; he could not move, nor utter a word. She was there, in
+front of him, at his mercy! What a victory over Arsène Lupin! And what a
+revenge! And, at the same time, the victory was such an easy one that he
+asked himself if the blonde Lady would not yet slip through his fingers
+by one of those miracles that usually terminated the exploits of Arsène
+Lupin. She remained standing near the door, surprised at the silence,
+and looked about her without any display of suspicion or fear.
+
+"She will get away! She will disappear!" thought Ganimard.
+
+Then he managed to get between her and the door. She turned to go out.
+
+"No, no!" he said. "Why are you going away?"
+
+"Really, monsieur, I do not understand what this means. Allow me--"
+
+"There is no reason why you should go, madame, and very good reasons
+why you should remain."
+
+"But--"
+
+"It is useless, madame. You cannot go."
+
+Trembling, she sat on a chair, and stammered:
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+Ganimard had won the battle and captured the blonde Lady. He said to
+her:
+
+"Allow me to present the friend I mentioned, who desires to purchase
+some diamonds. Have you procured the stones you promised to bring?"
+
+"No--no--I don't know. I don't remember."
+
+"Come! Jog your memory! A person of your acquaintance intended to send
+you a tinted stone.... 'Something like the blue diamond,' I said,
+laughing; and you replied: 'Exactly, I expect to have just what you
+want.' Do you remember?"
+
+She made no reply. A small satchel fell from her hand. She picked it up
+quickly, and held it securely. Her hands trembled slightly.
+
+"Come!" said Ganimard, "I see you have no confidence in us, Madame de
+Réal. I shall set you a good example by showing you what I have."
+
+He took from his pocketbook a paper which he unfolded, and disclosed a
+lock of hair.
+
+"These are a few hairs torn from the head of Antoinette Bréhat by the
+Baron d'Hautrec, which I found clasped in his dead hand. I have shown
+them to Mlle. Gerbois, who declares they are of the exact color of the
+hair of the blonde Lady. Besides, they are exactly the color of your
+hair--the identical color."
+
+Madame Réal looked at him in bewilderment, as if she did not understand
+his meaning. He continued:
+
+"And here are two perfume bottles, without labels, it is true, and
+empty, but still sufficiently impregnated with their odor to enable
+Mlle. Gerbois to recognize in them the perfume used by that blonde Lady
+who was her traveling companion for two weeks. Now, one of these bottles
+was found in the room that Madame de Réal occupied at the Château de
+Crozon, and the other in the room that you occupied at the Hôtel
+Beaurivage."
+
+"What do you say?... The blonde Lady ... the Château de Crozon...."
+
+The detective did not reply. He took from his pocket and placed on the
+table, side by side, four small sheets of paper. Then he said:
+
+"I have, on these four pieces of paper, various specimens of
+handwriting; the first is the writing of Antoinette Bréhat; the second
+was written by the woman who sent the note to Baron Herschmann at the
+auction sale of the blue diamond; the third is that of Madame de Réal,
+written while she was stopping at the Château de Crozon; and the fourth
+is your handwriting, madame ... it is your name and address, which you
+gave to the porter of the Hôtel Beaurivage at Trouville. Now, compare
+the four handwritings. They are identical."
+
+"What absurdity is this? really, monsieur, I do not understand. What
+does it mean?"
+
+"It means, madame," exclaimed Ganimard, "that the blonde Lady, the
+friend and accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is none other than you, Madame
+Réal."
+
+Ganimard went to the adjoining room and returned with Mon. Gerbois, whom
+he placed in front of Madame Réal, as he said:
+
+"Monsieur Gerbois, is this the person who abducted your daughter, the
+woman you saw at the house of Monsieur Detinan?"
+
+"No."
+
+Ganimard was so surprised that he could not speak for a moment; finally,
+he said: "No?... You must be mistaken...."
+
+"I am not mistaken. Madame is blonde, it is true, and in that respect
+resembles the blonde Lady; but, in all other respects, she is totally
+different."
+
+"I can't believe it. You must be mistaken."
+
+Ganimard called in his other witnesses.
+
+"Monsieur d'Hautrec," he said, "do you recognize Antoinette Bréhat?"
+
+"No, this is not the person I saw at my uncle's house."
+
+"This woman is not Madame de Réal," declared the Count de Crozon.
+
+That was the finishing touch. Ganimard was crushed. He was buried
+beneath the ruins of the structure he had erected with so much care and
+assurance. His pride was humbled, his spirit was broken, by the force of
+this unexpected blow.
+
+Mon. Dudouis arose, and said:
+
+"We owe you an apology, madame, for this unfortunate mistake. But, since
+your arrival here, I have noticed your nervous agitation. Something
+troubles you; may I ask what it is?"
+
+"Mon Dieu, monsieur, I was afraid. My satchel contains diamonds to the
+value of a hundred thousand francs, and the conduct of your friend was
+rather suspicious."
+
+"But you were frequently absent from Paris. How do you explain that?"
+
+"I make frequent journeys to other cities in the course of my business.
+That is all."
+
+Mon. Dudouis had nothing more to ask. He turned to his subordinate, and
+said:
+
+"Your investigation has been very superficial, Ganimard, and your
+conduct toward this lady is really deplorable. You will come to my
+office to-morrow and explain it."
+
+The interview was at an end, and Mon. Dudouis was about to leave the
+room when a most annoying incident occurred. Madame Réal turned to
+Ganimard, and said:
+
+"I understand that you are Monsieur Ganimard. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, this letter must be for you. I received it this morning. It was
+addressed to 'Mon. Justin Ganimard, care of Madame Réal.' I thought it
+was a joke, because I did not know you under that name, but it appears
+that your unknown correspondent knew of our rendezvous."
+
+Ganimard was inclined to put the letter in his pocket unread, but he
+dared not do so in the presence of his superior, so he opened the
+envelope and read the letter aloud, in an almost inaudible tone:
+
+     "Once upon a time, there were a blonde Lady, a Lupin, and a
+     Ganimard. Now, the wicked Ganimard had evil designs on the pretty
+     blonde Lady, and the good Lupin was her friend and protector. When
+     the good Lupin wished the blonde Lady to become the friend of the
+     Countess de Crozon, he caused her to assume the name of Madame de
+     Réal, which is a close resemblance to the name of a certain diamond
+     broker, a woman with a pale complexion and golden hair. And the
+     good Lupin said to himself: If ever the wicked Ganimard gets upon
+     the track of the blonde Lady, how useful it will be to me if he
+     should be diverted to the track of the honest diamond broker. A
+     wise precaution that has borne good fruit. A little note sent to
+     the newspaper read by the wicked Ganimard, a perfume bottle
+     intentionally forgotten by the genuine blonde Lady at the Hôtel
+     Beaurivage, the name and address of Madame Réal written on the
+     hotel register by the genuine blonde Lady, and the trick is played.
+     What do you think of it, Ganimard! I wished to tell you the true
+     story of this affair, knowing that you would be the first to laugh
+     over it. Really, it is quite amusing, and I have enjoyed it very
+     much.
+
+     "Accept my best wishes, dear friend, and give my kind regards to
+     the worthy Mon. Dudouis.
+
+     "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+"He knows everything," muttered Ganimard, but he did not see the humor
+of the situation as Lupin had predicted. "He knows some things I have
+never mentioned to any one. How could he find out that I was going to
+invite you here, chief? How could he know that I had found the first
+perfume bottle? How could he find out those things?"
+
+He stamped his feet and tore his hair--a prey to the most tragic
+despair. Mon. Dudouis felt sorry for him, and said:
+
+"Come, Ganimard, never mind; try to do better next time."
+
+And Mon. Dudouis left the room, accompanied by Madame Réal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the next ten minutes, Ganimard read and re-read the letter of
+Arsène Lupin. Monsieur and Madame de Crozon, Monsieur d'Hautrec and
+Monsieur Gerbois were holding an animated discussion in a corner of the
+room. At last, the count approached the detective, and said:
+
+"My dear monsieur, after your investigation, we are no nearer the truth
+than we were before."
+
+"Pardon me, but my investigation has established these facts: that the
+blonde Lady is the mysterious heroine of these exploits, and that Arsène
+Lupin directed them."
+
+"Those facts do not solve the mystery; in fact, they render it more
+obscure. The blonde Lady commits a murder in order to steal the blue
+diamond, and yet she does not steal it. Afterward she steals it and gets
+rid of it by secretly giving it to another person. How do you explain
+her strange conduct?"
+
+"I cannot explain it."
+
+"Of course; but, perhaps, someone else can."
+
+"Who?"
+
+The Count hesitated, so the Countess replied, frankly:
+
+"There is only one man besides yourself who is competent to enter the
+arena with Arsène Lupin and overcome him. Have you any objection to our
+engaging the services of Herlock Sholmes in this case?"
+
+Ganimard was vexed at the question, but stammered a reply:
+
+"No ... but ... I do not understand what----"
+
+"Let me explain. All this mystery annoys me. I wish to have it cleared
+up. Monsieur Gerbois and Monsieur d'Hautrec have the same desire, and we
+have agreed to send for the celebrated English detective."
+
+"You are right, madame," replied the detective, with a loyalty that did
+him credit, "you are right. Old Ganimard is not able to overcome Arsène
+Lupin. But will Herlock Sholmes succeed? I hope so, as I have the
+greatest admiration for him. But ... it is improbable."
+
+"Do you mean to say that he will not succeed?"
+
+"That is my opinion. I can foresee the result of a duel between Herlock
+Sholmes and Arsène Lupin. The Englishman will be defeated."
+
+"But, in any event, can we count on your assistance?"
+
+"Quite so, madame. I shall be pleased to render Monsieur Sholmes all
+possible assistance."
+
+"Do you know his address?"
+
+"Yes; 219 Parker street."
+
+That evening Monsieur and Madame de Crozon withdrew the charge they had
+made against Herr Bleichen, and a joint letter was addressed to Herlock
+Sholmes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HERLOCK SHOLMES OPENS HOSTILITIES.
+
+
+"What does monsieur wish?"
+
+"Anything," replied Arsène Lupin, like a man who never worries over the
+details of a meal; "anything you like, but no meat or alcohol."
+
+The waiter walked away, disdainfully.
+
+"What! still a vegetarian?" I exclaimed.
+
+"More so than ever," replied Lupin.
+
+"Through taste, faith, or habit?"
+
+"Hygiene."
+
+"And do you never fall from grace?"
+
+"Oh! yes ... when I am dining out ... and wish to avoid being considered
+eccentric."
+
+We were dining near the Northern Railway station, in a little restaurant
+to which Arsène Lupin had invited me. Frequently he would send me a
+telegram asking me to meet him in some obscure restaurant, where we
+could enjoy a quiet dinner, well served, and which was always made
+interesting to me by his recital of some startling adventure
+theretofore unknown to me.
+
+On that particular evening he appeared to be in a more lively mood than
+usual. He laughed and joked with careless animation, and with that
+delicate sarcasm that was habitual with him--a light and spontaneous
+sarcasm that was quite free from any tinge of malice. It was a pleasure
+to find him in that jovial mood, and I could not resist the desire to
+tell him so.
+
+"Ah! yes," he exclaimed, "there are days in which I find life as bright
+and gay as a spring morning; then life seems to be an infinite treasure
+which I can never exhaust. And yet God knows I lead a careless
+existence!"
+
+"Too much so, perhaps."
+
+"Ah! but I tell you, the treasure is infinite. I can spend it with a
+lavish hand. I can cast my youth and strength to the four winds of
+Heaven, and it is replaced by a still younger and greater force.
+Besides, my life is so pleasant!... If I wished to do so, I might
+become--what shall I say?... An orator, a manufacturer, a politician....
+But, I assure you, I shall never have such a desire. Arsène Lupin, I am;
+Arsène Lupin, I shall remain. I have made a vain search in history to
+find a career comparable to mine; a life better filled or more
+intense.... Napoleon? Yes, perhaps.... But Napoleon, toward the close of
+his career, when all Europe was trying to crush him, asked himself on
+the eve of each battle if it would not be his last."
+
+Was he serious? Or was he joking? He became more animated as he
+proceeded:
+
+"That is everything, do you understand, the danger! The continuous
+feeling of danger! To breathe it as you breathe the air, to scent it in
+every breath of wind, to detect it in every unusual sound.... And, in
+the midst of the tempest, to remain calm ... and not to stumble!
+Otherwise, you are lost. There is only one sensation equal to it: that
+of the chauffeur in an automobile race. But that race lasts only a few
+hours; my race continues until death!"
+
+"What fantasy!" I exclaimed. "And you wish me to believe that you have
+no particular motive for your adoption of that exciting life?"
+
+"Come," he said, with a smile, "you are a clever psychologist. Work it
+out for yourself."
+
+He poured himself a glass of water, drank it, and said:
+
+"Did you read _'Le Temps'_ to-day?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Herlock Sholmes crossed the Channel this afternoon, and arrived in
+Paris about six o'clock."
+
+"The deuce! What is he coming for?"
+
+"A little journey he has undertaken at the request of the Count and
+Countess of Crozon, Monsieur Gerbois, and the nephew of Baron d'Hautrec.
+They met him at the Northern Railway station, took him to meet Ganimard,
+and, at this moment, the six of them are holding a consultation."
+
+Despite a strong temptation to do so, I had never ventured to question
+Arsène Lupin concerning any action of his private life, unless he had
+first mentioned the subject to me. Up to that moment his name had not
+been mentioned, at least officially, in connection with the blue
+diamond. Consequently, I consumed my curiosity in patience. He
+continued:
+
+"There is also in _'Le Temps'_ an interview with my old friend Ganimard,
+according to whom a certain blonde lady, who should be my friend, must
+have murdered the Baron d'Hautrec and tried to rob Madame de Crozon of
+her famous ring. And--what do you think?--he accuses me of being the
+instigator of those crimes."
+
+I could not suppress a slight shudder. Was this true? Must I believe
+that his career of theft, his mode of existence, the logical result of
+such a life, had drawn that man into more serious crimes, including
+murder? I looked at him. He was so calm, and his eyes had such a frank
+expression! I observed his hands: they had been formed from a model of
+exceeding delicacy, long and slender; inoffensive, truly; and the hands
+of an artist....
+
+"Ganimard has pipe-dreams," I said.
+
+"No, no!" protested Lupin. "Ganimard has some cleverness; and, at times,
+almost inspiration."
+
+"Inspiration!"
+
+"Yes. For instance, that interview is a master-stroke. In the first
+place, he announces the coming of his English rival in order to put me
+on my guard, and make his task more difficult. In the second place, he
+indicates the exact point to which he has conducted the affair in order
+that Sholmes will not get credit for the work already done by Ganimard.
+That is good warfare."
+
+"Whatever it may be, you have two adversaries to deal with, and such
+adversaries!"
+
+"Oh! one of them doesn't count."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"Sholmes? Oh! I confess he is a worthy foe; and that explains my present
+good humor. In the first place, it is a question of self-esteem; I am
+pleased to know that they consider me a subject worthy the attention of
+the celebrated English detective. In the next place, just imagine the
+pleasure a man, such as I, must experience in the thought of a duel with
+Herlock Sholmes. But I shall be obliged to strain every muscle; he is a
+clever fellow, and will contest every inch of the ground."
+
+"Then you consider him a strong opponent?"
+
+"I do. As a detective, I believe, he has never had an equal. But I have
+one advantage over him; he is making the attack and I am simply
+defending myself. My rôle is the easier one. Besides, I am familiar with
+his method of warfare, and he does not know mine. I am prepared to show
+him a few new tricks that will give him something to think about."
+
+He tapped the table with his fingers as he uttered the following
+sentences, with an air of keen delight:
+
+"Arsène Lupin against Herlock Sholmes.... France against England....
+Trafalgar will be revenged at last.... Ah! the rascal ... he doesn't
+suspect that I am prepared ... and a Lupin warned--"
+
+He stopped suddenly, seized with a fit of coughing, and hid his face in
+his napkin, as if something had stuck in his throat.
+
+"A bit of bread?" I inquired. "Drink some water."
+
+"No, it isn't that," he replied, in a stifled voice.
+
+"Then, what is it?"
+
+"The want of air."
+
+"Do you wish a window opened?"
+
+"No, I shall go out. Give me my hat and overcoat, quick! I must go."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"The two gentlemen who came in just now.... Look at the taller one ...
+now, when we go out, keep to my left, so he will not see me."
+
+"The one who is sitting behind you?"
+
+"Yes. I will explain it to you, outside."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Herlock Sholmes."
+
+He made a desperate effort to control himself, as if he were ashamed of
+his emotion, replaced his napkin, drank a glass of water, and, quite
+recovered, said to me, smiling:
+
+"It is strange, hein, that I should be affected so easily, but that
+unexpected sight--"
+
+"What have you to fear, since no one can recognize you, on account of
+your many transformations? Every time I see you it seems to me your face
+is changed; it's not at all familiar. I don't know why."
+
+"But _he_ would recognize me," said Lupin. "He has seen me only once;
+but, at that time, he made a mental photograph of me--not of my external
+appearance but of my very soul--not what I appear to be but just what I
+am. Do you understand? And then ... and then.... I did not expect to
+meet him here.... Such a strange encounter!... in this little
+restaurant...."
+
+"Well, shall we go out?"
+
+"No, not now," said Lupin.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"The better way is to act frankly ... to have confidence in him--trust
+him...."
+
+"You will not speak to him?"
+
+"Why not! It will be to my advantage to do so, and find out what he
+knows, and, perhaps, what he thinks. At present I have the feeling that
+his gaze is on my neck and shoulders, and that he is trying to remember
+where he has seen them before."
+
+He reflected a moment. I observed a malicious smile at the corner of his
+mouth; then, obedient, I think, to a whim of his impulsive nature, and
+not to the necessities of the situation, he arose, turned around, and,
+with a bow and a joyous air, he said:
+
+"By what lucky chance? Ah! I am delighted to see you. Permit me to
+introduce a friend of mine."
+
+For a moment the Englishman was disconcerted; then he made a movement as
+if he would seize Arsène Lupin. The latter shook his head, and said:
+
+"That would not be fair; besides, the movement would be an awkward one
+and ... quite useless."
+
+The Englishman looked about him, as if in search of assistance.
+
+"No use," said Lupin. "Besides, are you quite sure you can place your
+hand on me? Come, now, show me that you are a real Englishman and,
+therefore, a good sport."
+
+This advice seemed to commend itself to the detective, for he partially
+rose and said, very formally:
+
+"Monsieur Wilson, my friend and assistant--Monsieur Arsène Lupin."
+
+Wilson's amazement evoked a laugh. With bulging eyes and gaping mouth,
+he looked from one to the other, as if unable to comprehend the
+situation. Herlock Sholmes laughed and said:
+
+"Wilson, you should conceal your astonishment at an incident which is
+one of the most natural in the world."
+
+"Why do you not arrest him?" stammered Wilson.
+
+"Have you not observed, Wilson, that the gentleman is between me and the
+door, and only a few steps from the door. By the time I could move my
+little finger he would be outside."
+
+"Don't let that make any difference," said Lupin, who now walked around
+the table and seated himself so that the Englishman was between him and
+the door--thus placing himself at the mercy of the foreigner.
+
+Wilson looked at Sholmes to find out if he had the right to admire this
+act of wanton courage. The Englishman's face was impenetrable; but, a
+moment later, he called:
+
+"Waiter!"
+
+When the waiter came he ordered soda, beer and whisky. The treaty of
+peace was signed--until further orders. In a few moments the four men
+were conversing in an apparently friendly manner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herlock Sholmes is a man such as you might meet every day in the
+business world. He is about fifty years of age, and looks as if he might
+have passed his life in an office, adding up columns of dull figures or
+writing out formal statements of business accounts. There was nothing to
+distinguish him from the average citizen of London, except the
+appearance of his eyes, his terribly keen and penetrating eyes.
+
+But then he is Herlock Sholmes--which means that he is a wonderful
+combination of intuition, observation, clairvoyance and ingenuity. One
+could readily believe that nature had been pleased to take the two most
+extraordinary detectives that the imagination of man has hitherto
+conceived, the Dupin of Edgar Allen Poe and the Lecoq of Emile Gaboriau,
+and, out of that material, constructed a new detective, more
+extraordinary and supernatural than either of them. And when a person
+reads the history of his exploits, which have made him famous
+throughout the entire world, he asks himself whether Herlock Sholmes is
+not a mythical personage, a fictitious hero born in the brain of a great
+novelist--Conan Doyle, for instance.
+
+When Arsène Lupin questioned him in regard to the length of his sojourn
+in France he turned the conversation into its proper channel by saying:
+
+"That depends on you, monsieur."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Lupin, laughing, "if it depends on me you can return to
+England to-night."
+
+"That is a little too soon, but I expect to return in the course of
+eight or nine days--ten at the outside."
+
+"Are you in such a hurry?"
+
+"I have many cases to attend to; such as the robbery of the
+Anglo-Chinese Bank, the abduction of Lady Eccleston.... But, don't you
+think, Monsieur Lupin, that I can finish my business in Paris within a
+week?"
+
+"Certainly, if you confine your efforts to the case of the blue diamond.
+It is, moreover, the length of time that I require to make preparations
+for my safety in case the solution of that affair should give you
+certain dangerous advantages over me."
+
+"And yet," said the Englishman, "I expect to close the business in eight
+or ten days."
+
+"And arrest me on the eleventh, perhaps?"
+
+"No, the tenth is my limit."
+
+Lupin shook his head thoughtfully, as he said:
+
+"That will be difficult--very difficult."
+
+"Difficult, perhaps, but possible, therefore certain--"
+
+"Absolutely certain," said Wilson, as if he had clearly worked out the
+long series of operations which would conduct his collaborator to the
+desired result.
+
+"Of course," said Herlock Sholmes, "I do not hold all the trump cards,
+as these cases are already several months old, and I lack certain
+information and clues upon which I am accustomed to base my
+investigations."
+
+"Such as spots of mud and cigarette ashes," said Wilson, with an air of
+importance.
+
+"In addition to the remarkable conclusions formed by Monsieur Ganimard,
+I have obtained all the articles written on the subject, and have formed
+a few deductions of my own."
+
+"Some ideas which were suggested to us by analysis or hypothesis,"
+added Wilson, sententiously.
+
+"I wish to enquire," said Arsène Lupin, in that deferential tone which
+he employed in speaking to Sholmes, "would I be indiscreet if I were to
+ask you what opinion you have formed about the case?"
+
+Really, it was a most exciting situation to see those two men facing
+each other across the table, engaged in an earnest discussion as if they
+were obliged to solve some abstruse problem or come to an agreement upon
+some controverted fact. Wilson was in the seventh heaven of delight.
+Herlock Sholmes filled his pipe slowly, lighted it, and said:
+
+"This affair is much simpler than it appeared to be at first sight."
+
+"Much simpler," said Wilson, as a faithful echo.
+
+"I say 'this affair,' for, in my opinion, there is only one," said
+Sholmes. "The death of the Baron d'Hautrec, the story of the ring, and,
+let us not forget, the mystery of lottery ticket number 514, are only
+different phases of what one might call the mystery of the blonde Lady.
+Now, according to my view, it is simply a question of discovering the
+bond that unites those three episodes in the same story--the fact which
+proves the unity of the three events. Ganimard, whose judgment is rather
+superficial, finds that unity in the faculty of disappearance; that is,
+in the power of coming and going unseen and unheard. That theory does
+not satisfy me."
+
+"Well, what is your idea?" asked Lupin.
+
+"In my opinion," said Sholmes, "the characteristic feature of the three
+episodes is your design and purpose of leading the affair into a certain
+channel previously chosen by you. It is, on your part, more than a plan;
+it is a necessity, an indispensable condition of success."
+
+"Can you furnish any details of your theory?"
+
+"Certainly. For example, from the beginning of your conflict with
+Monsieur Gerbois, is it not evident that the apartment of Monsieur
+Detinan is the place selected by you, the inevitable spot where all the
+parties must meet? In your opinion, it was the only safe place, and you
+arranged a rendezvous there, publicly, one might say, for the blonde
+Lady and Mademoiselle Gerbois."
+
+"The professor's daughter," added Wilson. "Now, let us consider the
+case of the blue diamond. Did you try to appropriate it while the Baron
+d'Hautrec possessed it! No. But the baron takes his brother's house. Six
+months later we have the intervention of Antoinette Bréhat and the first
+attempt. The diamond escapes you, and the sale is widely advertised to
+take place at the Drouot auction-rooms. Will it be a free and open sale?
+Is the richest amateur sure to carry off the jewel! No. Just as the
+banker Herschmann is on the point of buying the ring, a lady sends him a
+letter of warning, and it is the Countess de Crozon, prepared and
+influenced by the same lady, who becomes the purchaser of the diamond.
+Will the ring disappear at once? No; you lack the opportunity.
+Therefore, you must wait. At last the Countess goes to her château. That
+is what you were waiting for. The ring disappears."
+
+"To reappear again in the tooth-powder of Herr Bleichen," remarked
+Lupin.
+
+"Oh! such nonsense!" exclaimed Sholmes, striking the table with his
+fist, "don't tell me such a fairy tale. I am too old a fox to be led
+away by a false scent."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What do I mean?" said Sholmes, then paused a moment as if he wished to
+arrange his effect. At last he said:
+
+"The blue diamond that was found in the tooth-powder was false. You kept
+the genuine stone."
+
+Arsène Lupin remained silent for a moment; then, with his eyes fixed on
+the Englishman, he replied, calmly:
+
+"You are impertinent, monsieur."
+
+"Impertinent, indeed!" repeated Wilson, beaming with admiration.
+
+"Yes," said Lupin, "and, yet, to do you credit, you have thrown a strong
+light on a very mysterious subject. Not a magistrate, not a special
+reporter, who has been engaged on this case, has come so near the truth.
+It is a marvellous display of intuition and logic."
+
+"Oh! a person has simply to use his brains," said Herlock Sholmes,
+nattered at the homage of the expert criminal.
+
+"And so few have any brains to use," replied Lupin. "And, now, that the
+field of conjectures has been narrowed down, and the rubbish cleared
+away----"
+
+"Well, now, I have simply to discover why the three episodes were
+enacted at 25 rue Clapeyron, 134 avenue Henri-Martin, and within the
+walls of the Château de Crozon and my work will be finished. What
+remains will be child's play. Don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes, I think you are right."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur Lupin, am I wrong in saying that my business
+will be finished in ten days?"
+
+"In ten days you will know the whole truth," said Lupin.
+
+"And you will be arrested."
+
+"No."
+
+"No?"
+
+"In order that I may be arrested there must occur such a series of
+improbable and unexpected misfortunes that I cannot admit the
+possibility of such an event."
+
+"We have a saying in England that 'the unexpected always happens.'"
+
+They looked at each other for a moment calmly and fearlessly, without
+any display of bravado or malice. They met as equals in a contest of wit
+and skill. And this meeting was the formal crossing of swords,
+preliminary to the duel.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Lupin, "at last I shall have an adversary worthy of the
+name--one whose defeat will be the proudest achievement in my career."
+
+"Are you not afraid!" asked Wilson.
+
+"Almost, Monsieur Wilson," replied Lupin, rising from his chair, "and
+the proof is that I am about to make a hasty retreat. Then, we will say
+ten days, Monsieur Sholmes?"
+
+"Yes, ten days. This is Sunday. A week from next Wednesday, at eight
+o'clock in the evening, it will be all over."
+
+"And I shall be in prison?"
+
+"No doubt of it."
+
+"Ha! not a pleasant outlook for a man who gets so much enjoyment out of
+life as I do. No cares, a lively interest in the affairs of the world, a
+justifiable contempt for the police, and the consoling sympathy of
+numerous friends and admirers. And now, behold, all that is about to be
+changed! It is the reverse side of the medal. After sunshine comes the
+rain. It is no longer a laughing matter. Adieu!"
+
+"Hurry up!" said Wilson, full of solicitude for a person in whom Herlock
+Sholmes had inspired so much respect, "do not lose a minute."
+
+"Not a minute, Monsieur Wilson; but I wish to express my pleasure at
+having met you, and to tell you how much I envy the master in having
+such a valuable assistant as you seem to be."
+
+Then, after they had courteously saluted each other, like adversaries in
+a duel who entertain no feeling of malice but are obliged to fight by
+force of circumstances, Lupin seized me by the arm and drew me outside.
+
+"What do you think of it, dear boy? The strange events of this evening
+will form an interesting chapter in the memoirs you are now preparing
+for me."
+
+He closed the door of the restaurant behind us, and, after taking a few
+steps, he stopped and said:
+
+"Do you smoke?"
+
+"No. Nor do you, it seems to me."
+
+"You are right, I don't."
+
+He lighted a cigarette with a wax-match, which he shook several times in
+an effort to extinguish it. But he threw away the cigarette immediately,
+ran across the street, and joined two men who emerged from the shadows
+as if called by a signal. He conversed with them for a few minutes on
+the opposite sidewalk, and then returned to me.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but I fear that cursed Sholmes is going to give me
+trouble. But, I assure you, he is not yet through with Arsène Lupin. He
+will find out what kind of fuel I use to warm my blood. And now--au
+revoir! The genial Wilson is right; there is not a moment to lose."
+
+He walked away rapidly.
+
+Thus ended the events of that exciting evening, or, at least, that part
+of them in which I was a participant. Subsequently, during the course of
+the evening, other stirring incidents occurred which have come to my
+knowledge through the courtesy of other members of that unique
+dinner-party.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the very moment in which Lupin left me, Herlock Sholmes rose from the
+table, and looked at his watch.
+
+"Twenty minutes to nine. At nine o'clock I am to meet the Count and
+Countess at the railway station."
+
+"Then, we must be off!" exclaimed Wilson, between two drinks of whisky.
+
+They left the restaurant.
+
+"Wilson, don't look behind. We may be followed, and, in that case, let
+us act as if we did not care. Wilson, I want your opinion: why was Lupin
+in that restaurant?"
+
+"To get something to eat," replied Wilson, quickly.
+
+"Wilson, I must congratulate you on the accuracy of your deduction. I
+couldn't have done better myself."
+
+Wilson blushed with pleasure, and Sholmes continued:
+
+"To get something to eat. Very well, and, after that, probably, to
+assure himself whether I am going to the Château de Crozon, as announced
+by Ganimard in his interview. I must go in order not to disappoint him.
+But, in order to gain time on him, I shall not go."
+
+"Ah!" said Wilson, nonplused.
+
+"You, my friend, will walk down this street, take a carriage, two, three
+carriages. Return later and get the valises that we left at the station,
+and make for the Elysée-Palace at a galop."
+
+"And when I reach the Elysée-Palace?"
+
+"Engage a room, go to sleep, and await my orders."
+
+Quite proud of the important rôle assigned to him, Wilson set out to
+perform his task. Herlock Sholmes proceeded to the railway station,
+bought a ticket, and repaired to the Amiens' express in which the Count
+and Countess de Crozon were already installed. He bowed to them, lighted
+his pipe, and had a quiet smoke in the corridor. The train started. Ten
+minutes later he took a seat beside the Countess, and said to her:
+
+"Have you the ring here, madame?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Will you kindly let me see it?"
+
+He took it, and examined it closely.
+
+"Just as I suspected: it is a manufactured diamond."
+
+"A manufactured diamond?"
+
+"Yes; a new process which consists in submitting diamond dust to a
+tremendous heat until it melts and is then molded into a single stone."
+
+"But my diamond is genuine."
+
+"Yes, _your_ diamond is; but this is not yours."
+
+"Where is mine?"
+
+"It is held by Arsène Lupin."
+
+"And this stone?"
+
+"Was substituted for yours, and slipped into Herr Bleichen's
+tooth-powder, where it was afterwards found."
+
+"Then you think this is false?"
+
+"Absolutely false."
+
+The Countess was overwhelmed with surprise and grief, while her husband
+scrutinized the diamond with an incredulous air. Finally she stammered:
+
+"Is it possible? And why did they not merely steal it and be done with
+it? And how did they steal it?"
+
+"That is exactly what I am going to find out."
+
+"At the Château de Crozon?"
+
+"No. I shall leave the train at Creil and return to Paris. It is there
+the game between me and Arsène Lupin must be played. In fact, the game
+has commenced already, and Lupin thinks I am on my way to the château."
+
+"But--"
+
+"What does it matter to you, madame? The essential thing is your
+diamond, is it not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, don't worry. I have just undertaken a much more difficult task
+than that. You have my promise that I will restore the true diamond to
+you within ten days."
+
+The train slackened its speed. He put the false diamond in his pocket
+and opened the door. The Count cried out:
+
+"That is the wrong side of the train. You are getting out on the
+tracks."
+
+"That is my intention. If Lupin has anyone on my track, he will lose
+sight of me now. Adieu."
+
+An employee protested in vain. After the departure of the train, the
+Englishman sought the station-master's office. Forty minutes later he
+leaped into a train that landed him in Paris shortly before midnight. He
+ran across the platform, entered the lunch-room, made his exit at
+another door, and jumped into a cab.
+
+"Driver--rue Clapeyron."
+
+Having reached the conclusion that he was not followed, he stopped the
+carriage at the end of the street, and proceeded to make a careful
+examination of Monsieur Detinan's house and the two adjoining houses. He
+made measurements of certain distances and entered the figures in his
+notebook.
+
+"Driver--avenue Henri-Martin."
+
+At the corner of the avenue and the rue de la Pompe, he dismissed the
+carriage, walked down the street to number 134, and performed the same
+operations in front of the house of the late Baron d'Hautrec and the two
+adjoining houses, measuring the width of the respective façades and
+calculating the depth of the little gardens that stood in front of
+them.
+
+The avenue was deserted, and was very dark under its four rows of trees,
+between which, at considerable intervals, a few gas-lamps struggled in
+vain to light the deep shadows. One of them threw a dim light over a
+portion of the house, and Sholmes perceived the "To-let" sign posted on
+the gate, the neglected walks which encircled the small lawn, and the
+large bare windows of the vacant house.
+
+"I suppose," he said to himself, "the house has been unoccupied since
+the death of the baron.... Ah! if I could only get in and view the scene
+of the murder!"
+
+No sooner did the idea occur to him than he sought to put it in
+execution. But how could he manage it? He could not climb over the gate;
+it was too high. So he took from his pocket an electric lantern and a
+skeleton key which he always carried. Then, to his great surprise, he
+discovered that the gate was not locked; in fact, it was open about
+three or four inches. He entered the garden, and was careful to leave
+the gate as he had found it--partly open. But he had not taken many
+steps from the gate when he stopped. He had seen a light pass one of
+the windows on the second floor.
+
+He saw the light pass a second window and a third, but he saw nothing
+else, except a silhouette outlined on the walls of the rooms. The light
+descended to the first floor, and, for a long time, wandered from room
+to room.
+
+"Who the deuce is walking, at one o'clock in the morning, through the
+house in which the Baron d'Hautrec was killed?" Herlock Sholmes asked
+himself, deeply interested.
+
+There was only one way to find out, and that was to enter the house
+himself. He did not hesitate, but started for the door of the house.
+However, at the moment when he crossed the streak of gaslight that came
+from the street-lamp, the man must have seen him, for the light in the
+house was suddenly extinguished and Herlock Sholmes did not see it
+again. Softly, he tried the door. It was open, also. Hearing no sound,
+he advanced through the hallway, encountered the foot of the stairs, and
+ascended to the first floor. Here there was the same silence, the same
+darkness.
+
+He entered, one of the rooms and approached a window through which came
+a feeble light from the outside. On looking through the window he saw
+the man, who had no doubt descended by another stairway and escaped by
+another door. The man was threading his way through the shrubbery which
+bordered the wall that separated the two gardens.
+
+"The deuce!" exclaimed Sholmes, "he is going to escape."
+
+He hastened down the stairs and leaped over the steps in his eagerness
+to cut off the man's retreat. But he did not see anyone, and, owing to
+the darkness, it was several seconds before he was able to distinguish a
+bulky form moving through the shrubbery. This gave the Englishman food
+for reflection. Why had the man not made his escape, which he could have
+done so easily? Had he remained in order to watch the movements of the
+intruder who had disturbed him in his mysterious work?
+
+"At all events," concluded Sholmes, "it is not Lupin; he would be more
+adroit. It may be one of his men."
+
+For several minutes Herlock Sholmes remained motionless, with his gaze
+fixed on the adversary who, in his turn was watching the detective. But
+as that adversary had become passive, and as the Englishman was not one
+to consume his time in idle waiting, he examined his revolver to see if
+it was in good working order, remove his knife from its sheath, and
+walked toward the enemy with that cool effrontery and scorn of danger
+for which he had become famous.
+
+He heard a clicking sound; it was his adversary preparing his revolver.
+Herlock Sholmes dashed boldly into the thicket, and grappled with his
+foe. There was a sharp, desperate struggle, in the course of which
+Sholmes suspected that the man was trying to draw a knife. But the
+Englishman, believing his antagonist to be an accomplice of Arsène Lupin
+and anxious to win the first trick in the game with that redoubtable
+foe, fought with unusual strength and determination. He hurled his
+adversary to the ground, held him there with the weight of his body,
+and, gripping him by the throat with one hand, he used his free hand to
+take out his electric lantern, press the button, and throw the light
+over the face of his prisoner.
+
+"Wilson!" he exclaimed, in amazement.
+
+"Herlock Sholmes!" stammered a weak, stifled voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a long time they remained silent, astounded, foolish. The shriek of
+an automobile rent the air. A slight breeze stirred the leaves.
+Suddenly, Herlock Sholmes seized his friend by the shoulders and shook
+him violently, as he cried:
+
+"What are you doing here? Tell me.... What?... Did I tell you to hide in
+the bushes and spy on me!"
+
+"Spy on you!" muttered Wilson, "why, I didn't know it was you."
+
+"But what are you doing here? You ought to be in bed."
+
+"I was in bed."
+
+"You ought to be asleep."
+
+"I was asleep."
+
+"Well, what brought you here?" asked Sholmes.
+
+"Your letter."
+
+"My letter? I don't understand."
+
+"Yes, a messenger brought it to me at the hotel."
+
+"From me? Are you crazy?"
+
+"It is true--I swear it."
+
+"Where is the letter?"
+
+Wilson handed him a sheet of paper, which he read by the light of his
+lantern. It was as follows:
+
+"Wilson, come at once to avenue Henri-Martin. The house is empty.
+Inspect the whole place and make an exact plan. Then return to
+hotel.--Herlock Sholmes."
+
+"I was measuring the rooms," said Wilson, "when I saw a shadow in the
+garden. I had only one idea----"
+
+"That was to seize the shadow.... The idea was excellent.... But
+remember this, Wilson, whenever you receive a letter from me, be sure it
+is my handwriting and not a forgery."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Wilson, as the truth dawned on him, "then the letter
+wasn't from you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who sent it, then?"
+
+"Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Why? For what purpose?" asked Wilson.
+
+"I don't know, and that's what worries me. I don't understand why he
+took the trouble to disturb you. Of course, if he had sent me on such a
+foolish errand I wouldn't be surprised; but what was his object in
+disturbing you?"
+
+"I must hurry back to the hotel."
+
+"So must I, Wilson."
+
+They arrived at the gate. Wilson, who was ahead, took hold of it and
+pulled.
+
+"Ah! you closed it?" he said.
+
+"No, I left it partly open."
+
+Sholmes tried the gate; then, alarmed, he examined the lock. An oath
+escaped him:
+
+"Good God! it is locked! locked with a key!"
+
+He shook the gate with all his strength; then, realizing the futility of
+his efforts, he dropped his arms, discouraged, and muttered, in a jerky
+manner:
+
+"I can see it all now--it is Lupin. He fore-saw that I would leave the
+train at Creil, and he prepared this neat little trap for me in case I
+should commence my investigation this evening. Moreover, he was kind
+enough to send me a companion to share my captivity. All done to make me
+lose a day, and, perhaps, also, to teach me to mind my own business."
+
+"Do you mean to say we are prisoners?"
+
+"Exactly. Herlock Sholmes and Wilson are the prisoners of Arsène Lupin.
+It's a bad beginning; but he laughs best who laughs last."
+
+Wilson seized Sholmes' arm, and exclaimed:
+
+"Look!... Look up there!... A light...."
+
+A light shone through one of the windows of the first floor. Both of
+them ran to the house, and each ascended by the stairs he had used on
+coming out a short time before, and they met again at the entrance to
+the lighted chamber. A small piece of a candle was burning in the center
+of the room. Beside it there was a basket containing a bottle, a roasted
+chicken, and a loaf of bread.
+
+Sholmes was greatly amused, and laughed heartily.
+
+"Wonderful! we are invited to supper. It is really an enchanted place, a
+genuine fairy-land. Come, Wilson, cheer up! this is not a funeral. It's
+all very funny."
+
+"Are you quite sure it is so very funny?" asked Wilson, in a lugubrious
+tone.
+
+"Am I sure?" exclaimed Sholmes, with a gaiety that was too boisterous to
+be natural, "why, to tell the truth, it's the funniest thing I ever saw.
+It's a jolly good comedy! What a master of sarcasm this Arsène Lupin is!
+He makes a fool of you with the utmost grace and delicacy. I wouldn't
+miss this feast for all the money in the Bank of England. Come, Wilson,
+you grieve me. You should display that nobility of character which
+rises superior to misfortune. I don't see that you have any cause for
+complaint, really, I don't."
+
+After a time, by dint of good humor and sarcasm, he managed to restore
+Wilson to his normal mood, and make him swallow a morsel of chicken and
+a glass of wine. But when the candle went out and they prepared to spend
+the night there, with the bare floor for a mattress and the hard wall
+for a pillow, the harsh and ridiculous side of the situation was
+impressed upon them. That particular incident will not form a pleasant
+page in the memoirs of the famous detective.
+
+Next morning Wilson awoke, stiff and cold. A slight noise attracted his
+attention: Herlock Sholmes was kneeling on the floor, critically
+examining some grains of sand and studying some chalk-marks, now almost
+effaced, which formed certain figures and numbers, which figures he
+entered in his notebook.
+
+Accompanied by Wilson, who was deeply interested in the work, he
+examined each room, and found similar chalk-marks in two other
+apartments. He noticed, also, two circles on the oaken panels, an arrow
+on a wainscot, and four figures on four steps of the stairs. At the end
+of an hour Wilson said:
+
+"The figures are correct, aren't they?"
+
+"I don't know; but, at all events, they mean something," replied
+Sholmes, who had forgotten the discomforts of the night in the joy
+created by his new discoveries.
+
+"It is quite obvious," said Wilson, "they represent the number of pieces
+in the floor."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Yes. And the two circles indicate that the panels are false, as you can
+readily ascertain, and the arrow points in the direction in which the
+panels move."
+
+Herlock Sholmes looked at Wilson, in astonishment.
+
+"Ah! my dear friend, how do you know all that? Your clairvoyance makes
+my poor ability in that direction look quite insignificant."
+
+"Oh! it is very simple," said Wilson, inflated with pride; "I examined
+those marks last night, according to your instructions, or, rather,
+according to the instructions of Arsène Lupin, since he wrote the letter
+you sent to me."
+
+At that moment Wilson faced a greater danger than he had during his
+struggle in the garden with Herlock Sholmes. The latter now felt a
+furious desire to strangle him. But, dominating his feelings, Sholmes
+made a grimace which was intended for a smile, and said:
+
+"Quite so, Wilson, you have done well, and your work shows commendable
+progress. But, tell me, have you exercised your powers of observation
+and analysis on any other points? I might profit by your deductions."
+
+"Oh! no, I went no farther."
+
+"That's a pity. Your début was such a promising one. But, since that is
+all, we may as well go."
+
+"Go! but how can we get out?"
+
+"The way all honest people go out: through the gate."
+
+"But it is locked."
+
+"It will be opened."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Please call the two policemen who are strolling down the avenue."
+
+"But----"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"It is very humiliating. What will be said when it becomes known that
+Herlock Sholmes and Wilson were the prisoners of Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"Of course, I understand they will roar with laughter," replied Herlock
+Sholmes, in a dry voice and with frowning features, "but we can't set up
+housekeeping in this place."
+
+"And you will not try to find another way out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But the man who brought us the basket of provisions did not cross the
+garden, coming or going. There is some other way out. Let us look for
+it, and not bother with the police."
+
+"Your argument is sound, but you forget that all the detectives in Paris
+have been trying to find it for the last six months, and that I searched
+the house from top to bottom while you were asleep. Ah! my dear Wilson,
+we have not been accustomed to pursue such game as Arsène Lupin. He
+leaves no trail behind him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eleven o'clock, Herlock Sholmes and Wilson were liberated, and
+conducted to the nearest police station, where the commissary, after
+subjecting them to a severe examination, released them with an
+affectation of good-will that was quite exasperating.
+
+"I am very sorry, messieurs, that this unfortunate incident has
+occurred. You will have a very poor opinion of French hospitality. Mon
+Dieu! what a night you must have passed! Ah! that rascally Lupin is no
+respecter of persons."
+
+They took a carriage to their hotel. At the office Wilson asked for the
+key of his room.
+
+After some search the clerk replied, much astonished:
+
+"But, monsieur, you have given up the room."
+
+"I gave it up? When?"
+
+"This morning, by the letter your friend brought here."
+
+"What friend?"
+
+"The gentleman who brought your letter.... Ah! your card is still
+attached to the letter. Here they are."
+
+Wilson looked at them. Certainly, it was one of his cards, and the
+letter was in his handwriting.
+
+"Good Lord!" he muttered, "this is another of his tricks," and he added,
+aloud: "Where is my luggage?"
+
+"Your friend took it."
+
+"Ah!... and you gave it to him?"
+
+"Certainly; on the strength of your letter and card."
+
+"Of course ... of course."
+
+They left the hotel and walked, slowly and thoughtfully, through the
+Champs-Elysées. The avenue was bright and cheerful beneath a clear
+autumn sun; the air was mild and pleasant.
+
+At Rond-Point, Herlock Sholmes lighted his pipe. Then Wilson spoke:
+
+"I can't understand you, Sholmes. You are so calm and unruffled. They
+play with you as a cat plays with a mouse, and yet you do not say a
+word."
+
+Sholmes stopped, as he replied:
+
+"Wilson, I was thinking of your card."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The point is this: here is a man who, in view of a possible struggle
+with us, procures specimens of our handwriting, and who holds, in his
+possession, one or more of your cards. Now, have you considered how much
+precaution and skill those facts represent?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, Wilson, to overcome an enemy so well prepared and so thoroughly
+equipped requires the infinite shrewdness of ... of a Herlock Sholmes.
+And yet, as you have seen, Wilson, I have lost the first round."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At six o'clock the _Echo de France_ published the following article in
+its evening edition:
+
+"This morning Mon. Thenard, commissary of police in the sixteenth
+district, released Herlock Sholmes and his friend Wilson, both of whom
+had been locked in the house of the late Baron d'Hautrec, where they
+spent a very pleasant night--thanks to the thoughtful care and attention
+of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"In addition to their other troubles, these gentlemen have been robbed
+of their valises, and, in consequence thereof, they have entered a
+formal complaint against Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Arsène Lupin, satisfied that he has given them a mild reproof, hopes
+these gentlemen will not force him to resort to more stringent
+measures."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Herlock Sholmes, crushing the paper in his hands, "that
+is only child's play! And that is the only criticism I have to make of
+Arsène Lupin: he plays to the gallery. There is that much of the fakir
+in him."
+
+"Ah! Sholmes, you are a wonderful man! You have such a command over your
+temper. Nothing ever disturbs you."
+
+"No, nothing disturbs me," replied Sholmes, in a voice that trembled
+from rage; "besides, what's the use of losing my temper?... I am quite
+confident of the final result; I shall have the last word."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
+
+
+However well-tempered a man's character may be--and Herlock Sholmes is
+one of those men over whom ill-fortune has little or no hold--there are
+circumstances wherein the most courageous combatant feels the necessity
+of marshaling his forces before risking the chances of a battle.
+
+"I shall take a vacation to-day," said Sholmes.
+
+"And what shall I do?" asked Wilson.
+
+"You, Wilson--let me see! You can buy some underwear and linen to
+replenish our wardrobe, while I take a rest."
+
+"Very well, Sholmes, I will watch while you sleep."
+
+Wilson uttered these words with all the importance of a sentinel on
+guard at the outpost, and therefore exposed to the greatest danger. His
+chest was expanded; his muscles were tense. Assuming a shrewd look, he
+scrutinized, officially, the little room in which they had fixed their
+abode.
+
+"Very well, Wilson, you can watch. I shall occupy myself in the
+preparation of a line of attack more appropriate to the methods of the
+enemy we are called upon to meet. Do you see, Wilson, we have been
+deceived in this fellow Lupin. My opinion is that we must commence at
+the very beginning of this affair."
+
+"And even before that, if possible. But have we sufficient time?"
+
+"Nine days, dear boy. That is five too many."
+
+The Englishman spent the entire afternoon in smoking and sleeping. He
+did not enter upon his new plan of attack until the following day. Then
+he said:
+
+"Wilson, I am ready. Let us attack the enemy."
+
+"Lead on, Macduff!" exclaimed Wilson, full of martial ardor. "I wish to
+fight in the front rank. Oh! have no fear. I shall do credit to my King
+and country, for I am an Englishman."
+
+In the first place, Sholmes had three long and important interviews:
+With Monsieur Detinan, whose rooms he examined with the greatest care
+and precision; with Suzanne Gerbois, whom he questioned in regard to the
+blonde Lady; and with Sister Auguste, who had retired to the convent of
+the Visitandines since the murder of Baron d'Hautrec.
+
+At each of these interviews Wilson had remained outside; and each time
+he asked:
+
+"Satisfactory?"
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"I was sure we were on the right track."
+
+They paid a visit to the two houses adjoining that of the late Baron
+d'Hautrec in the avenue Henri-Martin; then they visited the rue
+Clapeyron, and, while he was examining the front of number 25, Sholmes
+said:
+
+"All these houses must be connected by secret passages, but I can't find
+them."
+
+For the first time in his life, Wilson doubted the omnipotence of his
+famous associate. Why did he now talk so much and accomplish so little?
+
+"Why?" exclaimed Sholmes, in answer to Wilson's secret thought,
+"because, with this fellow Lupin, a person has to work in the dark, and,
+instead of deducting the truth from established facts, a man must
+extract it from his own brain, and afterward learn if it is supported by
+the facts in the case."
+
+"But what about the secret passages?"
+
+"They must exist. But even though I should discover them, and thus learn
+how Arsène Lupin made his entrance to the lawyer's house and how the
+blonde Lady escaped from the house of Baron d'Hautrec after the murder,
+what good would it do? How would it help me? Would it furnish me with a
+weapon of attack?"
+
+"Let us attack him just the same," exclaimed Wilson, who had scarcely
+uttered these words when he jumped back with a cry of alarm. Something
+had fallen at their feet; it was a bag filled with sand which might have
+caused them serious injury if it had struck them.
+
+Sholmes looked up. Some men were working on a scaffolding attached to
+the balcony at the fifth floor of the house. He said:
+
+"We were lucky; one step more, and that heavy bag would have fallen on
+our heads. I wonder if--"
+
+Moved by a sudden impulse, he rushed into the house, up the five flights
+of stairs, rang the bell, pushed his way into the apartment to the great
+surprise and alarm of the servant who came to the door, and made his
+way to the balcony in front of the house. But there was no one there.
+
+"Where are the workmen who were here a moment ago?" he asked the
+servant.
+
+"They have just gone."
+
+"Which way did they go?"
+
+"By the servants' stairs."
+
+Sholmes leaned out of the window. He saw two men leaving the house,
+carrying bicycles. They mounted them and quickly disappeared around the
+corner.
+
+"How long have they been working on this scaffolding?"
+
+"Those men?... only since this morning. It's their first day."
+
+Sholmes returned to the street, and joined Wilson. Together they
+returned to the hotel, and thus the second day ended in a mournful
+silence.
+
+On the following day their programme was almost similar. They sat
+together on a bench in the avenue Henri-Martin, much to Wilson's
+disgust, who did not find it amusing to spend long hours watching the
+house in which the tragedy had occurred.
+
+"What do you expect, Sholmes? That Arsène Lupin will walk out of the
+house?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That the blonde Lady will make her appearance?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What then/"
+
+"I am looking for something to occur; some slight incident that will
+furnish me with a clue to work on."
+
+"And if it does not occur!"
+
+"Then I must, myself, create the spark that will set fire to the
+powder."
+
+A solitary incident--and that of a disagreeable nature--broke the
+monotony of the forenoon.
+
+A gentleman was riding along the avenue when his horse suddenly turned
+aside in such a manner that it ran against the bench on which they were
+sitting, and struck Sholmes a slight blow on the shoulder.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Sholmes, "a little more and I would have had a broken
+shoulder."
+
+The gentleman struggled with his horse. The Englishman drew his revolver
+and pointed it; but Wilson seized his arm, and said:
+
+"Don't be foolish! What are you going to do! Kill the man!"
+
+"Leave me alone, Wilson! Let go!"
+
+During the brief struggle between Sholmes and Wilson the stranger rode
+away.
+
+"Now, you can shoot," said Wilson, triumphantly, when the horseman was
+at some distance.
+
+"Wilson, you're an idiot! Don't you understand that the man is an
+accomplice of Arsène Lupin?"
+
+Sholmes was trembling from rage. Wilson stammered pitifully:
+
+"What!... that man ... an accomplice?"
+
+"Yes, the same as the workmen who tried to drop the bag of sand on us
+yesterday."
+
+"It can't be possible!"
+
+"Possible or not, there was only one way to prove it."
+
+"By killing the man?"
+
+"No--by killing the horse. If you hadn't grabbed my arm, I should have
+captured one of Lupin's accomplices. Now, do you understand the folly of
+your act?"
+
+Throughout the afternoon both men were morose. They did not speak a word
+to each other. At five o'clock they visited the rue Clapeyron, but were
+careful to keep at a safe distance from the houses. However, three young
+men who were passing through the street, arm in arm, singing, ran
+against Sholmes and Wilson and refused to let them pass. Sholmes, who
+was in an ill humor, contested the right of way with them. After a brief
+struggle, Sholmes resorted to his fists. He struck one of the men a hard
+blow on the chest, another a blow in the face, and thus subdued two of
+his adversaries. Thereupon the three of them took to their heels and
+disappeared.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Sholmes, "that does me good. I needed a little
+exercise."
+
+But Wilson was leaning against the wall. Sholmes said:
+
+"What's the matter, old chap? You're quite pale."
+
+Wilson pointed to his left arm, which hung inert, and stammered:
+
+"I don't know what it is. My arm pains me."
+
+"Very much?... Is it serious?"
+
+"Yes, I am afraid so."
+
+He tried to raise his arm, but it was helpless. Sholmes felt it, gently
+at first, then in a rougher way, "to see how badly it was hurt," he
+said. He concluded that Wilson was really hurt, so he led him to a
+neighboring pharmacy, where a closer examination revealed the fact that
+the arm was broken and that Wilson was a candidate for the hospital. In
+the meantime they bared his arm and applied some remedies to ease his
+suffering.
+
+"Come, come, old chap, cheer up!" said Sholmes, who was holding Wilson's
+arm, "in five or six weeks you will be all right again. But I will pay
+them back ... the rascals! Especially Lupin, for this is his work ... no
+doubt of that. I swear to you if ever----"
+
+He stopped suddenly, dropped the arm--which caused Wilson such an access
+of pain that he almost fainted--and, striking his forehead, Sholmes
+said:
+
+"Wilson, I have an idea. You know, I have one occasionally."
+
+He stood for a moment, silent, with staring eyes, and then muttered, in
+short, sharp phrases:
+
+"Yes, that's it ... that will explain all ... right at my feet ... and I
+didn't see it ... ah, parbleu! I should have thought of it before....
+Wilson, I shall have good news for you."
+
+Abruptly leaving his old friend, Sholmes ran into the street and went
+directly to the house known as number 25. On one of the stones, to the
+right of the door, he read this inscription: "Destange, architect,
+1875."
+
+There was a similar inscription on the house numbered 23.
+
+Of course, there was nothing unusual in that. But what might be read on
+the houses in the avenue Henri-Martin?
+
+A carriage was passing. He engaged it and directed the driver to take
+him to No. 134 avenue Henri-Martin. He was roused to a high pitch of
+excitement. He stood up in the carriage and urged the horse to greater
+speed. He offered extra pourboires to the driver. Quicker! Quicker!
+
+How great was his anxiety as they turned from the rue de la Pompe! Had
+he caught a glimpse of the truth at last?
+
+On one of the stones of the late Baron's house he read the words:
+"Destange, architect, 1874." And a similar inscription appeared on the
+two adjoining houses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reaction was such that he settled down in the seat of the carriage,
+trembling from joy. At last, a tiny ray of light had penetrated the dark
+shadows which encompassed these mysterious crimes! In the vast sombre
+forest wherein a thousand pathways crossed and re-crossed, he had
+discovered the first clue to the track followed by the enemy!
+
+He entered a branch postoffice and obtained telephonic connection with
+the château de Crozon. The Countess answered the telephone call.
+
+"Hello!... Is that you, madame?"
+
+"Monsieur Sholmes, isn't it? Everything going all right?"
+
+"Quite well, but I wish to ask you one question.... Hello!"
+
+"Yes, I hear you."
+
+"Tell me, when was the château de Crozon built?"
+
+"It was destroyed by fire and rebuilt about thirty years ago."
+
+"Who built it, and in what year?"
+
+"There is an inscription on the front of the house which reads: 'Lucien
+Destange, architect, 1877.'"
+
+"Thank you, madame, that is all. Good-bye."
+
+He went away, murmuring: "Destange ... Lucien Destange ... that name has
+a familiar sound."
+
+He noticed a public reading-room, entered, consulted a dictionary of
+modern biography, and copied the following information: "Lucien
+Destange, born 1840, Grand-Prix de Rome, officer of the Legion of Honor,
+author of several valuable books on architecture, etc...."
+
+Then he returned to the pharmacy and found that Wilson had been taken to
+the hospital. There Sholmes found him with his arm in splints, and
+shivering with fever.
+
+"Victory! Victory!" cried Sholmes. "I hold one end of the thread."
+
+"Of what thread?"
+
+"The one that leads to victory. I shall now be walking on solid ground,
+where there will be footprints, clues...."
+
+"Cigarette ashes?" asked Wilson, whose curiosity had overcome his pain.
+
+"And many other things! Just think, Wilson, I have found the mysterious
+link which unites the different adventures in which the blonde Lady
+played a part. Why did Lupin select those three houses for the scenes of
+his exploits?"
+
+"Yes, why?"
+
+"Because those three houses were built by the same architect. That was
+an easy problem, eh? Of course ... but who would have thought of it?"
+
+"No one but you."
+
+"And who, except I, knows that the same architect, by the use of
+analogous plans, has rendered it possible for a person to execute three
+distinct acts which, though miraculous in appearance, are, in reality,
+quite simple and easy?"
+
+"That was a stroke of good luck."
+
+"And it was time, dear boy, as I was becoming very impatient. You know,
+this is our fourth day."
+
+"Out of ten."
+
+"Oh! after this----"
+
+Sholmes was excited, delighted, and gayer than usual.
+
+"And when I think that these rascals might have attacked me in the
+street and broken my arm just as they did yours! Isn't that so, Wilson?"
+
+Wilson simply shivered at the horrible thought. Sholmes continued:
+
+"We must profit by the lesson. I can see, Wilson, that we were wrong to
+try and fight Lupin in the open, and leave ourselves exposed to his
+attacks."
+
+"I can see it, and feel it, too, in my broken arm," said Wilson.
+
+"You have one consolation, Wilson; that is, that I escaped. Now, I must
+be doubly cautious. In an open fight he will defeat me; but if I can
+work in the dark, unseen by him, I have the advantage, no matter how
+strong his forces may be."
+
+"Ganimard might be of some assistance."
+
+"Never! On the day that I can truly say: Arsène Lupin is there; I show
+you the quarry, and how to catch it; I shall go and see Ganimard at one
+of the two addresses that he gave me--his residence in the rue
+Pergolese, or at the Suisse tavern in the Place du Châtelet. But, until
+that time, I shall work alone."
+
+He approached the bed, placed his hand on Wilson's shoulder--on the sore
+one, of course--and said to him:
+
+"Take care of yourself, old fellow. Henceforth your rôle will be to keep
+two or three of Arsène Lupin's men busy watching here in vain for my
+return to enquire about your health. It is a secret mission for you,
+eh?"
+
+"Yes, and I shall do my best to fulfil it conscientiously. Then you do
+not expect to come here any more?"
+
+"What for?" asked Sholmes.
+
+"I don't know ... of course.... I am getting on as well as possible.
+But, Herlock, do me a last service: give me a drink."
+
+"A drink?"
+
+"Yes, I am dying of thirst; and with my fever----"
+
+"To be sure--directly----"
+
+He made a pretense of getting some water, perceived a package of
+tobacco, lighted his pipe, and then, as if he had not heard his friend's
+request, he went away, whilst Wilson uttered a mute prayer for the
+inaccessible water.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur Destange!"
+
+The servant eyed from head to foot the person to whom he had opened the
+door of the house--the magnificent house that stood at the corner of the
+Place Malesherbes and the rue Montchanin--and at the sight of the man
+with gray hairs, badly shaved, dressed in a shabby black coat, with a
+body as ill-formed and ungracious as his face, he replied with the
+disdain which he thought the occasion warranted:
+
+"Monsieur Destange may or may not be at home. That depends. Has monsieur
+a card?"
+
+Monsieur did not have a card, but he had a letter of introduction and,
+after the servant had taken the letter to Mon. Destange, he was
+conducted into the presence of that gentleman who was sitting in a large
+circular room or rotunda which occupied one of the wings of the house.
+It was a library, and contained a profusion of books and architectural
+drawings. When the stranger entered, the architect said to him:
+
+"You are Monsieur Stickmann?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"My secretary tells me that he is ill, and has sent you to continue the
+general catalogue of the books which he commenced under my direction,
+and, more particularly, the catalogue of German books. Are you familiar
+with that kind of work?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur, quite so," he replied, with a strong German accent.
+
+Under those circumstances the bargain was soon concluded, and Mon.
+Destange commenced work with his new secretary.
+
+Herlock Sholmes had gained access to the house.
+
+In order to escape the vigilance of Arsène Lupin and gain admittance to
+the house occupied by Lucien Destange and his daughter Clotilde, the
+famous detective had been compelled to resort to a number of
+stratagems, and, under a variety of names, to ingratiate himself into
+the good graces and confidence of a number of persons--in short, to
+live, during forty-eight hours, a most complicated life. During that
+time he had acquired the following information: Mon. Destange, having
+retired from active business on account of his failing health, now lived
+amongst the many books he had accumulated on the subject of
+architecture. He derived infinite pleasure in viewing and handling those
+dusty old volumes.
+
+His daughter Clotilde was considered eccentric. She passed her time in
+another part of the house, and never went out.
+
+"Of course," Sholmes said to himself, as he wrote in a register the
+titles of the books which Mon. Destange dictated to him, "all that is
+vague and incomplete, but it is quite a long step in advance. I shall
+surely solve one of these absorbing problems: Is Mon. Destange
+associated with Arsène Lupin? Does he continue to see him? Are the
+papers relating to the construction of the three houses still in
+existence? Will those papers not furnish me with the location of other
+houses of similar construction which Arsène Lupin and his associates
+will plunder in the future?
+
+"Monsieur Destange, an accomplice of Arsène Lupin! That venerable man,
+an officer of the Legion of Honor, working in league with a
+burglar--such an idea was absurd! Besides, if we concede that such a
+complicity exists, how could Mon. Destange, thirty years ago, have
+possibly foreseen the thefts of Arsène Lupin, who was then an infant?"
+
+No matter! The Englishman was implacable. With his marvellous scent, and
+that instinct which never fails him, he felt that he was in the heart of
+some strange mystery. Ever since he first entered the house, he had been
+under the influence of that impression, and yet he could not define the
+grounds on which he based his suspicions.
+
+Up to the morning of the second day he had not made any significant
+discovery. At two o'clock of that day he saw Clotilde Destange for the
+first time; she came to the library in search of a book. She was about
+thirty years of age, a brunette, slow and silent in her movements, with
+features imbued with that expression of indifference which is
+characteristic of people who live a secluded life. She exchanged a few
+words with her father, and then retired, without even looking at
+Sholmes.
+
+The afternoon dragged along monotonously. At five o'clock Mon. Destange
+announced his intention to go out. Sholmes was alone on the circular
+gallery that was constructed about ten feet above the floor of the
+rotunda. It was almost dark. He was on the point of going out, when he
+heard a slight sound and, at the same time, experienced the feeling that
+there was someone in the room. Several minutes passed before he saw or
+heard anything more. Then he shuddered; a shadowy form emerged from the
+gloom, quite close to him, upon the balcony. It seemed incredible. How
+long had this mysterious visitor been there? Whence did he come?
+
+The strange man descended the steps and went directly to a large oaken
+cupboard. Sholmes was a keen observer of the man's movements. He watched
+him searching amongst the papers with which the cupboard was filled.
+What was he looking for?
+
+Then the door opened and Mlle. Destange entered, speaking to someone who
+was following her:
+
+"So you have decided not to go out, father?... Then I will make a light
+... one second ... do not move...."
+
+The strange man closed the cupboard and hid in the embrasure of a large
+window, drawing the curtains together. Did Mlle. Destange not see him?
+Did she not hear him? Calmly she turned on the electric lights; she and
+her father sat down close to each other. She opened a book she had
+brought with her, and commenced to read. After the lapse of a few
+minutes she said:
+
+"Your secretary has gone."
+
+"Yes, I don't see him."
+
+"Do you like him as well as you did at first?" she asked, as if she were
+not aware of the illness of the real secretary and his replacement by
+Stickmann.
+
+"Oh! yes."
+
+Monsieur Destange's head bobbed from one side to the other. He was
+asleep. The girl resumed her reading. A moment later one of the window
+curtains was pushed back, and the strange man emerged and glided along
+the wall toward the door, which obliged him to pass behind Mon. Destange
+but in front of Clotilde, and brought him into the light so that
+Herlock Sholmes obtained a good view of the man's face. It was Arsène
+Lupin.
+
+The Englishman was delighted. His forecast was verified; he had
+penetrated to the very heart of the mystery, and found Arsène Lupin to
+be the moving spirit in it.
+
+Clotilde had not yet displayed any knowledge of his presence, although
+it was quite improbable that any movement of the intruder had escaped
+her notice. Lupin had almost reached the door and, in fact, his hand was
+already seeking the door-knob, when his coat brushed against a small
+table and knocked something to the floor. Monsieur Destange awoke with a
+start. Arsène Lupin was already standing in front of him, hat in hand,
+smiling.
+
+"Maxime Bermond," exclaimed Mon. Destange, joyfully. "My dear Maxime,
+what lucky chance brings you here?"
+
+"The wish to see you and Mademoiselle Destange."
+
+"When did you return from your journey?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"You must stay to dinner."
+
+"No, thank you, I am sorry, but I have an appointment to dine with some
+friends at a restaurant."
+
+"Come, to-morrow, then, Clotilde, you must urge him to come to-morrow.
+Ah! my dear Maxime.... I thought of you many times during your absence."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, I went through all my old papers in that cupboard, and found our
+last statement of account."
+
+"What account?"
+
+"Relating to the avenue Henri-Martin."
+
+"Ah! do you keep such papers? What for?"
+
+Then the three of them left the room, and continued their conversation
+in a small parlor which adjoined the library.
+
+"Is it Lupin?" Sholmes asked himself, in a sudden access of doubt.
+Certainly, from all appearances, it was he; and yet it was also someone
+else who resembled Arsène Lupin in certain respects, and who still
+maintained his own individuality, features, and color of hair. Sholmes
+could hear Lupin's voice in the adjoining room. He was relating some
+stories at which Mon. Destange laughed heartily, and which even brought
+a smile to the lips of the melancholy Clotilde. And each of those
+smiles appeared to be the reward which Arsène Lupin was seeking, and
+which he was delighted to have secured. His success caused him to
+redouble his efforts and, insensibly, at the sound of that clear and
+happy voice, Clotilde's face brightened and lost that cold and listless
+expression which usually pervaded it.
+
+"They love each other," thought Sholmes, "but what the deuce can there
+be in common between Clotilde Destange and Maxime Bermond? Does she know
+that Maxime is none other than Arsène Lupin?"
+
+Until seven o'clock Sholmes was an anxious listener, seeking to profit
+by the conversation. Then, with infinite precaution, he descended from
+the gallery, crept along the side of the room to the door in such a
+manner that the people in the adjoining room did not see him.
+
+When he reached the street Sholmes satisfied himself that there was
+neither an automobile nor a cab waiting there; then he slowly limped
+along the boulevard Malesherbes. He turned into an adjacent street,
+donned the overcoat which he had carried on his arm, altered the shape
+of his hat, assumed an upright carriage, and, thus transformed,
+returned to a place whence he could watch the door of Mon. Destange's
+house.
+
+In a few minutes Arsène Lupin came out, and proceeded to walk toward the
+center of Paris by way of the rues de Constantinople and London. Herlock
+Sholmes followed at a distance of a hundred paces.
+
+Exciting moments for the Englishman! He sniffed the air, eagerly, like a
+hound following a fresh scent. It seemed to him a delightful thing thus
+to follow his adversary. It was no longer Herlock Sholmes who was being
+watched, but Arsène Lupin, the invisible Arsène Lupin. He held him, so
+to speak, within the grasp of his eye, by an imperceptible bond that
+nothing could break. And he was pleased to think that the quarry
+belonged to him.
+
+But he soon observed a suspicious circumstance. In the intervening space
+between him and Arsène Lupin he noticed several people traveling in the
+same direction, particularly two husky fellows in slouch hats on the
+left side of the street, and two others on the right wearing caps and
+smoking cigarettes. Of course, their presence in that vicinity may have
+been the result of chance, but Sholmes was more astonished when he
+observed that the four men stopped when Lupin entered a tobacco shop;
+and still more surprised when the four men started again after Lupin
+emerged from the shop, each keeping to his own side of the street.
+
+"Curse it!" muttered Sholmes; "he is being followed."
+
+He was annoyed at the idea that others were on the trail of Arsène
+Lupin; that someone might deprive him, not of the glory--he cared little
+for that--but of the immense pleasure of capturing, single-handed, the
+most formidable enemy he had ever met. And he felt that he was not
+mistaken; the men presented to Sholmes' experienced eye the appearance
+and manner of those who, while regulating their gait to that of another,
+wish to present a careless and natural air.
+
+"Is this some of Ganimard's work?" muttered Sholmes. "Is he playing me
+false?"
+
+He felt inclined to speak to one of the men with a view of acting in
+concert with him; but as they were now approaching the boulevard the
+crowd was becoming denser, and he was afraid he might lose sight of
+Lupin. So he quickened his pace and turned into the boulevard just in
+time to see Lupin ascending the steps of the Hungarian restaurant at the
+corner of the rue du Helder. The door of the restaurant was open, so
+that Sholmes, while sitting on a bench on the other side of the
+boulevard, could see Lupin take a seat at a table, luxuriously appointed
+and decorated with flowers, at which three gentlemen and two ladies of
+elegant appearance were already seated and who extended to Lupin a
+hearty greeting.
+
+Sholmes now looked about for the four men and perceived them amongst a
+crowd of people who were listening to a gipsy orchestra that was playing
+in a neighboring café. It was a curious thing that they were paying no
+attention to Arsène Lupin, but seemed to be friendly with the people
+around them. One of them took a cigarette from his pocket and approached
+a gentleman who wore a frock coat and silk hat. The gentleman offered
+the other his cigar for a light, and Sholmes had the impression that
+they talked to each other much longer than the occasion demanded.
+Finally the gentleman approached the Hungarian restaurant, entered and
+looked around. When he caught sight of Lupin he advanced and spoke to
+him for a moment, then took a seat at an adjoining table. Sholmes now
+recognized this gentleman as the horseman who had tried to run him down
+in the avenue Henri-Martin.
+
+Then Sholmes understood that these men were not tracking Arsène Lupin;
+they were a part of his band. They were watching over his safety. They
+were his bodyguard, his satellites, his vigilant escort. Wherever danger
+threatened Lupin, these confederates were at hand to avert it, ready to
+defend him. The four men were accomplices. The gentleman in the frock
+coat was an accomplice. These facts furnished the Englishman with food
+for reflection. Would he ever succeed in capturing that inaccessible
+individual? What unlimited power was possessed by such an organization,
+directed by such a chief!
+
+He tore a leaf from his notebook, wrote a few lines in pencil, which he
+placed in an envelope, and said to a boy about fifteen years of age who
+was sitting on the bench beside him:
+
+"Here, my boy; take a carriage and deliver this letter to the cashier of
+the Suisse tavern, Place du Châtelet. Be quick!"
+
+He gave him a five-franc piece. The boy disappeared.
+
+A half hour passed away. The crowd had grown larger, and Sholmes
+perceived only at intervals the accomplices of Arsène Lupin. Then
+someone brushed against him and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Well? what is it, Monsieur Sholmes?"
+
+"Ah! it is you, Ganimard?"
+
+"Yes; I received your note at the tavern. What's the matter?"
+
+"He is there."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"There ... in the restaurant. Lean to the right.... Do you see him now?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He is pouring a glass of champagne for the lady."
+
+"That is not Lupin."
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"But I tell you.... Ah! yet, it may be. It looks a great deal like him,"
+said Ganimard, naively. "And the others--accomplices?"
+
+"No; the lady sitting beside him is Lady Cliveden; the other is the
+Duchess de Cleath. The gentleman sitting opposite Lupin is the Spanish
+Ambassador to London."
+
+Ganimard took a step forward. Sholmes retained him.
+
+"Be prudent. You are alone."
+
+"So is he."
+
+"No, he has a number of men on the boulevard mounting guard. And inside
+the restaurant that gentleman----"
+
+"And I, when I take Arsène Lupin by the collar and announce his name, I
+shall have the entire room on my side and all the waiters."
+
+"I should prefer to have a few policemen."
+
+"But, Monsieur Sholmes, we have no choice. We must catch him when we
+can."
+
+He was right; Sholmes knew it. It was better to take advantage of the
+opportunity and make the attempt. Sholmes simply gave this advice to
+Ganimard:
+
+"Conceal your identity as long as possible."
+
+Sholmes glided behind a newspaper kiosk, whence he could still watch
+Lupin, who was leaning toward Lady Cliveden, talking and smiling.
+
+Ganimard crossed the street, hands in his pockets, as if he were going
+down the boulevard, but when he reached the opposite sidewalk he turned
+quickly and bounded up the steps of the restaurant. There was a shrill
+whistle. Ganimard ran against the head waiter, who had suddenly planted
+himself in the doorway and now pushed Ganimard back with a show of
+indignation, as if he were an intruder whose presence would bring
+disgrace upon the restaurant. Ganimard was surprised. At the same moment
+the gentleman in the frock coat came out. He took the part of the
+detective and entered into an exciting argument with the waiter; both of
+them hung on to Ganimard, one pushing him in, the other pushing him out
+in such a manner that, despite all his efforts and despite his furious
+protestations, the unfortunate detective soon found himself on the
+sidewalk.
+
+The struggling men were surrounded by a crowd. Two policemen, attracted
+by the noise, tried to force their way through the crowd, but
+encountered a mysterious resistance and could make no headway through
+the opposing backs and pressing shoulders of the mob.
+
+But suddenly, as if by magic, the crowd parted and the passage to the
+restaurant was clear. The head waiter, recognizing his mistake, was
+profuse in his apologies; the gentleman in the frock coat ceased his
+efforts on behalf of the detective, the crowd dispersed, the policemen
+passed on, and Ganimard hastened to the table at which the six guests
+were sitting. But now there were only five! He looked around.... The
+only exit was the door.
+
+"The person who was sitting here!" he cried to the five astonished
+guests. "Where is he?"
+
+"Monsieur Destro?"
+
+"No; Arsène Lupin!"
+
+A waiter approached and said:
+
+"The gentleman went upstairs."
+
+Ganimard rushed up in the hope of finding him. The upper floor of the
+restaurant contained private dining-rooms and had a private stairway
+leading to the boulevard.
+
+"No use looking for him now," muttered Ganimard. "He is far away by this
+time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was not far away--two hundred yards at most--in the
+Madeleine-Bastille omnibus, which was rolling along very peacefully with
+its three horses across the Place de l'Opéra toward the Boulevard des
+Capucines. Two sturdy fellows were talking together on the platform. On
+the roof of the omnibus near the stairs an old fellow was sleeping; it
+was Herlock Sholmes.
+
+With bobbing head, rocked by the movement of the vehicle, the Englishman
+said to himself:
+
+"If Wilson could see me now, how proud he would be of his
+collaborator!... Bah! It was easy to foresee that the game was lost, as
+soon as the man whistled; nothing could be done but watch the exits and
+see that our man did not escape. Really, Lupin makes life exciting and
+interesting."
+
+At the terminal point Herlock Sholmes, by leaning over, saw Arsène Lupin
+leaving the omnibus, and as he passed in front of the men who formed his
+bodyguard Sholmes heard him say: "A l'Etoile."
+
+"A l'Etoile, exactly, a rendezvous. I shall be there," thought Sholmes.
+"I will follow the two men."
+
+Lupin took an automobile; but the men walked the entire distance,
+followed by Sholmes. They stopped at a narrow house, No. 40 rue
+Chalgrin, and rang the bell. Sholmes took his position in the shadow of
+a doorway, whence he could watch the house in question. A man opened one
+of the windows of the ground floor and closed the shutters. But the
+shutters did not reach to the top of the window. The impost was clear.
+
+At the end of ten minutes a gentleman rang at the same door and a few
+minutes later another man came. A short time afterward an automobile
+stopped in front of the house, bringing two passengers: Arsène Lupin and
+a lady concealed beneath a large cloak and a thick veil.
+
+"The blonde Lady, no doubt," said Sholmes to himself, as the automobile
+drove away.
+
+Herlock Sholmes now approached the house, climbed to the window-ledge
+and, by standing on tiptoe, he was able to see through the window above
+the shutters. What did he see?
+
+Arsène Lupin, leaning against the mantel, was speaking with considerable
+animation. The others were grouped around him, listening to him
+attentively. Amongst them Sholmes easily recognized the gentleman in the
+frock coat and he thought one of the other men resembled the head-waiter
+of the restaurant. As to the blonde Lady, she was seated in an armchair
+with her back to the window.
+
+"They are holding a consultation," thought Sholmes. "They are worried
+over the incident at the restaurant and are holding a council of war.
+Ah! what a master stroke it would be to capture all of them at one fell
+stroke!"
+
+One of them, having moved toward the door, Sholmes leaped to the ground
+and concealed himself in the shadow. The gentleman in the frock coat and
+the head-waiter left the house. A moment later a light appeared at the
+windows of the first floor, but the shutters were closed immediately and
+the upper part of the house was dark as well as the lower.
+
+"Lupin and the woman are on the ground floor; the two confederates live
+on the upper floor," said Sholmes.
+
+Sholmes remained there the greater part of the night, fearing that if he
+went away Arsène Lupin might leave during his absence. At four o'clock,
+seeing two policemen at the end of the street, he approached them,
+explained the situation and left them to watch the house. He went to
+Ganimard's residence in the rue Pergolese and wakened him.
+
+"I have him yet," said Sholmes.
+
+"Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If you haven't got any better hold on him than you had a while ago, I
+might as well go back to bed. But we may as well go to the
+station-house."
+
+They went to the police station in the rue Mesnil and from there to the
+residence of the commissary, Mon. Decointre. Then, accompanied by half a
+dozen policemen, they went to the rue Chalgrin.
+
+"Anything new?" asked Sholmes, addressing the two policemen.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+It was just breaking day when, after taking necessary measures to
+prevent escape, the commissary rang the bell and commenced to question
+the concierge. The woman was greatly frightened at this early morning
+invasion, and she trembled as she replied that there were no tenants on
+the ground floor.
+
+"What! not a tenant?" exclaimed Ganimard.
+
+"No; but on the first floor there are two men named Leroux. They have
+furnished the apartment on the ground floor for some country relations."
+
+"A gentleman and lady."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who came here last night."
+
+"Perhaps ... but I don't know ... I was asleep. But I don't think so,
+for the key is here. They did not ask for it."
+
+With that key the commissary opened the door of the ground-floor
+apartment. It comprised only two rooms and they were empty.
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Sholmes. "I saw both of them in this room."
+
+"I don't doubt your word," said the commissary; "but they are not here
+now."
+
+"Let us go to the first floor. They must be there."
+
+"The first floor is occupied by two men named Leroux."
+
+"We will examine the Messieurs Leroux."
+
+They all ascended the stairs and the commissary rang. At the second ring
+a man opened the door; he was in his shirt-sleeves. Sholmes recognized
+him as one of Lupin's bodyguard. The man assumed a furious air:
+
+"What do you mean by making such a row at this hour of the morning ...
+waking people up...."
+
+But he stopped suddenly, astounded.
+
+"God forgive me!... really, gentlemen, I didn't notice who it was. Why,
+it is Monsieur Decointre!... and you, Monsieur Ganimard. What can I do
+for you!"
+
+Ganimard burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which caused him
+to bend double and turn black in the face.
+
+"Ah! it is you, Leroux," he stammered. "Oh! this is too funny! Leroux,
+an accomplice of Arsène Lupin! Oh, I shall die! and your brother,
+Leroux, where is he?"
+
+"Edmond!" called the man. "It is Ganimard, who has come to visit us."
+
+Another man appeared and at sight of him Ganimard's mirth redoubled.
+
+"Oh! oh! we had no idea of this! Ah! my friends, you are in a bad fix
+now. Who would have ever suspected it?"
+
+Turning to Sholmes, Ganimard introduced the man:
+
+"Victor Leroux, a detective from our office, one of the best men in the
+iron brigade ... Edmond Leroux, chief clerk in the anthropometric
+service."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN ABDUCTION.
+
+
+Herlock Sholmes said nothing. To protest? To accuse the two men? That
+would be useless. In the absence of evidence which he did not possess
+and had no time to seek, no one would believe him. Moreover, he was
+stifled with rage, but would not display his feelings before the
+triumphant Ganimard. So he bowed respectfully to the brothers Leroux,
+guardians of society, and retired.
+
+In the vestibule he turned toward a low door which looked like the
+entrance to a cellar, and picked up a small red stone; it was a garnet.
+When he reached the street he turned and read on the front of the house
+this inscription: "Lucien Destange, architect, 1877."
+
+The adjoining house, No. 42, bore the same inscription.
+
+"Always the double passage--numbers 40 and 42 have a secret means of
+communication. Why didn't I think of that? I should have remained with
+the two policemen."
+
+He met the policemen near the corner and said to them:
+
+"Two people came out of house No. 42 during my absence, didn't they?"
+
+"Yes; a gentleman and lady."
+
+Ganimard approached. Sholmes took his arm, and as they walked down the
+street he said:
+
+"Monsieur Ganimard, you have had a good laugh and will no doubt forgive
+me for the trouble I have caused you."
+
+"Oh! there's no harm done; but it was a good joke."
+
+"I admit that; but the best jokes have only a short life, and this one
+can't last much longer."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"This is now the seventh day, and I can remain only three days more.
+Then I must return to London."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I wish to ask you to be in readiness, as I may call on you at any hour
+on Tuesday or Wednesday night."
+
+"For an expedition of the same kind as we had to-night?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur, the very same."
+
+"With what result?"
+
+"The capture of Arsène Lupin," replied Sholmes.
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I swear it, on my honor, monsieur."
+
+Sholmes bade Ganimard good-bye and went to the nearest hotel for a few
+hours' sleep; after which, refreshed and with renewed confidence in
+himself, he returned to the rue Chalgrin, slipped two louis into the
+hand of the concierge, assured himself that the brothers Leroux had gone
+out, learned that the house belonged to a Monsieur Harmingeat, and,
+provided with a candle, descended to the cellar through the low door
+near which he had found the garnet. At the bottom of the stairs he found
+another exactly like it.
+
+"I am not mistaken," he thought; "this is the means of communication.
+Let me see if my skeleton-key will open the cellar reserved for the
+tenant of the ground floor. Yes; it will. Now, I will examine those
+cases of wine... oh! oh! here are some places where the dust has been
+cleared away ... and some footprints on the ground...."
+
+A slight noise caused him to listen attentively. Quickly he pushed the
+door shut, blew out his candle and hid behind a pile of empty wine
+cases. After a few seconds he noticed that a portion of the wall swung
+on a pivot, the light of a lantern was thrown into the cellar, an arm
+appeared, then a man entered.
+
+He was bent over, as if he were searching for something. He felt in the
+dust with his fingers and several times he threw something into a
+cardboard box that he carried in his left hand. Afterward he obliterated
+the traces of his footsteps, as well as the footprints left by Lupin and
+the blonde lady, and he was about to leave the cellar by the same way as
+he had entered, when he uttered a harsh cry and fell to the ground.
+Sholmes had leaped upon him. It was the work of a moment, and in the
+simplest manner in the world the man found himself stretched on the
+ground, bound and handcuffed. The Englishman leaned over him and said:
+
+"Have you anything to say?... To tell what you know?"
+
+The man replied by such an ironical smile that Sholmes realized the
+futility of questioning him. So he contented himself by exploring the
+pockets of his captive, but he found only a bunch of keys, a
+handkerchief and the small cardboard box which contained a dozen
+garnets similar to those which Sholmes had found.
+
+Then what was he to do with the man? Wait until his friends came to his
+help and deliver all of them to the police? What good would that do?
+What advantage would that give him over Lupin?
+
+He hesitated; but an examination of the box decided the question. The
+box bore this name and address: "Leonard, jeweler, rue de la Paix."
+
+He resolved to abandon the man to his fate. He locked the cellar and
+left the house. At a branch postoffice he sent a telegram to Monsieur
+Destange, saying that he could not come that day. Then he went to see
+the jeweler and, handing him the garnets, said:
+
+"Madame sent me with these stones. She wishes to have them reset."
+
+Sholmes had struck the right key. The jeweler replied:
+
+"Certainly; the lady telephoned to me. She said she would be here
+to-day."
+
+Sholmes established himself on the sidewalk to wait for the lady, but it
+was five o'clock when he saw a heavily-veiled lady approach and enter
+the store. Through the window he saw her place on the counter a piece
+of antique jewelry set with garnets.
+
+She went away almost immediately, walking quickly and passed through
+streets that were unknown to the Englishman. As it was now almost dark,
+he walked close behind her and followed her into a five-story house of
+double flats and, therefore, occupied by numerous tenants. At the second
+floor she stopped and entered. Two minutes later the Englishman
+commenced to try the keys on the bunch he had taken from the man in the
+rue Chalgrin. The fourth key fitted the lock.
+
+Notwithstanding the darkness of the rooms, he perceived that they were
+absolutely empty, as if unoccupied, and the various doors were standing
+open so that he could see all the apartments. At the end of a corridor
+he perceived a ray of light and, by approaching on tiptoe and looking
+through the glass door, he saw the veiled lady who had removed her hat
+and dress and was now wearing a velvet dressing-gown. The discarded
+garments were lying on the only chair in the room and a lighted lamp
+stood on the mantel.
+
+Then he saw her approach the fireplace and press what appeared to be the
+button of an electric bell. Immediately the panel to the right of the
+fireplace moved and slowly glided behind the adjoining panel, thus
+disclosing an opening large enough for a person to pass through. The
+lady disappeared through this opening, taking the lamp with her.
+
+The operation was a very simple one. Sholmes adopted it and followed the
+lady. He found himself in total darkness and immediately he felt his
+face brushed by some soft articles. He lighted a match and found that he
+was in a very small room completely filled with cloaks and dresses
+suspended on hangers. He picked his way through until he reached a door
+that was draped with a portiere. He peeped through and, behold, the
+blonde lady was there, under his eyes, and almost within reach of his
+hand.
+
+She extinguished the lamp and turned on the electric lights. Then for
+the first time Herlock Sholmes obtained a good look at her face. He was
+amazed. The woman, whom he had overtaken after so much trouble and after
+so many tricks and manoeuvres, was none other than Clotilde Destange.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Clotilde Destange, the assassin of the Baron d'Hautrec and the thief who
+stole the blue diamond! Clotilde Destange, the mysterious friend of
+Arsène Lupin! And the blonde lady!
+
+"Yes, I am only a stupid ass," thought Herlock Sholmes at that moment.
+"Because Lupin's friend was a blonde and Clotilde is a brunette, I never
+dreamed that they were the same person. But how could the blonde lady
+remain a blonde after the murder of the baron and the theft of the
+diamond?"
+
+Sholmes could see a portion of the room; it was a boudoir, furnished
+with the most delightful luxury and exquisite taste, and adorned with
+beautiful tapestries and costly ornaments. A mahogany couch, upholstered
+in silk, was located on the side of the room opposite the door at which
+Sholmes was standing. Clotilde was sitting on this couch, motionless,
+her face covered by her hands. Then he perceived that she was weeping.
+Great tears rolled down her pale cheeks and fell, drop by drop, on the
+velvet corsage. The tears came thick and fast, as if their source were
+inexhaustible.
+
+A door silently opened behind her and Arsène Lupin entered. He looked at
+her for a long time without making his presence known; then he
+approached her, knelt at her feet, pressed her head to his breast,
+folded her in his arms, and his actions indicated an infinite measure
+of love and sympathy. For a time not a word was uttered, but her tears
+became less abundant.
+
+"I was so anxious to make you happy," he murmured.
+
+"I am happy."
+
+"No; you are crying.... Your tears break my heart, Clotilde."
+
+The caressing and sympathetic tone of his voice soothed her, and she
+listened to him with an eager desire for hope and happiness. Her
+features were softened by a smile, and yet how sad a smile! He continued
+to speak in a tone of tender entreaty:
+
+"You should not be unhappy, Clotilde; you have no cause to be."
+
+She displayed her delicate white hands and said, solemnly:
+
+"Yes, Maxime; so long as I see those hands I shall be sad."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They are stained with blood."
+
+"Hush! Do not think of that!" exclaimed Lupin. "The dead is past and
+gone. Do not resurrect it."
+
+And he kissed the long, delicate hand, while she regarded him with a
+brighter smile as if each kiss effaced a portion of that dreadful
+memory.
+
+"You must love me, Maxime; you must--because no woman will ever love you
+as I do. For your sake, I have done many things, not at your order or
+request, but in obedience to your secret desires. I have done things at
+which my will and conscience revolted, but there was some unknown power
+that I could not resist. What I did I did involuntarily, mechanically,
+because it helped you, because you wished it ... and I am ready to do it
+again to-morrow ... and always."
+
+"Ah, Clotilde," he said, bitterly, "why did I draw you into my
+adventurous life? I should have remained the Maxime Bermond that you
+loved five years ago, and not have let you know the ... other man that I
+am."
+
+She replied in a low voice:
+
+"I love the other man, also, and I have nothing to regret."
+
+"Yes, you regret your past life--the free and happy life you once
+enjoyed."
+
+"I have no regrets when you are here," she said, passionately. "All
+faults and crimes disappear when I see you. When you are away I may
+suffer, and weep, and be horrified at what I have done; but when you
+come it is all forgotten. Your love wipes it all away. And I am happy
+again.... But you must love me!"
+
+"I do not love you on compulsion, Clotilde. I love you simply because
+... I love you."
+
+"Are you sure of it?"
+
+"I am just as sure of my own love as I am of yours. Only my life is a
+very active and exciting one, and I cannot spend as much time with you
+as I would like--just now."
+
+"What is it? Some new danger? Tell me!"
+
+"Oh! nothing serious. Only...."
+
+"Only what?" she asked.
+
+"Well, he is on our track."
+
+"Who? Herlock Sholmes?"
+
+"Yes; it was he who dragged Ganimard into that affair at the Hungarian
+restaurant. It was he who instructed the two policemen to watch the
+house in the rue Chalgrin. I have proof of it. Ganimard searched the
+house this morning and Sholmes was with him. Besides----"
+
+"Besides? What?"
+
+"Well, there is another thing. One of our men is missing."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Jeanniot."
+
+"The concierge?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, I sent him to the rue Chalgrin this morning to pick up the garnets
+that fell out of my brooch."
+
+"There is no doubt, then, that Sholmes caught him."
+
+"No; the garnets were delivered to the jeweler in the rue de la Paix."
+
+"Then, what has become of him!"
+
+"Oh! Maxime, I am afraid."
+
+"There is nothing to be afraid of, but I confess the situation is very
+serious. What does he know? Where does he hide himself? His isolation is
+his strong card. I cannot reach him."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Act with extreme prudence, Clotilde. Some time ago I decided to change
+my residence to a safer place, and Sholmes' appearance on the scene has
+prompted me to do so at once. When a man like that is on your track, you
+must be prepared for the worst. Well, I am making my preparations. Day
+after to-morrow, Wednesday, I shall move. At noon it will be finished.
+At two o'clock I shall leave the place, after removing the last trace
+of our residence there, which will be no small matter. Until then----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Until then we must not see each other and no one must see you,
+Clotilde. Do not go out. I have no fear for myself, but I have for you."
+
+"That Englishman cannot possibly reach me."
+
+"I am not so sure of that. He is a dangerous man. Yesterday I came here
+to search the cupboard that contains all of Monsieur Destange's old
+papers and records. There is danger there. There is danger everywhere. I
+feel that he is watching us--that he is drawing his net around us closer
+and closer. It is one of those intuitions which never deceive me."
+
+"In that case, Maxime, go, and think no more of my tears. I shall be
+brave, and wait patiently until the danger is past. Adieu, Maxime."
+
+They held one another for some time in a last fond embrace. And it was
+she that gently pushed him outside. Sholmes could hear the sound of
+their voices in the distance.
+
+Emboldened by the necessities of the situation and the urgent need of
+bringing his investigation to a speedy termination, Sholmes proceeded
+to make an examination of the house in which he now found himself. He
+passed through Clotilde's boudoir into a corridor, at the end of which
+there was a stairway leading to the lower floor; he was about to descend
+this stairway when he heard voices below, which caused him to change his
+route. He followed the corridor, which was a circular one, and
+discovered another stairway, which he descended and found himself amidst
+surroundings that bore a familiar appearance. He passed through a door
+that stood partly open and entered a large circular room. It was
+Monsieur Destange's library.
+
+"Ah! splendid!" he exclaimed. "Now I understand everything. The boudoir
+of Mademoiselle Clotilde--the blonde Lady--communicates with a room in
+the adjoining house, and that house does not front on the Place
+Malesherbes, but upon an adjacent street, the rue Montchanin, if I
+remember the name correctly.... And I now understand how Clotilde
+Destange can meet her lover and at the same time create the impression
+that she never leaves the house; and I understand also how Arsène Lupin
+was enabled to make his mysterious entrance to the gallery last night.
+Ah! there must be another connection between the library and the
+adjoining room. One more house full of ways that are dark! And no doubt
+Lucien Destange was the architect, as usual!... I should take advantage
+of this opportunity to examine the contents of the cupboard and perhaps
+learn the location of other houses with secret passages constructed by
+Monsieur Destange."
+
+Sholmes ascended to the gallery and concealed himself behind some
+draperies, where he remained until late in the evening. At last a
+servant came and turned off the electric lights. An hour later the
+Englishman, by the light of his lantern, made his way to the cupboard.
+As he had surmised, it contained the architect's old papers, plans,
+specifications and books of account. It also contained a series of
+registers, arranged according to date, and Sholmes, having selected
+those of the most recent dates, searched in the indexes for the name
+"Harmingeat." He found it in one of the registers with a reference to
+page 63. Turning to that page, he read:
+
+"Harmingeat, 40 rue Chalgrin."
+
+This was followed by a detailed account of the work done in and about
+the installation of a furnace in the house. And in the margin of the
+book someone had written these words: "See account M.B."
+
+"Ah! I thought so!" said Sholmes; "the account M.B. is the one I want. I
+shall learn from it the actual residence of Monsieur Lupin."
+
+It was morning before he found that important account. It comprised
+sixteen pages, one of which was a copy of the page on which was
+described the work done for Mon. Harmingeat of the rue Chalgrin. Another
+page described the work performed for Mon. Vatinel as owner of the house
+at No. 25 rue Clapeyron. Another page was reserved for the Baron
+d'Hautrec, 134 avenue Henri-Martin; another was devoted to the Château
+de Crozon, and the eleven other pages to various owners of houses in
+Paris.
+
+Sholmes made a list of those eleven names and addresses; after which he
+returned the books to their proper places, opened a window, jumped out
+onto the deserted street and closed the shutters behind him.
+
+When he reached his room at the hotel he lighted his pipe with all the
+solemnity with which he was wont to characterize that act, and amidst
+clouds of smoke he studied the deductions that might be drawn from the
+account of M.B., or rather, from the account of Maxime Bermond alias
+Arsène Lupin.
+
+At eight o'clock he sent the following message to Ganimard:
+
+     "I expect to pass through the rue Pergolese this forenoon and will
+     inform you of a person whose arrest is of the highest importance.
+     In any event, be at home to-night and to-morrow until noon and have
+     at least thirty men at your service."
+
+Then he engaged an automobile at the stand on the boulevard, choosing
+one whose chauffeur looked good-natured but dull-witted, and instructed
+him to drive to the Place Malesherbes, where he stopped him about one
+hundred feet from Monsieur Destange's house.
+
+"My boy, close your carriage," he said to the chauffeur; "turn up the
+collar of your coat, for the wind is cold, and wait patiently. At the
+end of an hour and a half, crank up your machine. When I return we will
+go to the rue Pergolese."
+
+As he was ascending the steps leading to the door a doubt entered his
+mind. Was it not a mistake on his part to be spending his time on the
+affairs of the blonde Lady, while Arsène Lupin was preparing to move?
+Would he not be better engaged in trying to find the abode of his
+adversary amongst the eleven houses on his list?
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "when the blonde Lady becomes my prisoner, I shall
+be master of the situation."
+
+And he rang the bell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monsieur Destange was already in the library. They had been working only
+a few minutes, when Clotilde entered, bade her father good morning,
+entered the adjoining parlor and sat down to write. From his place
+Sholmes could see her leaning over the table and from time to time
+absorbed in deep meditation. After a short time he picked up a book and
+said to Monsieur Destange:
+
+"Here is a book that Mademoiselle Destange asked me to bring to her when
+I found it."
+
+He went into the little parlor, stood before Clotilde in such a manner
+that her father could not see her, and said:
+
+"I am Monsieur Stickmann, your father's new secretary."
+
+"Ah!" said Clotilde, without moving, "my father has changed his
+secretary? I didn't know it."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, and I desire to speak with you."
+
+"Kindly take a seat, monsieur; I have finished."
+
+She added a few words to her letter, signed it, enclosed it in the
+envelope, sealed it, pushed her writing material away, rang the
+telephone, got in communication with her dressmaker, asked the latter to
+hasten the completion of a traveling dress, as she required it at once,
+and then, turning to Sholmes, she said:
+
+"I am at your service, monsieur. But do you wish to speak before my
+father? Would not that be better?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle; and I beg of you, do not raise your voice. It is
+better that Monsieur Destange should not hear us."
+
+"For whose sake is it better?"
+
+"Yours, mademoiselle."
+
+"I cannot agree to hold any conversation with you that my father may not
+hear."
+
+"But you must agree to this. It is imperative."
+
+Both of them arose, eye to eye. She said:
+
+"Speak, monsieur."
+
+Still standing, he commenced:
+
+"You will be so good as to pardon me if I am mistaken on certain points
+of secondary importance. I will guarantee, however, the general accuracy
+of my statements."
+
+"Can we not dispense with these preliminaries, monsieur? Or are they
+necessary?"
+
+Sholmes felt the young woman was on her guard, so he replied:
+
+"Very well; I will come to the point. Five years ago your father made
+the acquaintance of a certain young man called Maxime Bermond, who was
+introduced as a contractor or an architect, I am not sure which it was;
+but it was one or the other. Monsieur Destange took a liking to the
+young man, and as the state of his health compelled him to retire from
+active business, he entrusted to Monsieur Bermond the execution of
+certain orders he had received from some of his old customers and which
+seemed to come within the scope of Monsieur Bermond's ability."
+
+Herlock Sholmes stopped. It seemed to him that the girl's pallor had
+increased. Yet there was not the slightest tremor in her voice when she
+said:
+
+"I know nothing about the circumstances to which you refer, monsieur,
+and I do not see in what way they can interest me."
+
+"In this way, mademoiselle: You know, as well as I, that Maxime Bermond
+is also known by the name of Arsène Lupin."
+
+She laughed, and said:
+
+"Nonsense! Arsène Lupin? Maxime Bermond is Arsène Lupin? Oh! no! It
+isn't possible!"
+
+"I have the honor to inform you of that fact, and since you refuse to
+understand my meaning, I will add that Arsène Lupin has found in this
+house a friend--more than a friend--and accomplice, blindly and
+passionately devoted to him."
+
+Without emotion, or at least with so little emotion that Sholmes was
+astonished at her self-control, she declared:
+
+"I do not understand your object, monsieur, and I do not care to; but I
+command you to say no more and leave this house."
+
+"I have no intention of forcing my presence on you," replied Sholmes,
+with equal sang-froid, "but I shall not leave this house alone."
+
+"And who will accompany you, monsieur?"
+
+"You will."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, we will leave this house together, and you will
+follow me without one word of protest."
+
+The strange feature of the foregoing interview was the absolute coolness
+of the two adversaries. It bore no resemblance to an implacable duel
+between two powerful wills; but, judging solely from their attitude and
+the tone of their voices, an onlooker would have supposed their
+conversation to be nothing more serious than a courteous argument over
+some impersonal subject.
+
+Clotilde resumed her seat without deigning to reply to the last remark
+of Herlock Sholmes, except by a shrug of her shoulders. Sholmes looked
+at his watch and said:
+
+"It is half-past ten. We will leave here in five minutes."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"If not, I shall go to Monsieur Destange, and tell him----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The truth. I will tell him of the vicious life of Maxime Bermond, and I
+will tell him of the double life of his accomplice."
+
+"Of his accomplice?"
+
+"Yes, of the woman known as the blonde Lady, of the woman who was
+blonde."
+
+"What proofs will you give him?"
+
+"I will take him to the rue Chalgrin, and show him the secret passage
+made by Arsène Lupin's workmen,--while doing the work of which he had
+the control--between the houses numbered 40 and 42; the passage which
+you and he used two nights ago."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I will then take Monsieur Destange to the house of Monsieur Detinan; we
+will descend the servant's stairway which was used by you and Arsène
+Lupin when you escaped from Ganimard, and we will search together the
+means of communication with the adjoining house, which fronts on the
+Boulevard des Batignolles, and not upon the rue Clapeyron."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I will take Monsieur Destange to the château de Crozon, and it will be
+easy for him, who knows the nature of the work performed by Arsène Lupin
+in the restoration of the Château, to discover the secret passages
+constructed there by his workmen. It will thus be established that those
+passages allowed the blonde Lady to make a nocturnal visit to the
+Countess' room and take the blue diamond from the mantel; and, two weeks
+later, by similar means, to enter the room of Herr Bleichen and conceal
+the blue diamond in his tooth-powder--a strange action, I confess; a
+woman's revenge, perhaps; but I don't know, and I don't care."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"After that," said Herlock Sholmes, in a more serious tone, "I will take
+Monsieur Destange to 134 avenue Henri-Martin, and we will learn how the
+Baron d'Hautrec----"
+
+"No, no, keep quiet," stammered the girl, struck with a sudden terror,
+"I forbid you!... you dare to say that it was I ... you accuse me?..."
+
+"I accuse you of having killed the Baron d'Hautrec."
+
+"No, no, it is a lie."
+
+"You killed the Baron d'Hautrec, mademoiselle. You entered his service
+under the name of Antoinette Bréhat, for the purpose of stealing the
+blue diamond and you killed him."
+
+"Keep quiet, monsieur," she implored him. "Since you know so much, you
+must know that I did not murder the baron."
+
+"I did not say that you murdered him, mademoiselle. Baron d'Hautrec was
+subject to fits of insanity that only Sister Auguste could control. She
+told me so herself. In her absence, he must have attacked you, and in
+the course of the struggle you struck him in order to save your own
+life. Frightened at your awful situation, you rang the bell, and fled
+without even taking the blue diamond from the finger of your victim. A
+few minutes later you returned with one of Arsène Lupin's accomplices,
+who was a servant in the adjoining house, you placed the baron on the
+bed, you put the room in order, but you were afraid to take the blue
+diamond. Now, I have told you what happened on that night. I repeat, you
+did not murder the baron, and yet it was your hand that struck the
+blow."
+
+She had crossed them over her forehead--those long delicate white
+hands--and kept them thus for a long time. At last, loosening her
+fingers, she said, in a voice rent by anguish:
+
+"And do you intend to tell all that to my father?"
+
+"Yes; and I will tell him that I have secured as witnesses: Mademoiselle
+Gerbois, who will recognize the blonde Lady; Sister Auguste, who will
+recognize Antoinette Bréhat; and the Countess de Crozon, who will
+recognize Madame de Réal. That is what I shall tell him."
+
+"You will not dare," she said, recovering her self-possession in the
+face of an immediate peril.
+
+He arose, and made a step toward the library. Clotilde stopped him:
+
+"One moment, monsieur."
+
+She paused, reflected a moment, and then, perfect mistress of herself,
+said:
+
+"You are Herlock Sholmes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you want of me?"
+
+"What do I want? I am fighting a duel with Arsène Lupin, and I must win.
+The contest is now drawing to a climax, and I have an idea that a
+hostage as precious as you will give me an important advantage over my
+adversary. Therefore, you will follow me, mademoiselle; I will entrust
+you to one of my friends. As soon as the duel is ended, you will be set
+at liberty."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That is all. I do not belong to the police service of this country,
+and, consequently, I do not consider that I am under any obligation ...
+to cause your arrest."
+
+She appeared to have come to a decision ... yet she required a momentary
+respite. She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate her thoughts.
+Sholmes looked at her in surprise; she was now so tranquil and,
+apparently, indifferent to the dangers which threatened her. Sholmes
+thought: Does she believe that she is in danger? Probably not--since
+Lupin protects her. She has confidence in him. She believes that Lupin
+is omnipotent, and infallible.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, "I told you that we would leave here in five
+minutes. That time has almost expired."
+
+"Will you permit me to go to my room, monsieur, to get some necessary
+articles?"
+
+"Certainly, mademoiselle; and I will wait for you in the rue Montchanin.
+Jeanniot, the concierge, is a friend of mine."
+
+"Ah! you know...." she said, visibly alarmed.
+
+"I know many things."
+
+"Very well. I will ring for the maid."
+
+The maid brought her hat and jacket. Then Sholmes said:
+
+"You must give Monsieur Destange some reason for our departure, and, if
+possible, let your excuse serve for an absence of several days."
+
+"That shall not be necessary. I shall be back very soon."
+
+"They exchanged defiant glances and an ironic smile.
+
+"What faith you have in him!" said Sholmes.
+
+"Absolute."
+
+"He does everything well, doesn't he? He succeeds in everything he
+undertakes. And whatever he does receives your approval and
+cooperation."
+
+"I love him," she said, with a touch of passion in her voice.
+
+"And you think that he will save you?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and, approaching her father, she said:
+
+"I am going to deprive you of Monsieur Stickmann. We are going to the
+National Library."
+
+"You will return for luncheon?"
+
+"Perhaps ... no, I think not ... but don't be uneasy."
+
+Then she said to Sholmes, in a firm voice:
+
+"I am at your service, monsieur."
+
+"Absolutely?"
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"I warn you that if you attempt to escape, I shall call the police and
+have you arrested. Do not forget that the blonde Lady is on parole."
+
+"I give you my word of honor that I shall not attempt to escape."
+
+"I believe you. Now, let us go."
+
+They left the house together, as he had predicted.
+
+The automobile was standing where Sholmes had left it. As they
+approached it, Sholmes could hear the rumbling of the motor. He opened
+the door, asked Clotilde to enter, and took a seat beside her. The
+machine started at once, gained the exterior boulevards, the avenue
+Hoche and the avenue de la Grande-Armée. Sholmes was considering his
+plans. He thought:
+
+"Ganimard is at home. I will leave the girl in his care. Shall I tell
+him who she is? No, he would take her to prison at once, and that would
+spoil everything. When I am alone, I can consult my list of addresses
+taken from the 'account M.B.,' and run them down. To-night, or to-morrow
+morning at the latest, I shall go to Ganimard, as I agreed, and deliver
+into his hands Arsène Lupin and all his band."
+
+He rubbed his hand, gleefully, at the thought that his duel with Lupin
+was drawing to a close, and he could not see any serious obstacle in the
+way of his success. And, yielding to an irrepressible desire to give
+vent to his feelings--an unusual desire on his part--he exclaimed:
+
+"Excuse me, mademoiselle, if I am unable to conceal my satisfaction and
+delight. The battle has been a difficult one, and my success is,
+therefore, more enjoyable."
+
+"A legitimate success, monsieur, of which you have a just right to be
+proud."
+
+"Thank you. But where are we going? The chauffeur must have
+misunderstood my directions."
+
+At that moment they were leaving Paris by the gate de Neuilly. That was
+strange, as the rue Pergolese is not outside the fortifications. Sholmes
+lowered the glass, and said:
+
+"Chauffeur, you have made a mistake.... Rue Pergolese!"
+
+The man made no reply. Sholmes repeated, in a louder voice:
+
+"I told you to go to the rue Pergolese."
+
+Still the man did not reply.
+
+"Ah! but you are deaf, my friend. Or is he doing it on purpose? We are
+very much out of our way.... Rue Pergolese!... Turn back at once!... Rue
+Pergolese!"
+
+The chauffeur made no sign of having heard the order. The Englishman
+fretted with impatience. He looked at Clotilde; a mysterious smile
+played upon her lips.
+
+"Why do you laugh?" he said. "It is an awkward mistake, but it won't
+help you."
+
+"Of course not," she replied.
+
+Then an idea occurred to him. He rose and made a careful scrutiny of the
+chauffeur. His shoulders were not so broad; his bearing was not so stiff
+and mechanical. A cold perspiration covered his forehead and his hands
+clenched with sudden fear, as his mind was seized with the conviction
+that the chauffeur was Arsène Lupin.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Sholmes, what do you think of our little ride?"
+
+"Delightful, monsieur, really delightful," replied Sholmes.
+
+Never in his life had he experienced so much difficulty in uttering a
+few simple words without a tremor, or without betraying his feelings in
+his voice. But quickly, by a sort of reaction, a flood of hatred and
+rage burst its bounds, overcame his self-control, and, brusquely drawing
+his revolver, he pointed it at Mademoiselle Destange.
+
+"Lupin, stop, this minute, this second, or I fire at mademoiselle."
+
+"I advise you to aim at the cheek if you wish to hit the temple,"
+replied Lupin, without turning his head.
+
+"Maxime, don't go so fast," said Clotilde, "the pavement is slippery and
+I am very timid."
+
+She was smiling; her eyes were fixed on the pavement, over which the
+carriage was traveling at enormous speed.
+
+"Let him stop! Let him stop!" said Sholmes to her, wild with rage, "I
+warn you that I am desperate."
+
+The barrel of the revolver brushed the waving locks of her hair. She
+replied, calmly:
+
+"Maxime is so imprudent. He is going so fast, I am really afraid of some
+accident."
+
+Sholmes returned the weapon to his pocket and seized the handle of the
+door, as if to alight, despite the absurdity of such an act. Clotilde
+said to him:
+
+"Be careful, monsieur, there is an automobile behind us."
+
+He leaned over. There was an automobile close behind; a large machine of
+formidable aspect with its sharp prow and blood-red body, and holding
+four men clad in fur coats.
+
+"Ah! I am well guarded," thought Sholmes. "I may as well be patient."
+
+He folded his arms across his chest with that proud air of submission so
+frequently assumed by heroes when fate has turned against them. And
+while they crossed the river Seine and rushed through Suresnes, Rueil
+and Chatou, motionless and resigned, controlling his actions and his
+passions, he tried to explain to his own satisfaction by what miracle
+Arsène Lupin had substituted himself for the chauffeur. It was quite
+improbable that the honest-looking fellow he had selected on the
+boulevard that morning was an accomplice placed there in advance. And
+yet Arsène Lupin had received a warning in some way, and it must have
+been after he, Sholmes, had approached Clotilde in the house, because no
+one could have suspected his project prior to that time. Since then,
+Sholmes had not allowed Clotilde out of his sight.
+
+Then an idea struck him: the telephone communication desired by Clotilde
+and her conversation with the dressmaker. Now, it was all quite clear to
+him. Even before he had spoken to her, simply upon his request to speak
+to her as the new secretary of Monsieur Destange, she had scented the
+danger, surmised the name and purpose of the visitor, and, calmly,
+naturally, as if she were performing a commonplace action of her
+every-day life, she had called Arsène Lupin to her assistance by some
+preconcerted signal.
+
+How Arsène Lupin had come and caused himself to be substituted for the
+chauffeur were matters of trifling importance. That which affected
+Sholmes, even to the point of appeasing his fury, was the recollection
+of that incident whereby an ordinary woman, a sweetheart it is true,
+mastering her nerves, controlling her features, and subjugating the
+expression of her eyes, had completely deceived the astute detective
+Herlock Sholmes. How difficult to overcome an adversary who is aided by
+such confederates, and who, by the mere force of his authority, inspires
+in a woman so much courage and strength!
+
+They crossed the Seine and climbed the hill at Saint-Germain; but, some
+five hundred metres beyond that town, the automobile slackened its
+speed. The other automobile advanced, and the two stopped, side by side.
+There was no one else in the neighborhood.
+
+"Monsieur Sholmes," said Lupin, "kindly exchange to the other machine.
+Ours is really a very slow one."
+
+"Indeed!" said Sholmes, calmly, convinced that he had no choice.
+
+"Also, permit me to loan you a fur coat, as we will travel quite fast
+and the air is cool. And accept a couple of sandwiches, as we cannot
+tell when we will dine."
+
+The four men alighted from the other automobile. One of them approached,
+and, as he raised his goggles, Sholmes recognized in him the gentleman
+in the frock coat that he had seen at the Hungarian restaurant. Lupin
+said to him:
+
+"You will return this machine to the chauffeur from whom I hired it. He
+is waiting in the first wine-shop to the right as you go up the rue
+Legendre. You will give him the balance of the thousand francs I
+promised him.... Ah! yes, kindly give your goggles to Monsieur Sholmes."
+
+He talked to Mlle. Destange for a moment, then took his place at the
+wheel and started, with Sholmes at his side and one of his men behind
+him. Lupin had not exaggerated when he said "we will travel quite fast."
+From the beginning he set a breakneck pace. The horizon rushed to meet
+them, as if attracted by some mysterious force, and disappeared
+instantly as though swallowed up in an abyss, into which many other
+things, such as trees, houses, fields and forests, were hurled with the
+tumultuous fury and haste of a torrent as it approached the cataract.
+
+Sholmes and Lupin did not exchange a word. Above their heads the leaves
+of the poplars made a great noise like the waves of the sea,
+rhythmically arranged by the regular spacing of the trees. And the towns
+swept by like spectres: Manteo, Vernon, Gaillon. From one hill to the
+other, from Bon-Secours to Canteleu, Rouen, its suburbs, its harbor, its
+miles of wharves, Rouen seemed like the straggling street of a country
+village. And this was Duclair, Caudebec, the country of Caux which they
+skimmed over in their terrific flight, and Lillebonne, and Quillebeuf.
+Then, suddenly, they found themselves on the banks of the Seine, at the
+extremity of a little wharf, beside which lay a staunch sea-going yacht
+that emitted great volumes of black smoke from its funnel.
+
+The automobile stopped. In two hours they had traveled over forty
+leagues.
+
+A man, wearing a blue uniform and a goldlaced cap, came forward and
+saluted. Lupin said to him:
+
+"All ready, captain? Did you receive my telegram?"
+
+"Yes, I got it."
+
+"Is _The Swallow_ ready?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Come, Monsieur Sholmes."
+
+The Englishman looked around, saw a group of people on the terrace in
+front of a café, hesitated a moment, then, realizing that before he
+could secure any assistance he would be seized, carried aboard and
+placed in the bottom of the hold, he crossed the gang-plank and followed
+Lupin into the captain's cabin. It was quite a large room, scrupulously
+clean, and presented a cheerful appearance with its varnished woodwork
+and polished brass. Lupin closed the door and addressed Sholmes
+abruptly, and almost rudely, as he said:
+
+"Well, what do you know?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"Everything? Come, be precise."
+
+His voice contained no longer that polite, if ironical, tone, which he
+had affected when speaking to the Englishman. Now, his voice had the
+imperious tone of a master accustomed to command and accustomed to be
+obeyed--even by a Herlock Sholmes. They measured each other by their
+looks, enemies now--open and implacable foes. Lupin spoke again, but in
+a milder tone:
+
+"I have grown weary of your pursuit, and do not intend to waste any more
+time in avoiding the traps you lay for me. I warn you that my treatment
+of you will depend on your reply. Now, what do you know?"
+
+"Everything, monsieur."
+
+Arsène Lupin controlled his temper and said, in a jerky manner:
+
+"I will tell you what you know. You know that, under the name of Maxime
+Bermond, I have ... _improved_ fifteen houses that were originally
+constructed by Monsieur Destange."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of those fifteen houses, you have seen four."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you have a list of the other eleven."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You made that list at Monsieur Destange's house on that night, no
+doubt."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you have an idea that, amongst those eleven houses, there is one
+that I have kept for the use of myself and my friends, and you have
+intrusted to Ganimard the task of finding my retreat."
+
+"No."
+
+"What does that signify?"
+
+"It signifies that I choose to act alone, and do not want his help."
+
+"Then I have nothing to fear, since you are in my hands."
+
+"You have nothing to fear as long as I remain in your hands."
+
+"You mean that you will not remain?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Arsène Lupin approached the Englishman and, placing his hand on the
+latter's shoulder, said:
+
+"Listen, monsieur; I am not in a humor to argue with you, and,
+unfortunately for you, you are not in a position to choose. So let us
+finish our business."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You are going to give me your word of honor that you will not try to
+escape from this boat until you arrive in English waters."
+
+"I give you my word of honor that I shall escape if I have an
+opportunity," replied the indomitable Sholmes.
+
+"But, sapristi! you know quite well that at a word from me you would
+soon be rendered helpless. All these men will obey me blindly. At a sign
+from me they would place you in irons----"
+
+"Irons can be broken."
+
+"And throw you overboard ten miles from shore."
+
+"I can swim."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," said Lupin, with a laugh. "Excuse me, master
+... and let us finish. You will agree that I must take the measures
+necessary to protect myself and my friends."
+
+"Certainly; but they will be useless."
+
+"And yet you do not wish me to take them."
+
+"It is your duty."
+
+"Very well, then."
+
+Lupin opened the door and called the captain and two sailors. The latter
+seized the Englishman, bound him hand and foot, and tied him to the
+captain's bunk.
+
+"That will do," said Lupin. "It was only on account of your obstinacy
+and the unusual gravity of the situation, that I ventured to offer you
+this indignity."
+
+The sailors retired. Lupin said to the captain:
+
+"Let one of the crew remain here to look after Monsieur Sholmes, and you
+can give him as much of your own company as possible. Treat him with all
+due respect and consideration. He is not a prisoner, but a guest. What
+time have you, captain?"
+
+"Five minutes after two."
+
+Lupin consulted his watch, then looked at the clock that was attached to
+the wall of the cabin.
+
+"Five minutes past two is right. How long will it take you to reach
+Southampton?"
+
+"Nine hours, easy going."
+
+"Make it eleven. You must not land there until after the departure of
+the midnight boat, which reaches Havre at eight o'clock in the morning.
+Do you understand, captain? Let me repeat: As it would be very dangerous
+for all of us to permit Monsieur to return to France by that boat, you
+must not reach Southampton before one o'clock in the morning."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Au revoir, master; next year, in this world or in the next."
+
+"Until to-morrow," replied Sholmes.
+
+A few minutes later Sholmes heard the automobile going away, and at the
+same time the steam puffed violently in the depths of _The Swallow_. The
+boat had started for England. About three o'clock the vessel left the
+mouth of the river and plunged into the open sea. At that moment Sholmes
+was lying on the captain's bunk, sound asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning--it being the tenth and last day of the duel between
+Sholmes and Lupin--the _Echo de France_ published this interesting bit
+of news:
+
+"Yesterday a judgment of ejectment was entered in the case of Arsène
+Lupin against Herlock Sholmes, the English detective. Although signed at
+noon, the judgment was executed the same day. At one o'clock this
+morning Sholmes was landed at Southampton."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+SECOND ARREST OF ARSÈNE LUPIN.
+
+
+Since eight o'clock a dozen moving-vans had encumbered the rue Crevaux
+between the avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne and the avenue Bugeaud. Mon.
+Felix Davey was leaving the apartment in which he lived on the fourth
+floor of No. 8; and Mon. Dubreuil, who had united into a single
+apartment the fifth floor of the same house and the fifth floor of the
+two adjoining houses, was moving on the same day--a mere coincidence,
+since the gentlemen were unknown to each other--the vast collection of
+furniture regarding which so many foreign agents visited him every day.
+
+A circumstance which had been noticed by some of the neighbors, but was
+not spoken of until later, was this: None of the twelve vans bore the
+name and address of the owner, and none of the men accompanying them
+visited the neighboring wine shops. They worked so diligently that the
+furniture was all out by eleven o'clock. Nothing remained but those
+scraps of papers and rags that are always left behind in the corners of
+the empty rooms.
+
+Mon. Felix Davey, an elegant young man, dressed in the latest fashion,
+carried in his hand a walking-stick, the weight of which indicated that
+its owner possessed extraordinary biceps--Mon. Felix Davey walked calmly
+away and took a seat on a bench in the avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne facing
+the rue Pergolese. Close to him a woman, dressed in a neat but
+inexpensive costume, was reading a newspaper, whilst a child was playing
+with a shovel in a heap of sand.
+
+After a few minutes Felix Davey spoke to the woman, without turning his
+head:
+
+"Ganimard!"
+
+"Went out at nine o'clock this morning."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To police headquarters."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No telegram during the night?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Do they suspect you in the house?"
+
+"No; I do some little things for Madame Ganimard, and she tells me
+everything her husband does. I have been with her all morning."
+
+"Very well. Until further orders come here every day at eleven o'clock."
+
+He rose and walked away in the direction of the Dauphine gate, stopping
+at the Chinese pavilion, where he partook of a frugal repast consisting
+of two eggs, with some fruit and vegetables. Then he returned to the rue
+Crevaux and said to the concierge:
+
+"I will just glance through the rooms and then give you the keys."
+
+He finished his inspection of the room that he had used as a library;
+then he seized the end of a gas-pipe, which hung down the side of the
+chimney. The pipe was bent and a hole made in the elbow. To this hole he
+fitted a small instrument in the form of an ear-trumpet and blew into
+it. A slight whistling sound came by way of reply. Placing the trumpet
+to his mouth, he said:
+
+"Anyone around, Dubreuil?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May I come up!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He returned the pipe to its place, saying to himself:
+
+"How progressive we are! Our century abounds with little inventions
+which render life really charming and picturesque. And so amusing!...
+especially when a person knows how to enjoy life as I do."
+
+He turned one of the marble mouldings of the mantel, and the entire half
+of the mantel moved, and the mirror above it glided in invisible
+grooves, disclosing an opening and the lower steps of a stairs built in
+the very body of the chimney; all very clean and complete--the stairs
+were constructed of polished metal and the walls of white tiles. He
+ascended the steps, and at the fifth floor there was the same opening in
+the chimney. Mon. Dubreuil was waiting for him.
+
+"Have you finished in your rooms?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Everything cleared out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the people?"
+
+"Only the three men on guard."
+
+"Very well; come on."
+
+They ascended to the upper floor by the same means, one after the other,
+and there found three men, one of whom was looking through the window.
+
+"Anything new?"
+
+"Nothing, governor."
+
+"All quiet in the street?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In ten minutes I will be ready to leave. You will go also. But in the
+meantime if you see the least suspicious movement in the street, warn
+me."
+
+"I have my finger on the alarm-bell all the time."
+
+"Dubreuil, did you tell the moving men not to touch the wire of that
+bell?"
+
+"Certainly; it is working all right."
+
+"That is all I want to know."
+
+The two gentlemen then descended to the apartment of Felix Davey and the
+latter, after adjusting the marble mantel, exclaimed, joyfully:
+
+"Dubreuil, I should like to see the man who is able to discover all the
+ingenious devices, warning bells, net-works of electric wires and
+acoustic tubes, invisible passages, moving floors and hidden stairways.
+A real fairy-land!"
+
+"What fame for Arsène Lupin!"
+
+"Fame I could well dispense with. It's a pity to be compelled to leave a
+place so well equipped, and commence all over again, Dubreuil ... and on
+a new model, of course, for it would never do to duplicate this. Curse
+Herlock Sholmes!"
+
+"Has he returned to Paris?"
+
+"How could he? There has been only one boat come from Southampton and it
+left there at midnight; only one train from Havre, leaving there at
+eight o'clock this morning and due in Paris at eleven fifteen. As he
+could not catch the midnight boat at Southampton--and the instructions
+to the captain on that point were explicit--he cannot reach France until
+this evening via Newhaven and Dieppe."
+
+"Do you think he will come back?"
+
+"Yes; he never gives up. He will return to Paris; but it will be too
+late. We will be far away."
+
+"And Mademoiselle Destange?"
+
+"I am to see her in an hour."
+
+"At her house?"
+
+"Oh! no; she will not return there for several days. But you, Dubreuil,
+you must hurry. The loading of our goods will take a long time and you
+should be there to look after them."
+
+"Are you sure that we are not being watched?"
+
+"By whom? I am not afraid of anyone but Sholmes."
+
+Dubreuil retired. Felix Davey made a last tour of the apartment, picked
+up two or three torn letters, then, noticing a piece of chalk, he took
+it and, on the dark paper of the drawing-room, drew a large frame and
+wrote within it the following:
+
+"_Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, lived here for five years at the
+beginning of the twentieth century_."
+
+This little pleasantry seemed to please him very much. He looked at it
+for a moment, whistling a lively air, then said to himself:
+
+"Now that I have placed myself in touch with the historians of future
+generations, I can go. You must hurry, Herlock Sholmes, as I shall leave
+my present abode in three minutes, and your defeat will be an
+accomplished fact.... Two minutes more! you are keeping me waiting,
+Monsieur Sholmes.... One minute more! Are you not coming? Well, then, I
+proclaim your downfall and my apotheosis. And now I make my escape.
+Farewell, kingdom of Arsène Lupin! I shall never see you again. Farewell
+to the fifty-five rooms of the six apartments over which I reigned!
+Farewell, my own royal bed chamber!"
+
+His outburst of joy was interrupted by the sharp ringing of a bell,
+which stopped twice, started again and then ceased. It was the alarm
+bell.
+
+What was wrong? What unforeseen danger? Ganimard? No; that wasn't
+possible!
+
+He was on the point of returning to his library and making his escape.
+But, first, he went to the window. There was no one in the street. Was
+the enemy already in the house? He listened and thought he could discern
+certain confused sounds. He hesitated no longer. He ran to his library,
+and as he crossed the threshold he heard the noise of a key being
+inserted in the lock of the vestibule door.
+
+"The deuce!" he murmured; "I have no time to lose. The house may be
+surrounded. The servants' stairway--impossible! Fortunately, there is
+the chimney."
+
+He pushed the moulding; it did not move. He made a greater effort--still
+it refused to move. At the same time he had the impression that the door
+below opened and that he could hear footsteps.
+
+"Good God!" he cried; "I am lost if this cursed mechanism--"
+
+He pushed with all his strength. Nothing moved--nothing! By some
+incredible accident, by some evil stroke of fortune, the mechanism,
+which had worked only a few moments ago, would not work now.
+
+He was furious. The block of marble remained immovable. He uttered
+frightful imprecations on the senseless stone. Was his escape to be
+prevented by that stupid obstacle? He struck the marble wildly, madly;
+he hammered it, he cursed it.
+
+"Ah! what's the matter, Monsieur Lupin? You seem to be displeased about
+something."
+
+Lupin turned around. Herlock Sholmes stood before him!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herlock Sholmes!... Lupin gazed at him with squinting eyes as if his
+sight were defective and misleading. Herlock Sholmes in Paris! Herlock
+Sholmes, whom he had shipped to England only the day before as a
+dangerous person, now stood before him free and victorious!... Ah! such
+a thing was nothing less than a miracle; it was contrary to all natural
+laws; it was the culmination of all that is illogical and abnormal....
+Herlock Sholmes here--before his face!
+
+And when the Englishman spoke his words were tinged with that keen
+sarcasm and mocking politeness with which his adversary had so often
+lashed him. He said:
+
+"Monsieur Lupin, in, the first place I have the honor to inform you that
+at this time and place I blot from my memory forever all thoughts of
+the miserable night that you forced me to endure in the house of Baron
+d'Hautrec, of the injury done to my friend Wilson, of my abduction in
+the automobile, and of the voyage I took yesterday under your orders,
+bound to a very uncomfortable couch. But the joy of this moment effaces
+all those bitter memories. I forgive everything. I forget everything--I
+wipe out the debt. I am paid--and royally paid."
+
+Lupin made no reply. So the Englishman continued:
+
+"Don't you think so yourself?"
+
+He appeared to insist as if demanding an acquiescence, as a sort of
+receipt in regard to the part.
+
+After a moment's reflection, during which the Englishman felt that he
+was scrutinized to the very depth of his soul, Lupin declared:
+
+"I presume, monsieur, that your conduct is based upon serious motives?"
+
+"Very serious."
+
+"The fact that you have escaped from my captain and his crew is only a
+secondary incident of our struggle. But the fact that you are here
+before me alone--understand, alone--face to face with Arsène Lupin,
+leads me to think that your revenge is as complete as possible."
+
+"As complete as possible."
+
+"This house?"
+
+"Surrounded."
+
+"The two adjoining houses?"
+
+"Surrounded."
+
+"The apartment above this?"
+
+"The _three_ apartments on the fifth floor that were formerly occupied
+by Monsieur Dubreuil are surrounded."
+
+"So that----"
+
+"So that you are captured, Monsieur Lupin--absolutely captured."
+
+The feelings that Sholmes had experienced during his trip in the
+automobile were now suffered by Lupin, the same concentrated fury, the
+same revolt, and also, let us admit, the same loyalty of submission to
+force of circumstances. Equally brave in victory or defeat.
+
+"Our accounts are squared, monsieur," said Lupin, frankly.
+
+The Englishman was pleased with that confession. After a short silence
+Lupin, now quite self-possessed, said smiling:
+
+"And I am not sorry! It becomes monotonous to win all the time.
+Yesterday I had only to stretch out my hand to finish you forever.
+Today I belong to you. The game is yours." Lupin laughed heartily and
+then continued: "At last the gallery will be entertained! Lupin in
+prison! How will he get out? In prison!... What an adventure!... Ah!
+Sholmes, life is just one damn thing after another!"
+
+He pressed his closed hands to his temples as if to suppress the
+tumultuous joy that surged within him, and his actions indicated that he
+was moved by an uncontrollable mirth. At last, when he had recovered his
+self-possession, he approached the detective and said:
+
+"And now what are you waiting for?"
+
+"What am I waiting for?"
+
+"Yes; Ganimard is here with his men--why don't they come in?"
+
+"I asked him not to."
+
+"And he consented?"
+
+"I accepted his services on condition that he would be guided by me.
+Besides, he thinks that Felix Davey is only an accomplice of Arsène
+Lupin."
+
+"Then I will repeat my question in another form. Why did you come in
+alone?"
+
+"Because I wished to speak to you alone."
+
+"Ah! ah! you have something to say to me."
+
+That idea seemed to please Lupin immensely. There are certain
+circumstances in which words are preferable to deeds.
+
+"Monsieur Sholmes, I am sorry I cannot offer you an easy chair. How
+would you like that broken box? Or perhaps you would prefer the window
+ledge? I am sure a glass of beer would be welcome ... light or dark?...
+But sit down, please."
+
+"Thank you; we can talk as well standing up."
+
+"Very well--proceed."
+
+"I will be brief. The object of my sojourn in France was not to
+accomplish your arrest. If I have been led to pursue you, it was because
+I saw no other way to achieve my real object."
+
+"Which was?"
+
+"To recover the blue diamond."
+
+"The blue diamond!"
+
+"Certainly; since the one found in Herr Bleichen's tooth-powder was only
+an imitation."
+
+"Quite right; the genuine diamond was taken by the blonde Lady. I made
+an exact duplicate of it and then, as I had designs on other jewels
+belonging to the Countess and as the Consul Herr Bleichen was already
+under suspicion, the aforesaid blonde Lady, in order to avert suspicion,
+slipped the false stone into the aforesaid Consul's luggage."
+
+"While you kept the genuine diamond?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"That diamond--I want it."
+
+"I am very sorry, but it is impossible."
+
+"I have promised it to the Countess de Crozon. I must have it."
+
+"How will you get it, since it is in my possession?"
+
+"That is precisely the reason--because it is in your possession."
+
+"Oh! I am to give it to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Voluntarily?"
+
+"I will buy it."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Lupin, in an access of mirth, "you are certainly an
+Englishman. You treat this as a matter of business."
+
+"It is a matter of business."
+
+"Well? what is your offer?"
+
+"The liberty of Mademoiselle Destange."
+
+"Her liberty?... I didn't know she was under arrest."
+
+"I will give Monsieur Ganimard the necessary information. When deprived
+of your protection, she can readily be taken."
+
+Lupin laughed again, and said:
+
+"My dear monsieur, you are offering me something you do not possess.
+Mademoiselle Destange is in a place of safety, and has nothing to fear.
+You must make me another offer."
+
+The Englishman hesitated, visibly embarrassed and vexed. Then, placing
+his hand on the shoulder of his adversary, he said:
+
+"And if I should propose to you-"
+
+"My liberty?"
+
+"No ... but I can leave the room to consult with Ganimard."
+
+"And leave me alone!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah! mon dieu, what good would that be? The cursed mechanism will not
+work," said Lupin, at the same time savagely pushing the moulding of the
+mantel. He stifled a cry of surprise; this time fortune favored him--the
+block of marble moved. It was his salvation; his hope of escape. In that
+event, why submit to the conditions imposed by Sholmes? He paced up and
+down the room, as if he were considering his reply. Then, in his turn,
+he placed his hand on the shoulder of his adversary, and said:
+
+"All things considered, Monsieur Sholmes, I prefer to do my own business
+in my own way."
+
+"But--"
+
+"No, I don't require anyone's assistance."
+
+"When Ganimard gets his hand on you, it will be all over. You can't
+escape from them."
+
+"Who knows?"
+
+"Come, that is foolish. Every door and window is guarded."
+
+"Except one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"_The one I will choose_."
+
+"Mere words! Your arrest is as good as made."
+
+"Oh! no--not at all."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I shall keep the blue diamond."
+
+Sholmes looked at his watch, and said:
+
+"It is now ten minutes to three. At three o'clock I shall call
+Ganimard."
+
+"Well, then, we have ten minutes to chat. And to satisfy my curiosity,
+Monsieur Sholmes, I should like to know how you procured my address and
+my name of Felix Davey?"
+
+Although his adversary's easy manner caused Sholmes some anxiety, he was
+willing to give Lupin the desired information since it reflected credit
+on his professional astuteness; so he replied:
+
+"Your address? I got it from the blonde Lady."
+
+"Clotilde!"
+
+"Herself. Do you remember, yesterday morning, when I wished to take her
+away in the automobile, she telephoned to her dressmaker."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I understood, later, that you were the dressmaker. And last
+night, on the boat, by exercising my memory--and my memory is something
+I have good reason to be proud of--I was able to recollect the last two
+figures of your telephone number--73. Then, as I possessed a list of the
+houses you had 'improved,' it was an easy matter, on my arrival in Paris
+at eleven o'clock this morning, to search in the telephone directory and
+find there the name and address of Felix Davey. Having obtained that
+information, I asked the aid of Monsieur Ganimard."
+
+"Admirable! I congratulate you. But bow did you manage to catch the
+eight o'clock train at Havre! How did you escape from _The Swallow_?"
+
+"I did not escape."
+
+"But----"
+
+"You ordered the captain not to reach Southampton before one o'clock. He
+landed me there at midnight. I was able to catch the twelve o'clock boat
+for Havre."
+
+"Did the captain betray me? I can't believe it."
+
+"No, he did not betray you."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"It was his watch."
+
+"His watch?"
+
+"Yes, I put it ahead one hour."
+
+"How?"
+
+"In the usual way, by turning the hands. We were sitting side by side,
+talking, and I was telling him some funny stories.... Why! he never saw
+me do it."
+
+"Bravo! a very clever trick. I shall not forget it. But the clock that
+was hanging on the wall of the cabin?"
+
+"Ah! the clock was a more difficult matter, as my feet were tied, but
+the sailor, who guarded me during the captain's absence, was kind
+enough to turn the hands for me."
+
+"He? Nonsense! He wouldn't do it."
+
+"Oh! but he didn't know the importance of his act. I told him I must
+catch the first train for London, at any price, and ... he allowed
+himself to be persuaded----"
+
+"By means of----"
+
+"By means of a slight gift, which the excellent fellow, loyal and true
+to his master, intends to send to you."
+
+"What was it!"
+
+"A mere trifle."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"The blue diamond."
+
+"The blue diamond!"
+
+"Yes, the false stone that you substituted for the Countess' diamond.
+She gave it to me."
+
+There was a sudden explosion of violent laughter. Lupin laughed until
+the tears started in his eyes.
+
+"Mon dieu, but it is funny! My false diamond palmed off on my innocent
+sailor! And the captain's watch! And the hands of the clock!"
+
+Sholmes felt that the duel between him and Lupin was keener than ever.
+His marvellous instinct warned him that, behind his adversary's display
+of mirth, there was a shrewd intellect debating the ways and means to
+escape. Gradually Lupin approached the Englishman, who recoiled, and,
+unconsciously, slipped his hand into his watch-pocket.
+
+"It is three o'clock, Monsieur Lupin."
+
+"Three o'clock, already! What a pity! We were enjoying our chat so
+much."
+
+"I am waiting for your answer."
+
+"My answer? Mon dieu! but you are particular!... And so this is the last
+move in our little game--and the stake is my liberty!"
+
+"Or the blue diamond."
+
+"Very well. It's your play. What are you going to do!"
+
+"I play the king," said Sholmes, as he fired his revolver.
+
+"And I the ace," replied Lupin, as he struck at Sholmes with his fist.
+
+Sholmes had fired into the air, as a signal to Ganimard, whose
+assistance he required. But Lupin's fist had caught Sholmes in the
+stomach, and caused him to double up with pain. Lupin rushed to the
+fireplace and set the marble slab in motion.... Too late! The door
+opened.
+
+"Surrender, Lupin, or I fire!"
+
+Ganimard, doubtless stationed closer than Lupin had thought, Ganimard
+was there, with his revolver turned on Lupin. And behind Ganimard there
+were twenty men, strong and ruthless fellows, who would beat him like a
+dog at the least sign of resistance.
+
+"Hands down! I surrender!" said Lupin, calmly; and he folded his arms
+across his breast.
+
+Everyone was amazed. In the room, divested of its furniture and
+hangings, Arsène Lupin's words sounded like an echo.... "I surrender!"
+... It seemed incredible. No one would have been astonished if he had
+suddenly vanished through a trap, or if a section of the wall had rolled
+away and allowed him to escape. But he surrendered!
+
+Ganimard advanced, nervously, and with all the gravity that the
+importance of the occasion demanded, he placed his hand on the shoulder
+of his adversary, and had the infinite pleasure of saying:
+
+"I arrest you, Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Brrr!" said Lupin, "you make me shiver, my dear Ganimard. What a
+lugubrious face! One would imagine you were speaking over the grave of
+a friend. For Heaven's sake, don't assume such a funereal air."
+
+"I arrest you."
+
+"Don't let that worry you! In the name of the law, of which he is a
+well-deserving pillar, Ganimard, the celebrated Parisian detective,
+arrests the wicked Arsène Lupin. An historic event, of which you will
+appreciate the true importance.... And it is the second time that it has
+happened. Bravo, Ganimard, you are sure of advancement in your chosen
+profession!"
+
+And he held out his wrists for the hand-cuffs. Ganimard adjusted them in
+a most solemn manner. The numerous policemen, despite their customary
+presumption and the bitterness of their feelings toward Lupin, conducted
+themselves with becoming modesty, astonished at being permitted to gaze
+upon that mysterious and intangible creature.
+
+"My poor Lupin," sighed our hero, "what would your aristocratic friends
+say if they should see you in this humiliating position?"
+
+He pulled his wrists apart with all his strength. The veins in his
+forehead expanded. The links of the chain cut into his flesh. The chain
+fell off--broken.
+
+"Another, comrades, that one was useless."
+
+They placed two on him this time.
+
+"Quite right," he said. "You cannot be too careful."
+
+Then, counting the detectives and policemen, he said:
+
+"How many are you, my friends? Twenty-five? Thirty? That's too many. I
+can't do anything. Ah! if there had been only fifteen!"
+
+There was something fascinating about Lupin; it was the fascination of
+the great actor who plays his rôle with spirit and understanding,
+combined with assurance and ease. Sholmes regarded him as one might
+regard a beautiful painting with a due appreciation of all its
+perfection in coloring and technique. And he really thought that it was
+an equal struggle between those thirty men on one side, armed as they
+were with all the strength and majesty of the law, and, on the other
+side, that solitary individual, unarmed and handcuffed. Yes, the two
+sides were well-matched.
+
+"Well, master," said Lupin to the Englishman, "this is your work. Thanks
+to you, Lupin is going to rot on the damp straw of a dungeon. Confess
+that your conscience pricks you a little, and that your soul is filled
+with remorse."
+
+In spite of himself, Sholmes shrugged his shoulders, as if to say: "It's
+your own fault."
+
+"Never! never!" exclaimed Lupin. "Give you the blue diamond? Oh! no, it
+has cost me too much trouble. I intend to keep it. On my occasion of my
+first visit to you in London--which will probably be next month--I will
+tell you my reasons. But will you be in London next month? Or do you
+prefer Vienna? Or Saint Petersburg?"
+
+Then Lupin received a surprise. A bell commenced to ring. It was not the
+alarm-bell, but the bell of the telephone which was located between the
+two windows of the room and had not yet been removed.
+
+The telephone! Ah! Who could it be? Who was about to fall into this
+unfortunate trap? Arsène Lupin exhibited an access of rage against the
+unlucky instrument as if he would like to break it into a thousand
+pieces and thus stifle the mysterious voice that was calling for him.
+But it was Ganimard who took down the receiver, and said:
+
+"Hello!... Hello!... number 648.73 ... yes, this is it."
+
+Then Sholmes stepped up, and, with an air of authority, pushed Ganimard
+aside, took the receiver, and covered the transmitter with his
+handkerchief in order to obscure the tone of his voice. At that moment
+he glanced toward Lupin, and the look which they exchanged indicated
+that the same idea had occurred to each of them, and that they fore-saw
+the ultimate result of that theory: it was the blonde Lady who was
+telephoning. She wished to telephone to Felix Davey, or rather to Maxime
+Bermond, and it was to Sholmes she was about to speak. The Englishman
+said:
+
+"Hello ... Hello!"
+
+Then, after a silence, he said:
+
+"Yes, it is I, Maxime."
+
+The drama had commenced and was progressing with tragic precision.
+Lupin, the irrepressible and nonchalant Lupin, did not attempt to
+conceal his anxiety, and he strained every nerve in a desire to hear or,
+at least, to divine the purport of the conversation. And Sholmes
+continued, in reply to the mysterious voice:
+
+"Hello!... Hello!... Yes, everything has been moved, and I am just
+ready to leave here and meet you as we agreed.... Where?... Where you
+are now.... Don't believe that he is here yet!..."
+
+Sholmes stopped, seeking for words. It was clear that he was trying to
+question the girl without betraying himself, and that he was ignorant of
+her whereabouts. Moreover, Ganimard's presence seemed to embarrass
+him.... Ah! if some miracle would only interrupt that cursed
+conversation! Lupin prayed for it with all his strength, with all the
+intensity of his incited nerves! After a momentary pause, Sholmes
+continued:
+
+"Hello!... Hello!... Do you hear me?... I can't hear you very well....
+Can scarcely make out what you say.... Are you listening? Well, I think
+you had better return home.... No danger now.... But he is in England! I
+have received a telegram from Southampton announcing his arrival."
+
+The sarcasm of those words! Sholmes uttered them with an inexpressible
+comfort. And he added:
+
+"Very well, don't lose any time. I will meet you there."
+
+He hung up the receiver.
+
+"Monsieur Ganimard, can you furnish me with three men?"
+
+"For the blonde Lady, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know who she is, and where she is?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good! That settles Monsieur Lupin.... Folenfant, take two men, and go
+with Monsieur Sholmes."
+
+The Englishman departed, accompanied by the three men.
+
+The game was ended. The blonde Lady was, also, about to fall into the
+hands of the Englishman. Thanks to his commendable persistence and to a
+combination of fortuitous circumstances, the battle had resulted in a
+victory for the detective, and in irreparable disaster for Lupin.
+
+"Monsieur Sholmes!"
+
+The Englishman stopped.
+
+"Monsieur Lupin?"
+
+Lupin was clearly shattered by this final blow. His forehead was marked
+by deep wrinkles. He was sullen and dejected. However, he pulled himself
+together, and, notwithstanding his defeat, he exclaimed, in a cheerful
+tone:
+
+"You will concede that fate has been against me. A few minutes ago, it
+prevented my escape through that chimney, and delivered me into your
+hands. Now, by means of the telephone, it presents you with the blonde
+Lady. I submit to its decrees."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I am ready to re-open our negotiation."
+
+Sholmes took Ganimard aside and asked, in a manner that did not permit a
+reply, the authority to exchange a few words with the prisoner. Then he
+approached Lupin, and said, in a sharp, nervous tone:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Mademoiselle Destange's liberty."
+
+"You know the price."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you accept?"
+
+"Yes; I accept your terms."
+
+"Ah!" said the Englishman, in surprise, "but ... you refused ... for
+yourself----"
+
+"Yes, I can look out for myself, Monsieur Sholmes, but now the question
+concerns a young woman ... and a woman I love. In France, understand, we
+have very decided ideas about such things. And Lupin has the same
+feelings as other people."
+
+He spoke with simplicity and candor. Sholmes replied by an almost
+imperceptible inclination of his head, and murmured:
+
+"Very well, the blue diamond."
+
+"Take my cane, there, at the end of the mantel. Press on the head of the
+cane with one hand, and, with the other, turn the iron ferrule at the
+bottom."
+
+Holmes took the cane and followed the directions. As he did so, the head
+of the cane divided and disclosed a cavity which contained a small ball
+of wax which, in turn, enclosed a diamond. He examined it. It was the
+blue diamond.
+
+"Monsieur Lupin, Mademoiselle Destange is free."
+
+"Is her future safety assured? Has she nothing to fear from you?"
+
+"Neither from me, nor anyone else."
+
+"How can you manage it?"
+
+"Quite easily. I have forgotten her name and address."
+
+"Thank you. And au revoir--for I will see you again, sometime, Monsieur
+Sholmes?"
+
+"I have no doubt of it."
+
+Then followed an animated conversation between Sholmes and Ganimard,
+which was abruptly terminated by the Englishman, who said:
+
+"I am very sorry, Monsieur Ganimard, that we cannot agree on that point,
+but I have no time to waste trying to convince you. I leave for England
+within an hour."
+
+"But ... the blonde Lady?"
+
+"I do not know such a person."
+
+"And yet, a moment ago----"
+
+"You must take the affair as it stands. I have delivered Arsène Lupin
+into your hands. Here is the blue diamond, which you will have the
+pleasure of returning to the Countess de Crozon. What more do you want?"
+
+"The blonde Lady."
+
+"Find her."
+
+Sholmes pulled his cap down over his forehead and walked rapidly away,
+like a man who is accustomed to go as soon as his business is finished.
+
+"Bon voyage, monsieur," cried Lupin, "and, believe me, I shall never
+forget the friendly way in which our little business affairs have been
+arranged. My regards to Monsieur Wilson."
+
+Not receiving any reply, Lupin added, sneeringly:
+
+"That is what is called 'taking British leave.' Ah! their insular
+dignity lacks the flower of courtesy by which we are distinguished.
+Consider for a moment, Ganimard, what a charming exit a Frenchman would
+have made under similar circumstances! With what exquisite courtesy he
+would have masked his triumph!... But, God bless me, Ganimard, what are
+you doing? Making a search? Come, what's the use? There is nothing
+left--not even a scrap of paper. I assure you my archives are in a safe
+place."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Ganimard. "I must search
+everything."
+
+Lupin submitted to the operation. Held by two detectives and surrounded
+by the others, he patiently endured the proceedings for twenty minutes,
+then he said:
+
+"Hurry up, Ganimard, and finish!"
+
+"You are in a hurry."
+
+"Of course I am. An important appointment."
+
+"At the police station?"
+
+"No; in the city."
+
+"Ah! at what time?"
+
+"Two o'clock."
+
+"It is three o'clock now."
+
+"Just so; I will be late. And punctuality is one of my virtues."
+
+"Well, give me five minutes."
+
+"Not a second more," said Lupin.
+
+"I am doing my best to expedite----"
+
+"Oh! don't talk so much.... Still searching that cupboard? It is empty."
+
+"Here are some letters."
+
+"Old invoices, I presume!"
+
+"No; a packet tied with a ribbon."
+
+"A red ribbon? Oh! Ganimard, for God's sake, don't untie it!"
+
+"From a woman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A woman of the world?"
+
+"The best in the world."
+
+"Her name?"
+
+"Madame Ganimard."
+
+"Very funny! very funny!" exclaimed the detective.
+
+At that moment the men, who had been sent to search the other rooms,
+returned and announced their failure to find anything. Lupin laughed and
+said:
+
+"Parbleu! Did you expect to find my visiting list, or evidence of my
+business relations with the Emperor of Germany? But I can tell you what
+you should investigate, Ganimard: All the little mysteries of this
+apartment. For instance, that gas-pipe is a speaking tube. That chimney
+contains a stairway. That wall is hollow. And the marvellous system of
+bells! Ah! Ganimard, just press that button!"
+
+Ganimard obeyed.
+
+"Did you hear anything?" asked Lupin.
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither did I. And yet you notified my aeronaut to prepare the
+dirigible balloon which will soon carry us into the clouds.
+
+"Come!" said Ganimard, who had completed his search; "we've had enough
+nonsense--let's be off."
+
+He started away, followed by his men. Lupin did not move. His guardians
+pushed him in vain.
+
+"Well," said Ganimard, "do you refuse to go?"
+
+"Not at all. But it depends."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"Where you want to take me."
+
+"To the station-house, of course."
+
+"Then I refuse to go. I have no business there."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"Did I not tell you that I had an important appointment?"
+
+"Lupin!"
+
+"Why, Ganimard, I have an appointment with the blonde Lady, and do you
+suppose I would be so discourteous as to cause her a moment's anxiety?
+That would be very ungentlemanly."
+
+"Listen, Lupin," said the detective, who was becoming annoyed by this
+persiflage; "I have been very patient with you, but I will endure no
+more. Follow me."
+
+"Impossible; I have an appointment and I shall keep it."
+
+"For the last time--follow me!"
+
+"Im-pos-sible!"
+
+At a sign from Ganimard two men seized Lupin by the arms; but they
+released him at once, uttering cries of pain. Lupin had thrust two long
+needles into them. The other men now rushed at Lupin with cries of rage
+and hatred, eager to avenge their comrades and to avenge themselves for
+the many affronts he had heaped upon them; and now they struck and beat
+him to their heart's desire. A violent blow on the temple felled Lupin
+to the floor.
+
+"If you hurt him you will answer to me," growled Ganimard, in a rage.
+
+He leaned over Lupin to ascertain his condition. Then, learning that he
+was breathing freely, Ganimard ordered his men to carry the prisoner by
+the head and feet, while he himself supported the body.
+
+"Go gently, now!... Don't jolt him. Ah! the brutes would have killed
+him.... Well, Lupin, how goes it?"
+
+"None too well, Ganimard ... you let them knock me out."
+
+"It was your own fault; you were so obstinate," replied Ganimard. "But I
+hope they didn't hurt you."
+
+They had left the apartment and were now on the landing. Lupin groaned
+and stammered:
+
+"Ganimard ... the elevator ... they are breaking my bones."
+
+"A good idea, an excellent idea," replied Ganimard. "Besides, the
+stairway is too narrow."
+
+He summoned the elevator. They placed Lupin on the seat with the
+greatest care. Ganimard took his place beside him and said to his men:
+
+"Go down the stairs and wait for me below. Understand?"
+
+Ganimard closed the door of the elevator. Suddenly the elevator shot
+upward like a balloon released from its cable. Lupin burst into a fit of
+sardonic laughter.
+
+"Good God!" cried Ganimard, as he made a frantic search in the dark for
+the button of descent. Having found it, he cried:
+
+"The fifth floor! Watch the door of the fifth floor."
+
+His assistants clambered up the stairs, two and three steps at a time.
+But this strange circumstance happened: The elevator seemed to break
+through the ceiling of the last floor, disappeared from the sight of
+Ganimard's assistants, suddenly made its appearance on the upper
+floor--the servants' floor--and stopped. Three men were there waiting
+for it. They opened the door. Two of them seized Ganimard, who,
+astonished at the sudden attack, scarcely made any defence. The other
+man carried off Lupin.
+
+"I warned you, Ganimard ... about the dirigible balloon. Another time,
+don't be so tender-hearted. And, moreover, remember that Arsène Lupin
+doesn't allow himself to be struck and knocked down without sufficient
+reason. Adieu."
+
+The door of the elevator was already closed on Ganimard, and the machine
+began to descend; and it all happened so quickly that the old detective
+reached the ground floor as soon as his assistants. Without exchanging a
+word they crossed the court and ascended the servants' stairway, which
+was the only way to reach the servants' floor through which the escape
+had been made.
+
+A long corridor with several turns and bordered with little numbered
+rooms led to a door that was not locked. On the other side of this door
+and, therefore, in another house there was another corridor with similar
+turns and similar rooms, and at the end of it a servants' stairway.
+Ganimard descended it, crossed a court and a vestibule and found himself
+in the rue Picot. Then he understood the situation: the two houses,
+built the entire depth of the lots, touched at the rear, while the
+fronts of the houses faced upon two streets that ran parallel to each
+other at a distance of more than sixty metres apart.
+
+He found the concierge and, showing his card, enquired:
+
+"Did four men pass here just now?"
+
+"Yes; the two servants from the fourth and fifth floors, with two
+friends."
+
+"Who lives on the fourth and fifth floors?"
+
+"Two men named Fauvel and their cousins, whose name is Provost. They
+moved to-day, leaving the two servants, who went away just now."
+
+"Ah!" thought Ganimard; "what a grand opportunity we have missed! The
+entire band lived in these houses."
+
+And he sank down on a chair in despair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forty minutes later two gentlemen were driven up to the station of the
+Northern Railway and hurried to the Calais express, followed by a porter
+who carried their valises. One of them had his arm in a sling, and the
+pallor of his face denoted some illness. The other man was in a jovial
+mood.
+
+"We must hurry, Wilson, or we will miss the train.... Ah! Wilson, I
+shall never forget these ten days."
+
+"Neither will I."
+
+"Ah! it was a great struggle!"
+
+"Superb!"
+
+"A few repulses, here and there--"
+
+"Of no consequence."
+
+"And, at last, victory all along the line. Lupin arrested! The blue
+diamond recovered!"
+
+"My arm broken!"
+
+"What does a broken arm count for in such a victory as that?"
+
+"Especially when it is my arm."
+
+"Ah! yes, don't you remember, Wilson, that it was at the very time you
+were in the pharmacy, suffering like a hero, that I discovered the clue
+to the whole mystery?"
+
+"How lucky!"
+
+The doors of the carriages were being closed.
+
+"All aboard. Hurry up, gentlemen!"
+
+The porter climbed into an empty compartment and placed their valises in
+the rack, whilst Sholmes assisted the unfortunate Wilson.
+
+"What's the matter, Wilson? You're not done up, are you? Come, pull your
+nerves together."
+
+"My nerves are all right."
+
+"Well, what is it, then?"
+
+"I have only one hand."
+
+"What of it?" exclaimed Sholmes, cheerfully. "You are not the only one
+who has had a broken arm. Cheer up!"
+
+Sholmes handed the porter a piece of fifty centimes.
+
+"Thank you, Monsieur Sholmes," said the porter.
+
+The Englishman looked at him; it was Arsène Lupin.
+
+"You!... you!" he stammered, absolutely astounded.
+
+And Wilson brandished his sound arm in the manner of a man who
+demonstrates a fact as he said:
+
+"You! you! but you were arrested! Sholmes told me so. When he left you
+Ganimard and thirty men had you in charge."
+
+Lupin folded his arms and said, with an air of indignation:
+
+"Did you suppose I would let you go away without bidding you adieu?
+After the very friendly relations that have always existed between us!
+That would be discourteous and ungrateful on my part."
+
+The train whistled. Lupin continued:
+
+"I beg your pardon, but have you everything you need? Tobacco and
+matches ... yes ... and the evening papers? You will find in them an
+account of my arrest--your last exploit, Monsieur Sholmes. And now, au
+revoir. Am delighted to have made your acquaintance. And if ever I can
+be of any service to you, I shall be only too happy...." He leaped to
+the platform and closed the door.
+
+"Adieu," he repeated, waving his handkerchief. "Adieu.... I shall write
+to you.... You will write also, eh? And your arm broken, Wilson.... I am
+truly sorry.... I shall expect to hear from both of you. A postal card,
+now and then, simply address: Lupin, Paris. That is sufficient....
+Adieu.... See you soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE JEWISH LAMP.
+
+
+Herlock Sholmes and Wilson were sitting in front of the fireplace, in
+comfortable armchairs, with the feet extended toward the grateful warmth
+of a glowing coke fire.
+
+Sholmes' pipe, a short brier with a silver band, had gone out. He
+knocked out the ashes, filled it, lighted it, pulled the skirts of his
+dressing-gown over his knees, and drew from his pipe great puffs of
+smoke, which ascended toward the ceiling in scores of shadow rings.
+
+Wilson gazed at him, as a dog lying curled up on a rug before the fire
+might look at his master, with great round eyes which have no hope other
+than to obey the least gesture of his owner. Was the master going to
+break the silence? Would he reveal to Wilson the subject of his reverie
+and admit his satellite into the charmed realm of his thoughts? When
+Sholmes had maintained his silent attitude for some time. Wilson
+ventured to speak:
+
+"Everything seems quiet now. Not the shadow of a case to occupy our
+leisure moments."
+
+Sholmes did not reply, but the rings of smoke emitted by Sholmes were
+better formed, and Wilson observed that his companion drew considerable
+pleasure from that trifling fact--an indication that the great man was
+not absorbed in any serious meditation. Wilson, discouraged, arose and
+went to the window.
+
+The lonely street extended between the gloomy façades of grimy houses,
+unusually gloomy this morning by reason of a heavy downfall of rain. A
+cab passed; then another. Wilson made an entry of their numbers in his
+memorandum-book. One never knows!
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "the postman."
+
+The man entered, shown in by the servant.
+
+"Two registered letters, sir ... if you will sign, please?"
+
+Sholmes signed the receipts, accompanied the man to the door, and was
+opening one of the letters as he returned.
+
+"It seems to please you," remarked Wilson, after a moment's silence.
+
+"This letter contains a very interesting proposition. You are anxious
+for a case--here's one. Read----"
+
+Wilson read:
+
+     "Monsieur,
+
+     "I desire the benefit of your services and experience. I have been
+     the victim of a serious theft, and the investigation has as yet
+     been unsuccessful. I am sending to you by this mail a number of
+     newspapers which will inform you of the affair, and if you will
+     undertake the case, I will place my house at your disposal and ask
+     you to fill in the enclosed check, signed by me, for whatever sum
+     you require for your expenses.
+
+     "Kindly reply by telegraph, and much oblige,
+
+     "Your humble servant,
+
+     "Baron Victor d'Imblevalle,
+
+     "18 rue Murillo, Paris."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Sholmes, "that sounds good ... a little trip to Paris
+... and why not, Wilson? Since my famous duel with Arsène Lupin, I have
+not had an excuse to go there. I should be pleased to visit the capital
+of the world under less strenuous conditions."
+
+He tore the check into four pieces and, while Wilson, whose arm had not
+yet regained its former strength, uttered bitter words against Paris and
+the Parisians, Sholmes opened the second envelope. Immediately, he made
+a gesture of annoyance, and a wrinkle appeared on his forehead during
+the reading of the letter; then, crushing the paper into a ball, he
+threw it, angrily, on the floor.
+
+"Well? What's the matter?" asked Wilson, anxiously.
+
+He picked up the ball of paper, unfolded it, and read, with increasing
+amazement:
+
+     "My Dear Monsieur:
+
+     "You know full well the admiration I have for you and the interest
+     I take in your renown. Well, believe me, when I warn you to have
+     nothing whatever to do with the case on which you have just now
+     been called to Paris. Your intervention will cause much harm; your
+     efforts will produce a most lamentable result; and you will be
+     obliged to make a public confession of your defeat.
+
+     "Having a sincere desire to spare you such humiliation, I implore
+     you, in the name of the friendship that unites us, to remain
+     peacefully reposing at your own fireside.
+
+     "My best wishes to Monsieur Wilson, and, for yourself, the sincere
+     regards of your devoted ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+"Arsène Lupin!" repeated Wilson, astounded.
+
+Sholmes struck the table with his fist, and exclaimed:
+
+"Ah! he is pestering me already, the fool! He laughs at me as if I were
+a schoolboy! The public confession of my defeat! Didn't I force him to
+disgorge the blue diamond?"
+
+"I tell you--he's afraid," suggested Wilson.
+
+"Nonsense! Arsène Lupin is not afraid, and this taunting letter proves
+it."
+
+"But how did he know that the Baron d'Imblevalle had written to you?"
+
+"What do I know about it? You do ask some stupid questions, my boy."
+
+"I thought ... I supposed----"
+
+"What? That I am a clairvoyant? Or a sorcerer?"
+
+"No, but I have seen you do some marvellous things."
+
+"No person can perform _marvellous_ things. I no more than you. I
+reflect, I deduct, I conclude--that is all; but I do not divine. Only
+fools divine."
+
+Wilson assumed the attitude of a whipped cur, and resolved not to make a
+fool of himself by trying to divine why Sholmes paced the room with
+quick, nervous strides. But when Sholmes rang for the servant and
+ordered his valise, Wilson thought that he was in possession of a
+material fact which gave him the right to reflect, deduct and conclude
+that his associate was about to take a journey. The same mental
+operation permitted him to assert, with almost mathematical exactness:
+
+"Sholmes, you are going to Paris."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"And Lupin's affront impels you to go, rather than the desire to assist
+the Baron d'Imblevalle."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Sholmes, I shall go with you."
+
+"Ah; ah! my old friend," exclaimed Sholmes, interrupting his walking,
+"you are not afraid that your right arm will meet the same fate as your
+left?"
+
+"What can happen to me? You will be there."
+
+"That's the way to talk, Wilson. We will show that clever Frenchman that
+he made a mistake when he threw his glove in our faces. Be quick,
+Wilson, we must catch the first train."
+
+"Without waiting for the papers the baron has sent you?"
+
+"What good are they?"
+
+"I will send a telegram."
+
+"No; if you do that, Arsène Lupin will know of my arrival. I wish to
+avoid that. This time, Wilson, we must fight under cover."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon, the two friends embarked at Dover. The passage was a
+delightful one. In the train from Calais to Paris, Sholmes had three
+hours sound sleep, while Wilson guarded the door of the compartment.
+
+Sholmes awoke in good spirits. He was delighted at the idea of another
+duel with Arsène Lupin, and he rubbed his hands with the satisfied air
+of a man who looks forward to a pleasant vacation.
+
+"At last!" exclaimed Wilson, "we are getting to work again."
+
+And he rubbed his hands with the same satisfied air.
+
+At the station, Sholmes took the wraps and, followed by Wilson, who
+carried the valises, he gave up his tickets and started off briskly.
+
+"Fine weather, Wilson.... Blue sky and sunshine! Paris is giving us a
+royal reception."
+
+"Yes, but what a crowd!"
+
+"So much the better, Wilson, we will pass unnoticed. No one will
+recognize us in such a crowd."
+
+"Is this Monsieur Sholmes?"
+
+He stopped, somewhat puzzled. Who the deuce could thus address him by
+his name? A woman stood beside him; a young girl whose simple dress
+outlined her slender form and whose pretty face had a sad and anxious
+expression. She repeated her enquiry:
+
+"You are Monsieur Sholmes?"
+
+As he still remained silent, as much from confusion as from a habit of
+prudence, the girl asked a third time:
+
+"Have I the honor of addressing Monsieur Sholmes?"
+
+"What do you want?" he replied, testily, considering the incident a
+suspicious one.
+
+"You must listen to me, Monsieur Sholmes, as it is a serious matter. I
+know that you are going to the rue Murillo."
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"I know ... I know ... rue Murillo ... number 18. Well, you must not go
+... no, you must not. I assure you that you will regret it. Do not think
+that I have any interest in the matter. I do it because it is right ...
+because my conscience tells me to do it."
+
+Sholmes tried to get away, but she persisted:
+
+"Oh! I beg of you, don't neglect my advice.... Ah! if I only knew how to
+convince you! Look at me! Look into my eyes! They are sincere ... they
+speak the truth."
+
+She gazed at Sholmes, fearlessly but innocently, with those beautiful
+eyes, serious and clear, in which her very soul seemed to be reflected.
+
+Wilson nodded his head, as he said:
+
+"Mademoiselle looks honest."
+
+"Yes," she implored, "and you must have confidence----"
+
+"I have confidence in you, mademoiselle," replied Wilson.
+
+"Oh, how happy you make me! And so has your friend? I feel it ... I am
+sure of it! What happiness! Everything will be all right now!... What a
+good idea of mine!... Ah! yes, there is a train for Calais in twenty
+minutes. You will take it.... Quick, follow me ... you must come this
+way ... there is just time."
+
+She tried to drag them along. Sholmes seized her arm, and in as gentle a
+voice as he could assume, said to her:
+
+"Excuse me, mademoiselle, if I cannot yield to your wishes, but I never
+abandon a task that I have once undertaken."
+
+"I beseech you ... I implore you.... Ah if you could only understand!"
+
+Sholmes passed outside and walked away at a quick pace. Wilson said to
+the girl:
+
+"Have no fear ... he will be in at the finish. He never failed yet."
+
+And he ran to overtake Sholmes.
+
+HERLOCK SHOLMES--ARSÈNE LUPIN.
+
+These words, in great black letters, met their gaze as soon as they left
+the railway station. A number of sandwich-men were parading through the
+street, one behind the other, carrying heavy canes with iron ferrules
+with which they struck the pavement in harmony, and, on their backs,
+they carried large posters, on which one could read the following
+notice:
+
+THE MATCH BETWEEN HERLOCK SHOLMES
+AND ARSÈNE LUPIN. ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH
+CHAMPION. THE GREAT DETECTIVE ATTACKS
+THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE MURILLO. READ THE
+DETAILS IN THE "ECHO DE FRANCE".
+
+Wilson shook his head, and said:
+
+"Look at that, Sholmes, and we thought we were traveling incognito! I
+shouldn't be surprised to find the republican guard waiting for us at
+the rue Murillo to give us an official reception with toasts and
+champagne."
+
+"Wilson, when you get funny, you get beastly funny," growled Sholmes.
+
+Then he approached one of the sandwich-men with the obvious intention of
+seizing him in his powerful grip and crushing him, together with his
+infernal sign-board. There was quite a crowd gathered about the men,
+reading the notices, and joking and laughing.
+
+Repressing a furious access of rage, Sholmes said to the man:
+
+"When did they hire you?"
+
+"This morning."
+
+"How long have you been parading?"
+
+"About an hour."
+
+"But the boards were ready before that?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they were ready when we went to the agency this morning."
+
+So then it appears that Arsène Lupin had foreseen that he, Sholmes,
+would accept the challenge. More than that, the letter written by Lupin
+showed that he was eager for the fray and that he was prepared to
+measure swords once more with his formidable rival. Why? What motive
+could Arsène Lupin have in renewing the struggle?
+
+Sholmes hesitated for a moment. Lupin must be very confident of his
+success to show so much insolence in advance; and was not he, Sholmes,
+falling into a trap by rushing into the battle at the first call for
+help?
+
+However, he called a carriage.
+
+"Come, Wilson!... Driver, 18 rue Murillo!" he exclaimed, with an
+outburst of his accustomed energy. With distended veins and clenched
+fists, as if he were about to engage in a boxing bout, he jumped into
+the carriage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rue Murillo is bordered with magnificent private residences, the
+rear of which overlook the Parc Monceau. One of the most pretentious of
+these houses is number 18, owned and occupied by the Baron d'Imblevalle
+and furnished in a luxurious manner consistent with the owner's taste
+and wealth. There was a courtyard in front of the house, and, in the
+rear, a garden well filled with trees whose branches mingle with those
+of the park.
+
+After ringing the bell, the two Englishmen were admitted, crossed the
+courtyard, and were received at the door by a footman who showed them
+into a small parlor facing the garden in the rear of the house. They sat
+down and, glancing about, made a rapid inspection of the many valuable
+objects with which the room was filled.
+
+"Everything very choice," murmured Wilson, "and in the best of taste. It
+is a safe deduction to make that those who had the leisure to collect
+these articles must now be at least fifty years of age."
+
+The door opened, and the Baron d'Imblevalle entered, followed by his
+wife. Contrary to the deduction made by Wilson, they were both quite
+young, of elegant appearance, and vivacious in speech and action. They
+were profuse in their expressions of gratitude.
+
+"So kind of you to come! Sorry to have caused you so much trouble! The
+theft now seems of little consequence, since it has procured us this
+pleasure."
+
+"How charming these French people are!" thought Wilson, evolving one of
+his commonplace deductions.
+
+"But time is money," exclaimed the baron, "especially your time,
+Monsieur Sholmes. So I will come to the point. Now, what do you think of
+the affair? Do you think you can succeed in it?"
+
+"Before I can answer that I must know what it is about."
+
+"I thought you knew."
+
+"No; so I must ask you for full particulars, even to the smallest
+detail. First, what is the nature of the case?"
+
+"A theft."
+
+"When did it take place?"
+
+"Last Saturday," replied the baron, "or, at least, some time during
+Saturday night or Sunday morning."
+
+"That was six days ago. Now, you can tell me all about it."
+
+"In the first place, monsieur, I must tell you that my wife and I,
+conforming to the manner of life that our position demands, go out very
+little. The education of our children, a few receptions, and the care
+and decoration of our house--such constitutes our life; and nearly all
+our evenings are spent in this little room, which is my wife's boudoir,
+and in which we have gathered a few artistic objects. Last Saturday
+night, about eleven o'clock, I turned off the electric lights, and my
+wife and I retired, as usual, to our room."
+
+"Where is your room?"
+
+"It adjoins this. That is the door. Next morning, that is to say, Sunday
+morning, I arose quite early. As Suzanne, my wife, was still asleep, I
+passed into the boudoir as quietly as possible so as not to wake her.
+What was my astonishment when I found that window open--as we had left
+it closed the evening before!"
+
+"A servant----"
+
+"No one enters here in the morning until we ring. Besides, I always take
+the precaution to bolt the second door which communicates with the
+ante-chamber. Therefore, the window must have been opened from the
+outside. Besides, I have some evidence of that: the second pane of glass
+from the right--close to the fastening--had been cut."
+
+"And what does that window overlook?"
+
+"As you can see for yourself, it opens on a little balcony, surrounded
+by a stone railing. Here, we are on the first floor, and you can see the
+garden behind the house and the iron fence which separates it from the
+Parc Monceau. It is quite certain that the thief came through the park,
+climbed the fence by the aid of a ladder, and thus reached the terrace
+below the window."
+
+"That is quite certain, you say!"
+
+"Well, in the soft earth on either side of the fence, they found the two
+holes made by the bottom of the ladder, and two similar holes can be
+seen below the window. And the stone railing of the balcony shows two
+scratches which were doubtless made by the contact of the ladder."
+
+"Is the Parc Monceau closed at night?"
+
+"No; but if it were, there is a house in course of erection at number
+14, and a person could enter that way."
+
+Herlock Sholmes reflected for a few minutes, and then said:
+
+"Let us come down to the theft. It must have been committed in this
+room?"
+
+"Yes; there was here, between that twelfth century Virgin and that
+tabernacle of chased silver, a small Jewish lamp. It has disappeared."
+
+"And is that all?"
+
+"That is all."
+
+"Ah!... And what is a Jewish lamp?"
+
+"One of those copper lamps used by the ancient Jews, consisting of a
+standard which supported a bowl containing the oil, and from this bowl
+projected several burners intended for the wicks."
+
+"Upon the whole, an object of small value."
+
+"No great value, of course. But this one contained a secret hiding-place
+in which we were accustomed to place a magnificent jewel, a chimera in
+gold, set with rubies and emeralds, which was of great value."
+
+"Why did you hide it there?"
+
+"Oh! I can't give any reason, monsieur, unless it was an odd fancy to
+utilize a hiding-place of that kind."
+
+"Did anyone know it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No one--except the thief," said Sholmes. "Otherwise he would not have
+taken the trouble to steal the lamp."
+
+"Of course. But how could he know it, as it was only by accident that
+the secret mechanism of the lamp was revealed to us."
+
+"A similar accident has revealed it to some one else ... a servant ...
+or an acquaintance. But let us proceed: I suppose the police have been
+notified?"
+
+"Yes. The examining magistrate has completed his investigation. The
+reporter-detectives attached to the leading newspapers have also made
+their investigations. But, as I wrote to you, it seems to me the mystery
+will never be solved."
+
+Sholmes arose, went to the window, examined the casement, the balcony,
+the terrace, studied the scratches on the stone railing with his
+magnifying-glass, and then requested Mon. d'Imblevalle to show him the
+garden.
+
+Outside, Sholmes sat down in a rattan chair and gazed at the roof of the
+house in a dreamy way. Then he walked over to the two little wooden
+boxes with which they had covered the holes made in the ground by the
+bottom of the ladder with a view of preserving them intact. He raised
+the boxes, kneeled on the ground, scrutinized the holes and made some
+measurements. After making a similar examination of the holes near the
+fence, he and the baron returned to the boudoir where Madame
+d'Imblevalle was waiting for them. After a short silence Sholmes said:
+
+"At the very outset of your story, baron, I was surprised at the very
+simple methods employed by the thief. To raise a ladder, cut a
+window-pane, select a valuable article, and walk out again--no, that is
+not the way such things are done. All that is too plain, too simple."
+
+"Well, what do you think?"
+
+"That the Jewish lamp was stolen under the direction of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Arsène Lupin!" exclaimed the baron.
+
+"Yes, but he did not do it himself, as no one came from the outside.
+Perhaps a servant descended from the upper floor by means of a
+waterspout that I noticed when I was in the garden."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Arsène Lupin would not leave this room empty-handed."
+
+"Empty-handed! But he had the lamp."
+
+"But that would not have prevented his taking that snuff-box, set with
+diamonds, or that opal necklace. When he leaves anything, it is because
+he can't carry it away."
+
+"But the marks of the ladder outside?"
+
+"A false scent. Placed there simply to avert suspicion."
+
+"And the scratches on the balustrade?"
+
+"A farce! They were made with a piece of sandpaper. See, here are scraps
+of the paper that I picked up in the garden."
+
+"And what about the marks made by the bottom of the ladder?"
+
+"Counterfeit! Examine the two rectangular holes below the window, and
+the two holes near the fence. They are of a similar form, but I find
+that the two holes near the house are closer to each other than the two
+holes near the fence. What does that fact suggest? To me, it suggested
+that the four holes were made by a piece of wood prepared for the
+purpose."
+
+"The better proof would be the piece of wood itself."
+
+"Here it is," said Sholmes, "I found it in the garden, under the box of
+a laurel tree."
+
+The baron bowed to Sholmes in recognition of his skill. Only forty
+minutes had elapsed since the Englishman had entered the house, and he
+had already exploded all the theories theretofore formed, and which had
+been based on what appeared to be obvious and undeniable facts. But what
+now appeared to be the real facts of the case rested upon a more solid
+foundation, to-wit, the astute reasoning of a Herlock Sholmes.
+
+"The accusation which you make against one of our household is a very
+serious matter," said the baroness. "Our servants have been with us a
+long time and none of them would betray our trust."
+
+"If none of them has betrayed you, how can you explain the fact that I
+received this letter on the same day and by the same mail as the letter
+you wrote to me?"
+
+He handed to the baroness the letter that he had received from Arsène
+Lupin. She exclaimed, in amazement:
+
+"Arsène Lupin! How could he know?"
+
+"Did you tell anyone that you had written to me?"
+
+"No one," replied the baron. "The idea occurred to us the other evening
+at the dinner-table."
+
+"Before the servants?"
+
+"No, only our two children. Oh, no ... Sophie and Henriette had left the
+table, hadn't they, Suzanne?"
+
+Madame d'Imblevalle, after a moment's reflection, replied:
+
+"Yes, they had gone to Mademoiselle."
+
+"Mademoiselle?" queried Sholmes.
+
+"The governess, Mademoiselle Alice Demun."
+
+"Does she take her meals with you?"
+
+"No. Her meals are served in her room."
+
+Wilson had an idea. He said:
+
+"The letter written to my friend Herlock Sholmes was posted?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Who posted it?"
+
+"Dominique, who has been my valet for twenty years," replied the baron.
+"Any search in that direction would be a waste of time."
+
+"One never wastes his time when engaged in a search," said Wilson,
+sententiously.
+
+This preliminary investigation now ended, and Sholmes asked permission
+to retire.
+
+At dinner, an hour later, he saw Sophie and Henriette, the two children
+of the family, one was six and the other eight years of age. There was
+very little conversation at the table. Sholmes responded to the friendly
+advances of his hosts in such a curt manner that they were soon reduced
+to silence. When the coffee was served, Sholmes swallowed the contents
+of his cup, and rose to take his leave.
+
+At that moment, a servant entered with a telephone message addressed to
+Sholmes. He opened it, and read:
+
+     "You have my enthusiastic admiration. The results attained by you
+     in so short a time are simply marvellous. I am dismayed.
+
+     "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+Sholmes made a gesture of indignation and handed the message to the
+baron, saying:
+
+"What do you think now, monsieur? Are the walls of your house furnished
+with eyes and ears?"
+
+"I don't understand it," said the baron, in amazement.
+
+"Nor do I; but I do understand that Lupin has knowledge of everything
+that occurs in this house. He knows every movement, every word. There is
+no doubt of it. But how does he get his information? That is the first
+mystery I have to solve, and when I know that I will know everything."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night, Wilson retired with the clear conscience of a man who has
+performed his whole duty and thus acquired an undoubted right to sleep
+and repose. So he fell asleep very quickly, and was soon enjoying the
+most delightful dreams in which he pursued Lupin and captured him
+single-handed; and the sensation was so vivid and exciting that it woke
+him from his sleep. Someone was standing at his bedside. He seized his
+revolver, and cried:
+
+"Don't move, Lupin, or I'll fire."
+
+"The deuce! Wilson, what do you mean?"
+
+"Oh! it is you, Sholmes. Do you want me?"
+
+"I want to show you something. Get up."
+
+Sholmes led him to the window, and said:
+
+"Look!... on the other side of the fence...."
+
+"In the park?"
+
+"Yes. What do you see?"
+
+"I don't see anything."
+
+"Yes, you do see something."
+
+"Ah! of course, a shadow ... two of them."
+
+"Yes, close to the fence. See, they are moving. Come, quick!"
+
+Quickly they descended the stairs, and reached a room which opened into
+the garden. Through the glass door they could see the two shadowy forms
+in the same place.
+
+"It is very strange," said Sholmes, "but it seems to me I can hear a
+noise inside the house."
+
+"Inside the house? Impossible! Everybody is asleep."
+
+"Well, listen----"
+
+At that moment a low whistle came from the other side of the fence, and
+they perceived a dim light which appeared to come from the house.
+
+"The baron must have turned on the light in his room. It is just above
+us."
+
+"That must have been the noise you heard," said Wilson. "Perhaps they
+are watching the fence also."
+
+Then there was a second whistle, softer than before.
+
+"I don't understand it; I don't understand," said Sholmes, irritably.
+
+"No more do I," confessed Wilson.
+
+Sholmes turned the key, drew the bolt, and quietly opened the door. A
+third whistle, louder than before, and modulated to another form. And
+the noise above their heads became more pronounced. Sholmes said:
+
+"It seems to be on the balcony outside the boudoir window."
+
+He put his head through the half-opened door, but immediately recoiled,
+with a stifled oath. Then Wilson looked. Quite close to them there was a
+ladder, the upper end of which was resting on the balcony.
+
+"The deuce!" said Sholmes, "there is someone in the boudoir. That is
+what we heard. Quick, let us remove the ladder."
+
+But at that instant a man slid down the ladder and ran toward the spot
+where his accomplices were waiting for him outside the fence. He
+carried the ladder with him. Sholmes and Wilson pursued the man and
+overtook him just as he was placing the ladder against the fence. From
+the other side of the fence two shots were fired.
+
+"Wounded?" cried Sholmes.
+
+"No," replied Wilson.
+
+Wilson seized the man by the body and tried to hold him, but the man
+turned and plunged a knife into Wilson's breast. He uttered a groan,
+staggered and fell.
+
+"Damnation!" muttered Sholmes, "if they have killed him I will kill
+them."
+
+He laid Wilson on the grass and rushed toward the ladder. Too late--the
+man had climbed the fence and, accompanied by his confederates, had fled
+through the bushes.
+
+"Wilson, Wilson, it is not serious, hein? Merely a scratch."
+
+The house door opened, and Monsieur d'Imblevalle appeared, followed by
+the servants, carrying candles.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the baron. "Is Monsieur Wilson wounded?"
+
+"Oh! it's nothing--a mere scratch," repeated Sholmes, trying to deceive
+himself.
+
+The blood was flowing profusely, and Wilson's face was livid. Twenty
+minutes later the doctor ascertained that the point of the knife had
+penetrated to within an inch and a half of the heart.
+
+"An inch and a half of the heart! Wilson always was lucky!" said
+Sholmes, in an envious tone.
+
+"Lucky ... lucky...." muttered the doctor.
+
+"Of course! Why, with his robust constitution he will soon be out
+again."
+
+"Six weeks in bed and two months of convalescence."
+
+"Not more?"
+
+"No, unless complications set in."
+
+"Oh! the devil! what does he want complications for?"
+
+Fully reassured, Sholmes joined the baron in the boudoir. This time the
+mysterious visitor had not exercised the same restraint. Ruthlessly, he
+had laid his vicious hand upon the diamond snuff-box, upon the opal
+necklace, and, in a general way, upon everything that could find a place
+in the greedy pockets of an enterprising burglar.
+
+The window was still open; one of the window-panes had been neatly cut;
+and, in the morning, a summary investigation showed that the ladder
+belonged to the house then in course of construction.
+
+"Now, you can see," said Mon. d'Imblevalle, with a touch of irony, "it
+is an exact repetition of the affair of the Jewish lamp."
+
+"Yes, if we accept the first theory adopted by the police."
+
+"Haven't you adopted it yet? Doesn't this second theft shatter your
+theory in regard to the first?"
+
+"It only confirms it, monsieur."
+
+"That is incredible! You have positive evidence that last night's theft
+was committed by an outsider, and yet you adhere to your theory that the
+Jewish lamp was stolen by someone in the house."
+
+"Yes, I am sure of it."
+
+"How do you explain it?"
+
+"I do not explain anything, monsieur; I have established two facts which
+do not appear to have any relation to each other, and yet I am seeking
+the missing link that connects them."
+
+His conviction seemed to be so earnest and positive that the baron
+submitted to it, and said:
+
+"Very well, we will notify the police----"
+
+"Not at all!" exclaimed the Englishman, quickly, "not at all! I intend
+to ask for their assistance when I need it--but not before."
+
+"But the attack on your friend?"
+
+"That's of no consequence. He is only wounded. Secure the license of the
+doctor. I shall be responsible for the legal side of the affair."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next two days proved uneventful. Yet Sholmes was investigating the
+case with a minute care, and with a sense of wounded pride resulting
+from that audacious theft, committed under his nose, in spite of his
+presence and beyond his power to prevent it. He made a thorough
+investigation of the house and garden, interviewed the servants, and
+paid lengthy visits to the kitchen and stables. And, although his
+efforts were fruitless, he did not despair.
+
+"I will succeed," he thought, "and the solution must be sought within
+the walls of this house. This affair is quite different from that of the
+blonde Lady, where I had to work in the dark, on unknown ground. This
+time I am on the battlefield itself. The enemy is not the elusive and
+invisible Lupin, but the accomplice, in flesh and blood, who lives and
+moves within the confines of this house. Let me secure the slightest
+clue and the game is mine!"
+
+That clue was furnished to him by accident.
+
+On the afternoon of the third day, when he entered a room located above
+the boudoir, which served as a study for the children, he found
+Henriette, the younger of the two sisters. She was looking for her
+scissors.
+
+"You know," she said to Sholmes, "I make papers like that you received
+the other evening."
+
+"The other evening?"
+
+"Yes, just as dinner was over, you received a paper with marks on it ...
+you know, a telegram.... Well, I make them, too."
+
+She left the room. To anyone else these words would seem to be nothing
+more than the insignificant remark of a child, and Sholmes himself
+listened to them with a distracted air and continued his investigation.
+But, suddenly, he ran after the child, and overtook her at the head of
+the stairs. He said to her:
+
+"So you paste stamps and marks on papers?"
+
+Henriette, very proudly, replied:
+
+"Yes, I cut them out and paste them on."
+
+"Who taught you that little game?"
+
+"Mademoiselle ... my governess ... I have seen her do it often. She
+takes words out of the newspapers and pastes them----"
+
+"What does she make out of them?"
+
+"Telegrams and letters that she sends away."
+
+Herlock Sholmes returned to the study, greatly puzzled by the
+information and seeking to draw from it a logical deduction. There was a
+pile of newspapers on the mantel. He opened them and found that many
+words and, in some places, entire lines had been cut out. But, after
+reading a few of the word's which preceded or followed, he decided that
+the missing words had been cut out at random--probably by the child. It
+was possible that one of the newspapers had been cut by mademoiselle;
+but how could he assure himself that such was the case?
+
+Mechanically, Sholmes turned over the school-books on the table; then
+others which were lying on the shelf of a bookcase. Suddenly he uttered
+a cry of joy. In a corner of the bookcase, under a pile of old exercise
+books, he found a child's alphabet-book, in which the letters were
+ornamented with pictures, and on one of the pages of that book he
+discovered a place where a word had been removed. He examined it. It
+was a list of the days of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. The
+word "Saturday" was missing. Now, the theft of the Jewish lamp had
+occurred on a Saturday night.
+
+Sholmes experienced that slight fluttering of the heart which always
+announced to him, in the clearest manner, that he had discovered the
+road which leads to victory. That ray of truth, that feeling of
+certainty, never deceived him.
+
+With nervous fingers he hastened to examine the balance of the book.
+Very soon he made another discovery. It was a page composed of capital
+letters, followed by a line of figures. Nine of those letters and three
+of those figures had been carefully cut out. Sholmes made a list of the
+missing letters and figures in his memorandum book, in alphabetical and
+numerical order, and obtained the following result:
+
+CDEHNOPEZ--237.
+
+"Well? at first sight, it is a rather formidable puzzle," he murmured,
+"but, by transposing the letters and using all of them, is it possible
+to form one, two or three complete words?"
+
+Sholmes tried it, in vain.
+
+Only one solution seemed possible; it constantly appeared before him, no
+matter which way he tried to juggle the letters, until, at length, he
+was satisfied it was the true solution, since it harmonized with the
+logic of the facts and the general circumstances of the case.
+
+As that page of the book did not contain any duplicate letters it was
+probable, in fact quite certain, that the words he could form from those
+letters would be incomplete, and that the original words had been
+completed with letters taken from other pages. Under those conditions he
+obtained the following solution, errors and omissions excepted:
+
+REPOND Z--CH--237.
+
+The first word was quite clear: répondez [reply], a letter E is missing
+because it occurs twice in the word, and the book furnished only one
+letter of each kind.
+
+As to the second incomplete word, no doubt it formed, with the aid of
+the number 237, an address to which the reply was to be sent. They
+appointed Saturday as the time, and requested a reply to be sent to the
+address CH. 237.
+
+Or, perhaps, CH. 237 was an address for a letter to be sent to the
+"general delivery" of some postoffice, or, again, they might form a
+part of some incomplete word. Sholmes searched the book once more, but
+did not discover that any other letters had been removed. Therefore,
+until further orders, he decided to adhere to the foregoing
+interpretation.
+
+Henriette returned and observed what he was doing.
+
+"Amusing, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, very amusing," he replied. "But, have you any other papers?... Or,
+rather, words already cut out that I can paste?"
+
+"Papers?... No.... And Mademoiselle wouldn't like it."
+
+"Mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes, she has scolded me already."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I have told you some things ... and she says that a person
+should never tell things about those they love."
+
+"You are quite right."
+
+Henriette was delighted to receive his approbation, in fact so highly
+pleased that she took from a little silk bag that was pinned to her
+dress some scraps of cloth, three buttons, two cubes of sugar and,
+lastly, a piece of paper which she handed to Sholmes.
+
+"See, I give it to you just the same."
+
+It was the number of a cab--8,279.
+
+"Where did this number come from?"
+
+"It fell out of her pocketbook."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Sunday, at mass, when she was taking out some sous for the collection."
+
+"Exactly! And now I shall tell you how to keep from being scolded again.
+Do not tell Mademoiselle that you saw me."
+
+Sholmes then went to Mon. d'Imblevalle and questioned him in regard to
+Mademoiselle. The baron replied, indignantly:
+
+"Alice Demun! How can you imagine such a thing? It is utterly
+impossible!"
+
+"How long has she been in your service?"
+
+"Only a year, but there is no one in the house in whom I have greater
+confidence."
+
+"Why have I not seen her yet?"
+
+"She has been away for a few days."
+
+"But she is here now."
+
+"Yes; since her return she has been watching at the bedside of your
+friend. She has all the qualities of a nurse ... gentle ... thoughtful
+... Monsieur Wilson seems much pleased...."
+
+"Ah!" said Sholmes, who had completely neglected to inquire about his
+friend. After a moment's reflection he asked:
+
+"Did she go out on Sunday morning?"
+
+"The day after the theft?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The baron called his wife and asked her. She replied:
+
+"Mademoiselle went to the eleven o'clock mass with the children, as
+usual."
+
+"But before that?"
+
+"Before that? No.... Let me see!... I was so upset by the theft ... but
+I remember now that, on the evening before, she asked permission to go
+out on Sunday morning ... to see a cousin who was passing through Paris,
+I think. But, surely, you don't suspect her?"
+
+"Of course not ... but I would like to see her."
+
+He went to Wilson's room. A woman dressed in a gray cloth dress, as in
+the hospitals, was bending over the invalid, giving him a drink. When
+she turned her face Sholmes recognized her as the young girl who had
+accosted him at the railway station.
+
+Alice Demun smiled sweetly; her great serious, innocent eyes showed no
+sign of embarrassment. The Englishman tried to speak, muttered a few
+syllables, and stopped. Then she resumed her work, acting quite
+naturally under Sholmes' astonished gaze, moved the bottles, unrolled
+and rolled cotton bandages, and again regarded Sholmes with her charming
+smile of pure innocence.
+
+He turned on his heels, descended the stairs, noticed Mon.
+d'Imblevalle's automobile in the courtyard, jumped into it, and went to
+Levallois, to the office of the cab company whose address was printed on
+the paper he had received from Henriette. The man who had driven
+carriage number 8,279 on Sunday morning not being there, Sholmes
+dismissed the automobile and waited for the man's return. He told
+Sholmes that he had picked up a woman in the vicinity of the Parc
+Monceau, a young woman dressed in black, wearing a heavy veil, and,
+apparently, quite nervous.
+
+"Did she have a package?"
+
+"Yes, quite a long package."
+
+"Where did you take her?"
+
+"Avenue des Ternes, corner of the Place Saint-Ferdinand. She remained
+there about ten minutes, and then returned to the Parc Monceau."
+
+"Could you recognize the house in the avenue des Ternes?"
+
+"Parbleu! Shall I take you there?"
+
+"Presently. First take me to 36 quai des Orfèvres."
+
+At the police office he saw Detective Ganimard.
+
+"Monsieur Ganimard, are you at liberty?"
+
+"If it has anything to do with Lupin--no!"
+
+"It has something to do with Lupin."
+
+"Then I do not go."
+
+"What! you surrender----"
+
+"I bow to the inevitable. I am tired of the unequal struggle, in which
+we are sure to be defeated. Lupin is stronger than I am--stronger than
+the two of us; therefore, we must surrender."
+
+"I will not surrender."
+
+"He will make you, as he has all others."
+
+"And you would be pleased to see it--eh, Ganimard?"
+
+"At all events, it is true," said Ganimard, frankly. "And since you are
+determined to pursue the game, I will go with you."
+
+Together they entered the carriage and were driven to the avenue des
+Ternes. Upon their order the carriage stopped on the other side of the
+street, at some distance from the house, in front of a little café, on
+the terrace of which the two men took seats amongst the shrubbery. It
+was commencing to grow dark.
+
+"Waiter," said Sholmes, "some writing material."
+
+He wrote a note, recalled the waiter and gave him the letter with
+instructions to deliver it to the concierge of the house which he
+pointed out.
+
+In a few minutes the concierge stood before them. Sholmes asked him if,
+on the Sunday morning, he had seen a young woman dressed in black.
+
+"In black? Yes, about nine o'clock. She went to the second floor."
+
+"Have you seen her often?"
+
+"No, but for some time--well, during the last few weeks, I have seen her
+almost every day."
+
+"And since Sunday?"
+
+"Only once ... until to-day."
+
+"What! Did she come to-day?"
+
+"She is here now."
+
+"Here now?"
+
+"Yes, she came about ten minutes ago. Her carriage is standing in the
+Place Saint-Ferdinand, as usual. I met her at the door."
+
+"Who is the occupant of the second floor?"
+
+"There are two: a modiste, Mademoiselle Langeais, and a gentleman who
+rented two furnished rooms a month ago under the name of Bresson."
+
+"Why do you say 'under the name'?"
+
+"Because I have an idea that it is an assumed name. My wife takes care
+of his rooms, and ... well, there are not two shirts there with the same
+initials."
+
+"Is he there much of the time?"
+
+"No; he is nearly always out. He has not been here for three days."
+
+"Was he here on Saturday night?"
+
+"Saturday night?... Let me think.... Yes, Saturday night, he came in and
+stayed all night."
+
+"What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"Well, I can scarcely answer that. He is so changeable. He is, by turns,
+big, little, fat, thin ... dark and light. I do not always recognize
+him."
+
+Ganimard and Sholmes exchanged looks.
+
+"That is he, all right," said Ganimard.
+
+"Ah!" said the concierge, "there is the girl now."
+
+Mademoiselle had just emerged from the house and was walking toward her
+carriage in the Place Saint-Ferdinand.
+
+"And there is Monsieur Bresson."
+
+"Monsieur Bresson? Which is he?"
+
+"The man with the parcel under his arm."
+
+"But he is not looking after the girl. She is going to her carriage
+alone."
+
+"Yes, I have never seen them together."
+
+The two detectives had arisen. By the light of the street-lamps they
+recognized the form of Arsène Lupin, who had started off in a direction
+opposite to that taken by the girl.
+
+"Which will you follow?" asked Ganimard.
+
+"I will follow him, of course. He's the biggest game."
+
+"Then I will follow the girl," proposed Ganimard.
+
+"No, no," said Sholmes, quickly, who did not wish to disclose the girl's
+identity to Ganimard, "I know where to find her. Come with me."
+
+They followed Lupin at a safe distance, taking care to conceal
+themselves as well as possible amongst the moving throng and behind the
+newspaper kiosks. They found the pursuit an easy one, as he walked
+steadily forward without turning to the right or left, but with a
+slight limp in the right leg, so slight as to require the keen eye of a
+professional observer to detect it. Ganimard observed it, and said:
+
+"He is pretending to be lame. Ah! if we could only collect two or three
+policemen and pounce on our man! We run a chance to lose him."
+
+But they did not meet any policemen before they reached the Porte des
+Ternes, and, having passed the fortifications, there was no prospect of
+receiving any assistance.
+
+"We had better separate," said Sholmes, "as there are so few people on
+the street."
+
+They were now on the Boulevard Victor-Hugo. They walked one on each side
+of the street, and kept well in the shadow of the trees. They continued
+thus for twenty minutes, when Lupin turned to the left and followed the
+Seine. Very soon they saw him descend to the edge of the river. He
+remained there only a few seconds, but they could not observe his
+movements. Then Lupin retraced his steps. His pursuers concealed
+themselves in the shadow of a gateway. Lupin passed in front of them.
+His parcel had disappeared. And as he walked away another man emerged
+from the shelter of a house and glided amongst the trees.
+
+"He seems to be following him also," said Sholmes, in a low voice.
+
+The pursuit continued, but was now embarrassed by the presence of the
+third man. Lupin returned the same way, passed through the Porte des
+Ternes, and re-entered the house in the avenue des Ternes.
+
+The concierge was closing the house for the night when Ganimard
+presented himself.
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+"Yes," replied the concierge, "I was putting out the gas on the landing
+when he closed and bolted his door."
+
+"Is there any person with him?"
+
+"No; he has no servant. He never eats here."
+
+"Is there a servants' stairway?"
+
+"No."
+
+Ganimard said to Sholmes:
+
+"I had better stand at the door of his room while you go for the
+commissary of police in the rue Demours."
+
+"And if he should escape during that time?" said Sholmes.
+
+"While I am here! He can't escape."
+
+"One to one, with Lupin, is not an even chance for you."
+
+"Well, I can't force the door. I have no right to do that, especially at
+night."
+
+Sholmes shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"When you arrest Lupin no one will question the methods by which you
+made the arrest. However, let us go up and ring, and see what happens
+then."
+
+They ascended to the second floor. There was a double door at the left
+of the landing. Ganimard rang the bell. No reply. He rang again. Still
+no reply.
+
+"Let us go in," said Sholmes.
+
+"All right, come on," replied Ganimard.
+
+Yet, they stood still, irresolute. Like people who hesitate when they
+ought to accomplish a decisive action they feared to move, and it seemed
+to them impossible that Arsène Lupin was there, so close to them, on the
+other side of that fragile door that could be broken down by one blow of
+the fist. But they knew Lupin too well to suppose that he would allow
+himself to be trapped in that stupid manner. No, no--a thousand times,
+no--Lupin was no longer there. Through the adjoining houses, over the
+roofs, by some conveniently prepared exit, he must have already made
+his escape, and, once more, it would only be Lupin's shadow that they
+would seize.
+
+They shuddered as a slight noise, coming from the other side of the
+door, reached their ears. Then they had the impression, amounting almost
+to a certainty, that he was there, separated from them by that frail
+wooden door, and that he was listening to them, that he could hear them.
+
+What was to be done? The situation was a serious one. In spite of their
+vast experience as detectives, they were so nervous and excited that
+they thought they could hear the beating of their own hearts. Ganimard
+questioned Sholmes by a look. Then he struck the door a violent blow
+with his fist. Immediately they heard the sound of footsteps, concerning
+which there was no attempt at concealment.
+
+Ganimard shook the door. Then he and Sholmes, uniting their efforts,
+rushed at the door, and burst it open with their shoulders. Then they
+stood still, in surprise. A shot had been fired in the adjoining room.
+Another shot, and the sound of a falling body.
+
+When they entered they saw the man lying on the floor with his face
+toward the marble mantel. His revolver had fallen from his hand.
+Ganimard stooped and turned the man's head. The face was covered with
+blood, which was flowing from two wounds, one in the cheek, the other in
+the temple.
+
+"You can't recognize him for blood."
+
+"No matter!" said Sholmes. "It is not Lupin."
+
+"How do you know? You haven't even looked at him."
+
+"Do you think that Arsène Lupin is the kind of a man that would kill
+himself?" asked Sholmes, with a sneer.
+
+"But we thought we recognized him outside."
+
+"We thought so, because the wish was father to the thought. That man has
+us bewitched."
+
+"Then it must be one of his accomplices."
+
+"The accomplices of Arsène Lupin do not kill themselves."
+
+"Well, then, who is it?"
+
+They searched the corpse. In one pocket Herlock Sholmes found an empty
+pocketbook; in another Ganimard found several louis. There were no marks
+of identification on any part of his clothing. In a trunk and two
+valises they found nothing but wearing apparel. On the mantel there was
+a pile of newspapers. Ganimard opened them. All of them contained
+articles referring to the theft of the Jewish lamp.
+
+An hour later, when Ganimard and Sholmes left the house, they had
+acquired no further knowledge of the strange individual who had been
+driven to suicide by their untimely visit.
+
+Who was he? Why had he killed himself? What was his connection with the
+affair of the Jewish lamp? Who had followed him on his return from the
+river? The situation involved many complex questions--many mysteries----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herlock Sholmes went to bed in a very bad humor. Early next morning he
+received the following telephonic message:
+
+"Arsène Lupin has the honor to inform you of his tragic death in the
+person of Monsieur Bresson, and requests the honor of your presence at
+the funeral service and burial, which will be held at the public expense
+on Thursday, 25 June."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE SHIPWRECK.
+
+
+"That's what I don't like, Wilson," said Herlock Sholmes, after he had
+read Arsène Lupin's message; "that is what exasperates me in this
+affair--to feel that the cunning, mocking eye of that fellow follows me
+everywhere. He sees everything; he knows everything; he reads my inmost
+thoughts; he even foresees my slightest movement. Ah! he is possessed of
+a marvellous intuition, far surpassing that of the most instinctive
+woman, yes, surpassing even that of Herlock Sholmes himself. Nothing
+escapes him. I resemble an actor whose every step and movement are
+directed by a stage-manager; who says this and does that in obedience to
+a superior will. That is my position. Do you understand, Wilson?"
+
+Certainly Wilson would have understood if his faculties had not been
+deadened by the profound slumber of a man whose temperature varies
+between one hundred and one hundred and three degrees. But whether he
+heard or not was a matter of no consequence to Herlock Sholmes, who
+continued:
+
+"I have to concentrate all my energy and bring all my resources into
+action in order to make the slightest progress. And, fortunately for me,
+those petty annoyances are like so many pricks from a needle and serve
+only to stimulate me. As soon as the heat of the wound is appeased and
+the shock to my vanity has subsided I say to myself: 'Amuse yourself, my
+dear fellow, but remember that he who laughs last laughs best. Sooner or
+later you will betray yourself.' For you know, Wilson, it was Lupin
+himself, who, by his first dispatch and the observation that it
+suggested to little Henriette, disclosed to me the secret of his
+correspondence with Alice Hemun. Have you forgotten that circumstance,
+dear boy?"
+
+But Wilson was asleep; and Sholmes, pacing to and fro, resumed his
+speech:
+
+"And, now, things are not in a bad shape; a little obscure, perhaps, but
+the light is creeping in. In the first place, I must learn all about
+Monsieur Bresson. Ganimard and I will visit the bank of the river, at
+the spot where Bresson threw away the package, and the particular rôle
+of that gentleman will be known to me. After that the game will be
+played between me and Alice Demun. Rather a light-weight opponent, hein,
+Wilson? And do you not think that I will soon know the phrase
+represented by the letters clipped from the alphabet-book, and what the
+isolated letters--the 'C' and the 'H'--mean? That is all I want to know,
+Wilson."
+
+Mademoiselle entered at that moment, and, observing Sholmes
+gesticulating, she said, in her sweetest manner:
+
+"Monsieur Sholmes, I must scold you if you waken my patient. It isn't
+nice of you to disturb him. The doctor has ordered absolute rest."
+
+He looked at her in silence, astonished, as on their first meeting, at
+her wonderful self-possession.
+
+"Why do you look at me so, Monsieur Sholmes?... You seem to be trying to
+read my thoughts.... No?... Then what is it?"
+
+She questioned him with the most innocent expression on her pretty face
+and in her frank blue eyes. A smile played upon her lips; and she
+displayed so much unaffected candor that the Englishman almost lost his
+temper. He approached her and said, in a low voice:
+
+"Bresson killed himself last night."
+
+She affected not to understand him; so he repeated:
+
+"Bresson killed himself yesterday...."
+
+She did not show the slightest emotion; she acted as if the matter did
+not concern or interest her in any way.
+
+"You have been informed," said Sholmes, displaying his annoyance.
+"Otherwise, the news would have caused you to start, at least. Ah! you
+are stronger than I expected. But what's the use of your trying to
+conceal anything from me?"
+
+He picked up the alphabet-book, which he had placed on a convenient
+table, and, opening it at the mutilated page, said:
+
+"Will you tell me the order in which the missing letters should be
+arranged in order to express the exact wording of the message you sent
+to Bresson four days before the theft of the Jewish lamp?"
+
+"The order?... Bresson?... the theft of the Jewish lamp?"
+
+She repeated the words slowly, as if trying to grasp their meaning. He
+continued:
+
+"Yes. Here are the letters employed ... on this bit of paper.... What
+did you say to Bresson?"
+
+"The letters employed ... what did I say...."
+
+Suddenly she burst into laughter:
+
+"Ah! that is it! I understand! I am an accomplice in the crime! There is
+a Monsieur Bresson who stole the Jewish lamp and who has now committed
+suicide. And I am the friend of that gentleman. Oh! how absurd you are!"
+
+"Whom did you go to see last night on the second floor of a house in the
+avenue des Ternes?"
+
+"Who? My modiste, Mademoiselle Langeais. Do you suppose that my modiste
+and my friend Monsieur Bresson are the same person?"
+
+Despite all he knew, Sholmes was now in doubt. A person can feign
+terror, joy, anxiety, in fact all emotions; but a person cannot feign
+absolute indifference or light, careless laughter. Yet he continued to
+question her:
+
+"Why did you accost me the other evening at the Northern Railway
+station? And why did you entreat me to leave Paris immediately without
+investigating this theft?"
+
+"Ah! you are too inquisitive, Monsieur Sholmes," she replied, still
+laughing in the most natural manner. "To punish you I will tell you
+nothing, and, besides, you must watch the patient while I go to the
+pharmacy on an urgent message. Au revoir."
+
+She left the room.
+
+"I am beaten ... by a girl," muttered Sholmes. "Not only did I get
+nothing out of her but I exposed my hand and put her on her guard."
+
+And he recalled the affair of the blue diamond and his first interview
+with Clotilde Destange. Had not the blonde Lady met his question with
+the same unruffled serenity, and was he not once more face to face with
+one of those creatures who, under the protection and influence of Arsène
+Lupin, maintain the utmost coolness in the face of a terrible danger?
+
+"Sholmes ... Sholmes...."
+
+It was Wilson who called him. Sholmes approached the bed, and, leaning
+over, said:
+
+"What's the matter, Wilson? Does your wound pain you?"
+
+Wilson's lips moved, but he could not speak. At last, with a great
+effort, he stammered:
+
+"No ... Sholmes ... it is not she ... that is impossible----"
+
+"Come, Wilson, what do you know about it? I tell you that it is she! It
+is only when I meet one of Lupin's creatures, prepared and instructed by
+him, that I lose my head and make a fool of myself.... I bet you that
+within an hour Lupin will know all about our interview. Within an hour?
+What am I saying?... Why, he may know already. The visit to the pharmacy
+... urgent message. All nonsense!... She has gone to telephone to
+Lupin."
+
+Sholmes left the house hurriedly, went down the avenue de Messine, and
+was just in time to see Mademoiselle enter a pharmacy. Ten minutes later
+she emerged from the shop carrying some small packages and a bottle
+wrapped in white paper. But she had not proceeded far, when she was
+accosted by a man who, with hat in hand and an obsequious air, appeared
+to be asking for charity. She stopped, gave him something, and proceeded
+on her way.
+
+"She spoke to him," said the Englishman to himself.
+
+If not a certainty, it was at least an intuition, and quite sufficient
+to cause him to change his tactics. Leaving the girl to pursue her own
+course, he followed the suspected mendicant, who walked slowly to the
+avenue des Ternes and lingered for a long time around the house in
+which Bresson had lived, sometimes raising his eyes to the windows of
+the second floor and watching the people who entered the house.
+
+At the end of an hour he climbed to the top of a tramcar going in the
+direction of Neuilly. Sholmes followed and took a seat behind the man,
+and beside a gentleman who was concealed behind the pages of a
+newspaper. At the fortifications the gentleman lowered the paper, and
+Sholmes recognized Ganimard, who thereupon whispered, as he pointed to
+the man in front:
+
+"It is the man who followed Bresson last night. He has been watching the
+house for an hour."
+
+"Anything new in regard to Bresson?" asked Sholmes.
+
+"Yes, a letter came to his address this morning."
+
+"This morning? Then it was posted yesterday before the sender could know
+of Bresson's death."
+
+"Exactly. It is now in the possession of the examining magistrate. But I
+read it. It says: _He will not accept any compromise. He wants
+everything--the first thing as well as those of the second affair.
+Otherwise he will proceed._"
+
+"There is no signature," added Ganimard. "It seems to me those few lines
+won't help us much."
+
+"I don't agree with you, Monsieur Ganimard. To me those few lines are
+very interesting."
+
+"Why so? I can't see it."
+
+"For reasons that are personal to me," replied Sholmes, with the
+indifference that he frequently displayed toward his colleague.
+
+The tramcar stopped at the rue de Château, which was the terminus. The
+man descended and walked away quietly. Sholmes followed at so short a
+distance that Ganimard protested, saying:
+
+"If he should turn around he will suspect us."
+
+"He will not turn around."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"He is an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, and the fact that he walks in that
+manner, with his hands in his pockets, proves, in the first place, that
+he knows he is being followed and, in the second place, that he is not
+afraid."
+
+"But I think we are keeping too close to him."
+
+"Not too close to prevent his slipping through our fingers. He is too
+sure of himself."
+
+"Ah! Look there! In front of that café there are two of the bicycle
+police. If I summon them to our assistance, how can the man slip through
+our fingers?"
+
+"Well, our friend doesn't seem to be worried about it. In fact, he is
+asking for their assistance himself."
+
+"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Ganimard, "he has a nerve."
+
+The man approached the two policemen just as they were mounting their
+bicycles. After a few words with them he leaped on a third bicycle,
+which was leaning against the wall of the café, and rode away at a fast
+pace, accompanied by the two policemen.
+
+"Hein! one, two, three and away!" growled Sholmes. "And through, whose
+agency, Monsieur Ganimard? Two of your colleagues.... Ah! but Arsène
+Lupin has a wonderful organization! Bicycle policemen in his service!...
+I told you our man was too calm, too sure of himself."
+
+"Well, then," said Ganimard, quite vexed, "what are we to do now? It is
+easy enough to laugh! Anyone can do that."
+
+"Come, come, don't lose your temper! We will get our revenge. But, in
+the meantime, we need reinforcements."
+
+"Folenfant is waiting for me at the end of the avenue de Neuilly."
+
+"Well, go and get him and join me later. I will follow our fugitive."
+
+Sholmes followed the bicycle tracks, which were plainly visible in the
+dust of the road as two of the machines were furnished with striated
+tires. Very soon he ascertained that the tracks were leading him to the
+edge of the Seine, and that the three men had turned in the direction
+taken by Bresson on the preceding evening. Thus he arrived at the
+gateway where he and Ganimard had concealed themselves, and, a little
+farther on, he discovered a mingling of the bicycle tracks which showed
+that the men had halted at that spot. Directly opposite there was a
+little point of land which projected into the river and, at the
+extremity thereof, an old boat was moored.
+
+It was there that Bresson had thrown away the package, or, rather, had
+dropped it. Sholmes descended the bank and saw that the declivity was
+not steep and the water quite shallow, so it would be quite easy to
+recover the package, provided the three men had not forestalled him.
+
+"No, that can't be," he thought, "they have not had time. A quarter of
+an hour at the most. And yet, why did they come this way?"
+
+A fisherman was seated on the old boat. Sholmes asked him:
+
+"Did you see three men on bicycles a few minutes ago?"
+
+The fisherman made a negative gesture. But Sholmes insisted:
+
+"Three men who stopped on the road just on top of the bank?"
+
+The fisherman rested his pole under his arm, took a memorandum book from
+his pocket, wrote on one of the pages, tore it out, and handed it to
+Sholmes. The Englishman gave a start of surprise. In the middle of the
+paper which he held in his hand he saw the series of letters cut from
+the alphabet-book:
+
+CDEHNOPRZEO--237.
+
+The man resumed his fishing, sheltered from the sun by a large straw
+hat, with his coat and vest lying beside him. He was intently watching
+the cork attached to his line as it floated on the surface of the water.
+
+There was a moment of silence--solemn and terrible.
+
+"Is it he?" conjectured Sholmes, with an anxiety that was almost
+pitiful. Then the truth burst upon him:
+
+"It is he! It is he! No one else could remain there so calmly, without
+the slightest display of anxiety, without the least fear of what might
+happen. And who else would know the story of those mysterious letters?
+Alice had warned him by means of her messenger."
+
+Suddenly the Englishman felt that his hand--that his own hand had
+involuntarily seized the handle of his revolver, and that his eyes were
+fixed on the man's back, a little below the neck. One movement, and the
+drama would be finished; the life of the strange adventurer would come
+to a miserable end.
+
+The fisherman did not stir.
+
+Sholmes nervously toyed with his revolver, and experienced a wild desire
+to fire it and end everything; but the horror of such an act was
+repugnant to his nature. Death would be certain and would end all.
+
+"Ah!" he thought, "let him get up and defend himself. If he doesn't, so
+much the worse for him. One second more ... and I fire...."
+
+But a sound of footsteps behind him caused him to turn his head. It was
+Ganimard coming with some assistants.
+
+Then, quickly changing his plans, Sholmes leaped into the boat, which
+was broken from its moorings by his sudden action; he pounced upon the
+man and seized him around the body. They rolled to the bottom of the
+boat together.
+
+"Well, now!" exclaimed Lupin, struggling to free himself, "what does
+this mean? When one of us has conquered the other, what good will it do?
+You will not know what to do with me, nor I with you. We will remain
+here like two idiots."
+
+The two oars slipped into the water. The boat drifted into the stream.
+
+"Good Lord, what a fuss you make! A man of your age ought to know
+better! You act like a child."
+
+Lupin succeeded in freeing himself from the grasp of the detective, who,
+thoroughly exasperated and ready to kill, put his hand in his pocket. He
+uttered an oath: Lupin had taken his revolver. Then he knelt down and
+tried to capture one of the lost oars in order to regain the shore,
+while Lupin was trying to capture the other oar in order to drive the
+boat down the river.
+
+"It's gone! I can't reach it," said Lupin. "But it's of no consequence.
+If you get your oar I can prevent your using it. And you could do the
+same to me. But, you see, that is the way in this world, we act without
+any purpose or reason, as our efforts are in vain since Fate decides
+everything. Now, don't you see, Fate is on the side of his friend Lupin.
+The game is mine! The current favors me!"
+
+The boat was slowly drifting down the river.
+
+"Look out!" cried Lupin, quickly.
+
+Someone on the bank was pointing a revolver. Lupin stooped, a shot was
+fired; it struck the water beyond the boat. Lupin burst into laughter.
+
+"God bless me! It's my friend Ganimard! But it was very wrong of you to
+do that, Ganimard. You have no right to shoot except in self-defense.
+Does poor Lupin worry you so much that you forget yourself?... Now, be
+good, and don't shoot again!... If you do you will hit our English
+friend."
+
+He stood behind Sholmes, facing Ganimard, and said:
+
+"Now, Ganimard, I am ready! Aim for his heart!... Higher!... A little to
+the left.... Ah! you missed that time ... deuced bad shot.... Try
+again.... Your hand shakes, Ganimard.... Now, once more ... one, two,
+three, fire!... Missed!... Parbleu! the authorities furnish you with
+toy-pistols."
+
+Lupin drew a long revolver and fired without taking aim. Ganimard put
+his hand to his hat: the bullet had passed through it.
+
+"What do you think of that, Ganimard! Ah! that's a real revolver! A
+genuine English bulldog. It belongs to my friend, Herlock Sholmes."
+
+And, with a laugh, he threw the revolver to the shore, where it landed
+at Ganimard's feet.
+
+Sholmes could not withhold a smile of admiration. What a torrent of
+youthful spirits! And how he seemed to enjoy himself! It appeared as if
+the sensation of peril caused him a physical pleasure; and this
+extraordinary man had no other purpose in life than to seek for dangers
+simply for the amusement it afforded him in avoiding them.
+
+Many people had now gathered on the banks of the river, and Ganimard
+and his men followed the boat as it slowly floated down the stream.
+Lupin's capture was a mathematical certainty.
+
+"Confess, old fellow," said Lupin, turning to the Englishman, "that you
+would not exchange your present position for all the gold in the
+Transvaal! You are now in the first row of the orchestra chairs! But, in
+the first place, we must have the prologue ... after which we can leap,
+at one bound, to the fifth act of the drama, which will represent the
+capture or escape of Arsène Lupin. Therefore, I am going to ask you a
+plain question, to which I request a plain answer--a simple yes or no.
+Will you renounce this affair? At present I can repair the damage you
+have done; later it will be beyond my power. Is it a bargain?"
+
+"No."
+
+Lupin's face showed his disappointment and annoyance. He continued:
+
+"I insist. More for your sake than my own, I insist, because I am
+certain you will be the first to regret your intervention. For the last
+time, yes or no?"
+
+"No."
+
+Lupin stooped down, removed one of the boards in the bottom of the
+boat, and, for some minutes, was engaged in a work the nature of which
+Sholmes could not discern. Then he arose, seated himself beside the
+Englishman, and said:
+
+"I believe, monsieur, that we came to the river to-day for the same
+purpose: to recover the object which Bresson threw away. For my part I
+had invited a few friends to join me here, and I was on the point of
+making an examination of the bed of the river when my friends announced
+your approach. I confess that the news did not surprise me, as I have
+been notified every hour concerning the progress of your investigation.
+That was an easy matter. Whenever anything occurred in the rue Murillo
+that might interest me, simply a ring on the telephone and I was
+informed."
+
+He stopped. The board that he had displaced in the bottom of the boat
+was rising and water was working into the boat all around it.
+
+"The deuce! I didn't know how to fix it. I was afraid this old boat
+would leak. You are not afraid, monsieur?"
+
+Sholmes shrugged his shoulders. Lupin continued:
+
+"You will understand then, in those circumstances, and knowing in
+advance that you would be more eager to seek a battle than I would be to
+avoid it, I assure you I was not entirely displeased to enter into a
+contest of which the issue is quite certain, since I hold all the trump
+cards in my hand. And I desired that our meeting should be given the
+widest publicity in order that your defeat may be universally known, so
+that another Countess de Crozon or another Baron d'Imblevalle may not be
+tempted to solicit your aid against me. Besides, my dear monsieur--"
+
+He stopped again and, using his half-closed hands as a lorgnette, he
+scanned the banks of the river.
+
+"Mon Dieu! they have chartered a superb boat, a real war-vessel, and see
+how they are rowing. In five minutes they will be along-side, and I am
+lost. Monsieur Sholmes, a word of advice; you seize me, bind me and
+deliver me to the officers of the law. Does that programme please
+you?... Unless, in the meantime, we are shipwrecked, in which event we
+can do nothing but prepare our wills. What do you think?"
+
+They exchanged looks. Sholmes now understood Lupin's scheme: he had
+scuttled the boat. And the water was rising. It had reached the soles
+of their boots. Then it covered their feet; but they did not move. It
+was half-way to their knees. The Englishman took out his tobacco, rolled
+a cigarette, and lighted it. Lupin continued to talk:
+
+"But do not regard that offer as a confession of my weakness. I
+surrender to you in a battle in which I can achieve a victory in order
+to avoid a struggle upon a field not of my own choosing. In so doing I
+recognize the fact that Sholmes is the only enemy I fear, and announce
+my anxiety that Sholmes will not be diverted from my track. I take this
+opportunity to tell you these things since fate has accorded me the
+honor of a conversation with you. I have only one regret; it is that our
+conversation should have occurred while we are taking a foot-bath ... a
+situation that is lacking in dignity, I must confess.... What did I say?
+A foot-bath? It is worse than that."
+
+The water had reached the board on which they were sitting, and the boat
+was gradually sinking.
+
+Sholmes, smoking his cigarette, appeared to be calmly admiring the
+scenery. For nothing in the world, while face to face with that man
+who, while threatened by dangers, surrounded by a crowd, followed by a
+posse of police, maintained his equanimity and good humor, for nothing
+in the world would he, Sholmes, display the slightest sign of
+nervousness.
+
+Each of them looked as if he might say: Should a person be disturbed by
+such trifles? Are not people drowned in a river every day? Is it such an
+unusual event as to deserve special attention? One chatted, whilst the
+other dreamed; both concealing their wounded pride beneath a mask of
+indifference.
+
+One minute more and the boat will sink. Lupin continued his chatter:
+
+"The important thing to know is whether we will sink before or after the
+arrival of the champions of the law. That is the main question. As to
+our shipwreck, that is a fore-gone conclusion. Now, monsieur, the hour
+has come in which we must make our wills. I give, devise and bequeath
+all my property to Herlock Sholmes, a citizen of England, for his own
+use and benefit. But, mon Dieu, how quickly the champions of the law are
+approaching! Ah! the brave fellows! It is a pleasure to watch them.
+Observe the precision of the oars! Ah! is it you, Brigadier Folenfant?
+Bravo! The idea of a war-vessel is an excellent one. I commend you to
+your superiors, Brigadier Folenfant.... Do you wish a medal? You shall
+have it. And your comrade Dieuzy, where is he?... Ah! yes, I think I see
+him on the left bank of the river at the head of a hundred natives. So
+that, if I escape shipwreck, I shall be captured on the left by Dieuzy
+and his natives, or, on the right, by Ganimard and the populace of
+Neuilly. An embarrassing dilemma!"
+
+The boat entered an eddy; it swung around and Sholmes caught hold of the
+oarlocks. Lupin said to him:
+
+"Monsieur, you should remove your coat. You will find it easier to swim
+without a coat. No? You refuse? Then I shall put on my own."
+
+He donned his coat, buttoned it closely, the same as Sholmes, and said:
+
+"What a discourteous man you are! And what a pity that you should be so
+stubborn in this affair, in which, of course, you display your strength,
+but, oh! so vainly! really, you mar your genius----"
+
+"Monsieur Lupin," interrupted Sholmes, emerging from his silence, "you
+talk too much, and you frequently err through excess of confidence and
+through your frivolity."
+
+"That is a severe reproach."
+
+"Thus, without knowing it, you furnished me, only a moment ago, with the
+information I required."
+
+"What! you required some information and you didn't tell me?"
+
+"I had no occasion to ask you for it--you volunteered it. Within three
+hours I can deliver the key of the mystery to Monsieur d'Imblevalle.
+That is the only reply----"
+
+He did not finish the sentence. The boat suddenly sank, taking both of
+the men down with it. It emerged immediately, with its keel in the air.
+Shouts were heard on either bank, succeeded by an anxious moment of
+silence. Then the shouts were renewed: one of the shipwrecked party had
+come to the surface.
+
+It was Herlock Sholmes. He was an excellent swimmer, and struck out,
+with powerful strokes, for Folenfant's boat.
+
+"Courage, Monsieur Sholmes," shouted Folenfant; "we are here. Keep it up
+... we will get you ... a little more, Monsieur Sholmes ... catch the
+rope."
+
+The Englishman seized the rope they had thrown to him. But, while they
+were hauling him into the boat, he heard a voice behind him, saying:
+
+"The key of the mystery, monsieur, yes, you shall have it. I am
+astonished that you haven't got it already. What then? What good will it
+do you? By that time you will have lost the battle...."
+
+Now comfortably installed astride the keel of the boat, Lupin continued
+his speech with solemn gestures, as if he hoped to convince his
+adversary.
+
+"You must understand, my dear Sholmes, there is nothing to be done,
+absolutely nothing. You find yourself in the deplorable position of a
+gentleman----"
+
+"Surrender, Lupin!" shouted Folenfant.
+
+"You are an ill-bred fellow, Folenfant, to interrupt me in the middle of
+a sentence. I was saying----"
+
+"Surrender, Lupin!"
+
+"Oh! parbleu! Brigadier Folenfant, a man surrenders only when he is in
+danger. Surely, you do not pretend to say that I am in any danger."
+
+"For the last time, Lupin, I call on you to surrender."
+
+"Brigadier Folenfant, you have no intention of killing me; you may wish
+to wound me since you are afraid I may escape. But if by chance the
+wound prove mortal! Just think of your remorse! It would embitter your
+old age."
+
+The shot was fired.
+
+Lupin staggered, clutched at the keel of the boat for a moment, then let
+go and disappeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was exactly three o'clock when the foregoing events transpired.
+Precisely at six o'clock, as he had foretold, Herlock Sholmes, dressed
+in trousers that were too short and a coat that was too small, which he
+had borrowed from an innkeeper at Neuilly, wearing a cap and a flannel
+shirt, entered the boudoir in the Rue Murillo, after having sent word to
+Monsieur and Madame d'Imblevalle that he desired an interview.
+
+They found him walking up and down the room. And he looked so ludicrous
+in his strange costume that they could scarcely suppress their mirth.
+With pensive air and stooped shoulders, he walked like an automaton from
+the window to the door and from the door to the window, taking each time
+the same number of steps, and turning each time in the same manner.
+
+He stopped, picked up a small ornament, examined it mechanically, and
+resumed his walk. At last, planting himself before them, he asked:
+
+"Is Mademoiselle here?"
+
+"Yes, she is in the garden with the children."'
+
+"I wish Mademoiselle to be present at this interview."
+
+"Is it necessary----"
+
+"Have a little patience, monsieur. From the facts I am going to present
+to you, you will see the necessity for her presence here."
+
+"Very well. Suzanne, will you call her?"
+
+Madame d'Imblevalle arose, went out, and returned almost immediately,
+accompanied by Alice Demun. Mademoiselle, who was a trifle paler than
+usual, remained standing, leaning against a table, and without even
+asking why she had been called. Sholmes did not look at her, but,
+suddenly turning toward Monsieur d'Imblevalle, he said, in a tone which
+did not admit of a reply:
+
+"After several days' investigation, monsieur, I must repeat what I told
+you when I first came here: the Jewish lamp was stolen by some one
+living in the house."
+
+"The name of the guilty party?"
+
+"I know it."
+
+"Your proof?"
+
+"I have sufficient to establish that fact."
+
+"But we require more than that. We desire the restoration of the stolen
+goods."
+
+"The Jewish lamp? It is in my possession."
+
+"The opal necklace? The snuff-box?"
+
+"The opal necklace, the snuff-box, and all the goods stolen on the
+second occasion are in my possession."
+
+Sholmes delighted in these dramatic dialogues, and it pleased him to
+announce his victories in that curt manner. The baron and his wife were
+amazed, and looked at Sholmes with a silent curiosity, which was the
+highest praise.
+
+He related to them, very minutely, what he had done during those three
+days. He told of his discovery of the alphabet book, wrote upon a sheet
+of paper the sentence formed by the missing letters, then related the
+journey of Bresson to the bank of the river and the suicide of the
+adventurer, and, finally, his struggle with Lupin, the shipwreck, and
+the disappearance of Lupin. When he had finished, the baron said, in a
+low voice:
+
+"Now, you have told us everything except the name of the guilty party.
+Whom do you accuse?"
+
+"I accuse the person who cut the letters from the alphabet book, and
+communicated with Arsène Lupin by means of those letters."
+
+"How do you know that such correspondence was carried on with Arsène
+Lupin?"
+
+"My information comes from Lupin himself."
+
+He produced a piece of paper that was wet and crumpled. It was the page
+which Lupin had torn from his memorandum-book, and upon which he had
+written the phrase.
+
+"And you will notice," said Sholmes, with satisfaction, "that he was not
+obliged to give me that sheet of paper, and, in that way, disclose his
+identity. Simple childishness on his part, and yet it gave me exactly
+the information I desired."
+
+"What was it?" asked the baron. "I don't understand."
+
+Sholmes took a pencil and made a fresh copy of the letters and figures.
+
+"CDEHNOPRZEO--237."
+
+"Well?" said the baron; "it is the formula you showed me yourself."
+
+"No. If you had turned and returned that formula in every way, as I have
+done, you would have seen at first glance that this formula is not like
+the first one."
+
+"In what respect do they differ?"
+
+"This one has two more letters--an E and an O."
+
+"Really; I hadn't noticed that."
+
+"Join those two letters to the C and the H which remained after forming
+the word 'respondez,' and you will agree with me that the only possible
+word is ECHO."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"It refers to the _Echo de France_, Lupin's newspaper, his official
+organ, the one in which he publishes his communications. Reply in the
+_Echo de France_, in the personal advertisements, under number 237. That
+is the key to the mystery, and Arsène Lupin was kind enough to furnish
+it to me. I went to the newspaper office."
+
+"What did you find there?"
+
+"I found the entire story of the relations between Arsène Lupin and his
+accomplice."
+
+Sholmes produced seven newspapers which he opened at the fourth page
+and pointed to the following lines:
+
+1. Ars. Lup. Lady implores protection. 540.
+
+2. 540. Awaiting particulars. A.L.
+
+3. A.L. Under domin. enemy. Lost.
+
+4. 540. Write address. Will make investigation.
+
+5. A.L. Murillo.
+
+6. 540. Park three o'clock. Violets.
+
+7. 237. Understand. Sat. Will be Sun. morn. park.
+
+"And you call that the whole story!" exclaimed the baron.
+
+"Yes, and if you will listen to me for a few minutes, I think I can
+convince you. In the first place, a lady who signs herself 540 implores
+the protection of Arsène Lupin, who replies by asking for particulars.
+The lady replies that she is under the domination of an enemy--who is
+Bresson, no doubt--and that she is lost if some one does not come to her
+assistance. Lupin is suspicious and does not yet venture to appoint an
+interview with the unknown woman, demands the address and proposes to
+make an investigation. The lady hesitates for four days--look at the
+dates--finally, under stress of circumstances and influenced by
+Bresson's threats, she gives the name of the street--Murillo. Next day,
+Arsène Lupin announces that he will be in the Park Monceau at three
+o'clock, and asks his unknown correspondent to wear a bouquet of violets
+as a means of identification. Then there is a lapse of eight days in the
+correspondence. Arsène Lupin and the lady do not require to correspond
+through the newspaper now, as they see each other or write directly. The
+scheme is arranged in this way: in order to satisfy Bresson's demands,
+the lady is to carry off the Jewish lamp. The date is not yet fixed. The
+lady who, as a matter of prudence, corresponds by means of letters cut
+out of a book, decides on Saturday and adds: _Reply Echo 237_. Lupin
+replies that it is understood and that he will be in the park on Sunday
+morning. Sunday morning, the theft takes place."
+
+"Really, that is an excellent chain of circumstantial evidence and every
+link is complete," said the baron.
+
+"The theft has taken place," continued Sholmes. "The lady goes out on
+Sunday morning, tells Lupin what she has done, and carries the Jewish
+lamp to Bresson. Everything occurs then exactly as Lupin had foreseen.
+The officers of the law, deceived by an open window, four holes in the
+ground and two scratches on the balcony railing, immediately advance the
+theory that the theft was committed by a burglar. The lady is safe."
+
+"Yes, I confess the theory was a logical one," said the baron. "But the
+second theft--"
+
+"The second theft was provoked by the first. The newspapers having
+related how the Jewish lamp had disappeared, some one conceived the idea
+of repeating the crime and carrying away what had been left. This time,
+it was not a simulated theft, but a real one, a genuine burglary, with
+ladders and other paraphernalia--"
+
+"Lupin, of course--"
+
+"No. Lupin does not act so stupidly. He doesn't fire at people for
+trifling reasons."
+
+"Then, who was it?"
+
+"Bresson, no doubt, and unknown to the lady whom he had menaced. It was
+Bresson who entered here; it was Bresson that I pursued; it was Bresson
+who wounded poor Wilson."
+
+"Are you sure of it?"
+
+"Absolutely. One of Bresson's accomplices wrote to him yesterday, before
+his suicide, a letter which proves that negotiations were pending
+between this accomplice and Lupin for the restitution of all the
+articles stolen from your house. Lupin demanded everything, '_the first
+thing_ (that is, the Jewish lamp) _as well as those of the second
+affair_.' Moreover, he was watching Bresson. When the latter returned
+from the river last night, one of Lupin's men followed him as well as
+we."
+
+"What was Bresson doing at the river?"
+
+"Having been warned of the progress of my investigations----"
+
+"Warned! by whom?"
+
+"By the same lady, who justly feared that the discovery of the Jewish
+lamp would lead to the discovery of her own adventure. Thereupon,
+Bresson, having been warned, made into a package all the things that
+could compromise him and threw them into a place where he thought he
+could get them again when the danger was past. It was after his return,
+tracked by Ganimard and myself, having, no doubt, other sins on his
+conscience, that he lost his head and killed himself."
+
+"But what did the package contain?"
+
+"The Jewish lamp and your other ornaments."
+
+"Then, they are not in your possession?"
+
+"Immediately after Lupin's disappearance, I profited by the bath he had
+forced upon me, went to the spot selected by Bresson, where I found the
+stolen articles wrapped in some soiled linen. They are there, on the
+table."
+
+Without a word, the baron cut the cord, tore open the wet linen, picked
+out the lamp, turned a screw in the foot, then divided the bowl of the
+lamp which opened in two equal parts and there he found the golden
+chimera, set with rubies and emeralds.
+
+It was intact.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was in that scene, so natural in appearance and which consisted of
+a simple exposition of facts, something which rendered it frightfully
+tragic--it was the formal, direct, irrefutable accusation that Sholmes
+launched in each of his words against Mademoiselle. And it was also the
+impressive silence of Alice Demun.
+
+During that long, cruel accumulation of accusing circumstances heaped
+one upon another, not a muscle of her face had moved, not a trace of
+revolt or fear had marred the serenity of her limpid eyes. What were
+her thoughts. And, especially, what was she going to say at the solemn
+moment when it would become necessary for her to speak and defend
+herself in order to break the chain of evidence that Herlock Sholmes had
+so cleverly woven around her?
+
+That moment had come, but the girl was silent.
+
+"Speak! Speak!" cried Mon. d'Imblevalle.
+
+She did not speak. So he insisted:
+
+"One word will clear you. One word of denial, and I will believe you."
+
+That word, she would not utter.
+
+The baron paced to and fro in his excitement; then, addressing Sholmes,
+he said:
+
+"No, monsieur, I cannot believe it, I do not believe it. There are
+impossible crimes! and this is opposed to all I know and to all that I
+have seen during the past year. No, I cannot believe it."
+
+He placed his hand on the Englishman's shoulder, and said:
+
+"But you yourself, monsieur, are you absolutely certain that you are
+right?"
+
+Sholmes hesitated, like a man on whom a sudden demand is made and cannot
+frame an immediate reply. Then he smiled, and said:
+
+"Only the person whom I accuse, by reason of her situation in your
+house, could know that the Jewish lamp contained that magnificent
+jewel."
+
+"I cannot believe it," repeated the baron.
+
+"Ask her."
+
+It was, really, the very thing he would not have done, blinded by the
+confidence the girl had inspired in him. But he could no longer refrain
+from doing it. He approached her and, looking into her eyes, said:
+
+"Was it you, mademoiselle? Was it you who took the jewel? Was it you who
+corresponded with Arsène Lupin and committed the theft?"
+
+"It was I, monsieur," she replied.
+
+She did not drop her head. Her face displayed no sign of shame or fear.
+
+"Is it possible?" murmured Mon. d'Imblevalle. "I would never have
+believed it.... You are the last person in the world that I would have
+suspected. How did you do it?"
+
+"I did it exactly as Monsieur Sholmes has told it. On Saturday night I
+came to the boudoir, took the lamp, and, in the morning I carried it ...
+to that man."
+
+"No," said the baron; "what you pretend to have done is impossible."
+
+"Impossible--why?"
+
+"Because, in the morning I found the door of the boudoir bolted."
+
+She blushed, and looked at Sholmes as if seeking his counsel. Sholmes
+was astonished at her embarrassment. Had she nothing to say? Did the
+confessions, which had corroborated the report that he, Sholmes, had
+made concerning the theft of the Jewish lamp, merely serve to mask a
+lie? Was she misleading them by a false confession?
+
+The baron continued:
+
+"That door was locked. I found the door exactly as I had left it the
+night before. If you entered by that door, as you pretend, some one must
+have opened it from the interior--that is to say, from the boudoir or
+from our chamber. Now, there was no one inside these two rooms ... there
+was no one except my wife and myself."
+
+Sholmes bowed his head and covered his face with his hands in order to
+conceal his emotion. A sudden light had entered his mind, that startled
+him and made him exceedingly uncomfortable. Everything was revealed to
+him, like the sudden lifting of a fog from the morning landscape. He was
+annoyed as well as ashamed, because his deductions were fallacious and
+his entire theory was wrong.
+
+Alice Demun was innocent!
+
+Alice Demun was innocent. That proposition explained the embarrassment
+he had experienced from the beginning in directing the terrible
+accusation against that young girl. Now, he saw the truth; he knew it.
+After a few seconds, he raised his head, and looked at Madame
+d'Imblevalle as naturally as he could. She was pale--with that unusual
+pallor which invades us in the relentless moments of our lives. Her
+hands, which she endeavored to conceal, were trembling as if stricken
+with palsy.
+
+"One minute more," thought Sholmes, "and she will betray herself."
+
+He placed himself between her and her husband in the desire to avert the
+awful danger which, _through his fault_, now threatened that man and
+woman. But, at sight of the baron, he was shocked to the very centre of
+his soul. The same dreadful idea had entered the mind of Monsieur
+d'Imblevalle. The same thought was at work in the brain of the husband.
+He understood, also! He saw the truth!
+
+In desperation, Alice Demun hurled herself against the implacable truth,
+saying:
+
+"You are right, monsieur. I made a mistake. I did not enter by this
+door. I came through the garden and the vestibule ... by aid of a
+ladder--"
+
+It was a supreme effort of true devotion. But a useless effort! The
+words rang false. The voice did not carry conviction, and the poor girl
+no longer displayed those clear, fearless eyes and that natural air of
+innocence which had served her so well. Now, she bowed her
+head--vanquished.
+
+The silence became painful. Madame d'Imblevalle was waiting for her
+husband's next move, overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. The baron
+appeared to be struggling against the dreadful suspicion, as if he would
+not submit to the overthrow of his happiness. Finally, he said to his
+wife:
+
+"Speak! Explain!"
+
+"I have nothing to tell you," she replied, in a very low voice, and with
+features drawn by anguish.
+
+"So, then ... Mademoiselle...."
+
+"Mademoiselle saved me ... through devotion ... through affection ...
+and accused herself...."
+
+"Saved you from what? From whom?"
+
+"From that man."
+
+"Bresson?"
+
+"Yes; it was I whom he held in fear by threats.... I met him at one of
+my friends'.... and I was foolish enough to listen to him. Oh! there was
+nothing that you cannot pardon. But I wrote him two letters ... letters
+which you will see.... I had to buy them back ... you know how.... Oh!
+have pity on me!... I have suffered so much!"
+
+"You! You! Suzanne!"
+
+He raised his clenched fists, ready to strike her, ready to kill her.
+But he dropped his arms, and murmured:
+
+"You, Suzanne.... You!... Is it possible?"
+
+By short detached sentences, she related the heartrending story, her
+dreadful awakening to the infamy of the man, her remorse, her fear, and
+she also told of Alice's devotion; how the young girl divined the sorrow
+of her mistress, wormed a confession out of her, wrote to Lupin, and
+devised the scheme of the theft in order to save her from Bresson.
+
+"You, Suzanne, you," repeated Monsieur d'Imblevalle, bowed with grief
+and shame.... "How could you?"
+
+*****
+
+On the same evening, the steamer "City of London," which plies between
+Calais and Dover, was gliding slowly over the smooth sea. The night was
+dark; the wind was fainter than a zephyr. The majority of the passengers
+had retired to their cabins; but a few, more intrepid, were promenading
+on the deck or sleeping in large rocking-chairs, wrapped in their
+travelling-rugs. One could see, here and there, the light of a cigar,
+and one could hear, mingled with the soft murmur of the breeze, the
+faint sound of voices which were carefully subdued to harmonize with the
+deep silence of the night.
+
+One of the passengers, who had been pacing to and fro upon the deck,
+stopped before a woman who was lying on a bench, scrutinized her, and,
+when she moved a little, he said:
+
+"I thought you were asleep, Mademoiselle Alice."
+
+"No, Monsieur Sholmes, I am not sleepy. I was thinking."
+
+"Of what? If I may be so bold as to inquire?"
+
+"I was thinking of Madame d'Imblevalle. She must be very unhappy. Her
+life is ruined."
+
+"Oh! no, no," he replied quickly. "Her mistake was not a serious one.
+Monsieur d'Imblevalle will forgive and forget it. Why, even before we
+left, his manner toward her had softened."
+
+"Perhaps ... but he will remember it for a long time ... and she will
+suffer a great deal."
+
+"You love her?"
+
+"Very much. It was my love for her that gave me strength to smile when I
+was trembling from fear, that gave me courage to look in your face when
+I desired to hide from your sight."
+
+"And you are sorry to leave her?"
+
+"Yes, very sorry. I have no relatives, no friends--but her."
+
+"You will have friends," said the Englishman, who was affected by her
+sorrow. "I have promised that. I have relatives ... and some influence.
+I assure you that you will have no cause to regret coming to England."
+
+"That may be, monsieur, but Madame d'Imblevalle will not be there."
+
+Herlock Sholmes resumed his promenade upon the deck. After a few
+minutes, he took a seat near his travelling companion, filled his pipe,
+and struck four matches in a vain effort to light it. Then, as he had no
+more matches, he arose and said to a gentleman who was sitting near him:
+
+"May I trouble you for a match?"
+
+The gentleman opened a box of matches and struck one. The flame lighted
+up his face. Sholmes recognized him--it was Arsène Lupin.
+
+If the Englishman had not given an almost imperceptible movement of
+surprise, Lupin would have supposed that his presence on board had been
+known to Sholmes, so well did he control his feelings and so natural was
+the easy manner in which he extended his hand to his adversary.
+
+"How's the good health, Monsieur Lupin?"
+
+"Bravo!" exclaimed Lupin, who could not repress a cry of admiration at
+the Englishman's sang-froid.
+
+"Bravo? and why?"
+
+"Why? Because I appear before you like a ghost, only a few hours after
+you saw me drowned in the Seine; and through pride--a quality that is
+essentially English--you evince not the slightest surprise. You greet
+me as a matter of course. Ah! I repeat: Bravo! Admirable!"
+
+"There is nothing remarkable about it. From the manner in which you fell
+from the boat, I knew very well that you fell voluntarily, and that the
+bullet had not touched you."
+
+"And you went away without knowing what had become of me?"
+
+"What had become of you? Why, I knew that. There were at least five
+hundred people on the two banks of the river within a space of
+half-a-mile. If you escaped death, your capture was certain."
+
+"And yet I am here."
+
+"Monsieur Lupin, there are two men in the world at whom I am never
+astonished: in the first place, myself--and then, Arsène Lupin."
+
+The treaty of peace was concluded.
+
+If Sholmes had not been successful in his contests with Arsène Lupin; if
+Lupin remained the only enemy whose capture he must never hope to
+accomplish; if, in the course of their struggles, he had not always
+displayed a superiority, the Englishman had, none the less, by means of
+his extraordinary intuition and tenacity, succeeded in recovering the
+Jewish lamp as well as the blue diamond.
+
+This time, perhaps, the finish had not been so brilliant, especially
+from the stand-point of the public spectators, since Sholmes was obliged
+to maintain a discreet silence in regard to the circumstances in which
+the Jewish lamp had been recovered, and to announce that he did not know
+the name of the thief. But as man to man, Arsène Lupin against Herlock
+Sholmes, detective against burglar, there was neither victor nor
+vanquished. Each of them had won corresponding victories.
+
+Therefore they could now converse as courteous adversaries who had lain
+down their arms and held each other in high regard.
+
+At Sholmes' request, Arsène Lupin related the strange story of his
+escape.
+
+"If I may dignify it by calling it an escape," he said. "It was so
+simple! My friends were watching for me, as I had asked them to meet me
+there to recover the Jewish lamp. So, after remaining a good half-hour
+under the overturned boat, I took advantage of an occasion when
+Folenfant and his men were searching for my dead body along the bank of
+the river, to climb on top of the boat. Then my friends simply picked me
+up as they passed by in their motor-boat, and we sailed away under the
+staring eyes of an astonished multitude, including Ganimard and
+Folenfant."
+
+"Very good," exclaimed Sholmes, "very neatly played. And now you have
+some business in England?"
+
+"Yes, some accounts to square up.... But I forgot ... what about
+Monsieur d'Imblevalle?"
+
+"He knows everything."
+
+"All! my dear Sholmes, what did I tell you? The wrong is now
+irreparable. Would it not have been better to have allowed me to carry
+out the affair in my own way? In a day or two more, I should have
+recovered the stolen goods from Bresson, restored them to Monsieur
+d'Imblevalle, and those two honest citizens would have lived together in
+peace and happiness ever after. Instead of that--"
+
+"Instead of that," said Sholmes, sneeringly, "I have mixed the cards and
+sown the seeds of discord in the bosom of a family that was under your
+protection."
+
+"Mon Dieu! of course, I was protecting them. Must a person steal, cheat
+and wrong all the time?"
+
+"Then you do good, also?"
+
+"When I have the time. Besides, I find it amusing. Now, for instance,
+in our last adventure, I found it extremely diverting that I should be
+the good genius seeking to help and save unfortunate mortals, while you
+were the evil genius who dispensed only despair and tears."
+
+"Tears! Tears!" protested Sholmes.
+
+"Certainly! The d'Imblevalle household is demolished, and Alice Demun
+weeps."
+
+"She could not remain any longer. Ganimard would have discovered her
+some day, and, through her, reached Madame d'Imblevalle."
+
+"Quite right, monsieur; but whose fault is it?"
+
+Two men passed by. Sholmes said to Lupin, in a friendly tone:
+
+"Do you know those gentlemen?"
+
+"I thought I recognized one of them as the captain of the steamer."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"It is Austin Gilett, who occupies in London a position similar to that
+of Monsieur Dudouis in Paris."
+
+"Ah! how fortunate! Will you be so kind as to introduce me? Monsieur
+Dudouis is one of my best friends, and I shall be delighted to say as
+much of Monsieur Austin Gilett."
+
+The two gentlemen passed again.
+
+"And if I should take you at your word, Monsieur Lupin?" said Sholmes,
+rising, and seizing Lupin's wrist with a hand of iron.
+
+"Why do you grasp me so tightly, monsieur? I am quite willing to follow
+you."
+
+In fact, he allowed himself to be dragged along without the least
+resistance. The two gentlemen were disappearing from sight. Sholmes
+quickened his pace. His finger-nails even sank into Lupin's flesh.
+
+"Come! Come!" he exclaimed, with a sort of feverish haste, in harmony
+with his action. "Come! quicker than that."
+
+But he stopped suddenly. Alice Demun was following them.
+
+"What are you doing, Mademoiselle? You need not come. You must not
+come!"
+
+It was Lupin who replied:
+
+"You will notice, monsieur, that she is not coming of her own free will.
+I am holding her wrist in the same tight grasp that you have on mine."
+
+"Why!"
+
+"Because I wish to present her also. Her part in the affair of the
+Jewish lamp is much more important than mine. Accomplice of Arsène
+Lupin, accomplice of Bresson, she has a right to tell her adventure with
+the Baroness d'Imblevalle--which will deeply interest Monsieur Gilett as
+an officer of the law. And by introducing her also, you will have
+carried your gracious intervention to the very limit, my dear Sholmes."
+
+The Englishman released his hold on his prisoner's wrist. Lupin
+liberated Mademoiselle.
+
+They stood looking at each other for a few seconds, silently and
+motionless. Then Sholmes returned to the bench and sat down, followed by
+Lupin and the girl. After a long silence, Lupin said: "You see,
+monsieur, whatever we may do, we will never be on the same side. You are
+on one side of the fence; I am on the other. We can exchange greetings,
+shake hands, converse a moment, but the fence is always there. You will
+remain Herlock Sholmes, detective, and I, Arsène Lupin,
+gentleman-burglar. And Herlock Sholmes will ever obey, more or less
+spontaneously, with more or less propriety, his instinct as a detective,
+which is to pursue the burglar and run him down, if possible. And Arsène
+Lupin, in obedience to his burglarious instinct, will always be
+occupied in avoiding the reach of the detective, and making sport of the
+detective, if he can do it. And, this time, he can do it. Ha-ha-ha!"
+
+He burst into a loud laugh, cunning, cruel and odious.
+
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he addressed Alice Demun:
+
+"You may be sure, mademoiselle, even when reduced to the last extremity,
+I shall not betray you. Arsène Lupin never betrays anyone--especially
+those whom he loves and admires. And, may I be permitted to say, I love
+and admire the brave, dear woman you have proved yourself to be."
+
+He took from his pocket a visiting card, tore it in two, gave one-half
+of it to the girl, as he said, in a voice shaken with emotion:
+
+"If Monsieur Sholmes' plans for you do not succeed, mademoiselle, go to
+Lady Strongborough--you can easily find her address--and give her that
+half of the card, and, at the same time, say to her: _Faithful friend_.
+Lady Strongborough will show you the true devotion of a sister."
+
+"Thank you," said the girl; "I shall see her to-morrow."
+
+"And now, Monsieur Sholmes," exclaimed Lupin, with the satisfied air of
+a gentleman who has fulfilled his duty, "I will say good-night. We will
+not land for an hour yet, so I will get that much rest."
+
+He lay down on the bench, with his hands beneath his head.
+
+In a short time the high cliffs of the English coast loomed up in the
+increasing light of a new-born day. The passengers emerged from the
+cabins and crowded the deck, eagerly gazing on the approaching shore.
+Austin Gilette passed by, accompanied by two men whom Sholmes recognized
+as sleuths from Scotland Yard.
+
+Lupin was asleep, on his bench.
+
+THE END.
+
+_The further startling, wonderful and thrilling adventures of "Arsène
+Lupin" will be found in the book entitled "Arsène Lupin
+Gentleman-Burglar"._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes, by
+Maurice LeBlanc
+
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+Project Gutenberg’s A Strange Disappearance, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Strange Disappearance
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Posting Date: September 15, 2008 [EBook #1167]
+Release Date: January, 1998
+Last Updated: October 2, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lisa Bennett
+
+
+
+
+
+A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
+
+By Anna Katharine Green
+
+
+
+OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
+
+   The House of the Whispering Pines   Miss Hurd. An Enigma
+   Leavenworth Case                    That Affair Next Door
+   Strange Disappearance               Lost Man’s Lane
+   Sword of Damocles                   Agatha Webb
+   Hand and Ring                       One of My Sons
+   The Mill Mystery                    Defence of the Bride,
+   Behind Closed Doors                   and Other Poems
+   Cynthia Wakeham’s Money             Risifi’s Daughter. A Drama
+   Marked “Personal”                   The Golden Slipper
+   To the Minute
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     CHAPTER I       A NOVEL CASE
+     CHAPTER II      A FEW POINTS
+     CHAPTER III     THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER
+     CHAPTER IV      THOMPSON’S STORY
+     CHAPTER V       A NEW YORK BELLE
+     CHAPTER VI      A BIT OF CALICO
+     CHAPTER VII     THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS
+     CHAPTER VIII    A WORD OVERHEARD
+     CHAPTER IX      A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS
+     CHAPTER X       THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE’S STUDIO
+     CHAPTER XI      LUTTRA
+     CHAPTER XII     A WOMAN’S LOVE
+     CHAPTER XIII    A MAN’S HEART
+     CHAPTER XIV     MRS. DANIELS
+     CHAPTER XV      A CONFAB
+     CHAPTER XVI     THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
+     CHAPTER XVII    THE CAPTURE
+     CHAPTER XVIII   LOVE AND DUTY
+     CHAPTER XIX     EXPLANATIONS
+     CHAPTER XX      THE BOND THAT UNITES
+
+
+
+
+A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE
+
+
+“Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that
+Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come
+under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects,
+at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise
+not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the
+affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it.”
+
+The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged
+by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and
+unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting
+Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse our
+deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which we
+were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear to
+a detective’s heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; and
+settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a good
+story to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding to
+his own credit, he began:
+
+I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when
+the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,
+whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I
+asked her what she wanted.
+
+“A detective,” she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of
+the various men scattered through the room. “I don’t wish anything said
+about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and”--she
+stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--“and I want some one to
+look her up,” she went on at last with the most intense emphasis.
+
+“A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say
+our house?”
+
+She looked at me keenly before replying. “You are a young man,” said
+she; “isn’t there some one here more responsible than yourself that I
+can talk to?”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then
+passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him aside,
+she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He listened
+nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I knew
+indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his face--but you
+know what Gryce’s face is. I was about to walk off, convinced he had
+got hold of something he would prefer to manage himself, when the
+Superintendent came in.
+
+“Where is Gryce?” asked he; “tell him I want him.”
+
+Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he whispered,
+“Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and send me word
+if you want me; I will be here for two hours.”
+
+I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I reapproached
+the woman. “Where do you come from,” said I, “I am to go back with you
+and investigate the affair it seems.”
+
+“Did he say so?” she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with his
+back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.
+
+I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. “I come from No.----
+Second Avenue: Mr. Blake’s house,” she whispered, uttering a name so
+well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce’s movement of sudden interest
+“A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night in a way to
+alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--” “Yes,” she cried
+vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity, “taken from her
+room; she never went of her own accord; and she must be found if I spend
+every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in the bank against my old
+age.”
+
+Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so vehement,
+I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of hers that
+she felt her abduction so keenly.
+
+“No,” she replied, “not a relative, but,” she went on, looking every way
+but in my face, “a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they call
+it, of mine; I--I--She must be found,” she again reiterated.
+
+We were by this time in the street.
+
+“Nothing must be said about it,” she now whispered, catching me by the
+arm. “I told him so,” nodding back to the building from which we had
+just issued, “and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks
+knowing anything about it, can’t it?”
+
+“What?” I asked.
+
+“Finding the girl.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “we can tell you better about that when we know a few
+more of the facts. What is the girl’s name and what makes you think she
+didn’t go out of the house-door of her own accord?”
+
+“Why, why, everything. She wasn’t the person to do it; then the looks of
+her room, and--They all got out of the window,” she cried suddenly, “and
+went away by the side gate into ------ Street.”
+
+“They? Who do you mean by they?”
+
+“Why, whoever they were who carried her off.”
+
+I could not suppress the “bah!” that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might
+have been able to, but I am not Gryce.
+
+“You don’t believe,” said she, “that she was carried off?”
+
+“Well, no,” said I, “not in the sense you mean.”
+
+She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so
+distant. “He did’nt seem to doubt it at all.”
+
+I laughed. “Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in this
+way?”
+
+“Yes, and he said, ‘Very likely.’ And well he might, for I heard the men
+talking in her room, and--”
+
+“You heard men talking in her room--when?”
+
+“O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep and
+the noise they made whispering, woke me.”
+
+“Wait,” I said, “tell me where her room is, hers and yours.”
+
+“Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor.”
+
+“Who are you?” I now inquired. “What position do you occupy in Mr.
+Blake’s house?”
+
+“I am the housekeeper.”
+
+Mr. Blake was a bachelor.
+
+“And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to
+come from this girl’s room.”
+
+“Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear them
+when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it came from
+her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a good girl,”
+ she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant eyes,
+“a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don’t you dare, any
+of you, to hint at anything else o--”
+
+“Come, come,” I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too
+communicative face, “I haven’t said anything, we will take it for
+granted she is as good as gold, go on.”
+
+The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.
+“Where was I?” said she. “O, I heard voices and was surprised and got
+up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have
+startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a
+moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and I
+called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. ‘What is
+it?’ she asked. ‘O,’ said I, ‘I thought I heard talking here and I was
+frightened,’ ‘It must have been next door,’ said she. I begged pardon
+and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but when in the
+morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the window open and
+signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had not been mistaken;
+that there were men with her when I went to her door, and that they had
+carried her off--”
+
+This time I could not restrain myself.
+
+“Did they drop her out of the window?” I inquired.
+
+“O,” said she, “we are building an extension, and there is a ladder
+running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took
+her.”
+
+“Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim,” I remarked.
+
+The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. “Don’t you believe it,”
+ gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. “I tell you if what
+I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry her
+off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if
+it has not done so already. You don’t know what you are talking about,
+you never saw her--”
+
+“Was she pretty,” I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one
+passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in
+some way to give her a shock.
+
+“Ah, I don’t know,” she muttered; “some might not think so, I always
+did; it depended upon the way you looked at her.”
+
+For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my
+veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a
+sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own
+mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was
+that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp
+eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked
+her how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of
+the girl’s disappearance.
+
+“Doesn’t Mr. Blake know anything about it?”
+
+The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. “Yes,” said she,
+“I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn’t take much interest
+in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me.”
+
+“Then he does not know you have come for the police?”
+
+“No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is
+not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blake
+is a man who never meddles with anything, and--”
+
+“What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this
+girl--By the way, what is her name?”
+
+“Emily.”
+
+“That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?”
+
+“Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table
+reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an
+absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants’ affairs
+without troubling him.”
+
+“And you let it drop?”
+
+“Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to.”
+
+I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for
+though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if
+maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.
+
+We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion
+regarded by this scion of New York’s aristocracy as one of the most
+desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had
+accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for
+the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the
+woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed to
+get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.
+
+“O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back stairs;
+he won’t notice, or if he does will not ask any questions.”
+
+And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key
+from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us into
+the dwelling.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. A FEW POINTS
+
+
+Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the
+third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not but
+notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and heavily
+frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from what we see
+now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue mansions. Many
+as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to enter in the line
+of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold of such an one as
+this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish sentimentalities,
+I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of invading with police
+investigation, this home of ancient Knicker-bocker respectability. But
+once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that
+of professional pride and curiosity. For almost at first blush, I saw
+that whether Mrs. Daniels was correct or not in her surmises as to the
+manner of the girl’s disappearance, the fact that she had disappeared
+was likely to prove an affair of some importance. For, let me state
+the facts in the order in which I noticed them. The first thing that
+impressed me was, that whatever Mrs. Daniels called her, this was no
+sewing girl’s room into which I now stepped. Plain as was the furniture
+in comparison with the elaborate richness of the walls and ceiling,
+there were still scattered through the room, which was large even for
+a thirty foot house, articles of sufficient elegance to make the
+supposition that it was the abode of an ordinary seamstress open to
+suspicion, if no more.
+
+Mrs. Daniels, seeing my look of surprise, hastened to provide some
+explanation. “It is the room which has always been devoted to sewing,”
+ said she; “and when Emily came, I thought it would be easier to put up
+a bed here than to send her upstairs. She was a very nice girl and
+disarranged nothing.”
+
+I glanced around on the writing-case lying open on a small table in the
+centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered roses, on
+the mantel-piece, the Shakespeare, and Macaulay’s History lying on the
+stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, but said nothing.
+
+“You found the door locked this morning?” asked I, after a moment’s
+scrutiny of the room in which three facts had become manifest: first,
+that the girl had not occupied the bed the night before; second, that
+there had been some sort of struggle or surprise,--one of the curtains
+being violently torn as if grasped by an agitated hand, to say nothing
+of a chair lying upset on the floor with one of its legs broken; third,
+that the departure, strange as it may seem, had been by the window.
+
+“Yes,” returned she; “but there is a passageway leading from my room
+to hers and it was by that means we entered. There was a chair placed
+against the door on this side but we easily pushed it away.”
+
+I stepped to the window and looked out. Ah, it would not be so very
+difficult for a man to gain the street from that spot in a dark night,
+for the roof of the newly-erected extension was almost on a level with
+the window.
+
+“Well,” said she anxiously, “couldn’t she have been got out that way?”
+
+“More difficult things have been done,” said I; and was about to step
+out upon the roof when I bethought to inquire of Mrs. Daniels if any of
+the girl’s clothing was missing.
+
+She immediately flew to the closets and thence to bureau drawers which
+she turned hastily over. “No, nothing is missing but a hat and cloak
+and--” She paused confusedly.
+
+“And what?” I asked.
+
+“Nothing,” returned she, hurriedly closing the bureau drawer; “only some
+little knick-knacks.”
+
+“Knick-knacks!” quoth I. “If she stopped for knick-knacks, she couldn’t
+have gone in any very unwilling frame of mind.” And somewhat disgusted,
+I was about to throw up the whole affair and leave the room. But the
+indecision in Mrs. Daniels’ own face deterred me.
+
+“I don’t understand it,” murmured she, drawing her hand across her eyes.
+“I don’t understand it. But,” she went on with even an increase in her
+old tone of heart-felt conviction, “no matter whether we understand it
+or not, the case is serious; I tell you so, and she must be found.”
+
+I resolved to know the nature of that must, used as few women in her
+position would use it even under circumstances to all appearance more
+aggravated than these.
+
+“Why, must?” said I. “If the girl went of her own accord as some things
+seem to show, why should you, no relative as you acknowledge, take the
+matter so to heart as to insist she shall be followed and brought back?”
+
+She turned away, uneasily taking up and putting down some little matters
+on the table before her. “Is it not enough that I promise to pay for
+all expenses which a search will occasion, without my being forced to
+declare just why I should be willing to do so? Am I bound to tell you I
+love the girl? that I believe she has been taken away by foul means,
+and that to her great suffering and distress? that being fond of her and
+believing this, I am conscientious enough to put every means I possess
+at the command of those who will recover her?”
+
+I was not satisfied with this but on that very account felt my
+enthusiasm revive.
+
+“But Mr. Blake? Surely he is the one to take this interest if anybody.”
+
+“I have before said,” returned she, paling however as she spoke, “that
+Mr. Blake takes very little interest in his servants.”
+
+I cast another glance about the room. “How long have you been in this
+house?” asked I.
+
+“I was in the service of Mr. Blake’s father and he died a year ago.”
+
+“Since when you have remained with Mr. Blake himself?”
+
+“Yes sir.”
+
+“And this Emily, when did she come here?”
+
+“Oh it must be eleven months or so ago.”
+
+“An Irish girl?”
+
+“O no, American. She is not a common person, sir.”
+
+“What do you mean by that? That she was educated, lady-like, pretty, or
+what?”
+
+“I don’t know what to say. She was educated, yes, but not as you would
+call a lady educated. Yet she knew a great many things the rest of us
+did’nt. She liked to read, you see, and--O sir, ask the girls about her,
+I never know what to say when I am questioned.”
+
+I scanned the gray-haired woman still more intently than I had yet done.
+Was she the weak common-place creature she seemed, or had she really
+some cause other than appeared for these her numerous breaks and
+hesitations.
+
+“Where did you get this girl?” I inquired. “Where did she live before
+coming here?”
+
+“I cannot say, I never asked her to talk about herself. She came to me
+for work and I liked her and took her without recommendation.”
+
+“And she has served you well?”
+
+“Excellently.”
+
+“Been out much? Had any visitors?”
+
+She shook her head. “Never went out and never had any visitors.”
+
+I own I was nonplussed, “Well,” said I, “no more of this at present.
+I must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with
+others.” And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the
+extension.
+
+As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not
+in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the girl
+had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover to help
+her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force need
+be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she said,
+ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of this girl,
+why need that money be divided up any more than was necessary. Yet Gryce
+was not one to be dallied with. He had said, send for him if the affair
+seemed to call for his judgment, and somehow the affair did promise to
+be a trifle complicated. I was yet undetermined when I reached the edge
+of the roof.
+
+It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath
+would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a
+woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld
+something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself
+if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a drop
+of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another, and
+yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon the very
+window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the carpet for
+further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find anything
+upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused pattern of
+mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop very low.
+
+“What are you looking for?” cried Mrs. Daniels.
+
+I pointed to the drop on the window sill. “Do you see that?” I asked.
+
+She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. “Blood!” cried she, and
+stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. “They have
+killed her and he will never--”
+
+As she did not finish I looked up.
+
+“Do you think it was her blood?” she whispered in a horrified tone.
+
+“There is every reason to believe so,” rejoined I, pointing to a spot
+where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many,
+scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.
+
+“Ah, it is worse than I thought,” murmured she. “What are you going to
+do? What can we do?
+
+“I am going to send for another detective,” returned I; and stepping to
+the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr. Gryce.
+
+“The one we saw at the Station?”
+
+I bowed assent.
+
+Her face lost something of its drawn expression. “O I am glad; he will
+do something.”
+
+Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in
+taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention. They
+were not many. The open writing-desk--in which, however I found no
+letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of paper,
+with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the bureau as
+though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her hair (if she
+had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile of work such as
+one would expect to see in a room set apart for sewing, were all I could
+discover. Not much to help us, in case this was to prove an affair of
+importance as I began to suspect.
+
+With Mr. Gryce’s arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape.
+He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant, had
+the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his finger-ends in
+a moment, and was up-stairs and in that room before I, who am called the
+quickest man in the force as you all know, could have time to determine
+just what difference his presence would make to me in a pecuniary way in
+event of Mrs. Daniels’ promises amounting to anything. He did not remain
+there long, but when he came down I saw that his interest was in no wise
+lessened.
+
+“What kind of a looking girl was this?” he asked, hurrying up to Mrs.
+Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all this
+was going on. “Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.; you
+know.”
+
+“I--I--don’t know as I can,” she stammered reluctantly, turning very
+red in the face. “I am a poor one for noticing. I will call one of the
+girls, I--” She was gone before we realized she had not finished her
+sentence.
+
+“Humph!” broke from Mr. Gryce’s lips as he thoughtfully took down a vase
+that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.
+
+I did not venture a word.
+
+When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of
+prepossessing appearance.
+
+“This is Fanny,” said she; “she knows Emily well, being in the habit of
+waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear. I
+have explained to her,” she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with a
+composure such as she had not before displayed; “that you are looking
+for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go into some sort
+of service.”
+
+“Certainly, ma’am,” quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration
+to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the
+cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he
+repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.
+
+The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:
+
+“O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as
+likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the
+spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which
+was the blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for her
+figure--” Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave
+a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.
+
+“Is this description true?” Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs. Daniels,
+though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl’s head which
+was covered with a little cap.
+
+“Sufficiently so,” returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however.
+Then with a sudden display of energy, “Emily’s figure is not what
+you would call plump. I have seen her--” She broke off as if a little
+startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.
+
+“Wait a moment,” interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. “You said the
+girl’s hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?”
+
+“O, yes sir;” replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons on
+her cap.
+
+“Let me see your hair.”
+
+She took off her cap with a smile.
+
+“Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other girls
+I suppose?”
+
+“Two, sir;” returned Mrs. Daniels.
+
+“How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily’s?”
+
+“Yes, sir; about like Fanny’s.”
+
+Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of
+his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.
+
+“We will now proceed to the yard,” said he. But at that moment the door
+of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into the
+hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the house. He
+was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At the sight
+we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots of her gray
+hair.
+
+Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud,
+reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the
+light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his
+face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I
+involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great
+man’s privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.
+
+“Mr. Blake, I believe,” said he, bowing in that deferential way he knows
+so well how to assume.
+
+The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked
+hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce’s bland smile, he returned the bow, but
+haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.
+
+“Allow me to introduce myself,” proceeded my superior. “I am Mr. Gryce
+from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl
+in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a somewhat
+strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man here, to
+see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire into. With many
+apologies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your orders.”
+
+With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and
+detecting Mrs. Daniels, said: “Did you consider the affair so serious as
+that?”
+
+She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.
+
+He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. “I can
+hardly think,” said he, “such extreme measures were necessary; the girl
+will doubtless come back, or if not--” His shoulders gave a slight shrug
+and he took out his gloves.
+
+“The difficulty seems to be,” quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with
+his most intent and concentrated look, “that the girl did not go alone,
+but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had previously
+broken into your house.”
+
+“That is a strange circumstance,” remarked Mr. Blake, but still without
+any appearance of interest, “and if you are sure of what you say,
+demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything in the
+way of justice succoring the injured. But--” again he gave that slight
+shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not indifference.
+
+Mrs. Daniels trembled, and took a step forward. I thought she was
+going to speak, but instead of that she drew back again in her strange
+hesitating way.
+
+Mr. Gryce did not seem to notice.
+
+“Perhaps sir,” said he, “if you will step upstairs with me to the room
+occupied by this girl, I may be able to show you certain evidences which
+will convince you that our errand here is not one of presumption.”
+
+“I am ready to concede that without troubling myself with proof,”
+ observed the master of the house with the faintest show of asperity.
+“Yet if there is anything to see of a startling nature, perhaps I had
+best yield to your wishes. Whereabouts in the house is this girl’s room,
+Mrs. Daniels?”
+
+“It is--I gave her the third story back, Mr. Blake;” replied that woman,
+nervously eyeing his face. “It was large and light for sewing, and she
+was so nice--”
+
+He impatiently waved his hand on which he had by this time fitted his
+glove to a nicety, as if these details were an unnecessary bore to him,
+and motioned her to show the way. Instantly a new feeling appeared to
+seize her, that of alarm.
+
+“I hardly think you need trouble Mr. Blake to go up-stairs,” she
+murmured, turning towards Mr. Gryce. “I am sure when you tell him the
+curtains were torn, and the chair upset, the window open and--”
+
+But Mr. Gryce was already on the stairs with Mr. Blake, whom this small
+opposition seemed to have at once determined.
+
+“O my God!” she murmured to herself, “who could have foreseen this.”
+ And ignoring my presence with all the egotism of extreme agitation, she
+hurried past me to the room above, where I speedily joined her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER
+
+Mr. Blake was standing in the centre of the room when I entered,
+carelessly following with his eyes the motion of Mr. Gryce’s finger as
+that gentleman pointed with unwearying assiduity to the various little
+details that had struck us. His hat was still in his hand, and he
+presented a very formidable and imposing appearance, or so Mrs. Daniels
+appeared to think as she stood watching him from the corner, whither she
+had withdrawn herself.
+
+“A forcible departure you see,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce; “she had not even
+time to gather up her clothes;” and with a sudden movement he stooped
+and pulled out one of the bureau drawers before the eyes of his
+nonchalant listener.
+
+Immediately a smothered exclamation struck our ears, and Mrs. Daniels
+started forward.
+
+“I pray, gentlemen,” she entreated, advancing in such a way as to place
+herself against the front of the bureau in a manner to preclude the
+opening of any more drawers, “that you will remember that a modest woman
+such as this girl was, would hardly like to have her clothing displayed
+before the eyes of strangers.”
+
+Mr. Gryce instantly closed the drawer.
+
+“You are right,” said he; “pardon the rough ways of a somewhat hardened
+officer of the law.”
+
+She drew up closer to the bureau, still protecting it with her meagre
+but energetic form while her eyes rested with almost a savage expression
+upon the master of the house as if he, and not the detective, had been
+the aggressor whose advances she feared.
+
+Mr. Blake did not return the look.
+
+“If that is all you can show me, I think I will proceed to my
+appointment,” said he. “The matter does seem to be more serious than I
+thought, and if you judge it necessary to take any active measures, why,
+let no consideration of my great and inherent dislike to notoriety of
+any kind, interfere with what you consider your duty. As for the house,
+it is at your command, under Mrs. Daniels’ direction. Good morning.” And
+returning our bows with one singularly impressive for all its elegant
+carelessness, he at once withdrew.
+
+Mrs. Daniels took one long deep breath and came from the bureau.
+Instantly Mr. Gryce stooped and pulled out the drawer she had so visibly
+protected. A white towel met our eyes, spread neatly out at its full
+length. Lifting it, we looked beneath. A carefully folded dress of dark
+blue silk, to all appearance elegantly made, confronted our rather
+eager eyes. Beside it, a collar of exquisite lace--I know enough of such
+matters to be a judge--pricked through by a gold breast-pin of a strange
+and unique pattern. A withered bunch of what appeared to have been a
+bouquet of red roses, surmounted the whole, giving to the otherwise
+commonplace collection the appearance of a relic from the tomb.
+
+We both drew back in some amazement, involuntarily glancing up at Mrs.
+Daniels.
+
+“I have no explanation to give,” said that woman, with a calmness
+strangely in contrast to the agitation she had displayed while Mr. Blake
+had remained in the room. “That those things rich as they are, really
+belonged to the girl, I have no doubt. She brought them when she came,
+and they only confirm what I have before intimated: that she was no
+ordinary sewing girl, but a woman who had seen better days.”
+
+With a low “humph!” and another glance at the dark blue dress and
+delicate collar, Mr. Gryce carefully replaced the cloth he had taken
+from them, and softly closed the drawer without either of us having laid
+a finger upon a single article. Five minutes later he disappeared from
+the room.
+
+I did not see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him
+softly issue from Mr. Blake’s private apartment. Meeting me, he smiled,
+and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or not, he had
+come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself some theory
+with which he was more or less satisfied.
+
+“An elegant apartment, that,” whispered he, nodding sideways toward the
+room he had just left, “pity you haven’t time to examine it.”
+
+“Are you sure that I haven’t?” returned I, drawing a step nearer to
+escape the eyes of Mrs. Daniels who had descended after me.
+
+“Quite sure;” and we hastened down together into the yard.
+
+But my curiosity once aroused in this way would not let me rest. Taking
+an opportunity when Mr. Gryce was engaged in banter with the girls
+below, and in this way learning more in a minute of what he wanted to
+know than some men would gather in an hour by that or any other method,
+I stole lightly back and entered this room.
+
+I almost started in my surprise. Instead of the luxurious apartment I
+had prepared myself to behold, a plain, scantily-furnished room opened
+before me, of a nature between a library and a studio. There was not
+even a carpet on the polished floor, only a rug, which strange to say
+was not placed in the centre of the room or even before the fireplace,
+but on one side, and directly in front of a picture that almost at first
+blush had attracted my attention as being the only article in the room
+worth looking at. It was the portrait of a woman, handsome, haughty and
+alluring; a modern beauty, with eyes of fire burning beneath high piled
+locks of jetty blackness, that were only relieved from being too intense
+by the scarlet hood of an opera cloak, that was drawn over them. “A
+sister,” I thought to myself, “it is too modern for his mother,” and I
+took a step nearer to see if I could trace any likeness in the chiselled
+features of this disdainful brunette, to the more characteristic ones
+of the careless gentleman who had stood but a few moments before in my
+presence. As I did so, I was struck with the distance with which
+the picture stood out from the wall, and thought to myself that
+the awkwardness of the framing came near marring the beauty of this
+otherwise lovely work of art. As for the likeness I was in search of, I
+found it or thought I did, in the expression of the eyes which were
+of the same color as Mr. Blake’s but more full and passionate; and
+satisfied that I had exhausted all the picture could tell me, I
+turned to make what other observations I could, when I was startled by
+confronting the agitated countenance of Mrs. Daniels who had entered
+behind me.
+
+“This is Mr. Blake’s room,” said she with dignity; “no one ever intrudes
+here but myself, not even the servants.”
+
+“I beg pardon,” said I, glancing around in vain for the something which
+had awakened that look of satisfaction in Mr. Gryce’s eyes. “I was
+attracted by the beauty of this picture visible through the half open
+door and stepped in to favor myself with a nearer view. It is very
+lovely. A sister of Mr. Blake?”
+
+“No, his cousin;” and she closed the door after us with an emphasis that
+proclaimed she was anything but pleased.
+
+It was my last effort to obtain information on my own account. In a few
+moments later Mr. Gryce appeared from below, and a conversation ensued
+with Mrs. Daniels that absorbed my whole attention.
+
+“You are very anxious, my man here tells me, that this girl should be
+found?” remarked Mr. Gryce; “so much so that you are willing to defray
+all the expenses of a search?”
+
+She bowed. “As far as I am able sir; I have a few hundreds in the
+bank, you are welcome to them. I would not keep a dollar back if I
+had thousands, but I am poor, and can only promise you what I myself
+possess; though--” and her cheeks grew flushed and hot with an unnatural
+agitation--“I believe that thousands would not be lacking if they were
+found necessary. I--I could almost swear you shall have anything in
+reason which you require; only the girl must be found and soon.”
+
+“Have you thought,” proceeded Mr. Gryce, utterly ignoring the wildness
+of these statements, “that the girl may come back herself if let alone?”
+
+“She will come back if she can,” quoth Mrs. Daniels.
+
+“Did she seem so well satisfied with her home as to warrant you in
+saying that?”
+
+“She liked her home, but she loved me,” returned the woman steadily.
+“She loved me so well she would never have gone as she did without being
+forced. Yes,” said she, “though she made no outcry and stopped to put
+on her bonnet and shawl. She was not a girl to make a fuss. If they had
+killed her outright, she would never have uttered a cry.”
+
+“Why do you say they?”
+
+“Because I am confident I heard more than one man’s voice in her room.”
+
+“Humph! Would you know those voices if you heard them again?”
+
+“No.”
+
+There was a surprise in this last negative which Mr. Gryce evidently
+noticed.
+
+“I ask,” said he, “because I have been told that Mr. Blake lately kept a
+body servant who has been seen to look at this girl more than once, when
+she has passed him on the stairs.”
+
+Mrs. Daniels’ face turned scarlet with rage and she hastily rose from
+the chair. “I don’t believe it,” said she; “Henry was a man who knew his
+place, and--I won’t hear such things,” she suddenly exclaimed; “Emily
+was--was a lady, and--”
+
+“Well, well,” interposed Mr. Gryce soothingly, “though the cat looks at
+the king, it is no sign the king looks at the cat. We have to think of
+everything you know.”
+
+“You must never think of anything like that.”
+
+Mr. Gryce softly ran his thumb around the brim of the hat he held in his
+hand. “Mrs. Daniels,” observed he, “it would greatly facilitate matters
+if you would kindly tell us why you take such an interest in this girl.
+One glimpse at her real history would do more towards setting us on the
+right track than anything else you could offer.”
+
+Her face assumed an unmistakable frown. “Have I not told you,” said she,
+“what is known of it? That she came to me about two years ago for work;
+that I liked her, and so hired her; that she has been with us ever since
+and--”
+
+“Then you will not tell us?” exclaimed Mr. Gryce.
+
+Her face fell and a look of hesitation crossed it.
+
+“I doubt if we can do anything unless you do,” continued he.
+
+Her countenance settled again into a resolved expression.
+
+“You are mistaken,” said she; “if the girl had a secret--as nearly all
+girls have, brought low as she has evidently been--it had nothing to do
+with her disappearance, nor would a knowledge of it help you in any way.
+I am confident of this and so shall hold my peace.”
+
+She was not a woman to be frightened or cajoled into making revelations
+she did not think necessary, and seeing it, Mr. Gryce refrained from
+urging her further.
+
+“However, you will at least tell me this,” said he, “what were the
+knick-knacks she took away with her from her bureau drawer?”
+
+“No,” said she, “for they have nothing to do with her abduction. They
+were articles of positive value to her, though I assure you of little
+importance to any one else. All that is shown by their disappearance is
+the fact that she had a moment’s time allowed her in which to collect
+what she most wanted.”
+
+Mr. Gryce arose. “Well,” said he, “you have given us a hard sum to
+work out, but I am not the man to recoil from anything hard. If I can
+discover the whereabouts of this girl I will certainly do it, but you
+must help me.”
+
+“I, how?”
+
+“By inserting a personal in the Herald. You say she loves you; and would
+come back if she could. Now whether you believe it or not this is open
+to doubt; therefore I would advise that you take some such means as
+that to inform her of the anxiety of her friends and their desire to
+communicate with her.”
+
+“Impossible,” she cried vehemently. “I should be afraid--”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I might put it that Mrs. D----, anxious about Emily, desires
+information of her whereabouts--”
+
+“Put it any way you like.”
+
+“You had better add,” said I, speaking for the first time, “that you
+would be willing to pay for information.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Gryce, “add that.”
+
+Mrs. Daniels frowned, but made no objection, and after getting as minute
+a description as possible of the clothing worn by the girl the night
+before, we left the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON’S STORY
+
+
+“An affair of some mystery,” remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at the
+corner to take a final look at the house and its environs. “Why a girl
+should choose such a method of descent as that,”--and he pointed to the
+ladder down which we believed her to have come--“to leave a house of
+which she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can tell you. If
+it were not for those marks of blood which betray her track, I would
+be disinclined to believe any such hare-brained adventure was ever
+perpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would’nt I give for her
+photograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin figure! what a
+description whereby to find a girl in this great city of New York.
+Ah!” said he with sudden gratification, “here is Mr. Blake again; his
+appointment must have been a failure. Let us see if his description will
+be any more definite.” And hurrying towards the advancing figure of that
+gentleman, he put some questions to him.
+
+Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then
+replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear:
+
+“I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but I
+have not the remotest idea how the girl looked. I did not know till
+this morning even, that there was such a person in my house as a
+sewing-woman. I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs.
+Daniels.”
+
+Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question. The answer came
+as before, distinctly to my ears.
+
+“O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often run
+across the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short, light
+or dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir.” Then with
+a dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce’s position,
+inquired,
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.
+
+Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteously
+remarked,
+
+“I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me. Henry
+was an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which I
+never allow in any one who approaches me. I dismissed him and that was
+the end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him.”
+
+Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty step
+peculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.
+
+“I should not like to get into that man’s clutches,” said I, as my
+superior rejoined me; “he has a way of making one appear so small.”
+
+Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following him
+along the pavement. “Yet it may happen that you will have to run the
+risk of that very experience.”
+
+I glanced towards him in amazement.
+
+“If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not succeed
+in getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to place you
+where you can study into the ways of this gentleman’s household. If the
+affair is a mystery, it has its centre in that house.”
+
+I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly. “You have come across
+something which I have missed,” observed I, “or you could not speak so
+positively.”
+
+“I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body who
+had eyes to see it,” he returned shortly.
+
+I shook my head slightly mortified.
+
+“You had it all before you,” continued he, “and if you were not able
+to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn’t
+blame me for it.”
+
+More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with
+him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to
+reestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over.
+Accordingly hunting up the man who had patrolled the district the night
+before, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side gate
+of Mr. Blake’s house on ----- street, between the hours of eleven and
+one.
+
+“No,” said he, “but I heard Thompson tell a curious story this morning
+about some one he had seen.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“He said he was passing that way last night about twelve o’clock when he
+remarked standing under the lamp on the corner of Second Avenue, a group
+consisting of two men and a woman, who no sooner beheld him than they
+separated, the men drawing back into Second Avenue and the woman coming
+hastily towards him. Not understanding the move, he stood waiting her
+approach, when instead of advancing to where he was, she paused at the
+gate of Mr. Blake’s house and lifted her hand as if to open it, when
+with a wild and terrified gesture she started back, covering her
+face with her hands, and before he knew it, had actually fled in the
+direction from which she had come. A little startled, Thompson advanced
+and looked through the gate before him to see if possible what had
+alarmed her, when to his great surprise, he beheld the pale face of the
+master of the house, Mr. Blake himself, looking through the bars from
+the other side of the gate. He in his turn started back and before he
+could recover himself, Mr. Blake had disappeared. He says he tried the
+gate after that, but found it locked.”
+
+“Thompson tells you this story, does he?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “it’s a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have
+got to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing
+it around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are
+concerned.” And I departed to hunt up Thompson.
+
+But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl
+appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a shawl.
+My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety into the
+private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and discovered--well, such
+facts as these:
+
+That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to domestic
+affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except upon occasions
+of great political importance, when he was always to be found on
+the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the ordinary
+observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks, fine position,
+and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only manifested a distaste
+for it, but even went so far as to refuse to participate in the social
+dinners of his most intimate friends; the only table to which he would
+sit down being that of some public caterer, where he was sure of finding
+none but his political associates assembled.
+
+To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by
+the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place of
+amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a
+man, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, and
+marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was
+if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their
+eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some marked
+peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would never treat a
+man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare to him, nor would
+he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in that divine poet
+beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr. Blake’s uncle hated
+all members of the legal profession, and as for his grandfather--but you
+have heard what a mania of dislike he had against that simple article of
+diet, fish; how his friends were obliged to omit it from their bills of
+fare whenever they expected him to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose
+to have any pet antipathy--as for women for instance--he surely
+had precedent enough in his own family to back him. However, it was
+whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a former political colleague of
+his who had been with him in Washington, that he was known at one time
+to show considerable attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of
+his who has since made such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and
+straightway losing by death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble,
+the Count De Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about,
+Madame the Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all
+appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.
+
+Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake’s private apartment, I
+asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the
+most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon something
+in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with my
+information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I would
+have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth lying at
+the bottom of this well.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A NEW YORK BELLE
+
+
+Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate or
+whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile. Even
+the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no effect; and
+frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the accounts of that
+same Mrs. Daniels’ strange and unaccountable behavior during these days
+of suspense, which came to me through Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at
+Mr. Blake’s, whose acquaintance I had lately taken to cultivating,)
+aroused once more my dormant energies and led me to ask myself if the
+affair was quite as hopeless as it seemed.
+
+“If she was a ghost,” was her final expression on the subject, “she
+could’nt go peramberlating this house more than she does. It seems as if
+she could’nt keep still a minute. Upstairs and down, upstairs and down,
+till we’re most wild. And so white as she is and so trembling! Why her
+hands shake so all the time she never dares lift a dish off the table.
+And then the way she hangs about Mr. Blake’s door when he’s at home!
+She never goes in, that’s the oddest part of it, but walks up and down
+before it, wringing her hands and talking to herself just like a mad
+woman. Why, I have seen her almost put her hand on the knob twice in
+an afternoon perhaps, then draw back as if she was afraid it would burn
+her; and if by any chance the door opened and Mr. Blake came out, you
+ought to have seen how she run. What it all means I don’t know, but I
+have my imaginings, and if she is’nt crazy, why--” etc., etc.
+
+In face of facts like these I felt it would be pure insanity to despair.
+Let there be but a mystery, though it involved a man of the position of
+Mr. Blake and I was safe. My only apprehension had been that the whole
+affair would dissolve itself into an ordinary elopement or some such
+common-place matter.
+
+When, therefore, a few minutes later, Fanny announced that Mr. Blake
+had ordered a carriage to take him to the Charity Ball that evening,
+I determined to follow him and learn if possible what change had
+taken place in himself or his circumstances, to lead him into such an
+innovation upon his usual habits. Though the hour was late I had but
+little difficulty in carrying out my plan, arriving at the Academy
+something less than an hour after the opening dance.
+
+The crowd was great and I circulated the floor three times before I came
+upon him. When I did, I own I was slightly disappointed; for instead of
+finding him as I anticipated, the centre of an admiring circle of ladies
+and gentlemen, I espied him withdrawn into a corner with a bland old
+politician of the Fifteenth Ward, discussing, as I presently overheard,
+the merits and demerits of a certain Smith who at that time was making
+some disturbance in the party.
+
+“If that is all he has come for,” thought I, “I had better have stayed
+at home and made love to the pretty Fanny.” And somewhat chagrined, I
+took up my stand near by, and began scrutinizing the ladies.
+
+Suddenly I felt my heart stand still, the noise of voices ceasing
+the same instant behind me. A lady was passing on the arm of a
+foreign-looking gentleman, whom it did not require a second glance to
+identify with the subject of the portrait in Mr. Blake’s house. Older by
+some few years than when her picture was painted, her beauty had assumed
+a certain defiant expression that sufficiently betrayed the fact that
+the years had not been so wholly happy as she had probably anticipated
+when she jilted handsome Holman Blake for the old French Count. At all
+events so I interpreted the look of latent scorn that burned in her dark
+eyes, as she slowly turned her richly bejeweled head towards the corner
+where that gentleman stood, and meeting his eyes no doubt, bowed with a
+sudden loss of self-possession that not all the haughty carriage of
+her noble form, held doubly erect for the next few moments, could quite
+conceal or make forgotten.
+
+“She still loves him,” I inwardly commented and turned to see if the
+surprise had awakened any expression on his uncommunicative countenance.
+
+Evidently not, for the tough old politician of the Fifteenth Ward was
+laughing, at one of his own jokes probably, and looking up in the
+face of Mr. Blake, whose back was turned to me, in a way that entirely
+precluded all thought of any tragic expression in that quarter. Somewhat
+disgusted, I withdrew and followed the lady.
+
+I could not get very near. By this time the presence of a live countess
+in the assembly had become known, and I found her surrounded by a swarm
+of half-fledged youths. But I cared little for this; all I wanted to
+know was whether Mr. Blake would approach her or not during the evening.
+Tediously the moments passed; but a detective on duty, or on fancied
+duty, succumbs to no weariness. I had a woman before me worth studying
+and the time could not be thrown away. I learned to know her beauty;
+the poise of her head, the flush of her cheek, the curl of her lip, the
+glance--yes, the glance of her eye, though that was more difficult to
+understand, for she had a way of drooping her lids at times that, while
+exceedingly effective upon the poor wretch toward whom she might be
+directing that half-veiled shaft of light, was anything but conducive to
+my purposes.
+
+At length with a restless shrug of her haughty shoulders she turned away
+from her crowd of adorers, her breast heaving under its robing of garnet
+velvet, and her whole face flaring with a light that might mean resolve
+and might mean simply love. I had no need to turn my head to see who was
+advancing towards her; her stately attitude as countess, her thrilling
+glance as woman, betrayed only too readily.
+
+He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few
+words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the usual
+common-place sentiments of the occasion.
+
+She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen even
+in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and shutting
+her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, “I know all this has to
+be gone through with, therefore I will be patient.” But as the moments
+passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could detect a slight gleam
+of impatience flash in the depths of her dark eyes, and a change
+come into the conventional smile that had hitherto lighted, without
+illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further back from the crowd
+that was not to be awed from pressing upon her, she looked around as if
+seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a certain window, with a gleam
+of satisfaction. Seeing they would straightway withdraw there, I took
+advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a
+curtain as near that vicinity as possible. In another instant I heard
+them approaching.
+
+“You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention to-night,” were the
+first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake’s calmest and most courteous
+tones.
+
+“Do you think so?” was the slightly sarcastic reply. “I was just
+deciding to the contrary when you came up.”
+
+There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the
+curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her
+intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked
+than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its midnight
+tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord, burned with
+a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her partly veiled
+eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet lips trembling
+with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not allow her to
+conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole elegant form with
+its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace and diamonds, and
+an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if I already beheld the
+mask of his reserve falling, and the true man flash out in response to
+the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose, evidently in waiting for him.
+But it died away and a deeper feeling seized me as I saw his glances
+return unkindled to her countenance, and heard him say in still more
+measured accents than before:
+
+“Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the adulation
+of us poor American plebeians? I had not thought it, madame.”
+
+Slowly her dark eyes turned towards him; she stood a statue.
+
+“But I forget,” he went on, a tinge of bitterness for a moment showing
+itself in his smile: “perhaps in returning to her own country, Evelyn
+Blake has so far forgotten the last two years as to find pleasure again
+in the toys and foibles of her youth. Such things have been, I hear.”
+ And he bowed almost to the ground in his half sarcastic homage.
+
+“Evelyn Blake! It is long since I have heard that name,” she murmured.
+
+He could not restrain the quick flush from mounting to his brow. “Pardon
+me,” said he, “if it brings you sadness or unwelcome memories. I promise
+you I will not so transgress again.”
+
+A wan smile crossed her lips grown suddenly pallid.
+
+“You mistake,” said she; “if my name brings up a past laden with bitter
+memories and shadowed by regret, it also recalls much that is pleasant
+and never to be forgotten. I do not object to hearing my girlhood’s name
+uttered--by my nearest relative.”
+
+The answer was dignity itself. “Your name is Countess De Mirac, your
+relatives must be proud to utter it.”
+
+A gleam not unlike the lightning’s quick flash shot from the eyes she
+drooped before him.
+
+“Is it Holman Blake I am listening to,” said she; “I do not recognize my
+old friend in the cool and sarcastic man of the world now before me.”
+
+“We often fail to recognize the work of our hands, madame, after it has
+fallen from our grasp.”
+
+“What,” she cried, “do you mean--would you say that--”
+
+“I would say nothing,” interrupted he calmly, stooping for the fan she
+had dropped. “At an interview which is at once a meeting and a parting,
+I would give utterance to nothing which would seem like recrimination.
+I--”
+
+“Wait,” suddenly exclaimed she, reaching out her hand for her fan with a
+gesture lofty as it was resolute. “You have spoken a word which demands
+explanation; what have I ever done to you that you should speak the word
+recrimination to me?”
+
+“What? You shook my faith in womankind; you showed me that a woman who
+had once told a man she loved him, could so far forget that love as to
+marry one she could never respect, for the sake of titles and jewels.
+You showed me--”
+
+“Hold,” said she again, this time without gesture or any movement, save
+that of her lips grown pallid as marble, “and what did you show me?”
+
+He started, colored profoundly, and for a moment stood before her
+unmasked of his stern self-possession. “I beg your pardon,” said he, “I
+take back that word, recrimination.”
+
+It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less
+cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head
+bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern brow
+to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have
+set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance.
+“Holman,” said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, “if in the times
+gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to be
+any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any reason
+why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon what we are
+surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I acknowledge that
+I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if, after I had been
+forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society, and let the
+canker-worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and bloom I had
+left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did the prospect
+of wealth and position, however hollow they may have proved; you who
+are the master of both this day, because twelve months ago you forsook
+Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach me with them. I do not
+reproach you; I only say let the past be forgotten--”
+
+“Impossible,” exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an expression
+I could not fathom. “What was done at that time cannot be undone. For
+you and me there is no future. Yes,” he said turning towards her as she
+made a slight fluttering move of dissent, “no future; we can bury the
+past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if you would wish to if we
+could; as we cannot, of course you will not desire even to converse upon
+the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to see you once, but I do not wish to
+see you again; will you pardon my plain speaking, and release me?”
+
+“I will pardon your plain speaking, but--” Her look said she would not
+release him.
+
+He seemed to understand it so, and smiled, but very bitterly. In another
+moment he had bowed and gone, and she had returned to her crowd of
+adoring sycophants.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO
+
+
+It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of
+lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake.
+My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from
+its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the gentleman
+whose movements were daily becoming of more and more interest to me.
+For set it down to caprice--and men are often as capricious as women--or
+account for it as you will, his restlessness at this period was truly
+remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend his time in walking the
+streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but
+eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird
+seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o’clock before he
+came in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to
+dinner, he was even known to start out again after seven o’clock and go
+over the same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that
+vainly endeavored to appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women
+that he passed. I not unfrequently followed him at these times as much
+for my own amusement as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that
+should aid me in the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his
+route of travel from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of
+Broadway and Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the
+dark, narrow streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey
+might be that he was seeking, and putting every other consideration
+aside, regularly set myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my
+innumerable disguises, knew how to do. For three separate days I kept at
+his heels wherever he went, each day growing more and more astonished
+if not to say hopeful, as I found myself treading the narrowest and most
+disreputable streets of the city; halting at the shops of pawnbrokers;
+peering into the back-rooms of liquor shops; mixing with the crowds that
+infest the corner groceries at nightfall, and even slinking with hand on
+the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket, up dark alleys where
+every door that swung noiselessly to and fro as we passed, shut upon
+haunts of such villainy as only is known to us of the police, or to
+those good souls that for the sake of One whose example they follow, lay
+aside their fears and sensitiveness to carry light into the dim pits of
+this wretched world. At first I thought Mr. Blake might have some such
+reason for the peculiar course he took. But his indifference to all
+crowds where only men were collected, his silence where a word would
+have been well received, convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and
+that with an intentness which blinded him to the commonest needs of the
+hour. I even saw him once in his hurry and abstraction, step across the
+body of a child who had fallen face downward on the stones, and that
+with an expression showing he was utterly unconscious of anything but an
+obstacle in his path. The strangest part of it all was that he seemed to
+have no fear. To be sure he took pains to leave his watch at home; but
+with such a figure and carriage as he possessed, the absence of jewelry
+could never deceive the eye for a moment as to the fact of his being
+a man of wealth, and those he went among would do anything for money.
+Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol. At all events he shunned no spot
+where either poverty lay hid or deviltry reigned, his proud stern head
+bending to enter the lowest doors without a tremble of the haughty lips
+that remained compressed as by an iron force; except when some poor
+forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and tremulous hands,
+attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against him, when he would
+turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said I always failed to
+catch; after which he would hurry on as if possessed by seven devils.
+The evenings of those three days were notable also. Two of them he
+spent in the manner I have described; the third he went to the Windsor
+House--where the Countess De Mirac had taken rooms--going up to the
+ladies’ entrance and actually ringing the bell, only to start back and
+walk up and down on the opposite side of the way, with his hands behind
+his back, and his head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he
+should or should not carry out his original intention of entering. The
+arrival of a carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations,
+who from her elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or
+private reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened
+to admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with
+its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her maize
+colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of anger or
+distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door upon her, turn
+toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.
+
+The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go with
+him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my window
+from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I supposed
+upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a long,
+dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses of Mrs.
+Daniels’ troubled face as she appeared at one window or another of
+the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to be unusually
+restless, opening the windows and looking out with forlorn cranings of
+her neck as if she too were watching for her master. Indeed I have
+no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that she was in a state of
+constant suspense during these days. Her frequent appearance at the
+station house, where she in vain sought for some news of the girl in
+whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed this. Only the day before I
+gave myself up to my unreserved espionage of Mr. Blake, she had had an
+interview with Mr. Gryce in which she had let fall her apprehensions
+that the girl was dead, and asked whether if that were the case, the
+police would be likely to come into a knowledge of the fact. Upon being
+assured that if she had not been privately made way with, there was
+every chance in their favor, she had grown a little calmer, but before
+going away had so far forgotten herself as to intimate that if some
+result was not reached before another fortnight had elapsed, she should
+take the matter into her own hands and--She did not say what she would
+do, but her looks were of a very menacing character. It was no wonder,
+then, that her countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she
+trod the halls of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich
+with bronzes and the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing
+suggestions of loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze
+from the windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever
+delayed. She happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than
+usual the master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the
+corner, I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind
+the curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and
+somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house.
+Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and
+with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety on
+her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next day
+I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out this
+mystery, if mystery it was,--I still found myself forced to admit the
+possibility of there being none--had now become the one ambition of my
+life; and all because it was not only an unusually blind one, but of a
+nature that involved danger to my position as detective, I entered upon
+it with a zest rare even to me who love my work and all it involves with
+an undivided passion.
+
+To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake shortly
+after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship to me that
+bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience, a long and
+wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all probability at the
+end but reiterated disappointment. But for once the fates had willed
+it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at the failure of his own
+attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart to prosecute them than
+usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely entered upon the lower end of
+the Bowery, before he suddenly turned with a look of disgust, and
+gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a Madison Avenue car that was rapidly
+approaching. I was at that moment on the other side of the way, but I
+hurried forward too, and signaled the same car. But just as I was on the
+point of entering it I perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with
+his eyes upon a girl that was hurrying past him with a basket on her
+arm, regain the sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop
+her. Of course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him
+too closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But
+from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the girl,
+who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of any one
+of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners
+within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments,
+saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this
+sight of the consequences which might follow his detection of the part
+I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by
+observing him hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with
+intention as it were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an
+instant the probable good to be obtained by following either party,
+I determined to leave Mr. Blake for one day to himself, and turn my
+attention to the girl he had addressed, especially as she was tall and
+thin and bore herself with something like grace.
+
+Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain
+attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown
+five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now
+flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her dress
+to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged and
+uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen, clad
+in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat trimmed with
+feathers, I could easily understand; but that this creature with her
+faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly over her head, and
+ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a riddle to me. I
+hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of her countenance if
+possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to her feet since her
+interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of hooting urchins that
+were rushing from Centre Street after a broken wagon and runaway horse,
+she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I soon saw that my only hope
+of overtaking her lay in running. I accordingly quickened my steps when
+those same hooting youngsters getting in the way of my feet, I tripped
+up and--well, I own I retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so,
+however. Just as I was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing
+away from a box of garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having
+been restored, by which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble
+servant had regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had
+effectually disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding
+hanging to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old
+calico frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment
+before. Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day’s
+work, I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till--But
+with all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.
+
+When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved in
+a matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me from
+further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning Mr.
+Blake did not start out as usual, and at noon I received intimation
+from Fanny that he was preparing to take a journey. Where, she could
+not inform me, nor when, though she thought it probable he would take an
+early train. Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she informed me; and
+the house was like a grave. Greatly excited at this unexpected move on
+Mr. Blake’s part, I went home and packed my valise with something of the
+spirit of her who once said, under somewhat different circumstances I
+allow, “Whither thou goest I will go.”
+
+The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that
+my professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still
+rankled, and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success.
+Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson
+River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town
+in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce
+young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some strange
+coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem
+in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the
+ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr. Blake had no
+appearance of being a suspicious man, nor do I think at this time,
+he had the remotest idea that he was either watched or followed; an
+ignorance of the truth which I took care to preserve by taking my seat
+in a different car from him and not showing myself again during the
+whole ride from New York to Putney.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS
+
+
+Why Mr. Blake should take a journey at all at this time, and why of
+all places in the world he should choose such an insignificant town
+as Putney for his destination, was of course the mystery upon which I
+brooded during the entire distance. But when somewhere near five in the
+afternoon I stepped from the cars on to the platform at Putney Station
+only to hear Mr. Blake making inquiries in regard to a certain stage
+running between that town and a still smaller village further east, I
+own I was not only surprised but well-nigh nonplussed. Especially as
+he seemed greatly disappointed to hear that it only ran once a day, and
+then for an earlier train in the morning.
+
+“You will have to wait till to-morrow I fear,” said the ticket agent,
+“unless the landlord of the hotel down yonder, can harness you up a
+team. There is a funeral out west to-day and--”
+
+I did not wait to hear more but hurried down to the hotel he had pointed
+out, and hunting up the landlord inquired if for love or money he could
+get me any sort of a conveyance for Melville that afternoon. He assured
+me it would be impossible, the livery stable as well as his own being
+entirely empty.
+
+“Such a thing don’t happen here once in five years,” said he to me. “But
+the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted personage in
+these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could find a horse, mule
+or donkey, but what availed himself of the privilege. Even the doctor’s
+spavined mare was pressed into service, though she halts on one leg and
+stops to get her breath half a dozen times in going up one short hill.
+You will have to wait for the stage, sir.”
+
+“But I am in a hurry,” said I as I saw Mr. Blake enter. “I have business
+in Melville tonight, and I would pay anything in reason to get there.”
+
+But the landlord only shook his head; and drawing back with the air of
+an abused man, I took up my stand in the doorway where I could hear the
+same colloquy entered into with Mr. Blake, with the same unsatisfactory
+termination. He did not take it quite as calmly as I did, though he
+was of too reserved a nature to display much emotion over anything.
+The prospect of a long tedious evening spent in a country hotel seemed
+almost unendurable to him, but he finally succumbed to the force of
+circumstances, as indeed he seemed obliged to do, and partaking of such
+refreshment as the rather poorly managed hotel afforded, retired without
+ceremony to his room, from which he did not emerge again till next
+morning. In all this he had somehow managed not to give his name; and by
+means of some inquiries I succeeded in making that evening, I found his
+person was unknown in the town.
+
+By a little management I secured the next room to his, by which
+arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake spending
+most of the wee sma’ hours in pacing the floor of his room, with an
+unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect upon my
+nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting on the back
+seat, and I in front with the driver. There were other passengers, but
+I noticed he never spoke to any of them, nor through all the long drive
+did he once look up from the corner where he had ensconced himself. It
+was twelve o’clock when we reached the end of the route, a small town
+of somewhat less than the usual pretensions of mountain villages; so
+insignificant indeed, that I found it more and more difficult to imagine
+what the wealthy ex-Congressman could find in such a spot as this, to
+make amends for a journey of such length and discomfort; when to my
+increasing wonder I heard him give orders for a horse to be saddled and
+brought round to the inn door directly after dinner. This was a move I
+had not expected and it threw me a little aback, for although I had thus
+far managed to hold myself so aloof from Mr. Blake, even while keeping
+him under my eye, that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had
+as yet been awakened, how could I thus for the third time follow his
+order with one precisely similar, without attracting an attention that
+would be fatal to my plans. Yet to let him ride off alone now, would be
+to drop the trail at the very moment the scent became of importance.
+
+The landlord, a bustling, wiry little man all nervousness and questions,
+unwittingly helped me at this crisis.
+
+“Are you going on to Perry, sir?” inquired he of that gentleman, “I have
+been expecting a man along these three days bound for Perry.”
+
+“I am that man,” I broke in, stepping forward with some appearance of
+asperity, “and I hope you won’t keep me waiting. A horse as soon as
+dinner is over, do you hear? I am two days late now, and won’t stand any
+nonsense.”
+
+And to escape the questions sure to follow, I strode into the
+dining-room with a half-fierce, half-sullen countenance, that
+effectually precluded all advances. During the meal I saw Mr. Blake’s
+eye roam more than once towards my face; but I did not return his gaze,
+or notice him in any way; hurrying through my dinner, and mounting the
+first horse brought around, as if time were my only consideration. But
+once on the road I took the first opportunity to draw rein and wait,
+suddenly remembering that I had not heard Mr. Blake give any intimation
+of the direction he intended taking. A few minutes revealed to me his
+elegant form well mounted and showing to perfection in his closely
+buttoned coat, slowly approaching up the road. Taking advantage of
+a rise in the ground, I lingered till he was almost upon me, when I
+cantered quickly on, fearing to arouse his apprehensions if I allowed
+him to pass me on a road so solitary as that which now stretched out
+before us: a move provocative of much embarassment to me, as I dared not
+turn my head for the same reason, anxious as I was to keep him in sight.
+
+The roads dividing before me, at length gave me my first opportunity
+to pause and look back. He was some fifty paces behind. Waiting till he
+came up, I bowed with the surly courtesy I thought in keeping with the
+character I had assumed, and asked if he knew which road led towards
+Perry, saying I had come off in such haste I had forgotten to inquire my
+way. He returned my bow, pointed towards the left hand road and saying,
+“I know this does not,” calmly took it.
+
+Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to
+follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances
+would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by
+pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I
+would return and follow him swiftly upon the left. Accordingly I reined
+my horse to the right, and for some fifteen minutes galloped slowly
+away towards the north; but another fifteen saw me facing the west, and
+riding with a force and fury of which I had not thought the old mare
+they had given me capable, till I put her to the test. It was not long
+before I saw my fine gentleman trotting in front of me up a long but
+gentle slope that rose in the distance; and slackening my own rein, I
+withdrew into the forest at the side of the road, till he had passed its
+summit and disappeared, when I again galloped forward.
+
+And thus we went on for an hour, over the most uneven country I ever
+traversed, he always one hill ahead; when suddenly, by what instinct I
+cannot determine, I felt myself approaching the end, and hastening to
+the top of the ascent up which I was then laboring, looked down into the
+shallow valley spread out before me.
+
+What a sight met my eyes if I had been intent on anything less practical
+than the movements of the solitary horseman below! Hills on hills piled
+about a verdant basin in whose depths nestled a scanty collection of
+houses, in number so small they could be told upon the fingers of the
+right hand, but which notwithstanding lent an indescribable aspect of
+comfort to this remote region of hill and forest.
+
+But the vision of Mr. Blake pausing half way down the slope before me,
+examining, yes examining a pistol which he held in his hand, soon put
+an end to all ideas of romance. Somewhat alarmed I reined back; but his
+action had evidently no connection with me, for he did not once glance
+behind him, but kept his eye on the road which I now observed took a
+short turn towards a house of so weird and ominous an appearance that I
+scarcely marvelled at his precaution.
+
+Situated on a level track of land at the crossing of three roads, its
+spacious front, rude and unpainted as it was, presented every appearance
+of an inn, but from its moss-grown chimneys no smoke arose, nor could
+I detect any sign of life in its shutterless windows and closed doors,
+across which shivered the dark shadow of the one gaunt and aged pine,
+that stood like a guard beside its tumbled-down porch.
+
+Mr. Blake seemed to have been struck by the same fact concerning its
+loneliness, for hurriedly replacing his pistol in his breast pocket, he
+rode slowly forward. I instantly conceived the plan of striking across
+the belt of underbrush that separated me from this old dwelling, and by
+taking my stand opposite its front, intercept a view of Mr. Blake as
+he approached. Hastily dismounting, therefore, I led my horse into the
+bushes and tied her to a tree, proceeding to carry out my plan on foot.
+I was so far successful as to arrive at the further edge of the wood,
+which was thick enough to conceal my presence without being too dense to
+obstruct my vision, just as Mr. Blake passed on his way to this solitary
+dwelling. He was looking very anxious, but determined. Turning my eyes
+from him, I took another glance at the house, which by this movement I
+had brought directly before me. It was even more deserted-looking than
+I had thought; its unpainted front with its double row of blank windows
+meeting your gaze without a response, while the huge old pine with half
+its limbs dismantled of foliage, rattled its old bones against its sides
+and moaned in its aged fashion like the solitary retainer of a dead
+race.
+
+I own I felt the cold shivers creep down my back as that creaking sound
+struck my ears, though as the day was chill with an east wind I dare say
+it was more the effect of my sudden cessation from exercise, than of
+any superstitious awe I felt. Mr. Blake seemed to labor under no such
+impressions. Riding up to the front door he knocked without dismounting,
+on its dismal panels with his riding whip. No response was heard.
+Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch: the door was locked.
+Hastily running his eye over the face of the building, he drew rein and
+proceeded to ride around the house, which he could easily do owing
+to the absence of every obstruction in the way of fence or shrubbery.
+Finding no means of entrance he returned again to the front door which
+he shook with an impatient hand that however produced no impression
+upon the trusty lock, and recognizing, doubtless, the futility of his
+endeavors, he drew back, and merely pausing to give one other look at
+its deserted front, turned his horse’s head, and to my great amazement,
+proceeded with sombre mien and clouded brow to retake the road to
+Melville.
+
+This old inn or decayed homestead was then the object of his lengthened
+and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among the bleak
+hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had been tending
+for these past two days. I could not understand it. Rapidly emerging
+from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my turn made a circuit
+of the house, if happily I should discover some loophole of entrance
+which had escaped his attention. But every door and window was securely
+barred, and I was about to follow his example and leave the spot, when
+I saw two or three children advancing towards me down the cross roads,
+gaily swinging their school books. I noticed they hesitated and huddled
+together as they approached and saw me, but not heeding this, I accosted
+them with a pleasant word or so, then pointing over my shoulder to the
+house behind, asked who lived there. Instantly their already pale faces
+grew paler.
+
+“Why,” cried one, a boy, “don’t you know? That is where the two wicked
+men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank. They were put in
+prison, but they got away and--”
+
+Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such
+affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick stare
+out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took to his
+heels. As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my astonishment.
+This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious Schoenmakers
+after whom half of the detectives of the country were searching? I could
+scarcely credit my own ears. True I now remembered they had come from
+these parts, still--
+
+Turning round I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me!
+What a murderous aspect it wore, and how dismally secret were the tight
+shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude cross
+scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious significance. Even
+the old pine had acquired the villainous air of the uncanny repositor of
+secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned and murmured to itself in
+the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul wrong seemed written all over
+the fearful place, from the long strings of black moss that clung to
+the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn stone with its great blotch of
+something,--could it have been blood?--that served as a threshold to
+the door. Suddenly with the quickness of lightning the thought flashed
+across me, what could Mr. Blake, the aristocratic representative of New
+York’s oldest family, have wanted in this nest of infamy? What errand
+of hope, fear, despair, avarice or revenge, could have brought this
+superior gentleman with his refined tastes and proudly reticent manners,
+so many miles from home, to the forsaken den of a brace of hardy
+villains whose name for two years now, had stood as the type of all that
+was bold, bad and lawless, and for whom during the last six weeks the
+prison had yawned, and the gallows hungered. Contemplation brought
+no reply, and shocked at my own thoughts, I put the question by for
+steadier brains than mine; and instead of trying further to solve it,
+cast about how I was to gain entrance into this deserted building; for
+to enter it I was more than ever determined, now that I had heard to
+whom it had once belonged.
+
+Examining with a glance the several roads that branched off in every
+direction from where I stood, I found them all equally deserted. Even
+the school children had disappeared in some one of the four or five
+houses scattered in the remote distance.
+
+If I was willing to enter upon any daring exploit, there was no one to
+observe or interrupt. I resolved to make the attempt with which my mind
+was full. This was to climb the old tree, and from one of the two or
+three branches that brushed against the house, gain entrance at an
+open garret window that stared at me from amid the pine’s dark needles.
+Taking off my coat with a sigh over the immaculate condition of my new
+cassimere trousers, I bent my energies to the task. A difficult one you
+will say for a city lad, but thanks to fortune I was not brought up in
+New York, and know how to climb trees with the best. With little more
+than a scratch or so, I reached the window of which I have spoken,
+and after a moment spent in regaining my breath, gave one spring and
+accomplished my purpose. I alighted upon a heap of broken glass in a
+large bare room. An ominous chill at once struck to my heart. Though
+I am anything but a sensitive man as far as physical impressions are
+concerned, there was something in the hollow echo that arose from the
+four blank walls about me as my feet alighted on that rough, uncarpeted
+floor, that struck a vague chill through my blood, and I actually
+hesitated for the moment whether to pursue the investigations I had
+promised myself, or beat a hasty retreat. A glance at the huge distorted
+limbs swaying across the square of the open window decided me. It
+was easy to enter by means of that unsteady support, but it would be
+extremely unsafe to venture forth in that way. If I prized life and limb
+I must seek some other method of egress. I at once put my apprehensions
+in my pocket and entered upon my self imposed task.
+
+A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty
+garret in which I found myself. Two or three old chairs piled in one
+corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying clothing,
+were all that met my gaze. Taking my way, then, at once to the ladder,
+whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret floor, seemed
+to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I proceeded to descend
+into what to my excited imagination looked like a gulf of darkness. It
+proved, however, to be nothing more nor less than an unlighted hall of
+small dimensions, with a stair-case at one end and a door at the other,
+which, upon opening I found myself in a large, square room whose immense
+four-post bedstead entirely denuded of its usual accompaniments of bed
+and bolster at once struck my eye and for a moment held it enchained.
+There were other articles in the room; a disused bureau, a rocking
+chair, even a table, but nothing had such a ghostly look as that antique
+bedstead with its curtains of calico tied back over its naked framework,
+like rags draped from the bare bones of a skeleton. Passing hurriedly
+by, I tried a closet door or so, finding little, however, to reward my
+search; and eager to be done with what was every moment becoming more
+and more drearisome, I hastened across the floor to the front of the
+house where I found another hall and a row of rooms that, while not
+entirely stripped of furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to
+offer little encouragement to my curiosity. One only, a small but not
+uncomfortable apartment, showed any signs of having been occupied within
+a reasonable length of time; and as I paused before its hastily spread
+bed, thrown together as only a man would do it, and wondering why the
+room was so dark, looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered
+by an old shawl and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed
+across it, I own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I
+expected to see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all
+aglare from one of the dim corners before me. Rushing to the window, I
+tore down with one sweep of my arm both coat and shawl, and with a start
+discovered that the window still possessed its draperies in the shape of
+a pair of discolored and tattered curtains tied with ribbons that must
+once have been brilliant and cheery of color.
+
+Nor was this the only sign in the room of a bygone presence that had
+possessed a taste for something beyond the mere necessities of life.
+On the grim coarsely papered wall hung more than one picture; cut from
+pictorial newspapers to be sure, but each and every one, if I may be
+called a judge of such matters, possessing some quality of expression to
+commend it to a certain order of taste. They were all strong pictures.
+Vivid faces of men and women in daring positions; a hunter holding back
+a jaguar from his throat; a soldier protecting his comrade from the
+stroke; and most striking of all, a woman lissome as she was powerful,
+starting aghast and horror stricken from--what? I could not tell; a
+rough hand had stripped the remainder of the picture from the wall.
+
+A bit of candle and a half sheet of a newspaper lay on the floor. I
+picked up the paper. It was a Rutland Herald and bore the date of two
+days before. As I read I realized what I had done. If these daring
+robbers were not at this very moment in the house, they had been there,
+and that within two or three days. The broken panes of glass in the
+garret above were now explained. I was not the first one who had climbed
+that creaking pine tree this fall.
+
+Something like a sensible dread of a very possible danger now seized
+hold of me. If I had stumbled upon these strangely subtile, yet
+devilishly bold creatures in their secret lair, the pistol I carried was
+not going to save me. Shut in like a fox in a hole, I had little to hope
+for, if they once made their appearance at the stairhead or came upon me
+from any of the dim halls of the crazy old dwelling, which I now began
+to find altogether too large for my comfort. Stealing cautiously forth
+from the room in which I had found so much to disconcert me, I crept
+towards the front staircase and listened. All was deathly quiet. The
+old pine tree moaned and twisted without, and from time to time the wind
+came sweeping down the chimney with an unearthly shrieking sound that
+was weirdly in keeping with the place. But within and below all was
+still as the tomb, and though in no ways reassured, I determined to
+descend and have the suspense over at once. I did so, pistol in hand
+and ears stretched to their utmost to catch the slightest rustle, but no
+sound came to disturb me, nor did I meet on this lower floor the sign of
+any other presence in the house but my own. Passing hastily through what
+appeared to be a sort of rude parlor, I stepped into the kitchen and
+tried one of the windows. Finding I could easily lift it from the
+inside, I drew my breath with ease for the first time since I had
+alighted among the broken glass above, and turning back, deliberately
+opened the door of the kitchen stove, and looked in. As I half expected,
+I found a pile of partly charred rags, showing where the wretches had
+burned their prison clothing, and proceeding further, picked up from
+the ashes a ring which whether or not they were conscious of having
+attempted to destroy in this way I cannot say, but which I thankfully
+put in my pocket against the day it might be required as proof.
+
+Discerning nothing more in that quarter inviting interest, I asked
+myself if I had nerve to descend into the cellar. Finally concluding
+that that was more than could be expected from any man in my position, I
+gave one look of farewell to the damp and desolate walls about me, then
+with a breath of relief jumped from the kitchen window again into the
+light and air of day. As I did so I could swear I heard a door within
+that old house swing on its hinges and softly close. With a thrill I
+recognized the fact that it came from the cellar.
+
+                        *      *      *      *
+
+My thoughts on the road back to Melville were many and conflicting.
+Chief above them all, however, rose the comfortable conclusion that in
+the pursuit of one mysterious affair, I had stumbled, as is often the
+case, upon the clue to another of yet greater importance, and by so
+doing got a start that might yet redound greatly to my advantage. For
+the reward offered for the recapture of the Schoenmakers was large, and
+the possibility of my being the one to put the authorities upon their
+track, certainly appeared after this day’s developements, open at least
+to a very reasonable hope. At all events I determined not to let the
+grass grow under my feet till I had informed the Superintendent of what
+I had seen and heard that day in the old haunt of these two escaped
+convicts.
+
+Arrived at the public house in Melville, and learning that Mr. Blake had
+safely returned there an hour before, I drew the landlord to one side
+and asked what he could tell me about that old house of the two noted
+robbers Schoenmaker, I had passed on my way back among the hills.
+
+“Wa’al now,” replied he, “this is curious. Here I’ve just been answering
+the gentleman up stairs a heap of questions concerning that self same
+old place, and now you come along with another batch of them; just as
+if that rickety old den was the only spot of interest we had in these
+parts.”
+
+“Perhaps that may be the truth,” I laughed. “Just now when the papers
+are full of these rogues, anything concerning them must be of superior
+interest of course.” And I pressed him again to give me a history of the
+house and the two thieves who had inhabited it.
+
+“Wa’al,” drawled he “‘taint much we know about them, yet after all it
+may be a trifle too much for their necks some day. Time was when nobody
+thought especial ill of them beyond a suspicion or so of their being
+somewhat mean about money. That was when they kept an inn there, but
+when the robbery of the Rutland bank was so clearly traced to them,
+more than one man about here started up and said as how they had
+always suspected them Shoenmakers of being villains, and even hinted at
+something worse than robbery. But nothing beyond that one rascality has
+yet been proved against them, and for that they were sent to jail for
+twenty years as you know. Two months ago they escaped, and that is the
+last known of them. A precious set, too, they are; the father being only
+so much the greater rogue than the son as he is years older.”
+
+“And the inn? When was that closed?”
+
+“Just after their arrest.”
+
+“Has’nt it been opened since?”
+
+“Only once when a brace of detectives came up from Troy to investigate,
+as they called it.”
+
+“Who has the key?”
+
+“Ah, that’s more than I can tell you.”
+
+I dared not ask how my questions differed from those of Mr. Blake, nor
+indeed touch upon that point in any way. I was chiefly anxious now
+to return to New York without delay; so paying my bill I thanked the
+landlord, and without waiting for the stage, remounted my horse and
+proceeded at once to Putney where I was fortunate enough to catch the
+evening train. By five o’clock next morning I was in New York where I
+proceeded to carry out my programme by hastening at once to headquarters
+and reporting my suspicions regarding the whereabouts of the
+Schoenmakers. The information was received with interest and I had
+the satisfaction of seeing two men despatched north that very day with
+orders to procure the arrest of the two notable villains wherever found.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A WORD OVERHEARD
+
+
+That evening I had a talk with Fanny over the area gate. She came out
+when she saw me approach, with her eyes staring and her whole form in a
+flutter.
+
+“O,” she cried, “such things as I have heard this day!”
+
+“Well,” said I, “what? let me hear too.” She put her hand on her heart.
+“I never was so frightened,” whispered she, “I thought I should have
+fainted right away. To hear that elegant lady use such a word as
+crime,--”
+
+“What elegant lady?” interrupted I. “Don’t begin in the middle of your
+story, that’s a good girl; I want to hear it all.”
+
+“Well,” said she, calming down a little, “Mrs. Daniels had a visitor
+to-day, a lady. She was dressed--”
+
+“O, now,” interrupted I for the second time, “you can leave that out.
+Tell me what her name was and let the fol-de-rols go.”
+
+“Her name?” exclaimed the girl with some sharpness, “how should I know
+her name; she did’nt come to see me.”
+
+“How did she look then? You saw her I suppose?”
+
+“And was’nt that what I was telling you, when you stopped me. She looked
+like a queen, that she did; as grand a lady as ever I see, in her velvet
+dress sweeping over the floor, and her diamonds as big as--”
+
+“Was she a dark woman?” I asked.
+
+“Her hair was black and so were her eyes, if that is what you mean.”
+
+“And was she very tall and proud looking?”
+
+The girl nodded. “You know her?” whispered she.
+
+“No,” said I, “not exactly; but I think I can tell who she is. And so
+she called to-day on Mrs. Daniels, did she.”
+
+“Yes, but I guess she knew master would be home before she got away.”
+
+“Come,” said I, “tell me all about it; I’m getting impatient.”
+
+“And ain’t I telling you?” said she. “It was about three o’clock this
+afternoon, the time I go up stairs to dress, so I just hangs about in
+the hall a bit, near the parlor door, and I hear her gossiping with Mrs.
+Daniels almost as if she was an old friend, and Mrs. Daniels answering
+her mighty stiffly and as if she was’nt glad to see her at all. But the
+lady didn’t seem to mind, but went on talking as sweet as honey, and
+when they came out, you would have thought she loved the old woman like
+a sister to see her look into her face and say something about knowing
+how busy she was, but that it would give her so much pleasure if she
+would come some day to see her and talk over old times. But Mrs. Daniels
+was’nt pleased a bit and showed plain enough she did’nt like the lady,
+fine as she was in her ways. She was going to answer her too, but just
+then the front door opened and Mr. Blake with his satchel in his hand,
+came into the house. And how he did start, to be sure, when he saw them,
+though he tried to say something perlite which she did’nt seem to take
+to at all, for after muttering something about not expecting to see him,
+she put her hand on the knob and was going right out. But he stopped her
+and they went into the parlor together while Mrs. Daniels stood staring
+after them like one mad, her hand held out with his bag and umbrella in
+it, stiff as a statter in the Central Park. She did’nt stand so long,
+though, but came running down the hall, as if she was bewitched. I was
+dreadful flustered, for though I was hid behind the wall that juts out
+there by the back stairs, I was afraid she would see me and shame me
+before Mr. Blake. But she passed right by and never looked up. ‘There is
+something dreadful mysterious in this,’ thought I, and I just made up
+my mind to stay where I was till Mr. Blake and the lady should come out
+again from the parlor. I did’nt have to wait very long. In a few minutes
+the door opened and they stepped out, he ahead and she coming after. I
+thought this was queer, he is always so dreadful perlite in his ways,
+but I thought it was a deal queerer when I saw him go up the front
+stairs, she hurrying after, looking I cannot tell you how, but awful
+troubled and anxious, I should say.
+
+“They went into that room of his he calls his studio and though I knew
+it might cost me my place if I was found out, I could’nt help following
+and listening at the keyhole.”
+
+“And what did you hear?” I asked, for she paused to take breath.
+
+“Well, the first thing I heard was a cry of pleasure from her, and the
+words, ‘You keep that always before you? You cannot dislike me, then, as
+much as you pretend.’ I don’t know what she meant nor what he did, but
+he stepped across the room and I heard her cry out this time as if she
+was hurt as well as awful surprised; and he talked and talked, and I
+could’nt catch a word, he spoke so low; and by and by she sobbed just a
+little, and I got scared and would have run away but she cried out with
+a kind of shriek, ‘O, don’t say any more; to think that crime should
+come into our family, the proudest in the land. How could you, Holman,
+how could you.’ Yes,” the girl went on, flushing in her excitement till
+she was as red as the cherry ribbons in her cap, “those were the very
+words she used: ‘To think that crime should come into our family! the
+proudest one in the land!’ And she called him by his first name, and
+asked him how he could do it.”
+
+“And what did Mr. Blake say?” returned I, a little taken back myself at
+this result of my efforts with Fanny.
+
+“O, I did’nt wait to hear. I did’nt wait for anything. If folks was
+going to talk about such things as that, I thought I had better be
+anywhere than listening at the keyhole. I went right up stairs I can
+tell you.”
+
+“And whom have you told of what you heard in the half dozen hours that
+have gone by?”
+
+“Nobody; how could you think so mean of me when I promised, and--”
+
+It is not necessary to go any further into this portion of the
+interview.
+
+The Countess De Mirac possessed to its fullest extent the present fine
+lady’s taste for bric-a-brac. So much I had learned in my inquiries
+concerning her. Remembering this, I took the bold resolution of
+profiting by this weakness of hers to gain admission to her presence,
+she being the only one sharing Mr. Blake’s mysterious secret. Borrowing
+a valuable antique from a friend of mine at that time in the business,
+I made my appearance the very next day at her apartments, and sending
+in an urgent request to see Madame, by the trim negress who answered my
+summons, waited in some doubt for her reply.
+
+It came all too soon; Madame was ill and could see no one. I was not,
+however, to be baffled by one rebuff. Handing the basket I held to the
+girl, I urged her to take it in and show her mistress what it contained,
+saying it was a rare article which might never again come her way.
+
+The girl complied, though with a doubtful shake of the head which was
+anything but encouraging. Her incredulity, however, must have been
+speedily rebuked, for she almost immediately returned without the
+basket, saying Madame would see me.
+
+My first thoughts upon entering the grand lady’s presence, was that the
+girl had been mistaken, for I found the Countess walking the floor in an
+abstracted way, drying a letter she had evidently but just completed, by
+shaking it to and fro with an unsteady hand; the placque I had brought,
+lying neglected on the table.
+
+But at sight of my respectful form standing with bent head in the
+doorway, she hurriedly thrust the letter into a book and took up the
+placque. As she did so I marked her well and almost started at the
+change I observed in her since that evening at the Academy. It was not
+only that she was dressed in some sort of loose dishabille that was
+in eminent contrast to the sweeping silks and satins in which I had
+hitherto beheld her adorned; or that she was laboring under some
+physical disability that robbed her dark cheek of the bloom that was its
+chiefest charm. The change I observed went deeper than that; it was more
+as if a light had been extinguished in her countenance. It was the same
+woman I had beheld standing like a glowing column of will and strength
+before the melancholy form of Mr. Blake, but with the will and strength
+gone, and with them all the glow.
+
+“She no longer hopes,” thought I, and already felt repaid for my
+trouble.
+
+“This is a very pretty article you have brought me,” said she with
+something of the unrestrained love of art which she undoubtedly
+possessed, showing itself through all her languor. “Where did it come
+from, and what recommendations have you, to prove it is an honest sale
+you offer me?”
+
+“None,” returned I, ignoring with a reassuring smile the first question,
+“except that I should not be afraid if all the police in New York knew I
+was here with this fine placque for sale.”
+
+She gave a shrug of her proud shoulder that bespoke the French Countess
+and softly ran her finger round the edge of the placque.
+
+“I don’t need anything more of this kind,” said she languidly;
+“besides,” and she set it down with a fretful air, “I am in no mood to
+buy this afternoon.” Then shortly, “What do you ask for it?”
+
+I named a fabulous price.
+
+She started and cast me a keen glance. “You had better take it to some
+one else; I have no money to throw away.”
+
+With a hesitating hand I lifted the placque towards the basket. “I would
+very much like to sell it to you,” said I. “Perhaps--”
+
+Just then a lady’s fluttering voice rose from the room beyond inquiring
+for the Countess, and hurriedly taking the placque from my hand with
+an impulsive “O there’s Amy,” she passed into the adjoining apartment,
+leaving the door open behind her.
+
+I saw a quick interchange of greetings between her and a fashionably
+dressed lady, then they withdrew to one side with the ornament I had
+brought, evidently consulting in regard to its merits. Now was my time.
+The book in which she had placed the letter she had been writing lay on
+the table right before me, not two inches from my hand. I had only
+to throw back the cover and my curiosity would be satisfied. Taking
+advantage of a moment when their backs were both turned, I pressed open
+the book with a careful hand, and with one eye on them and one on the
+sheet before me, managed to read these words:--
+
+
+    MY DEAREST CECILIA.
+
+    I have tried in vain to match the sample you sent me at Stewart’s,
+    Arnold’s and McCreery’s. If you still insist upon making up the
+    dress in the way you propose, I will see what Madame Dudevant can
+    do for us, though I cannot but advise you to alter your plans and
+    make the darker shade of velvet do. I went to the Cary reception
+    last night and met Lulu Chittenden. She has actually grown old,
+    but was as lively as ever. She created a great stir in Paris when
+    she was there; but a husband who comes home two o’clock in the
+    morning with bleared eyes and empty pockets, is not conducive to
+    the preservation of a woman’s beauty. How she manages to retain
+    her spirits I cannot imagine. You ask me news of cousin Holman. I
+    meet him occasionally and he looks well, but has grown into the
+    most sombre man you ever saw. In regard to certain hopes of which
+    you have sometimes made mention, let me assure you they are no
+    longer practicable. He has done what--
+
+Here the conversation ceased in the other room, the Countess made a
+movement of advance and I closed the book with an inward groan over my
+ill-luck.
+
+“It is very pretty,” said she with a weary air; “but as I remarked
+before, I am not in the buying mood. If you will take half you mention,
+I may consider the subject, but--”
+
+“Pardon me, Madame,” I interrupted, being in no wise anxious to leave
+the placque behind me, “I have been considering the matter and I hold to
+my original price. Mr. Blake of Second Avenue may give it to me if you
+do not.”
+
+“Mr. Blake!” She eyed me suspiciously. “Do you sell to him?”
+
+“I sell to anyone I can,” replied I; “and as he has an artist’s eye for
+such things--”
+
+Her brows knitted and she turned away. “I do not want it;” said she,
+“sell it to whom you please.”
+
+I took up the placque and left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS
+
+
+When a few days from that I made my appearance before Mr. Gryce, it was
+to find him looking somewhat sober. “Those Schoenmakers,” said he, “are
+making a deal of trouble. It seems they escaped the fellows up north and
+are now somewhere in this city, but where--”
+
+An expressive gesture finished the sentence.
+
+“Is that so?” exclaimed I. “Then we are sure to nab them. Given time and
+a pair of low, restless German thieves, I will wager anything, our hands
+will be upon them before the month is over. I only hope, when we do come
+across them, it will not be to find their betters too much mixed up with
+their devilish practices.” And I related to him what Fanny had told me a
+few evenings before.
+
+“The coil is tightening,” said he. “What the end will be I don’t know.
+Crime, said she? I wish I knew in what blind hole of the earth that girl
+we are after lies hidden.”
+
+As if in answer to this wish the door opened and one of our men came
+in with a letter in his hand. “Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, after he had
+perused it, “look at that.”
+
+I took the letter from his hand and read:
+
+    The dead body of a girl such as you describe was found in the East
+    river off Fiftieth Street this morning. From appearance has been
+    dead some time. Have telegraphed to Police Headquarters for
+    orders. Should you wish to see the body before it is removed to
+    the Morgue or otherwise disturbed, please hasten to Pier 48 E. R.
+                                                           GRAHAM.
+
+“Come,” said I, “let’s go and see for ourselves. If it should be the
+one--”
+
+“The dinner party proposed by Mr. Blake for to-night, may have its
+interruptions,” he remarked.
+
+I do not wish to make my story any longer than is necessary, but I must
+say that when in an hour or so later, I stood with Mr. Gryce before the
+unconscious form of that poor drowned girl I felt an unusual degree
+of awe stealing over me: there was so much mystery connected with this
+affair, and the parties implicated were of such standing and repute.
+
+I almost dreaded to see the covering removed from her face lest I should
+behold, what? I could not have told if I had tried.
+
+“A trim made body enough,” cried the official in charge as Mr. Gryce
+lifted an end of the cloth that enveloped her and threw it back. “Pity
+the features are not better preserved.”
+
+“No need for us to see the features,” exclaimed I, pointing to the locks
+of golden red hair that hung in tangled masses about her. “The hair is
+enough; she is not the one.” And I turned aside, asking myself if it was
+relief I felt.
+
+To my surprise Mr. Gryce did not follow.
+
+“Tall, thin, white face, black eyes.” I heard him whisper to himself.
+“It is a pity the features are not better preserved.”
+
+“But,” said I, taking him by the arm, “Fanny spoke particularly of
+her hair being black, while this girl’s--Good heavens!” I suddenly
+ejaculated as I looked again at the prostrate form before me. “Yellow
+hair or black, this is the girl I saw him speaking to that day in
+Broome Street. I remember her clothes if nothing more.” And opening my
+pocketbook, I took out the morsel of cloth I had plucked that day from
+the ash barrel, lifted up the discolored rags that hung about the body
+and compared the two. The pattern, texture and color were the same.
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Gryce, pointing to certain contusions, like marks from
+the blow of some heavy instrument on the head and bared arms of the girl
+before us; “he will have to answer me one question anyhow, and that
+is, who this poor creature is who lies here the victim of treachery or
+despair.” And turning to the official he asked if there were any other
+signs of violence on the body.
+
+The answer came deliberately, “Yes, she has evidently been battered to
+death.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s lips closed with grim decision. “A most brutal murder,” said
+he and lifting up the cloth with a hand that visibly trembled, he softly
+covered her face.
+
+“Well,” said I as we slowly paced back up the pier, “there is one thing
+certain, she is not the one who disappeared from Mr. Blake’s house.”
+
+“I am not so sure of that.”
+
+“How!” said I. “You believed Fanny lied when she gave that description
+of the missing girl upon which we have gone till now?”
+
+Mr. Gryce smiled, and turning back, beckoned to the official behind us.
+“Let me have that description,” said he, “which I distributed among the
+Harbor Police some days ago for the identification of a certain corpse I
+was on the lookout for.”
+
+The man opened his coat and drew out a printed paper which at Mr.
+Gryce’s word he put into my hand. It ran as follows:
+
+    Look out for the body of a young girl, tall, well shaped but thin,
+    of fair complexion and golden hair of a peculiar bright and
+    beautiful color, and when found, acquaint me at once.
+                                                            G.
+
+“I don’t understand,” began I.
+
+But Mr. Gryce tapping me on the arm said in his most deliberate tones,
+“Next time you examine a room in which anything of a mysterious nature
+has occurred, look under the bureau and if you find a comb there with
+several long golden hairs tangled in it, be very sure before you draw
+any definite conclusions, that your Fannys know what they are talking
+about when they declare the girl who used that comb had black hair on
+her head.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE’S STUDIO
+
+
+“Mr. Blake is at dinner, sir, with company, but I will call him if you
+say so.”
+
+“No,” returned Mr. Gryce; “show us into some room where we can be
+comfortable and we will wait till he has finished.”
+
+The servant bowed, and stepping forward down the hall, opened the door
+of a small and cosy room heavily hung with crimson curtains. “I will
+let him know that you are here,” said he, and vanished towards the
+dining-room.
+
+“I doubt if Mr. Blake will enjoy the latter half of his bill of fare as
+much as the first,” said I, drawing up one of the luxurious arm-chairs
+to the side of my principal. “I wonder if he will break away from his
+guests and come in here?”
+
+“No; if I am not mistaken we shall find Mr. Blake a man of nerve. Not a
+muscle of his face will show that he is disturbed.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “I dread it.”
+
+Mr. Gryce looked about on the gorgeous walls and the rich old fashioned
+furniture that surrounded him, and smiled one of his grimmest smiles.
+
+“Well, you may,” said he.
+
+The next instant a servant stood in the doorway, bearing to our great
+astonishment, a tray well set with decanter and glasses.
+
+“Mr. Blake’s compliments, gentlemen,” said he, setting it down on the
+table before us. “He hopes you will make yourselves at home and he will
+see you as soon as possible.”
+
+The humph! of Mr. Gryce when the servant had gone would have done your
+soul good, also the look he cast at the pretty Dresden Shepherdess on
+the mantel-piece, as I reached out my hand towards the decanter. Somehow
+it made me draw back.
+
+“I think we had better leave his wine alone,” said he.
+
+And for half an hour we sat there, the wine untouched between us,
+listening alternately to the sound of speech-making and laughter that
+came from the dining-room, and the solemn ticking of the clock as it
+counted out the seconds on the mantel-piece. Then the guests came in
+from the table, filing before us past the open door on their way to
+the parlors. They were all gentlemen of course--Mr. Blake never invited
+ladies to his house--and gentlemen of well known repute. The dinner had
+been given in honor of a certain celebrated statesman, and the character
+of his guests was in keeping with that of the one thus complimented.
+
+As they went by us gaily indulging in the jokes and light banter with
+which such men season a social dinner, I saw Mr. Gryce’s face grow sober
+by many a shade; and when in the midst of it all, we heard the voice
+of Mr. Blake rise in that courteous and measured tone for which it
+is distinguished, I saw him reach forward and grasp his cane with an
+uneasiness I had never seen displayed by him before. But when some time
+later, the guests having departed, the dignified host advanced with some
+apology to where we were, I never beheld a firmer look on Mr. Gryce’s
+face than that with which he rose and confronted him. Mr. Blake’s own
+had not more character in it.
+
+“You have called at a rather inauspicious time, Mr. Gryce,” said the
+latter, glancing at the card which he held in his hand. “What may your
+business be? Something to do with politics, I suppose.”
+
+I surveyed the man in amazement. Was this great politician stooping
+to act a part, or had he forgotten our physiognomies as completely as
+appeared?
+
+“Our business is not politics,” replied Mr. Gryce; “but fully as
+important. May I request the doors be closed?”
+
+I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but he immediately stepped to the
+door and shut it. Then coming back, he looked at Mr. Gryce more closely
+and a change took place in his manner.
+
+“I think I have seen you before,” said he.
+
+Mr. Gryce bowed with just the suspicion of a smile. “I have had the
+honor of consulting you before in this very house,” observed he.
+
+A look of full recognition passed over the dignified countenance of the
+man before us.
+
+“I remember,” said he, shrugging his shoulders in the old way. “You are
+interested in some servant girl or other who ran away from this house a
+week or so ago. Have you found her?” This with no apparent concern.
+
+“We think we have,” rejoined Mr. Gryce with some solemnity. “The river
+gives up its prey now and then, Mr. Blake.”
+
+Still only that look of natural surprise.
+
+“Indeed! You do not mean to say she has drowned herself? I am sorry for
+that, a girl who had once lived in my house. What trouble could she have
+had to drive her to such an act?”
+
+Mr. Gryce advanced a step nearer the gentleman.
+
+“That is what we have come here to learn,” said he with a deliberation
+that yet was not lacking in the respect due to a man so universally
+esteemed as Mr. Blake. “You who have seen her so lately ought to be able
+to throw some light upon the subject at least.”
+
+“Mr.--” he again glanced at the card, “Mr. Gryce,--excuse me--I believe
+I told you when you were here before that I had no remembrance of this
+girl at all. That if such a person was in my house I did not know it,
+and that all questions put to me on that subject would be so much labor
+thrown away.”
+
+Mr. Gryce bowed. “I remember,” said he. “I was not alluding to any
+connection you may have had with the girl in this house, but to the
+interview you were seen to have with her on the corner of Broome Street
+some days ago. You had such an interview, did you not?”
+
+A flush, deep as it was sudden, swept over Mr. Blake’s usually unmoved
+cheek. “You are transgressing sir,” said he and stopped. Though a man of
+intense personal pride, he had but little of that quality called temper,
+or perhaps if he had, thought it unwise to display it on this occasion.
+“I saw and spoke to a girl on the corner of that street some days ago,”
+ he went on more mildly, “but that she was the one who lived here,
+I neither knew at the time nor feel willing to believe now without
+positive proof.” Then in a deep ringing tone the stateliness of which it
+would be impossible to describe, he inquired, “Have the city authorities
+presumed to put a spy on my movements, that the fact of my speaking to
+a poor forsaken creature on the corner of the street should be not only
+noted but remembered?”
+
+“Mr. Blake,” observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my
+superior at that moment, “no man who is a true citizen and a
+Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own
+thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it.”
+
+“And do you mean to say that I have been followed,” inquired he,
+clenching his hand and looking steadily, but with a blanching cheek,
+first at Mr. Gryce then at me.
+
+“It was indispensable,” quoth that functionary gently.
+
+The outraged gentleman riveted his gaze upon me. “In town and out of
+town?” demanded he.
+
+I let Mr. Gryce reply. “It is known that you have lately sought to visit
+the Schoenmakers,” said he.
+
+Mr. Blake drew a deep breath, cast his eyes about the handsome apartment
+in which we were, let them rest for a moment upon a portrait that graced
+one side of the wall, and which was I have since learned a picture of
+his father, and slowly drew forward a chair. “Let me hear what your
+suspicions are,” said he.
+
+I noticed Mr. Gryce colored at this; he had evidently been met in a
+different way from what he expected. “Excuse me,” said he, “I do not say
+I have any suspicions; my errand is simply to notify you of the death of
+the girl you were seen to speak with, and to ask whether or not you
+can give us any information that can aid us in the matter before the
+coroner.”
+
+“You know I have not. If I have been as closely followed as you say, you
+must know why I spoke to that girl and others, why I went to the house
+of the Schoenmakers and--Do you know?” he suddenly inquired.
+
+Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question as that. He eyed the
+rich signet ring that adorned the hand of the gentleman before him and
+suavely smiled. “I am ready to listen to any explanations,” said he.
+
+Mr. Blake’s haughty countenance became almost stern. “You consider you
+have a right to demand them; let me hear why.”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Gryce with a change of tone, “you shall. Unprofessional
+as it is, I will tell you why I, a member of the police force, dare
+enter the house of such a man as you are, and put him the questions I
+have concerning his domestic affairs. Mr. Blake, imagine yourself in
+a detective’s office. A woman comes in, the housekeeper of a respected
+citizen, and informs us that a girl employed by her as seamstress has
+disappeared in a very unaccountable way from her master’s house
+the night before; in fact been abducted as she thinks from certain
+evidences, through the window. Her manner is agitated, her appeal for
+assistance urgent, though she acknowledges no relationship to the girl
+or expresses any especial cause for her interest beyond that of common
+humanity. ‘She must be found,’ she declares, and hints that any sum
+necessary will be forthcoming, though from what source after her own
+pittance is expended she does not state. When asked if her master has
+no interest in the matter, she changes color and puts us off. He never
+noticed his servants, left all such concerns to her, etc.; but shows
+fear when a proposition is made to consult him. Next imagine yourself
+with the detectives in that gentleman’s house. You enter the girl’s
+room; what is the first thing you observe? Why that it is not only one
+of the best in the house, but that it is conspicuous for its comforts if
+not for its elegancies. More than that, that there are books of poetry
+and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited it was
+above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently brought to
+acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her abduction by
+means of the window, has some ground in appearance, though the fact
+that she went with entire unwillingness is not made so apparent. The
+housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have had some special
+knowledge of the girl’s character or circumstances to back it, that she
+never went without compulsion; a statement which the torn curtains
+and the track of blood over the roof of the extension, would seem to
+emphasize. A few other facts are made known. First, a pen-knife is
+picked up from the grass plot in the yard beneath, showing with what
+instrument the wound was inflicted, whose drippings made those marks of
+blood alluded to. It was a pearl-handled knife belonging to the writing
+desk found open on her table, and its frail and dainty character proved
+indisputably, that it was employed by the girl herself, and that against
+manifest enemies; no man being likely to snatch up any such puny weapon
+for the purpose either of offence or defence. That these enemies were
+two and were both men, was insisted upon by Mrs. Daniels who overheard
+their voices the night before.
+
+“Mr. Blake, such facts as these arouse curiosity, especially when
+the master of the house being introduced upon the scene, he fails to
+manifest common human interest, while his housekeeper betrays in every
+involuntary gesture and expression she makes use of, her horror if not
+her fear of his presence, and her relief at his departure. Yes,” he
+exclaimed, unheeding the sudden look here cast him by Mr. Blake, “and
+curiosity begets inquiry, and inquiry elucidated further facts such as
+these, that the mysterious master of the house was in his garden at the
+hour of the girl’s departure, was even looking through the bars of his
+gate when she, having evidently escaped from her captors, came back with
+every apparent desire to reenter her home, but seeing him, betrayed an
+unreasonable amount of fear and fled back even into the very arms of
+the men she had endeavored to avoid. Did you speak sir?” asked Mr. Gryce
+suddenly stopping, with a sly look at his left boot tip.
+
+Mr. Blake shook his head. “No,” said he shortly, “go on.” But that last
+remark of Mr. Gryce had evidently made its impression.
+
+“Inquiry revealed, also, two or three other interesting facts. First,
+that this gentleman qualified though he was to shine in ladies’ society,
+never obtruded himself there, but employed his leisure time instead, in
+walking the lower streets of the city, where he was seen more than
+once conversing with certain poor girls at street corners and in blind
+alleys. The last one he talked with, believed from her characteristics
+to be the same one that was abducted from his house--”
+
+“Hold there,” said Mr. Blake with some authority in his tone, “there you
+are mistaken; that is impossible.”
+
+“Ah, and why?”
+
+“The girl you allude to had bright golden hair, something which the
+woman who lived in my house did not possess.”
+
+“Indeed. I thought you had never noticed the woman who sewed for you,
+sir,--did not know how she looked?”
+
+“I should have noticed her if she had had such hair as the girl you
+speak of.”
+
+Mr. Gryce smiled and opened his pocketbook.
+
+“There is a sample of her hair, sir,” said he, taking out a thin strand
+of brilliant hair and showing it to the gentleman before him. “Bright
+you see, and golden as that of the unfortunate creature you talked with
+the other night.”
+
+Mr. Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly
+trembled. “Where did you get this?” asked he at last, clenching it to
+his breast with sudden passion.
+
+“From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before.”
+
+The imperious man flung it hastily from him.
+
+“We waste our time,” said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face.
+“All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor the
+tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping back? I am
+not a man to be trifled with.”
+
+Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. “You are right,” said he, and he gave a
+short glance in my direction. “All that I have said would not perhaps
+justify me in this intrusion, if--” he looked again towards me. “Do you
+wish me to continue?” he asked.
+
+Mr. Blake’s intent look deepened. “I see no reason why you should not
+utter the whole,” said he. “A good story loses nothing by being told
+to the end. You wish to say something about my journey to Schoenmaker’s
+house, I suppose.”
+
+Mr. Gryce gravely shook his head.
+
+“What, you can let such a mystery as that go without a word?”
+
+“I am not here to discuss mysteries that have no connection with the
+sewing-girl in whose cause I am interested.”
+
+“Then,” said Mr. Blake, turning for the first time upon my superior with
+all the dignified composure for which he was eminent, “it is no
+longer necessary for us to prolong this interview. I have allowed, nay
+encouraged you to state in the plainest terms what it was you had or
+imagined you had against me, knowing that my actions of late, seen by
+those who did not possess the key to them, must have seemed a little
+peculiar. But when you say you have no interest in any mystery
+disconnected with the girl who has lived the last few months in
+my house, I can with assurance say that it is time we quitted this
+unprofitable conversation, as nothing which I have lately done, said or
+thought here or elsewhere has in any way had even the remotest bearing
+upon that individual; she having been a stranger to me while in my
+house, and quite forgotten by me, after her unaccountable departure
+hence.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s hand which had been stretched out towards the hitherto
+untouched decanter before him, suddenly dropped. “You deny then,” said
+he, “all connection between yourself and the woman, lady or sewing-girl,
+who occupied that room above our heads for eleven months previous to the
+Sunday morning I first had the honor to make your acquaintance.”
+
+“I am not in the habit of repeating my assertions,” said Mr. Blake with
+some severity, “even when they relate to a less disagreeable matter than
+the one under discussion.”
+
+Mr. Gryce bowed, and slowly reached out for his hat; I had never seen
+him so disturbed. “I am sorry,” he began and stopped, fingering his
+hat-brim nervously. Suddenly he laid his hat back, and drew up his form
+into as near a semblance of dignity as its portliness would allow.
+
+“Mr. Blake,” said he, “I have too much respect for the man I believed
+you to be when I entered this house to-night, to go with the thing
+unsaid which is lying at present like a dead weight upon my lips. I dare
+not leave you to the consequence of my silence; for duty will compel
+me to speak some day and in some presence where you may not have
+the opportunity which you can have here, to explain yourself with
+satisfaction. Mr. Blake I cannot believe you when you say the girl who
+lived in this house was a stranger to you.”
+
+Mr. Blake drew his proud form up in a disdain that was only held in
+check by the very evident honesty of the man before him. “You
+are courageous at least,” said he. “I regret you are not equally
+discriminating.” And raising Mr. Gryce’s hat he placed it in his hand.
+
+“Pardon me,” said that gentleman, “I would like to justify myself before
+I go. Not with words,” he proceeded as the other folded his arms with a
+sarcastic bow. “I am done with words; action accomplishes the rest. Mr.
+Blake I believe you consider me an honest officer and a reliable man.
+Will you accompany me to your private room for a moment? There is
+something there which may convince you I was neither playing the fool
+nor the bravado when I uttered the phrase I did an instant ago.”
+
+I expected to hear the haughty master of the house refuse a request so
+peculiar. But he only bowed, though in a surprised way that showed
+his curiosity if no more was aroused. “My room and company are at your
+disposal,” said he, “but you will find nothing there to justify you in
+your assertions.”
+
+“Let me at least make the effort,” entreated my superior.
+
+Mr. Blake smiling bitterly immediately led the way to the door. “The
+man may come,” he remarked carelessly as Mr. Gryce waved his hand in my
+direction. “Your justification if not mine may need witnesses.”
+
+Rejoiced at the permission, for my curiosity was by this time raised to
+fever pitch, I at once followed. Not without anxiety. The assured poise
+of Mr. Blake’s head seemed to argue that the confidence betrayed by my
+superior might receive a shock; and I felt it would be a serious blow
+to his pride to fail now. But once within the room above, my doubts
+speedily fled. There was that in Mr. Gryce’s face which anyone
+acquainted with him could not easily mistake. Whatever might be
+the mysterious something which the room contained, it was evidently
+sufficient in his eyes to justify his whole conduct.
+
+“Now sir,” said Mr. Blake, turning upon my superior with his sternest
+expression, “the room and its contents are before you; what have you to
+say for yourself.”
+
+Mr. Gryce equally stern, if not equally composed, cast one of his
+inscrutable glances round the apartment and without a word stepped
+before the picture that was as I have said, the only ornamentation of
+the otherwise bare and unattractive room.
+
+I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but his face was not one that
+lightly expressed emotion.
+
+“A portrait of my cousin the Countess De Mirac,” said he with a certain
+dryness of tone hard to interpret.
+
+Mr. Gryce bowed and for a moment stood looking with a strange lack of
+interest at the proudly brilliant face of the painting before him, then
+to our great amazement stepped forward and with a quick gesture turned
+the picture rapidly to the wall, when--Gracious heavens! what a vision
+started out before us from the reverse side of that painted canvas! No
+luxurious brunette countenance now, steeped in pride and languor, but a
+face--Let me see if I can describe it. But no, it was one of those faces
+that are indescribable. You draw your breath as you view it; you feel as
+if you had had an electric shock; but as for knowing ten minutes later
+whether the eyes that so enthralled you were blue or black, or the locks
+that clustered halo-like about a forehead almost awful in its expression
+of weird, unfathomable power, were brown or red, you could not nor would
+you pretend to say. It was the character of the countenance itself that
+impressed you. You did not even know if this woman who might have been
+anything wonderful or grand you ever read of, were beautiful or not. You
+did not care; it was as if you had been gazing on a tranquil evening
+sky and a lightning flash had suddenly startled you. Is the lightning
+beautiful? Who asks! But I know from what presently transpired, that
+the face was ivory pale in complexion, the eyes deeply dark, and the
+hair,--strange and uncanny combination,--of a bright and peculiar golden
+hue.
+
+“You dare!” came forth in strange broken tones from Mr. Blake’s lips.
+
+I instantly turned towards him. He was gazing with a look that was half
+indignant, half menacing at the silent detective who with eyes drooped
+and finger directed towards the picture, seemed to be waiting for him to
+finish.
+
+“I do not understand an audacity that allows you to--to--” Was this
+the haughty gentleman we had known, this hesitating troubled man with
+bloodless lips and trembling hands?
+
+“I declared my desire to justify myself,” said my principal with a
+respectful bow. “This is my justification. Do you note the color of the
+woman’s hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the wall in
+your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held in your hand
+a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by hair from the comb
+of the poor creature who occupied the room above. But that is not all,”
+ he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback; “just observe the dress
+in which this woman is painted; blue silk you see, dark and rich; a wide
+collar cunningly executed, you can almost trace the pattern; a brooch;
+then the roses in the hand, do you see? Now come with me upstairs.”
+
+Too much startled to speak, Mr. Blake, haughty aristocrat as he was,
+turned like a little child and followed the detective who with an
+assured step and unembarassed mien led the way into the deserted room
+above.
+
+“You accuse me of insulting you, when I express disbelief of your
+assertion that there was no connection between you and the girl Emily,”
+ said Mr. Gryce as he lit the gas and unlocked that famous bureau drawer.
+“Will you do so any longer in face of these?” And drawing off the towel
+that lay uppermost, he revealed the neatly folded dress, wide collar,
+brooch and faded roses that lay beneath. “Mrs. Daniels assures us these
+articles belonged to the sewing-woman Emily; were brought here by her.
+Dare you say they are not the ones reproduced in the portrait below?”
+
+Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. “My God!
+My God!” was his only reply, “what are these?” Suddenly he rose, his
+whole form quivering, his eyes burning. “Where is Mrs. Daniels?” he
+cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. “I must see her at once.
+Send the house-keeper here,” he ordered as Fanny smiling demurely made
+her appearance at the door.
+
+“Mrs. Daniels is out,” returned the girl, “went out as soon as ever you
+got up from dinner, sir.”
+
+“Gone out at this hour?”
+
+“Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir.”
+
+Her master frowned. “Send her to me as soon as she returns,” he
+commanded, and dismissed the girl.
+
+“I don’t know what to make of this,” he now said in a strange tone,
+approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer with
+a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be strangely
+commingled. “I cannot explain the presence of these articles in this
+room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to make other
+matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me to take anyone
+into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me to hope any longer
+to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. LUTTRA
+
+
+“Gentlemen,” said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, “you
+have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the
+original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the
+position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will no
+longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture, strange
+as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife.”
+
+“Wife!” We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice which
+spoke. “We were ignorant you ever had a wife.”
+
+“No doubt,” continued our host smiling bitterly, “that at least has
+evaded the knowledge even of the detectives.” Then with a return to
+his naturally courteous manner, “She was never acknowledged by me as my
+wife, nor have we ever lived together, but if priestly benediction can
+make a man and woman one, that woman as you see her there is my lawful
+wife.”
+
+Rising, he softly turned the lovely, potent face back to the wall,
+leaving us once more confronted by the dark and glowing countenance of
+his cousin.
+
+“I am not called upon,” said he, “to go any further with you than this.
+I have told you what no man till this hour has ever heard from my lips,
+and it should serve to exonerate me from any unjust suspicions you may
+have entertained. But to one of my temperament, secret scandal and the
+gossip it engenders is only less painful than open notoriety. If I leave
+the subject here, a thousand conjectures will at once seize upon you,
+and my name if not hers will become, before I know it, the football of
+gossip if not of worse and deeper suspicion than has yet assailed me.
+Gentleman I take you to be honest men; husbands, perhaps, and fathers;
+proud, too, in your way and jealous of your own reputation and that of
+those with whom you are connected. If I succeed in convincing you that
+my movements of late have been totally disconnected with the girl whose
+cause you profess solely to be interested in, may I count upon your
+silence as regards those actions and the real motive that led to them?”
+
+“You may count upon my discretion as regards all matters that do not
+come under the scope of police duty,” returned Mr. Gryce. “I haven’t
+much time for gossip.”
+
+“And your man here?”
+
+“O, he’s safe where it profits him to be.”
+
+“Very well, then, I shall count upon you.”
+
+And with the knitted brows and clinched hands of a proudly reticent
+man who, perhaps for the first time in his life finds himself forced to
+reveal his inner nature to the world, he began his story in these words:
+
+“Difficult as it is for me to introduce into a relation like this the
+name of my father, I shall be obliged to do so in order to make my
+conduct at a momentous crisis of my life intelligible to you. My father,
+then, was a man of strong will and a few but determined prejudices.
+Resolved that I should sustain the reputation of the family for wealth
+and respectability, he gave me to understand from my earliest years,
+that as long as I preserved my manhood from reproach, I had only to make
+my wishes known, to have them immediately gratified; while if I crossed
+his will either by indulging in dissipation or engaging in pursuits
+unworthy of my name, I no longer need expect the favor of his
+countenance or the assistance of his purse.
+
+“When, therefore, at a certain period of my life, I found that the
+charms of my cousin Evelyn were making rather too strong an impression
+upon my fancy for a secured peace of mind, I first inquired how such a
+union would affect my father, and learning that it would be in direct
+opposition to his views, cast about in my mind what I should do to
+overcome my passion. Travel suggested itself, and I took a trip to
+Europe. But the sight of new faces only awakened in me comparisons
+anything but detrimental to the beauty of her who was at that time my
+standard of feminine loveliness. Nature and the sports connected with a
+wild life were my next resort. I went overland to California, roamed the
+orange groves of Florida, and probed the wildernesses of Canada and
+our Northern states. It was during these last excursions that an event
+occurred which has exercised the most material influence upon my fate,
+though at the time it seemed to me no more than the matter of a day.
+
+“I had just returned from Canada and was resting in tolerable enjoyment
+of a very beautiful autumn at Lake George, when a letter reached me
+from a friend then loitering in the vicinity, urging me to join him in
+a certain small town in Vermont where trout streams abounded and what is
+not so often the case under the circumstances, fishers were few.
+
+“Being in a somewhat reckless mood I at once wrote a consent, and before
+another day was over, started for the remote village whence his letter
+was postmarked. I found it by no means easy of access. Situated in the
+midst of hills some twenty miles or so distant from any railroad, I
+discovered that in order to reach it, a long ride in a stage-coach was
+necessary, followed by a somewhat shorter journey on horseback. Not
+being acquainted with the route, I timed my connections wrong, so that
+when evening came I found myself riding over a strange road in the
+darkest night I had ever known. As if this was not enough, my horse
+suddenly began to limp and presently became so lame I found it
+impossible to urge her beyond a slow walk. It was therefore with no
+ordinary satisfaction that I presently beheld a lighted building in the
+distance, which as I approached resolved itself into an inn. Stopping
+in front of the house, which was closed against the chill night air,
+I called out lustily for someone to take my horse, whereupon the door
+opened and a man appeared on the threshold with a lantern in his hand. I
+at once made my wishes known, receiving in turn a somewhat gruff,
+
+“‘Well it is a nasty night and it will be nastier before it’s over;’ an
+opinion instantly endorsed by a sudden swoop of wind that rushed by at
+that moment, slamming the door behind him and awakening over my head a
+lugubrious groaning as from the twisting boughs of some old tree, that
+was almost threatening in its character.
+
+“‘You had better go in,’ said he, ‘the rain will come next.’
+
+“I at once leaped from my horse and pushing open the door with main
+strength, entered the house. Another man met me on the threshold who
+merely pointing over his shoulder to a lighted room in his rear, passed
+out without a word, to help the somewhat younger man, who had first
+appeared, in putting up my horse. I at once accepted his silent
+invitation and stepped into the room before me. Instantly I found myself
+confronted by the rather startling vision of a young girl of a unique
+and haunting style of beauty, who rising at my approach now stood with
+her eyes on my face and her hands resting on the deal table before which
+she had been sitting, in an attitude expressive of mingled surprise
+and alarm. To see a woman in that place was not so strange; but such
+a woman! Even in the first casual glance I gave her, I at once
+acknowledged to myself her extraordinary power. Not the slightness of
+her form, the palor of her countenance, or the fairness of the locks of
+golden red hair that fell in two long braids over her bosom, could for
+a moment counteract the effect of her dark glance or the vivid almost
+unearthly force of her expression. It was as if you saw a flame
+upstarting before you, waving tremulously here and there, but burning
+and resistless in its white heat. I took off my hat with deference.
+
+“A shudder passed over her, but she made no effort to return my
+acknowledgement. As we cast our eyes dilating with horror, down some
+horrible pit upon whose verge we suddenly find ourselves, she allowed
+her gaze for a moment to dwell upon my face, then with a sudden lifting
+of her hand, pointed towards the door as if to bid me depart--when it
+swung open with that shrill rushing of wind that involuntarily awakes a
+shudder within you, and the two men entered and came stamping up to my
+side. Instantly her hand sunk, not feebly as with fear, but calmly as if
+at the bidding of her will, and without waiting for them to speak, she
+turned away and quietly left the room. As the door closed upon her I
+noticed that she wore a calico frock and that her face did not own one
+perfect feature.
+
+“‘Go after Luttra and tell her to make up the bed in the northwest
+room,’ said the elder of the two in deep gutteral tones unmistakably
+German in their accent, to the other who stood shaking the wet off his
+coat into the leaping flames of a small wood fire that burned on the
+hearth before us.
+
+“‘O, she’ll do without my bothering,’ was the sullen return. ‘I’m wet
+through.’
+
+“The elder man, a large powerfully framed fellow of some fifty years or
+so, frowned. It was an evil frown, and the younger one seemed to feel
+it. He immediately tossed his coat onto a chair and left the room.
+
+“‘Boys are so obstropolous now-a-days,’ remarked his companion to me
+with what he evidently intended for a conciliatory nod. ‘In my time they
+were broke in, did what they were told and asked no questions.’
+
+“I smiled to myself at his calling the broad shouldered six-footer who
+had just left us a boy, but merely remarking, ‘He is your son is he
+not!’ seated myself before the blaze which shot up a tongue of white
+flame at my approach, that irresistibly recalled to my fancy the
+appearance of the girl who had gone out a moment before.
+
+“‘O, yes, he is my son, and that girl you saw here was my daughter; I
+keep this inn and they help me, but it is a slow way to live, I can tell
+you. Travel on these roads is slim.’
+
+“‘I should think likely,’ I returned, remembering the half dozen or so
+hills up which I had clambered since I took to my horse. ‘How far are we
+from Pentonville?’
+
+“‘O, two or three miles,’ he replied, but in a hurried kind of a way.
+‘Not far in the daytime but a regular journey in a night like this?’
+
+“‘Yes,’ said I, as the house shook under a fresh gust; ‘it is fortunate
+I have a place in which to put up.’
+
+“He glanced down at my baggage which consisted of a small hand bag,
+an over-coat and a fishing pole, with something like a gleam of
+disappointment.
+
+“‘Going fishing?’ he asked.
+
+“‘Yes,’ I returned.
+
+“‘Good trout up those streams and plenty of them,’ he went on. ‘Going
+alone?’
+
+“I did not half like his importunity, but considering I had nothing
+better to do, replied as affably as possible. ‘No, I expect to meet a
+friend in Pentonville who will accompany me.”
+
+“His hand went to his beard in a thoughtful attitude and he cast me
+what, with my increased experience of the world, I should now consider a
+sinister glance. ‘Then you are expected?’ said he.
+
+“Not considering this worth reply, I stretched out my feet to the blaze
+and began to warm them, for I felt chilled through.
+
+“‘Been on the road long?’ he now asked, glancing at the blue flannel
+suit I wore.
+
+“‘All summer,’ I returned,
+
+“I again thought he looked disappointed.
+
+“‘From Troy or New York?’ he went on with a vague endeavor to appear
+good naturally off hand.
+
+“‘New York.’
+
+“‘A big place that,’ he continued. ‘I was there once, lots of money
+stored away in them big buildings down in Wall Street, eh?’
+
+“I assented, and he drew a chair up to my side, a proceeding that was
+interrupted, however, by the reentrance of his son, who without any
+apology crowded into the other side of the fire-place in a way to
+sandwich me between them. Not fancying this arrangement which I,
+however, imputed to ignorance, I drew back and asked if my room was
+ready. It seemed it was not, and unpleasantly as it promised, I felt
+forced to reseat myself and join in, if not support, the conversation
+that followed.
+
+“A half hour passed away, during which the wind increased till it almost
+amounted to a gale. Spurts of rain dashed against the windows with a
+sharp crackling sound that suggested hail, while ever and anon a distant
+roll as of rousing thunder, rumbled away among the hills in a long and
+reverberating peal, that made me feel glad to be housed even under the
+roof of these rude and uncongenial creatures. Suddenly the conversation
+turned upon the time and time-pieces, when in a low even tone I heard
+murmured behind me,
+
+“‘The gentleman’s room is ready;’ and turning, I saw standing in
+the doorway the slight figure of the young girl whose appearance had
+previously so impressed me.
+
+“I immediately arose. ‘Then I will proceed to it at once,’ said I,
+taking up my traps and advancing towards her.
+
+“‘Do not be alarmed if you hear creaks and cracklings all over the
+house,’ observed the landlord as I departed. ‘The windows are loose and
+the doors ill-fitting. In such a storm as this they make noise enough
+to keep an army awake. The house is safe enough though and if you don’t
+mind noise--’
+
+“‘O I don’t mind noise,’ rejoined I, feeling at that moment tired enough
+to fall into a doze on the staircase. ‘I shall sleep, never fear,’ and
+without further ado followed the girl upstairs into a large clumsily
+furnished room whose enormous bed draped with heavy curtains at once
+attracted my attention.
+
+“‘O I cannot sleep under those things,’ remarked I, with a gesture
+towards the dismal draperies which to me were another name for
+suffocation.
+
+“With a single arm-sweep she threw them back. ‘Is there anything more I
+can do for you?’ asked she, glancing hastily about the room.
+
+“I thanked her and said ‘no,’ at which she at once departed with a look
+of still determination upon her countenance that I found it hard to
+explain.
+
+“Left alone in that large, bare and dimly lighted room, with the wind
+shrieking in the chimney and the powerful limbs of some huge tree
+beating against the walls without, with a heavy thud inexpressibly
+mournful, I found to my surprise and something like dismay, that the
+sleepiness which had hitherto oppressed me, had in some unaccountable
+way entirely fled. In vain I contemplated the bed, comfortable enough
+now in its appearance that the stifling curtains were withdrawn; no
+temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I
+had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some
+invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained.
+I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if
+I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent.
+Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered over the
+weakness of mind that made such fancies possible.
+
+“An extra loud swirl of the foliage without, accompanied by a quick
+vibration of the house, aroused me at last. If I was to lose the sense
+of this furious storm careering over my head, I must court sleep at
+once. Rising, I drew off my coat, unloosened my vest and was about to
+throw it off, when I bethought me of a certain wallet it contained.
+Going to the door in some unconscious impulse of precaution I suppose, I
+locked myself in, and then drawing out my wallet, took from it a roll of
+bills which I put into a small side pocket, returning the wallet to its
+old place.
+
+“Why I did this I can scarcely say. As I have before intimated, I
+was under no special apprehension. I was at that time anything but a
+suspicious man, and the manner and appearance of the men below struck me
+as unpleasantly disagreeable but nothing more. But I not only did what I
+have related, but allowed the lamp to remain lighted, lying down finally
+in my clothes; an almost unprecedented act on my part, warranted however
+as I said to myself, by the fury of the gale which at that time seemed
+as if it would tumble the roof over our heads.
+
+“How long I lay listening to the creakings and groanings of the rickety
+old house, I cannot say, nor how long I remained in the doze which
+finally seized me as I became accustomed to the sounds around and over
+me. Enough that before the storm had passed its height, I awoke as if at
+the touch of a hand, and leaping with a bound out of the bed, beheld
+to my incredible amazement, the alert, nervous form of Luttra standing
+before me. She had my coat in her hand, and it was her touch that had
+evidently awakened me.
+
+“‘I want you to put this on,’ said she in a low thrilling tone totally
+new in my experience, ‘and come with me. The house is unsafe for you to
+remain in. Hear how it cracks and trembles. Another blast like that and
+we shall be roofless.’
+
+“She was moving toward the door, which to my amazement stood ajar, but
+my hesitation stopped her.
+
+“‘Won’t you come?’ she whispered, turning her face towards me with a
+look of such potent determination, I followed in spite of myself ‘I dare
+not let you stay here, your blood will be upon my head.’
+
+“‘You exaggerate,’ I replied, shrinking back with a longing look at the
+comfortable bed I had just left. ‘These old houses are always strong.
+It will take many such a gust as that you hear, to overturn it, I assure
+you.’
+
+“‘I exaggerate!’ she returned with a look of scorn impossible to
+describe. ‘Hark!’ she said, ‘hear that.’
+
+“I did hear, and I must acknowledge that it seemed is if we were about
+to be swept from our foundations.
+
+“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but it is a fearful night to be out in.’
+
+“‘I shall go with you,’ said she.
+
+“‘In that case--’ I began with an ill-advised attempt at gallantry which
+she cut short with a gesture.
+
+“‘Here is your hat,’ remarked she, ‘and here is your bag. The
+fishing-pole must remain, you cannot carry it.’
+
+“‘But,--’ I expostulated.
+
+“‘Hush!’ said she with her ear turned towards the depths of the
+staircase at the top of which we stood. ‘My father and brother will
+think as you do that it is folly to leave the shelter of a roof for the
+uncertainties of the road on such a night as this, but you must not heed
+them. I tell you shelter this night is danger, and that the only safety
+to be found is on the stormy highway.’
+
+“And without waiting for my reply, she passed rapidly down stairs,
+pushed open a door at the bottom, and stepped at once into the room we
+had left an hour or so before.
+
+“What was there in that room that for the first time struck an ominous
+chill as of distinct peril through my veins? Nothing at first sight,
+everything at the second. The fire which had not been allowed to die
+out, still burned brightly on the ruddy hearthstone, but it was not that
+which awakened my apprehension. Nor was it the loud ticking clock on the
+mantel-piece with its hand pointing silently to the hour of eleven. Nor
+yet the heavy quiet of the scantily-furnished room with its one lamp
+burning on the deal table against the side of the wall. It was the sight
+of those two powerful men drawn up in grim silence, the one against the
+door leading to the front hall, the other against that opening into the
+kitchen.
+
+“A glance at Luttra standing silent and undismayed at my side, however,
+instantly reassured me. With that will exercised in my favor, I could
+not but win through whatever it was that menaced me. Slinging my bag
+over my shoulder, I made a move towards the door and the silent figure
+of my host. But with a quick outreaching of her hand, she drew me back.
+
+“‘Stand still!’ said she. ‘Karl,’ she went on, turning her face towards
+the more sullen but less intent countenance of her brother, ‘open the
+door and let this gentleman pass. He finds the house unsafe in such a
+gale and desires to leave it. At once!’ she continued as her brother
+settled himself more determinedly against the lock: ‘I don’t often ask
+favors.’
+
+“‘The man is a fool that wants to go out in a night like this,’ quoth
+the fellow with a dogged move; ‘and so are you to encourage it. I think
+too much of your health to allow it.’
+
+“She did not seem to hear. ‘Will you open the door?’ she went on, not
+advancing a step from the fire, before which she had placed herself and
+me.’
+
+“‘No, I won’t,’ was the brutal reply. ‘Its been locked for the night and
+its not me nor one like me, that will open it.’
+
+“With a sudden whitening of her already pale face, she turned towards
+her father. He was not even looking at her.
+
+“‘Some one must open the house,’ said she, glancing back at her brother.
+‘This gentleman purposes to leave and his whim must be humored. Will you
+unlock that door or shall I?’
+
+“An angry snarl interrupted her. Her father had bounded from the door
+where he stood and was striding hastily towards her. In my apprehension
+I put up my arm for a shield, for he looked ready to murder her, but
+I let it drop again as l caught her glance which was like white flame
+undisturbed by the least breeze of personal terror.
+
+“‘You will stop there,’ said she, pointing to a spot a few feet from
+where she stood. ‘Another step and I let that for which I have heard
+you declare you would peril your very soul, fall into the heart of the
+flames.’ And drawing from her breast a roll of bills, she stretched them
+out above the fire before which she was standing.
+
+“‘You -----’ broke from the gray-bearded lips of the old man, but he
+stopped where he was, eyeing those bills as if fascinated.
+
+“‘I am not a girl of many words, as you know,’ continued she in a lofty
+tone inexpressibly commanding. ‘You may strangle me, you may kill me,
+it matters little; but this gentleman leaves the house this night, or I
+destroy the money with a gesture.’
+
+“‘You -----’ again broke from those quivering lips, but the old man did
+not move.
+
+“Not so the younger. With a rush he left his post and in another instant
+would have had his powerful arms about her slender form, only that I
+met him half way with a blow that laid him on the floor at her feet.
+She said nothing, but one of the bills immediately left her hand and
+fluttered into the fire where it instantly shrivelled into nothing.
+
+“With the yell of a mad beast wounded in his most vulnerable spot, the
+old man before us stamped with his heel upon the floor.
+
+“‘Stop!’ cried he; and going rapidly to the front door he opened it.
+‘There!’ shrieked he, ‘if you will be fools, go! and may the lightning
+blast you. But first give me the money.’
+
+“‘Come from the door,’ said she, reaching out her left hand for the
+lantern hanging at the side of the fireplace, ‘and let Karl light this
+and keep himself out of the way.’
+
+“It was all done. In less time than I can tell it, the old man had
+stepped from the door, the younger one had lit the lantern and we were
+in readiness to depart.
+
+“‘Now do you proceed,’ said she to me, ‘I will follow.’
+
+“‘No,’ said I, ‘we will go together.’
+
+“‘But the money?’ growled the heavy voice of my host over my shoulder.
+
+“‘I will give it to you on my return,’ said the girl.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN’S LOVE
+
+
+“Shall I ever forget the blast of driving rain that struck our faces and
+enveloped us in a cloud of wet, as the door swung on its hinges and let
+us forth into the night; or the electric thrill that shot through me as
+that slender girl grasped my hand and drew me away through the blinding
+darkness. It was not that I was so much affected by her beauty as
+influenced by her power and energy. The fury of the gale seemed to bend
+to her will, the wind lend wings to her feet. I began to realize what
+intellect was. Arrived at the roadside, she paused and looked back. The
+two burly forms of the men we had left behind us were standing in the
+door of the inn; in another moment they had plunged forth and towards
+us. With a low cry the young girl leaped towards a tree where to
+my unbounded astonishment I beheld my horse standing ready saddled.
+Dragging the mare from her fastenings, she hung the lantern, burning as
+it was, on the pommel of the saddle, struck the panting creature a smart
+blow upon the flank, and drew back with a leap to my side.
+
+“The startled horse snorted, gave a plunge of dismay and started away
+from us down the road.
+
+“‘We will wait,’ said Luttra.
+
+“The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her father and brother
+rushed by.
+
+“‘They will follow the light,’ whispered she; and seizing me again by
+the hand, she hurried me away in the direction opposite to that
+which the horse had taken. ‘If you will trust me, I will bring you to
+shelter,’ she murmured, bending her slight form to the gusty wind but
+relaxing not a whit of her speed.
+
+“‘You are too kind,’ I murmured in return. ‘Why should you expose
+yourself to such an extent for a stranger?’
+
+“Her hand tightened on mine, but she did not reply, and we hastened
+on as speedily as the wind and rain would allow. After a short but
+determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly
+failed me, she suddenly stopped.
+
+“‘Do you know,’ she exclaimed in a low impressive tone, ‘that we are on
+the verge of a steep and dreadful precipice? It runs along here for a
+quarter of a mile and it is not an uncommon thing for a horse and rider
+to be dashed over it in a night like this.’
+
+“There was something in her manner that awakened a chill in my veins
+almost as if she had pointed out some dreadful doom which I had
+unwittingly escaped.
+
+“‘This is, then, a dangerous road,’ I murmured.
+
+“‘Very,’ was her hurried and almost incoherent reply.
+
+“How far we travelled through the mud and tangled grasses of that
+horrible road I do not know. It seemed a long distance; it was probably
+not more than three quarters of a mile. At last she paused with a short
+‘Here we are;’ and looking up, I saw that we were in front of a small
+unlighted cottage.
+
+“No refuge ever appeared more welcome to a pair of sinking wanderers I
+am sure. Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with breasting
+the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain our breath,
+then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker and struck a
+smart blow on the door.
+
+“‘We will find shelter here,’ said she.
+
+“She was not mistaken. In a few moments we were standing once more
+before a comfortable fire hastily built by the worthy couple whose
+slumbers we had thus interrupted. As I began to realize the sweetness of
+conscious safety, all that this young, heroic creature had done for me
+swept warmly across my mind. Looking up from the fire that was beginning
+to infuse its heat through my grateful system, I surveyed her as she
+slowly undid her long braids and shook them dry over the blaze, and
+almost started to see how young she was. Not more than sixteen I should
+say, and yet what an invincible will shone from her dark eyes and
+dignified her slender form; a will gentle as it was strong, elevated
+as it was unbending. I bowed my head as I watched her, in grateful
+thankfulness which I presently put into words.
+
+“At once she drew herself erect. ‘I did but my duty,’ said she quietly.
+‘I am glad I was prospered in it.’ Then slowly. ‘If you are grateful,
+sir, will you promise to say nothing of--of what took place at the inn?’
+
+“Instantly I remembered a suspicion which had crossed my mind while
+there, and my hand went involuntarily to my vest pocket. The roll of
+bills was gone.
+
+“She did not falter. ‘I would be relieved if you would,’ continued she.
+
+“I drew out my empty hand, looked at it, but said nothing.
+
+“‘Have you lost anything?’ asked she. ‘Search in your overcoat pockets.’
+
+“I plunged my hand into the one nearest her and drew it out with
+satisfaction; the roll of bills was there. ‘I give you my promise,’ said
+I.
+
+“‘You will find a bill missing,’ she murmured; ‘for what amount I do not
+know; the sacrifice of something was inevitable.’
+
+“‘I can only wonder over the ingenuity you displayed, as well as express
+my appreciation for your bravery,’ returned I with enthusiasm. ‘You are
+a noble girl.’
+
+“She put out her hand as if compliments hurt her. ‘It is the first time
+they have ever attempted anything like that,’ cried she in a quick low
+tone full of shame and suffering. ‘They have shown a disposition to--to
+take money sometimes, but they never threatened life before. And they
+did threaten yours. They saw you take out your money, through a hole
+pierced in the wall of the room you occupied, and the sight made them
+mad. They were going to kill you and then tumble you and your horse over
+the precipice below there. But I overheard them talking and when they
+went out to saddle the horse, I hurried up to your room to wake you. I
+had to take possession of the bills; you were not safe while you held
+them. I took them quietly because I hoped to save you without betraying
+them. But I failed in that. You must remember they are my father and my
+brother.’
+
+“‘I will not betray them,’ said I.
+
+“She smiled. It was a wintry gleam but it ineffably softened her face. I
+became conscious of a movement of pity towards her.
+
+“‘You have a hard lot,’ remarked I. ‘Your life must be a sad one.’
+
+“She flashed upon me one glance of her dark eye. ‘I was born for
+hardship,’ said she, ‘but--’ and a sudden wild shudder seized her, ‘but
+not for crime.’
+
+“The word fell like a drop of blood wrung from her heart.
+
+“‘Good heavens!’ cried I, ‘and must you--’
+
+“‘No,’ rang from her lips in a clarion-like peal; ‘some things cut the
+very bonds of nature. I am not called upon to cleave to what will drag
+me into infamy.’ Then calmly, as if speaking of the most ordinary matter
+in the world, ‘I shall never go back to that house we have left behind
+us, sir.’
+
+“‘But,’ cried I, glancing at her scanty garments, ‘where will you go?
+What will you do? You are young--’
+
+“‘And very strong,’ she interrupted. ‘Do not fear for me.’ And her smile
+was like a burst of sudden sunshine.
+
+“I said no more that night.
+
+“But when in the morning I stumbled upon her sitting in the kitchen
+reading a book not only above her position but beyond her years,
+a sudden impulse seized me and I asked her if she would like to be
+educated. The instantaneous illumining of her whole face was sufficient
+reply without her low emphatic words,
+
+“‘I would be content to study on my knees to know what some women do,
+whom I have seen.’
+
+“It is not necessary for me to relate with what pleasure I caught at
+the idea that here was a chance to repay in some slight measure the
+inestimable favor she had done me; nor by what arguments I finally won
+her to accept an education at my hands as some sort of recompense for
+the life she had saved. The advantage which it would give her in her
+struggle with the world she seemed duly to appreciate, but that so
+great a favor could be shown her without causing me much trouble and an
+unwarrantable expense, she could not at once be brought to comprehend,
+and till she could, she held out with that gentle but inflexible will of
+hers. The battle, however, was won at last and I left her in that little
+cottage, with the understanding that as soon as the matter could be
+arranged, she was to enter a certain boarding-school in Troy with the
+mistress of which I was acquainted. Meanwhile she was to go out to
+service at Melville and earn enough money to provide herself with
+clothes.
+
+“I was a careless fellow in those days but I kept my promise to that
+girl. I not only entered her into that school for a course of three
+years, but acting through its mistress who had taken a great fancy to
+her, supplied her with the necessities her position required. It was so
+easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was
+done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any personal
+sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the labor of a
+thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to the city my
+interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an extent that any
+matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for me.
+
+“Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no
+engagement between us. My father’s determined opposition was enough to
+prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped would
+one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my father.
+Sick as he was--he was at that time laboring under the disease which in
+a couple of months later bore him to the tomb--he kept an eye upon my
+movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At last he came to a
+definite decision and spoke.
+
+“His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child, as
+he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to leave
+me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed disposed
+to commit one of those acts against which he had the most determined
+prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an unsanctified
+and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the most unhappy. If I
+persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The Blake estate should
+never descend with the seal of his approbation to a race of probable
+imbeciles.
+
+“Nor was this enough. He not only robbed me of the woman I loved,
+but with a clear insight into the future, I presume, insisted upon
+my marrying some one else of respectability and worth before he died.
+‘Anyone whose appearance will do you credit and whose virtue is beyond
+reproach,’ said he. ‘I don’t ask her to be rich or even the offspring of
+one of our old families. Let her be good and pure and of no connection
+to us, and I will bless her and you with my dying breath.’
+
+“The idea had seized upon him with great force, and I soon saw he was
+not to be shaken out of it. To all my objections he returned but the one
+word,
+
+“‘I don’t restrict your choice and I give you a month in which to
+make it. If at the end of that time you cannot bring your bride to my
+bedside, I must look around for an heir who will not thwart my dying
+wishes.’”
+
+“A month! I surveyed the fashionable belles that nightly thronged the
+parlors of my friends and felt my heart sink within me. Take one of them
+for my wife, loving another woman? Impossible. Women like these demanded
+something in return for the honor they conferred upon a man by marrying
+him. Wealth? they had it. Position? that was theirs also. Consideration?
+ah, what consideration had I to give? I turned from them with distaste.
+
+“My cousin Evelyn gave me no help. She was a proud woman and loved my
+money and my expectations as much as she did me.
+
+“‘If you must marry another woman to retain your wealth, marry, said
+she, ‘but do not marry one of my associates. I will have no rival in my
+own empire; your wife must be a plainer and a less aspiring woman than
+Evelyn Blake. Yet do not discredit your name,--which is mine,’ she would
+always add.
+
+“Meanwhile the days flew by. If my own conscience had allowed me to
+forget the fact, my father’s eagerly inquiring, but sternly unrelenting
+gaze as I came each evening to his bedside, would have kept it
+sufficiently in my mind. I began to feel like one in the power of
+some huge crushing machine whose slowly descending weight he in vain
+endeavors to escape.
+
+“How or when the thought of Luttra first crossed my mind I cannot
+say. At first I recoiled at the suggestion and put it away from me in
+disdain; but it ever recurred and with it so many arguments in her favor
+that before long I found myself regarding it as a refuge. To be sure she
+was a waif and a stray, but that seemed to be the kind of wife demanded
+of me. She was allied to rogues if not villains, I knew; but then had
+she not cut all connection with them, dropped away from them, planted
+her feet on new ground which they would never invade? I commenced to
+cherish the idea. With this friendless, grateful, unassuming protegee of
+mine for a wife, I would be as little bound as might be. She would
+ask nothing, and I need give nothing, beyond a home and the common
+attentions required of a gentleman and a friend. Then she was not
+disagreeable, nor was her beauty of a type to suggest the charms of
+her I had lost. None of the graces of the haughty patrician lady whose
+lightest gesture was a command, would appear in this humble girl, to
+mock and constrain me. No, I should have a fair wife and an obedient
+one, but no vulgarized shadow of Evelyn, thank God, or of any of her
+fashionably dressed friends.
+
+“Advanced thus far towards the end, I went to see Luttra. I had not
+beheld her since the morning we parted at the door of that little
+cottage in Vermont, and her presence caused me a shock. This, the humble
+waif with the appealing grateful eyes I had expected to encounter? this
+tall and slender creature with an aureola of golden hair about a face
+that it was an education to behold! I felt a half movement of anger as I
+surveyed her. I had been cheated; I had planted a grape seed and a palm
+tree had sprung up in its place. I was so taken aback, my salute lost
+something of the benevolent condescension I had intended to infuse into
+it. She seemed to feel my embarassment and a half smile fluttered to
+her lips. That smile decided me. It was sweet but above all else it was
+appealing.
+
+“How I won that woman to marry me in ten days time I care not to
+state. Not by holding up my wealth and position before her. Something
+restrained me from that. I was resolved, and perhaps it was the only
+point of light in my conduct at that time, not to buy this young girl. I
+never spoke of my expectations, I never alluded to my present advantages
+yet I won her.
+
+“We were married, there, in Troy in the quietest and most unpretending
+manner. Why the fact has never transpired I cannot say. I certainly took
+no especial pains to conceal it at the time, though I acknowledge
+that after our separation I did resort to such measures as I thought
+necessary, to suppress what had become gall and wormwood to my pride.
+
+“My first move after the ceremony was to bring her immediately to New
+York and to this house. With perhaps a pardonable bitterness of spirit,
+I had refrained from any notification of my intentions, and it was as
+strangers might enter an unprepared dwelling, that we stepped across the
+threshold of this house and passed immediately to my father’s room.
+
+“‘I can give you no wedding and no honeymoon,’ I had told her. ‘My
+father is dying and demands my care. From the altar to a death-bed may
+be sad for you, but it is an inevitable condition of your marriage with
+me.’ And she had accepted her fate with a deep unspeakable smile it has
+taken me long months of loneliness and suffering to understand.
+
+“‘Father, I bring you my bride,’ were my first words to him as the door
+closed behind us shutting us in with the dread, invisible Presence that
+for so long a time had been relentlessly advancing upon our home.
+
+“I shall never forget how he roused himself in his bed, nor with what
+eager eyes he read her young face and surveyed her slight form swaying
+towards him in her sudden emotion like a flame in a breeze. Nor while I
+live shall I lose sight of the spasm of uncontrollable joy with which
+he lifted his aged arms towards her, nor the look with which she sprang
+from my side and nestled, yes nestled, on the breast that never to my
+remembrance had opened itself to me even in the years of my earliest
+childhood. For my father was a stern man who believed in holding love at
+arm’s length and measured affection by the depth of awe it inspired.
+
+“‘My daughter!’ broke from his lips, and he never inquired who she was
+or what; no, not even when after a moment of silence she raised her head
+and with a sudden low cry of passionate longing looked in his face and
+murmured,
+
+“‘I never had a father.’
+
+“Sirs, it is impossible for me to continue without revealing depths
+of pride and bitterness in my own nature, from which I now shrink with
+unspeakable pain. So far from being touched by this scene, I felt myself
+grow hard under it. If he had been disappointed in my choice, queried
+at it or even been simply pleased at my obedience, I might have accepted
+the wife I had won, and been tolerably grateful. But to love her, admire
+her, glory in her when Evelyn Blake had never succeeded in winning a
+glance from his eyes that was not a public disapprobation! I could
+not endure it; my whole being rebelled, and a movement like hate took
+possession of me.
+
+“Bidding my wife to leave me with my father alone, I scarcely waited
+for the door to close upon the poor young thing before all that had been
+seething in my breast for a month, burst from me in the one cry,
+
+“‘I have brought you a daughter as you commanded me. Now give me the
+blessing you promised and let me go; for I cannot live with a woman I do
+not love.’
+
+“Instantly, and before his lips could move, the door opened and the
+woman I thus repudiated in the first dawning hour of her young bliss,
+stood before us. My God! what a face! When I think of it now in the
+night season--when from dreams that gloomy as they are, are often
+elysian to the thoughts which beset me in my waking hours, I suddenly
+arouse to see starting upon me from the surrounding shadows that young
+fair brow with its halo of golden tresses, blotted, ay blotted by the
+agony that turned her that instant into stone, I wonder I did not take
+out the pistol that lay in the table near which I stood, and shoot her
+lifeless on the spot as some sort of a compensation for the misery I had
+caused her. I say I wonder now: then I only thought of braving it out.
+
+“Straight as a dart, but with that look on her face, she came towards
+us. ‘Did I hear aright?’ were the words that came from her lips. ‘Have
+you married me, a woman beneath your station as I now perceive, because
+you were commanded to do so? Have you not loved me? given me that which
+alone makes marriage a sacrament or even a possibility? and must you
+leave this house made sacred by the recumbent form of your dying father
+if I remain within it?’
+
+“I saw my father’s stiff and pallid lips move silently as though
+he would answer for me if he could, and summoning up what courage I
+possessed, I told her that I deeply regretted she had overheard my
+inconsiderate words. That I had never meant to wound her, whatever
+bitterness lay in my heart towards one who had thwarted me in my dearest
+and most cherished hopes. That I humbly begged her pardon and would so
+far acknowledge her claim upon me as to promise that I would not leave
+my home at this time, if it distressed her; my desire being not to
+injure her, only to protect myself.
+
+“O the scorn that mounted to her brow at these weak words. Not scorn of
+me, thank God, worthy as I was of it that hour, but scorn of my slight
+opinion of her.
+
+“‘Then I heard aright,’ she murmured, and waited with a look that would
+not be gainsaid.
+
+“I could only bow my head, cursing the day I was born.
+
+“‘Holman! Holman!’ came in agonized entreaty from the bed, ‘you will not
+rob me of my daughter now?’
+
+“Startled, I looked up. Luttra was half way to the door.
+
+“‘What are you going to do?’ cried I, bounding towards her.
+
+“She stopped me with a look. ‘The son must never forsake the father,’
+said she. ‘If either of us must leave the house this day, let it be I.’
+Then in a softer tone, ‘When you asked me to be your wife, I who had
+worshipped you from the moment you entered my father’s house on the
+memorable night I left it, was so overcome at your condescension that
+I forgot you did not preface it by the usual passionate, ‘I love you,’
+which more than the marriage ring binds two hearts together. In the
+glamour and glow of my joy, I did not see that the smile that was in my
+heart, was missing from your face. I was to be your wife and that was
+enough, or so I thought then, for I loved you. Ah, and I do now, my
+husband, love you so that I leave you. Were it for your happiness I
+would do more than that, I would give you back your freedom, but from
+what I hear, it seems that you need a wife in name and I will be but
+fulfilling your desire in holding that place for you. I will never
+disgrace the position high as it is above my poor deserts. When the day
+comes--if the day comes--that you need or feel you need the sustainment
+of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on earth save that
+of death itself, shall keep me from your side. Till that day arrives I
+remain what you have made me, a bride who lays no claim to the name
+you this morning bestowed upon her.’ And with a gesture that was like a
+benediction, she turned, and noiselessly, breathlessly as a dream that
+vanishes, left the room.
+
+“Sirs, I believe I uttered a cry and stumbled towards her. Some one in
+that room uttered a cry, but it may be that it only rose in my heart and
+that the one I heard came from my father’s lips. For when at the door
+I turned, startled at the deathly silence, I saw he had fainted on his
+pillow. I could not leave him so. Calling to Mrs. Daniels, who was never
+far from my father in those days, I bade her stop the lady--I believe
+I called her my wife--who was going down the stairs, and then rushed to
+his side. It took minutes to revive him. When he came to himself it was
+to ask for the creature who had flashed like a beacon of light upon his
+darkening path. I rose as if to fetch her but before I could advance I
+heard a voice say, ‘She is not here,’ and looking up I saw Mrs. Daniels
+glide into the room.
+
+“‘Mrs. Blake has gone, sir, I could not keep her.’”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. A MAN’S HEART
+
+
+“That was the last time my eyes ever rested upon my wife. Whither she
+went or what refuge she gained, I never knew. My father who had received
+in this scene a great shock, began to fail so rapidly, he demanded my
+constant care; and though from time to time as I ministered to him and
+noted with what a yearning persistency he would eye the door and then
+turn and meet my gaze with a look I could not understand, I caught
+myself asking whether I had done a deed destined to hang forever about
+me like a pall; it was not till after his death that the despairing
+image of the bright young creature to whom I had given my name, returned
+with any startling distinctness to my mind, or that I allowed myself to
+ask whether the heavy gloom which I now felt settling upon me was owing
+to the sense of shame that overpowered me at the remembrance of the
+past, or to the possible loss I had sustained in the departure of my
+young unloved bride.
+
+“The announcement at this time of the engagement between Evelyn Blake
+and the Count De Mirac may have had something to do with this. Though I
+had never in the most passionate hours of my love for her, lost sight of
+that side of her nature which demanded as her right the luxury of great
+wealth; and though in my tacit abandonment of her and secret marriage
+with another I had certainly lost the right to complain of her actions
+whatever they might be, this manifest surrendering of herself to the
+power of wealth and show at the price of all that women are believed to
+hold dear, was an undoubted blow to my pride and the confidence I
+had till now unconsciously reposed in her inherent womanliness and
+affection. That she had but made on a more conspicuous scale, the same
+sacrifice as myself to the god of Wealth and Position, was in my eyes
+at that time, no palliation of her conduct. I was a man none too good
+or exalted at the best; she, a woman, should have been superior to the
+temptations that overpowered me. That she was not, seemed to drag all
+womanhood a little nearer the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to
+say, for somehow even at that early day her conduct did not seem to
+affect the vivid image of Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of
+her joy but burning with a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,
+
+“‘I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave
+you. When the day comes--if the day comes--you need or feel you need
+the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on
+earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.’
+
+“Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face and
+that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not to my
+relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all that had
+occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate resentment.
+I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to the world would
+cause me the bitterest shame. For by this time the true character of
+her father and brother had been revealed and I found myself bound to the
+daughter of a convicted criminal.
+
+“But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was
+branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me, till
+to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that means I
+might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.
+
+“The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an
+artist’s touch and insight that under other circumstances might,
+perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the
+execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my
+somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush,
+startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my
+mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from
+rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden
+hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the
+inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his
+time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my
+first manhood.
+
+“At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in
+the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be
+forgotten moment. Even the roses which in the secret uneasiness of my
+conscience I had put in her hand on our departure from Troy, as a sort
+of visible token that I regarded her as my bride, and which through all
+her interview with my father she had never dropped, blossomed before
+me on the canvas. Nothing that could give reality to the likeness,
+was lacking; the vision of my dreams stood embodied in my sight, and I
+looked for peace. Alas, that picture now became my dream.
+
+“Inserting it behind that of Evelyn which for two years had held its
+place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in
+the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the months
+passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world grew a
+little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the ages beat
+a trifle too loudly on heart and brain.
+
+“Meanwhile no word of her, only of her villainous father and brother; no
+token that she had escaped evil or was removed from want. If I had loved
+her I could not have succored her, for I did not know where to find her.
+Her countenance illumined my wall, but her fair young self lay for all I
+knew sheltered within the darkness and silence of the tomb.
+
+“At length my morbid broodings worked out their natural result. A dull
+melancholy settled upon me which nothing could break. Even the news that
+my cousin who had lost her husband a month after marriage, had returned
+to America with expectation to remain, scarcely caused a ripple in my
+apathy. Was I sinking into a hypochrondriac? or was my passion for the
+beautiful brunette dead? I determined to solve the doubt.
+
+“Seeking her where I knew she would be found, I gazed again upon her
+beauty. It was absolutely nothing to me. A fair young face with high
+thoughts in every glance floated like sunshine between us and I left the
+haughty Countess, with the knowledge burned deep into my brain, that the
+love I had considered slain was alive and demanding, but that the object
+of it past recall, was my lost young wife.
+
+“Once assured of this, my apathy vanished like mist before a kindled
+torch. Henceforth the future held a hope, and life a purpose. I would
+seek my wife throughout the world and bring her back if I found her
+in prison between the men whose existence was a curse to my pride. But
+where should I turn my steps? What golden thread had she left in my hand
+by which to trace her through the labyrinth of this world? I could think
+of but one, and that was the love which would restrain her from going
+away from me too far. The Luttra of old would not leave the city where
+her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find
+her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to
+set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means
+first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I
+began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me
+from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I
+not only failed to see her, but anyone like her.
+
+“In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought flashed
+across me or rather a remembrance. One night not long since, being
+uncommonly restless, I had risen from my bed, dressed me and gone out
+into the yard back of my house for a little air. It was an unusual thing
+for me to do but I seemed to be suffocating where I was, and nothing
+else would satisfy me. As you already surmise, it was the night on which
+disappeared the sewing girl of which you have so often spoken, but I
+knew nothing of that, my thoughts were far from my own home and its
+concerns. You may judge what a state of mind I was in when I tell you
+that I even thought at one moment while I paused before the gate leading
+into ---- Street that I saw the face of her with whom my thoughts were
+ever busy, peering upon me through the bars.
+
+“You tell me that I did see a girl there, and that it was the one who
+had lived as sewing woman in my house; it may be so, but at the time I
+considered it a vision of my wife, and the remembrance of it, coming as
+it did after my repeated failures to encounter her in the street, worked
+a change in my plans. For regard it as weakness or not, the recollection
+that the vision I had seen wore the garments of a working-woman rather
+than a lady, acted upon me like a warning not to search for her any
+longer among the resorts of the well-dressed, but in the regions of
+poverty and toil. I therefore took to wanderings such as I have no heart
+to describe. Nor do I need to, if, as you have informed me, I have been
+followed.
+
+“The result was almost madness. Though deep in my heart I felt a
+steadfast trust in the purity of her intentions, the fear of what she
+might have been driven to by the awful poverty and despair I every day
+saw seething about me, was like hot steel in brain and heart. Then her
+father and her brother! To what might they not have forced her, innocent
+and loving soul though she was! Drinking the dregs of a cup such as I
+had never considered it possible for me to taste, I got so far as to
+believe that her eyes would yet flash upon me from beneath some of the
+tattered shawls I saw sullying the forms of the young girls upon which I
+hourly stumbled. Yes, and even made a move to see my cousin, if haply I
+could so win upon her compassion as to gain her consent to shelter the
+poor creature of my dreams in case the necessity came. But my heart
+failed me at the sight of her cold face above the splendor she had
+bought with her charms, and I was saved a humiliation I might never have
+risen above.
+
+“At last, one day I saw a girl--no, it was not she, but her hair was
+similar to hers in hue, and the impulse to follow her was irresistible.
+I did more than that, I spoke to her. I asked her if she could tell me
+anything of one whose locks were golden red like hers--But I need not
+tell you what I said nor what she replied with a gentle delicacy that
+was almost a shock to me as showing from what heights to what depths a
+woman can fall. Enough that nothing passed between us beyond what I have
+intimated, and that in all she said she gave me no news of Luttra.
+
+“Next day I started for the rambling old house in Vermont, if haply
+in the spot where I first saw her, I might come upon some clue to her
+present whereabouts. But the old inn was deserted, and whatever hope I
+may have had in that direction, perished with the rest.
+
+“Concerning the contents of that bureau-drawer above, I can say nothing.
+If, as I scarcely dare to hope, they should prove to have been indeed
+brought here by the girl who has since disappeared so strangely, who
+knows but what in those folded garments a clue is given which will lead
+me at last to the knowledge for which I would now barter all I possess.
+My wife--But I can mention her name no more till the question that now
+assails us is set at rest. Mrs. Daniels must--”
+
+But at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Daniels came in.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. MRS. DANIELS
+
+
+She still wore her bonnet and shawl and her face was like marble.
+
+“You want me?” said she with a hurried look towards Mr. Blake that had
+as much fear as surprise in it.
+
+“Yes,” murmured that gentleman moving towards her with an effort we
+could very well appreciate. “Mrs. Daniels, who was the girl you harbored
+in that room above us for so long? Speak; what was her name and where
+did she come from?”
+
+The housekeeper trembling in every limb, cast us one hurried appeal.
+
+“Speak!” reechoed Mr. Gryce; “the time for secrecy has passed.”
+
+“O,” cried she, sinking into a chair from sheer inability to stand, “it
+was your wife, Mr. Blake, the young creature you--”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+All the agony, the hopelessness, the love, the passion of those last few
+months flashed up in that word. She stopped as if she had been shot, but
+seeing the hand which he had hurriedly raised, fall slowly before him,
+went on with a burst,
+
+“O sir, she made me swear on my knees I would never betray her, no
+matter what happened. When not two weeks after your father died she came
+to the house and asking for me, told me all her story and all her love;
+how she could not reconcile it with her idea of a wife’s duty to live
+under any other roof than that of her husband, and lifting off the black
+wig which she wore, showed me how altered she had made herself by that
+simple change--in her case more marked by the fact that her eyes were
+in keeping with black hair, while with her own bright locks they always
+gave you a shock as of something strange and haunting--I gave up my will
+as if forced by a magnetic power, and not only opened the house to her
+but my heart as well; swearing to all she demanded and keeping my oath
+too, as I would preserve my soul from sin and my life from the knife of
+the destroyer.”
+
+“But, when she went,” broke from the pallid lips of the man before her,
+“when she was taken away from the house, what then?”
+
+“Ah,” returned the agitated woman, “what then! Do you not think I
+suffered? To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would wish
+kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was drifting
+away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would give your
+life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent head! To see you
+cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while she, who would have
+perished any day for your happiness, was losing her life perhaps in the
+clutches of those horrible villains! Do not ask me to tell you what I
+have suffered since she went; I can never tell you,--innocent, tender,
+noble-hearted creature that she was.”
+
+“Was?” His hand clutched his heart as if it had been seized by a deathly
+spasm. “Why do you say was?”
+
+“Because I have just come from the Morgue where she lies dead.”
+
+“No, no,” came in a low shriek from his lips, “that is not she; that is
+another woman, like her perhaps, but not she.”
+
+“Would to God you were right; but the long golden braids! Such hair as
+hers I never saw on anyone before.”
+
+“Mr. Blake is right,” I broke in, for I could not endure this scene any
+longer. “The woman taken out of the East river to-day has been both seen
+and spoken to by him and that not long since. He should know if it is
+his wife.”
+
+“And isn’t it?”
+
+“No, a thousand times no; the girl was a perfect stranger.”
+
+The assurance seemed to lift a leaden weight from her heart. “O thank
+God,” she murmured dropping with an irresistible impulse on her knees.
+Then with a sudden return of her old tremble, “But I was only to reveal
+her secret in case of her death! What have I done, O what have I done!
+Her only hope lay in my faithfulness.”
+
+Mr. Blake leaning heavily on the table before him, looked in her face.
+
+“Mrs. Daniels,” said he, “I love my wife; her hope now lies in me.”
+
+She leaped to her feet with a joyous bound. “You love her? O thank God!”
+ she again reiterated but this time in a low murmur to her self. “Thank
+God!” and weeping with unrestrained joy, she drew back into a corner.
+
+Of course after that, all that remained for us to do was to lay our
+heads together and consult as to the best method of renewing our search
+after the unhappy girl, now rendered of double interest to us by the
+facts with which we had just been made acquainted. That she had been
+forced away from the roof that sheltered her by the power of her father
+and brother was of course no longer open to doubt. To discover them,
+therefore, meant to recover her. Do you wonder, then, that from the
+moment we left Mr. Blake’s house, the capture of that brace of thieves
+became the leading purpose of our two lives?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. A CONFAB
+
+
+Next morning Mr. Gryce and I met in serious consultation. How, and in
+what direction should we extend the inquiries necessary to a discovery
+of these Schoenmakers?
+
+“I advise a thorough overhauling of the German quarter,” said my
+superior. “Schmidt, and Rosenthal will help us and the result ought to
+be satisfactory.”
+
+But I shook my head at this. “I don’t believe,” said I, “that they will
+hide among their own people. You must remember they are not alone, but
+have with them a young woman of a somewhat distinguished appearance,
+whose presence in a crowded district, like that, would be sure to awaken
+gossip; something which above all else they must want to avoid.”
+
+“That is true; the Germans are a dreadful race for gossip.”
+
+“If they dared to ill-dress her or ill-treat her, it would be different.
+But she is a valuable piece of property to them you see, a choice lot
+of goods which it is for their interest to preserve in first-class
+condition till the day comes for its disposal. For I presume you have no
+doubt that it is for the purpose of extorting money from Mr. Blake that
+they have carried off his young wife.”
+
+“For that reason or one similar. He is a man of resources, they may have
+hoped he would help them to escape the country.”
+
+“If they don’t hide in the German quarter they certainly won’t in the
+Italian, French or Irish. What they want is too keep close and rouse
+no questions. I think they will be found to have gone up the river
+somewhere, or over to Jersey. Hoboken would’nt be a bad place to send
+Schmidt to.”
+
+“You forget what it is they’ve got on their minds; besides no
+conspicuous party such as they could live in a rural district without
+attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in the
+city.”
+
+“Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go?”
+
+“Well my most matured thought on the subject,” returned Mr. Gryce, after
+a moment’s deliberation, “is this,--you say, and I agree, that they
+have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the purpose of
+using her hereafter in a scheme of black-mail upon Mr. Blake. He, then,
+must be the object about which their thoughts revolve and toward which
+whatever operations or plans they may be engaged upon must tend. What
+follows? When a company of men have made up their minds to rob a bank,
+what is the first thing they do? They hire, if possible, a house next to
+the especial building they intend to enter, and for months work upon
+the secret passage through which they hope to reach the safe and
+its contents; or they make friends with the watchman that guards its
+treasures, and the janitor who opens and shuts the doors. In short they
+hang about their prey before they pounce upon it. And so will these
+Schoenmakers do in the somewhat different robbery which they plan sooner
+or later to effect. Whatever may keep them close at this moment, Mr.
+Blake and Mr. Blake’s house is the point toward which their eyes are
+turned, and if we had time--”
+
+“But we have’nt,” I broke in impetuously. “It is horrible to think of
+that grand woman languishing away in the power of such rascals.”
+
+“If we had time,” Mr. Gryce persisted, “all it would be necessary to do
+would be to wait, they would come into our hands as easily and naturally
+as a hawk into the snare of the fowler. But as you say we have not, and
+therefore, I would recommend a little beating of the bush directly about
+Mr. Blake’s house; for if all my experience is not at fault, those men
+are already within eye-shot of the prey they intend to run down.”
+
+“But,” said I, “I have been living myself in that very neighborhood and
+know by this time the ways of every house in the vicinity. There is not
+a spot up and down the Avenue for ten blocks where they could hide away
+for two days much less two weeks. And as for the side streets,--why
+I could tell you the names of those who live in each house for a
+considerable distance. Yet if you say so I will go to work--”
+
+“Do, and meanwhile Schmidt and Rosenthal shall rummage the German
+quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies
+any amount of labor that can be spent upon this matter.”
+
+“And you,” I asked.
+
+“Will do my part when you have done yours.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
+
+
+And what success did I meet? The best in the world. And by what means
+did I attain it? By that of the simplest, prettiest clue I ever came
+upon. But let me explain.
+
+When after a wearisome day spent in an ineffectual search through the
+neighborhood, I went home to my room, which as you remember was a front
+one in a lodging-house on the opposite corner from Mr. Blake, I was so
+absorbed in mind and perhaps I may say shaken in nerve, by the strain
+under which I had been laboring for some time now, that I stumbled up an
+extra flight of stairs, and without any suspicion of the fact, tried
+the door of the room directly over mine. It is a wonder to me now that I
+could have made the mistake, for the halls were totally dissimilar,
+the one above being much more cut up than the one below, besides being
+flanked by a greater number of doors. But the intoxication of the mind
+is not far removed from that of the body, and as I say it was not till
+I had tried the door and found it locked, that I became aware of the
+mistake I had made.
+
+With the foolish sense of shame that always overcomes us at the
+committal of any such trivial error, I stumbled hastily back, when my
+foot trod upon something that broke under my weight. I never let even
+small things pass without some notice. Stooping, then, for what I had
+thus inadvertently crushed, I carried it to where a single gas jet
+turned down very low, made a partial light in the long hall, and
+examining it, found it to be a piece of red chalk.
+
+What was there in that simple fact to make me start and hastily recall
+one or two half-forgotten incidents which, once brought to mind, awoke
+a train of thought that led to the discovery and capture of those two
+desperate thieves? I will tell you.
+
+I don’t remember now whether in my account of the visit I paid to
+the Schoenmakers’ house in Vermont, I informed you of the red cross I
+noticed scrawled on the panel of one of the doors. It seemed a trivial
+thing at the time and made little or no impression upon me, the chances
+being that I should never have thought of it again, if I had not come
+upon the article just mentioned at a moment when my mind was full of
+those very Schoenmakers. But remembered now, together with another
+half-forgotten fact,--that some days previous I had been told by the
+woman who kept the house I was in, that the parties over my head (two
+men and a woman I believe she said) were giving her some trouble, but
+that they paid well and therefore she did not like to turn them out,--it
+aroused a vague suspicion in my mind, and led to my walking back to the
+door I had endeavored to open in my abstraction, and carefully looking
+at it.
+
+It was plain and white, rather ruder of make than those below, but
+offering no inducements for prolonged scrutiny. But not so with the
+one that stood at right angles to it on the left. Full in the centre
+of that, I beheld distinctly scrawled, probably with the very piece of
+chalk I then held, a red cross precisely similar in outline to the one
+I had seen a few days before on the panel of the Schoenmakers’ door at
+Granby.
+
+The discovery sent a thrill over me that almost raised my hair on end.
+Was, then, this famous trio to be found in the very house in which I had
+been myself living for a week or more? over my head in fact? I could
+not withdraw my gaze from the mysterious looking object. I bent near, I
+listened, I heard what sounded like the suppressed snore of a powerful
+man, and almost had to lay hold of myself to prevent my hand from
+pushing open that closed door and my feet from entering. As it was I did
+finger the knob a little, but an extra loud snore from within reminded
+me by its suggestion of strength that I was but a small man and that in
+this case and at this hour, discretion was the better part of valor.
+
+I therefore withdrew, but for the whole night lay awake listening to
+catch any sounds that might come from above, and going so far as to plan
+what I would do if it should be proved that I was indeed upon the trail
+of the men I was so anxious to encounter.
+
+With the breaking of day I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up
+the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But
+I presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the
+landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to
+deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she was
+already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired corner and
+put my questions. She was not backward in replying. She had conceived an
+innocent liking for me in the short time I had been with her--a display
+of weakness for which I was myself, perhaps, as much to blame as
+she--and was only too ready to pour out her griefs into my sympathizing
+ear. For those men were a grief to her, acceptable as was the money
+they were careful to provide her with. They were not only always in the
+house, that is one of them, smoking his old pipe and blackening up the
+walls, but they looked so shabby, and kept the girl so close, and if
+they did go out, came in at such unheard of hours. It was enough to
+drive her crazy; yet the money, the money--
+
+“Yes,” said I, “I know; and the money ought to make you overlook all
+the small disagreeablenesses you mention. What is a landlady without
+patience.” And I urged her not to turn them out.
+
+“But the girl,” she went on, “so nice, so quiet, so sick-looking! I
+cannot stand it to see her cooped up in that small room, always watched
+over by one or both of those burly wretches. The old man says she is
+his daughter and she does not deny it, but I would as soon think of that
+little rosy child you see cooing in the window over the way, belonging
+to the beggar going in at the gate, as of her with her lady-like ways
+having any connection with him and his rough-acting son. You ought to
+see her--”
+
+“That is just what I want to do,” interrupted I. “Not because you have
+tempted my fancy by a recital of her charms,” I hastened to add, “but
+because she is, if I don’t mistake, a woman for whose discovery and
+rescue, a large sum of money has been offered.”
+
+And without further disguise I acquainted the startled woman before me
+with the fact that I was not, as she had always considered, the clerk
+out of employment whose daily business it was to sally forth in quest of
+a situation, but a member of the city police.
+
+She was duly impressed and easily persuaded to second all my operations
+as far as her poor wits would allow, giving me free range of her upper
+story, and above all, promising that secrecy without which all my finely
+laid plans for capturing the rogues without raising a scandal, would
+fall headlong to the ground.
+
+Behold me, then, by noon of that same day domiciled in an apartment next
+to the one whose door bore that scarlet sign which had aroused within
+me such feverish hopes the night before. Clad in the seedy garments of
+a broken down French artist whose acquaintance I had once made, with
+something of his air and general appearance and with a few of his
+wretched daubs hung about on the whitewashed wall, I commenced with
+every prospect of success as I thought, that quiet espionage of the hall
+and its inhabitants which I considered necessary to a proper attainment
+of the end I had in view.
+
+A racking cough was one of the peculiarities of my friend, and
+determined to assume the character in toto, I allowed myself to startle
+the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings that
+whether agreeable or not, certainly were of a character to show that I
+had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come among. Indeed
+it was my desire to acquaint them as fully and as soon as possible with
+the fact of their having a neighbor: a weak-eyed half-alive innocent
+to be sure, but yet a neighbor who would keep his door open night and
+day--for the warmth of the hall of course--and who with the fretful
+habit of an old man who had once been a gentleman and a beau, went
+rambling about through the hall speaking to those he met and expecting
+a civil word in return. When he was not rambling or coughing he made
+architectural monsters out of cardboard, wherewith to tempt the pennies
+out of the pockets of unwary children, an employment that kept him
+chained to a small table in the centre of his room directly opposite the
+open door.
+
+As I expected I had scarcely given way to three separate fits of
+coughing, when the door next me opened with a jerk and a rough voice
+called out,
+
+“Who’s that making all that to do about here? If you don’t stop that
+infernal noise in a hurry--”
+
+A soft voice interrupted him and he drew back. “I will go see,” said
+those gentle tones, and Luttra Blake, for I knew it was she before the
+skirt of her robe had advanced beyond the door, stepped out into the
+hall.
+
+I was yet bent over my work when she paused before me. The fact is I did
+not dare look up, the moment was one of such importance to me.
+
+“You have a dreadful cough,” said she with that low ring of sympathy in
+her voice that goes unconsciously to the heart. “Is there no help for
+it?”
+
+I pushed back my work, drew my hand over my eyes, (I did not need to
+make it tremble) and glanced up. “No,” said I with a shake of my head,
+“but it is not always so bad. I beg your pardon, miss, if it disturbs
+you.”
+
+She threw back the shawl which she had held drawn tightly over her head,
+and advanced with an easy gliding step close to my side. “You do not
+disturb me, but my father is--is, well a trifle cross sometimes, and if
+he should speak up a little harsh now and then, you must not mind. I am
+sorry you are so ill.”
+
+What is there in some women’s look, some women’s touch that more than
+all beauty goes to the heart and subdues it. As she stood there before
+me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply
+braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by
+ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the
+witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld.
+
+“You are veree kind, veree good,” I murmured, half ashamed of my
+disguise, though it was assumed for the purpose of rescuing her. “Your
+sympathy goes to my heart.” Then as a deep growl of impatience rose from
+the room at my side, I motioned her to go and not irritate the man who
+seemed to have such control over her.
+
+“In a minute,” answered she, “first tell me what you are making.”
+
+So I told her and in the course of telling, let drop such other facts
+about my fancied life as I wished to have known to her and through her
+to her father. She looked sweetly interested and more than once turned
+upon me that dark eye, of which I had heard so much, full of tears that
+were as much for me, scamp that I was, as for her own secret trouble.
+But the growls becoming more and more impatient she speedily turned to
+go, repeating, however, as she did so,
+
+“Now remember what I say, you are not to be troubled if they do speak
+cross to you. They make noise enough themselves sometimes, as you will
+doubtless be assured of to-night.”
+
+And the lips which seemed to have grown stiff and cold with her misery,
+actually softened into something like a smile.
+
+The nod which I gave her in return had the solemnity of a vow in it.
+
+My mind thus assured as to the correctness of my suspicions, and the way
+thus paved to the carrying out of my plans, I allowed some few days
+to elapse without further action on my part. My motive was to acquaint
+myself as fully as possible with the habits and ways of these two
+desperate men, before making the attempt to capture them upon which so
+many interests hung. For while I felt it would be highly creditable to
+my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a detective, to
+restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into the hands of
+justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the affair as
+to save the wife of Mr. Blake, not only from the consequences of their
+despair, but from the publicity and scandal attendant upon the open
+arrest of two heavily armed men. Strategy, therefore, rather than force
+was to be employed, and strategy to be successful must be founded upon
+the most thorough knowledge of the matter with which one has to deal.
+Three days, then, did I give to the acquiring of that knowledge, the
+result of which was the possession of the following facts.
+
+1. That the landlady was right when she told me the girl was never left
+alone, one of the men, if not the father then the son, always remaining
+with her.
+
+2. That while thus guarded, she was not so restricted but that she had
+the liberty of walking in the hall, though never for any length of time.
+
+3. That the cross on the door seemed to possess some secret meaning
+connected with their presence in the house, it having been erased one
+evening when the whole three went out on some matter or other, only to
+be chalked on again when in an hour or so later, father and daughter
+returned alone.
+
+4. That it was the father and not the son who made such purchases as
+were needed, while it was the son and not the father who carried on
+whatever operations they had on hand; nightfall being the favorite
+hour for the one and midnight for the other; though it not infrequently
+happened that the latter sauntered out for a short time also in the
+afternoon, probably for the drink he could not go long without.
+
+5. That they were men of great strength but little alertness; the stray
+glimpses I had had of them, revealing a breadth of back that was truly
+formidable, if it had not been joined to a heaviness of motion that
+proclaimed a certain stolidity of mind that was eminently in our favor.
+
+How best to use these facts in the building up of a matured plan of
+action, was, then, the problem. By noon of a certain day I believed
+it to have been solved, and reluctant as I was to leave the spot of my
+espionage even for the hour or two necessary to a visit to headquarters,
+I found myself compelled to do so. Packing up in a small basket I had
+for the purpose, the little articles I had been engaged during the last
+few days in making, I gave way to a final fit of coughing so hollow and
+sepulchral in its tone, that it awoke a curse from the next room deep as
+the growl of a wild beast, and still continuing, finally brought Luttra
+to the door with that look of compassion on her face that always called
+up a flush to my cheek whether I wished it or no.
+
+“Ah, Monsieur, I am afraid your cough is very bad to-day. O I see; you
+have been getting ready to go out--”
+
+“Come back here,” broke in a heavy voice from the room she had left.
+“What do you mean by running off to palaver with that old rascal every
+time he opens his ----- battery of a cough?”
+
+A smile that went through me like the cut of a knife, flashed for a
+moment on her face.
+
+“My father is in one of his impatient moods,” said she, “you had better
+go. I hope you will be successful,” she murmured, glancing wistfully at
+my basket.
+
+“What is that?” again came thundering on our ears. “Successful? What are
+you two up to?” And we heard the rough clatter of advancing steps.
+
+“Go,” said she; “you are weak and old; and when you come back, try and
+not cough.” And she gave me a gentle push towards the door.
+
+“When I come back,” I began, but was forced to pause, the elder
+Schoenmaker having by this time reached the open doorway where he stood
+frowning in upon us in a way that made my heart stand still for her.
+
+“What are you two talking about?” said he; “and what have you got in
+your basket there?” he continued with a stride forward that shook the
+floor.
+
+“Only some little toys that he has been making, and is now going out to
+sell,” was her low answer given with a quick deprecatory gesture such as
+I doubt if she ever used for herself.
+
+“Nothing more?” asked he in German with a red glare in the eye he turned
+towards her.
+
+“Nothing more,” replied she in the same tongue. “You may believe me.”
+
+He gave a deep growl and turned away. “If there was,” said he, “you know
+what would happen.” And unheeding the wild keen shudder that seized her
+at the word, making her insensible for the moment to all and everything
+about her, he laid one heavy hand upon her slight shoulder and led her
+from the room.
+
+I waited no longer than was necessary to carry my feeble and faltering
+steps appropriately down the stairs, to reach the floor below and gain
+the landlady’s presence.
+
+“Do you go up,” said I, “and sit on those stairs till I come back. If
+you hear the least cry of pain or sound of struggle from that young
+girl’s room, do you call at once for help. I will have a policeman
+standing on the corner below.”
+
+The good woman nodded and proceeded at once to take up her work-basket.
+“Lucky there’s a window up there, so I can see,” I heard her mutter.
+“I’ve no time to throw away even on deeds of charity.”
+
+Notwithstanding which precaution, I was in constant anxiety during my
+absence; an absence necessarily prolonged as I had to stop and explain
+matters to the Superintendent, as well as hunt up Mr. Gryce and get his
+consent to assist me in the matter of the impending arrest.
+
+I found the latter in his own home and more than enthusiastic upon the
+subject.
+
+“Well,” said he after I had informed him of the discoveries I had made,
+“the fates seem to prosper you in this. I have not received an inkling
+of light upon the matter since I parted from you at Mr. Blake’s house.
+By the way I saw that gentleman this morning and I tell you we will find
+him a grateful man if this affair can be resolved satisfactorily.”
+
+“That is good,” said I,” gratitude is what we want.” Then shortly,
+“Perhaps it is no more than our duty to let him know that his wife is
+safe and under my eye; though I would by no means advocate his knowing
+just how near him she is, till the moment comes when he is wanted, or we
+shall have a lover’s impetuosity to deal with as well as all the rest.”
+ Then with a hurried remembrance of a possible contingency, went on to
+say, “But, by the way, in case we should need the cooperation of Mrs.
+Blake in what we have before us, you had better get a line written
+in French from Mrs. Daniels, expressive of her belief in Mr. Blake’s
+present affection for his wife. The latter will not otherwise trust us,
+or understand that we are to be obeyed in whatever we may demand. Let
+it be unsigned and without names in case of accident; and if the
+housekeeper don’t understand French, tell her to get some one to help
+her that does, only be sure that the handwriting employed is her own.”
+
+Mr. Gryce seemed to perceive the wisdom of this precaution and promised
+to procure me such a note by a certain hour, after which I related to
+him the various other details of the capture such as I had planned it,
+meeting to my secret gratification an unqualified approval that went far
+towards alleviating that wound to my pride which I had received from him
+in the beginning of this affair.
+
+“Let all things proceed as you have determined, and we shall accomplish
+something that it will be a life-long satisfaction to remember,” said
+he; “but you must be prepared for some twist of the screw which you
+do not anticipate. I never knew anything to go off just as one
+prognosticates it must, except once,” he added thoughtfully, “and
+then it was with a surprise attached to it that well nigh upset me
+notwithstanding all my preparations.”
+
+“You won a great success that day,” remarked I. “I hope the fates will
+be as propitious to me to-morrow. Failure now would break my heart.”
+
+“But you won’t fail,” exclaimed he. “I myself am resolved to see you
+through this matter with credit.”
+
+And in this assurance I returned to my lodgings where I found the
+landlady sitting where I had left her, darning her twenty-third sock.
+
+“I have to mend for a dozen men and three boys,” said she, “and the boys
+are the worst by a heap sight. Look at that, will you,” holding up
+a darn with a bit of stocking attached. “That hole was made playing
+shinny.”
+
+I uttered my condolences and asked if any sound or disturbance had
+reached her ears from above.
+
+“O no, all is right up there; I’ve scarcely heard a whisper since you’ve
+been gone.”
+
+I gave her a pat on the chin scarcely consistent with my aged and
+tottering mien and proceeded to shamble painfully to my room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE
+
+
+Promptly next morning at the designated hour, came the little note
+promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks by
+the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an adaptation
+for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing over it--it
+was unsealed--and finding it entirely unintelligible, I took it for
+granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if that failed,
+strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate with Mrs. Blake.
+An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained unclosed. A half hour
+more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound had come from their
+precincts save now and then a mumbled word of parley between the father
+and son, a short command to the daughter, or a not-to-be-restrained oath
+of annoyance from one or both of the heavy-limbed brutes as something
+was said or done to disturb them in their indolent repose. At last
+my impatience was to be no longer restrained. Rising, I took a bold
+resolution. If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go
+to the mountain. Taking my letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded
+to the door marked with the ominous red cross and knocked.
+
+A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet
+as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent
+position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of
+despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of
+heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful
+adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the
+quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform
+all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from
+following in the ways of their infamy.
+
+“Ah miss,” said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white
+face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, “I beg your pardon
+but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are so weak
+with the work I’ve been doing that I cannot read it. It is from some one
+I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the words for me and so
+relieve an old man from his anxiety.”
+
+The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the
+door. “Certainly,” said she, “if I can,” taking the paper in her hand.
+
+“Just let me get a squint at that first,” said a sullen voice behind
+her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and tore
+the paper out of her grasp.
+
+“You are too suspicious,” murmured she, looking after him with the first
+assumption of that air of power and determination which I had heard
+so eloquently described by the man who loved her. “There is nothing in
+those lines which concerns us; let me have them back.”
+
+“You hold your tongue,” was the brutal reply as the rough man opened the
+folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within. “Blast
+it! it’s French,” was his slow exclamation after a moment spent in
+this way. “See,” and he thrust it towards his father who stood frowning
+heavily a few feet off.
+
+“Of course, it’s French,” cried the girl. “Would you write a note in
+English to father there? The man’s friends are French like himself, and
+must write in their own language.”
+
+“Here take it and read it out,” commanded her father; “and mind you
+tell us what it means. I’ll have nothing going on here that I don’t
+understand.”
+
+“Read me the French words first, miss,” said I. “It is my letter and I
+want to know what my friend has to say to me.”
+
+Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and
+began to read:
+
+    “Calmez vous, mon amie, il vous aime et il vous cherche. Dans
+    quatre heures vous serez heureuse. Allons du courage, et surtout
+    soyez maitre de vous meme.”
+
+“Thanks!” I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the
+sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and
+realized that the words were for her. “My friend says he will pay my
+week’s rent and bids me be at home to receive him,” said I, turning upon
+the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look of meek
+unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have brought down
+the house.
+
+“Is that what those words say, you?” asked the father, pointing over her
+shoulder to the paper she held.
+
+“I will translate for you word by word what it says,” replied she,
+nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though
+I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had
+visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. “Calmez vous, mon amie.
+Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche. He loves
+you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse. In
+four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et surtout soyez
+maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all preserve your
+self-possession. It is the French way of expressing one’s self,”
+ observed she. “I am glad your friend is disposed to help you,” she
+continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. “I am afraid you
+needed it.”
+
+In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks to
+her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was utterly
+dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose contents you
+must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my whole chance of
+expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such words as those before
+these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at the conclusion did she
+with a word make its language seem consistent with the meaning I had
+given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation to her, I hurried to my
+room, there to count out the minutes of another long hour in anxious
+expectation of her making that endeavor to communicate with me, which
+her new hopes and fears must force her to feel almost necessary to her
+existence. At length, my confidence in her was rewarded. Coming out into
+the hall, she hurried past my door, her finger on her lip. I immediately
+rose and stood on the threshold with another paper in my hand, which I
+had prepared against this opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in
+her hand, and warning her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual
+occupation. The words I had written were as follows:
+
+    At or as near the time as possible of your brother’s going out,
+    you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with
+    your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you,
+    and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You
+    are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid
+    down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no;
+    but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without
+    bloodshed and without shame to one you know.
+
+Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not soften
+toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one inquiring
+look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward on the floor,
+and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its effect. Bowing her
+head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand on her heart, looked up
+and glided from the room. I took up that paper and tore it into bits.
+
+And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the
+door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping of
+my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his work,
+and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before two
+o’clock my assistants began to arrive. First, Mr. Gryce appeared on the
+scene and was stowed away in a large room on the other side of mine.
+Next, two of the most agile, as well as muscular men in the force who,
+thanks to having taken off their shoes in the lower hall, gained the
+same refuge without awakening the suspicions of those we were anxious to
+surprise. Lastly, the landlady who went into the closet to which I had
+bidden Mrs. Blake retire after leaving in my room the articles I had
+mentioned.
+
+All was now ready and waiting for the departure of the youngest
+Schoenmaker. Would he disappoint us and remain at home that day? Had any
+suspicions been awakened in the stolid breasts of these men, that would
+serve to make them more watchful than usual against running unnecessary
+risks? No; at or near the time for the clock to strike two, their door
+opened and the tread of a lumbering foot was heard in the hall. On it
+came, passing my room with a rude stamping that gradually grew less
+distinct as the hardy rough went down the corridor, brushing the wall
+behind which Mr. Gryce and his men lay concealed with his thick cane,
+and even stopping to light his pipe in front of the small apartment
+where cowered our good landlady with her eternal basket of mending in
+her lap.
+
+At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into
+a small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable
+impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few
+minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as
+I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her father’s
+presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of apparel--taking
+care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a pocket handkerchief
+to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by the sneeze which at
+that very moment I took care should assail me) walked boldly back to the
+room from which she had just come.
+
+The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a
+simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful
+father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an
+encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together
+with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I
+succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window
+without calling from him anything worse than a fretful “I hope you are
+not going to bark too.”
+
+I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards
+the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention
+sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as he
+sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by surprise, and
+that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature he was, seemed
+to me to be the only safe method before us. But, whether from the
+sullenness of his disposition or the very evident laziness of the
+moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and hearing or thinking I
+did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his companions down the hall,
+I allowed myself to give way to a suppressed exclamation, and leaning
+forward, pressed my forehead against the pane of glass before me as
+if something of absorbing interest had just taken place in the street
+beneath.
+
+His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode
+towards me, muttering,
+
+“What’s up now? What’s that you are looking at?” reaching my side just
+as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a quick
+leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force he could
+not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge strength of an
+unusually developed muscular organization.
+
+“You, you girl there, are to blame for this!” came mingled with curses
+from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors. “Only
+let me get my hand well upon you once--Damn it!” he suddenly exclaimed,
+dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get his mouth down
+to my ear, “go and rub that sign out on the door or I’ll--you know what
+I’ll do well enough. Do you hear?”
+
+Rising, still with face averted, I proceeded to do what he asked. But in
+another moment seeing that he had been effectually bound and gagged,
+I took out the piece of red chalk I had kept in my pocket, and
+deliberately chalked it on again, after which operation I came back and
+took my seat as before on the low stool by the window.
+
+The object now was to secure the second rascal in the same way we had
+the first; and for this purpose Mr. Gryce ordered the now helpless giant
+to be dragged into the adjoining small room formerly occupied by Mrs.
+Blake, where he and his men likewise took up their station leaving me
+to confront as best I might, the surprise and consternation of the one
+whose return we now awaited.
+
+I did not shrink. With that brave woman’s garments drawn about me,
+something of her dauntless spirit seemed to invade my soul, and though I
+expected--But let that come in its place, I am not here to interest you
+in myself or my selfish thoughts.
+
+A half hour passed; he had never lingered away so long before, or so it
+seemed, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have to keep up this
+strain of nerve for hours, when the heavy tread was again heard in
+the hall, and with a blow of the fist that argued anger or a brutal
+impatience, he flung open the door and came in, I did not turn my head.
+
+“Where’s father?” he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from
+the door.
+
+I shook my head with a slight gesture and remained looking out.
+
+He brought his cane down on the floor with a thump. “What do you mean by
+sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering when
+I ask you a decent question?”
+
+Still I made no reply.
+
+Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of
+danger in the air,--which while not amounting to apprehension is often
+sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,--he stood
+glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude, but made
+no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of the window,
+made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one on the
+opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath that
+rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon me with
+a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands of the
+watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came down upon
+my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow the seeds
+of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells ever since.
+But this termination of the affair was no more than I had feared from
+the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs. Blake from
+the wrath of these men, as from any requirements of the situation I had
+assumed the disguise I then wore. I therefore did not allow this mishap
+to greatly trouble me, unpleasant as it was at the time, but, as soon
+as ever I could do so, rose from the floor and throwing off my strange
+habiliments, proceeded to finish up to my satisfaction, the work already
+so successfully begun.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. LOVE AND DUTY
+
+
+Dismissing the men who had assisted us in the capture of these two hardy
+villains, we ranged our prisoners before us.
+
+“Now,” said Mr. Gryce, “no fuss and no swearing; you are in for it, and
+you might as well take it quietly as any other way.”
+
+“Give me a clutch on that girl, that’s all,” said her father, “Where is
+she? Let me see her; every father has a right to see his own daughter,”
+
+“You shall see her,” returned my superior, “but not till her husband is
+here to protect her.”
+
+“Her husband? ah, you know about that do you?” growled the heavy voice
+of the son. “A rich man they say he is and a proud one. Let him come
+and look at us lying here like dogs and say how he will enjoy having his
+wife’s father and brother grinding away their lives in prison.”
+
+“Mr. Blake is coming,” quoth Mr. Gryce, who by some preconcerted signal
+from the window had drawn that gentleman across the street. “He will
+tell you himself that he considers prison the best place for you. Blast
+you! but he--”
+
+“But he, what?” inquired I, as the door opened and Mr. Blake with a pale
+face and agitated mien entered the room.
+
+The wretch did not answer. Rousing from the cowering position in which
+they had both lain since their capture, the father and son struggled
+up in some sort of measure to their feet, and with hot, anxious eyes
+surveyed the countenance of the gentleman before them, as if they felt
+their fate hung upon the expression of his pallid face. The son was the
+first to speak.
+
+“How do you do, brother-in-law,” were his sullen and insulting words.
+
+Mr. Blake shuddered and cast a look around.
+
+“My wife?” murmured he.
+
+“She is well,” was the assurance given by Mr. Gryce, “and in a room not
+far from this. I will send for her if you say so.”
+
+“No, not yet,” came in a sort of gasp; “let me look at these wretches
+first, and understand if I can what my wife has to suffer from her
+connection with them.”
+
+“Your wife,” broke in the father, “what’s that to do with it; the
+question is how do you like it and what will you do to get us clear of
+this thing.”
+
+“I will do nothing,” returned Mr. Blake. “You amply merit your doom and
+you shall suffer it to the end for all time.”
+
+“It will read well in the papers,” exclaimed the son.
+
+“The papers are to know nothing about it,” I broke in. “All knowledge
+of your connection with Mr. or Mrs. Blake is to be buried in this spot
+before we or you leave it. Not a word of her or him is to cross the lips
+of either of you from this hour. I have set that down as a condition and
+it has got to be kept.”
+
+“You have, have you,” thundered in chorus from father and son. “And who
+are you to make conditions, and what do you think we are that you expect
+us to keep them? Can you do anymore than put us back from where we came
+from?”
+
+For reply I took from my pocket the ring I had fished out of the ashes
+of their kitchen stove on that memorable visit to their house, and
+holding it up before their faces, looked them steadily in the eye.
+
+A sudden wild glare followed by a bluish palor that robbed their
+countenances of their usual semblance of daring ferocity, answered me
+beyond my fondest hopes.
+
+“I got that out of the stove where you had burned your prison clothing,”
+ said I. “It is a cheap affair, but it will send you to the gallows if I
+choose to use it against you. The pedlar--”
+
+“Hush,” exclaimed the father in a low choked tone greatly in contrast to
+any he had yet used in all our dealings with him. “Throw that ring out
+of the window and I promise to hold my tongue about any matter you don’t
+want spoke of. I’m not a fool--”
+
+“Nor I,” was my quick reply, as I restored the ring to my pocket. “While
+that remains in my possession together with certain facts concerning
+your habits in that old house of yours which have lately been made known
+to me, your life hangs by a thread I can any minute snip in two. Mr.
+Blake here, has spent some portion of a night in your house and knows
+how near it lies to a certain precipice, at foot of which--”
+
+“Mein Gott, father, why don’t you say something!” leaped in cowed
+accents from the son’s white lips. “If they want us to keep quiet, let
+them say so and not go talking about things that--”
+
+“Now look here,” interposed Mr. Gryce stepping before them with a look
+that closed their mouths at once. “I will just tell you what we propose
+to do. You are to go back to prison and serve your time out, there is
+no help for that, but as long as you behave yourselves and continue
+absolutely silent regarding your relationship to the wife of this
+gentleman, you shall have paid into a certain bank that he will name,
+a monthly sum that upon your dismissal from jail shall be paid you with
+whatever interest it may have accumulated. You are ready to promise
+that, are you not?” he inquired turning to Mr. Blake.
+
+That gentleman bowed and named the sum, which was liberal enough, and
+the bank.
+
+“But,” continued the detective, ignoring the sudden flash of eye that
+passed between the father and son, “let me or any of us hear of a word
+having been uttered by you, which in the remotest way shall suggest that
+you have in the world such a connection as Mrs. Blake, and the money not
+only stops going into the bank, but old scores shall be raked up against
+you with a zeal which if it does not stop your mouth in one way, will in
+another, and that with a suddenness you will not altogether relish.”
+
+The men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled,
+turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring
+way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these
+words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds.
+
+“Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?” muttered the
+father with an uneasy glance at my pocket.
+
+“We certainly do,” was our solemn return.
+
+“Very well; call in the girl and let me just look at her, then, before
+we go. We won’t say nothing,” continued he, seeing Mr. Blake shrink,
+“only she is my daughter and if I cannot bid her good-bye--”
+
+“Let him see his child,” cried Mr. Blake turning with a shudder to the
+window. “I--I wish it,” added he.
+
+Straightway with hasty foot I left the room. Going to the little closet
+where I had ordered his wife to remain concealed, I knocked and entered.
+She was crouched in an attitude of prayer on the floor, her face buried
+in her hands, and her whole person breathing that agony of suspense that
+is a torture to the sensitive soul.
+
+“Mrs. Blake,” said I, dismissing the landlady who stood in helpless
+distress beside her, “the arrest has been satisfactorily made and your
+father calls for you to say good-bye before going away with us. Will you
+come?”
+
+“But my--my--Mr. Blake?” exclaimed she leaping to her feet. “I am sure I
+heard his footstep in the hall?”
+
+“He is with your father and brother. It was at his command I came for
+you.”
+
+A gleam hard to interpret flashed for an instant over her face. With
+her eye on the door she towered in her womanly dignity, while thoughts
+innumerable seemed to rush in wild succession through her mind.
+
+“Will you not come?” I urged.
+
+“I--,” she paused. “I will go see my father,” she murmured, “but--”
+
+Suddenly she trembled and drew back; a step was in the hall, on the
+threshold, at her side; Mr. Blake had come to reclaim his bride.
+
+“Mr. Blake!”
+
+The word came from her in a low tone shaken with the concentrated
+anguish of many a month of longing and despair, but there was no
+invitation in its sound, and he who had held out his arms, stopped and
+surveying her with a certain deprecatory glance in his proud eye, said,
+
+“You are right; I have first my acknowledgments to make and your
+forgiveness to ask before I can hope--”
+
+“No, no,” she broke in, “your coming here is enough, I request no more.
+If you felt unkindly toward me--”
+
+“Unkindly?” A world of love thrilled in that word. “Luttra, I am your
+husband and rejoice that I am so; it is to lay the devotion of my heart
+and life at your feet that I seek your presence this hour. The year has
+taught me--ah, what has not the year taught me of the worth of her I so
+recklessly threw from me on my wedding day. Luttra,”--he held out his
+hand--“will you crown all your other acts of devotion with a pardon
+that will restore me to my manhood and that place in your esteem which I
+covet above every other earthly good?”
+
+Her face which had been raised to his with that earnest look we knew so
+well, softened with an ineffable smile, but still she did not lay her
+hand in his.
+
+“And you say this to me in the very hour of my father’s and brother’s
+arrest! With the remembrance in your mind of their bound and abject
+forms lying before you guarded by police; knowing too, that they deserve
+their ignominy and the long imprisonment that awaits them?”
+
+“No, I say it on the day of the discovery and the restoration of that
+wife for whom I have long searched, and to whom when found I have no
+word to give but welcome, welcome, welcome.”
+
+With the same deep smile she bowed her head, “Now let come what will,
+I can never again be unhappy,” were the words I caught, uttered in the
+lowest of undertones. But in another moment her head had regained its
+steady poise and a great change had passed over her manner.
+
+“Mr. Blake,” said she, “you are good; how good, I alone can know and
+duly appreciate who have lived in your house this last year and seen
+with eyes that missed nothing, just what your surroundings are and have
+been from the earliest years of your proud life. But goodness must not
+lead you into the committal of an act you must and will repent to your
+dying day; or if it does, I who have learned my duty in the school of
+adversity, must show the courage of two and forbid what every secret
+instinct of my soul declares to be only provocative of shame and sorrow.
+You would take me to your heart as your wife; do you realize what that
+means?”
+
+“I think I do,” was his earnest reply. “Relief from heart-ache, Luttra.”
+
+Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips
+did not quiver.
+
+“It means,” said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which
+indicates yielding, “it means, shame to the proudest family that lives
+in the land. It means silence as regards a past blotted by suggestions
+of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across which the shadow
+of prison walls must for so many years lie. It means, the hushing of
+certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of cherished eyes from
+visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers and sisters are
+seen joined together in tender companionship or loving embrace. It
+means,--God help me to speak out--a home without the sanctity of
+memories; a husband without the honors he has been accustomed to enjoy;
+a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into her breast; and children,
+yes, perhaps children from whose innocent lips the sacred word of
+grandfather can never fall without wakening a blush on the cheeks of
+their parents, which all their lovesome prattle will be helpless to
+chase away.”
+
+“Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go
+their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of
+may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own blood,
+but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you to sit.
+The world will never know, whether you come with me or not, that
+Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then give me the
+happiness of striving to make such amends for the past, that you too,
+will forget you ever bore any other name than the one you now honor so
+truly?”
+
+“O do not,” she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion
+that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance. “Mr.
+Blake,” said she, “I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love
+pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is in my
+sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor. Eleven months ago
+I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity demanded it; to-day
+I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer, because your position as
+a gentleman, and your happiness as a man equally requires it.”
+
+“My happiness as a man!” he broke in. “Ah, Luttra if you love me as I do
+you--”
+
+“I might perhaps yield,” she allowed with a faint smile. “But I love
+you as a girl brought up amid surroundings from which her whole being
+recoiled, must love the one who first brought light into her darkness
+and opened up to her longing feet the way to a life of culture, purity
+and honor. I were the basest of women could I consent to repay such a
+boundless favor--”
+
+“But Luttra,” he again broke in, “you married me knowing what your
+father and brother were capable of committing.”
+
+“Yes, yes; I was blinded by passion, a girl’s passion, Mr. Blake, born
+of glamour and gratitude; not the self-forgetting devotion of a woman
+who has tasted the bitterness of life and so learned its lesson of
+sacrifice. I may not have thought, certainly I did not realize, what I
+was doing. Besides, my father and brother were not convicted criminals
+at that time, however weak they had proved themselves under temptation.
+And then I believed I had left them behind me on the road of life; that
+we were sundered, irrevocably cut loose from all possible connection.
+But such ties are not to be snapped so easily. They found me, you see,
+and they will find me again--”
+
+“Never!” exclaimed her husband. “They are as dead to you as if the grave
+had swallowed them. I have taken care of that.”
+
+“But the shame! you have not taken care of that. That exists and must,
+and while it does I remain where I can meet it alone. I love you; God’s
+sun is not dearer to my eyes; but I will never cross your threshold as
+your wife till the opprobrium can be cut loose from my skirts, and the
+shadow uplifted from my brow. A queen with high thoughts in her eyes and
+brave hopes in her heart were not too good to enter that door with you.
+Shall a girl who has lived three weeks in an atmosphere of such crime
+and despair, that these rooms have often seemed to me the gateway to
+hell, carry there, even in secrecy, the effects of that atmosphere? I
+will cherish your goodness in my heart but do not ask me to bury that
+heart in any more exalted spot, than some humble country home, where
+my life may be spent in good deeds and my love in prayers for the man I
+hold dear, and because I hold dear, leave to his own high path among the
+straight and unshadowed courses of the world.”
+
+And with a gesture that inexorably shut him off while it expressed the
+most touching appeal, she glided by him and took her way to the room
+where her father and brother awaited her presence.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. EXPLANATIONS
+
+
+“I cannot endure this,” came in one burst of feeling from the lips of
+Mr. Blake. “She don’t know, she don’t realize--Sir,” cried he, suddenly
+becoming conscious of my presence in the room, “will you be good enough
+to see that this note,” he hastily scribbled one, “is carried across the
+way to my house and given to Mrs. Daniels.”
+
+I bowed assent, routed up one of the men in the next room and despatched
+it at once.
+
+“Perhaps she will listen to the voice of one of her own sex if not to
+me,” said he; and began pacing the floor of the narrow room in which we
+were, with a wildness of impatience that showed to what depths had sunk
+the hope of gaining this lovely woman for his own.
+
+Feeling myself no longer necessary in that spot, I followed where my
+wishes led and entered the room where Luttra was bidding good-bye to her
+father.
+
+“I shall never forget,” I heard her say as I crossed the floor to where
+Mr. Gryce stood looking out of the window, “that your blood runs in my
+veins together with that of my gentle-hearted, never-to-be-forgotten
+mother. Whatever my fate may be or wherever I may hide the head you have
+bowed to the dust, be sure I shall always lift up my hands in prayer for
+your repentance and return to an honest life. God grant that my prayers
+may be heard and that I may yet receive at your hands, a father’s kindly
+blessing.”
+
+The only answer to this was a heavily muttered growl that gave but
+little promise of any such peaceful termination to a deeply vicious
+life. Hearing it, Mr. Gryce hastened to procure his men and remove the
+hardened wretches from the spot. All through the preparations for their
+departure, she stood and watched their sullen faces with a wild yearning
+in her eye that could scarcely be denied, but when the door finally
+closed upon them, and she was left standing there with no one in the
+room but myself she steadied herself up as one who is conscious that all
+the storms of heaven are about to break upon her; and turning slowly
+to the door waited with arms crossed and a still determination upon her
+brow, the coming of the feet of him whose resolve she felt must have, as
+yet been only strengthened by her resistance.
+
+She had not long to wait. Almost with the closing of the street door
+upon the detectives and their prisoners, Mr. Blake followed by Mrs.
+Daniels and another lady whose thick veil and long cloak but illy
+concealed the patrician features and stately form of the Countess De
+Mirac, entered the room.
+
+The surprise had its effect; Luttra was evidently for the moment thrown
+off her guard.
+
+“Mrs. Daniels!” she breathed, holding out her hands with a longing
+gesture.
+
+“My dear mistress!” returned that good woman, taking those hands in hers
+but in a respectful way that proved the constraint imposed upon her by
+Mr. Blake’s presence. “Do I see you again and safe?”
+
+“You must have thought I cared little for the anxiety you would be sure
+to feel,” said that fair young mistress, gazing with earnestness into
+the glad but tearful eyes of the housekeeper. “But indeed, I have
+been in no position to communicate with you, nor could I do so without
+risking that to protect which I so outraged my feelings as to leave the
+house at all. I mean the life and welfare of its master, Mrs. Daniels.”
+
+“Ha, what is that?” quoth Mr. Blake. “It was to save me, you consented
+to follow them?”
+
+“Yes; what else would have led me to such an action? They might have
+killed me, I would not have cared, but when they began to utter threats
+against you--”
+
+“Mrs. Blake,” exclaimed Mrs. Daniels, catching hold of her mistress’s
+uplifted hand, and pointing to a scar that slightly disfigured her white
+arm a little above the wrist, “Mrs. Blake, what’s that?”
+
+A pink flush, the first I had seen on her usually pale countenance, rose
+for an instant to her cheeks, and she seemed to hesitate.
+
+“It was not there when I last saw you, Mrs. Blake.”
+
+“No,” was the slow reply, “I found myself forced that night to inflict
+upon myself a little wound. It is nothing, let it go.”
+
+“No, Luttra I cannot let it go,” said her husband, advancing towards her
+with something like gentle command. “I must hear not only about this but
+all the other occurrences of that night. How came they to find you in
+the refuge you had attained?”
+
+“I think,” said she in a low tone the underlying suffering of which
+it would be hard to describe, “that it was not to seek me they first
+invaded your house. They had heard you were a rich man, and the sight
+of that ladder running up the side of the new extension was too much for
+them. Indeed I know that it was for purposes of robbery they came, for
+they had hired this room opposite you some days previous to making the
+attempt. You see they were almost destitute of money and though they had
+some buried in the cellar of the old house in Vermont, they dared not
+leave the city to procure it. My brother was obliged to do so later,
+however. It was a surprise to them seeing me in your house. They had
+reached the roof of the extension and were just lifting up the corner of
+the shade I had dropped across the open window--I always open my window
+a few minutes before preparing to retire--when I rose from the chair in
+which I had been brooding, and turned up the gas. I was combing my hair
+at the time and so of course they recognized me. Instantly they gave
+a secret signal I, alas, remembered only too well, and crouching back,
+bade me put out the light that they might enter with safety. I was at
+first too much startled to realize the consequences of my action, and
+with some vague idea that they had discovered my retreat and come for
+purposes of advice or assistance, I did what they bid. Immediately they
+threw back the shade and came in, their huge figures looming frightfully
+in the faint light made by a distant gas lamp in the street below.
+‘What do you want?’ were my first words uttered in a voice I scarcely
+recognized for my own; ‘why do you steal on me like this in the night
+and through an open window fifty feet from the ground? Aren’t you afraid
+you will be discovered and sent back to the prison from which you have
+escaped?’ Their reply sent a chill through my blood and awoke me to a
+realization of what I had done in thus allowing two escaped convicts
+to enter a house not my own. ‘We want money and we’re not afraid of
+anything now you are here.’ And without heeding my exclamation of
+horror, they coolly told me that they would wait where they were till
+the household was asleep, when they would expect me to show them the way
+to the silver closet or what was better, the safe or wherever it was Mr.
+Blake kept his money. I saw they took me for a servant, as indeed I was,
+and for some minutes I managed to preserve that position in their eyes.
+But when in a sudden burst of rage at my refusal to help them, they
+pushed me aside and hurried to the door with the manifest intention of
+going below, I forgot prudence in my fears and uttered some wild
+appeal to them not to do injury to any one in the house for it was my
+husband’s. Of course that disclosure had its natural effect.
+
+“They stopped, but only to beset me with questions till the whole truth
+came out. I could not have committed a worse folly than thus taking them
+into my confidence. Instantly the advantages to be gained by using my
+secret connection with so wealthy a man for the purpose of cowering me
+and blackmailing him, seemed to strike both their minds at once, slow
+as they usually are to receive impressions. The silver-closet and
+money-safe sank to a comparatively insignificant position in their eyes,
+and to get me out of the house, and with my happiness at stake, treat
+with the honorable man who notwithstanding his non-approval of me as a
+woman, still regarded me as his lawfully wedded wife, became in their
+eyes a thing of such wonderful promise they were willing to run any and
+every risk to test its value. But here to their great astonishment
+I rebelled; astonishment because they could not realize my desiring
+anything above money and the position to which they declared I was by
+law entitled. In vain I pleaded my love; in vain I threatened exposure
+of their plans if not whereabouts. The mine of gold which they fondly
+believed they had stumbled upon unawares, promised too richly to be
+easily abandoned. ‘You must go with us,’ said they, ‘if not peaceably
+then by force,’ and they actually advanced upon me, upsetting a chair
+and tearing down one of the curtains to which I clung. It was then I
+committed that little act concerning which you questioned me. I wanted
+to show them I was not to be moved by threats of that character; that I
+did not even fear the shedding of my blood; and that they would only be
+wasting their time in trying to sway me by hints of personal violence.
+And they were a little impressed, sufficiently so at least to turn their
+threats in another direction, awakening fears at last which I could not
+conceal, much as I felt it would be policy to do so. Gathering up a few
+articles I most prized, my wedding ring, Mr. Blake, and a photograph of
+yourself that Mrs. Daniels had been kind enough to give me, I put on my
+bonnet and cloak and said I would go with them, since they persisted in
+requiring it. The fact is I no longer possessed motive or strength
+to resist. Even your unexpected appearance at the door, Mrs. Daniels,
+offered no prospect of hope. Arouse the house? what would that do?
+only reveal my cherished secret and perhaps jeopardize the life of my
+husband. Besides, they were my own near kin, remember, and so had some
+little claim upon my consideration, at least to the point of my not
+personally betraying them unless they menaced immediate and actual harm.
+The escape by the window which would have been a difficult task for most
+women to perform, was easy enough for me. I was brought up to wild
+ways you know, and the descent of a ladder forty feet long was a
+comparatively trivial thing for me to accomplish. It was the tearing
+away from a life of silent peace, the reentrance of my soul into an
+atmosphere of sin and deadly plotting, that was the hard thing, the
+difficult dreadful thing which hung weights to my feet, and made me
+well nigh mad. And it was this which at the sight of a policeman in the
+street led me to make an effort to escape. But it was not successful.
+Though I was fortunate enough to free myself from the grasp of my father
+and brother, I reached the gate on ----- street only to encounter the
+eyes of him whose displeasure I most feared, looking sternly upon me
+from the other side. The shock was too much for me in my then weak and
+unnerved condition. Without considering anything but the fact that he
+never had known and never must, that I had been in the same house with
+him for so long, I rushed back to the corner and into the arms of the
+men who awaited me. How you came to be there, Mr. Blake, or why you did
+not open the gate and follow, I cannot say.”
+
+“The gate was locked,” returned that gentleman. “You remember it closes
+with a spring, and can only be opened by means of a key which I did not
+have.”
+
+“My father had it,” she murmured; “he spent a whole week in the endeavor
+to get hold of it, and finally succeeded on the evening of the very day
+he used it. It was left in the lock I believe.”
+
+“So much for servants,” I whispered to myself.
+
+“The next morning,” continued she, “they put the case very plainly
+before me. I was at liberty to return at once to my home if I would
+promise to work in their interest by making certain demands upon you as
+your wife. All they wanted, said they, was a snug little sum and a lift
+out of the country. If I would secure them these, they would trouble me
+no more. But I could not concede to anything of that nature, of course,
+and the consequence was these long weeks of imprisonment and suspense;
+weeks that I do not now begrudge, seeing they have brought me the
+assurance of your esteem and the knowledge, that wherever I go, your
+thoughts will follow me with compassion if not with love.”
+
+And having told her story and thus answered his demands, she assumed
+once more the position of lofty reserve that seemed to shut him back
+from advance like a wall of invincible crystal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE BOND THAT UNITES
+
+
+But he was not to be discouraged. “And after all this, after all you
+have suffered for my sake and your own, do you think you have a right to
+deny me the one desire of my heart? How can you reconcile it with your
+ideas of devotion, Luttra?”
+
+“My ideas of devotion look beyond the present, Mr. Blake. It is to save
+you from years of wearing anxiety that I consent to the infliction upon
+you of a passing pang.”
+
+He took a bold step forward. “Luttra, you do not know a man’s heart. To
+lose you now would not merely inflict a passing pang, but sow the seeds
+of a grief that would go with me to the grave.”
+
+“Do you then”--she began, but paused blushing. Mrs. Daniels took the
+opportunity to approach her on the other side.
+
+“My dear mistress,” said she, “you are wrong to hold out in this
+matter.” And her manner betrayed something of the peculiar agitation
+that had belonged to it in the former times of her secret embarassment.
+“I, who have honored the family which I have so long served, above every
+other in the land, tell you that you can do it no greater good than
+to join it now, or inflict upon it any greater harm than to wilfully
+withdraw yourself from the position in which God has placed you.”
+
+“And I,” said another voice, that of the Countess de Mirac, who up to
+this time had held herself in the background, but who now came forward
+and took her place with the rest, “I, who have borne the name of Blake,
+and who am still the proudest of them all at heart, I, the Countess de
+Mirac, cousin to your husband there, repeat what this good woman has
+said, and in holding out my hand to you, ask you to make my cousin happy
+and his family contented by assuming that position in his household
+which the law as well as his love accords you.”
+
+The girl looked at the daintily gloved hand held out to her, colored
+faintly, and put her own within it.
+
+“I thank you for your goodness,” said she, surveying with half-sad,
+half-admiring glances, the somewhat pale face of the beautiful brunette.
+
+“And you will yield to our united requests?” She cast her eye down at
+the spot where her father and brother had cowered in their shackles, and
+shook her head. “I dare not,” said she.
+
+Immediately Mrs. Daniels, whose emotion had been increasing every moment
+since she last spoke, plunged her hand into her bosom and drew out a
+folded paper.
+
+“Mrs. Blake,” said she, “if you could be convinced that what I have told
+you was true, and that you would be irretrievably injuring your husband
+and his interests, by persisting in that desertion of him which you
+purpose, would you not consent to reconsider your determination, settled
+as it appears to be?”
+
+“If I could be made to see that, most certainly,” returned she in a low
+voice whose broken accents betrayed at what cost she remained true to
+her resolve. “But I cannot.”
+
+“Perhaps the sight of this paper will help you,” said she. And turning
+to Mr. Blake she exclaimed, “Your pardon for what I am called upon to
+do. A duty has been laid upon me which I cannot avoid, hard as it is for
+an old servant to perform. This paper--but it is no more than just that
+you, sir, should see and read it first.” And with a hand that quivered
+with fear or some equally strong emotion, she put it in his clasp.
+
+The exclamation that rewarded the act made us all start forward. “My
+father’s handwriting!” were his words.
+
+“Executed under my eye,” observed Mrs. Daniels.
+
+His glance ran rapidly down the sheet and rested upon the final
+signature.
+
+“Why has this been kept from me?” demanded he, turning upon Mrs. Daniels
+with sternness.
+
+“Your father so willed it,” was her reply. “‘For a year’ was his
+command, ‘you shall keep this my last will and testament which I give
+into your care with my dying hands, a secret from the world. At the
+expiration of that time mark if my son’s wife sits at the head of her
+husband’s table; if she does and is happy, suppress this by deliberately
+giving it to the flames, but if from any reason other than death, she is
+not seen there, carry it at once to my son, and bid him as he honors
+my memory, to see that my wishes as there expressed are at once carried
+out.’”
+
+The paper in Mr. Blake’s hand fluttered.
+
+“You are aware what those wishes are?” said he.
+
+“I steadied his hand while he wrote,” was her sad and earnest reply.
+
+Mr. Blake turned with a look of inexpressible deference to his wife.
+
+“Madame,” said he “when I urged you with such warmth to join your
+fate to mine and honor my house by presiding over it, I thought I was
+inviting you to share the advantages of wealth as well as the love of
+a lonely man’s heart. This paper undeceives me. Luttra, the
+daughter-in-law of Abner Blake, not Holman, his son, is the one who
+by the inheritance of his millions has the right to command in this
+presence.”
+
+With a cry she took from him the will whose purport was thus briefly
+made known. “O, how could he, how could he?” exclaimed she, running her
+eye down the sheet, and then crushing it spasmodically to her breast.
+“Did he not realize that he could do me no greater wrong?” Then in one
+yielding up of her whole womanhood to the mighty burst of passion that
+had been flooding the defenses of her heart for so long, she exclaimed
+in a voice the mingled rapture and determination of which rings in my
+ears even now, “And is it a thing like this with its suggestions of
+mercenary interest that shall bridge the gulf that separates you and me?
+Shall the giving or the gaining of a fortune make necessary the unital
+of lives over which holier influences have beamed and loftier hopes
+shone? No, no; by the smile with which your dying father took me to his
+breast, love alone, with the hope and confidence it gives, shall be the
+bond to draw us together and make of the two separate planes on which we
+stand, a common ground where we can meet and be happy.”
+
+And with one supreme gesture she tore into pieces the will which she
+held, and sank all aglow with woman’s divinest joy into the arms held
+out to receive her.
+
+                           * * * * *
+
+I was present at the wedding-reception given them by the Countess De
+Mirac in her elegant apartments at the Windsor. I never saw a happier
+bride, nor a husband in whose eyes burned a deeper contentment. To all
+questions as to who this extraordinary woman could be, where she was
+found, and in what place and at what time she was married, the Countess
+had apt replies whose art of hushing curiosity without absolutely
+satisfying it, was one of the tokens she yet preserved, of her short
+sway as grand lady, in the gayest and most hollow city of the world.
+
+As I prepared to leave a scene perhaps the most gratifying in many
+respects that I had ever witnessed, I felt a slight touch on my arm. It
+came from Mrs. Blake who with her husband had crossed the room to bid me
+farewell.
+
+“Will you allow me to thank you,” said she, “for the risk you ran for
+me one day and of which I have just heard. It was an act that merits the
+gratitude of years, and as such shall be always remembered by me. If
+the old French artist with the racking cough ever desires a favor at my
+hands, let him feel free to ask it. The interest I experienced in him in
+the days of my trouble, will suffer no abatement in these of my joy and
+prosperity.” And with a look that was more than words, she gave me a
+flower from the bouquet she held in her hand, and smilingly withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s A Strange Disappearance, by Anna Katharine Green
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/astudyinscarlet b/files/books/unrelated/astudyinscarlet
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/astudyinscarlet
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Study In Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Study In Scarlet
+
+Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #244]
+Release Date: April, 1995
+Last Updated: September 30, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY IN SCARLET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Squires
+
+
+
+
+
+A STUDY IN SCARLET.
+
+By A. Conan Doyle
+
+[1]
+
+
+
+     Original Transcriber’s Note: This etext is prepared directly
+     from an 1887 edition, and care has been taken to duplicate the
+     original exactly, including typographical and punctuation
+     vagaries.
+
+     Additions to the text include adding the underscore character to
+     indicate italics, and textual end-notes in square braces.
+
+     Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: In reproofing and moving old PG
+     files such as this to the present PG directory system it is the
+     policy to reformat the text to conform to present PG Standards.
+     In this case however, in consideration of the note above of the
+     original transcriber describing his care to try to duplicate the
+     original 1887 edition as to typography and punctuation vagaries,
+     no changes have been made in this ascii text file. However, in
+     the Latin-1 file and this html file, present standards are
+     followed and the several French and Spanish words have been
+     given their proper accents.
+
+	 Part II, The Country of the Saints, deals much with the Mormon Church.
+
+
+
+
+A STUDY IN SCARLET.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+(_Being a reprint from the reminiscences of_ JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., _late
+of the Army Medical Department._) [2]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+
+
+IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the
+University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course
+prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there,
+I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant
+Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before
+I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at
+Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and
+was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many
+other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded
+in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once
+entered upon my new duties.
+
+The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had
+nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and
+attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of
+Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which
+shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have
+fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the
+devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a
+pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.
+
+Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had
+undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to
+the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved
+so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little
+upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse
+of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and
+when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and
+emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost
+in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the
+troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with
+my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal
+government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.
+
+I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as
+air--or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will
+permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to
+London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of
+the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at
+a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless
+existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely
+than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that
+I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate
+somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in
+my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making
+up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less
+pretentious and less expensive domicile.
+
+On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at
+the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning
+round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at
+Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is
+a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never
+been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm,
+and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the
+exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and
+we started off together in a hansom.
+
+“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in
+undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.
+“You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
+
+I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it
+by the time that we reached our destination.
+
+“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my
+misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”
+
+“Looking for lodgings.” [3] I answered. “Trying to solve the problem
+as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable
+price.”
+
+“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second man
+to-day that has used that expression to me.”
+
+“And who was the first?” I asked.
+
+“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.
+He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone
+to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which
+were too much for his purse.”
+
+“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and
+the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner
+to being alone.”
+
+Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “You
+don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care
+for him as a constant companion.”
+
+“Why, what is there against him?”
+
+“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer
+in his ideas--an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I
+know he is a decent fellow enough.”
+
+“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.
+
+“No--I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well
+up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know,
+he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are
+very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way
+knowledge which would astonish his professors.”
+
+“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.
+
+“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be
+communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”
+
+“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I
+should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong
+enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in
+Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How
+could I meet this friend of yours?”
+
+“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He either
+avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to
+night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”
+
+“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other
+channels.
+
+As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford
+gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to
+take as a fellow-lodger.
+
+“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I know
+nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in
+the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me
+responsible.”
+
+“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It
+seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion, “that you
+have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow’s
+temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.”
+
+“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a laugh.
+“Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it approaches to
+cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of
+the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand,
+but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea
+of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself
+with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and
+exact knowledge.”
+
+“Very right too.”
+
+“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the
+subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking
+rather a bizarre shape.”
+
+“Beating the subjects!”
+
+“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him
+at it with my own eyes.”
+
+“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”
+
+“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we
+are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we
+turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which
+opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me,
+and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and
+made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed
+wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low arched passage
+branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.
+
+This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
+Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
+test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames.
+There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant
+table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round
+and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve
+found it,” he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a
+test-tube in his hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated
+by hoemoglobin, [4] and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine,
+greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
+
+“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.
+
+“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength
+for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in
+Afghanistan, I perceive.”
+
+“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.
+
+“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about
+hoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of
+mine?”
+
+“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but
+practically----”
+
+“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.
+Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come
+over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and
+drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have
+some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and
+drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I
+add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that
+the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion
+of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however,
+that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he
+spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added
+some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a
+dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom
+of the glass jar.
+
+“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a
+child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”
+
+“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.
+
+“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and
+uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The
+latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears
+to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been
+invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long
+ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.”
+
+“Indeed!” I murmured.
+
+“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is
+suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His
+linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them.
+Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains,
+or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert,
+and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock
+Holmes’ test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”
+
+His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his
+heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his
+imagination.
+
+“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised at his
+enthusiasm.
+
+“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would
+certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was
+Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier,
+and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it
+would have been decisive.”
+
+“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford with a
+laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘Police News
+of the Past.’”
+
+“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” remarked Sherlock
+Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.
+“I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for I
+dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and
+I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster,
+and discoloured with strong acids.
+
+“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a high
+three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with
+his foot. “My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were
+complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought
+that I had better bring you together.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with
+me. “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said, “which would
+suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco,
+I hope?”
+
+“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.
+
+“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally
+do experiments. Would that annoy you?”
+
+“By no means.”
+
+“Let me see--what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at
+times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am
+sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What
+have you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the
+worst of one another before they begin to live together.”
+
+I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said, “and
+I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts
+of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices
+when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”
+
+“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he asked,
+anxiously.
+
+“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a treat
+for the gods--a badly-played one----”
+
+“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may
+consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to
+you.”
+
+“When shall we see them?”
+
+“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we’ll go together and settle
+everything,” he answered.
+
+“All right--noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.
+
+We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards
+my hotel.
+
+“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, “how
+the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”
+
+My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little
+peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he
+finds things out.”
+
+“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very piquant.
+I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper study of
+mankind is man,’ you know.”
+
+“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.
+“You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more
+about you than you about him. Good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
+interested in my new acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.
+
+
+WE met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B,
+[5] Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They
+consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large
+airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad
+windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate
+did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was
+concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.
+That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the
+following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and
+portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and
+laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we
+gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new
+surroundings.
+
+Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet
+in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be
+up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out
+before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical
+laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long
+walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City.
+Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but
+now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would
+lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving
+a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such
+a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him
+of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance
+and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.
+
+As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his
+aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and
+appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual
+observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively
+lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and
+piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded;
+and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of
+alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness
+which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably
+blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of
+extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe
+when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.
+
+The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how
+much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured
+to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned
+himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how
+objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention.
+My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was
+exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and
+break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances, I
+eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and
+spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.
+
+He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question,
+confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to
+have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in
+science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance
+into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable,
+and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample
+and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man
+would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some
+definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the
+exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters
+unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
+
+His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
+literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing.
+Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he
+might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however,
+when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory
+and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human
+being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth
+travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact
+that I could hardly realize it.
+
+“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of
+surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
+
+“To forget it!”
+
+“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is
+like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture
+as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
+comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets
+crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that
+he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman
+is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will
+have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of
+these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It
+is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can
+distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
+addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is
+of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing
+out the useful ones.”
+
+“But the Solar System!” I protested.
+
+“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say
+that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a
+pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
+
+I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something
+in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I
+pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw
+my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which
+did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he
+possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own
+mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was
+exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down.
+I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran
+in this way--
+
+
+SHERLOCK HOLMES--his limits.
+
+  1. Knowledge of Literature.--Nil.
+  2.              Philosophy.--Nil.
+  3.              Astronomy.--Nil.
+  4.              Politics.--Feeble.
+  5.              Botany.--Variable.  Well up in belladonna,
+                              opium, and poisons generally.
+                              Knows nothing of practical gardening.
+  6.              Geology.--Practical, but limited.
+                               Tells at a glance different soils
+                               from each other.  After walks has
+                               shown me splashes upon his trousers,
+                               and told me by their colour and
+                               consistence in what part of London
+                               he had received them.
+  7.              Chemistry.--Profound.
+  8.              Anatomy.--Accurate, but unsystematic.
+  9.              Sensational Literature.--Immense.  He appears
+                              to know every detail of every horror
+                              perpetrated in the century.
+  10. Plays the violin well.
+  11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
+  12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
+
+
+When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair.
+“If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all
+these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,”
+ I said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”
+
+I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These
+were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments.
+That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because
+at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other
+favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any
+music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of
+an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle
+which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and
+melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they
+reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided
+those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim
+or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against
+these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them
+by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a
+slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.
+
+During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think
+that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently,
+however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most
+different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced,
+dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came
+three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called,
+fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same
+afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew
+pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely
+followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old
+white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on
+another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these
+nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to
+beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bed-room.
+He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I have
+to use this room as a place of business,” he said, “and these people
+are my clients.” Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point blank
+question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to
+confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for
+not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to
+the subject of his own accord.
+
+It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I
+rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not
+yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed to my
+late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With
+the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt
+intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table
+and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched
+silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the
+heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.
+
+Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to
+show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic
+examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a
+remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was
+close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched
+and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch
+of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts.
+Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one
+trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible
+as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear
+to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had
+arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
+
+“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the
+possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of
+one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is
+known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts,
+the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired
+by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal
+to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to
+those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest
+difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary
+problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to
+distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to
+which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the
+faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look
+for. By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his
+trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his
+expression, by his shirt cuffs--by each of these things a man’s calling
+is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the
+competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”
+
+“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the
+table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat
+down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you have marked
+it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me though. It
+is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these
+neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not
+practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third class
+carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his
+fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.”
+
+“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for
+the article I wrote it myself.”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The
+theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so
+chimerical are really extremely practical--so practical that I depend
+upon them for my bread and cheese.”
+
+“And how?” I asked involuntarily.
+
+“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the
+world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is.
+Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private
+ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to
+put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I
+am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of
+crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about
+misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger
+ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first. Lestrade
+is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a
+forgery case, and that was what brought him here.”
+
+“And these other people?”
+
+“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are
+all people who are in trouble about something, and want a little
+enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and
+then I pocket my fee.”
+
+“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you
+can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they
+have seen every detail for themselves?”
+
+“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case
+turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and
+see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge
+which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully.
+Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your
+scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is
+second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our
+first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.”
+
+“You were told, no doubt.”
+
+“Nothing of the sort. I _knew_ you came from Afghanistan. From long
+habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I
+arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.
+There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a
+gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly
+an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is
+dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are
+fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says
+clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and
+unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have
+seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The
+whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you
+came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”
+
+“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind
+me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did
+exist outside of stories.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are
+complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my
+opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking
+in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of
+an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some
+analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as
+Poe appeared to imagine.”
+
+“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your
+idea of a detective?”
+
+Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,”
+ he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and
+that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was
+how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four
+hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for
+detectives to teach them what to avoid.”
+
+I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired
+treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood
+looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I
+said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”
+
+“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said,
+querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know
+well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has
+ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural
+talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the
+result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy
+with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see
+through it.”
+
+I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought it
+best to change the topic.
+
+“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked, pointing to a
+stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the
+other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had
+a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a
+message.
+
+“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I cannot verify
+his guess.”
+
+The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were
+watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across
+the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
+ascending the stair.
+
+“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room and handing
+my friend the letter.
+
+Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little
+thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I
+said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”
+
+“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for repairs.”
+
+“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my
+companion.
+
+“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right,
+sir.”
+
+He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY [6]
+
+
+I CONFESS that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the
+practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers
+of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking
+suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged
+episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have
+in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he
+had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant,
+lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction.
+
+“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.
+
+“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.
+
+“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”
+
+“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then with a smile,
+“Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps
+it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a
+sergeant of Marines?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you
+were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some
+difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the
+street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the
+fellow’s hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage,
+however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was
+a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command.
+You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung
+his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of
+him--all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.”
+
+“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.
+
+“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he
+was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said just now that
+there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong--look at this!” He
+threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought. [7]
+
+“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is terrible!”
+
+“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he remarked, calmly.
+“Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”
+
+This is the letter which I read to him----
+
+
+“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--
+
+“There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens,
+off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in
+the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something
+was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare
+of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and
+having cards in his pocket bearing the name of ‘Enoch J. Drebber,
+Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is there any
+evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in
+the room, but there is no wound upon his person. We are at a loss as to
+how he came into the empty house; indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler.
+If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you will find
+me there. I have left everything _in statu quo_ until I hear from you.
+If you are unable to come I shall give you fuller details, and would
+esteem it a great kindness if you would favour me with your opinion.
+Yours faithfully,
+
+“TOBIAS GREGSON.”
+
+
+“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked;
+“he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and
+energetic, but conventional--shockingly so. They have their knives
+into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional
+beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put
+upon the scent.”
+
+I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely there is
+not a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”
+
+“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy
+devil that ever stood in shoe leather--that is, when the fit is on me,
+for I can be spry enough at times.”
+
+“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.”
+
+“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the
+whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will
+pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”
+
+“But he begs you to help him.”
+
+“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but
+he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.
+However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my
+own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”
+
+He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that
+an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.
+
+“Get your hat,” he said.
+
+“You wish me to come?”
+
+“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in
+a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
+
+It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the
+house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets
+beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away
+about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and
+an Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the
+melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.
+
+“You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,” I said at
+last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.
+
+“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before
+you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
+
+“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my finger;
+“this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much
+mistaken.”
+
+“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred yards or so from
+it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our journey upon
+foot.
+
+Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was
+one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two being
+occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant
+melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and
+there a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared
+panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly
+plants separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed
+by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a
+mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the
+rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was bounded by a
+three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and
+against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by
+a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes
+in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.
+
+I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the
+house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be
+further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the
+circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up
+and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the
+opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny,
+he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass
+which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice
+he stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation
+of satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey
+soil, but since the police had been coming and going over it, I was
+unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it.
+Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his
+perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal
+which was hidden from me.
+
+At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,
+flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and
+wrung my companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to
+come,” he said, “I have had everything left untouched.”
+
+“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. “If a herd
+of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No
+doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you
+permitted this.”
+
+“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective said
+evasively. “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him
+to look after this.”
+
+Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. “With two
+such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be
+much for a third party to find out,” he said.
+
+Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think we have done
+all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and I
+knew your taste for such things.”
+
+“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nor Lestrade?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which inconsequent remark he
+strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed
+his astonishment.
+
+A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices.
+Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these
+had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the
+dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had
+occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling
+at my heart which the presence of death inspires.
+
+It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence
+of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was
+blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had
+become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath.
+Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of
+imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a
+red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty that the light was
+hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything, which was
+intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment.
+
+All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was
+centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon
+the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured
+ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of
+age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and
+a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat
+and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar
+and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor
+beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while
+his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a
+grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror,
+and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human
+features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low
+forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly
+simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing,
+unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has
+it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy
+apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban
+London.
+
+Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and
+greeted my companion and myself.
+
+“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats anything I
+have seen, and I am no chicken.”
+
+“There is no clue?” said Gregson.
+
+“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.
+
+Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it
+intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to
+numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.
+
+“Positive!” cried both detectives.
+
+“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual--[8]
+presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of
+the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in
+the year ‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Read it up--you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It
+has all been done before.”
+
+As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere,
+feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same
+far-away expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was
+the examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness
+with which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips,
+and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.
+
+“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.
+
+“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.”
+
+“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is nothing more
+to be learned.”
+
+Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered
+the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they raised
+him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed
+it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.
+
+“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”
+
+He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered
+round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that circlet of
+plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.
+
+“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows, they were
+complicated enough before.”
+
+“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “There’s
+nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his
+pockets?”
+
+“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects
+upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163, by
+Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring,
+with masonic device. Gold pin--bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes.
+Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland,
+corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse, but loose
+money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition of
+Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’ with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the
+fly-leaf. Two letters--one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph
+Stangerson.”
+
+“At what address?”
+
+“American Exchange, Strand--to be left till called for. They are both
+from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their
+boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to
+return to New York.”
+
+“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?”
+
+“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had advertisements
+sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American
+Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”
+
+“Have you sent to Cleveland?”
+
+“We telegraphed this morning.”
+
+“How did you word your inquiries?”
+
+“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be glad
+of any information which could help us.”
+
+“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to
+be crucial?”
+
+“I asked about Stangerson.”
+
+“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case appears
+to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”
+
+“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an offended voice.
+
+Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make
+some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we
+were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene,
+rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.
+
+“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the highest
+importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a
+careful examination of the walls.”
+
+The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in
+a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his
+colleague.
+
+“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of
+which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now, stand
+there!”
+
+He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.
+
+“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.
+
+I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this
+particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a
+yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was
+scrawled in blood-red letters a single word--
+
+                         RACHE.
+
+
+“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the air of a
+showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in the
+darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The
+murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where
+it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide
+anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See
+that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was
+lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of
+the wall.”
+
+“And what does it mean now that you _have_ found it?” asked Gregson in a
+depreciatory voice.
+
+“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name
+Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark
+my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a
+woman named Rachel has something to do with it. It’s all very well for
+you to laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever, but
+the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.”
+
+“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion, who had ruffled the
+little man’s temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. “You
+certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,
+and, as you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the other
+participant in last night’s mystery. I have not had time to examine this
+room yet, but with your permission I shall do so now.”
+
+As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying
+glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly
+about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once
+lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that
+he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to
+himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire
+of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of
+encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded
+of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and
+forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes
+across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his
+researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between
+marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his
+tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place
+he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor,
+and packed it away in an envelope. Finally, he examined with his glass
+the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most
+minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he
+replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.
+
+“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he
+remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to
+detective work.”
+
+Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres [9] of their amateur
+companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They evidently
+failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize, that
+Sherlock Holmes’ smallest actions were all directed towards some
+definite and practical end.
+
+“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.
+
+“It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume
+to help you,” remarked my friend. “You are doing so well now that it
+would be a pity for anyone to interfere.” There was a world of
+sarcasm in his voice as he spoke. “If you will let me know how your
+investigations go,” he continued, “I shall be happy to give you any help
+I can. In the meantime I should like to speak to the constable who found
+the body. Can you give me his name and address?”
+
+Lestrade glanced at his note-book. “John Rance,” he said. “He is off
+duty now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”
+
+Holmes took a note of the address.
+
+“Come along, Doctor,” he said; “we shall go and look him up. I’ll tell
+you one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning to
+the two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a
+man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had
+small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a
+Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab,
+which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his
+off fore leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the
+finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a
+few indications, but they may assist you.”
+
+Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.
+
+“If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the former.
+
+“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One other thing,
+Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the German
+for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.”
+
+With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals
+open-mouthed behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.
+
+
+IT was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock
+Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a
+long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us
+to the address given us by Lestrade.
+
+“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter
+of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as
+well learn all that is to be learned.”
+
+“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you
+pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”
+
+“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing
+which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with
+its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain
+for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must
+have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s
+hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than
+that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab
+was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the
+morning--I have Gregson’s word for that--it follows that it must have
+been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two
+individuals to the house.”
+
+“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s
+height?”
+
+“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from
+the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though
+there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride
+both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of
+checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads
+him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just
+over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”
+
+“And his age?” I asked.
+
+“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest
+effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth
+of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.
+Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over.
+There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary
+life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I
+advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”
+
+“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.
+
+“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in
+blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly
+scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s
+nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor.
+It was dark in colour and flakey--such an ash as is only made by a
+Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes--in fact, I
+have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can
+distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar
+or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective
+differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”
+
+“And the florid face?” I asked.
+
+“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was
+right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”
+
+I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the
+more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two
+men--if there were two men--into an empty house? What has become of the
+cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison?
+Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer,
+since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above
+all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before
+decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling
+all these facts.”
+
+My companion smiled approvingly.
+
+“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he
+said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up
+my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply
+a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting
+Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if
+you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real
+German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely
+say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who
+overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong
+channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You
+know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick,
+and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the
+conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”
+
+“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near
+an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”
+
+My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way
+in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive
+to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.
+
+“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent leathers [10] and
+Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway
+together as friendly as possible--arm-in-arm, in all probability.
+When they got inside they walked up and down the room--or rather,
+Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I
+could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he
+grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his
+strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt,
+into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself
+now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working
+basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to
+Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”
+
+This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way
+through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the
+dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand.
+“That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in
+the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come
+back.”
+
+Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us
+into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We
+picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of
+discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which
+was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was
+engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were
+shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.
+
+He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in
+his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.
+
+Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it
+pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own
+lips,” he said.
+
+“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable
+answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.
+
+“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”
+
+Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though
+determined not to omit anything in his narrative.
+
+“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at
+night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the ‘White
+Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it
+began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher--him who has the Holland Grove
+beat--and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’.
+Presently--maybe about two or a little after--I thought I would take
+a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was
+precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down,
+though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin’ down, thinkin’
+between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when
+suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same
+house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty
+on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to,
+though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid
+fever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in
+the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the
+door----”
+
+“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion
+interrupted. “What did you do that for?”
+
+Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost
+amazement upon his features.
+
+“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it,
+Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still and
+so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for some one with me.
+I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought
+that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains
+what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back
+to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but there wasn’t no
+sign of him nor of anyone else.”
+
+“There was no one in the street?”
+
+“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself
+together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside,
+so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a
+candle flickerin’ on the mantelpiece--a red wax one--and by its light I
+saw----”
+
+“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times,
+and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried
+the kitchen door, and then----”
+
+John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in
+his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to me
+that you knows a deal more than you should.”
+
+Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.
+“Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the
+hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for
+that. Go on, though. What did you do next?”
+
+Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified expression.
+“I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcher
+and two more to the spot.”
+
+“Was the street empty then?”
+
+“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen many a drunk
+chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as
+that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up agin the
+railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s
+New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less
+help.”
+
+“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He was
+an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in the
+station if we hadn’t been so took up.”
+
+“His face--his dress--didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in
+impatiently.
+
+“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up--me
+and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower
+part muffled round----”
+
+“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”
+
+“We’d enough to do without lookin’ after him,” the policeman said, in an
+aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all right.”
+
+“How was he dressed?”
+
+“A brown overcoat.”
+
+“Had he a whip in his hand?”
+
+“A whip--no.”
+
+“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You didn’t happen
+to see or hear a cab after that?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said, standing up and
+taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the
+force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You
+might have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you
+held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and
+whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell you
+that it is so. Come along, Doctor.”
+
+We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,
+but obviously uncomfortable.
+
+“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our
+lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good
+luck, and not taking advantage of it.”
+
+“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of this
+man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But why
+should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the way
+of criminals.”
+
+“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no
+other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I
+shall have him, Doctor--I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must
+thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have
+missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh?
+Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of
+murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is
+to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now
+for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing
+are splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so
+magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”
+
+Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a
+lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.
+
+
+OUR morning’s exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I was
+tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes’ departure for the concert, I
+lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
+It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that
+had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into
+it. Every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted
+baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the
+impression which that face had produced upon me that I found it
+difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its
+owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most
+malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of
+Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the
+depravity of the victim was no condonment [11] in the eyes of the law.
+
+The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s
+hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he
+had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something
+which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what
+had caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of
+strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so
+thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the
+victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As
+long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be
+no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet self-confident
+manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained
+all the facts, though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.
+
+He was very late in returning--so late, that I knew that the concert
+could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before
+he appeared.
+
+“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remember
+what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and
+appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of
+speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced
+by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries
+when the world was in its childhood.”
+
+“That’s rather a broad idea,” I remarked.
+
+“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret
+Nature,” he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite
+yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.”
+
+“To tell the truth, it has,” I said. “I ought to be more case-hardened
+after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at
+Maiwand without losing my nerve.”
+
+“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the
+imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you
+seen the evening paper?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention the
+fact that when the man was raised up, a woman’s wedding ring fell upon
+the floor. It is just as well it does not.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent to every
+paper this morning immediately after the affair.”
+
+He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated. It
+was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton Road,
+this morning,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway
+between the ‘White Hart’ Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson,
+221B, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.”
+
+“Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If I used my own some of these
+dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.”
+
+“That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing anyone applies, I have
+no ring.”
+
+“Oh yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well. It
+is almost a facsimile.”
+
+“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.”
+
+“Why, the man in the brown coat--our florid friend with the square toes.
+If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.”
+
+“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”
+
+“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason
+to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the
+ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drebber’s
+body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he
+discovered his loss and hurried back, but found the police already in
+possession, owing to his own folly in leaving the candle burning. He had
+to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have
+been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put yourself in that
+man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred to him
+that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving
+the house. What would he do, then? He would eagerly look out for the
+evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His
+eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should
+he fear a trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding
+of the ring should be connected with the murder. He would come. He will
+come. You shall see him within an hour?”
+
+“And then?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?”
+
+“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
+
+“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man,
+and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for
+anything.”
+
+I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with
+the pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his
+favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.
+
+“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had an answer
+to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”
+
+“And that is?” I asked eagerly.
+
+“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your
+pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him in an ordinary
+way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him too
+hard.”
+
+“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.
+
+“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly.
+That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This is a
+queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday--‘De Jure inter
+Gentes’--published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’
+head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brown-backed
+volume was struck off.”
+
+“Who is the printer?”
+
+“Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly-leaf, in very
+faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.’ I wonder who William
+Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His
+writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”
+
+As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose
+softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the
+servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she
+opened it.
+
+“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We
+could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and some one
+began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling
+one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he
+listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble
+tap at the door.
+
+“Come in,” I cried.
+
+At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very
+old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be
+dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she
+stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket
+with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face
+had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to
+keep my countenance.
+
+The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our
+advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said,
+dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It
+belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth,
+which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if
+he come ‘ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think, he
+being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he
+has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night along
+with----”
+
+“Is that her ring?” I asked.
+
+“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman
+this night. That’s the ring.”
+
+“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.
+
+“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”
+
+“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said
+Sherlock Holmes sharply.
+
+The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little
+red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for _my_ address,” she said.
+“Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”
+
+“And your name is----?”
+
+“My name is Sawyer--her’s is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her--and
+a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the
+company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what
+with liquor shops----”
+
+“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign
+from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad
+to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”
+
+With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old crone
+packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock
+Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into
+his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and
+a cravat. “I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an
+accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had
+hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair.
+Looking through the window I could see her walking feebly along the
+other side, while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind.
+“Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to myself, “or else he
+will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him
+to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until
+I heard the result of his adventure.
+
+It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he might
+be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages
+of Henri Murger’s “Vie de Bohème.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the
+footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the
+more stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for the same
+destination. It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of
+his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by his face that he had not
+been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the
+mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst into a
+hearty laugh.
+
+“I wouldn’t have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,” he cried,
+dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would
+never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I
+know that I will be even with them in the long run.”
+
+“What is it then?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That creature had
+gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being
+foot-sore. Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler which
+was passing. I managed to be close to her so as to hear the address, but
+I need not have been so anxious, for she sang it out loud enough to
+be heard at the other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13, Duncan Street,
+Houndsditch,’ she cried. This begins to look genuine, I thought, and
+having seen her safely inside, I perched myself behind. That’s an art
+which every detective should be an expert at. Well, away we rattled, and
+never drew rein until we reached the street in question. I hopped off
+before we came to the door, and strolled down the street in an easy,
+lounging way. I saw the cab pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw
+him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing came out though. When
+I reached him he was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and
+giving vent to the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I
+listened to. There was no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it
+will be some time before he gets his fare. On inquiring at Number 13
+we found that the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named
+Keswick, and that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Dennis had ever
+been heard of there.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that tottering,
+feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in motion,
+without either you or the driver seeing her?”
+
+“Old woman be damned!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We were the old
+women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an
+active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was
+inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this means
+of giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as
+lonely as I imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to risk
+something for him. Now, Doctor, you are looking done-up. Take my advice
+and turn in.”
+
+I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I
+left Holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into the
+watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his violin,
+and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem which he
+had set himself to unravel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.
+
+
+THE papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery,” as they termed
+it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders upon it
+in addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I
+still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and extracts bearing
+upon the case. Here is a condensation of a few of them:--
+
+The _Daily Telegraph_ remarked that in the history of crime there had
+seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German
+name of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister
+inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political
+refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in
+America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws,
+and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht,
+aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian
+theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the
+article concluded by admonishing the Government and advocating a closer
+watch over foreigners in England.
+
+The _Standard_ commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the sort
+usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from the
+unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent weakening
+of all authority. The deceased was an American gentleman who had
+been residing for some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed at the
+boarding-house of Madame Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace, Camberwell.
+He was accompanied in his travels by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph
+Stangerson. The two bade adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday, the
+4th inst., and departed to Euston Station with the avowed intention of
+catching the Liverpool express. They were afterwards seen together upon
+the platform. Nothing more is known of them until Mr. Drebber’s body
+was, as recorded, discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road,
+many miles from Euston. How he came there, or how he met his fate, are
+questions which are still involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the
+whereabouts of Stangerson. We are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and
+Mr. Gregson, of Scotland Yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it
+is confidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily
+throw light upon the matter.
+
+The _Daily News_ observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being
+a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which animated
+the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to our shores
+a number of men who might have made excellent citizens were they not
+soured by the recollection of all that they had undergone. Among these
+men there was a stringent code of honour, any infringement of which was
+punished by death. Every effort should be made to find the secretary,
+Stangerson, and to ascertain some particulars of the habits of the
+deceased. A great step had been gained by the discovery of the address
+of the house at which he had boarded--a result which was entirely due to
+the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast, and
+they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.
+
+“I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure
+to score.”
+
+“That depends on how it turns out.”
+
+“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught, it
+will be _on account_ of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be _in
+spite_ of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever
+they do, they will have followers. ‘Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot
+qui l’admire.’”
+
+“What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there came the
+pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by
+audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.
+
+“It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” said my
+companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room half a
+dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped
+eyes on.
+
+“‘Tention!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little
+scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In
+future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you
+must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”
+
+“No, sir, we hain’t,” said one of the youths.
+
+“I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are
+your wages.” [13] He handed each of them a shilling.
+
+“Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time.”
+
+He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many rats,
+and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.
+
+“There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than
+out of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked. “The mere sight of an
+official-looking person seals men’s lips. These youngsters, however, go
+everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all
+they want is organisation.”
+
+“Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?” I asked.
+
+“Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is merely a matter
+of time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a vengeance!
+Here is Gregson coming down the road with beatitude written upon every
+feature of his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he is stopping. There he
+is!”
+
+There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the
+fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and
+burst into our sitting-room.
+
+“My dear fellow,” he cried, wringing Holmes’ unresponsive hand,
+“congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.”
+
+A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion’s expressive face.
+
+“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” he asked.
+
+“The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.”
+
+“And his name is?”
+
+“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried
+Gregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.
+
+Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.
+
+“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to
+know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?”
+
+“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous
+exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn
+me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon
+the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both
+brain-workers.”
+
+“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you
+arrived at this most gratifying result.”
+
+The detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently
+at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of
+amusement.
+
+“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks
+himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is
+after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime
+than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this
+time.”
+
+The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.
+
+“And how did you get your clue?”
+
+“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson, this is
+strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend
+with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would
+have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties
+came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s
+way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”
+
+“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”
+
+Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.
+
+“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a
+chance, however small it may seem.”
+
+“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.
+
+“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that
+size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once.
+He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding
+Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”
+
+“Smart--very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective.
+“I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room,
+too--an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about
+the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape
+my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes, when you come upon the right scent--a kind of thrill in your
+nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr.
+Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.
+
+“The mother nodded. She didn’t seem able to get out a word. The daughter
+burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people knew something
+of the matter.
+
+“‘At what o’clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the train?’ I
+asked.
+
+“‘At eight o’clock,’ she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her
+agitation. ‘His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that there were two
+trains--one at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first. [14]
+
+“‘And was that the last which you saw of him?’
+
+“A terrible change came over the woman’s face as I asked the question.
+Her features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds before she
+could get out the single word ‘Yes’--and when it did come it was in a
+husky unnatural tone.
+
+“There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a calm
+clear voice.
+
+“‘No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,’ she said. ‘Let us be
+frank with this gentleman. We _did_ see Mr. Drebber again.’
+
+“‘God forgive you!’ cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her hands and
+sinking back in her chair. ‘You have murdered your brother.’
+
+“‘Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,’ the girl answered
+firmly.
+
+“‘You had best tell me all about it now,’ I said. ‘Half-confidences are
+worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of it.’
+
+“‘On your head be it, Alice!’ cried her mother; and then, turning to me,
+‘I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on behalf
+of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand in this
+terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is, however,
+that in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to be
+compromised. That however is surely impossible. His high character, his
+profession, his antecedents would all forbid it.’
+
+“‘Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,’ I answered.
+‘Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.’
+
+“‘Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,’ she said, and her
+daughter withdrew. ‘Now, sir,’ she continued, ‘I had no intention of
+telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it I
+have no alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you all
+without omitting any particular.’
+
+“‘It is your wisest course,’ said I.
+
+“‘Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and his secretary,
+Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent. I noticed a
+“Copenhagen” label upon each of their trunks, showing that that had been
+their last stopping place. Stangerson was a quiet reserved man, but his
+employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise. He was coarse in his
+habits and brutish in his ways. The very night of his arrival he became
+very much the worse for drink, and, indeed, after twelve o’clock in the
+day he could hardly ever be said to be sober. His manners towards the
+maid-servants were disgustingly free and familiar. Worst of all, he
+speedily assumed the same attitude towards my daughter, Alice, and spoke
+to her more than once in a way which, fortunately, she is too innocent
+to understand. On one occasion he actually seized her in his arms and
+embraced her--an outrage which caused his own secretary to reproach him
+for his unmanly conduct.’
+
+“‘But why did you stand all this,’ I asked. ‘I suppose that you can get
+rid of your boarders when you wish.’
+
+“Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. ‘Would to God that
+I had given him notice on the very day that he came,’ she said. ‘But
+it was a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day each--fourteen
+pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a widow, and my boy in
+the Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the money. I acted for the
+best. This last was too much, however, and I gave him notice to leave on
+account of it. That was the reason of his going.’
+
+“‘Well?’
+
+“‘My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is on leave
+just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper
+is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed the
+door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas, in
+less than an hour there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that Mr.
+Drebber had returned. He was much excited, and evidently the worse for
+drink. He forced his way into the room, where I was sitting with my
+daughter, and made some incoherent remark about having missed his train.
+He then turned to Alice, and before my very face, proposed to her that
+she should fly with him. “You are of age,” he said, “and there is no law
+to stop you. I have money enough and to spare. Never mind the old girl
+here, but come along with me now straight away. You shall live like a
+princess.” Poor Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away from him,
+but he caught her by the wrist and endeavoured to draw her towards the
+door. I screamed, and at that moment my son Arthur came into the room.
+What happened then I do not know. I heard oaths and the confused sounds
+of a scuffle. I was too terrified to raise my head. When I did look up
+I saw Arthur standing in the doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand.
+“I don’t think that fine fellow will trouble us again,” he said. “I will
+just go after him and see what he does with himself.” With those words
+he took his hat and started off down the street. The next morning we
+heard of Mr. Drebber’s mysterious death.’
+
+“This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier’s lips with many gasps and
+pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the words. I
+made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that there should
+be no possibility of a mistake.”
+
+“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. “What happened
+next?”
+
+“When Mrs. Charpentier paused,” the detective continued, “I saw that the
+whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way which
+I always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour her son
+returned.
+
+“‘I do not know,’ she answered.
+
+“‘Not know?’
+
+“‘No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.’
+
+“‘After you went to bed?’
+
+“‘Yes.’
+
+“‘When did you go to bed?’
+
+“‘About eleven.’
+
+“‘So your son was gone at least two hours?’
+
+“‘Yes.’
+
+“‘Possibly four or five?’
+
+“‘Yes.’
+
+“‘What was he doing during that time?’
+
+“‘I do not know,’ she answered, turning white to her very lips.
+
+“Of course after that there was nothing more to be done. I found
+out where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and
+arrested him. When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come
+quietly with us, he answered us as bold as brass, ‘I suppose you
+are arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel
+Drebber,’ he said. We had said nothing to him about it, so that his
+alluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.”
+
+“Very,” said Holmes.
+
+“He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as
+having with him when he followed Drebber. It was a stout oak cudgel.”
+
+“What is your theory, then?”
+
+“Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the Brixton Road.
+When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the course of
+which Drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of the stomach,
+perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The night was so
+wet that no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the body of his victim
+into the empty house. As to the candle, and the blood, and the writing
+on the wall, and the ring, they may all be so many tricks to throw the
+police on to the wrong scent.”
+
+“Well done!” said Holmes in an encouraging voice. “Really, Gregson, you
+are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.”
+
+“I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,” the detective
+answered proudly. “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he
+said that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him,
+and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an
+old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this
+old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. I
+think the whole case fits together uncommonly well. What amuses me is to
+think of Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent. I am afraid
+he won’t make much of [15] Why, by Jove, here’s the very man himself!”
+
+It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were
+talking, and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness
+which generally marked his demeanour and dress were, however, wanting.
+His face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged
+and untidy. He had evidently come with the intention of consulting
+with Sherlock Holmes, for on perceiving his colleague he appeared to be
+embarrassed and put out. He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling
+nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. “This is a most
+extraordinary case,” he said at last--“a most incomprehensible affair.”
+
+“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I
+thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the
+Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”
+
+“The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade gravely, “was
+murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
+
+
+THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
+unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang
+out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I
+stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his
+brows drawn down over his eyes.
+
+“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”
+
+“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
+“I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”
+
+“Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered
+Gregson.
+
+“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to
+discover what had occurred.”
+
+“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
+“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”
+
+“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely
+confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in
+the death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was
+completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out
+what had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at Euston
+Station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At two in the
+morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question which
+confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed between
+8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him afterwards.
+I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning
+them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then set to work calling
+upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. You
+see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become separated,
+the natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the
+vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station again next
+morning.”
+
+“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,”
+ remarked Holmes.
+
+“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
+enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and
+at eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George
+Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there,
+they at once answered me in the affirmative.
+
+“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He
+has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’
+
+“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
+
+“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’
+
+“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.
+
+“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
+lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me
+the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor
+leading up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to
+go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in
+spite of my twenty years’ experience. From under the door there curled
+a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the passage and
+formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side. I gave a cry,
+which brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted when he saw it. The door
+was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to it, and knocked it
+in. The window of the room was open, and beside the window, all huddled
+up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was quite dead, and had
+been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and cold. When we turned
+him over, the Boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman
+who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson. The cause
+of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated
+the heart. And now comes the strangest part of the affair. What do you
+suppose was above the murdered man?”
+
+I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,
+even before Sherlock Holmes answered.
+
+“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.
+
+“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all
+silent for a while.
+
+There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the
+deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to
+his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle
+tingled as I thought of it.
+
+“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing on his way
+to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews
+at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay
+there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which
+was wide open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the
+ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to
+be some carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel. He took no particular
+notice of him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for him
+to be at work. He has an impression that the man was tall, had a reddish
+face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He must have stayed in
+the room some little time after the murder, for we found blood-stained
+water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and marks on the
+sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife.”
+
+I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which
+tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of
+exultation or satisfaction upon his face.
+
+“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
+murderer?” he asked.
+
+“Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber’s purse in his pocket, but it seems
+that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd
+pounds in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these
+extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were
+no papers or memoranda in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single
+telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and containing
+the words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no name appended to this
+message.”
+
+“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.
+
+“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he had read
+himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
+beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
+window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
+
+“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is complete.”
+
+The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
+
+“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently, “all the
+threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details
+to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the
+time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the
+discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own
+eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand
+upon those pills?”
+
+“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box; “I took them
+and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place of
+safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking these
+pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to
+them.”
+
+“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me, “are those
+ordinary pills?”
+
+They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,
+round, and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness
+and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I
+remarked.
+
+“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going down and
+fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long,
+and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday.”
+
+I went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. It’s laboured
+breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end.
+Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded
+the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the
+rug.
+
+“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and drawing his
+penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into the
+box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine glass,
+in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the
+Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.”
+
+“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the injured tone of
+one who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see, however,
+what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.”
+
+“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
+everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
+mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps
+it up readily enough.”
+
+As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer and
+placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
+Holmes’ earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in
+silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling
+effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched
+upon tho [16] cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently
+neither the better nor the worse for its draught.
+
+Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
+result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared
+upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the
+table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great
+was his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two
+detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check which
+he had met.
+
+“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing from his chair
+and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that it should
+be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of
+Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they
+are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot
+have been false. It is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the
+worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!” With a perfect shriek of delight he
+rushed to the box, cut the other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk,
+and presented it to the terrier. The unfortunate creature’s tongue
+seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive
+shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been
+struck by lightning.
+
+Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
+forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by
+this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of
+deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other
+interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the most deadly
+poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that
+before ever I saw the box at all.”
+
+This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could
+hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog,
+however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me
+that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began
+to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.
+
+“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed
+at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single
+real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize
+upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to
+confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence
+of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more
+obscure, have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.
+It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most
+commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no
+new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder
+would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of
+the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of
+those _outré_ and sensational accompaniments which have rendered
+it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more
+difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.”
+
+Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
+impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart
+man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something
+more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking
+the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young
+Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade
+went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too.
+You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more
+than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a right to
+ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you name the
+man who did it?”
+
+“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade.
+“We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more
+than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence
+which you require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”
+
+“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time
+to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”
+
+Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
+continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest
+and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
+
+“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and
+facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You have
+asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of
+his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying
+our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes
+of managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which
+needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal
+with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by another who
+is as clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea that anyone
+can have a clue there is some chance of securing him; but if he had the
+slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish in an instant
+among the four million inhabitants of this great city. Without meaning
+to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that I consider these
+men to be more than a match for the official force, and that is why I
+have not asked your assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all
+the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present
+I am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you
+without endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.”
+
+Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
+or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
+flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady eyes
+glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to
+speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman
+of the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and
+unsavoury person.
+
+“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the cab
+downstairs.”
+
+“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce this pattern
+at Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from
+a drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an
+instant.”
+
+“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we can only
+find the man to put them on.”
+
+“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman may as well
+help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”
+
+I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about
+to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it.
+There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and
+began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the
+room.
+
+“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said, kneeling over
+his task, and never turning his head.
+
+The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put
+down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the
+jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce you to Mr.
+Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.”
+
+The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time
+to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
+triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s
+dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had
+appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might
+have been a group of statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury,
+the prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled
+himself through the window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but
+before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon
+him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and then
+commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he, that
+the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to have the
+convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands
+were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss of
+blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until
+Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
+half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of
+no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his
+feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and
+panting.
+
+“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to take him to
+Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant smile,
+“we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to
+put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I
+will refuse to answer them.”
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II. _The Country of the Saints._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
+
+
+IN the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies
+an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a
+barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to
+Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado
+upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature
+always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises
+snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. There are
+swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged cañons; and there are
+enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are
+grey with the saline alkali dust. They all preserve, however, the common
+characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.
+
+There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees
+or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
+hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight
+of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their
+prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily
+through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark
+ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These
+are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.
+
+In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from
+the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
+stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of
+alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On
+the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks,
+with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of
+country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life.
+There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull,
+grey earth--above all, there is absolute silence. Listen as one may,
+there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but
+silence--complete and heart-subduing silence.
+
+It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
+plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
+sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is
+lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down
+by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are scattered
+white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull
+deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some
+large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former have
+belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one
+may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of those
+who had fallen by the wayside.
+
+Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
+eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His appearance
+was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region.
+An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer
+to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the brown
+parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones; his
+long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white; his
+eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre; while
+the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a
+skeleton. As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet
+his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry
+and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his clothes,
+which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it
+was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was
+dying--dying from hunger and from thirst.
+
+He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
+elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great
+salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage
+mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might
+indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there
+was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild
+questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to
+an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why
+not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,” he muttered,
+as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
+
+Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle,
+and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had carried
+slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for
+his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some
+little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little
+moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very
+bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.
+
+“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.
+
+“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do
+it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty
+little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart
+pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The
+child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she
+had suffered less than her companion.
+
+“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
+towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.
+
+“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, shoving
+[19] the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
+mother?”
+
+“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”
+
+“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she
+‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and now
+she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t there
+no water, nor nothing to eat?”
+
+“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient awhile,
+and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like that, and
+then you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your lips is like
+leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s
+that you’ve got?”
+
+“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically,
+holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home
+I’ll give them to brother Bob.”
+
+“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently.
+“You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though--you remember when
+we left the river?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there
+was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t
+turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you
+and--and----”
+
+“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely,
+staring up at his grimy visage.
+
+“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian
+Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie,
+your mother.”
+
+“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face in
+her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
+
+“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
+chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and
+we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
+There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”
+
+“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking
+her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
+
+“I guess that’s about the size of it.”
+
+“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave
+me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with
+mother again.”
+
+“Yes, you will, dearie.”
+
+“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she
+meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
+of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was
+fond of. How long will it be first?”
+
+“I don’t know--not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the
+northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared
+three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did
+they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown
+birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then
+settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the
+vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.
+
+“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
+ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did
+God make this country?”
+
+“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this
+unexpected question.
+
+“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the
+little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these
+parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the
+trees.”
+
+“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.
+
+“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.
+
+“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you
+bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the
+waggon when we was on the Plains.”
+
+“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering eyes.
+
+“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half
+the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out,
+and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”
+
+“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the shawl
+out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this. It
+makes you feel kind o’ good.”
+
+It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see
+it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the little
+prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her chubby face,
+and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless
+heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were
+face to face, while the two voices--the one thin and clear, the other
+deep and harsh--united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness. The
+prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow of the boulder
+until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad breast of her
+protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but Nature proved
+to be too strong for him. For three days and three nights he had allowed
+himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly the eyelids drooped over the
+tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon the breast, until the
+man’s grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses of his companion,
+and both slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.
+
+Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
+would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali
+plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
+hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but gradually
+growing higher and broader until it formed a solid, well-defined cloud.
+This cloud continued to increase in size until it became evident that it
+could only be raised by a great multitude of moving creatures. In more
+fertile spots the observer would have come to the conclusion that one
+of those great herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land was
+approaching him. This was obviously impossible in these arid wilds. As
+the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary bluff upon which the two
+castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered tilts of waggons and the
+figures of armed horsemen began to show up through the haze, and the
+apparition revealed itself as being a great caravan upon its journey for
+the West. But what a caravan! When the head of it had reached the base
+of the mountains, the rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right
+across the enormous plain stretched the straggling array, waggons
+and carts, men on horseback, and men on foot. Innumerable women who
+staggered along under burdens, and children who toddled beside the
+waggons or peeped out from under the white coverings. This was evidently
+no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had
+been compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new
+country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and
+rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of wheels
+and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not sufficient to
+rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.
+
+At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced
+men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On reaching
+the base of the bluff they halted, and held a short council among
+themselves.
+
+“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a hard-lipped,
+clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.
+
+“To the right of the Sierra Blanco--so we shall reach the Rio Grande,”
+ said another.
+
+“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it from the
+rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.”
+
+“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.
+
+They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and
+keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag
+above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,
+showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight
+there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while
+fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word
+‘Redskins’ was on every lip.
+
+“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly man who
+appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are no
+other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”
+
+“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” asked one of the band.
+
+“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.
+
+“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder
+answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their
+horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the
+object which had excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and
+noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of practised scouts.
+The watchers from the plain below could see them flit from rock to rock
+until their figures stood out against the skyline. The young man who had
+first given the alarm was leading them. Suddenly his followers saw him
+throw up his hands, as though overcome with astonishment, and on joining
+him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met their
+eyes.
+
+On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a
+single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,
+long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His placid
+face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep. Beside him
+lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling his brown
+sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the breast of his
+velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing the regular line of
+snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played over her infantile
+features. Her plump little white legs terminating in white socks and
+neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange contrast to the long
+shrivelled members of her companion. On the ledge of rock above this
+strange couple there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of
+the new comers uttered raucous screams of disappointment and flapped
+sullenly away.
+
+The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about [20]
+them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down upon
+the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him, and
+which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts. His
+face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he passed his
+boney hand over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium, I guess,”
+ he muttered. The child stood beside him, holding on to the skirt of
+his coat, and said nothing but looked all round her with the wondering
+questioning gaze of childhood.
+
+The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways that
+their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little girl,
+and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her gaunt
+companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.
+
+“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and that little
+un are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead o’
+thirst and hunger away down in the south.”
+
+“Is she your child?” asked someone.
+
+“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ‘cause I
+saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this
+day on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity at
+his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of
+ye.”
+
+“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are the
+persecuted children of God--the chosen of the Angel Merona.”
+
+“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears to have
+chosen a fair crowd of ye.”
+
+“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other sternly. “We are
+of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian letters
+on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy Joseph Smith
+at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of Illinois, where we
+had founded our temple. We have come to seek a refuge from the violent
+man and from the godless, even though it be the heart of the desert.”
+
+The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier. “I
+see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”
+
+“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.
+
+“And where are you going?”
+
+“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of our
+Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done with
+you.”
+
+They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were surrounded
+by crowds of the pilgrims--pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
+laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries
+of astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they
+perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the
+other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by
+a great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon, which was
+conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of
+its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were
+furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the driver there
+sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of age, but
+whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader. He
+was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached he laid
+it aside, and listened attentively to an account of the episode. Then he
+turned to the two castaways.
+
+“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can only be as
+believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better
+far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you
+should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the
+whole fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”
+
+“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with such
+emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader
+alone retained his stern, impressive expression.
+
+“Take him, Brother Stangerson,” he said, “give him food and drink,
+and the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy
+creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”
+
+“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled down
+the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away in a
+dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a creaking
+of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon the whole caravan
+was winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the two waifs
+had been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was already
+awaiting them.
+
+“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will have recovered
+from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and for ever you
+are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with
+the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
+
+
+THIS is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured
+by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven. From the
+shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains
+they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history.
+The savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and
+disease--every impediment which Nature could place in the way, had all
+been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and the
+accumulated terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them.
+There was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer
+when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath
+them, and learned from the lips of their leader that this was the
+promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be theirs for
+evermore.
+
+Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well as a
+resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the future
+city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and allotted in
+proportion to the standing of each individual. The tradesman was put
+to his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the town streets and
+squares sprang up, as if by magic. In the country there was draining
+and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next summer saw the whole
+country golden with the wheat crop. Everything prospered in the strange
+settlement. Above all, the great temple which they had erected in the
+centre of the city grew ever taller and larger. From the first blush of
+dawn until the closing of the twilight, the clatter of the hammer
+and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the monument which the
+immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe through many dangers.
+
+The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his
+fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons
+to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne
+along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which
+she shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong
+forward boy of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of childhood,
+from the shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon became a pet
+with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life in her moving
+canvas-covered home. In the meantime Ferrier having recovered from his
+privations, distinguished himself as a useful guide and an indefatigable
+hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new companions, that
+when they reached the end of their wanderings, it was unanimously agreed
+that he should be provided with as large and as fertile a tract of land
+as any of the settlers, with the exception of Young himself, and of
+Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who were the four principal
+Elders.
+
+On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial
+log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that it
+grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind,
+keen in his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron constitution
+enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his
+lands. Hence it came about that his farm and all that belonged to
+him prospered exceedingly. In three years he was better off than his
+neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in twelve
+there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who could
+compare with him. From the great inland sea to the distant Wahsatch
+Mountains there was no name better known than that of John Ferrier.
+
+There was one way and only one in which he offended the susceptibilities
+of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion could ever induce him
+to set up a female establishment after the manner of his companions. He
+never gave reasons for this persistent refusal, but contented himself by
+resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his determination. There were some
+who accused him of lukewarmness in his adopted religion, and others who
+put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur expense. Others,
+again, spoke of some early love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who
+had pined away on the shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the reason,
+Ferrier remained strictly celibate. In every other respect he conformed
+to the religion of the young settlement, and gained the name of being an
+orthodox and straight-walking man.
+
+Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted
+father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the
+balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to
+the young girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger,
+her cheek more rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon
+the high road which ran by Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts
+revive in their mind as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping
+through the wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father’s mustang,
+and managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the West.
+So the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw her father
+the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of American
+girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.
+
+It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child had
+developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious
+change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least of
+all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the
+touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns,
+with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has
+awoken within her. There are few who cannot recall that day and remember
+the one little incident which heralded the dawn of a new life. In the
+case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself, apart
+from its future influence on her destiny and that of many besides.
+
+It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as
+the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields and
+in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty high
+roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to the
+west, for the gold fever had broken out in California, and the Overland
+Route lay through the City of the Elect. There, too, were droves of
+sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands, and trains
+of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary of their interminable
+journey. Through all this motley assemblage, threading her way with the
+skill of an accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair
+face flushed with the exercise and her long chestnut hair floating out
+behind her. She had a commission from her father in the City, and was
+dashing in as she had done many a time before, with all the fearlessness
+of youth, thinking only of her task and how it was to be performed. The
+travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and even
+the unemotional Indians, journeying in with their pelties, relaxed their
+accustomed stoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced
+maiden.
+
+She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road
+blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking
+herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured to pass this
+obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap. Scarcely
+had she got fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed in behind
+her, and she found herself completely imbedded in the moving stream of
+fierce-eyed, long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to deal with
+cattle, she was not alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of
+every opportunity to urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way
+through the cavalcade. Unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures,
+either by accident or design, came in violent contact with the flank of
+the mustang, and excited it to madness. In an instant it reared up upon
+its hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way that
+would have unseated any but a most skilful rider. The situation was full
+of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse brought it against the horns
+again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It was all that the girl could
+do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a slip would mean a terrible death
+under the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals. Unaccustomed to
+sudden emergencies, her head began to swim, and her grip upon the bridle
+to relax. Choked by the rising cloud of dust and by the steam from the
+struggling creatures, she might have abandoned her efforts in despair,
+but for a kindly voice at her elbow which assured her of assistance. At
+the same moment a sinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by
+the curb, and forcing a way through the drove, soon brought her to the
+outskirts.
+
+“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.
+
+She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. “I’m awful
+frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
+would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”
+
+“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He was a tall,
+savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and
+clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over his
+shoulders. “I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked,
+“I saw you ride down from his house. When you see him, ask him if he
+remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my
+father and he were pretty thick.”
+
+“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.
+
+The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes
+sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
+mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
+condition. He must take us as he finds us.”
+
+“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she answered,
+“he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never
+got over it.”
+
+“Neither would I,” said her companion.
+
+“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow.
+You ain’t even a friend of ours.”
+
+The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy
+Ferrier laughed aloud.
+
+“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend now.
+You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t trust
+me with his business any more. Good-bye!”
+
+“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over
+her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her
+riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
+dust.
+
+Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn.
+He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver,
+and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital
+enough to work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as keen
+as any of them upon the business until this sudden incident had drawn
+his thoughts into another channel. The sight of the fair young girl,
+as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic,
+untamed heart to its very depths. When she had vanished from his sight,
+he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that neither silver
+speculations nor any other questions could ever be of such importance to
+him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love which had sprung up in
+his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the
+wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper. He
+had been accustomed to succeed in all that he undertook. He swore in
+his heart that he would not fail in this if human effort and human
+perseverance could render him successful.
+
+He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until
+his face was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the
+valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning
+the news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this
+Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested
+Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and
+could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost
+in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a
+silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be
+had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a
+favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues. On
+such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright,
+happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer
+her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms,
+but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her
+affections.
+
+It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled
+up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He
+threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.
+
+“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing
+tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
+will you be ready to come when I am here again?”
+
+“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.
+
+“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my
+darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”
+
+“And how about father?” she asked.
+
+“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all
+right. I have no fear on that head.”
+
+“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s
+no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad
+breast.
+
+“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is
+settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are
+waiting for me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling--good-bye. In two
+months you shall see me.”
+
+He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his
+horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though
+afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at
+what he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until
+he vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the
+happiest girl in all Utah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
+
+
+THREE weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had
+departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him
+when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of
+his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to
+the arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always
+determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever
+induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he
+regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever
+he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
+inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
+express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in
+the Land of the Saints.
+
+Yes, a dangerous matter--so dangerous that even the most saintly dared
+only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something
+which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down a
+swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned
+persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most
+terrible description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German
+Vehm-gericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put
+a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over
+the State of Utah.
+
+Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made
+this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and
+omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out
+against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or
+what had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home,
+but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the
+hands of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed
+by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this
+terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men
+went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the
+wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.
+
+At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the
+recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
+to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The
+supply of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female
+population on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange
+rumours began to be bandied about--rumours of murdered immigrants and
+rifled camps in regions where Indians had never been seen. Fresh women
+appeared in the harems of the Elders--women who pined and wept, and
+bore upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated
+wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked,
+stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These
+tales and rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
+re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.
+To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite
+Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.
+
+Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible
+results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it
+inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless
+society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and
+violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.
+The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the
+Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth at
+night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every
+man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were
+nearest his heart.
+
+One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheatfields,
+when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window,
+saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His
+heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great Brigham
+Young himself. Full of trepidation--for he knew that such a visit boded
+him little good--Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. The
+latter, however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with
+a stern face into the sitting-room.
+
+“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly
+from under his light-coloured eyelashes, “the true believers have been
+good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
+desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley,
+gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our
+protection. Is not this so?”
+
+“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
+
+“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you
+should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages.
+This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have
+neglected.”
+
+“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in
+expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended
+at the Temple? Have I not----?”
+
+“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him. “Call them in,
+that I may greet them.”
+
+“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women
+were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a
+lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”
+
+“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the leader
+of the Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found
+favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.”
+
+John Ferrier groaned internally.
+
+“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve--stories that
+she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
+What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith?
+‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if
+she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is
+impossible that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your
+daughter to violate it.”
+
+John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
+riding-whip.
+
+“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested--so it has been
+decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would
+not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all
+choice. We Elders have many heifers, [29] but our children must also
+be provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of
+them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose
+between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say
+you to that?”
+
+Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.
+
+“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very
+young--she is scarce of an age to marry.”
+
+“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from his seat.
+“At the end of that time she shall give her answer.”
+
+He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and
+flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered,
+“that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra
+Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of
+the Holy Four!”
+
+With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
+Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.
+
+He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how he
+should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon
+his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her
+pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.
+
+“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His voice rang
+through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”
+
+“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him, and passing
+his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair. “We’ll fix it
+up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’ lessening for
+this chap, do you?”
+
+A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
+
+“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a
+likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here, in
+spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting for
+Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him know
+the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be back
+here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.”
+
+Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.
+
+“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that
+I am frightened, dear. One hears--one hears such dreadful stories about
+those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to
+them.”
+
+“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It will be time
+to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at
+the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”
+
+“Leave Utah!”
+
+“That’s about the size of it.”
+
+“But the farm?”
+
+“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell
+the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I
+don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their
+darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess
+I’m too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
+chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite
+direction.”
+
+“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
+
+“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the meantime,
+don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes swelled up,
+else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s nothing to be
+afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”
+
+John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone,
+but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the
+fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and
+loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
+
+
+ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,
+John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his
+acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him
+with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the
+imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he
+should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind, and returned
+home with a lighter heart.
+
+As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to
+each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering
+to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a
+long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet
+cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse
+bloated features, was standing in front of the window with his hands in
+his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as
+he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conversation.
+
+“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder
+Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the desert
+when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true
+fold.”
+
+“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a
+nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.”
+
+John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.
+
+“We have come,” continued Stangerson, “at the advice of our fathers to
+solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to
+you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber here has
+seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”
+
+“Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not
+how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now
+given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”
+
+“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When the
+Lord removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
+factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.”
+
+“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drebber, smirking
+at his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her
+decision.”
+
+During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,
+hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two visitors.
+
+“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my daughter
+summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your faces
+again.”
+
+The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this
+competition between them for the maiden’s hand was the highest of
+honours both to her and her father.
+
+“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the door,
+and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”
+
+His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,
+that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat. The
+old farmer followed them to the door.
+
+“Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,” he said,
+sardonically.
+
+“You shall smart for this!” Stangerson cried, white with rage. “You have
+defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to the end
+of your days.”
+
+“The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,” cried young Drebber; “He
+will arise and smite you!”
+
+“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would
+have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm and
+restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of horses’
+hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.
+
+“The young canting rascals!” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from
+his forehead; “I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl, than the
+wife of either of them.”
+
+“And so should I, father,” she answered, with spirit; “but Jefferson
+will soon be here.”
+
+“Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for we
+do not know what their next move may be.”
+
+It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and
+help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted
+daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been
+such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If
+minor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this
+arch rebel. Ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no
+avail to him. Others as well known and as rich as himself had been
+spirited away before now, and their goods given over to the Church. He
+was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors which
+hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip, but
+this suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his daughter,
+however, and affected to make light of the whole matter, though she,
+with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at ease.
+
+He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from
+Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in an
+unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his surprise,
+a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just over
+his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling letters:--
+
+“Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then----”
+
+The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How
+this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his
+servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been
+secured. He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter, but
+the incident struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days were
+evidently the balance of the month which Young had promised. What
+strength or courage could avail against an enemy armed with such
+mysterious powers? The hand which fastened that pin might have struck
+him to the heart, and he could never have known who had slain him.
+
+Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to their
+breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the
+centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently,
+the number 28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not
+enlighten her. That night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and
+ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27 had
+been painted upon the outside of his door.
+
+Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his
+unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some
+conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the
+month of grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls,
+sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards
+stuck upon the garden gate or the railings. With all his vigilance John
+Ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings proceeded. A
+horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at the sight of
+them. He became haggard and restless, and his eyes had the troubled look
+of some hunted creature. He had but one hope in life now, and that was
+for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.
+
+Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no news
+of the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still there
+came no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the road, or a
+driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking
+that help had arrived at last. At last, when he saw five give way to
+four and that again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of
+escape. Single-handed, and with his limited knowledge of the mountains
+which surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The
+more-frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded, and none could
+pass along them without an order from the Council. Turn which way he
+would, there appeared to be no avoiding the blow which hung over him.
+Yet the old man never wavered in his resolution to part with life itself
+before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s dishonour.
+
+He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles, and
+searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown the
+figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the last
+of the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague and
+terrible fancies filled his imagination. And his daughter--what was to
+become of her after he was gone? Was there no escape from the invisible
+network which was drawn all round them. He sank his head upon the table
+and sobbed at the thought of his own impotence.
+
+What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound--low,
+but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from the door of
+the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There
+was a pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was
+repeated. Someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the
+panels of the door. Was it some midnight assassin who had come to carry
+out the murderous orders of the secret tribunal? Or was it some agent
+who was marking up that the last day of grace had arrived. John Ferrier
+felt that instant death would be better than the suspense which shook
+his nerves and chilled his heart. Springing forward he drew the bolt and
+threw the door open.
+
+Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were
+twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the
+farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on
+the road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier
+looked to right and to left, until happening to glance straight down at
+his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face
+upon the ground, with arms and legs all asprawl.
+
+So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with
+his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first
+thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying
+man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into the
+hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within the
+house the man sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the
+astonished farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson
+Hope.
+
+“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me! Whatever made you
+come in like that.”
+
+“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no time for bite
+or sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the [21] cold
+meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s
+supper, and devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked,
+when he had satisfied his hunger.
+
+“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.
+
+“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I crawled
+my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not quite sharp
+enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”
+
+John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had
+a devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it
+cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many
+who would come to share our danger and our troubles.”
+
+“You’ve hit it there, pard,” the young hunter answered. “I have a
+respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice
+before I put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It’s Lucy that brings me
+here, and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’ the
+Hope family in Utah.”
+
+“What are we to do?”
+
+“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are lost.
+I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much money
+have you?”
+
+“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”
+
+“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for Carson
+City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as well that
+the servants do not sleep in the house.”
+
+While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching
+journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into
+a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by
+experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had
+hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned with his
+daughter all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the
+lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious, and there was
+much to be done.
+
+“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope, speaking in a low
+but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the peril,
+but has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back entrances are
+watched, but with caution we may get away through the side window and
+across the fields. Once on the road we are only two miles from the
+Ravine where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we should be half-way
+through the mountains.”
+
+“What if we are stopped,” asked Ferrier.
+
+Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his
+tunic. “If they are too many for us we shall take two or three of them
+with us,” he said with a sinister smile.
+
+The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the
+darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own,
+and which he was now about to abandon for ever. He had long nerved
+himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the honour and
+happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes.
+All looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees and the broad
+silent stretch of grain-land, that it was difficult to realize that
+the spirit of murder lurked through it all. Yet the white face and set
+expression of the young hunter showed that in his approach to the house
+he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that head.
+
+Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the scanty
+provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a few
+of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and
+carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the
+night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden. With
+bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and gained
+the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap
+which opened into the cornfields. They had just reached this point when
+the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the
+shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.
+
+It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the
+ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the
+melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards
+of them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small
+distance. At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the
+gap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry
+again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.
+
+“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first who appeared to be in authority.
+“When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.”
+
+“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”
+
+“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”
+
+“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away
+in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been some
+form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died
+away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping his
+companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the top
+of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her strength
+appeared to fail her.
+
+“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “We are through the
+line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”
+
+Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once did they
+meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid
+recognition. Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a
+rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark jagged
+peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile which led
+between them was the Eagle Cañon in which the horses were awaiting them.
+With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great
+boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he came to
+the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the faithful animals had
+been picketed. The girl was placed upon the mule, and old Ferrier upon
+one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope led the
+other along the precipitous and dangerous path.
+
+It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face
+Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up a
+thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic
+columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster.
+On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance
+impossible. Between the two ran the irregular track, so narrow in places
+that they had to travel in Indian file, and so rough that only practised
+riders could have traversed it at all. Yet in spite of all dangers and
+difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light within them,
+for every step increased the distance between them and the terrible
+despotism from which they were flying.
+
+They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the
+jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and most
+desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry, and
+pointed upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing out dark
+and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them
+as soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge of “Who goes
+there?” rang through the silent ravine.
+
+“Travellers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the
+rifle which hung by his saddle.
+
+They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down at
+them as if dissatisfied at their reply.
+
+“By whose permission?” he asked.
+
+“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences had taught him
+that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.
+
+“Nine from seven,” cried the sentinel.
+
+“Seven from five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering the
+countersign which he had heard in the garden.
+
+“Pass, and the Lord go with you,” said the voice from above. Beyond his
+post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break into a
+trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon
+his gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen
+people, and that freedom lay before them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.
+
+
+ALL night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular
+and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but Hope’s
+intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track
+once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage
+beauty lay before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks
+hemmed them in, peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon.
+So steep were the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch
+and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a
+gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely
+an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn with trees and
+boulders which had fallen in a similar manner. Even as they passed,
+a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse rattle which woke
+the echoes in the silent gorges, and startled the weary horses into a
+gallop.
+
+As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great
+mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival, until
+they were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle cheered the
+hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy. At a wild
+torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered their
+horses, while they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy and her father
+would fain have rested longer, but Jefferson Hope was inexorable. “They
+will be upon our track by this time,” he said. “Everything depends upon
+our speed. Once safe in Carson we may rest for the remainder of our
+lives.”
+
+During the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles, and
+by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles from
+their enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling crag,
+where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind, and there
+huddled together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours’ sleep. Before
+daybreak, however, they were up and on their way once more. They had
+seen no signs of any pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that
+they were fairly out of the reach of the terrible organization whose
+enmity they had incurred. He little knew how far that iron grasp could
+reach, or how soon it was to close upon them and crush them.
+
+About the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store
+of provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little uneasiness,
+however, for there was game to be had among the mountains, and he had
+frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life.
+Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and
+made a blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for
+they were now nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air
+was bitter and keen. Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy adieu,
+he threw his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of whatever
+chance might throw in his way. Looking back he saw the old man and the
+young girl crouching over the blazing fire, while the three animals
+stood motionless in the back-ground. Then the intervening rocks hid them
+from his view.
+
+He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another without
+success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees, and other
+indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in the vicinity.
+At last, after two or three hours’ fruitless search, he was thinking of
+turning back in despair, when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight
+which sent a thrill of pleasure through his heart. On the edge of a
+jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet above him, there stood a
+creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance, but armed with a
+pair of gigantic horns. The big-horn--for so it is called--was acting,
+probably, as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to the hunter;
+but fortunately it was heading in the opposite direction, and had not
+perceived him. Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and
+took a long and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The animal sprang
+into the air, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and
+then came crashing down into the valley beneath.
+
+The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented himself
+with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this trophy
+over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the evening was
+already drawing in. He had hardly started, however, before he realized
+the difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness he had wandered far
+past the ravines which were known to him, and it was no easy matter
+to pick out the path which he had taken. The valley in which he found
+himself divided and sub-divided into many gorges, which were so like
+each other that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other.
+He followed one for a mile or more until he came to a mountain torrent
+which he was sure that he had never seen before. Convinced that he had
+taken the wrong turn, he tried another, but with the same result. Night
+was coming on rapidly, and it was almost dark before he at last found
+himself in a defile which was familiar to him. Even then it was no easy
+matter to keep to the right track, for the moon had not yet risen, and
+the high cliffs on either side made the obscurity more profound. Weighed
+down with his burden, and weary from his exertions, he stumbled along,
+keeping up his heart by the reflection that every step brought him
+nearer to Lucy, and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food
+for the remainder of their journey.
+
+He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left
+them. Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the cliffs
+which bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him anxiously,
+for he had been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness of his heart
+he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud halloo
+as a signal that he was coming. He paused and listened for an answer.
+None came save his own cry, which clattered up the dreary silent
+ravines, and was borne back to his ears in countless repetitions. Again
+he shouted, even louder than before, and again no whisper came back from
+the friends whom he had left such a short time ago. A vague, nameless
+dread came over him, and he hurried onwards frantically, dropping the
+precious food in his agitation.
+
+When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where the
+fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes there,
+but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The same
+dead silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed to
+convictions, he hurried on. There was no living creature near the
+remains of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. It was only
+too clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during
+his absence--a disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left no
+traces behind it.
+
+Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his head spin
+round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling. He
+was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily recovered from
+his temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the
+smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and proceeded with its help
+to examine the little camp. The ground was all stamped down by the feet
+of horses, showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken
+the fugitives, and the direction of their tracks proved that they had
+afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City. Had they carried back both of
+his companions with them? Jefferson Hope had almost persuaded himself
+that they must have done so, when his eye fell upon an object which made
+every nerve of his body tingle within him. A little way on one side of
+the camp was a low-lying heap of reddish soil, which had assuredly
+not been there before. There was no mistaking it for anything but a
+newly-dug grave. As the young hunter approached it, he perceived that a
+stick had been planted on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft
+fork of it. The inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:
+
+                        JOHN FERRIER,
+                 FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY, [22]
+                    Died August 4th, 1860.
+
+The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was gone,
+then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked wildly round
+to see if there was a second grave, but there was no sign of one. Lucy
+had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfil her original
+destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the Elder’s son. As the young
+fellow realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to
+prevent it, he wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his
+last silent resting-place.
+
+Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which springs
+from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could at least
+devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and perseverance,
+Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness, which
+he may have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived. As he
+stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could
+assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought
+by his own hand upon his enemies. His strong will and untiring energy
+should, he determined, be devoted to that one end. With a grim, white
+face, he retraced his steps to where he had dropped the food, and having
+stirred up the smouldering fire, he cooked enough to last him for a
+few days. This he made up into a bundle, and, tired as he was, he
+set himself to walk back through the mountains upon the track of the
+avenging angels.
+
+For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which he
+had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down among
+the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before daybreak he was
+always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached the Eagle Cañon,
+from which they had commenced their ill-fated flight. Thence he could
+look down upon the home of the saints. Worn and exhausted, he leaned
+upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent
+widespread city beneath him. As he looked at it, he observed that
+there were flags in some of the principal streets, and other signs of
+festivity. He was still speculating as to what this might mean when he
+heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and saw a mounted man riding towards
+him. As he approached, he recognized him as a Mormon named Cowper, to
+whom he had rendered services at different times. He therefore accosted
+him when he got up to him, with the object of finding out what Lucy
+Ferrier’s fate had been.
+
+“I am Jefferson Hope,” he said. “You remember me.”
+
+The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment--indeed, it was
+difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with ghastly
+white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of former
+days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his identity,
+the man’s surprise changed to consternation.
+
+“You are mad to come here,” he cried. “It is as much as my own life is
+worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you from
+the Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away.”
+
+“I don’t fear them, or their warrant,” Hope said, earnestly. “You must
+know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by everything you
+hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always been friends. For
+God’s sake, don’t refuse to answer me.”
+
+“What is it?” the Mormon asked uneasily. “Be quick. The very rocks have
+ears and the trees eyes.”
+
+“What has become of Lucy Ferrier?”
+
+“She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man, hold up, you
+have no life left in you.”
+
+“Don’t mind me,” said Hope faintly. He was white to the very lips, and
+had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning. “Married,
+you say?”
+
+“Married yesterday--that’s what those flags are for on the Endowment
+House. There was some words between young Drebber and young Stangerson
+as to which was to have her. They’d both been in the party that followed
+them, and Stangerson had shot her father, which seemed to give him the
+best claim; but when they argued it out in council, Drebber’s party was
+the stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one won’t have
+her very long though, for I saw death in her face yesterday. She is more
+like a ghost than a woman. Are you off, then?”
+
+“Yes, I am off,” said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his seat. His
+face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was its
+expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“Never mind,” he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his shoulder,
+strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains to
+the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there was none so fierce
+and so dangerous as himself.
+
+The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled. Whether it was
+the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful marriage
+into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her head again,
+but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish husband, who had
+married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier’s property, did not
+affect any great grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned
+over her, and sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the
+Mormon custom. They were grouped round the bier in the early hours of
+the morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and astonishment,
+the door was flung open, and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in
+tattered garments strode into the room. Without a glance or a word to
+the cowering women, he walked up to the white silent figure which had
+once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier. Stooping over her, he
+pressed his lips reverently to her cold forehead, and then, snatching
+up her hand, he took the wedding-ring from her finger. “She shall not be
+buried in that,” he cried with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could
+be raised sprang down the stairs and was gone. So strange and so brief
+was the episode, that the watchers might have found it hard to believe
+it themselves or persuade other people of it, had it not been for the
+undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her as having been
+a bride had disappeared.
+
+For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains, leading
+a strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for
+vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the weird
+figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which haunted
+the lonely mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through Stangerson’s
+window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him. On
+another occasion, as Drebber passed under a cliff a great boulder
+crashed down on him, and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing
+himself upon his face. The two young Mormons were not long in
+discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led
+repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or
+killing their enemy, but always without success. Then they adopted the
+precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of having
+their houses guarded. After a time they were able to relax these
+measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their opponent, and
+they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.
+
+Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The hunter’s mind
+was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of revenge
+had taken such complete possession of it that there was no room for
+any other emotion. He was, however, above all things practical. He soon
+realized that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant
+strain which he was putting upon it. Exposure and want of wholesome food
+were wearing him out. If he died like a dog among the mountains, what
+was to become of his revenge then? And yet such a death was sure to
+overtake him if he persisted. He felt that that was to play his enemy’s
+game, so he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines, there to
+recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue his
+object without privation.
+
+His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a
+combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines
+for nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of
+his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that
+memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised,
+and under an assumed name, he returned to Salt Lake City, careless
+what became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he knew to
+be justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him. There had been a
+schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some of the younger
+members of the Church having rebelled against the authority of the
+Elders, and the result had been the secession of a certain number of the
+malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles. Among these had been
+Drebber and Stangerson; and no one knew whither they had gone. Rumour
+reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large part of his
+property into money, and that he had departed a wealthy man, while his
+companion, Stangerson, was comparatively poor. There was no clue at all,
+however, as to their whereabouts.
+
+Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of
+revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never
+faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out
+by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town
+through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into
+year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human
+bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon which he
+had devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded. It was
+but a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that
+Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of. He
+returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all
+arranged. It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his window,
+had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in
+his eyes. He hurried before a justice of the peace, accompanied by
+Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to him
+that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and hatred of
+an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope was taken into custody, and
+not being able to find sureties, was detained for some weeks. When at
+last he was liberated, it was only to find that Drebber’s house was
+deserted, and that he and his secretary had departed for Europe.
+
+Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred
+urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and
+for some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his
+approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in
+him, he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to
+city, working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking the
+fugitives. When he reached St. Petersburg they had departed for Paris;
+and when he followed them there he learned that they had just set off
+for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he was again a few days late, for
+they had journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded in running
+them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot do better than quote
+the old hunter’s own account, as duly recorded in Dr. Watson’s Journal,
+to which we are already under such obligations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.
+
+
+OUR prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any
+ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself
+powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that
+he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take
+me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cab’s at
+the door. If you’ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light
+to lift as I used to be.”
+
+Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this
+proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at
+his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ancles.
+[23] He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that
+they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed
+him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark
+sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was
+as formidable as his personal strength.
+
+“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you
+are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my
+fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”
+
+“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.
+
+“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.
+
+“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor, you have
+taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.”
+
+I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no
+attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his,
+and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and
+brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into
+a small chamber where a police Inspector noted down our prisoner’s name
+and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The
+official was a white-faced unemotional man, who went through his
+duties in a dull mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the
+magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the mean time, Mr.
+Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you
+that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”
+
+“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell
+you gentlemen all about it.”
+
+“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the Inspector.
+
+“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It
+isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?” He turned his fierce
+dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.
+
+“Yes; I am,” I answered.
+
+“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his
+manacled wrists towards his chest.
+
+I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and
+commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to
+thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful
+engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull
+humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.
+
+“Why,” I cried, “you have an aortic aneurism!”
+
+“That’s what they call it,” he said, placidly. “I went to a Doctor last
+week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many days
+passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from over-exposure
+and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I’ve done my work now,
+and I don’t care how soon I go, but I should like to leave some account
+of the business behind me. I don’t want to be remembered as a common
+cut-throat.”
+
+The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to the
+advisability of allowing him to tell his story.
+
+“Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?” the former
+asked, [24]
+
+“Most certainly there is,” I answered.
+
+“In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to
+take his statement,” said the Inspector. “You are at liberty, sir, to
+give your account, which I again warn you will be taken down.”
+
+“I’ll sit down, with your leave,” the prisoner said, suiting the action
+to the word. “This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and the
+tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I’m on the brink
+of the grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I say is the
+absolute truth, and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to me.”
+
+With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began
+the following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical
+manner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace enough.
+I can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I have had
+access to Lestrade’s note-book, in which the prisoner’s words were taken
+down exactly as they were uttered.
+
+“It don’t much matter to you why I hated these men,” he said; “it’s
+enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings--a father
+and a daughter--and that they had, therefore, forfeited their own
+lives. After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime, it was
+impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any court. I
+knew of their guilt though, and I determined that I should be judge,
+jury, and executioner all rolled into one. You’d have done the same, if
+you have any manhood in you, if you had been in my place.
+
+“That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago. She
+was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke her heart over
+it. I took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed that his
+dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his last thoughts
+should be of the crime for which he was punished. I have carried
+it about with me, and have followed him and his accomplice over two
+continents until I caught them. They thought to tire me out, but they
+could not do it. If I die to-morrow, as is likely enough, I die knowing
+that my work in this world is done, and well done. They have perished,
+and by my hand. There is nothing left for me to hope for, or to desire.
+
+“They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me to
+follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty, and I found
+that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving and riding
+are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a cabowner’s office,
+and soon got employment. I was to bring a certain sum a week to the
+owner, and whatever was over that I might keep for myself. There was
+seldom much over, but I managed to scrape along somehow. The hardest job
+was to learn my way about, for I reckon that of all the mazes that ever
+were contrived, this city is the most confusing. I had a map beside me
+though, and when once I had spotted the principal hotels and stations, I
+got on pretty well.
+
+“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were living;
+but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across them. They
+were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other side of the
+river. When once I found them out I knew that I had them at my mercy. I
+had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their recognizing me.
+I would dog them and follow them until I saw my opportunity. I was
+determined that they should not escape me again.
+
+“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about
+London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my
+cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they
+could not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late
+at night that I could earn anything, so that I began to get behind hand
+with my employer. I did not mind that, however, as long as I could lay
+my hand upon the men I wanted.
+
+“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there was
+some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone,
+and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind them every
+day, and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was drunk half
+the time, but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I watched them
+late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but I was not
+discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost come. My
+only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon
+and leave my work undone.
+
+“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as the
+street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive up to
+their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time
+Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up my horse
+and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I feared
+that they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station they
+got out, and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed them on to the
+platform. I heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the guard answer
+that one had just gone and there would not be another for some hours.
+Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but Drebber was rather pleased
+than otherwise. I got so close to them in the bustle that I could hear
+every word that passed between them. Drebber said that he had a little
+business of his own to do, and that if the other would wait for him he
+would soon rejoin him. His companion remonstrated with him, and reminded
+him that they had resolved to stick together. Drebber answered that the
+matter was a delicate one, and that he must go alone. I could not catch
+what Stangerson said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and
+reminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant, and that he
+must not presume to dictate to him. On that the Secretary gave it up
+as a bad job, and simply bargained with him that if he missed the last
+train he should rejoin him at Halliday’s Private Hotel; to which Drebber
+answered that he would be back on the platform before eleven, and made
+his way out of the station.
+
+“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my
+enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other,
+but singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue
+precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction in
+vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes
+him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans arranged by
+which I should have the opportunity of making the man who had wronged me
+understand that his old sin had found him out. It chanced that some days
+before a gentleman who had been engaged in looking over some houses in
+the Brixton Road had dropped the key of one of them in my carriage. It
+was claimed that same evening, and returned; but in the interval I had
+taken a moulding of it, and had a duplicate constructed. By means of
+this I had access to at least one spot in this great city where I could
+rely upon being free from interruption. How to get Drebber to that house
+was the difficult problem which I had now to solve.
+
+“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying
+for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out he
+staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was a
+hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close
+that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the whole way.
+We rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets, until,
+to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the Terrace in which he
+had boarded. I could not imagine what his intention was in returning
+there; but I went on and pulled up my cab a hundred yards or so from
+the house. He entered it, and his hansom drove away. Give me a glass of
+water, if you please. My mouth gets dry with the talking.”
+
+I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.
+
+“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour, or
+more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling inside the
+house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared, one of
+whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap whom I had never seen
+before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar, and when they came to
+the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent him half
+across the road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at him; ‘I’ll
+teach you to insult an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I think he would
+have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur staggered away
+down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran as far as the
+corner, and then, seeing my cab, he hailed me and jumped in. ‘Drive me
+to Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.
+
+“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy that
+I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I drove
+along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might
+take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane
+have my last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when he
+solved the problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again, and
+he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving word
+that I should wait for him. There he remained until closing time, and
+when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my own
+hands.
+
+“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only
+have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself
+to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life
+if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I
+have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and
+sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was
+lecturing on poisions, [25] and he showed his students some alkaloid,
+as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow
+poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
+death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when
+they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly
+good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and
+each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison.
+I determined at the time that when I had my chance, my gentlemen should
+each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that
+remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good deal less noisy than
+firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes
+about with me, and the time had now come when I was to use them.
+
+“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard
+and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad within--so
+glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you
+gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty
+long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would
+understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my
+nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples throbbing with
+excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy
+looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I
+see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each
+side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.
+
+“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the
+dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber
+all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s
+time to get out,’ I said.
+
+“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.
+
+“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,
+for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden.
+I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little
+top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the
+front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the
+daughter were walking in front of us.
+
+“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.
+
+“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to
+a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I
+continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am
+I?’
+
+“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I
+saw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which
+showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I
+saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered
+in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and laughed
+loud and long. I had always known that vengeance would be sweet, but I
+had never hoped for the contentment of soul which now possessed me.
+
+“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.
+Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your wanderings
+have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see to-morrow’s sun
+rise.’ He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I could see on his
+face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the time. The pulses in my
+temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I believe I would have had a fit
+of some sort if the blood had not gushed from my nose and relieved me.
+
+“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking the door, and
+shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming, but it
+has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I spoke. He
+would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was useless.
+
+“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.
+
+“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog?
+What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
+slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless
+harem.’
+
+“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.
+
+“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked, thrusting
+the box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and
+eat. There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you
+leave. Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are ruled
+by chance.’
+
+“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my
+knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I swallowed
+the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a minute or
+more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die. Shall I
+ever forget the look which came over his face when the first warning
+pangs told him that the poison was in his system? I laughed as I saw
+it, and held Lucy’s marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was but for
+a moment, for the action of the alkaloid is rapid. A spasm of pain
+contorted his features; he threw his hands out in front of him,
+staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor. I
+turned him over with my foot, and placed my hand upon his heart. There
+was no movement. He was dead!
+
+“The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice of
+it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write upon the
+wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the police
+upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I remembered
+a German being found in New York with RACHE written up above him, and it
+was argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret societies must
+have done it. I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle
+the Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on
+a convenient place on the wall. Then I walked down to my cab and found
+that there was nobody about, and that the night was still very wild. I
+had driven some distance when I put my hand into the pocket in which
+I usually kept Lucy’s ring, and found that it was not there. I was
+thunderstruck at this, for it was the only memento that I had of her.
+Thinking that I might have dropped it when I stooped over Drebber’s
+body, I drove back, and leaving my cab in a side street, I went boldly
+up to the house--for I was ready to dare anything rather than lose
+the ring. When I arrived there, I walked right into the arms of a
+police-officer who was coming out, and only managed to disarm his
+suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.
+
+“That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end. All I had to do then was
+to do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John Ferrier’s debt. I knew
+that he was staying at Halliday’s Private Hotel, and I hung about all
+day, but he never came out. [26] fancy that he suspected something when
+Drebber failed to put in an appearance. He was cunning, was Stangerson,
+and always on his guard. If he thought he could keep me off by staying
+indoors he was very much mistaken. I soon found out which was the window
+of his bedroom, and early next morning I took advantage of some ladders
+which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so made my way into
+his room in the grey of the dawn. I woke him up and told him that the
+hour had come when he was to answer for the life he had taken so long
+before. I described Drebber’s death to him, and I gave him the same
+choice of the poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at the chance of
+safety which that offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my
+throat. In self-defence I stabbed him to the heart. It would have been
+the same in any case, for Providence would never have allowed his guilty
+hand to pick out anything but the poison.
+
+“I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up.
+I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I
+could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the
+yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called
+Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B,
+Baker Street. I went round, suspecting no harm, and the next thing I
+knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly
+snackled [27] as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole of my story,
+gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am
+just as much an officer of justice as you are.”
+
+So thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner was so
+impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional
+detectives, _blasé_ as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to
+be keenly interested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for
+some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching
+of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand
+account.
+
+“There is only one point on which I should like a little more
+information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice who
+came for the ring which I advertised?”
+
+The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my own secrets,”
+ he said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your
+advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the
+ring which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll
+own he did it smartly.”
+
+“Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes heartily.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” the Inspector remarked gravely, “the forms of the law
+must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought before
+the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I will
+be responsible for him.” He rang the bell as he spoke, and Jefferson
+Hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and I made our
+way out of the Station and took a cab back to Baker Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.
+
+
+WE had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the
+Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our
+testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson
+Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would
+be meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism
+burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the
+cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able
+in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well
+done.
+
+“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked, as
+we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand advertisement
+be now?”
+
+“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I
+answered.
+
+“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my
+companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe
+that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a
+pause. “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There
+has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there
+were several most instructive points about it.”
+
+“Simple!” I ejaculated.
+
+“Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,” said Sherlock
+Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic simplicity
+is, that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able
+to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.”
+
+“That is true,” said I.
+
+“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is
+usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this
+sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very
+useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise
+it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason
+forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who
+can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”
+
+“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”
+
+“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer.
+Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you
+what the result would be. They can put those events together in their
+minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are
+few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to
+evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led
+up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning
+backwards, or analytically.”
+
+“I understand,” said I.
+
+“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to
+find everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you the
+different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached
+the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all
+impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I
+have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which,
+I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I
+satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the
+narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably
+less wide than a gentleman’s brougham.
+
+“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden
+path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable
+for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere
+trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its
+surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which
+is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.
+Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice
+has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the
+constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed
+through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the
+others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by
+the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was
+formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number,
+one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the length of his
+stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and
+elegant impression left by his boots.
+
+“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My well-booted
+man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder
+there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the
+agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his
+fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or any
+sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their
+features. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour
+smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon
+him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred
+and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had
+arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts.
+Do not imagine that it was a very unheard of idea. The forcible
+administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals.
+The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier in Montpellier, will
+occur at once to any toxicologist.
+
+“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not
+been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics,
+then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me.
+I was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political
+assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder
+had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator
+had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there
+all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political
+one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription
+was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my
+opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found,
+however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to
+remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point
+that I asked Gregson whether he had enquired in his telegram to
+Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He
+answered, you remember, in the negative.
+
+“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which
+confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height, and furnished me
+with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the length
+of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were no
+signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst
+from the murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the
+track of blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that
+any man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through
+emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a
+robust and ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged correctly.
+
+“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I
+telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my enquiry
+to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. The
+answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied for
+the protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson
+Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that
+I held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to
+secure the murderer.
+
+“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked
+into the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had driven
+the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered
+on in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in
+charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside
+the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry
+out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third
+person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished
+to dog another through London, what better means could he adopt than
+to turn cabdriver. All these considerations led me to the irresistible
+conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of the
+Metropolis.
+
+“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to
+be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would be
+likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time at
+least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose
+that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name
+in a country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized
+my Street Arab detective corps, and sent them systematically to every
+cab proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted.
+How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of it, are
+still fresh in your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an
+incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in
+any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know, I came into
+possession of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised.
+You see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break
+or flaw.”
+
+“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly recognized.
+You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for
+you.”
+
+“You may do what you like, Doctor,” he answered. “See here!” he
+continued, handing a paper over to me, “look at this!”
+
+It was the _Echo_ for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed was
+devoted to the case in question.
+
+“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the sudden
+death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. Enoch
+Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case will
+probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good authority
+that the crime was the result of an old standing and romantic feud, in
+which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims
+belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, and Hope, the
+deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had
+no other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking manner
+the efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson
+to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at
+home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret
+that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known
+Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was
+apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
+who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective
+line, and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some
+degree of their skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort
+will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their
+services.”
+
+“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a
+laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a
+testimonial!”
+
+“Never mind,” I answered, “I have all the facts in my journal, and the
+public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself contented
+by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser--
+
+            “‘Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
+       Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.’”
+
+
+
+
+
+ORIGINAL TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Frontispiece, with the caption: “He examined with his glass
+the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most
+minute exactness.” (_Page_ 23.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: “JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.”: the initial letters in the name are
+capitalized, the other letters in small caps. All chapter titles are in
+small caps. The initial words of chapters are in small caps with first
+letter capitalized.]
+
+[Footnote 3: “lodgings.”: the period should be a comma, as in later
+editions.]
+
+[Footnote 4: “hoemoglobin”: should be haemoglobin. The o&e are
+concatenated.]
+
+[Footnote 5: “221B”: the B is in small caps]
+
+[Footnote 6: “THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY”: the table-of-contents
+lists this chapter as “...GARDENS MYSTERY”--plural, and probably more
+correct.]
+
+[Footnote 7: “brought."”: the text has an extra double-quote mark]
+
+[Footnote 8: “individual--“: illustration this page, with the
+caption: “As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and
+everywhere.”]
+
+[Footnote 9: “manoeuvres”: the o&e are concatenated.]
+
+[Footnote 10: “Patent leathers”: the hyphen is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 11: “condonment”: should be condonement.]
+
+[Footnote 13: “wages.”: ending quote is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 14: “the first.”: ending quote is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 15: “make much of...”: Other editions complete this sentence
+with an “it.” But there is a gap in the text at this point, and, given
+the context, it may have actually been an interjection, a dash. The gap
+is just the right size for the characters “it.” and the start of a new
+sentence, or for a “----“]
+
+[Footnote 16: “tho cushion”: “tho” should be “the”]
+
+[Footnote 19: “shoving”: later editions have “showing”. The original is
+clearly superior.]
+
+[Footnote 20: “stared about...”: illustration, with the caption: “One of
+them seized the little girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder.”]
+
+[Footnote 21: “upon the”: illustration, with the caption: “As he watched
+it he saw it writhe along the ground.”]
+
+[Footnote 22: “FORMERLY...”: F,S,L,C in caps, other letters in this line
+in small caps.]
+
+[Footnote 23: “ancles”: ankles.]
+
+[Footnote 24: “asked,”: should be “asked.”]
+
+[Footnote 25: “poisions”: should be “poisons”]
+
+[Footnote 26: “...fancy”: should be “I fancy”. There is a gap in the
+text.]
+
+[Footnote 27: “snackled”: “shackled” in later texts.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his
+hundred wives under this endearing epithet.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s A Study In Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Thief in the Night, by E. W. Hornung
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: A Thief in the Night
+
+Author: E. W. Hornung
+
+Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2098]
+Release Date: March, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A THIEF IN THE NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A Thief in the Night
+
+[A Book of Raffles' Adventures]
+
+
+by
+
+E. W. Hornung
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+  Out of Paradise
+  The Chest of Silver
+  The Rest Cure
+  The Criminologists' Club
+  The Field of Phillipi
+  A Bad Night
+  A Trap to Catch a Cracksman
+  The Spoils of Sacrilege
+  The Raffles Relics
+
+
+
+
+Out of Paradise
+
+If I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest
+days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing
+annals.  In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely
+greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my
+canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend.  The whole truth
+cannot harm him now.  I shall paint in every wart.  Raffles was a
+villain, when all is written; it is no service to his memory to glaze
+the fact; yet I have done so myself before to-day.  I have omitted
+whole heinous episodes.  I have dwelt unduly on the redeeming side.
+And this I may do again, blinded even as I write by the gallant glamour
+that made my villain more to me than any hero.  But at least there
+shall be no more reservations, and as an earnest I shall make no
+further secret of the greatest wrong that even Raffles ever did me.
+
+I pick my words with care and pain, loyal as I still would be to my
+friend, and yet remembering as I must those Ides of March when he led
+me blindfold into temptation and crime.  That was an ugly office, if
+you will.  It was a moral bagatelle to the treacherous trick he was to
+play me a few weeks later.  The second offence, on the other hand, was
+to prove the less serious of the two against society, and might in
+itself have been published to the world years ago.  There have been
+private reasons for my reticence.  The affair was not only too
+intimately mine, and too discreditable to Raffles.  One other was
+involved in it, one dearer to me than Raffles himself, one whose name
+shall not even now be sullied by association with ours.
+
+Suffice it that I had been engaged to her before that mad March deed.
+True, her people called it "an understanding," and frowned even upon
+that, as well they might.  But their authority was not direct; we bowed
+to it as an act of politic grace; between us, all was well but my
+unworthiness.  That may be gauged when I confess that this was how the
+matter stood on the night I gave a worthless check for my losses at
+baccarat, and afterward turned to Raffles in my need.  Even after that
+I saw her sometimes.  But I let her guess that there was more upon my
+soul than she must ever share, and at last I had written to end it all.
+I remember that week so well!  It was the close of such a May as we had
+never had since, and I was too miserable even to follow the heavy
+scoring in the papers.  Raffles was the only man who could get a wicket
+up at Lord's, and I never once went to see him play.  Against
+Yorkshire, however, he helped himself to a hundred runs as well; and
+that brought Raffles round to me, on his way home to the Albany.
+
+"We must dine and celebrate the rare event," said he.  "A century takes
+it out of one at my time of life; and you, Bunny, you look quite as
+much in need of your end of a worthy bottle.  Suppose we make it the
+Café Royal, and eight sharp?   I'll be there first to fix up the table
+and the wine."
+
+And at the Café Royal I incontinently told him of the trouble I was in.
+It was the first he had ever heard of my affair, and I told him all,
+though not before our bottle had been succeeded by a pint of the same
+exemplary brand.  Raffles heard me out with grave attention.  His
+sympathy was the more grateful for the tactful brevity with which it
+was indicated rather than expressed.  He only wished that I had told
+him of this complication in the beginning; as I had not, he agreed with
+me that the only course was a candid and complete renunciation.  It was
+not as though my divinity had a penny of her own, or I could earn an
+honest one.  I had explained to Raffles that she was an orphan, who
+spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in the country, and
+the remainder under the repressive roof of a pompous politician in
+Palace Gardens.  The aunt had, I believed, still a sneaking softness
+for me, but her illustrious brother had set his face against me from
+the first.
+
+"Hector Carruthers!" murmured Raffles, repeating the detested name with
+his clear, cold eye on mine.  "I suppose you haven't seen much of him?"
+
+"Not a thing for ages," I replied.  "I was at the house two or three
+days last year, but they've neither asked me since nor been at home to
+me when I've called.  The old beast seems a judge of men."
+
+And I laughed bitterly in my glass.
+
+"Nice house?" said Raffles, glancing at himself in his silver
+cigarette-case.
+
+"Top shelf," said I.  "You know the houses in Palace Gardens, don't
+you?"
+
+"Not so well as I should like to know them, Bunny."
+
+"Well, it's about the most palatial of the lot.  The old ruffian is as
+rich as Croesus.  It's a country-place in town."
+
+"What about the window-fastenings?" asked Raffles casually.
+
+I recoiled from the open cigarette-case that he proffered as he spoke.
+Our eyes met; and in his there was that starry twinkle of mirth and
+mischief, that sunny beam of audacious devilment, which had been my
+undoing two months before, which was to undo me as often as he chose
+until the chapter's end.  Yet for once I withstood its glamour; for
+once I turned aside that luminous glance with front of steel.  There
+was no need for Raffles to voice his plans.  I read them all between
+the strong lines of his smiling, eager face.  And I pushed back my
+chair in the equal eagerness of my own resolve.
+
+"Not if I know it!" said I.  "A house I've dined in--a house I've
+ seen her in--a house where she stays by the month together!  Don't
+put it into words, Raffles, or I'll get up and go."
+
+"You mustn't do that before the coffee and liqueur," said Raffles
+laughing.  "Have a small Sullivan first: it's the royal road to a
+cigar.  And now let me observe that your scruples would do you honor if
+old Carruthers still lived in the house in question."
+
+"Do you mean to say he doesn't?"
+
+Raffles struck a match, and handed it first to me.  "I mean to say, my
+dear Bunny, that Palace Gardens knows the very name no more.  You began
+by telling me you had heard nothing of these people all this year.
+That's quite enough to account for our little misunderstanding. I was
+thinking of the house, and you were thinking of the people in the
+house."
+
+"But who are they, Raffles?  Who has taken the house, if old Carruthers
+has moved, and how do you know that it is still worth a visit?"
+
+"In answer to your first question--Lord Lochmaben," replied Raffles,
+blowing bracelets of smoke toward the ceiling.  "You look as though you
+had never heard of him; but as the cricket and racing are the only part
+of your paper that you condescend to read, you can't be expected to
+keep track of all the peers created in your time.  Your other question
+is not worth answering.  How do you suppose that I know these things?
+It's my business to get to know them, and that's all there is to it.
+As a matter of fact, Lady Lochmaben has just as good diamonds as Mrs.
+Carruthers ever had; and the chances are that she keeps them where Mrs.
+Carruthers kept hers, if you could enlighten me on that point."
+
+As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece that it was one on
+which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time.  He had made quite
+a study of the cracksman's craft, in a resolve to circumvent it with
+his own.  I remembered myself how the ground-floor windows were
+elaborately bolted and shuttered, and how the doors of all the rooms
+opening upon the square inner hall were fitted with extra Yale locks,
+at an unlikely height, not to be discovered by one within the room.  It
+had been the butler's business to turn and to collect all these keys
+before retiring for the night.  But the key of the safe in the study
+was supposed to be in the jealous keeping of the master of the house
+himself.  That safe was in its turn so ingeniously hidden that I never
+should have found it for myself.  I well remember how one who showed it
+to me (in the innocence of her heart) laughed as she assured me that
+even her little trinkets were solemnly locked up in it every night.  It
+had been let into the wall behind one end of the book-case, expressly
+to preserve the barbaric splendor of Mrs. Carruthers; without a doubt
+these Lochmabens would use it for the same purpose; and in the altered
+circumstances I had no hesitation in giving Raffles all the information
+he desired.  I even drew him a rough plan of the ground-floor on the
+back of my menu-card.
+
+"It was rather clever of you to notice the kind of locks on the inner
+doors," he remarked as he put it in his pocket.  "I suppose you don't
+remember if it was a Yale on the front door as well?"
+
+"It was not," I was able to answer quite promptly.  "I happen to know
+because I once had the key when--when we went to a theatre together."
+
+"Thank you, old chap," said Raffles sympathetically.  "That's all I
+shall want from you, Bunny, my boy.  There's no night like to-night!"
+
+It was one of his sayings when bent upon his worst.  I looked at him
+aghast.  Our cigars were just in blast, yet already he was signalling
+for his bill.  It was impossible to remonstrate with him until we were
+both outside in the street.
+
+"I'm coming with you," said I, running my arm through his.
+
+"Nonsense, Bunny!"
+
+"Why is it nonsense?  I know every inch of the ground, and since the
+house has changed hands I have no compunction.  Besides, 'I have been
+there' in the other sense as well: once a thief, you know!  In for a
+penny, in for a pound!"
+
+It was ever my mood when the blood was up.  But my old friend failed to
+appreciate the characteristic as he usually did.  We crossed Regent
+Street in silence.  I had to catch his sleeve to keep a hand in his
+inhospitable arm.
+
+"I really think you had better stay away," said Raffles as we reached
+the other curb.  "I've no use for you this time."
+
+"Yet I thought I had been so useful up to now?"
+
+"That may be, Bunny, but I tell you frankly I don't want you to-night."
+
+"Yet I know the ground and you don't!  I tell you what," said I: "I'll
+come just to show you the ropes, and I won't take a pennyweight of the
+swag."
+
+Such was the teasing fashion in which he invariably prevailed upon me;
+it was delightful to note how it caused him to yield in his turn. But
+Raffles had the grace to give in with a laugh, whereas I too often lost
+my temper with my point.
+
+"You little rabbit!" he chuckled.  "You shall have your share, whether
+you come or not; but, seriously, don't you think you might remember the
+girl?"
+
+"What's the use?" I groaned.  "You agree there is nothing for it but to
+give her up.  I am glad to say that for myself before I asked you, and
+wrote to tell her so on Sunday.  Now it's Wednesday, and she hasn't
+answered by line or sign.  It's waiting for one word from her that's
+driving me mad."
+
+"Perhaps you wrote to Palace Gardens?"
+
+"No, I sent it to the country.  There's been time for an answer,
+wherever she may be."
+
+We had reached the Albany, and halted with one accord at the Piccadilly
+portico, red cigar to red cigar.
+
+"You wouldn't like to go and see if the answer's in your rooms?" he
+asked.
+
+"No.  What's the good?  Where's the point in giving her up if I'm going
+to straighten out when it's too late?  It is too late, I have given her
+up, and I am coming with you!"
+
+The hand that bowled the most puzzling ball in England (once it found
+its length) descended on my shoulder with surprising promptitude.
+
+"Very well, Bunny!  That's finished; but your blood be on your own pate
+if evil comes of it.  Meanwhile we can't do better than turn in here
+till you have finished your cigar as it deserves, and topped up with
+such a cup of tea as you must learn to like if you hope to get on in
+your new profession.  And when the hours are small enough, Bunny, my
+boy, I don't mind admitting I shall be very glad to have you with me."
+
+I have a vivid memory of the interim in his rooms.  I think it must
+have been the first and last of its kind that I was called upon to
+sustain with so much knowledge of what lay before me.  I passed the
+time with one restless eye upon the clock, and the other on the
+Tantalus which Raffles ruthlessly declined to unlock.  He admitted that
+it was like waiting with one's pads on; and in my slender experience of
+the game of which he was a world's master, that was an ordeal not to be
+endured without a general quaking of the inner man.  I was, on the
+other hand, all right when I got to the metaphorical wicket; and half
+the surprises that Raffles sprung on me were doubtless due to his early
+recognition of the fact.
+
+On this occasion I fell swiftly and hopelessly out of love with the
+prospect I had so gratuitously embraced.  It was not only my repugnance
+to enter that house in that way, which grew upon my better judgment as
+the artificial enthusiasm of the evening evaporated from my veins.
+Strong as that repugnance became, I had an even stronger feeling that
+we were embarking on an important enterprise far too much upon the spur
+of the moment.  The latter qualm I had the temerity to confess to
+Raffles; nor have I often loved him more than when he freely admitted
+it to be the most natural feeling in the world.  He assured me,
+however, that he had had my Lady Lochmaben and her jewels in his mind
+for several months; he had sat behind them at first nights; and long
+ago determined what to take or to reject; in fine, he had only been
+waiting for those topographical details which it had been my chance
+privilege to supply.  I now learned that he had numerous houses in a
+similar state upon his list; something or other was wanting in each
+case in order to complete his plans.  In that of the Bond Street
+jeweller it was a trusty accomplice; in the present instance, a more
+intimate knowledge of the house.  And lastly, this was a Wednesday
+night, when the tired legislator gets early to his bed.
+
+How I wish I could make the whole world see and hear him, and smell the
+smoke of his beloved Sullivan, as he took me into these, the secrets of
+his infamous trade!  Neither look nor language would betray the infamy.
+As a mere talker, I shall never listen to the like of Raffles on this
+side of the sod; and his talk was seldom garnished by an oath, never in
+my remembrance by the unclean word. Then he looked like a man who had
+dressed to dine out, not like one who had long since dined; for his
+curly hair, though longer that another's, was never untidy in its
+length; and these were the days when it was still as black as ink.  Nor
+were there many lines as yet upon the smooth and mobile face; and its
+frame was still that dear den of disorder and good taste, with the
+carved book-case, the dresser and chests of still older oak, and the
+Wattses and Rossettis hung anyhow on the walls.
+
+It must have been one o'clock before we drove in a hansom as far as
+Kensington Church, instead of getting down at the gates of our private
+road to ruin.  Constitutionally shy of the direct approach, Raffles was
+further deterred by a ball in full swing at the Empress Rooms, whence
+potential witnesses were pouring between dances into the cool deserted
+street.  Instead he led me a little way up Church Street, and so
+through the narrow passage into Palace Gardens.  He knew the house as
+well as I did.  We made our first survey from the other side of the
+road.  And the house was not quite in darkness; there was a dim light
+over the door, a brighter one in the stables, which stood still farther
+back from the road.
+
+"That's a bit of a bore," said Raffles.  "The ladies have been out
+somewhere--trust them to spoil the show!  They would get to bed before
+the stable folk, but insomnia is the curse of their sex and our
+profession.  Somebody's not home yet; that will be the son of the
+house; but he's a beauty, who may not come home at all."
+
+"Another Alick Carruthers," I murmured, recalling the one I liked least
+of all the household, as I remembered it.
+
+"They might be brothers," rejoined Raffles, who knew all the loose fish
+about town.  "Well, I'm not sure that I shall want you after all,
+Bunny."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"If the front door's only on the latch, and you're right about the
+lock, I shall walk in as though I were the son of the house myself."
+
+And he jingled the skeleton bunch that he carried on a chain as honest
+men carry their latchkeys.
+
+"You forget the inner doors and the safe."
+
+"True.  You might be useful to me there.  But I still don't like
+leading you in where it isn't absolutely necessary, Bunny."
+
+"Then let me lead you, I answered, and forthwith marched across the
+broad, secluded road, with the great houses standing back on either
+side in their ample gardens, as though the one opposite belonged to me.
+I thought Raffles had stayed behind, for I never heard him at my heels,
+yet there he was when I turned round at the gate.
+
+"I must teach you the step," he whispered, shaking his head.  "You
+shouldn't use your heel at all.  Here's a grass border for you: walk it
+as you would the plank!  Gravel makes a noise, and flower-beds tell a
+tale.  Wait--I must carry you across this."
+
+It was the sweep of the drive, and in the dim light from above the
+door, the soft gravel, ploughed into ridges by the night's wheels,
+threatened an alarm at every step.  Yet Raffles, with me in his arms,
+crossed the zone of peril softly as the pard.
+
+"Shoes in your pocket--that's the beauty of pumps!" he whispered on the
+step; his light bunch tinkled faintly; a couple of keys he stooped and
+tried, with the touch of a humane dentist; the third let us into the
+porch.  And as we stood together on the mat, as he was gradually
+closing the door, a clock within chimed a half-hour in fashion so
+thrillingly familiar to me that I caught Raffles by the arm.  My
+half-hours of happiness had flown to just such chimes! I looked wildly
+about me in the dim light.  Hat-stand and oak settee belonged equally
+to my past.  And Raffles was smiling in my face as he held the door
+wide for my escape.
+
+"You told me a lie!" I gasped in whispers.
+
+"I did nothing of the sort," he replied.  "The furniture's the
+furniture of Hector Carruthers; but the house is the house of Lord
+Lochmaben.  Look here!"
+
+He had stooped, and was smoothing out the discarded envelope of a
+telegram.  "Lord Lochmaben," I read in pencil by the dim light; and the
+case was plain to me on the spot.  My friends had let their house,
+furnished, as anybody but Raffles would have explained to me in the
+beginning.
+
+"All right," I said.  "Shut the door."
+
+And he not only shut it without a sound, but drew a bolt that might
+have been sheathed in rubber.
+
+In another minute we were at work upon the study-door, I with the tiny
+lantern and the bottle of rock-oil, he with the brace and the largest
+bit.  The Yale lock he had given up at a glance.  It was placed high up
+in the door, feet above the handle, and the chain of holes with which
+Raffles had soon surrounded it were bored on a level with his eyes.
+Yet the clock in the hall chimed again, and two ringing strokes
+resounded through the silent house before we gained admittance to the
+room.
+
+Raffle's next care was to muffle the bell on the shuttered window (with
+a silk handkerchief from the hat-stand) and to prepare an emergency
+exit by opening first the shutters and then the window itself.  Luckily
+it was a still night, and very little wind came in to embarrass us.  He
+then began operations on the safe, revealed by me behind its folding
+screen of books, while I stood sentry on the threshold.  I may have
+stood there for a dozen minutes, listening to the loud hall clock and
+to the gentle dentistry of Raffles in the mouth of the safe behind me,
+when a third sound thrilled my every nerve.  It was the equally
+cautious opening of a door in the gallery overhead.
+
+I moistened my lips to whisper a word of warning to Raffles.  But his
+ears had been as quick as mine, and something longer.  His lantern
+darkened as I turned my head; next moment I felt his breath upon the
+back of my neck.  It was now too late even for a whisper, and quite out
+of the question to close the mutilated door.  There we could only
+stand, I on the threshold, Raffles at my elbow, while one carrying a
+candle crept down the stairs.
+
+The study-door was at right angles to the lowest flight, and just to
+the right of one alighting in the hall.  It was thus impossible for us
+to see who it was until the person was close abreast of us; but by the
+rustle of the gown we knew that it was one of the ladies, and dressed
+just as she had come from theatre or ball.  Insensibly I drew back as
+the candle swam into our field of vision: it had not traversed many
+inches when a hand was clapped firmly but silently across my mouth.
+
+I could forgive Raffles for that, at any rate!  In another breath I
+should have cried aloud: for the girl with the candle, the girl in her
+ball-dress, at dead of night, the girl with the letter for the post,
+was the last girl on God's wide earth whom I should have chosen thus to
+encounter--a midnight intruder in the very house where I had been
+reluctantly received on her account!
+
+I forgot Raffles.  I forgot the new and unforgivable grudge I had
+against him now.  I forgot his very hand across my mouth, even before
+he paid me the compliment of removing it.  There was the only girl in
+all the world: I had eyes and brains for no one and for nothing else.
+She had neither seen nor heard us, had looked neither to the right hand
+nor the left.  But a small oak table stood on the opposite side of the
+hall; it was to this table that she went.  On it was one of those boxes
+in which one puts one's letters for the post; and she stooped to read
+by her candle the times at which this box was cleared.
+
+The loud clock ticked and ticked.  She was standing at her full height
+now, her candle on the table, her letter in both hands, and in her
+downcast face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that drew the tears to my
+eyes.  Through a film I saw her open the envelope so lately sealed and
+read her letter once more, as though she would have altered it a little
+at the last.  It was too late for that; but of a sudden she plucked a
+rose from her bosom, and was pressing it in with her letter when I
+groaned aloud.
+
+How could I help it?  The letter was for me: of that I was as sure as
+though I had been looking over her shoulder.  She was as true as
+tempered steel; there were not two of us to whom she wrote and sent
+roses at dead of night.  It was her one chance of writing to me. None
+would know that she had written.  And she cared enough to soften the
+reproaches I had richly earned, with a red rose warm from her own warm
+heart.  And there, and there was I, a common thief who had broken in to
+steal!  Yet I was unaware that I had uttered a sound until she looked
+up, startled, and the hands behind me pinned me where I stood.
+
+I think she must have seen us, even in the dim light of the solitary
+candle.  Yet not a sound escaped her as she peered courageously in our
+direction; neither did one of us move; but the hall clock went on and
+on, every tick like the beat of a drum to bring the house about our
+ears, until a minute must have passed as in some breathless dream.  And
+then came the awakening--with such a knocking and a ringing at the
+front door as brought all three of us to our senses on the spot.
+
+"The son of the house!" whispered Raffles in my ear, as he dragged me
+back to the window he had left open for our escape.  But as he leaped
+out first a sharp cry stopped me at the sill.  "Get back! Get back!
+We're trapped!" he cried; and in the single second that I stood there,
+I saw him fell one officer to the ground, and dart across the lawn with
+another at his heels.  A third came running up to the window.  What
+could I do but double back into the house?  And there in the hall I met
+my lost love face to face.
+
+Till that moment she had not recognized me.  I ran to catch her as she
+all but fell.  And my touch repelled her into life, so that she shook
+me off, and stood gasping: "You, of all men!  You, of all men!" until I
+could bear it no more, but broke again for the study-window. "Not that
+way--not that way!" she cried in an agony at that.  Her hands were upon
+me now.  "In there, in there," she whispered, pointing and pulling me
+to a mere cupboard under the stairs, where hats and coats were hung;
+and it was she who shut the door on me with a sob.
+
+Doors were already opening overhead, voices calling, voices answering,
+the alarm running like wildfire from room to room.  Soft feet pattered
+in the gallery and down the stairs about my very ears. I do not know
+what made me put on my own shoes as I heard them, but I think that I
+was ready and even longing to walk out and give myself up.  I need not
+say what and who it was that alone restrained me.  I heard her name.  I
+heard them crying to her as though she had fainted.  I recognized the
+detested voice of my bete noir, Alick Carruthers, thick as might be
+expected of the dissipated dog, yet daring to stutter out her name.
+And then I heard, without catching, her low reply; it was in answer to
+the somewhat stern questioning of quite another voice; and from what
+followed I knew that she had never fainted at all.
+
+"Upstairs, miss, did he?  Are you sure?"
+
+I did not hear her answer.  I conceive her as simply pointing up the
+stairs.  In any case, about my very ears once more, there now followed
+such a patter and tramp of bare and booted feet as renewed in me a base
+fear for my own skin.  But voices and feet passed over my head, went up
+and up, higher and higher; and I was wondering whether or not to make a
+dash for it, when one light pair came running down again, and in very
+despair I marched out to meet my preserver, looking as little as I
+could like the abject thing I felt.
+
+"Be quick!" she cried in a harsh whisper, and pointed peremptorily to
+the porch.
+
+But I stood stubbornly before her, my heart hardened by her hardness,
+and perversely indifferent to all else.  And as I stood I saw the
+letter she had written, in the hand with which she pointed, crushed
+into a ball.
+
+"Quickly!" She stamped her foot.  "Quickly--if you ever cared!"
+
+This in a whisper, without bitterness, without contempt, but with a
+sudden wild entreaty that breathed upon the dying embers of my poor
+manhood.  I drew myself together for the last time in her sight.  I
+turned, and left her as she wished--for her sake, not for mine.  And as
+I went I heard her tearing her letter into little pieces, and the
+little pieces falling on the floor.
+
+Then I remembered Raffles, and could have killed him for what he had
+done.  Doubtless by this time he was safe and snug in the Albany: what
+did my fate matter to him?  Never mind; this should be the end between
+him and me as well; it was the end of everything, this dark night's
+work!  I would go and tell him so.  I would jump into a cab and drive
+there and then to his accursed rooms.  But first I must escape from the
+trap in which he had been so ready to leave me.  And on the very steps
+I drew back in despair.  They were searching the shrubberies between
+the drive and the road; a policeman's lantern kept flashing in and out
+among the laurels, while a young man in evening-clothes directed him
+from the gravel sweep.  It was this young man whom I must dodge, but at
+my first step in the gravel he wheeled round, and it was Raffles
+himself.
+
+"Hulloa!" he cried.  "So you've come up to join the dance as well! Had
+a look inside, have you?  You'll be better employed in helping to draw
+the cover in front here.  It's all right, officer--only another
+gentleman from the Empress Rooms."
+
+And we made a brave show of assisting in the futile search, until the
+arrival of more police, and a broad hint from an irritable sergeant,
+gave us an excellent excuse for going off arm-in-arm. But it was
+Raffles who had thrust his arm through mine.  I shook him off as we
+left the scene of shame behind.
+
+"My dear Bunny!" he exclaimed.  "Do you know what brought me back?"
+
+I answered savagely that I neither knew nor cared.
+
+"I had the very devil of a squeak for it," he went on.  "I did the
+hurdles over two or three garden-walls, but so did the flyer who was on
+my tracks, and he drove me back into the straight and down to High
+Street like any lamplighter.  If he had only had the breath to sing out
+it would have been all up with me then; as it was I pulled off my coat
+the moment I was round the corner, and took a ticket for it at the
+Empress Rooms."
+
+"I suppose you had one for the dance that was going on," I growled. Nor
+would it have been a coincidence for Raffles to have had a ticket for
+that or any other entertainment of the London season.
+
+"I never asked what the dance was," he returned.  "I merely took the
+opportunity of revising my toilet, and getting rid of that rather
+distinctive overcoat, which I shall call for now.  They're not too
+particular at such stages of such proceedings, but I've no doubt I
+should have seen someone I knew if I had none right in.  I might even
+have had a turn, if only I had been less uneasy about you, Bunny."
+
+"It was like you to come back to help me out," said I.  "But to lie to
+me, and to inveigle me with your lies into that house of all
+houses--that was not like you, Raffles--and I never shall forgive it or
+you!"
+
+Raffles took my arm again.  We were near the High Street gates of
+Palace Gardens, and I was too miserable to resist an advance which I
+meant never to give him an opportunity to repeat.
+
+"Come, come, Bunny, there wasn't much inveigling about it," said he. "I
+did my level best to leave you behind, but you wouldn't listen to me."
+
+"If you had told me the truth I should have listened fast enough," I
+retorted.  "But what's the use of talking?  You can boast of your own
+adventures after you bolted.  You don't care what happened to me."
+
+"I cared so much that I came back to see."
+
+"You might have spared yourself the trouble!  The wrong had been done.
+Raffles--Raffles--don't you know who she was?"
+
+It was my hand that gripped his arm once more.
+
+"I guessed," he answered, gravely enough even for me.
+
+"It was she who saved me, not you," I said.  "And that is the bitterest
+part of all!"
+
+Yet I told him that part with a strange sad pride in her whom I had
+lost--through him--forever.  As I ended we turned into High Street; in
+the prevailing stillness, the faint strains of the band reached us from
+the Empress Rooms; and I hailed a crawling hansom as Raffles turned
+that way.
+
+"Bunny," said he, "it's no use saying I'm sorry.  Sorrow adds insult in
+a case like this--if ever there was or will be such another! Only
+believe me, Bunny, when I swear to you that I had not the smallest
+shadow of a suspicion that she was in the house."
+
+And in my heart of hearts I did believe him; but I could not bring
+myself to say the words.
+
+"You told me yourself that you had written to her in the country," he
+pursued.
+
+"And that letter!" I rejoined, in a fresh wave of bitterness: "that
+letter she had written at dead of night, and stolen down to post, it
+was the one I have been waiting for all these days!  I should have got
+it to-morrow.  Now I shall never get it, never hear from her again, nor
+have another chance in this world or in the next. I don't say it was
+all your fault.  You no more knew that she was there than I did.  But
+you told me a deliberate lie about her people, and that I never shall
+forgive."
+
+I spoke as vehemently as I could under my breath.  The hansom was
+waiting at the curb.
+
+"I can say no more than I have said," returned Raffles with a shrug.
+"Lie or no lie, I didn't tell it to bring you with me, but to get you
+to give me certain information without feeling a beast about it. But,
+as a matter of fact, it was no lie about old Hector Carruthers and Lord
+Lochmaben, and anybody but you would have guessed the truth."
+
+"'What is the truth?"
+
+"I as good as told you, Bunny, again and again."
+
+"Then tell me now."
+
+"If you read your paper there would be no need; but if you want to
+know, old Carruthers headed the list of the Birthday Honors, and Lord
+Lochmaben is the title of his choice."
+
+And this miserable quibble was not a lie!  My lip curled, I turned my
+back without a word, and drove home to my Mount Street flat in a new
+fury of savage scorn.  Not a lie, indeed!  It was the one that is half
+a truth, the meanest lie of all, and the very last to which I could
+have dreamt that Raffles would stoop.  So far there had been a degree
+of honor between us, if only of the kind understood to obtain between
+thief and thief.  Now all that was at an end. Raffles had cheated me.
+Raffles had completed the ruin of my life. I was done with Raffles, as
+she who shall not be named was done with me.
+
+And yet, even while I blamed him most bitterly, and utterly abominated
+his deceitful deed, I could not but admit in my heart that the result
+was put of all proportion to the intent: he had never dreamt of doing
+me this injury, or indeed any injury at all. Intrinsically the deceit
+had been quite venial, the reason for it obviously the reason that
+Raffles had given me.  It was quite true that he had spoken of this
+Lochmaben peerage as a new creation, and of the heir to it in a fashion
+only applicable to Alick Carruthers.  He had given me hints, which I
+had been too dense to take, and he had certainly made more than one
+attempt to deter me from accompanying him on this fatal emprise; had he
+been more explicit, I might have made it my business to deter him.  I
+could not say in my heart that Raffles had failed to satisfy such honor
+as I might reasonably expect to subsist between us.  Yet it seems to me
+to require a superhuman sanity always and unerringly to separate cause
+from effect, achievement from intent.  And I, for one, was never quite
+able to do so in this case.
+
+I could not be accused of neglecting my newspaper during the next few
+wretched days.  I read every word that I could find about the attempted
+jewel-robbery in Palace Gardens, and the reports afforded me my sole
+comfort.  In the first place, it was only an attempted robbery; nothing
+had been taken, after all.  And then--and then--the one member of the
+household who had come nearest to a personal encounter with either of
+us was unable to furnish any description of the man--had even expressed
+a doubt as to the likelihood of identification in the event of an
+arrest!
+
+I will not say with what mingled feelings I read and dwelt on that
+announcement It kept a certain faint glow alive within me until the
+morning brought me back the only presents I had ever made her.  They
+were books; jewellery had been tabooed by the authorities.  And the
+books came back without a word, though the parcel was directed in her
+hand.
+
+I had made up my mind not to go near Raffles again, but in my heart I
+already regretted my resolve.  I had forfeited love, I had sacrificed
+honor, and now I must deliberately alienate myself from the one being
+whose society might yet be some recompense for all that I had lost.
+The situation was aggravated by the state of my exchequer.  I expected
+an ultimatum from my banker by every post. Yet this influence was
+nothing to the other.  It was Raffles I loved. It was not the dark life
+we led together, still less its base rewards; it was the man himself,
+his gayety, his humor, his dazzling audacity, his incomparable courage
+and resource.  And a very horror of turning to him again in mere need
+of greed set the seal on my first angry resolution.  But the anger was
+soon gone out of me, and when at length Raffles bridged the gap by
+coming to me, I rose to greet him almost with a shout.
+
+He came as though nothing had happened; and, indeed, not very many days
+had passed, though they might have been months to me.  Yet I fancied
+the gaze that watched me through our smoke a trifle less sunny than it
+had been before.  And it was a relief to me when he came with few
+preliminaries to the inevitable point.
+
+"Did you ever hear from her, Bunny?" he asked.
+
+"In a way," I answered.  "We won't talk about it, if you don't mind,
+Raffles."
+
+"That sort of way!" he exclaimed.  He seemed both surprised and
+disappointed.
+
+"Yes," I said, "that sort of way.  It's finished.  What did you expect?"
+
+"I don't know," said Raffles.  "I only thought that the girl who went
+so far to get a fellow out of a tight place might go a little farther
+to keep him from getting into another."
+
+"I don't see why she should," said I, honestly enough, yet with the
+irritation of a less just feeling deep down in my inmost consciousness.
+
+"Yet you did hear from her?" he persisted.
+
+"She sent me back my poor presents, without a word," I said, "if you
+call that hearing."
+
+I could not bring myself to own to Raffles that I had given her only
+books.  He asked if I was sure that she had sent them back herself; and
+that was his last question.  My answer was enough for him.  And to this
+day I cannot say whether it was more in relief than in regret that he
+laid a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"So you are out of Paradise after all!" said Raffles.  "I was not sure,
+or I should have come round before.  Well, Bunny, if they don't want
+you there, there's a little Inferno in the Albany where you will be as
+welcome as ever."
+
+And still, with all the magic mischief of his smile, there was that
+touch of sadness which I was yet to read aright.
+
+
+
+
+The Chest of Silver
+
+Like all the tribe of which I held him head, Raffles professed the
+liveliest disdain for unwieldy plunder of any description; it might be
+old Sheffield, or it might be solid silver or gold, but if the thing
+was not to be concealed about the person, he would none whatever of it.
+Unlike the rest of us, however, in this as in all else, Raffles would
+not infrequently allow the acquisitive spirit of the mere collector to
+silence the dictates of professional prudence.  The old oak chests, and
+even the mahogany wine-cooler, for which he had doubtless paid like an
+honest citizen, were thus immovable with pieces of crested plate, which
+he had neither the temerity to use nor the hardihood to melt or sell.
+He could but gloat over them behind locked doors, as I used to tell
+him, and at last one afternoon I caught him at it.  It was in the year
+after that of my novitiate, a halcyon period at the Albany, when
+Raffles left no crib uncracked, and I played second-murderer every
+time. I had called in response to a telegram in which he stated that he
+was going out of town, and must say good-by to me before he went. And I
+could only think that he was inspired by the same impulse toward the
+bronzed salvers and the tarnished teapots with which I found him
+surrounded, until my eyes lit upon the enormous silver-chest into which
+he was fitting them one by one.
+
+"Allow me, Bunny!  I shall take the liberty of locking both doors
+behind you and putting the key in my pocket," said Raffles, when he had
+let me in.  "Not that I mean to take you prisoner, my dear fellow; but
+there are those of us who can turn keys from the outside, though it was
+never an accomplishment of mine."
+
+"Not Crawshay again?" I cried, standing still in my hat.
+
+Raffles regarded me with that tantalizing smile of his which might mean
+nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a flash I was convinced
+that our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival, the doyen of an older
+school, had paid him yet another visit.
+
+"That remains to be seen," was the measured reply; "and I for one have
+not set naked eye on the fellow since I saw him off through that window
+and left myself for dead on this very spot.  In fact, I imagined him
+comfortably back in jail."
+
+"Not old Crawshay!" said I.  "He's far too good a man to be taken
+twice.  I should call him the very prince of professional cracksmen."
+
+"Should you?" said Raffles coldly, with as cold an eye looking into
+mine.  "Then you had better prepare to repel princes when I'm gone."
+
+"But gone where?" I asked, finding a corner for my hat and coat, and
+helping myself to the comforts of the venerable dresser which was one
+of our friend's greatest treasures.  "Where is it you are off to, and
+why are you taking this herd of white elephants with you?"
+
+Raffles bestowed the cachet of his smile on my description of his
+motley plate.  He joined me in one of his favorite cigarettes, only
+shaking a superior head at his own decanter.
+
+"One question at a time, Bunny," said he.  "In the first place, I am
+going to have these rooms freshened up with a potful of paint, the
+electric light, and the telephone you've been at me about so long."
+
+"Good!" I cried.  "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day and
+night!"
+
+"And get overheard and run in for our pains?  I shall wait till you are
+run in, I think," said Raffles cruelly.  "But the rest's a necessity:
+not that I love new paint or am pining for electric light, but for
+reasons which I will just breathe in your private ear, Bunny. You must
+not try to take them too seriously; but the fact is, there is just the
+least bit of a twitter against me in this rookery of an Albany.  It
+must have been started by that tame old bird, Policeman Mackenzie; it
+isn't very bad as yet, but it needn't be that to reach my ears.  Well,
+it was open to me either to clear out altogether, and so confirm
+whatever happened to be in the air, or to go off for a time, under some
+arrangement which would give the authorities ample excuse for
+overhauling every inch of my rooms.  Which would you have done, Bunny?"
+
+"Cleared out, while I could!" said I devoutly.
+
+"So I should have thought," rejoined Raffles.  "Yet you see the merit
+of my plan.  I shall leave every mortal thing unlocked."
+
+"Except that," said I, kicking the huge oak case with the iron bands
+and clamps, and the baize lining fast disappearing under heavy packages
+bearing the shapes of urns and candelabra.
+
+"That," replied Raffles, "is neither to go with me nor to remain here."
+
+"Then what do you propose to do with it?"
+
+"You have your banking account, and your banker," he went on.  This was
+perfectly true, though it was Raffles alone who had kept the one open,
+and enabled me to propitiate the other in moments of emergency.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, pay in this bundle of notes this afternoon, and say you have had
+a great week at Liverpool and Lincoln; then ask them if they can do
+with your silver while you run over to Paris for a merry Easter.  I
+should tell them it's rather heavy--a lot of old family stuff that
+you've a good mind to leave with them till you marry and settle down."
+
+I winced at this, but consented to the rest after a moment's
+consideration.  After all, and for more reasons that I need enumerate,
+it was a plausible tale enough.  And Raffles had no banker; it was
+quite impossible for him to explain, across any single counter, the
+large sums of hard cash which did sometimes fall into his hands; and it
+might well be that he had nursed my small account in view of the very
+quandary which had now arisen.  On all grounds, it was impossible for
+me to refuse him, and I am still glad to remember that my assent was
+given, on the whole, ungrudgingly.
+
+"But when will the chest be ready for me," I merely asked, as I stuffed
+the notes into my cigarette case.  "And how are we to get it out of
+this, in banking hours, without attracting any amount of attention at
+this end?"
+
+Raffles gave me an approving nod.
+
+"I'm glad to see you spot the crux so quickly, Bunny.  I have thought
+of your taking it round to your place first, under cloud of night; but
+we are bound to be seen even so, and on the whole it would look far
+less suspicious in broad daylight.  It will take you some twelve or
+fifteen minutes to drive to your bank in a growler, so if you are here
+with one at a quarter to ten to-morrow morning, that will exactly meet
+the case.  But you must have a hansom this minute if you mean to
+prepare the way with those notes this afternoon!"
+
+It was only too like the Raffles of those days to dismiss a subject and
+myself in the same breath, with a sudden nod, and a brief grasp of the
+hand he was already holding out for mine.  I had a great mind to take
+another of his cigarettes instead, for there were one or two points on
+which he had carefully omitted to enlighten me.  Thus, I had still to
+learn the bare direction of his journey; and it was all that I could do
+to drag it from him as I stood buttoning my coat and gloves.
+
+"Scotland," he vouchsafed at last.
+
+"At Easter," I remarked.
+
+"To learn the language," he explained.  "I have no tongue but my own,
+you see, but I try to make up for it by cultivating every shade of
+that.  Some of them have come in useful even to your knowledge, Bunny:
+what price my Cockney that night in St.  John's Wood?  I can keep up my
+end in stage Irish, real Devonshire, very fair Norfolk, and three
+distinct Yorkshire dialects.  But my good Galloway Scots might be
+better, and I mean to make it so."
+
+"You still haven't told me where to write to you."
+
+"I'll write to you first, Bunny."
+
+"At least let me see you off," I urged at the door.  "I promise not to
+look at your ticket if you tell me the train!"
+
+"The eleven-fifty from Euston."
+
+"Then I'll be with you by quarter to ten."
+
+And I left him without further parley, reading his impatience in his
+face.  Everything, to be sure, seemed clear enough without that fuller
+discussion which I loved and Raffles hated.  Yet I thought we might at
+least have dined together, and in my heart I felt just the least bit
+hurt, until it occurred to me as I drove to count the notes in my
+cigarette case.  Resentment was impossible after that. The sum ran well
+into three figures, and it was plain that Raffles meant me to have a
+good time in his absence.  So I told his lie with unction at my bank,
+and made due arrangements for the reception of his chest next morning.
+Then I repaired to our club, hoping he would drop in, and that we might
+dine together after all.  In that I was disappointed.  It was nothing,
+however, to the disappointment awaiting me at the Albany, when I
+arrived in my four-wheeler at the appointed hour next morning.
+
+"Mr. Raffles 'as gawn, sir," said the porter, with a note of reproach
+in his confidential undertone.  The man was a favorite with Raffles,
+who used him and tipped him with consummate tact, and he knew me only
+less well.
+
+"Gone!" I echoed aghast.  "Where on earth to?"
+
+"Scotland, sir."
+
+"Already?"
+
+"By the eleven-fifty lawst night."
+
+"Last night!  I thought he meant eleven-fifty this morning!"
+
+"He knew you did, sir, when you never came, and he told me to tell you
+there was no such train."
+
+I could have rent my garments in mortification and annoyance with
+myself and Raffles.  It was as much his fault as mine.  But for his
+indecent haste in getting rid of me, his characteristic abruptness at
+the end, there would have been no misunderstanding or mistake.
+
+"Any other message?" I inquired morosely.
+
+"Only about the box, sir.  Mr. Raffles said as you was goin' to take
+chawge of it time he's away, and I've a friend ready to lend a 'and in
+getting it on the cab.  It's a rare 'eavy 'un, but Mr. Raffles an' me
+could lift it all right between us, so I dessay me an' my friend can."
+
+For my own part, I must confess that its weight concerned me less than
+the vast size of that infernal chest, as I drove with it past club and
+park at ten o'clock in the morning.  Sit as far back as I might in the
+four-wheeler, I could conceal neither myself nor my connection with the
+huge iron-clamped case upon the roof: in my heated imagination its wood
+was glass through which all the world could see the guilty contents.
+Once an officious constable held up the traffic at our approach, and
+for a moment I put a blood-curdling construction upon the simple
+ceremony.  Low boys shouted after us--or if it was not after us, I
+thought it was--and that their cry was "Stop thief!"  Enough said of
+one of the most unpleasant cab-drives I ever had in my life.  Horresco
+referens.
+
+At the bank, however, thanks to the foresight and liberality of
+Raffles, all was smooth water.  I paid my cabman handsomely, gave a
+florin to the stout fellow in livery whom he helped with the chest, and
+could have pressed gold upon the genial clerk who laughed like a
+gentleman at my jokes about the Liverpool winners and the latest
+betting on the Family Plate.  I was only disconcerted when he informed
+me that the bank gave no receipts for deposits of this nature.  I am
+now aware that few London banks do.  But it is pleasing to believe that
+at the time I looked--what I felt--as though all I valued upon earth
+were in jeopardy.
+
+I should have got through the rest of that day happily enough, such was
+the load off my mind and hands, but for an extraordinary and most
+disconcerting note received late at night from Raffles himself. He was
+a man who telegraphed freely, but seldom wrote a letter. Sometimes,
+however, he sent a scribbled line by special messenger; and overnight,
+evidently in the train, he had scribbled this one to post in the small
+hours at Crewe:
+
+  "'Ware Prince of Professors!  He was in the offing when I left.
+  If slightest cause for uneasiness about bank, withdraw at once
+  and keep in own rooms Like good chap,
+
+                                                    "A. J. R.
+
+  "P. S.--Other reasons, as you shall hear."
+
+
+There was a nice nightcap for a puzzled head!  I had made rather an
+evening of it, what with increase of funds and decrease of anxiety, but
+this cryptic admonition spoiled the remainder of my night.  It had
+arrived by a late post, and I only wished that I had left it all night
+in my letter-box.  What exactly did it mean?  And what exactly must I
+do?  These were questions that confronted me with fresh force in the
+morning.
+
+The news of Crawshay did not surprise me.  I was quite sure that
+Raffles had been given good reason to bear him in mind before his
+journey, even if he had not again beheld the ruffian in the flesh. That
+ruffian and that journey might be more intimately connected than I had
+yet supposed.  Raffles never told me all.  Yet the solid fact held
+good--held better than ever--that I had seen his plunder safely planted
+in my bank.  Crawshay himself could not follow it there.  I was certain
+he had not followed my cab: in the acute self-consciousness induced by
+that abominable drive, I should have known it in my bones if he had.  I
+thought of the porter's friend who had helped me with the chest.  No, I
+remember him as well as I remembered Crawshay; they were quite
+different types.
+
+To remove that vile box from the bank, on top of another cab, with no
+stronger pretext and no further instructions, was not to be thought of
+for a moment.  Yet I did think of it, for hours.  I was always anxious
+to do my part by Raffles; he had done more than his by me, not once or
+twice, to-day or yesterday, but again and again from the very first.  I
+need not state the obvious reasons I had for fighting shy of the
+personal custody of his accursed chest. Yet he had run worse risks for
+me, and I wanted him to learn that he, too, could depend on a devotion
+not unworthy of his own.
+
+In my dilemma I did what I have often done when at a loss for light and
+leading.  I took hardly any lunch, but went to Northumberland Avenue
+and had a Turkish bath instead.  I know nothing so cleansing to mind as
+well as body, nothing better calculated to put the finest possible edge
+on such judgment as one may happen to possess.  Even Raffles, without
+an ounce to lose or a nerve to soothe, used to own a sensuous
+appreciation of the peace of mind and person to be gained in this
+fashion when all others failed.  For me, the fun began before the boots
+were off one's feet; the muffled footfalls, the thin sound of the
+fountain, even the spent swathed forms upon the couches, and the whole
+clean, warm, idle atmosphere, were so much unction to my simpler soul.
+The half-hour in the hot-rooms I used to count but a strenuous step to
+a divine lassitude of limb and accompanying exaltation of intellect.
+And yet--and yet--it was in the hottest room of all, in a temperature
+of 270 deg. Fahrenheit, that the bolt fell from the Pall Mall Gazette
+which I had bought outside the bath.
+
+I was turning over the hot, crisp pages, and positively revelling in my
+fiery furnace, when the following headlines and leaded paragraphs leapt
+to my eye with the force of a veritable blow:
+
+                    BANK ROBBERS IN THE WEST END--
+                    DARING AND MYSTERIOUS CRIME
+
+  An audacious burglary and dastardly assault have been committed
+  on the premises of the City and Suburban Bank in Sloane Street, W.
+  From the details so far to hand, the robbery appears to have been
+  deliberately planned and adroitly executed in the early hours of
+  this morning.
+
+  A night watchman named Fawcett states that between one and two
+  o'clock he heard a slight noise in the neighborhood of the lower
+  strong-room, used as a repository for the plate and other
+  possessions of various customers of the bank.  Going down to
+  investigate, he was instantly attacked by a powerful ruffian,
+  who succeeded in felling him to the ground before an alarm could
+  be raised.
+
+  Fawcett is unable to furnish any description of his assailant
+  or assailants, but is of opinion that more than one were engaged
+  in the commission of the crime.  When the unfortunate man
+  recovered consciousness, no trace of the thieves remained, with
+  the exception of a single candle which had been left burning on
+  the flags of the corridor.  The strong-room, however, had been
+  opened, and it is feared the raid on the chests of plate and
+  other valuables may prove to have been only too successful, in
+  view of the Easter exodus, which the thieves had evidently taken
+  into account.  The ordinary banking chambers were not even
+  visited; entry and exit are believed to have been effected
+  through the coal cellar, which is also situated in the basement.
+  Up to the present the police have effected no arrest.
+
+I sat practically paralyzed by this appalling news; and I swear that,
+even in that incredible temperature, it was a cold perspiration in
+which I sweltered from head to heel.  Crawshay, of course!  Crawshay
+once more upon the track of Raffles and his ill-gotten gains!  And once
+more I blamed Raffles himself: his warning had come too late: he should
+have wired to me at once not to take the box to the bank at all.  He
+was a madman ever to have invested in so obvious and obtrusive a
+receptacle for treasure.  It would serve Raffles right if that and no
+other was the box which had been broken into by the thieves.
+
+Yet, when I considered the character of his treasure, I fairly
+shuddered in my sweat.  It was a hoard of criminal relics.  Suppose his
+chest had indeed been rifled, and emptied of every silver thing but
+one; that one remaining piece of silver, seen of men, was quite enough
+to cast Raffles into the outer darkness of penal servitude! And
+Crawshay was capable of it--of perceiving the insidious revenge--of
+taking it without compunction or remorse.
+
+There was only one course for me.  I must follow my instructions to the
+letter and recover the chest at all hazards, or be taken myself in the
+attempt.  If only Raffles had left me some address, to which I could
+have wired some word of warning!  But it was no use thinking of that;
+for the rest there was time enough up to four o'clock, and as yet it
+was not three.  I determined to go through with my bath and make the
+most of it.  Might it not be my last for years?
+
+But I was past enjoying even a Turkish bath.  I had not the patience
+for a proper shampoo, or sufficient spirit for the plunge.  I weighed
+myself automatically, for that was a matter near my heart; but I forgot
+to give my man his sixpence until the reproachful intonation of his
+adieu recalled me to myself.  And my couch in the cooling gallery--my
+favorite couch, in my favorite corner, which I had secured with gusto
+on coming in--it was a bed of thorns, with hideous visions of a
+plank-bed to follow!
+
+I ought to be able to add that I heard the burglary discussed on
+adjacent couches before I left I certainly listened for it, and was
+rather disappointed more than once when I had held my breath in vain.
+But this is the unvarnished record of an odious hour, and it passed
+without further aggravation from without; only, as I drove to Sloane
+Street, the news was on all the posters, and on one I read of "a clew"
+which spelt for me a doom I was grimly resolved to share.
+
+Already there was something in the nature of a "run" up on the Sloane
+Street branch of the City and Suburban.  A cab drove away with a chest
+of reasonable dimensions as mine drove up, while in the bank itself a
+lady was making a painful scene.  As for the genial clerk who had
+roared at my jokes the day before, he was mercifully in no mood for any
+more, but, on the contrary, quite rude to me at sight.
+
+"I've been expecting you all the afternoon," said he.  "You needn't
+look so pale."
+
+"Is it safe?"
+
+"That Noah's Ark of yours?  Yes, so I hear; they'd just got to it when
+they were interrupted, and they never went back again."
+
+"Then it wasn't even opened?"
+
+"Only just begun on, I believe."
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+"You may; we don't," growled the clerk.  "The manager says he believes
+your chest was at the bottom of it all."
+
+"How could it be?" I asked uneasily.
+
+"By being seen on the cab a mile off, and followed," said the clerk.
+
+"Does the manager want to see me?" I asked boldly.
+
+"Not unless you want to see him," was the blunt reply.  "He's been at
+it with others all the afternoon, and they haven't all got off as cheap
+as you."
+
+"Then my silver shall not embarrass you any longer," said I grandly. "I
+meant to leave it if it was all right, but after all you have said I
+certainly shall not.  Let your man or men bring up the chest at once.
+I dare say they also have been 'at it with others all the afternoon,'
+but I shall make this worth their while."
+
+I did not mind driving through the streets with the thing this time. My
+present relief was too overwhelming as yet to admit of pangs and fears
+for the immediate future.  No summer sun had ever shone more brightly
+than that rather watery one of early April.  There was a green-and-gold
+dust of buds and shoots on the trees as we passed the park.  I felt
+greater things sprouting in my heart.  Hansoms passed with schoolboys
+just home for the Easter holidays, four-wheelers outward bound, with
+bicycles and perambulators atop; none that rode in them were half so
+happy as I, with the great load on my cab, but the greater one off my
+heart.
+
+At Mount Street it just went into the lift; that was a stroke of luck;
+and the lift-man and I between us carried it into my flat. It seemed a
+featherweight to me now.  I felt a Samson in the exaltation of that
+hour.  And I will not say what my first act was when I found myself
+alone with my white elephant in the middle of the room; enough that the
+siphon was still doing its work when the glass slipped through my
+fingers to the floor.
+
+"Bunny!"
+
+It was Raffles.  Yet for a moment I looked about me quite in vain. He
+was not at the window; he was not at the open door.  And yet Raffles it
+had been, or at all events his voice, and that bubbling over with fun
+and satisfaction, be his body where it might.  In the end I dropped my
+eyes, and there was his living face in the middle of the lid of the
+chest, like that of the saint upon its charger.
+
+But Raffles was alive, Raffles was laughing as though his vocal cords
+would snap--there was neither tragedy nor illusion in the apparition of
+Raffles.  A life-size Jack-in-the-box, he had thrust his head through a
+lid within the lid, cut by himself between the two iron bands that ran
+round the chest like the straps of a portmanteau.  He must have been
+busy at it when I found him pretending to pack, if not far into that
+night, for it was a very perfect piece of work; and even as I stared
+without a word, and he crouched laughing in my face, an arm came
+squeezing out, keys in hand; one was turned in either of the two great
+padlocks, the whole lid lifted, and out stepped Raffles like the
+conjurer he was.
+
+"So you were the burglar!" I exclaimed at last.  "Well, I am just as
+glad I didn't know."
+
+He had wrung my hand already, but at this he fairly mangled it in his.
+
+"You dear little brick," he cried, "that's the one thing of all things
+I longed to hear you say!  How could you have behaved as you've done if
+you had known?  How could any living man?  How could you have acted, as
+the polar star of all the stages could not have acted in your place?
+Remember that I have heard a lot, and as good as seen as much as I've
+heard.  Bunny, I don't know where you were greatest: at the Albany,
+here, or at your bank!"
+
+"I don't know where I was most miserable," I rejoined, beginning to see
+the matter in a less perfervid light.  "I know you don't credit me with
+much finesse, but I would undertake to be in the secret and to do quite
+as well; the only difference would be in my own peace of mind, which,
+of course, doesn't count."
+
+But Raffles wagged away with his most charming and disarming smile; he
+was in old clothes, rather tattered and torn, and more than a little
+grimy as to the face and hands, but, on the surface, wonderfully little
+the worse for his experience.  And, as I say, his smile was the smile
+of the Raffles I loved best.
+
+"You would have done your damnedest, Bunny!  There is no limit to your
+heroism; but you forget the human equation in the pluckiest of the
+plucky.  I couldn't afford to forget it, Bunny; I couldn't afford to
+give a point away.  Don't talk as though I hadn't trusted you!  I
+trusted my very life to your loyal tenacity.  What do you suppose would
+have happened to me if you had let me rip in that strong-room?  Do you
+think I would ever have crept out and given myself up?  Yes, I'll have
+a peg for once; the beauty of all laws is in the breaking, even of the
+kind we make unto ourselves."
+
+I had a Sullivan for him, too; and in another minute he was spread out
+on my sofa, stretching his cramped limbs with infinite gusto, a
+cigarette between his fingers, a yellow bumper at hand on the chest of
+his triumph and my tribulation.
+
+"Never mind when it occurred to me, Bunny; as a matter of fact, it was
+only the other day, when I had decided to go away for the real reasons
+I have already given you.  I may have made more of them to you than I
+do in my own mind, but at all events they exist.  And I really did want
+the telephone and the electric light."
+
+"But where did you stow the silver before you went?"
+
+"Nowhere; it was my luggage--a portmanteau, cricket-bag, and suit-case
+full of very little else--and by the same token I left the lot at
+Euston, and one of us must fetch them this evening."
+
+"I can do that," said I.  "But did you really go all the way to Crewe?"
+
+"Didn't you get my note?  I went all the way to Crewe to post you those
+few lines, my dear Bunny!  It's no use taking trouble if you don't take
+trouble enough; I wanted you to show the proper set of faces at the
+bank and elsewhere, and I know you did.  Besides, there was an up-train
+four minutes after mine got in.  I simply posted my letter in Crewe
+station, and changed from one train to the other."
+
+"At two in the morning!"
+
+"Nearer three, Bunny.  It was after seven when I slung in with the
+Daily Mail.  The milk had beaten me by a short can.  But even so I had
+two very good hours before you were due."
+
+"And to think," I murmured, "how you deceived me there!"
+
+"With your own assistance," said Raffles laughing.  "If you had looked
+it up you would have seen there was no such train in the morning, and I
+never said there was.  But I meant you to be deceived, Bunny, and I
+won't say I didn't--it was all for the sake of the side!  Well, when
+you carted me away with such laudable despatch, I had rather an
+uncomfortable half-hour, but that was all just then.  I had my candle,
+I had matches, and lots to read. It was quite nice in that strong-room
+until a very unpleasant incident occurred."
+
+"Do tell me, my dear fellow!"
+
+"I must have another Sullivan--thank you--and a match.  The unpleasant
+incident was steps outside and a key in the lock!  I was disporting
+myself on the lid of the trunk at the time.  I had barely time to knock
+out my light and slip down behind it.  Luckily it was only another box
+of sorts; a jewel-case, to be more precise; you shall see the contents
+in a moment.  The Easter exodus has done me even better than I dared to
+hope."
+
+His words reminded me of the Pall Mall Gazette, which I had brought in
+my pocket from the Turkish bath.  I fished it out, all wrinkled and
+bloated by the heat of the hottest room, and handed it to Raffles with
+my thumb upon the leaded paragraphs.
+
+"Delightful!" said he when he had read them.  "More thieves than one,
+and the coal-cellar of all places as a way in!  I certainly tried to
+give it that appearance.  I left enough candle-grease there to make
+those coals burn bravely.  But it looked up into a blind backyard,
+Bunny, and a boy of eight couldn't have squeezed through the trap. Long
+may that theory keep them happy at Scotland Yard!"
+
+"But what about the fellow you knocked out?" I asked.  "That was not
+like you, Raffles."
+
+Raffles blew pensive rings as he lay back on my sofa, his black hair
+tumbled on the cushion, his pale profile as clear and sharp against the
+light as though slashed out with the scissors.
+
+"I know it wasn't, Bunny," he said regretfully.  "But things like that,
+as the poet will tell you, are really inseparable from victories like
+mine.  It had taken me a couple of hours to break out of that
+strong-room; I was devoting a third to the harmless task of simulating
+the appearance of having broken in; and it was then I heard the
+fellow's stealthy step.  Some might have stood their ground and killed
+him; more would have bolted into a worse corner than they were in
+already.  I left my candle where it was, crept to meet the poor devil,
+flattened myself against the wall, and let him have it as he passed.  I
+acknowledge the foul blow, but here's evidence that it was mercifully
+struck.  The victim has already told his tale."
+
+As he drained his glass, but shook his head when I wished to replenish
+it, Raffles showed me the flask which he had carried in his pocket: it
+was still nearly full; and I found that he had otherwise provisioned
+himself over the holidays.  On either Easter Day or Bank Holiday, had I
+failed him, it had been his intention to make the best escape he could.
+But the risk must have been enormous, and it filled my glowing skin to
+think that he had not relied on me in vain.
+
+As for his gleanings from such jewel-cases as were spending the Easter
+recess in the strong-room of my bank, (without going into rhapsodies or
+even particulars on the point,) I may mention that they realized enough
+for me to join Raffles on his deferred holiday in Scotland, besides
+enabling him to play more regularly for Middlesex in the ensuing summer
+than had been the case for several seasons.  In fine, this particular
+exploit entirely justified itself in my eyes, in spite of the
+superfluous (but invariable) secretiveness which I could seldom help
+resenting in my heart I never thought less of it than in the present
+instance; and my one mild reproach was on the subject of the phantom
+Crawshay.
+
+"You let me think he was in the air again," I said.  "But it wouldn't
+surprise me to find that you had never heard of him since the day of
+his escape through your window."
+
+"I never even thought of him, Bunny, until you came to see me the day
+before yesterday, and put him into my head with your first words. The
+whole point was to make you as genuinely anxious about the plate as you
+must have seemed all along the line."
+
+"Of course I see your point," I rejoined; "but mine is that you labored
+it.  You needn't have written me a downright lie about the fellow."
+
+"Nor did I, Bunny."
+
+"Not about the 'prince of professors' being 'in the offing' when you
+left?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, but so he was!" cried Raffles.  "Time was when I was
+none too pure an amateur.  But after this I take leave to consider
+myself a professor of the professors.  And I should like to see one
+more capable of skippering their side!"
+
+
+
+
+The Rest Cure
+
+I had not seen Raffles for a month or more, and I was sadly in need of
+his advice.  My life was being made a burden to me by a wretch who had
+obtained a bill of sale over the furniture in Mount Street, and it was
+only by living elsewhere that I could keep the vulpine villain from my
+door.  This cost ready money, and my balance at the bank was sorely in
+need of another lift from Raffles.  Yet, had he been in my shoes, he
+could not have vanished more effectually than he had done, both from
+the face of the town and from the ken of all who knew him.
+
+It was late in August; he never played first-class cricket after July,
+when, a scholastic understudy took his place in the Middlesex eleven.
+And in vain did I scour my Field and my Sportsman for the country-house
+matches with which he wilfully preferred to wind up the season; the
+matches were there, but never the magic name of A. J. Raffles.  Nothing
+was known of him at the Albany; he had left no instructions about his
+letters, either there or at the club.  I began to fear that some evil
+had overtaken him.  I scanned the features of captured criminals in the
+illustrated Sunday papers; on each occasion I breathed again; nor was
+anything worthy of Raffles going on.  I will not deny that I was less
+anxious on his account than on my own.  But it was a double relief to
+me when he gave a first characteristic sign of life.
+
+I had called at the Albany for the fiftieth time, and returned to
+Piccadilly in my usual despair, when a street sloucher sidled up to me
+in furtive fashion and inquired if my name was what it is.
+
+"'Cause this 'ere's for you," he rejoined to my affirmative, and with
+that I felt a crumpled note in my palm.
+
+It was from Raffles.  I smoothed out the twisted scrap of paper, and on
+it were just a couple of lines in pencil:
+
+"Meet me in Holland Walk at dark to-night.  Walk up and down till I
+come.                                           A.  J.  R."
+
+That was all!  Not another syllable after all these weeks, and the few
+words scribbled in a wild caricature of his scholarly and dainty hand!
+I was no longer to be alarmed by this sort of thing; it was all so like
+the Raffles I loved least; and to add to my indignation, when at length
+I looked up from the mysterious missive, the equally mysterious
+messenger had disappeared in a manner worthy of the whole affair.  He
+was, however, the first creature I espied under the tattered trees of
+Holland Walk that evening.
+
+"Seen 'im yet?" he inquired confidentially, blowing a vile cloud from
+his horrid pipe.
+
+"No, I haven't; and I want to know where you've seen him," I replied
+sternly.  "Why did you run away like that the moment you had given me
+his note?"
+
+"Orders, orders," was the reply.  "I ain't such a juggins as to go agen
+a toff as makes it worf while to do as I'm bid an' 'old me tongue."
+
+"And who may you be?" I asked jealously.  "And what are you to Mr.
+Raffles?"
+
+"You silly ass, Bunny, don't tell all Kensington that I'm in town!"
+replied my tatterdemalion, shooting up and smoothing out into a merely
+shabby Raffles.  "Here, take my arm--I'm not so beastly as I look.  But
+neither am I in town, nor in England, nor yet on the face of the earth,
+for all that's known of me to a single soul but you."
+
+"Then where are you," I asked, "between ourselves?"
+
+"I've taken a house near here for the holidays, where I'm going in for
+a Rest Cure of my own description.  Why?  Oh, for lots of reasons, my
+dear Bunny; among others, I have long had a wish to grow my own beard;
+under the next lamppost you will agree that it's training on very
+nicely.  Then, you mayn't know it, but there's a canny man at Scotland
+Yard who has had a quiet eye on me longer than I like.  I thought it
+about time to have an eye on him, and I stared him in the face outside
+the Albany this very morning.  That was when I saw you go in, and
+scribbled a line to give you when you came out.  If he had caught us
+talking he would have spotted me at once."
+
+"So you are lying low out here!"
+
+"I prefer to call it my Rest Cure," returned Raffles, "and it's really
+nothing else.  I've got a furnished house at a time when no one else
+would have dreamed of taking one in town; and my very neighbors don't
+know I'm there, though I'm bound to say there are hardly any of them at
+home.  I don't keep a servant, and do everything for myself.  It's the
+next best fun to a desert island. Not that I make much work, for I'm
+really resting, but I haven't done so much solid reading for years.
+Rather a joke, Bunny: the man whose house I've taken is one of her
+Majesty's inspectors of prisons, and his study's a storehouse of
+criminology.  It has been quite amusing to lie on one's back and have a
+good look at one's self as others fondly imagine they see one."
+
+"But surely you get some exercise?" I asked; for he was leading me at a
+good rate through the leafy byways of Camp den Hill; and his step was
+as springy and as light as ever.
+
+"The best exercise I ever had in my life," said Raffles; "and you would
+never live to guess what it is.  It's one of the reasons why I went in
+for this seedy kit.  I follow cabs.  Yes, Bunny, I turn out about dusk
+and meet the expresses at Euston or King's Cross; that is, of course, I
+loaf outside and pick my cab, and often run my three or four miles for
+a bob or less.  And it not only keeps you in the very pink: if you're
+good they let you carry the trunks up-stairs; and I've taken notes from
+the inside of more than one commodious residence which will come in
+useful in the autumn.  In fact, Bunny, what with these new Rowton
+houses, my beard, and my otherwise well-spent holiday, I hope to have
+quite a good autumn season before the erratic Raffles turns up in town."
+
+I felt it high time to wedge in a word about my own far less
+satisfactory affairs.  But it was not necessary for me to recount half
+my troubles.  Raffles could be as full of himself as many a worse man,
+and I did not like his society the less for these human outpourings.
+They had rather the effect of putting me on better terms with myself,
+through bringing him down to my level for the time being.  But his
+egoism was not even skin-deep; it was rather a cloak, which Raffles
+could cast off quicker than any man I ever knew, as he did not fail to
+show me now.
+
+"Why, Bunny, this is the very thing!" he cried.  "You must come and
+stay with me, and we'll lie low side by side.  Only remember it really
+is a Rest Cure.  I want to keep literally as quiet as I was without
+you.  What do you say to forming ourselves at once into a practically
+Silent Order?  You agree?  Very well, then, here's the street and
+that's the house."
+
+It was ever such a quiet little street, turning out of one of those
+which climb right over the pleasant hill.  One side was monopolized by
+the garden wall of an ugly but enviable mansion standing in its own
+ground; opposite were a solid file of smaller but taller houses; on
+neither side were there many windows alight, nor a solitary soul on the
+pavement or in the road.  Raffles led the way to one of the small tall
+houses.  It stood immediately behind a lamppost, and I could not but
+notice that a love-lock of Virginia creeper was trailing almost to the
+step, and that the bow-window on the ground floor was closely
+shuttered.  Raffles admitted himself with his latch-key, and I squeezed
+past him into a very narrow hall.  I did not hear him shut the door,
+but we were no longer in the lamplight, and he pushed softly past me in
+his turn.
+
+"I'll get a light," he muttered as he went; but to let him pass I had
+leaned against some electric switches, and while 'his back was turned I
+tried one of these without thinking.  In an instant hall and staircase
+were flooded with light; in another Raffles was upon me in a fury, and,
+all was dark once more.  He had not said a word, but I heard him
+breathing through his teeth.
+
+Nor was there anything to tell me now.  The mere flash of electric
+light upon a hail of chaos and uncarpeted stairs, and on the face of
+Raffles as he sprang to switch it off, had been enough even for me.
+
+"So this is how you have taken the house," said I in his own undertone.
+"'Taken' is good; 'taken' is beautiful!"
+
+"Did you think I'd done it through an agent?" he snarled.  "Upon my
+word, Bunny, I did you the credit of supposing you saw the joke all the
+time!"
+
+"Why shouldn't you take a house," I asked, "and pay for it?"
+
+"Why should I," he retorted, "within three miles of the Albany?
+Besides, I should have had no peace; and I meant every word I said
+about my Rest Cure."
+
+"You are actually staying in a house where you've broken in to steal?"
+
+"Not to steal, Bunny!  I haven't stolen a thing.  But staying here I
+certainly am, and having the most complete rest a busy man could wish."
+
+"There'll be no rest for me!"
+
+Raffles laughed as he struck a match.  I had followed him into what
+would have been the back drawing-room in the ordinary little London
+house; the inspector of prisons had converted it into a separate study
+by filling the folding doors with book-shelves, which I scanned at once
+for the congenial works of which Raffles had spoken.  I was not able to
+carry my examination very far.  Raffles had lighted a candle, stuck (by
+its own grease) in the crown of an opera hat, which he opened the
+moment the wick caught.  The light thus struck the ceiling in an oval
+shaft, which left the rest of the room almost as dark as it had been
+before.
+
+"Sorry, Bunny!" said Raffles, sitting on one pedestal of a desk from
+which the top had been removed, and setting his makeshift lantern on
+the other.  "In broad daylight, when it can't be spotted from the
+outside, you shall have as much artificial light as you like.  If you
+want to do some writing, that's the top of the desk on end against the
+mantlepiece.  You'll never have a better chance so far as interruption
+goes.  But no midnight oil or electricity!  You observe that their last
+care was to fix up these shutters; they appear to have taken the top
+off the desk to get at 'em without standing on it; but the beastly
+things wouldn't go all the way up, and the strip they leave would give
+us away to the backs of the other houses if we lit up after dark.  Mind
+that telephone!  If you touch the receiver they will know at the
+exchange that the house is not empty, and I wouldn't put it past the
+colonel to have told them exactly how long he was going to be away.
+He's pretty particular: look at the strips of paper to keep the dust
+off his precious books!"
+
+"Is he a colonel?" I asked, perceiving that Raffles referred to the
+absentee householder.
+
+"Of sappers," he replied, "and a V.C. into the bargain, confound him!
+Got it at Rorke's Drift; prison governor or inspector ever since;
+favorite recreation, what do you think?  Revolver shooting!  You can
+read all about him in his own Who's Who.  A devil of a chap to tackle,
+Bunny, when he's at home!"
+
+"And where is he now?" I asked uneasily.  "And do you know he isn't on
+his way home?"
+
+"Switzerland," replied Raffles, chuckling; "he wrote one too many
+labels, and was considerate enough to leave it behind for our guidance.
+Well, no one ever comes back from Switzerland at the beginning of
+September, you know; and nobody ever thinks of coming back before the
+servants. When they turn up they won't get in.  I keep the latch
+jammed, but the servants will think it's jammed itself, and while
+they're gone for the locksmith we shall walk out like gentlemen--if we
+haven't done so already."
+
+"As you walked in, I suppose?"
+
+Raffles shook his head in the dim light to which my sight was growing
+inured.
+
+"No, Bunny, I regret to say I came in through the dormer window. They
+were painting next door but one.  I never did like ladder work, but it
+takes less time than in picking a lock in the broad light of a street
+lamp."
+
+"So they left you a latch-key as well as everything else!"
+
+"No, Bunny.  I was just able to make that for myself.  I am playing at
+'Robinson Crusoe,' not 'The Swiss Family Robinson.'  And now, my dear
+Friday, if you will kindly take off those boots, we can explore the
+island before we turn in for the night."
+
+The stairs were very steep and narrow, and they creaked alarmingly as
+Raffles led the way up, with the single candle in the crown of the
+colonel's hat.  He blew it out before we reached the half-landing,
+where a naked window stared upon the backs of the houses in the next
+road, but lit it again at the drawing-room door.  I just peeped in upon
+a semi-grand swathed in white and a row of water colors mounted in
+gold.  An excellent bathroom broke our journey to the second floor.
+
+"I'll have one to-night," said I, taking heart of a luxury unknown in
+my last sordid sanctuary.
+
+"You'll do no such thing," snapped Raffles.  "Have the goodness to
+remember that our island is one of a group inhabited by hostile tribes.
+You can fill the bath quietly if you try, but it empties under the
+study window, and makes the very devil of a noise about it.  No, Bunny,
+I bale out every drop and pour it away through the scullery sink, so
+you will kindly consult me before you turn a tap. Here's your room;
+hold the light outside while I draw the curtains; it's the old chap's
+dressing-room.  Now you can bring the glim. How's that for a jolly
+wardrobe?  And look at his coats on their cross-trees inside: dapper
+old dog, shouldn't you say?  Mark the boots on the shelf above, and the
+little brass rail for his ties! Didn't I tell you he was particular?
+And wouldn't he simply love to catch us at his kit?"
+
+"Let's only hope it would give him an apoplexy," said I shuddering.
+
+"I shouldn't build on it," replied Raffles.  "That's a big man's
+trouble, and neither you nor I could get into the old chap's clothes.
+But come into the best bedroom, Bunny.  You won't think me selfish if I
+don't give it up to you?  Look at this, my boy, look at this! It's the
+only one I use in all the house."
+
+I had followed him into a good room, with ample windows closely
+curtained, and he had switched on the light in a hanging lamp at the
+bedside.  The rays fell from a thick green funnel in a plateful of
+strong light upon a table deep in books.  I noticed several volumes of
+the "Invasion of the Crimea."
+
+"That's where I rest the body and exercise the brain," said Raffles. "I
+have long wanted to read my Kinglake from A to Z, and I manage about a
+volume a night.  There's a style for you, Bunny!  I love the
+punctilious thoroughness of the whole thing; one can understand its
+appeal to our careful colonel.  His name, did you say?  Crutchley,
+Bunny--Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C."
+
+"We'd put his valor to the test!" said I, feeling more valiant myself
+after our tour of inspection.
+
+"Not so loud on the stairs," whispered Raffles.  "There's only one door
+between us and--"
+
+Raffles stood still at my feet, and well he might!  A deafening double
+knock had resounded through the empty house; and to add to the utter
+horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the light. I heard my
+heart pounding.  Neither of us breathed.  We were on our way down to
+the first landing, and for a moment we stood like mice; then Raffles
+heaved a deep sigh, and in the depths I heard the gate swing home.
+
+"Only the postman, Bunny!  He will come now and again, though they have
+obviously left instructions at the post-office.  I hope the old colonel
+will let them have it when he gets back.  I confess it gave me a turn."
+
+"Turn!" I gasped.  "I must have a drink, if I die for it."
+
+"My dear Bunny, that's no part of my Rest Cure."
+
+"Then good-by!  I can't stand it; feel my forehead; listen to my heart!
+Crusoe found a footprint, but he never heard a double-knock at the
+street door!"
+
+"'Better live in the midst of alarms,'" quoted Raffles, "'than dwell in
+this horrible place.'  I must confess we get it both ways, Bunny. Yet
+I've nothing but tea in the house."
+
+"And where do you make that?  Aren't you afraid of smoke?"
+
+"There's a gas-stove in the dining-room."
+
+"But surely to goodness," I cried, "there's a cellar lower down!"
+
+"My dear, good Bunny," said Raffles, "I've told you already that I
+didn't come in here on business.  I came in for the Cure.  Not a penny
+will these people be the worse, except for their washing and their
+electric light, and I mean to leave enough to cover both items."
+
+"Then," said I, "since Brutus is such a very honorable man, we will
+borrow a bottle from the cellar, and replace it before we go."
+
+Raffles slapped me softly on the back, and I knew that I had gained my
+point.  It was often the case when I had the presence of heart and mind
+to stand up to him.  But never was little victory of mine quite so
+grateful as this.  Certainly it was a very small cellar, indeed a mere
+cupboard under the kitchen stairs, with a most ridiculous lock.  Nor
+was this cupboard overstocked with wine.  But I made out a jar of
+whiskey, a shelf of Zeltinger, another of claret, and a short one at
+the top which presented a little battery of golden-leafed necks and
+corks.  Raffles set his hand no lower.  He examined the labels while I
+held folded hat and naked light.
+
+"Mumm, '84!" he whispered.  "G. H. Mumm, and A.D. 1884!  I am no
+wine-bibber, Bunny, as you know, but I hope you appreciate the
+specifications as I do.  It looks to me like the only bottle, the last
+of its case, and it does seem a bit of a shame; but more shame for the
+miser who hoards in his cellar what was meant for mankind! Come, Bunny,
+lead the way.  This baby is worth nursing.  It would break my heart if
+anything happened to it now!"
+
+So we celebrated my first night in the furnished house; and I slept
+beyond belief, slept as I never was to sleep there again.  But it was
+strange to hear the milkman in the early morning, and the postman
+knocking his way along the street an hour later, and to be passed over
+by one destroying angel after another.  I had come down early enough,
+and watched through the drawing-room blind the cleansing of all the
+steps in the street but ours.  Yet Raffles had evidently been up some
+time; the house seemed far purer than overnight as though he had
+managed to air it room by room; and from the one with the gas-stove
+there came a frizzling sound that fattened the heart.
+
+I only would I had the pen to do justice to the week I spent in-doors
+on Campden Hill!  It might make amusing reading; the reality for me was
+far removed from the realm of amusement.  Not that I was denied many a
+laugh of suppressed heartiness when Raffles and I were together.  But
+half our time we very literally saw nothing of each other.  I need not
+say whose fault that was.  He would be quiet; he was in ridiculous and
+offensive earnest about his egregious Cure. Kinglake he would read by
+the hour together, day and night, by the hanging lamp, lying up-stairs
+on the best bed.  There was daylight enough for me in the drawing-room
+below; and there I would sit immersed in criminous tomes weakly
+fascinated until I shivered and shook in my stocking soles.  Often I
+longed to do something hysterically desperate, to rouse Raffles and
+bring the street about our ears; once I did bring him about mine by
+striking a single note on the piano, with the soft pedal down.  His
+neglect of me seemed wanton at the time.  I have long realized that he
+was only wise to maintain silence at the expense of perilous amenities,
+and as fully justified in those secret and solitary sorties which made
+bad blood in my veins.  He was far cleverer than I at getting in and
+out; but even had I been his match for stealth and wariness, my company
+would have doubled every risk.  I admit now that he treated me with
+quite as much sympathy as common caution would permit.  But at the time
+I took it so badly as to plan a small revenge.
+
+What with his flourishing beard and the increasing shabbiness of the
+only suit he had brought with him to the house, there was no denying
+that Raffles had now the advantage of a permanent disguise. That was
+another of his excuses for leaving me as he did, and it was the one I
+was determined to remove.  On a morning, therefore, when I awoke to
+find him flown again, I proceeded to execute a plan which I had already
+matured in my mind.  Colonel Crutchley was a married man; there were no
+signs of children in the house; on the other hand, there was much
+evidence that the wife was a woman of fashion.  Her dresses overflowed
+the wardrobe and her room; large, flat, cardboard boxes were to be
+found in every corner of the upper floors.  She was a tall woman; I was
+not too tall a man.  Like Raffles, I had not shaved on Campden Hill.
+That morning, however, I did my best with a very fair razor which the
+colonel had left behind in my room; then I turned out the lady's
+wardrobe and the cardboard boxes, and took my choice.
+
+I have fair hair, and at the time it was rather long.  With a pair of
+Mrs. Crutchley's tongs and a discarded hair-net, I was able to produce
+an almost immodest fringe.  A big black hat with a wintry feather
+completed a headdress as unseasonable as my skating skirt and feather
+boa; of course, the good lady had all her summer frocks away with her
+in Switzerland.  This was all the more annoying from the fact that we
+were having a very warm September; so I was not sorry to hear Raffles
+return as I was busy adding a layer of powder to my heated countenance.
+I listened a moment on the landing, but as he went into the study I
+determined to complete my toilet in every detail.  My idea was first to
+give him the fright he deserved, and secondly to show him that I was
+quite as fit to move abroad as he.  It was, however, I confess, a pair
+of the colonel's gloves that I was buttoning as I slipped down to the
+study even more quietly than usual.  The electric light was on, as it
+generally was by day, and under it stood as formidable a figure as ever
+I encountered in my life of crime.
+
+Imagine a thin but extremely wiry man, past middle age, brown and
+bloodless as any crabapple, but as coolly truculent and as casually
+alert as Raffles at his worst.  It was, it could only be, the
+fire-eating and prison-inspecting colonel himself!  He was ready for
+me, a revolver in his hand, taken, as I could see, from one of those
+locked drawers in the pedestal desk with which Raffles had refused to
+tamper; the drawer was open, and a bunch of keys depended from the
+lock.  A grim smile crumpled up the parchment face, so that one eye was
+puckered out of sight; the other was propped open by an eyeglass,
+which, however, dangled on its string when I appeared.
+
+"A woman, begad!" the warrior exclaimed.  "And where's the man, you
+scarlet hussy?"
+
+Not a word could I utter.  But, in my horror and my amazement, I have
+no sort of doubt that I acted the part I had assumed in a manner I
+never should have approached in happier circumstances.
+
+"Come, come, my lass," cried the old oak veteran, "I'm not going to put
+a bullet through you, you know!  You tell me all about it, and it'll do
+you more good than harm.  There, I'll put the nasty thing away and--God
+bless me, if the brazen wench hasn't squeezed into the wife's kit!"
+
+A squeeze it happened to have been, and in my emotion it felt more of
+one than ever; but his sudden discovery had not heightened the
+veteran's animosity against me.  On the contrary, I caught a glint of
+humor through his gleaming glass, and he proceeded to pocket his
+revolver like the gentleman he was.
+
+"Well, well, it's lucky I looked in," he continued.  "I only came round
+on the off-chance of letters, but if I hadn't you'd have had another
+week in clover.  Begad, though, I saw your handwriting the moment I'd
+got my nose inside!  Now just be sensible and tell me where your good
+man is."
+
+I had no man.  I was alone, had broken in alone.  There was not a soul
+in the affair (much less the house) except myself.  So much I stuttered
+out in tones too hoarse to betray me on the spot.  But the old man of
+the world shook a hard old head.
+
+"Quite right not to give away your pal," said he.  "But I'm not one of
+the marines, my dear, and you mustn't expect me to swallow all that.
+Well, if you won't say, you won't, and we must just send for those who
+will."
+
+In a flash I saw his fell design.  The telephone directory lay open on
+one of the pedestals.  He must have been consulting it when he heard me
+on the stairs; he had another look at it now; and that gave me my
+opportunity.  With a presence of mind rare enough in me to excuse the
+boast, I flung myself upon the instrument in the corner and hurled it
+to the ground with all my might.  I was myself sent spinning into the
+opposite corner at the same instant.  But the instrument happened to be
+a standard of the more elaborate pattern, and I flattered myself that I
+had put the delicate engine out of action for the day.
+
+Not that my adversary took the trouble to ascertain.  He was looking at
+me strangely in the electric light, standing intently on his guard, his
+right hand in the pocket where he had dropped his revolver.  And I--I
+hardly knew it--but I caught up the first thing handy for self-defence,
+and was brandishing the bottle which Raffles and I had emptied in honor
+of my arrival on this fatal scene.
+
+"Be shot if I don't believe you're the man himself!" cried the colonel,
+shaking an armed fist in my face.  "You young wolf in sheep's clothing.
+Been at my wine, of course!  Put down that bottle; down with it this
+instant, or I'll drill a tunnel through your middle.  I thought so!
+Begad, sir, you shall pay for this! Don't you give me an excuse for
+potting you now, or I'll jump at the chance!  My last bottle of
+'84--you miserable blackguard--you unutterable beast!"
+
+He had browbeaten me into his own chair in his own corner; he was
+standing over me, empty bottle in one hand, revolver in the other, and
+murder itself in the purple puckers of his raging face.  His language I
+will not even pretend to indicate: his skinny throat swelled and
+trembled with the monstrous volleys.  He could smile at my appearance
+in his wife's clothes; he would have had my blood for the last bottle
+of his best champagne.  His eyes were not hidden now; they needed no
+eyeglass to prop them open; large with fury, they started from the
+livid mask.  I watched nothing else.  I could not understand why they
+should start out as they did.  I did not try. I say I watched nothing
+else--until I saw the face of Raffles over the unfortunate officer's
+shoulder.
+
+Raffles had crept in unheard while our altercation was at its height,
+had watched his opportunity, and stolen on his man unobserved by either
+of us.  While my own attention was completely engrossed, he had seized
+the colonel's pistol-hand and twisted it behind the colonel's back
+until his eyes bulged out as I have endeavored to describe.  But the
+fighting man had some fight in him still; and scarcely had I grasped
+the situation when he hit out venomously behind with the bottle, which
+was smashed to bits on Raffles's shin. Then I threw my strength into
+the scale; and before many minutes we had our officer gagged and bound
+in his chair.  But it was not one of our bloodless victories.  Raffles
+had been cut to the bone by the broken glass; his leg bled wherever he
+limped; and the fierce eyes of the bound man followed the wet trail
+with gleams of sinister satisfaction.
+
+I thought I had never seen a man better bound or better gagged.  But
+the humanity seemed to have run out of Raffles with his blood.  He tore
+up tablecloths, he cut down blind-cords, he brought the dust-sheets
+from the drawing-room, and multiplied every bond.  The unfortunate
+man's legs were lashed to the legs of his chair, his arms to its arms,
+his thighs and back fairly welded to the leather. Either end of his own
+ruler protruded from his bulging cheeks--the middle was hidden by his
+moustache--and the gag kept in place by remorseless lashings at the
+back of his head.  It was a spectacle I could not bear to contemplate
+at length, while from the first I found myself physically unable to
+face the ferocious gaze of those implacable eyes.  But Raffles only
+laughed at my squeamishness, and flung a dust-sheet over man and chair;
+and the stark outline drove me from the room.
+
+It was Raffles at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or
+after--a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other
+criminal in the land.  Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered
+no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he
+had himself to bear.  It is true that he was flagrantly in the wrong,
+his victim as laudably in the right.  Nevertheless, granting the
+original sin of the situation, and given this unforeseen development,
+even I failed to see how Raffles could have combined greater humanity
+with any regard for our joint safety; and had his barbarities ended
+here, I for one should not have considered them an extraordinary
+aggravation of an otherwise minor offence.  But in the broad daylight
+of the bathroom, which had a ground-glass window but no blind, I saw at
+once the serious nature of his wound and of its effect upon the man.
+
+"It will maim me for a month," said he; "and if the V.C. comes out
+alive, the wound he gave may be identified with the wound I've got."
+
+The V.C.!  There, indeed, was an aggravation to one illogical mind. But
+to cast a moment's doubt upon the certainty of his coming out alive!
+
+"Of course he'll come out," said I.  "We must make up our minds to
+that."
+
+"Did he tell you he was expecting the servants or his wife?  If so, of
+course we must hurry up."
+
+"No, Raffles, I'm afraid he's not expecting anybody.  He told me, if he
+hadn't looked in for letters, we should have had the place to ourselves
+another week.  That's the worst of it."
+
+Raffles smiled as he secured a regular puttee of dust-sheeting. No
+blood was coming through.
+
+"I don't agree, Bunny," said he.  "It's quite the best of it, if you
+ask me."
+
+"What, that he should die the death?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+And Raffles stared me out with a hard and merciless light in his clear
+blue eyes--a light that chilled the blood.
+
+"If it's a choice between his life and our liberty, you're entitled to
+your decision and I'm entitled to mine, and I took it before I bound
+him as I did," said Raffles.  "I'm only sorry I took so much trouble if
+you're going to stay behind and put him in the way of releasing himself
+before he gives up the ghost.  Perhaps you will go and think it over
+while I wash my bags and dry 'em at the gas stove.  It will take me at
+least an hour, which will just give me time to finish the last volume
+of Kinglake."
+
+Long before he was ready to go, however, I was waiting in the hall,
+clothed indeed, but not in a mind which I care to recall.  Once or
+twice I peered into the dining-room where Raffles sat before the stove,
+without letting him hear me.  He, too, was ready for the street at a
+moment's notice; but a steam ascended from his left leg, as he sat
+immersed in his red volume.  Into the study I never went again; but
+Raffles did, to restore to its proper shelf this and every other book
+he had taken out and so destroy that clew to the manner of man who had
+made himself at home in the house.  On his last visit I heard him whisk
+off the dust-sheet; then he waited a minute; and when he came out it
+was to lead the way into the open air as though the accursed house
+belonged to him.
+
+"We shall be seen," I whispered at his heels.  "Raffles, Raffles,
+there's a policeman at the corner!"
+
+"I know him intimately," replied Raffles, turning, however, the other
+way.  "He accosted me on Monday, when I explained that I was an old
+soldier of the colonel's regiment, who came in every few days to air
+the place and send on any odd letters.  You see, I have always carried
+one or two about me, redirected to that address in Switzerland, and
+when I showed them to him it was all right.  But after that it was no
+use listening at the letter-box for a clear coast, was it?"
+
+I did not answer; there was too much to exasperate in these prodigies
+of cunning which he could never trouble to tell me at the time.  And I
+knew why he had kept his latest feats to himself: unwilling to trust me
+outside the house, he had systematically exaggerated the dangers of his
+own walks abroad; and when to these injuries he added the insult of a
+patronizing compliment on my late disguise, I again made no reply.
+
+"What's the good of your coming with me he asked, when I had followed
+him across the main stream of Notting Hill.
+
+"We may as well sink or swim together," I answered sullenly.
+
+"Yes?  Well, I'm going to swim into the provinces, have a shave on the
+way, buy a new kit piecemeal, including a cricket-bag (which I really
+want), and come limping back to the Albany with the same old strain in
+my bowling leg.  I needn't add that I have been playing country-house
+cricket for the last month under an alias; it's the only decent way to
+do it when one's county has need of one.  That's my itinerary, Bunny,
+but I really can't see why you should come with me."
+
+"We may as well swing together!" I growled.
+
+"As you will, my dear fellow," replied Raffles.  "But I begin to dread
+your company on the drop!"
+
+I shall hold my pen on that provincial tour.  Not that I joined Raffles
+in any of the little enterprises with which he beguiled the breaks in
+our journey; our last deed in London was far too great a weight upon my
+soul.  I could see that gallant officer in his chair, see him at every
+hour of the day and night, now with his indomitable eyes meeting mine
+ferociously, now a stark outline underneath a sheet.  The vision
+darkened my day and gave me sleepless nights.  I was with our victim in
+all his agony; my mind would only leave him for that gallows of which
+Raffles had said true things in jest.  No, I could not face so vile a
+death lightly, but I could meet it, somehow, better than I could endure
+a guilty suspense.  In the watches of the second night I made up my
+mind to meet it halfway, that very morning, while still there might be
+time to save the life that we had left in jeopardy.  And I got up early
+to tell Raffles of my resolve.
+
+His room in the hotel where we were staying was littered with clothes
+and luggage new enough for any bridegroom; I lifted the locked
+cricket-bag, and found it heavier than a cricket-bag has any right to
+be.  But in the bed Raffles was sleeping like an infant, his shaven
+self once more.  And when I shook him he awoke with a smile.
+
+"Going to confess, eh, Bunny?  Well, wait a bit; the local police won't
+thank you for knocking them up at this hour.  And I bought a late
+edition which you ought to see; that must be it on the floor. You have
+a look in the stop-press column, Bunny."
+
+I found the place with a sunken heart, and this is what I read:
+
+                 WEST-END OUTRAGE
+
+  Colonel Crutchley, R.E., V.C., has been the victim of a dastardly
+  outrage at his residence, Peter Street, Campden Hill.  Returning
+  unexpectedly to the house, which had been left untenanted during
+  the absence of the family abroad, it was found occupied by two
+  ruffians, who overcame and secured the distinguished officer by
+  the exercise of considerable violence.  When discovered through
+  the intelligence of the Kensington police, the gallant victim was
+  gagged and bound hand and foot, and in an advanced stage of
+  exhaustion.
+
+
+"Thanks to the Kensington police," observed Raffles, as I read the last
+words aloud in my horror.  "They can't have gone when they got my
+letter."
+
+"Your letter?"
+
+"I printed them a line while we were waiting for our train at Euston.
+They must have got it that night, but they can't have paid any
+attention to it until yesterday morning.  And when they do, they take
+all the credit and give me no more than you did, Bunny!"
+
+I looked at the curly head upon the pillow, at the smiling, handsome
+face under the curls.  And at last I understood.
+
+"So all the time you never meant it!"
+
+"Slow murder?  You should have known me better.  A few hours' enforced
+Rest Cure was the worst I wished him."
+
+"'You might have told me, Raffles!"
+
+"That may be, Bunny, but you ought certainly to have trusted me!"
+
+
+
+
+The Criminologists' Club
+
+"But who are they, Raffles, and where's their house?  There's no such
+club on the list in Whitaker."
+
+"The Criminologists, my dear Bunny, are too few for a local habitation,
+and too select to tell their name in Gath.  They are merely so many
+solemn students of contemporary crime, who meet and dine periodically
+at each other's clubs or houses."
+
+"But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them?"
+
+And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hotfoot to the
+Albany: it was from the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G.; and it
+requested the honor of my company at dinner, at Thornaby House, Park
+Lane, to meet the members of the Criminologists' Club.  That in itself
+was a disturbing compliment: judge then of my dismay on learning that
+Raffles had been invited too!
+
+"They have got it into their heads," said he, "that the gladiatorial
+element is the curse of most modern sport.  They tremble especially for
+the professional gladiator.  And they want to know whether my
+experience tallies with their theory."
+
+"So they say!"
+
+"They quote the case of a league player, sus per coll., and any number
+of suicides.  It really is rather in my public line."
+
+"In yours, if you like, but not in mine," said I.  "No, Raffles,
+they've got their eye on us both, and mean to put us under the
+microscope, or they never would have pitched on me."
+
+Raffles smiled on my perturbation.
+
+"I almost wish you were right, Bunny!  It would be even better fun than
+I mean to make it as it is.  But it may console you to hear that it was
+I who gave them your name.  I told them you were a far keener
+criminologist than myself.  I am delighted to hear they have taken my
+hint, and that we are to meet at their gruesome board."
+
+"If I accept," said I, with the austerity he deserved.
+
+"If you don't," rejoined Raffles, "you will miss some sport after both
+our hearts.  Think of it, Bunny!  These fellows meet to wallow in all
+the latest crimes; we wallow with them as though we knew more about it
+than themselves.  Perhaps we don't, for few criminologists have a soul
+above murder; and I quite expect to have the privilege of lifting the
+discussion into our own higher walk.  They shall give their morbid
+minds to the fine art of burgling, for a change; and while we're about
+it, Bunny, we may as well extract their opinion of our noble selves.
+As authors, as collaborators, we will sit with the flower of our
+critics, and find our own level in the expert eye. It will be a piquant
+experience, if not an invaluable one; if we are sailing too near the
+wind, we are sure to hear about it, and can trim our yards accordingly.
+Moreover, we shall get a very good dinner into the bargain, or our
+noble host will belie a European reputation."
+
+"Do you know him?" I asked.
+
+"We have a pavilion acquaintance, when it suits my lord," replied
+Raffles, chuckling.  "But I know all about him.  He was president one
+year of the M.C.C., and we never had a better.  He knows the game,
+though I believe he never played cricket in his life.  But then he
+knows most things, and has never done any of them.  He has never even
+married, and never opened his lips in the House of Lords. Yet they say
+there is no better brain in the August assembly, and he certainly made
+us a wonderful speech last time the Australians were over.  He has read
+everything and (to his credit in these days) never written a line.  All
+round he is a whale for theory and a sprat for practice--but he looks
+quite capable of both at crime!"
+
+I now longed to behold this remarkable peer, in the flesh, and with the
+greater curiosity since another of the things which he evidently never
+did was to have his photograph published for the benefit of the vulgar.
+I told Raffles that I would dine with him at Lord Thornaby's, and he
+nodded as though I had not hesitated for a moment. I see now how deftly
+he had disposed of my reluctance.  No doubt he had thought it all out
+before: his little speeches look sufficiently premeditated as I set
+them down at the dictates of an excellent memory.  Let it, however, be
+borne in mind that Raffles did not talk exactly like a Raffles book: he
+said the things, but he did not say them in so many consecutive
+breaths.  They were punctuated by puffs from his eternal cigarette, and
+the punctuation was often in the nature of a line of asterisks, while
+he took a silent turn up and down his room.  Nor was he ever more
+deliberate than when he seemed most nonchalant and spontaneous.  I came
+to see it in the end.  But these were early days, in which he was more
+plausible to me than I can hope to render him to another human being.
+
+And I saw a good deal of Raffles just then; it was, in fact, the one
+period at which I can remember his coming round to see me more
+frequently than I went round to him.  Of course he would come at his
+own odd hours, often just as one was dressing to go out and dine, and I
+can even remember finding him there when I returned, for I had long
+since given him a key of the flat.  It was the inhospitable month of
+February, and I can recall more than one cosy evening when we discussed
+anything and everything but our own malpractices; indeed, there were
+none to discuss just then.  Raffles, on the contrary, was showing
+himself with some industry in the most respectable society, and by his
+advice I used the club more than ever.
+
+"There is nothing like it at this time of year," said he.  "In the
+summer I have my cricket to provide me with decent employment in the
+sight of men.  Keep yourself before the public from morning to night,
+and they'll never think of you in the still small hours."
+
+Our behavior, in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose
+without misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other
+Criminologists and guests.  My chief anxiety was to arrive under the
+aegis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up on his
+way; but at five minutes to the appointed hour there was no sign of
+Raffles or his cab.  We were bidden at a quarter to eight for eight
+o'clock, so after all I had to hurry off alone.
+
+Fortunately, Thornaby House is almost at the end of my street that was;
+and it seemed to me another fortunate circumstance that the house stood
+back, as it did and does, in its own August courtyard; for, as I was
+about to knock, a hansom came twinkling in behind me, and I drew back,
+hoping it was Raffles at the last moment.  It was not, and I knew it in
+time to melt from the porch, and wait yet another minute in the
+shadows, since others were as late as I.  And out jumped these others,
+chattering in stage whispers as they paid their cab.
+
+"Thornaby has a bet about it with Freddy Vereker, who can't come, I
+hear.  Of course, it won t be lost or won to-night.  But the dear man
+thinks he's been invited as a cricketer!"
+
+"I don't believe he's the other thing," said a voice as brusque as the
+first was bland.  "I believe it's all bunkum.  I wish I didn't, but I
+do!"
+
+"I think you'll find it's more than that," rejoined the other, as the
+doors opened and swallowed the pair.
+
+I flung out limp hands and smote the air.  Raffles bidden to what he
+had well called this "gruesome board," not as a cricketer but, clearly,
+as a suspected criminal!  Raffles wrong all the time, and I right for
+once in my original apprehension!  And still no Raffles in sight--no
+Raffles to warn--no Raffles, and the clocks striking eight!
+
+Well may I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that
+the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and
+that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of
+intellectual sensation.  On the other hand, I was never more alive to
+the purely objective impressions of any hour of my existence, and of
+them the memory is startling to this day.  I hear my mad knock at the
+double doors; they fly open in the middle, and it is like some
+sumptuous and solemn rite.  A long slice of silken-legged lackey is
+seen on either hand; a very prelate of a butler bows a benediction from
+the sanctuary steps.  I breathe more freely when I reach a book-lined
+library where a mere handful of men do not overflow the Persian rug
+before the fire.  One of them is Raffles, who is talking to a large man
+with the brow of a demi-god and the eyes and jowl of a degenerate
+bulldog.  And this is our noble host.
+
+Lord Thornaby stared at me with inscrutable stolidity as we shook
+hands, and at once handed me over to a tall, ungainly man whom he
+addressed as Ernest, but whose surname I never learned.  Ernest in turn
+introduced me, with a shy and clumsy courtesy, to the two remaining
+guests.  They were the pair who had driven up in the hansom; one turned
+out to be Kingsmill, Q.C.; the other I knew at a glance from his
+photographs as Parrington, the backwoods novelist. They were admirable
+foils to each other, the barrister being plump and dapper, with a
+Napoleonic cast of countenance, and the author one of the shaggiest
+dogs I have ever seen in evening-clothes. Neither took much stock of
+me, but both had an eye on Raffles as I exchanged a few words with each
+in turn.  Dinner, however, was immediately announced, and the six of us
+had soon taken our places round a brilliant little table stranded in a
+great dark room.
+
+I had not been prepared for so small a party, and at first I felt
+relieved.  If the worst came to the worst, I was fool enough to say in
+my heart, they were but two to one.  But I was soon sighing for that
+safety which the adage associates with numbers.  We were far too few
+for the confidential duologue with one's neighbor in which I, at least,
+would have taken refuge from the perils of a general conversation.  And
+the general conversation soon resolved itself into an attack, so subtly
+concerted and so artistically delivered that I could not conceive how
+Raffles should ever know it for an attack, and that against himself, or
+how to warn him of his peril. But to this day I am not convinced that I
+also was honored by the suspicions of the club; it may have been so,
+and they may have ignored me for the bigger game.
+
+It was Lord Thornaby himself who fired the first shot, over the very
+sherry.  He had Raffles on his right hand, and the backwoodsman of
+letters on his left.  Raffles was hemmed in by the law on his right,
+while I sat between Parrington and Ernest, who took the foot of the
+table, and seemed a sort of feudatory cadet of the noble house.  But it
+was the motley lot of us that my lord addressed, as he sat back
+blinking his baggy eyes.
+
+"Mr. Raffles," said he, "has been telling me about that poor fellow who
+suffered the extreme penalty last March.  A great end, gentlemen, a
+great end!  It is true that he had been unfortunate enough to strike a
+jugular vein, but his own end should take its place among the most
+glorious traditions of the gallows.  You tell them Mr. Raffles: it will
+be as new to my friends as it is to me."
+
+"I tell the tale as I heard it last time I played at Trent Bridge; it
+was never in the papers, I believe," said Raffles gravely.  "You may
+remember the tremendous excitement over the Test Matches out in
+Australia at the time: it seems that the result of the crucial game was
+expected on the condemned man's last day on earth, and he couldn't rest
+until he knew it.  We pulled it off, if you recollect, and he said it
+would make him swing happy."
+
+"Tell 'em what else he said!" cried Lord Thornaby, rubbing his podgy
+hands.
+
+"The chaplain remonstrated with him on his excitement over a game at
+such a time, and the convict is said to have replied: 'Why, it's the
+first thing they'll ask me at the other end of the drop!'"
+
+The story was new even to me, but I had no time to appreciate its
+points.  My concern was to watch its effect upon the other members of
+the party.  Ernest, on my left, doubled up with laughter, and tittered
+and shook for several minutes.  My other neighbor, more impressionable
+by temperament, winced first, and then worked himself into a state of
+enthusiasm which culminated in an assault upon his shirt-cuff with a
+joiner's pencil.  Kingsmill, Q.C., beaming tranquilly on Raffles,
+seemed the one least impressed, until he spoke.
+
+"I am glad to hear that," he remarked in a high bland voice.  "I
+thought that man would die game."
+
+"Did you know anything about him, then?" inquired Lord Thornaby.
+
+"I led for the Crown," replied the barrister, with a twinkle.  "You
+might almost say that I measured the poor man's neck."
+
+The point must have been quite unpremeditated; it was not the less
+effective for that.  Lord Thornaby looked askance at the callous silk.
+It was some moments before Ernest tittered and Parrington felt for his
+pencil; and in the interim I had made short work of my hock, though it
+was Johannisberger.  As for Raffles, one had but to see his horror to
+feel how completely he was off his guard.
+
+"In itself, I have heard, it was not a sympathetic case?" was the
+remark with which he broke the general silence.
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"That must have been a comfort to you," said Raffles dryly.
+
+"It would have been to me," vowed our author, while the barrister
+merely smiled.  "I should have been very sorry to have had a hand in
+hanging Peckham and Solomons the other day."
+
+"Why Peckham and Solomons?" inquired my lord.
+
+"They never meant to kill that old lady."
+
+"But they strangled her in her bed with her own pillow-case!"
+
+"I don't care," said the uncouth scribe.  "They didn't break in for
+that.  They never thought of scragging her.  The foolish old person
+would make a noise, and one of them tied too tight.  I call it jolly
+bad luck on them."
+
+"On quiet, harmless, well-behaved thieves," added Lord Thornaby, "in
+the unobtrusive exercise of their humble avocation."
+
+And, as he turned to Raffles with his puffy smile, I knew that we had
+reached that part of the programme which had undergone rehearsal: it
+had been perfectly timed to arrive with the champagne, and I was not
+afraid to signify my appreciation of that small mercy.  But Raffles
+laughed so quickly at his lordship's humor, and yet with such a natural
+restraint, as to leave no doubt that he had taken kindly to my own old
+part, and was playing the innocent inimitably in his turn, by reason of
+his very innocence.  It was a poetic judgment on old Raffles, and in my
+momentary enjoyment of the novel situation I was able to enjoy some of
+the good things of this rich man's table. The saddle of mutton more
+than justified its place in the menu; but it had not spoiled me for my
+wing of pheasant, and I was even looking forward to a sweet, when a
+further remark from the literary light recalled me from the table to
+its talk.
+
+"But, I suppose," said he to Kingsmill, "it's many a burglar you've
+restored to his friends and his relations'?"
+
+"Let us say many a poor fellow who has been charged with burglary,"
+replied the cheery Q.C.  "It's not quite the same thing, you know, nor
+is 'many' the most accurate word.  I never touch criminal work in town."
+
+"It's the only kind I should care about," said the novelist, eating
+jelly with a spoon.
+
+"I quite agree with you," our host chimed in.  "And of all the
+criminals one might be called upon to defend, give me the enterprising
+burglar."
+
+"It must be the breeziest branch of the business," remarked Raffles,
+while I held my breath.
+
+But his touch was as light as gossamer, and his artless manner a
+triumph of even his incomparable art.  Raffles was alive to the danger
+at last.  I saw him refuse more champagne, even as I drained my glass
+again.  But it was not the same danger to us both.  Raffles had no
+reason to feel surprise or alarm at such a turn in a conversation
+frankly devoted to criminology; it must have been as inevitable to him
+as it was sinister to me, with my fortuitous knowledge of the
+suspicions that were entertained.  And there was little to put him on
+his guard in the touch of his adversaries, which was only less light
+than his own.
+
+"I am not very fond of Mr. Sikes," announced the barrister, like a man
+who had got his cue.
+
+"But he was prehistoric," rejoined my lord.  "A lot of blood has flowed
+under the razor since the days of Sweet William."
+
+"True; we have had Peace," said Parrington, and launched out into such
+glowing details of that criminal's last moments that I began to hope
+the diversion might prove permanent.  But Lord Thornaby was not to be
+denied.
+
+"William and Charles are both dead monarchs," said he.  "The reigning
+king in their department is the fellow who gutted poor Danby's place in
+Bond Street."
+
+There was a guilty silence on the part of the three conspirators--for I
+had long since persuaded myself that Ernest was not in their
+secret--and then my blood froze.
+
+"I know him well," said Raffles, looking up.
+
+Lord Thornaby stared at him in consternation.  The smile on the
+Napoleonic countenance of the barrister looked forced and frozen for
+the first time during the evening.  Our author, who was nibbling cheese
+from a knife, left a bead of blood upon his beard.  The futile Ernest
+alone met the occasion with a hearty titter.
+
+"What!" cried my lord.  "You know the thief?"
+
+"I wish I did," rejoined Raffles, chuckling.  "No, Lord Thornaby, I
+only meant the jeweller, Danby.  I go to him when I want a wedding
+present."
+
+I heard three deep breaths drawn as one before I drew my own.
+
+"Rather a coincidence," observed our host dryly, "for I believe you
+also know the Milchester people, where Lady Melrose had her necklace
+stolen a few months afterward."
+
+"I was staying there at the time," said Raffles eagerly.  No snob was
+ever quicker to boast of basking in the smile of the great.
+
+"We believe it to be the same man," said Lord Thornaby, speaking
+apparently for the Criminologists' Club, and with much less severity of
+voice.
+
+"I only wish I could come across him," continued Raffles heartily.
+"He's a criminal much more to my mind than your murderers who swear on
+the drop or talk cricket in the condemned cell!"
+
+"He might be in the house now," said Lord Thornaby, looking Raffles in
+the face.  But his manner was that of an actor in an unconvincing part
+and a mood to play it gamely to the bitter end; and he seemed
+embittered, as even a rich man may be in the moment of losing a bet.
+
+"What a joke if he were!" cried the Wild West writer.
+
+"Absit omen!" murmured Raffles, in better taste.
+
+"Still, I think you'll find it's a favorite time," argued Kingsmill,
+Q.C.  "And it would be quite in keeping with the character of this man,
+so far as it is known, to pay a little visit to the president of the
+Criminologists' Club, and to choose the evening on which he happens to
+be entertaining the other members."
+
+There was more conviction in this sally than in that of our noble host;
+but this I attributed to the trained and skilled dissimulation of the
+bar.  Lord Thornaby, however, was not to be amused by the elaboration
+of his own idea, and it was with some asperity that he called upon the
+butler, now solemnly superintending the removal of the cloth.
+
+"Leggett!  Just send up-stairs to see if all the doors are open and the
+rooms in proper order.  That's an awful idea of yours, Kingsmill, or of
+mine!" added my lord, recovering the courtesy of his order by an effort
+that I could follow.  "We should look fools.  I don't know which of us
+it was, by the way, who seduced the rest from the main stream of blood
+into this burglarious backwater.  Are you familiar with De Quincey's
+masterpiece on 'Murder as a Fine Art,' Mr. Raffles?"
+
+"I believe I once read it," replied Raffles doubtfully.
+
+"You must read it again," pursued the earl.  "It is the last word on a
+great subject; all we can hope to add is some baleful illustration or
+bloodstained footnote, not unworthy of De Quincey's text.  Well,
+Leggett?"
+
+The venerable butler stood wheezing at his elbow.  I had not hitherto
+observed that the man was an asthmatic.
+
+"I beg your lordship's pardon, but I think your lordship must have
+forgotten."
+
+The voice came in rude gasps, but words of reproach could scarcely have
+achieved a finer delicacy.
+
+"Forgotten, Leggett!  Forgotten what, may I ask?"
+
+"Locking your lordship's dressing-room door behind your lordship, my
+lord," stuttered the unfortunate Leggett, in the short spurts of a
+winded man, a few stertorous syllables at a time.  "Been up myself, my
+lord.  Bedroom door--dressing-room door--both locked inside!"
+
+But by this time the noble master was in worse case than the man. His
+fine forehead was a tangle of livid cords; his baggy jowl filled out
+like a balloon.  In another second he had abandoned his place as our
+host and fled the room; and in yet another we had forgotten ours as his
+guests and rushed headlong at his heels.
+
+Raffles was as excited as any of us now: he outstripped us all.  The
+cherubic little lawyer and I had a fine race for the last place but
+one, which I secured, while the panting butler and his satellites
+brought up a respectful rear.  It was our unconventional author,
+however, who was the first to volunteer his assistance and advice.
+
+"No use pushing, Thornaby!" cried he.  "If it's been done with a wedge
+and gimlet, you may smash the door, but you'll never force it. Is there
+a ladder in the place?"
+
+"There's a rope-ladder somewhere, in case of fire, I believe," said my
+lord vaguely, as he rolled a critical eye over our faces.  "Where is it
+kept, Leggett?"
+
+"'William will fetch it, my lord."
+
+And a pair of noble calves went flashing to the upper regions.
+
+"What's the good of bringing it down," cried Parrington, who had thrown
+back to the wilds in his excitement.  "Let him hang it out of the
+window above your own, and let me climb down and do the rest!  I'll
+undertake to have one or other of these doors open in two twos!"
+
+The fastened doors were at right angles on the landing which we filled
+between us.  Lord Thornaby smiled grimly on the rest of us, when he had
+nodded and dismissed the author like a hound from the leash.
+
+"It's a good thing we know something about our friend Parrington," said
+my lord.  "He takes more kindly to all this than I do, I can tell you."
+
+"It's grist to his mill," said Raffles charitably.
+
+"Exactly!  We shall have the whole thing in his next book."
+
+"I hope to have it at the Old Bailey first," remarked Kingsmill, Q.C.
+
+"Refreshing to find a man of letters such a man of action too!"
+
+It was Raffles who said this, and the remark seemed rather trite for
+him, but in the tone there was a something that just caught my private
+ear.  And for once I understood: the officious attitude of Parrington,
+without being seriously suspicious in itself, was admirably calculated
+to put a previously suspected person in a grateful shade.  This
+literary adventurer had elbowed Raffles out of the limelight, and
+gratitude for the service was what I had detected in Raffles's voice.
+No need to say how grateful I felt myself.  But my gratitude was shot
+with flashes of unwonted insight. Parrington was one of those who
+suspected Raffles, or, at all events, one who was in the secret of
+those suspicions.  What if he had traded on the suspect's presence in
+the house?  What if he were a deep villain himself, and the villain of
+this particular piece? I had made up my mind about him, and that in a
+tithe of the time I take to make it up as a rule, when we heard my man
+in the dressing-room.  He greeted us with an impudent shout; in a few
+moments the door was open, and there stood Parrington, flushed and
+dishevelled, with a gimlet in one hand and a wedge in the other.
+
+Within was a scene of eloquent disorder.  Drawers had been pulled out,
+and now stood on end, their contents heaped upon the carpet. Wardrobe
+doors stood open; empty stud-cases strewed the floor; a clock, tied up
+in a towel, had been tossed into a chair at the last moment.  But a
+long tin lid protruded from an open cupboard in one corner.  And one
+had only to see Lord Thornaby's wry face behind the lid to guess that
+it was bent over a somewhat empty tin trunk.
+
+"What a rum lot to steal!" said he, with a twitch of humor at the
+corners of his canine mouth.  "My peer's robes, with coronet complete!"
+
+We rallied round him in a seemly silence.  I thought our scribe would
+put in his word.  But even he either feigned or felt a proper awe.
+
+"You may say it was a rum place to keep 'em," continued Lord Thornaby.
+"But where would you gentlemen stable your white elephants?  And these
+were elephants as white as snow; by Jove, I'll job them for the future!"
+
+And he made merrier over his loss than any of us could have imagined
+the minute before; but the reason dawned on me a little later, when we
+all trooped down-stairs, leaving the police in possession of the
+theatre of crime.  Lord Thornaby linked arms with Raffles as he led the
+way.  His step was lighter, his gayety no longer sardonic; his very
+looks had improved.  And I divined the load that had been lifted from
+the hospitable heart of our host.
+
+"I only wish," said he, "that this brought us any nearer to the
+identity of the gentleman we were discussing at dinner, for, of course,
+we owe it to all our instincts to assume that it was he."
+
+"I wonder!" said old Raffles, with a foolhardy glance at me.
+
+"But I'm sure of it, my dear sir," cried my lord.  "The audacity is his
+and his alone.  I look no further than the fact of his honoring me on
+the one night of the year when I endeavor to entertain my brother
+Criminologists.  That's no coincidence, sir, but a deliberate irony,
+which would have occurred to no other criminal mind in England."
+
+"You may be right," Raffles had the sense to say this time, though I
+flattered myself it was my face that made him.
+
+"What is still more certain," resumed our host, "is that no other
+criminal in the world would have crowned so delicious a conception with
+so perfect an achievement.  I feel sure the inspector will agree with
+us."
+
+The policeman in command had knocked and been admitted to the library
+as Lord Thornaby spoke.
+
+"I didn't hear what you said, my lord."
+
+"Merely that the perpetrator of this amusing outrage can be no other
+than the swell mobsman who relieved Lady Melrose of her necklace and
+poor Danby of half his stock a year or two ago."
+
+"I believe your lordship has hit the nail on the head."
+
+"The man who took the Thimblely diamonds and returned them to Lord
+Thimblely, you know."
+
+"Perhaps he'll treat your lordship the same."
+
+"Not he!  I don't mean to cry over my spilt milk.  I only wish the
+fellow joy of all he had time to take.  Anything fresh up-stain by the
+way?"
+
+"Yes, my lord: the robbery took place between a quarter past eight and
+the half-hour."
+
+"How on earth do you know?"
+
+"The clock that was tied up in the towel had stopped at twenty past."
+
+"Have you interviewed my man?"
+
+"I have, my lord.  He was in your lordship's room until close on the
+quarter, and all was as it should be when he left it."
+
+"Then do you suppose the burglar was in hiding in the house?"
+
+"It's impossible to say, my lord.  He's not in the house now, for he
+could only be in your lordship's bedroom or dressing-room, and we have
+searched every inch of both."
+
+Lord Thornaby turned to us when the inspector had retreated, caressing
+his peaked cap.
+
+"I told him to clear up these points first," he explained, jerking his
+head toward the door.  "I had reason to think my man had been
+neglecting his duties up there.  I am glad to find myself mistaken."
+
+I ought to have been no less glad to see my own mistake.  My suspicions
+of our officious author were thus proved to have been as wild as
+himself.  I owed the man no grudge, and yet in my human heart I felt
+vaguely disappointed.  My theory had gained color from his behavior
+ever since he had admitted us to the dressing-room; it had changed all
+at once from the familiar to the morose; and only now was I just enough
+to remember that Lord Thornaby, having tolerated those familiarities as
+long as they were connected with useful service, had administered a
+relentless snub the moment that service had been well and truly
+performed.
+
+But if Parrington was exonerated in my mind, so also was Raffles
+reinstated in the regard of those who had entertained a far graver and
+more dangerous hypothesis.  It was a miracle of good luck, a
+coincidence among coincidences, which had white-washed him in their
+sight at the very moment when they were straining the expert eye to
+sift him through and through.  But the miracle had been performed, and
+its effect was visible in every face and audible in every voice. I
+except Ernest, who could never have been in the secret; moreover, that
+gay Criminologist had been palpably shaken by his first little
+experience of crime.  But the other three vied among themselves to do
+honor where they had done injustice.  I heard Kingsmill, Q.C., telling
+Raffles the best time to catch him at chambers, and promising a seat in
+court for any trial he might ever like to hear. Parrington spoke of a
+presentation set of his books, and in doing homage to Raffles made his
+peace with our host.  As for Lord Thornaby, I did overhear the name of
+the Athenaeum Club, a reference to his friends on the committee, and a
+whisper (as I thought) of Rule II.
+
+The police were still in possession when we went our several ways, and
+it was all that I could do to drag Raffles up to my rooms, though, as I
+have said, they were just round the corner.  He consented at last as a
+lesser evil than talking of the burglary in the street; and in my rooms
+I told him of his late danger and my own dilemma, of the few words I
+had overheard in the beginning, of the thin ice on which he had cut
+fancy figures without a crack.  It was all very well for him.  He had
+never realized his peril.  But let him think of me--listening,
+watching, yet unable to lift a finger--unable to say one warning word.
+
+Raffles suffered me to finish, but a weary sigh followed the last
+symmetrical whiff of a Sullivan which he flung into my fire before he
+spoke.
+
+"No, I won't have another, thank you.  I'm going to talk to you, Bunny.
+Do you really suppose I didn't see through these wiseacres from the
+first?"
+
+I flatly refused to believe he had done so before that evening.  Why
+had he never mentioned his idea to me?  It had been quite the other
+way, as I indignantly reminded Raffles.  Did he mean me to believe he
+was the man to thrust his head into the lion's mouth for fun? And what
+point would there be in dragging me there to see the fun?
+
+"I might have wanted you, Bunny.  I very nearly did."
+
+"For my face?"
+
+"It has been my fortune before to-night, Bunny.  It has also given me
+more confidence than you are likely to believe at this time of day.
+You stimulate me more than you think."
+
+"Your gallery and your prompter's box in one?"
+
+"Capital, Bunny!  But it was no joking matter with me either, my dear
+fellow; it was touch-and-go at the time.  I might have called on you at
+any moment, and it was something to know I should not have called in
+vain."
+
+"But what to do, Raffles?"
+
+"Fight our way out and bolt!" he answered, with a mouth that meant it,
+and a fine gay glitter of the eyes.
+
+I shot out of my chair.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me you had a hand in the job?"
+
+"I had the only hand in it, my dear Bunny."
+
+"Nonsense!  You were sitting at table at the time.  No, but you may
+have taken some other fellow into the show.  I always thought you
+would!"
+
+"One's quite enough, Bunny," said Raffles dryly; he leaned back in his
+chair and took out another cigarette.  And I accepted of yet another
+from his case; for it was no use losing one's temper with Raffles; and
+his incredible statement was not, after all, to be ignored.
+
+"Of course," I went on, "if you really had brought off this thing on
+your own, I should be the last to criticise your means of reaching such
+an end.  You have not only scored off a far superior force, which had
+laid itself out to score off you, but you have put them in the wrong
+about you, and they'll eat out of your hand for the rest of their days.
+But don't ask me to believe that you've done all this alone!  By
+George," I cried, in a sudden wave of enthusiasm, "I don't care how
+you've done it or who has helped you. It's the biggest thing you ever
+did in your life!"
+
+And certainly I had never seen Raffles look more radiant, or better
+pleased with the world and himself, or nearer that elation which he
+usually left to me.
+
+"Then you shall hear all about it, Bunny, if you'll do what I ask you."
+
+"Ask away, old chap, and the thing's done."
+
+"Switch off the electric lights."
+
+"All of them?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"There, then."
+
+"Now go to the back window and up with the blind."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm coming to you.  Splendid!  I never had a look so late as this.
+It's the only window left alight in the house!"
+
+His cheek against the pane, he was pointing slightly downward and very
+much aslant through a long lane of mews to a little square light like a
+yellow tile at the end.  But I had opened the window and leaned out
+before I saw it for myself.
+
+"You don't mean to say that's Thornaby House?"
+
+I was not familiar with the view from my back windows.
+
+"Of course I do, you rabbit!  Have a look through your own race-glass.
+It has been the most useful thing of all."
+
+But before I had the glass in focus more scales had fallen from my
+eyes; and now I knew why I had seen so much of Raffles these last few
+weeks, and why he had always come between seven and eight o'clock in
+the evening, and waited at this very window, with these very glasses at
+his eyes.  I saw through them sharply now.  The one lighted window
+pointed out by Raffles came tumbling into the dark circle of my vision.
+I could not see into the actual room, but the shadows of those within
+were quite distinct on the lowered blind.  I even thought a black
+thread still dangled against the square of light.  It was, it must be,
+the window to which the intrepid Parrington had descended from the one
+above.
+
+"Exactly!" said Raffles in answer to my exclamation.  "And that's the
+window I have been watching these last few weeks.  By daylight you can
+see the whole lot above the ground floor on this side of the house; and
+by good luck one of them is the room in which the master of the house
+arrays himself in all his nightly glory.  It was easily spotted by
+watching at the right time.  I saw him shaved one morning before you
+were up!  In the evening his valet stays behind to put things straight;
+and that has been the very mischief. In the end I had to find out
+something about the man, and wire to him from his girl to meet her
+outside at eight o'clock.  Of course he pretends he was at his post at
+the time: that I foresaw, and did the poor fellow's work before my own.
+I folded and put away every garment before I permitted myself to rag
+the room."
+
+"I wonder you had time!"
+
+"It took me one more minute, and it put the clock on exactly fifteen.
+By the way, I did that literally, of course, in the case of the clock
+they found.  It's an old dodge, to stop a clock and alter the time; but
+you must admit that it looked as though one had wrapped it up all ready
+to cart away.  There was thus any amount of prima-fade evidence of the
+robbery having taken place when we were all at table.  As a matter of
+fact, Lord Thornaby left his dressing-room one minute, his valet
+followed him the minute after, and I entered the minute after that."
+
+"Through the window?"
+
+"To be sure.  I was waiting below in the garden.  You have to pay for
+your garden in town, in more ways than one.  You know the wall, of
+course, and that jolly old postern?  The lock was beneath contempt."
+
+"But what about the window?  It's on the first floor, isn't it?"
+
+Raffles took up the cane which he had laid down with his overcoat. It
+was a stout bamboo with a polished ferule.  He unscrewed the ferule,
+and shook out of the cane a diminishing series of smaller canes,
+exactly like a child's fishing-rod, which I afterward found to have
+been their former state.  A double hook of steel was now produced and
+quickly attached to the tip of the top joint; then Raffles undid three
+buttons of his waistcoat; and lapped round and round his waist was the
+finest of Manila ropes, with the neatest of foot-loops at regular
+intervals.
+
+"Is it necessary to go any further?" asked Raffles when he had unwound
+the rope.  "This end is made fast to that end of the hook, the other
+half of the hook fits over anything that comes its way, and you leave
+your rod dangling while you swarm up your line.  Of course, you must
+know what you've got to hook on to; but a man who has had a porcelain
+bath fixed in his dressing-room is the man for me.  The pipes were all
+outside, and fixed to the wall in just the right place.  You see I had
+made a reconnaissance by day in addition to many by night; it would
+hardly have been worth while constructing my ladder on chance."
+
+"So you made it on purpose!"
+
+"My dear Bunny," said Raffles, as he wound the hemp girdle round his
+waist once more, "I never did care for ladder work, but I always said
+that if I ever used a ladder it should be the best of its kind yet
+invented.  This one may come in useful again."
+
+"But how long did the whole thing take you?"
+
+"From mother earth, to mother earth?  About five minutes, to-night, and
+one of those was spent in doing another man's work."
+
+"What!" I cried.  "You mean to tell me you climbed up and down, in and
+out, and broke into that cupboard and that big tin box, and wedged up
+the doors and cleared out with a peer's robes and all the rest of it in
+five minutes?"
+
+"Of course I don't, and of course I didn't."
+
+"Then what do you mean, and what did you do?"
+
+"Made two bites at the cherry, Bunny!  I had a dress rehearsal in the
+dead of last night, and it was then I took the swag.  Our noble friend
+was snoring next door all the time, but the effort may still stand high
+among my small exploits, for I not only took all I wanted, but left the
+whole place exactly as I found it, and shut things after me like a good
+little boy.  All that took a good deal longer; to-night I had simply to
+rag the room a bit, sweep up some studs and links, and leave ample
+evidence of having boned those rotten robes to-night.  That, if you
+come to think of it, was what you writing chaps would call the
+quintessential Q.E.F.  I have not only shown these dear Criminologists
+that I couldn't possibly have done this trick, but that there's some
+other fellow who could and did, and whom they've been perfect asses to
+confuse with me."
+
+You may figure me as gazing on Raffles all this time in mute and rapt
+amazement.  But I had long been past that pitch.  If he had told me now
+that he had broken into the Bank of England, or the Tower, I should not
+have disbelieved him for a moment.  I was prepared to go home with him
+to the Albany and find the regalia under his bed.  And I took down my
+overcoat as he put on his.  But Raffles would not hear of my
+accompanying him that night.
+
+"No, my dear Bunny, I am short of sleep and fed up with excitement. You
+mayn't believe it--you may look upon me as a plaster devil--but those
+five minutes you wot of were rather too crowded even for my taste.  The
+dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight, and I don't mind telling
+you now that I counted on twice as long as I had. But no one came until
+twelve minutes to, and so our host took his time.  I didn't want to be
+the last to arrive, and I was in the drawing-room five minutes before
+the hour.  But it was a quicker thing than I care about, when all is
+said."
+
+And his last word on the matter, as he nodded and went his way, may
+well be mine; for one need be no criminologist, much less a member of
+the Criminologists' Club, to remember what Raffles did with the robes
+and coronet of the Right Hon. the Earl of Thornaby, K.G.  He did with
+them exactly what he might have been expected to do by the gentlemen
+with whom he had foregathered; and he did it in a manner so
+characteristic of himself as surely to remove from their minds the last
+aura of the idea that he and himself were the same person. Carter
+Paterson was out of the question, and any labelling or addressing to be
+avoided on obvious grounds.  But Raffles stabled the white elephants in
+the cloak-room at Charing Cross--and sent Lord Thornaby the ticket.
+
+
+
+
+The Field of Phillipi
+
+Nipper Nasmyth had been head of our school when Raffles was captain of
+cricket. I believe he owed his nickname entirely to the popular
+prejudice against a day-boy; and in view of the special reproach which
+the term carried in my time, as also of the fact that his father was
+one of the school trustees, partner in a banking firm of four
+resounding surnames, and manager of the local branch, there can be
+little doubt that the stigma was undeserved.  But we did not think so
+then, for Nasmyth was unpopular with high and low, and appeared to
+glory in the fact.  A swollen conscience caused him to see and hear
+even more than was warranted by his position, and his uncompromising
+nature compelled him to act on whatsoever he heard or saw: a savage
+custodian of public morals, he had in addition a perverse enthusiasm
+for lost causes, loved a minority for its own sake, and untenable
+tenets for theirs.  Such, at all events, was my impression of Nipper
+Nasmyth, after my first term, which was also his last I had never
+spoken to him, but I had heard him speak with extraordinary force and
+fervor in the school debates.  I carried a clear picture of his unkempt
+hair, his unbrushed coat, his dominant spectacles, his dogmatic jaw.
+And it was I who knew the combination at a glance, after years and
+years, when the fateful whim seized Raffles to play once more in the
+Old Boys' Match, and his will took me down with him to participate in
+the milder festivities of Founder's Day.
+
+It was, however, no ordinary occasion.  The bicentenary loomed but a
+year ahead, and a movement was on foot to mark the epoch with an
+adequate statue of our pious founder.  A special meeting was to be held
+at the school-house, and Raffles had been specially invited by the new
+head master, a man of his own standing, who had been in the eleven with
+him up at Cambridge.  Raffles had not been near the old place for
+years; but I had never gone down since the day I left; and I will not
+dwell on the emotions which the once familiar journey awakened in my
+unworthy bosom.  Paddington was alive with Old Boys of all ages--but
+very few of ours--if not as lively as we used to make it when we all
+landed back for the holidays.  More of us had moustaches and cigarettes
+and "loud" ties.  That was all.  Yet of the throng, though two or three
+looked twice and thrice at Raffles, neither he nor I knew a soul until
+we had to change at the junction near our journey's end, when, as I
+say, it was I who recognized Nipper Nasmyth at sight.
+
+The man was own son of the boy we both remembered.  He had grown a
+ragged beard and a moustache that hung about his face like a neglected
+creeper.  He was stout and bent and older than his years. But he
+spurned the platform with a stamping stride which even I remembered in
+an instant, and which was enough for Raffles before he saw the man's
+face.
+
+"The Nipper it is!" he cried.  "I could swear to that walk in a
+pantomime procession!  See the independence in every step: that's his
+heel on the neck of the oppressor: it's the nonconformist conscience in
+baggy breeches.  I must speak to him, Bunny.  There was a lot of good
+in the old Nipper, though he and I did bar each other."
+
+And in a moment he had accosted the man by the boy's nickname,
+obviously without thinking of an affront which few would have read in
+that hearty open face and hand.
+
+"My name's Nasmyth," snapped the other, standing upright to glare.
+
+"Forgive me," said Raffles undeterred.  "One remembers a nickname and
+forgets all it never used to mean.  Shake hands, my dear fellow! I'm
+Raffles.  It must be fifteen years since we met."
+
+"At least," replied Nasmyth coldly; but he could no longer refuse
+Raffles his hand.  "So you are going down," he sneered, "to this great
+gathering?"  And I stood listening at my distance, as though still in
+the middle fourth.
+
+"Rather!" cried Raffles.  "I'm afraid I have let myself lose touch, but
+I mean to turn over a new leaf.  I suppose that isn't necessary in your
+case, Nasmyth?"
+
+He spoke with an enthusiasm rare indeed in him: it had grown upon
+Raffles in the train; the spirit of his boyhood had come rushing back
+at fifty miles an hour.  He might have been following some honorable
+calling in town; he might have snatched this brief respite from a
+distinguished but exacting career.  I am convinced that it was I alone
+who remembered at that moment the life we were really leading at that
+time.  With me there walked this skeleton through every waking hour
+that was to follow.  I shall endeavor not to refer to it again.  Yet it
+should not be forgotten that my skeleton was always there.
+
+"It certainly is not necessary in my case," replied Nasmyth, still as
+stiff as any poker.  "I happen to be a trustee."
+
+"Of the school?"
+
+"Like my father before me."
+
+"I congratulate you, my dear fellow!" cried the hearty Raffles--a
+younger Raffles than I had ever known in town.
+
+"I don't know that you need," said Nasmyth sourly.
+
+"But it must be a tremendous interest.  And the proof is that you're
+going down to this show, like all the rest of us."
+
+"No, I'm not.  I live there, you see."
+
+And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel upon an
+unresponsive flagstone.
+
+"But you're going to this meeting at the school-house, surely?"
+
+"I don't know.  If I do there may be squalls.  I don't know what you
+think about this precious scheme Raffles, but I..."
+
+The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild
+moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his views.  They were
+narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I had heard him advocate as
+the firebrand of the Debating Society in my first term.  But they were
+stated with all the old vim and venom.  The mind of Nasmyth had not
+broadened with the years, but neither had its natural force abated, nor
+that of his character either.  He spoke with great vigor at the top of
+his voice; soon we had a little crowd about us; but the tall collars
+and the broad smiles of the younger Old Boys did not deter our dowdy
+demagogue.  Why spend money on a man who had been dead two hundred
+years?  What good could it do him or the school?  Besides, he was only
+technically our founder.  He had not founded a great public school.  He
+had founded a little country grammar school which had pottered along
+for a century and a half.  The great public school was the growth of
+the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of piety. Besides, he
+was only nominally pious.  Nasmyth had made researches, and he knew.
+And why throw good money after a bad man?
+
+"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, when the agitator
+paused for breath.  And Nasmyth beamed on us with flashing eyes.
+
+"Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he.  "But we shall see after
+to-morrow night.  I hear it's to be quite an exceptional gathering this
+year; let us hope it may contain a few sane men.  There are none on the
+present staff, and I only know of one among the trustees!"
+
+Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eye met mine.
+
+"I can understand your view," he said.  "I am not sure that I don't
+share it to some extent.  But it seems to me a duty to support a
+general movement like this even if it doesn't take the direction or the
+shape of our own dreams.  I suppose you yourself will give something,
+Nasmyth?"
+
+"Give something?  I?  Not a brass farthing!" cried the implacable
+banker.  "To do so would be to stultify my whole position.  I cordially
+and conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing, and shall use all my
+influence against it.  No, my good sir, I not only don't subscribe
+myself, but I hope to be the means of nipping a good many subscriptions
+in the bud."
+
+I was probably the only one who saw the sudden and yet subtle change in
+Raffles--the hard mouth, the harder eye.  I, at least, might have
+foreseen the sequel then and there.  But his quiet voice betrayed
+nothing, as he inquired whether Nasmyth was going to speak at next
+night's meeting.  Nasmyth said he might, and certainly warned us what
+to expect.  He was still fulminating when our train came in.
+
+"Then we meet again at Philippi," cried Raffles in gay adieu.  "For you
+have been very frank with us all, Nasmyth, and I'll be frank enough in
+my turn to tell you that I've every intention of speaking on the other
+side!"
+
+It happened that Raffles had been asked to speak by his old college
+friend, the new head master.  Yet it was not at the school-house that
+he and I were to stay, but at the house that we had both been in as
+boys.  It also had changed hands: a wing had been added, and the double
+tier of tiny studies made brilliant with electric light. But the quad
+and the fives-courts did not look a day older; the ivy was no thicker
+round the study windows; and in one boy's castle we found the
+traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge which had knocked about our
+studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it when he left.
+Nay, more, there was the bald remnant of a stuffed bird which had been
+my own daily care when it and I belonged to Raffles.  And when we all
+filed in to prayers, through the green baize door which still separated
+the master's part of the house from that of the boys, there was a small
+boy posted in the passage to give the sign of silence to the rest
+assembled in the hall, quite identically as in the dim old days; the
+picture was absolutely unchanged; it was only we who were out of it in
+body and soul.
+
+On our side of the baize door a fine hospitality and a finer flow of
+spirits were the order of the night.  There was a sound representative
+assortment of quite young Old Boys, to whom ours was a prehistoric
+time, and in the trough of their modern chaff and chat we old stagers
+might well have been left far astern of the fun.  Yet it was Raffles
+who was the life and soul of the party, and that not by meretricious
+virtue of his cricket.  There happened not to be another cricketer
+among us, and it was on their own subjects that Raffles laughed with
+the lot in turn and in the lump.  I never knew him in quite such form.
+I will not say he was a boy among them, but he was that rarer being,
+the man of the world who can enter absolutely into the fun and fervor
+of the salad age.  My cares and my regrets had never been more acute,
+but Raffles seemed a man without either in his life.
+
+He was not, however, the hero of the Old Boys' Match, and that was
+expected of him by all the school.  There was a hush when he went in, a
+groan when he came out.  I had no reason to suppose he was not trying;
+these things happen to the cricketer who plays out of his class; but
+when the great Raffles went on to bowl, and was hit all over the field,
+I was not so sure.  It certainly failed to affect his spirits; he was
+more brilliant than ever at our hospitable board; and after dinner came
+the meeting at which he and Nasmyth were to speak.
+
+It was a somewhat frigid gathering until Nasmyth rose.  We had all
+dined with our respective hosts, and then repaired to this business in
+cold blood.  Many were lukewarm about it in their hearts; there was a
+certain amount of mild prejudice, and a greater amount of animal
+indifference, to be overcome in the opening speech.  It is not for me
+to say whether this was successfully accomplished.  I only know how the
+temperature of that meeting rose with Nipper Nasmyth.
+
+And I dare say, in all the circumstances of the case, his really was a
+rather vulgar speech.  But it was certainly impassioned, and probably
+as purely instinctive as his denunciation of all the causes which
+appeal to the gullible many without imposing upon the cantankerous few.
+His arguments, it is true, were merely an elaboration of those with
+which he had favored some of us already; but they were pointed by a
+concise exposition of the several definite principles they represented,
+and barbed with a caustic rhetoric quite admirable in itself.  In a
+word, the manner was worthy of the very foundation it sought to shake,
+or we had never swallowed such matter without a murmur.  As it was,
+there was a demonstration in the wilderness when the voice ceased
+crying.  But we sat in the deeper silence when Raffles rose to reply.
+
+I leaned forward not to lose a word.  I knew my Raffles so well that I
+felt almost capable of reporting his speech before I heard it.  Never
+was I more mistaken, even in him!  So far from a gibe for a gibe and a
+taunt for a taunt, there never was softer answer than that which A. J.
+Raffles returned to Nipper Nasmyth before the staring eyes and startled
+ears of all assembled.  He courteously but firmly refused to believe a
+word his old friend Nasmyth had said--about himself.  He had known
+Nasmyth for twenty years, and never had he met a dog who barked so loud
+and bit so little.  The fact was that he had far too kind a heart to
+bite at all.  Nasmyth might get up and protest as loud as he liked: the
+speaker declared he knew him better than Nasmyth knew himself.  He had
+the necessary defects of his great qualities.  He was only too good a
+sportsman.  He had a perfect passion for the weaker side.  That alone
+led Nasmyth into such excesses of language as we had all heard from his
+lips that night.  As for Raffles, he concluded his far too genial
+remarks by predicting that, whatever Nasmyth might say or think of the
+new fund, he would subscribe to it as handsomely as any of us, like
+"the generous good chap" that we all knew him to be.
+
+Even so did Raffles disappoint the Old Boys in the evening as he had
+disappointed the school by day.  We had looked to him for a noble
+raillery, a lofty and loyal disdain, and he had fobbed us off with
+friendly personalities not even in impeccable taste. Nevertheless, this
+light treatment of a grave offence went far to restore the natural
+amenities of the occasion.  It was impossible even for Nasmyth to reply
+to it as he might to a more earnest onslaught.  He could but smile
+sardonically, and audibly undertake to prove Raffles a false prophet;
+and though subsequent speakers were less merciful the note was struck,
+and there was no more bad blood in the debate.  There was plenty,
+however, in the veins of Nasmyth, as I was to discover for myself
+before the night was out.
+
+You might think that in the circumstances he would not have attended
+the head master's ball with which the evening ended; but that would be
+sadly to misjudge so perverse a creature as the notorious Nipper. He
+was probably one of those who protest that there is "nothing personal"
+in their most personal attacks.  Not that Nasmyth took this tone about
+Raffles when he and I found ourselves cheek by jowl against the
+ballroom wall; he could forgive his franker critics, but not the
+friendly enemy who had treated him so much more gently than he deserved.
+
+"I seem to have seen you with this great man Raffles," began Nasmyth,
+as he overhauled me with his fighting eye.  "Do you know him well?"
+
+"Intimately."
+
+"I remember now.  You were with him when he forced himself upon me on
+the way down yesterday.  He had to tell me who he was.  Yet he talks as
+though we were old friends."
+
+"You were in the upper sixth together," I rejoined, nettled by his tone.
+
+"What does that matter?  I am glad to say I had too much self-respect,
+and too little respect for Raffles, ever to be a friend of his then. I
+knew too many of the things he did," said Nipper Nasmyth.
+
+His fluent insults had taken my breath.  But in a lucky flash I saw my
+retort.
+
+"You must have had special opportunities of observation, living in the
+town," said I; and drew first blood between the long hair and the
+ragged beard; but that was all.
+
+"So he really did get out at nights?" remarked my adversary.  "You
+certainly give your friend away.  What's he doing now?"
+
+I let my eyes follow Raffles round the room before replying.  He was
+waltzing with a master's wife--waltzing as he did everything else.
+Other couples seemed to melt before them.  And the woman on his arm
+looked a radiant girl.
+
+
+"I meant in town, or wherever he lives his mysterious life," explained
+Nasmyth, when I told him that he could see for himself. But his clever
+tone did not trouble me; it was his epithet that caused me to prick my
+ears.  And I found some difficulty in following Raffles right round the
+room.
+
+"I thought everybody knew what he was doing; he's playing cricket most
+of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore an extra touch of
+insolence, I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves.
+
+"And is that all he does for a living?" pursued my inquisitor keenly.
+
+"You had better ask Raffles himself," said I to that.  "It's a pity you
+didn't ask him in public, at the meeting!"
+
+But I was beginning to show temper in my embarrassment, and of course
+that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable.
+
+"Really, he might be following some disgraceful calling, by the mystery
+you make of it!" he exclaimed.  "And for that matter I call first-class
+cricket a disgraceful calling, when it's followed by men who ought to
+be gentlemen, but are really professionals in gentlemanly clothing.
+The present craze for gladiatorial athleticism I regard as one of the
+great evils of the age; but the thinly veiled professionalism of the
+so-called amateur is the greatest evil of that craze.  Men play for the
+gentlemen and are paid more than the players who walk out of another
+gate.  In my time there was none of that.  Amateurs were amateurs and
+sport was sport; there were no Raffleses in first-class cricket then.
+I had forgotten Raffles was a modern first-class cricketer: that
+explains him.  Rather than see my son such another, do you know what
+I'd prefer to see him?"
+
+I neither knew nor cared: yet a wretched premonitory fascination held
+me breathless till I was told.
+
+"I'd prefer to see him a thief!" said Nasmyth savagely; and when his
+eyes were done with me, he turned upon his heel.  So that ended that
+stage of my discomfiture.
+
+It was only to give place to a worse.  Was all this accident or fell
+design?  Conscience had made a coward of me, and yet what reason had I
+to disbelieve the worst?  We were pirouetting on the edge of an abyss;
+sooner or later the false step must come and the pit swallow us.  I
+began to wish myself back in London, and I did get back to my room in
+our old house.  My dancing days were already over; there I had taken
+the one resolution to which I remained as true as better men to better
+vows; there the painful association was no mere sense of personal
+unworthiness.  I fell to thinking in my room of other dances ... and
+was still smoking the cigarette which Raffles had taught me to
+appreciate when I looked up to find him regarding me from the door.  He
+had opened it as noiselessly as only Raffles could open doors, and now
+he closed it in the same professional fashion.
+
+"I missed Achilles hours ago," said he.  "And still he's sulking in his
+tent!"
+
+"I have been," I answered, laughing as he could always make me, "but
+I'll chuck it if you'll stop and smoke.  Our host doesn't mind; there's
+an ash-tray provided for the purpose.  I ought to be sulking between
+the sheets, but I'm ready to sit up with you till morning."
+
+"We might do worse; but, on the other hand, we might do still better,"
+rejoined Raffles, and for once he resisted the seductive Sullivan.  "As
+a matter of fact, it's morning now; in another hour it will be dawn;
+and where could day dawn better than in Warfield Woods, or along the
+Stockley road, or even on the Upper or the Middle?  I don't want to
+turn in, any more than you do.  I may as well confess that the whole
+show down here has exalted me more than anything for years.  But if we
+can't sleep, Bunny, let's have some fresh air instead."
+
+"Has everybody gone to bed?" I asked.
+
+"Long ago.  I was the last in.  Why?"
+
+"Only it might sound a little odd, our turning out again, if they were
+to hear us."
+
+Raffles stood over me with a smile made of mischief and cunning; but it
+was the purest mischief imaginable, the most innocent and comic cunning.
+
+"They shan't hear us at all, Bunny," said he.  "I mean to get out as I
+did in the good old nights.  I've been spoiling for the chance ever
+since I came down.  There's not the smallest harm in it now; and if
+you'll come with me I'll show you how it used to be done."
+
+"But I know," said I.  "Who used to haul up the rope after you, and let
+it down again to the minute?"
+
+Raffles looked down on me from lowered lids, over a smile too humorous
+to offend.
+
+"My dear good Bunny!  And do you suppose that even then I had only one
+way of doing a thing?  I've had a spare loophole all my life, and when
+you're ready I'll show you what it was when I was here. Take off those
+boots, and carry your tennis-shoes; slip on another coat; put out your
+light; and I'll meet you on the landing in two minutes."
+
+He met me with uplifted finger, and not a syllable; and down-stairs he
+led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two feet to each
+particular step.  It must have seemed child's play to Raffles; the old
+precautions were obviously assumed for my entertainment; but I confess
+that to me it was all refreshingly exciting--for once without a risk of
+durance if we came to grief!  With scarcely a creak we reached the
+hall, and could have walked out of the street door without danger or
+difficulty.  But that would not do for Raffles.  He must needs lead me
+into the boys' part, through the green baize door.  It took a deal of
+opening and shutting, but Raffles seemed to enjoy nothing better than
+these mock obstacles, and in a few minutes we were resting with sharp
+ears in the boys' hall.
+
+"Through these windows?" I whispered, when the clock over the piano had
+had matters its own way long enough to make our minds quite easy.
+
+"How else?" whispered Raffles, as he opened the one on whose ledge our
+letters used to await us of a morning.
+
+"And then through the quad--"
+
+"And over the gates at the end.  No talking, Bunny; there's a dormitory
+just overhead; but ours was in front, you remember, and if they had
+ever seen me I should have nipped back this way while they were
+watching the other."
+
+His finger was on his lips as we got out softly into the starlight. I
+remember how the gravel hurt as we left the smooth flagged margin of
+the house for the open quad; but the nearer of two long green seats
+(whereon you prepared your construe for the second-school in the summer
+term) was mercifully handy; and once in our rubber soles we had no
+difficulty in scaling the gates beyond the fives-courts. Moreover, we
+dropped into a very desert of a country road, nor saw a soul when we
+doubled back beneath the outer study windows, nor heard a footfall in
+the main street of the slumbering town.  Our own fell like the
+night-dews and the petals of the poet; but Raffles ran his arm through
+mine, and would chatter in whispers as we went.
+
+"So you and Nipper had a word--or was it words?  I saw you out of the
+tail of my eye when I was dancing, and I heard you out of the tail of
+my ear.  It sounded like words, Bunny, and I thought I caught my name.
+He's the most consistent man I know, and the least altered from a boy.
+But he'll subscribe all right, you'll see, and be very glad I made him."
+
+I whispered back that I did not believe it for a moment.  Raffles had
+not heard all Nasmyth had said of him.  And neither would he listen to
+the little I meant to repeat to him; he would but reiterate a
+conviction so chimerical to my mind that I interrupted in my turn to
+ask him what ground he had for it.
+
+"I've told you already," said Raffles.  "I mean to make him."
+
+"But how?" I asked.  "And when, and where?"
+
+"At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him.  What a rabbit you are
+at a quotation!
+
+  "'And I think that the field of Philippi
+     Was where Caesar came to an end;
+       But who gave old Brutus the tip, I
+          Can't comprehend!'
+
+"You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to
+remember that."
+
+And I did, vaguely, but had no idea what it or Raffles meant, as I
+plainly told him.
+
+"The theatre of war," he answered--"and here we are at the stage door!"
+
+Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk.  It was the last dark hour of
+the summer night, but the light from a neighboring lamppost showed me
+the look on his face as he turned.
+
+"I think you also inquired when," he continued.  "Well, then, this
+minute--if you will give me a leg up!"
+
+And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and not even barred, was
+a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of Nasmyth among others
+lettered in gold upon the wire.
+
+"You're never going to break in?"
+
+"This instant, if you'll, help me; in five or ten minutes, if you
+won't."
+
+"Surely you didn't bring the--the tools?"
+
+He jingled them gently in his pocket.
+
+"Not the whole outfit, Bunny.  But you never know when you mayn't want
+one or two.  I'm only thankful I didn't leave the lot behind this time.
+I very nearly did."
+
+"I must say I thought you would, coming down here," I said
+reproachfully.
+
+"But you ought to be glad I didn't," he rejoined with a smile. "It's
+going to mean old Nasmyth's subscription to the Founder's Fund, and
+that's to be a big one, I promise you!  The lucky thing is that I went
+so far as to bring my bunch of safekeys.  Now, are you going to help me
+use them, or are you not?  If so, now's your minute; if not, clear out
+and be--"
+
+"Not so fast, Raffles," said I testily.  "You must have planned this
+before you came down, or you would never have brought all those things
+with you."
+
+"My dear Bunny, they're a part of my kit!  I take them wherever I take
+my evening-clothes.  As to this potty bank, I never even thought of it,
+much less that it would become a public duty to draw a hundred or so
+without signing for it.  That's all I shall touch, Bunny--I'm not on
+the make to-night.  There's no risk in it either.  If I am caught I
+shall simply sham champagne and stand the racket; it would be an
+obvious frolic after what happened at that meeting.  And they will
+catch me, if I stand talking here: you run away back to bed--unless
+you're quite determined to 'give old Brutus the tip!'"
+
+Now we had barely been a minute whispering where we stood, and the
+whole street was still as silent as the tomb.  To me there seemed least
+danger in discussing the matter quietly on the spot.  But even as he
+gave me my dismissal Raffles turned and caught the sill above him,
+first with one hand and then with the other.  His legs swung like a
+pendulum as he drew himself up with one arm, then shifted the position
+of the other hand, and very gradually worked himself waist-high with
+the sill.  But the sill was too narrow for him; that was as far as he
+could get unaided; and it was as much as I could bear to see of a feat
+which in itself might have hardened my conscience and softened my
+heart.  But I had identified his doggerel verse at last.  I am ashamed
+to say that it was part of a set of my very own writing in the school
+magazine of my time.  So Raffles knew the stuff better than I did
+myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win me over!  He had
+won me: in a second my rounded shoulders were a pedestal for those
+dangling feet.  And before many more I heard the old metallic snap,
+followed by the raising of a sash so slowly and gently as to be almost
+inaudible to me listening just below.
+
+Raffles went through hands first, disappeared for an instant, then
+leaned out, lowering his hands for me.
+
+"Come on, Bunny!  You're safer in than out.  Hang on to the sill and
+let me get you under the arms.  Now all together--quietly does it--and
+over you come!"
+
+No need to dwell on our proceedings in the bank.  I myself had small
+part in the scene, being posted rather in the wings, at the foot of the
+stairs leading to the private premises in which the manager had his
+domestic being.  But I made my mind easy about him, for in the silence
+of my watch I soon detected a nasal note overhead, and it was resonant
+and aggressive as the man himself.  Of Raffles, on the contrary, I
+heard nothing, for he had shut the door between us, and I was to warn
+him if a single sound came through.  I need scarcely add that no
+warning was necessary during the twenty minutes we remained in the
+bank.  Raffles afterward assured me that nineteen of them had been
+spent in filing one key; but one of his latest inventions was a little
+thick velvet bag in which he carried the keys; and this bag had two
+elastic mouths, which closed so tightly about either wrist that he
+could file away, inside, and scarcely hear it himself.  As for these
+keys, they were clever counterfeits of typical patterns by two great
+safe-making firms.  And Raffles had come by them in a manner all his
+own, which the criminal world may discover for itself.
+
+When he opened the door and beckoned to me, I knew by his face that he
+had succeeded to his satisfaction, and by experience better than to
+question him on the point.  Indeed, the first thing was to get out of
+the bank; for the stars were drowning in a sky of ink and water, and it
+was a comfort to feel that we could fly straight to our beds.  I said
+so in whispers as Raffles cautiously opened our window and peeped out.
+In an instant his head was in, and for another I feared the worst.
+
+"What was that, Bunny?  No, you don't, my son!  There's not a soul in
+sight that I can see, but you never know, and we may as well lay a
+scent while we're about it.  Ready?  Then follow me, and never mind the
+window."
+
+With that he dropped softly into the street, and I after him, turning
+to the right instead of the left, and that at a brisk trot instead of
+the innocent walk which had brought us to the bank. Like mice we
+scampered past the great schoolroom, with its gable snipping a paler
+sky than ever, and the shadows melting even in the colonnade
+underneath.  Masters' houses flitted by on the left, lesser landmarks
+on either side, and presently we were running our heads into the dawn,
+one under either hedge of the Stockley road.
+
+"Did you see that light in Nab's just now?" cried Raffles as he led.
+
+"No; why?" I panted, nearly spent.
+
+"It was in Nab's dressing-room.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I've seen it there before," continued Raffles.  "He never was a good
+sleeper, and his ears reach to the street.  I wouldn't like to say how
+often I was chased by him in the small hours!  I believe he knew who it
+was toward the end, but Nab was not the man to accuse you of what he
+couldn't prove."
+
+I had no breath for comment.  And on sped Raffles like a yacht before
+the wind, and on I blundered like a wherry at sea, making heavy weather
+all the way, and nearer foundering at every stride. Suddenly, to my
+deep relief, Raffles halted, but only to tell me to stop my pipes while
+he listened.
+
+"It's all right, Bunny," he resumed, showing me a glowing face in the
+dawn.  "History's on its own tracks once more, and I'll bet you it's
+dear old Nab on ours!  Come on, Bunny; run to the last gasp, and leave
+the rest to me."
+
+I was past arguing, and away he went.  There was no help for it but to
+follow as best I could.  Yet I had vastly preferred to collapse on the
+spot, and trust to Raffles's resource, as before very long I must.  I
+had never enjoyed long wind and the hours that we kept in town may well
+have aggravated the deficiency.  Raffles, however, was in first-class
+training from first-class cricket, and he had no mercy on Nab or me.
+But the master himself was an old Oxford miler, who could still bear it
+better than I; nay, as I flagged and stumbled, I heard him pounding
+steadily behind.
+
+"Come on, come on, or he'll do us!" cried Raffles shrilly over his
+shoulder; and a gruff sardonic laugh came back over mine.  It was
+pearly morning now, but we had run into a shallow mist that took me by
+the throat and stabbed me to the lungs.  I coughed and coughed, and
+stumbled in my stride, until down I went, less by accident than to get
+it over, and so lay headlong in my tracks.  And old Nab dealt me a
+verbal kick as he passed.
+
+"You beast!" he growled, as I have known him growl it in form.
+
+But Raffles himself had abandoned the flight on hearing my downfall,
+and I was on hands and knees just in time to see the meeting between
+him and old Nab.  And there stood Raffles in the silvery mist, laughing
+with his whole light heart, leaning back to get the full flavor of his
+mirth; and, nearer me, sturdy old Nab, dour and grim, with beads of dew
+on the hoary beard that had been lamp-black in our time.
+
+"So I've caught you at last!" said he.  "After more years than I mean
+to count!"
+
+"Then you're luckier than we are, sir," answered Raffles, "for I fear
+our man has given us the slip."
+
+"Your man!" echoed Nab.  His bushy eyebrows had shot up: it was as much
+as I could do to keep my own in their place.
+
+"We were indulging in the chase ourselves," explained Raffles, "and one
+of us has suffered for his zeal, as you can see.  It is even possible
+that we, too, have been chasing a perfectly innocent man."
+
+"Not to say a reformed character," said our pursuer dryly. "I suppose
+you don't mean a member of the school?" he added, pinking his man
+suddenly as of yore, with all the old barbed acumen.  But Raffles was
+now his match.
+
+"That would be carrying reformation rather far, sir.  No, as I say, I
+may have been mistaken in the first instance; but I had put out my
+light and was looking out of the window when I saw a fellow behaving
+quite suspiciously.  He was carrying his boots and creeping along in
+his socks--which must be why you never heard him, sir. They make less
+noise than rubber soles even--that is, they must, you know!  Well,
+Bunny had just left me, so I hauled him out and we both crept down to
+play detective.  No sign of the fellow!  We had a look in the
+colonnade--I thought I heard him--and that gave us no end of a hunt for
+nothing.  But just as we were leaving he came padding past under our
+noses, and that's where we took up the chase.  Where he'd been in the
+meantime I have no idea; very likely he'd done no harm; but it seemed
+worth while finding out.  He had too good a start, though, and poor
+Bunny had too bad a wind."
+
+"You should have gone on and let me rip," said I, climbing to my feet
+at last.
+
+"As it is, however, we will all let the other fellow do so," said old
+Nab in a genial growl.  "And you two had better turn into my house and
+have something to keep the morning cold out."
+
+You may imagine with what alacrity we complied; and yet I am bound to
+confess that I had never liked Nab at school.  I still remember my term
+in his form.  He had a caustic tongue and  fine assortment of damaging
+epithets, most of which were levelled at my devoted skull during those
+three months.  I now discovered that he also kept a particularly mellow
+Scotch whiskey, an excellent cigar, and a fund of anecdote of which a
+mordant wit was the worthy bursar. Enough to add that he kept us
+laughing in his study until the chapel bells rang him out.
+
+As for Raffles, he appeared to me to feel far more compunction for the
+fable which he had been compelled to foist upon one of the old masters
+than for the immeasurably graver offence against society and another
+Old Boy.  This, indeed, did not worry him at all; and the story was
+received next day with absolute credulity on all sides.  Nasmyth
+himself was the first to thank us both for our spirited effort on his
+behalf; and the incident had the ironic effect of establishing an
+immediate entente cordiale between Raffles and his very latest victim.
+I must confess, however, that for my own part I was thoroughly uneasy
+during the Old Boys' second innings, when Raffles made a selfish score,
+instead of standing by me to tell his own story in his own way.  There
+was never any knowing with what new detail he was about to embellish
+it: and I have still to receive full credit for the tact that it
+required to follow his erratic lead convincingly.  Seldom have I been
+more thankful than when our train started next morning, and the poor,
+unsuspecting Nasmyth himself waved us a last farewell from the platform.
+
+"Lucky we weren't staying at Nab's," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan
+and opened his Daily Mail at its report of the robbery. "There was one
+thing Nab would have spotted like the downy old bird he always was and
+will be."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"The front door must have been found duly barred and bolted in the
+morning, and yet we let them assume that we came out that way.  Nab
+would have pounced on the point, and by this time we might have been
+nabbed ourselves."
+
+It was but a little over a hundred sovereigns that Raffles had taken,
+and, of course, he had resolutely eschewed any and every form of paper
+money.  He posted his own first contribution of twenty-five pounds to
+the Founder's Fund immediately on our return to town, before rushing
+off to more first-class cricket, and I gathered that the rest would
+follow piecemeal as he deemed it safe. By an odd coincidence, however,
+a mysterious but magnificent donation of a hundred guineas was almost
+simultaneously received in notes by the treasurer of the Founder's
+Fund, from one who simply signed himself "Old Boy."  The treasurer
+happened to be our late host, the new man at our old house, and he
+wrote to congratulate Raffles on what he was pleased to consider a
+direct result of the latter's speech.  I did not see the letter that
+Raffles wrote in reply, but in due course I heard the name of the
+mysterious contributor.  He was said to be no other than Nipper Nasmyth
+himself. I asked Raffles if it was true.  He replied that he would ask
+old Nipper point-blank if he came up as usual to the Varsity match, and
+if they had the luck to meet.  And not only did this happen, but I had
+the greater luck to be walking round the ground with Raffles when we
+encountered our shabby friend in front of the pavilion.
+
+"My dear fellow," cried Raffles, "I hear it was you who gave that
+hundred guineas by stealth to the very movement you denounced. Don't
+deny it, and don't blush to find it fame.  Listen to me. There was a
+great lot in what you said; but it's the kind of thing we ought all to
+back, whether we strictly approve of it in our hearts or not."
+
+"Exactly, Raffles, but the fact is--"
+
+"I know what you're going to say.  Don't say it.  There's not one in a
+thousand who would do as you've done, and not one in a million who
+would do it anonymously."
+
+"But what makes you think I did it, Raffles?"
+
+"Everybody is saying so.  You will find it all over the place when you
+get back.  You will find yourself the most popular man down there,
+Nasmyth!"
+
+I never saw a nobler embarrassment than that of this awkward, ungainly,
+cantankerous man: all his angles seemed to have been smoothed away:
+there was something quite human in the flushed, undecided, wistful face.
+
+"I never was popular in my life," he said.  "I don't want to buy my
+popularity now.  To be perfectly candid with you, Raffles--"
+
+"Don't!  I can't stop to hear.  They're ringing the bell.  But you
+shouldn't have been angry with me for saying you were a generous good
+chap, Nasmyth, when you were one all the time.  Good-by, old fellow!"
+
+But Nasmyth detained us a second more.  His hesitation was at an end.
+There was a sudden new light in his face.
+
+"Was I?" he cried.  "Then I'll make it two hundred, and damn the odds!"
+
+Raffles was a thoughtful man as we went to our seats.  He saw nobody,
+would acknowledge no remark.  Neither did he attend to the cricket for
+the first half-hour after lunch; instead, he eventually invited me to
+come for a stroll on the practice ground, where, however, we found two
+chairs aloof from the fascinating throng.
+
+"I am not often sorry, Bunny, as you know," he began.  "But I have been
+sorry since the interval.  I've been sorry for poor old Nipper Nasmyth.
+Did you see the idea of being popular dawn upon him for the first time
+in his life?"
+
+"I did; but you had nothing to do with that, my dear man."
+
+Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met.  "I had everything to
+do with it.  I tried to make him tell the meanest lie.  I made sure he
+would, and for that matter he nearly did.  Then, at the last moment, he
+saw how to hedge things with his conscience.  And his second hundred
+will be a real gift."
+
+"You mean under his own name--"
+
+"And with his own free-will.  My good Bunny, is it possible you don't
+know what I did with the hundred we drew from that bank!"
+
+"I knew what you were going to do with it," said I.  "I didn't know you
+had actually got further than the twenty-five you told me you were
+sending as your own contribution."
+
+Raffles rose abruptly from his chair.
+
+"And you actually thought that came out of his money?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"In my name?"
+
+"I thought so."
+
+Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, and for some more at
+the great white numbers over the grand-stand.
+
+"We may as well have another look at the cricket," said he.  "It's
+difficult to see the board from here, but I believe there's another man
+out."
+
+
+
+
+A Bad Night
+
+There was to be a certain little wedding in which Raffles and I took a
+surreptitious interest.  The bride-elect was living in some retirement,
+with a recently widowed mother and an asthmatical brother, in a mellow
+hermitage on the banks of the Mole.  The bridegroom was a prosperous
+son of the same suburban soil which had nourished both families for
+generations.  The wedding presents were so numerous as to fill several
+rooms at the pretty retreat upon the Mole, and of an intrinsic value
+calling for a special transaction with the Burglary Insurance Company
+in Cheapside.  I cannot say how Raffles obtained all this information.
+I only know that it proved correct in each particular.  I was not
+indeed deeply interested before the event, since Raffles assured me
+that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be the one man
+himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were
+inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English
+team in the Second Test Match.
+
+In a flash I saw the chance of my criminal career.  It was some years
+since Raffles had served his country in these encounters; he had never
+thought to be called upon again, and his gratification was only less
+than his embarrassment.  The match was at Old Trafford, on the third
+Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in July; the other affair had been all
+arranged for the Thursday night, the night of the wedding at East
+Molesey.  It was for Raffles to choose between the two excitements, and
+for once I helped him to make up his mind.  I duly pointed out to him
+that in Surrey, at all events, I was quite capable of taking his place.
+Nay, more, I insisted at once on my prescriptive right and on his
+patriotic obligation in the matter.  In the country's name and in my
+own, I implored him to give it and me a chance; and for once, as I say,
+my arguments prevailed.  Raffles sent his telegram--it was the day
+before the match.  We then rushed down to Esher, and over every inch of
+the ground by that characteristically circuitous route which he
+enjoined on me for the next night.  And at six in the evening I was
+receiving the last of my many instructions through a window of the
+restaurant car.
+
+"Only promise me not to take a revolver," said Raffles in a whisper.
+"Here are my keys; there's an old life-preserver somewhere in the
+bureau; take that, if you like--though what you take I rather fear you
+are the chap to use!"
+
+"Then the rope be round my own neck!" I whispered back.  "Whatever else
+I may do, Raffles, I shan't give you away; and you'll find I do better
+than you think, and am worth trusting with a little more to do, or I'll
+know the reason why!"
+
+And I meant to know it, as he was borne out of Euston with raised
+eyebrows, and I turned grimly on my heel.  I saw his fears for me; and
+nothing could have made me more fearless for myself.  Raffles had been
+wrong about me all these years; now was my chance to set him right.  It
+was galling to feel that he had no confidence in my coolness or my
+nerve, when neither had ever failed him at a pinch. I had been loyal to
+him through rough and smooth.  In many an ugly corner I had stood as
+firm as Raffles himself.  I was his right hand, and yet he never
+hesitated to make me his catspaw.  This time, at all events, I should
+be neither one nor the other; this time I was the understudy playing
+lead at last; and I wish I could think that Raffles ever realized with
+what gusto I threw myself into his part.
+
+Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Esher next night,
+and first down the stairs into the open air.  The night was close and
+cloudy; and the road to Hampton Court, even now that the suburban
+builder has marked much of it for his own, is one of the darkest I
+know.  The first mile is still a narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves
+at midsummer; but at that time there was not a lighted pane or cranny
+by the way.  Naturally, it was in this blind reach that I fancied I was
+being followed.  I stopped in my stride; so did the steps I made sure I
+had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they followed suit.  I
+dried my forehead as I walked, but soon brought myself to repeat the
+experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince me
+that it had been my own echo all the time.  And since I lost it on
+getting quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the straight and open
+road, I was not long in recovering from my scare.  But now I could see
+my way, and found the rest of it without mishap, though not without
+another semblance of adventure. Over the bridge across the Mole, when
+about to turn to the left, I marched straight upon a policeman in
+rubber soles.  I had to call him "officer" as I passed, and to pass my
+turning by a couple of hundred yards, before venturing back another way.
+
+At last I had crept through a garden gate, and round by black windows
+to a black lawn drenched with dew.  It had been a heating walk, and I
+was glad to blunder on a garden seat, most considerately placed under a
+cedar which added its own darkness to that of the night.  Here I rested
+a few minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, untying my shoes to
+save time, and generally facing the task before me with a coolness
+which I strove to make worthy of my absent chief.  But mine was a
+self-conscious quality, as far removed from the original as any other
+deliberate imitation of genius.  I actually struck a match on my
+trousers, and lit one of the shorter Sullivans.  Raffles himself would
+not have done such a thing at such a moment.  But I wished to tell him
+that I had done it; and in truth I was not more than pleasurably
+afraid; I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue which
+has been the saving of me in still more precarious situations.  I even
+grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all sit still as long
+as I had intended.  So it happened that I was finishing my cigarette on
+the edge of the wet lawn, and about to slip off my shoes before
+stepping across the gravel to the conservatory door, when a most
+singular sound arrested me in the act.  It was a muffled gasping
+somewhere overhead.  I stood like stone; and my listening attitude must
+have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn, for a labored
+voice hailed me sternly from a window.
+
+"Who on earth are you?" it wheezed.
+
+"A detective officer," I replied, "sent down by the Burglary Insurance
+Company."
+
+Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable.  It had all been
+prepared for me by Raffles, in case of need.  I was merely repeating a
+lesson in which I had been closely schooled.  But at the window there
+was pause enough, filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man I
+could not see.
+
+"I don't see why they should have sent you down," he said at length.
+"We are being quite well looked after by the local police; they're
+giving us a special call every hour."
+
+"I know that, Mr. Medlicott," I rejoined on my own account.  "I met one
+of them at the corner just now, and we passed the time of night."
+
+My heart was knocking me to bits.  I had started for myself at last.
+
+"Did you get my name from him?" pursued my questioner, in a suspicious
+wheeze.
+
+"No; they gave me that before I started," I replied.  "But I'm sorry
+you saw me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and not intended to
+annoy anybody.  I propose to keep a watch on the place all night, but I
+own it wasn't necessary to trespass as I've done.  I'll take myself off
+the actual premises, if you prefer it."
+
+This again was all my own; and it met with a success that might have
+given me confidence.
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied young Medlicott, with a grim geniality.
+"I've just woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma, and may have
+to sit up in my chair till morning.  You'd better come up and see me
+through, and kill two birds while you're about it.  Stay where you are,
+and I'll come down and let you in."
+
+Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not foreseen!  Outside, in
+the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play; but to carry the
+improvisation in-doors was to double at once the difficulty and the
+risk.  It was true that I had purposely come down in a true detective's
+overcoat and bowler; but my personal appearance was hardly of the
+detective type.  On the other hand as the soi-disant guardian of the
+gifts one might only excite suspicion by refusing to enter the house
+where they were.  Nor could I forget that it was my purpose to effect
+such entry first or last.  That was the casting consideration.  I
+decided to take my dilemma by the horns.
+
+There had been a scraping of matches in the room over the conservatory;
+the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty picture-frame, a
+gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the next half-minute I
+remembered to tie my shoes.  But the light was slow to reappear through
+the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path.  And when
+the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood within and held an
+unsteady candle between our faces.
+
+I have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double
+theirs; but never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent into
+a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp,
+swaying, tottering, and choking, as if about to die upon his feet.  Yet
+with it all, young Medlicott overhauled me shrewdly, and it was several
+moments before he would let me take the candle from him.
+
+"I shouldn't have come down--made me worse," he began whispering in
+spurts.  "Worse still going up again.  You must give me an arm. You
+will come up?  That's right!  Not as bad as I look, you know. Got some
+good whiskey, too.  Presents are all right; but if they aren't you'll
+hear of it in-doors sooner than out.  Now I'm ready--thanks!  Mustn't
+make more noise than we can help--wake my mother."
+
+It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs.
+There was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other he
+hauled on the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a panting
+pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing.  In
+the end we gained a cosey library, with an open door leading to a
+bedroom beyond.  But the effort had deprived my poor companion of all
+power of speech; his laboring lungs shrieked like the wind; he could
+just point to the door by which we had entered, and which I shut in
+obedience to his gestures, and then to the decanter and its accessories
+on the table where he had left them overnight.  I gave him nearly half
+a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he sat hunched up in
+a chair.
+
+"I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between
+longer pauses.  "Lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a real
+bad night.  You might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the table in
+there.  That's right ... thanks awfully ... and now a match!"
+
+The asthmatic had bitten off either end of the stramonium cigarette,
+and was soon choking himself with the crude fumes, which he inhaled in
+desperate gulps, to exhale in furious fits of coughing.  Never was more
+heroic remedy; it seemed a form of lingering suicide; but by degrees
+some slight improvement became apparent, and at length the sufferer was
+able to sit upright, and to drain his glass with a sigh of rare relief.
+I sighed also, for I had witnessed a struggle for dear life by a man in
+the flower of his youth, whose looks I liked, whose smile came like the
+sun through the first break in his torments, and whose first words were
+to thank me for the little I had done in bare humanity.
+
+That made me feel the thing I was.  But the feeling put me on my guard.
+And I was not unready for the remark which followed a more exhaustive
+scrutiny than I had hitherto sustained.
+
+"Do you know," said young Medlicott, "that you aren't a bit like the
+detective of my dreams?"
+
+"Only to proud to hear it," I replied.  "There would be no point in my
+being in plain clothes if I looked exactly what I was."
+
+My companion reassured me with a wheezy laugh.
+
+"There's something in that," said he, "although I do congratulate the
+insurance people on getting a man of your class to do their dirty work.
+And I congratulate myself," he was quick enough to add, "on having you
+to see me through as bad a night as I've had for a long time.  You're
+like flowers in the depths of winter.  Got a drink?  That's right!  I
+suppose you didn't happen to bring down an evening paper?"
+
+I said I had brought one, but had unfortunately left it in the train.
+
+"What about the Test Match?" cried my asthmatic, shooting forward in
+his chair.
+
+"I can tell you that," said I.  "We went in first--"
+
+"Oh, I know all about that," he interrupted.  "I've seen the miserable
+score up to lunch.  How many did we scrape altogether?"
+
+"We're scraping them still."
+
+"No!  How many?"
+
+"Over two hundred for seven wickets."
+
+"Who made the stand?"
+
+"Raffles, for one.  He was 62 not out at close of play!"
+
+And the note of admiration rang in my voice, though I tried in my
+self-consciousness to keep it out.  But young Medlicott's enthusiasm
+proved an ample cloak for mine; it was he who might have been the
+personal friend of Raffles; and in his delight he chuckled till he
+puffed and blew again.
+
+"Good old Raffles!" he panted in every pause.  "After being chosen
+last, and as a bowler-man!  That's the cricketer for me, sir; by Jove,
+we must have another drink in his honor!  Funny thing, asthma; your
+liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite;
+but it eases everything else, and sees you through.  Doctors will tell
+you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; they're no good for asthma!
+I've only known one who could stop an attack, and he knocked me
+sideways with nitrite of amyl.  Funny complaint in other ways; raises
+your spirits, if anything.  You can't look beyond the next breath.
+Nothing else worries you.  Well, well, here's luck to A. J. Raffles,
+and may he get his century in the morning!"
+
+And he struggled to his feet for the toast; but I drank it sitting
+down.  I felt unreasonably wroth with Raffles, for coming into the
+conversation as he had done--for taking centuries in Test Matches as he
+was doing, without bothering his head about me.  A failure would have
+been in better taste; it would have shown at least some imagination,
+some anxiety on one's account I did not reflect that even Raffles could
+scarcely be expected to picture me in my cups with the son of the house
+that I had come to rob; chatting with him, ministering to him; admiring
+his cheery courage, and honestly attempting to lighten his load!  Truly
+it was an infernal position: how could I rob him or his after this?
+And yet I had thrust myself into it; and Raffles would never, never
+understand!
+
+Even that was not the worst.  I was not quite sure that young Medlicott
+was sure of me.  I had feared this from the beginning, and now (over
+the second glass that could not possibly affect a man in his condition)
+he practically admitted as much to me. Asthma was such a funny thing
+(he insisted) that it would not worry him a bit to discover that I had
+come to take the presents instead of to take care of them!  I showed a
+sufficiently faint appreciation of the jest.  And it was presently
+punished as it deserved, by the most violent paroxysm that had seized
+the sufferer yet: the fight for breath became faster and more furious,
+and the former weapons of no more avail.  I prepared a cigarette, but
+the poor brute was too breathless to inhale.  I poured out yet more
+whiskey, but he put it from him with a gesture.
+
+"Amyl--get me amyl!" he gasped.  "The tin on the table by my bed."
+
+I rushed into his room, and returned with a little tin of tiny
+cylinders done up like miniature crackers in scraps of calico; the
+spent youth broke one in his handkerchief, in which he immediately
+buried his face.  I watched him closely as a subtle odor reached my
+nostrils; and it was like the miracle of oil upon the billows.  His
+shoulders rested from long travail; the stertorous gasping died away to
+a quick but natural respiration; and in the sudden cessation of the
+cruel contest, an uncanny stillness fell upon the scene. Meanwhile the
+hidden face had flushed to the ears, and, when at length it was raised
+to mine, its crimson calm was as incongruous as an optical illusion.
+
+"It takes the blood from the heart," he murmured, "and clears the whole
+show for the moment.  If it only lasted!  But you can't take two
+without a doctor; one's quite enough to make you smell the brimstone...
+I say, what's up?  You're listening to something! If it's the policeman
+we'll have a word with him."
+
+It was not the policeman; it was no out-door sound that I had caught in
+the sudden cessation of the bout for breath.  It was a noise, a
+footstep, in the room below us.  I went to the window and leaned out:
+right underneath, in the conservatory, was the faintest glimmer of a
+light in the adjoining room.
+
+"One of the rooms where the presents are!" whispered Medlicott at my
+elbow.  And as we withdrew together, I looked him in the face as I had
+not done all night.
+
+I looked him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to make
+me one once more.  My knot was cut--my course inevitable. Mine, after
+all, to prevent the very thing that I had come to do! My gorge had long
+since risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it
+impossible from the first; but now I could afford to recognize the
+impossibility, and to think of Raffles and the asthmatic alike without
+a qualm.  I could play the game by them both, for it was one and the
+same game.  I could preserve thieves' honor, and yet regain some shred
+of that which I had forfeited as a man!
+
+So I thought as we stood face to face, our ears straining for the least
+movement below, our eyes locked in a common anxiety.  Another muffled
+foot-fall--felt rather than heard--and we exchanged grim nods of
+simultaneous excitement.  But by this time Medlicott was as helpless as
+he had been before; the flush had faded from his face, and his
+breathing alone would have spoiled everything.  In dumb show I had to
+order him to stay where he was, to leave my man to me.  And then it was
+that in a gusty whisper, with the same shrewd look that had
+disconcerted me more than once during our vigil, young Medlicott froze
+and fired my blood by turns.
+
+"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his
+dressing-gown pocket.  "I thought for a bit--never mind what I
+thought--I soon saw I was wrong.  But--I've had this thing in my pocket
+all the time!"
+
+And he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace-offering, but
+I would not even take his hand, as I tapped the life-preserver in my
+pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the
+attempt.  On the landing I drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped my
+right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in readiness over my
+right shoulder.  Then, down-stairs I stole, as Raffles himself had
+taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed.  Nor had I
+made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light was
+burning, and the light did not flicker as I approached the door.  I
+clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and here was the veriest villain
+waiting for me, his little lantern held aloft.
+
+"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the
+ruffian to the floor.
+
+There was no question of a foul blow.  He had been just as ready to
+pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home.
+Yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood over the
+senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that I had struck an
+unarmed man.  The lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one
+side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek caused me to set it
+up in haste and turn the body over with both hands.
+
+Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?
+
+It was Raffles himself!
+
+How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on earth
+could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless at my
+feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's doubt.  He was in
+villainous guise, which I knew of old, now that I knew the unhappy
+wearer.  His face was grimy, and dexterously plastered with a growth of
+reddish hair; his clothes were those in which he had followed cabs from
+the London termini; his boots were muffled in thick socks; and I had
+laid him low with a bloody scalp that filled my cup of horror.  I
+groaned aloud as I knelt over him and felt his heart.  And I was
+answered by a bronchial whistle from the door.
+
+"Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend.  "I heard the whole
+thing--only hope my mother didn't.  We must keep it from her if we can."
+
+I could have cursed the creature's mother from my full heart; yet even
+with my hand on that of Raffles, as I felt his feeble pulse, I told
+myself that this served him right.  Even had I brained him, the fault
+had been his, not mine.  And it was a characteristic, an inveterate
+fault, that galled me for all my anguish: to trust and yet distrust me
+to the end, to race through England in the night, to spy upon me at his
+work--to do it himself after all!
+
+"Is he dead?" wheezed the asthmatic coolly.
+
+"Not he," I answered, with an indignation that I dared not show.
+
+"You must have hit him pretty hard," pursued young Medlicott, "but I
+suppose it was a case of getting first knock.  And a good job you got
+it, if this was his," he added, picking up the murderous little
+life-preserver which poor Raffles had provided for his own destruction.
+
+"Look here," I answered, sitting back on my heels.  "He isn't dead, Mr.
+Medlicott, and I don't know how long he'll be as much as stunned. He's
+a powerful brute, and you're not fit to lend a hand.  But that
+policeman of yours can't be far away.  Do you think you could struggle
+out and look for him?"
+
+"I suppose I am a bit better than I was," he replied doubtfully. "The
+excitement seems to have done me good.  If you like to leave me on
+guard with my revolver, I'll undertake that he doesn't escape me."
+
+I shook my head with an impatient smile.
+
+"I should never hear the last of it," said I.  "No, in that case all I
+can do is to handcuff the fellow and wait till morning if he won't go
+quietly; and he'll be a fool if he does, while there's a fighting
+chance."
+
+Young Medlicott glanced upstairs from his post on the threshold. I
+refrained from watching him too keenly, but I knew what was in his mind.
+
+"I'll go," he said hurriedly.  "I'll go as I am, before my mother is
+disturbed and frightened out of her life.  I owe you something, too,
+not only for what you've done for me, but for what I was fool enough to
+think about you at the first blush.  It's entirely through you that I
+feel as fit as I do for the moment.  So I'll take your tip, and go just
+as I am, before my poor old pipes strike up another tune."
+
+I scarcely looked up until the good fellow had turned his back upon the
+final tableau of watchful officer and prostrate prisoner and gone out
+wheezing into the night.  But I was at the door to hear the last of him
+down the path and round the corner of the house. And when I rushed back
+into the room, there was Raffles sitting cross-legged on the floor, and
+slowly shaking his broken head as he stanched the blood.
+
+"Et tu, Bunny!" he groaned.  "Mine own familiar friend!"
+
+"Then you weren't even stunned!" I exclaimed.  "Thank God for that!"
+
+"Of course I was stunned," he murmured, "and no thanks to you that I
+wasn't brained.  Not to know me in the kit you've seen scores of times!
+You never looked at me, Bunny; you didn't give me time to open my
+mouth.  I was going to let you run me in so prettily!  We'd have walked
+off arm-in-arm; now it's as tight a place as ever we were in, though
+you did get rid of old blow-pipes rather nicely. But we shall have the
+devil's own run for our money!"
+
+Raffles had picked himself up between his mutterings, and I had
+followed him to the door into the garden, where he stood busy with the
+key in the dark, having blown out his lantern and handed it to me.  But
+though I followed Raffles, as my nature must, I was far too embittered
+to answer him again.  And so it was for some minutes that might furnish
+forth a thrilling page, but not a novel one to those who know their
+Raffles and put up with me.  Suffice it that we left a locked door
+behind us, and the key on the garden wall, which was the first of half
+a dozen that we scaled before dropping into a lane that led to a
+foot-bridge higher up the backwater.  And when we paused upon the
+foot-bridge, the houses along the bank were still in peace and darkness.
+
+Knowing my Raffles as I did, I was not surprised when he dived under
+one end of this bridge, and came up with his Inverness cape and opera
+hat, which he had hidden there on his way to the house. The thick socks
+were peeled from his patent-leathers, the ragged trousers stripped from
+an evening pair, bloodstains and Newgate fringe removed at the water's
+edge, and the whole sepulchre whited in less time than the thing takes
+to tell.  Nor was that enough for Raffles, but he must alter me as
+well, by wearing my overcoat under his cape, and putting his Zingari
+scarf about my neck.
+
+"And now," said he, "you may be glad to hear there's a 3:12 from
+Surbiton, which we could catch on all fours.  If you like we'll go
+separately, but I don't think there's the slightest danger now,
+ and I begin to wonder what's happening to old blow-pipes."
+
+So, indeed, did I, and with no small concern, until I read of his
+adventures (and our own) in the newspapers.  It seemed that he had made
+a gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the penalty of his
+rashness by a sudden incapacity to move another inch.  It had
+eventually taken him twenty minutes to creep back to locked doors, and
+another ten to ring up the inmates.  His description of my personal
+appearance, as reported in the papers, is the only thing that
+reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings during that half-hour.
+
+But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for idle
+words, for to me also it was a bitter hour.  I had not only failed in
+my self-sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain.
+I had meant well by friend and foe in turn, and I had ended in doing
+execrably by both.  It was not all my fault, but I knew how much my
+weakness had contributed to the sum.  And I must walk with the man
+whose fault it was, who had travelled two hundred miles to obtain this
+last proof of my weakness, to bring it home to me, and to make our
+intimacy intolerable from that hour.  I must walk with him to Surbiton,
+but I need not talk; all through Thames Ditton I had ignored his
+sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine, on the river front,
+when we were nearly there, would I break the seal my pride had set upon
+my lips.
+
+"Come, Bunny," he said at last, "I have been the one to suffer most,
+when all's said and done, and I'll be the first to say that I deserved
+it.  You've broken my head; my hair's all glued up in my gore; and what
+yarn I'm to put up at Manchester, or how I shall take the field at all,
+I really don't know.  Yet I don't blame you, Bunny, and I do blame
+myself.  Isn't it rather hard luck if I am to go unforgiven into the
+bargain?  I admit that I made a mistake; but, my dear fellow, I made it
+entirely for your sake."
+
+"For my sake!" I echoed bitterly.
+
+Raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone.
+
+"I was miserable about you--frankly--miserable!" he went on.  "I
+couldn't get it out of my head that somehow you would be laid by the
+heels.  It was not your pluck that I distrusted, my dear fellow, but it
+was your very pluck that made me tremble for you.  I couldn't get you
+out of my head.  I went in when runs were wanted, but I give you my
+word that I was more anxious about you; and no doubt that's why I
+helped to put on some runs.  Didn't you see it in the paper, Bunny?
+It's the innings of my life, so far."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I saw that you were in at close of play.  But I don't
+believe it was you--I believe you have a double who plays your cricket
+for you!"
+
+And at the moment that seemed less incredible than the fact.
+
+"I'm afraid you didn't read your paper very carefully," said Raffles,
+with the first trace of pique in his tone.  "It was rain that closed
+play before five o'clock.  I hear it was a sultry day in town, but at
+Manchester we got the storm, and the ground was under water in ten
+minutes.  I never saw such a thing in my life.  There was absolutely
+not the ghost of a chance of another ball being bowled. But I had
+changed before I thought of doing what I did.  It was only when I was
+on my way back to the hotel, by myself, because I couldn't talk to a
+soul for thinking of you, that on the spur of the moment I made the man
+take me to the station instead, and was under way in the restaurant car
+before I had time to think twice about it.  I am not sure that of all
+the mad deeds I have ever done, this was not the maddest of the lot!"
+
+"It was the finest," I said in a low voice; for now I marvelled more at
+the impulse which had prompted his feat, and at the circumstances
+surrounding it, than even at the feat itself.
+
+"Heaven knows," he went on, "what they are saying and doing in
+Manchester!  But what can they say?  'What business is it of theirs?  I
+was there when play stopped, and I shall be there when it starts again.
+We shall be at Waterloo just after half-past three, and that's going to
+give me an hour at the Albany on my way to Euston, and another hour at
+Old Trafford before play begins. What's the matter with that?  I don't
+suppose I shall notch any more, but all the better if I don't; if we
+have a hot sun after the storm, the sooner they get in the better; and
+may I have a bowl at them while the ground bites!"
+
+"I'll come up with you," I said, "and see you at it."
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Raffles, "that was my whole feeling about
+you.  I wanted to 'see you at it'--that was absolutely all.  I wanted
+to be near enough to lend a hand if you got tied up, as the best of us
+will at times.  I knew the ground better than you, and I simply
+couldn't keep away from it.  But I didn't mean you to know that I was
+there; if everything had gone as I hoped it might, I should have
+sneaked back to town without ever letting you know I had been up.  You
+should never have dreamt that I had been at your elbow; you would have
+believed in yourself, and in my belief in you, and the rest would have
+been silence till the grave.  So I dodged you at Waterloo, and I tried
+not to let you know that I was following you from Esher station.  But
+you suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen more than once; after
+the second time I dropped behind, but gained on you by taking the short
+cut by Imber Court and over the foot-bridge where I left my coat and
+hat.  I was actually in the garden before you were.  I saw you smoke
+your Sullivan, and I was rather proud of you for it, though you must
+never do that sort of thing again.  I heard almost every word between
+you and the poor devil upstairs.  And up to a certain point, Bunny, I
+really thought you played the scene to perfection."
+
+The station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the fading velvet of
+the summer's night.  I let them increase and multiply before I spoke.
+
+"And where," I asked, "did you think I first went wrong?"
+
+"In going in-doors at all," said Raffles.  "If I had done that, I
+should have done exactly what you did from that point on.  You couldn't
+help yourself, with that poor brute in that state.  And I admired you
+immensely, Bunny, if that's any comfort to you now."
+
+Comfort!  It was wine in every vein, for I knew that Raffles meant what
+he said, and with his eyes I soon saw myself in braver colors. I ceased
+to blush for the vacillations of the night, since he condoned them.  I
+could even see that I had behaved with a measure of decency, in a truly
+trying situation, now that Raffles seemed to think so.  He had changed
+my whole view of his proceedings and my own, in every incident of the
+night but one.  There was one thing, however, which he might forgive
+me, but which I felt that I could forgive neither Raffles nor myself.
+And that was the contused scalp wound over which I shuddered in the
+train.
+
+"And to think that I did that," I groaned, "and that you laid yourself
+open to it, and that we have neither of us got another thing to show
+for our night's work!  That poor chap said it was as bad a night as he
+had ever had in his life; but I call it the very worst that you and I
+ever had in ours."
+
+Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first-class
+compartment that we had to ourselves.
+
+"I wouldn't say that, Bunny.  We have done worse."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all?"
+
+"My dear Bunny," replied Raffles, "you should remember how long I had
+been maturing felonious little plan, what a blow it was to me to have
+to turn it over to you, and how far I had travelled to see that you did
+it and yourself as well as might be.  You know what I did see, and how
+well I understood.  I tell you again that I should have done the same
+thing myself, in your place.  But I was not in your place, Bunny.  My
+hands were not tied like yours. Unfortunately, most of the jewels have
+gone on the honeymoon with the happy pair; but these emerald links are
+all right, and I don't know what the bride was doing to leave this
+diamond comb behind. Here, too, is the old silver skewer I've been
+wanting for years--they make the most charming paper-knives in the
+world--and this gold cigarette-case will just do for your smaller
+Sullivans."
+
+Nor were these the only pretty things that Raffles set out in twinkling
+array upon the opposite cushions.  But I do not pretend that this was
+one of our heavy hauls, or deny that its chief interest still resides
+in the score of the Second Test Match of that Australian tour.
+
+
+
+
+A Trap to Catch a Cracksman
+
+I was just putting out my light when the telephone rang a furious
+tocsin in the next room.  I flounced out of bed more asleep than awake;
+in another minute I should have been past ringing up.  It was one
+o'clock in the morning, and I had been dining with Swigger Morrison at
+his club.
+
+"Hulloa!"
+
+"That you, Bunny?"
+
+"Yes--are you Raffles?"
+
+"What's left of me!  Bunny, I want you--quick."
+
+And even over the wire his voice was faint with anxiety and
+apprehension.
+
+"What on earth has happened?"
+
+"Don't ask!  You never know--"
+
+"I'll come at once.  Are you there, Raffles?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Are you there, man?"
+
+"Ye--e--es."
+
+"At the Albany?"
+
+"No, no; at Maguire's."
+
+"You never said so.  And where's Maguire?"
+
+"In Half-moon Street."
+
+"I know that.  Is he there now?"
+
+"No--not come in yet--and I'm caught."
+
+"Caught!"
+
+"In that trap he bragged about.  It serves me right.  I didn't believe
+in it.  But I'm caught at last ... caught ... at last!"
+
+"When he told us he set it every night!  Oh, Raffles, what sort of a
+trap is it?  What shall I do?  What shall I bring?"
+
+But his voice had grown fainter and wearier with every answer, and now
+there was no answer at all.  Again and again I asked Raffles if he was
+there; the only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of
+the live wire between his ear and mine.  And then, as I sat gazing
+distractedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to
+my head, there came a single groan, followed by the dull and dreadful
+crash of a human body falling in a heap.
+
+In utter panic I rushed back into my bedroom, and flung myself into the
+crumpled shirt and evening clothes that lay where I had cast them off.
+But I knew no more what I was doing than what to do next I afterward
+found that I had taken out a fresh tie, and tied it rather better than
+usual; but I can remember thinking of nothing but Raffles in some
+diabolical man-trap, and of a grinning monster stealing in to strike
+him senseless with one murderous blow.  I must have looked in the glass
+to array myself as I did; but the mind's eye was the seeing eye, and it
+was filled with this frightful vision of the notorious pugilist known
+to fame and infamy as Barney Maguire.
+
+It was only the week before that Raffles and I had been introduced to
+him at the Imperial Boxing Club.  Heavy-weight champion of the United
+States, the fellow was still drunk with his sanguinary triumphs on that
+side, and clamoring for fresh conquests on ours. But his reputation had
+crossed the Atlantic before Maguire himself; the grandiose hotels had
+closed their doors to him; and he had already taken and sumptuously
+furnished the house in Half-moon Street which does not re-let to this
+day.  Raffles had made friends with the magnificent brute, while I took
+timid stock of his diamond studs, his jewelled watch-chain, his
+eighteen-carat bangle, and his six-inch lower jaw.  I had shuddered to
+see Raffles admiring the gewgaws in his turn, in his own brazen
+fashion, with that air of the cool connoisseur which had its double
+meaning for me.  I for my part would as lief have looked a tiger in the
+teeth.  And when we finally went home with Maguire to see his other
+trophies, it seemed to me like entering the tiger's lair.  But an
+astounding lair it proved, fitted throughout by one eminent firm, and
+ringing to the rafters with the last word on fantastic furniture.
+
+The trophies were a still greater surprise.  They opened my eyes to the
+rosier aspect of the noble art, as presently practised on the right
+side of the Atlantic.  Among other offerings, we were permitted to
+handle the jewelled belt presented to the pugilist by the State of
+Nevada, a gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento, and a model of
+himself in solid silver from the Fisticuff Club in New York.  I still
+remember waiting with bated breath for Raffles to ask Maguire if he
+were not afraid of burglars, and Maguire replying that he had a trap to
+catch the cleverest cracksman alive, but flatly refusing to tell us
+what it was.  I could not at the moment conceive a more terrible trap
+than the heavy-weight himself behind a curtain.  Yet it was easy to see
+that Raffles had accepted the braggart's boast as a challenge.  Nor did
+he deny it later when I taxed him with his mad resolve; he merely
+refused to allow me to implicate myself in its execution.  Well, there
+was a spice of savage satisfaction in the thought that Raffles had been
+obliged to turn to me in the end.  And, but for the dreadful thud which
+I had heard over the telephone, I might have extracted some genuine
+comfort from the unerring sagacity with which he had chosen his night.
+
+Within the last twenty-four hours Barney Maguire had fought his first
+great battle on British soil.  Obviously, he would no longer be the man
+that he had been in the strict training before the fight; never, as I
+gathered, was such a ruffian more off his guard, or less capable of
+protecting himself and his possessions, than in these first hours of
+relaxation and inevitable debauchery for which Raffles had waited with
+characteristic foresight.  Nor was the terrible Barney likely to be
+more abstemious for signal punishment sustained in a far from bloodless
+victory.  Then what could be the meaning of that sickening and most
+suggestive thud?  Could it be the champion himself who had received the
+coup de grace in his cups? Raffles was the very man to administer
+it--but he had not talked like that man through the telephone.
+
+And yet--and yet--what else could have happened?  I must have asked
+myself the question between each and all of the above reflections, made
+partly as I dressed and partly in the hansom on the way to Half-moon
+Street.  It was as yet the only question in my mind.  You must know
+what your emergency is before you can decide how to cope with it; and
+to this day I sometimes tremble to think of the rashly direct method by
+which I set about obtaining the requisite information.  I drove every
+yard of the way to the pugilist's very door.  You will remember that I
+had been dining with Swigger Morrison at his club.
+
+Yet at the last I had a rough idea of what I meant to say when the door
+was opened.  It seemed almost probable that the tragic end of our talk
+over the telephone had been caused by the sudden arrival and as sudden
+violence of Barney Maguire.  In that case I was resolved to tell him
+that Raffles and I had made a bet about his burglar trap, and that I
+had come to see who had won.  I might or might not confess that Raffles
+had rung me out of bed to this end. If, however, I was wrong about
+Maguire, and he had not come home at all, then my action would depend
+upon the menial who answered my reckless ring.  But it should result in
+the rescue of Raffles by hook or crook.
+
+I had the more time to come to some decision, since I rang and rang in
+vain.  The hall, indeed, was in darkness; but when I peeped through the
+letter-box I could see a faint beam of light from the back room.  That
+was the room in which Maguire kept his trophies and set his trap.  All
+was quiet in the house: could they have haled the intruder to Vine
+Street in the short twenty minutes which it had taken me to dress and
+to drive to the spot?  That was an awful thought; but even as I hoped
+against hope, and rang once more, speculation and suspense were cut
+short in the last fashion to be foreseen.
+
+A brougham was coming sedately down the street from Piccadilly; to my
+horror, it stopped behind me as I peered once more through the
+letter-box, and out tumbled the dishevelled prizefighter and two
+companions.  I was nicely caught in my turn.  There was a lamp-post
+right opposite the door, and I can still see the three of them
+regarding me in its light.  The pugilist had been at least a fine
+figure of a bully and a braggart when I saw him before his fight; now
+he had a black eye and a bloated lip, hat on the back of his head, and
+made-up tie under one ear.  His companions were his sallow little
+Yankee secretary, whose name I really forget, but whom I met with
+Maguire at the Boxing Club, and a very grand person in a second skin of
+shimmering sequins.
+
+I can neither forget nor report the terms in which Barney Maguire asked
+me who I was and what I was doing there.  Thanks, however, to Swigger
+Morrison's hospitality, I readily reminded him of our former meeting,
+and of more that I only recalled as the words were in my mouth.
+
+"You'll remember Raffles," said I, "if you don't remember me.  You
+showed us your trophies the other night, and asked us both to look you
+up at any hour of the day or night after the fight."
+
+I was going on to add that I had expected to find Raffles there before
+me, to settle a wager that we had made about the man-trap. But the
+indiscretion was interrupted by Maguire himself, whose dreadful fist
+became a hand that gripped mine with brute fervor, while with the other
+he clouted me on the back.
+
+"You don't say!" he cried.  "I took you for some darned crook, but now
+I remember you perfectly.  If you hadn't've spoke up slick I'd have
+bu'st your face in, sonny.  I would, sure!  Come right in, and have a
+drink to show there's--Jeehoshaphat!"
+
+The secretary had turned the latch-key in the door, only to be hauled
+back by the collar as the door stood open, and the light from the inner
+room was seen streaming upon the banisters at the foot of the narrow
+stairs.
+
+"A light in my den," said Maguire in a mighty whisper, "and the blamed
+door open, though the key's in my pocket and we left it locked!  Talk
+about crooks, eh?  Holy smoke, how I hope we've landed one alive!  You
+ladies and gentlemen, lay round where you are, while I see."
+
+And the hulking figure advanced on tiptoe, like a performing elephant,
+until just at the open door, when for a second we saw his left
+revolving like a piston and his head thrown back at its fighting angle.
+But in another second his fists were hands again, and Maguire was
+rubbing them together as he stood shaking with laughter in the light of
+the open door.
+
+"Walk up!" he cried, as he beckoned to us three.  "Walk up and see one
+o' their blamed British crooks laid as low as the blamed carpet, and
+nailed as tight!"
+
+Imagine my feelings on the mat!  The sallow secretary went first; the
+sequins glittered at his heels, and I must own that for one base moment
+I was on the brink of bolting through the street door.  It had never
+been shut behind us.  I shut it myself in the end.  Yet it was small
+credit to me that I actually remained on the same side of the door as
+Raffles.
+
+"Reel home-grown, low-down, unwashed Whitechapel!"  I had heard Maguire
+remark within.  "Blamed if our Bowery boys ain't cock-angels to scum
+like this.  Ah, you biter, I wouldn't soil my knuckles on your ugly
+face; but if I had my thick boots on I'd dance the soul out of your
+carcass for two cents!"
+
+After this it required less courage to join the others in the inner
+room; and for some moments even I failed to identify the truly
+repulsive object about which I found them grouped.  There was no false
+hair upon the face, but it was as black as any sweep's.  The clothes,
+on the other hand, were new to me, though older and more pestiferous in
+themselves than most worn by Raffles for professional purposes.  And at
+first, as I say, I was far from sure whether it was Raffles at all; but
+I remembered the crash that cut short our talk over the telephone; and
+this inanimate heap of rags was lying directly underneath a wall
+instrument, with the receiver dangling over him.
+
+"Think you know him?" asked the sallow secretary, as I stooped and
+peered with my heart in my boots.
+
+"Good Lord, no!  I only wanted to see if he was dead," I explained,
+having satisfied myself that it was really Raffles, and that Raffles
+was really insensible.  "But what on earth has happened?"  I asked in
+my turn.
+
+"That's what I want to know," whined the person in sequins, who had
+contributed various ejaculations unworthy of report, and finally
+subsided behind an ostentatious fan.
+
+"I should judge," observed the secretary, "that it's for Mr. Maguire to
+say, or not to say, just as he darn pleases."
+
+But the celebrated Barney stood upon a Persian hearth-rug, beaming upon
+us all in a triumph too delicious for immediate translation into words.
+The room was furnished as a study, and most artistically furnished, if
+you consider outlandish shapes in fumed oak artistic. There was nothing
+of the traditional prize-fighter about Barney Maguire, except his
+vocabulary and his lower jaw.  I had seen over his house already, and
+it was fitted and decorated throughout by a high-art firm which
+exhibits just such a room as that which was the scene of our
+tragedietta.  The person in the sequins lay glistening like a landed
+salmon in a quaint chair of enormous nails and tapestry compact.  The
+secretary leaned against an escritoire with huge hinges of beaten
+metal.  The pugilist's own background presented an elaborate scheme of
+oak and tiles, with inglenooks green from the joiner, and a china
+cupboard with leaded panes behind his bullet head.  And his bloodshot
+eyes rolled with rich delight from the decanter and glasses on the
+octagonal table to another decanter in the quaintest and craftiest of
+revolving spirit tables.
+
+"Isn't it bully?" asked the prize-fighter, smiling on us each in turn,
+with his black and bloodshot eyes and his bloated lip.  "To think that
+I've only to invent a trap to catch a crook, for a blamed crook to walk
+right into!  You, Mr. Man," and he nodded his great head at me, "you'll
+recollect me telling you that I'd gotten one when you come in that
+night with the other sport?  Say, pity he's not with you now; he was a
+good boy, and I liked him a lot; but he wanted to know too much, and I
+guess he'd got to want.  But I'm liable to tell you now, or else bu'st.
+See that decanter on the table?"
+
+"I was just looking at it," said the person in sequins.  "You don't
+know what a turn I've had, or you'd offer me a little something."
+
+"You shall have a little something in a minute," rejoined Maguire. "But
+if you take a little anything out of that decanter, you'll collapse
+like our friend upon the floor."
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried out, with involuntary indignation, and his fell
+scheme broke upon me in a clap.
+
+"Yes, sir!" said Maguire, fixing me with his bloodshot orbs.  "My trap
+for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey, and I guess
+that's it on the table, with the silver label around its neck. Now look
+at this other decanter, without any label at all; but for that they're
+the dead spit of each other.  I'll put them side by side, so you can
+see.  It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the same in
+both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you woke up
+in your tracks.  I got the poison from a blamed Indian away west, and
+it's ruther ticklish stuff.  So I keep the label around the
+trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's
+all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back
+in the stand.  "But I figure it's enough for ninety-nine crooks out of
+a hundred, and nineteen out of twenty 'll have their liquor before they
+go to work."
+
+"I wouldn't figure on that," observed the secretary, with a downward
+glance as though at the prostrate Raffles.  "Have you looked to see if
+the trophies are all safe?"
+
+"Not yet," said Maguire, with a glance at the pseudo-antique cabinet in
+which he kept them.  "Then you can save yourself the trouble," rejoined
+the secretary, as he dived under the octagonal table, and came up with
+a small black bag that I knew at a glance.  It was the one that Raffles
+had used for heavy plunder ever since I had known him.
+
+The bag was so heavy now that the secretary used both hands to get it
+on the table.  In another moment he had taken out the jewelled belt
+presented to Maguire by the State of Nevada, the solid silver statuette
+of himself, and the gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento.
+
+Either the sight of his treasures, so nearly lost, or the feeling that
+the thief had dared to tamper with them after all, suddenly infuriated
+Maguire to such an extent that he had bestowed a couple of brutal kicks
+upon the senseless form of Raffles before the secretary and I could
+interfere.
+
+"Play light, Mr. Maguire!" cried the sallow secretary.  "The man's
+drugged, as well as down."
+
+"He'll be lucky if he ever gets up, blight and blister him!"
+
+"I should judge it about time to telephone for the police."
+
+"Not till I've done with him.  Wait till he comes to!  I guess I'll
+punch his face into a jam pudding!  He shall wash down his teeth with
+his blood before the coppers come in for what's left!"
+
+"You make me feel quite ill," complained the grand lady in the chair.
+"I wish you'd give me a little something, and not be more vulgar than
+you can 'elp."
+
+"Help yourself," said Maguire, ungallantly, "and don't talk through
+your hat.  Say, what's the matter with the 'phone?"
+
+The secretary had picked up the dangling receiver.
+
+"It looks to me," said he, "as though the crook had rung up somebody
+before he went off."
+
+I turned and assisted the grand lady to the refreshment that she craved.
+
+"Like his cheek!" Maguire thundered.  "But who in blazes should he ring
+up?"
+
+"It'll all come out," said the secretary.  "They'll tell us at the
+central, and we shall find out fast enough."
+
+"It don't matter now," said Maguire.  "Let's have a drink and then
+rouse the devil up."
+
+But now I was shaking in my shoes.  I saw quite clearly what this
+meant.  Even if I rescued Raffles for the time being, the police would
+promptly ascertain that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar,
+and the fact of my not having said a word about it would be directly
+damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both.  It made
+me quite faint to feel that we might escape the Scylla of our present
+peril and yet split on the Charybdis of circumstantial evidence.  Yet I
+could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if I held my tongue
+another moment.  So I spoke up desperately, with the rash resolution
+which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this occasion.  But
+any sheep would be resolute and rash after dining with Swigger Morrison
+at his club.
+
+"I wonder if he rang me up?" I exclaimed, as if inspired.
+
+"You, sonny?" echoed Maguire, decanter in hand.  "What in hell could he
+know about you?"
+
+"Or what could you know about him?" amended the secretary, fixing me
+with eyes like drills.
+
+"Nothing," I admitted, regretting my temerity with all my heart. "But
+some one did ring me up about an hour ago.  I thought it was Raffles.
+I told you I expected to find him here, if you remember."
+
+"But I don't see what that's got to do with the crook," pursued the
+secretary, with his relentless eyes boring deeper and deeper into mine.
+
+"No more do I," was my miserable reply.  But there was a certain
+comfort in his words, and some simultaneous promise in the quantity of
+spirit which Maguire splashed into his glass.
+
+"Were you cut off sudden?" asked the secretary, reaching for the
+decanter, as the three of us sat round the octagonal table.
+
+"So suddenly," I replied, "that I never knew who it was who rang me up.
+No, thank you--not any for me."
+
+"What!" cried Maguire, raising a depressed head suddenly.  "You won't
+have a drink in my house?  Take care, young man.  That's not being a
+good boy!"
+
+"But I've been dining out," I expostulated, "and had my whack.  I
+really have."
+
+Barney Maguire smote the table with terrific
+
+"Say, sonny, I like you a lot," said he.  "But I shan't like you any if
+you're not a good boy!"
+
+"Very well, very well," I said hurriedly.  "One finger, if I must."
+
+And the secretary helped me to not more than two.
+
+"Why should it have been your friend Raffles?" he inquired, returning
+remorselessly to the charge, while Maguire roared "Drink up!" and then
+drooped once more.
+
+"I was half asleep," I answered, "and he was the first person who
+occurred to me.  We are both on the telephone, you see.  And we had
+made a bet--"
+
+The glass was at my lips, but I was able to set it down untouched.
+Maguire's huge jaw had dropped upon his spreading shirt-front, and
+beyond him I saw the person in sequins fast asleep in the artistic
+armchair.
+
+"What bet?" asked a voice with a sudden start in it.  The secretary was
+blinking as he drained his glass.
+
+"About the very thing we've just had explained to us," said I, watching
+my man intently as I spoke.  "I made sure it was a man-trap. Raffles
+thought it must be something else.  We had a tremendous argument about
+it.  Raffles said it wasn't a man-trap.  I said it was.  We had a bet
+about it in the end.  I put my money on the man-trap.  Raffles put his
+upon the other thing.  And Raffles was right--it wasn't a man-trap.
+But it's every bit as good--every little bit--and the whole boiling of
+you are caught in it except me!"
+
+I sank my voice with the last sentence, but I might just as well have
+raised it instead.  I had said the same thing over and over again to
+see whether the wilful tautology would cause the secretary to open his
+eyes.  It seemed to have had the very opposite effect. His head fell
+forward on the table, with never a quiver at the blow, never a twitch
+when I pillowed it upon one of his own sprawling arms.  And there sat
+Maguire bolt upright, but for the jowl upon his shirt-front, while the
+sequins twinkled in a regular rise and fall upon the reclining form of
+the lady in the fanciful chair.  All three were sound asleep, by what
+accident or by whose design I did not pause to inquire; it was enough
+to ascertain the fact beyond all chance of error.
+
+I turned my attention to Raffles last of all.  There was the other side
+of the medal.  Raffles was still sleeping as sound as the enemy--or so
+I feared at first I shook him gently: he made no sign.  I introduced
+vigor into the process: he muttered incoherently. I caught and twisted
+an unresisting wrist--and at that he yelped profanely.  But it was many
+and many an anxious moment before his blinking eyes knew mine.
+
+"Bunny!" he yawned, and nothing more until his position came back to
+him.  "So you came to me," he went on, in a tone that thrilled me with
+its affectionate appreciation, "as I knew you would!  Have they turned
+up yet?  They will any minute, you know; there's not one to lose."
+
+"No, they won't, old man!" I whispered.  And he sat up and saw the
+comatose trio for himself.
+
+Raffles seemed less amazed at the result than I had been as a puzzled
+witness of the process; on the other hand, I had never seen anything
+quite so exultant as the smile that broke through his blackened
+countenance like a light.  It was all obviously no great surprise, and
+no puzzle at all, to Raffles.
+
+"How much did they have, Bunny?" were his first whispered words.
+
+"Maguire a good three fingers, and the others at least two."
+
+"Then we needn't lower our voices, and we needn't walk on our toes.
+Eheu!  I dreamed somebody was kicking me in the ribs, and I believe it
+must have been true."
+
+He had risen with a hand to his side and a wry look on his sweep's face.
+
+"You can guess which of them it was," said I.  "The beast is jolly well
+served!"
+
+And I shook my fist in the paralytic face of the most brutal bruiser of
+his time.
+
+"He is safe till the forenoon, unless they bring a doctor to him," said
+Raffles.  "I don't suppose we could rouse him now if we tried. How much
+of the fearsome stuff do you suppose I took?  About a tablespoonful!  I
+guessed what it was, and couldn't resist making sure; the minute I was
+satisfied, I changed the label and the position of the two decanters,
+little thinking I should stay to see the fun; but in another minute I
+could hardly keep my eyes open. I realized then that I was fairly
+poisoned with some subtle drug. If I left the house at all in that
+state, I must leave the spoil behind, or be found drunk in the gutter
+with my head on the swag itself.  In any case I should have been picked
+up and run in, and that might have led to anything."
+
+"So you rang me up!"
+
+"It was my last brilliant inspiration--a sort of flash in the brain-pan
+before the end--and I remember very little about it.  I was more asleep
+than awake at the time."
+
+"You sounded like it, Raffles, now that one has the clue."
+
+"I can't remember a word I said, or what was the end of it, Bunny."
+
+"You fell in a heap before you came to the end."
+
+"You didn't hear that through the telephone?"
+
+"As though we had been in the same room: only I thought it was Maguire
+who had stolen a march on you and knocked you out."
+
+I had never seen Raffles more interested and impressed; but at this
+point his smile altered, his eyes softened, and I found my hand in his.
+
+"You thought that, and yet you came like a shot to do battle for my
+body with Barney Maguire!  Jack-the-Giant-killer wasn't in it with you,
+Bunny!"
+
+"It was no credit to me--it was rather the other thing," said I,
+remembering my rashness and my luck, and confessing both in a breath.
+"You know old Swigger Morrison?" I added in final explanation.  "I had
+been dining with him at his club!"
+
+Raffles shook his long old head.  And the kindly light in his eyes was
+still my infinite reward.
+
+"I don't care," said he, "how deeply you had been dining: in vino
+veritas, Bunny, and your pluck would always out!  I have never doubted
+it, and I never shall.  In fact, I rely on nothing else to get us out
+of this mess."
+
+My face must have fallen, as my heart sank at these words.  I had said
+to myself that we were out of the mess already--that we had merely to
+make a clean escape from the house--now the easiest thing in the world.
+But as I looked at Raffles, and as Raffles looked at me, on the
+threshold of the room where the three sleepers slept on without sound
+or movement, I grasped the real problem that lay before us.  It was
+twofold; and the funny thing was that I had seen both horns of the
+dilemma for myself, before Raffles came to his senses.  But with
+Raffles in his right mind, I had ceased to apply my own, or to carry my
+share of our common burden another inch.  It had been an unconscious
+withdrawal on my part, an instinctive tribute to my leader; but, I was
+sufficiently ashamed of it as we stood and faced the problem in each
+other's eyes.
+
+"If we simply cleared out," continued Raffles, "you would be
+incriminated in the first place as my accomplice, and once they had you
+they would have a compass with the needle pointing straight to me.
+They mustn't have either of us, Bunny, or they will get us both.  And
+for my part they may as well!"
+
+I echoed a sentiment that was generosity itself in Raffles, but in my
+case a mere truism.
+
+"It's easy enough for me," he went on.  "I am a common house-breaker,
+and I escape.  They don't know me from Noah.  But they do know you; and
+how do you come to let me escape?  What has happened to you, Bunny?
+That's the crux.  What could have happened after they all dropped off?"
+And for a minute Raffles frowned and smiled like a sensation novelist
+working out a plot; then the light broke, and transfigured him through
+his burnt cork.  "I've got it, Bunny!" he exclaimed.  "You took some of
+the stuff yourself, though of course not nearly so much as they did.
+
+"Splendid!" I cried.  "They really were pressing it upon me at the end,
+and I did say it must be very little."
+
+"You dozed off in your turn, but you were naturally the first to come
+to yourself.  I had flown; so had the gold brick, the jewelled belt,
+and the silver statuette.  You tried to rouse the others.  You couldn't
+succeed; nor would you if you did try.  So what did you do? What's the
+only really innocent thing you could do in the circumstances?"
+
+"Go for the police," I suggested dubiously, little relishing the
+prospect.
+
+"There's a telephone installed for the purpose," said Raffles.  "I
+should ring them up, if I were you.  Try not to look blue about it,
+Bunny.  They're quite the nicest fellows in the world, and what you
+have to tell them is a mere microbe to the camels I've made them
+swallow without a grain of salt.  It's really the most convincing story
+one could conceive; but unfortunately there's another point which will
+take more explaining away."
+
+And even Raffles looked grave enough as I nodded.
+
+"You mean that they'll find out you rang me up?"
+
+"They may," said Raffles.  "I see that I managed to replace the
+receiver all right.  But still--they may."
+
+"I'm afraid they will," said I, uncomfortably.  "I'm very much afraid I
+gave something of the kind away.  You see, you had not replaced the
+receiver; it was dangling over you where you lay. This very question
+came up, and the brutes themselves seemed so quick to see its
+possibilities that I thought best to take the bull by the horns and own
+that I had been rung up by somebody. To be absolutely honest, I even
+went so far as to say I thought it was Raffles!"
+
+"You didn't, Bunny!"
+
+"What could I say?  I was obliged to think of somebody, and I saw they
+were not going to recognize you.  So I put up a yarn about a wager we
+had made about this very trap of Maguire's.  You see, Raffles, I've
+never properly told you how I got in, and there's no time now; but the
+first thing I had said was that I half expected to find you here before
+me.  That was in case they spotted you at once.  But it made all that
+part about the telephone fit in rather well."
+
+"I should think it did, Bunny," murmured Raffles, in a tone that added
+sensibly to my reward.  "I couldn't have done better myself, and you
+will forgive my saying that you have never in your life done half so
+well.  Talk about that crack you gave me on the head! You have made it
+up to me a hundredfold by all you have done to-night.  But the bother
+of it is that there's still so much to do, and to hit upon, and so
+precious little time for thought as well as action."
+
+I took out my watch and showed it to Raffles without a word.  It was
+three o'clock in the morning, and the latter end of March.  In little
+more than an hour there would be dim daylight in the streets. Raffles
+roused himself from a reverie with sudden decision.
+
+"There's only one thing for it, Bunny," said he.  "We must trust each
+other and divide the labor.  You ring up the police, and leave the rest
+to me."
+
+"You haven't hit upon any reason for the sort of burglar they think you
+were, ringing up the kind of man they know I am?"
+
+"Not yet, Bunny, but I shall.  It may not be wanted for a day or so,
+and after all it isn't for you to give the explanation.  It would be
+highly suspicious if you did."
+
+"So it would," I agreed.
+
+"Then will you trust me to hit on something--if possible before
+morning--in any case by the time it's wanted?  I won't fail you, Bunny.
+You must see how I can never, never fail you after to-night!"
+
+That settled it.  I gripped his hand without another word, and remained
+on guard over the three sleepers while Raffles stole upstairs.  I have
+since learned that there were servants at the top of the house, and in
+the basement a man, who actually heard some of our proceedings!  But he
+was mercifully too accustomed to nocturnal orgies, and those of a far
+more uproarious character, to appear unless summoned to the scene.  I
+believe he heard Raffles leave.  But no secret was made of his exit: he
+let himself out and told me afterward that the first person he
+encountered in the street was the constable on the beat.  Raffles
+wished him good-morning, as well he might; for he had been upstairs to
+wash his face and hands; and in the prize-fighter's great hat and fur
+coat he might have marched round Scotland Yard itself, in spite of his
+having the gold brick from Sacramento in one pocket, the silver
+statuette of Maguire in the other, and round his waist the jewelled
+belt presented to that worthy by the State of Nevada.
+
+My immediate part was a little hard after the excitement of those small
+hours.  I will only say that we had agreed that it would be wisest for
+me to lie like a log among the rest for half an hour, before staggering
+to my feet and rousing house and police; and that in that half-hour
+Barney Maguire crashed to the floor, without waking either himself or
+his companions, though not without bringing my beating heart into the
+very roof of my mouth.
+
+It was daybreak when I gave the alarm with bell and telephone.  In a
+few minutes we had the house congested with dishevelled domestics,
+irascible doctors, and arbitrary minions of the law.  If I told my
+story once, I told it a dozen times, and all on an empty stomach. But
+it was certainly a most plausible and consistent tale, even without
+that confirmation which none of the other victims was as yet
+sufficiently recovered to supply. And in the end I was permitted to
+retire from the scene until required to give further information, or to
+identify the prisoner whom the good police confidently expected to make
+before the day was out.
+
+I drove straight to the flat.  The porter flew to help me out of my
+hansom.  His face alarmed me more than any I had left in Half-moon
+Street.  It alone might have spelled my ruin.
+
+"Your flat's been entered in the night, sir," he cried.  "The thieves
+have taken everything they could lay hands on."
+
+"Thieves in my flat!" I ejaculated aghast.  There were one or two
+incriminating possessions up there, as well as at the Albany.
+
+"The door's been forced with a jimmy," said the porter.  "It was the
+milkman who found it out.  There's a constable up there now."
+
+A constable poking about in my flat of all others!  I rushed upstairs
+without waiting for the lift.  The invader was moistening his pencil
+between laborious notes in a fat pocketbook; he had penetrated no
+further than the forced door.  I dashed past him in a fever.  I kept my
+trophies in a wardrobe drawer specially fitted with a Bramah lock.  The
+lock was broken--the drawer void.
+
+"Something valuable, sir?" inquired the intrusive constable at my heels.
+
+"Yes, indeed--some old family silver," I answered.  It was quite true.
+But the family was not mine.
+
+And not till then did the truth flash across my mind.  Nothing else of
+value had been taken.  But there was a meaningless litter in all the
+rooms.  I turned to the porter, who had followed me up from the street;
+it was his wife who looked after the flat.
+
+"Get rid of this idiot as quick as you can," I whispered.  "I'm going
+straight to Scotland Yard myself.  Let your wife tidy the place while
+I'm gone, and have the lock mended before she leaves. I'm going as I
+am, this minute!"
+
+And go I did, in the first hansom I could find--but not straight to
+Scotland Yard.  I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the way.
+
+Old Raffles opened his own door to me.  I cannot remember finding him
+fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way.
+Could I paint a picture of Raffles with something other than my pen, it
+would be as I saw him that bright March morning, at his open door in
+the Albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and
+breezy as incarnate spring.
+
+"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within.
+
+"It was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "I
+saw it the moment I got outside."
+
+"I don't see it yet."
+
+"Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"
+
+"That's what we couldn't make out."
+
+"I tell you I got it directly I had left you.  He called you away in
+order to burgle you too, of course!"
+
+And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all his incomparable radiance and
+audacity.
+
+"But why me?" I asked.  "Why on earth should he burgle me?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, we must leave something to the imagination of the
+police.  But we will assist them to a fact or two in due season. It was
+the dead of night when Maguire first took us to his house; it was at
+the Imperial Boxing Club we met him; and you meet queer fish at the
+Imperial Boxing Club.  You may remember that he telephoned to his man
+to prepare supper for us, and that you and he discussed telephones and
+treasure as we marched through the midnight streets.  He was certainly
+bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will
+be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours.  What
+happens?  You are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the
+same scheme, and robbed on the same night."
+
+"And you really think this will meet the case?"
+
+"I am quite certain of it, Bunny, so far as it rests wit us to meet the
+case at all."
+
+"Then give me another cigarette, my dear fellow, and let me push on to
+Scotland Yard."
+
+Raffles held up both hands in admiring horror.  "Scotland Yard!"
+
+"To give a false description of what you took from that drawer in my
+wardrobe."
+
+"A false description!  Bunny, you have no more to learn from me. Time
+was when I wouldn't have let you go there without me to retrieve a lost
+umbrella--let alone a lost cause!"
+
+And for once I was not sorry for Raffles to have the last unworthy
+word, as he stood once more at his outer door and gayly waved me down
+the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+The Spoils of Sacrilege
+
+There was one deed of those days which deserved a place in our original
+annals.  It is the deed of which I am personally most ashamed.  I have
+traced the course of a score of felonies, from their source in the
+brain of Raffles to their issue in his hands. I have omitted all
+mention of the one which emanated from my own miserable mind.  But in
+these supplementary memoirs, wherein I pledged myself to extenuate
+nothing more that I might have to tell of Raffles, it is only fair that
+I should make as clean a breast of my own baseness.  It was I, then,
+and I alone, who outraged natural sentiment, and trampled the expiring
+embers of elementary decency, by proposing and planning the raid upon
+my own old home.
+
+I would not accuse myself the more vehemently by making excuses at this
+point.   Yet I feel bound to state that it was already many years since
+the place had passed from our possession into that of an utter alien,
+against whom I harbored a prejudice which was some excuse in itself.
+He had enlarged and altered the dear old place out of knowledge;
+nothing had been good enough for him as it stood in our day.  The man
+was a hunting maniac, and where my dear father used to grow prize
+peaches under glass, this vandal was soon stabling his hothouse
+thoroughbreds, which took prizes in their turn at all the country
+shows.  It was a southern county, and I never went down there without
+missing another greenhouse and noting a corresponding extension to the
+stables.  Not that I ever set foot in the grounds from the day we left;
+but for some years I used to visit old friends in the neighborhood, and
+could never resist the temptation to reconnoiter the scenes of my
+childhood.  And so far as could be seen from the road--which it stood
+too near--the house itself appeared to be the one thing that the horsey
+purchaser had left much as he found it.
+
+My only other excuse may be none at all in any eyes but mine.  It was
+my passionate desire at this period to "keep up my end" with Raffles in
+every department of the game felonious.  He would insist upon an equal
+division of all proceeds; it was for me to earn my share.  So far I had
+been useful only at a pinch; the whole credit of any real success
+belonged invariably to Raffles.  It had always been his idea.  That was
+the tradition which I sought to end, and no means could compare with
+that of my unscrupulous choice.  There was the one house in England of
+which I knew every inch, and Raffles only what I told him.  For once I
+must lead, and Raffles follow, whether he liked it or not.  He saw that
+himself; and I think he liked it better than he liked me for the
+desecration in view; but I had hardened my heart, and his feelings were
+too fine for actual remonstrance on such a point.
+
+I, in my obduracy, went to foul extremes.  I drew plans of all the
+floors from memory.  I actually descended upon my friends in the
+neighborhood, with the sole object of obtaining snap-shots over our own
+old garden wall.  Even Raffles could not keep his eyebrows down when I
+showed him the prints one morning in the Albany.  But he confined his
+open criticisms to the house.
+
+"Built in the late 'sixties, I see," said Raffles, "or else very early
+in the 'seventies."
+
+"Exactly when it was built," I replied.  "But that's worthy of a
+sixpenny detective, Raffles!  How on earth did you know?"
+
+"That slate tower bang over the porch, with the dormer windows and the
+iron railing and flagstaff atop makes us a present of the period. You
+see them on almost every house of a certain size built about thirty
+years ago.  They are quite the most useless excrescences I know."
+
+"Ours wasn't," I answered, with some warmth.  "It was my sanctum
+sanctorum in the holidays.  I smoked my first pipe up there, and wrote
+my first verses."
+
+Raffles laid a kindly hand upon my shoulder--"Bunny, Bunny, you can rob
+the old place, and yet you can't hear a word against it?"
+
+"That's different," said I relentlessly.  "The tower was there in my
+time, but the man I mean to rob was not."
+
+"You really do mean to do it, Bunny?"
+
+"By myself, if necessary?  I averred.
+
+"Not again, Bunny, not again," rejoined Raffles, laughing as he shook
+his head.  "But do you think the man has enough to make it worth our
+while to go so far afield?"
+
+"Far afield!  It's not forty miles on the London and Brighton."
+
+"Well, that's as bad as a hundred on most lines.  And when did you say
+it was to be?"
+
+"Friday week."
+
+"I don't much like a Friday, Bunny.  Why make it one?"
+
+"It's the night of their Hunt Point-to-Point.  They wind up the season
+with it every year; and the bloated Guillemard usually sweeps the board
+with his fancy flyers."
+
+"You mean the man in your old house?"
+
+"Yes; and he tops up with no end of dinner there," I went on, "to his
+hunting pals and the bloods who ride for him.  If the festive board
+doesn't groan under a new regiment of challenge cups, it will be no
+fault of theirs, and old Guillemard will have to do them top-hole all
+the same."
+
+"So it's a case of common pot-hunting," remarked Raffles, eyeing me
+shrewdly through the cigarette smoke.
+
+"Not for us, my dear fellow," I made answer in his own tone.  "I
+wouldn't ask you to break into the next set of chambers here in the
+Albany for a few pieces of modern silver, Raffles.  Not that we need
+scorn the cups if we get a chance of lifting them, and if Guillemard
+does so in the first instance.  It's by no means certain that he will.
+But it is pretty certain to be a lively night for him and his pals--and
+a vulnerable one for the best bedroom!"
+
+"Capital!" said Raffles, throwing coils of smoke between his smiles.
+"Still, if it's a dinner-party, the hostess won't leave her jewels
+upstairs.  She'll wear them, my boy."
+
+"Not all of them, Raffles; she has far too many for that.  Besides, it
+isn't an ordinary dinner-party; they say Mrs.  Guillemard is generally
+the only lady there, and that she's quite charming in herself.  Now, no
+charming woman would clap on all sail in jewels for a roomful of
+fox-hunters."
+
+"It depends what jewels she has."
+
+"Well, she might wear her rope of pearls."
+
+"I should have said so."
+
+"And, of course, her rings."
+
+"Exactly, Bunny."
+
+"But not necessarily her diamond tiara--"
+
+"Has she got one?"
+
+"--and certainly not her emerald and diamond necklace on top of all!"
+
+Raffles snatched the Sullivan from his lips, and his eyes burned like
+its end.
+
+"Bunny, do you mean to tell me there are all these things?"
+
+"Of course I do," said I.  "They are rich people, and he's not such a
+brute as to spend everything on his stable.  Her jewels are as much the
+talk as his hunters.  My friends told me all about both the other day
+when I was down making inquiries.  They thought my curiosity as natural
+as my wish for a few snapshots of the old place.  In their opinion the
+emerald necklace alone must be worth thousands of pounds."
+
+Raffles rubbed his hands in playful pantomime.
+
+"I only hope you didn't ask too many questions, Bunny!  But if your
+friends are such old friends, you will never enter their heads when
+they hear what has happened, unless you are seen down there on the
+night, which might be fatal.  Your approach will require some thought:
+if you like I can work out the shot for you.  I shall go down
+independently, and the best thing may be to meet outside the house
+itself on the night of nights.  But from that moment I am in your
+hands."
+
+And on these refreshing lines our plan of campaign was gradually
+developed and elaborated into that finished study on which Raffles
+would rely like any artist of the footlights.  None were more capable
+than he of coping with the occasion as it rose, of rising himself with
+the emergency of the moment, of snatching a victory from the very dust
+of defeat.  Yet, for choice, every detail was premeditated, and an
+alternative expedient at each finger's end for as many bare and awful
+possibilities.  In this case, however, the finished study stopped short
+at the garden gate or wall; there I was to assume command; and though
+Raffles carried the actual tools of trade of which he alone was master,
+it was on the understanding that for once I should control and direct
+their use.
+
+I had gone down in evening-clothes by an evening train, but had
+carefully overshot old landmarks, and alighted at a small station some
+miles south of the one where I was still remembered.  This committed me
+to a solitary and somewhat lengthy tramp; but the night was mild and
+starry, and I marched into it with a high stomach; for this was to be
+no costume crime, and yet I should have Raffles at my elbow all the
+night.  Long before I reached my destination, indeed, he stood in wait
+for me on the white highway, and we finished with linked arms.
+
+"I came down early," said Raffles, "and had a look at the races.  I
+always prefer to measure my man, Bunny; and you needn't sit in the
+front row of the stalls to take stock of your friend Guillemard. No
+wonder he doesn't ride his own horses!  The steeple-chaser isn't foaled
+that would carry him round that course.  But he's a fine monument of a
+man, and he takes his troubles in a way that makes me blush to add to
+them."
+
+"Did he lose a horse?" I inquired cheerfully.
+
+"No, Bunny, but he didn't win a race!  His horses were by chalks the
+best there, and his pals rode them like the foul fiend, but with the
+worst of luck every time.  Not that you'd think it, from the row
+they're making.  I've been listening to them from the road--you always
+did say the house stood too near it."
+
+"Then you didn't go in?"
+
+"When it's your show?  You should know me better.  Not a foot would I
+set on the premises behind your back.  But here they are, so perhaps
+you'll lead the way."
+
+And I led it without a moment's hesitation, through the unpretentious
+six-barred gate into the long but shallow crescent of the drive. There
+were two such gates, one at each end of the drive, but no lodge at
+either, and not a light nearer than those of the house.  The shape and
+altitude of the lighted windows, the whisper of the laurels on either
+hand, the very feel of the gravel underfoot, were at once familiar to
+my senses as the sweet, relaxing, immemorial air that one drank deeper
+at every breath.  Our stealthy advance was to me like stealing back
+into one's childhood; and yet I could conduct it without compunction.
+I was too excited to feel immediate remorse, albeit not too lost in
+excitement to know that remorse for every step that I was taking would
+be my portion soon enough.  I mean every word that I have written of my
+peculiar shame for this night's work.  And it was all to come over me
+before the night was out.  But in the garden I never felt it once.
+
+The dining-room windows blazed in the side of the house facing the
+road.  That was an objection to peeping through the venetian blinds, as
+we nevertheless did, at our peril of observation from the road. Raffles
+would never have led me into danger so gratuitous and unnecessary, but
+he followed me into it without a word.  I can only plead that we both
+had our reward.  There was a sufficient chink in the obsolete
+venetians, and through it we saw every inch of the picturesque board.
+Mrs. Guillemard was still in her place, but she really was the only
+lady, and dressed as quietly as I had prophesied; round her neck was
+her rope of pearls, but not the glimmer of an emerald nor the glint of
+a diamond, nor yet the flashing constellation of a tiara in her hair.
+I gripped Raffles in token of my triumph, and he nodded as he scanned
+the overwhelming majority of flushed fox-hunters.  With the exception
+of one stripling, evidently the son of the house, they were in evening
+pink to a man; and as I say, their faces matched their coats.  An
+enormous fellow, with a great red face and cropped moustache, occupied
+my poor father's place; he it was who had replaced our fruitful
+vineries with his stinking stables; but I am bound to own he looked a
+genial clod, as he sat in his fat and listened to the young bloods
+boasting of their prowess, or elaborately explaining their mishaps.
+And for a minute we listened also, before I remembered my
+responsibilities, and led Raffles round to the back of the house.
+
+There never was an easier house to enter.  I used to feel that keenly
+as a boy, when, by a prophetic irony, burglars were my bugbear, and I
+looked under my bed every night in life.  The bow-windows on the ground
+floor finished in inane balconies to the first-floor windows.  These
+balconies had ornamental iron railings, to which a less ingenious
+rope-ladder than ours could have been hitched with equal ease.  Raffles
+had brought it with him, round his waist, and he carried the telescopic
+stick for fixing it in place.  The one was unwound, and the other put
+together, in a secluded corner of the red-brick walls, where of old I
+had played my own game of squash-rackets in the holidays.  I made
+further investigations in the starlight, and even found a trace of my
+original white line along the red wall.
+
+But it was not until we had effected our entry through the room which
+had been my very own, and made our parlous way across the lighted
+landing, to the best bedroom of those days and these, that I really
+felt myself a worm.  Twin brass bedsteads occupied the site of the old
+four-poster from which I had first beheld the light.  The doors were
+the same; my childish hands had grasped these very handles.  And there
+was Raffles securing the landing door with wedge and gimlet, the very
+second after softly closing it behind us.
+
+"The other leads into the dressing-room, of course?  Then you might be
+fixing the outer dressing-room door," he whispered at his work, "but
+not the middle one Bunny, unless you want to.  The stuff will be in
+there, you see, if it isn't in here."
+
+My door was done in a moment, being fitted with a powerful bolt; but
+now an aching conscience made me busier than I need have been. I had
+raised the rope-ladder after us into my own old room, and while Raffles
+wedged his door I lowered the ladder from one of the best bedroom
+windows, in order to prepare that way of escape which was a fundamental
+feature of his own strategy.  I meant to show Raffles that I had not
+followed in his train for nothing.  But I left it to him to unearth the
+jewels.  I had begun by turning up the gas; there appeared to be no
+possible risk in that; and Raffles went to work with a will in the
+excellent light.  There were some good pieces in the room, including an
+ancient tallboy in fruity mahogany, every drawer of which was turned
+out on the bed without avail.  A few of the drawers had locks to pick,
+yet not one triffle to our taste within.  The situation became serious
+as the minutes flew.  We had left the party at its sweets; the solitary
+lady might be free to roam her house at any minute.  In the end we
+turned our attention to the dressing-room.  And no sooner did Raffles
+behold the bolted door than up went his hands.
+
+"A bathroom bolt," he cried below his breath, "and no bath in the room!
+Why didn't you tell me, Bunny?  A bolt like that speaks volumes;
+there's none on the bedroom door, remember, and this one's worthy of a
+strong room!  What if it is their strong room, Bunny! Oh, Bunny, what
+if this is their safe?"
+
+Raffles had dropped upon his knees before a carved oak chest of
+indisputable antiquity.  Its panels were delightfully irregular, its
+angles faultlessly faulty, its one modern defilement a strong lock to
+the lid.  Raffles was smiling as he produced his jimmy. R--r--r--rip
+went lock or lid in another ten seconds--I was not there to see which.
+I had wandered back into the bedroom in a paroxysm of excitement and
+suspense.  I must keep busy as well as Raffles, and it was not too
+soon to see whether the rope-ladder was all right.  In another minute...
+
+I stood frozen to the floor.  I had hooked the ladder beautifully to
+the inner sill of wood, and had also let down the extended rod for the
+more expeditious removal of both on our return to terra firma.
+Conceive my cold horror on arriving at the open window just in time to
+see the last of hooks and bending rod, as they floated out of sight and
+reach into the outer darkness of the night, removed by some silent and
+invisible hand below!
+
+"Raffles-Raffles--they've spotted us and moved the ladder this very
+instant!"
+
+So I panted as I rushed on tiptoe to the dressing-room.  Raffles had
+the working end of his jimmy under the lid of a leathern jewel case. It
+flew open at the vicious twist of his wrist that preceded his reply.
+
+"Did you let them see that you'd spotted that?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good!  Pocket some of these cases--no time to open them.  Which door's
+nearest the backstairs?"
+
+"The other."
+
+"Come on then?"
+
+"No, no, I'll lead the way.  I know every inch of it."
+
+And, as I leaned against the bedroom door, handle in hand, while
+Raffles stooped to unscrew the gimlet and withdraw the wedge, I hit
+upon the ideal port in the storm that was evidently about to burst on
+our devoted heads.  It was the last place in which they would look for
+a couple of expert cracksmen with no previous knowledge of the house.
+If only we could gain my haven unobserved, there we might lie in
+unsuspected hiding, and by the hour, if not for days and nights.
+
+Alas for that sanguine dream!  The wedge was out, and Raffles on his
+feet behind me.  I opened the door, and for a second the pair of us
+stood upon the threshold.
+
+Creeping up the stairs before us, each on the tip of his silken toes,
+was a serried file of pink barbarians, redder in the face than anywhere
+else, and armed with crops carried by the wrong end. The monumental
+person with the short moustache led the advance.  The fool stood still
+upon the top step to let out the loudest and cheeriest view-holloa that
+ever smote my ears.
+
+It cost him more than he may know until I tell him.  There was the wide
+part of the landing between us; we had just that much start along the
+narrow part, with the walls and doors upon our left, the banisters on
+our right, and the baize door at the end.  But if the great Guillemard
+had not stopped to live up to his sporting reputation, he would
+assuredly have laid one or other of us by the heels, and either would
+have been tantamount to both.  As I gave Raffles a headlong lead to the
+baize door, I glanced down the great well of stairs, and up came the
+daft yells of these sporting oafs:
+
+"Gone away--gone away!"
+
+"Yoick--yoick--yoick?"
+
+"Yon-der they go?"
+
+And gone I had, through the baize door to the back landing, with
+Raffles at my heels.  I held the swing door for him, and heard him bang
+it in the face of the spluttering and blustering master of the house.
+Other feet were already in the lower flight of the backstairs; but the
+upper flight was the one for me, and in an instant we were racing along
+the upper corridor with the chuckle-headed pack at our heels.  Here it
+was all but dark--they were the servants' bedrooms that we were passing
+now--but I knew what I was doing.  Round the last corner to the right,
+through the first door to the left and we were in the room underneath
+the tower. In our time a long stepladder had led to the tower itself.
+I rushed in the dark to the old corner.  Thank God, the ladder was
+there still!  It leaped under us as we rushed aloft like one quadruped.
+The breakneck trap-door was still protected by a curved brass
+stanchion; this I grasped with one hand, and then Raffles with the
+other as I felt my feet firm upon the tower floor.  In he sprawled
+after me, and down went the trap-door with a bang upon the leading
+hound.
+
+I hoped to feel his dead-weight shake the house, as he crashed upon the
+floor below; but the fellow must have ducked, and no crash came.
+Meanwhile not a word passed between Raffles and me; he had followed me,
+as I had led him, without waste of breath upon a single syllable. But
+the merry lot below were still yelling and bellowing in full cry.
+
+"Gone to ground?  screamed one.
+
+"Where's the terrier?" screeched another.
+
+But their host of the mighty girth--a man like a soda-water bottle,
+from my one glimpse of him on his feet--seemed sobered rather than
+stunned by the crack on that head of his.  We heard his fine voice no
+more, but we could feel him straining every thew against the trap-door
+upon which Raffles and I stood side by side.  At least I thought
+Raffles was standing, until he asked me to strike a light, when I found
+him on his knees instead of on his feet, busy screwing down the
+trap-door with his gimlet.  He carried three or four gimlets for
+wedging doors, and he drove them all in to the handle, while I pulled
+at the stanchion and pushed with my feet.
+
+But the upward pressure ceased before our efforts.  We heard the ladder
+creak again under a ponderous and slow descent; and we stood upright in
+the dim flicker of a candle-end that I had lit and left burning on the
+floor.  Raffles glanced at the four small windows in turn and then at
+me.  "Is there any way out at all?" he whispered, as no other being
+would or could have whispered to the man who had led him into such a
+trap.  "We've no rope-ladder, you know."
+
+"Thanks to me," I groaned.  "The whole thing's my fault?
+
+"Nonsense, Bunny; there was no other way to run.  But what about these
+windows?"
+
+His magnanimity took me by the throat; without a word I led him to the
+one window looking inward upon sloping slates and level leads. Often as
+a boy I had clambered over them, for the fearful fun of risking life
+and limb, or the fascination of peering through the great square
+skylight, down the well of the house into the hall below.  There were,
+however, several smaller skylights, for the benefit of the top floor,
+through any one of which I thought we might have made a dash.  But at a
+glance I saw we were too late: one of these skylights became a
+brilliant square before our eyes; opened, and admitted a flushed face
+on flaming shoulders.
+
+"I'll give them a fright!"  said Raffles through his teeth.  In an
+instant he had plucked out his revolver, smashed the window with its
+butt, and the slates with a bullet not a yard from the protruding head.
+And that, I believe, was the only shot that Raffles ever fired in his
+whole career as a midnight marauder.
+
+"You didn't hit him?" I gasped, as the head disappeared, and we heard a
+crash in the corridor.
+
+"Of course I didn't, Bunny," he replied, backing into the tower; "but
+no one will believe I didn't mean to, and it'll stick on ten years if
+we're caught.  That's nothing, if it gives us an extra five minutes
+now, while they hold a council of war.  Is that a working flag-staff
+overhead?"
+
+"It used to be."
+
+"Then there'll be halliards."
+
+"They were as thin as clothes-lines.".
+
+"And they're sure to be rotten, and we should be seen cutting them
+down.  No, Bunny, that won't do.  Wait a bit.  Is there a lightning
+conductor?"
+
+"There was."
+
+I opened one of the side windows and reached out as far as I could.
+
+"You'll be seen from that skylight!" cried Raffles in a warning
+undertone.
+
+"No, I won't.  I can't see it myself.  But here's the
+lightning-conductor, where it always was."
+
+"How thick," asked Raffles, as I drew in and rejoined him.
+
+"Rather thicker than a lead-pencil."
+
+"They sometimes bear you," said Raffles, slipping on a pair of white
+kid gloves, and stuffing his handkerchief into the palm of one. "The
+difficulty is to keep a grip; but I've been up and down them before
+to-night.  And it's our only chance.  I'll go first, Bunny: you watch
+me, and do exactly as I do if I get down all right."
+
+"But if you don't?"
+
+"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window feet
+foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you are, and
+I shall have the best of it down in Acheron!"
+
+And he slid out of reach without another word, leaving me to shudder
+alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow him very far by
+the wan light of the April stars; but I saw his forearms resting a
+moment in the spout that ran around the tower, between bricks and
+slates, on the level of the floor; and I had another dim glimpse of him
+lower still, on the eaves over the very room that we had ransacked.
+Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in an angle of the facade.
+And since it had borne him thus far without mishap, I felt that Raffles
+was as good as down.  But I had neither his muscles nor his nerves, and
+my head swam as I mounted to the window and prepared to creep out
+backward in my turn.
+
+So it was that at the last moment I had my first unobstructed view of
+the little old tower of other days.  Raffles was out of the way; the
+bit of candle was still burning on the floor, and in its dim light the
+familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent memory. A lesser
+ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door in the apex of the tower;
+the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old, old coat of
+grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient smell, and the very
+vanes outside creaked their message to my ears.  I remembered whole
+days that I had spent, whole books that I had read, here in this
+favorite fastness of my boyhood.  The dirty little place, with the
+dormer window in each of its four sloping sides, became a gallery hung
+with poignant pictures of the past.  And here was I leaving it with my
+life in my hands and my pockets full of stolen jewels!  A superstition
+seized me.  Suppose the conductor came down with me ...  suppose I
+slipped ... and was picked up dead, with the proceeds of my shameful
+crime upon me, under the very windows
+
+  ...where the sun
+  Came peeping in at dawn...
+
+I hardly remember what I did or left undone.  I only know that nothing
+broke, that somehow I kept my hold, and that in the end the wire ran
+red-hot through my palms so that both were torn and bleeding when I
+stood panting beside Raffles in the flower-beds. There was no time for
+thinking then.  Already there was a fresh commotion in-doors; the tidal
+wave of excitement which had swept all before it to the upper regions
+was subsiding in as swift a rush downstairs; and I raced after Raffles
+along the edge of the drive without daring to look behind.
+
+We came out by the opposite gate to that by which we had stolen in.
+Sharp to the right ran the private lane behind the stables and sharp to
+the right dashed Raffles, instead of straight along the open road.  It
+was not the course I should have chosen, but I followed Raffles without
+a murmur, only too thankful that he had assumed the lead at last.
+Already the stables were lit up like a chandelier; there was a staccato
+rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were
+opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time.  In another minute we
+were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the
+high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs.
+
+"That's for the police," said Raffles, waiting for me.  "But the fun's
+only beginning in the stables.  Hear the uproar, and see the lights!
+In another minute they'll be turning out the hunters for the last run
+of the season."
+
+"We mustn't give them one, Raffles?"
+
+"Of course we mustn't; but that means stopping where we are."
+
+"We can't do that?"
+
+"If they're wise they'll send a man to every railway station within ten
+miles and draw every cover inside the radius.  I can only think of one
+that's not likely to occur to them."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The other side of this wall.  How big is the garden, Bunny?"
+
+"Six or seven acres."
+
+"Well, you must take me to another of your old haunts, where we can lie
+low till morning."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Sufficient for the night, Bunny!  The first thing is to find a burrow.
+What are those trees at the end of this lane?"
+
+"St. Leonard's Forest."
+
+"Magnificent!  They'll scour every inch of that before they come back
+to their own garden.  Come, Bunny, give me a leg up, and I'll pull you
+after me in two ticks!"
+
+There was indeed nothing better to be done; and, much as I loathed and
+dreaded entering the place again, I had already thought of a second
+sanctuary of old days, which might as well be put to the base uses of
+this disgraceful night.  In a far corner of the garden, over a hundred
+yards from the house, a little ornamental lake had been dug within my
+own memory; its shores were shelving lawn and steep banks of
+rhododendrons; and among the rhododendrons nestled a tiny boathouse
+which had been my childish joy.  It was half a dock for the dingy in
+which one plowed these miniature waters and half a bathing-box for
+those who preferred their morning tub among the goldfish.  I could not
+think of a safer asylum than this, if we must spend the night upon the
+premises; and Raffles agreed with me when I had led him by sheltering
+shrubbery and perilous lawn to the diminutive chalet between the
+rhododendrons and the water.
+
+But what a night it was!  The little bathing-box had two doors, one to
+the water, the other to the path.  To hear all that could be heard, it
+was necessary to keep both doors open, and quite imperative not to
+talk.  The damp night air of April filled the place, and crept through
+our evening clothes and light overcoats into the very marrow; the
+mental torture of the situation was renewed and multiplied in my brain;
+and all the time one's ears were pricked for footsteps on the path
+between the rhododendrons. The only sounds we could at first identify
+came one and all from the stables.  Yet there the excitement subsided
+sooner than we had expected, and it was Raffles himself who breathed a
+doubt as to whether they were turning out the hunters after all.  On
+the other hand, we heard wheels in the drive not long after midnight;
+and Raffles, who was beginning to scout among the shrubberies, stole
+back to tell me that the guests were departing, and being sped, with an
+unimpaired conviviality which he failed to understand. I said I could
+not understand it either, but suggested the general influence of
+liquor, and expressed my envy of their state.  I had drawn my knees up
+to my chin, on the bench where one used to dry one's self after
+bathing, and there I sat in a seeming stolidity at utter variance with
+my inward temper.  I heard Raffles creep forth again and I let him go
+without a word.  I never doubted that he would be back again in a
+minute, and so let many minutes elapse before I realized his continued
+absence, and finally crept out myself to look for him.
+
+Even then I only supposed that he had posted himself outside in some
+more commanding position.  I took a catlike stride and breathed his
+name.  There was no answer.  I ventured further, till I could overlook
+the lawns: they lay like clean slates in the starlight: there was no
+sign of living thing nearer than the house, which was still lit up, but
+quiet enough now.  Was it a cunning and deliberate quiet assumed as a
+snare?  Had they caught Raffles, and were they waiting for me?  I
+returned to the boat-house in an agony of fear and indignation.  It was
+fear for the long hours that I sat there waiting for him; it was
+indignation when at last I heard his stealthy step upon the gravel.  I
+would not go out to meet him.  I sat where I was while the stealthy
+step came nearer, nearer; and there I was sitting when the door opened,
+and a huge man in riding-clothes stood before me in the steely dawn.
+
+I leaped to my feet, and the huge man clapped me playfully on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Sorry I've been so long, Bunny, but we should never have got away as
+we were; this riding-suit makes a new man of me, on top of my own, and
+here's a youth's kit that should do you down to the ground."
+
+"So you broke into the house again?
+
+"I was obliged to, Bunny; but I had to watch the lights out one by one,
+and give them a good hour after that I went through that dressing room
+at my leisure this time; the only difficulty was to spot the son's
+quarters at the back of the house; but I overcame it, as you see, in
+the end.  I only hope they'll fit, Bunny.  Give me your patent
+leathers, and I'll fill them with stones and sink them in the pond.
+I'm doing the same with mine.  Here's a brown pair apiece, and we
+mustn't let the grass grow under them if we're to get to the station in
+time for the early train while the coast's still clear."
+
+The early train leaves the station in question at 6.20 A.M.; and that
+fine spring morning there was a police officer in a peaked cap to see
+it off; but he was too busy peering into the compartments for a pair of
+very swell mobsmen that he took no notice of the huge man in
+riding-clothes, who was obviously intoxicated, or the more
+insignificant but not less horsy character who had him in hand.  The
+early train is due at Victoria at 8.28, but these worthies left it at
+Clapham Junction, and changed cabs more than once between Battersea and
+Piccadilly, and a few of their garments in each four-wheeler.  It was
+barely nine o'clock when they sat together in the Albany, and might
+have been recognized once more as Raffles and myself.
+
+"And now," said Raffles, "before we do anything else, let us turn out
+those little cases that we hadn't time to open when we took them.  I
+mean the ones I handed to you, Bunny.  I had a look into mine in the
+garden, and I'm sorry to say there was nothing in them. The lady must
+have been wearing their proper contents."
+
+Raffles held out his hand for the substantial leather cases which I had
+produced at his request.  But that was the extent of my compliance;
+instead of handing them over, I looked boldly into the eyes that seemed
+to have discerned my wretched secret at one glance.
+
+"It is no use my giving them to you," I said.  "They are empty also."
+
+"When did you look into them?"
+
+"In the tower."
+
+"Well, let me see for myself."
+
+"As you like."
+
+"My dear Bunny, this one must have contained the necklace you boasted
+about."
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"And this one the tiara."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"Yet she was wearing neither, as you prophesied, and as we both saw for
+ourselves."
+
+I had not taken my eyes from his.
+
+"Raffles," I said, "I'll be frank with you after all.  I meant you
+never to know, but it's easier than telling you a lie.  I left both
+things behind me in the tower.  I won't attempt to explain or defend
+myself; it was probably the influence of the tower, and nothing else;
+but the whole thing came over me at the last moment, when you had gone
+and I was going.  I felt that I should very probably break my neck,
+that I cared very little whether I did or not, but that it would be
+frightful to break it at that house with those things in my pocket.
+You may say I ought to have thought of all that before! you may say
+what you like, and you won't say more than I deserve. It was
+hysterical, and it was mean, for I kept the cases to impose on you."
+
+"You were always a bad liar, Bunny," said Raffles, smiling.  "Will you
+think me one when I tell you that I can understand what you felt, and
+even what you did?  As a matter of fact, I have understood for several
+hours now."
+
+"You mean what I felt, Raffles?"
+
+"And what you did.  I guessed it in the boathouse.  I knew that
+something must have happened or been discovered to disperse that
+truculent party of sportsmen so soon and on such good terms with
+themselves.  They had not got us; they might have got something better
+worth having; and your phlegmatic attitude suggested what. As luck
+would have it, the cases that I personally had collared were the empty
+ones; the two prizes had fallen to you.  Well, to allay my horrid
+suspicion, I went and had another peep through the lighted venetians.
+And what do you think I saw?"
+
+I shook my head.  I had no idea, nor was I very eager for enlightenment.
+
+"The two poor people whom it was your own idea to despoil," quoth
+Raffles, "prematurely gloating over these two pretty things?"
+
+He withdrew a hand from either pocket of his crumpled dinner-jacket,
+and opened the pair under my nose.  In one was a diamond tiara, and in
+the other a necklace of fine emeralds set in clusters of brilliants.
+
+"You must try to forgive me, Bunny," continued Raffles before I could
+speak.  "I don't say a word against what you did, or undid; in fact,
+now it's all over, I am rather glad to think that you did try to undo
+it.  But, my dear fellow, we had both risked life, limb, and liberty;
+and I had not your sentimental scruples.  Why should I go empty away?
+If you want to know the inner history of my second visit to that good
+fellow's dressing-room, drive home for a fresh kit and meet me at the
+Turkish bath in twenty minutes. I feel more than a little grubby, and
+we can have our breakfast in the cooling gallery.  Besides, after a
+whole night in your old haunts, Bunny, it's only in order to wind up in
+Northumberland Avenue."
+
+
+
+
+The Raffles Relics
+
+It was in one of the magazines for December, 1899, that an article
+appeared which afforded our minds a brief respite from the then
+consuming excitement of the war in South Africa.  These were the days
+when Raffles really had white hair, and when he and I were nearing the
+end of our surreptitious second innings, as professional cracksmen of
+the deadliest dye.  Piccadilly and the Albany knew us no more.  But we
+still operated, as the spirit tempted us, from our latest and most
+idyllic base, on the borders of Ham Common.  Recreation was our
+greatest want; and though we had both descended to the humble bicycle,
+a lot of reading was forced upon us in the winter evenings.  Thus the
+war came as a boon to us both.  It not only provided us with an honest
+interest in life, but gave point and zest to innumerable spins across
+Richmond Park, to the nearest paper shop; and it was from such an
+expedition that I returned with inflammatory matter unconnected with
+the war.  The magazine was one of those that are read (and sold) by the
+million; the article was rudely illustrated on every other page.  Its
+subject was the so-called Black Museum at Scotland Yard; and from the
+catchpenny text we first learned that the gruesome show was now
+enriched by a special and elaborate exhibit known as the Raffles Relics.
+
+"Bunny," said Raffles, "this is fame at last!  It is no longer
+notoriety; it lifts one out of the ruck of robbers into the society of
+the big brass gods, whose little delinquencies are written in water by
+the finger of time.  The Napoleon Relics we know, the Nelson Relics
+we've heard about, and here are mine!"
+
+"Which I wish to goodness we could see," I added, longingly.  Next
+moment I was sorry I had spoken.  Raffles was looking at me across the
+magazine.  There was a smile on his lips that I knew too well, a light
+in his eyes that I had kindled.
+
+"What an excellent idea?  he exclaimed, quite softly, as though working
+it out already in his brain.
+
+"I didn't mean it for one," I answered, "and no more do you."
+
+"Certainly I do," said Raffles.  "I was never more serious in my life."
+
+"You would march into Scotland Yard in broad daylight?"
+
+"In broad lime-light," he answered, studying the magazine again, "to
+set eyes on my own once more.  Why here they all are, Bunny--you never
+told me there was an illustration.  That's the chest you took to your
+bank with me inside, and those must be my own rope-ladder and things on
+top.  They produce so badly in the baser magazines that it's impossible
+to swear to them; there's nothing for it but a visit of inspection."
+
+"Then you can pay it alone," said I grimly.  "You may have altered, but
+they'd know me at a glance."
+
+"By all means, Bunny, if you'll get me the pass."
+
+"A pass?" I cried triumphantly.  "Of course we should have to get one,
+and of course that puts an end to the whole idea.  Who on earth would
+give a pass for this show, of all others, to an old prisoner like me?"
+
+Raffles addressed himself to the reading of the magazine with a shrug
+that showed some temper.
+
+"The fellow who wrote this article got one," said he shortly.  "He got
+it from his editor, and you can get one from yours if you tried. But
+pray don't try, Bunny: it would be too terrible for you to risk a
+moment's embarrassment to gratify a mere whim of mine.  And if I went
+instead of you and got spotted, which is so likely with this head of
+hair, and the general belief in my demise, the consequences to you
+would be too awful to contemplate!  Don't contemplate them, my dear
+fellow.  And do let me read my magazine."
+
+Need I add that I set about the rash endeavor without further
+expostulation?  I was used to such ebullitions from the altered Raffles
+of these later days, and I could well understand them.  All the
+inconvenience of the new conditions fell on him.  I had purged my known
+offences by imprisonment, whereas Raffles was merely supposed to have
+escaped punishment in death.  The result was that I could rush in where
+Raffles feared to tread, and was his plenipotentiary in all honest
+dealings with the outer world.  It could not but gall him to be so
+dependent upon me, and it was for me to minimize the humiliation by
+scrupulously avoiding the least semblance of an abuse of that power
+which I now had over him. Accordingly, though with much misgiving, I
+did his ticklish behest in Fleet Street, where, despite my past, I was
+already making a certain lowly footing for myself.  Success followed as
+it will when one longs to fail; and one fine evening I returned to Ham
+Common with a card from the Convict Supervision Office, New Scotland
+Yard, which I treasure to this day.  I am surprised to see that it was
+undated, and might still almost "Admit Bearer to see the Museum," to
+say nothing of the bearer's friends, since my editor's name "and party"
+is scrawled beneath the legend.
+
+"But he doesn't want to come," as I explained to Raffles.  "And it
+means that we can both go, if we both like."
+
+Raffles looked at me with a wry smile; he was in good enough humor now.
+
+"It would be rather dangerous, Bunny.  If they spotted you, they might
+think of me."
+
+"But you say they'll never know you now."
+
+"I don't believe they will.  I don't believe there's the slightest
+risk; but we shall soon see.  I've set my heart on seeing, Bunny, but
+there's no earthly reason why I should drag you into it."
+
+"You do that when you present this card," I pointed out.  "I shall hear
+of it fast enough if anything happens."
+
+"Then you may as well be there to see the fun?"
+
+"It will make no difference if the worst comes to the worst."
+
+"And the ticket is for a party, isn't it?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"It might even look peculiar if only one person made use of it?"
+
+"It might."
+
+"Then we're both going, Bunny!  And I give you my word," cried Raffles,
+"that no real harm shall come of it.  But you mustn't ask to see the
+Relics, and you mustn't take too much interest in them when you do see
+them.  Leave the questioning to me: it really will be a chance of
+finding out whether they've any suspicion of one's resurrection at
+Scotland Yard.  Still I think I can promise you a certain amount of
+fun, old fellow, as some little compensation for your pangs and fears?"
+
+The early afternoon was mild and hazy, and unlike winter but for the
+prematurely low sun struggling through the haze, as Raffles and I
+emerged from the nether regions at Westminster Bridge, and stood for
+one moment to admire the infirm silhouettes of Abbey and Houses in flat
+gray against a golden mist.  Raffles murmured of Whistler and of Arthur
+Severn, and threw away a good Sullivan because the smoke would curl
+between him and the picture.  It is perhaps the picture that I can now
+see clearest of all the set scenes of our lawless life.  But at the
+time I was filled with gloomy speculation as to whether Raffles would
+keep his promise of providing an entirely harmless entertainment for my
+benefit at the Black Museum.
+
+We entered the forbidding precincts; we looked relentless officers in
+the face, and they almost yawned in ours as they directed us through
+swing doors and up stone stairs.  There was something even sinister in
+the casual character of our reception.  We had an arctic landing to
+ourselves for several minutes, which Raffles spent in an instinctive
+survey of the premises, while I cooled my heels before the portrait of
+a late commissioner.
+
+"Dear old gentleman!" exclaimed Raffles, joining me.  "I have met him
+at dinner, and discussed my own case with him, in the old days. But we
+can't know too little about ourselves in the Black Museum, Bunny.  I
+remember going to the old place in Whitehall, years ago, and being
+shown round by one of the tip-top 'tecs.  And this may be another."
+
+But even I could see at a glance that there was nothing of the
+detective and everything of the clerk about the very young man who had
+joined us at last upon the landing.  His collar was the tallest I have
+ever seen, and his face was as pallid as his collar.  He carried a
+loose key, with which he unlocked a door a little way along the
+passage, and so ushered us into that dreadful repository which perhaps
+has fewer visitors than any other of equal interest in the world.  The
+place was cold as the inviolate vault; blinds had to be drawn up, and
+glass cases uncovered, before we could see a thing except the row of
+murderers' death-masks--the placid faces with the swollen necks--that
+stood out on their shelves to give us ghostly greeting.
+
+"This fellow isn't formidable," whispered Raffles, as the blinds went
+up; "still, we can't be too careful.  My little lot are round the
+corner, in the sort of recess; don't look till we come to them in their
+turn."
+
+So we began at the beginning, with the glass case nearest the door; and
+in a moment I discovered that I knew far more about its contents than
+our pallid guide.  He had some enthusiasm, but the most inaccurate
+smattering of his subject.  He mixed up the first murderer with quite
+the wrong murder, and capped his mistake in the next breath with an
+intolerable libel on the very pearl of our particular tribe.
+
+"This revawlver," he began, "belonged to the celebrited burgular,
+Chawles Peace.  These are his spectacles, that's his jimmy, and this
+here knife's the one that Chawley killed the policeman with."
+
+Now I like accuracy for its own sake, strive after it myself, and am
+sometimes guilty of forcing it upon others.  So this was more than I
+could pass.
+
+"That's not quite right," I put in mildly.  "He never made use of the
+knife."
+
+The young clerk twisted his head round in its vase of starch.
+
+"Chawley Peace killed two policemen," said he.
+
+"No, he didn't; only one of them was a policeman; and he never killed
+anybody with a knife."
+
+The clerk took the correction like a lamb.  I could not have refrained
+from making it, to save my skin.  But Raffles rewarded me with as
+vicious a little kick as he could administer unobserved. "Who was
+Charles Peace?" he inquired, with the bland effrontery of any judge
+upon the bench.
+
+The clerk's reply came pat and unexpected.  "The greatest burgular we
+ever had," said he, "till good old Raffles knocked him out!"
+
+"The greatest of the pre-Raffleites," the master murmured, as we passed
+on to the safer memorials of mere murder.  There were misshapen bullets
+and stained knives that had taken human life; there were lithe, lean
+ropes which had retaliated after the live letter of the Mosaic law.
+There was one bristling broadside of revolvers under the longest shelf
+of closed eyes and swollen throats. There were festoons of
+rope-ladders--none so ingenious as ours--and then at last there was
+something that the clerk knew all about. It was a small tin
+cigarette-box, and the name upon the gaudy wrapper was not the name of
+Sullivan.  Yet Raffles and I knew even more about this exhibit than the
+clerk.
+
+"There, now," said our guide, "you'll never guess the history of that!
+I'll give you twenty guesses, and the twentieth will be no nearer than
+the first."
+
+"I'm sure of it, my good fellow," rejoined Raffles, a discreet twinkle
+in his eye.  "Tell us about it, to save time."
+
+And he opened, as he spoke, his own old twenty-five tin of purely
+popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the
+cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool.  I saw
+Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction. But the
+clerk saw merely the mystification which he desired to create.
+
+"I thought that'd beat you, sir," said he.  "It was an American dodge.
+Two smart Yankees got a jeweller to take a lot of stuff to a private
+room at Keliner's, where they were dining, for them to choose from.
+When it came to paying, there was some bother about a remittance; but
+they soon made that all right, for they were far too clever to suggest
+taking away what they'd chosen but couldn't pay for.  No, all they
+wanted was that what they'd chosen might be locked up in the safe and
+considered theirs until their money came for them to pay for it.  All
+they asked was to seal the stuff up in something; the jeweller was to
+take it away and not meddle with it, nor yet break the seals, for a
+week or two.  It seemed a fair enough thing, now, didn't it, sir?"
+
+"Eminently fair," said Raffles sententiously.
+
+"So the jeweller thought," crowed the clerk.  "You see, it wasn't as if
+the Yanks had chosen out the half of what he'd brought on appro.;
+they'd gone slow on purpose, and they'd paid for all they could on the
+nail, just for a blind.  Well, I suppose you can guess what happened in
+the end?  The jeweller never heard of those Americans again; and these
+few cigarettes and lumps of sugar were all he found."
+
+"Duplicate boxes?  I cried, perhaps a thought too promptly.
+
+"Duplicate boxes!" murmured Raffles, as profoundly impressed as a
+second Mr. Pickwick.
+
+"Duplicate boxes!" echoed the triumphant clerk.  "Artful beggars, these
+Americans, sir!  You've got to crawss the 'Erring Pond to learn a trick
+worth one o' that?"
+
+"I suppose so," assented the grave gentleman wit the silver hair.
+"Unless," he added, as if suddenly inspired, "unless it was that man
+Raffles."
+
+"It couldn't 've bin," jerked the clerk from his conning-tower of a
+collar.  "He'd gone to Davy Jones long before."
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Raffles.  "Was his body ever found?"
+
+"Found and buried," replied our imaginative friend.  "Malter, I think
+it was; or it may have been Giberaltar.  I forget which."
+
+"Besides," I put in, rather annoyed at all this wilful work, yet not
+indisposed to make a late contribution--"besides, Raffles would never
+have smoked those cigarettes.  There was only one brand for him.  It
+was--let me see--"
+
+"Sullivans?" cried the clerk, right for once.  "It's all a matter of
+'abit," he went on, as he replaced the twenty-five tin box with the
+vulgar wrapper.  "I tried them once, and I didn't like 'em myself.
+It's all a question of taste.  Now, if you want a good smoke, and
+cheaper, give me a Golden Gem at quarter of the price."
+
+"What we really do want," remarked Raffles mildly, "is to see something
+else as clever as that last."
+
+"Then come this way," said the clerk, and led us into a recess almost
+monopolized by the iron-clamped chest of thrilling memory, now a mere
+platform for the collection of mysterious objects under a dust-sheet on
+the lid.  "These," he continued, unveiling them with an air, "are the
+Raffles Relics, taken from his rooms in the Albany after his death and
+burial, and the most complete set we've got.  That's his centre-bit,
+and this is the bottle of rock-oil he's supposed to have kept dipping
+it in to prevent making a noise.  Here's the revawlver he used when he
+shot at a gentleman on the roof down Horsham way; it was afterward
+taken from him on the P. & O. boat before he jumped overboard."
+
+I could not help saying I understood that Raffles had never shot at
+anybody.  I was standing with my back to the nearest window, my hat
+jammed over my brows and my overcoat collar up to my ears.
+
+"That's the only time we know about," the clerk admitted; "and it
+couldn't be brought 'ome, or his precious pal would have got more than
+he did.  This empty cawtridge is the one he 'id the Emperor's pearl in,
+on the Peninsular and Orient.  These gimlets and wedges were what he
+used for fixin' doors.  This is his rope-ladder, with the telescope
+walking-stick he used to hook it up with; he's said to have 'ad it with
+him the night he dined with the Earl of Thornaby, and robbed the house
+before dinner.  That's his life-preserver; but no one can make out what
+this little thick velvet bag's for, with the two holes and the elawstic
+round each.  Perhaps you can give a guess, sir?"
+
+Raffles had taken up the bag that he had invented for the noiseless
+filing of keys.  Now he handled it as though it were a tobacco-pouch,
+putting in finger and thumb, and shrugging over the puzzle with a
+delicious face; nevertheless, he showed me a few grains of steel filing
+as the result of his investigations, and murmured in my ear, "These
+sweet police!  I, for my part, could not but examine the life-preserver
+with which I had once smitten Raffles himself to the ground: actually,
+there was his blood upon it still; and seeing my horror, the clerk
+plunged into a characteristically garbled version of that incident
+also.  It happened to have come to light among others at the Old
+Bailey, and perhaps had its share in promoting the quality of mercy
+which had undoubtedly been exercised on my behalf.  But the present
+recital was unduly trying, and Raffles created a noble diversion by
+calling attention to an early photograph of himself, which may still
+hang on the wall over the historic chest, but which I had carefully
+ignored.  It shows him in flannels, after some great feat upon the
+tented field.  I am afraid there is a Sullivan between his lips, a look
+of lazy insolence in the half-shut eyes.  I have since possessed myself
+of a copy, and it is not Raffles at his best; but the features are
+clean-cut and regular; and I often wish that I had lent it to the
+artistic gentlemen who have battered the statue out of all likeness to
+the man.
+
+"You wouldn't think it of him, would you?" quoth the clerk.  "It makes
+you understand how no one ever did think it of him at the time."
+
+The youth was looking full at Raffles, with the watery eyes of
+unsuspecting innocence.  I itched to emulate the fine bravado of my
+friend.
+
+"You said he had a pal," I observed, sinking deeper into the collar of
+my coat.  "Haven't you got a photograph of him?"
+
+The pale clerk gave such a sickly smile, I could have smacked some
+blood into his pasty face.
+
+"You mean Bunny?" said the familiar fellow.  "No, sir, he'd be out of
+place; we've only room for real criminals here.  Bunny was neither one
+thing nor the other.  He could follow Raffles, but that's all he could
+do.  He was no good on his own.  Even when he put up the low-down job
+of robbing his old 'ome, it's believed he hadn't the 'eart to take the
+stuff away, and Raffles had to break in a second time for it.  No, sir,
+we don't bother our heads about Bunny; we shall never hear no more of
+'im.  He was a harmless sort of rotter, if you awsk me."
+
+I had not asked him, and I was almost foaming under the respirator that
+I was making of my overcoat collar.  I only hoped that Raffles would
+say something, and he did.
+
+"The only case I remember anything about," he remarked, tapping the
+clamped chest with his umbrella, "was this; and that time, at all
+events, the man outside must have had quite as much to do as the one
+inside.  May I ask what you keep in it?"
+
+"Nothing, sir.
+
+"I imagined more relics inside.  Hadn't he some dodge of getting in and
+out without opening the lid?"
+
+"Of putting his head out, you mean," returned the clerk, whose
+knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most comprehensive on
+the whole.  He moved some of the minor memorials and with his penknife
+raised the trap-door in the lid.
+
+"Only a skylight," remarked Raffles, deliciously unimpressed.
+
+"Why, what else did you expect?" asked the clerk, letting the trap-door
+down again, and looking sorry that he had taken so much trouble.
+
+"A backdoor, at least!" replied Raffles, with such a sly look at me
+that I had to turn aside to smile.  It was the last time I smiled that
+day.
+
+The door had opened as I turned, and an unmistakable detective had
+entered with two more sight-seers like ourselves.  He wore the hard,
+round hat and the dark, thick overcoat which one knows at a glance as
+the uniform of his grade; and for one awful moment his steely eye was
+upon us in a flash of cold inquiry.  Then the clerk emerged from the
+recess devoted to the Raffles Relics, and the alarming interloper
+conducted his party to the window opposite the door.
+
+"Inspector Druce," the clerk informed us in impressive whispers, "who
+had the Chalk Farm case in hand.  He'd be the man for Raffles, if
+Raffles was alive to-day!"
+
+"I'm sure he would," was the grave reply.  "I should be very sorry to
+have a man like that after me.  But what a run there seems to be upon
+your Black Museum!"
+
+"There isn't reelly, sir," whispered the clerk.  "We sometimes go weeks
+on end without having regular visitors like you two gentlemen. I think
+those are friends of the Inspector's, come to see the Chalk Farm
+photographs, that helped to hang his man.  We've a lot of interesting
+photographs, sir, if you like to have a look at them."
+
+"If it won't take long," said Raffles, taking out his watch; and as the
+clerk left our side for an instant he gripped my arm.  "This is a bit
+too hot," he whispered, "but we mustn't cut and run like rabbits.  That
+might be fatal.  Hide your face in the photographs, and leave
+everything to me.  I'll have a train to catch as soon as ever I dare."
+
+I obeyed without a word, and with the less uneasiness as I had time to
+consider the situation.  It even struck me that Raffles was for once
+inclined to exaggerate the undeniable risk that we ran by remaining in
+the same room with an officer whom both he and I knew only too well by
+name and repute.  Raffles, after all, had aged and altered out of
+knowledge; but he had not lost the nerve that was equal to a far more
+direct encounter than was at all likely to be forced upon us.  On the
+other hand, it was most improbable that a distinguished detective would
+know by sight an obscure delinquent like myself; besides, this one had
+come to the front since my day. Yet a risk it was, and I certainly did
+not smile as I bent over the album of horrors produced by our guide.  I
+could still take an interest in the dreadful photographs of murderous
+and murdered men; they appealed to the morbid element in my nature; and
+it was doubtless with degenerate unction that I called Raffles's
+attention to a certain scene of notorious slaughter.  There was no
+response. I looked round.  There was no Raffles to respond.  We had all
+three been examining the photographs at one of the windows; at another
+three newcomers were similarly engrossed; and without one word, or a
+single sound, Raffles had decamped behind all our backs.
+
+Fortunately the clerk was himself very busy gloating over the horrors
+of the album; before he looked round I had hidden my astonishment, but
+not my wrath, of which I had the instinctive sense to make no secret.
+
+"My friend's the most impatient man on earth!" I exclaimed.  "He said
+he was going to catch a train, and now he's gone without a word!"
+
+"I never heard him," said the clerk, looking puzzled.
+
+"No more did I; but he did touch me on the shoulder," I lied, "and say
+something or other.  I was too deep in this beastly book to pay much
+attention.  He must have meant that he was off.  Well, let him be off!
+I mean to see all that's to be seen."
+
+And in my nervous anxiety to allay any suspicions aroused by my
+companion's extraordinary behavior, I outstayed even the eminent
+detective and his friends, saw them examine the Raffles Relics, heard
+them discuss me under my own nose, and at last was alone with the
+anemic clerk.  I put my hand in my pocket, and measured him with a
+sidelong eye.  The tipping system is nothing less than a minor bane of
+my existence.  Not that one is a grudging giver, but simply because in
+so many cases it is so hard to know whom to tip and what to tip him.  I
+know what it is to be the parting guest who has not parted freely
+enough, and that not from stinginess but the want of a fine instinct on
+the point.  I made no mistake, however, in the case of the clerk, who
+accepted my pieces of silver without demur, and expressed a hope of
+seeing the article which I had assured him I was about to write.  He
+has had some years to wait for it, but I flatter myself that these
+belated pages will occasion more interest than offense if they ever do
+meet those watery eyes.
+
+Twilight was falling when I reached the street; the sky behind St.
+Stephen's had flushed and blackened like an angry face; the lamps were
+lit, and under every one I was unreasonable enough to look for Raffles.
+Then I made foolishly sure that I should find him hanging about the
+station, and hung thereabouts myself until one Richmond train had gone
+without me.  In the end I walked over the bridge to Waterloo, and took
+the first train to Teddington instead.  That made a shorter walk of it,
+but I had to grope my way through a white fog from the river to Ham
+Common, and it was the hour of our cosy dinner when I reached our place
+of retirement. There was only a flicker of firelight on the blinds: I
+was the first to return after all.  It was nearly four hours since
+Raffles had stolen away from my side in the ominous precincts of
+Scotland Yard.  Where could he be?  Our landlady wrung her hands over
+him; she had cooked a dinner after her favorite's heart, and I let it
+spoil before making one of the most melancholy meals of my life.
+
+Up to midnight there was no sign of him; but long before this time I
+had reassured our landlady with a voice and face that must have given
+my words the lie.  I told her that Mr. Ralph (as she used to call him)
+had said something about going to the theatre; that I thought he had
+given up the idea, but I must have been mistaken, and should certainly
+sit up for him.  The attentive soul brought in a plate of sandwiches
+before she retired; and I prepared to make a night of it in a chair by
+the sitting-room fire.  Darkness and bed I could not face in my
+anxiety.  In a way I felt as though duty and loyalty called me out into
+the winter's night; and yet whither should I turn to look for Raffles?
+I could think of but one place, and to seek him there would be to
+destroy myself without aiding him.  It was my growing conviction that
+he had been recognized when leaving Scotland Yard, and either taken
+then and there, or else hunted into some new place of hiding.  It would
+all be in the morning papers; and it was all his own fault.  He had
+thrust his head into the lion's mouth, and the lion's jaws had snapped.
+Had he managed to withdraw his head in time?
+
+There was a bottle at my elbow, and that night I say deliberately that
+it was not my enemy but my friend.  It procured me at last some
+surcease from my suspense.  I fell fast asleep in my chair before the
+fire.  The lamp was still burning, and the fire red, when I awoke; but
+I sat very stiff in the iron clutch of a wintry morning.  Suddenly I
+slued round in my chair.  And there was Raffles in a chair behind me,
+with the door open behind him, quietly taking off his boots.
+
+"Sorry to wake you, Bunny," said he.  "I thought I was behaving like a
+mouse; but after a three hours' tramp one's feet are all heels."
+
+I did not get up and fall upon his neck.  I sat back in my chair and
+blinked with bitterness upon his selfish insensibility.  He should not
+know what I had been through on his account.
+
+"Walk out from town?" I inquired, as indifferently as though he were in
+the habit of doing so.
+
+"From Scotland Yard," he answered, stretching himself before the fire
+in his stocking soles.
+
+"Scotland Yard?" I echoed.  "Then I was right; that's where you were
+all the time; and yet you managed to escape!"
+
+I had risen excitedly in my turn.
+
+"Of course I did," replied Raffles.  "I never thought there would be
+much difficulty about that, but there was even less than I anticipated.
+I did once find myself on one side of a sort of counter, and an officer
+dozing at his desk at the other side.  I thought it safest to wake him
+up and make inquiries about a mythical purse left in a phantom hansom
+outside the Carlton.  And the way the fellow fired me out of that was
+another credit to the Metropolitan Police: it's only in the savage
+countries that they would have troubled to ask how one had got in."
+
+"And how did you?" I asked.  "And in the Lord's name, Raffles, when and
+why?"
+
+Raffles looked down on me under raised eyebrows, as he stood with his
+coat tails to the dying fire.
+
+"How and when, Bunny, you know as well as I do," said he, cryptically.
+"And at last you shall hear the honest why and wherefore.  I had more
+reasons for going to Scotland Yard, my dear fellow, than I had the face
+to tell you at the time."
+
+"I don't care why you went there!" I cried.  "I want to know why you
+stayed, or went back, or whatever it was you may have done.  I thought
+they had got you, and you had given them the slip!"
+
+Raffles smiled as he shook his head.
+
+"No, no, Bunny; I prolonged the visit, as I paid it, of my own accord.
+As for my reasons, they are far too many for me to tell you them all;
+they rather weighed upon me as I walked out; but you'll see them for
+yourself if you turn round."
+
+I was standing with my back to the chair in which I had been asleep;
+behind the chair was the round lodging-house table; and there, reposing
+on the cloth with the whiskey and sandwiches, was the whole collection
+of Raffles Relics which had occupied the lid of the silver-chest in the
+Black Museum at Scotland Yard!  The chest alone was missing.  There was
+the revolver that I had only once heard fired, and there the
+blood-stained life-preserver, brace-and-bit, bottle of rock-oil, velvet
+bag, rope-ladder, walking-stick, gimlets, wedges, and even the empty
+cartridge-case which had once concealed the gift of a civilized monarch
+to a potentate of color.
+
+"I was a real Father Christmas," said Raffles, "when I arrived. It's a
+pity you weren't awake to appreciate the scene.  It was more edifying
+than the one I found.  You never caught me asleep in my chair, Bunny!"
+
+He thought I had merely fallen asleep in my chair!  He could not see
+that I had been sitting up for him all night long!  The hint of a
+temperance homily, on top of all I had borne, and from Raffles of all
+mortal men, tried my temper to its last limit--but a flash of late
+enlightenment enabled me just to keep it.
+
+"Where did you hide?" I asked grimly.
+
+"At the Yard itself."
+
+"So I gather; but whereabouts at the Yard?"
+
+"Can you ask, Bunny?"
+
+"I am asking."
+
+"It's where I once hid before."
+
+"You don't mean in the chest?"
+
+"I do."
+
+Our eyes met for a minute.
+
+"You may have ended up there," I conceded.  "But where did you go first
+when you slipped out behind my back, and how the devil did you know
+where to go?"
+
+"I never did slip out," said Raffles, "behind your back.  I slipped in."
+
+"Into the chest?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+I burst out laughing in his face.
+
+"My dear fellow, I saw all these things on the lid just afterward. Not
+one of them was moved.  I watched that detective show them to his
+friends."
+
+"And I heard him."
+
+"But not from the inside of the chest?"
+
+"From the inside of the chest, Bunny.  Don't look like that--it's
+foolish.  Try to recall a few words that went before, between the idiot
+in the collar and me.  Don't you remember my asking him if there was
+anything in the chest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"One had to be sure it was empty, you see.  Then I asked if there was a
+backdoor to the chest as well as a skylight."
+
+"I remember."
+
+"I suppose you thought all that meant nothing?"
+
+"I didn't look for a meaning."
+
+"You wouldn't; it would never occur to you that I might want to find
+out whether anybody at the Yard had found out that there was something
+precisely in the nature of a sidedoor--it isn't a backdoor--to that
+chest.  Well, there is one; there was one soon after I took the chest
+back from your rooms to mine, in the good old days.  You push one of
+the handles down--which no one ever does--and the whole of that end
+opens like the front of a doll's house.  I saw that was what I ought to
+have done at first: it's so much simpler than the trap at the top; and
+one likes to get a thing perfect for its own sake.  Besides, the trick
+had not been spotted at the bank, and I thought I might bring it off
+again some day; meanwhile, in one's bedroom, with lots of things on
+top, what a port in a sudden squall!"
+
+I asked why I had never heard of the improvement before, not so much at
+the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were fewer
+secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I did not
+put the question out of pique.  I put it out of sheer obstinate
+incredulity.  And Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read
+the explanation in his look.
+
+"I see," I said.  "You used to get into it to hide from me!"
+
+"My dear Bunny, I am not always a very genial man," he answered; "but
+when you let me have a key of your rooms I could not very well refuse
+you one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it in the end.  I
+will only say that when I had no wish to see you, Bunny, I must have
+been quite unfit for human society, and it was the act of a friend to
+deny you mine.  I don't think it happened more than once or twice.  You
+can afford to forgive a fellow after all these years?
+
+"That, yes," I replied bitterly; "but not this, Raffles."
+
+"Why not?  I really hadn't made up my mind to do what I did.  I had
+merely thought of it.  It was that smart officer in the same room that
+made me do it without thinking twice."
+
+"And we never even heard you!" I murmured, in a voice of involuntary
+admiration which vexed me with myself.  "But we might just as well!" I
+was as quick to add in my former tone.
+
+"Why, Bunny?"
+
+"We shall be traced in no time through our ticket of admission."
+
+"Did they collect it?"
+
+"No; but you heard how very few are issued."
+
+"Exactly.  They sometimes go weeks on end without a regular visitor. It
+was I who extracted that piece of information, Bunny, and I did nothing
+rash until I had.  Don't you see that with any luck it will be two or
+three weeks before they are likely to discover their loss?"
+
+I was beginning to see.
+
+"And then, pray, how are they going to bring it home to us?  Why should
+they even suspect us, Bunny?  I left early; that's all I did. You took
+my departure admirably; you couldn't have said more or less if I had
+coached you myself.  I relied on you, Bunny, and you never more
+completely justified my confidence.  The sad thing is that you have
+ceased to rely on me.  Do you really think that I would leave the place
+in such a state that the first person who came in with a duster would
+see that there had been a robbery?"
+
+I denied the thought with all energy, though it perished only as I
+spoke.
+
+"Have you forgotten the duster that was over these things, Bunny? Have
+you forgotten all the other revolvers and life preservers that there
+were to choose from?  I chose most carefully, and I replaced my relics
+with a mixed assortment of other people's which really look just as
+well.  The rope-ladder that now supplants mine is, of course, no patch
+upon it, but coiled up on the chest it really looks much the same.  To
+be sure, there was no second velvet bag; but I replaced my stick with
+another quite like it, and I even found an empty cartridge to
+understudy the setting of the Polynesian pearl. You see the sort of
+fellow they have to show people round: do you think he's the kind to
+see the difference next time, or to connect it with us if he does?  One
+left much the same things, lying much as he left them, under a
+dust-sheet which is only taken off for the benefit of the curious, who
+often don't turn up for weeks on end."
+
+I admitted that we might be safe for three or four weeks.  Raffles held
+out his hand.
+
+"Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke the cigarette of
+Sullivan and peace!  A lot may happen in three or four weeks; and what
+should you say if this turned out to be the last as well as the least
+of all my crimes?  I must own that it seems to me their natural and
+fitting end, though I might have stopped more characteristically than
+with a mere crime of sentiment.  No, I make no promises, Bunny; now I
+have got these things, I may be unable to resist using them once more.
+But with this war one gets all the excitement one requires--and rather
+more than usual may happen in three or four weeks?"
+
+Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the front?  Had he
+already set his heart on the one chance of some atonement for his
+life--nay, on the very death he was to die?  I never knew, and shall
+never know.  Yet his words were strangely prophetic, even to the three
+or four weeks in which those events happened that imperilled the fabric
+of our empire, and rallied her sons from the four winds to fight
+beneath her banner on the veldt.  It all seems very ancient history
+now.  But I remember nothing better or more vividly than the last words
+of Raffles upon his last crime, unless it be the pressure of his hand
+as he said them, or the rather sad twinkle in his tired eyes.
+
+
+
+
+The Last Word
+
+The last of all these tales of Raffles is from a fresher and a sweeter
+pen.  I give it exactly as it came to me, in a letter which meant more
+to me than it can possibly mean to any other reader. And yet, it may
+stand for something with those for whom these pale reflections have a
+tithe of the charm that the real man had for me; and it is to leave
+such persons thinking yet a little better of him (and not wasting
+another thought on me) that I am permitted to retail the very last word
+about their hero and mine.
+
+The letter was my first healing after a chance encounter and a
+sleepless night; and I print every word of it except the last.
+
+                                     "39 CAMPDEN GROVE COURT, W.,
+                                     "June 28, 1900.
+
+"DEAR HARRY: You may have wondered at the very few words I could find
+to say to you when we met so strangely yesterday.  I did not mean to be
+unkind.  I was grieved to see you so cruelly hurt and lame.  I could
+not grieve when at last I made you tell me how it happened.  I honor
+and envy every man of you--every name in those dreadful lists that fill
+the papers every day.  But I knew about Mr. Raffles, and I did not know
+about you, and there was something I longed to tell you about him,
+something I could not tell you in a minute in the street, or indeed by
+word of mouth at all.  That is why I asked you for your address.
+
+"You said I spoke as if I had known Mr. Raffles.  Of course I have
+often seen him playing cricket, and heard about him and you. But I only
+once met him, and that was the night after you and I met last.  I have
+always supposed that you knew all about our meeting.  Yesterday I could
+see that you knew nothing.  So I have made up my mind to tell you every
+word.
+
+"That night--I mean the next night--they were all going out to several
+places, but I stayed behind at Palace Gardens.  I had gone up to the
+drawing-room after dinner, and was just putting on the lights, when in
+walked Mr. Raffles from the balcony.  I knew him at once, because I
+happened to have watched him make his hundred at Lord's only the day
+before.  He seemed surprised that no one had told me he was there, but
+the whole thing was such a surprise that I hardly thought of that.  I
+am afraid I must say that it was not a very pleasant surprise.  I felt
+instinctively that he had come from you, and I confess that for the
+moment it made me very angry indeed.  Then in a breath he assured me
+that you knew nothing of his coming, that you would never have allowed
+him to come, but that he had taken it upon himself as your intimate
+friend and one who would be mine as well.  (I said that I would tell
+you every word.)
+
+"Well, we stood looking at each other for some time, and I was never
+more convinced of anybody's straightness and sincerity; but he was
+straight and sincere with me, and true to you that night, whatever he
+may have been before and after.  So I asked him why he had come, and
+what had happened; and he said it was not what had happened, but what
+might happen next; so I asked him if he was thinking of you, and he
+just nodded, and told me that I knew very well what you had done.  But
+I began to wonder whether Mr. Raffles himself knew, and I tried to get
+him to tell me what you had done, and he said I knew as well as he did
+that you were one of the two men who had come to the house the night
+before.  I took some time to answer.  I was quite mystified by his
+manner.  At last I asked him how he knew.  I can hear his answer now.
+
+"'Because I was the other man,' he said quite quietly; 'because I led
+him blindfold into the whole business, and would rather pay the shot
+than see poor Bunny suffer for it.'
+
+"Those were his words, but as he said them he made their meaning clear
+by going over to the bell, and waiting with his finger ready to ring
+for whatever assistance or protection I desired.  Of course I would not
+let him ring at all; in fact, at first I refused to believe him.  Then
+he led me out into the balcony, and showed me exactly how he had got up
+and in.  He had broken in for the second night running, and all to tell
+me that the first night he had brought you with him on false pretences.
+He had to tell me a great deal more before I could quite believe him.
+But before he went (as he had come) I was the one woman in the world
+who knew that A. J. Raffles, the great cricketer, and the so-called
+'amateur cracksman' of equal notoriety, were one and the same person.
+
+"He had told me his secret, thrown himself on my mercy, and put his
+liberty if not his life in my hands, but all for your sake, Harry, to
+right you in my eyes at his own expense.  And yesterday I could see
+that you knew nothing whatever about it, that your friend had died
+without telling you of his act of real and yet vain self-sacrifice!
+Harry, I can only say that now I understand your friendship, and the
+dreadful lengths to which it carried you.  How many in your place would
+not have gone as far for such a friend? Since that night, at any rate,
+I for one have understood.  It has grieved me more than I can tell you,
+Harry, but I have always understood.
+
+"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his life.  It was wonderful
+to me then that he should speak of it as he did, and still more
+wonderful that I should sit and listen to him as I did. But I have
+often thought about it since, and have long ceased to wonder at myself.
+There was an absolute magnetism about Mr. Raffles which neither you nor
+I could resist.  He had the strength of personality which is a
+different thing from strength of character; but when you meet both
+kinds together, they carry the ordinary mortal off his or her feet.
+You must not imagine you are the only one who would have served and
+followed him as you did. When he told me it was all a game to him, and
+the one game he knew that was always exciting, always full of danger
+and of drama, I could just then have found it in my heart to try the
+game myself! Not that he treated me to any ingenious sophistries or
+paradoxical perversities.  It was just his natural charm and humor, and
+a touch of sadness with it all, that appealed to something deeper than
+one's reason and one's sense of right.  Glamour, I suppose, is the
+word.  Yet there was far more in him than that.  There were depths,
+which called to depths; and you will not misunderstand me when I say I
+think it touched him that a woman should listen to him as I did, and in
+such circumstances.  I know that it touched me to think of such a life
+so spent, and that I came to myself and implored him to give it all up.
+I don't think I went on my knees over it.  But I am afraid I did cry;
+and that was the end.  He pretended not to notice anything, and then in
+an instant he froze everything with a flippancy which jarred horribly
+at the time, but has ever since touched me more than all the rest.  I
+remember that I wanted to shake hands at the end.  But Mr. Raffles only
+shook his head, and for one instant his face was as sad as it was
+gallant and gay all the rest of the time.  Then he went as he had come,
+in his own dreadful way, and not a soul in the house knew that he had
+been.  And even you were never told!
+
+"I didn't mean to write all this about your own friend, whom you knew
+so much better yourself, yet you see that even you did not know how
+nobly he tried to undo the wrong he had done you; and now I think I
+know why he kept it to himself.  It is fearfully late--or early--I seem
+to have been writing all night--and I will explain the matter in the
+fewest words.  I promised Mr. Raffles that I would write to you, Harry,
+and see you if I could.  Well, I did write, and I did mean to see you,
+but I never had an answer to what I wrote.  It was only one line, and I
+have long known you never received it.  I could not bring myself to
+write more, and even those few words were merely slipped into one of
+the books which you had given me.  Years afterward these books, with my
+name in them, must have been found in your rooms; at any rate they were
+returned to me by somebody; and you could never have opened them, for
+there was my line where I had left it.  Of course you had never seen
+it, and that was all my fault.  But it was too late to write again.
+Mr. Raffles was supposed to have been drowned, and everything was known
+about you both.  But I still kept my own independent knowledge to
+myself; to this day, no one else knows that you were one of the two in
+Palace Gardens; and I still blame myself more than you may think for
+nearly everything that has happened since.
+
+"You said yesterday that your going to the war and getting wounded
+wiped out nothing that had gone before.  I hope you are not growing
+morbid about the past.  It is not for me to condone it, and  yet I know
+that Mr. Raffles was what he was because he loved danger and adventure,
+and that you were what you were because you loved Mr. Raffles.  But,
+even admitting it was all as bad as bad could be, he is dead, and you
+are punished.  The world forgives, if it does not forget.  You are
+young enough to live everything down.  Your part in the war will help
+you in more ways than one.  You were always fond of writing.  You have
+now enough to write about for a literary lifetime.  You must make a new
+name for yourself.  You must Harry, and you will!
+
+"I suppose you know that my aunt, Lady Melrose, died some years ago?
+She was the best friend I had in the world, and it is thanks to her
+that I am living my own life now in the one way after my own heart.
+This is a new block of flats, one of those where they do everything for
+you; and though mine is tiny, it is more than all I shall ever want.
+One does just exactly what one likes--and you must blame that habit for
+all that is least conventional in what I have said. Yet I should like
+you to understand why it is that I have said so much, and, indeed, left
+nothing unsaid.  It is because I want never to have to say or hear
+another word about anything that is past and over.  You may answer that
+I run no risk!  Nevertheless, if you did care to come and see me some
+day as an old friend, we might find one or two new points of contact,
+for I am rather trying to write myself!  You might almost guess as much
+from this letter; it is long enough for anything; but, Harry, if it
+makes you realize that one of your oldest friends is glad to have seen
+you, and will be gladder still to see you again, and to talk of
+anything and everything except the past, I shall cease to be ashamed
+even of its length!
+
+"And so good-by for the present from
+                                                        "____"
+
+
+
+I omit her name and nothing else.  Did I not say in the beginning that
+it should never be sullied by association with mine?  And yet--and
+yet--even as I write I have a hope in my heart of hearts which is not
+quite consistent with that sentiment.  It is as faint a hope as man
+ever had, and yet its audacity makes the pen tremble in my fingers.
+But, if it be ever realized, I shall owe more than I could deserve in a
+century of atonement to one who atoned more nobly than I ever can.  And
+to think that to the end I never heard one word of it from Raffles!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Thief in the Night, by E. W. Hornung
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baron Trigault’s Vengeance, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Baron Trigault’s Vengeance
+       Volume 2 (of 2)
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2008 [EBook #547]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARON TRIGAULT’S VENGEANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BARON TRIGAULT’S VENGEANCE
+
+by Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+A Sequel to “The Count’s Millions”
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Vengeance! that is the first, the only thought, when a man finds himself
+victimized, when his honor and fortune, his present and future,
+are wrecked by a vile conspiracy! The torment he endures under such
+circumstances can only be alleviated by the prospect of inflicting them
+a hundredfold upon his persecutors. And nothing seems impossible at the
+first moment, when hatred surges in the brain, and the foam of anger
+rises to the lips; no obstacle seems insurmountable, or, rather,
+none are perceived. But later, when the faculties have regained their
+equilibrium, one can measure the distance which separates the dream from
+reality, the project from execution. And on setting to work, how many
+discouragements arise! The fever of revolt passes by, and the victim
+wavers. He still breathes bitter vengeance, but he does not act. He
+despairs, and asks himself what would be the good of it? And in this way
+the success of villainy is once more assured.
+
+Similar despondency attacked Pascal Ferailleur when he awoke for the
+first time in the abode where he had hidden himself under the name of
+Maumejan. A frightful slander had crushed him to the earth--he could
+kill his slanderer, but afterward--? How was he to reach and stifle the
+slander itself? As well try to hold a handful of water; as well try to
+stay with extended arms the progress of the poisonous breeze which wafts
+an epidemic on its wings. So the hope that had momentarily lightened
+his heart faded away again. Since he had received that fatal letter from
+Madame Leon the evening before, he believed that Marguerite was lost to
+him forever, and in this case, it was useless to struggle against fate.
+What would be the use of victory even if he conquered? Marguerite lost
+to him--what did the rest matter? Ah! if he had been alone in the world.
+But he had his mother to think of;--he belonged to this brave-hearted
+woman, who had saved him from suicide already. “I will not yield, then;
+I will struggle on for her sake,” he muttered, like a man who foresees
+the futility of his efforts.
+
+He rose, and had nearly finished dressing, when he heard a rap at his
+chamber door. “It is I, my son,” said Madame Ferailleur outside.
+
+Pascal hastened to admit her. “I have come for you because the woman you
+spoke about last evening is already here, and before employing her, I
+want your advice.”
+
+“Then the woman doesn’t please you, mother?”
+
+“I want you to see her.”
+
+On entering the little parlor with his mother, Pascal found himself in
+the presence of a portly, pale-faced woman, with thin lips and restless
+eyes, who bowed obsequiously. It was indeed Madame Vantrasson, the
+landlady of the model lodging-house, who was seeking employment for the
+three or four hours which were at her disposal in the morning, she said.
+It certainly was not for pleasure that she had decided to go out to
+service again; her dignity suffered terribly by this fall--but then
+the stomach has to be cared for. Tenants were not numerous at the model
+lodging-house, in spite of its seductive title; and those who slept
+there occasionally, almost invariably succeeded in stealing something.
+Nor did the grocery store pay; the few half-pence which were left
+there occasionally in exchange for a glass of liquor were pocketed by
+Vantrasson, who spent them at some neighboring establishment; for it is
+a well-known fact that the wine a man drinks in his own shop is always
+bitter in flavor. So, having no credit at the butcher’s or the baker’s,
+Madame Vantrasson was sometimes reduced to living for days together upon
+the contents of the shop--mouldy figs or dry raisins--which she washed
+down with torrents of ratafia, her only consolation here below.
+
+But this was not a satisfying diet, as she was forced to confess; so she
+decided to find some work, that would furnish her with food and a little
+money, which she vowed she would never allow her worthy husband to see.
+
+“What would you charge per month?” inquired Pascal.
+
+She seemed to reflect, and after a great deal of counting on her
+fingers, she finally declared that she would be content with breakfast
+and fifteen francs a month, on condition she was allowed to do the
+marketing. The first question of French cooks, on presenting themselves
+for a situation, is almost invariably, “Shall I do the marketing?”
+ which of course means, “Shall I have any opportunities for stealing?”
+ Everybody knows this, and nobody is astonished at it.
+
+“I shall do the marketing myself,” declared Madame Ferailleur, boldly.
+
+“Then I shall want thirty francs a month,” replied Madame Vantrasson,
+promptly.
+
+Pascal and his mother exchanged glances. They were both unfavorably
+impressed by this woman, and were equally determined to rid themselves
+of her, which it was easy enough to do. “Too dear!” said Madame
+Ferailleur; “I have never given over fifteen francs.”
+
+But Madame Vantrasson was not the woman to be easily discouraged,
+especially as she knew that if she failed to obtain this situation, she
+might have considerable difficulty in finding another one. She could
+only hope to obtain employment from strangers and newcomers, who were
+ignorant of the reputation of the model lodging-house. So in view of
+softening the hearts of Pascal and his mother, she began to relate the
+history of her life, skilfully mingling the false with the true, and
+representing herself as an unfortunate victim of circumstances, and the
+inhuman cruelty of relatives. For she belonged, like her husband, to
+a very respectable family, as the Maumejans might easily ascertain by
+inquiry. Vantrasson’s sister was the wife of a man named Greloux, who
+had once been a bookbinder in the Rue Saint-Denis, but who had now
+retired from business with a competency. “Why had this Greloux refused
+to save them from bankruptcy? Because one could never hope for a favor
+from relatives,” she groaned; “they are jealous if you succeed; and if
+you are unfortunate, they cast you off.”
+
+However, these doleful complaints, far from rendering Madame Vantrasson
+interesting, imparted a deceitful and most disagreeable expression to
+her countenance. “I told you that I could only give fifteen francs,”
+ interrupted Madame Ferailleur--“take it or leave it.”
+
+Madame Vantrasson protested. She expressed her willingness to deduct
+five francs from the sum she had named, but more--it was impossible!
+Would they haggle over ten francs to secure such a treasure as herself,
+an honest, settled woman, who was entirely devoted to her employers?
+“Besides, I have been a grand cook in my time,” she added, “and I have
+not lost all my skill. Monsieur and madame would be delighted with my
+cooking, for I have seen more than one fine gentleman smack his lips
+over my sauces when was in the employment of the Count de Chalusse.”
+
+Pascal and his mother could not repress a start on hearing this name;
+but it was in a tone of well-assumed indifference that Madame Ferailleur
+repeated, “M. de Chalusse?”
+
+“Yes, madame--a count--and so rich that he didn’t know how much he was
+worth. If he were still alive I shouldn’t be compelled to go out to
+service again. But he’s dead and he’s to be buried this very day.” And
+with an air of profound secrecy, she added: “On going yesterday to
+the Hotel de Chalusse to ask for a little help, I heard of the great
+misfortune. Vantrasson, my husband, accompanied me, and while we were
+talking with the concierge, a young woman passed through the hall, and
+he recognized her as a person who some time ago was--well--no better
+than she should be. Now, however, she’s a young lady as lofty as the
+clouds, and the deceased count has been passing her off as his daughter.
+Ah! this is a strange world.”
+
+Pascal had become whiter than the ceiling. His eyes blazed; and Madame
+Ferailleur trembled. “Very well,” she said, “I will give you twenty-five
+francs--but on condition you come without complaining if I sometimes
+require your services of an evening. On these occasions I will give you
+your dinner.” And taking five francs from her pocket she placed them in
+Madame Vantrasson’s hand, adding: “Here is your earnest money.”
+
+The other quickly pocketed the coin, not a little surprised by this
+sudden decision which she had scarcely hoped for, and which she by no
+means understood. Still she was so delighted with this denouement that
+she expressed her willingness to enter upon her duties at once; and to
+get rid of her Madame Ferailleur was obliged to send her out to purchase
+the necessary supplies for breakfast. Then, as soon as she was alone
+with her son, she turned to him and asked: “Well, Pascal?”
+
+But the wretched man seemed turned to stone, and seeing that he neither
+spoke nor moved, she continued in a severe tone: “Is this the way you
+keep your resolutions and your oaths! You express your intention
+of accomplishing a task which requires inexhaustible patience and
+dissimulation, and at the very first unforeseen circumstance your
+coolness deserts you, and you lose your head completely. If it had not
+been for me you would have betrayed yourself in that woman’s presence.
+You must renounce your revenge, and tamely submit to be conquered by the
+Marquis de Valorsay if your face is to be an open book in which any one
+may read your secret plans and thoughts.”
+
+Pascal shook his head dejectedly. “Didn’t you hear, mother?” he
+faltered.
+
+“Hear what?”
+
+“What that vile woman said? This young lady whom she spoke of, whom her
+husband recognized, can be none other than Marguerite.”
+
+“I am sure of it.”
+
+He recoiled in horror. “You are sure of it!” he repeated; “and you can
+tell me this unmoved--coldly, as if it were a natural, a possible thing.
+Didn’t you understand the shameful meaning of her insinuations? Didn’t
+you see her hypocritical smile and the malice gleaming in her eyes?” He
+pressed his hands to his burning brow, and groaned “And I did not crush
+the infamous wretch! I did not fell her to the ground!”
+
+Ah! if she had obeyed the impulse of her heart. Madame Ferailleur would
+have thrown her arms round her son’s neck, and have mingled her tears
+with his, but reason prevailed. The worthy woman’s heart was pervaded
+with that lofty sentiment of duty which sustains the humble heroines
+of the fireside, and lends them even more courage than the reckless
+adventurers whose names are recorded by history could boast of. She felt
+that Pascal must not be consoled, but spurred on to fresh efforts;
+and so mustering all her courage, she said: “Are you acquainted with
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s past life? No. You only know that hers has
+been a life of great vicissitudes--and so it is not strange that she
+should be slandered.”
+
+“In that case, mother,” said Pascal, “you were wrong to interrupt Madame
+Vantrasson. She would probably have told us many things.”
+
+“I interrupted her, it is true, and sent her away--and you know why. But
+she is in our service now; and when you are calm, when you have regained
+your senses, nothing will prevent you from questioning her. It may be
+useful for you to know who this man Vantrasson is, and how and where he
+met Mademoiselle Marguerite.”
+
+Shame, sorrow, and rage, brought tears to Pascal’s eyes. “My God!” he
+exclaimed, “to be reduced to the unspeakable misery of hearing my mother
+doubt Marguerite!” He did not doubt her. HE could have listened to the
+most infamous accusations against her without feeling a single doubt.
+However, Madame Ferailleur had sufficient self-control to shrug her
+shoulders. “Ah, well! silence this slander,” she exclaimed. “I wish for
+nothing better; but don’t forget that we have ourselves to rehabilitate.
+To crush your enemies will be far more profitable to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite than vain threats and weak lamentations. It seemed to me that
+you had sworn to act, not to complain.”
+
+This ironical thrust touched Pascal’s sensitive mind to the quick; he
+rose at once to his feet, and coldly said, “That’s true. I thank you for
+having recalled me to myself.”
+
+She made no rejoinder, but mentally thanked God. She had read her son’s
+heart, and perceiving his hesitation and weakness she had supplied the
+stimulus he needed. Now she saw him as she wished to see him. Now he was
+ready to reproach himself for his lack of courage and his weakness in
+displaying his feelings. And as a test of his powers of endurance, he
+decided not to question Madame Vantrasson till four or five days had
+elapsed. If her suspicions had been aroused, this delay would suffice to
+dispel them.
+
+He said but little during breakfast; for he was now eager to commence
+the struggle. He longed to act, and yet he scarcely knew how to begin
+the campaign. First of all, he must study the enemy’s position--gain
+some knowledge of the men he had to deal with, find out exactly who the
+Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth were. Where could he
+obtain information respecting these two men? Should he be compelled to
+follow them and to gather up here and there such scraps of intelligence
+as came in his way? This method of proceeding would be slow and
+inconvenient in the extreme. He was revolving the subject in his mind
+when he suddenly remembered the man who, on the morning that followed
+the scene at Madame d’Argeles’s house, had come to him in the Rue d’Ulm
+to give him a proof of his confidence. He remembered that this strange
+man had said: “If you ever need a helping hand, come to me.” And at the
+recollection he made up his mind. “I am going to Baron Trigault’s,” he
+remarked to his mother; “if my presentiments don’t deceive me, he will
+be of service to us.”
+
+In less than half an hour he was on his way. He had dressed himself in
+the oldest clothes he possessed; and this, with the change he had made
+by cutting off his hair and beard, had so altered his appearance that
+it was necessary to look at him several times, and most attentively, to
+recognize him. The visiting cards which he carried in his pocket bore
+the inscription: “P. Maumejan, Business Agent, Route de la Revolte.” His
+knowledge of Parisian life had induced him to choose the same profession
+as M. Fortunat followed--a profession which opens almost every door.
+“I will enter the nearest cafe and ask for a directory,” he said to
+himself. “I shall certainly find Baron Trigault’s address in it.”
+
+The baron lived in the Rue de la Ville-l’Eveque. His mansion was one
+of the largest and most magnificent in the opulent district of the
+Madeleine, and its aspect was perfectly in keeping with its owner’s
+character as an expert financier, and a shrewd manufacturer, the
+possessor of valuable mines. The marvellous luxury so surprised Pascal,
+that he asked himself how the owner of this princely abode could find
+any pleasure at the gaming table of the Hotel d’Argeles. Five or six
+footmen were lounging about the courtyard when he entered it. He walked
+straight up to one of them, and with his hat in his hand, asked: “Baron
+Trigault, if you please?”
+
+If he had asked for the Grand Turk the valet would not have looked at
+him with greater astonishment. His surprise, indeed, seemed so profound
+that Pascal feared he had made some mistake and added: “Doesn’t he live
+here?”
+
+The servant laughed heartily. “This is certainly his house,” he replied,
+“and strange to say, by some fortunate chance, he’s here.”
+
+“I wish to speak with him on business.”
+
+The servant called one of his colleagues. “Eh! Florestan--is the baron
+receiving?”
+
+“The baroness hasn’t forbidden it.”
+
+This seemed to satisfy the footman; for, turning to Pascal he said: “In
+that case, you can follow me.”
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The sumptuous interior of the Trigault mansion was on a par with its
+external magnificence. Even the entrance bespoke the lavish millionaire,
+eager to conquer difficulties, jealous of achieving the impossible, and
+never haggling when his fancies were concerned. The spacious hall, paved
+with costly mosaics, had been transformed into a conservatory full of
+flowers, which were renewed every morning. Rare plants climbed the walls
+up gilded trellis work, or hung from the ceiling in vases of rare old
+china, while from among the depths of verdure peered forth exquisite
+statues, the work of sculptors of renown. On a rustic bench sat a couple
+of tall footmen, as bright in their gorgeous liveries as gold coins
+fresh from the mint; still, despite their splendor, they were stretching
+and yawning to such a degree, that it seemed as if they would ultimately
+dislocate their jaws and arms.
+
+“Tell me,” inquired the servant who was escorting Pascal, “can any one
+speak to the baron?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“This gentleman has something to say to him.”
+
+The two valets eyed the unknown visitor, plainly considering him to
+be one of those persons who have no existence for the menials of
+fashionable establishments, and finally burst into a hearty laugh. “Upon
+my word!” exclaimed the eldest, “he’s just in time. Announce him,
+and madame will be greatly obliged to you. She and monsieur have
+been quarrelling for a good half-hour. And, heavenly powers, isn’t he
+tantalizing!”
+
+The most intense curiosity gleamed in the eyes of Pascal’s conductor,
+and with an airy of secrecy, he asked: “What is the cause of the rumpus?
+That Fernand, no doubt--or some one else?”
+
+“No; this morning it’s about M. Van Klopen.”
+
+“Madame’s dressmaker?”
+
+“The same. Monsieur and madame were breakfasting together--a most
+unusual thing--when M. Van Klopen made his appearance. I thought to
+myself, when I admitted him: ‘Look out for storms!’ I scented one in
+the air, and in fact the dressmaker hadn’t been in the room five minutes
+before we heard the baron’s voice rising higher and higher. I said to
+myself: ‘Whew! the mantua-maker is presenting his bill!’ Madame cried
+and went on like mad; but, pshaw! when the master really begins, there’s
+no one like him. There isn’t a cab-driver in Paris who’s his equal for
+swearing.”
+
+“And M. Van Klopen?”
+
+“Oh, he’s used to such scenes! When gentlemen abuse him he does the same
+as dogs do when they come up out of the water; he just shakes his head
+and troubles himself no more about it. He has decidedly the best of the
+row. He has furnished the goods, and he’ll have to be paid sooner or
+later----”
+
+“What! hasn’t he been paid then?”
+
+“I don’t know; he’s still here.”
+
+A terrible crash of breaking china interrupted this edifying
+conversation. “There!” exclaimed one of the footmen, “that’s monsieur;
+he has smashed two or three hundred francs’ worth of dishes. He MUST be
+rich to pay such a price for his angry fits.”
+
+“Well,” observed the other, “if I were in monsieur’s place I should be
+angry too. Would you let your wife have her dresses fitted on by a man?
+I says that it’s indecent. I’m only a servant, but----”
+
+“Nonsense, it’s the fashion. Besides, monsieur does not care about that.
+A man who----”
+
+He stopped short; in fact, the others had motioned him to be silent.
+The baron was surrounded by exceptional servants, and the presence of a
+stranger acted as a restraint upon them. For this reason, one of them,
+after asking Pascal for his card, opened a door and ushered him into a
+small room, saying: “I will go and inform the baron. Please wait here.”
+
+“Here,” as he called it, was a sort of smoking-room hung with cashmere
+of fantastic design and gorgeous hues, and encircled by a low, cushioned
+divan, covered with the same material. A profusion of rare and costly
+objects was to be seen on all sides, armor, statuary, pictures,
+and richly ornamented weapons. But Pascal, already amazed by the
+conversation of the servants, did not think of examining these objects
+of virtu. Through a partially open doorway, directly opposite the one he
+had entered by, came the sound of loud voices in excited conversation.
+Baron Trigault, the baroness, and the famous Van Klopen were evidently
+in the adjoining room. It was a woman, the baroness, who was speaking,
+and the quivering of her clear and somewhat shrill voice betrayed
+a violent irritation, which was only restrained with the greatest
+difficulty. “It is hard for the wife of one of the richest men in Paris
+to see a bill for absolute necessities disputed in this style,” she was
+saying.
+
+A man’s voice, with a strong Teutonic accent, the voice of Van Klopen,
+the Hollander, caught up the refrain. “Yes, strict necessities, one can
+swear to that. And if, before flying into a passion, Monsieur le Baron
+had taken the trouble to glance over my little bill, he would have
+seen----”
+
+“No more! You bore me to death. Besides I haven’t time to listen to your
+nonsense; they are waiting for me to play a game of whist at the club.”
+
+This time it was the master of the house, Baron Trigault, who spoke, and
+Pascal recognized his voice instantly.
+
+“If monsieur would only allow me to read the items. It will take but a
+moment,” rejoined Van Klopen. And as if he had construed the oath
+that answered him as an exclamation of assent, he began: “In June, a
+Hungarian costume with jacket and sash, two train dresses with upper
+skirts and trimmings of lace, a Medicis polonaise, a jockey costume, a
+walking costume, a riding-habit, two morning-dresses, a Velleda costume,
+an evening dress.”
+
+“I was obliged to attend the races very frequently during the month of
+June,” remarked the baroness.
+
+But the illustrious adorner of female loveliness had already resumed his
+reading. “In July we have: two morning-jackets, one promenade costume,
+one sailor suit, one Watteau shepherdess costume, one ordinary
+bathing-suit, with material for parasol and shoes to match, one
+Pompadour bathing-suit, one dressing-gown, one close-fitting Medicis
+mantle, two opera cloaks----”
+
+“And I was certainly not the most elegantly attired of the ladies at
+Trouville, where I spent the month of July,” interrupted the baroness.
+
+“There are but few entries in the month of August,” continued
+Van Klopen. “We have: a morning-dress, a travelling-dress, with
+trimmings----” And he went on and on, gasping for breath, rattling off
+the ridiculous names which he gave to his “creations,” and interrupted
+every now and then by the blow of a clinched fist on the table, or by a
+savage oath.
+
+Pascal stood in the smoking-room, motionless with astonishment. He did
+not know what surprised him the most, Van Klopen’s impudence in daring
+to read such a bill, the foolishness of the woman who had ordered all
+these things, or the patience of the husband who was undoubtedly going
+to pay for them. At last, after what seemed an interminable enumeration,
+Van Klopen exclaimed: “And that’s all!”
+
+“Yes, that’s all,” repeated the baroness, like an echo.
+
+“That’s all!” exclaimed the baron--“that’s all! That is to say, in four
+months, at least seven hundred yards of silk, velvet, satin, and muslin,
+have been put on this woman’s back!”
+
+“The dresses of the present day require a great deal of material.
+Monsieur le Baron will understand that flounces, puffs, and ruches----”
+
+“Naturally! Total, twenty-seven thousand francs!”
+
+“Excuse me! Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-three francs,
+ninety centimes.”
+
+“Call it twenty-eight thousand francs then. Ah, well, M. Van Klopen, if
+you are ever paid for this rubbish it won’t be by me.”
+
+If Van Klopen was expecting this denouement, Pascal wasn’t; in fact,
+he was so startled, that an exclamation escaped him which would have
+betrayed his presence under almost any other circumstances. What amazed
+him most was the baron’s perfect calmness, following, as it did, such
+a fit of furious passion, violent enough even to be heard in the
+vestibule. “Either he has extraordinary control over himself or this
+scene conceals some mystery,” thought Pascal.
+
+Meanwhile, the man-milliner continued to urge his claims--but the baron,
+instead of replying, only whistled; and wounded by this breach of good
+manners, Van Klopen at last exclaimed: “I have had dealings with all the
+distinguished men in Europe, and never before did one of them refuse to
+pay me for his wife’s toilettes.”
+
+“Very well--I don’t pay for them--there’s the difference. Do you suppose
+that I, Baron Trigault, that I’ve worked like a negro for twenty years
+merely for the purpose of aiding your charming and useful branch of
+industry? Gather up your papers, Mr. Ladies’ Tailor. There may
+be husbands who believe themselves responsible for their wives’
+follies--it’s quite possible there are--but I’m not made of that kind
+of stuff. I allow Madame Trigault eight thousand francs a month for
+her toilette--that is sufficient--and it is a matter for you and her to
+arrange together. What did I tell you last year when I paid a bill of
+forty thousand francs? That I would not be responsible for any more of
+my wife’s debts. And I not only said it, I formally notified you through
+my private secretary.”
+
+“I remember, indeed----”
+
+“Then why do you come to me with your bill? It is with my wife that you
+have opened an account. Apply to her, and leave me in peace.”
+
+“Madame promised me----”
+
+“Teach her to keep her promises.”
+
+“It costs a great deal to retain one’s position as a leader of fashion;
+and many of the most distinguished ladies are obliged to run into debt,”
+ urged Van Klopen.
+
+“That’s their business. But my wife is not a fine lady. She is simply
+Madame Trigault, a baroness, thanks to her husband’s gold and the
+condescension of a worthy German prince, who was in want of money. SHE
+is not a person of consequence--she has no rank to keep up.”
+
+The baroness must have attached immense importance to the satisfying of
+Van Klopen’s demands, for concealing the anger this humiliating scene
+undoubtedly caused her, she condescended to try and explain, and even to
+entreat. “I have been a little extravagant, perhaps,” she said; “but I
+will be more prudent in future. Pay, monsieur--pay just once more.”
+
+“No!”
+
+“If not for my sake, for your own.”
+
+“Not a farthing.”
+
+By the baron’s tone, Pascal realized that his wife would never shake
+his fixed determination. Such must also have been the opinion of the
+illustrious ruler of fashion, for he returned to the charge with an
+argument he had held in reserve. “If this is the case, I shall, to my
+great regret, be obliged to fail in the respect I owe to Monsieur le
+Baron, and to place this bill in the hands of a solicitor.”
+
+“Send him along--send him along.”
+
+“I cannot believe that monsieur wishes a law-suit.”
+
+“In that you are greatly mistaken. Nothing would please me better. It
+would at last give me an opportunity to say what I think about your
+dealings. Do you think that wives are to turn their husbands into
+machines for supplying money? You draw the bow-string too tightly, my
+dear fellow--it will break. I’ll proclaim on the house-top what others
+dare not say, and we’ll see if I don’t succeed in organizing a little
+crusade against you.” And animated by the sound of his own words,
+his anger came back to him, and in a louder and ever louder voice he
+continued: “Ah! you prate of the scandal that would be created by my
+resistance to your demands. That’s your system; but, with me, it won’t
+succeed. You threaten me with a law-suit; very good. I’ll take it upon
+myself to enlighten Paris, for I know your secrets, Mr. Dressmaker. I
+know the goings on in your establishment. It isn’t always to talk about
+dress that ladies stop at your place on returning from the Bois. You
+sell silks and satins no doubt; but you sell Madeira, and excellent
+cigarettes as well, and there are some who don’t walk very straight
+on leaving your establishment, but smell suspiciously of tobacco and
+absinthe. Oh, yes, let us go to law, by all means! I shall have an
+advocate who will know how to explain the parts your customers pay, and
+who will reveal how, with your assistance, they obtain money from other
+sources than their husband’s cash-box.”
+
+When M. Van Klopen was addressed in this style, he was not at all
+pleased. “And I!” he exclaimed, “I will tell people that Baron Trigault,
+after losing all his money at play, repays his creditors with curses.”
+
+The noise of an overturned chair told Pascal that the baron had sprung
+up in a furious passion “You may say what you like, you rascally fool!
+but not in my house,” he shouted. “Leave--leave, or I will ring----”
+
+“Monsieur----”
+
+“Leave, leave, I tell you, or I sha’n’t have the patience to wait for a
+servant!”
+
+He must have joined action to word, and have seized Van Klopen by
+the collar to thrust him into the hall, for Pascal heard a sound of
+scuffling, a series of oaths worthy of a coal-heaver, two or three
+frightened cries from the baroness, and several guttural exclamations
+in German. Then a door closed with such violence that the whole house
+shook, and a magnificent clock, fixed to the wall of the smoking-room,
+fell on to the floor.
+
+If Pascal had not heard this scene, he would have deemed it incredible.
+How could one suppose that a creditor would leave this princely mansion
+with his bill unpaid? But more and more clearly he understood that there
+must be some greater cause of difference between husband and wife than
+this bill of twenty-eight thousand francs. For what was this amount to
+a confirmed gambler who, without as much as a frown, gained or lost a
+fortune every evening of his life. Evidently there was some skeleton in
+this household--one of those terrible secrets which make a man and his
+wife enemies, and all the more bitter enemies as they are bound together
+by a chain which it is impossible to break. And undoubtedly, a good many
+of the insults which the baron had heaped upon Van Klopen must have been
+intended for the baroness. These thoughts darted through Pascal’s mind
+with the rapidity of lightning, and showed him the horrible position
+in which he was placed. The baron, who had been so favorably disposed
+toward him, and from whom he was expecting a great service, would
+undoubtedly hate him, undoubtedly become his enemy, when he learned
+that he had been a listener, although an involuntary one, to this
+conversation with Van Klopen. How did it happen that he had been placed
+in this dangerous position? What had become of the footman who had taken
+his card? These were questions which he was unable to answer. And what
+was he to do? If he could have retired noiselessly, if he could have
+reached the courtyard and have made his escape without being observed he
+would not have hesitated. But was this plan practicable? And would not
+his card betray him? Would it not be discovered sooner or later that he
+had been in the smoking-room while M. Van Klopen was in the dining-room?
+In any case, delicacy of feeling as well as his own interest forbade him
+to remain any longer a listener to the private conversation of the baron
+and his wife.
+
+He therefore noisily moved a chair, and coughed in that affected style
+which means in every country: “Take care--I’m here!” But he did not
+succeed in attracting attention. And yet the silence was profound; he
+could distinctly hear the creaking of the baron’s boots, as he paced
+to and fro, and the sound of fingers nervously beating a tattoo on the
+table. If he desired to avoid hearing the confidential conversation,
+which would no doubt ensue between the baron and his wife, there was
+but one course for him to pursue, and that was to reveal his presence at
+once. He was about to do so, when some one opened a door which must have
+led from the hall into the dining-room. He listened attentively, but
+only heard a few confused words, to which the baron replied: “Very well.
+That’s sufficient. I will see him in a moment.”
+
+Pascal breathed freely once more. “They have just given him my card,” he
+thought. “I can remain now; he will come here in a moment.”
+
+The baron must really have started to leave the room, for his wife
+exclaimed: “One word more: have you quite decided?”
+
+“Oh, fully!”
+
+“You are resolved to leave me exposed to the persecutions of my
+dressmaker?”
+
+“Van Klopen is too charming and polite to cause you the least worry.”
+
+“You will brave the disgrace of a law-suit?”
+
+“Nonsense! You know very well that he won’t bring any action against
+me--unfortunately. And, besides, pray tell me where the disgrace
+would be? I have a foolish wife--is that my fault? I oppose her absurd
+extravagance--haven’t I a right to do so? If all husbands were as
+courageous, we should soon close the establishments of these artful men,
+who minister to your vanity, and use you ladies as puppets, or living
+advertisements, to display the absurd fashions which enrich them.”
+
+The baron took two or three more steps forward, as if about to leave the
+room, but his wife interposed: “The Baroness Trigault, whose husband
+has an income of seven or eight hundred thousand francs a year, can’t go
+about clad like a simple woman of the middle classes.”
+
+“I should see nothing so very improper in that.”
+
+“Oh, I know. Only your ideas don’t coincide with mine. I shall never
+consent to make myself ridiculous among the ladies of my set--among my
+friends.”
+
+“It would indeed be a pity to arouse the disapproval of your friends.”
+
+This sneering remark certainly irritated the baroness, for it was with
+the greatest vehemence that she replied: “All my friends are ladies of
+the highest rank in society--noble ladies!”
+
+The baron no doubt shrugged his shoulders, for in a tone of crushing
+irony and scorn, he exclaimed: “Noble ladies! whom do you call
+noble ladies, pray? The brainless fools who only think of displaying
+themselves and making themselves notorious?--the senseless idiots who
+pique themselves on surpassing lewd women in audacity, extravagance, and
+effrontery, who fleece their husbands as cleverly as courtesans fleece
+their lovers? Noble ladies! who drink, and smoke, and carouse, who
+attend masked balls, and talk slang! Noble ladies! the idiots who long
+for the applause of the crowd, and consider notoriety to be desirable
+and flattering. A woman is only noble by her virtues--and the chief
+of all virtues, modesty, is entirely wanting in your illustrious
+friends----”
+
+“Monsieur,” interrupted the baroness, in a voice husky with anger, “you
+forget yourself--you----”
+
+But the baron was well under way. “If it is scandal that crowns one
+a great lady, you ARE one--and one of the greatest; for you are
+notorious--almost as notorious as Jenny Fancy. Can’t I learn from
+the newspapers all your sayings and gestures, your amusements, your
+occupations, and the toilettes you wear? It is impossible to read of a
+first performance at a theatre, or of a horse-race, without finding
+your name coupled with that of Jenny Fancy, or Cora Pearl, or Ninette
+Simplon. I should be a very strange husband indeed, if I wasn’t proud
+and delighted. Ah! you are a treasure to the reporters. On the day
+before yesterday the Baroness Trigault skated in the Bois. Yesterday she
+was driving in her pony-carriage. To-day she distinguished herself by
+her skill at pigeon-shooting. To-morrow she will display herself half
+nude in some tableaux vivants. On the day after to-morrow she will
+inaugurate a new style of hair-dressing, and take part in a comedy. It
+is always the Baroness Trigault who is the observed of all observers at
+Vincennes. The Baroness Trigault has lost five hundred louis in betting.
+The Baroness Trigault uses her lorgnette with charming impertinence.
+It is she who has declared it proper form to take a ‘drop’ on returning
+from the Bois. No one is so famed for ‘form,’ as the baroness--and
+silk merchants have bestowed her name upon a color. People rave of the
+Trigault blue--what glory! There are also costumes Trigault, for
+the witty, elegant baroness has a host of admirers who follow her
+everywhere, and loudly sing her praises. This is what I, a plain, honest
+man, read every day in the newspapers. The whole world not only knows
+how my wife dresses, but how she looks en dishabille, and how she
+is formed; folks are aware that she has an exquisite foot, a
+divinely-shaped leg, and a perfect hand. No one is ignorant of the fact
+that my wife’s shoulders are of dazzling whiteness, and that high on
+the left shoulder there is a most enticing little mole. I had the
+satisfaction of reading this particular last evening. It is charming,
+upon my word! and I am truly a fortunate man!”
+
+In the smoking-room, Pascal could hear the baroness angrily stamp her
+foot, as she exclaimed: “It is an outrageous insult--your journalists
+are most impertinent.”
+
+“Why? Do they ever trouble honest women?”
+
+“They wouldn’t trouble me if I had a husband who knew how to make them
+treat me with respect!”
+
+The baron laughed a strident, nervous laugh, which it was not pleasant
+to hear, and which revealed the fact that intense suffering was hidden
+beneath all this banter. “Would you like me to fight a duel then? After
+twenty years has the idea of ridding yourself of me occurred to you
+again? I can scarcely believe it. You know too well that you would
+receive none of my money, that I have guarded against that. Besides, you
+would be inconsolable if the newspapers ceased talking about you for a
+single day. Respect yourself, and you will be respected. The publicity
+you complain of is the last anchor which prevents society from drifting
+one knows not where. Those who would not listen to the warning voice of
+honor and conscience are restrained by the fear of a little paragraph
+which might disclose their shame. Now that a woman no longer has a
+conscience, the newspapers act in place of it. And I think it quite
+right, for it is our only hope of salvation.”
+
+By the stir in the adjoining room, Pascal felt sure that the baroness
+had stationed herself before the door to prevent her husband from
+leaving her. “Ah! well, monsieur,” she exclaimed, “I declare to you
+that I must have Van Klopen’s twenty-eight thousand francs before this
+evening. I will have them, too; I am resolved to have them, and you will
+give them to me.”
+
+“Oh!” thundered the baron, “you WILL have them--you will----” He paused,
+and then, after a moment’s reflection, he said: “Very well. So be it! I
+will give you this amount, but not just now. Still if, as you say, it is
+absolutely necessary that you should have it to-day, there is a means of
+procuring it. Pawn your diamonds for thirty thousand francs--I authorize
+you to do so; and I give you my word of honor that I will redeem them
+within a week. Say, will you do this?” And, as the baroness made no
+reply, he continued: “You don’t answer! shall I tell you why? It is
+because your diamonds were long since sold and replaced by imitation
+ones; it is because you are head over heels in debt; it is because you
+have stooped so low as to borrow your maid’s savings; it is because you
+already owe three thousand francs to one of my coachmen; it is because
+our steward lends you money at the rate of thirty or forty per cent.”
+
+“It is false!”
+
+The baron sneered. “You certainly must think me a much greater fool than
+I really am!” he replied. “I’m not often at home, it’s true--the sight
+of you exasperates me; but I know what’s going on. You believe me your
+dupe, but you are altogether mistaken. It is not twenty-seven thousand
+francs you owe Van Klopen, but fifty or sixty thousand. However, he is
+careful not to demand payment. If he brought me a bill this morning, it
+was only because you had begged him to do so, and because it had been
+agreed he should give you the money back if I paid him. In short, if you
+require twenty-eight thousand francs before to-night, it is because M.
+Fernand de Coralth has demanded that sum, and because you have promised
+to give it to him!”
+
+Leaning against the wall of the smoking-room, speechless and motionless,
+holding his breath, with his hands pressed upon his heart, as if to
+stop its throbbings, Pascal Ferailleur listened. He no longer thought
+of flying; he no longer thought of reproaching himself for his enforced
+indiscretion. He had lost all consciousness of his position. The name of
+the Viscount de Coralth, thus mentioned in the course of this frightful
+scene, came as a revelation to him. He now understood the meaning of the
+baron’s conduct. His visit to the Rue d’Ulm, and his promises of help
+were all explained. “My mother was right,” he thought; “the baron hates
+that miserable viscount mortally. He will do all in his power to assist
+me.”
+
+Meanwhile, the baroness energetically denied her husband’s charges. She
+swore that she did not know what he meant. What had M. de Coralth to
+do with all this? She commanded her husband to speak more plainly--to
+explain his odious insinuations.
+
+He allowed her to speak for a moment, and then suddenly, in a harsh,
+sarcastic voice, he interrupted her by saying: “Oh! enough! No more
+hypocrisy! Why do you try to defend yourself? What matters one crime
+more? I know only too well that what I say is true; and if you desire
+proofs, they shall be in your hands in less than half an hour. It is a
+long time since I was blind--full twenty years! Nothing concerning you
+has escaped my knowledge and observation since the cursed day when I
+discovered the depths of your disgrace and infamy--since the terrible
+evening when I heard you plan to murder me in cold blood. You had grown
+accustomed to freedom of action; while I, who had gone off with the
+first gold-seekers, was braving a thousand dangers in California, so as
+to win wealth and luxury for you more quickly. Fool that I was! No task
+seemed too hard or too distasteful when I thought of you--and I was
+always thinking of you. My mind was at peace--I had perfect faith in
+you. We had a daughter; and if a fear or a doubt entered my mind, I told
+myself that the sight of her cradle would drive all evil thoughts
+from your heart. The adultery of a childless wife may be forgiven or
+explained; but that of a mother, never! Fool! idiot! that I was! With
+what joyous pride, on my return after an absence of eighteen months, I
+showed you the treasures I had brought back with me! I had two hundred
+thousand francs! I said to you as I embraced you: ‘It is yours, my
+well-beloved, the source of all my happiness!’ But you did not care for
+me--I wearied you! You loved another! And while you were deceiving
+me with your caresses, you were, with fiendish skill, preparing a
+conspiracy which, if it had succeeded, would have resulted in my death!
+I should consider myself amply revenged if I could make you suffer for a
+single day all the torments that I endured for long months. For this was
+not all! You had not even the excuse, if excuse it be, of a powerful,
+all-absorbing passion. Convinced of your treachery, I resolved to
+ascertain everything, and I discovered that in my absence you had become
+a mother. Why didn’t I kill you? How did I have the courage to remain
+silent and conceal what I knew? Ah! it was because, by watching you, I
+hoped to discover the cursed bastard and your accomplice. It was because
+I dreamed of a vengeance as terrible as the offence. I said to myself
+that the day would come when, at any risk, you would try to see your
+child again, to embrace her, and provide for her future. Fool! fool
+that I was! You had already forgotten her! When you received news of my
+intended return, she was sent to some foundling asylum, or left to die
+upon some door-step. Have you ever thought of her? Have you ever asked
+what has become of her? ever asked yourself if she had needed bread
+while you have been living in almost regal luxury? ever asked yourself
+into what depths of vice she may have fallen?”
+
+“Always the same ridiculous accusation!” exclaimed the baroness.
+
+“Yes, always!”
+
+“You must know, however, that this story of a child is only a vile
+slander. I told you so when you spoke of it to me a dozen years
+afterward. I have repeated it a thousand times since.”
+
+The baron uttered a sigh that was very like a sob, and without paying
+any heed to his wife’s words, he continued: “If I consented to allow
+you to remain under my roof, it was only for the sake of our daughter.
+I trembled lest the scandal of a separation should fall upon her. But it
+was useless suffering on my part. She was as surely lost as you yourself
+were; and it was your work, too!”
+
+“What! you blame me for that?”
+
+“Whom ought I to blame, then? Who took her to balls, and theatres and
+races--to every place where a young girl ought NOT to be taken? Who
+initiated her into what you call high life? and who used her as a
+discreet and easy chaperon? Who married her to a wretch who is a
+disgrace to the title he bears, and who has completed the work of
+demoralization you began? And what is your daughter to-day? Her
+extravagance has made her notorious even among the shameless women who
+pretend to be leaders of society. She is scarcely twenty-two, and there
+is not a single prejudice left for her to brave! Her husband is the
+companion of actresses and courtesans; her own companions are no
+better--and in less than two years the million of francs which
+I bestowed on her as a dowry has been squandered, recklessly
+squandered--for there isn’t a penny of it left. And, at this very hour,
+my daughter and my son-in-law are plotting to extort money from me. On
+the day before yesterday--listen carefully to this--my son-in-law came
+to ask me for a hundred thousand francs, and when I refused them, he
+threatened if I did not give them to him that he would publish some
+letters written by my daughter--by his wife--to some low scoundrel.
+I was horrified and gave him what he asked. But that same evening I
+learned that the husband and wife, my daughter and my son-in-law, had
+concocted this vile conspiracy together. Yes, I have positive proofs
+of it. Leaving here, and not wishing to return home that day, he
+telegraphed the good news to his wife. But in his delight he made a
+mistake in the address, and the telegram was brought here. I opened it,
+and read: ‘Papa has fallen into the trap, my darling. I beat my drum,
+and he surrendered at once.’ Yes, that is what he dared to write, and
+sign with his own name, and then send to his wife--my daughter!”
+
+Pascal was absolutely terrified. He wondered if he were not the victim
+of some absurd nightmare--if his senses were not playing him false.
+He had little conception of the terrible dramas which are constantly
+enacted in these superb mansions, so admired and envied by the passing
+crowd. He thought that the baroness would be crushed--that she would
+fall on her knees before her husband. What a mistake! The tone of
+her voice told him that, instead of yielding, she was only bent on
+retaliation.
+
+“Does your son-in-law do anything worse than you?” she exclaimed. “How
+dare you censure him--you who drag your name through all the gambling
+dens of Europe?”
+
+“Wretch!” interrupted the baron, “wretch!” But quickly mastering
+himself, he remarked: “Yes, it’s true that I gamble. People say, ‘That
+great Baron Trigault is never without cards in his hands!’ But you know
+very well that I really hold gambling in horror--that I loathe it. But
+when I play, I sometimes forget--for I must forget. I tried drink, but
+it wouldn’t drown thought, so I had recourse to cards; and when the
+stakes are large, and my fortune is imperilled, I sometimes lose
+consciousness of my misery!”
+
+The baroness gave vent to a cold, sneering laugh, and, in a tone of
+mocking commiseration, she said: “Poor baron! It is no doubt in the hope
+of forgetting your sorrows that you spend all your time--when you are
+not gambling--with a woman named Lia d’Argeles. She’s rather pretty. I
+have seen her several times in the Bois----”
+
+“Be silent!” exclaimed the baron, “be silent! Don’t insult an
+unfortunate woman who is a thousand times better than yourself.” And,
+feeling that he could endure no more--that he could no longer restrain
+his passion, he cried: “Out of my sight! Go! or I sha’n’t be responsible
+for my acts!”
+
+Pascal heard a chair move, the floor creak, and a moment afterward a
+lady passed quickly through the smoking-room. How was it that she did
+not perceive him? No doubt, because she was greatly agitated, in spite
+of her bravado. And, besides, he was standing a little back in the
+shade. But he saw her, and his brain reeled. “Good Lord! what a
+likeness!” he murmured.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+It was as if he had seen an apparition, and he was vainly striving to
+drive away a terrible, mysterious fear, when a heavy footfall made
+the floor of the dining-room creak anew. The noise restored him to
+consciousness of his position. “It is the baron!” he thought; “he is
+coming this way! If he finds me here I am lost; he will never consent to
+help me. A man would never forgive another man for hearing what I have
+just heard.”
+
+Why should he not try to make his escape? The card, bearing the name
+of Maumejan, would be no proof of his visit. He could see the baron
+somewhere else some other day--elsewhere than at his own house, so that
+he need not fear the recognition of the servants. These thoughts flashed
+through his mind, and he was about to fly, when a harsh cry held him
+spell-bound. Baron Trigault was standing on the threshold. His emotion,
+as is almost always the case with corpulent people, was evinced by a
+frightful distortion of his features. His face was transformed, his
+lips had become perfectly white, and his eyes seemed to be starting from
+their sockets. “How came you here?” he asked, in a husky voice.
+
+“Your servants ushered me into this room.”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“What! monsieur, don’t you recognize me?” rejoined Pascal, who in his
+agitation forgot that the baron had seen him only twice before. He
+forgot the absence of his beard, his almost ragged clothing, and all the
+precautions he had taken to render recognition impossible.
+
+“I have never met any person named Maumejan,” said the baron.
+
+“Ah! monsieur, that’s not my name. Have you forgotten the innocent man
+who was caught in that infamous snare set for him by the Viscount de
+Coralth?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” replied the baron, “I remember you now.” And then
+recollecting the terrible scene that had just taken place in the
+adjoining room: “How long have you been here?” he asked.
+
+Should Pascal tell a falsehood, or confess the truth? He hesitated, but
+his hesitation lasted scarcely the tenth part of a second. “I have been
+here about half an hour,” he replied.
+
+The baron’s livid cheeks suddenly became purple, his eyes glittered, and
+it seemed by his threatening gesture as if he were strongly tempted to
+murder this man, who had discovered the terrible, disgraceful secrets
+of his domestic life. But it was a mere flash of energy. The terrible
+ordeal which he had just passed through had exhausted him mentally and
+physically, and it was in a faltering voice that he resumed: “Then you
+have not lost a word--a word of what was said in the other room?”
+
+“Not a word.”
+
+The baron sank on to the divan. “So the knowledge of my disgrace is
+no longer confined to myself!” he exclaimed. “A stranger’s eye has
+penetrated the depths of misery I have fallen into! The secret of my
+wretchedness and shame is mine no longer!”
+
+“Oh, monsieur, monsieur!” interrupted Pascal. “Before I recross the
+threshold of your home, all shall have been forgotten. I swear it by all
+that is most sacred!”
+
+He had raised his hand as if to take a solemn oath, when the baron
+caught hold of it, and, pressing it with sorrowful gratitude, exclaimed:
+“I believe you! You are a man of honor--I only needed to see your home
+to be convinced of that. You will not laugh at my misfortunes or my
+misery!” He must have been suffering frightfully, for big tears rolled
+slowly down his cheeks. “What have I done, my God! that I should be
+so cruelly punished?” he continued. “I have always been generous and
+charitable, and ready to help all who applied to me. I am utterly alone!
+I have a wife and a daughter--but they hate me. They long for my death,
+which would give them possession of my wealth. What torture! For months
+together I dared not eat a morsel of food, either in my own house, or
+in the house of my son-in-law. I feared poison; and I never partook of a
+dish until I had seen my daughter or my wife do so. To prevent a crime,
+I was obliged to resort to the strangest expedients. I made a will, and
+left my property in such a way that if I die, my family will not receive
+one penny. So, they now have an interest in prolonging my life.” As he
+spoke he sprang up with an almost frenzied air, and, seizing Pascal by
+the arm, again continued. “Nor is this all! This woman--my wife--you
+know--you have heard the extent of her shame and degradation. Ah, well!
+I--love her!”
+
+Pascal recoiled with an exclamation of mingled horror and consternation.
+
+“This amazes you, eh?” rejoined the baron. “It is indeed
+incomprehensible, monstrous--but it is the truth. It is to gratify her
+desire for luxury that I have toiled to amass millions. If I purchased
+a title, which is absurd and ridiculous, it was only because I wished
+to satisfy her vanity. Do what she may, I can only see in her the chaste
+and beautiful wife of our early married life. It is cowardly, absurd,
+ridiculous--I realize it; but my love is stronger than my reason or my
+will. I love her madly, passionately; I cannot tear her from my heart!”
+
+So speaking, he sank sobbing on to the divan again. Was this, indeed,
+the frivolous and jovial Baron Trigault whom Pascal had seen at Madame
+d’Argeles’s house--the man of self-satisfied mien and superb assurance,
+the good-natured cynic, the frequenter of gambling-dens? Alas, yes! But
+the baron whom the world knew was only a comedian; this was the real
+man.
+
+After a little while he succeeded in controlling his emotion, and in a
+comparatively calm voice he exclaimed: “But it is useless to distract
+one’s mind with an incurable evil. Let us speak of yourself, M.
+Ferailleur. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
+
+“To your own kind offer, monsieur, and the hope that you will help me in
+refuting this slander, and wreaking vengeance upon those who have ruined
+me.”
+
+“Oh! yes, I will help you in that to the full extent of my power,”
+ exclaimed the baron. But experience reminded him that confidential
+disclosures ought not to be made with the doors open, so he rose, shut
+them, and returning to Pascal, said: “Explain in what way I can be of
+service to you, monsieur.”
+
+It was not without many misgivings that Pascal had presented himself
+at the baron’s house, but after what he had heard he felt no further
+hesitation; he could speak with perfect freedom. “It is quite
+unnecessary for me to tell you, Monsieur le Baron,” he began, “that the
+cards which made me win were inserted in the pack by M. de Coralth--that
+is proven beyond question, and whatever the consequences may be, I shall
+have my revenge. But before striking him, I wish to reach the man whose
+instrument he was.”
+
+“What! you suppose----”
+
+“I don’t suppose--I am sure that M. de Coralth acted in obedience to the
+instructions of some other scoundrel whose courage does not equal his
+meanness.”
+
+“Perhaps so! I think he would shrink from nothing in the way of
+rascality. But who could have employed him in this vile work of
+dishonoring an honest man?”
+
+“The Marquis de Valorsay.”
+
+On hearing this name, the baron bounded to his feet. “Impossible!” he
+exclaimed; “absolutely impossible! M. de Valorsay is incapable of the
+villainy you ascribe to him. What do I say?--he is even above suspicion.
+I have known him for years, and I have never met a more loyal, more
+honorable, or more courageous man. He is one of my few trusted friends;
+we see each other almost every day. I am expecting a visit from him even
+now.”
+
+“Still it was he who incited M. de Coralth to do the deed.”
+
+“But why? What could have been his object?”
+
+“To win a young girl whom I love. She--loved me, and he saw that I
+was an obstacle. He put me out of the way more surely than if he had
+murdered me. If I died, she might mourn for me--dishonored, she would
+spurn me----”
+
+“Is Valorsay so madly in love with the girl, then?”
+
+“I think he cares but very little for her.”
+
+“Then why----”
+
+“She is the heiress of several millions.”
+
+It was evident that this explanation did not shake Baron Trigault’s
+faith in his friend. “But the marquis has an income of a hundred
+and fifty or two hundred thousand francs,” said he; “that is an
+all-sufficient justification. With his fortune and his name, he is in a
+position to choose his wife from among all the heiresses of France. Why
+should he address his attentions in particular to the woman you love?
+Ah! if he were poor--if his fortune were impaired--if he felt the need
+of regilding his escutcheon, like my son-in-law----”
+
+He paused; there was a rap at the door. The baron called out: “Come
+in,” and a valet appeared, and informed his master that the Marquis de
+Valorsay wished to speak with him.
+
+It was the enemy! Pascal’s features were distorted with rage; but he did
+not stir--he did not utter a word. “Ask the marquis into the next room,”
+ said the baron. “I will join him there at once.” Then as the servant
+retired, the baron turned to Pascal and said: “Well, M. Ferailleur, do
+you divine my intentions?”
+
+“I think so, monsieur. You probably intend me to hear the conversation
+you are going to have with M. de Valorsay.”
+
+“Exactly. I shall leave the door open, and you can listen.”
+
+This word, “listen,” was uttered without bitterness, or even reproach;
+and yet Pascal could not help blushing and hanging his head. “I wish to
+prove to you that your suspicions are without foundation,” pursued
+the baron. “Rest assured that I shall prove this conclusively. I will
+conduct the conversation in the form of a cross-examination, and after
+the marquis’s departure, you will be obliged to confess that you were
+wrong.”
+
+“Or you, that I am right?”
+
+“So be it. Any one is liable to be mistaken, and I am not obstinate.”
+
+He was about to leave the room, when Pascal detained him. “I scarcely
+know how to testify my gratitude even now, monsieur, and yet--if I
+dared--if I did not fear to abuse your kindness, I should ask one more
+favor.”
+
+“Speak, Monsieur Ferailleur.”
+
+“It is this, I do not know the Marquis de Valorsay; and if, instead of
+leaving the door wide open, you would partially close it, I should hear
+as distinctly, and I could also see him.”
+
+“Agreed,” replied the baron. And, opening the door, he passed into the
+dining-room, with his right hand cordially extended, and saying, in his
+most genial tones: “Excuse me, my dear friend, for keeping you waiting.
+I received your letter this morning, and I was expecting you, but some
+unexpected business required my attention just now. Are you quite well?”
+
+As the baron entered the room, the marquis had stepped quickly forward
+to meet him. Either he was inspired with fresh hope, or else he
+had wonderful powers of self-control, for never had he looked more
+calm--never had his face evinced haughtier indifference, more complete
+satisfaction with himself, and greater contempt for others. He was
+dressed with even more than usual care, and in perfect taste as well;
+moreover, his valet had surpassed himself in dressing his hair--for one
+would have sworn that his locks were still luxuriant. If he experienced
+any secret anxiety, it only showed itself in a slightly increased
+stiffness of his right leg--the limb broken in hunting. “I ought rather
+to inquire concerning your own health,” he remarked. “You seem greatly
+disturbed; your cravat is untied.” And, pointing to the broken china
+scattered about the floor, he added: “On seeing this, I asked myself if
+an accident had not happened.”
+
+“The baroness was taken suddenly ill at the breakfast table. Her
+fainting fit startled me a little. But it was a mere trifle. She has
+quite recovered already, and you may rely upon her applauding your
+victory at Vincennes to-day. She has I don’t know how many hundred louis
+staked upon your horses.”
+
+The marquis’s countenance assumed an expression of cordial regret. “I am
+very sorry, upon my word!” he exclaimed. “But I sha’n’t take part in the
+races at Vincennes. I have withdrawn my horses. And, in future, I shall
+have nothing to do with racing.”
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“It is the truth, however. I have been led to this determination by the
+infamous slander which has been circulated respecting me.”
+
+This answer was a mere trifle, but it somewhat shook Baron Trigault’s
+confidence. “You have been slandered!” he muttered.
+
+“Abominably. Last Sunday the best horse in my stables, Domingo, came in
+third. He was the favorite in the ring. You can understand the rest. I
+have been accused of manoeuvering to have my own horse beaten. People
+have declared that it was my interest he should be beaten, and that I
+had an understanding with my jockey to that effect. This is an every-day
+occurrence, I know very well; but, as regards myself, it is none the
+less an infamous lie!”
+
+“Who has dared to circulate such a report?”
+
+“Oh, how can I tell? It is a fact, however, that the story has been
+circulated everywhere, but in such a cautious manner that there is no
+way of calling the authors to account. They have even gone so far as to
+say that this piece of knavery brought me in an enormous sum, and that I
+used Rochecotte’s, Kervaulieu’s, and Coralth’s names in betting against
+my own horse.”
+
+The baron’s agitation was so great that M. de Valorsay observed it,
+though he did not understand the cause. Living in the same society with
+the Baroness Trigault, and knowing her story, he thought that Coralth’s
+name might, perhaps, have irritated the baron. “And so,” he quickly
+continued, “don’t be surprised if, during the coming week, you see the
+sale of my horses announced.”
+
+“What! you are going to sell----”
+
+“All my horses--yes, baron. I have nineteen; and it will be very strange
+if I don’t get eight or ten thousand louis for the lot. Domingo alone is
+worth more than forty thousand francs.”
+
+To talk of selling--of realizing something you possess--rings ominously
+in people’s ears. The person who talks of selling proclaims his need
+of money--and often his approaching ruin. “It will save you at least a
+hundred and fifty or sixty thousand francs a year,” observed the baron.
+
+“Double it and you won’t come up to the mark. Ah! my dear baron, you
+have yet to learn that there is nothing so ruinous as a racing stable.
+It’s worse than gambling; and women, in comparison, are a real economy.
+Ninette costs me less than Domingo, with his jockey, his trainer, and
+his grooms. My manager declares that the twenty-three thousand francs I
+won last year, cost me at least fifty thousand.”
+
+Was he boasting, or was he speaking the truth? The baron was engaged in
+a rapid calculation. “What does Valorsay spend a year?” he was saying
+to himself. “Let us say two hundred and fifty thousand francs for his
+stable; forty thousand francs for Ninette Simplon; eighty thousand
+for his household expenses, and at least thirty thousand for personal
+matters, travelling, and play. All this amounts to something like four
+hundred and thirty thousand francs a year. Does his income equal that
+sum? Certainly not. Then he must have been living on the principal--he
+is ruined.”
+
+Meanwhile the marquis gayly continued: “You see, I’m going to make a
+change in my mode of life. Ah! it surprises you! But one must make an
+end of it, sooner or later. I begin to find a bachelor life not so very
+pleasant after all; there is rheumatism in prospect, and my digestion is
+becoming impaired--in short, I feel that it is time for marriage, baron;
+and--I am about to marry.”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Yes, I. What, haven’t you heard of it, yet? It has been talked of at
+the club for three days or more.”
+
+“No, this is the first intimation I have received of it. It is true,
+however, that I have not been to the club for three days. I have made a
+wager with Kami-Bey, you know--that rich Turk--and as our sittings are
+eight or ten hours long, we play in his apartments at the Grand Hotel.
+And so you are to be married,” the baron continued, after a slight
+pause. “Ah, well! I know one person who won’t be pleased.”
+
+“Who, pray?”
+
+“Ninette Simplon.”
+
+M. de Valorsay laughed heartily. “As if that would make any difference
+to me!” he exclaimed. And then in a most confidential manner he resumed:
+“She will soon be consoled. Ninette Simplon is a shrewd girl--a girl
+whom I have always suspected of having an account book in place of a
+heart. I know she has at least three hundred thousand francs safely
+invested; her furniture and diamonds are worth as much more. Why should
+she regret me? Add to this that I have promised her fifty thousand
+francs to dry her tears with on my wedding-day, and you will understand
+that she really longs to see me married.”
+
+“I understand,” replied the baron; “Ninette Simplon won’t trouble you.
+But I can’t understand why you should talk of economy on the eve of a
+marriage which will no doubt double your fortune; for I’m sure you won’t
+surrender your liberty without good and substantial reasons.”
+
+“You are mistaken.”
+
+“How mistaken?”
+
+“Well, I won’t hesitate to confess to you, my dear baron, that the girl
+I am about to marry hasn’t a penny of her own. My future wife has no
+dowry save her black eyes--but they are certainly superb ones.”
+
+This assertion seemed to disprove Pascal’s statements. “Can it really be
+you who are talking in this strain?” cried the baron. “You, a practical,
+worldly man, give way to such a burst of sentiment?”
+
+“Well, yes.”
+
+The baron opened his eyes in astonishment. “Ah! then you adore your
+future bride!”
+
+“Adore only feebly expresses my feelings.”
+
+“I must be dreaming.”
+
+Valorsay shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who has made up
+his mind to accept the banter of his friends; and in a tone of mingled
+sentimentality and irony, he said: “I know that it’s absurd, and that
+I shall be the laughing-stock of my acquaintances. Still it doesn’t
+matter; I have never been coward enough to hide my feelings. I’m in
+love, my dear baron, as madly in love as a young collegian--sufficiently
+in love to watch my lady’s house at night even when I have no possible
+hope of seeing her. I thought myself blase, I boasted of being
+invulnerable. Well, one fine morning I woke up with the heart of a youth
+of twenty beating in my breast--a heart which trembled at the slightest
+glance from the girl I love, and sent purple flushes to my face.
+Naturally I tried to reason with myself. I was ashamed of my weakness;
+but the more clearly I showed myself my folly, the more obstinate my
+heart became. And perhaps my folly is not such a great one after all.
+Such perfect beauty united with such modesty, grace, and nobility
+of soul, such passion, candor and talent, cannot be met twice in a
+lifetime. I intend to leave Paris. We shall first of all go to Italy,
+my wife and I. After a while we shall return and install ourselves at
+Valorsay, like two turtle-doves. Upon my word, my imagination paints a
+charming picture of the calm and happy life we shall lead there! I don’t
+deserve such good fortune. I must have been born under a lucky star!”
+
+Had he been less engrossed in his narrative, he would have heard the
+sound of a stifled oath in the adjoining room; and had he been less
+absorbed in the part he was playing, he would have observed a cloud on
+his companion’s brow. The baron was a keen observer, and he had detected
+a false ring in this apparently vehement outburst of passion. “I
+understand it now, my dear marquis,” said he; “you have met the
+descendant of some illustrious but impoverished family.”
+
+“You are wrong. My future bride has no other name than her Christian
+name of Marguerite.”
+
+“It is a regular romance then!”
+
+“You are quite right; it is a romance. Were you acquainted with the
+Count de Chalusse, who died a few days ago?”
+
+“No; but I have often heard him spoken of.”
+
+“Well, it is his daughter whom I am about to marry--his illegitimate
+daughter.”
+
+The baron started. “Excuse me,” said he; “M. de Chalusse was immensely
+rich, and he was a bachelor. How does it happen then that his daughter,
+even though she be his illegitimate child, should find herself
+penniless?”
+
+“A mere chance--a fatality. M. de Chalusse died very suddenly; he had no
+time to make a will or to acknowledge his daughter.”
+
+“But why had he not taken some precautions?”
+
+“A formal recognition of his daughter was attended by too many
+difficulties, and even dangers. Mademoiselle Marguerite had been
+abandoned by her mother when only five or six months old; it is only a
+few years since M. de Chalusse, after a thousand vain attempts, at last
+succeeded in finding her.”
+
+It was no longer on Pascal’s account, but on his own, that Baron
+Trigault listened with breathless attention. “How very strange,” he
+exclaimed, in default of something better to say. “How very strange!”
+
+“Isn’t it? It is as good as a novel.”
+
+“Would it be--indiscreet----”
+
+“To inquire? Certainly not. The count told me the whole story, without
+entering into particulars--you understand. When he was quite young, M.
+de Chalusse became enamoured of a charming young lady, whose husband had
+gone to tempt fortune in America. Being an honest woman, she resisted
+the count’s advances for awhile--a very little while; but in less than
+a year after her husband’s departure, she gave birth to a pretty little
+daughter, Mademoiselle Marguerite. But then why had the husband gone to
+America?”
+
+“Yes,” faltered the baron; “why--why, indeed?”
+
+“Everything was progressing finely, when M. de Chalusse was in his turn
+obliged to start for Germany, having been informed that a sister of his,
+who had fled from the paternal roof with nobody knows who, had been seen
+there. He had been absent some four months or so, when one morning the
+post brought him a letter from his pretty mistress, who wrote: ‘We are
+lost! My husband is at Marseilles: he will be here to-morrow. Never
+attempt to see me again. Fear everything from him. Farewell.’ On
+receiving this letter, M. de Chalusse flung himself into a postchaise,
+and returned to Paris. He was determined, absolutely determined, to
+have his daughter. But he arrived too late. On hearing of her husband’s
+return, the young wife had lost her head. She had but one thought--to
+conceal her fault, at any cost; and one night, being completely
+disguised, she left her child on a doorstep in the vicinity of the
+central markets----”
+
+The marquis suddenly paused in his story to exclaim: “Why, what is the
+matter with you, my dear baron? What is the matter? Are you ill? Shall I
+ring?”
+
+The baron was as pale as if the last drop of blood had been drawn from
+his veins, and there were dark purple circles about his eyes. Still,
+on being questioned, he managed to answer in a choked voice, but not
+without a terrible effort: “Nothing! It is nothing. A mere trifle! It
+will be over in a moment. It IS over!” Still his limbs trembled so
+much that he could not stand, and he sank on to a chair, murmuring: “I
+entreat you, marquis--continue. It is very interesting--very interesting
+indeed.”
+
+M. de Valorsay resumed his narrative. “The husband was incontestably an
+artless fellow: but he was also, it appears, a man of remarkable energy
+and determination. Having somehow ascertained that his wife had given
+birth to a child in his absence, he moved heaven and earth not only to
+discover the child, but its father also. He had sworn to kill them both;
+and he was a man to keep his vow unmoved by a thought of the guillotine.
+And if you require a proof of his strength of character, here it is:
+He said nothing to his wife on the subject, he did not utter a single
+reproach; he treated her exactly as he had done before his absence.
+But he watched her, or employed others to watch her, both day and night,
+convinced that she would finally commit some act of imprudence which
+would give him the clue he wanted. Fortunately, she was very shrewd. She
+soon discovered that her husband knew everything, and she warned M. de
+Chalusse, thus saving his life.”
+
+It is not at all remarkable that the Marquis de Valorsay should have
+failed to see any connection between his narrative and the baron’s
+agitation. What possible connection could there be between opulent Baron
+Trigault and the poor devil who went to seek his fortune in America?
+What imaginable connection could there be between the confirmed gambler,
+who was Kami-Bey’s companion, Lia d’Argeles’s friend, and the husband
+who for ten long years had pursued the man who, by seducing his wife,
+had robbed him of all the happiness of life? Another point that would
+have dispelled any suspicions on the marquis’s part was that he had
+found the baron greatly agitated on arriving, and that he now seemed to
+be gradually regaining his composure. So he continued his story in his
+customary light, mocking tone. It is the perfection of good taste and
+high breeding--“proper form,” indeed, not to be astonished or moved
+by anything, in fact to sneer at everything, and hold one’s self quite
+above the emotions which disturb the minds of plebeians.
+
+Thus the marquis continued: “I am necessarily compelled to omit many
+particulars, my dear baron. The count was not very explicit when he
+reached this part of his story; but, in spite of his reticence, I
+learned that he had been tricked in his turn, that certain papers had
+been stolen from him, and that he had been defrauded in many ways by his
+inamorata. I also know that M. de Chalusse’s whole life was haunted by
+the thought of the husband he had wronged. He felt a presentiment that
+he would die by this man’s hand. He saw danger on every side. If he went
+out alone in the evening, which was an exceedingly rare occurrence, he
+turned the street corners with infinite caution; it seemed to him that
+he could always see the gleam of a poniard or a pistol in the shade.
+I should never have believed in this constant terror on the part of a
+really brave man, if he had not confessed it to me with his own lips.
+Ten or twelve years passed before he dared to make the slightest
+attempt to find his daughter, so much did he fear to arouse his enemy’s
+attention. It was not until he had discovered that the husband had
+become discouraged and had discontinued his search, that the count began
+his. It was a long and arduous one, but at last it succeeded, thanks to
+the assistance of a clever scoundrel named Fortunat.”
+
+The baron with difficulty repressed a movement of eager curiosity, and
+remarked: “What a peculiar name!”
+
+“And his first name is Isidore. Ah! he’s a smooth-tongued scoundrel, a
+rascal of the most dangerous kind, who richly deserves to be in jail.
+How it is that he is allowed to prosecute his dishonorable calling I
+can’t understand; but it is none the less true that he does follow it,
+and without the slightest attempt at concealment, at an office he has on
+the Place de la Bourse.”
+
+This name and address were engraved upon the baron’s memory, never to be
+effaced.
+
+“However,” resumed M. de Valorsay, “the poor count was fated to have no
+peace. The husband had scarcely ceased to torment him, he had scarcely
+begun to breathe freely, when the wife attacked him in her turn. She
+must have been one of those vile and despicable women who make a man
+hate the entire sex. Pretending that the count had turned her from
+the path of duty, and destroyed her life and happiness, she lost no
+opportunity of tormenting him. She would not allow M. de Chalusse to
+keep the child with him, nor would she consent to his adopting the girl.
+She declared it an act of imprudence, which would surely set her husband
+upon the track, sooner or later. And when the count announced his
+intention of legally adopting the child, in spite of her protests, she
+declared that, rather than allow it, she would confess everything to her
+husband.”
+
+“The count was a patient man,” sneered the baron.
+
+“Not so patient as you may suppose. His submission was due to some
+secret cause which he never confided to me. There must have been
+some great crime under all this. In any case, the poor count found it
+impossible to escape this terrible woman. He took refuge at Cannes; but
+she followed him. He travelled through Italy, for I don’t know how many
+months under an assumed name, but all in vain. He was at last compelled
+to conceal his daughter in some provincial convent. During the last few
+months of his life he obtained peace--that is to say, he bought it. This
+lady’s husband must either be very poor or exceedingly stingy; and as
+she was exceedingly fond of luxury, M. de Chalusse effected a compromise
+by giving her a large sum monthly, and also by paying her dress-maker’s
+bills.”
+
+The baron sprang to his feet with a passionate exclamation. “The vile
+wretch!” he said.
+
+But he quickly reseated himself, and the exclamation astonished M. de
+Valorsay so little that he quietly concluded by saying: “And this is
+the reason, baron, why my beloved Marguerite, the future Marquise de
+Valorsay, has no dowry.”
+
+The baron cast a look of positive anguish at the door of the
+smoking-room. He had heard a slight movement there; and he trembled with
+fear lest Pascal, maddened with anger and jealousy, should rush in and
+throw himself upon the marquis. Plainly enough, this perilous situation
+could not last much longer. The baron’s own powers of self-control and
+dissimulation were almost exhausted, and so postponing until another
+time the many questions he still wished to ask M. de Valorsay, he
+made haste to check these confidential disclosures. “Upon my word,”
+ he exclaimed, with a forced laugh, “I was expecting something quite
+different. This affair begins like a genuine romance, and ends, as
+everything ends nowadays, in money!”
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+As a millionaire and a gambler, Baron Trigault enjoyed all sorts of
+privileges. He assumed the right to be brutal, ill-bred, cynical and
+bold; to be one of those persons who declare that folks must take them
+as they find them. But his rudeness now was so thoroughly offensive
+that under any other circumstances the marquis would have resented it.
+However, he had special reasons for preserving his temper, so he decided
+to laugh.
+
+“Yes, these stories always end in the same way, baron,” said he. “You
+haven’t touched a card this morning, and I know your hands are itching.
+Excuse me for making you waste precious time, as you say; but what you
+have just heard was only a necessary preface.”
+
+“Only a preface?”
+
+“Yes; but don’t be discouraged. I have arrived at the object of my visit
+now.”
+
+As Baron Trigault was supposed to enjoy an income of at least eight
+hundred thousand francs a year, he received in the course of a
+twelvemonth at least a million applications for money or help, and for
+this reason he had not an equal for detecting a coming appeal. “Good
+heavens!” he thought, “Valorsay is going to ask me for money.” In fact,
+he felt certain that the marquis’s pretended carelessness concealed real
+embarrassment, and that it was difficult for him to find the words he
+wanted.
+
+“So I am about to marry,” M. de Valorsay resumed--“I wish to break off
+my former life, to turn over a new leaf. And now the wedding gifts,
+the two fetes that I propose giving, the repairs at Valorsay, and the
+honeymoon with my wife--all these things will cost a nice little sum.”
+
+“A nice little sum, indeed!”
+
+“Ah, well! as I’m not going to wed an heiress, I fear I shall run a
+trifle short. The matter was worrying me a little, when I thought of
+you. I said to myself: ‘The baron, who always has money at his disposal,
+will no doubt let me have the use of five thousand louis for a year.’”
+
+The baron’s eyes were fixed upon his companion’s face. “Zounds!” he
+exclaimed in a half-grieved, half-petulant tone; “I haven’t the amount!”
+
+It was not disappointment that showed itself on the marquis’s face; it
+was absolute despair, quickly concealed.
+
+But the baron had detected it; and he realized his applicant’s urgent
+need. He felt certain that M. de Valorsay was financially ruined--and
+yet, as it did not suit his plans to refuse, he hastily added: “When I
+say I haven’t that amount, I mean that I haven’t got it on hand just at
+this moment. But I shall have it within forty-eight hours; and if you
+are at home at this time on the day after to-morrow, I will send you one
+of my agents, who will arrange the matter with you.”
+
+A moment before, the marquis had allowed his consternation to show
+itself; but this time he knew how to conceal the joy that filled his
+soul. So it was in the most indifferent manner, as if the affair were
+one of trivial importance, that he thanked the baron for being so
+obliging. Plainly enough, he now longed to make his escape, and indeed,
+after rattling off a few commonplace remarks, he rose to his feet and
+took his leave, exclaiming: “Till the day after to-morrow, then!”
+
+The baron sank into an arm-chair, completely overcome. A martyr to a
+passion that was stronger than reason itself, the victim of a fatal love
+which he had not been able to drive from his heart, Baron Trigault had
+passed many terrible hours, but never had he been so completely crushed
+as at this moment when chance revealed the secret which he had vainly
+pursued for years. The old wounds in his heart opened afresh, and his
+sufferings were poignant beyond description. All his efforts to
+save this woman whom he at once loved and hated from the depths of
+degradation, had proved unavailing. “And she has extorted money from the
+Count de Chalusse,” he thought; “she sold him the right to adopt their
+own daughter.” And so strange are the workings of the human heart, that
+this circumstance, trivial in comparison with many others, drove the
+unfortunate baron almost frantic with rage. What did it avail him that
+he had become one of the richest men in Paris? He allowed his wife eight
+thousand francs a month, almost one hundred thousand francs a year,
+merely for her dresses and fancies. Not a quarter-day passed, but what
+he paid her debts to a large amount, and in spite of all this, she had
+sunk so low as to extort money from a man who had once loved her. “What
+can she do with it all?” muttered the baron, overcome with sorrow and
+indignation. “How can she succeed in spending the income of several
+millions?”
+
+A name, the name of Ferdinand de Coralth, rose to his lips; but he did
+not pronounce it. He saw Pascal emerging from the smoking-room; and
+though he had forgotten the young advocate’s very existence, his
+appearance now restored him to a consciousness of reality. “Ah, well!
+M. Ferailleur?” he said, like a man suddenly aroused from some terrible
+nightmare. Pascal tried to make some reply, but he was unable to do
+so--such a flood of incoherent thoughts was seething and foaming in
+his brain. “Did you hear, M. de Valorsay?” continued the baron. “Now
+we know, beyond the possibility of doubt, who Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+mother is. What is to be done? What would you do in my place?”
+
+“Ah, monsieur! how can I tell?”
+
+“Wouldn’t your first thought be of vengeance! It is mine. But upon whom
+can I wreak my vengeance? Upon the Count de Chalusse? He is dead.
+Upon my wife? Yes, I might do so; but I lack the courage--Mademoiselle
+Marguerite remains.”
+
+“But she is innocent, monsieur; she has never wronged you.”
+
+The baron did not seem to hear this exclamation. “And to make
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s life one long misery,” said he, “I need only
+favor her marriage with the marquis. Ah, he would make her cruelly
+expiate the crime of her birth.”
+
+“But you won’t do so!” cried Pascal, in a transport, “it would be
+shameful; I won’t allow it. Never, I swear before high Heaven! never,
+while I live, shall Valorsay marry Marguerite. He may perhaps vanquish
+me in the coming struggle; he may lead her to the threshold of the
+church, but there he will find me--armed--and I will have justice--human
+justice in default of legal satisfaction. And, afterward, the law may
+take its course!”
+
+The baron looked at him with deep emotion. “Ah, you know what it is to
+love!” he exclaimed; and in a hollow voice, he added: “and thus it was
+that I loved Marguerite’s mother.”
+
+The breakfast-table had not been cleared, and a large decanter of water
+was still standing on it. The baron poured out two large glasses, which
+he drained with feverish avidity, and then he began to walk aimlessly
+about the room.
+
+Pascal held his peace. It seemed to him that his own destiny was being
+decided in this man’s mind, that his whole future depended upon the
+determination he arrived at. A prisoner awaiting the verdict of the jury
+could not have suffered more intense anxiety. At last, when a minute,
+which seemed a century, had elapsed, the baron paused. “Now as before,
+M. Ferailleur,” he said, roughly, “I’m for you and with you. Give me
+your hand--that’s right. Honest people ought to protect and assist one
+another when scoundrels assail them. We will reinstate you in public
+esteem, monsieur. We will unmask Coralth, and we will crush Valorsay
+if we find that he is really the instigator of the infamous plot that
+ruined you.”
+
+“What, monsieur! Can you doubt it after your conversation with him?”
+
+The baron shook his head. “I’ve no doubt but what Valorsay is ruined
+financially,” said he. “I am certain that my hundred thousand francs
+will be lost forever if I lend them to him. I would be willing to swear
+that he bet against his own horse and prevented the animal from winning,
+as he is accused of doing.”
+
+“You must see, then--”
+
+“Excuse me--all this does NOT explain the great discrepancy between your
+allegations and his story. You assure me that he cares nothing whatever
+for Mademoiselle Marguerite; he pretends that he adores her.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, yes--the scoundrel dared to say so. Ah! if I had not
+been deterred by a fear of losing my revenge!”
+
+“I understand; but allow me to conclude. According to you, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite possesses several millions. According to him, she hasn’t a
+penny of her own. Which is right? I believe he is. His desire to borrow
+a hundred thousand francs of me proves it; and, besides, he wouldn’t
+have come this morning to tell me a falsehood, which would be discovered
+to-morrow. Still, if he is telling the truth, it is impossible to
+explain the foul conspiracy you have suffered by.”
+
+This objection had previously presented itself to Pascal’s mind, and
+he had found an explanation which seemed to him a plausible one. “M. de
+Chalusse was not dead,” said he, “when M. de Coralth and M. de Valorsay
+decided on this plan of ridding themselves of me. Consequently,
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was still an heiress.”
+
+“That’s true; but the very day after the commission of the crime, the
+accomplices must have discovered that it could do them no good; so, why
+have they still persisted in their scheme?”
+
+Pascal tried to find a satisfactory answer, but failed.
+
+“There must be some iniquitous mystery in this affair, which neither you
+nor I suspect,” remarked the baron.
+
+“That is exactly what my mother told me.”
+
+“Ah! that’s Madame Ferailleur’s opinion? Then it is a good one. Come,
+let us reason a little. Mademoiselle Marguerite loved you, you say?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And she has suddenly broken off the engagement?”
+
+“She wrote to me that the Count de Chalusse extorted from her a promise
+on his death-bed, that she would marry the Marquis de Valorsay.”
+
+The baron sprang to his feet. “Stop,” he cried--“stop! We now have a
+clue to the truth, perhaps. Ah! so Mademoiselle Marguerite has written
+to you that M. de Chalusse commanded her to marry the marquis! Then the
+count must have been fully restored to consciousness before he breathed
+his last. On the other hand, Valorsay pretends that Mademoiselle
+Marguerite is left without resources, simply because the count died
+too suddenly to be able to write or to sign a couple of lines. Can you
+reconcile these two versions of the affair, M. Ferailleur? Certainly
+not. Then which version is false? We must ascertain that point. When
+shall you see Mademoiselle Marguerite again?”
+
+“She has requested me NEVER to try to see her again.”
+
+“Very well! She must be disobeyed. You must discover some way of seeing
+her without anyone’s knowledge. She is undoubtedly watched, so don’t
+write on any account.” He reflected for a moment, and then added: “We
+shall, perhaps, become morally certain of Valorsay’s and Coralth’s
+guilt, but there’s a wide difference between this and the establishment
+of their guilt by material proofs. Two scoundrels who league to ruin an
+honest man don’t sign a contract to that effect before a notary. Proofs!
+Ah! where shall we find them? We must gain an intimate knowledge of
+Valorsay’s private life. The best plan would be to find some man devoted
+to our interests who would watch him, and insinuate himself into his
+confidence.”
+
+Pascal interrupted the baron with an eager gesture. Hope glittered in
+his eyes. “Yes!” he exclaimed, “yes; it is necessary that M. de Valorsay
+should be watched by a man of quick perception--a man clever enough
+to make himself useful to the marquis, and capable of rendering him an
+important service in case of need. I will be the man, monsieur, if you
+will allow me. The thought occurred to me just now while I was listening
+to you. You promised to send some one to Valorsay’s house with money.
+I entreat you to allow me to take the place of the man you intended to
+send. The marquis doesn’t know me, and I am sufficiently sure of myself
+to promise you that I will not betray my identity. I will present myself
+as your agent; he will give me his confidence. I shall take him money or
+fair promises, I shall be well received, and I have a plan----”
+
+He was interrupted by a rap at the door. The next moment a footman
+entered, and informed his master that a messenger wished to speak to him
+on urgent business. “Let him come in,” said the baron.
+
+It was Job, Madame Lia d’Argeles’s confidential servant, who entered
+the room. He bowed respectfully, and, with an air of profound mystery
+exclaimed: “I have been looking for the baron everywhere. I was ordered
+by madame not to return without him.”
+
+“Very well,” said M. Trigault. “I will go with you at once.”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+How was it that a clever man like M. Fortunat made such a blunder as
+to choose a Sunday, and a racing Sunday too, to call on M. Wilkie. His
+anxiety might explain the mistake, but it did not justify it. He felt
+certain, that under any other circumstances he would not have been
+dismissed so cavalierly. He would at least have been allowed to develop
+his proposals, and then who knows what might have happened?
+
+But the races had interfered with his plans. M. Wilkie had been
+compelled to attend to Pompier de Nanterre, that famous steeplechaser,
+of which he owned one-third part, and he had, moreover, to give orders
+to the jockey, whose lord and master he was to an equal extent. These
+were sacred duties, since Wilkie’s share in a race-horse constituted
+his only claim to a footing in fashionable society. But it was a strong
+claim--a claim that justified the display of whips and spurs that
+decorated his apartments in the Rue du Helder, and allowed him to aspire
+to the character of a sporting man. Wilkie really imagined that folks
+were waiting for him at Vincennes; and that the fete would not be
+complete without his presence.
+
+Still, when he presented himself inside the enclosure, a cigar in his
+mouth, and his racing card dangling from his button-hole, he was obliged
+to confess that his entrance did not create much of a sensation. An
+astonishing bit of news had imparted unusual excitement to the ring.
+People were eagerly discussing the Marquis de Valorsay’s sudden
+determination to pay forfeit and withdraw his horses from the contest;
+and the best informed declared that in the betting-rooms the evening
+before he had openly announced his intention of selling his racing
+stable. If the marquis had hoped that by adopting this course he would
+silence the suspicions which had been aroused, he was doomed to grievous
+disappointment. The rumor that he had secretly bet against his own
+horse, Domingo, on the previous Sunday, and that he had given orders not
+to let the animal win the race, was steadily gaining credence.
+
+Large sums had been staked on Domingo’s success. He had been the
+favorite in the betting ring and the losers were by no means pleased.
+Some declared that they had seen the jockey hold Domingo back; and they
+insisted that it was necessary to make an example, and disqualify both
+the marquis and his jockey. Still one weighty circumstance pleaded in
+M. de Valorsay’s favor--his fortune, or, at least, the fortune he was
+supposed to possess. “Why should such a rich man stoop to cheat?” asked
+his defenders. “To put money into one’s pocket in this way is even worse
+than to cheat at cards! Besides, it’s impossible! Valorsay is above such
+contemptible charges. He is a perfect gentleman.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” replied the skeptical bystanders. “But people said exactly
+the same of Croisenois, of the Duc de H., and Baron P., who were finally
+convicted of the same rascality that Valorsay is accused of.”
+
+“It’s an infamous slander! If he had been inclined to cheat, he could
+have easily diverted suspicion. He would have let Domingo come in
+second, not third!”
+
+“If he were not guilty, and afraid of detection, he wouldn’t pay forfeit
+to-day nor sell his horses.”
+
+“He only retires from the turf because he’s going to marry----”
+
+“Nonsense! That’s no reason whatever.”
+
+Like all gamblers, the frequenters of the turf are distrustful and
+inclined to be quarrelsome. No one is above their suspicions when they
+lose nor above their wrath when they are duped. And this Domingo affair
+united all the losers against Valorsay; they formed a little battalion
+of enemies who were no doubt powerless for the time being, but who were
+ready to take a startling revenge whenever a good opportunity presented
+itself. Naturally enough, M. Wilkie sided with the marquis, whom he had
+heard his friend, M. de Coralth, speak of on several occasions. “Accuse
+the dear marquis!” he exclaimed. “It’s contemptible, outrageous. Why,
+only last evening he said to me, ‘My good friend, Domingo’s defeat cost
+me two thousand louis!’” M. de Valorsay had said nothing of the kind,
+for the very good reason that he did not even know Wilkie by sight;
+still, no one paid much heed to the assertion, whereat Wilkie felt
+vexed, and resolved to turn his attention to his jockey.
+
+The latter was a lazy, worthless fellow, who had been dismissed from
+every stable he had previously served in, and who swindled and robbed
+the young gentlemen who employed him without either limit or shame.
+Although he made them pay him a very high salary--something like eight
+thousand francs a year--on the plea that it was most repugnant to his
+feelings to act as a groom, trainer, and jockey at the same time, he
+regularly every month presented them with fabulous bills from the grain
+merchant, the veterinary surgeon, and the harness-maker. In addition, he
+regularly sold Pompier’s oats in order to obtain liquor, and in fact the
+poor animal was so nearly starved that he could scarcely stand on his
+legs. The jockey ascribed the horse’s extreme thinness to a system of
+rigorous training; and the owners did not question the statement in the
+least. He had made them believe, and they in turn had made many others
+believe, that Pompier de Nanterre would certainly win such and such a
+race; and, trusting in this fallacious promise, they risked their money
+on the poor animal--and lost it.
+
+In point of fact, this jockey would have been the happiest mortal in the
+world if such things as steeple-chases had never existed. In the first
+place, he judged, with no little reason, that it was dangerous to leap
+hurdles on such an animal as Pompier; and, secondly, nothing irritated
+him so much as to be obliged to promenade with his three employers in
+turn. But how could he refuse, since he knew that if these young men
+hired him, it was chiefly, or only in view of, displaying themselves
+in his company. It afforded them untold satisfaction to walk to and fro
+along the course in front of the grand stand, with their jockey in his
+orange jacket with green sleeves. They were firmly convinced that he
+reflected enormous credit upon them, and their hearts swelled with joy
+at the thought of the envy they no doubt inspired. This conviction gave
+rise indeed to terrible quarrels, in which each of the three owners was
+wont to accuse the others of monopolizing the jockey.
+
+On this occasion, M. Wilkie--being fortunate enough to arrive the
+first--immediately repaired to Pompier de Nanterre’s stall. Never had
+circumstances been more favorable for a display of the animal’s speed.
+The day was magnificent; the stands were crowded, and thousands of eager
+spectators were pushing and jostling one another beyond the ropes which
+limited the course. M. Wilkie seemed to be everywhere; he showed himself
+in a dozen different places at once, always followed by his jockey, whom
+he ordered about in a loud voice, with many excited gesticulations. And
+how great his delight was when, as he passed through the crowd, he heard
+people exclaim: “That gentleman has a racing stable. His horses are
+going to compete!” What bliss thrilled his heart when he overheard the
+admiring exclamation of some worthy shopkeeper who was greatly impressed
+by the gay silk jacket and the top-boots!
+
+But, unfortunately, this happiness could not last forever. His partners
+arrived, and claimed the jockey in their turn. So M. Wilkie left the
+course and strolled about among the carriages, until at last he found
+an equipage which was occupied by the young ladies who had accepted
+his invitation to supper the evening before, and who were now making a
+profuse display of the very yellowest hair they possessed. This afforded
+him another opportunity of attracting public attention, and to giving
+proofs of his “form,” for he had not filled the box of his carriage with
+champagne for nothing. At last the decisive moment came, and he made
+himself conspicuous by shouting. “Now! Now! Here he is! Look! Bravo,
+Pompier! One hundred on Pompier!”
+
+But, alas! poor Pompier de Nanterre fell exhausted before half the
+distance was accomplished; and that evening Wilkie described his defeat,
+with a profusion of technical terms that inspired the uninitiated with
+the deepest awe. “What a disaster, my friends,” he exclaimed. “Pompier
+de Nanterre, an incomparable steeplechaser, to break down in such a
+fashion! And beaten by whom? My Mustapha, an outsider, without any
+record whatever! The ring was intensely excited--and I was simply
+crazed.”
+
+However, his defeat did not affect him very deeply. It was forgotten at
+thought of the inheritance which his friend Coralth had spoken to him
+about. And to-morrow M. de Coralth would tell him the secret. He had
+only twenty hours longer to wait! “To-morrow! to-morrow!” he said to
+himself again and again, with a thrill of mingled joy and impatience.
+And what bright visions of future glory haunted him! He saw himself the
+possessor of a magnificent stud, of sufficient wealth to gratify every
+fancy; he would splash mud upon all the passers-by, and especially upon
+his former acquaintances, as he dashed past them in his superb equipage;
+the best tailor should invent astonishing garments for him; he would
+make himself conspicuous at all the first performances in a stage-box,
+with the most notorious women in Paris; his fetes would be described in
+the papers; he would be the continual subject of comment; he would be
+credited with splendid, perfect “form.”
+
+It is true that M. de Coralth had promised him all this, without a word
+of explanation; but what did that matter? Should he doubt his friend’s
+word? Never! The viscount was not merely his model, but his oracle as
+well. By the way in which he spoke of him, it might have been supposed
+that they had been friends from their childhood, or, at least, that they
+had known each other for years. Such was not the case, however. Their
+acquaintance dated only seven or eight months back, and their first
+meeting had apparently been the result of chance; though it is needless
+to say, perhaps, that this chance had been carefully prepared by M. de
+Coralth. Having discovered Madame Lia d’Argeles’s secret, the viscount
+watched Wilkie, ascertained where he spent his evenings, contrived a way
+of introducing himself into his society, and on their third meeting was
+skilful enough to render him a service--in other words, to lend him
+some money. From that moment the conquest was assured; for M. de Coralth
+possessed in an eminent degree all the attributes that were likely to
+dazzle and charm the gifted owner of Pompier de Nanterre. First of
+all, there was his title, then his impudent assurance and his apparent
+wealth, and last, but by no means least, his numerous and fashionable
+acquaintances. He was not long in discovering his advantage, and in
+profiting by it. And without giving M. Wilkie an inkling of the truth,
+he succeeded in obtaining from him as accurate a knowledge of his past
+career as the young fellow himself possessed.
+
+M. Wilkie did not know much concerning his origin or his early life; and
+his history, so far as he was acquainted with it, could be told in a
+few words. His earliest recollection was of the ocean. He was sure,
+perfectly sure, that he had made a very long sea voyage when only a
+little child, and he looked upon America as his birthplace. The French
+language was certainly not the first he had learned, for he still
+remembered a limited number of English phrases. The English word
+“father” was among those that lingered in his memory; and now, after
+a lapse of twenty years, he pronounced it without the least foreign
+accent. But while he remembered the word perfectly well, no recollection
+remained to him of the person he had called by that name. His first
+sensations were those of hunger, weariness, and cold. He recollected,
+and very distinctly too, how on one long winter night, a woman had
+dragged him after her through the streets of Paris, in an icy rain. He
+could still see himself as he wandered on, crying with weariness, and
+begging for something to eat. And then the poor woman who held him by
+the hand lifted him in her arms and carried him on--on, until her own
+strength failed, and she was obliged to set him on the ground again. A
+vague portrait of this woman, who was most probably his mother, still
+lingered in his memory. According to his description, she was extremely
+handsome, tall, and very fair. He had been particularly impressed with
+the pale tint and profusion of her beautiful hair.
+
+Their poverty had not lasted long. He remembered being installed with
+his mother in a very handsome suite of rooms. A man, who was still
+young, and whom he called “Monsieur Jacques,” came every day, and
+brought him sweetmeats and playthings. He thought he must have been
+about four years old at that time. However, he had enjoyed this
+comfortable state of things scarcely a month, when one morning a
+stranger presented himself. The visitor held a long conference with his
+mother, or, at least, with the person whom he called by that name. He
+did not understand what they were talking about, but he was none the
+less very uneasy. The result of the interview must have justified his
+instinctive fear, for his mother took him on her lap, and embraced him
+with convulsive tenderness. She sobbed violently, and repeated again
+and again in a faltering voice: “Poor child! my beloved Wilkie! I
+shall never kiss you again--never, never! ‘Alas! It must be so! Give me
+courage, my God!”
+
+Those were the exact words; Wilkie was sure on that point. It seemed to
+him he could still hear that despairing farewell. For it was indeed a
+farewell. The stranger took him in his arms and carried him away, in
+spite of his cries and struggles to escape. This person to whose care he
+was confined was the master of a small boarding-school, and his wife
+was the kindest and most patient of women. However, this did not prevent
+Wilkie from crying and begging for his mother at first; but gradually he
+forgot her. He was not unhappy, for he was petted and indulged more than
+any of the other pupils, and he spent most of his time playing on the
+terrace or wandering about the garden. But this charming life could not
+last for ever. According to his calculation, he was just ten years
+old when, one Sunday, toward the end of October, a grave-looking,
+red-whiskered gentleman, clad in solemn black with a white necktie,
+presented himself at the school, and declared that he had been
+instructed by Wilkie’s relatives to place him in a college to continue
+his education.
+
+Young Wilkie’s lamentations were long and loud; but they did not prevent
+M. Patterson--for that was the gentleman’s name--from taking him to the
+college of Louis-the-Great, where he was entered as a boarder. As he
+did not study, and as he was only endowed with a small amount of
+intelligence, he learned scarcely anything during the years he remained
+there. Every Sunday and every fete day, M. Patterson made his appearance
+at ten o’clock precisely, took Wilkie for a walk in Paris or the
+environs, gave him his breakfast and dinner at some of the best
+restaurants, bought everything he expressed a desire to have, and at
+nine o’clock precisely took him back to the college again. During the
+holidays M. Patterson kept the boy with him, refusing him nothing in the
+way of pleasure, granting all his wishes, but never losing sight of him
+for a moment. And if Wilkie complained of this constant watchfulness,
+M. Patterson always replied, “I must obey orders;” and this answer
+invariably put an end to the discussion.
+
+So things went on until it became time for Wilkie to take his degree.
+He presented himself for examination; and, of course, he failed.
+Fortunately, however, M. Patterson was not at a loss for an expedient.
+He placed his charge in a private school; and the following year, at a
+cost of five thousand francs, he beguiled a poor devil into running the
+risk of three years’ imprisonment, by assuming M. Wilkie’s name, and
+passing the examination in his place. In possession of the precious
+diploma which opens the door of every career, M. Wilkie now hoped that
+his pockets would be filled, and that he would then be set at liberty.
+But the hope was vain! M. Patterson placed him in the hands of an old
+tutor who had been engaged to travel with him through Europe; and as
+this tutor held the purse-strings, Wilkie was obliged to follow him
+through Germany, England, and Italy.
+
+When he returned to Paris he was just twenty years old, and the very
+next day M. Patterson conducted him to the suite of rooms which he
+still occupied in the Rue du Helder. “You are now in your own home, M.
+Wilkie,” said M. Patterson in his most impressive manner. “You are now
+old enough to be responsible for your own actions, and I hope you will
+conduct yourself like an honest man. From this moment you are your own
+master. Those who gave you your education desire you to study law. If I
+were in your place, I should obey them. If you wish to be somebody, and
+to acquire a fortune, work, for you have no property, nor anything
+to expect from any one. The allowance which is granted you, a far too
+liberal one in my opinion, may be cut off at any moment. I don’t think
+it right to conceal this fact from you. But at all events until then.
+I am instructed to pay you five thousand francs quarterly. Here is the
+amount for the first quarter, and in three months’ time I shall send you
+a similar amount. I say ‘shall SEND,’ because my business compels me
+to return to England, and take up my abode there. Here is my London
+address; and if any serious trouble befalls you, write to me. Now, my
+duty being fulfilled, farewell.”
+
+“Go to the devil, you old preacher!” growled Wilkie, as he saw the door
+close on the retreating figure of M. Patterson, who had acted as his
+guardian for ten years. None of M. Patterson’s wise advice lingered
+in the young fellow’s mind. To use a familiar expression, “It went in
+through one ear and came out through the other.” Only two facts had made
+an impression upon him: that he was to be his own master henceforth, and
+that he had a fortune at his command. There it lay upon the table, five
+thousand francs in glittering gold.
+
+If M. Wilkie had taken the trouble to attentively examine the rooms
+which had suddenly become his own, he would perhaps have recognized the
+fact that a loving hand had prepared them for his reception. Countless
+details revealed the delicate taste of a woman, and the thoughtful
+tenderness of a mother. None of those little superfluities which delight
+a young man had been forgotten. There was a box of choice cigars upon
+the table, and a jar of tobacco on the mantel-shelf. But Wilkie did not
+take time to discover this. He hastily slipped five hundred francs into
+his pocket, locked the rest of his money in a drawer, and went out with
+as lofty an air as if all Paris belonged to him, or as if he had enough
+money to purchase it.
+
+He had resolved to give a fete in honor of his deliverance, and so he
+hurried off in search of some of his old college chums. He found two of
+them; and, although it was very wounding to his self-love, M. Wilkie was
+obliged to confess to them that this was his first taste of liberty,
+and that he scarcely knew what to do with himself. Of course his friends
+assured him that they could quickly make him acquainted with the only
+life that it was worth while living; and, to prove it, they accepted
+the invitation to dinner which he immediately offered them. It was a
+remarkable repast. Other acquaintances dropped in, the wine flowed in
+rivers; and after dinner they danced. And at day-break, having served
+his apprenticeship at baccarat, M. Wilkie found himself without a penny
+in his pocket, and face to face with a bill of four hundred francs, for
+which amount he was obliged to go to his rooms, under the escort of one
+of the waiters. This first experiment ought to have disgusted him, or at
+least have made him reflect. But no. He felt quite in his element in the
+society of dissipated young men and enamelled women. He swore that he
+would win a place in their midst, and an influential place too. But
+it was easier to form this plan than to carry it into execution, as he
+discovered when, at the end of the month, he counted his money to see
+what remained of the five thousand francs that had been given him for
+his quarterly allowance. He had just three hundred francs left.
+
+Twenty thousand francs a year is what one chooses to make it--wealth or
+poverty. Twenty thousand francs a year represents about sixty francs a
+day; but what are sixty francs to a high liver, who breakfasts and dines
+at the best restaurants, whose clothes are designed by an illustrious
+tailor, who declines to make a pair of trousers for less than a hundred
+francs? What are three louis a day to a man who hires a box for first
+performances at the opera, to a man who gambles and gives expensive
+suppers, to a man who drives out with yellow-haired demoiselles, and
+who owns a race-horse? Measuring his purse and his ambition, M. Wilkie
+discovered that he should never succeed in making both ends meet. “How
+do other people manage?” he wondered. A puzzling question! Every evening
+a thousand gorgeously apparelled gentlemen, with a cigar in their mouth
+and a flower in their button-hole, may be seen promenading between the
+Chaussee d’Antin and the Faubourg Montmartre. Everybody knows them,
+and they know everybody, but how they exist is a problem which it
+is impossible to solve. How do they live, and what do they live on?
+Everybody knows that they have no property; they do nothing, and yet
+they are reckless in their expenditures, and rail at work and jeer at
+economy. What source do they derive their money from? What vile business
+are they engaged in?
+
+However, M. Wilkie did not devote much time to solving this question.
+“My relatives must wish me to starve,” he said to himself. “Not I--I’m
+not that sort of a person, as I’ll soon let them know.” And thereupon
+he wrote to M. Patterson. By return of post that gentleman sent him a
+cheque for one thousand francs--a mere drop in the bucket. M. Wilkie
+felt indignant and so he wrote again. This time he was obliged to wait
+for a reply. Still at last it came. M. Patterson sent him two thousand
+francs, and an interminable epistle full of reproaches. The interesting
+young man threw the letter into the fire, and went out to hire a
+carriage by the month and a servant.
+
+From that day forward, his life was spent in demanding money and waiting
+for it. He employed in quick succession every pretext that could soften
+the hearts of obdurate relatives, or find the way to the most closely
+guarded cash-box. He was ill--he had contracted a debt of honor--he had
+imprudently lent money to an unscrupulous friend--he was about to be
+arrested for debt. And in accordance with the favorable or unfavorable
+character of the replies his manner became humble or impertinent, so
+that his friends soon learned to judge very accurately of the condition
+of his purse by the way he wore his mustaches. He became wise with
+experience, however; and on adding all the sums he had received
+together, he decided that his family must be very rich to allow him so
+much money. And this thought made him anxious to fathom the mystery of
+his birth and his infancy. He finally persuaded himself that he was the
+son of a great English nobleman--a member of the House of Lords, who was
+twenty times a millionaire. And he more than half believed it when he
+told his creditors that his lordship, his father, would some day or
+other come to Paris and pay all his debts. Unfortunately it was not
+M. Wilkie’s noble father that arrived, but a letter from M. Patterson,
+which was couched as follows:
+
+
+“MY DEAR SIR, a considerable sum was placed in my hands to meet your
+unexpected requirements; and in compliance with your repeated appeals,
+I have remitted the entire amount to you. Not a penny remains in my
+possession--so that my instructions have been fulfilled. Spare yourself
+the trouble of making any fresh demands; they will meet with no reply.
+In future you will not receive a penny above your allowance, which in my
+opinion is already too large a one for a young man of your age.”
+
+
+This letter proved a terrible blow to Wilkie. What should he do? He felt
+that M. Patterson would not revoke his decision; and indeed he wrote him
+several imploring letters, in vain. Yet never had his need of money been
+so urgent. His creditors were becoming uneasy; bills actually rained in
+upon his concierge; his next quarterly allowance was not due for some
+time to come, and it was only through the pawnbroker that he could
+obtain money for his more pressing requirements. He had begun to
+consider himself ruined. He saw himself reduced to dismissing his
+carriage, to selling his third share of Pompier de Nanterre and losing
+the esteem of all his witty friends.
+
+He was in the depths of despair, when one morning his servant woke
+him up with the announcement that the Viscount de Coralth was in the
+sitting-room and wished to speak with him on very important business. It
+was not usually an easy task to entice M. Wilkie from his bed, but the
+name his servant mentioned seemed to have a prodigious effect upon
+him. He bounded on to the floor, and as he hastily dressed himself, he
+muttered: “The viscount here, at this hour! It’s astonishing! What if
+he’s going to fight a duel and wishes me to be his second? That would be
+a piece of grand good luck and no mistake. It would assure my position
+at once. Certainly something must have happened!”
+
+This last remark was by no means a proof of any remarkable perspicuity
+on M. Wilkie’s part. As M. de Coralth never went to bed until two or
+three o’clock in the morning, he was by no means an early riser,
+and only some very powerful reason could explain the presence of his
+blue-lined brougham in the street before nine o’clock A.M. And the
+influence that had made him rise betimes in the present case had indeed
+been extremely powerful. Although the brilliant viscount had discovered
+Madame d’Argeles’s secret, several months previously, he had so far
+disclosed it to no one. It was certainly not from any delicacy of
+feeling that he had held his peace; but only because it had not been for
+his interest to speak. Now, however, the sudden death of the Count de
+Chalusse changed the situation. He heard of the catastrophe at his club
+on the evening after the count’s death, and his emotion was so great
+that he actually declined to take part in a game of baccarat that was
+just beginning. “The devil!” he exclaimed. “Let me think a moment.
+Madame d’Argeles is the heiress of all these millions--will she come
+forward and claim them? From what I know of her, I am inclined to think
+that she won’t. Will she ever go to Wilkie and confess that she, Lia
+d’Argeles, is a Chalusse, and that he is her illegitimate son? Never!
+She would rather relinquish her millions, both for herself and for
+him, than take such a step. She is so ridiculously antiquated in her
+notions.” And then he began to study what advantages he might derive
+from his knowledge of the situation.
+
+M. de Coralth, like all persons whose present is more or less uncertain,
+had great misgivings concerning his future. Just now he was cunning
+enough to find a means of procuring the thirty or forty thousand francs
+a year that were indispensable to his comfort; but he had not a farthing
+laid by, and the vein of silver he was now working might fail him at any
+moment. The slightest indiscretion, the least blunder, might hurl him
+from his splendor into the mire. The perspiration started out on his
+forehead when he thought of his peril. He passionately longed for a more
+assured position--for a little capital that would insure him his bread
+until the end of his days, and rid him of the grim phantom of poverty
+forever. And it was this desire which inspired him with the same plan
+that M. Fortunat had formed. “Why shouldn’t I inform Wilkie?” he said to
+himself. “If I present him with a fortune, the simpleton ought certainly
+to give me some reward.” But to carry this plan into execution it would
+be necessary to brave Madame d’Argeles’s anger; and that was attended by
+no little danger. If he knew something about her, she on her side knew
+everything connected with his past life. She had only to speak to
+ruin him forever. Still, after weighing all the advantages and all the
+dangers, he decided to act, convinced that Madame d’Argeles might
+be kept ignorant of his treason, providing he only played his cards
+skilfully. And his matutinal visit to M. Wilkie was caused by a fear
+that he might not be the only person knowing the truth, and that some
+one else might forestall him.
+
+“You here, at sunrise, my friend!” exclaimed Wilkie, as he entered the
+room where the viscount was seated. “What has happened?”
+
+“To me?--nothing,” replied the viscount. “It was solely on your account
+that I deviated from my usual habits.”
+
+“What is it? You frighten me.”
+
+“Oh! don’t be alarmed. I have only some good news to communicate,” and
+in a careless tone which cleverly concealed his anxiety, the viscount
+added: “I have come, my dear Wilkie, to ask you what you would be
+willing to give the man who put you in possession of a fortune of
+several millions?”
+
+M. Wilkie’s face turned from white to purple at least three times in ten
+seconds; and it was in a strangely altered voice that he replied: “Ah!
+that’s good--very good--excellent!” He tried his best to laugh, but
+he was completely overcome; and, in fact, he had cherished so many
+extravagant hopes that nothing seemed impossible to him.
+
+“Never in all my life have I spoken more seriously,” insisted the
+viscount.
+
+His companion at first made no reply. It was easy to divine the conflict
+that was raging in his mind, between the hope that the news was true
+and the fear of being made the victim of a practical joke. “Come, my
+friend,” he said at last, “do you want to poke fun at me? That wouldn’t
+be polite. A debtor is always sacred, and I owe you twenty-five louis.
+This is scarcely the time to talk of millions. My relatives have cut off
+my supplies; and my creditors are overwhelming me with their bills----”
+
+But M. de Coralth checked him, saying gravely: “Upon my honor, I am not
+jesting. What would you give a man who--”
+
+“I would give him half of the fortune he gave me.”
+
+“That’s too much!”
+
+“No, no!”
+
+He was in earnest, certainly. What wouldn’t a man promise in all
+sincerity of soul to a fellow mortal who gave him money when he had
+none--when he needed it urgently and must have it to save himself from
+ruin?
+
+At such a moment no commission, however large, seems exorbitant. It is
+afterward, when the day of settlement comes, that people begin to find
+fault with the rate of interest.
+
+“If I tell you that one-half is too much, it is because such is really
+the case. And I am the best judge of the matter, since I am the man who
+can put you in possession of this enormous fortune.”
+
+M. Wilkie started back in speechless amazement.
+
+“This astonishes you!” said the viscount; “and why, pray? Is it because
+I ask for a commission?”
+
+“Oh! not at all!”
+
+“It is not perhaps a very gentlemanly proceeding, but it is a sensible
+one. Business is business. In the afternoon, when I am in a restaurant,
+at the club, or in a lady’s boudoir, I am merely the viscount and the
+grand seigneur. All money questions sicken me. I am careless, liberal,
+and obliging to a fault. But in the morning I am simply Coralth, a man
+of the middle classes who doesn’t pay his bills without examining them,
+and who watches his money, because he doesn’t wish to be ruined and end
+his brilliant career as a common soldier in some foreign legion.”
+
+M. Wilkie did not allow him to continue. He believed, and his joy was
+wild--delirious. “Enough, enough!” he interrupted. “A difficulty between
+us! Never! I am yours without reserve! Do you understand me? How much
+must you have? Do you wish for it all?”
+
+But the viscount was unmoved. “It is not fitting that I should fix upon
+the indemnity which is due to me. I will consult a man of business; and
+I will decide upon this point on the day after to-morrow, when I shall
+explain everything to you.”
+
+“On the day after to-morrow! You won’t leave me in suspense for
+forty-eight hours?”
+
+“It is unavoidable. I have still some important information to procure.
+I lost no time in coming to you, so that I might put you on your guard.
+If any scoundrel comes to you with proposals, be extremely careful.
+Some agents, when they obtain a hold on an estate, leave nothing for the
+rightful owner. So don’t treat with any one.”
+
+“Oh, no! You may rest assured I won’t.”
+
+“I should be quieter in mind if I had your promise in writing.”
+
+Without a word, Wilkie darted to a table, and wrote a short contract by
+which he bound himself to give M. Ferdinand de Coralth one-half of the
+inheritance which the aforesaid Coralth might prove him to be entitled
+to. The viscount read the document, placed it in his pocket, and then
+said, as he took up his hat:
+
+“Very well. I will see you again on Monday.”
+
+But M. Wilkie’s doubts were beginning to return. “Monday, so be it!”
+ said he; “but swear that you are not deceiving me.”
+
+“What, do you still doubt me?”
+
+M. Wilkie reflected for a moment; and suddenly a brilliant inspiration
+darted through his brain. “If you are speaking the truth, I shall soon
+be rich,” said he. “But, in the meantime, life is hard. I haven’t a
+penny, and it isn’t a pleasant situation. I have a horse entered for the
+race to-morrow, Pompier de Nanterre. You know the animal very well. The
+chances are enormously in his favor. So, if it wouldn’t inconvenience
+you to lend me fifty louis.”
+
+“Certainly,” interrupted the viscount, cordially. “Certainly; with the
+greatest pleasure.”
+
+And drawing a beautiful little notebook from his pocket he took from it
+not one, but two bank-notes of a thousand francs, and handed them to M.
+Wilkie, saying: “Monsieur believes me now, does he not?”
+
+As will be readily believed, it was not for his own pleasure that M. de
+Coralth postponed his confidential disclosures for a couple of days. He
+knew Wilkie perfectly well, and felt that it was dangerous to let
+him roam about Paris with half of an important secret. Postponement
+generally furnishes fate with weapons against oneself. But it was
+impossible for the viscount to act otherwise. He had not seen the
+Marquis de Valorsay since the Count de Chalusse’s death and he dared not
+conclude the contract with Wilkie before he had conferred with him,
+for he was completely in the marquis’s power. At the least suspicion of
+treason, M. de Valorsay would close his hand, and he, Coralth, would
+be crushed like an egg-shell. It was to the house of his formidable
+associate that he repaired on leaving M. Wilkie; and in a single breath
+he told the marquis all that he knew, and the plans that he had formed.
+
+M. de Valorsay’s astonishment must have been intense when he heard that
+Lia d’Argeles was a Chalusse, but he knew how to maintain his composure.
+He listened quietly, and when the viscount had completed his story, he
+asked: “Why did you wait so long before telling me all this?”
+
+“I didn’t see how it could interest you in the least.”
+
+The marquis looked at him keenly, and then calmly said: “In other words,
+you were waiting to see whether it would be most advantageous to you to
+be with me or against me.”
+
+“How can you think----”
+
+“I don’t think, I’m sure of it. As long as I was strong support for you,
+you were devoted to me. But now I am tottering, and you are ready to
+betray me.”
+
+“Excuse me! The step I am about to take----”
+
+“What, haven’t you taken it already?” interrupted the marquis, quickly.
+And shrugging his shoulders, he added: “Observe that I don’t reproach
+you in the least. Only remember this: we survive or we perish together.”
+
+By the angry gleam in M. de Coralth’s eyes, the marquis must have
+realized that his companion was disposed to rebel; still this knowledge
+did not seem to disquiet him, for it was in the same icy tone that he
+continued: “Besides, your plans, far from conflicting with mine, will
+be of service to me. Yes, Madame d’Argeles must lay claim to the count’s
+estate. If she hesitates, her son will compel her to urge her claims,
+will he not?”
+
+“Oh, you may rest assured of that.”
+
+“And when he becomes rich, will you be able to retain your influence
+over him?”
+
+“Rich or poor, I can mould him like wax.”
+
+“Very good. Marguerite was escaping me, but I shall soon have her in
+my power. I have a plan. The Fondeges think they can outwit me, but
+we shall soon see about that.” The viscount was watching his companion
+stealthily; as the latter perceived, and so in a tone of brusque
+cordiality, he resumed: “Excuse me for not keeping you to breakfast,
+but I must go out immediately--Baron Trigault is waiting for me at his
+house. Let us part friends--au revoir--and, above all, keep me well
+posted about matters in general.”
+
+M. de Coralth’s temper was already somewhat ruffled when he entered
+Valorsay’s house; and he was in a furious passion when he left it.
+“So we are to survive or perish together,” he growled. “Thanks for the
+preference you display for my society. Is it my fault that the fool
+has squandered his fortune? I fancy I’ve had enough of his threats and
+airs.”
+
+Still his wrath was not so violent as to make him forget his own
+interests. He at once went to inquire if the agreement which M. Wilkie
+had just signed would be binding. The lawyer whom he consulted replied
+that, at all events, a reasonable compensation would most probably be
+granted by the courts, in case of any difficulty; and he suggested
+a little plan which was a chef d’oeuvre in its way, at the same time
+advising his client to strike the iron while it was hot.
+
+It was not yet noon, and the viscount determined to act upon the
+suggestion at once; he now bitterly regretted the delay he had
+specified. “I must find Wilkie at once,” he said to himself. But he did
+not succeed in meeting him until the evening, when he found him at the
+Cafe Riche--and in what a condition too! The two bottles of wine which
+the young fool had drank at dinner had gone to his head, and he was
+enumerating, in a loud voice, the desires he meant to gratify as soon
+as he came into possession of his millions. “What a brute!” thought the
+enraged viscount. “If I leave him to himself, no one knows what foolish
+thing he may do or say. I must remain with him until he becomes sober
+again.”
+
+So he followed him to the theatre, and thence to Brebant’s, where he was
+sitting feeling terribly bored, when M. Wilkie conceived the unfortunate
+idea of inviting Victor Chupin to come up and take some refreshment. The
+scene which followed greatly alarmed the viscount. Who could this young
+man be? He did not remember having ever seen him before, and yet the
+young scamp was evidently well acquainted with his past life, for he had
+cast the name of Paul in his face, as a deadly insult. Surely this was
+enough to make the viscount shudder! How did it happen that this young
+man had been just on the spot ready to pick up Wilkie’s hat? Was it mere
+chance? Certainly not. He could not believe it. Then why was the
+fellow there? Evidently to watch somebody. And whom? Why,
+him--Coralth--undoubtedly.
+
+In going through life as he had done, a man makes enemies at every step;
+and he had an imposing number of foes, whom he only held in check by
+his unbounded impudence and his renown as a duellist. Thus it was not
+strange if some one had set a snare for him; it was rather a miracle
+that he had not fallen into one before. The dangers that threatened him
+were so formidable that he was almost tempted to relinquish his attack
+on Madame d’Argeles. Was it prudent to incur the risk of making this
+woman an enemy? All Sunday he hesitated. It would be very easy to get
+out of the scrape. He could concoct some story for Wilkie’s benefit,
+and that would be the end of it. But on the other hand, there was the
+prospect of netting at least five hundred thousand francs--a fortune--a
+competency, and the idea was too tempting to be relinquished.
+
+So on Monday morning, at about ten o’clock, he presented himself at
+Wilkie’s house, looking pale with anxiety, and far more solemn in manner
+than usual. “Let us say but little, and that to the point,” he remarked
+on entering. “The secret I am about to reveal to you will make you rich;
+but it might ruin me if it were known that you obtained this information
+through me. You will therefore swear, upon your honor as a gentleman,
+never to betray me, under any circumstances, or for any reason.”
+
+M. Wilkie extended his hand and solemnly exclaimed: “I swear!”
+
+“Very well, then. Now my mind is at rest. It is scarcely necessary for
+me to add that if you break your faith you are a dead man. You know me.
+You know how I handle a sword; and don’t forget it.” His manner was so
+threatening that Wilkie shuddered. “You will certainly be questioned,”
+ continued M. de Coralth; “but you must reply that you received the
+information through one of Mr. Patterson’s friends. Now let us sign our
+formal contract in lieu of the temporary one you gave me the other day.”
+
+It is needless to say that Wilkie signed it eagerly. Not so the
+viscount; he read the document through carefully, before appending his
+signature, and then exclaimed: “The estate that belongs to you is that
+of the Count de Chalusse, your uncle. He leaves, I am informed, at least
+eight or ten millions of property.”
+
+By M. Wilkie’s excited gestures, by the glitter in his eyes, it might
+have been supposed that this wonderful good fortune was too much for
+him, and that he was going mad. “I knew that I belonged to a noble
+family,” he began. “The Count de Chalusse my uncle! I shall have a
+coronet on the corner of my visiting cards.”
+
+But with a gesture M. de Coralth silenced him. “Wait a little before
+you rejoice,” said he. “Yes, your mother is the sister of the Count
+de Chalusse, and it is through her that you are an heir to the estate.
+But--don’t grieve too much--there are similar misfortunes in many of our
+most distinguished families--circumstances--the obstinacy of parents--a
+love more powerful than reason----” The viscount paused, certainly he
+had no prejudices; but at the moment of telling this interesting young
+man who his mother really was, he hesitated.
+
+“Go on,” insisted M. Wilkie.
+
+“Well--when your mother was a young girl, about twenty, she fled from
+her paternal home with a man she loved. Forsaken afterward, she found
+herself in the depths of poverty. She was obliged to live. You
+were starving. So she changed her name, and now she is known as Lia
+d’Argeles.”
+
+M. Wilkie sprang to his feet. “Lia d’Argeles!” he exclaimed. Then, with
+a burst of laughter, he added: “Nevertheless, I think it a piece of
+grand good luck!”
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+“This man carries away your secret; you are lost.” A sinister voice
+whispered these words in Madame Lia d’Argeles’s heart when M. Isidore
+Fortunat, after being rudely dismissed, closed the door of her
+drawing-room behind him. This man had addressed her by the ancient and
+illustrious name of Chalusse which she had not heard for twenty years,
+and which she had forbidden her own lips to pronounce. This man knew
+that she, Lia d’Argeles, was really a Durtal de Chalusse.
+
+This frightful certainty overwhelmed her. It is true this man Fortunat
+had declared that his visit was entirely disinterested. He had pretended
+that his regard for the Chalusse family, and the compassion aroused in
+his heart by the unfortunate plight of Mademoiselle Marguerite, were
+the only motives that has influenced him in taking this step. However,
+Madame d’Argeles’s experience in life had left her but limited faith
+in apparent or pretended disinterestedness. This is a practical age;
+chivalrous sentiments are expensive--as she had learned conclusively.
+“If the man came here,” she murmured, “it was only because he thought
+he might derive some benefit from the prosecution of my claim to my
+poor brother’s estate. In refusing to listen to his entreaties, I have
+deprived him of this expected profit and so I have made him my enemy.
+Ah! I was foolish to send him away like that! I ought to have pretended
+to listen--I ought to have bound him by all sorts of promises.”
+
+She suddenly paused. It occurred to her that M. Fortunat could not have
+gone very far; so that, if she sent for him to come back, she might
+perhaps be able to repair her blunder. Without losing a second, she
+rushed downstairs, and ordered her concierge and a servant to run after
+the gentleman who had just left the house, and ask him to return; to
+tell him that she had reflected, and wished to speak to him again. They
+rushed out in pursuit, and she remained in the courtyard, her heart
+heavy with anxiety. Too late! About a quarter of an hour afterward
+her emissaries returned. They had made all possible haste in contrary
+directions, but they had seen no one in the street who at all resembled
+the person they were looking for. They had questioned the shopkeepers,
+but no one had seen him pass. “It doesn’t matter,” faltered Madame
+d’Argeles, in a tone that belied her words. And, anxious to escape
+the evident curiosity of her servants, she hastened back to the little
+boudoir where she usually spent her mornings.
+
+M. Fortunat had left his card--that is to say, his address--and it
+would have been an easy matter to send a servant to his house. She was
+strongly tempted to do so; but she ultimately decided that it would
+be better to wait--that an hour more or less would make but little
+difference. She had sent her trusty servant, Job, for Baron Trigault; he
+would probably return with the baron at any moment; and the baron would
+advise her. He would know at once what was the best course for her to
+pursue. And so she waited for his coming in breathless anxiety; and the
+more she reflected, the more imminent her peril seemed, for she realized
+that M. Fortunat must be a very dangerous and cunning man. He had set a
+trap for her, and she had allowed herself to be caught. Perhaps he had
+only suspected the truth when he presented himself at the house. He had
+suddenly announced the death of the Count de Chalusse; she had betrayed
+herself; and any doubts he might have entertained were dispelled. “If I
+had only had sufficient presence of mind to deny it,” she murmured.
+“If I had only been courageous enough to reply that I knew absolutely
+nothing about the person he spoke of. Ah! then he would have gone away
+convinced that he was mistaken.”
+
+But would the smooth-spoken visitor have declared that he knew
+everything, if he had not really penetrated the mystery of her life? It
+was scarcely probable. He had implored her to accept the property, if
+not for her own sake at least for the sake of another. And when she
+asked him whom he meant he had answered, “Mademoiselle Marguerite,”
+ but he was undoubtedly thinking of Wilkie. So this man, this Isidore
+Fortunat, knew that she had a son. Perhaps he was even acquainted with
+him personally. In his anger he would very likely hasten to Wilkie’s
+rooms and tell him everything. This thought filled the wretched woman’s
+heart with despair. What! Had she not yet expiated her fault? Must she
+suffer again?
+
+For the first time a terrible doubt came over her. What she had formerly
+regarded as a most sublime effort of maternal love, was, perhaps, even a
+greater crime than the first she had committed. She had given her honor
+as the price of her son’s happiness and prosperity. Had she a right to
+do so? Did not the money she had lavished upon him contain every germ of
+corruption, misfortune, and shame? How terrible Wilkie’s grief and rage
+would be if he chanced to hear the truth!
+
+Alas! he would certainly pay no heed to the extenuating circumstances;
+he would close his ears to all attempts at justification. He would be
+pitiless. He would have naught but hatred and scorn to bestow upon
+a mother who had fallen from the highest rank in society down to
+everlasting infamy. She fancied she heard him saying in an indignant
+voice, “It would have been better to have allowed me to die of
+starvation than to have given me bread purchased at such a price! Why
+have you dishonored me by your ill-gotten wealth? Fallen, you might have
+raised yourself by honest toil. You ought to have made me a laborer, and
+not a spoiled idler, incapable of earning an honest livelihood. As the
+son of a poor, betrayed, and deserted woman, with whom I could have
+shared my scanty earnings, I might have looked the world proudly in the
+face. But where can the son of Lia d’Argeles hide his disgrace after
+playing the gentleman for twenty years with Lia d’Argeles’s money?” Yes,
+Wilkie would certainly say this if he ever learned the truth; and he
+would learn it--she felt sure of it. How could she hope to keep a
+secret which was known to Baron Trigault, M. Patterson, the Viscount de
+Coralth, and M. Fortunat--four persons! She had confidence in the first
+two; she believed she had a hold on the third, but the fourth--Fortunat!
+
+The hours went by; and still Job did not return. What was the meaning
+of this delay? Had he failed to find the baron? At last the sound of
+carriage-wheels in the courtyard made her start. “That’s Job!” she said
+to herself. “He brings the baron.”
+
+Alas! no. Job returned alone. And yet the honest fellow had spared
+neither pains nor horseflesh. He had visited every place where there was
+the least probability of finding the baron, and he was everywhere told
+that Baron Trigault had not been seen for several days. “In that case,
+you ought to have gone to his house. Perhaps he is there,” remarked
+Madame d’Argeles.
+
+“Madame knows that the baron is never at home. I did go there, however,
+but in vain.”
+
+This chanced to be one of three consecutive days which Baron Trigault
+had spent with Kami-Bey, the Turkish ambassador. It had been agreed
+between them that they should play until one or the other had lost five
+hundred thousand francs; and, in order to prevent any waste of “precious
+time,” as the baron was wont to remark, they neither of them stirred
+from the Grand Hotel, where Kami-Bey had a suite of rooms. They ate and
+slept there. By some strange chance, Madame d’Argeles had not heard of
+this duel with bank-notes, although nothing else was talked of at the
+clubs; indeed, the Figaro had already published a minute description of
+the apartment where the contest was going on; and every evening it
+gave the results. According to the latest accounts, the baron had the
+advantage; he had won about two hundred and eighty thousand francs.
+
+“I only returned to inform madame that I had so far been unsuccessful,”
+ said Job. “But I will recommence the search at once.”
+
+“That is unnecessary,” replied Madame d’Argeles. “The baron will
+undoubtedly drop in this evening, after dinner, as usual.”
+
+She said this, and tried her best to believe it; but in her secret heart
+she felt that she could no longer depend upon the baron’s assistance. “I
+wounded him this morning,” she thought. “He went away more angry than I
+had ever seen him before. He is incensed with me; and who knows how long
+it will be before he comes again?”
+
+Still she waited, with feverish anxiety, listening breathlessly to every
+sound in the street, and trembling each time she heard or fancied
+she heard a carriage stop at the door. However, at two o’clock in the
+morning the baron had not made his appearance. “It is too late--he won’t
+come!” she murmured.
+
+But now her sufferings were less intolerable, for excess of wretchedness
+had deadened her sensibility. Utter prostration paralyzed her energies
+and benumbed her mind. Ruin seemed so inevitable that she no longer
+thought of avoiding it; she awaited it with that blind resignation
+displayed by Spanish women, who, when they hear the roll of thunder,
+fall upon their knees, convinced that lightning is about to strike their
+defenceless heads. She tottered to her room, flung herself on the bed,
+and instantly fell asleep. Yes, she slept the heavy, leaden slumber
+which always follows a great mental crisis, and which falls like God’s
+blessing upon a tortured mind. On waking up, her first act was to ring
+for her maid, in order to send a message to Job, to go out again in
+search of the baron. But the faithful servant had divined his mistress’s
+wishes, and had already started off of his own accord. It was past
+mid-day when he returned, but his face was radiant; and it was in a
+triumphant voice that he announced: “Monsieur le Baron Trigault.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles sprang up, and greeted the baron with a joyful
+exclamation. “Ah! how kind of you to come!” she exclaimed. “You are most
+welcome. If you knew how anxiously I have been waiting for you!” He made
+no reply. “If you knew,” continued Madame d’Argeles, “if you only knew.”
+ But she paused, for in spite of her own agitation, she was suddenly
+struck by the peculiar expression on her visitor’s face. He was standing
+silent and motionless in the centre of the room, and his eyes were fixed
+upon her with a strange, persistent stare in which she could read
+all the contradictory feelings which were battling for mastery in his
+mind--anger, hatred, pity, and forgiveness. Madame d’Argeles shuddered.
+So her cup of sorrow was not yet full. A new misfortune was about to
+fall upon her. She had hoped that the baron would be able to alleviate
+her wretchedness, but it seemed as if he were fated to increase it. “Why
+do you look at me like that?” she asked, anxiously. “What have I done?”
+
+“You, my poor Lia--nothing!”
+
+“Then--what is it? Oh, my God! you frighten me.”
+
+“What is it? Well, I am going to tell you,” he said, as he stepped
+forward and took her hand in his own. “You know that I have been
+infamously duped and deceived, that the happiness of my life has been
+destroyed by a scoundrel who tempted the wife I so fondly loved to
+forget her duty, and trample her honor under foot. You have heard my
+vows of vengeance if I ever succeeded in discovering him. Ah, well, Lia,
+I have discovered him. The man who stole my share of earthly happiness
+was the Count de Chalusse, your brother.”
+
+With a sudden gesture Madame d’Argeles freed her hand from the baron’s
+grasp, and recoiled as terrified as if she had seen a spectre rise up
+before her. Then with her hands extended as if to ward off the horrible
+apparition, she exclaimed: “O, my God!”
+
+A bitter smile curved the baron’s lips. “What do you fear?” he asked.
+“Isn’t your brother dead? He has defrauded me alike of happiness and
+vengeance!”
+
+If her son’s life had depended on a single word, Madame d’Argeles could
+not have uttered it. She knew what mental agony had urged the baron to
+a sort of moral suicide, and led him to contract the vice in which he
+wasted his life and squandered, or, at least risk, his millions.
+
+“Nor is this all,” he continued. “Listen. As I have often told you, I
+was sure that my wife became a mother in my absence. I sought the
+child for years, hoping that through the offspring I might discover the
+father. Ah, well! I’ve found what I sought, at last. The child is now
+a beautiful young girl. She lives at the Hotel de Chalusse as your
+brother’s daughter. She is known as Mademoiselle Marguerite.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles listened, leaning against the wall for support, and
+trembling like a leaf. Her reason was shaken by so many repeated blows,
+and her son, her brother, Marguerite, Pascal Ferailleur, Coralth,
+Valorsay--all those whom she loved or feared, or hated--rose like
+spectres before her troubled brain. The horror of the truth exceeded her
+most frightful apprehensions. The strangeness of the reality surpassed
+every flight of fancy. And, moreover, the baron’s calmness increased her
+stupor. She so often had heard him give vent to his rage and despair in
+terrible threats, that she could not believe he would be thus resigned.
+But was his calmness real? Was it not a mask, would not his fury
+suddenly break forth?
+
+However, he continued, “It is thus that destiny makes us its sport--it
+is thus that it laughs at our plans. Do you remember, Lia, the day when
+I met you wandering through the streets of Paris--with your child in
+your arms--pale and half dead with fatigue, faint for want of food,
+homeless and penniless? You saw no refuge but in death, as you have
+since told me. How could I imagine when I rescued you that I was saving
+my greatest enemy’s sister from suicide--the sister of the man whom I
+was vainly pursuing? And yet this might not be the end, if I chose
+to have it otherwise. The count is dead, but I can still return him
+disgrace for disgrace. He dishonored me. What prevents me from casting
+ineffaceable opprobrium upon the great name of Chalusse, of which he
+was so proud? He seduced my wife. To-day I can tell all Paris what his
+sister has been and what she is to-day.”
+
+Ah! it was this--yes, it was this that Madame d’Argeles had dreaded. She
+fell upon her knees, and, with clasped hands she entreated: “Pity!--oh!
+have pity--forgive me! Have mercy! Have I not always been a faithful
+and devoted friend to you? Think of the past you have just invoked! Who
+helped you then to bear your intolerable sufferings? Don’t you remember
+the day when you, yourself, had determined to die by your own hand?
+There was a woman who persuaded you to abandon the thought of suicide.
+It was I!”
+
+He looked at her for a moment with a softer expression, tears came to
+his eyes, and rolled down his cheeks. Then suddenly he raised her, and
+placed her in an arm-chair, exclaiming: “Ah! you know very well that I
+shall not do what I said. Don’t you know me better than that? Are you
+not sure of my affection, are you not aware that you are sacred in my
+eyes?” He was evidently striving hard to master his emotion. “Besides,”
+ he added, “I had already pardoned before coming here. It was foolish on
+my part, perhaps, and for nothing in the world would I confess it to my
+acquaintances, but it is none the less true. I shall have my revenge in
+a certain fashion, however. I need only hold my peace, and the daughter
+of M. de Chalusse and Madame Trigault would become a lost woman. Is this
+not so? Very well, I shall offer her my assistance. It may, or may not,
+be another absurd and ridiculous fancy added to the many I have been
+guilty of. But no matter. I have promised. And why, indeed, should this
+poor girl be held responsible for the sins of her parents? I--I declare
+myself on her side against the world!”
+
+Madame d’Argeles rose, her face radiant with joy and hope. “Then perhaps
+we are saved!” she exclaimed. “Ah! I knew when I sent for you that I
+should not appeal to your heart in vain!”
+
+She took hold of his hand as if to raise it to her lips; but he gently
+withdrew it, and inquired, with an air of astonishment: “What do you
+mean?”
+
+“That I have been cruelly punished for not wishing you to assist that
+unfortunate man who was dishonored here the other evening.”
+
+“Pascal Ferailleur?”
+
+“Yes, he is innocent. The Viscount de Coralth is a scoundrel. It was he
+who slipped the cards which made M. Ferailleur win, into the pack, and
+he did it at the Marquis de Valorsay’s instigation.”
+
+The baron looked at Madame d’Argeles with pro-found amazement. “What!”
+ said he; “you knew this and you allowed it? You were cruel enough to
+remain silent when that innocent man entreated you to testify on his
+behalf! You allowed this atrocious crime to be executed under your own
+roof, and under your very eyes?”
+
+“I was then ignorant of Mademoiselle Marguerite’s existence. I did not
+know that the young man was beloved by my brother’s daughter--I did not
+know--”
+
+The baron interrupted her, and exclaimed, indignantly: “Ah! what does
+that matter? It was none the less an abominable action.”
+
+She hung her head, and in a scarcely audible voice replied: “I was not
+free. I submitted to a will that was stronger than my own. If you had
+heard M. de Coralth’s threats you would not censure me so severely.
+He has discovered my secret; he knows Wilkie--I am in his power. Don’t
+frown--I make no attempt to excuse myself--I am only explaining the
+position in which I was placed. My peril is imminent; I have only
+confidence in you--you alone can aid me; listen!”
+
+Thereupon she hastily explained M. de Coralth’s position respecting
+herself, what she had been able to ascertain concerning the Marquis de
+Valorsay’s plans, the alarming visit she had received from M. Fortunat,
+his advice and insinuations, the dangers she apprehended, and her firm
+determination to deliver Mademoiselle Marguerite from the machinations
+of her enemies. Madame d’Argeles’s disclosures formed, as it were, a
+sequel to the confidential revelations of Pascal Ferailleur, and the
+involuntary confession of the Marquis de Valorsay; and the baron could
+no longer doubt the existence of the shameful intrigue which had been
+planned in view of obtaining possession of the count’s millions. And
+if he did not, at first, understand the motives, he at least began to
+discern what means had been employed. He now understood why Valorsay
+persisted in his plan of marrying Mademoiselle Marguerite, even without
+a fortune. “The wretch knows through Coralth that Madame d’Argeles is
+a Chalusse,” he said to himself; “and when Mademoiselle Marguerite has
+become his wife, he intends to oblige Madame d’Argeles to accept her
+brother’s estate and share it with him.”
+
+At that same moment Madame d’Argeles finished her narrative. “And now,
+what shall I do?” she added.
+
+The baron was stroking his chin, as was his usual habit when his mind
+was deeply exercised. “The first thing to be done,” he replied, “is to
+show Coralth in his real colors, and prove M. Ferailleur’s innocence.
+It will probably cost me a hundred thousand francs to do so, but I shall
+not grudge the money. I should probably spend as much or even more in
+play next summer; and the amount had better be spent in a good cause
+than in swelling the dividends of my friend Blanc, at Baden.”
+
+“But M. de Coralth will speak out as soon as he finds that I have
+revealed his shameful past.”
+
+“Let him speak.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles shuddered. “Then the name of Chalusse will be
+disgraced,” said she; “and Wilkie will know who his mother is.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Ah! allow me to finish, my dear friend. I have my plan, and it is
+as plain as daylight. This evening you will write to your London
+correspondent. Request M. Patterson to summon your son to England, under
+any pretext whatever; let him pretend that he wishes to give him some
+money, for instance. He will go there, of course, and then we will keep
+him there. Coralth certainly won’t run after him, and we shall have
+nothing more to fear on that score.”
+
+“Great heavens!” murmured Madame d’Argeles, “why did this idea never
+occur to me?”
+
+The baron had now completely recovered his composure. “As regards
+yourself,” said he, “the plan you ought to adopt is still more simple.
+What is your furniture worth? About a hundred thousand francs, isn’t it?
+Very well, then. You will sign me notes, dated some time back, to the
+amount of a hundred thousand francs. On the day these notes fall due,
+on Monday, for instance, they will be presented for payment. You will
+refuse to pay them. A writ will be served, and an attachment placed
+upon your furniture; but you will offer no resistance. I don’t know if I
+explain my meaning very clearly.”
+
+“Oh, very clearly!”
+
+“So your property is seized. You make no opposition, and next week we
+shall have flaming posters on all the walls, telling Paris that the
+furniture, wardrobe, cashmeres, laces, and diamonds of Madame Lia
+d’Argeles will be sold without reserve, at public auction, in the Rue
+Drouot, with the view of satisfying the claims of her creditors. You
+can imagine the sensation this announcement will create. I can see your
+friends and the frequenters of your drawing-room meeting one another in
+the street, and saying: ‘Ah, well! what’s this about poor d’Argeles?’
+‘Pshaw!--no doubt it’s a voluntary sale.’ ‘Not at all; she’s really
+ruined. Everything is mortgaged above its value.’ ‘Indeed, I’m very
+sorry to hear it. She was a good creature.’ ‘Oh, excellent; a deal of
+amusement could be found at her house,--only between you and me----’
+‘Well?’ ‘Well, she was no longer young.’ ‘That’s true. However, I
+shall attend the sale, and I think I shall bid.’ And, in fact, your
+acquaintances won’t fail to repair to the Hotel Drouot, and maybe your
+most intimate friends will yield to their generous impulses sufficiently
+to offer twenty sous for one of the dainty trifles on your etageres.”
+
+Overcome with shame, Madame d’Argeles hung her head. She had never
+before so keenly felt the disgrace of her situation. She had never
+so clearly realized what a deep abyss she had fallen into. And
+this crushing humiliation came from whom? From the only friend she
+possessed--from the man who was her only hope, Baron Trigault.
+
+And what made it all the more frightful was, that he did not seem to be
+in the least degree conscious of the cruelty of his words. Indeed,
+he continued, in a tone of bitter irony: “Of course, you will have
+an exhibition before the sale, and you will see all the dolls that
+hairdressers, milliners and fools call great ladies, come running to
+the show. They will come to see how a notorious woman lives, and to
+ascertain if there are any good bargains to be had. This is the
+right form. These great ladies would be delighted to display diamonds
+purchased at the sale of a woman of the demi monde. Oh! don’t fear--your
+exhibition will be visited by my wife and daughter, by the Viscountess
+de Bois d’Ardon, by Madame de Rochecote, her five daughters, and a great
+many more. Then the papers will take up the refrain; they will give an
+account of your financial difficulties, and tell the public what you
+paid for your pictures.”
+
+It was with a sort of terror-stricken curiosity that Madame d’Argeles
+watched the baron. It had been many years since she had seen him in such
+a frame of mind--since she had heard him talk in such a cynical fashion.
+“I am ready to follow your advice,” said she, “but afterward?”
+
+“What, don’t you understand the object I have in view? Afterward you
+will disappear. I know five or six journalists; and it would be very
+strange if I could not convince one of them that you had died upon an
+hospital pallet. It will furnish the subject of a touching, and what
+is better, a moral article. The papers will say, ‘Another star has
+disappeared. This is the miserable end of all the poor wretches whose
+passing luxury scandalizes honest women.’”
+
+“And what will become of me?”
+
+“A respected woman, Lia. You will go to England, install yourself in
+some pretty cottage near London, and create a new identity for yourself.
+The proceeds of your sale will supply your wants and Wilkie’s for more
+than a year. Before that time has elapsed you will have succeeded in
+accumulating the necessary proofs of your identity, and then you can
+assert your claims and take possession of your brother’s estate.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles sprang to her feet. “Never never!” she exclaimed,
+vehemently.
+
+The baron evidently thought he must have misunderstood her. “What!” he
+stammered; “you will relinquish the millions that are legally yours, to
+the government?”
+
+“Yes--I am resolved--it must be so.”
+
+“Will you sacrifice your son’s future in this style?”
+
+“No, it isn’t in my power to do that; but Wilkie will do so, later, on,
+I’m sure of it.”
+
+“But this is simply folly.”
+
+A feverish agitation had now succeeded Madame d’Argeles’s torpor; there
+was an expression of scorn and anger on her rigid features, and her
+eyes, usually so dull and lifeless, fairly blazed. “It is not folly,”
+ she exclaimed, “but vengeance!” And as the astonished baron opened his
+lips to question her: “Let me finish,” she said imperiously, “and then
+you shall judge me. I have told you with perfect frankness everything
+concerning my past life, save this--this--that I am married, Monsieur
+le Baron, legally married. I am bound by a chain that nothing can break,
+and my husband is a scoundrel. You would be frightened if you knew half
+the extent of his villainy. Oh! do not shake your head. I ought not to
+be suspected of exaggeration when I speak in this style of a man whom I
+once loved so devotedly. For I loved him, alas!--even to madness--loved
+him so much that I forgot self, family, honor, and all the most sacred
+duties. I loved him so madly that I was willing to follow him, while his
+hands were still wet with my brother’s blood. Ah! chastisement could not
+fail to come, and it was terrible, like the sin. This man for whom I had
+abandoned everything--whom I had made my idol--do you know what he said
+to me the third day after my flight from home? ‘You must be more stupid
+than an owl to have forgotten to take your jewels.’ Yes, those were the
+very words he said to me, with a furious air. And then I could measure
+the depths of the abyss into which I had plunged. This man, with whom I
+had been so infatuated, did not love me at all, he had never loved me.
+It had only been cold calculation on his part. He had devoted months to
+the task of winning my heart, just as he would have devoted them to
+some business transaction. He only saw in me the fortune that I was
+to inherit. Oh! he didn’t conceal it from me. ‘If your parents are not
+monsters,’ he was always saying, ‘they will finally become reconciled to
+our marriage. They will give you a handsome fortune and we will divide
+it. I will give you back your liberty, and then we can each of us be
+happy in our own way.’ It was for this reason that he wished to marry
+me. I consented on account of my unborn child. My father and mother had
+died, and he hoped to prevail upon me to claim my share of the paternal
+fortune. As for claiming it himself, he dared not. He was a coward, and
+he was afraid of my brother. But I took a solemn oath that he should
+never have a farthing of the wealth he coveted, and neither threats nor
+BLOWS could compel me to assert my claim. God only knows how much I had
+suffered from his brutality when I at last succeeded in making my escape
+with Wilkie. He has sought us everywhere for fifteen years, but he has
+not yet succeeded in finding a trace of us. Still he has not ceased to
+watch my brother. I am sure of that, my presentiments never deceive me.
+So, if I followed your advice--if I claimed possession of my brother’s
+fortune--my husband would instantly appear with our marriage contract in
+his hands, and demand everything. Shall I enrich him? No, never, never!
+I would rather die of want! I would rather see Wilkie die of starvation
+before my very eyes!”
+
+Madame d’Argeles spoke in that tone of concentrated rage which betrays
+years of repressed passion and unflinching resolution. One could
+scarcely hope to modify her views even by the wisest and most practical
+advice. The baron did not even think of attempting to do so. He had
+known Madame d’Argeles for years; he had seen so many proofs of her
+invincible energy and determination. She possessed the distinguishing
+characteristic of her family in a remarkable degree--that proverbial
+Chalusse obstinacy which Madame Vantrasson had alluded to in her
+conversation with M. Fortunat.
+
+She was silent for a moment, and then, in a firm tone she said: “Still,
+I will follow your advice in part, baron. This evening I will write
+to M. Patterson and request him to send for Wilkie. In less than a
+fortnight I shall have sold my furniture and disappeared. I shall remain
+poor. My fortune is not so large as people suppose. No matter. My son is
+a man; he must learn to earn his own living.”
+
+“My banking account is always at your disposal, Lia.”
+
+“Thanks, my friend, thanks a thousand times; but it will not be
+necessary for me to accept your kind offer. When Wilkie was a child I
+did not refuse. But now I would dig the ground with my own hands,
+rather than give him a louis that came from you. You think me full of
+contradictions! Perhaps I am. It is certain that I am no longer what I
+was yesterday. This trouble has torn away the bandage that covered my
+eyes. I can see my conduct clearly now, and I condemn it. I sinned for
+my son’s sake, more than for my own. But I might have rehabilitated
+myself through him, and now he will perhaps be dishonored through me.”
+ Her breathing came short and hard, and it was in a choked voice that she
+continued: “Wilkie shall work for me and for himself. If he is strong,
+he will save us. If he is weak--ah, well! we shall perish. But there
+has been cowardice and shame enough! It shall never be said that I
+sacrificed the honor of a noble name and the happiness of my brother’s
+child to my son. I see what my duty is, and I shall do it.”
+
+The baron nodded approvingly. “That’s no doubt right,” said he. “Only
+allow me to tell you that all is not lost yet. The code has a weapon for
+every just cause. Perhaps there will be a way for you to obtain and hold
+your fortune independent of your husband.”
+
+“Alas! I made inquiries on the subject years ago, and I was told that
+it would be impossible. Still, you might investigate the matter. I have
+confidence in you. I know that you would not advise me rashly;--but
+don’t delay. The worst misfortune would be less intolerable than this
+suspense.”
+
+“I will lose no time. M. Ferailleur is a very clever lawyer, I am told.
+I will consult him.”
+
+“And what shall I do about this man Fortunat, who called upon me?”
+
+The baron reflected for a moment. “The safest thing would be to take no
+action whatever at present,” he replied. “If he has any evil designs, a
+visit or a letter from you would only hasten them.”
+
+By the way Madame d’Argeles shook her head, it was easy to see that she
+had very little hope. “All this will end badly,” she murmured.
+
+The baron shared her opinion, but he did not think it wise or kind to
+discourage her. “Nonsense!” he said lightly, “luck is going to change;
+it is always changing.”
+
+Then as he heard the clock strike, he sprang from his arm-chair in
+dismay. “Two o’clock,” he exclaimed, “and Kami-Bey is waiting for me.
+I certainly haven’t been wasting time here, but I ought to have been at
+the Grand Hotel at noon. Kami is quite capable of suspecting a man of
+any knavery. These Turks are strange creatures. It’s true that I am
+now a winner to the tune of two hundred and eighty thousand francs.”
+ He settled his hat firmly on his head, and opening the door, he added:
+“Good-by, my dear madame, I will soon see you again, and in the meantime
+don’t deviate in the least from your usual habits. Our success depends,
+in a great measure, upon the fancied security of our enemies!”
+
+Madame d’Argeles considered this advice so sensible that half an hour
+later she went out for her daily drive in the Bois, little suspecting
+that M. Fortunat’s spy, Victor Chupin, was dogging her carriage. It was
+most imprudent on her part to have gone to Wilkie’s house on her return.
+She incurred such a risk of awakening suspicion by wandering about
+near her son’s home that she seldom allowed herself that pleasure, but
+sometimes her anxiety overpowered her reason. So, on this occasion, she
+ordered the coachman to stop near the Rue du Helder, and she reached the
+street just in time to betray her secret to Victor Chupin, and receive a
+foul insult from M. Wilkie. The latter’s cruel words stabbed her to the
+heart, and yet she tried to construe them as mere proofs of her son’s
+honesty of feeling--as proof of his scorn for the depraved creatures
+who haunt the boulevards each evening. But though her energy was
+indomitable, her physical strength was not equal to her will. On
+returning home, she felt so ill that she was obliged to go to bed. She
+shivered with cold, and yet the blood that flowed in her veins seemed to
+her like molten lead. The physician who was summoned declared that her
+illness was a mere trifle, but prescribed rest and quiet. And as he was
+a very discerning man, he added, not without a malicious smile, that any
+excess is injurious--excess of pleasure as well as any other. As it
+was Sunday, Madame d’Argeles was able to obey the physician, and so she
+closed her doors against every one, the baron excepted. Still, fearing
+that this seclusion might seem a little strange, she ordered her
+concierge to tell any visitors that she had gone into the country,
+and would not return until her usual reception-day. She would then be
+compelled to open her doors as usual. For what would the habitues of the
+house, who had played there every Monday for years, say if they found
+the doors closed? She was less her own mistress than an actress--she had
+no right to weep or suffer in solitude.
+
+So, at about seven o’clock on Monday evening, although still grievously
+suffering both in mind and body, she arranged herself to receive her
+guests. From among all her dresses, she chose the same dark robe she had
+worn on the night when Pascal Ferailleur was ruined at her house; and
+as she was even paler than usual, she tried to conceal the fact by a
+prodigal use of rouge. At ten o’clock, when the first arrivals entered
+the brilliantly lighted rooms, they found her seated as usual on the
+sofa, near the fire, with the same eternal, unchangeable smile upon her
+lips. There were at least forty persons in the room, and the gambling
+had become quite animated when the baron entered. Madame d’Argeles read
+in his eyes that he was the bearer of good news. “Everything is going
+on well,” he whispered, as he shook hands with her. “I have seen M.
+Ferailleur--I wouldn’t give ten sous for Valorsay’s and Coralth’s
+chances.”
+
+This intelligence revived Madame d’Argeles’s drooping spirits, and she
+received M. de Coralth with perfect composure when he came to pay his
+respects to her soon afterward. For he had the impudence to come, in
+order to dispel any suspicions that might have been aroused anent his
+complicity in the card-cheating affair. The hostess’s calmness amazed
+him. Was she still ignorant of her brother’s death and the complications
+arising from it, or was she only acting a part? He was so anxious and
+undecided, that instead of mingling with the groups of talkers, he
+at once took a seat at the card-table, whence he could watch the poor
+woman’s every movement.
+
+Both rooms were full, and almost everybody was engaged in play, when,
+shortly after midnight, a servant entered the room, whispered a few
+words in his mistress’s ear, and handed her a card. She took it, glanced
+at it, and uttered so harsh, so terrible, so heart-broken a cry, that
+several of the guests sprang to their feet. “What is it? What is it?”
+ they asked. She tried to reply, but could not. Her lips parted, she
+opened her mouth, but no sound came forth. She turned ghastly white
+under her rouge, and a wild, unnatural light gleamed in her eyes. One
+curious guest, without a thought of harm, tried to take the card, which
+she still held in her clinched hand; but she repulsed him with such an
+imperious gesture that he recoiled in terror. “What is it? What is the
+matter with her?” was the astonished query on every side.
+
+At last, with a terrible effort, she managed to reply, “Nothing.” And
+then, after clinging for a moment to the mantel-shelf, in order to
+steady herself, she tottered out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+It was not enough to tell M. Wilkie the secret of his birth. He must
+be taught how to utilize the knowledge. The Viscount de Coralth
+devoted himself to this task, and burdened Wilkie with such a host of
+injunctions, that it was quite evident he had but a poor opinion of his
+pupil’s sagacity. “That woman d’Argeles,” he thought, “is as sharp as
+steel. She will deceive this young idiot completely, if I don’t warn
+him.”
+
+So he did warn him; and Wilkie was instructed exactly what to do and
+say, how to answer any questions, and what position to take up according
+to circumstances. Moreover, he was especially enjoined to distrust
+tears, and not to let himself be put out of countenance by haughty airs.
+The Viscount spent at least an hour in giving explanations and advice,
+to the great disgust of M. Wilkie, who, feeling that he was being
+treated like a child, somewhat testily declared that he was no fool, and
+that he knew how to take care of himself as well as any one else. Still,
+this did not prevent M. de Coralth from persisting in his instructions
+until he was persuaded that he had prepared his pupil for all possible
+emergencies. He then rose to depart. “That’s all, I think,” he remarked,
+with a shade of uneasiness. “I’ve traced the plan--you must execute it,
+and keep cool, or the game’s lost.”
+
+His companion rose proudly. “If it fails, it won’t be from any fault of
+mine,” he answered with unmistakable petulance.
+
+“Lose no time.”
+
+“There’s no danger of that.”
+
+“And understand, that whatever happens, my name is not to be mentioned.”
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+“If there should be any new revelations, I will inform you.”
+
+“At the club?”
+
+“Yes, but don’t be uneasy; the affair is as good as concluded.”
+
+“I hope so, indeed.”
+
+Wilkie gave a sigh of relief as he saw his visitor depart. He wished to
+be alone, so as to brood over the delights that the future had in store
+for him. He was no longer to be limited to a paltry allowance of twenty
+thousand francs! No more debts, no more ungratified longings. He would
+have millions at his disposal! He seemed to see them, to hold them, to
+feel them gliding in golden waves between his fingers! What horses he
+would have! what carriages! what mistresses! And a gleam of envy that
+he had detected in M. de Coralth’s eyes put the finishing touch to his
+bliss. To be envied by this brilliant viscount, his model and his ideal,
+what happiness it was!
+
+The reputation that Madame d’Argeles bore had at first cast a shadow
+over his joy; but this shadow had soon vanished. He was troubled by no
+foolish prejudices, and personally he cared little or nothing for his
+mother’s reputation. The prejudices of society must, of course, be
+considered. But nonsense! society has no prejudices nowadays when
+millionaires are concerned, and asks no questions respecting their
+parents. Society only requires passports of the indigent. Besides, no
+matter what Madame d’Argeles might have done, she was none the less a
+Chalusse, the descendant of one of the most aristocratic families in
+France.
+
+Such were Wilkie’s meditations while he was engaged in dressing himself
+with more than usual care. He had been quite shocked by the suggestion
+that Madame d’Argeles might try to deny him, and he wished to appear
+before her in the most advantageous light. His toilette was consequently
+a lengthy operation. However, shortly after twelve o’clock he was ready.
+He cast a last admiring glance at himself in the mirror, twirled his
+mustaches, and departed on his mission. He even went on foot, which was
+a concession to what he considered M. de Coralth’s absurd ideas. The
+aspect of the Hotel d’Argeles, in the Rue de Berry, impressed him
+favorably, but, at the same time, it somewhat disturbed his superb
+assurance. “Everything is very stylish here,” he muttered.
+
+A couple of servants--the concierge and Job--were standing at the door
+engaged in conversation. M. Wilkie approached them, and in his most
+imposing manner, but not without a slight tremble in his voice,
+requested to see Madame d’Argeles. “Madame is in the country,” replied
+the concierge; “she will not return before this evening. If monsieur
+will leave his card.”
+ “Oh! that’s quite unnecessary. I shall be passing again.”
+
+This, too, was in obedience to the instructions of M. de Coralth, who
+had advised him not to send in his name, but to gain admission into
+Madame d’Argeles’s presence as speedily as possible, without giving her
+time to prepare herself for the interview; and Wilkie had ultimately
+decided that these precautions might not prove as superfluous as he had
+at first supposed. But this first mishap annoyed him extremely. What
+should he do? how should he kill time till the evening? A cab was
+passing. He hired it for a drive to the Bois, whence he returned to the
+boulevards, played a game of billiards with one of the co-proprietors
+of Pompier de Nanterre, and finally dined at the Cafe Riche, devoting as
+much time as possible to the operation. He was finishing his coffee when
+the clock struck eight. He caught up his hat, drew on his gloves, and
+hastened to the Hotel d’Argeles again.
+
+“Madame has not yet returned,” said the concierge, who knew that his
+mistress had only just risen from her bed, “but I don’t think it will be
+long. And if monsieur wishes--”
+
+“No,” replied M. Wilkie brusquely, and he was going off in a furious
+passion, when, on crossing the street, he chanced to turn his head and
+notice that the reception rooms were brilliantly lighted up. “Ah! I
+think that a very shabby trick!” grumbled the intelligent youth. “They
+won’t succeed in playing that game on me again. Why, she’s there now!”
+
+It occurred to him that Madame d’Argeles had perhaps described him to
+her servants, and had given them strict orders not to admit him.
+“I’ll find out if that is the case, even if I have to wait here until
+to-morrow morning,” he thought, angrily. However, he had not been on
+guard very long, when he saw a brougham stop in front of the mansion,
+whereupon the gate opened, as if by enchantment. The vehicle entered the
+courtyard, deposited its occupants, and drove away. A second carriage
+soon appeared, then a third, and then five or six in quick succession.
+“And does she think I’ll wear out my shoe-leather here, while everybody
+else is allowed to enter?” he grumbled. “Never!--I’ve an idea.” And,
+without giving himself time for further deliberation, he returned to his
+rooms, arrayed himself in evening-dress, and sent for his carriage. “You
+will drive to No.--in the Rue de Berry,” he said. “There is a soiree
+there, and you can drive directly into the courtyard.” The coachman
+obeyed, and M. Wilkie realized that his idea was really an excellent
+one.
+
+As soon as he alighted, the doors were thrown open, and he ascended
+a handsome staircase, heavily carpeted, and adorned with flowers. Two
+liveried footmen were standing at the door of the drawing-room, and one
+of them advanced to relieve Wilkie of his overcoat, but his services
+were declined. “I don’t wish to go in,” said the young man roughly.
+“I wish to speak with Madame d’Argeles in private. She is expecting
+me--inform her. Here is my card.”
+
+The servant was hesitating, when Job, suspecting some mystery perhaps,
+approached. “Take in the gentleman’s card,” he said, with an air of
+authority; and, opening the door of a small room on the left-hand side
+of the staircase, he invited Wilkie to enter, saying, “If monsieur will
+be kind enough to take a seat, I will summon madame at once.”
+
+M. Wilkie sank into an arm-chair, considerably overcome. The air of
+luxury that pervaded the entire establishment, the liveried servants,
+the lights and flowers, all impressed him much more deeply than he would
+have been willing to confess. And in spite of his affected arrogance,
+he felt that the superb assurance which was the dominant trait in his
+character was deserting him. In his breast, moreover, in the place where
+physiologists locate the heart, he felt certain extraordinary movements
+which strongly resembled palpitations. For the first time it occurred
+to him that this woman, whose peace he had come to destroy, was not only
+the heiress of the Count de Chalusse’s millions, but also his mother,
+that is to say, the good fairy whose protection had followed him
+everywhere since he entered the world. The thought that he was about to
+commit an atrocious act entered his mind, but he drove it away. It was
+too late now to draw back, or even to reflect.
+
+Suddenly a door opposite the one by which he had entered opened, and
+Madame d’Argeles appeared on the threshold. She was no longer the woman
+whose anguish and terror had alarmed her guests. During the brief moment
+of respite which fate had granted her, she had summoned all her energy
+and courage, and had mastered her despair. She felt that her salvation
+depended upon her calmness, and she had succeeded in appearing calm,
+haughty, and disdainful--as impassive as if she had been a statue. “Was
+it you, sir, who sent me this card?” she inquired.
+
+Greatly disconcerted, M. Wilkie could only bow and stammer out an almost
+unintelligible answer. “Excuse me! I am much grieved, upon my word! I
+disturb you, perhaps----”
+
+“You are Monsieur Wilkie!” interrupted Madame d’Argeles, in a tone of
+mingled irony and disdain.
+
+“Yes,” he replied, drawling out the name affectedly, “I am M. Wilkie.”
+
+“Did you desire to speak with me?” inquired Madame d’Argeles, dryly.
+
+“In fact--yes. I should like----”
+
+“Very well. I will listen to you, although your visit is most
+inopportune, for I have eighty guests or more in my drawing-room. Still,
+speak!”
+
+It was very easy to say “speak,” but unfortunately for M. Wilkie he
+could not articulate a syllable. His tongue was as stiff, and as dry, as
+if it had been paralyzed. He nervously passed and repassed his fingers
+between his neck and his collar, but although this gave full play to his
+cravat, his words did not leave his throat any more readily. For he had
+imagined that Madame d’Argeles would be like other women he had known,
+but not at all. He found her to be an extremely proud and awe-inspiring
+creature, who, to use his own vocabulary, SQUELCHED him completely. “I
+wished to say to you,” he repeated, “I wished to say to you----” But
+the words he was seeking would not come; and, so at last, angry with
+himself, he exclaimed: “Ah! you know as well as I, why I have come. Do
+you dare to pretend that you don’t know?”
+
+She looked at him with admirably feigned astonishment, glanced
+despairingly at the ceiling, shrugged her shoulders, and replied: “Most
+certainly I don’t know--unless indeed it be a wager.”
+
+“A wager!” M. Wilkie wondered if he were not the victim of some
+practical joke, and if there were not a crowd of listeners hidden
+somewhere, who, after enjoying his discomfiture, would suddenly make
+their appearance, holding their sides. This fear restored his presence
+of mind. “Well, then,” he replied, huskily, “this is my reason. I know
+nothing respecting my parents. This morning, a man with whom you are
+well acquainted, assured me that I was--your son. I was completely
+stunned at first, but after a while I recovered sufficiently to call
+here, and found that you had gone out.”
+
+He was interrupted by a nervous laugh from Madame d’Argeles. For she was
+heroic enough to laugh, although death was in her heart, and although
+the nails of her clinched hands were embedded deep in her quivering
+flesh. “And you believed him, monsieur?” she exclaimed. “Really, this is
+too absurd! I--your mother! Why, look at me----”
+
+He was doing nothing else, he was watching her with all the powers of
+penetration he possessed. Madame d’Argeles’s laugh had an unnatural
+ring that awakened his suspicions. All Coralth’s recommendations buzzed
+confusedly in his ears, and he judged that the moment had come “to do
+the sentimental,” as he would have expressed it. So he lowered his head,
+and in an aggrieved tone, exclaimed: “Ah! you think it very amusing, I
+don’t. Do you realize how wretched it makes one to live as utterly alone
+as a leper, without a soul to love or care for you? Other young men have
+a mother, sisters, relatives. I have no one! Ah! if---- But I only have
+friends while my money lasts.” He wiped his eyes, dry as they were, with
+his handkerchief, and in a still more pathetic tone, resumed: “Not that
+I want for anything; I receive a very handsome allowance. But when my
+relatives have given me the wherewithal to keep me from starving, they
+imagine their duty is fulfilled. I think this very hard. I didn’t come
+into the world at my own request, did I? I didn’t ask to be born. If
+I was such an annoyance to them when I came into existence, why didn’t
+they throw me into the river? Then they would have been well rid of me,
+and I should be out of my misery!”
+
+He stopped short, struck dumb with amazement, for Madame d’Argeles had
+thrown herself on her knees at his feet. “Have mercy!” she faltered;
+“Wilkie; my son, forgive me!” Alas! the unfortunate woman had failed in
+playing a part which was too difficult for a mother’s heart. “You have
+suffered cruelly, my son,” she continued; “but I--I--Ah! you can’t
+conceive the frightful agony it costs a mother to separate from her
+child! But you were not deserted, Wilkie; don’t say that. Have you not
+felt my love in the air around you? YOU forgotten? Know, then, that for
+years and years I have seen you every day, and that all my thoughts and
+all my hopes are centered in you alone! Wilkie!”
+
+She dragged herself toward him with her hands clasped in an agony of
+supplication, while he recoiled, frightened by this outburst of
+passion, and utterly amazed by his easily won victory. The poor woman
+misunderstood this movement. “Great God!” she exclaimed, “he spurns me;
+he loathes me. Ah! I knew it would be so. Oh! why did you come? What
+infamous wretch sent you here? Name him, Wilkie! Do you understand, now,
+why I concealed myself from you? I dreaded the day when I should blush
+before you, before my own son. And yet it was for your sake. Death would
+have been a rest, a welcome release for me. But your breath was ebbing
+away, your poor little arms no longer had strength to clasp me round the
+neck. And then I cried: ‘Perish my soul and body, if only my child can
+be saved!’ I believed such a sacrifice permissible in a mother. I am
+punished for it as if it were a crime. I thought you would be happy, my
+Wilkie. I said to myself that you, my pride and joy, would move freely
+and proudly far above me and my shame. I accepted ignominy, so that your
+honor might be preserved intact. I knew the horrors of abject poverty,
+and I wished to save my son from it. I would have licked up the very
+mire in your pathway to save you from a stain. I renounced all hope for
+myself, and I consecrated all that was noble and generous in my nature
+to you. Oh! I will discover the vile coward who sent you here, who
+betrayed my secret. I will discover him and I will have my revenge! You
+were never to know this, Wilkie. In parting from you, I took a solemn
+oath never to see you again, and to die without the supreme consolation
+of feeling your lips upon my forehead.”
+
+She could not continue; sobs choked her utterance. And for more than a
+minute the silence was so profound that one could hear the sound of low
+conversation in the hall outside, the exclamations of the players as
+they greeted each unexpected turn of luck, and occasionally a cry of
+“Banco!” or “I stake one hundred louis!” Standing silent and motionless
+near the window, Wilkie gazed with consternation at Madame d’Argeles,
+his mother, who was crouching in the middle of the room with her face
+hidden in her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break. He would
+willingly have given his third share in Pompier de Nanterre to have
+made his escape. The strangeness of the scene appalled him. It was
+not emotion that he felt, but an instinctive fear mingled with
+commiseration. And he was not only ill at ease, but he was angry
+with himself for what he secretly styled his weakness. “Women are
+incomprehensible,” he thought. “It would be so easy to explain things
+quietly and properly, but they must always cry and have a sort of
+melodrama.”
+
+Suddenly the sound of footsteps near the door roused him from his
+stupor. He shuddered at the thought that some one might come in. He
+hated the very idea of ridicule. So summoning all his courage he went
+toward Madame d’Argeles, and, raising her from the floor, he exclaimed:
+“Don’t cry so. You grieve me, upon my word! Pray get up. Some one is
+coming. Do you hear me? Some one is coming.” Thereupon, as she offered
+no resistance, he half led, half carried her to an arm-chair, into
+which she sank heavily. “Now she is going to faint!” thought Wilkie,
+in despair. What should he do? Call for help? He dared not. However,
+necessity inspired him. He knelt at Madame d’Argeles’s feet, and gently
+said: “Come, come, be reasonable! Why do you give way like this? I don’t
+reproach you!”
+
+Slowly, with an air of humility which was indescribably touching,
+she took her hands from her face, and for the first time raised her
+tear-stained eyes to her son’s. “Wilkie,” she murmured.
+
+“Madame!”
+
+She heaved a deep sigh, and in a half-stifled voice:
+
+“MADAME!” she repeated. “Will you not call me mother?”
+
+“Yes, of course--certainly. But--only you know it will take me some time
+to acquire the habit. I shall do so, of course; but I shall have to get
+used to it, you know.”
+
+“True, very true!--but tell me it is not mere pity that leads you to
+make this promise? If you should hate me--if you should curse me--how
+should I bear it! Ah! when a woman reaches the years of understanding
+one should never cease repeating to her: ‘Take care! Your son will be
+twenty some day, and you will have to meet his searching gaze. You
+will have to render an account of your honor to him!’ My God! If women
+thought of this, they would never sin. To be reduced to such a state of
+abject misery that one dares not lift one’s head before one’s own son!
+Alas! Wilkie, I know only too well that you cannot help despising me.”
+
+“No, indeed. Not at all! What an idea!”
+
+“Tell me that you forgive me!”
+
+“I do, upon my word I do.”
+
+Poor woman, her face brightened. She so longed to believe him! And her
+son was beside her, so near that she felt his breath upon her cheek. It
+was he indeed. Had they ever been separated? She almost doubted it, she
+had lived so near him in thought. It was with a sort of ecstasy that she
+looked at him. There was a world of entreaty in her eyes; they seemed
+to be begging a caress; she raised her quivering lips to his, but he did
+not observe it. For a long time she hesitated, fearing he might spurn
+her; but at last, yielding to a supreme impulse, she threw her arms
+around his neck, drew him toward her, and pressed him to her heart in
+a close embrace. “My son! my son!” she repeated; “to have you with me
+again, after all these years!”
+
+Unfortunately, no whirlwind of passion was capable of carrying M. Wilkie
+beyond himself. His emotion was now spent and his mind had regained
+its usual indifference. He flattered himself that he was a man of
+mettle--and he remained as cold as ice beneath his mother’s kisses.
+Indeed, he barely tolerated them; and if he did allow her to embrace
+him, it was only because he did not know how to refuse. “Will she never
+have done?” he thought. “This is a pretty state of things! I must be
+very attractive. How Costard and Serpillon would laugh if they saw
+me now.” Costard and Serpillon were his intimate friends, the
+co-proprietors of the famous steeplechaser.
+
+In her rapture, however, Madame d’Argeles did not observe the peculiar
+expression on her son’s face. She had compelled him to take a chair
+opposite her, and, with nervous volubility, she continued: “If I don’t
+deny myself the happiness of embracing you again, it is because I have
+not broken the vow I took never to make myself known to you. When I
+entered this room, I was firmly resolved to convince you, no matter how,
+that you had been deceived. God knows that it was not my fault if I did
+not succeed. There are some sacrifices that are above human strength.”
+
+M. Wilkie deigned to smile. “Oh! yes, I saw your little game,” he said,
+with a knowing air. “But I had been well posted, and besides, it is not
+very easy to fool me.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles did not even hear him. “Perhaps destiny is weary of
+afflicting us,” she continued; “perhaps a new life is about to begin.
+Through you, Wilkie. I can again be happy. I, who for years have lived
+without even hope. But will you have courage to forget?”
+
+“What?”
+
+She hung her head, and in an almost inaudible voice replied, “The past,
+Wilkie.”
+
+But with an air of the greatest indifference, he snapped his fingers,
+and exclaimed: “Nonsense! What is past is past. Such things are soon
+forgotten. Paris has known many such cases. You are my mother; I care
+very little for public opinion. I begin by pleasing myself, and I
+consult other people afterward; and when they are dissatisfied, I tell
+them to mind their own business.”
+
+The poor woman listened to these words with a joy bordering on rapture.
+One might have supposed that the strangeness of her son’s expressions
+would have surprised her--have enlightened her in regard to his true
+character--but no. She only saw and understood one thing--that he had no
+intention of casting her off, but was indeed ready to devote himself to
+her. “My God!” she faltered, “is this really true? Will you allow me
+to remain with you? Oh, don’t reply rashly! Consider well, before you
+promise to make such a sacrifice. Think how much sorrow and pain it will
+cost you.”
+
+“I have considered. It is decided--mother.”
+
+She sprang up, wild with hope and enthusiasm. “Then we are saved!”
+ she cried. “Blessed be he who betrayed my secret! And I doubted your
+courage, my Wilkie! At last I can escape from this hell! This very night
+we will fly from this house, without one backward glance. I will never
+set foot in these rooms again--the detested gamblers who are sitting
+here shall never see me again. From this moment Lia d’Argeles is dead.”
+
+M. Wilkie positively felt like a man who had just fallen from the
+clouds. “What, fly?” he stammered. “Where shall we go, then?”
+
+“To a country where we are unknown, Wilkie--to a land where you will not
+have to blush for your mother.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“Trust yourself to me, my son. I know a pleasant village near London
+where we can find a refuge. My connections in England are such that you
+need not fear the obstacles one generally meets with among foreigners.
+M. Patterson, who manages a large manufacturing establishment, will, I
+know, be happy to be of service to us--but we shall not be indebted to
+any one for long, now that you have resolved to work.”
+
+On hearing these words, M. Wilkie sprang up in dismay. “Excuse me,”
+ he said, “I don’t understand you. You propose to set me to work in M.
+Patterson’s factory? Well, to tell the truth, that doesn’t suit me at
+all.”
+
+It was impossible to mistake M. Wilkie’s manner, his tone, or gesture.
+They revealed him in his true character. Madame d’Argeles saw her
+terrible mistake at once. The bandage fell from her eyes. She had taken
+her dreams for realities, and the desires of her own heart for those of
+her son. She rose, trembling with sorrow and with indignation. “Wilkie!”
+ she exclaimed, “Wilkie, wretched boy! what did you dare to hope?”
+
+And, without giving him time to reply, she continued: “Then it was only
+idle curiosity that brought you here. You wished to know the source
+of the money which you spend like water. Very well, you may see
+for yourself. This is a gambling house; one of those establishments
+frequented by distinguished personages, which the police ignore, or
+which they cannot suppress. The hubbub you hear is made by the players.
+Men are ruined here. Some poor wretches have blown their brains out on
+leaving the house; others have parted with the last vestige of honor
+here. And the business pays me well. One louis out of every hundred that
+change hands falls to my share. This is the source of your wealth, my
+son.”
+
+This anger, which succeeded such deep grief--this outburst of disdain,
+following such abject humility--considerably astonished M. Wilkie.
+“Allow me to ask----” he began.
+
+But he was not allowed a hearing. “Fool!” continued Madame d’Argeles,
+“did nothing warn you that in coming here you would deprive yourself
+forever of the income you received? Did no inward voice tell you that
+all would be changed when you compelled me, Lia d’Argeles, to say,
+‘Well, yes, it is true; you are my son?’ So long as you did not know
+who and what I was, I had a mother’s right to watch over you. I could
+help you without disgracing you, without despising you. But now that you
+know me, and know what I am, I can do nothing more for you--nothing! I
+would rather let you starve than succor you, for I would rather see you
+dead than dishonored by my money.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“What! would you still consent to receive the allowance I have made you,
+even if I consented to continue it?”
+
+Had a viper raised its head in M. Wilkie’s path he would not have
+recoiled more quickly. “Never!” he exclaimed. “Ah, no! What do you take
+me for?”
+
+This repugnance was sincere; there could be no doubt of that, and it
+seemed to give Madame d’Argeles a ray of hope. “I have misjudged him,”
+ she thought. “Poor Wilkie! Evil advice has led him astray; but he is not
+bad at heart. In that case, my poor child,” she said aloud, “you must
+see that a new life is about to commence for you. What do you intend to
+do? How will you gain a livelihood? People must have food, and clothes,
+and a roof to shelter them. These things cost money. And where will
+you obtain it--you who rebel at the very word work? Ah! if I had only
+listened to M. Patterson. He was not blind like myself. He was always
+telling me that I was spoiling you, and ruining your future by giving
+you so much money. Do you know that you have spent more than fifty
+thousand francs during the past two years? How have you squandered them?
+Have you been to the law-school a dozen times? No. But you can be seen
+at the races, at the opera, in the fashionable restaurants, and at every
+place of amusement where a young man can squander money. And who are
+your associates? Dissipated and heartless idlers, grooms, gamblers, and
+abandoned women.”
+
+A sneer from M. Wilkie interrupted her. To think that any one should
+dare to attack his friends, his tastes, and his pleasures. Such a thing
+was not to be tolerated. “This is astonishing--astonishing, upon my
+word!” said he. “You moralizing! that’s really too good! I should like a
+few minutes to laugh; it is too ridiculous!”
+
+Was he really conscious of the cruelty of his ironical words? The blow
+was so terrible that Madame d’Argeles staggered beneath it. She was
+prepared for anything and everything except this insult from her son.
+Still, she accepted it without rebellion, although it was in a tone of
+heart-broken anguish that she replied: “Perhaps I have no right to tell
+you the truth. I hope the future will prove that I am wrong. However,
+you are without resources, and you have no profession. Pray Heaven that
+you may never know what it is to be hungry and to have no bread.”
+
+For some time already the ingenious young man had shown unmistakable
+signs of impatience. This gloomy prediction irritated him beyond
+endurance.
+
+“All this is empty talk,” he interrupted. “I don’t mean to work, for
+it’s not at all in my line. Still, I don’t expect to want for anything!
+That’s plain enough, I hope.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles did not wince. “What do you mean to do then?” she
+asked, coldly. “I don’t understand you.”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Are we to keep up this farce for
+ever?” he petulantly exclaimed. “It doesn’t take with me. You know what
+I mean as well as I do. Why do you talk to me about dying of starvation?
+What about the fortune?”
+
+“What fortune?”
+
+“Eh? why, my uncle’s, of course! Your brother’s, the Count de Chalusse.”
+
+Now M. Wilkie’s visit, manner, assurance, wheedling, and contradictions
+were all explained. That maternal confidence which is so strong in the
+hearts of mothers vanished from Madame d’Argeles’s for ever. The depths
+of selfishness and cunning she discerned in Wilkie’s mind appalled her.
+She now understood why he had declared himself ready to brave public
+opinion--why he had proved willing to accept his share of the past
+ignominy. It was not his mother’s, but the Count de Chalusse’s estate
+that he claimed. “Ah! so you’ve heard of that,” she said, in a tone
+of bitter irony. And then, remembering M. Isidore Fortunat, she asked:
+“Some one has sold you this valuable secret. How much have you promised
+to pay him in case of success?”
+
+Although Wilkie prided himself on being very clever, he did not pretend
+to be a diplomatist, and, indeed, he was greatly disconcerted by this
+question; still, recovering himself, he replied: “It doesn’t matter how
+I obtained the information--whether I paid for it, or whether it cost
+me nothing--but I know that you are a Chalusse, and that you are
+the heiress of the count’s property, which is valued at eight or ten
+millions of francs. Do you deny it?”
+
+Madame d’Argeles sadly shook her head. “I deny nothing,” she replied,
+“but I am about to tell you something which will destroy all your plans
+and extinguish your hopes. I am resolved, understand, and my resolution
+is irrevocable, never to assert my rights. To receive this fortune, I
+should be obliged to confess that Lia d’Argeles is a Chalusse--and that
+is a confession which no consideration whatever will wring from me.”
+
+She imagined that this declaration would silence and discomfit Wilkie,
+but she was mistaken. If he had been obliged to depend upon himself he
+would perhaps have been conquered by it; but he was armed with weapons
+which had been furnished by the cunning viscount. So he shrugged his
+shoulders, and coolly replied: “In that case we should remain poor, and
+the government would take possession of our millions. One moment. I
+have something to say in this matter. You may renounce your claim, but I
+shall not renounce mine. I am your son, and I shall claim the property.”
+
+“Even if I entreated you on my knees not to do so?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles’s eyes flashed. “Very well. I will show you that this
+estate can never be yours. By what right will you lay claim to it?
+Because you are my son? But I will deny that you are. I will declare
+upon oath that you are nothing to me, and that I don’t even know you.”
+
+But even this did not daunt Wilkie. He drew from his pocket a scrap
+of paper, and flourishing it triumphantly, he exclaimed: “It would
+be extremely cruel on your part to deny me, but I foresaw such a
+contingency, and here is my answer, copied from the civil code: ‘Article
+341. Inquiry as to maternity allowed, etc., etc.’”
+
+What the exact bearing of Wilkie’s threat might be Madame d’Argeles did
+not know. But she felt that this Article 341 would no doubt destroy her
+last hope; for the person who had chosen this weapon from the code to
+place it in Wilkie’s hand must have chosen it carefully. She understood
+the situation perfectly. With her experience of life, she could not fail
+to understand the despicable part Wilkie was playing. And though it was
+not her son who had conceived this odious plot, it was more than enough
+to know that he had consented to carry it into execution. Should she try
+to persuade Wilkie to abandon this shameful scheme? She might have done
+so if she had not been so horrified by the utter want of principle which
+she had discovered in his character. But, under the circumstances, she
+realized that any effort in this direction would prove unavailing. So
+it was purely from a sense of duty and to prevent her conscience from
+reproaching her that she exclaimed: “So you will apply to the courts in
+order to constrain me to acknowledge you as my son?”
+
+“If you are not reasonable----”
+
+“That is to say, you care nothing for the scandal that will be created
+by such a course. In order to prove yourself a member of the Chalusse
+family you will begin by disgracing the name and dragging it through the
+mire.”
+
+Wilkie had no wish to prolong this discussion. So much talk about an
+affair, which, in his opinion, at least, was an extremely simple one,
+seemed to him utterly ridiculous, and irritated him beyond endurance.
+“It strikes me this is much ado about nothing,” he remarked. “One would
+suppose, to hear you talk, that you were the greatest criminal in the
+world. Goodness is all very well in its way, but there is such a thing
+as having too much of it! Break loose from this life to-morrow, assume
+your rightful name, install yourself at the Hotel de Chalusse, and in
+a week from now no one will remember that you were once known as Lia
+d’Argeles. I wager one hundred louis on it. Why, if people attempted to
+rake up the past life of their acquaintances, they should have far too
+much to do. Folks do not trouble themselves as to whether a person has
+done this or that; the essential thing is to have plenty of money. And
+if any fool speaks slightingly of you, you can reply: ‘I have an income
+of five hundred thousand francs,’ and he’ll say no more.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles listened, speechless with horror and disgust. Was it
+really her son who was speaking in this style, and to her of all people
+in the world? M. Wilkie misunderstood her silence. He had an excellent
+opinion of himself, but he was rather surprised at the effect of his
+eloquence. “Besides, I’m tired of vegetating, and having only one name,”
+ he continued. “I want to be on the move. Even with the small allowance
+I’ve had, I have gained a very good position in society; and if I had
+plenty of money I should be the most stylish man in Paris. The count’s
+estate belongs to me, and so I must have it--in fact, I will have it.
+So believe me when I tell you that it will be much better for you if you
+acknowledge me without any fuss! Now, will you do so? No? Once, twice,
+three times? Is it still no? Very well then; to-morrow, then, you may
+expect an official notice. I wish you good-evening.”
+
+He bowed; he was really going, for his hand was already on the
+door-knob. But Madame d’Argeles detained him with a gesture. “One word
+more,” she said, in a voice hoarse with emotion.
+
+He scarcely deigned to come back, and he made no attempt to conceal his
+impatience. “Well, what is it?” he asked, hastily.
+
+“I wish to give you a bit of parting advice. The court will undoubtedly
+decide in your favor; I shall be placed in possession of my brother’s
+estate; but neither you nor I will have the disposal of these millions.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because, though this fortune belongs to me, the control of it belongs
+to your father.”
+
+M. Wilkie was thunderstruck. “To my father?” he exclaimed. “Impossible!”
+
+“It is so, however; and you would not have been ignorant of the fact, if
+your greed for money had not made you forget to question me. You believe
+yourself an illegitimate child. Wilkie, you are mistaken. You are my
+legitimate child. I am a married woman----”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“And my husband--your father--is not dead. If he is not here now,
+threatening our safety, it is because I have succeeded in eluding him.
+He lost all trace of us eighteen years ago. Since then he has been
+constantly striving to discover us, but in vain. He is still watching,
+you may be sure of that; and as soon as there is any talk of a law-suit
+respecting the Chalusse property, you will see him appear, armed with
+his rights. He is the head of the family--your master and mine. Ah! this
+seems to disturb you. You will find him full of insatiable greed for
+wealth, a greed which has been whetted by twenty years’ waiting. You may
+yet see the day when you will regret the paltry twenty thousand francs a
+year formerly given you by your poor mother.”
+
+Wilkie’s face was whiter than his shirt. “You are deceiving me,” he
+stammered.
+
+“To-morrow I will show you my marriage certificate.”
+
+“Why not this evening?”
+
+“Because it is locked up in a room which is now full of people.”
+
+“And what was my father’s name?”
+
+“Arthur Gordon--he is an American.”
+
+“Then my name is Wilkie Gordon?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And---is my father rich?” he inquired.
+
+“No.”
+
+“What does he do?”
+
+“Everything that a man can do when he has a taste for luxury and a
+horror for work.”
+
+This reply was so explicit in its brevity, and implied so many terrible
+accusations, that Wilkie was dismayed. “The devil!” he exclaimed, “and
+where does he live!”
+
+“He lives at Baden or Homburg in the summer; in Paris or at Monaco in
+the winter.”
+
+“Oh! oh! oh!” ejaculated Wilkie, in three different tones. He knew
+what he had to expect from such a father as that. Anger now followed
+stupor--one of those terrible, white rages which stir the bile and not
+the blood. He saw his hopes and his cherished visions fade. Luxury and
+notoriety, high-stepping horses, yellow-haired mistresses, all vanished.
+He pictured himself reduced to a mere pittance, and held in check and
+domineered over by a brutal father. “Ah! I understand your game,” he
+hissed through his set teeth. “If you would only quietly assert your
+rights, everything could be arranged privately, and I should have time
+to put the property out of my father’s reach before he could claim it.
+Instead of doing that--as you hate me--you compel me to make the affair
+public, so that my father will hear of it and defraud me of everything.
+But you won’t play this trick on me. You are going to write at once, and
+make known your claim to your brother’s estate.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Ah! you won’t? You refuse----” He approached threateningly, and
+caught hold of her arm. “Take care!” he vociferated; “take care! Do not
+infuriate me beyond endurance----”
+
+As cold and rigid as marble, Madame d’Argeles faced him with the
+undaunted glance of a martyr whose spirit no violence can subdue. “You
+will obtain nothing from me,” she said, firmly; “nothing, nothing,
+nothing!”
+
+Maddened with rage and disappointment, M. Wilkie dared to lift his hand
+as if about to strike her. But at this moment the door was flung open,
+and a man sprang upon him. It was Baron Trigault.
+
+Like the other guests, the baron had seen the terrible effect produced
+upon Madame d’Argeles by a simple visiting card. But he had this
+advantage over the others: he thought he could divine and explain the
+reason of this sudden, seemingly incomprehensible terror. “The poor
+woman has been betrayed,” he thought; “her son is here!” Still, while
+the other players crowded around their hostess, he did not leave the
+card-table. He was sitting opposite M. de Coralth, and he had seen the
+dashing viscount start and change color. His suspicions were instantly
+aroused, and he wished to verify them. He therefore pretended to be more
+than ever absorbed in the cards, and swore lustily at the deserters who
+had broken up the game. “Come back, gentleman, come back,” he cried,
+angrily. “We are wasting precious time. While you have been trifling
+there, I might have gained--or lost--a hundred louis.”
+
+He was nevertheless greatly alarmed, and the prolonged absence of Madame
+d’Argeles increased his fears each moment. At the end of an hour he
+could restrain himself no longer. So taking advantage of a heavy loss,
+he rose from the table, swearing that the beastly turmoil of a few
+moments before had changed the luck. Then passing into the adjoining
+drawing-room, he managed to make his escape unobserved. “Where is
+madame?” he inquired of the first servant he met.
+
+“In the little sitting-room.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“No; a young gentleman is with her.”
+
+The baron no longer doubted the correctness of his conjectures, and his
+disquietude increased. Quickly, and as if he had been in his own house,
+he hastened to the door of the little sitting-room and listened. At that
+moment rage was imparting a truly frightful intonation to M. Wilkie’s
+voice. The baron really felt alarmed. He stooped, applied his eye to the
+keyhole, and seeing M. Wilkie with his hand uplifted, he burst open the
+door and went in. He arrived only just in time to fell Wilkie to
+the floor, and save Madame d’Argeles from that most terrible of
+humiliations: the degradation of being struck by her own son. “Ah, you
+rascal!” cried the worthy baron, transported with indignation, “you
+beggarly rascal! you brigand! Is this the way you treat an unfortunate
+woman who has sacrificed herself for you--your mother? You try to strike
+your mother, when you ought to kiss her very footprints!”
+
+As livid as if his blood had been suddenly turned to gall--with
+quivering lips and eyes starting from their sockets--M. Wilkie rose,
+with difficulty, to his feet, at the same time rubbing his left elbow
+which had struck against the corner of a piece of furniture, in his
+fall. “Scoundrel! You brutal scoundrel!” he growled, ferociously. And
+then, retreating a step: “Who gave you permission to come in here?” he
+added. “Who are you? By what right do you meddle with my affairs?”
+
+“By the right that every honest man possesses to chastise a cowardly
+rascal.”
+
+M. Wilkie shook his fist at the baron. “You are a coward yourself,” he
+retorted. “You had better learn who you are talking to! You must mend
+your manners a little, you old----”
+
+The word he uttered was so vile that no man could fail to resent it,
+much less the baron, who was already frantic with passion. His faced
+turned as purple as if he were stricken with apoplexy, and such furious
+rage gleamed in his eyes that Madame d’Argeles was frightened. She
+feared she should see her son butchered before her very eyes, and
+she extended her arms as if to protect him. “Jacques,” she said
+beseechingly, “Jacques!”
+
+This was the name which was indelibly impressed upon Wilkie’s
+memory--the name he had heard when he was but a child. Jacques--that
+was the name of the man who had brought him cakes and toys in the
+comfortable rooms where he had remained only a few days. He understood,
+or at least he thought he understood, everything. “Ah, ha!” he
+exclaimed, with a laugh that was at once both ferocious and idiotic.
+“This is very fine--monsieur is the lover. He has the say here--he--”
+
+He did not have time to finish his sentence, for quick as thought
+the baron caught him by the collar, lifted him from the ground with
+irresistible strength, and flung him on his knees at Madame d’Argeles’s
+feet, exclaiming: “Ask her pardon, you vile wretch! Ask her pardon,
+or----” “Or” meant the baron’s clinched fist descending like a
+sledge-hammer on M. Wilkie’s head.
+
+The worthy youth was frightened--so terribly frightened that his teeth
+chattered. “Pardon!” he faltered.
+
+“Louder--speak up better than that. Your mother must answer you!”
+
+Alas! the poor woman could no longer hear. She had endured so much
+during the past hour that her strength was exhausted, and she had fallen
+back in her arm-chair in a deep swoon. The baron waited for a moment,
+and seeing that her eyes remained obstinately closed, he exclaimed:
+“This is your work, wretch!”
+
+And lifting him again, as easily as if he had been a child, he set him
+on his feet, saying in a calmer tone, but in one that admitted of no
+reply: “Arrange your clothes and go.”
+
+This advice was not unnecessary. Baron Trigault had a powerful hand;
+and M. Wilkie’s attire was decidedly the worse for the encounter. He
+had lost his cravat, his shirt-front was crumpled and torn, and his
+waistcoat--one of those that open to the waist and are fastened by a
+single button--hung down in the most dejected manner. He obeyed the
+baron’s order without a word, but not without considerable difficulty,
+for his hands trembled like a leaf. When he had finished, the baron
+exclaimed: “Now be off; and never set foot here again--understand
+me--never set foot here again, never!”
+
+M. Wilkie made no reply until he reached the door leading into the hall.
+But when he had opened it, he suddenly regained his powers of speech.
+“I’m not afraid of you,” he cried, with frantic violence. “You have
+taken advantage of your superior strength--you are a coward. But this
+shall not end here. No!--you shall answer for it. I shall find your
+address, and to-morrow you will receive a visit from my friends M.
+Costard and M. Serpillon. I am the insulted party--and I choose swords!”
+
+A frightful oath from the baron somewhat hastened M. Wilkie’s exit. He
+went out into the hall, and holding the door open, in a way that would
+enable him to close it at the shortest notice, he shouted back, so as to
+be heard by all the servants: “Yes; I will have satisfaction. I will not
+stand such treatment. Is it any fault of mine that Madame d’Argeles is a
+Chalusse, and that she wishes to defraud me of my fortune. To-morrow, I
+call you all to witness, there will be a lawyer here. You don’t frighten
+me. Here is my card!” And actually, before he closed the door, he threw
+one of his cards into the middle of the room.
+
+The baron did not trouble himself to pick it up; his attention was
+devoted to Madame d’Argeles. She was lying back in her arm-chair, white,
+motionless and rigid, to all appearance dead. What should the baron
+do? He did not wish to call the servants; they had heard too much
+already--but he had almost decided to do so, when his eyes fell upon a
+tiny aquarium, in a corner of the room. He dipped his handkerchief in
+it; and alternately bathed Madame d’Argeles’s temples and chafed her
+hands. It was not long before the cold water revived her. She trembled,
+a convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot, and at last she opened
+her eyes, murmuring: “Wilkie!”
+
+“I have sent him away,” replied the baron.
+
+Poor woman! with returning life came the consciousness of the terrible
+reality. “He is my son!” she moaned, “my son, my Wilkie!” Then with a
+despairing gesture she pressed her hands to her forehead as if to calm
+its throbbings. “And I believed that my sin was expiated,” she pursued.
+“I thought I had been sufficiently punished. Fool that I was! This is my
+chastisement, Jacques. Ah! women like me have no right to be mothers!”
+
+A burning tear coursed down the baron’s cheek; but he concealed his
+emotion as well as he could, and said, in a tone of assumed gayety:
+“Nonsense! Wilkie is young--he will mend his ways! We were all
+ridiculous when we were twenty. We have all caused our mothers many
+anxious nights. Time will set everything to rights, and put some ballast
+in this young madcap’s brains. Besides, your friend Patterson doesn’t
+seem to me quite free from blame. In knowledge of books, he may have
+been unequalled; but as a guardian for youth, he must have been the
+worst of fools. After keeping your son on a short allowance for years,
+he suddenly gorges him with oats--or I should say, money--lets him
+loose; and then seems surprised because the boy is guilty of acts of
+folly. It would be a miracle if he were not. So take courage, and hope
+for the best, my dear Lia.”
+
+She shook her head despondingly. “Do you suppose that my heart hasn’t
+pleaded for him?” she said. “I am his mother; I can never cease to love
+him, whatever he may do. Even now I am ready to give a drop of blood for
+each tear I can save him. But I am not blind; I have read his nature.
+Wilkie has no heart.”
+
+“Ah! my dear friend, how do you know what shameful advice he may have
+received before coming to you?”
+
+Madame d’Argeles half rose, and said, in an agitated voice: “What! you
+try to make me believe that? ‘Advice!’ Then he must have found a man
+who said to him: ‘Go to the house of this unfortunate woman who gave you
+birth, and order her to publish her dishonor and yours. If she refuses,
+insult and beat her! ‘You know, even better than I, baron, that this
+is impossible. In the vilest natures, and when every other honorable
+feeling has been lost, love for one’s mother survives. Even convicts
+deprive themselves of their wine, and sell their rations, in order to
+send a trifle now and then to their mothers--while he----”
+
+She paused, not because she shrunk from what she was about to say, but
+because she was exhausted and out of breath. She rested for a moment,
+and then resumed in a calmer tone: “Besides, the person who sent him
+here had counselled coolness and prudence. I discovered this at once.
+It was only toward the close of the interview, and after an unexpected
+revelation from me, that he lost all control over himself. The thought
+that he would lose my brother’s millions crazed him. Oh! that fatal and
+accursed money! Wilkie’s adviser wished him to employ legal means to
+obtain an acknowledgment of his parentage; and he had copied from the
+Code a clause which is applicable to this case. By this one circumstance
+I am convinced that his adviser is a man of experience in such
+matters--in other words, the business agent----”
+
+“What business agent?” inquired the baron.
+
+“The person who called here the other day, M. Isidore Fortunat. Ah! why
+didn’t I not bribe him to hold his peace?”
+
+The baron had entirely forgotten the existence of Victor Chupin’s
+honorable employer. “You are mistaken, Lia,” he replied. “M. Fortunat
+has had no hand in this.”
+
+“Then who could have betrayed my secret?”
+
+“Why, your former ally, the rascal for whose sake you allowed Pascal
+Ferailleur to be sacrificed--the Viscount de Coralth!”
+
+The bare supposition of such treachery on the viscount’s part brought a
+flush of indignant anger to Madame d’Argeles’s cheek. “Ah! if I thought
+that!” she exclaimed. And then, remembering what reasons the baron had
+for hating M. de Coralth, she murmured: “No! Your animosity misleads
+you--he wouldn’t dare!”
+
+The baron read her thoughts. “So you are persuaded that it is personal
+vengeance that I am pursuing?” said he. “You think that fear of ridicule
+and public odium prevents me from striking M. de Coralth in my own name,
+and that I am endeavoring to find some other excuse to crush him. This
+might have been so once; but it is not the case now. When I promised
+M. Ferailleur to do all in my power to save the young girl he loves,
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, my wife’s daughter, I renounced all thought of
+self, all my former plans. And why should you doubt Coralth’s treachery?
+You, yourself, promised me to unmask HIM. If he has betrayed YOU, my
+poor Lia, he has only been a little in advance of you.”
+
+She hung her head and made no reply. She had forgotten this.
+
+“Besides,” continued the baron, “you ought to know that when I make such
+a statement I have some better foundation for it than mere conjecture.
+It was to some purpose that I watched M. de Coralth during your absence.
+When the servant handed you that card he turned extremely pale. Why?
+Because he knew whose card it was. After you left the room his hands
+trembled like leaves, and his mind was no longer occupied with the game.
+He--who is usually such a cautious player--risked his money recklessly.
+When the cards came to him he did still worse; and though luck favored
+him, he made the strangest blunders, and lost. His agitation and
+preoccupation were so marked as to attract attention; and one
+acquaintance laughingly inquired if he were ill, while another jestingly
+remarked that he had dined and wined a little too much. The traitor
+was evidently on coals of fire. I could see the perspiration on his
+forehead, and each time the door opened or shut, he changed color, as if
+he expected to see you and Wilkie enter. A dozen times I surprised him
+listening eagerly, as if by dint of attention, or by the magnetic force
+of his will, he hoped to hear what you and your son were saying. With a
+single word I could have wrung a confession from him.”
+
+This explanation was so plausible that Madame d’Argeles felt half
+convinced. “Ah! if you had only spoken that word!” she murmured. The
+baron smiled a crafty and malicious smile, which would have chilled
+M. de Coralth’s very blood if he had chanced to see it. “I am not so
+stupid!” he replied. “We mustn’t frighten the fish till we are quite
+ready. Our net is the Chalusse estate, and Coralth and Valorsay will
+enter it of their own accord. It is not my plan, but M. Ferailleur’s.
+There’s a man for you! and if Mademoiselle Marguerite is worthy of him
+they will make a noble pair. Without suspecting it, your son has perhaps
+rendered us an important service this evening--”
+
+“Alas!” faltered Madame d’Argeles, “I am none the less ruined--the name
+of Chalusse is none the less dishonored!”
+
+She wanted to return to the drawing-room; but she was compelled to
+relinquish this idea. The expression of her face betrayed too plainly
+the terrible ordeal she had passed through. The servants had heard
+M. Wilkie’s parting words; and news of this sort flies about with
+the rapidity of lightning. That very night, indeed, it was currently
+reported at the clubs that there would be no more card-playing at the
+d’Argeles establishment, as that lady was a Chalusse, and consequently
+the aunt of the beautiful young girl whom M. and Madame de Fondege had
+taken under their protection.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+Unusual strength of character, unbounded confidence in one’s own energy,
+with thorough contempt of danger, and an invincible determination to
+triumph or perish, are all required of the person who, like Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, intrusts herself to the care of strangers--worse yet, to the
+care of actual enemies. It is no small matter to place yourself in the
+power of smooth-tongued hypocrites and impostors, who are anxious for
+your ruin, and whom you know to be capable of anything. And the task is
+a mighty one--to brave unknown dangers, perilous seductions, perfidious
+counsels, and perhaps even violence, at the same time retaining a calm
+eye and smiling lips. Yet such was the heroism that Marguerite, although
+scarcely twenty, displayed when she left the Hotel de Chalusse to accept
+the hospitality of the Fondege family. And, to crown all, she took
+Madame Leon with her--Madame Leon, whom she knew to be the Marquis de
+Valorsay’s spy.
+
+But, brave as she was, when the moment of departure came her heart
+almost failed her. There was despair in the parting glance she cast upon
+the princely mansion and the familiar faces of the servants. And there
+was no one to encourage or sustain her. Ah, yes! standing at a window
+on the second floor, with his forehead pressed close against the pane of
+glass, she saw the only friend she had in the world--the old magistrate
+who had defended, encouraged, and sustained her--the man who had
+promised her his assistance and advice, and prophesied ultimate success.
+
+“Shall I be a coward?” she thought; “shall I be unworthy of Pascal?” And
+she resolutely entered the carriage, mentally exclaiming: “The die is
+cast!”
+
+The General insisted that she should take a place beside Madame de
+Fondege on the back seat; while he found a place next to Madame Leon on
+the seat facing them. The drive was a silent and tedious one. The night
+was coming on; it was a time when all Paris was on the move, and
+the carriage was delayed at each street corner by a crowd of passing
+vehicles. The conversation was solely kept alive by the exertions of
+Madame de Fondege, whose shrill voice rose above the rumble of the
+wheels, as she chronicled the virtues of the late Count de Chalusse, and
+congratulated Mademoiselle Marguerite on the wisdom of her decision. Her
+remarks were of a commonplace description, and yet each word she uttered
+evinced intense satisfaction, almost delight, as if she had won some
+unexpected victory. Occasionally, the General leaned from the carriage
+window to see if the vehicle laden with Mademoiselle Marguerite’s trunks
+was following them, but he said nothing.
+
+At last they reached his residence in the Rue Pigalle. He alighted
+first, offered his hand successively to his wife, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, and Madame Leon, and motioned the coachman to drive away.
+
+But the man did not stir. “Pardon--excuse me, monsieur,” he said, “but
+my employers bade--requested me----”
+
+“What?”
+
+“To ask you--you know, for the fare--thirty-five francs--not counting
+the little gratuity.”
+
+“Very well!--I will pay you to-morrow.”
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur; but if it is all the same to you, would you do so
+this evening? My employer said that the bill had been standing a long
+time already.”
+
+“What, scoundrel!”
+
+But Madame de Fondege, who was on the point of entering the house,
+suddenly stepped back, and drawing out her pocketbook, exclaimed:
+“That’s enough! Here are thirty-five francs.”
+
+The man went to his carriage lamp to count the money, and seeing that he
+had the exact amount--“And my gratuity?” he asked.
+
+“I give none to insolent people,” replied the General.
+
+“You should take a cab if you haven’t money enough to pay for coaches,”
+ replied the driver with an oath. “I’ll be even with you yet.”
+
+Marguerite heard no more, for Madame de Fondege caught her by the arm
+and hurried her up the staircase, saying: “Quick! we must make haste.
+Your baggage is here already, and we must see if the rooms I intended
+for you--for you and your companion--suit you.”
+
+When Marguerite reached the second floor, Madame de Fondege hunted
+in her pocket for her latch-key. Not finding it, she rang. A tall
+man-servant of impudent appearance and arrayed in a glaring livery
+opened the door, carrying an old battered iron candlestick, in which
+a tiny scrap of candle was glaring and flickering. “What!” exclaimed
+Madame de Fondege, “the reception-room not lighted yet? This is
+scandalous! What have you been doing in my absence? Come, make haste.
+Light the lamp. Tell the cook that I have some guests to dine with me.
+Call my maid. See that M. Gustave’s room is in order. Go down and see if
+the General doesn’t need your assistance about the baggage.”
+
+Finding it difficult to choose between so many contradictory orders, the
+servant did not choose at all. He placed his rusty candlestick on one
+of the side-tables in the reception-room, and gravely, without saying
+a single word, went out into the passage leading to the kitchen.
+“Evariste!” cried Madame de Fondege, crimson with anger, “Evariste, you
+insolent fellow!”
+
+As he deigned no reply, she rushed out in pursuit of him. And soon the
+sound of a violent altercation arose; the servant lavishing insults upon
+his mistress, and she unable to find any response, save, “I dismiss you;
+you are an insolent scamp--I dismiss you.”
+
+Madame Leon, who was standing near Mademoiselle Marguerite in the
+reception-room, seemed greatly amused. “This is a strange household,”
+ said she. “A fine beginning, upon my word.”
+
+But the worthy housekeeper was the last person on earth to whom
+Mademoiselle Marguerite wished to reveal her thoughts. “Hush, Leon,” she
+replied. “We are the cause of all this disturbance, and I am very sorry
+for it.”
+
+The retort that rose to the housekeeper’s lips was checked by the return
+of Madame de Fondege, followed by a servant-girl with a turn-up nose, a
+pert manner, and who carried a lighted candle in her hand.
+
+“How can I apologize, madame,” began Mademoiselle Marguerite, “for all
+the trouble I am giving you?”
+
+“Ah! my dear child, I’ve never been so happy. Come, come, and see your
+room.” And while they crossed several scantily-furnished apartments,
+Madame de Fondege continued: “It is I who ought to apologize to you. I
+fear you will pine for the splendors of the Hotel de Chalusse. We
+are not millionaires like your poor father. We have only a modest
+competence, no more. But here we are!”
+
+The maid had opened a door, and Mademoiselle Marguerite entered a
+good-sized room lighted by two windows, hung with soiled wall paper, and
+adorned with chintz curtains, from which the sun had extracted most of
+the coloring. Everything was in disorder here, and in fact, the whole
+room was extremely dirty. The bed was not made, the washstand was dirty,
+some woollen stockings were hanging over the side of the rumpled bed,
+and on the mantel-shelf stood an ancient clock, an empty beer bottle,
+and some glasses. On the floor, on the furniture, in the corners,
+everywhere in fact, stumps of cigars were scattered in profusion, as if
+they had positively rained down.
+
+“What!” gasped Madame de Fondege, “you haven’t put this room in order,
+Justine?”
+
+“Indeed, madame, I haven’t had time.”
+
+“But it’s more than a month since M. Gustave slept here?”
+
+“I know it; but madame must remember that I have been very much hurried
+this last month, having to do all the washing and ironing since the
+laundress----”
+
+“That’s sufficient,” interrupted Madame de Fondege. And turning to
+Marguerite, she said: “You will, I am sure, excuse this disorder, my
+dear child. By this time to-morrow the room shall be transformed into
+one of those dainty nests of muslin and flowers which young girls
+delight in.”
+
+Connected with this apartment, which was known to the household as the
+lieutenant’s room, there was a much smaller chamber lighted only by a
+single window, and originally intended for a dressing-room. It had two
+doors, one of them communicating with Marguerite’s room, and the
+other with the passage; and it was now offered to Madame Leon, who
+on comparing these quarters with the spacious suite of rooms she had
+occupied at the Hotel de Chalusse, had considerable difficulty in
+repressing a grimace. Still she did not hesitate nor even murmur. M. de
+Valorsay’s orders bound her to Marguerite, and she deemed it fortunate
+that she was allowed to follow her. And whether the marquis succeeded or
+not, he had promised her a sufficiently liberal reward to compensate
+for all personal discomfort. So, in the sweetest of voices, and with
+a feigned humility of manner, she declared this little room to be even
+much too good for a poor widow whose misfortunes had compelled her to
+abdicate her position in society.
+
+The attentions which M. and Madame de Fondege showed her contributed not
+a little to her resignation. Without knowing exactly what the General
+and his wife expected from Mademoiselle Marguerite, she was shrewd
+enough to divine that they hoped to gain some important advantage.
+Now her “dear child” had declared her to be a trusted friend, who was
+indispensable to her existence and comfort. “So these people will pay
+assiduous court to me,” she thought. And being quite ready to play
+a double part as the spy of the Marquis de Valorsay, and the Fondege
+family, and quite willing to espouse the latter’s cause should that
+prove to be the more remunerative course, she saw a long series of
+polite attentions and gifts before her.
+
+That very evening her prophecies were realized; and she received a proof
+of consideration which positively delighted her. It was decided that
+she should take her meals at the family table, a thing which had never
+happened at the Hotel de Chalusse. Mademoiselle Marguerite raised a few
+objections, which Madame Leon answered with a venomous look, but Madame
+de Fondege insisted upon the arrangement, not understanding, she said,
+graciously, why they need deprive themselves of the society of such an
+agreeable and distinguished person. Madame Leon in no wise doubted but
+this favor was due to her merit alone, but Mademoiselle Marguerite, who
+was more discerning, saw that their hostess was really furious at the
+idea, but was compelled to submit to it by the imperious necessity of
+preventing Madame Leon from coming in contact with the servants, who
+might make some decidedly compromising disclosures. For there were
+evidently many little mysteries and make-shifts to be concealed in this
+household. For instance, while the servants were carrying the luggage
+upstairs, Marguerite discovered Madame de Fondege and her maid in
+close consultation, whispering with that volubility which betrays an
+unexpected and pressing perplexity. What were they talking about? She
+listened without any compunctions of conscience, and the words “a pair
+of sheets,” repeated again and again, furnished her with abundant food
+for reflection. “Is it possible,” she thought, “that they have no sheets
+to give us?”
+
+It did not take her long to discover the maid’s opinion of the
+establishment in which she served; for while she brandished her broom
+and duster, this girl, exasperated undoubtedly by the increase of work
+she saw in store for her, growled and cursed the old barrack where one
+was worked to death, where one never had enough to eat, and where the
+wages were always in arrears. Mademoiselle Marguerite was doing her
+best to aid the maid, who was greatly surprised to find this handsome,
+queenly young lady so obliging, when Evariste, the same who had received
+warning an hour before, made his appearance, and announced in an
+insolent tone that “Madame la Comtesse was served.”
+
+For Madame de Fondege exacted this title. She had improvised it, as
+her husband had improvised his title of General, and without much more
+difficulty. By a search in the family archives she had discovered--so
+she declared to her intimate friends--that she was the descendant of a
+noble family, and that one of her ancestors had held a most important
+position at the court of Francis I. or of Louis XII. Indeed, she
+sometimes confounded them. However, people who had not known her father,
+the wood merchant, saw nothing impossible in the statements.
+
+Evariste was dressed as a butler should be dressed when he announces
+dinner to a person of rank. In the daytime when he discharged the duties
+of footman, he was gorgeous in gold lace; but in the evening, he arrayed
+himself in severe black, such as is appropriate to the butler of an
+aristocratic household. Immediately after his announcement everybody
+repaired to the sumptuous dining-room which, with its huge side-boards,
+loaded with silver and rare china, looked not unlike a museum. Such was
+the display, indeed, that when Mademoiselle Marguerite took a seat at
+the table, between the General and his wife, and opposite Madame Leon,
+she asked herself if she had not been the victim of that dangerous
+optical delusion known as prejudice. She noticed that the supply of
+knives and forks was rather scanty; but many economical housewives keep
+most of their silver under lock and key; besides the china was very
+handsome and marked with the General’s monogram, surmounted by his
+wife’s coronet.
+
+However, the dinner was badly cooked and poorly served. One might have
+supposed it to be a scullery maid’s first attempt. Still the General
+devoured it with delight. He partook ravenously of every dish, a flush
+rose to his cheeks, and an expression of profound satisfaction was
+visible upon his countenance. “From this,” thought Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, “I must infer that he usually goes hungry, and that this
+seems a positive feast to him.” In fact, he seemed bubbling over with
+contentment. He twirled his mustaches a la Victor Emmanuel, and rolled
+his “r,” as he said, “Sacr-r-r-r-r-e bleu!” even more ferociously than
+usual. It was only by a powerful effort that he restrained himself from
+indulging in various witticisms which would have been most unseemly in
+the presence of a poor girl who had just lost her father and all her
+hopes of fortune. But he did forget himself so much as to say that the
+drive to the cemetery had whetted his appetite, and to address his wife
+as Madame Range-a-bord, a title which had been bestowed upon her by a
+sailor brother.
+
+Crimson with anger to the very roots of her coarse, sandy hair--amazed
+to see her husband deport himself in this style, and almost suffocated
+by the necessity of restraining her wrath, Madame de Fondege was heroic
+enough to smile, though her eyes flashed ominously. But the General was
+not at all dismayed. On the contrary, he cared so little for his wife’s
+displeasure that, when the dessert was served, he turned to the servant,
+and, with a wink that Mademoiselle Marguerite noticed, “Evariste,” he
+ordered, “go to the wine-cellar, and bring me a bottle of old Bordeaux.”
+
+The valet, who had just received a week’s notice, was only too glad of
+an opportunity for revenge. So with a malicious smile, and in a drawling
+tone, he replied: “Then monsieur must give me the money. Monsieur knows
+very well that neither the grocer nor the wine-merchant will trust him
+any longer.”
+
+M. de Fondege rose from the table, looking very pale; but before he had
+time to utter a word, his wife came to the rescue. “You know, my dear,
+that I don’t trust the key of my cellar to this lad. Evariste, call
+Justine.”
+
+The pert-looking chambermaid appeared, and her mistress told her where
+she would find the key of the famous cellar. About a quarter of an hour
+afterward, one of those bottles which grocers and wine-merchants prepare
+for the benefit of credulous customers was brought in--a bottle duly
+covered with dust and mould to give it a venerable appearance, and
+festooned with cobwebs, such as the urchins of Paris collect and sell at
+from fifteen sous to two francs a pound, according to quality. But the
+Bordeaux did not restore the General’s equanimity. He was silent and
+subdued; and his relief was evident when, after the coffee had been
+served, his wife exclaimed: “We won’t keep you from your club, my dear.
+I want a chat with our dear child.”
+
+Since she dismissed the General so unceremoniously, Madame de Fondege
+evidently wished for a tete-a-tete with Mademoiselle Marguerite. At
+least Madame Leon thought so, or feigned to think so, and addressing the
+young girl, she said: “I shall be obliged to leave you for a couple of
+hours, my dear young lady. My relatives would never forgive me if I did
+not inform them of my change of residence.”
+
+This was the first time since she had been engaged by the Count de
+Chalusse, that the estimable “companion” had ever made any direct
+allusion to her relatives, and what is more, to relatives residing in
+Paris. She had previously only spoken of them in general terms, giving
+people to understand that her relatives had not been unfortunate like
+herself--that they still retained their exalted rank, though she had
+fallen, and that she found it difficult to decline the favors they
+longed to heap upon her.
+
+However, Mademoiselle Marguerite evinced no surprise. “Go at once and
+inform your relatives, my dear Leon,” she said, without a shade of
+sarcasm in her manner. “I hope they won’t be offended by your devotion
+to me.” But in her secret heart, she thought: “This hypocrite is going
+to report to the Marquis de Valorsay, and these relatives of hers will
+furnish her with excuses for future visits to him.”
+
+The General went off, the servants began to clear the table, and
+Mademoiselle Marguerite followed her hostess to the drawing-room. It was
+a lofty and spacious apartment, lighted by three windows, and even more
+sumptuous in its appointments than the dining-room. Furniture, carpets,
+and hangings, were all in rather poor taste, perhaps, but costly, very
+costly. As the evening was a cold one, Madame de Fondege ordered the
+fire to be lighted. She seated herself on a sofa near the mantelpiece,
+and when Mademoiselle Marguerite had taken a chair opposite her, she
+began, “Now, my dear child, let us have a quiet talk.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite expected some important communication, so that
+she was not a little surprised when Madame de Fondege resumed: “Have you
+thought about your mourning?”
+
+“About my mourning, madame?”
+
+“Yes. I mean, have you decided what dresses you will purchase? It is
+an important matter, my dear--more important than you suppose. They are
+making costumes entirely of crepe now, puffed and plaited, and extremely
+stylish. I saw one that would suit you well. You may think that a
+costume for deep mourning made with puffs would be a trifle LOUD, but
+that depends upon tastes. The Duchess de Veljo wore one only eleven days
+after her husband’s death; and she allowed some of her hair, which is
+superb, to fall over her shoulders, a la pleureuse, and the effect was
+extremely touching.” Was Madame de Fondege speaking sincerely? There
+could be no doubt of it. Her features, which had been distorted with
+anger when the General took it into his head to order the bottle of
+Bordeaux, had regained their usual placidity of expression, and had even
+brightened a little. “I am entirely at your service, my dear, if you
+wish any shopping done,” she continued. “And if you are not quite
+pleased with your dressmaker, I will take you to mine, who works like an
+angel. But how absurd I am. You will of course employ Van Klopen. I go
+to him occasionally myself, but only on great occasions. Between you and
+me, I think him a trifle too high in his charges.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite could scarcely repress a smile. “I must confess,
+madame, that from my infancy I have been in the habit of making almost
+all my dresses myself.”
+
+The General’s wife raised her eyes to Heaven in real or feigned
+astonishment. “Yourself!” she repeated four or five times, as if to make
+sure that she had heard aright. “Yourself! That is incomprehensible!
+You, the daughter of a man who possessed an income of five or six
+hundred thousand francs a year! Still I know that poor M. de Chalusse,
+though unquestionably a very worthy and excellent man, was peculiar in
+some of his ideas.”
+
+“Excuse me, madame. What I did, I did for my own pleasure.”
+
+But this assertion exceeded Madame de Fondege’s powers of comprehension.
+“Impossible!” she murmured, “impossible! But, my poor child, what did
+you do for fashions--for patterns?”
+
+The immense importance she attached to the matter was so manifest that
+Marguerite could not refrain from smiling. “I was probably not a very
+close follower of the fashions,” she replied. “The dress that I am
+wearing now----.”
+
+“Is very pretty, my child, and it becomes you extremely; that’s the
+truth. Only, to be frank, I must confess that this style is no longer
+worn--no--not at all. You must have your new dresses made in quite a
+different way.”
+
+“But I already have more dresses than I need, madame.”
+
+“What! black dresses?”
+
+“I seldom wear anything but black.”
+
+Evidently her hostess had never heard anything like this before. “Oh!
+all right,” said she, “these dresses will doubtless do very well for
+your first months of mourning--but afterward? Do you suppose, my poor
+dear, that I’m going to allow you to shut yourself up as you did at the
+Hotel de Chalusse? Good heavens! how dull it must have been for you,
+alone in that big house, without society or friends.”
+
+A tear fell from Marguerite’s long lashes. “I was very happy there,
+madame,” she murmured.
+
+“You think so; but you will change your mind. When one has never tasted
+real pleasure, one cannot realize how gloomy one’s life really is. No
+doubt, you were very unhappy alone with M. de Chalusse.”
+
+“Oh! madame----”
+
+“Tut! tut! my dear, I know what I am talking about. Wait until you have
+been introduced into society before you boast of the charms of solitude.
+Poor dear! I doubt if you have ever attended a ball in your whole life.
+No! I was sure of it, and you are twenty! Fortunately, I am here. I will
+take your mother’s place, and we will make up for lost time! Beautiful
+as you are, my child--for you are divinely beautiful--you will reign as
+a queen wherever you appear. Doesn’t that thought make that cold little
+heart of yours throb more quickly? Ah! fetes and music, wonderful
+toilettes and the flashing of diamonds, the admiration of gentlemen,
+the envy of rivals, the consciousness of one’s own beauty, are these
+delights not enough to fill any woman’s life? It is intoxication,
+perhaps, but an intoxication which is happiness.”
+
+Was she sincere, or did she hope to dazzle this lonely girl, and then
+rule her through the tastes she might succeed in giving her? As is not
+unfrequently the case with callous natures, Madame de Fondege was a
+compound of frankness and cunning. What she was saying now she really
+meant; and as it was to her interest to say it, she urged her opinions
+boldly and even eloquently. Twenty-four hours earlier, proud and
+truthful Marguerite would have silenced her at once. She would have told
+her that such pleasures could never have any charm for her, and that she
+felt only scorn and disgust for such worthless aims and sordid desires.
+But having resolved to appear a dupe, she concealed her real feelings
+under an air of surprise, and was astonished and even ashamed to find
+that she could dissemble so well.
+
+“Besides,” continued Madame de Fondege, “a marriageable young girl
+should never shut herself up like a nun. She will never find a husband
+if she remains at home--and she must marry. Indeed, marriage is a
+sensible woman’s only object in life, since it is her emancipation.”
+
+Was Madame de Fondege going to plead her son’s cause? Mademoiselle
+Marguerite almost believed it--but the lady was too shrewd for that. She
+took good care not to mention as much as Lieutenant Gustave’s name.
+
+“The season will certainly be unusually brilliant,” she said, “and
+it will begin very early. On the fifth of November, the Countess de
+Commarin will give a superb fete; all Paris will be there. On the
+seventh, there will be a ball at the house of the Viscountess de Bois
+d’Ardon. On the eleventh, there will be a concert, followed by a ball,
+at the superb mansion of the Baroness Trigault--you know--the wife of
+that strange man who spends all his time in playing cards.”
+
+“This is the first time I ever heard the name mentioned.”
+
+“Really! and you have been living in Paris for years. It seems
+incomprehensible. You must know then, my dear little ignoramus, that the
+Baroness Trigault is one of the most distinguished ladies in Paris, and
+certainly the best dressed. I am sure her bill at Van Klopen’s is not
+less than a hundred thousand francs a year--and that is saying enough,
+is it not?” And with genuine pride, she added: “The baroness is my
+friend. I will introduce you to her.”
+
+Having once started on this theme, Madame de Fondege was not easily
+silenced. It was evidently her ambition to be considered a woman of the
+world, and to be acquainted with all the leaders of fashionable society;
+and, in fact, if one listened to her conversation for an hour one could
+learn all the gossip of the day. Though she was unable to interest
+herself in this tittle-tattle, Marguerite was pretending to listen to it
+with profound attention when the drawing-room door suddenly opened and
+Evariste appeared with an impudent smile on his face. “Madame Landoire,
+the milliner, is here, and desires to speak with Madame la Comtesse,” he
+said.
+
+On hearing this name, Madame de Fondege started as if she had been
+stung by a viper. “Let her wait,” she said quickly. “I will see her in a
+moment.”
+
+The order was useless, for the visitor was already on the threshold.
+She was a tall, dark-haired, ill-mannered woman. “Ah! I’ve found you
+at last,” she said, rudely, “and I’m not sorry. This is the fourth time
+I’ve come here with my bill.”
+
+Madame de Fondege pointed to Mademoiselle Marguerite, and exclaimed:
+“Wait, at least, until I am alone before you speak to me on business.”
+
+Madame Landoire shrugged her shoulders. “As if you were ever alone,” she
+growled. “I wish to put an end to this.”
+
+“Step into my room then, and we will put an end to it, and at once.”
+
+This opportunity to escape from Madame de Fondege must not be allowed
+to pass; so Marguerite asked permission to withdraw, declaring, what was
+really the truth, that she felt completely tired out. After receiving
+a maternal kiss from her hostess, accompanied by a “sleep well, my dear
+child,” she retired to her own room. Thanks to Madame Leon’s absence,
+she found herself alone, and, drawing a blotting-pad from one of her
+trunks, she hastily wrote a note to M. Isidore Fortunat, telling him
+that she would call upon him on the following Tuesday. “I must be very
+awkward,” she thought, “if to-morrow, on going to mass, I can’t find
+an opportunity to throw this note into a letter-box without being
+observed.”
+
+It was fortunate that she had lost no time, for her writing-case was
+scarcely in its place again before Madame Leon entered, evidently out of
+sorts. “Well,” asked Marguerite, “did you see your friends?”
+
+“Don’t speak of it, my dear young lady; they were all of them away from
+home--they had gone to the play.”
+
+“Ah?”
+
+“So I shall go again early to-morrow morning; you must realize how
+important it is.”
+
+“Yes, I understand.”
+
+But Madame Leon, who was usually so loquacious, did not seem to be in a
+talkative mood that evening, and, after kissing her dear young lady, she
+went into her own room.
+
+“She did not succeed in finding the Marquis de Valorsay,” thought
+Marguerite, “and being in doubt as to the part she is to play, she feels
+furious.”
+
+The young girl tried to sum up the impressions of the evening, and to
+decide upon a plan of conduct, but she felt sad and very weary. She said
+to herself that rest would be more beneficial than anything else, and
+that her mind would be clearer on the morrow; so after a fervent prayer
+in which Pascal Ferailleur’s name was mentioned several times, she
+prepared for bed. But before she fell asleep she was able to collect
+another bit of evidence. The sheets on her bed were new.
+
+If Marguerite had been born in the Hotel de Chalusse, if she had known a
+father’s and a mother’s tender care from her infancy, if she had always
+been protected by a large fortune from the stern realities of life,
+there would have been no hope for her now that she was left poor and
+alone--for how can a girl avoid dangers she is ignorant of? But from her
+earliest childhood Marguerite had studied the difficult science of real
+life under the best of teachers--misfortune. Cast upon her own resources
+at the age of thirteen, she had learned to look upon everybody and
+everything with distrust; and by relying only on herself, she had become
+strangely cautious and clear-sighted. She knew how to watch and how
+to listen, how to deliberate and how to act. Two men, the Marquis de
+Valorsay and M. de Fondege’s son, coveted her hand; and one of the two,
+the marquis, so she believed, was capable of any crime. Still she felt
+no fears. She had been in danger once before when she was little more
+than a child, when the brother of her employer insulted her with his
+attentions, but she had escaped unharmed.
+
+Deceit was certainly most repugnant to her truth-loving nature; but it
+was the only weapon of defence she possessed. And so on the following
+day she carefully studied the abode of her entertainers. And certainly
+the study was instructive. The General’s household was truly Parisian
+in character; or, at least, it was what a Parisian household inevitably
+becomes when its inmates fall a prey to the constantly increasing
+passion for luxury and display, to the furore for aping the habits and
+expenditure of millionaires, and to the noble and elevated desire of
+humiliating and outshining their neighbors. Ease, health, and comfort
+had been unscrupulously sacrificed to show. The dining-room was
+magnificent, the drawing-room superb; but these were the only
+comfortably furnished apartments in the establishment. The other rooms
+were bare and desolate. It is true that Madame de Fondege had a handsome
+wardrobe with glass doors in her own room, but this was an article
+which the friend of the fashionable Baroness Trigault could not possibly
+dispense with. On the other hand, her bed had no curtains.
+
+The aspect of the place fittingly explained the habits and manners of
+the inmates. What sinister fears must have haunted them! for how could
+this extreme destitution in one part of the establishment be reconciled
+with the luxury noticeable in the other, except by the fact that a
+desperate struggle to keep up appearances was constantly going on? And
+this constant anxiety made out-door noise, excitement, and gayety a
+necessity of their existence, and caused them to welcome anything that
+took them from the home where they had barely sufficient to deceive
+society, and not enough to impose upon their creditors. “And they keep
+three servants,” thought Mademoiselle Marguerite--“three enemies who
+spend their time in ridiculing them, and torturing their vanity.”
+
+Thus, on the very first day after her arrival, she realized the real
+situation of the General and his wife. They were certainly on the
+verge of ruin when Mademoiselle Marguerite accepted their hospitality.
+Everything went to prove this: the coachman’s insolent demand, the
+servants’ impudence, the grocer’s refusal to furnish a single bottle of
+wine on credit, the milliner’s persistence, and, lastly, the new
+sheets on the visitors’ beds. “Yes,” thought Mademoiselle Marguerite to
+herself, “the Fondeges were ruined when I came here. They would never
+have sunk so low if they had not been utterly destitute of resources.
+So, if they rise again, if money and credit come back again, then the
+old magistrate is right--they have obtained possession of the Chalusse
+millions!”
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+On this side, at least, Mademoiselle Marguerite had no very wide field
+of investigation to explore. Her common sense told her that her task
+would merely consist in carefully watching the behavior of the General
+and his wife, in noting their expenditure, and so on. It was a matter
+of close attention, and of infinitesimal trifles. Nor was she much
+encouraged by her first success. It was, perhaps, important; and yet
+it might be nothing. For she felt that the real difficulties would not
+begin until she became morally certain that the General had stolen the
+millions that were missing from the count’s escritoire. Even then it
+would remain for her to discover how he had obtained possession of
+this money. And when she had succeeded in doing this, would her task be
+ended? Certainly not. She must obtain sufficient evidence to give her
+the right of accusing the General openly, and in the face of every one.
+She must have material and indisputable proofs before she could say: “A
+robbery has been committed. I was accused of it. I was innocent. Here is
+the culprit!”
+
+What a long journey must be made before this goal was reached! No
+matter! Now that she had a positive and fixed point of departure, she
+felt that she possessed enough energy to sustain her in her endeavors
+for years, if need be. What troubled her most was that she could not
+logically explain the conduct of her enemies from the time M. de Fondege
+had asked her hand for his son up to the present moment. And first, why
+had they been so audacious or so imprudent as to bring her to their own
+home if they had really stolen one of those immense amounts that are
+sure to betray their possessors? “They are mad,” she thought, “or else
+they must deem me blind, deaf, and more stupid than mortal ever was!”
+ Secondly, why should they be so anxious to marry her to their son,
+Lieutenant Gustave? This also was a puzzling question. However, she was
+fully decided on one point: the suspicions of the Fondege family must
+not be aroused. If they were on their guard, it would be the easiest
+thing in the world for them to pay their debts quietly, and increase
+their expenditure so imperceptibly that she would not be able to prove a
+sudden acquisition of wealth.
+
+But the events of the next few days dispelled these apprehensions. That
+very afternoon, although it was Sunday, it became evident that a
+shower of gold had fallen on the General’s abode. The door-bell rang
+incessantly for several hours, and an interminable procession of
+tradesmen entered. It looked very much as if M. de Fondege had called a
+meeting of his creditors. They came in haughty and arrogant, with their
+hats upon their heads, and surly of speech, like people who have made
+up their minds to accept their loss, but who intend to pay themselves in
+rudeness. They were ushered into the drawing-room where the General was
+holding his levee; they remained there from five to ten minutes,
+and then, bowing low with hat in hand, they retired with radiant
+countenances, and an obsequious smile on their lips. So they had been
+paid. And as if to prove to Mademoiselle Marguerite that her suspicions
+were correct, she chanced to be present when the livery stable-keeper
+presented his bill.
+
+Madame de Fondege received him very haughtily. “Ah! here you are!”
+ she exclaimed, rudely, as soon as he appeared. “So you are the man who
+teaches his drivers to insult his customers? That is an excellent way to
+gain patronage. What! I hire a one-horse carriage from you by the month,
+and because I happen to wish for a two-horse vehicle for a single day,
+you make me pay the difference. You should demand payment in advance if
+you are so suspicious.”
+
+The stable-keeper, who had a bill for nearly four thousand francs in
+his pocket, stood listening with the air of a man who is meditating some
+crushing reply; but she did not give him time to deliver it. “When
+I have cause to complain of the people I employ, I dismiss them and
+replace them by others. Insolence is one of those things that I never
+forgive. Give me your bill.”
+
+The man, in whose face doubt, fear, and hope had succeeded each other in
+swift succession, thereupon drew an interminable bill from his pocket.
+And when he saw the bank-notes, when he saw the bill paid without
+dispute or even examination, he was seized with a wondering respect, and
+his voice became sweeter than honey. They say the payment of a bad debt
+delights a merchant a thousand times more than the settlement of fifty
+good ones. The truth of this assertion became apparent in the present
+case. Mademoiselle Marguerite thought the man was going to beg “Madame
+la Comtesse to do him the favor to withhold a portion of the small
+amount.” For the Parisian tradesman is so constituted that very
+frequently it is not necessary to pay him money, but only to show it.
+
+However, this creditor’s abnegation did not extend so far; still he did
+entreat Madame la Comtesse not to leave him on account of a blunder--for
+it was a blunder--he swore it on his children’s heads. His coachman was
+only a fool and a drunkard, who had misunderstood him entirely, and whom
+he should ignominiously dismiss on returning to his establishment.
+But “Madame la Comtesse” was inflexible. She sent the man about his
+business, saying, “I never place myself in a position to be treated with
+disrespect a second time.”
+
+This probably accounted for the fact that Evariste, the footman, who had
+been so wanting in respect the previous evening, had been sent away that
+very morning. Mademoiselle Marguerite did not see him again. Dinner was
+served by a new servant, who had been sent by an Employment Office, and
+engaged without a question, no doubt because Evariste’s livery fitted
+him like a glove. Had the cook also been replaced? Mademoiselle
+Marguerite thought so, though she had no means of convincing herself on
+this point. It was certain, however, that the Sunday dinner was utterly
+unlike that of the evening before. Quality had replaced quantity, and
+care, profusion. It was not necessary to send to the cellar for a bottle
+of Chateau-Laroze; it made its appearance at the proper moment, warmed
+to the precise degree of temperature, and seemed quite to the taste of
+excellent Madame Leon.
+
+In twenty-four hours the Fondege family had been raised to such
+affluence that they must have asked themselves if it were possible they
+had ever known the agonies of that life of false appearances and sham
+luxury which is a thousand times worse than an existence of abject
+poverty. “Is it possible that I am deceived?” Marguerite said to
+herself, on retiring to her room that evening. For it surprised her that
+a keen-sighted person like Madame Leon should not have remarked this
+revolution; but the worthy companion merely declared the General and his
+wife to be charming people, and did not cease to congratulate her dear
+young lady upon having accepted their hospitality. “I feel quite at home
+here,” said she; “and though my room is a trifle small, I shall have
+nothing to wish for when it has been refurnished.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite spent a restless and uncomfortable night. In
+spite of her reason, in spite of the convincing proofs she had seen, the
+most disturbing doubts returned. Might she not have judged the situation
+with a prejudiced mind? Had the Fondeges really been as reduced in
+circumstances as she supposed? Like every one who has been unfortunate,
+she feared illusions, and was extremely distrustful of everything
+that seemed to favor her hopes and wishes. The only thing that
+really encouraged her was the thought that she could consult the old
+magistrate, and that M. de Chalusse’s former agent might succeed in
+finding Pascal Ferailleur. M. Fortunat must have received her letter
+by this time: he would undoubtedly expect her on Tuesday, and it only
+remained for her to invent some excuse which would give her a couple of
+hours’ liberty without awakening suspicion.
+
+She rose early the next morning, and had almost completed her toilette,
+when she heard some one in the passage outside rapping at the door of
+Madame Leon’s room. “Who’s there?” inquired that worthy lady.
+
+It was Justine, Madame de Fondege’s maid, who answered in a pert voice,
+“Here is a letter, madame, which has just been sent up by the concierge.
+It is addressed to Madame Leon. That is your name, is it not?”
+
+Marguerite staggered as if she had received a heavy blow. “My God! a
+letter from the Marquis de Valorsay!” she thought.
+
+It was evident that the estimable lady was expecting this missive by
+the eagerness with which she sprang out of bed and opened the door.
+And Marguerite heard her say to the servant in her sweetest voice: “A
+thousand thanks, my child! Ah! this is a great relief, I have heard from
+my brother-in-law at last. I recognize his hand-writing.” And then the
+door closed again.
+
+Standing silent and motionless in the middle of her room, Marguerite
+listened with that feverish anxiety that excites the perceptive
+faculties to the utmost degree. An inward voice, stronger than reason,
+told her that this letter threatened her happiness, her future, perhaps
+her life! But how could she convince herself of the truth of this
+presentiment? If she had followed her first impulse, she would have
+rushed into Madame Leon’s room and have snatched the letter from her
+hands. But if she did this, she would betray herself, and prove that she
+was not the dupe they supposed her to be, and this supposition on the
+part of her enemies constituted her only chance of salvation.
+
+If she could only watch Madame Leon as she read the letter, and gain
+some information from the expression of her face; but this seemed
+impossible, for the keyhole was blocked up by the key, which had been
+left in the lock on the other side. Suddenly a crack in the partition
+attracted her attention, and finding that it extended through the wall,
+she realized she might watch what was passing in the adjoining room. So
+she approached the spot on tiptoe, and, with bated breath, stooped and
+looked in.
+
+In her impatience to learn the contents of her letter, Madame Leon
+had not gone back to bed. She had broken the seal, and was reading the
+missive, standing barefooted in her night-dress, directly opposite the
+little crevice. She read line after line, and word after word, and
+her knitted brows and compressed lips suggested deep concentration of
+thought mingled with discontent. At last she shrugged her shoulders,
+muttered a few inaudible words, and laid the open letter upon the
+rickety chest of drawers, which, with two chairs and a bed, constituted
+the entire furniture of her apartment.
+
+“My God!” exclaimed Marguerite, with bated breath, “if she would only
+forget it!”
+
+But she did not forget it. She began to dress, and when she had finished
+she read the letter again, and then placed it carefully in one of the
+drawers, which she locked, putting the key in her pocket.
+
+“I shall never know, then,” thought Marguerite; “no, I shall never know.
+But I must know--and I will!” she added vehemently.
+
+From that moment a firm determination to obtain that letter took
+possession of her mind; and so deeply was she occupied in seeking for
+some means to surmount the difficulties which stood in her way that she
+did not say a dozen words during breakfast. “I must be a fool if I can’t
+find some way of gaining possession of that letter,” she said to herself
+again and again. “I’m sure I could find in it the explanation of the
+abominable intrigue which Pascal and I are the victims of.”
+
+Happily, her preoccupation was not remarked. Each person present was too
+deeply engrossed in his or her own concerns to notice the behavior of
+the others. Madame Leon’s mind was occupied with the news she had just
+received; and, besides, her attention was considerably attracted by some
+partridges garnished with truffles, and a bottle of Chateau-Laroze.
+For she was rather fond of good living, the dear lady, as she confessed
+herself, adding that no one is perfect. The General talked of nothing
+but a certain pair of horses which he was to look at that afternoon, and
+which he thought of buying--being quite disgusted with job-masters, so
+he declared. Besides, he expected to get the animals at a bargain, as
+they were the property of a young gentleman who had been led to commit
+certain misdemeanors by his love of gambling and his passion for a
+notorious woman who was addicted with an insatiable desire for jewelry.
+
+As for Madame de Fondege, her head seemed to have been completely turned
+by the prospect of the approaching fete at the Countess de Commarin’s.
+She had only a fortnight left to make her preparations. All the evening
+before, through part of the night, and ever since she had been awake
+that morning, she had been racking her brain to arrive at an effective
+combination of colors and materials. And at the cost of a terrible
+headache, she had at last conceived one of those toilettes which are
+sure to make a sensation, and which the newspaper reporters will mention
+as noticeable for its “chic.” “Picture to yourself,” she said, all
+ablaze with enthusiasm, “picture to yourself a robe of tea-flower silk,
+trimmed with bands of heavy holland-tinted satin, thickly embroidered
+with flowers. A wide flounce of Valenciennes at the bottom of the skirt.
+Over this, I shall wear a tunic of pearl-gray crepe, edged with a fringe
+of the various shades in the dress, and forming a panier behind.”
+
+But how much trouble, time and labor must be expended before such an
+elaborate chef-d’oeuvre could be completed! How many conferences with
+the dressmaker, with the florist, and the embroiderer! How many doubts,
+how many inevitable mistakes! Ah! there was not a moment to lose! Madame
+de Fondege, who was dressed to go out, and who had already sent for a
+carriage, insisted that Mademoiselle Marguerite should accompany her.
+And certainly, the General’s wife deemed the proposal a seductive one.
+It is a very fashionable amusement to run from one shop to another,
+even when one cannot, or will not, buy. It is a custom, which some
+noble ladies have imported from America, to the despair of the poor
+shopkeepers. And thus every fine afternoon, the swell shops are filled
+to overflowing with richly-attired dames and damsels, who ask to see all
+the new goods. It is far more amusing than remaining at home. And when
+they return to dinner in the evening, after inspecting hundreds of yards
+of silk and satin, they are very well pleased with themselves, for they
+have not lost the day. Nor do the shrewdest always return from these
+expeditions empty-handed. A dozen gloves or a piece of lace can be
+hidden so easily in the folds of a mantle!
+
+And yet, to Madame de Fondege’s great surprise, Marguerite declined the
+invitation. “I have so many things to put in order,” she added, feeling
+that an excuse was indispensable.
+
+But Madame Leon, who had not the same reasons as her dear child
+for wishing to remain at home, kindly offered her services. She was
+acquainted with several of the best shops, she declared, particularly
+with the establishment of a dealer in laces, in the Rue de Mulhouse, and
+thanks to an introduction from her, Madame de Fondege could not fail to
+conclude a very advantageous bargain there. “Very well,” replied Madame
+de Fondege, “I will take you with me, then; but make haste and dress
+while I put on my bonnet.”
+
+They left the breakfast-room at the same time, closely followed by
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, who was disturbed by a hope which she scarcely
+dared confess to herself. With her forehead resting against the wall,
+and her eye peering through the tiny crack, she watched her governess
+change her dress, throw a shawl over her shoulders, put on her best
+bonnet, and, after a glance at the looking-glass, rush from the room,
+exclaiming: “Here I am, my dear countess. I’m ready.”
+
+And a few moments afterward they left the house together.
+
+As the outer door closed after them, Marguerite’s brain whirled. If she
+were not deceived, Madame Leon had left the key of the drawers in the
+pocket of the dress she had just taken off. So it was with a wildly
+throbbing heart that she opened the communicating door and entered her
+“companion’s” room. She hastily approached the bed on which the dress
+was lying, and, with a trembling hand, she began to search for the
+pocket. Fortune favored her! The key was there. The letter was within
+her reach. But she was about to do a deed against which her whole nature
+revolted. To steal a key, to force an article of furniture open, and
+violate the secret of a private correspondence, these were actions so
+repugnant to her sense of honor, and her pride, that for some time she
+stood irresolute. At last the instinct of self-preservation overpowered
+her scruples. Was not her honor, and Pascal’s honor also, at stake--as
+well as their mutual love and happiness? “It would be folly to
+hesitate.” she murmured. And with a firm hand she placed the key in the
+lock.
+
+The latter was out of order and the drawer was only opened with
+difficulty. But there, on some clothes which Madame Leon had not yet
+found time to arrange, Marguerite saw the letter. She eagerly snatched
+it up, unfolded it, and read: “Dear Madame Leon--” “Dear me,” she
+muttered, “here is the name in full. This is an indiscretion which will
+render denial difficult.” And she resumed her perusal: “Your letter,
+which I have just received, confirms what my servants had already
+told me: that twice during my absence--on Saturday evening and Sunday
+morning--you called at my house to see me.” So Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+penetration had served her well. All this talk about anxious relatives
+had only been an excuse invented by Madame Leon to enable her to absent
+herself whenever occasion required. “I regret,” continued the letter,
+“that you did not find me at home, for I have instructions of the
+greatest importance to give you. We are approaching the decisive moment.
+I have formed a plan which will completely, and forever, efface all
+remembrance of that cursed P. F., in case any one condescended to think
+of him after the disgrace we fastened upon him the other evening at the
+house of Madame d’Argeles.” P. F.--these initials of course meant
+Pascal Ferailleur. Then he was innocent, and she held an undeniable,
+irrefutable proof of his innocence in her hands. How coolly and
+impudently Valorsay confessed his atrocious crime! “A bold stroke is in
+contemplation which, if no unfortunate and well-nigh impossible accident
+occur, will throw the girl into my arms.” Marguerite shuddered. “The
+girl” referred to her, of course. “Thanks to the assistance of one of my
+friends,” added the letter “I can place this proud damsel in a perilous,
+terribly perilous position, from which she cannot possibly extricate
+herself unaided. But, just as she gives herself up for lost, I shall
+interpose. I shall save her; and it will be strange if gratitude does
+not work the necessary miracle in my favor. The plan is certain to
+succeed. Still, it will be all the better if the physician who attended
+M. de C---- in his last moments, and whom you spoke to me about (Dr.
+Jodon, if I remember rightly), will consent to lend us a helping hand.
+What kind of a man is he? If he is accessible to the seductive influence
+of a few thousand francs, I shall consider the business as good as
+concluded. Your conduct up to the present time has been a chef-d’oeuvre,
+for which you shall be amply compensated. You have cause to know that
+I am not ungrateful. Let the F’s continue their intrigues, and even
+pretend to favor them. I am not afraid of these people. I understand
+their game perfectly, and know why they wish my little one to marry
+their son. But when they become troublesome, I shall crush them like
+glass. In spite of these explanations, which I have just given you for
+your guidance, it is very necessary that I should see you. I shall look
+for you on Tuesday afternoon, between three and four o’clock. Above all,
+don’t fail to bring me the desired information respecting Dr. Jodon. I
+am, my dear madame, devotedly yours--V.” Below ran a postscript which
+read as follows: “When you come on Tuesday bring this letter with you.
+We will burn it together. Don’t imagine that I distrust you--but there
+is nothing so dangerous as letters.”
+
+For some time Marguerite stood, stunned and appalled by the Marquis de
+Valorsay’s audacity, and by the language of this letter, which was at
+once so obscure and so clear, every line of it threatening her future.
+The reality surpassed her worst apprehensions, but realizing the gravity
+of the situation, she shook off the torpor stealing over her. She felt
+that every second was precious, and that she must act, and act at once.
+But what should she do? Simply return the letter to its place, and
+continue to act the role of a dupe, as if nothing had happened? No; that
+must not be. It would be madness not to seize this flagrant proof of
+the Marquis de Valorsay’s infamy. But on the other hand, if she kept
+the letter, Madame Leon would immediately discover its loss, and an
+explanation would be unavoidable. M. de Valorsay would be worsted, but
+not annihilated, and the plans which made the physician’s intervention
+a necessity would never be revealed. She thought of hastening to her
+friend the old magistrate; but he lived a long way off, and time was
+pressing. Besides she might not find him at home. Then she thought of
+going to a notary, to a judge. She would show them the letter, and they
+could take a copy of it. But no--this would do no good--the marquis
+could still deny it. She was becoming desperate, and was accusing
+herself of stupidity, when a sudden inspiration illumined her mind,
+turning night into day, as it were. “Oh, Pascal, we are saved!” she
+exclaimed. And without pausing to deliberate any longer, she threw a
+mantle over her shoulders, hastily tied on her bonnet, and hurried from
+the house, without saying a word to any one.
+
+Unfortunately she was not acquainted with this part of Paris, and on
+reaching the Rue Pigalle she was at a loss for her way. Unwilling to
+waste any more time, she hastily entered a grocer’s shop at the corner
+of the Rue Pigalle and the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and anxiously
+inquired: “Do you know any photographer in this neighborhood, monsieur?”
+
+Her agitation made this question seem so singular that the grocer
+looked at her closely for a moment, as if to make sure that she was not
+jesting. “You have only to go down the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette,” he
+replied, “and on the left-hand side, at the foot of the hill, you will
+find the photographer Carjat.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+The grocer stepped to the door to watch her. “That girl’s certainly
+light-headed,” he thought.
+
+Her demeanor was really so extraordinary that it attracted the attention
+of the passers-by. She saw this, and slackening her pace, tried
+to become more composed. At the spot the grocer had indicated, she
+perceived several show frames filled with photographs hanging on either
+side of a broad, open gateway, above which ran the name, “E. Carjat.”
+ She went in, and seeing a man standing at the door of an elegant
+pavilion on the right-hand side of a large courtyard, she approached
+him, and asked for his employer.
+
+“He is here,” replied the man. “Does madame come for a photograph?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then will madame be so kind as to pass in. She will not be obliged to
+wait long. There are only four or five persons before her.”
+
+Four or five persons! How long would she be obliged to wait?--half an
+hour--two hours? She had not the slightest idea. But she DID know that
+she had not a second to lose, that Madame Leon might return at any
+moment, and find the letter missing; and, to crown all, she remembered
+now that she had not even locked the drawer again. “I cannot wait,” she
+said, imperiously. “I must speak to M. Carjat at once.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“At once, I tell you. Go and tell him that he must come.”
+
+Her tone was so commanding, and there was so much authority in her
+glance, that the servant hesitated no longer. He ushered her into a
+little sitting-room, and said, “If madame will take a seat, I will call
+monsieur.”
+
+She sank on to a chair, for her limbs were failing her. She was
+beginning to realize the strangeness of the step she had taken--to fear
+the result it might lead to--and to be astonished at her own boldness.
+But she had no time to prepare what she wished to say, for a man of
+five-and-thirty, wearing a mustache and imperial, and clad in a velvet
+coat, entered the room, and bowing with an air of surprise, exclaimed:
+“You desire to speak with me, madame?”
+
+“I have a great favor to ask of you, monsieur.”
+
+“Of me?”
+
+She drew M. de Valorsay’s letter from her pocket, and, showing it to
+the photographer, she said, “I have come to you, monsieur, to ask you
+to photograph this letter--but at once--before me--and quickly--very
+quickly. The honor of two persons is imperilled by each moment I lose
+here.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s embarrassment was extreme. Her cheeks were
+crimson, and she trembled like a leaf. Still her attitude was proud,
+generous enthusiasm glowed in her dark eyes, and her tone of voice
+revealed the serenity of a lofty soul ready to dare anything for a just
+and noble cause. This striking contrast--this struggle between girlish
+timidity and a lover’s virgil energy, endowed her with a strange and
+powerful charm, which the photographer made no attempt to resist.
+Unusual as was the request, he did not hesitate. “I am ready to do what
+you desire, madame,” he replied, bowing again.
+
+“Oh! monsieur, how can I ever thank you?”
+
+He did not stop to listen to her thanks. Not wishing to return to the
+reception-room, where five or six clients were impatiently awaiting
+their turn, he called one of his subordinates, and ordered him to bring
+the necessary apparatus at once. While he was speaking, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite paused; but, as soon as his instructions were concluded, she
+remarked: “Perhaps you are too hasty, sir. You have not allowed me to
+explain; and perhaps what I desire is impossible. I came on the impulse
+of the moment, without any knowledge on the subject. Before you set to
+work, I must know if what you can do will answer my purpose.”
+
+“Speak, madame.”
+
+“Will the copy you obtain be precisely like the original in every
+particular?”
+
+“In every particular.”
+
+“The writing will be the same--exactly the same?”
+
+“Absolutely the same.”
+
+“So like, that if one of your photographs should be presented to the
+person who wrote this letter----”
+
+“He could no more deny his handwriting than he could if some one handed
+him the letter itself.”
+
+“And the operation will leave no trace on the original?”
+
+“None.”
+
+A smile of triumph played upon Mademoiselle Marguerite’s lips. It was as
+she had thought; the defensive plan which she had suddenly conceived was
+a good one. “One more question, sir,” she resumed. “I am only a poor,
+ignorant girl: excuse me, and give me the benefit of your knowledge.
+This letter will be returned to its author to-morrow, and he will burn
+it. But afterward, in case of any difficulty--in case of a law-suit--or
+in case it should be necessary for me to prove certain things which one
+might establish by means of this letter, would one of your photographs
+be admitted as evidence?”
+
+The photographer did not answer for a moment. Now he understood
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s motive, and the importance she attached to a
+facsimile. But this imparted an unexpected gravity to the service he was
+called upon to perform. He therefore wished some time for reflection,
+and he scrutinized Mademoiselle Marguerite as if he were trying to read
+her very soul. Was it possible that this young girl, with such a pure
+and noble brow, and with such frank, honest eyes, could be meditating
+any cowardly, dishonorable act? No, he could not believe it. In whom,
+or in what, could he trust if such a countenance deceived him? “My
+facsimile would certainly be admitted as evidence,” he replied at last;
+“and this would not be the first time that the decision of a court has
+depended on proofs which have been photographed by me.”
+
+Meanwhile, his assistant had returned, bringing the necessary apparatus
+with him. When all was ready, the photographer asked her, “Will you give
+me the letter, madame?”
+
+She hesitated for a second--only for a second. The man’s honest, kindly
+face told her that he would not betray her, that he would rather give
+her assistance. So she handed him the Marquis de Valorsay’s letter,
+saying, with melancholy dignity, “It is my happiness and my future that
+I place in your hands--and I have no fears.”
+
+He read her thoughts, and understood that she either dared not ask for a
+pledge of secrecy, or else that she thought it unnecessary. He took pity
+on her, and his last doubt fled. “I shall read this letter, madame,”
+ said he, “but I am the only person who will read it. I give you my word
+on that! No one but myself will see the proofs.”
+
+Greatly moved, she offered him her hand, and simply said, “Thanks; I am
+more than repaid.”
+
+To obtain an absolutely perfect facsimile of a letter is a delicate
+and sometimes lengthy operation. However, at the end of about twenty
+minutes, the photographer possessed two negatives that promised him
+perfect proofs. He looked at them with a satisfied air; and then
+returning the letter to Mademoiselle Marguerite, he said, “In less than
+three days the facsimiles will be ready, madame; and if you will tell me
+to what address I ought to send them----”
+
+She trembled on hearing these words, and quickly answered, “Don’t send
+them, sir--keep them carefully. Great heavens! all would be lost if it
+came to the knowledge of any one. I will send for them, or come myself.”
+ And, feeling the extent of her obligation, she added, “But I will not go
+without introducing myself--I am Mademoiselle Marguerite de Chalusse.”
+ And, thereupon, she went off, leaving the photographer surprised at the
+adventure and dazzled by his strange visitor’s beauty.
+
+Rather more than an hour had elapsed since Marguerite left M. de
+Fondege’s house. “How time flies!” she murmured, quickening her pace
+as much as she could without exciting remark--“how time flies!” But,
+hurried as she was, she stopped and spent five minutes at a shop in the
+Rue Notre Dame de Lorette where she purchased some black ribbon and a
+few other trifles. How else could she explain and justify her absence,
+if the servants, who had probably discovered she had gone out, chanced
+to speak of it?
+
+But her heart throbbed as if it would burst as she ascended the
+General’s staircase, and anxiety checked her breathing as she rang the
+bell. “What if Madame de Fondege and Madame Leon had returned, and
+the abstraction of the letter been discovered!” Fortunately, Madame de
+Fondege required more than an hour to purchase the materials for the
+elaborate toilette she had dreamt of. The ladies were still out, and
+Mademoiselle Marguerite found everything in the same condition as she
+had left it. She carefully placed the letter in the drawer again, locked
+it, and put the key in the pocket of Madame Leon’s dress. Then she
+breathed freely once more; and, for the first time in six days, she felt
+something very like joy in her heart. Now she had no fear of the Marquis
+de Valorsay. She had him in her power. He would destroy his letter the
+next day, and think that he was annihilating all proofs of his infamy.
+Not so. At the decisive moment, at the very moment of his triumph,
+she would produce the photograph of this letter, and crush him. And
+she--only a young girl--had outwitted this consummate scoundrel! “I
+have not been unworthy of Pascal,” she said to herself, with a flash of
+pride.
+
+However, her nature was not one of those weak ones which are become
+intoxicated by the first symptom of success, and then relax in their
+efforts. When her excitement had abated a little, she was inclined to
+disparage rather than to exaggerate the advantage she had gained. What
+she desired was a complete, startling, incontestable victory. It was
+not enough to prove Valorsay’s GUILT--she was resolved to penetrate his
+designs, to discover why he pursued her so desperately. And, though she
+felt that she possessed a formidable weapon of defence, she could
+not drive away her gloomy forebodings when she thought of the threats
+contained in the marquis’s letter. “Thanks to the assistance of one
+of my friends,” he wrote, “I can place this proud girl in a perilous,
+terribly perilous, position, from which she cannot possibly extricate
+herself unaided.”
+
+These words persistently lingered in Mademoiselle Marguerite’s mind.
+What was the danger hanging over her? whence would it come? and in what
+form? What abominable machination might she not expect from the villain
+who had deliberately dishonored Pascal? How would he attack her? Would
+he strive to ruin her reputation, or did he intend to forcibly abduct
+her? Would he attempt to decoy her into a trap where she would be
+subjected to the insults of the vilest wretches? A thousand frightful
+memories of the time when she was an apprentice drove her nearly
+frantic. “I will never go out unarmed,” she thought, “and woe to the man
+who raises his hand against me!”
+
+The vagueness of the threat increased her fears. No one is courageous
+enough to confront an unknown, mysterious, and always imminent danger
+without sometimes faltering. Nor was this all. The marquis was not
+her only enemy. She had the Fondege family to dread--these dangerous
+hypocrites, who had taken her to their home so that they might ruin
+her the more surely. M. de Valorsay wrote that he had no fears of the
+Fondeges--that he understood their little game. What was their little
+game? No doubt they were resolved that she should become their son’s
+wife, even if they were obliged to use force to win her consent. At this
+thought a sudden terror seized her soul, so full of peace and hope an
+instant before. When she was attacked, would she have time to produce
+and use the facsimile of Valorsay’s letter? “I must reveal my secret to
+a friend--to a trusty friend--who will avenge me!” she muttered.
+
+Fortunately she had a friend in whom she could safely confide--the old
+magistrate who had given her such proofs of sympathy. She felt that she
+needed the advice of a riper experience than her own, and the thought of
+consulting him at once occurred to her. She was alone; she had no spy to
+fear; and it would be folly not to profit by the few moments of liberty
+that remained. So she drew her writing-case from her trunk, and, after
+barricading her door to prevent a surprise, she wrote her friend an
+account of the events which had taken place since their last interview.
+She told him everything with rare precision and accuracy of detail,
+sending him a copy of Valorsay’s letter, and informing him that, in case
+any misfortune befell her, he could obtain the facsimiles from Carjat.
+She finished her letter, but did not seal it. “If anything should happen
+before I have an opportunity to post it, I will add a postscript,” she
+said to herself.
+
+She had made all possible haste, fearing that Madame de Fondege and
+Madame Leon might return at any moment. But this was truly a chimerical
+apprehension. It was nearly six o’clock when the two shoppers made their
+appearance, wearied with the labors of the day, but in fine spirits.
+Besides purchasing every requisite for that wonderful costume of hers,
+the General’s wife had found some laces of rare beauty, which she had
+secured for the mere trifle of four thousand francs. “It was one of
+those opportunities one ought always to profit by,” she said, as she
+displayed her purchase. “Besides, it is the same with lace as with
+diamonds, you should purchase them when you can--then you have them.
+It isn’t an outlay--it’s an investment.” Subtle reasoning that has cost
+many a husband dear!
+
+On her side, Madame Leon proudly showed her dear young lady a very
+pretty present which Madame de Fondege had given her. “So money is no
+longer lacking in this household,” thought Mademoiselle Marguerite, all
+the more confirmed in her suspicions.
+
+The General came in a little later, accompanied by a friend, and
+Marguerite soon discovered that the worthy man had spent the day as
+profitably as his wife. He too was quite tired out; and he had reason to
+be fatigued. First, he had purchased the horses belonging to the ruined
+spendthrift, and he had paid five thousand francs for them, a mere
+trifle for such animals. Less than an hour after the purchase he had
+refused almost double that amount from a celebrated connoisseur in
+horse-flesh, M. de Breulh-Faverlay. This excellent speculation had put
+him in such good humor that he had been unable to resist the temptation
+of purchasing a beautiful saddle-horse, which they let him have for a
+hundred louis. He had not been foolish, for he was sure that he could
+sell the animal again at an advance of a thousand francs whenever he
+wished to do so. “So,” remarked his friend, “if you bought such a horse
+every day, you would make three hundred and sixty-five thousand francs a
+year.”
+
+Was this only a jest--one of those witticisms which people who boast
+of wonderful bargains must expect to parry, or had the remark a more
+serious meaning? Marguerite could not determine. One thing is certain,
+the General did not lose his temper, but gayly continued his account of
+the way in which he had spent his time. Having purchased the horses, his
+next task was to find a carriage, and he had heard of a barouche which
+a Russian prince had ordered but didn’t take, so that the builder was
+willing to sell it at less than cost price; and to recoup this worthy
+man, the General had purchased a brougham as well. He had, moreover,
+hired stabling in the Rue Pigalle, only a few steps from the house, and
+he expected a coachman and a groom the following morning.
+
+“And all this will cost us less than the miserable vehicle we have been
+hiring by the year,” observed Madame de Fondege, gravely. “Oh, I know
+what I say. I’ve counted the cost. What with gratuities and extras, it
+costs us now fully a thousand francs a month, and three horses and a
+coachman won’t cost you more. And what a difference! I shall no longer
+be obliged to blush for the skinny horses the stable-keeper sends me,
+nor to endure the insolence of his men. The first outlay frightened me
+a little; but that is made now, and I am delighted. We will save it in
+something else.”
+
+“In laces, no doubt,” thought Mademoiselle Marguerite. She was intensely
+exasperated, and on regaining her chamber she said to herself, for the
+tenth time, “What do they take me for? Do they think me an idiot to
+flaunt the millions they have stolen from my father--that they have
+stolen from me--before my eyes in this fashion? A common thief would
+take care not to excite suspicion by a foolish expenditure of the fruits
+of his knavery, but they--they have lost their senses.”
+
+Madame Leon was already in bed, and when Mademoiselle Marguerite was
+satisfied that she was asleep, she took her letter from her trunk, and
+added this post-script: “P. S.--It is impossible to retain the shadow of
+a doubt, M. and Madame de Fondege have spent certainly twenty thousand
+francs to-day. This audacity must arise from a conviction that no proofs
+of the crime they have committed exist. Still they continue to talk
+to me about their son, Lieutenant Gustave. He will be presented to me
+to-morrow. To-morrow, also, between three and four, I shall be at
+the house of a man who can perhaps discover Pascal’s hiding-place for
+me,--the house of M. Isidore Fortunat. I hope to make my escape easily
+enough, for at that same hour, Madame Leon has an appointment with the
+Marquis de Valorsay.”
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+The old legend of Achilles’s heel will be eternally true. A man may be
+humble or powerful, feeble or strong, but there are none of us without
+some weak spot in our armor, a spot vulnerable beyond all others, a
+certain place where wounds prove most dangerous and painful. M. Isidore
+Fortunat’s weak place was his cash-box. To attack him there was to
+endanger his life--to wound him at a point where all his sensibility
+centred. For it was in this cash-box and not in his breast that his
+heart really throbbed. His safe made him happy or dejected. Happy when
+it was filled to overflowing by some brilliant operation, and dejected
+when he saw it become empty as some imprudent transaction failed.
+
+This then explains his frenzy on that ill-fated Sunday, when, after
+being brutally dismissed by M. Wilkie, he returned to his rooms in the
+company of his clerk, Victor Chupin. This explains, too, the intensity
+of the hatred he now felt for the Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount
+de Coralth. The former, the marquis, had defrauded him of forty thousand
+francs in glittering gold. The other, the viscount, had suddenly sprung
+up out of the ground, and carried off from under his very nose that
+magnificent prize, the Chalusse inheritance, which he had considered as
+good as won. And he had not only been defrauded and swindled--such
+were his own expressions--but he had been tricked, deceived, duped, and
+outwitted, and by whom? By people who did not make it their profession
+to be shrewd, like he did himself. Just fancy, his business was to
+outwit others, and a couple of mere amateurs had outgeneraled him. He
+had not only suffered in pocket, he had been humiliated as well, and so
+he indulged in threats of such terrible import.
+
+However, at the very moment when he was dreaming of wreaking vengeance
+on the Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth, his housekeeper,
+austere Madame Dodelin, handed him Mademoiselle Marguerite’s letter.
+He read it with intense astonishment, rubbing his eyes as if to assure
+himself that he were really awake. “Tuesday,” he repeated, “the day
+after to-morrow--at your house--between three and four o’clock--I must
+speak with you.”
+
+His manner was so strange, and his usually impassive face so disturbed
+by conflicting feelings, that Madame Dodelin’s curiosity overcame her
+prudence, and she remained standing in front of him with open mouth,
+staring with all her eyes and listening with all her ears. He perceived
+this, and angrily exclaimed: “What are you doing here? You are watching
+me, I do believe. Get back to your kitchen, or----”
+
+She fled in alarm, and he then entered his private office. His heart
+was leaping with joy, and he laughed wickedly at the hope of a speedy
+revenge. “She’s on the scent,” he muttered; “and she has luck in
+her favor. She has chanced to apply to me on the very day that I had
+resolved to defend and rehabilitate her lover, the honest fool who
+allowed himself to be dishonored by those unscrupulous blackguards. Just
+as I was thinking of going in search of her, she comes to me. As I was
+about to write to her, she writes to me. Who can deny the existence
+of Providence after this?” Like many other people, M. Fortunat piously
+believed in Providence when things went to his liking, but it is sad to
+add that in the contrary case he denied its existence. “If she has any
+courage,” he resumed, “and she seems to have plenty of it, Valorsay
+and Coralth will be in a tight place soon. And if it takes ten thousand
+francs to put them there, and if neither Mademoiselle Marguerite nor M.
+Ferailleur has the amount--ah, well! I’ll advance--well, at least
+five thousand--without charging them any commission. I’ll even pay the
+expenses out of my own pocket, if necessary. Ah, my fine fellows, you’ve
+laughed too soon. In a week’s time we’ll see who laughs last.”
+
+He paused, for Victor Chupin, who had lingered behind to pay the driver,
+had just entered the room. “You gave me twenty francs, m’sieur,” he
+remarked to his employer. “I paid the driver four francs and five sous,
+here’s the change.”
+
+“Keep it yourself, Victor,” said M. Fortunat.
+
+What! keep fifteen francs and fifteen sous? Under any other
+circumstances such unusual generosity would have drawn a grimace of
+satisfaction from young Chupin. But to-day he did not even smile; he
+slipped the money carelessly into his pocket, and scarcely deigned to
+say “thanks,” in the coldest possible tone.
+
+Absorbed in thought, M. Fortunat did not remark this little
+circumstance. “We have them, Victor,” he resumed. “I told you that
+Valorsay and Coralth should pay me for their treason. Vengeance is near.
+Read this letter.” Victor read it slowly, and as soon as he had finished
+his employer ejaculated, “Well?”
+
+But Chupin was not a person to give advice lightly. “Excuse me,
+m’sieur,” said he, “but in order to answer you, I must have some
+knowledge of the affair. I only know what you’ve told me--which is
+little enough--and what I’ve guessed. In fact, I know nothing at all.”
+
+M. Fortunat reflected for a moment. “You are right, Victor,” he said, at
+last. “So far the explanation I gave you was all that was necessary; but
+now that I expect more important services from you, I ought to tell
+you the whole truth, or at least all I know about the affair. This will
+prove my great confidence in you.” Whereupon, he acquainted Chupin with
+everything he knew concerning the history of M. de Chalusse, the Marquis
+de Valorsay, and Mademoiselle Marguerite.
+
+However, if he expected these disclosures to elevate him in his
+subordinate’s estimation he was greatly mistaken. Chupin had sufficient
+experience and common sense to read his master’s character and discern
+his motives. He saw plainly enough that this honest impulse on M.
+Fortunat’s part came from disappointed avarice and wounded vanity, and
+that the agent would have allowed the Marquis de Valorsay to carry out
+his infamous scheme without any compunctions of conscience, providing
+he, himself, had not been injured by it. Still, the young fellow did
+not allow his real feelings to appear on his face. First, it was not
+his business to tell M. Fortunat his opinion of him; and in the second
+place, he did not deem it an opportune moment for a declaration of his
+sentiments. So, when his employer paused, he exclaimed: “Well, we must
+outwit these scoundrels--for I’ll join you, m’sieur; and I flatter
+myself that I can be very useful to you. Do you want the particulars of
+the viscount’s past life? If so, I can furnish them. I know the brigand.
+He’s married, as I told you before, and I’ll find his wife for you in a
+few days. I don’t know exactly where she lives, but she keeps a tobacco
+store, somewhere, and that’s enough. She’ll tell you how much he’s a
+viscount. Ha! ha! Viscount just as much as I am--and no more. I can tell
+you the scrapes he has been in.”
+
+“No doubt; but the most important thing is to know how he’s living now,
+and on what!”
+
+“Not by honest work, I can tell you. But give me a little time, and
+I’ll find out for sure. As soon as I can go home, change my clothes,
+and disguise myself, I’ll start after him; and may I be hung, if I don’t
+return with a complete report before Tuesday.”
+
+A smile of satisfaction appeared on M. Fortunat’s face. “Good, Victor!”
+ he said, approvingly, “very good! I see that you will serve me with your
+usual zeal and intelligence. Rest assured that you will be rewarded as
+you have never been rewarded before. As long as you are engaged in this
+affair, you shall have ten francs a day; and I’ll pay your board, your
+cab-hire, and all your expenses.”
+
+This was a most liberal offer, and yet, far from seeming delighted,
+Chupin gravely shook his head. “You know how I value money, m’sieur,” he
+began.
+
+“Too much, Victor, my boy, too much----”
+
+“Excuse me, it’s because I have responsibilities, m’sieur. You know my
+establishment”--he spoke this word with a grandiloquent air--“you have
+seen my good mother--my expenses are heavy----”
+
+“In short, you don’t think I offer you enough?”
+
+“On the contrary, sir--but you don’t allow me to finish. I love money,
+don’t I? But no matter, I don’t want to be paid for this business. I
+don’t want either my board or my expenses, not a penny--nothing. I’ll
+serve you, but for my own sake, for my own pleasure--gratis.”
+
+M. Fortunat could not restrain an exclamation of astonishment. Chupin,
+who was as eager for gain as an old usurer--Chupin, as grasping as
+avarice itself, refuse money! This was something which he had never seen
+before, and which he would no doubt never see again.
+
+Victor had become very much excited; his usually pale cheeks were
+crimson, and in a harsh voice, he continued: “It’s a fancy of
+mine--that’s all. I have eight hundred francs hidden in my room, the
+fruit of years of work. I’ll spend the last penny of it if need be; and
+if I can see Coralth in the mire, I shall say, ‘My money has been well
+expended.’ I’d rather see that day dawn than be the possessor of a
+hundred thousand francs. If a horrible vision haunted you every night,
+and prevented you from sleeping, wouldn’t you give something to get rid
+of it? Very well! that brigand’s my nightmare. There must be an end to
+it.”
+
+M. de Coralth, who was a man of wide experience, would certainly have
+felt alarmed if he had seen his unknown enemy at the present moment, for
+Victor’s eyes, usually a pale and undecided blue, were glittering like
+steel, and his hands were clinched most threateningly. “For he was the
+cause of all my trouble,” he continued, gloomily. “I’ve told you, sir,
+that I was guilty of an infamous deed once upon a time. If it hadn’t
+been for a miracle I should have killed a man--the king of men.
+Ah, well! if Monsieur Andre had broken his back by falling from a
+fifth-floor window, my Coralth would be the Duc de Champdoce to-day. And
+shall he be allowed to ride about in his carriage, and deceive and ruin
+honest people? No--there are too many such villains at large for public
+safety. Wait a little, Coralth--I owe you something, and I always pay
+my debts. When M. Andre saved me, though I richly deserved to have
+my throat cut, he made no conditions. He only said, ‘If you are not
+irredeemably bad you will be honest after this.’ And he said these words
+as he was lying there as pale as death with his shoulder broken, and
+his body mangled from his fall. Great heavens! I felt smaller
+than--than nothing before him. But I swore that I would do honor to
+his teachings--and when evil thoughts enter my mind, and when I feel a
+thirst for liquor, I say to myself, ‘Wait a bit, and--and M. Andre will
+take a glass with you.’ And that quenches my thirst instantly. I have
+his portrait at home, and every night, before going to bed, I tell him
+the history of the day--and sometimes I fancy that he smiles at me. All
+this is very absurd, perhaps, but I’m not ashamed of it. M. Andre and
+my good mother, they are my supports, my crutches, and with them I’m not
+afraid of making a false step.” Schebel, the German philosopher, who has
+written a treatise on Volition, in four volumes, was no greater a man
+than Chupin. “So you may keep your money, sir,” he resumed. “I’m an
+honest fellow, and honest men ought to ask no reward for the performance
+of a duty. Coralth mustn’t be allowed to triumph over the innocent chap
+he ruined. What did you call him? Ferailleur? It’s an odd name. Never
+mind--we’ll get him out of this scrape; he shall marry his sweetheart
+after all; and I’ll dance at the wedding.”
+
+As he finished speaking he laughed a shrill, dangerous laugh, which
+revealed his sharp teeth--but such invincible determination was apparent
+on his face, that M. Fortunat felt no misgivings. He was sure that this
+volunteer would be of more service than the highest-priced hireling. “So
+I can count on you, Victor?” he inquired.
+
+“As upon yourself.”
+
+“And you hope to have some positive information by Tuesday?”
+
+“Before then, I hope, if nothing goes amiss.”
+
+“Very well; I will devote my attention to Ferailleur then. As to
+Valorsay’s affairs, I am better acquainted with them than he is himself.
+We must be prepared to enter upon the campaign when Mademoiselle
+Marguerite comes, and we will act in accordance with her instructions.”
+
+Chupin had already caught up his hat; but just as he was leaving the
+room, he paused abruptly. “How stupid!” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten
+the principal thing. Where does Coralth live?”
+
+“Unfortunately, I don’t know.”
+
+According to his habit when things did not go to his liking, Chupin
+began to scratch his head furiously. “That’s bad,” growled he.
+“Viscounts of his stamp don’t parade their addresses in the directory.
+Still, I shall find him.” However, although he expressed this conviction
+he went off decidedly out of temper.
+
+“I shall lose the entire evening hunting up the rascal’s address,” he
+grumbled, as he hastened homeward. “And whom shall I ask for it?--Madame
+d’Argeles’s concierge? Would he know it--M. Wilkie’s servant? That
+would be dangerous.” He thought of roaming sound about M. de Valorsay’s
+residence, and of bribing one of the valets; but while crossing the
+boulevard, the sight of Brebant’s Restaurant put a new idea into his
+head. “I have it!” he muttered; “my man’s caught!” And he darted into
+the nearest cafe where he ordered some beer and writing materials.
+
+Under other circumstances, he would have hesitated to employ so
+hazardous an expedient as the one he was about to resort to, but the
+character of his adversaries justified any course; besides, time was
+passing, and he had no choice of resources. As soon as the waiter served
+him, he drained his glass of beer to give himself an inspiration, and
+then, in his finest hand, he wrote:
+
+     “MY DEAR VISCOUNT--Here’s the amount--one hundred francs--that I
+     lost to you last evening at piquet.  When shall I have my revenge?
+     Your friend,
+                                              “VALORSAY.”
+
+When he had finished this letter he read it over three or four
+times, asking himself if this were the style of composition that very
+fashionable folks employ in repaying their debts. To tell the truth, he
+doubted it. In the rough draft which he penned at first, he had written
+bezique, but in the copy he wrote piquet, which he deemed a more
+aristocratic game. “However,” said he, “no one will examine it closely!”
+
+Then, as soon as the ink was dry, he folded the letter and slipped it
+into an envelope with a hundred franc-note which he drew from an old
+pocketbook. He next addressed the envelope as follows: “Monsieur le
+Vicomte de Coralth, En Ville,” and having completed his preparations, he
+paid his score, and hastened to Brebant’s. Two waiters were standing at
+the doorway, and, showing them the letter, he politely asked: “Do you
+happen to know this name? A gentleman dropped this letter on leaving
+your place last evening. I ran after him to return it; but I couldn’t
+overtake him.”
+
+The waiters examined the address. “Coralth!” they replied. “We scarcely
+know him. He isn’t a regular customer, but he comes here occasionally.”
+
+“And where does he live?”
+
+“Why do you wish to know?”
+
+“So as to take him this letter, to be sure!”
+
+The waiters shrugged their shoulders. “Let the letter go; it is not
+worth while to trouble yourself.”
+
+Chupin had foreseen this objection, and was prepared for it. “But
+there’s money in the letter,” he remonstrated. And opening the envelope,
+he showed the bank-note which he had taken from his own pocket-book.
+
+This changed the matter entirely. “That is quite a different thing,”
+ remarked one of the waiters. “If you find money, you are, of course,
+responsible for it. But just leave it here at the desk, and the next
+time the viscount comes in, the cashier will give it to him.”
+
+A cold chill crept over Chupin at the thought of losing his bank-note in
+this way. “Ah! I don’t fancy that idea!” he exclaimed. “Leave it here?
+Never in life! Who’d get the reward? A viscount is always generous;
+it is quite likely he would give me twenty francs as a reward for my
+honesty. And that’s why I want his address.”
+
+The argument was of a nature to touch the waiters; they thought the
+young man quite right; but they did not know M. de Coralth’s address,
+and they saw no way of procuring it. “Unless perhaps the porter knows,”
+ observed one of them.
+
+The porter, on being called, remembered that he had once been sent to
+M. de Coralth’s house for an overcoat. “I’ve forgotten his number,” he
+declared; “but he lives in the Rue d’Anjou, near the corner of the Rue
+de la Ville l’Eveque.”
+
+This direction was not remarkable for its precision, but it was more
+than sufficient for a pure-blooded Parisian like Victor Chupin. “Many
+thanks for your kindness,” he said to the porter. “A blind man, perhaps,
+might not be able to go straight to M. de Coralth’s house from your
+directions, but I have eyes and a tongue as well. And, believe me, if
+there’s any reward, you shall see that I know how to repay a good turn.”
+
+“And if you don’t find the viscount,” added the waiters, “bring the
+money here, and it will be returned to him.”
+
+“Naturally!” replied Chupin. And he strode hurriedly away. “Return!”
+ he muttered; “not I! I thought for a moment they had their hands on my
+precious bank-note.”
+
+But he had already recovered from his fright, and as he turned his steps
+homeward he congratulated himself on the success of his stratagem.
+“For my viscount is caught,” he said to himself. “The Rue d’Anjou Saint
+Honore hasn’t a hundred numbers in it, and even if I’m compelled to go
+from door to door, my task will soon be accomplished.”
+
+On reaching home he found his mother engaged in knitting, as usual. This
+was the only avocation that her almost complete blindness allowed her
+to pursue; and she followed it constantly. “Ah! here you are, Toto,”
+ she exclaimed, joyously. “I didn’t expect you so soon. Don’t you scent a
+savory smell? As you must be greatly tired after being up all night, I’m
+making you a stew.”
+
+As customary when he returned, Chupin embraced the good woman with
+the respectful tenderness which had so surprised M. Fortunat. “You are
+always kind,” said he, “but, unfortunately, I can’t remain to dine with
+you.”
+
+“But you promised me.”
+
+“That’s true, mamma; but business, you see--business.”
+
+The worthy woman shook her head. “Always business!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Yes--when a fellow hasn’t ten thousand francs a year.”
+
+“You have become a worker, Toto, and that makes me very happy; but you
+are too eager for money, and that frightens me.”
+
+“That’s to say, you fear I shall do something dishonest. Ah! mother! do
+you think I can forget you and Monsieur Andre?”
+
+His mother said no more, and he entered the tiny nook which he so
+pompously styled his chamber, and quickly changed the clothes he was
+wearing (his Sunday toggery) for an old pair of checked trousers, a
+black blouse, and a glazed cap. And when he had finished, and given a
+peculiar turn to his hair, no one would have recognized him. In place of
+M. Fortunat’s respectable clerk, there appeared one of those vagabonds
+who hang about cafes and theatres from six in the evening till midnight,
+and spend the rest of their time playing cards in the low drinking dens
+near the barrieres. It was the old Chupin come to life once more--Toto
+Chupin as he had appeared before his conversion. And as he took a
+last look in the little glass hanging over the table, he was himself
+astonished at the transformation. “Ah!” he muttered, “I was a sorry
+looking devil in those days.”
+
+Although he had cautiously avoided making any noise in dressing, his
+mother, with the wonderfully acute hearing of the blind, had followed
+each of his movements as surely as if she had been standing near
+watching him. “You have changed your clothes, Toto,” she remarked.
+
+“Yes, mother.”
+
+“But why have you put on your blouse, my son?”
+
+Although accustomed to his mother’s remarkable quickness of perception,
+he was amazed. Still he did not think of denying it. She would only have
+to extend her hand to prove that he was telling a falsehood. The blind
+woman’s usually placid face had become stern. “So it is necessary to
+disguise yourself,” she said, gravely.
+
+“But, mother----”
+
+“Hush, my son! When a man doesn’t wish to be recognized, he’s evidently
+doing something he’s ashamed of. Ever since your employer came here, you
+have been concealing something from me. Take care, Toto! Since I heard
+that man’s voice, I’m sure that he is quite as capable of urging you to
+commit a crime as others were in days gone by.”
+
+The blind woman was preaching to a convert; for during the past three
+days, M. Fortunat had shown himself in such a light that Chupin had
+secretly resolved to change his employer. “I promise you I’ll leave him,
+mother,” he declared, “so you may be quite easy in mind.”
+
+“Very well; but now, at this moment, where are you going?”
+
+There was only one way of completely reassuring the good woman, and that
+was to tell her all. Chupin did so with absolute frankness. “Ah, well!”
+ she said, when the narrative was finished. “You see now how easy it is
+to lead you astray! How could you be induced to play the part of a spy,
+when you know so well what it leads to? It’s only God’s protecting care
+that has saved you again from an act which you would have reproached
+yourself for all your life. Your employer’s intentions are good now; but
+they WERE criminal when he ordered you to follow Madame d’Argeles. Poor
+woman! She had sacrificed herself for her son, she had concealed herself
+from him, and you were working to betray her. Poor creature! how she
+must have suffered, and how much I pity her! To be what she is, and to
+see herself denounced by her own son! I, who am only a poor plebeian,
+should die of shame under such circumstances.”
+
+Chupin blew his nose so loudly that the window-panes rattled; this was
+his way of repressing his emotion whenever it threatened to overcome
+him. “You speak like the good mother that you are,” he exclaimed at
+last, “and I’m prouder of you than if you were the handsomest and
+richest lady in Paris, for you’re certainly the most honest and
+virtuous; and I should be a thorough scoundrel if I caused you a
+moment’s sorrow. And if ever I set my foot in such a mess again, I hope
+some one will cut it off. But for this once----”
+
+“For this once, you may go, Toto; I give my consent.”
+
+He went off with a lighter heart; and on reaching the Rue d’Anjou he
+immediately began his investigations. They were not successful at first.
+At every house where he made inquiries nobody had any knowledge of the
+Viscount de Coralth. He had visited half the buildings in the street,
+when he reached one of the handsomest houses, in front of which stood
+a cart laden with plants and flowers. An old man, who seemed to be the
+concierge, and a valet in a red waistcoat, were removing the plants from
+the vehicle and arranging them in a line under the porte cochere. As
+soon as the cart was emptied, it drove away, whereupon Chupin stepped
+forward, and addressing the concierge, asked: “Does the Viscount de
+Coralth live here?”
+
+“Yes. What do you want with him?”
+
+Having foreseen this question, Chupin had prepared a reply. “I certainly
+don’t come to call on him,” he answered. “My reason for inquiring is
+this: just now, as I passed near the Madeleine, a very elegant lady
+called me, and said: ‘M. de Coralth lives in the Rue d’Anjou, but
+I’ve forgotten the number. I can’t go about from door to door making
+inquiries, so if you’ll go there and ascertain his address for me, I’ll
+give you five francs for yourself,’ so my money’s made.”
+
+Profiting by his old Parisian experience, Chupin had chosen such a
+clever excuse that both his listeners heartily laughed. “Well, Father
+Moulinet,” cried the servant in the red waistcoat, “what do you say
+to that? Are there any elegant ladies who give five francs for YOUR
+address?”
+
+“Is there any lady who’s likely to send such flowers as these to YOU?”
+ was the response.
+
+Chupin was about to retire with a bow, when the concierge stopped him.
+“You accomplish your errands so well that perhaps you’d be willing to
+take these flower-pots up to the second floor, if we gave you a glass of
+wine!”
+
+No proposal could have suited Chupin better. Although he was prone to
+exaggerate his own powers and the fecundity of his resources, he had not
+flattered himself with the hope that he should succeed in crossing
+the threshold of M. de Coralth’s rooms. For, without any great mental
+effort, he had realized that the servant arrayed in the red waistcoat
+was in the viscount’s employ, and these flowers were to be carried to
+his apartments. However any signs of satisfaction would have seemed
+singular under the circumstances, and so he sulkily replied: “A glass of
+wine! you had better say two.”
+
+“Well, I’ll say a whole bottleful, my boy, if that suits you any
+better,” replied the servant, with the charming good-nature so often
+displayed by people who are giving other folk’s property away.
+
+“Then I’m at your service!” exclaimed Chupin. And, loading himself
+with a host of flower-pots as skilfully as if he had been accustomed to
+handling them all his life, he added: “Now, lead the way.”
+
+The valet and the concierge preceded him with empty hands, of course;
+and, on reaching the second floor, they opened a door, and said: “This
+is the place. Come in.”
+
+Chupin had expected to find that M. de Coralth’s apartments were
+handsomer than his own in the Faubourg Saint Denis; but he had scarcely
+imagined such luxury as pervaded this establishment. The chandeliers
+seemed marvels in his eyes; and the sumptuous chairs and couches
+eclipsed M. Fortunat’s wonderful sofa completely. “So he no longer
+amuses himself with petty rascalities,” thought Chupin, as he surveyed
+the rooms. “Monsieur’s working on a grand scale now. Decidedly this
+mustn’t be allowed to continue.”
+
+Thereupon he busied himself placing the flowers in the numerous
+jardinieres scattered about the rooms, as well as in a tiny
+conservatory, cleverly contrived on the balcony, and adjoining a little
+apartment with silk hangings, that was used as a smoking-room. Under the
+surveillance of the concierge and the valet he was allowed to visit the
+whole apartments. He admired the drawing-room, filled to overflowing
+with costly trifles; the dining-room, furnished in old oak; the
+luxurious bed-room with its bed mounted upon a platform, as if it were a
+throne, and the library filled with richly bound volumes. Everything was
+beautiful, sumptuous and magnificent, and Chupin admired, though he did
+not envy, this luxury. He said to himself that, if ever he became rich,
+his establishment should be quite different. He would have preferred
+rather more simplicity, a trifle less satin, velvet, hangings, mirrors
+and gilding. Still this did not prevent him from going into ecstasies
+over each room he entered; and he expressed his admiration so artlessly
+that the valet, feeling as much flattered as if he were the owner of the
+place, took a sort of pride in exhibiting everything.
+
+He showed Chupin the target which the viscount practised at with
+pistols for an hour every morning; for Monsieur le Vicomte was a capital
+marksman, and could lodge eight balls out of ten in the neck of a bottle
+at a distance of twenty paces. He also displayed his master’s swords;
+for Monsieur le Vicomte handled side arms as adroitly as pistols. He
+took a lesson every day from one of the best fencing-masters in Paris;
+and his duels had always terminated fortunately. He also showed the
+viscount’s blue velvet dressing-gown, his fur-trimmed slippers, and even
+his elaborately embroidered night-shirts. But it was the dressing-room
+that most astonished and stupefied Chupin. He stood gazing in
+open-mouthed wonder at the immense white marble table, with its water
+spigots and its basins, its sponges and boxes, its pots and vials and
+cups; and he counted the brushes by the dozen--brushes hard and soft,
+brushes for the hair, for the beard, for the hands, and the application
+of cosmetic to the mustaches and eyebrows. Never had he seen in one
+collection such a variety of steel and silver instruments, knives,
+pincers, scissors, and files. “One might think oneself in a
+chiropodist’s, or a dentist’s establishment,” remarked Chupin to the
+servant. “Does your master use all these every day?”
+
+“Certainly, or rather twice a day--morning and evening--at his
+toilette.”
+
+Chupin expressed his feelings with a grimace and an exclamation of
+mocking wonder. “Ah, well! he must have a clean skin,” he said.
+
+His listeners laughed heartily; and the concierge, after exchanging a
+significant glance with the valet, said sotto voce, “Zounds! it’s his
+business to be a handsome fellow!” The mystery was solved.
+
+While Chupin changed the contents of the jardinieres, and remained
+upstairs in the intervals between the nine or ten journeys he made
+to the porte-cochere for more flowers, he listened attentively to the
+conversation between the concierge and the valet, and heard snatches
+of sentences that enlightened him wonderfully. Moreover, whenever a
+question arose as to placing a plant in one place rather than another,
+the valet stated as a conclusive argument that the baroness liked it in
+such or such a place, or that she would be better pleased with this or
+that arrangement, or that he must comply with the instructions she had
+given him. Chupin was therefore obliged to conclude that the flowers
+had been sent here by a baroness who possessed certain rights in the
+establishment. But who was she?
+
+He was manoeuvering cleverly in the hope of ascertaining this point,
+when a carriage was heard driving into the courtyard below. “Monsieur
+must have returned!” exclaimed the valet, darting to the window.
+
+Chupin also ran to look out, and saw a very elegant blue-lined brougham,
+drawn by a superb horse, but he did not perceive the viscount. In point
+of fact, M. de Coralth was already climbing the stairs, four at a time,
+and, a moment later, he entered the room, angrily exclaiming, “Florent,
+what does this mean? Why have you left all the doors open?”
+
+Florent was the servant in the red waistcoat. He slightly shrugged his
+shoulders like a servant who knows too many of his master’s secrets to
+have anything to fear, and in the calmest possible tone replied, “If
+the doors are open, it is only because the baroness has just sent some
+flowers. On Sunday, too, what a funny idea! And I have been treating
+Father Moulinet and this worthy fellow” (pointing to Chupin) “to a glass
+of wine, to acknowledge their kindness in assisting me.”
+
+Fearing recognition, Chupin hid his face as much as possible; but M.
+de Coralth did not pay the slightest attention to him. There was a dark
+frown on his handsome, usually smiling countenance, and his hair was in
+great disorder. Evidently enough, something had greatly annoyed him. “I
+am going out again,” he remarked to his valet, “but first of all I must
+write two letters which you must deliver immediately.”
+
+He passed into the drawing-room as he spoke, and Florent scarcely waited
+till the door was closed before uttering an oath. “May the devil
+take him!” he exclaimed. “Here he sets me on the go again. It is five
+o’clock, too, and I have an appointment in half an hour.”
+
+A sudden hope quickened the throbbings of Chupin’s heart. He touched the
+valet’s arm, and in his most persuasive tone remarked: “I’ve nothing
+to do, and as your wine was so good, I’ll do your errands for you, if
+you’ll pay me for the wear and tear of shoe-leather.”
+
+Chupin’s appearance must have inspired confidence, for the servant
+replied:--“Well--I don’t refuse--but we’ll see.”
+
+The viscount did not spend much time in writing; he speedily reappeared
+holding two letters which he flung upon the table, saying: “One of these
+is for the baroness. You must deliver it into HER hands or into the
+hands of her maid--there will be no answer. You will afterward take the
+other to the person it is addressed to, and you must wait for an answer
+which you will place on my writing-table--and make haste.” So saying,
+the viscount went off as he had entered--on the run--and a moment later,
+his brougham was heard rolling out of the courtyard.
+
+Florent was crimson with rage. “There,” said he, addressing Chupin
+rather than the concierge, “what did I tell you? A letter to be placed
+in madame’s own hands or in the hands of her maid, and to be concealed
+from the baron, who is on the watch, of course. Naturally no one can
+execute that commission but myself.”
+
+“That’s true!” replied Chupin; “but how about the other?”
+
+The valet had not yet examined the second letter. He now took it from
+the table, and glanced at the address. “Ah,” said he, “I can confide
+this one to you, my good fellow, and it’s very fortunate, for it is
+to be taken to a place on the other side of the river. Upon my word!
+masters are strange creatures! You manage your work so as to have a
+little leisure, and the moment you think yourself free, pouf!--they
+send you anywhere in creation without even asking if it suits your
+convenience. If it hadn’t been for you, I should have missed a dinner
+with some very charming ladies. But, above all, don’t loiter on the way.
+I don’t mind paying your omnibus fare if you like. And you heard him say
+there would be an answer. You can give it to Moulinet, and in exchange,
+he’ll give you fifteen sous for your trouble, and six sous for your
+omnibus fare. Besides, if you can extract anything from the party the
+letter’s intended for, you are quite welcome to it.”
+
+“Agreed, sir! Grant me time enough to give an answer to the lady who is
+waiting at the Madeleine, and I’m on my way. Give me the letter.”
+
+“Here it is,” said the valet, handing it to Chupin. But as the latter
+glanced at the address he turned deadly pale, and his eyes almost
+started from their sockets. For this is what he read: “Madame Paul.
+Dealer in Tobacco. Quai de la Seine.” Great as was his self-control, his
+emotion was too evident to escape notice. “What’s the matter with you?”
+ asked the concierge and the valet in the same breath. “What has happened
+to you?”
+
+A powerful effort of will restored this young fellow’s coolness, and
+ready in an instant with an excuse for his blunder, he replied, “I have
+changed my mind. What! you’d only give me fifteen sous to measure such a
+distance as that! Why, it isn’t a walk--it’s a journey!”
+
+His explanation was accepted without demur. His listeners thought he
+was only taking advantage of the need they had of his services--as
+was perfectly natural under the circumstances. “What! So you are
+dissatisfied!” cried the valet. “Very well! you shall have thirty
+sous--but be off!”
+
+“So I will, at once,” replied Chupin. And, imitating the whistle of a
+locomotive with wonderful perfection, he darted away at a pace which
+augured a speedy return.
+
+However, when he was some twenty yards from the house he stopped short,
+glanced around him, and espying a dark corner slipped into it. “That
+fool in the red waistcoat will be coming out to take the letter to that
+famous baroness,” he thought. “I’m here, and I’ll watch him and see
+where he goes. I should like to find out the name of the kind and
+charitable lady who watches over his brigand of a master with such
+tender care.”
+
+The day and the hour were in his favor. Night was coming on, hastened by
+a thick fog; the street lamps were not yet lighted, and as it was Sunday
+most of the shops were closed. It grew dark so rapidly that Chupin was
+scarcely able to recognize Florent when he at last emerged from the
+house. It is true that he looked altogether unlike the servant in
+the red waist-coat. As he had the key to the wardrobe containing
+his master’s clothes, he did not hesitate to use them whenever an
+opportunity offered. On this occasion he had appropriated a pair of
+those delicately tinted trousers which were M. de Coralth’s specialty,
+with a handsome overcoat, a trifle too small for him, and a very elegant
+hat.
+
+“Fine doings, indeed!” growled Chupin as he started in pursuit. “My
+servants sha’n’t serve me in that way if I ever have any.”
+
+But he paused in his soliloquy, and prudently hid himself under a
+neighboring gateway. The gorgeous Florent was ringing at the door of one
+of the most magnificent mansions in the Rue de la Ville l’Eveque. The
+door was opened, and he went in. “Ah! ah!” thought Chupin, “he hadn’t
+far to go. The viscount and the baroness are shrewd. When you have
+flowers to send to anybody it’s convenient to be neighbors!”
+
+He glanced round, and seeing an old man smoking his pipe on the
+threshold of a shop, he approached him and asked politely “Can you tell
+me whom that big house belongs to?”
+
+“To Baron Trigault,” replied the man, without releasing his hold on his
+pipe.
+
+“Thank you, monsieur,” replied Chupin, gravely. “I inquired, because
+I think of buying a house.” And repeating the name of Trigault several
+times to impress it upon his memory he darted off on his errand.
+
+It might be supposed that his unexpected success had delighted him,
+but, on the contrary, it rendered him even more exacting. The letter
+he carried burned his pocket like a red-hot iron. “Madame Paul,” he
+muttered, “that must be the rascal’s wife. First, Paul is his Christian
+name; secondly, I’ve been told that his wife keeps a tobacco shop--so
+the case is plain. But the strangest thing about it is that this husband
+and wife should write to each other, when I fancied them at dagger’s
+ends.” Chupin would have given a pint of his own blood to know the
+contents of the missive. The idea of opening it occurred to him, and it
+must be confessed that it was not a feeling of delicacy that prevented
+him. He was deterred by a large seal which had been carefully affixed,
+and which would plainly furnish evidence if the letter were tampered
+with. Thus Chupin was punished for Florent’s faults, for this seal
+was the viscount’s’ invariable precaution against his servant’s prying
+curiosity. So our enterprising youth could only read and re-read the
+superscription and smell the paper, which was strongly scented with
+verbena. He fancied that there was some mysterious connection between
+this letter intended for M. de Coralth’s wife and the missive sent
+to the baroness. And why should it not be so? Had they not both been
+written under the influence of anger? Still he failed to perceive any
+possible connection between the rich baroness and the poor tobacco
+dealer, and his cogitations only made him more perplexed than ever.
+However, his efforts to solve the mystery did not interfere with the
+free use of his limbs, and he soon found himself on the Quai de la
+Seine. “Here I am,” he muttered. “I’ve come more quickly than an
+omnibus.”
+
+The Quai de la Seine is a broad road, connecting the Rue de Flandres
+with the canal de l’Ourcq. On the left-hand side it is bordered with
+miserable shanties interspersed with some tiny shops, and several huge
+coal depots. On the right-hand side--that next to the canal--there are
+also a few provision stores. In the daytime there is no noisier nor
+livelier place than this same Quai; but nothing could be more gloomy
+at night-time when the shops are closed, when the few gas-lamps only
+increase the grimness of the shadows, and when the only sound that
+breaks the silence is the rippling of the water as its smooth surface is
+ruffled by some boatman propelling his skiff through the canal.
+
+“The Viscount must certainly have made a mistake,” thought Chupin;
+“there is no such shop on the Quai.” He was wrong, however; for after
+passing the Rue de Soissons he espied the red lantern of a tobacco-shop,
+glimmering through the fog.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Having almost reached the goal, Chupin slackened his pace. He approached
+the shop very cautiously and peered inside, deeming it prudent to
+reconnoitre a little before he went in. And certainly there was nothing
+to prevent a prolonged scrutiny. The night was very dark, the quay
+deserted. No one was to be seen; not a sound broke the stillness. The
+darkness, the surroundings, and the silence were sinister enough to make
+even Chupin shudder, though he was usually as thoroughly at home in the
+loneliest and most dangerous by-ways of Paris as an honest man of
+the middle classes would be in the different apartments of his modest
+household. “That scoundrel’s wife must have less than a hundred thousand
+a year if she takes up her abode here!” thought Chupin.
+
+And, in fact, nothing could be more repulsive than the tenement in which
+Madame Paul had installed herself. It was but one story high, and built
+of clay, and it had fallen to ruin to such an extent that it had been
+found necessary to prop it up with timber, and to nail some old boards
+over the yawning fissures in the walls. “If I lived here, I certainly
+shouldn’t feel quite at ease on a windy day,” continued Chupin, sotto
+voce.
+
+The shop itself was of a fair size, but most wretched in its
+appointments, and disgustingly dirty. The floor was covered with that
+black and glutinous coal-dust which forms the soil of the Quai de la
+Seine. An auctioneer would have sold the entire stock and fixtures for
+a few shillings. Four stone jars, and a couple of pairs of scales, a
+few odd tumblers, filled with pipes and packets of cigarettes, some
+wine-glasses, and three or four labelled bottles, five or six boxes of
+cigars, and as many packages of musty tobacco, constituted the entire
+stock in trade.
+
+As Chupin compared this vile den with the viscount’s luxurious abode,
+his blood fairly boiled in his veins. “He ought to be shot for this, if
+for nothing else,” he muttered through his set teeth. “To let his wife
+die of starvation here!” For it was M. de Coralth’s wife who kept this
+shop. Chupin, who had seen her years before, recognized her now as she
+sat behind her counter, although she was cruelly changed. “That’s her,”
+ he murmured. “That’s certainly Mademoiselle Flavie.”
+
+He had used her maiden name in speaking of her. Poor woman! She was
+undoubtedly still young--but sorrow, regret, and privations, days
+spent in hard work to earn a miserable subsistence, and nights spent in
+weeping, had made her old, haggard, and wrinkled before her time. Of
+her once remarkable beauty naught remained but her hair, which was still
+magnificent, though it was in wild disorder, and looked as if it had not
+been touched by a comb for weeks; and her big black eyes, which gleamed
+with the phosphorescent and destructive brilliancy of fever. Everything
+about her person bespoke terrible reverses, borne without dignity. Even
+if she had struggled at first, it was easy to see that she struggled
+no longer. Her attire--her torn and soiled silk dress, and her dirty
+cap--revealed thorough indolence, and that morbid indifference which at
+times follows great misfortunes with weak natures.
+
+“Such is life,” thought Chupin, philosophically. “Here’s a girl who was
+brought up like a queen and allowed to have her own way in everything!
+If any one had predicted this in those days, how she would have sneered!
+I can see her now as she looked that day when I met her driving her gray
+ponies. If people didn’t clear the road it was so much the worse for
+them! In those times Paris was like some great shop where she could
+select whatever she chose. She said: ‘I want this,’ and she got it. She
+saw a handsome young fellow and wanted him for her husband; her father,
+who could refuse her nothing, consented, and now behold the result!”
+
+He had lingered longer at the window than he had meant to do, perhaps
+because he could see that the young woman was talking with some person
+in a back room, the door of which stood open. Chupin tried to find out
+who this person was, but he did not succeed; and he was about to go in
+when suddenly he saw Madame Paul rise from her seat and say a few words
+with an air of displeasure. And this time her eyes, instead of turning
+to the open door, were fixed on a part of the shop directly opposite
+her. “Is there some one there as well, then?” Chupin wondered.
+
+He changed his post of observation, and, by standing on tiptoe, he
+succeeded in distinguishing a puny little boy, some three or four years
+old, and clad in rags, who was playing with the remnants of a toy-horse.
+The sight of this child increased Chupin’s indignation. “So there’s a
+child?” he growled. “The rascal not only deserts his wife, but he leaves
+his child to starve! We may as well make a note of that: and when we
+settle up our accounts, he shall pay dearly for his villainy.” With this
+threat he brusquely entered the shop.
+
+“What do you wish, sir?” asked the woman.
+
+“Nothing; I bring you a letter, madame.”
+
+“A letter for me! You must be mistaken.”
+
+“Excuse me; aren’t you Madame Paul?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then this is for you.” And he handed her the missive which Florent had
+confided to his care.
+
+Madame Paul took hold of it with some hesitation, eying the messenger
+suspiciously meanwhile; but, on seeing the handwriting, she uttered
+a cry of surprise. And, turning toward the open door, she called, “M.
+Mouchon! M. Mouchon! It’s from him--it’s from my husband; from Paul.
+Come, come!”
+
+A bald-headed, corpulent man, who looked some fifty years of age, now
+timidly emerged from the room behind the shop with a cap in his hand.
+“Ah, well! my dear child,” he said, in an oily voice, “what was I
+telling you just now? Everything comes to those who know how to wait.”
+
+However she had already broken the seal, and she was now reading the
+letter eagerly, clapping her hands with delight as she finished its
+perusal. “He consents!” she exclaimed. “He’s frightened--he begs me to
+wait a little--look--read!”
+
+But M. Mouchon could not read without his spectacles, and he lost at
+least two minutes in searching his pockets before he found them. And
+when they were adjusted, the light was so dim that it took him at least
+three minutes more to decipher the missive. Chupin had spent this
+time in scrutinizing--in appraising the man, as it were. “What is this
+venerable gentleman doing here?” he thought. “He’s a middle class man,
+that’s evident from his linen. He’s married--there’s a wedding-ring
+on his finger; he has a daughter, for the ends of his necktie are
+embroidered. He lives in the neighborhood, for, well dressed as he is,
+he wears a cap. But what was he doing there in that back room in the
+dark?”
+
+Meanwhile M. Mouchon had finished reading the letter. “What did I tell
+you?” he said complacently.
+
+“Yes, you were right!” answered Madame Paul as she took up the letter
+and read it again with her eyes sparkling with joy. “And now what shall
+I do?” she asked. “Wait, shall I not?”
+
+“No, no!” exclaimed the elderly gentleman, in evident dismay. “You must
+strike the iron while it’s hot.”
+
+“But he promises me----”
+
+“To promise and to keep one’s promises are two different things.”
+
+“He wants a reply.”
+
+“Tell him----” But he stopped short, calling her attention with a
+gesture to the messenger, whose eyes were glittering with intense
+curiosity.
+
+She understood. So filling a glass with some liquor, she placed it
+before Chupin, and offered him a cigar, saying: “Take a seat--here’s
+something to keep you from feeling impatient while you wait here.”
+ Thereupon she followed the old gentleman into the adjoining room, and
+closed the door.
+
+Even if Chupin had not possessed the precocious penetration he owed to
+his life of adventure, the young woman and the old gentleman had said
+enough to enable him to form a correct estimate of the situation. He was
+certain now that he knew the contents of the letter as perfectly as if
+he had read it. M. de Coralth’s anger, and his order to make haste, were
+both explained. Moreover, Chupin distinctly saw what connection there
+was between the letter to the baroness and the letter to Madame Paul. He
+understood that one was the natural consequence of the other. Deserted
+by her husband, Madame Paul had at last become weary of poverty and
+privations. She had instituted a search for her husband, and, having
+found him, she had written to him in this style: “I consent to abstain
+from interfering with you, but only on conditions that you provide means
+of subsistence for me, your lawfully wedded wife, and for your child. If
+you refuse, I shall urge my claims, and ruin you. The scandal won’t be
+of much use to me, it’s true, but at least I shall no longer be obliged
+to endure the torture of knowing that you are surrounded by every luxury
+while I am dying of starvation.”
+
+Yes, she had evidently written that. It might not be the precise text;
+but no doubt it was the purport of her letter. On receiving it, Coralth
+had become alarmed. He knew only too well that if his wife made herself
+known and revealed his past, it would be all over with him. But he had
+no money. Charming young men like the Viscount de Coralth never have
+any money on hand. So, in this emergency, the dashing young fellow had
+written to his wife imploring her to have patience, and to the baroness,
+entreating, or rather commanding her to advance him a certain sum at
+once.
+
+This was no doubt the case, and yet there was one circumstance which
+puzzled Chupin exceedingly. In former years, he had heard it asserted
+that Mademoiselle Flavie was the very personification of pride, and that
+she adored her husband even to madness. Had this great love vanished?
+Had poverty and sorrow broken her spirit to such a degree that she was
+willing to stoop to such shameful concessions! If she were acquainted
+with her husband’s present life, how did it happen that she did not
+prefer starvation, or the alms-house and a pauper’s grave to his
+assistance? Chupin could understand how, in a moment of passion,
+she might be driven to denounce her husband in the presence of his
+fashionable acquaintances, how she might be impelled to ruin him so as
+to avenge herself; but he could not possibly understand how she could
+consent to profit by the ignominy of the man she loved. “The plan
+isn’t hers,” said Chupin to himself, after a moment’s reflection. “It’s
+probably the work of that stout old gentleman.”
+
+There was a means of verifying his suspicions, for on returning into the
+adjoining room, Madame Paul had not taken her son with her. He was still
+sitting on the muddy floor of the shop, playing with his dilapidated
+horse. Chupin called him. “Come here, my little fellow,” said he.
+
+The child rose, and timidly approached, his eyes dilating with distrust
+and astonishment. The poor boy’s repulsive uncleanliness was a terrible
+charge against the mother. Did she no longer love her own offspring? The
+untidiness of sorrow and poverty has its bounds. A long time must have
+passed since the child’s face and hands had been washed, and his soiled
+clothes were literally falling to rags. Still, he was a handsome little
+fellow, and seemed fairly intelligent, in spite of his bashfulness.
+He was very light-haired, and in features he was extremely like M. de
+Coralth. Chupin took him on his knees, and, after looking to see if the
+door communicating with the inner room were securely closed, he asked:
+“What’s your name, little chap?”
+
+“Paul.”
+
+“Do you know your father?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Doesn’t your mother ever talk to you about him?”
+
+“Oh, yes!”
+
+“And what does she say?”
+
+“That he’s rich--very rich.”
+
+“And what else?”
+
+The child did not reply; perhaps his mother had forbidden him to
+say anything on the subject--perhaps that instinct which precedes
+intelligence, just as the dawn precedes daylight, warned him to be
+prudent with a stranger. “Doesn’t your papa ever come to see you?”
+ insisted Chupin.
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Mamma is very poor.”
+
+“And wouldn’t you like to go and see him?”
+
+“I don’t know. But he’ll come some day, and take us away with him to a
+large house. We shall be all right, then; and he will give us a deal of
+money and pretty dresses, and I shall have plenty of toys.”
+
+Satisfied on this point, Chupin, pushed his investigations farther.
+“And do you know this old gentleman who is with your mamma in the other
+room?”
+
+“Oh, yes!--that’s Mouchon.”
+
+“And who’s Mouchon?”
+
+“He’s the gentleman who owns that beautiful garden at the corner of the
+Rue Riquet, where there are such splendid grapes. I’m going with him to
+get some.”
+
+“Does he often come to see you?”
+
+“Every evening. He always has goodies in his pocket for mamma and me.”
+
+“Why does he sit in that back room without any light?”
+
+“Oh, he says that the customers mustn’t see him.”
+
+It would have been an abominable act to continue this examination, and
+make this child the innocent accuser of his own mother. Chupin felt
+conscience-smitten even now. So he kissed the cleanest spot he could
+find on the boy’s face, and set him on the floor again, saying, “Go and
+play.”
+
+The child had revealed his mother’s character with cruel precision. What
+had she told him about his father? That he was rich, and that, in case
+he returned, he would give them plenty of money and fine clothes. The
+woman’s nature stood revealed in all its deformity. Chupin had good
+cause to feel proud of his discernment--all his suppositions had
+been confirmed. He had read Mouchon’s character at a glance. He had
+recognized him as one of those wily evil-minded men who employ their
+leisure to the profit of their depravity--one of those patient,
+cold-blooded hypocrites who make poverty their purveyor, and whose
+passion is prodigal only in advice. “So he’s paying his court to Madame
+Paul,” thought Chupin. “Isn’t it shameful? The old villain! he might at
+least give her enough to eat!”
+
+So far his preoccupation had made him forget his wine and his cigar. He
+emptied the glass at a single draught, but it proved far more difficult
+to light the cigar. “Zounds! this is a non-combustible,” he growled.
+“When I arrive at smoking ten sous cigars, I sha’n’t come here to buy
+them.”
+
+However, with the help of several matches and a great deal of drawing,
+he had almost succeeded, when the door opened, and Madame Paul
+reappeared with a letter in her hand. She seemed greatly agitated; her
+anxiety was unmistakable. “I can’t decide,” she was saying to Mouchon,
+whose figure Chupin could only dimly distinguish in the darkness. “No,
+I can’t. If I send this letter, I must forever renounce all hope of my
+husband’s return. Whatever happens, he will never forgive me.”
+
+“He can’t treat you worse than he does now, at all events,” replied the
+old gentleman. “Besides, a gloved cat has never caught a mouse yet.”
+
+“He’ll hate me.”
+
+“The man who wants his dog to love him, beats it; and, besides, when the
+wine is drawn, one must drink it.”
+
+This singular logic seemed to decide her. She handed the letter to
+Chupin, and drawing a franc from her pocket she offered it to him. “This
+is for your trouble,” she said.
+
+He involuntarily held out his hand to take the money, but quickly
+withdrew it, exclaiming: “No, thank you; keep it. I’ve been paid
+already.” And, thereupon, he left the shop.
+
+Chupin’s mother--his poor good mother, as he called her--would certainly
+have felt proud and delighted at her son’s disinterestedness. That
+very morning, he had refused the ten francs a day that M. Fortunat had
+offered him, and this evening he declined the twenty sous proffered him
+by Madame Paul. This was apparently a trifle, and yet in reality it was
+something marvellous, unprecedented, on the part of this poor lad, who,
+having neither trade nor profession, was obliged to earn his daily bread
+through the medium of those chance opportunities which the lower classes
+of Paris are continually seeking. As he returned to the Rue de Flandres,
+he muttered: “Take twenty sous from that poor creature, who hasn’t had
+enough to satisfy her hunger for heaven knows how long! That would be
+altogether unworthy of a man.”
+
+It is only just to say that money had never given him a feeling of
+satisfaction at all comparable with that which he now experienced.
+He was impressed, too, with a sense of vastly-increased importance on
+thinking that all the faculties, and all the energy he had once employed
+in the service of evil, were now consecrated to the service of good. By
+becoming the instrument of Pascal Ferailleur’s salvation he would, in
+some measure, atone for the crime he had committed years before.
+
+Chupin’s mind was so busily occupied with these thoughts that he reached
+the Rue d’Anjou and M. de Coralth’s house almost before he was aware of
+it. To his great surprise, the concierge and his wife were not alone.
+Florent was there, taking coffee with them. The valet had divested
+himself of his borrowed finery, and had donned his red waistcoat again.
+He seemed to be in a savage humor; and his anger was not at all strange
+under the circumstances. There was but a step from M. de Coralth’s house
+to the baroness’s residence, but fatalities may attend even a step! The
+baroness, on receiving the letter from her maid, had sent a message to
+Florent requesting him to wait, as she desired to speak with him! and
+she had been so inconsiderate as to keep him waiting for more than an
+hour, so that he had missed his appointment with the charming ladies he
+had spoken of. In his despair he had returned home to seek consolation
+in the society of his friend the concierge. “Have you the answer?” he
+asked.
+
+“Yes, here it is,” replied Chupin, and Florent had just slipped the
+letter into his pocket, and was engaged in counting out the thirty
+sous which he had promised his messenger, when the familiar cry, “Open,
+please,” was heard outside.
+
+M. de Coralth had returned. He sprang to the ground as soon as the
+carriage entered the courtyard, and on perceiving his servant, he
+exclaimed: “Have you executed my commissions?”
+
+“They have been executed, monsieur.”
+
+“Did you see the baroness?”
+
+“She made me wait two hours to tell me that the viscount need not be
+worried in the least; that she would certainly be able to comply with
+his request to-morrow.”
+
+M. de Coralth seemed to breathe more freely. “And the other party?” he
+inquired.
+
+“Gave me this for monsieur.”
+
+The viscount seized the missive, with an eager hand, tore it open, read
+it at one glance, and flew into such a paroxysm of passion that he
+quite forgot those around him, and began to tear the letter, and utter
+a string of oaths which would have astonished a cab-driver. But suddenly
+realizing his imprudence, he mastered his rage, and exclaimed, with a
+forced laugh: “Ah! these women! they are enough to drive one mad!” And
+deeming this a sufficient explanation, he added, addressing Florent.
+“Come and undress me; I must be up early to-morrow morning.”
+
+This remark was not lost upon Chupin, and at seven o’clock the next
+morning he mounted guard at M. de Coralth’s door. All through the day he
+followed the viscount about, first to the Marquis de Valorsay’s, then
+to the office of a business agent, then to M. Wilkie’s, then, in the
+afternoon, to Baroness Trigault’s, and finally, in the evening, to
+the house of Madame d’Argeles. Here, by making himself useful to the
+servants, by his zeal in opening and shutting the doors of the carriages
+that left the house, he succeeded in gathering some information
+concerning the frightful scene which had taken place between the mother
+and the son. He perceived M. Wilkie leave the house with his clothes in
+disorder, and subsequently he saw the viscount emerge. He followed
+him, first to the house of the Marquis de Valorsay, and afterward to M.
+Wilkie’s rooms, where he remained till nearly daybreak.
+
+Thus, when Chupin presented himself in M. Fortunat’s office at two
+o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon, he felt that he held every possible
+clue to the shameful intrigue which would ruin the viscount as soon as
+it was made public.
+
+M. Fortunat knew that his agent was shrewd, but he had not done justice
+to his abilities; and it was, indeed, with something very like envy that
+he listened to Chupin’s clear and circumstantial report. “I have not
+been as successful,” he remarked, when Chupin’s story was ended. But he
+had not time to explain how or why, for just as he was about to do so,
+Madame Dodelin appeared, and announced that the young lady he expected
+was there. “Let her come in!” exclaimed M. Fortunat, eagerly--“let her
+come in!”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite had not been compelled to resort to any
+subterfuge to make her escape from Madame de Fondege’s house. The
+General had decamped early in the morning to try his horses and his
+carriages, announcing, moreover, that he would breakfast at the club.
+And as soon as her breakfast was concluded, Madame de Fondege had
+hurried off to her dressmaker’s, warning the household that she would
+not return before dinner-time. A little while later, Madame Leon had
+suddenly remembered that her noble relative would certainly be expecting
+a visit from her, and so she dressed herself in haste, and went off,
+first to Dr. Jodon’s and thence to the Marquis de Valorsay’s.
+
+Thus, Mademoiselle Marguerite had been able to make her escape without
+attracting any one’s attention, and she would be able to remain away as
+many hours as she chose, since the servants would not know how long she
+had been absent even if they saw her when she returned. An empty cab was
+passing as she left the house, so she hailed it and got in. The step she
+was about to take cost her a terrible effort. It was a difficult task
+for her, a girl naturally so reserved, to confide in a stranger, and
+open to him her maidenly heart, filled with love for Pascal Ferailleur!
+Still, she was much calmer than she had been on the previous evening,
+when she called on the photographer for a facsimile of M. de Valorsay’s
+letter. Several circumstances combined to reassure her. M. Fortunat
+knew her already, since he was the agent whom the Count de Chalusse
+had employed to carry on the investigations which had resulted in her
+discovery at the foundling asylum. A vague presentiment told her that
+this man was better acquainted with her past life than she was herself,
+and that he could, if he chose, tell her her mother’s name--the name of
+the woman whom the count so dreaded, and who had so pitilessly deserted
+her. However, her heart beat more quickly, and she felt that she was
+turning pale when, at Madame Dodelin’s invitation, she at last entered
+M. Fortunat’s private office. She took in the room and its occupants
+with a single glance. The handsome appointments of the office surprised
+her, for she had expected to see a den. The agent’s polite manner and
+rather elegant appearance disconcerted her, for she had expected to
+meet a coarse and illiterate boor; and finally, Victor Chupin, who was
+standing twisting his cap near the fireplace, attired in a blouse and
+a pair of ragged trousers, fairly alarmed her. Still, no sign of her
+agitation was perceptible on her countenance. Not a muscle of her
+beautiful, proud face moved--her glance remained clear and haughty, and
+she exclaimed in a ringing voice: “I am the late Count de Chalusse’s
+ward, Mademoiselle Marguerite. You have received my letter, I suppose?”
+
+M. Fortunat bowed with all the grace of manner he was wont to display in
+the circles where he went wife-hunting, and with a somewhat pretentious
+gesture he advanced an arm-chair, and asked his visitor to sit down.
+“Your letter reached me, mademoiselle,” he replied, “and I was expecting
+you--flattered and honored beyond expression by your confidence. My
+door, indeed, was closed to any one but you.”
+
+Marguerite took the proffered seat, and there was a moment’s silence.
+M. Fortunat found it difficult to believe that this beautiful, imposing
+young girl could be the poor little apprentice whom he had seen in
+the book-bindery, years before, clad in a coarse serge frock, with
+dishevelled hair covered with scraps of paper. In the meantime,
+Marguerite was regretting the necessity of confiding in this man, for
+the more she looked at him, the more she was convinced that he was
+not an honest, straightforward person; and she would infinitely have
+preferred a cynical scoundrel to this plausible and polite gentleman,
+whom she strongly suspected of being a hypocrite. She remained silent,
+waiting for M. Fortunat to dismiss the young man in the blouse, whose
+presence she could not explain, and who stood in a sort of mute ecstasy,
+staring at her with eyes expressive of the most intense surprise and
+the liveliest admiration. But weary at last of this fruitless delay, she
+exclaimed: “I have come, monsieur, to confer with you respecting certain
+matters which require the most profound secrecy.”
+
+Chupin understood her, for he blushed to the tips of his ears, and
+started as if to leave the room. But his employer detained him with a
+gesture.
+
+“Remain, Victor,” he said kindly, and, turning to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, he added: “You have no indiscretion to fear from this worthy
+fellow, mademoiselle. He knows everything, and he has already been
+actively at work--and with the best result--on your behalf.”
+
+“I don’t understand you, sir,” replied the girl.
+
+M. Fortunat smiled sweetly. “I have already taken your business in hand,
+mademoiselle,” said he. “An hour after the receipt of your letter I
+began the campaign.”
+
+“But I had not told you----”
+
+“What you wished of me--that’s true. But I allowed myself to
+suspect----”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“I fancied I might conclude that you wished the help of my experience
+and poor ability in clearing an innocent man who has been vilely
+slandered, M. Pascal Ferailleur.”
+
+Marguerite sprang to her feet, at once agitated and alarmed. “How did
+you know this?” she exclaimed.
+
+M. Fortunat had left his arm-chair, and was now leaning against the
+mantel-shelf, in what he considered a most becoming and awe-inspiring
+attitude, with his thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat. “Ah! nothing
+could be more simple,” he answered, in much the same tone as a conqueror
+might assume to explain his feat. “It is part of my profession to
+penetrate the intentions of persons who deign to honor me with their
+confidence. So my surmises are correct; at least you have not said the
+contrary?”
+
+She had said nothing. When her first surprise was over, she vainly
+endeavored to find a plausible explanation of M. Fortunat’s acquaintance
+with her affairs, for she was not at all deceived by his pretended
+perspicacity. Meanwhile, delighted by the supposed effect he had
+produced, he recklessly continued: “Reserve your amazement for what I
+am about to disclose, for I have made several important discoveries. It
+must have been your good angel who inspired you with the idea of coming
+to me. You would have shuddered if you had realized the dangers that
+threatened you. But now you have nothing to fear; I am watching. I am
+here, and I hold in my hand all the threads of the abominable intrigue
+for ruining you. For it is you, your person, and your fortune that
+are imperilled. It was solely on your account that M. Ferailleur was
+attacked. And I can tell you the names of the scoundrels who ruined him.
+The crime originated with the person who had the most powerful interest
+in the matter--the Marquis de Valorsay. His agent was a scoundrel who is
+generally known as the Viscount de Coralth; but Chupin here can tell you
+his real name and his shameful past. You preferred M. Ferailleur, hence
+it was necessary to put him out of the way. M. de Chalusse had promised
+your hand to the Marquis de Valorsay. This marriage was Valorsay’s only
+resource--the plank that might save the drowning man. People fancy he is
+rich; but he is ruined. Yes, ruined completely, irretrievably. He was in
+such desperate straits that he had almost determined to blow his brains
+out before the hope of marrying you entered his mind.”
+
+“Ah!” thought Chupin, “my employer is well under way.”
+
+This was indeed the case. The name of Valorsay was quite sufficient
+to set all M. Fortunat’s bile in motion. All thought of his ex-client
+irritated him beyond endurance. Unfortunately for him, however, his
+anger in the present instance had ruined his plans. He had intended to
+take Mademoiselle Marguerite by surprise, to work upon her imagination,
+to make her talk without saying anything himself, and to remain master
+of the situation. But on the contrary he had revealed everything; and
+he did not discover this until it was too late to retrieve his blunder.
+“How the Marquis de Valorsay has kept his head above water is a wonder
+to me,” he continued. “His creditors have been threatening to sue him
+for more than six months. How he has been able to keep them quiet since
+M. de Chalusse’s death, I cannot understand. However, this much is
+certain, mademoiselle: the marquis has not renounced his intention of
+becoming your husband; and to attain that object he won’t hesitate to
+employ any means that may promise to prove effectual.”
+
+Completely mistress of herself, Mademoiselle Marguerite listened with an
+impassive face. “I know all this,” she replied, in a frigid tone.
+
+“What! you know----”
+
+“Yes; but there is one thing that baffles my powers of comprehension. My
+dowry was the only temptation to M. de Valorsay, was it not? Why does he
+still wish to marry me, now that I have no fortune?”
+
+M. Fortunat had gradually lost all his advantage. “I have asked myself
+the same question,” he replied, “and I think I have found an answer. I
+believe that the marquis has in his possession a letter, or a will, or a
+document of some sort, written by M. de Chalusse--in fact an instrument
+in which the count acknowledges you as his daughter, and which
+consequently establishes; your right to his property.”
+
+“And the marquis could urge this claim if he became my husband?”
+
+“Certainly he could.”
+
+M. Fortunat explained M. de Valorsay’s conduct exactly as the old
+magistrate had done. However, Mademoiselle Marguerite discreetly
+refrained from committing herself. The great interest that M. Fortunat
+seemed to take in her affairs aroused her distrust; and she decided
+to do what he had attempted in vain--that is, allow him to do all the
+talking, and to conceal all that she knew herself. “Perhaps you are
+right,” she remarked, “but it is necessary to prove the truth of your
+assertion.”
+
+“I can prove that Valorsay hasn’t a shilling, and that he has lived for
+a year by expedients which render him liable to arrest and prosecution
+at any time. I can prove that he deceived M. de Chalusse as to his
+financial position. I can prove that he conspired with M. de Coralth to
+ruin your lover. Wouldn’t this be something?”
+
+She smiled in a way that was exceedingly irritating to his vanity, and
+in a tone of good-natured incredulity, she remarked: “It is easy to SAY
+these things.”
+
+“And to do them,” rejoined M. Fortunat, quickly. “I never promise what I
+cannot perform. A man should never touch a pen when he is meditating any
+evil act. Of course, no one is fool enough to write down his infamy in
+detail. But a man cannot always be on the qui vive. There will be a word
+in one letter, a sentence in another, an allusion in a third. And by
+combining these words, phrases, and allusions, one may finally discover
+the truth.”
+
+He suddenly checked himself, warned of his fresh imprudence by the
+expression on Mademoiselle Marguerite’s face. She drew back, and looking
+him full in the eyes, she exclaimed: “Then you have been in M. de
+Valorsay’s confidence, sir? Would you be willing to swear that you never
+helped him in his designs?”
+
+A silent and ignored witness of this scene, Victor Chupin was secretly
+delighted. “Hit!” he thought--“hit just in the bull’s-eye. Zounds!
+there’s a woman for you! She has beaten the guv’nor on every point.”
+
+M. Fortunat was so taken by surprise that he made no attempt to deny
+his guilt. “I confess that I acted as M. de Valorsay’s adviser for some
+time,” he replied, “and he frequently spoke to me of his intention of
+marrying a rich wife in order to retrieve his shattered fortunes. Upon
+my word, I see nothing so very bad about that! It is not a strictly
+honest proceeding, perhaps, but it is done every day. What is marriage
+in this age? Merely a business transaction, is it not? Perhaps it would
+be more correct to say that it is a transaction in which one person
+tries to cheat the other. The fathers-in-law are deceived, or the
+husband, or the wife, and sometimes all of them together. But when I
+discovered this scheme for mining M. Ferailleur, I cried ‘halt!’ My
+conscience revolted at that. Dishonor an innocent man! It was base,
+cowardly, outrageous! And not being able to prevent this infamous act, I
+swore that I would avenge it.”
+
+Would Mademoiselle Marguerite accept this explanation? Chupin feared so,
+and accordingly turning quickly to his employer, he remarked: “To
+say nothing of the fact that this fine gentleman has swindled you
+outrageously, shrewd as you are--cheating you out of the forty thousand
+francs you lent him, and which he was to pay you eighty thousand for.”
+
+M. Fortunat cast a withering look at his clerk, but the mischief was
+done: denial was useless. He seemed fated to blunder in this affair.
+“Well, yes,” he declared, “it’s true. Valorsay HAS defrauded me, and I
+have sworn to have my revenge. I won’t rest until I see him ruined.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was partially reassured, for she understood
+his zeal now. Her scorn for the man was only increased; but she was
+convinced that he would serve her faithfully. “I like this much better,”
+ said she. “It is better to have no concealment. You desire M. de
+Valorsay’s ruin. I desire the rehabilitation of M. Ferailleur. So our
+interests are in common. But before acting in this matter, we must know
+M. Ferailleur’s wishes.”
+
+“They cannot be considered.”
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Because no one knows what has become of him. When the desire for
+revenge first took possession of me, I at once thought of him. I
+procured his address, and went to the Rue d’Ulm. But he had gone away.
+The very day after his misfortune, M. Ferailleur sold his furniture and
+went away with his mother.”
+
+“I am aware of that, and I have come to ask you to search for him. To
+discover his hiding-place will be only child’s play to you.”
+
+“Do you suppose I haven’t thought of this?” replied M. Fortunat. “Why, I
+spent all day yesterday searching for him. By questioning the people
+in the neighborhood I finally succeeded in ascertaining that Madame
+Ferailleur left her home in a cab several hours after her son, and took
+a very large quantity of baggage with her. Well, do you know where she
+drove? To the Western railway station. I am sure of this, and I know she
+told a porter there that her destination was London. M. Ferailleur is
+now en route for America, and we shall never hear of him again!”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite shook her head. “You are mistaken, sir,” said
+she.
+
+“There can be no mistake about what I have just told you.”
+
+“I don’t question the result of your investigations, but appearances are
+deceitful. I thoroughly understand M. Ferailleur’s character, and he is
+not the man to be crushed by an infamous calumny. He may seem to fly, he
+may disappear, he may conceal himself for a time, but it is only to
+make his vengeance more certain. What! Pascal, who is energy itself, who
+possesses an iron will, and invincible determination, would he renounce
+his honor, his future, and the woman he loves without a struggle? If he
+had felt that his case was hopeless, he would have destroyed himself,
+and as he has not done so, he is not without hope. He has not left
+Paris; I am sure of it.”
+
+M. Fortunat was not convinced. In his opinion this was only sentiment
+and rubbish. Still there was one person present who was deeply impressed
+by the confidence of this young girl, who was the most beautiful
+creature he had ever seen, and whose devotion and energy filled his
+heart with admiration, and this person was Chupin. He stepped forward
+with his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, and in a feeling voice he
+exclaimed: “I understand your idea! Yes, M. Ferailleur is in Paris. And
+I shall be unworthy of the name of Chupin, if I don’t find him for you
+in less than a fortnight!”
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite knew Pascal Ferailleur. Suddenly struck down in
+the full sunlight of happiness by a terrible misfortune, he, of course,
+experienced moments of frenzy and terrible depression; but he was
+incapable of the cowardice which M. Fortunat had accused him of.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite only did him justice when she said that the sole
+condition on which he could consent to live was that of consecrating his
+life, and all his strength, intelligence and will to confounding this
+infamous calumny. And still she did not know the extent of Pascal’s
+misfortune. How could she suppose that he believed himself deserted by
+her? How could she know the doubts and fears and the anguish that had
+been roused in his heart by the note which Madame Leon had given him at
+the garden gate? What did she know of the poignant suspicions that
+had rent his mind, after listening to Madame Vantrasson’s disparaging
+insinuations?
+
+It must be admitted that he was indebted to his mother alone for his
+escape from suicide--that grim madness that seizes hold of so many
+desperate, despairing men. And it was still to his mother--the
+incomparable guardian of his honor--that he owed his resolution on the
+morning he applied to Baron Trigault. And his courage met with its first
+reward.
+
+He was no longer the same man when he left the princely mansion which
+he had entered with his heart so full of anguish. He was still somewhat
+bewildered with the strange scenes which he had involuntarily witnessed,
+the secrets he had overheard, and the revelations which had been made to
+him; but a light gleamed on the horizon--a fitful and uncertain light,
+it is true, but nevertheless a hopeful gleam. At least, he would no
+longer have to struggle alone. An honest and experienced man, powerful
+by reason of his reputation, his connections and his fortune, had
+promised him his help. Thanks to this man whom misfortune had made a
+truer friend than years could have done, he would have access to the
+wretch who had deprived him both of his honor and of the woman he loved.
+He knew the weak spot in the marquis’s armor now; he knew where and how
+to strike, and he felt sure that he should succeed in winning Valorsay’s
+confidence, and in obtaining irrefutable proofs of his villainy.
+
+Pascal was eager to inform his mother of the fortunate result of his
+visit, but certain arrangements which were needful for the success of
+his plans required his attention, and it was nearly five o’clock when
+he reached the Route de la Revolte. Madame Ferailleur was just returning
+home when he arrived, which surprised him considerably, for he had not
+known that she had intended going out. The cab she had used was still
+standing before the door, and she had not had time to take off her
+shawl and bonnet when he entered the house. She uttered a joyful cry on
+perceiving her son. She was so accustomed to read his secret thoughts on
+his face, that it was unnecessary for him to say a word; before he had
+even opened his lips, she cried: “So you have succeeded?”
+
+“Yes, mother, beyond my hopes.”
+
+“I was not deceived, then, in the worthy man who came to offer us his
+assistance?”
+
+“No, certainly not. Do what I may, I can never repay him for his
+generosity and self-denial. If you knew, my dear mother, if you only
+knew----”
+
+“What?”
+
+He kissed her as if he wished to apologize for what he was about to say,
+and then he quickly replied: “Marguerite is the daughter of Baroness
+Trigault.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur started back, as if she had seen a reptile spring up
+in her pathway. “The daughter of the baroness!” she faltered. “Great
+Heavens!”
+
+“It is the truth, mother; listen to me.” And in a voice that trembled
+with emotion, he rapidly related all he had learned by his visit to the
+baron, softening the truth as much as he could without concealing it.
+But prevarication was useless. Madame Ferailleur’s indignation
+and disgust were none the less evident. “That woman is a shameless
+creature,” she said, coldly, when her son’s narrative was concluded.
+
+Pascal made no reply. He knew only too well that his mother was right,
+and yet it wounded him cruelly to hear her speak in this style. For the
+baroness was Marguerite’s mother after all.
+
+“So,” continued Madame Ferailleur, with increasing indignation,
+“creatures do exist who are destitute even of the maternal instincts
+of animals. I am an honest woman myself; I don’t say it in
+self-glorification, it’s no credit to me; my mother was a saint, and I
+loved my husband; what some people call duty was my happiness, so I may
+be allowed to speak on this subject. I don’t excuse infidelity, but I
+can understand how such a thing is possible. Yes, I can understand how a
+beautiful young woman, who is left alone in a city like Paris, may lose
+her senses, and forget the worthy man who has exiled himself for her
+sake, and who is braving a thousand dangers to win a fortune for her.
+The husband who exposes his honor and happiness to such terrible risk,
+is an imprudent man. But when this woman has erred, when she has given
+birth to a child, how she can abandon it, how she can cast it off as
+if it were a dog, I cannot comprehend. I could imagine infanticide more
+easily. No, such a woman has no heart, no bowels of compassion. There is
+nothing human in her! For how could she live, how could she sleep with
+the thought that somewhere in the world her own child, the flesh of her
+flesh, was exposed to all the temptations of poverty, and the horrors of
+shame and vice? And she, the possessor of millions, she, the inmate of a
+palace, thinking only of dress and pleasure! How was it that she didn’t
+ask herself every minute, ‘Where is my daughter now, and what is she
+doing? What is she living on? Has she shelter, clothes and food? To what
+depths of degradation she may have sunk? Perhaps she has so far lived by
+honest toil, and perhaps at this very moment this support fails her, and
+she is abandoning herself to a life of infamy.’ Great God! how does this
+woman dare to step out of doors? On seeing the poor wretches who have
+been driven to vice by want, how can she fail to say to herself: ‘That,
+perhaps, is my daughter!’”
+
+Pascal turned pale, moved to the depths of his soul by his mother’s
+extraordinary vehemence. He trembled lest she should say: “And you,
+my son, would you marry the child of such a mother?” For he knew his
+mother’s prejudices, and the great importance she attached to a
+spotless reputation transmitted from parent to child, from generation to
+generation. “The baroness knew that her husband adored her, and hearing
+of his return she became terrified; she lost her senses,” he ventured to
+say in extenuation.
+
+“Would you try to defend her?” exclaimed Madame Ferailleur. “Do you
+really think one can atone for a fault by a crime?”
+
+“No, certainly not, but----”
+
+“Perhaps you would censure the baroness more severely if you knew what
+her daughter has suffered--if you knew the perils and miseries she has
+been exposed to from the moment her mother left her on a door-step, near
+the central markets, till the day when her father found her. It is a
+miracle that she did not perish.”
+
+Where had Madame Ferailleur learned these particulars? Pascal asked
+himself this question without being able to answer it. “I don’t
+understand you, mother,” he faltered.
+
+“Then you know nothing of Mademoiselle Marguerite’s past life. Is it
+possible she never told you anything about it?”
+
+“I only know that she has been very unhappy.”
+
+“Has she never alluded to the time when she was an apprentice?”
+
+“She has only told me that she earned her living with her own hands at
+one time of her life.”
+
+“Well, I am better informed on the subject.”
+
+Pascal’s amazement was changed to terror. “You, mother, you!”
+
+“Yes; I--I have been to the asylum where she was received and educated.
+I have had a conversation with two Sisters of Charity who remember
+her, and it is scarcely an hour since I left the people to whom she was
+formerly bound as an apprentice.”
+
+Standing opposite his mother with one hand convulsively clutching the
+back of the chair he was leaning on, Pascal tried to nerve himself for
+some terrible blow. For was not his life at stake? Did not his whole
+future depend upon the revelations Madame Ferailleur was about to make?
+“So this was your object in going out, mother?” he faltered.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you went without warning me?”
+
+“Was it necessary? What! you love a young girl, you swear in my presence
+that she shall be your wife, and you think it strange that I should
+try to ascertain whether she is worthy of you or not? It would be very
+strange if I did not do so.”
+
+“This idea occurred to you so suddenly!”
+
+Madame Ferailleur gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders,
+as if she were astonished to have to answer such puerile objections.
+“Have you already forgotten the disparaging remarks made by our new
+servant, Madame Vantrasson?”
+
+“Good Heavens!”
+
+“I understood her base insinuations as well as you did, and after your
+departure I questioned her, or rather I allowed her to tell her
+story, and I ascertained that Mademoiselle Marguerite had once been an
+apprentice of Vantrasson’s brother-in-law, a man named Greloux, who was
+formerly a bookbinder in the Rue Saint-Denis, but who has now retired
+from business. It was there that Vantrasson met Mademoiselle Marguerite,
+and this is why he was so greatly surprised to see her doing the
+mistress at the Hotel de Chalusse.”
+
+It seemed to Pascal that the throbbing of his heart stopped his breath.
+
+“By a little tact I obtained the Greloux’s address from Madame
+Vantrasson,” resumed his mother. “Then I sent for a cab and drove there
+at once.”
+
+“And you saw them?”
+
+“Yes; thanks to a falsehood which doesn’t trouble my conscience much, I
+succeeded in effecting an entrance, and had an hour’s conversation with
+them.” His mother’s icy tones frightened Pascal. Her slowness tortured
+him, and still he dared not press her. “The Greloux family,” she
+continued, “seem to be what are called worthy people, that is, incapable
+of committing any crime that is punishable by the code, and very proud
+of their income of seven thousand francs a year. They must have been
+very much attached to Mademoiselle Marguerite, for they were lavish in
+their protestations of affection when I mentioned her name. The husband
+in particular seemed to regard her with a feeling of something like
+gratitude.”
+
+“Ah! you see, mother, you see!”
+
+“As for the wife, it was easy to see that she had sincerely regretted
+the loss of the best apprentice, the most honest servant, and the best
+worker she had ever seen in her life. And yet, from her own story, I
+should be willing to swear that she had abused the poor child, and had
+made a slave of her.” Tears glittered in Pascal’s eyes, but he breathed
+freely once more. “As for Vantrasson,” resumed Madame Ferailleur, “it
+is certain that he took a violent fancy to his sister’s apprentice. This
+man, who has since become an infamous scoundrel, was then only a rake,
+an unprincipled drunkard and libertine. He fancied the poor little
+apprentice--she was then but thirteen years old--would be only too glad
+to become the mistress of her employer’s brother; but she scornfully
+repulsed him, and his vanity was so deeply wounded that he persecuted
+the poor girl to such an extent that she was obliged to complain, first
+to Madame Greloux, who--to her shame be it said--treated these insults
+as mere nonsense; and afterward to Greloux himself, who was probably
+delighted to have an opportunity of ridding himself of his indolent
+brother-in-law, for he turned him out of the house.”
+
+The thought that so vile a rascal as this man Vantrasson should have
+dared to insult Marguerite made Pascal frantic with indignation. “The
+wretch!” he exclaimed; “the wretch!” But without seeming to notice her
+son’s anger, Madame Ferailleur continued: “They pretended they had not
+seen their former apprentice since she had been living in grandeur,
+as they expressed it. But in this they lied to me. For they saw her at
+least once, and that was on the day she brought them twenty thousand
+francs, which proved the nucleus of their fortune. They did not mention
+this fact, however.”
+
+“Dear Marguerite!” murmured Pascal, “dear Marguerite!” And then aloud:
+“But where did you learn these last details, mother?” he inquired.
+
+“At the asylum where Mademoiselle Marguerite was brought up, and there,
+too, I only heard words of praise. ‘Never,’ said the superior, ‘have I
+had a more gifted, sweeter-tempered or more attractive charge.’ They had
+reproached her sometimes for being too reserved, and her self-respect
+had often been mistaken for inordinate pride; but she had not forgotten
+the asylum any more than she had forgotten her former patrons. On one
+occasion the superior received from her the sum of twenty-five thousand
+francs, and a year ago she presented the institution with one hundred
+thousand francs, the yearly income of which is to constitute the
+marriage dowry of some deserving orphan.”
+
+Pascal was greatly elated. “Well, mother!” he exclaimed, “well, is
+it strange that I love her?” Madame Ferailleur made no reply, and a
+sorrowful apprehension seized hold of him. “You are silent,” said he,
+“and why? When the blessed day that will allow me to wed Marguerite
+arrives, you surely won’t oppose our marriage?”
+
+“No, my son, nothing that I have learned gives me the right to do so.”
+
+“The right! Ah, you are unjust, mother.”
+
+“Unjust! Haven’t I faithfully reported all that was told me, although I
+knew it would only increase your passion?”
+
+“That’s true, but----”
+
+Madame Ferailleur sadly shook her head. “Do you think,” she interrupted,
+“that I can, without sorrow, see you choose a girl of no family, a girl
+who is outside the pale of social recognition? Don’t you understand
+my disquietude when I think that the girl that you will marry is the
+daughter of such a woman as Baroness Trigault, an unfortunate girl
+whom her mother cannot even recognize, since her mother is a married
+woman----”
+
+“Ah! mother, is that Marguerite’s fault?”
+
+“Did I say it was her fault? No--I only pray God that you may never
+have to repent of choosing a wife whose past life must ever remain an
+impenetrable mystery!”
+
+Pascal had become very pale. “Mother!” he said in a quivering voice,
+“mother!”
+
+“I mean that you will only know so much of Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+past life as she may choose to tell you,” continued the obdurate old
+lady. “You heard Madame Vantrasson’s ignoble allegations. It has been
+said that she was the mistress, not the daughter, of the Count de
+Chalusse. Who knows what vile accusations you may be forced to meet?
+And what is your refuge, if doubts should ever assail you? Mademoiselle
+Marguerite’s word! Will this be sufficient? It is now, perhaps; but will
+it suffice in years to come? I would have my son’s wife above suspicion;
+and she--why, there is not a single episode in her life that does not
+expose her to the most atrocious calumny.”
+
+“What does calumny matter? it will never shake my faith in her. The
+misfortunes which you reproach Marguerite for sanctify her in my eyes.”
+
+“Pascal!”
+
+“What! Am I to scorn her because she has been unfortunate? Am I to
+regard her birth as a crime? Am I to despise her because her MOTHER is
+a despicable woman? No--God be praised! the day when illegitimate
+children, the innocent victims of their mother’s faults, were branded as
+outcasts, is past.”
+
+But Madame Ferailleur’s prejudices were too deeply rooted to be shaken
+by these arguments. “I won’t discuss this question, my son,” she
+interrupted, “but take care. By declaring children irresponsible for
+their mother’s faults, you will break the strongest tie that binds a
+woman to duty. If the son of a pure and virtuous wife, and the son of
+an adulterous woman meet upon equal ground, those who are held in check
+only by the thought of their children will finally say to themselves,
+what does it matter?”
+
+It was the first time that a cloud had ever arisen between mother and
+son. On hearing his dearest hopes thus attacked, Pascal was tempted
+to rebel, and a flood of bitter words rose to his lips. However he had
+strength enough to control himself. “Marguerite alone can triumph over
+these implacable prejudices,” he thought; “when my mother knows her, she
+will feel how unjust they are!”
+
+And as he found it difficult to remain master of himself, he stammered
+some excuse, and abruptly retired to his own room, where he threw
+himself on his bed. He felt that it was not his place to reproach his
+mother or censure her for her opinions. What mother had ever been so
+devoted as she had been? And who knows?--it was, perhaps, from these
+same rigid prejudices that this simple-minded and heroic woman had
+derived her energy, her enthusiastic love of God, her hatred of evil,
+and that virility of spirit which misfortune had been powerless to
+daunt. Besides, had she not promised to offer no opposition to his
+marriage! And was not this a great concession, a sacrifice which must
+have cost her a severe struggle? And where can one find the mother
+who does not count as one of the sublime joys of maternity the task of
+seeking a wife for her son, of choosing from among all others the young
+girl who will be the companion of his life, the angel of his dark and of
+his prosperous days? His mind was occupied with these thoughts when his
+door suddenly opened, and he sprang up, exclaiming: “Who is it?”
+
+It was Madame Vantrasson, who came to announce that dinner was
+ready--a dinner which she had herself prepared, for on going out Madame
+Ferailleur had left her in charge of the household. On seeing this
+woman, Pascal was overcome with rage and indignation, and felt a wild
+desire to annihilate her. He knew that she was only a vile slanderer,
+but she might meet other beings as vile as herself who would be only too
+glad to believe her falsehoods. And to think that he was powerless to
+punish her! He now realized the suffering his mother had spoken of--the
+most atrocious suffering which the lover can endure--powerlessness to
+protect the object of his affections, when she is assailed. Engrossed
+in these gloomy thoughts, Pascal preserved a sullen silence during the
+repast. He ate because his mother filled his plate; but if he had been
+questioned, he could scarcely have told what he was eating. And yet, the
+modest dinner was excellent. Madame Vantrasson was really a good cook,
+and in this first effort in her new situation she had surpassed herself.
+Her vanity as a cordon-bleu was piqued because she did not receive the
+compliments she expected, and which she felt she deserved. Four or five
+times she asked impatiently, “Isn’t that good?” and as the only reply
+was a scarcely enthusiastic “Very good,” she vowed she would never again
+waste so much care and talent upon such unappreciative people.
+
+Madame Ferailleur was as silent as her son, and seemed equally anxious
+to finish with the repast. She evidently wanted to get rid of Madame
+Vantrasson, and in fact as soon as the simple dessert had been placed
+on the table, she turned to her, and said: “You may go home now. I will
+attend to the rest.”
+
+Irritated by the taciturnity of these strange folks, the landlady of the
+Model Lodging House withdrew, and they soon heard the street door close
+behind her with a loud bang as she left the house. Pascal drew a long
+breath as if relieved of a heavy weight. While Madame Vantrasson had
+been in the room he had scarcely dared to raise his eyes, so great was
+his dread of encountering the gaze of this woman, whose malignity was
+but poorly veiled by her smooth-tongued hypocrisy. He really feared he
+should not be able to resist his desire to strangle her. However, Madame
+Ferailleur must have understood her son’s agitation, for as soon as
+they were alone, she said: “So you have not forgiven me for my plain
+speaking?”
+
+“How can I be angry with you, mother, when I know that you are thinking
+only of my happiness? But how sorry I shall be if your prejudices----”
+
+Madame Ferailleur checked him with a gesture. “Let us say no more on the
+subject,” she remarked. “Mademoiselle Marguerite will be the innocent
+cause of one of the greatest disappointments of my life; but I have no
+reason to hate her--and I have always been able to show justice even to
+the persons I loved the least. I have done so in this instance, and I am
+going perhaps to give you a convincing proof of it.”
+
+“A proof?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+She reflected for a moment and then she asked: “Did you not tell me,
+my son, that Mademoiselle Marguerite’s education has not suffered on
+account of her neglected childhood?”
+
+“And it’s quite true, mother.”
+
+“She worked diligently, you said, so as to improve herself?”
+
+“Marguerite knows all that an unusually talented girl can learn in four
+years, when she finds herself very unhappy, and study proves her only
+refuge and consolation.”
+
+“If she wrote you a note would it be written grammatically, and be free
+from any mistakes in spelling?”
+
+“Oh, certainly!” exclaimed Pascal, and a sudden inspiration made
+him pause abruptly. He darted to his own room, and a minute later he
+returned with a package of letters, which he laid on the table, saying:
+“Here, mother, read and see for yourself.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur drew her spectacles from their case, and, after
+adjusting them, she began to read.
+
+With his elbows on the table, and his head resting upon his hands,
+Pascal eagerly watched his mother, anxious to read her impressions
+on her face. She was evidently astonished. She had not expected these
+letters would express such nobility of sentiment, an energy no whit
+inferior to her own, and even an echo of her own prejudices. For this
+strange young girl shared Madame Ferailleur’s rather bigoted opinions.
+Again and again she asked herself if her birth and past had not created
+an impassable abyss between Pascal and herself. And she had not felt
+satisfied on this point until the day when the gray-haired magistrate,
+after hearing her story, said: “If I had a son, I should be proud to
+have him beloved by you!”
+
+It soon became apparent that Madame Ferailleur was deeply moved, and
+once she even raised her glasses to wipe away a furtive tear which made
+Pascal’s heart leap with very joy. “These letters are admirable,” she
+said at last; “and no young girl, reared by a virtuous mother, could
+have given better expression to nobler sentiments; but----” She paused,
+not wishing to wound her son’s feelings, and as he insisted, she added:
+
+“But, these letters have the irreparable fault of being addressed to
+you, Pascal!”
+
+This, however, was the expiring cry of her intractable obstinacy. “Now,”
+ she resumed, “wait before you censure your mother.” So saying, she rose,
+opened a drawer, and taking from it a torn and crumpled scrap of paper,
+she handed it to her son, exclaiming: “Read this attentively.”
+
+This proved to be the note in pencil which Madame Leon had given to
+Pascal, and which he had divined rather than read by the light of the
+street-lamp; he had handed it to his mother on his return, and she had
+kept it. He had scarcely been in his right mind the evening he received
+it, but now he was enjoying the free exercise of all his faculties.
+He no sooner glanced at the note than he sprang up, and in an excited
+voice, exclaimed, “Marguerite never wrote this!”
+
+The strange discovery seemed to stupefy him. “I was mad, raving mad!” he
+muttered. “The fraud is palpable, unmistakable. How could I have failed
+to discover it?” And as if he felt the need of convincing himself that
+he was not deceived, he continued, speaking to himself rather than to
+his mother: “The hand-writing is not unlike Marguerite’s, it’s true; but
+it’s only a clever counterfeit. And who doesn’t know that all writings
+in pencil resemble each other more or less? Besides, it’s certain that
+Marguerite, who is simplicity itself, would not have made use of such
+pretentious melodramatic phrases. How could I have been so stupid as to
+believe that she ever thought or wrote this: ‘One cannot break a promise
+made to the dying; I shall keep mine even though my heart break.’ And
+again: ‘Forget, therefore, the girl who has loved you so much: she is
+now the betrothed of another, and honor requires she should forget even
+your name!’” He read these passages with an extravagant emphasis, which
+heightened their absurdity. “And what shall I say of these mistakes in
+spelling?” he resumed. “You noticed them, of course, mother?--command
+is written with a single ‘m,’ and supplicate with one ‘p.’ These are
+certainly not mistakes that we can attribute to haste! Ignorance is
+proved since the blunder is always the same. The forger is evidently in
+the habit of omitting one of the double letters.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur listened with an impassive face. “And these mistakes
+are all the more inexcusable since this letter is only a copy,” she
+observed, quietly.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Yes; a verbatim copy. Yesterday evening, while I was examining it for
+the twentieth time, it occurred to me that I had read some portions of
+it before. Where, and under what circumstances? It was a puzzle which
+kept me awake most of the night. But this morning I suddenly remembered
+a book which I had seen in the hands of the workmen at the factory,
+and which I had often laughed over. So, while I was out this morning I
+entered a book-shop, and purchased the volume. That’s it, there on the
+corner of the mantel-shelf. Take it and see.”
+
+Pascal obeyed, and noticed with surprise that the work was entitled,
+“The Indispensable and Complete Letter-writer, for Both Sexes, in Every
+Condition of Life.”
+
+“Now turn to the page I have marked,” said Madame Ferailleur.
+
+He did so, and read: “(Model 198). Letter from a young lady who has
+promised her dying father to renounce the man she loves, and to bestow
+her hand upon another.” Doubt was no longer possible. Line for line and
+word for word, the mistakes in spelling excepted, the note was an exact
+copy of the stilted prose of the “Indispensable Letter-writer.”
+
+It seemed to Pascal as if the scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes,
+and that he could now understand the whole intrigue which had been
+planned to separate him from Marguerite. His enemies had dishonored him
+in the hope that she would reject and scorn him, and, disappointed
+in their expectations, they had planned this pretended rupture of the
+engagement to prevent him from making any attempt at self-justification.
+So, in spite of some short-lived doubts, his love had been more
+clear-sighted than reason, and stronger than appearances. He had been
+quite right, then, in saying to his mother: “I can never believe that
+Marguerite deserts me at a moment when I am so wretched--that she
+condemns me unheard, and has no greater confidence in me than in my
+accusers. Appearances may indicate the contrary, but I am right.”
+ Certain circumstances, which had previously seemed contradictory,
+now strengthened this belief. “How is it,” he said to himself, “that
+Marguerite writes to me that her father, on his death-bed, made her
+promise to renounce me, while Valorsay declares the Count de Chalusse
+died so suddenly, that he had not even time to acknowledge his daughter
+or to bequeath her his immense fortune? One of these stories must be
+false; and which of them? The one in this note most probably. As for the
+letter itself, it must have been the work of Madame Leon.”
+
+If he had not already possessed irrefutable proofs of this, the
+“Indispensable Letter-writer” would have shown it. The housekeeper’s
+perturbation when she met him at the garden gate was now explained. She
+was shuddering at the thought that she might be followed and watched,
+and that Marguerite might appear at any moment, and discover everything.
+
+“I think it would be a good plan to let this poor young girl know that
+her companion is Valorsay’s spy,” remarked Madame Ferailleur.
+
+Pascal was about to approve this suggestion, when a sudden thought
+deterred him. “They must be watching Marguerite very closely,” he
+replied, “and if I attempt to see her, if I even venture to write to
+her, our enemies would undoubtedly discover it. And then, farewell to
+the success of my plans.”
+
+“Then you prefer to leave her exposed to these dangers?”
+
+“Yes, even admitting there is danger, which is by no means certain.
+Owing to her past life, Marguerite’s experience is far in advance of
+her years, and if some one told me that she had fathomed Madame Leon’s
+character, I should not be at all surprised.”
+
+It was necessary to ascertain what had become of Marguerite; and Pascal
+was puzzling his brain to discover how this might be done, when suddenly
+he exclaimed: “Madame Vantrasson! We have her; let us make use of her.
+It will be easy to find some excuse for sending her to the Hotel de
+Chalusse: she will gossip with the servants there, and in that way we
+can discover the changes that have taken place.”
+
+This was a heroic resolution on Pascal’s part, and one which he would
+have recoiled from the evening before. But it is easy to be brave when
+one is hopeful; and he saw his chances of success increase so rapidly
+that he no longer feared the obstacles that had once seemed almost
+insurmountable. Even his mother’s opposition had ceased to alarm him.
+For why should he fear after the surprising proof she had given him of
+her love of justice, proving that the pretended letter from Mademoiselle
+Marguerite was really a forgery?
+
+He slept but little that night and did not stir from the house on the
+following day. He was busily engaged in perfecting his plan of attack
+against the marquis. His advantages were considerable, thanks to Baron
+Trigault, who had placed a hundred thousand francs at his disposal;
+but the essential point was to use this amount in such a way as to win
+Valorsay’s confidence, and induce him to betray himself. Pascal’s hours
+of meditation were not spent in vain, and when it became time for him to
+repair to his enemy’s house, he said to his mother: “I’ve found a plan;
+and if the baron will let me follow it out, Valorsay is mine!”
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+It was pure childishness on Pascal’s part to doubt Baron Trigault’s
+willingness to agree even with closed eyes to any measures he might
+propose. He ought to have recollected that their interests were
+identical, that they hated the same men with equal hatred, and that they
+were equally resolved upon vengeance. And certainly the events which had
+occurred since their last interview had not been of a nature to modify
+the baron’s intentions. However, misfortune had rendered Pascal timid
+and suspicious, and it was not until he reached the baron’s house that
+his fears vanished. The manner in which the servants received him proved
+that the baron greatly esteemed him: for the man must be stupid indeed
+who does not know that the greeting of the servants is ever in harmony
+with the feelings of the master of the house. “Will you be kind enough
+to follow me?” said the servant to whom he handed his card. “The baron
+is very busy, but that doesn’t matter. He gave orders that monsieur
+should be shown up as soon as he arrived.”
+
+Pascal followed without a word. The elegance of this princely abode
+never varied. The same careless, prodigal, regal luxury was apparent
+everywhere. The servants--whose name was legion--were always passing
+noiselessly to and fro. A pair of horses, worth at least a thousand
+louis, and harnessed to the baroness’s brougham, were stamping and
+neighing in the courtyard; and the hall was, as usual, fragrant with the
+perfume of rare flowers, renewed every morning.
+
+On his first visit Pascal had only seen the apartments on the ground
+floor. This time his guide remarked that he would take him upstairs
+to the baron’s private room. He was slowly ascending the broad marble
+staircase and admiring the bronze balustrade, the rich carpet, the
+magnificent frescoes, and the costly statuary, when a rustle of silk
+resounded near him. He had only time to step aside, and a lady passed
+him rapidly, without turning her head, or even deigning to look at him.
+She did not appear more than forty, and she was still very beautiful,
+with her golden hair dressed high on the back of her head. Her costume,
+brilliant enough in hue to frighten a cab horse, was extremely eccentric
+in cut; but it certainly set off her peculiar style of beauty to
+admirable advantage.
+
+“That’s the baroness,” whispered the servant, after she had passed.
+
+Pascal did not need to be told this. He had seen her but once, and then
+only for a second; but it had been under such circumstances that he
+should never forget her so long as he lived. And now he understood the
+strange and terrible impression which had been produced upon him when he
+saw her first. Mademoiselle Marguerite was the living prototype of this
+lady, save as regards the color of her hair. And there would have been
+no difference in this respect had the baroness allowed her locks to
+retain their natural tint. Her hair had been black, like Marguerite’s,
+and black it had remained until she was thirty-five, when she bleached
+it to the fashionable color of the time. And every fourth day even now
+her hairdresser came to apply a certain compound to her head, after
+which she remained in the bright sunlight for several hours, so as to
+impart a livelier shade of gold to her dyed locks.
+
+Pascal had scarcely regained his composure, when the servant opened the
+door of an immense apartment as large as a handsome suite of rooms,
+and magnificently furnished. Here sat the baron, surrounded by several
+clerks, who were busily engaged in putting a pile of papers and
+documents in order.
+
+But as soon as Pascal entered, the baron rose, and cordially holding out
+his hand, exclaimed, “Ah! here you are at last, Monsieur Maumejan!”
+
+So he had not forgotten the name which Pascal had assumed. This was a
+favorable omen. “I called, monsieur----” began the young man.
+
+“Yes--I know--I know!” interrupted the baron. “Come, we must have a
+talk.”
+
+And, taking Pascal’s arm, he led him into his private sanctum, separated
+from the large apartment by folding-doors, which had been removed, and
+replaced by hangings. Once there he indicated by a gesture that they
+could be heard in the adjoining room, and that it was necessary to
+speak in a low tone. “You have no doubt come,” said he, “for the money
+I promised that dear Marquis de Valorsay--I have it all ready for you;
+here it is.” So saying, he opened an escritoire, and took out a large
+roll of bank-notes, which he handed to Pascal. “Here, count it,” he
+added, “and see if the amount is correct.”
+
+But Pascal, whose face had suddenly become as red as fire, did not utter
+a word in reply. On receiving this money a new but quite natural thought
+had entered his mind for the first time. “What is the matter?” inquired
+the baron, surprised by this sudden embarrassment. “What has happened to
+you?”
+
+“Nothing, monsieur, nothing! Only I was asking myself--if I ought--if I
+can accept this money.”
+
+“Bah! and why not?”
+
+“Because if you lend it to M. de Valorsay, it is perhaps lost.”
+
+“PERHAPS! You are polite----”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, you are right. I ought to have said that it is sure to
+be lost; and hence my embarrassment. Is it not solely on my account
+that you sacrifice a sum which would be a fortune to many men? Yes. Very
+well, then. I am asking myself if it is right for me to accept such a
+sacrifice, when it is by no means certain that I shall ever be able to
+requite it. Shall I ever have a hundred thousand francs to repay you?”
+
+“But isn’t this money absolutely necessary to enable you to win
+Valorsay’s confidence?”
+
+“Yes, and if it belonged to me I should not hesitate.”
+
+Though the baron had formed a high estimate of Pascal’s character, he
+was astonished and deeply touched by these scruples, and this excessive
+delicacy of feeling. Like most opulent men, he knew few poor people who
+wore their poverty with grace and dignity, and who did not snatch at a
+twenty-franc piece wherever they chanced to find it. “Ah, well, my dear
+Ferailleur,” he said, kindly, “don’t trouble yourself on this score.
+It’s not at your request nor solely on your account that I make this
+sacrifice.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“No; I give you my word of honor it isn’t. Leaving you quite out of the
+question, I should still have lent Valorsay this money; and if you do
+not wish to take it to him, I shall send it by some one else.”
+
+After that, Pascal could not demur any further. He took the baron’s
+proffered hand and pressed it warmly, uttering only this one word, made
+more eloquent than any protestations by the fervor with which it was
+spoken: “Thanks!”
+
+The baron shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, like a man who fails to
+see that he has done anything at all meritorious, or even worthy of the
+slightest acknowledgment. “And you must understand, my dear sir,” he
+resumed, “that you can employ this sum as you choose, in advancing your
+interests, which are identical with mine. You can give the money to
+Valorsay at such a time and under such conditions as will best serve
+your plans. Give it to him in an hour or in a month, all at once or in
+fifty different instalments, as you please. Only use it like the rope
+one ties round a dog’s neck before drowning him.”
+
+The keenest penetration was concealed beneath the baron’s careless
+good-nature. Pascal knew this, and feeling that his protector understood
+him, he said: “You overpower me with kindness.”
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“You offer me just what I came to ask for.”
+
+“So much the better.”
+
+“But you will allow me to explain my intentions?”
+
+“It is quite unnecessary, my dear sir.”
+
+“Excuse me; if I follow my present plan, I shall be obliged to ascribe
+certain sentiments, words, and even acts, to you, which you might
+perhaps disavow, and--”
+
+With a careless toss of the head, accompanied by a disdainful snap of
+the fingers, the baron interrupted him. “Set to work, and don’t give
+yourself the slightest uneasiness about that. You may do whatever you
+like, if you only succeed in unmasking this dear marquis, and Coralth,
+his worthy acolyte. Show me up in whatever light you choose. Who will
+you be in Valorsay’s eyes? Why, Maumejan, one of my business agents,
+and I can always throw the blame on you.” And as if to prove that he had
+divined even the details of the scheme devised by his young friend, he
+added: “Besides, every one knows that a millionaire’s business agent is
+anything but a pleasant person to deal with. A millionaire, who is not
+a fool, must always smile, and no matter how absurd the demands upon him
+may be, he must always answer: ‘Yes, certainly, certainly--I should be
+only too happy!’ But then he adds: ‘You must arrange the matter with my
+agent. Confer with him.’ And it is the unlucky agent who must object,
+declare that his employer has no money at his disposal just now, and
+finally say, ‘No.’”
+
+Pascal was still disposed to insist, but the baron was obdurate. “Oh!
+enough, enough!” he exclaimed. “Don’t waste precious time in idle
+discussion. The days are only twenty-four hours long: and as you see,
+I’m very busy, so busy that I’ve not touched a card since the day before
+yesterday. I am preparing a delightful surprise for Madame Trigault, my
+daughter, and my son-in-law. It has been rather a delicate operation,
+but I flatter myself that I have succeeded finely.” And he laughed a
+laugh that was not pleasant to hear. “You see, I’ve had enough of
+paying several hundred thousand francs a year for the privilege of
+being sneered at by my wife, scorned by my daughter, swindled by my
+son-in-law, and vilified and anathematized by all three of them. I am
+still willing to go on paying, but only on conditions that they give
+me in return for my money, if not the reality, at least a show of love,
+affection, and respect. I’m determined to have the semblance of these
+things; I’m quite resolved on that. Yes, I will have myself treated with
+deference. I’ll be petted and coddled and made much of, or else I’ll
+suspend payment. It was one of my old friends, a parvenu like myself--a
+man whose domestic happiness I have envied for many years--who gave me
+this receipt: ‘At home,’ said he, ‘with my wife, my daughters, and my
+sons-in-law, I’m like a peer of England at an hotel. I order first-class
+happiness at so much a month. If I get it I pay for it; if I don’t get
+it, I cut off the supplies. When I get extras I pay for them cheerfully,
+without haggling. Follow my example, my old friend, and you’ll have a
+comfortable life.’ And I shall follow his advice, M. Ferailleur, for I
+am convinced that his theory is sound and practicable. I have led this
+life long enough. I’ll spend my last days in peace, or, as God hears me,
+I’ll let my family die of starvation!”
+
+His face was purple, and the veins on his forehead stood out like
+whipcords, but not so much from anger as from the constraint he imposed
+upon himself by speaking in a whisper. He drew a long breath, and then
+in a calmer tone, resumed: “But you must make haste and succeed, M.
+Ferailleur, if you don’t want the young girl you love to be deprived
+of her rightful heritage. You do not know into what unworthy hands the
+Chalusse property is about to fall.” He was on the point of telling
+Pascal the story of Madame d’Argeles and M. Wilkie, when he was
+interrupted by the sound of a lively controversy in the hall.
+
+“Who’s taking such liberty in my house?” the baron began. But the
+next instant he heard some one fling open the door of the large room
+adjoining, and then a coarse, guttural voice called out: “What! he isn’t
+here! This is too much!”
+
+The baron made an angry gesture. “That’s Kami-Bey,” said he, “the Turk
+whom I am playing that great game of cards with. The devil take him! He
+will be sure to force his way in here--so we may as well join him, M.
+Ferailleur.”
+
+On reentering the adjoining apartment Pascal beheld a very corpulent
+man, with a very red face, a straggling beard, a flat nose, small,
+beadlike eyes, and sensual lips. He was clad in a black frock-coat,
+buttoned tight to the throat, and he wore a fez. This costume gave him
+the appearance of a chunky bottle, sealed with red wax. Such, indeed,
+was Kami-Bey, a specimen of those semi-barbarians, loaded with gold who
+are not attracted to Paris by its splendors and glories, but rather by
+its corruption--people who come there persuaded that money will purchase
+anything and everything, and who often return home with the same
+conviction. Kami was no doubt more impudent, more cynical and more
+arrogant than others of his class. As he was more wealthy, he had more
+followers; he had been more toadied and flattered, and victimized to
+a greater extent by the host of female intriguers, who look upon every
+foreigner as their rightful prey.
+
+He spoke French passably well, but with an abominable accent. “Here
+you are at last!” he exclaimed, as the baron entered the room. “I was
+becoming very anxious.”
+
+“About what, prince?”
+
+Why Kami-Bey was called prince no one knew, not even the man himself.
+Perhaps it was because the lackey who opened his carriage door on his
+arrival at the Grand Hotel had addressed him by that title.
+
+“About what!” he repeated. “You have won more than three hundred
+thousand francs from me, and I was wondering if you intended to give me
+the slip.”
+
+The baron frowned, and this time he omitted the title of prince
+altogether. “It seems to me, sir, that according to our agreement, we
+were to play until one of us had won five hundred thousand francs,” he
+said haughtily.
+
+“That’s true--but we ought to play every day.”
+
+“Possibly: but I’m very busy just now. I wrote to you explaining this,
+did I not? If you are at all uneasy, tear up the book in which the
+results of our games are noted, and that shall be the end of it. You
+will gain considerably by the operation.”
+
+Kami-Bey felt that the baron would not tolerate his arrogance, and so
+with more moderation he exclaimed: “It isn’t strange that I’ve become
+suspicious. I’m so victimized on every side. Because I’m a foreigner
+and immensely rich, everybody fancies he has a right to plunder me. Men,
+women, hotel-keepers and merchants, all unite in defrauding me. If I
+buy pictures, they sell me vile daubs at fabulous prices. They ask
+ridiculous amounts for horses, and then give me worthless, worn-out
+animals. Everybody borrows money from me--and I’m never repaid. I shall
+be ruined if this sort of thing goes on much longer.”
+
+He had taken a seat, and the baron saw that he was not likely to get
+rid of his guest very soon; so approaching Pascal he whispered: “You had
+better go off, or you may miss Valorsay. And be careful, mind; for he is
+exceedingly shrewd. Courage and good luck!”
+
+Courage! It was not necessary to recommend that to Pascal. He who had
+triumphed over his despair in the terrible hours, when he had reason to
+suppose that Marguerite believed him guilty and had abandoned him, could
+scarcely lack courage. While he was condemned to inaction, his mind had
+no doubt been assailed by countless doubts and fears; but now that he
+knew whom he was to attack--now that the decisive moment had come, he
+was endowed with indomitable energy; he had turned to bronze, and he
+felt sure that nothing could disconcert or even trouble him in future.
+The weapons he had to use were not at all to his taste, but he had not
+been allowed a choice in the matter; and since his enemies had decided
+on a warfare of duplicity, he was resolved to surpass them in cunning,
+and vanquish them by deception.
+
+So, while hastening to the Marquis de Valorsay’s residence, he took
+stock of his chances, and recapitulated his resources, striving to
+foresee and remember everything. Thus if he failed--for he admitted the
+possibility of defeat, without believing in it--he would have no cause
+to reproach himself. Only fools find consolation in saying: “Who could
+have foreseen that?” Great minds do foresee. And Pascal felt almost
+certain that he was fully prepared for any emergency.
+
+That morning, before leaving home, he had dressed with extreme care,
+realizing that the shabby clothes he had worn on his first visit to the
+Trigault mansion would not be appropriate on such an occasion as this.
+The baron’s agent could scarcely have a poverty-stricken appearance,
+for contact with millionaires is supposed to procure wealth as surely
+as proximity to fire insures warmth. So he arrayed himself in a suit
+of black, which was neither too elegant nor too much worn, and donned
+a broad white necktie. He could see only one immediate, decisive chance
+against him. M. de Valorsay might possibly recognize him. He thought
+not, but he was not sure; and anxious on this account, he at first
+decided to disguise himself. However, on reflection, he concluded not
+to do so. An imperfect disguise would attract attention and awaken
+suspicion; and could he really disguise his physiognomy? He was certain
+he could not. Very few men are capable of doing so successfully, even
+after long experience. Only two or three detectives and half a dozen
+actors possess the art of really changing their lineaments. Thus after
+weighing the pros and cons, Pascal determined to present himself as he
+was at the marquis’s house.
+
+On approaching M. de Valorsay’s residence in the Avenue des Champs
+Elysees, he slackened his pace. The mansion, which stood between a
+courtyard and a garden, was very large and handsome. The stables and
+carriage-house--really elegant structures--stood on either side of the
+courtyard, near the half-open gate of which five or six servants were
+amusing themselves by teasing a large dog. Pascal was just saying to
+himself that the coast was clear, and that he should incur no danger by
+going in, when he saw the servants step aside, the gate swing back, and
+M. de Coralth emerged, accompanied by a young, fair-haired man, whose
+mustaches were waxed and turned up in the most audacious fashion. They
+were arm in arm, and turned in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe.
+Pascal’s heart thrilled with joy. “Fate favors me!” he said to himself.
+“If it hadn’t been for Kami-Bey, who detained me a full quarter of an
+hour at Baron Trigault’s, I should have found myself face to face with
+that miserable viscount, and then all would have been lost. But now I’m
+safe!”
+
+It was with this encouraging thought that he approached the house.
+
+“The marquis is very busy this morning,” said the servant to whom Pascal
+addressed himself at the gate. “I doubt if he can see you.” But when
+Pascal handed him one of his visiting cards, bearing the name of
+Maumejan, with this addition in pencil: “Who calls as the representative
+of Baron Trigault,” the valet’s face changed as if by enchantment.
+“Oh!” said he, “that’s quite a different matter. If you come from Baron
+Trigault, you will be received with all the respect due to the Messiah.
+Come in. I will announce you myself.”
+
+Everything in M. de Valorsay’s house, as at the baron’s residence,
+indicated great wealth, and yet a close observer would have detected a
+difference. The luxury of the Rue de la Ville-l’Eveque was of a real and
+substantial character, which one did not find in the Avenue des Champs
+Elysees. Everything in the marquis’s abode bore marks of the haste which
+mars the merest trifle produced at the present age. “Take a seat here,
+and I will see where the marquis is,” said the servant, as he ushered
+Pascal into a large drawing-room. The apartment was elegantly furnished,
+but had somewhat lost its freshness; the carpet, which had once been a
+marvel of beauty, was stained in several places, and as the servants had
+not always been careful to keep the shutters closed, the sunlight had
+perceptibly faded the curtains. The attention of visitors was at once
+attracted by the number of gold and silver cups, vases, and statuettes
+scattered about on side-tables and cheffoniers. Each of these objects
+bore an inscription, setting forth that it had been won at such a race,
+in such a year, by such a horse, belonging to the Marquis de Valorsay.
+These were indeed the marquis’s chief claims to glory, and had cost him
+at least half of the immense fortune he had inherited. However, Pascal
+did not take much interest in these trophies, so the time of waiting
+seemed long. “Valorsay is playing the diplomat,” he thought. “He doesn’t
+wish to appear to be anxious. Unfortunately, his servant has betrayed
+him.”
+
+At last the valet returned. “The marquis will see you now, monsieur,”
+ said he.
+
+This summons affected Pascal’s heart like the first roll of a drum
+beating the charge. But his coolness did not desert him. “Now is the
+decisive moment,” he thought. “Heaven grant that he may not recognize
+me!” And with a firm step he followed the valet.
+
+M. de Valorsay was seated in the apartment he usually occupied when he
+remained at home--a little smoking-room connected with his bedroom. He
+was to all intents busily engaged in examining some sporting journals.
+A bottle of Madeira and a partially filled glass stood near him. As the
+servant announced “Monsieur Maumejan!” he looked up and his eyes met
+Pascal’s. But his glance did not waver; not a muscle of his face moved;
+his countenance retained its usually cold and disdainful expression.
+Evidently he had not the slightest suspicion that the man he had tried
+to ruin--his mortal enemy--was standing there before him.
+
+“M. Maumejan,” said he, “Baron Trigault’s agent?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur----”
+
+“Pray be seated. I am just finishing here; I shall be at leisure in a
+moment.”
+
+Pascal took a chair. He had feared that he might not be able to retain
+his self-control when he found himself in the presence of the scoundrel
+who, after destroying his happiness, ruining his future, and depriving
+him of his honor--dearer than life itself--was at that moment
+endeavoring, by the most infamous manoeuvres, to rob him of the woman
+he loved. “If my blood mounted to my brain,” he had thought, “I should
+spring upon him and strangle him!” But no. His arteries did not throb
+more quickly; it was with perfect calmness--the calmness of a strong
+nature--that he stealthily watched M. de Valorsay. If he had seen him a
+week before he would have been startled by the change which the past few
+days had wrought in this brilliant nobleman’s appearance. He was little
+more than a shadow of his former self. And seen at this hour, before
+placing himself in his valet’s hands, before his premature decrepitude
+had been concealed by the artifices of the toilet, he was really
+frightful. His face was haggard, and his red and swollen eyelids
+betrayed a long-continued want of sleep.
+
+The fact is, he had suffered terribly during the past week. A man may
+be a scapegrace and a spendthrift and may boast of it; he may have no
+principle and no conscience; he may be immoral, he may defy God and the
+devil, but it is nevertheless true that he suffers fearful anguish
+of mind when he is guilty, for the first time, of a positive crime,
+forbidden by the laws and punishable with the galleys. And who can say
+how many crimes the Marquis de Valorsay had committed since the day
+he provided his accomplice, the Viscount de Coralth, with those fatal
+cards? And apart from this there was something extremely appalling in
+the position of this ruined millionaire, who was contending desperately
+against his creditors for the vain appearance of splendor, with
+the despairing energy of a ship-wrecked mariner struggling for the
+possession of a floating spar. Had he not confessed to M. Fortunat that
+he had suffered the tortures of the damned in his struggle to maintain
+a show of wealth, while he was often without a penny in his pocket, and
+was ever subject to the pitiless surveillance of thirty servants?
+His agony, when he thought of his precarious condition, could only be
+compared to that of a miner, who, while ascending from the bowels of
+the earth, finds that the rope, upon which his life depends, is slowly
+parting strand by strand, and who asks himself, in terror, if the few
+threads that still remain unsevered will be strong enough to raise him
+to the mouth of the pit.
+
+However, the moment which M. de Valorsay had asked for had lengthened
+into a quarter of an hour, and he had not yet finished his work. “What
+the devil is he doing?” wondered Pascal, who was following his enemy’s
+slightest movement with eager curiosity.
+
+Countless sporting newspapers were strewn over the table, the chairs,
+and the floor around the marquis, who took them up one after another,
+glanced rapidly through their columns, and threw them on the floor
+again, or placed them on a pile before him, first marking certain
+passages with a red pencil. At last, probably fearing that Pascal was
+growing impatient, he looked up and said:
+
+“I am really very sorry to keep you waiting so long, but some one is
+waiting for this work to be completed.”
+
+“Oh! pray continue, Monsieur le Marquis,” interrupted Pascal. “Strange
+to say, I have a little leisure at my command just now.”
+
+The marquis seemed to feel that it was necessary to make some remark
+in acknowledgment of this courtesy on his visitor’s part, and so, as
+he continued his work, he condescended to explain its purpose. “I am
+playing the part of a commentator,” he remarked. “I sold seven of my
+horses a few days ago, and the purchaser, before paying the stipulated
+price, naturally required an exact and authentic statement of each
+animal’s performances. However, even this does not seem to have
+satisfied the gentleman, for he has now taken it into his head to ask
+for such copies of the sporting journals as record the victories or
+defeats of the animals he has purchased. A gentleman is not so exacting
+generally. It is true, however, that I have a foreigner to deal
+with--one of those half-civilized nabobs who come here every year to
+astonish the Parisians with their wealth and display, and who, by their
+idiotic prodigality, have so increased the price of everything that life
+has become well-nigh an impossibility to such of us as don’t care to
+squander an entire fortune in a couple of years. These folks are the
+curse of Paris, for, with but few exceptions, they only use their
+millions to enrich notorious women, scoundrels, hotel-keepers, and
+jockeys.”
+
+Pascal at once thought of the foreigner, Kami-Bey, whom he had met at
+Baron Trigault’s half an hour before, and who had complained so bitterly
+of having had worthless scrubs palmed off upon him when he fancied
+he had purchased valuable animals. “Kami-Bey must be this exacting
+purchaser,” thought Pascal, “and it’s probable that the marquis,
+desperately straitened as he is, has committed one of those frauds
+which lead their perpetrator to prison?” The surmise was by no means
+far-fetched, for in sporting matters, at least, there was cause to
+suspect Valorsay of great elasticity of conscience. Had he not already
+been accused of defrauding Domingo’s champions by a conspiracy?
+
+At last the marquis heaved a sigh of relief. “I’ve finished,” he
+muttered, as he tied up the bundle of papers he had laid aside, and
+after ringing the bell, he said to the servant who answered the summons:
+“Here, take this package to Prince Kami at the Grand Hotel.”
+
+Pascal’s presentiments had not deceived him, and he said to himself:
+“This is a good thing to know. Before this evening I shall look into
+this affair a little.”
+
+A storm was decidedly gathering over the Marquis de Valorsay’s head. Did
+he know it? Certainly he must have expected it. Still he had sworn to
+stand fast until the end. Besides, he would not concede that all was
+lost; and, like most great gamblers, he told himself that since he
+had so much at stake, he might reasonably hope to succeed. He rose,
+stretched himself, as a man is apt to do after the conclusion of a
+tiresome task, and then, leaning against the mantel-shelf, he exclaimed:
+“Now, Monsieur Maumejan, let us speak of the business that brings you
+here.” His negligent attitude and his careless tone were admirably
+assumed, but a shrewd observer would not have been deceived by them, or
+by the indifferent manner in which he added: “You bring me some money
+from Baron Trigault?”
+
+Pascal shook his head, as he replied: “I regret to say that I don’t,
+Monsieur le Marquis.”
+
+This response had the same effect as a heavy rock falling upon M.
+de Valorsay’s bald pate. He turned whiter than his linen, and even
+tottered, as if his lame leg, which was so much affected by sudden
+changes in the weather, had utterly refused all service. “What! You
+haven’t--this is undoubtedly a joke.”
+
+“It is only too serious!”
+
+“But I had the baron’s word.”
+
+“Oh! his word!”
+
+“I had his solemn promise.”
+
+“It is sometimes impossible to keep one’s promises, sir.”
+
+The consequences of this disappointment must have been terrible, for the
+marquis could not maintain his self-control. Still he strove valiantly
+to conceal his emotion. He thought to himself that if he allowed this
+man to see what a terrible blow this really was, he would virtually
+confess his absolute ruin, and have to renounce the struggle, and own
+himself vanquished and lost. So, summoning all his energy, he mastered
+his emotion in some degree, and, instead of appearing desperate,
+succeeded in looking only irritated and annoyed. “In short,” he resumed,
+angrily, “you have brought no money! I counted on a hundred thousand
+francs this morning. Nothing! This is kind on the baron’s part! But
+probably he doesn’t understand the embarrassing position in which he
+places me.”
+
+“Excuse me, Monsieur le Marquis, he understands it so well that, instead
+of informing you by a simple note, he sent me to acquaint you with his
+sincere regret. When I left him an hour ago, he was really disconsolate.
+He was particularly anxious I should tell you that it was not his fault.
+He counted upon the payment of two very large amounts, and both of these
+have failed him.”
+
+The marquis had now recovered a little from the shock, though he was
+still very pale. He looked at Pascal with evident distrust, for he knew
+with what sweet excuses well-bred people envelope their refusals. “So
+the baron is disconsolate,” he remarked, in a tone of perceptible irony.
+
+“He is indeed!”
+
+“Poor baron! Ah! I pity him--pity him deeply.”
+
+As cold and as unmoved as a statue, Pascal seemed quite unconscious
+of the effect of the message he had brought--quite unconscious of
+Valorsay’s sufferings and self-constraint. “You think I am jesting,
+monsieur,” he said, quietly, “but I assure you that the baron is very
+short of money just now.”
+
+“Nonsense! a man worth seven or eight millions of francs.”
+
+“I should say ten millions, at least.”
+
+“Then the excuse is all the more absurd.”
+
+Pascal shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. “It astonishes me, Monsieur
+le Marquis, to hear YOU speak in this way. It is not the magnitude of
+a man’s income that constitutes affluence, but rather the way in which
+that income is spent. In this foolish age, almost all rich people are
+in arrears. What income does the baron derive from his ten millions of
+francs? Not more than five hundred thousand. A very handsome fortune, no
+doubt, and I should be more than content with it. But the baron
+gambles, and the baroness is the most elegant--in other words, the most
+extravagant--woman in Paris. They both of them love luxury, and their
+establishment is kept up in princely style. What are five hundred
+thousand francs under such circumstances as those? Their situation must
+be something like that of several millionaires of my acquaintance, who
+are obliged to take their silver to the pawn-broker’s while waiting for
+their rents to fall due.”
+
+This excuse might not be true, but it was certainly a very plausible
+one. Had not a recent lawsuit revealed the fact that certain rich folks,
+who had an income of more than a hundred thousand francs a year, had
+kept a thieving coachman for six months, simply because, in all that
+time, they were not able to raise the eight hundred francs they owed
+him, and which must be paid before he was dismissed? M. de Valorsay knew
+this, but a terrible disquietude seized him. Had people begun to suspect
+HIS embarrassment? Had any rumor of it reached Baron Trigault’s ears?
+This was what he wished to ascertain. “Let us understand each other,
+Monsieur Maumejan,” said he; “the baron was unable to procure this money
+he had promised me to-day--but when will he let me have it?”
+
+Pascal opened his eyes in pretended astonishment, and it was with an air
+of the utmost simplicity that he replied, “I concluded the baron would
+take no further action in the matter. I judged so from his parting
+words: ‘It consoles me a little,’ he said, ‘to think that the Marquis
+de Valorsay is very rich and very well known, and that he has a dozen
+friends who will be delighted to do him this trifling service.’”
+
+Until now, M. de Valorsay had cherished a hope that the loan was only
+delayed, and the certainty that the decision was final, crushed him. “My
+ruin’s known,” he thought, and feeling that his strength was deserting
+him, he poured out a brimming glass of Madeira, which he emptied at a
+single draught. The wine lent him fictitious energy. Fury mounted to his
+brain; he lost all control over himself, and springing up, with his face
+purple with rage, he exclaimed: “It’s a shame! an infamous shame! and
+Trigault deserves to be severely punished. He has no business to keep a
+man in hot water for three days about such a trifle. If he had said
+‘No’ in the first place, I should have made other arrangements, and I
+shouldn’t now find myself in a dilemma from which I see no possible way
+of escape. No gentleman would have been guilty of such a contemptible
+act--no one but a shopkeeper or a thief would have stooped to such
+meanness! This is the result of admitting these ridiculous parvenus into
+society, just because they happen to have money.”
+
+It certainly hurt Pascal to hear these insults heaped upon the baron,
+and it hurt him all the more since they were entirely due to the course
+he had personally adopted.
+
+However, a gesture, even a frown, might endanger the success of his
+undertaking, so he preserved an impassive countenance. “I must say that
+I don’t understand your indignation, Monsieur le Marquis,” he said,
+coldly. “I can see why you might feel annoyed, but why you should fly
+into a passion--”
+
+“Ah! you don’t know----” began M. de Valorsay, but he stopped short. It
+was time. The truth had almost escaped his lips.
+
+“Know what?” inquired Pascal.
+
+But the marquis was again upon his guard. “I have a debt that must be
+paid this evening, at all hazards--a sacred obligation--in short, a debt
+of honor.”
+
+“A debt of one hundred thousand francs?”
+
+“No, it is only twenty-five thousand.”
+
+“Is it possible that a rich man like you can be troubled about such a
+trifling sum, which any one would lend you?”
+
+M. de Valorsay interrupted him with a contemptuous sneer. “Didn’t you
+just tell me that we were living in an age when no one has any money
+except those who are in business? The richest of my friends have
+only enough for themselves, even if they have enough. The time of old
+stockings, stuffed full of savings, is past! Shall I apply to a banker?
+He would ask two days for reflection, and he would require the names of
+two or three of my friends on the note. If I go to my notary, there will
+be endless forms to be gone through, and remonstrances without number.”
+
+For a moment or more already, Pascal had been moving about uneasily
+on his chair, like a man who is waiting for an opportunity to make a
+suggestion, and as soon as M. de Valorsay paused to take breath, he
+exclaimed: “Upon my word! if I dared----”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I would offer to obtain you these twenty-five thousand francs.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes, I.”
+
+“Before six o’clock this evening?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+A glass of ice-water presented to a parched traveller while journeying
+over the desert sands of Sahara could not impart greater relief and
+delight than the marquis experienced on hearing Pascal’s offer. He
+literally felt that he was restored to life.
+
+For ruin was inevitable if he did not succeed in obtaining twenty-five
+thousand francs that day. If he could procure that amount he might
+obtain a momentary respite, and to gain time was the main thing.
+Moreover, the offer was a sufficient proof that his financial
+difficulties were not known. “Ah! I have had a fortunate escape,” he
+thought. “What if I had revealed the truth!”
+
+But he was careful to conceal the secret joy that filled his heart. He
+feared lest he might say “Yes” too quickly, so betray his secret, and
+place himself at the mercy of the baron’s envoy. “I would willingly
+accept your offer,” he exclaimed, “if----”
+
+“If what?”
+
+“Would it be proper for me, after the baron has treated me in such a
+contemptible manner, to have any dealings with one of his subordinates?”
+
+Pascal protested vigorously. “Allow me to say,” he exclaimed, “that I am
+not any one’s subordinate. Trigault is my client, like thirty or forty
+others--nothing more. He employs me in certain difficult and delicate
+negotiations, which I conduct to the best of my ability. He pays me, and
+we are each of us perfectly independent of the other.”
+
+From the look which Valorsay gave Pascal, one would have sworn that he
+suspected who his visitor really was. But such was not the case. It was
+simply this: a strange, but by no means impossible, idea had flashed
+through the marquis’s mind--“Oh!” thought he, “this unknown party with
+whom Maumejan offers to negotiate the loan, is probably none other
+than the baron himself. That worthy gambler has invented this ingenious
+method of obliging me so as to extort a rate of interest which he would
+not dare to demand openly. And why not? There have been plenty of such
+instances. Isn’t it a well-known fact that the N---- Brothers, the
+most rigidly honest financiers in the world, have never under any
+circumstances directly obliged one of their friends? If their own
+father, of whom they always speak with the greatest veneration, asked
+them to lend him fifty francs for a month, they would say to him as
+they do to every one else: ‘We are rather cramped just now; but see that
+rascal B----.’ And that rascal B----, who is the most pliable tool in
+existence, will, providing father N---- offers unquestionable security,
+lend the old gentleman his son’s money at from twelve to fifteen per
+cent. interest, plus a small commission.”
+
+These ideas and recollections were of considerable assistance in
+restoring Valorsay’s composure. “Enough said, then,” he answered,
+lightly. “I accept with pleasure. But----”
+
+“Ah! so there is a but!”
+
+“There is always one. I must warn you that it will be difficult for me
+to repay this loan in less than two months.”
+
+This, then, was the time he thought necessary for the accomplishment of
+his designs.
+
+“That does not matter,” replied Pascal, “and even if you desire a longer
+delay.”
+ “That will be unnecessary, thank you! But there is one thing more.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“What will this negotiation cost me?”
+
+Pascal had expected this question, and he had prepared a reply which was
+in perfect keeping with the spirit of the role he had assumed. “I shall
+charge you the ordinary rates,” he answered, “six per cent. interest,
+plus one-and-a-half per cent. commission.”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“Plus the remuneration for my trouble and services.”
+
+“And what remuneration will satisfy you?”
+
+“One thousand francs. Is it too much?”
+
+If the marquis had retained the shadow of a doubt, it vanished now.
+“Ah!” he sneered, “that strikes me as a very liberal compensation for
+your services!”
+
+But he would gladly have recalled the sneer when he saw how the agent
+received it. Pascal drew up his head with a deeply injured air, and
+remarked in the chilling tone of a person who is strongly tempted to
+retract his word, “Then there is nothing more to be said, M. le Marquis;
+and since you find the conditions onerous----”
+
+“I did not say so,” interrupted M. de Valorsay, quickly--“I did not even
+think it!”
+
+This gave Pascal an opportunity to present his programme, and he availed
+himself of it. “Others may pretend to oblige people merely from motives
+of friendship,” he remarked. “But I am more honest. If I do anything
+in the way of business, I expect to be paid for it; and I vary my terms
+according to my clients’ need. It would be impossible to have a fixed
+price for services like mine. When, on two different occasions, I saved
+a gentleman of your acquaintance from bankruptcy, I asked ten thousand
+francs the first time, and fifteen thousand the second. Was that an
+exaggerated estimate of my services? I might boast with truth that
+I once assured the marriage of a brilliant viscount by keeping his
+creditors quiet while his courtship was in progress. The day after the
+wedding he paid me twenty thousand francs. Didn’t he owe them to me? If,
+instead of being a trifle short of money, you happened to be ruined,
+I should not ask you merely for a thousand francs. I should study your
+position, and fix my terms according to the magnitude of the peril from
+which I rescued you.”
+
+There was not a sentence, not a word of this cynical explanation which
+had not been carefully studied beforehand. There was not an expression
+which was not a tempting bait to the marquis’s evil instincts. But M
+de Valorsay made no sign. “I see that you are a shrewd man, Monsieur
+Maumejan,” said he, “and if I am ever in difficulty I shall apply to
+you.”
+
+Pascal bowed with an air of assumed modesty; but he was inwardly
+jubilant, for he felt that his enemy would certainly fall into the trap
+which had been set for him. “And now, when shall I have this money?”
+ inquired the marquis.
+
+“By four o’clock.”
+
+“And I need fear no disappointment as in the baron’s case?”
+
+“Certainly not. What interest would M. Trigault have in lending you a
+hundred thousand francs? None whatever. With me it is quite a different
+thing. The profit I’m to realize is your security. In business matters
+distrust your friends. Apply to usurers rather than to them. Question
+people who are in difficulties, and ninety-five out of a hundred will
+tell you that their worst troubles have been caused by those who called
+themselves their best friends.”
+
+He had risen to take leave, when the door of the smoking-room opened,
+and a servant appeared and said in an undertone: “Madame Leon is in the
+drawing-room with Dr. Jodon. They wish to see you, monsieur.”
+
+Though Pascal had armed himself well against any unexpected mischance,
+he changed color on hearing the name of the worthy housekeeper. “All is
+lost if this creature sees and recognizes me!” he thought.
+
+Fortunately the Marquis was too much engrossed in his own affairs to
+note the momentary agitation of Baron Trigault’s envoy. “It is strange
+that I can’t have five minutes’ peace and quietness,” he said. “I told
+you that I was at home to no one.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Enough! Let the lady and gentleman wait.”
+
+The servant withdrew.
+
+The thought of passing out through the drawing-room filled Pascal with
+consternation. How could he hope to escape Madame Leon’s keen eyes?
+Fortunately M. de Valorsay came to his relief, for as Pascal was about
+to open the same door by which he had entered, the marquis exclaimed:
+“Not that way! Pass out here--this is the shortest way.”
+
+And leading him through his bedroom the marquis conducted him to the
+staircase, where he even feigned to offer him his hand, saying: “A
+speedy return, dear M. Maumejan.”
+
+It is not at the moment of peril that people endure the worst agony; it
+is afterward, when they have escaped it. As he went down the staircase,
+Pascal wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “Ah! it was a narrow
+escape!” he exclaimed, under his breath.
+
+He felt proud of the manner in which he had sustained a part so
+repugnant to his nature. He was amazed to find that he could utter
+falsehoods with such a calm, unblushing face--he was astonished at his
+own audacity. And what a success he had achieved! He felt certain that
+he had just slipped round M. de Valorsay’s neck the noose which would
+strangle him later on. Still he was considerably disturbed by Madame
+Leon’s visit to the marquis. “What is she doing here with this
+physician?” he asked himself again and again. “Who is this man? What new
+piece of infamy are they plotting to require his services?” One of those
+presentiments which are prompted by the logic of events, told him that
+this physician had been, or would be, one of the actors in the vile
+conspiracy of which he and Mademoiselle Marguerite were the victims.
+But he had no leisure to devote to the solution of this enigma. Time
+was flying, and before returning to the marquis’s house he must find out
+what had aroused the suspicions of the purchaser of those horses, the
+biographies of which had been so rigidly exacted. Through the baron, he
+might hope to obtain an interview with Kami-Bey--and so it was to the
+baron’s house that Pascal directed his steps.
+
+After the more than cordial reception which the baron had granted him
+that morning, it was quite natural that the servants should receive him
+as a friend of the household. They would scarcely allow him to explain
+what he desired. It was the pompous head valet in person who ushered him
+into one of the small reception-rooms, exclaiming: “The baron’s engaged,
+but I’m sure he would be annoyed if he failed to see you; and I will
+inform him at once.”
+
+A moment later, the baron entered quite breathless from his hurried
+descent of the staircase. “Ah! you have been successful,” he exclaimed,
+on seeing Pascal’s face.
+
+“Everything is progressing as favorably as I could wish, Monsieur
+le Baron, but I must speak with that foreigner whom I met here this
+morning.”
+
+“Kami-Bey?”
+
+“Yes.” And in a few words, Pascal explained the situation.
+
+“Providence is certainly on our side,” said the baron, thoughtfully.
+“Kami is still here.”
+
+“Is it possible?”
+
+“It’s a fact. Did you think it would be easy to get rid of this
+confounded Turk! He invited himself to breakfast without the slightest
+ceremony, and would give me no peace until I promised to play with him
+for two hours. I was closeted with him, cards in hand, when they told me
+you were here. Come, we’ll go and question him.”
+
+They found the interesting foreigner in a savage mood. He had been
+winning when the servant came for the baron, and he feared that an
+interruption would change the luck. “What the devil took you away?” he
+exclaimed, with that coarseness of manner which was habitual with him,
+and which the flatterers around him styled “form.” “A man should no more
+be disturbed when he’s playing than when he’s eating.”
+
+“Come, come, prince,” said the baron, good-naturedly, “don’t be angry,
+and I’ll give you three hours instead of two. But I have a favor to ask
+of you.”
+
+The foreigner at once thrust his hand into his pocket, with such a
+natural gesture, that neither the baron nor Pascal could repress a
+smile, and he himself understanding the cause of their merriment broke
+into a hearty laugh. “It’s purely from force of habit,” said he. “Ah!
+since I’ve been in Paris---- But what do you wish?”
+
+The baron sat down, and gravely replied: “You told us scarcely an hour
+ago that you had been cheated in the purchase of some horses.”
+
+“Cheated! it was worse than highway robbery.”
+
+“Would it be indiscreet to ask you by whom you have been defrauded?”
+
+Kami-Bey’s purple cheeks became a trifle pale. “Hum!” said he, in
+an altered tone of voice, “that is a delicate question. My defrauder
+appears to be a dangerous fellow--a duellist--and if I disclose his
+knavery, he is quite capable of picking a quarrel with me--not that I am
+afraid of him, I assure you, but my principles don’t allow me to fight.
+When a man has an income of a million, he doesn’t care to expose himself
+to the dangers of a duel.”
+
+“But, prince, in France folks don’t do a scoundrel the honor to cross
+swords with him.”
+
+“That’s just what my steward, who is a Frenchman, told me; but no
+matter. Besides, I am not sufficiently sure of the man’s guilt to noise
+it abroad. I have no positive proofs as yet.”
+
+He was evidently terribly frightened, and the first thing to be done was
+to reassure him. “Come,” insisted the baron, “tell us the man’s name.
+This gentleman here”--pointing to Pascal--“is one of my most esteemed
+friends. I will answer for him as I would for myself; and we will swear
+upon our honor not to reveal the secret we ask you for, without your
+permission.”
+
+“Truly?”
+
+“You have our word of honor,” replied both the baron and Pascal in a
+breath.
+
+After casting a half-frightened glance around him, the worthy Turk
+seemed to gather courage. But no! He deliberated some time, and then
+rejoined: “Really, I’m not sufficiently convinced of the accuracy of my
+suspicions to incur the risk of accusing a man who belongs in the very
+best society; a man who is very rich and very highly respected, and who
+would tolerate no imputations upon his character.”
+
+It was plain that he would not speak. The baron shrugged his shoulders,
+but Pascal stepped bravely forward. “Then I will tell you, prince,” he
+said, “the name that you are determined to hide from us.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“But you must allow me to remark that the baron and myself retract the
+promise we made you just now.”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“Then, your defrauder is the Marquis de Valorsay!”
+
+If Kami-Bey had seen an emissary of his sovereign enter the
+room carrying the fatal bow-string he would not have seemed more
+terror-stricken. He sprang nervously on to his short, fat legs, his eyes
+wildly dilating and his hands fluttering despairingly. “Don’t speak so
+loud! don’t speak so loud!” he exclaimed, imploringly.
+
+As he did not even attempt to deny it, the truth of the assertion might
+be taken for granted. But Pascal was not content with this. “Now that we
+know the fact, I hope, Prince, that you will be sufficiently obliging to
+tell us how it all happened,” he remarked.
+
+Poor Kami. He was in despair. “Alas!” he replied, reluctantly, “nothing
+could be more simple. I wanted to set up a racing stable. Not that I
+care much for sport. I can scarcely distinguish a horse from a mule--but
+morning and evening, everybody says to me: ‘Prince, a man like you ought
+to make your name celebrated on the turf.’ Besides I never open a paper
+without reading: ‘Such a man ought to be a patron of the noblest of
+sports.’ At last, I said to myself: ‘Yes, they are right. I ought to
+take part in racing.’ So I began to look about for some horses. I had
+purchased several, when the Marquis de Valorsay proposed to sell me
+some of his, some that were very well known, and that had--so he assured
+me--won at least ten times the amount they had cost him. I accepted
+his offer, and visited his stables, where I selected seven of his best
+horses and paid for them; and I paid a good round price, I assure you.
+Now comes the knavery. He has not given me the horses I purchased. The
+real animals, the valuable ones--have been sold in England under false
+names, and although the horses sent to me may be like the others in
+appearance, they are really only common animals, wanting both in blood
+and speed.”
+
+Pascal and the baron exchanged astonished glances. It must be confessed
+that frauds of every description are common enough in the racing world,
+and a great deal of dishonest manoeuvring results from greed for gain
+united with the fever of gambling. But never before had any one been
+accused of such an audacious and impudent piece of rascality as that
+which Kami-Bey imputed to Valorsay.
+
+“How did you fail to discover this at the outset, prince?” inquired
+Pascal in an incredulous tone.
+
+“Because my time was so much occupied.”
+
+“But your servants?”
+
+“Ah! that’s another thing. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it were
+proved that the man who has charge of my stables had been bribed by the
+marquis.”
+
+“Then, how were your suspicions aroused?”
+
+“It was only by the merest chance. A jockey whom I thought of employing
+had often ridden one of the animals which I fancied myself the owner of.
+Naturally, I showed him the horse, but he had no sooner set eyes on it
+than he exclaimed: ‘That the horse! Never! You’ve been cheated, prince!’
+Then we examined the others, and the fraud became apparent.”
+
+Knowing Kami’s character better than Pascal, the baron had good
+reason to distrust the accuracy of these statements. For the Turkish
+millionaire’s superb contempt of money was only affected. Vanity alone
+unloosed his purse-strings. He was quite capable of presenting Jenny
+Fancy with a necklace costing five-and-twenty thousand francs for the
+sake of seeing his generosity recorded in the Gaulois or the Figaro
+the next day; but he would refuse to give a trifle to the mother of a
+starving family. Besides, it was his ambition to be regarded as the most
+swindled man in Europe. But though he was shamefully imposed upon, it
+was not voluntarily--for there was a strong dose of Arabian avarice and
+distrust in his composition.
+
+“Frankly, prince,” said the baron, “your story sounds like one of the
+wild legends of your native land. Valorsay is certainly no fool. How is
+it possible that he could have been guilty of so gross a fraud--a fraud
+which might be, which could not fail to be discovered in twenty-four
+hours--and which, once proven, would dishonor him forever?”
+
+“Before perpetrating such a piece of deception upon any one else,
+he would have thought twice; but upon me it’s different. Isn’t it an
+established fact that a person incurs no risk in robbing Kami-Bey?”
+
+“Had I been in your place I should have quietly instituted an
+investigation.”
+
+“What good would that have done? Besides, the sale was only conditional,
+and took place under the seal of secrecy. The marquis reserved the right
+to take his horses back on payment of a stipulated sum, and the time he
+was to have for consideration only expired on the day before yesterday.”
+
+“Eh! why didn’t you tell us that at first?” cried the baron.
+
+The marquis’s rascality was now easily explained. Finding himself in a
+desperate strait, and feeling that his salvation was certain if he
+could only gain a little time, he had yielded to temptation, saying
+to himself, like unfaithful cashiers when they first appropriate their
+employers’ money: “I will pay it back, and no one will ever know it!”
+ However, when the day of settlement came he had found himself in as
+deplorable a plight as on the day of the robbery, and he had been
+compelled to yield to the force of circumstances.
+
+“And what do you intend to do, prince?” asked Pascal.
+
+“Ah! I am still in doubt. I have compelled the marquis to give me
+the papers in which the exploits of these horses are recorded. These
+statements will be of service in case of a law-suit. But shall I or
+shall I not enter a complaint against him? If it were a mere question of
+money I should let the matter drop; but he has defrauded and deceived me
+so outrageously that it annoys me. On the other hand, to confess that
+he has cheated me in this fashion would cover me with ridicule. Besides,
+the man is a dangerous enemy. And what would become of me if I happened
+to side against him? I should be compelled to leave Paris. Ah! I’d give
+ten thousand francs to any one who’d settle this cursed affair for me!”
+
+His perplexity was so great, and his anger so intense, for that once he
+tore off his eternal fez and flung it on to the table, swearing like a
+drayman. However, controlling himself at last, he exclaimed in a tone
+of assumed indifference: “No matter, there’s been enough said on this
+subject for one day--I’m here to play--so let us begin, baron. For we
+are wasting precious time, as you so often remark.”
+
+Pascal had nothing more to learn; so he shook hands with the baron, made
+an appointment with him for the same evening, and went away.
+
+It was only half-past two; a good hour and a half remained at his
+disposal. “I will profit by this opportunity to eat something,” he
+thought; a sudden faintness reminding him that he had taken nothing but
+a cup of chocolate that day. Thereupon perceiving a cafe near by, he
+entered it, ordered breakfast, and lingered there until it was time to
+return to the Marquis de Valorsay’s. He would have gone there before
+the appointed time if he had merely listened to the promptings of his
+impatience, so thoroughly was he persuaded that this second interview
+would be decisive. But prudence advised him not to expose himself to the
+danger of an encounter with Madame Leon and Dr. Jodon.
+
+“Well! Monsieur Maumejan,” cried the marquis, as soon as Pascal made his
+appearance. He had been counting the seconds with intense anxiety, as
+his tone of voice unmistakably revealed.
+
+In reply Pascal gravely drew from his pocket twenty-four bank-notes, of
+a thousand francs each, and he placed them upon the table, saying:
+“Here is the amount, Monsieur le Marquis. I have, of course, deducted
+my commission. Now, if you will write and sign a note for twenty-five
+thousand francs, payable to my order two months hence, our business for
+to-day will be concluded.”
+
+M. de Valorsay’s hand trembled nervously as he penned the desired note,
+for, until the very last moment, he had doubted the promises of this
+unknown agent who had made his appearance so opportunely Then, when the
+document was signed, he carelessly slipped the money into a drawer
+and exclaimed: “So here’s the needful to pay my debt of honor; but my
+embarrassment is none the less great. These twenty-four thousand francs
+won’t take the place of the hundred thousand which Baron Trigault
+promised me.”
+
+And, as Pascal made no reply, the marquis began a desultory tramp up and
+down the smoking-room. He was very pale, his brows were knit; he looked
+like a man who was meditating a decisive step, and who was calculating
+the consequences. But having no time to waste in hesitation, he soon
+paused in front of Pascal, and exclaimed: “Since you have just lent me
+twenty-four thousand francs, why won’t you lend me the rest?”
+
+But Pascal shook his head. “One risks nothing by advancing twenty-five
+thousand francs to a person in your position, Monsieur le Marquis.
+Whatever happens, such a sum as that can always be gathered from
+the wreck. But double or triple the amount! The deuce! that requires
+reflection, and I must understand the situation thoroughly.”
+
+“And if I told you that I am--almost ruined, what would you reply?”
+
+“I shouldn’t be so very much surprised.”
+
+M. de Valorsay had now gone too far to draw back. “Ah, well!” he
+resumed, “the truth is this--my affairs are terribly involved.”
+
+“The devil! You should have told me that sooner.”
+
+“Wait; I am about to retrieve my fortune--to make it even larger than
+it has ever been. I am on the point of contracting a marriage which will
+make me one of the richest men in Paris; but I must have a little time
+to bring the affair to a successful termination, and I need money--and
+my creditors are pressing me unmercifully. You told me this morning that
+you once assisted a man who was in a similar position. Will you help me?
+You can set your own price on your services.”
+
+More easily overcome by joy than by sorrow, Pascal almost betrayed
+himself. He had attained his object. Still, he succeeded in conquering
+his emotion, and it was in a perfectly calm voice that he replied:
+“I can promise nothing until I understand the situation, Monsieur le
+Marquis. Will you explain it to me? I am listening.”
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+It was nearly midnight when M. Wilkie left the Hotel d’Argeles after the
+terrible scene in which he had revealed his true character. On seeing
+him pass out with haggard eyes, colorless lips, and disordered clothing,
+the servants gathered in the vestibule took him at first for another of
+those ruined gamblers who not unfrequently left the house with despair
+in their hearts.
+
+“Another fellow who’s had bad luck!” they remarked sneeringly to one
+another.
+
+“No doubt about that. He is pretty effectually used up, judging from
+appearances,” one of them remarked.
+
+It was not until some moments later that they learned a portion of the
+truth through the servants who had been on duty upstairs, and who now
+ran down in great terror, crying that Madame d’Argeles was dying, and
+that a physician must be summoned at once.
+
+M. Wilkie was already far away, hastening up the boulevard with an agile
+step. Any one else would have been overcome with shame and sorrow--would
+have been frightened by the thought of what he had done, and have
+striven to find some way to conceal his disgrace; but he, not in the
+least. In this frightful crisis, he was only conscious of one fact--that
+just as he raised his hand to strike Madame Lia d’Argeles, his mother, a
+big, burly individual had burst into the room, like a bombshell, caught
+him by the throat, forced him upon his knees, and compelled him to ask
+the lady’s pardon. He, Wilkie, to be humiliated in this style! He would
+never endure that. This was an affront he could not swallow, one of
+those insults that cry out for vengeance and for blood. “Ah! the great
+brute shall pay for it,” he repeated, again and again, grinding his
+teeth. And if he hastened up the boulevard, it was only because he
+hoped to meet his two chosen friends, M. Costard and the Viscount de
+Serpillon, the co-proprietors of Pompier de Nanterre.
+
+For he intended to place his outraged honor in their care. They should
+be his seconds, and present his demand for satisfaction to the man
+who had insulted him. A duel was the only thing that could appease his
+furious anger and heal his wounded pride. And a great scandal, which he
+would be the hero of, was not without a certain charm for him. What a
+glorious chance to win notoriety at an epoch when newspapers have become
+public laundries, in which every one washes his soiled linen and dries
+it in the glare of publicity! He saw his already remarkable reputation
+enhanced by the interest that always attaches to people who are talked
+about, and he could hear in advance the flattering whisper which would
+greet his appearance everywhere: “You see that young man?--he is the
+hero of that famous adventure,” etc. Moreover, he was already twisting
+and turning the terms of the notice which his seconds must have inserted
+in the Figaro, hesitating between two or three equally startling
+beginnings: “Another famous duel,” or “Yesterday, after a scandalous
+scene, an encounter,” etc., etc.
+
+Unfortunately, he did not meet either M. Costard or the Viscount de
+Serpillon. Strange to say, they were not in any of the cafes, where
+the flower of French chivalry usually congregates, in the company of
+golden-haired young women, from nine in the evening until one o’clock in
+the morning. This disappointment grieved M. Wilkie sorely, although
+he derived some benefit from it, for his disordered attire attracted
+attention at each place he entered, and acquaintances eagerly inquired:
+“Where have you come from, and what has happened to you?” Whereupon
+he replied with an air of profound secrecy: “Pray don’t speak of it. A
+shocking affair! If it were noised abroad I should be inconsolable.”
+
+At last the cafes began to close, and promenaders became rare. M.
+Wilkie, much to his regret, was obliged to go home. When he had locked
+his door and donned his dressing-gown, he sat down to think over the
+events of the day, and collect his scattered wits. What most troubled
+and disquieted him was not the condition in which he had left Madame Lia
+d’Argeles, his mother, who was, perhaps, dying, through his fault! It
+was not the terrible sacrifice that this poor woman had made for him in
+a transport of maternal love! It was not the thought of the source from
+which the money he had squandered for so many years had been derived.
+No, M. Wilkie was quite above such paltry considerations--good enough
+for commonplace and antiquated people. “He was too clever for that. Ah!
+yes. He had a stronger stomach, and was up with the times!” If he
+were sorely vexed in spirit it was because he thought that the immense
+property which he had believed his own had slipped, perhaps for ever,
+from his grasp. For rising threateningly between the Chalusse millions
+and himself, he pictured the form of his father, this man whom he did
+not know, but whose very name had made Madame d’Argeles shudder.
+
+M. Wilkie was seized with terror when he looked his actual situation
+in the face. What was to become of him? He was certain that Madame
+d’Argeles would not give him another sou. She could not--he recognized
+that fact. His intelligence was equal to that. On the other hand, if
+he ever obtained anything from the count’s estate, which was more than
+doubtful, would he not be obliged to wait a long time for it? Yes, in
+all probability such would be the case. Then how should he live, how
+would he be able to obtain food in the meantime? His despair was so
+poignant that tears came to his eyes; and he bitterly deplored the step
+he had taken. Yes, he actually sighed for the past; he longed to live
+over again the very years in which he had so often complained of his
+destiny. Then, though not a millionaire by any means, he at least
+wanted for nothing. Every quarter-day a very considerable allowance
+was promptly paid him, and, in great emergencies, he could apply to
+Mr. Patterson, who always sent a favorable answer if not drawn upon too
+heavily. Yes, he sighed for that time! Ah! if he had only then realized
+how fortunate he was! Had he not been one of the most opulent members
+of the society in which he moved? Had he not been flattered and admired
+more than any of his companions? Had he not found the most exquisite
+happiness in his part ownership of Pompier de Nanterre!
+
+Now, what remained? Nothing, save anxiety concerning the future, and all
+sorts of uncertainties and terrors! What a mistake! What a blunder he
+had made! Ah! if he could only begin again. He sincerely wished that the
+great adversary of mankind had the Viscount de Coralth in his clutches.
+For, in his despair, it was the once dear viscount that he blamed,
+accused, and cursed.
+
+He was in this ungrateful frame of mind when a loud, almost savage, ring
+came at his door. As his servant slept in an attic upstairs, Wilkie was
+quite alone in his rooms, so he took the lamp and went to open the door
+himself. At this hour of the night, the visitor could only be M. Costard
+or the Viscount de Serpillon, or perhaps both of them. “They have
+heard that I was looking for them, and so they have hastened here,” he
+thought.
+
+But he was mistaken. The visitor was neither of these gentlemen, but M.
+Ferdinand de Coralth in person. Prudence had compelled the viscount to
+leave Madame d’Argeles’s card-party one of the last, but as soon as he
+was out of the house he had rushed to the Marquis de Valorsay’s to hold
+a conference with him, far from suspecting that he was followed, and
+that an auxiliary of Pascal Ferailleur and Mademoiselle Marguerite
+was even then waiting for him below--an enemy as formidable as he was
+humble--Victor Chupin.
+
+At sight of the man who had so long been his model--the friend who had
+advised what he styled his blunder--Wilkie was so surprised that he
+almost dropped his lamp. Then as his wrath kindled, “Ah! so it’s you!”
+ he exclaimed, angrily. “You come at a good time!”
+
+But M. de Coralth was too much exasperated to notice Wilkie’s strange
+greeting. Seizing him roughly by the arm, and closing the door with a
+kick, he dragged Wilkie back into the little drawing-room. “Yes, it’s
+I,” he said, curtly. “It’s I--come to inquire if you have gone mad?”
+
+“Viscount!”
+
+“I can find no other explanation of your conduct! What! You choose
+Madame d’Argeles’s reception day, and an hour when there are fifty
+guests in her drawing-room to present yourself!”
+
+“Ah, well! it wasn’t from choice. I had been there twice before, and had
+the doors shut in my face.”
+
+“You ought to have gone back ten times, a hundred times, a thousand
+times, rather than have accomplished such an idiotic prank as this.”
+
+“Excuse me.”
+
+“What did I recommend? Prudence, calmness and moderation, persuasive
+gentleness, sentiments of the loftiest nature, tenderness, a shower of
+tears----”
+
+“Possibly, but----”
+
+“But instead of that, you fall upon this woman like a thunderbolt, and
+set the whole household in the wildest commotion. What could you be
+thinking of, to make such an absurd and frightful scene? For you
+howled and shrieked like a street hawker, and we could hear you in the
+drawing-room. If all is not irretrievably lost, there must be a special
+Providence for the benefit of fools!”
+
+In his dismay, Wilkie endeavored to falter some excuses, but he was
+only able to begin a few sentences which died away, uncompleted in his
+throat. The violence shown by M. de Coralth, who was usually as cold and
+as polished as marble, quieted his own wrath. Still toward the last he
+felt disposed to rebel against the insults that were being heaped upon
+him. “Do you know, viscount, that I begin to think this very strange,”
+ he exclaimed. “If any one else had led me into such a scrape, I should
+have called him to account in double-quick time.”
+
+M. de Coralth shrugged his shoulders with an air of contempt, and
+threateningly replied: “Understand, once for all, that you had better
+not attempt to bully me! Now, tell me what passed between your mother
+and yourself?”
+
+“First I should like----”
+
+“Dash it all! Do you suppose that I intend to remain here all night?
+Tell me what occurred, and be quick about it. And try to speak the
+truth.”
+
+It was one of M. Wilkie’s greatest boasts that he had an indomitable
+will--an iron nature. But the viscount exercised powerful influence over
+him, and, to tell the truth, inspired him with a form of emotion which
+was nearly akin to fear. Moreover, a glimmer of reason had at last
+penetrated his befogged brain: he saw that M. de Coralth was right--that
+he had acted like a fool, and that, if he hoped to escape from the
+dangers that threatened him, he must take the advice of more experienced
+men than himself. So, ceasing his recriminations, he began to describe
+what he styled his explanation with Madame d’Argeles. All went well at
+first; for he dared not misrepresent the facts.
+
+But when he came to the intervention of the man who had prevented him
+from striking his mother, he turned crimson, and rage again filled his
+heart. “I’m sorry I let myself get into such a mess!” he exclaimed. “You
+should have seen my condition. My shirt-collar was torn, and my
+cravat hung in tatters. He was much stronger than I--the contemptible
+scoundrel!--ah! if it hadn’t been for that---- But I shall have my
+revenge. Yes, he shall learn that he can’t trample a man under foot
+with impunity. To-morrow two of my friends will call upon him; and if he
+refuses to apologize or to give me satisfaction, I’ll cane him.”
+
+It was evident enough that M. de Coralth had to exercise considerable
+constraint to listen to these fine projects. “I must warn you that you
+ought to speak in other terms of an honorable and honored gentleman,” he
+interrupted, at last.
+
+“Eh! what! You know him then?”
+
+“Yes, Madame d’Argeles’s defender is Baron Trigault.”
+
+M. Wilkie’s heart bounded with joy, as he heard this name. “Ah! this
+is capital!” he exclaimed. “What! So it was Baron Trigault--the noted
+gambler--who owns such a magnificent house in the Rue de la Ville
+l’Eveque, the husband of that extremely stylish lady, that notorious
+cocotte----”
+
+The viscount sprang from his chair, and interrupting M. Wilkie: “I
+advise you, for the sake of your own safety,” he said, measuring his
+words to give them greater weight, “never to mention the Baroness
+Trigault’s name except in terms of the most profound respect.”
+
+There was no misunderstanding M. de Coralth’s tone, and his glance said
+plainly that he would not allow much time to pass before putting his
+threat into execution. Having always lived in a lower circle to that in
+which the baroness sparkled with such lively brilliancy, M. Wilkie was
+ignorant of the reasons that induced his distinguished friend to defend
+her so warmly; but he DID understand that it would be highly imprudent
+to insist, or even to discuss the matter. So, in his most persuasive
+manner, he resumed: “Let us say no more about the wife, but give our
+attention to the husband. So it was the baron who insulted me! A duel
+with him--what good luck! Well! he may sleep in peace to-night, but as
+soon as he is up in the morning he will find Costard and Serpillon on
+hand. Serpillon has not an equal as a second. First, he knows the best
+places for a meeting; then he lends the combatants weapons when they
+have none; he procures a physician; and he is on excellent terms with
+the journalists, who publish reports of these encounters.”
+
+The viscount had never had a very exalted opinion of Wilkie’s
+intelligence, but now he was amazed to see how greatly he had
+overestimated it. “Enough of such foolishness,” he interrupted, curtly.
+“This duel will never take place.”
+
+“I should like to know who will prevent it?”
+
+“I will, if you persist in such an absurd idea. You ought to have sense
+enough to know that the baron would kick Serpillon out of the house, and
+that you would only cover yourself with ridicule. So, between your duel
+and my help make your choice, and quickly.”
+
+The prospect of sending his seconds to demand satisfaction from Baron
+Trigault was certainly a very attractive one. But, on the other hand,
+Wilkie could not afford to dispense with M. de Coralth’s services. “But
+the baron has insulted me,” he urged.
+
+“Well, you can demand satisfaction when you obtain possession of your
+property: but the least scandal now would spoil your last chances.”
+
+“I will abandon the project, then,” sighed Wilkie, despondently; “but
+pray advise me. What do you think of my situation?”
+
+M. de Coralth seemed to consider a moment, and then gravely replied:
+“I think that, UNASSISTED, you have no chance whatever. You have no
+standing, no influential connections, no position--you are not even a
+Frenchman.”
+
+“Alas! that is precisely what I have said to myself.”
+
+“Still, I am convinced that with some assistance you might overcome your
+mother’s resistance, and even your father’s pretentions.”
+
+“Yes, but where could I find protectors?”
+
+The viscount’s gravity seemed to increase. “Listen to me,” said he; “I
+will do for you what I would not do for any one else. I will endeavor to
+interest in your cause one of my friends, who is all powerful by reason
+of his name, his fortune, and his connections--the Marquis de Valorsay,
+in fact.”
+
+“The one who is so well known upon the turf?”
+
+“The same.”
+
+“And you will introduce me to him?”
+
+“Yes. Be ready to-morrow at eleven o’clock, and I will call for you and
+take you to his house. If he interests himself in your cause, it is as
+good as gained.” And as his companion overwhelmed him with thanks,
+he rose, and said: “I must go now. No more foolishness, and be ready
+to-morrow at the appointed time.”
+
+Thanks to the surprising mutability of temper which was the most
+striking characteristic of his nature, M. Wilkie was already consoled
+for his blunder.
+
+He had received M. de Coralth as an enemy; but he now escorted him to
+the door with every obsequious attention--in fact, just as if he looked
+upon him as his preserver. A word which the viscount had dropped during
+the conversation had considerably helped to bring about this sudden
+revulsion of feelings. “You cannot fail to understand that if the
+Marquis de Valorsay espouses your cause, you will want for nothing. And
+if a lawsuit is unavoidable, he will be perfectly willing to advance the
+necessary funds.” How could M. Wilkie lack confidence after that? The
+brightest hopes, the most ecstatic visions had succeeded the gloomy
+forebodings of a few hours before. The mere thought of being presented
+to M. de Valorsay, a nobleman celebrated for his adventures, his horses,
+and his fortune, more than sufficed to make him forget his troubles.
+What rapture to become that illustrious nobleman’s acquaintance,
+perhaps his friend! To move in the same orbit as this star of the first
+magnitude which would inevitably cast some of its lustre upon him! Now
+he would be a somebody in the world. He felt that he had grown a
+head taller, and Heaven only knows with what disdain poor Costard
+and Serpillon would have been received had they chanced to present
+themselves at that moment.
+
+It is needless to say that Wilkie dressed with infinite care on the
+following morning, no doubt in the hope of making a conquest of the
+marquis at first sight. He tried his best to solve the problem of
+appearing at the same time most recherche but at ease, excessively
+elegant and yet unostentatious; and he devoted himself to the task so
+unreservedly that he lost all conception of the flight of time: so
+that on seeing M. de Coralth enter his rooms, he exclaimed in unfeigned
+astonishment: “You here already?”
+
+It seemed to him that barely five minutes had elapsed since he took his
+place before the looking-glass to study attitudes and gestures, with
+a new and elegant mode of bowing and sitting down, like an actor
+practising the effects which are to win him applause.
+
+“Why do you say ‘already?’” replied the viscount. “I am a quarter of an
+hour behind time. Are you not ready?”
+
+“Yes, certainly.”
+
+“Let us start at once, then; my brougham is outside.”
+
+The drive was a silent one. M. Ferdinand de Coralth, whose smooth white
+skin would ordinarily have excited the envy of a young girl, did not
+look like himself. His face was swollen and covered with blotches, and
+there were dark blue circles round his eyes. He seemed, moreover, to be
+in a most savage humor. “He hasn’t had sleep enough,” thought M. Wilkie,
+with his usual discernment; “he hasn’t a bronze constitution like
+myself.”
+
+M. Wilkie himself was insensible to fatigue, and although he had
+not closed his eyes the previous night, he only felt that nervous
+trepidation which invariably attacks debutants, and makes the throat so
+marvellously dry. For the first, and probably the last time in his life,
+M. Wilkie distrusted his own powers, and feared that he was not “quite
+up to the mark,” as he elegantly expressed it.
+
+The sight of the Marquis de Valorsay’s handsome mansion was not likely
+to restore his assurance. When he entered the courtyard, where the
+master’s mail-phaeton stood in waiting; when through the open doors
+of the handsome stables he espied the many valuable horses neighing in
+their stalls, and the numerous carriages shrouded in linen covers; when
+he counted the valets on duty in the vestibule, and when he ascended the
+staircase behind a lackey attired in a black dress-coat, and as serious
+in mien as a notary; when he passed through the handsome drawing-rooms,
+filled to overflowing with pictures, armor, statuary, and all the
+trophies gained by the marquis’s horses upon the turf, M. Wilkie
+mentally acknowledged that he knew nothing of high life, and that what
+he had considered luxury was scarcely the shadow of the reality. He
+felt actually ashamed of his own ignorance. This feeling of inferiority
+became so powerful that he was almost tempted to turn and fly, when the
+man clothed in black opened the door and announced, in a clear voice:
+“M. le Vicomte de Coralth!--M. Wilkie.”
+
+With a most gracious and dignified air--the air of a true GRAND
+seigneur--the only portion of his inheritance which he had preserved
+intact, the marquis rose to his feet, and, offering his hand to M. de
+Coralth, exclaimed: “You are most welcome, viscount. This gentleman is
+undoubtedly the young friend you spoke of in the note I received from
+you this morning?”
+
+“The same; and really he stands greatly in need of your kindness. He
+finds himself in an extremely delicate position, and knows no one who
+can lend him a helping hand.”
+
+“Ah, well, I will lend him one with pleasure, since he is your friend.
+But I must know the circumstances before I can act. Sit down, gentlemen,
+and enlighten me.”
+
+M. Wilkie had prepared his story in advance, a touching and witty
+narrative; but when the moment came to begin it, he found himself unable
+to speak. He opened his mouth, but no sound issued from his lips, and it
+seemed as if he had been stricken dumb. Accordingly it was M. de Coralth
+who made a statement of the case, and he did it well. The narrative
+thus gained considerably in clearness and precision; and even M. Wilkie
+noticed that his friend understood how to present the events in their
+most favorable light, and how to omit them altogether when his heartless
+conduct would have appeared too odious. He also noticed--and he
+considered it an excellent omen--that M. de Valorsay was listening with
+the closest attention.
+
+Worthy marquis! if his own interests had been in jeopardy he could not
+have appeared more deeply concerned. When the viscount had concluded
+his story, he gravely exclaimed: “Your young friend is indeed in a most
+critical position, a position from which he cannot escape without being
+terribly victimized, if he’s left dependent on his own resources.”
+
+“But it is understood that you will help him, is it not?”
+
+M. de Valorsay reflected for a little, and then, addressing M. Wilkie,
+replied: “Yes, I consent to assist you, monsieur. First, because your
+cause seems to me just, and, also, because you are M. de Coralth’s
+friend. I promise you my aid on one condition--that you will follow my
+advice implicitly.”
+
+The interesting young man lifted his hand, and, by dint of a powerful
+effort, he succeeded in articulating: “Anything you wish!--upon my
+sacred word!”
+
+“You must understand that when I engage in an enterprise, it must
+not fail. The eye of the public is upon me, and I have my PRESTIGE to
+maintain. I have given you a great mark of confidence, for in lending
+you my influence I become, in some measure at least, your sponsor. But
+I cannot accept this great responsibility unless I am allowed absolute
+control of the affair.”
+
+“And I think that we ought to begin operations this very day. The main
+thing is to circumvent your father, the terrible man with whom your
+mother has threatened you.”
+
+“Ah! but how?”
+
+“I shall dress at once and go to the Hotel de Chalusse, in order to
+ascertain what has occurred there. You on your side must hasten to
+Madame d’Argeles and request her politely, but firmly, to furnish you
+with the necessary proofs to assert your rights. If she consents, well
+and good! If she refuses, we will consult some lawyer as to the next
+step. In any case, call here again at four o’clock.”
+
+But the thought of meeting Madame d’Argeles again was anything but
+pleasing to Wilkie. “I would willingly yield that undertaking to some
+one else,” said he. “Cannot some one else go in my place?”
+
+Fortunately M. de Coralth knew how to encourage him. “What! are you
+afraid?” he asked.
+
+Afraid! he?--never! It was easy to see that by the way he settled his
+hat on his head and went off, slamming the door noisily behind him.
+
+“What an idiot!” muttered M. de Coralth. “And to think that there are
+ten thousand in Paris built upon the very same plan!”
+
+M. de Valorsay gravely shook his head. “Let us thank fortune that he is
+as he is. No youth who possessed either heart or intelligence would play
+the part that I intend for him, and enable me to obtain proud Marguerite
+and her millions. But I fear he won’t go to Madame d’Argeles’s house.
+You noticed his repugnance!”
+
+“Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself in the least on that account--he’ll
+go. He would go to the devil if the noble Marquis de Valorsay ordered
+him to do so.”
+
+M. de Coralth understood Wilkie perfectly. The fear of being considered
+a coward by a nobleman like the Marquis de Valorsay was more than
+sufficient, not only to divest him of all his scruples, but even to
+induce him to commit any act of folly, or actually a crime. For if he
+had looked upon M. de Coralth as an oracle, he considered the marquis to
+be a perfect god.
+
+Accordingly, as he hastened toward Madame d’Argeles’s residence, he said
+to himself: “Why shouldn’t I go to her house? I’ve done her no injury.
+Besides, she won’t eat me.” And remembering that he should be obliged to
+render a report of this interview, he resolved to assert his superiority
+and to remain cool and unmoved, as he had seen M. de Coralth do so
+often.
+
+However, the unusual aspect of the house excited his surprise, and
+puzzled him not a little. Three huge furniture vans, heavily laden, were
+standing outside the gate. In the courtyard there were two more vehicles
+of the same description, which a dozen men or so were busily engaged
+in loading. “Ah, ha!” muttered M. Wilkie, “it was fortunate that
+I came--very fortunate; so she was going to run away!” Thereupon,
+approaching a group of servants who were in close conference in the
+hall, he demanded, in his most imperious manner: “Madame d’Argeles!”
+
+The servants remembered the visitor perfectly; they now knew who
+he really was, and they could not understand how he could have the
+impudence and audacity to come there again so soon after the shameful
+scene of the previous evening. “Madame is at home,” replied one of the
+men, in anything but a polite tone; “and I will go and see if she will
+consent to see you. Wait here.”
+
+He went off, leaving M. Wilkie in the vestibule to settle his collar and
+twirl his puny mustaches, with affected indifference; but in reality he
+was far from comfortable. For the servants did not hesitate to stare
+at him, and it was quite impossible not to read their contempt in their
+glances. They even sneered audibly and pointed at him; and he heard five
+or six epithets more expressive than elegant which could only have been
+meant for himself. “The fools!” thought he, boiling with anger. “The
+scoundrels! Ah! if I dared. If a gentleman like myself was allowed to
+notice such blackguards, how I’d chastise them!”
+
+But the valet who had gone to warn Madame d’Argeles soon reappeared
+and put an end to his sufferings. “Madame will see you,” said the man,
+impudently. “Ah! if I were in her place----”
+
+“Come, make haste,” rejoined Wilkie, indignantly, and following the
+servant, he was ushered into a room which had already been divested of
+its hangings, curtains, and furniture. He here found Madame d’Argeles
+engaged in packing a large trunk with household linen and sundry
+articles of clothing.
+
+By a sort of miracle the unfortunate woman had survived the terrible
+shock which had at first threatened to have an immediately fatal
+effect. Still she had none the less received her death-blow. It was
+only necessary to look at her to be assured of that. She was so greatly
+changed that when M. Wilkie’s eyes first fell on her, he asked himself
+if this were really the same person whom he had met on the previous
+evening. Henceforth she would be an old woman. You would have taken her
+for over fifty, so terrible had been the sufferings caused her by the
+shameful conduct of her son. In this sad-eyed, haggard-faced woman, clad
+in black, no one would have recognized the notorious Lia d’Argeles, who,
+only the evening before, had driven round the lake, reclining on the
+cushions of her victoria, and eclipsing all the women around her by the
+splendor of her toilette. Nothing now remained of the gay worldling but
+the golden hair which she was condemned to see always the same, since
+its tint had been fixed by dyes as indelible as the stains upon her
+past.
+
+She rose with difficulty when M. Wilkie entered, and in the
+expressionless voice of those who are without hope, she asked: “What do
+you wish of me?”
+
+As usual, when the time came to carry out his happiest conceptions, his
+courage failed him. “I came to talk about our affairs, you know,” he
+replied, “and I find you moving.”
+
+“I am not moving.”
+
+“Nonsense! you can’t make me believe that! What’s the meaning of these
+carts in the courtyard?”
+
+“They are here to convey all the furniture in the house to the
+auction-rooms.”
+
+Wilkie was struck dumb for a moment, but eventually recovering himself a
+little, he exclaimed: “What! you are going to sell everything?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Astonishing, upon my honor! But afterward?”
+
+“I shall leave Paris.”
+
+“Bah! and where are you going?”
+
+With a gesture of utter indifference, she gently replied: “I don’t know;
+I shall go where no one will know me, and where it will be possible for
+me to hide my shame.”
+
+A terrible disquietude seized hold of Wilkie. This sudden change of
+residence, this departure which so strongly resembled flight, this cold
+greeting when he expected passionate reproaches, seemed to indicate that
+Madame d’Argeles’s resolution would successfully resist any amount of
+entreaty on his part. “The devil,” he remarked, “I don’t think this at
+all pleasant! What is to become of me? How am I to obtain possession of
+the Count de Chalusse’s estate? That’s what I am after! It’s rightfully
+mine, and I’m determined to have it, as I told you once before. And when
+I’ve once taken anything into my head----”
+
+He paused, for he could no longer face the scornful glances that Madame
+d’Argeles was giving him. “Don’t be alarmed,” she replied bitterly,
+“I shall leave you the means of asserting your right to my parents’
+estate.”
+
+“Ah--so----”
+
+“Your threats obliged me to decide contrary to my own wishes. I felt
+that no amount of slander or disgrace would daunt you.”
+
+“Of course not, when so many millions are at stake.”
+
+“I reflected, and I saw that nothing would arrest you upon your downward
+path except a large fortune. If you were poor and compelled to earn your
+daily bread--a task which you are probably incapable of performing--who
+can tell what depths of degradation you might descend to? With your
+instincts and your vices, who knows what crime you wouldn’t commit to
+obtain money? It wouldn’t be long before you were in the dock, and I
+should hear of you only through your disgrace. But, on the other hand,
+if you were rich, you would probably lead an honest life, like many
+others, who, wanting for nothing, are not tempted to do wrong, who, in
+fact, show virtue in which there is nothing worthy of praise. For real
+virtue implies temptation--a struggle and victory.”
+
+Although he did not understand these remarks very well, M. Wilkie
+evinced a desire to offer some objections; but Madame d’Argeles had
+already resumed: “So I went to my notary this morning. I told him
+everything; and by this time my renunciation of my rights to the estate
+of the Count de Chalusse is already recorded.”
+
+“What! your renunciation. Oh! no.”
+
+“Allow me to finish since you don’t understand me. As soon as I renounce
+the inheritance it becomes yours.”
+
+“Truly?”
+
+“I have no wish to deceive you. I only desire that the name of Lia
+d’Argeles should not be mentioned. I will give you the necessary proofs
+to establish your identity; my marriage contract and your certificate of
+birth.”
+
+It was joy that made M. Wilkie speechless now. “And when will you give
+me these documents?” he faltered, after a short pause.
+
+“You shall have them before you leave this house; but first of all I
+must talk with you.”
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+
+Agitated and excited though he was, M. Wilkie had not once ceased to
+think of M. de Coralth and the Marquis de Valorsay. What would they
+do in such a position, and how should he act to conform himself to the
+probable example of these models of deportment? Manifestly he ought to
+assume that stolid and insolent air of boredom which is considered a
+sure indication of birth and breeding. Convinced of this, and seized
+with a laudable desire to emulate such distinguished examples, he had
+perched himself upon a trunk, where he still sat with his legs crossed.
+He now pretended to suppress a yawn, as he growled, “What! some more
+long phrases--and another melodramatic display?”
+
+Absorbed in the memories she had invoked, Madame d’Argeles paid no heed
+to Wilkie’s impertinence. “Yes, I must talk with you,” she said, “and
+more for your sake than for my own. I must tell you who I am, and
+through what strange vicissitudes I have passed. You know what family
+I belong to. I will tell you, however--for you may be ignorant of the
+fact--that our house is the equal of any in France in lineage, splendor
+of alliance, and fortune. When I was a child, my parents lived at the
+Hotel de Chalusse, in the Faubourg Saint Germain, a perfect palace,
+surrounded by one of those immense gardens, which are no longer seen in
+Paris--a real park, shaded with century-old trees. Certainly everything
+that money could procure, or vanity desire, was within my reach; and
+yet my youth was wretchedly unhappy. I scarcely knew my father, who
+was devoured by ambition, and had thrown himself body and soul into
+the vortex of politics. Either my mother did not love me, or thought
+it beneath her dignity to make any display of sensibility; but at all
+events her reserve had raised a wall of ice between herself and me. As
+for my brother he was too much engrossed in pleasure to think of a
+mere child. So I lived quite alone, too proud to accept the love and
+friendship of my inferiors--abandoned to the dangerous inspirations of
+solitude, and with no other consolation than my books--books which had
+been chosen for me by my mother’s confessor, and which were calculated
+to fill my imagination with visionary and romantic fancies. The only
+conversation I heard dealt with the means of leaving all the family
+fortune to my brother, so that he might uphold the splendor of the name,
+and with the necessity of marrying me to some superannuated nobleman who
+would take me without a dowry, or of compelling me to enter one of those
+aristocratic convents, which are the refuge, and often the prison, of
+poor girls of noble birth.
+
+“I do not pretend to justify my fault, I am only explaining it. I
+thought myself the most unfortunate being in the world--and such I
+really was, since I honestly believed it--when I happened to meet Arthur
+Gordon, your father. I saw him for the first time at a fete given at the
+house of the Comte de Commarin. How he, a mere adventurer, had succeeded
+in forcing his way into the most exclusive society in the world, is a
+point which I have never been able to explain. But, alas! it is only too
+true that when our glances met for the first time, my heart was stirred
+to its inmost depths; I felt that it was no longer mine--that I was no
+longer free! Ah! why does not God allow a man’s face to reflect at
+least something of his nature? This man, who was a corrupt and audacious
+hypocrite, had that air of apparent nobility and frankness which
+inspires you with unlimited confidence, and the melancholy expression on
+his features seemed to indicate that he had known sorrow, and had good
+cause to rail at destiny. In his whole appearance there was certainly
+a mysterious and fatal charm. I afterward learned that this was only a
+natural result of the wild life he had led. He was only twenty-six, and
+he had already been the commander of a slave ship, and had fought in
+Mexico at the head of one of those guerilla bands which make politics an
+excuse for pillage and murder. He divined only too well the impression
+he had made upon my heart. I met him twice afterward in society. He did
+not speak to me; he even pretended to avoid me, but standing a little
+on one side, he watched my every movement with burning eyes in which
+I fancied I could read a passion as absorbing as my own. At last he
+ventured to write to me. The moment a letter addressed to me in an
+unknown hand was covertly handed me by my maid, I divined that it came
+from him. I was frightened, and my first impulse was to take it, not
+to my mother--whom I regarded as my natural enemy--but to my father.
+However, he chanced to be absent; I kept the letter, I read it, I
+answered it--and he wrote again.
+
+“Alas! from that moment my conduct was inexcusable. I knew that it was
+worse than a fault to continue this clandestine correspondence. I knew
+my parents would never give my hand in marriage to a man who was not of
+noble birth. I knew that I was risking my reputation, the spotless honor
+of our house, my happiness, and life! Still I persisted--I was possessed
+with a strange madness that made me ready to brave every danger.
+Besides, he gave me no time to breathe, or reflect. Everywhere,
+constantly, every instant, he compelled me to think of him. By some
+miracle of address and audacity, he had discovered a means of intruding
+upon my presence, even in my father’s house. For instance, every morning
+I found the vases in my room full of choice flowers, though I was never
+able to discover what hands had placed them there. Ah! how can one help
+believing in an omnipresent passion which one inhales with the very air
+one breathes! How can one resist it?
+
+“I only discovered Arthur Gordon’s object when it was too late. He
+had come to Paris with the fixed determination of trapping some rich
+heiress, and forcing her family to give her to him with a large
+dowry, after one of those disgraceful scandals which render a marriage
+inevitable. At the very same time he was pursuing two other rich young
+girls, persuaded that one of the three would certainly become his
+victim.
+
+“I was the first to yield. One of those unforeseen events which are
+the work of Providence, was destined to decide my fate. Several times,
+already, in compliance with Arthur’s urgent entreaties, I had met him at
+night time in a little pavilion in our garden. This pavilion contained
+a billiard-room and a spacious gallery in which my brother practised
+fencing and pistol shooting with his masters and friends. There, thanks
+to the liberty I enjoyed, we thought ourselves perfectly secure from
+observation, and we were imprudent enough to light the candles. One
+night when I had just joined Arthur in the pavilion, I thought I heard
+the sound of hoarse, heavy breathing behind me. I turned round in a
+fright and saw my brother standing on the threshold. Oh! then I realized
+how guilty I had been! I felt that one or the other of these two men--my
+lover or my brother--would not leave that room alive.
+
+“I tried to speak, to throw myself between them, but I found I could
+neither speak nor move; it was as if I had been turned to stone. Nor did
+they exchange a word at first. But at last my brother drew two swords
+from their scabbards, and throwing one at Arthur’s feet, exclaimed: ‘I
+have no wish to assassinate you. Defend yourself, and save your life if
+you can!’ And as Arthur hesitated, and seemed to be trying to gain time
+instead of picking up the weapon that was lying on the floor near him,
+my brother struck him in the face with the flat side of his sword, and
+cried: ‘Now will you fight, you coward! In an instant it was all over.
+Arthur caught up the sword, and springing upon my brother, disarmed him,
+and wounded him in the breast. I saw this. I saw the blood spurt out
+upon my lover’s hands. I saw my brother stagger, beat the air wildly
+with his hands, and fall apparently lifeless to the floor. Then I, too,
+lost consciousness and fell!”
+
+Any one who had seen Madame d’Argeles as she stood there recoiling in
+horror, with her features contracted, and her eyes dilated, would
+have realized that by strength of will she had dispelled the mists
+enshrouding the past, and distinctly beheld the scene she was
+describing. She seemed to experience anew the same agony of terror she
+had felt twenty years before; and this lent such poignant intensity to
+the interest of her narrative that if M. Wilkie’s heart was not exactly
+touched, he was, as he afterward confessed, at least rather interested.
+But Madame d’Argeles seemed to have forgotten his existence. She wiped
+away the foam-flecked blood which had risen to her lips, and in the same
+mournful voice resumed her story.
+
+“When I regained my senses it was morning, and I was lying, still
+dressed, on a bed in a strange room. Arthur Gordon was standing at the
+foot of the bed anxiously watching my movements. He did not give me time
+to question him. ‘You are in my house,’ said he. ‘Your brother is dead!’
+Almighty God! I thought I should die as well. I hoped so. I prayed
+for death. But, in spite of my sobs, he pitilessly continued: ‘It is a
+terrible misfortune which I shall never cease to regret. And yet, it was
+his own fault. You, who witnessed the scene, know that it was so.
+You can still see on my face the mark of the blow he dealt me. I only
+defended myself and you.’ I was ignorant then of the accepted code of
+duelling. I did not know that by throwing himself upon my brother before
+he was on guard, Arthur Gordon had virtually assassinated him. He relied
+upon my ignorance for the success of the sinister farce he was playing.
+‘When I saw your brother fall,’ he continued, ‘I was wild with terror;
+and not knowing what I did, I caught you up in my arms and brought you
+here. But don’t tremble, I know that you are not in my house of your own
+free will. A carriage is below and awaits your orders to convey you
+to your parents’ home. It will be easy to find an explanation for last
+night’s catastrophe. Slander will not venture to attack such a family
+as yours.’ He spoke in the constrained tone, and with that air which a
+brave man, condemned to death, would assume in giving utterance to his
+last wishes. I felt as if I were going mad. ‘And you!’ I exclaimed,
+‘you! What will become of you?’ He shook his head, and with a look
+of anguish, replied: ‘Me! What does it matter about me! I am ruined
+undoubtedly. So much the better. Nothing matters now that I must live
+apart from you’! Ah! he knew my heart. He knew his power! Swayed by an
+emotion which was madness rather than heroism, I sprang toward him, and
+clasped him in my arms: ‘Then I, too, am lost!’ I cried. ‘Since fate
+united us, nothing but death shall separate us. I love you. I am your
+accomplice. Let the curse fall upon both!’
+
+“A keen observer would certainly have detected a gleam of fiendish joy
+in his eyes. But he protested, or pretended to protest. With feigned
+energy he refused to accept such a sacrifice. He could not link my
+destiny to his, for misery had ever been his lot; and now that this last
+and most terrible misfortune had overtaken him, he was more than ever
+convinced that there was a curse hanging over him! He would not suffer
+me to bring misery upon myself, and eternal remorse upon him. But the
+more he repulsed me, the more obstinately I clung to him. The more
+forcibly he showed the horror of the sacrifice, the more I was convinced
+that my honor compelled me to make it. So at last he yielded, or seemed
+to yield, with transports of gratitude and love. ‘Well! yes, I accept
+your sacrifice, my darling!’ he exclaimed. ‘I accept it; and before the
+God who is looking down upon us, I swear that I will do all that is in
+human power to repay such sublime and marvellous devotion.’ And, bending
+over me, he printed a kiss upon my forehead. ‘But we must fly!’ he
+resumed, quickly. ‘I have my happiness to defend now! I will not suffer
+any one to discover us and separate us now. We must start at once,
+without losing a moment, and gain my native land, America. There, we
+shall be safe. For rest assured they will search for us. Who knows but
+even now the officers of the law are upon our track? Your family is
+all-powerful--I am a mere nobody--we should be crushed if they discover
+us. They would bury you in a gloomy cloister, and I should be tried as
+a common thief, or as a vile assassin.’ My only answer was: ‘Let us go!
+Let us go at once!’
+
+“It had been easy for him to foresee what the result of this interview
+would be. A vehicle was indeed waiting at the door, but not for
+the purpose of conveying me to the Hotel de Chalusse--as was proved
+conclusively by the fact that his trunks were already strapped upon it.
+Besides, the coachman must have received his instructions in advance for
+he drove us straight to the Havre Railway station without a word. It
+was not until some months afterward that these trifles, which entirely
+escaped my notice at the time, opened my eyes to the truth. When we
+reached the station we found a train ready to start, and we took our
+places in it. I tried to quiet my conscience with miserable sophistries.
+Remembering that God has said to woman: To follow thy husband thou shalt
+abandon all else, native land, paternal home, parents and friends, I
+told myself that this was the husband whom my heart had instinctively
+chosen, and that it was my duty to follow him and share his destiny. And
+thus I fled with him, although I thought I left a corpse behind me--the
+corpse of my only brother.”
+
+M. Wilkie was actually so much interested that he forgot his anxiety
+concerning his attitude, and no longer thought of M. de Coralth and the
+Marquis de Valorsay. He even sprang up, and exclaimed: “Amazing!”
+
+But Madame d’Argeles had already resumed: “Such was my great,
+inexcusable, irreparable fault. I have told you the whole truth, without
+trying either to conceal or justify anything. Listen to my chastisement!
+On our arrival at Le Havre the next day, Arthur confessed that he was
+greatly embarrassed financially. Owing to our precipitate flight, he had
+not had time to realize the property he possessed--at least so he told
+me--a banker, on whom he had depended, had moreover failed him, and he
+had not sufficient money to pay our passage to New York. This amazed
+me. My education had been absurd, like that of most young girls in
+my station. I knew nothing of real life, of its requirements and
+difficulties. I knew, of course, that there were rich people and poor
+people, that money was a necessity, and that those who did not possess
+it would stoop to any meanness to obtain it. But all this was not very
+clear in my mind, and I never suspected that a few francs more or
+less would be a matter of vital importance. So I was not in the least
+prepared for the request to which this confession served as preface, and
+Arthur Gordon was obliged to ask me point-blank if I did not happen to
+have some money about me, or some jewelry which could be converted into
+money. I gave him all I had, my purse containing a few louis, a ring and
+a necklace, with a handsome diamond cross attached to it. However,
+the total value was comparatively small, and such was Arthur’s
+disappointment that he made a remark which frightened me even then,
+though I did not fully understand its shameful meaning until afterward:
+‘A woman who repairs to a rendezvous should always have all the
+valuables she possesses about her. One never knows what may happen.’
+
+“Want of money was keeping us prisoners at Le Havre, when Arthur Gordon
+chanced to meet an old acquaintance, who was the captain of an American
+sailing vessel. He confided his embarrassment to his friend, and the
+latter, whose vessel was to sail at the end of the same week, kindly
+offered us a free passage. The voyage was one long torture to me, for it
+was then that I first served my apprenticeship in shame and disgrace.
+By the captain’s offensive gallantry, the lower officers’ familiarity of
+manner, and the sailors’ ironical glances whenever I appeared on deck, I
+saw that my position was a secret for no one. Everybody knew that I was
+the mistress and not the wife of the man whom I called my husband: and,
+without being really conscious of it, perhaps, they made me cruelly
+expiate my fault. Moreover, reason had regained its ascendency, my eyes
+were gradually opening to the truth, and I was beginning to learn the
+real character of the scoundrel for whom I had sacrificed all that makes
+life desirable.
+
+“Not that he had wholly ceased to practise dissimulation. But after the
+evening meal he often lingered at table smoking and drinking with
+his friend the captain, and when he joined me afterward, heated with
+alcohol, he shocked me by advocating theories which were both novel
+and repulsive to me. Once, after drinking more than usual, he entirely
+forgot his assumed part, and revealed himself in his true character.
+He declared he bitterly regretted that our love affair had ended so
+disastrously. It was deplorable to think that so happily conceived and
+so skilfully conducted a scheme should have terminated in bloodshed. And
+the blow had fallen just as he fancied he had reached the goal; just as
+he thought he would reap the reward of his labor. In a few weeks’ more
+time he would undoubtedly have gained sufficient influence over me to
+persuade me to elope with him. This would, of course, have caused a
+great scandal; the next day there would have been a family conclave; a
+compromise would have been effected, and finally, a marriage arranged
+with a large dowry, to hush up the affair. ‘And I should now be a
+rich man,’ he added, ‘a very rich man--I should be rolling through the
+streets of Paris in my carriage, instead of being on board this cursed
+ship, eating salt cod twice a day, and living on charity.’
+
+“Ah! it was no longer possible to doubt. The truth was as clear as
+daylight. I had never been loved, not even an hour, not even a moment.
+The loving letters which had blinded me, the protestations of affection
+which had deceived me, had been addressed to my father’s millions, not
+to myself. And not unfrequently I saw Arthur Gordon’s face darken, as he
+talked with evident anxiety about what he could do to earn a living for
+himself and me in America. ‘I have had trouble enough to get on alone,’
+he grumbled. ‘What will it be now? To burden myself with a penniless
+wife! What egregious folly! And yet I couldn’t have acted differently--I
+was compelled to do it.’ Why had he been compelled to do it? why had
+he not acted differently?--that was what I vainly puzzled my brain
+to explain. However, his gloomy fears of poverty were not realized. A
+delightful surprise awaited him at New York. A relative had recently
+died, leaving him a legacy of fifty thousand dollars--a small fortune.
+I hoped that he would now cease his constant complaints, but he seemed
+even more displeased than before. ‘Such is the irony of fate,’ he
+repeated again and again. ‘With this money, I might easily have married
+a wife worth a hundred thousand dollars, and then I should be rich at
+last!’ After that, I had good reason to expect that I should soon be
+forsaken--but no, shortly after our arrival, he married me. Had he done
+so out of respect for his word? I believed so. But, alas! this marriage
+was the result of calculation, like everything else he did.
+
+“We were living in New York, when one evening he came home, looking very
+pale and agitated. He had a French newspaper in his hand. ‘Read this,’
+he said, handing it to me. I took the paper as he bade me, and read
+that my brother had not been killed, that he was improving, and that
+his recovery was now certain. And as I fell on my knees, bursting into
+tears, and thanking God for freeing me from such terrible remorse, he
+exclaimed: ‘We are in a nice fix! I advise you to congratulate yourself!
+‘From that time forward, I noticed he displayed the feverish anxiety of
+a man who feels that he is constantly threatened with some great danger.
+A few days afterward, he said to me: ‘I cannot endure this! Have our
+trunks ready to-morrow, and we will start South. Instead of calling
+ourselves Gordon, we’ll travel under the name of Grant.’ I did not
+venture to question him. He had quite mastered me by his cruel tyranny,
+and I was accustomed to obey him like a slave in terror of the lash.
+However, during our long journey, I learned the cause of our flight and
+change of name.
+
+“‘Your brother, d--n him,’ he said, one day, ‘is hunting for me
+everywhere! He wants to kill me or to deliver me up to justice, I don’t
+know which. He pretends that I tried to murder him!’ It was strange;
+but Arthur Gordon, who was bravery personified, and who exposed himself
+again and again to the most frightful dangers, felt a wild, unreasoning,
+inconceivable fear of my brother. It was this dread that had decided
+him to burden himself with me. He feared that if he left me, lying
+unconscious beside my brother’s lifeless form, I might on recovering my
+senses reveal the truth, and unconsciously act as his accuser. You were
+born in Richmond, Wilkie, where we remained nearly a month, during which
+time I saw but little of your father. He had formed the acquaintance
+of several rich planters, and spent his time hunting and gambling with
+them. Unfortunately, fifty thousand dollars could not last long at this
+rate; and, in spite of his skill as a gambler, he returned home one
+morning ruined. A fortnight later when he had sold our effects, and
+borrowed all the money he could, we embarked again for France. It
+was not until we reached Paris that I discovered the reasons that had
+influenced him in returning to Europe. He had heard of my father and
+mother’s death, and intended to compel me to claim my share of the
+property. He dared not appear in person on account of my brother. At
+last the hour of my vengeance had arrived; for I had taken a solemn oath
+that this scoundrel who had ruined me should never enjoy the fortune
+which had been his only object in seducing me. I had sworn to die inch
+by inch and by the most frightful tortures rather than give him one
+penny of the Chalusse millions. And I kept my word.
+
+“When I told him that I was resolved not to assert my rights, he seemed
+utterly confounded. He could not understand how the down-trodden slave
+dared to revolt against him. And when he found that my decision was
+irrevocable, I thought he would have an attack of apoplexy. It made him
+wild with rage to think that he was only separated from this immense
+fortune--the dream of his life--by a single word of mine, and to find
+that he had not the power to extort that word from me. Then began a
+struggle between us, which became more and more frightful as the
+money he possessed gradually dwindled away. But it was in vain that he
+resorted to brutal treatment; in vain that he struck me, tortured me,
+and dragged me about the floor by the hair of my head! The thought that
+I was avenged, that his sufferings equalled mine, increased my courage
+a hundredfold, and made me almost insensible to physical pain. He
+would certainly have been the first to grow weary of the struggle, if
+a fiendish plan had not occurred to him. He said to himself that if
+he could not conquer the wife, he COULD conquer the mother and he
+threatened to turn his brutality to you, Wilkie. To save you--for I knew
+what he was capable of--I pretended to waver, and I asked twenty-four
+hours for reflection. He granted them. But the next day I left him
+forever, flying from him with you in my arms.”
+
+M. Wilkie turned white, and a cold chill crept up his spine. However,
+it was not pity for his mother’s sufferings, nor shame for his father’s
+infamy that agitated him, but ever the same terrible fear of incurring
+the enmity of this dangerous coveter of the Chalusse millions. Would
+he be able to hold his father at bay even with the assistance of M. de
+Coralth and the Marquis de Valorsay? A thousand questions rose to his
+lips, for he was eager to hear the particulars of his mother’s flight;
+but Madame d’Argeles hurried on with her story as if she feared her
+strength would fail before she reached the end.
+
+“I was alone with you, Wilkie, in this great city,” she resumed. “A
+hundred francs was all that I possessed. My first care was to find a
+place of shelter. For sixteen francs a month, which I was compelled to
+pay in advance, I found a small, meagrely furnished room in the Faubourg
+Saint Martin. It was badly ventilated and miserably lighted, but still
+it was shelter. I said to myself that we could live there together by my
+work, Wilkie. I was a proficient in feminine accomplishments; I was an
+excellent musician, and I thought I should have no difficulty in earning
+the four or five francs a day which I considered absolutely necessary
+for our subsistence. Alas! I discovered only too soon what chimerical
+hopes I had cherished. To give music lessons it is necessary to obtain
+pupils. Where should I find them? I had no one to recommend me, and I
+scarcely dared show myself in the streets, so great was my fear that
+your father would discover our hiding-place. At last, I decided to try
+to find some employment in needlework, and timidly offered my services
+at several shops. Alas! it is only those who have gone about from door
+to door soliciting work who know the misery of the thing. To ask alms
+would be scarcely more humiliating. People sneered at me, and replied
+(when they deigned to reply at all) that ‘there was no business doing,
+and they had all the help they wanted.’ My evident inexperience was
+probably the cause of many of these refusals, as well as my attire, for
+I still had the appearance of being a rich woman. Who knows what they
+took me for? Still the thought of you sustained me, Wilkie, and nothing
+daunted me.
+
+“I finally succeeded in obtaining some bands of muslin to embroider, and
+some pieces of tapestry work to fill in. Unremunerative employment, no
+doubt, especially to one ignorant of the art of working quickly, rather
+than well. By rising with daylight, and working until late at night,
+I scarcely succeeded in earning twenty sous a day. And it was not long
+before even this scanty resource failed me. Winter came, and the cold
+weather with it. One morning I changed my last five-franc piece--it
+lasted us a week. Then I pawned and sold everything that was not
+absolutely indispensable until nothing was left me but my patched dress
+and a single skirt. And soon an evening came when the owner of our
+miserable den turned us into the street because I could no longer pay
+the rent.
+
+“This was the final blow! I tottered away, clinging to the walls for
+support; too weak from lack of food to carry you. The rain was falling,
+and chilled us to the bones. You were crying bitterly. And all that
+night and all the next day, aimless and hopeless, we wandered about the
+streets. I must either die of want or return to your father. I preferred
+death. Toward evening--instinct having led me to the Seine--I sat down
+on one of the stone benches of the Point-Neuf, holding you on my knees
+and watching the flow of the dark river below. There was a strange
+fascination--a promise of peace in its depths--that impelled me almost
+irresistibly to plunge into the flood. If I had been alone in the world,
+I should not have stopped to consider a second, but on your account,
+Wilkie, I hesitated.”
+
+Moved by the thought of the danger he had escaped, M. Wilkie shuddered.
+“B-r-r-r!” he growled. “You did well to hesitate.”
+
+She did not even hear him, but continued: “I at last decided that it
+was best to put an end to this misery, and rising with difficulty, I was
+approaching the parapet, when a gruff voice beside us exclaimed: ‘What
+are you doing there?’ I turned, thinking some police officer had spoken,
+but I was mistaken. By the light of the street lamp, I perceived a man
+who looked some thirty years of age, and had a frank and rather genial
+face. Why this stranger instantly inspired me with unlimited confidence
+I don’t know. Perhaps it was an unconscious horror of death that made me
+long for any token of human sympathy. However it may have been, I told
+him my story, but not without changing the names, and omitting many
+particulars. He had taken a seat beside me on the bench, and I saw big
+tears roll down his cheeks as I proceeded with my narrative. ‘It is
+ever so! it is ever so!’ he muttered. ‘To love is to incur the risk of
+martyrdom. It is to offer one’s self as a victim to every perfidy, to
+the basest treason and ingratitude.’ The man who spoke in this fashion
+was Baron Trigault. He did not allow me to finish my story. ‘Enough!’ he
+suddenly exclaimed, ‘follow me!’ A cab was passing, he made us get in,
+and an hour later we were in a comfortable room, beside a blazing fire,
+with a generously spread table before us. The next day, moreover, we
+were installed in a pleasant home. Alas! why wasn’t the baron generous
+to the last? You were saved, Wilkie, but at what a price!”
+
+She paused for a moment, her face redder than fire; but soon mastering
+her agitation, she resumed: “There was one great cause of dissension
+between the baron and myself. I wished you to be educated, Wilkie,
+like the son of a noble family, while he desired you should receive the
+practical training suited to a youth who would have to make his own way
+in the world, and win position, fortune, and even name for himself.
+Ah! he was a thousand times right, as events have since proved only too
+well! But maternal love blinded me, and, after an angry discussion,
+he went away, declaring he would not see me again until I became more
+reasonable. He thought that reflection would cure me of my folly.
+Unfortunately, he was not acquainted with the fatal obstinacy which is
+the distinguishing characteristic of the Chalusse family. While I was
+wondering how I could find the means of carrying the plans I had formed
+for you into execution, two of the baron’s acquaintances presented
+themselves, with the following proposal: Aware of the enormous profits
+derived by clandestine gambling dens, they had conceived the project of
+opening a public establishment on a large scale, where any Parisian or
+foreigner, if he seemed to be a gentleman, and possessed of means,
+would find no difficulty in obtaining admission. By taking certain
+precautions, and by establishing this gambling den in a private
+drawing-room, they believed the scheme practicable, and came to suggest
+that I should keep the drawing-room in question, and be their partner
+in the enterprise. Scarcely knowing what I pledged myself to, I accepted
+their offer, influenced--I should rather say decided--by the
+exalted positions which both these gentlemen occupied, by the public
+consideration they enjoyed, and the honored names they bore. And that
+same week this house was rented and furnished, and I was installed in it
+under the name of Lia d’Argeles.
+
+“But this was not all. There still remained the task of creating
+for myself one of those scandalous reputations that attract public
+attention. This proved an easy task, thanks to the assistance of my
+silent partners, and the innocent simplicity of several of their friends
+and certain journalists. As for myself, I did my best to insure the
+success of the horrible farce which was to lend infamous notoriety
+to the name of Lia d’Argeles. I had magnificent equipages and superb
+dresses, and I made myself conspicuous at the theatres and all places of
+public resort. As is generally the case when one is acting contrary to
+conscience, I called the most absurd sophistries to my assistance. I
+tried to convince myself that appearances are nothing, that reality is
+everything, and that it did not matter if I were known as a courtesan
+since rumor lied, and my life WAS really chaste. When the baron hastened
+to me and tried to rescue me from the abyss into which I had flung
+myself; it was too late. I had discovered that the business would prove
+successful; and for your sake, I longed for money as passionately, as
+madly, as any miser. Last year my gaming-room yielded more than one
+hundred and fifty thousand francs clear profit, and I received as my
+share the thirty-five thousand francs which you squandered. Now you know
+me as I really am. My associates, my partners, the men whose secret
+I have faithfully kept, walk the streets with their heads erect. They
+boast of their unsullied honor, and they are respected by every one.
+Such is the truth, and I have no reason to make their disgrace known.
+Besides, if I proclaimed it from the house-tops, no one would believe
+me. But you are my son, and I owe you the truth, the whole truth!”
+
+In any age but the present, Madame d’Argeles’s story would have seemed
+absolutely incredible. Nowadays, however, such episodes are by no means
+rare. Two men--two men of exalted rank and highly respected, to use a
+common expression--associate in opening a gaming-house under the very
+eyes of the police, and in coining money out of a woman’s supposed
+disgrace. ‘Tis after all but an everyday occurrence.
+
+The unhappy woman had told her story with apparent coldness, and yet,
+in her secret heart, she perhaps hoped that by disclosing her terrible
+sacrifice and long martyrdom, she would draw a burst of gratitude and
+tenderness from her son, calculated to repay her for all her sufferings.
+But the hope was vain. It would have been easier to draw water from a
+solid rock than to, extract a sympathetic tear from Wilkie’s eyes.
+He was only alive to the practical side of this narrative, and what
+impressed him most was the impudent assurance of Madame d’Argeles’s
+business associates. “Not a bad idea; not bad at all,” he exclaimed.
+And, boiling over with curiosity, he continued: “I would give something
+handsome to know those men’s names. Really you ought to tell me. It
+would be worth one’s while to know.”
+
+Any other person than this interesting young man would have been
+crushed by the look his mother gave him--a look embodying the deepest
+disappointment and contempt. “I think you must be mad,” she remarked
+coldly. And as he sprang up, astonished that any one should doubt his
+abundant supply of good sense, “Let us put an end to this,” she sternly
+added.
+
+Thereupon she hastily went into the adjoining room, reappearing a moment
+later with a roll of papers in her hand. “Here,” she remarked, “is
+my marriage certificate, your certificate of birth, and a copy of my
+renunciation--a perfectly valid document, since the court has authorized
+it, owing to my husband’s absence. All these proofs I am ready and
+willing to place at your disposal, but on one condition.”
+
+This last word fell like a cold shower-bath upon Wilkie’s exultant joy.
+“What is this condition?” he anxiously inquired.
+
+“It is that you should sign this deed, which has been drawn up by my
+notary--a deed by which you pledge yourself to hand me the sum of two
+million francs on the day you come into possession of the Chalusse
+property.”
+
+Two millions! The immensity of the sum struck Wilkie dumb with
+consternation. Nor did he forget that he would be compelled to give
+the Viscount de Coralth the large reward he had promised him--a reward
+promised in writing, unfortunately. “I shall have nothing left,” he
+began, piteously.
+
+But with a disdainful gesture Madame d’Argeles interrupted him. “Set
+your mind at rest,” said she. “You will still be immensely rich. All the
+estimates which have been made are far below the mark. When I was a girl
+I often heard my father say that his income amounted to more than eight
+hundred thousand francs a year. My brother inherited the whole property,
+and I would be willing to swear that he never spent more than half of
+his income.”
+
+Wilkie’s nerves had never been subjected to so severe a shock. He
+tottered and his brain whirled. “Oh! oh!” he stammered. This was all he
+could say.
+
+“Only I must warn you of a more than probable deception,” pursued Madame
+d’Argeles. “As my brother was firmly resolved to deprive me even of
+my rightful portion of the estate, he concealed his fortune in every
+possible way. It will undoubtedly require considerable time and trouble
+to gain possession of the whole. However I know a man, formerly the
+Count de Chalusse’s confidential agent, who might aid you in this task.”
+
+“And this man’s name?”
+
+“Is Isidore Fortunat. I saved his card for you. Here it is.”
+
+M. Wilkie took it up, placed it carefully in his pocket, and then
+exclaimed: “That being the case, I consent to sign, but after this
+you need not complain. Two millions at five per cent. ought to greatly
+alleviate one’s sufferings.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles did not deign to notice this delicate irony. “I will
+tell you in advance to what purpose I intend to apply this sum,” she
+said.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“I intend one of these two millions to serve as the dowry of a young
+girl who would have been the Count de Chalusse’s sole legatee, if his
+death had not been so sudden and so unexpected.”
+
+“And the other one?”
+
+“The other I intend to invest for you in such a way that you can only
+touch the interest of it, so that you will not want for bread after you
+have squandered your inheritance, even to the very last penny.”
+
+This wise precaution could not fail to shock such a brilliant young man
+as M. Wilkie. “Do you take me for a fool?” he exclaimed. “I may appear
+very generous, but I am shrewd enough, never you fear.”
+
+“Sign,” interrupted Madame d’Argeles, coldly.
+
+But he attempted to prove that he was no fool by reading and rereading
+the contract before he would consent to append his name to it. At last,
+however, he did so, and stowed away the proofs which insured him the
+much-coveted property.
+
+“Now,” said Madame d’Argeles, “I have one request to make of you.
+Whenever your father makes his appearance and lays claim to this
+fortune, I entreat you to avoid a lawsuit, which would only make your
+mother’s shame and the disgrace attached to the hitherto stainless name
+of Chalusse still more widely known. Compromise with him. You will be
+rich enough to satisfy his greed without feeling it.”
+
+M. Wilkie remained silent for a moment, as if he were deliberating upon
+the course he ought to pursue. “If my father is reasonable, I will be
+the same,” he said at last. “I will choose as an arbiter between us one
+of my friends--a man who acts on the square, like myself--the Marquis de
+Valorsay.”
+
+“My God! do you know him?”
+
+“He is one of my most intimate friends.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles had become very pale. “Wretched boy!” she exclaimed.
+“You don’t know that it’s the marquis----” She paused abruptly. One word
+more and she would have betrayed Pascal Ferailleur’s secret plans, with
+which she had been made acquainted by Baron Trigault. Had she a right
+to do this, even to put her son on his guard against a man whom she
+considered the greatest villain in the world?
+
+“Well?” insisted M. Wilkie, in surprise.
+
+But Madame d’Argeles had recovered her self-possession. “I only wished
+to warn you against too close a connection with the Marquis de Valorsay.
+He has an excellent position in society, but yours will be far more
+brilliant. His star is on the wane; yours is just rising. All that he is
+regretting, you have a right to hope for. Perhaps even now he is jealous
+of you, and wishes to persuade you to take some false step.”
+
+“Ah! you little know him!”
+
+“I have warned you.”
+
+M. Wilkie took up his hat, but, though he was longing to depart,
+embarrassment kept him to the spot. He vaguely felt that he ought not to
+leave his mother in this style. “I hope I shall soon have some good news
+to bring you,” he began.
+
+“Before night I shall have left this house,” she answered.
+
+“Of course. But you are going to give me your new address.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What?--No!”
+
+She shook her head sadly, and in a scarcely audible voice responded: “It
+is not likely that we shall meet again.”
+
+“And the two millions that I am to turn over to you?”
+
+“Mr. Patterson will collect the money. As for me, say to yourself
+that I’m dead. You have broken the only link that bound me to life, by
+proving the futility of the most terrible sacrifices. However, I am a
+mother, and I forgive you.” Then as he did not move, and as she felt
+that her strength was deserting her, she dragged herself from the room,
+murmuring, “Farewell!”
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+
+Stupefied with astonishment, M. Wilkie stood for a moment silent and
+motionless. “Allow me,” he faltered at last; “Allow me--I wish to
+explain.” But Madame d’Argeles did not even turn her head; the door
+closed behind her and he was left alone.
+
+However strong a man’s nature may be, he always has certain moments of
+weakness. For instance, at the present moment Wilkie was completely at
+a loss what to do. Not that he repented, he was incapable of that; but
+there are hours when the most hardened conscience is touched, and when
+long dormant instincts at last assert their rights. If he had obeyed his
+first impulse, he would have darted after his mother and thrown himself
+on his knees before her. But reflection, remembrance of the Viscount de
+Coralth, and the Marquis de Valorsay, made him silent the noblest voice
+that had spoken in his soul for many a long day. So, with his head
+proudly erect, he went off, twirling his mustaches and followed by
+the whispers of the servants--whispers which were ready to change into
+hisses at any moment.
+
+But what did he care for the opinion of these plebeians! Before he was
+a hundred paces from the house his emotion had vanished, and he was
+thinking how he could most agreeably spend the time until the hour
+appointed for his second interview with M. de Valorsay. He had not
+breakfasted, but “his stomach was out of sorts,” as he said to himself,
+and it would really have been impossible for him to swallow a morsel.
+Thus not caring to return home, he started in quest of one of his former
+intimates, with the generous intention of overpowering him with the
+great news. Unfortunately he failed to find this friend, and eager
+to vent the pride that was suffocating him, in some way or other, he
+entered the shop of an engraver, whom he crushed by his importance,
+and ordered some visiting cards bearing the inscription W. de
+Gordon-Chalusse, with a count’s coronet in one of the corners.
+
+Thus occupied, time flew by so quickly that he was a trifle late in
+keeping his appointment with his dear friend the marquis. Wilkie found
+M. de Valorsay as he had left him--in his smoking-room, talking with
+the Viscount de Coralth. Not that the marquis had been idle, but it had
+barely taken him an hour to set in motion the machinery which he had had
+in complete readiness since the evening before. “Victory!” cried Wilkie,
+as he appeared on the threshold. “It was a hard battle, but I asserted
+my rights. I am the acknowledged heir! the millions are mine!” And
+without giving his friends time to congratulate him, he began to
+describe his interview with Madame d’Argeles, presenting his conduct in
+the most odious light possible, pretending he had indulged in all sorts
+of harsh rejoinders, and making himself out to be “a man of bronze,” or
+“a block of marble,” as he said.
+
+“You are certainly more courageous than I fancied,” said M. de Valorsay
+gravely, when the narrative was ended.
+
+“Is that really so?”
+
+“It is, indeed. Now the world is before you. Let your story be noised
+abroad--and it will be noised abroad--and you will become a hero.
+Imagine the amazement of Paris when it learns that Lia d’Argeles was a
+virtuous woman, who sacrificed her reputation for the sake of her son--a
+martyr, whose disgrace was only a shameful falsehood invented by two men
+of rank to increase the attractions of their gambling-den! It will take
+the newspapers a month to digest this strange romance. And whom will all
+this notoriety fall upon? Upon you, my dear sir; and as your millions
+will lend an additional charm to the romance, you will become the lion
+of the season.”
+
+M. Wilkie was really too much overwhelmed to feel elated. “Upon my
+word, you overpower me, my dear marquis--you quite overpower me,” he
+stammered.
+
+“I too have been at work,” resumed the marquis. “And I have made
+numerous inquiries, in accordance with my promise. I almost regret it,
+for what I have discovered is--very singular, to say the least. I was
+just saying so to Coralth when you came in. What I have learned makes
+it extremely unpleasant for me, to find myself mixed up in the affair;
+accordingly, I have requested the persons who gave me this information
+to call here. You shall hear their story, and then you must decide
+for yourself.” So saying, he rang the bell, and as soon as a servant
+answered the summons, he exclaimed: “Show M. Casimir in.”
+
+When the lackey had retired to carry out this order, the marquis
+remarked: “Casimir was the deceased count’s valet. He is a clever
+fellow, honest, intelligent, and well up in his business--such a man
+as you will need, in fact, and I won’t try to conceal the fact that the
+hope of entering your service has aided considerably in unloosening his
+tongue.”
+
+M. Casimir, who was irreproachably clad in black, with a white cambric
+tie round his neck, entered the room at this very moment, smiling
+and bowing obsequiously. “This gentleman, my good fellow,” said M. de
+Valorsay, pointing to Wilkie, “is your former master’s only heir. A
+proof of devotion might induce him to keep you with him. What you told
+me a little while ago is of great importance to him; see if you can
+repeat it now for his benefit.”
+
+In his anxiety to secure a good situation, M. Casimir had ventured to
+apply to the Marquis de Valorsay; he had talked a good deal, and the
+marquis had conceived the plan of making him an unsuspecting accomplice.
+“I never deny my words,” replied the valet, “and since monsieur is the
+heir to the property, I won’t hesitate to tell him that immense sums
+have been stolen from the late count’s estate.”
+
+M. Wilkie bounded from his chair. “Immense sums!” he exclaimed. “Is it
+possible!”
+
+“Monsieur shall judge. On the morning preceding his death, the count
+had more than two millions in bank-notes and bonds stowed away in
+his escritoire, but when the justice of the peace came to take the
+inventory, the money could not be found. We servants were terribly
+alarmed, for we feared that suspicion would fall upon us.”
+
+Ah! if Wilkie had only been alone he would have given vent to his true
+feelings. But here, under the eyes of the marquis and M. de Coralth,
+he felt that he must maintain an air of stoical indifference. He ALMOST
+succeeded in doing so, and in a tolerably firm voice he remarked: “This
+is not very pleasant news. Two millions! that’s a good haul. Tell me, my
+friend, have you any clue to the thief?”
+
+The valet’s troubled glance betrayed an uneasy conscience, but he had
+gone too far to draw back. “I shouldn’t like to accuse an innocent
+person,” he replied, “but there was some one who constantly had access
+to that escritoire.”
+
+“And who was that?”
+
+“Mademoiselle Marguerite.”
+
+“I don’t know the lady.”
+
+“She’s a young girl who is--at least people say--the count’s
+illegitimate daughter. Her word was law in the house.”
+
+“What has become of her?”
+
+“She has gone to live with General de Fondege, one of the count’s
+friends. She wouldn’t take her jewels and diamonds away with her, which
+seemed very strange, for they are worth more than a hundred thousand
+francs. Even Bourigeau said to me: ‘That’s unnatural, M. Casimir.’
+Borigeau is the concierge of the house, a very worthy man. Monsieur will
+not find his equal.”
+
+Unfortunately, this tribute to the merits of the valet’s friend was
+interrupted by the arrival of a footman, who, after tapping respectfully
+at the door, entered the room and exclaimed: “The doctor is here, and
+desires to speak with Monsieur le Marquis.”
+
+“Very well,” replied M. de Valorsay, “ask him to wait. When I ring, you
+can usher him in.” Then addressing M. Casimir, he added:
+
+“You may retire for the present, but don’t leave the house. M. Wilkie
+will acquaint you with his intentions by and by.”
+
+The valet thereupon backed out of the room, bowing profoundly.
+
+“There is a story for you!” exclaimed M. Wilkie as soon as the door was
+closed. “A robbery of two millions!”
+
+The marquis shook his head, and remarked, gravely: “That’s a mere
+nothing. I suspect something far more terrible.”
+
+“What, pray? Upon my word! you frighten me.”
+
+“Wait! I may be mistaken. Even the doctor may lie deceived. But you
+shall judge for yourself.” As he spoke, he pulled the bell-rope, and an
+instant after, the servant announced: “Dr. Jodon.”
+
+It was, indeed, the same physician who had annoyed Mademoiselle
+Marguerite by his persistent curiosity and impertinent questions, at
+the Count de Chalusse’s bedside; the same crafty and ambitious man,
+constantly tormented by covetousness, and ready to do anything to
+gratify it--the man of the period, in short, who sacrificed everything
+to the display by which he hoped to deceive other people, and who was
+almost starving in the midst of his mock splendor.
+
+M. Casimir was an innocent accomplice, but the doctor knew what he was
+doing. Interviewed on behalf of the Marquis de Valorsay by Madame Leon,
+he had fathomed the whole mystery at once. These two crafty natures had
+read and understood each other. No definite words had passed between
+them--they were both too shrewd for that; and yet, a compact had been
+concluded by which each had tacitly agreed to serve the other according
+to his need.
+
+As soon as the physician appeared, M. de Valorsay rose and shook hands
+with him; then, offering him an arm-chair, he remarked: “I will not
+conceal from you, doctor, that I have in some measure prepared this
+gentleman”--designating M. Wilkie--“for your terrible revelation.”
+
+By the doctor’s attitude, a keen observer might have divined the secret
+trepidation that always precedes a bad action which has been conceived
+and decided upon in cold blood.
+
+“To tell the truth,” he began, speaking slowly, and with some
+difficulty, “now that the moment for speaking has come, I almost
+hesitate. Our profession has painful exigencies. Perhaps it is now too
+late. If there had been any of the count’s relatives in the house, or
+even an heir at the time, I should have insisted upon an autopsy. But
+now----”
+
+On hearing the word “autopsy,” M. Wilkie looked round with startled
+eyes. He opened his lips to interrupt the speaker, but the physician
+had already resumed his narrative. “Besides, I had only suspicions,”
+ he said, “suspicions based, it is true, upon strange and alarming
+circumstances. I am a man, that is to say, I am liable to error. In
+the kingdom of science it would be unpardonable temerity on my part to
+affirm----”
+
+“To affirm what?” interrupted M. Wilkie.
+
+The physician did not seem to hear him, but continued in the same
+dogmatic tone. “The count apparently died from an attack of apoplexy,
+but certain poisons produce similar and even identical symptoms which
+are apt to deceive the most experienced medical men. The persistent
+efforts of the count’s intellect, his muscular rigidity alternating with
+utter relaxation, the dilation of the pupils of his eyes, and more than
+aught else the violence of his last convulsions, have led me to ask
+myself if some criminal had not hastened his end.”
+
+Whiter than his shirt, and trembling like a leaf, M. Wilkie sprang
+from his chair. “I understand!” he exclaimed. “The count was
+murdered--poisoned.”
+
+But the physician replied with an energetic protest. “Oh, not so fast!”
+ said he. “Don’t mistake my conjectures for assertions. Still, I ought
+not to conceal the circumstances which awakened my suspicions. On
+the morning preceding his attack, the count took two spoonfuls of the
+contents of a vial which the people in charge could not or would not
+produce. When I asked what this vial contained, the answer was: ‘A
+medicine to prevent apoplexy.’ I don’t say that this is false, but prove
+it. As for the motive that led to the crime, it is apparent at once.
+The escritoire contained two millions of francs, and the money has
+disappeared. Show me the vial, find the money, and I will admit that I
+am wrong. But until then, I shall have my suspicions.”
+
+He did not speak like a physician but like an examining magistrate, and
+his alarming deductions found their way even to M. Wilkie’s dull brain.
+“Who could have committed the crime?” he asked.
+
+“It could only have been the person likely to profit by it; and only one
+person besides the count knew that the money was in the house, and had
+possession of the key of this escritoire.”
+
+“And this person?”
+
+“Is the count’s illegitimate daughter, who lived in the house with
+him--Mademoiselle Marguerite.”
+
+M. Wilkie sank into his chair again, completely overwhelmed. The
+coincidence between the doctor’s deposition and M. Casimir’s testimony
+was too remarkable to pass unnoticed. Further doubt seemed impossible.
+“Ah! this is most unfortunate!” faltered Wilkie. “What a pity! Such
+difficulties never assail any one but me! What am I to do?” And in his
+distress he glanced from the doctor to the Marquis de Valorsay, and then
+at M. de Coralth, as if seeking inspiration from each of them.
+
+“My profession forbids my acting as an adviser in such cases,” replied
+the physician, “but these gentlemen have not the same reasons for
+keeping silent.”
+
+“Excuse me,” interrupted the marquis quickly; “but this is one of those
+cases in which a man must be left to his own inspirations. The most
+I can do, is to say what course I should pursue if I were one of the
+deceased count’s relatives or heirs.”
+
+“Pray tell me, my dear marquis,” sighed Wilkie. “You would render me an
+immense service by doing so.”
+
+M. de Valorsay seemed to reflect for a moment; and then he solemnly
+exclaimed: “I should feel that my honor required me to investigate every
+circumstance connected with this mysterious affair. Before receiving a
+man’s estate, one must know the cause of his death, so as to avenge him
+if he has been foully murdered.”
+
+For M. Wilkie the oracle had spoken. “Such is my opinion exactly,” he
+declared. “But what course would you pursue, my dear marquis? How would
+you set about solving this mystery?”
+
+“I should appeal to the authorities.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“And this very day, this very hour, without losing a second, I should
+address a communication to the public prosecutor, informing him of the
+robbery which is patent to any one, and referring to the possibility of
+foul play.”
+
+“Yes, that would be an excellent idea; but there is one slight
+drawback--I don’t know how to draw up such a communication.”
+
+“I know no more about it than you do yourself; but any lawyer or notary
+will give you the necessary information. Are you acquainted with any
+such person? Would you like me to give you the address of my business
+man? He is a very clever fellow, who has almost all the members of my
+club as his clients.”
+
+This last reason was more than sufficient to fix M. Wilkie’s choice.
+“Where can I find him?” he inquired.
+
+“At his house--he is always there at this hour. Come! here is a scrap
+of paper and a pencil. You had better make a note of his address. Write:
+‘Maumejan, Route de la Revolte.’ Tell him that I sent you, and he will
+treat you with the same consideration as he would show to me. He lives a
+long way off, but my brougham is standing in the courtyard; so take it,
+and when your consultation is over, come back and dine with me.”
+
+“Ah! you are too kind!” exclaimed M. Wilkie. “You overpower me, my dear
+marquis, you do, upon my word! I shall fly and be back in a moment.”
+
+He went off looking radiant; and a moment later the carriage which was
+to take him to M. Maumejan’s was heard rolling out of the courtyard.
+
+The doctor had already taken up his hat and cane.
+
+“You will excuse me for leaving you so abruptly, Monsieur le Marquis,”
+ said he, “but I have an engagement to discuss a business matter.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“I am negotiating for the purchase of a dentist’s establishment.”
+
+“What, you?”
+
+“Yes, I. You may tell me that this is a downfall, but I will answer,
+‘It will give me a living.’ Medicine is becoming a more and more
+unremunerative profession. However hard a physician may work, he can
+scarcely pay for the water he uses in washing his hands. I have an
+opportunity of purchasing the business of a well-established and
+well-known dentist, in an excellent neighborhood. Why not avail myself
+of it? Only one thing worries me--the lack of funds.”
+
+The marquis had expected the doctor would require remuneration for his
+services. Before compromising himself any further, M. Jodon wished to
+knew what compensation he was to receive. The marquis was so sure of
+this, that he quickly exclaimed: “Ah, my dear doctor, if you have need
+of twenty thousand francs, I shall be only too happy to offer them to
+you.”
+
+“Really?”
+
+“Upon my honor!”
+
+“And when can you let me have the money?”
+
+“In three or four days’ time.”
+
+The bargain was concluded. The doctor was now ready to find traces of
+any poison whatsoever in the Count de Chalusse’s exhumed remains. He
+pressed the marquis’s hand and then went off, exclaiming: “Whatever
+happens you can count upon me.”
+
+Left alone with the Viscount de Coralth, and consequently freed from all
+restraint, M. de Valorsay rose with a long-drawn sigh of relief. “What
+an interminable seance!” he growled. And, approaching his acolyte, who
+was sitting silent and motionless in an arm-chair, he slapped him on
+the shoulder, exclaiming: “Are you ill that you sit there like that, as
+still as a mummy?”
+
+The viscount turned as if he had been suddenly aroused from slumber.
+“I’m well enough,” he answered somewhat roughly. “I was only thinking.”
+
+“Your thoughts are not very pleasant, to judge from the look on your
+face.”
+
+“No. I was thinking of the fate that you are preparing for us.”
+
+“Oh! A truce to disagreeable prophecies, please! Besides, it’s too late
+to draw back, or to even think of retreat. The Rubicon is passed.”
+
+“Alas! that is the cause of my anxiety. If it hadn’t been for my
+wretched past, which you have threatened me with like a dagger, I should
+long ago have left you to incur this danger alone. You were useful to
+me in times past, I admit. You presented me to the Baroness Trigault, to
+whose patronage I owe my present means, but I am paying too dearly
+for your services in allowing myself to be made the instrument of your
+dangerous schemes. Who aided you in defrauding Kami-Bey? Who bet for you
+against your own horse Domingo? Who risked his life in slipping those
+cards in the pack which Pascal Ferailleur held? It was Coralth, always
+Coralth.”
+
+A gesture of anger escaped the marquis, but resolving to restrain
+himself, he made no rejoinder. It was not until after he had walked five
+or six times round the smoking-room and grown more calm that he returned
+to the viscount’s side. “Really, I don’t recognize you,” he began. “Is
+it really you who have turned coward? And at what a moment, pray? Why,
+on the very eve of success.”
+
+“I wish I could believe you.”
+
+“Facts shall convince you. This morning I might have doubted, but now,
+thanks to that vain idiot who goes by the name of Wilkie, I am sure,
+perfectly, mathematically sure of success. Maumejan, who is entirely
+devoted to me, and who is the greediest, most avaricious scoundrel
+alive, will draw up such a complaint that Marguerite will sleep in
+prison. Moreover, other witnesses will be summoned. By what Casimir has
+said, you can judge what the other servants will say. This testimony
+will be sufficient to convict her of the robbery. As for the poisoning,
+you heard Dr. Jodon. Can I depend upon him? Evidently, if I pay without
+haggling. Very well; I shall pay.”
+
+But all this did not reassure M. de Coralth. “The accusation will fall
+to the ground,” said he, “as soon as the famous vial from which M. de
+Chalusse took two spoonfuls is found.”
+
+“Excuse me; it won’t be found.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Because I know where it is, my dear friend. It is in the count’s
+escritoire, but it won’t be there any longer on the day after
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Who will remove it?”
+
+“A skilful fellow whom Madame Leon has found for me. Everything has been
+carefully arranged. To-morrow night at the latest Madame Leon will let
+this man into the Hotel de Chalusse by the garden gate, which she has
+kept the key of. Vantrasson, as the man is called, knows the management
+of the house, and he will break open the escritoire and take the vial
+away. You may say that there are seals upon the furniture, placed there
+by the justice of the peace. That’s true, but this man tells me that he
+can remove and replace them in such a way as to defy detection; and
+as the lock has been forced once already--the day after the count’s
+death--a second attempt to break the escritoire open will not be
+detected.”
+
+The viscount remarked, with an ironical air: “All that is perfect; but
+the autopsy will reveal the falseness of the accusation.”
+
+“Naturally--but an autopsy will require time, and that will suit my
+plans admirably. After eight or ten days’ solitary confinement and
+several rigid examinations, Mademoiselle Marguerite’s energy and courage
+will flag. What do you think she will reply to the man who says to her:
+‘I love you, and for your sake I will attempt the impossible. Swear to
+become my wife and I will establish your innocence?’”
+
+“I think she will say: ‘Save me and I will marry you!’”
+
+M. de Valorsay clapped his hands. “Bravo!” he exclaimed; “you have
+spoken the truth. Remember, now, that your dark forebodings are only
+chimeras! Yes, she will swear it, and I know she is the woman to keep
+her vow, even if she died of sorrow. And the very next day I will go to
+the examining magistrate and say to him: ‘Marguerite a thief! Ah, what
+a frightful mistake. A robbery has been committed, it’s true; but I know
+the real culprit--a scoundrel who fancied that by destroying a single
+letter he would annihilate all traces of the breach of fidelity he had
+committed. Fortunately, the Count de Chalusse distrusted this man, and
+proof of his breach of trust is in existence. I have this proof in
+my hands.’ And I will show a letter establishing the truth of my
+assertion.”
+
+No forebodings clouded the marquis’s joy; he saw no obstacles; it seemed
+to him as if he had already triumphed. “And the day following,” he
+resumed, “when Marguerite becomes my wife, I shall take from a certain
+drawer a certain document, given to me by M. de Chalusse when I was
+on the point of becoming his son-in-law, and in which he recognizes
+Marguerite as his daughter, and makes her his sole legatee. And this
+document is perfectly en regle, and unattackable. Maumejan, who has
+examined it, guarantees that the value of the count’s estate cannot be
+less than ten millions. Five will go to Madame d’Argeles, or her son
+Wilkie, as their share of the property. The remaining five will be mine.
+Come, confess that the plan is admirable!”
+
+“Admirable, undoubtedly; but terribly complicated. When there are so
+many wheels within wheels, one of them is always sure to get out of
+order.”
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“Besides, you have I don’t know how many accomplices--Maumejan, the
+doctor, Madame Leon, and Vantrasson, not counting myself. Will all these
+people perform their duties satisfactorily?”
+
+“Each of them is as much interested in my success as I am myself.”
+
+“But we have enemies--Madame d’Argeles, Fortunat----”
+
+“Madame d’Argeles is about to leave Paris. If Fortunat is troublesome I
+will purchase his silence; Maumejan has promised me money.”
+
+But M. de Coralth had kept his strongest argument until the last. “And
+Pascal Ferailleur?” said he. “You have forgotten him.”
+
+No; M. de Valorsay had not forgotten him. You do not forget the man you
+have ruined and dishonored. Still, it was in a careless tone that ill
+accorded with his state of mind that the marquis replied: “The poor
+devil must be en route for America by this time.”
+
+The viscount shook his head. “That’s what I’ve in vain been trying to
+convince myself of,” said he. “Do you know that Pascal was virtually
+expelled from the Palais de Justice, and that his name has been struck
+off the list of advocates? If he hasn’t blown his brains out, it is only
+because he hopes to prove his innocence. Ah! if you knew him as well as
+I do, you wouldn’t be so tranquil in mind!”
+
+He stopped short for the door had suddenly opened. The interruption
+made the marquis frown, but anger gave way to anxiety when he perceived
+Madame Leon, who entered the room out of breath and extremely red in the
+face.
+
+“There wasn’t a cab to be had!” she groaned. “Just my luck. I came on
+foot, and ran the whole way. I’m utterly exhausted;” and so saying, she
+sank into an arm-chair.
+
+M. de Valorsay had turned very pale. “Defer your complaints until
+another time,” he said, harshly. “What has happened? Tell me.”
+
+The estimable woman raised her hands to heaven, as she plaintively
+replied: “There is so much to tell? First, Mademoiselle Marguerite has
+written two letters, but I have failed to discover to whom they were
+sent. Secondly, she remained for more than an hour yesterday evening
+in the drawing-room with the General’s son, Lieutenant Gustave, and,
+on parting, they shook hands like a couple of friends, and said, ‘It is
+agreed.’”
+
+“And is that all?”
+
+“One moment and you’ll see. This morning Mademoiselle went out with
+Madame de Fondege to call on the Baroness Trigault. I do not know what
+took place there, but there must have been a terrible scene; for they
+brought Mademoiselle Marguerite back unconscious, in one of the baron’s
+carriages.”
+
+“Do you hear that, viscount?” exclaimed M. de Valorsay.
+
+“Yes! You shall have the explanation to-morrow,” answered M. de Coralth.
+
+“And last, but not least,” resumed Madame Leon, “on returning home this
+evening at about five o’clock, I fancied I saw Mademoiselle Marguerite
+leave the house and go up the Rue Pigalle. I had thought she was ill
+and in bed, and I said to myself, ‘This is very strange.’ So I hastened
+after her. It was indeed she. Of course, I followed her. And what did I
+see? Why, Mademoiselle paused to talk with a vagabond, clad in a blouse.
+They exchanged notes, and Mademoiselle Marguerite returned home. And
+here I am. She must certainly suspect something. What is to be done?”
+
+If M. de Valorsay were frightened, he did not show it. “Many thanks for
+your zeal, my dear lady,” he replied, “but all this is a mere nothing.
+Return home at once; you will receive my instructions to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite had been greatly surprised on the occasion
+of her visit to M. Fortunat when she saw Victor Chupin suddenly step
+forward and eagerly exclaim: “I shall be unworthy of the name I bear if
+I do not find M. Ferailleur for you in less than a fortnight.”
+
+It is true that M. Fortunat’s clerk did not appear to the best advantage
+on this occasion. In order to watch M. de Coralth, he had again arrayed
+himself in his cast-off clothes, and with his blouse and his worn-out
+shoes, his “knockers” and his glazed cap, he looked the vagabond to
+perfection. Still, strange as it may seem, Mademoiselle Marguerite
+did not once doubt the devotion of this strange auxiliary. Without an
+instant’s hesitation she replied, “I accept your services, monsieur.”
+
+Chupin felt at least a head taller as he heard this beautiful young girl
+speak to him in a voice as clear and as sonorous as crystal. “Ah!
+you are right to trust me,” he rejoined, striking his chest with his
+clinched hand, “for I have a heart--but----”
+
+“But what, monsieur?”
+
+“I am wondering if you would consent to do what I wish. It would be a
+very good plan, but if it displeases you, we will say no more about it.”
+
+“And what do you wish?”
+
+“To see you every day, so as to tell you what I’ve done, and to obtain
+such directions as I may require. I’m well aware that I can’t go to M.
+de Fondege’s door and ask to speak to you; but there are other ways
+of seeing each other. For instance, every evening at five o-clock
+precisely, I might pass along the Rue Pigalle, and warn you of my
+presence by such a signal as this: ‘Pi-ouit!’” So saying he gave vent to
+the peculiar call, half whistle, half ejaculation, which is familiar to
+the Parisian working-classes. “Then,” he resumed, “you might come down
+and I would tell you the news; besides, I might often help you by doing
+errands.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite reflected for a moment, and then bowing her
+head, she replied:
+
+“What you suggest is quite practicable. On and after to-morrow evening I
+will watch for you; and if I don’t come down at the end of half an hour,
+you will know that I am unavoidably detained.”
+
+Chupin ought to have been satisfied. But no, he had still another
+request to make; and instinct, supplying the lack of education, told him
+that it was a delicate one. Indeed, he dared not present his petition;
+but his embarrassment was so evident, and he twisted his poor cap so
+despairingly, that at last the young girl gently asked him: “Is there
+anything more?”
+
+He still hesitated, but eventually, mustering all his courage, he
+replied: “Well, yes, mademoiselle. I’ve never seen Monsieur Ferailleur.
+Is he tall or short, light or dark, stout or thin? I do not know. I
+might stand face to face with him without being able to say, ‘It’s he.’
+But it would be quite a different thing if I only had a photograph of
+him.”
+
+A crimson flush spread over Mademoiselle Marguerite’s face. Still she
+answered, unaffectedly, “I will give you M. Ferailleur’s photograph
+to-morrow, monsieur.”
+
+“Then I shall be all right!” exclaimed Chupin. “Have no fears,
+mademoiselle, we shall outwit these scoundrels!”
+
+So far a silent witness of this scene, M. Fortunat now felt it his duty
+to interfere. He was not particularly pleased by his clerk’s suddenly
+increased importance; and yet it mattered little to him, for his only
+object was to revenge himself on Valorsay. “Victor is a capable and
+trustworthy young fellow, mademoiselle,” he declared; “he has grown up
+under my training, and I think you will find him a faithful servant.”
+
+A “have you finished, you old liar?” rose to Chupin’s lips, but respect
+for Mademoiselle Marguerite prevented him from uttering the words.
+“Then everything is decided,” she said, pleasantly. And with a smile she
+offered her hand to Chupin as one does in concluding a bargain.
+
+If he had yielded to his first impulse he would have thrown himself on
+his knees and kissed this hand of hers, the whitest and most beautiful
+he had ever seen. As it was, he only ventured to touch it with his
+finger-tips, and yet he changed color two or three times. “What a
+woman!” he exclaimed, when she had left them. “A perfect queen! A man
+would willingly allow himself to be chopped in pieces for her sake; and
+she’s as good and as clever as she’s handsome. Did you notice, monsieur,
+that she did not offer to pay me. She understood that I offered to work
+for her for my own pleasure, for my own satisfaction and honor. Heavens!
+how I should have chafed if she had offered me money. How provoked I
+should have been!”
+
+Chupin was so fascinated that he wished no reward for his toil! This was
+so astonishing that M. Fortunat remained for a moment speechless with
+surprise. “Have you gone mad, Victor?” he inquired at last.
+
+“Mad! I?--not at all; I’m only becoming----” He stopped short. He was
+going to add: “an honest man.” But it is scarcely proper to talk about
+the rope in the hangman’s house, and there are certain words which
+should never be pronounced in the presence of certain people. Chupin
+knew this, and so he quickly resumed: “When I become rich, when I’m a
+great banker, and have a host of clerks who spend their time in counting
+my gold behind a grating, I should like to have a wife of my own like
+that. But I must be off about my business now, so till we meet again,
+monsieur.”
+
+The foregoing conversation will explain how it happened that Madame Leon
+chanced to surprise her dear young lady in close conversation with
+a vagabond clad in a blouse. Victor Chupin was not a person to make
+promises and then leave them unfulfilled. Though he was usually
+unimpressionable, like all who lead a precarious existence, still, when
+his emotions were once aroused, they did not spend themselves in
+empty protestations. It became his fixed determination to find Pascal
+Ferailleur, and the difficulties of the task in no wise weakened his
+resolution. His starting point was that Pascal had lived in the Rue
+d’Ulm, and had suddenly gone off with his mother, with the apparent
+intention of sailing for America. This was all he knew positively, and
+everything else was mere conjecture. Still Mademoiselle Marguerite had
+convinced him that instead of leaving Paris, Pascal was really still
+there, only waiting for an opportunity to establish his innocence, and
+to wreak his vengeance upon M. de Coralth and the Marquis de Valorsay.
+On the other hand, with such a slight basis to depend upon, was it not
+almost madness to hope to discover a man who had such strong reasons for
+concealing himself? Chupin did not think so in fact, when he declared
+his determination to perform this feat, his plan was already perfected.
+
+On leaving M. Fortunat’s office, he hastened straight to the Rue d’Ulm,
+at the top of his speed. The concierge of the house where Pascal had
+formerly resided was by no means a polite individual. He was the very
+same man who had answered Mademoiselle Marguerite’s questions so rudely;
+but Chupin had a way of conciliating even the most crabbish doorkeeper,
+and of drawing from him such information as he desired. He learned that
+at nine o’clock on the sixteenth of October Madame Ferailleur, after
+seeing her trunks securely strapped on to a cab had entered the vehicle,
+ordering the driver to take her to the Railway Station in the Place
+du Havre! Chupin wished to ascertain the number of the cab, but the
+concierge could not give it. He mentioned, however, that this cab had
+been procured by Madame Ferailleur’s servant-woman, who lived only a few
+steps from the house. A moment later Chupin was knocking at this
+woman’s door. She was a very worthy person, and bitterly regretted the
+misfortunes which had befallen her former employers. She confirmed the
+doorkeeper’s story, but unfortunately she, too, had quite forgotten the
+number of the vehicle. All she could say was that she had hired it at
+the cab stand in the Rue Soufflot, and that the driver was a portly,
+pleasant-faced man.
+
+Chupin repaired at once to the Rue Soufflot, where he found the man
+in charge of the stand in the most savage mood imaginable. He began by
+asking Chupin what right he had to question him, why he wished to do so,
+and if he took him for a spy. He added that his duty only consisted in
+noting the arrivals and departures of the drivers, and that he could
+give no information whatever. There was evidently nothing to be gained
+from this ferocious personage; and yet Chupin bowed none the less
+politely as he left the little office. “This is bad,” he growled, as
+he walked away, for he was really at a loss what to do next; and if not
+discouraged, he was at least extremely disconcerted and perplexed. Ah!
+if he had only had a card from the prefecture of police in his pocket,
+or if he had been more imposing in appearance, he would have encountered
+no obstacles; he might then have tracked this cab through the streets
+of Paris as easily as he could have followed a man bearing a lighted
+lantern through the darkness. But poor and humble, without letters of
+recommendation, and with no other auxiliaries than his own shrewdness
+and experience, he had a great deal to contend against. Pausing in his
+walk, he had taken off his cap and was scratching his head furiously,
+when suddenly he exclaimed: “What an ass I am!” in so loud a tone that
+several passers-by turned to see who was applying this unflattering
+epithet to himself.
+
+Chupin had just remembered one of M. Isidore Fortunat’s debtors, a man
+whom he often visited in the hope of extorting some trifling amount
+from him, and who was employed in the Central office of the Paris Cab
+Company. “If any one can help me out of this difficulty, it must be that
+fellow,” he said to himself. “I hope I shall find him at his desk! Come,
+Victor, my boy, you must look alive!”
+
+However, he could not present himself at the office in the garb he
+then wore, and so, much against his will, he went home and changed
+his clothes. Then he took a cab at his own expense, and drove with all
+possible speed to the main office of the Cab Company, in the Avenue de
+Segur. Nevertheless it was already ten o’clock when he arrived there.
+He was more fortunate than he had dared to hope. The man he wanted
+had charge of a certain department, and was compelled to return to the
+office every evening after dinner. He was there now.
+
+He was a poor devil who, while receiving a salary of fifteen hundred
+francs a year, spent a couple of thousand, and utilized his wits in
+defending his meagre salary from his creditors. On perceiving Chupin,
+he made a wrathful gesture, and his first words were: “I haven’t got a
+penny.”
+
+But Chupin smiled his most genial smile. “What!” said he, “do you fancy
+I’ve come to collect money from you here, and at this hour? You don’t
+know me. I merely came to ask a favor of you.”
+
+The clerk’s clouded face brightened. “Since that is the case, pray take
+a seat, and tell me how I can serve you,” he replied.
+
+“Very well. At nine o’clock in the evening, on the sixteenth of October,
+a lady living in the Rue d’Ulm sent to the stand in the Rue Soufflot for
+a cab. Her baggage was placed upon it, and she went away no one knows
+where. However, this lady is a relative of my employer, and he so much
+wishes to find her that he would willingly give a hundred francs
+over and above the amount you owe him, to ascertain the number of the
+vehicle. He pretends that you can give him this number if you choose;
+and it isn’t an impossibility, is it?”
+
+“On the contrary, nothing could be easier,” replied the clerk, glad of
+an opportunity to explain the ingenious mechanism of the office to an
+outsider. “Have you ten minutes to spare?”
+
+“Ten days, if necessary,” rejoined Chupin.
+
+“Then you shall see.” So saying the clerk rose and went into the
+adjoining room, whence a moment later he returned carrying a large green
+box. “This contains the October reports sent in every evening by the
+branch offices,” he remarked in explanation. He next opened the box,
+glanced over the documents it contained, and joyfully exclaimed: “Here
+we have it. This is the report sent in by the superintendent of the
+cab-stand in the Rue Soumot on the 16th October. Here is a list of the
+vehicles that arrived or left from a quarter to nine o’clock till a
+quarter past nine. Five cabs came in, but we need not trouble ourselves
+about them. Three went out bearing the numbers 1781, 3025, and 2140. One
+of these three must have taken your employer’s relative.”
+
+“Then I must question the three drivers.”
+
+The clerk shrugged his shoulders. “What is the use of doing that?” he
+said, disdainfully. “Ah! you don’t understand the way in which we manage
+our business! The drivers are artful, but the company isn’t a fool. By
+expending a hundred and fifty thousand francs on its detective force
+every year, it knows what each cab is doing at each hour of the day. I
+will now look for the reports sent in respecting these three drivers.
+One of the three will give us the desired information.”
+
+This time the search was a considerably longer one, and Chupin was
+beginning to grow impatient, when the clerk waved a soiled and crumpled
+sheet of paper triumphantly in the air, and cried: “What did I tell you?
+This is the report concerning the driver of No. 2140. Listen: Friday, at
+ten minutes past nine, sent to the Rue d’Ulm---- do you think of that?”
+
+“It’s astonishing! But where can I find this driver?”
+
+“I can’t say, just at this moment; he’s on duty now. But as he belongs
+to this division he will be back sooner or later, so you had better
+wait.”
+
+“I will wait then; only as I’ve had no dinner, I’ll go out and get a
+mouthful to eat. I can promise you that M. Fortunat will send you back
+your note cancelled.”
+
+Chupin was really very hungry, and so he rushed off to a little
+eating-house which he had remarked on his way to the office. There
+for eighteen sous he dined, or rather supped, like a prince; and as he
+subsequently treated himself to a cup of coffee and a glass of brandy,
+as a reward for his toil, some little time had elapsed when he returned
+to the office. However, No. 2140 had not returned in his absence, so he
+stationed himself at the door to wait for it.
+
+His patience was severely tried, for it was past midnight when Chupin
+saw the long-looked-for vehicle enter the courtyard. The driver slowly
+descended from his box and then went into the cashier’s office to pay
+over his day’s earnings, and hand in his report. Then he came out again
+evidently bound for home. As the servant-woman had said, he was a stout,
+jovial-faced man, and he did not hesitate to accept a glass of “no
+matter what” in a wine-shop that was still open. Whether he believed the
+story that Chupin told to excuse his questions or not, at all events he
+answered them very readily. He perfectly remembered having been sent
+to the Rue d’Ulm, and spoke of his “fare” as a respectable-looking old
+lady, enumerated the number of her trunks, boxes, and packages, and even
+described their form. He had taken her to the railway station, stopping
+at the entrance in the Rue d’Amsterdam; and when the porters inquired,
+as usual, “Where is this baggage to go?” the old lady had answered, “To
+London.”
+
+Chupin felt decidedly crestfallen on hearing this. He had fancied that
+Madame Ferailleur had merely announced her intention of driving to the
+Havre railway station so as to set possible spies on the wrong track,
+and he would have willingly wagered anything, that after going a short
+distance she had given the cabman different instructions. Not so,
+however, he had taken her straight to the station. Was Mademoiselle
+Marguerite deceived then? Had Pascal really fled from his enemies
+without an attempt at resistance? Such a course seemed impossible on his
+part. Thinking over all this, Chupin slept but little that night, and
+the next morning, before five o’clock, he was wandering about the
+Rue d’Amsterdam peering into the wine-shops in search of some railway
+porter. It did not take him long to find one, and having done so, he
+made him the best of friends in less than no time. Although this porter
+knew nothing about the matter himself, he took Chupin to a comrade who
+remembered handling the baggage of an old lady bound for London, on the
+evening of the sixteenth. However, this baggage was not put into the
+train after all; the old lady had left it in the cloak-room, and the
+next day a fat woman of unprepossessing appearance had called for the
+things, and had taken them away, after paying the charges for storage.
+This circumstance had been impressed on the porter’s mind by the fact
+that the woman had not given him a farthing gratuity, although he had
+been much more obliging than the regulations required. However, when
+she went off, she remarked in a honeyed voice, but with an exceedingly
+impudent air: “I’ll repay you for your kindness, my lad. I keep a
+wine-shop on the Route d’Asnieres, and if you ever happen to pass that
+way with one of your comrades, come in, and I’ll reward you with a
+famous drink!”
+
+What had exasperated the porter almost beyond endurance, was the
+certainty he felt that she was mocking him. “For she didn’t give me her
+name or address, the old witch!” he growled. “She had better look out,
+if I ever get hold of her again!”
+
+But Chupin had already gone off, unmoved by his informant’s grievances.
+Now that he had discovered the stratagem which Madame Ferailleur had
+employed to elude her pursuers, his conjectures were changed into
+certainties. This information proved that Pascal WAS concealed somewhere
+in Paris; but where? If he could only find out this woman who had called
+for the trunks, it would lead to the discovery of Madame Ferailleur and
+her son but how was he to ascertain the woman’s whereabouts? She had
+said that she kept a wine-shop on the Route d’Asnieres. Was this true?
+Was it not more likely that this vague direction was only a fresh
+precaution?
+
+This much was certain: Chupin, who knew every wine-shop on the Route
+d’Asnieres, did not remember any such powerful matron as the porter had
+described. He had not forgotten Madame Vantrasson. But to imagine any
+bond of interest between Pascal and such a woman as she was, seemed
+absurd in the extreme. However, as he found himself in such a plight and
+could not afford to let any chance escape, he repaired merely for form’s
+sake to the Vantrasson establishment. It had not changed in the least
+since the evening he visited it in company with M. Fortunat--but seen
+in the full light of day, it appeared even more dingy and dilapidated.
+Madame Vantrasson was not in her accustomed place, behind the counter,
+between her black cat--her latest idol--and the bottles from which she
+prepared her ratafia, now her supreme consolation here below. There was
+no one in the shop but the landlord. Seated at a table, with a lighted
+candle near him, he was engaged in an occupation which would have set
+Chupin’s mind working if he had noticed it. Vantrasson had taken some
+wax from a sealed bottle, and, after melting it at the flame of the
+candle, he let it drop slowly on to the table. He then pressed a sou
+upon it, and when the wax had become sufficiently cool and stiff, he
+removed it from the table without destroying the impression, by means of
+a thin bladed knife similar to those which glaziers use. However, Chupin
+did not remark this singular employment. He was engaged in mentally
+ejaculating, “Good! the old woman isn’t here.” And as his plan of
+campaign was already prepared, he entered without further hesitation.
+
+As Vantrasson heard the door turn upon its hinges, he rose so awkwardly,
+or rather so skilfully, as to let all his implements, wax, knife, and
+impressions, fall on the floor behind the counter. “What can I do to
+serve you?” he asked, in a husky voice.
+
+“Nothing. I wished to speak with your wife.”
+
+“She has gone out. She works for a family in the morning.”
+
+This was a gleam of light. Chupin had not thought of the only hypothesis
+that could explain what seemed inexplicable to him. However, he knew how
+to conceal his satisfaction, and so with an air of disappointment, he
+remarked: “That’s too bad! I shall be obliged to call again.”
+
+“So you have a secret to tell my wife?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“Won’t I do as well, then?”
+
+“I’ll tell you how it is. I’m employed in the baggage room of the
+western railway station, and I wanted to know if your wife didn’t call
+there a few days ago for some trunks?”
+
+The landlord’s features betrayed the vague perturbation of a person who
+can count the days by his mistakes, and it was with evident hesitation
+that he replied:
+
+“Yes, my wife went to the Havre station for some baggage last Sunday.”
+
+“I thought so. Well, this is my errand: either the clerk forgot to ask
+her for her receipt, or else he lost it. He can’t find it anywhere. I
+came to ask your wife if she hadn’t kept it. When she returns, please
+deliver my message; and if she has the receipt, pray send it to me
+through the post.”
+
+The ruse was not particularly clever, but it was sufficiently so to
+deceive Vantrasson. “To whom am I to send this receipt?” he asked.
+
+“To me, Victor Chupin, Faubourg Saint Denis,” was the reply.
+
+Imprudent youth! alas, he little suspected what a liberty M. Fortunat
+had taken with his name on the evening he visited the Vantrassons. But
+on his side the landlord of the Model Lodging House had not forgotten
+the name mentioned by the agent. He turned pale with anger on beholding
+his supposed creditor, and quickly slipping between the visitor and the
+door, he said: “So your name is Victor Chupin?”
+
+“Yes, certainly.”
+
+“And you are in the employment of the Railway Company?”
+
+“As I just told you.”
+
+“That doesn’t prevent you from acting as a collector, does it?”
+
+Chupin instinctively recoiled, convinced that he had betrayed himself
+by some blunder, but unable to discover in what he had erred. “I did do
+something in that line formerly,” he faltered.
+
+Vantrasson doubted no longer. “So you confess that you are a vile
+scoundrel!” he exclaimed. “You confess that you purchased an old
+promissory note of mine for fourpence, and then sent a man here to seize
+my goods! Ah! you’d like to trample the poor under foot, would you! Very
+well. I have you now, and I’ll settle your account! Take that!” And so
+saying, he dealt his supposed creditor a terrible blow with his clinched
+fist that sent him reeling to the other end of the shop.
+
+Fortunately, Chupin was very nimble. He did not lose his footing, but
+sprung over a table and used it as a rampart to shield himself from his
+dangerous assailant. In the open field, he could easily have protected
+himself; but here in this narrow space, and hemmed in a corner, he felt
+that despite this barrier he was lost. “What a devil of a mess!” he
+thought, as with wonderful agility he avoided Vantrasson’s fist, a fist
+that would have felled an ox. He had an idea of calling for assistance.
+But would any one hear him? Would any one reply? And if help came, would
+not the police be sure to hear of the broil? And if they did, would
+there not be an investigation which would perhaps disturb Pascal’s
+plans? Fearing to injure those whom he wished to serve, he resolved to
+let himself be hacked to pieces rather than allow a cry to escape him;
+but he changed his tactics, and instead of attempting to parry the blows
+as he had done before, he now only thought of gaining the door, inch by
+inch.
+
+He had almost reached it, not without suffering considerable injury,
+when it suddenly opened, and a young man clad in black, with a smooth
+shaven face, entered the shop, and sternly exclaimed: “Why! what’s all
+this?”
+
+The sight of the newcomer seemed to stupefy Vantrasson. “Ah! it is you,
+Monsieur Maumejan?” he faltered, with a crestfallen air. “It’s nothing;
+we were only in fun.”
+
+M. Maumejan seemed perfectly satisfied with this explanation; and in the
+indifferent tone of a man who is delivering a message, the meaning of
+which he scarcely understood, he said: “A person who knows that your
+wife is in my employ requested me to ask you if you would be ready to
+attend to that little matter she spoke of.”
+
+“Certainly. I was preparing for it a moment ago.”
+
+Chupin heard no more. He had hurried out, his clothes in disorder, and
+himself not a little hurt; but his delight made him lose all thought of
+his injuries. “That’s M. Ferailleur,” he muttered, “I’m sure of it, and
+I’m going to prove it.” So saying he hid himself in the doorway of a
+vacant house a few paces distant from the Vantrassons’, and waited.
+
+Then as soon as M. Maumejan emerged from the Model Lodging House, he
+followed him. The young man with the clean shaven face walked up the
+Route d’Asnieres, turned to the right into the Route de la Revolte, and
+at last paused before a house of humble aspect. At that moment Chupin
+darted toward him, and softly called, “M’sieur Ferailleur!”
+
+The young man turned instinctively. Then seeing his mistake, and feeling
+that he had betrayed himself, he sprang upon Chupin, and caught him by
+the wrists: “Scoundrel! who are you?” he exclaimed. “Who has hired you
+to follow me! What do you want of me?”
+
+“Not so fast, m’sieur! Don’t be so rough! You hurt me. I’m sent by
+Mademoiselle Marguerite!”
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+“O God! send Pascal to my aid,” prayed Mademoiselle Marguerite, as she
+left M. Fortunat’s house. Now she understood the intrigue she had been
+the victim of; but, instead of reassuring her the agent had frightened
+her, by revealing the Marquis de Valorsay’s desperate plight. She
+realized what frenzied rage must fill this man’s heart as he felt
+himself gradually slipping from the heights of opulence, down into
+the depths of poverty and crime. What might he not dare, in order to
+preserve even the semblance of grandeur for a year, or a month, or a
+day longer! Had they measured the extent of his villainy? Would he even
+hesitate at murder? And the poor girl asked herself with a shudder if
+Pascal were still living; and a vision of his bleeding corpse, lying
+lifeless in some deserted street, rose before her. And who could tell
+what dangers threatened her personally? For, though she knew the past,
+she could not read the future. What did M. de Valorsay’s letter mean?
+and what was the fate that he held in reserve for her, and that made
+him so sanguine of success? The impression produced upon her mind was so
+terrible that for a moment she thought of hastening to the old justice
+of the peace to ask for his protection and a refuge. But this weakness
+did not last long. Should she lose her energy? Should her will fail her
+at the decisive moment? “No, a thousand times no!” she said to herself
+again and again. “I will die if needs be, but I will die fighting!” And
+the nearer she approached the Rue Pigalle, the more energetically she
+drove away her apprehension, and sought for an excuse calculated to
+satisfy any one who might have noticed her long absence.
+
+An unnecessary precaution. She found the house as when she left it,
+abandoned to the mercy of the servants--the strangers sent the evening
+before from the employment office. Important matters still kept the
+General and his wife from home. The husband had to show his horses; and
+the wife was intent upon shopping. As for Madame Leon, most of her time
+seemed to be taken up by the family of relatives she had so suddenly
+discovered. Alone, free from all espionage, and wishing to ward off
+despondency by occupation, Mademoiselle Marguerite was just beginning
+a letter to her friend the old magistrate, when a servant entered and
+announced that her dressmaker was there and wished to speak with her.
+“Let her come in,” replied Marguerite, with unusual vivacity. “Let her
+come in at once.”
+
+A lady who looked some forty years of age, plainly dressed, but of
+distinguished appearance, was thereupon ushered into the room. Like any
+well-bred modiste, she bowed respectfully while the servant was
+present, but as soon as he had left the room she approached Mademoiselle
+Marguerite and took hold of her hands: “My dear young lady,” said she,
+“I am the sister-in-law of your old friend, the magistrate. Having an
+important message to send to you, he was trying to find a person whom
+he could trust to play the part of a dressmaker, as had been agreed upon
+between you, when I offered my services, thinking he could find no one
+more trusty than myself.”
+
+Tears glittered in Mademoiselle Marguerite’s eyes. The slightest token
+of sympathy is so sweet to the heart of the lonely and unfortunate! “How
+can I ever thank you, madame?” she faltered.
+
+“By not attempting to thank me at all, and by reading this letter as
+soon as possible.”
+
+The note she now produced ran as follows:
+
+
+“MY DEAR CHILD--At last I am on the track of the thieves. By conferring
+with the people from whom M. de Chalusse received the money a couple of
+days before his death, I have been fortunate enough to obtain from them
+some minute details respecting the missing bonds, as well as the numbers
+of the bank-notes which were deposited in the escritoire. With this
+information, we cannot fail to prove the guilt of the culprits sooner or
+later. You write me word that the Fondeges are spending money lavishly;
+try and find out the names of the people they deal with, and communicate
+them to me. Once more, I tell you that I am sure of success. Courage!”
+
+
+“Well!” said the spurious dressmaker, when she saw that Marguerite
+had finished reading the letter. “What answer shall I take my
+brother-in-law?”
+
+“Tell him that he shall certainly have the information he requires
+to-morrow. To-day, I can only give him the name of the carriage builder,
+from whom M. de Fondege has purchased his new carriages.”
+
+“Give it to me in writing, it is much the safest way.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite did so, and her visitor who, as a woman,
+was delighted to find herself mixed up in an intrigue, then went off
+repeating the old magistrate’s advice: “Courage!”
+
+But it was no longer necessary to encourage Mademoiselle Marguerite.
+The assurance of being so effectually helped, had already increased
+her courage an hundredfold. The future that had seemed so gloomy only a
+moment before, had now suddenly brightened. By means of the negative in
+the keeping of the photographer, Carjat, she had the Marquis de
+Valorsay in her power, and the magistrate, thanks to the numbers of the
+bank-notes, could soon prove the guilt of the Fondeges. The protection
+of Providence was made evident in an unmistakable manner. Thus it was
+with a placid and almost smiling face that she successively greeted
+Madame Leon, who returned home quite played out, then Madame de Fondege,
+who made her appearance attended by two shop-boys overladen with
+packages, and finally the General, who brought his son, Lieutenant
+Gustave, with him to dinner.
+
+The lieutenant was a good-looking fellow of twenty-seven, or
+thereabouts, with laughing eyes and a heavy mustache. He made a great
+clanking with his spurs, and wore the somewhat theatrical uniform of the
+13th Hussars rather ostentatiously. He bowed to Mademoiselle Marguerite
+with a smile that was too becoming to be displeasing; and he offered her
+his arm with an air of triumph to lead her to the dining-room, as soon
+as the servant came to announce that “Madame la Comtesse was served.”
+
+Seated opposite to him at table, the young girl could not refrain from
+furtively watching the man whom they wished to compel her to marry.
+Never had she seen such intense self-complacency coupled with such
+utter mediocrity. It was evident that he was doing his best to produce
+a favorable impression; but as the dinner progressed, his conversation
+became rather venturesome. He gradually grew extremely animated; and
+three or four adventures of garrison life which he persisted in relating
+despite his mother’s frowns, were calculated to convince his hearers
+that he was a great favorite with the fair sex. It was the good cheer
+that loosened his tongue. There could be no possible doubt on that
+score; and, indeed, while drinking a glass of the Chateau Laroze, to
+which Madame Leon had taken such a liking, he was indiscreet enough to
+declare that if his mother had always kept house in this fashion, he
+should have been inclined to ask for more frequent leaves of absence.
+
+However, strange to say, after the coffee was served, the conversation
+languished till at last it died out almost entirely. Madame de Fondege
+was the first to disappear on the pretext that some domestic affairs
+required her attention. The General was the next to rise and go out, in
+order to smoke a cigar; and finally Madame Leon made her escape without
+saying a word. So Mademoiselle Marguerite was left quite alone with
+Lieutenant Gustave. It was evident enough to the young girl that this
+had been preconcerted; and she asked herself what kind of an opinion M.
+and Madame de Fondege could have of her delicacy. The proceeding made
+her so indignant that she was on the point of rising from the table and
+of retiring like the others, when reason restrained her. She said to
+herself that perhaps she might gain some useful information from this
+young man, and so she remained.
+
+His face was crimson, and he seemed by far the more embarrassed of
+the two. He sat with one elbow resting on the table, and with his gaze
+persistently fixed upon a tiny glass half full of brandy which he held
+in his hand, as if he hoped to gain some sublime inspiration from it.
+At last, after an interval of irksome silence, he ventured to exclaim:
+“Mademoiselle, should you like to be an officer’s wife?”
+
+“I don’t know,” answered Marguerite.
+
+“Really! But at least you understand my motive in asking this question?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Any one but the complacent lieutenant would have been disconcerted by
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s dry tone; but he did not even notice it.
+The effort that he was making in his intense desire to be eloquent and
+persuasive absorbed the attention of all his faculties. “Then permit
+me to explain, mademoiselle,” he resumed. “We meet this evening for the
+first time, but our acquaintance is not the affair of a day. For I know
+not how long my father and mother have continually been chanting your
+praises. ‘Mademoiselle Marguerite does this; Mademoiselle Marguerite
+does that.’ They never cease talking of you, declaring that heart, wit,
+talent, beauty, all womanly charms are united in your person. And they
+have never wearied of telling me that the man whom you honored with your
+preference would be the happiest of mortals. However, so far I had no
+desire to marry, and I distrusted them. In fact, I had conceived a most
+violent prejudice against you. Yes, upon my honor! I felt sure that I
+should dislike you; but I have seen you and all is changed. As soon as
+my eyes fell upon you, I experienced a powerful revulsion of feeling. I
+was never so smitten in my life--and I said to myself, ‘Lieutenant, it
+is all over--you are caught at last!’”
+
+Pale with anger, astonished and humiliated beyond measure, the young
+girl listened with her head lowered, vainly trying to find words
+to express the feelings which disturbed her; but M. Gustave,
+misunderstanding her silence, and congratulating himself upon the
+effect he had produced, grew bolder, and with the tenderest and most
+impassioned inflection he could impart to his voice, continued: “Who
+could fail to be impressed as I have been? How could one behold, without
+rapturous admiration, such beautiful eyes, such glorious black hair,
+such smiling lips, such a graceful mien, such wonderful charms of person
+and of mind? How would it be possible to listen, unmoved, to a voice
+which is clearer and purer than crystal? Ah! my mother’s descriptions
+fell far short of the truth. But how can one describe the perfections of
+an angel? To any one who has the happiness or the misfortune of knowing
+you, there can only be one woman in the world!”
+
+He had gradually approached her chair, and now extended his hand to take
+hold of Marguerite’s, and probably raise it to his lips. But she shrank
+from the contact as from red-hot iron, and rising hurriedly, with her
+eyes flashing, and her voice quivering with indignation: “Monsieur!” she
+exclaimed, “Monsieur!”
+
+He was so surprised that he stood as if petrified, with his eyes wide
+open and his hand still extended. “Permit me--allow me to explain,” he
+stammered. But she declined to listen. “Who has told you that you could
+address such words to me with impunity?” she continued. “Your parents,
+I suppose; I daresay they told you to be bold. And that is why they have
+left us, and why no servant has appeared. Ah! they make me pay dearly
+for the hospitality they have given me!” As she spoke the tears started
+from her eyes and glistened on her long lashes. “Whom did you fancy you
+were speaking to?” she added. “Would you have been so audacious if I had
+a father or a brother to resent your insults?”
+
+The lieutenant started as if he had been lashed with a whip. “Ah! you
+are severe!” he exclaimed.
+
+And a happy inspiration entering his mind, he continued: “A man does not
+insult a woman, mademoiselle, when, while telling her that he loves her
+and thinks her beautiful, he offers her his name and life.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite shrugged her shoulders ironically, and remained
+for a moment silent. She was very proud, and her pride had been cruelly
+wounded; but reason told her that a continuation of this scene would
+render a prolonged sojourn in the General’s house impossible; and where
+could she go, without exciting malevolent remarks? Whom could she ask
+an asylum of? Still this consideration alone would not have sufficed to
+silence her. But she remembered that a quarrel and a rupture with the
+Fondeges would certainly imperil the success of her plans. “So I will
+swallow even this affront,” she said to herself; and then in a tone of
+melancholy bitterness, she remarked, aloud: “A man cannot set a very
+high value on his name when he offers it to a woman whom he knows
+absolutely nothing about.”
+
+“Excuse me--you forget that my mother----”
+
+“Your mother has only known me for a week.”
+
+An expression of intense surprise appeared on the lieutenant’s face. “Is
+it possible?” he murmured.
+
+“Your father has met me five or six times at the table of the Count
+de Chalusse, who was his friend--but what does he know of me?” resumed
+Mademoiselle Marguerite. “That I came to the Hotel de Chalusse a year
+ago, and that the count treated me like a daughter--that is all! Who I
+am, where I was reared, and how, and what my past life has been, these
+are matters that M. de Fondege knows nothing whatever about.”
+
+“My parents told me that you were the daughter of the Count de Chalusse,
+mademoiselle.”
+
+“What proof have they of it? They ought to have told you that I was an
+unfortunate foundling, with no other name than that of Marguerite.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“They ought to have told you that I am poor, very poor, and that I
+should probably have been reduced to the necessity of toiling for my
+daily bread, if it had not been for them.”
+
+An incredulous smile curved the lieutenant’s lips. He fancied that
+Mademoiselle Marguerite only wished to prove his disinterestedness, and
+this thought restored his assurance. “Perhaps you are exaggerating a
+little, mademoiselle,” he replied.
+
+“I am not exaggerating--I possess but ten thousand francs in the
+world--I swear it by all that I hold sacred.”
+
+“That would not even be the dowry required of an officer’s wife by law,”
+ muttered the lieutenant.
+
+Was his incredulity sincere or affected? What had his parents really
+told him? Had they confided everything to him, and was he their
+accomplice? or had they told him nothing? All these questions flashed
+rapidly through Marguerite’s mind. “You suppose that I am rich,
+monsieur,” she resumed at last. “I understand that only too well. If I
+was, you ought to shun me as you would shun a criminal, for I could only
+be wealthy through a crime.”
+
+“Mademoiselle----”
+
+“Yes, through a crime. After M. de Chalusse’s death, two million francs
+that had been placed in his escritoire for safe keeping, could not be
+found. Who stole the money? I myself have been accused of the theft.
+Your father must have told you of this, as well as of the cloud of
+suspicion that is still hanging over me.”
+
+She paused, for the lieutenant had become whiter than his shirt. “Good
+God!” he exclaimed in a tone of horror, as if a terrible light had
+suddenly broken upon his mind. He made a movement as if to leave the
+room, but suddenly changing his mind, he bowed low before Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, and said, in a husky voice: “Forgive me, mademoiselle, I did
+not know what I was doing. I have been misinformed. I have been beguiled
+by false hopes. I entreat you to say that you forgive me.”
+
+“I forgive you, monsieur.”
+
+But still he lingered. “I am only a poor devil of a lieutenant,” he
+resumed, “with no other fortune than my epaulettes, no other prospects
+than an uncertain advancement. I have been foolish and thoughtless. I
+have committed many acts of folly; but there is nothing in my past life
+for which I have cause to blush.” He looked fixedly at Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, as if he were striving to read her inmost soul; and in a
+solemn tone, that contrasted strangely with his usual levity of manner,
+he added: “If the name I bear should ever be compromised, my prospects
+would be blighted forever! The only course left for me would be to
+tender my resignation. I will leave nothing undone to preserve my honor
+in the eyes of the world, and to right those who have been wronged.
+Promise me not to interfere with my plans.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite trembled like a leaf. She now realized her
+terrible imprudence. He had divined everything. As she remained silent,
+he continued wildly: “I entreat you. Do you wish me to beg you at your
+feet?”
+
+Ah! it was a terrible sacrifice that he demanded of her. But how could
+she remain obdurate in the presence of such intense anguish? “I will
+remain neutral,” she replied, “that is all I can promise. Providence
+shall decide.”
+
+“Thank you,” he said, sadly, suspecting that perhaps it was already too
+late--“thank you.” Then he turned to go, and, in fact, he had already
+opened the door, when a forlorn hope brought him back to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, whose hand he took, timidly faltering, “We are friends, are
+we not?”
+
+She did not withdraw her icy hand, and in a scarcely audible voice, she
+repeated: “We are friends?”
+
+Convinced that he could obtain nothing more from her than her promised
+neutrality, the lieutenant thereupon hastily left the room, and she sank
+back in her chair more dead than alive. “Great God! what is coming now?”
+ she murmured.
+
+She thought she could understand the unfortunate young man’s intentions,
+and she listened with a throbbing heart, expecting to hear a stormy
+explanation between his parents and himself. In point of fact, she
+almost immediately afterward heard the lieutenant inquire in a stern,
+imperious voice: “Where is my father?”
+
+“The General has just gone to his club.”
+
+“And my mother?”
+
+“A friend of hers called a few moments ago to take her to the opera.”
+
+“What madness!”
+
+That was all. The outer door opened and closed again with extreme
+violence, and then Marguerite heard nothing save the sneering remarks of
+the servants.
+
+It was, indeed, madness on the part of M. and Madame de Fondege not
+to have waited to learn the result of this interview, planned by
+themselves, and upon which their very lives depended. But delirium
+seemed to have seized them since, thanks to a still inexplicable crime,
+they had suddenly found themselves in possession of an immense fortune.
+Perhaps in this wild pursuit of pleasure, in the haste they displayed
+to satisfy their covetous longings, they hoped to forget or silence
+the threatening voice of conscience. Such was Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+conclusion; but she was not long left to undisturbed meditation. By the
+lieutenant’s departure the restrictions which had been placed upon the
+servants’ movements had evidently been removed, for they came in to
+clear the table.
+
+Having with some little difficulty obtained a candle from one of these
+model servants, Mademoiselle Marguerite now retired to her own room. In
+her anxiety, she forgot Madame Leon, but the latter had not forgotten
+her; she was even now listening at the drawing-room door, inconsolable
+to think that she had not succeeded in hearing at least part of the
+conversation between the lieutenant and her dear young lady. Marguerite
+had no wish to reflect over what had occurred. As she was determined
+to keep the promise which Lieutenant Gustave had wrung from her, it
+mattered little whether she had committed a great mistake in allowing
+him to discover her knowledge of his parent’s guilt, and in listening
+to his entreaties. A secret presentiment warned her that the punishment
+which would overtake the General and his wife would be none the less
+terrible, despite her own forbearance, and that they would find their
+son more inexorable than the severest judge.
+
+The essential thing was to warn the old magistrate; and so in a couple
+of pages she summarized the scene of the evening, feeling sure that she
+would find an opportunity to post her letter on the following day. This
+duty accomplished, she took a book and went to bed, hoping to drive away
+her gloomy thoughts by reading. But the hope was vain. Her eyes read the
+words, followed the lines and crossed the pages, but her mind utterly
+refused to obey her will, and in spite of all her efforts persisted in
+turning to the shrewd youth who had solemnly sworn to find Pascal for
+her. A little after midnight Madame de Fondege returned from the opera,
+and at once proceeded to reprimand her maid for not having lighted a
+fire. The General returned some time afterward, and he was evidently in
+the best of spirits.
+
+“They have not seen their son,” said Mademoiselle Marguerite to herself,
+and this anxiety, combined with many others, tortured her so cruelly,
+that she did not fall asleep until near daybreak. Even then she did not
+slumber long. It was scarcely half-past seven when she was aroused by
+a strange commotion and a loud sound of hammering. She was trying to
+imagine the cause of all this uproar, when Madame de Fondege, already
+arrayed in a marvellous robe composed of three skirts and an enormous
+puff, entered the room. “I have come to take you away, my dear child,”
+ she exclaimed. “The owner of the house has decided to make some repairs,
+and the workmen have already invaded our apartments. The General has
+taken flight, let us follow his example--so make yourself beautiful and
+we’ll go at once.”
+
+Without a word, the young girl hastened to obey, while Madame de
+Fondege expiated on the delightful drive they would take together in
+the wonderful brougham which the General had purchased a couple of days
+before. As for Lieutenant Gustave, she did not even mention his name.
+
+Accustomed to the superb equipages of the Chalusse establishment,
+Mademoiselle Marguerite did not consider the much-lauded brougham at
+all remarkable. At the most, it was very showy, having apparently been
+selected with a view to attracting as much attention as possible. Madame
+de Fondege was not in a mood to consider an objection that morning. She
+was evidently in a nervous state of mind, extremely restless and excited
+indeed, it seemed impossible for her to keep still. In default of
+something better to do, she visited at least a dozen shops, asking to
+see everything, finding everything frightful, and purchasing without
+regard to price. It might have been fancied that she wished to buy
+all Paris. About ten o’clock she dragged Marguerite to Van Klopen’s.
+Received as a habituee of the establishment, thanks to the numerous
+orders she had given within the past few days, she was even allowed to
+enter the mysterious saloon in which the illustrious ruler of Fashion
+served such of his clients as had a predilection for absinthe or
+madeira. On leaving the place, and before entering the carriage again,
+Madame de Fondege turned to Marguerite and inquired: “Where shall we go
+now? I have given the servants an ‘outing’ on account of the workmen,
+and we cannot breakfast at home. Why can’t we go to a restaurant, we
+two? Many of the most distinguished ladies are in the habit of doing
+so. You will see how people will look at us! I am sure it will amuse you
+immensely.”
+
+“Ah! madame, you forget that it is not a fortnight since the count’s
+death!”
+
+Madame de Fondege was about to make an impatient reply, but she mastered
+the impulse, and in a tone of hypocritical compassion, exclaimed: “Poor
+child! poor, dear child! that’s true. I had forgotten. Well, such being
+the case, we’ll go and ask Baroness Trigault to give us our breakfast.
+You will see a lovely woman.” And addressing the coachman she instructed
+him to drive to the Trigault mansion in the Rue de la Ville l’Eveque.
+
+When Madame de Fondege’s brougham drew up before the door, the baron was
+standing in the courtyard with a cigar between his teeth, examining a
+pair of horses which had been sent him on approbation. He did not like
+his wife’s friend, and he usually avoided her. But precisely because he
+was acquainted with the General’s crime and Pascal’s plans, he thought
+it politic to seem amiable. So, on recognizing Madame de Fondege through
+the carriage window, he hastened forward with outstretched hand to
+assist her in alighting. “Did you come to take breakfast with us?” he
+asked. “That would be a most delightful----”
+
+The remainder of the sentence died unuttered upon his lips. His face
+became crimson, and the cigar he was holding slipped from his fingers.
+He had just perceived Mademoiselle Marguerite, and his consternation was
+so apparent that Madame de Fondege could not fail to remark it; however,
+she attributed it to the girl’s remarkable beauty. “This is Mademoiselle
+de Chalusse, my dear baron,” said she, “the daughter of the noble and
+esteemed friend whom we so bitterly lament.”
+
+Ah! it was not necessary to tell the baron who this young girl was;
+he knew it only too well. He was not overcome for long; a thought of
+vengeance speedily flashed through his mind. It seemed to him that
+Providence itself offered him the means of putting an end to an
+intolerable situation. Regaining his self-control by a powerful effort,
+he preceded Madame de Fondege through the magnificent apartments of
+the mansion, lightly saying: “My wife is in her boudoir. She will be
+delighted to see you. But first of all, I have a good secret to confide
+to you. So let me take this young lady to the baroness, and you and
+I can join them in a moment!” Thereupon, without waiting for any
+rejoinder, he took Marguerite’s arm and led her toward the end of the
+hall. Then opening a door, he exclaimed in a mocking voice: “Madame
+Trigault, allow me to present to you the daughter of the Count de
+Chalusse.” And adding in a whisper: “This is your mother, young girl,”
+ he pushed the astonished Marguerite into the room, closed the door, and
+returned to Madame de Fondege.
+
+Paler than her white muslin wrapper, the Baroness Trigault sprang from
+her chair. This was the woman who, while her husband was braving death
+to win fortune for her, had been dazzled by the Count de Chalusse’s
+wealth, and who, later in life, when she was the richest of the rich,
+had sunk into the very depths of degradation--had stooped, indeed, to
+a Coralth! The baroness had once been marvellously beautiful, and even
+now, many murmurs of admiration greeted her when she dashed through
+the Champs Elysees in her magnificent equipage, attired in one of those
+eccentric costumes which she alone dared to wear. She was a type of the
+wife created by the customs of fashionable society; the woman who feels
+elated when her name appears in the newspapers and in the chronicles of
+Parisian “high life”; who has no thought of her deserted fireside, but
+is ever tormented by a terrible thirst for bustle and excitement; whose
+head is empty, and whose heart is dry--the woman who only exists for
+the world; and who is devoured by unappeasable covetousness, and who, at
+times, envies an actress’s liberty, and the notoriety of the leaders of
+the demi-monde; the woman who is always in quest of fresh excitement,
+and fails to find it; the woman who is blase, and prematurely old in
+mind and body, and who yet still clings despairingly to her fleeting
+youth.
+
+Inaccessible to any emotion but vanity, the baroness had never shed a
+tear over her husband’s sufferings. She was sure of her absolute power
+over him. What did the rest matter? She even gloried in her knowledge
+that she could make this man--who loved her in spite of everything--at
+one moment furious with rage or wild with grief, and then an instant
+afterward plunge him into the rapture of a senseless ecstasy by a word,
+a smile, or a caress. For such was her power, and she often exercised it
+mercilessly. Even after the frightful scene that Pascal had witnessed,
+she had made another appeal to the baron, and he had been weak enough
+to give her the thirty thousand francs which M. de Coralth needed to
+purchase his wife’s silence.
+
+However, this time the baroness trembled. Her usual shrewdness had
+not deserted her, and she perfectly understood all that Marguerite’s
+presence in that house portended. Since her husband brought this young
+girl--her daughter--to her he must know everything, and have taken some
+fatal resolution. Had she, indeed, exhausted the patience which she had
+fancied inexhaustible? She was not ignorant of the fact that her husband
+had disposed of his immense fortune in a way that would enable him to
+say and prove that he was insolvent whenever occasion required; and if
+he found courage to apply for a legal separation, what could she hope to
+obtain from the courts? A bare living, almost nothing. In such a case,
+how could she exist? She would be compelled to spend her last years
+in the same poverty that had made her youth so wretched. She saw
+herself--ah! what a frightful misfortune--turfed out of her princely
+home, and reduced to furnished apartments rented for five hundred francs
+a year!
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was no less startled and horror-stricken than
+Madame Trigault, and she stood rooted to the spot, exactly where the
+baron had left her. Silent and motionless, they confronted each
+other for a moment which seemed a century to both of them. The
+resemblance--which had astonished Pascal could not fail to strike them,
+for it was still more noticeable now that they stood face to face. But
+anything was preferable to this torturing suspense, and so, summoning
+all her courage, the baroness broke the silence by saying: “You are the
+daughter of the Count de Chalusse?”
+
+“I think so, but I have no proofs of it.”
+
+“And--your mother?”
+
+“I don’t know her; madame, and I have no desire to know her.”
+
+Disconcerted by this brief but implacable reply, Madame Trigault hung
+her head.
+
+“What could I have to say to my mother?” continued Marguerite. “That I
+hate her? My courage would fail me to do so. And yet, how can I think
+without bitterness of the woman who, after abandoning me herself,
+endeavored to deprive me of my father’s love and protection? I could
+have forgiven anything but that. Ah! I have not always been so patient
+and resigned! The laws of our country do not forbid illigitimate
+children to search for their parents, and more than once I have said to
+myself that I would discover my mother, and have my revenge.”
+
+“But you have no means of discovering her?”
+
+“In this you are greatly mistaken, madame. After the Count de Chalusse’s
+death, a package of letters, a glove and some withered flowers were
+found in one of the drawers of his escritoire.”
+
+The baroness started back as if a yawning chasm had suddenly opened at
+her feet. “My letters!” she exclaimed. “Ah! wretched woman that I am,
+he kept them. It is all over! I am lost, for of course, they have been
+read?”
+
+“The ribbon securing them together has never been untied.”
+
+“Is that true? Don’t deceive me! Where are they, then--where are they?”
+
+“Under the protection of the seals affixed by the justice of the peace.”
+
+Madame Trigault tottered, as if she were about to fall. “Then it is only
+a reprieve,” she moaned, “and I am none the less ruined. Those cursed
+letters will necessarily be read, and all will be discovered. They will
+see----” The thought of what they would see endowed her with the energy
+of despair, and clutching hold of Marguerite’s wrists: “Listen!” said
+she, approaching so near that her hot breath scorched the girl’s cheeks,
+“no one must be allowed to see those letters!--it must not be! I will
+tell you what they contain. I hated my husband; I loved the Count de
+Chalusse madly, and he had sworn that he would marry me if ever I became
+a widow. Do you understand now? The name of the poison I obtained--how
+I proposed to administer it, and what its effects would be--all this is
+plainly written in my own handwriting and signed--yes, signed--with
+my own name. The plot failed, but it was none the less real, positive,
+palpable--and those letters are a proof of it. But they shall never be
+read--no--not if I am obliged to set fire to the Hotel de Chalusse with
+my own hand.”
+
+Now the count’s constant terror, the fear with which this woman had
+inspired him, were explained. He was an accomplice--he also had written
+no doubt, and she had preserved his letters as he had preserved hers.
+Crime had bound them indissolubly together.
+
+Horrified beyond expression, Marguerite freed herself from Madame
+Trigault’s grasp. “I swear to you, madame, that everything any human
+being can do to save your letters shall be done by me,” she exclaimed.
+
+“And have you any hope of success?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the girl, remembering her friend, the magistrate.
+
+Moved by a far more powerful emotion than any she had ever known before,
+the baroness uttered an exclamation of joy. “Ah! how good you are!” she
+exclaimed--“how generous! how noble! You take your revenge in giving me
+back life, honor, everything--for you are my daughter; do you not know
+it? Did they not tell you, before bringing you here, that I was the
+hated and unnatural mother who abandoned you?”
+
+She advanced with tearful eyes and outstretched arms, but Marguerite
+sternly waved her back. “Spare yourself, madame, and spare me, the
+humiliation of an unnecessary explanation.”
+
+“Marguerite! Good God! you repulse me. After all you have promised to do
+for me, will you not forgive me?”
+
+“I will try to forget, madame,” replied the girl and she was already
+stepping toward the door when the baroness threw herself at her feet,
+crying, in a heart-rending tone: “Have pity, Marguerite, I am your
+mother. One has no right to deny one’s own mother.”
+
+But the young girl passed on. “My mother is dead, madame; I do not know
+you!” And she left the room without even turning her head, without even
+glancing at the baroness, who had fallen upon the floor in a deep swoon.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Baron Trigault still held Madame de Fondege a prisoner in the hall. What
+did he say to her in justification of the expedient he had improvised?
+His own agitation was so great that he scarcely knew, and it mattered
+but little after all, for the good lady did not even pretend to listen
+to his apologies. Although by no means overshrewd, she suspected some
+great mystery, some bit of scandal, perhaps, and her eyes never once
+wandered from the door leading to the boudoir. At last this door opened
+and Mademoiselle Marguerite reappeared. “Great heavens!” exclaimed
+Madame de Fondege; “what has happened to my poor child?”
+
+For the unfortunate girl advanced with an automatic tread, her eyes
+fixed on vacancy, and her hands outstretched, as if feeling her way. It
+indeed seemed to her as if the floor swayed to and fro under her feet,
+as if the walls tottered, as if the ceiling were about to fall and crush
+her.
+
+Madame de Fondege sprang forward. “What is the matter, my dearest?”
+
+Alas! the poor girl was utterly overcome. “It is but a trifle,” she
+faltered. But her eyes closed, her hands clutched wildly for some
+support, and she would have fallen to the ground if the baron had not
+caught her in his arms and carried her to a sofa. “Help!” cried Madame
+de Fondege, “help, she is dying!--a physician!”
+
+But there was no need of a physician. One of the maids came with
+some fresh water and a bottle of smelling salts, and Marguerite soon
+recovered sufficiently to sit up, and cast a frightened glance around
+her, while she mechanically passed her hand again and again over her
+cold forehead. “Do you feel better my darling?” inquired Madame de
+Fondege at last.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Ah! you gave me a terrible fright; see how I tremble.” But the worthy
+lady’s fright was as nothing in comparison with the curiosity that
+tortured her. It was so powerful, indeed, that she could not control it.
+“What has happened?” she asked.
+
+“Nothing, madame, nothing.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“I am subject to such attacks. I was very cold, and the heat of the room
+made me feel faint.”
+
+Although she could only speak with the greatest difficulty, the baron
+realized by her tone that she would never reveal what had taken place,
+and his attitude and relief knew no bounds. “Don’t tire the poor child,”
+ he said to Madame de Fondege. “The best thing you can do would be to
+take her home and put her to bed.”
+
+“I agree with you; but unfortunately, I have sent away my brougham with
+orders not to return for me until one o’clock.”
+
+“Is that the only difficulty? If so, you shall have a carriage at
+once, my dear madame.” So saying, the baron made a sign to one of the
+servants, and the man started on his mission at once.
+
+Madame de Fondege was silent but furious. “He is actually putting me out
+of doors,” she thought. “This is a little too much! And why doesn’t the
+baroness make her appearance--she must certainly have heard my voice?
+What does it all mean? However, I’m sure Marguerite will tell me when we
+are alone.”
+
+But Madame de Fondege was wrong, for she vainly plied the girl with
+questions all the way from the Rue de la Ville l’Eveque to the Rue
+Pigalle. She could only obtain this unvarying and obstinate reply:
+“Nothing has happened. What do you suppose could have happened?”
+
+Never in her whole life had Madame de Fondege been so incensed. “The
+blockhead!” she mentally exclaimed. “Who ever saw such obstinacy!
+Hateful creature!--I could beat her!”
+
+She did not beat her, but on reaching the house she eagerly asked: “Do
+you feel strong enough to go up stairs alone?”
+
+“Yes, madame.”
+
+“Then I will leave you. You know Van Klopen expects me again at one
+o’clock precisely; and I have not breakfasted yet. Remember that my
+servants are at your disposal, and don’t hesitate to call them. You are
+at home, recollect.”
+
+It was not without considerable difficulty--not without being compelled
+to stop and rest several times on her way up stairs--that Mademoiselle
+Marguerite succeeded in reaching the apartments of the Fondege family.
+“Where is madame?” inquired the servant who opened the door.
+
+“She is still out.”
+
+“Will she return to dinner?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“M. Gustave has been here three times already; he was very angry when he
+found that there was no one at home--he went on terribly. Besides, the
+workmen have turned everything topsy-turvy.”
+
+However, Marguerite had already reached her own room, and thrown herself
+on the bed. She was suffering terribly. Her brave spirit still retained
+its energy; but the flesh had succumbed. Every vein and artery throbbed
+with violence, and while a chill seemed to come to her heart, her head
+burned as if it had been on fire. “My Lord,” she thought, “am I going
+to fall ill at the last moment, just when I have most need of all my
+strength?”
+
+She tried to sleep, but was unable to do so. How could she free herself
+from the thought that haunted her? Her mother! To think that such a
+woman was her mother! Was it not enough to make her die of sorrow and
+shame? And yet this woman must be saved--the proofs of her crime must be
+annihilated with her letters. Marguerite asked herself whether the
+old magistrate would have it in his power to help her in this respect.
+Perhaps not, and then what could she do? She asked herself if she had
+not been too cruel, too severe. Guilty or not, the baroness was still
+her mother. Had she the right to be pitiless, when by stretching out
+her hand she might, perhaps, have rescued the wretched woman from her
+terrible life.
+
+Thus thinking, the young girl sat alone and forgotten in her little
+room. The hours went by, and daylight had begun to wane, when suddenly a
+shrill whistle resounded in the street, under her windows. “Pi-ouit.” It
+came upon her like an electric shock, and with a bound she sprang to
+her feet. For this cry was the signal that had been agreed upon between
+herself and the young man who had so abruptly offered to help her on the
+occasion of her visit to M. Fortunat’s office. Was she mistaken? No--for
+on listening she heard the cry resound a second time, even more shrill
+and prolonged than before.
+
+This was no time for hesitation, and so she went down-stairs at once.
+Hope sent new blood coursing through her veins and endowed her with
+invincible energy. On reaching the street-door, she paused and looked
+around her. At a short distance off she perceived a young fellow clad in
+a blouse, who was apparently engaged in examining the goods displayed in
+a shop window. Despite his position, he hurriedly exclaimed: “Follow me
+at a little; distance in the rear until I stop.”
+
+Marguerite, obeyed him in breathless suspense. The young fellow was
+our friend Victor Chupin, now somewhat the worse for his encounter with
+Vantrasson that same morning. His face was considerably disfigured, and
+one of his eyes was black and swollen; nevertheless he was in a state
+of ecstatic happiness. Happy, and yet anxious; for, as he preceded
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, he said to himself: “How shall I tell her
+that I have succeeded? There must be no folly. If I tell her the news
+suddenly, she will most likely faint, so I must break the news gently.”
+
+On reaching the Rue Boursault, he turned the corner, and paused,
+waiting for Mademoiselle Marguerite to join him. “What is the news?” she
+anxiously asked.
+
+“Everything is progressing finely--slowly, but finely.”
+
+“You know something, monsieur! Speak! Don’t you see how anxious I am?”
+
+He did see it only too well; and his embarrassment increased to such a
+pitch that he began to scratch his head furiously. At last he decided
+on a plan. “First of all, mademoiselle, brace yourself against the wall,
+and now stand firm. Yes, like that. Now, are you all right? Well, I have
+found M. Ferailleur!”
+
+Chupin’s precaution was a wise one, for Marguerite tottered. Such a
+success, so quickly gained, was indeed astounding. “Is it possible?” she
+murmured.
+
+“So possible that I have a letter for you from M. Ferailleur in my
+pocket mademoiselle. Here it is--I am to wait for an answer.”
+
+She took the note he handed her, broke the seal with trembling hand, and
+read as follows:
+
+
+“We are approaching the end, my dearest. One step more and we shall
+triumph. But I must see you to-day at any risk. Leave the house this
+evening at eight o’clock. My mother will be waiting for you in a cab,
+at the corner of the Rue Pigalle and the Rue Boursault. Come, and let
+no fear of arousing suspicions of the Fondeges deter you. They are
+henceforth powerless to injure you.”
+
+“PASCAL”
+
+
+“I will go!” replied Marguerite at once, careless of the obstacles that
+might impede the fulfilment of her promise. For it was quite possible
+that serious difficulties might arise. Madame Leon, who had been
+invisible since the morning, might suddenly reappear, or the General
+and his wife might return to dinner. And what could Marguerite answer if
+they asked her where she wanted to go alone, and at such an hour of
+the evening? And if they attempted to prevent her from keeping her
+appointment, how could she resist? All these were weighty questions and
+yet she did not hesitate. Pascal had spoken, that sufficed, and she was
+determined to obey him implicitly, cost what it might. If he advised
+such a step, it was because he deemed it best and necessary; and she
+willingly submitted to the instructions of the man in whom she felt such
+unbounded confidence.
+
+Having told Chupin that she might be relied upon for the evening, she
+was retracing her way home, when suddenly the thought occurred to her
+that she ought not to neglect this opportunity to place a decisive
+weapon in Pascal’s hands. She was close to the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette
+and so without more ado she hurried to the establishment of Carjat the
+photographer. He was fortunately disengaged, and she at once obtained
+from him a proof of the compromising letter written by the Marquis de
+Valorsay to Madame Leon. She placed it carefully in her pocket, thanked
+the photographer, and then hurried back to the Rue Pigalle to wait
+for the hour appointed in Pascal’s letter. Fortunately none of her
+unpleasant apprehensions were realized. The dinner-hour came and passed,
+and still the house remained deserted. The workmen had gone off and the
+laughter and chatter of the servants in the kitchen were the only sounds
+that broke the stillness. Faint for want of food--for she had taken no
+nourishment during the day--Marguerite had considerable difficulty in
+obtaining something to eat from the servants. At last, however, they
+gave her some soup and cold meat, served on a corner of the bare table
+in the dining-room. It was half-past seven when she finished this
+frugal meal. She waited a moment, and then fearing she might keep Madame
+Ferailleur waiting, she went down into the street.
+
+A cab was waiting at the corner of the Rue Boursault, as indicated. Its
+windows were lowered, and in the shade one could discern the face and
+white hair of an elderly lady. Glancing behind her to assure herself
+that she had not been followed, Marguerite eagerly approached the
+vehicle, whereupon a kindly voice exclaimed: “Jump in quickly,
+mademoiselle.”
+
+Marguerite obeyed, and the door was scarcely closed behind her before
+the driver had urged his horse into a gallop. He had evidently received
+his instructions in advance, as well as the promise of a magnificent
+gratuity.
+
+Sitting side by side on the back seat, the old lady and the young girl
+remained silent, but this did not prevent them from casting stealthy
+glances at each other, and striving to distinguish one another’s
+features whenever the vehicle passed in front of some brilliantly
+lighted shop. They had never met before, and their anxiety to become
+acquainted was intense, for they each felt that the other would exert
+a decisive influence upon her life. All of Madame Ferailleur’s friends
+would undoubtedly have been surprised at the step she had taken, and
+yet it was quite in accordance with her character. As long as she had
+entertained any hope of preventing this marriage she had not hesitated
+to express and even exaggerate her objections and repugnance. But her
+point of view was entirely changed when conquered by the strength of her
+son’s passion, she at last yielded a reluctant consent. The young girl
+who was destined to be her daughter-in-law at once became sacred in her
+eyes; and it seemed to her an act of duty to watch over Marguerite, and
+shield her reputation. Having considered the subject, she had decided
+that it was not proper for her son’s betrothed to run about the streets
+alone in the evening. Might it not compromise her honor? and later on
+might it not furnish venomous Madame de Fondege with an opportunity to
+exercise her slanderous tongue? Thus the puritanical old lady had come
+to fetch Marguerite, so that whenever occasion required she might be
+able to say: “I was there!”
+
+As for Marguerite, after the trials of the day, she yielded without
+reserve to the feeling of rest and happiness that now filled her heart.
+Again and again had Pascal spoken of his mother’s prejudices and the
+inflexibility of her principles. But he had also spoken of her dauntless
+energy, the nobility of her nature, and of her love and devotion to
+him. With Marguerite, moreover, one consideration--one which she
+would scarcely have admitted, perhaps--outweighed all others: Madame
+Ferailleur was Pascal’s mother. For that reason alone, if for no other,
+she was prepared to worship her. How fervently she blessed this noble
+woman, who, a widow, and ruined in fortune by an unprincipled scoundrel,
+had bravely toiled to educate her son, making him the man whom
+Marguerite had freely chosen from among all others. She would have knelt
+before this grand but simple-hearted mother had she dared; she would
+have kissed her hands. And a poignant regret came to her heart when she
+remembered her own mother, Baroness Trigault, and compared her with this
+matchless woman.
+
+Meanwhile the cab had passed the outer boulevards, and was now whirling
+along the Route d’Asnieres, as fast as the horse could drag it. “We are
+almost there,” remarked Madame Ferailleur, speaking for the first time.
+
+Marguerite’s response was inaudible, she was so overcome with emotion.
+The driver had just turned the corner of the Route de la Revolte; and it
+was not long before he checked his panting horse. “Look, mademoiselle,”
+ said Madame Ferailleur again, “this is our home.”
+
+Upon the threshold, bareheaded, and breathless with impatience and hope,
+stood a man who was counting the seconds with the violent throbbings
+of his heart. He did not wait for the cab to stop, but springing to
+the door, he opened it; and then, catching Marguerite in his arms, he
+carried her into the house with a cry of joy. She had not even time to
+look around her, ere he had placed her in an arm-chair, and fallen on
+his knees before her. “At last I see you again, my beloved Marguerite,”
+ he exclaimed. “You are mine--nothing shall part us again!”
+
+They sobbed in each other’s arms. They could bear adversity unmoved; but
+their composure deserted them in this excess of happiness; and standing
+in the door-way, Madame Ferailleur felt the tears come to her eyes as
+she stood watching them.
+
+“How can I tell you all that I have suffered!” said Pascal, whose voice
+was hoarse with feeling. “The papers have told you all the details, I
+suppose. How I was accused of cheating at cards; how the vile epithet
+‘thief’ was cast in my face; how they tried to search me; how my most
+intimate friends deserted me; how I was virtually expelled from the
+Palais de Justice. All this is terrible, is it not? Ah, well! it
+is nothing in comparison with the intense, unendurable anguish I
+experienced in thinking that you believed the infamous calumny which
+disgraced me.”
+
+Marguerite rose to her feet. “You thought that!” she exclaimed. “You
+believed that I doubted you? I! Like you, I have been accused of robbery
+myself. Do you believe me guilty?”
+
+“Good God! I suspect you!”
+
+“Then why----”
+
+“I was mad, Marguerite, my only love, I was mad! But who would not have
+lost his senses under such circumstances? It was the very day after this
+atrocious conspiracy. I had seen Madame Leon, and had trusted her with
+a letter for you in which I entreated you to grant me five minutes’
+Conversation.”
+
+“Alas! I never received it.”
+
+“I know that now; but then I was deceived. I went to the little garden
+gate to await your coming, but it was Madame Leon who appeared. She
+brought me a note written in pencil and signed with your name, bidding
+me an eternal farewell. And, fool that I was, I did not see that the
+note was a forgery!”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was amazed. The veil was now torn aside, and the
+truth revealed to her. Now she remembered Madame Leon’s embarrassment
+when she met her returning from the garden on the night following the
+count’s death. “Ah, well! Pascal,” she said, “do you know what I was
+doing at almost the same moment? Alarmed at having received no news from
+you, I hastened to the Rue d’Ulm, where I learned that you had sold your
+furniture and started for America. Any other woman might have believed
+herself deserted under such circumstances, but not I. I felt sure that
+you had not fled in ignominious fashion. I was convinced that you had
+only concealed yourself for a time in order to strike your enemies more
+surely.”
+
+“Do not shame me, Marguerite. It is true that of us two I showed myself
+the weaker.”
+
+Lost in the rapture of the present moment, they had forgotten the past
+and the future, the agony they had endured, the dangers that still
+threatened them, and even the existence of their enemies.
+
+But Madame Ferailleur was watching. She pointed to the clock, and
+earnestly exclaimed: “Time is passing, my son. Each moment that
+is wasted endangers our success. Should any suspicion bring Madame
+Vantrasson here, all would be lost.”
+
+“She cannot come upon us unawares, my dear mother. Chupin has promised
+not to lose sight of her. If she stirs from her shop, he will hasten
+here and throw a stone against the shutters to warn us.”
+
+But even this did not satisfy Madame Ferailleur.
+
+“You forget, Pascal.” she insisted, “that Mademoiselle Marguerite must
+be at home again by ten o’clock, if she consents to the ordeal you feel
+obliged to impose upon her.”
+
+This was the voice of duty recalling Pascal to the stern realities of
+life. He slowly rose, conquered his emotion, and, after reflecting for
+a moment, said: “First of all, Marguerite, I owe you the truth and an
+exact statement of our situation. Circumstances have compelled me to act
+without consulting you. Have I done right or wrong? You shall judge.”
+ And without stopping to listen to the girl’s protestations, he rapidly
+explained how he had managed to win M. de Valorsay’s confidence,
+discover his plans, and become his trusted accomplice. “This scoundrel’s
+plan is very simple,” he continued. “He is determined to marry you.
+Why? Because, though you are not aware of it, you are rich, and the
+sole heiress to the fortune of the Count de Chalusse, your father. This
+surprises you, does it not? Very well! listen to me. Deceived by the
+Marquis de Valorsay, the Count de Chalusse had promised him your hand.
+These arrangements were nearly completed, though you had not been
+informed of them. In fact, everything had been decided. At the outset,
+however, a grave difficulty had presented itself. The marquis wished
+your father to acknowledge you before your marriage, but this he refused
+to do. ‘It would expose me to the most frightful dangers,’ he declared.
+‘However, I will recognize Marguerite as my daughter in my will, and, at
+the same time, leave all my property to her.’ But the marquis would not
+listen to this proposal. ‘I don’t doubt your good intentions, my dear
+count,’ said he,’ but suppose this will should be contested, your
+property might pass into other hands.’ This difficulty put a stop to the
+proceedings for some time. The marquis asked for guarantees; the other
+refused to give them--until, at last, M. de Chalusse discovered an
+expedient which would satisfy both parties. He confided to M. de
+Valorsay’s keeping a will in which he recognized you as his daughter,
+and bequeathed you his entire fortune. This document, the validity of
+which is unquestionable, has been carefully preserved by the marquis.
+He has not spoken of its existence; and he would destroy it rather than
+restore it to you at present. But as soon as you became his wife,
+he intended to produce it and thus obtain possession of the count’s
+millions.”
+
+“Ah! the old justice of the peace was not mistaken,” murmured
+Mademoiselle Marguerite.
+
+Pascal did not hear her. All his faculties were absorbed in the attempt
+he was making to give a clear and concise explanation, for he had much
+to say, and it was growing late. “As for the enormous sum you have been
+accused of taking,” he continued, “I know what has become of it; it is
+in the hands of M. de Fondege.”
+
+“I know that, Pascal--I’m sure of it; but the proof, the proof!”
+
+“The proof exists, and, like the will, it is in the hands of the Marquis
+de Valorsay.”
+
+“Is it possible! Great Heavens! You are sure you are not deceived?”
+
+“I have seen the proof, and it is overpowering, irrefutable! I have
+touched it--I have held it in my hands. And it explains everything which
+may have seemed strange and incomprehensible to you. The letter which M.
+de Chalusse received on the day of his death was written by his sister.
+She asked in it for her share of the family estate, threatening him with
+a terrible scandal if he refused to comply with her request. Had the
+count decided to brave this scandal rather than yield? We have good
+reason to suppose so. However, this much is certain: he had a terrible
+hatred, not so much for his sister, perhaps, as for the man who had
+seduced her, and afterward married her, actuated by avaricious motives
+alone. He had sworn thousands of times that neither husband nor wife
+should ever have a penny of the large fortune which really belonged
+to them. Believing that a lawsuit was now inevitable, and wishing to
+conceal his wealth, he was greatly embarrassed by the large amount of
+money he had on hand. What should he do with it? Where could he hide it?
+He finally decided to intrust it to the keeping of M. de Fondege, who
+was known as an eccentric man, but whose honesty seemed to be above
+suspicion. So, when he left home, on the afternoon of his illness, he
+took the package of bank-notes and bonds, which you had noticed in the
+escritoire that morning, away with him. We shall never know what passed
+between your father and the General--we can only surmise. But what I do
+know, and what I shall be able to prove, is that M. de Fondege accepted
+the trust, and that he gave an acknowledgment of it in the form of a
+letter, which read as follows:
+
+   “‘MY DEAR COUNT DE CHALUSSE--I hereby acknowledge the receipt, on
+   Thursday, October 15, 186-, of the sum of two millions, two
+   hundred and fifty thousand francs, which I shall deposit, in my
+   name, at the Bank of France, subject to the orders of Mademoiselle
+   Marguerite, your daughter, on the day she presents this letter.
+   And believe, my dear count, in the absolute devotion of your old
+   comrade,
+
+                                “GENERAL DE FONDEGE.’”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was thunderstruck. “Who can have furnished you
+with these particulars?” she inquired.
+
+“The Marquis de Valorsay, my dearest; and I will explain how he was
+enabled to do so. M. de Fondege wrote the address of his ‘old comrade’
+on this letter, which was folded and sealed, but not enclosed in an
+envelope. M. de Chalusse proposed to post it himself, so that the
+official stamp might authenticate its date. But on reflection, he became
+uneasy. He felt that this tiny, perishable scrap of paper would be
+the only proof of the deposit which he had confided to M. de Fondege’s
+honor. This scrap might be lost, burned, or stolen. Then what would
+happen? He had so often seen trustees betray the confidence of which
+they had seemed worthy. So M. de Chalusse racked his brains to discover
+a means of protection from an improbable but possible misfortune. He
+found it. Passing a stationer’s shop, he went in, purchased one of those
+letter-presses which merchants use in their correspondence, and, under
+pretext of trying it, took a copy of M. de Fondege’s letter. Having
+done this, he placed the copy in an envelope addressed to the Marquis de
+Valorsay, and, with his heart relieved of all anxiety, posted it at the
+same time as the original letter. A few moments later he got into the
+cab in which he was stricken down with apoplexy.”
+
+Extraordinary as Pascal’s explanations must have seemed to her,
+Marguerite did not doubt their accuracy in the least. “Then it is the
+copy of this letter which you saw in the possession of the Marquis de
+Valorsay?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the original?”
+
+“M. de Fondege alone can tell what has become of that. It is evident
+that he has somehow succeeded in obtaining possession of it. Would he
+have dared to squander money as he has done if he had not been convinced
+that there was no proof of his guilt in existence? Perhaps on hearing
+of the count’s sudden death he bribed the concierge at the Hotel de
+Chalusse to watch for this letter and return it to him. But on this
+subject I have only conjectures to offer. If they wish you to marry
+their son, it is probably because it seems too hard that you should be
+left in abject poverty while they are enjoying the fortune they have
+stolen from you. The vilest scoundrels have their scruples. Besides,
+a marriage with their son would protect them against any possible
+mischance in the future.”
+
+He was silent for a moment, and then more slowly resumed: “You see,
+Marguerite, we have clear, palpable, and irrefutable proofs of YOUR
+innocence; but in my efforts to clear my own name of disgrace, I have
+been far less fortunate. I have tried in vain to collect material proofs
+of the conspiracy against me. It is only by proving the guilt of the
+Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth that I can establish my
+innocence, and so far I am powerless to do so.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s face brightened with supreme joy. “Then I can
+serve you, in my turn, my only love,” she exclaimed. “Ah! blessed be God
+who inspired me, and who thus rewards me for an hour of courage. My
+poor father’s plan also occurred to me, Pascal. Was it not strange? The
+material proof of your innocence which you have sought for in vain, is
+in my possession, written and signed by the Marquis de Valorsay. Like
+M. de Fondege, he believes that the letter which proves his guilt is
+annihilated. He burned it himself, and yet it exists.” So saying, she
+drew from her bosom one of the copies which she had received from Carjat
+the photographer, and handed it to Pascal, adding, “Look!”
+
+Pascal eagerly perused the marvellous facsimile of the letter which the
+marquis had written to Madame Leon. “Ah! this is the scoundrel’s death
+warrant.” he exclaimed, exultantly. And approaching Madame Ferailleur,
+who still stood leaning against the door, silent and motionless: “Look,
+mother,” he repeated, “look!”
+
+And he pointed to this paragraph which was so convincing and so
+explicit, that the most exacting jury would have asked for no further
+evidence. “I have formed a plan which will completely efface all
+remembrance of that cursed P. F., in case any one could condescend to
+think of him, after the disgrace we fastened upon him the other evening
+at the house of Madame d’A----.”
+
+“Nor is this all,” resumed Mademoiselle Marguerite. “There are other
+letters which will prove that this plot was the marquis’s work and which
+give the name of his accomplice, Coralth. And these letters are in the
+possession of a man of dubious integrity, who was once the marquis’s
+ally, but who has now become his enemy. He is known as Isidore Fortunat,
+and lives in the Place de la Bourse.”
+
+Marguerite felt that Madame Ferailleur’s keen glance was riveted
+upon her. She intuitively divined what was passing in the mind of
+the puritanical old lady, and realized that her whole future, and the
+happiness of her entire wedded life, depended upon her conduct at that
+moment. So, desirous of making a full confession, she hastily exclaimed:
+“My conduct may have seemed strange in a young girl, Pascal. A timid,
+inexperienced girl, who had been carefully kept from all knowledge of
+life and evil, would have been crushed by such a burden of disgrace,
+and could only have wept and prayed. I did weep and pray; but I also
+struggled and fought. In the hour of peril I found myself endowed with
+some of the courage and energy which distinguished the poor women of the
+people among whom I formerly earned my bread. The teachings and miseries
+of the past were not lost to me!” And as simply as if she were telling
+the most natural thing in the world, she described the struggle she had
+undertaken against the world, strong in her faith in Pascal and in his
+love.
+
+“Ah, you are a noble and courageous girl!” exclaimed Madame Ferailleur.
+“You are worthy of my son, and you will proudly guard our honest name!”
+
+For some little time already the obstinate old lady had been struggling
+against the sympathetic emotion that filled her heart, and big tears
+were coursing down her wrinkled cheeks.
+
+Unable to restrain herself any longer, she now threw both arms around
+Marguerite’s neck, and drew her toward her in a long embrace, murmuring:
+“Marguerite, my daughter! Ah! how unjust my prejudices were!”
+
+It might be thought that Pascal was transported with joy on hearing
+this, but no: the lines of care on his forehead deepened, as he said:
+“Happiness is so near! Why must a final test, another humiliation,
+separate us from it?”
+
+But Marguerite now felt strong enough to meet even martyrdom with a
+smile. “Speak, Pascal!” said she, “don’t you see that it is almost ten
+o’clock?”
+
+He hesitated; there was grief in his eyes and his breath came quick and
+hard, as he resumed: “For your sake and mine, we must conquer, at any
+price. This is the only reason that can justify the horrible expedient
+I have to suggest. M. de Valorsay, as you know, has boasted of his power
+to overcome your resistance, and he really believes that he possesses
+this power. Why I have not killed him again and again when he has been
+at my mercy, I can scarcely understand. The only thing that gave me
+power to restrain myself was my desire for as sure, as terrible, and
+as public a revenge as the humiliation he inflicted on me. His plan for
+your ruin is such as only a scoundrel like himself could conceive.
+With the assistance of his vile tool, Coralth, he has formed a league,
+offensive and defensive, with the son of the Count de Chalusse’s sister,
+who is the only acknowledged heir at this moment--a young man destitute
+of heart and intelligence, and inordinately vain, but neither better nor
+worse than many others who figure respectably in society. His name is
+Wilkie Gordon. The marquis has acquired great influence over him,
+and has persuaded him that it is his duty to denounce you to the
+authorities. He has, in short, accused you of defrauding the heirs of
+the Chalusse estate of two millions of francs and also of poisoning the
+count.”
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “As for the robbery,
+we have an answer to that,” she answered, “and as regards the
+poisoning--really the accusation is too absurd!”
+
+But Pascal still looked gloomy. “The matter is more serious than you
+suppose,” he replied. “They have found a physician--a vile, cowardly
+scoundrel--who for a certain sum has consented to appear in support of
+the accusation.”
+
+“Dr. Jodon, I presume!”
+
+“Yes; and this is not all. The count’s escritoire contains the vial
+of medicine of which he drank a portion on the day of his death. Well,
+to-morrow night, Madame Leon will open the garden gate of the Hotel de
+Chalusse and admit a rascal who will abstract the vial.”
+
+Marguerite shuddered. Now she understood the fiendish cunning of the
+plot. “It might ruin me!” she murmured.
+
+Pascal nodded affirmatively. “M. de Valorsay wishes you to consider
+yourself as irretrievably lost, and then he intends to offer to save you
+on condition that you consent to marry him. I should say, however, that
+M. Wilkie is ignorant of the atrocious projects he is abetting. They are
+known only to the marquis and M. de Coralth; and it is I who, under the
+name of Maumejan, act as their adviser. It was to me that the marquis
+sent M. Wilkie for assistance in drawing up this accusation. I myself
+wrote out the denunciation, which was as terrible and as formidable as
+our bitterest enemy could possibly desire, combining, as it did, with
+perfidious art, the reports of the valets and the suspicions of the
+physician, and establishing the connection between the robbery and the
+murder. It finished by demanding a thorough investigation. And M. Wilkie
+copied and signed this document, and carried it to the prosecution
+office himself.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite sank half-fainting into an arm-chair. “You have
+done this!” she faltered.
+
+“It was necessary, my daughter,” whispered Madame Ferailleur.
+
+“Yes, it was necessary, absolutely necessary,” repeated Pascal, “as
+you will see. Justice, which is a human institution, and limited in its
+powers, cannot fathom motives, read thoughts, or interfere with plans,
+however abominable they may be, or however near realization. Before it
+can interfere, the law must have material, tangible proof, convincing
+to the senses. Until you are arrested, the crimes committed by M. de
+Valorsay, and those associated with him, do not come within the reach
+of human justice; but as soon as you are in prison, I can hasten to
+our friend the justice of the peace, and we shall go at once to
+the investigating magistrate and explain everything. Now, when your
+innocence and the guilt of your accusers have been established, what
+do you fancy the authorities will do? They will wait until your enemies
+declare themselves, in order to capture them all at once, and prevent
+the escape of a single one. To-morrow night some clever detectives will
+watch the Hotel de Chalusse, and just as Madame Leon and the wretch with
+her think themselves sure of success, they will be caught in the
+very act and arrested. When they are examined by a magistrate, who
+is conversant with the whole affair, can they deny their guilt? No;
+certainly not. Acting upon their confession, the authorities will force
+an entrance into Valorsay’s house, where they will find your father’s
+will and the receipt given by M. de Fondege--in a word, all the proofs
+of their guilt. And while this search is going on, all your enemies,
+reassured by your arrest, will be at a grand soiree given by Baron
+Trigault. I shall be there as well.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite had mastered her momentary weakness. She rose to
+her feet, and in a firm voice exclaimed: “You have acted rightly.”
+
+“Ah! there was no other way. And yet I wished to see you, to learn if
+this course were too repugnant to you.”
+
+She interrupted him with a gesture. “When shall I be arrested?” she
+asked, quietly.
+
+“This evening or to-morrow.” was his answer.
+
+“Very well! I have only one request to make. The Fondeges have a son who
+has no hand in the affair, but who will be more severely punished than
+his parents, if we do not spare them. Could you not----”
+
+“I can do nothing, Marguerite. I am powerless now.”
+
+Everything was soon arranged. Marguerite raised her forehead to Pascal
+for his parting kiss, and went away accompanied by Madame Ferailleur,
+who escorted her to the corner of the Rue Boursault. The General and his
+wife had returned home in advance of Marguerite. She found them sitting
+in the drawing-room, with distorted faces and teeth chattering with
+fear. With them was a bearded man who, as soon as she appeared,
+exclaimed:
+
+“You are Mademoiselle Marguerite, are you not? I arrest you in the name
+of the law. There is my warrant.” And without more ado he led her away.
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+
+Money, which nowadays has taken the place of the good fairies of former
+times, had gratified M. Wilkie’s every longing in a single night.
+Without any period of transition, dreamlike as it were, he had passed
+from what he called “straitened circumstances” to the splendid enjoyment
+of a princely fortune. Madame d’Argeles’s renunciation had been
+so correctly drawn up, that as soon as he presented his claims and
+displayed his credentials he was placed in possession of the Chalusse
+estate. It is true that a few trifling difficulties presented
+themselves. For instance, the old justice of the peace who had affixed
+the seals refused to remove them from certain articles of furniture,
+especially from the late count’s escritoire, without an order from the
+court, and several days were needed to obtain this. But what did that
+matter to M. Wilkie? The house, with its splendid reception-rooms,
+pictures, statuary and gardens, was at his disposal, and he installed
+himself therein at once. Twenty horses neighed and stamped in his
+stables; there were at least a dozen carriages in the coach-house. He
+devoted his attention exclusively to the horses and vehicles; but acting
+upon the advice of Casimir, who had become his valet and oracle, he
+retained all the former servants of the house, from Bourigeau the
+concierge down to the humblest scullery maid. Still, he gave them
+to understand that this was only a temporary arrangement. A man like
+himself, living in this progressive age, could scarcely be expected to
+content himself with what had satisfied the Count de Chalusse. “For I
+have my plans,” he remarked to Casimir, “but let Paris wait awhile.”
+
+He repudiated his former friends. Costard and Serpillon, pretended
+viscounts though they were, were quite beneath the notice of a
+Gordon-Chalusse, as M. Wilkie styled himself on his visiting cards.
+However, he purchased their share of Pompier de Nanterre, feeling
+convinced that this remarkable steeplechaser had a brilliant future
+before him. He did not trouble himself to any great extent about his
+mother. Like every one else, he knew that she had disappeared, but
+nothing further. On the other hand, the thought of his father, the
+terrible chevalier d’industrie, hung over his joy like a pall; and each
+time the great entrance bell announced a visitor, he trembled, turned
+pale, and muttered: “Perhaps it’s he!”
+
+Tortured by this fear, he clung closely to the Marquis de Valorsay as if
+he felt that this distinguished friend was a powerful support. Besides,
+people of rank and distinction naturally exercised a powerful attraction
+over him, and he fancied he grew several inches taller when, in some
+public place, in the street, or a restaurant, he was able to call out,
+“I say, Valorsay, my good friend,” or, “Upon my word! my dear marquis!”
+
+M. de Valorsay received these effusions graciously enough, although,
+in point of fact, he was terribly bored by the platitudes of his new
+acquaintance. He intended to send him to Coventry later on, but just now
+M. Wilkie was too useful to be ignored. So he had introduced him to his
+club, and was seen with him everywhere--in the Bois, at the restaurants,
+and the theatres. At times, some of his friends inquired: “Who is that
+queer little fellow?” with a touch of irony in their tone, but when
+the marquis carelessly answered: “A poor devil who has just come into
+possession of a property worth twenty millions!” they became serious,
+and requested the pleasure and honor of an introduction to this
+fortunate young man.
+
+So M. de Valorsay had invited Gordon-Chalusse to accompany him to Baron
+Trigault’s approaching fete. It was to be an entertainment for gentlemen
+only, a monster card-party; but every one knew the wealthy baron, and
+no doubt with a view of stimulating curiosity he had declared, and
+the Figaro had repeated, that he had a great surprise in store for his
+guests. Oh! such a surprise! They could have no idea what it was! This
+fete was to take place on the second day after Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+arrest; and on the appointed evening, between nine and ten o’clock,
+M. de Valorsay and his friend Coralth sat together in the former’s
+smoking-room waiting for Wilkie to call for them, as had been
+agreed upon. They were both in the best of spirits. The viscount’s
+apprehensions had been entirely dispelled; and the marquis had quite
+forgotten the twinges of pain in his injured limb. “Marguerite will only
+leave prison to marry me,” said M. de Valorsay, triumphantly; and he
+added: “What a willing tool this Wilkie is! A single word sufficed to
+make him give all his servants leave of absence. The Hotel de Chalusse
+will be deserted, and Madame Leon and Vantrasson can operate at their
+leisure.”
+
+It was ten o’clock when M. Wilkie made his appearance. “Come, my good
+friends!” said he, “my carriage is below.”
+
+They started off at once, and five minutes later they were ushered into
+the presence of Baron Trigault, who received M. Wilkie as if he had
+never seen him before. There was quite a crowd already. At least three
+or four hundred people had assembled in the Baron’s reception-rooms, and
+among them were several former habitues of Madame d’Argeles’s house;
+one could also espy M. de Fondege ferociously twirling his mustaches
+as usual, together with Kami-Bey, who was conspicuous by reason of
+his portly form and eternal red fez. However, among these men, all
+noticeable for their studied elegance of attire and manner, and all
+of them known to M. de Valorsay, there moved numerous others of very
+different appearance. Their waistcoats were less open, and their clothes
+did not fit them as perfectly; on the other hand, there was something
+else than a look of idiotic self-complacency on their faces. “Who can
+these people be?” whispered the marquis to M. de Coralth. “They look
+like lawyers or magistrates.” But although he said this he did not
+really believe it, and it was without the slightest feeling of anxiety
+that he strolled from group to group, shaking hands with his friends and
+introducing M. Wilkie.
+
+A strange rumor was in circulation among the guests. Many of them
+declared--where could they have heard such a thing?--that in consequence
+of a quarrel with her husband, Madame Trigault had left Paris the
+evening before. They even went so far as to repeat her parting words to
+the Baron: “You will never see me again,” she had said. “You are amply
+avenged. Farewell!” However, the best informed among the guests, the
+folks who were thoroughly acquainted with all the scandals of the day,
+declared the story false, and said that if the baroness had really fled,
+handsome Viscount de Coralth would not appear so calm and smiling.
+
+The report WAS true, however. But M. de Coralth did not trouble himself
+much about the baroness now. Had he not got in his pocket M. Wilkie’s
+signature insuring him upward of half a million? Standing near one of
+the windows in the main reception-room, between the Marquis de Valorsay
+and M. Wilkie, the brilliant viscount was gayly chatting with them,
+when a footman, in a voice loud enough to interrupt all conversation,
+suddenly announced: “M. Maumejan!”
+
+It seemed such a perfectly natural thing to M. de Valorsay that
+Maumejan, as one of the baron’s business agents, should be received at
+his house, that he was not in the least disturbed. But M. de Coralth,
+having heard the name, wished to see the man who had aided and advised
+the marquius so effectually. He abruptly turned, and as he did so the
+words he would have spoken died upon his lips. He became livid, his eyes
+seemed to start from their sockets, and it was with difficulty that he
+ejaculated: “He!”
+
+“Who?” inquired the astonished marquis.
+
+“Look!”
+
+M. de Valorsay did so, and to his utter amazement he perceived a
+numerous party in the rear of the man announced under the name of
+Maumejan. First came Mademoiselle Marguerite, leaning on the arm of the
+white-haired magistrate, and then Madame Ferailleur; next M. Isidore
+Fortunat, and finally Chupin--Victor Chupin, resplendent in a handsome,
+bran-new, black dress-suit.
+
+The marquis could no longer fail to understand the truth. He realized
+who Maumejan really was, and the audacious comedy he had been duped by.
+He was so frightfully agitated that five or six persons sprang forward
+exclaiming: “What is the matter, marquis? Are you ill?” But he made
+no reply. He felt that he was caught in a trap, and he glanced wildly
+around him seeking for some loophole of escape.
+
+However, the word of command had evidently been given. Suddenly all the
+guests scattered about the various drawing-rooms poured into the main
+hall, and the doors were closed. Then, with a solemnity of manner
+which no one had ever seen him display before, Baron Trigault took
+the so-called Maumejan by the hand and led him into the centre of the
+apartment opposite the lofty chimney-piece. “Gentlemen,” he began, in
+a commanding tone, “this is M. Pascal Ferailleur, the honorable man who
+was falsely accused of cheating at cards at Madame d’Argeles’s house.
+You owe him a hearing.”
+
+Pascal was greatly agitated. The strangeness of the situation, the
+certainty of speedy and startling rehabilitation, perhaps the joy of
+vengeance, the silence, which was so profound that he could hear his
+own panting breath, and the many eyes riveted upon him, all combined to
+unnerve him. But only for a moment. He swiftly conquered his weakness,
+and surveying his audience with flashing eyes, he explained, in a clear
+and ringing voice, the shameful conspiracy to obtain possession of the
+count’s millions, and the abominable machinations by which Mademoiselle
+Marguerite and himself had been victimized. Then when he had finished
+his explanations he added, in a still more commanding voice, “Now look;
+you can read the culprits’ guilt on their faces. One is the scoundrel
+known to you as the Viscount de Coralth, but Paul Violaine is his true
+name. He was formerly an accomplice of the notorious Mascarot; he is a
+cowardly villain, for he is married, and leaves his wife and children to
+die of starvation!” The Viscount de Coralth fairly bellowed with rage.
+But Pascal did not heed him. “The other criminal is the Marquis de
+Valorsay,” he added, in the same ringing tone. There was, moreover, a
+third culprit who would have inspired mingled pity and disgust if any
+one had noticed him shrinking into a corner, terrified and muttering:
+“It wasn’t my fault, my wife compelled me to do it!” This was General de
+Fondege.
+
+Pascal did not mention his name. But it was not absolutely necessary
+he should do so, and besides, he remembered Marguerite’s entreaty
+respecting the son.
+
+However, while the young lawyer was speaking, the marquis had summoned
+all his energy and assurance to his aid. Desperate as his plight
+might be, he would not surrender. “This is an infamous conspiracy,” he
+exclaimed. “Baron, you shall atone for this. The man’s an impostor!--he
+lies!--all that he says is false!”
+
+“Yes, it is false!” echoed M. de Coralth.
+
+But a clamor arose, drowning these protestations, and the most
+opprobrious epithets could be heard on every side.
+
+“How will you prove your assertion?” cried M. de Valorsay.
+
+“Don’t try that dodge on us!” shouted Chupin. “Vantrasson and mother
+Leon have confessed everything.”
+
+“Who defrauded us all with Domingo?” cried several people; and, loud
+above all the others, Kami-Bey bawled out: “To say nothing of the fact
+that the sale of your racing stud was a complete swindle!”
+
+Meanwhile, Pascal’s former friends and associates, his brother advocates
+and the magistrates who had listened to his first efforts at the
+bar, crowded round him, pressing his hands, embracing him almost to
+suffocation, censuring themselves for having suspected him, the very
+soul of honor, and pleading in self-justification the degenerate age in
+which we live--an age in which we daily see those whom we had considered
+immaculate suddenly yield to temptation. And a murmur of respectful
+admiration rose from the throng when the excitement had subsided a
+little, and the guests had an opportunity to observe Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, whose eyes sparkled more brightly than ever through her
+happy tears; and whose beauty acquired an almost sublime expression from
+her deep emotion.
+
+The wretched Valorsay felt that all was over--that he was irretrievably
+lost. Seized by a blind fury like that which impels a hunted animal
+to turn and face the hounds that pursue him, and bid them defiance, he
+confronted the throng with his face distorted with passion, his eyes
+bloodshot, and foam upon his lips; he was absolutely frightful in his
+cynicism, hatred, and scorn. “Ah! well, yes!” he exclaimed--“yes, all
+that you have just heard is true. I was sinking, and I tried to save
+myself as best I could. Beggars cannot be choosers; I staked my all upon
+a single die. If I had won, you would have been at my feet; but I have
+lost and you spurn me. Cowards! hypocrites! that you are, insult me if
+you like, but tell me how many among you all are sufficiently pure and
+upright to have a right to despise me! Are there a hundred among you?
+are there even fifty?”
+
+A tempest of hisses momentarily drowned his voice, but as soon as the
+uproar had ceased, he resumed, sneeringly: “Ah! the truth wounds you, my
+dear friends. Pray, don’t pretend to be so distressingly virtuous! I
+was ruined--that is the long and short of it. But what man of you is not
+embarrassed? Who among you finds his income sufficient? Which one of you
+is not encroaching upon his capital? And when you have come to your last
+louis, you will do what I have done, or something worse. Do not deny it,
+for not one among you has a more uncompromising conscience, more moral
+firmness, or more generous aspirations than I once possessed. You are
+pursuing what I pursued. You desire what I desired--a life of luxury,
+brief if it must be, but happy--a life of gayety, wild excitement,
+and dissipation. You, too, have a passion for pleasure and gambling,
+race-horses, and notorious women, a table always bountifully spread,
+glasses ever overflowing with wine, all the delights of luxury, and
+everything that gratifies your vanity! But an abyss of shame awaits you
+at the end of it all. I am in it now. I await you there, for there you
+will surely, necessarily, inevitably come. Ah, ha! you will not then
+think my downfall so very strange. Let me pass! make way! if you
+please.”
+
+He advanced with his head haughtily erect, and would actually have
+made his escape if a frightened servant had not at that moment appeared
+crying: “Monsieur--Monsieur le Baron! a commissary of police is
+downstairs. He is coming up. He has a warrant!”
+
+The marquis’s frenzied assurance deserted him. He turned even paler
+than he already was if that were possible, and reeled like an ox
+but partially stunned by the butcher’s hammer. Suddenly a desperate
+resolution could be read in his eyes, the resolution of the condemned
+criminal, who, knowing that he cannot escape the scaffold, ascends it
+with a firm step.
+
+He hastily approached Baron Trigault, and asked in a husky voice: “Will
+you allow me to be arrested in your house, baron? me--a Valorsay!”
+
+It might have been supposed that the baron had expected this reproach,
+for without a word he led the marquis and M. de Coralth to a little room
+at the end of the hall, pushed them inside, and closed the door again.
+
+It was time he did so, for the commissary of police was already upon
+the threshold. “Which of you gentlemen is the Marquis de Valorsay?” he
+asked. “Which of you is Paul Violaine, alias the Viscount de----”
+
+The sharp report of firearms suddenly interrupted him. Every one at once
+rushed to the little room, where the wretched men had been conducted.
+There extended, face upward, on the floor, lay the Marquis de Valorsay,
+with his brains oozing from his fractured skull, and his right hand
+still clutching a revolver. He was dead. “And the other!” cried the
+throng; “the other!”
+
+The open window, and a curtain rudely torn from its fastenings and
+secured to the balustrade, told how M. de Coralth had made his escape.
+It was not till later that people learned what precautions the baron
+had taken. On the table in that room he had laid two revolvers, and
+two packages containing ten thousand francs each. The viscount had not
+hesitated.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Pascal Ferailleur and Mademoiselle Marguerite de Chalusse were married
+at the church of Saint Etienne du Mont, only a few steps from the Rue
+d’Ulm. Those who knew the mystery connected with the bride’s parentage
+were greatly astonished when they saw Baron Trigault act as a witness on
+this occasion, in company with the venerable justice of the peace. But
+such was the fact, nevertheless. Treated more and more outrageously by
+his daughter and her husband, separated from his wife, who had nearly
+lost her reason, although her letters were saved, the baron has nowadays
+found affection and a home with Pascal and his wife. He plays cards but
+seldom now--only an occasional game of piquet with Madame Ferailleur,
+and he amuses himself by making her start when she is too long in
+discarding, by ejaculating, in a stentorian voice: “We are wasting
+precious time!” Sometimes they go out together, to the great
+astonishment of such as chance to meet the puritanical old lady leaning
+on the baron’s arm. She often goes to visit and console the widow
+Gordon, formerly known as Lia d’Argeles, who now keeps an establishment
+near Montrouge, where she provides poor, betrayed and forsaken girls
+with a home and employment. She has yet to receive any token of
+remembrance from her son. As for her husband, she supposes he is dead or
+incarcerated in some prison.
+
+It is to Madame Gordon that the Fondeges are often indebted for bread.
+Obliged to disgorge their plunder, and left with no resources save the
+fifty francs a month allowed them by their son, who has been promoted
+to the rank of captain, their poverty is necessarily extreme. Oh! those
+Fondeges! M. Fortunat only speaks of them with horror. But he is loud
+in his praises of Madame Marguerite, who repaid him the forty thousand
+francs he had advanced to M. de Valorsay. He speaks in the highest terms
+of Chupin also; but in this, he is scarcely sincere, for Victor, who
+has been set up in business by Pascal, told him very plainly that he
+was determined not to put his hand to any more dirty work, and that
+expression, “dirty work,” rankles in M. Fortunat’s heart.
+
+Chupin’s resolution did not, however, prevent him from attending the
+trial of Vantrasson and Madame Leon--the former of whom was sentenced to
+hard labor for life, and the latter to ten years’ imprisonment. Nothing
+is known concerning M. de Coralth; but his wife has disappeared, to
+the great disappointment of M. Mouchon. As a dentist, Dr. Jodon is
+successful. As for M. Wilkie, you can learn anything you wish to
+know concerning him in the newspapers, for his sayings, doings, and
+movements, are constantly being chronicled. The reporters exhaust all
+the resources of their vocabulary in describing his horses, carriages,
+and stables, and the gorgeous liveries of his servants. His changes of
+residence are always mentioned; his brilliant sayings are quoted. He
+is a social success; he is admired, fondled, and flattered. He makes a
+great stir in the fashionable world--in fact, he reigns over it like a
+king. After all, assurance is the winning card in the game of life!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s Baron Trigault’s Vengeance, by Emile Gaboriau
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/broodofthewitchqueen b/files/books/unrelated/broodofthewitchqueen
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brood of the Witch-Queen
+
+Author: Sax Rohmer
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19706]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             BROOD OF THE
+
+                             WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                              SAX ROHMER
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+
+                      C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
+
+                        HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
+
+                                 1918
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.      ANTONY FERRARA
+
+II.     THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+III.    THE RING OF THOTH
+
+IV.     AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+V.      THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+VI.     THE BEETLES
+
+VII.    SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+VIII.   THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+IX.     THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+X.      THE LAUGHTER
+
+XI.     CAIRO
+
+XII.    THE MASK OF SET
+
+XIII.   THE SCORPION WIND
+
+XIV.    DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+XV.     THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+XVI.    LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+XVII.   THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+XVIII.  THE BATS
+
+XIX.    ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+XX.     THE INCENSE
+
+XXI.    THE MAGICIAN
+
+XXII.   MYRA
+
+XXIII.  THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+XXIV.   FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+XXV.    CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+XXVI.   THE IVORY HAND
+
+XXVII.  THE THUG'S CORD
+
+XXVIII. THE HIGH PRIEST HORTOTEF
+
+XXIX.   THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+XXX.    THE ELEMENTAL
+
+XXXI.   THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTICE
+
+
+The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended
+to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised
+(according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in
+Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to
+him exceed those which are claimed for a fully equipped Adept.
+
+S. R.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANTONY FERRARA
+
+
+Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just
+arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings,
+mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the
+cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger
+relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened
+stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead,
+where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular
+patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from
+there the cooling breeze came.
+
+But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west
+below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent
+light played.
+
+Cairn turned to his companion, a ruddy and athletic looking man,
+somewhat bovine in type, who at the moment was busily tracing out
+sections on a human skull and checking his calculations from Ross's
+_Diseases of the Nervous System_.
+
+"Sime," he said, "what does Ferrara always have a fire in his rooms
+for at this time of the year?"
+
+Sime glanced up irritably at the speaker. Cairn was a tall, thin
+Scotsman, clean-shaven, square jawed, and with the crisp light hair
+and grey eyes which often bespeak unusual virility.
+
+"Aren't you going to do any work?" he inquired pathetically. "I
+thought you'd come to give me a hand with my _basal ganglia_. I shall
+go down on that; and there you've been stuck staring out of the
+window!"
+
+"Wilson, in the end house, has got a most unusual brain," said Cairn,
+with apparent irrelevance.
+
+"Has he!" snapped Sime.
+
+"Yes, in a bottle. His governor is at Bart's; he sent it up yesterday.
+You ought to see it."
+
+"Nobody will ever want to put _your_ brain in a bottle," predicted the
+scowling Sime, and resumed his studies.
+
+Cairn relighted his pipe, staring across the quadrangle again. Then--
+
+"You've never been in Ferrara's rooms, have you?" he inquired.
+
+Followed a muffled curse, crash, and the skull went rolling across the
+floor.
+
+"Look here, Cairn," cried Sime, "I've only got a week or so now, and
+my nervous system is frantically rocky; I shall go all to pieces on my
+nervous system. If you want to talk, go ahead. When you're finished, I
+can begin work."
+
+"Right-oh," said Cairn calmly, and tossed his pouch across. "I want to
+talk to you about Ferrara."
+
+"Go ahead then. What is the matter with Ferrara?"
+
+"Well," replied Cairn, "he's queer."
+
+"That's no news," said Sime, filling his pipe; "we all know he's a
+queer chap. But he's popular with women. He'd make a fortune as a
+nerve specialist."
+
+"He doesn't have to; he inherits a fortune when Sir Michael dies."
+
+"There's a pretty cousin, too, isn't there?" inquired Sime slyly.
+
+"There is," replied Cairn. "Of course," he continued, "my governor and
+Sir Michael are bosom friends, and although I've never seen much of
+young Ferrara, at the same time I've got nothing against him. But--"
+he hesitated.
+
+"Spit it out," urged Sime, watching him oddly.
+
+"Well, it's silly, I suppose, but what does he want with a fire on a
+blazing night like this?"
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Perhaps he's a throw-back," he suggested lightly. "The Ferraras,
+although they're counted Scotch--aren't they?--must have been Italian
+originally--"
+
+"Spanish," corrected Cairn. "They date from the son of Andrea Ferrara,
+the sword-maker, who was a Spaniard. Cæsar Ferrara came with the
+Armada in 1588 as armourer. His ship was wrecked up in the Bay of
+Tobermory and he got ashore--and stopped."
+
+"Married a Scotch lassie?"
+
+"Exactly. But the genealogy of the family doesn't account for Antony's
+habits."
+
+"What habits?"
+
+"Well, look." Cairn waved in the direction of the open window. "What
+does he do in the dark all night, with a fire going?"
+
+"Influenza?"
+
+"Nonsense! You've never been in his rooms, have you?"
+
+"No. Very few men have. But as I said before, he's popular with the
+women."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean there have been complaints. Any other man would have been sent
+down."
+
+"You think he has influence--"
+
+"Influence of some sort, undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, I can see you have serious doubts about the man, as I have
+myself, so I can unburden my mind. You recall that sudden thunderstorm
+on Thursday?"
+
+"Rather; quite upset me for work."
+
+"I was out in it. I was lying in a punt in the backwater--you know,
+_our_ backwater."
+
+"Lazy dog."
+
+"To tell you the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I
+should abandon bones and take the post on the _Planet_ which has been
+offered me."
+
+"Pills for the pen--Harley for Fleet? Did you decide?"
+
+"Not then; something happened which quite changed my line of
+reflection."
+
+The room was becoming cloudy with tobacco smoke.
+
+"It was delightfully still," Cairn resumed. "A water rat rose within
+a foot of me and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow.
+Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint
+creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a
+punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it
+grew quite abnormally quiet--and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in
+reflection that it never occurred to me to move.
+
+"Then the flotilla of swans came round the bend, with Apollo--you know
+Apollo, the king-swan?--at their head. By this time it had grown
+tremendously dark, but it never occurred to me to ask myself why. The
+swans, gliding along so noiselessly, might have been phantoms. A hush,
+a perfect hush, settled down. Sime, that hush was the prelude to a
+strange thing--an unholy thing!"
+
+Cairn rose excitedly and strode across to the table, kicking the skull
+out of his way.
+
+"It was the storm gathering," snapped Sime.
+
+"It was something else gathering! Listen! It got yet darker, but for
+some inexplicable reason, although I must have heard the thunder
+muttering, I couldn't take my eyes off the swans. Then it
+happened--the thing I came here to tell you about; I must tell
+somebody--the thing that I am not going to forget in a hurry."
+
+He began to knock out the ash from his pipe.
+
+"Go on," directed Sime tersely.
+
+"The big swan--Apollo--was within ten feet of me; he swam in open
+water, clear of the others; no living thing touched him. Suddenly,
+uttering a cry that chilled my very blood, a cry that I never heard
+from a swan in my life, he rose in the air, his huge wings
+extended--like a tortured phantom, Sime; I can never forget it--six
+feet clear of the water. The uncanny wail became a stifled hiss, and
+sending up a perfect fountain of water--I was deluged--the poor old
+king-swan fell, beat the surface with his wings--and was still."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The other swans glided off like ghosts. Several heavy raindrops
+pattered on the leaves above. I admit I was scared. Apollo lay with
+one wing right in the punt. I was standing up; I had jumped to my feet
+when the thing occurred. I stooped and touched the wing. The bird was
+quite dead! Sime, I pulled the swan's head out of the water, and--his
+neck was broken; no fewer than three vertebrae fractured!"
+
+A cloud of tobacco smoke was wafted towards the open window.
+
+"It isn't one in a million who could wring the neck of a bird like
+Apollo, Sime; but it was done before my eyes without the visible
+agency of God or man! As I dropped him and took to the pole, the storm
+burst. A clap of thunder spoke with the voice of a thousand cannon,
+and I poled for bare life from that haunted backwater. I was drenched
+to the skin when I got in, and I ran up all the way from the stage."
+
+"Well?" rapped the other again, as Cairn paused to refill his pipe.
+
+"It was seeing the firelight flickering at Ferrara's window that led
+me to do it. I don't often call on him; but I thought that a rub down
+before the fire and a glass of toddy would put me right. The storm had
+abated as I got to the foot of his stair--only a distant rolling of
+thunder.
+
+"Then, out of the shadows--it was quite dark--into the flickering
+light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It
+was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but very pale, and with
+over-bright eyes. She gave one quick glance up into my face, muttered
+something, an apology, I think, and drew back again into her
+hiding-place."
+
+"He's been warned," growled Sime. "It will be notice to quit next
+time."
+
+"I ran upstairs and banged on Ferrara's door. He didn't open at first,
+but shouted out to know who was knocking. When I told him, he let me
+in, and closed the door very quickly. As I went in, a pungent cloud
+met me--incense."
+
+"Incense?"
+
+"His rooms smelt like a joss-house; I told him so. He said he was
+experimenting with _Kyphi_--the ancient Egyptian stuff used in the
+temples. It was all dark and hot; phew! like a furnace. Ferrara's
+rooms always were odd, but since the long vacation I hadn't been in.
+Good lord, they're disgusting!"
+
+"How? Ferrara spent vacation in Egypt; I suppose he's brought things
+back?"
+
+"Things--yes! Unholy things! But that brings me to something too. I
+ought to know more about the chap than anybody; Sir Michael Ferrara
+and the governor have been friends for thirty years; but my father is
+oddly reticent--quite singularly reticent--regarding Antony. Anyway,
+have you heard about him, in Egypt?"
+
+"I've heard he got into trouble. For his age, he has a devil of a
+queer reputation; there's no disguising it."
+
+"What sort of trouble?"
+
+"I've no idea. Nobody seems to know. But I heard from young Ashby that
+Ferrara was asked to leave."
+
+"There's some tale about Kitchener--"
+
+"_By_ Kitchener, Ashby says; but I don't believe it."
+
+"Well--Ferrara lighted a lamp, an elaborate silver thing, and I found
+myself in a kind of nightmare museum. There was an unwrapped mummy
+there, the mummy of a woman--I can't possibly describe it. He had
+pictures, too--photographs. I shan't try to tell you what they
+represented. I'm not thin-skinned; but there are some subjects that no
+man anxious to avoid Bedlam would willingly investigate. On the table
+by the lamp stood a number of objects such as I had never seen in my
+life before, evidently of great age. He swept them into a cupboard
+before I had time to look long. Then he went off to get a bath towel,
+slippers, and so forth. As he passed the fire he threw something in. A
+hissing tongue of flame leapt up--and died down again."
+
+"What did he throw in?"
+
+"I am not absolutely certain; so I won't say what I _think_ it was,
+at the moment. Then he began to help me shed my saturated flannels,
+and he set a kettle on the fire, and so forth. You know the personal
+charm of the man? But there was an unpleasant sense of something--what
+shall I say?--sinister. Ferrara's ivory face was more pale than usual,
+and he conveyed the idea that he was chewed up--exhausted. Beads of
+perspiration were on his forehead."
+
+"Heat of his rooms?"
+
+"No," said Cairn shortly. "It wasn't that. I had a rub down and
+borrowed some slacks. Ferrara brewed grog and pretended to make me
+welcome. Now I come to something which I can't forget; it may be a
+mere coincidence, but--. He has a number of photographs in his rooms,
+good ones, which he has taken himself. I'm not speaking now of the
+monstrosities, the outrages; I mean views, and girls--particularly
+girls. Well, standing on a queer little easel right under the lamp was
+a fine picture of Apollo, the swan, lord of the backwater."
+
+Sime stared dully through the smoke haze.
+
+"It gave me a sort of shock," continued Cairn. "It made me think,
+harder than ever, of the thing he had thrown in the fire. Then, in his
+photographic zenana, was a picture of a girl whom I am almost sure was
+the one I had met at the bottom of the stair. Another was of Myra
+Duquesne."
+
+"His cousin?"
+
+"Yes. I felt like tearing it from the wall. In fact, the moment I saw
+it, I stood up to go. I wanted to run to my rooms and strip the man's
+clothes off my back! It was a struggle to be civil any longer. Sime,
+if you had seen that swan die--"
+
+Sime walked over to the window.
+
+"I have a glimmering of your monstrous suspicions," he said slowly.
+"The last man to be kicked out of an English varsity for this sort of
+thing, so far as I know, was Dr. Dee of St. John's, Cambridge, and
+that's going back to the sixteenth century."
+
+"I know; it's utterly preposterous, of course. But I had to confide in
+somebody. I'll shift off now, Sime."
+
+Sime nodded, staring from the open window. As Cairn was about to close
+the outer door:
+
+"Cairn," cried Sime, "since you are now a man of letters and leisure,
+you might drop in and borrow Wilson's brains for me."
+
+"All right," shouted Cairn.
+
+Down in the quadrangle he stood for a moment, reflecting; then, acting
+upon a sudden resolution, he strode over towards the gate and ascended
+Ferrara's stair.
+
+For some time he knocked at the door in vain, but he persisted in his
+clamouring, arousing the ancient echoes. Finally, the door was opened.
+
+Antony Ferrara faced him. He wore a silver-grey dressing gown, trimmed
+with white swansdown, above which his ivory throat rose statuesque.
+The almond-shaped eyes, black as night, gleamed strangely beneath the
+low, smooth brow. The lank black hair appeared lustreless by
+comparison. His lips were very red. In his whole appearance there was
+something repellently effeminate.
+
+"Can I come in?" demanded Cairn abruptly.
+
+"Is it--something important?" Ferrara's voice was husky but not
+unmusical.
+
+"Why, are you busy?"
+
+"Well--er--" Ferrara smiled oddly.
+
+"Oh, a visitor?" snapped Cairn.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Accounts for your delay in opening," said Cairn, and turned on his
+heel. "Mistook me for the proctor, in person, I suppose. Good-night."
+
+Ferrara made no reply. But, although he never once glanced back, Cairn
+knew that Ferrara, leaning over the rail, above, was looking after
+him; it was as though elemental heat were beating down upon his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+
+A week later Robert Cairn quitted Oxford to take up the newspaper
+appointment offered to him in London. It may have been due to some
+mysterious design of a hidden providence that Sime 'phoned him early
+in the week about an unusual case in one of the hospitals.
+
+"Walton is junior house-surgeon there," he said, "and he can arrange
+for you to see the case. She (the patient) undoubtedly died from some
+rare nervous affection. I have a theory," etc.; the conversation
+became technical.
+
+Cairn went to the hospital, and by courtesy of Walton, whom he had
+known at Oxford, was permitted to view the body.
+
+"The symptoms which Sime has got to hear about," explained the
+surgeon, raising the sheet from the dead woman's face, "are--"
+
+He broke off. Cairn had suddenly exhibited a ghastly pallor; he
+clutched at Walton for support.
+
+"My God!"
+
+Cairn, still holding on to the other, stooped over the discoloured
+face. It had been a pretty face when warm life had tinted its curves;
+now it was congested--awful; two heavy discolorations showed, one on
+either side of the region of the larynx.
+
+"What on earth is wrong with you?" demanded Walton.
+
+"I thought," gasped Cairn, "for a moment, that I knew--"
+
+"Really! I wish you did! We can't find out anything about her. Have a
+good look."
+
+"No," said Cairn, mastering himself with an effort--"a chance
+resemblance, that's all." He wiped the beads of perspiration from his
+forehead.
+
+"You look jolly shaky," commented Walton. "Is she like someone you
+know very well?"
+
+"No, not at all, now that I come to consider the features; but it was
+a shock at first. What on earth caused death?"
+
+"Asphyxia," answered Walton shortly. "Can't you see?"
+
+"Someone strangled her, and she was brought here too late?"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap; nobody strangled her. She was brought here
+in a critical state four or five days ago by one of the slum priests
+who keep us so busy. We diagnosed it as exhaustion from lack of
+food--with other complications. But the case was doing quite well up
+to last night; she was recovering strength. Then, at about one
+o'clock, she sprang up in bed, and fell back choking. By the time the
+nurse got to her it was all over."
+
+"But the marks on her throat?"
+
+Walton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There they are! Our men are keenly interested. It's absolutely
+unique. Young Shaw, who has a mania for the nervous system, sent a
+long account up to Sime, who suffers from a similar form of
+aberration."
+
+"Yes; Sime 'phoned me."
+
+"It's nothing to do with nerves," said Walton contemptuously. "Don't
+ask me to explain it, but it's certainly no nerve case."
+
+"One of the other patients--"
+
+"My dear chap, the other patients were all fast asleep! The nurse was
+at her table in the corner, and in full view of the bed the whole
+time. I tell you no one touched her!"
+
+"How long elapsed before the nurse got to her?"
+
+"Possibly half a minute. But there is no means of learning when the
+paroxysm commenced. The leaping up in bed probably marked the end and
+not the beginning of the attack."
+
+Cairn experienced a longing for the fresh air; it was as though some
+evil cloud hovered around and about the poor unknown. Strange ideas,
+horrible ideas, conjectures based upon imaginings all but insane,
+flooded his mind darkly.
+
+Leaving the hospital, which harboured a grim secret, he stood at the
+gate for a moment, undecided what to do. His father, Dr. Cairn, was
+out of London, or he would certainly have sought him in this hour of
+sore perplexity.
+
+"What in Heaven's name is behind it all!" he asked himself.
+
+For he knew beyond doubt that the girl who lay in the hospital was the
+same that he had seen one night at Oxford, was the girl whose
+photograph he had found in Antony Ferrara's rooms!
+
+He formed a sudden resolution. A taxi-cab was passing at that moment,
+and he hailed it, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address. He could
+scarcely trust himself to think, but frightful possibilities presented
+themselves to him, repel them how he might. London seemed to grow
+dark, overshadowed, as once he had seen a Thames backwater grow. He
+shuddered, as though from a physical chill.
+
+The house of the famous Egyptian scholar, dull white behind its
+rampart of trees, presented no unusual appearances to his anxious
+scrutiny. What he feared he scarcely knew; what he suspected he could
+not have defined.
+
+Sir Michael, said the servant, was unwell and could see no one. That
+did not surprise Cairn; Sir Michael had not enjoyed good health since
+malaria had laid him low in Syria. But Miss Duquesne was at home.
+
+Cairn was shown into the long, low-ceiled room which contained so many
+priceless relics of a past civilisation. Upon the bookcase stood the
+stately ranks of volumes which had carried the fame of Europe's
+foremost Egyptologist to every corner of the civilised world. This
+queerly furnished room held many memories for Robert Cairn, who had
+known it from childhood, but latterly it had always appeared to him in
+his daydreams as the setting for a dainty figure. It was here that he
+had first met Myra Duquesne, Sir Michael's niece, when, fresh from a
+Norman convent, she had come to shed light and gladness upon the
+somewhat, sombre household of the scholar. He often thought of that
+day; he could recall every detail of the meeting--
+
+Myra Duquesne came in, pulling aside the heavy curtains that hung in
+the arched entrance. With a granite Osiris flanking her slim figure on
+one side and a gilded sarcophagus on the other, she burst upon the
+visitor, a radiant vision in white. The light gleamed through her
+soft, brown hair forming a halo for a face that Robert Cairn knew for
+the sweetest in the world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cairn," she said, and blushed entrancingly--"we thought you
+had forgotten us."
+
+"That's not a little bit likely," he replied, taking her proffered
+hand, and there was that in his voice and in his look which made her
+lower her frank grey eyes. "I have only been in London a few days, and
+I find that Press work is more exacting than I had anticipated!"
+
+"Did you want to see my uncle very particularly?" asked Myra.
+
+"In a way, yes. I suppose he could not manage to see me--"
+
+Myra shook her head. Now that the flush of excitement had left her
+face, Cairn was concerned to see how pale she was and what dark
+shadows lurked beneath her eyes.
+
+"Sir Michael is not seriously ill?" he asked quickly. "Only one of the
+visual attacks--"
+
+"Yes--at least it began with one."
+
+She hesitated, and Cairn saw to his consternation that her eyes became
+filled with tears. The real loneliness of her position, now that her
+guardian was ill, the absence of a friend in whom she could confide
+her fears, suddenly grew apparent to the man who sat watching her.
+
+"You are tired out," he said gently. "You have been nursing him?"
+
+She nodded and tried to smile.
+
+"Who is attending?"
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves, but--"
+
+"Shall I wire for my father?"
+
+"We wired for him yesterday!"
+
+"What! to Paris?"
+
+"Yes, at my uncle's wish."
+
+Cairn started.
+
+"Then--he thinks he is seriously ill, himself?"
+
+"I cannot say," answered the girl wearily. "His behaviour is--queer.
+He will allow no one in his room, and barely consents to see Sir
+Elwin. Then, twice recently, he has awakened in the night and made a
+singular request."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He has asked me to send for his solicitor in the morning, speaking
+harshly and almost as though--he hated me...."
+
+"I don't understand. Have you complied?"
+
+"Yes, and on each occasion he has refused to see the solicitor when he
+has arrived!"
+
+"I gather that you have been acting as night-attendant?"
+
+"I remain in an adjoining room; he is always worse at night. Perhaps
+it is telling on my nerves, but last night--"
+
+Again she hesitated, as though doubting the wisdom of further speech;
+but a brief scrutiny of Cairn's face, with deep anxiety to be read in
+his eyes, determined her to proceed.
+
+"I had been asleep, and I must have been dreaming, for I thought that
+a voice was chanting, quite near to me."
+
+"Chanting?"
+
+"Yes--it was horrible, in some way. Then a sensation of intense
+coldness came; it was as though some icily cold creature fanned me
+with its wings! I cannot describe it, but it was numbing; I think I
+must have felt as those poor travellers do who succumb to the
+temptation to sleep in the snow."
+
+Cairn surveyed her anxiously, for in its essentials this might be a
+symptom of a dreadful ailment.
+
+"I aroused myself, however," she continued, "but experienced an
+unaccountable dread of entering my uncle's room. I could hear him
+muttering strangely, and--I forced myself to enter! I saw--oh, how
+can I tell you! You will think me mad!"
+
+She raised her hands to her face; she was trembling. Robert Cairn took
+them in his own, forcing her to look up.
+
+"Tell me," he said quietly.
+
+"The curtains were drawn back; I distinctly remembered having closed
+them, but they were drawn back; and the moonlight was shining on to
+the bed."
+
+"Bad; he was dreaming."
+
+"But was _I_ dreaming? Mr. Cairn, two hands were stretched out over my
+uncle, two hands that swayed slowly up and down in the moonlight!"
+
+Cairn leapt to his feet, passing his hand over his forehead.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+"I--I cried out, but not loudly--I think I was very near to swooning.
+The hands were withdrawn into the shadow, and my uncle awoke and sat
+up. He asked, in a low voice, if I were there, and I ran to him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He ordered me, very coldly, to 'phone for his solicitor at nine
+o'clock this morning, and then fell back, and was asleep again almost
+immediately. The solicitor came, and was with him for nearly an hour.
+He sent for one of his clerks, and they both went away at half-past
+ten. Uncle has been in a sort of dazed condition ever since; in fact
+he has only once aroused himself, to ask for Dr. Cairn. I had a
+telegram sent immediately."
+
+"The governor will be here to-night," said Cairn confidently. "Tell
+me, the hands which you thought you saw: was there anything peculiar
+about them?"
+
+"In the moonlight they seemed to be of a dull white colour. There was
+a ring on one finger--a green ring. Oh!" she shuddered. "I can see it
+now."
+
+"You would know it again?"
+
+"Anywhere!"
+
+"Actually, there was no one in the room, of course?"
+
+"No one. It was some awful illusion; but I can never forget it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RING OF THOTH
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was very still; midnight had sounded nearly
+half-an-hour; but still Robert Cairn paced up and down his father's
+library. He was very pale, and many times he glanced at a book which
+lay open upon the table. Finally he paused before it and read once
+again certain passages.
+
+"In the year 1571," it recorded, "the notorious Trois Echelles was
+executed in the Place de Grève. He confessed before the king, Charles
+IX.... that he performed marvels.... Admiral de Coligny, who also was
+present, recollected ... the death of two gentlemen.... He added that
+they were found black and swollen."
+
+He turned over the page, with a hand none too steady.
+
+"The famous Maréchal d'Ancre, Concini Concini," he read, "was killed
+by a pistol shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of
+the Bodyguard, on the 24th of April, 1617.... It was proved that the
+Maréchal and his wife made use of wax images, which they kept in
+coffins...."
+
+Cairn shut the book hastily and began to pace the room again.
+
+"Oh, it is utterly, fantastically incredible!" he groaned. "Yet, with
+my own eyes I saw--"
+
+He stepped to a bookshelf and began to look for a book which, so far
+as his slight knowledge of the subject bore him, would possibly throw
+light upon the darkness. But he failed to find it. Despite the heat of
+the weather, the library seemed to have grown chilly. He pressed the
+bell.
+
+"Marston," he said to the man who presently came, "you must be very
+tired, but Dr. Cairn will be here within an hour. Tell him that I
+have gone to Sir Michael Ferrara's."
+
+"But it's after twelve o'clock, sir!"
+
+"I know it is; nevertheless I am going."
+
+"Very good, sir. You will wait there for the Doctor?"
+
+"Exactly, Marston. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Robert Cairn went out into Half-Moon Street. The night was perfect,
+and the cloudless sky lavishly gemmed with stars. He walked on
+heedlessly, scarce noting in which direction. An awful conviction was
+with him, growing stronger each moment, that some mysterious menace,
+some danger unclassifiable, threatened Myra Duquesne. What did he
+suspect? He could give it no name. How should he act? He had no idea.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, whom he had seen that evening, had hinted broadly at
+mental trouble as the solution of Sir Michael Ferrara's peculiar
+symptoms. Although Sir Michael had had certain transactions with his
+solicitor during the early morning, he had apparently forgotten all
+about the matter, according to the celebrated physician.
+
+"Between ourselves, Cairn," Sir Elwin had confided, "I believe he
+altered his will."
+
+The inquiry of a taxi driver interrupted Cairn's meditations. He
+entered the vehicle, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address.
+
+His thoughts persistently turned to Myra Duquesne, who at that moment
+would be lying listening for the slightest sound from the sick-room;
+who would be fighting down fear, that she might do her duty to her
+guardian--fear of the waving phantom hands. The cab sped through the
+almost empty streets, and at last, rounding a corner, rolled up the
+tree-lined avenue, past three or four houses lighted only by the
+glitter of the moon, and came to a stop before that of Sir Michael
+Ferrara.
+
+Lights shone from the many windows. The front door was open, and light
+streamed out into the porch.
+
+"My God!" cried Cairn, leaping from the cab. "My God! what has
+happened?"
+
+A thousand fears, a thousand reproaches, flooded his brain with
+frenzy. He went racing up to the steps and almost threw himself upon
+the man who stood half-dressed in the doorway.
+
+"Felton, Felton!" he whispered hoarsely. "What has happened? Who--"
+
+"Sir Michael, sir," answered the man. "I thought"--his voice
+broke--"you were the doctor, sir?"
+
+"Miss Myra--"
+
+"She fainted away, sir. Mrs. Hume is with her in the library, now."
+
+Cairn thrust past the servant and ran into the library. The
+housekeeper and a trembling maid were bending over Myra Duquesne, who
+lay fully dressed, white and still, upon a Chesterfield. Cairn
+unceremoniously grasped her wrist, dropped upon his knees and placed
+his ear to the still breast.
+
+"Thank God!" he said. "It is only a swoon. Look after her, Mrs. Hume."
+
+The housekeeper, with set face, lowered her head, but did not trust
+herself to speak. Cairn went out into the hall and tapped Felton on
+the shoulder. The man turned with a great start.
+
+"What happened?" he demanded. "Is Sir Michael--?"
+
+Felton nodded.
+
+"Five minutes before you came, sir." His voice was hoarse with
+emotion. "Miss Myra came out of her room. She thought someone called
+her. She rapped on Mrs. Hume's door, and Mrs. Hume, who was just
+retiring, opened it. She also thought she had heard someone calling
+Miss Myra out on the stairhead."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There was no one there, sir. Everyone was in bed; I was just
+undressing, myself. But there was a sort of faint perfume--something
+like a church, only disgusting, sir--"
+
+"How--disgusting! Did _you_ smell it?"
+
+"No, sir, never. Mrs. Hume and Miss Myra have noticed it in the house
+on other nights, and one of the maids, too. It was very strong, I'm
+told, last night. Well, sir, as they stood by the door they heard a
+horrid kind of choking scream. They both rushed to Sir Michael's
+room, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"He was lying half out of bed, sir--"
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Seemed like he'd been strangled, they told me, and--"
+
+"Who is with him now?"
+
+The man grew even paler.
+
+"No one, Mr. Cairn, sir. Miss Myra screamed out that there were two
+hands just unfastening from his throat as she and Mrs. Hume got to the
+door, and there was no living soul in the room, sir. I might as well
+out with it! We're all afraid to go in!"
+
+Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness
+and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael's stood wide
+open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought
+him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread.
+
+The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been
+pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that
+Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the
+disturbance of the previous night.
+
+"Who, in God's name, opened that curtain!" he muttered.
+
+Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair
+gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays.
+His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly
+black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip.
+Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him.
+
+He was quite dead.
+
+Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed,
+anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran
+his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge
+showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son.
+
+"Ferrara!" he cried, coming up to the bed. "Ferrara!"
+
+He dropped on his knees beside the dead man.
+
+"Ferrara, old fellow--"
+
+His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking,
+and went downstairs.
+
+In the hall stood Felton and some other servants.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?"
+
+"She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom."
+
+Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light
+was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching
+his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was
+glad of the chance to talk to someone.
+
+"Mr. Antony has been 'phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like
+to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o'clock."
+
+"Thank you," said Cairn shortly.
+
+Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved
+man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's
+eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of
+emotion.
+
+"Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell
+me. I am listening."
+
+Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.
+
+"I _have_ something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you."
+
+"Tell your story, first; then ask your question."
+
+"My story begins in a Thames backwater--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate,
+with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the
+king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's
+rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table
+and thrown in the fire--
+
+"Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?"
+
+The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some
+hardly repressed emotion.
+
+"I cannot swear to it, sir--"
+
+"Never mind. What do you _think_ he threw in the fire?"
+
+"A little image, of wax or something similar--an image of--a swan."
+
+At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his
+son leapt forward.
+
+"All right, Rob," his father waved him away, and turning, walked
+slowly down the room.
+
+"Go on," he said, rather huskily.
+
+Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the
+hospital where the dead girl lay.
+
+"You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony's
+rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?"
+
+"I can, sir."
+
+"Go on."
+
+Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt
+from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands;
+what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the
+house.
+
+"The ring," interrupted Dr. Cairn--"she would recognise it again?"
+
+"She says so."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois
+Echelle, D'Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in
+a less enlightened age!"
+
+"Less enlightened, boy!" Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him.
+"_More_ enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!"
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"_Think_! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I
+labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn _nothing_? Just
+God! what an end to his labour! What a reward for mine!"
+
+He buried his face in quivering hands.
+
+"I cannot tell exactly what you mean by that, sir," said Robert Cairn;
+"but it brings me to my question."
+
+Dr. Cairn did not speak, did not move.
+
+"_Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+The doctor looked up at that; and it was a haggard face he raised from
+his hands.
+
+"You have tried to ask me that before."
+
+"I ask now, sir, with better prospect of receiving an answer."
+
+"Yet I can give you none, Rob."
+
+"Why, sir? Are you bound to secrecy?"
+
+"In a degree, yes. But the real reason is this--I don't know."
+
+"You don't know!"
+
+"I have said so."
+
+"Good God, sir, you amaze me! I have always felt certain that he was
+really no Ferrara, but an adopted son; yet it had never entered my
+mind that you were ignorant of his origin."
+
+"You have not studied the subjects which I have studied; nor do I wish
+that you should; therefore it is impossible, at any rate now, to
+pursue that matter further. But I may perhaps supplement your
+researches into the history of Trois Echelles and Concini Concini. I
+believe you told me that you were looking in my library for some work
+which you failed to find?"
+
+"I was looking for M. Chabas' translation of the _Papyrus Harris_."
+
+"What do you know of it?"
+
+"I once saw a copy in Antony Ferrara's rooms."
+
+Dr. Cairn started slightly.
+
+"Indeed. It happens that my copy is here; I lent it quite recently
+to--Sir Michael. It is probably somewhere on the shelves."
+
+He turned on more lights and began to scan the rows of books.
+Presently--
+
+"Here it is," he said, and took down and opened the book on the table.
+"This passage may interest you." He laid his finger upon it.
+
+His son bent over the book and read the following:--
+
+"Hai, the evil man, was a shepherd. He had said: 'O, that I might have
+a book of spells that would give me resistless power!' He obtained a
+book of the Formulas.... By the divine powers of these he enchanted
+men. He obtained a deep vault furnished with implements. He made waxen
+images of men, and love-charms. And then he perpetrated all the
+horrors that his heart conceived."
+
+"Flinders Petrie," said Dr. Cairn, "mentions the Book of Thoth as
+another magical work conferring similar powers."
+
+"But surely, sir--after all, it's the twentieth century--this is mere
+superstition!"
+
+"I thought so--_once_!" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I have lived to know
+that Egyptian magic was a real and a potent force. A great part of it
+was no more than a kind of hypnotism, but there were other branches.
+Our most learned modern works are as children's nursery rhymes beside
+such a writing as the Egyptian _Ritual of the Dead_! God forgive me!
+What have I done!"
+
+"You cannot reproach yourself in any way, sir!"
+
+"Can I not?" said Dr. Cairn hoarsely. "Ah, Rob, you don't know!"
+
+There came a rap on the door, and a local practitioner entered.
+
+"This is a singular case, Dr. Cairn," he began diffidently. "An
+autopsy--"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Sir Elwin Groves had foreseen it--so had
+I!"
+
+"But there are distinct marks of pressure on either side of the
+windpipe--"
+
+"Certainly. These marks are not uncommon in such cases. Sir Michael
+had resided in the East and had contracted a form of plague. Virtually
+he died from it. The thing is highly contagious, and it is almost
+impossible to rid the system of it. A girl died in one of the
+hospitals this week, having identical marks on the throat." He turned
+to his son. "You saw her, Rob?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and finally the local man withdrew, highly
+mystified, but unable to contradict so celebrated a physician as Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+The latter seated himself in an armchair, and rested his chin in the
+palm of his left hand. Robert Cairn paced restlessly about the
+library. Both were waiting, expectantly. At half-past two Felton
+brought in a tray of refreshments, but neither of the men attempted
+to avail themselves of the hospitality.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?" asked the younger.
+
+"She has just gone to sleep, sir."
+
+"Good," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Blessed is youth."
+
+Silence fell again, upon the man's departure, to be broken but rarely,
+despite the tumultuous thoughts of those two minds, until, at about a
+quarter to three, the faint sound of a throbbing motor brought Dr.
+Cairn sharply to his feet. He looked towards the window. Dawn was
+breaking. The car came roaring along the avenue and stopped outside
+the house.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son glanced at one another. A brief tumult and
+hurried exchange of words sounded in the hall; footsteps were heard
+ascending the stairs, then came silence. The two stood side by side in
+front of the empty hearth, a haggard pair, fitly set in that desolate
+room, with the yellowing rays of the lamps shrinking before the first
+spears of dawn.
+
+Then, without warning, the door opened slowly and deliberately, and
+Antony Ferrara came in.
+
+His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he
+drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if
+they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined
+with leopard skin and he was pulling off his heavy gloves.
+
+"It is good of you to have waited, Doctor," he said in his huskily
+musical voice--"you too, Cairn."
+
+He advanced a few steps into the room. Cairn was conscious of a kind
+of fear, but uppermost came a desire to pick up some heavy implement
+and crush this evilly effeminate thing with the serpent eyes. Then he
+found himself speaking; the words seemed to be forced from his throat.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he said, "have you read the _Harris Papyrus_?"
+
+Ferrara dropped his glove, stooped and recovered it, and smiled
+faintly.
+
+"No," he replied. "Have you?" His eyes were nearly closed, mere
+luminous slits. "But surely," he continued, "this is no time, Cairn,
+to discuss books? As my poor father's heir, and therefore your host,
+I beg of you to partake--"
+
+A faint sound made him turn. Just within the door, where the light
+from the reddening library windows touched her as if with sanctity,
+stood Myra Duquesne, in her night robe, her hair unbound and her
+little bare feet gleaming whitely upon the red carpet. Her eyes were
+wide open, vacant of expression, but set upon Antony Ferrara's
+ungloved left hand.
+
+Ferrara turned slowly to face her, until his back was towards the two
+men in the library. She began to speak, in a toneless, unemotional
+voice, raising her finger and pointing at a ring which Ferrara wore.
+
+"I know you now," she said; "I know you, son of an evil woman, for you
+wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring
+with blood, as she stained it--with the blood of those who loved and
+trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed--I could name
+you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now."
+
+Dispassionately, mechanically, she delivered her strange indictment.
+Over her shoulder appeared the anxious face of Mrs. Hume, finger to
+lip.
+
+"My God!" muttered Cairn. "My God! What--"
+
+"S--sh!" his father grasped his arm. "She is asleep!"
+
+Myra Duquesne turned and quitted the room, Mrs. Hume hovering
+anxiously about her. Antony Ferrara faced around; his mouth was oddly
+twisted.
+
+"She is troubled with strange dreams," he said, very huskily.
+
+"Clairvoyant dreams!" Dr. Cairn addressed him for the first time. "Do
+not glare at me in that way, for it may be that _I_ know you, too!
+Come, Rob."
+
+"But Myra--"
+
+Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's shoulder, fixing his eyes upon
+him steadily.
+
+"Nothing in this house can injure Myra," he replied quietly; "for Good
+is higher than Evil. For the present we can only go."
+
+Antony Ferrara stood aside, as the two walked out of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows
+interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room.
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already
+the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the
+sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of
+anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny in an adjoining room.
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Do you wish to see me professionally?"
+
+Robert Cairn seated himself upon a corner of the big table, shaking
+his head slowly.
+
+"No, thanks sir; I'm fit enough; but I thought you might like to know
+about the will--"
+
+"I do know. Since I was largely interested, Jermyn attended on my
+behalf; an urgent case detained me. He rang up earlier this morning."
+
+"Oh, I see. Then perhaps I'm wasting your time; but it was a
+surprise--quite a pleasant one--to find that Sir Michael had provided
+for Myra--Miss Duquesne."
+
+Dr. Cairn stared hard.
+
+"What led you to suppose that he had _not_ provided for his niece? She
+is an orphan, and he was her guardian."
+
+"Of course, he should have done so; but I was not alone in my belief
+that during the--peculiar state of mind--which preceded his death, he
+had altered his will--"
+
+"In favour of his adopted son, Antony?"
+
+"Yes. I know _you_ were afraid of it, sir! But as it turns out they
+inherit equal shares, and the house goes to Myra. Mr. Antony
+Ferrara"--he accentuated the name--"quite failed to conceal his
+chagrin."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Rather. He was there in person, wearing one of his beastly fur
+coats--a fur coat, with the thermometer at Africa!--lined with
+civet-cat, of all abominations!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his table, tapping at the blotting-pad with the
+tube of a stethoscope.
+
+"I regret your attitude towards young Ferrara, Rob."
+
+His son started.
+
+"Regret it! I don't understand. Why, you, yourself brought about an
+open rupture on the night of Sir Michael's death."
+
+"Nevertheless, I am sorry. You know, since you were present, that Sir
+Michael has left his niece--to my care--"
+
+"Thank God for that!"
+
+"I am glad, too, although there are many difficulties. But,
+furthermore, he enjoined me to--"
+
+"Keep an eye on Antony! Yes, yes--but, heavens! he didn't know him for
+what he is!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to him again.
+
+"He did not; by a divine mercy, he never knew--what we know. But"--his
+clear eyes were raised to his son's--"the charge is none the less
+sacred, boy!"
+
+The younger man stared perplexedly.
+
+"But he is nothing less than a ----"
+
+His father's upraised hand checked the word on his tongue.
+
+"_I_ know what he is, Rob, even better than you do. But cannot you see
+how this ties my hands, seals my lips?"
+
+Robert Cairn was silent, stupefied.
+
+"Give me time to see my way clearly, Rob. At the moment I cannot
+reconcile my duty and my conscience; I confess it. But give me time.
+If only as a move--as a matter of policy--keep in touch with Ferrara.
+You loathe him, I know; but we _must_ watch him! There are other
+interests--"
+
+"Myra!" Robert Cairn flushed hotly. "Yes, I see. I understand. By
+heavens, it's a hard part to play, but--"
+
+"Be advised by me, Rob. Meet stealth with stealth. My boy, we have
+seen strange ends come to those who stood in the path of someone. If
+you had studied the subjects that I have studied you would know that
+retribution, though slow, is inevitable. But be on your guard. I am
+taking precautions. We have an enemy; I do not pretend to deny it; and
+he fights with strange weapons. Perhaps I know something of those
+weapons, too, and I am adopting--certain measures. But one defence,
+and the one for you, is guile--stealth!"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke abruptly.
+
+"He is installed in palatial chambers in Piccadilly."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Call upon him. Take the first opportunity to do so. Had it not been
+for your knowledge of certain things which happened in a top set at
+Oxford we might be groping in the dark now! You never liked Antony
+Ferrara--no men do; but you used to call upon him in college. Continue
+to call upon him, in town."
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Right you are, sir!" he said. "I'm glad I'm not alone in this thing!
+By the way, about--?"
+
+"Myra? For the present she remains at the house. There is Mrs. Hume,
+and all the old servants. We shall see what is to be done, later. You
+might run over and give her a look-up, though."
+
+"I will, sir! Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Dr. Cairn, and pressed the bell which summoned
+Marston to usher out the caller, and usher in the next patient.
+
+In Half-Moon Street, Robert Cairn stood irresolute; for he was one of
+those whose mental moods are physically reflected. He might call upon
+Myra Duquesne, in which event he would almost certainly be asked to
+stay to lunch; or he might call upon Antony Ferrara. He determined
+upon the latter, though less pleasant course.
+
+Turning his steps in the direction of Piccadilly, he reflected that
+this grim and uncanny secret which he shared with his father was like
+to prove prejudicial to his success in journalism. It was eternally
+uprising, demoniac, between himself and his work. The feeling of
+fierce resentment towards Antony Ferrara which he cherished grew
+stronger at every step. _He_ was the spider governing the web, the web
+that clammily touched Dr. Cairn, himself, Robert Cairn, and--Myra
+Duquesne. Others there had been who had felt its touch, who had been
+drawn to the heart of the unclean labyrinth--and devoured. In the mind
+of Cairn, the figure of Antony Ferrara assumed the shape of a monster,
+a ghoul, an elemental spirit of evil.
+
+And now he was ascending the marble steps. Before the gates of the
+lift he stood and pressed the bell.
+
+Ferrara's proved to be a first-floor suite, and the doors were opened
+by an Eastern servant dressed in white.
+
+"His beastly theatrical affectation again!" muttered Cairn. "The man
+should have been a music-hall illusionist!"
+
+The visitor was salaamed into a small reception room. Of this
+apartment the walls and ceiling were entirely covered by a fretwork in
+sandalwood, evidently Oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless
+cup-boards; stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of
+rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small
+fountain played in the centre. A cushioned divan occupied one side of
+the place, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which
+was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This
+lantern had panes of blue glass, producing a singular effect. A silver
+_mibkharah_, or incense-burner, stood near to one corner of the divan
+and emitted a subtle perfume. As the servant withdrew:
+
+"Good heavens!" muttered Cairn, disgustedly; "poor Sir Michael's
+fortune won't last long at this rate!" He glanced at the smoking
+_mibkharah_. "Phew! effeminate beast! Ambergris!"
+
+No more singular anomaly could well be pictured than that afforded by
+the lean, neatly-groomed Scotsman, with his fresh, clean-shaven face
+and typically British air, in this setting of Eastern voluptuousness.
+
+The dusky servitor drew back a curtain and waved him to enter, bowing
+low as the visitor passed. Cairn found himself in Antony Ferrara's
+study. A huge fire was blazing in the grate, rendering the heat of the
+study almost insufferable.
+
+It was, he perceived, an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford;
+infinitely more spacious, of course, and by reason of the rugs,
+cushions and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of
+great opulence. But the littered table was there, with its nameless
+instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp; the mummies were there;
+the antique volumes, rolls of papyrus, preserved snakes and cats and
+ibises, statuettes of Isis, Osiris and other Nile deities were there;
+the many photographs of women, too (Cairn had dubbed it at Oxford "the
+zenana"); above all, there was Antony Ferrara.
+
+He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in
+which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in
+a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled
+alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath
+the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short,
+lustreless hair it was the face of a handsome, evil woman.
+
+"My dear Cairn--what a welcome interruption. How good of you!"
+
+There was strange music in his husky tones. He spoke unemotionally,
+falsely, but Cairn could not deny the charm of that unique voice. It
+was possible to understand how women--some women--would be as clay in
+the hands of the man who had such a voice as that.
+
+His visitor nodded shortly. Cairn was a poor actor; already his _rôle_
+was oppressing him. Whilst Ferrara was speaking one found a sort of
+fascination in listening, but when he was silent he repelled. Ferrara
+may have been conscious of this, for he spoke much, and well.
+
+"You have made yourself jolly comfortable," said Cairn.
+
+"Why not, my dear Cairn? Every man has within him something of the
+Sybarite. Why crush a propensity so delightful? The Spartan philosophy
+is palpably absurd; it is that of one who finds himself in a garden
+filled with roses and who holds his nostrils; who perceives there
+shady bowers, but chooses to burn in the sun; who, ignoring the choice
+fruits which tempt his hand and court his palate, stoops to pluck
+bitter herbs from the wayside!"
+
+"I see!" snapped Cairn. "Aren't you thinking of doing any more work,
+then?"
+
+"Work!" Antony Ferrara smiled and sank upon a heap of cushions.
+"Forgive me, Cairn, but I leave it, gladly and confidently, to more
+robust characters such as your own."
+
+He proffered a silver box of cigarettes, but Cairn shook his head,
+balancing himself on a corner of the table.
+
+"No; thanks. I have smoked too much already; my tongue is parched."
+
+"My dear fellow!" Ferrara rose. "I have a wine which, I declare, you
+will never have tasted but which you will pronounce to be nectar. It
+is made in Cyprus--"
+
+Cairn raised his hand in a way that might have reminded a nice
+observer of his father.
+
+"Thank you, nevertheless. Some other time, Ferrara; I am no wine man."
+
+"A whisky and soda, or a burly British B. and S., even a sporty
+'Scotch and Polly'?"
+
+There was a suggestion of laughter in the husky voice, now, of a sort
+of contemptuous banter. But Cairn stolidly shook his head and forced a
+smile.
+
+"Many thanks; but it's too early."
+
+He stood up and began to walk about the room, inspecting the
+numberless oddities which it contained. The photographs he examined
+with supercilious curiosity. Then, passing to a huge cabinet, he began
+to peer in at the rows of amulets, statuettes and other,
+unclassifiable, objects with which it was laden. Ferrara's voice came.
+
+"That head of a priestess on the left, Cairn, is of great interest.
+The brain had not been removed, and quite a colony of Dermestes
+Beetles had propagated in the cavity. Those creatures never saw the
+light, Cairn. Yet I assure you that they had eyes. I have nearly forty
+of them in the small glass case on the table there. You might like to
+examine them."
+
+Cairn shuddered, but felt impelled to turn and look at these gruesome
+relics. In a square, glass case he saw the creatures. They lay in rows
+on a bed of moss; one might almost have supposed that unclean life yet
+survived in the little black insects. They were an unfamiliar species
+to Cairn, being covered with unusually long, black hair, except upon
+the root of the wing-cases where they were of brilliant orange.
+
+"The perfect pupæ of this insect are extremely rare," added Ferrara
+informatively.
+
+"Indeed?" replied Cairn.
+
+He found something physically revolting in that group of beetles whose
+history had begun and ended in the skull of a mummy.
+
+"Filthy things!" he said. "Why do you keep them?"
+
+Ferrara shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered enigmatically. "They might prove useful, some
+day."
+
+A bell rang; and from Ferrara's attitude it occurred to Cairn that he
+was expecting a visitor.
+
+"I must be off," he said accordingly.
+
+And indeed he was conscious of a craving for the cool and
+comparatively clean air of Piccadilly. He knew something of the great
+evil which dwelt within this man whom he was compelled, by singular
+circumstances, to tolerate. But the duty began to irk.
+
+"If you must," was the reply. "Of course, your press work no doubt is
+very exacting."
+
+The note of badinage was discernible again, but Cairn passed out into
+the _mandarah_ without replying, where the fountain plashed coolly and
+the silver _mibkharah_ sent up its pencils of vapour. The outer door
+was opened by the Oriental servant, and Ferrara stood and bowed to his
+departing visitor. He did not proffer his hand.
+
+"Until our next meeting. Cairn, _es-selâm aleykûm_!" (peace be with
+you) he murmured, "as the Moslems say. But indeed I shall be with you
+in spirit, dear Cairn."
+
+There was something in the tone wherein he spoke those last words that
+brought Cairn up short. He turned, but the doors closed silently. A
+faint breath of ambergris was borne to his nostrils.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+
+Cairn stepped out of the lift, crossed the hall, and was about to walk
+out on to Piccadilly, when he stopped, staring hard at a taxi-cab
+which had slowed down upon the opposite side whilst the driver awaited
+a suitable opportunity to pull across.
+
+The occupant of the cab was invisible now, but a moment before Cairn
+had had a glimpse of her as she glanced out, apparently towards the
+very doorway in which he stood. Perhaps his imagination was playing
+him tricks. He stood and waited, until at last the cab drew up within
+a few yards of him.
+
+Myra Duquesne got out.
+
+Having paid the cabman, she crossed the pavement and entered the
+hall-way. Cairn stepped forward so that she almost ran into his arms.
+
+"Mr. Cairn!" she cried. "Why! have you been to see Antony?"
+
+"I have," he replied, and paused, at a loss for words.
+
+It had suddenly occurred to him that Antony Ferrara and Myra Duquesne
+had known one another from childhood; that the girl probably regarded
+Ferrara in the light of a brother.
+
+"There are so many things I want to talk to him about," she said. "He
+seems to know everything, and I am afraid I know very little."
+
+Cairn noted with dismay the shadows under her eyes--the grey eyes that
+he would have wished to see ever full of light and laughter. She was
+pale, too, or seemed unusually so in her black dress; but the tragic
+death of her guardian, Sir Michael Ferrara, had been a dreadful blow
+to this convent-bred girl who had no other kin in the world. A longing
+swept into Cairn's heart and set it ablaze; a longing to take all her
+sorrows, all her cares, upon his own broad shoulders, to take her and
+hold her, shielded from whatever of trouble or menace the future might
+bring.
+
+"Have you seen his rooms here?" he asked, trying to speak casually;
+but his soul was up in arms against the bare idea of this girl's
+entering that perfumed place where abominable and vile things were,
+and none of them so vile as the man she trusted, whom she counted a
+brother.
+
+"Not yet," she answered, with a sort of childish glee momentarily
+lighting her eyes. "Are they _very_ splendid?"
+
+"Very," he answered her, grimly.
+
+"Can't you come in with me for awhile? Only just a little while, then
+you can come home to lunch--you and Antony." Her eyes sparkled now.
+"Oh, do say yes!"
+
+Knowing what he did know of the man upstairs, he longed to accompany
+her; yet, contradictorily, knowing what he did he could not face him
+again, could not submit himself to the test of being civil to Antony
+Ferrara in the presence of Myra Duquesne.
+
+"Please don't tempt me," he begged, and forced a smile. "I shall find
+myself enrolled amongst the seekers of soup-tickets if I _completely_
+ignore the claims of my employer upon my time!"
+
+"Oh, what a shame!" she cried.
+
+Their eyes met, and something--something unspoken but cogent--passed
+between them; so that for the first time a pretty colour tinted the
+girl's cheeks. She suddenly grew embarrassed.
+
+"Good-bye, then," she said, holding out her hand. "Will you lunch with
+us to-morrow?"
+
+"Thanks awfully," replied Cairn. "Rather--if it's humanly possible.
+I'll ring you up."
+
+He released her hand, and stood watching her as she entered the lift.
+When it ascended, he turned and went out to swell the human tide of
+Piccadilly. He wondered what his father would think of the girl's
+visiting Ferrara. Would he approve? Decidedly the situation was a
+delicate one; the wrong kind of interference--the tactless kind--might
+merely render it worse. It would be awfully difficult, if not
+impossible, to explain to Myra. If an open rupture were to be avoided
+(and he had profound faith in his father's acumen), then Myra must
+remain in ignorance. But was she to be allowed to continue these
+visits?
+
+Should he have permitted her to enter Ferrara's rooms?
+
+He reflected that he had no right to question her movements. But, at
+least, he might have accompanied her.
+
+"Oh, heavens!" he muttered--"what a horrible tangle. It will drive me
+mad!"
+
+There could be no peace for him until he knew her to be safely home
+again, and his work suffered accordingly; until, at about midday, he
+rang up Myra Duquesne, on the pretence of accepting her invitation to
+lunch on the morrow, and heard, with inexpressible relief, her voice
+replying to him.
+
+In the afternoon he was suddenly called upon to do a big "royal"
+matinée, and this necessitated a run to his chambers in order to
+change from Harris tweed into vicuna and cashmere. The usual stream of
+lawyers' clerks and others poured under the archway leading to the
+court; but in the far corner shaded by the tall plane tree, where the
+ascending steps and worn iron railing, the small panes of glass in the
+solicitor's window on the ground floor and the general air of
+Dickens-like aloofness prevailed, one entered a sort of backwater. In
+the narrow hall-way, quiet reigned--a quiet profound as though motor
+'buses were not.
+
+Cairn ran up the stairs to the second landing, and began to fumble for
+his key. Although he knew it to be impossible, he was aware of a queer
+impression that someone was waiting for him, inside his chambers. The
+sufficiently palpable fact--that such a thing _was_ impossible--did
+not really strike him until he had opened the door and entered. Up to
+that time, in a sort of subconscious way, he had anticipated finding a
+visitor there.
+
+"What an ass I am!" he muttered; then, "Phew! there's a disgusting
+smell!"
+
+He threw open all the windows, and entering his bedroom, also opening
+both the windows there. The current of air thus established began to
+disperse the odour--a fusty one as of something decaying--and by the
+time that he had changed, it was scarcely perceptible. He had little
+time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door,
+glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his
+nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch.
+
+"What the deuce is it!" he said loudly.
+
+Quite mechanically he turned and looked back. As one might have
+anticipated, there was nothing visible to account for the odour.
+
+The emotion of fear is a strange and complex one. In this breath of
+decay rising to his nostril, Cairn found something fearsome. He opened
+the door, stepped out on to the landing, and closed the door behind
+him.
+
+At an hour close upon midnight, Dr. Bruce Cairn, who was about to
+retire, received a wholly unexpected visit from his son. Robert Cairn
+followed his father into the library and sat down in the big, red
+leathern easy-chair. The doctor tilted the lamp shade, directing the
+light upon Robert's face. It proved to be slightly pale, and in the
+clear eyes was an odd expression--almost a hunted look.
+
+"What's the trouble, Rob? Have a whisky and soda."
+
+Robert Cairn helped himself quietly.
+
+"Now take a cigar and tell me what has frightened you."
+
+"Frightened me!" He started, and paused in the act of reaching for a
+match. "Yes--you're right, sir. I _am_ frightened!"
+
+"Not at the moment. You have been."
+
+"Right again." He lighted his cigar. "I want to begin by saying
+that--well, how can I put it? When I took up newspaper work, we
+thought it would be better if I lived in chambers--"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, at that time--" he examined the lighted end of his
+cigar--"there was no reason--why I should not live alone. But now--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Now I feel, sir, that I have need of more or less constant
+companionship. Especially I feel that it would be desirable to have a
+friend handy at--er--at night time!"
+
+Dr. Cairn leant forward in his chair. His face was very stern.
+
+"Hold out your fingers," he said, "extended; left hand."
+
+His son obeyed, smiling slightly. The open hand showed in the
+lamplight steady as a carven hand.
+
+"Nerves quite in order, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn inhaled a deep breath.
+
+"Tell me," he said.
+
+"It's a queer tale," his son began, "and if I told it to Craig Fenton,
+or Madderley round in Harley Street I know what they would say. But
+you will _understand_. It started this afternoon, when the sun was
+pouring in through the windows. I had to go to my chambers to change;
+and the rooms were filled with a most disgusting smell."
+
+His father started.
+
+"What kind of smell?" he asked. "Not--incense?"
+
+"No," replied Robert, looking hard at him--"I thought you would ask
+that. It was a smell of something putrid--something rotten, rotten
+with the rottenness of ages."
+
+"Did you trace where it came from?"
+
+"I opened all the windows, and that seemed to disperse it for a time.
+Then, just as I was going out, it returned; it seemed to envelop me
+like a filthy miasma. You know, sir, it's hard to explain just the way
+I felt about it--but it all amounts to this: I was glad to get
+outside!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up and began to pace about the room, his hands locked
+behind him.
+
+"To-night," he rapped suddenly, "what occurred to-night?"
+
+"To-night," continued his son, "I got in at about half-past nine. I
+had had such a rush, in one way and another, that the incident had
+quite lost its hold on my imagination; I hadn't forgotten it, of
+course, but I was not thinking of it when I unlocked the door. In fact
+I didn't begin to think of it again until, in slippers and
+dressing-gown, I had settled down for a comfortable read. There was
+nothing, absolutely nothing, to influence my imagination--in that way.
+The book was an old favourite, Mark Twain's _Up the Mississippi_, and
+I sat in the armchair with a large bottle of lager beer at my elbow
+and my pipe going strong."
+
+Becoming restless in turn, the speaker stood up and walking to the
+fireplace flicked off the long cone of grey ash from his cigar. He
+leant one elbow upon the mantel-piece, resuming his story:
+
+"St. Paul's had just chimed the half-hour--half-past ten--when my pipe
+went out. Before I had time to re-light it, came the damnable smell
+again. At the moment nothing was farther from my mind, and I jumped up
+with an exclamation of disgust. It seemed to be growing stronger and
+stronger. I got my pipe alight quickly. Still I could smell it; the
+aroma of the tobacco did not lessen its beastly pungency in the
+smallest degree.
+
+"I tilted the shade of my reading-lamp and looked all about. There was
+nothing unusual to be seen. Both windows were open and I went to one
+and thrust my head out, in order to learn if the odour came from
+outside. It did not. The air outside the window was fresh and clean.
+Then I remembered that when I had left my chambers in the afternoon,
+the smell had been stronger near the door than anywhere. I ran out to
+the door. In the passage I could smell nothing; but--"
+
+He paused, glancing at his father.
+
+"Before I had stood there thirty seconds it was rising all about me
+like the fumes from a crater. By God, sir! I realised then that it was
+something ... following me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood watching him, from the shadows beyond the big table,
+as he came forward and finished his whisky at a gulp.
+
+"That seemed to work a change in me," he continued rapidly; "I
+recognised there was something behind this disgusting manifestation,
+something directing it; and I recognised, too, that the next move was
+up to me. I went back to my room. The odour was not so pronounced, but
+as I stood by the table, waiting, it increased, and increased, until
+it almost choked me. My nerves were playing tricks, but I kept a fast
+hold on myself. I set to work, very methodically, and fumigated the
+place. Within myself I knew that it could do no good, but I felt that
+I had to put up some kind of opposition. You understand, sir?"
+
+"Quite," replied Dr. Cairn quietly. "It was an organised attempt to
+expel the invader, and though of itself it was useless, the mental
+attitude dictating it was good. Go on."
+
+"The clocks had chimed eleven when I gave up, and I felt physically
+sick. The air by this time was poisonous, literally poisonous. I
+dropped into the easy-chair and began to wonder what the end of it
+would be. Then, in the shadowy parts of the room, outside the circle
+of light cast by the lamp, I detected--darker patches. For awhile I
+tried to believe that they were imaginary, but when I saw one move
+along the bookcase, glide down its side, and come across the carpet,
+towards me, I knew that they were not. Before heaven, sir"--his voice
+shook--"either I am mad, or to-night my room was filled with things
+that _crawled_! They were everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, even
+on the ceiling above me! Where the light was I couldn't detect them,
+but the shadows were alive, alive with things--the size of my two
+hands; and in the growing stillness--"
+
+His voice had become husky. Dr. Cairn stood still, as a man of stone,
+watching him.
+
+"In the stillness, very faintly, _they rustled_!"
+
+Silence fell. A car passed outside in Half-Moon Street; its throb died
+away. A clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight. Dr. Cairn
+spoke:
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"One other thing, sir. I was gripping the chair arms; I felt that I
+had to grip something to prevent myself from slipping into madness. My
+left hand--" he glanced at it with a sort of repugnance--"something
+hairy--and indescribably loathsome--touched it; just brushed against
+it. But it was too much. I'm ashamed to tell you, sir; I screamed,
+screamed like any hysterical girl, and for the second time, ran! I ran
+from my own rooms, grabbed a hat and coat; and left my dressing gown
+on the floor!"
+
+He turned, leaning both elbows on the mantel-piece, and buried his
+face in his hands.
+
+"Have another drink," said Dr. Cairn. "You called on Antony Ferrara
+to-day, didn't you? How did he receive you?"
+
+"That brings me to something else I wanted to tell you," continued
+Robert, squirting soda-water into his glass. "Myra--goes there."
+
+"Where--to his chambers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dr. Cairn began to pace the room again.
+
+"I am not surprised," he admitted; "she has always been taught to
+regard him in the light of a brother. But nevertheless we must put a
+stop to it. How did you learn this?"
+
+Robert Cairn gave him an account of the morning's incidents,
+describing Ferrara's chambers with a minute exactness which revealed
+how deep, how indelible an impression their strangeness had made upon
+his mind.
+
+"There is one thing," he concluded, "against which I am always coming
+up, I puzzled over it at Oxford, and others did, too; I came against
+it to-day. Who _is_ Antony Ferrara? Where did Sir Michael find him?
+What kind of woman bore such a son?"
+
+"Stop boy!" cried Dr. Cairn.
+
+Robert started, looking at his father across the table.
+
+"You are already in danger, Rob. I won't disguise that fact from you.
+Myra Duquesne is no relation of Ferrara's; therefore, since she
+inherits half of Sir Michael's fortune, a certain course must have
+suggested itself to Antony. You, patently, are an obstacle! That's
+bad enough, boy; let us deal with it before we look for further
+trouble."
+
+"He took up a blackened briar from the table and began to load it.
+
+"Regarding your next move," he continued slowly, "there can be no
+question. You must return to your chambers!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"There can be no question, Rob. A kind of attack has been made upon
+you which only _you_ can repel. If you desert your chambers, it will
+be repeated here. At present it is evidently localised. There are laws
+governing these things; laws as immutable as any other laws in Nature.
+One of them is this: the powers of darkness (to employ a conventional
+and significant phrase) cannot triumph over the powers of Will. Below
+the Godhead, Will is the supreme force of the Universe. _Resist_! You
+_must_ resist, or you are lost!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"I mean that destruction of mind, and of something more than mind,
+threatens you. If you retreat you are lost. Go back to your rooms.
+_Seek_ your foe; strive to haul him into the light and crush him! The
+phenomena at your rooms belong to one of two varieties; at present it
+seems impossible to classify them more closely. Both are dangerous,
+though in different ways. I suspect, however, that a purely mental
+effort will be sufficient to disperse these nauseous shadow-things.
+Probably you will not be troubled again to-night, but whenever the
+phenomena return, take off your coat to them! You require no better
+companion than the one you had:--Mark Twain! Treat your visitors as
+one might imagine he would have treated them; as a very poor joke! But
+whenever it begins again, ring me up. Don't hesitate, whatever the
+hour. I shall be at the hospital all day, but from seven onward I
+shall be here and shall make a point of remaining. Give me a call when
+you return, now, and if there is no earlier occasion, another in the
+morning. Then rely upon my active co-operation throughout the
+following night."
+
+"Active, sir?"
+
+"I said active, Rob. The next repetition of these manifestations shall
+be the last. Good-night. Remember, you have only to lift the receiver
+to know that you are not alone in your fight."
+
+Robert Cairn took a second cigar, lighted it, finished his whisky, and
+squared his shoulders.
+
+"Good-night, sir," he said. "I shan't run away a third time!"
+
+When the door had closed upon his exit, Dr. Cairn resumed his restless
+pacing up and down the library. He had given Roman counsel, for he had
+sent his son out to face, alone, a real and dreadful danger. Only thus
+could he hope to save him, but nevertheless it had been hard. The next
+fight would be a fight to the finish, for Robert had said, "I shan't
+run away a third time;" and he was a man of his word.
+
+As Dr. Cairn had declared, the manifestations belonged to one of two
+varieties. According to the most ancient science in the world, the
+science by which the Egyptians, and perhaps even earlier peoples,
+ordered their lives, we share this, our plane of existence, with
+certain other creatures, often called Elementals. Mercifully, these
+fearsome entities are invisible to our normal sight, just as the finer
+tones of music are inaudible to our normal powers of hearing.
+
+Victims of delirium tremens, opium smokers, and other debauchees,
+artificially open that finer, latent power of vision; and the horrors
+which surround them are not imaginary but are Elementals attracted to
+the victim by his peculiar excesses.
+
+The crawling things, then, which reeked abominably might be Elementals
+(so Dr. Cairn reasoned) superimposed upon Robert Cairn's consciousness
+by a directing, malignant intelligence. On the other hand they might
+be mere glamours--or thought-forms--thrust upon him by the same wizard
+mind; emanations from an evil, powerful will.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the 'phone bell. He
+took up the receiver.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"That you, sir? All's clear here, now. I'm turning in."
+
+"Right. Good-night, Rob. Ring me in the morning."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn refilled his charred briar, and, taking from a drawer in the
+writing table a thick MS., sat down and began to study the
+closely-written pages. The paper was in the cramped handwriting of the
+late Sir Michael Ferrara, his travelling companion through many
+strange adventures; and the sun had been flooding the library with
+dimmed golden light for several hours, and a bustle below stairs
+acclaiming an awakened household, ere the doctor's studies were
+interrupted. Again, it was the 'phone bell. He rose, switched off the
+reading-lamp, and lifted the instrument.
+
+"That you, Rob?"
+
+"Yes, sir. All's well, thank God! Can I breakfast with you?"
+
+"Certainly, my boy!" Dr. Cairn glanced at his watch. "Why, upon my
+soul it's seven o'clock!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEETLES
+
+
+Sixteen hours had elapsed and London's clocks were booming eleven that
+night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more
+Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael's manuscript, but at frequent
+intervals his glance would stray to the telephone at his elbow. He had
+given orders to the effect that he was on no account to be disturbed
+and that his car should be ready at the door from ten o'clock onward.
+
+As the sound of the final strokes was dying away the expected summons
+came. Dr. Cairn's jaw squared and his mouth was very grim, when he
+recognised his son's voice over the wires.
+
+"Well, boy?"
+
+"They're here, sir--now, while I'm speaking! I have been
+fighting--fighting hard--for half an hour. The place smells like a
+charnel-house and the--shapes are taking definite, horrible form! They
+have ... _eyes_!" His voice sounded harsh. "Quite black the eyes are,
+and they shine like beads! It's gradually wearing me down, although I
+have myself in hand, so far. I mean I might crack up--at any moment.
+Bah!--"
+
+His voice ceased.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Hullo, Rob!"
+
+"It's all right, sir," came, all but inaudibly. "The--things are all
+around the edge of the light patch; they make a sort of rustling
+noise. It is a tremendous, conscious _effort_ to keep them at bay.
+While I was speaking, I somehow lost my grip of the situation.
+One--crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed
+horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."
+
+"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes--yes--" faintly.
+
+"_Pray_, my boy--pray for strength, and it will come to you! You
+_must_ hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes--do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes!--Merciful God!--if you can help me, do it, sir, or--"
+
+"Hold out, boy! In _ten minutes_ you'll have won."
+
+Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a
+cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the
+waiting car, shouting an address to the man.
+
+Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out
+and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting
+with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the
+stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push
+beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened
+and a dusky face appeared in the opening.
+
+The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his
+arms to detain him.
+
+"Not at home, _effendim_--"
+
+Dr. Cairn shot out a sinewy hand, grabbed the man--he was a tall
+_fellahîn_--by the shoulder, and sent him spinning across the mosaic
+floor of the _mandarah_. The air was heavy with the perfume of
+ambergris.
+
+Wasting no word upon the reeling man, Dr. Cairn stepped to the
+doorway. He jerked the drapery aside and found himself in a dark
+corridor. From his son's description of the chambers he had no
+difficulty in recognising the door of the study.
+
+He turned the handle--the door proved to be unlocked--and entered the
+darkened room.
+
+In the grate a huge fire glowed redly; the temperature of the place
+was almost unbearable. On the table the light from the silver lamp
+shed a patch of radiance, but the rest of the study was veiled in
+shadow.
+
+A black-robed figure was seated in a high-backed, carved chair; one
+corner of the cowl-like garment was thrown across the table. Half
+rising, the figure turned--and, an evil apparition in the glow from
+the fire, Antony Ferrara faced the intruder.
+
+Dr. Cairn walked forward, until he stood over the other.
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table," he said succinctly.
+
+Ferrara's strange eyes were uplifted to the speaker's with an
+expression in their depths which, in the Middle Ages, alone would have
+sent a man to the stake.
+
+"Dr. Cairn--"
+
+The husky voice had lost something of its suavity.
+
+"You heard my order!"
+
+"Your _order_! Surely, doctor, since I am in my own--"
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table. Or must I do so for you!"
+
+Antony Ferrara placed his hand upon the end of the black robe which
+lay across the table.
+
+"Be careful, Dr. Cairn," he said evenly. "You--are taking risks."
+
+Dr. Cairn suddenly leapt, seized the shielding hand in a sure grip and
+twisted Ferrara's arm behind him. Then, with a second rapid movement,
+he snatched away the robe. A faint smell--a smell of corruption, of
+ancient rottenness--arose on the superheated air.
+
+A square of faded linen lay on the table, figured with all but
+indecipherable Egyptian characters, and upon it, in rows which formed
+a definite geometrical design, were arranged a great number of little,
+black insects.
+
+Dr. Cairn released the hand which he held, and Ferrara sat quite
+still, looking straight before him.
+
+"_Dermestes beetles!_ from the skull of a mummy! You filthy, obscene
+beast!"
+
+Ferrara spoke, with a calm suddenly regained:
+
+"Is there anything obscene in the study of beetles?"
+
+"My son saw these things here yesterday; and last night, and again
+to-night, you cast magnified doubles--glamours--of the horrible
+creatures into his rooms! By means which you know of, but which _I_
+know of, too, you sought to bring your thought-things down to the
+material plane."
+
+"Dr. Cairn, my respect for you is great; but I fear that much study
+has made you mad."
+
+Ferrara reached out his hand towards an ebony box; he was smiling.
+
+"Don't dare to touch that box!"
+
+He paused, glancing up.
+
+"More orders, doctor?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Dr. Cairn grabbed the faded linen, scooping up the beetles within it,
+and, striding across the room, threw the whole unsavoury bundle into
+the heart of the fire. A great flame leapt up; there came a series of
+squeaky explosions, so that, almost, one might have imagined those
+age-old insects to have had life. Then the doctor turned again.
+
+Ferrara leapt to his feet with a cry that had in it something inhuman,
+and began rapidly to babble in a tongue that was not European. He was
+facing Dr. Cairn, a tall, sinister figure, but one hand was groping
+behind him for the box.
+
+"Stop that!" rapped the doctor imperatively--"and for the last time do
+not dare to touch that box!"
+
+The flood of strange words was dammed. Ferrara stood quivering, but
+silent.
+
+"The laws by which such as you were burnt--the _wise_ laws of long
+ago--are no more," said Dr. Cairn. "English law cannot touch you, but
+God has provided for your kind!"
+
+"Perhaps," whispered Ferrara, "you would like also to burn this box to
+which you object so strongly?"
+
+"No power on earth would prevail upon me to touch it! But you--you
+_have_ touched it--and you know the penalty! You raise forces of evil
+that have lain dormant for ages and dare to wield them. Beware! I know
+of some whom you have murdered; I cannot know how many you have sent
+to the madhouse. But I swear that in future your victims shall be few.
+There is a way to deal with you!"
+
+He turned and walked to the door.
+
+"Beware also, dear Dr. Cairn," came softly. "As you say, I raise
+forces of evil--"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun about. In three strides he was standing over Antony
+Ferrara, fists clenched and his sinewy body tense in every fibre. His
+face was pale, as was apparent even in that vague light, and his eyes
+gleamed like steel.
+
+"You raise other forces," he said--and his voice, though steady was
+very low; "evil forces, also."
+
+Antony Ferrara, invoker of nameless horrors, shrank before him--before
+the primitive Celtic man whom unwittingly he had invoked. Dr. Cairn
+was spare and lean, but in perfect physical condition. Now he was
+strong, with the strength of a just cause. Moreover, he was dangerous,
+and Ferrara knew it well.
+
+"I fear--" began the latter huskily.
+
+"Dare to bandy words with me," said Dr. Cairn, with icy coolness,
+"answer me back but once again, and before God I'll strike you dead!"
+
+Ferrara sat silent, clutching at the arms of his chair, and not daring
+to raise his eyes. For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so, then again
+Dr. Cairn turned, and this time walked out.
+
+The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered
+Antony Ferrara's chambers, and some had not finished their chimes when
+his son, choking, calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him, had fallen in
+the midst of crowding, obscene things, and, in the instant of his
+fall, had found the room clear of the waving antennæ, the beady eyes,
+and the beetle shapes. The whole horrible phantasmagoria--together
+with the odour of ancient rottenness--faded like a fevered dream, at
+the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it.
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, weakly, trembling; then dropped upon his knees
+and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightened
+soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+
+When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which
+falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl,
+pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, to the
+girl's legacy add another item--a strong, stern guardian, and the
+issue becomes one less easy to predict.
+
+In the case at present under consideration, such an arrangement led
+Dr. Bruce Cairn to pack off Myra Duquesne to a grim Scottish manor in
+Inverness upon a visit of indefinite duration. It also led to heart
+burnings on the part of Robert Cairn, and to other things about to be
+noticed.
+
+Antony Ferrara, the co-legatee, was not slow to recognise that a
+damaging stroke had been played, but he knew Dr. Cairn too well to put
+up any protest. In his capacity of fashionable physician, the doctor
+frequently met Ferrara in society, for a man at once rich, handsome,
+and bearing a fine name, is not socially ostracised on the mere
+suspicion that he is a dangerous blackguard. Thus Antony Ferrara was
+courted by the smartest women in town and tolerated by the men. Dr.
+Cairn would always acknowledge him, and then turn his back upon the
+dark-eyed, adopted son of his dearest friend.
+
+There was that between the two of which the world knew nothing. Had
+the world known what Dr. Cairn knew respecting Antony Ferrara, then,
+despite his winning manner, his wealth and his station, every door in
+London, from those of Mayfair to that of the foulest den in Limehouse,
+would have been closed to him--closed, and barred with horror and
+loathing. A tremendous secret was locked up within the heart of Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+Sometimes we seem to be granted a glimpse of the guiding Hand that
+steers men's destinies; then, as comprehension is about to dawn, we
+lose again our temporal lucidity of vision. The following incident
+illustrates this.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, of Harley Street, took Dr. Cairn aside at the club
+one evening.
+
+"I am passing a patient on to you, Cairn," he said; "Lord Lashmore."
+
+"Ah!" replied Cairn, thoughtfully. "I have never met him."
+
+"He has only quite recently returned to England--you may have
+heard?--and brought a South American Lady Lashmore with him."
+
+"I had heard that, yes."
+
+"Lord Lashmore is close upon fifty-five, and his wife--a passionate
+Southern type--is probably less than twenty. They are an odd couple.
+The lady has been doing some extensive entertaining at the town
+house."
+
+Groves stared hard at Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Your young friend, Antony Ferrara, is a regular visitor."
+
+"No doubt," said Cairn; "he goes everywhere. I don't know how long his
+funds will last."
+
+"I have wondered, too. His chambers are like a scene from the 'Arabian
+Nights.'"
+
+"How do you know?" inquired the other curiously. "Have you attended
+him?"
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "His Eastern servant 'phoned for me one night
+last week; and I found Ferrara lying unconscious in a room like a
+pasha's harem. He looked simply ghastly, but the man would give me no
+account of what had caused the attack. It looked to me like sheer
+nervous exhaustion. He gave me quite an anxious five minutes.
+Incidentally, the room was blazing hot, with a fire roaring right up
+the chimney, and it smelt like a Hindu temple."
+
+"Ah!" muttered Cairn, "between his mode of life and his peculiar
+studies he will probably crack up. He has a fragile constitution."
+
+"Who the deuce is he, Cairn?" pursued Sir Elwin. "You must know all
+the circumstances of his adoption; you were with the late Sir Michael
+in Egypt at the time. The fellow is a mystery to me; he repels, in
+some way. I was glad to get away from his rooms."
+
+"You were going to tell me something about Lord Lashmore's case, I
+think?" said Cairn.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves screwed up his eyes and readjusted his pince-nez, for
+the deliberate way in which his companion had changed the conversation
+was unmistakable. However, Cairn's brusque manners were proverbial,
+and Sir Elwin accepted the lead.
+
+"Yes, yes, I believe I was," he agreed, rather lamely. "Well, it's
+very singular. I was called there last Monday, at about two o'clock in
+the morning. I found the house upside-down, and Lady Lashmore, with a
+dressing-gown thrown over her nightdress, engaged in bathing a bad
+wound in her husband's throat."
+
+"What! Attempted suicide?"
+
+"My first idea, naturally. But a glance at the wound set me wondering.
+It was bleeding profusely, and from its location I was afraid that it
+might have penetrated the internal jugular; but the external only was
+wounded. I arrested the flow of blood and made the patient
+comfortable. Lady Lashmore assisted me coolly and displayed some skill
+as a nurse. In fact she had applied a ligature before my arrival."
+
+"Lord Lashmore remained conscious?"
+
+"Quite. He was shaky, of course. I called again at nine o'clock that
+morning, and found him progressing favourably. When I had dressed the
+wounds--"
+
+"Wounds?"
+
+"There were two actually; I will tell you in a moment. I asked Lord
+Lashmore for an explanation. He had given out, for the benefit of the
+household, that, stumbling out of bed in the dark, he had tripped upon
+a rug, so that he fell forward almost into the fireplace. There is a
+rather ornate fender, with an elaborate copper scrollwork design, and
+his account was that he came down with all his weight upon this, in
+such a way that part of the copperwork pierced his throat. It was
+possible, just possible, Cairn; but it didn't satisfy me and I could
+see that it didn't satisfy Lady Lashmore. However, when we were alone,
+Lashmore told me the real facts."
+
+"He had been concealing the truth?"
+
+"Largely for his wife's sake, I fancy. He was anxious to spare her the
+alarm which, knowing the truth, she must have experienced. His story
+was this--related in confidence, but he wishes that you should know.
+He was awakened by a sudden, sharp pain in the throat; not very acute,
+but accompanied by a feeling of pressure. It was gone again, in a
+moment, and he was surprised to find blood upon his hands when he felt
+for the cause of the pain.
+
+"He got out of bed and experienced a great dizziness. The hemorrhage
+was altogether more severe than he had supposed. Not wishing to arouse
+his wife, he did not enter his dressing-room, which is situated
+between his own room and Lady Lashmore's; he staggered as far as the
+bell-push, and then collapsed. His man found him on the
+floor--sufficiently near to the fender to lend colour to the story of
+the accident."
+
+Dr. Cairn coughed drily.
+
+"Do you think it was attempted suicide after all, then?" he asked.
+
+"No--I don't," replied Sir Elwin emphatically. "I think it was
+something altogether more difficult to explain."
+
+"Not attempted murder?"
+
+"Almost impossible. Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no one
+could possibly have gained access to that suite of rooms. They number
+four. There is a small boudoir, out of which opens Lady Lashmore's
+bedroom; between this and Lord Lashmore's apartment is the
+dressing-room. Lord Lashmore's door was locked and so was that of the
+boudoir. These are the only two means of entrance."
+
+"But you said that Chambers came in and found him."
+
+"Chambers has a key of Lord Lashmore's door. That is why I said
+'excepting Chambers.' But Chambers has been with his present master
+since Lashmore left Cambridge. It's out of the question."
+
+"Windows?"
+
+"First floor, no balcony, and overlook Hyde Park."
+
+"Is there no clue to the mystery?"
+
+"There are three!"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"First: the nature of the wounds. Second: Lord Lashmore's idea that
+something was in the room at the moment of his awakening. Third: the
+fact that an identical attempt was made upon him last night!"
+
+"Last night! Good God! With what result?"
+
+"The former wounds, though deep, are very tiny, and had quite healed
+over. One of them partially reopened, but Lord Lashmore awoke
+altogether more readily and before any damage had been done. He says
+that some soft body rolled off the bed. He uttered a loud cry, leapt
+out and switched on the electric lights. At the same moment he heard a
+frightful scream from his wife's room. When I arrived--Lashmore
+himself summoned me on this occasion--I had a new patient."
+
+"Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Exactly. She had fainted from fright, at hearing her husband's cry, I
+assume. There had been a slight hemorrhage from the throat, too."
+
+"What! Tuberculous?"
+
+"I fear so. Fright would not produce hemorrhage in the case of a
+healthy subject, would it?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head. He was obviously perplexed.
+
+"And Lord Lashmore?" he asked.
+
+"The marks were there again," replied Sir Elwin; "rather lower on the
+neck. But they were quite superficial. He had awakened in time and had
+struck out--hitting something."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Some living thing; apparently covered with long, silky hair. It
+escaped, however."
+
+"And now," said Dr. Cairn--"these wounds; what are they like?"
+
+"They are like the marks of fangs," replied Sir Elwin; "of two long,
+sharp fangs!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+
+Lord Lashmore was a big, blonde man, fresh coloured, and having his
+nearly white hair worn close cut and his moustache trimmed in the neat
+military fashion. For a fair man, he had eyes of a singular colour.
+They were of so dark a shade of brown as to appear black: southern
+eyes; lending to his personality an oddness very striking.
+
+When he was shown into Dr. Cairn's library, the doctor regarded him
+with that searching scrutiny peculiar to men of his profession, at the
+same time inviting the visitor to be seated.
+
+Lashmore sat down in the red leathern armchair, resting his large
+hands upon his knees, with the fingers widely spread. He had a massive
+dignity, but was not entirely at his ease.
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the conversation, in his direct fashion.
+
+"You come to consult me, Lord Lashmore, in my capacity of occultist
+rather than in that of physician?"
+
+"In both," replied Lord Lashmore; "distinctly, in both."
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves is attending you for certain throat wounds--"
+
+Lord Lashmore touched the high stock which he was wearing.
+
+"The scars remain," he said. "Do you wish to see them?"
+
+"I am afraid I must trouble you."
+
+The stock was untied; and Dr. Cairn, through a powerful glass,
+examined the marks. One of them, the lower, was slightly inflamed.
+
+Lord Lashmore retied his stock, standing before the small mirror set
+in the overmantel.
+
+"You had an impression of some presence in the room at the time of the
+outrage?" pursued the doctor.
+
+"Distinctly; on both occasions."
+
+"Did you see anything?"
+
+"The room was too dark."
+
+"But you felt something?"
+
+"Hair; my knuckles, as I struck out--I am speaking of the second
+outrage--encountered a thick mass of hair."
+
+"The body of some animal?"
+
+"Probably the head."
+
+"But still you saw nothing?"
+
+"I must confess that I had a vague idea of some shape flitting away
+across the room; a white shape--therefore probably a figment of my
+imagination."
+
+"Your cry awakened Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Unfortunately, yes. Her nerves were badly shaken already, and this
+second shock proved too severe. Sir Elwin fears chest trouble. I am
+taking her abroad as soon as possible."
+
+"She was found insensible. Where?"
+
+"At the door of the dressing-room--the door communicating with her own
+room, not that communicating with mine. She had evidently started to
+come to my assistance when faintness overcame her."
+
+"What is her own account?"
+
+"That is her own account."
+
+"Who discovered her?"
+
+"I did."
+
+Dr. Cairn was drumming his fingers on the table.
+
+"You have a theory, Lord Lashmore," he said suddenly. "Let me hear
+it."
+
+Lord Lashmore started, and glared across at the speaker with a sort of
+haughty surprise.
+
+"_I_ have a theory?"
+
+"I think so. Am I wrong?"
+
+Lashmore stood on the rug before the fireplace, with his hands locked
+behind him and his head lowered, looking out under his tufted eyebrows
+at Dr. Cairn. Thus seen, Lord Lashmore's strange eyes had a sinister
+appearance.
+
+"If I had had a theory--" he began.
+
+"You would have come to me to seek confirmation?" suggested Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Ah! yes, you may be right. Sir Elwin Groves, to whom I hinted
+something, mentioned your name. I am not quite clear upon one point,
+Dr. Cairn. Did he send me to you because he thought--in a word, are
+you a mental specialist?"
+
+"I am not. Sir Elwin has no doubts respecting your brain, Lord
+Lashmore. He has sent you here because I have made some study of what
+I may term psychical ailments. There is a chapter in your family
+history"--he fixed his searching gaze upon the other's face--"which
+latterly has been occupying your mind?"
+
+At that, Lashmore started in good earnest.
+
+"To what do you refer?"
+
+"Lord Lashmore, you have come to me for advice. A rare
+ailment--happily very rare in England--has assailed you. Circumstances
+have been in your favour thus far, but a recurrence is to be
+anticipated at any time. Be good enough to look upon me as a
+specialist, and give me all your confidence."
+
+Lashmore cleared his throat.
+
+"What do you wish to know, Dr. Cairn?" he asked, with a queer
+intermingling of respect and hauteur in his tones.
+
+"I wish to know about Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore."
+
+Lord Lashmore took a stride forward. His large hands clenched, and his
+eyes were blazing.
+
+"What do you know about her?"
+
+Surprise was in his voice, and anger.
+
+"I have seen her portrait in Dhoon Castle; you were not in residence
+at the time. Mirza, Lady Lashmore, was evidently a very beautiful
+woman. What was the date of the marriage?"
+
+"1615."
+
+"The third Baron brought her to England from?--"
+
+"Poland."
+
+"She was a Pole?"
+
+"A Polish Jewess."
+
+"There was no issue of the marriage, but the Baron outlived her and
+married again?"
+
+Lord Lashmore shifted his feet nervously, and gnawed his finger-nails.
+
+"There _was_ issue of the marriage," he snapped. "She was--my
+ancestress."
+
+"Ah!" Dr. Cairn's grey eyes lighted up momentarily. "We get to the
+facts! Why was this birth kept secret?"
+
+"Dhoon Castle has kept many secrets!" It was a grim noble of the
+Middle Ages who was speaking. "For a Lashmore, there was no difficulty
+in suppressing the facts, arranging a hasty second marriage and
+representing the boy as the child of the later union. Had the second
+marriage proved fruitful, this had been unnecessary; but an heir to
+Dhoon was--essential."
+
+"I see. Had the second marriage proved fruitful, the child of Mirza
+would have been--what shall we say?--smothered?"
+
+"Damn it! What do you mean?"
+
+"He was the rightful heir."
+
+"Dr. Cairn," said Lashmore slowly, "you are probing an open wound. The
+fourth Baron Lashmore represents what the world calls 'The Curse of
+the House of Dhoon.' At Dhoon Castle there is a secret chamber, which
+has engaged the pens of many so-called occultists, but which no man,
+save every heir, has entered for generations. It's very location is a
+secret. Measurements do not avail to find it. You would appear to know
+much of my family's black secret; perhaps you know where that room
+lies at Dhoon?"
+
+"Certainly, I do," replied Dr. Cairn calmly; "it is under the moat,
+some thirty yards west of the former drawbridge."
+
+Lord Lashmore changed colour. When he spoke again his voice had lost
+its _timbre_.
+
+"Perhaps you know--what it contains."
+
+"I do. It contains Paul, fourth Baron Lashmore, son of Mirza, the
+Polish Jewess!"
+
+Lord Lashmore reseated himself in the big armchair, staring at the
+speaker, aghast.
+
+"I thought no other in the world knew that!" he said, hollowly. "Your
+studies have been extensive indeed. For three years--three whole years
+from the night of my twenty-first birthday--the horror hung over me,
+Dr. Cairn. It ultimately brought my grandfather to the madhouse, but
+my father was of sterner stuff, and so, it seems, was I. After those
+three years of horror I threw off the memories of Paul Dhoon, the
+third baron--"
+
+"It was on the night of your twenty-first birthday that you were
+admitted to the subterranean room?"
+
+"You know so much, Dr. Cairn, that you may as well know all."
+Lashmore's face was twitching. "But you are about to hear what no man
+has ever heard from the lips of one of my family before."
+
+He stood up again, restlessly.
+
+"Nearly thirty-five years have elapsed," he resumed, "since that
+December night; but my very soul trembles now, when I recall it! There
+was a big house-party at Dhoon, but I had been prepared, for some
+weeks, by my father, for the ordeal that awaited me. Our family
+mystery is historical, and there were many fearful glances bestowed
+upon me, when, at midnight, my father took me aside from the company
+and led me to the old library. By God! Dr. Cairn--fearful as these
+reminiscences are, it is a relief to relate them--to _someone_!"
+
+A sort of suppressed excitement was upon Lashmore, but his voice
+remained low and hollow.
+
+"He asked me," he continued, "the traditional question: if I had
+prayed for strength. God knows I had! Then, his stern face very pale,
+he locked the library door, and from a closet concealed beside the
+ancient fireplace--a closet which, hitherto, I had not known to
+exist--he took out a bulky key of antique workmanship. Together we set
+to work to remove all the volumes from one of the bookshelves.
+
+"Even when the shelves were empty, it called for our united efforts to
+move the heavy piece of furniture; but we accomplished the task
+ultimately, making visible a considerable expanse of panelling. Nearly
+forty years had elapsed since that case had been removed, and the
+carvings which it concealed were coated with all the dust which had
+accumulated there since the night of my father's coming of age.
+
+"A device upon the top of the centre panel represented the arms of the
+family; the helm which formed part of the device projected like a
+knob. My father grasped it, turned it, and threw his weight against
+the seemingly solid wall. It yielded, swinging inward upon concealed
+hinges, and a damp, earthy smell came out into the library. Taking up
+a lamp, which he had in readiness, my father entered the cavity,
+beckoning me to follow.
+
+"I found myself descending a flight of rough steps, and the roof above
+me was so low that I was compelled to stoop. A corner was come to,
+passed, and a further flight of steps appeared beneath. At that time
+the old moat was still flooded, and even had I not divined as much
+from the direction of the steps, I should have known, at this point,
+that we were beneath it. Between the stone blocks roofing us in oozed
+drops of moisture, and the air was at once damp and icily cold.
+
+"A short passage, commencing at the foot of the steps, terminated
+before a massive, iron-studded door. My father placed the key in the
+lock, and holding the lamp above his head, turned and looked at me. He
+was deathly pale.
+
+"'Summon all your fortitude,' he said.
+
+"He strove to turn the key, but for a long time without success for
+the lock was rusty. Finally, however--he was a strong man--his efforts
+were successful. The door opened, and an indescribable smell came out
+into the passage. Never before had I met with anything like it; I have
+never met with it since."
+
+Lord Lashmore wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
+
+"The first thing," he resumed, "upon which the lamplight shone, was
+what appeared to be a blood-stain spreading almost entirely over one
+wall of the cell which I perceived before me. I have learnt since that
+this was a species of fungus, not altogether uncommon, but at the
+time, and in that situation, it shocked me inexpressibly.
+
+"But let me hasten to that which we were come to see--let me finish
+my story as quickly as may be. My father halted at the entrance to
+this frightful cell; his hand, with which he held the lamp above his
+head, was not steady; and over his shoulder I looked into the place
+and saw ... _him_.
+
+"Dr. Cairn, for three years, night and day, that spectacle haunted me;
+for three years, night and day, I seemed to have before my eyes the
+dreadful face--the bearded, grinning face of Paul Dhoon. He lay there
+upon the floor of the dungeon, his fists clenched and his knees drawn
+up as if in agony. He had lain there for generations; yet, as God is
+my witness, there was flesh on his bones.
+
+"Yellow and seared it was, and his joints protruded through it, but
+his features were yet recognisable--horribly, dreadfully,
+recognisable. His black hair was like a mane, long and matted, his
+eyebrows were incredibly heavy and his lashes overhung his cheekbones.
+The nails of his fingers ... no! I will spare you! But his teeth, his
+ivory gleaming teeth--with the two wolf-fangs fully revealed by that
+death-grin!...
+
+"An aspen stake was driven through his breast, pinning him to the
+earthern floor, and there he lay in the agonised attitude of one who
+had died by such awful means. Yet--that stake was not driven through
+his unhallowed body until a whole year after his death!
+
+"How I regained the library I do not remember. I was unable to rejoin
+the guests, unable to face my fellow-men for days afterwards. Dr.
+Cairn, for three years I feared--feared the world--feared
+sleep--feared myself above all; for I knew that I had in my veins the
+blood of a _vampire_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+
+There was a silence of some minutes' duration. Lord Lashmore sat
+staring straight before him, his fists clenched upon his knees. Then:
+
+"It was after death that the third baron developed--certain
+qualities?" inquired Dr. Cairn.
+
+"There were six cases of death in the district within twelve months,"
+replied Lashmore. "The gruesome cry of 'vampire' ran through the
+community. The fourth baron--son of Paul Dhoon--turned a deaf ear to
+these reports, until the mother of a child--a child who had
+died--traced a man, or the semblance of a man, to the gate of the
+Dhoon family vault. By night, secretly, the son of Paul Dhoon visited
+the vault, and found....
+
+"The body, which despite twelve months in the tomb, looked as it had
+looked in life, was carried to the dungeon--in the Middle Ages a
+torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world--and was
+submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour
+no supernatural visitant has troubled the district; but--"
+
+"But," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "the strain came from Mirza, the
+sorceress. What of her?"
+
+Lord Lashmore's eyes shone feverishly.
+
+"How do you know that she was a sorceress?" he asked, hoarsely. "These
+are family secrets."
+
+"They will remain so," Dr. Cairn answered. "But my studies have gone
+far, and I know that Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore,
+practised the Black Art in life, and became after death a ghoul. Her
+husband surprised her in certain detestable magical operations and
+struck her head off. He had suspected her for some considerable time,
+and had not only kept secret the birth of her son but had secluded
+the child from the mother. No heir resulting from his second marriage,
+however, the son of Mirza became Baron Lashmore, and after death
+became what his mother had been before him.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, the curse of the house of Dhoon will prevail until the
+Polish Jewess who originated it has been treated as her son was
+treated!"
+
+"Dr. Cairn, it is not known where her husband had her body concealed.
+He died without revealing the secret. Do you mean that the taint, the
+devil's taint, may recur--Oh, my God! do you want to drive me mad?"
+
+"I do not mean that after so many generations which have been free
+from it, the vampirism will arise again in your blood; but I mean that
+the spirit, the unclean, awful spirit of that vampire woman, is still
+earth-bound. The son was freed, and with him went the hereditary
+taint, it seems; but the mother was _not_ freed! Her body was
+decapitated, but her vampire soul cannot go upon its appointed course
+until the ancient ceremonial has been performed!"
+
+Lord Lashmore passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"You daze me, Dr. Cairn. In brief, what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that the spirit of Mirza is to this day loose upon the world,
+and is forced, by a deathless, unnatural longing to seek incarnation
+in a human body. It is such awful pariahs as this, Lord Lashmore, that
+constitute the danger of so-called spiritualism. Given suitable
+conditions, such a spirit might gain control of a human being."
+
+"Do you suggest that the spirit of the second lady--"
+
+"It is distinctly possible that she haunts her descendants. I seem to
+remember a tradition of Dhoon Castle, to the effect that births and
+deaths are heralded by a woman's mocking laughter?"
+
+"I, myself, heard it on the night--I became Lord Lashmore."
+
+"That is the spirit who was known, in life, as Mirza, Lady Lashmore!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"It is possible to gain control of such a being."
+
+"By what means?"
+
+"By unhallowed means; yet there are those who do not hesitate to
+employ them. The danger of such an operation is, of course, enormous."
+
+"I perceive, Dr. Cairn, that a theory, covering the facts of my recent
+experiences, is forming in your mind."
+
+"That is so. In order that I may obtain corroborative evidence, I
+should like to call at your place this evening. Suppose I come
+ostensibly to see Lady Lashmore?"
+
+Lord Lashmore was watching the speaker.
+
+"There is someone in my household whose suspicions you do not wish to
+arouse?" he suggested.
+
+"There is. Shall we make it nine o'clock?"
+
+"Why not come to dinner?"
+
+"Thanks all the same, but I think it would serve my purpose better if
+I came later."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son dined alone together in Half-Moon Street that
+night.
+
+"I saw Antony Ferrara in Regent Street to-day," said. Robert Cairn. "I
+was glad to see him."
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his heavy brows.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I was half afraid that he might have left London."
+
+"Paid a visit to Myra Duquesne in Inverness?"
+
+"It would not have surprised me."
+
+"Nor would it have surprised me, Rob, but I think he is stalking other
+game at present."
+
+Robert Cairn looked up quickly.
+
+"Lady Lashmore," he began--
+
+"Well?" prompted his father.
+
+"One of the Paul Pry brigade who fatten on scandal sent a veiled
+paragraph in to us at _The Planet_ yesterday, linking Ferrara's name
+with Lady Lashmores.' Of course we didn't use it; he had come to the
+wrong market; but--Ferrara was with Lady Lashmore when I met him
+to-day."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"It is not necessarily significant, of course; Lord Lashmore in all
+probability will outlive Ferrara, who looked even more pallid than
+usual."
+
+"You regard him as an utterly unscrupulous fortune-hunter?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Did Lady Lashmore appear to be in good health?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+A silence fell, of some considerable duration, then:
+
+"Antony Ferrara is a menace to society," said Robert Cairn. "When I
+meet the reptilian glance of those black eyes of his and reflect upon
+what the man has attempted--what he has done--my blood boils. It is
+tragically funny to think that in our new wisdom we have abolished the
+only laws that could have touched him! He could not have existed in
+Ancient Chaldea, and would probably have been burnt at the stake even
+under Charles II.; but in this wise twentieth century he dallies in
+Regent Street with a prominent society beauty and laughs in the face
+of a man whom he has attempted to destroy!"
+
+"Be very wary," warned Dr. Cairn. "Remember that if you died
+mysteriously to-morrow, Ferrara would be legally immune. We must wait,
+and watch. Can you return here to-night, at about ten o'clock?"
+
+"I think I can manage to do so--yes."
+
+"I shall expect you. Have you brought up to date your record of those
+events which we know of, together with my notes and explanations?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I spent last evening upon the notes."
+
+"There may be something to add. This record, Rob, one day will be a
+weapon to destroy an unnatural enemy. I will sign two copies to-night
+and lodge one at my bank."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAUGHTER
+
+
+Lady Lashmore proved to be far more beautiful than Dr. Cairn had
+anticipated. She was a true brunette with a superb figure and eyes
+like the darkest passion flowers. Her creamy skin had a golden
+quality, as though it had absorbed within its velvet texture something
+of the sunshine of the South.
+
+She greeted Dr. Cairn without cordiality.
+
+"I am delighted to find you looking so well, Lady Lashmore," said the
+doctor. "Your appearance quite confirms my opinion."
+
+"Your opinion of what, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of the nature of your recent seizure. Sir Elwin Groves invited my
+opinion and I gave it."
+
+Lady Lashmore paled perceptibly.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, I know," she said, "was greatly concerned, but indeed
+it was nothing serious--"
+
+"I quite agree. It was due to nervous excitement."
+
+Lady Lashmore held a fan before her face.
+
+"There have been recent happenings," she said--"as no doubt you are
+aware--which must have shaken anyone's nerves. Of course, I am
+familiar with your reputation, Dr. Cairn, as a psychical
+specialist--?"
+
+"Pardon me, but from whom have you learnt of it?"
+
+"From Mr. Ferrara," she answered simply. "He has assured me that you
+are the greatest living authority upon such matters."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned his head aside.
+
+"Ah!" he said grimly.
+
+"And I want to ask you a question," continued Lady Lashmore. "Have you
+any idea, any idea at all respecting the cause of the wounds upon my
+husband's throat? Do you think them due to--something supernatural?"
+
+Her voice shook, and her slight foreign accent became more marked.
+
+"Nothing is supernatural," replied Dr. Cairn; "but I think they are
+due to something supernormal. I would suggest that possibly you have
+suffered from evil dreams recently?"
+
+Lady Lashmore started wildly, and her eyes opened with a sort of
+sudden horror.
+
+"How can you know?" she whispered. "How can you know! Oh, Dr. Cairn!"
+She laid her hand upon his arm--"if you can prevent those dreams; if
+you can assure me that I shall never dream them again--!"
+
+It was a plea and a confession. This was what had lain behind her
+coldness--this horror which she had not dared to confide in another.
+
+"Tell me," he said gently. "You have dreamt these dreams twice?"
+
+She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder for his knowledge.
+
+"On the occasions of your husband's illnesses?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"What did you dream?"
+
+"Oh! can I, dare I tell you!--"
+
+"You must."
+
+There was pity in his voice.
+
+"I dreamt that I lay in some very dark cavern. I could hear the sea
+booming, apparently over my head. But above all the noise a voice was
+audible, calling to me--not by name; I cannot explain in what way; but
+calling, calling imperatively. I seemed to be clothed but scantily, in
+some kind of ragged garments; and upon my knees I crawled toward the
+voice, through a place where there were other living things that
+crawled also--things with many legs and clammy bodies...."
+
+She shuddered and choked down an hysterical sob that was half a laugh.
+
+"My hair hung dishevelled about me and in some inexplicable way--oh!
+am I going mad!--my head seemed to be detached from my living body! I
+was filled with a kind of unholy anger which I cannot describe. Also,
+I was consumed with thirst, and this thirst...."
+
+"I think I understand," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "What followed?"
+
+"An interval--quite blank--after which I dreamt again. Dr. Cairn, I
+_cannot_ tell you of the dreadful, the blasphemous and foul thoughts,
+that then possessed me! I found myself resisting--resisting--something,
+some power that was dragging me back to that foul cavern with my thirst
+unslaked! I was frenzied; I dare not name, I tremble to think, of the
+ideas which filled my mind. Then, again came a blank, and I awoke."
+
+She sat trembling. Dr. Cairn noted that she avoided his gaze.
+
+"You awoke," he said, "on the first occasion, to find that your
+husband had met with a strange and dangerous accident?"
+
+"There was--something else."
+
+Lady Lashmore's voice had become a tremulous whisper.
+
+"Tell me; don't be afraid."
+
+She looked up; her magnificent eyes were wild with horror.
+
+"I believe you know!" she breathed. "Do you?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded.
+
+"And on the second occasion," he said, "you awoke earlier?"
+
+Lady Lashmore slightly moved her head.
+
+"The dream was identical?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excepting these two occasions, you never dreamt it before?"
+
+"I dreamt _part_ of it on several other occasions; or only remembered
+part of it on waking."
+
+"Which part?"
+
+"The first; that awful cavern--"
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore--you have recently been present at a
+spiritualistic _séance_."
+
+She was past wondering at his power of inductive reasoning, and merely
+nodded.
+
+"I suggest--I do not know--that the _séance_ was held under the
+auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement."
+
+Another affirmative nod answered him.
+
+"You proved to be mediumistic?"
+
+It was admitted.
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore"--Dr. Cairn's face was very stern--"I will
+trouble you no further."
+
+He prepared to depart; when--
+
+"Dr. Cairn!" whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, "some dreadful
+thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe
+with all my soul, has come to me. Oh--for pity's sake, give me a word
+of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell
+me--"
+
+At the door, he turned.
+
+"Be brave," he said--and went out.
+
+Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her
+beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he
+had not even told her to hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes
+before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face,
+habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm.
+But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the
+hand.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said, quietly; "I shall be all right in a moment.
+But I have just left a woman--a young woman and a beautiful
+woman--whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind
+refuses to contemplate."
+
+Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father.
+
+"Make out a report of the following facts," continued the latter,
+beginning to pace up and down the room.
+
+He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of
+Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and
+Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.
+
+"And now," said the doctor, "for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish
+Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life
+and became, after death, a ghoul--one who sustained an unholy
+existence by unholy means--a vampire."
+
+"But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle
+Ages!"
+
+"Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland
+where there are--certain relics, which would for ever settle your
+doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son
+of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his
+mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional,
+and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.
+
+"It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was
+decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the
+unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease,
+from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body
+could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the
+evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more
+suitable.
+
+"Nurturing an implacable hatred against all of the house of Dhoon,
+that spirit, disembodied, would frequently be drawn to the
+neighbourhood of Mirza's descendants, both by hatred and by affinity.
+Two horrible desires of the Spirit Mirza would be gratified if a Dhoon
+could be made her victim--the desire for blood and the desire for
+vengeance! The fate of Lord Lashmore would be sealed if that spirit
+could secure incarnation!"
+
+Dr. Cairn paused, glancing at his son, who was writing at furious
+speed. Then--
+
+"A magician more mighty and more evil than Mirza ever was or could
+be," he continued, "a master of the Black Art, expelled a woman's
+spirit from its throne and temporarily installed in its place the
+blood-lustful spirit of Mirza!"
+
+"My God, sir!" cried Robert Cairn, and threw down his pencil. "I begin
+to understand!"
+
+"Lady Lashmore," said Dr. Cairn, "since she was weak enough to
+consent to be present at a certain _séance_, has, from time to time,
+been _possessed_; she has been possessed by the spirit of a vampire!
+Obedient to the nameless cravings of that control, she has sought out
+Lord Lashmore, the last of the House of Dhoon. The horrible attack
+made, a mighty will which, throughout her temporary incarnation, has
+held her like a hound in leash, has dragged her from her prey, has
+forced her to remove, from the garments clothing her borrowed body,
+all traces of the deed, and has cast her out again to the pit of
+abomination where her headless trunk was thrown by the third Baron
+Lashmore!
+
+"Lady Lashmore's brain retains certain memories. They have been
+received at the moment when possession has taken place and at the
+moment when the control has been cast out again. They thus are
+memories of some secret cavern near Dhoon Castle, where that headless
+but deathless body lies, and memories of the poignant moment when the
+vampire has been dragged back, her 'thirst unslaked,' by the ruling
+Will."
+
+"Merciful God!" muttered Robert Cairn, "Merciful God, can such things
+be!"
+
+"They can be--they are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with
+the matter," continued Dr. Cairn quietly. "One is to find that cavern
+and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who
+lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the
+permanent 'possession' of Lady Lashmore--is to get at the power which
+controls this disembodied spirit--kill Antony Ferrara!"
+
+Robert Cairn went to the sideboard, and poured out brandy with a
+shaking hand.
+
+"What's his object?" he whispered.
+
+Dr. Cairn shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Lady Lashmore would be the wealthiest widow in society," he replied.
+
+"_He_ will know now," continued the younger man unsteadily, "that you
+are up against him. Have you--"
+
+"I have told Lord Lashmore to lock, at night, not only his outer door
+but also that of his dressing-room. For the rest--?" he dropped into
+an easy-chair,--"I cannot face the facts, I--"
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+Dr. Cairn came to his feet as though he had been electrified; and as
+he raised the receiver to his ear, his son knew, by the expression on
+his face, from where the message came and something of its purport.
+
+"Come with me," was all that he said, when he had replaced the
+instrument on the table.
+
+They went out together. It was already past midnight, but a cab was
+found at the corner of Half-Moon Street, and within the space of five
+minutes they were at Lord Lashmore's house.
+
+Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no servants were to be
+seen.
+
+"They ran away, sir, out of the house," explained the man, huskily,
+"when it happened."
+
+Dr. Cairn delayed for no further questions, but raced upstairs, his
+son close behind him. Together they burst into Lord Lashmore's
+bedroom. But just within the door they both stopped, aghast.
+
+Sitting bolt upright in bed was Lord Lashmore, his face a dingy grey
+and his open eyes, though filming over, yet faintly alight with a
+stark horror ... dead. An electric torch was still gripped in his left
+hand.
+
+Bending over someone who lay upon the carpet near the bedside they
+perceived Sir Elwin Groves. He looked up. Some little of his usual
+self-possession had fled.
+
+"Ah, Cairn!" he jerked. "We've both come too late."
+
+The prostrate figure was that of Lady Lashmore, a loose kimono worn
+over her night-robe. She was white and still and the physician had
+been engaged in bathing a huge bruise upon her temple.
+
+"She'll be all right," said Sir Elwin; "she has sustained a tremendous
+blow, as you see. But Lord Lashmore--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stepped closer to the dead man.
+
+"Heart," he said. "He died of sheer horror."
+
+He turned to Chambers, who stood in the open doorway behind him.
+
+"The dressing-room door is open," he said. "I had advised Lord
+Lashmore to lock it."
+
+"Yes, sir; his lordship meant to, sir. But we found that the lock had
+been broken. It was to have been replaced to-morrow."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his son.
+
+"You hear?" he said. "No doubt you have some idea respecting which of
+the visitors to this unhappy house took the trouble to break that
+lock? It was to have been replaced to-morrow; hence the tragedy of
+to-night." He addressed Chambers again. "Why did the servants leave
+the house to-night?"
+
+The man was shaking pitifully.
+
+"It was the laughter, sir! the laughter! I can never forget it! I was
+sleeping in an adjoining room and I had the key of his lordship's door
+in case of need. But when I heard his lordship cry out--quick and
+loud, sir--like a man that's been stabbed--I jumped up to come to him.
+Then, as I was turning the doorknob--of my room, sir--someone,
+something, began to _laugh_! It was in here; it was in here,
+gentlemen! It wasn't--her ladyship; it wasn't like _any_ woman. I
+can't describe it; but it woke up every soul in the house."
+
+"When you came in?"
+
+"I daren't come in, sir! I ran downstairs and called up Sir Elwin
+Groves. Before he came, all the rest of the household huddled on their
+clothes and went away--"
+
+"It was I who found him," interrupted Sir Elwin--"as you see him now;
+with Lady Lashmore where she lies. I have 'phoned for nurses."
+
+"Ah!" said Dr. Cairn; "I shall come back, Groves, but I have a small
+matter to attend to."
+
+He drew his son from the room. On the stair:
+
+"You understand?" he asked. "The spirit of Mirza came to him again,
+clothed in his wife's body. Lord Lashmore felt the teeth at his
+throat, awoke instantly and struck out. As he did so, he turned the
+torch upon her, and recognised--his wife! His heart completed the
+tragedy, and so--to the laughter of the sorceress--passed the last of
+the house of Dhoon."
+
+The cab was waiting. Dr. Cairn gave an address in Piccadilly, and the
+two entered. As the cab moved off, the doctor took a revolver from his
+pocket, with some loose cartridges, charged the five chambers, and
+quietly replaced the weapon in his pocket again.
+
+One of the big doors of the block of chambers was found to be ajar,
+and a porter proved to be yet in attendance.
+
+"Mr. Ferrara?" began Dr. Cairn.
+
+"You are five minutes too late, sir," said the man. "He left by motor
+at ten past twelve. He's gone abroad, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CAIRO
+
+
+The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man's physical
+health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of
+condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his London
+appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by
+this series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had
+broken him up physically, where it might have left unscathed a more
+highly strung, though less physically vigorous man.
+
+Those who have passed through a nerve storm such as this which had
+laid him low will know that convalescence seems like a welcome
+awakening from a dreadful dream. It was indeed in a state between
+awaking and dreaming that Robert Cairn took counsel with his
+father--the latter more pale than was his wont and somewhat
+anxious-eyed--and determined upon an Egyptian rest-cure.
+
+"I have made it all right at the office, Rob," said Dr. Cairn. "In
+three weeks or so you will receive instructions at Cairo to write up a
+series of local articles. Until then, my boy, complete rest and--don't
+worry; above all, don't worry. You and I have passed through a
+saturnalia of horror, and you, less inured to horrors than I, have
+gone down. I don't wonder."
+
+"Where is Antony Ferrara?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head and his eyes gleamed with a sudden anger.
+"For God's sake don't mention his name!" he said. "That topic is
+taboo, Rob. I may tell you, however, that he has left England."
+
+In this unreal frame of mind, then, and as one but partly belonging to
+the world of things actual, Cairn found himself an invalid, who but
+yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said;
+found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the
+realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in
+the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed
+Shepheard's porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the
+platform.
+
+A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and
+mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid
+the bustle of the popular hotel.
+
+Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic.
+He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties
+had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an
+archæological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat
+bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of
+Cairn.
+
+"I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to
+the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again
+in no time."
+
+Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his
+glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew
+something, if but very little, of certain happenings in
+London--gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony
+Ferrara--he avoided any reference to them at the moment.
+
+Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the
+street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of
+the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which
+had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through
+the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and
+imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of
+beads, of fictitious "antiques," of sweetmeats, of what-not;
+fortune-tellers--and all that chattering horde which some obscure
+process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of
+Shepheard's, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and
+donkeys mingled, in the Shâria Kâmel Pasha. Voices American, voices
+Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged
+into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all
+unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his
+whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him
+and exactly what he wanted, and idling amid that unique throng is
+idleness _de luxe_.
+
+Sime watched him covertly, and saw that his face had acquired
+lines--lines which told of the fires through which he had passed.
+Something, it was evident--something horrible--had seared his mind.
+Considering the many indications of tremendous nervous disaster in
+Cairn, Sime wondered how near his companion had come to insanity, and
+concluded that he had stood upon the frontiers of that grim land of
+phantoms, and had only been plucked back in the eleventh hour.
+
+Cairn glanced around with a smile, from the group of hawkers who
+solicited his attention upon the pavement below.
+
+"This is a delightful scene," he said. "I could sit here for hours;
+but considering that it's some time after sunset it remains unusually
+hot, doesn't it?"
+
+"Rather!" replied Sime. "They are expecting _Khamsîn_--the hot wind,
+you know. I was up the river a week ago and we struck it badly in
+Assouan. It grew as black as night and one couldn't breathe for sand.
+It's probably working down to Cairo."
+
+"From your description I am not anxious to make the acquaintance of
+_Khamsîn_!"
+
+Sime shook his head, knocking out his pipe into the ash-tray.
+
+"This is a funny country," he said reflectively. "The most weird ideas
+prevail here to this day--ideas which properly belong to the Middle
+Ages. For instance"--he began to recharge the hot bowl--"it is not
+really time for _Khamsîn_, consequently the natives feel called upon
+to hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas
+on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are
+excavating in the Fayûm, you know), solemnly assured me yesterday
+that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian
+Nights' demon, who has arrived in Egypt!"
+
+He laughed gruffly, but Cairn was staring at him with a curious
+expression. Sime continued:
+
+"When I got to Cairo this evening I found news of the Efreet had
+preceded me. Honestly, Cairn, it is all over the town--the native
+town, I mean. All the shopkeepers in the Mûski are talking about it.
+If a puff of _Khamsîn_ should come, I believe they would permanently
+shut up shop and hide in their cellars--if they have any! I am rather
+hazy on modern Egyptian architecture."
+
+Cairn nodded his head absently.
+
+"You laugh," he said, "but the active force of a superstition--what we
+call a superstition--is sometimes a terrible thing."
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Eh!" The medical man had suddenly come uppermost; he recollected that
+this class of discussion was probably taboo.
+
+"You may doubt the existence of Efreets," continued Cairn, "but
+neither you nor I can doubt the creative power of thought. If a
+trained hypnotist, by sheer concentration, can persuade his subject
+that the latter sits upon the brink of a river fishing when actually
+he sits upon a platform in a lecture-room, what result should you
+expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea
+that an Efreet is visiting Egypt?"
+
+Sime stared in a dull way peculiar to him.
+
+"Rather a poser," he said. "I have a glimmer of a notion what you
+mean."
+
+"Don't you think--"
+
+"If you mean don't I think the result would be the creation of an
+Efreet, no, I don't!"
+
+"I hardly mean that, either," replied Cairn, "but this wave of
+superstition cannot be entirely unproductive; all that thought energy
+directed to one point--"
+
+Sime stood up.
+
+"We shall get out of our depth," he replied conclusively. He
+considered the ground of discussion an unhealthy one; this was the
+territory adjoining that of insanity.
+
+A fortune-teller from India proffered his services incessantly.
+
+"_Imshi_! _imshi_!" growled Sime.
+
+"Hold on," said Cairn smiling; "this chap is not an Egyptian; let us
+ask him if he has heard the rumour respecting the Efreet!"
+
+Sime reseated himself rather unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread
+his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his
+hypothetical client, but Cairn waved him aside.
+
+"I don't want my fortune told!" he said; "but I will give you your
+fee,"--with a smile at Sime--"for a few minutes' conversation."
+
+"Yes, sir, yes, sir!" The Indian was all attention.
+
+"Why"--Cairn pointed forensically at the fortune-teller--"why is
+_Khamsîn_ come so early this year?"
+
+The Indian spread his hands, palms upward.
+
+"How should I know?" he replied in his soft, melodious voice. "I am
+not of Egypt; I can only say what is told to me by the Egyptians."
+
+"And what is told to you?"
+
+Sime rested his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He
+was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet
+story from the Indian.
+
+"They tell me, sir,"--the man's voice sank musically low--"that a
+thing very evil"--he tapped a long brown finger upon his breast--"not
+as I am"--he tapped Sime upon the knee--"not as he, your friend"--he
+thrust the long finger at Cairn--"not as you, sir; not a man at all,
+though something like a man! not having any father and mother--"
+
+"You mean," suggested Sime, "a spirit?"
+
+The fortune-teller shook his head.
+
+"They tell me, sir, not a spirit--a man, but not as other men; a very,
+very bad man; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you
+call Wise ----"
+
+"Solomon?" suggested Cairn.
+
+"Yes, yes, Suleyman!--one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the
+demons from earth--one that he not found."
+
+"One he overlooked?" jerked Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he
+has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great
+desert--"
+
+"The Libyan Desert?" suggested Sime.
+
+The man shook, his head, seeking for words.
+
+"The Arabian Desert?"
+
+"No, no! Away beyond, far up in Africa"--he waved his long arms
+dramatically--"far, far up beyond the Sûdan."
+
+"The Sahara Desert?" proposed Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes! it is Sahara Desert!--come across the Sahara Desert, and is
+come to Khartûm."
+
+"How did he get there?" asked Cairn.
+
+The Indian shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I cannot say, but next he come to Wady Halfa, then he is in Assouan,
+and from Assouan he come down to Luxor! Yesterday an Egyptian friend
+told me _Khamsîn_ is in the Fayûm. Therefore _he_ is there--the man of
+evil--for he bring the hot wind with him."
+
+The Indian was growing impressive, and two American tourists stopped
+to listen to his words.
+
+"To-night--to-morrow,"--he spoke now almost in a whisper, glancing
+about him as if apprehensive of being overheard--"he may be here, in
+Cairo, bringing with him the scorching breath of the desert--the
+scorpion wind!"
+
+He stood up, casting off the mystery with which he had invested his
+story, and smiling insinuatingly. His work was done; his fee was due.
+Sime rewarded him with five piastres, and he departed, bowing.
+
+"You know, Sime--" Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while
+after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and
+rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below--"you know, if a
+man--anyone, could take advantage of such a wave of thought as this
+which is now sweeping through Egypt--if he could cause it to
+concentrate upon him, as it were, don't you think that it would
+enable him to transcend the normal, to do phenomenal things?"
+
+"By what process should you propose to make yourself such a focus?"
+
+"I was speaking impersonally, Sime. It might be possible--"
+
+"It might be possible to dress for dinner," snapped Sime, "if we shut
+up talking nonsense! There's a carnival here to-night; great fun.
+Suppose we concentrate our brain-waves on another Scotch and soda?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MASK OF SET
+
+
+Above the palm trees swept the jewelled vault of Egypt's sky, and set
+amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps; fairy
+lanterns outlined the winding paths and paper Japanese lamps hung
+dancing in long rows, whilst in the centre of the enchanted garden a
+fountain spurned diamond spray high in the air, to fall back coolly
+plashing into the marble home of the golden carp. The rustling of
+innumerable feet upon the sandy pathway and the ceaseless murmur of
+voices, with pealing laughter rising above all, could be heard amid
+the strains of the military band ensconced in a flower-covered arbour.
+
+Into the brightly lighted places and back into the luminous shadows
+came and went fantastic forms. Sheikhs there were with flowing robes,
+dragomans who spoke no Arabic, Sultans and priests of Ancient Egypt,
+going arm-in-arm. Dancing girls of old Thebes, and harem ladies in
+silken trousers and high-heeled red shoes. Queens of Babylon and
+Cleopatras, many Geishas and desert Gypsies mingled, specks in a giant
+kaleidoscope. The thick carpet of confetti rustled to the tread; girls
+ran screaming before those who pursued them armed with handfuls of the
+tiny paper disks. Pipers of a Highland regiment marched piping through
+the throng, their Scottish kilts seeming wildly incongruous amid such
+a scene. Within the hotel, where the mosque lanterns glowed, one might
+catch a glimpse of the heads of dancers gliding shadowlike.
+
+"A tremendous crowd," said Sime, "considering it is nearly the end of
+the season."
+
+Three silken ladies wearing gauzy white _yashmaks_ confronted Cairn
+and the speaker. A gleaming of jewelled fingers there was and Cairn
+found himself half-choked with confetti, which filled his eyes, his
+nose, his ears, and of which quite a liberal amount found access to
+his mouth. The three ladies of the _yashmak_ ran screaming from their
+vengeance-seeking victims, Sime pursuing two, and Cairn hard upon the
+heels of the third. Amid this scene of riotous carnival all else was
+forgotten, and only the madness, the infectious madness of the night,
+claimed his mind. In and out of the strangely attired groups darted
+his agile quarry, all but captured a score of times, but always
+eluding him.
+
+Sime he had hopelessly lost, as around fountain and flower-bed, arbour
+and palm trunk he leapt in pursuit of the elusive _yashmak_.
+
+Then, in a shadowed corner of the garden, he trapped her. Plunging his
+hand into the bag of confetti, which he carried, he leapt, exulting,
+to his revenge: when a sudden gust of wind passed sibilantly through
+the palm tops, and glancing upward, Cairn saw that the blue sky was
+overcast and the stars gleaming dimly, as through a veil. That moment
+of hesitancy proved fatal to his project, for with a little excited
+scream the girl dived under his outstretched arm and fled back towards
+the fountain. He turned to pursue again, when a second puff of wind,
+stronger than the first, set waving the palm fronds and showered dry
+leaves upon the confetti carpet of the garden. The band played loudly,
+the murmur of conversation rose to something like a roar, but above it
+whistled the increasing breeze, and there was a sort of grittiness in
+the air.
+
+Then, proclaimed by a furious lashing of the fronds above, burst the
+wind in all its fury. It seemed to beat down into the garden in waves
+of heat. Huge leaves began to fall from the tree tops and the
+mast-like trunks bent before the fury from the desert. The atmosphere
+grew hazy with impalpable dust; and the stars were wholly obscured.
+
+Commenced a stampede from the garden. Shrill with fear, rose a woman's
+scream from the heart of the throng:
+
+"A scorpion! a scorpion!"
+
+Panic threatened, but fortunately the doors were wide, so that,
+without disaster the whole fantastic company passed into the hotel;
+and even the military band retired.
+
+Cairn perceived that he alone remained in the garden, and glancing
+along the path in the direction of the fountain, he saw a blotchy drab
+creature, fully four inches in length, running zigzag towards him. It
+was a huge scorpion; but, even as he leapt forward to crush it, it
+turned and crept in amid the tangle of flowers beside the path, where
+it was lost from view.
+
+The scorching wind grew momentarily fiercer, and Cairn, entering
+behind a few straggling revellers, found something ominous and
+dreadful in its sudden fury. At the threshold, he turned and looked
+back upon the gaily lighted garden. The paper lamps were thrashing in
+the wind, many extinguished; others were in flames; a number of
+electric globes fell from their fastenings amid the palm tops, and
+burst bomb-like upon the ground. The pleasure garden was now a
+battlefield, beset with dangers, and he fully appreciated the anxiety
+of the company to get within doors. Where chrysanthemum and _yashmak_
+turban and _tarboosh_, uraeus and Indian plume had mingled gaily, no
+soul remained; but yet--he was in error ... someone did remain.
+
+As if embodying the fear that in a few short minutes had emptied the
+garden, out beneath the waving lanterns, the flying _débris_, the
+whirling dust, pacing sombrely from shadow to light, and to shadow
+again, advancing towards the hotel steps, came the figure of one
+sandalled, and wearing the short white tunic of Ancient Egypt. His
+arms were bare, and he carried a long staff; but rising hideously upon
+his shoulders was a crocodile-mask, which seemed to grin--the mask of
+Set, Set the Destroyer, God of the underworld.
+
+Cairn, alone of all the crowd, saw the strange figure, for the reason
+that Cairn alone faced towards the garden. The gruesome mask seemed to
+fascinate him; he could not take his gaze from that weird advancing
+god; he felt impelled hypnotically to stare at the gleaming eyes set
+in the saurian head. The mask was at the foot of the steps, and still
+Cairn stood rigid. When, as the sandalled foot was set upon the first
+step, a breeze, dust-laden, and hot as from a furnace door, blew fully
+into the hotel, blinding him. A chorus arose from the crowd at his
+back; and many voices cried out for doors to be shut. Someone tapped
+him on the shoulder, and spun him about.
+
+"By God!"--it was Sime who now had him by the arm--"_Khamsîn_ has come
+with a vengeance! They tell me that they have never had anything like
+it!"
+
+The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night
+was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the
+building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back
+across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors
+and windows.
+
+"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.
+
+Sime stared in his dull fashion.
+
+"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask
+of Set--he was coming in just behind me."
+
+Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into
+the deserted garden.
+
+"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCORPION WIND
+
+
+This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
+mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
+in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework
+display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of
+the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the
+pleasure-seekers that _Khamsîn_ raged without--raged with a violence
+unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a
+full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.
+
+But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had
+long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the
+advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown
+even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious;
+safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and
+laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets.
+
+"Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to
+Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now."
+
+"Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late,
+this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected."
+
+The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more
+enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the
+company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators.
+
+Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the
+American Bar.
+
+"I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime.
+
+"A 'tango' is--?"
+
+"A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this
+buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you."
+
+Cairn smiled rather wanly.
+
+"I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that
+confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat."
+
+Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant.
+
+"You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that
+there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago."
+
+"Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail
+manufacturer, "suppose there were--what about it?"
+
+"Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him."
+
+"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have
+removed his mask?"
+
+Cairn shook his head slowly.
+
+"I don't think so," he declared; "I haven't seen him anywhere in the
+hotel."
+
+"Seen him?" Sime turned his dull gaze upon the speaker. "How should
+you know him?"
+
+Cairn raised his hand to his forehead in an oddly helpless way.
+
+"No, of course not--it's very extraordinary."
+
+They took their seats at a small table, and in mutual silence loaded
+and lighted their pipes. Sime, in common with many young and
+enthusiastic medical men, had theories--theories of that revolutionary
+sort which only harsh experience can shatter. Secretly he was disposed
+to ascribe all the ills to which flesh is heir primarily to a
+disordered nervous system. It was evident that Cairn's mind
+persistently ran along a particular groove; something lay back of all
+this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the Mask of Set with a
+curious individuality.
+
+"I gather that you had a stiff bout of it in London?" Sime said
+suddenly.
+
+Cairn nodded.
+
+"Beastly stiff. There is a lot of sound reason in your nervous theory,
+Sime. It was touch and go with me for days, I am told; yet,
+pathologically, I was a hale man. That would seem to show how nerves
+can kill. Just a series of shocks--horrors--one piled upon another,
+did as much for me as influenza, pneumonia, and two or three other
+ailments together could have done."
+
+Sime shook his head wisely; this was in accordance with his ideas.
+
+"You know Antony Ferrara?" continued Cairn. "Well, he has done this
+for me. His damnable practices are worse than any disease. Sime, the
+man is a pestilence! Although the law cannot touch him, although no
+jury can convict him--he is a murderer. He controls--forces--"
+
+Sime was watching him intently.
+
+"It will give you some idea, Sime, of the pitch to which things had
+come, when I tell you that my father drove to Ferrara's rooms one
+night, with a loaded revolver in his pocket--"
+
+"For"--Sime hesitated--"for protection?"
+
+"No." Cairn leant forward across the table--"to shoot him, Sime, shoot
+him on sight, as one shoots a mad dog!"
+
+"Are you serious?"
+
+"As God is my witness, if Antony Ferrara had been in his rooms that
+night, my father would have killed him!"
+
+"It would have been a shocking scandal."
+
+"It would have been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara
+from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest
+reward. He is unfit to live. Sometimes I cannot believe that he does
+live; I expect to wake up and find that he was a figure of a
+particularly evil dream."
+
+"This incident--the call at his rooms--occurred just before your
+illness?"
+
+"The thing which he had attempted that night was the last straw, Sime;
+it broke me down. From the time that he left Oxford, Antony Ferrara
+has pursued a deliberate course of crime, of crime so cunning, so
+unusual, and based upon such amazing and unholy knowledge that no
+breath of suspicion has touched him. Sime, you remember a girl I told
+you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"
+
+Sime nodded slowly.
+
+"Well--he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
+in the hospital."
+
+"_How_ had he killed her, then?"
+
+"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
+Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her--and he killed
+his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"
+
+Sime watched him, but offered no comment.
+
+"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
+used against him."
+
+"_Existing_ law?"
+
+"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that _could_ have reached him; but
+he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"
+
+"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
+about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"
+
+"He does. So would you--you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
+moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
+sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
+night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
+buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill _me_! He projected--things--"
+
+"Suggested these--things, to your mind?"
+
+"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt--pah!--I seem
+to smell them now!--beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
+of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
+Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
+him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
+death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."
+
+"Yes--heart."
+
+"It was his heart, yes--but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
+business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
+revolver in his pocket."
+
+The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
+with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
+popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
+representative of many ages and many nationalities.
+
+"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
+sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
+expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
+you say is true--and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
+we know of the nervous system--literally took a viper to his bosom."
+
+"He did. Antony Ferrara was his adopted son, of course; God knows to
+what evil brood he really belongs."
+
+Both were silent for a while. Then:
+
+"Gracious heavens!"
+
+Cairn started to his feet so wildly as almost to upset the table.
+
+"Look, Sime! look!" he cried.
+
+Sime was not the only man in the bar to hear, and to heed his words.
+Sime, looking in the direction indicated by Cairn's extended finger,
+received a vague impression that a grotesque, long-headed figure had
+appeared momentarily in the doorway opening upon the room where the
+dancers were; then it was gone again, if it had ever been there, and
+he was supporting Cairn, who swayed dizzily, and had become ghastly
+pale. Sime imagined that the heated air had grown suddenly even more
+heated. Curious eyes were turned upon, his companion, who now sank
+back into his chair, muttering:
+
+"The Mask, the Mask!"
+
+"I think I saw the chap who seems to worry you so much," said Sime
+soothingly. "Wait here; I will tell the waiter to bring you a dose of
+brandy; and whatever you do, don't get excited."
+
+He made for the door, pausing and giving an order to a waiter on his
+way, and pushed into the crowd outside. It was long past midnight, and
+the gaiety, which had been resumed, seemed of a forced and feverish
+sort. Some of the visitors were leaving, and a breath of hot wind
+swept in from the open doors.
+
+A pretty girl wearing a _yashmak_, who, with two similarly attired
+companions, was making her way to the entrance, attracted his
+attention; she seemed to be on the point of swooning. He recognised
+the trio for the same that had pelted Cairn and himself with confetti
+earlier in the evening.
+
+"The sudden heat has affected your friend," he said, stepping up to
+them. "My name is Dr. Sime; may I offer you my assistance?"
+
+The offer was accepted, and with the three he passed out on to the
+terrace, where the dust grated beneath the tread, and helped the
+fainting girl into an _arabîyeh_. The night was thunderously black,
+the heat almost insufferable, and the tall palms in front of the hotel
+bowed before the might of the scorching wind.
+
+As the vehicle drove off, Sime stood for a moment looking after it.
+His face was very grave, for there was a look in the bright eyes of
+the girl in the _yashmak_ which, professionally, he did not like.
+Turning up the steps, he learnt from the manager that several visitors
+had succumbed to the heat. There was something furtive in the manner
+of his informant's glance, and Sime looked at him significantly.
+
+"_Khamsîn_ brings clouds of septic dust with it," he said. "Let us
+hope that these attacks are due to nothing more than the unexpected
+rise in the temperature."
+
+An air of uneasiness prevailed now throughout the hotel. The wind had
+considerably abated, and crowds were leaving, pouring from the steps
+into the deserted street, a dreamlike company.
+
+Colonel Royland took Sime aside, as the latter was making his way back
+to the buffet. The Colonel, whose regiment was stationed at the
+Citadel, had known Sime almost from childhood.
+
+"You know, my boy," he said, "I should never have allowed Eileen" (his
+daughter) "to remain in Cairo, if I had foreseen this change in the
+weather. This infernal wind, coming right through the native town, is
+loaded with infection."
+
+"Has it affected her, then?" asked Sime anxiously.
+
+"She nearly fainted in the ball-room," replied the Colonel. "Her
+mother took her home half an hour ago. I looked for you everywhere,
+but couldn't find you."
+
+"Quite a number have succumbed," said Sime.
+
+"Eileen seemed to be slightly hysterical," continued the Colonel. "She
+persisted that someone wearing a crocodile mask had been standing
+beside her at the moment that she was taken ill."
+
+Sime started; perhaps Cairn's story was not a matter of imagination
+after all.
+
+"There is someone here, dressed like that, I believe," he replied,
+with affected carelessness. "He seems to have frightened several
+people. Any idea who he is?"
+
+"My dear chap!" cried the Colonel, "I have been searching the place
+for him! But I have never once set eyes upon him. I was about to ask
+if _you_ knew anything about it!"
+
+Sime returned to the table where Cairn was sitting. The latter seemed
+to have recovered somewhat; but he looked far from well. Sime stared
+at him critically.
+
+"I should turn in," he said, "if I were you. _Khamsîn_ is playing the
+deuce with people. I only hope it does not justify its name and blow
+for fifty days."
+
+"Have you seen the man in the mask!" asked Cairn.
+
+"No," replied Sime, "but he's here alright; others have seen him."
+
+Cairn stood up rather unsteadily, and with Sime made his way through
+the moving crowd to the stairs. The band was still playing, but the
+cloud of gloom which had settled upon the place, refused to be
+dissipated.
+
+"Good-night, Cairn," said Sime, "see you in the morning."
+
+Robert Cairn, with aching head and a growing sensation of nausea,
+paused on the landing, looking down into the court below. He could not
+disguise from himself that he felt ill, not nervously ill as in
+London, but physically sick. This superheated air was difficult to
+breathe; it seemed to rise in waves from below.
+
+Then, from a weary glancing at the figures beneath him, his attitude
+changed to one of tense watching.
+
+A man, wearing the crocodile mask of Set, stood by a huge urn
+containing a palm, looking up to the landing!
+
+Cairn's weakness left him, and in its place came an indescribable
+anger, a longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned
+and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy.
+Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the
+direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not
+run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The
+figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn
+swung open the door, his quarry had vanished.
+
+Then, in an _arabîyeh_ just driving off, he detected the hideous mask.
+Hatless as he was, he ran down the steps and threw himself into
+another. The carriage-controller was in attendance, and Cairn rapidly
+told him to instruct the driver to follow the _arabîyeh_ which had
+just left. The man lashed up his horses, turned the carriage, and went
+galloping on after the retreating figure. Past the Esbekîya Gardens
+they went, through several narrow streets, and on to the quarter of
+the Mûski. Time after time he thought he had lost the carriage ahead,
+but his own driver's knowledge of the tortuous streets enabled him
+always to overtake it again. They went rocking along lanes so narrow
+that with outstretched arms one could almost have touched the walls on
+either side; past empty shops and unlighted houses. Cairn had not the
+remotest idea of his whereabouts, save that he was evidently in the
+district of the bazaars. A right-angled corner was abruptly
+negotiated--and there, ahead of him, stood the pursued vehicle! The
+driver was turning his horses around, to return; his fare was
+disappearing from sight into the black shadows of a narrow alley on
+the left.
+
+Cairn leaped from the _arabîyeh_, shouting to the man to wait, and
+went dashing down the sloping lane after the retreating figure. A sort
+of blind fury possessed him, but he never paused to analyse it, never
+asked himself by what right he pursued this man, what wrong the latter
+had done him. His action was wholly unreasoning; he knew that he
+wished to overtake the wearer of the mask and to tear it from his
+head; upon that he acted!
+
+He discovered that despite the tropical heat of the night, he was
+shuddering with cold, but he disregarded this circumstance, and ran
+on.
+
+The pursued stopped before an iron-studded door, which was opened
+instantly; he entered as the runner came up with him. And, before the
+door could be reclosed, Cairn thrust his way in.
+
+Blackness, utter blackness, was before him. The figure which he had
+pursued seemed to have been swallowed up. He stumbled on, gropingly,
+hands outstretched, then fell--fell, as he realised in the moment of
+falling, down a short flight of stone steps.
+
+Still amid utter blackness, he got upon his feet, shaken but otherwise
+unhurt by his fall. He turned about, expecting to see some glimmer of
+light from the stairway, but the blackness was unbroken. Silence and
+gloom hemmed him in. He stood for a moment, listening intently.
+
+A shaft of light pierced the darkness, as a shutter was thrown open.
+Through an iron-barred window the light shone; and with the light came
+a breath of stifling perfume. That perfume carried his imagination
+back instantly to a room at Oxford, and he advanced and looked through
+into the place beyond. He drew a swift breath, clutched the bars, and
+was silent--stricken speechless.
+
+He looked into a large and lofty room, lighted by several hanging
+lamps. It had a carpeted divan at one end and was otherwise scantily
+furnished, in the Eastern manner. A silver incense-burner smoked upon
+a large praying-carpet, and by it stood the man in the crocodile mask.
+An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the
+shutters, was now helping him to remove the hideous head-dress.
+
+She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing
+from the man's shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the
+Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic,
+bare-legged and sandalled.
+
+The smoke of the incense curled upward and played around the straight,
+slim figure, drew vaporous lines about the still, ivory face--the
+handsome, sinister face, sometimes partly veiling the long black eyes
+and sometimes showing them in all their unnatural brightness. So the
+man stood, looking towards the barred window.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+"Ah, dear Cairn--" the husky musical voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
+the most hated sound in nature--"you have followed me. Not content
+with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo--my dear
+Cairo--untenable for me."
+
+Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.
+
+"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
+so harmful--to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
+extraordinary opinion that I was an _efreet_, and this strange
+reputation has followed me right down the Nile. Your father, my dear
+friend, has studied these odd matters, and he would tell you that
+there is no power, in Nature, higher than the human will. Actually,
+Cairn, they have ascribed to me the direction of the _Khamsîn_, and so
+many worthy Egyptians have made up their minds that I travel with the
+storm--or that the storm follows me--that something of the kind has
+really come to pass! Or is it merely coincidence, Cairn? Who can say?"
+
+Motionless, immobile, save for a slow smile, Antony Ferrara stood, and
+Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
+clutched the bars.
+
+"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
+_Khamsîn_, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
+season? I only arrived from the Fayûm this evening, Cairn, and, do you
+know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
+carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
+American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"
+
+Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
+his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
+his own, cursed the man who stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
+fell, and remembered no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"All right, old man--you'll do quite nicely now."
+
+It was Sime speaking.
+
+Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
+beside him.
+
+"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
+listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night--shut up! I
+followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
+the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
+the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
+steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
+among them. They were holding you--yes, you were raving pretty badly.
+You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"
+
+Cairn nodded weakly.
+
+"Saved you. Be all right in a couple of days. That damned _Khamsîn_
+has brought a whiff of the plague from somewhere! Curiously enough,
+over fifty per cent. of the cases spotted so far are people who were
+at the carnival! Some of them, Cairn--but we won't discuss that now. I
+was afraid of it, last night. That's why I kept my eye on you. My boy,
+you were delirious when you bolted out of the hotel!"
+
+"Was I?" said Cairn wearily, and lay back on the pillow. "Perhaps I
+was."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore,
+and as it swung away from the side of the liner sought to divert his
+thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene. Amid the smoky flare
+of many lights, amid rising clouds of dust, a line of laden toilers
+was crawling ant-like from the lighters into the bowels of the big
+ship; and a second line, unladen, was descending by another gangway.
+Above, the jewelled velvet of the sky swept in a glorious arc; beyond,
+the lights of Port Said broke through the black curtain of the night,
+and the moving ray from the lighthouse intermittently swept the
+harbour waters; whilst, amid the indescribable clamour, the grimily
+picturesque turmoil, so characteristic of the place, the liner took in
+coal for her run to Rangoon.
+
+Dodging this way and that, rounding the sterns of big ships, and
+disputing the water-way with lesser craft, the boat made for shore.
+
+The usual delay at the Custom House, the usual soothing of the excited
+officials in the usual way, and his _arabîyeh_ was jolting Dr. Cairn
+through the noise and the smell of those rambling streets, a noise and
+a smell entirely peculiar to this clearing-house of the Near East.
+
+He accepted the room which was offered to him at the hotel, without
+troubling to inspect it, and having left instructions that he was to
+be called in time for the early train to Cairo, he swallowed a whisky
+and soda at the buffet, and wearily ascended the stairs. There were
+tourists in the hotel, English and American, marked by a gaping
+wonderment, and loud with plans of sightseeing; but Port Said, nay all
+Egypt, had nothing of novelty to offer Dr. Cairn. He was there at
+great inconvenience; a practitioner of his repute may not easily
+arrange to quit London at a moment's notice. But the business upon
+which he was come was imperative. For him the charm of the place had
+not existence, but somewhere in Egypt his son stood in deadly peril,
+and Dr. Cairn counted the hours that yet divided them. His soul was up
+in arms against the man whose evil schemes had led to his presence in
+Port Said, at a time when many sufferers required his ministrations in
+Half-Moon Street. He was haunted by a phantom, a ghoul in human shape;
+Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of his dear friend, the adopted son,
+who had murdered his adopter, who whilst guiltless in the eyes of the
+law, was blood-guilty in the eyes of God!
+
+Dr. Cairn switched on the light and seated himself upon the side of
+the bed, knitting his brows and staring straight before him, with an
+expression in his clear grey eyes whose significance he would have
+denied hotly, had any man charged him with it. He was thinking of
+Antony Ferrara's record; the victims of this fiendish youth (for
+Antony Ferrara was barely of age) seemed to stand before him with
+hands stretched out appealingly.
+
+"You alone," they seemed to cry, "know who and what he is! You alone
+know of our awful wrongs; you alone can avenge them!"
+
+And yet he had hesitated! It had remained for his own flesh and blood
+to be threatened ere he had taken decisive action. The viper had lain
+within his reach, and he had neglected to set his heel upon it. Men
+and women had suffered and had died of its venom; and he had not
+crushed it. Then Robert, his son, had felt the poison fang, and Dr.
+Cairn, who had hesitated to act upon the behalf of all humanity, had
+leapt to arms. He charged himself with a parent's selfishness, and his
+conscience would hear no defence.
+
+Dimly, the turmoil from the harbour reached him where he sat. He
+listened dully to the hooting of a syren--that of some vessel coming
+out of the canal.
+
+His thoughts were evil company, and, with a deep sigh, he rose,
+crossed the room and threw open the double windows, giving access to
+the balcony.
+
+Port Said, a panorama of twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam
+from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly like the eye of some
+pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the
+shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbour; but the night
+was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from that gateway of the
+East. The streets below, white under the moon, looked empty and
+deserted, and the hotel beneath him gave up no sound to tell of the
+many birds of passage who sheltered within it. A stunning sense of his
+loneliness came to him; his physical loneliness was symbolic of that
+which characterised his place in the world. He, alone, had the
+knowledge and the power to crush Antony Ferrara. He, alone, could rid
+the world of the unnatural menace embodied in the person bearing that
+name.
+
+The town lay beneath his eyes, but now he saw nothing of it; before
+his mental vision loomed--exclusively--the figure of a slim and
+strangely handsome young man, having jet black hair, lustreless, a
+face of uniform ivory hue, long dark eyes wherein lurked lambent
+fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and
+emphasised by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand
+gleamed a strange green stone.
+
+Antony Ferrara! In the eyes of this solitary traveller, who stood
+looking down upon Port Said, that figure filled the entire landscape
+of Egypt!
+
+With a weary sigh, Dr. Cairn turned and began to undress. Leaving the
+windows open, he switched off the light and got into bed. He was very
+weary, with a weariness rather of the spirit than of the flesh, but it
+was of that sort which renders sleep all but impossible. Around and
+about one fixed point his thoughts circled; in vain he endeavoured to
+forget, for a while, Antony Ferrara and the things connected with him.
+Sleep was imperative, if he would be in fit condition to cope with the
+matters which demanded his attention in Cairo.
+
+Yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbour and the
+canal seemed to rise upon the still air to his room. Through a sort of
+mist created by the mosquito curtains, he could see the open windows,
+and look out upon the stars. He found himself studying the heavens
+with sleepless eyes, and idly working out the constellations visible.
+Then one very bright star attracted the whole of his attention, and,
+with the dogged persistency of insomnia, he sought to place it, but
+could not determine to which group it belonged.
+
+So he lay with his eyes upon the stars until the other veiled lamps of
+heaven became invisible, and the patch of sky no more than a setting
+for that one white orb.
+
+In this contemplation he grew restful; his thoughts ceased feverishly
+to race along that one hateful groove; the bright star seemed to
+soothe him. As a result of his fixed gazing, it now appeared to have
+increased in size. This was a common optical delusion, upon which he
+scarcely speculated at all. He recognised the welcome approach of
+sleep, and deliberately concentrated his mind upon the globe of light.
+
+Yes, a globe of light indeed--for now it had assumed the dimensions of
+a lesser moon; and it seemed to rest in the space between the open
+windows. Then, he thought that it crept still nearer. The
+realities--the bed, the mosquito curtain, the room--were fading, and
+grateful slumber approached, and weighed upon his eyes in the form of
+that dazzling globe. The feeling of contentment was the last
+impression which he had, ere, with the bright star seemingly suspended
+just beyond the netting, he slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+A man mentally over-tired sleeps either dreamlessly, or dreams with a
+vividness greater than that characterising the dreams of normal
+slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamt a vivid dream.
+
+He dreamt that he was awakened by the sound of a gentle rapping.
+Opening his eyes, he peered through the cloudy netting. He started up,
+and wrenched back the curtain. The rapping was repeated; and peering
+again across the room, he very distinctly perceived a figure upon the
+balcony by the open window. It was that of a woman who wore the black
+silk dress and the white _yashmak_ of the Moslem, and who was bending
+forward looking into the room.
+
+"Who is there?" he called. "What do you want?"
+
+"_S--sh_!"
+
+The woman raised her hand to her veiled lips, and looked right and
+left as if fearing to disturb the occupants of the adjacent rooms.
+
+Dr. Cairn reached out for his dressing-gown which lay upon the chair
+beside the bed, threw it over his shoulders, and stepped out upon the
+floor. He stooped and put on his slippers, never taking his eyes from
+the figure at the window. The room was flooded with moonlight.
+
+He began to walk towards the balcony, when the mysterious visitor
+spoke.
+
+"You are Dr. Cairn?"
+
+The words were spoken in the language of dreams; that is to say, that
+although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been
+uttered in the English language, nor in any language known to him;
+yet, as is the way with one who dreams, he had understood.
+
+"I am he," he said. "Who are you?"
+
+"Make no noise, but follow me quickly. Someone is very ill."
+
+There was sincerity in the appeal, spoken in the softest, most silvern
+tone which he had ever heard. He stood beside the veiled woman, and
+met the glance of her dark eyes with a consciousness of some magnetic
+force in the glance, which seemed to set his nerves quivering.
+
+"Why do you come to the window? How do you know--"
+
+The visitor raised her hand again to her lips. It was of a gleaming
+ivory colour, and the long tapered fingers were laden with singular
+jewellery--exquisite enamel work, which he knew to be Ancient
+Egyptian, but which did not seem out of place in this dream adventure.
+
+"I was afraid to make any unnecessary disturbance," she replied.
+"Please do not delay, but come at once."
+
+Dr. Cairn adjusted his dressing-gown, and followed the veiled
+messenger along the balcony. For a dream city, Port Said appeared
+remarkably substantial, as it spread out at his feet, its dingy
+buildings whitened by the moonlight. But his progress was dreamlike,
+for he seemed to glide past many windows, around the corner of the
+building, and, without having consciously exerted any physical effort,
+found his hands grasped by warm jewelled fingers, found himself guided
+into some darkened room, and then, possessed by that doubting which
+sometimes comes in dreams, found himself hesitating. The moonlight did
+not penetrate to the apartment in which he stood, and the darkness
+about him was impenetrable.
+
+But the clinging fingers did not release their hold, and vaguely aware
+that he was acting in a manner which might readily be misconstrued, he
+nevertheless allowed his unseen guide to lead him forward.
+
+Stairs were descended in phantom silence--many stairs. The coolness of
+the air suggested that they were outside the hotel. But the darkness
+remained complete. Along what seemed to be a stone-paved passage they
+advanced mysteriously, and by this time Dr. Cairn was wholly resigned
+to the strangeness of his dream.
+
+Then, although the place lay in blackest shadow, he saw that they were
+in the open air, for the starry sky swept above them.
+
+It was a narrow street--at points, the buildings almost met
+above--wherein, he now found himself. In reality, had he been in
+possession of his usual faculties, awake, he would have asked himself
+how this veiled woman had gained admittance to the hotel, and why she
+had secretly led him out from it. But the dreamer's mental lethargy
+possessed him, and, with the blind faith of a child, he followed on,
+until he now began vaguely to consider the personality of his guide.
+
+She seemed to be of no more than average height, but she carried
+herself with unusual grace, and her progress was marked by a certain
+hauteur. At the point where a narrow lane crossed that which they were
+traversing the veiled figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+light of the moon, and through the gauze-like fabric, he perceived the
+outlines of a perfect shape. His vague wonderment, concerned itself
+now with the ivory, jewel-laden hands. His condition differed from the
+normal dream state, in that he was not entirely resigned to the
+anomalous.
+
+Misty doubts were forming, when his dream guide paused before a heavy
+door of a typical native house which once had been of some
+consequence, and which faced the entrance to a mosque, indeed lay in
+the shadow of the minaret. It was opened from within, although she
+gave no perceptible signal, and its darkness, to Dr. Cairn's dulled
+perceptions, seemed to swallow them both up. He had an impression of a
+trap raised, of stone steps descended, of a new darkness almost
+palpable.
+
+The gloom of the place effected him as a mental blank, and, when a
+bright light shone out, it seemed to mark the opening of a second dream
+phase. From where the light came, he knew not, cared not, but it
+illuminated a perfectly bare room, with a floor of native mud bricks, a
+plastered wall, and wood-beamed ceiling. A tall sarcophagus stood
+upright against the wall before him; its lid leant close beside it ...
+and his black robed guide, her luminous eyes looking straightly over the
+yashmak, stood rigidly upright-within it!
+
+She raised the jewelled hands, and with a swift movement discarded
+robe and _yashmak_, and stood before him, in the clinging draperies of
+an ancient queen, wearing the leopard skin and the _uraeus_, and
+carrying the flail of royal Egypt!
+
+Her pale face formed a perfect oval; the long almond eyes had an evil
+beauty which seemed to chill; and the brilliantly red mouth was curved
+in a smile which must have made any man forget the evil in the eyes.
+But when we move in a dream world, our emotions become dreamlike too.
+She placed a sandalled foot upon the mud floor and stepped out of the
+sarcophagus, advancing towards Dr. Cairn, a vision of such sinful
+loveliness as he could never have conceived in his waking moments. In
+that strange dream language, in a tongue not of East nor West, she
+spoke; and her silvern voice had something of the tone of those
+Egyptian pipes whose dree fills the nights upon the Upper Nile--the
+seductive music of remote and splendid wickedness.
+
+"You know me, _now_?" she whispered.
+
+And in his dream she seemed to be a familiar figure, at once dreadful
+and worshipful.
+
+A fitful light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a
+curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The
+dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clue to
+the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of
+tarantula spiders with which the curtain was broidered.
+
+The sign of the spider! What did he know of it? Yes! of course; it was
+the secret mark of Egypt's witch-queen--of the beautiful woman whose
+name, after her mysterious death, had been erased from all her
+monuments. A sweet whisper stole to his ears:
+
+"You will befriend him, befriend my son--for _my_ sake."
+
+And in his dream-state he found himself prepared to foreswear all that
+he held holy--for her sake. She grasped both his hands, and her
+burning eyes looked closely into his.
+
+"Your reward shall be a great one," she whispered, even more softly.
+
+Came a sudden blank, and Dr. Cairn found himself walking again through
+the narrow street, led by the veiled woman. His impressions were
+growing dim; and now she seemed less real than hitherto. The streets
+were phantom streets, built of shadow stuff, and the stairs which
+presently he found himself ascending, were unsubstantial, and he
+seemed rather to float upward; until, with the jewelled fingers held
+fast in his own, he stood in a darkened apartment, and saw before him
+an open window, knew that he was once more back in the hotel. A dim
+light dawned in the blackness of the room and the musical voice
+breathed in his ear:
+
+"Your reward shall be easily earned. I did but test you. Strike--and
+strike truly!"
+
+The whisper grew sibilant--serpentine. Dr. Cairn felt the hilt of a
+dagger thrust into his right hand, and in the dimly-mysterious light
+looked down at one who lay in a bed close beside him.
+
+At sight of the face of the sleeper--the perfectly-chiselled face,
+with the long black lashes resting on the ivory cheeks--he forgot all
+else, forgot the place wherein he stood, forgot his beautiful guide,
+and only remembered that he held a dagger in his hand, and that Antony
+Ferrara lay there, sleeping!
+
+"Strike!" came the whisper again.
+
+Dr. Cairn felt a mad exultation boiling up within him. He raised his
+hand, glanced once more on the face of the sleeper, and nerved himself
+to plunge the dagger into the heart of this evil thing.
+
+A second more, and the dagger would have been buried to the hilt in
+the sleeper's breast--when there ensued a deafening, an appalling
+explosion. A wild red light illuminated the room, the building seemed
+to rock. Close upon that frightful sound followed a cry so piercing
+that it seemed to ice the blood in Dr. Cairn's veins.
+
+"Stop, sir, stop! My God! what are you doing!"
+
+A swift blow struck the dagger from his hand and the figure on the bed
+sprang upright. Swaying dizzily, Dr. Cairn stood there in the
+darkness, and as the voice of awakened sleepers reached his ears from
+adjoining rooms, the electric light was switched on, and across the
+bed, the bed upon which he had thought Antony Ferrara lay, he saw his
+son, Robert Cairn!
+
+No one else was in the room. But on the carpet at his feet lay an
+ancient dagger, the hilt covered with beautiful and intricate gold and
+enamel work.
+
+Rigid with a mutual horror, these two so strangely met stood staring
+at one another across the room. Everyone in the hotel, it would
+appear, had been awakened by the explosion, which, as if by the
+intervention of God, had stayed the hand of Dr. Cairn--had spared him
+from a deed impossible to contemplate.
+
+There were sounds of running footsteps everywhere; but the origin of
+the disturbance at that moment had no interest for these two. Robert
+was the first to break the silence.
+
+"Merciful God, sir!" he whispered huskily, "how did you come to be
+here? What is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+Dr. Cairn extended his hands like one groping in darkness.
+
+"Rob, give me a moment, to think, to collect myself. Why am I here? By
+all that is wonderful, why are _you_ here?"
+
+"I am here to meet you."
+
+"To meet me! I had no idea that you were well enough for the journey,
+and if you came to meet me, why--"
+
+"That's it, sir! Why did you send me that wireless?"
+
+"I sent no wireless, boy!"
+
+Robert Cairn, with a little colour returning to his pale cheeks,
+advanced and grasped his father's hand.
+
+"But after I arrived here to meet the boat, sir I received a wireless
+from the P. and O. due in the morning, to say that you had changed
+your mind, and come _via_ Brindisi."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced at the dagger upon the carpet, repressed a shudder,
+and replied in a voice which he struggled to make firm:
+
+"_I_ did not send that wireless!"
+
+"Then you actually came by the boat which arrived last night?--and to
+think that I was asleep in the same hotel! What an amazing--"
+
+"Amazing indeed, Rob, and the result of a cunning and well planned
+scheme." He raised his eyes, looking fixedly at his son. "You
+understand the scheme; the scheme that could only have germinated in
+one mind--a scheme to cause me, your father, to--"
+
+His voice failed and again his glance sought the weapon which lay so
+close to his feet. Partly in order to hide his emotion, he stooped,
+picked up the dagger, and threw it on the bed.
+
+"For God's sake, sir," groaned Robert, "what were you doing here in my
+room with--that!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood straightly upright and replied in an even voice:
+
+"I was here to do murder!"
+
+"_Murder_!"
+
+"I was under a spell--no need to name its weaver; I thought that a
+poisonous thing at last lay at my mercy, and by cunning means the
+primitive evil within me was called up, and braving the laws of God
+and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank God!--"
+
+He dropped upon his knees, silently bowed his head for a moment, and
+then stood up, self-possessed again, as his son had always known him.
+It had been a strange and awful awakening for Robert Cairn--to find
+his room illuminated by a lurid light, and to find his own father
+standing over him with a knife! But what had moved him even more
+deeply than the fear of these things, had been the sight of the
+emotion which had shaken that stern and unemotional man. Now, as he
+gathered together his scattered wits, he began to perceive that a
+malignant hand was moving above them, that his father, and himself,
+were pawns, which had been moved mysteriously to a dreadful end.
+
+A great disturbance had now arisen in the streets below, streams of
+people it seemed, were pouring towards the harbour; but Dr. Cairn
+pointed to an armchair.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said. "I will tell my story, and you shall tell
+yours. By comparing notes, we can arrive at some conclusion. Then we
+must act. This is a fight to a finish, and I begin to doubt if we are
+strong enough to win."
+
+He took up the dagger and ran a critical glance over it, from the keen
+point to the enamelled hilt.
+
+"This is unique," he muttered, whilst his son, spellbound, watched
+him; "the blade is as keen as if tempered but yesterday; yet it was
+made full five thousand years ago, as the workmanship of the hilt
+testifies. Rob, we deal with powers more than human! We have to cope
+with a force which might have awed the greatest Masters which the
+world has known. It would have called for all the knowledge, and all
+the power of Apollonius of Tyana to have dealt with--_him_!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara!"
+
+"Undoubtedly, Rob! it was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that the
+wireless message was sent to you from the P. and O. It was by the
+agency of Antony Ferrara that I dreamt a dream to-night. In fact it
+was no true dream; I was under the influence of--what shall I term
+it?--hypnotic suggestion. To what extent that malign will was
+responsible for you and I being placed in rooms communicating by means
+of a balcony, we probably shall never know; but if this proximity was
+merely accidental, the enemy did not fail to take advantage of the
+coincidence. I lay watching the stars before I slept, and one of them
+seemed to grow larger as I watched." He began to pace about the room
+in growing excitement. "Rob, I cannot doubt that a mirror, or a
+crystal, was actually suspended before my eyes by--someone, who had
+been watching for the opportunity. I yielded myself to the soothing
+influence, and thus deliberately--deliberately--placed myself in the
+power of--Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"You think that he is here, in this hotel?"
+
+"I cannot doubt that he is in the neighbourhood. The influence was too
+strong to have emanated from a mind at a great distance removed. I
+will tell you exactly what I dreamt."
+
+He dropped into a cane armchair. Comparative quiet reigned again in
+the streets below, but a distant clamour told of some untoward
+happening at the harbour.
+
+Dawn would break ere long, and there was a curious rawness in the
+atmosphere. Robert Cairn seated himself upon the side of the bed, and
+watched his father, whilst the latter related those happenings with
+which we are already acquainted.
+
+"You think, sir," said Robert, at the conclusion of the strange story,
+"that no part of your experience was real?"
+
+Dr. Cairn held up the antique dagger, glancing at the speaker
+significantly.
+
+"On the contrary," he replied, "I _do_ know that part of it was
+dreadfully real. My difficulty is to separate the real from the
+phantasmal."
+
+Silence fell for a moment. Then:
+
+"It is almost certain," said the younger man, frowning thoughtfully,
+"that you did not actually leave the hotel, but merely passed from
+your room to mine by way of the balcony."
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, walked to the open window, and looked out, then
+turned and faced his son again.
+
+"I believe I can put that matter to the test," he declared. "In my
+dream, as I turned into the lane where the house was--the house of the
+mummy--there was a patch covered with deep mud, where at some time
+during the evening a quantity of water had been spilt. I stepped upon
+that patch, or dreamt that I did. We can settle the point."
+
+He sat down on the bed beside his son, and, stooping, pulled off one
+of his slippers. The night had been full enough of dreadful surprises;
+but here was yet another, which came to them as Dr. Cairn, with the
+inverted slipper in his hand, sat looking into his son's eyes.
+
+The sole of the slipper was caked with reddish brown mud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+
+"We must find that house, find the sarcophagus--for I no longer doubt
+that it exists--drag it out, and destroy it."
+
+"Should you know it again, sir?"
+
+"Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcophagus of a queen."
+
+"What queen?"
+
+"A queen whose tomb the late Sir Michael Ferrara and I sought for many
+months, but failed to find."
+
+"Is this queen well known in Egyptian history?"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared at him with an odd expression in his eyes.
+
+"Some histories ignore her existence entirely," he said; and, with an
+evident desire to change the subject, added, "I shall return to my
+room to dress now. Do you dress also. We cannot afford to sleep whilst
+the situation of that house remains unknown to us."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and his father stood up, and went out of the
+room.
+
+Dawn saw the two of them peering from the balcony upon the streets of
+Port Said, already dotted with moving figures, for the Egyptian is an
+early riser.
+
+"Have you any clue," asked the younger man, "to the direction in which
+this place lies?"
+
+"Absolutely none, for the reason that I do not know where my dreaming
+left off, and reality commenced. Did someone really come to my window,
+and lead me out through another room, downstairs, and into the street,
+or did I wander out of my own accord and merely imagine the existence
+of the guide? In either event, I must have been guided in some way to
+a back entrance; for had I attempted to leave by the front door of the
+hotel in that trance-like condition, I should certainly have been
+detained by the _bowwab_. Suppose we commence, then, by inquiring if
+there is such another entrance?"
+
+The hotel staff was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the
+discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants'
+quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but there was
+a narrow staircase to the left of the lift-shaft by which it might be
+gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard
+upon which the door opened.
+
+"Beyond doubt," said Dr. Cairn, "I might have come down that staircase
+and out by this door without arousing a soul, either by passing
+through my own room, or through any other on that floor."
+
+They crossed the yard, where members of the kitchen staff were busily
+polishing various cooking utensils, and opened the gate. Dr. Cairn
+turned to one of the men near by.
+
+"Is this gate bolted at night?" he asked, in Arabic.
+
+The man shook his head, and seemed to be much amused by the question,
+revealing his white teeth as he assured him that it was not.
+
+A narrow lane ran along behind the hotel, communicating with a maze of
+streets almost exclusively peopled by natives.
+
+"Rob," said Dr. Cairn slowly, "it begins to dawn upon me that this is
+the way I came."
+
+He stood looking to right and left, and seemed to be undecided. Then:
+
+"We will try right," he determined.
+
+They set off along the narrow way. Once clear of the hotel wall, high
+buildings rose upon either side, so that at no time during the day
+could the sun have penetrated to the winding lane. Suddenly Robert
+Cairn stopped.
+
+"Look!" he said, and pointed. "The mosque! You spoke of a mosque near
+to the house?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; his eyes were gleaming, now that he felt himself to
+be upon the track of this great evil which had shattered his peace.
+
+They advanced until they stood before the door of the mosque--and
+there in the shadow of a low archway was just such an ancient,
+iron-studded door as Dr. Cairn remembered! Latticed windows overhung
+the street above, but no living creature was in sight.
+
+He very gently pressed upon the door, but as he had anticipated it was
+fastened from within. In the vague light, his face seemed strangely
+haggard as he turned to his son, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.
+
+"It is just possible that I may be mistaken," he said; "so that I
+scarcely know what to do."
+
+He stood looking about him in some perplexity.
+
+Adjoining the mosque, was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no
+occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its
+gaping window-frames and doorless porch, he seized his father by the
+arm.
+
+"We might hide up there," he suggested, "and watch for anyone entering
+or leaving the place opposite."
+
+"I have little doubt that this was the scene of my experience,"
+replied Dr. Cairn; "therefore I think we will adopt your plan. Perhaps
+there is some means of egress at the back. It will be useful if we
+have to remain on the watch for any considerable time."
+
+They entered the ruined building and, by means of a rickety staircase,
+gained the floor above. It moved beneath them unsafely, but from the
+divan which occupied one end of the apartment an uninterrupted view of
+the door below was obtainable.
+
+"Stay here," said Dr. Cairn, "and watch, whilst I reconnoitre."
+
+He descended the stairs again, to return in a minute or so and
+announce that another street could be reached through the back of the
+house. There and then they settled the plan of campaign. One at a time
+they would go to the hotel for their meals, so that the door would
+never be unwatched throughout the day. Dr. Cairn determined to make no
+inquiries respecting the house, as this might put the enemy upon his
+guard.
+
+"We are in his own country, Rob," he said. "Here, we can trust no
+one."
+
+Thereupon they commenced their singular and self-imposed task. In
+turn they went back to the hotel for breakfast, and watched
+fruitlessly throughout the morning. They lunched in the same way, and
+throughout the great midday heat sat hidden in the ruined building,
+mounting guard over that iron-studded door. It was a dreary and
+monotonous day, long to be remembered by both of them, and when the
+hour of sunset drew nigh, and their vigil remained unrewarded, they
+began to doubt the wisdom of their tactics. The street was but little
+frequented; there was not the slightest chance of their presence being
+discovered.
+
+It was very quiet, too, so that no one could have approached unheard.
+At the hotel they had learnt the cause of the explosion during the
+night; an accident in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, which had
+done considerable damage, but caused no bodily injury.
+
+"We may hope to win yet," said Dr. Cairn, in speaking of the incident.
+"It was the hand of God."
+
+Silence had prevailed between them for a long time, and he was about
+to propose that his son should go back to dinner, when the rare sound
+of a footstep below checked the words upon his lips. Both craned their
+necks to obtain a view of the pedestrian.
+
+An old man stooping beneath the burden of years and resting much of
+his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers
+crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused
+before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak took out a
+big key.
+
+Inserting it into the lock, he swung open the door; it creaked upon
+ancient hinges as it opened inward, revealing a glimpse of a stone
+floor. As the old man entered, Dr. Cairn grasped his son by the wrist.
+
+"Down!" he whispered. "Now is our chance!"
+
+They ran down the rickety stairs, crossed the narrow street, and
+Robert Cairn cautiously looked in around the door which had been left
+ajar.
+
+Black against the dim light of another door at the further end of the
+large and barn-like apartment, showed the stooping figure. Tap, tap,
+tap! went the stick; and the old man had disappeared around a corner.
+
+"Where can we hide?" whispered Dr. Cairn. "He is evidently making a
+tour of inspection."
+
+The sound of footsteps mounting to the upper apartments came to their
+ears. They looked about them right and left, and presently the younger
+man detected a large wooden cupboard set in one wall. Opening it, he
+saw that it contained but one shelf only, near the top.
+
+"When he returns," he said, "we can hide in here until he has gone
+out."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; he was peering about the room intently.
+
+"This is the place I came to, Rob!" he said softly; "but there was a
+stone stair leading down to some room underneath. We must find it."
+
+The old man could be heard passing from room to room above; then his
+uneven footsteps sounded on the stair again, and glancing at one
+another the two stepped into the cupboard, and pulled the door gently
+inward. A few moments later, the old caretaker--since such appeared to
+be his office--passed out, slamming the door behind him. At that, they
+emerged from their hiding-place and began to examine the apartment
+carefully. It was growing very dark now; indeed with the door shut, it
+was difficult to detect the outlines of the room. Suddenly a loud cry
+broke the perfect stillness, seeming to come from somewhere above.
+Robert Cairn started violently, grasping his father's arm, but the
+older man smiled.
+
+"You forget that there is a mosque almost opposite," he said. "That is
+the _mueddin_!"
+
+His son laughed shortly.
+
+"My nerves are not yet all that they might be," he explained, and
+bending low began to examine the pavement.
+
+"There must be a trap-door in the floor?" he continued. "Don't you
+think so?"
+
+His father nodded silently, and upon hands and knees also began to
+inspect the cracks and crannies between the various stones. In the
+right-hand corner furthest from the entrance, their quest was
+rewarded. A stone some three feet square moved slightly when pressure
+was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the
+tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared
+the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in
+a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to
+raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride
+across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty,
+raised the stone block from its place.
+
+A square hole was revealed. There were irregular stone steps leading
+down into the blackness. A piece of candle, stuck in a crude wooden
+holder, lay upon the topmost. Dr. Cairn, taking a box of matches from
+his pocket, very quickly lighted the candle, and with it held in his
+left hand began to descend. His head was not yet below the level of
+the upper apartment when he paused.
+
+"You have your revolver?" he said.
+
+Robert nodded grimly, and took his revolver from his pocket.
+
+A singular and most disagreeable smell was arising from the trap which
+they had opened; but ignoring this they descended, and presently stood
+side by side in a low cellar. Here the odour was almost insupportable;
+it had in it something menacing, something definitely repellent; and
+at the foot of the steps they stood hesitating.
+
+Dr. Cairn slowly moved the candle, throwing the light along the floor,
+where it picked out strips of wood and broken cases, straw packing and
+kindred litter--until it impinged upon a brightly painted slab.
+Further, he moved it, and higher, and the end of a sarcophagus came
+into view. He drew a quick, hissing breath, and bending forward,
+directed the light into the interior of the ancient coffin. Then, he
+had need of all his iron nerve to choke down the cry that rose to his
+lips.
+
+"By God! _Look_!" whispered his son.
+
+Swathed in white wrappings, Antony Ferrara lay motionless before them.
+
+The seconds passed one by one, until a whole minute was told, and
+still the two remained inert and the cold light shone fully upon that
+ivory face.
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke huskily, grasping his father's shoulder.
+
+"I think not," was the equally hoarse reply. "He is in the state of
+trance mentioned in--certain ancient writings; he is absorbing evil
+force from the sarcophagus of the Witch-Queen...."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: _Note_.--"It seems exceedingly probable that ... the
+mummy-case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living
+person, was the material basis for the preservation of the ... _Khu_
+(magical powers) of a fully-equipped Adept."
+
+_Collectanea Hermetica_. Vol. VIII.]
+
+There was a faint rustling sound in the cellar, which seemed to grow
+louder and more insistent, but Dr. Cairn, apparently, did not notice
+it, for he turned to his son, and albeit the latter could see him but
+vaguely, he knew that his face was grimly set.
+
+"It seems like butchery," he said evenly, "but, in the interests of
+the world, we must not hesitate. A shot might attract attention. Give
+me your knife."
+
+For a moment, the other scarcely comprehended the full purport of the
+words. Mechanically he took out his knife, and opened the big blade.
+
+"Good heavens, sir," he gasped breathlessly, "it is _too_ awful!"
+
+"Awful I grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty--a duty, boy, and
+one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and
+_what_, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end
+shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me the knife."
+
+He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon
+the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did
+so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his
+outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud
+brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the
+light to the roof above.
+
+Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert
+Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back towards the
+stair.
+
+"Quick, sir!" he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. "My God! my
+God! _be quick_!"
+
+The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant as the
+light touched it, then in the next had filled his very soul with
+loathing and horror. For directly above them was moving a black patch,
+a foot or so in extent ... and it was composed of a dense moving mass
+of tarantula spiders! A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting
+the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group!
+
+Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to leap for the stair, and as he did so the
+spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap towards the
+intruders, until the floor all about them and the bottom steps of the
+stair presented a mass of black, moving insects.
+
+A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders
+_crunched_ beneath their feet. They seem to come from nowhere, to be
+conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs,
+the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous with spiders.
+
+Half-way to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver and
+began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.
+
+A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan
+of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous
+blood.
+
+They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned
+and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into
+view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding
+down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.
+
+Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the
+intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling
+sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.
+
+Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men
+leapt out into the street and away from the spider army. White to the
+lips they stood leaning against the wall.
+
+"Was it really--Ferrara?" whispered Robert.
+
+"I hope so!" was the answer.
+
+Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A fan of smoke was creeping from
+beneath it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fire which ensued destroyed, not only the house in which it had
+broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighbouring mosque was
+saved only with the utmost difficulty.
+
+When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the
+smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his
+head and turned to his son.
+
+"If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob," he said, "a just retribution at
+last has claimed him!"
+
+Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned
+to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?"
+
+Robert Cairn stepped forward.
+
+"A young gentleman left this for you, sir, half an hour ago," said the
+man--"a very pale gentleman, with black eyes. He said you'd dropped
+it."
+
+Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the
+ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his
+own--which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the
+moment when the first spider had dropped; and a card was enclosed,
+bearing the pencilled words, "With Antony Ferrara's Compliments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+
+Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr.
+Cairn's room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr.
+Cairn's face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked behind
+him, stood staring out of the window into the palmy garden of the
+hotel. Robert Cairn looked from one to the other excitedly.
+
+"What did he say, sir?" he cried, addressing his father. "It had
+something to do with--"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned. Sime did not move.
+
+"It had something to do with the matter which has brought me to
+Cairo," replied the former--"yes."
+
+"You see," said Robert, "my knowledge of Arabic is _nil_--"
+
+Sime turned in his heavy fashion, and directed a dull gaze upon the
+last speaker.
+
+"Ali Mohammed," he explained slowly, "who has just left, had come down
+from the Fayûm to report a singular matter. He was unaware of its real
+importance, but it was sufficiently unusual to disturb him, and Ali
+Mohammed es-Suefi is not easily disturbed."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair, nodding towards Sime.
+
+"Tell him all that we have heard," he said. "We stand together in this
+affair."
+
+"Well," continued Sime, in his deliberate fashion, "when we struck our
+camp beside the Pyramid of Méydûm, Ali Mohammed remained behind with a
+gang of workmen to finish off some comparatively unimportant work. He
+is an unemotional person. Fear is alien to his composition; it has no
+meaning for him. But last night something occurred at the camp--or
+what remained of the camp--which seems to have shaken even Ali
+Mohammed's iron nerve."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, watching the speaker intently.
+
+"The entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid--," continued Sime.
+
+"_One_ of the entrances," interrupted Dr. Cairn, smiling slightly.
+
+"There is only one entrance," said Sime dogmatically.
+
+Dr. Cairn waved his hand.
+
+"Go ahead," he said. "We can discuss these archæological details
+later."
+
+Sime stared dully, but, without further comment, resumed:
+
+"The camp was situated on the slope immediately below the only _known_
+entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid; one might say that it lay in the
+shadow of the building. There are tumuli in the neighbourhood--part of
+a prehistoric cemetery--and it was work in connection with this which
+had detained Ali Mohammed in that part of the Fayûm. Last night about
+ten o'clock he was awakened by an unusual sound, or series of sounds,
+he reports. He came out of the tent into the moonlight, and looked up
+at the pyramid. The entrance was a good way above his head, of course,
+and quite fifty or sixty yards from the point where he was standing,
+but the moonbeams bathed that side of the building in dazzling light
+so that he was enabled to see a perfect crowd of bats whirling out of
+the pyramid."
+
+"Bats!" ejaculated Robert Cairn.
+
+"Yes. There is a small colony of bats in this pyramid, of course; but
+the bat does not hunt in bands, and the sight of these bats flying out
+from the place was one which Ali Mohammed had never witnessed before.
+Their concerted squeaking was very clearly audible. He could not
+believe that it was this which had awakened him, and which had
+awakened the ten or twelve workmen who also slept in the camp, for
+these were now clustering around him, and all looking up at the side
+of the pyramid.
+
+"Fayûm nights are strangely still. Except for the jackals and the
+village dogs, and some other sounds to which one grows accustomed,
+there is nothing--absolutely nothing--audible.
+
+"In this stillness, then, the flapping of the bat regiment made quite
+a disturbance overhead. Some of the men were only half awake, but
+most, of them were badly frightened. And now they began to compare
+notes, with the result that they determined upon the exact nature of
+the sound which had aroused them. It seemed almost certain that this
+had been a dreadful scream--the scream of a woman in the last agony."
+
+He paused, looking from Dr. Cairn to his son, with a singular
+expression upon his habitually immobile face.
+
+"Go on," said Robert Cairn.
+
+Slowly Sime resumed:
+
+"The bats had begun to disperse in various directions, but the panic
+which had seized upon the camp does not seem to have dispersed so
+readily. Ali Mohammed confesses that he himself felt almost afraid--a
+remarkable admission for a man of his class to make. Picture these
+fellows, then, standing looking at one another, and very frequently up
+at the opening in the side of the pyramid. Then the smell began to
+reach their nostrils--the smell which completed the panic, and which
+led to the abandonment of the camp--"
+
+"The smell--what kind of smell?" jerked Robert Cairn.
+
+Dr. Cairn turned himself in his chair, looking fully at his son.
+
+"The smell of Hades, boy!" he said grimly, and turned away again.
+
+"Naturally," continued Sime, "I can give you no particulars on the
+point, but it must have been something very fearful to have affected
+the Egyptian native! There was no breeze, but it swept down upon them,
+this poisonous smell, as though borne by a hot wind."
+
+"Was it actually hot?"
+
+"I cannot say. But Ali Mohammed is positive that it came from the
+opening in the pyramid. It was not apparently in disgust, but in
+sheer, stark horror, that the whole crowd of them turned tail and ran.
+They never stopped and never looked back until they came to Rekka on
+the railway."
+
+A short silence followed. Then:
+
+"That was last night?" questioned Cairn.
+
+His father nodded.
+
+"The man came in by the first train from Wasta," he said, "and we have
+not a moment to spare!"
+
+Sime stared at him.
+
+"I don't understand--"
+
+"I have a mission," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "It is to run to earth, to
+stamp out, as I would stamp out a pestilence, a certain _thing_--I
+cannot call it a man--Antony Ferrara. I believe, Sime, that you are at
+one with me in this matter?"
+
+Sime drummed his fingers upon the table, frowning thoughtfully, and
+looking from one to the other of his companions under his lowered
+brows.
+
+"With my own eyes," he said, "I have seen something of this secret
+drama which has brought you, Dr. Cairn, to Egypt; and, up to a point,
+I agree with you regarding Antony Ferrara. You have lost all trace of
+him?"
+
+"Since leaving Port Said," said Dr. Cairn, "I have seen and heard
+nothing of him; but Lady Lashmore, who was an intimate--and an
+innocent victim, God help her--of Ferrara in London, after staying at
+the Semiramis in Cairo for one day, departed. Where did she go?"
+
+"What has Lady Lashmore to do with the matter?" asked Sime.
+
+"If what I fear be true--" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I anticipate. At
+the moment it is enough for me that, unless my information be at
+fault, Lady Lashmore yesterday left Cairo by the Luxor train at 8.30."
+
+Robert Cairn looked in a puzzled way at his father.
+
+"What do you suspect, sir?" he said.
+
+"I suspect that she went no further than Wasta," replied Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Still I do not understand," declared Sime.
+
+"You may understand later," was the answer. "We must not waste a
+moment. You Egyptologists think that Egypt has little or nothing to
+teach you; the Pyramid of Méydûm lost interest directly you learnt
+that apparently it contained no treasure. How, little you know what it
+_really_ contained, Sime! Mariette did not suspect; Sir Gaston Maspero
+does not suspect! The late Sir Michael Ferrara and I once camped by
+the Pyramid of Méydûm, as you have camped there, and we made a
+discovery--"
+
+"Well?" said Sime, with growing interest.
+
+"It is a point upon which my lips are sealed, but--do you believe in
+black magic?"
+
+"I am not altogether sure that I do--"
+
+"Very well; you are entitled to your opinion. But although you appear
+to be ignorant of the fact, the Pyramid of Méydûm was formerly one of
+the strong-holds--the second greatest in all the land of the Nile--of
+Ancient Egyptian sorcery! I pray heaven I may be wrong, but in the
+disappearance of Lady Lashmore, and in the story of Ali Mohammed, I
+see a dreadful possibility. Ring for a time-table. We have not a
+moment to waste!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BATS
+
+
+Rekka was a mile behind.
+
+"It will take us fully an hour yet," said Dr. Cairn, "to reach the
+pyramid, although it appears so near."
+
+Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of Méydûm
+seemed already to loom above them, although it was quite four miles
+away. The narrow path along which they trotted their donkeys ran
+through the fertile lowlands of the Fayûm. They had just passed a
+village, amid an angry chorus from the pariah dogs, and were now
+following the track along the top of the embankment. Where the green
+carpet merged ahead into the grey ocean of sand the desert began, and
+out in that desert, resembling some weird work of Nature rather than
+anything wrought by the hand of man, stood the gloomy and lonely
+building ascribed by the Egyptologists to the Pharaoh Sneferu.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son rode ahead, and Sime, with Ali Mohammed, brought
+up the rear of the little company.
+
+"I am completely in the dark, sir," said Robert Cairn, "respecting the
+object of our present journey. What leads you to suppose that we shall
+find Antony Ferrara here?"
+
+"I scarcely hope to _find_ him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but
+I am almost certain that he _is_ here. I might have expected it, and I
+blame myself for not having provided against--this."
+
+"Against what?"
+
+"It is impossible, Rob, for you to understand this matter. Indeed, if
+I were to publish what I know--not what I imagine, but what I
+know--about the Pyramid of Méydûm I should not only call down upon
+myself the ridicule of every Egyptologist in Europe; I should be
+accounted mad by the whole world."
+
+His son was silent for a time; then:
+
+"According to the guide books," he said, "it is merely an empty tomb."
+
+"It is empty, certainly," replied Dr. Cairn grimly, "or that apartment
+known as the King's Chamber is now empty. But even the so-called
+King's Chamber was not empty once; and there is another chamber in the
+pyramid which is not empty _now_!"
+
+"If you know of the existence of such a chamber, sir, why have you
+kept it secret?"
+
+"Because I cannot _prove_ its existence. I do not know how to enter
+it, but I know it is there; I know what it was formerly used for, and
+I suspect that last night it was used for that same unholy purpose
+again--after a lapse of perhaps four thousand years! Even you would
+doubt me, I believe, if I were to tell you what I know, if I were to
+hint at what I suspect. But no doubt in your reading you have met with
+Julian the Apostate?"
+
+"Certainly, I have read of him. He is said to have practised
+necromancy."
+
+"When he was at Carra in Mesopotamia, he retired to the Temple of the
+Moon, with a certain sorcerer and some others, and, his nocturnal
+operations concluded, he left the temple locked, the door sealed, and
+placed a guard over the gate. He was killed in the war, and never
+returned to Carra, but when, in the reign of Jovian, the seal was
+broken and the temple opened, a body was found hanging by its hair--I
+will spare you the particulars; it was a case of that most awful form
+of sorcery--_anthropomancy_!"
+
+An expression of horror had crept over Robert Cairn's face.
+
+"Do you mean, sir, that this pyramid was used for similar purposes?"
+
+"In the past it has been used for many purposes," was the quiet reply.
+"The exodus of the bats points to the fact that it was again used for
+one of those purposes last night; the exodus of the bats--and
+something else."
+
+Sime, who had been listening to this strange conversation, cried out
+from the rear:
+
+"We cannot reach it before sunset!"
+
+"No," replied Dr. Cairn, turning in his saddle, "but that does not
+matter. Inside the pyramid, day and night make no difference."
+
+Having crossed a narrow wooden bridge, they turned now fully in the
+direction of the great ruin, pursuing a path along the opposite bank
+of the cutting. They rode in silence for some time, Robert Cairn deep
+in thought.
+
+"I suppose that Antony Ferrara actually visited this place last
+night," he said suddenly, "although I cannot follow your reasoning.
+But what leads you to suppose that he is there now?"
+
+"This," answered his father slowly. "The purpose for which I believe
+him to have come here would detain him at least two days and two
+nights. I shall say no more about it, because if I am wrong, or if for
+any reason I am unable to establish my suspicions as facts, you would
+certainly regard me as a madman if I had confided those suspicions to
+you."
+
+Mounted upon donkeys, the journey from Rekka to the Pyramid of Méydûm
+occupies fully an hour and a half, and the glories of the sunset had
+merged into the violet dusk of Egypt before the party passed the
+outskirts of the cultivated land and came upon the desert sands. The
+mountainous pile of granite, its peculiar orange hue a ghastly yellow
+in the moonlight, now assumed truly monstrous proportions, seeming
+like a great square tower rising in three stages from its mound of
+sand to some three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the
+desert.
+
+There is nothing more awesome in the world than to find one's self at
+night, far from all fellow-men, in the shadow of one of those edifices
+raised by unknown hands, by unknown means, to an unknown end; for,
+despite all the wisdom of our modern inquirers, these stupendous
+relics remain unsolved riddles set to posterity by a mysterious
+people.
+
+Neither Sime nor Ali Mohammed were of highly strung temperament,
+neither subject to those subtle impressions which more delicate
+organisations receive, as the nostrils receive an exhalation, from
+such a place as this. But Dr. Cairn and his son, though each in a
+different way, came now within the _aura_ of this temple of the dead
+ages.
+
+The great silence of the desert--a silence like no other in the world;
+the loneliness, which must be experienced to be appreciated, of that
+dry and tideless ocean; the traditions which had grown up like fungi
+about this venerable building; lastly, the knowledge that it was
+associated in some way with the sorcery, the unholy activity, of
+Antony Ferrara, combined to chill them with a supernatural dread which
+called for all their courage to combat.
+
+"What now?" said Sime, descending from his mount.
+
+"We must lead the donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where
+those blocks of granite are, and tether them there."
+
+In silence, then, the party commenced the tedious ascent of the mound
+by the narrow path to the top, until at some hundred and twenty feet
+above the surrounding plain they found themselves actually under the
+wall of the mighty building. The donkeys were made fast.
+
+"Sime and I," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "will enter the pyramid."
+
+"But--" interrupted his son.
+
+"Apart from the fatigue of the operation," continued the doctor, "the
+temperature in the lower part of the pyramid is so tremendous, and the
+air so bad, that in your present state of health it would be absurd
+for you to attempt it. Apart from which there is a possibly more
+important task to be undertaken here, outside."
+
+He turned his eyes upon Sime, who was listening intently, then
+continued:
+
+"Whilst we are penetrating to the interior by means of the sloping
+passage on the north side, Ali Mohammed and yourself must mount guard
+on the south side."
+
+"What for?" said Sime rapidly.
+
+"For the reason," replied Dr. Cairn, "that there is an entrance on to
+the first stage--"
+
+"But the first stage is nearly seventy feet above us. Even assuming
+that there were an entrance there--which I doubt--escape by that means
+would be impossible. No one could climb down the face of the pyramid
+from above; no one has ever succeeded in climbing up. For the purpose
+of surveying the pyramid a scaffold had to be erected. Its sides are
+quite unscaleable."
+
+"That may be," agreed Dr. Cairn; "but, nevertheless, I have my reasons
+for placing a guard over the south side. If anything appears upon the
+stage above, Rob--_anything_--shoot, and shoot straight!"
+
+He repeated the same instructions to Ali Mohammed, to the evident
+surprise of the latter.
+
+"I don't understand at all," muttered Sime, "but as I presume you have
+a good reason for what you do, let it be as you propose. Can you give
+me any idea respecting what we may hope to find inside this place? I
+only entered once, and I am not anxious to repeat the experiment. The
+air is unbreathable, the descent to the level passage below is stiff
+work, and, apart from the inconvenience of navigating the latter
+passage, which as you probably know is only sixteen inches high, the
+climb up the vertical shaft into the tomb is not a particularly safe
+one. I exclude the possibility of snakes," he added ironically.
+
+"You have also omitted the possibility of Antony Ferrara," said Dr.
+Cairn.
+
+"Pardon my scepticism, doctor, but I cannot imagine any man
+voluntarily remaining in that awful place."
+
+"Yet I am greatly mistaken if he is not there!"
+
+"Then he is trapped!" said Sime grimly, examining a Browning pistol
+which he carried. "Unless--"
+
+He stopped, and an expression, almost of fear, crept over his stoical
+features.
+
+"That sixteen-inch passage," he muttered--"with Antony Ferrara at the
+further end!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Dr. Cairn. "But I consider it my duty to the world to
+proceed. I warn you that you are about to face the greatest peril,
+probably, which you will ever be called upon to encounter. I do not
+ask you to do this. I am quite prepared to go alone."
+
+"That remark was wholly unnecessary, doctor," said Sime rather
+truculently. "Suppose the other two proceed to their post."
+
+"But, sir--" began Robert Cairn.
+
+"You know the way," said the doctor, with an air of finality. "There
+is not a moment to waste, and although I fear that we are too late, it
+is just possible we may be in time to prevent a dreadful crime."
+
+The tall Egyptian and Robert Cairn went stumbling off amongst the
+heaps of rubbish and broken masonry, until an angle of the great wall
+concealed them from view. Then the two who remained continued the
+climb yet higher, following the narrow, zigzag path leading up to the
+entrance of the descending passage. Immediately under the square black
+hole they stood and glanced at one another.
+
+"We may as well leave our outer garments here," said Sime. "I note
+that you wear rubber-soled shoes, but I shall remove my boots, as
+otherwise I should be unable to obtain any foothold."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, and without more ado proceeded to strip off his
+coat, an example which was followed by Sime. It was as he stooped and
+placed his hat upon the little bundle of clothes at his feet that Dr.
+Cairn detected something which caused him to stoop yet lower and to
+peer at that dark object on the ground with a strange intentness.
+
+"What is it?" jerked Sime, glancing back at him.
+
+Dr. Cairn, from a hip pocket, took out an electric lamp, and directed
+the white ray upon something lying on the splintered fragments of
+granite.
+
+It was a bat, a fairly large one, and a clot of blood marked the place
+where its head had been. For the bat was decapitated!
+
+As though anticipating what he should find there, Dr. Cairn flashed
+the ray of the lamp all about the ground in the vicinity of the
+entrance to the pyramid. Scores of dead bats, headless, lay there.
+
+"For God's sake, what does this mean?" whispered Sime, glancing
+apprehensively into the black entrance beside him.
+
+"It means," answered Cairn, in a low voice, "that my suspicion, almost
+incredible though it seems, was well founded. Steel yourself against
+the task that is before you, Sime; we stand upon the borderland of
+strange horrors."
+
+Sime hesitated to touch any of the dead bats, surveying them with an
+ill-concealed repugnance.
+
+"What kind of creature," he whispered, "has done this?"
+
+"One of a kind that the world has not known for many ages! The most
+evil kind of creature conceivable--a man-devil!"
+
+"But what does he want with bats' heads?"
+
+"The Cynonycteris, or pyramid bat, has a leaf-like appendage beside
+the nose. A gland in this secretes a rare oil. This oil is one of the
+ingredients of the incense which is never named in the magical
+writings."
+
+Sime shuddered.
+
+"Here!" said Dr. Cairn, proffering a flask. "This is only the
+overture! No nerves."
+
+The other nodded shortly, and poured out a peg of brandy.
+
+"Now," said Dr. Cairn, "shall I go ahead?"
+
+"As you like," replied Sime quietly, and again quite master of
+himself. "Look out for snakes. I will carry the light and you can keep
+yours handy in case you may need it."
+
+Dr. Cairn drew himself up into the entrance. The passage was less than
+four feet high, and generations of sand-storms had polished its
+sloping granite floor so as to render it impossible to descend except
+by resting one's hands on the roof above and lowering one's self foot
+by foot.
+
+A passage of this description, descending at a sharp angle for over
+two hundred feet, is not particularly easy to negotiate, and progress
+was slow. Dr. Cairn at every five yards or so would stop, and, with
+the pocket-lamp which he carried, would examine the sandy floor and
+the crevices between the huge blocks composing the passage, in quest
+of those faint tracks which warn the traveller that a serpent has
+recently passed that way. Then, replacing his lamp, he would proceed.
+Sime followed in like manner, employing only one hand to support
+himself, and, with the other, constantly directing the ray of his
+pocket torch past his companion, and down into the blackness beneath.
+
+Out in the desert the atmosphere had been sufficiently hot, but now
+with every step it grew hotter and hotter. That indescribable smell,
+as of a decay begun in remote ages, that rises with the impalpable
+dust in these mysterious labyrinths of Ancient Egypt which never know
+the light of day, rose stiflingly; until, at some forty or fifty feet
+below the level of the sand outside, respiration became difficult, and
+the two paused, bathed in perspiration and gasping for air.
+
+"Another thirty or forty feet," panted Sime, "and we shall be in the
+level passage. There is a sort of low, artificial cavern there, you
+may remember, where, although we cannot stand upright, we can sit and
+rest for a few moments."
+
+Speech was exhausting, and no further words were exchanged until the
+bottom of the slope was reached, and the combined lights of the two
+pocket-lamps showed them that they had reached a tiny chamber
+irregularly hewn in the living rock. This also was less than four feet
+high, but its jagged floor being level, they were enabled to pause
+here for a while.
+
+"Do you notice something unfamiliar in the smell of the place?"
+
+Dr. Cairn was the speaker. Sime nodded, wiping the perspiration from
+his face the while.
+
+"It was bad enough when I came here before," he said hoarsely. "It is
+terrible work for a heavy man. But to-night it seems to be reeking. I
+have smelt nothing like it in my life."
+
+"Correct," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "I trust that, once clear of this
+place, you will never smell it again."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is the _incense_," was the reply. "Come! The worst of our task is
+before us yet."
+
+The continuation of the passage now showed as an opening no more than
+fifteen to seventeen inches high. It was necessary, therefore, to lie
+prone upon the rubbish of the floor, and to proceed serpent fashion;
+one could not even employ one's knees, so low was the roof, but was
+compelled to progress by clutching at the irregularities in the wall,
+and by digging the elbows into the splintered stones one crawled upon!
+
+For three yards or so they proceeded thus. Then Dr. Cairn lay suddenly
+still.
+
+"What is it?" whispered Sime.
+
+A threat of panic was in his voice. He dared not conjecture what would
+happen if either should be overcome in that evil-smelling burrow, deep
+in the bowels of the ancient building. At that moment it seemed to
+him, absurdly enough, that the weight of the giant pile rested upon
+his back, was crushing him, pressing the life out from his body as he
+lay there prone, with his eyes fixed upon the rubber soles of Dr.
+Cairn's shoes, directly in front of him.
+
+But softly came a reply:
+
+"Do not speak again! Proceed as quietly as possible, and pray heaven
+we are not expected!"
+
+Sime understood. With a malignant enemy before them, this hole in the
+rock through which they crawled was a certain death-trap. He thought
+of the headless bats and of how he, in crawling out into the shaft
+ahead, must lay himself open to a similar fate!
+
+Dr. Cairn moved slowly onward. Despite their anxiety to avoid noise,
+neither he nor his companion could control their heavy breathing. Both
+were panting for air. The temperature was now deathly. A candle would
+scarcely have burnt in the vitiated air; and above that odour of
+ancient rottenness which all explorers of the monuments of Egypt know,
+rose that other indescribable odour which seemed to stifle one's very
+soul.
+
+Dr. Cairn stopped again.
+
+Sime knew, having performed this journey before, that his companion
+must have reached the end of the passage, that he must be lying
+peering out into the shaft, for which they were making. He
+extinguished his lamp.
+
+Again Dr. Cairn moved forward. Stretching out his hand, Sime found
+only emptiness. He wriggled forward, in turn, rapidly, all the time
+groping with his fingers. Then:
+
+"Take my hand," came a whisper. "Another two feet, and you can stand
+upright."
+
+He proceeded, grasped the hand which was extended to him in the
+impenetrable darkness, and panting, temporarily exhausted, rose
+upright beside Dr. Cairn, and stretched his cramped limbs.
+
+Side by side they stood, mantled about in such a darkness as cannot be
+described; in such a silence as dwellers in the busy world cannot
+conceive; in such an atmosphere of horror that only a man morally and
+physically brave could have retained his composure.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"We _must_ have the light for the ascent," he whispered. "Have your
+pistol ready; I am about to press the button of the lamp."
+
+A shaft of white light shone suddenly up the rocky sides of the pit in
+which they stood, and lost itself in the gloom of the chamber above.
+
+"On to my shoulders," jerked Sime. "You are lighter than I. Then, as
+soon as you can reach, place your lamp on the floor above and mount up
+beside it. I will follow."
+
+Dr. Cairn, taking advantage of the rugged walls, and of the blocks of
+stone amid which they stood, mounted upon Sime's shoulders.
+
+"Could you carry your revolver in your teeth?" asked the latter. "I
+think you might hold it by the trigger-guard."
+
+"I proposed to do so," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "Stand fast!"
+
+Gradually he rose upright upon the other's shoulders; then, placing
+his foot in a cranny of the rock, and with his left hand grasping a
+protruding fragment above, he mounted yet higher, all the time holding
+the lighted lamp in his right hand. Upward he extended his arms, and
+upward, until he could place the lamp upon the ledge above his head,
+where its white beam shone across the top of the shaft.
+
+"Mind it does not fall!" panted Sime, craning his head upward to watch
+these operations.
+
+Dr. Cairn, whose strength and agility were wonderful, twisted around
+sideways, and succeeded in placing his foot on a ledge of stone on the
+opposite side of the shaft. Resting his weight upon this, he extended
+his hand to the lip of the opening, and drew himself up to the top,
+where he crouched fully in the light of the lamp. Then, wedging his
+foot into a crevice a little below him, he reached out his hand to
+Sime. The latter, following much the same course as his companion,
+seized the extended hand, and soon found himself beside Dr. Cairn.
+
+Impetuously he snatched out his own lamp and shone its beams about the
+weird apartment in which they found themselves--the so-called King's
+Chamber of the pyramid. Right and left leapt the searching rays,
+touching the ends of the wooden beams, which, practically fossilised
+by long contact with the rock, still survive in that sepulchral place.
+Above and below and all around he directed the light--upon the litter
+covering the rock floor, upon the blocks of the higher walls, upon the
+frowning roof.
+
+They were alone in the King's Chamber!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+
+"There is no one here!"
+
+Sime looked about the place excitedly.
+
+"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the
+air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly
+calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.
+
+"Make as little noise as possible."
+
+Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off
+that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something
+ominous in the words.
+
+Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced
+to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow.
+Side by side they stood there.
+
+"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more
+overpowering here than anywhere?"
+
+Sime nodded.
+
+"You are right. What does that mean?"
+
+Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of
+rubbish into a corner of the wall.
+
+"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we
+have got to crawl in _there_!"
+
+Sime stifled an exclamation.
+
+One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had
+not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish
+before the opening.
+
+"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his
+feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon
+hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It
+was but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward
+at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut
+in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"Not a word, now," he said. "No light--pistol ready!"
+
+He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had
+mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the
+original _mastabah_, and close to the first stage of the pyramid.
+Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one
+could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.
+
+Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some
+obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust
+his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had
+reached a horizontal passage.
+
+Very softly he whispered back to Sime:
+
+"Take my hand. I have reached the top."
+
+They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost
+overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one
+moment of hesitancy, crept on.
+
+A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished
+walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves--that
+inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the
+dim ages of the early Pharaohs!
+
+The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as
+this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the
+crowning terror of Méydûm.
+
+When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage
+both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who
+would have been prepared to swear that the Méydûm Pyramid contained no
+apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder,
+past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had
+anticipated this, temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural
+character of the phenomenon.
+
+They advanced.
+
+They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's
+Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this
+second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.
+
+The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of
+this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was
+possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the
+moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the
+black-robed figure beside the tripod.
+
+It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he
+chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points
+in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the
+black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time
+that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life,
+would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the
+chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.
+
+A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a
+number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the
+farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was
+some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.
+
+Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.
+
+"We are too late!" he said strangely.
+
+He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy
+gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive
+that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too,
+at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms--when, as
+if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.
+
+Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came
+to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story
+of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor--the Necromancer. He
+remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after
+Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore--
+
+And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that
+Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.
+
+Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that
+such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking
+place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense
+all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in
+the shadows of that temple of evil--his reason would not accept the
+evidences. Any man of the ancient world--of the middle ages--would
+have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician,
+who, according to one of the most ancient formulæ known to mankind,
+was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.
+
+But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a
+circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such
+operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe?
+How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for
+verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?
+
+He could not believe such an orgie of wickedness possible. A Pagan
+emperor might have been capable of these things, but to-day--wondrous
+is our faith in the virtue of "to-day!"
+
+"Am I mad?" he whispered hoarsely, "or--"
+
+A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the
+shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful
+with a beauty that could only be described as awful.
+
+She wore upon her brow the _uraeus_ of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her
+sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision,
+she floated into the light cast by the tripod.
+
+A voice--a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from
+somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy
+place--spoke. The language was unknown to Sime, but the fierce
+hand-grip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language
+unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had
+been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.
+
+In upon Sime swept a swift conviction--that one could not witness such
+a scene as this and live and move again amongst one's fellow-men! In a
+sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining
+hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of
+ancient sorcery.
+
+Raising his Browning pistol, he fired--shot after shot--at that
+bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!
+
+A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery,
+boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the
+conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had
+known not sound for untold generations.
+
+"My God--!"
+
+Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away.
+Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream
+fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the
+long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon
+him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the
+borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied
+mind one astounding fact found access.
+
+He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it
+was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.
+
+Yet Antony Ferrara lived!
+
+Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white
+light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime
+managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was
+crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run--run for
+his life--for his salvation!
+
+"_You should not have fired_!" he seemed to hear.
+
+Unconscious of any contact with the stones--although afterwards he
+found his knees and shins to be bleeding--he was scrambling down that
+long, sloping shaft.
+
+He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him,
+sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A
+continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were
+casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place
+seemed to rock.
+
+"Down flat!"
+
+Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr.
+Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which
+they had entered from the King's Chamber.
+
+Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.
+
+A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came.
+Then Sime found himself standing in the King's Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who
+held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting
+him.
+
+The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,
+
+"I have dropped my pistol!" muttered Sime.
+
+He threw off the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the
+heap of _débris_ where was the opening through which they had entered
+the Satanic temple.
+
+No opening was visible!
+
+"He has closed it!" cried Dr. Cairn. "There are six stone doors
+between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting
+_one_ of them before we--?"
+
+"My God!" whispered Sime. "Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of
+my tether!"
+
+Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a
+bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom--
+
+"On to my shoulders!" he cried, looking up.
+
+Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. "You go first," he
+said.
+
+He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful
+self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new
+guise; the courage which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in
+the fires of the unknown.
+
+Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth,
+hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two
+worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
+above them....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
+first stage. We both fired--"
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.
+
+"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
+ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
+late--"
+
+"Lady Lashmore--"
+
+"Until the Pyramid of Méydûm is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
+will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
+hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"
+
+He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes--and his hair was
+abundantly streaked with white!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE INCENSE
+
+
+To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach
+Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced
+from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying
+landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he
+exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.
+
+That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to
+both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and
+implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned
+to London, is weaving his evil spells around "some we loved, the
+loveliest and the best," is to know the meaning of ordeal.
+
+In pursuit of Antony Ferrara--the incarnation of an awful evil--Dr.
+Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he
+was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark
+places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been
+darkly active in London!
+
+Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal
+command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it
+had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had
+shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.
+
+In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra
+Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear
+to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony
+Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing
+those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her
+mind and body--perhaps of her very soul.
+
+Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket and read that ominous
+sentence, which, when his eyes had first fallen upon it, had blotted
+out the sunlight of Egypt.
+
+"... And you will be surprised to hear that Antony is back in London ...
+and is a frequent visitor here. It is quite like old times...."
+
+Raising his haggard eyes, Robert Cairn saw that his father was
+watching him.
+
+"Keep calm, my boy," urged the doctor; "it can profit us nothing, it
+can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when
+real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I
+know it is hard; but for everybody's sake try to keep yourself in
+hand."
+
+"I am trying, sir," replied Robert hollowly.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, drumming his fingers upon his knee.
+
+"We must be diplomatic," he continued. "That James Saunderson proposed
+to return to London, I had no idea. I thought that Myra would be far
+outside the Black maelström in Scotland. Had I suspected that
+Saunderson would come to London, I should have made other
+arrangements."
+
+"Of course, sir, I know that. But even so we could never have foreseen
+this."
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head.
+
+"To think that whilst we have been scouring Egypt from Port Said to
+Assouan--_he_ has been laughing at us in London!" he said. "Directly
+after the affair at Méydûm he must have left the country--how, Heaven
+only knows. That letter is three weeks old, now?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded. "What may have happened since--what may have
+happened!"
+
+"You take too gloomy a view. James Saunderson is a Roman guardian.
+Even Antony Ferrara could make little headway there."
+
+"But Myra says that--Ferrara is--a frequent visitor."
+
+"And Saunderson," replied Dr. Cairn with a grim smile, "is a
+Scotchman! Rely upon his diplomacy, Rob. Myra will be safe enough."
+
+"God grant that she is!"
+
+At that, silence fell between them, until punctually to time, the
+train slowed into Charing Cross. Inspired by a common anxiety, Dr.
+Cairn and his son were first among the passengers to pass the barrier.
+The car was waiting for them; and within five minutes of the arrival
+of the train they were whirling through London's traffic to the house
+of James Saunderson.
+
+It lay in that quaint backwater, remote from motor-bus
+high-ways--Dulwich Common, and was a rambling red-tiled building which
+at some time had been a farmhouse. As the big car pulled up at the
+gate, Saunderson, a large-boned Scotchman, tawny-eyed, and with his
+grey hair worn long and untidily, came out to meet them. Myra Duquesne
+stood beside him. A quick blush coloured her face momentarily; then
+left it pale again.
+
+Indeed, her pallor was alarming. As Robert Cairn, leaping from the
+car, seized both her hands and looked into her eyes, it seemed to him
+that the girl had almost an ethereal appearance. Something clutched at
+his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature
+scarcely belonging to the world of humanity--seemed already half a
+spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her
+fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him.
+
+Yet, he knew that he must hide these fears from her; and turning to
+Mr. Saunderson, he shook him warmly by the hand, and the party of four
+passed by the low porch into the house.
+
+In the hall-way Miss Saunderson, a typical Scottish housekeeper, stood
+beaming welcome; but in the very instant of greeting her, Robert Cairn
+stopped suddenly as if transfixed.
+
+Dr. Cairn also pulled up just within the door, his nostrils quivering
+and his clear grey eyes turning right and left--searching the shadows.
+
+Miss Saunderson detected this sudden restraint.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously.
+
+Myra, standing beside Mr. Saunderson, began to look frightened. But
+Dr. Cairn, shaking off the incubus which had descended upon him,
+forced a laugh, and clapping his hand upon Robert's shoulder cried:
+
+"Wake up, my boy! I know it is good to be back in England again, but
+keep your day-dreaming for after lunch!"
+
+Robert Cairn forced a ghostly smile in return, and the odd incident
+promised soon to be forgotten.
+
+"How good of you," said Myra as the party entered the dining-room, "to
+come right from the station to see us. And you must be expected in
+Half-Moon Street, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of course we came to see _you_ first," replied Robert Cairn
+significantly.
+
+Myra lowered her face and pursued that subject no further.
+
+No mention was made of Antony Ferrara, and neither Dr. Cairn nor his
+son cared to broach the subject. The lunch passed off, then, without
+any reference to the very matter which had brought them there that
+day.
+
+It was not until nearly an hour later that Dr. Cairn and his son found
+themselves alone for a moment. Then, with a furtive glance about him,
+the doctor spoke of that which had occupied his mind, to the exclusion
+of all else, since first they had entered the house of James
+Saunderson.
+
+"You noticed it, Rob?" he whispered.
+
+"My God! it nearly choked me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"It is all over the house," he continued, "in every room that I have
+entered. They are used to it, and evidently do not notice it, but
+coming in from the clean air, it is--"
+
+"Abominable, unclean--unholy!"
+
+"We know it," continued Dr. Cairn softly--"that smell of unholiness;
+we have good reason to know it. It heralded the death of Sir Michael
+Ferrara. It heralded the death of--another."
+
+"With a just God in heaven, can such things be?"
+
+"It is the secret incense of Ancient Egypt," whispered Dr. Cairn,
+glancing towards the open door; "it is the odour of that Black Magic
+which, by all natural law, should be buried and lost for ever in the
+tombs of the ancient wizards. Only two living men within my knowledge
+know the use and the hidden meaning of that perfume; only one living
+man has ever dared to make it--to use it...."
+
+"Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"We knew he was here, boy; now we know that he is using his powers
+here. Something tells me that we come to the end of the fight. May
+victory be with the just."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE MAGICIAN
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his
+hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his
+son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows of the
+big room.
+
+"Hot enough for Egypt, Rob," he said.
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he replied, "seemingly travels his own atmosphere
+with him. I first became acquainted with his hellish activities during
+a phenomenal thunderstorm. In Egypt his movements apparently
+corresponded with those of the _Khamsîn_. Now,"--he waved his hand
+vaguely towards the window--"this is Egypt in London."
+
+"Egypt is in London, indeed," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Jermyn has decided
+that our fears are well-founded."
+
+"You mean, sir, that the will--?"
+
+"Antony Ferrara would have an almost unassailable case in the event
+of--of Myra--"
+
+"You mean that her share of the legacy would fall to that fiend, if
+she--"
+
+"If she died? Exactly."
+
+Robert Cairn began to stride up and down the room, clenching and
+unclenching his fists. He was a shadow of his former self, but now his
+cheeks were flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.
+
+"Before Heaven!" he cried suddenly, "the situation is becoming
+unbearable. A thing more deadly than the Plague is abroad here in
+London. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter--of which I dare
+not think!--what do we know of Ferrara's activities? His record is
+damnable. To our certain knowledge his victims are many. If the murder
+of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his
+crimes, we know of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of
+doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly
+villain--"
+
+"We do, Rob," replied Dr. Cairn sternly.
+
+"He has made attempts upon you; he has made attempts upon me. We owe
+our survival"--he pointed to a row of books upon a corner shelf--"to
+the knowledge which you have accumulated in half a life-time of
+research. In the face of science, in the face of modern scepticism, in
+the face of our belief in a benign God, this creature, Antony Ferrara,
+has proved himself conclusively to be--"
+
+"He is what the benighted ancients called a magician," interrupted Dr.
+Cairn quietly. "He is what was known in the Middle Ages as a wizard.
+What that means, exactly, few modern thinkers know; but I know, and
+one day others will know. Meanwhile his shadow lies upon a certain
+house."
+
+Robert Cairn shook his clenched fists in the air. In some men the
+gesture had seemed melodramatic; in him it was the expression of a
+soul's agony.
+
+"But, sir!" he cried--"are we to wait, inert, helpless? Whatever he
+is, he has a human body and there are bullets, there are knives, there
+are a hundred drugs in the British Pharmacopoeia!"
+
+"Quite so," answered Dr. Cairn, watching his son closely, and, by his
+own collected manner, endeavouring to check the other's growing
+excitement. "I am prepared at any personal risk to crush Antony
+Ferrara as I would crush a scorpion; but where is he?"
+
+Robert Cairn groaned, dropping into the big red-leathern armchair, and
+burying his face in his hands.
+
+"Our position is maddening," continued the elder man. "We know that
+Antony Ferrara visits Mr. Saunderson's house; we know that he is
+laughing at our vain attempts to trap him. Crowning comedy of all,
+Saunderson does not know the truth; he is not the type of man who
+could ever understand; in fact we dare not tell him--and we dare not
+tell Myra. The result is that those whom we would protect, unwittingly
+are working against us, and against themselves."
+
+"That perfume!" burst out Robert Cairn; "that hell's incense which
+loads the atmosphere of Saunderson's house! To think that we know what
+it means--that we know what it means!"
+
+"Perhaps _I_ know even better than you do, Rob. The occult uses of
+perfume are not understood nowadays; but you, from experience, know
+that certain perfumes have occult uses. At the Pyramid of Méydûm in
+Egypt, Antony Ferrara dared--and the just God did not strike him
+dead--to make a certain incense. It was often made in the remote past,
+and a portion of it, probably in a jar hermetically sealed, had come
+into his possession. I once detected its dreadful odour in his rooms
+in London. Had you asked me prior to that occasion if any of the
+hellish stuff had survived to the present day, I should most
+emphatically have said _no_; I should have been wrong. Ferrara had
+some. He used it all--and went to the Méydûm pyramid to renew his
+stock."
+
+Robert Cairn was listening intently.
+
+"All this brings me back to a point which I have touched upon before,
+sir," he said: "To my certain knowledge, the late Sir Michael and
+yourself have delved into the black mysteries of Egypt more deeply
+than any men of the present century. Yet Antony Ferrara, little more
+than a boy, has mastered secrets which you, after years of research,
+have failed to grasp. What does this mean, sir?"
+
+Dr. Cairn, again locking his hands behind him, stared out of the
+window.
+
+"He is not an ordinary mortal," continued his son. "He is
+supernormal--and supernaturally wicked. You have admitted--indeed it
+was evident--that he is merely the adopted son of the late Sir
+Michael. Now that we have entered upon the final struggle--for I feel
+that this is so--I will ask you again: _Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun around upon the speaker; his grey eyes were very
+bright.
+
+"There is one little obstacle," he answered, "which has deterred me
+from telling you what you have asked so often. Although--and you have
+had dreadful opportunities to peer behind the veil--you will find it
+hard to believe, I hope very shortly to be able to answer that
+question, and to tell you who Antony Ferrara really is."
+
+Robert Cairn beat his fist upon the arm of the chair.
+
+"I sometimes wonder," he said, "that either of us has remained sane.
+Oh! what does it mean? What can we do? What can we do?"
+
+"We must watch, Rob. To enlist the services of Saunderson, would be
+almost impossible; he lives in his orchid houses; they are his world.
+In matters of ordinary life I can trust him above most men, but in
+this--"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Could we suggest to him a reason--any reason but the real one--why he
+should refuse to receive Ferrara?"
+
+"It might destroy our last chance."
+
+"But sir," cried Robert wildly, "it amounts to this: we are using Myra
+as a lure!"
+
+"In order to save her, Rob--simply in order to save her," retorted Dr.
+Cairn sternly.
+
+"How ill she looks," groaned the other; "how pale and worn. There are
+great shadows under her eyes--oh! I cannot bear to think about her!"
+
+"When was _he_ last there?"
+
+"Apparently some ten days ago. You may depend upon him to be aware of
+our return! He will not come there again, sir. But there are other
+ways in which he might reach her--does he not command a whole shadow
+army! And Mr. Saunderson is entirely unsuspicious--and Myra thinks of
+the fiend as a brother! Yet--she has never once spoken of him. I
+wonder...."
+
+Dr. Cairn sat deep in reflection. Suddenly he took out his watch.
+
+"Go around now," he said--"you will be in time for lunch--and remain
+there until I come. From to-day onward, although actually your health
+does not permit of the strain, we must watch, watch night and day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+MYRA
+
+
+Myra Duquesne came under an arch of roses to the wooden seat where
+Robert Cairn awaited her. In her plain white linen frock, with the sun
+in her hair and her eyes looking unnaturally large, owing to the
+pallor of her beautiful face, she seemed to the man who rose to greet
+her an ethereal creature, but lightly linked to the flesh and blood
+world.
+
+An impulse, which had possessed him often enough before, but which
+hitherto he had suppressed, suddenly possessed him anew, set his heart
+beating, and filled his veins with fire. As a soft blush spread over
+the girl's pale cheeks, and, with a sort of timidity, she held out her
+hand, he leapt to his feet, threw his arms around her, and kissed her;
+kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips!
+
+There was a moment of frightened hesitancy ... and then she had
+resigned herself to this sort of savage tenderness which was better in
+its very brutality than any caress she had ever known, which thrilled
+her with a glorious joy such as, she realised now, she had dreamt of
+and lacked, and wanted; which was a harbourage to which she came,
+blushing, confused--but glad, conquered, and happy in the thrall of
+that exquisite slavery.
+
+"Myra," he whispered, "Myra! have I frightened you? Will you forgive
+me?--"
+
+She nodded her head quickly and nestled upon his shoulder.
+
+"I could wait no longer," he murmured in her ear. "Words seemed
+unnecessary; I just wanted you; you are everything in the world;
+and,"--he concluded simply--"I took you."
+
+She whispered his name, very softly. What a serenity there is in such
+a moment, what a glow of secure happiness, of immunity from the pains
+and sorrows of the world!
+
+Robert Cairn, his arms about this girl, who, from his early boyhood,
+had been his ideal of womanhood, of love, and of all that love meant,
+forgot those things which had shaken his life and brought him to the
+threshold of death, forgot those evidences of illness which marred the
+once glorious beauty of the girl, forgot the black menace of the
+future, forgot the wizard enemy whose hand was stretched over that
+house and that garden--and was merely happy.
+
+But this paroxysm of gladness--which Eliphas Lévi, last of the Adepts,
+has so marvellously analysed in one of his works--is of short
+duration, as are all joys. It is needless to recount, here, the broken
+sentences (punctuated with those first kisses which sweeten the memory
+of old age) that now passed for conversation, and which lovers have
+believed to be conversation since the world began. As dusk creeps over
+a glorious landscape, so the shadow of Antony Ferrara crept over the
+happiness of these two.
+
+Gradually that shadow fell between them and the sun; the grim thing
+which loomed big in the lives of them both, refused any longer to be
+ignored. Robert Cairn, his arm about the girl's waist, broached the
+hated subject.
+
+"When did you last see--Ferrara?"
+
+Myra looked up suddenly.
+
+"Over a week--nearly a fortnight, ago--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Cairn noted that the girl spoke of Ferrara with an odd sort of
+restraint for which he was at a loss to account. Myra had always
+regarded her guardian's adopted son in the light of a brother;
+therefore her present attitude was all the more singular.
+
+"You did not expect him to return to England so soon?" he asked.
+
+"I had no idea that he was in England," said Myra, "until he walked
+in here one day. I was glad to see him--then."
+
+"And should you not be glad to see him now?" inquired Cairn eagerly.
+
+Myra, her head lowered, deliberately pressed out a crease in her white
+skirt.
+
+"One day, last week," she replied slowly, "he--came here, and--acted
+strangely--"
+
+"In what way?" jerked Cairn.
+
+"He pointed out to me that actually we--he and I--were in no way
+related."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You know how I have always liked Antony? I have always thought of him
+as my brother."
+
+Again she hesitated, and a troubled expression crept over her pale
+face. Cairn raised his arm and clasped it about her shoulders.
+
+"Tell me all about it," he whispered reassuringly.
+
+"Well," continued Myra in evident confusion, "his behaviour
+became--embarrassing; and suddenly--he asked me if I could ever love
+him, not as a brother, but--"
+
+"I understand!" said Cairn grimly. "And you replied?"
+
+"For some time I could not reply at all: I was so surprised, and
+so--horrified. I cannot explain how I felt about it, but it seemed
+horrible--it seemed horrible!--"
+
+"But of course, you told him?"
+
+"I told him that I could never be fond of him in any different
+way--that I could never _think_ of it. And although I endeavoured to
+avoid hurting his feelings, he--took it very badly. He said, in such a
+queer, choking voice, that he was going away--"
+
+"Away!--from England?"
+
+"Yes; and--he made a strange request."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"In the circumstances--you see--I felt sorry for him--I did not like
+to refuse him; it was only a trifling thing. He asked for a lock of my
+hair!"
+
+"A lock of your hair! And you--"
+
+"I told you that I did not like to refuse--and I let him snip off a
+tiny piece, with a pair of pocket scissors which he had. Are you
+angry?"
+
+"Of course not! You--were almost brought up together. You--?"
+
+"Then--" she paused--"he seemed to change. Suddenly, I found myself
+afraid--dreadfully afraid--"
+
+"Of Ferrara?"
+
+"Not of Antony, exactly. But what is the good of my trying to explain!
+A most awful dread seized me. His face was no longer the face that I
+have always known; something--"
+
+Her voice trembled, and she seemed disposed to leave the sentence
+unfinished; then:
+
+"Something evil--sinister, had come into it."
+
+"And since then," said Cairn, "you have not seen him?"
+
+"He has not been here since then--no."
+
+Cairn, his hands resting upon the girl's shoulders, leant back in the
+seat, and looked into her troubled eyes with a kind of sad scrutiny.
+
+"You have not been fretting about him?"
+
+Myra shook her head.
+
+"Yet you look as though something were troubling you. This house"--he
+indicated the low-lying garden with a certain irritation--"is not
+healthily situated. This place lies in a valley; look at the rank
+grass--and there are mosquitoes everywhere. You do not look well,
+Myra."
+
+The girl smiled--a little wistful smile.
+
+"But I was so tired of Scotland," she said. "You do not know how I
+looked forward to London again. I must admit, though, that I was in
+better health there; I was quite ashamed of my dairy-maid appearance."
+
+"You have nothing to amuse you here," said Cairn tenderly; "no
+company, for Mr. Saunderson only lives for his orchids."
+
+"They are very fascinating," said Myra dreamily, "I, too, have felt
+their glamour. I am the only member of the household whom he allows
+amongst his orchids--"
+
+"Perhaps you spend too much time there," interrupted Cairn; "that
+superheated, artificial atmosphere--"
+
+Myra shook her head playfully, patting his arm.
+
+"There is nothing in the world the matter with me," she said, almost
+in her old bright manner--"now that you are back--"
+
+"I do not approve of orchids," jerked Cairn doggedly. "They are
+parodies of what a flower should be. Place an Odontoglossum beside a
+rose, and what a distorted unholy thing it looks!"
+
+"Unholy?" laughed Myra.
+
+"Unholy,--yes!--they are products of feverish swamps and deathly
+jungles. I hate orchids. The atmosphere of an orchid-house cannot
+possibly be clean and healthy. One might as well spend one's time in a
+bacteriological laboratory!"
+
+Myra shook her head with affected seriousness.
+
+"You must not let Mr. Saunderson hear you," she said. "His orchids are
+his children. Their very mystery enthrals him--and really it is most
+fascinating. To look at one of those shapeless bulbs, and to speculate
+upon what kind of bloom it will produce, is almost as thrilling as
+reading a sensational novel! He has one growing now--it will bloom
+some time this week--about which he is frantically excited."
+
+"Where did he get it?" asked Cairn without interest.
+
+"He bought it from a man who had almost certainly stolen it! There
+were six bulbs in the parcel; only two have lived and one of these is
+much more advanced than the other; it is _so_ high--"
+
+She held out her hand, indicating a height of some three feet from the
+ground.
+
+"It has not flowered yet?"
+
+"No. But the buds--huge, smooth, egg-shaped things--seem on the point
+of bursting at any moment. We call it the 'Mystery,' and it is my
+special care. Mr. Saunderson has shown me how to attend to its simple
+needs, and if it proves to be a new species--which is almost
+certain--he is going to exhibit it, and name it after me! Shall you
+be proud of having an orchid named after--"
+
+"After my wife?" Cairn concluded, seizing her hands. "I could never be
+more proud of you than I am already...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+
+Dr. Cairn walked to the window, with its old-fashioned leaded panes. A
+lamp stood by the bedside, and he had tilted the shade so that it
+shone upon the pale face of the patient--Myra Duquesne.
+
+Two days had wrought a dreadful change in her. She lay with closed
+eyes, and sunken face upon which ominous shadows played. Her
+respiration was imperceptible. The reputation of Dr. Bruce Cairn was a
+well deserved one, but this case puzzled him. He knew that Myra
+Duquesne was dying before his eyes; he could still see the agonised
+face of his son, Robert, who at that moment was waiting, filled with
+intolerable suspense, downstairs in Mr. Saunderson's study; but,
+withal, he was helpless. He looked out from the rose-entwined casement
+across the shrubbery, to where the moonlight glittered among the
+trees.
+
+Those were the orchid-houses; and with his back to the bed, Dr. Cairn
+stood for long, thoughtfully watching the distant gleams of reflected
+light. Craig Fenton and Sir Elwin Groves, with whom he had been
+consulting, were but just gone. The nature of Myra Duquesne's illness
+had utterly puzzled them, and they had left, mystified.
+
+Downstairs, Robert Cairn was pacing the study, wondering if his reason
+would survive this final blow which threatened. He knew, and his
+father knew, that a sinister something underlay this strange
+illness--an illness which had commenced on the day that Antony Ferrara
+had last visited the house.
+
+The evening was insufferably hot; not a breeze stirred in the leaves;
+and despite open windows, the air of the room was heavy and lifeless.
+A faint perfume, having a sort of sweetness, but which yet was
+unutterably revolting, made itself perceptible to the nostrils.
+Apparently it had pervaded the house by slow degrees. The occupants
+were so used to it that they did not notice it at all.
+
+Dr. Cairn had busied himself that evening in the sick-room, burning
+some pungent preparation, to the amazement of the nurse and of the
+consultants. Now the biting fumes of his pastilles had all been wafted
+out of the window and the faint sweet smell was as noticeable as ever.
+
+Not a sound broke the silence of the house; and when the nurse quietly
+opened the door and entered, Dr. Cairn was still standing staring
+thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of the orchid-houses.
+He turned, and walking back to the bedside, bent over the patient.
+
+Her face was like a white mask; she was quite unconscious; and so far
+as he could see showed no change either for better or worse. But her
+pulse was slightly more feeble and the doctor suppressed a groan of
+despair; for this mysterious progressive weakness could only have one
+end. All his experience told him that unless something could be
+done--and every expedient thus far attempted had proved futile--Myra
+Duquesne would die about dawn.
+
+He turned on his heel, and strode from the room, whispering a few
+words of instruction to the nurse. Descending the stairs, he passed
+the closed study door, not daring to think of his son who waited
+within, and entered the dining-room. A single lamp burnt there, and
+the gaunt figure of Mr. Saunderson was outlined dimly where he sat in
+the window seat. Crombie, the gardener, stood by the table.
+
+"Now, Crombie," said Dr. Cairn, quietly, closing the door behind him,
+"what is this story about the orchid-houses, and why did you not
+mention it before?"
+
+The man stared persistently into the shadows of the room, avoiding Dr.
+Cairn's glance.
+
+"Since he has had the courage to own up," interrupted Mr. Saunderson,
+"I have overlooked the matter: but he was afraid to speak before,
+because he had no business to be in the orchid-houses." His voice
+grew suddenly fierce--"He knows it well enough!"
+
+"I know, sir, that you don't want me to interfere with the orchids,"
+replied the man, "but I only ventured in because I thought I saw a
+light moving there--"
+
+"Rubbish!" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"Pardon me, Saunderson," said Dr. Cairn, "but a matter of more
+importance than the welfare of all the orchids in the world is under
+consideration now."
+
+Saunderson coughed dryly.
+
+"You are right, Cairn," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper for
+such a trifle, at a time like this. Tell your own tale, Crombie; I
+won't interrupt."
+
+"It was last night then," continued the man. "I was standing at the
+door of my cottage smoking a pipe before turning in, when I saw a
+faint light moving over by the orchid-houses--"
+
+"Reflection of the moon," muttered Saunderson. "I am sorry. Go on,
+Crombie!"
+
+"I knew that some of the orchids were very valuable, and I thought
+there would not be time to call you; also I did not want to worry you,
+knowing you had worry enough already. So I knocked out my pipe and put
+it in my pocket, and went through the shrubbery. I saw the light
+again--it seemed to be moving from the first house into the second. I
+couldn't see what it was."
+
+"Was it like a candle, or a pocket-lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Nothing like that, sir; a softer light, more like a glow-worm; but
+much brighter. I went around and tried the door, and it was locked.
+Then I remembered the door at the other end, and I cut round by the
+path between the houses and the wall, so that I had no chance to see
+the light again, until I got to the other door. I found this unlocked.
+There was a close kind of smell in there, sir, and the air was very
+hot--"
+
+"Naturally, it was hot," interrupted Saunderson.
+
+"I mean much hotter than it should have been. It was like an oven, and
+the smell was stifling--"
+
+"What smell?" asked Dr. Cairn. "Can you describe it?"
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I seem to notice it here in this room to-night,
+and I think I noticed it about the place before--never so strong as in
+the orchid-houses."
+
+"Go on!" said Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I went through the first house, and saw nothing. The shadow of the
+wall prevented the moonlight from shining in there. But just as I was
+about to enter the middle house, I thought I saw--a face."
+
+"What do you mean you _thought_ you saw?" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"I mean, sir, that it was so horrible and so strange that I could not
+believe it was real--which is one of the reasons why I did not speak
+before. It reminded me of the face of a gentleman I have seen
+here--Mr. Ferrara--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stifled an exclamation.
+
+"But in other ways it was quite unlike the gentleman. In some ways it
+was more like the face of a woman--a very bad woman. It had a sort of
+bluish light on it, but where it could have come from, I don't know.
+It seemed to be smiling, and two bright eyes looked straight out at
+me."
+
+Crombie stopped, raising his hand to his head confusedly.
+
+"I could see nothing but just this face--low down as if the person it
+belonged to was crouching on the floor; and there was a tall plant of
+some kind just beside it--"
+
+"Well," said Dr. Cairn, "go on! What did you do?"
+
+"I turned to run!" confessed the man. "If you had seen that horrible
+face, you would understand how frightened I was. Then when I got to
+the door, I looked back."
+
+"I hope you had closed the door behind you," snapped Saunderson.
+
+"Never mind that, never mind that!" interrupted Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I had closed the door behind me--yes, sir--but just as I was going to
+open it again, I took a quick glance back, and the face had gone! I
+came out, and I was walking over the lawn, wondering whether I should
+tell you, when it occurred to me that I hadn't noticed whether the
+key had been left in or not."
+
+"Did you go back to see?" asked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I didn't want to," admitted Crombie, "but I did--and--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The door was locked, sir!"
+
+"So you concluded that your imagination had been playing you tricks,"
+said Saunderson grimly. "In my opinion you were right."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair.
+
+"All right, Crombie; that will do."
+
+Crombie, with a mumbled "Good-night, gentlemen," turned and left the
+room.
+
+"Why are you worrying about this matter," inquired Saunderson, when
+the door had closed, "at a time like the present?"
+
+"Never mind," replied Dr. Cairn wearily. "I must return to Half-Moon
+Street, now, but I shall be back within an hour."
+
+With no other word to Saunderson, he stood up and walked out to the
+hall. He rapped at the study door, and it was instantly opened by
+Robert Cairn. No spoken word was necessary; the burning question could
+be read in his too-bright eyes. Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't excite false hopes, Rob," he said huskily. "I am going back
+to the house, and I want you to come with me."
+
+Robert Cairn turned his head aside, groaning aloud, but his father
+grasped him by the arm, and together they left that house of shadows,
+entered the car which waited at the gate, and without exchanging a
+word _en route_, came to Half-Moon Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+
+Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp
+upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms
+folded and his chin upon his breast.
+
+The doctor sat down at the table, watching the other.
+
+Suddenly Robert spoke:
+
+"Is it possible, sir, is it possible--" his voice was barely
+audible--"that her illness can in any way be due to the orchids?"
+
+Dr. Cairn frowned thoughtfully.
+
+"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.
+
+"Orchids are mysterious things. They come from places where there are
+strange and dreadful diseases. Is it not possible that they may
+convey--"
+
+"Some sort of contagion?" concluded Dr. Cairn. "It is a point that I
+have seen raised, certainly. But nothing of the sort has ever been
+established. I have heard something, to-night, though, which--"
+
+"What have you heard, sir?" asked his son eagerly, stepping forward to
+the table.
+
+"Never mind at the moment, Rob; let me think."
+
+He rested his elbow upon the table, and his chin in his hand. His
+professional instincts had told him that unless something could be
+done--something which the highest medical skill in London had thus far
+been unable to devise--Myra Duquesne had but four hours to live.
+Somewhere in his mind a memory lurked, evasive, taunting him. This
+wild suggestion of his son's, that the girl's illness might be due in
+some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for
+this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the
+story of Crombie the gardener--and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that
+somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of light,
+if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst
+Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with
+his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his
+mind upon that vague memory, which defied him, whilst the hand of the
+library clock crept from twelve towards one; whilst he knew that the
+faint life in Myra Duquesne was slowly ebbing away in response to some
+mysterious condition, utterly outside his experience.
+
+Distant clocks chimed _One_! Three hours only!
+
+Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand
+convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a
+black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....
+
+"By God!"
+
+The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble
+amongst a bunch of keys.
+
+"What is it, sir! What is it?"
+
+The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick
+manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed
+it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.
+
+"It is hope, Rob!" he said with quiet self-possession.
+
+Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father's
+shoulder.
+
+"Sir Michael Ferrara's writing!"
+
+"His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together,
+but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I--perhaps
+superstitiously--decided to suppress it.... Ah!"
+
+He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch,
+designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from
+the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having
+her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with
+a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon
+which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of
+mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.
+
+"By God!" repeated Dr. Cairn, "we were both wrong, we were both
+wrong!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir? for Heaven's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"This drawing," replied Dr. Cairn, "was copied from the wall of a
+certain tomb--now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of
+one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that
+the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the
+flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus.
+All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by
+what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the
+meaning of the cutting off,"--he ran his fingers over the sketch--"of
+the priestesses' hair by the high priest of the goddess--"
+
+"What goddess, sir?"
+
+"A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing!--a mystical
+religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living
+French _savant_ ... but this is no time--"
+
+Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer.
+He glanced at the clock.
+
+"A quarter past one," he said. "Come, Rob!"
+
+Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was
+waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets,
+back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra
+Duquesne. As the car started--
+
+"Do you know," asked Dr. Cairn, "if Saunderson has bought any
+orchids--_quite_ recently, I mean?"
+
+"Yes," replied his son dully; "he bought a small parcel only a
+fortnight ago."
+
+"A fortnight!" cried Dr. Cairn excitedly--"you are sure of that? You
+mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara--"
+
+"Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why!--it must have been the very day
+after!"
+
+Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.
+
+"Where did he buy these orchids?" he asked, evenly.
+
+"From someone who came to the house--someone he had never dealt with
+before."
+
+The doctor, his hands resting upon his knees, was rapidly drumming
+with his fingers.
+
+"And--did he cultivate them?"
+
+"Two only proved successful. One is on the point of blooming--if it is
+not blooming already. He calls it the 'Mystery.'"
+
+At that, the doctor's excitement overcame him. Suddenly leaning out of
+the window, he shouted to the chauffeur:
+
+"Quicker! Quicker! Never mind risks. Keep on top speed!"
+
+"What is it, sir?" cried his son. "Heavens! what is it?"
+
+"Did you say that it might have bloomed, Rob?"
+
+"Myra"--Robert Cairn swallowed noisily--"told me three days ago that
+it was expected to bloom before the end of the week."
+
+"What is it like?"
+
+"A thing four feet high, with huge egg-shaped buds."
+
+"Merciful God grant that we are in time," whispered Dr. Cairn. "I
+could believe once more in the justice of Heaven, if the great
+knowledge of Sir Michael Ferrara should prove to be the weapon to
+destroy the fiend whom we raised!--he and I--may we be forgiven!"'
+
+Robert Cairn's excitement was dreadful.
+
+"Can you tell me nothing?" he cried. "What do you hope? What do you
+fear?"
+
+"Don't ask me, Rob," replied his father; "you will know within five
+minutes."
+
+The car indeed was leaping along the dark suburban roads at a speed
+little below that of an express train. Corners the chauffeur
+negotiated in racing fashion, so that at times two wheels thrashed the
+empty air; and once or twice the big car swung round as upon a pivot
+only to recover again in response to the skilled tactics of the
+driver.
+
+They roared down the sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr.
+Saunderson's house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and
+were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and
+the car brought to a standstill.
+
+Dr. Cairn leapt out, pushed open the gate and ran up to the house, his
+son closely following. There was a light in the hall and Miss
+Saunderson who had expected them, and had heard their stormy approach,
+already held the door open. In the hall--
+
+"Wait here one moment," said Dr. Cairn.
+
+Ignoring Saunderson, who had come out from the library, he ran
+upstairs. A minute later, his face very pale, he came running down
+again.
+
+"She is worse?" began Saunderson, "but--"
+
+"Give me the key of the orchid-house!" said Dr. Cairn tersely.
+
+"Orchid-house!--"
+
+"Don't hesitate. Don't waste a second. Give me the key."
+
+Saunderson's expression showed that he thought Dr. Cairn to be mad,
+but nevertheless he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a
+key-ring. Dr. Cairn snatched it in a flash.
+
+"Which key?" he snapped.
+
+"The Chubb, but--"
+
+"Follow me, Rob!"
+
+Down the hall he raced, his son beside him, and Mr. Saunderson
+following more slowly. Out into the garden he went and over the lawn
+towards the shrubbery.
+
+The orchid-houses lay in dense shadow; but the doctor almost threw
+himself against the door.
+
+"Strike a match!" he panted. Then--"Never mind--I have it!"
+
+The door flew open with a bang. A sickly perfume swept out to them.
+
+"Matches! matches, Rob! this way!"
+
+They went stumbling in. Robert Cairn took out a box of matches--and
+struck one. His father was further along, in the centre building.
+
+"Your knife, boy--quick! _quick_!"
+
+As the dim light crept along the aisle between the orchids, Robert
+Cairn saw his father's horror-stricken face ... and saw a vivid green
+plant growing in a sort of tub, before which the doctor stood. Four
+huge, smooth, egg-shaped buds grew upon the leafless stems; two of
+them were on the point of opening, and one already showed a delicious,
+rosy flush about its apex.
+
+Dr. Cairn grasped the knife which Robert tremblingly offered him. The
+match went out. There was a sound of hacking, a soft _swishing_, and a
+dull thud upon the tiled floor.
+
+As another match fluttered into brief life, the mysterious orchid,
+severed just above the soil, fell from the tub. Dr. Cairn stamped the
+swelling buds under his feet. A profusion of colourless sap was
+pouring out upon the floor.
+
+Above the intoxicating odour of the place, a smell like that of blood
+made itself perceptible.
+
+The second match went out.
+
+"Another--"
+
+Dr. Cairn's voice rose barely above a whisper. With fingers quivering,
+Robert Cairn managed to light a third match. His father, from a second
+tub, tore out a smaller plant and ground its soft tentacles beneath
+his feet. The place smelt like an operating theatre. The doctor swayed
+dizzily as the third match became extinguished, clutching at his son
+for support.
+
+"Her life was in it, boy!" he whispered. "She would have died in the
+hour that it bloomed! The priestesses--were consecrated to this....
+Let me get into the air--"
+
+Mr. Saunderson, silent with amazement, met them.
+
+"Don't speak," said Dr. Cairn to him. "Look at the dead stems of your
+'Mystery.' You will find a thread of bright hair in the heart of
+each!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the door of the sick-room and beckoned to his son,
+who, haggard, trembling, waited upon the landing.
+
+"Come in, boy," he said softly--"and thank God!"
+
+Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but
+with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her
+wistful eyes towards the door; and their wistfulness became gladness.
+
+"Rob!" she sighed--and stretched out her arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+
+Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the
+time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally
+equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter
+which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the
+course of his life.
+
+Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man
+about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not
+confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have
+deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this
+uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had
+he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats
+of Méydûm; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the
+numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which
+stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael
+Ferrara?
+
+So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was
+necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne--from Myra around whom
+his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who
+wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay
+ill--not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by
+the man whom she trusted--whilst, having plentiful evidence of his
+presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony
+Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his
+rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears,
+anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it
+was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of
+journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do
+so, and so he was employed upon a series of articles which were the
+outcome of his recent visit to Egypt--his editor having given him that
+work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot
+of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.
+
+He left his rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, in order to
+seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The
+day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little
+satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not
+called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he
+made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.
+
+As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath
+the dome of the reading-room, he wondered if, amid those mountains of
+erudition surrounding him, there was any wisdom so strange, and so
+awful, as that of Antony Ferrara.
+
+He soon found the information for which he was looking, and having
+copied it into his notebook, he left the reading-room. Then, as he was
+recrossing the hall near the foot of the principal staircase, he
+paused. He found himself possessed by a sudden desire to visit the
+Egyptian Rooms, upstairs. He had several times inspected the exhibits
+in those apartments, but never since his return from the land to whose
+ancient civilisation they bore witness.
+
+Cairn was not pressed for time in these days, therefore he turned and
+passed slowly up the stairs.
+
+There were but few visitors to the grove of mummies that afternoon.
+When he entered the first room he found a small group of tourists
+passing idly from case to case; but on entering the second, he saw
+that he had the apartment to himself. He remembered that his father
+had mentioned on one occasion that there was a ring in this room which
+had belonged to the Witch-Queen. Robert Cairn wondered in which of the
+cases it was exhibited, and by what means he should be enabled to
+recognise it.
+
+Bending over a case containing scarabs and other amulets, many set in
+rings, he began to read the inscriptions upon the little tickets
+placed beneath some of them; but none answered to the description,
+neither the ticketed nor the unticketed. A second case he examined
+with like results. But on passing to a third, in an angle near the
+door, his gaze immediately lighted upon a gold ring set with a strange
+green stone, engraved in a peculiar way. It bore no ticket, yet as
+Robert Cairn eagerly bent over it, he knew, beyond the possibility of
+doubt, that this was the ring of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Where had he seen it, or its duplicate?
+
+With his eyes fixed upon the gleaming stone, he sought to remember.
+That he had seen this ring before, or one exactly like it, he knew,
+but strangely enough he was unable to determine where and upon what
+occasion. So, his hands resting upon the case, he leant, peering down
+at the singular gem. And as he stood thus, frowning in the effort of
+recollection, a dull white hand, having long tapered fingers, glided
+across the glass until it rested directly beneath his eyes. Upon one
+of the slim fingers was an exact replica of the ring in the case!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt back with a stifled exclamation.
+
+Antony Ferrara stood before him!
+
+"The Museum ring is a copy, dear Cairn," came the huskily musical,
+hateful voice; "the one upon my finger is the real one."
+
+Cairn realised in his own person, the literal meaning of the
+overworked phrase, "frozen with amazement." Before him stood the most
+dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man
+only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his
+perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips
+parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn--Cairn whom
+he had sought to murder by means of hellish art.
+
+Despite the heat of the day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with
+white fox fur. In his right hand--for his left still rested upon the
+case--he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding
+the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move,
+uttered no word. Stark amazement held him inert.
+
+"I knew that you were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still
+having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the
+drooping lids, "and I called to you to join me here."
+
+Still Cairn did not move, did not speak.
+
+"You have acted very harshly towards me in the past, dear Cairn; but
+because my philosophy consists in an admirable blending of that
+practised in Sybaris with that advocated by the excellent Zeno;
+because whilst I am prepared to make my home in a Diogenes' tub, I,
+nevertheless, can enjoy the fragrance of a rose, the flavour of a
+peach--"
+
+The husky voice seemed to be hypnotising Cairn; it was a siren's
+voice, thralling him.
+
+"Because," continued Ferrara evenly, "in common with all humanity I am
+compound of man and woman, I can resent the enmity which drives me
+from shore to shore, but being myself a connoisseur of the red lips
+and laughing eyes of maidenhood--I am thinking, more particularly of
+Myra--I can forgive you, dear Cairn--"
+
+Then Cairn recovered himself.
+
+"You white-faced cur!" he snarled through clenched teeth; his knuckles
+whitened as he stepped around the case. "You dare to stand there
+mocking me--"
+
+Ferrara again placed the case between himself and his enemy.
+
+"Pause, my dear Cairn," he said, without emotion. "What would you do?
+Be discreet, dear Cairn; reflect that I have only to call an attendant
+in order to have you pitched ignominiously into the street."
+
+"Before God! I will throttle the life from you!" said Cairn, in a
+voice savagely hoarse.
+
+He sprang again towards Ferrara. Again the latter dodged around the
+case with an agility which defied the heavier man.
+
+"Your temperament is so painfully Celtic, Cairn," he protested
+mockingly. "I perceive quite clearly that you will not discuss this
+matter judicially. Must I then call for the attendant?"
+
+Cairn clenched his fists convulsively. Through all the tumult of his
+rage, the fact had penetrated--that he was helpless. He could not
+attack Ferrara in that place; he could not detain him against his
+will. For Ferrara had only to claim official protection to bring about
+the complete discomfiture of his assailant. Across the case containing
+the duplicate ring, he glared at this incarnate fiend, whom the law,
+which he had secretly outraged, now served to protect. Ferrara spoke
+again in his huskily musical voice.
+
+"I regret that you will not be reasonable, Cairn. There is so much
+that I should like to say to you; there are so many things of interest
+which I could tell you. Do you know in some respects I am peculiarly
+gifted, Cairn? At times I can recollect, quite distinctly, particulars
+of former incarnations. Do you see that priestess lying there, just
+through the doorway? I can quite distinctly remember having met her
+when she was a girl; she was beautiful, Cairn. And I can even recall
+how, one night beside the Nile--but I see that you are growing
+impatient! If you will not avail yourself of this opportunity, I must
+bid you good-day--"
+
+He turned and walked towards the door. Cairn leapt after him; but
+Ferrara, suddenly beginning to run, reached the end of the Egyptian
+Room and darted out on to the landing, before his pursuer had time to
+realise what he was about.
+
+At the moment that Ferrara turned the corner ahead of him, Cairn saw
+something drop. Coming to the end of the room, he stooped and picked
+up this object, which was a plaited silk cord about three feet in
+length. He did not pause to examine it more closely, but thrust it
+into his pocket and raced down the steps after the retreating figure
+of Ferrara. At the foot, a constable held out his arm, detaining him.
+Cairn stopped in surprise.
+
+"I must ask you for your name and address," said the constable,
+gruffly.
+
+"For Heaven's sake! what for?"
+
+"A gentleman has complained--"
+
+"My good man!" exclaimed Cairn, and proffered his card--"it is--it is
+a practical joke on his part. I know him well--"
+
+The constable looked at the card and from the card, suspiciously, back
+to Cairn. Apparently the appearance of the latter reassured him--or he
+may have formed a better opinion of Cairn, from the fact that
+half-a-crown had quickly changed hands.
+
+"All right, sir," he said, "it is no affair of mine; he did not charge
+you with anything--he only asked me to prevent you from following
+him."
+
+"Quite so," snapped Cairn irritably, and dashed off along the gallery
+in the hope of overtaking Ferrara.
+
+But, as he had feared, Ferrara had made good use of his ruse to
+escape. He was nowhere to be seen; and Cairn was left to wonder with
+what object he had risked the encounter in the Egyptian Room--for that
+it had been deliberate, and not accidental, he quite clearly
+perceived.
+
+He walked down the steps of the Museum, deep in reflection. The
+thought that he and his father for months had been seeking the fiend
+Ferrara, that they were sworn to kill him as they would kill a mad
+dog; and that he, Robert Cairn, had stood face to face with Ferrara,
+had spoken with him; and had let him go free, unscathed, was
+maddening. Yet, in the circumstances, how could he have acted
+otherwise?
+
+With no recollection of having traversed the intervening streets, he
+found himself walking under the archway leading to the court in which
+his chambers were situated; in the far corner, shadowed by the tall
+plane tree, where the worn iron railings of the steps and the small
+panes of glass in the solicitor's window on the ground floor called up
+memories of Charles Dickens, he paused, filled with a sort of
+wonderment. It seemed strange to him that such an air of peace could
+prevail, anywhere, whilst Antony Ferrara lived and remained at large.
+
+He ran up the stairs to the second landing, opened the door, and
+entered his chambers. He was oppressed to-day with a memory, the
+memory of certain gruesome happenings whereof these rooms had been the
+scene. Knowing the powers of Antony Ferrara he often doubted the
+wisdom of living there alone, but he was persuaded that to allow
+these fears to make headway, would be to yield a point to the enemy.
+Yet there were nights when he found himself sleepless, listening for
+sounds which had seemed to arouse him; imagining sinister whispers in
+his room--and imagining that he could detect the dreadful odour of the
+secret incense.
+
+Seating himself by the open window, he took out from his pocket the
+silken cord which Ferrara had dropped in the Museum, and examined it
+curiously. His examination of the thing did not serve to enlighten him
+respecting its character. It was merely a piece of silken cord, very
+closely and curiously plaited. He threw it down on the table,
+determined to show it to Dr. Cairn at the earliest opportunity. He was
+conscious of a sort of repugnance; and prompted by this, he carefully
+washed his hands as though the cord had been some unclean thing. Then,
+he sat down to work, only to realise immediately, that work was
+impossible until he had confided in somebody his encounter with
+Ferrara.
+
+Lifting the telephone receiver, he called up Dr. Cairn, but his father
+was not at home.
+
+He replaced the receiver, and sat staring vaguely at his open
+notebook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE IVORY HAND
+
+
+For close upon an hour Robert Cairn sat at his writing-table,
+endeavouring to puzzle out a solution to the mystery of Ferrara's
+motive. His reflections served only to confuse his mind.
+
+A tangible clue lay upon the table before him--the silken cord. But it
+was a clue of such a nature that, whatever deductions an expert
+detective might have based upon it, Robert Cairn could base none. Dusk
+was not far off, and he knew that his nerves were not what they had
+been before those events which had led to his Egyptian journey. He was
+back in his own chamber--scene of one gruesome outrage in Ferrara's
+unholy campaign; for darkness is the ally of crime, and it had always
+been in the darkness that Ferrara's activities had most fearfully
+manifested themselves.
+
+What was that?
+
+Cairn ran to the window, and, leaning out, looked down into the court
+below. He could have sworn that a voice--a voice possessing a strange
+music, a husky music, wholly hateful--had called him by name. But at
+the moment the court was deserted, for it was already past the hour at
+which members of the legal fraternity desert their business premises
+to hasten homewards. Shadows were creeping under the quaint old
+archways; shadows were draping the ancient walls. And there was
+something in the aspect of the place which reminded him of a
+quadrangle at Oxford, across which, upon a certain fateful evening, he
+and another had watched the red light rising and falling in Antony
+Ferrara's rooms.
+
+Clearly his imagination was playing him tricks; and against this he
+knew full well that he must guard himself. The light in his rooms was
+growing dim, but instinctively his gaze sought out and found the
+mysterious silken cord amid the litter on the table. He contemplated
+the telephone, but since he had left a message for his father, he knew
+that the latter would ring him up directly he returned.
+
+Work, he thought, should be the likeliest antidote to the poisonous
+thoughts which oppressed his mind, and again he seated himself at the
+table and opened his notes before him. The silken rope lay close to
+his left hand, but he did not touch it. He was about to switch on the
+reading lamp, for it was now too dark to write, when his mind wandered
+off along another channel of reflection. He found himself picturing
+Myra as she had looked the last time that he had seen her.
+
+She was seated in Mr. Saunderson's garden, still pale from her
+dreadful illness, but beautiful--more beautiful in the eyes of Robert
+Cairn than any other woman in the world. The breeze was blowing her
+rebellious curls across her eyes--eyes bright with a happiness which
+he loved to see.
+
+Her cheeks were paler than they were wont to be, and the sweet lips
+had lost something of their firmness. She wore a short cloak, and a
+wide-brimmed hat, unfashionable, but becoming. No one but Myra could
+successfully have worn that hat, he thought.
+
+Wrapt in such lover-like memories, he forgot that he had sat down to
+write--forgot that he held a pen in his hand--and that this same hand
+had been outstretched to ignite the lamp.
+
+When he ultimately awoke again to the hard facts of his lonely
+environment, he also awoke to a singular circumstance; he made the
+acquaintance of a strange phenomenon.
+
+He had been writing unconsciously!
+
+And this was what he had written:
+
+"Robert Cairn--renounce your pursuit of me, and renounce Myra; or
+to-night--" The sentence was unfinished.
+
+Momentarily, he stared at the words, endeavouring to persuade himself
+that he had written them consciously, in idle mood. But some voice
+within gave him the lie; so that with a suppressed groan he muttered
+aloud:
+
+"It has begun!"
+
+Almost as he spoke there came a sound, from the passage outside, that
+led him to slide his hand across the table--and to seize his revolver.
+
+The visible presence of the little weapon reassured him; and, as a
+further sedative, he resorted to tobacco, filled and lighted his pipe,
+and leant back in the chair, blowing smoke rings towards the closed
+door.
+
+He listened intently--and heard the sound again.
+
+It was a soft _hiss_!
+
+And now, he thought he could detect another noise--as of some creature
+dragging its body along the floor.
+
+"A lizard!" he thought; and a memory of the basilisk eyes of Antony
+Ferrara came to him.
+
+Both the sounds seemed to come slowly nearer and nearer--the dragging
+thing being evidently responsible for the hissing; until Cairn decided
+that the creature must be immediately outside the door.
+
+Revolver in hand, he leapt across the room, and threw the door open.
+
+The red carpet, to right and left, was innocent of reptiles!
+
+Perhaps the creaking of the revolving chair, as he had prepared to
+quit it, had frightened the thing. With the idea before him, he
+systematically searched all the rooms into which it might have gone.
+
+His search was unavailing; the mysterious reptile was not to be found.
+
+Returning again to the study he seated himself behind the table,
+facing the door--which he left ajar.
+
+Ten minutes passed in silence--only broken by the dim murmur of the
+distant traffic.
+
+He had almost persuaded himself that his imagination--quickened by the
+atmosphere of mystery and horror wherein he had recently moved--was
+responsible for the hiss, when a new sound came to confute his
+reasoning.
+
+The people occupying the chambers below were moving about so that
+their footsteps were faintly audible; but, above these dim footsteps,
+a rustling--vague, indefinite, demonstrated itself. As in the case of
+the hiss, it proceeded from the passage.
+
+A light burnt inside the outer door, and this, as Cairn knew, must
+cast a shadow before any thing--or person--approaching the room.
+
+_Sssf! ssf!_--came, like the rustle of light draperies.
+
+The nervous suspense was almost unbearable. He waited.
+
+_What_ was creeping, slowly, cautiously, towards the open door?
+
+Cairn toyed with the trigger of his revolver.
+
+"The arts of the West shall try conclusions with those of the East,"
+he said.
+
+A shadow!...
+
+Inch upon inch it grew--creeping across the door, until it covered all
+the threshold visible.
+
+Someone was about to appear.
+
+He raised the revolver.
+
+The shadow moved along.
+
+Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was
+there!
+
+The shadow had come--and gone ... but there was _no substance_!
+
+"I am going mad!"
+
+The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his
+hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare
+him in the face!
+
+From that recent illness in London--when his nervous system had
+collapsed, utterly--despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully
+recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said;
+but?--perhaps he had been wrong--perchance the affection had been
+deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of
+supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he
+was become as a man in a delirium!
+
+Where did reality end and phantasy begin? Was it all merely
+subjective?
+
+He had read of such aberrations.
+
+And now he sat wondering if he were the victim of a like
+affliction--and while he wondered he stared at the rope of silk. That
+was real.
+
+Logic came to his rescue. If he had seen and heard strange things, so,
+too, had Sime in Egypt--so had his father, both in Egypt and in
+London! Inexplicable things were happening around him; and all could
+not be mad!
+
+"I'm getting morbid again," he told himself; "the tricks of our
+damnable Ferrara are getting on my nerves. Just what he desires and
+intends!"
+
+This latter reflection spurred him to new activity; and, pocketing the
+revolver, he switched off the light in the study and looked out of the
+window.
+
+Glancing across the court, he thought that he saw a man standing
+below, peering upward. With his hands resting upon the window ledge,
+Cairn looked long and steadily.
+
+There certainly was someone standing in the shadow of the tall plane
+tree--but whether man or woman he could not determine.
+
+The unknown remaining in the same position, apparently watching, Cairn
+ran downstairs, and, passing out into the Court, walked rapidly across
+to the tree. There he paused in some surprise; there was no one
+visible by the tree and the whole court was quite deserted.
+
+"Must have slipped off through the archway," he concluded; and,
+walking back, he remounted the stair and entered his chambers again.
+
+Feeling a renewed curiosity regarding the silken rope which had so
+strangely come into his possession, he sat down at the table, and
+mastering his distaste for the thing, took it in his hands and
+examined it closely by the light of the lamp.
+
+He was seated with his back to the windows, facing the door, so that
+no one could possibly have entered the room unseen by him. It was as
+he bent down to scrutinise the curious plaiting, that he felt a
+sensation stealing over him, as though someone were standing very
+close to his chair.
+
+Grimly determined to resist any hypnotic tricks that might be
+practised against him, and well assured that there could be no person
+actually present in the chambers, he sat back, resting his revolver on
+his knee. Prompted by he knew not what, he slipped the silk cord into
+the table drawer and turned the key upon it.
+
+As he did so a hand crept over his shoulder--followed by a bare arm of
+the hue of old ivory--a woman's arm!
+
+Transfixed he sat, his eyes fastened upon the ring of dull metal,
+bearing a green stone inscribed with a complex figure vaguely
+resembling a spider, which adorned the index finger.
+
+A faint perfume stole to his nostrils--that of the secret incense; and
+the ring was the ring of the Witch-Queen!
+
+In this incredible moment he relaxed that iron control of his mind,
+which, alone, had saved him before. Even as he realised it, and strove
+to recover himself, he knew that it was too late; he knew that he was
+lost!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gloom ... blackness, unrelieved by any speck of light; murmuring,
+subdued, all around; the murmuring of a concourse of people. The
+darkness was odorous with a heavy perfume.
+
+A voice came--followed by complete silence.
+
+Again the voice sounded, chanting sweetly.
+
+A response followed in deep male voices.
+
+The response was taken up all around--what time a tiny speck grew, in
+the gloom--and grew, until it took form; and out of the darkness, the
+shape of a white-robed woman appeared--high up--far away.
+
+Wherever the ray that illumined her figure emanated from, it did not
+perceptibly dispel the Stygian gloom all about her. She was bathed in
+dazzling light, but framed in impenetrable darkness.
+
+Her dull gold hair was encircled by a band of white metal--like
+silver, bearing in front a round, burnished disk, that shone like a
+minor sun. Above the disk projected an ornament having the shape of a
+spider.
+
+The intense light picked out every detail vividly. Neck and shoulders
+were bare--and the gleaming ivory arms were uplifted--the long slender
+fingers held aloft a golden casket covered with dim figures, almost
+undiscernible at that distance.
+
+A glittering zone of the same white metal confined the snowy
+draperies. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the flowing robe.
+
+Above, below, and around her was--Memphian darkness!
+
+Silence--the perfume was stifling.... A voice, seeming to come from a
+great distance, cried:--"On your knees to the Book of Thoth! on your
+knees to the Wisdom Queen, who is deathless, being unborn, who is dead
+though living, whose beauty is for all men--that all men may die...."
+
+The whole invisible concourse took up the chant, and the light faded,
+until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.
+
+Then that, too, vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it
+became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a
+man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to
+prevent it overturning.
+
+The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious,
+then--under some spell!
+
+He unhooked the receiver--and heard his father's voice.
+
+"That you, Rob?" asked the doctor anxiously.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid
+his hand in for the silken cord.
+
+"There is something you have to tell me?"
+
+Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his
+meeting with Ferrara. "The silk cord," he concluded, "I have in my
+hand at the present moment, and--"
+
+"Hold on a moment!" came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.
+
+Followed a short interval; then--
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious
+discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian
+Section of the British Museum late this evening. A case had been
+opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects,
+the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's
+strangling-cord from Kundélee (district of Nursingpore).'"
+
+"But, I don't understand--"
+
+"Ferrara _meant_ you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is
+unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a _focus_ for his
+damnable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere
+near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You
+are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in
+less than half-an-hour!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE THUG'S CORD
+
+
+As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again
+from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how
+in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet was far
+from human companionship.
+
+He recalled a night when, amid such a silence as this which now
+prevailed about him, he had been made the subject of an uncanny
+demonstration; how his sanity, his life, had been attacked; how he had
+fled from the crowding horrors which had been massed against him by
+his supernaturally endowed enemy.
+
+There was something very terrifying in the quietude of the court--a
+quietude which to others might have spelt peace, but which, to Robert
+Cairn, spelled menace. That Ferrara's device was aimed at his freedom,
+that his design was intended to lead to the detention of his enemy
+whilst he directed his activities in other directions, seemed
+plausible, if inadequate. The carefully planned incident at the Museum
+whereby the constable had become possessed of Cairn's card; the
+distinct possibility that a detective might knock upon his door at any
+moment--with the inevitable result of his detention pending
+inquiries--formed a chain which had seemed complete, save that Antony
+Ferrara, was the schemer. For another to have compassed so much, would
+have been a notable victory; for Ferrara, such a victory would be
+trivial.
+
+What then, did it mean? His father had told him, and the uncanny
+events of the evening stood evidence of Dr. Cairn's wisdom. The
+mysterious and evil force which Antony Ferrara controlled was being
+focussed upon him!
+
+Slight sounds from time to time disturbed the silence and to these he
+listened attentively. He longed for the arrival of his father--for the
+strong, calm counsel of the one man in England fitted to cope with the
+Hell Thing which had uprisen in their midst. That he had already been
+subjected to some kind of hypnotic influence, he was unable to doubt;
+and having once been subjected to this influence, he might at any
+moment (it Was a terrible reflection) fall a victim to it again.
+
+Cairn directed all the energies of his mind to resistance; ill-defined
+reflection must at all costs be avoided, for the brain vaguely
+employed he knew to be more susceptible to attack than that directed
+in a well-ordered channel.
+
+Clocks were chiming the hour--he did not know what hour, nor did he
+seek to learn. He felt that he was at rapier play with a skilled
+antagonist, and that to glance aside, however momentarily, was to lay
+himself open to a fatal thrust.
+
+He had not moved from the table, so that only the reading lamp upon it
+was lighted, and much of the room lay in half shadow. The silken cord,
+coiled snake-like, was close to his left hand; the revolver was close
+to his right. The muffled roar of traffic--diminished, since the hour
+grew late--reached his ears as he sat. But nothing disturbed the
+stillness of the court, and nothing disturbed the stillness of the
+room.
+
+The notes which he had made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still
+spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of
+anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance.
+His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully
+opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded
+that lighted table.
+
+There is a courage which is not physical, nor is it entirely moral; a
+courage often lacking in the most intrepid soldier. And this was the
+kind of courage which Robert Cairn now called up to his aid. The
+occult inquirer can face, unmoved, horrors which would turn the brain
+of many a man who wears the V.C.; on the other hand it is questionable
+if the possessor of this peculiar type of bravery could face a bayonet
+charge. Pluck of the physical sort, Cairn had in plenty; pluck of
+that more subtle kind he was acquiring from growing intimacy with the
+terrors of the Borderland.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+He spoke the words aloud, and the eerie sound of his own voice added a
+new dread to the enveloping shadows.
+
+His revolver grasped in his hand, he stood up, but slowly and
+cautiously, in order that his own movements might not prevent him from
+hearing any repetition of that which had occasioned his alarm. And
+what had occasioned this alarm?
+
+Either he was become again a victim of the strange trickery which
+already had borne him, though not physically, from Fleet Street to the
+secret temple of Méydûm, or with his material senses he had detected a
+soft rapping upon the door of his room.
+
+He knew that his outer door was closed; he knew that there was no one
+else in his chambers; yet he had heard a sound as of knuckles beating
+upon the panels of the door--the closed door of the room in which he
+sat!
+
+Standing upright, he turned deliberately, and faced in that direction.
+
+The light pouring out from beneath the shade of the table-lamp
+scarcely touched upon the door at all. Only the edges of the lower
+panels were clearly perceptible; the upper part of the door was masked
+in greenish shadow.
+
+Intent, tensely strung, he stood; then advanced in the direction of the
+switch in order to light the lamp fixed above the mantel-piece and to
+illuminate the whole of the room. One step forward he took, then ... the
+soft rapping was repeated.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+This time he cried the words loudly, and acquired some new assurance
+from the imperative note in his own voice. He ran to the switch and
+pressed it down. The lamp did not light!
+
+"The filament has burnt out," he muttered.
+
+Terror grew upon him--a terror akin to that which children experience
+in the darkness. But he yet had a fair mastery of his emotions;
+when--not suddenly, as is the way of a failing electric lamp--but
+slowly, uncannily, unnaturally, the table-lamp became extinguished!
+
+Darkness.... Cairn turned towards the window. This was a moonless
+night, and little enough illumination entered the room from the court.
+
+Three resounding raps were struck upon the door.
+
+At that, terror had no darker meaning for Cairn; he had plumbed its
+ultimate deeps; and now, like a diver, he arose again to the surface.
+
+Heedless of the darkness, of the seemingly supernatural means by which
+it had been occasioned, he threw open the door and thrust his revolver
+out into the corridor.
+
+For terrors, he had been prepared--for some gruesome shape such as we
+read of in _The Magus_. But there was nothing. Instinctively he had
+looked straight ahead of him, as one looks who expects to encounter a
+human enemy. But the hall-way was empty. A dim light, finding access
+over the door from the stair, prevailed there, yet, it was sufficient
+to have revealed the presence of anyone or anything, had anyone or
+anything been present.
+
+Cairn stepped out from the room and was about to walk to the outer
+door. The idea of flight was strong upon him, for no man can fight the
+invisible; when, on a level with his eyes--flat against the wall, as
+though someone crouched there--he saw two white hands!
+
+They were slim hands, like the hands of a woman, and, upon one of the
+tapered fingers, there dully gleamed a green stone.
+
+A peal of laughter came chokingly from his lips; he knew that his
+reason was tottering. For these two white hands which now moved along
+the wall, as though they were sidling to the room which Cairn had just
+quitted, were attached to no visible body; just two ivory hands were
+there ... _and nothing more_!
+
+That he was in deadly peril, Cairn realised fully. His complete
+subjection by the will-force of Ferrara had been interrupted by the
+ringing of the telephone bell But now, the attack had been renewed!
+
+The hands vanished.
+
+Too well he remembered the ghastly details attendant upon the death of
+Sir Michael Ferrara to doubt that these slim hands were directed upon
+murderous business.
+
+A soft swishing sound reached him. Something upon the writing-table
+had been moved.
+
+The strangling cord!
+
+Whilst speaking to his father he had taken it out from the drawer, and
+when he quitted the room it had lain upon the blotting-pad.
+
+He stepped back towards the outer door.
+
+Something fluttered past his face, and he turned in a mad panic. The
+dreadful, bodiless hands groped in the darkness between himself and
+the exit!
+
+Vaguely it came home to him that the menace might be avoidable. He was
+bathed in icy perspiration.
+
+He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and placed his hands upon his
+throat. Then he began to grope his way towards the closed door of his
+bedroom.
+
+Lowering his left hand, he began to feel for the doorknob. As he did
+so, he saw--and knew the crowning horror of the night--that he had
+made a false move. In retiring he had thrown away his last, his only,
+chance.
+
+The phantom hands, a yard apart and holding the silken cord stretched
+tightly between them, were approaching him swiftly!
+
+He lowered his head, and charged along the passage, with a wild cry.
+
+The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin.
+
+Back he reeled.
+
+The cord was about his throat!
+
+"God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands.
+
+Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It
+was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly--and ever more
+tightly--about him....
+
+Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then,
+
+"Rob! Rob! open the door!"
+
+Dr. Cairn was outside.
+
+A new strength came--and he knew that it was the last atom left to
+him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped
+hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself
+forward upon the door.
+
+The latch, now, was just above his head.
+
+He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right
+hand grasped the knob convulsively.
+
+Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob--and
+fell.
+
+All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that
+brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not
+relax.
+
+The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it.
+
+He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over
+him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing
+his inflamed throat.
+
+"All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...."
+
+"The hands!--"
+
+"I quite understand. But _I_ saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it
+had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a
+verdict of suicide!"
+
+"But I--opened the door!"
+
+"They would have said that you repented your awful act, too late.
+Although it is almost impossible for a man to strangle himself under
+such conditions, there is no jury in England who would have believed
+that Antony Ferrara had done the deed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE HIGH PRIEST, HORTOTEF
+
+
+The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn's house in Half-Moon Street presented
+a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for
+thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant
+mutterings ominous of a brewing storm.
+
+Robert Cairn stood looking out of the window. He was thinking of an
+afternoon at Oxford, when, to such an accompaniment as this, he had
+witnessed the first scene in the drama of evil wherein the man called
+Antony Ferrara sustained the leading _rôle_.
+
+That the _denouément_ was at any moment to be anticipated, his reason
+told him; and some instinct that was not of his reason forewarned him,
+too, that he and his father, Dr. Cairn, were now upon the eve of that
+final, decisive struggle which should determine the triumph of good
+over evil--or of evil over good. Already the doctor's house was
+invested by the uncanny forces marshalled by Antony Ferrara against
+them. The distinguished patients, who daily flocked to the
+consulting-room of the celebrated specialist, who witnessed his
+perfect self-possession and took comfort from his confidence, knowing
+it for the confidence of strength, little suspected that a greater ill
+than any flesh is heir to, assailed the doctor to whom they came for
+healing.
+
+A menace, dreadful and unnatural, hung over that home as now the
+thunder clouds hung over it. This well-ordered household, so modern,
+so typical of twentieth century culture and refinement, presented none
+of the appearances of a beleaguered garrison; yet the house of Dr.
+Cairn in Half-Moon Street, was nothing less than an invested
+fortress.
+
+A peal of distant thunder boomed from the direction of Hyde Park.
+Robert Cairn looked up at the lowering sky as if seeking a portent. To
+his eyes it seemed that a livid face, malignant with the malignancy of
+a devil, looked down out of the clouds.
+
+Myra Duquesne came into the breakfast-room.
+
+He turned to greet her, and, in his capacity of accepted lover, was
+about to kiss the tempting lips, when he hesitated--and contented
+himself with kissing her hand. A sudden sense of the proprieties had
+assailed him; he reflected that the presence of the girl beneath the
+same roof as himself--although dictated by imperative need--might be
+open to misconstruction by the prudish. Dr. Cairn had decided that for
+the present Myra Duquesne must dwell beneath his own roof, as, in
+feudal days, the Baron at first hint of an approaching enemy formerly
+was, accustomed to call within the walls of the castle, those whom it
+was his duty to protect. Unknown to the world, a tremendous battle
+raged in London, the outer works were in the possession of the
+enemy--and he was now before their very gates.
+
+Myra, though still pale from her recent illness, already was
+recovering some of the freshness of her beauty, and in her simple
+morning dress, as she busied herself about the breakfast table, she
+was a sweet picture enough, and good to look upon. Robert Cairn stood
+beside her, looking into her eyes, and she smiled up at him with a
+happy contentment, which filled him with a new longing. But:
+
+"Did you dream again, last night?" he asked, in a voice which he
+strove to make matter-of-fact.
+
+Myra nodded--and her face momentarily clouded over.
+
+"The same dream?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a troubled way; "at least--in some respects--"
+
+Dr. Cairn came in, glancing at his watch.
+
+"Good morning!" he cried, cheerily. "I have actually overslept
+myself."
+
+They took their seats at the table.
+
+"Myra has been dreaming again, sir," said Robert Cairn slowly.
+
+The doctor, serviette in hand, glanced up with an inquiry in his grey
+eyes.
+
+"We must not overlook any possible weapon," he replied. "Give us
+particulars of your dream, Myra."
+
+As Marston entered silently with the morning fare, and, having placed
+the dishes upon the table, as silently withdrew, Myra began:
+
+"I seemed to stand again in the barn-like building which I have
+described to you before. Through the rafters of the roof I could see
+the cracks in the tiling, and the moonlight shone through, forming
+light and irregular patches upon the floor. A sort of door, like that
+of a stable, with a heavy bar across, was dimly perceptible at the
+further end of the place. The only furniture was a large deal table
+and a wooden chair of a very common kind. Upon the table, stood a
+lamp--"
+
+"What kind of lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"A silver lamp"--she hesitated, looking from Robert to his
+father--"one that I have seen in--Antony's rooms. Its shaded light
+shone upon a closed iron box. I immediately recognised this box. You
+know that I described to you a dream which--terrified me on the
+previous night?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, frowning darkly.
+
+"Repeat your account of the former dream," he said. "I regard it as
+important."
+
+"In my former dream," the girl resumed--and her voice had an odd,
+far-away quality--"the scene was the same, except that the light of
+the lamp was shining down upon the leaves of an open book--a very,
+very old book, written in strange characters. These characters
+appeared to dance before my eyes--almost as though they lived."
+
+She shuddered slightly; then:
+
+"The same iron box, but open, stood upon the table, and a number of
+other, smaller, boxes, around it. Each of these boxes was of a
+different material. Some were wooden; one, I think, was of ivory; one
+was of silver--and one, of some dull metal, which might have been
+gold. In the chair, by the table, Antony was sitting. His eyes were
+fixed upon me, with such a strange expression that I awoke, trembling
+frightfully--"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded again.
+
+"And last night?" he prompted.
+
+"Last night," continued Myra, with a note of trouble in her sweet
+voice--"at four points around this table, stood four smaller lamps and
+upon the floor were rows of characters apparently traced in luminous
+paint. They flickered up and then grew dim, then flickered up again,
+in a sort of phosphorescent way. They extended from lamp to lamp, so
+as entirely to surround the table and the chair.
+
+"In the chair Antony Ferrara was sitting. He held a wand in his right
+hand--a wand with several copper rings about it; his left hand rested
+upon the iron box. In my dream, although I could see this all very
+clearly, I seemed to see it from a distance; yet, at the same time, I
+stood apparently close by the tables--I cannot explain. But I could
+hear nothing; only by the movements of his lips, could I tell that he
+was speaking--or chanting."
+
+She looked across at Dr. Cairn as if fearful to proceed, but presently
+continued:
+
+"Suddenly, I saw a frightful shape appear on the far side of the
+circle; that is to say, the table was between me and this shape. It
+was just like a grey cloud having the vague outlines of a man, but
+with two eyes of red fire glaring out from it--horribly--oh! horribly!
+It extended its shadowy arms as if saluting Antony. He turned and
+seemed to question it. Then with a look of ferocious anger--oh! it was
+frightful! he dismissed the shape, and began to walk up and down
+beside the table, but never beyond the lighted circle, shaking his
+fists in the air, and, to judge by the movements of his lips, uttering
+most awful imprecations. He looked gaunt and ill. I dreamt no more,
+but awoke conscious of a sensation as though some dead weight, which
+had been pressing upon me had been suddenly removed."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced across at his son significantly, but the subject was
+not renewed throughout breakfast.
+
+Breakfast concluded:
+
+"Come into the library, Rob," said Dr. Cairn, "I have half-an-hour to
+spare, and there are some matters to be discussed."
+
+He led the way into the library with its orderly rows of obscure
+works, its store of forgotten wisdom, and pointed to the red leathern
+armchair. As Robert Cairn seated himself and looked across at his
+father, who sat at the big writing-table, that scene reminded him of
+many dangers met and overcome in the past; for the library at
+Half-Moon Street was associated in his mind with some of the blackest
+pages in the history of Antony Ferrara.
+
+"Do you understand the position, Rob?" asked the doctor, abruptly.
+
+"I think so, sir. This I take it is his last card; this outrageous,
+ungodly Thing which he has loosed upon us."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"The exact frontier," he said, "dividing what we may term hypnotism
+from what we know as sorcery, has yet to be determined; and to which
+territory the doctrine of Elemental Spirits belongs, it would be
+purposeless at the moment to discuss. We may note, however,
+remembering with whom we are dealing, that the one-hundred-and-eighth
+chapter of the Ancient Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, is entitled 'The
+Chapter of Knowing the Spirits of the West.' Forgetting, _pro tem._,
+that we dwell in the twentieth century, and looking at the situation
+from the point of view, say, of Eliphas Lévi, Cornelius Agrippa, or
+the Abbé de Villars--the man whom we know as Antony Ferrara, is
+directing against this house, and those within it, a type of elemental
+spirit, known as a Salamander!"
+
+Robert Cairn smiled slightly.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, with an answering smile in which there was
+little mirth, "we are accustomed to laugh at this mediæval
+terminology; but by what other can we speak of the activities of
+Ferrara?"
+
+"Sometimes I think that we are the victims of a common madness," said
+his son, raising his hand to his head in a manner almost pathetic.
+
+"We are the victims of a common enemy," replied his father sternly.
+"He employs weapons which, often enough, in this enlightened age of
+ours, have condemned poor souls, as sane as you or I, to the madhouse!
+Why, in God's name," he cried with a sudden excitement, "does science
+persistently ignore all those laws which cannot be examined in the
+laboratory! Will the day never come when some true man of science
+shall endeavour to explain the movements of a table upon which a ring
+of hands has been placed? Will no exact scientist condescend to
+examine the properties of a _planchette_? Will no one do for the
+phenomena termed thought-forms, what Newton did for that of the
+falling apple? Ah! Rob, in some respects, this is a darker age than
+those which bear the stigma of darkness."
+
+Silence fell for a few moments between them; then:
+
+"One thing is certain," said Robert Cairn, deliberately, "we are in
+danger!"
+
+"In the greatest danger!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara, realising that we are bent upon his destruction, is
+making a final, stupendous effort to compass ours. I know that you
+have placed certain seals upon the windows of this house, and that
+after dusk these windows are never opened. I know that imprints,
+strangely like the imprints of _fiery hands_, may be seen at this
+moment upon the casements of Myra's room, your room, my room, and
+elsewhere. I know that Myra's dreams are not ordinary, meaningless
+dreams. I have had other evidence. I don't want to analyse these
+things; I confess that my mind is not capable of the task. I do not
+even want to know the meaning of it all; at the present moment, I only
+want to know one thing: _Who is Antony Ferrara?_"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, and turning, faced his son.
+
+"The time has come," he said, "when that question, which you have
+asked me so many times before, shall be answered. I will tell you all
+I know, and leave you to form your own opinion. For ere we go any
+further, I assure you that I do not know for certain who he is!"
+
+"You have said so before, sir. Will you explain what you mean?"
+
+"When his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara," resumed the doctor,
+beginning to pace up and down the library--"when Sir Michael and I
+were in Egypt, in the winter of 1893, we conducted certain inquiries
+in the Fayûm. We camped for over three months beside the Méydûm
+Pyramid. The object of our inquiries was to discover the tomb of a
+certain queen. I will not trouble you with the details, which could be
+of no interest to anyone but an Egyptologist, I will merely say that
+apart from the name and titles by which she is known to the ordinary
+student, this queen is also known to certain inquirers as the
+Witch-Queen. She was not an Egyptian, but an Asiatic. In short, she
+was the last high priestess of a cult which became extinct at her
+death. Her secret mark--I am not referring to a cartouche or anything
+of that kind--was a spider; it was the mark of the religion or cult
+which she practised. The high priest of the principal Temple of Ra,
+during the reign of the Pharaoh who was this queen's husband, was one
+Hortotef. This was his official position, but secretly he was also the
+high-priest of the sinister creed to which I have referred. The temple
+of this religion--a religion allied to Black Magic--was the Pyramid of
+Méydûm.
+
+"So much we knew--or Ferrara knew, and imparted to me--but for any
+corroborative evidence of this cult's existence we searched in vain.
+We explored the interior of the pyramid foot by foot, inch by
+inch--and found nothing. We knew that there was some other apartment
+in the pyramid, but in spite of our soundings, measurements and
+laborious excavations, we did not come upon the entrance to it. The
+tomb of the queen we failed to discover, also, and therefore concluded
+that her mummy was buried in the secret chamber of the pyramid. We had
+abandoned our quest in despair, when, excavating in one of the
+neighbouring mounds, we made a discovery."
+
+He opened a box of cigars, selected one, and pushed the box towards
+his son. Robert shook his head, almost impatiently, but Dr. Cairn
+lighted the cigar ere resuming:
+
+"Directed, as I now believe, by a malignant will, we blundered upon
+the tomb of the high priest--"
+
+"You found his mummy?"
+
+"We found his mummy--yes. But owing to the carelessness--and the
+fear--of the native labourers it was exposed to the sun and
+crumpled--was lost. I would a similar fate had attended the other one
+which we found!"
+
+"What, another mummy?"
+
+"We discovered"--Dr. Cairn spoke very deliberately--"a certain
+papyrus. The translation of this is contained"--he rested the point of
+his finger upon the writing-table--"in the unpublished book of Sir
+Michael Ferrara, which lies here. That book, Rob, will never be
+published now! Furthermore, we discovered the mummy of a child--"
+
+"A child."
+
+"A boy. Not daring to trust the natives, we removed it secretly at
+night to our own tent. Before we commenced the task of unwrapping it,
+Sir Michael--the most brilliant scholar of his age--had proceeded so
+far in deciphering the papyrus, that he determined to complete his
+reading before we proceeded further. It contained directions for
+performing a certain process. This process had reference to the mummy
+of the child."
+
+"Do I understand--?"
+
+"Already, you are discrediting the story! Ah! I can see it! but let me
+finish. Unaided, we performed this process upon the embalmed body of
+the child. Then, in accordance with the directions of that dead
+magician--that accursed, malignant being, who thus had sought to
+secure for himself a new tenure of evil life--we laid the mummy,
+treated in a certain fashion, in the King's Chamber of the Méydûm
+Pyramid. It remained there for thirty days; from moon to moon--"
+
+"You guarded the entrance?"
+
+"You may assume what you like, Rob; but I could swear before any jury,
+that no one entered the pyramid throughout that time. Yet since we
+were only human, we may have been deceived in this. I have only to
+add, that when at the rising of the new moon in the ancient Sothic
+month of Panoi, we again entered the chamber, a living baby, some six
+months old, perfectly healthy, solemnly blinked up at the lights which
+we held in our trembling hands!"
+
+Dr. Cairn reseated himself at the table, and turned the chair so that
+he faced his son. With the smouldering cigar between his teeth, he
+sat, a slight smile upon his lips.
+
+Now it was Robert's turn to rise and begin feverishly to pace the
+floor.
+
+"You mean, sir, that this infant--which lay in the
+pyramid--was--adopted by Sir Michael?"
+
+"Was adopted, yes. Sir Michael engaged nurses for him, reared him here
+in England, educating him as an Englishman, sent him to a public
+school, sent him to--"
+
+"To Oxford! Antony Ferrara! What! Do you seriously tell me that this
+is the history of Antony Ferrara?"
+
+"On my word of honour, boy, that is all I know of Antony Ferrara. Is
+it not enough?"
+
+"Merciful God! it is incredible," groaned Robert Cairn.
+
+"From the time that he attained to manhood," said Dr. Cairn evenly,
+"this adopted son of my poor old friend has passed from crime to
+crime. By means which are beyond my comprehension, and which alone
+serve to confirm his supernatural origin, he has acquired--knowledge.
+According to the Ancient Egyptian beliefs the _Khu_ (or magical
+powers) of a fully-equipped Adept, at the death of the body, could
+enter into anything prepared for its reception. According to these
+ancient beliefs, then, the _Khu_ of the high priest Hortotef entered
+into the body of this infant who was his son, and whose mother was the
+Witch-Queen; and to-day in this modern London, a wizard of Ancient
+Egypt, armed with the lost lore of that magical land, walks amongst
+us! What that lore is worth, it would be profitless for us to discuss,
+but that he possesses it--_all_ of it--I know, beyond doubt. The most
+ancient and most powerful magical book which has ever existed was the
+_Book of Thoth_."
+
+He walked across to a distant shelf, selected a volume, opened it at a
+particular page, and placed it on his son's knees.
+
+"Read there!" he said, pointing.
+
+The words seemed to dance before the younger man's eyes, and this is
+what he read:
+
+"To read two pages, enables you to enchant the heavens, the earth, the
+abyss, the mountains, and the sea; you shall know what the birds of
+the sky and the crawling things are saying ... and when the second
+page is read, if you are in the world of ghosts, you will grow again
+in the shape you were on earth...."
+
+"Heavens!" whispered Robert Cairn, "is this the writing of a madman?
+or can such things possibly be!" He read on:
+
+"This book is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box--"
+
+"An iron box," he muttered--"an iron box."
+
+"So you recognise the iron box?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+His son read on:
+
+"In the iron box, is a bronze box; in the bronze box, is a sycamore
+box; in the sycamore box, is an ivory and ebony box; in the ivory and
+ebony box, is a silver box; in the silver box, is a golden box; and in
+that is the book. It is twisted all round with snakes, and scorpions,
+and all the other crawling things...."
+
+"The man who holds the _Book of Thoth_," said Dr. Cairn, breaking the
+silence, "holds a power which should only belong to God. The creature
+who is known to the world as Antony Ferrara, holds that book--do you
+doubt it?--therefore you know now, as I have known long enough, with
+what manner of enemy we are fighting. You know that, this time, it is
+a fight to the death--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, staring out of the window.
+
+A man with a large photographic camera, standing upon the opposite
+pavement, was busily engaged in focussing the house!
+
+"What is this?" muttered Robert Cairn, also stepping to the window.
+
+"It is a link between sorcery and science!" replied the doctor. "You
+remember Ferrara's photographic gallery at Oxford?--the Zenana, you
+used to call it!--You remember having seen in his collection
+photographs of persons who afterwards came to violent ends?"
+
+"I begin to understand!"
+
+"Thus far, his endeavours to concentrate the whole of the evil forces
+at his command upon this house have had but poor results: having
+merely caused Myra to dream strange dreams--clairvoyant dreams,
+instructive dreams, more useful to us than to the enemy; and having
+resulted in certain marks upon the outside of the house adjoining the
+windows--windows which I have sealed in a particular manner. You
+understand?"
+
+"By means of photographs he--concentrates, in some way, malignant
+forces upon certain points--"
+
+"He focusses his will--yes! The man who can really control his will,
+Rob, is supreme, below the Godhead. Ferrara can almost do this now.
+Before he has become wholly proficient--"
+
+"I understand, sir," snapped his son grimly.
+
+"He is barely of age, boy," Dr. Cairn said, almost in a whisper. "In
+another year, he would menace the world. Where are you going?"
+
+He grasped his son's arm as Robert started for the door.
+
+"That man yonder--"
+
+"Diplomacy, Rob!--Guile against guile. Let the man do his work, which
+he does in all innocence; _then_ follow him. Learn where his studio is
+situated, and, from that point, proceed to learn--"
+
+"The situation of Ferrara's hiding-place?" cried his son, excitedly.
+"I understand! Of course; you are right, sir."
+
+"I will leave the inquiry in your hands, Rob. Unfortunately other
+duties call me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+
+Robert Cairn entered a photographer's shop in Baker Street.
+
+"You recently arranged to do views of some houses in the West End for
+a gentleman?" he said to the girl in charge.
+
+"That is so," she replied, after a moment's hesitation. "We did
+pictures of the house of some celebrated specialist--for a magazine
+article they were intended. Do you wish us to do something similar?"
+
+"Not at the moment," replied Robert Cairn, smiling slightly. "I merely
+want the address of your client."
+
+"I do not know that I can give you that," replied the girl doubtfully,
+"but he will be here about eleven o'clock for proofs, if you wish to
+see him."
+
+"I wonder if I can confide in you," said Robert Cairn, looking the
+girl frankly in the eyes.
+
+She seemed rather confused.
+
+"I hope there is nothing wrong," she murmured.
+
+"You have nothing to fear," he replied, "but unfortunately there _is_
+something wrong, which, however, I cannot explain. Will you promise me
+not to tell your client--I do not ask his name--that I have been here,
+or have been making any inquiries respecting him?"
+
+"I think I can promise that," she replied.
+
+"I am much indebted to you."
+
+Robert Cairn hastily left the shop, and began to look about him for a
+likely hiding-place from whence, unobserved, he might watch the
+photographer's. An antique furniture dealer's, some little distance
+along on the opposite side, attracted his attention. He glanced at his
+watch. It was half-past ten.
+
+If, upon the pretence of examining some of the stock, he could linger
+in the furniture shop for half-an-hour, he would be enabled to get
+upon the track of Ferrara!
+
+His mind made up, he walked along and entered the shop. For the next
+half-an-hour, he passed from item to item of the collection displayed
+there, surveying each in the leisurely manner of a connoisseur; but
+always he kept a watch, through the window, upon the photographer's
+establishment beyond.
+
+Promptly at eleven o'clock a taxi cab drew up at the door, and from it
+a slim man alighted. He wore, despite the heat of the morning, an
+overcoat of some woolly material; and in his gait, as he crossed the
+pavement to enter the shop, there was something revoltingly
+effeminate; a sort of cat-like grace which had been noticeable in a
+woman, but which in a man was unnatural, and for some obscure reason,
+sinister.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+Even at that distance and in that brief time, Robert Cairn could see
+the ivory face, the abnormal, red lips, and the long black eyes of
+this arch fiend, this monster masquerading as a man. He had much ado
+to restrain his rising passion; but, knowing that all depended upon
+his cool action, he waited until Ferrara had entered the
+photographer's. With a word of apology to the furniture dealer, he
+passed quickly into Baker Street. Everything rested, now, upon his
+securing a cab before Ferrara came out again. Ferrara's cabman,
+evidently, was waiting for him.
+
+A taxi driver fortunately hailed Cairn at the very moment that he
+gained the pavement; and Cairn, concealing himself behind the vehicle,
+gave the man rapid instructions:
+
+"You see that taxi outside the photographer's?" he said.
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"Wait until someone comes out of the shop and is driven off in it;
+then follow. Do not lose sight of the cab for a moment. When it draws
+up, and wherever it draws up, drive right past it. Don't attract
+attention by stopping. You understand?"
+
+"Quite, sir," said the man, smiling slightly. And Cairn entered the
+cab.
+
+The cabman drew up at a point some little distance beyond, from whence
+he could watch. Two minutes later Ferrara came out and was driven off.
+The pursuit commenced.
+
+His cab, ahead, proceeded to Westminster Bridge, across to the south
+side of the river, and by way of that commercial thoroughfare at the
+back of St. Thomas' Hospital, emerged at Vauxhall. Thence the pursuit
+led to Stockwell, Herne Hill, and yet onward towards Dulwich.
+
+It suddenly occurred to Robert Cairn that Ferrara was making in the
+direction of Mr. Saunderson's house at Dulwich Common; the house in
+which Myra had had her mysterious illness, in which she had remained
+until it had become evident that her safety depended upon her never
+being left alone for one moment.
+
+"What can be his object?" muttered Cairn.
+
+He wondered if Ferrara, for some inscrutable reason, was about to call
+upon Mr. Saunderson. But when the cab ahead, having passed the park,
+continued on past the lane in which the house was situated, he began
+to search for some other solution to the problem of Ferrara's
+destination.
+
+Suddenly he saw that the cab ahead had stopped. The driver of his own
+cab without slackening speed, pursued his way. Cairn crouched down
+upon the floor, fearful of being observed. No house was visible to
+right nor left, merely open fields; and he knew that it would be
+impossible for him to delay in such a spot without attracting
+attention.
+
+Ferrara's cab passed:
+
+"Keep on till I tell you to stop!" cried Cairn.
+
+He dropped the speaking-tube, and, turning, looked out through the
+little window at the back.
+
+Ferrara had dismissed his cab; he saw him entering a gate and crossing
+a field on the right of the road. Cairn turned again and took up the
+tube.
+
+"Stop at the first house we come to!" he directed. "Hurry!"
+
+Presently a deserted-looking building was reached, a large straggling
+house which obviously had no tenant. Here the man pulled up and Cairn
+leapt out. As he did so, he heard Ferrara's cab driving back by the
+way it had come.
+
+"Here," he said, and gave the man half a sovereign, "wait for me."
+
+He started back along the road at a run. Even had he suspected that he
+was followed, Ferrara could not have seen him. But when Cairn came up
+level with the gate through which Ferrara had gone, he slowed down and
+crept cautiously forward.
+
+Ferrara, who by this time had reached the other side of the field, was
+in the act of entering a barn-like building which evidently at some
+time had formed a portion of a farm. As the distant figure, opening
+one of the big doors, disappeared within:
+
+"The place of which Myra has been dreaming!" muttered Cairn.
+
+Certainly, viewed from that point, it seemed to answer, externally, to
+the girl's description. The roof was of moss-grown red tiles, and
+Cairn could imagine how the moonlight would readily find access
+through the chinks which beyond doubt existed in the weather-worn
+structure. He had little doubt that this was the place dreamt of, or
+seen clairvoyantly, by Myra, that this was the place to which Ferrara
+had retreated in order to conduct his nefarious operations.
+
+It was eminently suited to the purpose, being entirely surrounded by
+unoccupied land. For what ostensible purpose Ferrara has leased it, he
+could not conjecture, nor did he concern himself with the matter. The
+purpose for which actually he had leased the place was sufficiently
+evident to the man who had suffered so much at the hands of this
+modern sorcerer.
+
+To approach closer would have been indiscreet; this he knew; and he
+was sufficiently diplomatic to resist the temptation to obtain a
+nearer view of the place. He knew that everything depended upon
+secrecy. Antony Ferrara must not suspect that his black laboratory was
+known. Cairn decided to return to Half-Moon Street without delay,
+fully satisfied with the result of his investigation.
+
+He walked rapidly back to where the cab waited, gave the man his
+father's address, and, in three-quarters of an hour, was back in
+Half-Moon Street.
+
+Dr. Cairn had not yet dismissed the last of his patients; Myra,
+accompanied by Miss Saunderson, was out shopping; and Robert found
+himself compelled to possess his soul in patience. He paced restlessly
+up and down the library, sometimes taking a book at random, scanning
+its pages with unseeing eyes, and replacing it without having formed
+the slightest impression of its contents. He tried to smoke; but his
+pipe was constantly going out, and he had littered the hearth untidily
+with burnt matches, when Dr. Cairn suddenly opened the library door,
+and entered.
+
+"Well?" he said eagerly.
+
+Robert Cairn leapt forward.
+
+"I have tracked him, sir!" he cried. "My God! while Myra was at
+Saunderson's, she was almost next door to the beast! His den is in a
+field no more than a thousand yards from the garden wall--from
+Saunderson's orchid-houses!"
+
+"He is daring," muttered Dr. Cairn, "but his selection of that site
+served two purposes. The spot was suitable in many ways; and we were
+least likely to look for him next-door, as it were. It was a move
+characteristic of the accomplished criminal."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"It is the place of which Myra dreamt, sir. I have not the slightest
+doubt about that. What we have to find out is at what times of the day
+and night he goes there--"
+
+"I doubt," interrupted Dr. Cairn, "if he often visits the place during
+the day. As you know, he has abandoned his rooms in Piccadilly, but I
+have no doubt, knowing his sybaritic habits, that he has some other
+palatial place in town. I have been making inquiries in several
+directions, especially in--certain directions--"
+
+He paused, raising his eyebrows, significantly.
+
+"Additions to the Zenana!" inquired Robert.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded his head grimly.
+
+"Exactly," he replied. "There is not a scrap of evidence upon which,
+legally, he could be convicted; but since his return from Egypt, Rob,
+he has added other victims to the list!"
+
+"The fiend!" cried the younger man, "the unnatural fiend!"
+
+"Unnatural is the word; he is literally unnatural; but many women find
+him irresistible; he is typical of the unholy brood to which he
+belongs. The evil beauty of the Witch-Queen sent many a soul to
+perdition; the evil beauty of her son has zealously carried on the
+work."
+
+"What must we do?"
+
+"I doubt if we can do anything to-day. Obviously the early morning is
+the most suitable time to visit his den at Dulwich Common."
+
+"But the new photographs of the house? There will be another attempt
+upon us to-night."
+
+"Yes, there will be another attempt upon us, to-night," said the
+doctor wearily. "This is the year 1914; yet, here in Half-Moon Street,
+when dusk falls, we shall be submitted to an attack of a kind to which
+mankind probably has not been submitted for many ages. We shall be
+called upon to dabble in the despised magical art; we shall be called
+upon to place certain seals upon our doors and windows; to protect
+ourselves against an enemy, who, like Eros, laughs at locks and bars."
+
+"Is it possible for him to succeed?"
+
+"Quite possible, Rob, in spite of all our precautions. I feel in my
+very bones that to-night he will put forth a supreme effort."
+
+A bell rang.
+
+"I think," continued the doctor, "that this is Myra. She must get all
+the sleep she can, during the afternoon; for to-night I have
+determined that she, and you, and I, must not think of sleep, but must
+remain together, here in the library. We must not lose sight of one
+another--you understand?"
+
+"I am glad that you have proposed it!" cried Robert Cairn eagerly,
+"I, too, feel that we have come to a critical moment in the contest."
+
+"To-night," continued the doctor, "I shall be prepared to take certain
+steps. My preparations will occupy me throughout the rest of to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE ELEMENTAL
+
+
+At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met
+together in the library. The girl looked rather pale.
+
+An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor's
+study, wherein he had locked himself early in the evening, issuing
+instructions that he was not to be disturbed. The exact nature of the
+preparations which he had been making, Robert Cairn was unable to
+conjecture; and some instinct warned him that his father would not
+welcome any inquiry upon the matter. He realised that Dr. Cairn
+proposed to fight Antony Ferrara with his own weapons, and now, when
+something in the very air of the house seemed to warn them of a
+tremendous attack impending, that the doctor, much against his will,
+was entering the arena in the character of a practical magician--a
+character new to him, and obviously abhorrent.
+
+At half-past ten, the servants all retired in accordance With Dr.
+Cairn's orders. From where he stood by the tall mantel-piece, Robert
+Cairn could watch Myra Duquesne, a dainty picture in her simple
+evening-gown, where she sat reading in a distant corner, her delicate
+beauty forming a strong contrast to the background of sombre volumes.
+Dr. Cairn sat by the big table, smoking, and apparently listening. A
+strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week,
+he had adopted again to-night--there were little white seals, bearing
+a curious figure, consisting in interlaced triangles, upon the insides
+of every window in the house, upon the doors, and even upon the
+fire-grates.
+
+Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad,
+childish, thus to play at wizardry; but he had had experiences which
+had taught him to recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters,
+great issues might turn, that in the strange land over the Border,
+there were stranger laws--laws which he could but dimly understand.
+There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn; and did not
+question it.
+
+At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street.
+The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided, until it seemed to
+him that the house stood, not in the busy West End of London, but
+isolated, apart from its neighbours; it seemed to him an abode, marked
+out and separated from the other abodes of man, a house enveloped in
+an impalpable cloud, a cloud of evil, summoned up and directed by the
+wizard hand of Antony Ferrara, son of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Although Myra pretended to read, and Dr. Cairn, from his fixed
+expression, might have been supposed to be pre-occupied, in point of
+fact they were all waiting, with nerves at highest tension, for the
+opening of the attack. In what form it would come--whether it would be
+vague moanings and tappings upon the windows, such as they had already
+experienced, whether it would be a phantasmal storm, a clap of
+phenomenal thunder--they could not conjecture, if the enemy would
+attack suddenly, or if his menace would grow, threatening from afar
+off, and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison.
+
+It came, then, suddenly and dramatically.
+
+Dropping her book, Myra uttered a piercing scream, and with eyes
+glaring madly, fell forward on the carpet, unconscious!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt to his feet with clenched fists. His father stood
+up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell crashingly upon the
+floor.
+
+Together they turned and looked in the direction in which the girl had
+been looking. They fixed their eyes upon the drapery of the library
+window--which was drawn together. The whole window was luminous as
+though a bright light shone outside, but luminous, as though that
+light were the light of some unholy fire!
+
+Involuntarily they both stepped back, and Robert Cairn clutched his
+father's arm convulsively.
+
+The curtains seemed to be rendered transparent, as if some powerful
+ray were directed upon them; the window appeared through them as a
+rectangular blue patch. Only two lamps were burning in the library,
+that in the corner by which Myra had been reading, and the green
+shaded lamp upon the table. The best end of the room by the window,
+then, was in shadow, against which this unnatural light shone
+brilliantly.
+
+"My God!" whispered Robert Cairn--"that's Half-Moon Street--outside.
+There can be no light--"
+
+He broke off, for now he perceived the Thing which had occasioned the
+girl's scream of horror.
+
+In the middle of the rectangular patch of light, a grey shape, but
+partially opaque, moved--shifting, luminous clouds about it--was
+taking form, growing momentarily more substantial!
+
+It had some remote semblance of a man; but its unique characteristic
+was its awful _greyness_. It had the greyness of a rain cloud, yet
+rather that of a column of smoke. And from the centre of the dimly
+defined head, two eyes--balls of living fire--glared out into the
+room!
+
+Heat was beating into the library from the window--physical heat, as
+though a furnace door had been opened ... and the shape, ever growing
+more palpable, was moving forward towards them--approaching--the heat
+every instant growing greater.
+
+It was impossible to look at those two eyes of fire; it was almost
+impossible to move. Indeed Robert Cairn was transfixed in such horror
+as, in all his dealings with the monstrous Ferrara, he had never known
+before. But his father, shaking off the dread which possessed him
+also, leapt at one bound to the library table.
+
+Robert Cairn vaguely perceived that a small group of objects, looking
+like balls of wax, lay there. Dr. Cairn had evidently been preparing
+them in the locked study. Now he took them all up in his left hand,
+and confronted the Thing--which seemed to be _growing_ into the
+room--for it did not advance in the ordinary sense of the word.
+
+One by one he threw the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As
+they touched the curtain, they hissed as if they had been thrown into
+a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as
+upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they
+trickled down the tapestry.
+
+As he cast each pellet from his hand, Dr. Cairn took a step forward,
+and cried out certain words in a loud voice--words which Robert Cairn
+knew he had never heard uttered before, words in a language which some
+instinct told him to be Ancient Egyptian.
+
+Their effect was to force that dreadful shape gradually to disperse,
+as a cloud of smoke might disperse when the fire which occasions it is
+extinguished slowly. Seven pellets in all he threw towards the
+window--and the seventh struck the curtains, now once more visible in
+their proper form.
+
+The Fire Elemental had been vanquished!
+
+Robert Cairn clutched his hair in a sort of frenzy. He glared at the
+draped window, feeling that he was making a supreme effort to retain
+his sanity. Had it ever looked otherwise? Had the tapestry ever faded
+before him, becoming visible in a great light which had shone through
+it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
+stood there?
+
+He read his answer upon the tapestry.
+
+Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
+the curtain!
+
+"Lift Myra on the settee!"
+
+It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.
+
+Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
+white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
+and raised the girl's head.
+
+"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."
+
+"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
+until you have revived her! She has swooned--nothing worse."
+
+"And--"
+
+"We have conquered!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+
+The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these
+two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the
+door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which on the
+previous night had reached them, or almost reached them, in the
+library at Half-Moon Street.
+
+The big double doors were padlocked, but for this they had come
+provided. Ten minutes work upon the padlock sufficed--and Dr. Cairn
+swung wide the doors.
+
+A suffocating smell--the smell of that incense with which they had too
+often come in contact, was wafted out to them. There was a dim light
+inside the place, and without hesitation both entered.
+
+A deal table and chair constituted the sole furniture of the interior.
+A part of the floor was roughly boarded, and a brief examination of
+the boarding sufficed to discover the hiding place in which Antony
+Ferrara kept the utensils of his awful art.
+
+Dr. Cairn lifted out two heavy boards; and in a recess below lay a
+number of singular objects. There were four antique lamps of most
+peculiar design; there was a larger silver lamp, which both of them
+had seen before in various apartments occupied by Antony Ferrara.
+There were a number of other things which Robert Cairn could not have
+described, had he been called upon to do so, for the reason that he
+had seen nothing like them before, and had no idea of their nature or
+purpose.
+
+But, conspicuous amongst this curious hoard, was a square iron box of
+workmanship dissimilar from any workmanship known to Robert Cairn. Its
+lid was covered with a sort of scroll work, and he was about to reach
+down, in order to lift it out, when:
+
+"Do not touch it!" cried the doctor--"for God's sake, do not touch
+it!"
+
+Robert Cairn started back, as though he had seen a snake. Turning to
+his father, he saw that the latter was pulling on a pair of white
+gloves. As he fixed his eyes upon these in astonishment, he perceived
+that they were smeared all over with some white preparation.
+
+"Stand aside, boy," said the doctor--and for once his voice shook
+slightly. "Do not look again until I call to you. Turn your head
+aside!"
+
+Silent with amazement, Robert Cairn obeyed. He heard his father lift
+out the iron box. He heard him open it, for he had already perceived
+that it was not locked. Then quite distinctly, he heard him close it
+again, and replace it in the _cache_.
+
+"Do not turn, boy!" came a hoarse whisper.
+
+He did not turn, but waited, his heart beating painfully, for what
+should happen next.
+
+"Stand aside from the door," came the order, "and when I have gone
+out, do not look after me. I will call to you when it is finished."
+
+He obeyed, without demur.
+
+His father passed him, and he heard him walking through the damp grass
+outside the door of the barn. There followed an intolerable interval.
+From some place, not very distant, he could hear Dr. Cairn moving,
+hear the chink of glass upon glass, as though he were pouring out
+something from a stoppered bottle. Then a faint acrid smell was wafted
+to his nostrils, perceptible even above the heavy odour of the incense
+from the barn.
+
+"Relock the door!" came the cry.
+
+Robert Cairn reclosed the door, snapped the padlock fast, and began to
+fumble with the skeleton keys with which they had come provided. He
+discovered that to reclose the padlock was quite as difficult as to
+open it. His hands were trembling too; he was all anxiety to see what
+had taken place behind him. So that when at last a sharp click told of
+the task accomplished, he turned in a flash and saw his father placing
+tufts of grass upon a charred patch from which a faint haze of smoke
+still arose. He walked over and joined him.
+
+"What have you done, sir?"
+
+"I have robbed him of his armour," replied the doctor, grimly. His
+face was very pale, his eyes were very bright. "I have destroyed the
+_Book of Thoth_!"
+
+"Then, he will be unable--"
+
+"He will still be able to summon his dreadful servant, Rob. Having
+summoned him once, he can summon him again, but--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"He cannot control him."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night brought no repetition of the uncanny attack; and in the
+grey half light before the dawn, Dr. Cairn and his son, themselves
+like two phantoms, again crept across the field to the barn.
+
+The padlock hung loose in the ring.
+
+"Stay where you are, Rob!" cautioned the doctor.
+
+He gently pushed the door open--wider--wider--and looked in. There was
+an overpowering odour of burning flesh. He turned to Robert, and spoke
+in a steady voice.
+
+"The brood of the Witch-Queen is extinct!" he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
+THE DEVIL DOCTOR
+THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES
+THE YELLOW CLAW
+EXPLOITS OF CAPT. O'HAGAN
+TALES OF SECRET EGYPT
+THE ROMANCE OF SORCERY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
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+Title: Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts
+
+
+Author: Frank Richard Stockton
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 30, 2005  [eBook #17188]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUCCANEERS AND PIRATES OF OUR
+COASTS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, David Yingling, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 17188-h.htm or 17188-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/1/8/17188/17188-h/17188-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/1/8/17188/17188-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+BUCCANEERS AND PIRATES OF OUR COASTS
+
+by
+
+FRANK R. STOCKTON
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "The pirates climbed up the sides of the man-of-war as if
+they had been twenty-nine cats."--Frontispiece.]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers
+New York
+by arrangement with The Macmillan Company
+Copyright, 1897-1898,
+By the Century Co.
+Copyright, 1898, 1926,
+By the MacMillan Company.
+All rights reserved--no part of this book
+may be reproduced in any form without
+permission in writing from the publisher,
+except by a reviewer who wishes to quote
+brief passages in connection with a review
+written for inclusion in magazine or
+newspaper.
+Set up and electrotyped July, 1898. Reprinted November,
+1898; September, 1905; May, 1906; April, October, 1908;
+October, 1910; March, 1913; September, 1914; January,
+1915; October, 1917.
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Tempting boys to be what they should be--giving them in wholesome form
+what they want--that is the purpose and power of Scouting. To help
+parents and leaders of youth secure _books boys like best_ that are also
+best for boys, the Boy Scouts of America organized EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY.
+The books included, formerly sold at prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00
+but, by special arrangement with the several publishers interested, are
+now sold in the EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY Edition at $1.00 per volume.
+
+The books of EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY were selected by the Library Commission
+of the Boy Scouts of America, consisting of George F. Bowerman,
+Librarian, Public Library of the District of Columbia; Harrison W.
+Craver, Director, Engineering Societies Library, New York City; Claude
+G. Leland, Superintendent, Bureau of Libraries, Board of Education, New
+York City; Edward F. Stevens, Librarian, Pratt Institute Free Library,
+Brooklyn, N.Y., and Franklin K. Mathiews, Chief Scout Librarian. Only
+such books were chosen by the Commission as proved to be, by _a nation
+wide canvas_, most in demand by the boys themselves. Their popularity is
+further attested by the fact that in the EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY Edition,
+more than a million and a quarter copies of these books have already
+been sold.
+
+We know so well, are reminded so often of the worth of the good book and
+great, that too often we fail to observe or understand the influence for
+good of a boy's recreational reading. Such books may influence him for
+good or ill as profoundly as his play activities, of which they are a
+vital part. The needful thing is to find stories in which the heroes
+have the characteristics boys so much admire--unquenchable courage,
+immense resourcefulness, absolute fidelity, conspicuous greatness. We
+believe the books of EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY measurably well meet this
+challenge.
+
+BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA,
+
+        [signed] James E. West
+
+        Chief Scout Executive.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Chapter                                                  Page
+
+I.      The Bold Buccaneers                                 1
+
+II.     Some Masters in Piracy                              7
+
+III.    Pupils in Piracy                                   16
+
+IV.     Peter the Great                                    23
+
+V.      The Story of a Pearl Pirate                        31
+
+VI.     The Surprising Adventures of Bartholemy Portuguez  39
+
+VII.    The Pirate who could not Swim                      49
+
+VIII.   How Bartholemy rested Himself                      59
+
+IX.     A Pirate Author                                    65
+
+X.      The Story of Roc, the Brazilian                    72
+
+XI.     A Buccaneer Boom                                   89
+
+XII.    The Story of L'Olonnois the Cruel                  94
+
+XIII.   A Resurrected Pirate                              100
+
+XIV.    Villany on a Grand Scale                          109
+
+XV.     A Just Reward                                     119
+
+XVI.    A Pirate Potentate                                132
+
+XVII.   How Morgan was helped by Some Religious People    145
+
+XVIII.  A Piratical Aftermath                             153
+
+XIX.    A Tight Place for Morgan                          159
+
+XX.     The Story of a High-Minded Pirate                 171
+
+XXI.    Exit Buccaneer; Enter Pirate                      192
+
+XXII.   The Great Blackbeard comes upon the Stage         200
+
+XXIII.  A True-Hearted Sailor draws his Sword             210
+
+XXIV.   A Greenhorn under the Black Flag                  217
+
+XXV.    Bonnet again to the Front                         224
+
+XXVI.   The Battle of the Sand Bars                       233
+
+XXVII.  A Six Weeks' Pirate                               243
+
+XXVIII. The Story of Two Women Pirates                    253
+
+XXIX.   A Pirate from Boyhood                             263
+
+XXX.    A Pirate of the Gulf                              277
+
+XXXI.   The Pirate of the Buried Treasure                 291
+
+XXXII.  The Real Captain Kidd                             309
+
+
+[Illustration: The Haunts of "The Brethren of the Coast"]
+
+
+
+
+Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+The Bold Buccaneers
+
+
+When I was a boy I strongly desired to be a pirate, and the reason for
+this was the absolute independence of that sort of life. Restrictions of
+all sorts had become onerous to me, and in my reading of the adventures
+of the bold sea-rovers of the main, I had unconsciously selected those
+portions of a pirate's life which were attractive to me, and had totally
+disregarded all the rest.
+
+In fact, I had a great desire to become what might be called a marine
+Robin Hood. I would take from the rich and give to the poor; I would run
+my long, low, black craft by the side of the merchantman, and when I had
+loaded my vessel with the rich stuffs and golden ingots which composed
+her cargo, I would sail away to some poor village, and make its
+inhabitants prosperous and happy for the rest of their lives by a
+judicious distribution of my booty.
+
+I would always be as free as a sea-bird. My men would be devoted to me,
+and my word would be their law. I would decide for myself whether this
+or that proceeding would be proper, generous, and worthy of my unlimited
+power; when tired of sailing, I would retire to my island,--the position
+of which, in a beautiful semi-tropic ocean, would be known only to
+myself and to my crew,--and there I would pass happy days in the company
+of my books, my works of art, and all the various treasures I had taken
+from the mercenary vessels which I had overhauled.
+
+Such was my notion of a pirate's life. I would kill nobody; the very
+sight of my black flag would be sufficient to put an end to all thought
+of resistance on the part of my victims, who would no more think of
+fighting me, than a fat bishop would have thought of lifting his hand
+against Robin Hood and his merry men; and I truly believe that I
+expected my conscience to have a great deal more to do in the way of
+approval of my actions, than it had found necessary in the course of my
+ordinary school-boy life.
+
+I mention these early impressions because I have a notion that a great
+many people--and not only young people--have an idea of piracy not
+altogether different from that of my boyhood. They know that pirates
+are wicked men, that, in fact, they are sea-robbers or maritime
+murderers, but their bold and adventurous method of life, their bravery,
+daring, and the exciting character of their expeditions, give them
+something of the same charm and interest which belong to the robber
+knights of the middle ages. The one mounts his mailed steed and clanks
+his long sword against his iron stirrup, riding forth into the world
+with a feeling that he can do anything that pleases him, if he finds
+himself strong enough. The other springs into his rakish craft, spreads
+his sails to the wind, and dashes over the sparkling main with a feeling
+that he can do anything he pleases, provided he be strong enough.
+
+The first pirates who made themselves known in American waters were the
+famous buccaneers; these began their career in a very commonplace and
+unobjectionable manner, and the name by which they were known had
+originally no piratical significance. It was derived from the French
+word _boucanier_, signifying "a drier of beef."
+
+Some of the West India islands, especially San Domingo, were almost
+overrun with wild cattle of various kinds, and this was owing to the
+fact that the Spaniards had killed off nearly all the natives, and so
+had left the interior of the islands to the herds of cattle which had
+increased rapidly. There were a few settlements on the seacoast, but
+the Spaniards did not allow the inhabitants of these to trade with any
+nation but their own, and consequently the people were badly supplied
+with the necessaries of life.
+
+But the trading vessels which sailed from Europe to that part of the
+Caribbean Sea were manned by bold and daring sailors, and when they knew
+that San Domingo contained an abundance of beef cattle, they did not
+hesitate to stop at the little seaports to replenish their stores. The
+natives of the island were skilled in the art of preparing beef by
+smoking and drying it,--very much in the same way in which our Indians
+prepare "jerked meat" for winter use.
+
+But so many vessels came to San Domingo for beef that there were not
+enough people on the island to do all the hunting and drying that was
+necessary, so these trading vessels frequently anchored in some quiet
+cove, and the crews went on shore and devoted themselves to securing a
+cargo of beef,--not only enough for their own use, but for trading
+purposes; thus they became known as "beef-driers," or buccaneers.
+
+When the Spaniards heard of this new industry which had arisen within
+the limits of their possessions, they pursued the vessels of the
+buccaneers wherever they were seen, and relentlessly destroyed them and
+their crews. But there were not enough Spanish vessels to put down the
+trade in dried beef; more European vessels--generally English and
+French--stopped at San Domingo; more bands of hunting sailors made their
+way into the interior. When these daring fellows knew that the Spaniards
+were determined to break up their trade, they became more determined
+that it should not be broken up, and they armed themselves and their
+vessels so that they might be able to make a defence against the Spanish
+men-of-war.
+
+Thus gradually and almost imperceptibly a state of maritime warfare grew
+up in the waters of the West Indies between Spain and the beef-traders
+of other nations; and from being obliged to fight, the buccaneers became
+glad to fight, provided that it was Spain they fought. True to her
+policy of despotism and cruelty when dealing with her American
+possessions, Spain waged a bitter and bloody war against the buccaneers
+who dared to interfere with the commercial relations between herself and
+her West India colonies, and in return, the buccaneers were just as
+bitter and savage in their warfare against Spain. From defending
+themselves against Spanish attacks, they began to attack Spaniards
+whenever there was any chance of success, at first only upon the sea,
+but afterwards on land. The cruelty and ferocity of Spanish rule had
+brought them into existence, and it was against Spain and her
+possessions that the cruelty and ferocity which she had taught them were
+now directed.
+
+When the buccaneers had begun to understand each other and to effect
+organizations among themselves, they adopted a general name,--"The
+Brethren of the Coast." The outside world, especially the Spanish world,
+called them pirates, sea-robbers, buccaneers,--any title which would
+express their lawless character, but in their own denomination of
+themselves they expressed only their fraternal relations; and for the
+greater part of their career, they truly stood by each other like
+brothers.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+Some Masters in Piracy
+
+
+From the very earliest days of history there have been pirates, and it
+is, therefore, not at all remarkable that, in the early days of the
+history of this continent, sea-robbers should have made themselves
+prominent; but the buccaneers of America differed in many ways from
+those pirates with whom the history of the old world has made us
+acquainted.
+
+It was very seldom that an armed vessel set out from an European port
+for the express purpose of sea-robbery in American waters. At first
+nearly all the noted buccaneers were traders. But the circumstances
+which surrounded them in the new world made of them pirates whose evil
+deeds have never been surpassed in any part of the globe.
+
+These unusual circumstances and amazing temptations do not furnish an
+excuse for the exceptionally wicked careers of the early American
+pirates; but we are bound to remember these causes or we could not
+understand the records of the settlement of the West Indies. The
+buccaneers were fierce and reckless fellows who pursued their daring
+occupation because it was profitable, because they had learned to like
+it, and because it enabled them to wreak a certain amount of vengeance
+upon the common enemy. But we must not assume that they inaugurated the
+piratical conquests and warfare which existed so long upon our eastern
+seacoasts.
+
+Before the buccaneers began their careers, there had been great masters
+of piracy who had opened their schools in the Caribbean Sea; and in
+order that the condition of affairs in this country during parts of the
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be clearly understood, we will
+consider some of the very earliest noted pirates of the West Indies.
+
+When we begin a judicial inquiry into the condition of our
+fellow-beings, we should try to be as courteous as we can, but we must
+be just; consequently a man's fame and position must not turn us aside,
+when we are acting as historical investigators.
+
+Therefore, we shall be bold and speak the truth, and although we shall
+take off our hats and bow very respectfully, we must still assert that
+Christopher Columbus was the first who practised piracy in American
+waters.
+
+When he sailed with his three little ships to discover unknown lands, he
+was an accredited explorer for the court of Spain, and was bravely
+sailing forth with an honest purpose, and with the same regard for law
+and justice as is possessed by any explorer of the present day. But when
+he discovered some unknown lands, rich in treasure and outside of all
+legal restrictions, the views and ideas of the great discoverer
+gradually changed. Being now beyond the boundaries of civilization, he
+also placed himself beyond the boundaries of civilized law. Robbery,
+murder, and the destruction of property, by the commanders of naval
+expeditions, who have no warrant or commission for their conduct, is the
+same as piracy, and when Columbus ceased to be a legalized explorer, and
+when, against the expressed wishes, and even the prohibitions, of the
+royal personages who had sent him out on this expedition, he began to
+devastate the countries he had discovered, and to enslave and
+exterminate their peaceable natives, then he became a master in piracy,
+from whom the buccaneers afterward learned many a valuable lesson.
+
+It is not necessary for us to enter very deeply into the consideration
+of the policy of Columbus toward the people of the islands of the West
+Indies. His second voyage was nothing more than an expedition for the
+sake of plunder. He had discovered gold and other riches in the West
+Indies and he had found that the people who inhabited the islands were
+simple-hearted, inoffensive creatures, who did not know how to fight and
+who did not want to fight. Therefore, it was so easy to sail his ships
+into the harbors of defenceless islands, to subjugate the natives, and
+to take away the products of their mines and soil, that he commenced a
+veritable course of piracy.
+
+The acquisition of gold and all sorts of plunder seemed to be the sole
+object of this Spanish expedition; natives were enslaved, and subjected
+to the greatest hardships, so that they died in great numbers. At one
+time three hundred of them were sent as slaves to Spain. A pack of
+bloodhounds, which Columbus had brought with him for the purpose, was
+used to hunt down the poor Indians when they endeavored to escape from
+the hands of the oppressors, and in every way the island of Hayti, the
+principal scene of the actions of Columbus, was treated as if its
+inhabitants had committed a dreadful crime by being in possession of the
+wealth which the Spaniards desired for themselves.
+
+Queen Isabella was greatly opposed to these cruel and unjust
+proceedings. She sent back to their native land the slaves which
+Columbus had shipped to Spain, and she gave positive orders that no more
+of the inhabitants were to be enslaved, and that they were all to be
+treated with moderation and kindness. But the Atlantic is a wide ocean,
+and Columbus, far away from his royal patron, paid little attention to
+her wishes and commands; without going further into the history of this
+period, we will simply mention the fact that it was on account of his
+alleged atrocities that Columbus was superseded in his command, and sent
+back in chains to Spain.
+
+There was another noted personage of the sixteenth century who played
+the part of pirate in the new world, and thereby set a most shining
+example to the buccaneers of those regions. This was no other than Sir
+Francis Drake, one of England's greatest naval commanders.
+
+It is probable that Drake, when he started out in life, was a man of
+very law-abiding and orderly disposition, for he was appointed by Queen
+Elizabeth a naval chaplain, and, it is said, though there is some doubt
+about this, that he was subsequently vicar of a parish. But by nature he
+was a sailor, and nothing else, and after having made several voyages in
+which he showed himself a good fighter, as well as a good commander, he
+undertook, in 1572, an expedition against the Spanish settlements in the
+West Indies, for which he had no legal warrant whatever.
+
+Spain was not at war with England, and when Drake sailed with four small
+ships into the port of the little town of Nombre de Dios in the middle
+of the night, the inhabitants of the town were as much astonished as the
+people of Perth Amboy would be if four armed vessels were to steam into
+Raritan Bay, and endeavor to take possession of the town. The peaceful
+Spanish townspeople were not at war with any civilized nation, and they
+could not understand why bands of armed men should invade their streets,
+enter the market-place, fire their calivers, or muskets, into the air,
+and then sound a trumpet loud enough to wake up everybody in the place.
+Just outside of the town the invaders had left a portion of their men,
+and when these heard the trumpet in the market-place, they also fired
+their guns; all this noise and hubbub so frightened the good people of
+the town, that many of them jumped from their beds, and without stopping
+to dress, fled away to the mountains. But all the citizens were not such
+cowards, and fourteen or fifteen of them armed themselves and went out
+to defend their town from the unknown invaders.
+
+Beginners in any trade or profession, whether it be the playing of the
+piano, the painting of pictures, or the pursuit of piracy, are often
+timid and distrustful of themselves; so it happened on this occasion
+with Francis Drake and his men, who were merely amateur pirates, and
+showed very plainly that they did not yet understand their business.
+
+When the fifteen Spanish citizens came into the market-place and found
+there the little body of armed Englishmen, they immediately fired upon
+them, not knowing or caring who they were. This brave resistance seems
+to have frightened Drake and his men almost as much as their trumpets
+and guns had frightened the citizens, and the English immediately
+retreated from the town. When they reached the place where they had left
+the rest of their party, they found that these had already run away, and
+taken to the boats. Consequently Drake and his brave men were obliged to
+take off some of their clothes and to wade out to the little ships. The
+Englishmen secured no booty whatever, and killed only one Spaniard, who
+was a man who had been looking out of a window to see what was the
+matter.
+
+Whether or not Drake's conscience had anything to do with the bungling
+manner in which he made this first attempt at piracy, we cannot say, but
+he soon gave his conscience a holiday, and undertook some very
+successful robbing enterprises. He received information from some
+natives, that a train of mules was coming across the Isthmus of Panama
+loaded with gold and silver bullion, and guarded only by their drivers;
+for the merchants who owned all this treasure had no idea that there was
+any one in that part of the world who would commit a robbery upon them.
+But Drake and his men soon proved that they could hold up a train of
+mules as easily as some of the masked robbers in our western country
+hold up a train of cars. All the gold was taken, but the silver was too
+heavy for the amateur pirates to carry.
+
+Two days after that, Drake and his men came to a place called "The House
+of Crosses," where they killed five or six peaceable merchants, but were
+greatly disappointed to find no gold, although the house was full of
+rich merchandise of various kinds. As his men had no means of carrying
+away heavy goods, he burned up the house and all its contents and went
+to his ships, and sailed away with the treasure he had already obtained.
+
+Whatever this gallant ex-chaplain now thought of himself, he was
+considered by the Spaniards as an out-and-out pirate, and in this
+opinion they were quite correct. During his great voyage around the
+world, which he began in 1577, he came down upon the Spanish-American
+settlements like a storm from the sea. He attacked towns, carried off
+treasure, captured merchant-vessels,--and in fact showed himself to be a
+thoroughbred and accomplished pirate of the first class.
+
+It was in consequence of the rich plunder with which his ships were now
+loaded, that he made his voyage around the world. He was afraid to go
+back the way he came, for fear of capture, and so, having passed the
+Straits of Magellan, and having failed to find a way out of the Pacific
+in the neighborhood of California, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and
+sailed along the western coast of Africa to European waters.
+
+This grand piratical expedition excited great indignation in Spain,
+which country was still at peace with England, and even in England there
+were influential people who counselled the Queen that it would be wise
+and prudent to disavow Drake's actions, and compel him to restore to
+Spain the booty he had taken from his subjects. But Queen Elizabeth was
+not the woman to do that sort of thing. She liked brave men and brave
+deeds, and she was proud of Drake. Therefore, instead of punishing him,
+she honored him, and went to take dinner with him on board his ship,
+which lay at Deptford.
+
+So Columbus does not stand alone as a grand master of piracy. The famous
+Sir Francis Drake, who became vice-admiral of the fleet which defeated
+the Spanish Armada, was a worthy companion of the great Genoese.
+
+These notable instances have been mentioned because it would be unjust
+to take up the history of those resolute traders who sailed from
+England, France, and Holland, to the distant waters of the western world
+for the purpose of legitimate enterprise and commerce, and who
+afterwards became thorough-going pirates, without trying to make it
+clear that they had shining examples for their notable careers.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+Pupils in Piracy
+
+
+After the discoveries of Columbus, the Spanish mind seems to have been
+filled with the idea that the whole undiscovered world, wherever it
+might be, belonged to Spain, and that no other nation had any right
+whatever to discover anything on the other side of the Atlantic, or to
+make any use whatever of lands which had been discovered. In fact, the
+natives of the new countries, and the inhabitants of all old countries
+except her own, were considered by Spain as possessing no rights
+whatever. If the natives refused to pay tribute, or to spend their days
+toiling for gold for their masters, or if vessels from England or France
+touched at one of their settlements for purposes of trade, it was all
+the same to the Spaniards; a war of attempted extermination was waged
+alike against the peaceful inhabitants of Hispaniola, now Hayti, and
+upon the bearded and hardy seamen from Northern Europe. Under this
+treatment the natives weakened and gradually disappeared; but the
+buccaneers became more and more numerous and powerful.
+
+The buccaneers were not unlike that class of men known in our western
+country as cowboys. Young fellows of good families from England and
+France often determined to embrace a life of adventure, and possibly
+profit, and sailed out to the West Indies to get gold and hides, and to
+fight Spaniards. Frequently they dropped their family names and assumed
+others more suitable to roving freebooters, and, like the bold young
+fellows who ride over our western plains, driving cattle and shooting
+Indians, they adopted a style of dress as free and easy, but probably
+not quite so picturesque, as that of the cowboy. They soon became a very
+rough set of fellows, in appearance as well as action, endeavoring in
+every way to let the people of the western world understand that they
+were absolutely free and independent of the manners and customs, as well
+as of the laws of their native countries.
+
+So well was this independence understood, that when the buccaneers
+became strong enough to inflict some serious injury upon the settlements
+in the West Indies, and the Spanish court remonstrated with Queen
+Elizabeth on account of what had been done by some of her subjects, she
+replied that she had nothing to do with these buccaneers, who, although
+they had been born in England, had ceased for the time to be her
+subjects, and the Spaniards must defend themselves against them just as
+if they were an independent nation.
+
+But it is impossible for men who have been brought up in civilized
+society, and who have been accustomed to obey laws, to rid themselves
+entirely of all ideas of propriety and morality, as soon as they begin a
+life of lawlessness. So it happened that many of the buccaneers could
+not divest themselves of the notions of good behavior to which they had
+been accustomed from youth. For instance, we are told of a captain of
+buccaneers, who, landing at a settlement on a Sunday, took his crew to
+church. As it is not at all probable that any of the buccaneering
+vessels carried chaplains, opportunities of attending services must have
+been rare. This captain seems to have wished to show that pirates in
+church know what they ought to do just as well as other people; it was
+for this reason that, when one of his men behaved himself in an improper
+and disorderly manner during the service, this proper-minded captain
+arose from his seat and shot the offender dead.
+
+There was a Frenchman of that period who must have been a warm-hearted
+philanthropist, because, having read accounts of the terrible atrocities
+of the Spaniards in the western lands, he determined to leave his home
+and his family, and become a buccaneer, in order that he might do what
+he could for the suffering natives in the Spanish possessions. He
+entered into the great work which he had planned for himself with such
+enthusiasm and zeal, that in the course of time he came to be known as
+"The Exterminator," and if there had been more people of his
+philanthropic turn of mind, there would soon have been no inhabitants
+whatever upon the islands from which the Spaniards had driven out the
+Indians.
+
+There was another person of that day,--also a Frenchman,--who became
+deeply involved in debt in his own country, and feeling that the
+principles of honor forbade him to live upon and enjoy what was really
+the property of others, he made up his mind to sail across the Atlantic,
+and become a buccaneer. He hoped that if he should be successful in his
+new profession, and should be enabled to rob Spaniards for a term of
+years, he could return to France, pay off all his debts, and afterward
+live the life of a man of honor and respectability.
+
+Other ideas which the buccaneers brought with them from their native
+countries soon showed themselves when these daring sailors began their
+lives as regular pirates; among these, the idea of organization was very
+prominent. Of course it was hard to get a number of free and
+untrammelled crews to unite and obey the commands of a few officers. But
+in time the buccaneers had recognized leaders, and laws were made for
+concerted action. In consequence of this the buccaneers became a
+formidable body of men, sometimes superior to the Spanish naval and
+military forces.
+
+It must be remembered that the buccaneers lived in a very peculiar age.
+So far as the history of America is concerned, it might be called the
+age of blood and gold. In the newly discovered countries there were no
+laws which European nations or individuals cared to observe. In the West
+Indies and the adjacent mainlands there were gold and silver, and there
+were also valuable products of other kinds, and when the Spaniards
+sailed to their part of the new world, these treasures were the things
+for which they came. The natives were weak and not able to defend
+themselves. All the Spaniards had to do was to take what they could
+find, and when they could not find enough they made the poor Indians
+find it for them. Here was a part of the world, and an age of the world,
+wherein it was the custom for men to do what they pleased, provided they
+felt themselves strong enough, and it was not to be supposed that any
+one European nation could expect a monopoly of this state of mind.
+
+Therefore it was that while the Spaniards robbed and ruined the natives
+of the lands they discovered, the English, French, and Dutch buccaneers
+robbed the robbers. Great vessels were sent out from Spain, carrying
+nothing in the way of merchandise to America, but returning with all the
+precious metals and valuable products of the newly discovered regions,
+which could in any way be taken from the unfortunate natives. The gold
+mines of the new world had long been worked, and yielded handsome
+revenues, but the native method of operating them did not satisfy the
+Spaniards, who forced the poor Indians to labor incessantly at the
+difficult task of digging out the precious metals, until many of them
+died under the cruel oppression. Sometimes the Indians were kept six
+months under ground, working in the mines; and at one time, when it was
+found that the natives had died off, or had fled from the neighborhood
+of some of the rich gold deposits, it was proposed to send to Africa and
+get a cargo of negroes to work the mines.
+
+Now it is easy to see that all this made buccaneering a very tempting
+occupation. To capture a great treasure ship, after the Spaniards had
+been at so much trouble to load it, was a grand thing, according to the
+pirate's point of view, and although it often required reckless bravery
+and almost superhuman energy to accomplish the feats necessary in this
+dangerous vocation, these were qualities which were possessed by nearly
+all the sea-robbers of our coast; the stories of some of the most
+interesting of these wild and desperate fellows,--men who did not
+combine piracy with discoveries and explorations, but who were
+out-and-out sea-robbers, and gained in that way all the reputation they
+ever possessed,--will be told in subsequent chapters.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Peter the Great
+
+
+Very prominent among the early regular buccaneers was a Frenchman who
+came to be called Peter the Great. This man seems to have been one of
+those adventurers who were not buccaneers in the earlier sense of the
+word (by which I mean they were not traders who touched at Spanish
+settlements to procure cattle and hides, and who were prepared to fight
+any Spaniards who might interfere with them), but they were men who came
+from Europe on purpose to prey upon Spanish possessions, whether on land
+or sea. Some of them made a rough sort of settlement on the island of
+Tortuga, and then it was that Peter the Great seems to have come into
+prominence. He gathered about him a body of adherents, but although he
+had a great reputation as an individual pirate, it seems to have been a
+good while before he achieved any success as a leader.
+
+The fortunes of Peter and his men must have been at a pretty low ebb
+when they found themselves cruising in a large, canoe-shaped boat not
+far from the island of Hispaniola. There were twenty-nine of them in
+all, and they were not able to procure a vessel suitable for their
+purpose. They had been a long time floating about in an aimless way,
+hoping to see some Spanish merchant-vessel which they might attack and
+possibly capture, but no such vessel appeared. Their provisions began to
+give out, the men were hungry, discontented, and grumbling. In fact,
+they were in almost as bad a condition as were the sailors of Columbus
+just before they discovered signs of land, after their long and weary
+voyage across the Atlantic.
+
+When Peter and his men were almost on the point of despair, they
+perceived, far away upon the still waters, a large ship. With a great
+jump, hope sprang up in the breast of every man. They seized the oars
+and pulled in the direction of the distant craft. But when they were
+near enough, they saw that the vessel was not a merchantman, probably
+piled with gold and treasure, but a man-of-war belonging to the Spanish
+fleet. In fact, it was the vessel of the vice-admiral. This was an
+astonishing and disheartening state of things. It was very much as if a
+lion, hearing the approach of probable prey, had sprung from the thicket
+where he had been concealed, and had beheld before him, not a fine, fat
+deer, but an immense and scrawny elephant.
+
+But the twenty-nine buccaneers in the crew were very hungry. They had
+not come out upon those waters to attack men-of-war, but, more than
+that, they had not come out to perish by hunger and thirst. There could
+be no doubt that there was plenty to eat and to drink on that tall
+Spanish vessel, and if they could not get food and water they could not
+live more than a day or two longer.
+
+Under the circumstances it was not long before Peter the Great made up
+his mind that if his men would stand by him, he would endeavor to
+capture that Spanish war-vessel; when he put the question to his crew
+they all swore that they would follow him and obey his orders as long as
+life was left in their bodies. To attack a vessel armed with cannon, and
+manned by a crew very much larger than their little party, seemed almost
+like throwing themselves upon certain death. But still, there was a
+chance that in some way they might get the better of the Spaniards;
+whereas, if they rowed away again into the solitudes of the ocean, they
+would give up all chance of saving themselves from death by starvation.
+Steadily, therefore, they pulled toward the Spanish vessel, and
+slowly--for there was but little wind--she approached them.
+
+The people in the man-of-war did not fail to perceive the little boat
+far out on the ocean, and some of them sent to the captain and reported
+the fact. The news, however, did not interest him, for he was engaged in
+playing cards in his cabin, and it was not until an hour afterward that
+he consented to come on deck and look out toward the boat which had been
+sighted, and which was now much nearer.
+
+Taking a good look at the boat, and perceiving that it was nothing more
+than a canoe, the captain laughed at the advice of some of his officers,
+who thought it would be well to fire a few cannon-shot and sink the
+little craft. The captain thought it would be a useless proceeding. He
+did not know anything about the people in the boat, and he did not very
+much care, but he remarked that if they should come near enough, it
+might be a good thing to put out some tackle and haul them and their
+boat on deck, after which they might be examined and questioned whenever
+it should suit his convenience. Then he went down to his cards.
+
+If Peter the Great and his men could have been sure that if they were to
+row alongside the Spanish vessel they would have been quietly hauled on
+deck and examined, they would have been delighted at the opportunity.
+With cutlasses, pistols, and knives, they were more than ready to
+demonstrate to the Spaniards what sort of fellows they were, and the
+captain would have found hungry pirates uncomfortable persons to
+question.
+
+But it seemed to Peter and his crew a very difficult thing indeed to get
+themselves on board the man-of-war, so they curbed their ardor and
+enthusiasm, and waited until nightfall before approaching nearer. As
+soon as it became dark enough they slowly and quietly paddled toward the
+great ship, which was now almost becalmed. There were no lights in the
+boat, and the people on the deck of the vessel saw and heard nothing on
+the dark waters around them.
+
+When they were very near the man-of-war, the captain of the
+buccaneers--according to the ancient accounts of this adventure--ordered
+his chirurgeon, or surgeon, to bore a large hole in the bottom of their
+canoe. It is probable that this officer, with his saws and other
+surgical instruments, was expected to do carpenter work when there were
+no duties for him to perform in the regular line of his profession. At
+any rate, he went to work, and noiselessly bored the hole.
+
+This remarkable proceeding showed the desperate character of these
+pirates. A great, almost impossible task was before them, and nothing
+but absolute recklessness could enable them to succeed. If his men
+should meet with strong opposition from the Spaniards in the proposed
+attack, and if any of them should become frightened and try to retreat
+to the boat, Peter knew that all would be lost, and consequently he
+determined to make it impossible for any man to get away in that boat.
+If they could not conquer the Spanish vessel they must die on her decks.
+
+When the half-sunken canoe touched the sides of the vessel, the pirates,
+seizing every rope or projection on which they could lay their hands,
+climbed up the sides of the man-of-war, as if they had been twenty-nine
+cats, and springing over the rail, dashed upon the sailors who were on
+deck. These men were utterly stupefied and astounded. They had seen
+nothing, they had heard nothing, and all of a sudden they were
+confronted with savage fellows with cutlasses and pistols.
+
+Some of the crew looked over the sides to see where these strange
+visitors had come from, but they saw nothing, for the canoe had gone to
+the bottom. Then they were filled with a superstitious horror, believing
+that the wild visitors were devils who had dropped from the sky, for
+there seemed no other place from which they could come. Making no
+attempt to defend themselves, the sailors, wild with terror, tumbled
+below and hid themselves, without even giving an alarm.
+
+The Spanish captain was still playing cards, and whether he was winning
+or losing, the old historians do not tell us, but very suddenly a
+newcomer took a hand in the game. This was Peter the Great, and he
+played the ace of trumps. With a great pistol in his hand, he called
+upon the Spanish captain to surrender. That noble commander glanced
+around. There was a savage pirate holding a pistol at the head of each
+of the officers at the table. He threw up his cards. The trick was won
+by Peter and his men.
+
+The rest of the game was easy enough. When the pirates spread themselves
+over the vessel, the frightened crew got out of sight as well as they
+could. Some, who attempted to seize their arms in order to defend
+themselves, were ruthlessly cut down or shot, and when the hatches had
+been securely fastened upon the sailors who had fled below, Peter the
+Great was captain and owner of that tall Spanish man-of-war.
+
+It is quite certain that the first thing these pirates did to celebrate
+their victory was to eat a rousing good supper, and then they took
+charge of the vessel, and sailed her triumphantly over the waters on
+which, not many hours before, they had feared that a little boat would
+soon be floating, filled with their emaciated bodies.
+
+This most remarkable success of Peter the Great worked a great change,
+of course, in the circumstances of himself and his men. But it worked a
+greater change in the career, and possibly in the character of the
+captain. He was now a very rich man, and all his followers had plenty of
+money. The Spanish vessel was amply supplied with provisions, and there
+was also on board a great quantity of gold bullion, which was to be
+shipped to Spain. In fact, Peter and his men had booty enough to satisfy
+any sensible pirate. Now we all know that sensible pirates, and people
+in any sphere of life who are satisfied when they have enough, are very
+rare indeed, and therefore it is not a little surprising that the bold
+buccaneer, whose story we are now telling, should have proved that he
+merited, in a certain way, the title his companions had given him.
+
+Sailing his prize to the shores of Hispaniola, Peter put on shore all
+the Spaniards whose services he did not desire. The rest of his
+prisoners he compelled to help his men work the ship, and then, without
+delay, he sailed away to France, and there he retired entirely from the
+business of piracy, and set himself up as a gentleman of wealth and
+leisure.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Story of a Pearl Pirate
+
+
+The ordinary story of the pirate, or the wicked man in general, no
+matter how successful he may have been in his criminal career, nearly
+always ends disastrously, and in that way points a moral which doubtless
+has a good effect on a large class of people, who would be very glad to
+do wrong, provided no harm was likely to come to them in consequence.
+But the story of Peter the Great, which we have just told, contains no
+such moral. In fact, its influence upon the adventurers of that period
+was most unwholesome.
+
+When the wonderful success of Peter the Great became known, the
+buccaneering community at Tortuga was wildly excited. Every
+bushy-bearded fellow who could get possession of a small boat, and
+induce a score of other bushy-bearded fellows to follow him, wanted to
+start out and capture a rich Spanish galleon, as the great ships, used
+alike for war and commerce, were then called.
+
+But not only were the French and English sailors and traders who had
+become buccaneers excited and stimulated by the remarkable good fortune
+of their companion, but many people of adventurous mind, who had never
+thought of leaving England for purposes of piracy, now became firmly
+convinced that there was no business which promised better than that of
+a buccaneer, and some of them crossed the ocean for the express purpose
+of getting rich by capturing Spanish vessels homeward bound.
+
+As there were not enough suitable vessels in Tortuga for the demands of
+the recently stimulated industry, the buccaneer settlers went to other
+parts of the West Indies to obtain suitable craft, and it is related
+that in about a month after the great victory of Peter the Great, two
+large Spanish vessels, loaded with silver bullion, and two other heavily
+laden merchantmen were brought into Tortuga by the buccaneers.
+
+One of the adventurers who set out about this time on a cruise after
+gold-laden vessels, was a Frenchman who was known to his countrymen as
+Pierre François, and to the English as Peter Francis. He was a good
+sailor, and ready for any sort of a sea-fight, but for a long time he
+cruised about without seeing anything which it was worth while to
+attempt to capture. At last, when his provisions began to give out, and
+his men became somewhat discontented, Pierre made up his mind that
+rather than return to Tortuga empty-handed, he would make a bold and
+novel stroke for fortune.
+
+At the mouth of one of the large rivers of the mainland the Spaniards
+had established a pearl fishery,--for there was no kind of wealth or
+treasure, on the land, under ground, or at the bottom of the sea, that
+the Spaniards did not get if it were possible for them to do so.
+
+Every year, at the proper season, a dozen or more vessels came to this
+pearl-bank, attended by a man-of-war to protect them from molestation.
+Pierre knew all about this, and as he could not find any Spanish
+merchantmen to rob, he thought he would go down and see what he could do
+with the pearl-fishers. This was something the buccaneers had not yet
+attempted, but no one knows what he can do until he tries, and it was
+very necessary that this buccaneer captain should try something
+immediately.
+
+When he reached the coast near the mouth of the river, he took the masts
+out of his little vessel, and rowed quietly toward the pearl-fishing
+fleet, as if he had intended to join them on some entirely peaceable
+errand; and, in fact, there was no reason whatever why the Spaniards
+should suppose that a boat full of buccaneers should be rowing along
+that part of the coast.
+
+The pearl-fishing vessels were all at anchor, and the people on board
+were quietly attending to their business. Out at sea, some distance
+from the mouth of the river, the man-of-war was lying becalmed. The
+native divers who went down to the bottom of the sea to bring up the
+shellfish which contained the pearls, plunged into the water, and came
+up wet and shining in the sun, with no fear whatever of any sharks which
+might be swimming about in search of a dinner, and the people on the
+vessels opened the oysters and carefully searched for pearls, feeling as
+safe from harm as if they were picking olives in their native groves.
+
+But something worse than a shark was quietly making its way over those
+tranquil waters, and no banditti who ever descended from Spanish
+mountains upon the quiet peasants of a village, equalled in ferocity the
+savage fellows who were crouching in the little boat belonging to Pierre
+of Tortuga.
+
+This innocent-looking craft, which the pearl-fishers probably thought
+was loaded with fruit or vegetables which somebody from the mainland
+desired to sell, was permitted, without being challenged or interfered
+with, to row up alongside the largest vessel of the fleet, on which
+there were some armed men and a few cannon.
+
+As soon as Pierre's boat touched the Spanish vessel, the buccaneers
+sprang on board with their pistols and cutlasses, and a savage fight
+began. The Spaniards were surprised, but there were a great many more
+of them than there were pirates, and they fought hard. However, the man
+who makes the attack, and who is at the same time desperate and hungry,
+has a great advantage, and it was not long before the buccaneers were
+masters of the vessel. Those of the Spaniards who were not killed, were
+forced into the service of their captors, and Pierre found himself in
+command of a very good vessel.
+
+Now it so happened that the man-of-war was so far away that she knew
+nothing of this fight on board one of the fleet which she was there to
+watch, and if she had known of it, she would not have been able to give
+any assistance, for there was no wind by which she could sail to the
+mouth of the river. Therefore, so far as she was concerned, Pierre
+considered himself safe.
+
+But although he had captured a Spanish ship, he was not so foolish as to
+haul down her flag, and run up his own in her place. He had had very
+good success so far, but he was not satisfied. It was quite probable
+that there was a rich store of pearls on board the vessel he had taken,
+but on the other vessels of the fleet there were many more pearls, and
+these he wanted if he could get them. In fact, he conceived the grand
+idea of capturing the whole fleet.
+
+But it would be impossible for Pierre to attempt anything on such a
+magnificent scale until he had first disposed of the man-of-war, and as
+he had now a good strong ship, with a much larger crew than that with
+which he had set out,--for the Spanish prisoners would be obliged to man
+the guns and help in every way to fight their countrymen,--Pierre
+determined to attack the man-of-war.
+
+A land wind began to blow, which enabled him to make very fair headway
+out to sea. The Spanish colors were flying from his topmast, and he
+hoped to be able, without being suspected of any evil designs, to get so
+near to the man-of-war that he might run alongside and boldly board her.
+
+But something now happened which Pierre could not have expected. When
+the commander of the war-vessel perceived that one of the fleet under
+his charge was leaving her companions and putting out to sea, he could
+imagine no reason for such extraordinary conduct, except that she was
+taking advantage of the fact that the wind had not yet reached his
+vessel, and was trying to run away with the pearls she had on board.
+From these ready suspicions we may imagine that, at that time, the
+robbers who robbed robbers were not all buccaneers.
+
+Soon after the Spanish captain perceived that one of his fleet was
+making his way out of the river, the wind reached his vessel, and he
+immediately set all sail and started in pursuit of the rascals, whom he
+supposed to be his dishonest countrymen.
+
+The breeze freshened rapidly, and when Pierre and his men saw that the
+man-of-war was coming toward them at a good rate of speed, showing
+plainly that she had suspicions of them, they gave up all hope of
+running alongside of her and boarding her, and concluded that the best
+thing they could do would be to give up their plan of capturing the
+pearl-fishing fleet, and get away with the ship they had taken, and
+whatever it had on board. So they set all sail, and there was a fine
+sea-chase.
+
+The now frightened buccaneers were too anxious to get away. They not
+only put on all the sail which the vessel could carry, but they put on
+more. The wind blew harder, and suddenly down came the mainmast with a
+crash. This stopped the chase, and the next act in the performance would
+have to be a sea-fight. Pierre and his buccaneers were good at that sort
+of thing, and when the man-of-war came up, there was a terrible time on
+board those two vessels. But the Spaniards were the stronger, and the
+buccaneers were defeated.
+
+There must have been something in the daring courage of this Frenchman
+and his little band of followers, which gave him favor in the eyes of
+the Spanish captain, for there was no other reason for the good
+treatment which the buccaneers received.
+
+They were not put to the sword nor thrown overboard, not sent on shore
+and made to work as slaves,--three very common methods of treating
+prisoners in those days. But they were all set free, and put on land,
+where they might go where they pleased.
+
+This unfortunate result of the bold enterprise undertaken by Pierre
+François was deeply deplored, not only at Tortuga, but in England and in
+France. If this bold buccaneer had captured the pearl fleet, it would
+have been a victory that would have made a hero of him on each side of
+the Atlantic, but had he even been able to get away with the one vessel
+he had seized, he would have been a rich man, and might have retired to
+a life of ease and affluence; the vessel he had captured proved to be
+one of the richest laden of the whole fleet, and not only in the heart
+of Pierre and his men, but among his sympathizers in Europe and America,
+there was great disappointment at the loss of that mainmast, which,
+until it cracked, was carrying him forward to fame and fortune.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Surprising Adventures of Bartholemy Portuguez
+
+
+As we have seen that the buccaneers were mainly English, French, and
+Dutch sailors, who were united to make a common piratical warfare upon
+the Spaniards in the West Indies, it may seem a little strange to find a
+man from Portugal who seemed to be on the wrong side of this peculiar
+fight which was going on in the new world between the sailors of
+Northern and Southern Europe. But although Portugal is such a close
+neighbor of Spain, the two countries have often been at war with each
+other, and their interests are by no means the same. The only advantage
+that Portugal could expect from the newly discovered treasures of the
+West were those which her seafaring men, acting with the seafaring men
+of other nations, should wrest from Spanish vessels homeward bound.
+
+Consequently, there were Portuguese among the pirates of those days.
+Among these was a man named Bartholemy Portuguez, a famous
+_flibustier_.
+
+It may be here remarked that the name of buccaneer was chiefly affected
+by the English adventurers on our coast, while the French members of the
+profession often preferred the name of "flibustier." This word, which
+has since been corrupted into our familiar "filibuster," is said to have
+been originally a corruption, being nothing more than the French method
+of pronouncing the word "freebooters," which title had long been used
+for independent robbers.
+
+Thus, although Bartholemy called himself a flibustier, he was really a
+buccaneer, and his name came to be known all over the Caribbean Sea.
+From the accounts we have of him it appears that he did not start out on
+his career of piracy as a poor man. He had some capital to invest in the
+business, and when he went over to the West Indies he took with him a
+small ship, armed with four small cannon, and manned by a crew of picked
+men, many of them no doubt professional robbers, and the others anxious
+for practice in this most alluring vocation, for the gold fields of
+California were never more attractive to the bold and hardy adventurers
+of our country, than were the gold fields of the sea to the buccaneers
+and flibustiers of the seventeenth century.
+
+When Bartholemy reached the Caribbean Sea he probably first touched at
+Tortuga, the pirates' headquarters, and then sailed out very much as if
+he had been a fisherman going forth to see what he could catch on the
+sea. He cruised about on the track generally taken by treasure ships
+going from the mainland to the Havanas, or the island of Hispaniola, and
+when at last he sighted a vessel in the distance, it was not long before
+he and his men had made up their minds that if they were to have any
+sport that day it would be with what might be called most decidedly a
+game fish, for the ship slowly sailing toward them was a large Spanish
+vessel, and from her portholes there protruded the muzzles of at least
+twenty cannon. Of course, they knew that such a vessel would have a much
+larger crew than their own, and, altogether, Bartholemy was very much in
+the position of a man who should go out to harpoon a sturgeon, and who
+should find himself confronted by a vicious swordfish.
+
+The Spanish merchantmen of that day were generally well armed, for
+getting home safely across the Atlantic was often the most difficult
+part of the treasure-seeking. There were many of these ships, which,
+although they did not belong to the Spanish navy, might almost be
+designated as men-of-war; and it was one of these with which our
+flibustier had now met.
+
+But pirates and fishermen cannot afford to pick and choose. They must
+take what comes to them and make the best of it, and this is exactly
+the way in which the matter presented itself to Bartholemy and his men.
+They held one of their councils around the mast, and after an address
+from their leader, they decided that come what may, they must attack
+that Spanish vessel.
+
+So the little pirate sailed boldly toward the big Spaniard, and the
+latter vessel, utterly astonished at the audacity of this attack,--for
+the pirates' flag was flying,--lay to, head to the wind, and waited, the
+gunners standing by their cannon. When the pirates had come near enough
+to see and understand the size and power of the vessel they had thought
+of attacking, they did not, as might have been expected, put about and
+sail away at the best of their vessel's speed, but they kept straight on
+their course as if they had been about to fall upon a great, unwieldy
+merchantman, manned by common sailors.
+
+Perceiving the foolhardiness of the little vessel, the Spanish commander
+determined to give it a lesson which would teach its captain to
+understand better the relative power of great vessels and little ones,
+so, as soon as the pirates' vessel was near enough, he ordered a
+broadside fired upon it. The Spanish ship had a great many people on
+board. It had a crew of seventy men, and besides these there were some
+passengers, and regular marines, and knowing that the captain had
+determined to fire upon the approaching vessel, everybody had gathered
+on deck to see the little pirate ship go down.
+
+But the ten great cannon-balls which were shot out at Bartholemy's
+little craft all missed their aim, and before the guns could be reloaded
+or the great ship be got around so as to deliver her other broadside,
+the pirate vessel was alongside of her. Bartholemy had fired none of his
+cannon. Such guns were useless against so huge a foe. What he was after
+was a hand-to-hand combat on the deck of the Spanish ship.
+
+The pirates were all ready for hot work. They had thrown aside their
+coats and shirts as if each of them were going into a prize fight, and,
+with their cutlasses in their hands, and their pistols and knives in
+their belts, they scrambled like monkeys up the sides of the great ship.
+But Spaniards are brave men and good fighters, and there were more than
+twice as many of them as there were of the pirates, and it was not long
+before the latter found out that they could not capture that vessel by
+boarding it. So over the side they tumbled as fast as they could go,
+leaving some of their number dead and wounded behind them. They jumped
+into their own vessel, and then they put off to a short distance to take
+breath and get ready for a different kind of a fight. The triumphant
+Spaniards now prepared to get rid of this boat load of half-naked wild
+beasts, which they could easily do if they should take better aim with
+their cannon than they had done before.
+
+But to their amazement they soon found that they could do nothing with
+the guns, nor were they able to work their ship so as to get it into
+position for effectual shots. Bartholemy and his men laid aside their
+cutlasses and their pistols, and took up their muskets, with which they
+were well provided. Their vessel lay within a very short range of the
+Spanish ship, and whenever a man could be seen through the portholes, or
+showed himself in the rigging or anywhere else where it was necessary to
+go in order to work the ship, he made himself a target for the good aim
+of the pirates. The pirate vessel could move about as it pleased, for it
+required but a few men to manage it, and so it kept out of the way of
+the Spanish guns, and its best marksmen, crouching close to the deck,
+fired and fired whenever a Spanish head was to be seen.
+
+For five long hours this unequal contest was kept up. It might have
+reminded one of a man with a slender rod and a long, delicate line, who
+had hooked a big salmon. The man could not pull in the salmon, but, on
+the other hand, the salmon could not hurt the man, and in the course of
+time the big fish would be tired out, and the man would get out his
+landing-net and scoop him in.
+
+Now Bartholemy thought he could scoop in the Spanish vessel. So many of
+her men had been shot that the two crews would be more nearly equal. So,
+boldly, he ran his vessel alongside the big ship and again boarded her.
+Now there was another great fight on the decks. The Spaniards had ceased
+to be triumphant, but they had become desperate, and in the furious
+combat ten of the pirates were killed and four wounded. But the
+Spaniards fared worse than that; more than half of the men who had not
+been shot by the pirates went down before their cutlasses and pistols,
+and it was not long before Bartholemy had captured the great Spanish
+ship.
+
+It was a fearful and a bloody victory he had gained. A great part of his
+own men were lying dead or helpless on the deck, and of the Spaniards
+only forty were left alive, and these, it appears from the accounts,
+must have been nearly all wounded or disabled.
+
+It was a common habit among the buccaneers, as well as among the
+Spaniards, to kill all prisoners who were not able to work for them, but
+Bartholemy does not seem to have arrived at the stage of depravity
+necessary for this. So he determined not to kill his prisoners, but he
+put them all into a boat and let them go where they pleased; while he
+was left with fifteen men to work a great vessel which required a crew
+of five times that number.
+
+But the men who could conquer and capture a ship against such enormous
+odds, felt themselves fully capable of working her, even with their
+little crew. Before doing anything in the way of navigation they cleared
+the decks of the dead bodies, taking from them all watches, trinkets,
+and money, and then went below to see what sort of a prize they had
+gained. They found it a very good one indeed. There were seventy-five
+thousand crowns in money, besides a cargo of cocoa worth five thousand
+more, and this, combined with the value of the ship and all its
+fittings, was a great fortune for those days.
+
+When the victorious pirates had counted their gains and had mended the
+sails and rigging of their new ship, they took what they wanted out of
+their own vessel, and left her to sink or to float as she pleased, and
+then they sailed away in the direction of the island of Jamaica. But the
+winds did not suit them, and, as their crew was so very small, they
+could not take advantage of light breezes as they could have done if
+they had had men enough. Consequently they were obliged to stop to get
+water before they reached the friendly vicinity of Jamaica.
+
+They cast anchor at Cape St. Anthony on the west end of Cuba. After a
+considerable delay at this place they started out again to resume their
+voyage, but it was not long before they perceived, to their horror,
+three Spanish vessels coming towards them. It was impossible for a very
+large ship, manned by an extremely small crew, to sail away from those
+fully equipped vessels, and as to attempting to defend themselves
+against the overwhelming power of the antagonists, that was too absurd
+to be thought of even by such a reckless fellow as Bartholemy. So, when
+the ship was hailed by the Spanish vessels he lay to and waited until a
+boat's crew boarded him. With the eye of a nautical man the Spanish
+captain of one of the ships perceived that something was the matter with
+this vessel, for its sails and rigging were terribly cut up in the long
+fight through which it had passed, and of course he wanted to know what
+had happened. When he found that the great ship was in the possession of
+a very small body of pirates, Bartholemy and his men were immediately
+made prisoners, taken on board the Spanish ship, stripped of everything
+they possessed, even their clothes, and shut up in the hold. A crew from
+the Spanish ships was sent to man the vessel which had been captured,
+and then the little fleet set sail for San Francisco in Campeachy.
+
+An hour had worked a very great change in the fortunes of Bartholemy and
+his men; in the fine cabin of their grand prize they had feasted and
+sung, and had gloried over their wonderful success, and now, in the
+vessel of their captor, they were shut up in the dark, to be enslaved or
+perhaps executed.
+
+But it is not likely that any one of them either despaired or repented;
+these are sentiments very little in use by pirates.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Pirate who could not Swim
+
+
+When the little fleet of Spanish vessels, including the one which had
+been captured by Bartholemy Portuguez and his men, were on their way to
+Campeachy, they met with very stormy weather so that they were
+separated, and the ship which contained Bartholemy and his companions
+arrived first at the port for which they were bound.
+
+The captain, who had Bartholemy and the others in charge, did not know
+what an important capture he had made; he supposed that these pirates
+were ordinary buccaneers, and it appears that it was his intention to
+keep them as his own private prisoners, for, as they were all very
+able-bodied men, they would be extremely useful on a ship. But when his
+vessel was safely moored, and it became known in the town that he had a
+company of pirates on board, a great many people came from shore to see
+these savage men, who were probably looked upon very much as if they
+were a menagerie of wild beasts brought from foreign lands.
+
+Among the sightseers who came to the ship was a merchant of the town who
+had seen Bartholemy before, and who had heard of his various exploits.
+He therefore went to the captain of the vessel and informed him that he
+had on board one of the very worst pirates in the whole world, whose
+wicked deeds were well known in various parts of the West Indies, and
+who ought immediately to be delivered up to the civil authorities. This
+proposal, however, met with no favor from the Spanish captain, who had
+found Bartholemy a very quiet man, and could see that he was a very
+strong one, and he did not at all desire to give up such a valuable
+addition to his crew. But the merchant grew very angry, for he knew that
+Bartholemy had inflicted great injury on Spanish commerce, and as the
+captain would not listen to him, he went to the Governor of the town and
+reported the case. When this dignitary heard the story he immediately
+sent a party of officers to the ship, and commanded the captain to
+deliver the pirate leader into their charge. The other men were left
+where they were, but Bartholemy was taken away and confined in another
+ship. The merchant, who seemed to know a great deal about him, informed
+the authorities that this terrible pirate had been captured several
+times, but that he had always managed to escape, and, therefore, he was
+put in irons, and preparations were made to execute him on the next day;
+for, from what he had heard, the Governor considered that this pirate
+was no better than a wild beast, and that he should be put to death
+without even the formality of a trial.
+
+But there was a Spanish soldier on board the ship who seemed to have had
+some pity, or perhaps some admiration, for the daring pirate, and he
+thought that if he were to be hung the next day it was no more than
+right to let him know it, so that when he went in to take some food to
+Bartholemy he told him what was to happen.
+
+Now this pirate captain was a man who always wanted to have a share in
+what was to happen, and he immediately racked his brain to find out what
+he could do in this case. He had never been in a more desperate
+situation, but he did not lose heart, and immediately set to work to
+free himself from his irons, which were probably very clumsy affairs. At
+last, caring little how much he scratched and tore his skin, he
+succeeded in getting rid of his fetters, and could move about as freely
+as a tiger in a cage. To get out of this cage was Bartholemy's first
+object. It would be comparatively easy, because in the course of time
+some one would come into the hold, and the athletic buccaneer thought
+that he could easily get the better of whoever might open the hatch.
+But the next act in this truly melodramatic performance would be a great
+deal more difficult; for in order to escape from the ship it would be
+absolutely necessary for Bartholemy to swim to shore, and he did not
+know how to swim, which seems a strange failing in a hardy sailor with
+so many other nautical accomplishments. In the rough hold where he was
+shut up, our pirate, peering about, anxious and earnest, discovered two
+large, earthen jars in which wine had been brought from Spain, and with
+these he determined to make a sort of life-preserver. He found some
+pieces of oiled cloth, which he tied tightly over the open mouths of the
+jars and fastened them with cords. He was satisfied that this unwieldy
+contrivance would support him in the water.
+
+Among other things he had found in his rummagings about the hold was an
+old knife, and with this in his hand he now sat waiting for a good
+opportunity to attack his sentinel.
+
+This came soon after nightfall. A man descended with a lantern to see
+that the prisoner was still secure,--let us hope that it was not the
+soldier who had kindly informed him of his fate,--and as soon as he was
+fairly in the hold Bartholemy sprang upon him. There was a fierce
+struggle, but the pirate was quick and powerful, and the sentinel was
+soon dead. Then, carrying his two jars, Bartholemy climbed swiftly and
+noiselessly up the short ladder, came out on deck in the darkness, made
+a rush toward the side of the ship, and leaped overboard. For a moment
+he sank below the surface, but the two air-tight jars quickly rose and
+bore him up with them. There was a bustle on board the ship, there was
+some random firing of muskets in the direction of the splashing which
+the watch had heard, but none of the balls struck the pirate or his
+jars, and he soon floated out of sight and hearing. Kicking out with his
+legs, and paddling as well as he could with one hand while he held on to
+the jars with the other, he at last managed to reach the land, and ran
+as fast as he could into the dark woods beyond the town.
+
+Bartholemy was now greatly in fear that, when his escape was discovered,
+he would be tracked by bloodhounds,--for these dogs were much used by
+the Spaniards in pursuing escaping slaves or prisoners,--and he
+therefore did not feel safe in immediately making his way along the
+coast, which was what he wished to do. If the hounds should get upon his
+trail, he was a lost man. The desperate pirate, therefore, determined to
+give the bloodhounds no chance to follow him, and for three days he
+remained in a marshy forest, in the dark recesses of which he could
+hide, and where the water, which covered the ground, prevented the dogs
+from following his scent. He had nothing to eat except a few roots of
+water-plants, but he was accustomed to privation, and these kept him
+alive. Often he heard the hounds baying on the dry land adjoining the
+marsh, and sometimes he saw at night distant torches, which he was sure
+were carried by men who were hunting for him.
+
+But at last the pursuit seemed to be given up; and hearing no more dogs
+and seeing no more flickering lights, Bartholemy left the marsh and set
+out on his long journey down the coast. The place he wished to reach was
+called Golpho Triste, which was forty leagues away, but where he had
+reason to suppose he would find some friends. When he came out from
+among the trees, he mounted a small hill and looked back upon the town.
+The public square was lighted, and there in the middle of it he saw the
+gallows which had been erected for his execution, and this sight,
+doubtless, animated him very much during the first part of his journey.
+
+The terrible trials and hardships which Bartholemy experienced during
+his tramp along the coast were such as could have been endured only by
+one of the strongest and toughest of men. He had found in the marsh an
+old gourd, or calabash, which he had filled with fresh water,--for he
+could expect nothing but sea-water during his journey,--and as for
+solid food he had nothing but the raw shellfish which he found upon the
+rocks; but after a diet of roots, shellfish must have been a very
+agreeable change, and they gave him all the strength and vigor he
+needed. Very often he found streams and inlets which he was obliged to
+ford, and as he could see that they were always filled with alligators,
+the passage of them was not very pleasant. His method of getting across
+one of these narrow streams, was to hurl rocks into the water until he
+had frightened away the alligators immediately in front of him, and
+then, when he had made for himself what seemed to be a free passage, he
+would dash in and hurry across.
+
+At other times great forests stretched down to the very coast, and
+through these he was obliged to make his way, although he could hear the
+roars and screams of wild beasts all about him. Any one who is afraid to
+go down into a dark cellar to get some apples from a barrel at the foot
+of the stairs, can have no idea of the sort of mind possessed by
+Bartholemy Portuguez. The animals might howl around him and glare at him
+with their shining eyes, and the alligators might lash the water into
+foam with their great tails, but he was bound for Golpho Triste and was
+not to be stopped on his way by anything alive.
+
+But at last he came to something not alive, which seemed to be an
+obstacle which would certainly get the better of him. This was a wide
+river, flowing through the inland country into the sea. He made his way
+up the shore of this river for a considerable distance, but it grew but
+little narrower, and he could see no chance of getting across. He could
+not swim and he had no wine-jars now with which to buoy himself up, and
+if he had been able to swim he would probably have been eaten up by
+alligators soon after he left the shore. But a man in his situation
+would not be likely to give up readily; he had done so much that he was
+ready to do more if he could only find out what to do.
+
+Now a piece of good fortune happened to him, although to an ordinary
+traveller it might have been considered a matter of no importance
+whatever. On the edge of the shore, where it had floated down from some
+region higher up the river, Bartholemy perceived an old board, in which
+there were some long and heavy rusty nails. Greatly encouraged by this
+discovery the indefatigable traveller set about a work which resembled
+that of the old woman who wanted a needle, and who began to rub a
+crow-bar on a stone in order to reduce it to the proper size. Bartholemy
+carefully knocked all the nails out of the board, and then finding a
+large flat stone, he rubbed down one of them until he had formed it
+into the shape of a rude knife blade, which he made as sharp as he
+could. Then with these tools he undertook the construction of a raft,
+working away like a beaver, and using the sharpened nails instead of his
+teeth. He cut down a number of small trees, and when he had enough of
+these slender trunks he bound them together with reeds and osiers, which
+he found on the river bank. So, after infinite labor and trial he
+constructed a raft which would bear him on the surface of the water.
+When he had launched this he got upon it, gathering up his legs so as to
+keep out of reach of the alligators, and with a long pole pushed himself
+off from shore. Sometimes paddling and sometimes pushing his pole
+against the bottom, he at last got across the river and took up his
+journey upon dry land.
+
+But our pirate had not progressed very far upon the other side of the
+river before he met with a new difficulty of a very formidable
+character. This was a great forest of mangrove trees, which grow in
+muddy and watery places and which have many roots, some coming down from
+the branches, and some extending themselves in a hopeless tangle in the
+water and mud. It would have been impossible for even a stork to walk
+through this forest, but as there was no way of getting around it
+Bartholemy determined to go through it, even if he could not walk. No
+athlete of the present day, no matter if he should be a most
+accomplished circus-man, could reasonably expect to perform the feat
+which this bold pirate successfully accomplished. For five or six
+leagues he went through that mangrove forest, never once setting his
+foot upon the ground,--by which is meant mud, water, and roots,--but
+swinging himself by his hands and arms, from branch to branch, as if he
+had been a great ape, only resting occasionally, drawing himself upon a
+stout limb where he might sit for a while and get his breath. If he had
+slipped while he was swinging from one limb to another and had gone down
+into the mire and roots beneath him, it is likely that he would never
+have been able to get out alive. But he made no slips. He might not have
+had the agility and grace of a trapeze performer, but his grasp was
+powerful and his arms were strong, and so he swung and clutched, and
+clutched and swung, until he had gone entirely through the forest and
+had come out on the open coast.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+How Bartholemy rested Himself
+
+
+It was full two weeks from the time that Bartholemy began his most
+adventurous and difficult journey before he reached the little town of
+Golpho Triste, where, as he had hoped, he found some of his buccaneer
+friends. Now that his hardships and dangers were over, and when, instead
+of roots and shellfish, he could sit down to good, plentiful meals, and
+stretch himself upon a comfortable bed, it might have been supposed that
+Bartholemy would have given himself a long rest, but this hardy pirate
+had no desire for a vacation at this time. Instead of being worn out and
+exhausted by his amazing exertions and semi-starvation, he arrived among
+his friends vigorous and energetic and exceedingly anxious to recommence
+business as soon as possible. He told them of all that had happened to
+him, what wonderful good fortune had come to him, and what terrible bad
+fortune had quickly followed it, and when he had related his adventures
+and his dangers he astonished even his piratical friends by asking them
+to furnish him with a small vessel and about twenty men, in order that
+he might go back and revenge himself, not only for what had happened to
+him, but for what would have happened if he had not taken his affairs
+into his own hands.
+
+To do daring and astounding deeds is part of the business of a pirate,
+and although it was an uncommonly bold enterprise that Bartholemy
+contemplated, he got his vessel and he got his men, and away he sailed.
+After a voyage of about eight days he came in sight of the little
+seaport town, and sailing slowly along the coast, he waited until
+nightfall before entering the harbor. Anchored at a considerable
+distance from shore was the great Spanish ship on which he had been a
+prisoner, and from which he would have been taken and hung in the public
+square; the sight of the vessel filled his soul with a savage fury known
+only to pirates and bull dogs.
+
+As the little vessel slowly approached the great ship, the people on
+board the latter thought it was a trading-vessel from shore, and allowed
+it to come alongside, such small craft seldom coming from the sea. But
+the moment Bartholemy reached the ship he scrambled up its side almost
+as rapidly as he had jumped down from it with his two wine-jars a few
+weeks before, and every one of his crew, leaving their own vessel to
+take care of itself, scrambled up after him.
+
+Nobody on board was prepared to defend the ship. It was the same old
+story; resting quietly in a peaceful harbor, what danger had they to
+expect? As usual the pirates had everything their own way; they were
+ready to fight, and the others were not, and they were led by a man who
+was determined to take that ship without giving even a thought to the
+ordinary alternative of dying in the attempt. The affair was more of a
+massacre than a combat, and there were people on board who did not know
+what was taking place until the vessel had been captured.
+
+As soon as Bartholemy was master of the great vessel he gave orders to
+slip the cable and hoist the sails, for he was anxious to get out of
+that harbor as quickly as possible. The fight had apparently attracted
+no attention in the town, but there were ships in the port whose company
+the bold buccaneer did not at all desire, and as soon as possible he got
+his grand prize under way and went sailing out of the port.
+
+Now, indeed, was Bartholemy triumphant; the ship he had captured was a
+finer one and a richer one than that other vessel which had been taken
+from him. It was loaded with valuable merchandise, and we may here
+remark that for some reason or other all Spanish vessels of that day
+which were so unfortunate as to be taken by pirates, seemed to be richly
+laden.
+
+If our bold pirate had sung wild pirate songs, as he passed the flowing
+bowl while carousing with his crew in the cabin of the Spanish vessel he
+had first captured, he now sang wilder songs, and passed more flowing
+bowls, for this prize was a much greater one than the first. If
+Bartholemy could have communicated his great good fortune to the other
+buccaneers in the West Indies, there would have been a boom in piracy
+which would have threatened great danger to the honesty and integrity of
+the seafaring men of that region.
+
+But nobody, not even a pirate, has any way of finding out what is going
+to happen next, and if Bartholemy had had an idea of the fluctuations
+which were about to occur in the market in which he had made his
+investments he would have been in a great hurry to sell all his stock
+very much below par. The fluctuations referred to occurred on the ocean,
+near the island of Pinos, and came in the shape of great storm waves,
+which blew the Spanish vessel with all its rich cargo, and its
+triumphant pirate crew, high up upon the cruel rocks, and wrecked it
+absolutely and utterly. Bartholemy and his men barely managed to get
+into a little boat, and row themselves away. All the wealth and
+treasure which had come to them with the capture of the Spanish vessel,
+all the power which the possession of that vessel gave them, and all the
+wild joy which came to them with riches and power, were lost to them in
+as short a space of time as it had taken to gain them.
+
+In the way of well-defined and conspicuous ups and downs, few lives
+surpassed that of Bartholemy Portuguez. But after this he seems, in the
+language of the old English song, "All in the downs." He had many
+adventures after the desperate affair in the bay of Campeachy, but they
+must all have turned out badly for him, and, consequently, very well, it
+is probable, for divers and sundry Spanish vessels, and, for the rest of
+his life, he bore the reputation of an unfortunate pirate. He was one of
+those men whose success seemed to have depended entirely upon his own
+exertions. If there happened to be the least chance of his doing
+anything, he generally did it; Spanish cannon, well-armed Spanish crews,
+manacles, imprisonment, the dangers of the ocean to a man who could not
+swim, bloodhounds, alligators, wild beasts, awful forests impenetrable
+to common men, all these were bravely met and triumphed over by
+Bartholemy.
+
+But when he came to ordinary good fortune, such as any pirate might
+expect, Bartholemy the Portuguese found that he had no chance at all.
+But he was not a common pirate, and was, therefore, obliged to be
+content with his uncommon career. He eventually settled in the island of
+Jamaica, but nobody knows what became of him. If it so happened that he
+found himself obliged to make his living by some simple industry, such
+as the selling of fruit upon a street corner, it is likely he never
+disposed of a banana or an orange unless he jumped at the throat of a
+passer-by and compelled him to purchase. As for sitting still and
+waiting for customers to come to him, such a man as Bartholemy would not
+be likely to do anything so commonplace.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+A Pirate Author
+
+
+In the days which we are considering there were all sorts of pirates,
+some of whom gained much reputation in one way and some in another, but
+there was one of them who had a disposition different from that of any
+of his fellows. He was a regular pirate, but it is not likely that he
+ever did much fighting, for, as he took great pride in the brave deeds
+of the Brethren of the Coast, he would have been sure to tell us of his
+own if he had ever performed any. He was a mild-mannered man, and,
+although he was a pirate, he eventually laid aside the pistol, the
+musket, and the cutlass, and took up the pen,--a very uncommon weapon
+for a buccaneer.
+
+This man was John Esquemeling, supposed by some to be a Dutchman, and by
+others a native of France. He sailed to the West Indies in the year
+1666, in the service of the French West India Company. He went out as a
+peaceable merchant clerk, and had no more idea of becoming a pirate
+than he had of going into literature, although he finally did both.
+
+At that time the French West India Company had a colonial establishment
+on the island of Tortuga, which was principally inhabited, as we have
+seen before, by buccaneers in all their various grades and stages, from
+beef-driers to pirates. The French authorities undertook to supply these
+erratic people with the goods and provisions which they needed, and
+built storehouses with everything necessary for carrying on the trade.
+There were plenty of purchasers, for the buccaneers were willing to buy
+everything which could be brought from Europe. They were fond of good
+wine, good groceries, good firearms, and ammunition, fine cutlasses, and
+very often good clothes, in which they could disport themselves when on
+shore. But they had peculiar customs and manners, and although they were
+willing to buy as much as the French traders had to sell, they could not
+be prevailed upon to pay their bills. A pirate is not the sort of a man
+who generally cares to pay his bills. When he gets goods in any way, he
+wants them charged to him, and if that charge includes the features of
+robbery and murder, he will probably make no objection. But as for
+paying good money for what is received, that is quite another thing.
+
+That this was the state of feeling on the island of Tortuga was
+discovered before very long by the French mercantile agents, who then
+applied to the mother country for assistance in collecting the debts due
+them, and a body of men, who might be called collectors, or deputy
+sheriffs, was sent out to the island; but although these officers were
+armed with pistols and swords, as well as with authority, they could do
+nothing with the buccaneers, and after a time the work of endeavoring to
+collect debts from pirates was given up. And as there was no profit in
+carrying on business in this way, the mercantile agency was also given
+up, and its officers were ordered to sell out everything they had on
+hand, and come home. There was, therefore, a sale, for which cash
+payments were demanded, and there was a great bargain day on the island
+of Tortuga. Everything was disposed of,--the stock of merchandise on
+hand, the tables, the desks, the stationery, the bookkeepers, the
+clerks, and the errand boys. The living items of the stock on hand were
+considered to be property just as if they had been any kind of
+merchandise, and were sold as slaves.
+
+Now poor John Esquemeling found himself in a sad condition. He was
+bought by one of the French officials who had been left on the island,
+and he described his new master as a veritable fiend. He was worked
+hard, half fed, treated cruelly in many ways, and to add to his misery,
+his master tantalized him by offering to set him free upon the payment
+of a sum of money equal to about three hundred dollars. He might as well
+have been asked to pay three thousand or three million dollars, for he
+had not a penny in the world.
+
+At last he was so fortunate as to fall sick, and his master, as
+avaricious as he was cruel, fearing that this creature he owned might
+die, and thus be an entire loss to him, sold him to a surgeon, very much
+as one would sell a sick horse to a veterinary surgeon, on the principle
+that he might make something out of the animal by curing him.
+
+His new master treated Esquemeling very well, and after he had taken
+medicine and food enough to set him upon his legs, and had worked for
+the surgeon about a year, that kind master offered him his liberty if he
+would promise, as soon as he could earn the money, to pay him one
+hundred dollars, which would be a profit to his owner, who had paid but
+seventy dollars for him. This offer, of course, Esquemeling accepted
+with delight, and having made the bargain, he stepped forth upon the
+warm sands of the island of Tortuga a free and happy man. But he was as
+poor as a church mouse. He had nothing in the world but the clothes on
+his back, and he saw no way in which he could make money enough to keep
+himself alive until he had paid for himself. He tried various ways of
+support, but there was no opening for a young business man in that
+section of the country, and at last he came to the conclusion that there
+was only one way by which he could accomplish his object, and he
+therefore determined to enter into "the wicked order of pirates or
+robbers at sea."
+
+It must have been a strange thing for a man accustomed to pens and ink,
+to yard-sticks and scales, to feel obliged to enroll himself into a
+company of bloody, big-bearded pirates, but a man must eat, and
+buccaneering was the only profession open to our ex-clerk. For some
+reason or other, certainly not on account of his bravery and daring,
+Esquemeling was very well received by the pirates of Tortuga. Perhaps
+they liked him because he was a mild-mannered man and so different from
+themselves. Nobody was afraid of him, every one felt superior to him,
+and we are all very apt to like people to whom we feel superior.
+
+As for Esquemeling himself, he soon came to entertain the highest
+opinion of his pirate companions. He looked upon the buccaneers who had
+distinguished themselves as great heroes, and it must have been
+extremely gratifying to those savage fellows to tell Esquemeling all the
+wonderful things they had done. In the whole of the West Indies there
+was no one who was in the habit of giving such intelligent attention to
+the accounts of piratical depredations and savage sea-fights, as was
+Esquemeling and if he had demanded a salary as a listener there is no
+doubt that it would have been paid to him.
+
+It was not long before his intense admiration of the buccaneers and
+their performances began to produce in him the feeling that the history
+of these great exploits should not be lost to the world, and so he set
+about writing the lives and adventures of many of the buccaneers with
+whom he became acquainted.
+
+He remained with the pirates for several years, and during that time
+worked very industriously getting material together for his history.
+When he returned to his own country in 1672, having done as much
+literary work as was possible among the uncivilized surroundings of
+Tortuga, he there completed a book, which he called, "The Buccaneers of
+America, or The True Account of the Most Remarkable Assaults Committed
+of Late Years Upon the Coasts of the West Indies by the Buccaneers,
+etc., by John Esquemeling, One of the Buccaneers, Who Was Present at
+Those Tragedies."
+
+From this title it is probable that our literary pirate accompanied his
+comrades on their various voyages and assaults, in the capacity of
+reporter, and although he states he was present at many of "those
+tragedies," he makes no reference to any deeds of valor or cruelty
+performed by himself, which shows him to have been a wonderfully
+conscientious historian. There are persons, however, who doubt his
+impartiality, because, as he liked the French, he always gave the
+pirates of that nationality the credit for most of the bravery displayed
+on their expeditions, and all of the magnanimity and courtesy, if there
+happened to be any, while the surliness, brutality, and extraordinary
+wickednesses were all ascribed to the English. But be this as it may,
+Esquemeling's history was a great success. It was written in Dutch and
+was afterwards translated into English, French, and Spanish. It
+contained a great deal of information regarding buccaneering in general,
+and most of the stories of pirates which we have already told, and many
+of the surprising narrations which are to come, have been taken from the
+book of this buccaneer historian.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The Story of Roc, the Brazilian
+
+
+Having given the history of a very plain and quiet buccaneer, who was a
+reporter and writer, and who, if he were now living, would be eligible
+as a member of an Authors' Club, we will pass to the consideration of a
+regular out-and-out pirate, one from whose mast-head would have floated
+the black flag with its skull and cross-bones if that emblematic piece
+of bunting had been in use by the pirates of the period.
+
+This famous buccaneer was called Roc, because he had to have a name, and
+his own was unknown, and "the Brazilian," because he was born in Brazil,
+though of Dutch parents. Unlike most of his fellow-practitioners he did
+not gradually become a pirate. From his early youth he never had an
+intention of being anything else. As soon as he grew to be a man he
+became a bloody buccaneer, and at the first opportunity he joined a
+pirate crew, and had made but a few voyages when it was perceived by his
+companions that he was destined to become a most remarkable sea-robber.
+He was offered the command of a ship with a well-armed crew of marine
+savages, and in a very short time after he had set out on his first
+independent cruise he fell in with a Spanish ship loaded with silver
+bullion; having captured this, he sailed with his prize to Jamaica,
+which was one of the great resorts of the English buccaneers. There his
+success delighted the community, his talents for the conduct of great
+piratical operations soon became apparent, and he was generally
+acknowledged as the Head Pirate of the West Indies.
+
+He was now looked upon as a hero even by those colonists who had no
+sympathy with pirates, and as for Esquemeling, he simply worshipped the
+great Brazilian desperado. If he had been writing the life and times of
+Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, or Mr. Gladstone, he could not have
+been more enthusiastic in his praises. And as in The Arabian Nights the
+roc is described as the greatest of birds, so, in the eyes of the
+buccaneer biographer, this Roc was the greatest of pirates. But it was
+not only in the mind of the historian that Roc now became famous; the
+better he became known, the more general was the fear and respect felt
+for him, and we are told that the mothers of the islands used to put
+their children to sleep by threatening them with the terrible Roc if
+they did not close their eyes. This story, however, I regard with a
+great deal of doubt; it has been told of Saladin and many other wicked
+and famous men, but I do not believe it is an easy thing to frighten a
+child into going to sleep. If I found it necessary to make a youngster
+take a nap, I should say nothing of the condition of affairs in Cuba or
+of the persecutions of the Armenians.
+
+This renowned pirate from Brazil must have been a terrible fellow to
+look at. He was strong and brawny, his face was short and very wide,
+with high cheek-bones, and his expression probably resembled that of a
+pug dog. His eyebrows were enormously large and bushy, and from under
+them he glared at his mundane surroundings. He was not a man whose
+spirit could be quelled by looking him steadfastly in the eye. It was
+his custom in the daytime to walk about, carrying a drawn cutlass,
+resting easily upon his arm, edge up, very much as a fine gentleman
+carries his high silk hat, and any one who should impertinently stare or
+endeavor to quell his high spirits in any other way, would probably have
+felt the edge of that cutlass descending rapidly through his physical
+organism.
+
+He was a man who insisted upon being obeyed, and if any one of his crew
+behaved improperly, or was even found idle, this strict and inexorable
+master would cut him down where he stood. But although he was so strict
+and exacting during the business sessions of his piratical year, by
+which I mean when he was cruising around after prizes, he was very much
+more disagreeable when he was taking a vacation. On his return to
+Jamaica after one of his expeditions it was his habit to give himself
+some relaxation after the hardships and dangers through which he had
+passed, and on such occasions it was a great comfort to Roc to get
+himself thoroughly drunk. With his cutlass waving high in the air, he
+would rush out into the street and take a whack at every one whom he
+met. As far as was possible the citizens allowed him to have the street
+to himself, and it was not at all likely that his visits to Jamaica were
+looked forward to with any eager anticipations.
+
+Roc, it may be said, was not only a bloody pirate, but a blooded one; he
+was thoroughbred. From the time he had been able to assert his
+individuality he had been a pirate, and there was no reason to suppose
+that he would ever reform himself into anything else. There were no
+extenuating circumstances in his case; in his nature there was no alloy,
+nor moderation, nor forbearance. The appreciative Esquemeling, who might
+be called the Boswell of the buccaneers, could never have met his hero
+Roc, when that bushy-bearded pirate was running "amuck" in the streets,
+but if he had, it is not probable that his book would have been written.
+He assures us that when Roc was not drunk he was esteemed, but at the
+same time feared; but there are various ways of gaining esteem, and
+Roc's method certainly succeeded very well in the case of his literary
+associate.
+
+As we have seen, the hatred of the Spaniards by the buccaneers began
+very early in the settlement of the West Indies, and in fact, it is very
+likely that if there had been no Spaniards there would never have been
+any buccaneers; but in all the instances of ferocious enmity toward the
+Spaniards there has been nothing to equal the feelings of Roc, the
+Brazilian, upon that subject. His dislike to everything Spanish arose,
+he declared, from cruelties which had been practised upon his parents by
+people of that nation, and his main principle of action throughout all
+his piratical career seems to have been that there was nothing too bad
+for a Spaniard. The object of his life was to wage bitter war against
+Spanish ships and Spanish settlements. He seldom gave any quarter to his
+prisoners, and would often subject them to horrible tortures in order to
+make them tell where he could find the things he wanted. There is
+nothing horrible that has ever been written or told about the buccaneer
+life, which could not have been told about Roc, the Brazilian. He was a
+typical pirate.
+
+[Illustration: "In a small boat filled with some of his trusty men, he
+rowed quietly into the port."--p. 77.]
+
+Roc was very successful, in his enterprises, and took a great deal of
+valuable merchandise to Jamaica, but although he and his crew were
+always rich men when they went on shore, they did not remain in that
+condition very long. The buccaneers of that day were all very
+extravagant, and, moreover, they were great gamblers, and it was not
+uncommon for them to lose everything they possessed before they had been
+on shore a week. Then there was nothing for them to do but to go on
+board their vessels and put out to sea in search of some fresh prize. So
+far Roc's career had been very much like that of many other Companions
+of the Coast, differing from them only in respect to intensity and
+force, but he was a clever man with ideas, and was able to adapt himself
+to circumstances.
+
+He was cruising about Campeachy without seeing any craft that was worth
+capturing, when he thought that it would be very well for him to go out
+on a sort of marine scouting expedition and find out whether or not
+there were any Spanish vessels in the bay which were well laden and
+which were likely soon to come out. So, with a small boat filled with
+some of his trusty men, he rowed quietly into the port to see what he
+could discover. If he had had Esquemeling with him, and had sent that
+mild-mannered observer into the harbor to investigate into the state of
+affairs, and come back with a report, it would have been a great deal
+better for the pirate captain, but he chose to go himself, and he came
+to grief. No sooner did the people on the ships lying in the harbor
+behold a boat approaching with a big-browed, broad-jawed mariner sitting
+in the stern, and with a good many more broad-backed, hairy mariners
+than were necessary, pulling at the oars, than they gave the alarm. The
+well-known pirate was recognized, and it was not long before he was
+captured. Roc must have had a great deal of confidence in his own
+powers, or perhaps he relied somewhat upon the fear which his very
+presence evoked. But he made a mistake this time; he had run into the
+lion's jaw, and the lion had closed his teeth upon him.
+
+When the pirate captain and his companions were brought before the
+Governor, he made no pretence of putting them to trial. Buccaneers were
+outlawed by the Spanish, and were considered as wild beasts to be killed
+without mercy wherever caught. Consequently Roc and his men were thrown
+into a dungeon and condemned to be executed. If, however, the Spanish
+Governor had known what was good for himself, he would have had them
+killed that night.
+
+During the time that preparations were going on for making examples of
+these impertinent pirates, who had dared to enter the port of Campeachy,
+Roc was racking his brains to find some method of getting out of the
+terrible scrape into which he had fallen. This was a branch of the
+business in which a capable pirate was obliged to be proficient; if he
+could not get himself out of scrapes, he could not expect to be
+successful. In this case there was no chance of cutting down sentinels,
+or jumping overboard with a couple of wine-jars for a life-preserver, or
+of doing any of those ordinary things which pirates were in the habit of
+doing when escaping from their captors. Roc and his men were in a
+dungeon on land, inside of a fortress, and if they escaped from this,
+they would find themselves unarmed in the midst of a body of Spanish
+soldiers. Their stout arms and their stout hearts were of no use to them
+now, and they were obliged to depend upon their wits if they had any.
+Roc had plenty of wit, and he used it well. There was a slave, probably
+not a negro nor a native, but most likely some European who had been
+made prisoner, who came in to bring him food and drink, and by the means
+of this man the pirate hoped to play a trick upon the Governor. He
+promised the slave that if he would help him,--and he told him it would
+be very easy to do so,--he would give him money enough to buy his
+freedom and to return to his friends, and this, of course, was a great
+inducement to the poor fellow, who may have been an Englishman or a
+Frenchman in good circumstances at home. The slave agreed to the
+proposals, and the first thing he did was to bring some
+writing-materials to Roc, who thereupon began the composition of a
+letter upon which he based all his hopes of life and freedom.
+
+When he was coming into the bay, Roc had noticed a large French vessel
+that was lying at some distance from the town, and he wrote his letter
+as if it had come from the captain of this ship. In the character of
+this French captain he addressed his letter to the Governor of the town,
+and in it he stated that he had understood that certain Companions of
+the Coast, for whom he had great sympathy,--for the French and the
+buccaneers were always good friends,--had been captured by the Governor,
+who, he heard, had threatened to execute them. Then the French captain,
+by the hand of Roc, went on to say that if any harm should come to these
+brave men, who had been taken and imprisoned when they were doing no
+harm to anybody, he would swear, in his most solemn manner, that never,
+for the rest of his life, would he give quarter to any Spaniard who
+might fall into his hands, and he, moreover, threatened that any kind of
+vengeance which should become possible for the buccaneers and French
+united, to inflict upon the Spanish ships, or upon the town of
+Campeachy, should be taken as soon as possible after he should hear of
+any injury that might be inflicted upon the unfortunate men who were
+then lying imprisoned in the fortress.
+
+When the slave came back to Roc, the letter was given to him with very
+particular directions as to what he was to do with it. He was to
+disguise himself as much as possible, so that he should not be
+recognized by the people of the place, and then in the night he was to
+make his way out of the town, and early in the morning he was to return
+as if he had been walking along the shore of the harbor, when he was to
+state that he had been put on shore from the French vessel in the
+offing, with a letter which he was to present to the Governor.
+
+The slave performed his part of the business very well. The next day,
+wet and bedraggled, from making his way through the weeds and mud of the
+coast, he presented himself at the fortress with his letter, and when he
+was allowed to take it to the Governor, no one suspected that he was a
+person employed about the place. Having fulfilled his mission, he
+departed, and when seen again he was the same servant whose business it
+was to carry food to the prisoners.
+
+The Governor read the letter with a disquieted mind; he knew that the
+French ship which was lying outside the harbor was a powerful vessel and
+he did not like French ships, anyway. The town had once been taken and
+very badly treated by a little fleet of French and English buccaneers,
+and he was very anxious that nothing of the kind should happen again.
+There was no great Spanish force in the harbor at that time, and he did
+not know how many buccaneering vessels might be able to gather together
+in the bay if it should become known that the great pirate Roc had been
+put to death in Campeachy. It was an unusual thing for a prisoner to
+have such powerful friends so near by, and the Governor took Roc's case
+into most earnest consideration. A few hours' reflection was sufficient
+to convince him that it would be very unsafe to tamper with such a
+dangerous prize as the pirate Roc, and he determined to get rid of him
+as soon as possible. He felt himself in the position of a man who has
+stolen a baby-bear, and who hears the roar of an approaching parent
+through the woods; to throw away the cub and walk off as though he had
+no idea there were any bears in that forest would be the inclination of
+a man so situated, and to get rid of the great pirate without provoking
+the vengeance of his friends was the natural inclination of the
+Governor.
+
+Now Roc and his men were treated well, and having been brought before
+the Governor, were told that in consequence of their having committed no
+overt act of disorder they would be set at liberty and shipped to
+England, upon the single condition that they would abandon piracy and
+agree to become quiet citizens in whatever respectable vocation they
+might select.
+
+To these terms Roc and his men agreed without argument. They declared
+that they would retire from the buccaneering business, and that nothing
+would suit them better than to return to the ways of civilization and
+virtue. There was a ship about to depart for Spain, and on this the
+Governor gave Roc and his men free passage to the other side of the
+ocean. There is no doubt that our buccaneers would have much preferred
+to have been put on board the French vessel; but as the Spanish Governor
+had started his prisoners on the road to reform, he did not wish to
+throw them into the way of temptation by allowing them to associate with
+such wicked companions as Frenchmen, and Roc made no suggestion of the
+kind, knowing very well how greatly astonished the French captain would
+be if the Governor were to communicate with him on the subject.
+
+On the voyage to Spain Roc was on his good behavior, and he was a man
+who knew how to behave very well when it was absolutely necessary: no
+doubt there must have been many dull days on board ship when he would
+have been delighted to gamble, to get drunk, and to run "amuck" up and
+down the deck. But he carefully abstained from all these recreations,
+and showed himself to be such an able-bodied and willing sailor that the
+captain allowed him to serve as one of the crew. Roc knew how to do a
+great many things; not only could he murder and rob, but he knew how to
+turn an honest penny when there was no other way of filling his purse.
+He had learned among the Indians how to shoot fish with bow and arrows,
+and on this voyage across the Atlantic he occupied all his spare time in
+sitting in the rigging and shooting the fish which disported themselves
+about the vessel. These fish he sold to the officers, and we are told
+that in this way he earned no less than five hundred crowns, perhaps
+that many dollars. If this account is true, fish must have been very
+costly in those days, but it showed plainly that if Roc had desired to
+get into an honest business, he would have found fish-shooting a
+profitable occupation. In every way Roc behaved so well that for his
+sake all his men were treated kindly and allowed many privileges.
+
+But when this party of reformed pirates reached Spain and were allowed
+to go where they pleased, they thought no more of the oaths they had
+taken to abandon piracy than they thought of the oaths which they had
+been in the habit of throwing right and left when they had been
+strolling about on the island of Jamaica. They had no ship, and not
+enough money to buy one, but as soon as they could manage it they sailed
+back to the West Indies, and eventually found themselves in Jamaica, as
+bold and as bloody buccaneers as ever they had been.
+
+Not only did Roc cast from him every thought of reformation and a
+respectable life, but he determined to begin the business of piracy on a
+grander scale than ever before. He made a compact with an old French
+buccaneer, named Tributor, and with a large company of buccaneers he
+actually set out to take a town. Having lost everything he possessed,
+and having passed such a long time without any employment more
+profitable than that of shooting fish with a bow and arrows, our doughty
+pirate now desired to make a grand strike, and if he could take a town
+and pillage it of everything valuable it contained, he would make a very
+good fortune in a very short time, and might retire, if he chose, from
+the active practice of his profession.
+
+The town which Roc and Tributor determined to attack was Merida, in
+Yucatan, and although this was a bold and rash undertaking, the two
+pirates were bold and rash enough for anything. Roc had been a prisoner
+in Merida, and on account of his knowledge of the town he believed that
+he and his followers could land upon the coast, and then quietly advance
+upon the town without their approach being discovered. If they could do
+this, it would be an easy matter to rush upon the unsuspecting garrison,
+and, having annihilated these, make themselves masters of the town.
+
+But their plans did not work very well; they were discovered by some
+Indians, after they had landed, who hurried to Merida and gave notice of
+the approach of the buccaneers. Consequently, when Roc and his
+companions reached the town they found the garrison prepared for them,
+cannons loaded, and all the approaches guarded. Still the pirates did
+not hesitate; they advanced fiercely to the attack just as they were
+accustomed to do when they were boarding a Spanish vessel, but they soon
+found that fighting on land was very different from fighting at sea. In
+a marine combat it is seldom that a party of boarders is attacked in the
+rear by the enemy, although on land such methods of warfare may always
+be expected; but Roc and Tributor did not expect anything of the kind,
+and they were, therefore, greatly dismayed when a party of horsemen from
+the town, who had made a wide détour through the woods, suddenly charged
+upon their rear. Between the guns of the garrison and the sabres of the
+horsemen the buccaneers had a very hard time, and it was not long before
+they were completely defeated. Tributor and a great many of the pirates
+were killed or taken, and Roc, the Brazilian, had a terrible fall.
+
+This most memorable fall occurred in the estimation of John Esquemeling,
+who knew all about the attack on Merida, and who wrote the account of
+it. But he had never expected to be called upon to record that his
+great hero, Roc, the Brazilian, saved his life, after the utter defeat
+of himself and his companions, by ignominiously running away. The loyal
+chronicler had as firm a belief in the absolute inability of his hero to
+fly from danger as was shown by the Scottish Douglas, when he stood, his
+back against a mass of stone, and invited his enemies to "Come one, come
+all." The bushy-browed pirate of the drawn cutlass had so often
+expressed his contempt for a soldier who would even surrender, to say
+nothing of running away, that Esquemeling could scarcely believe that
+Roc had retreated from his enemies, deserted his friends, and turned his
+back upon the principles which he had always so truculently proclaimed.
+
+But this downfall of a hero simply shows that Esquemeling, although he
+was a member of the piratical body, and was proud to consider himself a
+buccaneer, did not understand the true nature of a pirate. Under the
+brutality, the cruelty, the dishonesty, and the recklessness of the
+sea-robbers of those days, there was nearly always meanness and
+cowardice. Roc, as we have said in the beginning of this sketch, was a
+typical pirate; under certain circumstances he showed himself to have
+all those brave and savage qualities which Esquemeling esteemed and
+revered, and under other circumstances he showed those other qualities
+which Esquemeling despised, but which are necessary to make up the true
+character of a pirate.
+
+The historian John seems to have been very much cut up by the manner in
+which his favorite hero had rounded off his piratical career, and after
+that he entirely dropped Roc from his chronicles.
+
+This out-and-out pirate was afterwards living in Jamaica, and probably
+engaged in new enterprises, but Esquemeling would have nothing more to
+do with him nor with the history of his deeds.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+A Buccaneer Boom
+
+
+The condition of affairs in the West Indies was becoming very serious in
+the eyes of the Spanish rulers. They had discovered a new country, they
+had taken possession of it, and they had found great wealth of various
+kinds, of which they were very much in need. This wealth was being
+carried to Spain as fast as it could be taken from the unfortunate
+natives and gathered together for transportation, and everything would
+have gone on very well indeed had it not been for the most culpable and
+unwarranted interference of that lawless party of men, who might almost
+be said to amount to a nationality, who were continually on the alert to
+take from Spain everything she could take from America. The English,
+French, and Dutch governments were generally at peace with Spain, but
+they sat by quietly and saw their sailor subjects band themselves
+together and make war upon Spanish commerce,--a very one-sided commerce,
+it is true.
+
+It was of no use for Spain to complain of the buccaneers to her sister
+maritime nations. It is not certain that they could have done anything
+to interfere with the operations of the sea-robbers who originally
+sailed from their coasts, but it is certain they did not try to do
+anything. Whatever was to be done, Spain must do herself. The pirates
+were as slippery as they were savage, and although the Spaniards made a
+regular naval war upon them, they seemed to increase rather than to
+diminish. Every time that a Spanish merchantman was taken, and its gold
+and silver and valuable goods carried off to Tortuga or Jamaica, and
+divided among a lot of savage and rollicking fellows, the greater became
+the enthusiasm among the Brethren of the Coast, and the wider spread the
+buccaneering boom. More ships laden almost entirely with stalwart men,
+well provided with arms, and very badly furnished with principles, came
+from England and France, and the Spanish ships of war in the West Indies
+found that they were confronted by what was, in many respects, a regular
+naval force.
+
+The buccaneers were afraid of nothing; they paid no attention to the
+rules of war,--a little ship would attack a big one without the
+slightest hesitation, and more than that, would generally take it,--and
+in every way Spain was beginning to feel as if she were acting the part
+of provider to the pirate seamen of every nation.
+
+Finding that she could do nothing to diminish the number of the
+buccaneering vessels, Spain determined that she would not have so many
+richly laden ships of her own upon these dangerous seas; consequently, a
+change was made in regard to the shipping of merchandise and the
+valuable metals from America to her home ports. The cargoes were
+concentrated, and what had previously been placed upon three ships was
+crowded into the holds and between the decks of one great vessel, which
+was so well armed and defended as to make it almost impossible for any
+pirate ship to capture it. In some respects this plan worked very well,
+although when the buccaneers did happen to pounce upon one of these
+richly laden vessels, in such numbers and with such swift ferocity, that
+they were able to capture it, they rejoiced over a prize far more
+valuable than anything the pirate soul had ever dreamed of before. But
+it was not often that one of these great ships was taken, and for a time
+the results of Spanish robbery and cruelty were safely carried to Spain.
+
+But it was very hard to get the better of the buccaneers; their lives
+and their fortunes depended upon this boom, and if in one way they could
+not get the gold out of the Spaniards, which the latter got out of the
+natives, they would try another. When the miners in the gold fields find
+they can no longer wash out with their pans a paying quantity of the
+precious metal, they go to work on the rocks and break them into pieces
+and crush them into dust; so, when the buccaneers found it did not pay
+to devote themselves to capturing Spanish gold on its transit across the
+ocean, many of them changed their methods of operation and boldly
+planned to seize the treasures of their enemy before it was put upon the
+ships.
+
+Consequently, the buccaneers formed themselves into larger bodies
+commanded by noted leaders, and made attacks upon the Spanish
+settlements and towns. Many of these were found nearly defenceless, and
+even those which boasted fortifications often fell before the reckless
+charges of the buccaneers. The pillage, the burning, and the cruelty on
+shore exceeded that which had hitherto been known on the sea. There is
+generally a great deal more in a town than there is in a ship, and the
+buccaneers proved themselves to be among the most outrageous, exacting,
+and cruel conquerors ever known in the world. They were governed by no
+laws of warfare; whatever they chose to do they did. They respected
+nobody, not even themselves, and acted like wild beasts, without the
+disposition which is generally shown by a wild beast, to lie down and go
+to sleep when he has had enough.
+
+There were times when it seemed as though it would be safer for a man
+who had a regard for his life and comfort, to sail upon a pirate ship
+instead of a Spanish galleon, or to take up his residence in one of the
+uncivilized communities of Tortuga or Jamaica, instead of settling in a
+well-ordered Spanish-American town with its mayor, its officials, and
+its garrison.
+
+It was a very strange nation of marine bandits which had thus sprung
+into existence on these faraway waters; it was a nation of grown-up men,
+who existed only for the purpose of carrying off that which other people
+were taking away; it was a nation of second-hand robbers, who carried
+their operations to such an extent that they threatened to do away
+entirely with that series of primary robberies to which Spain had
+devoted herself. I do not know that there were any companies formed in
+those days for the prosecution of buccaneering, but I am quite sure that
+if there had been, their shares would have gone up to a very high
+figure.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Story of L'Olonnois the Cruel
+
+
+In the preceding chapter we have seen that the buccaneers had at last
+become so numerous and so formidable that it was dangerous for a Spanish
+ship laden with treasure from the new world to attempt to get out of the
+Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic, and that thus failing to find enough
+richly laden vessels to satisfy their ardent cravings for plunder, the
+buccaneers were forced to make some change in their methods of criminal
+warfare; and from capturing Spanish galleons, they formed themselves
+into well-organized bodies and attacked towns.
+
+Among the buccaneer leaders who distinguished themselves as land pirates
+was a thoroughbred scoundrel by the name of Francis L'Olonnois, who was
+born in France. In those days it was the custom to enforce servitude
+upon people who were not able to take care of themselves. Unfortunate
+debtors and paupers of all classes were sold to people who had need of
+their services. The only difference sometimes between master and
+servant depended entirely upon the fact that one had money, and the
+other had none. Boys and girls were sold for a term of years, somewhat
+as if they had been apprentices, and it so happened that the boy
+L'Olonnois was sold to a master who took him to the West Indies. There
+he led the life of a slave until he was of age, and then, being no
+longer subject to ownership, he became one of the freest and most
+independent persons who ever walked this earth.
+
+He began his career on the island of Hispaniola, where he took up the
+business of hunting and butchering cattle; but he very soon gave up this
+life for that of a pirate, and enlisted as a common sailor on one of
+their ships. Here he gave signs of such great ability as a brave and
+unscrupulous scoundrel that one of the leading pirates on the island of
+Tortuga gave him a ship and a crew, and set him up in business on his
+own account. The piratical career of L'Olonnois was very much like that
+of other buccaneers of the day, except that he was so abominably cruel
+to the Spanish prisoners whom he captured that he gained a reputation
+for vile humanity, surpassing that of any other rascal on the western
+continent. When he captured a prisoner, it seemed to delight his soul as
+much to torture and mutilate him before killing him as to take away
+whatever valuables he possessed. His reputation for ingenious
+wickedness spread all over the West Indies, so that the crews of Spanish
+ships, attacked by this demon, would rather die on their decks or sink
+to the bottom in their ships than be captured by L'Olonnois.
+
+All the barbarities, the brutalities, and the fiendish ferocity which
+have ever been attributed to the pirates of the world were united in the
+character of this inhuman wretch, who does not appear to be so good an
+example of the true pirate as Roc, the Brazilian. He was not so brave,
+he was not so able, and he was so utterly base that it would be
+impossible for any one to look upon him as a hero. After having attained
+in a very short time the reputation of being the most bloody and wicked
+pirate of his day, L'Olonnois was unfortunate enough to be wrecked upon
+the coast, not far from the town of Campeachy. He and his crew got
+safely to shore, but it was not long before their presence was
+discovered by the people of the town, and the Spanish soldiers thereupon
+sallied out and attacked them. There was a fierce fight, but the
+Spaniards were the stronger, and the buccaneers were utterly defeated.
+Many of them were killed, and most of the rest wounded or taken
+prisoners.
+
+Among the wounded was L'Olonnois, and as he knew that if he should be
+discovered he would meet with no mercy, he got behind some bushes,
+scooped up several handfuls of sand, mixed it with his blood, and with
+it rubbed his face so that it presented the pallor of a corpse. Then he
+lay down among the bodies of his dead companions, and when the Spaniards
+afterwards walked over the battlefield, he was looked upon as one of the
+common pirates whom they had killed.
+
+When the soldiers had retired into the town with their prisoners, the
+make-believe corpse stealthily arose and made his way into the woods,
+where he stayed until his wounds were well enough for him to walk about.
+He divested himself of his great boots, his pistol belt, and the rest of
+his piratical costume, and, adding to his scanty raiment a cloak and hat
+which he had stolen from a poor cottage, he boldly approached the town
+and entered it. He looked like a very ordinary person, and no notice was
+taken of him by the authorities. Here he found shelter and something to
+eat, and he soon began to make himself very much at home in the streets
+of Campeachy.
+
+It was a very gay time in the town, and, as everybody seemed to be
+happy, L'Olonnois was very glad to join in the general rejoicing, and
+these hilarities gave him particular pleasure as he found out that he
+was the cause of them. The buccaneers who had been captured, and who
+were imprisoned in the fortress, had been interrogated over and over
+again by the Spanish officials in regard to L'Olonnois, their commander,
+and, as they had invariably answered that he had been killed, the
+Spanish were forced to believe the glad tidings, and they celebrated the
+death of the monster as the greatest piece of public good fortune which
+could come to their community. They built bonfires, they sang songs
+about the death of the black-hearted buccaneer, and services of
+thanksgiving were held in their churches.
+
+All this was a great delight to L'Olonnois, who joined hands with the
+young men and women, as they danced around the bonfires; he assisted in
+a fine bass voice in the choruses which told of his death and his
+dreadful doom, and he went to church and listened to the priests and the
+people as they gave thanks for their deliverance from his enormities.
+
+But L'Olonnois did not waste all his time chuckling over the baseless
+rejoicings of the people of the town. He made himself acquainted with
+some of the white slaves, men who had been brought from England, and
+finding some of them very much discontented with their lot, he ventured
+to tell them that he was one of the pirates who had escaped, and offered
+them riches and liberty if they would join him in a scheme he had
+concocted. It would have been easy enough for him to get away from the
+town by himself, but this would have been of no use to him unless he
+obtained some sort of a vessel, and some men to help him navigate it. So
+he proposed to the slaves that they should steal a small boat belonging
+to the master of one of them, and in this, under cover of the night, the
+little party safely left Campeachy and set sail for Tortuga, which, as
+we have told, was then the headquarters of the buccaneers, and "the
+common place of refuge of all sorts or wickedness, and the seminary, as
+it were, of all manner of pirates."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+A Resurrected Pirate
+
+
+When L'Olonnois arrived at Tortuga he caused great astonishment among
+his old associates; that he had come back a comparative pauper surprised
+no one, for this was a common thing to happen to a pirate, but the
+wonder was that he got back at all.
+
+He had no money, but, by the exercise of his crafty abilities, he
+managed to get possession of a ship, which he manned with a crew of
+about a score of impecunious dare-devils who were very anxious to do
+something to mend their fortunes.
+
+Having now become very fond of land-fighting, he did not go out in
+search of ships, but directed his vessel to a little village called de
+los Cayos, on the coast of Cuba, for here, he thought, was a chance for
+a good and easy stroke of business. This village was the abode of
+industrious people, who were traders in tobacco, hides, and sugar, and
+who were obliged to carry on their traffic in a rather peculiar manner.
+The sea near their town was shallow, so that large ships could not
+approach very near, and thus the villagers were kept busy carrying goods
+and supplies in small boats, backwards and forwards from the town to the
+vessels at anchor. Here was a nice little prize that could not get away
+from him, and L'Olonnois had plenty of time to make his preparations to
+seize it. As he could not sail a ship directly up to the town, he
+cruised about the coast at some distance from de los Cayos, endeavoring
+to procure two small boats in which to approach the town, but although
+his preparations were made as quietly as possible, the presence of his
+vessel was discovered by some fishermen. They knew that it was a pirate
+ship, and some of them who had seen L'Olonnois recognized that dreaded
+pirate upon the deck. Word of the impending danger was taken to the
+town, and the people there immediately sent a message by land to Havana,
+informing the Governor of the island that the cruel pirate L'Olonnois
+was in a ship a short distance from their village, which he undoubtedly
+intended to attack.
+
+When the Governor heard this astonishing tale, it was almost impossible
+for him to believe it. The good news of the death of L'Olonnois had come
+from Campeachy to Havana, and the people of the latter town also
+rejoiced greatly. To be now told that this scourge of the West Indies
+was alive, and was about to fall upon a peaceful little village on the
+island over which he ruled, filled the Governor with rage as well as
+amazement, and he ordered a well-armed ship, with a large crew of
+fighting men, to sail immediately for de los Cayos, giving the captain
+express orders that he was not to come back until he had obliterated
+from the face of the earth the whole of the wretched gang with the
+exception of the leader. This extraordinary villain was to be brought to
+Havana to be treated as the Governor should see fit. In order that his
+commands should be executed promptly and effectually, the Governor sent
+a big negro slave in the ship, who was charged with the duty of hanging
+every one of the pirates except L'Olonnois.
+
+By the time the war-vessel had arrived at de los Cayos, L'Olonnois had
+made his preparation to attack the place. He had procured two large
+canoes, and in these he had intended to row up to the town and land with
+his men. But now there was a change in the state of affairs, and he was
+obliged to alter his plans. The ordinary person in command of two small
+boats, who should suddenly discover that a village which he supposed
+almost defenceless, was protected by a large man-of-war, with cannon and
+a well-armed crew, would have altered his plans so completely that he
+would have left that part of the coast of Cuba with all possible
+expedition. But the pirates of that day seemed to pay very little
+attention to the element of odds; if they met an enemy who was weak,
+they would fall upon him, and if they met with one who was a good deal
+stronger than themselves, they would fall upon him all the same. When
+the time came to fight they fought.
+
+Of course L'Olonnois could not now row leisurely up to the town and
+begin to pillage it as he had intended, but no intention of giving up
+his project entered his mind. As the Spanish vessel was in his way, he
+would attack her and get her out of his way if the thing could be done.
+
+In this new state of affairs he was obliged to use stratagem, and he
+also needed a larger force than he had with him, and he therefore
+captured some men who were fishing along the coast and put them into his
+canoes to help work the oars. Then by night he proceeded slowly in the
+direction of the Spanish vessel. The man-of-war was anchored not very
+far from the town, and when about two o'clock in the morning the watch
+on deck saw some canoes approaching they supposed them to be boats from
+shore, for, as has been said, such vessels were continually plying about
+those shallow waters. The canoes were hailed, and after having given an
+account of themselves they were asked if they knew anything about the
+pirate ship upon the coast. L'Olonnois understood very well that it
+would not do for him or his men to make answer to these inquiries, for
+their speech would have shown they did not belong to those parts.
+Therefore he made one of his prisoner fishermen answer that they had not
+seen a pirate vessel, and if there had been one there, it must have
+sailed away when its captain heard the Spanish ship was coming. Then the
+canoes were allowed to go their way, but their way was a very different
+one from any which could have been expected by the captain of the ship.
+
+They rowed off into the darkness instead of going toward the town, and
+waited until nearly daybreak, then they boldly made for the man-of-war,
+one canoe attacking her on one side and the other on the other. Before
+the Spanish could comprehend what had happened there were more than
+twenty pirates upon their decks, the dreaded L'Olonnois at their head.
+
+In such a case as this cannon were of no use, and when the crew tried to
+rush upon deck, they found that cutlasses and pistols did not avail very
+much better. The pirates had the advantage; they had overpowered the
+watch, and were defending the deck against all comers from below. It
+requires a very brave sailor to stick his head out of a hatchway when he
+sees three or four cutlasses ready to split it open. But there was some
+stout fighting on board; the officers came out of their cabins, and some
+of the men were able to force their way out into the struggle. The
+pirates knew, however, that they were but few and that were their
+enemies allowed to get on deck they would prove entirely too strong, and
+they fought, each scoundrel of them, like three men, and the savage
+fight ended by every Spanish sailor or officer who was not killed or
+wounded being forced to stay below decks, where the hatches were
+securely fastened down upon them.
+
+L'Olonnois now stood a proud victor on the deck of his prize, and, being
+a man of principle, he determined to live up to the distinguished
+reputation which he had acquired in that part of the world. Baring his
+muscular and hairy right arm, he clutched the handle of his sharp and
+heavy cutlass and ordered the prisoners to be brought up from below, one
+at a time, and conducted to the place where he stood. He wished to give
+Spain a lesson which would make her understand that he was not to be
+interfered with in the execution of his enterprises, and he determined
+to allow himself the pleasure of personally teaching this lesson.
+
+As soon as a prisoner was brought to L'Olonnois he struck off his head,
+and this performance he continued, beginning with number one, and going
+on until he had counted ninety. The last one brought to him was the
+negro slave. This man, who was not a soldier, was desperately frightened
+and begged piteously for his life. L'Olonnois, finding that the man was
+willing to tell everything he knew, questioned him about the sending of
+this vessel from Havana, and when the poor fellow had finished by
+telling that he had come there, not of his own accord, but simply for
+the purpose of obeying his master, to hang all the pirates except their
+leader, that great buccaneer laughed, and, finding he could get nothing
+more from the negro, cut off his head likewise, and his body was tumbled
+into the sea after those of his companions.
+
+Now there was not a Spaniard left on board the great ship except one
+man, who had been preserved from the fate of the others because
+L'Olonnois had some correspondence to attend to, and he needed a
+messenger to carry a letter. The pirate captain went into the cabin,
+where he found writing-materials ready to his hand, and there he
+composed a letter to the Governor of Havana, a part of which read as
+follows: "I shall never henceforward give quarter unto any Spaniard
+whatsoever. And I have great hopes that I shall execute on your own
+person the very same punishment I have done to them you sent against me.
+Thus I have retaliated the kindness you designed unto me and my
+companions."
+
+When this message was received by the dignified official who filled the
+post of Governor of Cuba, he stormed and fairly foamed at the mouth. To
+be utterly foiled and discomfited by this resurrected pirate, and to be
+afterwards addressed in terms of such unheard-of insolence and abuse,
+was more than he could bear, and, in the presence of many of his
+officials and attendants, he swore a terrible oath that after that hour
+he would never again give quarter to any buccaneer, no matter when or
+where he was captured, or what he might be doing at the time. Every man
+of the wretched band should die as soon as he could lay hands upon him.
+
+But when the inhabitants of Havana and the surrounding villages heard of
+this terrible resolution of their Governor they were very much
+disturbed. They lived in constant danger of attack, especially those who
+were engaged in fishing or maritime pursuits, and they feared that when
+it became known that no buccaneer was to receive quarter, the Spanish
+colonists would be treated in the same way, no matter where they might
+be found and taken. Consequently, it was represented to the Governor
+that his plan of vengeance would work most disastrously for the Spanish
+settlers, for the buccaneers could do far more damage to them than he
+could possibly do to these dreadful Brethren of the Coast, and that,
+unless he wished to bring upon them troubles greater than those of
+famine or pestilence, they begged that he would retract his oath.
+
+When the high dignitary had cooled down a little, he saw that there was
+a good deal of sense in what the representative of the people had said
+to him, and he consequently felt obliged, in consideration of the public
+safety, to take back what he had said, and to give up the purpose, which
+would have rendered unsafe the lives of so many peaceable people.
+
+L'Olonnois was now the possessor of a fine vessel which had not been in
+the least injured during the battle in which it had been won. But his
+little crew, some of whom had been killed and wounded, was insufficient
+to work such a ship upon an important cruise on the high seas, and he
+also discovered, much to his surprise, that there were very few
+provisions on board, for when the vessel was sent from Havana it was
+supposed she would make but a very short cruise. This savage swinger of
+the cutlass thereupon concluded that he would not try to do any great
+thing for the present, but, having obtained some booty and men from the
+woe-begone town of de los Cayos, he sailed away, touching at several
+other small ports for the purpose of pillage, and finally anchoring at
+Tortuga.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+Villany on a Grand Scale
+
+
+When L'Olonnois landed on the disreputable shores of Tortuga, he was
+received by all circles of the vicious society of the island with loud
+acclamation. He had not only taken a fine Spanish ship, he had not only
+bearded the Governor of Havana in his fortified den, but he had struck
+off ninety heads with his own hand. Even people who did not care for him
+before reverenced him now. In all the annals of piracy no hero had ever
+done such a deed as this, and the best records of human butchering had
+been broken.
+
+Now grand and ambitious ideas began to swell the head of this champion
+slaughterer, and he conceived the plan of getting up a grand expedition
+to go forth and capture the important town of Maracaibo, in New
+Venezuela. This was an enterprise far above the ordinary aims of a
+buccaneer, and it would require more than ordinary force to accomplish
+it. He therefore set himself to work to enlist a large number of men and
+to equip a fleet of vessels, of which he was to be chief commander or
+admiral. There were a great many unemployed pirates in Tortuga at that
+time, and many a brawny rascal volunteered to sail under the flag of the
+daring butcher of the seas.
+
+But in order to equip a fleet, money was necessary as well as men,
+and therefore L'Olonnois thought himself very lucky when he succeeded
+in interesting the principal piratical capitalist of Tortuga in his
+undertaking. This was an old and seasoned buccaneer by the name of
+Michael de Basco, who had made money enough by his piratical exploits
+to retire from business and live on his income. He held the position
+of Mayor of the island and was an important man among his
+fellow-miscreants. When de Basco heard of the great expedition which
+L'Olonnois was about to undertake, his whole soul was fired and he could
+not rest tamely in his comfortable quarters when such great things were
+to be done, and he offered to assist L'Olonnois with funds and join in
+the expedition if he were made commander of the land forces. This offer
+was accepted gladly, for de Basco had a great reputation as a fighter in
+Europe as well as in America.
+
+When everything had been made ready, L'Olonnois set sail for Maracaibo
+with a fleet of eight ships. On the way they captured two Spanish
+vessels, both of which were rich prizes, and at last they arrived
+before the town which they intended to capture.
+
+Maracaibo was a prosperous place of three or four thousand inhabitants;
+they were rich people living in fine houses, and many of them had
+plantations which extended out into the country. In every way the town
+possessed great attractions to piratical marauders, but there were
+difficulties in the way; being such an important place, of course it had
+important defences. On an island in the harbor there was a strong fort,
+or castle, and on another island a little further from the town there
+was a tall tower, on the top of which a sentinel was posted night and
+day to give notice of any approaching enemy. Between these two islands
+was the only channel by which the town could be approached from the sea.
+But in preparing these defences the authorities had thought only of
+defending themselves against ordinary naval forces and had not
+anticipated the extraordinary naval methods of the buccaneers who used
+to be merely sea-robbers, who fell upon ships after they had left their
+ports, but who now set out to capture not only ships at sea but towns on
+land.
+
+L'Olonnois had too much sense to run his ships close under the guns of
+the fortress, against which he could expect to do nothing, for the
+buccaneers relied but little upon their cannon, and so they paid no
+more attention to the ordinary harbor than if it had not been there, but
+sailed into a fresh-water lake at some distance from the town, and out
+of sight of the tower. There L'Olonnois landed his men, and, advancing
+upon the fort from the rear, easily crossed over to the little island
+and marched upon the fort. It was very early in the morning. The
+garrison was utterly amazed by this attack from land, and although they
+fought bravely for three hours, they were obliged to give up the defence
+of the walls, and as many of them as could do so got out of the fort and
+escaped to the mainland and the town.
+
+L'Olonnois now took possession of the fort, and then, with the greater
+part of his men, he returned to his ships, brought them around to the
+entrance of the bay, and then boldly sailed with his whole fleet under
+the very noses of the cannon and anchored in the harbor in front of the
+town.
+
+When the citizens of Maracaibo heard from the escaping garrison that the
+fort had been taken, they were filled with horror and dismay, for they
+had no further means of defence. They knew that the pirates had come
+there for no other object than to rob, pillage, and cruelly treat them,
+and consequently as many as possible hurried away into the woods and the
+surrounding country with as many of their valuables as they could carry.
+They resembled the citizens of a town attacked by the cholera or the
+plague, and in fact, they would have preferred a most terrible
+pestilence to this terrible scourge of piracy from which they were about
+to suffer.
+
+As soon as L'Olonnois and his wild pirates had landed in the city they
+devoted themselves entirely to eating and drinking and making themselves
+merry. They had been on short commons during the latter part of their
+voyage, and they had a royal time with the abundance of food and wine
+which they found in the houses of the town. The next day, however, they
+set about attending to the business which had brought them there, and
+parties of pirates were sent out into the surrounding country to find
+the people who had run away and to take from them the treasures they had
+carried off. But although a great many of the poor, miserable,
+unfortunate citizens were captured and brought back to the town, there
+was found upon them very little money, and but few jewels or ornaments
+of value. And now L'Olonnois began to prove how much worse his presence
+was than any other misfortune which could have happened to the town. He
+tortured the poor prisoners, men, women, and children, to make them tell
+where they had hidden their treasures, sometimes hacking one of them
+with his sword, declaring at the same time that if he did not tell where
+his money was hidden he would immediately set to work to cut up his
+family and his friends.
+
+The cruelties inflicted upon the inhabitants by this vile and beastly
+pirate and his men were so horrible that they could not be put into
+print. Even John Esquemeling, who wrote the account of it, had not the
+heart to tell everything that had happened. But after two weeks of
+horror and torture, the pirates were able to get but comparatively
+little out of the town, and they therefore determined to go somewhere
+else, where they might do better.
+
+At the southern end of Lake Maracaibo, about forty leagues from the town
+which the pirates had just desolated and ruined, lay Gibraltar, a
+good-sized and prosperous town, and for this place L'Olonnois and his
+fleet now set sail; but they were not able to approach unsuspected and
+unseen, for news of their terrible doings had gone before them, and
+their coming was expected. When they drew near the town they saw the
+flag flying from the fort, and they knew that every preparation had been
+made for defence. To attack such a place as this was a rash undertaking;
+the Spaniards had perhaps a thousand soldiers, and the pirates numbered
+but three hundred and eighty, but L'Olonnois did not hesitate. As usual,
+he had no thought of bombardment, or any ordinary method of naval
+warfare; but at the first convenient spot he landed all his men, and
+having drawn them up in a body, he made them an address. He made them
+understand clearly the difficult piece of work which was before them;
+but he assured them that pirates were so much in the habit of conquering
+Spaniards that if they would all promise to follow him and do their
+best, he was certain he could take the town. He assured them that it
+would be an ignoble thing to give up such a grand enterprise as this
+simply because they found the enemy strong and so well prepared to meet
+them, and ended by stating that if he saw a man flinch or hold back for
+a second, he would pistol him with his own hand. Whereupon the pirates
+all shook hands and promised they would follow L'Olonnois wherever he
+might lead them.
+
+This they truly did, and L'Olonnois, having a very imperfect knowledge
+of the proper way to the town, led them into a wild bog, where this
+precious pack of rascals soon found themselves up to their knees in mud
+and water, and in spite of all the cursing and swearing which they did,
+they were not able to press through the bog or get out of it. In this
+plight they were discovered by a body of horsemen from the town, who
+began firing upon them. The Spaniards must now have thought that their
+game was almost bagged and that all they had to do was to stand on the
+edge of the bog and shoot down the floundering fellows who could not get
+away from them. But these fellows were bloody buccaneers, each one of
+them a great deal harder to kill than a cat, and they did not propose to
+stay in the bog to be shot down. With their cutlasses they hewed off
+branches of trees and threw these down in the bog, making a sort of rude
+roadway by means of which they were able to get out on solid ground. But
+here they found themselves confronted by a large body of Spaniards,
+entrenched behind earthworks. Cannon and musket were opened upon the
+buccaneers, and the noise and smoke were so terrible they could scarcely
+hear the commands of their leaders.
+
+Never before, perhaps, had pirates been engaged in such a land battle as
+this. Very soon the Spaniards charged from behind their earthworks, and
+then L'Olonnois and his men were actually obliged to fly back. If he
+could have found any way of retreating to his ships, L'Olonnois would
+doubtless have done so, in spite of his doughty words, when he addressed
+his men, but this was now impossible, for the Spaniards had felled trees
+and had made a barricade between the pirates and their ships. The
+buccaneers were now in a very tight place; their enemy was behind
+defences and firing at them steadily, without showing any intention of
+coming out to give the pirates a chance for what they considered a fair
+fight. Every now and then a buccaneer would fall, and L'Olonnois saw
+that as it would be utterly useless to endeavor to charge the barricade
+he must resort to some sort of trickery or else give up the battle.
+
+Suddenly he passed the word for every man to turn his back and run away
+as fast as he could from the earthworks. Away scampered the pirates, and
+from the valiant Spaniards there came a shout of victory. The soldiers
+could not be restrained from following the fugitives and putting to
+death every one of the cowardly rascals. Away went the buccaneers, and
+after them, hot and furious, came the soldiers. But as soon as the
+Spaniards were so far away from their entrenchments that they could not
+get back to them, the crafty L'Olonnois, who ran with one eye turned
+behind him, called a halt, his men turned, formed into battle array, and
+began an onslaught upon their pursuing enemy, such as these military
+persons had never dreamed of in their wildest imagination. We are told
+that over two hundred Spaniards perished in a very short time. Before a
+furious pirate with a cutlass a soldier with his musket seemed to have
+no chance at all, and very soon the Spaniards who were left alive broke
+and ran into the woods.
+
+The buccaneers formed into a body and marched toward the town, which
+surrendered without firing a gun, and L'Olonnois and his men, who, but
+an hour before, had been in danger of being shot down by their enemy as
+if they had been rabbits in a pen, now marched boldly into the centre of
+the town, pulled down the Spanish flag, and hoisted their own in its
+place. They were the masters of Gibraltar. Never had ambitious villany
+been more successful.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+A Just Reward
+
+
+When L'Olonnois and his buccaneers entered the town of Gibraltar they
+found that the greater part of the inhabitants had fled, but there were
+many people left, and these were made prisoners as fast as they were
+discovered. They were all forced to go into the great church, and then
+the pirates, fearing that the Spaniards outside of the town might be
+reënforced and come back again to attack them, carried a number of
+cannon into the church and fortified the building. When this had been
+done, they felt safe and began to act as if they had been a menagerie of
+wild beasts let loose upon a body of defenceless men, women, and
+children. Not only did these wretched men rush into the houses, stealing
+everything valuable they could find and were able to carry away, but
+when they had gathered together all they could discover they tortured
+their poor prisoners by every cruel method they could think of, in order
+to make them tell where more treasures were concealed. Many of these
+unfortunates had had nothing to hide, and therefore could give no
+information to their brutal inquisitors, and others died without telling
+what they had done with their valuables. When the town had been
+thoroughly searched and sifted, the pirates sent men out into the little
+villages and plantations in the country, and even hunters and small
+farmers were captured and made to give up everything they possessed
+which was worth taking.
+
+For nearly three weeks these outrageous proceedings continued, and to
+prove that they were lower than the brute beasts they allowed the
+greater number of the prisoners collected in the church, to perish of
+hunger. There were not provisions enough in the town for the pirates'
+own uses and for these miserable creatures also, and so, with the
+exception of a small quantity of mule flesh, which many of the prisoners
+could not eat, they got nothing whatever, and slowly starved.
+
+When L'Olonnois and his friends had been in possession of Gibraltar for
+about a month, they thought it was time to leave, but their greedy souls
+were not satisfied with the booty they had already obtained, and they
+therefore sent messages to the Spaniards who were still concealed in the
+forests, that unless in the course of two days a ransom of ten thousand
+pieces of eight were paid to them, they would burn the town to the
+ground. No matter what they thought of this heartless demand, it was
+not easy for the scattered citizens to collect such a sum as this, and
+the two days passed without the payment of the ransom, and the
+relentless pirates promptly carried out their threat and set the town on
+fire in various places. When the poor Spaniards saw this and perceived
+that they were about to lose even their homes, they sent to the town and
+promised that if the pirates would put out the fires they would pay the
+money. In the hope of more money, and not in the least moved by any
+feeling of kindness, L'Olonnois ordered his men to help put out the
+fires, but they were not extinguished until a quarter of the town was
+entirely burned and a fine church reduced to ashes.
+
+When the buccaneers found they could squeeze nothing more out of the
+town, they went on board their ships, carrying with them all the plunder
+and booty they had collected, and among their spoils were about five
+hundred slaves, of all ages and both sexes, who had been offered an
+opportunity to ransom themselves, but who, of course, had no money with
+which to buy their freedom, and who were now condemned to a captivity
+worse than anything they had ever known before.
+
+Now the eight ships with their demon crews sailed away over the lake
+toward Maracaibo. It was quite possible for them to get out to sea
+without revisiting this unfortunate town, but as this would have been a
+very good thing for them to do, it was impossible for them to do it; no
+chance to do anything wicked was ever missed by these pirates.
+Consequently L'Olonnois gave orders to drop anchor near the city, and
+then he sent some messengers ashore to inform the already half-ruined
+citizens that unless they sent him thirty thousand pieces of eight he
+would enter their town again, carry away everything they had left, and
+burn the place to the ground. The poor citizens sent a committee to
+confer with the pirates, and while the negotiations were going on some
+of the conscienceless buccaneers went on shore and carried off from one
+of the great churches its images, pictures, and even its bells. It was
+at last arranged that the citizens should pay twenty thousand pieces of
+eight, which was the utmost sum they could possibly raise, and, in
+addition to this, five hundred head of beef-cattle, and the pirates
+promised that if this were done they would depart and molest the town no
+more. The money was paid, the cattle were put on board the ships, and to
+the unspeakable relief of the citizens, the pirate fleet sailed away
+from the harbor.
+
+But it would be difficult to express the horror and dismay of those same
+citizens when, three days afterward, those pirate ships all came back
+again. Black despair now fell upon the town; there was nothing more to
+be stolen, and these wretches must have repented that they had left the
+town standing, and had returned to burn it down. But when one man came
+ashore in a boat bringing the intelligence that L'Olonnois could not get
+his largest ship across a bar at the entrance to the lake, and that he
+wanted a pilot to show him the channel, then the spirits of the people
+went up like one great united rocket, bursting into the most beautiful
+coruscations of sparks and colors. There was nothing on earth that they
+would be so glad to furnish him as a pilot to show him how to sail away
+from their shores. The pilot was instantly sent to the fleet, and
+L'Olonnois and his devastating band departed.
+
+They did not go directly to Tortuga, but stopped at a little island near
+Hispaniola, which was inhabited by French buccaneers, and this delay was
+made entirely for the purpose of dividing the booty. It seems strange
+that any principle of right and justice should have been regarded by
+these dishonest knaves, even in their relations to each other, but they
+had rigid rules in regard to the division of their spoils, and according
+to these curious regulations the whole amount of plunder was apportioned
+among the officers and crews of the different ships.
+
+Before the regular allotment of shares was made, the claims of the
+wounded were fully satisfied according to their established code. For
+the loss of a right arm a man was paid about six hundred dollars or six
+slaves; for the loss of a left arm, five hundred dollars, or five
+slaves; for a missing right leg, five hundred dollars, or five slaves;
+for a missing left leg, four hundred dollars, or four slaves; for an eye
+or a finger, one hundred dollars, or one slave. Then the rest of the
+money and spoils were divided among all the buccaneers without reference
+to what had been paid to the wounded. The shares of those who had been
+killed were given to friends or acquaintances, who undertook to deliver
+them to their families.
+
+The spoils in this case consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
+dollars in money and a great quantity of valuable goods, besides many
+slaves and precious stones and jewels. These latter were apportioned
+among the men in the most ridiculous manner, the pirates having no idea
+of the relative value of the jewels, some of them preferring large and
+worthless colored stones to smaller diamonds and rubies. When all their
+wickedly gained property had been divided, the pirates sailed to
+Tortuga, where they proceeded, without loss of time, to get rid of the
+wealth they had amassed. They ate, they drank, they gambled; they
+crowded the taverns as taverns have never been crowded before; they sold
+their valuable merchandise for a twentieth part of its value to some of
+the more level-headed people of the place; and having rioted, gambled,
+and committed every sort of extravagance for about three weeks, the
+majority of L'Olonnois' rascally crew found themselves as poor as when
+they had started off on their expedition. It took them almost as long to
+divide their spoils as it did to get rid of them.
+
+As these precious rascals had now nothing to live upon, it was necessary
+to start out again and commit some more acts of robbery and ruin; and
+L'Olonnois, whose rapacious mind seems to have been filled with a desire
+for town-destroying, projected an expedition to Nicaragua, where he
+proposed to pillage and devastate as many towns and villages as
+possible. His reputation as a successful commander was now so high that
+he had no trouble in getting men, for more offered themselves than he
+could possibly take.
+
+He departed with seven hundred men and six ships, stopping on the way
+near the coast of Cuba, and robbing some poor fishermen of their boats,
+which he would need in shallow water. Their voyage was a very long one,
+and they were beset by calms, and instead of reaching Nicaragua, they
+drifted into the Gulf of Honduras. Here they found themselves nearly out
+of provisions, and were obliged to land and scour the country to find
+something to eat. Leaving their ships, they began a land march through
+the unfortunate region where they now found themselves. They robbed
+Indians, they robbed villages; they devastated little towns, taking
+everything that they cared for, and burning what they did not want, and
+treating the people they captured with viler cruelties than any in which
+the buccaneers had yet indulged. Their great object was to take
+everything they could find, and then try to make the people confess
+where other things were hidden. Men and women were hacked to pieces with
+swords; it was L'Olonnois' pleasure, when a poor victim had nothing to
+tell, to tear out his tongue with his own hands, and it is said that on
+some occasions his fury was so great that he would cut out the heart of
+a man and bite at it with his great teeth. No more dreadful miseries
+could be conceived than those inflicted upon the peaceful inhabitants of
+the country through which these wretches passed. They frequently met
+ambuscades of Spaniards, who endeavored to stop their progress; but this
+was impossible. The pirates were too strong in number and too savage in
+disposition to be resisted by ordinary Christians, and they kept on
+their wicked way.
+
+At last they reached a town called San Pedro, which was fairly well
+defended, having around it a great hedge of prickly thorns; but thorns
+cannot keep out pirates, and after a severe fight the citizens
+surrendered, on condition that they should have two hours' truce. This
+was given, and the time was occupied by the people in running away into
+the woods and carrying off their valuables. But when the two hours had
+expired, L'Olonnois and his men entered the town, and instead of
+rummaging around to see what they could find, they followed the
+unfortunate people into the woods, for they well understood what they
+wanted when they asked for a truce, and robbed them of nearly everything
+they had taken away.
+
+But the capture of this town was not of much service to L'Olonnois, who
+did not find provisions enough to feed his men. Their supplies ran very
+low, and it was not long before they were in danger of starvation.
+Consequently they made their way by the most direct course to the coast,
+where they hoped to be able to get something to eat. If they could find
+nothing else, they might at least catch fish. On their way every rascal
+of them prepared himself a net, made out of the fibres of a certain
+plant, which grew in abundance in those regions, in order that he might
+catch himself a supper when he reached the sea.
+
+After a time the buccaneers got back to their fleet and remained on the
+coast about three months, waiting for some expected Spanish ships, which
+they hoped to capture. They eventually met with one, and after a great
+deal of ordinary fighting and stratagem they boarded and took her, but
+found her not a very valuable prize.
+
+Now L'Olonnois proposed to his men that they should sail for Guatemala,
+but he met with an unexpected obstacle; the buccaneers who had enlisted
+under him had expected to make great fortunes in this expedition, but
+their high hopes had not been realized. They had had very little booty
+and very little food, they were hungry and disappointed and wanted to go
+home, and the great majority of them declined to follow L'Olonnois any
+farther. But there were some who declared that they would rather die
+than go home to Tortuga as poor as when they left it, and so remained
+with L'Olonnois on the biggest ship of the fleet, which he commanded.
+The smaller vessels now departed for Tortuga, and after some trouble
+L'Olonnois succeeded in getting his vessel out of the harbor where it
+had been anchored, and sailed for the islands of de las Pertas. Here he
+had the misfortune to run his big vessel hopelessly aground.
+
+When they found it absolutely impossible to get their great vessel off
+the sand banks, the pirates set to work to break her up and build a boat
+out of her planks. This was a serious undertaking, but it was all they
+could do. They could not swim away, and their ship was of no use to them
+as she was. But when they began to work they had no idea it would take
+so long to build a boat. It was several months before the unwieldy craft
+was finished, and they occupied part of the time in gardening, planting
+French beans, which came to maturity in six weeks, and gave them some
+fresh vegetables. They also had some stores and portable stoves on board
+their dismantled ship, and made bread from some wheat which was among
+their provisions, thus managing to live very well.
+
+L'Olonnois was never intended by nature to be a boat-builder, or
+anything else that was useful and honest, and when the boat was finished
+it was discovered that it had been planned so badly that it would not
+hold them all, so all they could do was to draw lots to see who should
+embark in her, for one-half of them would have to stay until the others
+came back to release them. Of course L'Olonnois went away in the boat,
+and reached the mouth of the Nicaragua River. There his party was
+attacked by some Spaniards and Indians, who killed more than half of
+them and prevented the others from landing. L'Olonnois and the rest of
+his men got safely away, and they might now have sailed back to the
+island where they had left their comrades, for there was room enough for
+them all in the boat. But they did nothing of the sort, but went to the
+coast of Cartagena.
+
+The pirates left on the island were eventually taken off by a
+buccaneering vessel, but L'Olonnois had now reached the end of the
+string by which the devil had allowed him to gambol on this earth for so
+long a time. On the shores where he had now landed he did not find
+prosperous villages, treasure houses, and peaceful inhabitants, who
+could be robbed and tortured, but instead of these he came upon a
+community of Indians, who were called by the Spaniards, Bravos, or wild
+men. These people would never have anything to do with the whites. It
+was impossible to conquer them or to pacify them by kind treatment. They
+hated the white man and would have nothing to do with him. They had
+heard of L'Olonnois and his buccaneers, and when they found this
+notorious pirate upon their shores they were filled with a fury such as
+they had never felt for any others of his race.
+
+These bloody pirates had always conquered in their desperate fights
+because they were so reckless and so savage, but now they had fallen
+among thoroughbred savages, more cruel and more brutal and pitiless than
+themselves. Nearly all the buccaneers were killed, and L'Olonnois was
+taken prisoner. His furious captors tore his living body apart, piece by
+piece, and threw each fragment into the fire, and when the whole of this
+most inhuman of inhuman men had been entirely consumed, they scattered
+his ashes to the winds so that not a trace should remain on earth of
+this monster. If, in his infancy, he had died of croup, the history of
+the human race would have lost some of its blackest pages.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+A Pirate Potentate
+
+
+Sometime in the last half of the seventeenth century on a quiet farm in
+a secluded part of Wales there was born a little boy baby. His father
+was a farmer, and his mother churned, and tended the cows and the
+chickens, and there was no reason to imagine that this gentle little
+baby, born and reared in this rural solitude, would become one of the
+most formidable pirates that the world ever knew. Yet such was the case.
+
+The baby's name was Henry Morgan, and as he grew to be a big boy a
+distaste for farming grew with him. So strong was his dislike that when
+he became a young man he ran away to the seacoast, for he had a fancy to
+be a sailor. There he found a ship bound for the West Indies, and in
+this he started out on his life's career. He had no money to pay his
+passage, and he therefore followed the usual custom of those days and
+sold himself for a term of three years to an agent who was taking out a
+number of men to work on the plantations. In the places where these men
+were enlisted they were termed servants, but when they got to the new
+world they were generally called slaves and treated as such.
+
+When young Morgan reached the Barbadoes he was resold to a planter, and
+during his term of service he probably worked a good deal harder and was
+treated much more roughly than any of the laborers on his father's farm.
+But as soon as he was a free man he went to Jamaica, and there were few
+places in the world where a young man could be more free and more
+independent than in this lawless island.
+
+Here were rollicking and blustering "flibustiers," and here the young
+man determined to study piracy. He was not a sailor and hunter who by
+the force of circumstances gradually became a buccaneer, but he
+deliberately selected his profession, and immediately set to work to
+acquire a knowledge of its practice. There was a buccaneer ship about to
+sail from Jamaica, and on this Morgan enlisted. He was a clever fellow
+and very soon showed himself to be a brave and able sailor.
+
+After three or four voyages he acquired a reputation for remarkable
+coolness in emergencies, and showed an ability to take advantage of
+favorable circumstances, which was not possessed by many of his
+comrades. These prominent traits in his character became the foundation
+of his success. He also proved himself a very good business man, and
+having saved a considerable amount of money he joined with some other
+buccaneers and bought a ship, of which he took command. This ship soon
+made itself a scourge in the Spanish seas; no other buccaneering vessel
+was so widely known and so greatly feared, and the English people in
+these regions were as proud of the young Captain Morgan as if he had
+been a regularly commissioned admiral, cruising against an acknowledged
+enemy.
+
+Returning from one of his voyages Morgan found an old buccaneer, named
+Mansvelt, in Jamaica, who had gathered together a fleet of vessels with
+which he was about to sail for the mainland. This expedition seemed a
+promising one to Morgan, and he joined it, being elected vice-admiral of
+the fleet of fifteen vessels. Since the successes of L'Olonnois and
+others, attacks upon towns had become very popular with the buccaneers,
+whose leaders were getting to be tired of the retail branch of their
+business; that is, sailing about in one ship and capturing such
+merchantmen as it might fall in with.
+
+Mansvelt's expedition took with it not only six hundred fighting
+pirates, but one writing pirate, for John Esquemeling accompanied it,
+and so far as the fame and reputation of these adventurers was concerned
+his pen was mightier than their swords, for had it not been for his
+account of their deeds very little about them would have been known to
+the world.
+
+The fleet sailed directly for St. Catherine, an island near Costa Rica,
+which was strongly fortified by the Spaniards and used by them as a
+station for ammunition and supplies, and also as a prison. The pirates
+landed upon the island and made a most furious assault upon the
+fortifications, and although they were built of stone and well furnished
+with cannon, the savage assailants met with their usual good fortune.
+They swarmed over the walls and carried the place at the edge of the
+cutlass and the mouth of the pistol. In this fierce fight Morgan
+performed such feats of valor that even some of the Spaniards who had
+been taken prisoners, were forced to praise his extraordinary courage
+and ability as a leader.
+
+The buccaneers proceeded to make very good use of their victory. They
+captured some small adjoining islands and brought the cannon from them
+to the main fortress, which they put in a good condition of defence.
+Here they confined all their prisoners and slaves, and supplied the
+island with an abundance of stores and provisions.
+
+It is believed that when Mansvelt formed the plan of capturing this
+island he did so with the idea of founding there a permanent pirate
+principality, the inhabitants of which should not consider themselves
+English, French, or Dutch, but plain pirates, having a nationality and
+country of their own. Had the seed thus planted by Mansvelt and Morgan
+grown and matured, it is not unlikely that the whole of the West Indies
+might now be owned and inhabited by an independent nation, whose
+founders were the bold buccaneers.
+
+When everything had been made tight and right at St. Catherine, Mansvelt
+and Morgan sailed for the mainland, for the purpose of attacking an
+inland town called Nata, but in this expedition they were not
+successful. The Spanish Governor of the province had heard of their
+approach, and met them with a body of soldiers so large that they
+prudently gave up the attempt,--a proceeding not very common with them,
+but Morgan was not only a dare-devil of a pirate, but a very shrewd
+Welshman.
+
+They returned to the ships, and after touching at St. Catherine and
+leaving there enough men to defend it, under the command of a Frenchman
+named Le Sieur Simon, they sailed for Jamaica. Everything at St.
+Catherine was arranged for permanent occupation; there was plenty of
+fresh water, and the ground could be cultivated, and Simon was promised
+that additional forces should be sent him so that he could hold the
+island as a regular station for the assembling and fitting out of pirate
+vessels.
+
+The permanent pirate colony never came to anything; no reënforcements
+were sent; Mansvelt died, and the Spaniards gathered together a
+sufficient force to retake the island of St. Catherine, and make
+prisoners of Simon and his men. This was a blow to Morgan, who had had
+great hopes of the fortified station he thought he had so firmly
+established, but after the project failed he set about forming another
+expedition.
+
+He was now recognized as buccaneer-in-chief of the West Indies, and he
+very soon gathered together twelve ships and seven hundred men.
+Everything was made ready to sail, and the only thing left to be done
+was to decide what particular place they should favor with a visit.
+
+There were some who advised an attack upon Havana, giving as a reason
+that in that city there were a great many nuns, monks, and priests, and
+if they could capture them, they might ask as ransom for them, a sum a
+great deal larger than they could expect to get from the pillage of an
+ordinary town. But Havana was considered to be too strong a place for a
+profitable venture, and after several suggestions had been made, at last
+a deserter from the Spanish army, who had joined them, came forward with
+a good idea. He told the pirates of a town in Cuba, to which he knew the
+way; it was named Port-au-Prince, and was situated so far inland that it
+had never been sacked. When the pirates heard that there existed an
+entirely fresh and unpillaged town, they were filled with as much
+excited delight as if they had been a party of school-boys who had just
+been told where they might find a tree full of ripe apples which had
+been overlooked by the men who had been gathering the crop.
+
+When Morgan's fleet arrived at the nearest harbor to Port-au-Prince, he
+landed his men and marched toward the town, but he did not succeed in
+making a secret attack, as he had hoped. One of his prisoners, a
+Spaniard, let himself drop overboard as soon as the vessels cast anchor,
+and swimming ashore, hurried to Port-au-Prince and informed the Governor
+of the attack which was about to be made on the town. Thus prepared,
+this able commander knew just what to do. He marched a body of soldiers
+along the road by which the pirates must come, and when he found a
+suitable spot he caused great trees to be cut down and laid across the
+road, thus making a formidable barricade. Behind this his soldiers were
+posted with their muskets and their cannon, and when the pirates should
+arrive they would find that they would have to do some extraordinary
+fighting before they could pass this well-defended barrier.
+
+When Morgan came within sight of this barricade, he understood that the
+Spaniards had discovered his approach, and so he called a halt. He had
+always been opposed to unnecessary work, and he considered that it would
+be entirely unnecessary to attempt to disturb this admirable defence, so
+he left the road, marched his men into the woods, led them entirely
+around the barricades, and then, after proceeding a considerable
+distance, emerged upon a wide plain which lay before the town. Here he
+found that he would have to fight his way into the city, and, probably
+much to his surprise, his men were presently charged by a body of
+cavalry.
+
+Pirates, as a rule, have nothing to do with horses, either in peace or
+war, and the Governor of the town no doubt thought that when his
+well-armed horsemen charged upon these men, accustomed to fighting on
+the decks of ships, and totally unused to cavalry combats, he would soon
+scatter and disperse them. But pirates are peculiar fighters; if they
+had been attacked from above by means of balloons, or from below by
+mines and explosives, they would doubtless have adapted their style of
+defence to the method of attack. They always did this, and according to
+Esquemeling they nearly always got the better of their enemies; but we
+must remember that in cases where they did not succeed, as happened when
+they marched against the town of Nata, he says very little about the
+affair and amplifies only the accounts of their successes.
+
+But the pirates routed the horsemen, and, after a fight of about four
+hours, they routed all the other Spaniards who resisted them, and took
+possession of the town. Here they captured a great many prisoners which
+they shut up in the churches and then sent detachments out into the
+country to look for those who had run away. Then these utterly debased
+and cruel men began their usual course after capturing a town; they
+pillaged, feasted, and rioted; they gave no thought to the needs of the
+prisoners whom they had shut up in the churches, many of whom starved to
+death; they tortured the poor people to make them tell where they had
+hid their treasures, and nothing was too vile or too wicked for them to
+do if they thought they could profit by it. They had come for the
+express purpose of taking everything that the people possessed, and
+until they had forced from them all that was of the slightest value,
+they were not satisfied. Even when the poor citizens seemed to have
+given up everything they owned they were informed that if they did not
+pay two heavy ransoms, one to protect themselves from being carried away
+into slavery, and one to keep their town from being burned, the same
+punishments would be inflicted upon them.
+
+For two weeks the pirates waited for the unfortunate citizens to go out
+into the country and find some of their townsmen who had escaped with a
+portion of their treasure. In those days people did not keep their
+wealth in banks as they do now, but every man was the custodian of most
+of his own possessions, and when they fled from the visitation of an
+enemy they took with them everything of value that they could carry. If
+their fortunes had been deposited in banks, it would doubtless have been
+more convenient for the pirates.
+
+Before the citizens returned Morgan made a discovery: a negro was
+captured who carried letters from the Governor of Santiago, a
+neighboring city, to some of the citizens of Port-au-Prince, telling
+them not to be in too great a hurry to pay the ransom demanded by the
+pirates, because he was coming with a strong force to their assistance.
+When Morgan read these letters, he changed his mind, and thought it
+would be a wise thing not to stay in that region any longer than could
+be helped. So he decided not to wait for the unfortunate citizens to
+collect the heavy ransom he demanded, but told them that if they would
+furnish him with five hundred head of cattle, and also supply salt and
+help prepare the meat for shipment, he would make no further demands
+upon them. This, of course, the citizens were glad enough to do, and
+when the buccaneers had carried to the ships everything they had stolen,
+and when the beef had been put on board, they sailed away.
+
+Morgan directed the course of the fleet to a small island on which he
+wished to land in order that they might take an account of stock and
+divide the profits. This the pirates always did as soon as possible
+after they had concluded one of their nefarious enterprises. But his men
+were not at all satisfied with what happened on the island. Morgan
+estimated the total value of the booty to be about fifty thousand
+dollars, and when this comparatively small sum was divided, many of the
+men complained that it would not give them enough to pay their debts in
+Jamaica. They were utterly astonished that after having sacked an
+entirely fresh town they should have so little, and there is no doubt
+that many of them believed that their leader was a man who carried on
+the business of piracy for the purpose of enriching himself, while he
+gave his followers barely enough to keep them quiet.
+
+There was, however, another cause of discontent among a large body of
+the men; it appears that the men were very fond of marrow-bones, and
+while they were yet at Port-au-Prince and the prisoners were salting the
+meat which was to go on the ships, the buccaneers went about among them
+and took the marrow-bones which they cooked and ate while they were
+fresh. One of the men, a Frenchman, had selected a very fine bone, and
+had put it by his side while he was preparing some other tidbits, when
+an Englishman came along, picked up the bone, and carried it away.
+
+Now even in the chronicles of Mother Goose we are told of the intimate
+connection between Welshmen, thievery, and marrow-bones; for
+
+    "Taffy was a Welshman,
+      Taffy was a thief,
+    Taffy came to my house
+      And stole a leg of beef.
+
+    "I went to Taffy's house,
+      Taffy wasn't home,
+    Taffy went to my house,
+      And stole a marrow-bone."
+
+What happened to Taffy we do not know, but Morgan was a Welshman, Morgan
+was a thief, and one of his men had stolen a marrow-bone; therefore came
+trouble. The Frenchman challenged the Englishman; but the latter, being
+a mean scoundrel, took advantage of his opponent, unfairly stabbed him
+in the back and killed him.
+
+Now all the Frenchmen in the company rose in furious protest, and
+Morgan, wishing to pacify them, had the English assassin put in chains,
+and promised that he would take him to Jamaica and deliver him to
+justice. But the Frenchmen declined to be satisfied; they had received
+but very little money after they had pillaged a rich town, and they
+believed that their English companions were inclined to take advantage
+of them in every way, and consequently the greater part of them banded
+together and deliberately deserted Morgan, who was obliged to go back to
+Jamaica with not more than half his regular forces, doubtless wishing
+that the cattle on the island of Cuba had been able to get along without
+marrow-bones.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+How Morgan was helped by Some Religious People
+
+
+When the Welsh buccaneer started out on another expedition his company
+consisted entirely of Englishmen, and was not nearly so large as it had
+been; when he announced to his followers that he intended to attack the
+fortified town of Porto Bello, on the mainland, there was a general
+murmuring among the men, for Porto Bello was one of the strongest towns
+possessed by the Spaniards, and the buccaneers did not believe that
+their comparatively small force would be able to take it. But Morgan
+made them a speech in which he endeavored to encourage them to follow
+him in this difficult undertaking. One of his arguments was, that
+although their numbers were small, their hearts were large; but he
+produced the greatest effect upon them when he said that as they were
+but a few, each man's share of the booty would be much larger than if it
+must be divided among a great number. This touched the souls of the
+pirates, and they vowed to follow their leader wherever he might take
+them.
+
+The buccaneers found Porto Bello a very hard nut to crack; they landed
+and marched upon the town, which was defended by several forts or
+castles. Even when one of these had been taken by assault, and after it
+had been blown up with all its garrison, who had been taken prisoners,
+still the town was not intimidated, and the Governor vowed he would
+never surrender, but would die fighting to the last. The pirates raged
+like demons; they shot down every man they could see at the cannon or
+upon the walls, and they made desperate efforts to capture the principal
+fort, but they did not succeed, and after a long time Morgan began to
+despair. The garrison was strong and well commanded, and whenever the
+pirates attempted to scale the wall they were shot down, while fire-pots
+full of powder, with stones and other missiles, were hurled upon them.
+
+At last the wily Morgan had an idea. He set his men to work to make some
+ladders high enough to reach to the top of the walls, and wide enough to
+allow three or four men to go up abreast. If he could get these properly
+set up, his crew of desperate tiger-cats could make a combined rush and
+get over the walls. But to carry the ladders and place them would be
+almost impossible, for the men who bore them would surely be shot down
+before they could finish the work. But it was not Morgan's plan that his
+men should carry these ladders. He had captured some convents in the
+suburbs of the town, with a number of nuns and monks, known as
+"religious people," and he now ordered these poor creatures, the women
+as well as the men, to take up the ladders and place them against the
+walls, believing that the Spanish Governor would not allow his soldiers
+to fire at these innocent persons whom the pirates had forced to do
+their will.
+
+But the Governor was determined to defend the town no matter who had to
+suffer, and so the soldiers fired at the nuns and monks just as though
+they were buccaneers or any other enemies. The "religious people" cried
+out in terror, and screamed to their friends not to fire upon them; but
+the soldiers obeyed the commands of the Governor, while the pirates were
+swearing terribly behind them and threatening them with their pistols,
+and so the poor nuns and monks had to press forward, many of them
+dropping dead or wounded. They continued their work until the ladders
+were placed, and then over the walls went the pirates, with yells and
+howls of triumph, and not long after that the town was taken. The
+Governor died, fighting in the principal fort, and the citizens and
+soldiers all united in the most vigorous defence; but it was of no use.
+Each pirate seemed to have not only nine lives, but nine arms, each one
+wielding a cutlass or aiming a pistol.
+
+When the fighting was over, the second act in the horrible drama took
+place as usual. The pirates ate, drank, rioted, and committed all manner
+of outrages and cruelties upon the inhabitants, closing the performance
+with the customary threat that if the already distressed and
+impoverished inhabitants did not pay an enormous ransom, their town
+would be burned.
+
+Before the ransom was paid, the Governor of Panama heard what was going
+on at Porto Bello, and sent a force to the assistance of the town, but
+this time the buccaneers did not hastily retreat, Morgan knew of a
+narrow defile through which the Spanish forces must pass, and there he
+posted a number of his men, who defended the pass so well that the
+Spaniards were obliged to retreat. This Governor must have been a
+student of military science; he was utterly astounded when he heard that
+this pirate leader, with less than four hundred men, had captured the
+redoubtable town of Porto Bello, defended by a strong garrison and
+inhabited by citizens who were brave and accustomed to fighting, and,
+being anxious to increase his knowledge of improved methods of warfare,
+he sent a messenger to Morgan "desiring him to send him some small
+pattern of those arms wherewith he had taken with such violence so great
+a city." The pirate leader received the messenger with much courtesy,
+and sent to the Governor a pistol and a few balls, "desiring him to
+accept that slender pattern of the arms wherewith he had taken Porto
+Bello, and keep them for a twelvemonth; after which time he promised to
+come to Panama and fetch them away."
+
+This courteous correspondence was continued by the Governor returning
+the pistol and balls with thanks, and also sending Morgan a handsome
+gold ring with the message that he need not trouble himself to come to
+Panama; for, if he did, he would meet with very different fortune from
+that which had come to him at Porto Bello.
+
+Morgan put the ring on his finger and postponed his reply, and, as soon
+as the ransom was paid, he put his booty on board his ships and
+departed. When the spoils of Porto Bello came to be counted, it was
+found that they were of great value, and each man received a lordly
+share.
+
+When Captain Morgan was ready to set out on another expedition, he found
+plenty of pirates ready to join him, and he commanded all the ships and
+men whom he enlisted to rendezvous at a place called the Isle of Cows. A
+fine, large, English ship had recently come to Jamaica from New England,
+and this vessel also joined Morgan's forces on the island, where the
+pirate leader took this ship as his own, being much the best and largest
+vessel of the fleet.
+
+Besides the ships belonging to Morgan, there was in the harbor where
+they were now congregated, a fine vessel belonging to some French
+buccaneers, and Morgan desired very much that this vessel should join
+his fleet, but the French cherished hard feelings against the English,
+and would not join them.
+
+Although Morgan was a brave man, his meanness was quite equal to his
+courage, and he determined to be revenged upon these Frenchmen who had
+refused to give him their aid, and therefore played a malicious trick
+upon them. Sometime before, this French vessel, being out of provisions
+when upon the high seas, had met an English ship, and had taken from her
+such supplies as it had needed. The captain did not pay for these, being
+out of money as well as food, not an uncommon thing among buccaneers,
+but they gave the English notes of exchange payable in Jamaica; but as
+these notes were never honored, the people of the English ship had never
+been paid for their provisions.
+
+This affair properly arranged in Morgan's mind, he sent a very polite
+note to the captain of the French ship and some of his officers,
+inviting them to dine with him on his own vessel. The French accepted
+the invitation, but when Morgan received them on board his ship he did
+not conduct them down to dinner; instead of that, he began to upbraid
+them for the manner in which they had treated an English crew, and then
+he ordered them to be taken down below and imprisoned in the hold.
+Having accomplished this, and feeling greatly elated by this piece of
+sly vengeance, he went into his fine cabin, and he and his officers sat
+down to the grand feast he had prepared.
+
+There were fine times on board this great English ship; the pirates were
+about to set forth on an important expedition, and they celebrated the
+occasion by eating and drinking, firing guns, and all manner of riotous
+hilarity. In the midst of the wild festivities--and nobody knew how it
+happened--a spark of fire got into the powder magazine, and the ship
+blew up, sending the lifeless bodies of three hundred English sailors,
+and the French prisoners, high into the air. The only persons on board
+who escaped were Morgan and his officers who were in the cabin close to
+the stern of the vessel, at some distance from the magazine.
+
+This terrible accident threw the pirate fleet into great confusion for a
+time; but Morgan soon recovered himself, and, casting about to see what
+was the best thing to be done, it came into his head that he would act
+the part of the wolf in the fable of the wolf and the lamb. As there
+was no way of finding out how the magazine happened to explode, he took
+the ground that the French prisoners whom he had shut up in the hold,
+had thrown a lighted match into the magazine, wishing thus to revenge
+themselves even though they should, at the same time, lose their own
+lives. The people of the French ship bitterly opposed any such view of
+the case, but their protestations were of no use; they might declare as
+much as they pleased that it was impossible for them to make the waters
+muddy, being lower down in the stream than the wolfish pirate who was
+accusing them, but it availed nothing. Morgan sprang upon them and their
+ship, and sent them to Jamaica, where, upon his false charge, they were
+shut up in prison, and so remained for a long time.
+
+Such atrocious wickedness as the treatment of the nuns and monks,
+described in this chapter, would never have been countenanced in any
+warfare between civilized nations. But Morgan's pirates were not making
+war; they were robbers and murderers on a grand scale. They had no right
+to call themselves civilized; they were worse than barbarians.
+
+[Illustration: "Morgan began to upbraid them, and ordered them taken
+below."--p. 151.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+A Piratical Aftermath
+
+
+Morgan's destination was the isle of Savona, near which a great Spanish
+fleet was expected to pass, and here he hoped to make some rich prizes.
+But when he got out to sea he met with contrary and dangerous winds,
+which delayed him a long time, and eventually when he arrived at Savona,
+after having landed at various places, where he pillaged, murdered, and
+burned, according to the extent of his opportunities, he found at least
+one-half of his men and ships had not arrived. With the small force
+which he now had with him he could not set out to attack a Spanish
+fleet, and therefore he was glad to accept the suggestion made to him by
+a Frenchman who happened to be in his company.
+
+This man had been with L'Olonnois two years before when that bloody
+pirate had sacked the towns of Maracaibo and Gibraltar; he had made
+himself perfectly familiar with the fortifications and defences of these
+towns, and he told Morgan that it would be easy to take them. To be
+sure they had been thoroughly sacked before, and therefore did not offer
+the tempting inducements of perfectly fresh towns, such as
+Port-au-Prince, but still in two years the inhabitants must have
+gathered together some possessions desirable to pirates, and therefore,
+although Morgan could not go to these towns with the expectation of
+reaping a full harvest, he might at least gather up an aftermath which
+would pay him for his trouble.
+
+So away sailed this horde of ravenous scoundrels for the lake of
+Maracaibo, at the outer end of which lay the town of Maracaibo, and at
+the other extremity the town of Gibraltar. When they had sailed near
+enough to the fortifications they anchored out of sight of the
+watch-tower and, landing in the night, marched on one of the forts. Here
+the career of Morgan came very near closing forever. The Spaniards had
+discovered the approach of the pirates, and this fort had been converted
+into a great trap in which the citizens hoped to capture and destroy the
+pirate leader and his men. Everybody had left the fort, the gates were
+open, and a slow-match, communicating with the magazine, had been
+lighted just before the last Spaniard had left.
+
+But the oldest and most sagacious of rats would be no more difficult to
+entrap than was the wily pirate Morgan. When he entered the open gates
+of the fort and found everything in perfect order, he suspected a trick,
+and looking about him he soon saw the smouldering match. Instantly he
+made a dash at it, seized it and extinguished the fire. Had he been
+delayed in this discovery a quarter of an hour longer, he and his men
+would have been blown to pieces along with the fort.
+
+Now the pirates pressed on toward the town, but they met with no
+resistance. The Spaniards, having failed to blow up their dreaded
+enemies, had retreated into the surrounding country and had left the
+town. The triumphant pirates spread themselves everywhere. They searched
+the abandoned town for people and valuables, and every man who cared to
+do so took one of the empty houses for his private residence. They made
+the church the common meeting-place where they might all gather together
+when it was necessary, and when they had spent the night in eating and
+drinking all the good things they could find, they set out the next day
+to hunt for the fugitive citizens.
+
+For three weeks Morgan and his men held a devil's carnival in Maracaibo.
+To tell of the abominable tortures and cruelties which they inflicted
+upon the poor people, whom they dragged from their hiding-places in the
+surrounding country, would make our flesh creep and our blood run cold.
+When they could do no more evil they sailed away up the lake for
+Gibraltar.
+
+It is not necessary to tell the story of the taking of this town. When
+Morgan arrived there he found it also entirely deserted. The awful dread
+of the human beasts who were coming upon them had forced the inhabitants
+to fly. In the whole town only one man was left, and he was an idiot who
+had not sense enough to run away. This poor fellow was tortured to tell
+where his treasures were hid, and when he consented to take them to the
+place where he had concealed his possessions, they found a few broken
+earthen dishes, and a little bit of money, about as much as a poor
+imbecile might be supposed to possess. Thereupon the disappointed fiends
+cruelly killed him.
+
+For five weeks the country surrounding Gibraltar was the scene of a
+series of diabolical horrors. The pirates undertook the most hazardous
+and difficult expeditions in order to find the people who had hidden
+themselves on islands and in the mountains, and although they obtained a
+great deal of booty, they met with a good many misfortunes. Some of them
+were drowned in swollen streams, and others lost much of their pillage
+by rains and storms.
+
+At last, after having closed his vile proceedings in the ordinary pirate
+fashion, by threatening to burn the town if he were not paid a ransom,
+Morgan thought it time for him to depart, for if the Spaniards should
+collect a sufficient force at Maracaibo to keep him from getting out of
+the lake, he would indeed be caught in a trap. The ransom was partly
+paid and partly promised, and Morgan and his men departed, carrying with
+them some hostages for the rest of the ransom due.
+
+When Morgan and his fleet arrived at Maracaibo, they found the town
+still deserted, but they also discovered that they were caught in the
+trap which they had feared, out of which they saw no way of escaping.
+News had been sent the Spanish forces; of the capture and sacking of
+Maracaibo, and three large men-of-war now lay in the channel below the
+town which led from the lake into the sea. And more than this, the
+castle which defended the entrance to the lake, and which the pirates
+had found empty when they arrived, was now well manned and supplied with
+a great many cannon, so that for once in their lives these wicked
+buccaneers were almost discouraged. Their little ships could not stand
+against the men-of-war; and in any case they could not pass the castle,
+which was now prepared to blow them to pieces if they should come near
+enough.
+
+But in the midst of these disheartening circumstances, the pirate leader
+showed what an arrogant, blustering dare-devil he was, for, instead of
+admitting his discomfiture and trying to make terms with the Spaniards,
+he sent a letter to the admiral of the ships, in which he stated that if
+he did not allow him a free passage out to sea he would burn every house
+in Maracaibo. To this insolent threat, the Spanish admiral replied in a
+long letter, in which he told Morgan that if he attempted to leave the
+lake he would fire upon his ships, and, if necessary, follow them out to
+sea, until not a stick of one of them should be left. But in the great
+magnanimity of his soul he declared that he would allow Morgan to sail
+away freely, provided he would deliver all the booty he had captured,
+together with the prisoners and slaves, and promise to go home and
+abandon buccaneering forever. In case he declined these terms, the
+admiral declared he would come up the channel in boats filled with his
+soldiers and put every pirate to the sword.
+
+When Morgan received this letter, he called his men together in the
+public square of the town, and asked them what they would do, and when
+these fellows heard that they were asked to give up all their booty,
+they unanimously voted that they would perish rather than do such an
+unmanly thing as that. So it was agreed that they would fight themselves
+out of the lake of Maracaibo, or stay there, dead or alive, as the case
+might be.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+A Tight Place for Morgan
+
+
+At this important crisis again turned up the man with an idea. This was
+an inventive buccaneer, who proposed to Morgan that they should take a
+medium-sized ship which they had captured at the other end of the lake,
+and make a fire-ship of her. In order that the Spaniards might not
+suspect the character of this incendiary craft, he proposed that they
+should fit her up like one of the pirate war-vessels, for in this case
+the Spaniards would not try to get away from her, but would be glad to
+have her come near enough for them to capture her.
+
+Morgan was pleased with this plan, and the fire-ship was prepared with
+all haste. All the pitch, tar, and brimstone in the town were put on
+board of her, together with other combustibles. On the deck were placed
+logs of wood, which were dressed up in coats and hats to look like men,
+and by their sides were muskets and cutlasses. Portholes were made, and
+in these were placed other logs to represent cannon. Thus this merchant
+vessel, now as inflammable as a pine knot, was made to resemble a
+somewhat formidable pirate ship. The rest of the fleet was made ready,
+the valuables and prisoners and slaves were put on board; and they all
+sailed boldly down toward the Spanish vessels, the fire-ship in front.
+
+When the Spanish admiral saw this insignificant fleet approaching, he
+made ready to sink it to the bottom, and when the leading vessel made
+its way directly toward his own ship, as if with the impudent intention
+of boarding her, he did not fire at her, but let her come on. The few
+pirates on board the fire-ship ran her up against the side of the great
+man-of-war; and after making her fast and applying their matches, they
+immediately slipped overboard, and swam to one of their own vessels
+before the Spaniards had an idea of what had happened. The fire-ship was
+soon ablaze, and as the flames quickly spread, the large vessel took
+fire, and the people on board had scarcely time to get out of her before
+she sank.
+
+The commander of one of the other ships was so much frightened by what
+had occurred in so short a space of time that he ran his vessel aground
+and wrecked her, her men jumping out into the water and making for the
+land. As for the other ship, the pirates boldly attacked her and
+captured her, and as she was a very fine vessel, Morgan left his own
+small vessel, in which he had been commanding his fleet, and took
+possession of her. Thus, in a very short time, the whole state of
+affairs was changed. The Spaniards had no ships at all, and Morgan was
+in command of a very fine vessel, in which he led his triumphant fleet.
+
+Victory is a grand thing to a pirate as it is to every human being who
+has been engaged in a conflict, but none of the joys of triumph could
+equal the sordid rapacity of Morgan and his men. They spent days in
+trying to recover the money and plate which were on board the sunken
+Spanish ships. The sterns of these projected above water, and a great
+deal of valuable treasure was recovered from them. The pirates worked
+very hard at this, although they had not the slightest idea how they
+were to pass the castle and get away with the plunder after they had
+obtained it.
+
+When the wrecks had been stripped of everything of value, the time came
+for demanding a ransom for not burning the town and hanging the
+prisoners, and as the poor citizens knew very well what they might
+expect, they sent word to the admiral, who had escaped to the castle,
+begging him to accede to the demands of Morgan, and to let the wretched
+pirates go. But the admiral, Don Alonso, was a thoroughbred Spaniard,
+and he would listen to no such cowardly suggestion. He would consent to
+no ransom being paid, and on no account would he allow the pirates to
+pass the channel. The citizens, however, who knew what was good for
+them, raised the money, and paid the ransom in coin and cattle, and
+Morgan declared that if the admiral would not let him out of the lake,
+he would have to attend to that matter himself.
+
+But before he made another bold stroke against the enemy his stingy and
+niggardly spirit urged him to defend himself against his friends, and
+before endeavoring to leave he ordered a division of the spoils. Many of
+the goods taken from the two towns were on board the different vessels
+of the fleet, and he was very much afraid that if his comrades, who
+commanded the other ships, should be so fortunate as to get out to sea,
+they would sail away with the booty they carried, and he would not see
+any of it. Therefore, the booty from every ship was brought on board his
+own fine vessel, and every man was put through an examination as rigid
+as if he had been passing a custom house, and was obliged to prove that
+he had not concealed or kept back any money or jewels. The value of the
+plunder was very great, and when it had been divided, according to the
+scale which Morgan had adopted, the pirate leader felt safe. He now had
+his share of the prizes in his own possession, and that to him was more
+important than anything else in the world.
+
+The question of getting away was a very serious one; the greater part of
+his fleet consisted of small vessels which could not defy the guns of
+the fort, and as the stout hearts and brawny arms of his followers could
+be of no use to him in this dilemma, Morgan was obliged to fall back
+upon his own brains; therefore, he planned a trick.
+
+When everything had been prepared for departure, Morgan anchored his
+fleet at a distance from the castle, but not so far away that the
+Spaniards could not observe his movements. Then he loaded some boats
+with armed men and had them rowed ashore on the side of the channel on
+which the castle stood. The boats landed behind a little wood, and there
+the men, instead of getting out, crouched themselves down in the bottom
+of the boats so that they should not be seen. Then the boats, apparently
+empty, were rowed back to the pirate ships, and in a short time, again
+full of men sitting, upright, with their muskets and cutlasses, they
+went to the shore, and soon afterwards returned apparently empty as
+before.
+
+This performance was repeated over and over again, until the people in
+the castle were convinced that Morgan was putting his men on shore in
+order to make a land attack upon the rear of the castle during the
+night. But the Spanish admiral was not to be caught by any such clumsy
+stratagem as that, and, therefore, in great haste he had his big cannon
+moved to the land side of the fort, and posted there the greater part of
+his garrison in order that when the pirates made their assault in the
+dead of the night they would meet with a reception for which they had
+not bargained.
+
+When it was dark, and the tide began to run out, the pirate vessels
+weighed anchor, and they all drifted down toward the castle. Morgan's
+spies had perceived some of the extraordinary movements in the Spanish
+fortifications, and he therefore drifted down with a good deal of
+confidence, although, had his trick been discovered in time it would
+have gone very hard with his fleet. It is probable that he had taken all
+these chances into consideration and had felt pretty sure that if the
+cannon of the fort had been opened upon them it would not have been the
+big ship which carried him and his precious load which would have been
+sunk by the great guns, and that no matter what happened to the smaller
+vessels and the men on board them, he and his own ship would be able to
+sail away.
+
+But the Spaniards did not perceive the approach of the drifting fleet,
+for they were intrepidly waiting at the back of the castle to make it
+very hot for the pirates when they should arrive. Slowly past the great
+walls of the fort drifted the fleet of buccaneers, and then, at a
+signal, every vessel hoisted its sails, and, with a good wind, sailed
+rapidly toward the open sea. The last pirate vessel had scarcely passed
+the fort when the Spaniards discovered what was going on, and in great
+haste they rolled their cannon back to the water side of the fort and
+began firing furiously, but it was of no use.
+
+The pirates sailed on until they were out of danger, and then they
+anchored and arranged for putting on shore the greater number of their
+prisoners, who were only an encumbrance to them. As a parting insult,
+Morgan fired seven or eight of his largest guns at the castle, whose
+humiliated occupants did not reply by a single shot.
+
+In order to understand what thoroughly contemptible scoundrels these
+pirates were it may be stated that when Morgan and his men reached
+Jamaica after a good deal of storm and trouble on the way, they found
+there many of their comrades who had not been able to join them at their
+rendezvous at Savona. These unfortunate fellows, who had not known where
+Morgan had gone and were unable to join him, had endeavored to do some
+piratical business of their own, but had had very little luck and a
+great many misfortunes. Morgan's men, with their pockets full of money,
+jeered and sneered at their poor comrades who had had such hard times,
+and without any thought of sharing with them the least portion of their
+own vile gains they treated them with contempt and derision.
+
+The buccaneer, Captain Henry Morgan, was now a very great personage, but
+with his next expedition, which was a very important one, and in its
+extent resembled warfare rather than piracy, we shall have little to do
+because his exploits in this case were not performed on our Atlantic
+coasts, but over the Isthmus, on the shores of the Pacific.
+
+Morgan raised a great fleet, carrying a little army of two thousand men,
+and with this he made his way to the other side of the Isthmus and
+attacked the city of Panama, which, of course, he captured. His terrible
+deeds at this place resembled those which he performed after the capture
+of the smaller towns which we have been considering, except that they
+were on a scale of greater magnitude. Nearly the whole of the town of
+Panama was burned, and the excesses, cruelties, and pillages of the
+conquerors were something almost without parallel.
+
+Before marching overland to Panama, Morgan had recaptured the island of
+St. Catherine, which was a very valuable station for his purposes, and
+had also taken the castle of Chagres on the mainland near by, and on his
+return from the conquest and pillage of the unfortunate city he and his
+forces gathered together at Chagres in order to divide the spoils.
+
+Now came great trouble and dissatisfaction; many of the buccaneers
+loudly declared that Morgan was taking everything that was really
+valuable for his own, especially the precious stones and jewels, and
+that they were getting a very small share of the booty of Panama. There
+seemed to be good reason for these complaints, for the sum of about two
+hundred dollars apiece was all that Morgan's men received after their
+terrible hardships and dangers and the pillage of a very rich town. The
+murmurings and complaints against Morgan's peculiar methods became
+louder and more frequent, and at last the wily Welshman began to be
+afraid that serious trouble would come to him if he did not take care of
+himself. This, however, he was very capable of doing. Silently and
+quietly one night, without giving notice to any of the buccaneers at
+Chagres, except a few who were in his secret, Morgan, in his large ship,
+sailed away for Jamaica, followed by only a few other vessels,
+containing some of his favored companions.
+
+When the great body of the buccaneers, the principal portion of which
+were Frenchmen, found that their leader had deserted them, there was a
+grand commotion, and if they had been able, the furious men who had had
+this trick played upon them, would have followed Morgan to treat him as
+they had so often treated the Spaniards. But they could not
+follow--Morgan had taken great care that this should not happen. Their
+ships were out of order; they had been left very short of provisions and
+ammunition, and found that not only were they unable to avenge
+themselves on their traitor leader, but that it would be very hard for
+them to get away at all.
+
+Poor Esquemeling, the literary pirate, was one of those who was left
+behind, and in his doleful state he made the following reflection, which
+we quote from his book: "Captain Morgan left us all in such a miserable
+condition as might serve for a lively representation of what rewards
+attend wickedness at the latter end of life. Whence we ought to have
+learned how to regulate and amend our actions for the future."
+
+After Morgan had safely reached Jamaica with all his booty, the idea
+renewed itself in his mind of returning to St. Catherine, fortifying the
+place and putting it in complete order, and then occupying it as a
+station for all pirates, with himself the supreme governor and king of
+the buccaneers. But before he had completed his arrangements for doing
+this there was a change in the affairs at Jamaica: the king of England,
+having listened to the complaints of the Spanish crown, had recalled the
+former Governor and put him on trial to answer for the manner in which
+he allowed the island to be used by the pirates for their wicked
+purposes against a friendly nation, and had sent a new Governor with
+orders to allow no buccaneers in Jamaica, and in every way to suppress
+piracy in those parts.
+
+Now the shrewd Morgan saw that his present business was likely to become
+a very undesirable one, and he accordingly determined to give it up.
+Having brutally pillaged and most cruelly treated the Spaniards as long
+as he was able to do so, and having cheated and defrauded his friends
+and companions to the utmost extent possible, he made up his mind to
+reform, and a more thoroughly base and contemptible reformed scoundrel
+was never seen on the face of the earth.
+
+Morgan was now a rich man, and he lost no time in becoming very
+respectable. He endeavored to win favor with the new Governor, and was
+so successful that when that official was obliged to return to England
+on account of his health, he left the ex-pirate in charge of the affairs
+of the island in the capacity of Deputy-Governor. More than this, King
+Charles, who apparently had heard of Morgan's great bravery and ability,
+and had not cared to listen to anything else about him, knighted him,
+and this preëminent and inhuman water-thief became Sir Henry Morgan.
+
+In his new official capacity Morgan was very severe upon his former
+associates, and when any of them were captured and brought before him,
+he condemned some to be imprisoned and some to be hung, and in every
+way apparently endeavored to break up the unlawful business of
+buccaneering.
+
+About this time John Esquemeling betook himself to Europe with all
+possible despatch, for he had work to do and things to tell with which
+the Deputy-Governor would have no sympathy whatever. He got away safely,
+and he wrote his book, and if he had not had this good fortune, the
+world would have lost a great part of the story of what happened to the
+soft little baby who was born among the quiet green fields of Wales.
+
+Even during the time that he was Deputy-Governor, Morgan was suspected
+of sharing in the gains of some buccaneers at the same time that he
+punished others, and after the death of Charles II. he was sent to
+England and imprisoned, but what eventually became of him we do not
+know. If he succeeded in ill-using and defrauding his Satanic Majesty,
+there is no record of the fact.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+The Story of a High-Minded Pirate
+
+
+After having considered the extraordinary performances of so many of
+those execrable wretches, the buccaneers, it is refreshing and
+satisfactory to find that there were exceptions even to the rules which
+governed the conduct and general make-up of the ordinary pirate of the
+period, and we are therefore glad enough to tell the story of a man,
+who, although he was an out-and-out buccaneer, possessed some peculiar
+characteristics which give him a place of his own in the history of
+piracy.
+
+In the early part of these sketches we have alluded to a gentleman of
+France, who, having become deeply involved in debt, could see no way of
+putting himself in a condition to pay his creditors but to go into
+business of some kind. He had no mercantile education, he had not
+learned any profession, and it was therefore necessary for him to do
+something for which a previous preparation was not absolutely essential.
+
+After having carefully considered all the methods of making money which
+were open to him under the circumstances, he finally concluded to take
+up piracy and literature. Even at the present day it is considered by
+many persons that one of these branches of industry is a field of action
+especially adapted to those who have not had the opportunity of giving
+the time and study necessary in any other method of making a living.
+
+The French gentleman whose adventures we are about to relate was a very
+different man from John Esquemeling, who was a literary pirate and
+nothing more. Being of a clerkly disposition, the gentle John did not
+pretend to use the sabre or the pistol. His part in life was simply to
+watch his companions fight, burn, and steal, while his only weapon was
+his pen, with which he set down their exploits and thereby murdered
+their reputations.
+
+But Monsieur Raveneau de Lussan was both buccaneer and author, and when
+he had finished his piratical career he wrote a book in which he gave a
+full account of it, thus showing that although he had not been brought
+up to a business life, he had very good ideas about money-making.
+
+More than that, he had very good ideas about his own reputation, and
+instead of leaving his exploits and adventures to be written up by other
+people,--that is, if any one should think it worth while to do so,--he
+took that business into his own hands. He was well educated, he had
+been brought up in good society, and as he desired to return to that
+society it was natural for him to wish to paint his own portrait as a
+buccaneer. Pictures of that kind as they were ordinarily executed were
+not at all agreeable to the eyes of the cultivated classes of France,
+and so M. de Lussan determined to give his personal attention not only
+to his business speculations, but to his reputation. He went out as a
+buccaneer in order to rob the Spaniards of treasure with which to pay
+his honest debts, and, in order to prevent his piratical career being
+described in the coarse and disagreeable fashion in which people
+generally wrote about pirates, he determined to write his own
+adventures.
+
+If a man wishes to appear well before the world, it is often a very good
+thing for him to write his autobiography, especially if there is
+anything a little shady in his career, and it may be that de Lussan's
+reputation as a high-minded pirate depends somewhat on the book he wrote
+after he had put down the sword and taken up the pen; but if he gave a
+more pleasing color to his proceedings than they really deserved, we
+ought to be glad of it. For, even if de Lussan the buccaneer was in some
+degree a creature of the imagination of de Lussan the author, we have a
+story which is much more pleasing and, in some respects, more romantic
+than stories of ordinary pirates could possibly be made unless the
+writer of such stories abandoned fact altogether and plunged blindly
+into fiction.
+
+Among the good qualities of de Lussan was a pious disposition. He had
+always been a religious person, and, being a Catholic, he had a high
+regard and veneration for religious buildings, for priests, and for the
+services of the church, and when he had crossed the Atlantic in his
+ship, the crew of which was composed of desperadoes of various nations,
+and when he had landed upon the western continent, he wished still to
+conform to the religious manners and customs of the old world.
+
+Having a strong force under his command and possessing, in common with
+most of the gentlemen of that period, a good military education, it was
+not long after he landed on the mainland before he captured a small
+town. The resistance which he met was soon overcome, and our high-minded
+pirate found himself in the position of a conqueror with a community at
+his mercy. As his piety now raised itself above all his other
+attributes, the first thing that he did was to repair to the principal
+church of the town, accompanied by all his men, and here, in accordance
+with his commands, a Te Deum was sung and services were conducted by the
+priests in charge. Then, after having properly performed his religious
+duties, de Lussan sent his men through the town with orders to rob the
+inhabitants of everything valuable they possessed.
+
+The ransacking and pillaging of the houses continued for some time, but
+when the last of his men had returned with the booty they had collected,
+the high-minded chief was dissatisfied. The town appeared to be a good
+deal poorer than he had expected, and as the collection seemed to be so
+very small, de Lussan concluded that in some way or other he must pass
+around the hat again. While he was wondering how he should do this he
+happened to hear that on a sugar plantation not very far away from the
+town there were some ladies of rank who, having heard of the approach of
+the pirates, had taken refuge there, thinking that even if the town
+should be captured, their savage enemies would not wander into the
+country to look for spoils and victims.
+
+But these ladies were greatly mistaken. When de Lussan heard where they
+were, he sent out a body of men to make them prisoners and bring them
+back to him. They might not have any money or jewels in their
+possession, but as they belonged to good families who were probably
+wealthy, a good deal of money could be made out of them by holding them
+and demanding a heavy ransom for their release. So the ladies were all
+brought to town and shut up securely until their friends and relatives
+managed to raise enough money to pay their ransom and set them free, and
+then, I have no doubt, de Lussan advised them to go to church and offer
+up thanks for their happy deliverance.
+
+As our high-minded pirate pursued his plundering way along the coast of
+South America, he met with a good many things which jarred upon his
+sensitive nature--things he had not expected when he started out on his
+new career. One of his disappointments was occasioned by the manners and
+customs of the English buccaneers under his command. These were very
+different from the Frenchmen of his company, for they made not the
+slightest pretence to piety.
+
+When they had captured a town or a village, the Englishmen would go to
+the churches, tear down the paintings, chop the ornaments from the
+altars with their cutlasses, and steal the silver crucifixes, the
+candlesticks, and even the communion services. Such conduct gave great
+pain to de Lussan. To rob and destroy the property of churches was in
+his eyes a great sin, and he never suffered anything of the kind if he
+could prevent it. When he found in any place which he captured a wealthy
+religious community or a richly furnished church, he scrupulously
+refrained from taking anything or of doing damage to property, and
+contented himself with demanding heavy indemnity, which the priests
+were obliged to pay as a return for the pious exemption which he granted
+them.
+
+But it was very difficult to control the Englishmen. They would rob and
+destroy a church as willingly as if it were the home of a peaceful
+family, and although their conscientious commander did everything he
+could to prevent their excesses, he did not always succeed. If he had
+known what was likely to happen, his party would have consisted entirely
+of Frenchmen.
+
+Another thing which disappointed and annoyed the gentlemanly de Lussan
+was the estimation in which the buccaneers were held by the ladies of
+the country through which he was passing. He soon found that the women
+in the Spanish settlements had the most horrible ideas regarding the
+members of the famous "Brotherhood of the Coast." To be sure, all the
+Spanish settlers, and a great part of the natives of the country, were
+filled with horror and dismay whenever they heard that a company of
+buccaneers was within a hundred miles of their homes, and it is not
+surprising that this was the case, for the stories of the atrocities and
+cruelties of these desperadoes had spread over the western world.
+
+But the women of the settlements looked upon the buccaneers with greater
+fear and abhorrence than the men could possibly feel, for the belief
+was almost universal among them that buccaneers were terrible monsters
+of cannibal habits who delighted in devouring human beings, especially
+if they happened to be young and tender. This ignorance of the true
+character of the invaders of the country was greatly deplored by de
+Lussan. He had a most profound pity for those simple-minded persons who
+had allowed themselves to be so deceived in regard to the real character
+of himself and his men, and whenever he had an opportunity, he
+endeavored to persuade the ladies who fell in his way that sooner than
+eat a woman he would entirely abstain from food.
+
+On one occasion, when politely conducting a young lady to a place of
+confinement, where in company with other women of good family she was to
+be shut up until their relatives could pay handsome ransoms for their
+release, he was very much surprised when she suddenly turned to him with
+tears in her eyes, and besought him not to devour her. This astonishing
+speech so wounded the feelings of the gallant Frenchman that for a
+moment he could not reply, and when he asked her what had put such an
+unreasonable fear in her mind, she could only answer that she thought he
+looked hungry, and that perhaps he would not be willing to wait
+until--And there she stopped, for she could not bring her mind to
+say--until she was properly prepared for the table.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the high-minded pirate. "Do you suppose that I would
+eat you in the street?" And as the poor girl, who was now crying, would
+make him no answer, he fell into a sombre silence which continued until
+they had reached their destination.
+
+The cruel aspersions which were cast upon his character by the women of
+the country were very galling to the chivalrous soul of this gentleman
+of France, and in every way possible he endeavored to show the Spanish
+ladies that their opinions of him were entirely incorrect, and even if
+his men were rather a hard lot of fellows, they were not cannibals.
+
+The high-minded pirate had now two principal objects before him. One was
+to lay his hand upon all the treasure he could find, and the other was
+to show the people of the country, especially the ladies, that he was a
+gentleman of agreeable manners and a pious turn of mind.
+
+It is highly probable that for some time the hero of this story did not
+succeed in his first object as well as he would have liked. A great deal
+of treasure was secured, but some of it consisted of property which
+could not be easily turned into cash or carried away, and he had with
+him a body of rapacious and conscienceless scoundrels who were
+continually clamoring for as large a share of the available
+spoils--such as jewels, money, and small articles of value--as they
+could induce their commander to allow them, and, in consequence of this
+greediness of his own men, his share of the plunder was not always as
+large as it ought to be.
+
+But in his other object he was very much more successful, and, in proof
+of this, we have only to relate an interesting and remarkable adventure
+which befell him. He laid siege to a large town, and, as the place was
+well defended by fortifications and armed men, a severe battle took
+place before it was captured. But at last the town was taken, and de
+Lussan and his men having gone to church to give thanks for their
+victory,--his Englishmen being obliged to attend the services no matter
+what they did afterward,--he went diligently to work to gather from the
+citizens their valuable and available possessions. In this way he was
+brought into personal contact with a great many of the people of the
+town, and among the acquaintances which he made was that of a young
+Spanish lady of great beauty.
+
+The conditions and circumstances in the midst of which this lady found
+herself after the city had been taken, were very peculiar. She had been
+the wife of one of the principal citizens, the treasurer of the town,
+who was possessed of a large fortune, and who lived in one of the best
+houses in the place; but during the battle with the buccaneers, her
+husband, who fought bravely in defence of the place, was killed, and she
+now found herself not only a widow, but a prisoner in the hands of those
+ruthless pirates whose very name had struck terror into the hearts of
+the Spanish settlers. Plunged into misery and despair, it was impossible
+for her to foresee what was going to happen to her.
+
+As has been said, the religious services in the church were immediately
+followed by the pillage of the town; every house was visited, and the
+trembling inhabitants were obliged to deliver up their treasures to the
+savage fellows who tramped through their halls and rooms, swearing
+savagely when they did not find as much as they expected, and laughing
+with wild glee at any unusual discovery of jewels or coin.
+
+The buccaneer officers as well as the men assisted in gathering in the
+spoils of the town, and it so happened that M. Raveneau de Lussan, with
+his good clothes and his jaunty hat with a feather in it, selected the
+house of the late treasurer of the city as a suitable place for him to
+make his investigations. He found there a great many valuable articles
+and also found the beautiful young widow.
+
+The effect produced upon the mind of the lady when the captain of the
+buccaneers entered her house was a very surprising one. Instead of
+beholding a savage, brutal ruffian, with ragged clothes and gleaming
+teeth, she saw a handsome gentleman, as well dressed as circumstances
+would permit, very polite in his manners, and with as great a desire to
+transact his business without giving her any more inconvenience than was
+necessary, as if he had been a tax-collector or had come to examine the
+gas meter. If all the buccaneers were such agreeable men as this one,
+she and her friends had been laboring under a great mistake.
+
+De Lussan did not complete his examination of the treasurer's house in
+one visit, and during the next two or three days the young widow not
+only became acquainted with the character of buccaneers in general, but
+she learned to know this particular buccaneer very well, and to find out
+what an entirely different man he was from the savage fellows who
+composed his company. She was grateful to him for his kind manner of
+appropriating her possessions, she was greatly interested in his
+society,--for he was a man of culture and information,--and in less than
+three days she found herself very much in love with him. There was not a
+man in the whole town who, in her opinion, could compare with this
+gallant commander of buccaneers.
+
+It was not very long before de Lussan became conscious of the favor he
+had found in the eyes of this lady; for as a buccaneer could not be
+expected to remain very long in one place, it was necessary, if this
+lady wished the captor of her money and treasure to know that he had
+also captured her heart, that she must not be slow in letting him know
+the state of her affections, and being a young person of a very
+practical mind she promptly informed de Lussan that she loved him and
+desired him to marry her.
+
+The gallant Frenchman was very much amazed when this proposition was
+made to him, which was in the highest degree complimentary. It was very
+attractive to him--but he could not understand it. The lady's husband
+had been dead but a few days--he had assisted in having the unfortunate
+gentleman properly buried--and it seemed to him very unnatural that the
+young widow should be in such an extraordinary hurry to prepare a
+marriage feast before the funeral baked meats had been cleared from the
+table.
+
+There was but one way in which he could explain to himself this
+remarkable transition from grief to a new affection. He believed that
+the people of this country were like their fruits and their flowers. The
+oranges might fall from the trees, but the blossoms would still be
+there. Husband and wives or lovers might die, but in the tropical hearts
+of these people it was not necessary that new affections should be
+formed, for they were already there, and needed only some one to receive
+them.
+
+As he did not undertake his present expedition for the purpose of
+marrying ladies, no matter how beautiful they might be, it is quite
+natural that de Lussan should not accept the proffered hand of the young
+widow. But when she came to detail her plans, he found that it would be
+well worth his while to carefully consider her project.
+
+The lady was by no means a thoughtless young creature, carried away by a
+sudden attachment. Before making known to de Lussan her preference for
+him above all other men, she had given the subject her most careful and
+earnest consideration, and had made plans which in her opinion would
+enable the buccaneer captain and herself to settle the matter to the
+satisfaction of all parties.
+
+When de Lussan heard the lady's scheme, he was as much surprised by her
+businesslike ability as he had been by the declaration of her affection
+for him. She knew very well that he could not marry her and take her
+with him. Moreover, she did not wish to go. She had no fancy for such
+wild expeditions and such savage companions. Her plans were for peace
+and comfort and a happy domestic life. In a word, she desired that the
+handsome de Lussan should remain with her.
+
+Of course the gentleman opened his eyes very wide when he heard this,
+but she had a great deal to say upon the subject, and she had not
+omitted any of the details which would be necessary for the success of
+her scheme.
+
+The lady knew just as well as the buccaneer captain knew that the men
+under his command would not allow him to remain comfortably in that town
+with his share of the plunder, while they went on without a leader to
+undergo all sorts of hardships and dangers, perhaps defeat and death. If
+he announced his intention of withdrawing from the band, his enraged
+companions would probably kill him. Consequently a friendly separation
+between himself and his buccaneer followers was a thing not to be
+thought of, and she did not even propose it.
+
+Her idea was a very different one. Just as soon as possible, that very
+night, de Lussan was to slip quietly out of the town, and make his way
+into the surrounding country. She would furnish him with a horse, and
+tell him the way he should take, and he was not to stop until he had
+reached a secluded spot, where she was quite sure the buccaneers would
+not be able to find him, no matter how diligently they might search.
+When they had entirely failed in every effort to discover their lost
+captain, who they would probably suppose had been killed by wandering
+Indians,--for it was impossible that he could have been murdered in the
+town without their knowledge,--they would give him up as lost and press
+on in search of further adventures.
+
+When the buccaneers were far away, and all danger from their return had
+entirely passed, then the brave and polite Frenchman, now no longer a
+buccaneer, could safely return to the town, where the young widow would
+be most happy to marry him, to lodge him in her handsome house, and to
+make over to him all the large fortune and estates which had been the
+property of her late husband.
+
+This was a very attractive offer surely, a beautiful woman, and a
+handsome fortune. But she offered more than this. She knew that a
+gentleman who had once captured and despoiled the town might feel a
+little delicacy in regard to marrying and settling there and becoming
+one of its citizens, and therefore she was prepared to remove any
+objections which might be occasioned by such considerate sentiments on
+his part.
+
+She assured him that if he would agree to her plan, she would use her
+influence with the authorities, and would obtain for him the position of
+city treasurer, which her husband had formerly held. And when he
+declared that such an astounding performance must be utterly impossible,
+she started out immediately, and having interviewed the Governor of the
+town and other municipal officers, secured their signature to a paper in
+which they promised that if M. de Lussan would accept the proposals
+which the lady had made, he would be received most kindly by the
+officers and citizens of the town; that the position of treasurer would
+be given to him, and that all the promises of the lady should be made
+good.
+
+Now our high-minded pirate was thrown into a great quandary, and
+although at first he had had no notion whatever of accepting the
+pleasant proposition which had been made to him by the young widow, he
+began to see that there were many good reasons why the affection, the
+high position, and the unusual advantages which she had offered to him
+might perhaps be the very best fortune which he could expect in this
+world. In the first place, if he should marry this charming young
+creature and settle down as a respected citizen and an officer of the
+town, he would be entirely freed from the necessity of leading the life
+of a buccaneer, and this life was becoming more and more repugnant to
+him every day,--not only on account of the highly disagreeable nature of
+his associates and their reckless deeds, but because the country was
+becoming aroused, and the resistance to his advances was growing
+stronger and stronger. In the next attack he made upon a town or village
+he might receive a musket ball in his body, which would end his career
+and leave his debts in France unpaid.
+
+More than that, he was disappointed, as has been said before, in regard
+to the financial successes he had expected. At that time he saw no
+immediate prospect of being able to go home with money enough in his
+pocket to pay off his creditors, and if he did not return to his native
+land under those conditions, he did not wish to return there at all.
+Under these circumstances it seemed to be wise and prudent, that if he
+had no reason to expect to be able to settle down honorably and
+peaceably in France, to accept this opportunity to settle honorably,
+peaceably, and in every way satisfactorily in America.
+
+It is easy to imagine the pitching and the tossing in the mind of our
+French buccaneer. The more he thought of the attractions of the fair
+widow and of the wealth and position which had been offered him, the
+more he hated all thoughts of his piratical crew, and of the dastardly
+and cruel character of the work in which they were engaged. If he could
+have trusted the officers and citizens of the town, there is not much
+doubt that he would have married the widow, but those officers and
+citizens were Spaniards, and he was a Frenchman. A week before the
+inhabitants of the place had been prosperous, contented, and happy. Now
+they had been robbed, insulted, and in many cases ruined, and he was
+commander of the body of desperadoes who had robbed and ruined them. Was
+it likely that they would forget the injuries which he had inflicted
+upon them simply because he had married a wealthy lady of the town and
+had kindly consented to accept the office of city treasurer?
+
+It was much more probable that when his men had really left that part of
+the country the citizens would forget all their promises to him and
+remember only his conduct toward them, and that even if he remained
+alive long enough to marry the lady and take the position offered him,
+it would not be long before she was again a widow and the office vacant.
+
+So de Lussan shut his eyes to the tempting prospects which were spread
+out before him, and preferring rather to be a live buccaneer than a dead
+city treasurer, he told the beautiful widow that he could not marry her
+and that he must go forth again into the hard, unsympathetic world to
+fight, to burn, to steal, and to be polite. Then, fearing that if he
+remained he might find his resolution weakened, he gathered together his
+men and his pillage, and sadly went away, leaving behind him a joyful
+town and a weeping widow.
+
+If the affection of the young Spanish lady for the buccaneer chief was
+sufficient to make her take an interest in his subsequent career, she
+would probably have been proud of him, for the ladies of those days had
+a high opinion of brave men and successful warriors. De Lussan soon
+proved that he was not only a good fighter, but that he was also an
+able general, and his operations on the western coast of South America
+were more like military campaigns than ordinary expeditions of lawless
+buccaneers.
+
+He attacked and captured the city of Panama, always an attractive prize
+to the buccaneer forces, and after that he marched down the western
+coast of South America, conquering and sacking many towns. As he now
+carried on his business in a somewhat wholesale way, it could not fail
+to bring him in a handsome profit, and in the course of time he felt
+that he was able to retire from the active practice of his profession
+and to return to France.
+
+But as he was going back into the circles of respectability, he wished
+to do so as a respectable man. He discarded his hat and plume, he threw
+away his great cutlass and his heavy pistols, and attired in the costume
+of a gentleman in society he prepared himself to enter again upon his
+old life. He made the acquaintance of some of the French colonial
+officers in the West Indies, and obtaining from them letters of
+introduction to the Treasurer-General of France, he went home as a
+gentleman who had acquired a fortune by successful enterprises in the
+new world.
+
+The pirate who not only possesses a sense of propriety and a sensitive
+mind, but is also gifted with an ability to write a book in which he
+describes his own actions and adventures, is to be credited with unusual
+advantages, and as Raveneau de Lussan possessed these advantages, he has
+come down to posterity as a high-minded pirate.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+Exit Buccaneer; Enter Pirate
+
+
+The buccaneers of the West Indies and South America had grown to be a
+most formidable body of reckless freebooters. From merely capturing
+Spanish ships, laden with the treasures taken from the natives of the
+new world, they had grown strong enough to attack Spanish towns and
+cities. But when they became soldiers and marched in little armies, the
+patience of the civilized world began to weaken: Panama, for instance,
+was an important Spanish city; England was at peace with Spain;
+therefore, when a military force composed mainly of Englishmen, and led
+by a British subject, captured and sacked the said Spanish city, England
+was placed in an awkward position; if she did not interfere with her
+buccaneers, she would have a quarrel to settle with Spain.
+
+Therefore it was that a new Governor was sent to Jamaica with strict
+orders to use every power he possessed to put down the buccaneers and to
+break up their organization, and it was to this end that he set a thief
+to catch thieves and empowered the ex-pirate, Morgan, to execute his
+former comrades.
+
+But methods of conciliation, as well as threats of punishment, were used
+to induce the buccaneers to give up their illegal calling, and liberal
+offers were made to them to settle in Jamaica and become law-abiding
+citizens. They were promised grants of land and assistance of various
+kinds in order to induce them to take up the legitimate callings of
+planters and traders.
+
+But these offers were not at all tempting to the Brethren of the Coast;
+from pirates _rampant_ to pirates _couchant_ was too great a change, and
+some of them, who found it impossible to embark on piratical cruises, on
+account of the increasing difficulties of fitting out vessels, returned
+to their original avocations of cattle-butchering and beef-drying, and
+some, it is said, chose rather to live among the wild Indians and share
+their independent lives, than to bind themselves to any form of honest
+industry.
+
+The French had also been very active in suppressing the operations of
+their buccaneers, and now the Brethren of the Coast, considered as an
+organization for preying upon the commerce and settlers of Spain, might
+be said to have ceased to exist. But it must not be supposed that
+because buccaneering had died out, that piracy was dead. If we tear
+down a wasps' nest, we destroy the abode of a fierce and pitiless
+community, but we scatter the wasps, and it is likely that each one of
+them, in the unrestricted and irresponsible career to which he has been
+unwillingly forced, will prove a much more angry and dangerous insect
+than he had ever been before.
+
+This is what happened to these buccaneers who would not give up a
+piratical life; driven away from Jamaica, from San Domingo, and even
+from Tortuga, they retained a resting-place only at New Providence, an
+island in the Bahamas, and this they did not maintain very long. Then
+they spread themselves all over the watery world. They were no longer
+buccaneers, they were no longer brothers of any sort or kind, they no
+longer set out merely to pillage and fight the Spaniards, but their
+attacks were made upon people of every nation. English ships and French
+ships, once safe from them, were a welcome prey to these new pirates,
+unrestrained by any kind of loyalty, even by any kind of enmity. They
+were more rapacious, they were more cruel, they were more like fiends
+than they had ever been before. They were cowardly and they no longer
+proceeded against towns which might be defended, nor ran up alongside of
+a man-of-war to boldly board her in the very teeth of her guns. They
+confined themselves to attacks upon peaceable merchant vessels, often
+robbing them and then scuttling them, delighted with the spectacle of a
+ship, with all its crew, sinking hopelessly into the sea.
+
+The scene of piratical operations in America was now very much changed.
+The successors of the Brothers of the Coast, no longer united by any
+bonds of fellowship, but each pirate captain acting independently in his
+own wicked way, was coming up from the West Indies to afflict the
+seacoast of our country.
+
+The old buccaneers knew all about our southern coast, for they were
+among the very first white men who ever set foot on the shores of North
+and South Carolina before that region had been settled by colonists, and
+when the only inhabitants were the wild Indians. These early buccaneers
+often used its bays and harbors as convenient ports of refuge, where
+they could anchor, divide spoils, take in fresh water, and stay as long
+as they pleased without fear of molestation. It was natural enough that
+when the Spanish-hating buccaneer merged into the independent pirate,
+who respected no flag, and preyed upon ships of every nation, he should
+feel very much at home on the Carolina coasts.
+
+As the country was settled, and Charles Town, now Charleston, grew to be
+a port of considerable importance, the pirates felt as much at home in
+this region as when it was inhabited merely by Indians. They frequently
+touched at little seaside settlements, and boldly sailed into the harbor
+of Charles Town. But, unlike the unfortunate citizens of Porto Bello or
+Maracaibo, the American colonists were not frightened when they saw a
+pirate ship anchored in their harbors, for they knew its crew did not
+come as enemies, but as friendly traders.
+
+The early English colonists were not as prosperous as they might have
+been if the mother country had not been so anxious to make money out of
+them. They were not allowed to import goods from any country but
+England, and if they had products or crops to export, they must be sold
+to English merchants. For whatever they bought they had to pay the
+highest prices, and they could not send into the markets of the world to
+get the best value for their own productions.
+
+Therefore it was that a pirate ship was a very welcome visitor in
+Charles Town harbor. She was generally loaded with goods, which, as they
+were stolen, her captain could afford to sell very cheaply indeed, and
+as there was always plenty of Spanish gold on board, her crew was not
+apt to haggle very much in regard to the price of the spirits, the
+groceries, or the provisions which they bought from the merchants of the
+town. This friendly commerce between the pirates and the Carolinians
+grew to be so extensive that at one time the larger part of the coin in
+circulation in those colonies consisted of Spanish gold pieces, which
+had been brought in and used by the pirates for the purchase of goods.
+
+But a pirate is very seldom a person of discretion, who knows when to
+leave well enough alone, and so, instead of contenting themselves with
+robbing and capturing the vessels belonging to people whom their Charles
+Town friends and customers would look upon as foreigners, they boldly
+sailed up and down the coast, seeking for floating booty wherever they
+might find it, and when a pirate vessel commanded by an English captain
+and manned principally by an English crew, fell in with a big
+merchantman flying the English flag, they bore down upon that vessel,
+just as if it had been French, or Spanish, or Dutch, and if the crew
+were impertinent enough to offer any resistance, they were cut down and
+thrown overboard.
+
+At last the pirates became so swaggeringly bold and their captains so
+enterprising in their illegal trading that the English government took
+vigorous measures, not only to break up piracy, but to punish all
+colonists who should encourage the freebooters by commercial dealings
+with them. At these laws the pirates laughed, and the colonists winced,
+and there were many people in Charles Town who vowed that if the King
+wanted them to help him put down piracy, he must show them some other
+way of getting imported goods at reasonable prices. So the pirates went
+on capturing merchantmen whenever they had a chance, and the Carolinians
+continued to look forward with interest to the bargain days which always
+followed the arrival of a pirate ship. But this state of things did not
+last, and the time came when the people of Charles Town experienced a
+change of mind. The planters were now growing large quantities of rice,
+and this crop became so valuable that the prosperity of the colonies
+greatly increased. And now the pirates also became very much interested
+in the rice crops, and when they had captured four or five vessels
+sailing out of Charles Town heavily laden with rice, the people of that
+town suddenly became aware of the true character of a pirate. He was now
+in their eyes an unmitigated scoundrel who not only stole goods from all
+nations, which he brought to them and sold at low prices, but he
+actually stole their goods, their precious rice which they were sending
+to England.
+
+The indignant citizens of Charles Town took a bold stand, and such a
+bold one it was that when part of a crew of pirates, who had been put
+ashore by their comrades on account of a quarrel, made their way to the
+town, thinking they could tell a tale of shipwreck and rely upon the
+friendship of their old customers, they were taken into custody, and
+seven out of the nine were hanged.
+
+The occasional repetition of such acts as this, and the exhibition of
+dangling pirates, hung up like scarecrows at the entrance of the
+harbors, dampened the ardor of the freebooters a good deal, and for some
+years they kept away from the harbor of Charles Town, which had once
+been to them such a friendly port.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+The Great Blackbeard comes upon the Stage
+
+
+So long as the people of the Carolinas were prosperous and able to
+capture and execute pirates who interfered with their trade the Atlantic
+sea-robbers kept away from their ports, but this prosperity did not
+last. Indian wars broke out, and in the course of time the colonies
+became very much weakened and impoverished, and then it was that the
+harbor of Charles Town began to be again interesting to the pirates.
+
+About this time one of the most famous of sea-robbers was harassing the
+Atlantic coast of North America, and from New England to the West
+Indies, he was known as the great pirate Blackbeard. This man, whose
+real name was Thatch, was a most terrible fellow in appearance as well
+as action. He wore a long, heavy, black beard, which it was his fancy to
+separate into tails, each one tied with a colored ribbon, and often
+tucked behind his ears. Some of the writers of that day declared that
+the sight of this beard would create more terror in any port of the
+American seaboard than would the sudden appearance of a fiery comet.
+Across his brawny breast he carried a sort of a sling in which hung not
+less than three pairs of pistols in leathern holsters, and these, in
+addition to his cutlass and a knife or two in his belt, made him a most
+formidable-looking fellow.
+
+Some of the fanciful recreations of Blackbeard show him to have been a
+person of consistent purpose. Even in his hours of rest when he was not
+fighting or robbing, his savage soul demanded some interesting
+excitement. Once he was seated at table with his mate and two or three
+sailors, and when the meal was over he took up a pair of pistols, and
+cocking them put them under the table. This peculiar action caused one
+of the sailors to remember very suddenly that he had something to do on
+deck, and he immediately disappeared. But the others looked at their
+captain in astonishment, wondering what he would do next. They soon
+found out; for crossing the pistols, still under the table, he fired
+them. One ball hit the mate in the leg, but the other struck no one.
+When asked what he meant by this strange action, he replied that if he
+did not shoot one of his men now and then they would forget what sort of
+a person he was.
+
+At another time he invented a game; he gathered his officers and crew
+together and told them that they were going to play that they were
+living in the lower regions. Thereupon the whole party followed him down
+into the hold. The hatches and all the other openings were closed, and
+then Blackbeard began to illuminate the scene with fire and brimstone.
+The sulphur burned, the fumes rose, a ghastly light spread over the
+countenances of the desperadoes, and very soon some of them began to
+gasp and cough and implore the captain to let in some fresh air, but
+Blackbeard was bound to have a good game, and he proceeded to burn more
+brimstone. He laughed at the gasping fellows about him and declared that
+he would be just as willing to breathe the fumes of sulphur as common
+air. When at last he threw open the hatches, some of the men were almost
+dead, but their stalwart captain had not even sneezed.
+
+In the early part of the eighteenth century Blackbeard made his
+headquarters in one of the inlets on the North Carolina coast, and there
+he ruled as absolute king, for the settlers in the vicinity seemed to be
+as anxious to oblige him as the captains of the merchantmen sailing
+along the coast were anxious to keep out of his way. On one of his
+voyages Blackbeard went down the coast as far as Honduras, where he took
+a good many prizes, and as some of the crews of the captured vessels
+enlisted under him he sailed north with a stronger force than ever
+before, having a large ship of forty guns, three smaller vessels, and
+four hundred men. With this little fleet Blackbeard made for the coast
+of South Carolina, and anchored outside the harbor of Charles Town. He
+well understood the present condition of the place and was not in the
+least afraid that the citizens would hang him up on the shores of the
+bay.
+
+Blackbeard began work without delay. Several well-laden ships--the
+Carolinians having no idea that pirates were waiting for them--came
+sailing out to sea and were immediately captured. One of these was a
+very important vessel, for it not only carried a valuable cargo, but a
+number of passengers, many of them people of note, who were on their way
+to England. One of these was a Mr. Wragg, who was a member of the
+Council of the Province. It might have been supposed that when
+Blackbeard took possession of this ship, he would have been satisfied
+with the cargo and the money which he found on board, and having no use
+for prominent citizens, would have let them go their way; but he was a
+trader as well as a plunderer, and he therefore determined that the best
+thing to do in this case was to put an assorted lot of highly
+respectable passengers upon the market and see what he could get for
+them. He was not at the time in need of money or provisions, but his men
+were very much in want of medicines, so he decided to trade off his
+prisoners for pills, potions, plasters, and all sorts of apothecary's
+supplies.
+
+He put three of his pirates in a boat, and with them one of the
+passengers, a Mr. Marks, who was commissioned as Blackbeard's special
+agent, with orders to inform the Governor that if he did not immediately
+send the medicines required, amounting in value to about three hundred
+pounds, and if he did not allow the pirate crew of the boat to return in
+safety, every one of the prisoners would be hanged from the yard-arm of
+his ship.
+
+The boat rowed away to the distant town, and Blackbeard waited two days
+for its return, and then he grew very angry, for he believed that his
+messengers had been taken into custody, and he came very near hanging
+Mr. Wragg and all his companions. But before he began to satisfy his
+vengeance, news came from the boat. It had been upset in the bay, and
+had had great trouble in getting to Charles Town, but it had arrived
+there at last. Blackbeard now waited a day or two longer; but as no news
+came from Mr. Marks, he vowed he would not be trifled with by the
+impudent people of Charles Town, and swore that every man, woman, and
+child among the prisoners should immediately prepare to be hanged.
+
+Of course the unfortunate prisoners in the pirate ship were in a
+terrible state of mind during the absence of Mr. Marks. They knew very
+well that they could expect no mercy from Blackbeard if the errand
+should be unsuccessful, and they also knew that the Charles Town people
+would not be likely to submit to such an outrageous demand upon them; so
+they trembled and quaked by day and by night, and when at last they were
+told to get ready to be hanged, every particle of courage left them, and
+they proposed to Blackbeard that if he would spare their lives, and that
+if it should turn out that their fellow-citizens had decided to
+sacrifice them for the sake of a few paltry drugs, they would take up
+the cause of the pirates; they would show Blackbeard the best way to
+sail into the harbor, and they would join with him and his men in
+attacking the city and punishing the inhabitants for their hard-hearted
+treatment of their unfortunate fellow-citizens.
+
+This proposition pleased Blackbeard immensely; it would have been like a
+new game to take Mr. Wragg to the town and make him fight his
+fellow-members of the Council of the Province, and so he rescinded his
+order for a general execution, and bade his prisoners prepare to join
+with his pirates when he should give the word for an assault upon their
+city.
+
+In the meantime there was a terrible stir in Charles Town. When the
+Governor and citizens received the insolent and brutal message of
+Blackbeard they were filled with rage as well as consternation, and if
+there had been any way of going out to sea to rescue their unhappy
+fellow-citizens, every able-bodied man in the town would have enlisted
+in the expedition. But they had no vessels of war, and they were not
+even in a position to arm any of the merchantmen in the harbor. It
+seemed to the Governor and his council that there was nothing for them
+to do but to submit to the demands of Blackbeard, for they very well
+knew that he was a scoundrel who would keep his word, and also that
+whatever they did must be done quickly, for there were the three
+swaggering pirates in the town, strutting about the streets as if they
+owned the place. If this continued much longer, it would be impossible
+to keep the infuriated citizens from falling upon these blustering
+rascals and bringing their impertinence to a summary end. If this should
+happen, it would be a terrible thing, for not only would Mr. Wragg and
+his companions be put to death, but the pirates would undoubtedly attack
+the town, which was in a very poor position for defence.
+
+Consequently the drugs were collected with all possible haste, and Mr.
+Marks and the pirates were sent with them to Blackbeard. We do not know
+whether or not that bedizened cutthroat was satisfied with the way
+things turned out; for having had the idea of going to Charles Town and
+obliging the prisoners to help him confiscate the drugs and chemicals,
+he may have preferred this unusual proceeding to a more commonplace
+transaction; but as the medicine had arrived he accepted it, and having
+secured all possible booty and money from the ships he had captured, and
+had stripped his prisoners of the greater part of their clothing, he set
+them on shore to walk to Charles Town as well as they could. They had a
+miserably difficult time, making their way through the woods and
+marshes, for there were women and children among them who were scarcely
+equal to the journey. One of the children was a little boy, the son of
+Mr. Wragg, who afterward became a very prominent man in the colonies. He
+rose to such a high position, not only among his countrymen, but in the
+opinion of the English government, that when he died, about the
+beginning of the Revolution, a tablet to his memory was placed in
+Westminster Abbey, which is, perhaps, the first instance of such an
+honor being paid to an American.
+
+Having now provided himself with medicines enough to keep his wild crew
+in good physical condition, no matter how much they might feast and
+frolic on the booty they had obtained from Charles Town, Blackbeard
+sailed back to his North Carolina haunts and took a long vacation,
+during which time he managed to put himself on very good terms with the
+Governor and officials of the country. He had plenty of money and was
+willing to spend it, and so he was allowed to do pretty much as he
+pleased, provided he kept his purse open and did not steal from his
+neighbors.
+
+But Blackbeard became tired of playing the part of a make-believe
+respectable citizen, and having spent the greater part of his money, he
+wanted to make some more. Consequently he fitted out a small vessel, and
+declaring that he was going on a legitimate commercial cruise, he took
+out regular papers for a port in the West Indies and sailed away, as if
+he had been a mild-mannered New England mariner going to catch codfish.
+The officials of the town of Bath, from which he sailed, came down to
+the ship and shook hands with him and hoped he would have good success.
+
+After a moderate absence he returned to Bath, bringing with him a large
+French merchant vessel, with no people on board, but loaded with a
+valuable cargo of sugar and other goods. This vessel he declared he had
+found deserted at sea, and he therefore claimed it as a legitimate
+prize. Knowing the character of this bloody pirate, and knowing how very
+improbable it was that the captain and all the crew of a valuable
+merchant vessel, with nothing whatever the matter with her, would go out
+into their boats and row away, leaving their ship to become the
+property of any one who might happen along, it may seem surprising that
+the officials of Bath appeared to have no doubt of the truth of
+Blackbeard's story, and allowed him freely to land the cargo on the
+French ship and store it away as his own property.
+
+But people who consort with pirates cannot be expected to have very
+lively consciences, and although there must have been persons in the
+town with intelligence enough to understand the story of pitiless murder
+told by that empty vessel, whose very decks and masts must have been
+regarded as silent witnesses that her captain and crew did not leave her
+of their own free will, no one in the town interfered with the thrifty
+Blackbeard or caused any public suspicion to fall upon the propriety of
+his actions.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+A True-Hearted Sailor draws his Sword
+
+
+Feeling now quite sure that he could do what he pleased on shore as well
+as at sea, Blackbeard swore more, swaggered more, and whenever he felt
+like it, sailed up and down the coast and took a prize or two to keep
+the pot boiling for himself and his men.
+
+On one of these expeditions he went to Philadelphia, and having landed,
+he walked about to see what sort of a place it was, but the Governor of
+the state, hearing of his arrival, quickly arranged to let him know that
+the Quaker city allowed no black-hearted pirate, with a ribbon-bedecked
+beard, to promenade on Chestnut and Market streets, and promptly issued
+a warrant for the sea-robber's arrest. But Blackbeard was too sharp and
+too old a criminal to be caught in that way, and he left the city with
+great despatch.
+
+The people along the coast of North Carolina became very tired of
+Blackbeard and his men. All sorts of depredations were committed on
+vessels, large and small, and whenever a ship was boarded and robbed or
+whenever a fishing-vessel was laid under contribution, Blackbeard was
+known to be at the bottom of the business, whether he personally
+appeared or not. To have this busy pirate for a neighbor was extremely
+unpleasant, and the North Carolina settlers greatly longed to get rid of
+him. It was of no use for them to ask their own State Government to
+suppress this outrageous scoundrel, and although their good neighbor,
+South Carolina, might have been willing to help them, she was too poor
+at that time and had enough to do to take care of herself.
+
+Not knowing, or not caring for the strong feeling of the settlers
+against him, Blackbeard continued in his wicked ways, and among other
+crimes he captured a small vessel and treated the crew in such a cruel
+and atrocious manner that the better class of North Carolinians vowed
+they would stand him no longer, and they therefore applied to Governor
+Spotswood, of Virginia, and asked his aid in putting down the pirates.
+The Virginians were very willing to do what they could for their
+unfortunate neighbors. The legislature offered a reward for the capture
+of Blackbeard or any of his men; but the Governor, feeling that this was
+not enough, determined to do something on his own responsibility, for
+he knew very well that the time might come when the pirate vessels would
+begin to haunt Virginia waters.
+
+There happened to be at that time two small British men-of-war in
+Hampton Roads, and although the Governor had no authority to send these
+after the pirates, he fitted out two sloops at his own expense and
+manned them with the best fighting men from the war-vessels. One of the
+sloops he put under Captain Brand, and the other under Captain Maynard,
+both brave and experienced naval officers. All preparations were made
+with the greatest secrecy--for if Blackbeard had heard of what was going
+on, he would probably have decamped--and then the two sloops went out to
+sea with a commission from the Governor to capture Blackbeard, dead or
+alive. This was a pretty heavy contract, but Brand and Maynard were
+courageous men and did not hesitate to take it.
+
+The Virginians had been informed that the pirate captain and his men
+were on a vessel in Ocracoke Inlet, and when they arrived they found, to
+their delight, that Blackbeard was there. When the pirates saw the two
+armed vessels sailing into the inlet, they knew very well that they were
+about to be attacked, and it did not take them long to get ready for a
+fight, nor did they wait to see what their enemy was about to do. As
+soon as the sloops were near enough, Blackbeard, without waiting for
+any preliminary exercises, such as a demand for surrender or any
+nonsense of that sort, let drive at the intruders with eight heavily
+loaded cannon.
+
+Now the curtain had been rung up, and the play began, and a very lively
+play it was. The guns of the Virginians blazed away at the pirate ship,
+and they would have sent out boats to board her had not Blackbeard
+forestalled them. Boarding was always a favorite method of fighting with
+the pirates. They did not often carry heavy cannon, and even when they
+did, they had but little fancy for battles at long distances. What they
+liked was to meet foes face to face and cut them down on their own
+decks. In such combats they felt at home, and were almost always
+successful, for there were few mariners or sailors, even in the British
+navy, who could stand against these brawny, glaring-eyed dare-devils,
+who sprang over the sides of a vessel like panthers, and fought like
+bulldogs. Blackbeard had had enough cannonading, and he did not wait to
+be boarded. Springing into a boat with about twenty of his men, he rowed
+to the vessel commanded by Maynard, and in a few minutes he and his
+pirates surged on board her.
+
+Now there followed on the decks of that sloop one of the most fearful
+hand-to-hand combats known to naval history. Pirates had often attacked
+vessels where they met with strong resistance, but never had a gang of
+sea-robbers fallen in with such bold and skilled antagonists as those
+who now confronted Blackbeard and his crew. At it they went,--cut, fire,
+slash, bang, howl, and shout. Steel clashed, pistols blazed, smoke went
+up, and blood ran down, and it was hard in the confusion for a man to
+tell friend from foe. Blackbeard was everywhere, bounding from side to
+side, as he swung his cutlass high and low, and though many a shot was
+fired at him, and many a rush made in his direction, every now and then
+a sailor went down beneath his whirling blade.
+
+But the great pirate had not boarded that ship to fight with common men.
+He was looking for Maynard, the commander. Soon he met him, and for the
+first time in his life he found his match. Maynard was a practised
+swordsman, and no matter how hard and how swiftly came down the cutlass
+of the pirate, his strokes were always evaded, and the sword of the
+Virginian played more dangerously near him. At last Blackbeard, finding
+that he could not cut down his enemy, suddenly drew a pistol, and was
+about to empty its barrels into the very face of his opponent, when
+Maynard sent his sword-blade into the throat of the furious pirate; the
+great Blackbeard went down upon his back on the deck, and in the next
+moment Maynard put an end to his nefarious career. Their leader dead,
+the few pirates who were left alive gave up the fight, and sprang
+overboard, hoping to be able to swim ashore, and the victory of the
+Virginians was complete.
+
+The strength, toughness, and extraordinary vitality of these feline
+human beings, who were known as pirates, has often occasioned
+astonishment in ordinary people. Their sun-tanned and hairy bodies
+seemed to be made of something like wire, leather, and India rubber,
+upon which the most tremendous exertions, and even the infliction of
+severe wounds, made but little impression. Before Blackbeard fell, he
+received from Maynard and others no less than twenty-five wounds, and
+yet he fought fearlessly to the last, and when the panting officer
+sheathed his sword, he felt that he had performed a most signal deed of
+valor.
+
+When they had broken up the pirate nest in Ocracoke Inlet, the two
+sloops sailed to Bath, where they compelled some of the unscrupulous
+town officials to surrender the cargo which had been stolen from the
+French vessel and stored in the town by Blackbeard; then they sailed
+proudly back to Hampton Roads, with the head of the dreaded Blackbeard
+dangling from the end of the bowsprit of the vessel he had boarded, and
+on whose deck he had discovered the fact, before unknown to him, that a
+well-trained, honest man can fight as well as the most reckless
+cutthroat who ever decked his beard with ribbons, and swore enmity to
+all things good.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+A Greenhorn under the Black Flag
+
+
+Early in the eighteenth century there lived at Bridgetown, in the island
+of Barbadoes, a very pleasant, middle-aged gentleman named Major Stede
+Bonnet. He was a man in comfortable circumstances, and had been an
+officer in the British army. He had retired from military service, and
+had bought an estate at Bridgetown, where he lived in comfort and was
+respected by his neighbors.
+
+But for some reason or other this quiet and reputable gentleman got it
+into his head that he would like to be a pirate. There were some persons
+who said that this strange fancy was due to the fact that his wife did
+not make his home pleasant for him, but it is quite certain that if a
+man wants an excuse for robbing and murdering his fellow-beings he ought
+to have a much better one than the bad temper of his wife. But besides
+the general reasons why Major Bonnet should not become a pirate, and
+which applied to all men as well as himself, there was a special reason
+against his adoption of the profession of a sea-robber, for he was an
+out-and-out landsman and knew nothing whatever of nautical matters. He
+had been at sea but very little, and if he had heard a boatswain order
+his man to furl the keel, to batten down the shrouds, or to hoist the
+forechains to the topmast yard, he would have seen nothing out of the
+way in these commands. He was very fond of history, and very well read
+in the literature of the day. He was accustomed to the habits of good
+society, and knew a great deal about farming and horses, cows and
+poultry, but if he had been compelled to steer a vessel, he would not
+have known how to keep her bow ahead of her stern.
+
+But notwithstanding this absolute incapacity for such a life, and the
+absence of any of the ordinary motives for abandoning respectability and
+entering upon a career of crime, Major Bonnet was determined to become a
+pirate, and he became one. He had money enough to buy a ship and to fit
+her out and man her, and this he quietly did at Bridgetown, nobody
+supposing that he was going to do anything more than start off on some
+commercial cruise. When everything was ready, his vessel slipped out of
+the harbor one night, and after he was sailing safely on the rolling sea
+he stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed himself a pirate. It might
+not be supposed that this was necessary, for the seventy men on board
+his ship were all desperate cutthroats, of various nationalities, whom
+he had found in the little port, and who knew very well what was
+expected of them when they reached the sea. But if Stede Bonnet had not
+proclaimed himself a pirate, it is possible that he might not have
+believed, himself, that he was one, and so he ran up the black flag,
+with its skeleton or skull and cross-bones, he girded on a great
+cutlass, and, folding his arms, he ordered his mate to steer the vessel
+to the coast of Virginia.
+
+Although Bonnet knew so little about ships and the sea, and had had no
+experience in piracy, his men were practised seamen, and those of them
+who had not been pirates before were quite ready and very well fitted to
+become such; so when this green hand came into the waters of Virginia he
+actually took two or three vessels and robbed them of their cargoes,
+burning the ships, and sending the crews on shore.
+
+This had grown to be a common custom among the pirates, who, though
+cruel and hard-hearted, had not the inducements of the old buccaneers to
+torture and murder the crews of the vessels which they captured. They
+could not hate human beings in general as the buccaneers hated the
+Spaniards, and so they were a little more humane to their prisoners,
+setting them ashore on some island or desert coast, and letting them
+shift for themselves as best they might. This was called marooning, and
+was somewhat less heartless than the old methods of getting rid of
+undesirable prisoners by drowning or beheading them.
+
+As Bonnet had always been rather conventional in his ideas and had
+respected the customs of the society in which he found himself, he now
+adopted all the piratical fashions of the day, and when he found himself
+too far from land to put the captured crew on shore, he did not hesitate
+to make them "walk the plank," which was a favorite device of the
+pirates whenever they had no other way of disposing of their prisoners.
+The unfortunate wretches, with their hands tied behind them, were
+compelled, one by one, to mount a plank which was projected over the
+side of the vessel and balanced like a see-saw, and when, prodded by
+knives and cutlasses, they stepped out upon this plank, of course it
+tipped up, and down they went into the sea. In this way, men, women, and
+children slipped out of sight among the waves as the vessel sailed
+merrily on.
+
+In one branch of his new profession Bonnet rapidly became proficient. He
+was an insatiable robber and a cruel conqueror. He captured merchant
+vessels all along the coast as high up as New England, and then he came
+down again and stopped for a while before Charles Town harbor, where he
+took a couple of prizes, and then put into one of the North Carolina
+harbors, where it was always easy for a pirate vessel to refit and get
+ready for further adventures.
+
+Bonnet's vessel was named the _Revenge_, which was about as ill suited
+to the vessel as her commander was ill fitted to sail her, for Bonnet
+had nobody to revenge himself upon unless, indeed, it were his scolding
+wife. But a good many pirate ships were then called the _Revenge_, and
+Bonnet was bound to follow the fashion, whatever it might be.
+
+Very soon after he had stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed
+himself a pirate his men had discovered that he knew no more about
+sailing than he knew about painting portraits, and although there were
+under-officers who directed all the nautical operations, the mass of the
+crew conceived a great contempt for a landsman captain. There was much
+grumbling and growling, and many of the men would have been glad to
+throw Bonnet overboard and take the ship into their own hands. But when
+any symptoms of mutiny showed themselves, the pirates found that
+although they did not have a sailor in command over them, they had a
+very determined and relentless master. Bonnet knew that the captain of a
+pirate ship ought to be the most severe and rigid man on board, and so,
+at the slightest sign of insubordination, his grumbling men were put in
+chains or flogged, and it was Bonnet's habit at such times to strut
+about the deck with loaded pistols, threatening to blow out the brains
+of any man who dared to disobey him. Recognizing that although their
+captain was no sailor he was a first-class tyrant, the rebellious crew
+kept their grumbling to themselves and worked his ship.
+
+Bonnet now pointed the bow of the _Revenge_ southward--that is, he
+requested somebody else to see that it was done--and sailed to the Bay
+of Honduras, which was a favorite resort of the pirates about that time.
+And here it was that he first met with the famous Captain Blackbeard.
+There can be no doubt that our amateur pirate was very glad indeed to
+become acquainted with this well-known professional, and they soon
+became good friends. Blackbeard was on the point of organizing an
+expedition, and he proposed that Bonnet and his vessel should join it.
+This invitation was gladly accepted, and the two pirate captains started
+out on a cruise together. Now the old reprobate, Blackbeard, knew
+everything about ships and was a good navigator, and it was not long
+before he discovered that his new partner was as green as grass in
+regard to all nautical affairs. Consequently, after having thought the
+matter over for a time, he made up his mind that Bonnet was not at all
+fit to command such a fine vessel as the one he owned and had fitted
+out, and as pirates make their own laws, and perhaps do not obey them
+if they happen not to feel like it, Blackbeard sent for Bonnet to come
+on board his ship, and then, in a manner as cold-blooded as if he had
+been about to cut down a helpless prisoner, Blackbeard told Bonnet that
+he was not fit to be a pirate captain, that he intended to keep him on
+board his own vessel, and that he would send somebody to take charge of
+the _Revenge_.
+
+This was a fall indeed, and Bonnet was almost stunned by it. An hour
+before he had been proudly strutting about on the deck of a vessel which
+belonged to him, and in which he had captured many valuable prizes, and
+now he was told he was to stay on Blackbeard's ship and make himself
+useful in keeping the log book, or in doing any other easy thing which
+he might happen to understand. The green pirate ground his teeth and
+swore bitterly inside of himself, but he said nothing openly; on
+Blackbeard's ship Blackbeard's decisions were not to be questioned.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+Bonnet again to the Front
+
+
+It must not be supposed that the late commander of the _Revenge_
+continued to be satisfied, as he sat in the cabin of Blackbeard's vessel
+and made the entries of the day's sailing and various performances. He
+obeyed the orders of his usurping partner because he was obliged to do
+so, but he did not hate Blackbeard any the less because he had to keep
+quiet about it. He accompanied his pirate chief on various cruises,
+among which was the famous expedition to the harbor of Charles Town
+where Blackbeard traded Mr. Wragg and his companions for medicines.
+
+Having a very fine fleet under him, Blackbeard did a very successful
+business for some time, but feeling that he had earned enough for the
+present, and that it was time for him to take one of his vacations, he
+put into an inlet in North Carolina, where he disbanded his crew. So
+long as he was on shore spending his money and having a good time, he
+did not want to have a lot of men about him who would look to him to
+support them when they had spent their portion of the spoils. Having no
+further use for Bonnet, he dismissed him also, and did not object to his
+resuming possession of his own vessel. If the green pirate chose to go
+to sea again and perhaps drown himself and his crew, it was a matter of
+no concern to Blackbeard.
+
+But this was a matter of very great concern to Stede Bonnet, and he
+proceeded to prove that there were certain branches of the piratical
+business in which he was an adept, and second to none of his
+fellow-practitioners. He wished to go pirating again, and saw a way of
+doing this which he thought would be far superior to any of the common
+methods. It was about this time that King George of England, very
+desirous of breaking up piracy, issued a proclamation in which he
+promised pardon to any pirate who would appear before the proper
+authorities, renounce his evil practices, and take an oath of
+allegiance. It also happened that very soon after this proclamation had
+been issued, England went to war with Spain. Being a man who kept
+himself posted in the news of the world, so far as it was possible,
+Bonnet saw in the present state of affairs a very good chance for him to
+play the part of a wolf in sheep's clothing, and he proceeded to begin
+his new piratical career by renouncing piracy. So leaving the _Revenge_
+in the inlet, he journeyed overland to Bath; there he signed pledges,
+took oaths, and did everything that was necessary to change himself from
+a pirate captain to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British
+privateer. Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his pocket
+necessary to prove that he was a loyal and law-abiding subject of Great
+Britain, he took out regular clearance papers for St. Thomas, which was
+a British naval station, and where he declared he was going in order to
+obtain a commission as a privateer.
+
+Now the wily Bonnet had everything he wanted except a crew. Of course it
+would not do for him, in his present respectable capacity, to go about
+enlisting unemployed pirates, but at this point fortune again favored
+him; he knew of a desert island not very far away where Blackbeard, at
+the end of his last cruise, had marooned a large party of his men. This
+heartless pirate had not wanted to take all of his followers into port,
+because they might prove troublesome and expensive to him, and so he had
+put a number of them on this island, to live or die as the case might
+be. Bonnet went over to this island, and finding the greater part of
+these men still surviving, he offered to take them to St. Thomas in his
+vessel if they would agree to work the ship to port. This proposition
+was of course joyfully accepted, and very soon the _Revenge_ was manned
+with a complete crew of competent desperadoes.
+
+All these operations took a good deal of time, and, at last, when
+everything was ready for Bonnet to start out on his piratical cruise, he
+received information which caused him to change his mind, and to set
+forth on an errand of a very different kind. He had supposed that
+Blackbeard, whom he had never forgiven for the shameful and treacherous
+manner in which he had treated him, was still on shore enjoying himself,
+but he was told by the captain of a small trading vessel that the old
+pirate was preparing for another cruise, and that he was then in
+Ocracoke Inlet. Now Bonnet folded his arms and stamped his feet upon the
+quarter-deck. The time had come for him to show that the name of his
+vessel meant something. Never before had he had an opportunity for
+revenging himself on anybody, but now that hour had arrived. He would
+revenge himself upon Blackbeard!
+
+The implacable Bonnet sailed out to sea in a truly warlike frame of
+mind. He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen; he
+was on his way to punish a black-hearted pirate, a faithless scoundrel,
+who had not only acted knavishly toward the world in general, but had
+behaved most disloyally and disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate
+chief. If he could once run the _Revenge_ alongside the ship of the
+perfidious Blackbeard, he would show him what a green hand could do.
+
+When Bonnet reached Ocracoke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to find
+that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did not give up the
+pursuit. He made hot chase after the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping
+a sharp lookout in hopes of discovering some signs of him. If the
+enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face,
+there might have been a combat which would have relieved the world of
+two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would have been deprived of
+the honor of having slain the most famous pirate of the day.
+
+Bonnet was a good soldier and a brave man, and although he could not
+sail a ship, he understood the use of the sword even better, perhaps,
+than Blackbeard, and there is good reason to believe that if the two
+ships had come together, their respective crews would have allowed their
+captains to fight out their private quarrel without interference, for
+pirates delight in a bloody spectacle, and this would have been to them
+a rare diversion of the kind.
+
+But Bonnet never overtook Blackbeard, and the great combat between the
+rival pirates did not take place. After vainly searching for a
+considerable time for a trace or sight of Blackbeard, the baffled Bonnet
+gave up the pursuit and turned his mind to other objects. The first
+thing he did was to change the name of his vessel; if he could not be
+revenged, he would not sail in the _Revenge_. Casting about in his mind
+for a good name, he decided to call her the _Royal James_. Having no
+intention of respecting his oaths or of keeping his promises, he thought
+that, as he was going to be disloyal, he might as well be as disloyal as
+he could, and so he gave his ship the name assumed by the son of James
+the Second, who was a pretender to the throne, and was then in France
+plotting against the English government.
+
+The next thing he did was to change his own name, for he thought this
+would make matters better for him if he should be captured after
+entering upon his new criminal career. So he called himself Captain
+Thomas, by which name he was afterwards known.
+
+When these preliminaries had been arranged, he gathered his crew
+together and announced that instead of going to St. Thomas to get a
+commission as a privateer, he had determined to keep on in his old
+manner of life, and that he wished them to understand that not only was
+he a pirate captain, but that they were a pirate crew. Many of the men
+were very much surprised at this announcement, for they had thought it a
+very natural thing for the green-hand Bonnet to give up pirating after
+he had been so thoroughly snubbed by Blackbeard, and they had not
+supposed that he would ever think again of sailing under a black flag.
+
+However, the crew's opinion of the green-hand captain had been a good
+deal changed. In his various cruises he had learned a good deal about
+navigation, and could now give very fair orders, and his furious pursuit
+of Blackbeard had also given him a reputation for reckless bravery which
+he had not enjoyed before. A man who was chafing and fuming for a chance
+of a hand-to-hand conflict with the greatest pirate of the day must be a
+pretty good sort of a fellow from their point of view. Moreover, their
+strutting and stalking captain, so recently balked of his dark revenge,
+was a very savage-looking man, and it would not be pleasant either to
+try to persuade him to give up his piratical intention, or to decline to
+join him in carrying it out; so the whole of the crew, minor officers
+and men, changed their minds about going to St. Thomas, and agreed to
+hoist the skull and cross-bones, and to follow Captain Bonnet wherever
+he might lead.
+
+Bonnet now cruised about in grand style and took some prizes on the
+Virginia coast, and then went up into Delaware Bay, where he captured
+such ships as he wanted, and acted generally in the most domineering and
+insolent fashion. Once, when he stopped near the town of Lewes, in order
+to send some prisoners ashore, he sent a message to the officers of the
+town to the effect that if they interfered with his men when they came
+ashore, he would open fire upon the town with his cannon, and blow every
+house into splinters. Of course the citizens, having no way of defending
+themselves, were obliged to allow the pirates to come on shore and
+depart unmolested.
+
+Then after this the blustering captain captured two valuable sloops, and
+wishing to take them along with him without the trouble of transferring
+their cargoes to his own vessel, he left their crews on board, and
+ordered them to follow him wherever he went. Some days after that, when
+one of the vessels seemed to be sailing at too great a distance, Bonnet
+quickly let her captain know that he was not a man to be trifled with,
+and sent him the message that if he did not keep close to the _Royal
+James_, he would fire into him and sink him to the bottom.
+
+After a time Bonnet put into a North Carolina port in order to repair
+the _Royal James_, which was becoming very leaky, and seeing no
+immediate legitimate way of getting planks and beams enough with which
+to make the necessary repairs, he captured a small sloop belonging in
+the neighborhood, and broke it up in order to get the material he needed
+to make his own vessel seaworthy.
+
+Now the people of the North Carolina coast very seldom interfered with
+pirates, as we have seen, and it is likely that Bonnet might have
+stayed in port as long as he pleased, and repaired and refitted his
+vessel without molestation if he had bought and paid for the planks and
+timber he required. But when it came to boldly seizing their property,
+that was too much even for the people of the region, and complaints of
+Bonnet's behavior spread from settlement to settlement, and it very soon
+became known all down the coast that there was a pirate in North
+Carolina who was committing depredations there and was preparing to set
+out on a fresh cruise.
+
+When these tidings came to Charles Town, the citizens were thrown into
+great agitation. It had not been long since Blackbeard had visited their
+harbor, and had treated them with such brutal insolence, and there were
+bold spirits in the town who declared that if any effort by them could
+prevent another visitation of the pirates, that effort should be made.
+There was no naval force in the harbor which could be sent out to meet
+the pirates, who were coming down the coast; but Mr. William Rhett, a
+private gentleman of position in the place, went to the Governor and
+offered to fit out, at his own expense, an expedition for the purpose of
+turning away from their city the danger which threatened it.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+The Battle of the Sand Bars
+
+
+When that estimable private gentleman, Mr. William Rhett, of Charles
+Town, had received a commission from the Governor to go forth on his own
+responsibility and meet the dreaded pirate, the news of whose
+depredations had thrown the good citizens into such a fever of
+apprehension, he took possession, in the name of the law, of two large
+sloops, the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, which were in the harbor, and
+at his own expense he manned them with well-armed crews, and put on
+board of each of them eight small cannon. When everything was ready, Mr.
+Rhett was in command of a very formidable force for those waters, and if
+he had been ready to sail a few days sooner, he would have had an
+opportunity of giving his men some practice in fighting pirates before
+they met the particular and more important sea-robber whom they had set
+out to encounter. Just as his vessel was ready to sail, Mr. Rhett
+received news that a pirate ship had captured two or three merchantmen
+just outside the harbor, and he put out to sea with all possible haste
+and cruised up and down the coast for some time, but he did not find
+this most recent depredator, who had departed very promptly when he
+heard that armed ships were coming out of the harbor.
+
+Now Mr. Rhett, who was no more of a sailor than Stede Bonnet had been
+when he first began his seafaring life, boldly made his way up the coast
+to the mouth of Cape Fear River, where he had been told the pirate
+vessel was lying. When he reached his destination, Mr. Rhett found that
+it would not be an easy thing to ascend the river, for the reason that
+the pilots he had brought with him knew nothing about the waters of that
+part of the coast, and although the two ships made their way very
+cautiously, it was not long after they had entered the river before they
+got out of the channel, and it being low tide, both of them ran aground
+upon sand bars.
+
+This was a very annoying accident, but it was not disastrous, for the
+sailing masters who commanded the sloops knew very well that when the
+tide rose, their vessels would float again. But it prevented Mr. Rhett
+from going on and making an immediate attack upon the pirate vessel, the
+topmasts of which could be plainly seen behind a high headland some
+distance up the river.
+
+Of course Bonnet, or Captain Thomas, as he now chose to be called, soon
+became aware of the fact that two good-sized vessels were lying aground
+near the mouth of the river, and having a very natural curiosity to see
+what sort of craft they were, he waited until nightfall and then sent
+three armed boats to make observations. When these boats returned to the
+_Royal James_ and reported that the grounded vessels were not
+well-loaded trading craft, but large sloops full of men and armed with
+cannon, Bonnet (for we prefer to call him by his old name) had good
+reason to fold his arms, knit his brows, and strut up and down the deck.
+He was sure that the armed vessels came from Charles Town, and there was
+no reason to doubt that if the Governor of South Carolina had sent two
+ships against him the matter was a very serious one. He was penned up in
+the river, he had only one fighting vessel to contend against two, and
+if he could not succeed in getting out to sea before he should be
+attacked by the Charles Town ships, there would be but little chance of
+his continuing in his present line of business. If the _Royal James_ had
+been ready to sail, there is no doubt that Bonnet would have taken his
+chance of finding the channel in the dark, and would have sailed away
+that night without regard to the cannonading which might have been
+directed against him from the two stranded vessels.
+
+But as it was impossible to get ready to sail, Bonnet went to work with
+the greatest energy to get ready to fight. He knew that when the tide
+rose there would be two armed sloops afloat, and that there would be a
+regular naval battle on the quiet waters of Cape Fear River. All night
+his men worked to clear the decks and get everything in order for the
+coming combat, and all night Mr. Rhett and his crews kept a sharp watch
+for any unexpected move of the enemy, while they loaded their guns,
+their pistols, and their cannon, and put everything in order for action.
+
+Very early in the morning the wide-awake crews of the South Carolina
+vessels, which were now afloat and at anchor, saw that the topmasts of
+the pirate craft were beginning to move above the distant headland, and
+very soon Bonnet's ship came out into view, under full sail, and as she
+veered around they saw that she was coming toward them. Up went the
+anchors and up went the sails of the _Henry_ and the _Sea-Nymph_, and
+the naval battle between the retired army officer who had almost learned
+to be a sailor, and the private gentleman from South Carolina, who knew
+nothing whatever about managing ships, was about to begin.
+
+It was plain to the South Carolinians that the great object of the
+pirate captain was to get out to sea just as soon as he could, and that
+he was coming down the river, not because he wished to make an
+immediate attack upon them, but because he hoped to slip by them and
+get away. Of course they could follow him upon the ocean and fight him
+if their vessels were fast enough, but once out of the river with plenty
+of sea-room, he would have twenty chances of escape where now he had
+one.
+
+But Mr. Rhett did not intend that the pirates should play him this
+little trick; he wanted to fight the dastardly wretches in the river,
+where they could not get away, and he had no idea of letting them sneak
+out to sea. Consequently as the _Royal James_, under full sail, was
+making her way down the river, keeping as far as possible from her two
+enemies, Mr. Rhett ordered his ships to bear down upon her so as to cut
+off her retreat and force her toward the opposite shore of the river.
+This manoeuvre was performed with great success. The two Charles Town
+sloops sailed so boldly and swiftly toward the _Royal James_ that the
+latter was obliged to hug the shore, and the first thing the pirates
+knew they were stuck fast and tight upon a sand bar. Three minutes
+afterward the _Henry_ ran upon a sand bar, and there being enough of
+these obstructions in that river to satisfy any ordinary demand, the
+_Sea-Nymph_ very soon grounded herself upon another of them. But
+unfortunately she took up her permanent position at a considerable
+distance from her consort.
+
+Here now were the vessels which were to conduct this memorable
+sea-fight, all three fast in the sand and unable to move, and their
+predicament was made the worse by the fact that it would be five hours
+before the tide would rise high enough for any one of them to float. The
+positions of the three vessels were very peculiar and awkward; the
+_Henry_ and the _Royal James_ were lying so near to each other that Mr.
+Rhett could have shot Major Bonnet with a pistol if the latter gentleman
+had given him the chance, and the _Sea-Nymph_ was so far away that she
+was entirely out of the fight, and her crew could do nothing but stand
+and watch what was going on between the other two vessels.
+
+But although they could not get any nearer each other, nor get away from
+each other, the pirates and Mr. Rhett's crew had no idea of postponing
+the battle until they should be afloat and able to fight in the ordinary
+fashion of ships; they immediately began to fire at each other with
+pistols, muskets, and cannon, and the din and roar was something that
+must have astonished the birds and beasts and fishes of that quiet
+region.
+
+As the tide continued to run out of the river, and its waters became
+more and more shallow, the two contending vessels began to careen over
+to one side, and, unfortunately for the _Henry_, they both careened in
+the same direction, and in such a manner that the deck of the _Royal
+James_ was inclined away from the _Henry_, while the deck of the latter
+leaned toward her pirate foe. This gave a great advantage to Bonnet and
+his crew, for they were in a great measure protected by the hull of
+their vessel, whereas the whole deck of the _Henry_ was exposed to the
+fire of the pirates. But Mr. Rhett and his South Carolinians were all
+brave men, and they blazed away with their muskets and pistols at the
+pirates whenever they could see a head above the rail of the _Royal
+James_, while with their cannon they kept firing at the pirate's hull.
+
+For five long hours the fight continued, but the cannon carried by the
+two vessels must have been of very small calibre, for if they had been
+firing at such short range and for such a length of time with modern
+guns, they must have shattered each other into kindling wood. But
+neither vessel seems to have been seriously injured, and although there
+were a good many men killed on both sides, the combat was kept up with
+great determination and fury. At one time it seemed almost certain that
+Bonnet would get the better of Mr. Rhett, and he ordered his black flag
+waved contemptuously in the air while his men shouted to the South
+Carolinians to come over and call upon them, but the South Carolina boys
+answered these taunts with cheers and fired away more furiously than
+ever.
+
+The tide was now coming in, and everybody on board the two fighting
+vessels knew very well that the first one of them which should float
+would have a great advantage over the other, and would probably be the
+conqueror. In came the tide, and still the cannons roared and the
+muskets cracked, while the hearts of the pirates and the South
+Carolinians almost stood still as they each watched the other vessel to
+see if she showed any signs of floating.
+
+At last such signs were seen; the _Henry_ was further from the shore
+than the _Royal James_, and she first felt the influence of the rising
+waters. Her masts began to straighten, and at last her deck was level,
+and she floated clear of the bottom while her antagonist still lay
+careened over on her side. Now the pirates saw there was no chance for
+them; in a very short time the other Carolina sloop would be afloat, and
+then the two vessels would bear down upon them and utterly destroy both
+them and their vessel. Consequently upon the _Royal James_ there was a
+general disposition to surrender and to make the best terms they could,
+for it would be a great deal better to submit and run the chance of a
+trial than to keep up the fight against enemies so much superior both in
+numbers and ships, who would soon be upon them.
+
+But Bonnet would not listen to one word of surrender. Rather than give
+up the fight he declared he would set fire to the powder magazine of
+the _Royal James_ and blow himself, his ship, and his men high up into
+the air. Although he had not a sailor's skill, he possessed a soldier's
+soul, and in spite of his being a dastardly and cruel pirate he was a
+brave man. But Bonnet was only one, and his crew numbered dozens, and
+notwithstanding his furiously dissenting voice it was determined to
+surrender, and when Mr. Rhett sailed up to the _Royal James_, intending
+to board her if the pirates still showed resistance, he found them ready
+to submit to terms and to yield themselves his prisoners.
+
+Thus ended the great sea-fight between the private gentlemen, and thus
+ended Stede Bonnet's career. He and his men were taken to Charles Town,
+where most of the pirate crew were tried and executed. The green-hand
+pirate, who had wrought more devastation along the American coast than
+many a skilled sea-robber, was held in custody to await his trial, and
+it seems very strange that there should have been a public sentiment in
+Charles Town which induced the officials to treat this pirate with a
+certain degree of respect simply from the fact that his station in life
+had been that of a gentleman. He was a much more black-hearted scoundrel
+than any of his men, but they were executed as soon as possible while
+his trial was postponed and he was allowed privileges which would never
+have been accorded a common pirate. In consequence of this leniency he
+escaped and had to be retaken by Mr. Rhett. It was so long before he was
+tried that sympathy for his misfortunes arose among some of the
+tender-hearted citizens of Charles Town whose houses he would have
+pillaged and whose families he would have murdered if the exigencies of
+piracy had rendered such action desirable.
+
+Finding that other people were trying to save his life, Bonnet came down
+from his high horse and tried to save it himself by writing piteous
+letters to the Governor, begging for mercy. But the Governor of South
+Carolina had no notion of sparing a pirate who had deliberately put
+himself under the protection of the law in order that he might better
+pursue his lawless and wicked career, and the green hand, with the black
+heart, was finally hung on the same spot where his companions had been
+executed.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+A Six Weeks' Pirate
+
+
+About the time of Stede Bonnet's terminal adventures a very
+unpretentious pirate made his appearance in the waters of New York. This
+was a man named Richard Worley, who set himself up in piracy in a very
+small way, but who, by a strict attention to business, soon achieved a
+remarkable success. He started out as a scourge upon the commerce of the
+Atlantic Ocean with only an open boat and eight men. In this small craft
+he went down the coast of New Jersey taking everything he could from
+fishing boats and small trading vessels until he reached Delaware Bay,
+and here he made a bold stroke and captured a good-sized sloop.
+
+When this piratical outrage was reported at Philadelphia, it created a
+great sensation, and people talked about it until the open boat with
+nine men grew into a great pirate ship filled with roaring desperadoes
+and cutthroats. From Philadelphia the news was sent to New York, and
+that government was warned of the great danger which threatened the
+coast. As soon as this alarming intelligence was received, the New
+Yorkers set to work to get up an expedition which should go out to sea
+and endeavor to destroy the pirate vessel before it could enter their
+port, and work havoc among their merchantmen.
+
+It may seem strange that a small open boat with nine men could stir up
+such a commotion in these two great provinces of North America, but if
+we can try to imagine the effect which would be produced among the
+inhabitants of Staten Island, or in the hearts of the dwellers in the
+beautiful houses on the shores of the Delaware River, by the
+announcement that a boat carrying nine desperate burglars was to be
+expected in their neighborhood, we can better understand what the people
+of New York and Philadelphia thought when they heard that Worley had
+captured a sloop in Delaware Bay.
+
+The expedition which left New York made a very unsuccessful cruise. It
+sailed for days and days, but never saw a sign of a boat containing nine
+men, and it returned disappointed and obliged to report no progress.
+With Worley, however, progress had been very decided. He captured
+another sloop, and this being a large one and suitable to his purposes,
+he took possession of it, gave up his open boat, and fitted out his
+prize as a regular piratical craft. With a good ship under his command,
+Captain Worley now enlarged his sphere of action; on both shores of
+Delaware Bay, and along the coast of New Jersey, he captured everything
+which came in his way, and for about three weeks he made the waters in
+those regions very hot for every kind of peaceable commercial craft. If
+Worley had been in trade, his motto would have been "Quick sales and
+small profits," for by day and by night, the _New York's Revenge_, which
+was the name he gave to his new vessel, cruised east and west and north
+and south, losing no opportunity of levying contributions of money,
+merchandise, food, and drink upon any vessel, no matter how
+insignificant it might be.
+
+The Philadelphians now began to tremble in their shoes; for if a boat
+had so quickly grown into a sloop, the sloop might grow into a fleet,
+and they had all heard of Porto Bello, and the deeds of the bloody
+buccaneers. The Governor of Pennsylvania, recognizing the impending
+danger and the necessity of prompt action, sent to Sandy Hook, where
+there was a British man-of-war, the _Phoenix_, and urged that this
+vessel should come down into Delaware Bay and put an end to the pirate
+ship which was ravaging those waters. Considering that Worley had not
+been engaged in piracy for much more than four weeks, he had created a
+reputation for enterprise and industry, which gave him a very important
+position as a commerce destroyer, and a large man-of-war did not think
+that he was too small game for her to hunt down, and so she set forth to
+capture or destroy the audacious Worley. But never a Worley of any kind
+did she see. While the _Phoenix_ was sailing along the coast,
+examining all the coves and harbors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the
+_New York's Revenge_ put out to sea, and then proceeded southward to
+discover a more undisturbed field of operation.
+
+We will now leave Worley's vessel sailing southward, and go for a time
+to Charles Town, where some very important events were taking place. The
+Governor of South Carolina had been very much afraid that the pirates in
+general would take some sort of revenge for the capture of Stede Bonnet,
+who was then in prison awaiting trial, and that if he should be
+executed, Charles Town might be visited by an overpowering piratical
+force, and he applied to England to have a war-vessel sent to the
+harbor. But before any relief of this kind could be expected, news came
+to Charles Town that already a celebrated pirate, named Moody, was
+outside of the harbor, capturing merchant vessels, and it might be that
+he was only waiting for the arrival of other pirate ships to sail into
+the harbor and rescue Bonnet.
+
+Now the Charles Town citizens saw that they must again act for
+themselves, and not depend upon the home government. If there were
+pirates outside the harbor, they must be met and fought before they
+could come up to the city; and the Governor and the Council decided
+immediately to fit out a little fleet. Four merchant vessels were
+quickly provided with cannon, ammunition, and men, and the command of
+this expedition would undoubtedly have been given to Mr. Rhett had it
+not been that he and the Governor had quarrelled. There being no naval
+officers in Charles Town, their fighting vessels had to be commanded by
+civilians, and Governor Johnson now determined that he would try his
+hand at carrying on a sea-fight. Mr. Rhett had done very well; why
+should not he?
+
+Before the Governor's little fleet of vessels, one of which was the
+_Royal James_, captured from Bonnet, was quite ready to sail, the
+Governor received news that his preparations had not been made a moment
+too soon, for already two vessels, one a large ship, and the other an
+armed sloop, had come into the outer harbor, and were lying at anchor
+off Sullivan's Island. It was very likely that Moody, having returned
+from some outside operation, was waiting there for the arrival of other
+pirate ships, and that it was an important thing to attack him at once.
+
+As it was very desirable that the pirates should not be frightened away
+before the Charles Town fleet could reach them, the vessels of the
+latter were made to look as much like mere merchantmen as possible.
+Their cannon were covered, and the greater part of the crews was kept
+below, out of sight. Thus the four ships came sailing down the bay, and
+early in the morning made their appearance in the sight of the pirates.
+When the ship and the big sloop saw the four merchant vessels sailing
+quietly out of the harbor, they made immediate preparations to capture
+them. Anchors were weighed, sails were set, and with a black flag flying
+from the topmast of each vessel, the pirates steered toward the Charles
+Town fleet, and soon approached near enough to the _King William_, which
+was the foremost of the fleet, to call upon her captain to surrender.
+But at that moment Governor Johnson, who was on board the
+_Mediterranean_, and could hear the insolent pirate shouting through his
+speaking-trumpet, gave a preconcerted signal. Instantly everything was
+changed. The covers were jerked off from the cannon of the pretended
+merchantmen, armed men poured up out of the holds, the flag of England
+was quickly raised on each one of them, and the sixty-eight guns of the
+combined fleet opened fire upon the astonished pirates.
+
+The ship which seemed to be the more formidable of the enemy's vessels
+had run up so close to her intended prey that two of Governor Johnson's
+vessels, the _Sea-Nymph_ and the _Royal James_, once so bitterly opposed
+to each other, but now fighting together in honest comradeship, were
+able to go between her and the open sea and so cut off her retreat.
+
+But if the captain of the pirate ship could not get away, he showed that
+he was very well able to fight, and although the two vessels which had
+made him the object of their attack were pouring cannon balls and musket
+shot upon him, he blazed away with his cannon and his muskets. The three
+vessels were so near each other that sometimes their yard-arms almost
+touched, so that this terrible fight seemed almost like a hand-to-hand
+conflict. For four hours the roaring of the cannon, the crushing of
+timbers, the almost continuous discharge of musketry were kept up, while
+the smoke of the battle frequently almost prevented the crews of the
+contending ships from seeing each other. Not so very far away the people
+of Charles Town, who were standing on the shores of their beautiful
+harbor, could see the fierce fight which was going on, and great was the
+excitement and anxiety throughout the city.
+
+But the time came when two ships grew too much for one, and as the
+_Royal James_ and the _Sea-Nymph_ were able to take positions by which
+they could rake the deck of the pirate vessel, many of her men gave up
+the fight and rushed down into the hold to save their lives. Then both
+the Charles Town vessels bore down upon the pirate and boarded her, and
+now there was another savage battle with pistols and cutlasses. The
+pirate captain and several of his crew were still on deck, and they
+fought like wounded lions, and it was not until they had all been cut
+down or shot that victory came to the men of Charles Town.
+
+Very soon after this terrible battle was over the waiting crowds in the
+city saw a glorious sight; the pirate ship came sailing slowly up the
+harbor, a captured vessel, with the _Sea-Nymph_ on one side and the
+_Royal James_ on the other, the colors of the Crown flying from the
+masts of each one of the three.
+
+The other pirate ship, which was quite large, seemed to be more
+fortunate than her companion, for she was able to get out to sea, and
+spreading all her sails she made every effort to escape. Governor
+Johnson, however, had no idea of letting her get away if he could help
+it. When a civilian goes out to fight a sea-battle he naturally wants to
+show what he can do, and Governor Johnson did not mean to let people
+think that Mr. Rhett was a better naval commander than he was. He
+ordered the _Mediterranean_ and the _King William_ to put on all sail,
+and away they went after the big ship. The retreating pirates did
+everything they could to effect escape, throwing over their cannon, and
+even their boats, in order to lighten their ship, but it was of no use.
+The Governor's vessels were the faster sailers, and when the _King
+William_ got near enough to fire a few cannon balls into the flying
+ship, the latter hauled down the black flag and without hesitation lay
+to and surrendered.
+
+It was plain enough that this ship was not manned by desperate pirates,
+and when Governor Johnson went on board of her he found her to be not
+really a pirate ship, but an English vessel which not long before had
+been captured by the pirates in whose company she had visited Charles
+Town harbor. She had been bringing over from England a company of
+convicts and what were called "covenant servants," who were going to the
+colonies to be disposed of to the planters for a term of years. Among
+these were thirty-six women, and when the South Carolinians went below
+they were greatly surprised to find the hold crowded with these
+unfortunate creatures, some of whom were nearly frightened to death. At
+the time of this vessel's capture the pirate captain had enlisted some
+of the convicts into his crew, as he needed men, and putting on board of
+his prize a few pirates to command her, the ship had been worked by such
+of her own crew and passengers as were willing to serve under pirates,
+while the others were shut up below.
+
+Here was a fine prize taken with very little trouble, and the _King
+William_ and the _Mediterranean_ returned to Charles Town with their
+captured ship, to be met with the shouts and cheers of the delighted
+citizens, already excited to a high pitch by the previous arrival of the
+captured pirate sloop.
+
+But Governor Johnson met with something else which made a stronger
+impression on him than the cheers of his townspeople, and this was the
+great surprise of finding that he had not fought and conquered the
+pirate Moody; without suspecting such a thing, he had crushed and
+utterly annihilated the dreaded Worley, whose deeds had created such a
+consternation in northern waters, and whose threatened approach had sent
+a thrill of excitement all down the coast. When this astonishing news
+became known, the flags of the city were waved more wildly, and the
+shouts and cheers rose higher.
+
+Thus came to an end, in the short time of six weeks, the career of
+Richard Worley, who, without doubt, did more piratical work in less time
+than any sea-robber on record.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+The Story of Two Women Pirates
+
+
+The history of the world gives us many instances of women who have taken
+the parts of men, almost always acquitting themselves with as much
+credit as if they had really belonged to the male sex, and, in our
+modern days, these instances are becoming more frequent than ever
+before. Joan of Arc put on a suit of armor and bravely led an army, and
+there have been many other fighting women who made a reputation for
+themselves; but it is very seldom that we hear of a woman who became a
+pirate. There were, however, two women pirates who made themselves very
+well known on our coast.
+
+The most famous of these women pirates was named Mary Reed. Her father
+was an English captain of a trading vessel, and her mother sailed with
+him. This mother had had an elder child, a son, and she also had a
+mother-in-law in England from whom she expected great things for her
+little boy. But the boy died, and Mrs. Reed, being afraid that her
+mother-in-law would not be willing to leave any property to a girl,
+determined to play a little trick, and make believe that her second
+child was also a boy.
+
+Consequently, as soon as the little girl, who, from her birth had been
+called Mary by her father and mother, was old enough to leave off baby
+clothes, she put on boy's clothes, and when the family returned to
+England a nice little boy appeared before his grandmother; but all this
+deception amounted to nothing, for the old lady died without leaving
+anything to the pretended boy. Mary's mother believed that her child
+would get along better in the world as a boy than she would as a girl,
+and therefore she still dressed her in masculine clothes, and put her
+out to service as a foot-boy, or one of those youngsters who now go by
+the name of "Buttons."
+
+But Mary did not fancy blacking boots and running errands. She was very
+well satisfied to be a boy, but she wanted to live the kind of a boy's
+life which would please her fancy, and as she thought life on the ocean
+wave would suit her very well, she ran away from her employer's house
+and enlisted on board a man-of-war as a powder monkey.
+
+After a short time, Mary found that the ocean was not all that she
+expected it to be, and when she had grown up so that she looked like a
+good strapping fellow, she ran away from the man-of-war when it was in
+an English port, and went to Flanders, and there she thought she would
+try something new, and see whether or not she would like a soldier's
+life better than that of a sailor. She enlisted in a regiment of foot,
+and in the course of time she became a very good soldier and took part
+in several battles, firing her musket and charging with her bayonet as
+well as any of the men beside her.
+
+But there is a great deal of hard work connected with infantry service,
+and although she was eager for the excitement of battle with the
+exhilarating smell of powder and the cheering shouts of her
+fellow-soldiers, Mary did not fancy tramping on long marches, carrying
+her heavy musket and knapsack. She got herself changed into a regiment
+of cavalry, and here, mounted upon a horse, with the encumbrances she
+disliked to carry comfortably strapped behind her, Mary felt much more
+at ease, and much better satisfied. But she was not destined to achieve
+fame as a dashing cavalry man with foaming steed and flashing sabre. One
+of her comrades was a very prepossessing young fellow, and Mary fell in
+love with him, and when she told him she was not really a cavalry man
+but a cavalry woman, he returned her affection, and the two agreed that
+they would quit the army, and set up domestic life as quiet civilians.
+They were married, and went into the tavern-keeping business. They were
+both fond of horses, and did not wish to sever all connection with the
+method of life they had just given up, and so they called their little
+inn the Three Horse Shoes, and were always glad when any one of their
+customers came riding up to their stables, instead of simply walking in
+their door.
+
+But this domestic life did not last very long. Mary's husband died, and,
+not wishing to keep a tavern by herself, she again put on the dress of a
+man and enlisted as a soldier. But her military experience did not
+satisfy her, and after all she believed that she liked the sea better
+than the land, and again she shipped as a sailor on a vessel bound for
+the West Indies.
+
+Now Mary's desire for change and variety seemed likely to be fully
+satisfied. The ship was taken by English pirates, and as she was English
+and looked as if she would make a good freebooter, they compelled her to
+join them, and thus it was that she got her first idea of a pirate's
+life. When this company disbanded, she went to New Providence and
+enlisted on a privateer, but, as was very common on such vessels
+commissioned to perform acts of legal piracy, the crew soon determined
+that illegal piracy was much preferable, so they hoisted the black flag,
+and began to scourge the seas.
+
+Mary Reed was now a regular pirate, with a cutlass, pistol, and every
+outward appearance of a daring sea-robber, except that she wore no
+bristling beard, but as her face was sunburned and seamed by the
+weather, she looked mannish enough to frighten the senses out of any
+unfortunate trader on whose deck she bounded in company with her
+shouting, hairy-faced companions. It is told of her that she did not
+fancy the life of a pirate, but she seemed to believe in the principle
+of whatever is worth doing is worth doing well; she was as ready with
+her cutlass and her pistol as any other ocean bandit.
+
+But although Mary was a daring pirate, she was also a woman, and again
+she fell in love. A very pleasant and agreeable sailor was taken
+prisoner by the crew of her ship, and Mary concluded that she would take
+him as her portion of the spoils. Consequently, at the first port they
+touched she became again a woman and married him, and as they had no
+other present method of livelihood he remained with her on her ship.
+Mary and her husband had no real love for a pirate's life, and they
+determined to give it up as soon as possible, but the chance to do so
+did not arrive. Mary had a very high regard for her new husband, who was
+a quiet, amiable man, and not at all suited to his present life, and as
+he had become a pirate for the love of her, she did everything she could
+to make life easy for him.
+
+She even went so far as to fight a duel in his place, one of the crew
+having insulted him, probably thinking him a milksop who would not
+resent an affront. But the latent courage of Mary's husband instantly
+blazed up, and he challenged the insulter to a duel. Although Mary
+thought her husband was brave enough to fight anybody, she thought that
+perhaps, in some ways, he was a milksop and did not understand the use
+of arms nearly as well as she did. Therefore, she made him stay on board
+the ship while she went to a little island near where they were anchored
+and fought the duel with sword and pistol. The man pirate and the woman
+pirate now went savagely to work, and it was not long before the man
+pirate lay dead upon the sand, while Mary returned to an admiring crew
+and a grateful husband.
+
+During her piratical career Mary fell in with another woman pirate, Anne
+Bonny, by name, and these women, being perhaps the only two of their
+kind, became close friends. Anne came of a good family. She was the
+daughter of an Irish lawyer, who went to Carolina and became a planter,
+and there the little girl grew up. When her mother died she kept the
+house, but her disposition was very much more masculine than feminine.
+She was very quick-tempered and easily enraged, and it is told of her
+that when an Englishwoman, who was working as a servant in her father's
+house, had irritated Anne by some carelessness or impertinence, that
+hot-tempered young woman sprang upon her and stabbed her with a
+carving-knife.
+
+It is not surprising that Anne soon showed a dislike for the humdrum
+life on a plantation, and meeting with a young sailor, who owned nothing
+in the world but the becoming clothes he wore, she married him.
+Thereupon her father, who seems to have been as hot-headed as his
+daughter, promptly turned her out of doors. The fiery Anne was glad
+enough to adopt her husband's life, and she went to sea with him,
+sailing to New Providence. There she was thrown into an entirely new
+circle of society. Pirates were in the habit of congregating at this
+place, and Anne was greatly delighted with the company of these daring,
+dashing sea-robbers, of whose exploits she had so often heard. The more
+she associated with the pirates, the less she cared for the plain,
+stupid sailors, who were content with the merchant service, and she
+finally deserted her husband and married a Captain Rackham, one of the
+most attractive and dashing pirates of the day.
+
+Anne went on board the ship of her pirate husband, and as she was sure
+his profession would exactly suit her wild and impetuous nature, she
+determined also to become a pirate. She put on man's clothes, girded to
+her side a cutlass, and hung pistols in her belt. During many voyages
+Anne sailed with Captain Rackham, and wherever there was pirate's work
+to do, she was on deck to do it. At last the gallant captain came to
+grief. He was captured and condemned to death. Now there was an
+opportunity for Anne's nature to assert itself, and it did, but it was a
+very different sort of nature from that of Mary Reed. Just before his
+execution Anne was admitted to see her husband, but instead of offering
+to do anything that might comfort him or palliate his dreadful
+misfortune, she simply stood and contemptuously glared at him. She was
+sorry, she said, to see him in such a predicament, but she told him
+plainly that if he had had the courage to fight like a man, he would not
+then be waiting to be hung like a dog, and with that she walked away and
+left him.
+
+On the occasion when Captain Rackham had been captured, Mary Reed and
+her husband were on board his ship, and there was, perhaps, some reason
+for Anne's denunciation of the cowardice of Captain Rackham. As has been
+said, the two women were good friends and great fighters, and when they
+found the vessel engaged in a fight with a man-of-war, they stood
+together upon the deck and boldly fought, although the rest of the crew,
+and even the captain himself, were so discouraged by the heavy fire
+which was brought to bear on them, that they had retreated to the hold.
+
+Mary and Anne were so disgusted at this exhibition of cowardice, that
+they rushed to the hatchways and shouted to their dastardly companions
+to come up and help defend the ship, and when their entreaties were
+disregarded they were so enraged that they fired down into the hold,
+killing one of the frightened pirates and wounding several others. But
+their ship was taken, and Mary and Anne, in company with all the pirates
+who had been left alive, were put in irons and carried to England.
+
+When she was in prison, Mary declared that she and her husband had
+firmly intended to give up piracy and become private citizens. But when
+she was put on trial, the accounts of her deeds had a great deal more
+effect than her words upon her judges, and she was condemned to be
+executed. She was saved, however, from this fate by a fever of which she
+died soon after her conviction.
+
+The impetuous Anne was also condemned, but the course of justice is
+often very curious and difficult to understand, and this hard-hearted
+and sanguinary woman was reprieved and finally pardoned. Whether or not
+she continued to disport herself as a man we do not know, but it is
+certain that she was the last of the female pirates.
+
+There are a great many things which women can do as well as men, and
+there are many professions and lines of work from which they have been
+long debarred, and for which they are most admirably adapted, but it
+seems to me that piracy is not one of them. It is said that a woman's
+nature is apt to carry her too far, and I have never heard of any man
+pirate who would allow himself to become so enraged against the
+cowardice of his companions that he would deliberately fire down into
+the hold of a vessel containing his wife and a crowd of his former
+associates.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX
+
+A Pirate from Boyhood
+
+
+About the beginning of the eighteenth century there lived in
+Westminster, England, a boy who very early in life made a choice of a
+future career. Nearly all boys have ideas upon this subject, and while
+some think they would like to be presidents or generals of armies,
+others fancy that they would prefer to be explorers of unknown countries
+or to keep candy shops. But it generally happens that these youthful
+ideas are never carried out, and that the boy who would wish to sell
+candy because he likes to eat it, becomes a farmer on the western
+prairie, where confectionery is never seen, and the would-be general
+determines to study for the ministry.
+
+But Edward Low, the boy under consideration, was a different sort of a
+fellow. The life of a robber suited his youthful fancy, and he not only
+adopted it at a very early age, but he stuck to it until the end of his
+life. He was much stronger and bolder than the youngsters with whom he
+associated, and he soon became known among them as a regular land
+pirate. If a boy possessed anything which Ned Low desired, whether it
+happened to be an apple, a nut, or a farthing, the young robber gave
+chase to him, and treated him as a pirate treats a merchant vessel which
+he has boarded.
+
+Not only did young Low resemble a pirate in his dishonest methods, but
+he also resembled one in his meanness and cruelty; if one of his victims
+was supposed by him to have hidden any of the treasures which his captor
+believed him to possess, Low would inflict upon him every form of
+punishment which the ingenuity of a bad boy could devise, in order to
+compel him to confess where he had concealed the half-penny which had
+been given to him for holding a horse, or the ball with which he had
+been seen playing. In the course of time this young street pirate became
+a terror to all boys in that part of London in which he lived, and by
+beginning so early he acquired a great proficiency in dishonest and
+cruel practices.
+
+It is likely that young Low inherited his knavish disposition, for one
+of his brothers became a very bold and ingenious thief, and invented a
+new kind of robbery which afterwards was popular in London. This brother
+grew to be a tall fellow, and it was his practice to dress himself like
+a porter,--one of those men who in those days carried packages and
+parcels about the city. On his head he poised a basket, and supporting
+this burden with his hands, he hurriedly made his way through the most
+crowded streets of London.
+
+The basket was a heavy one, but it did not contain any ordinary goods,
+such as merchandise or marketing; but instead of these it held a very
+sharp and active boy seven years old, one of the younger members of the
+Low family. As the tall brother pushed rapidly here and there among the
+hurrying people on the sidewalks, the boy in the basket would suddenly
+stretch out with his wiry young arm, and snatch the hat or the wig of
+some man who might pass near enough for him to reach him. This done, the
+porter and his basket would quickly be lost in the crowd; and even if
+the astonished citizen, suddenly finding himself hatless and wigless,
+beheld the long-legged Low, he would have no reason to suppose that that
+industrious man with the basket on his head had anything to do with the
+loss of his head covering.
+
+This new style of street robbery must have been quite profitable, for of
+course the boy in the basket was well instructed, and never snatched at
+a shabby hat or a poor looking wig. The elder Low came to have a good
+many imitators, and it happened in the course of time that many a worthy
+citizen of London wished there were some harmless way of gluing his wig
+to the top of his head, or that it were the custom to secure the hat by
+means of strings tied under the chin.
+
+As Ned Low grew up to be a strong young fellow, he also grew
+discontented with the pilferings and petty plunders which were possible
+to him in the London streets, and so he went to sea and sailed to
+America. He landed in Boston, and, as it was necessary to work in order
+to eat,--for opportunities of a dishonest livelihood had not yet opened
+themselves before him,--he undertook to learn the trade of a rigger, but
+as he was very badly suited to any sort of steady occupation, he soon
+quarrelled with his master, ran away, and got on board a vessel bound
+for Honduras.
+
+For a time he earned a livelihood by cutting logwood, but it was not
+long before he quarrelled with the captain of the vessel for whom he was
+working, and finally became so enraged that he tried to kill him. He did
+not succeed in this dastardly attempt, but as he could not commit murder
+he decided to do the next worst thing, and so gathering together twelve
+of the greatest rascals among his companions, they seized a boat, went
+out to the captain's schooner, which was lying near shore, and took
+possession of it. Then they hoisted anchor, ran up the sail, and put out
+to sea, leaving the captain and the men who were with him to take care
+of themselves the best that they could and live on logwood leaves if
+they could find nothing else to eat.
+
+Now young Low was out upon the ocean in possession of a vessel and in
+command of twelve sturdy scoundrels, and he did not have the least
+trouble in the world in making up his mind what he should do next. As
+soon as he could manufacture a black flag from materials he found on
+board, he flung this ominous ensign to the breeze, and declared himself
+a pirate. This was the summit of his ambition, and in this new
+profession he had very little to learn. From a boy thief to a man pirate
+the way is easy enough.
+
+The logwood schooner, of course, was not provided with the cannon,
+cutlasses, and pistols necessary for piratical undertakings, and
+therefore Low found himself in the position of a young man beginning
+business with a very small capital. So, in the hopes of providing
+himself with the necessary appliances for his work, Low sailed for one
+of the islands of the West Indies which was a resort for pirates, and
+there he had very good fortune, for he fell in with a man named Lowther
+who was already well established in the profession of piracy.
+
+When Low sailed into the little port with his home-made black flag
+floating above him, Lowther received him with the greatest courtesy and
+hospitality, and shortly afterwards proposed to the newly fledged pirate
+to go into partnership with him. This offer was accepted, and Low was
+made second in command of the little fleet of two vessels, each of
+which was well provided with arms, ammunition, and all things necessary
+for robbery on the high seas.
+
+The partnership between these two rascals did not continue very long.
+They took several valuable prizes, and the more booty he obtained, the
+higher became Low's opinion of himself, and the greater his desire for
+independent action. Therefore it was that when they had captured a large
+brigantine, Low determined that he would no longer serve under any man.
+He made a bargain with Lowther by which they dissolved partnership, and
+Low became the owner of the brigantine. In this vessel, with forty-four
+men as a crew, he again started out in the black flag business on his
+own account, and parting from his former chief officer, he sailed
+northward.
+
+As Low had landed in Boston, and had lived some time in that city, he
+seems to have conceived a fancy for New England, which, however, was not
+at all reciprocated by the inhabitants of that part of the country.
+
+Among the first feats which Low performed in New England waters was the
+capture of a sloop about to enter one of the ports of Rhode Island. When
+he had taken everything out of this vessel which he wanted, Low cut away
+the yards from the masts and stripped the vessel of all its sails and
+rigging. As his object was to get away from these waters before his
+presence was discovered by the people on shore, he not only made it
+almost impossible to sail the vessel he had despoiled, but he wounded
+the captain and others of the peaceful crew so that they should not be
+able to give information to any passing craft. Then he sailed away as
+rapidly as possible in the direction of the open sea. In spite, however,
+of all the disadvantages under which they labored, the crew of the
+merchant vessel managed to get into Block Island, and from there a small
+boat was hurriedly rowed over to Rhode Island, carrying intelligence of
+the bold piracy which had been committed so close to one of its ports.
+
+When the Governor heard what had happened, he quickly sent out drummers
+to sound the alarm in the seaport towns and to call upon volunteers to
+go out and capture the pirates. So great was the resentment caused by
+the audacious deed of Low that a large number of volunteers hastened to
+offer their services to the Governor, and two vessels were fitted out
+with such rapidity that, although their commanders had only heard of the
+affair in the morning, they were ready to sail before sunset. They put
+on all sail and made the best speed they could, and although they really
+caught sight of Low's ship, the pirate vessel was a swifter craft than
+those in pursuit of her, and the angry sailors of Rhode Island were at
+last compelled to give up the chase.
+
+The next of Low's transactions was on a wholesale scale. Rounding Cape
+Cod and sailing up the coast, he at last reached the vicinity of
+Marblehead, and there, in a harbor called in those days Port Rosemary,
+he found at anchor a fleet of thirteen merchant vessels. This was a
+grand sight, as welcome to the eye of a pirate as a great nugget of gold
+would be to a miner who for weary days had been washing yellow grains
+from the "pay dirt" which he had laboriously dug from the hard soil.
+
+It would have been easy for Low to take his pick from these vessels
+quietly resting in the little harbor, for he soon perceived that none of
+them were armed nor were they able to protect themselves from assault,
+but his audacity was of an expansive kind, and he determined to capture
+them all. Sailing boldly into the harbor, he hoisted the dreadful black
+flag, and then, standing on his quarter-deck with his speaking-trumpet,
+he shouted to each vessel as he passed it that if it did not surrender
+he would board it and give no quarter to captain or crew. Of course
+there was nothing else for the peaceful sailors to do but to submit, and
+so this greedy pirate took possession of each vessel in turn and
+stripped it of everything of value he cared to take away.
+
+But he did not confine himself to stealing the goods on board these
+merchantmen. As he preferred to command several vessels instead of one,
+he took possession of some of the best of the ships and compelled as
+many of their men as he thought he would need to enter his service.
+Then, as one of the captured vessels was larger and better than his
+brigantine, he took it for his own ship, and at the head of the little
+pirate fleet he bid farewell to Marblehead and started out on a grand
+cruise against the commerce of our coast.
+
+It is wonderful how rapidly this man Low succeeded in his business
+enterprises. Beginning with a little vessel with a dozen unarmed men, he
+found himself in a very short time at the head of what was perhaps the
+largest piratical force in American waters. What might have happened if
+Nature had not taken a hand in this game it is not difficult to imagine,
+for our seaboard towns, especially those of the South, would have been
+an easy prey to Low and his fleet.
+
+But sailing down to the West Indies, probably in order to fit out his
+ships with guns, arms, and ammunition before beginning a naval campaign,
+his fleet was overtaken by a terrible storm, and in order to save the
+vessels they were obliged to throw overboard a great many of the heavier
+goods they had captured at Marblehead, and when at last they found
+shelter in the harbor of a small island, they were glad that they had
+escaped with their lives.
+
+The grasping and rapacious Low was not now in a condition to proceed to
+any rendezvous of pirates where he might purchase the arms and supplies
+he needed. A great part of his valuable plunder had gone to the bottom
+of the sea, and he was therefore obliged to content himself with
+operations upon a comparatively small scale.
+
+How small and contemptible this scale was it is scarcely possible for an
+ordinary civilized being to comprehend, but the soul of this ignoble
+pirate was capable of extraordinary baseness.
+
+When he had repaired the damage to his ships, Low sailed out from the
+island, and before long he fell in with a wrecked vessel which had lost
+all its masts in a great storm, and was totally disabled, floating about
+wherever the winds chose to blow it. The poor fellows on board greatly
+needed succor, and there is no doubt that when they saw the approach of
+sails their hopes rose high, and even if they had known what sort of
+ships they were which were making their way toward them, they would
+scarcely have suspected that the commander of these goodly vessels was
+such an utterly despicable scoundrel as he proved to be.
+
+Instead of giving any sort of aid to the poor shipwrecked crew, Low and
+his men set to work to plunder their vessel, and they took from it a
+thousand pounds in money, and everything of value which they could find
+on board. Having thus stripped the unfortunate wreck, they departed,
+leaving the captain and crew of the disabled vessel to perish by storm
+or starvation, unless some other vessel, manned by human beings and not
+pitiless beasts, should pass their way and save them.
+
+Low now commenced a long series of piratical depredations. He captured
+many merchantmen, he committed the vilest cruelties upon his victims,
+and in every way proved himself to be one of the meanest and most
+black-hearted pirates of whom we have any account. It is not necessary
+to relate his various dastardly performances. They were all very much of
+the same order, and none of them possessed any peculiar interest; his
+existence is referred to in these pages because he was one of the most
+noted and successful pirates of his time, and also because his career
+indicated how entirely different was the character of the buccaneers of
+previous days from that of the pirates who in the eighteenth century
+infested our coast. The first might have been compared to bold and
+dashing highwaymen, who at least showed courage and daring; but the
+others resembled sneak thieves, always seeking to commit a crime if they
+could do it in safety, but never willing to risk their cowardly necks in
+any danger.
+
+The buccaneers of the olden days were certainly men of the greatest
+bravery. They did not hesitate to attack well-armed vessels manned by
+crews much larger than their own, and in later periods they faced cannon
+and conquered cities. Their crimes were many and vile; but when they
+committed cruelties they did so in order to compel their prisoners to
+disclose their hidden treasures, and when they attacked a Spanish
+vessel, and murdered all on board, they had in their hearts the
+remembrance that the Spanish naval forces gave no quarter to buccaneers.
+
+But pirates such as Edward Low showed not one palliating feature in
+their infamous characters. To rob and desert a shipwrecked crew was only
+one of Low's contemptible actions. It appears that he seldom attacked a
+vessel from which there seemed to be any probability of resistance, and
+we read of no notable combats or sea-fights in which he was engaged. He
+preyed upon the weak and defenceless, and his inhuman cruelties were
+practised, not for the sake of extorting gain from his victims, but
+simply to gratify his spite and love of wickedness.
+
+There were men among Low's followers who looked upon him as a bold and
+brave leader, for he was always a blusterer and a braggart, and there
+were honest seamen and merchants who were very much afraid of him, but
+time proved that there was no reason for any one to suppose that Edward
+Low had a spark of courage in his composition. He was brave enough when
+he was attacking an unarmed crew, but when he had to deal with any
+vessel capable of inflicting any injury upon him he was a coward indeed.
+
+Sailing in company with one companion vessel,--for he had discarded the
+greater part of his pirate fleet,--Low sighted a good-sized ship at a
+considerable distance, and he and his consort immediately gave chase,
+supposing the distant vessel might prove to be a good prize. It so
+happened, however, that the ship discovered by Low was an English
+man-of-war, the _Greyhound_, which was cruising along the coast looking
+for these very pirates, who had recently committed some outrageous
+crimes upon the crews of merchant vessels in those waters.
+
+When the two ships, with the black flags floating above them and their
+decks crowded with desperate fellows armed with pistols and cutlasses,
+drew near to the vessel, of which they expected to make a prize, they
+were greatly amazed when she suddenly turned in her course and delivered
+a broadside from her heavy cannon. The pirates returned the fire, for
+they were well armed with cannon, and there was nothing else for them to
+do but fight, but the combat was an extremely short one. Low's consort
+was soon disabled by the fire from the man-of-war, and, as soon as he
+perceived this, the dastardly Low, without any regard for his
+companions in arms, and with no thought for anything but his own safety,
+immediately stopped fighting, and setting all sail, sped away from the
+scene of combat as swiftly as it was possible for the wind to force his
+vessel through the water.
+
+The disabled pirate ship was quickly captured, and not long afterwards
+twenty-five of her crew were tried, convicted, and hung near Newport,
+Rhode Island. But the arrant Low escaped without injury, and continued
+his career of contemptible crime for some time longer. What finally
+became of him is not set down in the histories of piracy. It is not
+improbable that if the men under his command were not too brutally
+stupid to comprehend his cowardly unfaithfulness to them, they suddenly
+removed from this world one of the least interesting of all base
+beings.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX
+
+The Pirate of the Gulf
+
+
+At the beginning of this century there was a very able and, indeed,
+talented man living on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, who has been
+set down in the historical records of the times as a very important
+pirate, and who is described in story and in tradition as a gallant and
+romantic freebooter of the sea. This man was Jean Lafitte, widely known
+as "The Pirate of the Gulf," and yet who was, in fact, so little of a
+pirate, that it may be doubted whether or not he deserves a place in
+these stories of American pirates.
+
+Lafitte was a French blacksmith, and, while still a young man, he came
+with his two brothers to New Orleans, and set up a shop in Bourbon
+Street, where he did a good business in horseshoeing and in other
+branches of his trade. But he had a soul which soared high above his
+anvil and his bellows, and perceiving an opportunity to take up a very
+profitable occupation, he gave up blacksmithing, and with his two
+brothers as partners became a superintendent of privateering and a
+general manager of semi-legalized piracy. The business opportunity which
+came to the watchful and clear-sighted Lafitte may be briefly described.
+
+In the early years of this century the Gulf of Mexico was the scene of
+operations of small vessels calling themselves privateers, but in fact
+pirates. War had broken out between England and Spain, on the one side,
+and France on the other, and consequently the first-named nations were
+very glad to commission privateers to prey upon the commerce of France.
+There were also privateers who had been sent out by some of the Central
+American republics who had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and these,
+considering Spanish vessels as their proper booty, were very much
+inclined to look upon English vessels in the same light, as the English
+and Spanish were allies. And when a few French privateers came also upon
+the scene, they helped to make the business of legitimate capture of
+merchantmen, during the time of war, a very complicated affair.
+
+But upon one point these privateers, who so often acted as pirates,
+because they had not the spare time in which to work out difficult
+problems of nationality, were all agreed: when they had loaded their
+ships with booty, they must sail to some place where it would be safe to
+dispose of it. So, in course of time, the bay of Barrataria, about
+forty miles south of New Orleans and very well situated for an illegal
+settlement, was chosen as a privateers' port, and a large and
+flourishing colony soon grew up at the head of the bay, to which came
+privateers of every nationality to dispose of their cargoes.
+
+Of course there was no one in the comparatively desolate country about
+Barrataria who could buy the valuable goods which were brought into that
+port, but the great object of the owners of this merchandise was to
+smuggle it up to New Orleans and dispose of it. But there could be no
+legitimate traffic of this sort, for the United States at the very
+beginning of the century was at peace with England, France, and Spain,
+and therefore could not receive into any of her ports, goods which had
+been captured from the ships of these nations. Consequently the plunder
+of the privateering pirates of Barrataria was brought up to New Orleans
+in all sorts of secret and underhand fashions, and sold to merchants in
+that city, without the custom house having anything to do with the
+importations.
+
+Now this was great business; Jean Lafitte had a great business mind, and
+therefore it was not long after his arrival at Barrataria before he was
+the head man in the colony, and director-in-chief of all its operations.
+Thus, by becoming a prominent figure in a piratical circle, he came to
+be considered a pirate, and as such came down to us in the pages of
+history.
+
+But, in fact, Lafitte never committed an act of piracy in his life; he
+was a blacksmith, and knew no more about sailing a ship or even the
+smallest kind of a boat than he knew about the proper construction of a
+sonnet. He did not even try, like the celebrated Bonnet, to find other
+people who would navigate a vessel for him, for he had no taste for the
+ocean wave, and all that he had to do he did upon firm, dry land. It is
+said of him that he was never at sea but twice in his life: once when he
+came from France, and once when he left this country, and on neither
+occasion did he sail under the "Jolly Roger," as the pirate flag was
+sometimes called. For these reasons it seems scarcely right to call
+Lafitte a pirate, but as he has been so generally considered in that
+light, we will admit him into the bad company, the stories of whose
+lives we are now telling.
+
+The energy and business abilities of Jean Lafitte soon made themselves
+felt not only in Barrataria, but in New Orleans. The privateers found
+that he managed their affairs with much discretion and considerable
+fairness, and, while they were willing to depend upon him, they were
+obliged to obey him.
+
+On the other hand, the trade of New Orleans was very much influenced by
+the great quantities of goods which under Lafitte's directions were
+smuggled into the city. Many merchants and shopkeepers who possessed no
+consciences to speak of were glad to buy these smuggled goods for very
+little money and to sell them at low prices and large profits, but the
+respectable business men, who were obliged to pay market prices for
+their goods, were greatly disturbed by the large quantities of
+merchandise which were continually smuggled into New Orleans and sold at
+rates with which they could not compete.
+
+It was toward the end of our war with England, which began in 1812, that
+the government of the United States, urged to speedy action by the
+increasing complaints of the law-abiding merchants of New Orleans,
+determined to send out a small naval force and entirely break up the
+illegitimate rendezvous at Barrataria.
+
+Lafitte's two brothers were in New Orleans acting as his agents, and one
+of them, Dominique, was arrested and thrown into prison, and Commodore
+Patterson, who was commanding at that station, was ordered to fit out an
+expedition as quickly as possible to sail down to Barrataria to destroy
+the ships found in the bay, to capture the town, and to confiscate and
+seize upon all goods which might be found in the place.
+
+When Jean Lafitte heard of the vigorous methods which were about to be
+taken against him, his prospects must have been very gloomy ones, for
+of course he could not defend his little colony against a regular naval
+force, which, although its large vessels could not sail into the shallow
+bay, could send out boats with armed crews against which it would be
+foolish for him to contend. But just about this time a very strange
+thing happened.
+
+A strong English naval force had taken possession of Pensacola, Florida,
+and as an attack upon New Orleans was contemplated, the British
+commander, knowing of Lafitte's colony at Barrataria, and believing that
+these hardy and reckless adventurers would be very valuable allies in
+the proposed movement upon the city, determined to send an ambassador to
+Lafitte to see what could be done in the way of forming an alliance with
+this powerful leader of semi-pirates and smugglers.
+
+Accordingly, the sloop of war _Sophia_, commanded by Captain Lockyer,
+was sent to Barrataria to treat with Lafitte, and when this vessel
+arrived off the mouth of the harbor, which she could not enter, she
+began firing signal guns in order to attract the attention of the people
+of the colony. Naturally enough, the report of the _Sophia's_ guns
+created a great excitement in Barrataria, and all the people who
+happened to be at the settlement at that time crowded out upon the beach
+to see what they could see. But the war-vessel was too far away for them
+to distinguish her nationality, and Lafitte quickly made up his mind
+that the only thing for him to do was to row out to the mouth of the
+harbor and see what was the matter. Without doubt he feared that this
+was the United States vessel which had come to break up his settlement.
+But whether this was the case or not, he must go out and try the effect
+of fair words, for he had no desire whatever to defend his interests by
+hard blows.
+
+Before Lafitte reached the vessel he was surprised to find it was a
+British man-of-war, not an American, and very soon he saw that a boat
+was coming from it and rowing toward him. This boat contained Captain
+Lockyer and two other officers, besides the men who rowed it; when the
+two boats met, the captain told who he was, and asked if Mr. Lafitte
+could be found in Barrataria, stating that he had an important document
+to deliver to him. The cautious Frenchman did not immediately admit that
+he was the man for whom the document was intended, but he said that
+Lafitte was at Barrataria, and as the two boats rowed together toward
+shore, he thought it would be as well to announce his position, and did
+so.
+
+When the crowd of privateersmen saw the officers in British uniform
+landing upon their beach, they were not inclined to receive them kindly,
+for an attack had been made upon the place by a small British force
+some time before, and a good deal of damage had been done. But Lafitte
+quieted the angry feelings of his followers, conducted the officers to
+his own house, and treated them with great hospitality, which he was
+able to do in fine style, for his men brought into Barrataria luxuries
+from all parts of the world.
+
+When Lafitte opened the package of papers which Captain Lockyer handed
+to him, he was very much surprised. Some of them were general
+proclamations announcing the intention of Great Britain if the people of
+Louisiana did not submit to her demands; but the most important document
+was one in which Colonel Nichols, commander-in-chief of the British
+forces in the Gulf, made an offer to Lafitte and his followers to become
+a part of the British navy, promising to give amnesty to all the
+inhabitants of Barrataria, to make their leader a captain in the navy,
+and to do a great many other good things, provided they would join his
+forces, and help him to attack the American seaports. In case, however,
+this offer should be refused, the Barratarians were assured that their
+place would speedily be attacked, their vessels destroyed, and all their
+possessions confiscated.
+
+Lafitte was now in a state of great perplexity. He did not wish to
+become a British captain, for his knowledge of horseshoeing would be of
+no service to him in such a capacity; moreover, he had no love for the
+British, and his sympathies were all on the side of the United States in
+this war. But here he was with the British commander asking him to
+become an ally, and to take up arms against the United States,
+threatening at the same time to destroy him and his colony in case of
+refusal. On the other hand, there was the United States at that moment
+preparing an expedition for the purpose of breaking up the settlement at
+Barrataria, and to do everything which the British threatened to do, in
+case Lafitte did not agree to their proposals.
+
+The chief of Barrataria might have made a poor show with a cutlass and a
+brace of pistols, but he was a long-headed and sagacious man, with a
+strong tendency to practical diplomacy. He was in a bad scrape, and he
+must act with decision and promptness, if he wanted to get out of it.
+
+The first thing he did was to gain time by delaying his answer to the
+proposition brought by Captain Lockyer. He assured that officer that he
+must consult with his people and see what they would do, and that he
+must also get rid of some truculent members of the colony, who would
+never agree to act in concert with England, and that therefore he should
+not be able to give an answer to Colonel Nichols for two weeks. Captain
+Lockyer saw for himself that it would not be an easy matter to induce
+these independent and unruly fellows, many of whom already hated
+England, to enter into the British service. Therefore he thought it
+would be wise to allow Lafitte the time he asked for, and he sailed
+away, promising to return in fifteen days.
+
+The diplomatic Lafitte, having finished for a time his negotiations with
+the British, lost no time in communicating with the American
+authorities. He sent to Governor Claiborne, of Louisiana, all the
+documents he had received from Captain Lockyer, and wrote him a letter
+in which he told him everything that had happened, and thus gave to the
+United States the first authentic information of the proposed attack
+upon Mobile and New Orleans. He then told the Governor that he had no
+intention of fighting against the country he had adopted; that he was
+perfectly willing and anxious to aid her in every manner possible, and
+that he and his followers would gladly join the United States against
+the British, asking nothing in return except that all proceedings
+against Barrataria should be abandoned, that amnesty should be given to
+him and his men, that his brother should be released from prison, and
+that an act of oblivion should be passed by which the deeds of the
+smugglers of Barrataria should be condoned and forgotten.
+
+Furthermore, he said that if the United States government did not
+accede to his proposition, he would immediately depart from Barrataria
+with all his men; for no matter what loss such a proceeding might prove
+to him he would not remain in a place where he might be forced to act
+against the United States. Lafitte also wrote to a member of the
+Louisiana Legislature, and his letters were well calculated to produce a
+very good effect in his favor.
+
+The Governor immediately called a council, and submitted the papers and
+letters received from Lafitte. When these had been read, two points were
+considered by the council, the first being that the letters and
+proclamations from the British might be forgeries concocted by Lafitte
+for the purpose of averting the punishment which was threatened by the
+United States; and the second, whether or not it would be consistent
+with the dignity of the government to treat with this leader of pirates
+and smugglers.
+
+The consultation resulted in a decision not to have anything to do with
+Lafitte in the way of negotiations, and to hurry forward the
+preparations which had been made for the destruction of the dangerous
+and injurious settlement at Barrataria. In consequence of this action of
+the council, Commodore Patterson sailed in a very few days down the
+Mississippi and attacked the pirate settlement at Barrataria with such
+effect that most of her ships were taken, many prisoners and much
+valuable merchandise captured, and the whole place utterly destroyed.
+Lafitte, with the greater part of his men, had fled to the woods, and so
+escaped capture.
+
+Captain Lockyer at the appointed time arrived off the harbor of
+Barrataria and blazed away with his signal guns for forty-eight hours,
+but receiving no answer, and fearing to send a boat into the harbor,
+suspecting treachery on the part of Lafitte, he was obliged to depart in
+ignorance of what had happened.
+
+When the papers and letters which had been sent to Governor Claiborne by
+Lafitte were made public, the people of Louisiana and the rest of the
+country did not at all agree with the Governor and his council in regard
+to their decision and their subsequent action, and Edward Livingston, a
+distinguished lawyer of New York, took the part of Lafitte and argued
+very strongly in favor of his loyalty and honesty in the affair.
+
+Even when it was discovered that all the information which Lafitte had
+sent was perfectly correct, and that a formidable attack was about to be
+made upon New Orleans, General Jackson, who was in command in that part
+of the country, issued a very savage proclamation against the British
+method of making war, and among their wicked deeds he mentioned nothing
+which seemed to him to be worse than their endeavor to employ against
+the citizens of the United States the band of "hellish banditti"
+commanded by Jean Lafitte!
+
+But public opinion was strongly in favor of the ex-pirate of the Gulf,
+and as things began to look more and more serious in regard to New
+Orleans, General Jackson was at last very glad, in spite of all that he
+had said, to accept the renewed offers of Lafitte and his men to assist
+in the defence of the city, and in consequence of his change of mind
+many of the former inhabitants of Barrataria fought in the battle of New
+Orleans and did good work. Their services were so valuable, in fact,
+that when the war closed President Madison issued a proclamation in
+which it was stated that the former inhabitants of Barrataria, in
+consequence of having abandoned their wicked ways of life, and having
+assisted in the defence of their country, were now granted full pardon
+for all the evil deeds they had previously committed.
+
+Now Lafitte and his men were free and independent citizens of the United
+States; they could live where they pleased without fear of molestation,
+and could enter into any sort of legal business which suited their
+fancy, but this did not satisfy Lafitte. He had endeavored to take a
+prompt and honest stand on the side of his country; his offers had been
+treated with contempt and disbelief; he had been branded as a deceitful
+knave, and no disposition had been shown to act justly toward him until
+his services became so necessary to the government that it was obliged
+to accept them.
+
+Consequently, Lafitte, accompanied by some of his old adherents,
+determined to leave a country where his loyalty had received such
+unsatisfactory recognition, and to begin life again in some other part
+of the American continent. Not long after the war he sailed out upon the
+Gulf of Mexico,--for what destination it is not known, but probably for
+some Central American port,--and as nothing was ever heard of him or his
+party, it is believed by many persons that they all perished in the
+great storm which arose soon after their departure. There were other
+persons, however, who stated that he reached Yucatan, where he died on
+dry land in 1826.
+
+But the end of Lafitte is no more doubtful than his right to the title
+given to him by people of a romantic turn of mind, and other persons of
+a still more fanciful disposition might be willing to suppose that the
+Gulf of Mexico, indignant at the undeserved distinction which had come
+to him, had swallowed him up in order to put an end to his pretension to
+the title of "The Pirate of the Gulf."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI
+
+The Pirate of the Buried Treasure
+
+
+Among all the pirates who have figured in history, legend, or song,
+there is one whose name stands preëminent as the typical hero of the
+dreaded black flag. The name of this man will instantly rise in the mind
+of almost every reader, for when we speak of pirates we always think of
+Captain Kidd.
+
+In fact, however, Captain Kidd was not a typical pirate, for in many
+ways he was different from the ordinary marine freebooter, especially
+when we consider him in relation to our own country. All other pirates
+who made themselves notorious on our coast were known as robbers,
+pillagers, and ruthless destroyers of life and property, but Captain
+Kidd's fame was of another kind. We do not think of him as a pirate who
+came to carry away the property of American citizens, for nearly all the
+stories about him relate to his arrival at different points on our
+shores for the sole purpose of burying and thus concealing the rich
+treasures which he had collected in other parts of the world.
+
+This novel reputation given a pirate who enriched our shore by his
+deposits and took away none of the possessions of our people could not
+fail to make Captain Kidd a most interesting personage, and the result
+has been that he has been lifted out of the sphere of ordinary history
+and description into the region of imagination and legendary romance. In
+a word, he has been made a hero of fiction and song. It may be well,
+then, to assume that there are two Captain Kidds,--one the Kidd of
+legend and story, and the other the Kidd of actual fact, and we will
+consider, one at a time, the two characters in which we know the man.
+
+As has been said before, nearly all the stories of the legendary Captain
+Kidd relate to his visits along our northern coast, and even to inland
+points, for the purpose of concealing the treasures which had been
+amassed in other parts of the world.
+
+Thus if we were to find ourselves in almost any village or rural
+settlement along the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, and were to
+fall in with any old resident who was fond of talking to strangers, he
+would probably point out to us the blackened and weather-beaten ribs of
+a great ship which had been wrecked on the sand bar off the coast during
+a terrible storm long ago; he would show us where the bathing was
+pleasant and safe; he would tell us of the best place for fishing, and
+probably show us the high bluff a little back from the beach from which
+the Indian maiden leaped to escape the tomahawk of her enraged lover,
+and then he would be almost sure to tell us of the secluded spot where
+it was said Captain Kidd and his pirates once buried a lot of treasure.
+
+If we should ask our garrulous guide why this treasure had not been dug
+up by the people of the place, he would probably shake his head and
+declare that personally he knew nothing about it, but that it was
+generally believed that it was there, and he had heard that there had
+been people who had tried to find it, but if they did find any they
+never said anything about it, and it was his opinion that if Captain
+Kidd ever put any gold or silver or precious stones under the ground on
+that part of the coast these treasures were all there yet.
+
+Further questioning would probably develop the fact that there was a
+certain superstition which prevented a great many people from
+interfering with the possible deposits which Captain Kidd had made in
+their neighborhood, and although few persons would be able to define
+exactly the foundation of the superstition, it was generally supposed
+that most of the pirates' treasures were guarded by pirate ghosts. In
+that case, of course, timid individuals would be deterred from going
+out by themselves at night,--for that was the proper time to dig for
+buried treasure,--and as it would not have been easy to get together a
+number of men each brave enough to give the others courage, many of the
+spots reputed to be the repositories of buried treasure have never been
+disturbed.
+
+In spite of the fear of ghosts, in spite of the want of accurate
+knowledge in regard to favored localities, in spite of hardships,
+previous disappointments, or expected ridicule, a great many extensive
+excavations have been made in the sands or the soil along the coasts of
+our northern states, and even in quiet woods lying miles from the sea,
+to which it would have been necessary for the pirates to carry their
+goods in wagons, people have dug and hoped and have gone away sadly to
+attend to more sensible business, and far up some of our rivers--where a
+pirate vessel never floated--people have dug with the same hopeful
+anxiety, and have stopped digging in the same condition of dejected
+disappointment.
+
+Sometimes these enterprises were conducted on a scale which reminds us
+of the operations on the gold coast of California. Companies were
+organized, stock was issued and subscribed for, and the excavations were
+conducted under the direction of skilful treasure-seeking engineers.
+
+It is said that not long ago a company was organized in Nova Scotia for
+the purpose of seeking for Captain Kidd's treasures in a place which it
+is highly probable Captain Kidd never saw. A great excavation having
+been made, the water from the sea came in and filled it up, but the work
+was stopped only long enough to procure steam pumps with which the big
+hole could be drained. At last accounts the treasures had not been
+reached, and this incident is mentioned only to show how this belief in
+buried treasures continues even to the present day.
+
+There is a legend which differs somewhat from the ordinary run of these
+stories, and it is told about a little island on the coast of Cape Cod,
+which is called Hannah Screecher's Island, and this is the way its name
+came to it.
+
+Captain Kidd while sailing along the coast, looking for a suitable place
+to bury some treasure, found this island adapted to his purpose, and
+landed there with his savage crew, and his bags and boxes, and his gold
+and precious stones. It was said to be the habit of these pirates,
+whenever they made a deposit on the coast, to make the hole big enough
+not only to hold the treasure they wished to deposit there, but the body
+of one of the crew,--who was buried with the valuables in order that his
+spirit might act as a day and night watchman to frighten away people who
+might happen to be digging in that particular spot.
+
+The story relates that somewhere on the coast Captain Kidd had captured
+a young lady named Hannah, and not knowing what to do with her, and
+desiring not to commit an unnecessary extravagance by disposing of a
+useful sailor, he determined to kill Hannah, and bury her with the
+treasure, in order that she might keep away intruders until he came for
+it.
+
+It was very natural that when Hannah was brought on shore and found out
+what was going to be done with her, she should screech in a most
+dreadful manner, and although the pirates soon silenced her and covered
+her up, they did not succeed in silencing her spirit, and ever since
+that time,--according to the stories told by some of the older
+inhabitants of Cape Cod,--there may be heard in the early dusk of the
+evening the screeches of Hannah coming across the water from her little
+island to the mainland.
+
+Mr. James Herbert Morse has written a ballad founded upon this peculiar
+incident, and with the permission of the author we give it here:--
+
+          THE LADY HANNAH.
+
+    "Now take my hand," quoth Captain Kidd,
+      "The air is blithe, I scent the meads."
+    He led her up the starlit sands,
+      Out of the rustling reeds.
+
+    The great white owl then beat his breast,
+      Athwart the cedars whirred and flew;
+    "There's death in our handsome captain's eye"
+      Murmured the pirate's crew.
+
+    And long they lay upon their oars
+      And cursed the silence and the chill;
+    They cursed the wail of the rising wind,
+      For no man dared be still.
+
+    Of ribald songs they sang a score
+      To stifle the midnight sobs and sighs,
+    They told wild tales of the Indian Main,
+      To drown the far-off cries.
+
+    But when they ceased, and Captain Kidd
+      Came down the sands of Dead Neck Isle,
+    "My lady wearies," he grimly said,
+      "And she would rest awhile.
+
+    "I've made her a bed--'tis here, 'tis there,
+      And she shall wake, be it soon or long,
+    Where grass is green and wild birds sing
+      And the wind makes undersong.
+
+    "Be quick, my men, and give a hand,
+      She loved soft furs and silken stuff,
+    Jewels of gold and silver bars,
+      And she shall have enough.
+
+    "With silver bars and golden ore,
+      So fine a lady she shall be,
+    A many suitor shall seek her long,
+      As they sought Penelope.
+
+    "And if a lover would win her hand,
+      No lips e'er kissed a hand so white,
+    And if a lover would hear her sing,
+      She sings at owlet light.
+
+    "But if a lover would win her gold,
+      And his hands be strong to lift the lid,
+    'Tis here, 'tis there, 'tis everywhere--
+      In the chest," quoth Captain Kidd.
+
+    They lifted long, they lifted well,
+      Ingots of gold, and silver bars,
+      And silken plunder from wild, wild wars,
+    But where they laid them, no man can tell,
+      Though known to a thousand stars.
+
+But the ordinary Kidd stories are very much the same, and depend a good
+deal upon the character of the coast and upon the imagination of the
+people who live in that region. We will give one of them as a sample,
+and from this a number of very good pirate stories could be manufactured
+by ingenious persons.
+
+It was a fine summer night late in the seventeenth century. A young man
+named Abner Stout, in company with his wife Mary, went out for a walk
+upon the beach. They lived in a little village near the coast of New
+Jersey. Abner was a good carpenter, but a poor man; but he and his wife
+were very happy with each other, and as they walked toward the sea in
+the light of the full moon, no young lovers could have been more gay.
+
+When they reached a little bluff covered with low shrubbery, which was
+the first spot from which they could have a full view of the ocean,
+Abner suddenly stopped, and pointed out to Mary an unusual sight. There,
+as plainly in view as if it had been broad daylight, was a vessel lying
+at the entrance of the little bay. The sails were furled, and it was
+apparently anchored.
+
+For a minute Abner gazed in utter amazement at the sight of this vessel,
+for no ships, large or small, came to this little lonely bay. There was
+a harbor two or three miles farther up the coast to which all trading
+craft repaired. What could the strange ship want here?
+
+This unusual visitor to the little bay was a very low and very long,
+black schooner, with tall masts which raked forward, and with something
+which looked very much like a black flag fluttering in its rigging. Now
+the truth struck into the soul of Abner. "Hide yourself, Mary," he
+whispered. "It is a pirate ship!" And almost at the same instant the
+young man and his wife laid themselves flat on the ground among the
+bushes, but they were very careful, each of them, to take a position
+which would allow them to peep out through the twigs and leaves upon the
+scene before them.
+
+There seemed to be a good deal of commotion on board the black schooner,
+and very soon a large boat pushed off from her side, and the men in it
+began rowing rapidly toward the shore, apparently making for a spot on
+the beach, not far from the bluff on which Abner and Mary were
+concealed. "Let us get up and run," whispered Mary, trembling from head
+to toe. "They are pirates, and they are coming here!"
+
+"Lie still! Lie still!" said Abner. "If we get up and leave these
+bushes, we shall be seen, and then they will be after us! Lie still, and
+do not move a finger!"
+
+The trembling Mary obeyed her husband, and they both lay quite still,
+scarcely breathing, with eyes wide open. The boat rapidly approached the
+shore. Abner counted ten men rowing and one man sitting in the stern.
+The boat seemed to be heavily loaded, and the oarsmen rowed hard.
+
+Now the boat was run through the surf to the beach, and its eleven
+occupants jumped out. There was no mistaking their character. They were
+true pirates. They had great cutlasses and pistols, and one of them was
+very tall and broad shouldered, and wore an old-fashioned cocked hat.
+
+"That's Captain Kidd," whispered Abner to his wife, and she pressed his
+hand to let him know that she thought he must be right.
+
+Now the men came up high upon the beach, and began looking about here
+and there as if they were searching for something. Mary was filled with
+horror for fear they should come to that bluff to search, but Abner knew
+there was no danger of that. They had probably come to those shores to
+bury treasure, as if they were great sea-turtles coming up upon the
+beach to lay their eggs, and they were now looking for some good spot
+where they might dig.
+
+Presently the tall man gave some orders in a low voice, and then his men
+left him to himself, and went back to the boat. There was a great pine
+tree standing back a considerable distance from the water, battered and
+racked by storms, but still a tough old tree. Toward this the pirate
+captain stalked, and standing close to it, with his back against it, he
+looked up into the sky. It was plain that he was looking for a star.
+There were very few of these luminaries to be seen in the heavens, for
+the moon was so bright. But as Abner looked in the direction in which
+the pirate captain gazed, he saw a star still bright in spite of the
+moonlight.
+
+With his eyes fixed upon this star, the pirate captain now stepped
+forward, making long strides. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
+Then he stopped, plunged his right heel in the soft ground, and turned
+squarely about to the left, so that his broad back was now parallel
+with a line drawn from the pine tree to the star.
+
+At right angles to this line the pirate now stepped forward, making as
+before seven long paces. Then he stopped, dug his heel into the ground,
+and beckoned to his men. Up they came running, carrying picks and
+spades, and with great alacrity they began to dig at the place where the
+captain had marked with his heel.
+
+It was plain that these pirates were used to making excavations, for it
+was not long before the hole was so deep that those within it could not
+be seen. Then the captain gave an order to cease digging, and he and all
+the pirates went back to the boat.
+
+For about half an hour,--though Mary thought it was a longer time than
+that,--those pirates worked very hard carrying great boxes and bags from
+the boat to the excavation. When everything had been brought up, two of
+the pirates went down into the hole, and the others handed to them the
+various packages. Skilfully and quickly they worked, doubtless storing
+their goods with great care, until nearly everything which had been
+brought from the boat had been placed in the deep hole. Some rolls of
+goods were left upon the ground which Mary thought were carpets, but
+which Abner believed to be rich Persian rugs, or something of that
+kind.
+
+Now the captain stepped aside, and picking up from the sand some little
+sticks and reeds, he selected ten of them, and with these in one hand,
+and with their ends protruding a short distance above his closed
+fingers, he rejoined his men. They gathered before him, and he held out
+toward them the hand which contained the little sticks.
+
+"They're drawing lots!" gasped Abner, and Mary trembled more than she
+had done yet.
+
+Now the lots were all drawn, and one man, apparently a young pirate,
+stepped out from among his fellows. His head was bowed, and his arms
+were folded across his manly chest. The captain spoke a few words, and
+the young pirate advanced alone to the side of the deep hole.
+
+Mary now shut her eyes tight, tight; but Abner's were wide open. There
+was a sudden gleam of cutlasses in the air; there was one short,
+plaintive groan, and the body of the young pirate fell into the hole.
+Instantly all the other goods, furs, rugs, or whatever they were, were
+tumbled in upon him. Then the men began to shovel in the earth and sand,
+and in an incredibly short time the hole was filled up even with the
+ground about it.
+
+Of course all the earth and sand which had been taken out of the hole
+could not now be put back into it. But these experienced treasure-hiders
+knew exactly what to do with it. A spadeful at a time, the soil which
+could not be replaced was carried to the sea, and thrown out into the
+water, and when the whole place had been carefully smoothed over, the
+pirates gathered sticks and stones, and little bushes, and great masses
+of wild cranberry vines, and scattered them about over the place so that
+it soon looked exactly like the rest of the beach about it.
+
+Then the tall captain gave another low command, the pirates returned to
+their boat, it was pushed off, and rapidly rowed back to the schooner.
+Up came the anchor, up went the dark sails. The low, black schooner was
+put about, and very soon she was disappearing over the darkening waters,
+her black flag fluttering fiercely high above her.
+
+"Now, let us run," whispered poor Mary, who, although she had not seen
+everything, imagined a great deal; for as the pirates were getting into
+their boat she had opened her eyes and had counted them, and there were
+only nine beside the tall captain.
+
+Abner thought that her advice was very good, and starting up out of the
+brushwood they hastened home as fast as their legs would carry them.
+
+[Illustration: "Two of the pirates went down into the hole."--p. 302.]
+
+The next day Abner seemed to be a changed man. He had work to do, but he
+neglected it. Never had such a thing happened before! For hours he sat
+in front of the house, looking up into the sky, counting one, two,
+three, four, five, six, seven. Then he would twist himself around on
+the little bench, and count seven more.
+
+This worthy couple lived in a small house which had a large cellar, and
+during the afternoon of that day Abner busied himself in clearing out
+this cellar, and taking out of it everything which it had contained. His
+wife asked no questions. In her soul she knew what Abner was thinking
+about.
+
+Supper was over, and most of the people in the village were thinking of
+going to bed, when Abner said to Mary, "Let us each take a spade, and I
+will carry a pail, and we will go out upon the beach for a walk. If any
+one should see us, they would think that we were going to dig for
+clams."
+
+"Oh, no, dear Abner!" cried Mary. "We must not dig there! Think of that
+young pirate. Almost the first thing we would come to would be him!"
+
+"I have thought of that," said Abner; "but do you not believe that the
+most Christian act that you and I could do would be to take him out and
+place him in a proper grave near by?"
+
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mary, "do not say such a thing as that! Think of his
+ghost! They killed him and put him there, that his ghost might guard
+their treasure. You know, Abner, as well as I do, that this is their
+dreadful fashion!"
+
+"I know all about that," said Abner, "and that is the reason I wish to
+go to-night. I do not believe there has yet been time enough for his
+ghost to form. But let us take him out now, dear Mary, and lay him
+reverently away,--and then!" He looked at her with flashing eyes.
+
+"But, Abner," said she, "do you think we have the right?"
+
+"Of course we have," said he. "Those treasures do not belong to the
+pirates. If we take them they are treasure-trove, and legally ours. And
+think, dear Mary, how poor we are to-night, and how rich we may be
+to-morrow! Come, get the pail. We must be off."
+
+Running nearly all the way,--for they were in such a hurry they could
+not walk,--Abner and Mary soon reached the bluff, and hastily scrambling
+down to the beach below, they stood upon the dreadful spot where Captain
+Kidd and his pirates had stood the night before. There was the old
+battered pine tree, reaching out two of its bare arms encouragingly
+toward them.
+
+Without loss of time Abner walked up to the tree, put his back to it,
+and then looked up into the sky. Now he called Mary to him. "Which star
+do you think he looked at, good wife?" said he. "There is a bright one
+low down, and then there is another one a little higher up, and farther
+to the right, but it is fainter."
+
+"It would be the bright one, I think," said Mary. And then Abner, his
+eyes fixed upon the bright star, commenced to stride. One, two, three,
+four, five, six, seven. Turning squarely around to the left he again
+made seven paces. And now he beckoned vigorously to Mary to come and
+dig.
+
+For about ten minutes they dug, and then they laid bare a great mass of
+rock. "This isn't the place," cried Abner. "I must begin again. I did
+not look at the right star. I will take the other one."
+
+For the greater part of that night Abner and Mary remained upon the
+beach. Abner would put his back against the tree, fix his eyes upon
+another star, stride forward seven paces, and then seven to the left,
+and he would come upon a little scrubby pine tree. Of course that was
+not the place.
+
+The moon soon began to set, and more stars came out, so that Abner had a
+greater choice. Again and again he made his measurements, and every time
+that he came to the end of his second seven paces, he found that it
+would have been impossible for the pirates to make their excavation
+there.
+
+There was clearly something wrong. Abner thought that he had not
+selected the right star, and Mary thought that his legs were not long
+enough. "That pirate captain," quoth she, "had a long and manly stride.
+Seven of his paces would go a far greater distance than seven of yours,
+Abner."
+
+Abner made his paces a little longer; but although he and his wife kept
+up their work until they could see the early dawn, they found no spot
+where it would be worth while to dig, and so mournfully they returned to
+their home and their empty cellar.
+
+As long as the moonlight lasted, Abner and Mary went to the little beach
+at the head of the bay, and made their measurements and their searches
+but although they sometimes dug a little here and there, they always
+found that they had not struck the place where the pirate's treasure had
+been buried.
+
+When at last they gave up their search, and concluded to put their
+household goods back into their cellar, they told the tale to some of
+the neighbors, and other people went out and dug, not only at the place
+which had been designated, but miles up and down the coast, and then the
+story was told and retold, and so it has lasted until the present day.
+
+What has been said about the legendary Captain Kidd will give a very
+good idea of the estimation in which this romantic being has been, and
+still is, held in various parts of the country, and, of all the
+legitimate legends about him, there is not one which recounts his
+piratical deeds upon our coast. The reason for this will be seen when we
+consider, in the next chapter, the life and character of the real
+Captain Kidd.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII
+
+The Real Captain Kidd
+
+
+William Kidd, or Robert Kidd, as he is sometimes called, was a sailor in
+the merchant service who had a wife and family in New York. He was a
+very respectable man and had a good reputation as a seaman, and about
+1690, when there was war between England and France, Kidd was given the
+command of a privateer, and having had two or three engagements with
+French vessels he showed himself to be a brave fighter and a prudent
+commander.
+
+Some years later he sailed to England, and, while there, he received an
+appointment of a peculiar character. It was at the time when the King of
+England was doing his best to put down the pirates of the American
+coast, and Sir George Bellomont, the recently appointed Governor of New
+York, recommended Captain Kidd as a very suitable man to command a ship
+to be sent out to suppress piracy. When Kidd agreed to take the position
+of chief of marine police, he was not employed by the Crown, but by a
+small company of gentlemen of capital, who formed themselves into a sort
+of trust company, or society for the prevention of cruelty to
+merchantmen, and the object of their association was not only to put
+down pirates, but to put some money in their own pockets as well.
+
+Kidd was furnished with two commissions, one appointing him a privateer
+with authority to capture French vessels, and the other empowering him
+to seize and destroy all pirate ships. Kidd was ordered in his mission
+to keep a strict account of all booty captured, in order that it might
+be fairly divided among those who were stockholders in the enterprise,
+one-tenth of the total proceeds being reserved for the King.
+
+Kidd sailed from England in the _Adventure_, a large ship with thirty
+guns and eighty men, and on his way to America he captured a French ship
+which he carried to New York. Here he arranged to make his crew a great
+deal larger than had been thought necessary in England, and, by offering
+a fair share of the property he might confiscate on piratical or French
+ships, he induced a great many able seamen to enter his service, and
+when the _Adventure_ left New York she carried a crew of one hundred and
+fifty-five men.
+
+With a fine ship and a strong crew, Kidd now sailed out of the harbor
+with the ostensible purpose of putting down piracy in American waters,
+but the methods of this legally appointed marine policeman were very
+peculiar, and, instead of cruising up and down our coast, he gayly
+sailed away to the island of Madeira, and then around the Cape of Good
+Hope to Madagascar and the Red Sea, thus getting himself as far out of
+his regular beat as any New York constable would have been had he
+undertaken to patrol the dominions of the Khan of Tartary.
+
+By the time Captain Kidd reached that part of the world he had been at
+sea for nearly a year without putting down any pirates or capturing any
+French ships. In fact, he had made no money whatever for himself or the
+stockholders of the company which had sent him out. His men, of course,
+must have been very much surprised at this unusual neglect of his own
+and his employers' interests, but when he reached the Red Sea, he boldly
+informed them that he had made a change in his business, and had decided
+that he would be no longer a suppressor of piracy, but would become a
+pirate himself; and, instead of taking prizes of French ships
+only,--which he was legally empowered to do,--he would try to capture
+any valuable ship he could find on the seas, no matter to what nation it
+belonged. He then went on to state that his present purpose in coming
+into those oriental waters was to capture the rich fleet from Mocha
+which was due in the lower part of the Red Sea about that time.
+
+The crew of the _Adventure_, who must have been tired of having very
+little to do and making no money, expressed their entire approbation of
+their captain's change of purpose, and readily agreed to become pirates.
+
+Kidd waited a good while for the Mocha fleet, but it did not arrive, and
+then he made his first venture in actual piracy. He overhauled a Moorish
+vessel which was commanded by an English captain, and as England was not
+at war with Morocco, and as the nationality of the ship's commander
+should have protected him, Kidd thus boldly broke the marine laws which
+governed the civilized world and stamped himself an out-and-out pirate.
+After the exercise of considerable cruelty he extorted from his first
+prize a small amount of money; and although he and his men did not gain
+very much booty, they had whetted their appetites for more, and Kidd
+cruised savagely over the eastern seas in search of other spoils.
+
+After a time the _Adventure_ fell in with a fine English ship, called
+the _Royal Captain_, and although she was probably laden with a rich
+cargo, Kidd did not attack her. His piratical character was not yet
+sufficiently formed to give him the disloyal audacity which would enable
+him with his English ship and his English crew, to fall upon another
+English ship manned by another English crew. In time his heart might be
+hardened, but he felt that he could not begin with this sort of thing
+just yet. So the _Adventure_ saluted the _Royal Captain_ with
+ceremonious politeness, and each vessel passed quietly on its way. But
+this conscientious consideration did not suit Kidd's crew. They had
+already had a taste of booty, and they were hungry for more, and when
+the fine English vessel, of which they might so easily have made a
+prize, was allowed to escape them, they were loud in their complaints
+and grumblings.
+
+One of the men, a gunner, named William Moore, became actually
+impertinent upon the subject, and he and Captain Kidd had a violent
+quarrel, in the course of which the captain picked up a heavy iron-bound
+bucket and struck the dissatisfied gunner on the head with it. The blow
+was such a powerful one that the man's skull was broken, and he died the
+next day.
+
+Captain Kidd's conscience seems to have been a good deal in his way; for
+although he had been sailing about in various eastern waters, taking
+prizes wherever he could, he was anxious that reports of his misdeeds
+should not get home before him. Having captured a fine vessel bound
+westward, he took from her all the booty he could, and then proceeded
+to arrange matters so that the capture of this ship should appear to be
+a legal transaction. The ship was manned by Moors and commanded by a
+Dutchman, and of course Kidd had no right to touch it, but the
+sharp-witted and business-like pirate selected one of the passengers and
+made him sign a paper declaring that he was a Frenchman, and that he
+commanded the ship. When this statement had been sworn to before
+witnesses, Kidd put the document in his pocket so that if he were called
+upon to explain the transaction he might be able to show that he had
+good reason to suppose that he had captured a French ship, which, of
+course, was all right and proper.
+
+Kidd now ravaged the East India waters with great success and profit,
+and at last he fell in with a very fine ship from Armenia, called the
+_Quedagh Merchant_, commanded by an Englishman. Kidd's conscience had
+been growing harder and harder every day, and he did not now hesitate to
+attack any vessel. The great merchantman was captured, and proved to be
+one of the most valuable prizes ever taken by a pirate, for Kidd's own
+share of the spoils amounted to more than sixty thousand dollars. This
+was such a grand haul that Kidd lost no time in taking his prize to some
+place where he might safely dispose of her cargo, and get rid of her
+passengers. Accordingly he sailed for Madagascar. While he was there he
+fell in with the first pirate vessel he had met since he had started out
+to put down piracy. This was a ship commanded by an English pirate named
+Culliford, and here would have been a chance for Captain Kidd to show
+that, although he might transgress the law himself, he would be true to
+his engagement not to allow other people to do so; but he had given up
+putting down piracy, and instead of apprehending Culliford he went into
+partnership with him, and the two agreed to go pirating together.
+
+This partnership, however, did not continue long, for Captain Kidd began
+to believe that it was time for him to return to his native country and
+make a report of his proceedings to his employers. Having confined his
+piratical proceedings to distant parts of the world, he hoped that he
+would be able to make Sir George Bellomont and the other stockholders
+suppose that his booty was all legitimately taken from French vessels
+cruising in the east, and when the proper division should be made he
+would be able to quietly enjoy his portion of the treasure he had
+gained.
+
+He did not go back in the _Adventure_, which was probably not large
+enough to carry all the booty he had amassed, but putting everything on
+board his latest prize, the _Quedagh Merchant_, he burned his old ship
+and sailed homeward.
+
+When he reached the West Indies, however, our wary sea-robber was very
+much surprised to find that accounts of his evil deeds had reached
+America, and that the colonial authorities had been so much incensed by
+the news that the man who had been sent out to suppress piracy had
+become himself a pirate, that they had circulated notices throughout the
+different colonies, urging the arrest of Kidd if he should come into any
+American port. This was disheartening intelligence for the
+treasure-laden Captain Kidd, but he did not despair; he knew that the
+love of money was often as strong in the minds of human beings as the
+love of justice. Sir George Bellomont, who was now in New York, was one
+of the principal stockholders in the enterprise, and Kidd hoped that the
+rich share of the results of his industry which would come to the
+Governor might cause unpleasant reports to be disregarded. In this case
+he might yet return to his wife and family with a neat little fortune,
+and without danger of being called upon to explain his exceptional
+performances in the eastern seas.
+
+Of course Kidd was not so foolish and rash as to sail into New York
+harbor on board the _Quedagh Merchant_, so he bought a small sloop and
+put the most valuable portion of his goods on board her, leaving his
+larger vessel, which also contained a great quantity of merchandise, in
+the charge of one of his confederates, and in the little sloop he
+cautiously approached the coast of New Jersey. His great desire was to
+find out what sort of a reception he might expect, so he entered
+Delaware Bay, and when he stopped at a little seaport in order to take
+in some supplies, he discovered that there was but small chance of his
+visiting his home and his family, and of making a report to his superior
+in the character of a deserving mariner who had returned after a
+successful voyage. Some people in the village recognized him, and the
+report soon spread to New York that the pirate Kidd was lurking about
+the coast. A sloop of war was sent out to capture his vessel, and
+finding that it was impossible to remain in the vicinity where he had
+been discovered, Kidd sailed northward and entered Long Island Sound.
+
+Here the shrewd and anxious pirate began to act the part of the watch
+dog who has been killing sheep. In every way he endeavored to assume the
+appearance of innocence and to conceal every sign of misbehavior. He
+wrote to Sir George Bellomont that he should have called upon him in
+order to report his proceedings and hand over his profits, were it not
+for the wicked and malicious reports which had been circulated about
+him.
+
+It was during this period of suspense, when the returned pirate did not
+know what was likely to happen, that it is supposed, by the believers in
+the hidden treasures of Kidd, that he buried his coin and bullion and
+his jewels, some in one place and some in another, so that if he were
+captured his riches would not be taken with him. Among the wild stories
+which were believed at that time, and for long years after, was one to
+the effect that Captain Kidd's ship was chased up the Hudson River by a
+man-of-war, and that the pirates, finding they could not get away, sank
+their ship and fled to the shore with all the gold and silver they could
+carry, which they afterwards buried at the foot of Dunderbergh Mountain.
+A great deal of rocky soil has been turned over at different times in
+search of these treasures, but no discoveries of hidden coin have yet
+been reported. The fact is, however, that during this time of anxious
+waiting Kidd never sailed west of Oyster Bay in Long Island. He was
+afraid to approach New York, although he had frequent communication with
+that city, and was joined by his wife and family.
+
+About this time occurred an incident which has given rise to all the
+stories regarding the buried treasure of Captain Kidd. The disturbed and
+anxious pirate concluded that it was a dangerous thing to keep so much
+valuable treasure on board his vessel which might at any time be
+overhauled by the authorities, and he therefore landed at Gardiner's
+Island on the Long Island coast, and obtained permission from the
+proprietor to bury some of his superfluous stores upon his estate. This
+was a straightforward transaction. Mr. Gardiner knew all about the
+burial of the treasure, and when it was afterwards proved that Kidd was
+really a pirate the hidden booty was all given up to the government.
+
+This appears to be the only case in which it was positively known that
+Kidd buried treasure on our coast, and it has given rise to all the
+stories of the kind which have ever been told.
+
+For some weeks Kidd's sloop remained in Long Island Sound, and then he
+took courage and went to Boston to see some influential people there. He
+was allowed to go freely about the city for a week, and then he was
+arrested.
+
+The rest of Kidd's story is soon told; he was sent to England for trial,
+and there he was condemned to death, not only for the piracies he had
+committed, but also for the murder of William Moore. He was executed,
+and his body was hung in chains on the banks of the Thames, where for
+years it dangled in the wind, a warning to all evil-minded sailors.
+
+About the time of Kidd's trial and execution a ballad was written which
+had a wide circulation in England and America. It was set to music, and
+for many years helped to spread the fame of this pirate. The ballad was
+a very long one, containing nearly twenty-six verses, and some of them
+run as follows:--
+
+        My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+            My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed,
+                My name was Robert Kidd,
+                    God's laws I did forbid,
+        And so wickedly I did, when I sailed.
+
+        My parents taught me well, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+            My parents taught me well when I sailed,
+                My parents taught me well
+                    To shun the gates of hell,
+        But 'gainst them I rebelled, when I sailed.
+
+        I'd a Bible in my hand, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+            I'd a Bible in my hand when I sailed,
+                I'd a Bible in my hand,
+                    By my father's great command,
+        And sunk it in the sand, when I sailed.
+
+        I murdered William Moore, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            I murdered William Moore as I sailed,
+                I murdered William Moore,
+                    And laid him in his gore,
+        Not many leagues from shore, as I sailed.
+
+        I was sick and nigh to death, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+            I was sick and nigh to death when I sailed,
+                I was sick and nigh to death,
+                    And I vowed at every breath,
+        To walk in wisdom's ways, as I sailed.
+
+        I thought I was undone, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            I thought I was undone, as I sailed,
+                I thought I was undone,
+                    And my wicked glass had run,
+        But health did soon return, as I sailed.
+
+        My repentance lasted not, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            My repentance lasted not, as I sailed,
+                My repentance lasted not,
+                    My vows I soon forgot,
+        Damnation was my lot, as I sailed.
+
+        I spyed the ships from France, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            I spyed the ships from France, as I sailed,
+                I spyed the ships from France,
+                    To them I did advance,
+        And took them all by chance, as I sailed.
+
+        I spyed the ships of Spain, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            I spyed the ships of Spain, as I sailed,
+                I spyed the ships of Spain,
+                    I fired on them amain,
+        'Till most of them was slain, as I sailed.
+
+        I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+            I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed,
+                I'd ninety bars of gold,
+                    And dollars manifold,
+        With riches uncontrolled, as I sailed.
+
+        Thus being o'er-taken at last, I must die, I must die,
+            Thus being o'er-taken at last, I must die,
+                Thus being o'er-taken at last,
+                    And into prison cast,
+        And sentence being passed, I must die.
+
+        Farewell, the raging main, I must die, I must die,
+            Farewell, the raging main, I must die,
+                Farewell, the raging main,
+                    To Turkey, France, and Spain,
+        I shall ne'er see you again, I must die.
+
+        To Execution Dock I must go, I must go,
+            To Execution Dock I must go,
+                To Execution Dock,
+                    Will many thousands flock,
+        But I must bear the shock, and must die.
+
+        Come all ye young and old, see me die, see me die,
+            Come all ye young and old, see me die,
+                Come all ye young and old,
+                    You're welcome to my gold,
+        For by it I've lost my soul, and must die.
+
+        Take warning now by me, for I must die, for I must die,
+            Take warning now by me, for I must die,
+                Take warning now by me,
+                    And shun bad company,
+        Lest you come to hell with me, for I die.
+
+It is said that Kidd showed no repentance when he was tried, but
+insisted that he was the victim of malicious persons who swore falsely
+against him. And yet a more thoroughly dishonest rascal never sailed
+under the black flag. In the guise of an accredited officer of the
+government, he committed the crimes he was sent out to suppress; he
+deceived his men; he robbed and misused his fellow-countrymen and his
+friends, and he even descended to the meanness of cheating and
+despoiling the natives of the West India Islands, with whom he traded.
+These people were in the habit of supplying pirates with food and other
+necessaries, and they always found their rough customers entirely
+honest, and willing to pay for what they received; for as the pirates
+made a practice of stopping at certain points for supplies, they wished,
+of course, to be on good terms with those who furnished them. But Kidd
+had no ideas of honor toward people of high or low degree. He would
+trade with the natives as if he intended to treat them fairly and pay
+for all he got; but when the time came for him to depart, and he was
+ready to weigh anchor, he would seize upon all the commodities he could
+lay his hands upon, and without paying a copper to the distressed and
+indignant Indians, he would gayly sail away, his black flag flaunting
+derisively in the wind.
+
+But although in reality Captain Kidd was no hero, he has been known for
+a century and more as the great American pirate, and his name has been
+representative of piracy ever since. Years after he had been hung, when
+people heard that a vessel with a black flag, or one which looked black
+in the distance, flying from its rigging had been seen, they forgot that
+the famous pirate was dead, and imagined that Captain Kidd was visiting
+their part of the coast in order that he might find a good place to bury
+some treasure which it was no longer safe for him to carry about.
+
+There were two great reasons for the fame of Captain Kidd. One of these
+was the fact that he had been sent out by important officers of the
+crown who expected to share the profits of his legitimate operations,
+but who were supposed by their enemies to be perfectly willing to take
+any sort of profits provided it could not be proved that they were the
+results of piracy, and who afterwards allowed Kidd to suffer for their
+sins as well as his own. These opinions introduced certain political
+features into his career and made him a very much talked-of man. The
+greater reason for his fame, however, was the widespread belief in his
+buried treasures, and this made him the object of the most intense
+interest to hundreds of misguided people who hoped to be lucky enough to
+share his spoils.
+
+There were other pirates on the American coast during the eighteenth
+century, and some of them became very well known, but their stories are
+not uncommon, and we need not tell them here. As our country became
+better settled, and as well-armed revenue cutters began to cruise up and
+down our Atlantic coast for the protection of our commerce, pirates
+became fewer and fewer, and even those who were still bold enough to ply
+their trade grew milder in their manners, less daring in their exploits,
+and--more important than anything else--so unsuccessful in their illegal
+enterprises that they were forced to admit that it was now more
+profitable to command or work a merchantman than endeavor to capture
+one, and so the sea-robbers of our coasts gradually passed away.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUCCANEERS AND PIRATES OF OUR
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini #3 in our series by Rafael Sabatini
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+Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+CAPTAIN BLOOD His Odyssey
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I. THE MESSENGER II. KIRKE’S DRAGOONS III. THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE IV. HUMAN MERCHANDISE V. ARABELLA BISHOP VI. PLANS OF ESCAPE VII. PIRATES VIII. SPANIARDS IX. THE REBELS-CONVICT X. DON DIEGO XI. FILIAL PIETY XII. DON PEDRO SANGRE XIII. TORTUGA XIV. LEVASSEUR’S HEROICS XV. THE RANSOM XVI. THE TRAP XVII. THE DUPES XVIII. THE MILAGROSA XIX. THE MEETING XX. THIEF AND PIRATE XXI. THE SERVICE OF KING JAMES XXII. HOSTILITIES XXIII. HOSTAGES XXIV. WAR XXV. THE SERVICE OF KING LOUIS XXVI. M. DE RIVAROL XXVII. CARTAGENA XXVIII. THE HONOUR OF M. DE RIVAROL XXIX. THE SERVICE OF KING WILLIAM XXX. THE LAST FIGHT OF THE ARABELLA XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE MESSENGER
+
+
+Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater.
+
+Sternly disapproving eyes considered him from a window opposite, but went disregarded. Mr. Blood’s attention was divided between his task and the stream of humanity in the narrow street below; a stream which poured for the second time that day towards Castle Field, where earlier in the afternoon Ferguson, the Duke’s chaplain, had preached a sermon containing more treason than divinity.
+
+These straggling, excited groups were mainly composed of men with green boughs in their hats and the most ludicrous of weapons in their hands. Some, it is true, shouldered fowling pieces, and here and there a sword was brandished; but more of them were armed with clubs, and most of them trailed the mammoth pikes fashioned out of scythes, as formidable to the eye as they were clumsy to the hand. There were weavers, brewers, carpenters, smiths, masons, bricklayers, cobblers, and representatives of every other of the trades of peace among these improvised men of war. Bridgewater, like Taunton, had yielded so generously of its manhood to the service of the bastard Duke that for any to abstain whose age and strength admitted of his bearing arms was to brand himself a coward or a papist.
+
+Yet Peter Blood, who was not only able to bear arms, but trained and skilled in their use, who was certainly no coward, and a papist only when it suited him, tended his geraniums and smoked his pipe on that warm July evening as indifferently as if nothing were afoot. One other thing he did. He flung after those war-fevered enthusiasts a line of Horace - a poet for whose work he had early conceived an inordinate affection:
+
+“Quo, quo, scelesti, ruitis?”
+
+And now perhaps you guess why the hot, intrepid blood inherited from the roving sires of his Somersetshire mother remained cool amidst all this frenzied fanatical heat of rebellion; why the turbulent spirit which had forced him once from the sedate academical bonds his father would have imposed upon him, should now remain quiet in the very midst of turbulence. You realize how he regarded these men who were rallying to the banners of liberty - the banners woven by the virgins of Taunton, the girls from the seminaries of Miss Blake and Mrs. Musgrove, who - as the ballad runs - had ripped open their silk petticoats to make colours for King Monmouth’s army. That Latin line, contemptuously flung after them as they clattered down the cobbled street, reveals his mind. To him they were fools rushing in wicked frenzy upon their ruin.
+
+You see, he knew too much about this fellow Monmouth and the pretty brown slut who had borne him, to be deceived by the legend of legitimacy, on the strength of which this standard of rebellion had been raised. He had read the absurd proclamation posted at the Cross at Bridgewater - as it had been posted also at Taunton and elsewhere - setting forth that “upon the decease of our Sovereign Lord Charles the Second, the right of succession to the Crown of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, with the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, did legally descend and devolve upon the most illustrious and high-born Prince James, Duke of Monmouth, son and heir apparent to the said King Charles the Second.”
+
+It had moved him to laughter, as had the further announcement that “James Duke of York did first cause the said late King to be poysoned, and immediately thereupon did usurp and invade the Crown.”
+
+He knew not which was the greater lie. For Mr. Blood had spent a third of his life in the Netherlands, where this same James Scott - who now proclaimed himself James the Second, by the grace of God, King, et cetera - first saw the light some six-and-thirty years ago, and he was acquainted with the story current there of the fellow’s real paternity. Far from being legitimate - by virtue of a pretended secret marriage between Charles Stuart and Lucy Walter - it was possible that this Monmouth who now proclaimed himself King of England was not even the illegitimate child of the late sovereign. What but ruin and disaster could be the end of this grotesque pretension? How could it be hoped that England would ever swallow such a Perkin? And it was on his behalf, to uphold his fantastic claim, that these West Country clods, led by a few armigerous Whigs, had been seduced into rebellion!
+
+“Quo, quo, scelesti, ruitis?”
+
+He laughed and sighed in one; but the laugh dominated the sigh, for Mr. Blood was unsympathetic, as are most self-sufficient men; and he was very self-sufficient; adversity had taught him so to be. A more tender-hearted man, possessing his vision and his knowledge, might have found cause for tears in the contemplation of these ardent, simple, Nonconformist sheep going forth to the shambles - escorted to the rallying ground on Castle Field by wives and daughters, sweethearts and mothers, sustained by the delusion that they were to take the field in defence of Right, of Liberty, and of Religion. For he knew, as all Bridgewater knew and had known now for some hours, that it was Monmouth’s intention to deliver battle that same night. The Duke was to lead a surprise attack upon the Royalist army under Feversham that was now encamped on Sedgemoor. Mr. Blood assumed that Lord Feversham would be equally well-informed, and if in this assumption he was wrong, at least he was justified of it. He was not to suppose the Royalist commander so indifferently skilled in the trade he followed.
+
+Mr. Blood knocked the ashes from his pipe, and drew back to close his window. As he did so, his glance travelling straight across the street met at last the glance of those hostile eyes that watched him. There were two pairs, and they belonged to the Misses Pitt, two amiable, sentimental maiden ladies who yielded to none in Bridgewater in their worship of the handsome Monmouth.
+
+Mr. Blood smiled and inclined his head, for he was on friendly terms with these ladies, one of whom, indeed, had been for a little while his patient. But there was no response to his greeting. Instead, the eyes gave him back a stare of cold disdain. The smile on his thin lips grew a little broader, a little less pleasant. He understood the reason of that hostility, which had been daily growing in this past week since Monmouth had come to turn the brains of women of all ages. The Misses Pitt, he apprehended, contemned him that he, a young and vigorous man, of a military training which might now be valuable to the Cause, should stand aloof; that he should placidly smoke his pipe and tend his geraniums on this evening of all evenings, when men of spirit were rallying to the Protestant Champion, offering their blood to place him on the throne where he belonged.
+
+If Mr. Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that having had his fill of wandering and adventuring, he was now embarked upon the career for which he had been originally intended and for which his studies had equipped him; that he was a man of medicine and not of war; a healer, not a slayer. But they would have answered him, he knew, that in such a cause it behoved every man who deemed himself a man to take up arms. They would have pointed out that their own nephew Jeremiah, who was by trade a sailor, the master of a ship - which by an ill-chance for that young man had come to anchor at this season in Bridgewater Bay - had quitted the helm to snatch up a musket in defence of Right. But Mr. Blood was not of those who argue. As I have said, he was a self-sufficient man.
+
+He closed the window, drew the curtains, and turned to the pleasant, candlelighted room, and the table on which Mrs. Barlow, his housekeeper, was in the very act of spreading supper. To her, however, he spoke aloud his thought.
+
+“It’s out of favour I am with the vinegary virgins over the way.”
+
+He had a pleasant, vibrant voice, whose metallic ring was softened and muted by the Irish accent which in all his wanderings he had never lost. It was a voice that could woo seductively and caressingly, or command in such a way as to compel obedience. Indeed, the man’s whole nature was in that voice of his. For the rest of him, he was tall and spare, swarthy of tint as a gipsy, with eyes that were startlingly blue in that dark face and under those level black brows. In their glance those eyes, flanking a high-bridged, intrepid nose, were of singular penetration and of a steady haughtiness that went well with his firm lips. Though dressed in black as became his calling, yet it was with an elegance derived from the love of clothes that is peculiar to the adventurer he had been, rather than to the staid medicus he now was. His coat was of fine camlet, and it was laced with silver; there were ruffles of Mechlin at his wrists and a Mechlin cravat encased his throat. His great black periwig was as sedulously curled as any at Whitehall.
+
+Seeing him thus, and perceiving his real nature, which was plain upon him, you might have been tempted to speculate how long such a man would be content to lie by in this little backwater of the world into which chance had swept him some six months ago; how long he would continue to pursue the trade for which he had qualified himself before he had begun to live. Difficult of belief though it may be when you know his history, previous and subsequent, yet it is possible that but for the trick that Fate was about to play him, he might have continued this peaceful existence, settling down completely to the life of a doctor in this Somersetshire haven. It is possible, but not probable.
+
+He was the son of an Irish medicus, by a Somersetshire lady in whose veins ran the rover blood of the Frobishers, which may account for a certain wildness that had early manifested itself in his disposition. This wildness had profoundly alarmed his father, who for an Irishman was of a singularly peace-loving nature. He had early resolved that the boy should follow his own honourable profession, and Peter Blood, being quick to learn and oddly greedy of knowledge, had satisfied his parent by receiving at the age of twenty the degree of baccalaureus medicinae at Trinity College, Dublin. His father survived that satisfaction by three months only. His mother had then been dead some years already. Thus Peter Blood came into an inheritance of some few hundred pounds, with which he had set out to see the world and give for a season a free rein to that restless spirit by which he was imbued. A set of curious chances led him to take service with the Dutch, then at war with France; and a predilection for the sea made him elect that this service should be upon that element. He had the advantage of a commission under the famous de Ruyter, and fought in the Mediterranean engagement in which that great Dutch admiral lost his life.
+
+After the Peace of Nimeguen his movements are obscure. But we know that he spent two years in a Spanish prison, though we do not know how he contrived to get there. It may be due to this that upon his release he took his sword to France, and saw service with the French in their warring upon the Spanish Netherlands. Having reached, at last, the age of thirty-two, his appetite for adventure surfeited, his health having grown indifferent as the result of a neglected wound, he was suddenly overwhelmed by homesickness. He took ship from Nantes with intent to cross to Ireland. But the vessel being driven by stress of weather into Bridgewater Bay, and Blood’s health having grown worse during the voyage, he decided to go ashore there, additionally urged to it by the fact that it was his mother’s native soil.
+
+Thus in January of that year 1685 he had come to Bridgewater, possessor of a fortune that was approximately the same as that with which he had originally set out from Dublin eleven years ago.
+
+Because he liked the place, in which his health was rapidly restored to him, and because he conceived that he had passed through adventures enough for a man’s lifetime, he determined to settle there, and take up at last the profession of medicine from which he had, with so little profit, broken away.
+
+That is all his story, or so much of it as matters up to that night, six months later, when the battle of Sedgemoor was fought.
+
+Deeming the impending action no affair of his, as indeed it was not, and indifferent to the activity with which Bridgewater was that night agog, Mr. Blood closed his ears to the sounds of it, and went early to bed. He was peacefully asleep long before eleven o’clock, at which hour, as you know, Monmouth rode but with his rebel host along the Bristol Road, circuitously to avoid the marshland that lay directly between himself and the Royal Army. You also know that his numerical advantage - possibly counter-balanced by the greater steadiness of the regular troops on the other side - and the advantages he derived from falling by surprise upon an army that was more or less asleep, were all lost to him by blundering and bad leadership before ever he was at grips with Feversham.
+
+The armies came into collision in the neighbourhood of two o’clock in the morning. Mr. Blood slept undisturbed through the distant boom of cannon. Not until four o’clock, when the sun was rising to dispel the last wisps of mist over that stricken field of battle, did he awaken from his tranquil slumbers.
+
+He sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and collected himself. Blows were thundering upon the door of his house, and a voice was calling incoherently. This was the noise that had aroused him. Conceiving that he had to do with some urgent obstetrical case, he reached for bedgown and slippers, to go below. On the landing he almost collided with Mrs. Barlow, new-risen and unsightly, in a state of panic. He quieted her cluckings with a word of reassurance, and went himself to open.
+
+There in slanting golden light of the new-risen sun stood a breathless, wild-eyed man and a steaming horse. Smothered in dust and grime, his clothes in disarray, the left sleeve of his doublet hanging in rags, this young man opened his lips to speak, yet for a long moment remained speechless.
+
+In that moment Mr. Blood recognized him for the young shipmaster, Jeremiah Pitt, the nephew of the maiden ladies opposite, one who had been drawn by the general enthusiasm into the vortex of that rebellion. The street was rousing, awakened by the sailor’s noisy advent; doors were opening, and lattices were being unlatched for the protrusion of anxious, inquisitive heads.
+
+“Take your time, now,” said Mr. Blood. “I never knew speed made by overhaste.”
+
+But the wild-eyed lad paid no heed to the admonition. He plunged, headlong, into speech, gasping, breathless.
+
+“It is Lord Gildoy,” he panted. “He is sore wounded … at Oglethorpe’s Farm by the river. I bore him thither … and … and he sent me for you. Come away! Come away!”
+
+He would have clutched the doctor, and haled him forth by force in bedgown and slippers as he was. But the doctor eluded that too eager hand.
+
+“To be sure, I’ll come,” said he. He was distressed. Gildoy had been a very friendly, generous patron to him since his settling in these parts. And Mr. Blood was eager enough to do what he now could to discharge the debt, grieved that the occasion should have arisen, and in such a manner - for he knew quite well that the rash young nobleman had been an active agent of the Duke’s. “To be sure, I’ll come. But first give me leave to get some clothes and other things that I may need.”
+
+“There’s no time to lose.”
+
+“Be easy now. I’ll lose none. I tell ye again, ye’ll go quickest by going leisurely. Come in … take a chair…” He threw open the door of a parlour.
+
+Young Pitt waved aside the invitation.
+
+“I’ll wait here. Make haste, in God’s name.” Mr. Blood went off to dress and to fetch a case of instruments.
+
+Questions concerning the precise nature of Lord Gildoy’s hurt could wait until they were on their way. Whilst he pulled on his boots, he gave Mrs. Barlow instructions for the day, which included the matter of a dinner he was not destined to eat.
+
+When at last he went forth again, Mrs. Barlow clucking after him like a disgruntled fowl, he found young Pitt smothered in a crowd of scared, half-dressed townsfolk - mostly women - who had come hastening for news of how the battle had sped. The news he gave them was to be read in the lamentations with which they disturbed the morning air.
+
+At sight of the doctor, dressed and booted, the case of instruments tucked under his arm, the messenger disengaged himself from those who pressed about, shook off his weariness and the two tearful aunts that clung most closely, and seizing the bridle of his horse, he climbed to the saddle.
+
+“Come along, sir,” he cried. “Mount behind me.”
+
+Mr. Blood, without wasting words, did as he was bidden. Pitt touched the horse with his spur. The little crowd gave way, and thus, upon the crupper of that doubly-laden horse, clinging to the belt of his companion, Peter Blood set out upon his Odyssey. For this Pitt, in whom he beheld no more than the messenger of a wounded rebel gentleman, was indeed the very messenger of Fate.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+KIRKE’S DRAGOONS
+
+
+Oglethorpe’s farm stood a mile or so to the south of Bridgewater on the right bank of the river. It was a straggling Tudor building showing grey above the ivy that clothed its lower parts. Approaching it now, through the fragrant orchards amid which it seemed to drowse in Arcadian peace beside the waters of the Parrett, sparkling in the morning sunlight, Mr. Blood might have had a difficulty in believing it part of a world tormented by strife and bloodshed.
+
+On the bridge, as they had been riding out of Bridgewater, they had met a vanguard of fugitives from the field of battle, weary, broken men, many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, staggering in speedless haste with the last remnants of their strength into the shelter which it was their vain illusion the town would afford them. Eyes glazed with lassitude and fear looked up piteously out of haggard faces at Mr. Blood and his companion as they rode forth; hoarse voices cried a warning that merciless pursuit was not far behind. Undeterred, however, young Pitt rode amain along the dusty road by which these poor fugitives from that swift rout on Sedgemoor came flocking in ever-increasing numbers. Presently he swung aside, and quitting the road took to a pathway that crossed the dewy meadowlands. Even here they met odd groups of these human derelicts, who were scattering in all directions, looking fearfully behind them as they came through the long grass, expecting at every moment to see the red coats of the dragoons.
+
+But as Pitt’s direction was a southward one, bringing them ever nearer to Feversham’s headquarters, they were presently clear of that human flotsam and jetsam of the battle, and riding through the peaceful orchards heavy with the ripening fruit that was soon to make its annual yield of cider.
+
+At last they alighted on the kidney stones of the courtyard, and Baynes, the master, of the homestead, grave of countenance and flustered of manner, gave them welcome.
+
+In the spacious, stone-flagged hall, the doctor found Lord Gildoy - a very tall and dark young gentleman, prominent of chin and nose - stretched on a cane day-bed under one of the tall mullioned windows, in the care of Mrs. Baynes and her comely daughter. His cheeks were leaden-hued, his eyes closed, and from his blue lips came with each laboured breath a faint, moaning noise.
+
+Mr. Blood stood for a moment silently considering his patient. He deplored that a youth with such bright hopes in life as Lord Gildoy’s should have risked all, perhaps existence itself, to forward the ambition of a worthless adventurer. Because he had liked and honoured this brave lad he paid his case the tribute of a sigh. Then he knelt to his task, ripped away doublet and underwear to lay bare his lordship’s mangled side, and called for water and linen and what else he needed for his work.
+
+He was still intent upon it a half-hour later when the dragoons invaded the homestead. The clatter of hooves and hoarse shouts that heralded their approach disturbed him not at all. For one thing, he was not easily disturbed; for another, his task absorbed him. But his lordship, who had now recovered consciousness, showed considerable alarm, and the battle-stained Jeremy Pitt sped to cover in a clothes-press. Baynes was uneasy, and his wife and daughter trembled. Mr. Blood reassured them.
+
+“Why, what’s to fear?” he said. “It’s a Christian country, this, and Christian men do not make war upon the wounded, nor upon those who harbour them.” He still had, you see, illusions about Christians. He held a glass of cordial, prepared under his directions, to his lordship’s lips. “Give your mind peace, my lord. The worst is done.”
+
+And then they came rattling and clanking into the stone-flagged hall - a round dozen jack-booted, lobster-coated troopers of the Tangiers Regiment, led by a sturdy, black-browed fellow with a deal of gold lace about the breast of his coat.
+
+Baynes stood his ground, his attitude half-defiant, whilst his wife and daughter shrank away in renewed fear. Mr. Blood, at the head of the day-bed, looked over his shoulder to take stock of the invaders.
+
+The officer barked an order, which brought his men to an attentive halt, then swaggered forward, his gloved hand bearing down the pummel of his sword, his spurs jingling musically as he moved. He announced his authority to the yeoman.
+
+“I am Captain Hobart, of Colonel Kirke’s dragoons. What rebels do you harbour?”
+
+The yeoman took alarm at that ferocious truculence. It expressed itself in his trembling voice.
+
+“I… I am no harbourer of rebels, sir. This wounded gentleman….”
+
+“I can see for myself.” The Captain stamped forward to the day-bed, and scowled down upon the grey-faced sufferer.
+
+“No need to ask how he came in this state and by his wounds. A damned rebel, and that’s enough for me.” He flung a command at his dragoons. “Out with him, my lads.”
+
+Mr. Blood got between the day-bed and the troopers.
+
+“In the name of humanity, sir!” said he, on a note of anger. “This is England, not Tangiers. The gentleman is in sore case. He may not be moved without peril to his life.”
+
+Captain Hobart was amused.
+
+“Oh, I am to be tender of the lives of these rebels! Odds blood! Do you think it’s to benefit his health we’re taking him? There’s gallows being planted along the road from Weston to Bridgewater, and he’ll serve for one of them as well as another. Colonel Kirke’ll learn these nonconforming oafs something they’ll not forget in generations.”
+
+“You’re hanging men without trial? Faith, then, it’s mistaken I am. We’re in Tangiers, after all, it seems, where your regiment belongs.”
+
+The Captain considered him with a kindling eye. He looked him over from the soles of his riding-boots to the crown of his periwig. He noted the spare, active frame, the arrogant poise of the head, the air of authority that invested Mr. Blood, and soldier recognized soldier. The Captain’s eyes narrowed. Recognition went further.
+
+“Who the hell may you be?” he exploded.”
+
+“My name is Blood, sir - Peter Blood, at your service.”
+
+“Aye - aye! Codso! That’s the name. You were in French service once, were you not?”
+
+If Mr. Blood was surprised, he did not betray it.
+
+“I was.”
+
+“Then I remember you - five years ago, or more, you were in Tangiers.”
+
+“That is so. I knew your colonel.”
+
+“Faith, you may be renewing the acquaintance.” The Captain laughed unpleasantly. “What brings you here, sir?”
+
+“This wounded gentleman. I was fetched to attend him. I am a medicus.”
+
+“A doctor - you?” Scorn of that lie - as he conceived it - rang in the heavy, hectoring voice.
+
+“Medicinae baccalaureus,” said Mr. Blood.
+
+“Don’t fling your French at me, man,” snapped Hobart. “Speak English!”
+
+Mr. Blood’s smile annoyed him.
+
+“I am a physician practising my calling in the town of Bridgewater.”
+
+The Captain sneered. “Which you reached by way of Lyme Regis in the following of your bastard Duke.”
+
+It was Mr. Blood’s turn to sneer. “If your wit were as big as your voice, my dear, it’s the great man you’d be by this.”
+
+For a moment the dragoon was speechless. The colour deepened in his face.
+
+“You may find me great enough to hang you.”
+
+“Faith, yes. Ye’ve the look and the manners of a hangman. But if you practise your trade on my patient here, you may be putting a rope round your own neck. He’s not the kind you may string up and no questions asked. He has the right to trial, and the right to trial by his peers.”
+
+“By his peers?”
+
+The Captain was taken aback by these three words, which Mr. Blood had stressed.
+
+“Sure, now, any but a fool or a savage would have asked his name before ordering him to the gallows. The gentleman is my Lord Gildoy.”
+
+And then his lordship spoke for himself, in a weak voice.
+
+“I make no concealment of my association with the Duke of Monmouth. I’ll take the consequences. But, if you please, I’ll take them after trial - by my peers, as the doctor has said.”
+
+The feeble voice ceased, and was followed by a moment’s silence. As is common in many blustering men, there was a deal of timidity deep down in Hobart. The announcement of his lordship’s rank had touched those depths. A servile upstart, he stood in awe of titles. And he stood in awe of his colonel. Percy Kirke was not lenient with blunderers.
+
+By a gesture he checked his men. He must consider. Mr. Blood, observing his pause, added further matter for his consideration.
+
+“Ye’ll be remembering, Captain, that Lord Gildoy will have friends and relatives on the Tory side, who’ll have something to say to Colonel Kirke if his lordship should be handled like a common felon. You’ll go warily, Captain, or, as I’ve said, it’s a halter for your neck ye’ll be weaving this morning.”
+
+Captain Hobart swept the warning aside with a bluster of contempt, but he acted upon it none the less. “Take up the day-bed,” said he, “and convey him on that to Bridgewater. Lodge him in the gaol until I take order about him.”
+
+“He may not survive the journey,” Blood remonstrated. “He’s in no case to be moved.”
+
+“So much the worse for him. My affair is to round up rebels.” He confirmed his order by a gesture. Two of his men took up the day-bed, and swung to depart with it.
+
+Gildoy made a feeble effort to put forth a hand towards Mr. Blood. “Sir,” he said, “you leave me in your debt. If I live I shall study how to discharge it.”
+
+Mr. Blood bowed for answer; then to the men: “Bear him steadily,” he commanded. “His life depends on it.”
+
+As his lordship was carried out, the Captain became brisk. He turned upon the yeoman.
+
+“What other cursed rebels do you harbour?”
+
+“None other, sir. His lordship….”
+
+“We’ve dealt with his lordship for the present. We’ll deal with you in a moment when we’ve searched your house. And, by God, if you’ve lied to me….” He broke off, snarling, to give an order. Four of his dragoons went out. In a moment they were heard moving noisily in the adjacent room. Meanwhile, the Captain was questing about the hall, sounding the wainscoting with the butt of a pistol.
+
+Mr. Blood saw no profit to himself in lingering.
+
+“By your leave, it’s a very good day I’ll be wishing you,” said he.
+
+“By my leave, you’ll remain awhile,” the Captain ordered him.
+
+Mr. Blood shrugged, and sat down. “You’re tiresome,” he said. “I wonder your colonel hasn’t discovered it yet.”
+
+But the Captain did not heed him. He was stooping to pick up a soiled and dusty hat in which there was pinned a little bunch of oak leaves. It had been lying near the clothes-press in which the unfortunate Pitt had taken refuge. The Captain smiled malevolently. His eyes raked the room, resting first sardonically on the yeoman, then on the two women in the background, and finally on Mr. Blood, who sat with one leg thrown over the other in an attitude of indifference that was far from reflecting his mind.
+
+Then the Captain stepped to the press, and pulled open one of the wings of its massive oaken door. He took the huddled inmate by the collar of his doublet, and lugged him out into the open.
+
+“And who the devil’s this?” quoth he. “Another nobleman?”
+
+Mr. Blood had a vision of those gallows of which Captain Hobart had spoken, and of this unfortunate young shipmaster going to adorn one of them, strung up without trial, in the place of the other victim of whom the Captain had been cheated. On the spot he invented not only a title but a whole family for the young rebel.
+
+“Faith, ye’ve said it, Captain. This is Viscount Pitt, first cousin to Sir Thomas Vernon, who’s married to that slut Moll Kirke, sister to your own colonel, and sometime lady in waiting upon King James’s queen.”
+
+Both the Captain and his prisoner gasped. But whereas thereafter young Pitt discreetly held his peace, the Captain rapped out a nasty oath. He considered his prisoner again.
+
+“He’s lying, is he not?” he demanded, seizing the lad by the shoulder, and glaring into his face. “He’s rallying rue, by God!”
+
+“If ye believe that,” said Blood, “hang him, and see what happens to you.”
+
+The dragoon glared at the doctor and then at his prisoner. “Pah!” He thrust the lad into the hands of his men. “Fetch him along to Bridgewater. And make fast that fellow also,” he pointed to Baynes. “We’ll show him what it means to harbour and comfort rebels.”
+
+There was a moment of confusion. Baynes struggled in the grip of the troopers, protesting vehemently. The terrified women screamed until silenced by a greater terror. The Captain strode across to them. He took the girl by the shoulders. She was a pretty, golden-headed creature, with soft blue eyes that looked up entreatingly, piteously into the face of the dragoon. He leered upon her, his eyes aglow, took her chin in his hand, and set her shuddering by his brutal kiss.
+
+“It’s an earnest,” he said, smiling grimly. “Let that quiet you, little rebel, till I’ve done with these rogues.”
+
+And he swung away again, leaving her faint and trembling in the arms of her anguished mother. His men stood, grinning, awaiting orders, the two prisoners now fast pinioned.
+
+“Take them away. Let Cornet Drake have charge of them.” His smouldering eye again sought the cowering girl. “I’ll stay awhile - to search out this place. There may be other rebels hidden here.” As an afterthought, he added: “And take this fellow with you.” He pointed to Mr. Blood. “Bestir!”
+
+Mr. Blood started out of his musings. He had been considering that in his case of instruments there was a lancet with which he might perform on Captain Hobart a beneficial operation. Beneficial, that is, to humanity. In any case, the dragoon was obviously plethoric and would be the better for a blood-letting. The difficulty lay in making the opportunity. He was beginning to wonder if he could lure the Captain aside with some tale of hidden treasure, when this untimely interruption set a term to that interesting speculation.
+
+He sought to temporize.
+
+“Faith it will suit me very well,” said he. “For Bridgewater is my destination, and but that ye detained me I’d have been on my way thither now.”
+
+“Your destination there will be the gaol.”
+
+“Ah, bah! Ye’re surely joking!”
+
+“There’s a gallows for you if you prefer it. It’s merely a question of now or later.”
+
+Rude hands seized Mr. Blood, and that precious lancet was in the case on the table out of reach. He twisted out of the grip of the dragoons, for he was strong and agile, but they closed with him again immediately, and bore him down. Pinning him to the ground, they tied his wrists behind his back, then roughly pulled him to his feet again.
+
+“Take him away,” said Hobart shortly, and turned to issue his orders to the other waiting troopers. “Go search the house, from attic to cellar; then report to me here.”
+
+The soldiers trailed out by the door leading to the interior. Mr. Blood was thrust by his guards into the courtyard, where Pitt and Baynes already waited. From the threshold of the hall, he looked back at Captain Hobart, and his sapphire eyes were blazing. On his lips trembled a threat of what he would do to Hobart if he should happen to survive this business. Betimes he remembered that to utter it were probably to extinguish his chance of living to execute it. For to-day the King’s men were masters in the West, and the West was regarded as enemy country, to be subjected to the worst horror of war by the victorious side. Here a captain of horse was for the moment lord of life and death.
+
+Under the apple-trees in the orchard Mr. Blood and his companions in misfortune were made fast each to a trooper’s stirrup leather. Then at the sharp order of the cornet, the little troop started for Bridgewater. As they set out there was the fullest confirmation of Mr. Blood’s hideous assumption that to the dragoons this was a conquered enemy country. There were sounds of rending timbers, of furniture smashed and overthrown, the shouts and laughter of brutal men, to announce that this hunt for rebels was no more than a pretext for pillage and destruction. Finally above all other sounds came the piercing screams of a woman in acutest agony.
+
+Baynes checked in his stride, and swung round writhing, his face ashen. As a consequence he was jerked from his feet by the rope that attached him to the stirrup leather, and he was dragged helplessly a yard or two before the trooper reined in, cursing him foully, and striking him with the flat of his sword.
+
+It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden apple-trees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man - as he had long suspected - was the vilest work of God, and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
+
+
+It was not until two months later - on the 19th of September, if you must have the actual date - that Peter Blood was brought to trial, upon a charge of high treason. We know that he was not guilty of this; but we need not doubt that he was quite capable of it by the time he was indicted. Those two months of inhuman, unspeakable imprisonment had moved his mind to a cold and deadly hatred of King James and his representatives. It says something for his fortitude that in all the circumstances he should still have had a mind at all. Yet, terrible as was the position of this entirely innocent man, he had cause for thankfulness on two counts. The first of these was that he should have been brought to trial at all; the second, that his trial took place on the date named, and not a day earlier. In the very delay which exacerbated him lay - although he did not realize it - his only chance of avoiding the gallows.
+
+Easily, but for the favour of Fortune, he might have been one of those haled, on the morrow of the battle, more or less haphazard from the overflowing gaol at Bridgewater to be summarily hanged in the market-place by the bloodthirsty Colonel Kirke. There was about the Colonel of the Tangiers Regiment a deadly despatch which might have disposed in like fashion of all those prisoners, numerous as they were, but for the vigorous intervention of Bishop Mews, which put an end to the drumhead courts-martial.
+
+Even so, in that first week after Sedgemoor, Kirke and Feversham contrived between them to put to death over a hundred men after a trial so summary as to be no trial at all. They required human freights for the gibbets with which they were planting the countryside, and they little cared how they procured them or what innocent lives they took. What, after all, was the life of a clod? The executioners were kept busy with rope and chopper and cauldrons of pitch. I spare you the details of that nauseating picture. It is, after all, with the fate of Peter Blood that we are concerned rather than with that of the Monmouth rebels.
+
+He survived to be included in one of those melancholy droves of prisoners who, chained in pairs, were marched from Bridgewater to Taunton. Those who were too sorely wounded to march were conveyed in carts, into which they were brutally crowded, their wounds undressed and festering. Many were fortunate enough to die upon the way. When Blood insisted upon his right to exercise his art so as to relieve some of this suffering, he was accounted importunate and threatened with a flogging. If he had one regret now it was that he had not been out with Monmouth. That, of course, was illogical; but you can hardly expect logic from a man in his position.
+
+His chain companion on that dreadful march was the same Jeremy Pitt who had been the agent of his present misfortunes. The young shipmaster had remained his close companion after their common arrest. Hence, fortuitously, had they been chained together in the crowded prison, where they were almost suffocated by the heat and the stench during those days of July, August, and September.
+
+Scraps of news filtered into the gaol from the outside world. Some may have been deliberately allowed to penetrate. Of these was the tale of Monmouth’s execution. It created profoundest dismay amongst those men who were suffering for the Duke and for the religious cause he had professed to champion. Many refused utterly to believe it. A wild story began to circulate that a man resembling Monmouth had offered himself up in the Duke’s stead, and that Monmouth survived to come again in glory to deliver Zion and make war upon Babylon.
+
+Mr. Blood heard that tale with the same indifference with which he had received the news of Monmouth’s death. But one shameful thing he heard in connection with this which left him not quite so unmoved, and served to nourish the contempt he was forming for King James. His Majesty had consented to see Monmouth. To have done so unless he intended to pardon him was a thing execrable and damnable beyond belief; for the only other object in granting that interview could be the evilly mean satisfaction of spurning the abject penitence of his unfortunate nephew.
+
+Later they heard that Lord Grey, who after the Duke - indeed, perhaps, before him - was the main leader of the rebellion, had purchased his own pardon for forty thousand pounds. Peter Blood found this of a piece with the rest. His contempt for King James blazed out at last.
+
+“Why, here’s a filthy mean creature to sit on a throne. If I had known as much of him before as I know to-day, I don’t doubt I should have given cause to be where I am now.” And then on a sudden thought: “And where will Lord Gildoy be, do you suppose?” he asked.
+
+Young Pitt, whom he addressed, turned towards him a face from which the ruddy tan of the sea had faded almost completely during those months of captivity. His grey eyes were round and questioning. Blood answered him.
+
+“Sure, now, we’ve never seen his lordship since that day at Oglethorpe’s. And where are the other gentry that were taken? - the real leaders of this plaguey rebellion. Grey’s case explains their absence, I think. They are wealthy men that can ransom themselves. Here awaiting the gallows are none but the unfortunates who followed; those who had the honour to lead them go free. It’s a curious and instructive reversal of the usual way of these things. Faith, it’s an uncertain world entirely!”
+
+He laughed, and settled down into that spirit of scorn, wrapped in which he stepped later into the great hall of Taunton Castle to take his trial. With him went Pitt and the yeoman Baynes. The three of them were to be tried together, and their case was to open the proceedings of that ghastly day.
+
+The hall, even to the galleries - thronged with spectators, most of whom were ladies - was hung in scarlet; a pleasant conceit, this, of the Lord Chief Justice’s, who naturally enough preferred the colour that should reflect his own bloody mind.
+
+At the upper end, on a raised dais, sat the Lords Commissioners, the five judges in their scarlet robes and heavy dark periwigs, Baron Jeffreys of Wem enthroned in the middle place.
+
+The prisoners filed in under guard. The crier called for silence under pain of imprisonment, and as the hum of voices gradually became hushed, Mr. Blood considered with interest the twelve good men and true that composed the jury. Neither good nor true did they look. They were scared, uneasy, and hangdog as any set of thieves caught with their hands in the pockets of their neighbours. They were twelve shaken men, each of whom stood between the sword of the Lord Chief Justice’s recent bloodthirsty charge and the wall of his own conscience.
+
+From them Mr. Blood’s calm, deliberate glance passed on to consider the Lords Commissioners, and particularly the presiding Judge, that Lord Jeffreys, whose terrible fame had come ahead of him from Dorchester.
+
+He beheld a tall, slight man on the young side of forty, with an oval face that was delicately beautiful. There were dark stains of suffering or sleeplessness under the low-lidded eyes, heightening their brilliance and their gentle melancholy. The face was very pale, save for the vivid colour of the full lips and the hectic flush on the rather high but inconspicuous cheek-bones. It was something in those lips that marred the perfection of that countenance; a fault, elusive but undeniable, lurked there to belie the fine sensitiveness of those nostrils, the tenderness of those dark, liquid eyes and the noble calm of that pale brow.
+
+The physician in Mr. Blood regarded the man with peculiar interest knowing as he did the agonizing malady from which his lordship suffered, and the amazingly irregular, debauched life that he led in spite of it - perhaps because of it.
+
+“Peter Blood, hold up your hand!”
+
+Abruptly he was recalled to his position by the harsh voice of the clerk of arraigns. His obedience was mechanical, and the clerk droned out the wordy indictment which pronounced Peter Blood a false traitor against the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Prince, James the Second, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland King, his supreme and natural lord. It informed him that, having no fear of God in his heart, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil, he had failed in the love and true and due natural obedience towards his said lord the King, and had moved to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom and to stir up war and rebellion to depose his said lord the King from the title, honour, and the regal name of the imperial crown - and much more of the same kind, at the end of all of which he was invited to say whether he was guilty or not guilty. He answered more than was asked.
+
+“It’s entirely innocent I am.”
+
+A small, sharp-faced man at a table before and to the right of him bounced up. It was Mr. Pollexfen, the Judge-Advocate.
+
+“Are you guilty or not guilty?” snapped this peppery gentleman. “You must take the words.”
+
+“Words, is it?” said Peter Blood. “Oh - not guilty.” And he went on, addressing himself to the bench. “On this same subject of words, may it please your lordships, I am guilty of nothing to justify any of those words I have heard used to describe me, unless it be of a want of patience at having been closely confined for two months and longer in a foetid gaol with great peril to my health and even life.”
+
+Being started, he would have added a deal more; but at this point the Lord Chief Justice interposed in a gentle, rather plaintive voice.
+
+“Look you, sir: because we must observe the common and usual methods of trial, I must interrupt you now. You are no doubt ignorant of the forms of law?”
+
+“Not only ignorant, my lord, but hitherto most happy in that ignorance. I could gladly have forgone this acquaintance with them.”
+
+A pale smile momentarily lightened the wistful countenance.
+
+“I believe you. You shall be fully heard when you come to your defence. But anything you say now is altogether irregular and improper.”
+
+Enheartened by that apparent sympathy and consideration, Mr. Blood answered thereafter, as was required of him, that he would be tried by God and his country. Whereupon, having prayed to God to send him a good deliverance, the clerk called upon Andrew Baynes to hold up his hand and plead.
+
+From Baynes, who pleaded not guilty, the clerk passed on to Pitt, who boldly owned his guilt. The Lord Chief Justice stirred at that.
+
+“Come; that’s better,” quoth he, and his four scarlet brethren nodded. “If all were as obstinate as his two fellow-rebels, there would never be an end.”
+
+After that ominous interpolation, delivered with an inhuman iciness that sent a shiver through the court, Mr. Pollexfen got to his feet. With great prolixity he stated the general case against the three men, and the particular case against Peter Blood, whose indictment was to be taken first.
+
+The only witness called for the King was Captain Hobart. He testified briskly to the manner in which he had found and taken the three prisoners, together with Lord Gildoy. Upon the orders of his colonel he would have hanged Pitt out of hand, but was restrained by the lies of the prisoner Blood, who led him to believe that Pitt was a peer of the realm and a person of consideration.
+
+As the Captain’s evidence concluded, Lord Jeffreys looked across at Peter Blood.
+
+“Will the prisoner Blood ask the witness any questions?”
+
+“None, my lord. He has correctly related what occurred.”
+
+“I am glad to have your admission of that without any of the prevarications that are usual in your kind. And I will say this, that here prevarication would avail you little. For we always have the truth in the end. Be sure of that.”
+
+Baynes and Pitt similarly admitted the accuracy of the Captain’s evidence, whereupon the scarlet figure of the Lord Chief Justice heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+“This being so, let us get on, in God’s name; for we have much to do.” There was now no trace of gentleness in his voice. It was brisk and rasping, and the lips through which it passed were curved in scorn. “I take it, Mr. Pollexfen, that the wicked treason of these three rogues being established - indeed, admitted by them - there is no more to be said.”
+
+Peter Blood’s voice rang out crisply, on a note that almost seemed to contain laughter.
+
+“May it please your lordship, but there’s a deal more to be said.”
+
+His lordship looked at him, first in blank amazement at his audacity, then gradually with an expression of dull anger. The scarlet lips fell into unpleasant, cruel lines that transfigured the whole countenance.
+
+“How now, rogue? Would you waste our time with idle subterfuge?”
+
+“I would have your lordship and the gentlemen of the jury hear me on my defence, as your lordship promised that I should be heard.”
+
+“Why, so you shall, villain; so you shall.” His lordship’s voice was harsh as a file. He writhed as he spoke, and for an instant his features were distorted. A delicate dead-white hand, on which the veins showed blue, brought forth a handkerchief with which he dabbed his lips and then his brow. Observing him with his physician’s eye, Peter Blood judged him a prey to the pain of the disease that was destroying him. “So you shall. But after the admission made, what defence remains?”
+
+“You shall judge, my lord.”
+
+“That is the purpose for which I sit here.”
+
+“And so shall you, gentlemen.” Blood looked from judge to jury. The latter shifted uncomfortably under the confident flash of his blue eyes. Lord Jeffreys’s bullying charge had whipped the spirit out of them. Had they, themselves, been prisoners accused of treason, he could not have arraigned them more ferociously.
+
+Peter Blood stood boldly forward, erect, self-possessed, and saturnine. He was freshly shaven, and his periwig, if out of curl, was at least carefully combed and dressed.
+
+“Captain Hobart has testified to what he knows - that he found me at Oglethorpe’s Farm on the Monday morning after the battle at Weston. But he has not told you what I did there.”
+
+Again the Judge broke in. “Why, what should you have been doing there in the company of rebels, two of whom - Lord Gildoy and your fellow there - have already admitted their guilt?”
+
+“That is what I beg leave to tell your lordship.”
+
+“I pray you do, and in God’s name be brief, man. For if I am to be troubled with the say of all you traitor dogs, I may sit here until the Spring Assizes.”
+
+“I was there, my lord, in my quality as a physician, to dress Lord Gildoy’s wounds.”
+
+“What’s this? Do you tell us that you are a physician?”
+
+“A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.”
+
+“Good God!” cried Lord Jeffreys, his voice suddenly swelling, his eyes upon the jury. “What an impudent rogue is this! You heard the witness say that he had known him in Tangiers some years ago, and that he was then an officer in the French service. You heard the prisoner admit that the witness had spoken the truth?”
+
+“Why, so he had. Yet what I am telling you is also true, so it is. For some years I was a soldier; but before that I was a physician, and I have been one again since January last, established in Bridgewater, as I can bring a hundred witnesses to prove.”
+
+“There’s not the need to waste our time with that. I will convict you out of your own rascally mouth. I will ask you only this: How came you, who represent yourself as a physician peacefully following your calling in the town of Bridgewater, to be with the army of the Duke of Monmouth?”
+
+“I was never with that army. No witness has sworn to that, and I dare swear that no witness will. I never was attracted to the late rebellion. I regarded the adventure as a wicked madness. I take leave to ask your lordship” (his brogue became more marked than ever) “what should I, who was born and bred a papist, be doing in the army of the Protestant Champion?”
+
+“A papist thou?” The judge gloomed on him a moment. “Art more like a snivelling, canting Jack Presbyter. I tell you, man, I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles.”
+
+“Then I’ll take leave to marvel that with so keen a nose your lordship can’t smell a papist at four paces.”
+
+There was a ripple of laughter in the galleries, instantly quelled by the fierce glare of the Judge and the voice of the crier.
+
+Lord Jeffreys leaned farther forward upon his desk. He raised that delicate white hand, still clutching its handkerchief, and sprouting from a froth of lace.
+
+“We’ll leave your religion out of account for the moment, friend,” said he. “But mark what I say to you.” With a minatory forefinger he beat the time of his words. “Know, friend, that there is no religion a man can pretend to can give a countenance to lying. Thou hast a precious immortal soul, and there is nothing in the world equal to it in value. Consider that the great God of Heaven and Earth, before Whose tribunal thou and we and all persons are to stand at the last day, will take vengeance on thee for every falsehood, and justly strike thee into eternal flames, make thee drop into the bottomless pit of fire and brimstone, if thou offer to deviate the least from the truth and nothing but the truth. For I tell thee God is not mocked. On that I charge you to answer truthfully. How came you to be taken with these rebels?”
+
+Peter Blood gaped at him a moment in consternation. The man was incredible, unreal, fantastic, a nightmare judge. Then he collected himself to answer.
+
+“I was summoned that morning to succour Lord Gildoy, and I conceived it to be the duty imposed upon me by my calling to answer that summons.”
+
+“Did you so?” The Judge, terrible now of aspect - his face white, his twisted lips red as the blood for which they thirsted - glared upon him in evil mockery. Then he controlled himself as if by an effort. He sighed. He resumed his earlier gentle plaintiveness. “Lord! How you waste our time. But I’ll have patience with you. Who summoned you?”
+
+“Master Pitt there, as he will testify.”
+
+“Oh! Master Pitt will testify - he that is himself a traitor self-confessed. Is that your witness?”
+
+“There is also Master Baynes here, who can answer to it.”
+
+“Good Master Baynes will have to answer for himself; and I doubt not he’ll be greatly exercised to save his own neck from a halter. Come, come, sir; are these your only witnesses?”
+
+“I could bring others from Bridgewater, who saw me set out that morning upon the crupper of Master Pitt’s horse.”
+
+His lordship smiled. “It will not be necessary. For, mark me, I do not intend to waste more time on you. Answer me only this: When Master Pitt, as you pretend, came to summon you, did you know that he had been, as you have heard him confess, of Monmouth’s following?”
+
+“I did, My lord.”
+
+“You did! Ha!” His lordship looked at the cringing jury and uttered a short, stabbing laugh. “Yet in spite of that you went with him?”
+
+“To succour a wounded man, as was my sacred duty.”
+
+“Thy sacred duty, sayest thou?” Fury blazed out of him again. “Good God! What a generation of vipers do we live in! Thy sacred duty, rogue, is to thy King and to God. But let it pass. Did he tell you whom it was that you were desired to succour?”
+
+“Lord Gildoy - yes.”
+
+“And you knew that Lord Gildoy had been wounded in the battle, and on what side he fought?”
+
+“I knew.”
+
+“And yet, being, as you would have us believe, a true and loyal subject of our Lord the King, you went to succour him?”
+
+Peter Blood lost patience for a moment. “My business, my lord, was with his wounds, not with his politics.”
+
+A murmur from the galleries and even from the jury approved him. It served only to drive his terrible judge into a deeper fury.
+
+“Jesus God! Was there ever such an impudent villain in the world as thou?” He swung, white-faced, to the jury. “I hope, gentlemen of the jury, you take notice of the horrible carriage of this traitor rogue, and withal you cannot but observe the spirit of this sort of people, what a villainous and devilish one it is. Out of his own mouth he has said enough to hang him a dozen times. Yet is there more. Answer me this, sir: When you cozened Captain Hobart with your lies concerning the station of this other traitor Pitt, what was your business then?”
+
+“To save him from being hanged without trial, as was threatened.”
+
+“What concern was it of yours whether or how the wretch was hanged?”
+
+“Justice is the concern of every loyal subject, for an injustice committed by one who holds the King’s commission is in some sense a dishonour to the King’s majesty.”
+
+It was a shrewd, sharp thrust aimed at the jury, and it reveals, I think, the alertness of the man’s mind, his self-possession ever steadiest in moments of dire peril. With any other jury it must have made the impression that he hoped to make. It may even have made its impression upon these poor pusillanimous sheep. But the dread judge was there to efface it.
+
+He gasped aloud, then flung himself violently forward.
+
+“Lord of Heaven!” he stormed. “Was there ever such a canting, impudent rascal? But I have done with you. I see thee, villain, I see thee already with a halter round thy neck.”
+
+Having spoken so, gloatingly, evilly, he sank back again, and composed himself. It was as if a curtain fell. All emotion passed again from his pale face. Back to invest it again came that gentle melancholy. Speaking after a moment’s pause, his voice was soft, almost tender, yet every word of it carried sharply through that hushed court.
+
+“If I know my own heart it is not in my nature to desire the hurt of anybody, much less to delight in his eternal perdition. It is out of compassion for you that I have used all these words - because I would have you have some regard for your immortal soul, and not ensure its damnation by obdurately persisting in falsehood and prevarication. But I see that all the pains in the world, and all compassion and charity are lost upon you, and therefore I will say no more to you.” He turned again to the jury that countenance of wistful beauty. “Gentlemen, I must tell you for law, of which we are the judges, and not you, that if any person be in actual rebellion against the King, and another person - who really and actually was not in rebellion - does knowingly receive, harbour, comfort, or succour him, such a person is as much a traitor as he who indeed bore arms. We are bound by our oaths and consciences to declare to you what is law; and you are bound by your oaths and your consciences to deliver and to declare to us by your verdict the truth of the facts.”
+
+Upon that he proceeded to his summing-up, showing how Baynes and Blood were both guilty of treason, the first for having harboured a traitor, the second for having succoured that traitor by dressing his wounds. He interlarded his address by sycophantic allusions to his natural lord and lawful sovereign, the King, whom God had set over them, and with vituperations of Nonconformity and of Monmouth, of whom - in his own words - he dared boldly affirm that the meanest subject within the kingdom that was of legitimate birth had a better title to the crown. “Jesus God! That ever we should have such a generation of vipers among us,” he burst out in rhetorical frenzy. And then he sank back as if exhausted by the violence he had used. A moment he was still, dabbing his lips again; then he moved uneasily; once more his features were twisted by pain, and in a few snarling, almost incoherent words he dismissed the jury to consider the verdict.
+
+Peter Blood had listened to the intemperate, the blasphemous, and almost obscene invective of that tirade with a detachment that afterwards, in retrospect, surprised him. He was so amazed by the man, by the reactions taking place in him between mind and body, and by his methods of bullying and coercing the jury into bloodshed, that he almost forgot that his own life was at stake.
+
+The absence of that dazed jury was a brief one. The verdict found the three prisoners guilty. Peter Blood looked round the scarlet-hung court. For an instant that foam of white faces seemed to heave before him. Then he was himself again, and a voice was asking him what he had to say for himself, why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, being convicted of high treason.
+
+He laughed, and his laugh jarred uncannily upon the deathly stillness of the court. It was all so grotesque, such a mockery of justice administered by that wistful-eyed jack-pudding in scarlet, who was himself a mockery - the venal instrument of a brutally spiteful and vindictive king. His laughter shocked the austerity of that same jack-pudding.
+
+“Do you laugh, sirrah, with the rope about your neck, upon the very threshold of that eternity you are so suddenly to enter into?”
+
+And then Blood took his revenge.
+
+“Faith, it’s in better case I am for mirth than your lordship. For I have this to say before you deliver judgment. Your lordship sees me - an innocent man whose only offence is that I practised charity - with a halter round my neck. Your lordship, being the justiciar, speaks with knowledge of what is to come to me. I, being a physician, may speak with knowledge of what is to come to your lordship. And I tell you that I would not now change places with you - that I would not exchange this halter that you fling about my neck for the stone that you carry in your body. The death to which you may doom me is a light pleasantry by contrast with the death to which your lordship has been doomed by that Great Judge with whose name your lordship makes so free.”
+
+The Lord Chief Justice sat stiffly upright, his face ashen, his lips twitching, and whilst you might have counted ten there was no sound in that paralyzed court after Peter Blood had finished speaking. All those who knew Lord Jeffreys regarded this as the lull before the storm, and braced themselves for the explosion. But none came.
+
+Slowly, faintly, the colour crept back into that ashen face. The scarlet figure lost its rigidity, and bent forward. His lordship began to speak. In a muted voice and briefly - much more briefly than his wont on such occasions and in a manner entirely mechanical, the manner of a man whose thoughts are elsewhere while his lips are speaking - he delivered sentence of death in the prescribed form, and without the least allusion to what Peter Blood had said. Having delivered it, he sank back exhausted, his eyes half-closed, his brow agleam with sweat.
+
+The prisoners filed out.
+
+Mr. Pollexfen - a Whig at heart despite the position of Judge-Advocate which he occupied - was overheard by one of the jurors to mutter in the ear of a brother counsel:
+
+“On my soul, that swarthy rascal has given his lordship a scare. It’s a pity he must hang. For a man who can frighten Jeffreys should go far.”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+HUMAN MERCHANDISE
+
+
+Mr. Pollexfen was at one and the same time right and wrong - a condition much more common than is generally supposed.
+
+He was right in his indifferently expressed thought that a man whose mien and words could daunt such a lord of terror as Jeffreys, should by the dominance of his nature be able to fashion himself a considerable destiny. He was wrong - though justifiably so - in his assumption that Peter Blood must hang.
+
+I have said that the tribulations with which he was visited as a result of his errand of mercy to Oglethorpe’s Farm contained - although as yet he did not perceive it, perhaps - two sources of thankfulness: one that he was tried at all; the other that his trial took place on the 19th of September. Until the 18th, the sentences passed by the court of the Lords Commissioners had been carried out literally and expeditiously. But on the morning of the 19th there arrived at Taunton a courier from Lord Sunderland, the Secretary of State, with a letter for Lord Jeffreys wherein he was informed that His Majesty had been graciously pleased to command that eleven hundred rebels should be furnished for transportation to some of His Majesty’s southern plantations, Jamaica, Barbados, or any of the Leeward Islands.
+
+You are not to suppose that this command was dictated by any sense of mercy. Lord Churchill was no more than just when he spoke of the King’s heart as being as insensible as marble. It had been realized that in these wholesale hangings there was taking place a reckless waste of valuable material. Slaves were urgently required in the plantations, and a healthy, vigorous man could be reckoned worth at least from ten to fifteen pounds. Then, there were at court many gentlemen who had some claim or other upon His Majesty’s bounty. Here was a cheap and ready way to discharge these claims. From amongst the convicted rebels a certain number might be set aside to be bestowed upon those gentlemen, so that they might dispose of them to their own profit.
+
+My Lord Sunderland’s letter gives precise details of the royal munificence in human flesh. A thousand prisoners were to be distributed among some eight courtiers and others, whilst a postscriptum to his lordship’s letter asked for a further hundred to be held at the disposal of the Queen. These prisoners were to be transported at once to His Majesty’s southern plantations, and to be kept there for the space of ten years before being restored to liberty, the parties to whom they were assigned entering into security to see that transportation was immediately effected.
+
+We know from Lord Jeffreys’s secretary how the Chief Justice inveighed that night in drunken frenzy against this misplaced clemency to which His Majesty had been persuaded. We know how he attempted by letter to induce the King to reconsider his decision. But James adhered to it. It was - apart from the indirect profit he derived from it - a clemency full worthy of him. He knew that to spare lives in this fashion was to convert them into living deaths. Many must succumb in torment to the horrors of West Indian slavery, and so be the envy of their surviving companions.
+
+Thus it happened that Peter Blood, and with him Jeremy Pitt and Andrew Baynes, instead of being hanged, drawn, and quartered as their sentences directed, were conveyed to Bristol and there shipped with some fifty others aboard the Jamaica Merchant. From close confinement under hatches, ill-nourishment and foul water, a sickness broke out amongst them, of which eleven died. Amongst these was the unfortunate yeoman from Oglethorpe’s Farm, brutally torn from his quiet homestead amid the fragrant cider orchards for no other sin but that he had practised mercy.
+
+The mortality might have been higher than it was but for Peter Blood. At first the master of the Jamaica Merchant had answered with oaths and threats the doctor’s expostulations against permitting men to perish in this fashion, and his insistence that he should be made free of the medicine chest and given leave to minister to the sick. But presently Captain Gardner came to see that he might be brought to task for these too heavy losses of human merchandise and because of this he was belatedly glad to avail himself of the skill of Peter Blood. The doctor went to work zealously and zestfully, and wrought so ably that, by his ministrations and by improving the condition of his fellow-captives, he checked the spread of the disease.
+
+Towards the middle of December the Jamaica Merchant dropped anchor in Carlisle Bay, and put ashore the forty-two surviving rebels-convict.
+
+If these unfortunates had imagined - as many of them appear to have done - that they were coming into some wild, savage country, the prospect, of which they had a glimpse before they were hustled over the ship’s side into the waiting boats, was enough to correct the impression. They beheld a town of sufficiently imposing proportions composed of houses built upon European notions of architecture, but without any of the huddle usual in European cities. The spire of a church rose dominantly above the red roofs, a fort guarded the entrance of the wide harbour, with guns thrusting their muzzles between the crenels, and the wide facade of Government House revealed itself dominantly placed on a gentle hill above the town. This hill was vividly green as is an English hill in April, and the day was such a day as April gives to England, the season of heavy rains being newly ended.
+
+On a wide cobbled space on the sea front they found a guard of red-coated militia drawn up to receive them, and a crowd - attracted by their arrival - which in dress and manner differed little from a crowd in a seaport at home save that it contained fewer women and a great number of negroes.
+
+To inspect them, drawn up there on the mole, came Governor Steed, a short, stout, red-faced gentleman, in blue taffetas burdened by a prodigious amount of gold lace, who limped a little and leaned heavily upon a stout ebony cane. After him, in the uniform of a colonel of the Barbados Militia, rolled a tall, corpulent man who towered head and shoulders above the Governor, with malevolence plainly written on his enormous yellowish countenance. At his side, and contrasting oddly with his grossness, moving with an easy stripling grace, came a slight young lady in a modish riding-gown. The broad brim of a grey hat with scarlet sweep of ostrich plume shaded an oval face upon which the climate of the Tropic of Cancer had made no impression, so delicately fair was its complexion. Ringlets of red-brown hair hung to her shoulders. Frankness looked out from her hazel eyes which were set wide; commiseration repressed now the mischievousness that normally inhabited her fresh young mouth.
+
+Peter Blood caught himself staring in a sort of amazement at that piquant face, which seemed here so out of place, and finding his stare returned, he shifted uncomfortably. He grew conscious of the sorry figure that he cut. Unwashed, with rank and matted hair and a disfiguring black beard upon his face, and the erstwhile splendid suit of black camlet in which he had been taken prisoner now reduced to rags that would have disgraced a scarecrow, he was in no case for inspection by such dainty eyes as these. Nevertheless, they continued to inspect him with round-eyed, almost childlike wonder and pity. Their owner put forth a hand to touch the scarlet sleeve of her companion, whereupon with an ill-tempered grunt the man swung his great bulk round so that he directly confronted her.
+
+Looking up into his face, she was speaking to him earnestly, but the Colonel plainly gave her no more than the half of his attention. His little beady eyes, closely flanking a fleshly, pendulous nose, had passed from her and were fixed upon fair-haired, sturdy young Pitt, who was standing beside Blood.
+
+The Governor had also come to a halt, and for a moment now that little group of three stood in conversation. What the lady said, Peter could not hear at all, for she lowered her voice; the Colonel’s reached him in a confused rumble, but the Governor was neither considerate nor indistinct; he had a high-pitched voice which carried far, and believing himself witty, he desired to be heard by all.
+
+“But, my dear Colonel Bishop, it is for you to take first choice from this dainty nosegay, and at your own price. After that we’ll send the rest to auction.”
+
+Colonel Bishop nodded his acknowledgment. He raised his voice in answering. “Your excellency is very good. But, faith, they’re a weedy lot, not likely to be of much value in the plantation.” His beady eyes scanned them again, and his contempt of them deepened the malevolence of his face. It was as if he were annoyed with them for being in no better condition. Then he beckoned forward Captain Gardner, the master of the Jamaica Merchant, and for some minutes stood in talk with him over a list which the latter produced at his request.
+
+Presently he waved aside the list and advanced alone towards the rebels-convict, his eyes considering them, his lips pursed. Before the young Somersetshire shipmaster he came to a halt, and stood an instant pondering him. Then he fingered the muscles of the young man’s arm, and bade him open his mouth that he might see his teeth. He pursed his coarse lips again and nodded.
+
+He spoke to Gardner over his shoulder.
+
+“Fifteen pounds for this one.”
+
+The Captain made a face of dismay. “Fifteen pounds! It isn’t half what I meant to ask for him.”
+
+“It is double what I had meant to give,” grunted the Colonel.
+
+“But he would be cheap at thirty pounds, your honour.”
+
+“I can get a negro for that. These white swine don’t live. They’re not fit for the labour.”
+
+Gardner broke into protestations of Pitt’s health, youth, and vigour. It was not a man he was discussing; it was a beast of burden. Pitt, a sensitive lad, stood mute and unmoving. Only the ebb and flow of colour in his cheeks showed the inward struggle by which he maintained his self-control.
+
+Peter Blood was nauseated by the loathsome haggle.
+
+In the background, moving slowly away down the line of prisoners, went the lady in conversation with the Governor, who smirked and preened himself as he limped beside her. She was unconscious of the loathly business the Colonel was transacting. Was she, wondered Blood, indifferent to it?
+
+Colonel Bishop swung on his heel to pass on.
+
+“I’ll go as far as twenty pounds. Not a penny more, and it’s twice as much as you are like to get from Crabston.”
+
+Captain Gardner, recognizing the finality of the tone, sighed and yielded. Already Bishop was moving down the line. For Mr. Blood, as for a weedy youth on his left, the Colonel had no more than a glance of contempt. But the next man, a middle-aged Colossus named Wolverstone, who had lost an eye at Sedgemoor, drew his regard, and the haggling was recommenced.
+
+Peter Blood stood there in the brilliant sunshine and inhaled the fragrant air, which was unlike any air that he had ever breathed. It was laden with a strange perfume, blend of logwood flower, pimento, and aromatic cedars. He lost himself in unprofitable speculations born of that singular fragrance. He was in no mood for conversation, nor was Pitt, who stood dumbly at his side, and who was afflicted mainly at the moment by the thought that he was at last about to be separated from this man with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder throughout all these troublous months, and whom he had come to love and depend upon for guidance and sustenance. A sense of loneliness and misery pervaded him by contrast with which all that he had endured seemed as nothing. To Pitt, this separation was the poignant climax of all his sufferings.
+
+Other buyers came and stared at them, and passed on. Blood did not heed them. And then at the end of the line there was a movement. Gardner was speaking in a loud voice, making an announcement to the general public of buyers that had waited until Colonel Bishop had taken his choice of that human merchandise. As he finished, Blood, looking in his direction, noticed that the girl was speaking to Bishop, and pointing up the line with a silver-hilted riding-whip she carried. Bishop shaded his eyes with his hand to look in the direction in which she was pointing. Then slowly, with his ponderous, rolling gait, he approached again accompanied by Gardner, and followed by the lady and the Governor.
+
+On they came until the Colonel was abreast of Blood. He would have passed on, but that the lady tapped his arm with her whip.
+
+“But this is the man I meant,” she said.
+
+“This one?” Contempt rang in the voice. Peter Blood found himself staring into a pair of beady brown eyes sunk into a yellow, fleshly face like currants into a dumpling. He felt the colour creeping into his face under the insult of that contemptuous inspection. “Bah! A bag of bones. What should I do with him?”
+
+He was turning away when Gardner interposed.
+
+“He maybe lean, but he’s tough; tough and healthy. When half of them was sick and the other half sickening, this rogue kept his legs and doctored his fellows. But for him there’d ha’ been more deaths than there was. Say fifteen pounds for him, Colonel. That’s cheap enough. He’s tough, I tell your honour - tough and strong, though he be lean. And he’s just the man to bear the heat when it comes. The climate’ll never kill him.”
+
+There came a chuckle from Governor Steed. “You hear, Colonel. Trust your niece. Her sex knows a man when it sees one.” And he laughed, well pleased with his wit.
+
+But he laughed alone. A cloud of annoyance swept across the face of the Colonel’s niece, whilst the Colonel himself was too absorbed in the consideration of this bargain to heed the Governor’s humour. He twisted his lip a little, stroking his chin with his hand the while. Jeremy Pitt had almost ceased to breathe.
+
+“I’ll give you ten pounds for him,” said the Colonel at last.
+
+Peter Blood prayed that the offer might be rejected. For no reason that he could have given you, he was taken with repugnance at the thought of becoming the property of this gross animal, and in some sort the property of that hazel-eyed young girl. But it would need more than repugnance to save him from his destiny. A slave is a slave, and has no power to shape his fate. Peter Blood was sold to Colonel Bishop - a disdainful buyer - for the ignominious sum of ten pounds.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+ARABELLA BISHOP
+
+
+One sunny morning in January, about a month after the arrival of the Jamaica Merchant at Bridgetown, Miss Arabella Bishop rode out from her uncle’s fine house on the heights to the northwest of the city. She was attended by two negroes who trotted after her at a respectful distance, and her destination was Government House, whither she went to visit the Governor’s lady, who had lately been ailing. Reaching the summit of a gentle, grassy slope, she met a tall, lean man dressed in a sober, gentlemanly fashion, who was walking in the opposite direction. He was a stranger to her, and strangers were rare enough in the island. And yet in some vague way he did not seem quite a stranger.
+
+Miss Arabella drew rein, affecting to pause that she might admire the prospect, which was fair enough to warrant it. Yet out of the corner of those hazel eyes she scanned this fellow very attentively as he came nearer. She corrected her first impression of his dress. It was sober enough, but hardly gentlemanly. Coat and breeches were of plain homespun; and if the former sat so well upon him it was more by virtue of his natural grace than by that of tailoring. His stockings were of cotton, harsh and plain, and the broad castor, which he respectfully doffed as he came up with her, was an old one unadorned by band or feather. What had seemed to be a periwig at a little distance was now revealed for the man’s own lustrous coiling black hair.
+
+Out of a brown, shaven, saturnine face two eyes that were startlingly blue considered her gravely. The man would have passed on but that she detained him.
+
+“I think I know you, sir,” said she.
+
+Her voice was crisp and boyish, and there was something of boyishness in her manner - if one can apply the term to so dainty a lady. It arose perhaps from an ease, a directness, which disdained the artifices of her sex, and set her on good terms with all the world. To this it may be due that Miss Arabella had reached the age of five and twenty not merely unmarried but unwooed. She used with all men a sisterly frankness which in itself contains a quality of aloofness, rendering it difficult for any man to become her lover.
+
+Her negroes had halted at some distance in the rear, and they squatted now upon the short grass until it should be her pleasure to proceed upon her way.
+
+The stranger came to a standstill upon being addressed.
+
+“A lady should know her own property,” said he.
+
+“My property?”
+
+“Your uncle’s, leastways. Let me present myself. I am called Peter Blood, and I am worth precisely ten pounds. I know it because that is the sum your uncle paid for me. It is not every man has the same opportunities of ascertaining his real value.”
+
+She recognized him then. She had not seen him since that day upon the mole a month ago, and that she should not instantly have known him again despite the interest he had then aroused in her is not surprising, considering the change he had wrought in his appearance, which now was hardly that of a slave.
+
+“My God!” said she. “And you can laugh!”
+
+“It’s an achievement,” he admitted. “But then, I have not fared as ill as I might.”
+
+“I have heard of that,” said she.
+
+What she had heard was that this rebel-convict had been discovered to be a physician. The thing had come to the ears of Governor Steed, who suffered damnably from the gout, and Governor Steed had borrowed the fellow from his purchaser. Whether by skill or good fortune, Peter Blood had afforded the Governor that relief which his excellency had failed to obtain from the ministrations of either of the two physicians practising in Bridgetown. Then the Governor’s lady had desired him to attend her for the megrims. Mr. Blood had found her suffering from nothing worse than peevishness - the result of a natural petulance aggravated by the dulness of life in Barbados to a lady of her social aspirations. But he had prescribed for her none the less, and she had conceived herself the better for his prescription. After that the fame of him had gone through Bridgetown, and Colonel Bishop had found that there was more profit to be made out of this new slave by leaving him to pursue his profession than by setting him to work on the plantations, for which purpose he had been originally acquired.
+
+“It is yourself, madam, I have to thank for my comparatively easy and clean condition,” said Mr. Blood, “and I am glad to take this opportunity of doing so.”
+
+The gratitude was in his words rather than in his tone. Was he mocking, she wondered, and looked at him with the searching frankness that another might have found disconcerting. He took the glance for a question, and answered it.
+
+“If some other planter had bought me,” he explained, “it is odds that the facts of my shining abilities might never have been brought to light, and I should be hewing and hoeing at this moment like the poor wretches who were landed with me.”
+
+“And why do you thank me for that? It was my uncle who bought you.”
+
+“But he would not have done so had you not urged him. I perceived your interest. At the time I resented it.”
+
+“You resented it?” There was a challenge in her boyish voice.
+
+“I have had no lack of experiences of this mortal life; but to be bought and sold was a new one, and I was hardly in the mood to love my purchaser.”
+
+“If I urged you upon my uncle, sir, it was that I commiserated you.” There was a slight severity in her tone, as if to reprove the mixture of mockery and flippancy in which he seemed to be speaking.
+
+She proceeded to explain herself. “My uncle may appear to you a hard man. No doubt he is. They are all hard men, these planters. It is the life, I suppose. But there are others here who are worse. There is Mr. Crabston, for instance, up at Speightstown. He was there on the mole, waiting to buy my uncle’s leavings, and if you had fallen into his hands … A dreadful man. That is why.”
+
+He was a little bewildered.
+
+“This interest in a stranger …” he began. Then changed the direction of his probe. “But there were others as deserving of commiseration.”
+
+“You did not seem quite like the others.”
+
+“I am not,” said he.
+
+“Oh!” She stared at him, bridling a little. “You have a good opinion of yourself.”
+
+“On the contrary. The others are all worthy rebels. I am not. That is the difference. I was one who had not the wit to see that England requires purifying. I was content to pursue a doctor’s trade in Bridgewater whilst my betters were shedding their blood to drive out an unclean tyrant and his rascally crew.”
+
+“Sir!” she checked him. “I think you are talking treason.”
+
+“I hope I am not obscure,” said he.
+
+“There are those here who would have you flogged if they heard you.”
+
+“The Governor would never allow it. He has the gout, and his lady has the megrims.”
+
+“Do you depend upon that?” She was frankly scornful.
+
+“You have certainly never had the gout; probably not even the megrims,” said he.
+
+She made a little impatient movement with her hand, and looked away from him a moment, out to sea. Quite suddenly she looked at him again; and now her brows were knit.
+
+“But if you are not a rebel, how come you here?”
+
+He saw the thing she apprehended, and he laughed. “Faith, now, it’s a long story,” said he.
+
+“And one perhaps that you would prefer not to tell?”
+
+Briefly on that he told it her.
+
+“My God! What an infamy!” she cried, when he had done.
+
+“Oh, it’s a sweet country England under King James! There’s no need to commiserate me further. All things considered I prefer Barbados. Here at least one can believe in God.”
+
+He looked first to right, then to left as he spoke, from the distant shadowy bulk of Mount Hillbay to the limitless ocean ruffled by the winds of heaven. Then, as if the fair prospect rendered him conscious of his own littleness and the insignificance of his woes, he fell thoughtful.
+
+“Is that so difficult elsewhere?” she asked him, and she was very grave.
+
+“Men make it so.”
+
+“I see.” She laughed a little, on a note of sadness, it seemed to him. “I have never deemed Barbados the earthly mirror of heaven,” she confessed. “But no doubt you know your world better than I.” She touched her horse with her little silver-hilted whip. “I congratulate you on this easing of your misfortunes.”
+
+He bowed, and she moved on. Her negroes sprang up, and went trotting after her.
+
+Awhile Peter Blood remained standing there, where she left him, conning the sunlit waters of Carlisle Bay below, and the shipping in that spacious haven about which the gulls were fluttering noisily.
+
+It was a fair enough prospect, he reflected, but it was a prison, and in announcing that he preferred it to England, he had indulged that almost laudable form of boasting which lies in belittling our misadventures.
+
+He turned, and resuming his way, went off in long, swinging strides towards the little huddle of huts built of mud and wattles - a miniature village enclosed in a stockade which the plantation slaves inhabited, and where he, himself, was lodged with them.
+
+Through his mind sang the line of Lovelace:
+
+“Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.”
+
+But he gave it a fresh meaning, the very converse of that which its author had intended. A prison, he reflected, was a prison, though it had neither walls nor bars, however spacious it might be. And as he realized it that morning so he was to realize it increasingly as time sped on. Daily he came to think more of his clipped wings, of his exclusion from the world, and less of the fortuitous liberty he enjoyed. Nor did the contrasting of his comparatively easy lot with that of his unfortunate fellow-convicts bring him the satisfaction a differently constituted mind might have derived from it. Rather did the contemplation of their misery increase the bitterness that was gathering in his soul.
+
+Of the forty-two who had been landed with him from the Jamaica Merchant, Colonel Bishop had purchased no less than twenty-five. The remainder had gone to lesser planters, some of them to Speightstown, and others still farther north. What may have been the lot of the latter he could not tell, but amongst Bishop’s slaves Peter Blood came and went freely, sleeping in their quarters, and their lot he knew to be a brutalizing misery. They toiled in the sugar plantations from sunrise to sunset, and if their labours flagged, there were the whips of the overseer and his men to quicken them. They went in rags, some almost naked; they dwelt in squalor, and they were ill-nourished on salted meat and maize dumplings - food which to many of them was for a season at least so nauseating that two of them sickened and died before Bishop remembered that their lives had a certain value in labour to him and yielded to Blood’s intercessions for a better care of such as fell ill. To curb insubordination, one of them who had rebelled against Kent, the brutal overseer, was lashed to death by negroes under his comrades’ eyes, and another who had been so misguided as to run away into the woods was tracked, brought back, flogged, and then branded on the forehead with the letters “F. T.,” that all might know him for a fugitive traitor as long as he lived. Fortunately for him the poor fellow died as a consequence of the flogging.
+
+After that a dull, spiritless resignation settled down upon the remainder. The most mutinous were quelled, and accepted their unspeakable lot with the tragic fortitude of despair.
+
+Peter Blood alone, escaping these excessive sufferings, remained outwardly unchanged, whilst inwardly the only change in him was a daily deeper hatred of his kind, a daily deeper longing to escape from this place where man defiled so foully the lovely work of his Creator. It was a longing too vague to amount to a hope. Hope here was inadmissible. And yet he did not yield to despair. He set a mask of laughter on his saturnine countenance and went his way, treating the sick to the profit of Colonel Bishop, and encroaching further and further upon the preserves of the two other men of medicine in Bridgetown.
+
+Immune from the degrading punishments and privations of his fellow-convicts, he was enabled to keep his self-respect, and was treated without harshness even by the soulless planter to whom he had been sold. He owed it all to gout and megrims. He had won the esteem of Governor Steed, and - what is even more important - of Governor Steed’s lady, whom he shamelessly and cynically flattered and humoured.
+
+Occasionally he saw Miss Bishop, and they seldom met but that she paused to hold him in conversation for some moments, evincing her interest in him. Himself, he was never disposed to linger. He was not, he told himself, to be deceived by her delicate exterior, her sapling grace, her easy, boyish ways and pleasant, boyish voice. In all his life - and it had been very varied - he had never met a man whom he accounted more beastly than her uncle, and he could not dissociate her from the man. She was his niece, of his own blood, and some of the vices of it, some of the remorseless cruelty of the wealthy planter must, he argued, inhabit that pleasant body of hers. He argued this very often to himself, as if answering and convincing some instinct that pleaded otherwise, and arguing it he avoided her when it was possible, and was frigidly civil when it was not.
+
+Justifiable as his reasoning was, plausible as it may seem, yet he would have done better to have trusted the instinct that was in conflict with it. Though the same blood ran in her veins as in those of Colonel Bishop, yet hers was free of the vices that tainted her uncle’s, for these vices were not natural to that blood; they were, in his case, acquired. Her father, Tom Bishop - that same Colonel Bishop’s brother - had been a kindly, chivalrous, gentle soul, who, broken-hearted by the early death of a young wife, had abandoned the Old World and sought an anodyne for his grief in the New. He had come out to the Antilles, bringing with him his little daughter, then five years of age, and had given himself up to the life of a planter. He had prospered from the first, as men sometimes will who care nothing for prosperity. Prospering, he had bethought him of his younger brother, a soldier at home reputed somewhat wild. He had advised him to come out to Barbados; and the advice, which at another season William Bishop might have scorned, reached him at a moment when his wildness was beginning to bear such fruit that a change of climate was desirable. William came, and was admitted by his generous brother to a partnership in the prosperous plantation. Some six years later, when Arabella was fifteen, her father died, leaving her in her uncle’s guardianship. It was perhaps his one mistake. But the goodness of his own nature coloured his views of other men; moreover, himself, he had conducted the education of his daughter, giving her an independence of character upon which perhaps he counted unduly. As things were, there was little love between uncle and niece. But she was dutiful to him, and he was circumspect in his behaviour before her. All his life, and for all his wildness, he had gone in a certain awe of his brother, whose worth he had the wit to recognize; and now it was almost as if some of that awe was transferred to his brother’s child, who was also, in a sense, his partner, although she took no active part in the business of the plantations.
+
+Peter Blood judged her - as we are all too prone to judge - upon insufficient knowledge.
+
+He was very soon to have cause to correct that judgment. One day towards the end of May, when the heat was beginning to grow oppressive, there crawled into Carlisle Bay a wounded, battered English ship, the Pride of Devon, her freeboard scarred and broken, her coach a gaping wreck, her mizzen so shot away that only a jagged stump remained to tell the place where it had stood. She had been in action off Martinique with two Spanish treasure ships, and although her captain swore that the Spaniards had beset him without provocation, it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that the encounter had been brought about quite otherwise. One of the Spaniards had fled from the combat, and if the Pride of Devon had not given chase it was probably because she was by then in no case to do so. The other had been sunk, but not before the English ship had transferred to her own hold a good deal of the treasure aboard the Spaniard. It was, in fact, one of those piratical affrays which were a perpetual source of trouble between the courts of St. James’s and the Escurial, complaints emanating now from one and now from the other side.
+
+Steed, however, after the fashion of most Colonial governors, was willing enough to dull his wits to the extent of accepting the English seaman’s story, disregarding any evidence that might belie it. He shared the hatred so richly deserved by arrogant, overbearing Spain that was common to men of every other nation from the Bahamas to the Main. Therefore he gave the Pride of Devon the shelter she sought in his harbour and every facility to careen and carry out repairs.
+
+But before it came to this, they fetched from her hold over a score of English seamen as battered and broken as the ship herself, and together with these some half-dozen Spaniards in like case, the only survivors of a boarding party from the Spanish galleon that had invaded the English ship and found itself unable to retreat. These wounded men were conveyed to a long shed on the wharf, and the medical skill of Bridgetown was summoned to their aid. Peter Blood was ordered to bear a hand in this work, and partly because he spoke Castilian - and he spoke it as fluently as his own native tongue - partly because of his inferior condition as a slave, he was given the Spaniards for his patients.
+
+Now Blood had no cause to love Spaniards. His two years in a Spanish prison and his subsequent campaigning in the Spanish Netherlands had shown him a side of the Spanish character which he had found anything but admirable. Nevertheless he performed his doctor’s duties zealously and painstakingly, if emotionlessly, and even with a certain superficial friendliness towards each of his patients. These were so surprised at having their wounds healed instead of being summarily hanged that they manifested a docility very unusual in their kind. They were shunned, however, by all those charitably disposed inhabitants of Bridgetown who flocked to the improvised hospital with gifts of fruit and flowers and delicacies for the injured English seamen. Indeed, had the wishes of some of these inhabitants been regarded, the Spaniards would have been left to die like vermin, and of this Peter Blood had an example almost at the very outset.
+
+With the assistance of one of the negroes sent to the shed for the purpose, he was in the act of setting a broken leg, when a deep, gruff voice, that he had come to know and dislike as he had never disliked the voice of living man, abruptly challenged him.
+
+“What are you doing there?”
+
+Blood did not look up from his task. There was not the need. He knew the voice, as I have said.
+
+“I am setting a broken leg,” he answered, without pausing in his labours.
+
+“I can see that, fool.” A bulky body interposed between Peter Blood and the window. The half-naked man on the straw rolled his black eyes to stare up fearfully out of a clay-coloured face at this intruder. A knowledge of English was unnecessary to inform him that here came an enemy. The harsh, minatory note of that voice sufficiently expressed the fact. “I can see that, fool; just as I can see what the rascal is. Who gave you leave to set Spanish legs?”
+
+“I am a doctor, Colonel Bishop. The man is wounded. It is not for me to discriminate. I keep to my trade.”
+
+“Do you, by God! If you’d done that, you wouldn’t now be here.”
+
+“On the contrary, it is because I did it that I am here.”
+
+“Aye, I know that’s your lying tale.” The Colonel sneered; and then, observing Blood to continue his work unmoved, he grew really angry. “Will you cease that, and attend to me when I am speaking?”
+
+Peter Blood paused, but only for an instant. “The man is in pain,” he said shortly, and resumed his work.
+
+“In pain, is he? I hope he is, the damned piratical dog. But will you heed me, you insubordinate knave?”
+
+The Colonel delivered himself in a roar, infuriated by what he conceived to be defiance, and defiance expressing itself in the most unruffled disregard of himself. His long bamboo cane was raised to strike. Peter Blood’s blue eyes caught the flash of it, and he spoke quickly to arrest the blow.
+
+“Not insubordinate, sir, whatever I may be. I am acting upon the express orders of Governor Steed.”
+
+The Colonel checked, his great face empurpling. His mouth fell open.
+
+“Governor Steed!” he echoed. Then he lowered his cane, swung round, and without another word to Blood rolled away towards the other end of the shed where the Governor was standing at the moment.
+
+Peter Blood chuckled. But his triumph was dictated less by humanitarian considerations than by the reflection that he had baulked his brutal owner.
+
+The Spaniard, realizing that in this altercation, whatever its nature, the doctor had stood his friend, ventured in a muted voice to ask him what had happened. But the doctor shook his head in silence, and pursued his work. His ears were straining to catch the words now passing between Steed and Bishop. The Colonel was blustering and storming, the great bulk of him towering above the wizened little overdressed figure of the Governor. But the little fop was not to be browbeaten. His excellency was conscious that he had behind him the force of public opinion to support him. Some there might be, but they were not many, who held such ruthless views as Colonel Bishop. His excellency asserted his authority. It was by his orders that Blood had devoted himself to the wounded Spaniards, and his orders were to be carried out. There was no more to be said.
+
+Colonel Bishop was of another opinion. In his view there was a great deal to be said. He said it, with great circumstance, loudly, vehemently, obscenely - for he could be fluently obscene when moved to anger.
+
+“You talk like a Spaniard, Colonel,” said the Governor, and thus dealt the Colonel’s pride a wound that was to smart resentfully for many a week. At the moment it struck him silent, and sent him stamping out of the shed in a rage for which he could find no words.
+
+It was two days later when the ladies of Bridgetown, the wives and daughters of her planters and merchants, paid their first visit of charity to the wharf, bringing their gifts to the wounded seamen.
+
+Again Peter Blood was there, ministering to the sufferers in his care, moving among those unfortunate Spaniards whom no one heeded. All the charity, all the gifts were for the members of the crew of the Pride of Devon. And this Peter Blood accounted natural enough. But rising suddenly from the re-dressing of a wound, a task in which he had been absorbed for some moments, he saw to his surprise that one lady, detached from the general throng, was placing some plantains and a bundle of succulent sugar cane on the cloak that served one of his patients for a coverlet. She was elegantly dressed in lavender silk and was followed by a half-naked negro carrying a basket.
+
+Peter Blood, stripped of his coat, the sleeves of his coarse shirt rolled to the elbow, and holding a bloody rag in his hand, stood at gaze a moment. The lady, turning now to confront him, her lips parting in a smile of recognition, was Arabella Bishop.
+
+“The man’s a Spaniard,” said he, in the tone of one who corrects a misapprehension, and also tinged never so faintly by something of the derision that was in his soul.
+
+The smile with which she had been greeting him withered on her lips. She frowned and stared at him a moment, with increasing haughtiness.
+
+“So I perceive. But he’s a human being none the less,” said she.
+
+That answer, and its implied rebuke, took him by surprise.
+
+“Your uncle, the Colonel, is of a different opinion,” said he, when he had recovered. “He regards them as vermin to be left to languish and die of their festering wounds.”
+
+She caught the irony now more plainly in his voice. She continued to stare at him.
+
+“Why do you tell me this?”
+
+“To warn you that you may be incurring the Colonel’s displeasure. If he had had his way, I should never have been allowed to dress their wounds.”
+
+“And you thought, of course, that I must be of my uncle’s mind?” There was a crispness about her voice, an ominous challenging sparkle in her hazel eyes.
+
+“I’d not willingly be rude to a lady even in my thoughts,” said he. “But that you should bestow gifts on them, considering that if your uncle came to hear of it….” He paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. “Ah, well - there it is!” he concluded.
+
+But the lady was not satisfied at all.
+
+“First you impute to me inhumanity, and then cowardice. Faith! For a man who would not willingly be rude to a lady even in his thoughts, it’s none so bad.” Her boyish laugh trilled out, but the note of it jarred his ears this time.
+
+He saw her now, it seemed to him, for the first time, and saw how he had misjudged her.
+
+“Sure, now, how was I to guess that… that Colonel Bishop could have an angel for his niece?” said he recklessly, for he was reckless as men often are in sudden penitence.
+
+“You wouldn’t, of course. I shouldn’t think you often guess aright.” Having withered him with that and her glance, she turned to her negro and the basket that he carried. From this she lifted now the fruits and delicacies with which it was laden, and piled them in such heaps upon the beds of the six Spaniards that by the time she had so served the last of them her basket was empty, and there was nothing left for her own fellow-countrymen. These, indeed, stood in no need of her bounty - as she no doubt observed - since they were being plentifully supplied by others.
+
+Having thus emptied her basket, she called her negro, and without another word or so much as another glance at Peter Blood, swept out of the place with her head high and chin thrust forward.
+
+Peter watched her departure. Then he fetched a sigh.
+
+It startled him to discover that the thought that he had incurred her anger gave him concern. It could not have been so yesterday. It became so only since he had been vouchsafed this revelation of her true nature. “Bad cess to it now, it serves me right. It seems I know nothing at all of human nature. But how the devil was I to guess that a family that can breed a devil like Colonel Bishop should also breed a saint like this?”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+PLANS OF ESCAPE
+
+
+After that Arabella Bishop went daily to the shed on the wharf with gifts of fruit, and later of money and of wearing apparel for the Spanish prisoners. But she contrived so to time her visits that Peter Blood never again met her there. Also his own visits were growing shorter in a measure as his patients healed. That they all throve and returned to health under his care, whilst fully one third of the wounded in the care of Whacker and Bronson - the two other surgeons - died of their wounds, served to increase the reputation in which this rebel-convict stood in Bridgetown. It may have been no more than the fortune of war. But the townsfolk did not choose so to regard it. It led to a further dwindling of the practices of his free colleagues and a further increase of his own labours and his owner’s profit. Whacker and Bronson laid their heads together to devise a scheme by which this intolerable state of things should be brought to an end. But that is to anticipate.
+
+One day, whether by accident or design, Peter Blood came striding down the wharf a full half-hour earlier than usual, and so met Miss Bishop just issuing from the shed. He doffed his hat and stood aside to give her passage. She took it, chin in the air, and eyes which disdained to look anywhere where the sight of him was possible.
+
+“Miss Arabella,” said he, on a coaxing, pleading note.
+
+She grew conscious of his presence, and looked him over with an air that was faintly, mockingly searching.
+
+“La!” said she. “It’s the delicate-minded gentleman!”
+
+Peter groaned. “Am I so hopelessly beyond forgiveness? I ask it very humbly.”
+
+“What condescension!”
+
+“It is cruel to mock me,” said he, and adopted mock-humility. “After all, I am but a slave. And you might be ill one of these days.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+“It would be humiliating to send for me if you treat me like an enemy.”
+
+“You are not the only doctor in Bridgetown.”
+
+“But I am the least dangerous.”
+
+She grew suddenly suspicious of him, aware that he was permitting himself to rally her, and in a measure she had already yielded to it. She stiffened, and looked him over again.
+
+“You make too free, I think,” she rebuked him.
+
+“A doctor’s privilege.”
+
+“I am not your patient. Please to remember it in future.” And on that, unquestionably angry, she departed.
+
+“Now is she a vixen or am I a fool, or is it both?” he asked the blue vault of heaven, and then went into the shed.
+
+It was to be a morning of excitements. As he was leaving an hour or so later, Whacker, the younger of the other two physicians, joined him - an unprecedented condescension this, for hitherto neither of them had addressed him beyond an occasional and surly “good-day!”
+
+“If you are for Colonel Bishop’s, I’ll walk with you a little way, Doctor Blood,” said he. He was a short, broad man of five-and-forty with pendulous cheeks and hard blue eyes.
+
+Peter Blood was startled. But he dissembled it.
+
+“I am for Government House,” said he.
+
+“Ah! To be sure! The Governor’s lady.” And he laughed; or perhaps he sneered. Peter Blood was not quite certain. “She encroaches a deal upon your time, I hear. Youth and good looks, Doctor Blood! Youth and good looks! They are inestimable advantages in our profession as in others - particularly where the ladies are concerned.”
+
+Peter stared at him. “If you mean what you seem to mean, you had better say it to Governor Steed. It may amuse him.”
+
+“You surely misapprehend me.”
+
+“I hope so.”
+
+“You’re so very hot, now!” The doctor linked his arm through Peter’s. “I protest I desire to be your friend - to serve you. Now, listen.” Instinctively his voice grew lower. “This slavery in which you find yourself must be singularly irksome to a man of parts such as yourself.”
+
+“What intuitions!” cried sardonic Mr. Blood. But the doctor took him literally.
+
+“I am no fool, my dear doctor. I know a man when I see one, and often I can tell his thoughts.”
+
+“If you can tell me mine, you’ll persuade me of it,” said Mr. Blood.
+
+Dr. Whacker drew still closer to him as they stepped along the wharf. He lowered his voice to a still more confidential tone. His hard blue eyes peered up into the swart, sardonic face of his companion, who was a head taller than himself.
+
+“How often have I not seen you staring out over the sea, your soul in your eyes! Don’t I know what you are thinking? If you could escape from this hell of slavery, you could exercise the profession of which you are an ornament as a free man with pleasure and profit to yourself. The world is large. There are many nations besides England where a man of your parts would be warmly welcomed. There are many colonies besides these English ones.” Lower still came the voice until it was no more than a whisper. Yet there was no one within earshot. “It is none so far now to the Dutch settlement of Curacao. At this time of the year the voyage may safely be undertaken in a light craft. And Curacao need be no more than a stepping-stone to the great world, which would lie open to you once you were delivered from this bondage.”
+
+Dr. Whacker ceased. He was pale and a little out of breath. But his hard eyes continued to study his impassive companion.
+
+“Well?” he said alter a pause. “What do you say to that?”
+
+Yet Blood did not immediately answer. His mind was heaving in tumult, and he was striving to calm it that he might take a proper survey of this thing flung into it to create so monstrous a disturbance. He began where another might have ended.
+
+“I have no money. And for that a handsome sum would be necessary.”
+
+“Did I not say that I desired to be your friend?”
+
+“Why?” asked Peter Blood at point-blank range.
+
+But he never heeded the answer. Whilst Dr. Whacker was professing that his heart bled for a brother doctor languishing in slavery, denied the opportunity which his gifts entitled him to make for himself, Peter Blood pounced like a hawk upon the obvious truth. Whacker and his colleague desired to be rid of one who threatened to ruin them. Sluggishness of decision was never a fault of Blood’s. He leapt where another crawled. And so this thought of evasion never entertained until planted there now by Dr. Whacker sprouted into instant growth.
+
+“I see, I see,” he said, whilst his companion was still talking, explaining, and to save Dr. Whacker’s face he played the hypocrite. “It is very noble in you - very brotherly, as between men of medicine. It is what I myself should wish to do in like case.”
+
+The hard eyes flashed, the husky voice grew tremulous as the other asked almost too eagerly:
+
+“You agree, then? You agree?”
+
+“Agree?” Blood laughed. “If I should be caught and brought back, they’d clip my wings and brand me for life.”
+
+“Surely the thing is worth a little risk?” More tremulous than ever was the tempter’s voice.
+
+“Surely,” Blood agreed. “But it asks more than courage. It asks money. A sloop might be bought for twenty pounds, perhaps.”
+
+“It shall be forthcoming. It shall be a loan, which you shall repay us - repay me, when you can.”
+
+That betraying “us” so hastily retrieved completed Blood’s understanding. The other doctor was also in the business.
+
+They were approaching the peopled part of the mole. Quickly, but eloquently, Blood expressed his thanks, where he knew that no thanks were due.
+
+“We will talk of this again, sir - to-morrow,” he concluded. “You have opened for me the gates of hope.”
+
+In that at least he tittered no more than the bare truth, and expressed it very baldly. It was, indeed, as if a door had been suddenly flung open to the sunlight for escape from a dark prison in which a man had thought to spend his life.
+
+He was in haste now to be alone, to straighten out his agitated mind and plan coherently what was to be done. Also he must consult another. Already he had hit upon that other. For such a voyage a navigator would be necessary, and a navigator was ready to his hand in Jeremy Pitt. The first thing was to take counsel with the young shipmaster, who must be associated with him in this business if it were to be undertaken. All that day his mind was in turmoil with this new hope, and he was sick with impatience for night and a chance to discuss the matter with his chosen partner. As a result Blood was betimes that evening in the spacious stockade that enclosed the huts of the slaves together with the big white house of the overseer, and he found an opportunity of a few words with Pitt, unobserved by the others.
+
+“To-night when all are asleep, come to my cabin. I have something to say to you.”
+
+The young man stared at him, roused by Blood’s pregnant tone out of the mental lethargy into which he had of late been lapsing as a result of the dehumanizing life he lived. Then he nodded understanding and assent, and they moved apart.
+
+The six months of plantation life in Barbados had made an almost tragic mark upon the young seaman. His erstwhile bright alertness was all departed. His face was growing vacuous, his eyes were dull and lacklustre, and he moved in a cringing, furtive manner, like an over-beaten dog. He had survived the ill-nourishment, the excessive work on the sugar plantation under a pitiless sun, the lashes of the overseer’s whip when his labours flagged, and the deadly, unrelieved animal life to which he was condemned. But the price he was paying for survival was the usual price. He was in danger of becoming no better than an animal, of sinking to the level of the negroes who sometimes toiled beside him. The man, however, was still there, not yet dormant, but merely torpid from a surfeit of despair; and the man in him promptly shook off that torpidity and awoke at the first words Blood spoke to him that night - awoke and wept.
+
+“Escape?” he panted. “O God!” He took his head in his hands, and fell to sobbing like a child.
+
+“Sh! Steady now! Steady!” Blood admonished him in a whisper, alarmed by the lad’s blubbering. He crossed to Pitt’s side, and set a restraining hand upon his shoulder. “For God’s sake, command yourself. If we’re overheard we shall both be flogged for this.”
+
+Among the privileges enjoyed by Blood was that of a hut to himself, and they were alone in this. But, after all, it was built of wattles thinly plastered with mud, and its door was composed of bamboos, through which sound passed very easily. Though the stockade was locked for the night, and all within it asleep by now - it was after midnight - yet a prowling overseer was not impossible, and a sound of voices must lead to discovery. Pitt realized this, and controlled his outburst of emotion.
+
+Sitting close thereafter they talked in whispers for an hour or more, and all the while those dulled wits of Pitt’s were sharpening themselves anew upon this precious whetstone of hope. They would need to recruit others into their enterprise, a half-dozen at least, a half-score if possible, but no more than that. They must pick the best out of that score of survivors of the Monmouth men that Colonel Bishop had acquired. Men who understood the sea were desirable. But of these there were only two in that unfortunate gang, and their knowledge was none too full. They were Hagthorpe, a gentleman who had served in the Royal Navy, and Nicholas Dyke, who had been a petty officer in the late king’s time, and there was another who had been a gunner, a man named Ogle.
+
+It was agreed before they parted that Pitt should begin with these three and then proceed to recruit some six or eight others. He was to move with the utmost caution, sounding his men very carefully before making anything in the nature of a disclosure, and even then avoid rendering that disclosure so full that its betrayal might frustrate the plans which as yet had to be worked out in detail. Labouring with them in the plantations, Pitt would not want for opportunities of broaching the matter to his fellow-slaves.
+
+“Caution above everything,” was Blood’s last recommendation to him at parting. “Who goes slowly, goes safely, as the Italians have it. And remember that if you betray yourself, you ruin all, for you are the only navigator amongst us, and without you there is no escaping.”
+
+Pitt reassured him, and slunk off back to his own hut and the straw that served him for a bed.
+
+Coming next morning to the wharf, Blood found Dr. Whacker in a generous mood. Having slept on the matter, he was prepared to advance the convict any sum up to thirty pounds that would enable him to acquire a boat capable of taking him away from the settlement. Blood expressed his thanks becomingly, betraying no sign that he saw clearly into the true reason of the other’s munificence.
+
+“It’s not money I’ll require,” said he, “but the boat itself. For who will be selling me a boat and incurring the penalties in Governor Steed’s proclamation? Ye’ll have read it, no doubt?”
+
+Dr. Whacker’s heavy face grew overcast. Thoughtfully he rubbed his chin. “I’ve read it - yes. And I dare not procure the boat for you. It would be discovered. It must be. And the penalty is a fine of two hundred pounds besides imprisonment. It would ruin me. You’ll see that?”
+
+The high hopes in Blood’s soul, began to shrink. And the shadow of his despair overcast his face.
+
+“But then…” he faltered. “There is nothing to be done.”
+
+“Nay, nay: things are not so desperate.” Dr. Whacker smiled a little with tight lips. “I’ve thought of it. You will see that the man who buys the boat must be one of those who goes with you - so that he is not here to answer questions afterwards.”
+
+“But who is to go with me save men in my own case? What I cannot do, they cannot.”
+
+“There are others detained on the island besides slaves. There are several who are here for debt, and would be glad enough to spread their wings. There’s a fellow Nuttall, now, who follows the trade of a shipwright, whom I happen to know would welcome such a chance as you might afford him.”
+
+“But how should a debtor come with money to buy a boat? The question will be asked.”
+
+“To be sure it will. But if you contrive shrewdly, you’ll all be gone before that happens.”
+
+Blood nodded understanding, and the doctor, setting a hand upon his sleeve, unfolded the scheme he had conceived.
+
+“You shall have the money from me at once. Having received it, you’ll forget that it was I who supplied it to you. You have friends in England - relatives, perhaps - who sent it out to you through the agency of one of your Bridgetown patients, whose name as a man of honour you will on no account divulge lest you bring trouble upon him. That is your tale if there are questions.”
+
+He paused, looking hard at Blood. Blood nodded understanding and assent. Relieved, the doctor continued:
+
+“But there should be no questions if you go carefully to work. You concert matters With Nuttall. You enlist him as one of your companions and a shipwright should be a very useful member of your crew. You engage him to discover a likely sloop whose owner is disposed to sell. Then let your preparations all be made before the purchase is effected, so that your escape may follow instantly upon it before the inevitable questions come to be asked. You take me?”
+
+So well did Blood take him that within an hour he contrived to see Nuttall, and found the fellow as disposed to the business as Dr. Whacker had predicted. When he left the shipwright, it was agreed that Nuttall should seek the boat required, for which Blood would at once produce the money.
+
+The quest took longer than was expected by Blood, who waited impatiently with the doctor’s gold concealed about his person. But at the end of some three weeks, Nuttall - whom he was now meeting daily - informed him that he had found a serviceable wherry, and that its owner was disposed to sell it for twenty-two pounds. That evening, on the beach, remote from all eyes, Peter Blood handed that sum to his new associate, and Nuttall went off with instructions to complete the purchase late on the following day. He was to bring the boat to the wharf, where under cover of night Blood and his fellow-convicts would join him and make off.
+
+Everything was ready. In the shed, from which all the wounded men had now been removed and which had since remained untenanted, Nuttall had concealed the necessary stores: a hundredweight of bread, a quantity of cheese, a cask of water and some few bottles of Canary, a compass, quadrant, chart, half-hour glass, log and line, a tarpaulin, some carpenter’s tools, and a lantern and candles. And in the stockade, all was likewise in readiness. Hagthorpe, Dyke, and Ogle had agreed to join the venture, and eight others had been carefully recruited. In Pitt’s hut, which he shared with five other rebels-convict, all of whom were to join in this bid for liberty, a ladder had been constructed in secret during those nights of waiting. With this they were to surmount the stockade and gain the open. The risk of detection, so that they made little noise, was negligible. Beyond locking them all into that stockade at night, there was no great precaution taken. Where, after all, could any so foolish as to attempt escape hope to conceal himself in that island? The chief risk lay in discovery by those of their companions who were to be left behind. It was because of these that they must go cautiously and in silence.
+
+The day that was to have been their last in Barbados was a day of hope and anxiety to the twelve associates in that enterprise, no less than to Nuttall in the town below.
+
+Towards sunset, having seen Nuttall depart to purchase and fetch the sloop to the prearranged moorings at the wharf, Peter Blood came sauntering towards the stockade, just as the slaves were being driven in from the fields. He stood aside at the entrance to let them pass, and beyond the message of hope flashed by his eyes, he held no communication with them.
+
+He entered the stockade in their wake, and as they broke their ranks to seek their various respective huts, he beheld Colonel Bishop in talk with Kent, the overseer. The pair were standing by the stocks, planted in the middle of that green space for the punishment of offending slaves.
+
+As he advanced, Bishop turned to regard him, scowling. “Where have you been this while?” he bawled, and although a minatory note was normal to the Colonel’s voice, yet Blood felt his heart tightening apprehensively.
+
+“I’ve been at my work in the town,” he answered. “Mrs. Patch has a fever and Mr. Dekker has sprained his ankle.”
+
+“I sent for you to Dekker’s, and you were not there. You are given to idling, my fine fellow. We shall have to quicken you one of these days unless you cease from abusing the liberty you enjoy. D’ye forget that ye’re a rebel convict?”
+
+“I am not given the chance,” said Blood, who never could learn to curb his tongue.
+
+“By God! Will you be pert with me?”
+
+Remembering all that was at stake, growing suddenly conscious that from the huts surrounding the enclosure anxious ears were listening, he instantly practised an unusual submission.
+
+“Not pert, sir. I… I am sorry I should have been sought….”
+
+“Aye, and you’ll be sorrier yet. There’s the Governor with an attack of gout, screaming like a wounded horse, and you nowhere to be found. Be off, man - away with you at speed to Government House! You’re awaited, I tell you. Best lend him a horse, Kent, or the lout’ll be all night getting there.”
+
+They bustled him away, choking almost from a reluctance that he dared not show. The thing was unfortunate; but after all not beyond remedy. The escape was set for midnight, and he should easily be back by then. He mounted the horse that Kent procured him, intending to make all haste.
+
+“How shall I reenter the stockade, sir?” he enquired at parting.
+
+“You’ll not reenter it,” said Bishop. “When they’ve done with you at Government House, they may find a kennel for you there until morning.”
+
+Peter Blood’s heart sank like a stone through water.
+
+“But…” he began.
+
+“Be off, I say. Will you stand there talking until dark? His excellency is waiting for you.” And with his cane Colonel Bishop slashed the horse’s quarters so brutally that the beast bounded forward all but unseating her rider.
+
+Peter Blood went off in a state of mind bordering on despair. And there was occasion for it. A postponement of the escape at least until to-morrow night was necessary now, and postponement must mean the discovery of Nuttall’s transaction and the asking of questions it would be difficult to answer.
+
+It was in his mind to slink back in the night, once his work at Government House were done, and from the outside of the stockade make known to Pitt and the others his presence, and so have them join him that their project might still be carried out. But in this he reckoned without the Governor, whom he found really in the thrall of a severe attack of gout, and almost as severe an attack of temper nourished by Blood’s delay.
+
+The doctor was kept in constant attendance upon him until long after midnight, when at last he was able to ease the sufferer a little by a bleeding. Thereupon he would have withdrawn. But Steed would not hear of it. Blood must sleep in his own chamber to be at hand in case of need. It was as if Fate made sport of him. For that night at least the escape must be definitely abandoned.
+
+Not until the early hours of the morning did Peter Blood succeed in making a temporary escape from Government House on the ground that he required certain medicaments which he must, himself, procure from the apothecary.
+
+On that pretext, he made an excursion into the awakening town, and went straight to Nuttall, whom he found in a state of livid panic. The unfortunate debtor, who had sat up waiting through the night, conceived that all was discovered and that his own ruin would be involved. Peter Blood quieted his fears.
+
+“It will be for to-night instead,” he said, with more assurance than he felt, “if I have to bleed the Governor to death. Be ready as last night.”
+
+“But if there are questions meanwhile?” bleated Nuttall. He was a thin, pale, small-featured, man with weak eyes that now blinked desperately.
+
+“Answer as best you can. Use your wits, man. I can stay no longer.” And Peter went off to the apothecary for his pretexted drugs.
+
+Within an hour of his going came an officer of the Secretary’s to Nuttall’s miserable hovel. The seller of the boat had - as by law required since the coming of the rebels-convict - duly reported the sale at the Secretary’s office, so that he might obtain the reimbursement of the ten-pound surety into which every keeper of a small boat was compelled to enter. The Secretary’s office postponed this reimbursement until it should have obtained confirmation of the transaction.
+
+“We are informed that you have bought a wherry from Mr. Robert Farrell,” said the officer.
+
+“That is so,” said Nuttall, who conceived that for him this was the end of the world.
+
+“You are in no haste, it seems, to declare the same at the Secretary’s office.” The emissary had a proper bureaucratic haughtiness.
+
+Nuttall’s weak eyes blinked at a redoubled rate.
+
+“To… to declare it?”
+
+“Ye know it’s the law.”
+
+“I… I didn’t, may it please you.”
+
+“But it’s in the proclamation published last January.”
+
+“I… I can’t read, sir. I… I didn’t know.”
+
+“Faugh!” The messenger withered him with his disdain.
+
+“Well, now you’re informed. See to it that you are at the Secretary’s office before noon with the ten pounds surety into which you are obliged to enter.”
+
+The pompous officer departed, leaving Nuttall in a cold perspiration despite the heat of the morning. He was thankful that the fellow had not asked the question he most dreaded, which was how he, a debtor, should come by the money to buy a wherry. But this he knew was only a respite. The question would presently be asked of a certainty, and then hell would open for him. He cursed the hour in which he had been such a fool as to listen to Peter Blood’s chatter of escape. He thought it very likely that the whole plot would be discovered, and that he would probably be hanged, or at least branded and sold into slavery like those other damned rebels-convict, with whom he had been so mad as to associate himself. If only he had the ten pounds for this infernal surety, which until this moment had never entered into their calculations, it was possible that the thing might be done quickly and questions postponed until later. As the Secretary’s messenger had overlooked the fact that he was a debtor, so might the others at the Secretary’s office, at least for a day or two; and in that time he would, he hoped, be beyond the reach of their questions. But in the meantime what was to be done about this money? And it was to be found before noon!
+
+Nuttall snatched up his hat, and went out in quest of Peter Blood. But where look for him? Wandering aimlessly up the irregular, unpaved street, he ventured to enquire of one or two if they had seen Dr. Blood that morning. He affected to be feeling none so well, and indeed his appearance bore out the deception. None could give him information; and since Blood had never told him of Whacker’s share in this business, he walked in his unhappy ignorance past the door of the one man in Barbados who would eagerly have saved him in this extremity.
+
+Finally he determined to go up to Colonel Bishop’s plantation. Probably Blood would be there. If he were not, Nuttall would find Pitt, and leave a message with him. He was acquainted with Pitt and knew of Pitt’s share in this business. His pretext for seeking Blood must still be that he needed medical assistance.
+
+And at the same time that he set out, insensitive in his anxiety to the broiling heat, to climb the heights to the north of the town, Blood was setting out from Government House at last, having so far eased the Governor’s condition as to be permitted to depart. Being mounted, he would, but for an unexpected delay, have reached the stockade ahead of Nuttall, in which case several unhappy events might have been averted. The unexpected delay was occasioned by Miss Arabella Bishop.
+
+They met at the gate of the luxuriant garden of Government House, and Miss Bishop, herself mounted, stared to see Peter Blood on horseback. It happened that he was in good spirits. The fact that the Governor’s condition had so far improved as to restore him his freedom of movement had sufficed to remove the depression under which he had been labouring for the past twelve hours and more. In its rebound the mercury of his mood had shot higher far than present circumstances warranted. He was disposed to be optimistic. What had failed last night would certainly not fail again to-night. What was a day, after all? The Secretary’s office might be troublesome, but not really troublesome for another twenty-four hours at least; and by then they would be well away.
+
+This joyous confidence of his was his first misfortune. The next was that his good spirits were also shared by Miss Bishop, and that she bore no rancour. The two things conjoined to make the delay that in its consequences was so deplorable.
+
+“Good-morning, sir,” she hailed him pleasantly. “It’s close upon a month since last I saw you.”
+
+“Twenty-one days to the hour,” said he. “I’ve counted them.”
+
+“I vow I was beginning to believe you dead.”
+
+“I have to thank you for the wreath.”
+
+“The wreath?”
+
+“To deck my grave,” he explained.
+
+“Must you ever be rallying?” she wondered, and looked at him gravely, remembering that it was his rallying on the last occasion had driven her away in dudgeon.
+
+“A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,” said he. “Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.”
+
+“You may laugh at yourself all you will, sir. But sometimes I think you laugh at me, which is not civil.”
+
+“Then, faith, you’re wrong. I laugh only at the comic, and you are not comic at all.”
+
+“What am I, then?” she asked him, laughing.
+
+A moment he pondered her, so fair and fresh to behold, so entirely maidenly and yet so entirely frank and unabashed.
+
+“You are,” he said, “the niece of the man who owns me his slave.” But he spoke lightly. So lightly that she was encouraged to insistence.
+
+“Nay, sir, that is an evasion. You shall answer me truthfully this morning.”
+
+“Truthfully? To answer you at all is a labour. But to answer truthfully! Oh, well, now, I should say of you that he’ll be lucky who counts you his friend.” It was in his mind to add more. But he left it there.
+
+“That’s mighty civil,” said she. “You’ve a nice taste in compliments, Mr. Blood. Another in your place….”
+
+“Faith, now, don’t I know what another would have said? Don’t I know my fellow-man at all?”
+
+“Sometimes I think you do, and sometimes I think you don’t. Anyway, you don’t know your fellow-woman. There was that affair of the Spaniards.”
+
+“Will ye never forget it?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Bad cess to your memory. Is there no good in me at all that you could be dwelling on instead?”
+
+“Oh, several things.”
+
+“For instance, now?” He was almost eager.
+
+“You speak excellent Spanish.”
+
+“Is that all?” He sank back into dismay.
+
+“Where did you learn it? Have you been in Spain?”
+
+“That I have. I was two years in a Spanish prison.”
+
+“In prison?” Her tone suggested apprehensions in which he had no desire to leave her.
+
+“As a prisoner of war,” he explained. “I was taken fighting with the French - in French service, that is.”
+
+“But you’re a doctor!” she cried.
+
+“That’s merely a diversion, I think. By trade I am a soldier - at least, it’s a trade I followed for ten years. It brought me no great gear, but it served me better than medicine, which, as you may observe, has brought me into slavery. I’m thinking it’s more pleasing in the sight of Heaven to kill men than to heal them. Sure it must be.”
+
+“But how came you to be a soldier, and to serve the French?”
+
+“I am Irish, you see, and I studied medicine. Therefore - since it’s a perverse nation we are - …. Oh, but it’s a long story, and the Colonel will be expecting my return.” She was not in that way to be defrauded of her entertainment. If he would wait a moment they would ride back together. She had but come to enquire of the Governor’s health at her uncle’s request.
+
+So he waited, and so they rode back together to Colonel Bishop’s house. They rode very slowly, at a walking pace, and some whom they passed marvelled to see the doctor-slave on such apparently intimate terms with his owner’s niece. One or two may have promised themselves that they would drop a hint to the Colonel. But the two rode oblivious of all others in the world that morning. He was telling her the story of his early turbulent days, and at the end of it he dwelt more fully than hitherto upon the manner of his arrest and trial.
+
+The tale was barely done when they drew up at the Colonel’s door, and dismounted, Peter Blood surrendering his nag to one of the negro grooms, who informed them that the Colonel was from home at the moment.
+
+Even then they lingered a moment, she detaining him.
+
+“I am sorry, Mr. Blood, that I did not know before,” she said, and there was a suspicion of moisture in those clear hazel eyes. With a compelling friendliness she held out her hand to him.
+
+“Why, what difference could it have made?” he asked.
+
+“Some, I think. You have been very hardly used by Fate.”
+
+“Och, now….” He paused. His keen sapphire eyes considered her steadily a moment from under his level black brows. “It might have been worse,” he said, with a significance which brought a tinge of colour to her cheeks and a flutter to her eyelids.
+
+He stooped to kiss her hand before releasing it, and she did not deny him. Then he turned and strode off towards the stockade a half-mile away, and a vision of her face went with him, tinted with a rising blush and a sudden unusual shyness. He forgot in that little moment that he was a rebel-convict with ten years of slavery before him; he forgot that he had planned an escape, which was to be carried into effect that night; forgot even the peril of discovery which as a result of the Governor’s gout now overhung him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+PIRATES
+
+
+Mr. James Nuttall made all speed, regardless of the heat, in his journey from Bridgetown to Colonel Bishop’s plantation, and if ever man was built for speed in a hot climate that man was Mr. James Nuttall, with his short, thin body, and his long, fleshless legs. So withered was he that it was hard to believe there were any juices left in him, yet juices there must have been, for he was sweating violently by the time he reached the stockade.
+
+At the entrance he almost ran into the overseer Kent, a squat, bow-legged animal with the arms of a Hercules and the jowl of a bulldog.
+
+“I am seeking Doctor Blood,” he announced breathlessly.
+
+“You are in a rare haste,” growled Kent. “What the devil is it? Twins?”
+
+“Eh? Oh! Nay, nay. I’m not married, sir. It’s a cousin of mine, sir.”
+
+“What is?”
+
+“He is taken bad, sir,” Nuttall lied promptly upon the cue that Kent himself had afforded him. “Is the doctor here?”
+
+“That’s his hut yonder.” Kent pointed carelessly. “If he’s not there, he’ll be somewhere else.” And he took himself off. He was a surly, ungracious beast at all times, readier with the lash of his whip than with his tongue.
+
+Nuttall watched him go with satisfaction, and even noted the direction that he took. Then he plunged into the enclosure, to verify in mortification that Dr. Blood was not at home. A man of sense might have sat down and waited, judging that to be the quickest and surest way in the end. But Nuttall had no sense. He flung out of the stockade again, hesitated a moment as to which direction he should take, and finally decided to go any way but the way that Kent had gone. He sped across the parched savannah towards the sugar plantation which stood solid as a rampart and gleaming golden in the dazzling June sunshine. Avenues intersected the great blocks of ripening amber cane. In the distance down one of these he espied some slaves at work. Nuttall entered the avenue and advanced upon them. They eyed him dully, as he passed them. Pitt was not of their number, and he dared not ask for him. He continued his search for best part of an hour, up one of those lanes and then down another. Once an overseer challenged him, demanding to know his business. He was looking, he said, for Dr. Blood. His cousin was taken ill. The overseer bade him go to the devil, and get out of the plantation. Blood was not there. If he was anywhere he would be in his hut in the stockade.
+
+Nuttall passed on, upon the understanding that he would go. But he went in the wrong direction; he went on towards the side of the plantation farthest from the stockade, towards the dense woods that fringed it there. The overseer was too contemptuous and perhaps too languid in the stifling heat of approaching noontide to correct his course.
+
+Nuttall blundered to the end of the avenue, and round the corner of it, and there ran into Pitt, alone, toiling with a wooden spade upon an irrigation channel. A pair of cotton drawers, loose and ragged, clothed him from waist to knee; above and below he was naked, save for a broad hat of plaited straw that sheltered his unkempt golden head from the rays of the tropical sun. At sight of him Nuttall returned thanks aloud to his Maker. Pitt stared at him, and the shipwright poured out his dismal news in a dismal tone. The sum of it was that he must have ten pounds from Blood that very morning or they were all undone. And all he got for his pains and his sweat was the condemnation of Jeremy Pitt.
+
+“Damn you for a fool!” said the slave. “If it’s Blood you’re seeking, why are you wasting your time here?”
+
+“I can’t find him,” bleated Nuttall. He was indignant at his reception. He forgot the jangled state of the other’s nerves after a night of anxious wakefulness ending in a dawn of despair. “I thought that you….”
+
+“You thought that I could drop my spade and go and seek him for you? Is that what you thought? My God! that our lives should depend upon such a dummerhead. While you waste your time here, the hours are passing! And if an overseer should catch you talking to me? How’ll you explain it?”
+
+For a moment Nuttall was bereft of speech by such ingratitude. Then he exploded.
+
+“I would to Heaven I had never had no hand in this affair. I would so! I wish that….”
+
+What else he wished was never known, for at that moment round the block of cane came a big man in biscuit-coloured taffetas followed by two negroes in cotton drawers who were armed with cutlasses. He was not ten yards away, but his approach over the soft, yielding marl had been unheard.
+
+Mr. Nuttall looked wildly this way and that a moment, then bolted like a rabbit for the woods, thus doing the most foolish and betraying thing that in the circumstances it was possible for him to do. Pitt groaned and stood still, leaning upon his spade.
+
+“Hi, there! Stop!” bawled Colonel Bishop after the fugitive, and added horrible threats tricked out with some rhetorical indecencies.
+
+But the fugitive held amain, and never so much as turned his head. It was his only remaining hope that Colonel Bishop might not have seen his face; for the power and influence of Colonel Bishop was quite sufficient to hang any man whom he thought would be better dead.
+
+Not until the runagate had vanished into the scrub did the planter sufficiently recover from his indignant amazement to remember the two negroes who followed at his heels like a brace of hounds. It was a bodyguard without which he never moved in his plantations since a slave had made an attack upon him and all but strangled him a couple of years ago.
+
+“After him, you black swine!” he roared at them. But as they started he checked them. “Wait! Get to heel, damn you!”
+
+It occurred to him that to catch and deal with the fellow there was not the need to go after him, and perhaps spend the day hunting him in that cursed wood. There was Pitt here ready to his hand, and Pitt should tell him the identity of his bashful friend, and also the subject of that close and secret talk he had disturbed. Pitt might, of course, be reluctant. So much the worse for Pitt. The ingenious Colonel Bishop knew a dozen ways - some of them quite diverting - of conquering stubbornness in these convict dogs.
+
+He turned now upon the slave a countenance that was inflamed by heat internal and external, and a pair of heady eyes that were alight with cruel intelligence. He stepped forward swinging his light bamboo cane.
+
+“Who was that runagate?” he asked with terrible suavity. Leaning over on his spade, Jeremy Pitt hung his head a little, and shifted uncomfortably on his bare feet. Vainly he groped for an answer in a mind that could do nothing but curse the idiocy of Mr. James Nuttall.
+
+The planter’s bamboo cane fell on the lad’s naked shoulders with stinging force.
+
+“Answer me, you dog! What’s his name?”
+
+Jeremy looked at the burly planter out of sullen, almost defiant eyes.
+
+“I don’t know,” he said, and in his voice there was a faint note at least of the defiance aroused in him by a blow which he dared not, for his life’s sake, return. His body had remained unyielding under it, but the spirit within writhed now in torment.
+
+“You don’t know? Well, here’s to quicken your wits.” Again the cane descended. “Have you thought of his name yet?”
+
+“I have not.”
+
+“Stubborn, eh?” For a moment the Colonel leered. Then his passion mastered him. “‘Swounds! You impudent dog! D’you trifle with me? D’you think I’m to be mocked?”
+
+Pitt shrugged, shifted sideways on his feet again, and settled into dogged silence. Few things are more provocative; and Colonel Bishop’s temper was never one that required much provocation. Brute fury now awoke in him. Fiercely now he lashed those defenceless shoulders, accompanying each blow by blasphemy and foul abuse, until, stung beyond endurance, the lingering embers of his manhood fanned into momentary flame, Pitt sprang upon his tormentor.
+
+But as he sprang, so also sprang the watchful blacks. Muscular bronze arms coiled crushingly about the frail white body, and in a moment the unfortunate slave stood powerless, his wrists pinioned behind him in a leathern thong.
+
+Breathing hard, his face mottled, Bishop pondered him a moment. Then: “Fetch him along,” he said.
+
+Down the long avenue between those golden walls of cane standing some eight feet high, the wretched Pitt was thrust by his black captors in the Colonel’s wake, stared at with fearful eyes by his fellow-slaves at work there. Despair went with him. What torments might immediately await him he cared little, horrible though he knew they would be. The real source of his mental anguish lay in the conviction that the elaborately planned escape from this unutterable hell was frustrated now in the very moment of execution.
+
+They came out upon the green plateau and headed for the stockade and the overseer’s white house. Pitt’s eyes looked out over Carlisle Bay, of which this plateau commanded a clear view from the fort on one side to the long sheds of the wharf on the other. Along this wharf a few shallow boats were moored, and Pitt caught himself wondering which of these was the wherry in which with a little luck they might have been now at sea. Out over that sea his glance ranged miserably.
+
+In the roads, standing in for the shore before a gentle breeze that scarcely ruffled the sapphire surface of the Caribbean, came a stately red-hulled frigate, flying the English ensign.
+
+Colonel Bishop halted to consider her, shading his eyes with his fleshly hand. Light as was the breeze, the vessel spread no canvas to it beyond that of her foresail. Furled was her every other sail, leaving a clear view of the majestic lines of her hull, from towering stern castle to gilded beakhead that was aflash in the dazzling sunshine.
+
+So leisurely an advance argued a master indifferently acquainted with these waters, who preferred to creep forward cautiously, sounding his way. At her present rate of progress it would be an hour, perhaps, before she came to anchorage within the harbour. And whilst the Colonel viewed her, admiring, perhaps, the gracious beauty of her, Pitt was hurried forward into the stockade, and clapped into the stocks that stood there ready for slaves who required correction.
+
+Colonel Bishop followed him presently, with leisurely, rolling gait.
+
+“A mutinous cur that shows his fangs to his master must learn good manners at the cost of a striped hide,” was all he said before setting about his executioner’s job.
+
+That with his own hands he should do that which most men of his station would, out of self-respect, have relegated to one of the negroes, gives you the measure of the man’s beastliness. It was almost as if with relish, as if gratifying some feral instinct of cruelty, that he now lashed his victim about head and shoulders. Soon his cane was reduced, to splinters by his violence. You know, perhaps, the sting of a flexible bamboo cane when it is whole. But do you realize its murderous quality when it has been split into several long lithe blades, each with an edge that is of the keenness of a knife?
+
+When, at last, from very weariness, Colonel Bishop flung away the stump and thongs to which his cane had been reduced, the wretched slave’s back was bleeding pulp from neck to waist.
+
+As long as full sensibility remained, Jeremy Pitt had made no sound. But in a measure as from pain his senses were mercifully dulled, he sank forward in the stocks, and hung there now in a huddled heap, faintly moaning.
+
+Colonel Bishop set his foot upon the crossbar, and leaned over his victim, a cruel smile on his full, coarse face.
+
+“Let that teach you a proper submission,” said he. “And now touching that shy friend of yours, you shall stay here without meat or drink - without meat or drink, d’ ye hear me? - until you please to tell me his name and business.” He took his foot from the bar. “When you’ve had enough of this, send me word, and we’ll have the branding-irons to you.”
+
+On that he swung on his heel, and strode out of the stockade, his negroes following.
+
+Pitt had heard him, as we hear things in our dreams. At the moment so spent was he by his cruel punishment, and so deep was the despair into which he had fallen, that he no longer cared whether he lived or died.
+
+Soon, however, from the partial stupor which pain had mercifully induced, a new variety of pain aroused him. The stocks stood in the open under the full glare of the tropical sun, and its blistering rays streamed down upon that mangled, bleeding back until he felt as if flames of fire were searing it. And, soon, to this was added a torment still more unspeakable. Flies, the cruel flies of the Antilles, drawn by the scent of blood, descended in a cloud upon him.
+
+Small wonder that the ingenious Colonel Bishop, who so well understood the art of loosening stubborn tongues, had not deemed it necessary to have recourse to other means of torture. Not all his fiendish cruelty could devise a torment more cruel, more unendurable than the torments Nature would here procure a man in Pitt’s condition.
+
+The slave writhed in his stocks until he was in danger of breaking his limbs, and writhing, screamed in agony.
+
+Thus was he found by Peter Blood, who seemed to his troubled vision to materialize suddenly before him. Mr. Blood carried a large palmetto leaf. Having whisked away with this the flies that were devouring Jeremy’s back, he slung it by a strip of fibre from the lad’s neck, so that it protected him from further attacks as well as from the rays of the sun. Next, sitting down beside him, he drew the sufferer’s head down on his own shoulder, and bathed his face from a pannikin of cold water. Pitt shuddered and moaned on a long, indrawn breath.
+
+“Drink!” he gasped. “Drink, for the love of Christ!” The pannikin was held to his quivering lips. He drank greedily, noisily, nor ceased until he had drained the vessel. Cooled and revived by the draught, he attempted to sit up.
+
+“My back!” he screamed.
+
+There was an unusual glint in Mr. Blood’s eyes; his lips were compressed. But when he parted them to speak, his voice came cool and steady.
+
+“Be easy, now. One thing at a time. Your back’s taking no harm at all for the present, since I’ve covered it up. I’m wanting to know what’s happened to you. D’ ye think we can do without a navigator that ye go and provoke that beast Bishop until he all but kills you?”
+
+Pitt sat up and groaned again. But this time his anguish was mental rather than physical.
+
+“I don’t think a navigator will be needed this time, Peter.”
+
+“What’s that?” cried Mr. Blood.
+
+Pitt explained the situation as briefly as he could, in a halting, gasping speech. “I’m to rot here until I tell him the identity of my visitor and his business.”
+
+Mr. Blood got up, growling in his throat. “Bad cess to the filthy slaver!” said he. “But it must be contrived, nevertheless. To the devil with Nuttall! Whether he gives surety for the boat or not, whether he explains it or not, the boat remains, and we’re going, and you’re coming with us.”
+
+“You’re dreaming, Peter,” said the prisoner. “We’re not going this time. The magistrates will confiscate the boat since the surety’s not paid, even if when they press him Nuttall does not confess the whole plan and get us all branded on the forehead.”
+
+Mr. Blood turned away, and with agony in his eyes looked out to sea over the blue water by which he had so fondly hoped soon to be travelling back to freedom.
+
+The great red ship had drawn considerably nearer shore by now. Slowly, majestically, she was entering the bay. Already one or two wherries were putting off from the wharf to board her. From where he stood, Mr. Blood could see the glinting of the brass cannons mounted on the prow above the curving beakhead, and he could make out the figure of a seaman in the forechains on her larboard side, leaning out to heave the lead.
+
+An angry voice aroused him from his unhappy thoughts.
+
+“What the devil are you doing here?”
+
+The returning Colonel Bishop came striding into the stockade, his negroes following ever.
+
+Mr. Blood turned to face him, and over that swarthy countenance - which, indeed, by now was tanned to the golden brown of a half-caste Indian - a mask descended.
+
+“Doing?” said he blandly. “Why, the duties of my office.”
+
+The Colonel, striding furiously forward, observed two things. The empty pannikin on the seat beside the prisoner, and the palmetto leaf protecting his back. “Have you dared to do this?” The veins on the planter’s forehead stood out like cords.
+
+“Of course I have.” Mr. Blood’s tone was one of faint surprise.
+
+“I said he was to have neither meat nor drink until I ordered it.”
+
+“Sure, now, I never heard ye.”
+
+“You never heard me? How should you have heard me when you weren’t here?”
+
+“Then how did ye expect me to know what orders ye’d given?” Mr. Blood’s tone was positively aggrieved. “All that I knew was that one of your slaves was being murthered by the sun and the flies. And I says to myself, this is one of the Colonel’s slaves, and I’m the Colonel’s doctor, and sure it’s my duty to be looking after the Colonel’s property. So I just gave the fellow a spoonful of water and covered his back from the sun. And wasn’t I right now?”
+
+“Right?” The Colonel was almost speechless.
+
+“Be easy, now, be easy!” Mr. Blood implored him. “It’s an apoplexy ye’ll be contacting if ye give way to heat like this.”
+
+The planter thrust him aside with an imprecation, and stepping forward tore the palmetto leaf from the prisoner’s back.
+
+“In the name of humanity, now….” Mr. Blood was beginning.
+
+The Colonel swung upon him furiously. “Out of this!” he commanded. “And don’t come near him again until I send for you, unless you want to be served in the same way.”
+
+He was terrific in his menace, in his bulk, and in the power of him. But Mr. Blood never flinched. It came to the Colonel, as he found himself steadily regarded by those light-blue eyes that looked so arrestingly odd in that tawny face - like pale sapphires set in copper - that this rogue had for some time now been growing presumptuous. It was a matter that he must presently correct. Meanwhile Mr. Blood was speaking again, his tone quietly insistent.
+
+“In the name of humanity,” he repeated, “ye’ll allow me to do what I can to ease his sufferings, or I swear to you that I’ll forsake at once the duties of a doctor, and that it’s devil another patient will I attend in this unhealthy island at all.”
+
+For an instant the Colonel was too amazed to speak. Then -
+
+“By God!” he roared. “D’ye dare take that tone with me, you dog? D’ye dare to make terms with me?”
+
+“I do that.” The unflinching blue eyes looked squarely into the Colonel’s, and there was a devil peeping out of them, the devil of recklessness that is born of despair.
+
+Colonel Bishop considered him for a long moment in silence. “I’ve been too soft with you,” he said at last. “But that’s to be mended.” And he tightened his lips. “I’ll have the rods to you, until there’s not an inch of skin left on your dirty back.”
+
+“Will ye so? And what would Governor Steed do, then?”
+
+“Ye’re not the only doctor on the island.”
+
+Mr. Blood actually laughed. “And will ye tell that to his excellency, him with the gout in his foot so bad that he can’t stand? Ye know very well it’s devil another doctor will he tolerate, being an intelligent man that knows what’s good for him.”
+
+But the Colonel’s brute passion thoroughly aroused was not so easily to be baulked. “If you’re alive when my blacks have done with you, perhaps you’ll come to your senses.”
+
+He swung to his negroes to issue an order. But it was never issued. At that moment a terrific rolling thunderclap drowned his voice and shook the very air. Colonel Bishop jumped, his negroes jumped with him, and so even did the apparently imperturbable Mr. Blood. Then the four of them stared together seawards.
+
+Down in the bay all that could be seen of the great ship, standing now within a cable’s-length of the fort, were her topmasts thrusting above a cloud of smoke in which she was enveloped. From the cliffs a flight of startled seabirds had risen to circle in the blue, giving tongue to their alarm, the plaintive curlew noisiest of all.
+
+As those men stared from the eminence on which they stood, not yet understanding what had taken place, they saw the British Jack dip from the main truck and vanish into the rising cloud below. A moment more, and up through that cloud to replace the flag of England soared the gold and crimson banner of Castile. And then they understood.
+
+“Pirates!” roared the Colonel, and again, “Pirates!”
+
+Fear and incredulity were blent in his voice. He had paled under his tan until his face was the colour of clay, and there was a wild fury in his beady eyes. His negroes looked at him, grinning idiotically, all teeth and eyeballs.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+SPANIARDS
+
+
+The stately ship that had been allowed to sail so leisurely into Carlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, coming to pay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren of the Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasure galleons bound for Cadiz. It happened that the galleon which escaped in a more or less crippled condition was commanded by Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez, who was own brother to the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel de Espinosa, and who was also a very hasty, proud, and hot-tempered gentleman.
+
+Galled by his defeat, and choosing to forget that his own conduct had invited it, he had sworn to teach the English a sharp lesson which they should remember. He would take a leaf out of the book of Morgan and those other robbers of the sea, and make a punitive raid upon an English settlement. Unfortunately for himself and for many others, his brother the Admiral was not at hand to restrain him when for this purpose he fitted out the Cinco Llagas at San Juan de Porto Rico. He chose for his objective the island of Barbados, whose natural strength was apt to render her defenders careless. He chose it also because thither had the Pride of Devon been tracked by his scouts, and he desired a measure of poetic justice to invest his vengeance. And he chose a moment when there were no ships of war at anchor in Carlisle Bay.
+
+He had succeeded so well in his intentions that he had aroused no suspicion until he saluted the fort at short range with a broadside of twenty guns.
+
+And now the four gaping watchers in the stockade on the headland beheld the great ship creep forward under the rising cloud of smoke, her mainsail unfurled to increase her steering way, and go about close-hauled to bring her larboard guns to bear upon the unready fort.
+
+With the crashing roar of that second broadside, Colonel Bishop awoke from stupefaction to a recollection of where his duty lay. In the town below drums were beating frantically, and a trumpet was bleating, as if the peril needed further advertising. As commander of the Barbados Militia, the place of Colonel Bishop was at the head of his scanty troops, in that fort which the Spanish guns were pounding into rubble.
+
+Remembering it, he went off at the double, despite his bulk and the heat, his negroes trotting after him.
+
+Mr. Blood turned to Jeremy Pitt. He laughed grimly. “Now that,” said he, “is what I call a timely interruption. Though what’ll come of it,” he added as an afterthought, “the devil himself knows.”
+
+As a third broadside was thundering forth, he picked up the palmetto leaf and carefully replaced it on the back of his fellow-slave.
+
+And then into the stockade, panting and sweating, came Kent followed by best part of a score of plantation workers, some of whom were black and all of whom were in a state of panic. He led them into the low white house, to bring them forth again, within a moment, as it seemed, armed now with muskets and hangers and some of them equipped with bandoleers.
+
+By this time the rebels-convict were coming in, in twos and threes, having abandoned their work upon finding themselves unguarded and upon scenting the general dismay.
+
+Kent paused a moment, as his hastily armed guard dashed forth, to fling an order to those slaves.
+
+“To the woods!” he bade them. “Take to the woods, and lie close there, until this is over, and we’ve gutted these Spanish swine.”
+
+On that he went off in haste after his men, who were to be added to those massing in the town, so as to oppose and overwhelm the Spanish landing parties.
+
+The slaves would have obeyed him on the instant but for Mr. Blood.
+
+“What need for haste, and in this heat?” quoth he. He was surprisingly cool, they thought. “Maybe there’ll be no need to take to the woods at all, and, anyway, it will be time enough to do so when the Spaniards are masters of the town.”
+
+And so, joined now by the other stragglers, and numbering in all a round score - rebels-convict all - they stayed to watch from their vantage-ground the fortunes of the furious battle that was being waged below.
+
+The landing was contested by the militia and by every islander capable of bearing arms with the fierce resoluteness of men who knew that no quarter was to be expected in defeat. The ruthlessness of Spanish soldiery was a byword, and not at his worst had Morgan or L’Ollonais ever perpetrated such horrors as those of which these Castilian gentlemen were capable.
+
+But this Spanish commander knew his business, which was more than could truthfully be said for the Barbados Militia. Having gained the advantage of a surprise blow, which had put the fort out of action, he soon showed them that he was master of the situation. His guns turned now upon the open space behind the mole, where the incompetent Bishop had marshalled his men, tore the militia into bloody rags, and covered the landing parties which were making the shore in their own boats and in several of those which had rashly gone out to the great ship before her identity was revealed.
+
+All through the scorching afternoon the battle went on, the rattle and crack of musketry penetrating ever deeper into the town to show that the defenders were being driven steadily back. By sunset two hundred and fifty Spaniards were masters of Bridgetown, the islanders were disarmed, and at Government House, Governor Steed - his gout forgotten in his panic - supported by Colonel Bishop and some lesser officers, was being informed by Don Diego, with an urbanity that was itself a mockery, of the sum that would be required in ransom.
+
+For a hundred thousand pieces of eight and fifty head of cattle, Don Diego would forbear from reducing the place to ashes. And what time that suave and courtly commander was settling these details with the apoplectic British Governor, the Spaniards were smashing and looting, feasting, drinking, and ravaging after the hideous manner of their kind.
+
+Mr. Blood, greatly daring, ventured down at dusk into the town. What he saw there is recorded by Jeremy Pitt to whom he subsequently related it - in that voluminous log from which the greater part of my narrative is derived. I have no intention of repeating any of it here. It is all too loathsome and nauseating, incredible, indeed, that men however abandoned could ever descend such an abyss of bestial cruelty and lust.
+
+What he saw was fetching him in haste and white-faced out of that hell again, when in a narrow street a girl hurtled into him, wild-eyed, her unbound hair streaming behind her as she ran. After her, laughing and cursing in a breath, came a heavy-booted Spaniard. Almost he was upon her, when suddenly Mr. Blood got in his way. The doctor had taken a sword from a dead man’s side some little time before and armed himself with it against an emergency.
+
+As the Spaniard checked in anger and surprise, he caught in the dusk the livid gleam of that sword which Mr. Blood had quickly unsheathed.
+
+“Ah, perro ingles!” he shouted, and flung forward to his death.
+
+“It’s hoping I am ye’re in a fit state to meet your Maker,” said Mr. Blood, and ran him through the body. He did the thing skilfully: with the combined skill of swordsman and surgeon. The man sank in a hideous heap without so much as a groan.
+
+Mr. Blood swung to the girl, who leaned panting and sobbing against a wall. He caught her by the wrist.
+
+“Come!” he said.
+
+But she hung back, resisting him by her weight. “Who are you?” she demanded wildly.
+
+“Will ye wait to see my credentials?” he snapped. Steps were clattering towards them from beyond the corner round which she had fled from that Spanish ruffian. “Come,” he urged again. And this time, reassured perhaps by his clear English speech, she went without further questions.
+
+They sped down an alley and then up another, by great good fortune meeting no one, for already they were on the outskirts of the town. They won out of it, and white-faced, physically sick, Mr. Blood dragged her almost at a run up the hill towards Colonel Bishop’s house. He told her briefly who and what he was, and thereafter there was no conversation between them until they reached the big white house. It was all in darkness, which at least was reassuring. If the Spaniards had reached it, there would be lights. He knocked, but had to knock again and yet again before he was answered. Then it was by a voice from a window above.
+
+“Who is there?” The voice was Miss Bishop’s, a little tremulous, but unmistakably her own.
+
+Mr. Blood almost fainted in relief. He had been imagining the unimaginable. He had pictured her down in that hell out of which he had just come. He had conceived that she might have followed her uncle into Bridgetown, or committed some other imprudence, and he turned cold from head to foot at the mere thought of what might have happened to her.
+
+“It is I - Peter Blood,” he gasped.
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+It is doubtful whether she would have come down to open. For at such a time as this it was no more than likely that the wretched plantation slaves might be in revolt and prove as great a danger as the Spaniards. But at the sound of her voice, the girl Mr. Blood had rescued peered up through the gloom.
+
+“Arabella!” she called. “It is I, Mary Traill.”
+
+“Mary!” The voice ceased above on that exclamation, the head was withdrawn. After a brief pause the door gaped wide. Beyond it in the wide hall stood Miss Arabella, a slim, virginal figure in white, mysteriously revealed in the gleam of a single candle which she carried.
+
+Mr. Blood strode in followed by his distraught companion, who, falling upon Arabella’s slender bosom, surrendered herself to a passion of tears. But he wasted no time.
+
+“Whom have you here with you? What servants?” he demanded sharply.
+
+The only male was James, an old negro groom.
+
+“The very man,” said Blood. “Bid him get out horses. Then away with you to Speightstown, or even farther north, where you will be safe. Here you are in danger - in dreadful danger.”
+
+“But I thought the fighting was over…” she was beginning, pale and startled.
+
+“So it is. But the deviltry’s only beginning. Miss Traill will tell you as you go. In God’s name, madam, take my word for it, and do as I bid you.”
+
+“He… he saved me,” sobbed Miss Traill.
+
+“Saved you?” Miss Bishop was aghast. “Saved you from what, Mary?”
+
+“Let that wait,” snapped Mr. Blood almost angrily. “You’ve all the night for chattering when you’re out of this, and away beyond their reach. Will you please call James, and do as I say - and at once!”
+
+“You are very peremptory….”
+
+“Oh, my God! I am peremptory! Speak, Miss Trail!, tell her whether I’ve cause to be peremptory.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” the girl cried, shuddering. “Do as he says - Oh, for pity’s sake, Arabella.”
+
+Miss Bishop went off, leaving Mr. Blood and Miss Traill alone again.
+
+“I… I shall never forget what you did, sir,” said she, through her diminishing tears. She was a slight wisp of a girl, a child, no more.
+
+“I’ve done better things in my time. That’s why I’m here,” said Mr. Blood, whose mood seemed to be snappy.
+
+She didn’t pretend to understand him, and she didn’t make the attempt.
+
+“Did you… did you kill him?” she asked, fearfully.
+
+He stared at her in the flickering candlelight. “I hope so. It is very probable, and it doesn’t matter at all,” he said. “What matters is that this fellow James should fetch the horses.” And he was stamping off to accelerate these preparations for departure, when her voice arrested him.
+
+“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here alone!” she cried in terror.
+
+He paused. He turned and came slowly back. Standing above her he smiled upon her.
+
+“There, there! You’ve no cause for alarm. It’s all over now. You’ll be away soon - away to Speightstown, where you’ll be quite safe.”
+
+The horses came at last - four of them, for in addition to James who was to act as her guide, Miss Bishop had her woman, who was not to be left behind.
+
+Mr. Blood lifted the slight weight of Mary Traill to her horse, then turned to say good-bye to Miss Bishop, who was already mounted. He said it, and seemed to have something to add. But whatever it was, it remained unspoken. The horses started, and receded into the sapphire starlit night, leaving him standing there before Colonel Bishop’s door. The last he heard of them was Mary Traill’s childlike voice calling back on a quavering note -
+
+“I shall never forget what you did, Mr. Blood. I shall never forget.”
+
+But as it was not the voice he desired to hear, the assurance brought him little satisfaction. He stood there in the dark watching the fireflies amid the rhododendrons, till the hoofbeats had faded. Then he sighed and roused himself. He had much to do. His journey into the town had not been one of idle curiosity to see how the Spaniards conducted themselves in victory. It had been inspired by a very different purpose, and he had gained in the course of it all the information he desired. He had an extremely busy night before him, and must be moving.
+
+He went off briskly in the direction of the stockade, where his fellow-slaves awaited him in deep anxiety and some hope.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE REBELS-CONVICT
+
+
+There were, when the purple gloom of the tropical night descended upon the Caribbean, not more than ten men on guard aboard the Cinco Llagas, so confident - and with good reason - were the Spaniards of the complete subjection of the islanders. And when I say that there were ten men on guard, I state rather the purpose for which they were left aboard than the duty which they fulfilled. As a matter of fact, whilst the main body of the Spaniards feasted and rioted ashore, the Spanish gunner and his crew - who had so nobly done their duty and ensured the easy victory of the day - were feasting on the gun-deck upon the wine and the fresh meats fetched out to them from shore. Above, two sentinels only kept vigil, at stem and stern. Nor were they as vigilant as they should have been, or else they must have observed the two wherries that under cover of the darkness came gliding from the wharf, with well-greased rowlocks, to bring up in silence under the great ship’s quarter.
+
+From the gallery aft still hung the ladder by which Don Diego had descended to the boat that had taken him ashore. The sentry on guard in the stern, coming presently round this gallery, was suddenly confronted by the black shadow of a man standing before him at the head of the ladder.
+
+“Who’s there?” he asked, but without alarm, supposing it one of his fellows.
+
+“It is I,” softly answered Peter Blood in the fluent Castillan of which he was master.
+
+“Is it you, Pedro?” The Spaniard came a step nearer.
+
+“Peter is my name; but I doubt I’ll not be the Peter you’re expecting.”
+
+“How?” quoth the sentry, checking.
+
+“This way,” said Mr. Blood.
+
+The wooden taffrail was a low one, and the Spaniard was taken completely by surprise. Save for the splash he made as he struck the water, narrowly missing one of the crowded boats that waited under the counter, not a sound announced his misadventure. Armed as he was with corselet, cuissarts, and headpiece, he sank to trouble them no more.
+
+“Whist!” hissed Mr. Blood to his waiting rebels-convict. “Come on, now, and without noise.”
+
+Within five minutes they had swarmed aboard, the entire twenty of them overflowing from that narrow gallery and crouching on the quarter-deck itself. Lights showed ahead. Under the great lantern in the prow they saw the black figure of the other sentry, pacing on the forecastle. From below sounds reached them of the orgy on the gun-deck: a rich male voice was singing an obscene ballad to which the others chanted in chorus:
+
+“Y estos son los usos de Castilla y de Leon!”
+
+“From what I’ve seen to-day I can well believe it,” said Mr. Blood, and whispered: “Forward - after me.”
+
+Crouching low, they glided, noiseless as shadows, to the quarter-deck rail, and thence slipped without sound down into the waist. Two thirds of them were armed with muskets, some of which they had found in the overseer’s house, and others supplied from the secret hoard that Mr. Blood had so laboriously assembled against the day of escape. The remainder were equipped with knives and cutlasses.
+
+In the vessel’s waist they hung awhile, until Mr. Blood had satisfied himself that no other sentinel showed above decks but that inconvenient fellow in the prow. Their first attention must be for him. Mr. Blood, himself, crept forward with two companions, leaving the others in the charge of that Nathaniel Hagthorpe whose sometime commission in the King’s Navy gave him the best title to this office.
+
+Mr. Blood’s absence was brief. When he rejoined his comrades there was no watch above the Spaniards’ decks.
+
+Meanwhile the revellers below continued to make merry at their ease in the conviction of complete security. The garrison of Barbados was overpowered and disarmed, and their companions were ashore in complete possession of the town, glutting themselves hideously upon the fruits of victory. What, then, was there to fear? Even when their quarters were invaded and they found themselves surrounded by a score of wild, hairy, half-naked men, who - save that they appeared once to have been white - looked like a horde of savages, the Spaniards could not believe their eyes.
+
+Who could have dreamed that a handful of forgotten plantation-slaves would have dared to take so much upon themselves?
+
+The half-drunken Spaniards, their laughter suddenly quenched, the song perishing on their lips, stared, stricken and bewildered at the levelled muskets by which they were checkmated.
+
+And then, from out of this uncouth pack of savages that beset them, stepped a slim, tall fellow with light-blue eyes in a tawny face, eyes in which glinted the light of a wicked humour. He addressed them in the purest Castilian.
+
+“You will save yourselves pain and trouble by regarding yourselves my prisoners, and suffering yourselves to be quietly bestowed out of harm’s way.”
+
+“Name of God!” swore the gunner, which did no justice at all to an amazement beyond expression.
+
+“If you please,” said Mr. Blood, and thereupon those gentlemen of Spain were induced without further trouble beyond a musket prod or two to drop through a scuttle to the deck below.
+
+After that the rebels-convict refreshed themselves with the good things in the consumption of which they had interrupted the Spaniards. To taste palatable Christian food after months of salt fish and maize dumplings was in itself a feast to these unfortunates. But there were no excesses. Mr. Blood saw to that, although it required all the firmness of which he was capable.
+
+Dispositions were to be made without delay against that which must follow before they could abandon themselves fully to the enjoyment of their victory. This, after all, was no more than a preliminary skirmish, although it was one that afforded them the key to the situation. It remained to dispose so that the utmost profit might be drawn from it. Those dispositions occupied some very considerable portion of the night. But, at least, they were complete before the sun peeped over the shoulder of Mount Hilibay to shed his light upon a day of some surprises.
+
+It was soon after sunrise that the rebel-convict who paced the quarter-deck in Spanish corselet and headpiece, a Spanish musket on his shoulder, announced the approach of a boat. It was Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez coming aboard with four great treasure-chests, containing each twenty-five thousand pieces of eight, the ransom delivered to him at dawn by Governor Steed. He was accompanied by his son, Don Esteban, and by six men who took the oars.
+
+Aboard the frigate all was quiet and orderly as it should be. She rode at anchor, her larboard to the shore, and the main ladder on her starboard side. Round to this came the boat with Don Diego and his treasure. Mr. Blood had disposed effectively. It was not for nothing that he had served under de Ruyter. The swings were waiting, and the windlass manned. Below, a gun-crew held itself in readiness under the command of Ogle, who - as I have said - had been a gunner in the Royal Navy before he went in for politics and followed the fortunes of the Duke of Monmouth. He was a sturdy, resolute fellow who inspired confidence by the very confidence he displayed in himself.
+
+Don Diego mounted the ladder and stepped upon the deck, alone, and entirely unsuspicious. What should the poor man suspect?
+
+Before he could even look round, and survey this guard drawn up to receive him, a tap over the head with a capstan bar efficiently handled by Hagthorpe put him to sleep without the least fuss.
+
+He was carried away to his cabin, whilst the treasure-chests, handled by the men he had left in the boat, were being hauled to the deck. That being satisfactorily accomplished, Don Esteban and the fellows who had manned the boat came up the ladder, one by one, to be handled with the same quiet efficiency. Peter Blood had a genius for these things, and almost, I suspect, an eye for the dramatic. Dramatic, certainly, was the spectacle now offered to the survivors of the raid.
+
+With Colonel Bishop at their head, and gout-ridden Governor Steed sitting on the ruins of a wall beside him, they glumly watched the departure of the eight boats containing the weary Spanish ruffians who had glutted themselves with rapine, murder, and violences unspeakable.
+
+They looked on, between relief at this departure of their remorseless enemies, and despair at the wild ravages which, temporarily at least, had wrecked the prosperity and happiness of that little colony.
+
+The boats pulled away from the shore, with their loads of laughing, jeering Spaniards, who were still flinging taunts across the water at their surviving victims. They had come midway between the wharf and the ship, when suddenly the air was shaken by the boom of a gun.
+
+A round shot struck the water within a fathom of the foremost boat, sending a shower of spray over its occupants. They paused at their oars, astounded into silence for a moment. Then speech burst from them like an explosion. Angrily voluble they anathematized this dangerous carelessness on the part of their gunner, who should know better than to fire a salute from a cannon loaded with shot. They were still cursing him when a second shot, better aimed than the first, came to crumple one of the boats into splinters, flinging its crew, dead and living, into the water.
+
+But if it silenced these, it gave tongue, still more angry, vehement, and bewildered to the crews of the other seven boats. From each the suspended oars stood out poised over the water, whilst on their feet in the excitement the Spaniards screamed oaths at the ship, begging Heaven and Hell to inform them what madman had been let loose among her guns.
+
+Plump into their middle came a third shot, smashing a second boat with fearful execution. Followed again a moment of awful silence, then among those Spanish pirates all was gibbering and jabbering and splashing of oars, as they attempted to pull in every direction at once. Some were for going ashore, others for heading straight to the vessel and there discovering what might be amiss. That something was very gravely amiss there could be no further doubt, particularly as whilst they discussed and fumed and cursed two more shots came over the water to account for yet a third of their boats.
+
+The resolute Ogle was making excellent practice, and fully justifying his claims to know something of gunnery. In their consternation the Spaniards had simplified his task by huddling their boats together.
+
+After the fourth shot, opinion was no longer divided amongst them. As with one accord they went about, or attempted to do so, for before they had accomplished it two more of their boats had been sunk.
+
+The three boats that remained, without concerning themselves with their more unfortunate fellows, who were struggling in the water, headed back for the wharf at speed.
+
+If the Spaniards understood nothing of all this, the forlorn islanders ashore understood still less, until to help their wits they saw the flag of Spain come down from the mainmast of the Cinco Llagas, and the flag of England soar to its empty place. Even then some bewilderment persisted, and it was with fearful eyes that they observed the return of their enemies, who might vent upon them the ferocity aroused by these extraordinary events.
+
+Ogle, however, continued to give proof that his knowledge of gunnery was not of yesterday. After the fleeing Spaniards went his shots. The last of their boats flew into splinters as it touched the wharf, and its remains were buried under a shower of loosened masonry.
+
+That was the end of this pirate crew, which not ten minutes ago had been laughingly counting up the pieces of eight that would fall to the portion of each for his share in that act of villainy. Close upon threescore survivors contrived to reach the shore. Whether they had cause for congratulation, I am unable to say in the absence of any records in which their fate may be traced. That lack of records is in itself eloquent. We know that they were made fast as they landed, and considering the offence they had given I am not disposed to doubt that they had every reason to regret the survival.
+
+The mystery of the succour that had come at the eleventh hour to wreak vengeance upon the Spaniards, and to preserve for the island the extortionate ransom of a hundred thousand pieces of eight, remained yet to be probed. That the Cinco Llagas was now in friendly hands could no longer be doubted after the proofs it had given. But who, the people of Bridgetown asked one another, were the men in possession of her, and whence had they come? The only possible assumption ran the truth very closely. A resolute party of islanders must have got aboard during the night, and seized the ship. It remained to ascertain the precise identity of these mysterious saviours, and do them fitting honour.
+
+Upon this errand - Governor Steed’s condition not permitting him to go in person - went Colonel Bishop as the Governor’s deputy, attended by two officers.
+
+As he stepped from the ladder into the vessel’s waist, the Colonel beheld there, beside the main hatch, the four treasure-chests, the contents of one of which had been contributed almost entirely by himself. It was a gladsome spectacle, and his eyes sparkled in beholding it.
+
+Ranged on either side, athwart the deck, stood a score of men in two well-ordered files, with breasts and backs of steel, polished Spanish morions on their heads, overshadowing their faces, and muskets ordered at their sides.
+
+Colonel Bishop could not be expected to recognize at a glance in these upright, furbished, soldierly figures the ragged, unkempt scarecrows that but yesterday had been toiling in his plantations. Still less could he be expected to recognize at once the courtly gentleman who advanced to greet him - a lean, graceful gentleman, dressed in the Spanish fashion, all in black with silver lace, a gold-hilted sword dangling beside him from a gold embroidered baldrick, a broad castor with a sweeping plume set above carefully curled ringlets of deepest black.
+
+“Be welcome aboard the Cinco Llagas, Colonel, darling,” a voice vaguely familiar addressed the planter. “We’ve made the best of the Spaniards’ wardrobe in honour of this visit, though it was scarcely yourself we had dared hope to expect. You find yourself among friends - old friends of yours, all.” The Colonel stared in stupefaction. Mr. Blood tricked out in all this splendour - indulging therein his natural taste - his face carefully shaven, his hair as carefully dressed, seemed transformed into a younger man. The fact is he looked no more than the thirty-three years he counted to his age.
+
+“Peter Blood!” It was an ejaculation of amazement. Satisfaction followed swiftly. “Was it you, then…?”
+
+“Myself it was - myself and these, my good friends and yours.” Mr. Blood tossed back the fine lace from his wrist, to wave a hand towards the file of men standing to attention there.
+
+The Colonel looked more closely. “Gad’s my life!” he crowed on a note of foolish jubilation. “And it was with these fellows that you took the Spaniard and turned the tables on those dogs! Oddswounds! It was heroic!”
+
+“Heroic, is it? Bedad, it’s epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.”
+
+Colonel Bishop sat himself down on the hatch-coaming, took off his broad hat, and mopped his brow.
+
+“Y’amaze me!” he gasped. “On my soul, y’amaze me! To have recovered the treasure and to have seized this fine ship and all she’ll hold! It will be something to set against the other losses we have suffered. As Gad’s my life, you deserve well for this.”
+
+“I am entirely of your opinion.”
+
+“Damme! You all deserve well, and damme, you shall find me grateful.”
+
+“That’s as it should be,” said Mr. Blood. “The question is how well we deserve, and how grateful shall we find you?”
+
+Colonel Bishop considered him. There was a shadow of surprise in his face.
+
+“Why - his excellency shall write home an account of your exploit, and maybe some portion of your sentences shall be remitted.”
+
+“The generosity of King James is well known,” sneered Nathaniel Hagthorpe, who was standing by, and amongst the ranged rebels-convict some one ventured to laugh.
+
+Colonel Bishop started up. He was pervaded by the first pang of uneasiness. It occurred to him that all here might not be as friendly as appeared.
+
+“And there’s another matter,” Mr. Blood resumed. “There’s a matter of a flogging that’s due to me. Ye’re a man of your word in such matters, Colonel - if not perhaps in others - and ye said, I think, that ye’d not leave a square inch of skin on my back.”
+
+The planter waved the matter aside. Almost it seemed to offend him.
+
+“Tush! Tush! After this splendid deed of yours, do you suppose I can be thinking of such things?”
+
+“I’m glad ye feel like that about it. But I’m thinking it’s mighty lucky for me the Spaniards didn’t come to-day instead of yesterday, or it’s in the same plight as Jeremy Pitt I’d be this minute. And in that case where was the genius that would have turned the tables on these rascally Spaniards?”
+
+“Why speak of it now?”
+
+Mr. Blood resumed: “ye’ll please to understand that I must, Colonel, darling. Ye’ve worked a deal of wickedness and cruelty in your time, and I want this to be a lesson to you, a lesson that ye’ll remember - for the sake of others who may come after us. There’s Jeremy up there in the roundhouse with a back that’s every colour of the rainbow; and the poor lad’ll not be himself again for a month. And if it hadn’t been for the Spaniards maybe it’s dead he’d be by now, and maybe myself with him.”
+
+Hagthorpe lounged forward. He was a fairly tall, vigorous man with a clear-cut, attractive face which in itself announced his breeding.
+
+“Why will you be wasting words on the hog?” wondered that sometime officer in the Royal Navy. “Fling him overboard and have done with him.”
+
+The Colonel’s eyes bulged in his head. “What the devil do you mean?” he blustered.
+
+“It’s the lucky man ye are entirely, Colonel, though ye don’t guess the source of your good fortune.”
+
+And now another intervened - the brawny, one-eyed Wolverstone, less mercifully disposed than his more gentlemanly fellow-convict.
+
+“String him up from the yardarm,” he cried, his deep voice harsh and angry, and more than one of the slaves standing to their arms made echo.
+
+Colonel Bishop trembled. Mr. Blood turned. He was quite calm.
+
+“If you please, Wolverstone,” said he, “I conduct affairs in my own way. That is the pact. You’ll please to remember it.” His eyes looked along the ranks, making it plain that he addressed them all. “I desire that Colonel Bishop should have his life. One reason is that I require him as a hostage. If ye insist on hanging him, ye’ll have to hang me with him, or in the alternative I’ll go ashore.”
+
+He paused. There was no answer. But they stood hangdog and half-mutinous before him, save Hagthorpe, who shrugged and smiled wearily.
+
+Mr. Blood resumed: “Ye’ll please to understand that aboard a ship there is one captain. So.” He swung again to the startled Colonel. “Though I promise you your life, I must - as you’ve heard - keep you aboard as a hostage for the good behaviour of Governor Steed and what’s left of the fort until we put to sea.”
+
+“Until you…” Horror prevented Colonel Bishop from echoing the remainder of that incredible speech.
+
+“Just so,” said Peter Blood, and he turned to the officers who had accompanied the Colonel. “The boat is waiting, gentlemen. You’ll have heard what I said. Convey it with my compliments to his excellency.”
+
+“But, sir…” one of them began.
+
+“There is no more to be said, gentlemen. My name is Blood - Captain Blood, if you please, of this ship the Cinco Llagas, taken as a prize of war from Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez, who is my prisoner aboard. You are to understand that I have turned the tables on more than the Spaniards. There’s the ladder. You’ll find it more convenient than being heaved over the side, which is what’ll happen if you linger.”
+
+They went, though not without some hustling, regardless of the bellowings of Colonel Bishop, whose monstrous rage was fanned by terror at finding himself at the mercy of these men of whose cause to hate him he was very fully conscious.
+
+A half-dozen of them, apart from Jeremy Pitt, who was utterly incapacitated for the present, possessed a superficial knowledge of seamanship. Hagthorpe, although he had been a fighting officer, untrained in navigation, knew how to handle a ship, and under his directions they set about getting under way.
+
+The anchor catted, and the mainsail unfurled, they stood out for the open before a gentle breeze, without interference from the fort.
+
+As they were running close to the headland east of the bay, Peter Blood returned to the Colonel, who, under guard and panic-stricken, had dejectedly resumed his seat on the coamings of the main batch.
+
+“Can ye swim, Colonel?”
+
+Colonel Bishop looked up. His great face was yellow and seemed in that moment of a preternatural flabbiness; his beady eyes were beadier than ever.
+
+“As your doctor, now, I prescribe a swim to cool the excessive heat of your humours.” Blood delivered the explanation pleasantly, and, receiving still no answer from the Colonel, continued: “It’s a mercy for you I’m not by nature as bloodthirsty as some of my friends here. And it’s the devil’s own labour I’ve had to prevail upon them not to be vindictive. I doubt if ye’re worth the pains I’ve taken for you.”
+
+He was lying. He had no doubt at all. Had he followed his own wishes and instincts, he would certainly have strung the Colonel up, and accounted it a meritorious deed. It was the thought of Arabella Bishop that had urged him to mercy, and had led him to oppose the natural vindictiveness of his fellow-slaves until he had been in danger of precipitating a mutiny. It was entirely to the fact that the Colonel was her uncle, although he did not even begin to suspect such a cause, that he owed such mercy as was now being shown him.
+
+“You shall have a chance to swim for it,” Peter Blood continued. “It’s not above a quarter of a mile to the headland yonder, and with ordinary luck ye should manage it. Faith, you’re fat enough to float. Come on! Now, don’t be hesitating or it’s a long voyage ye’ll be going with us, and the devil knows what may happen to you. You’re not loved any more than you deserve.”
+
+Colonel Bishop mastered himself, and rose. A merciless despot, who had never known the need for restraint in all these years, he was doomed by ironic fate to practise restraint in the very moment when his feelings had reached their most violent intensity.
+
+Peter Blood gave an order. A plank was run out over the gunwale, and lashed down.
+
+“If you please, Colonel,” said he, with a graceful flourish of invitation.
+
+The Colonel looked at him, and there was hell in his glance. Then, taking his resolve, and putting the best face upon it, since no other could help him here, he kicked off his shoes, peeled off his fine coat of biscuit-coloured taffetas, and climbed upon the plank.
+
+A moment he paused, steadied by a hand that clutched the ratlines, looking down in terror at the green water rushing past some five-and-twenty feet below.
+
+“Just take a little walk, Colonel, darling,” said a smooth, mocking voice behind him.
+
+Still clinging, Colonel Bishop looked round in hesitation, and saw the bulwarks lined with swarthy faces - the faces of men that as lately as yesterday would have turned pale under his frown, faces that were now all wickedly agrin.
+
+For a moment rage stamped out his fear. He cursed them aloud venomously and incoherently, then loosed his hold and stepped out upon the plank. Three steps he took before he lost his balance and went tumbling into the green depths below.
+
+When he came to the surface again, gasping for air, the Cinco Llagas was already some furlongs to leeward. But the roaring cheer of mocking valediction from the rebels-convict reached him across the water, to drive the iron of impotent rage deeper into his soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+DON DIEGO
+
+
+Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez awoke, and with languid eyes in aching head, he looked round the cabin, which was flooded with sunlight from the square windows astern. Then he uttered a moan, and closed his eyes again, impelled to this by the monstrous ache in his head. Lying thus, he attempted to think, to locate himself in time and space. But between the pain in his head and the confusion in his mind, he found coherent thought impossible.
+
+An indefinite sense of alarm drove him to open his eyes again, and once more to consider his surroundings.
+
+There could be no doubt that he lay in the great cabin of his own ship, the Cinco Llagas, so that his vague disquiet must be, surely, ill-founded. And yet, stirrings of memory coming now to the assistance of reflection, compelled him uneasily to insist that here something was not as it should be. The low position of the sun, flooding the cabin with golden light from those square ports astern, suggested to him at first that it was early morning, on the assumption that the vessel was headed westward. Then the alternative occurred to him. They might be sailing eastward, in which case the time of day would be late afternoon. That they were sailing he could feel from the gentle forward heave of the vessel under him. But how did they come to be sailing, and he, the master, not to know whether their course lay east or west, not to be able to recollect whither they were bound?
+
+His mind went back over the adventure of yesterday, if of yesterday it was. He was clear on the matter of the easily successful raid upon the Island of Barbados; every detail stood vividly in his memory up to the moment at which, returning aboard, he had stepped on to his own deck again. There memory abruptly and inexplicably ceased.
+
+He was beginning to torture his mind with conjecture, when the door opened, and to Don Diego’s increasing mystification he beheld his best suit of clothes step into the cabin. It was a singularly elegant and characteristically Spanish suit of black taffetas with silver lace that had been made for him a year ago in Cadiz, and he knew each detail of it so well that it was impossible he could now be mistaken.
+
+The suit paused to close the door, then advanced towards the couch on which Don Diego was extended, and inside the suit came a tall, slender gentleman of about Don Diego’s own height and shape. Seeing the wide, startled eyes of the Spaniard upon him, the gentleman lengthened his stride.
+
+“Awake, eh?” said he in Spanish.
+
+The recumbent man looked up bewildered into a pair of light-blue eyes that regarded him out of a tawny, sardonic face set in a cluster of black ringlets. But he was too bewildered to make any answer.
+
+The stranger’s fingers touched the top of Don Diego’s head, whereupon Don Diego winced and cried out in pain.
+
+“Tender, eh?” said the stranger. He took Don Diego’s wrist between thumb and second finger. And then, at last, the intrigued Spaniard spoke.
+
+“Are you a doctor?”
+
+“Among other things.” The swarthy gentleman continued his study of the patient’s pulse. “Firm and regular,” he announced at last, and dropped the wrist. “You’ve taken no great harm.”
+
+Don Diego struggled up into a sitting position on the red velvet couch.
+
+“Who the devil are you?” he asked. “And what the devil are you doing in my clothes and aboard my ship?”
+
+The level black eyebrows went up, a faint smile curled the lips of the long mouth.
+
+“You are still delirious, I fear. This is not your ship. This is my ship, and these are my clothes.”
+
+“Your ship?” quoth the other, aghast, and still more aghast he added: “Your clothes? But… then….” Wildly his eyes looked about him. They scanned the cabin once again, scrutinizing each familiar object. “Am I mad?” he asked at last. “Surely this ship is the Cinco Llagas?”
+
+“The Cinco Llagas it is.”
+
+“Then….” The Spaniard broke off. His glance grew still more troubled. “Valga me Dios!” he cried out, like a man in anguish. “Will you tell me also that you are Don Diego de Espinosa?”
+
+“Oh, no, my name is Blood - Captain Peter Blood. This ship, like this handsome suit of clothes, is mine by right of conquest. Just as you, Don Diego, are my prisoner.”
+
+Startling as was the explanation, yet it proved soothing to Don Diego, being so much less startling than the things he was beginning to imagine.
+
+“But… Are you not Spanish, then?”
+
+“You flatter my Castilian accent. I have the honour to be Irish. You were thinking that a miracle had happened. So it has - a miracle wrought by my genius, which is considerable.”
+
+Succinctly now Captain Blood dispelled the mystery by a relation of the facts. It was a narrative that painted red and white by turns the Spaniard’s countenance. He put a hand to the back of his head, and there discovered, in confirmation of the story, a lump as large as a pigeon’s egg. Lastly, he stared wild-eyed at the sardonic Captain Blood.
+
+“And my son? What of my son?” he cried out. “He was in the boat that brought me aboard.”
+
+“Your son is safe; he and the boat’s crew together with your gunner and his men are snugly in irons under hatches.”
+
+Don Diego sank back on the couch, his glittering dark eyes fixed upon the tawny face above him. He composed himself. After all, he possessed the stoicism proper to his desperate trade. The dice had fallen against him in this venture. The tables had been turned upon him in the very moment of success. He accepted the situation with the fortitude of a fatalist.
+
+With the utmost calm he enquired:
+
+“And now, Senior Capitan?”
+
+“And now,” said Captain Blood - to give him the title he had assumed - “being a humane man, I am sorry to find that ye’re not dead from the tap we gave you. For it means that you’ll be put to the trouble of dying all over again.”
+
+“Ah!” Don Diego drew a deep breath. “But is that necessary?” he asked, without apparent perturbation.
+
+Captain Blood’s blue eyes approved his bearing. “Ask yourself,” said he. “Tell me, as an experienced and bloody pirate, what in my place would you do, yourself?”
+
+“Ah, but there is a difference.” Don Diego sat up to argue the matter. “It lies in the fact that you boast yourself a humane man.”
+
+Captain Blood perched himself on the edge of the long oak table. “But I am not a fool,” said he, “and I’ll not allow a natural Irish sentimentality to stand in the way of my doing what is necessary and proper. You and your ten surviving scoundrels are a menace on this ship. More than that, she is none so well found in water and provisions. True, we are fortunately a small number, but you and your party inconveniently increase it. So that on every hand, you see, prudence suggests to us that we should deny ourselves the pleasure of your company, and, steeling our soft hearts to the inevitable, invite you to be so obliging as to step over the side.”
+
+“I see,” said the Spaniard pensively. He swung his legs from the couch, and sat now upon the edge of it, his elbows on his knees. He had taken the measure of his man, and met him with a mock-urbanity and a suave detachment that matched his own. “I confess,” he admitted, “that there is much force in what you say.”
+
+“You take a load from my mind,” said Captain Blood. “I would not appear unnecessarily harsh, especially since I and my friends owe you so very much. For, whatever it may have been to others, to us your raid upon Barbados was most opportune. I am glad, therefore, that you agree the I have no choice.”
+
+“But, my friend, I did not agree so much.”
+
+“If there is any alternative that you can suggest, I shall be most happy to consider it.”
+
+Don Diego stroked his pointed black beard.
+
+“Can you give me until morning for reflection? My head aches so damnably that I am incapable of thought. And this, you will admit, is a matter that asks serious thought.”
+
+Captain Blood stood up. From a shelf he took a half-hour glass, reversed it so that the bulb containing the red sand was uppermost, and stood it on the table.
+
+“I am sorry to press you in such a matter, Don Diego, but one glass is all that I can give you. If by the time those sands have run out you can propose no acceptable alternative, I shall most reluctantly be driven to ask you to go over the side with your friends.”
+
+Captain Blood bowed, went out, and locked the door. Elbows on his knees and face in his hands, Don Diego sat watching the rusty sands as they filtered from the upper to the lower bulb. And what time he watched, the lines in his lean brown face grew deeper. Punctually as the last grains ran out, the door reopened.
+
+The Spaniard sighed, and sat upright to face the returning Captain Blood with the answer for which he came.
+
+“I have thought of an alternative, sir captain; but it depends upon your charity. It is that you put us ashore on one of the islands of this pestilent archipelago, and leave us to shift for ourselves.”
+
+Captain Blood pursed his lips. “It has its difficulties,” said he slowly.
+
+“I feared it would be so.” Don Diego sighed again, and stood up. “Let us say no more.”
+
+The light-blue eyes played over him like points of steel.
+
+“You are not afraid to die, Don Diego?”
+
+The Spaniard threw back his head, a frown between his eyes.
+
+“The question is offensive, sir.”
+
+“Then let me put it in another way - perhaps more happily: You do not desire to live?”
+
+“Ah, that I can answer. I do desire to live; and even more do I desire that my son may live. But the desire shall not make a coward of me for your amusement, master mocker.” It was the first sign he had shown of the least heat or resentment.
+
+Captain Blood did not directly answer. As before he perched himself on the corner of the table.
+
+“Would you be willing, sir, to earn life and liberty - for yourself, your son, and the other Spaniards who are on board?”
+
+“To earn it?” said Don Diego, and the watchful blue eyes did not miss the quiver that ran through him. “To earn it, do you say? Why, if the service you would propose is one that cannot hurt my honour….”
+
+“Could I be guilty of that?” protested the Captain. “I realize that even a pirate has his honour.” And forthwith he propounded his offer. “If you will look from those windows, Don Diego, you will see what appears to be a cloud on the horizon. That is the island of Barbados well astern. All day we have been sailing east before the wind with but one intent - to set as great a distance between Barbados and ourselves as possible. But now, almost out of sight of land, we are in a difficulty. The only man among us schooled in the art of navigation is fevered, delirious, in fact, as a result of certain ill-treatment he received ashore before we carried him away with us. I can handle a ship in action, and there are one or two men aboard who can assist me; but of the higher mysteries of seamanship and of the art of finding a way over the trackless wastes of ocean, we know nothing. To hug the land, and go blundering about what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago, is for us to court disaster, as you can perhaps conceive. And so it comes to this: We desire to make for the Dutch settlement of Curacao as straightly as possible. Will you pledge me your honour, if I release you upon parole, that you will navigate us thither? If so, we will release you and your surviving men upon arrival there.”
+
+Don Diego bowed his head upon his breast, and strode away in thought to the stern windows. There he stood looking out upon the sunlit sea and the dead water in the great ship’s wake - his ship, which these English dogs had wrested from him; his ship, which he was asked to bring safely into a port where she would be completely lost to him and refitted perhaps to make war upon his kin. That was in one scale; in the other were the lives of sixteen men. Fourteen of them mattered little to him, but the remaining two were his own and his son’s.
+
+He turned at length, and his back being to the light, the Captain could not see how pale his face had grown.
+
+“I accept,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+FILIAL PIETY
+
+
+By virtue of the pledge he had given, Don Diego de Espinosa enjoyed the freedom of the ship that had been his, and the navigation which he had undertaken was left entirely in his hands. And because those who manned her were new to the seas of the Spanish Main, and because even the things that had happened in Bridgetown were not enough to teach them to regard every Spaniard as a treacherous, cruel dog to be slain at sight, they used him with the civility which his own suave urbanity invited. He took his meals in the great cabin with Blood and the three officers elected to support him: Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Dyke.
+
+They found Don Diego an agreeable, even an amusing companion, and their friendly feeling towards him was fostered by his fortitude and brave equanimity in this adversity.
+
+That Don Diego was not playing fair it was impossible to suspect. Moreover, there was no conceivable reason why he should not. And he had been of the utmost frankness with them. He had denounced their mistake in sailing before the wind upon leaving Barbados. They should have left the island to leeward, heading into the Caribbean and away from the archipelago. As it was, they would now be forced to pass through this archipelago again so as to make Curacao, and this passage was not to be accomplished without some measure of risk to themselves. At any point between the islands they might come upon an equal or superior craft; whether she were Spanish or English would be equally bad for them, and being undermanned they were in no case to fight. To lessen this risk as far as possible, Don Diego directed at first a southerly and then a westerly course; and so, taking a line midway between the islands of Tobago and Grenada, they won safely through the danger-zone and came into the comparative security of the Caribbean Sea.
+
+“If this wind holds,” he told them that night at supper, after he had announced to them their position, “we should reach Curacao inside three days.”
+
+For three days the wind held, indeed it freshened a little on the second, and yet when the third night descended upon them they had still made no landfall. The Cinco Llagas was ploughing through a sea contained on every side by the blue bowl of heaven. Captain Blood uneasily mentioned it to Don Diego.
+
+“It will be for to-morrow morning,” he was answered with calm conviction.
+
+“By all the saints, it is always ‘to-morrow morning’ with you Spaniards; and to-morrow never comes, my friend.”
+
+“But this to-morrow is coming, rest assured. However early you may be astir, you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro.”
+
+Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life. For twenty-four hours now the fever had left the sufferer, and under Peter Blood’s dressings, his lacerated back was beginning to heal satisfactorily. So far, indeed, was he recovered that he complained of his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck, and so, as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky, Jeremy Pitt came forth upon the Captain’s arm.
+
+Seated on the hatch-coamings, the Somersetshire lad gratefully filled his lungs with the cool night air, and professed himself revived thereby. Then with the seaman’s instinct his eyes wandered to the darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad golden points of light. Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then, his attention became sharply fixed. He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood beside him.
+
+“D’ye know anything of astronomy, Peter?” quoth he.
+
+“Astronomy, is it? Faith, now, I couldn’t tell the Belt of Orion from the Girdle of Venus.”
+
+“Ah! And I suppose all the others of this lubberly crew share your ignorance.”
+
+“It would be more amiable of you to suppose that they exceed it.”
+
+Jeremy pointed ahead to a spot of light in the heavens over the starboard bow. “That is the North Star,” said he.
+
+“Is it now? Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest.”
+
+“And the North Star ahead almost over your starboard bow means that we’re steering a course, north, northwest, or maybe north by west, for I doubt if we are standing more than ten degrees westward.”
+
+“And why shouldn’t we?” wondered Captain Blood.
+
+“You told me - didn’t you? - that we came west of the archipelago between Tobago and Grenada, steering for Curacao. If that were our present course, we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder.”
+
+On the instant Mr. Blood shed his laziness. He stiffened with apprehension, and was about to speak when a shaft of light clove the gloom above their heads, coming from the door of the poop cabin which had just been opened. It closed again, and presently there was a step on the companion. Don Diego was approaching. Captain Blood’s fingers pressed Jerry’s shoulder with significance. Then he called the Don, and spoke to him in English as had become his custom when others were present.
+
+“Will ye settle a slight dispute for us, Don Diego?” said he lightly. “We are arguing, Mr. Pitt and I, as to which is the North Star.”
+
+“So?” The Spaniard’s tone was easy; there was almost a suggestion that laughter lurked behind it, and the reason for this was yielded by his next sentence. “But you tell me Mr. Pitt he is your navigant?”
+
+“For lack of a better,” laughed the Captain, good-humouredly contemptuous. “Now I am ready to wager him a hundred pieces of eight that that is the North Star.” And he flung out an arm towards a point of light in the heavens straight abeam. He afterwards told Pitt that had Don Diego confirmed him, he would have run him through upon that instant. Far from that, however, the Spaniard freely expressed his scorn.
+
+“You have the assurance that is of ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose. The North Star is this one.” And he indicated it.
+
+“You are sure?”
+
+“But my dear Don Pedro!” The Spaniard’s tone was one of amused protest. “But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there not the compass? Come to the binnacle and see there what course we make.”
+
+His utter frankness, and the easy manner of one who has nothing to conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leapt so suddenly in the mind of Captain Blood. Pitt was satisfied less easily.
+
+“In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our destination, why our course is what it is?”
+
+Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego’s part. “You have reason to ask,” said he, and sighed. “I had hope’ it would not be observe’. I have been careless - oh, of a carelessness very culpable. I neglect observation. Always it is my way. I make too sure. I count too much on dead reckoning. And so to-day I find when at last I take out the quadrant that we do come by a half-degree too much south, so that Curacao is now almost due north. That is what cause the delay. But we will be there to-morrow.”
+
+The explanation, so completely satisfactory, and so readily and candidly forthcoming, left no room for further doubt that Don Diego should have been false to his parole. And when presently Don Diego had withdrawn again, Captain Blood confessed to Pitt that it was absurd to have suspected him. Whatever his antecedents, he had proved his quality when he announced himself ready to die sooner than enter into any undertaking that could hurt his honour or his country.
+
+New to the seas of the Spanish Main and to the ways of the adventurers who sailed it, Captain Blood still entertained illusions. But the next dawn was to shatter them rudely and for ever.
+
+Coming on deck before the sun was up, he saw land ahead, as the Spaniard had promised them last night. Some ten miles ahead it lay, a long coast-line filling the horizon east and west, with a massive headland jutting forward straight before them. Staring at it, he frowned. He had not conceived that Curacao was of such considerable dimensions. Indeed, this looked less like an island than the main itself.
+
+Beating out aweather, against the gentle landward breeze he beheld a great ship on their starboard bow, that he conceived to be some three or four miles off, and - as well as he could judge her at that distance - of a tonnage equal if not superior to their own. Even as he watched her she altered her course, and going about came heading towards them, close-hauled.
+
+A dozen of his fellows were astir on the forecastle, looking eagerly ahead, and the sound of their voices and laughter reached him across the length of the stately Cinco Llagas.
+
+“There,” said a soft voice behind him in liquid Spanish, “is the Promised Land, Don Pedro.”
+
+It was something in that voice, a muffled note of exultation, that awoke suspicion in him, and made whole the half-doubt he had been entertaining. He turned sharply to face Don Diego, so sharply that the sly smile was not effaced from the Spaniard’s countenance before Captain Blood’s eyes had flashed upon it.
+
+“You find an odd satisfaction in the sight of it - all things considered,” said Mr. Blood.
+
+“Of course.” The Spaniard rubbed his hands, and Mr. Blood observed that they were unsteady. “The satisfaction of a mariner.”
+
+“Or of a traitor - which?” Blood asked him quietly. And as the Spaniard fell back before him with suddenly altered countenance that confirmed his every suspicion, he flung an arm out in the direction of the distant shore. “What land is that?” he demanded. “Will you have the effrontery to tell me that is the coast of Curacao?”
+
+He advanced upon Don Diego suddenly, and Don Diego, step by step, fell back. “Shall I tell you what land it is? Shall I?” His fierce assumption of knowledge seemed to dazzle and daze the Spaniard. For still Don Diego made no answer. And then Captain Blood drew a bow at a venture - or not quite at a venture. Such a coast-line as that, if not of the main itself, and the main he knew it could not be, must belong to either Cuba or Hispaniola. Now knowing Cuba to lie farther north and west of the two, it followed, he reasoned swiftly, that if Don Diego meant betrayal he would steer for the nearer of these Spanish territories. “That land, you treacherous, forsworn Spanish dog, is the island of Hispaniola.”
+
+Having said it, he closely watched the swarthy face now overspread with pallor, to see the truth or falsehood of his guess reflected there. But now the retreating Spaniard had come to the middle of the quarter-deck, where the mizzen sail made a screen to shut them off from the eyes of the Englishmen below. His lips writhed in a snarling smile.
+
+“Ah, perro ingles! You know too much,” he said under his breath, and sprang for the Captain’s throat.
+
+Tight-locked in each other’s arms, they swayed a moment, then together went down upon the deck, the Spaniard’s feet jerked from under him by the right leg of Captain Blood. The Spaniard had depended upon his strength, which was considerable. But it proved no match for the steady muscles of the Irishman, tempered of late by the vicissitudes of slavery. He had depended upon choking the life out of Blood, and so gaining the half-hour that might be necessary to bring up that fine ship that was beating towards them - a Spanish ship, perforce, since none other would be so boldly cruising in these Spanish waters off Hispaniola. But all that Don Diego had accomplished was to betray himself completely, and to no purpose. This he realized when he found himself upon his back, pinned down by Blood, who was kneeling on his chest, whilst the men summoned by their Captain’s shout came clattering up the companion.
+
+“Will I say a prayer for your dirty soul now, whilst I am in this position?” Captain Blood was furiously mocking him.
+
+But the Spaniard, though defeated, now beyond hope for himself, forced his lips to smile, and gave back mockery for mockery.
+
+“Who will pray for your soul, I wonder, when that galleon comes to lie board and board with you?”
+
+“That galleon!” echoed Captain Blood with sudden and awful realization that already it was too late to avoid the consequences of Don Diego’s betrayal of them.
+
+“That galleon,” Don Diego repeated, and added with a deepening sneer: “Do you know what ship it is? I will tell you. It is the Encarnacion, the flagship of Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Lord Admiral of Castile, and Don Miguel is my brother. It is a very fortunate encounter. The Almighty, you see, watches over the destinies of Catholic Spain.”
+
+There was no trace of humour or urbanity now in Captain Blood. His light eyes blazed: his face was set.
+
+He rose, relinquishing the Spaniard to his men. “Make him fast,” he bade them. “Truss him, wrist and heel, but don’t hurt him - not so much as a hair of his precious head.”
+
+The injunction was very necessary. Frenzied by the thought that they were likely to exchange the slavery from which they had so lately escaped for a slavery still worse, they would have torn the Spaniard limb from limb upon the spot. And if they now obeyed their Captain and refrained, it was only because the sudden steely note in his voice promised for Don Diego Valdez something far more exquisite than death.
+
+“You scum! You dirty pirate! You man of honour!” Captain Blood apostrophized his prisoner.
+
+But Don Diego looked up at him and laughed.
+
+“You underrated me.” He spoke English, so that all might hear. “I tell you that I was not fear death, and I show you that I was not fear it. You no understand. You just an English dog.”
+
+“Irish, if you please,” Captain Blood corrected him. “And your parole, you tyke of Spain?”
+
+“You think I give my parole to leave you sons of filth with this beautiful Spanish ship, to go make war upon other Spaniards! Ha!” Don Diego laughed in his throat. “You fool! You can kill me. Pish! It is very well. I die with my work well done. In less than an hour you will be the prisoners of Spain, and the Cinco Llagas will go belong to Spain again.”
+
+Captain Blood regarded him steadily out of a face which, if impassive, had paled under its deep tan. About the prisoner, clamant, infuriated, ferocious, the rebels-convict surged, almost literally “athirst for his blood.”
+
+“Wait,” Captain Blood imperiously commanded, and turning on his heel, he went aside to the rail. As he stood there deep in thought, he was joined by Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Ogle the gunner. In silence they stared with him across the water at that other ship. She had veered a point away from the wind, and was running now on a line that must in the end converge with that of the Cinco Llagas.
+
+“In less than half-an-hour,” said Blood presently, “we shall have her athwart our hawse, sweeping our decks with her guns.”
+
+“We can fight,” said the one-eyed giant with an oath.
+
+“Fight!” sneered Blood. “Undermanned as we are, mustering a bare twenty men, in what case are we to fight? No, there would be only one way. To persuade her that all is well aboard, that we are Spaniards, so that she may leave us to continue on our course.”
+
+“And how is that possible?” Hagthorpe asked.
+
+“It isn’t possible,” said Blood. “If it….” And then he broke off, and stood musing, his eyes upon the green water. Ogle, with a bent for sarcasm, interposed a suggestion bitterly.
+
+“We might send Don Diego de Espinosa in a boat manned by his Spaniards to assure his brother the Admiral that we are all loyal subjects of his Catholic Majesty.”
+
+The Captain swung round, and for an instant looked as if he would have struck the gunner. Then his expression changed: the light of inspiration Was in his glance.
+
+“Bedad! ye’ve said it. He doesn’t fear death, this damned pirate; but his son may take a different view. Filial piety’s mighty strong in Spain.” He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of men about his prisoner. “Here!” he shouted to them. “Bring him below.” And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to the gloom of the ‘tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard. Every man aboard would have followed him but for his sharp command to some of them to remain on deck with Hagthorpe.
+
+In the wardroom the three stern chasers were in position, loaded, their muzzles thrusting through the open ports, precisely as the Spanish gunners had left them.
+
+“Here, Ogle, is work for you,” said Blood, and as the burly gunner came thrusting forward through the little throng of gaping men, Blood pointed to the middle chaser; “Have that gun hauled back,” he ordered.
+
+When this was done, Blood beckoned those who held Don Diego.
+
+“Lash him across the mouth of it,” he bade them, and whilst, assisted by another two, they made haste to obey, he turned to the others. “To the roundhouse, some of you, and fetch the Spanish prisoners. And you, Dyke, go up and bid them set the flag of Spain aloft.”
+
+Don Diego, with his body stretched in an arc across the cannon’s mouth, legs and arms lashed to the carriage on either side of it, eyeballs rolling in his head, glared maniacally at Captain Blood. A man may not fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which death comes to him.
+
+From frothing lips he hurled blasphemies and insults at his tormentor.
+
+“Foul barbarian! Inhuman savage! Accursed heretic! Will it not content you to kill me in some Christian fashion?” Captain Blood vouchsafed him a malignant smile, before he turned to meet the fifteen manacled Spanish prisoners, who were thrust into his presence.
+
+Approaching, they had heard Don Diego’s outcries; at close quarters now they beheld with horror-stricken eyes his plight. From amongst them a comely, olive-skinned stripling, distinguished in bearing and apparel from his companions, started forward with an anguished cry of “Father!”
+
+Writhing in the arms that made haste to seize and hold him, he called upon heaven and hell to avert this horror, and lastly, addressed to Captain Blood an appeal for mercy that was at once fierce and piteous. Considering him, Captain Blood thought with satisfaction that he displayed the proper degree of filial piety.
+
+He afterwards confessed that for a moment he was in danger of weakening, that for a moment his mind rebelled against the pitiless thing it had planned. But to correct the sentiment he evoked a memory of what these Spaniards had performed in Bridgetown. Again he saw the white face of that child Mary Traill as she fled in horror before the jeering ruffian whom he had slain, and other things even more unspeakable seen on that dreadful evening rose now before the eyes of his memory to stiffen his faltering purpose. The Spaniards had shown themselves without mercy or sentiment or decency of any kind; stuffed with religion, they were without a spark of that Christianity, the Symbol of which was mounted on the mainmast of the approaching ship. A moment ago this cruel, vicious Don Diego had insulted the Almighty by his assumption that He kept a specially benevolent watch over the destinies of Catholic Spain. Don Diego should be taught his error.
+
+Recovering the cynicism in which he had approached his task, the cynicism essential to its proper performance, he commanded Ogle to kindle a match and remove the leaden apron from the touch-hole of the gun that bore Don Diego. Then, as the younger Espinosa broke into fresh intercessions mingled with imprecations, he wheeled upon him sharply.
+
+“Peace!” he snapped. “Peace, and listen! It is no part of my intention to blow your father to hell as he deserves, or indeed to take his life at all.”
+
+Having surprised the lad into silence by that promise - a promise surprising enough in all the circumstances - he proceeded to explain his aims in that faultless and elegant Castilian of which he was fortunately master - as fortunately for Don Diego as for himself.
+
+“It is your father’s treachery that has brought us into this plight and deliberately into risk of capture and death aboard that ship of Spain. Just as your father recognized his brother’s flagship, so will his brother have recognized the Cinco Llagas. So far, then, all is well. But presently the Encarnacion will be sufficiently close to perceive that here all is not as it should be. Sooner or later, she must guess or discover what is wrong, and then she will open fire or lay us board and board. Now, we are in no case to fight, as your father knew when he ran us into this trap. But fight we will, if we are driven to it. We make no tame surrender to the ferocity of Spain.”
+
+He laid his hand on the breech of the gun that bore Don Diego.
+
+“Understand this clearly: to the first shot from the Encarnacion this gun will fire the answer. I make myself clear, I hope?”
+
+White-faced and trembling, young Espinosa stared into the pitiless blue eyes that so steadily regarded him.
+
+“If it is clear?” he faltered, breaking the utter silence in which all were standing. “But, name of God, how should it be clear? How should I understand? Can you avert the fight? If you know a way, and if I, or these, can help you to it - if that is what you mean - in Heaven’s name let me hear it.”
+
+“A fight would be averted if Don Diego de Espinosa were to go aboard his brother’s ship, and by his presence and assurances inform the Admiral that all is well with the Cinco Llagas, that she is indeed still a ship of Spain as her flag now announces. But of course Don Diego cannot go in person, because he is… otherwise engaged. He has a slight touch of fever - shall we say? - that detains him in his cabin. But you, his son, may convey all this and some other matters together with his homage to your uncle. You shall go in a boat manned by six of these Spanish prisoners, and I - a distinguished Spaniard delivered from captivity in Barbados by your recent raid - will accompany you to keep you in countenance. If I return alive, and without accident of any kind to hinder our free sailing hence, Don Diego shall have his life, as shall every one of you. But if there is the least misadventure, be it from treachery or ill-fortune - I care not which - the battle, as I have had the honour to explain, will be opened on our side by this gun, and your father will be the first victim of the conflict.”
+
+He paused a moment. There was a hum of approval from his comrades, an anxious stirring among the Spanish prisoners. Young Espinosa stood before him, the colour ebbing and flowing in his cheeks. He waited for some direction from his father. But none came. Don Diego’s courage, it seemed, had sadly waned under that rude test. He hung limply in his fearful bonds, and was silent. Evidently he dared not encourage his son to defiance, and presumably was ashamed to urge him to yield. Thus, he left decision entirely with the youth.
+
+“Come,” said Blood. “I have been clear enough, I think. What do you say?”
+
+Don Esteban moistened his parched lips, and with the back of his hand mopped the anguish-sweat from his brow. His eyes gazed wildly a moment upon the shoulders of his father, as if beseeching guidance. But his father remained silent. Something like a sob escaped the boy.
+
+“I… I accept,” he answered at last, and swung to the Spaniards. “And you - you will accept too,” he insisted passionately. “For Don Diego’s sake and for your own - for all our sakes. If you do not, this man will butcher us all without mercy.”
+
+Since he yielded, and their leader himself counselled no resistance, why should they encompass their own destruction by a gesture of futile heroism? They answered without much hesitation that they would do as was required of them.
+
+Blood turned, and advanced to Don Diego.
+
+“I am sorry to inconvenience you in this fashion, but…” For a second he checked and frowned as his eyes intently observed the prisoner. Then, after that scarcely perceptible pause, he continued, “but I do not think that you have anything beyond this inconvenience to apprehend, and you may depend upon me to shorten it as far as possible.” Don Diego made him no answer.
+
+Peter Blood waited a moment, observing him; then he bowed and stepped back.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+DON PEDRO SANGRE
+
+
+The Cinco Llagas and the Encarnacion, after a proper exchange of signals, lay hove to within a quarter of a mile of each other, and across the intervening space of gently heaving, sunlit waters sped a boat from the former, manned by six Spanish seamen and bearing in her stern sheets Don Esteban de Espinosa and Captain Peter Blood.
+
+She also bore two treasure-chests containing fifty thousand pieces of eight. Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith, and Blood was determined that in all respects appearances should be entirely on his side. His followers had accounted this a supererogation of pretence. But Blood’s will in the matter had prevailed. He carried further a bulky package addressed to a grande of Spain, heavily sealed with the arms of Espinosa - another piece of evidence hastily manufactured in the cabin of the Cinco Llagas - and he was spending these last moments in completing his instructions to his young companion.
+
+Don Esteban expressed his last lingering uneasiness:
+
+“But if you should betray yourself?” he cried.
+
+“It will be unfortunate for everybody. I advised your father to say a prayer for our success. I depend upon you to help me more materially.”
+
+“I will do my best. God knows I will do my best,” the boy protested.
+
+Blood nodded thoughtfully, and no more was said until they bumped alongside the towering mass of the Encarnadon. Up the ladder went Don Esteban closely followed by Captain Blood. In the waist stood the Admiral himself to receive them, a handsome, self-sufficient man, very tall and stiff, a little older and greyer than Don Diego, whom he closely resembled. He was supported by four officers and a friar in the black and white habit of St. Dominic.
+
+Don Miguel opened his arms to his nephew, whose lingering panic he mistook for pleasurable excitement, and having enfolded him to his bosom turned to greet Don Esteban’s companion.
+
+Peter Blood bowed gracefully, entirely at his ease, so far as might be judged from appearances.
+
+“I am,” he announced, making a literal translation of his name, “Don Pedro Sangre, an unfortunate gentleman of Leon, lately delivered from captivity by Don Esteban’s most gallant father.” And in a few words he sketched the imagined conditions of his capture by, and deliverance from, those accursed heretics who held the island of Barbados. “Benedicamus Domino,” said the friar to his tale.
+
+“Ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum,” replied Blood, the occasional papist, with lowered eyes.
+
+The Admiral and his attending officers gave him a sympathetic hearing and a cordial welcome. Then came the dreaded question.
+
+“But where is my brother? Why has he not come, himself, to greet me?”
+
+It was young Espinosa who answered this:
+
+“My father is afflicted at denying himself that honour and pleasure. But unfortunately, sir uncle, he is a little indisposed - oh, nothing grave; merely sufficient to make him keep his cabin. It is a little fever, the result of a slight wound taken in the recent raid upon Barbados, which resulted in this gentleman’s happy deliverance.”
+
+“Nay, nephew, nay,” Don Miguel protested with ironic repudiation. “I can have no knowledge of these things. I have the honour to represent upon the seas His Catholic Majesty, who is at peace with the King of England. Already you have told me more than it is good for me to know. I will endeavour to forget it, and I will ask you, sirs,” he added, glancing at his officers, “to forget it also.” But he winked into the twinkling eyes of Captain Blood; then added matter that at once extinguished that twinkle. “But since Diego cannot come to me, why, I will go across to him.”
+
+For a moment Don Esteban’s face was a mask of pallid fear. Then Blood was speaking in a lowered, confidential voice that admirably blended suavity, impressiveness, and sly mockery.
+
+“If you please, Don Miguel, but that is the very thing you must not do - the very thing Don Diego does not wish you to do. You must not see him until his wounds are healed. That is his own wish. That is the real reason why he is not here. For the truth is that his wounds are not so grave as to have prevented his coming. It was his consideration of himself and the false position in which you would be placed if you had direct word from him of what has happened. As your excellency has said, there is peace between His Catholic Majesty and the King of England, and your brother Don Diego….” He paused a moment. “I am sure that I need say no more. What you hear from us is no more than a mere rumour. Your excellency understands.”
+
+His excellency frowned thoughtfully. “I understand… in part,” said he.
+
+Captain Blood had a moment’s uneasiness. Did the Spaniard doubt his bona fides? Yet in dress and speech he knew himself to be impeccably Spanish, and was not Don Esteban there to confirm him? He swept on to afford further confirmation before the Admiral could say another word.
+
+“And we have in the boat below two chests containing fifty thousand pieces of eight, which we are to deliver to your excellency.”
+
+His excellency jumped; there was a sudden stir among his officers.
+
+“They are the ransom extracted by Don Diego from the Governor of….”
+
+“Not another word, in the name of Heaven!” cried the Admiral in alarm. “My brother wishes me to assume charge of this money, to carry it to Spain for him? Well, that is a family matter between my brother and myself. So, it can be done. But I must not know….” He broke off. “Hum! A glass of Malaga in my cabin, if you please,” he invited them, “whilst the chests are being hauled aboard.”
+
+He gave his orders touching the embarkation of these chests, then led the way to his regally appointed cabin, his four officers and the friar following by particular invitation.
+
+Seated at table there, with the tawny wine before them, and the servant who had poured it withdrawn, Don Miguel laughed and stroked his pointed, grizzled beard.
+
+“Virgen santisima! That brother of mine has a mind that thinks of everything. Left to myself, I might have committed a fine indiscretion by venturing aboard his ship at such a moment. I might have seen things which as Admiral of Spain it would be difficult for me to ignore.”
+
+Both Esteban and Blood made haste to agree with him, and then Blood raised his glass, and drank to the glory of Spain and the damnation of the besotted James who occupied the throne of England. The latter part of his toast was at least sincere.
+
+The Admiral laughed.
+
+“Sir, sir, you need my brother here to curb your imprudences. You should remember that His Catholic Majesty and the King of England are very good friends. That is not a toast to propose in this cabin. But since it has been proposed, and by one who has such particular personal cause to hate these English hounds, why, we will honour it - but unofficially.”
+
+They laughed, and drank the damnation of King James - quite unofficially, but the more fervently on that account. Then Don Esteban, uneasy on the score of his father, and remembering that the agony of Don Diego was being protracted with every moment that they left him in his dreadful position, rose and announced that they must be returning.
+
+“My father,” he explained, “is in haste to reach San Domingo. He desired me to stay no longer than necessary to embrace you. If you will give us leave, then, sir uncle.”
+
+In the circumstances “sir uncle” did not insist.
+
+As they returned to the ship’s side, Blood’s eyes anxiously scanned the line of seamen leaning over the bulwarks in idle talk with the Spaniards in the cock-boat that waited at the ladder’s foot. But their manner showed him that there was no ground for his anxiety. The boat’s crew had been wisely reticent.
+
+The Admiral took leave of them - of Esteban affectionately, of Blood ceremoniously.
+
+“I regret to lose you so soon, Don Pedro. I wish that you could have made a longer visit to the Encarnacion.”
+
+“I am indeed unfortunate,” said Captain Blood politely.
+
+“But I hope that we may meet again.”
+
+“That is to flatter me beyond all that I deserve.”
+
+They reached the boat; and she cast off from the great ship. As they were pulling away, the Admiral waving to them from the taffrail, they heard the shrill whistle of the bo’sun piping the hands to their stations, and before they had reached the Cinco Llagas, they beheld the Encarnacion go about under sail. She dipped her flag to them, and from her poop a gun fired a salute.
+
+Aboard the Cinco Llagas some one - it proved afterwards to be Hagthorpe - had the wit to reply in the same fashion. The comedy was ended. Yet there was something else to follow as an epilogue, a thing that added a grim ironic flavour to the whole.
+
+As they stepped into the waist of the Cinco Llagas, Hagthorpe advanced to receive them. Blood observed the set, almost scared expression on his face.
+
+“I see that you’ve found it,” he said quietly.
+
+Hagthorpe’s eyes looked a question. But his mind dismissed whatever thought it held.
+
+“Don Diego…” he was beginning, and then stopped, and looked curiously at Blood.
+
+Noting the pause and the look, Esteban bounded forward, his face livid.
+
+“Have you broken faith, you curs? Has he come to harm?” he cried - and the six Spaniards behind him grew clamorous with furious questionings.
+
+“We do not break faith,” said Hagthorpe firmly, so firmly that he quieted them. “And in this case there was not the need. Don Diego died in his bonds before ever you reached the Encarnacion.”
+
+Peter Blood said nothing.
+
+“Died?” screamed Esteban. “You killed him, you mean. Of what did he die?”
+
+Hagthorpe looked at the boy. “If I am a judge,” he said, “Don Diego died of fear.”
+
+Don Esteban struck Hagthorpe across the face at that, and Hagthorpe would have struck back, but that Blood got between, whilst his followers seized the lad.
+
+“Let be,” said Blood. “You provoked the boy by your insult to his father.”
+
+“I was not concerned to insult,” said Hagthorpe, nursing his cheek. “It is what has happened. Come and look.”
+
+“I have seen,” said Blood. “He died before I left the Cinco Llagas. He was hanging dead in his bonds when I spoke to him before leaving.”
+
+“What are you saying?” cried Esteban.
+
+Blood looked at him gravely. Yet for all his gravity he seemed almost to smile, though without mirth.
+
+“If you had known that, eh?” he asked at last. For a moment Don Esteban stared at him wide-eyed, incredulous. “I don’t believe you,” he said at last.
+
+“Yet you may. I am a doctor, and I know death when I see it.”
+
+Again there came a pause, whilst conviction sank into the lad’s mind.
+
+“If I had known that,” he said at last in a thick voice, “you would be hanging from the yardarm of the Encarnacion at this moment.”
+
+“I know,” said Blood. “I am considering it - the profit that a man may find in the ignorance of others.”
+
+“But you’ll hang there yet,” the boy raved.
+
+Captain Blood shrugged, and turned on his heel. But he did not on that account disregard the words, nor did Hagthorpe, nor yet the others who overheard them, as they showed at a council held that night in the cabin.
+
+This council was met to determine what should be done with the Spanish prisoners. Considering that Curacao now lay beyond their reach, as they were running short of water and provisions, and also that Pitt was hardly yet in case to undertake the navigation of the vessel, it had been decided that, going east of Hispaniola, and then sailing along its northern coast, they should make for Tortuga, that haven of the buccaneers, in which lawless port they had at least no danger of recapture to apprehend. It was now a question whether they should convey the Spaniards thither with them, or turn them off in a boat to make the best of their way to the coast of Hispaniola, which was but ten miles off. This was the course urged by Blood himself.
+
+“There’s nothing else to be done,” he insisted. “In Tortuga they would be flayed alive.”
+
+“Which is less than the swine deserve,” growled Wolverstone.
+
+“And you’ll remember, Peter,” put in Hagthorpe, “that boy’s threat to you this morning. If he escapes, and carries word of all this to his uncle, the Admiral, the execution of that threat will become more than possible.”
+
+It says much for Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot - since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence - afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. “I care nothing for his threats.”
+
+“You should,” said Wolverstone. “The wise thing’d be to hang him, along o’ all the rest.”
+
+“It is not human to be wise,” said Blood. “It is much more human to err, though perhaps exceptional to err on the side of mercy. We’ll be exceptional. Oh, faugh! I’ve no stomach for cold-blooded killing. At daybreak pack the Spaniards into a boat with a keg of water and a sack of dumplings, and let them go to the devil.”
+
+That was his last word on the subject, and it prevailed by virtue of the authority they had vested in him, and of which he had taken so firm a grip. At daybreak Don Esteban and his followers were put off in a boat.
+
+Two days later, the Cinco Llagas sailed into the rockbound bay of Cayona, which Nature seemed to have designed for the stronghold of those who had appropriated it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+TORTUGA
+
+
+It is time fully to disclose the fact that the survival of the story of Captain Blood’s exploits is due entirely to the industry of Jeremy Pitt, the Somersetshire shipmaster. In addition to his ability as a navigator, this amiable young man appears to have wielded an indefatigable pen, and to have been inspired to indulge its fluency by the affection he very obviously bore to Peter Blood.
+
+He kept the log of the forty-gun frigate Arabella, on which he served as master, or, as we should say to-day, navigating officer, as no log that I have seen was ever kept. It runs into some twenty-odd volumes of assorted sizes, some of which are missing altogether and others of which are so sadly depleted of leaves as to be of little use. But if at times in the laborious perusal of them - they are preserved in the library of Mr. James Speke of Comerton - I have inveighed against these lacunae, at others I have been equally troubled by the excessive prolixity of what remains and the difficulty of disintegrating from the confused whole the really essential parts.
+
+I have a suspicion that Esquemeling - though how or where I can make no surmise - must have obtained access to these records, and that he plucked from them the brilliant feathers of several exploits to stick them into the tail of his own hero, Captain Morgan. But that is by the way. I mention it chiefly as a warning, for when presently I come to relate the affair of Maracaybo, those of you who have read Esquemeling may be in danger of supposing that Henry Morgan really performed those things which here are veraciously attributed to Peter Blood. I think, however, that when you come to weigh the motives actuating both Blood and the Spanish Admiral, in that affair, and when you consider how integrally the event is a part of Blood’s history - whilst merely a detached incident in Morgan’s - you will reach my own conclusion as to which is the real plagiarist.
+
+The first of these logs of Pitt’s is taken up almost entirely with a retrospective narrative of the events up to the time of Blood’s first coming to Tortuga. This and the Tannatt Collection of State Trials are the chief - though not the only - sources of my history so far.
+
+Pitt lays great stress upon the fact that it was the circumstances upon which I have dwelt, and these alone, that drove Peter Blood to seek an anchorage at Tortuga. He insists at considerable length, and with a vehemence which in itself makes it plain that an opposite opinion was held in some quarters, that it was no part of the design of Blood or of any of his companions in misfortune to join hands with the buccaneers who, under a semi-official French protection, made of Tortuga a lair whence they could sally out to drive their merciless piratical trade chiefly at the expense of Spain.
+
+It was, Pitt tells us, Blood’s original intention to make his way to France or Holland. But in the long weeks of waiting for a ship to convey him to one or the other of these countries, his resources dwindled and finally vanished. Also, his chronicler thinks that he detected signs of some secret trouble in his friend, and he attributes to this the abuses of the potent West Indian spirit of which Blood became guilty in those days of inaction, thereby sinking to the level of the wild adventurers with whom ashore he associated.
+
+I do not think that Pitt is guilty in this merely of special pleading, that he is putting forward excuses for his hero. I think that in those days there was a good deal to oppress Peter Blood. There was the thought of Arabella Bishop - and that this thought loomed large in his mind we are not permitted to doubt. He was maddened by the tormenting lure of the unattainable. He desired Arabella, yet knew her beyond his reach irrevocably and for all time. Also, whilst he may have desired to go to France or Holland, he had no clear purpose to accomplish when he reached one or the other of these countries. He was, when all is said, an escaped slave, an outlaw in his own land and a homeless outcast in any other. There remained the sea, which is free to all, and particularly alluring to those who feel themselves at war with humanity. And so, considering the adventurous spirit that once already had sent him a-roving for the sheer love of it, considering that this spirit was heightened now by a recklessness begotten of his outlawry, that his training and skill in militant seamanship clamorously supported the temptations that were put before him, can you wonder, or dare you blame him, that in the end he succumbed? And remember that these temptations proceeded not only from adventurous buccaneering acquaintances in the taverns of that evil haven of Tortuga, but even from M. d’Ogeron, the governor of the island, who levied as his harbour dues a percentage of one tenth of all spoils brought into the bay, and who profited further by commissions upon money which he was desired to convert into bills of exchange upon France.
+
+A trade that might have worn a repellent aspect when urged by greasy, half-drunken adventurers, boucanhunters, lumbermen, beach-combers, English, French, and Dutch, became a dignified, almost official form of privateering when advocated by the courtly, middle-aged gentleman who in representing the French West India Company seemed to represent France herself.
+
+Moreover, to a man - not excluding Jeremy Pitt himself, in whose blood the call of the sea was insistent and imperative - those who had escaped with Peter Blood from the Barbados plantations, and who, consequently, like himself, knew not whither to turn, were all resolved upon joining the great Brotherhood of the Coast, as those rovers called themselves. And they united theirs to the other voices that were persuading Blood, demanding that he should continue now in the leadership which he had enjoyed since they had left Barbados, and swearing to follow him loyally whithersoever he should lead them.
+
+And so, to condense all that Jeremy has recorded in the matter, Blood ended by yielding to external and internal pressure, abandoned himself to the stream of Destiny. “Fata viam invenerunt,” is his own expression of it.
+
+If he resisted so long, it was, I think, the thought of Arabella Bishop that restrained him. That they should be destined never to meet again did not weigh at first, or, indeed, ever. He conceived the scorn with which she would come to hear of his having turned pirate, and the scorn, though as yet no more than imagined, hurt him as if it were already a reality. And even when he conquered this, still the thought of her was ever present. He compromised with the conscience that her memory kept so disconcertingly active. He vowed that the thought of her should continue ever before him to help him keep his hands as clean as a man might in this desperate trade upon which he was embarking. And so, although he might entertain no delusive hope of ever winning her for his own, of ever even seeing her again, yet the memory of her was to abide in his soul as a bitter-sweet, purifying influence. The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man’s guiding ideal. The resolve being taken, he went actively to work. Ogeron, most accommodating of governors, advanced him money for the proper equipment of his ship the Cinco Llagas, which he renamed the Arabella. This after some little hesitation, fearful of thus setting his heart upon his sleeve. But his Barbados friends accounted it merely an expression of the ever-ready irony in which their leader dealt.
+
+To the score of followers he already possessed, he added threescore more, picking his men with caution and discrimination - and he was an exceptional judge of men - from amongst the adventurers of Tortuga. With them all he entered into the articles usual among the Brethren of the Coast under which each man was to be paid by a share in the prizes captured. In other respects, however, the articles were different. Aboard the Arabella there was to be none of the ruffianly indiscipline that normally prevailed in buccaneering vessels. Those who shipped with him undertook obedience and submission in all things to himself and to the officers appointed by election. Any to whom this clause in the articles was distasteful might follow some other leader.
+
+Towards the end of December, when the hurricane season had blown itself out, he put to sea in his well-found, well-manned ship, and before he returned in the following May from a protracted and adventurous cruise, the fame of Captain Peter Blood had run like ripples before the breeze across the face of the Caribbean Sea. There was a fight in the Windward Passage at the outset with a Spanish galleon, which had resulted in the gutting and finally the sinking of the Spaniard. There was a daring raid effected by means of several appropriated piraguas upon a Spanish pearl fleet in the Rio de la Hacha, from which they had taken a particularly rich haul of pearls. There was an overland expedition to the goldfields of Santa Maria, on the Main, the full tale of which is hardly credible, and there were lesser adventures through all of which the crew of the Arabella came with credit and profit if not entirely unscathed.
+
+And so it happened that before the Arabella came homing to Tortuga in the following May to refit and repair - for she was not without scars, as you conceive - the fame of her and of Peter Blood her captain had swept from the Bahamas to the Windward Isles, from New Providence to Trinidad.
+
+An echo of it had reached Europe, and at the Court of St. James’s angry representations were made by the Ambassador of Spain, to whom it was answered that it must not be supposed that this Captain Blood held any commission from the King of England; that he was, in fact, a proscribed rebel, an escaped slave, and that any measures against him by His Catholic Majesty would receive the cordial approbation of King James II.
+
+Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Admiral of Spain in the West Indies, and his nephew Don Esteban who sailed with him, did not lack the will to bring the adventurer to the yardarm. With them this business of capturing Blood, which was now an international affair, was also a family matter.
+
+Spain, through the mouth of Don Miguel, did not spare her threats. The report of them reached Tortuga, and with it the assurance that Don Miguel had behind him not only the authority of his own nation, but that of the English King as well.
+
+It was a brutum fulmen that inspired no terrors in Captain Blood. Nor was he likely, on account of it, to allow himself to run to rust in the security of Tortuga. For what he had suffered at the hands of Man he had chosen to make Spain the scapegoat. Thus he accounted that he served a twofold purpose: he took compensation and at the same time served, not indeed the Stuart King, whom he despised, but England and, for that matter, all the rest of civilized mankind which cruel, treacherous, greedy, bigoted Castile sought to exclude from intercourse with the New World.
+
+One day as he sat with Hagthorpe and Wolverstone over a pipe and a bottle of rum in the stifling reek of tar and stale tobacco of a waterside tavern, he was accosted by a splendid ruffian in a gold-laced coat of dark-blue satin with a crimson sash, a foot wide, about the waist.
+
+“C’est vous qu’on appelle Le Sang?” the fellow hailed him.
+
+Captain Blood looked up to consider the questioner before replying. The man was tall and built on lines of agile strength, with a swarthy, aquiline face that was brutally handsome. A diamond of great price flamed on the indifferently clean hand resting on the pummel of his long rapier, and there were gold rings in his ears, half-concealed by long ringlets of oily chestnut hair.
+
+Captain Blood took the pipe-stem from between his lips.
+
+“My name,” he said, “is Peter Blood. The Spaniards know me for Don Pedro Sangre and a Frenchman may call me Le Sang if he pleases.”
+
+“Good,” said the gaudy adventurer in English, and without further invitation he drew up a stool and sat down at that greasy table. “My name,” he informed the three men, two of whom at least were eyeing him askance, “it is Levasseur. You may have heard of me.”
+
+They had, indeed. He commanded a privateer of twenty guns that had dropped anchor in the bay a week ago, manned by a crew mainly composed of French boucanhunters from Northern Hispaniola, men who had good cause to hate the Spaniard with an intensity exceeding that of the English. Levasseur had brought them back to Tortuga from an indifferently successful cruise. It would need more, however, than lack of success to abate the fellow’s monstrous vanity. A roaring, quarrelsome, hard-drinking, hard-gaming scoundrel, his reputation as a buccaneer stood high among the wild Brethren of the Coast. He enjoyed also a reputation of another sort. There was about his gaudy, swaggering raffishness something that the women found singularly alluring. That he should boast openly of his bonnes fortunes did not seem strange to Captain Blood; what he might have found strange was that there appeared to be some measure of justification for these boasts.
+
+It was current gossip that even Mademoiselle d’Ogeron, the Governor’s daughter, had been caught in the snare of his wild attractiveness, and that Levasseur had gone the length of audacity of asking her hand in marriage of her father. M. d’Ogeron had made him the only possible answer. He had shown him the door. Levasseur had departed in a rage, swearing that he would make mademoiselle his wife in the teeth of all the fathers in Christendom, and that M. d’Ogeron should bitterly rue the affront he had put upon him.
+
+This was the man who now thrust himself upon Captain Blood with a proposal of association, offering him not only his sword, but his ship and the men who sailed in her.
+
+A dozen years ago, as a lad of barely twenty, Levasseur had sailed with that monster of cruelty L’Ollonais, and his own subsequent exploits bore witness and did credit to the school in which he had been reared. I doubt if in his day there was a greater scoundrel among the Brethren of the Coast than this Levasseur. And yet, repulsive though he found him, Captain Blood could not deny that the fellow’s proposals displayed boldness, imagination, and resource, and he was forced to admit that jointly they could undertake operations of a greater magnitude than was possible singly to either of them. The climax of Levasseur’s project was to be a raid upon the wealthy mainland city of Maracaybo; but for this, he admitted, six hundred men at the very least would be required, and six hundred men were not to be conveyed in the two bottoms they now commanded. Preliminary cruises must take place, having for one of their objects the capture of further ships.
+
+Because he disliked the man, Captain Blood would not commit himself at once. But because he liked the proposal he consented to consider it. Being afterwards pressed by both Hagthorpe and Wolverstone, who did not share his own personal dislike of the Frenchman, the end of the matter was that within a week articles were drawn up between Levasseur and Blood, and signed by them and - as was usual - by the chosen representatives of their followers.
+
+These articles contained, inter alia, the common provisions that, should the two vessels separate, a strict account must afterwards be rendered of all prizes severally taken, whilst the vessel taking a prize should retain three fifths of its value, surrendering two fifths to its associate. These shares were subsequently to be subdivided among the crew of each vessel, in accordance with the articles already obtaining between each captain and his own men. For the rest, the articles contained all the clauses that were usual, among which was the clause that any man found guilty of abstracting or concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no more than a peso, should be summarily hanged from the yardarm.
+
+All being now settled they made ready for sea, and on the very eve of sailing, Levasseur narrowly escaped being shot in a romantic attempt to scale the wall of the Governor’s garden, with the object of taking passionate leave of the infatuated Mademoiselle d’Ogeron. He desisted after having been twice fired upon from a fragrant ambush of pimento trees where the Governor’s guards were posted, and he departed vowing to take different and very definite measures on his return.
+
+That night he slept on board his ship, which with characteristic flamboyance he had named La Foudre, and there on the following day he received a visit from Captain Blood, whom he greeted half-mockingly as his admiral. The Irishman came to settle certain final details of which all that need concern us is an understanding that, in the event of the two vessels becoming separated by accident or design, they should rejoin each other as soon as might be at Tortuga.
+
+Thereafter Levasseur entertained his admiral to dinner, and jointly they drank success to the expedition, so copiously on the part of Levasseur that when the time came to separate he was as nearly drunk as it seemed possible for him to be and yet retain his understanding.
+
+Finally, towards evening, Captain Blood went over the side and was rowed back to his great ship with her red bulwarks and gilded ports, touched into a lovely thing of flame by the setting sun.
+
+He was a little heavy-hearted. I have said that he was a judge of men, and his judgment of Levasseur filled him with misgivings which were growing heavier in a measure as the hour of departure approached.
+
+He expressed it to Wolverstone, who met him as he stepped aboard the Arabella:
+
+“You over persuaded me into those articles, you blackguard; and it’ll surprise me if any good comes of this association.”
+
+The giant rolled his single bloodthirsty eye, and sneered, thrusting out his heavy jaw. “We’ll wring the dog’s neck if there’s any treachery.”
+
+“So we will - if we are there to wring it by then.” And on that, dismissing the matter: “We sail in the morning, on the first of the ebb,” he announced, and went off to his cabin.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+LEVASSEUR’S HEROICS
+
+
+It would be somewhere about ten o’clock on the following morning, a full hour before the time appointed for sailing, when a canoe brought up alongside La Foudre, and a half-caste Indian stepped out of her and went up the ladder. He was clad in drawers of hairy, untanned hide, and a red blanket served him for a cloak. He was the bearer of a folded scrap of paper for Captain Levasseur.
+
+The Captain unfolded the letter, sadly soiled and crumpled by contact with the half-caste’s person. Its contents may be roughly translated thus:
+
+“My well-beloved - I am in the Dutch brig Jongvrow, which is about to sail. Resolved to separate us for ever, my cruel father is sending me to Europe in my brother’s charge. I implore you, come to my rescue. Deliver me, my well-beloved hero! - Your desolated Madeleine, who loves you.”
+
+The well-beloved hero was moved to the soul of him by that passionate appeal. His scowling glance swept the bay for the Dutch brig, which he knew had been due to sail for Amsterdam with a cargo of hides and tobacco.
+
+She was nowhere to be seen among the shipping in that narrow, rockbound harbour. He roared out the question in his mind.
+
+In answer the half-caste pointed out beyond the frothing surf that marked the position of the reef constituting one of the stronghold’s main defences. Away beyond it, a mile or so distant, a sail was standing out to sea. “There she go,” he said.
+
+“There!” The Frenchman gazed and stared, his face growing white. The man’s wicked temper awoke, and turned to vent itself upon the messenger. “And where have you been that you come here only now with this? Answer me!”
+
+The half-caste shrank terrified before his fury. His explanation, if he had one, was paralyzed by fear. Levasseur took him by the throat, shook him twice, snarling the while, then hurled him into the scuppers. The man’s head struck the gunwale as he fell, and he lay there, quite still, a trickle of blood issuing from his mouth.
+
+Levasseur dashed one hand against the other, as if dusting them.
+
+“Heave that muck overboard,” he ordered some of those who stood idling in the waist. “Then up anchor, and let us after the Dutchman.”
+
+“Steady, Captain. What’s that?” There was a restraining hand upon his shoulder, and the broad face of his lieutenant Cahusac, a burly, callous Breton scoundrel, was stolidly confronting him.
+
+Levasseur made clear his purpose with a deal of unnecessary obscenity.
+
+Cahusac shook his head. “A Dutch brig!” said he. “Impossible! We should never be allowed.”
+
+“And who the devil will deny us?” Levasseur was between amazement and fury.
+
+“For one thing, there’s your own crew will be none too willing. For another there’s Captain Blood.”
+
+“I care nothing for Captain Blood….”
+
+“But it is necessary that you should. He has the power, the weight of metal and of men, and if I know him at all he’ll sink us before he’ll suffer interference with the Dutch. He has his own views of privateering, this Captain Blood, as I warned you.”
+
+“Ah!” said Levasseur, showing his teeth. But his eyes, riveted upon that distant sail, were gloomily thoughtful. Not for long. The imagination and resource which Captain Blood had detected in the fellow soon suggested a course.
+
+Cursing in his soul, and even before the anchor was weighed, the association into which he had entered, he was already studying ways of evasion. What Cahusac implied was true: Blood would never suffer violence to be done in his presence to a Dutchman; but it might be done in his absence; and, being done, Blood must perforce condone it, since it would then be too late to protest.
+
+Within the hour the Arabella and La Foudre were beating out to sea together. Without understanding the change of plan involved, Captain Blood, nevertheless, accepted it, and weighed anchor before the appointed time upon perceiving his associate to do so.
+
+All day the Dutch brig was in sight, though by evening she had dwindled to the merest speck on the northern horizon. The course prescribed for Blood and Levasseur lay eastward along the northern shores of Hispaniola. To that course the Arabella continued to hold steadily throughout the night. When day broke again, she was alone. La Foudre under cover of the darkness had struck away to The northeast with every rag of canvas on her yards.
+
+Cahusac had attempted yet again to protest against this.
+
+“The devil take you!” Levasseur had answered him. “A ship’s a ship, be she Dutch or Spanish, and ships are our present need. That will suffice for the men.”
+
+His lieutenant said no more. But from his glimpse of the letter, knowing that a girl and not a ship was his captain’s real objective, he gloomily shook his head as he rolled away on his bowed legs to give the necessary orders.
+
+Dawn found La Foudre close on the Dutchman’s heels, not a mile astern, and the sight of her very evidently flustered the Jongvrow. No doubt mademoiselle’s brother recognizing Levasseur’s ship would be responsible for the Dutch uneasiness. They saw the Jongvrow crowding canvas in a futile endeavour to outsail them, whereupon they stood off to starboard and raced on until they were in a position whence they could send a warning shot across her bow. The Jongvrow veered, showed them her rudder, and opened fire with her stern chasers. The small shot went whistling through La Foudre’s shrouds with some slight damage to her canvas. Followed a brief running fight in the course of which the Dutchman let fly a broadside.
+
+Five minutes after that they were board and board, the Jongvrow held tight in the clutches of La Foudre’s grapnels, and the buccaneers pouring noisily into her waist.
+
+The Dutchman’s master, purple in the face, stood forward to beard the pirate, followed closely by an elegant, pale-faced young gentleman in whom Levasseur recognized his brother-in-law elect.
+
+“Captain Levasseur, this is an outrage for which you shall be made to answer. What do you seek aboard my ship?”
+
+“At first I sought only that which belongs to me, something of which I am being robbed. But since you chose war and opened fire on me with some damage to my ship and loss of life to five of my men, why, war it is, and your ship a prize of war.”
+
+From the quarter rail Mademoiselle d’Ogeron looked down with glowing eyes in breathless wonder upon her well-beloved hero. Gloriously heroic he seemed as he stood towering there, masterful, audacious, beautiful. He saw her, and with a glad shout sprang towards her. The Dutch master got in his way with hands upheld to arrest his progress. Levasseur did not stay to argue with him: he was too impatient to reach his mistress. He swung the poleaxe that he carried, and the Dutchman went down in blood with a cloven skull. The eager lover stepped across the body and came on, his countenance joyously alight.
+
+But mademoiselle was shrinking now, in horror. She was a girl upon the threshold of glorious womanhood, of a fine height and nobly moulded, with heavy coils of glossy black hair above and about a face that was of the colour of old ivory. Her countenance was cast in lines of arrogance, stressed by the low lids of her full dark eyes.
+
+In a bound her well-beloved was beside her, flinging away his bloody poleaxe, he opened wide his arms to enfold her. But she still shrank even within his embrace, which would not be denied; a look of dread had come to temper the normal arrogance of her almost perfect face.
+
+“Mine, mine at last, and in spite of all!” he cried exultantly, theatrically, truly heroic.
+
+But she, endeavouring to thrust him back, her hands against his breast, could only falter: “Why, why did you kill him?”
+
+He laughed, as a hero should; and answered her heroically, with the tolerance of a god for the mortal to whom he condescends: “He stood between us. Let his death be a symbol, a warning. Let all who would stand between us mark it and beware.”
+
+It was so splendidly terrific, the gesture of it was so broad and fine and his magnetism so compelling, that she cast her silly tremors and yielded herself freely, intoxicated, to his fond embrace. Thereafter he swung her to his shoulder, and stepping with ease beneath that burden, bore her in a sort of triumph, lustily cheered by his men, to the deck of his own ship. Her inconsiderate brother might have ruined that romantic scene but for the watchful Cahusac, who quietly tripped him up, and then trussed him like a fowl.
+
+Thereafter, what time the Captain languished in his lady’s smile within the cabin, Cahusac was dealing with the spoils of war. The Dutch crew was ordered into the longboat, and bidden go to the devil. Fortunately, as they numbered fewer than thirty, the longboat, though perilously overcrowded, could yet contain them. Next, Cahusac having inspected the cargo, put a quartermaster and a score of men aboard the Jongvrow, and left her to follow La Foudre, which he now headed south for the Leeward Islands.
+
+Cahusac was disposed to be ill-humoured. The risk they had run in taking the Dutch brig and doing violence to members of the family of the Governor of Tortuga, was out of all proportion to the value of their prize. He said so, sullenly, to Levasseur.
+
+“You’ll keep that opinion to yourself,” the Captain answered him. “Don’t think I am the man to thrust my neck into a noose, without knowing how I am going to take it out again. I shall send an offer of terms to the Governor of Tortuga that he will be forced to accept. Set a course for the Virgen Magra. We’ll go ashore, and settle things from there. And tell them to fetch that milksop Ogeron to the cabin.”
+
+Levasseur went back to the adoring lady.
+
+Thither, too, the lady’s brother was presently conducted. The Captain rose to receive him, bending his stalwart height to avoid striking the cabin roof with his head. Mademoiselle rose too.
+
+“Why this?” she asked Levasseur, pointing to her brother’s pinioned wrists - the remains of Cahusac’s precautions.
+
+“I deplore it,” said he. “I desire it to end. Let M. d’Ogeron give me his parole….”
+
+“I give you nothing,” flashed the white-faced youth, who did not lack for spirit.
+
+“You see.” Levasseur shrugged his deep regret, and mademoiselle turned protesting to her brother.
+
+“Henri, this is foolish! You are not behaving as my friend. You….”
+
+“Little fool,” her brother answered her - and the “little” was out of place; she was the taller of the twain. “Little fool, do you think I should be acting as your friend to make terms with this blackguard pirate?”
+
+“Steady, my young cockerel!” Levasseur laughed. But his laugh was not nice.
+
+“Don’t you perceive your wicked folly in the harm it has brought already? Lives have been lost - men have died - that this monster might overtake you. And don’t you yet realize where you stand - in the power of this beast, of this cur born in a kennel and bred in thieving and murder?”
+
+He might have said more but that Levasseur struck him across the mouth. Levasseur, you see, cared as little as another to hear the truth about himself.
+
+Mademoiselle suppressed a scream, as the youth staggered back under the blow. He came to rest against a bulkhead, and leaned there with bleeding lips. But his spirit was unquenched, and there was a ghastly smile on his white face as his eyes sought his sister’s.
+
+“You see,” he said simply. “He strikes a man whose hands are bound.”
+
+The simple words, and, more than the words, their tone of ineffable disdain, aroused the passion that never slumbered deeply in Levasseur.
+
+“And what should you do, puppy, if your hands were unbound?” He took his prisoner by the breast of his doublet and shook him. “Answer me! What should you do? Tchah! You empty windbag! You….” And then came a torrent of words unknown to mademoiselle, yet of whose foulness her intuitions made her conscious.
+
+With blanched cheeks she stood by the cabin table, and cried out to Levasseur to stop. To obey her, he opened the door, and flung her brother through it.
+
+“Put that rubbish under hatches until I call for it again,” he roared, and shut the door.
+
+Composing himself, he turned to the girl again with a deprecatory smile. But no smile answered him from her set face. She had seen her beloved hero’s nature in curl-papers, as it were, and she found the spectacle disgusting and terrifying. It recalled the brutal slaughter of the Dutch captain, and suddenly she realized that what her brother had just said of this man was no more than true. Fear growing to panic was written on her face, as she stood there leaning for support against the table.
+
+“Why, sweetheart, what is this?” Levasseur moved towards her. She recoiled before him. There was a smile on his face, a glitter in his eyes that fetched her heart into her throat.
+
+He caught her, as she reached the uttermost limits of the cabin, seized her in his long arms and pulled her to him.
+
+“No, no!” she panted.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he mocked her, and his mockery was the most terrible thing of all. He crushed her to him brutally, deliberately hurtful because she resisted, and kissed her whilst she writhed in his embrace. Then, his passion mounting, he grew angry and stripped off the last rag of hero’s mask that still may have hung upon his face. “Little fool, did you not hear your brother say that you are in my power? Remember it, and remember that of your own free will you came. I am not the man with whom a woman can play fast and loose. So get sense, my girl, and accept what you have invited.” He kissed her again, almost contemptuously, and flung her off. “No more scowls,” he said. “You’ll be sorry else.”
+
+Some one knocked. Cursing the interruption, Levasseur strode off to open. Cahusac stood before him. The Breton’s face was grave. He came to report that they had sprung a leak between wind and water, the consequence of damage sustained from one of the Dutchman’s shots. In alarm Levasseur went off with him. The leakage was not serious so long as the weather kept fine; but should a storm overtake them it might speedily become so. A man was slung overboard to make a partial stoppage with a sailcloth, and the pumps were got to work.
+
+Ahead of them a low cloud showed on the horizon, which Cahusac pronounced one of the northernmost of the Virgin Islands.
+
+“We must run for shelter there, and careen her,” said Levasseur. “I do not trust this oppressive heat. A storm may catch us before we make land.”
+
+“A storm or something else,” said Cahusac grimly. “Have you noticed that?” He pointed away to starboard.
+
+Levasseur looked, and caught his breath. Two ships that at the distance seemed of considerable burden were heading towards them some five miles away.
+
+“If they follow us what is to happen?” demanded Cahusac.
+
+“We’ll fight whether we’re in case to do so or not,” swore Levasseur.
+
+“Counsels of despair.” Cahusac was contemptuous. To mark it he spat upon the deck. “This comes of going to sea with a lovesick madman. Now, keep your temper, Captain, for the hands will be at the end of theirs if we have trouble as a result of this Dutchman business.”
+
+For the remainder of that day Levasseur’s thoughts were of anything but love. He remained on deck, his eyes now upon the land, now upon those two slowly gaining ships. To run for the open could avail him nothing, and in his leaky condition would provide an additional danger. He must stand at bay and fight. And then, towards evening, when within three miles of shore and when he was about to give the order to strip for battle, he almost fainted from relief to hear a voice from the crow’s-nest above announce that the larger of the two ships was the Arabella. Her companion was presumably a prize.
+
+But the pessimism of Cahusac abated nothing.
+
+“That is but the lesser evil,” he growled. “What will Blood say about this Dutchman?”
+
+“Let him say what he pleases.” Levasseur laughed in the immensity of his relief.
+
+“And what about the children of the Governor of Tortuga?”
+
+“He must not know.”
+
+“He’ll come to know in the end.”
+
+“Aye, but by then, morbleu, the matter will be settled. I shall have made my peace with the Governor. I tell you I know the way to compel Ogeron to come to terms.”
+
+Presently the four vessels lay to off the northern coast of La Virgen Magra, a narrow little island arid and treeless, some twelve miles by three, uninhabited save by birds and turtles and unproductive of anything but salt, of which there were considerable ponds to the south.
+
+Levasseur put off in a boat accompanied by Cahusac and two other officers, and went to visit Captain Blood aboard the Arabella.
+
+“Our brief separation has been mighty profitable,” was Captain Blood’s greeting. “It’s a busy morning we’ve both had.” He was in high good-humour as he led the way to the great cabin for a rendering of accounts.
+
+The tall ship that accompanied the Arabella was a Spanish vessel of twenty-six guns, the Santiago from Puerto Rico with a hundred and twenty thousand weight of cacao, forty thousand pieces of eight, and the value of ten thousand more in jewels. A rich capture of which two fifths under the articles went to Levasseur and his crew. Of the money and jewels a division was made on the spot. The cacao it was agreed should be taken to Tortuga to be sold.
+
+Then it was the turn of Levasseur, and black grew the brow of Captain Blood as the Frenchman’s tale was unfolded. At the end he roundly expressed his disapproval. The Dutch were a friendly people whom it was a folly to alienate, particularly for so paltry a matter as these hides and tobacco, which at most would fetch a bare twenty thousand pieces.
+
+But Levasseur answered him, as he had answered Cahusac, that a ship was a ship, and it was ships they needed against their projected enterprise. Perhaps because things had gone well with him that day, Blood ended by shrugging the matter aside. Thereupon Levasseur proposed that the Arabella and her prize should return to Tortuga there to unload the cacao and enlist the further adventurers that could now be shipped. Levasseur meanwhile would effect certain necessary repairs, and then proceeding south, await his admiral at Saltatudos, an island conveniently situated - in the latitude of 11 deg. 11’ N. - for their enterprise against Maracaybo.
+
+To Levasseur’s relief, Captain Blood not only agreed, but pronounced himself ready to set sail at once.
+
+No sooner had the Arabella departed than Levasseur brought his ships into the lagoon, and set his crew to work upon the erection of temporary quarters ashore for himself, his men, and his enforced guests during the careening and repairing of La Foudre.
+
+At sunset that evening the wind freshened; it grew to a gale, and from that to such a hurricane that Levasseur was thankful to find himself ashore and his ships in safe shelter. He wondered a little how it might be faring with Captain Blood out there at the mercy of that terrific storm; but he did not permit concern to trouble him unduly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+THE RANSOM
+
+
+In the glory of the following morning, sparkling and clear after the storm, with an invigorating, briny tang in the air from the salt-ponds on the south of the island, a curious scene was played on the beach of the Virgen Magra, at the foot of a ridge of bleached dunes, beside the spread of sail from which Levasseur had improvised a tent.
+
+Enthroned upon an empty cask sat the French filibuster to transact important business: the business of making himself safe with the Governor of Tortuga.
+
+A guard of honour of a half-dozen officers hung about him; five of them were rude boucanhunters, in stained jerkins and leather breeches; the sixth was Cahusac. Before him, guarded by two half-naked negroes, stood young d’Ogeron, in frilled shirt and satin small-clothes and fine shoes of Cordovan leather. He was stripped of doublet, and his hands were tied behind him. The young gentleman’s comely face was haggard. Near at hand, and also under guard, but unpinioned, mademoiselle his sister sat hunched upon a hillock of sand. She was very pale, and it was in vain that she sought to veil in a mask of arrogance the fears by which she was assailed.
+
+Levasseur addressed himself to M. d’Ogeron. He spoke at long length. In the end -
+
+“I trust, monsieur,” said he, with mock suavity, “that I have made myself quite clear. So that there may be no misunderstandings, I will recapitulate. Your ransom is fixed at twenty thousand pieces of eight, and you shall have liberty on parole to go to Tortuga to collect it. In fact, I shall provide the means to convey you thither, and you shall have a month in which to come and go. Meanwhile, your sister remains with me as a hostage. Your father should not consider such a sum excessive as the price of his son’s liberty and to provide a dowry for his daughter. Indeed, if anything, I am too modest, pardi! M. d’Ogeron is reputed a wealthy man.”
+
+M. d’Ogeron the younger raised his head and looked the Captain boldly in the face.
+
+“I refuse - utterly and absolutely, do you understand? So do your worst, and be damned for a filthy pirate without decency and without honour.”
+
+“But what words!” laughed Levasseur. “What heat and what foolishness! You have not considered the alternative. When you do, you will not persist in your refusal. You will not do that in any case. We have spurs for the reluctant. And I warn you against giving me your parole under stress, and afterwards playing me false. I shall know how to find and punish you. Meanwhile, remember your sister’s honour is in pawn to me. Should you forget to return with the dowry, you will not consider it unreasonable that I forget to marry her.”
+
+Levasseur’s smiling eyes, intent upon the young man’s face, saw the horror that crept into his glance. M. d’Ogeron cast a wild glance at mademoiselle, and observed the grey despair that had almost stamped the beauty from her face. Disgust and fury swept across his countenance.
+
+Then he braced himself and answered resolutely:
+
+“No, you dog! A thousand times, no!”
+
+“You are foolish to persist.” Levasseur spoke without anger, with a coldly mocking regret. His fingers had been busy tying knots in a length of whipcord. He held it up. “You know this? It is a rosary of pain that has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capable of screwing the eyes out of a man’s head by way of helping him to see reason. As you please.”
+
+He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes, who in an instant made it fast about the prisoner’s brows. Then between cord and cranium the black inserted a short length of metal, round and slender as a pipe-stem. That done he rolled his eyes towards Levasseur, awaiting the Captain’s signal.
+
+Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced, his haggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on his pallid brow just beneath the whipcord.
+
+Mademoiselle cried out, and would have risen: but her guards restrained her, and she sank down again, moaning.
+
+“I beg that you will spare yourself and your sister,” said the Captain, “by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces it shall be.”
+
+“And for what, if you please, have you said twenty thousand pieces of eight?”
+
+In execrable French, but in a voice that was crisp and pleasant, seeming to echo some of the mockery that had invested Levasseur’s, that question floated over their heads.
+
+Startled, Levasseur and his officers looked up and round. On the crest of the dunes behind them, in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt of the sky, they beheld a tall, lean figure scrupulously dressed in black with silver lace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim of his hat affording the only touch of colour. Under that hat was the tawny face of Captain Blood.
+
+Levasseur gathered himself up with an oath of amazement. He had conceived Captain Blood by now well below the horizon, on his way to Tortuga, assuming him to have been so fortunate as to have weathered last night’s storm.
+
+Launching himself upon the yielding sand, into which he sank to the level of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Captain Blood came sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, and a dozen others. As he came to a standstill, he doffed his hat, with a flourish, to the lady. Then he turned to Levasseur.
+
+“Good-morning, my Captain,” said he, and proceeded to explain his presence. “It was last night’s hurricane compelled our return. We had no choice but to ride before it with stripped poles, and it drove us back the way we had gone. Moreover - as the devil would have it! - the Santiago sprang her mainmast; and so I was glad to put into a cove on the west of the island a couple of miles away, and we’ve walked across to stretch our legs, and to give you good-day. But who are these?” And he designated the man and the woman.
+
+Cahusac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his long arms to heaven.
+
+“Voila!” said he, pregnantly, to the firmament.
+
+Levasseur gnawed his lip, and changed colour. But he controlled himself to answer civilly:
+
+“As you see, two prisoners.”
+
+“Ah! Washed ashore in last night’s gale, eh?”
+
+“Not so.” Levasseur contained himself with difficulty before that irony. “They were in the Dutch brig.”
+
+“I don’t remember that you mentioned them before.”
+
+“I did not. They are prisoners of my own - a personal matter. They are French.”
+
+“French!” Captain Blood’s light eyes stabbed at Levasseur, then at the prisoners.
+
+M. d’Ogeron stood tense and braced as before, but the grey horror had left his face. Hope had leapt within him at this interruption, obviously as little expected by his tormentor as by himself. His sister, moved by a similar intuition, was leaning forward with parted lips and gaping eyes.
+
+Captain Blood fingered his lip, and frowned thoughtfully upon Levasseur.
+
+“Yesterday you surprised me by making war upon the friendly Dutch. But now it seems that not even your own countrymen are safe from you.”
+
+“Have I not said that these… that this is a matter personal to me?”
+
+“Ah! And their names?”
+
+Captain Blood’s crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner stirred Levasseur’s quick anger. The blood crept slowly back into his blenched face, and his glance grew in insolence, almost in menace. Meanwhile the prisoner answered for him.
+
+“I am Henri d’Ogeron, and this is my sister.”
+
+“D’Ogeron?” Captain Blood stared. “Are you related by chance to my good friend the Governor of Tortuga?”
+
+“He is my father.”
+
+Levasseur swung aside with an imprecation. In Captain Blood, amazement for the moment quenched every other emotion.
+
+“The saints preserve us now! Are you quite mad, Levasseur? First you molest the Dutch, who are our friends; next you take prisoners two persons that are French, your own countrymen; and now, faith, they’re no less than the children of the Governor of Tortuga, which is the one safe place of shelter that we enjoy in these islands….”
+
+Levasseur broke in angrily:
+
+“Must I tell you again that it is a matter personal to me? I make myself alone responsible to the Governor of Tortuga.”
+
+“And the twenty thousand pieces of eight? Is that also a matter personal to you?”
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Now I don’t agree with you at all.” Captain Blood sat down on the cask that Levasseur had lately occupied, and looked up blandly. “I may inform you, to save time, that I heard the entire proposal that you made to this lady and this gentleman, and I’ll also remind you that we sail under articles that admit no ambiguities. You have fixed their ransom at twenty thousand pieces of eight. That sum then belongs to your crews and mine in the proportions by the articles established. You’ll hardly wish to dispute it. But what is far more grave is that you have concealed from me this part of the prizes taken on your last cruise, and for such an offence as that the articles provide certain penalties that are something severe in character.”
+
+“Ho, ho!” laughed Levasseur unpleasantly. Then added: “If you dislike my conduct we can dissolve the association.”
+
+“That is my intention. But we’ll dissolve it when and in the manner that I choose, and that will be as soon as you have satisfied the articles under which we sailed upon this cruise.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I’ll be as short as I can,” said Captain Blood. “I’ll waive for the moment the unseemliness of making war upon the Dutch, of taking French prisoners, and of provoking the anger of the Governor of Tortuga. I’ll accept the situation as I find it. Yourself you’ve fixed the ransom of this couple at twenty thousand pieces, and, as I gather, the lady is to be your perquisite. But why should she be your perquisite more than another’s, seeing that she belongs by the articles to all of us, as a prize of war?”
+
+Black as thunder grew the brow of Levasseur.
+
+“However,” added Captain Blood, “I’ll not dispute her to you if you are prepared to buy her.”
+
+“Buy her?”
+
+“At the price you have set upon her.”
+
+Levasseur contained his rage, that he might reason with the Irishman. “That is the ransom of the man. It is to be paid for him by the Governor of Tortuga.”
+
+“No, no. Ye’ve parcelled the twain together - very oddly, I confess. Ye’ve set their value at twenty thousand pieces, and for that sum you may have them, since you desire it; but you’ll pay for them the twenty thousand pieces that are ultimately to come to you as the ransom of one and the dowry of the other; and that sum shall be divided among our crews. So that you do that, it is conceivable that our followers may take a lenient view of your breach of the articles we jointly signed.”
+
+Levasseur laughed savagely. “Ah ca! Credieu! The good jest!”
+
+“I quite agree with you,” said Captain Blood.
+
+To Levasseur the jest lay in that Captain Blood, with no more than a dozen followers, should come there attempting to hector him who had a hundred men within easy call. But it seemed that he had left out of his reckoning something which his opponent had counted in. For as, laughing still, Levasseur swung to his officers, he saw that which choked the laughter in his throat. Captain Blood had shrewdly played upon the cupidity that was the paramount inspiration of those adventurers. And Levasseur now read clearly on their faces how completely they adopted Captain Blood’s suggestion that all must participate in the ransom which their leader had thought to appropriate to himself.
+
+It gave the gaudy ruffian pause, and whilst in his heart he cursed those followers of his, who could be faithful only to their greed, he perceived - and only just in time - that he had best tread warily.
+
+“You misunderstand,” he said, swallowing his rage. “The ransom is for division, when it comes. The girl, meanwhile, is mine on that understanding.”
+
+“Good!” grunted Cahusac. “On that understanding all arranges itself.”
+
+“You think so?” said Captain Blood. “But if M. d’Ogeron should refuse to pay the ransom? What then?” He laughed, and got lazily to his feet. “No, no. If Captain Levasseur is meanwhile to keep the girl, as he proposes, then let him pay this ransom, and be his the risk if it should afterwards not be forthcoming.”
+
+“That’s it!” cried one of Levasseur’s officers. And Cahusac added: “It’s reasonable, that! Captain Blood is right. It is in the articles.”
+
+“What is in the articles, you fools?” Levasseur was in danger of losing his head. “Sacre Dieu! Where do you suppose that I have twenty thousand pieces? My whole share of the prizes of this cruise does not come to half that sum. I’ll be your debtor until I’ve earned it. Will that content you?”
+
+All things considered, there is not a doubt that it would have done so had not Captain Blood intended otherwise.
+
+“And if you should die before you have earned it? Ours is a calling fraught with risks, my Captain.”
+
+“Damn you!” Levasseur flung upon him livid with fury. “Will nothing satisfy you?”
+
+“Oh, but yes. Twenty thousand pieces of eight for immediate division.”
+
+“I haven’t got it.”
+
+“Then let some one buy the prisoners who has.”
+
+“And who do you suppose has it if I have not?”
+
+“I have,” said Captain Blood.
+
+“You have!” Levasseur’s mouth fell open. “You… you want the girl?”
+
+“Why not? And I exceed you in gallantry in that I will make sacrifices to obtain her, and in honesty in that I am ready to pay for what I want.”
+
+Levasseur stared at him foolishly agape. Behind him pressed his officers, gaping also.
+
+Captain Blood sat down again on the cask, and drew from an inner pocket of his doublet a little leather bag. “I am glad to be able to resolve a difficulty that at one moment seemed insoluble.” And under the bulging eyes of Levasseur and his officers, he untied the mouth of the bag and rolled into his left palm four or five pearls each of the size of a sparrow’s egg. There were twenty such in the bag, the very pick of those taken in that raid upon the pearl fleet. “You boast a knowledge of pearls, Cahusac. At what do you value this?”
+
+The Breton took between coarse finger and thumb the proffered lustrous, delicately iridescent sphere, his shrewd eyes appraising it.
+
+“A thousand pieces,” he answered shortly.
+
+“It will fetch rather more in Tortuga or Jamaica,” said Captain Blood, “and twice as much in Europe. But I’ll accept your valuation. They are almost of a size, as you can see. Here are twelve, representing twelve thousand pieces of eight, which is La Foudre’s share of three fifths of the prize, as provided by the articles. For the eight thousand pieces that go to the Arabella, I make myself responsible to my own men. And now, Wolverstone, if you please, will you take my property aboard the Arabella?” He stood up again, indicating the prisoners.
+
+“Ah, no!” Levasseur threw wide the floodgates of his fury. “Ah, that, no, by example! You shall not take her….” He would have sprung upon Captain Blood, who stood aloof, alert, tight-lipped, and watchful.
+
+But it was one of Levasseur’s own officers who hindered him.
+
+“Nom de Dieu, my Captain! What will you do? It is settled; honourably settled with satisfaction to all.”
+
+“To all?” blazed Levasseur. “Ah ca! To all of you, you animals! But what of me?”
+
+Cahusac, with the pearls clutched in his capacious hand, stepped up to him on the other side. “Don’t be a fool, Captain. Do you want to provoke trouble between the crews? His men outnumber us by nearly two to one. What’s a girl more or less? In Heaven’s name, let her go. He’s paid handsomely for her, and dealt fairly with us.”
+
+“Dealt fairly?” roared the infuriated Captain. “You….” In all his foul vocabulary he could find no epithet to describe his lieutenant. He caught him a blow that almost sent him sprawling. The pearls were scattered in the sand.
+
+Cahusac dived after them, his fellows with him. Vengeance must wait. For some moments they groped there on hands and knees, oblivious of all else. And yet in those moments vital things were happening.
+
+Levasseur, his hand on his sword, his face a white mask of rage, was confronting Captain Blood to hinder his departure.
+
+“You do not take her while I live!” he cried.
+
+“Then I’ll take her when you’re dead,” said Captain Blood, and his own blade flashed in the sunlight. “The articles provide that any man of whatever rank concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no more than a peso, shall be hanged at the yardarm. It’s what I intended for you in the end. But since ye prefer it this way, ye muckrake, faith, I’ll be humouring you.”
+
+He waved away the men who would have interfered, and the blades rang together.
+
+M. d’Ogeron looked on, a man bemused, unable to surmise what the issue either way could mean for him. Meanwhile, two of Blood’s men who had taken the place of the Frenchman’s negro guards, had removed the crown of whipcord from his brow. As for mademoiselle, she had risen, and was leaning forward, a hand pressed tightly to her heaving breast, her face deathly pale, a wild terror in her eyes.
+
+It was soon over. The brute strength, upon which Levasseur so confidently counted, could avail nothing against the Irishman’s practised skill. When, with both lungs transfixed, he lay prone on the white sand, coughing out his rascally life, Captain Blood looked calmly at Cahusac across the body.
+
+“I think that cancels the articles between us,” he said. With soulless, cynical eyes Cahusac considered the twitching body of his recent leader. Had Levasseur been a man of different temper, the affair might have ended in a very different manner. But, then, it is certain that Captain Blood would have adopted in dealing with him different tactics. As it was, Levasseur commanded neither love nor loyalty. The men who followed him were the very dregs of that vile trade, and cupidity was their only inspiration. Upon that cupidity Captain Blood had deftly played, until he had brought them to find Levasseur guilty of the one offence they deemed unpardonable, the crime of appropriating to himself something which might be converted into gold and shared amongst them all.
+
+Thus now the threatening mob of buccaneers that came hastening to the theatre of that swift tragi-comedy were appeased by a dozen words of Cahusac’s.
+
+Whilst still they hesitated, Blood added something to quicken their decision.
+
+“If you will come to our anchorage, you shall receive at once your share of the booty of the Santiago, that you may dispose of it as you please.”
+
+They crossed the island, the two prisoners accompanying them, and later that day, the division made, they would have parted company but that Cahusac, at the instances of the men who had elected him Levasseur’s successor, offered Captain Blood anew the services of that French contingent.
+
+“If you will sail with me again,” the Captain answered him, “you may do so on the condition that you make your peace with the Dutch, and restore the brig and her cargo.”
+
+The condition was accepted, and Captain Blood went off to find his guests, the children of the Governor of Tortuga.
+
+Mademoiselle d’Ogeron and her brother - the latter now relieved of his bonds - sat in the great cabin of the Arabella, whither they had been conducted.
+
+Wine and food had been placed upon the table by Benjamin, Captain Blood’s negro steward and cook, who had intimated to them that it was for their entertainment. But it had remained untouched. Brother and sister sat there in agonized bewilderment, conceiving that their escape was but from frying-pan to fire. At length, overwrought by the suspense, mademoiselle flung herself upon her knees before her brother to implore his pardon for all the evil brought upon them by her wicked folly.
+
+M. d’Ogeron was not in a forgiving mood.
+
+“I am glad that at least you realize what you have done. And now this other filibuster has bought you, and you belong to him. You realize that, too, I hope.”
+
+He might have said more, but he checked upon perceiving that the door was opening. Captain Blood, coming from settling matters with the followers of Levasseur, stood on the threshold. M. d’Ogeron had not troubled to restrain his high-pitched voice, and the Captain had overheard the Frenchman’s last two sentences. Therefore he perfectly understood why mademoiselle should bound up at sight of him, and shrink back in fear.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said he in his vile but fluent French, “I beg you to dismiss your fears. Aboard this ship you shall be treated with all honour. So soon as we are in case to put to sea again, we steer a course for Tortuga to take you home to your father. And pray do not consider that I have bought you, as your brother has just said. All that I have done has been to provide the ransom necessary to bribe a gang of scoundrels to depart from obedience to the arch-scoundrel who commanded them, and so deliver you from all peril. Count it, if you please, a friendly loan to be repaid entirely at your convenience.”
+
+Mademoiselle stared at him in unbelief. M. d’Ogeron rose to his feet.
+
+“Monsieur, is it possible that you are serious?”
+
+“I am. It may not happen often nowadays. I may be a pirate. But my ways are not the ways of Levasseur, who should have stayed in Europe, and practised purse-cutting. I have a sort of honour - shall we say, some rags of honour? - remaining me from better days.” Then on a brisker note he added: “We dine in an hour, and I trust that you will honour my table with your company. Meanwhile, Benjamin will see, monsieur, that you are more suitably provided in the matter of wardrobe.”
+
+He bowed to them, and turned to depart again, but mademoiselle detained him.
+
+“Monsieur!” she cried sharply.
+
+He checked and turned, whilst slowly she approached him, regarding him between dread and wonder.
+
+“Oh, you are noble!”
+
+“I shouldn’t put it as high as that myself,” said he.
+
+“You are, you are! And it is but right that you should know all.”
+
+“Madelon!” her brother cried out, to restrain her.
+
+But she would not be restrained. Her surcharged heart must overflow in confidence.
+
+“Monsieur, for what befell I am greatly at fault. This man - this Levasseur….”
+
+He stared, incredulous in his turn. “My God! Is it possible? That animal!”
+
+Abruptly she fell on her knees, caught his hand and kissed it before he could wrench it from her.
+
+“What do you do?” he cried.
+
+“An amende. In my mind I dishonoured you by deeming you his like, by conceiving your fight with Levasseur a combat between jackals. On my knees, monsieur, I implore you to forgive me.”
+
+Captain Blood looked down upon her, and a smile broke on his lips, irradiating the blue eyes that looked so oddly light in that tawny face.
+
+“Why, child,” said he, “I might find it hard to forgive you the stupidity of having thought otherwise.”
+
+As he handed her to her feet again, he assured himself that he had behaved rather well in the affair. Then he sighed. That dubious fame of his that had spread so quickly across the Caribbean would by now have reached the ears of Arabella Bishop. That she would despise him, he could not doubt, deeming him no better than all the other scoundrels who drove this villainous buccaneering trade. Therefore he hoped that some echo of this deed might reach her also, and be set by her against some of that contempt. For the whole truth, which he withheld from Mademoiselle d’Ogeron, was that in venturing his life to save her, he had been driven by the thought that the deed must be pleasing in the eyes of Miss Bishop could she but witness it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+THE TRAP
+
+
+That affair of Mademoiselle d’Ogeron bore as its natural fruit an improvement in the already cordial relations between Captain Blood and the Governor of Tortuga. At the fine stone house, with its green-jalousied windows, which M. d’Ogeron had built himself in a spacious and luxuriant garden to the east of Cayona, the Captain became a very welcome guest. M. d’Ogeron was in the Captain’s debt for more than the twenty thousand pieces of eight which he had provided for mademoiselle’s ransom; and shrewd, hard bargain-driver though he might be, the Frenchman could be generous and understood the sentiment of gratitude. This he now proved in every possible way, and under his powerful protection the credit of Captain Blood among the buccaneers very rapidly reached its zenith.
+
+So when it came to fitting out his fleet for that enterprise against Maracaybo, which had originally been Levasseur’s project, he did not want for either ships or men to follow him. He recruited five hundred adventurers in all, and he might have had as many thousands if he could have offered them accommodation. Similarly without difficulty he might have increased his fleet to twice its strength of ships but that he preferred to keep it what it was. The three vessels to which he confined it were the Arabella, the La Foudre, which Cahusac now commanded with a contingent of some sixscore Frenchmen, and the Santiago, which had been refitted and rechristened the Elizabeth, after that Queen of England whose seamen had humbled Spain as Captain Blood now hoped to humble it again. Hagthorpe, in virtue of his service in the navy, was appointed by Blood to command her, and the appointment was confirmed by the men.
+
+It was some months after the rescue of Mademoiselle d’Ogeron - in August of that year 1687 - that this little fleet, after some minor adventures which I pass over in silence, sailed into the great lake of Maracaybo and effected its raid upon that opulent city of the Main.
+
+The affair did not proceed exactly as was hoped, and Blood’s force came to find itself in a precarious position. This is best explained in the words employed by Cahusac - which Pitt has carefully recorded - in the course of an altercation that broke out on the steps of the Church of Nuestra Senora del Carmen, which Captain Blood had impiously appropriated for the purpose of a corps-de-garde. I have said already that he was a papist only when it suited him.
+
+The dispute was being conducted by Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Pitt on the one side, and Cahusac, out of whose uneasiness it all arose, on the other. Behind them in the sun-scorched, dusty square, sparsely fringed by palms, whose fronds drooped listlessly in the quivering heat, surged a couple of hundred wild fellows belonging to both parties, their own excitement momentarily quelled so that they might listen to what passed among their leaders.
+
+Cahusac appeared to be having it all his own way, and he raised his harsh, querulous voice so that all might hear his truculent denunciation. He spoke, Pitt tells us, a dreadful kind of English, which the shipmaster, however, makes little attempt to reproduce. His dress was as discordant as his speech. It was of a kind to advertise his trade, and ludicrously in contrast with the sober garb of Hagthorpe and the almost foppish daintiness of Jeremy Pitt. His soiled and blood-stained shirt of blue cotton was open in front, to cool his hairy breast, and the girdle about the waist of his leather breeches carried an arsenal of pistols and a knife, whilst a cutlass hung from a leather baldrick loosely slung about his body; above his countenance, broad and flat as a Mongolian’s, a red scarf was swathed, turban-wise, about his head.
+
+“Is it that I have not warned you from the beginning that all was too easy?” he demanded between plaintiveness and fury. “I am no fool, my friends. I have eyes, me. And I see. I see an abandoned fort at the entrance of the lake, and nobody there to fire a gun at us when we came in. Then I suspect the trap. Who would not that had eyes and brain? Bah! we come on. What do we find? A city, abandoned like the fort; a city out of which the people have taken all things of value. Again I warn Captain Blood. It is a trap, I say. We are to come on; always to come on, without opposition, until we find that it is too late to go to sea again, that we cannot go back at all. But no one will listen to me. You all know so much more. Name of God! Captain Blood, he will go on, and we go on. We go to Gibraltar. True that at last, after long time, we catch the Deputy-Governor; true, we make him pay big ransom for Gibraltar; true between that ransom and the loot we return here with some two thousand pieces of eight. But what is it, in reality, will you tell me? Or shall I tell you? It is a piece of cheese - a piece of cheese in a mousetrap, and we are the little mice. Goddam! And the cats - oh, the cats they wait for us! The cats are those four Spanish ships of war that have come meantime. And they wait for us outside the bottle-neck of this lagoon. Mort de Dieu! That is what comes of the damned obstinacy of your fine Captain Blood.”
+
+Wolverstone laughed. Cahusac exploded in fury.
+
+“Ah, sangdieu! Tu ris, animal? You laugh! Tell me this: How do we get out again unless we accept the terms of Monsieur the Admiral of Spain?”
+
+From the buccaneers at the foot of the steps came an angry rumble of approval. The single eye of the gigantic Wolverstone rolled terribly, and he clenched his great fists as if to strike the Frenchman, who was exposing them to mutiny. But Cahusac was not daunted. The mood of the men enheartened him.
+
+“You think, perhaps, this your Captain Blood is the good God. That he can make miracles, eh? He is ridiculous, you know, this Captain Blood; with his grand air and his….”
+
+He checked. Out of the church at that moment, grand air and all, sauntered Peter Blood. With him came a tough, long-legged French sea-wolf named Yberville, who, though still young, had already won fame as a privateer commander before the loss of his own ship had driven him to take service under Blood. The Captain advanced towards that disputing group, leaning lightly upon his long ebony cane, his face shaded by a broad-plumed hat. There was in his appearance nothing of the buccaneer. He had much more the air of a lounger in the Mall or the Alameda - the latter rather, since his elegant suit of violet taffetas with gold-embroidered button-holes was in the Spanish fashion. But the long, stout, serviceable rapier, thrust up behind by the left hand resting lightly on the pummel, corrected the impression. That and those steely eyes of his announced the adventurer.
+
+“You find me ridiculous, eh, Cahusac?” said he, as he came to a halt before the Breton, whose anger seemed already to have gone out of him. “What, then, must I find you?” He spoke quietly, almost wearily. “You will be telling them that we have delayed, and that it is the delay that has brought about our danger. But whose is the fault of that delay? We have been a month in doing what should have been done, and what but for your blundering would have been done, inside of a week.”
+
+“Ah ca! Nom de Dieu! Was it my fault that….”
+
+“Was it any one else’s fault that you ran your ship La Foudre aground on the shoal in the middle of the lake? You would not be piloted. You knew your way. You took no soundings even. The result was that we lost three precious days in getting canoes to bring off your men and your gear. Those three days gave the folk at Gibraltar not only time to hear of our coming, but time in which to get away. After that, and because of it, we had to follow the Governor to his infernal island fortress, and a fortnight and best part of a hundred lives were lost in reducing it. That’s how we come to have delayed until this Spanish fleet is fetched round from La Guayra by a guarda-costa; and if ye hadn’t lost La Foudre, and so reduced our fleet from three ships to two, we should even now be able to fight our way through with a reasonable hope of succeeding. Yet you think it is for you to come hectoring here, upbraiding us for a situation that is just the result of your own ineptitude.”
+
+He spoke with a restraint which I trust you will agree was admirable when I tell you that the Spanish fleet guarding the bottle-neck exit of the great Lake of Maracaybo, and awaiting there the coming forth of Captain Blood with a calm confidence based upon its overwhelming strength, was commanded by his implacable enemy, Don Miguel de Espinosa y Valdez, the Admiral of Spain. In addition to his duty to his country, the Admiral had, as you know, a further personal incentive arising out of that business aboard the Encarnacion a year ago, and the death of his brother Don Diego; and with him sailed his nephew Esteban, whose vindictive zeal exceeded the Admiral’s own.
+
+Yet, knowing all this, Captain Blood could preserve his calm in reproving the cowardly frenzy of one for whom the situation had not half the peril with which it was fraught for himself. He turned from Cahusac to address the mob of buccaneers, who had surged nearer to hear him, for he had not troubled to raise his voice. “I hope that will correct some of the misapprehension that appears to have been disturbing you,” said he.
+
+“There’s no good can come of talking of what’s past and done,” cried Cahusac, more sullen now than truculent. Whereupon Wolverstone laughed, a laugh that was like the neighing of a horse. “The question is: what are we to do now?”
+
+“Sure, now, there’s no question at all,” said Captain Blood.
+
+“Indeed, but there is,” Cahusac insisted. “Don Miguel, the Spanish Admiral, have offer us safe passage to sea if we will depart at once, do no damage to the town, release our prisoners, and surrender all that we took at Gibraltar.”
+
+Captain Blood smiled quietly, knowing precisely how much Don Miguel’s word was worth. It was Yberville who replied, in manifest scorn of his compatriot:
+
+“Which argues that, even at this disadvantage as he has us, the Spanish Admiral is still afraid of us.”
+
+“That can be only because he not know our real weakness,” was the fierce retort. “And, anyway, we must accept these terms. We have no choice. That is my opinion.”
+
+“Well, it’s not mine, now,” said Captain Blood. “So, I’ve refused them.”
+
+“Refuse’!” Cahusac’s broad face grew purple. A muttering from the men behind enheartened him. “You have refuse’? You have refuse’ already - and without consulting me?”
+
+“Your disagreement could have altered nothing. You’d have been outvoted, for Hagthorpe here was entirely of my own mind. Still,” he went on, “if you and your own French followers wish to avail yourselves of the Spaniard’s terms, we shall not hinder you. Send one of your prisoners to announce it to the Admiral. Don Miguel will welcome your decision, you may be sure.”
+
+Cahusac glowered at him in silence for a moment. Then, having controlled himself, he asked in a concentrated voice:
+
+“Precisely what answer have you make to the Admiral?”
+
+A smile irradiated the face and eyes of Captain Blood. “I have answered him that unless within four-and-twenty hours we have his parole to stand out to sea, ceasing to dispute our passage or hinder our departure, and a ransom of fifty thousand pieces of eight for Maracaybo, we shall reduce this beautiful city to ashes, and thereafter go out and destroy his fleet.”
+
+The impudence of it left Cahusac speechless. But among the English buccaneers in the square there were many who savoured the audacious humour of the trapped dictating terms to the trappers. Laughter broke from them. It spread into a roar of acclamation; for bluff is a weapon dear to every adventurer. Presently, when they understood it, even Cahusac’s French followers were carried off their feet by that wave of jocular enthusiasm, until in his truculent obstinacy Cahusac remained the only dissentient. He withdrew in mortification. Nor was he to be mollified until the following day brought him his revenge. This came in the shape of a messenger from Don Miguel with a letter in which the Spanish Admiral solemnly vowed to God that, since the pirates had refused his magnanimous offer to permit them to surrender with the honours of war, he would now await them at the mouth of the lake there to destroy them on their coming forth. He added that should they delay their departure, he would so soon as he was reenforced by a fifth ship, the Santo Nino, on its way to join him from La Guayra, himself come inside to seek them at Maracaybo.
+
+This time Captain Blood was put out of temper.
+
+“Trouble me no more,” he snapped at Cahusac, who came growling to him again. “Send word to Don Miguel that you have seceded from me. He’ll give you safe conduct, devil a doubt. Then take one of the sloops, order your men aboard and put to sea, and the devil go with you.”
+
+Cahusac would certainly have adopted that course if only his men had been unanimous in the matter. They, however, were torn between greed and apprehension. If they went they must abandon their share of the plunder, which was considerable, as well as the slaves and other prisoners they had taken. If they did this, and Captain Blood should afterwards contrive to get away unscathed - and from their knowledge of his resourcefulness, the thing, however unlikely, need not be impossible - he must profit by that which they now relinquished. This was a contingency too bitter for contemplation. And so, in the end, despite all that Cahusac could say, the surrender was not to Don Miguel, but to Peter Blood. They had come into the venture with him, they asserted, and they would go out of it with him or not at all. That was the message he received from them that same evening by the sullen mouth of Cahusac himself.
+
+He welcomed it, and invited the Breton to sit down and join the council which was even then deliberating upon the means to be employed. This council occupied the spacious patio of the Governor’s house - which Captain Blood had appropriated to his own uses - a cloistered stone quadrangle in the middle of which a fountain played coolly under a trellis of vine. Orange-trees grew on two sides of it, and the still, evening air was heavy with the scent of them. It was one of those pleasant exterior-interiors which Moorish architects had introduced to Spain and the Spaniards had carried with them to the New World.
+
+Here that council of war, composed of six men in all, deliberated until late that night upon the plan of action which Captain Blood put forward.
+
+The great freshwater lake of Maracaybo, nourished by a score of rivers from the snow-capped ranges that surround it on two sides, is some hundred and twenty miles in length and almost the same distance across at its widest. It is - as has been indicated - in the shape of a great bottle having its neck towards the sea at Maracaybo.
+
+Beyond this neck it widens again, and then the two long, narrow strips of land known as the islands of Vigilias and Palomas block the channel, standing lengthwise across it. The only passage out to sea for vessels of any draught lies in the narrow strait between these islands. Palomas, which is some ten miles in length, is unapproachable for half a mile on either side by any but the shallowest craft save at its eastern end, where, completely commanding the narrow passage out to sea, stands the massive fort which the buccaneers had found deserted upon their coming. In the broader water between this passage and the bar, the four Spanish ships were at anchor in mid-channel. The Admiral’s Encarnacion, which we already know, was a mighty galleon of forty-eight great guns and eight small. Next in importance was the Salvador with thirty-six guns; the other two, the Infanta and the San Felipe, though smaller vessels, were still formidable enough with their twenty guns and a hundred and fifty men apiece.
+
+Such was the fleet of which the gauntlet was to be run by Captain Blood with his own Arabella of forty guns, the Elizabeth of twenty-six, and two sloops captured at Gibraltar, which they had indifferently armed with four culverins each. In men they had a bare four hundred survivors of the five hundred-odd that had left Tortuga, to oppose to fully a thousand Spaniards manning the galleons.
+
+The plan of action submitted by Captain Blood to that council was a desperate one, as Cahusac uncompromisingly pronounced it.
+
+“Why, so it is,” said the Captain. “But I’ve done things more desperate.” Complacently he pulled at a pipe that was loaded with that fragrant Sacerdotes tobacco for which Gibraltar was famous, and of which they had brought away some hogsheads. “And what is more, they’ve succeeded. Audaces fortuna juvat. Bedad, they knew their world, the old Romans.”
+
+He breathed into his companions and even into Cahusac some of his own spirit of confidence, and in confidence all went busily to work. For three days from sunrise to sunset, the buccaneers laboured and sweated to complete the preparations for the action that was to procure them their deliverance. Time pressed. They must strike before Don Miguel de Espinosa received the reenforcement of that fifth galleon, the Santo Nino, which was coming to join him from La Guayra.
+
+Their principal operations were on the larger of the two sloops captured at Gibraltar; to which vessel was assigned the leading part in Captain Blood’s scheme. They began by tearing down all bulkheads, until they had reduced her to the merest shell, and in her sides they broke open so many ports that her gunwale was converted into the semblance of a grating. Next they increased by a half-dozen the scuttles in her deck, whilst into her hull they packed all the tar and pitch and brimstone that they could find in the town, to which they added six barrels of gunpowder, placed on end like guns at the open ports on her larboard side. On the evening of the fourth day, everything being now in readiness, all were got aboard, and the empty, pleasant city of Maracaybo was at last abandoned. But they did not weigh anchor until some two hours after midnight. Then, at last, on the first of the ebb, they drifted silently down towards the bar with all canvas furled save only their spiltsails, which, so as to give them steering way, were spread to the faint breeze that stirred through the purple darkness of the tropical night.
+
+The order of their going was as follows: Ahead went the improvised fire-ship in charge of Wolverstone, with a crew of six volunteers, each of whom was to have a hundred pieces of eight over and above his share of plunder as a special reward. Next came the Arabella. She was followed at a distance by the Elizabeth, commanded by Hagthorpe, with whom was the now shipless Cahusac and the bulk of his French followers. The rear was brought up by the second sloop and some eight canoes, aboard of which had been shipped the prisoners, the slaves, and most of the captured merchandise. The prisoners were all pinioned, and guarded by four buccaneers with musketoons who manned these boats in addition to the two fellows who were to sail them. Their place was to be in the rear and they were to take no part whatever in the coming fight.
+
+As the first glimmerings of opalescent dawn dissolved the darkness, the straining eyes of the buccaneers were able to make out the tall rigging of the Spanish vessels, riding at anchor less than a quarter of a mile ahead. Entirely without suspicion as the Spaniards were, and rendered confident by their own overwhelming strength, it is unlikely that they used a vigilance keener than their careless habit. Certain it is that they did not sight Blood’s fleet in that dim light until some time after Blood’s fleet had sighted them. By the time that they had actively roused themselves, Wolverstone’s sloop was almost upon them, speeding under canvas which had been crowded to her yards the moment the galleons had loomed into view.
+
+Straight for the Admiral’s great ship, the Encarnacion, did Wolverstone head the sloop; then, lashing down the helm, he kindled from a match that hung ready lighted beside him a great torch of thickly plaited straw that had been steeped in bitumen. First it glowed, then as he swung it round his head, it burst into flame, just as the slight vessel went crashing and bumping and scraping against the side of the flagship, whilst rigging became tangled with rigging, to the straining of yards and snapping of spars overhead. His six men stood at their posts on the larboard side, stark naked, each armed with a grapnel, four of them on the gunwale, two of them aloft. At the moment of impact these grapnels were slung to bind the Spaniard to them, those aloft being intended to complete and preserve the entanglement of the rigging.
+
+Aboard the rudely awakened galleon all was confused hurrying, scurrying, trumpeting, and shouting. At first there had been a desperately hurried attempt to get up the anchor; but this was abandoned as being already too late; and conceiving themselves on the point of being boarded, the Spaniards stood to arms to ward off the onslaught. Its slowness in coming intrigued them, being so different from the usual tactics of the buccaneers. Further intrigued were they by the sight of the gigantic Wolverstone speeding naked along his deck with a great flaming torch held high. Not until he had completed his work did they begin to suspect the truth - that he was lighting slow-matches - and then one of their officers rendered reckless by panic ordered a boarding-party on to the shop.
+
+The order came too late. Wolverstone had seen his six fellows drop overboard after the grapnels were fixed, and then had sped, himself, to the starboard gunwale. Thence he flung his flaming torch down the nearest gaping scuttle into the hold, and thereupon dived overboard in his turn, to be picked up presently by the longboat from the Arabella. But before that happened the sloop was a thing of fire, from which explosions were hurling blazing combustibles aboard the Encarnacion, and long tongues of flame were licking out to consume the galleon, beating back those daring Spaniards who, too late, strove desperately to cut her adrift.
+
+And whilst the most formidable vessel of the Spanish fleet was thus being put out of action at the outset, Blood had sailed in to open fire upon the Salvador. First athwart her hawse he had loosed a broadside that had swept her decks with terrific effect, then going on and about, he had put a second broadside into her hull at short range. Leaving her thus half-crippled, temporarily, at least, and keeping to his course, he had bewildered the crew of the Infanta by a couple of shots from the chasers on his beakhead, then crashed alongside to grapple and board her, whilst Hagthorpe was doing the like by the San Felipe.
+
+And in all this time not a single shot had the Spaniards contrived to fire, so completely had they been taken by surprise, and so swift and paralyzing had been Blood’s stroke.
+
+Boarded now and faced by the cold steel of the buccaneers, neither the San Felipe nor the Infanta offered much resistance. The sight of their admiral in flames, and the Salvador drifting crippled from the action, had so utterly disheartened them that they accounted themselves vanquished, and laid down their arms.
+
+If by a resolute stand the Salvador had encouraged the other two undamaged vessels to resistance, the Spaniards might well have retrieved the fortunes of the day. But it happened that the Salvador was handicapped in true Spanish fashion by being the treasure-ship of the fleet, with plate on board to the value of some fifty thousand pieces. Intent above all upon saving this from falling into the hands of the pirates, Don Miguel, who, with a remnant of his crew, had meanwhile transferred himself aboard her, headed her down towards Palomas and the fort that guarded the passage. This fort the Admiral, in those days of waiting, had taken the precaution secretly to garrison and rearm. For the purpose he had stripped the fort of Cojero, farther out on the gulf, of its entire armament, which included some cannon-royal of more than ordinary range and power.
+
+With no suspicion of this, Captain Blood gave chase, accompanied by the Infanta, which was manned now by a prize-crew under the command of Yberville. The stern chasers of the Salvador desultorily returned the punishing fire of the pursuers; but such was the damage she, herself, sustained, that presently, coming under the guns of the fort, she began to sink, and finally settled down in the shallows with part of her hull above water. Thence, some in boats and some by swimming, the Admiral got his crew ashore on Palomas as best he could.
+
+And then, just as Captain Blood accounted the victory won, and that his way out of that trap to the open sea beyond lay clear, the fort suddenly revealed its formidable and utterly unsuspected strength. With a roar the cannons-royal proclaimed themselves, and the Arabella staggered under a blow that smashed her bulwarks at the waist and scattered death and confusion among the seamen gathered there.
+
+Had not Pitt, her master, himself seized the whipstaff and put the helm hard over to swing her sharply off to starboard, she must have suffered still worse from the second volley that followed fast upon the first.
+
+Meanwhile it had fared even worse with the frailer Infanta. Although hit by one shot only, this had crushed her larboard timbers on the waterline, starting a leak that must presently have filled her, but for the prompt action of the experienced Yberville in ordering her larboard guns to be flung overboard. Thus lightened, and listing now to starboard, he fetched her about, and went staggering after the retreating Arabella, followed by the fire of the fort, which did them, however, little further damage.
+
+Out of range, at last, they lay to, joined by the Elizabeth and the San Felipe, to consider their position.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+THE DUPES
+
+
+It was a crestfallen Captain Blood who presided over that hastily summoned council held on the poop-deck of the Arabella in the brilliant morning sunshine. It was, he declared afterwards, one of the bitterest moments in his career. He was compelled to digest the fact that having conducted the engagement with a skill of which he might justly be proud, having destroyed a force so superior in ships and guns and men that Don Miguel de Espinosa had justifiably deemed it overwhelming, his victory was rendered barren by three lucky shots from an unsuspected battery by which they had been surprised. And barren must their victory remain until they could reduce the fort that still remained to defend the passage.
+
+At first Captain Blood was for putting his ships in order and making the attempt there and then. But the others dissuaded him from betraying an impetuosity usually foreign to him, and born entirely of chagrin and mortification, emotions which will render unreasonable the most reasonable of men. With returning calm, he surveyed the situation. The Arabella was no longer in case to put to sea; the Infanta was merely kept afloat by artifice, and the San Felipe was almost as sorely damaged by the fire she had sustained from the buccaneers before surrendering.
+
+Clearly, then, he was compelled to admit in the end that nothing remained but to return to Maracaybo, there to refit the ships before attempting to force the passage.
+
+And so, back to Maracaybo came those defeated victors of that short, terrible fight. And if anything had been wanting further to exasperate their leader, he had it in the pessimism of which Cahusac did not economize expressions. Transported at first to heights of dizzy satisfaction by the swift and easy victory of their inferior force that morning, the Frenchman was now plunged back and more deeply than ever into the abyss of hopelessness. And his mood infected at least the main body of his own followers.
+
+“It is the end,” he told Captain Blood. “This time we are checkmated.”
+
+“I’ll take the liberty of reminding you that you said the same before,” Captain Blood answered him as patiently as he could. “Yet you’ve seen what you’ve seen, and you’ll not deny that in ships and guns we are returning stronger than we went. Look at our present fleet, man.”
+
+“I am looking at it,” said Cahusac.
+
+“Pish! Ye’re a white-livered cur when all is said.”
+
+“You call me a coward?”
+
+“I’ll take that liberty.”
+
+The Breton glared at him, breathing hard. But he had no mind to ask satisfaction for the insult. He knew too well the kind of satisfaction that Captain Blood was likely to afford him. He remembered the fate of Levasseur. So he confined himself to words.
+
+“It is too much! You go too far!” he complained bitterly.
+
+“Look you, Cahusac: it’s sick and tired I am of your perpetual whining and complaining when things are not as smooth as a convent dining-table. If ye wanted things smooth and easy, ye shouldn’t have taken to the sea, and ye should never ha’ sailed with me, for with me things are never smooth and easy. And that, I think, is all I have to say to you this morning.”
+
+Cahusac flung away cursing, and went to take the feeling of his men.
+
+Captain Blood went off to give his surgeon’s skill to the wounded, among whom he remained engaged until late afternoon. Then, at last, he went ashore, his mind made up, and returned to the house of the Governor, to indite a truculent but very scholarly letter in purest Castilian to Don Miguel.
+
+“I have shown your excellency this morning of what I am capable,” he wrote. “Although outnumbered by more than two to one in men, in ships, and in guns, I have sunk or captured the vessels of the great fleet with which you were to come to Maracaybo to destroy us. So that you are no longer in case to carry out your boast, even when your reenforcements on the Santo Nino, reach you from La Guayra. From what has occurred, you may judge of what must occur. I should not trouble your excellency with this letter but that I am a humane man, abhorring bloodshed. Therefore before proceeding to deal with your fort, which you may deem invincible, as I have dealt already with your fleet, which you deemed invincible, I make you, purely out of humanitarian considerations, this last offer of terms. I will spare this city of Maracaybo and forthwith evacuate it, leaving behind me the forty prisoners I have taken, in consideration of your paying me the sum of fifty thousand pieces of eight and one hundred head of cattle as a ransom, thereafter granting me unmolested passage of the bar. My prisoners, most of whom are persons of consideration, I will retain as hostages until after my departure, sending them back in the canoes which we shall take with us for that purpose. If your excellency should be so ill-advised as to refuse these terms, and thereby impose upon me the necessity of reducing your fort at the cost of some lives, I warn you that you may expect no quarter from us, and that I shall begin by leaving a heap of ashes where this pleasant city of Maracaybo now stands.”
+
+The letter written, he bade them bring him from among the prisoners the Deputy-Governor of Maracaybo, who had been taken at Gibraltar. Disclosing its contents to him, he despatched him with it to Don Miguel.
+
+His choice of a messenger was shrewd. The Deputy-Governor was of all men the most anxious for the deliverance of his city, the one man who on his own account would plead most fervently for its preservation at all costs from the fate with which Captain Blood was threatening it. And as he reckoned so it befell. The Deputy-Governor added his own passionate pleading to the proposals of the letter.
+
+But Don Miguel was of stouter heart. True, his fleet had been partly destroyed and partly captured. But then, he argued, he had been taken utterly by surprise. That should not happen again. There should be no surprising the fort. Let Captain Blood do his worst at Maracaybo, there should be a bitter reckoning for him when eventually he decided - as, sooner or later, decide he must - to come forth. The Deputy-Governor was flung into panic. He lost his temper, and said some hard things to the Admiral. But they were not as hard as the thing the Admiral said to him in answer.
+
+“Had you been as loyal to your King in hindering the entrance of these cursed pirates as I shall be in hindering their going forth again, we should not now find ourselves in our present straits. So weary me no more with your coward counsels. I make no terms with Captain Blood. I know my duty to my King, and I intend to perform it. I also know my duty to myself. I have a private score with this rascal, and I intend to settle it. Take you that message back.”
+
+So back to Maracaybo, back to his own handsome house in which Captain Blood had established his quarters, came the Deputy-Governor with the Admiral’s answer. And because he had been shamed into a show of spirit by the Admiral’s own stout courage in adversity, he delivered it as truculently as the Admiral could have desired. “And is it like that?” said Captain Blood with a quiet smile, though the heart of him sank at this failure of his bluster. “Well, well, it’s a pity now that the Admiral’s so headstrong. It was that way he lost his fleet, which was his own to lose. This pleasant city of Maracaybo isn’t. So no doubt he’ll lose it with fewer misgivings. I am sorry. Waste, like bloodshed, is a thing abhorrent to me. But there ye are! I’ll have the faggots to the place in the morning, and maybe when he sees the blaze to-morrow night he’ll begin to believe that Peter Blood is a man of his word. Ye may go, Don Francisco.”
+
+The Deputy-Governor went out with dragging feet, followed by guards, his momentary truculence utterly spent.
+
+But no sooner had he departed than up leapt Cahusac, who had been of the council assembled to receive the Admiral’s answer. His face was white and his hands shook as he held them out in protest.
+
+“Death of my life, what have you to say now?” he cried, his voice husky. And without waiting to hear what it might be, he raved on: “I knew you not frighten the Admiral so easy. He hold us entrap’, and he knows it; yet you dream that he will yield himself to your impudent message. Your fool letter it have seal’ the doom of us all.”
+
+“Have ye done?” quoth Blood quietly, as the Frenchman paused for breath.
+
+“No, I have not.”
+
+“Then spare me the rest. It’ll be of the same quality, devil a doubt, and it doesn’t help us to solve the riddle that’s before us.”
+
+“But what are you going to do? Is it that you will tell me?” It was not a question, it was a demand.
+
+“How the devil do I know? I was hoping you’d have some ideas yourself. But since Ye’re so desperately concerned to save your skin, you and those that think like you are welcome to leave us. I’ve no doubt at all the Spanish Admiral will welcome the abatement of our numbers even at this late date. Ye shall have the sloop as a parting gift from us, and ye can join Don Miguel in the fort for all I care, or for all the good ye’re likely to be to us in this present pass.”
+
+“It is to my men to decide,” Cahusac retorted, swallowing his fury, and on that stalked out to talk to them, leaving the others to deliberate in peace.
+
+Next morning early he sought Captain Blood again. He found him alone in the patio, pacing to and fro, his head sunk on his breast. Cahusac mistook consideration for dejection. Each of us carries in himself a standard by which to measure his neighbour.
+
+“We have take’ you at your word, Captain,” he announced, between sullenness and defiance. Captain Blood paused, shoulders hunched, hands behind his back, and mildly regarded the buccaneer in silence. Cahusac explained himself. “Last night I send one of my men to the Spanish Admiral with a letter. I make him offer to capitulate if he will accord us passage with the honours of war. This morning I receive his answer. He accord us this on the understanding that we carry nothing away with us. My men they are embarking them on the sloop. We sail at once.”
+
+“Bon voyage,” said Captain Blood, and with a nod he turned on his heel again to resume his interrupted mediation.
+
+“Is that all that you have to say to me?” cried Cahusac.
+
+“There are other things,” said Blood over his shoulder. “But I know ye wouldn’t like them.”
+
+“Ha! Then it’s adieu, my Captain.” Venomously he added: “It is my belief that we shall not meet again.”
+
+“Your belief is my hope,” said Captain Blood.
+
+Cahusac flung away, obscenely vituperative. Before noon he was under way with his followers, some sixty dejected men who had allowed themselves to be persuaded by him into that empty-handed departure - in spite even of all that Yberville could do to prevent it. The Admiral kept faith with him, and allowed him free passage out to sea, which, from his knowledge of Spaniards, was more than Captain Blood had expected.
+
+Meanwhile, no sooner had the deserters weighed anchor than Captain Blood received word that the Deputy-Governor begged to be allowed to see him again. Admitted, Don Francisco at once displayed the fact that a night’s reflection had quickened his apprehensions for the city of Maracaybo and his condemnation of the Admiral’s intransigence.
+
+Captain Blood received him pleasantly.
+
+“Good-morning to you, Don Francisco. I have postponed the bonfire until nightfall. It will make a better show in the dark.”
+
+Don Francisco, a slight, nervous, elderly man of high lineage and low vitality, came straight to business.
+
+“I am here to tell you, Don Pedro, that if you will hold your hand for three days, I will undertake to raise the ransom you demand, which Don Miguel de Espinosa refuses.”
+
+Captain Blood confronted him, a frown contracting the dark brows above his light eyes:
+
+“And where will you be raising it?” quoth he, faintly betraying his surprise.
+
+Don Francisco shook his head. “That must remain my affair,” he answered. “I know where it is to be found, and my compatriots must contribute. Give me leave for three days on parole, and I will see you fully satisfied. Meanwhile my son remains in your hands as a hostage for my return.” And upon that he fell to pleading. But in this he was crisply interrupted.
+
+“By the Saints! Ye’re a bold man, Don Francisco, to come to me with such a tale - to tell me that ye know where the ransom’s to be raised, and yet to refuse to say. D’ye think now that with a match between your fingers ye’d grow more communicative?”
+
+If Don Francisco grew a shade paler, yet again he shook his head.
+
+“That was the way of Morgan and L’Ollonais and other pirates. But it is not the way of Captain Blood. If I had doubted that I should not have disclosed so much.”
+
+The Captain laughed. “You old rogue,” said he. “Ye play upon my vanity, do you?”
+
+“Upon your honour, Captain.”
+
+“The honour of a pirate? Ye’re surely crazed!”
+
+“The honour of Captain Blood,” Don Francisco insisted. “You have the repute of making war like a gentleman.”
+
+Captain Blood laughed again, on a bitter, sneering note that made Don Francisco fear the worst. He was not to guess that it was himself the Captain mocked.
+
+“That’s merely because it’s more remunerative in the end. And that is why you are accorded the three days you ask for. So about it, Don Francisco. You shall have what mules you need. I’ll see to it.”
+
+Away went Don Francisco on his errand, leaving Captain Blood to reflect, between bitterness and satisfaction, that a reputation for as much chivalry as is consistent with piracy is not without its uses.
+
+Punctually on the third day the Deputy-Governor was back in Maracaybo with his mules laden with plate and money to the value demanded and a herd of a hundred head of cattle driven in by negro slaves.
+
+These bullocks were handed over to those of the company who ordinarily were boucanhunters, and therefore skilled in the curing of meats, and for best part of a week thereafter they were busy at the waterside with the quartering and salting of carcases.
+
+While this was doing on the one hand and the ships were being refitted for sea on the other, Captain Blood was pondering the riddle on the solution of which his own fate depended. Indian spies whom he employed brought him word that the Spaniards, working at low tide, had salved the thirty guns of the Salvador, and thus had added yet another battery to their already overwhelming strength. In the end, and hoping for inspiration on the spot, Captain Blood made a reconnaissance in person. At the risk of his life, accompanied by two friendly Indians, he crossed to the island in a canoe under cover of dark. They concealed themselves and the canoe in the short thick scrub with which that side of the island was densely covered, and lay there until daybreak. Then Blood went forward alone, and with infinite precaution, to make his survey. He went to verify a suspicion that he had formed, and approached the fort as nearly as he dared and a deal nearer than was safe.
+
+On all fours he crawled to the summit of an eminence a mile or so away, whence he found himself commanding a view of the interior dispositions of the stronghold. By the aid of a telescope with which he had equipped himself he was able to verify that, as he had suspected and hoped, the fort’s artillery was all mounted on the seaward side.
+
+Satisfied, he returned to Maracaybo, and laid before the six who composed his council - Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, and Ogle - a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossing to the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards by surprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift their guns to meet the onslaught.
+
+With the exception of Wolverstone, who was by temperament the kind of man who favours desperate chances, those officers received the proposal coldly. Hagthorpe incontinently opposed it.
+
+“It’s a harebrained scheme, Peter,” he said gravely, shaking his handsome head. “Consider now that we cannot depend upon approaching unperceived to a distance whence we might storm the fort before the cannon could be moved. But even if we could, we can take no cannon ourselves; we must depend entirely upon our small arms, and how shall we, a bare three hundred” (for this was the number to which Cahusac’s defection had reduced them), “cross the open to attack more than twice that number under cover?”
+
+The others - Dyke, Ogle, Yberville, and even Pitt, whom loyalty to Blood may have made reluctant - loudly approved him. When they had done, “I have considered all,” said Captain Blood. “I have weighed the risks and studied how to lessen them. In these desperate straits….”
+
+He broke off abruptly. A moment he frowned, deep in thought; then his face was suddenly alight with inspiration. Slowly he drooped his head, and sat there considering, weighing, chin on breast. Then he nodded, muttering, “Yes,” and again, “Yes.” He looked up, to face them. “Listen,” he cried. “You may be right. The risks may be too heavy. Whether or not, I have thought of a better way. That which should have been the real attack shall be no more than a feint. Here, then, is the plan I now propose.”
+
+He talked swiftly and clearly, and as he talked one by one his officers’ faces became alight with eagerness. When he had done, they cried as with one voice that he had saved them.
+
+“That is yet to be proved in action,” said he.
+
+Since for the last twenty-four hours all had been in readiness for departure, there was nothing now to delay them, and it was decided to move next morning.
+
+Such was Captain Blood’s assurance of success that he immediately freed the prisoners held as hostages, and even the negro slaves, who were regarded by the others as legitimate plunder. His only precaution against those released prisoners was to order them into the church and there lock them up, to await deliverance at the hands of those who should presently be coming into the city.
+
+Then, all being aboard the three ships, with the treasure safely stowed in their holds and the slaves under hatches, the buccaneers weighed anchor and stood out for the bar, each vessel towing three piraguas astern.
+
+The Admiral, beholding their stately advance in the full light of noon, their sails gleaming white in the glare of the sunlight, rubbed his long, lean hands in satisfaction, and laughed through his teeth.
+
+“At last!” he cried. “God delivers him into my hands!” He turned to the group of staring officers behind him. “Sooner or later it had to be,” he said. “Say now, gentlemen, whether I am justified of my patience. Here end to-day the troubles caused to the subjects of the Catholic King by this infamous Don Pedro Sangre, as he once called himself to me.”
+
+He turned to issue orders, and the fort became lively as a hive. The guns were manned, the gunners already kindling fuses, when the buccaneer fleet, whilst still heading for Palomas, was observed to bear away to the west. The Spaniards watched them, intrigued.
+
+Within a mile and a half to westward of the fort, and within a half-mile of the shore - that is to say, on the very edge of the shoal water that makes Palomas unapproachable on either side by any but vessels of the shallowest draught - the four ships cast anchor well within the Spaniards’ view, but just out of range of their heaviest cannon.
+
+Sneeringly the Admiral laughed.
+
+“Aha! They hesitate, these English dogs! Por Dios, and well they may.”
+
+“They will be waiting for night,” suggested his nephew, who stood at his elbow quivering with excitement.
+
+Don Miguel looked at him, smiling. “And what shall the night avail them in this narrow passage, under the very muzzles of my guns? Be sure, Esteban, that to-night your father will be paid for.”
+
+He raised his telescope to continue his observation of the buccaneers. He saw that the piraguas towed by each vessel were being warped alongside, and he wondered a little what this manoeuver might portend. Awhile those piraguas were hidden from view behind the hulls. Then one by one they reappeared, rowing round and away from the ships, and each boat, he observed, was crowded with armed men. Thus laden, they were headed for the shore, at a point where it was densely wooded to the water’s edge. The eyes of the wondering Admiral followed them until the foliage screened them from his view.
+
+Then he lowered his telescope and looked at his officers.
+
+“What the devil does it mean?” he asked.
+
+None answered him, all being as puzzled as he was himself.
+
+After a little while, Esteban, who kept his eyes on the water, plucked at his uncle’s sleeve. “There they go!” he cried, and pointed.
+
+And there, indeed, went the piraguas on their way back to the ships. But now it was observed that they were empty, save for the men who rowed them. Their armed cargo had been left ashore.
+
+Back to the ships they pulled, to return again presently with a fresh load of armed men, which similarly they conveyed to Palomas. And at last one of the Spanish officers ventured an explanation:
+
+“They are going to attack us by land - to attempt to storm the fort.”
+
+“Of course.” The Admiral smiled. “I had guessed it. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”
+
+“Shall we make a sally?” urged Esteban, in his excitement.
+
+“A sally? Through that scrub? That would be to play into their hands. No, no, we will wait here to receive this attack. Whenever it comes, it is themselves will be destroyed, and utterly. Have no doubt of that.”
+
+But by evening the Admiral’s equanimity was not quite so perfect. By then the piraguas had made a half-dozen journeys with their loads of men, and they had landed also - as Don Miguel had clearly observed through his telescope - at least a dozen guns.
+
+His countenance no longer smiled; it was a little wrathful and a little troubled now as he turned again to his officers.
+
+“Who was the fool who told me that they number but three hundred men in all? They have put at least twice that number ashore already.”
+
+Amazed as he was, his amazement would have been deeper had he been told the truth: that there was not a single buccaneer or a single gun ashore on Palomas. The deception had been complete. Don Miguel could not guess that the men he had beheld in those piraguas were always the same; that on the journeys to the shore they sat and stood upright in full view; and that on the journeys back to the ships, they lay invisible at the bottom of the boats, which were thus made to appear empty.
+
+The growing fears of the Spanish soldiery at the prospect of a night attack from the landward side by the entire buccaneer force - and a force twice as strong as they had suspected the pestilent Blood to command - began to be communicated to the Admiral.
+
+In the last hours of fading daylight, the Spaniards did precisely what Captain Blood so confidently counted that they would do - precisely what they must do to meet the attack, preparations for which had been so thoroughly simulated. They set themselves to labour like the damned at those ponderous guns emplaced to command the narrow passage out to sea.
+
+Groaning and sweating, urged on by the curses and even the whips of their officers, they toiled in a frenzy of panic-stricken haste to shift the greater number and the more powerful of their guns across to the landward side, there to emplace them anew, so that they might be ready to receive the attack which at any moment now might burst upon them from the woods not half a mile away.
+
+Thus, when night fell, although in mortal anxiety of the onslaught of those wild devils whose reckless courage was a byword on the seas of the Main, at least the Spaniards were tolerably prepared for it. Waiting, they stood to their guns.
+
+And whilst they waited thus, under cover of the darkness and as the tide began to ebb, Captain Blood’s fleet weighed anchor quietly; and, as once before, with no more canvas spread than that which their sprits could carry, so as to give them steering way - and even these having been painted black - the four vessels, without a light showing, groped their way by soundings to the channel which led to that narrow passage out to sea.
+
+The Elizabeth and the Infanta, leading side by side, were almost abreast of the fort before their shadowy bulks and the soft gurgle of water at their prows were detected by the Spaniards, whose attention until that moment had been all on the other side. And now there arose on the night air such a sound of human baffled fury as may have resounded about Babel at the confusion of tongues. To heighten that confusion, and to scatter disorder among the Spanish soldiery, the Elizabeth emptied her larboard guns into the fort as she was swept past on the swift ebb.
+
+At once realizing - though not yet how - he had been duped, and that his prey was in the very act of escaping after all, the Admiral frantically ordered the guns that had been so laboriously moved to be dragged back to their former emplacements, and commanded his gunners meanwhile to the slender batteries that of all his powerful, but now unavailable, armament still remained trained upon the channel. With these, after the loss of some precious moments, the fort at last made fire.
+
+It was answered by a terrific broadside from the Arabella, which had now drawn abreast, and was crowding canvas to her yards. The enraged and gibbering Spaniards had a brief vision of her as the line of flame spurted from her red flank, and the thunder of her broadside drowned the noise of the creaking halyards. After that they saw her no more. Assimilated by the friendly darkness which the lesser Spanish guns were speculatively stabbing, the escaping ships fired never another shot that might assist their baffled and bewildered enemies to locate them.
+
+Some slight damage was sustained by Blood’s fleet. But by the time the Spaniards had resolved their confusion into some order of dangerous offence, that fleet, well served by a southerly breeze, was through the narrows and standing out to sea.
+
+Thus was Don Miguel de Espinosa left to chew the bitter cud of a lost opportunity, and to consider in what terms he would acquaint the Supreme Council of the Catholic King that Peter Blood had got away from Maracaybo, taking with him two twenty-gun frigates that were lately the property of Spain, to say nothing of two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight and other plunder. And all this in spite of Don Miguel’s four galleons and his heavily armed fort that at one time had held the pirates so securely trapped.
+
+Heavy, indeed, grew the account of Peter Blood, which Don Miguel swore passionately to Heaven should at all costs to himself be paid in full.
+
+Nor were the losses already detailed the full total of those suffered on this occasion by the King of Spain. For on the following evening, off the coast of Oruba, at the mouth of the Gulf of Venezuela, Captain Blood’s fleet came upon the belated Santo Nino, speeding under full sail to reenforce Don Miguel at Maracaybo.
+
+At first the Spaniard had conceived that she was meeting the victorious fleet of Don Miguel, returning from the destruction of the pirates. When at comparatively close quarters the pennon of St. George soared to the Arabella’s masthead to disillusion her, the Santo Nino chose the better part of valour, and struck her flag.
+
+Captain Blood ordered her crew to take to the boats, and land themselves at Oruba or wherever else they pleased. So considerate was he that to assist them he presented them with several of the piraguas which he still had in tow.
+
+“You will find,” said he to her captain, “that Don Miguel is in an extremely bad temper. Commend me to him, and say that I venture to remind him that he must blame himself for all the ills that have befallen him. The evil has recoiled upon him which he loosed when he sent his brother unofficially to make a raid upon the island of Barbados. Bid him think twice before he lets his devils loose upon an English settlement again.”
+
+With that he dismissed the Captain, who went over the side of the Santo Nino, and Captain Blood proceeded to investigate the value of this further prize. When her hatches were removed, a human cargo was disclosed in her hold.
+
+“Slaves,” said Wolverstone, and persisted in that belief cursing Spanish devilry until Cahusac crawled up out of the dark bowels of the ship, and stood blinking in the sunlight.
+
+There was more than sunlight to make the Breton pirate blink. And those that crawled out after him - the remnants of his crew - cursed him horribly for the pusillanimity which had brought them into the ignominy of owing their deliverance to those whom they had deserted as lost beyond hope.
+
+Their sloop had encountered and had been sunk three days ago by the Santo Nino, and Cahusac had narrowly escaped hanging merely that for some time he might be a mock among the Brethren of the Coast.
+
+For many a month thereafter he was to hear in Tortuga the jeering taunt:
+
+“Where do you spend the gold that you brought back from Maracaybo?”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE MILAGROSA
+
+
+The affair at Maracaybo is to be considered as Captain Blood’s buccaneering masterpiece. Although there is scarcely one of the many actions that he fought - recorded in such particular detail by Jeremy Pitt - which does not afford some instance of his genius for naval tactics, yet in none is this more shiningly displayed than in those two engagements by which he won out of the trap which Don Miguel de Espinosa had sprung upon him.
+
+The fame which he had enjoyed before this, great as it already was, is dwarfed into insignificance by the fame that followed. It was a fame such as no buccaneer - not even Morgan - has ever boasted, before or since.
+
+In Tortuga, during the months he spent there refitting the three ships he had captured from the fleet that had gone out to destroy him, he found himself almost an object of worship in the eyes of the wild Brethren of the Coast, all of whom now clamoured for the honour of serving under him. It placed him in the rare position of being able to pick and choose the crews for his augmented fleet, and he chose fastidiously. When next he sailed away it was with a fleet of five fine ships in which went something over a thousand men. Thus you behold him not merely famous, but really formidable. The three captured Spanish vessels he had renamed with a certain scholarly humour the Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, a grimly jocular manner of conveying to the world that he made them the arbiters of the fate of any Spaniards he should henceforth encounter upon the seas.
+
+In Europe the news of this fleet, following upon the news of the Spanish Admiral’s defeat at Maracaybo, produced something of a sensation. Spain and England were variously and unpleasantly exercised, and if you care to turn up the diplomatic correspondence exchanged on the subject, you will find that it is considerable and not always amiable.
+
+And meanwhile in the Caribbean, the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel de Espinosa might be said - to use a term not yet invented in his day - to have run amok. The disgrace into which he had fallen as a result of the disasters suffered at the hands of Captain Blood had driven the Admiral all but mad. It is impossible, if we impose our minds impartially, to withhold a certain sympathy from Don Miguel. Hate was now this unfortunate man’s daily bread, and the hope of vengeance an obsession to his mind. As a madman he went raging up and down the Caribbean seeking his enemy, and in the meantime, as an hors d’oeuvre to his vindictive appetite, he fell upon any ship of England or of France that loomed above his horizon.
+
+I need say no more to convey the fact that this illustrious sea-captain and great gentleman of Castile had lost his head, and was become a pirate in his turn. The Supreme Council of Castile might anon condemn him for his practices. But how should that matter to one who already was condemned beyond redemption? On the contrary, if he should live to lay the audacious and ineffable Blood by the heels, it was possible that Spain might view his present irregularities and earlier losses with a more lenient eye.
+
+And so, reckless of the fact that Captain Blood was now in vastly superior strength, the Spaniard sought him up and down the trackless seas. But for a whole year he sought him vainly. The circumstances in which eventually they met are very curious.
+
+An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences. Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will, and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the very tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.
+
+Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of some others.
+
+On the 15th September of the year 1688 - a memorable year in the annals of England - three ships were afloat upon the Caribbean, which in their coming conjunctions were to work out the fortunes of several persons.
+
+The first of these was Captain Blood’s flagship the Arabella, which had been separated from the buccaneer fleet in a hurricane off the Lesser Antilles. In somewhere about 17 deg. N. Lat., and 74 deg. Long., she was beating up for the Windward Passage, before the intermittent southeasterly breezes of that stifling season, homing for Tortuga, the natural rendezvous of the dispersed vessels.
+
+The second ship was the great Spanish galleon, the Milagrosa, which, accompanied by the smaller frigate Hidalga, lurked off the Caymites, to the north of the long peninsula that thrusts out from the southwest corner of Hispaniola. Aboard the Milagrosa sailed the vindictive Don Miguel.
+
+The third and last of these ships with which we are at present concerned was an English man-of-war, which on the date I have given was at anchor in the French port of St. Nicholas on the northwest coast of Hispaniola. She was on her way from Plymouth to Jamaica, and carried on board a very distinguished passenger in the person of Lord Julian Wade, who came charged by his kinsman, my Lord Sunderland, with a mission of some consequence and delicacy, directly arising out of that vexatious correspondence between England and Spain.
+
+The French Government, like the English, excessively annoyed by the depredations of the buccaneers, and the constant straining of relations with Spain that ensued, had sought in vain to put them down by enjoining the utmost severity against them upon her various overseas governors. But these, either - like the Governor of Tortuga - throve out of a scarcely tacit partnership with the filibusters, or - like the Governor of French Hispaniola - felt that they were to be encouraged as a check upon the power and greed of Spain, which might otherwise be exerted to the disadvantage of the colonies of other nations. They looked, indeed, with apprehension upon recourse to any vigorous measures which must result in driving many of the buccaneers to seek new hunting-grounds in the South Sea.
+
+To satisfy King James’s anxiety to conciliate Spain, and in response to the Spanish Ambassador’s constant and grievous expostulations, my Lord Sunderland, the Secretary of State, had appointed a strong man to the deputy-governorship of Jamaica. This strong man was that Colonel Bishop who for some years now had been the most influential planter in Barbados.
+
+Colonel Bishop had accepted the post, and departed from the plantations in which his great wealth was being amassed with an eagerness that had its roots in a desire to pay off a score of his own with Peter Blood.
+
+From his first coming to Jamaica, Colonel Bishop had made himself felt by the buccaneers. But do what he might, the one buccaneer whom he made his particular quarry - that Peter Blood who once had been his slave - eluded him ever, and continued undeterred and in great force to harass the Spaniards upon sea and land, and to keep the relations between England and Spain in a state of perpetual ferment, particularly dangerous in those days when the peace of Europe was precariously maintained.
+
+Exasperated not only by his own accumulated chagrin, but also by the reproaches for his failure which reached him from London, Colonel Bishop actually went so far as to consider hunting his quarry in Tortuga itself and making an attempt to clear the island of the buccaneers it sheltered. Fortunately for himself, he abandoned the notion of so insane an enterprise, deterred not only by the enormous natural strength of the place, but also by the reflection that a raid upon what was, nominally at least, a French settlement, must be attended by grave offence to France. Yet short of some such measure, it appeared to Colonel Bishop that he was baffled. He confessed as much in a letter to the Secretary of State.
+
+This letter and the state of things which it disclosed made my Lord Sunderland despair of solving this vexatious problem by ordinary means. He turned to the consideration of extraordinary ones, and bethought him of the plan adopted with Morgan, who had been enlisted into the King’s service under Charles II. It occurred to him that a similar course might be similarly effective with Captain Blood. His lordship did not omit the consideration that Blood’s present outlawry might well have been undertaken not from inclination, but under stress of sheer necessity; that he had been forced into it by the circumstances of his transportation, and that he would welcome the opportunity of emerging from it.
+
+Acting upon this conclusion, Sunderland sent out his kinsman, Lord Julian Wade, with some commissions made out in blank, and full directions as to the course which the Secretary considered it desirable to pursue and yet full discretion in the matter of pursuing them. The crafty Sunderland, master of all labyrinths of intrigue, advised his kinsman that in the event of his finding Blood intractable, or judging for other reasons that it was not desirable to enlist him in the King’s service, he should turn his attention to the officers serving under him, and by seducing them away from him leave him so weakened that he must fall an easy victim to Colonel Bishop’s fleet.
+
+The Royal Mary - the vessel bearing that ingenious, tolerably accomplished, mildly dissolute, entirely elegant envoy of my Lord Sunderland’s - made a good passage to St. Nicholas, her last port of call before Jamaica. It was understood that as a preliminary Lord Julian should report himself to the Deputy-Governor at Port Royal, whence at need he might have himself conveyed to Tortuga. Now it happened that the Deputy-Governor’s niece had come to St. Nicholas some months earlier on a visit to some relatives, and so that she might escape the insufferable heat of Jamaica in that season. The time for her return being now at hand, a passage was sought for her aboard the Royal Mary, and in view of her uncle’s rank and position promptly accorded.
+
+Lord Julian hailed her advent with satisfaction. It gave a voyage that had been full of interest for him just the spice that it required to achieve perfection as an experience. His lordship was one of your gallants to whom existence that is not graced by womankind is more or less of a stagnation. Miss Arabella Bishop - this straight up and down slip of a girl with her rather boyish voice and her almost boyish ease of movement - was not perhaps a lady who in England would have commanded much notice in my lord’s discerning eyes. His very sophisticated, carefully educated tastes in such matters inclined him towards the plump, the languishing, and the quite helplessly feminine. Miss Bishop’s charms were undeniable. But they were such that it would take a delicate-minded man to appreciate them; and my Lord Julian, whilst of a mind that was very far from gross, did not possess the necessary degree of delicacy. I must not by this be understood to imply anything against him.
+
+It remained, however, that Miss Bishop was a young woman and a lady; and in the latitude into which Lord Julian had strayed this was a phenomenon sufficiently rare to command attention. On his side, with his title and position, his personal grace and the charm of a practised courtier, he bore about him the atmosphere of the great world in which normally he had his being - a world that was little more than a name to her, who had spent most of her life in the Antilles. It is not therefore wonderful that they should have been attracted to each other before the Royal Mary was warped out of St. Nicholas. Each could tell the other much upon which the other desired information. He could regale her imagination with stories of St. James’s - in many of which he assigned himself a heroic, or at least a distinguished part - and she could enrich his mind with information concerning this new world to which he had come.
+
+Before they were out of sight of St. Nicholas they were good friends, and his lordship was beginning to correct his first impressions of her and to discover the charm of that frank, straightforward attitude of comradeship which made her treat every man as a brother. Considering how his mind was obsessed with the business of his mission, it is not wonderful that he should have come to talk to her of Captain Blood. Indeed, there was a circumstance that directly led to it.
+
+“I wonder now,” he said, as they were sauntering on the poop, “if you ever saw this fellow Blood, who was at one time on your uncle’s plantations as a slave.”
+
+Miss Bishop halted. She leaned upon the taffrail, looking out towards the receding land, and it was a moment before she answered in a steady, level voice:
+
+“I saw him often. I knew him very well.”
+
+“Ye don’t say!” His lordship was slightly moved out of an imperturbability that he had studiously cultivated. He was a young man of perhaps eight-and-twenty, well above the middle height in stature and appearing taller by virtue of his exceeding leanness. He had a thin, pale, rather pleasing hatchet-face, framed in the curls of a golden periwig, a sensitive mouth and pale blue eyes that lent his countenance a dreamy expression, a rather melancholy pensiveness. But they were alert, observant eyes notwithstanding, although they failed on this occasion to observe the slight change of colour which his question had brought to Miss Bishop’s cheeks or the suspiciously excessive composure of her answer.
+
+“Ye don’t say!” he repeated, and came to lean beside her. “And what manner of man did you find him?”
+
+“In those days I esteemed him for an unfortunate gentleman.”
+
+“You were acquainted with his story?”
+
+“He told it me. That is why I esteemed him - for the calm fortitude with which he bore adversity. Since then, considering what he has done, I have almost come to doubt if what he told me of himself was true.”
+
+“If you mean of the wrongs he suffered at the hands of the Royal Commission that tried the Monmouth rebels, there’s little doubt that it would be true enough. He was never out with Monmouth; that is certain. He was convicted on a point of law of which he may well have been ignorant when he committed what was construed into treason. But, faith, he’s had his revenge, after a fashion.”
+
+“That,” she said in a small voice, “is the unforgivable thing. It has destroyed him - deservedly.”
+
+“Destroyed him?” His lordship laughed a little. “Be none so sure of that. He has grown rich, I hear. He has translated, so it is said, his Spanish spoils into French gold, which is being treasured up for him in France. His future father-in-law, M. d’Ogeron, has seen to that.”
+
+“His future father-in-law?” said she, and stared at him round-eyed, with parted lips. Then added: “M. d’Ogeron? The Governor of Tortuga?”
+
+“The same. You see the fellow’s well protected. It’s a piece of news I gathered in St. Nicholas. I am not sure that I welcome it, for I am not sure that it makes any easier a task upon which my kinsman, Lord Sunderland, has sent me hither. But there it is. You didn’t know?”
+
+She shook her head without replying. She had averted her face, and her eyes were staring down at the gently heaving water. After a moment she spoke, her voice steady and perfectly controlled.
+
+“But surely, if this were true, there would have been an end to his piracy by now. If he… if he loved a woman and was betrothed, and was also rich as you say, surely he would have abandoned this desperate life, and….”
+
+“Why, so I thought,” his lordship interrupted, “until I had the explanation. D’Ogeron is avaricious for himself and for his child. And as for the girl, I’m told she’s a wild piece, fit mate for such a man as Blood. Almost I marvel that he doesn’t marry her and take her a-roving with him. It would be no new experience for her. And I marvel, too, at Blood’s patience. He killed a man to win her.”
+
+“He killed a man for her, do you say?” There was horror now in her voice.
+
+“Yes - a French buccaneer named Levasseur. He was the girl’s lover and Blood’s associate on a venture. Blood coveted the girl, and killed Levasseur to win her. Pah! It’s an unsavoury tale, I own. But men live by different codes out in these parts….”
+
+She had turned to face him. She was pale to the lips, and her hazel eyes were blazing, as she cut into his apologies for Blood.
+
+“They must, indeed, if his other associates allowed him to live after that.”
+
+“Oh, the thing was done in fair fight, I am told.”
+
+“Who told you?”
+
+“A man who sailed with them, a Frenchman named Cahusac, whom I found in a waterside tavern in St. Nicholas. He was Levasseur’s lieutenant, and he was present on the island where the thing happened, and when Levasseur was killed.”
+
+“And the girl? Did he say the girl was present, too?”
+
+“Yes. She was a witness of the encounter. Blood carried her off when he had disposed of his brother-buccaneer.”
+
+“And the dead man’s followers allowed it?” He caught the note of incredulity in her voice, but missed the note of relief with which it was blent. “Oh, I don’t believe the tale. I won’t believe it!”
+
+“I honour you for that, Miss Bishop. It strained my own belief that men should be so callous, until this Cahusac afforded me the explanation.”
+
+“What?” She checked her unbelief, an unbelief that had uplifted her from an inexplicable dismay. Clutching the rail, she swung round to face his lordship with that question. Later he was to remember and perceive in her present behaviour a certain oddness which went disregarded now.
+
+“Blood purchased their consent, and his right to carry the girl off. He paid them in pearls that were worth more than twenty thousand pieces of eight.” His lordship laughed again with a touch of contempt. “A handsome price! Faith, they’re scoundrels all - just thieving, venal curs. And faith, it’s a pretty tale this for a lady’s ear.”
+
+She looked away from him again, and found that her sight was blurred. After a moment in a voice less steady than before she asked him:
+
+“Why should this Frenchman have told you such a tale? Did he hate this Captain Blood?”
+
+“I did not gather that,” said his lordship slowly. “He related it… oh, just as a commonplace, an instance of buccaneering ways.
+
+“A commonplace!” said she. “My God! A commonplace!”
+
+“I dare say that we are all savages under the cloak that civilization fashions for us,” said his lordship. “But this Blood, now, was a man of considerable parts, from what else this Cahusac told me. He was a bachelor of medicine.”
+
+“That is true, to my own knowledge.”
+
+“And he has seen much foreign service on sea and land. Cahusac said - though this I hardly credit - that he had fought under de Ruyter.”
+
+“That also is true,” said she. She sighed heavily. “Your Cahusac seems to have been accurate enough. Alas!”
+
+“You are sorry, then?”
+
+She looked at him. She was very pale, he noticed.
+
+“As we are sorry to hear of the death of one we have esteemed. Once I held him in regard for an unfortunate but worthy gentleman. Now….”
+
+She checked, and smiled a little crooked smile. “Such a man is best forgotten.”
+
+And upon that she passed at once to speak of other things. The friendship, which it was her great gift to command in all she met, grew steadily between those two in the little time remaining, until the event befell that marred what was promising to be the pleasantest stage of his lordship’s voyage.
+
+The marplot was the mad-dog Spanish Admiral, whom they encountered on the second day out, when halfway across the Gulf of Gonaves. The Captain of the Royal Mary was not disposed to be intimidated even when Don Miguel opened fire on him. Observing the Spaniard’s plentiful seaboard towering high above the water and offering him so splendid a mark, the Englishman was moved to scorn. If this Don who flew the banner of Castile wanted a fight, the Royal Mary was just the ship to oblige him. It may be that he was justified of his gallant confidence, and that he would that day have put an end to the wild career of Don Miguel de Espinosa, but that a lucky shot from the Milagrosa got among some powder stored in his forecastle, and blew up half his ship almost before the fight had started. How the powder came there will never now be known, and the gallant Captain himself did not survive to enquire into it.
+
+Before the men of the Royal Mary had recovered from their consternation, their captain killed and a third of their number destroyed with him, the ship yawing and rocking helplessly in a crippled state, the Spaniards boarded her.
+
+In the Captain’s cabin under the poop, to which Miss Bishop had been conducted for safety, Lord Julian was seeking to comfort and encourage her, with assurances that all would yet be well, at the very moment when Don Miguel was stepping aboard. Lord Julian himself was none so steady, and his face was undoubtedly pale. Not that he was by any means a coward. But this cooped-up fighting on an unknown element in a thing of wood that might at any moment founder under his feet into the depths of ocean was disturbing to one who could be brave enough ashore. Fortunately Miss Bishop did not appear to be in desperate need of the poor comfort he was in case to offer. Certainly she, too, was pale, and her hazel eyes may have looked a little larger than usual. But she had herself well in hand. Half sitting, half leaning on the Captain’s table, she preserved her courage sufficiently to seek to calm the octoroon waiting-woman who was grovelling at her feet in a state of terror.
+
+And then the cabin-door flew open, and Don Miguel himself, tall, sunburned, and aquiline of face, strode in. Lord Julian span round, to face him, and clapped a hand to his sword.
+
+The Spaniard was brisk and to the point.
+
+“Don’t be a fool,” he said in his own tongue, “or you’ll come by a fool’s end. Your ship is sinking.”
+
+There were three or four men in morions behind Don Miguel, and Lord Julian realized the position. He released his hilt, and a couple of feet or so of steel slid softly back into the scabbard. But Don Miguel smiled, with a flash of white teeth behind his grizzled beard, and held out his hand.
+
+“If you please,” he said.
+
+Lord Julian hesitated. His eyes strayed to Miss Bishop’s. “I think you had better,” said that composed young lady, whereupon with a shrug his lordship made the required surrender.
+
+“Come you - all of you - aboard my ship,” Don Miguel invited them, and strode out.
+
+They went, of course. For one thing the Spaniard had force to compel them; for another a ship which he announced to be sinking offered them little inducement to remain. They stayed no longer than was necessary to enable Miss Bishop to collect some spare articles of dress and my lord to snatch up his valise.
+
+As for the survivors in that ghastly shambles that had been the Royal Mary, they were abandoned by the Spaniards to their own resources. Let them take to the boats, and if those did not suffice them, let them swim or drown. If Lord Julian and Miss Bishop were retained, it was because Don Miguel perceived their obvious value. He received them in his cabin with great urbanity. Urbanely he desired to have the honour of being acquainted with their names.
+
+Lord Julian, sick with horror of the spectacle he had just witnessed, commanded himself with difficulty to supply them. Then haughtily he demanded to know in his turn the name of their aggressor. He was in an exceedingly ill temper. He realized that if he had done nothing positively discreditable in the unusual and difficult position into which Fate had thrust him, at least he had done nothing creditable. This might have mattered less but that the spectator of his indifferent performance was a lady. He was determined if possible to do better now.
+
+“I am Don Miguel de Espinosa,” he was answered. “Admiral of the Navies of the Catholic King.”
+
+Lord Julian gasped. If Spain made such a hubbub about the depredations of a runagate adventurer like Captain Blood, what could not England answer now?
+
+“Will you tell me, then, why you behave like a damned pirate?” he asked. And added: “I hope you realize what will be the consequences, and the strict account to which you shall be brought for this day’s work, for the blood you have murderously shed, and for your violence to this lady and to myself.”
+
+“I offer you no violence,” said the Admiral, smiling, as only the man who holds the trumps can smile. “On the contrary, I have saved your lives….”
+
+“Saved our lives!” Lord Julian was momentarily speechless before such callous impudence. “And what of the lives you have destroyed in wanton butchery? By God, man, they shall cost you dear.”
+
+Don Miguel’s smile persisted. “It is possible. All things are possible. Meantime it is your own lives that will cost you dear. Colonel Bishop is a rich man; and you, milord, are no doubt also rich. I will consider and fix your ransom.”
+
+“So that you’re just the damned murderous pirate I was supposing you,” stormed his lordship. “And you have the impudence to call yourself the Admiral of the Navies of the Catholic King? We shall see what your Catholic King will have to say to it.”
+
+The Admiral ceased to smile. He revealed something of the rage that had eaten into his brain. “You do not understand,” he said. “It is that I treat you English heretic dogs just as you English heretic dogs have treated Spaniards upon the seas - you robbers and thieves out of hell! I have the honesty to do it in my own name - but you, you perfidious beasts, you send your Captain Bloods, your Hagthorpes, and your Morgans against us and disclaim responsibility for what they do. Like Pilate, you wash your hands.” He laughed savagely. “Let Spain play the part of Pilate. Let her disclaim responsibility for me, when your ambassador at the Escurial shall go whining to the Supreme Council of this act of piracy by Don Miguel de Espinosa.”
+
+“Captain Blood and the rest are not admirals of England!” cried Lord Julian.
+
+“Are they not? How do I know? How does Spain know? Are you not liars all, you English heretics?”
+
+“Sir!” Lord Julian’s voice was harsh as a rasp, his eyes flashed. Instinctively he swung a hand to the place where his sword habitually hung. Then he shrugged and sneered: “Of course,” said he, “it sorts with all I have heard of Spanish honour and all that I have seen of yours that you should insult a man who is unarmed and your prisoner.”
+
+The Admiral’s face flamed scarlet. He half raised his hand to strike. And then, restrained, perhaps, by the very words that had cloaked the retorting insult, he turned on his heel abruptly and went out without answering.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+As the door slammed after the departing Admiral, Lord Julian turned to Arabella, and actually smiled. He felt that he was doing better, and gathered from it an almost childish satisfaction - childish in all the circumstances. “Decidedly I think I had the last word there,” he said, with a toss of his golden ringlets.
+
+Miss Bishop, seated at the cabin-table, looked at him steadily, without returning his smile. “Does it matter, then, so much, having the last word? I am thinking of those poor fellows on the Royal Mary. Many of them have had their last word, indeed. And for what? A fine ship sunk, a score of lives lost, thrice that number now in jeopardy, and all for what?”
+
+“You are overwrought, ma’am. I….”
+
+“Overwrought!” She uttered a single sharp note of laughter. “I assure you I am calm. I am asking you a question, Lord Julian. Why has this Spaniard done all this? To what purpose?”
+
+“You heard him.” Lord Julian shrugged angrily. “Blood-lust,” he explained shortly.
+
+“Blood-lust?” she asked. She was amazed. “Does such a thing exist, then? It is insane, monstrous.”
+
+“Fiendish,” his lordship agreed. “Devil’s work.”
+
+“I don’t understand. At Bridgetown three years ago there was a Spanish raid, and things were done that should have been impossible to men, horrible, revolting things which strain belief, which seem, when I think of them now, like the illusions of some evil dream. Are men just beasts?”
+
+“Men?” said Lord Julian, staring. “Say Spaniards, and I’ll agree.” He was an Englishman speaking of hereditary foes. And yet there was a measure of truth in what he said. “This is the Spanish way in the New World. Faith, almost it justifies such men as Blood of what they do.”
+
+She shivered, as if cold, and setting her elbows on the table, she took her chin in her hands, and sat staring before her.
+
+Observing her, his lordship noticed how drawn and white her face had grown. There was reason enough for that, and for worse. Not any other woman of his acquaintance would have preserved her self-control in such an ordeal; and of fear, at least, at no time had Miss Bishop shown any sign. It is impossible that he did not find her admirable.
+
+A Spanish steward entered bearing a silver chocolate service and a box of Peruvian candies, which he placed on the table before the lady.
+
+“With the Admiral’s homage,” he said, then bowed, and withdrew.
+
+Miss Bishop took no heed of him or his offering, but continued to stare before her, lost in thought. Lord Julian took a turn in the long low cabin, which was lighted by a skylight above and great square windows astern. It was luxuriously appointed: there were rich Eastern rugs on the floor, well-filled bookcases stood against the bulkheads, and there was a carved walnut sideboard laden with silverware. On a long, low chest standing under the middle stern port lay a guitar that was gay with ribbons. Lord Julian picked it up, twanged the strings once as if moved by nervous irritation, and put it down.
+
+He turned again to face Miss Bishop.
+
+“I came out here,” he said, “to put down piracy. But - blister me! - I begin to think that the French are right in desiring piracy to continue as a curb upon these Spanish scoundrels.”
+
+He was to be strongly confirmed in that opinion before many hours were past. Meanwhile their treatment at the hands of Don Miguel was considerate and courteous. It confirmed the opinion, contemptuously expressed to his lordship by Miss Bishop, that since they were to be held to ransom they need not fear any violence or hurt. A cabin was placed at the disposal of the lady and her terrified woman, and another at Lord Julian’s. They were given the freedom of the ship, and bidden to dine at the Admiral’s table; nor were his further intentions regarding them mentioned, nor yet his immediate destination.
+
+The Milagrosa, with her consort the Hidalga rolling after her, steered a south by westerly course, then veered to the southeast round Cape Tiburon, and thereafter, standing well out to sea, with the land no more than a cloudy outline to larboard, she headed directly east, and so ran straight into the arms of Captain Blood, who was making for the Windward Passage, as we know. That happened early on the following morning. After having systematically hunted his enemy in vain for a year, Don Miguel chanced upon him in this unexpected and entirely fortuitous fashion. But that is the ironic way of Fortune. It was also the way of Fortune that Don Miguel should thus come upon the Arabella at a time when, separated from the rest of the fleet, she was alone and at a disadvantage. It looked to Don Miguel as if the luck which so long had been on Blood’s side had at last veered in his own favour.
+
+Miss Bishop, newly risen, had come out to take the air on the quarter-deck with his lordship in attendance - as you would expect of so gallant a gentleman - when she beheld the big red ship that had once been the Cinco Llagas out of Cadiz. The vessel was bearing down upon them, her mountains of snowy canvas bellying forward, the long pennon with the cross of St. George fluttering from her main truck in the morning breeze, the gilded portholes in her red hull and the gilded beakhead aflash in the morning sun.
+
+Miss Bishop was not to recognize this for that same Cinco Llagas which she had seen once before - on a tragic day in Barbados three years ago. To her it was just a great ship that was heading resolutely, majestically, towards them, and an Englishman to judge by the pennon she was flying. The sight thrilled her curiously; it awoke in her an uplifting sense of pride that took no account of the danger to herself in the encounter that must now be inevitable.
+
+Beside her on the poop, whither they had climbed to obtain a better view, and equally arrested and at gaze, stood Lord Julian. But he shared none of her exultation. He had been in his first sea-fight yesterday, and he felt that the experience would suffice him for a very considerable time. This, I insist, is no reflection upon his courage.
+
+“Look,” said Miss Bishop, pointing; and to his infinite amazement he observed that her eyes were sparkling. Did she realize, he wondered, what was afoot? Her next sentence resolved his doubt. “She is English, and she comes resolutely on. She means to fight.”
+
+“God help her, then,” said his lordship gloomily. “Her captain must be mad. What can he hope to do against two such heavy hulks as these? If they could so easily blow the Royal Mary out of the water, what will they do to this vessel? Look at that devil Don Miguel. He’s utterly disgusting in his glee.”
+
+From the quarter-deck, where he moved amid the frenzy of preparation, the Admiral had turned to flash a backward glance at his prisoners. His eyes were alight, his face transfigured. He flung out an arm to point to the advancing ship, and bawled something in Spanish that was lost to them in the noise of the labouring crew.
+
+They advanced to the poop-rail, and watched the bustle. Telescope in hand on the quarter-deck, Don Miguel was issuing his orders. Already the gunners were kindling their matches; sailors were aloft, taking in sail; others were spreading a stout rope net above the waist, as a protection against falling spars. And meanwhile Don Miguel had been signalling to his consort, in response to which the Hidalga had drawn steadily forward until she was now abeam of the Milagrosa, half cable’s length to starboard, and from the height of the tall poop my lord and Miss Bishop could see her own bustle of preparation. And they could discern signs of it now aboard the advancing English ship as well. She was furling tops and mainsail, stripping in fact to mizzen and sprit for the coming action. Thus, almost silently without challenge or exchange of signals, had action been mutually determined.
+
+Of necessity now, under diminished sail, the advance of the Arabella was slower; but it was none the less steady. She was already within saker shot, and they could make out the figures stirring on her forecastle and the brass guns gleaming on her prow. The gunners of the Milagrosa raised their linstocks and blew upon their smouldering matches, looking up impatiently at the Admiral.
+
+But the Admiral solemnly shook his head.
+
+“Patience,” he exhorted them. “Save your fire until we have him. He is coming straight to his doom - straight to the yardarm and the rope that have been so long waiting for him.”
+
+“Stab me!” said his lordship. “This Englishman may be gallant enough to accept battle against such odds. But there are times when discretion is a better quality than gallantry in a commander.”
+
+“Gallantry will often win through, even against overwhelming strength,” said Miss Bishop. He looked at her, and noted in her bearing only excitement. Of fear he could still discern no trace. His lordship was past amazement. She was not by any means the kind of woman to which life had accustomed him.
+
+“Presently,” he said, “you will suffer me to place you under cover.”
+
+“I can see best from here,” she answered him. And added quietly: “I am praying for this Englishman. He must be very brave.”
+
+Under his breath Lord Julian damned the fellow’s bravery.
+
+The Arabella was advancing now along a course which, if continued, must carry her straight between the two Spanish ships. My lord pointed it out. “He’s crazy surely!” he cried. “He’s driving straight into a death-trap. He’ll be crushed to splinters between the two. No wonder that black-faced Don is holding his fire. In his place, I should do the same.”
+
+But even at that moment the Admiral raised his hand; in the waist, below him, a trumpet blared, and immediately the gunner on the prow touched off his guns. As the thunder of them rolled out, his lordship saw ahead beyond the English ship and to larboard of her two heavy splashes. Almost at once two successive spurts of flame leapt from the brass cannon on the Arabella’s beakhead, and scarcely had the watchers on the poop seen the shower of spray, where one of the shots struck the water near them, then with a rending crash and a shiver that shook the Milagrosa from stem to stern, the other came to lodge in her forecastle. To avenge that blow, the Hidalga blazed at the Englishman with both her forward guns. But even at that short range - between two and three hundred yards - neither shot took effect.
+
+At a hundred yards the Arabella’s forward guns, which had meanwhile been reloaded, fired again at the Milagrosa, and this time smashed her bowsprit into splinters; so that for a moment she yawed wildly to port. Don Miguel swore profanely, and then, as the helm was put over to swing her back to her course, his own prow replied. But the aim was too high, and whilst one of the shots tore through the Arabella’s shrouds and scarred her mainmast, the other again went wide. And when the smoke of that discharge had lifted, the English ship was found almost between the Spaniards, her bows in line with theirs and coming steadily on into what his lordship deemed a death-trap.
+
+Lord Julian held his breath, and Miss Bishop gasped, clutching the rail before her. She had a glimpse of the wickedly grinning face of Don Miguel, and the grinning faces of the men at the guns in the waist.
+
+At last the Arabella was right between the Spanish ships prow to poop and poop to prow. Don Miguel spoke to the trumpeter, who had mounted the quarter-deck and stood now at the Admiral’s elbow. The man raised the silver bugle that was to give the signal for the broadsides of both ships. But even as he placed it to his lips, the Admiral seized his arm, to arrest him. Only then had he perceived what was so obvious - or should have been to an experienced sea-fighter: he had delayed too long and Captain Blood had outmanoeuvred him. In attempting to fire now upon the Englishman, the Milagrosa and her consort would also be firing into each other. Too late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over and swing the ship to larboard, as a preliminary to manoeuvring for a less impossible position of attack. At that very moment the Arabella seemed to explode as she swept by. Eighteen guns from each of her flanks emptied themselves at that point-blank range into the hulls of the two Spanish vessels.
+
+Half stunned by that reverberating thunder, and thrown off her balance by the sudden lurch of the ship under her feet, Miss Bishop hurtled violently against Lord Julian, who kept his feet only by clutching the rail on which he had been leaning. Billowing clouds of smoke to starboard blotted out everything, and its acrid odour, taking them presently in the throat, set them gasping and coughing.
+
+From the grim confusion and turmoil in the waist below arose a clamour of fierce Spanish blasphemies and the screams of maimed men. The Milagrosa staggered slowly ahead, a gaping rent in her bulwarks; her foremast was shattered, fragments of the yards hanging in the netting spread below. Her beakhead was in splinters, and a shot had smashed through into the great cabin, reducing it to wreckage.
+
+Don Miguel was bawling orders wildly, and peering ever and anon through the curtain of smoke that was drifting slowly astern, in his anxiety to ascertain how it might have fared with the Hidalga.
+
+Suddenly, and ghostly at first through that lifting haze, loomed the outline of a ship; gradually the lines of her red hull became more and more sharply defined as she swept nearer with poles all bare save for the spread of canvas on her sprit.
+
+Instead of holding to her course as Don Miguel had expected she would, the Arabella had gone about under cover of the smoke, and sailing now in the same direction as the Milagrosa, was converging sharply upon her across the wind, so sharply that almost before the frenzied Don Miguel had realized the situation, his vessel staggered under the rending impact with which the other came hurtling alongside. There was a rattle and clank of metal as a dozen grapnels fell, and tore and caught in the timbers of the Milagrosa, and the Spaniard was firmly gripped in the tentacles of the English ship.
+
+Beyond her and now well astern the veil of smoke was rent at last and the Hidalga was revealed in desperate case. She was bilging fast, with an ominous list to larboard, and it could be no more than a question of moments before she settled down. The attention of her hands was being entirely given to a desperate endeavour to launch the boats in time.
+
+Of this Don Miguel’s anguished eyes had no more than a fleeting but comprehensive glimpse before his own decks were invaded by a wild, yelling swarm of boarders from the grappling ship. Never was confidence so quickly changed into despair, never was hunter more swiftly converted into helpless prey. For helpless the Spaniards were. The swiftly executed boarding manoeuvre had caught them almost unawares in the moment of confusion following the punishing broadside they had sustained at such short range. For a moment there was a valiant effort by some of Don Miguel’s officers to rally the men for a stand against these invaders. But the Spaniards, never at their best in close-quarter fighting, were here demoralized by knowledge of the enemies with whom they had to deal. Their hastily formed ranks were smashed before they could be steadied; driven across the waist to the break of the poop on the one side, and up to the forecastle bulkheads on the other, the fighting resolved itself into a series of skirmishes between groups. And whilst this was doing above, another horde of buccaneers swarmed through the hatch to the main deck below to overpower the gun-crews at their stations there.
+
+On the quarter deck, towards which an overwhelming wave of buccaneers was sweeping, led by a one-eyed giant, who was naked to the waist, stood Don Miguel, numbed by despair and rage. Above and behind him on the poop, Lord Julian and Miss Bishop looked on, his lordship aghast at the fury of this cooped-up fighting, the lady’s brave calm conquered at last by horror so that she reeled there sick and faint.
+
+Soon, however, the rage of that brief fight was spent. They saw the banner of Castile come fluttering down from the masthead. A buccaneer had slashed the halyard with his cutlass. The boarders were in possession, and on the upper deck groups of disarmed Spaniards stood huddled now like herded sheep.
+
+Suddenly Miss Bishop recovered from her nausea, to lean forward staring wild-eyed, whilst if possible her cheeks turned yet a deadlier hue than they had been already.
+
+Picking his way daintily through that shambles in the waist came a tall man with a deeply tanned face that was shaded by a Spanish headpiece. He was armed in back-and-breast of black steel beautifully damascened with golden arabesques. Over this, like a stole, he wore a sling of scarlet silk, from each end of which hung a silver-mounted pistol. Up the broad companion to the quarter-deck he came, toying with easy assurance, until he stood before the Spanish Admiral. Then he bowed stiff and formally. A crisp, metallic voice, speaking perfect Spanish, reached those two spectators on the poop, and increased the admiring wonder in which Lord Julian had observed the man’s approach.
+
+“We meet again at last, Don Miguel,” it said. “I hope you are satisfied. Although the meeting may not be exactly as you pictured it, at least it has been very ardently sought and desired by you.”
+
+Speechless, livid of face, his mouth distorted and his breathing laboured, Don Miguel de Espinosa received the irony of that man to whom he attributed his ruin and more beside. Then he uttered an inarticulate cry of rage, and his hand swept to his sword. But even as his fingers closed upon the hilt, the other’s closed upon his wrist to arrest the action.
+
+“Calm, Don Miguel!” he was quietly but firmly enjoined. “Do not recklessly invite the ugly extremes such as you would, yourself, have practised had the situation been reversed.”
+
+A moment they stood looking into each other’s eyes.
+
+“What do you intend by me?” the Spaniard enquired at last, his voice hoarse.
+
+Captain Blood shrugged. The firm lips smiled a little. “All that I intend has been already accomplished. And lest it increase your rancour, I beg you to observe that you have brought it entirely upon yourself. You would have it so.” He turned and pointed to the boats, which his men were heaving from the boom amidships. “Your boats are being launched. You are at liberty to embark in them with your men before we scuttle this ship. Yonder are the shores of Hispaniola. You should make them safely. And if you’ll take my advice, sir, you’ll not hunt me again. I think I am unlucky to you. Get you home to Spain, Don Miguel, and to concerns that you understand better than this trade of the sea.”
+
+For a long moment the defeated Admiral continued to stare his hatred in silence, then, still without speaking, he went down the companion, staggering like a drunken man, his useless rapier clattering behind him. His conqueror, who had not even troubled to disarm him, watched him go, then turned and faced those two immediately above him on the poop. Lord Julian might have observed, had he been less taken up with other things, that the fellow seemed suddenly to stiffen, and that he turned pale under his deep tan. A moment he stood at gaze; then suddenly and swiftly he came up the steps. Lord Julian stood forward to meet him.
+
+“Ye don’t mean, sir, that you’ll let that Spanish scoundrel go free?” he cried.
+
+The gentleman in the black corselet appeared to become aware of his lordship for the first time.
+
+“And who the devil may you be?” he asked, with a marked Irish accent. “And what business may it be of yours, at all?”
+
+His lordship conceived that the fellow’s truculence and utter lack of proper deference must be corrected. “I am Lord Julian Wade,” he announced, with that object.
+
+Apparently the announcement made no impression.
+
+“Are you, indeed! Then perhaps ye’ll explain what the plague you’re doing aboard this ship?”
+
+Lord Julian controlled himself to afford the desired explanation. He did so shortly and impatiently.
+
+“He took you prisoner, did he - along with Miss Bishop there?”
+
+“You are acquainted with Miss Bishop?” cried his lordship, passing from surprise to surprise.
+
+But this mannerless fellow had stepped past him, and was making a leg to the lady, who on her side remained unresponsive and forbidding to the point of scorn. Observing this, he turned to answer Lord Julian’s question.
+
+“I had that honour once,” said he. “But it seems that Miss Bishop has a shorter memory.”
+
+His lips were twisted into a wry smile, and there was pain in the blue eyes that gleamed so vividly under his black brows, pain blending with the mockery of his voice. But of all this it was the mockery alone that was perceived by Miss Bishop; she resented it.
+
+“I do not number thieves and pirates among my acquaintance, Captain Blood,” said she; whereupon his lordship exploded in excitement.
+
+“Captain Blood!” he cried. “Are you Captain Blood?”
+
+“What else were ye supposing?”
+
+Blood asked the question wearily, his mind on other things. “I do not number thieves and pirates among my acquaintance.” The cruel phrase filled his brain, reechoing and reverberating there.
+
+But Lord Julian would not be denied. He caught him by the sleeve with one hand, whilst with the other he pointed after the retreating, dejected figure of Don Miguel.
+
+“Do I understand that ye’re not going to hang that Spanish scoundrel?”
+
+“What for should I be hanging him?”
+
+“Because he’s just a damned pirate, as I can prove, as I have proved already.”
+
+“Ah!” said Blood, and Lord Julian marvelled at the sudden haggardness of a countenance that had been so devil-may-care but a few moments since. “I am a damned pirate, myself; and so I am merciful with my kind. Don Miguel goes free.”
+
+Lord Julian gasped. “After what I’ve told you that he has done? After his sinking of the Royal Mary? After his treatment of me - of us?” Lord Julian protested indignantly.
+
+“I am not in the service of England, or of any nation, sir. And I am not concerned with any wrongs her flag may suffer.”
+
+His lordship recoiled before the furious glance that blazed at him out of Blood’s haggard face. But the passion faded as swiftly as it had arisen. It was in a level voice that the Captain added:
+
+“If you’ll escort Miss Bishop aboard my ship, I shall be obliged to you. I beg that you’ll make haste. We are about to scuttle this hulk.”
+
+He turned slowly to depart. But again Lord Julian interposed. Containing his indignant amazement, his lordship delivered himself coldly. “Captain Blood, you disappoint me. I had hopes of great things for you.”
+
+“Go to the devil,” said Captain Blood, turning on his heel, and so departed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THIEF AND PIRATE
+
+
+Captain Blood paced the poop of his ship alone in the tepid dusk, and the growing golden radiance of the great poop lantern in which a seaman had just lighted the three lamps. About him all was peace. The signs of the day’s battle had been effaced, the decks had been swabbed, and order was restored above and below. A group of men squatting about the main hatch were drowsily chanting, their hardened natures softened, perhaps, by the calm and beauty of the night. They were the men of the larboard watch, waiting for eight bells which was imminent.
+
+Captain Blood did not hear them; he did not hear anything save the echo of those cruel words which had dubbed him thief and pirate.
+
+Thief and pirate!
+
+It is an odd fact of human nature that a man may for years possess the knowledge that a certain thing must be of a certain fashion, and yet be shocked to discover through his own senses that the fact is in perfect harmony with his beliefs. When first, three years ago, at Tortuga he had been urged upon the adventurer’s course which he had followed ever since, he had known in what opinion Arabella Bishop must hold him if he succumbed. Only the conviction that already she was for ever lost to him, by introducing a certain desperate recklessness into his soul had supplied the final impulse to drive him upon his rover’s course.
+
+That he should ever meet her again had not entered his calculations, had found no place in his dreams. They were, he conceived, irrevocably and for ever parted. Yet, in spite of this, in spite even of the persuasion that to her this reflection that was his torment could bring no regrets, he had kept the thought of her ever before him in all those wild years of filibustering. He had used it as a curb not only upon himself, but also upon those who followed him. Never had buccaneers been so rigidly held in hand, never had they been so firmly restrained, never so debarred from the excesses of rapine and lust that were usual in their kind as those who sailed with Captain Blood. It was, you will remember, stipulated in their articles that in these as in other matters they must submit to the commands of their leader. And because of the singular good fortune which had attended his leadership, he had been able to impose that stern condition of a discipline unknown before among buccaneers. How would not these men laugh at him now if he were to tell them that this he had done out of respect for a slip of a girl of whom he had fallen romantically enamoured? How would not that laughter swell if he added that this girl had that day informed him that she did not number thieves and pirates among her acquaintance.
+
+Thief and pirate!
+
+How the words clung, how they stung and burnt his brain!
+
+It did not occur to him, being no psychologist, nor learned in the tortuous workings of the feminine mind, that the fact that she should bestow upon him those epithets in the very moment and circumstance of their meeting was in itself curious. He did not perceive the problem thus presented; therefore he could not probe it. Else he might have concluded that if in a moment in which by delivering her from captivity he deserved her gratitude, yet she expressed herself in bitterness, it must be because that bitterness was anterior to the gratitude and deep-seated. She had been moved to it by hearing of the course he had taken. Why? It was what he did not ask himself, or some ray of light might have come to brighten his dark, his utterly evil despondency. Surely she would never have been so moved had she not cared - had she not felt that in what he did there was a personal wrong to herself. Surely, he might have reasoned, nothing short of this could have moved her to such a degree of bitterness and scorn as that which she had displayed.
+
+That is how you will reason. Not so, however, reasoned Captain Blood. Indeed, that night he reasoned not at all. His soul was given up to conflict between the almost sacred love he had borne her in all these years and the evil passion which she had now awakened in him. Extremes touch, and in touching may for a space become confused, indistinguishable. And the extremes of love and hate were to-night so confused in the soul of Captain Blood that in their fusion they made up a monstrous passion.
+
+Thief and pirate!
+
+That was what she deemed him, without qualification, oblivious of the deep wrongs he had suffered, the desperate case in which he found himself after his escape from Barbados, and all the rest that had gone to make him what he was. That he should have conducted his filibustering with hands as clean as were possible to a man engaged in such undertakings had also not occurred to her as a charitable thought with which to mitigate her judgment of a man she had once esteemed. She had no charity for him, no mercy. She had summed him up, convicted him and sentenced him in that one phrase. He was thief and pirate in her eyes; nothing more, nothing less. What, then, was she? What are those who have no charity? he asked the stars.
+
+Well, as she had shaped him hitherto, so let her shape him now. Thief and pirate she had branded him. She should be justified. Thief and pirate should he prove henceforth; no more nor less; as bowelless, as remorseless, as all those others who had deserved those names. He would cast out the maudlin ideals by which he had sought to steer a course; put an end to this idiotic struggle to make the best of two worlds. She had shown him clearly to which world he belonged. Let him now justify her. She was aboard his ship, in his power, and he desired her.
+
+He laughed softly, jeeringly, as he leaned on the taffrail, looking down at the phosphorescent gleam in the ship’s wake, and his own laughter startled him by its evil note. He checked suddenly, and shivered. A sob broke from him to end that ribald burst of mirth. He took his face in his hands and found a chill moisture on his brow.
+
+Meanwhile, Lord Julian, who knew the feminine part of humanity rather better than Captain Blood, was engaged in solving the curious problem that had so completely escaped the buccaneer. He was spurred to it, I suspect, by certain vague stirrings of jealousy. Miss Bishop’s conduct in the perils through which they had come had brought him at last to perceive that a woman may lack the simpering graces of cultured femininity and yet because of that lack be the more admirable. He wondered what precisely might have been her earlier relations with Captain Blood, and was conscious of a certain uneasiness which urged him now to probe the matter.
+
+His lordship’s pale, dreamy eyes had, as I have said, a habit of observing things, and his wits were tolerably acute.
+
+He was blaming himself now for not having observed certain things before, or, at least, for not having studied them more closely, and he was busily connecting them with more recent observations made that very day.
+
+He had observed, for instance, that Blood’s ship was named the Arabella, and he knew that Arabella was Miss Bishop’s name. And he had observed all the odd particulars of the meeting of Captain Blood and Miss Bishop, and the curious change that meeting had wrought in each.
+
+The lady had been monstrously uncivil to the Captain. It was a very foolish attitude for a lady in her circumstances to adopt towards a man in Blood’s; and his lordship could not imagine Miss Bishop as normally foolish. Yet, in spite of her rudeness, in spite of the fact that she was the niece of a man whom Blood must regard as his enemy, Miss Bishop and his lordship had been shown the utmost consideration aboard the Captain’s ship. A cabin had been placed at the disposal of each, to which their scanty remaining belongings and Miss Bishop’s woman had been duly transferred. They were given the freedom of the great cabin, and they had sat down to table with Pitt, the master, and Wolverstone, who was Blood’s lieutenant, both of whom had shown them the utmost courtesy. Also there was the fact that Blood, himself, had kept almost studiously from intruding upon them.
+
+His lordship’s mind went swiftly but carefully down these avenues of thought, observing and connecting. Having exhausted them, he decided to seek additional information from Miss Bishop. For this he must wait until Pitt and Wolverstone should have withdrawn. He was hardly made to wait so long, for as Pitt rose from table to follow Wolverstone, who had already departed, Miss Bishop detained him with a question:
+
+“Mr. Pitt,” she asked, “were you not one of those who escaped from Barbados with Captain Blood?”
+
+“I was. I, too, was one of your uncle’s slaves.”
+
+“And you have been with Captain Blood ever since?”
+
+“His shipmaster always, ma’am.”
+
+She nodded. She was very calm and self-contained; but his lordship observed that she was unusually pale, though considering what she had that day undergone this afforded no matter for wonder.
+
+“Did you ever sail with a Frenchman named Cahusac?”
+
+“Cahusac?” Pitt laughed. The name evoked a ridiculous memory. “Aye. He was with us at Maracaybo.”
+
+“And another Frenchman named Levasseur?”
+
+His lordship marvelled at her memory of these names.
+
+“Aye. Cahusac was Levasseur’s lieutenant, until he died.”
+
+“Until who died?”
+
+“Levasseur. He was killed on one of the Virgin Islands two years ago.”
+
+There was a pause. Then, in an even quieter voice than before, Miss Bishop asked:
+
+“Who killed him?”
+
+Pitt answered readily. There was no reason why he should not, though he began to find the catechism intriguing.
+
+“Captain Blood killed him.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+Pitt hesitated. It was not a tale for a maid’s ears.
+
+“They quarrelled,” he said shortly.
+
+“Was it about a… a lady?” Miss Bishop relentlessly pursued him.
+
+“You might put it that way.”
+
+“What was the lady’s name?”
+
+Pitt’s eyebrows went up; still he answered.
+
+“Miss d’Ogeron. She was the daughter of the Governor of Tortuga. She had gone off with this fellow Levasseur, and… and Peter delivered her out of his dirty clutches. He was a black-hearted scoundrel, and deserved what Peter gave him.”
+
+“I see. And… and yet Captain Blood has not married her?”
+
+“Not yet,” laughed Pitt, who knew the utter groundlessness of the common gossip in Tortuga which pronounced Mdlle. d’Ogeron the Captain’s future wife.
+
+Miss Bishop nodded in silence, and Jeremy Pitt turned to depart, relieved that the catechism was ended. He paused in the doorway to impart a piece of information.
+
+“Maybe it’ll comfort you to know that the Captain has altered our course for your benefit. It’s his intention to put you both ashore on the coast of Jamaica, as near Port Royal as we dare venture. We’ve gone about, and if this wind holds ye’ll soon be home again, mistress.”
+
+“Vastly obliging of him,” drawled his lordship, seeing that Miss Bishop made no shift to answer. Sombre-eyed she sat, staring into vacancy.
+
+“Indeed, ye may say so,” Pitt agreed. “He’s taking risks that few would take in his place. But that’s always been his way.”
+
+He went out, leaving his lordship pensive, those dreamy blue eyes of his intently studying Miss Bishop’s face for all their dreaminess; his mind increasingly uneasy. At length Miss Bishop looked at him, and spoke.
+
+“Your Cahusac told you no more than the truth, it seems.”
+
+“I perceived that you were testing it,” said his lordship. “I am wondering precisely why.”
+
+Receiving no answer, he continued to observe her silently, his long, tapering fingers toying with a ringlet of the golden periwig in which his long face was set.
+
+Miss Bishop sat bemused, her brows knit, her brooding glance seeming to study the fine Spanish point that edged the tablecloth. At last his lordship broke the silence.
+
+“He amazes me, this man,” said he, in his slow, languid voice that never seemed to change its level. “That he should alter his course for us is in itself matter for wonder; but that he should take a risk on our behalf - that he should venture into Jamaica waters…. It amazes me, as I have said.”
+
+Miss Bishop raised her eyes, and looked at him. She appeared to be very thoughtful. Then her lip flickered curiously, almost scornfully, it seemed to him. Her slender fingers drummed the table.
+
+“What is still more amazing is that he does not hold us to ransom,” said she at last.
+
+“It’s what you deserve.”
+
+“Oh, and why, if you please?”
+
+“For speaking to him as you did.”
+
+“I usually call things by their names.”
+
+“Do you? Stab me! I shouldn’t boast of it. It argues either extreme youth or extreme foolishness.” His lordship, you see, belonged to my Lord Sunderland’s school of philosophy. He added after a moment: “So does the display of ingratitude.”
+
+A faint colour stirred in her cheeks. “Your lordship is evidently aggrieved with me. I am disconsolate. I hope your lordship’s grievance is sounder than your views of life. It is news to me that ingratitude is a fault only to be found in the young and the foolish.”
+
+“I didn’t say so, ma’am.” There was a tartness in his tone evoked by the tartness she had used. “If you would do me the honour to listen, you would not misapprehend me. For if unlike you I do not always say precisely what I think, at least I say precisely what I wish to convey. To be ungrateful may be human; but to display it is childish.”
+
+“I… I don’t think I understand.” Her brows were knit. “How have I been ungrateful and to whom?”
+
+“To whom? To Captain Blood. Didn’t he come to our rescue?”
+
+“Did he?” Her manner was frigid. “I wasn’t aware that he knew of our presence aboard the Milagrosa.”
+
+His lordship permitted himself the slightest gesture of impatience.
+
+“You are probably aware that he delivered us,” said he. “And living as you have done in these savage places of the world, you can hardly fail to be aware of what is known even in England: that this fellow Blood strictly confines himself to making war upon the Spaniards. So that to call him thief and pirate as you did was to overstate the case against him at a time when it would have been more prudent to have understated it.”
+
+“Prudence?” Her voice was scornful. “What have I to do with prudence?”
+
+“Nothing - as I perceive. But, at least, study generosity. I tell you frankly, ma’am, that in Blood’s place I should never have been so nice. Sink me! When you consider what he has suffered at the hands of his fellow-countrymen, you may marvel with me that he should trouble to discriminate between Spanish and English. To be sold into slavery! Ugh!” His lordship shuddered. “And to a damned colonial planter!” He checked abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Miss Bishop. For the moment….”
+
+“You were carried away by your heat in defence of this… sea-robber.” Miss Bishop’s scorn was almost fierce.
+
+His lordship stared at her again. Then he half-closed his large, pale eyes, and tilted his head a little. “I wonder why you hate him so,” he said softly.
+
+He saw the sudden scarlet flame upon her cheeks, the heavy frown that descended upon her brow. He had made her very angry, he judged. But there was no explosion. She recovered.
+
+“Hate him? Lord! What a thought! I don’t regard the fellow at all.”
+
+“Then ye should, ma’am.” His lordship spoke his thought frankly. “He’s worth regarding. He’d be an acquisition to the King’s navy - a man that can do the things he did this morning. His service under de Ruyter wasn’t wasted on him. That was a great seaman, and - blister me! - the pupil’s worthy the master if I am a judge of anything. I doubt if the Royal Navy can show his equal. To thrust himself deliberately between those two, at point-blank range, and so turn the tables on them! It asks courage, resource, and invention. And we land-lubbers were not the only ones he tricked by his manoeuvre. That Spanish Admiral never guessed the intent until it was too late and Blood held him in check. A great man, Miss Bishop. A man worth regarding.”
+
+Miss Bishop was moved to sarcasm.
+
+“You should use your influence with my Lord Sunderland to have the King offer him a commission.”
+
+His lordship laughed softly. “Faith, it’s done already. I have his commission in my pocket.” And he increased her amazement by a brief exposition of the circumstances. In that amazement he left her, and went in quest of Blood. But he was still intrigued. If she were a little less uncompromising in her attitude towards Blood, his lordship would have been happier.
+
+He found the Captain pacing the quarter-deck, a man mentally exhausted from wrestling with the Devil, although of this particular occupation his lordship could have no possible suspicion. With the amiable familiarity he used, Lord Julian slipped an arm through one of the Captain’s, and fell into step beside him.
+
+“What’s this?” snapped Blood, whose mood was fierce and raw. His lordship was not disturbed.
+
+“I desire, sir, that we be friends,” said he suavely.
+
+“That’s mighty condescending of you!”
+
+Lord Julian ignored the obvious sarcasm.
+
+“It’s an odd coincidence that we should have been brought together in this fashion, considering that I came out to the Indies especially to seek you.”
+
+“Ye’re not by any means the first to do that,” the other scoffed. “But they’ve mainly been Spaniards, and they hadn’t your luck.”
+
+“You misapprehend me completely,” said Lord Julian. And on that he proceeded to explain himself and his mission.
+
+When he had done, Captain Blood, who until that moment had stood still under the spell of his astonishment, disengaged his arm from his lordship’s, and stood squarely before him.
+
+“Ye’re my guest aboard this ship,” said he, “and I still have some notion of decent behaviour left me from other days, thief and pirate though I may be. So I’ll not be telling you what I think of you for daring to bring me this offer, or of my Lord Sunderland - since he’s your kinsman for having the impudence to send it. But it does not surprise me at all that one who is a minister of James Stuart’s should conceive that every man is to be seduced by bribes into betraying those who trust him.” He flung out an arm in the direction of the waist, whence came the half-melancholy chant of the lounging buccaneers.
+
+“Again you misapprehend me,” cried Lord Julian, between concern and indignation. “That is not intended. Your followers will be included in your commission.”
+
+“And d’ ye think they’ll go with me to hunt their brethren - the Brethren of the Coast? On my soul, Lord Julian, it is yourself does the misapprehending. Are there not even notions of honour left in England? Oh, and there’s more to it than that, even. D’ye think I could take a commission of King James’s? I tell you I wouldn’t be soiling my hands with it - thief and pirate’s hands though they be. Thief and pirate is what you heard Miss Bishop call me to-day - a thing of scorn, an outcast. And who made me that? Who made me thief and pirate?”
+
+“If you were a rebel…?” his lordship was beginning.
+
+“Ye must know that I was no such thing - no rebel at all. It wasn’t even pretended. If it were, I could forgive them. But not even that cloak could they cast upon their foulness. Oh, no; there was no mistake. I was convicted for what I did, neither more nor less. That bloody vampire Jeffreys - bad cess to him! - sentenced me to death, and his worthy master James Stuart afterwards sent me into slavery, because I had performed an act of mercy; because compassionately and without thought for creed or politics I had sought to relieve the sufferings of a fellow-creature; because I had dressed the wounds of a man who was convicted of treason. That was all my offence. You’ll find it in the records. And for that I was sold into slavery: because by the law of England, as administered by James Stuart in violation of the laws of God, who harbours or comforts a rebel is himself adjudged guilty of rebellion. D’ye dream man, what it is to be a slave?”
+
+He checked suddenly at the very height of his passion. A moment he paused, then cast it from him as if it had been a cloak. His voice sank again. He uttered a little laugh of weariness and contempt.
+
+“But there! I grow hot for nothing at all. I explain myself, I think, and God knows, it is not my custom. I am grateful to you, Lord Julian, for your kindly intentions. I am so. But ye’ll understand, perhaps. Ye look as if ye might.”
+
+Lord Julian stood still. He was deeply stricken by the other’s words, the passionate, eloquent outburst that in a few sharp, clear-cut strokes had so convincingly presented the man’s bitter case against humanity, his complete apologia and justification for all that could be laid to his charge. His lordship looked at that keen, intrepid face gleaming lividly in the light of the great poop lantern, and his own eyes were troubled. He was abashed.
+
+He fetched a heavy sigh. “A pity,” he said slowly. “Oh, blister me - a cursed pity!” He held out his hand, moved to it on a sudden generous impulse. “But no offence between us, Captain Blood!”
+
+“Oh, no offence. But… I’m a thief and a pirate.” He laughed without mirth, and, disregarding the proffered hand, swung on his heel.
+
+Lord Julian stood a moment, watching the tall figure as it moved away towards the taffrail. Then letting his arms fall helplessly to his sides in dejection, he departed.
+
+Just within the doorway of the alley leading to the cabin, he ran into Miss Bishop. Yet she had not been coming out, for her back was towards him, and she was moving in the same direction. He followed her, his mind too full of Captain Blood to be concerned just then with her movements.
+
+In the cabin he flung into a chair, and exploded, with a violence altogether foreign to his nature.
+
+“Damme if ever I met a man I liked better, or even a man I liked as well. Yet there’s nothing to be done with him.”
+
+“So I heard,” she admitted in a small voice. She was very white, and she kept her eyes upon her folded hands.
+
+He looked up in surprise, and then sat conning her with brooding glance. “I wonder, now,” he said presently, “if the mischief is of your working. Your words have rankled with him. He threw them at me again and again. He wouldn’t take the King’s commission; he wouldn’t take my hand even. What’s to be done with a fellow like that? He’ll end on a yardarm for all his luck. And the quixotic fool is running into danger at the present moment on our behalf.”
+
+“How?” she asked him with a sudden startled interest.
+
+“How? Have you forgotten that he’s sailing to Jamaica, and that Jamaica is the headquarters of the English fleet? True, your uncle commands it….”
+
+She leaned across the table to interrupt him, and he observed that her breathing had grown labored, that her eyes were dilating in alarm.
+
+“But there is no hope for him in that!” she cried. “Oh, don’t imagine it! He has no bitterer enemy in the world! My uncle is a hard, unforgiving man. I believe that it was nothing but the hope of taking and hanging Captain Blood that made my uncle leave his Barbados plantations to accept the deputy-governorship of Jamaica. Captain Blood doesn’t know that, of course….” She paused with a little gesture of helplessness.
+
+“I can’t think that it would make the least difference if he did,” said his lordship gravely. “A man who can forgive such an enemy as Don Miguel and take up this uncompromising attitude with me isn’t to be judged by ordinary rules. He’s chivalrous to the point of idiocy.”
+
+“And yet he has been what he has been and done what he has done in these last three years,” said she, but she said it sorrowfully now, without any of her earlier scorn.
+
+Lord Julian was sententious, as I gather that he often was. “Life can be infernally complex,” he sighed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+THE SERVICE OF KING JAMES
+
+
+Miss Arabella Bishop was aroused very early on the following morning by the brazen voice of a bugle and the insistent clanging of a bell in the ship’s belfry. As she lay awake, idly watching the rippled green water that appeared to be streaming past the heavily glazed porthole, she became gradually aware of the sounds of swift, laboured bustle - the clatter of many feet, the shouts of hoarse voices, and the persistent trundlings of heavy bodies in the wardroom immediately below the deck of the cabin. Conceiving these sounds to portend a more than normal activity, she sat up, pervaded by a vague alarm, and roused her still slumbering woman.
+
+In his cabin on the starboard side Lord Julian, disturbed by the same sounds, was already astir and hurriedly dressing. When presently he emerged under the break of the poop, he found himself staring up into a mountain of canvas. Every foot of sail that she could carry had been crowded to the Arabella’s yards, to catch the morning breeze. Ahead and on either side stretched the limitless expanse of ocean, sparkling golden in the sun, as yet no more than a half-disc of flame upon the horizon straight ahead.
+
+About him in the waist, where all last night had been so peaceful, there was a frenziedly active bustle of some threescore men. By the rail, immediately above and behind Lord Julian, stood Captain Blood in altercation with a one-eyed giant, whose head was swathed in a red cotton kerchief, whose blue shirt hung open at the waist. As his lordship, moving forward, revealed himself, their voices ceased, and Blood turned to greet him.
+
+“Good-morning to you,” he said, and added “I’ve blundered badly, so I have. I should have known better than to come so close to Jamaica by night. But I was in haste to land you. Come up here. I have something to show you.”
+
+Wondering, Lord Julian mounted the companion as he was bidden. Standing beside Captain Blood, he looked astern, following the indication of the Captain’s hand, and cried out in his amazement. There, not more than three miles away, was land - an uneven wall of vivid green that filled the western horizon. And a couple of miles this side of it, bearing after them, came speeding three great white ships.
+
+“They fly no colours, but they’re part of the Jamaica fleet.” Blood spoke without excitement, almost with a certain listlessness. “When dawn broke we found ourselves running to meet them. We went about, and it’s been a race ever since. But the Arabella ‘s been at sea these four months, and her bottom’s too foul for the speed we’re needing.”
+
+Wolverstone hooked his thumbs into his broad leather belt, and from his great height looked down sardonically upon Lord Julian, tall man though his lordship was. “So that you’re like to be in yet another sea-fight afore ye’ve done wi’ ships, my lord.”
+
+“That’s a point we were just arguing,” said Blood. “For I hold that we’re in no case to fight against such odds.”
+
+“The odds be damned!” Wolverstone thrust out his heavy jowl. “We’re used to odds. The odds was heavier at Maracaybo; yet we won out, and took three ships. They was heavier yesterday when we engaged Don Miguel.”
+
+“Aye - but those were Spaniards.”
+
+“And what better are these? - Are ye afeard of a lubberly Barbados planter? Whatever ails you, Peter? I’ve never known ye scared afore.”
+
+A gun boomed out behind them.
+
+“That’ll be the signal to lie to,” said Blood, in the same listless voice; and he fetched a sigh.
+
+Wolverstone squared himself defiantly before his captain
+
+“I’ll see Colonel Bishop in hell or ever I lies to for him.” And he spat, presumably for purposes of emphasis.
+
+His lordship intervened.
+
+“Oh, but - by your leave - surely there is nothing to be apprehended from Colonel Bishop. Considering the service you have rendered to his niece and to me….”
+
+Wolverstone’s horse-laugh interrupted him. “Hark to the gentleman!” he mocked. “Ye don’t know Colonel Bishop, that’s clear. Not for his niece, not for his daughter, not for his own mother, would he forgo the blood what he thinks due to him. A drinker of blood, he is. A nasty beast. We knows, the Cap’n and me. We been his slaves.”
+
+“But there is myself,” said Lord Julian, with great dignity.
+
+Wolverstone laughed again, whereat his lordship flushed. He was moved to raise his voice above its usual languid level.
+
+“I assure you that my word counts for something in England.”
+
+“Oh, aye - in England. But this ain’t England, damme.”
+
+Came the roar of a second gun, and a round shot splashed the water less than half a cable’s-length astern. Blood leaned over the rail to speak to the fair young man immediately below him by the helmsman at the whipstaff.
+
+“Bid them take in sail, Jeremy,” he said quietly. “We lie to.”
+
+But Wolverstone interposed again.
+
+“Hold there a moment, Jeremy!” he roared. “Wait!” He swung back to face the Captain, who had placed a hand on is shoulder and was smiling, a trifle wistfully.
+
+“Steady, Old Wolf! Steady!” Captain Blood admonished him.
+
+“Steady, yourself, Peter. Ye’ve gone mad! Will ye doom us all to hell out of tenderness for that cold slip of a girl?”
+
+“Stop!” cried Blood in sudden fury.
+
+But Wolverstone would not stop. “It’s the truth, you fool. It’s that cursed petticoat’s making a coward of you. It’s for her that ye’re afeard - and she, Colonel Bishop’s niece! My God, man, ye’ll have a mutiny aboard, and I’ll lead it myself sooner than surrender to be hanged in Port Royal.”
+
+Their glances met, sullen defiance braving dull anger, surprise, and pain.
+
+“There is no question,” said Blood, “of surrender for any man aboard save only myself. If Bishop can report to England that I am taken and hanged, he will magnify himself and at the same time gratify his personal rancour against me. That should satisfy him. I’ll send him a message offering to surrender aboard his ship, taking Miss Bishop and Lord Julian with me, but only on condition that the Arabella is allowed to proceed unharmed. It’s a bargain that he’ll accept, if I know him at all.”
+
+“It’s a bargain he’ll never be offered,” retorted Wolverstone, and his earlier vehemence was as nothing to his vehemence now. “Ye’re surely daft even to think of it, Peter!”
+
+“Not so daft as you when you talk of fighting that.” He flung out an arm as he spoke to indicate the pursuing ships, which were slowly but surely creeping nearer. “Before we’ve run another half-mile we shall be within range.”
+
+Wolverstone swore elaborately, then suddenly checked. Out of the tail of his single eye he had espied a trim figure in grey silk that was ascending the companion. So engrossed had they been that they had not seen Miss Bishop come from the door of the passage leading to the cabin. And there was something else that those three men on the poop, and Pitt immediately below them, had failed to observe. Some moments ago Ogle, followed by the main body of his gun-deck crew, had emerged from the booby hatch, to fall into muttered, angrily vehement talk with those who, abandoning the gun-tackles upon which they were labouring, had come to crowd about him.
+
+Even now Blood had no eyes for that. He turned to look at Miss Bishop, marvelling a little, after the manner in which yesterday she had avoided him, that she should now venture upon the quarter-deck. Her presence at this moment, and considering the nature of his altercation with Wolverstone, was embarrassing.
+
+Very sweet and dainty she stood before him in her gown of shimmering grey, a faint excitement tinting her fair cheeks and sparkling in her clear, hazel eyes, that looked so frank and honest. She wore no hat, and the ringlets of her gold-brown hair fluttered distractingly in the morning breeze.
+
+Captain Blood bared his head and bowed silently in a greeting which she returned composedly and formally.
+
+“What is happening, Lord Julian?” she enquired.
+
+As if to answer her a third gun spoke from the ships towards which she was looking intent and wonderingly. A frown rumpled her brow. She looked from one to the other of the men who stood there so glum and obviously ill at ease.
+
+“They are ships of the Jamaica fleet,” his lordship answered her.
+
+It should in any case have been a sufficient explanation. But before more could be added, their attention was drawn at last to Ogle, who came bounding up the broad ladder, and to the men lounging aft in his wake, in all of which, instinctively, they apprehended a vague menace.
+
+At the head of the companion, Ogle found his progress barred by Blood, who confronted him, a sudden sternness in his face and in every line of him.
+
+“What’s this?” the Captain demanded sharply. “Your station is on the gun-deck. Why have you left it?”
+
+Thus challenged, the obvious truculence faded out of Ogle’s bearing, quenched by the old habit of obedience and the natural dominance that was the secret of the Captain’s rule over his wild followers. But it gave no pause to the gunner’s intention. If anything it increased his excitement.
+
+“Captain,” he said, and as he spoke he pointed to the pursuing ships, “Colonel Bishop holds us. We’re in no case either to run or fight.”
+
+Blood’s height seemed to increase, as did his sternness.
+
+“Ogle,” said he, in a voice cold and sharp as steel, “your station is on the gun-deck. You’ll return to it at once, and take your crew with you, or else….”
+
+But Ogle, violent of mien and gesture, interrupted him.
+
+“Threats will not serve, Captain.”
+
+“Will they not?”
+
+It was the first time in his buccaneering career that an order of his had been disregarded, or that a man had failed in the obedience to which he pledged all those who joined him. That this insubordination should proceed from one of those whom he most trusted, one of his old Barbados associates, was in itself a bitterness, and made him reluctant to that which instinct told him must be done. His hand closed over the butt of one of the pistols slung before him.
+
+“Nor will that serve you,” Ogle warned him, still more fiercely. “The men are of my thinking, and they’ll have their way.”
+
+“And what way may that be?”
+
+“The way to make us safe. We’ll neither sink nor hang whiles we can help it.”
+
+From the three or four score men massed below in the waist came a rumble of approval. Captain Blood’s glance raked the ranks of those resolute, fierce-eyed fellows, then it came to rest again on Ogle. There was here quite plainly a vague threat, a mutinous spirit he could not understand. “You come to give advice, then, do you?” quoth he, relenting nothing of his sternness.
+
+“That’s it, Captain; advice. That girl, there.” He flung out a bare arm to point to her. “Bishop’s girl; the Governor of Jamaica’s niece…. We want her as a hostage for our safety.”
+
+“Aye!” roared in chorus the buccaneers below, and one or two of them elaborated that affirmation.
+
+In a flash Captain Blood saw what was in their minds. And for all that he lost nothing of his outward stern composure, fear invaded his heart.
+
+“And how,” he asked, “do you imagine that Miss Bishop will prove such a hostage?”
+
+“It’s a providence having her aboard; a providence. Heave to, Captain, and signal them to send a boat, and assure themselves that Miss is here. Then let them know that if they attempt to hinder our sailing hence, we’ll hang the doxy first and fight for it after. That’ll cool Colonel Bishop’s heat, maybe.”
+
+“And maybe it won’t.” Slow and mocking came Wolverstone’s voice to answer the other’s confident excitement, and as he spoke he advanced to Blood’s side, an unexpected ally. “Some o’ them dawcocks may believe that tale.” He jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the men in the waist, whose ranks were steadily being increased by the advent of others from the forecastle. “Although even some o’ they should know better, for there’s still a few was on Barbados with us, and are acquainted like me and you with Colonel Bishop. If ye’re counting on pulling Bishop’s heartstrings, ye’re a bigger fool, Ogle, than I’ve always thought you was with anything but guns. There’s no heaving to for such a matter as that unless you wants to make quite sure of our being sunk. Though we had a cargo of Bishop’s nieces it wouldn’t make him hold his hand. Why, as I was just telling his lordship here, who thought like you that having Miss Bishop aboard would make us safe, not for his mother would that filthy slaver forgo what’s due to him. And if ye’ weren’t a fool, Ogle, you wouldn’t need me to tell you this. We’ve got to fight, my lads….”
+
+“How can we fight, man?” Ogle stormed at him, furiously battling the conviction which Wolverstone’s argument was imposing upon his listeners. “You may be right, and you may be wrong. We’ve got to chance it. It’s our only chance….”
+
+The rest of his words were drowned in the shouts of the hands insisting that the girl be given up to be held as a hostage. And then louder than before roared a gun away to leeward, and away on their starboard beam they saw the spray flung up by the shot, which had gone wide.
+
+“They are within range,” cried Ogle. And leaning from the rail, “Put down the helm,” he commanded.
+
+Pitt, at his post beside the helmsman, turned intrepidly to face the excited gunner.
+
+“Since when have you commanded on the main deck, Ogle? I take my orders from the Captain.”
+
+“You’ll take this order from me, or, by God, you’ll….”
+
+“Wait!” Blood bade him, interrupting, and he set a restraining hand upon the gunner’s arm. “There is, I think, a better way.”
+
+He looked over his shoulder, aft, at the advancing ships, the foremost of which was now a bare quarter of a mile away. His glance swept in passing over Miss Bishop and Lord Julian standing side by side some paces behind him. He observed her pale and tense, with parted lips and startled eyes that were fixed upon him, an anxious witness of this deciding of her fate. He was thinking swiftly, reckoning the chances if by pistolling Ogle he were to provoke a mutiny. That some of the men would rally to him, he was sure. But he was no less sure that the main body would oppose him, and prevail in spite of all that he could do, taking the chance that holding Miss Bishop to ransom seemed to afford them. And if they did that, one way or the other, Miss Bishop would be lost. For even if Bishop yielded to their demand, they would retain her as a hostage.
+
+Meanwhile Ogle was growing impatient. His arm still gripped by Blood, he thrust his face into the Captain’s.
+
+“What better way?” he demanded. “There is none better. I’ll not be bubbled by what Wolverstone has said. He may be right, and he may be wrong. We’ll test it. It’s our only chance, I’ve said, and we must take it.”
+
+The better way that was in Captain Blood’s mind was the way that already he had proposed to Wolverstone. Whether the men in the panic Ogle had aroused among them would take a different view from Wolverstone’s he did not know. But he saw quite clearly now that if they consented, they would not on that account depart from their intention in the matter of Miss Bishop; they would make of Blood’s own surrender merely an additional card in this game against the Governor of Jamaica.
+
+“It’s through her that we’re in this trap,” Ogle stormed on. “Through her and through you. It was to bring her to Jamaica that you risked all our lives, and we’re not going to lose our lives as long as there’s a chance to make ourselves safe through her.”
+
+He was turning again to the helmsman below, when Blood’s grip tightened on his arm. Ogle wrenched it free, with an oath. But Blood’s mind was now made up. He had found the only way, and repellent though it might be to him, he must take it.
+
+“That is a desperate chance,” he cried. “Mine is the safe and easy way. Wait!” He leaned over the rail. “Put the helm down,” he bade Pitt. “Heave her to, and signal to them to send a boat.”
+
+A silence of astonishment fell upon the ship - of astonishment and suspicion at this sudden yielding. But Pitt, although he shared it, was prompt to obey. His voice rang out, giving the necessary orders, and after an instant’s pause, a score of hands sprang to execute them. Came the creak of blocks and the rattle of slatting sails as they swung aweather, and Captain Blood turned and beckoned Lord Julian forward. His lordship, after a moment’s hesitation, advanced in surprise and mistrust - a mistrust shared by Miss Bishop, who, like his lordship and all else aboard, though in a different way, had been taken aback by Blood’s sudden submission to the demand to lie to.
+
+Standing now at the rail, with Lord Julian beside him, Captain Blood explained himself.
+
+Briefly and clearly he announced to all the object of Lord Julian’s voyage to the Caribbean, and he informed them of the offer which yesterday Lord Julian had made to him.
+
+“That offer I rejected, as his lordship will tell you, deeming myself affronted by it. Those of you who have suffered under the rule of King James will understand me. But now in the desperate case in which we find ourselves - outsailed, and likely to be outfought, as Ogle has said - I am ready to take the way of Morgan: to accept the King’s commission and shelter us all behind it.”
+
+It was a thunderbolt that for a moment left them all dazed. Then Babel was reenacted. The main body of them welcomed the announcement as only men who have been preparing to die can welcome a new lease of life. But many could not resolve one way or the other until they were satisfied upon several questions, and chiefly upon one which was voiced by Ogle.
+
+“Will Bishop respect the commission when you hold it?”
+
+It was Lord Julian who answered:
+
+“It will go very hard with him if he attempts to flout the King’s authority. And though he should dare attempt it, be sure that his own officers will not dare to do other than oppose him.”
+
+“Aye,” said Ogle, “that is true.”
+
+But there were some who were still in open and frank revolt against the course. Of these was Wolverstone, who at once proclaimed his hostility.
+
+“I’ll rot in hell or ever I serves the King,” he bawled in a great rage.
+
+But Blood quieted him and those who thought as he did.
+
+“No man need follow me into the King’s service who is reluctant. That is not in the bargain. What is in the bargain is that I accept this service with such of you as may choose to follow me. Don’t think I accept it willingly. For myself, I am entirely of Wolverstone’s opinion. I accept it as the only way to save us all from the certain destruction into which my own act may have brought us. And even those of you who do not choose to follow me shall share the immunity of all, and shall afterwards be free to depart. Those are the terms upon which I sell myself to the King. Let Lord Julian, the representative of the Secretary of State, say whether he agrees to them.”
+
+Prompt, eager, and clear came his lordship’s agreement. And that was practically the end of the matter. Lord Julian, the butt now of good-humouredly ribald jests and half-derisive acclamations, plunged away to his cabin for the commission, secretly rejoicing at a turn of events which enabled him so creditably to discharge the business on which he had been sent.
+
+Meanwhile the bo’sun signalled to the Jamaica ships to send a boat, and the men in the waist broke their ranks and went noisily flocking to line the bulwarks and view the great stately vessels that were racing down towards them.
+
+As Ogle left the quarter-deck, Blood turned, and came face to face with Miss Bishop. She had been observing him with shining eyes, but at sight of his dejected countenance, and the deep frown that scarred his brow, her own expression changed. She approached him with a hesitation entirely unusual to her. She set a hand lightly upon his arm.
+
+“You have chosen wisely, sir,” she commended him, “however much against your inclinations.”
+
+He looked with gloomy eyes upon her for whom he had made this sacrifice.
+
+“I owed it to you - or thought I did,” he said.
+
+She did not understand. “Your resolve delivered me from a horrible danger,” she admitted. And she shivered at the memory of it. “But I do not understand why you should have hesitated when first it was proposed to you. It is an honourable service.”
+
+“King James’s?” he sneered.
+
+“England’s,” she corrected him in reproof. “The country is all, sir; the sovereign naught. King James will pass; others will come and pass; England remains, to be honourably served by her sons, whatever rancour they may hold against the man who rules her in their time.”
+
+He showed some surprise. Then he smiled a little. “Shrewd advocacy,” he approved it. “You should have spoken to the crew.”
+
+And then, the note of irony deepening in his voice: “Do you suppose now that this honourable service might redeem one who was a pirate and a thief?”
+
+Her glance fell away. Her voice faltered a little in replying. “If he… needs redeeming. Perhaps… perhaps he has been judged too harshly.”
+
+The blue eyes flashed, and the firm lips relaxed their grim set.
+
+“Why… if ye think that,” he said, considering her, an odd hunger in his glance, “life might have its uses, after all, and even the service of King James might become tolerable.”
+
+Looking beyond her, across the water, he observed a boat putting off from one of the great ships, which, hove to now, were rocking gently some three hundred yards away. Abruptly his manner changed. He was like one recovering, taking himself in hand again. “If you will go below, and get your gear and your woman, you shall presently be sent aboard one of the ships of the fleet.” He pointed to the boat as he spoke.
+
+She left him, and thereafter with Wolverstone, leaning upon the rail, he watched the approach of that boat, manned by a dozen sailors, and commanded by a scarlet figure seated stiffly in the stern sheets. He levelled his telescope upon that figure.
+
+“It’ll not be Bishop himself,” said Wolverstone, between question and assertion.
+
+“No.” Blood closed his telescope. “I don’t know who it is.”
+
+“Ha!” Wolverstone vented an ejaculation of sneering mirth. “For all his eagerness, Bishop’d be none so willing to come, hisself. He’s been aboard this hulk afore, and we made him swim for it that time. He’ll have his memories. So he sends a deputy.”
+
+This deputy proved to be an officer named Calverley, a vigorous, self-sufficient fellow, comparatively fresh from England, whose manner made it clear that he came fully instructed by Colonel Bishop upon the matter of how to handle the pirates.
+
+His air, as he stepped into the waist of the Arabella, was haughty, truculent, and disdainful.
+
+Blood, the King’s commission now in his pocket, and Lord Julian standing beside him, waited to receive him, and Captain Calverley was a little taken aback at finding himself confronted by two men so very different outwardly from anything that he had expected. But he lost none of his haughty poise, and scarcely deigned a glance at the swarm of fierce, half-naked fellows lounging in a semicircle to form a background.
+
+“Good-day to you, sir,” Blood hailed him pleasantly. “I have the honour to give you welcome aboard the Arabella. My name is Blood - Captain Blood, at your service. You may have heard of me.”
+
+Captain Calverley stared hard. The airy manner of this redoubtable buccaneer was hardly what he had looked for in a desperate fellow, compelled to ignominious surrender. A thin, sour smile broke on the officer’s haughty lips.
+
+“You’ll ruffle it to the gallows, no doubt,” he said contemptuously. “I suppose that is after the fashion of your kind. Meanwhile it’s your surrender I require, my man, not your impudence.”
+
+Captain Blood appeared surprised, pained. He turned in appeal to Lord Julian.
+
+“D’ye hear that now? And did ye ever hear the like? But what did I tell ye? Ye see, the young gentleman’s under a misapprehension entirely. Perhaps it’ll save broken bones if your lordship explains just who and what I am.”
+
+Lord Julian advanced a step and bowed perfunctorily and rather disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer. Pitt, who watched the scene from the quarter-deck rail, tells us that his lordship was as grave as a parson at a hanging. But I suspect this gravity for a mask under which Lord Julian was secretly amused.
+
+“I have the honour to inform you, sir,” he said stiffly, “that Captain Blood holds a commission in the King’s service under the seal of my Lord Sunderland, His Majesty’s Secretary of State.”
+
+Captain Calverley’s face empurpled; his eyes bulged. The buccaneers in the background chuckled and crowed and swore among themselves in their relish of this comedy. For a long moment Calverley stared in silence at his lordship, observing the costly elegance of his dress, his air of calm assurance, and his cold, fastidious speech, all of which savoured distinctly of the great world to which he belonged.
+
+“And who the devil may you be?” he exploded at last.
+
+Colder still and more distant than ever grew his lordship’s voice.
+
+“You’re not very civil, sir, as I have already noticed. My name is Wade - Lord Julian Wade. I am His Majesty’s envoy to these barbarous parts, and my Lord Sunderland’s near kinsman. Colonel Bishop has been notified of my coming.”
+
+The sudden change in Calverley’s manner at Lord Julian’s mention of his name showed that the notification had been received, and that he had knowledge of it.
+
+“I… I believe that he has,” said Calverley, between doubt and suspicion. “That is: that he has been notified of the coming of Lord Julian Wade. But… but… aboard this ship…?” The officer made a gesture of helplessness, and, surrendering to his bewilderment, fell abruptly silent.
+
+“I was coming out on the Royal Mary….”
+
+“That is what we were advised.”
+
+“But the Royal Mary fell a victim to a Spanish privateer, and I might never have arrived at all but for the gallantry of Captain Blood, who rescued me.”
+
+Light broke upon the darkness of Calverley’s mind. “I see. I understand.”
+
+“I will take leave to doubt it.” His lordship’s tone abated nothing of its asperity. “But that can wait. If Captain Blood will show you his commission, perhaps that will set all doubts at rest, and we may proceed. I shall be glad to reach Port Royal.”
+
+Captain Blood thrust a parchment under Calverley’s bulging eyes. The officer scanned it, particularly the seals and signature. He stepped back, a baffled, impotent man. He bowed helplessly.
+
+“I must return to Colonel Bishop for my orders,” he informed them.
+
+At that moment a lane was opened in the ranks of the men, and through this came Miss Bishop followed by her octoroon woman. Over his shoulder Captain Blood observed her approach.
+
+“Perhaps, since Colonel Bishop is with you, you will convey his niece to him. Miss Bishop was aboard the Royal Mary also, and I rescued her together with his lordship. She will be able to acquaint her uncle with the details of that and of the present state of affairs.”
+
+Swept thus from surprise to surprise, Captain Calverley could do no more than bow again.
+
+“As for me,” said Lord Julian, with intent to make Miss Bishop’s departure free from all interference on the part of the buccaneers, “I shall remain aboard the Arabella until we reach Port Royal. My compliments to Colonel Bishop. Say that I look forward to making his acquaintance there.”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+HOSTILITIES
+
+
+In the great harbour of Port Royal, spacious enough to have given moorings to all the ships of all the navies of the world, the Arabella rode at anchor. Almost she had the air of a prisoner, for a quarter of a mile ahead, to starboard, rose the lofty, massive single round tower of the fort, whilst a couple of cables’-length astern, and to larboard, rode the six men-of-war that composed the Jamaica squadron.
+
+Abeam with the Arabella, across the harbour, were the flat-fronted white buildings of that imposing city that came down to the very water’s edge. Behind these the red roofs rose like terraces, marking the gentle slope upon which the city was built, dominated here by a turret, there by a spire, and behind these again a range of green hills with for ultimate background a sky that was like a dome of polished steel.
+
+On a cane day-bed that had been set for him on the quarter-deck, sheltered from the dazzling, blistering sunshine by an improvised awning of brown sailcloth, lounged Peter Blood, a calf-bound, well-thumbed copy of Horace’s Odes neglected in his hands.
+
+From immediately below him came the swish of mops and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo’sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle. Despite the heat and the stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak a ribald buccaneering ditty:
+
+“For we laid her board and board, And we put her to the sword, And we sank her in the deep blue sea. So It’s heigh-ho, and heave-a-ho! Who’ll sail for the Main with me?”
+
+Blood fetched a sigh, and the ghost of a smile played over his lean, sun-tanned face. Then the black brows came together above the vivid blue eyes, and thought swiftly closed the door upon his immediate surroundings.
+
+Things had not sped at all well with him in the past fortnight since his acceptance of the King’s commission. There had been trouble with Bishop from the moment of landing. As Blood and Lord Julian had stepped ashore together, they had been met by a man who took no pains to dissemble his chagrin at the turn of events and his determination to change it. He awaited them on the mole, supported by a group of officers.
+
+“You are Lord Julian Wade, I understand,” was his truculent greeting. For Blood at the moment he had nothing beyond a malignant glance.
+
+Lord Julian bowed. “I take it I have the honour to address Colonel Bishop, Deputy-Governor of Jamaica.” It was almost as if his lordship were giving the Colonel a lesson in deportment. The Colonel accepted it, and belatedly bowed, removing his broad hat. Then he plunged on.
+
+“You have granted, I am told, the King’s commission to this man.” His very tone betrayed the bitterness of his rancour. “Your motives were no doubt worthy… your gratitude to him for delivering you from the Spaniards. But the thing itself is unthinkable, my lord. The commission must be cancelled.”
+
+“I don’t think I understand,” said Lord Julian distantly.
+
+“To be sure you don’t, or you’d never ha’ done it. The fellow’s bubbled you. Why, he’s first a rebel, then an escaped slave, and lastly a bloody pirate. I’ve been hunting him this year past.”
+
+“I assure you, sir, that I was fully informed of all. I do not grant the King’s commission lightly.”
+
+“Don’t you, by God! And what else do you call this? But as His Majesty’s Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, I’ll take leave to correct your mistake in my own way.”
+
+“Ah! And what way may that be?”
+
+“There’s a gallows waiting for this rascal in Port Royal.”
+
+Blood would have intervened at that, but Lord Julian forestalled him.
+
+“I see, sir, that you do not yet quite apprehend the circumstances. If it is a mistake to grant Captain Blood a commission, the mistake is not mine. I am acting upon the instructions of my Lord Sunderland; and with a full knowledge of all the facts, his lordship expressly designated Captain Blood for this commission if Captain Blood could be persuaded to accept it.”
+
+Colonel Bishop’s mouth fell open in surprise and dismay.
+
+“Lord Sunderland designated him?” he asked, amazed.
+
+“Expressly.”
+
+His lordship waited a moment for a reply. None coming from the speechless Deputy-Governor, he asked a question: “Would you still venture to describe the matter as a mistake, sir? And dare you take the risk of correcting it?”
+
+“I… I had not dreamed….”
+
+“I understand, sir. Let me present Captain Blood.”
+
+Perforce Bishop must put on the best face he could command. But that it was no more than a mask for his fury and his venom was plain to all.
+
+From that unpromising beginning matters had not improved; rather had they grown worse.
+
+Blood’s thoughts were upon this and other things as he lounged there on the day-bed. He had been a fortnight in Port Royal, his ship virtually a unit now in the Jamaica squadron. And when the news of it reached Tortuga and the buccaneers who awaited his return, the name of Captain Blood, which had stood so high among the Brethren of the Coast, would become a byword, a thing of execration, and before all was done his life might pay forfeit for what would be accounted a treacherous defection. And for what had he placed himself in this position? For the sake of a girl who avoided him so persistently and intentionally that he must assume that she still regarded him with aversion. He had scarcely been vouchsafed a glimpse of her in all this fortnight, although with that in view for his main object he had daily haunted her uncle’s residence, and daily braved the unmasked hostility and baffled rancour in which Colonel Bishop held him. Nor was that the worst of it. He was allowed plainly to perceive that it was the graceful, elegant young trifler from St. James’s, Lord Julian Wade, to whom her every moment was devoted. And what chance had he, a desperate adventurer with a record of outlawry, against such a rival as that, a man of parts, moreover, as he was bound to admit?
+
+You conceive the bitterness of his soul. He beheld himself to be as the dog in the fable that had dropped the substance to snatch at a delusive shadow.
+
+He sought comfort in a line on the open page before him:
+
+“levius fit patientia quicquid corrigere est nefas.”
+
+Sought it, but hardly found it.
+
+A boat that had approached unnoticed from the shore came scraping and bumping against the great red hull of the Arabella, and a raucous voice sent up a hailing shout. From the ship’s belfry two silvery notes rang clear and sharp, and a moment or two later the bo’sun’s whistle shrilled a long wail.
+
+The sounds disturbed Captain Blood from his disgruntled musings. He rose, tall, active, and arrestingly elegant in a scarlet, gold-laced coat that advertised his new position, and slipping the slender volume into his pocket, advanced to the carved rail of the quarter-deck, just as Jeremy Pitt was setting foot upon the companion.
+
+“A note for you from the Deputy-Governor,” said the master shortly, as he proffered a folded sheet.
+
+Blood broke the seal, and read. Pitt, loosely clad in shirt and breeches, leaned against the rail the while and watched him, unmistakable concern imprinted on his fair, frank countenance.
+
+Blood uttered a short laugh, and curled his lip. “It is a very peremptory summons,” he said, and passed the note to his friend.
+
+The young master’s grey eyes skimmed it. Thoughtfully he stroked his golden beard.
+
+“You’ll not go?” he said, between question and assertion.
+
+“Why not? Haven’t I been a daily visitor at the fort…?”
+
+“But it’ll be about the Old Wolf that he wants to see you. It gives him a grievance at last. You know, Peter, that it is Lord Julian alone has stood between Bishop and his hate of you. If now he can show that….”
+
+“What if he can?” Blood interrupted carelessly. “Shall I be in greater danger ashore than aboard, now that we’ve but fifty men left, and they lukewarm rogues who would as soon serve the King as me? Jeremy, dear lad, the Arabella’s a prisoner here, bedad, ‘twixt the fort there and the fleet yonder. Don’t be forgetting that.”
+
+Jeremy clenched his hands. “Why did ye let Wolverstone and the others go?” he cried, with a touch of bitterness. “You should have seen the danger.”
+
+“How could I in honesty have detained them? It was in the bargain. Besides, how could their staying have helped me?” And as Pitt did not answer him: “Ye see?” he said, and shrugged. “I’ll be getting my hat and cane and sword, and go ashore in the cock-boat. See it manned for me.”
+
+“Ye’re going to deliver yourself into Bishop’s hands,” Pitt warned him.
+
+“Well, well, maybe he’ll not find me quite so easy to grasp as he imagines. There’s a thorn or two left on me.” And with a laugh Blood departed to his cabin.
+
+Jeremy Pitt answered the laugh with an oath. A moment he stood irresolute where Blood had left him. Then slowly, reluctance dragging at his feet, he went down the companion to give the order for the cock-boat.
+
+“If anything should happen to you, Peter,” he said, as Blood was going over the side, “Colonel Bishop had better look to himself. These fifty lads may be lukewarm at present, as you say, but - sink me! - they’ll be anything but lukewarm if there’s a breach of faith.”
+
+“And what should be happening to me, Jeremy? Sure, now, I’ll be back for dinner, so I will.”
+
+Blood climbed down into the waiting boat. But laugh though he might, he knew as well as Pitt that in going ashore that morning he carried his life in his hands. Because of this, it may have been that when he stepped on to the narrow mole, in the shadow of the shallow outer wall of the fort through whose crenels were thrust the black noses of its heavy guns, he gave order that the boat should stay for him at that spot. He realized that he might have to retreat in a hurry.
+
+Walking leisurely, he skirted the embattled wall, and passed through the great gates into the courtyard. Half-a-dozen soldiers lounged there, and in the shadow cast by the wall, Major Mallard, the Commandant, was slowly pacing. He stopped short at sight of Captain Blood, and saluted him, as was his due, but the smile that lifted the officer’s stiff mostachios was grimly sardonic. Peter Blood’s attention, however, was elsewhere.
+
+On his right stretched a spacious garden, beyond which rose the white house that was the residence of the Deputy-Governor. In that garden’s main avenue, that was fringed with palm and sandalwood, he had caught sight of Miss Bishop alone. He crossed the courtyard with suddenly lengthened stride.
+
+“Good-morning to ye, ma’am,” was his greeting as he overtook her; and hat in hand now, he added on a note of protest: “Sure, it’s nothing less than uncharitable to make me run in this heat.”
+
+“Why do you run, then?” she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural composure. “I am pressed,” she informed him. “So you will forgive me if I do not stay.”
+
+“You were none so pressed until I came,” he protested, and if his thin lips smiled, his blue eyes were oddly hard.
+
+“Since you perceive it, sir, I wonder that you trouble to be so insistent.”
+
+That crossed the swords between them, and it was against Blood’s instincts to avoid an engagement.
+
+“Faith, you explain yourself after a fashion,” said he. “But since it was more or less in your service that I donned the King’s coat, you should suffer it to cover the thief and pirate.”
+
+She shrugged and turned aside, in some resentment and some regret. Fearing to betray the latter, she took refuge in the former. “I do my best,” said she.
+
+“So that ye can be charitable in some ways!” He laughed softly. “Glory be, now, I should be thankful for so much. Maybe I’m presumptuous. But I can’t forget that when I was no better than a slave in your uncle’s household in Barbados, ye used me with a certain kindness.”
+
+“Why not? In those days you had some claim upon my kindness. You were just an unfortunate gentleman then.”
+
+“And what else would you be calling me now?”
+
+“Hardly unfortunate. We have heard of your good fortune on the seas - how your luck has passed into a byword. And we have heard other things: of your good fortune in other directions.”
+
+She spoke hastily, the thought of Mademoiselle d’Ogeron in her mind. And instantly would have recalled the words had she been able. But Peter Blood swept them lightly aside, reading into them none of her meaning, as she feared he would.
+
+“Aye - a deal of lies, devil a doubt, as I could prove to you.”
+
+“I cannot think why you should trouble to put yourself on your defence,” she discouraged him.
+
+“So that ye may think less badly of me than you do.”
+
+“What I think of you can be a very little matter to you, sir.”
+
+This was a disarming stroke. He abandoned combat for expostulation.
+
+“Can ye say that now? Can ye say that, beholding me in this livery of a service I despise? Didn’t ye tell me that I might redeem the past? It’s little enough I am concerned to redeem the past save only in your eyes. In my own I’ve done nothing at all that I am ashamed of, considering the provocation I received.”
+
+Her glance faltered, and fell away before his own that was so intent.
+
+“I… I can’t think why you should speak to me like this,” she said, with less than her earlier assurance.
+
+“Ah, now, can’t ye, indeed?” he cried. “Sure, then, I’ll be telling ye.”
+
+“Oh, please.” There was real alarm in her voice. “I realize fully what you did, and I realize that partly, at least, you may have been urged by consideration for myself. Believe me, I am very grateful. I shall always be grateful.”
+
+“But if it’s also your intention always to think of me as a thief and a pirate, faith, ye may keep your gratitude for all the good it’s like to do me.”
+
+A livelier colour crept into her cheeks. There was a perceptible heave of the slight breast that faintly swelled the flimsy bodice of white silk. But if she resented his tone and his words, she stifled her resentment. She realized that perhaps she had, herself, provoked his anger. She honestly desired to make amends.
+
+“You are mistaken,” she began. “It isn’t that.”
+
+But they were fated to misunderstand each other.
+
+Jealousy, that troubler of reason, had been over-busy with his wits as it had with hers.
+
+“What is it, then?” quoth he, and added the question: “Lord Julian?”
+
+She started, and stared at him blankly indignant now.
+
+“Och, be frank with me,” he urged her, unpardonably. “‘Twill be a kindness, so it will.”
+
+For a moment she stood before him with quickened breathing, the colour ebbing and flowing in her cheeks. Then she looked past him, and tilted her chin forward.
+
+“You… you are quite insufferable,” she said. “I beg that you will let me pass.”
+
+He stepped aside, and with the broad feathered hat which he still held in his hand, he waved her on towards the house.
+
+“I’ll not be detaining you any longer, ma’am. After all, the cursed thing I did for nothing can be undone. Ye’ll remember afterwards that it was your hardness drove me.”
+
+She moved to depart, then checked, and faced him again. It was she now who was on her defence, her voice quivering with indignation.
+
+“You take that tone! You dare to take that tone!” she cried, astounding him by her sudden vehemence. “You have the effrontery to upbraid me because I will not take your hands when I know how they are stained; when I know you for a murderer and worse?”
+
+He stared at her open-mouthed.
+
+“A murderer-I?” he said at last.
+
+“Must I name your victims? Did you not murder Levasseur?”
+
+“Levasseur?” He smiled a little. “So they’ve told you about that!”
+
+“Do you deny it?”
+
+“I killed him, it is true. I can remember killing another man in circumstances that were very similar. That was in Bridgetown on the night of the Spanish raid. Mary Traill would tell you of it. She was present.”
+
+He clapped his hat on his head with a certain abrupt fierceness, and strode angrily away, before she could answer or even grasp the full significance of what he had said.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+HOSTAGES
+
+
+Peter Blood stood in the pillared portico of Government House, and with unseeing eyes that were laden with pain and anger, stared out across the great harbour of Port Royal to the green hills rising from the farther shore and the ridge of the Blue Mountains beyond, showing hazily through the quivering heat.
+
+He was aroused by the return of the negro who had gone to announce him, and following now this slave, he made his way through the house to the wide piazza behind it, in whose shade Colonel Bishop and my Lord Julian Wade took what little air there was.
+
+“So ye’ve come,” the Deputy-Governor hailed him, and followed the greeting by a series of grunts of vague but apparently ill-humoured import.
+
+He did not trouble to rise, not even when Lord Julian, obeying the instincts of finer breeding, set him the example. From under scowling brows the wealthy Barbados planter considered his sometime slave, who, hat in hand, leaning lightly upon his long beribboned cane, revealed nothing in his countenance of the anger which was being steadily nourished by this cavalier reception.
+
+At last, with scowling brow and in self-sufficient tones, Colonel Bishop delivered himself.
+
+“I have sent for you, Captain Blood, because of certain news that has just reached me. I am informed that yesterday evening a frigate left the harbour having on board your associate Wolverstone and a hundred men of the hundred and fifty that were serving under you. His lordship and I shall be glad to have your explanation of how you came to permit that departure.”
+
+“Permit?” quoth Blood. “I ordered it.”
+
+The answer left Bishop speechless for a moment. Then:
+
+“You ordered it?” he said in accents of unbelief, whilst Lord Julian raised his eyebrows. “‘Swounds! Perhaps you’ll explain yourself? Whither has Wolverstone gone?”
+
+“To Tortuga. He’s gone with a message to the officers commanding the other four ships of the fleet that is awaiting me there, telling them what’s happened and why they are no longer to expect me.”
+
+Bishop’s great face seemed to swell and its high colour to deepen. He swung to Lord Julian.
+
+“You hear that, my lord? Deliberately he has let Wolverstone loose upon the seas again - Wolverstone, the worst of all that gang of pirates after himself. I hope your lordship begins at last to perceive the folly of granting the King’s commission to such a man as this against all my counsels. Why, this thing is… it’s just mutiny… treason! By God! It’s matter for a court-martial.”
+
+“Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?” Blood put on his hat, and sat down unbidden. “I have sent Wolverstone to inform Hagthorpe and Christian and Yberville and the rest of my lads that they’ve one clear month in which to follow my example, quit piracy, and get back to their boucans or their logwood, or else sail out of the Caribbean Sea. That’s what I’ve done.”
+
+“But the men?” his lordship interposed in his level, cultured voice. “This hundred men that Wolverstone has taken with him?”
+
+“They are those of my crew who have no taste for King James’s service, and have preferred to seek work of other kinds. It was in our compact, my lord, that there should be no constraining of my men.”
+
+“I don’t remember it,” said his lordship, with sincerity.
+
+Blood looked at him in surprise. Then he shrugged. “Faith, I’m not to blame for your lordship’s poor memory. I say that it was so; and I don’t lie. I’ve never found it necessary. In any case ye couldn’t have supposed that I should consent to anything different.”
+
+And then the Deputy-Governor exploded.
+
+“You have given those damned rascals in Tortuga this warning so that they may escape! That is what you have done. That is how you abuse the commission that has saved your own neck!”
+
+Peter Blood considered him steadily, his face impassive. “I will remind you,” he said at last, very quietly, “that the object in view was - leaving out of account your own appetites which, as every one knows, are just those of a hangman - to rid the Caribbean of buccaneers. Now, I’ve taken the most effective way of accomplishing that object. The knowledge that I’ve entered the King’s service should in itself go far towards disbanding the fleet of which I was until lately the admiral.”
+
+“I see!” sneered the Deputy-Governor malevolently. “And if it does not?”
+
+“It will be time enough then to consider what else is to be done.”
+
+Lord Julian forestalled a fresh outburst on the part of Bishop.
+
+“It is possible,” he said, “that my Lord Sunderland will be satisfied, provided that the solution is such as you promise.”
+
+It was a courteous, conciliatory speech. Urged by friendliness towards Blood and understanding of the difficult position in which the buccaneer found himself, his lordship was disposed to take his stand upon the letter of his instructions. Therefore he now held out a friendly hand to help him over the latest and most difficult obstacle which Blood himself had enabled Bishop to place in the way of his redemption. Unfortunately the last person from whom Peter Blood desired assistance at that moment was this young nobleman, whom he regarded with the jaundiced eyes of jealousy.
+
+“Anyway,” he answered, with a suggestion of defiance and more than a suggestion of a sneer, “it’s the most ye should expect from me, and certainly it’s the most ye’ll get.”
+
+His lordship frowned, and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.
+
+“I don’t think that I quite like the way you put it. Indeed, upon reflection, Captain Blood, I am sure that I do not.”
+
+“I am sorry for that, so I am,” said Blood impudently. “But there it is. I’m not on that account concerned to modify it.”
+
+His lordship’s pale eyes opened a little wider. Languidly he raised his eyebrows.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “You’re a prodigiously uncivil fellow. You disappoint me, sir. I had formed the notion that you might be a gentleman.”
+
+“And that’s not your lordship’s only mistake,” Bishop cut in. “You made a worse when you gave him the King’s commission, and so sheltered the rascal from the gallows I had prepared for him in Port Royal.”
+
+“Aye - but the worst mistake of all in this matter of commissions,” said Blood to his lordship, “was the one that trade this greasy slaver Deputy-Governor of Jamaica instead of its hangman, which is the office for which he’s by nature fitted.”
+
+“Captain Blood!” said his lordship sharply in reproof. “Upon my soul and honour, sir, you go much too far. You are….”
+
+But here Bishop interrupted him. He had heaved himself to his feet, at last, and was venting his fury in unprintable abuse. Captain Blood, who had also risen, stood apparently impassive, for the storm to spend itself. When at last this happened, he addressed himself quietly to Lord Julian, as if Colonel Bishop had not spoken.
+
+“Your lordship was about to say?” he asked, with challenging smoothness.
+
+But his lordship had by now recovered his habitual composure, and was again disposed to be conciliatory. He laughed and shrugged.
+
+“Faith! here’s a deal of unnecessary heat,” said he. “And God knows this plaguey climate provides enough of that. Perhaps, Colonel Bishop, you are a little uncompromising; and you, sir, are certainly a deal too peppery. I have said, speaking on behalf of my Lord Sunderland, that I am content to await the result of your experiment.”
+
+But Bishop’s fury had by now reached a stage in which it was not to be restrained.
+
+“Are you, indeed?” he roared. “Well, then, I am not. This is a matter in which your lordship must allow me to be the better judge. And, anyhow, I’ll take the risk of acting on my own responsibility.”
+
+Lord Julian abandoned the struggle. He smiled wearily, shrugged, and waved a hand in implied resignation. The Deputy-Governor stormed on.
+
+“Since my lord here has given you a commission, I can’t regularly deal with you out of hand for piracy as you deserve. But you shall answer before a court-martial for your action in the matter of Wolverstone, and take the consequences.”
+
+“I see,” said Blood. “Now we come to it. And it’s yourself as Deputy-Governor will preside over that same court-martial. So that ye can wipe off old scores by hanging me, it’s little ye care how ye do it!” He laughed, and added: “Praemonitus, praemunitus.”
+
+“What shall that mean?” quoth Lord Julian sharply.
+
+“I had imagined that your lordship would have had some education.”
+
+He was at pains, you see, to be provocative.
+
+“It’s not the literal meaning I am asking, sir,” said Lord Julian, with frosty dignity. “I want to know what you desire me to understand?”
+
+“I’ll leave your lordship guessing,” said Blood. “And I’ll be wishing ye both a very good day.” He swept off his feathered hat, and made them a leg very elegantly.
+
+“Before you go,” said Bishop, “and to save you from any idle rashness, I’ll tell you that the Harbour-Master and the Commandant have their orders. You don’t leave Port Royal, my fine gallows bird. Damme, I mean to provide you with permanent moorings here, in Execution Dock.”
+
+Peter Blood stiffened, and his vivid blue eyes stabbed the bloated face of his enemy. He passed his long cane into his left hand, and with his right thrust negligently into the breast of his doublet, he swung to Lord Julian, who was thoughtfully frowning.
+
+“Your lordship, I think, promised me immunity from this.”
+
+“What I may have promised,” said his lordship, “your own conduct makes it difficult to perform.” He rose. “You did me a service, Captain Blood, and I had hoped that we might be friends. But since you prefer to have it otherwise….” He shrugged, and waved a hand towards the Deputy-Governor.
+
+Blood completed the sentence in his own way:
+
+“Ye mean that ye haven’t the strength of character to resist the urgings of a bully.” He was apparently at his ease, and actually smiling. “Well, well - as I said before - praemonitus, praemunitus. I’m afraid that ye’re no scholar, Bishop, or ye’d know that I means forewarned, forearmed.”
+
+“Forewarned? Ha!” Bishop almost snarled. “The warning comes a little late. You do not leave this house.” He took a step in the direction of the doorway, and raised his voice. “Ho there…” he was beginning to call.
+
+Then with a sudden audible catch in his breath, he stopped short. Captain Blood’s right hand had reemerged from the breast of his doublet, bringing with it a long pistol with silver mountings richly chased, which he levelled within a foot of the Deputy-Governor’s head.
+
+“And forearmed,” said he. “Don’t stir from where you are, my lord, or there may be an accident.”
+
+And my lord, who had been moving to Bishop’s assistance, stood instantly arrested. Chap-fallen, with much of his high colour suddenly departed, the Deputy-Governor was swaying on unsteady legs. Peter Blood considered him with a grimness that increased his panic.
+
+“I marvel that I don’t pistol you without more ado, ye fat blackguard. If I don’t, it’s for the same reason that once before I gave ye your life when it was forfeit. Ye’re not aware of the reason, to be sure; but it may comfort ye to know that it exists. At the same time I’ll warn ye not to put too heavy a strain on my generosity, which resides at the moment in my trigger-finger. Ye mean to hang me, and since that’s the worst that can happen to me anyway, you’ll realize that I’ll not boggle at increasing the account by spilling your nasty blood.” He cast his cane from him, thus disengaging his left hand. “Be good enough to give me your arm, Colonel Bishop. Come, come, man, your arm.”
+
+Under the compulsion of that sharp tone, those resolute eyes, and that gleaming pistol, Bishop obeyed without demur. His recent foul volubility was stemmed. He could not trust himself to speak. Captain Blood tucked his left arm through the Deputy-Governor’s proffered right. Then he thrust his own right hand with its pistol back into the breast of his doublet.
+
+“Though invisible, it’s aiming at ye none the less, and I give you my word of honour that I’ll shoot ye dead upon the very least provocation, whether that provocation is yours or another’s. Ye’ll bear that in mind, Lord Julian. And now, ye greasy hangman, step out as brisk and lively as ye can, and behave as naturally as ye may, or it’s the black stream of Cocytus ye’ll be contemplating.” Arm in arm they passed through the house, and down the garden, where Arabella lingered, awaiting Peter Blood’s return.
+
+Consideration of his parting words had brought her first turmoil of mind, then a clear perception of what might be indeed the truth of the death of Levasseur. She perceived that the particular inference drawn from it might similarly have been drawn from Blood’s deliverance of Mary Traill. When a man so risks his life for a woman, the rest is easily assumed. For the men who will take such risks without hope of personal gain are few. Blood was of those few, as he had proved in the case of Mary Traill.
+
+It needed no further assurances of his to convince her that she had done him a monstrous injustice. She remembered words he had used - words overheard aboard his ship (which he had named the Arabella) on the night of her deliverance from the Spanish admiral; words he had uttered when she had approved his acceptance of the King’s commission; the words he had spoken to her that very morning, which had but served to move her indignation. All these assumed a fresh meaning in her mind, delivered now from its unwarranted preconceptions.
+
+Therefore she lingered there in the garden, awaiting his return that she might make amends; that she might set a term to all misunderstanding. In impatience she awaited him. Yet her patience, it seemed, was to be tested further. For when at last he came, it was in company - unusually close and intimate company - with her uncle. In vexation she realized that explanations must be postponed. Could she have guessed the extent of that postponement, vexation would have been changed into despair.
+
+He passed, with his companion, from that fragrant garden into the courtyard of the fort. Here the Commandant, who had been instructed to hold himself in readiness with the necessary men against the need to effect the arrest of Captain Blood, was amazed by the curious spectacle of the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica strolling forth arm in arm and apparently on the friendliest terms with the intended prisoner. For as they went, Blood was chatting and laughing briskly.
+
+They passed out of the gates unchallenged, and so came to the mole where the cock-boat from the Arabella was waiting. They took their places side by side in the stern sheets, and were pulled away together, always very close and friendly, to the great red ship where Jeremy Pitt so anxiously awaited news.
+
+You conceive the master’s amazement to see the Deputy-Governor come toiling up the entrance ladder, with Blood following very close behind him.
+
+“Sure, I walked into a trap, as ye feared, Jeremy,” Blood hailed him. “But I walked out again, and fetched the trapper with me. He loves his life, does this fat rascal.”
+
+Colonel Bishop stood in the waist, his great face blenched to the colour of clay, his mouth loose, almost afraid to look at the sturdy ruffians who lounged about the shot-rack on the main hatch.
+
+Blood shouted an order to the bo’sun, who was leaning against the forecastle bulkhead.
+
+“Throw me a rope with a running noose over the yardarm there, against the need of it. Now, don’t be alarming yourself, Colonel, darling. It’s no more than a provision against your being unreasonable, which I am sure ye’ll not be. We’ll talk the matter over whiles we are dining, for I trust ye’ll not refuse to honour my table by your company.”
+
+He led away the will-less, cowed bully to the great cabin. Benjamin, the negro steward, in white drawers and cotton shirt, made haste by his command to serve dinner.
+
+Colonel Bishop collapsed on the locker under the stern ports, and spoke now for the first time.
+
+“May I ask wha… what are your intentions?” he quavered.
+
+“Why, nothing sinister, Colonel. Although ye deserve nothing less than that same rope and yardarm, I assure you that it’s to be employed only as a last resource. Ye’ve said his lordship made a mistake when he handed me the commission which the Secretary of State did me the honour to design for me. I’m disposed to agree with you; so I’ll take to the sea again. Cras ingens iterabimus aequor. It’s the fine Latin scholar ye’ll be when I’ve done with ye. I’ll be getting back to Tortuga and my buccaneers, who at least are honest, decent fellows. So I’ve fetched ye aboard as a hostage.”
+
+“My God!” groaned the Deputy-Governor. “Ye… ye never mean that ye’ll carry me to Tortuga!”
+
+Blood laughed outright. “Oh, I’d never serve ye such a bad turn as that. No, no. All I want is that ye ensure my safe departure from Port Royal. And, if ye’re reasonable, I’ll not even trouble you to swim for it this time. Ye’ve given certain orders to your Harbour-Master, and others to the Commandant of your plaguey fort. Ye’ll be so good as to send for them both aboard here, and inform them in my presence that the Arabella is leaving this afternoon on the King’s service and is to pass out unmolested. And so as to make quite sure of their obedience, they shall go a little voyage with us, themselves. Here’s what you require. Now write - unless you prefer the yardarm.”
+
+Colonel Bishop heaved himself up in a pet. “You constrain me with violence…” he was beginning.
+
+Blood smoothly interrupted him.
+
+“Sure, now, I am not constraining you at all. I’m giving you a perfectly free choice between the pen and the rope. It’s a matter for yourself entirely.”
+
+Bishop glared at him; then shrugging heavily, he took up the pen and sat down at the table. In an unsteady hand he wrote that summons to his officers. Blood despatched it ashore; and then bade his unwilling guest to table.
+
+“I trust, Colonel, your appetite is as stout as usual.”
+
+The wretched Bishop took the seat to which he was commanded. As for eating, however, that was not easy to a man in his position; nor did Blood press him. The Captain, himself, fell to with a good appetite. But before he was midway through the meal came Hayton to inform him that Lord Julian Wade had just come aboard, and was asking to see him instantly.
+
+“I was expecting him,” said Blood. “Fetch him in.”
+
+Lord Julian came. He was very stem and dignified. His eyes took in the situation at a glance, as Captain Blood rose to greet him.
+
+“It’s mighty friendly of you to have joined us, my lord.”
+
+“Captain Blood,” said his lordship with asperity, “I find your humour a little forced. I don’t know what may be your intentions; but I wonder do you realize the risks you are running.”
+
+“And I wonder does your lordship realize the risk to yourself in following us aboard as I had counted that you would.”
+
+“What shall that mean, sir?”
+
+Blood signalled to Benjamin, who was standing behind Bishop.
+
+“Set a chair for his lordship. Hayton, send his lordship’s boat ashore. Tell them he’ll not be returning yet awhile.”
+
+“What’s that?” cried his lordship. “Blister me! D’ye mean to detain me? Are ye mad?”
+
+“Better wait, Hayton, in case his lordship should turn violent,” said Blood. “You, Benjamin, you heard the message. Deliver it.”
+
+“Will you tell me what you intend, sir?” demanded his lordship, quivering with anger.
+
+“Just to make myself and my lads here safe from Colonel Bishop’s gallows. I’ve said that I trusted to your gallantry not to leave him in the lurch, but to follow him hither, and there’s a note from his hand gone ashore to summon the Harbour-Master and the Commandant of the fort. Once they are aboard, I shall have all the hostages I need for our safety.”
+
+“You scoundrel!” said his lordship through his teeth.
+
+“Sure, now, that’s entirely a matter of the point of view,” said Blood. “Ordinarily it isn’t the kind of name I could suffer any man to apply to me. Still, considering that ye willingly did me a service once, and that ye’re likely unwillingly to do me another now, I’ll overlook your discourtesy, so I will.”
+
+His lordship laughed. “You fool,” he said. “Do you dream that I came aboard your pirate ship without taking my measures? I informed the Commandant of exactly how you had compelled Colonel Bishop to accompany you. Judge now whether he or the Harbour-Master will obey the summons, or whether you will be allowed to depart as you imagine.”
+
+Blood’s face became grave. “I’m sorry for that,” said he.
+
+I thought you would be, answered his lordship.
+
+“Oh, but not on my own account. It’s the Deputy-Governor there I’m sorry for. D’ye know what Ye’ve done? Sure, now, ye’ve very likely hanged him.”
+
+“My God!” cried Bishop in a sudden increase of panic.
+
+“If they so much as put a shot across my bows, up goes their Deputy-Governor to the yardarm. Your only hope, Colonel, lies in the fact that I shall send them word of that intention. And so that you may mend as far as you can the harm you have done, it’s yourself shall bear them the message, my lord.”
+
+“I’ll see you damned before I do,” fumed his lordship.
+
+“Why, that’s unreasonable and unreasoning. But if ye insist, why, another messenger will do as well, and another hostage aboard - as I had originally intended - will make my hand the stronger.”
+
+Lord Julian stared at him, realizing exactly what he had refused.
+
+“You’ll think better of it now that ye understand?” quoth Blood.
+
+“Aye, in God’s name, go, my lord,” spluttered Bishop, “and make yourself obeyed. This damned pirate has me by the throat.”
+
+His lordship surveyed him with an eye that was not by any means admiring. “Why, if that is your wish…” he began. Then he shrugged, and turned again to Blood.
+
+“I suppose I can trust you that no harm will come to Colonel Bishop if you are allowed to sail?”
+
+“You have my word for it,” said Blood. “And also that I shall put him safely ashore again without delay.”
+
+Lord Julian bowed stiffly to the cowering Deputy-Governor. “You understand, sir, that I do as you desire,” he said coldly.
+
+“Aye, man, aye!” Bishop assented hastily.
+
+“Very well.” Lord Julian bowed again and took his departure. Blood escorted him to the entrance ladder at the foot of which still swung the Arabella’s own cock-boat.
+
+“It’s good-bye, my lord,” said Blood. “And there’s another thing.” He proffered a parchment that he had drawn from his pocket. “It’s the commission. Bishop was right when he said it was a mistake.”
+
+Lord Julian considered him, and considering him his expression softened.
+
+“I am sorry,” he said sincerely.
+
+“In other circumstances…” began Blood. “Oh, but there! Ye’ll understand. The boat’s waiting.”
+
+Yet with his foot on the first rung of the ladder, Lord Julian hesitated.
+
+“I still do not perceive - blister me if I do! - why you should not have found some one else to carry your message to the Commandant, and kept me aboard as an added hostage for his obedience to your wishes.”
+
+Blood’s vivid eyes looked into the other’s that were clear and honest, and he smiled, a little wistfully. A moment he seemed to hesitate. Then he explained himself quite fully.
+
+“Why shouldn’t I tell you? It’s the same reason that’s been urging me to pick a quarrel with you so that I might have the satisfaction of slipping a couple of feet of steel into your vitals. When I accepted your commission, I was moved to think it might redeem me in the eyes of Miss Bishop - for whose sake, as you may have guessed, I took it. But I have discovered that such a thing is beyond accomplishment. I should have known it for a sick man’s dream. I have discovered also that if she’s choosing you, as I believe she is, she’s choosing wisely between us, and that’s why I’ll not have your life risked by keeping you aboard whilst the message goes by another who might bungle it. And now perhaps ye’ll understand.”
+
+Lord Julian stared at him bewildered. His long, aristocratic face was very pale.
+
+“My God!” he said. “And you tell me this?”
+
+“I tell you because… Oh, plague on it! - so that ye may tell her; so that she may be made to realize that there’s something of the unfortunate gentleman left under the thief and pirate she accounts me, and that her own good is my supreme desire. Knowing that, she may… faith, she may remember me more kindly - if It’s only in her prayers. That’s all, my lord.”
+
+Lord Julian continued to look at the buccaneer in silence. In silence, at last, he held out his hand; and in silence Blood took it.
+
+“I wonder whether you are right,” said his lordship, “and whether you are not the better man.”
+
+“Where she is concerned see that you make sure that I am right. Good-bye to you.”
+
+Lord Julian wrung his hand in silence, went down the ladder, and was pulled ashore. From the distance he waved to Blood, who stood leaning on the bulwarks watching the receding cock-boat.
+
+The Arabella sailed within the hour, moving lazily before a sluggish breeze. The fort remained silent and there was no movement from the fleet to hinder her departure. Lord Julian had carried the message effectively, and had added to it his own personal commands.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WAR
+
+
+Five miles out at sea from Port Royal, whence the details of the coast of Jamaica were losing their sharpness, the Arabella hove to, and the sloop she had been towing was warped alongside.
+
+Captain Blood escorted his compulsory guest to the head of the ladder. Colonel Bishop, who for two hours and more had been in a state of mortal anxiety, breathed freely at last; and as the tide of his fears receded, so that of his deep-rooted hate of this audacious buccaneer resumed its normal flow. But he practised circumspection. If in his heart he vowed that once back in Port Royal there was no effort he would spare, no nerve he would not strain, to bring Peter Blood to final moorings in Execution Dock, at least he kept that vow strictly to himself.
+
+Peter Blood had no illusions. He was not, and never would be, the complete pirate. There was not another buccaneer in all the Caribbean who would have denied himself the pleasure of stringing Colonel Bishop from the yardarm, and by thus finally stifling the vindictive planter’s hatred have increased his own security. But Blood was not of these. Moreover, in the case of Colonel Bishop there was a particular reason for restraint. Because he was Arabella Bishop’s uncle, his life must remain sacred to Captain Blood.
+
+And so the Captain smiled into the sallow, bloated face and the little eyes that fixed him with a malevolence not to be dissembled.
+
+“A safe voyage home to you, Colonel, darling,” said he in valediction, and from his easy, smiling manner you would never have dreamt of the pain he carried in his breast. “It’s the second time ye’ve served me for a hostage. Ye’ll be well advised to avoid a third. I’m not lucky to you, Colonel, as you should be perceiving.”
+
+Jeremy Pitt, the master, lounging at Blood’s elbow, looked darkly upon the departure of the Deputy-Governor. Behind them a little mob of grim, stalwart, sun-tanned buccaneers were restrained from cracking Bishop like a flea only by their submission to the dominant will of their leader. They had learnt from Pitt while yet in Port Royal of their Captain’s danger, and whilst as ready as he to throw over the King’s service which had been thrust upon them, yet they resented the manner in which this had been rendered necessary, and they marvelled now at Blood’s restraint where Bishop was concerned. The Deputy-Governor looked round and met the lowering hostile glances of those fierce eyes. Instinct warned him that his life at that moment was held precariously, that an injudicious word might precipitate an explosion of hatred from which no human power could save him. Therefore he said nothing. He inclined his head in silence to the Captain, and went blundering and stumbling in his haste down that ladder to the sloop and its waiting negro crew.
+
+They pushed off the craft from the red hull of the Arabella, bent to their sweeps, then, hoisting sail, headed back for Port Royal, intent upon reaching it before darkness should come down upon them. And Bishop, the great bulk of him huddled in the stem sheets, sat silent, his black brows knitted, his coarse lips pursed, malevolence and vindictiveness so whelming now his recent panic that he forgot his near escape of the yardarm and the running noose.
+
+On the mole at Port Royal, under the low, embattled wall of the fort, Major Mallard and Lord Julian waited to receive him, and it was with infinite relief that they assisted him from the sloop.
+
+Major Mallard was disposed to be apologetic.
+
+“Glad to see you safe, sir,” said he. “I’d have sunk Blood’s ship in spite of your excellency’s being aboard but for your own orders by Lord Julian, and his lordship’s assurance that he had Blood’s word for it that no harm should come to you so that no harm came to him. I’ll confess I thought it rash of his lordship to accept the word of a damned pirate….”
+
+“I have found it as good as another’s,” said his lordship, cropping the Major’s too eager eloquence. He spoke with an unusual degree of that frosty dignity he could assume upon occasion. The fact is that his lordship was in an exceedingly bad humour. Having written jubilantly home to the Secretary of State that his mission had succeeded, he was now faced with the necessity of writing again to confess that this success had been ephemeral. And because Major Mallard’s crisp mostachios were lifted by a sneer at the notion of a buccaneer’s word being acceptable, he added still more sharply: “My justification is here in the person of Colonel Bishop safely returned. As against that, sir, your opinion does not weigh for very much. You should realize it.”
+
+“Oh, as your lordship says.” Major Mallard’s manner was tinged with irony. “To be sure, here is the Colonel safe and sound. And out yonder is Captain Blood, also safe and sound, to begin his piratical ravages all over again.”
+
+“I do not propose to discuss the reasons with you, Major Mallard.”
+
+“And, anyway, it’s not for long,” growled the Colonel, finding speech at last. “No, by…..” He emphasized the assurance by an unprintable oath. “If I spend the last shilling of my fortune and the last ship of the Jamaica fleet, I’ll have that rascal in a hempen necktie before I rest. And I’ll not be long about it.” He had empurpled in his angry vehemence, and the veins of his forehead stood out like whipcord. Then he checked.
+
+“You did well to follow Lord Julian’s instructions,” he commended the Major. With that he turned from him, and took his lordship by the arm. “Come, my lord. We must take order about this, you and I.”
+
+They went off together, skirting the redoubt, and so through courtyard and garden to the house where Arabella waited anxiously. The sight of her uncle brought her infinite relief, not only on his own account, but on account also of Captain Blood.
+
+“You took a great risk, sir,” she gravely told Lord Julian after the ordinary greetings had been exchanged.
+
+But Lord Julian answered her as he had answered Major Mallard. “There was no risk, ma’am.”
+
+She looked at him in some astonishment. His long, aristocratic face wore a more melancholy, pensive air than usual. He answered the enquiry in her glance:
+
+“So that Blood’s ship were allowed to pass the fort, no harm could come to Colonel Bishop. Blood pledged me his word for that.”
+
+A faint smile broke the set of her lips, which hitherto had been wistful, and a little colour tinged her cheeks. She would have pursued the subject, but the Deputy-Governor’s mood did not permit it. He sneered and snorted at the notion of Blood’s word being good for anything, forgetting that he owed to it his own preservation at that moment.
+
+At supper, and for long thereafter he talked of nothing but Blood - of how he would lay him by the heels, and what hideous things he would perform upon his body. And as he drank heavily the while, his speech became increasingly gross and his threats increasingly horrible; until in the end Arabella withdrew, white-faced and almost on the verge of tears. It was not often that Bishop revealed himself to his niece. Oddly enough, this coarse, overbearing planter went in a certain awe of that slim girl. It was as if she had inherited from her father the respect in which he had always been held by his brother.
+
+Lord Julian, who began to find Bishop disgusting beyond endurance, excused himself soon after, and went in quest of the lady. He had yet to deliver the message from Captain Blood, and this, he thought, would be his opportunity. But Miss Bishop had retired for the night, and Lord Julian must curb his impatience - it amounted by now to nothing less - until the morrow.
+
+Very early next morning, before the heat of the day came to render the open intolerable to his lordship, he espied her from his window moving amid the azaleas in the garden. It was a fitting setting for one who was still as much a delightful novelty to him in womanhood as was the azalea among flowers. He hurried forth to join her, and when, aroused from her pensiveness, she had given him a good-morrow, smiling and frank, he explained himself by the announcement that he bore her a message from Captain Blood.
+
+He observed her little start and the slight quiver of her lips, and observed thereafter not only her pallor and the shadowy rings about her eyes, but also that unusually wistful air which last night had escaped his notice.
+
+They moved out of the open to one of the terraces, where a pergola of orange-trees provided a shaded sauntering space that was at once cool and fragrant. As they went, he considered her admiringly, and marvelled at himself that it should have taken him so long fully to realize her slim, unusual grace, and to find her, as he now did, so entirely desirable, a woman whose charm must irradiate all the life of a man, and touch its commonplaces into magic.
+
+He noted the sheen of her red-brown hair, and how gracefully one of its heavy ringlets coiled upon her slender, milk-white neck. She wore a gown of shimmering grey silk, and a scarlet rose, fresh-gathered, was pinned at her breast like a splash of blood. Always thereafter when he thought of her it was as he saw her at that moment, as never, I think, until that moment had he seen her.
+
+In silence they paced on a little way into the green shade. Then she paused and faced him.
+
+“You said something of a message, sir,” she reminded him, thus betraying some of her impatience.
+
+He fingered the ringlets of his periwig, a little embarrassed how to deliver himself, considering how he should begin. “He desired me,” he said at last, “to give you a message that should prove to you that there is still something left in him of the unfortunate gentleman that… that.., for which once you knew him.”
+
+“That is not now necessary,” said she very gravely. He misunderstood her, of course, knowing nothing of the enlightenment that yesterday had come to her.
+
+“I think…, nay, I know that you do him an injustice,” said he.
+
+Her hazel eyes continued to regard him.
+
+“If you will deliver the message, it may enable me to judge.”
+
+To him, this was confusing. He did not immediately answer. He found that he had not sufficiently considered the terms he should employ, and the matter, after all, was of an exceeding delicacy, demanding delicate handling. It was not so much that he was concerned to deliver a message as to render it a vehicle by which to plead his own cause. Lord Julian, well versed in the lore of womankind and usually at his ease with ladies of the beau-monde, found himself oddly constrained before this frank and unsophisticated niece of a colonial planter.
+
+They moved on in silence and as if by common consent towards the brilliant sunshine where the pergola was intersected by the avenue leading upwards to the house. Across this patch of light fluttered a gorgeous butterfly, that was like black and scarlet velvet and large as a man’s hand. His lordship’s brooding eyes followed it out of sight before he answered.
+
+“It is not easy. Stab me, it is not. He was a man who deserved well. And amongst us we have marred his chances: your uncle, because he could not forget his rancour; you, because… because having told him that in the King’s service he would find his redemption of what was past, you would not afterwards admit to him that he was so redeemed. And this, although concern to rescue you was the chief motive of his embracing that same service.”
+
+She had turned her shoulder to him so that he should not see her face.
+
+“I know. I know now,” she said softly. Then after a pause she added the question: “And you? What part has your lordship had in this - that you should incriminate yourself with us?”
+
+“My part?” Again he hesitated, then plunged recklessly on, as men do when determined to perform a thing they fear. “If I understood him aright, if he understood aright, himself, my part, though entirely passive, was none the less effective. I implore you to observe that I but report his own words. I say nothing for myself.” His lordship’s unusual nervousness was steadily increasing. “He thought, then - so he told me - that my presence here had contributed to his inability to redeem himself in your sight; and unless he were so redeemed, then was redemption nothing.”
+
+She faced him fully, a frown of perplexity bringing her brows together above her troubled eyes.
+
+“He thought that you had contributed?” she echoed. It was clear she asked for enlightenment. He plunged on to afford it her, his glance a little scared, his cheeks flushing.
+
+“Aye, and he said so in terms which told me something that I hope above all things, and yet dare not believe, for, God knows, I am no coxcomb, Arabella. He said… but first let me tell you how I was placed. I had gone aboard his ship to demand the instant surrender of your uncle whom he held captive. He laughed at me. Colonel Bishop should be a hostage for his safety. By rashly venturing aboard his ship, I afforded him in my own person yet another hostage as valuable at least as Colonel Bishop. Yet he bade me depart; not from the fear of consequences, for he is above fear, nor from any personal esteem for me whom he confessed that he had come to find detestable; and this for the very reason that made him concerned for my safety.”
+
+“I do not understand,” she said, as he paused. “Is not that a contradiction in itself?”
+
+“It seems so only. The fact is, Arabella, this unfortunate man has the… the temerity to love you.”
+
+She cried out at that, and clutched her breast whose calm was suddenly disturbed. Her eyes dilated as she stared at him.
+
+“I… I’ve startled you,” said he, with concern. “I feared I should. But it was necessary so that you may understand.”
+
+“Go on,” she bade him.
+
+“Well, then: he saw in me one who made it impossible that he should win you - so he said. Therefore he could with satisfaction have killed me. But because my death might cause you pain, because your happiness was the thing that above all things he desired, he surrendered that part of his guarantee of safety which my person afforded him. If his departure should be hindered, and I should lose my life in what might follow, there was the risk that… that you might mourn me. That risk he would not take. Him you deemed a thief and a pirate, he said, and added that - I am giving you his own words always - if in choosing between us two, your choice, as he believed, would fall on me, then were you in his opinion choosing wisely. Because of that he bade me leave his ship, and had me put ashore.”
+
+She looked at him with eyes that were aswim with tears. He took a step towards her, a catch in his breath, his hand held out.
+
+“Was he right, Arabella? My life’s happiness hangs upon your answer.”
+
+But she continued silently to regard him with those tear-laden eyes, without speaking, and until she spoke he dared not advance farther.
+
+A doubt, a tormenting doubt beset him. When presently she spoke, he saw how true had been the instinct of which that doubt was born, for her words revealed the fact that of all that he had said the only thing that had touched her consciousness and absorbed it from all other considerations was Blood’s conduct as it regarded herself.
+
+“He said that!” she cried. “He did that! Oh!” She turned away, and through the slender, clustering trunks of the bordering orange-trees she looked out across the glittering waters of the great harbour to the distant hills. Thus for a little while, my lord standing stiffly, fearfully, waiting for fuller revelation of her mind. At last it came, slowly, deliberately, in a voice that at moments was half suffocated. “Last night when my uncle displayed his rancour and his evil rage, it began to be borne in upon me that such vindictiveness can belong only to those who have wronged. It is the frenzy into which men whip themselves to justify an evil passion. I must have known then, if I had not already learnt it, that I had been too credulous of all the unspeakable things attributed to Peter Blood. Yesterday I had his own explanation of that tale of Levasseur that you heard in St. Nicholas. And now this… this but gives me confirmation of his truth and worth. To a scoundrel such as I was too readily brought to believe him, the act of which you have just told me would have been impossible.”
+
+“That is my own opinion,” said his lordship gently.
+
+“It must be. But even if it were not, that would now weigh for nothing. What weighs - oh, so heavily and bitterly - is the thought that but for the words in which yesterday I repelled him, he might have been saved. If only I could have spoken to him again before he went! I waited for him; but my uncle was with him, and I had no suspicion that he was going away again. And now he is lost - back at his outlawry and piracy, in which ultimately he will be taken and destroyed. And the fault is mine - mine!”
+
+“What are you saying? The only agents were your uncle’s hostility and his own obstinacy which would not study compromise. You must not blame yourself for anything.”
+
+She swung to him with some impatience, her eyes aswim in tears. “You can say that, and in spite of his message, which in itself tells how much I was to blame! It was my treatment of him, the epithets I cast at him that drove him. So much he has told you. I know it to be true.”
+
+“You have no cause for shame,” said he. “As for your sorrow - why, if it will afford you solace - you may still count on me to do what man can to rescue him from this position.”
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+“You will do that!” she cried with sudden eager hopefulness. “You promise?” She held out her hand to him impulsively. He took it in both his own.
+
+“I promise,” he answered her. And then, retaining still the hand she had surrendered to him - “Arabella,” he said very gently, “there is still this other matter upon which you have not answered me.”
+
+“This other matter?” Was he mad, she wondered.
+
+Could any other matter signify in such a moment.
+
+“This matter that concerns myself; and all my future, oh, so very closely. This thing that Blood believed, that prompted him…, that … that you are not indifferent to me.” He saw the fair face change colour and grow troubled once more.
+
+“Indifferent to you?” said she. “Why, no. We have been good friends; we shall continue so, I hope, my lord.”
+
+“Friends! Good friends?” He was between dismay and bitterness. “It is not your friendship only that I ask, Arabella. You heard what I said, what I reported. You will not say that Peter Blood was wrong?”
+
+Gently she sought to disengage her hand, the trouble in her face increasing. A moment he resisted; then, realizing what he did, he set her free.
+
+“Arabella!” he cried on a note of sudden pain.
+
+“I have friendship for you, my lord. But only friendship.” His castle of hopes came clattering down about him, leaving him a little stunned. As he had said, he was no coxcomb. Yet there was something that he did not understand. She confessed to friendship, and it was in his power to offer her a great position, one to which she, a colonial planter’s niece, however wealthy, could never have aspired even in her dreams. This she rejected, yet spoke of friendship. Peter Blood had been mistaken, then. How far had he been mistaken? Had he been as mistaken in her feelings towards himself as he obviously was in her feelings towards his lordship? In that case … His reflections broke short. To speculate was to wound himself in vain. He must know. Therefore he asked her with grim frankness:
+
+“Is it Peter Blood?”
+
+“Peter Blood?” she echoed. At first she did not understand the purport of his question. When understanding came, a flush suffused her face.
+
+“I do not know,” she said, faltering a little.
+
+This was hardly a truthful answer. For, as if an obscuring veil had suddenly been rent that morning, she was permitted at last to see Peter Blood in his true relations to other men, and that sight, vouchsafed her twenty-four hours too late, filled her with pity and regret and yearning.
+
+Lord Julian knew enough of women to be left in no further doubt. He bowed his head so that she might not see the anger in his eyes, for as a man of honour he took shame in that anger which as a human being he could not repress.
+
+And because Nature in him was stronger - as it is in most of us - than training, Lord Julian from that moment began, almost in spite of himself, to practise something that was akin to villainy. I regret to chronicle it of one for whom - if I have done him any sort of justice - you should have been conceiving some esteem. But the truth is that the lingering remains of the regard in which he had held Peter Blood were choked by the desire to supplant and destroy a rival. He had passed his word to Arabella that he would use his powerful influence on Blood’s behalf. I deplore to set it down that not only did he forget his pledge, but secretly set himself to aid and abet Arabella’s uncle in the plans he laid for the trapping and undoing of the buccaneer. He might reasonably have urged - had he been taxed with it - that he conducted himself precisely as his duty demanded. But to that he might have been answered that duty with him was but the slave of jealousy in this.
+
+When the Jamaica fleet put to sea some few days later, Lord Julian sailed with Colonel Bishop in Vice-Admiral Craufurd’s flagship. Not only was there no need for either of them to go, but the Deputy-Governor’s duties actually demanded that he should remain ashore, whilst Lord Julian, as we know, was a useless man aboard a ship. Yet both set out to hunt Captain Blood, each making of his duty a pretext for the satisfaction of personal aims; and that common purpose became a link between them, binding them in a sort of friendship that must otherwise have been impossible between men so dissimilar in breeding and in aspirations.
+
+The hunt was up. They cruised awhile off Hispaniola, watching the Windward Passage, and suffering the discomforts of the rainy season which had now set in. But they cruised in vain, and after a month of it, returned empty-handed to Port Royal, there to find awaiting them the most disquieting news from the Old World.
+
+The megalomania of Louis XIV had set Europe in a blaze of war. The French legionaries were ravaging the Rhine provinces, and Spain had joined the nations leagued to defend themselves from the wild ambitions of the King of France. And there was worse than this: there were rumours of civil war in England, where the people had grown weary of the bigoted tyranny of King James. It was reported that William of Orange had been invited to come over.
+
+Weeks passed, and every ship from home brought additional news. William had crossed to England, and in March of that year 1689 they learnt in Jamaica that he had accepted the crown and that James had thrown himself into the arms of France for rehabilitation.
+
+To a kinsman of Sunderland’s this was disquieting news, indeed. It was followed by letters from King William’s Secretary of State informing Colonel Bishop that there was war with France, and that in view of its effect upon the Colonies a Governor-General was coming out to the West Indies in the person of Lord Willoughby, and that with him came a squadron under the command of Admiral van der Kuylen to reenforce the Jamaica fleet against eventualities.
+
+Bishop realized that this must mean the end of his supreme authority, even though he should continue in Port Royal as Deputy-Governor. Lord Julian, in the lack of direct news to himself, did not know what it might mean to him. But he had been very close and confidential with Colonel Bishop regarding his hopes of Arabella, and Colonel Bishop more than ever, now that political events put him in danger of being retired, was anxious to enjoy the advantages of having a man of Lord Julian’s eminence for his relative.
+
+They came to a complete understanding in the matter, and Lord Julian disclosed all that he knew.
+
+“There is one obstacle in our path,” said he. “Captain Blood. The girl is in love with him.”
+
+“Ye’re surely mad!” cried Bishop, when he had recovered speech.
+
+“You are justified of the assumption,” said his lordship dolefully. “But I happen to be sane, and to speak with knowledge.”
+
+“With knowledge?”
+
+“Arabella herself has confessed it to me.”
+
+“The brazen baggage! By God, I’ll bring her to her senses.” It was the slave-driver speaking, the man who governed with a whip.
+
+“Don’t be a fool, Bishop.” His lordship’s contempt did more than any argument to calm the Colonel. “That’s not the way with a girl of Arabella’s spirit. Unless you want to wreck my chances for all time, you’ll hold your tongue, and not interfere at all.”
+
+“Not interfere? My God, what, then?”
+
+“Listen, man. She has a constant mind. I don’t think you know your niece. As long as Blood lives, she will wait for him.”
+
+“Then with Blood dead, perhaps she will come to her silly senses.”
+
+“Now you begin to show intelligence,” Lord Julian commended him. “That is the first essential step.”
+
+“And here is our chance to take it.” Bishop warmed to a sort of enthusiasm. “This war with France removes all restrictions in the matter of Tortuga. We are free to invest it in the service of the Crown. A victory there and we establish ourselves in the favour of this new government.”
+
+“Ah!” said Lord Julian, and he pulled thoughtfully at his lip.
+
+“I see that you understand,” Bishop laughed coarsely. “Two birds with one stone, eh? We’ll hunt this rascal in his lair, right under the beard of the King of France, and we’ll take him this time, if we reduce Tortuga to a heap of ashes.”
+
+On that expedition they sailed two days later - which would be some three months after Blood’s departure - taking every ship of the fleet, and several lesser vessels as auxiliaries. To Arabella and the world in general it was given out that they were going to raid French Hispaniola, which was really the only expedition that could have afforded Colonel Bishop any sort of justification for leaving Jamaica at all at such a time. His sense of duty, indeed, should have kept him fast in Port Royal; but his sense of duty was smothered in hatred - that most fruitless and corruptive of all the emotions. In the great cabin of Vice-Admiral Craufurd’s flagship, the Imperator, the Deputy-Governor got drunk that night to celebrate his conviction that the sands of Captain Blood’s career were running out.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+THE SERVICE OF KING LOUIS
+
+
+Meanwhile, some three months before Colonel Bishop set out to reduce Tortuga, Captain Blood, bearing hell in his soul, had blown into its rockbound harbour ahead of the winter gales, and two days ahead of the frigate in which Wolverstone had sailed from Port Royal a day before him.
+
+In that snug anchorage he found his fleet awaiting him - the four ships which had been separated in that gale off the Lesser Antilles, and some seven hundred men composing their crews. Because they had been beginning to grow anxious on his behalf, they gave him the greater welcome. Guns were fired in his honour and the ships made themselves gay with bunting. The town, aroused by all this noise in the harbour, emptied itself upon the jetty, and a vast crowd of men and women of all creeds and nationalities collected there to be present at the coming ashore of the great buccaneer.
+
+Ashore he went, probably for no other reason than to obey the general expectation. His mood was taciturn; his face grim and sneering. Let Wolverstone arrive, as presently he would, and all this hero-worship would turn to execration.
+
+His captains, Hagthorpe, Christian, and Yberville, were on the jetty to receive him, and with them were some hundreds of his buccaneers. He cut short their greetings, and when they plagued him with questions of where he had tarried, he bade them await the coming of Wolverstone, who would satisfy their curiosity to a surfeit. On that he shook them off, and shouldered his way through that heterogeneous throng that was composed of bustling traders of several nations - English, French, and Dutch - of planters and of seamen of various degrees, of buccaneers who were fruit-selling half-castes, negro slaves, some doll-tearsheets and dunghill-queans from the Old World, and all the other types of the human family that converted the quays of Cayona into a disreputable image of Babel.
+
+Winning clear at last, and after difficulties, Captain Blood took his way alone to the fine house of M. d’Ogeron, there to pay his respects to his friends, the Governor and the Governor’s family.
+
+At first the buccaneers jumped to the conclusion that Wolverstone was following with some rare prize of war, but gradually from the reduced crew of the Arabella a very different tale leaked out to stem their satisfaction and convert it into perplexity. Partly out of loyalty to their captain, partly because they perceived that if he was guilty of defection they were guilty with him, and partly because being simple, sturdy men of their hands, they were themselves in the main a little confused as to what really had happened, the crew of the Arabella practised reticence with their brethren in Tortuga during those two days before Wolverstone’s arrival. But they were not reticent enough to prevent the circulation of certain uneasy rumours and extravagant stories of discreditable adventures - discreditable, that is, from the buccaneering point of view - of which Captain Blood had been guilty.
+
+But that Wolverstone came when he did, it is possible that there would have been an explosion. When, however, the Old Wolf cast anchor in the bay two days later, it was to him all turned for the explanation they were about to demand of Blood.
+
+Now Wolverstone had only one eye; but he saw a deal more with that one eye than do most men with two; and despite his grizzled head - so picturesquely swathed in a green and scarlet turban - he had the sound heart of a boy, and in that heart much love for Peter Blood.
+
+The sight of the Arabella at anchor in the bay had at first amazed him as he sailed round the rocky headland that bore the fort. He rubbed his single eye clear of any deceiving film and looked again. Still he could not believe what it saw. And then a voice at his elbow - the voice of Dyke, who had elected to sail with him - assured him that he was not singular in his bewilderment.
+
+“In the name of Heaven, is that the Arabella or is it the ghost of her?”
+
+The Old Wolf rolled his single eye over Dyke, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again without having spoken; closed it tightly. He had a great gift of caution, especially in matters that he did not understand. That this was the Arabella he could no longer doubt. That being so, he must think before he spoke. What the devil should the Arabella be doing here, when he had left her in Jamaica? And was Captain Blood aboard and in command, or had the remainder of her hands made off with her, leaving the Captain in Port Royal?
+
+Dyke repeated his question. This time Wolverstone answered him.
+
+“Ye’ve two eyes to see with, and ye ask me, who’s only got one, what it is ye see!”
+
+“But I see the Arabella.”
+
+“Of course, since there she rides. What else was you expecting?”
+
+“Expecting?” Dyke stared at him, open-mouthed. “Was you expecting to find the Arabella here?”
+
+Wolverstone looked him over in contempt, then laughed and spoke loud enough to be heard by all around him. “Of course. What else?” And he laughed again, a laugh that seemed to Dyke to be calling him a fool. On that Wolverstone turned to give his attention to the operation of anchoring.
+
+Anon when ashore he was beset by questioning buccaneers, it was from their very questions that he gathered exactly how matters stood, and perceived that either from lack of courage or other motive Blood, himself, had refused to render any account of his doings since the Arabella had separated from her sister ships. Wolverstone congratulated himself upon the discretion he had used with Dyke.
+
+“The Captain was ever a modest man,” he explained to Hagthorpe and those others who came crowding round him. “It’s not his way to be sounding his own praises. Why, it was like this. We fell in with old Don Miguel, and when we’d scuttled him we took aboard a London pimp sent out by the Secretary of State to offer the Captain the King’s commission if so be him’d quit piracy and be o’ good behaviour. The Captain damned his soul to hell for answer. And then we fell in wi’ the Jamaica fleet and that grey old devil Bishop in command, and there was a sure end to Captain Blood and to every mother’s son of us all. So I goes to him, and ‘accept this poxy commission,’ says I; ‘turn King’s man and save your neck and ours.’ He took me at my word, and the London pimp gave him the King’s commission on the spot, and Bishop all but choked hisself with rage when he was told of it. But happened it had, and he was forced to swallow it. We were King’s men all, and so into Port Royal we sailed along o’ Bishop. But Bishop didn’t trust us. He knew too much. But for his lordship, the fellow from London, he’d ha’ hanged the Captain, King’s commission and all. Blood would ha’ slipped out o’ Port Royal again that same night. But that hound Bishop had passed the word, and the fort kept a sharp lookout. In the end, though it took a fortnight, Blood bubbled him. He sent me and most o’ the men off in a frigate that I bought for the voyage. His game - as he’d secretly told me - was to follow and give chase. Whether that’s the game he played or not I can’t tell ye; but here he is afore me as I’d expected he would be.”
+
+There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone. He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes.
+
+Having delivered himself of his decoction of fact and falsehood, and thereby added one more to the exploits of Peter Blood, he enquired where the Captain might be found. Being informed that he kept his ship, Wolverstone stepped into a boat and went aboard, to report himself, as he put it.
+
+In the great cabin of the Arabella he found Peter Blood alone and very far gone in drink - a condition in which no man ever before remembered to have seen him. As Wolverstone came in, the Captain raised bloodshot eyes to consider him. A moment they sharpened in their gaze as he brought his visitor into focus. Then he laughed, a loose, idiot laugh, that yet somehow was half a sneer.
+
+“Ah! The Old Wolf!” said he. “Got here at last, eh? And whatcher gonnerdo wi’ me, eh?” He hiccoughed resoundingly, and sagged back loosely in his chair.
+
+Old Wolverstone stared at him in sombre silence. He had looked with untroubled eye upon many a hell of devilment in his time, but the sight of Captain Blood in this condition filled him with sudden grief. To express it he loosed an oath. It was his only expression for emotion of all kinds. Then he rolled forward, and dropped into a chair at the table, facing the Captain.
+
+“My God, Peter, what’s this?”
+
+“Rum,” said Peter. “Rum, from Jamaica.” He pushed bottle and glass towards Wolverstone.
+
+Wolverstone disregarded them.
+
+“I’m asking you what ails you?” he bawled.
+
+“Rum,” said Captain Blood again, and smiled. “Jus’ rum. I answer all your queshons. Why donjerr answer mine? Whatcher gonerdo wi’ me?”
+
+“I’ve done it,” said Wolverstone. “Thank God, ye had the sense to hold your tongue till I came. Are ye sober enough to understand me?”
+
+“Drunk or sober, allus ‘derstand you.”
+
+“Then listen.” And out came the tale that Wolverstone had told. The Captain steadied himself to grasp it.
+
+“It’ll do as well asertruth,” said he when Wolverstone had finished. “And… oh, no marrer! Much obliged to ye, Old Wolf - faithful Old Wolf! But was it worthertrouble? I’m norrer pirate now; never a pirate again. ‘S finished’” He banged the table, his eyes suddenly fierce.
+
+“I’ll come and talk to you again when there’s less rum in your wits,” said Wolverstone, rising. “Meanwhile ye’ll please to remember the tale I’ve told, and say nothing that’ll make me out a liar. They all believes me, even the men as sailed wi’ me from Port Royal. I’ve made ‘em. If they thought as how you’d taken the King’s commission in earnest, and for the purpose o’ doing as Morgan did, ye guess what would follow.”
+
+“Hell would follow,” said the Captain. “An’ tha’s all I’m fit for.”
+
+“Ye’re maudlin,” Wolverstone growled. “We’ll talk again to-morrow.”
+
+They did; but to little purpose, either that day or on any day thereafter while the rains - which set in that night - endured. Soon the shrewd Wolverstone discovered that rum was not what ailed Blood. Rum was in itself an effect, and not by any means the cause of the Captain’s listless apathy. There was a canker eating at his heart, and the Old Wolf knew enough to make a shrewd guess of its nature. He cursed all things that daggled petticoats, and, knowing his world, waited for the sickness to pass.
+
+But it did not pass. When Blood was not dicing or drinking in the taverns of Tortuga, keeping company that in his saner days he had loathed, he was shut up in his cabin aboard the Arabella, alone and uncommunicative. His friends at Government House, bewildered at this change in him, sought to reclaim him. Mademoiselle d’Ogeron, particularly distressed, sent him almost daily invitations, to few of which he responded.
+
+Later, as the rainy season approached its end, he was sought by his captains with proposals of remunerative raids on Spanish settlements. But to all he manifested an indifference which, as the weeks passed and the weather became settled, begot first impatience and then exasperation.
+
+Christian, who commanded the Clotho, came storming to him one day, upbraiding him for his inaction, and demanding that he should take order about what was to do.
+
+“Go to the devil!” Blood said, when he had heard him out. Christian departed fuming, and on the morrow the Clotho weighed anchor and sailed away, setting an example of desertion from which the loyalty of Blood’s other captains would soon be unable to restrain their men.
+
+Sometimes Blood asked himself why had he come back to Tortuga at all. Held fast in bondage by the thought of Arabella and her scorn of him for a thief and a pirate, he had sworn that he had done with buccaneering. Why, then, was he here? That question he would answer with another: Where else was he to go? Neither backward nor forward could he move, it seemed.
+
+He was degenerating visibly, under the eyes of all. He had entirely lost the almost foppish concern for his appearance, and was grown careless and slovenly in his dress. He allowed a black beard to grow on cheeks that had ever been so carefully shaven; and the long, thick black hair, once so sedulously curled, hung now in a lank, untidy mane about a face that was changing from its vigorous swarthiness to an unhealthy sallow, whilst the blue eyes, that had been so vivid and compelling, were now dull and lacklustre.
+
+Wolverstone, the only one who held the clue to this degeneration, ventured once - and once only - to beard him frankly about it.
+
+“Lord, Peter! Is there never to be no end to this?” the giant had growled. “Will you spend your days moping and swilling ‘cause a white-faced ninny in Port Royal’ll have none o’ ye? ‘Sblood and ‘ounds! If ye wants the wench, why the plague doesn’t ye go and fetch her?”
+
+The blue eyes glared at him from under the jet-black eyebrows, and something of their old fire began to kindle in them. But Wolverstone went on heedlessly.
+
+“I’ll be nice wi’ a wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour. But sink me now if I’d rot myself in rum on account of anything that wears a petticoat. That’s not the Old Wolf’s way. If there’s no other expedition’ll tempt you, why not Port Royal? What a plague do it matter if it is an English settlement? It’s commanded by Colonel Bishop, and there’s no lack of rascals in your company’d follow you to hell if it meant getting Colonel Bishop by the throat. It could be done, I tell you. We’ve but to spy the chance when the Jamaica fleet is away. There’s enough plunder in the town to tempt the lads, and there’s the wench for you. Shall I sound them on ‘t?”
+
+Blood was on his feet, his eyes blazing, his livid face distorted. “Ye’ll leave my cabin this minute, so ye will, or, by Heaven, it’s your corpse’ll be carried out of it. Ye mangy hound, d’ye dare come to me with such proposals?”
+
+He fell to cursing his faithful officer with a virulence the like of which he had never yet been known to use. And Wolverstone, in terror before that fury, went out without another word. The subject was not raised again, and Captain Blood was left to his idle abstraction.
+
+But at last, as his buccaneers were growing desperate, something happened, brought about by the Captain’s friend M. d’Ogeron. One sunny morning the Governor of Tortuga came aboard the Arabella, accompanied by a chubby little gentleman, amiable of countenance, amiable and self-sufficient of manner.
+
+“My Captain,” M. d’Ogeron delivered himself, “I bring you M. de Cussy, the Governor of French Hispaniola, who desires a word with you.”
+
+Out of consideration for his friend, Captain Blood pulled the pipe from his mouth, shook some of the rum out of his wits, and rose and made a leg to M. de Cussy.
+
+“Serviteur!” said he.
+
+M. de Cussy returned the bow and accepted a seat on the locker under the stem windows.
+
+“You have a good force here under your command, my Captain,” said he.
+
+“Some eight hundred men.”
+
+“And I understand they grow restive in idleness.”
+
+“They may go to the devil when they please.”
+
+M. de Cussy took snuff delicately. “I have something better than that to propose,” said he.
+
+“Propose it, then,” said Blood, without interest.
+
+M. de Cussy looked at M. d’Ogeron, and raised his eyebrows a little. He did not find Captain Blood encouraging. But M. d’Ogeron nodded vigorously with pursed lips, and the Governor of Hispaniola propounded his business.
+
+“News has reached us from France that there is war with Spain.”
+
+“That is news, is it?” growled Blood.
+
+“I am speaking officially, my Captain. I am not alluding to unofficial skirmishes, and unofficial predatory measures which we have condoned out here. There is war - formally war - between France and Spain in Europe. It is the intention of France that this war shall be carried into the New World. A fleet is coming out from Brest under the command of M. le Baron de Rivarol for that purpose. I have letters from him desiring me to equip a supplementary squadron and raise a body of not less than a thousand men to reenforce him on his arrival. What I have come to propose to you, my Captain, at the suggestion of our good friend M. d’Ogeron, is, in brief, that you enroll your ships and your force under M. de Rivarol’s flag.”
+
+Blood looked at him with a faint kindling of interest. “You are offering to take us into the French service?” he asked. “On what terms, monsieur?”
+
+“With the rank of Capitaine de Vaisseau for yourself, and suitable ranks for the officers serving under you. You will enjoy the pay of that rank, and you will be entitled, together with your men, to one-tenth share in all prizes taken.”
+
+“My men will hardly account it generous. They will tell you that they can sail out of here to-morrow, disembowel a Spanish settlement, and keep the whole of the plunder.”
+
+“Ah, yes, but with the risks attaching to acts of piracy. With us your position will be regular and official, and considering the powerful fleet by which M. de Rivarol is backed, the enterprises to be undertaken will be on a much vaster scale than anything you could attempt on your own account. So that the one tenth in this case may be equal to more than the whole in the other.”
+
+Captain Blood considered. This, after all, was not piracy that was being proposed. It was honourable employment in the service of the King of France.
+
+“I will consult my officers,” he said; and he sent for them.
+
+They came and the matter was laid before them by M. de Cussy himself. Hagthorpe announced at once that the proposal was opportune. The men were grumbling at their protracted inaction, and would no doubt be ready to accept the service which M. de Cussy offered on behalf of France. Hagthorpe looked at Blood as he spoke. Blood nodded gloomy agreement. Emboldened by this, they went on to discuss the terms. Yberville, the young French filibuster, had the honour to point out to M. de Cussy that the share offered was too small. For one fifth of the prizes, the officers would answer for their men; not for less.
+
+M. de Cussy was distressed. He had his instructions. It was taking a deal upon himself to exceed them. The buccaneers were firm. Unless M. de Cussy could make it one fifth there was no more to be said. M. de Cussy finally consenting to exceed his instructions, the articles were drawn up and signed that very day. The buccaneers were to be at Petit Goave by the end of January, when M. de Rivarol had announced that he might be expected.
+
+After that followed days of activity in Tortuga, refitting the ships, boucanning meat, laying in stores. In these matters which once would have engaged all Captain Blood’s attention, he now took no part. He continued listless and aloof. If he had given his consent to the undertaking, or, rather, allowed himself to be swept into it by the wishes of his officers - it was only because the service offered was of a regular and honourable kind, nowise connected with piracy, with which he swore in his heart that he had done for ever. But his consent remained passive. The service entered awoke no zeal in him. He was perfectly indifferent - as he told Hagthorpe, who ventured once to offer a remonstrance - whether they went to Petit Goave or to Hades, and whether they entered the service of Louis XIV or of Satan.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+M. de RIVAROL
+
+
+Captain Blood was still in that disgruntled mood when he sailed from Tortuga, and still in that mood when he came to his moorings in the bay of Petit Goave. In that same mood he greeted M. le Baron de Rivarol when this nobleman with his fleet of five men-of-war at last dropped anchor alongside the buccaneer ships, in the middle of February. The Frenchman had been six weeks on the voyage, he announced, delayed by unfavourable weather.
+
+Summoned to wait on him, Captain Blood repaired to the Castle of Petit Goave, where the interview was to take place. The Baron, a tall, hawk-faced man of forty, very cold and distant of manner, measured Captain Blood with an eye of obvious disapproval. Of Hagthorpe, Yberville, and Wolverstone who stood ranged behind their captain, he took no heed whatever. M. de Cussy offered Captain Blood a chair.
+
+“A moment, M. de Cussy. I do not think M. le Baron has observed that I am not alone. Let me present to you, sir, my companions: Captain Hagthorpe of the Elizabeth, Captain Wolverstone of the Atropos, and Captain Yberville of the Lachesis.”
+
+The Baron stared hard and haughtily at Captain Blood, then very distantly and barely perceptibly inclined his head to each of the other three. His manner implied plainly that he despised them and that he desired them at once to understand it. It had a curious effect upon Captain Blood. It awoke the devil in him, and it awoke at the same time his self-respect which of late had been slumbering. A sudden shame of his disordered, ill-kempt appearance made him perhaps the more defiant. There was almost a significance in the way he hitched his sword-belt round, so that the wrought hilt of his very serviceable rapier was brought into fuller view. He waved his captains to the chairs that stood about.
+
+“Draw up to the table, lads. We are keeping the Baron waiting.”
+
+They obeyed him, Wolverstone with a grin that was full of understanding. Haughtier grew the stare of M. de Rivarol. To sit at table with these bandits placed him upon what he accounted a dishonouring equality. It had been his notion that - with the possible exception of Captain Blood - they should take his instructions standing, as became men of their quality in the presence of a man of his. He did the only thing remaining to mark a distinction between himself and them. He put on his hat.
+
+“Ye’re very wise now,” said Blood amiably. “I feel the draught myself.” And he covered himself with his plumed castor.
+
+M. de Rivarol changed colour. He quivered visibly with anger, and was a moment controlling himself before venturing to speak. M. de Cussy was obviously very ill at ease.
+
+“Sir,” said the Baron frostily, “you compel me to remind you that the rank you hold is that of Capitaine de Vaisseau, and that you are in the presence of the General of the Armies of France by Sea and Land in America. You compel me to remind you further that there is a deference due from your rank to mine.”
+
+“I am happy to assure you,” said Captain Blood, “that the reminder is unnecessary. I am by way of accounting myself a gentleman, little though I may look like one at present; and I should not account myself that were I capable of anything but deference to those whom nature or fortune may have placed above me, or to those who being placed beneath me in rank may labour under a disability to resent my lack of it.” It was a neatly intangible rebuke. M. de Rivarol bit his lip. Captain Blood swept on without giving him time to reply: “Thus much being clear, shall we come to business?”
+
+M. de Rivarol’s hard eyes considered him a moment. “Perhaps it will be best,” said he. He took up a paper. “I have here a copy of the articles into which you entered with M. de Cussy. Before going further, I have to observe that M. de Cussy has exceeded his instructions in admitting you to one fifth of the prizes taken. His authority did not warrant his going beyond one tenth.”
+
+“That is a matter between yourself and M. de Cussy, my General.”
+
+“Oh, no. It is a matter between myself and you.”
+
+“Your pardon, my General. The articles are signed. So far as we are concerned, the matter is closed. Also out of regard for M. de Cussy, we should not desire to be witnesses of the rebukes you may consider that he deserves.”
+
+“What I may have to say to M. de Cussy is no concern of yours.”
+
+“That is what I am telling you, my General.”
+
+“But - nom de Dieu! - it is your concern, I suppose, that we cannot award you more than one tenth share.” M. de Rivarol smote the table in exasperation. This pirate was too infernally skillful a fencer.
+
+“You are quite certain of that, M. le Baron - that you cannot?”
+
+“I am quite certain that I will not.”
+
+Captain Blood shrugged, and looked down his nose. “In that case,” said he, “it but remains for me to present my little account for our disbursement, and to fix the sum at which we should be compensated for our loss of time and derangement in coming hither. That settled, we can part friends, M. le Baron. No harm has been done.”
+
+“What the devil do you mean?” The Baron was on his feet, leaning forward across the table.
+
+“Is it possible that I am obscure? My French, perhaps, is not of the purest, but….”
+
+“Oh, your French is fluent enough; too fluent at moments, if I may permit myself the observation. Now, look you here, M. le filibustier, I am not a man with whom it is safe to play the fool, as you may very soon discover. You have accepted service of the King of France - you and your men; you hold the rank and draw the pay of a Capitaine de Vaisseau, and these your officers hold the rank of lieutenants. These ranks carry obligations which you would do well to study, and penalties for failing to discharge them which you might study at the same time. They are something severe. The first obligation of an officer is obedience. I commend it to your attention. You are not to conceive yourselves, as you appear to be doing, my allies in the enterprises I have in view, but my subordinates. In me you behold a commander to lead you, not a companion or an equal. You understand me, I hope.”
+
+“Oh, be sure that I understand,” Captain Blood laughed. He was recovering his normal self amazingly under the inspiring stimulus of conflict. The only thing that marred his enjoyment was the reflection that he had not shaved. “I forget nothing, I assure you, my General. I do not forget, for instance, as you appear to be doing, that the articles we signed are the condition of our service; and the articles provide that we receive one-fifth share. Refuse us that, and you cancel the articles; cancel the articles, and you cancel our services with them. From that moment we cease to have the honour to hold rank in the navies of the King of France.”
+
+There was more than a murmur of approval from his three captains.
+
+Rivarol glared at them, checkmated.
+
+“In effect…” M. de Cussy was beginning timidly.
+
+“In effect, monsieur, this is your doing,” the Baron flashed on him, glad to have some one upon whom he could fasten the sharp fangs of his irritation. “You should be broke for it. You bring the King’s service into disrepute; you force me, His Majesty’s representative, into an impossible position.”
+
+“Is it impossible to award us the one-fifth share?” quoth Captain Blood silkily. “In that case, there is no need for beat or for injuries to M. de Cussy. M. de Cussy knows that we would not have come for less. We depart again upon your assurance that you cannot award us more. And things are as they would have been if M. de Cussy had adhered rigidly to his instructions. I have proved, I hope, to your satisfaction, M. le Baron, that if you repudiate the articles you can neither claim our services nor hinder our departure - not in honour.”
+
+“Not in honour, sir? To the devil with your insolence! Do you imply that any course that were not in honour would be possible to me?”
+
+“I do not imply it, because it would not be possible,” said Captain Blood. “We should see to that. It is, my General, for you to say whether the articles are repudiated.”
+
+The Baron sat down. “I will consider the matter,” he said sullenly. “You shall be advised of my resolve.”
+
+Captain Blood rose, his officers rose with him. Captain Blood bowed.
+
+“M. le Baron!” said he.
+
+Then he and his buccaneers removed themselves from the August and irate presence of the General of the King’s Armies by Land and Sea in America.
+
+You conceive that there followed for M. de Cussy an extremely bad quarter of an hour. M. de Cussy, in fact, deserves your sympathy. His self-sufficiency was blown from him by the haughty M. de Rivarol, as down from a thistle by the winds of autumn. The General of the King’s Armies abused him - this man who was Governor of Hispaniola - as if he were a lackey. M. de Cussy defended himself by urging the thing that Captain Blood had so admirably urged already on his behalf - that if the terms he had made with the buccaneers were not confirmed there was no harm done. M. de Rivarol bullied and browbeat him into silence.
+
+Having exhausted abuse, the Baron proceeded to indignities. Since he accounted that M. de Cussy had proved himself unworthy of the post he held, M. de Rivarol took over the responsibilities of that post for as long as he might remain in Hispaniola, and to give effect to this he began by bringing soldiers from his ships, and setting his own guard in M. de Cussy’s castle.
+
+Out of this, trouble followed quickly. Wolverstone coming ashore next morning in the picturesque garb that he affected, his head swathed in a coloured handkerchief, was jeered at by an officer of the newly landed French troops. Not accustomed to derision, Wolverstone replied in kind and with interest. The officer passed to insult, and Wolverstone struck him a blow that felled him, and left him only the half of his poor senses. Within the hour the matter was reported to M. de Rivarol, and before noon, by M. de Rivarol’s orders, Wolverstone was under arrest in the castle.
+
+The Baron had just sat down to dinner with M. de Cussy when the negro who waited on them announced Captain Blood. Peevishly M. de Rivarol bade him be admitted, and there entered now into his presence a spruce and modish gentleman, dressed with care and sombre richness in black and silver, his swarthy, clear-cut face scrupulously shaven, his long black hair in ringlets that fell to a collar of fine point. In his right hand the gentleman carried a broad black hat with a scarlet ostrich-plume, in his left hand an ebony cane. His stockings were of silk, a bunch of ribbons masked his garters, and the black rosettes on his shoes were finely edged with gold.
+
+For a moment M. de Rivarol did not recognize him. For Blood looked younger by ten years than yesterday. But the vivid blue eyes under their level black brows were not to be forgotten, and they proclaimed him for the man announced even before he had spoken. His resurrected pride had demanded that he should put himself on an equality with the baron and advertise that equality by his exterior.
+
+“I come inopportunely,” he courteously excused himself. “My apologies. My business could not wait. It concerns, M. de Cussy, Captain Wolverstone of the Lachesis, whom you have placed under arrest.”
+
+“It was I who placed him under arrest,” said M. de Rivarol.
+
+“Indeed! But I thought that M. de Cussy was Governor of Hispaniola.”
+
+“Whilst I am here, monsieur, I am the supreme authority. It is as well that you should understand it.”
+
+“Perfectly. But it is not possible that you are aware of the mistake that has been made.”
+
+“Mistake, do you say?”
+
+“I say mistake. On the whole, it is polite of me to use that word. Also it is expedient. It will save discussions. Your people have arrested the wrong man, M. de Rivarol. Instead of the French officer, who used the grossest provocation, they have arrested Captain Wolverstone. It is a matter which I beg you to reverse without delay.”
+
+M. de Rivarol’s hawk-face flamed scarlet. His dark eyes bulged.
+
+“Sir, you… you are insolent! But of an insolence that is intolerable!” Normally a man of the utmost self-possession he was so rudely shaken now that he actually stammered.
+
+“M. le Baron, you waste words. This is the New World. It is not merely new; it is novel to one reared amid the superstitions of the Old. That novelty you have not yet had time, perhaps, to realize; therefore I overlook the offensive epithet you have used. But justice is justice in the New World as in the Old, and injustice as intolerable here as there. Now justice demands the enlargement of my officer and the arrest and punishment of yours. That justice I invite you, with submission, to administer.”
+
+“With submission?” snorted the Baron in furious scorn.
+
+“With the utmost submission, monsieur. But at the same time I will remind M. le Baron that my buccaneers number eight hundred; your troops five hundred; and M. de Cussy will inform you of the interesting fact that any one buccaneer is equal in action to at least three soldiers of the line. I am perfectly frank with you, monsieur, to save time and hard words. Either Captain Wolverstone is instantly set at liberty, or we must take measures to set him at liberty ourselves. The consequences may be appalling. But it is as you please, M. le Baron. You are the supreme authority. It is for you to say.”
+
+M. de Rivarol was white to the lips. In all his life he had never been so bearded and defied. But he controlled himself.
+
+“You will do me the favour to wait in the ante-room, M. le Capitaine. I desire a word with M. de Cussy. You shall presently be informed of my decision.”
+
+When the door had closed, the baron loosed his fury upon the head of M. de Cussy.
+
+“So, these are the men you have enlisted in the King’s service, the men who are to serve under me - men who do not serve, but dictate, and this before the enterprise that has brought me from France is even under way! What explanations do you offer me, M. de Cussy? I warn you that I am not pleased with you. I am, in fact, as you may perceive, exceedingly angry.”
+
+The Governor seemed to shed his chubbiness. He drew himself stiffly erect.
+
+“Your rank, monsieur, does not give you the right to rebuke me; nor do the facts. I have enlisted for you the men that you desired me to enlist. It is not my fault if you do not know how to handle them better. As Captain Blood has told you, this is the New World.”
+
+“So, so!” M. de Rivarol smiled malignantly. “Not only do you offer no explanation, but you venture to put me in the wrong. Almost I admire your temerity. But there!” he waved the matter aside. He was supremely sardonic. “It is, you tell me, the New World, and - new worlds, new manners, I suppose. In time I may conform my ideas to this new world, or I may conform this new world to my ideas.” He was menacing on that. “For the moment I must accept what I find. It remains for you, monsieur, who have experience of these savage by-ways, to advise me out of that experience how to act.”
+
+“M. le Baron, it was a folly to have arrested the buccaneer captain. It would be madness to persist. We have not the forces to meet force.”
+
+“In that case, monsieur, perhaps you will tell me what we are to do with regard to the future. Am I to submit at every turn to the dictates of this man Blood? Is the enterprise upon which we are embarked to be conducted as he decrees? Am I, in short, the King’s representative in America, to be at the mercy of these rascals?”
+
+“Oh, by no means. I am enrolling volunteers here in Hispaniola, and I am raising a corps of negroes. I compute that when this is done we shall have a force of a thousand men, the buccaneers apart.”
+
+“But in that case why not dispense with them?”
+
+“Because they will always remain the sharp edge of any weapon that we forge. In the class of warfare that lies before us they are so skilled that what Captain Blood has just said is not an overstatement. A buccaneer is equal to three soldiers of the line. At the same time we shall have a sufficient force to keep them in control. For the rest, monsieur, they have certain notions of honour. They will stand by their articles, and so that we deal justly with them, they will deal justly with us, and give no trouble. I have experience of them, and I pledge you my word for that.”
+
+M. de Rivarol condescended to be mollified. It was necessary that he should save his face, and in a degree the Governor afforded him the means to do so, as well as a certain guarantee for the future in the further force he was raising.
+
+“Very well,” he said. “Be so good as to recall this Captain Blood.”
+
+The Captain came in, assured and very dignified. M. de Rivarol found him detestable; but dissembled it.
+
+“M. le Capitaine, I have taken counsel with M. le Gouverneur. From what he tells me, it is possible that a mistake has been committed. Justice, you may be sure, shall be done. To ensure it, I shall myself preside over a council to be composed of two of my senior officers, yourself and an officer of yours. This council shall hold at once an impartial investigation into the affair, and the offender, the man guilty of having given provocation, shall be punished.”
+
+Captain Blood bowed. It was not his wish to be extreme. “Perfectly, M. le Baron. And now, sir, you have had the night for reflection in this matter of the articles. Am I to understand that you confirm or that you repudiate them?”
+
+M. de Rivarol’s eyes narrowed. His mind was full of what M. de Cussy had said - that these buccaneers must prove the sharp edge of any weapon he might forge. He could not dispense with them. He perceived that he had blundered tactically in attempting to reduce the agreed share. Withdrawal from a position of that kind is ever fraught with loss of dignity. But there were those volunteers that M. de Cussy was enrolling to strengthen the hand of the King’s General. Their presence might admit anon of the reopening of this question. Meanwhile he must retire in the best order possible.
+
+“I have considered that, too,” he announced. “And whilst my opinion remains unaltered, I must confess that since M. de Cussy has pledged us, it is for us to fulfil the pledges. The articles are confirmed, sir.”
+
+Captain Blood bowed again. In vain M. de Rivarol looked searchingly for the least trace of a smile of triumph on those firm lips. The buccaneer’s face remained of the utmost gravity.
+
+Wolverstone was set at liberty that afternoon, and his assailant sentenced to two months’ detention. Thus harmony was restored. But it had been an unpromising beginning, and there was more to follow shortly of a similar discordant kind.
+
+Blood and his officers were summoned a week later to a council which sat to determine their operations against Spain. M. de Rivarol laid before them a project for a raid upon the wealthy Spanish town of Cartagena. Captain Blood professed astonishment. Sourly invited by M. de Rivarol to state his grounds for it, he did so with the utmost frankness.
+
+“Were I General of the King’s Armies in America,” said he, “I should have no doubt or hesitation as to the best way in which to serve my Royal master and the French nation. That which I think will be obvious to M. de Cussy, as it is to me, is that we should at once invade Spanish Hispaniola and reduce the whole of this fruitful and splendid island into the possession of the King of France.”
+
+“That may follow,” said M. de Rivarol. “It is my wish that we begin with Cartagena.”
+
+“You mean, sir, that we are to sail across the Caribbean on an adventurous expedition, neglecting that which lies here at our very door. In our absence, a Spanish invasion of French Hispaniola is possible. If we begin by reducing the Spaniards here, that possibility will be removed. We shall have added to the Crown of France the most coveted possession in the West Indies. The enterprise offers no particular difficulty; it may be speedily accomplished, and once accomplished, it would be time to look farther afield. That would seem the logical order in which this campaign should proceed.”
+
+He ceased, and there was silence. M. de Rivarol sat back in his chair, the feathered end of a quill between his teeth. Presently he cleared his throat and asked a question.
+
+“Is there anybody else who shares Captain Blood’s opinion?”
+
+None answered him. His own officers were overawed by him; Blood’s followers naturally preferred Cartagena, because offering the greater chance of loot. Loyalty to their leader kept them silent.
+
+“You seem to be alone in your opinion,” said the Baron with his vinegary smile.
+
+Captain Blood laughed outright. He had suddenly read the Baron’s mind. His airs and graces and haughtiness had so imposed upon Blood that it was only now that at last he saw through them, into the fellow’s peddling spirit. Therefore he laughed; there was really nothing else to do. But his laughter was charged with more anger even than contempt. He had been deluding himself that he had done with piracy. The conviction that this French service was free of any taint of that was the only consideration that had induced him to accept it. Yet here was this haughty, supercilious gentleman, who dubbed himself General of the Armies of France, proposing a plundering, thieving raid which, when stripped of its mean, transparent mask of legitimate warfare, was revealed as piracy of the most flagrant.
+
+M. de Rivarol, intrigued by his mirth, scowled upon him disapprovingly.
+
+“Why do you laugh, monsieur?”
+
+“Because I discover here an irony that is supremely droll. You, M. le Baron, General of the King’s Armies by Land and Sea in America, propose an enterprise of a purely buccaneering character; whilst I, the buccaneer, am urging one that is more concerned with upholding the honour of France. You perceive how droll it is.”
+
+M. de Rivarol perceived nothing of the kind. M. de Rivarol in fact was extremely angry. He bounded to his feet, and every man in the room rose with him - save only M. de Cussy, who sat on with a grim smile on his lips. He, too, now read the Baron like an open book, and reading him despised him.
+
+“M. le filibustier,” cried Rivarol in a thick voice, “it seems that I must again remind you that I am your superior officer.”
+
+“My superior officer! You! Lord of the World! Why, you are just a common pirate! But you shall hear the truth for once, and that before all these gentlemen who have the honour to serve the King of France. It is for me, a buccaneer, a sea-robber, to stand here and tell you what is in the interest of French honour and the French Crown. Whilst you, the French King’s appointed General, neglecting this, are for spending the King’s resources against an outlying settlement of no account, shedding French blood in seizing a place that cannot be held, only because it has been reported to you that there is much gold in Cartagena, and that the plunder of it will enrich you. It is worthy of the huckster who sought to haggle with us about our share, and to beat us down after the articles pledging you were already signed. If I am wrong - let M. de Cussy say so. If I am wrong, let me be proven wrong, and I will beg your pardon. Meanwhile, monsieur, I withdraw from this council. I will have no further part in your deliberations. I accepted the service of the King of France with intent to honour that service. I cannot honour that service by lending countenance to a waste of life and resources in raids upon unimportant settlements, with plunder for their only object. The responsibility for such decisions must rest with you, and with you alone. I desire M. de Cussy to report me to the Ministers of France. For the rest, monsieur, it merely remains for you to give me your orders. I await them aboard my ship - and anything else, of a personal nature, that you may feel I have provoked by the terms I have felt compelled to use in this council. M. le Baron, I have the honour to wish you good-day.”
+
+He stalked out, and his three captains - although they thought him mad - rolled after him in loyal silence.
+
+M. de Rivarol was gasping like a landed fish. The stark truth had robbed him of speech. When he recovered, it was to thank Heaven vigorously that the council was relieved by Captain Blood’s own act of that gentleman’s further participation in its deliberations. Inwardly M. de Rivarol burned with shame and rage. The mask had been plucked from him, and he had been held up to scorn - he, the General of the King’s Armies by Sea and Land in America.
+
+Nevertheless, it was to Cartagena that they sailed in the middle of March. Volunteers and negroes had brought up the forces directly under M. de Rivarol to twelve hundred men. With these he thought he could keep the buccaneer contingent in order and submissive.
+
+They made up an imposing fleet, led by M. de Rivarol’s flagship, the Victorieuse, a mighty vessel of eighty guns. Each of the four other French ships was at least as powerful as Blood’s Arabella, which was of forty guns. Followed the lesser buccaneer vessels, the Elizabeth, Lachesis, and Atropos, and a dozen frigates laden with stores, besides canoes and small craft in tow.
+
+Narrowly they missed the Jamaica fleet with Colonel Bishop, which sailed north for Tortuga two days after the Baron de Rivarol’s southward passage.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+CARTAGENA
+
+
+Having crossed the Caribbean in the teeth of contrary winds, it was not until the early days of April that the French fleet hove in sight of Cartagena, and M. de Rivarol summoned a council aboard his flagship to determine the method of assault.
+
+“It is of importance, messieurs,” he told them, “that we take the city by surprise, not only before it can put itself into a state of defence; but before it can remove its treasures inland. I propose to land a force sufficient to achieve this to the north of the city to-night after dark.” And he explained in detail the scheme upon which his wits had laboured.
+
+He was heard respectfully and approvingly by his officers, scornfully by Captain Blood, and indifferently by the other buccaneer captains present. For it must be understood that Blood’s refusal to attend councils had related only to those concerned with determining the nature of the enterprise to be undertaken.
+
+Captain Blood was the only one amongst them who knew exactly what lay ahead. Two years ago he had himself considered a raid upon the place, and he had actually made a survey of it in circumstances which he was presently to disclose.
+
+The Baron’s proposal was one to be expected from a commander whose knowledge of Cartagena was only such as might be derived from maps.
+
+Geographically and strategically considered, it is a curious place. It stands almost four-square, screened east and north by hills, and it may be said to face south upon the inner of two harbours by which it is normally approached. The entrance to the outer harbour, which is in reality a lagoon some three miles across, lies through a neck known as the Boca Chica - or Little Mouth - and defended by a fort. A long strip of densely wooded land to westward acts here as a natural breakwater, and as the inner harbour is approached, another strip of land thrusts across at right angles from the first, towards the mainland on the east. Just short of this it ceases, leaving a deep but very narrow channel, a veritable gateway, into the secure and sheltered inner harbour. Another fort defends this second passage. East and north of Cartagena lies the mainland, which may be left out of account. But to the west and northwest this city, so well guarded on every other side, lies directly open to the sea. It stands back beyond a half-mile of beach, and besides this and the stout Walls which fortify it, would appear to have no other defences. But those appearances are deceptive, and they had utterly deceived M. de Rivarol, when he devised his plan.
+
+It remained for Captain Blood to explain the difficulties when M. de Rivarol informed him that the honour of opening the assault in the manner which he prescribed was to be accorded to the buccaneers.
+
+Captain Blood smiled sardonic appreciation of the honour reserved for his men. It was precisely what he would have expected. For the buccaneers the dangers; for M. de Rivarol the honour, glory and profit of the enterprise.
+
+“It is an honour which I must decline,” said he quite coldly.
+
+Wolverstone grunted approval and Hagthorpe nodded. Yberville, who as much as any of them resented the superciliousness of his noble compatriot, never wavered in loyalty to Captain Blood. The French officers - there were six of them present - stared their haughty surprise at the buccaneer leader, whilst the Baron challengingly fired a question at him.
+
+“How? You decline it, ‘sir? You decline to obey orders, do you say?”
+
+“I understood, M. le Baron, that you summoned us to deliberate upon the means to be adopted.”
+
+“Then you understood amiss, M. le Capitaine. You are here to receive my commands. I have already deliberated, and I have decided. I hope you understand.”
+
+“Oh, I understand,” laughed Blood. “But, I ask myself, do you?” And without giving the Baron time to set the angry question that was bubbling to his lips, he swept on: “You have deliberated, you say, and you have decided. But unless your decision rests upon a wish to destroy my buccaneers, you will alter it when I tell you something of which I have knowledge. This city of Cartagena looks very vulnerable on the northern side, all open to the sea as it apparently stands. Ask yourself, M. le Baron, how came the Spaniards who built it where it is to have been at such trouble to fortify it to the south, if from the north it is so easily assailable.”
+
+That gave M. de Rivarol pause.
+
+“The Spaniards,” Blood pursued, “are not quite the fools you are supposing them. Let me tell you, messieurs, that two years ago I made a survey of Cartagena as a preliminary to raiding it. I came hither with some friendly trading Indians, myself disguised as an Indian, and in that guise I spent a week in the city and studied carefully all its approaches. On the side of the sea where it looks so temptingly open to assault, there is shoal water for over half a mile out - far enough out, I assure you, to ensure that no ship shall come within bombarding range of it. It is not safe to venture nearer land than three quarters of a mile.”
+
+“But our landing will be effected in canoes and piraguas and open boats,” cried an officer impatiently.
+
+“In the calmest season of the year, the surf will hinder any such operation. And you will also bear in mind that if landing were possible as you are suggesting, that landing could not be covered by the ships’ guns. In fact, it is the landing parties would be in danger from their own artillery.”
+
+“If the attack is made by night, as I propose, covering will be unnecessary. You should be ashore in force before the Spaniards are aware of the intent.”
+
+“You are assuming that Cartagena is a city of the blind, that at this very moment they are not conning our sails and asking themselves who we are and what we intend.”
+
+“But if they feel themselves secure from the north, as you suggest,” cried the Baron impatiently, “that very security will lull them.”
+
+“Perhaps. But, then, they are secure. Any attempt to land on this side is doomed to failure at the hands of Nature.”
+
+“Nevertheless, we make the attempt,” said the obstinate Baron, whose haughtiness would not allow him to yield before his officers.
+
+“If you still choose to do so after what I have said, you are, of course, the person to decide. But I do not lead my men into fruitless danger.”
+
+“If I command you…” the Baron was beginning. But Blood unceremoniously interrupted him.
+
+“M. le Baron, when M. de Cussy engaged us on your behalf, it was as much on account of our knowledge and experience of this class of warfare as on account of our strength. I have placed my own knowledge and experience in this particular matter at your disposal. I will add that I abandoned my own project of raiding Cartagena, not being in sufficient strength at the time to force the entrance of the harbour, which is the only way into the city. The strength which you now command is ample for that purpose.”
+
+“But whilst we are doing that, the Spaniards will have time to remove great part of the wealth this city holds. We must take them by surprise.”
+
+Captain Blood shrugged. “If this is a mere pirating raid, that, of course, is a prime consideration. It was with me. But if you are concerned to abate the pride of Spain and plant the Lilies of France on the forts of this settlement, the loss of some treasure should not really weigh for much.”
+
+M. de Rivarol bit his lip in chagrin. His gloomy eye smouldered as it considered the self-contained buccaneer.
+
+“But if I command you to go - to make the attempt?” he asked. “Answer me, monsieur, let us know once for all where we stand, and who commands this expedition.”
+
+“Positively, I find you tiresome,” said Captain Blood, and he swung to M. de Cussy, who sat there gnawing his lip, intensely uncomfortable. “I appeal to you, monsieur, to justify me to the General.”
+
+M. de Cussy started out of his gloomy abstraction. He cleared his throat. He was extremely nervous.
+
+“In view of what Captain Blood has submitted….”
+
+“Oh, to the devil with that!” snapped Rivarol. “It seems that I am followed by poltroons. Look you, M. le Capitaine, since you are afraid to undertake this thing, I will myself undertake it. The weather is calm, and I count upon making good my landing. If I do so, I shall have proved you wrong, and I shall have a word to say to you to-morrow which you may not like. I am being very generous with you, sir.” He waved his hand regally. “You have leave to go.”
+
+It was sheer obstinacy and empty pride that drove him, and he received the lesson he deserved. The fleet stood in during the afternoon to within a mile of the coast, and under cover of darkness three hundred men, of whom two hundred were negroes - the whole of the negro contingent having been pressed into the undertaking - were pulled away for the shore in the canoes, piraguas, and ships’ boats. Rivarol’s pride compelled him, however much he may have disliked the venture, to lead them in person.
+
+The first six boats were caught in the surf, and pounded into fragments before their occupants could extricate themselves. The thunder of the breakers and the cries of the shipwrecked warned those who followed, and thereby saved them from sharing the same fate. By the Baron’s urgent orders they pulled away again out of danger, and stood about to pick up such survivors as contrived to battle towards them. Close upon fifty lives were lost in the adventure, together with half-a-dozen boats stored with ammunition and light guns.
+
+The Baron went back to his flagship an infuriated, but by no means a wiser man. Wisdom - not even the pungent wisdom experience thrusts upon us - is not for such as M. de Rivarol. His anger embraced all things, but focussed chiefly upon Captain Blood. In some warped process of reasoning he held the buccaneer chiefly responsible for this misadventure. He went to bed considering furiously what he should say to Captain Blood upon the morrow.
+
+He was awakened at dawn by the rolling thunder of guns. Emerging upon the poop in nightcap and slippers, he beheld a sight that increased his unreasonable and unreasoning fury. The four buccaneer ships under canvas were going through extraordinary manoeuvre half a mile off the Boca Chica and little more than half a mile away from the remainder of the fleet, and from their flanks flame and smoke were belching each time they swung broadside to the great round fort that guarded that narrow entrance. The fort was returning the fire vigorously and viciously. But the buccaneers timed their broadsides with extraordinary judgment to catch the defending ordnance reloading; then as they drew the Spaniards’ fire, they swung away again not only taking care to be ever moving targets, but, further, to present no more than bow or stern to the fort, their masts in line, when the heaviest cannonades were to be expected.
+
+Gibbering and cursing, M. de Rivarol stood there and watched this action, so presumptuously undertaken by Blood on his own responsibility. The officers of the Victorieuse crowded round him, but it was not until M. de Cussy came to join the group that he opened the sluices of his rage. And M. de Cussy himself invited the deluge that now caught him. He had come up rubbing his hands and taking a proper satisfaction in the energy of the men whom he had enlisted.
+
+“Aha, M. de Rivarol!” he laughed. “He understands his business, eh, this Captain Blood. He’ll plant the Lilies of France on that fort before breakfast.”
+
+The Baron swung upon him snarling. “He understands his business, eh? His business, let me tell you, M. de Cussy, is to obey my orders, and I have not ordered this. Par la Mordieu! When this is over I’ll deal with him for his damned insubordination.”
+
+“Surely, M. le Baron, he will have justified it if he succeeds.”
+
+“Justified it! Ah, parbleu! Can a soldier ever justify acting without orders?” He raved on furiously, his officers supporting him out of their detestation of Captain Blood.
+
+Meanwhile the fight went merrily on. The fort was suffering badly. Yet for all their manoeuvring the buccaneers were not escaping punishment. The starboard gunwale of the Atropos had been hammered into splinters, and a shot had caught her astern in the coach. The Elizabeth was badly battered about the forecastle, and the Arabella’s maintop had been shot away, whilst’ towards the end of that engagement the Lachesis came reeling out of the fight with a shattered rudder, steering herself by sweeps.
+
+The absurd Baron’s fierce eyes positively gleamed with satisfaction.
+
+“I pray Heaven they may sink all his infernal ships!” he cried in his frenzy.
+
+But Heaven didn’t hear him. Scarcely had he spoken than there was a terrific explosion, and half the fort went up in fragments. A lucky shot from the buccaneers had found the powder magazine.
+
+It may have been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon the quarter-deck of the Victoriense, to confront M. de Rivarol, still in bedgown and nightcap.
+
+“I have to report, M. le Baron, that we are in possession of the fort on Boca Chica. The standard of France is flying from what remains of its tower, and the way into the outer harbour is open to your fleet.”
+
+M. de Rivarol was compelled to swallow his fury, though it choked him. The jubilation among his officers had been such that he could not continue as he had begun. Yet his eyes were malevolent, his face pale with anger.
+
+“You are fortunate, M. Blood, that you succeeded,” he said. “It would have gone very ill with you had you failed. Another time be so good as to await my orders, lest you should afterwards lack the justification which your good fortune has procured you this morning.”
+
+Blood smiled with a flash of white teeth, and bowed. “I shall be glad of your orders now, General, for pursuing our advantage. You realize that speed in striking is the first essential.”
+
+Rivarol was left gaping a moment. Absorbed in his ridiculous anger, he had considered nothing. But he made a quick recovery. “To my cabin, if you please,” he commanded peremptorily, and was turning to lead the way, when Blood arrested him.
+
+“With submission, my General, we shall be better here. You behold there the scene of our coming action. It is spread before you like a map.” He waved his hand towards the lagoon, the country flanking it and the considerable city standing back from the beach. “If it is not a presumption in me to offer a suggestion….” He paused. M. de Rivarol looked at him sharply, suspecting irony. But the swarthy face was bland, the keen eyes steady.
+
+“Let us hear your suggestion,” he consented.
+
+Blood pointed out the fort at the mouth of the inner harbour, which was just barely visible above the waving palms on the intervening tongue of land. He announced that its armament was less formidable than that of the outer fort, which they had reduced; but on the other hand, the passage was very much narrower than the Boca Chica, and before they could attempt to make it in any case, they must dispose of those defences. He proposed that the French ships should enter the outer harbour, and proceed at once to bombardment. Meanwhile, he would land three hundred buccaneers and some artillery on the eastern side of the lagoon, beyond the fragrant garden islands dense with richly bearing fruit-trees, and proceed simultaneously to storm the fort in the rear. Thus beset on both sides at once, and demoralized by the fate of the much stronger outer fort, he did not think the Spaniards would offer a very long resistance. Then it would be for M. de Rivarol to garrison the fort, whilst Captain Blood would sweep on with his men, and seize the Church of Nuestra Senora de la Poupa, plainly visible on its hill immediately eastward of the town. Not only did that eminence afford them a valuable and obvious strategic advantage, but it commanded the only road that led from Cartagena to the interior, and once it were held there would be no further question of the Spaniards attempting to remove the wealth of the city.
+
+That to M. de Rivarol was - as Captain Blood had judged that it would be - the crowning argument. Supercilious until that moment, and disposed for his own pride’s sake to treat the buccaneer’s suggestions with cavalier criticism, M. de Rivarol’s manner suddenly changed. He became alert and brisk, went so far as tolerantly to commend Captain Blood’s plan, and issued orders that action might be taken upon it at once.
+
+It is not necessary to follow that action step by step. Blunders on the part of the French marred its smooth execution, and the indifferent handling of their ships led to the sinking of two of them in the course of the afternoon by the fort’s gunfire. But by evening, owing largely to the irresistible fury with which the buccaneers stormed the place from the landward side, the fort had surrendered, and before dusk Blood and his men with some ordnance hauled thither by mules dominated the city from the heights of Nuestra Senora de la Poupa.
+
+At noon on the morrow, shorn of defences and threatened with bombardment, Cartagena sent offers of surrender to M. de Rivarol.
+
+Swollen with pride by a victory for which he took the entire credit to himself, the Baron dictated his terms. He demanded that all public effects and office accounts be delivered up; that the merchants surrender all moneys and goods held by them for their correspondents; the inhabitants could choose whether they would remain in the city or depart; but those who went must first deliver up all their property, and those who elected to remain must surrender half, and become the subjects of France; religious houses and churches should be spared, but they must render accounts of all moneys and valuables in their possession.
+
+Cartagena agreed, having no choice in the matter, and on the next day, which was the 5th of April, M. de Rivarol entered the city and proclaimed it now a French colony, appointing M. de Cussy its Governor. Thereafter he proceeded to the Cathedral, where very properly a Te Deum was sung in honour of the conquest. This by way of grace, whereafter M. de Rivarol proceeded to devour the city. The only detail in which the French conquest of Cartagena differed from an ordinary buccaneering raid was that under the severest penalties no soldier was to enter the house of any inhabitant. But this apparent respect for the persons and property of the conquered was based in reality upon M. de Rivarol’s anxiety lest a doubloon should be abstracted from all the wealth that was pouring into the treasury opened by the Baron in the name of the King of France. Once the golden stream had ceased, he removed all restrictions and left the city in prey to his men, who proceeded further to pillage it of that part of their property which the inhabitants who became French subjects had been assured should remain inviolate. The plunder was enormous. In the course of four days over a hundred mules laden with gold went out of the city and down to the boats waiting at the beach to convey the treasure aboard the ships.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+THE HONOUR OF M. DE RIVAROL
+
+
+During the capitulation and for some time after, Captain Blood and the greater portion of his buccaneers had been at their post on the heights of Nuestra Senora de la Poupa, utterly in ignorance of what was taking place. Blood, although the man chiefly, if not solely, responsible for the swift reduction of the city, which was proving a veritable treasure-house, was not even shown the consideration of being called to the council of officers which with M. de Rivarol determined the terms of the capitulation.
+
+This was a slight that at another time Captain Blood would not have borne for a moment. But at present, in his odd frame of mind, and its divorcement from piracy, he was content to smile his utter contempt of the French General. Not so, however, his captains, and still less his men. Resentment smouldered amongst them for a while, to flame out violently at the end of that week in Cartagena. It was only by undertaking to voice their grievance to the Baron that their captain was able for the moment to pacify them. That done, he went at once in quest of M. de Rivarol.
+
+He found him in the offices which the Baron had set up in the town, with a staff of clerks to register the treasure brought in and to cast up the surrendered account-books, with a view to ascertaining precisely what were the sums yet to be delivered up. The Baron sat there scrutinizing ledgers, like a city merchant, and checking figures to make sure that all was correct to the last peso. A choice occupation this for the General of the King’s Armies by Sea and Land. He looked up irritated by the interruption which Captain Blood’s advent occasioned.
+
+“M. le Baron,” the latter greeted him. “I must speak frankly; and you must suffer it. My men are on the point of mutiny.”
+
+M. de Rivarol considered him with a faint lift of the eyebrows.
+
+“Captain Blood, I, too, will speak frankly; and you, too, must suffer it. If there is a mutiny, you and your captains shall be held personally responsible. The mistake you make is in assuming with me the tone of an ally, whereas I have given you clearly to understand from the first that you are simply in the position of having accepted service under me. Your proper apprehension of that fact will save the waste of a deal of words.”
+
+Blood contained himself with difficulty. One of these fine days, he felt, that for the sake of humanity he must slit the comb of this supercilious, arrogant cockerel.
+
+“You may define our positions as you please,” said he. “But I’ll remind you that the nature of a thing is not changed by the name you give it. I am concerned with facts; chiefly with the fact that we entered into definite articles with you. Those articles provide for a certain distribution of the spoil. My men demand it. They are not satisfied.”
+
+“Of what are they not satisfied?” demanded the Baron.
+
+“Of your honesty, M. de Rivarol.”
+
+A blow in the face could scarcely have taken the Frenchman more aback. He stiffened, and drew himself up, his eyes blazing, his face of a deathly pallor. The clerks at the tables laid down their pens, and awaited the explosion in a sort of terror.
+
+For a long moment there was silence. Then the great gentleman delivered himself in a voice of concentrated anger. “Do you really dare so much, you and the dirty thieves that follow you? God’s Blood! You shall answer to me for that word, though it entail a yet worse dishonour to meet you. Faugh!”
+
+“I will remind you,” said Blood, “that I am speaking not for myself, but for my men. It is they who are not satisfied, they who threaten that unless satisfaction is afforded them, and promptly, they will take it.”
+
+“Take it?” said Rivarol, trembling in his rage. “Let them attempt it, and….”
+
+“Now don’t be rash. My men are within their rights, as you are aware. They demand to know when this sharing of the spoil is to take place, and when they are to receive the fifth for which their articles provide.”
+
+“God give me patience! How can we share the spoil before it has been completely gathered?”
+
+“My men have reason to believe that it is gathered; and, anyway, they view with mistrust that it should all be housed aboard your ships, and remain in your possession. They say that hereafter there will be no ascertaining what the spoil really amounts to.”
+
+“But - name of Heaven! - I have kept books. They are there for all to see.”
+
+“They do not wish to see account-books. Few of them can read. They want to view the treasure itself. They know - you compel me to be blunt - that the accounts have been falsified. Your books show the spoil of Cartagena to amount to some ten million livres. The men know - and they are very skilled in these computations - that it exceeds the enormous total of forty millions. They insist that the treasure itself be produced and weighed in their presence, as is the custom among the Brethren of the Coast.”
+
+“I know nothing of filibuster customs.” The gentleman was disdainful.
+
+“But you are learning quickly.”
+
+“What do you mean, you rogue? I am a leader of armies, not of plundering thieves.”
+
+“Oh, but of course!” Blood’s irony laughed in his eyes. “Yet, whatever you may be, I warn you that unless you yield to a demand that I consider just and therefore uphold, you may look for trouble, and it would not surprise me if you never leave Cartagena at all, nor convey a single gold piece home to France.”
+
+“Ah, pardieu! Am I to understand that you are threatening me?”
+
+“Come, come, M. le Baron! I warn you of the trouble that a little prudence may avert. You do not know on what a volcano you are sitting. You do not know the ways of buccaneers. If you persist, Cartagena will be drenched in blood, and whatever the outcome the King of France will not have been well served.”
+
+That shifted the basis of the argument to less hostile ground. Awhile yet it continued, to be concluded at last by an ungracious undertaking from M. de Rivarol to submit to the demands of the buccaneers. He gave it with an extreme ill-grace, and only because Blood made him realize at last that to withhold it longer would be dangerous. In an engagement, he might conceivably defeat Blood’s followers. But conceivably he might not. And even if he succeeded, the effort would be so costly to him in men that he might not thereafter find himself in sufficient strength to maintain his hold of what he had seized.
+
+The end of it all was that he gave a promise at once to make the necessary preparations, and if Captain Blood and his officers would wait upon him on board the Victorieuse to-morrow morning, the treasure should be produced, weighed in their presence, and their fifth share surrendered there and then into their own keeping.
+
+Among the buccaneers that night there was hilarity over the sudden abatement of M. de Rivarol’s monstrous pride. But when the next dawn broke over Cartagena, they had the explanation of it. The only ships to be seen in the harbour were the Arabella and the Elizabeth riding at anchor, and the Atropos and the Lachesis careened on the beach for repair of the damage sustained in the bombardment. The French ships were gone. They had been quietly and secretly warped out of the harbour under cover of night, and three sails, faint and small, on the horizon to westward was all that remained to be seen of them. The absconding M. de Rivarol had gone off with the treasure, taking with him the troops and mariners he had brought from France. He had left behind him at Cartagena not only the empty-handed buccaneers, whom he had swindled, but also M. de Cussy and the volunteers and negroes from Hispaniola, whom he had swindled no less.
+
+The two parties were fused into one by their common fury, and before the exhibition of it the inhabitants of that illfated town were stricken with deeper terror than they had yet known since the coming of this expedition.
+
+Captain Blood alone kept his head, setting a curb upon his deep chagrin. He had promised himself that before parting from M. de Rivarol he would present a reckoning for all the petty affronts and insults to which that unspeakable fellow - now proved a scoundrel - had subjected him.
+
+“We must follow,” he declared. “Follow and punish.”
+
+At first that was the general cry. Then came the consideration that only two of the buccaneer ships were seaworthy - and these could not accommodate the whole force, particularly being at the moment indifferently victualled for a long voyage. The crews of the Lachesis and Atropos and with them their captains, Wolverstone and Yberville, renounced the intention. After all, there would be a deal of treasure still hidden in Cartagena. They would remain behind to extort it whilst fitting their ships for sea. Let Blood and Hagthorpe and those who sailed with them do as they pleased.
+
+Then only did Blood realize the rashness of his proposal, and in attempting to draw back he almost precipitated a battle between the two parties into which that same proposal had now divided the buccaneers. And meanwhile those French sails on the horizon were growing less and less. Blood was reduced to despair. If he went off now, Heaven knew what would happen to the town, the temper of those whom he was leaving being what it was. Yet if he remained, it would simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe’s crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable. Unable to reach a decision, his own men and Hagthorpe’s took the matter off his hands, eager to give chase to Rivarol. Not only was a dastardly cheat to be punished but an enormous treasure to be won by treating as an enemy this French commander who, himself, had so villainously broken the alliance.
+
+When Blood, torn as he was between conflicting considerations, still hesitated, they bore him almost by main force aboard the Arabella.
+
+Within an hour, the water-casks at least replenished and stowed aboard, the Arabella and the Elizabeth put to sea upon that angry chase.
+
+“When we were well at sea, and the Arabella’s course was laid,” writes Pitt, in his log, “I went to seek the Captain, knowing him to be in great trouble of mind over these events. I found him sitting alone in his cabin, his head in his hands, torment in the eyes that stared straight before him, seeing nothing.”
+
+“What now, Peter?” cried the young Somerset mariner. “Lord, man, what is there here to fret you? Surely ‘t isn’t the thought of Rivarol!”
+
+“No,” said Blood thickly. And for once he was communicative. It may well be that he must vent the thing that oppressed him or be driven mad by it. And Pitt, after all, was his friend and loved him, and, so, a proper man for confidences. “But if she knew! If she knew! O God! I had thought to have done with piracy; thought to have done with it for ever. Yet here have I been committed by this scoundrel to the worst piracy that ever I was guilty of. Think of Cartagena! Think of the hell those devils will be making of it now! And I must have that on my soul!”
+
+“Nay, Peter- ‘t isn’t on your soul; but on Rivarol’s. It is that dirty thief who has brought all this about. What could you have done to prevent it?”
+
+“I would have stayed if it could have availed.”
+
+“It could not, and you know it. So why repine?”
+
+“There is more than that to it,” groaned Blood. “What now? What remains? Loyal service with the English was made impossible for me. Loyal service with France has led to this; and that is equally impossible hereafter. What to live clean, I believe the only thing is to go and offer my sword to the King of Spain.”
+
+But something remained - the last thing that he could have expected - something towards which they were rapidly sailing over the tropical, sunlit sea. All this against which he now inveighed so bitterly was but a necessary stage in the shaping of his odd destiny.
+
+Setting a course for Hispaniola, since they judged that thither must Rivarol go to refit before attempting to cross to France, the Arabella and the Elizabeth ploughed briskly northward with a moderately favourable wind for two days and nights without ever catching a glimpse of their quarry. The third dawn brought with it a haze which circumscribed their range of vision to something between two and three miles, and deepened their growing vexation and their apprehension that M. de Rivarol might escape them altogether.
+
+Their position then - according to Pitt’s log - was approximately 75 deg. 30’ W. Long. by 17 deg. 45’ N. Lat., so that they had Jamaica on their larboard beam some thirty miles to westward, and, indeed, away to the northwest, faintly visible as a bank of clouds, appeared the great ridge of the Blue Mountains whose peaks were thrust into the clear upper air above the lowlying haze. The wind, to which they were sailing very close, was westerly, and it bore to their ears a booming sound which in less experienced ears might have passed for the breaking of surf upon a lee shore.
+
+“Guns!” said Pitt, who stood with Blood upon the quarter-deck. Blood nodded, listening.
+
+“Ten miles away, perhaps fifteen - somewhere off Port Royal, I should judge,” Pitt added. Then he looked at his captain. “Does it concern us?” he asked.
+
+“Guns off Port Royal… that should argue Colonel Bishop at work. And against whom should he be in action but against friends of ours I think it may concern us. Anyway, we’ll stand in to investigate. Bid them put the helm over.”
+
+Close-hauled they tacked aweather, guided by the sound of combat, which grew in volume and definition as they approached it. Thus for an hour, perhaps. Then, as, telescope to his eye, Blood raked the haze, expecting at any moment to behold the battling ships, the guns abruptly ceased.
+
+They held to their course, nevertheless, with all hands on deck, eagerly, anxiously scanning the sea ahead. And presently an object loomed into view, which soon defined itself for a great ship on fire. As the Arabella with the Elizabeth following closely raced nearer on their north-westerly tack, the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer. Presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the smoke and flames, and through his telescope Blood made out plainly the pennon of St. George fluttering from her maintop.
+
+“An English ship!” he cried.
+
+He scanned the seas for the conqueror in the battle of which this grim evidence was added to that of the sounds they had heard, and when at last, as they drew closer to the doomed vessel, they made out the shadowy outlines of three tall ships, some three or four miles away, standing in toward Port Royal, the first and natural assumption was that these ships must belong to the Jamaica fleet, and that the burning vessel was a defeated buccaneer, and because of this they sped on to pick up the three boats that were standing away from the blazing hulk. But Pitt, who through the telescope was examining the receding squadron, observed things apparent only to the eye of the trained mariner, and made the incredible announcement that the largest of these three vessels was Rivarol’s Victorieuse.
+
+They took in sail and hove to as they came up with the drifting boats, laden to capacity with survivors. And there were others adrift on some of the spars and wreckage with which the sea was strewn, who must be rescued.
+
+
+
+CHARTER XXIX
+
+THE SERVICE OF KING WILLIAM
+
+
+
+One of the boats bumped alongside the Arabella, and up the entrance ladder came first a slight, spruce little gentleman in a coat of mulberry satin laced with gold, whose wizened, yellow, rather peevish face was framed in a heavy black periwig. His modish and costly apparel had nowise suffered by the adventure through which he had passed, and he carried himself with the easy assurance of a man of rank. Here, quite clearly, was no buccaneer. He was closely followed by one who in every particular, save that of age, was his physical opposite, corpulent in a brawny, vigorous way, with a full, round, weather-beaten face whose mouth was humourous and whose eyes were blue and twinkling. He was well dressed without fripperies, and bore with him an air of vigorous authority.
+
+As the little man stepped from the ladder into the waist, whither Captain Blood had gone to receive him, his sharp, ferrety dark eyes swept the uncouth ranks of the assembled crew of the Arabella.
+
+“And where the devil may I be now?” he demanded irritably. “Are you English, or what the devil are you?”
+
+“Myself, I have the honour to be Irish, sir. My name is Blood - Captain Peter Blood, and this is my ship the Arabella, all very much at your service.
+
+“Blood!” shrilled the little man. “O ‘Sblood! A pirate!” He swung to the Colossus who followed him - “A damned pirate, van der Kuylen. Rend my vitals, but we’re come from Scylla to Charybdis.”
+
+“So?” said the other gutturally, and again, “So?” Then the humour of it took him, and he yielded to it.
+
+“Damme! What’s to laugh at, you porpoise?” spluttered mulberry-coat. “A fine tale this’ll make at home! Admiral van der Kuylen first loses his fleet in the night, then has his flagship fired under him by a French squadron, and ends all by being captured by a pirate. I’m glad you find it matter for laughter. Since for my sins I happen to be with you, I’m damned if I do.”
+
+“There’s a misapprehension, if I may make so bold as to point it out,” put in Blood quietly. “You are not captured, gentlemen; you are rescued. When you realize it, perhaps it will occur to you to acknowledge the hospitality I am offering you. It may be poor, but it is the best at my disposal.”
+
+The fierce little gentleman stared at him. “Damme! Do you permit yourself to be ironical?” he disapproved him, and possibly with a view to correcting any such tendency, proceeded to introduce himself. “I am Lord Willoughby, King William’s Governor-General of the West Indies, and this is Admiral van der Kuylen, commander of His Majesty’s West Indian fleet, at present mislaid somewhere in this damned Caribbean Sea.”
+
+“King William?” quoth Blood, and he was conscious that Pitt and Dyke, who were behind him, now came edging nearer, sharing his own wonder. “And who may be King William, and of what may he be King?”
+
+“What’s that?” In a wonder greater than his own, Lord Willoughby stared back at him. At last: “I am alluding to His Majesty King William III - William of Orange - who, with Queen Mary, has been ruling England for two months and more.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, until Blood realized what he was being told.
+
+“D’ye mean, sir, that they’ve roused themselves at home, and kicked out that scoundrel James and his gang of ruffians?”
+
+Admiral van der Kuylen nudged his lordship, a humourous twinkle in his blue eyes.
+
+“His bolitics are fery sound, I dink,” he growled.
+
+His lordship’s smile brought lines like gashes into his leathery cheeks. “‘Slife! hadn’t you heard? Where the devil have you been at all?”
+
+“Out of touch with the world for the last three months,” said Blood.
+
+“Stab me! You must have been. And in that three months the world has undergone some changes.” Briefly he added an account of them. King James was fled to France, and living under the protection of King Louis, wherefore, and for other reasons, England had joined the league against her, and was now at war with France. That was how it happened that the Dutch Admiral’s flagship had been attacked by M. de Rivarol’s fleet that morning, from which it clearly followed that in his voyage from Cartagena, the Frenchman must have spoken some ship that gave him the news.
+
+After that, with renewed assurances that aboard his ship they should be honourably entreated, Captain Blood led the Governor-General and the Admiral to his cabin, what time the work of rescue went on. The news he had received had set Blood’s mind in a turmoil. If King James was dethroned and banished, there was an end to his own outlawry for his alleged share in an earlier attempt to drive out that tyrant. It became possible for him to return home and take up his life again at the point where it was so unfortunately interrupted four years ago. He was dazzled by the prospect so abruptly opened out to him. The thing so filled his mind, moved him so deeply, that he must afford it expression. In doing so, he revealed of himself more than he knew or intended to the astute little gentleman who watched him so keenly the while.
+
+“Go home, if you will,” said his lordship, when Blood paused. “You may be sure that none will harass you on the score of your piracy, considering what it was that drove you to it. But why be in haste? We have heard of you, to be sure, and we know of what you are capable upon the seas. Here is a great chance for you, since you declare yourself sick of piracy. Should you choose to serve King William out here during this war, your knowledge of the West Indies should render you a very valuable servant to His Majesty’s Government, which you would not find ungrateful. You should consider it. Damme, sir, I repeat: it is a great chance you are given.
+
+“That your lordship gives me,” Blood amended, “I am very grateful. But at the moment, I confess, I can consider nothing but this great news. It alters the shape of the world. I must accustom myself to view it as it now is, before I can determine my own place in it.”
+
+Pitt came in to report that the work of rescue was at an end, and the men picked up - some forty-five in all - safe aboard the two buccaneer ships. He asked for orders. Blood rose.
+
+“I am negligent of your lordship’s concerns in my consideration of my own. You’ll be wishing me to land you at Port Royal.”
+
+“At Port Royal?” The little man squirmed wrathfully on his seat. Wrathfully and at length he informed Blood that they had put into Port Royal last evening to find its Deputy-Governor absent. “He had gone on some wild-goose chase to Tortuga after buccaneers, taking the whole of the fleet with him.”
+
+Blood stared in surprise a moment; then yielded to laughter.
+
+“He went, I suppose, before news reached him of the change of government at home, and the war with France?”
+
+“He did not,” snapped Willoughby. “He was informed of both, and also of my coming before he set out.”
+
+“Oh, impossible!”
+
+“So I should have thought. But I have the information from a Major Mallard whom I found in Port Royal, apparently governing in this fool’s absence.”
+
+“But is he mad, to leave his post at such a time?” Blood was amazed.
+
+“Taking the whole fleet with him, pray remember, and leaving the place open to French attack. That is the sort of Deputy-Governor that the late Government thought fit to appoint: an epitome of its misrule, damme! He leaves Port Royal unguarded save by a ramshackle fort that can be reduced to rubble in an hour. Stab me! It’s unbelievable!”
+
+The lingering smile faded from Blood’s face. “Is Rivarol aware of this?” he cried sharply.
+
+It was the Dutch Admiral who answered him. “Vould he go dere if he were not? M. de Rivarol he take some of our men prisoners. Berhabs dey dell him. Berhabs he make dem tell. Id is a great obbordunidy.”
+
+His lordship snarled like a mountain-cat. “That rascal Bishop shall answer for it with his head if there’s any mischief done through this desertion of his post. What if it were deliberate, eh? What if he is more knave than fool? What if this is his way of serving King James, from whom he held his office?”
+
+Captain Blood was generous. “Hardly so much. It was just vindictiveness that urged him. It’s myself he’s hunting at Tortuga, my lord. But, I’m thinking that while he’s about it, I’d best be looking after Jamaica for King William.” He laughed, with more mirth than he had used in the last two months.
+
+“Set a course for Port Royal, Jeremy, and make all speed. We’ll be level yet with M. de Rivarol, and wipe off some other scores at the same time.”
+
+Both Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were on their feet.
+
+“But you are not equal to it, damme!” cried his lordship. “Any one of the Frenchman’s three ships is a match for both yours, my man.”
+
+“In guns - aye,” said Blood, and he smiled. “But there’s more than guns that matter in these affairs. If your lordship would like to see an action fought at sea as an action should be fought, this is your opportunity.”
+
+Both stared at him. “But the odds!” his lordship insisted.
+
+“Id is imbossible,” said van der Kuylen, shaking his great head. “Seamanship is imbordand. Bud guns is guns.”
+
+“If I can’t defeat him, I can sink my own ships in the channel, and block him in until Bishop gets back from his wild-goose chase with his squadron, or until your own fleet turns up.”
+
+“And what good will that be, pray?” demanded Willoughby.
+
+“I’ll be after telling you. Rivarol is a fool to take this chance, considering what he’s got aboard. He carried in his hold the treasure plundered from Cartagena, amounting to forty million livres.” They jumped at the mention of that colossal sum. “He has gone into Port Royal with it. Whether he defeats me or not, he doesn’t come out of Port Royal with it again, and sooner or later that treasure shall find its way into King William’s coffers, after, say, one fifth share shall have been paid to my buccaneers. Is that agreed, Lord Willoughby?”
+
+His lordship stood up, and shaking back the cloud of lace from his wrist, held out a delicate white hand.
+
+“Captain Blood, I discover greatness in you,” said he.
+
+“Sure it’s your lordship has the fine sight to perceive it,” laughed the Captain.
+
+“Yes, yes! Bud how vill you do id?” growled van der Kuylen.
+
+“Come on deck, and it’s a demonstration I’ll be giving you before the day’s much older.”
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+THE LAST FIGHT OF THE ARABELLA
+
+
+“VHY do you vait, my friend?” growled van der Kuylen.
+
+“Aye - in God’s name!” snapped Willoughby.
+
+It was the afternoon of that same day, and the two buccaneer ships rocked gently with idly flapping sails under the lee of the long spit of land forming the great natural harbour of Port Royal, and less than a mile from the straits leading into it, which the fort commanded. It was two hours and more since they had brought up thereabouts, having crept thither unobserved by the city and by M. de Rivarol’s ships, and all the time the air had been aquiver with the roar of guns from sea and land, announcing that battle was joined between the French and the defenders of Port Royal. That long, inactive waiting was straining the nerves of both Lord Willoughby and van der Kuylen.
+
+“You said you vould show us zome vine dings. Vhere are dese vine dings?”
+
+Blood faced them, smiling confidently. He was arrayed for battle, in back-and-breast of black steel. “I’ll not be trying your patience much longer. Indeed, I notice already a slackening in the fire. But it’s this way, now: there’s nothing at all to be gained by precipitancy, and a deal to be gained by delaying, as I shall show you, I hope.”
+
+Lord Willoughby eyed him suspiciously. “Ye think that in the meantime Bishop may come back or Admiral van der Kuylen’s fleet appear?”
+
+“Sure, now, I’m thinking nothing of the kind. What I’m thinking is that in this engagement with the fort M. de Rivarol, who’s a lubberly fellow, as I’ve reason to know, will be taking some damage that may make the odds a trifle more even. Sure, it’ll be time enough to go forward when the fort has shot its bolt.”
+
+“Aye, aye!” The sharp approval came like a cough from the little Governor-General. “I perceive your object, and I believe ye’re entirely right. Ye have the qualities of a great commander, Captain Blood. I beg your pardon for having misunderstood you.”
+
+“And that’s very handsome of your lordship. Ye see, I have some experience of this kind of action, and whilst I’ll take any risk that I must, I’ll take none that I needn’t. But….” He broke off to listen. “Aye, I was right. The fire’s slackening. It’ll mean the end of Mallard’s resistance in the fort. Ho there, Jeremy!”
+
+He leaned on the carved rail and issued orders crisply. The bo’sun’s pipe shrilled out, and in a moment the ship that had seemed to slumber there, awoke to life. Came the padding of feet along the decks, the creaking of blocks and the hoisting of sail. The helm was put over hard, and in a moment they were moving, the Elizabeth following, ever in obedience to the signals from the Arabella, whilst Ogle the gunner, whom he had summoned, was receiving Blood’s final instructions before plunging down to his station on the main deck.
+
+Within a quarter of an hour they had rounded the head, and stood in to the harbour mouth, within saker shot of Rivarol’s three ships, to which they now abruptly disclosed themselves.
+
+Where the fort had stood they now beheld a smoking rubbish heap, and the victorious Frenchman with the lily standard trailing from his mastheads was sweeping forward to snatch the rich prize whose defences he had shattered.
+
+Blood scanned the French ships, and chuckled. The Victorieuse and the Medusa appeared to have taken no more than a few scars; but the third ship, the Baleine, listing heavily to larboard so as to keep the great gash in her starboard well above water, was out of account.
+
+“You see!” he cried to van der Kuylen, and without waiting for the Dutchman’s approving grunt, he shouted an order: “Helm, hard-a-port!”
+
+The sight of that great red ship with her gilt beakhead and open ports swinging broadside on must have given check to Rivarol’s soaring exultation. Yet before he could move to give an order, before he could well resolve what order to give, a volcano of fire and metal burst upon him from the buccaneers, and his decks were swept by the murderous scythe of the broadside. The Arabella held to her course, giving place to the Elizabeth, which, following closely, executed the same manoeuver. And then whilst still the Frenchmen were confused, panic-stricken by an attack that took them so utterly by surprise, the Arabella had gone about, and was returning in her tracks, presenting now her larboard guns, and loosing her second broadside in the wake of the first. Came yet another broadside from the Elizabeth and then the Arabella’s trumpeter sent a call across the water, which Hagthorpe perfectly understood.
+
+“On, now, Jeremy!” cried Blood. “Straight into them before they recover their wits. Stand by, there! Prepare to board! Hayton … the grapnels! And pass the word to the gunner in the prow to fire as fast as he can load.”
+
+He discarded his feathered hat, and covered himself with a steel headpiece, which a negro lad brought him. He meant to lead this boarding-party in person. Briskly he explained himself to his two guests. “Boarding is our only chance here. We are too heavily outgunned.”
+
+Of this the fullest demonstration followed quickly. The Frenchmen having recovered their wits at last, both ships swung broadside on, and concentrating upon the Arabella as the nearer and heavier and therefore more immediately dangerous of their two opponents, volleyed upon her jointly at almost the same moment.
+
+Unlike the buccaneers, who had fired high to cripple their enemies above decks, the French fifed low to smash the hull of their assailant. The Arabella rocked and staggered under that terrific hammering, although Pitt kept her headed towards the French so that she should offer the narrowest target. For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then she plunged forward again, her beakhead in splinters, her forecastle smashed, and a gaping hole forward, that was only just above the waterline. Indeed, to make her safe from bilging, Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors, and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.
+
+Meanwhile, the Frenchmen going about, gave the like reception to the Elizabeth. The Arabella, indifferently served by the wind, pressed forward to come to grips. But before she could accomplish her object, the Victorieuse had loaded her starboard guns again, and pounded her advancing enemy with a second broadside at close quarters. Amid the thunder of cannon, the rending of timbers, and the screams of maimed men, the half-necked Arabella plunged and reeled into the cloud of smoke that concealed her prey, and then from Hayton went up the cry that she was going down by the head.
+
+Blood’s heart stood still. And then in that very moment of his despair, the blue and gold flank of the Victorieuse loomed through the smoke. But even as he caught that enheartening glimpse he perceived, too, how sluggish now was their advance, and how with every second it grew more sluggish. They must sink before they reached her.
+
+Thus, with an oath, opined the Dutch Admiral, and from Lord Willoughby there was a word of blame for Blood’s seamanship in having risked all upon this gambler’s throw of boarding.
+
+“There was no other chance!” cried Blood, in broken-hearted frenzy. “If ye say it was desperate and foolhardy, why, so it was; but the occasion and the means demanded nothing less. I fail within an ace of victory.”
+
+But they had not yet completely failed. Hayton himself, and a score of sturdy rogues whom his whistle had summoned, were crouching for shelter amid the wreckage of the forecastle with grapnels ready. Within seven or eight yards of the Victorieuse, when their way seemed spent, and their forward deck already awash under the eyes of the jeering, cheering Frenchmen, those men leapt up and forward, and hurled their grapnels across the chasm. Of the four they flung, two reached the Frenchman’s decks, and fastened there. Swift as thought itself, was then the action of those sturdy, experienced buccaneers. Unhesitatingly all threw themselves upon the chain of one of those grapnels, neglecting the other, and heaved upon it with all their might to warp the ships together. Blood, watching from his own quarter-deck, sent out his voice in a clarion call:
+
+“Musketeers to the prow!”
+
+The musketeers, at their station at the waist, obeyed him with the speed of men who know that in obedience is the only hope of life. Fifty of them dashed forward instantly, and from the ruins of the forecastle they blazed over the heads of Hayton’s men, mowing down the French soldiers who, unable to dislodge the irons, firmly held where they had deeply bitten into the timbers of the Victorieuse, were themselves preparing to fire upon the grapnel crew.
+
+Starboard to starboard the two ships swung against each other with a jarring thud. By then Blood was down in the waist, judging and acting with the hurricane speed the occasion demanded. Sail had been lowered by slashing away the ropes that held the yards. The advance guard of boarders, a hundred strong, was ordered to the poop, and his grapnel-men were posted, and prompt to obey his command at the very moment of impact. As a result, the foundering Arabella was literally kept afloat by the half-dozen grapnels that in an instant moored her firmly to the Victorieuse.
+
+Willoughby and van der Kuylen on the poop had watched in breathless amazement the speed and precision with which Blood and his desperate crew had gone to work. And now he came racing up, his bugler sounding the charge, the main host of the buccaneers following him, whilst the vanguard, led by the gunner Ogle, who had been driven from his guns by water in the gun-deck, leapt shouting to the prow of the Victorieuse, to whose level the high poop of the water-logged Arabella had sunk. Led now by Blood himself, they launched themselves upon the French like hounds upon the stag they have brought to bay. After them went others, until all had gone, and none but Willoughby and the Dutchman were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella.
+
+For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish.
+
+And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter.
+
+Even then the labours of Blood’s men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe’s followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death.
+
+As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. “I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat.”
+
+He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His headpiece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable.
+
+But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR
+
+
+When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood’s buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried.
+
+It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen’s truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral’s true opinion of their worth.
+
+Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles.
+
+“And meanwhile,” he complained to his Admiral, “I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor.”
+
+“So?” said van der Kuylen. “But vhy should dad dedam you?”
+
+“That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it.”
+
+“Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me.”
+
+“You mean Blood?”
+
+“Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do.”
+
+“You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He’s a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor.”
+
+Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge.
+
+“Damme!” snapped Willoughby, “Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that’s your only objection….”
+
+“It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England.” He sighed. “There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset.”
+
+“Apple-blossoms!” His lordship’s voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. “What the devil…? Apple-blossoms!” He looked at van der Kuylen.
+
+The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face.
+
+“So!” he said. “Fery boedical!”
+
+My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. “You’ve a past score to wipe out, my man!” he admonished him. “You’ve done something towards it, I confess; and you’ve shown your quality in doing it. That’s why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty’s name - because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen.”
+
+Blood bowed low. “Your lordship is very good. But….”
+
+“Tchah! There’s no ‘but’ to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war’s over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you’ll make the best of Jamaica and rum.”
+
+Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion….
+
+And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed.
+
+“My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don’t be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship.”
+
+“Apple-blossoms, I suppose?” sniffed his lordship.
+
+This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes.
+
+“It shall be as you wish - and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty’s approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service.
+
+“If I didn’t, I shouldn’t offer you this governorship.”
+
+Thus it was settled. Blood’s commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves.
+
+“Now ve can aboud our business go,” said van der Kuylen.
+
+“We sail to-morrow morning,” his lordship announced.
+
+Blood was startled.
+
+“And Colonel Bishop?” he asked.
+
+“He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it.”
+
+“Isn’t the task a trifle invidious?” wondered Blood.
+
+“Very well. I’ll leave a letter for him. I hope he’ll like it.”
+
+Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William.
+
+A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood’s, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were - saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena - the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas.
+
+On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen’s fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor’s office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop’s homing squadron was in sight.
+
+“That is very well,” said Blood. “I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby’s departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment.” He wrote a hurried note. “That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen’s flagship.”
+
+Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop?
+
+His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented.
+
+He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate.
+
+“I… I… Major Mallard has just told me….”
+
+“Major Mallard exceeded his duty,” said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud.
+
+He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. “You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby’s recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados.”
+
+She came slowly forward now. “I… I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake.” She held out her hand to him.
+
+He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. “I’ll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate,” said he bitterly.
+
+“You are no longer that,” she said, and strove to smile.
+
+“Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not,” he answered. “I think there’s no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?”
+
+“For your own sake - yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring.”
+
+“Thief and pirate though I be?”
+
+She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience.
+
+“Will you never forgive me those words?”
+
+“I’m finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?”
+
+Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again.
+
+“I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again - ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won’t you… won’t you say ‘good-bye’?”
+
+He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her.
+
+“You are returning to Barbados?” he said slowly. “Will Lord Julian be going with you?”
+
+“Why do you ask me that?” she confronted him quite fearlessly.
+
+“Sure, now, didn’t he give you my message, or did he bungle it?”
+
+“No. He didn’t bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all.”
+
+He was still holding her hand. “And Lord Julian, then?” he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face.
+
+“Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here.”
+
+“But didn’t he ask you to go with him?”
+
+“He did. I forgive you the impertinence.”
+
+A wild hope leapt to life within him.
+
+“And you? Glory be, ye’ll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when….”
+
+“Oh! You are insufferable!” She tore her hand free and backed away from him. “I should not have come. Good-bye!” She was speeding to the door.
+
+He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. “These are pirate’s ways, I think! Release me!”
+
+“Arabella!” he cried on a note of pleading. “Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye’re crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?”
+
+“I… I thought you’d never say it,” she mocked him through her tears.
+
+“Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a….”
+
+“There was never, never anybody but you, Peter.”
+
+They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended.
+
+And meanwhile Colonel Bishop’s fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade.
+
+A corporal’s guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny.
+
+Major Mallard advanced. “Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!”
+
+“By order of the Governor of Jamaica,” said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him.
+
+“The Governor? Ye’re mad!” He looked from one to the other. “I am the Governor.”
+
+“You were,” said the little man dryly. “But we’ve changed that in your absence. You’re broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It’s a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye’re hanged or not.”
+
+Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: “Who the devil may you be?” he asked.
+
+“I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty’s colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming.”
+
+The remains of Bishop’s anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn.
+
+“But, my lord…” began the Colonel.
+
+“Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons,” his lordship interrupted him harshly. “I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you.” He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away.
+
+To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered.
+
+“This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood,” he said, through his teeth. “My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!”
+
+Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor’s house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop’s own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him.
+
+Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities.
+
+“You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter,” she pleaded.
+
+“To be sure I will,” said Blood. “But I’m afraid the circumstances won’t.”
+
+She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel.
+
+“His excellency the Governor will see you now,” said he, and threw wide the door.
+
+Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting.
+
+At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing.
+
+The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral’s flagship.
+
+“Id is fery boedigal!” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry - you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!”
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Captain Blood
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Caught In The Net, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Caught In The Net
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: March 31, 2006 [EBook #2451]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAUGHT IN THE NET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+CAUGHT IN THE NET
+
+By Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+PUTTING ON THE SCREW.
+
+The cold on the 8th of February, 186-, was more intense than the
+Parisians had experienced during the whole of the severe winter
+which had preceded it, for at twelve o’clock on that day Chevalier’s
+thermometer, so well known by the denizens of Paris, registered three
+degrees below zero. The sky was overcast and full of threatening signs
+of snow, while the moisture on the pavement and roads had frozen hard,
+rendering traffic of all kinds exceedingly hazardous. The whole great
+city wore an air of dreariness and desolation, for even when a thin
+crust of ice covers the waters of the Seine, the mind involuntarily
+turns to those who have neither food, shelter, nor fuel.
+
+This bitterly cold day actually made the landlady of the Hotel de Perou,
+though she was a hard, grasping woman of Auvergne, give a thought to the
+condition of her lodgers, and one quite different from her usual idea of
+obtaining the maximum of rent for the minimum of accommodation.
+
+“The cold,” remarked she to her husband, who was busily engaged in
+replenishing the stove with fuel, “is enough to frighten the wits out of
+a Polar bear. In this kind of weather I always feel very anxious, for
+it was during a winter like this that one of our lodgers hung himself, a
+trick which cost us fifty francs, in good, honest money, besides giving
+us a bad name in the neighborhood. The fact is, one never knows what
+lodgers are capable of doing. You should go up to the top floor, and see
+how they are getting on there.”
+
+“Pooh, pooh!” replied her husband, M. Loupins; “they will do well
+enough.”
+
+“Is that really your opinion?”
+
+“I know that I am right. Daddy Tantaine went out as soon as it was
+light, and a short time afterward Paul Violaine came down. There is no
+one upstairs now but little Rose, and I expect that she has been wise
+enough to stick to her bed.”
+
+“Ah!” answered the landlady rather spitefully. “I have made up my mind
+regarding that young lady some time ago; she is a sight too pretty for
+this house, and so I tell you.”
+
+The Hotel de Perou stands in the Rue de la Hachette, not twenty steps
+from the Place de Petit Pont; and no more cruelly sarcastic title could
+ever have been conferred on a building. The extreme shabbiness of the
+exterior of the house, the narrow, muddy street in which it stood,
+the dingy windows covered with mud, and repaired with every variety of
+patch,--all seemed to cry out to the passers by: “This is the chosen
+abode of misery and destitution.”
+
+The observer might have fancied it a robbers’ den, but he would have
+been wrong; for the inhabitants were fairly honest. The Hotel de Perou
+was one of those refuges, growing scarcer and more scarce every day,
+where unhappy men and women, who had been worsted in the battle of life,
+could find a shelter in return for the change remaining from the last
+five-franc piece. They treat it as the shipwrecked mariner uses the rock
+upon which he climbs from the whirl of the angry waters, and breathes
+a deep sigh of relief as he collects his forces for a fresh effort.
+However wretched existence may be, a protracted sojourn in such a
+shelter as the Hotel de Perou would be out of the question. The chambers
+in every floor of the house are divided into small slips by partitions,
+covered with canvas and paper, and pleasantly termed rooms by M.
+Loupins. The partitions were in a terrible condition, rickety and
+unstable, and the paper with which they were covered torn and hanging
+down in tatters; but the state of the attics was even more deplorable,
+the ceilings of which were so low that the occupants had to stoop
+continually, while the dormer windows admitted but a small amount of
+light. A bedstead, with a straw mattress, a rickety table, and two
+broken chairs, formed the sole furniture of these rooms. Miserable
+as these dormitories were, the landlady asked and obtained twenty-two
+francs for them by the month, as there was a fireplace in each, which
+she always pointed out to intending tenants.
+
+The young woman whom M. Loupins alluded to by the name of Rose was
+seated in one of these dreary dens on this bitter winter’s day. Rose was
+an exquisitely beautiful girl about eighteen years of age. She was very
+fair; her long lashes partially concealed a pair of steely blue eyes,
+and to a certain extent relieved their hard expression. Her ripe, red
+lips, which seemed formed for love and kisses, permitted a glimpse of
+a row of pearly teeth. Her bright waving hair grew low down upon her
+forehead, and such of it as had escaped from the bondage of a cheap
+comb, with which it was fastened, hung in wild luxuriance over her
+exquisitely shaped neck and shoulders. She had thrown over her ragged
+print gown the patched coverlet of the bed, and, crouched upon
+the tattered hearthrug before the hearth, upon which a few sticks
+smouldered, giving out hardly a particle of heat, she was telling her
+fortune with a dirty pack of cards, endeavoring to console herself for
+the privations of the day by the promise of future prosperity. She had
+spread those arbiters of her destiny in a half circle before her, and
+divided them into threes, each of which had a peculiar meaning, and her
+breast rose and fell as she turned them up and read upon their faces
+good fortune or ill-luck. Absorbed in this task, she paid but little
+attention to the icy chilliness of the atmosphere, which made her
+fingers stiff, and dyed her white hands purple.
+
+“One, two, three,” she murmured in a low voice. “A fair man, that’s
+sure to be Paul. One, two, three, money to the house. One, two, three,
+troubles and vexations. One, two, three, the nine of spades; ah, dear!
+more hardships and misery,--always that wretched card turning up with
+its sad story!”
+
+Rose seemed utterly downcast at the sight of the little piece of painted
+cardboard, as though she had received certain intelligence of a
+coming misfortune. She soon, however, recovered herself, and was again
+shuffling the pack,--cut it, taking care to do so with her left hand,
+spread them out before her, and again commenced counting: one, two,
+three. This time the cards appeared to be more propitious, and held out
+promises of success for the future.
+
+“I am loved,” read she, as she gazed anxiously upon them,--“very much
+loved! Here is rejoicing, and a letter from a dark man! See, here he
+is,--the knave of clubs. Always the same,” she continued; “I cannot
+strive against fate.”
+
+Then, rising to her feet, she drew from a crack in the wall, which
+formed a safe hiding-place for her secrets, a soiled and crumpled
+letter, and, unfolding it, she read for perhaps the hundredth time these
+words:--
+
+“MADEMOISELLE,--
+
+“To see you is to love you. I give you my word of honor that this is
+true. The wretched hovel where your charms are hidden is no fit
+abode for you. A home, worthy in every way to receive you, is at
+your service--Rue de Douai. It has been taken in your name, as I am
+straightforward in these matters. Think of my proposal, and make what
+inquiries you like concerning me. I have not yet attained my majority,
+but shall do so in five months and three days, when I shall inherit my
+mother’s fortune. My father is wealthy, but old and infirm. From four to
+six in the afternoon of the next few days I will be in a carriage at the
+corner of the Place de Petit Pont.
+
+“GASTON DE GANDELU.”
+
+
+The cynical insolence of the letter, together with its entire want of
+form, was a perfect example of the style affected by those loiterers
+about town, known to the Parisians as “mashers;” and yet Rose did not
+appear at all disgusted by the reception of such an unworthily worded
+proposal, but, on the contrary, rather pleased by its contents. “If I
+only dared,” mused she, with a sigh,--“ah, if I only dared!” For a time
+she sat deeply immersed in thought, with her face buried in her hands,
+until she was aroused from her meditations by the sound of an active and
+youthful step upon the creaking stairs. “He has come back,” she gasped;
+and with the agile movement of a cat she again concealed the letter
+in its hiding-place, and she had scarcely done so, when Paul Violaine
+entered the miserable room. He was a young man of twenty-three, of
+slender figure, but admirably proportioned. His face was a perfect oval,
+and his complexion of just that slight olive tint which betrays the
+native of the south of France. A slight, silky moustache concealed his
+upper lip, and gave his features that air of manliness in which they
+would have otherwise been deficient. His curly chestnut hair fell
+gracefully over a brow upon which an expression of pride was visible,
+and enhanced the peculiar, restless glance of his large dark eyes. His
+physical beauty, which was fully equal to that of Rose, was increased by
+an aristocratic air, popularly believed to be only found in the scions
+of noble families. The landlady, in her moments of good humor, used to
+assert her belief that her lodger was a disguised prince; but if this
+were the case, he was certainly one that had been overtaken by poverty.
+His dress, to which the closest attention had been paid, revealed the
+state of destitution in which he was,--not the destitution which openly
+asks for alms, but the hidden poverty which shuns communication and
+blushes at a single glance of pity. In this almost Arctic winter he wore
+clothes rendered thin by the constant friction of the clothes brush,
+over which was a light overcoat about as thick as the web of a spider.
+His shoes were well blacked, but their condition told the piteous tale
+of long walks in search of employment, or of that good luck which seems
+to evade its pursuer.
+
+Paul was holding a roll of manuscript in his hand, and as he entered
+the room he threw it on the bed with a despairing gesture. “A failure
+again!” exclaimed he, in accents of the utmost depression. “Nothing else
+but failures!”
+
+The young woman rose hastily to her feet; she appeared to have forgotten
+the cards completely; the smile of satisfaction faded from her face and
+her features, and an expression of utter weariness took its place.
+
+“What! no success?” she cried, affecting a surprise which was evidently
+assumed. “No success, after all your promises when you left me this
+morning?”
+
+“This morning, Rose, a ray of hope had penetrated my heart; but I have
+been deceived, or rather I deceived myself, and I took my ardent desires
+for so many promises which were certain to be fulfilled. The people that
+I have been to have not even the kindness to say ‘No’ plain and flat;
+they listen to all you have to say, and as soon as your back is turned
+they forget your existence. The coin that passes around in this
+infernal town is indeed nothing but idle words, and that is all that
+poverty-stricken talent can expect.”
+
+A silence of some duration ensued, and Paul was too much absorbed in
+his own thoughts to notice the look of contempt with which Rose was
+regarding him. His helpless resignation to adverse circumstances
+appeared to have turned her to stone.
+
+“A nice position we are in!” said she at last. “What do you think will
+become of us?”
+
+“Alas! I do not know.”
+
+“Nor I. Yesterday Madame Loupins came to me and asked for the eleven
+francs we owe here; and told me plainly that if within three days we did
+not settle our account, she would turn us out; and I know enough of her
+to be sure that she will keep her word. The detestable old hag would do
+anything for the pleasure of seeing me on the streets.”
+
+“Alone and friendless in the world,” muttered Paul, paying but little
+attention to the young girl’s words, “without a creature or a relative
+to care for you, or to lend you a helping hand.”
+
+“We have not a copper in the world,” continued Rose with cruel
+persistency; “I have sold everything that I had, to preserve the rags
+that I am wearing. Not a scrap of wood remains, and we have not tasted
+food since yesterday morning.”
+
+To these words, which were uttered in a tone of the most bitter
+reproach, the young man made no reply, but clasped his icily cold hands
+against his forehead, as though in utter despair.
+
+“Yes, that is a true picture of our position,” resumed Rose coldly,
+her accents growing more and more contemptuous. “And I tell you that
+something must be done at once, some means discovered, I care not what,
+to relieve us from our present miserable state.”
+
+Paul tore off his overcoat, and held it toward her.
+
+“Take it, and pawn it,” exclaimed he; but the girl made no move.
+
+“Is that all that you have to propose?” asked she, in the same glacial
+tone.
+
+“They will lend you three francs upon it, and with that we can get bread
+and fuel.”
+
+“And after that is gone?”
+
+“After that--oh, we will think of our next step, and shall have time to
+hit upon some plan. Time, a little time, is all that I require, Rose, to
+break asunder the bonds which seem to fetter me. Some day success must
+crown my efforts; and with success, Rose, dear, will come affluence, but
+in the meantime we must learn to wait.”
+
+“And where are the means to enable us to wait?”
+
+“No matter; they will come. Only do what I tell you, and who can say
+what to-morrow----”
+
+Paul was still too much absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the
+expression upon the young girl’s face; for had he done so, he would at
+once have perceived that she was not in the humor to permit the matter
+to be shelved in this manner.
+
+“To-morrow!” she broke in sarcastically. “To-morrow,--always the same
+pitiful cry. For months past we seem to have lived upon the word. Look
+you here, Paul, you are no longer a child, and ought to be able to look
+things straight in the face. What can I get on that threadbare coat of
+yours? Perhaps three francs at the outside. How many days will that
+last us? We will say three. And then, what then? Besides, can you not
+understand that your dress is too shabby for you to make an impression
+on the people you go to see? Well-dressed applicants only have
+attention, and to obtain money, you must appear not to need it; and,
+pray, what will people think of you if you have no overcoat? Without one
+you will look ridiculous, and can hardly venture into the streets.”
+
+“Hush!” cried Paul, “for pity’s sake, hush! for your words only prove to
+me more plainly that you are like the rest of the world, and that want
+of success is a pernicious crime in your eyes. You once had confidence
+in me, and then you spoke in a very different strain.”
+
+“Once indeed! but then I did not know--”
+
+“No, Rose, it was not what you were then ignorant of; but it was that in
+those days you loved me.
+
+“Great heavens! I ask you, have I left one stone unturned? Have I
+not gone from publisher to publisher to sell those songs of my own
+composing--those songs that you sing so well? I have endeavored to get
+pupils. What fresh efforts can I try? What would _you_ do, were you in
+my place? Tell me, I beg you.”
+
+And as Paul spoke, he grew more and more excited, while Rose still
+maintained her manner of exasperating coolness.
+
+“I know not,” she replied, after a brief pause; “but if I were a man, I
+do not think I would permit the woman, for whom I pretended that I had
+the most sincere affection, to be in want of the actual necessities of
+life. I would strain every effort to obtain them.”
+
+“I have no trade; I am no mechanic,” broke in Paul passionately.
+
+“Then I would learn one. Pray how much does a man earn who climbs the
+ladder with a bricklayer’s hod upon his shoulders? It may be hard work,
+I know, but surely the business is not difficult to learn. You have, or
+say you have, great musical talents. I say nothing about them; but had
+I any vocal powers and if there was not a morsel to eat in the house,
+I would go and sing in the taverns or even in the public streets, and
+would earn money, and care little for the means by which I made it.”
+
+“When you say those things, you seem to forget that I am an honest man.”
+
+“One would really suppose that I had suggested some questionable act to
+you. Your reply, Paul, plainly proves to me that you are one of those
+who, for want of determination, fall, helpless, by the wayside in the
+journey of life. They flaunt their rags and tatters in the eyes of the
+world, and with saddened hearts and empty stomachs utter the boast,
+‘I am an honest man.’ Do you think that, in order to be rich, you must
+perforce be a rogue? This is simple imbecility.”
+
+She uttered this tirade in clear and vibrant accents, and her eyes
+gleamed with the fire of savage resolution. Her nature was one of those
+cruel and energetic ones, which lead a woman to hurl a man from the
+brink of the abyss to which she had conducted him, and to forget him
+before he has ever reached the bottom.
+
+This torrent of sarcasm brought out Paul’s real nature. His face
+flushed, and rage began to gain the mastery over him. “Can you not
+work?” he asked. “Why do you not do something instead of talking so
+much?”
+
+“That is not at all the same thing,” answered she coolly. “I was not
+made for work.”
+
+Paul made a threatening gesture. “You wretch!” exclaimed he.
+
+“You are wrong,” she replied. “I am not a wretch; I am simply hungry.”
+
+There seemed every prospect of an angry scene, when a slight sound
+attracted the attention of the disputants, and, turning round, they saw
+an old man standing upon the threshold of their open door. He was tall,
+but stooped a good deal. He had high, thick brows, and a red nose; a
+long, thick, grizzly beard covered the rest of his countenance. He wore
+a pair of spectacles with colored glasses, which, to a great extent,
+concealed the expression of his face. His whole attire indicated extreme
+poverty. He wore a greasy coat, much frayed and torn at the pockets, and
+which had carried away with it marks of all the walls against which it
+had been rubbed when he had indulged a little too freely in the cheerful
+glass. He seemed to belong to that class who consider it a work of
+supererogation to disrobe before going to bed, and who just turn in on
+such spot as the fancy of the moment may dictate. Paul and Rose both
+recognized the old man from having continually met him when ascending
+or descending the staircase, and knew that he rented the back attic, and
+was called Daddy Tantaine. In an instant the idea flashed across Paul’s
+mind that the dilapidated state of the partition permitted every word
+spoken in one attic to be overheard in the other, and this did not tend
+to soothe his exasperated feelings.
+
+“What do you want here, sir?” asked he angrily. “And, pray, who gave you
+permission to enter my room without leave?”
+
+The old man did not seem at all put out by the threatening language of
+his questioner. “I should be telling a fib,” answered he calmly, “if I
+were to tell you that, being in my own room and hearing you quarrelling,
+I did not hear every word of what you have been saying.”
+
+“Sir!”
+
+“Stop a bit, and don’t be in such a hurry, my young friend. You seem
+disposed to quarrel, and, on my faith, I am not surprised; for when
+there is no corn in the manger, the best tempered horse will bite and
+kick.”
+
+He uttered these words in the most soothing accents, and appeared
+utterly unconscious of having committed any breach of etiquette in
+entering the room.
+
+“Well, sir,” said Paul, a flush of shame passing across his face, “you
+see now how poverty can drag a man down. Are you satisfied?”
+
+“Come, come, my young friend,” answered Daddy Tantaine, “you should not
+get angry; and if I did step in without any notice, it was because, as a
+neighbor, I find I might venture on such a liberty; for when I heard how
+embarrassed you were, I said to myself, ‘Tantaine, perhaps you can help
+this pretty pair out of the scrape they have got into.’”
+
+The promise of assistance from a person who had not certainly the
+outward appearance of a capitalist seemed so ludicrous to Rose that she
+could not restrain a smile, for she fancied that if their old neighbor
+was to present them with half his fortune, it might possibly amount to
+twenty centimes or thereabouts.
+
+Paul had formed a somewhat similar idea, but he was a little touched by
+this act of friendliness on the part of a man who doubtless knew that
+money lent under similar circumstances was but seldom returned.
+
+“Ah, sir!” said he, and this time he spoke in softer accents, “what can
+you possibly do for us?”
+
+“Who can say?”
+
+“You can see how hard we are pushed. We are in want of almost
+everything. Have we not reached the _acme_ of misery?”
+
+The old man raised his hand to heaven, as if to seek for aid from above.
+
+“You have indeed come to a terrible pass,” murmured he; “but all is not
+yet lost. The pearl which lies in the depths of the ocean is not lost
+for ever; for may not some skillful diver bring it to the surface? A
+fisherman may not be able to do much with it, but he knows something of
+its value, and hands it over to the dealer in precious stones.”
+
+He intensified his speech by a little significant laugh, the meaning
+of which was lost upon the two young people who, though their evil
+instincts led them to be greedy and covetous, were yet unskilled in the
+world’s ways.
+
+“I should,” remarked Paul, “be a fool if I did not accept the offer of
+your kind assistance.”
+
+“There, then, that is right; and now the first thing to do is to have a
+really good feed. You must get in some wood too, for it is frightfully
+cold. My old bones are half frozen; and afterward we will talk of a
+fresh rig out for you both.”
+
+“Yes,” remarked Rose with a faint sigh; “but to do all that, we want a
+lot of money.”
+
+“Well, how do you know that I can’t find it?”
+
+Daddy Tantaine unbuttoned his great coat with grave deliberation, and
+drew from an inner pocket a small scrap of paper which had been fastened
+to the lining by a pin. This he unfolded with the greatest of care and
+laid upon the table.
+
+“A banknote for five hundred francs!” exclaimed Rose, with extreme
+surprise. Paul did not utter a word. Had he seen the woodwork of the
+chair upon which he was leaning burst into flower and leaf, he could not
+have looked more surprised. Who could have expected to find such a sum
+concealed beneath the old man’s tatters, and how could he have obtained
+so much money? The idea that some robbery had been committed at once
+occurred to both the young people, and they exchanged a meaning glance,
+which, however, did not escape the observation of their visitor.
+
+“Pooh, pooh!” said he, without appearing in the slightest degree
+annoyed. “You must not give way to evil thoughts or suspicions. It is
+a fact that banknotes for five hundred francs don’t often grow out of
+a ragged pocket like mine. But I got this fellow honestly,--that I can
+guarantee.”
+
+Rose paid no attention to his words; indeed, she took no interest in
+them. The note was there, and that was enough for her. She took it up
+and smoothed it out as though the crisp paper communicated a pleasant
+sensation to her fingers.
+
+“I must tell you,” resumed Daddy Tantaine, “that I am employed by a
+sheriff’s officer, and that, in addition, I do a little bill collecting
+for various persons. By these means I have often comparatively large
+sums in my possession, and I can lend you five hundred francs for a
+short time without any inconvenience to myself.”
+
+Paul’s necessities and conscience were fighting a hard battle, and
+he remained silent, as a person generally does before arriving at a
+momentous decision.
+
+At length he broke the silence. “No,” said he, “your offer is one that I
+cannot accept, for I feel--”
+
+“This is no time, my dear Paul, to talk of feelings,” interrupted Rose;
+“besides, can you not see that our refusal to accept the loan annoys
+this worthy gentleman?”
+
+“The young lady is quite right,” returned Daddy Tantaine. “Come, let
+us say that the matter is settled. Go out and get in something to eat,
+sharp, for it has struck four some time ago.”
+
+At these words, Rose started, and a scarlet flush spread over her
+cheek. “Four o’clock,” repeated she, thinking of her letter; but after a
+moment’s reflection she stepped up to the cracked mirror, and arranging
+her tattered skirts, took up the banknote and left the room.
+
+“She is a rare beauty,” remarked Daddy Tantaine with the air of one who
+was an authority in such matters, “and as clever as they make them.
+Ah! if she had only some one to give her a hint, she might rise to any
+height.”
+
+Paul’s ideas were in such a wild state of confusion, that he could
+make no reply; and, now that he was no longer held in thrall by Rose’s
+presence, he began to be terrified at what had taken place, for he
+imagined that he caught a sinister expression in the old man’s face
+which made him very suspicious of the wisdom of the course he had been
+persuaded to pursue. Was there ever such an unheard-of event as an old
+man of such a poverty-stricken appearance showering banknotes upon the
+heads of perfect strangers? There was certainly something mysterious
+in the affair, and Paul made up his mind that he would do his utmost to
+avoid being compromised.
+
+“I have thought the matter over,” said he resolutely; “and it is
+impossible for me to accept the loan of a sum which it would be
+difficult for me to repay.”
+
+“My dear young friend, that is not the way to talk. If you do not have a
+good opinion of yourself, all the world will judge you according to your
+own estimation. Your inexperience has, up to this time, been the sole
+cause of your failure. Poverty soon changes a boy into a man as straw
+ripens fruit; but the first thing you must do is to put all confidence
+in me. You can repay the five hundred francs at your convenience, but I
+must have six per cent. for my money and your note of hand.”
+
+“But really--,” began Paul.
+
+“I am looking at the matter in a purely business light, so we can drop
+sentiment.”
+
+Paul had so little experience in the ways of the world, that the mere
+fact of giving his acceptance for the money borrowed put him at once
+at his ease, though he knew well that his name was not a very valuable
+addition to the slip of paper.
+
+Daddy Tantaine, after a short search through his pockets, discovered
+a bill stamp, and, placing it on the table, said, “Write as I shall
+dictate:--
+
+‘On the 8th of June, 188-, I promise to pay to M. Tantaine or order the
+sum of five hundred francs for value received, such sum to bear interest
+at the rate of six per cent. per annum.
+
+‘Frs. 500.
+
+‘PAUL VIOLAINE.’”
+
+
+The young man had just completed his signature when Rose made her
+appearance, bearing a plentiful stock of provisions in her arms. Her
+eyes had a strange radiance in them, which Paul, however, did not
+notice, as he was engaged in watching the old man, who, after carefully
+inspecting the document, secured it in one of the pockets of his ragged
+coat.
+
+“You will, of course, understand, sir,” remarked Paul, “that there is
+not much chance of my being able to save sufficient to meet this bill in
+four months, so that the date is a mere form.”
+
+A smile of benevolence passed over Daddy Tantaine’s features. “And
+suppose,” said he, “that I, the lender, was to put the borrower in a
+position to repay the advance before a month had passed?”
+
+“Ah! but that is not possible.”
+
+“I do not say, my young friend, that I could do this myself; but I have
+a good friend whose hand reaches a long way. If I had only listened to
+his advice when I was younger, you would not have caught me to-day in
+the Hotel de Perou. Shall I introduce you to him?”
+
+“Am I a perfect fool, to throw away such a chance?”
+
+“Good! I shall see him this evening, and will mention your name to him.
+Call on him at noon to-morrow, and if he takes a fancy to you,--decides
+to push you, your future is assured, and you will have no doubts as to
+getting on.”
+
+He took out a card from his pocket and handed it to Paul, adding, “The
+name of my friend is Mascarin.”
+
+Meanwhile Rose, with a true Parisian’s handiness, had contrived to
+restore order from chaos, and had arranged the table, with its one or
+two pieces of broken crockery, with scraps of brown paper instead of
+plates. A fresh supply of wood crackled bravely on the hearth, and two
+candles, one of which was placed in a chipped bottle, and the other in a
+tarnished candlestick belonging to the porter of the hotel. In the eyes
+of both the young people the spectacle was a truly delightful one, and
+Paul’s heart swelled with triumph. The business had been satisfactorily
+concluded, and all his misgivings were at an end.
+
+“Come, let us gather round the festive board,” said he joyously. “This
+is breakfast and dinner in one. Rose, be seated; and you, my dear
+friend, will surely share with us the repast we owe to you?”
+
+With many protestations of regret, however, Daddy Tantaine pleaded an
+important engagement at the other end of Paris. “And,” added he, “it is
+absolutely necessary that I should see Mascarin this evening, for I must
+try my best to make him look on you with a favorable eye.”
+
+Rose was very glad when the old man took his departure, for his
+ugliness, the shabbiness of his dress, and his general aspect of dirt,
+drove away all the feelings of gratitude she ought to have evinced, and
+inspired in her loathing and repugnance; and she fancied that his eyes,
+though veiled by his colored glasses, could detect the minutest secrets
+of her heart; but still this did not prevent her putting on a sweet
+smile and entreating him to remain.
+
+But Daddy Tantaine was resolute; and after impressing upon Paul the
+necessity of punctuality, he went away, repeating, as he passed through
+the door, “May good appetite be present at your little feast, my dears.”
+
+As soon, however, as the door was closed he bent down and listened. The
+young people were as merry as larks, and their laughter filled the
+bare attic of the Hotel de Perou. Why should not Paul have been in good
+spirits? He had in his pocket the address of the man who was to make his
+fortune, and on the chimney-piece was the balance of the banknote, which
+seemed to him an inexhaustible sum. Rose, too, was delighted, and could
+not refrain from jeering at their benefactor, whom she stigmatized as
+“an old idiot.”
+
+“Laugh while you can, my dears!” muttered Daddy Tantaine; “for this may
+be the last time you will do so.”
+
+With these words he crept down the dark staircase, which was only
+lighted up on Sundays, owing to the high price of gas, and, peeping
+through the glass door of the porter’s lodge, saw Madame Loupins engaged
+in cooking; and, with the timid knock of a man who has learned his
+lesson in poverty’s grammar, he entered.
+
+“Here is my rent, madame,” said he, placing on the table ten francs
+and twenty centimes. Then, as the woman was scribbling a receipt, he
+launched into a statement of his own affairs, and told her that he had
+come into a little property which would enable him to live in comfort
+during his few remaining years on earth; and--evidently fearing that
+his well-known poverty might cause Madame Loupins to discredit his
+assertions--drew out his pocketbook and exhibited several banknotes.
+This exhibition of wealth so surprised the landlady, that when the old
+man left she insisted on lighting him to the door. He turned eastward as
+soon as he had left the house, and, glancing at the names of the shops,
+entered a grocer’s establishment at the corner of the Rue de Petit Pont.
+This grocer, thanks to a certain cheap wine, manufactured for him by a
+chemist at Bercy, had achieved a certain notoriety in that quarter. He
+was very stout and pompous, a widower, and a sergeant in the National
+Guard. His name was Melusin. In all poor districts five o’clock is a
+busy hour for the shopkeepers, for the workmen are returning from their
+labors, and their wives are busy in their preparations for their evening
+meal. M. Melusin was so busily engaged, giving orders and seeing that
+they were executed, that he did not even notice the entrance of Daddy
+Tantaine; but had he done so, he would not have put himself out for so
+poorly dressed a customer. But the old man had left behind him in the
+Hotel de Perou every sign of humility and servility, and, making his way
+to the least crowded portion of the shop, he called out in imperative
+accents, “M. Melusin!”
+
+Very much surprised, the grocer ceased his avocation and hastened to
+obey the summons. “How the deuce does the man know me?” muttered he,
+forgetting that his name was over the door in gilt letters fully six
+inches long.
+
+“Sir,” said Daddy Tantaine, without giving the grocer time to speak,
+“did not a young woman come here about half an hour ago and change a
+note for five hundred francs?”
+
+“Most certainly,” answered M. Melusin; “but how did you know that? Ah,
+I have it!” he added, striking his forehead; “there has been a robbery,
+and you are in pursuit of the criminal. I must confess that the girl
+looked so poor, that I guessed there was something wrong. I saw her
+fingers tremble.”
+
+“Pardon me,” returned Daddy Tantaine. “I have said nothing about a
+robbery. I only wished to ask you if you would know the girl again?”
+
+“Perfectly--a really splendid girl, with hair that you do not see every
+day. I have reason to believe that she lives in the Rue Hachette. The
+police are not very popular with the shopkeeping class; but the latter,
+desirous of keeping down crime, generally afford plenty of information,
+and in the interests of virtue will even risk losing customers, who go
+off in a huff at not being attended to while they are talking to the
+officers of justice. Shall I,” continued the grocer, “send one of the
+errand boys to the nearest police station?”
+
+“No, thank you,” replied Daddy Tantaine. “I should prefer your keeping
+the matter quiet until I communicate with you once more.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I see; a false step just now would put them on their guard.”
+
+“Just so. Now, will you let me have the number of the note, if you
+still have it? I wish you also to make a note of the date as well as the
+number.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I see,” returned the grocer. “You may require my books as
+corroborative evidence; that is often the way. Excuse me; I will be back
+directly.”
+
+All that Daddy Tantaine had desired was executed with the greatest
+rapidity, and he and the grocer parted on the best terms, and the
+tradesman watched his visitor’s departure, perfectly satisfied that he
+had been assisting a police officer who had deemed it fit to assume a
+disguise. Daddy Tantaine cared little what he thought, and, gaining the
+Place de Petit Pont, stopped and gazed around as if he was waiting for
+some one. Twice he walked round it in vain; but in his third circuit he
+came to a halt with an exclamation of satisfaction, for he had seen the
+person of whom he had been in search, who was a detestable looking
+youth of about eighteen years of age, though so thin and stunted that he
+hardly appeared to be fifteen.
+
+The lad was leaning against the wall of the Quay St. Michel, openly
+asking alms, but keeping a sharp lookout for the police. At the first
+glance it was easy to detect in him the hideous outgrowth of the great
+city, the regular young rough of Paris, who, at eight years of age,
+smokes the butt ends of cigars picked up at the tavern doors and
+gets tipsy on coarse spirits. He had a thin crop of sandy hair, his
+complexion was dull and colorless, and a sneer curled the corners of
+his mouth, which had a thick, hanging underlip, and his eyes had an
+expression in them of revolting cynicism. His dress was tattered and
+dirty, and he had rolled up the sleeve of his right arm, exhibiting a
+deformed limb, sufficiently repulsive to excite the pity of the passers
+by. He was repeating a monotonous whine, in which the words “poor
+workman, arm destroyed by machinery, aged mother to support,” occurred
+continually.
+
+Daddy Tantaine walked straight up to the youth, and with a sound cuff
+sent his hat flying.
+
+The lad turned sharply round, evidently in a terrible rage; but,
+recognizing his assailant, shrank back, and muttered to himself,
+“Landed!” In an instant he restored his arm to its originally healthy
+condition, and, picking up his cap, replaced it on his head, and humbly
+waited for fresh orders.
+
+“Is this the way you execute your errands?” asked Daddy Tantaine,
+snarling.
+
+“What errands? I have heard of none!”
+
+“Never you mind that. Did not M. Mascarin, on my recommendation, put you
+in the way of earning your livelihood? and did you not promise to give
+up begging?”
+
+“Beg pardon, guv’nor, I meant to be on the square, but I didn’t like to
+waste time while I was a-waiting. I don’t like a-being idle and I have
+copped seven browns.”
+
+“Toto Chupin,” said the old man, with great severity, “you will
+certainly come to a bad end. But come, give your report. What have you
+seen?”
+
+During this conversation they were walking slowly along the quay, and
+had passed the Hotel Dieu.
+
+“Well, guv’nor,” replied the young rogue, “I just saw what you said I
+should. At four sharp, a carriage drove into the Place, and pulled
+up bang opposite the wigmaker’s. Dash me, if it weren’t a swell
+turnout!--horse, coachman, and all, in real slap-up style. It waited so
+long that I thought it had taken root there.”
+
+“Come, get on! Was there any one inside?”
+
+“I should think there was! I twigged him at once, by the description
+you gave me. I never see a cove togged out as he was,--tall hat, light
+sit-down-upons, and a short coat--wasn’t it cut short! but in really
+bang-up style. To be certain, I went right up to him, for it was getting
+dark, and had a good look at him. He had got out of the trap, and was
+marching up and down the pavement, with an unlighted cigar stuck in his
+mouth. I took a match, and said, ‘Have a light, my noble swell?’ and
+hanged if he didn’t give me ten centimes! My! ain’t he ugly!--short,
+shrivelled up, and knock-kneed, with a glass in his eye, and altogether
+precious like a monkey.”
+
+Daddy Tantaine began to grow impatient with all this rigmarole. “Come,
+tell me what took place,” said he angrily.
+
+“Precious little. The young swell didn’t seem to care about dirtying his
+trotter-cases; he kept slashing about with his cane, and staring at
+all the gals. What an ass that masher is! Wouldn’t I have liked to have
+punched his head! If you ever want to hide him, daddy, please think of
+yours truly. He wouldn’t stand up to me for five minutes.”
+
+“Go on, my lad; go on.”
+
+“Well, we had waited half an hour, when all at once a woman came sharp
+round the corner, and stops before the masher. Wasn’t she a fine gal!
+and hadn’t she a pair of sparklers! but she had awfully seedy togs on.
+But they spoke in whispers.”
+
+“So you did not hear what they said?”
+
+“Do you take me for a flat? The gal said, ‘Do you
+understand?--to-morrow.’ Then the swell chap, says he, ‘Do you promise?’
+and the gal, she answers back, ‘Yes, at noon.’ Then they parted. She
+went off to the Rue Hachette, and the masher tumbled into his wheelbox.
+The jarvey cracked his whip, and off they went in a brace of shakes. Now
+hand over them five francs.”
+
+Daddy Tantaine did not seem surprised at this request, and he gave over
+the money to the young loafer, with the words, “When I promise, I pay
+down on the nail; but remember Toto Chupin, you’ll come to grief one
+day. Good-night. Our ways lie in different directions.”
+
+The old man, however, lingered until he had seen the lad go off toward
+the Jardin des Plantes, and then, turning round, went back by the way
+he had come. “I have not lost my day,” murmured he. “All the
+improbabilities have turned out certainties, and matters are going
+straight. Won’t Flavia be awfully pleased?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A REGISTRY OFFICE.
+
+The establishment of the influential friend of Daddy Tantaine was
+situated in the Rue Montorgeuil, not far from the Passage de la Reine
+Hortense. M. B. Mascarin has a registry office for the engagement of
+both male and female servants. Two boards fastened upon each side of the
+door announce the hours of opening and closing, and give a list of those
+whose names are on the books; they further inform the public that the
+establishment was founded in 1844, and is still in the same hands. It
+was the long existence of M. Mascarin in a business which is usually
+very short-lived that had obtained for him a great amount of confidence,
+not only in the quarter in which he resided, but throughout the whole
+of Paris. Employers say that he sends them the best of servants, and
+the domestics in their turn assert that he only despatches them to good
+places. But M. Mascarin has still further claims on the public esteem;
+for it was he who, in 1845, founded and carried out a project which had
+for its aim and end the securing of a shelter for servants out of place.
+The better to carry out this, Mascarin took a partner, and gave him
+the charge of a furnished house close to the office. Worthy as these
+projects were, Mascarin contrived to draw considerable profit from them,
+and was the owner of the house before which, in the noon of the day
+following the events we have described, Paul Violaine might have been
+seen standing. The five hundred francs of old Tantaine, or at any rate a
+portion of them, had been well spent, and his clothes did credit to his
+own taste and the skill of his tailor. Indeed, in his fine feathers he
+looked so handsome, that many women turned to gaze after him. He however
+took but little notice of this, for he was too full of anxiety, having
+grave doubts as to the power of the man whom Tantaine had asserted
+could, if he liked, make his fortune. “A registry office!” muttered he
+scornfully. “Is he going to propose a berth of a hundred francs a month
+to me?” He was much agitated at the thoughts of the impending interview,
+and, before entering the house, gazed upon its exterior with great
+interest. The house much resembled its neighbors. The entrances to the
+Registry Office and the Servants’ Home were in the courtyard, at the
+arched entrance to which stood a vendor of roast chestnuts.
+
+“There is no use in remaining here,” said Paul. Summoning, therefore,
+all his resolution, he crossed the courtyard, and, ascending a flight of
+stairs, paused before a door upon which “OFFICE” was written. “Come in!”
+ responded at once to his knock. He pushed open the door, and entered
+a room, which closely resembled all other similar offices. There were
+seats all round the room, polished by frequent use. At the end was a
+sort of compartment shut in by a green baize curtain, jestingly termed
+“the Confessional” by the frequenters of the office. Between the windows
+was a tin plate, with the words, “All fees to be paid in advance,” in
+large letters upon it. In one corner a gentleman was seated at a writing
+table, who, as he made entries in a ledger, was talking to a woman who
+stood beside him.
+
+“M. Mascarin?” asked Paul hesitatingly.
+
+“What do you want with him?” asked the man, without looking up from his
+work. “Do you wish to enter your name? We have now vacancies for three
+bookkeepers, a cashier, a confidential clerk--six other good situations.
+Can you give good references?”
+
+These words seemed to be uttered by rote.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” returned Paul; “but I should like to see M.
+Mascarin. One of his friends sent me here.”
+
+This statement evidently impressed the official, and he replied almost
+politely, “M. Mascarin is much occupied at present, sir; but he will
+soon be disengaged. Pray be seated.”
+
+Paul sat down on a bench, and examined the man who had just spoken
+with some curiosity. M. Mascarin’s partner was a tall and athletic man,
+evidently enjoying the best of health, and wearing a large moustache
+elaborately waxed and pointed. His whole appearance betokened the old
+soldier. He had, so he asserted, served in the cavalry, and it was
+there that he had acquired the _soubriquet_ by which he was
+known--Beaumarchef, his original name being David. He was about
+forty-five, but was still considered a very good-looking fellow. The
+entries that he was making in the ledger did not prevent him from
+keeping up a conversation with the woman standing by him. The woman,
+who seemed to be a cross between a cook and a market-woman, might be
+described as a thoroughly jovial soul. She seasoned her conversation
+with pinches of snuff, and spoke with a strong Alsatian brogue.
+
+“Now, look here,” said Beaumarchef; “do you really mean to say that you
+want a place?”
+
+“I do that.”
+
+“You said that six months ago. We got you a splendid one, and three days
+afterward you chucked up the whole concern.”
+
+“And why shouldn’t I? There was no need to work then; but now it is
+another pair of shoes, for I have spent nearly all I had saved.”
+
+Beaumarchef laid down his pen, and eyed her curiously for a second or
+two; then he said,--
+
+“You’ve been making a fool of yourself somehow, I expect.”
+
+She half turned away her head, and began to complain of the hardness
+of the terms and of the meanness of the mistresses, who, instead of
+allowing their cooks to do the marketing, did it themselves, and so
+cheated their servants out of their commissions.
+
+Beaumarchef nodded, just as he had done half an hour before to a lady
+who had complained bitterly of the misconduct of her servants. He was
+compelled by his position to sympathize with both sides.
+
+The woman had now finished her tirade, and drawing the amount of the fee
+from a well-filled purse, placed it on the table, saying,--
+
+“Please, M. Beaumarchef, register my name as Caroline Scheumal, and get
+me a real good place. It must be a cook, you understand, and I want to
+do the marketing without the missus dodging around.”
+
+“Well, I’ll do my best.”
+
+“Try and find me a wealthy widower, or a young woman married to a very
+old fellow. Now, do look round; I’ll drop in again to-morrow;” and with
+a farewell pinch of snuff, she left the office.
+
+Paul listened to this conversation with feelings of anger and
+humiliation, and in his heart cursed old Tantaine for having introduced
+him into such company. He was seeking for some plausible excuse for
+withdrawal, when the door at the end of the room was thrown open, and
+two men came in, talking as they did so. The one was young and well
+dressed, with an easy, swaggering manner, which ignorant people mistake
+for good breeding. He had a many-colored rosette at his buttonhole,
+showing that he was the knight of more than one foreign order. The other
+was an elderly man, with an unmistakable legal air about him. He was
+dressed in a quilted dressing-gown, fur-lined shoes, and had on his head
+an embroidered cap, most likely the work of the hands of some one dear
+to him. He wore a white cravat, and his sight compelled him to use
+colored glasses.
+
+“Then, my dear sir,” said the younger man, “I may venture to entertain
+hopes?”
+
+“Remember, Marquis,” returned the other, “that if I were acting alone,
+what you require would be at once at your disposal. Unfortunately, I
+have others to consult.”
+
+“I place myself entirely in your hands,” replied the Marquis.
+
+The appearance of the fashionably dressed young man reconciled Paul to
+the place in which he was.
+
+“A Marquis!” he murmured; “and the other swell-looking fellow must be M.
+Mascarin.”
+
+Paul was about to step forward, when Beaumarchef respectfully accosted
+the last comer,--
+
+“Who do you think, sir,” said he, “I have just seen?”
+
+“Tell me quickly,” was the impatient reply.
+
+“Caroline Schimmel; you know who I mean.”
+
+“What! the woman who was in the service of the Duchess of Champdoce?”
+
+“Exactly so.”
+
+M. Mascarin uttered an exclamation of delight.
+
+“Where is she living now?”
+
+Beaumarchef was utterly overwhelmed by this simple question. For the
+first time in his life he had omitted to take a client’s address. This
+omission made Mascarin so angry that he forgot all his good manners, and
+broke out with an oath that would have shamed a London cabman,--
+
+“How could you be such an infernal fool? We have been hunting for this
+woman for five months. You knew this as well as I did, and yet, when
+chance brings her to you, you let her slip through your fingers and
+vanish again.”
+
+“She’ll be back again, sir; never fear. She won’t fling away the money
+that she had paid for fees.”
+
+“And what do you think that she cares for ten sous or ten francs? She’ll
+be back when she thinks she will; but a woman who drinks and is off her
+head nearly all the year round----”
+
+Inspired by a sudden thought, Beaumarchef made a clutch at his hat.
+
+“She has only just gone,” said he; “I can easily overtake her.”
+
+But Mascarin arrested his progress.
+
+“You are not a good bloodhound. Take Toto Chupin with you; he is outside
+with his chestnuts, and is as fly as they make them. If you catch her
+up, don’t say a word, but follow her up, and see where she goes. I want
+to know her whole daily life. Remember that no item, however unimportant
+it may seem, is not of consequence.”
+
+Beaumarchef disappeared in an instant, and Mascarin continued to
+grumble.
+
+“What a fool!” he murmured. “If I could only do everything myself. I
+worried my life out for months, trying to find the clue to the mystery
+which this woman holds, and now she has again escaped me.”
+
+Paul, who saw that his presence was not remarked, coughed to draw
+attention to it. In an instant Mascarin turned quickly round.
+
+“Excuse me,” said Paul; but the set smile had already resumed its place
+upon Mascarin’s countenance.
+
+“You are,” remarked he, civilly, “Paul Violaine, are you not?”
+
+The young man bowed in assent.
+
+“Forgive my absence for an instant. I will be back directly,” said
+Mascarin.
+
+He passed through the door, and in another instant Paul heard his name
+called.
+
+Compared to the outer chamber, Mascarin’s office was quite a luxurious
+apartment, for the windows were bright, the paper on the walls fresh,
+and the floor carpeted. But few of the visitors to the office could
+boast of having been admitted into this sanctum; for generally business
+was conducted at Beaumarchef’s table in the outer room. Paul, however,
+who was unacquainted with the prevailing rule, was not aware of the
+distinction with which he had been received. Mascarin, on his visitor’s
+entrance, was comfortably seated in an armchair before the fire, with
+his elbow on his desk--and what a spectacle did that desk present! It
+was a perfect world in itself, and indicated that its proprietor was a
+man of many trades. It was piled with books and documents, while a great
+deal of the space was occupied by square pieces of cardboard, upon each
+of which was a name in large letters, while underneath was writing in
+very minute characters.
+
+With a benevolent gesture, Mascarin pointed to an armchair, and in
+encouraging tones said, “And now let us talk.”
+
+It was plain to Paul that Mascarin was not acting, but that the kind and
+patriarchal expression upon his face was natural to it, and the young
+man felt that he could safely intrust his whole future to him.
+
+“I have heard,” commenced Mascarin, “that your means of livelihood are
+very precarious, or rather that you have none, and are ready to take
+the first one that offers you a means of subsistence. That, at least, is
+what I hear from my poor friend Tantaine.”
+
+“He has explained my case exactly.”
+
+“Good; only before proceeding to the future, let us speak of the past.”
+
+Paul gave a start, which Mascarin noticed, for he added,--
+
+“You will excuse the freedom I am taking; but it is absolutely necessary
+that I should know to what I am binding myself. Tantaine tells me that
+you are a charming young man, strictly honest, and well educated; and
+now that I have had the pleasure of meeting you, I am sure that he is
+right; but I can only deal with proofs, and must be quite certain before
+I act on your behalf with third parties.”
+
+“I have nothing to conceal, sir, and am ready to answer any questions,”
+ responded Paul.
+
+A slight smile, which Paul did not detect, played round the corners of
+Mascarin’s mouth, and, with a gesture, with which all who knew him were
+familiar, he pushed back his glasses on his nose.
+
+“I thank you,” answered he; “it is not so easy as you may suppose to
+hide anything from me.” He took one of the packets of pasteboard slips
+form his desk, and shuffling them like a pack of cards, continued, “Your
+name is Marie Paul Violaine. You were born at Poitiers, in the Rue
+des Vignes, on the 5th of January, 1843, and are therefore in your
+twenty-fourth year.”
+
+“That is quite correct, sir.”
+
+“You are an illegitimate child?”
+
+The first question had surprised Paul; the second absolutely astounded
+him.
+
+“Quite true, sir,” replied he, not attempting to hide his surprise; “but
+I had no idea that M. Tantaine was so well informed; the partition which
+divided our rooms must have been thinner than I thought.”
+
+Mascarin took no notice of this remark, but continued to shuffle and
+examine his pieces of cardboard. Had Paul caught a clear glimpse of
+these, he would have seen his initials in the corner of each.
+
+“Your mother,” went on Mascarin, “kept, for the last fifteen years of
+her life, a little haberdasher’s shop.”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“But a business of that description in a town like Poitiers, does not
+bring in very remunerative results, and luckily she received for your
+support and education a sum of one thousand francs per year.”
+
+This time Paul started from his seat, for he was sure that Tantaine
+could not have learned this secret at the Hotel de Perou.
+
+“Merciful powers, sir!” cried he; “who could have told you a thing that
+has never passed my lips since my arrival in Paris, and of which even
+Rose is entirely ignorant?”
+
+Mascarin raised his shoulders.
+
+“You can easily comprehend,” remarked he, “that a man in my line of
+business has to learn many things. If I did not take the greatest
+precautions, I should be deceived daily, and so lead others into error.”
+
+Paul had not been more than an hour in the office, but the directions
+given to Beaumarchef had already taught him how many of these events
+were arranged.
+
+“Though I may be curious,” went on Mascarin, “I am the symbol of
+discretion; so answer me frankly: How did your mother receive this
+annuity?”
+
+“Through a Parisian solicitor.”
+
+“Do you know him?”
+
+“Not at all,” answered Paul, who had begun to grow uneasy under this
+questioning, for a kind of vague apprehension was aroused in his mind,
+and he could not see the utility of any of these interrogations. There
+was, however, nothing in Mascarin’s manner to justify the misgivings
+of the young man, for he appeared to ask all these questions in quite a
+matter-of-course way, as if they were purely affairs of business.
+
+After a protracted silence, Mascarin resumed,--
+
+“I am half inclined to believe that the solicitor sent the money on his
+own account.”
+
+“No, sir,” answered Paul. “I am sure you are mistaken.”
+
+“Why are you so certain?”
+
+“Because my mother, who was the incarnation of truth, often assured me
+that my father died before my birth. Poor mother! I loved and respected
+her too much to question her on these matters. One day, however,
+impelled by an unworthy feeling of curiosity, I dared to ask her the
+name of our protector. She burst into tears, and then I felt how mean
+and cruel I had been. I never learned his name but I know that he was
+not my father.”
+
+Mascarin affected not to notice the emotion of his young client.
+
+“Did the allowance cease at your mother’s death?” continued he.
+
+“No; it was stopped when I came of age. My mother told me that this
+would be the case; but it seems only yesterday that she spoke to me of
+it. It was on my birthday, and she had prepared a little treat for my
+supper; for in spite of the affliction my birth had caused her, she
+loved me fondly. Poor mother! ‘Paul,’ said she, ‘at your birth a genuine
+friend promised to help me to bring up and educate you, and he kept his
+word. But you are now twenty-one, and must expect nothing more from him.
+My son, you are a man now, and I have only you to look to. Work and earn
+an honest livelihood----’”
+
+Paul could proceed no farther, for his emotions choked him.
+
+“My mother died suddenly some ten months after this
+conversation--without time to communicate anything to me, and I was left
+perfectly alone in the world; and were I to die to-morrow, there would
+not be a soul to follow me to my grave.”
+
+Mascarin put on a sympathetic look.
+
+“Not quite so bad as that, my young friend; I trust that you have one
+now.”
+
+Mascarin rose from his seat, and for a few minutes paced up and down the
+room, and then halted, with his arms folded, before the young man.
+
+“You have heard me,” said he, “and I will not put any further questions
+which it will but pain you to reply to, for I only wished to take your
+measure, and to judge of your truth from your replies. You will ask why?
+Ah, that is a question I cannot answer to-day, but you shall know later
+on. Be assured, however, that I know everything about you, but I cannot
+tell you by what means. Say it has all happened by chance. Chance has
+broad shoulders, and can bear a great deal.”
+
+This ambiguous speech caused a thrill of terror to pass through Paul,
+which was plainly visible on his expressive features.
+
+“Are you alarmed?” asked Mascarin, readjusting his spectacles.
+
+“I am much surprised, sir,” stammered Paul.
+
+“Come, come! what can a man in your circumstances have to fear? There
+is no use racking your brain; you will find out all you want quickly
+enough, and had best make up your mind to place yourself in my hands
+without reserve, for my sole desire is to be of service to you.”
+
+These words were uttered in the most benevolent manner; and as he
+resumed his seat, he added,--
+
+“Now let us talk of myself. Your mother, whom you justly say was a
+thoroughly good woman, pinched herself in order to keep you at college
+at Poitiers. You entered a solicitor’s office at eighteen, I think?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“But your mother’s desire was to see you established at Loudon or
+Cevray. Perhaps she hoped that her wealthy friend would aid you still
+further. Unluckily, however, you had no inclination for the law.”
+
+Paul smiled, but Mascarin went on with some little severity.
+
+“I repeat, unfortunately; and I think that by this time you have gone
+through enough to be of my opinion. What did you do instead of studying
+law? You did--what? You wasted your time over music, and composed songs,
+and, I know, an opera, and thought yourself a perfect genius.”
+
+Paul had listened up to this time with patience, but at this sarcasm
+he endeavored to protest; but it was in vain, for Mascarin went on
+pitilessly,--
+
+“One day you abandoned the study of the law, and told your mother
+that until you had made your name as a musical composer you would give
+lessons on the piano; but you could obtain no pupils, and--well, just
+look in the glass yourself, and say if you think that your age and
+appearance would justify parents in intrusting their daughters to your
+tuition?”
+
+Mascarin stopped for a moment and consulted his notes afresh.
+
+“Your departure from Poitiers,” he went on, “was your last act of folly.
+The very day after your poor mother’s death you collected together all
+her scanty savings, and took the train to Paris.”
+
+“Then, sir, I had hoped----”
+
+“What, to arrive at fortune by the road of talent? Foolish boy! Every
+year a thousand poor wretches have been thus intoxicated by their
+provincial celebrity, and have started for Paris, buoyed up by similar
+hopes. Do you know the end of them? At the end of ten years--I give them
+no longer--nine out of ten die of starvation and disappointment, and the
+other joins the criminal army.”
+
+Paul had often repeated this to himself, and could, therefore, make no
+reply.
+
+“But,” went on Mascarin, “you did not leave Poitiers alone; you carried
+off with you a young girl named Rose Pigoreau.”
+
+“Pray, let me explain.”
+
+“It would be useless. The fact speaks for itself. In six months your
+little store had disappeared; then came poverty and starvation, and at
+last, in the Hotel de Perou, your thoughts turned to suicide, and you
+were only saved by my old friend Tantaine.”
+
+Paul felt his temper rising, for these plain truths were hard to bear;
+but fear lest he should lose his protector kept him silent.
+
+“I admit everything, sir,” said he calmly. “I was a fool, and almost
+mad, but experience has taught me a bitter lesson. I am here to-day,
+and this fact should tell you that I have given up all my vain
+hallucinations.”
+
+“Will you give up Rose Pigoreau?”
+
+As this abrupt question was put to him, Paul turned pale with anger.
+
+“I love Rose,” answered he coldly; “she believes in me, and has shared
+my troubles with courage, and one day she shall be my wife.”
+
+Raising his velvet cap from his head, Mascarin bowed with an ironical
+air, saying, “Is that so? Then I beg a thousand pardons. It is urgent
+that you should have immediate employment. Pray, what can you do? Not
+much of anything, I fancy;--like most college bred boys, you can do a
+little of everything, and nothing well. Had I a son, and an enormous
+income, I would have him taught a trade.”
+
+Paul bit his lip; but he knew the portrait was a true one.
+
+“And now,” continued Mascarin, “I have come to your aid, and what do you
+say to a situation with a salary of twelve thousand francs?”
+
+This sum was so much greater than Paul had dared to hope, that he
+believed Mascarin was amusing himself at his expense.
+
+“It is not kind of you to laugh at me, under the present circumstances,”
+ remarked he.
+
+Mascarin was not laughing at him; but it was fully half an hour before
+he could prove this to Paul.
+
+“You would like more proof of what I say,” said he, after a long
+conversation. “Very well, then; shall I advance your first month’s
+salary?” And as he spoke, he took a thousand-franc note from his desk,
+and offered it to Paul. The young man rejected the note; but the force
+of the argument struck him; and he asked if he was capable of carrying
+out the duties which such a salary doubtless demanded.
+
+“Were I not certain of your abilities, I should not offer it to you,”
+ replied Mascarin. “I am in a hurry now, or I would explain the whole
+affair; but I must defer doing so until to-morrow, when please come at
+the same hour as you did to-day.”
+
+Even in his state of surprise and stupefaction, Paul felt that this was
+a signal for him to depart.
+
+“A moment more,” said Mascarin. “You understand that you can no longer
+remain at the Hotel de Perou? Try and find a room in this neighborhood;
+and when you have done so, leave the address at the office. Good-bye, my
+young friend, until to-morrow, and learn to bear good fortune.”
+
+For a few minutes Mascarin stood at the door of the office watching
+Paul, who departed almost staggering beneath the burden of so many
+conflicting emotions; and when he saw him disappear round the corner, he
+ran to a glazed door which led to his bed chamber, and in a loud whisper
+called, “Come in, Hortebise. He has gone.”
+
+A man obeyed the summons at once, and hurriedly drew up a chair to the
+fire. “My feet are almost frozen,” exclaimed he; “I should not know
+it if any one was to chop them off. Your room, my dear Baptiste, is a
+perfect refrigerator. Another time, please, have a fire lighted in it.”
+
+This speech, however, did not disturb Mascarin’s line of thought. “Did
+you hear all?” asked he.
+
+“I saw and heard all that you did.”
+
+“And what do you think of the lad?”
+
+“I think that Daddy Tantaine is a man of observation and powerful will,
+and that he will mould this child between his fingers like wax.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE OPINION OF DR. HORTEBISE.
+
+Dr. Hortebise, who had addressed Mascarin so familiarly by his Christian
+name of Baptiste, was about fifty-six years of age, but he carried his
+years so well, that he always passed for forty-nine. He had a heavy pair
+of red, sensual-looking lips, his hair was untinted by gray, and his
+eyes still lustrous. A man who moved in the best society, eloquent in
+manner, a brilliant conversationalist, and vivid in his perceptions, he
+concealed under the veil of good-humored sarcasm the utmost cynicism of
+mind. He was very popular and much sought after. He had but few faults,
+but quite a catalogue of appalling vices. Under this Epicurean exterior
+lurked, it was reported, the man of talent and the celebrated physician.
+He was not a hard-working man, simply because he achieved the same
+results without toil or labor. He had recently taken to homoeopathy, and
+started a medical journal, which he named _The Globule_, which died at
+its fifth number. His conversation made all society laugh, and he joined
+in the ridicule, thus showing the sincerity of his views, for he
+was never able to take the round of life seriously. To-day, however,
+Mascarin, well as he knew his friend, seemed piqued at his air of
+levity.
+
+“When I asked you to come here to-day,” said he, “and when I begged you
+to conceal yourself in my bedroom--”
+
+“Where I was half frozen,” broke in Hortebise.
+
+“It was,” went on Mascarin, “because I desired your advice. We have
+started on a serious undertaking,--an undertaking full of peril both to
+you and to myself.”
+
+“Pooh! I have perfect confidence in you,--whatever you do is done well,
+and you are not the man to fling away your trump cards.”
+
+“True; but I may lose the game, after all, and then----”
+
+The doctor merely shook a large gold locket that depended from his watch
+chain.
+
+This movement seemed to annoy Mascarin a great deal. “Why do you flash
+that trinket at me?” asked he. “We have known each other for five and
+twenty years,--what do you mean to imply? Do you mean that the locket
+contains the likeness of some one that you intend to make use of later
+on? I think that you might render such a step unnecessary by giving me
+your present advice and attention.”
+
+Hortebise threw himself back in his chair with an expression of
+resignation. “If you want advice,” remarked he, “why not apply to our
+worthy friend Catenac?--he knows something of business, as he is a
+lawyer.”
+
+The name of Catenac seemed to irritate Mascarin so much, that calm, and
+self-contained as he usually was, he pulled off his cap and dashed it on
+his desk.
+
+“Are you speaking seriously?” said he angrily.
+
+“Why should I not be in earnest?”
+
+Mascarin removed his glasses, as though without them he could the more
+easily peer into the depths of the soul of the man before him.
+
+“Because,” replied he slowly, “both you and I distrust Catenac. When did
+you see him last?”
+
+“More than three months ago.”
+
+“True, and I allow that he seems to be acting fairly toward his old
+associates; but you will admit that, in keeping away thus, his conduct
+is without excuse, for he has made his fortune; and though he pretends
+to be poor, he is certainly a man of wealth.”
+
+“Do you really think so?”
+
+“Were he here, I would force him to acknowledge that he is worth a
+million, at least.”
+
+“A million!” exclaimed the doctor, with sudden animation.
+
+“Yes, certainly. You and I, Hortebise, have indulged our every whim, and
+have spent gold like water, while our friend garnered his harvest and
+stored it away. But poor Catenac has no expensive tastes, nor does he
+care for women or the pleasures of the table. While we indulged in every
+pleasure, he lent out his money at usurious interest. But, stop,--how
+much do you spend per annum?”
+
+“That is a hard question to answer; but, say, forty thousand francs.”
+
+“More, a great deal more; but calculate what a capital sum that would
+amount to during the twenty years we have done business together.”
+
+The doctor was not clever at figures; he made several vain attempts to
+solve the problem, and at last gave it up in despair. “Forty and forty,”
+ muttered he, tapping the tips of his fingers, “are eighty, then forty--”
+
+“Call it eight hundred thousand francs,” broke in Mascarin. “Say I drew
+the same amount as you did. We have spent ours, and Catenac has saved
+his, and grown rich; hence my distrust. Our interests are no longer
+identical. He certainly comes here every month, but it is only to claim
+his share; he consents to take his share of the profits, but shirks the
+risks. It is fully ten years since he brought in any business. I don’t
+trust him at all. He always declines to join in any scheme that we
+propose, and sees danger in everything.”
+
+“He would not betray us, however.”
+
+Mascarin took a few moments for reflection. “I think,” said he, “that
+Catenac is afraid of us. He knows that the ruin of me would entail the
+destruction of the other two. This is our only safeguard; but if he
+dare not injure us openly, he is quite capable of working against us in
+secret. Do you remember what he said the last time he was here? That we
+ought to close our business and retire. How should _we_ live? for he is
+rich and we are poor. What on earth are you doing, Hortebise?” he added,
+for the physician, who had the reputation of being worth an enormous
+amount, had taken out his purse, and was going over the contents.
+
+“I have scarcely three hundred and twenty-seven francs!” answered he
+with a laugh. “What is the state of your finances?”
+
+Mascarin made a grimace. “I am not so well off as you; and besides,” he
+continued in a low voice, as though speaking to himself, “I have certain
+ties which you do not possess.”
+
+For the first time during this interview a cloud spread over the
+doctor’s countenance.
+
+“Great Heavens!” said he, “and I was depending on you for three thousand
+francs, which I require urgently.”
+
+Mascarin smiled slyly at the doctor’s uneasiness. “Don’t worry,” he
+answered. “You can have that; there ought to be some six or eight
+thousand francs in the safe. But that is all, and that is the last
+of our common capital,--this after twenty years of toil, danger, and
+anxiety, and we have not twenty years before us to make a fresh fortune
+in.”
+
+“Yes,” continued Mascarin, “we are getting old, and therefore have the
+greater reason for making one grand stroke to assure our fortune. Were I
+to fall ill to-morrow, all would go to smash.”
+
+“Quite true,” returned the doctor, with a slight shudder.
+
+“We must, and that is certain, venture on a bold stroke. I have said
+this for years, and woven a web of gigantic proportions. Do you now
+know why at this last moment I appeal to you, and not to Catenac
+for assistance? If only one out of two operations that I have fully
+explained to you succeeds, our fortune is made.”
+
+“I follow you exactly.”
+
+“The question now is whether the chance of success is sufficiently great
+to warrant our going on with these undertakings. Think it over and let
+me have your opinion.”
+
+An acute observer could easily have seen that the doctor was a man of
+resource, and a thoroughly competent adviser, for the reason that his
+coolness never deserted him. Compelled to choose between the use of the
+contents of his locket, or the continuance of a life of luxurious ease,
+the smile vanished from the doctor’s face, and he began to reflect
+profoundly. Leaning back in his chair, with his feet resting on the
+fender, he carefully studied every combination in the undertaking, as
+a general inspects the position taken up by the enemy, when a battle
+is impending, upon which the fate of an empire may hinge. That this
+analysis took a favorable turn, was evident, for Mascarin soon saw a
+smile appear upon the doctor’s lips. “We must make the attack at
+once,” said he; “but make no mistake; the projects you propose are most
+dangerous, and a single error upon our side would entail destruction;
+but we must take some risk. The odds are against us, but still we may
+win. Under these circumstances, and as necessity cheers us on, I say,
+_Forward!_” As he said this, he rose to his feet, and extending his hand
+toward his friend, exclaimed, “I am entirely at your disposal.”
+
+Mascarin seemed relieved by the doctor’s decision, for he was in
+that frame of mind when, however self-reliant a man may be, he has a
+disinclination to be left alone, and the aid of a stout ally is of the
+utmost service.
+
+“Have you considered every point carefully?” asked he. “You know that
+we can only act at present upon one of the undertakings, and that is the
+one of which the Marquis de Croisenois----”
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“With reference to the affair of the Duke de Champdoce, I have still to
+gather together certain things necessary for the ultimate success of
+the scheme. There is a mystery in the lives of the Duke and Duchess,--of
+this there is no doubt,--but what is this secret? I would lay my life
+that I have hit upon the correct solution; but I want no suspicions,
+no probabilities; I want absolute certainties. And now,” continued he,
+“this brings us back to the first question. What do you think of Paul
+Violaine?”
+
+Hortebise walked up and down the room two or three times, and finally
+stopped opposite to his friend. “I think,” said he, “that the lad has
+many of the qualities we want, and we might find it hard to discover one
+better suited for our purpose. Besides, he is a bastard, knows nothing
+of his father, and therefore leaves a wide field for conjecture; for
+every natural son has the right to consider himself, if he likes, the
+offspring of a monarch. He has no family or any one to look after him,
+which assures us that whatever may happen, there is no one to call us to
+account. He is not overwise, but has a certain amount of talent, and any
+quantity of ridiculous self-conceit. He is wonderfully handsome, which
+will make matters easier, but--”
+
+“Ah, there is a ‘but’ then?”
+
+“More than one,” answered the doctor, “for there are three for certain.
+First, there is Rose Pigoreau, whose beauty has so captivated our old
+friend Tantaine,--she certainly appears to be a danger in the future.”
+
+“Be easy,” returned Mascarin; “we will quickly remove this young woman
+from our road.”
+
+“Good; but do not be too confident,” answered Hortebise, in his usual
+tone. “The danger from her is not the one you think, and which you are
+trying to avoid. You think Paul loves her. You are wrong. He would drop
+her to-morrow, so that he could please his self-indulgence. But the
+woman who thinks that she hates her lover often deceives herself; and
+Rose is simply tired of poverty. Give her a little amount of comfort,
+good living, and luxury, and you will see her give them all up to come
+back to Paul. Yes, I tell you, she will harass and annoy him, as women
+of her class who have nothing to love always do. She will even go to
+Flavia to claim him.”
+
+“She had better not,” retorted Mascarin, in threatening accents.
+
+“Why, how could you prevent it? She has known Paul from his infancy. She
+knew his mother; she was perhaps brought up by her, perhaps even lived
+in the same street. Look out, I say, for danger from that quarter.”
+
+“You may be right, and I will take my precautions.”
+
+It was sufficient for Mascarin to be assured of a danger to find means
+of warding it off.
+
+“My second ‘but,’” continued Hortebise, “is the idea of the mysterious
+protector of whom the young man spoke. His mother, he says, has reason
+to know that his father is dead, and I believe in the truth of the
+statement. In this case, what has become of the person who paid Madame
+Violaine her allowance?”
+
+“You are right, quite right; these are the crevices in our armor; but I
+keep my eyes open, and nothing escapes me.”
+
+The doctor was growing rather weary, but he still went on courageously.
+“My third ‘but’” said he, “is perhaps the strongest. We must see the
+young fellow at once. It may be to-morrow, without even having prepared
+him or taught him his part. Suppose we found that he was honest!
+Imagine--if he returned a firm negative to all your dazzling offers!”
+
+Mascarin rose to his feet in his turn. “I do not think that there is any
+chance of that,” said he.
+
+“Why not, pray?”
+
+“Because when Tantaine brought him to me, he had studied him carefully.
+He is as weak as a woman, and as vain as a journalist. Besides, he is
+ashamed at being poor. No; I can mould him like wax into any shape I
+like. He will be just what we wish.”
+
+“Are you sure,” asked Hortebise, “that Flavia will have nothing to say
+in this matter?”
+
+“I had rather, with your permission, say nothing on that head,” returned
+Mascarin. He broke off his speech and listened eagerly. “There is some
+one listening,” said he. “Hark!”
+
+The sound was repeated, and the doctor was about to seek refuge in the
+inner room, when Mascarin laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
+
+“Stay,” observed he, “it is only Beaumarchef;” and as he spoke,
+he struck a gilded bell that stood on his desk. In another instant
+Beaumarchef appeared, and with an air in which familiarity was mingled
+with respect, he saluted in military fashion.
+
+“Ah,” said the doctor pleasantly, “do you take your nips of brandy
+regularly?”
+
+“Only occasionally, sir,” stammered the man.
+
+“Too often, too often, my good fellow. Do you think that your nose and
+eyelids are not real telltales?”
+
+“But I assure you, sir--”
+
+“Do you not remember I told you that you had asthmatic symptoms?
+Why, the movement of your pectoral muscles shows that your lungs are
+affected.”
+
+“But I have been running, sir.”
+
+Mascarin broke in upon this conversation, which he considered frivolous.
+“If he is out of breath,” remarked he, “it is because he has been
+endeavoring to repair a great act of carelessness that he has committed.
+Well, Beaumarchef, how did you get on?”
+
+“All right, sir,” returned he, with a look of triumph. “Good!”
+
+“What are you talking about?” asked the doctor.
+
+Mascarin gave his friend a meaning glance, and then, in a careless
+manner, replied, “Caroline Schimmel, a former servant of the Champdoce
+family, also patronizes our office. How did you find her, Beaumarchef?”
+
+“Well, an idea occurred to me.”
+
+“Pooh! do you have ideas at your time of life?”
+
+Beaumarchef put on an air of importance. “My idea was this,” he went
+on: “as I left the office with Toto Chupin, I said to myself, the woman
+would certainly drop in at some pub before she reached the boulevard.”
+
+“A sound argument,” remarked the doctor.
+
+“Therefore Toto and I took a squint into every one we passed, and before
+we got to the Rue Carreau we saw her in one, sure enough.”
+
+“And Toto is after her now?”
+
+“Yes, sir; he said he would follow her like her shadow, and will bring
+in a report every day.”
+
+“I am very pleased with you, Beaumarchef,” said Mascarin, rubbing his
+hands joyously.
+
+Beaumarchef seemed highly flattered, but continued,--
+
+“This is not all.”
+
+“What else is there to tell?”
+
+“I met La Candele on his way from the Place de Petit Pont, and he
+has just seen that young girl--you know whom I mean--driving off in a
+two-horse Victoria. He followed it, of course. She has been placed in a
+gorgeous apartment in the Rue Douai; and from what the porter says, she
+must be a rare beauty; and La Candele raved about her, and says that she
+has the most magnificent eyes in the world.”
+
+“Ah,” remarked Hortebise, “then Tantaine was right in his description of
+her.”
+
+“Of course he was,” answered Mascarin with a slight frown, “and this
+proves the justice of the objection you made a little time back. A girl
+possessed of such dazzling beauty may even influence the fool who has
+carried her off to become dangerous.”
+
+Beaumarchef touched his master’s arm kindly. “If you wish to get rid of
+the masher,” said he, “I can show you a way;” and throwing himself
+into the position of a fencer, he made a lunge with his right arm,
+exclaiming, “One, two!”
+
+“A Prussian quarrel,” remarked Mascarin. “No; a duel would do us no
+good. We should still have the girl on our hands, and violent measures
+are always to be avoided.” He took off his glasses, wiped them, and
+looking at the doctor intently, said, “Suppose we take an epidemic as
+our ally. If the girl had the smallpox, she would lose her beauty.”
+
+Cynical and hardened as the doctor was, he drew back in horror at this
+proposal. “Under certain circumstances,” remarked he, “science might aid
+us; but Rose, even without her beauty, would be just as dangerous as she
+is now. It is _her_ affection for Paul that we have to check, and not
+_his_ for her; and the uglier a woman is, the more she clings to her
+lover.”
+
+“All this is worthy of consideration,” returned Mascarin; “meanwhile we
+must take steps to guard ourselves from the impending danger. Have you
+finished that report on Gandelu, Beaumarchef? What is his position?”
+
+“Head over ears in debt, sir, but not harassed by his creditors because
+of his future prospects.”
+
+“Surely among these creditors there are some that we could influence?”
+ said Mascarin. “Find this out, and report to me this evening; and
+farewell for the present.”
+
+When again alone, the two confederates remained silent for some time.
+The decisive moment had arrived. As yet they were not compromised; but
+if they intended to carry out their plans, they must no longer remain
+inactive; and both of these men had sufficient experience to know that
+they must look at the position boldly, and make up their minds at once.
+The pleasant smile upon the doctor’s face faded away, and his fingers
+played nervously with his locket. Mascarin was the first to break the
+silence.
+
+“Let us no longer hesitate,” said he; “let us shut our eyes to the
+danger and advance steadily. You heard the promises made by the Marquis
+de Croisenois. He will do as we wish, but under certain conditions.
+Mademoiselle de Mussidan must be his bride.”
+
+“That will be impossible.”
+
+“Not so, if we desire it: and the proof of this is, that before two
+o’clock the engagement between Mademoiselle Sabine and the Baron de
+Breulh-Faverlay will be broken off.”
+
+The doctor heaved a deep sigh. “I can understand Catenac’s scruples. Ah!
+if, like him, I had a million!”
+
+During this brief conversation Mascarin had gone into his sleeping room
+and was busily engaged in changing his dress.
+
+“If you are ready,” remarked the doctor, “we will make a start.”
+
+In reply, Mascarin opened the door leading into the office. “Get a cab,
+Beaumarchef,” said he.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A TRUSTWORTHY SERVANT.
+
+In the City of Paris it is impossible to find a more fashionable quarter
+than the one which is bounded on the one side by the Rue Faubourg Saint
+Honore and on the other by the Seine, and commences at the Place de la
+Concorde and ends at the Avenue de l’Imperatrice. In this favored spot
+millionaires seem to bloom like the rhododendron in the sunny south.
+There are the magnificent palaces which they have erected for their
+accommodation, where the turf is ever verdant, and where the flowers
+bloom perennially; but the most gorgeous of all these mansions was the
+Hotel de Mussidan, the last _chef d’oeuvre_ of Sevair, that skilful
+architect who died just as the world was beginning to recognize his
+talents. With a spacious courtyard in front and a magnificent garden in
+the rear, the Hotel de Mussidan is as elegant as it is commodious.
+The exterior was extremely plain, and not disfigured by florid
+ornamentation. White marble steps, with a light and elegant railing at
+the sides, lead to the wide doors which open into the hall. The busy hum
+of the servants at work at an early hour in the yard tells that an ample
+establishment is kept up. There can be seen luxurious carriages, for
+occasions of ceremony, and the park phaeton, and the simple brougham
+which the Countess uses when she goes out shopping; and that carefully
+groomed thoroughbred is Mirette, the favorite riding horse of
+Mademoiselle Sabine. Mascarin and his confederate descended from their
+cab a little distance at the corner of the Avenue Matignon. Mascarin, in
+his dark suit, with his spotless white cravat and glittering spectacles,
+looked like some highly respectable functionary of State. Hortebise wore
+his usual smile, though his cheek was pale.
+
+“Now,” remarked Mascarin, “let me see,--on what footing do you stand
+with the Mussidans? Do they look upon you as a friend?”
+
+“No, no; a poor doctor, whose ancestors were not among the Crusades,
+could not be the intimate friend of such haughty nobles as the
+Mussidans.”
+
+“But the Countess knows you, and will not refuse to receive you, nor
+have you turned out as soon as you begin to speak; for, taking shelter
+behind some rogue without a name, you can shelter your own reputation. I
+will see the Count.”
+
+“Take care of him,” said Hortebise thoughtfully. “He has a reputation
+for being a man of ungovernable temper, and, at the first word from you
+that he objects to, would throw you out of the window as soon as look at
+you.”
+
+Mascarin shrugged his shoulders. “I can bring him to reason,” answered
+he.
+
+The two confederates walked a little past the Hotel de Mussidan, and the
+doctor explained the interior arrangements of the house.
+
+“I,” continued Mascarin, “will insist upon the Count’s breaking off his
+daughter’s engagement with M. de Breulh-Faverlay, but shall not say
+a word about the Marquis de Croisenois, while you will take the
+opportunity of putting his pretensions before the Countess, and will not
+say a word of M. de Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+“I have learned my lesson, and shall not forget it.”
+
+“You see, doctor, the beauty of the whole affair is, that the Countess
+will wonder how her husband will take her interference, while he will be
+at a loss how to break the news to his wife. How surprised they will be
+when they find that they have both the same end in view!”
+
+There was something so droll in the whole affair, that the doctor burst
+into a loud laugh.
+
+“We go by such different roads,” said he, “that they will never suspect
+that we are working together. Faith! my dear Baptiste, you are much more
+clever than I thought.”
+
+“Don’t praise me until you see that I am successful.”
+
+Mascarin stopped opposite to a _café_ in the Faubourg Saint Honore.
+
+“Wait here for me, doctor,” said he, “while I make a little call. If all
+is all right; I will come for you again; then I will see the Count, and
+twenty minutes later do you go to the house and ask for the Countess.”
+
+The clock struck four as the worthy confederates parted, and Mascarin
+continued his way along the Faubourg Saint Honore, and again stopped
+before a public house, which he entered, the master of which, Father
+Canon, was so well known in the neighborhood that he had not thought it
+worth while to have his name painted over the door. He did not profess
+to serve his best wine to casual customers, but for regular frequenters
+of his house, chiefly the servants of noble families, he kept a better
+brand of wine. Mascarin’s respectable appearance inclined the landlord
+to step forward. Among Frenchmen, who are always full of gayety, a
+serious exterior is ever an excellent passport.
+
+“What can I do for you, sir?” asked he with great politeness.
+
+“Can I see Florestan?”
+
+“In Count de Mussidan’s service, I believe?”
+
+“Just so; I have an appointment with him here.”
+
+“He is downstairs in the band-room,” replied the landlord. “I will send
+for him.”
+
+“Don’t trouble; I will go down,” and, without waiting for permission,
+Mascarin descended some steps that apparently led to a cellar.
+
+“It appears to me,” murmured Father Canon, “that I have seen this cove’s
+face before.”
+
+Mascarin pushed open a door at the bottom of the flight of stairs, and
+a strange and appalling noise issued from within (but this neither
+surprised nor alarmed him), and entered a vaulted room arranged like a
+_café_, with seats and tables, filled with customers. In the centre, two
+men, in their shirt sleeves, with crimson faces, were performing upon
+horns; while an old man, with leather gaiters, buttoning to the knee,
+and a broad leather belt, was whistling the air the hornplayers were
+executing. As Mascarin politely took off his hat, the performers ceased,
+and the old man discontinued his whistling, while a well-built young
+fellow, with pumps and stockings, and wearing a fashionable mustache,
+exclaimed,--
+
+“Aha, it is that good old Mascarin. I was expecting you; will you
+drink?”
+
+Without waiting for further invitation Mascarin helped himself from a
+bottle that stood near.
+
+“Did Father Canon tell you that I was here?” asked the young man, who
+was the Florestan Mascarin had been inquiring for. “You see,” continued
+he, “that the police will not permit us to practise the horn; so, you
+observe, Father Canon has arranged this underground studio, from whence
+no sound reaches the upper world.”
+
+The hornplayers had now resumed their lessons, and Florestan was
+compelled to place both hands to the side of his mouth, in order to
+render himself audible, and to shout with all his might.
+
+“That old fellow there is a huntsman in the service of the Duke de
+Champdoce, and is the finest hornplayer going. I have only had twenty
+lessons from him, and am getting on wonderfully.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Mascarin, “when I have more time I must hear your
+performance; but to-day I am in a hurry, and want to say a few words to
+you in private.”
+
+“Certainly, but suppose we go upstairs and ask for a private room.”
+
+The rooms he referred to were not very luxuriously furnished, but were
+admirably suited for confidential communications; and had the walls been
+able to speak, they could have told many a strange tale.
+
+Florestan and Mascarin seated themselves in one of these before a small
+table, upon which Father Canon placed a bottle of wine and two glasses.
+
+“I asked you to meet me here, Florestan,” began Mascarin, “because you
+can do me a little favor.”
+
+“Anything that is in my power I will do,” said the young man.
+
+“First, a few words regarding yourself. How do you get on with Count de
+Mussidan?”
+
+Mascarin had adopted an air of familiarity which he knew would please
+his companion.
+
+“I don’t care about the place,” replied Florestan, “and I am going to
+ask Beaumarchef to look out another one for me.”
+
+“I am surprised at that; all your predecessors said that the Count was a
+perfect gentleman--”
+
+“Just try him yourself,” broke in the valet. “In the first place he is
+as fickle as the wind, and awfully suspicious. He never leaves anything
+about,--no letters, no cigars, and no money. He spends half his time in
+locking things up, and goes to bed with his keys under his pillow.”
+
+“I allow that such suspicion on his part is most unpleasant.”
+
+“It is indeed, and besides he is awfully violent. He gets in a rage
+about nothing, and half a dozen times in the day he looks ready to
+murder you. On my word, I am really frightened at him.”
+
+This account, coupled with what he had heard from Hortebise seemed to
+render Mascarin very thoughtful.
+
+“Is he always like this, or only at intervals?”
+
+“He is always a beast, but he is worse after drink or losing at cards.
+He is never home until after four in the morning.”
+
+“And what does his wife say?”
+
+The query made Florestan laugh.
+
+“Madame does not bother herself about her lord and master, I can assure
+you. Sometimes they don’t meet for weeks. All she wants is plenty of
+money. And ain’t we just dunned!”
+
+“But the Mussidans are wealthy?”
+
+“Tremendously so, but at times there is not the value of a franc in the
+house. Then Madame is like a tigress, and would sent to borrow from all
+her friends.”
+
+“But she must feel much humiliated?”
+
+“Not a bit; when she wants a heavy amount, she sends off to the Duke de
+Champdoce, and he always parts; but she doesn’t mince matters with him.”
+
+“It would seem as if you had known the contents of your mistress’s
+letters?” remarked Mascarin with a smile.
+
+“Of course I have; I like to know what is in the letters I carry about.
+She only says, ‘My good friend, I want so much,’ and back comes the
+money without a word. Of course it is easy to see that there has been
+something between them.”
+
+“Yes, evidently.”
+
+“And when master and missus do meet they only have rows, and such rows!
+When the working man has had a drop too much, he beats his wife, she
+screams, then they kiss and make it up; but the Mussidans say things to
+each other in cold blood that neither can ever forgive.”
+
+From the air with which Mascarin listened to these details, it almost
+seemed as if he had been aware of them before.
+
+“Then,” said he, “Mademoiselle Sabine is the only nice one in the
+house?”
+
+“Yes, she is always gentle and considerate.”
+
+“Then you think that M. de Breulh-Faverlay will be a happy man?”
+
+“Oh, yes; but perhaps this marriage will----” but here Florestan
+interrupted himself and assumed an air of extreme caution. After looking
+carefully round, he lowered his voice, and continued, “Mademoiselle
+Sabine has been left so much to herself that she acts just as she thinks
+fit.”
+
+“Do you mean,” asked Mascarin, “that the young lady has a lover?”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“But that must be wrong; and let me tell you that you ought not to
+repeat such a story.”
+
+The man grew quite excited.
+
+“Story,” repeated he; “I know what I know. If I spoke of a lover, it is
+because I have seen him with my own eyes, not once, but twice.”
+
+From the manner in which Mascarin received this intelligence, Florestan
+saw that he was interested in the highest degree.
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it,” continued he. “The first time was when she
+went to mass; it came on to rain suddenly, and Modeste, her maid, begged
+me to go for an umbrella. As soon as I came back I went in and saw
+Mademoiselle Sabine standing by the receptacle for holy water, talking
+to a young fellow. Of course I dodged behind a pillar, and kept a watch
+on the pair--”
+
+“But you don’t found all your story on this?”
+
+“I think you would, had you seen the way they looked into each other’s
+eyes.”
+
+“What was he like?”
+
+“Very good looking, about my height, with an aristocratic air.”
+
+“How about the second time?”
+
+“Ah, that is a longer story. I went one day with Mademoiselle when she
+was going to see a friend in the Rue Marboeuf. She waited at a corner of
+the street, and beckoned me to her. ‘Florestan,’ said she, ‘I forgot to
+post this letter; go and do so; I will wait here for you.’”
+
+“Of course you read it?”
+
+“No. I thought there was something wrong. She wants to get rid of you,
+so, instead of posting it, I slunk behind a tree and waited. I had
+hardly done so, when the young fellow I had seen at the chapel came
+round the corner; but I scarcely knew him. He was dressed just like a
+working man, in a blouse all over plaster. They talked for about
+ten minutes, and Mademoiselle Sabine gave him what looked like a
+photograph.”
+
+By this time the bottle was empty, and Florestan was about to call for
+another, when Mascarin checked him, saying--
+
+“Not to-day; it is growing late, and I must tell you what I want you to
+do for me. Is the Count at home now?”
+
+“Of course he is; he has not left his room for two days, owing to having
+slipped going downstairs.”
+
+“Well, my lad, I must see your master; and if I sent up my card, the
+odds are he would not see me, so I rely upon you to show me up without
+announcing me.”
+
+Florestan remained silent for a few minutes.
+
+“It is no easy job,” he muttered, “for the Count does not like
+unexpected visitors, and the Countess is with him just now. However, as
+I am not going to stay, I’ll chance it.”
+
+Mascarin rose from his seat.
+
+“We must not be seen together,” said he; “I’ll settle the score; do you
+go on, and I will follow in five minutes. Remember we don’t know each
+other.”
+
+“I am fly; and mind you look out a good place for me.”
+
+Mascarin paid the bill, and then looked into the _café_ to inform the
+doctor of his movements, and a few minutes later, Florestan in his
+most sonorous voice, threw open the door of his master’s room and
+announced,--
+
+“M. Mascarin.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A FORGOTTEN CRIME.
+
+Baptiste Mascarin had been in so many strange situations, from which he
+had extricated himself with safety and credit, that he had the fullest
+self-confidence, but as he ascended the wide staircase of the Hotel de
+Mussidan, he felt his heart beat quicker in anticipation of the struggle
+that was before him. It was twilight out of doors, but all within was
+a blaze of light. The library into which he was ushered was a vast
+apartment, furnished in severe taste. At the sound of the unaristocratic
+name of Mascarin, which seemed as much out of place as a drunkard’s oath
+in the chamber of sleeping innocence, M. de Mussidan raised his head
+in sudden surprise. The Count was seated at the other end of the room,
+reading by the light of four candles placed in a magnificently wrought
+candelabra. He threw down his paper, and raising his glasses, gazed with
+astonishment at Mascarin, who, with his hat in his hand and his heart
+in his mouth, slowly crossed the room, muttering a few unintelligible
+apologies. He could make nothing, however, of his visitor, and said,
+“Whom do you wish to see, sir?”
+
+“The Count de Mussidan,” stuttered Mascarin; “and I hope that you will
+forgive this intrusion.”
+
+The Count cut his excuse short with a haughty wave of his hand. “Wait,”
+ said he imperiously. He then with evident pain rose from his seat, and
+crossing the room, rang the bell violently, and then reseated himself.
+Mascarin, who still remained in the centre of the room, inwardly
+wondered if after all he was to be turned out of the house. In another
+second the door opened, and the figure of the faithful Florestan
+appeared.
+
+“Florestan,” said the Count, angrily, “this is the first time that you
+have permitted any one to enter this room without my permission; if this
+occurs again, you leave my service.”
+
+“I assure your lordship,” began the man.
+
+“Enough! I have spoken; you know what to expect.”
+
+During this brief colloquy, Mascarin studied the Count with the deepest
+attention.
+
+The Count Octave de Mussidan in no way resembled the man sketched by
+Florestan. Since the time of Montaigne, a servant’s portrait of his
+employer should always be distrusted. The Count looked fully sixty,
+though he was but fifty years of age; he was undersized, and he looked
+shrunk and shrivelled; he was nearly bald, and his long whiskers were
+perfectly white. The cares of life had imprinted deep furrows on his
+brow, and told too plainly the story of a man who, having drained the
+chalice of life to the bottom, was now ready to shiver the goblet. As
+Florestan left the room the Count turned to Mascarin, and in the same
+glacial tone observed, “And now, sir, explain this intrusion.”
+
+Mascarin had often been rebuffed, but never so cruelly as this. His
+vanity was sorely wounded, for he was vain, as all are who think that
+they possess some hidden influence, and he felt his temper giving way.
+
+“Pompous idiot!” thought he; “we will see how he looks in a short time;”
+ but his face did not betray this, and his manner remained cringing
+and obsequious. “You have heard my name, my lord, and I am a general
+business agent.”
+
+The Count was deceived by the honest accents which long practice
+had taught Mascarin to use, and he had neither a suspicion nor a
+presentiment.
+
+“Ah!” said he majestically, “a business agent, are you? I presume you
+come on behalf of one of my creditors. Well, sir, as I have before told
+these people, your errand is a futile one. Why do they worry me when I
+unhesitatingly pay the extravagant interest they are pleased to demand?
+They know that they are all knaves. They are aware that I am rich, for I
+have inherited a great fortune, which is certainly without encumbrance;
+for though I could raise a million to-morrow upon my estates in
+Poitiers, I have up to this time not chosen to do so.”
+
+Mascarin had at length so recovered his self-command that he listened to
+this speech without a word, hoping to gain some information from it.
+
+“You may tell this,” continued the Count, “to those by whom you are
+employed.”
+
+“Excuse me, my lord--”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“I cannot allow--”
+
+“I have nothing more to say; all will be settled as I promised, when I
+pay my daughter’s dowry. You are aware that she will shortly be united
+to M. de Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+There was no mistaking the order to go, contained in these words,
+but Mascarin did not offer to do so, but readjusting his spectacles,
+remarked in a perfectly calm voice,--
+
+“It is this marriage that has brought me here.”
+
+The Count thought that his ears had deceived him. “What are you saying?”
+ said he.
+
+“I say,” repeated the agent, “that I am sent to you in connection with
+this same marriage.”
+
+Neither the doctor nor Florestan had exaggerated the violence of the
+Count’s temper. Upon hearing his daughter’s name and marriage mentioned
+by this man, his face grew crimson and his eyes gleamed with a lurid
+fire.
+
+“Get out of this!” cried he, angrily.
+
+But this was an order that Mascarin had no intention of obeying.
+
+“I assure you that what I have to say is of the utmost importance,” said
+he.
+
+This speech put the finishing touch to the Count’s fury.
+
+“You won’t go, won’t you?” said he; and in spite of the pain that at the
+moment evidently oppressed him, he stepped to the bell, but was arrested
+by Mascarin, uttering in a warning voice the words,--
+
+“Take care; if you ring that bell, you will regret it to the last day of
+your life.”
+
+This was too much for the Count’s patience, and letting go the bell
+rope, he snatched up a walking cane that was leaning against the
+chimneypiece, and made a rush toward his visitor. But Mascarin did not
+move or lift his hand in self-defence, contenting himself with saying
+calmly,--
+
+“No violence, Count; remember Montlouis.”
+
+At this name the Count grew livid, and dropping the cane from his
+nerveless hand staggered back a pace or two. Had a spectre suddenly
+stood up before him with threatening hand, he could not have been more
+horrified.
+
+“Montlouis!” he murmured; “Montlouis!”
+
+But now Mascarin, thoroughly assured of the value of his weapon, had
+resumed all his humbleness of demeanor.
+
+“Believe me, my lord,” said he, “that I only mentioned this name on
+account of the immediate danger that threatens you.”
+
+The Count hardly seemed to pay attention to his visitor’s words.
+
+“It was not I,” continued Mascarin, “who devised the project of bringing
+against you an act which was perhaps a mere accident. I am only a
+plenipotentiary from persons I despise, to you, for whom I entertain the
+very highest respect.”
+
+By this time the Count had somewhat recovered himself.
+
+“I really do not understand you,” said he, in a tone he vainly
+endeavored to render calm. “My sudden emotion is only too easily
+explained. I had a sad misfortune. I accidentally shot my secretary, and
+the poor young man bore the name you just now mentioned; but the court
+acquitted me of all blame in the matter.”
+
+The smile upon Mascarin’s face was so full of sarcasm that the Count
+broke off.
+
+“Those who sent me here,” remarked the agent, slowly, “are well
+acquainted with the evidence produced in court; but unfortunately, they
+know the real facts, which certain honorable gentlemen had sense to
+conceal at any risk.”
+
+Again the Count started, but Mascarin went on implacably,--
+
+“But reassure yourself, your friend did not betray you voluntarily.
+Providence, in her inscrutable decrees----”
+
+The Count shuddered.
+
+“In short, sir, in short----”
+
+Up to this time Mascarin had remained standing, but now that he saw that
+his position was fully established, he drew up a chair and sat down.
+The Count grew more livid at this insolent act, but made no comment, and
+this entirely removed any doubts from the agent’s mind.
+
+“The event to which I have alluded has two eye-witnesses, the Baron de
+Clinchain, and a servant, named Ludovic Trofin, now in the employ of the
+Count du Commarin.”
+
+“I did not know what had become of Trofin.”
+
+“Perhaps not, but my people do. When he swore to keep the matter secret,
+he was unmarried, but a few years later, having entered the bonds of
+matrimony, he told all to his young wife. This woman turned out badly;
+she had several lovers, and through one of them the matter came to my
+employer’s ears.”
+
+“And it was on the word of a lackey, and the gossip of a dissolute
+woman, that they have dared to accuse me.”
+
+No word of direct accusation had passed, and yet the Count sought to
+defend himself.
+
+Mascarin saw all this, and smiled inwardly, as he replied, “We have
+other evidence than that of Ludovic.”
+
+“But,” said the Count, who was sure of the fidelity of his friend, “you
+do not, I suppose, pretend that the Baron de Clinchain has deceived me?”
+
+The state of mental anxiety and perturbation into which this man of the
+world had been thrown must have been very intense for him not to
+have perceived that every word he uttered put a fresh weapon in his
+adversary’s hands.
+
+“He has not denounced you by word of mouth,” replied the agent. “He has
+done far more; he has written his testimony.”
+
+“It is a lie,” exclaimed the Count.
+
+Mascarin was not disturbed by this insult.
+
+“The Baron has written,” repeated he, “though he never thought that any
+eye save his own would read what he had penned. As you are aware,
+the Baron de Clinchain is a most methodical man, and punctilious to a
+degree.”
+
+“I allow that; continue.”
+
+“Consequently you will not be surprised to learn that from his earliest
+years he has kept a diary, and each day he puts down in the most minute
+manner everything that has occurred, even to the different conditions of
+his bodily health.”
+
+The Count knew of his friend’s foible, and remembered that when they
+were young many a practical joke had been played upon his friend on this
+account, and now he began to perceive the dangerous ground upon which he
+stood.
+
+“On hearing the facts of the case from Ludovic’s wife’s lover,”
+ continued Mascarin, “my employers decided that if the tale was a true
+one, some mention of it would be found in the Baron’s diary; and thanks
+to the ingenuity and skill of certain parties, they have had in their
+possession for twenty-four hours the volume for the year 1842.”
+
+“Scoundrels!” muttered the Count.
+
+“They find not only one, but three distinct statements relating to the
+affair in question.”
+
+The Count started again to his feet with so menacing a look, that the
+worthy Mascarin pushed back his chair in anticipation of an immediate
+assault.
+
+“Proofs!” gasped the Count. “Give me proofs.”
+
+“Everything has been provided for, and the three leaves by which you are
+so deeply compromised have been cut from the book.”
+
+“Where are these pages?”
+
+Mascarin at once put on an air of injured innocence.
+
+“I have not seen them, but the leaves have been photographed, and a
+print has been entrusted to me, in order to enable you to recognize the
+writing.”
+
+As he spoke he produced three specimens of the photographic art,
+wonderfully clear and full of fidelity. The Count examined them with the
+utmost attention, and then in a voice which trembled with emotion, he
+said, “True enough, it is his handwriting.”
+
+Not a line upon Mascarin’s face indicated the delight with which he
+received this admission.
+
+“Before continuing the subject,” he observed placidly, “I consider it
+necessary for you to understand the position taken up by the Baron de
+Clinchain. Do you wish, my lord, to read these extracts, or shall I do
+so for you?”
+
+“Read,” answered the Count, adding in a lower voice, “I cannot see to do
+so.”
+
+Mascarin drew his chair nearer to the lights on the table. “I perceive,”
+ said he, “that the first entry was made on the evening after the--well,
+the accident. This is it: ‘October 26, 1842. Early this morning went
+out shooting with Octave de Mussidan. We were accompanied by Ludovic, a
+groom, and by a young man named Montlouis, whom Octave intends one day
+to make his steward. It was a splendid day, and by twelve o’clock I had
+killed a leash of hares. Octave was in excellent spirits, and by one
+o’clock we were in a thick cover not far from Bevron. I and Ludovic were
+a few yards in front of the others, when angry voices behind attracted
+our attention. Octave and Montlouis were arguing violently, and all
+at once the Count struck his future steward a violent blow. In another
+moment Montlouis came up to me. ‘What is the matter?’ cried I. Instead
+of replying to my question, the unhappy young man turned back to
+his master, uttering a series of threats. Octave had evidently been
+reproaching him for some low intrigue he had been engaged in, and
+was reflecting upon the character of the woman. ‘At any rate,’ cried
+Montlouis, ‘she is quite as virtuous as Madame de Mussidan was before
+her marriage.’”
+
+“‘As Octave heard these words, he raised the loaded gun he held in his
+hand and fired. Montlouis fell to the ground, bathed in blood. We
+all ran up to him, but he was quite dead, for the charge of shot had
+penetrated his heart. I was almost beside myself, but Octave’s despair
+was terrible to witness. Tearing his hair, he knelt beside the dead man.
+Ludovic, however, maintained his calmness. “We must say that it was an
+accident,” observed he quickly. “Thinking that Montlouis was not near,
+my master fired into cover.”
+
+“‘This was agreed to, and we carefully arranged what we should say. It
+was I who went before the magistrate and made a deposition, which was
+unhesitatingly received. But, oh, what a fearful day! My pulse is at
+eighty, and I feel I shall not sleep all night. Octave is half mad, and
+Heaven knows what will become of him.’”
+
+The Count, from the depths of his armchair, listened without apparent
+emotion to this terrible revelation. He was quite crushed, and was
+searching for some means to exorcise the green spectre of the past,
+which had so suddenly confronted him. Mascarin never took his eyes off
+him. All at once the Count roused himself from his prostration, as a man
+awakes from a hideous dream. “This is sheer folly,” cried he.
+
+“It is folly,” answered Mascarin, “that would carry much weight with
+it.”
+
+“And suppose I were to show you,” returned the Count, “that all these
+entries are the offspring of a diseased mind?”
+
+Mascarin shook his head with an air of affected grief. “There is no
+use, my lord, in indulging in vain hopes. We,” he continued, wishing
+to associate himself with the Count, “we might of course admit that
+the Baron de Clinchain had made this entry in his diary in a moment of
+temporary insanity, were it not for the painful fact that there were
+others. Le me read them.”
+
+“Go on; I am all attention.”
+
+“We find the following, three days later: ‘Oct. 29th, 1842. I am most
+uneasy about my health. I feel shooting pains in all my joints. The
+derangement of my system arises entirely from this business of Octave’s.
+I had to run the gauntlet of a second court, and the judge’s eyes seemed
+to look me through and through. I also saw with much alarm that my
+second statement differs somewhat from the first one, so I have
+now learned it by heart. Ludovic is a sharp fellow, and quite
+self-possessed. I would like to have him in my household. I keep myself
+shut up in my house for fear of meeting friends who want to hear all the
+details of the accident. I believe I may say that I have repeated the
+story more than a couple of dozen times.’ Now, my lord,” added Mascarin,
+“what do you say to this?”
+
+“Continue the reading of the extracts.”
+
+“The third allusion, though it is short, is still very important:
+‘November 3rd, 1842. Thank Heaven! all is over. I have just returned
+from the court. Octave has been acquitted. Ludovic had behaved
+wonderfully. He explained the reason of the misadventure in a way that
+was really surprising in an uneducated man, and there was not an atom
+of suspicion among judge, jury, or spectators. I have changed my mind;
+I would not have a fellow like Ludovic in my service; he is much too
+sharp. When I had been duly sworn, I gave my evidence. Though I was much
+agitated, I went through it all right; but when I got home I felt
+very ill, and discovered that my pulse was down to fifty. Ah, me! what
+terrible misfortunes are wrought by a momentary burst of anger. I now
+write this sentence in my diary: _“Never give way to first impulses.”_’
+These words,” continued Mascarin, “were inscribed on every one of the
+pages following,--at least so those who examined the entries informed
+me.”
+
+Mascarin persisted in representing himself as the agent of others, but
+still the Count made no allusion to the persons in the background.
+
+After a few moments the Count rose and limped up and down, as though he
+hoped by this means to collect his ideas, or perhaps in order to prevent
+his visitor from scanning his face too closely.
+
+“Have you done?” asked he, all at once.
+
+“Yes, my lord.”
+
+“Have you thought what an impartial judge would say?”
+
+“I think I have.”
+
+“He would say,” broke in the Count, “that no sane man would have written
+such things down, for there are certain secrets which we do not whisper
+even to ourselves, and it is hardly likely that any man would make such
+compromising entries in a diary which might be lost or stolen, and which
+would certainly be read by his heir. Do you think that a man of high
+position would record his perjury, which is a crime that would send him
+to penal servitude?”
+
+Mascarin gazed upon the Count with an air of pity.
+
+“You are not going the right way, my lord, to get out of your trouble.
+No lawyer would adopt your theory. If the remaining volumes of M. de
+Clinchain’s diaries were produced in court, I imagine that other equally
+startling entries would be found in them.”
+
+The Count now appeared to have arrived at some decision, and to continue
+the conversation simply for the purpose of gaining time.
+
+“Well,” said he, “I will give up this idea; but how do I know that
+these documents are not forgeries? Nowadays, handwritings are easily
+facsimilied, when even bankers find it hard to distinguish between their
+own notes and counterfeit ones.”
+
+“That can be settled by seeing if certain leaves are missing from the
+Baron’s diary.”
+
+“That does not prove much.”
+
+“Pardon me, it proves a great deal. This new line of argument, I assure
+you, will avail you as little as the other. I am perfectly aware that
+the Baron de Clinchain will utter whatever words you may place in his
+mouth. Let us suppose that the leaves which have been torn out should
+fit into the book exactly. Would not that be a strong point?”
+
+The Count smiled ironically, as though he had a crushing reply in
+reserve.
+
+“And so this is your opinion, is it?” said he.
+
+“It is indeed.”
+
+“Then all I have to do is to plead guilty. I did kill Montlouis, just
+as Clinchain describes, but----” and as he spoke he took a heavy volume
+from a shelf, and opening it at a certain place laid it before Mascarin,
+remarking,--“this is the criminal code; read. ‘All proceedings in
+criminal law shall be cancelled after a lapse of ten years.’”
+
+The Count de Mussidan evidently thought that he had crushed his
+adversary by this shattering blow; but it was not so, for instead of
+exhibiting any surprise, Mascarin’s smile was as bland as ever.
+
+“I, too, know a little of the law,” said he. “The very first day this
+matter was brought to me, I turned to this page and read what you have
+just shown me to my employers.”
+
+“And what did they say?”
+
+“That they knew all this, but that you would be glad to compromise the
+affair, even at the expense of half your fortune.”
+
+The agent’s manner was so confident that the Count felt they had
+discovered some means of turning this crime of his early days to
+advantage; but he was still sufficiently master of himself to show no
+emotion.
+
+“No,” replied he, “it is not such an easy matter as you think to get
+hold of half my fortune. I fancy that your friends’ demands will assume
+a more modest tone, the more so when I repeat that these morsels of
+paper, stolen from my friend’s diary, are absolutely worthless.”
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“Certainly, for the law on this matter speaks plainly enough.”
+
+Mascarin readjusted his glasses, a sure indication that he was going to
+make an important reply.
+
+“You are quite right, my lord,” said he, slowly. “There is no intention
+of taking you before any court, for there is no penalty now for a crime
+committed twenty-three years ago; but the miserable wretches whom I
+blush to act for have arranged a plan which will be disagreeable in the
+highest degree both for you and the Baron.”
+
+“Pray tell me what this clever plan is.”
+
+“Most certainly. I came here to-day for this very purpose. Let us first
+conclude that you have rejected the request with which I approached
+you.”
+
+“Do you call this style of thing a request?”
+
+“What is the use of quarrelling over words. Well, to-morrow, my
+clients--though I am ashamed to speak of them as such--will send to
+a well known morning paper a tale, with the title, ‘Story of a Day’s
+Shooting.’ Of course only initials will be used for the names, but no
+doubt will exist as to the identity of the actors in the tragedy.”
+
+“You forget that in actions for libel proofs are not admitted.”
+
+Mascarin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“My employers forget nothing,” remarked he; “and it is upon this very
+point that they have based their plans For this reason they introduce
+into the matter a fifth party, of course an accomplice, whose name is
+introduced into the story in the paper. Upon the day of its appearance,
+this man lodges a complaint against the journal, and insists on proving
+in a court of justice, that he did not form one of the shooting-party.”
+
+“Well, what happens then?”
+
+“Then, my lord, this man insists that the journal should give a
+retraction of the injurious statement and summons as witnesses both
+yourself and the Baron de Clinchain, and as a conclusion, Ludovic;
+and as he claims damages, he employs a lawyer, who is one of the
+confederates and behind the scenes. The lawyer will speak something to
+this effect: ‘That the Count de Mussidan is clearly a murderer; that
+the Baron de Clinchain is a perjurer, as proved by his own handwriting;
+Ludovic has been tampered with, but my client, an honorable man, must
+not be classed with these, etc., etc.’ Have I made myself understood?”
+
+Indeed, he had, and with such cold and merciless logic that it seemed
+hopeless to expect to escape from the net that had been spread.
+
+As these thoughts passed through the Count’s brain, he saw at a glance
+the whole terrible notoriety that the case would cause, and society
+gloating over the details. Yet such was the obstinacy of his
+disposition, and so impatient was he of control, that the more desperate
+his position seemed, the fiercer was his resistance. He knew the world
+well, and he also knew that the cutthroats who demanded his money with
+threats had every reason to dread the lynx eye of the law. If he refused
+to listen to them, as his heart urged him, perhaps they would not dare
+to carry out their threats. Had he alone been concerned in the matter,
+he would have resisted to the last, and fought it out to the last drop
+of his blood, and as a preliminary, would have beaten the sneering rogue
+before him to a jelly; but how dared he expose his friend Clinchain, who
+had already braved so much for him? As he paced up and down the library,
+these and many other thoughts swept across his brain, and he was
+undecided whether to submit to these extortions or throw the agent out
+of the window. His excited demeanor and the occasional interjections
+that burst from his lips showed Mascarin that the account of him was
+not exaggerated, and that when led by passion he would as soon shoot
+a fellow-creature as a rabbit. And yet, though he knew not whether he
+should make his exit by the door or the window, he sat twirling his
+fingers with the most unconcerned air imaginable. At last the Count gave
+ear to prudence. He stopped in front of the agent, and, taking no pains
+to hide his contempt, said,--
+
+“Come, let us make an end of this. How much do you want for these
+papers?”
+
+“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed Mascarin; “surely you do not think that I could
+be guilty----?”
+
+M. de Mussidan shrugged his shoulders. “Pray, do not take me for a
+fool,” said he, “but name your sum.”
+
+Mascarin seemed a little embarrassed, and hesitated. “We don’t want
+money,” answered he at length.
+
+“Not money!” replied the Count.
+
+“We want something that is of no importance to you, but of the utmost
+value to those who despatched me here. I am commissioned to inform you
+that my clients desire that you should break off the engagement between
+your daughter and M. de Breulh-Faverlay, and that the missing paper will
+be handed to you on the completion of her marriage with any else whom
+you may deem worthy of such an honor.”
+
+This demand, which was utterly unexpected, so astonished the Count that
+he could only exclaim, “Why, this is absolute madness!”
+
+“No; it is plain, good sense, and a _bona fide_ offer.”
+
+An idea suddenly flashed across the Count’s mind. “Is it your
+intention,” asked he, “to furnish me with a son-in-law too?”
+
+“I am sure, my lord,” answered Mascarin, looking the picture of
+disinterested honesty, “that, even to save yourself, you would never
+sacrifice your daughter.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“You are entirely mistaken; it is M. de Breulh-Faverlay whom my clients
+wish to strike at, for they have taken an oath that he shall never wed a
+lady with a million for her dowry.”
+
+So surprised was the Count, that the whole aspect of the interview
+seemed to have changed, and he now combated his own objections instead
+of those of his unwelcome visitor. “M. de Breulh-Faverlay has my
+promise,” remarked he; “but of course it is easy to find a pretext. The
+Countess, however, is in favor of the match, and the chief opposition to
+any change will come from her.”
+
+Mascarin did not think it wise to make any reply, and the Count
+continued, “My daughter also may not view this rupture with
+satisfaction.”
+
+Thanks to the information he had received from Florestan, Mascarin knew
+how much importance to attach to this. “Mademoiselle, at her age and
+with her tastes, is not likely to have her heart seriously engaged.” For
+fully a quarter of an hour the Count still hesitated. He knew that he
+was entirely at the mercy of those miscreants, and his pride revolted at
+the idea of submission; but at length he yielded.
+
+“I agree,” said he. “My daughter shall not marry M. de Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+Even in his hour of triumph, Mascarin’s face did not change. He bowed
+profoundly, and left the room; but as he descended the stairs, he rubbed
+his hands, exclaiming, “If the doctor has made as good a job of it as I
+have, success is certain.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MEDICAL ADVISER.
+
+Doctor Hortebise did not find it necessary to resort to any of those
+expedients which Mascarin had found it advisable to use in order to
+reach Madame de Mussidan. As soon as he presented himself--that is,
+after a brief interval of five minutes--he was introduced into the
+presence of the Countess. He rather wondered at this, for Madame de
+Mussidan was one of those restless spirits that are seldom found at
+home, but are to be met with at exhibitions, on race-courses, at the
+_salons_, restaurants, shops, or theatres; or at the studio of some
+famous artist; or at the rooms of some musical professor who had
+discovered a new tenor; anywhere and everywhere, in fact, except at
+home. Hers was one of those restless natures constantly craving for
+excitement; and husband, home, and child were mere secondary objects in
+her eyes. She had many avocations; she was a patroness of half a dozen
+charitable institutions, but the chief thing that she did was to spend
+money. Gold seemed to melt in her grasp like so much snow, and she never
+knew what became of the sums she lavished so profusely. Husband and
+wife had long been almost totally estranged, and led almost separate
+existences. Dr. Hortebise was well aware of this, in common with others
+who moved in society. Upon the appearance of the doctor, the Countess
+dropped the book she had been perusing, and gave vent to an exclamation
+of delight. “Ah, doctor, this is really very kind of you;” and at the
+same time signed to the servant to place a chair for the visitor.
+
+The Countess was tall and slender, and at forty-five had the figure of
+a girl. She had an abundance of fair hair, the color of which concealed
+the silver threads which plentifully interspersed it. A subtle perfume
+hung about her, and her pale blue eyes were full of pride and cold
+disdain.
+
+“You know how to time your visits so well, doctor!” said she. “I am
+thoroughly bored, and am utterly weary of books, for it always seems to
+me, when I read, that I had perused the same thing before somewhere or
+other. You have arrived at so opportune a moment, that you appear to be
+a favorite of timely chance.”
+
+The doctor was indeed a favorite of chance; but the name of the chance
+was Baptiste Mascarin.
+
+“I see so few visitors,” continued Madame de Mussidan, “that hardly any
+one comes to see me. I must really set aside one day in the week for my
+at home; for when I do happen to stay at home, I feel fearfully dull
+and lonely. For two mortal hours I have been in this room. I have been
+nursing the Count.”
+
+The doctor knew better than this; but he smiled pleasantly, and said,
+“Perfectly so,” exactly at the right moment.
+
+“Yes,” continued the Countess, “my husband slipped on the stairs, and
+hurt himself very much. Our doctor says it is nothing; but then I put
+little faith in what doctors say.”
+
+“I know that by experience, madame,” replied Hortebise.
+
+“Present company of course always excepted; but, do you know, I once
+really believed in you; but your sudden conversion to homeopathy quite
+frightened me.”
+
+The doctor smiled. “It is as safe a mode of practice as any other.”
+
+“Do you really think so?”
+
+“I am perfectly sure of it.”
+
+“Well, now that you _are_ here, I am half inclined to ask your advice.”
+
+“I trust that you are not suffering.”
+
+“No, thank heaven; I have never any cause to complain of my health; but
+I am very anxious about Sabine’s state.”
+
+Her affection of maternal solicitude was a charming pendant to her
+display of conjugal affection, and again the doctor’s expression of
+assent came in in the right place.
+
+“Yes, for a month, doctor, I have hardly seen Sabine, I have been so
+much engaged; but yesterday I met her, and was quite shocked at the
+change in her appearance.”
+
+“Did you ask her what ailed her?”
+
+“Of course, and she said, ‘Nothing,’ adding that she was perfectly
+well.”
+
+“Perhaps something had vexed her?”
+
+“She,--why, don’t you know that every one likes her, and that she is one
+of the happiest girls in Paris; but I want you to see her in spite of
+that.” She rang the bell as she spoke, and as soon as the footman made
+his appearance, said, “Lubin, ask Mademoiselle to have the goodness to
+step downstairs.”
+
+“Mademoiselle has gone out, madame.”
+
+“Indeed! how long ago?”
+
+“About three o’clock, madame.”
+
+“Who went with her?”
+
+“Her maid, Modeste.”
+
+“Did Mademoiselle say where she was going to?”
+
+“No, madame.”
+
+“Very well, you can go.”
+
+Even the imperturbable doctor was rather surprised at a girl of eighteen
+being permitted so much freedom.
+
+“It is most annoying,” said the Countess. “However, let us hope that the
+trifling indisposition, regarding which I wished to consult you, will
+not prevent her marriage.”
+
+Here was the opening that Hortebise desired.
+
+“Is Mademoiselle going to be married?” asked he with an air of
+respectful curiosity.
+
+“Hush!” replied Madame de Mussidan, placing her finger on her lips;
+“this is a profound secret, and there is nothing definitely arranged;
+but you, as a doctor, are a perfect father confessor, and I feel that
+I can trust you. Let me whisper to you that it is quite possible that
+Sabine will be Madame de Breulh-Faverlay before the close of the year.”
+
+Hortebise had not Mascarin’s courage; indeed, he was frequently
+terrified at his confederate’s projects; but having once given in his
+adherence, he was to be relied on, and did not hesitate for a moment.
+“I confess, madame, that I heard that mentioned before;” returned he
+cautiously.
+
+“And, pray, who was your informant?”
+
+“Oh, I have had it from many sources; and let me say at once that it was
+this marriage, and no mere chance, that brought me here to-day.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan liked the doctor and his pleasant and witty
+conversation very much, and was always charmed to see him; but it
+was intolerable that he should venture to interfere in her daughter’s
+marriage. “Really, sir, you confer a great honor upon the Count and
+myself,” answered she haughtily.
+
+Her severe manner, however, did not cause the doctor to lose his temper.
+He had come to say certain things in a certain manner. He had learned
+his part, and nothing that the Countess could say would prevent his
+playing it.
+
+“I assure you, madame,” returned he, “that when I accepted the mission
+with which I am charged, I only did so from my feelings of respect to
+you and yours.”
+
+“You are really very kind,” answered the Countess superciliously.
+
+“And I am sure, madame, that after you have heard what I have to say,
+you will have even more reason to agree with me.” His manner as he
+said this was so peculiar, that the Countess started as though she had
+received a galvanic shock. “For more than twenty-five years,” pursued
+the doctor, “I have been the constant depository of strange family
+secrets, and some of them have been very terrible ones. I have
+often found myself in a very delicate position, but never in such an
+embarrassing one as I am now.”
+
+“You alarm me,” said the Countess, dropping her impatient manner.
+
+“If, madame, what I have come to relate to you are the mere ravings of
+a lunatic, I will offer my most sincere apologies; but if, on the
+contrary, his statements are true--and he has irrefragable proofs in his
+possession,--then, madame----”
+
+“What then, doctor?”
+
+“Then, madame, I can only say, make every use of me, for I will
+willingly place my life at your disposal.”
+
+The Countess uttered a laugh as artificial as the tears of
+long-expectant heirs. “Really,” said she, “your solemn air and tones
+almost kill me with laughter.”
+
+“She laughs too heartily, and at the wrong time. Mascarin is right,”
+ thought the doctor. “I trust, madame,” continued he, “that I too may
+laugh at my own imaginary fears; but whatever may be the result, permit
+me to remind you that a little time back you said that a doctor was a
+father confessor; for, like a priest, the physician only hears secrets
+in order to forget them. He is also more fitted to console and advise,
+for, as his profession brings him into contact with the frailties and
+passions of the world, he can comprehend and excuse.”
+
+“And you must not forget, doctor, that like the priest also, he preaches
+very long sermons.”
+
+As she uttered this sarcasm, there was a jesting look upon her features,
+but it elicited no smile from Hortebise, who, as he proceeded, grew more
+grave.
+
+“I may be foolish,” he said; “but I had better be that than reopen some
+old wound.”
+
+“Do not be afraid, doctor; speak out.”
+
+“Then, I will begin by asking if you have any remembrance of a young man
+in your own sphere of society, who, at the time of your marriage,
+was well known in every Parisian _salon_. I speak of the Marquis de
+Croisenois.”
+
+The Countess leaned back in her chair, and contracted her brow, and
+pursed up her lips, as though vainly endeavoring to remember the name.
+
+“The Marquis de Croisenois?” repeated she. “It seems as if----no--wait a
+moment. No; I cannot say that I can call any such person to mind.”
+
+The doctor felt that he must give the spur to this rebellious memory.
+
+“Yes, Croisenois,” he repeated. “His Christian name was George, and he
+had a brother Henry, whom you certainly must know, for this winter I saw
+him at the Duchess de Laumeuse’s, dancing with your daughter.”
+
+“You are right; I remember the name now.”
+
+Her manner was indifferent and careless as she said this.
+
+“Then perhaps you also recollect that some twenty-three years ago,
+George de Croisenois vanished suddenly. This disappearance caused a
+terrible commotion at the time, and was one of the chief topics of
+society.”
+
+“Ah! indeed?” mused the Countess.
+
+“He was last seen at the Café de Paris, where he dined with some
+friends. About nine he got up to leave. One of his friends proposed to
+go with him, but he begged him not to do so, saying, ‘Perhaps I shall
+see you later on at the opera, but do not count on me.’ The general
+impression was that he was going to some love tryst.”
+
+“His friends thought that, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes, for he was attired with more care than usual, though he was always
+one of the best dressed men in Paris. He went out alone, and was never
+seen again.”
+
+“Never again,” repeated the Countess, a slight shade passing across her
+brow.
+
+“Never again,” echoed the unmoved doctor. “At first his friends
+merely thought his absence strange; but at the end of a week they grew
+anxious.”
+
+“You go very much into details.”
+
+“I heard them all at the time, madame, and they were only brought back
+to my memory this morning. All are to be found in the records of a
+minute search that the authorities caused to be made into the affair.
+The friends of De Croisenois had commenced the search; but when they
+found their efforts useless, they called in the aid of the police. The
+first idea was suicide: George might have gone into some lonely spot and
+blown out his brains. There was no reason for this; he had ample means,
+and always appeared contented and happy. Then it was believed that a
+murder had been committed, and fresh inquiries were instituted, but
+nothing could be discovered--nothing.”
+
+The Countess affected to stifle a yawn, and repeated like an echo,
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Three months later, when the police had given up the matter in despair,
+one of George de Croisenois’ friends received a letter from him.”
+
+“He was not dead then, after all?”
+
+Dr. Hortebise made a mental note of the tone and manner of the Countess,
+to consider over at his leisure.
+
+“Who can say?” returned he. “The envelope bore the Cairo post-mark. In
+it George declared that, bored with Parisian life, he was going to start
+on an exploring expedition to Central Africa, and that no one need be
+anxious about him. People thought this letter highly suspicious. A man
+does not start upon such an expedition as this without money; and it was
+conclusively proved that on the day of De Croisenois’ disappearance
+he had not more than a thousand francs about him, half of which was in
+Spanish doubloons, won at whist before dinner. The letter was therefore
+regarded as a trick to turn the police off the scent; but the best
+experts asserted that the handwriting was George’s own. Two detectives
+were at once despatched to Cairo, but neither there nor anywhere on the
+road were any traces of the missing man discovered.”
+
+As the doctor spoke, he kept his eyes riveted on the Countess, but her
+face was impassable.
+
+“Is that all?” asked she.
+
+Dr. Hortebise paused a few moments before he replied, and then answered
+slowly,--
+
+“A man came to me yesterday, and asserts that you can tell me what has
+become of George de Croisenois.”
+
+A man could not have displayed the nerve evinced by this frail and
+tender woman, for however callous he may be, some feature will betray
+the torture he is enduring; but a woman can often turn a smiling face
+upon the person who is racking her very soul. At the mere name of
+Montlouis the Count had staggered, as though crushed down by a blow from
+a sledge hammer; but at this accusation of Hortebise the Countess burst
+into a peal of laughter, apparently perfectly frank and natural, which
+utterly prevented her from replying.
+
+“My dear doctor,” said she at length, as soon as she could manage to
+speak, “your tale is highly sensational and amusing, but I really think
+that you ought to consult a _clairvoyant_, and not a matter-of-fact
+person like me, about the fate of George de Croisenois.”
+
+But the doctor, who was ready with his retort, and, not at all
+disconcerted by the cachinations of the Countess, heaved a deep sigh, as
+though a great load had been removed from his heart, and, with an air of
+extreme delight, exclaimed, “Thank Heaven! then I was deceived.”
+
+He uttered these words with an affectation of such sincerity that the
+Countess fell into the trap.
+
+“Come,” said she, with a winning smile, “tell me who it is that says I
+know so much.”
+
+“Pooh! pooh!” returned Hortebise. “What good would that do? He has made
+a fool of me, and caused me to risk losing your good opinion. Is not
+that enough? To-morrow, when he comes to my house, my servants will
+refuse to admit him; but if I were to do as my inclinations lead me, I
+should hand him over to the police.”
+
+“That would never do,” returned the Countess, “for that would change
+a mere nothing into a matter of importance. Tell me the name of your
+mysterious informer. Do I know him?”
+
+“It is impossible that you could do so, madame, for he is far below you
+in the social grade. You would learn nothing from his name. He is a man
+I once helped, and is called Daddy Tantaine.”
+
+“A mere nickname, of course.”
+
+“He is miserably poor, a cynic, philosopher, but as sharp as a needle;
+and this last fact causes me great uneasiness, for at first I thought
+that he had been sent to me by some one far above him in position,
+but--”
+
+“But, doctor,” interposed the Countess, “you spoke to me of proofs, of
+threats, of certain mysterious persons.”
+
+“I simply repeated Daddy Tantaine’s words. The old idiot said to me,
+‘Madame de Mussidan knows all about the fate of the Marquis, and this
+is clearly proved by letters that she has received from him, as well as
+from the Duke de Champdoce.’”
+
+This time the arrow went home. She grew deadly pale, and started to her
+feet with her eyes dilated with horror.
+
+“My letters!” exclaimed she hoarsely.
+
+Hortebise appeared utterly overwhelmed by this display of consternation,
+of which he was the innocent cause.
+
+“Your letters, madame,” replied he with evident hesitation, “this
+double-dyed scoundrel declares he has in his possession.”
+
+With a cry like that of a wounded lioness, the Countess, taking no
+notice of the doctor’s presence, rushed from the room. Her rapid
+footfall could be heard on the stairs, and the rustle of her silken
+skirts against the banisters. As soon as he was left alone, the doctor
+rose from his seat with a cynical smile upon his face.
+
+“You may search,” mused he, “but you will find that the birds have
+flown.” He walked up to one of the windows, and drummed on the glass
+with his fingers. “People say,” remarked he, “that Mascarin never
+makes a mistake. One cannot help admiring his diabolical sagacity and
+unfailing logic. From the most trivial event he forges a long chain of
+evidence, as the botanist is able, as he picks up a withered leaf, to
+describe in detail the tree it came from. A pity, almost, that he did
+not turn his talents to some nobler end; but no; he is now upstairs
+putting the Count on the rack, while I am inflicting tortures on the
+Countess. What a shameful business we are carrying on! There are moments
+when I think that I have paid dearly for my life of luxury, for I know
+well,” he added, half consciously fingering his locket, “that some day
+we shall meet some one stronger than ourselves, and then the inevitable
+will ensue.”
+
+The reappearance of the Countess broke the chain of his thoughts. Her
+hair was disturbed, her eyes had a wild look in them, and everything
+about her betrayed the state of agitation she was in.
+
+“Robbed! robbed!” cried she, as she entered the room. Her excitement was
+so extreme that she spoke aloud, forgetting that the door was open,
+and that the lackey in the ante-room could hear all she said. Luckily
+Hortebise did not lose his presence of mind, and, with the ease of a
+leading actor repairing the error of a subordinate, he closed the door.
+
+“What have you lost?” asked he.
+
+“My letters; they are all gone.”
+
+She staggered on to a couch, and in broken accents went on. “And yet
+these letters were in an iron casket closed by a secret spring; that
+casket was in a drawer, the key of which never leaves me.”
+
+“Good heavens!” exclaimed Hortebise in affected tones, “then Tantaine
+spoke the truth.”
+
+“He did,” answered the Countess hoarsely. “Yes,” she continued, “I am
+the bondslave to people whose names I do not even know, who can control
+my every movement and action.”
+
+She hid her face in her hands as though her pride sought to conceal her
+despair.
+
+“Are these letters, then, so terribly compromising?” asked the doctor.
+
+“I am utterly lost,” cried she. “In my younger days I had no experience;
+I only thought of vengeance, and lately the weapons I forged myself
+have been turned against me. I dug a pitfall for my adversaries and have
+fallen into it myself.”
+
+Hortebise did not attempt to stay the torrent of her words, for the
+Countess was in one of those moods of utter despair when the inner
+feelings of the soul are made manifest, as during a violent tempest the
+weeds of ocean are hurled up to the surface of the troubled waters.
+
+“I would sooner be lying in my grave a thousand times,” wailed she,
+“than see these letters in my husband’s hands. Poor Octave! have I not
+caused him sufficient annoyance already without this crowning sorrow?
+Well, Dr. Hortebise, I am menaced with the production of these letters,
+and they will be handed to my husband unless I agree to certain terms.
+What are they? Of course money is required; tell me to what amount.”
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+“Not money?” cried the Countess; “what, then, do they require? Speak,
+and do not torture me more.”
+
+Sometimes Hortebise confessed to Mascarin that, putting his interests on
+one side, he pitied his victims; but he showed no sign of this feeling,
+and went on,--
+
+“The value of what they require, madame, is best estimated by yourself.”
+
+“Tell me what it is; I can bear anything now.”
+
+“These compromising letters will be placed in your hands upon the day on
+which your daughter marries Henry de Croisenois, the brother of George.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan’s astonishment was so great that she stood as though
+petrified into a statue.
+
+“I am commissioned to inform you, madame, that every delay necessary
+for altering any arrangements that may exist will be accorded you;
+but, remember, if your daughter marries any one else than Henry de
+Croisenois, the letters will be at once placed in your husband’s hands.”
+
+As he spoke the doctor watched her narrowly. The Countess crossed the
+room, faint and dizzy, and rested her head on the mantelpiece.
+
+“And that is all?” asked she. “What you ask me to do is utterly
+impossible: and perhaps it is for the best, for I shall have no long
+agony of suspense to endure. Go, doctor, and tell the villain who holds
+my letters that he can take them to the Count at once.”
+
+The Countess spoke in such a decided tone that Hortebise was a little
+puzzled.
+
+“Can it be true,” she continued, “that scoundrels exist in our country
+who are viler than the most cowardly murderers,--men who trade in the
+shameful secrets that they have learned, and batten upon the money
+they earn by their odious trade? I heard of such creatures before, but
+declined to believe it; for I said to myself that such an idea only
+existed in the unhealthy imaginations of novel writers. It seems,
+however that I was in error; but do not let these villains rejoice too
+soon; they will reap but a scanty harvest. There is one asylum left for
+me where they cannot molest me.”
+
+“Ah, madame!” exclaimed the doctor in imploring accents; but she paid no
+attention to his remonstrances, and went on with increasing violence,--
+
+“Do the miserable wretches think that I fear death? For years I
+have prayed for it as a final mercy from the heaven I have so deeply
+offended. I long for the quiet of the sepulchre. You are surprised at
+hearing one like me speak in this way,--one who has all her life been
+admired and flattered,--I, Diana de Laurebourg, Countess de Mussidan.
+Even in the hours of my greatest triumphs my soul shuddered at the
+thought of the grim spectre hidden away in the past; and I wished that
+death would come and relieve my sufferings. My eccentricities have often
+surprised my friends, who asked if sometimes I were not a little mad.
+Mad? Yes, I am mad! They do not know that I seek oblivion in excitement,
+and that I dare not be alone. But I have learned by this time that I
+must stifle the voice of conscience.”
+
+She spoke like a woman utterly bereft of hope, who had resolved on the
+final sacrifice. Her clear voice rang through the room, and Hortebise
+turned pale as he heard the footsteps of the servants pacing to and fro
+outside the door, as they made preparations for dinner.
+
+“All my life has been one continual struggle,” resumed she,--“a struggle
+which has cost me sore; but now all is over, and to-night, for the first
+time for many years, Diana de Mussidan will sleep a calm and untroubled
+sleep.”
+
+The excitement of the Countess had risen to so high a pitch that the
+doctor asked himself how he could allay a tempest which he had not
+foreseen; for her loud tones would certainly alarm the servants, who
+would hasten to acquaint the Count, who was himself stretched upon the
+rack; then the entire plot would be laid bare, and all would be lost.
+
+Madame de Mussidan was about to rush from the room, when the doctor,
+perceiving that he must act decisively, seized her by both wrists, and,
+almost by force, caused her to resume her seat.
+
+“In Heaven’s name, madame,” he whispered, “for your daughter’s sake,
+listen to me. Do not throw up all; am not I here ready to do your
+bidding, whatever it may be? Rely upon me,--rely upon the knowledge of a
+man of the world, and of one who still possesses some portion of what is
+called a heart. Cannot we form an alliance to ward off this attack?”
+
+The doctor continued in this strain, endeavoring to reassure the
+Countess as much as he had previously endeavored to terrify her, and
+soon had the satisfaction of seeing his efforts crowned with success;
+for Madame de Mussidan listened to his flow of language, hardly
+comprehending its import, but feeling calmer as he went on; and in a
+quarter of an hour he had persuaded her to look the situation boldly
+in the face. Then Hortebise breathed more freely, and, wiping the
+perspiration from his brow, felt that he had gained the victory.
+
+“It is a nefarious plot,” said the Countess.
+
+“So it is, madame; but the facts remain. Only tell me one thing, have
+you any special objection to M. de Croisenois paying his addresses to
+your daughter?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“He comes from a good family, is well educated, handsome, popular, and
+only thirty-four. If you remember, George was his senior by fifteen
+years. Why, then, is not the marriage a suitable one? Certainly, he has
+led rather a fast life; but what young man is immaculate? They say
+that he is deeply in debt; but then your daughter has enough for both.
+Besides, his brother left him a considerable fortune, not far short of
+two millions, I believe; and to this, of course Henry will eventually
+succeed.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan was too overwhelmed by what she had already gone
+through to offer any further exposition of her feelings on the subject.
+
+“All this is very well,” answered she; “but the Count has decided that
+Sabine is to become the wife of M. de Breulh-Faverlay, and I have no
+voice in the matter.”
+
+“But if you exert your influence?”
+
+The Countess shook her head. “Once on a time,” said she sadly, “I
+reigned supreme over Octave’s heart; I was the leading spirit of his
+existence. Then he loved me; but I was insensible to the depths of his
+affection, and wore out a love that would have lasted as long as life
+itself. Yes, in my folly I slew it, and now----” She paused for a moment
+as if to collect her ideas, and then added more slowly: “and now our
+lives are separate ones. I do not complain; it is all my own fault; he
+is just and generous.”
+
+“But surely you can make the effort?”
+
+“But suppose Sabine loves M. de Breulh-Faverlay?”
+
+“But, madame, a mother can always influence her daughter.”
+
+The Countess seized the doctor’s hand, and grasped it so tightly that he
+could hardly bear the pain.
+
+“I must,” said she in a hoarse whisper, “divulge to you the whole extent
+of my unhappiness. I am estranged from my husband, and my daughter
+dislikes and despises me. Some people think that life can be divided
+into two portions, one consecrated to pleasure and excitement, and the
+other to domestic peace and happiness; but the idea is a false one. As
+youth has been, so will be age, either a reward or an expiation.”
+
+Dr. Hortebise did not care to follow this train of argument--for the
+Count might enter at any moment, or a servant might come in to announce
+dinner--and only sought to soothe the excited feelings of Madame de
+Mussidan, and to prove to her that she was frightened by shadows, and
+that in reality she was not estranged from her husband, nor did her
+daughter dislike her; and finally a ray of hope illuminated the saddened
+heart of the unfortunate lady.
+
+“Ah, doctor!” said she, “it is only misfortune that teaches us to know
+our true friends.”
+
+The Countess, like her husband, had now laid down her arms; she had made
+a longer fight of it, but in both cases the result had been the same.
+She promised that she would commence operations the next day, and do her
+utmost to break off the present engagement.
+
+Hortebise then took his leave, quite worn out with the severe conflict
+he had waged during his two hours’ interview with the Countess. In spite
+of the extreme cold, the air outside seemed to refresh him considerably,
+and he inhaled it with the happy feeling that he had performed his duty
+in a manner worthy of all praise. He walked up the Rue de Faubourg Saint
+Honore, and again entered the _café_ where he and his worthy confederate
+had agreed to meet. Mascarin was there, an untasted cutlet before him,
+and his face hidden by a newspaper which his anxiety would not permit
+him to peruse. His suspense was terrible. Had Hortebise failed? had he
+encountered one of those unforeseen obstacles which, like a minute grain
+of sand, utterly hinders the working of a piece of delicate machinery?
+
+“Well, what news?” said he eagerly, as soon as he caught sight of the
+doctor.
+
+“Success, perfect success!” said Hortebise gayly. “But,” added he, as he
+sank exhausted upon a seat, “the battle has been a hard one.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+IN THE STUDIO.
+
+Staggering like a drunken man, Paul Violaine descended the stairs
+when his interview with Mascarin had been concluded. The sudden and
+unexpected good fortune which had fallen so opportunely at his feet
+had for the moment absolutely stunned him. He was now removed from a
+position which had caused him to gaze with longing upon the still waters
+of the Seine, to one of comparative affluence. “Mascarin,” said he to
+himself, “has offered me an appointment bringing in twelve thousand
+francs per annum, and proposed to give me the first month’s salary in
+advance.”
+
+Certainly it was enough to bewilder any man, and Paul was utterly dazed.
+He went over all the events that had occurred during the day--the sudden
+appearance of old Tantaine, with his loan of five hundred francs, and
+the strange man who knew the whole history of his life, and who, without
+making any conditions, had offered him a valuable situation. Paul was
+in no particular hurry to get back to the Hotel de Perou, for he said to
+himself that Rose could wait. A feeling of restlessness had seized
+upon him. He wanted to squander money, and to have the sympathy of some
+companions,--but where should he go, for he had no friends? Searching
+the records of his memory, he remembered that, when poverty had first
+overtaken him, he had borrowed twenty francs from a young fellow of his
+own age, named Andre. Some gold coins still jingled in his pocket, and
+he could have a thousand francs for the asking. Would it not add to his
+importance if he were to go and pay this debt? Unluckily his creditor
+lived a long distance off in the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne. He, however,
+hailed a passing cab, and was driven to Andre’s address. This young man
+was only a casual acquaintance, whom Paul had picked up one day in a
+small wine-shop to which he used to take Rose when he first arrived
+in Paris. Andre, with whose other name Paul was unacquainted, was an
+artist, and, in addition, was an ornamental sculptor, and executed
+those wonderful decorations on the outside of houses in which builders
+delight. The trade is not a pleasant one, for it necessitates working
+at dizzy heights, on scaffolds that vibrate with every footstep,
+and exposes you to the heat of summer and the frosts of winter. The
+business, however, is well paid, and Andre got a good price for his
+stone figures and wreaths. But all the money he earned went in the study
+of the painter’s art, which was the secret desire of his soul. He
+had taken a studio, and twice his pictures had been exhibited at the
+_Salon_, and orders began to come in. Many of his brother artists
+predicted a glorious future for him. When the cab stopped, Paul threw
+the fare to the driver, and asked the clean-looking portress, who was
+polishing the brasswork on the door, if M. Andre was at home.
+
+“He is, sir,” replied the old woman, adding, with much volubility, “and
+you are likely to find him in, for he has so much work; but he is such a
+good and quiet young man, and so regular in his habits! I don’t believe
+he owes a penny in the world; and as for drink, why he is a perfect
+Anchorite. Then he has very few acquaintances,--one young lady, whose
+face for a month past I have tried to see, but failed, because she wears
+a veil, comes to see him, accompanied by her maid.”
+
+“Good heavens, woman!” cried Paul impatiently, “will you tell me where
+to find M. Andre?”
+
+“Fourth floor, first door to the right,” answered the portress, angry at
+being interrupted; and as Paul ran up the stairs, she muttered, “A young
+chap with no manners, taking the words out of a body’s mouth like that!
+Next time he comes, I’ll serve him out somehow.”
+
+Paul found the door, with a card with the word “Andre” marked upon it
+nailed up, and rapped on the panel. He heard the sound of a piece of
+furniture being moved, and the jingle of rings being passed along a rod;
+then a clear, youthful voice answered, “Come in!”
+
+Paul entered, and found himself in a large, airy room, lighted by a
+skylight, and exquisitely clean and orderly. Sketches and drawings were
+suspended on the walls; there was a handsome carpet from Tunis, and
+a comfortable lounge; a mirror in a carved frame, which would have
+gladdened the heart of a connoisseur, stood upon the mantelpiece. An
+easel with a picture upon it, covered with a green baize curtain, stood
+in one corner. The young painter was in the centre of his studio, brush
+and palette in hand. He was a dark, handsome young man, well built and
+proportioned, with close-cut hair, and a curling beard flowing down over
+his chest. His face was full of expression, and the energy and vigor
+imprinted upon it formed a marked contrast to the appearance of
+Mascarin’s _protégé_. Paul noticed that he did not wear the usual
+painter’s blouse, but was carefully dressed in the prevailing fashion.
+As soon as he recognized Paul, Andre came forward with extended hand.
+“Ah,” said he, “I am pleased to see you, for I often wondered what had
+become of you.”
+
+Paul was offended at this familiar greeting. “I have had many worries
+and disappointments,” said he.
+
+“And Rose,” said Andre, “how is she--as pretty as ever, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered Paul negligently; “but you must forgive me for
+having vanished so suddenly. I have come to repay your loan, with many
+thanks.”
+
+“Pshaw!” returned the painter, “I never thought of the matter again;
+pray, do not inconvenience yourself.”
+
+Again Paul felt annoyed, for he fancied that under the cloak of assumed
+generosity the painter meant to humiliate him; and the opportunity of
+airing his newly-found grandeur occurred to him.
+
+“It was a convenience to me, certainly,” said he, “but I am all right
+now, having a salary of twelve thousand francs.”
+
+He thought that the artist would be dazzled, and that the mention of
+this sum would draw from him some exclamations of surprise and envy.
+Andre, however, made no reply, and Paul was obliged to wind up with the
+lame conclusion, “And at my age that is not so bad.”
+
+“I should call it superb. Should I be indiscreet in asking what you are
+doing?”
+
+The question was a most natural one, but Paul could not reply to it,
+as he was entirely ignorant as to what his employment was to be, and he
+felt as angry as if the painter had wantonly insulted him.
+
+“I work for it,” said he, drawing himself up with such a strange
+expression of voice and feature that Andre could not fail to notice it.
+
+“I work too,” remarked he; “I am never idle.”
+
+“But I have to work very hard,” returned Paul, “for I have not, like
+you, a friend or protector to interest himself in me.”
+
+Paul, who had not a particle of gratitude in his disposition, had
+entirely forgotten Mascarin.
+
+The artist was much amused by this speech. “And where do you think that
+a foundling, as I am, would find a protector?”
+
+Paul opened his eyes. “What,” said he, “are you one of those?”
+
+“I am; I make no secret of it, hoping that there is no occasion for me
+to feel shame, though there may be for grief. All my friends know this;
+and I am surprised that you are not aware that I am simply a foundling
+from the Hopital de Vendome. Up to twelve years of age I was perfectly
+happy, and the master praised me for the knack I had of acquiring
+knowledge. I used to work in the garden by day, and in the evening I
+wasted reams of paper; for I had made up my mind to be an artist. But
+nothing goes easily in this world, and one day the lady superintendent
+conceived the idea of apprenticing me to a tanner.”
+
+Paul, who had taken a seat on the divan in order to listen, here
+commenced making a cigarette; but Andre stopped him. “Excuse me; but
+will you oblige me by not smoking?”
+
+Paul tossed the cigarette aside, though he was a little surprised,
+as the painter was an inveterate smoker. “All right,” said he, “but
+continue your story.”
+
+“I will; it is a long one. I hated the tanner’s business from the
+very beginning. Almost the first day an awkward workman scalded me so
+severely that the traces still remain.” As he spoke he rolled up his
+shirt sleeve, and exhibited a scar that covered nearly all one side
+of his arm. “Horrified at such a commencement, I entreated the lady
+superintendent, a hideous old woman in spectacles, to apprentice me to
+some other trade, but she sternly refused. She had made up her mind that
+I should be a tanner.”
+
+“That was very nasty of her,” remarked Paul.
+
+“It was, indeed; but from that day I made up my mind, and I determined
+to run away as soon as I could get a little money together. I therefore
+stuck steadily to the business, and by the end of the year, by means of
+the strictest economy, I found myself master of thirty francs. This, I
+thought, would do, and, with a bundle containing a change of linen, I
+started on foot for Paris. I was only thirteen, but I had been gifted by
+Providence with plenty of that strong will called by many obstinacy. I
+had made up my mind to be a painter.”
+
+“And you kept your vow?”
+
+“But with the greatest difficulty. Ah! I can close my eyes and see the
+place where I slept that first night I came to Paris. I was so exhausted
+that I did not awake for twelve hours. I ordered a good breakfast; and
+finding funds at a very low ebb, I started in search of work.”
+
+Paul smiled. He, too, remembered _his_ first day in Paris. He was
+twenty-two years of age, and had forty francs in his pocket.
+
+“I wanted to make money--for I felt I needed it--to enable me to pursue
+my studies. A stout man was seated near me at breakfast, and to him I
+addressed myself.
+
+“‘Look here,’ said I, ‘I am thirteen, and much stronger than I look. I
+can read and write. Tell me how I can earn a living.’
+
+“He looked steadily at me, and in a rough voice answered, ‘Go to the
+market to-morrow morning, and try if one of the master masons, who are
+on the lookout for hands, will employ you.’”
+
+“And you went?”
+
+“I did; and was eagerly watching the head masons, when I perceived my
+stout friend coming toward me.
+
+“‘I like the looks of you, my lad,’ he said; ‘I am an ornamental
+sculptor. Do you care to learn my trade?’
+
+“When I heard this proposal, it seemed as if Paradise was opening before
+me, and I agreed with enthusiasm.”
+
+“And how about your painting?”
+
+“That came later on. I worked hard at it in all my hours of leisure. I
+attended the evening schools, and worked steadily at my art and other
+branches of education. It was a very long time before I ventured to
+indulge in a glass of beer. ‘No, no, Andre,’ I would say to myself,
+‘beer costs six sous; lay the money by.’ Finally, when I was earning
+from eighty to a hundred francs a week, I was able to give more time to
+the brush.”
+
+The recital of this life of toil and self-denial, so different from his
+own selfish and idle career, was inexpressibly mortifying to Paul; but
+he felt that he was called upon to say something.
+
+“When one has talents like yours,” said he, “success follows as a matter
+of course.”
+
+He rose to his feet, and affected to examine the sketches on the walls,
+though his attention was attracted to the covered picture on the easel.
+He remembered what the garrulous old portress had said about the veiled
+lady who sometimes visited the painter, and that there had been some
+delay in admitting him when he first knocked. Then he considered, for
+whom had the painter dressed himself with such care? and why had he
+requested him not to smoke? From all these facts Paul came to the
+conclusion that Andre was expecting the lady’s visit, and that the
+veiled picture was her portrait. He therefore determined to see it;
+and with this end in view, he walked round the studio, admiring all the
+paintings on the walls, maneuvering in such a manner as to imperceptibly
+draw nearer to the easel.
+
+“And this,” said he, suddenly extending his hand toward the cover, “is,
+I presume, the gem of your studio?”
+
+But Andre was by no means dull, and had divined Paul’s intention,
+and grasped the young man’s outstretched hand just as it touched the
+curtain.
+
+“If I veil this picture,” said he, “it is because I do not wish it to be
+seen.”
+
+“Excuse me,” answered Paul, trying to pass over the matter as a jest,
+though in reality he was boiling over with rage at the manner and tone
+of the painter, and considered his caution utterly ridiculous.
+
+“At any rate,” said he to himself, “I will lengthen out my visit, and
+have a glimpse of the original instead of her picture;” and, with this
+amiable resolution, he sat down by the artist’s table, and commenced an
+apparently interminable story, resolved not to attend to any hints his
+friend might throw out, who was glancing at the clock with the utmost
+anxiety, comparing it every now and then with his watch.
+
+As Paul talked on, he saw close to him on the table the photograph of a
+young lady, and, taking advantage of the artist’s preoccupation, looked
+at it.
+
+“Pretty, very pretty!” remarked he.
+
+At these words the painter flushed crimson, and snatching away the
+photograph with some little degree of violence, thrust it between the
+leaves of a book.
+
+Andre was so evidently in a patina, that Paul rose to his feet, and for
+a second or two the men looked into each other’s eyes as two adversaries
+do when about to engage in a mortal duel. They knew but little of
+each other, and the same chance which had brought them together
+might separate them again at any moment, but each felt that the other
+exercised some influence over his life.
+
+Andre was the first to recover himself.
+
+“You must excuse me; but I was wrong to leave so precious an article
+about.”
+
+Paul bowed with the air of a man who accepts an apology which he
+considers his due; and Andre went on,--
+
+“I very rarely receive any one except my friends; but to-day I have
+broken through my rule.”
+
+Paul interrupted him with a magniloquent wave of the hand.
+
+“Believe me, sir,” said he, in a voice which he endeavoured to render
+cutting and sarcastic, “had it not been for the imperative duty I before
+alluded to, I should not have intruded.”
+
+And with these words he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
+
+“The deuce take the impudent fool!” muttered Andre. “I was strongly
+tempted to pitch him out of the window.”
+
+Paul was in a furious rage for having visited the studio with the kindly
+desire of humiliating the painter. He could not but feel that the tables
+had been turned upon himself.
+
+“He shall not have it all his own way,” muttered he; “for I will see the
+lady,” and not reflecting on the meanness of his conduct, he crossed the
+street, and took up a position from which he could obtain a good view of
+the house where Andre resided. It was snowing; but Paul disregarded the
+inclemency of the weather in his eagerness to act the spy.
+
+He had waited for fully half an hour, when a cab drove up. Two women
+alighted from it. The one was eminently aristocratic in appearance,
+while the other looked like a respectable servant. Paul drew closer;
+and, in spite of a thick veil, recognized the features he had seen in
+the photograph.
+
+“Ah!” said he, “after all, Rose is more to my taste, and I will get back
+to her. We will pay up Loupins, and get out of his horrible den.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MADEMOISELLE DE MUSSIDAN.
+
+Paul had not been the only watcher; for at the sound of the carriage
+wheels the ancient portress took up her position in the doorway, with
+her eyes fixed on the face of the young lady. When the two women had
+ascended the stairs, a sudden inspiration seized her, and she went out
+and spoke to the cabman.
+
+“Nasty night,” remarked she; “I don’t envy you in such weather as this.”
+
+“You may well say that,” replied the driver; “my feet are like lumps of
+ice.”
+
+“Have you come far?”
+
+“Rather; I picked them up in the Champs Elysees, near the Avenue de
+Matignon.”
+
+“That is a distance.”
+
+“Yes; and only five sous for drink money. Hang your respectable women!”
+
+“Oh! they are respectable, are they?”
+
+“I’ll answer for that. The other lot are far more open-handed. I know
+both of them.”
+
+And with these words and a knowing wink, he touched up his horse and
+drove away; and the portress, only half satisfied, went back to her
+lodge.
+
+“Why that is the quarter where all the swells live,” murmured she. “I’ll
+tip the maid next time, and she’ll let out everything.”
+
+After Paul’s departure, Andre could not remain quiet; for it appeared to
+him as if each second was a century. He had thrown open the door of his
+studio, and ran to the head of the stairs at every sound.
+
+At last their footsteps really sounded on the steps. The sweetest music
+in the world is the rustle of the beloved one’s dress. Leaning over the
+banisters, he gazed fondly down. Soon she appeared, and in a short time
+had gained the open door of the studio.
+
+“You see, Andre,” said she, extending her hand, “you see that I am true
+to my time.”
+
+Pale, and trembling with emotion, Andre pressed the little hand to his
+lips.
+
+“Ah! Mademoiselle Sabine, how kind you are! Thanks, a thousand thanks.”
+
+Yes, it was indeed Sabine, the scion of the lordly house of Mussidan,
+who had come to visit the poor foundling of the Hotel de Vendome in his
+studio, and who thus risked all that was most precious to her in
+the world, her honor and her reputation. Yes, regardless of the
+conventionalities among which she had been reared, dared to cross that
+social abyss which separates the Avenue de Matignon from the Rue de la
+Tour d’Auvergne. Cold reason finds no excuse for such a step, but the
+heart can easily solve this seeming riddle. Sabine and Andre had been
+lovers for more than two years. Their first acquaintance had commenced
+at the Chateau de Mussidan. At the end of the summer of 1865, Andre,
+whose constant application to work had told upon his health, determined
+to take a change, when his master, Jean Lanier, called him, and said,--
+
+“If you wish for a change, and at the same time to earn three or four
+hundred francs, now is your time. An architect has written to me, asking
+me for a skilled stone carver, to do some work in the country at a
+magnificent mansion in the midst of the most superb scenery. Would you
+care about undertaking this?”
+
+The proposal was a most acceptable one to Andre, and in a week’s time he
+was on his way to his work with a prospect of living for a month in
+pure country air. Upon his arrival at the Chateau, he made a thorough
+examination of the work with which he had been entrusted. He saw that he
+could finish it with perfect ease, for it was only to restore the carved
+work on a balcony, which would not take more than a fortnight. He did
+not, however, press on the work, for the beautiful scenery enchanted
+him.
+
+He made many exquisite sketches, and his health began to return to him.
+But there was another reason why he was in no haste to complete his
+task, one which he hardly ventured even to confess to himself: he had
+caught a glimpse of a young girl in the park of the Chateau who had
+caused a new feeling to spring up in his heart. It was Sabine de
+Mussidan. The Count, as the season came on, had gone to Germany, the
+Countess had flitted away to Luzon, and the daughter was sent to the
+dull old country mansion in charge of her old aunt. It was the old, old
+story; two young hearts loving with all the truth and energy of their
+natures. They had exchanged a few words on their first meeting, and on
+the next Sabine went on to the balcony and watched the rapid play of
+Andre’s chisel with childish delight. For a long time they conversed,
+and Sabine was surprised at the education and refinement of the young
+workman. Utterly fresh, and without experience, Sabine could not
+understand her new sensations. Andre held, one night, a long converse
+with himself, and was at last obliged to confess that he loved her
+fondly. He ran the extent of his folly and madness, and recognized the
+barrier of birth and wealth that stood between them, and was overwhelmed
+with consternation.
+
+The Chateau of Mussidan stands in a very lonely spot, and one of the
+roads leading to it passes through a dense forest, and therefore it had
+been arranged that Andre was to take his meals in the house. After
+a time Sabine began to feel that this isolation was a needless
+humiliation.
+
+“Why can’t M. Andre take his meals with us?” asked she of her aunt. “He
+is certainly more gentlemanlike than many of those who visit us, and I
+think that his conversation would entertain you.”
+
+The old lady was easily persuaded to adopt this suggestion, though at
+first it seemed an odd kind of thing to admit a mere working man to her
+table; but she was so bored with the loneliness of the place that she
+hailed with delight anything that would break its monotony. Andre at
+once accepted the proposal, and the old lady would hardly believe her
+eyes when her guest entered the room with the dress and manners of a
+highbred gentleman. “It is hardly to be believed,” said she, as she was
+preparing to go to bed, “that a mere carver of stone should be so like
+a gentleman. It seems to me that all distinctions of social rank have
+vanished. It is time for me to die, or we are rapidly approaching a
+state of anarchy.”
+
+In spite of her prejudices, however, Andre contrived to win the old
+lady’s heart, and won a complete victory by painting her portrait in
+full gala costume. From that moment he was treated as one of the family,
+and, having no fear of a rebuff, was witty and sprightly in his manner.
+Once he told the old lady the true story of his life. Sabine was deeply
+interested, and marvelled at his energy and endurance, which had won for
+him a place on the ladder that leads to future eminence. She saw in
+him the realization of all her girlish dreams, and finally confessed
+to herself that she loved him. Both her father and mother had their own
+pleasures and pursuits, and Sabine was as much alone in the world as
+Andre.
+
+The days now fled rapidly by. Buried in this secluded country house,
+they were as free as the breeze that played through the trees of the
+forest, for the old lady rarely disturbed them. After the morning meal,
+she would beg Andre to read the newspaper to her, and fell into a doze
+before he had been five minutes at the task. Then the young people
+would slip quietly away, as merry as truants from school. They wandered
+beneath the shade of the giant oaks, or climbed the rocks that stood
+by the river bank. Sometimes, seated in a dilapidated boat, they would
+drift down the stream with its flower-bedecked banks. The water was
+often almost covered with rushes and water lilies. Two months of
+enchantment thus fled past, two months of the intoxications of love,
+though the mention of the tender passion never rose to their lips
+from their hearts, where it was deeply imbedded. Andre had cast all
+reflections regarding the perils of the future to the winds, and only
+thanked heaven for the happiness that he was experiencing.
+
+“Am I not too happy?” he would say to himself. “I fear this cannot
+last.” And he was right. Anxious to justify his remaining at Mussidan
+after his task was completed, Andre determined to add to what he had
+already done a masterpiece of modern art, by carving a garland of fruit
+and flowers over the old balcony, and every morning he rose with the sun
+to proceed with his task.
+
+One morning the valet came to him, saying that the old lady was desirous
+of seeing him, and begged him to lose no time, as the business was
+urgent. A presentiment of evil came like a chilly blast upon the young
+man’s heart. He felt that his brief dream of happiness was at an end,
+and he followed the valet as a criminal follows his executioner to the
+scaffold.
+
+As he opened the door in which Sabine’s aunt was awaiting him, the old
+man whispered,--
+
+“Have a care, sir, have a care. Madame is in a terrible state; I have
+not seen her like this since her husband died.”
+
+The old lady was in a terrible state of excitement, and in spite of
+rheumatic pains was walking up and down the room, gesticulating wildly,
+and striking her crutch-handled stick on the floor.
+
+“And so,” cried she in that haughty tone adopted by women of
+aristocratic lineage when addressing a supposed inferior, “you have, I
+hear, had the impudence to make love to my niece?”
+
+Andre’s pale face grew crimson as he stammered out,--
+
+“Madame--”
+
+“Gracious powers, fellow!” cried the angry woman, “do you dare to
+deny this when your very face betrays you? Do you know that you are an
+insolent rogue even to venture to look on Sabine de Mussidan? How dare
+you! Perhaps you thought that if you compromised her, we should be
+forced to submit to this ignoble alliance.”
+
+“On my honor, madame, I assure you--”
+
+“On your honor! To hear you speak, one would suppose that you were a
+gentleman. If my poor husband were alive, he would break every bone in
+your body; but I am satisfied with ordering you out of the house. Pick
+up your tools, and be off at once.”
+
+Andre stood as though petrified into stone. He took no notice of her
+imperious manner, but only realized the fact that he should never see
+Sabine again, and, turning deadly pale, staggered to a chair. The
+old lady was so surprised at the manner in which Andre received her
+communication, that for a time she too was bewildered, and could not
+utter a word.
+
+“I am unfortunately of a violent temper,” said she, speaking in more
+gentle accents, “and perhaps I have spoken too severely, for I am much
+to blame in this matter, as the priest of Berron said when he came to
+inform me of what was going on. I am so old that I forgot what happens
+when young people are thrown together, and I was the only one who did
+not know what was going on when you were affording subject of gossip for
+the whole countryside; my niece--”
+
+But here Andre started to his feet with a threatening look upon his
+face.
+
+“I could strangle them all,” cried he.
+
+“That is right,” returned the old lady, secretly pleased at his vigor
+and energy, “but you cannot silence every idle tongue. Fortunately,
+matters have not gone too far. Go away, and forget my niece.”
+
+She might as well have told the young man to go away and die.
+
+“Madame!” cried he in accents of despair, “pray listen to me. I am
+young, and full of hope and courage.”
+
+The old lady was so touched by his evident sorrow, that the tears rolled
+down her wrinkled cheeks.
+
+“What is the good of saying this to me?” asked she. “Sabine is not my
+daughter. All that I can do is never to say a word to her father and
+mother. Great heavens, if Mussidan should ever learn what has occurred!
+There, do go away. You have upset me so that I do not believe I shall
+eat a mouthful for the next two days.”
+
+Andre staggered out of the room. It seemed to him as if the flooring
+heaved and rolled beneath his feet. He could see nothing, but he felt
+some one take him by the hand. It was Sabine, pallid and cold as a
+marble statue.
+
+“I have heard everything, Andre,” murmured she.
+
+“Yes,” stammered he. “All is over, and I am dismissed.”
+
+“Where are you going to?”
+
+“Heaven only knows, and when once I leave this place I care not.”
+
+“Do not be desperate,” urged Sabine, laying her hand upon his arm.
+
+His fixed glance terrified her as he muttered,--
+
+“I cannot help it; I am driven to despair.”
+
+Never had Sabine appeared so lovely; her eyes gleamed with some generous
+impulse, and her face glowed.
+
+“Suppose,” said she, “I could give you a ray of future hope, what would
+you do then?”
+
+“What would I _not_ do then? All that a man could. I would fight my way
+through all opposition. Give me the hardest task, and I will fulfil it.
+If money is wanted, I will gain it; if a name, I will win it.”
+
+“There is one thing that you have forgotten, and that is patience.”
+
+“And that, Mademoiselle, I possess also. Do you not understand that with
+one word of hope from you I can live on?”
+
+Sabine raised her head heavenwards. “Work!” she exclaimed. “Work and
+hope, for I swear that I will never wed other than you.”
+
+Here the voice of the old lady interrupted the lovers.
+
+“Still lingering here!” she cried, in a voice like a trumpet call. Andre
+fled away with hope in his heart, and felt that he had now something
+to live for. No one knew exactly what happened after his departure. No
+doubt Sabine brought round her aunt to her way of thinking, for at her
+death, which happened two months afterward, she left the whole of her
+immense fortune directly to her niece, giving her the income while
+she remained single, and the capital on her marriage, whether with or
+without the consent of her parents. Madame de Mussidan declared that
+the old lady had gone crazy, but both Andre and Sabine knew what she had
+intended, and sincerely mourned for the excellent woman, whose last act
+had been to smooth away the difficulties from their path. Andre worked
+harder than ever, and Sabine encouraged him by fresh promises. Sabine
+was even more free in Paris than at Mussidan, and her attached maid,
+Modeste, would have committed almost any crime to promote the happiness
+of her beloved mistress. The lovers now corresponded regularly, and
+Sabine, accompanied by Modeste, frequently visited the artist’s studio,
+and never was a saint treated with greater respect and adoration than
+was Sabine by Andre.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ROSE’S PROMOTION.
+
+As soon as Andre had released her hand, Sabine took off her hat, and,
+handing it to Modeste, remarked,--
+
+“How am I looking to-day, Andre?”
+
+The young painter hastened to reassure her on this point, and she
+continued in joyous tones,--
+
+“No, I do not want compliments; I want to know if I look the right thing
+for sitting for my portrait.”
+
+Sabine was very beautiful, but hers was a different style of beauty from
+that of Rose, whose ripe, sensuous charms were fitted to captivate the
+admiration of the voluptuary, while Sabine was of the most refined and
+ethereal character. Rose fettered the body with earthly trammels, while
+Sabine drew the soul heavenward. Her beauty was not of the kind that
+dazzles, for the air of proud reserve which she threw over it, in some
+slight measure obscured its brilliancy.
+
+She might have passed unnoticed, like the work of a great master’s brush
+hanging neglected over the altar of a village church; but when the eye
+had once fathomed that hidden beauty, it never ceased to gaze on it with
+admiration. She had a broad forehead, covered with a wealth of chestnut
+hair, soft, lustrous eyes, and an exquisitely chiselled mouth.
+
+“Alas!” said Andre, “when I gaze upon you, I have to confess how
+impossible it is to do you justice. Before you came I had fancied
+that the portrait was completed, but now I see that I have only made a
+failure.”
+
+As he spoke, he drew aside the curtain, and the young girl’s portrait
+was revealed. It was by no means a work of extraordinary merit. The
+artist was only twenty-four years of age, and had been compelled to
+interrupt his studies to toil for his daily bread, but it was full of
+originality and genius. Sabine gazed at it for a few moments in silence,
+and then murmured the words,--
+
+“It is lovely!”
+
+But Andre was too discouraged to notice her praise.
+
+“It is like,” remarked he, “but a photograph also has that merit. I have
+only got your features, but not your expression; it is an utter failure.
+Shall I try again?”
+
+Sabine stopped him with a gesture of denial.
+
+“You shall not try again,” said she decidedly.
+
+“And why not?” asked he in astonishment.
+
+“Because this visit will be my last, Andre.”
+
+“The last?” stammered the painter. “In what way have I so offended you,
+that you should inflict so terrible a punishment on me?”
+
+“I do not wish to punish you. You asked for my portrait, and I yielded
+to your request; but let us talk reasonably. Do you not know that I am
+risking my reputation by coming here day after day?”
+
+Andre made no reply, for this unexpected blow had almost stunned him.
+
+“Besides,” continued Mademoiselle de Mussidan, “what is to be done with
+the portrait? It must be hidden away, as if it were something we were
+ashamed of. Remember, on your success hangs our marriage.”
+
+“I do not forget that.”
+
+“Hasten then to gain all honor and distinction, for the world must agree
+with me in saying that my choice has been a wise one.”
+
+“I will do so.”
+
+“I fully believe you, dear Andre, and remember what I said to you a year
+ago. Achieve a name, then go to my father and ask for my hand. If he
+refuses, if my supplications do not move him, I will quit his roof
+forever.”
+
+“You are right,” answered Andre. “I should indeed by a fool if I
+sacrificed a future happy life for a few hours of present enjoyment, and
+I will implicitly--”
+
+“And now,” said Sabine, “that we have agreed on this point, let us
+discuss our mutual interests, of which it seems that we have been a
+little negligent up till now.”
+
+Andre at once began to tell her of all that had befallen him since they
+had last met, his defeats and successes.
+
+“I am in an awkward plight,” said he. “Yesterday, that well known
+collector, Prince Crescenzi, came to my studio. One of my pictures took
+his fancy, and he ordered another from me, for which he would pay six
+thousand francs.”
+
+“That was quite a stroke of luck.”
+
+“Just so, but unfortunately he wants it directly. Then Jean Lamou, who
+has more in his hand than he can manage, has offered me the decoration
+of a palatial edifice that he is building for a great speculator, M.
+Gandelu. I am to engage all the workmen, and shall receive some seven or
+eight hundred francs a month.”
+
+“But how does this trouble you?”
+
+“I will tell you. I have twice seen M. Gandelu, and he wants me to begin
+work at once; but I cannot accept both, and must choose between them.”
+
+Sabine reflected.
+
+“I should execute the Prince’s commission,” said she.
+
+“So should I, only----”
+
+The girl easily found the cause of his hesitation.
+
+“Will you never forget that I am wealthy?” replied she.
+
+“The one would bring in the most money,” he returned, “and the other
+most credit.”
+
+“Then accept the offer of M. Gandelu.”
+
+The old cuckoo-clock in the corner struck five.
+
+“Before we part, dear Andre,” resumed she, “I must tell you of a fresh
+trouble which threatens us; there is a project for marrying me to M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+“What, that very wealthy gentleman?”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“Well, if I oppose my father’s wishes, an explanation must ensue, and
+this just now I do not desire. I therefore intend to speak openly to M.
+de Breulh-Faverlay, who is an honorable, straightforward man; and when I
+tell him the real state of the case, he will withdraw his pretensions.”
+
+“But,” replied Andre, “should he do so, another will come forward.”
+
+“That is very possible, and in his turn the successor will be
+dismissed.”
+
+“Ah!” murmured the unhappy man, “how terrible will be your life,--a
+scene of daily strife with your father and mother.”
+
+After a tender farewell, Sabine and Modeste left. Andre had wished to
+be permitted to go out and procure a vehicle, but this the young girl
+negatived, and took her leave, saying.--
+
+“I shall see M. de Breulh-Faverlay to-morrow.”
+
+For a moment after he was left alone Andre felt very sad, but a happy
+thought flashed across his brain.
+
+“Sabine,” said he, “went away on foot, and I may follow her without
+injury to her reputation.”
+
+In another moment he was in the street, and caught a glimpse of Sabine
+and her maid under a lamp at the next corner. He crossed to the other
+side of the way and followed them cautiously.
+
+“Perhaps,” murmured he, “the time is not far distant when I shall have
+the right to be with her in her walks, and feel her arm pressed against
+mine.”
+
+By this time Sabine and her companion had reached the Rue Blanche, and
+hailing a cab, were rapidly driven away. Andre gazed after it, and as
+soon as it was out of sight, decided to return to his work. As he passed
+a brilliantly lighted shop, a fresh young voice saluted him.
+
+“M. Andre, M. Andre.”
+
+He looked up in extreme surprise, and saw a young woman, dressed in
+the most extravagant style, standing by the door of a brougham, which
+glittered with fresh paint and varnish. In vain he tried to think who
+she could be, but at length his memory served him.
+
+“Mademoiselle Rose,” said he, “or I am much mistaken.”
+
+A shrill, squeaky voice replied, “Madame Zora Chantemille, if you
+please.”
+
+Andre turned sharply round and found himself face to face with a young
+man who had completed an order he was giving to the coachman.
+
+“Ah, is that you?” said he.
+
+“Yes, Chantemille is the name of the estate that I intend to settle on
+madame.”
+
+The painter examined the personage who had just addressed him with
+much curiosity. He was dressed in the height or rather the burlesque of
+fashion, wore an eyeglass, and an enormous locket on his chain. The face
+which surmounted all this grandeur was almost that of a monkey, and
+Toto Chupin had not exaggerated its ugliness when he likened it to that
+animal.
+
+“Pooh,” cried Rose, “what matters a name? All you have to do is to ask
+this gentleman, who is an old friend of mine, to dinner.” And without
+waiting for a reply, she took Andre by the hand and led him into a
+brilliantly lighted hall. “You must dine with us,” she exclaimed; “I
+will take no denial. Come, let me introduce you, M. Andre, M. Gaston de
+Gandelu. There, that is all settled.”
+
+The man bowed.
+
+“Andre, Andre,” repeated Gandelu; “why, the name is familiar to me,--and
+so is the face. Have I not met you at my father’s house? Come in; we
+intend to have a jovial evening.”
+
+“I really cannot,” pleaded Andre. “I have an engagement.”
+
+“Throw it over then; we intend to keep you, now that we have got you.”
+
+Andre hesitated for a moment, but he felt dispirited, and that he
+required rousing. “After all,” thought he, “why should I refuse? If this
+young man’s friends are like himself, the evening will be an amusing
+one.”
+
+“Come up,” cried Rose, placing her foot upon the stairs. Andre was about
+to follow her, but was held back by Gandelu, whose face was radiant with
+delight.
+
+“Was there ever such a girl?” whispered he; “but there, don’t jump at
+conclusions. I have only had her in hand for a short time, but I am a
+real dab at starting a woman grandly, and it would be hard to find my
+equal in Paris, you may bet.”
+
+“That can be seen at a glance,” answered Andre, concealing a smile.
+
+“Well, look here, I began at once. Zora is a quaint name, is it not?
+It was my invention. She isn’t a right down swell to-day, but I have
+ordered six dresses for her from Van Klopen; such swell gets up! You
+know Van Klopen, don’t you, the best man-milliner in Paris. Such taste!
+such ideas! you never saw the like.”
+
+Rose had by this time reached her drawing-room. “Andre,” said she,
+impatiently, “are you never coming up?”
+
+“Quick, quick,” said Gandelu, “let us go at once; if she gets into a
+temper she is sure to have a nervous attack, so let us hurry up.”
+
+Rose did all she could to dazzle Andre, and as a commencement exhibited
+to him her domestics, a cook and a maid; then he was shown every article
+of furniture, and not one was spared him. He was forced to admire the
+drawing-room suite covered with old gold silk, trimmed blue, and to test
+the thickness of the curtains. Bearing aloft a large candelabra, and
+covering himself with wax, Gandelu led the way, telling them the price
+of everything like an energetic tradesman.
+
+“That clock,” said he, “cost me a hundred louis, and dirt cheap at the
+price. How funny that you should have known my father! Has he not
+a wonderful intellect? That flower stand was three hundred francs,
+absolutely given away. Take care of the governor, he is as sharp as a
+needle. He wanted me to have a profession, but no, thank you. Yes, that
+occasional table was a bargain at twenty louis. Six months ago I thought
+that the old man would have dropped off, but now the doctors say--” He
+stopped suddenly, for a loud noise was heard in the vestibule. “Here
+come the fellows I invited,” cried he, and placing the candelabra on the
+table, he hurried from the room.
+
+Andre was delighted at so grand an opportunity of studying the _genus_
+masher. Rose felt flattered by the admiration her fine rooms evidently
+caused.
+
+“You see,” cried she, “I have left Paul; he bothered me awfully, and
+ended by half starving me.”
+
+“Why, you are joking; he came here to-day, and said he was earning
+twelve thousand francs a year.”
+
+“Twelve thousand humbugs. A fellow that will take five hundred francs
+from an old scarecrow he never met before is--”
+
+Rose broke off abruptly, for at that moment young Gandelu brought in his
+friends, and introduced them; they were all of the same type as
+their host, and Andre was about to study them more intently, when a
+white-waistcoated waiter threw open the door, exclaiming pompously,
+“Madame, the dinner is on the table.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+“YOU ARE A THIEF.”
+
+When Mascarin was asked what was the best way to achieve certain
+results, his invariable reply was, “Keep moving, keep moving.” He had
+one great advantage over other men, he put in practice the doctrines he
+preached, and at seven o’clock the morning after his interview with the
+Count de Mussidan he was hard at work in his room. A thick fog hung over
+the city, even penetrating into the office, which had begun to fill
+with clients. This crowd had but little interest for the head of the
+establishment, as it consisted chiefly of waiters from small eating
+houses, and cooks who knew little or nothing of what was going on in the
+houses where they were in service. Finding this to be the case, Mascarin
+handed them all over to Beaumarchef, and only occasionally nodded to the
+serviteur of some great family, who chanced to stroll in.
+
+He was busily engaged in arranging those pieces of cardboard which had
+so much puzzled Paul in his first visit, and was so much occupied with
+his task, that all he could do was to mutter broken exclamations: “What
+a stupendous undertaking! but I have to work single-handed, and hold in
+my hands all these threads, which for twenty years, with the patience of
+a spider, I have been weaving into a web. No one, seeing me here,
+would believe this. People who pass me by in the street say, ‘That is
+Mascarin, who keeps a servants’ registry office;’ that is the way in
+which they look upon me. Let them laugh if they like; they little know
+the mighty power I wield in secret. No one suspects me, no, not one. I
+may seem too sanguine, it is true,” he continued, still glancing over
+his papers, “or the net may break and some of the fishes slip out. That
+idiot, Mussidan, asked me if I was acquainted with the Penal code. I
+should think I was, for no one has studied them more deeply than I have,
+and there is a clause in volume 3, chapter 2, which is always before me.
+Penal servitude for a term of years; and if I am convicted under Article
+306, then it means a life sentence.” He shuddered, but soon a smile of
+triumph shone over his face as he resumed, “Ah, but to send a man like
+Mascarin for change of air to Toulon, he must be caught, and that is not
+such an easy task. The day he scents danger he disappears, and leaves
+no trace behind him. I fear that I cannot look for too much from my
+companions, Catenac and Hortebise; I have up to now kept them back.
+Croisenois would never betray me, and as for Beaumarchef, La Candele,
+Toto Chupin, and a few other poor devils, they would be a fine haul
+for the police. They couldn’t split, simply because they know nothing.”
+ Mascarin chuckled, and then adjusting his spectacles with his favorite
+gesture, said, “I shall go on in the course I have commenced, straight
+as the flight of an arrow. I ought to make four millions through
+Croisenois. Paul shall marry Flavia, that is all arranged, and Flavia
+will make a grand duchess with her magnificent income.”
+
+He had by this time arranged his pasteboard squares, then he took a
+small notebook, alphabetically arranged, from a drawer, wrote a name
+or two in it, and then closing it said with a deadly smile, “There, my
+friends, you are all registered, though you little suspect it. You are
+all rich, and think that you are free, but you are wrong, for there is
+one man who owns you, soul and body, and that man is Baptiste Mascarin;
+and at his bidding, high as you hold your heads now, you will crawl to
+his feet in humble abasement.” His musings were interrupted by a knock
+at the door. He struck the bell on his writing table, and the last sound
+of it was hardly died away, when Beaumarchef stood on the threshold.
+
+“You desired me, sir,” said he, with the utmost deference, “to complete
+my report regarding young M. Gandelu, and it so happens that the cook
+whom he has taken into his service in the new establishment he has
+started is on our list. She has just come in to pay us eleven francs
+that she owed us, and is waiting outside. Is not this lucky?”
+
+Mascarin made a little grimace. “You are an idiot, Beaumarchef,” said
+he, “to be pleased at so trivial a matter. I have often told you that
+there is no such thing as luck or chance, and that all comes to those
+who work methodically.”
+
+Beaumarchef listened to his master’s wisdom in silent surprise.
+
+“And pray, who is this woman?” asked Mascarin.
+
+“You will know her when you see her, sir. She is registered under class
+D, that is, for employment in rather fast establishments.”
+
+“Go and fetch her,” observed Mascarin, and as the man left the room, he
+muttered, “Experience has taught me that it is madness to neglect the
+smallest precaution.”
+
+In another moment the woman appeared, and Mascarin at once addressed her
+with that air of friendly courtesy which made him so popular among such
+women. “Well, my good girl,” said he, “and so you have got the sort of
+place you wanted, eh?”
+
+“I hope so, sir, but you see I have only been with Madame Zora de
+Chantemille since yesterday.”
+
+“Ah, Zora de Chantemille, that is a fine name, indeed.”
+
+“It is only a fancy name, and she had an awful row over it with master.
+She wanted to be called Raphaela, but he stood out for Zora.”
+
+“Zora is a very pretty name,” observed Mascarin solemnly.
+
+“Yes, sir, just what the maid and I told her. She is a splendid woman,
+and doesn’t she just squander the shiners? Thirty thousand francs have
+gone since yesterday.”
+
+“I can hardly credit it.”
+
+“Not cash, you understand, but tick. M. de Gandelu has not a sou of his
+own in the world, so a waiter at Potier’s told me, and he knew what
+was what; but the governor is rolling in money. Yesterday they had a
+house-warming--the dinner, with wine, cost over a thousand francs.”
+
+Not seeing how to utilize any of this gossip, Mascarin made a gesture of
+dismissal, when the woman exclaimed,--
+
+“Stop, sir, I have something to tell you.”
+
+“Well,” said Mascarin, throwing himself back in his chair with an air of
+affected impatience, “let us have it.”
+
+“We had eight gents to dinner, all howling swells, but my master was the
+biggest masher of the lot. Madame was the only woman at table. Well, by
+ten o’clock, they had all had their whack of drink, and then they told
+the porter to keep the courtyard clear. What do you think they did then?
+Why, they threw plates, glasses, knives, forks, and dishes bang out of
+the window. That is a regular swell fashion, so the waiter at Potier’s
+told me, and was introduced into Paris by a Russian.”
+
+Mascarin closed his eyes and answered languidly, “Go on.”
+
+“Well, sir, there was one gent who was a blot on the whole affair. He
+was tall, shabbily dressed, and with no manners at all. He seemed all
+the time to be sneering at the rest. But didn’t Madame make up to him
+just. She kept heaping up his plate and filling his glass. When the
+others got to cards, he sat down by my mistress, and began to talk.”
+
+“Could you hear what they said?”
+
+“I should think so. I was in the bedroom, and they were near the door.”
+
+“Dear me,” remarked Mascarin, appearing much shocked, “surely that was
+not right?”
+
+“I don’t care a rap whether it was right or not. I like to hear all
+about the people whom I engage with. They were talking about a M. Paul,
+who had been Madame’s friend before, and whom the gentleman also knew.
+Madame said that this Paul was no great shakes, and that he had stolen
+twelve thousand francs.”
+
+Mascarin pricked up his ears, feeling that his patience was about to
+meet its reward.
+
+“Can you tell me the gentleman’s name, to whom Madame said all this?”
+ asked he.
+
+“Not I. The others called him ‘The painter.’”
+
+This explanation did not satisfy Mascarin.
+
+“Look here, my good girl,” said he, “try and find out the fellow’s name.
+I think he is an artist who owes me money.”
+
+“All right! Rely on me; and now I must be off, for I have breakfast to
+get ready, but I’ll call again to-morrow;” and with a curtsy she left
+the room.
+
+Mascarin struck his hand heavily on the table.
+
+“Hortebise has a wonderful nose for sniffing out danger,” said he. “This
+Rose and the young fool who is ruining himself for her must both be
+suppressed.”
+
+Beaumarchef again made a motion of executing a thrust with the rapier.
+
+“Pooh, pooh!” answered his master; “don’t be childish. I can do better
+than that. Rose calls herself nineteen, but she is more, she is of age,
+while Gandelu is still a minor. If old Gandelu had any pluck, he would
+put Article 354 in motion.”
+
+“Eh, sir?” said Beaumarchef, much mystified.
+
+“Look here. Before twenty-four hours have elapsed I must know everything
+as to the habits and disposition of Gandelu senior. I want to know on
+what terms he is with his son.”
+
+“Good. I will set La Candele to work.”
+
+“And as the young fellow will doubtless need money, contrive to let him
+know of our friend Verminet, the chairman of the Mutual Loan Society.”
+
+“But that is M. Tantaine’s business.”
+
+Mascarin paid no heed to this, so occupied was he by his own thoughts.
+
+“This young artist seems to have more brains than the rest of the set,
+but woe to him if he crosses my path. Go back to the outer office,
+Beaumarchef, I hear some clients coming in.”
+
+The man, however, did not obey.
+
+“Pardon me, sir,” said he, “but La Candele, who is outside, will see
+them. I have my report to make.”
+
+“Very good. Sit down and go on.”
+
+Enchanted at this mark of condescension, Beaumarchef went on. “Yesterday
+there was nothing of importance, but this morning Toto Chupin came.”
+
+“He had not lost Caroline Schimmel, I trust?”
+
+“No, sir; he had even got into conversation with her.”
+
+“That is good. He is a cunning little devil; a pity that he is not a
+trifle more honest.”
+
+“He is sure,” continued Beaumarchef, “that the woman drinks, for she is
+always talking of persons following her about who menace her, and she is
+so afraid of being murdered that she never ventures out alone. She lives
+with a respectable workingman and his wife, and pays well for her board,
+for she seems to have plenty of money.”
+
+“That is a nuisance,” remarked Mascarin, evidently much annoyed. “Where
+does she live?”
+
+“At Montmartre, beyond the Chateau Rouge.”
+
+“Good. Tantaine will inquire and see if Toto has made no mistake, and
+does not let the woman slip through his fingers.”
+
+“He won’t do that, for he told me that he was on the right road to find
+out who she was, and where she got her money from. But I ought to warn
+you against the young scamp, for I have found out that he robs us and
+sells our goods far below their value.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I have long had my suspicions, and yesterday I wormed it all out from
+a disreputable looking fellow, who came here to ask for his friend
+Chupin.”
+
+Men accustomed to danger are over prompt in their decisions. “Very
+well,” returned Mascarin, “if this is the case, Master Chupin shall have
+a taste of prison fare.”
+
+Beaumarchef withdrew, but almost immediately reappeared.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “a servant from M. de Croisenois is here with a note.”
+
+“Send the man in,” said Mascarin.
+
+The domestic was irreproachably dressed, and looked what he was, the
+servant of a nobleman.
+
+He had something the appearance of an Englishman, with a high collar,
+reaching almost to his ears. His face was clean shaved, and of a
+ruddy hue. His coat was evidently the work of a London tailor, and his
+appearance was as stiff as though carved out of wood. Indeed, he looked
+like a very perfect piece of mechanism.
+
+“My master,” said he, “desired me to give this note into your own
+hands.”
+
+Under cover of breaking the seal, Mascarin viewed this model servant
+attentively. He was a stranger to him, for he had never supplied
+Croisenois with a domestic.
+
+“It seems, my good fellow,” said he, “that your master was up earlier
+than usual this morning?”
+
+The man frowned a little at this familiar address, and then slowly
+replied,--
+
+“When I took service with the Marquis, he agreed to give me fifteen
+louis over my wages for the privilege of calling me ‘a good fellow,’
+but I permit no one to do so gratis. I think that my master is still
+asleep,” continued the man solemnly. “He wrote the note on his return
+from the club.”
+
+“Is there any reply.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Good; then wait a little.”
+
+And Mascarin, opening the note, read the following:
+
+“MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+“Baccarat has served me an ugly turn, and in addition to all my ready
+cash I have given an I.O.U. for three thousand francs. To save my credit
+I must have this by twelve to-morrow.”
+
+“His credit,” said Mascarin. “His credit! That is a fine joke indeed.”
+ The servant stood up stiffly erect, as one seeming to take no notice,
+and the agent continued reading the letter.
+
+“Am I wrong in looking to you for this trifle? I do not think so.
+Indeed, I have an idea that you will send me a hundred and fifty louis
+over and above, so that I may not be left without a coin in my pocket.
+How goes the great affair? I await your decision on the brink of a
+precipice.
+
+“Yours devotedly,
+
+“HENRY DE CROISENOIS.”
+
+
+“And so,” growled Mascarin, “he has flung away five thousand francs,
+and asks me to find it for him in my coffers. Ah, you fool, if I did not
+want the grand name that you have inherited from your ancestors, a
+name that you daily bespatter and soil, you might whistle for your five
+thousand francs.”
+
+However, as Croisenois was absolutely necessary to him, Mascarin slowly
+took from his safe five notes of a thousand francs each, and handed them
+to the man.
+
+“Do you want a receipt?” asked the man.
+
+“No; this letter is sufficient, but wait a bit;” and Mascarin, with
+an eye to the future, drew a twenty franc piece from his pocket, and
+placing it on the table, said in his most honeyed accents,--
+
+“There, my friend, is something for yourself.”
+
+“No, sir,” returned the man; “I always ask wages enough to prevent the
+necessity of accepting presents.” And with this dignified reply he bowed
+with the stiff air of a Quaker, and walked rigidly out of the room.
+
+The agent was absolutely thunderstruck. In all his thirty years’
+experience he had never come across anything like this.
+
+“I can hardly believe my senses,” muttered he; “where on earth did
+the Marquis pick this fellow up? Can it be that he is sharper than I
+fancied?”
+
+Suddenly a new and terrifying idea flashed across his mind. “Can it be,”
+ said he, “that the fellow is not a real servant, after all? I have
+so many enemies that one day they may strive to crush me, and however
+skilfully I may play my cards, some one may hold a better hand.” This
+idea alarmed him greatly, for he was in a position in which he had
+nothing to fear; for when a great work is approaching completion, the
+anxiety of the promoter becomes stronger and stronger. “No, no,” he
+continued; “I am getting too full of suspicions;” and with these words
+he endeavored to put aside the vague terrors which were creeping into
+his soul.
+
+Suddenly Beaumarchef, evidently much excited, appeared upon the
+threshold.
+
+“What, you here again!” cried Mascarin, angrily; “am I to have no peace
+to-day?”
+
+“Sir, the young man is here.”
+
+“What young man? Paul Violaine?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Why, I told him not to come until twelve; something must have gone
+wrong.” He broke off his speech, for at the half-open door stood
+Paul. He was very pale, and his eyes had the expression of some hunted
+creature. His attire was in disorder and betokened a night spent in
+aimless wanderings to and fro.
+
+“Ah, sir!” said he, as he caught sight of Mascarin.
+
+“Leave us, Beaumarchef,” said the latter, with an imperious wave of his
+hand; “and now, my dear boy, what is it?”
+
+Paul sank into a chair.
+
+“My life is ended,” said he; “I am lost, dishonored for ever.”
+
+Mascarin put on a face of the most utter bewilderment, though he well
+knew the cause of Paul’s utter prostration; but it was with the air of
+a ready sympathizer that he drew his chair nearer to that of Paul, and
+said,--
+
+“Come, tell me all about it; what can possibly have happened to affect
+you thus?”
+
+In deeply tragic tones, Paul replied,--
+
+“Rose has deserted me.”
+
+Mascarin raised his hands to heaven.
+
+“And is this the reason that you say you are dishonored? Do you not see
+that the future is full of promise?”
+
+“I loved Rose,” returned Paul, and his voice was so full of pathos that
+Mascarin could hardly repress a smile. “But this is not all,” continued
+the unhappy boy, making a vain effort to restrain his tears; “I am
+accused of theft.”
+
+“Impossible!” exclaimed Mascarin.
+
+“Yes, sir; and you who know everything are the only person in the world
+who can save me. You were so kind to me yesterday that I ventured to
+come here before the time appointed, in order to entreat your help.”
+
+“But what do you think I can do?”
+
+“Everything, sir; but let me tell you the whole hideous complication.”
+
+Mascarin’s face assumed an air of the deepest interest, as he answered,
+“Go on.”
+
+“After our interview,” began Paul, “I went back to the Hotel de Perou,
+and on the mantelpiece in my garret found this note from Rose.”
+
+He held it out as he spoke, but Mascarin made no effort to take it.
+
+“In it,” resumed Paul, “Rose tells me she no longer loves me, and begs
+me not to seek to see her again; and also that, wearied out of poverty,
+she has accepted the offer of unlimited supplies of money, a carriage,
+and diamonds.”
+
+“Are you surprised at this?” asked Mascarin, with a sneer.
+
+“How could I anticipate such an infidelity, when only the evening before
+she swore by all she held most sacred that she loved me only? Why did
+she lie to me? Did she write to make the blow fall heavier? When I
+ascended the staircase, I was picturing to myself her joy when I told
+her of your kind promises to me. For more than an hour I remained in my
+garret, overwhelmed with the terrible thought that I should never see
+her again.”
+
+Mascarin watched Paul attentively, and came to the conclusion that his
+words were too fine for his grief to be sincere.
+
+“But what about the accusation of theft?”
+
+“I am coming to that,” returned the young man. “I then determined to
+obey your injunctions and leave the Hotel de Perou, with which I was
+more than ever disgusted. I went downstairs to settle with Madame
+Loupins, when ah! hideous disgrace! As I handed her the two weeks’ rent,
+she asked me with a contemptuous sneer, where I had stolen the money
+from?”
+
+Mascarin secretly chuckled over the success of his plans thus announced
+by Paul.
+
+“What did you say?” asked he.
+
+“Nothing, sir; I was too horror-stricken; the man Loupins came up, and
+both he and his wife scowled at me threateningly. After a short pause,
+they asserted that they were perfectly sure that Rose and I had robbed
+M. Tantaine.”
+
+“But did you not deny this monstrous charge?”
+
+“I was utterly bewildered, for I saw that every circumstance was against
+me. The evening before, Rose, in reply to Madame Loupin’s importunities,
+had told her that she had no money, and did not know where to get any.
+But, as you perceive, on the very next day I appeared in a suit of new
+clothes, and was prepared to pay my debts, while Rose had left the
+house some hours before. Does not all this form a chain of strange
+coincidences? Rose changed the five hundred franc note that Tantaine had
+lent me at the shop of a grocer, named Melusin, and this suspicious
+fool was the first to raise a cry against us, and dared to assert that a
+detective had been ordered to watch us.”
+
+Mascarin knew all this story better than Paul, but here he interrupted
+his young friend.
+
+“I do not understand you,” said he, “nor whether your grief arises from
+indignation or remorse. Has there been a robbery?”
+
+“How can I tell? I have never seen M. Tantaine from that day. There is
+a rumor that he has been plundered and important papers taken from him,
+and that he has consequently been arrested.”
+
+“Why did you not explain the facts?”
+
+“It would have been of no use. It would clearly prove that Tantaine was
+no friend of mine, not even an acquaintance, and they would have laughed
+me to scorn had I declared that the evening before he came into my room
+and made me a present of five hundred francs.”
+
+“I think that I can solve the riddle,” remarked Mascarin. “I know the
+old fellow so well.”
+
+Paul listened with breathless eagerness.
+
+“Tantaine,” resumed Mascarin, “is the best and kindest fellow in the
+world, but he is not quite right in the upper story. He was a
+wealthy man once, but his liberality was his ruin. He is as poor as
+a church-mouse now, but he is as anxious as ever to be charitable.
+Unfortunately in the place I procured for him he had a certain amount
+of petty cash at his disposal, and moved to pity at the sight of your
+sufferings, he gave you the money that really belonged to others. Then
+he sent in his accounts, and the deficiency was discovered. He lost his
+head, and declared that he had been robbed. You lived in the next room;
+you were known to be in abject poverty on the one day and in ample funds
+on the next; hence these suspicions.”
+
+All was too clear to Paul, and a cold shiver ran through his frame as he
+saw himself arrested, tried, and condemned.
+
+“But,” stammered he, “M. Tantaine holds my note of hand, which is a
+proof that I acted honestly.”
+
+“My poor boy, do you think that if he hoped to save himself at your
+expense he would produce it?”
+
+“Luckily, sir, you know the real state of the case.”
+
+Mascarin shook is head.
+
+“Would my story be credited?” asked he. “Justice is not infallible, and
+I must confess that appearances are against you.”
+
+Paul was crushed down beneath this weight of argument. “There is no
+resource for me then but death,” murmured he, “for I will not live a
+dishonored man.”
+
+The conduct of Paul was precisely what Mascarin had expected, and he
+felt that the moment had arrived to strike a final blow.
+
+“You must not give way to despair, my boy,” said he.
+
+But Paul made no reply; he had lost the power of hearing. Mascarin,
+however, had no time to lose, and taking him by the arm, shook him
+roughly. “Rouse yourself. A man in your position must help himself, and
+bring forward proofs of his innocence.”
+
+“There is no use in fighting,” replied Paul. “Have you not just shown me
+that it is hopeless to endeavor to prove my innocence?”
+
+Mascarin grew impatient at this unnecessary exhibition of cowardice, but
+he concealed his feelings as best he could.
+
+“No, no,” answered he; “I only wished to show you the worst side of the
+affair.”
+
+“There is only one side.”
+
+“Not so, for it is only a supposition that Tantaine had made away
+with money entrusted to him, and we are not certain of it. And we only
+surmise that he has been arrested, and thrown the blame on you. Before
+giving up the game, would it not be best to be satisfied on these
+points?”
+
+Paul felt a little reassured.
+
+“I say nothing,” continued Mascarin, “of the influence I exercise over
+Tantaine, and which may enable me to compel him to confess the truth.”
+
+Weak natures like Paul’s are raised in a moment from the lowest depths
+of depression to the highest pitch of exultation, and he already
+considered that he was saved.
+
+“Shall I ever be able to prove my gratitude to you?” said he
+impulsively.
+
+Mascarin’s face assumed a paternal expression.
+
+“Perhaps you may,” answered he; “and as a commencement you must entirely
+forget the past. Daylight dispels the hideous visions of the night. I
+offer you a fresh lease of life; will you become a new man?”
+
+Paul heaved a deep sigh. “Rose,” he murmured; “I cannot forget her.”
+
+Mascarin frowned. “What,” said he, “do you still let your thoughts dwell
+on that woman? There are people who cringe to the hand that strikes
+them, and the more they are duped and deceived, the more they love. If
+you are made of this kind of stuff, we shall never get on. Go and
+find your faithless mistress, and beg her to come back and share your
+poverty, and see what she will say.”
+
+These sarcasms roused Paul. “I will be even with her some day,” muttered
+he.
+
+“Forget her; that is the easiest thing for you to do.”
+
+Even now Paul seemed to hesitate. “What,” said his patron reproachfully,
+“have you no pride?”
+
+“I have, sir.”
+
+“You have not, or you would never wish to hamper yourself with a woman
+like Rose. You should keep your hands free, if you want to fight your
+way through the battle of life.”
+
+“I will follow your advice, sir,” said Paul hurriedly.
+
+“Very soon you will thank Rose deeply for having left you. You will
+climb high, I can tell you, if you will work as I bid you.”
+
+“Then,” stammered Paul, “this situation at twelve thousand francs a
+year----”
+
+“There never has been such a situation.”
+
+A ghastly pallor overspread Paul’s countenance, as he saw himself again
+reduced to beggary.
+
+“But, sir,” he murmured, “will you not permit me to hope--”
+
+“For twelve thousand francs! Be at ease, you shall have that and much
+more. I am getting old. I have no ties in the world--you shall be my
+adopted son.”
+
+A cloud settled on Paul’s brow, for the idea that his life was to be
+passed in this office was most displeasing to him. Mascarin divined his
+inmost thoughts with perfect ease. “And the young fool does not know
+where to go for a crust of bread,” thought he. “Ah, if there were no
+Flavia, no Champdoce;” then, speaking aloud, he resumed, “don’t fancy,
+my dear boy, that I wish to condemn you to the treadmill that I am
+compelled to pass my life in. I have other views for you, far more
+worthy of your merits. I have taken a great liking to you, and I will do
+all I can to further your ambitious views. I was thinking a great
+deal of you, and in my head I raised the scaffolding of your future
+greatness. ‘He is poor,’ said I, ‘and at his age, and with his tastes,
+this is a cruel thing. Why, pray, should I not find a wife for him among
+those heiresses who have a million or two to give the man they marry?
+When I talk like this, it is because I know of an heiress, and my
+friend, Dr. Hortebise, shall introduce her to you. She is nearly, if
+not quite, as pretty as Rose, and has the advantage of her in being
+well-born, well-educated, and wealthy. She has influential relatives,
+and if her husband should happen to be a poet, or a composer, she could
+assist him in becoming famous.”
+
+A flush came over Paul’s face, This seemed like the realization of some
+of his former dreams.
+
+“With regard to your birth,” continued Mascarin, “I have devised a
+wonderful plan. Before ‘93, you know, every bastard was treated as
+a gentleman, as he might have been the son of some high and mighty
+personage. Who can say that your father may not have been of the noblest
+blood of France, and that he has not lands and wealth? He may even now
+be looking for you, in order to acknowledge you and make you his heir.
+Would you like to be a duke?”
+
+“Ah, sir,” stammered the young man.
+
+Mascarin burst into a fit of laughter. “Up to now,” said he, “we are
+only in the region of suppositions.”
+
+“Well, sir, what do you wish me to do?” asked Paul, after a short pause.
+
+Mascarin put on a serious face. “I want absolute obedience from
+you,” said he; “a blind and undeviating obedience, one that makes no
+objections and asks no questions.”
+
+“I will obey you, sir; but, oh! do not desert me.”
+
+Without making any reply, Mascarin rang for Beaumarchef, and as soon as
+the latter appeared, said, “I am going to Van Klopen’s, and shall leave
+you in charge here.” Then, turning to Paul, he added, “I always mean
+what I say; we will go and breakfast at a neighboring restaurant. I want
+to have a talk with you, and afterward--afterward, my boy, I will show
+you the girl I intend to be your wife. I am curious to know how you like
+her looks.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE MAN-MILLINER.
+
+Gaston de Gandelu was much surprised at finding that Andre should be
+ignorant of the existence of Van Klopen, the best-known man in Paris.
+To assure oneself of this, it was only necessary to glance at his
+circulars, which were ornamented with the representations of medals won
+at all sorts of exhibitions in different quarters of the world, together
+with various decorations received from foreign potentates. One had
+been presented to him by the Queen of Spain, while he had a diploma
+appointing him the supplier to the Court of the Czar. The great Van
+Klopen was not an Alsatian, as was generally supposed, but a stout,
+handsome Dutchman, who, in the year 1850, had been a tailor in his small
+native town, and manufactured in cloth, purchased on credit, the
+long waistcoats and miraculous coats worn by the wealthy citizens of
+Rotterdam. Van Klopen, however, was not successful in his business, and
+was compelled to close his shop and abscond from his creditors. He took
+refuge in Paris, where he seemed likely to die of hunger. One day over
+a magnificent establishment in the Rue de Grammont appeared a signboard
+with the name of Van Klopen, dressmaker, and in the thousands of
+handbills distributed with the utmost profusion, he called himself
+the “Regenerator of Fashion.” This was an idea that would have never
+originated in the brain of the phlegmatic Dutchman, and whence came the
+funds to carry on the business? On this point he was discreetly silent.
+The enterprise was at first far from a success, for during nearly a
+month Paris almost split its sides laughing at the absurd pretensions
+of the self-dubbed “Regenerator of Fashion.” Van Klopen bent before the
+storm he had aroused, and in due time his advertisements brought him two
+customers, who were the first to blow the trumpet of his fame. One was
+the Duchess de Suirmeuse, a very great lady indeed, and renowned for her
+eccentricities and extravagant manner, while the other was an example of
+another class being no less than the celebrated Jennie Fancy, who was
+at that time under the protection of the Count de Tremouselle; and
+for these two Van Klopen invented such dresses as had never been
+seen before. From this moment his success was certain; indeed, it was
+stupendous, and Paris resounded with his praises. Now he has achieved a
+world-wide reputation, and has nothing to fear from the attacks of his
+rivals. He would not execute orders for every one, saying that he must
+pick and choose his customers, and he did so, excising the names of
+such as he did not think would add to his reputation. Rank and wealth
+disputed the honor of being his customers. The haughtiest dames did not
+shrink from entrusting to him secrets of form and figure, which they
+even hid from their husbands. They endured without shrinking the touch
+of his coarse hands as he measured them. He was the rage, and his
+showrooms were a species of neutral ground, where women of all circles
+of society met and examined each other. The Duchess of --- did not
+shrink from being in the same room with the celebrated woman for whom
+the Baron de --- had blown out the few brains he possessed. Perhaps the
+Duchess thought that by employing the same costumier, she might also
+gain some of the venal beauteous attractions. Mademoiselle D---, of the
+Gymnase Theatre, who was well known to earn just one thousand francs per
+annum, took a delight in astonishing the haughty ladies of fashion by
+the reckless extravagance of her orders. Van Klopen, who was a born
+diplomatist, distributed his favors between his different customers;
+consequently he was termed the most charming and angelic of men. Many
+a time had he heard the most aristocratic lips let fall the words, “I
+shall die, Van Klopen, if my dress is not ready.” On the evenings of the
+most aristocratic balls a long line of carriages blocked up the road in
+front of his establishment, and the finest women in Paris crowded the
+showrooms for a word of approval from him.
+
+He gave credit to approved customers, and also, it was whispered,
+lent money to them. But woe to the woman who permitted herself to be
+entrapped in the snare of credit that he laid for her; for the woman who
+owed him a bill was practically lost, never knowing to what depths she
+might be degraded to obtain the money to settle her account. It was not
+surprising that such sudden prosperity should have turned Van Klopen’s
+head. He was stout and ruddy, impudent, vain, and cynical. His admirers
+said that he was witty.
+
+It was to this man’s establishment that Mascarin conducted Paul after a
+sumptuous breakfast at Philipe’s.
+
+It is necessary to give a slight description of Van Klopen’s
+establishment. Carpets of the most expensive description covered the
+stairs to his door on the first floor, at which stood the liveried
+menials resplendent in gold lace and scarlet. As soon as Mascarin made
+his appearance, one of these gorgeous creatures hastened to him and
+said, “M. Van Klopen is just now engaged with the Princess Korasoff, but
+as soon as he hears of your arrival he will manage to get rid of her.
+Will you wait for him in his private room?”
+
+But Mascarin answered,--
+
+“We are in no hurry, and may as well wait in the public room with the
+other customers. Are there many of them?”
+
+“There are about a dozen ladies, sir.”
+
+“Good; I am sure that they will amuse me.”
+
+And, without wasting any more words, Mascarin opened a door which led
+into a magnificent drawing-room, decorated in very florid style. The
+paper on the walls almost disappeared beneath a variety of watercolor
+sketches, representing ladies in every possible style of costume. Each
+picture had an explanatory note beneath it, such as “Costume of Mde.
+de C--- for a dinner at the Russian Ambassador’s,” “Ball costume of the
+Marchioness de V--- for a ball at the Hotel de Ville,” etc.
+
+Paul, who was a little nervous at finding himself among such splendor,
+hesitated in the doorway; but Mascarin seized his young friend by the
+arm, and, as he drew him to a settee, whispered in his ear,--
+
+“Keep your eyes about you; the heiress is here.”
+
+The ladies were at first a little surprised at this invasion of the
+room by the male element, but Paul’s extreme beauty soon attracted their
+attention. The hum of conversation ceased, and Paul’s embarrassment
+increased as he found a battery of twelve pairs of eyes directed full
+upon him.
+
+Mascarin, however, was quite at his ease, and upon his entrance had made
+a graceful though rather old-fashioned bow to the fair inmates of the
+room. His coolness was partly due to the contempt he felt for the
+human race in general, and also to his colored glasses, which hid the
+expression of his countenance. When he saw that Paul still kept his eyes
+on the ground, he tapped him gently on the arm.
+
+“Is this the first time you ever saw well-dressed women? Surely you are
+not afraid of them. Look to the right,” continued Mascarin, “and you
+will see the heiress.”
+
+A young girl, not more than eighteen, was seated near one of the
+windows. She was not perhaps so beautiful as Mascarin had described,
+but her face was a very striking one nevertheless. She was slight and
+good-looking, with the clear complexion of a brunette. Her features
+were not perhaps very regular, but her glossy black hair was a beauty
+in itself. She had a pair of dark, melting eyes, and her wide, high
+forehead showed that she was gifted with great intelligence. There was
+an air of restrained voluptuousness about her, and she seemed the very
+embodiment of passion.
+
+Paul felt insensibly attracted toward her. Their eyes met, and both
+started at the same moment. Paul was fascinated in an instant, and the
+girl’s emotion was so evident that she turned aside her head to conceal
+it.
+
+The babel had now commenced again, and general attention was being paid
+to a lady who was enthusiastically describing the last new costume which
+had made its appearance in the Bois de Boulogue.
+
+“It was simply miraculous,” said she; “a real triumph of Van Klopen’s
+art. The ladies of a certain class are furious, and Henry de Croisenois
+tells me that Jenny Fancy absolutely shed tears of rage. Imagine three
+green skirts of different shades, each draped----”
+
+Mascarin, however, only paid attention to Paul and the young girl, and a
+sarcastic smile curled his lips.
+
+“What do you think of her?” asked he.
+
+“She is adorable!” answered Paul, enthusiastically.
+
+“And immensely wealthy.”
+
+“I should fall at her feet if she had not a sou.”
+
+Mascarin gave a little cough, and adjusted his glasses.
+
+“Should you, my lad?” said he to himself; “whether your admiration is
+for the girl or her money, you are in my grip.”
+
+Then he added, aloud,--
+
+“Would you not like to know her name?”
+
+“Tell me, I entreat you.”
+
+“Flavia.”
+
+Paul was in the seventh heaven, and now boldly turned his eyes on the
+girl, forgetting that owing to the numerous mirrors, she could see his
+every movement.
+
+The door was at this moment opened quietly, and Van Klopen appeared on
+the threshold. He was about forty-four, and too stout for his height.
+His red, pimply face had an expression upon it of extreme insolence,
+and his accent was thoroughly Dutch. He was dressed in a ruby velvet
+dressing-gown, with a cravat with lace ends. A huge cluster-diamond ring
+blazed on his coarse, red hand.
+
+“Who is the next one?” asked he, rudely.
+
+The lady who had been talking so volubly rose to her feet, but the
+tailor cut her short, for catching sight of Mascarin, he crossed the
+room, and greeted him with the utmost cordiality.
+
+“What!” said he; “is it you that I have been keeping waiting? Pray
+pardon me. Pray go into my private room; and this gentleman is with you?
+Do me the favor, sir, to come with us.”
+
+He was about to follow his guests, when one of the ladies started
+forward.
+
+“One word with you, sir, for goodness sake!” cried she.
+
+Van Klopen turned sharply upon her.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked he.
+
+“My bill for three thousand francs falls due to-morrow.”
+
+“Very likely.”
+
+“But I can’t meet it.”
+
+“That is not my affair.”
+
+“I have come to beg you will renew it for two months, or say one month,
+on whatever terms you like.”
+
+“In two months,” answered the man brutally, “you will be no more able to
+pay than you are to-day. If you can’t pay it, it will be noted.”
+
+“Merciful powers! then my husband will learn all.”
+
+“Just so; that will be what I want; for he will then have to pay me.”
+
+The wretched woman grew deadly pale.
+
+“My husband will pay you,” said she; “but I shall be lost.”
+
+“That is not my lookout. I have partners whose interests I have to
+consult.”
+
+“Do not say that, sir! He has paid my debts once, and if he should be
+angry and take my children from me--Dear M. Van Klopen, be merciful!”
+
+She wrung her hands, and the tears coursed down her cheeks; but the
+tailor was perfectly unmoved.
+
+“When a woman has a family of children, one ought to have in a
+needlewoman by the hour.”
+
+She did not desist from her efforts to soften him, and, seizing his
+hand, strove to carry it to her lips.
+
+“Ah! I shall never dare to go home,” wailed she; “never have the courage
+to tell my husband.”
+
+“If you are afraid of your own husband, go to some one else’s,” said he
+roughly; and tearing himself from her, he followed Mascarin and Paul.
+
+“Did you hear that?” asked he, as soon as he had closed the door of his
+room with an angry slam. “These things occasionally occur, and are not
+particularly pleasant.”
+
+Paul looked on in disgust. If he had possessed three thousand francs, he
+would have given them to this unhappy woman, whose sobs he could still
+hear in the passage.
+
+“It is most painful,” remarked he.
+
+“My dear sir,” said the tailor, “you attach too much importance to these
+hysterical outbursts. If you were in my place, you would soon have to
+put their right value on them. As I said before, I have to look after
+my own and my partners’ interests. These dear creatures care for nothing
+but dress; father, husband, and children are as nothing in comparison.
+You cannot imagine what a woman will do in order to get a new dress, in
+which to outshine her rival. They only talk of their families when they
+are called on to pay up.”
+
+Paul still continued to plead for some money for the poor lady, and the
+discussion was getting so warm that Mascarin felt bound to interfere.
+
+“Perhaps,” said he, “you have been a little hard.”
+
+“Pooh,” returned the tailor; “I know my customer; and to-morrow my
+account will be settled, and I know very well where the money will come
+from. Then she will give me another order, and we shall have the whole
+comedy over again. I know what I am about.” And taking Mascarin into
+the window, he made some confidential communication, at which they both
+laughed heartily.
+
+Paul, not wishing to appear to listen, examined the consulting-room,
+as Van Klopen termed it. He saw a great number of large scissors, yard
+measures, and patterns of material, and heaps of fashion plates.
+
+By this time the two men had finished their conversation.
+
+“I had,” said Mascarin, as they returned to the fireplace, “I had meant
+to glance through the books; but you have so many customers waiting,
+that I had better defer doing so.”
+
+“Is that all that hinders you?” returned Van Klopen, carelessly. “Wait a
+moment.”
+
+He left the room, and in another moment his voice was heard.
+
+“I am sorry, ladies, very sorry, on my word; but I am busy with my silk
+mercer. I shall not be very long.”
+
+“We will wait,” returned the ladies in chorus.
+
+“That is the way,” remarked Van Klopen, as he returned to the
+consulting-room. “Be civil to women, and they turn their backs on you;
+try and keep them off, and they run after you. If I was to put up ‘no
+admittance’ over my door, the street would be blocked up with women.
+Business has never been better,” continued the tailor, producing a large
+ledger. “Within the last ten days we have had in orders amounting to
+eighty-seven thousand francs.”
+
+“Good!” answered Mascarin; “but let us have a look at the column headed
+‘Doubtful.’”
+
+“Here you are,” returned the arbiter of fashion, as he turned over
+the leaves. “Mademoiselle Virginie Cluhe has ordered five theatrical
+costumes, two dinner, and three morning dresses.”
+
+“That is a heavy order.”
+
+“I wanted for that reason to consult you. She doesn’t owe us
+much--perhaps a thousand francs or so.”
+
+“That is too much, for I hear that her friend has come to grief. Do not
+decline the order, but avoid taking fresh ones.”
+
+Van Klopen made a few mysterious signs in the margin of his ledger.
+
+“On the 6th of this month the Countess de Mussidan gave us an order--a
+perfectly plain dress for her daughter. Her account is a very heavy one,
+and the Count has warned us that he will not pay it.”
+
+“Never mind that. Go on with the order, put press for payment.”
+
+“On the 7th a new customer came--Mademoiselle Flavia, the daughter of
+Martin Rigal, the banker.”
+
+When Paul heard this name, he could not repress a start, of which,
+however, Mascarin affected to take no notice.
+
+“My good friend,” said he, turning to Van Klopen, “I confide this young
+lady to you; give her your whole stock if she asks for it.”
+
+By the look of surprise which appeared upon the tailor’s face, Paul
+could see that Mascarin was not prodigal of such recommendations.
+
+“You shall be obeyed,” said Van Klopen, with a bow.
+
+“On the 8th a young gentleman of the name of Gaston de Gandelu was
+introduced by Lupeaux, the jeweller. His father is, I hear, very
+wealthy, and he will come into money on attaining his majority, which
+is near at hand. He brought with him a lady,” continued the tailor, “and
+said her name was Zora de Chantemille, a tremendously pretty girl.”
+
+“That young man is always in my way,” said Mascarin. “I would give
+something to get him out of Paris.”
+
+Van Klopen reflected for a moment. “I don’t think that would be
+difficult,” remarked he; “that young fellow is capable of any act of
+folly for that fair girl.”
+
+“I think so too.”
+
+“Then the matter is easy. I will open an account with him; then, after a
+little, I will affect doubts as to his solvency, and ask for a bill;
+and we shall then place our young friend in the hands of the Mutual
+Loan Society, and M. Verminet will easily persuade him to write his name
+across the bottom of a piece of stamped paper. He will bring it to me; I
+will accept it, and then we shall have him hard and fast.”
+
+“I should have proposed another course.”
+
+“I see no other way, however,” He suddenly stopped, for a loud noise was
+heard in the ante-room, and the sound of voices in loud contention.
+
+“I should like to know,” said Van Klopen, rising to his feet, “who the
+impudent scoundrel is, who comes here kicking up a row. I expect that it
+is some fool of a husband.”
+
+“Go and see what it is,” suggested Mascarin.
+
+“Not I! My servants are paid to spare me such annoyances.”
+
+Presently the noise ceased.
+
+“And now,” resumed Mascarin, “let us return to our own affairs. Under
+the circumstances, your proposal appears to be a good one. How
+about writing in another name? A little forgery would make our hands
+stronger.” He rose, and taking the tailor into the window recess, again
+whispered to him.
+
+During this conversation Paul’s cheek had grown paler and paler, for,
+occupied as he was, he could not fail to comprehend something of what
+was going on. During the breakfast Mascarin had partially disclosed many
+strange secrets, and since then he had been even more enlightened. It
+was but too evident to him that his protector was engaged in some dark
+and insidious plot, and Paul felt that he was standing over a mine which
+might explode at any moment. He now began to fancy that there was
+some mysterious link between the woman Schimmel, who was so carefully
+watched, and the Marquis de Croisenois, so haughty, and yet on such
+intimate terms with the proprietor of the registry office. Then there
+was the Countess de Mussidan, Flavia, the rich heiress, and Gaston de
+Gandelu, who was to be led into a crime the result of which would be
+penal servitude,--all jumbled and mixed up together in one strange
+phantasmagoria. Was he, Paul, to be a mere tool in such hands? Toward
+what a precipice was he being impelled! Mascarin and Van Klopen were not
+friends, as he had at first supposed, but confederates in villainy. Too
+late did he begin to see collusion between Mascarin and Tantaine, which
+had resulted in his being accused of theft during his absence. But the
+web had been woven too securely, and should he struggle to break through
+it, he might find himself exposed to even more terrible dangers. He felt
+horrified at his position, but with this there was mingled no horror of
+the criminality of his associates, for the skilful hand of Mascarin had
+unwound and mastered all the bad materials of his nature. He was dazzled
+at the glorious future held out before him, and said to himself that a
+man like Mascarin, unfettered by law, either human or Divine, would be
+most likely to achieve his ends. “I should be in no danger,” mused he to
+himself, “if I yield myself up to the impetuous stream which is already
+carrying me along, for Mascarin is practised swimmer enough to keep both
+my head and his own above water.”
+
+Little did Paul think that every fleeting expression in his countenance
+was caught up and treasured by the wily Mascarin; and it was
+intentionally that he had permitted Paul to listen to this compromising
+conversation. He had decided that very morning, that if Paul was to be a
+useful tool, he must be at once set face to face with the grim realities
+of the position.
+
+“Now,” said he, “for the really serious reason for my visit. How do we
+stand now with regard to the Viscountess Bois Arden?”
+
+Van Klopen gave his shoulders a shrug as he answered, “She is all right.
+I have just sent her several most expensive costumes.”
+
+“How much does she owe you?”
+
+“Say twenty-five thousand francs. She has owed us more than that
+before.”
+
+“Really?” remarked Mascarin, “that woman has been grossly libelled; she
+is vain, frivolous, and fond of admiration, but nothing more. For a
+whole fortnight I have been prying into her life, but I can’t hit
+upon anything in it to give us a pull over her. The debt may help us,
+however. Does her husband know that she has an account with us?”
+
+“Of course he does not; he is most liberal to her, and if he inquired--”
+
+“Then we are all right; we will send in the bill to him.”
+
+“But, my good sir,” urged Van Klopen, “it was only last week that she
+paid us a heavy sum on account.”
+
+“The more reason to press her, for she must be hard up.”
+
+Van Klopen would have argued further, but an imperious sign from
+Mascarin reduced him to silence.
+
+“Listen to me,” said Mascarin, “and please do not interrupt me. Are you
+known to the domestics at the house of the Viscountess?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“Well, then, at three o’clock sharp, the day after to-morrow, call on
+her. Her footman will say that Madame has a visitor with her.”
+
+“I will say I will wait.”
+
+“Not at all. You must almost force your way in, and you will find
+the Viscountess talking to the Marquis de Croisenois. You know him, I
+suppose?”
+
+“By sight--nothing more.”
+
+“That is sufficient. Take no notice of him; but at once present your
+bill, and violently insist upon immediate payment.”
+
+“What can you be thinking of? She will have me kicked out of doors.”
+
+“Quite likely; but you must threaten to take the bill to her husband.
+She will command you to leave the house, but you will sit down doggedly
+and declare that you will not move until you get the money.”
+
+“But that is most unbusinesslike behavior.”
+
+“I quite agree with you; but the Marquis de Croisenois will interfere;
+he will throw a pocketbook in your face, exclaiming, ‘There is your
+money, you impudent scoundrel!’”
+
+“Then I am to slink away?”
+
+“Yes, but before doing so, you will give a receipt in this
+form--‘Received from the Marquis de Croisenois, the sum of so many
+francs, in settlement of the account of the Viscountess Bois Arden.’”
+
+“If I could only understand the game,” muttered the puzzled Van Klopen.
+
+“There is no necessity for that now; only act up to your instructions.”
+
+“I will obey, but remember that we shall not only lose her custom, but
+that of all her acquaintance.”
+
+Again the same angry sounds were heard in the corridor.
+
+“It is scandalous,” cried a voice. “I have been waiting an hour;
+my sword and armor. What, ho, lackeys; hither, I say. Van Klopen is
+engaged, is he? Hie to him and say I must see him at once.”
+
+The two accomplices exchanged looks, as though they recognized the
+shrill, squeaky voice.
+
+“That is our man,” whispered Mascarin, as the door was violently
+flung open, and Gaston de Gandelu burst in. He was dressed even more
+extravagantly than usual, and his face was inflamed with rage.
+
+“Here am I,” cried he; “and an awful rage I am in. Why, I have been
+waiting twenty minutes. I don’t care a curse for your rules and
+regulations.”
+
+The tailor was furious at this intrusion; but as Mascarin was present,
+and he felt that he must respect his orders, he by a great effort
+controlled himself.
+
+“Had I known, sir,” said he sulkily, “that you were here----”
+
+These few words mollified the gorgeous youth, who at once broke in.
+
+“I accept your apologies,” cried he; “the lackeys remove our arms, the
+joust is over. My horses have been standing all this time, and may have
+taken cold. Of course you have seen my horses. Splendid animals, are
+they not? Zora is in the other room. Quick, fetch her here.”
+
+With these words he rushed into the passage and shouted out, “Zora,
+Mademoiselle de Chantemille, my dear one, come hither.”
+
+The renowned tailor was exquisitely uncomfortable at so terrible a scene
+in his establishment. He cast an appealing glance at Mascarin, but the
+face of the agent seemed carved in marble. As to Paul, he was quite
+prepared to accept this young gentleman as a perfect type of the glass
+of fashion and the mould of form, and could not forbear pitying him in
+his heart. He went across the room to Mascarin.
+
+“Is there no way,” whispered he, “of saving this poor young fellow?”
+
+Mascarin smiled one of those livid smiles which chilled the hearts of
+those who knew him thoroughly.
+
+“In fifteen minutes,” said he, “I will put the same question to you,
+leaving you to reply to it. Hush, this is the first real test that you
+have been subjected to; if you are not strong enough to go through it,
+then we had better say farewell. Be firm, for a thunderbolt is about to
+fall!”
+
+The manner in which these apparently trivial words were spoken startled
+Paul, who, by a strong effort, recovered his self-possession; but,
+prepared as he was, it was with the utmost difficulty that he stifled
+the expression of rage and surprise that rose to his lips at the sight
+of the woman who entered the room. The Madame de Chantemille, the Zora
+of the youthful Gandelu, was there, attired in what to his eyes seemed
+a most dazzling costume. Rose seemed a little timid as Gandelu almost
+dragged her into the room.
+
+“How silly you are!” said he. “What is there to be frightened at? He is
+only in a rage with his flunkies for having kept us waiting.”
+
+Zora sank negligently into an easy chair, and the gorgeously attired
+youth addressed the all-powerful Van Klopen.
+
+“Well, have you invented a costume that will be worthy of Madame’s
+charms?”
+
+For a few moments Van Klopen appeared to be buried in profound
+meditation.
+
+“Ah,” said he, raising his hand with a grandiloquent gesture, “I have
+it; I can see it all in my mind’s eye.”
+
+“What a man!” murmured Gaston in deep admiration.
+
+“Listen,” resumed the tailor, his eye flashing with the fire of
+genius. “First, a walking costume with a polonaise and a cape _a
+la pensionnaire_; bodice, sleeves, and underskirt of a brilliant
+chestnut----”
+
+He might have continued in this strain for a long time, and Zora would
+not have heard a word, for she had caught sight of Paul, and in spite of
+all her audacity, she nearly fainted. She was so ill at ease, that
+young Gandelu at last perceived it; but not knowing the effect that the
+appearance of Paul would necessarily cause, and being also rather dull
+of comprehension he could not understand the reason for it.
+
+“Hold hard, Van Klopen, hold hard! the joy has been too much for her,
+and I will lay you ten to one that she is going into hysterics.”
+
+Mascarin saw that Paul’s temper might blaze forth at any moment, and
+so hastened to put an end to a scene which was as absurd as it was
+dangerous.
+
+“Well, Van Klopen, I will say farewell,” said he. “Good morning, madame;
+good morning, sir;” and taking Paul by the arm, he led him away by a
+private exit which did not necessitate their passing through the great
+reception-room.
+
+It was time for him to do so, and not until they were in the street did
+the wily Mascarin breathe freely.
+
+“Well, what do you say, now?” asked he.
+
+Paul’s vanity had been so deeply wounded, and the effort that he had
+made to restrain himself so powerful, that he could only reply by a
+gasp.
+
+“He felt it more than I thought he would,” said Mascarin to himself.
+“The fresh air will revive him.”
+
+Paul’s legs bent under him, and he staggered so that Mascarin led him
+into a little _café_ hard by, and ordered a glass of cognac, and in a
+short time Paul was himself once again.
+
+“You are better now,” observed Mascarin; and then, believing it would be
+best to finish his work, he added, “A quarter of an hour ago I promised
+that I would ask you to settle what our intentions were to be regarding
+M. de Gandelu.”
+
+“That is enough,” broke in Paul, violently.
+
+Mascarin put on his most benevolent smile.
+
+“You see,” remarked he, “how circumstances change ideas. Now you are
+getting quite reasonable.”
+
+“Yes, I am reasonable enough now; that is, that I mean to be wealthy.
+You have no need to urge me on any more. I am willing to do whatever you
+desire, for I will never again endure degradation like that I have gone
+through to-day.”
+
+“You have let temper get the better of you,” returned Mascarin, with a
+shrug of his shoulders.
+
+“My anger may pass over, but my determination will remain as strong as
+ever.”
+
+“Do not decide without thinking the matter well over,” answered the
+agent. “To-day you are your own master; but if you give yourself up to
+me, you must resign your dearly loved liberty.”
+
+“I am prepared for all.”
+
+Victory had inclined to the side of Mascarin, and he was proportionally
+jubilant.
+
+“Good,” said he. “Then Dr. Hortebise shall introduce you to Martin
+Rigal, the father of Mademoiselle Flavia, and one week after your
+marriage I will give you a duke’s coronet to put on the panels of your
+carriage.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A STARTLING REVELATION.
+
+When Sabine de Mussidan told her lover that she would appeal to the
+generosity of M. de Breulh-Faverlay, she had not calculated on the
+necessity she would have for endurance, but had rather listened to the
+dictates of her heart; and this fact came the more strongly before her,
+when in the solitude of her own chamber, she inquired of herself how she
+was to carry out her promise. It seemed to her very terrible to have to
+lay bare the secrets of her soul to any one, but the more so to M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay, who had asked for her hand in marriage. She uttered no
+word on her way home, where she arrived just in time to take her place
+at the dinner table, and never was a more dismal company assembled for
+the evening meal. Her own miseries occupied Sabine, and her father
+and mother were suffering from their interviews with Mascarin and Dr.
+Hortebise. What did the liveried servants, who waited at table with
+such an affectation of interest, care for the sorrows of their master
+or mistress? They were well lodged and well fed, and nothing save their
+wages did they care for. By nine o’clock Sabine was in her own room
+trying to grow accustomed to the thoughts of an interview with M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay. She hardly closed her eyes all night, and felt worn out
+and dispirited by musing; but she never thought of evading the promise
+she had made to Andre, or of putting it off for a time. She had vowed
+to lose no time, and her lover was eagerly awaiting a letter from her,
+telling him of the result. In the perplexity in which she found herself,
+she could not confide in either father or mother, for she felt that a
+cloud hung over both their lives, though she knew not what it was. When
+she left the convent where she had been educated, and returned home, she
+felt that she was in the way, and that the day of her marriage would be
+one of liberation to her parents from their cares and responsibilities.
+All this prayed terribly upon her mind, and might have driven a less
+pure-minded girl to desperate measures. It seemed to her that it
+would be less painful to fly from her father’s house than to have this
+interview with M. de Breulh-Faverlay. Luckily for her, frail as she
+looked, she possessed an indomitable will, and this carried her through
+most of her difficulties.
+
+For Andre’s sake, as well as her own, she did not wish to violate any
+of the unwritten canons of society, but she longed for the hour to come
+when she could acknowledge her love openly to the world. At one moment
+she thought of writing a letter, but dismissed the thought as the height
+of folly. As the time passed Sabine began to reproach herself for her
+cowardice. All at once she heard the clang of the opening of the main
+gates. Peeping from her window, she saw a carriage drive up, and, to her
+inexpressible delight, M. de Breulh-Faverlay alighted from it.
+
+“Heaven has heard my prayer, and sent him to me,” murmured she.
+
+“What do you intend to do, Mademoiselle?” asked the devoted Modeste;
+“will you speak to him now?”
+
+“Yes, I will. My mother is still in her dressing-room, and no one
+will venture to disturb my father in the library. If I meet M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay in the hall and take him into the drawing-room, I shall
+have time for a quarter of an hour’s talk, and that will be sufficient.”
+
+Calling up all her courage, she left her room on her errand. Had Andre
+seen the man selected by the Count de Mussidan for his daughter’s
+husband, he might well have been proud of her preference for him. M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay was one of the best known men in Paris, and fortune
+had showered all her blessings on his head. He was not forty, of an
+extremely aristocratic appearance, highly educated, and witty; and, in
+addition, one of the largest landholders in the country. He had always
+refused to enter public life. “For,” he would say to those who spoke to
+him on the matter, “I have enough to spend my money on without making
+myself ridiculous.” He was a perfect type of what a French gentleman
+should be--courteous, of unblemished reputation, and full of chivalrous
+devotion and generosity. He was, it is said, a great favorite with the
+fair sex; but, if report spoke truly, his discretion was as great as
+his success. He had not always been wealthy, and there was a mysterious
+romance in his life. When he was only twenty, he had sailed for South
+America, where he remained twelve years, and returned no richer than
+he was before; but shortly afterward his aged uncle, the Marquis de
+Faverlay, died bequeathing his immense fortune to his nephew on the
+condition that he should add the name of Faverlay to that of De Breulh.
+De Breulh was passionately fond of horses; but he was really a lover of
+them, and not a mere turfite, and this was all that the world knew of
+the man who held in his hands the fates of Sabine de Mussidan and Andre.
+As soon as he caught sight of Sabine he made a profound inclination.
+
+The girl came straight up to him.
+
+“Sir,” said she, in a voice broken by conflicting emotions, “may I
+request the pleasure of a short private conversation with you?”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” answered De Breulh, concealing his surprise beneath
+another bow, “I am at your disposal.”
+
+One of the footmen, at a word from Sabine, threw open the door of the
+drawing-room in which the Countess had thrown down her arms in her duel
+with Dr. Hortebise. Sabine did not ask her visitor to be seated, but
+leaning her elbow on the marble mantel-piece, she said, after a silence
+equally trying to both,--
+
+“This strange conduct on my part, sir, will show you, more than any
+explanation, my sincerity, and the perfect confidence with which you
+have inspired me.”
+
+She paused, but De Breulh made no reply, for he was perfectly mystified.
+
+“You are,” she continued, “my parents’ intimate friend, and must have
+seen the discomforts of our domestic hearth, and that though both my
+father and mother are living, I am as desolate as the veriest orphan.”
+
+Fearing that M. de Breulh might not understand her reason for speaking
+thus, she threw a shade of haughtiness into her manner as she resumed,--
+
+“My reason, sir, for seeing you to-day is to ask,--nay, to entreat
+you, to release me from my engagement to you, and to take the whole
+responsibility of the rupture on yourself.”
+
+Man of the world as he was, M. de Breulh could not conceal his surprise,
+in which a certain amount of wounded self-love was mingled.
+
+“Mademoiselle!” commenced he--
+
+Sabine interrupted him.
+
+“I am asking a great favor, and your granting it will spare me many
+hours of grief and sadness, and,” she added, as a faint smile flickered
+across her pallid features, “I am aware that I am asking but a trifling
+sacrifice on your part. You know scarcely anything of me, and therefore
+you can only feel indifference toward me.”
+
+“You are mistaken,” replied the young man gravely; “and you do not judge
+me rightly. I am not a mere boy, and always consider a step before I
+take it; and if I asked for your hand, it was because I had learned to
+appreciate the greatness both of your heart and intellect; and I believe
+that if you would condescend to accept me, we could be very happy
+together.”
+
+The girl seemed about to speak, but De Breulh continued,--
+
+“It seems, however, that I have in some way displeased you,--I do not
+know how; but, believe me, it will be a source of sorrow to me for the
+rest of my life.”
+
+De Breulh’s sincerity was so evident, that Mademoiselle de Mussidan was
+deeply affected.
+
+“You have not displeased me in any way,” answered she softly, “and are
+far too good for me. To have become your wife would have made me a proud
+and happy woman.”
+
+Here she stopped, almost choked by her tears, but M. de Breulh wished to
+fathom this mystery.
+
+“Why then this resolve?” asked he.
+
+“Because,” replied Sabine faintly, as she hid her face,--“because I have
+given all my love to another.”
+
+The young man uttered an exclamation so full of angry surprise, that
+Sabine turned upon him at once.
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered she, “to another; one utterly unknown to my
+parents, yet one who is inexpressibly dear to me. This ought not to
+irritate you, for I gave him my love long before I met you. Besides, you
+have every advantage over him. He is at the foot, while you are at the
+summit, of the social ladder. You are of aristocratic lineage,--he is
+one of the people. You have a noble name,--he does not even know his
+own. Your wealth is enormous,--while he works hard for his daily bread.
+He has all the fire of genius, but the cruel cares of life drag and
+fetter him to the earth. He carries on a workman’s trade to supply funds
+to study his beloved art.”
+
+Incautiously, Sabine had chosen the very means to wound this noble
+gentleman most cruelly, for her whole beauty blazed out as, inflamed by
+her passion, she spoke so eloquently of Andre and drew such a parallel
+between the two young men.
+
+“Now, sir,” said she, “do you comprehend me? I know the terrible social
+abyss which divides me from the man I love, and the future may hold in
+store some terrible punishment for my fidelity to him, but no one shall
+ever hear a word of complaint from my lips, for----” she hesitated, and
+then uttered these simple words--“for I love him.”
+
+M. de Breulh listened with an outwardly impassible face, but the venomed
+tooth of jealousy was gnawing at his heart. He had not told Sabine the
+entire truth, for he had studied her for a long time, and his love had
+grown firm and strong. Without an unkind thought the girl had shattered
+the edifice which he had built up with such care and pain. He would have
+given his name, rank, and title to have been in this unknown lover’s
+place, who, though he worked for his bread, and had no grand ancestral
+name, was yet so fondly loved. Many a man in his position would have
+shrugged his shoulders and coldly sneered at the words, “I love him,”
+ but he did not, for his nature was sufficiently noble to sympathize
+with hers. He admired her courage and frankness, which disdaining all
+subterfuges, went straight and unhesitatingly to the point she desired
+to reach. She might be imprudent and reckless, but in his eyes these
+seemed hardly to be faults, for it is seldom that convent-bred young
+ladies err in this way.
+
+“But this man,” said he, after a long pause,--“how do you manage ever to
+see him?
+
+“I meet him out walking,” replied she, “and I sometimes go to his
+studio.”
+
+“To his studio?”
+
+“Yes, I have sat to him several times for my portrait; but I have
+never done anything that I need blush to own. You know all now, sir,”
+ continued Sabine; “and it has been very hard for a young girl like me
+to say all this to you. It is a thing that ought to be confided to my
+mother.”
+
+Only those who have heard a woman that they are ardently attached to
+say, “I do not love you,” can picture M. de Breulh’s frame of mind.
+Had any one else than Sabine made this communication he would not have
+withdrawn, but would have contested the prize with his more fortunate
+rival. But now that Mademoiselle de Mussidan had, as it were, thrown
+herself upon his mercy, he could not bring himself to take advantage of
+her confidence.
+
+“It shall be as you desire,” said he, with a faint tinge of bitterness
+in his tone. “To-night I will write to your father, and withdraw my
+demand for your hand. It is the first time that I have ever gone back
+from my word; and I am sure that your father will be highly indignant.”
+
+Sabine’s strength and firmness had now entirely deserted her. “From
+the depth of my soul, sir,” said she, “I thank you; for by this act of
+generosity I shall avoid a contest that I dreaded.”
+
+“Unfortunately,” broke in De Breulh, “you do not see how useless to
+you will be the sacrifice that you exact from me. Listen! you have not
+appeared much in society; and when you did, it was in the character of
+my betrothed; as soon as I withdraw hosts of aspirants for your hand
+will spring up.”
+
+Sabine heaved a deep sigh, for Andre had foreseen the same result.
+
+“Then,” continued De Breulh, “your situation will become even a more
+trying one; for if your noble qualities are not enough to excite
+admiration in the bosoms of the other sex, your immense wealth will
+arouse the cupidity of the fortune-hunters.”
+
+When De Breulh referred to fortune-hunters, was this a side blow at
+Andre? With this thought rushing through her brain, she gazed upon him
+eagerly, but read no meaning in his eyes.
+
+“Yes,” answered she dreamily, “it is true that I am very wealthy.”
+
+“And what will be your reply to the next suitor, and to the one after
+that?” asked De Breulh.
+
+“I know not; but I shall find some loophole of escape when the time
+comes; for if I act in obedience to the dictates of my heart and
+conscience, I cannot do wrong, for Heaven will come to my aid.”
+
+The phrase sounded like a dismissal; but De Breulh, man of the world as
+he was, did not accept it.
+
+“May I permit myself to offer you a word of advice?”
+
+“Do so, sir.”
+
+“Very well, then; why not permit matters to remain as they now are? So
+long as our rupture is not public property, so long will you be left
+in peace. It would be the simplest thing in the world to postpone all
+decisive steps for a twelvemonth, and I would withdraw as soon as you
+notified me that it was time.”
+
+Sabine put every confidence in this proposal, believing that everything
+was in good faith. “But,” said she, “such a subterfuge would be unworthy
+of us all.”
+
+M. de Breulh did not urge this point; a feeling of deep sympathy had
+succeeded to his wounded pride; and, with all the chivalrous instinct of
+his race, he determined to do his best to assist these lovers.
+
+“Might I be permitted,” asked he, “now that you have placed so much
+confidence in me, to make the acquaintance of the man whom you have
+honored with your love?”
+
+Sabine colored deeply. “I have no reason to conceal anything from you:
+his name is Andre, he is a painter, and lives in the Rue de la Tour
+d’Auvergne.”
+
+De Breulh made a mental note of the name, and continued,--
+
+“Do not think that I ask this question from mere idle curiosity; my only
+desire is to aid you. I should be glad to be a something in your life. I
+have influential friends and connections----”
+
+Sabine was deeply wounded. Did this man propose patronizing Andre, and
+thus place his position and wealth in contrast with that of the obscure
+painter? In his eagerness de Breulh had made a false move.
+
+“I thank you,” answered she coldly; “but Andre is very proud, and any
+offer of assistance would wound him deeply. Forgive my scruples, which
+are perhaps exaggerated and absurd. All he has of his own are his
+self-respect and his natural pride.”
+
+As she spoke, Sabine rang the bell, to show her visitor that the
+conversation was at an end.
+
+“Have you informed my mother of M. de Breulh-Faverlay’s arrival?” asked
+she, as the footman appeared at the door.
+
+“I have not, mademoiselle; for both the Count and Countess gave the
+strictest order that they were not to be disturbed on any pretext
+whatsoever.”
+
+“Why did you not tell me that before?” demanded M. de Breulh; and,
+without waiting for any explanation, he bowed gravely to Sabine, and
+quitted the room, after apologizing for his involuntary intrusion, and
+by his manner permitted all the domestics to see that he was much put
+out.
+
+“Ah!” sighed Sabine, “that man is worthy of some good and true woman’s
+affection.”
+
+As she was about to leave the room, she heard some one insisting upon
+seeing the Count de Mussidan. Not being desirous of meeting strangers,
+she remained where she was. The servant persisted in saying that his
+master could receive no one.
+
+“What do I care for your orders?” cried the visitor; “your master would
+never refuse to see his friend the Baron de Clinchain;” and, thrusting
+the lackey on one side, he entered the drawing-room; and his agitation
+was so great that he hardly noticed the presence of the young girl.
+
+M. de Clinchain was a thoroughly commonplace looking personage in face,
+figure, and dress, neither tall nor short, handsome nor ill-looking. The
+only noticeable point in his attire was that he wore a coral hand on his
+watch chain; for the Baron was a firm believer in the evil eye. When a
+young man, he was most methodical in his habits; and, as he grew older,
+this became an absolute mania with him. When he was twenty, he recorded
+in his diary the pulsations of his heart, and at forty he added remarks
+regarding his digestion and general health.
+
+“What a fearful blow!” murmured he; “and to fall at such a moment when I
+had indulged in a more hearty dinner than usual. I shall feel it for the
+next six months, even if it does not kill me outright.”
+
+Just then M. de Mussidan entered the room, and the excited man ran up to
+him, exclaiming,--
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, Octave, save us both, by cancelling your daughter’s
+engagement with M. de--”
+
+The Count laid his hand upon his friend’s lips.
+
+“Are you mad?” said he; “my daughter is here.”
+
+In obedience to a warning gesture, Sabine left the room; but she
+had heard enough to fill her heart with agitation and terror. What
+engagement was to be cancelled, and how could such a rupture affect her
+father or his friend? That there was some mystery, was proved by the
+question with which the Count had prevented his friend from saying any
+more. She was sure that it was the name of M. de Breulh-Faverlay with
+which the Baron was about to close his sentence, and felt that the
+destiny of her life was to be decided in the conversation about to take
+place between her father and his visitor. It was deep anxiety that she
+felt, not mere curiosity; and while these thoughts passed through her
+brain, she remembered that she could hear all from the card-room, the
+doorway of which was only separated from the drawing-room by a curtain.
+With a soft, gliding step she gained her hiding-place and listened
+intently. The Baron was still pouring out his lamentations.
+
+“What a fearful day this has been!” groaned the unhappy man. “I ate much
+too heavy a breakfast, I have been terribly excited, and came here a
+great deal too fast. A fit of passion caused by a servant’s insolence,
+joy at seeing you, then a sudden interruption to what I was going to
+say, are a great deal more than sufficient to cause a serious illness at
+my age.”
+
+But the Count, who was usually most considerate of his friend’s foibles,
+was not in a humor to listen to him.
+
+“Come, let us talk sense,” said he sharply; “tell me what has occurred.”
+
+“Occurred!” groaned De Clinchain; “oh, nothing, except that the whole
+truth is known regarding what took place in the little wood so many
+years back. I had an anonymous letter this morning, threatening me with
+all sorts of terrible consequences if I do not hinder you from
+marrying your daughter to De Breulh. The rogues say that they can prove
+everything.”
+
+“Have you the letter with you?”
+
+De Clinchain drew the missive from his pocket. It was to the full as
+threatening as he had said; but M. de Mussidan knew all its contents
+beforehand.
+
+“Have you examined your diary, and are the three leaves really missing?”
+
+“They are.”
+
+“How were they stolen? Are you sure of your servants?”
+
+“Certainly; my valet has been sixteen years in my service. You know
+Lorin? The volumes of my diary are always locked up in the escritoire,
+the key of which never leaves me. And none of the other servants ever
+enter my room.”
+
+“Some one must have done so, however.”
+
+Clinchain struck his forehead, as though an idea had suddenly flashed
+across his brain.
+
+“I can partly guess,” said he. “Some time ago Lorin went for a holiday,
+and got drunk with some fellows he picked up in the train. Drink brought
+on fighting, and he was so knocked about that he was laid up for
+some weeks. He had a severe knife wound in the shoulder and was much
+bruised.”
+
+“Who took his place?”
+
+“A young fellow that my groom got at a servants’ registry office.”
+
+M. de Mussidan felt that he was on the right track, for he remembered
+that the man who had called on him had had the audacity to leave a card,
+on which was marked:
+
+“B. MASCARIN,
+
+“Servants’ Registry Office,
+“Rue Montorgueil.”
+
+“Do you know where this place is?” asked he.
+
+“Certainly; in the Rue du Dauphin nearly opposite to my house.”
+
+The Count swore a deep oath. “The rogues are very wily; but, my dear
+fellow if you are ready, we will defy the storm together.”
+
+De Clinchain felt a cold tremor pass through his whole frame at this
+proposal.
+
+“Not I,” said he; “do not try and persuade me. If you have come to this
+decision, let me know at once, and I will go home and finish it all with
+a pistol bullet.”
+
+He was just the sort of nervous, timorous man to do exactly as he said,
+and would sooner have killed himself than endure all kinds of annoyance,
+which might impair his digestion.
+
+“Very well,” answered his friend, with sullen resignation, “then I will
+give in.”
+
+De Clinchain heaved a deep sigh of relief, for he, not knowing what had
+passed before, had expected to have had a much more difficult task in
+persuading his friend.
+
+“You are acting like a reasonable man for once in your life,” said he.
+
+“You think so, because I give ear to your timorous advice. A thousand
+curses on that idiotic habit of yours of putting on paper not only your
+own secrets, but those of others.”
+
+But at this remark Clinchain mounted his hobby.
+
+“Do not talk like that,” said he. “Had you not committed the act, it
+would not have appeared in my diary.”
+
+Chilled to the very bone, and quivering like an aspen leaf, Sabine had
+listened to every word. The reality was even more dreadful than she
+had dreamed of. There was a hidden sorrow, a crime in her father’s past
+life.
+
+Again the Count spoke. “There is no use in recrimination. We cannot wipe
+out the past, and must, therefore, submit. I promise you, on my honor,
+that this day I will write to De Breulh, and tell him this marriage must
+be given up.”
+
+These words threw the balm of peace and safety into De Clinchain’s soul,
+but the excess of joy was too much for him, and murmuring, “Too much
+breakfast, and the shock of too violent an emotion,” he sank back,
+fainting, on a couch.
+
+The Count de Mussidan was terrified, he pulled the bell furiously, and
+the domestics rushed in, followed by the Countess. Restoratives were
+applied, and in ten minutes the Baron opened one eye, and raised himself
+on his elbow.
+
+“I am better now,” said he, with a faint smile. “It is weakness and
+dizziness. I know what I ought to take--two spoonfuls of _eau des
+carmes_ in a glass of sugar and water, with perfect repose of both mind
+and body. Fortunately, my carriage is here. Pray, be prudent, Mussidan.”
+ And, leaning upon the arm of one of the lackeys, he staggered feebly
+out, leaving the Count and Countess alone, and Sabine still listening
+from her post of espial in the card-room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+Ever since Mascarin’s visit, the Count de Mussidan had been in a
+deplorable state of mind. Forgetting the injury to his foot, he passed
+the night pacing up and down the library, cudgelling his brains for some
+means of breaking the meshes of the net in which he was entangled. He
+knew the necessity for immediate action, for he felt sure that this
+demand would only be the forerunner of numerous others of a similar
+character. He thought over and dismissed many schemes. Sometimes he had
+almost decided to go to the police authorities and make a clean breast;
+then the idea of placing the affair in the hands of a private detective
+occurred to him; but the more he deliberated, the more he realized the
+strength of the cord that bound him, and the scandal which exposure
+would cause. This long course of thought had in some measure softened
+the bitterness of his wrath, and he was able to receive his old
+friend M. de Clinchain with some degree of calmness. He was not at
+all surprised at the receipt of the anonymous letter,--indeed, he had
+expected that a blow would be struck in that direction. Still immersed
+in thought, M. de Mussidan hardly took heed of his wife’s presence,
+and he still paced the room, uttering a string of broken phrases. This
+excited the attention of the Countess, for her own threatened position
+caused her to be on the alert.
+
+“What is annoying you, Octave?” asked she. “Surely, not M. de
+Clinchain’s attack of indigestion?”
+
+For many years the Count had been accustomed to that taunting and
+sarcastic voice, but this feeble joke at such a moment was more than he
+could endure.
+
+“Don’t address me in that manner,” said he angrily.
+
+“What is the matter--are you not well?”
+
+“Madame!”
+
+“Will you have the kindness to tell me what has taken place?”
+
+The color suffused the Count’s face, and his rage burst forth the more
+furiously from his having had to suppress it so long; and coming to
+a halt before the chair in which the Countess was lounging, his eyes
+blazing with hate and anger, he exclaimed,--
+
+“All I wish to tell you is, that De Breulh-Faverlay shall not marry our
+daughter.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan was secretly delighted at this reply, for it showed
+her that half the task required of her by Dr. Hortebise had been
+accomplished without her interference; but in order to act cautiously,
+she began at once to object, for a woman’s way is always at first to
+oppose what she most desires.
+
+“You are laughing at me, Count!” said she. “Where can we hope to find so
+good a match again?”
+
+“You need not be afraid,” returned the Count, with a sneer; “you shall
+have another son-in-law.”
+
+These words sent a pang through the heart of the Countess. Was it an
+allusion to the past? or had the phrase dropped from her husband’s lips
+accidentally? or had he any suspicion of the influence that had been
+brought to bear upon her? She, however, had plenty of courage, and would
+rather meet misfortune face to face than await its coming in dread.
+
+“Of what other son-in-law are you speaking?” asked she negligently. “Has
+any other suitor presented himself? May I ask his name? Do you intend to
+settle my child’s future without consulting me?”
+
+“I do, madame.”
+
+A contemptuous smile crossed the face of the Countess, which goaded the
+Count to fury.
+
+“Am I not the master here?” exclaimed he in accents of intense rage.
+“Am I not driven to the exercise of my power by the menaces of a pack of
+villains who have wormed out the hidden secrets which have overshadowed
+my life from my youth upward? They can, if they desire, drag my name
+through the mire of infamy.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan bounded to her feet, asking herself whether her
+husband’s intellect had not given way.
+
+“You commit a crime!” gasped she.
+
+“I, madame, I myself! Does that surprise you? Have you never had any
+suspicion? Perhaps you have not forgotten a fatal accident which took
+place out shooting, and darkened the earlier years of our married life?
+Well, the thing was not an accident, but a deliberate murder committed
+by me. Yes, I murdered him, and this fact is known, and can be proved.”
+
+The Countess grew deadly pale, and extended her hand, as though to guard
+herself from some coming danger.
+
+“You are horrified, are you?” continued the Count, with a sneer.
+“Perhaps I inspire you with horror; but do not fear; the blood is no
+longer on my hands, but it is here, and is choking me.” And as he spoke
+he pressed his fingers upon his heart. “For twenty-three years I have
+endured this hideous recollection and even now when I wake in the night
+I am bathed in cold sweat, for I fancy I can hear the last gasps of the
+unhappy man.”
+
+“This is horrible, too horrible!” murmured Madame de Mussidan faintly.
+
+“Ah, but you do not know why I killed him,--it was because the dead man
+had dared to tell me that the wife I adored with all the passion of my
+soul was unfaithful to me.”
+
+Words of eager denial rose to the lips of the Countess; but her husband
+went on coldly, “And it was all true, for I heard all later on.
+
+“Poor Montlouis! _he_ was really loved. There was a little shop-girl,
+who toiled hard for daily bread, but she was a thousand times more
+honorable than the haughty woman of noble race that I had just married.”
+
+“Have mercy, Octave.”
+
+“Yes, and she fell a victim to her love for Montlouis. Had he lived,
+he would have made her his wife. After his death, she could no longer
+conceal her fault. In small towns the people are without mercy; and when
+she left the hospital with her baby at her breast, the women pelted
+her with mud. But for me,” continued the Count, “she would have died of
+hunger. Poor girl! I did not allow her much, but with it she managed
+to give her son a decent education. He has now grown up, and whatever
+happens, his future is safe.”
+
+Had M. de Mussidan and his wife been less deeply engaged in this hideous
+recital, they would have heard the stifled sobs that came from the
+adjoining room.
+
+The Count felt a certain kind of savage pleasure in venting the rage,
+that had for years been suppressed, upon the shrinking woman before him.
+“Would it not be a cruel injustice, madame, to draw a comparison between
+you and this unhappy girl? Have you always been deaf to the whisperings
+of conscience? and have you never thought of the future punishment
+which most certainly awaits you? for you have failed in the duties of
+daughter, wife, and mother.”
+
+Generally the Countess cared little for her husband’s reproaches, well
+deserved as they might be, but to-day she quailed before him.
+
+“With your entrance into my life,” continued the Count, “came shame and
+misfortune. When people saw you so gay and careless under the oak-trees
+of your ancestral home, who could have suspected that your heart
+contained a dark secret? When my only wish was to win you for my wife,
+how did I know that you were weaving a hideous conspiracy against me?
+Even when so young, you were a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy.
+Guilt never overshadowed your brow, nor did falsehood dim the frankness
+of your eyes. On the day of our marriage I mentally reproached myself
+for any unworthiness. Wretched fool that I was, I was happy beyond all
+power of expression, when you, madame, completed the measure of your
+guilt by adding infidelity to it.”
+
+“It is false,” murmured the Countess. “You have been deceived.”
+
+M. de Mussidan laughed a grim and terrible laugh.
+
+“Not so,” answered he; “I have every proof. This seems strange to you,
+does it? You have always looked upon me as one of those foolish husbands
+that may be duped without suspicion on their parts. You thought that
+you had placed a veil over my eyes, but I could see through it when you
+little suspected that I could do so. Why did I not tell you this before?
+Because I had not ceased to love you, and this fatal love was stronger
+than all honor, pride, and even self-respect.” He poured out this
+tirade with inconceivable rapidity, and the Countess listened to it in
+awe-struck silence. “I kept silence,” continued the Count, “because I
+knew that on the day I uttered the truth you would be entirely lost to
+me. I might have killed you; I had every right to do so, but I could not
+live apart from you. You will never know how near the shadow of death
+has been to you. When I have kissed you, I have fancied that your lips
+were soiled with the kisses of others, and I could hardly keep my
+hands from clutching your ivory neck until life was extinct, and failed
+utterly to decide whether I loved you or hated you the most.”
+
+“Have mercy, Octave! have mercy!” pleaded the unhappy woman.
+
+“You are surprised, I can see,” answered he, with a dark smile; “yet
+I could give you further food for wonder if I pleased, but I have said
+enough now.”
+
+A tremor passed over the frame of the Countess. Was her husband
+acquainted with the existence of the letters? All hinged upon this.
+He could not have read them, or he would have spoken in very different
+terms, had he known the mystery contained in them.
+
+“Let me speak,” began she.
+
+“Not a word,” replied her husband.
+
+“On my honor--”
+
+“All is ended; but I must not forget to tell you of one of my youthful
+follies. You may laugh at it, but that signifies nothing. I actually
+believed that I could gain your affection. I said to myself that one day
+you would be moved by my deep passion for you. I was a fool. As if love
+or affection could ever penetrate the icy barriers that guarded your
+heart.”
+
+“You have no pity,” wailed she.
+
+He gazed upon her with eyes in which the pent-up anger of twenty years
+blazed and consumed slowly. “And you, what are you? I drained to the
+bottom the poisoned cup held out to a deceived husband by an unfaithful
+wife. Each day widened the breach between us, until at last we sank into
+this miserable existence which is wearing out my life. I kept no watch
+on you; I was not made for a jailer. What I wanted was your soul and
+heart. To imprison the body was easy, but your soul would still have
+been free to wander in imagination to the meeting-place where your lover
+expected you. I know not how I had the courage to remain by your side.
+It was not to save an honor that had already gone, but merely to keep
+up appearances; for as long as we were nominally together the tongue of
+scandal was forced to remain silent.”
+
+Again the unhappy woman attempted to protest her innocence, and again
+the Count paid no heed to her. “I wished too,” resumed he, “to save some
+portion of our property, for your insatiable extravagance swallowed up
+all like a bottomless abyss. At last your trades-people, believing me to
+be ruined, refused you credit, and this saved me. I had my daughter to
+think of, and have gathered together a rich dowry for her, and yet----”
+ he hesitated, and ceased speaking for a moment.
+
+“And yet,” repeated Madame de Mussidan.
+
+“I have never kissed her,” he burst forth with a fresh and terrible
+explosion of wrath, “without feeling a hideous doubt as to whether she
+was really my child.”
+
+This was more than the Countess could endure.
+
+“Enough,” she cried, “enough! I have been guilty, Octave; but not so
+guilty as you imagine.”
+
+“Why do you venture to defend yourself?”
+
+“Because it is my duty to guard Sabine.”
+
+“You should have thought of this earlier,” answered the Count with a
+sneer. “You should have moulded her mind--have taught her what was noble
+and good, and have perused the unsullied pages of the book of her young
+heart.”
+
+In the deepest agitation the Countess answered,--
+
+“Ah, Octave, why did you not speak of this sooner, if you knew all; but
+I will now tell you everything.”
+
+By an inconceivable error of judgment the Count corrected her speech.
+“Spare us both,” said he. “If I have broken through the silence that I
+have maintained for many a year, it is because I knew that no word you
+could utter would touch my heart.”
+
+Feeling that all hope had fled, Madame de Mussidan fell backward
+upon the couch, while Sabine, unable to listen to any more terrible
+revelations, had crept into her own chamber. The Count was about to
+leave the drawing-room, when a servant entered, bearing a letter on
+a silver salver. De Mussidan tore it open; it was from M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay, asking to be released from his engagement to Sabine de
+Mussidan. This last stroke was almost too much for the Count’s nerves,
+for in this act he saw the hand of the man who had come to him with
+such deadly threats, and terror filled his soul as he thought of the
+far-stretching arm of him whose bondslave he found himself to be; but
+before he could collect his thoughts, his daughter’s maid went into the
+room crying with all her might, “Help, help; my poor mistress is dying!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+Van Klopen, the man-milliner, knew Paris and its people thoroughly like
+all tradesmen who are in the habit of giving large credit. He knew
+all about the business of his customers, and never forgot an item of
+information when he received one. Thus, when Mascarin spoke to him about
+the father of the lovely Flavia, whose charms had set the susceptible
+heart of Paul Violaine in a blaze, the arbiter of fashion had replied,--
+
+“Martin Rigal; yes, I know him; he is a banker.” And a banker, indeed,
+Martin Rigal was, dwelling in a magnificent house in the Rue Montmartre.
+The bank was on the ground floor, while his private rooms were in the
+story above. Though he did not do business in a very large way, yet
+he was a most respectable man, and his connection was chiefly with the
+smaller trades-people, who seem to live a strange kind of hand-to-mouth
+existence, and who might be happy were it not for the constant
+reappearance of that grim phantom--bills to be met. Nearly all these
+persons were in the banker’s hands entirely. Martin Rigal used his power
+despotically and permitted no arguments, and speedily quelled rebellion
+on the part of any new customer who ventured to object to his arbitrary
+rules. In the morning the banker was never to be seen, being engaged in
+his private office, and not a clerk would venture to knock at his
+door. Even had one done so, no reply would have been returned; for the
+experiment had been tried, and it was believed that nothing short of an
+alarm of fire would have brought him out.
+
+The banker was a big man, quite bald, his face was clean shaved, and
+his little gray eyes twinkled incessantly. His manner was charmingly
+courteous, and he said the most cruel things in the most honied accents,
+and invariably escorted to the door the man whom he would sell up the
+next day. In his dress he affected a fashionable style, much used by the
+modern school of Shylocks. When not in business, he was a pleasant, and,
+as some say, a witty companion. He was not looked on as an ascetic, and
+did not despise those little pleasures which enable us to sustain life’s
+tortuous journey. He liked a good dinner, and had always a smile ready
+for a young and attractive face. He was a widower, and all his love
+was concentrated on his daughter. He did not keep a very extravagant
+establishment, but the report in the neighborhood was that Mademoiselle
+Flavia, the daughter of the eminent banker, would one day come into
+millions. The banker always did his business on foot, for the sake of
+his health, as he said; but Flavia had a sweet little Victoria, drawn
+by two thoroughbred horses, to drive in the Bois de Boulogne, under the
+protection of an old woman, half companion and half servant, who was
+driven half mad by her charge’s caprices. As yet her father has never
+denied her anything. He worked harder than all his clerks put together,
+for, after having spent the morning in his counting house over his
+papers, he received all business clients.
+
+On the day after Flavia and Paul Violaine had met at Van Klopen’s, M.
+Martin Rigal was, at about half-past five, closeted with one of his
+female clients. She was young, very pretty, and dressed with simple
+elegance, but the expression of her face was profoundly melancholy.
+Her eyes were overflowing with tears, which she made vain efforts to
+restrain.
+
+“If you refuse to renew our bill, sir, we are ruined,” said she. “I
+could meet it in January. I have sold all my trinkets, and we are
+existing on credit.”
+
+“Poor little thing!” interrupted the banker.
+
+Her hopes grew under these words of pity.
+
+“And yet,” continued she, “business has never been so brisk. New
+customers are constantly coming in, and though our profits are small,
+the returns are rapid.”
+
+As Martin Rigal heard her exposition of the state of affairs, he nodded
+gravely.
+
+“That is all very well,” said he at last, “but this does not make the
+security you offer me of any more value. I have more confidence in you.”
+
+“But remember, sir, that we have thirty thousand francs’ worth of
+stock.”
+
+“That is not what I was alluding to,” and the banker accompanied these
+words with so meaning a look, that the poor woman blushed scarlet and
+almost lost her nerve. “Your stock,” said he, “is of no more value in
+my eyes than the bill you offer me. Suppose, for instance, you were to
+become bankrupt, the landlord might come down upon everything, for he
+has great power.”
+
+He broke off abruptly, for Flavia’s maid, as a privileged person,
+entered the room without knocking.
+
+“Sir,” said she, “my mistress wishes to see you at once.”
+
+The banker got up directly. “I am coming,” said he; then, taking the
+hand of his client, he led her to the door, repeating: “Do not worry
+yourself; all the difficulties shall be got through. Come again, and we
+will talk them over;” and before she could thank him he was half way to
+his daughter’s apartment. Flavia had summoned her father to show him
+a new costume which had just been sent home by Van Klopen, and which
+pleased her greatly. Flavia’s costume was a masterpiece of fashionable
+bad taste, which makes women look all alike and destroys all appearance
+of individuality. It was a mass of frills, furbelows, fringes, and
+flutings of rare hue and form, making a series of wonderful contrasts.
+Standing in the middle of the room, with every available candle alight,
+for the day was fading away, she was so dainty and pretty that even the
+_bizarre_ dress of Van Klopen’s was unable to spoil her appearance. As
+she turned round, she caught sight of her father in a mirror, panting
+with the haste he had made in running upstairs.
+
+“What a time you have been!” said she pettishly.
+
+“I was with a client,” returned he apologetically.
+
+“You ought to have got rid of him at once. But never mind that; look at
+me and tell me plainly what you think of me.”
+
+She had no need to put the question, for the most intense admiration
+beamed in his face.
+
+“Exquisite, delicious, heavenly!” answered he.
+
+Flavia, accustomed as she was to her father’s compliments, was highly
+delighted. “Then you think that he will like me?” asked she.
+
+She alluded to Paul Violaine, and the banker heaved a deep sigh as he
+replied,--
+
+“Is it possible that any human being exists that you cannot please?”
+
+“Ah!” mused she, “if it were any one but he, I should have no doubts or
+misgivings.”
+
+Martin Rigal took a seat near the fire, and, drawing his daughter to
+him, pressed a fond kiss upon her brow, while she with the grace and
+activity of a cat, nestled upon his knee. “Suppose, after all, that he
+should not like me,” murmured she; “I should die of grief.”
+
+The banker turned away his face to hide the gloom that overspread it.
+“Do you love him, then, even now?” asked he.
+
+She paused for a moment, and he added, “More than you do me?”
+
+Flavia pressed her father’s hand between both her palms and answered
+with a musical laugh, “How silly you are, papa! Why, of course I love
+you. Are you not my father? I love you too because you are kind and
+do all I wish, and because you are always telling me that you love me.
+Because you are like the cupids in the fairy stories--dear old people
+who give their children all their heart’s desire; I love you for my
+carriage, my horses, and my lovely dresses; for my purse filled with
+gold, for my beautiful jewelry, and for all the lovely presents you make
+me.”
+
+Every word she spoke betrayed the utter selfishness of her soul, and yet
+her father listened with a fixed smile of delight on his face.
+
+“And why do you love him?” asked he.
+
+“Because--because,” stammered the girl, “first, because he is himself;
+and then,--well, I can’t say, but I _do_ love him.”
+
+Her accents betrayed such depth of passion that the father uttered a
+groan of anguish.
+
+Flavia caught the expression of his features, and burst into a fit of
+laughter.
+
+“I really believe that you are jealous,” said she, as if she were
+speaking to a spoiled child. “That is very naughty of you; you ought to
+be ashamed of yourself. I tell you that the first time I set eyes upon
+him at Van Klopen’s, I felt a thrill of love pierce through my heart,
+such love as I never felt for a human being before. Since then, I have
+known no rest. I cannot sleep, and instead of blood, liquid fire seems
+to come through my veins.”
+
+Martin Rigal raised his eyes to the ceiling in mute surprise at this
+outburst of feeling.
+
+“You do not understand me,” went on Flavia. “You are the best of
+fathers, but, after all, you are but a man. Had I a mother, she would
+comprehend me better.”
+
+“What could your mother have done for you more than I? Have I neglected
+anything for your happiness?” asked the banker, with a sigh.
+
+“Perhaps nothing; for there are times when I hardly understand my own
+feelings.”
+
+In gloomy silence the banker listened to the narrative of his daughter’s
+state of mind; then he said,--
+
+“All shall be as you desire, and the man you love shall be your
+husband.”
+
+The girl was almost beside herself with joy, and, throwing her arms
+around his neck, pressed kiss upon kiss on his cheeks and forehead.
+
+“Darling,” said she, “I love you for this more than for anything that
+you have given me in my life.”
+
+The banker sighed again; and Flavia, shaking her pretty little fist at
+him, exclaimed, “What is the meaning of that sigh, sir? Do you by any
+chance regret your promise? But never mind that. How do you mean to
+bring him here without causing any suspicion?”
+
+A benevolent smile passed over her father’s face, as he answered,--
+
+“That, my pet, is my secret.”
+
+“Very well, keep it; I do not care what means you use, as long as I see
+him soon, very soon,--to-night perhaps, in an hour, or even in a few
+minutes. You say Dr. Hortebise will bring him here; he will sit at our
+table. I can look at him without trouble, I shall hear his voice--”
+
+“Silly little puss!” broke in the banker; “or, rather, I should say,
+unhappy child.”
+
+“Silly, perhaps; but why should you say unhappy?”
+
+“You love him too fondly, and he will take advantage of your feeling for
+him.”
+
+“Never; I do not believe it,” answered the girl.
+
+“I hope to heaven, darling, that my fears may never be realized. But he
+is not the sort of husband that I intended for you; he is a composer.”
+
+“And is that anything against him!” exclaimed Flavia in angry tones;
+“one would think from your sneers that this was a crime. Not only is he
+a composer, but he is a genius. I can read that in his face. He may be
+poor, but I am rich enough for both, and he will owe all to me; so much
+the better, for then he will not be compelled to give lessons for his
+livelihood, and he will have leisure to compose an opera more beautiful
+than any that Gounod has ever written, and I shall share all his glory.
+Why, perhaps, he may even sing his own songs to me alone.”
+
+Her father noticed her state of feverish excitement and gazed upon her
+sadly. Flavia’s mother had been removed from this world at the early
+age of twenty-four by that insidious malady, consumption, which defies
+modern medical science, and in a brief space changes a beautiful girl
+into a livid corpse, and the father viewed her excited manner, flushed
+cheeks, and sparkling eyes with tears and dismay.
+
+“By heavens!” cried he, bursting into a sudden fit of passion; “if ever
+he ill treats you, he is a dead man.”
+
+The girl was startled at the sudden ferocity of his manner.
+
+“What have I done to make you angry?” asked she; “and why do you have
+such evil thoughts of him?”
+
+“I tremble for you, in whom my whole soul is wrapped up,” answered the
+banker. “This man has robbed me of my child’s heart, and you will be
+happier with him than you are with your poor old father. I tremble
+because of your inexperience and his weakness, which may prove a source
+of trouble to you.”
+
+“If he is weak, all the better; my will can guide him.”
+
+“You are wrong,” replied her father, “as many other women have been
+before you. You believe that weak and vacillating dispositions are
+easily controlled, but I tell you that this is an error. Only determined
+characters can be influenced, and it is on substantial foundations that
+we find support.”
+
+Flavia made no reply, and her father drew her closer to him.
+
+“Listen to me, my child,” said he. “You will never have a better friend
+than I am. You know that I would shed every drop of blood in my veins
+for you. He is coming, so search your heart to discover if this is not
+some mere passing fancy.”
+
+“Father!” cried she.
+
+“Remember that your happiness is in your own hands now, so be careful
+and conceal your feelings, and do not let him discover how deep your
+love is for him. Men’s minds are so formed that while they blame a woman
+for duplicity, they complain far more if she acts openly and allows her
+feelings to be seen----”
+
+He paused, for the door-bell rang. Flavia’s heart gave a bound of
+intense joy.
+
+“He has come!” gasped she, and, with a strong effort to retain her
+composure, she added, “I will obey you, my dear father; I will not come
+here again until I have entirely regained my composure. Do not fear, and
+I will show you that your daughter can act a part as well as any other
+woman.”
+
+She fled from the room as the door opened, but it was not Paul who made
+his appearance, but some other guests--a stout manufacturer and his
+wife, the latter gorgeously dressed, but with scarcely a word to say for
+herself. For this evening the banker had issued invitations to twenty of
+his friends, and among this number Paul would scarcely be noticed. He in
+due time made his appearance with Dr. Hortebise, who had volunteered to
+introduce him into good society. Paul felt ill at ease; he had just
+come from the hands of a fashionable tailor, who, thanks to Mascarin’s
+influence, had in forty-eight hours prepared an evening suit of such
+superior cut that the young man hardly knew himself in it. Paul had
+suffered a good deal from conflicting emotions after the visit to Van
+Klopen’s, and more than once regretted the adhesion that he had given
+to Mascarin’s scheme; but a visit the next day from Hortebise, and the
+knowledge that the fashionable physician was one of the confederates,
+had reconciled him to the position he had promised to assume.
+
+He was moreover struck with Flavia’s charms, and dazzled with the
+accounts of her vast prospective fortune. To him, Hortebise, gay, rich,
+and careless, seemed the incarnation of happiness, and contributed
+greatly to stifle the voice of Paul’s conscience. He would, however,
+perhaps have hesitated had he known what the locket contained that
+dangled so ostentatiously from the doctor’s chain.
+
+Before they reached the banker’s door, driven in the doctor’s elegant
+brougham, a similar one to which Paul mentally declared he would have,
+as soon as circumstances would permit, the young man’s mentor spoke.
+
+“Let me say a few words to you. You have before you a chance which is
+seldom afforded to any young man, whatever his rank and social standing.
+Mind that you profit by it.”
+
+“You may be sure I will,” said Paul, with a smile of self-complacency.
+
+“Good, dear boy; but let me fortify your courage with a little of my
+experience. Do you know what an heiress really is?”
+
+“Well, really----”
+
+“Permit me to continue. An heiress and more so if she is an only child,
+is generally a very disagreeable person, headstrong, capricious,
+and puffed up with her own importance. She is utterly spoiled by the
+flattery to which she has been accustomed from her earliest years, and
+thinks that all the world is made to bend before her.”
+
+“Ah!” answered Paul, a little discomfited. “I hope it is not
+Mademoiselle Flavia’s portrait that you have been sketching?”
+
+“Not exactly,” answered the doctor, with a laugh. “But I must warn you
+that even she has certain whims and fancies. For instance, I am quite
+sure that she would give a suitor every encouragement, and then repulse
+him without rhyme or reason.”
+
+Paul, who up to this time had only seen the bright side of affairs, was
+a good deal disconcerted.
+
+“Buy why should you introduce me to her then?”
+
+“In order that you may win her. Have you not everything to insure
+success? She will most likely receive you with the utmost cordiality;
+but beware of being too sanguine. Even if she makes desperate love to
+you, I say, take care; it may be only a trap; for, between ourselves,
+a girl who has a million stitched to her petticoats is to be excused if
+she endeavors to find out whether the suitor is after her or her money.”
+
+Just then the brougham stopped, and Dr. Hortebise and his young friend
+entered the house in the Rue Montmartre, where they were cordially
+greeted by the banker.
+
+Paul glanced round, but there were no signs of Flavia, nor did she
+make her appearance until five minutes before the dinner hour, when the
+guests flocked round her. She had subdued all her emotions, and not
+a quiver of the eyelids disclosed the excitement under which she was
+laboring. Her eye rested on Paul, and he bowed ceremoniously. The banker
+was delighted, for he had not believed much in her self-command. But
+Flavia had taken his advice to heart, and when seated at table abstained
+from casting a glance in Paul’s direction. When dinner was over and many
+of the guests had sat down to whist; Flavia ventured to approach Paul,
+and in a low voice, which shook a little in spite of her efforts,
+said,--
+
+“Will you not play me one of your own compositions, M. Violaine?”
+
+Paul was but a medium performer, but Flavia seemed in the seventh
+heaven, while her father and Dr. Hortebise, who had taken their seats
+not far away, watched the young couple with much anxiety.
+
+“How she adores him!” whispered the banker. “And yet I cannot judge of
+the effect that she has produced upon him.”
+
+“Surely Mascarin will worm it all out of him to-morrow,” returned the
+doctor. “To-morrow the poor fellow will have his hands full, for there
+is to be a general meeting, when we shall hear all about Catenac’s
+ideas, and I shall be glad to know what Croisenois’s conduct will be
+when he knows what he is wanted for.”
+
+It was growing late, and the guests began to drop off. Dr. Hortebise
+signalled to Paul, and they left the house together. According to the
+promise to her father, Flavia had acted her part so well, that Paul did
+not know whether he had made an impression or not.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MASTER CHUPIN.
+
+Beaumarchef, when Mascarin called a general meeting of his associates,
+was in the habit of assuming his very best attire; for as he was often
+called into the inner office to answer questions, he was much
+impressed with the importance of the occasion. This time, however, the
+subordinate, although he had received due notice of the meeting, was
+still in his every-day dress. This discomposed him a good deal, though
+he kept muttering to himself that he meant no disrespect by it. Early in
+the morning he had been compelled to make up the accounts of two
+cooks, who, having obtained situations, were leaving the servants’
+lodging-house. When this matter was completed, he had hoped for half an
+hour’s leisure. As he was crossing the courtyard, however, he fell in
+with Toto Chupin bringing in his daily report, which Beaumarchef thought
+would be what it usually was--a mere matter of form. He was, however,
+much mistaken; for though outwardly Toto was the same, yet his ideas had
+taken an entirely new direction; and when Beaumarchef urged him to look
+sharp, the request was received with a great deal of sullenness.
+
+“I ain’t lost no time,” said he, “and have fished up a thing or two
+fresh; but before saying a word--”
+
+He stopped, and seemed a little confused.
+
+“Well, go on.”
+
+“I want a fresh arrangement.”
+
+Beaumarchef was staggered.
+
+“Arrangement!” he echoed.
+
+“Of course you can lump it if yer don’t like it,” said the boy. “Do
+you think as how I’m going to work like a horse, and not get a wink of
+sleep, just for a ‘thank ye, Chupin?’ No fear. I’m worth a sight more
+nor that.”
+
+Beaumarchef flew into a rage.
+
+“Then you are not worth a pinch of salt,” said he.
+
+“All right, my cove.”
+
+“And you are an ungrateful young villain to talk like this after all the
+kindness your master has shown you.”
+
+Chupin gave a sarcastic laugh.
+
+“Goodness!” cried he. “To hear you go on, one would think that the boss
+had ruined himself for my sake.”
+
+“He took you out of the streets, and has given you a room ever since.”
+
+“A room, do you say? I call it a dog kennel.”
+
+“You have your breakfast and dinner every day regularly.”
+
+“I know that, and half a bottle of wine at each meal, which has so much
+water in it that it cannot even stain the tablecloth.”
+
+“You are an ungrateful young hound,” exclaimed Beaumarchef, “and forget
+that, in addition to this, he has set you up in business as a hot
+chestnut seller.”
+
+“Good old business! I am allowed to stand all day under the gateway,
+roasted on one side, and frozen on the other, and gain, perhaps twenty
+sous.”
+
+“You know that in summer he has promised to set you up in the fried
+potato line.”
+
+“Thank ye for nothing; I don’t like the smell of grease.”
+
+“What is it you want, then?”
+
+“Nothing. I feels that I ought to be a gentleman at large.”
+
+Beaumarchef cast a furious glance at the shameless youth, and told him
+that he would report everything to his master. The boy, however, did not
+seem to care a pin.
+
+“I intends to see Master Mascarin myself presently,” remarked Chupin.
+
+“You are an idiot.”
+
+“Why so? Do you think I didn’t live better before I had anything to
+do with this blooming old cove? I never worked then. I used to sing in
+front of the pubs, and easily made my three francs a day. My pal and I
+soon check ‘em though, and then off we went to the theatre. Sometimes
+we’d make tracks for Ivry, and take our doss in a deserted factory, into
+which the crushers never put their noses. In the winter we used to go to
+the glass houses and sleep in the warm ashes. All these were good times,
+while now--”
+
+“Well, what have you to grumble at now? Don’t I hand you a five-franc
+piece every day that you are at work?”
+
+“But that ain’t good enough. Come, don’t get shirty; all I asks is a
+rise of salary. Only say either Yes or No; and if you say No, why, I
+sends in my resignation.”
+
+Beaumarchef would have given a five-franc piece out of his own pocket
+for Mascarin to have heard the boy’s impertinence.
+
+“You are a young rascal!” said he, “and keep the worst of company. There
+is no use in denying it, for a hang-dog fellow, calling himself Polyte,
+has been here asking after you.”
+
+“My company ain’t any business of yours.”
+
+“Well, I give you warning, you will come to grief.”
+
+“How?” returned Toto Chupin sulkily. “How can I come to grief? If old
+Mascarin interferes, I’ll shut up his mouth pretty sharp. I wish you and
+your master wouldn’t poke their noses into my affairs. I’m sick of you
+both. Don’t you think I’m up to you? When you make me follow some one
+for a week at a time, it isn’t to do ‘em a kindness, I reckon. If things
+turn out badly, I’ve only to go before a beak and speak up; I should get
+off easily enough then; and if I do so, you will be sorry for not having
+given me more than my five francs a day.”
+
+Beaumarchef was an old soldier and a bold man, but he was easily upset,
+for the lad’s insolence made him believe that he was uttering words that
+had been put in his mouth by some wily adviser; and not knowing how
+to act, the ex-soldier thought it best to adopt a more conciliating
+demeanor.
+
+“How much do you want?” asked he.
+
+“Well, seven francs to start with.”
+
+“The deuce you do! Seven francs a day is a sum. Well, I’ll give it you
+myself to-day and will speak about you to the master.”
+
+“You won’t get me to loosen my tongue for that amount to-day; you may
+bet your boots on that,” answered the lad insolently. “I wants one
+hundred francs down on the nail.”
+
+“One hundred francs,” echoed Beaumarchef, scandalized at such a demand.
+
+“Yes, my cove, that and no less.”
+
+“And what will you give in return? No, no, my lad; your demand is a
+preposterous one; besides, you wouldn’t know how to spend such a sum.”
+
+“Don’t you flurry yourself about that; but of one thing you may be sure,
+I sha’n’t spend my wages as you do--in wax for your mustache.”
+
+Beaumarchef could not endure an insult to his mustache, and Chupin was
+about to receive the kick he had so richly earned, when Daddy Tantaine
+suddenly made his appearance, looking exactly as he did when he visited
+Paul in his garret.
+
+“Tut, tut; never quarrel with the door open.”
+
+Beaumarchef thanked Providence for sending this sudden reinforcement to
+his aid, and began in a tone of indignation,--
+
+“Toto Chupin--”
+
+“Stop! I have heard every word,” broke in Tantaine.
+
+On hearing this, Toto felt that he had better make himself scarce; for
+though he hardly knew Mascarin, and utterly despised Beaumarchef, he
+trembled before the oily Tantaine, for in him he recognized a being who
+would stand no nonsense. He therefore began in an apologetic tone,--
+
+“Just let me speak, sir; I only wanted--”
+
+“Money, of course, and very natural too. Come, Beaumarchef, hand this
+worthy lad the hundred francs that he has so politely asked for.”
+
+Beaumarchef was utterly stupefied, and was about to make some objection
+when he was struck by a signal which Toto did not perceive, and, drawing
+out his pocketbook, extracted a note which he offered to the lad. Toto
+glanced at the note, then at the faces of the two men, but was evidently
+afraid to take the money.
+
+“Take the money,” said Tantaine. “If your information is not worth the
+money, I will have it back from you; come into the office, where we
+shall not be disturbed.”
+
+Tantaine took a chair, and glancing at Toto, who stood before him
+twirling his cap leisurely, said,--
+
+“I heard you.”
+
+The lad had by this time recovered his customary audacity.
+
+“Five days ago,” he began, “I was put on to Caroline Schimmel; I have
+found out all about her by this time. She is as regular as clockwork in
+her duties at least. She wakes at ten and takes her absinthe. Then she
+goes to a little restaurant she knows, and has her breakfast and a game
+at cards with any one that will play with her. At six in the evening
+she goes to the Grand Turk, a restaurant and dancing-shop in the Rue des
+Poisonnieres. Ain’t it a swell ken just! You can eat; drink, dance, or
+sing, just as you like; but you must have decent togs on, or they won’t
+let you in.”
+
+“Wouldn’t they let you through then?”
+
+Toto pointed significantly to his rags as he replied,--
+
+“This rig out wouldn’t pass muster, but I have a scheme in hand.”
+
+Tantaine took down the address of the dancing-saloon, and then,
+addressing Toto with the utmost severity,--
+
+“Do you think,” said he, “that this report is worth a hundred francs?”
+
+Toto made a quaint grimace.
+
+“Do you think,” asked he, “that Caroline can lead the life she does
+without money? No fear. Well, I have found out where the coin comes
+from.”
+
+The dim light in the office enabled Tantaine to hide the pleasure he
+felt on hearing these words.
+
+“Ah,” answered he carelessly, as if it was a matter of but little
+moment, “and so you have found out all that, have you?
+
+“Yes, and a heap besides. Just you listen. After her breakfast, my sweet
+Carry began to play cards with some chaps who had been grubbing at the
+next table. ‘Regular right down card sharpers and macemen,’ said I
+to myself, as I watched the way in which they faked the pasteboards.
+‘They’ll get everything out of you, old gal.’ I was in the right, for in
+less than an hour she had to go up to the counter and leave one of her
+rings as security for the breakfast. He said he knew her, and would give
+her credit. ‘You are a trump,’ said she. ‘I’ll just trot off to my own
+crib and get the money.’”
+
+“Did she go home?”
+
+“Not she; she went to a real swell house in a bang up part of Paris,
+the Rue de Varennes. She knocked at the door, and in she went, while I
+lounged about outside.”
+
+“Do you know who lives there?”
+
+“Of course I do. The grocer round the corner told me that it was
+inhabited by the Duke--what was his blessed name? Oh, the Duke----”
+
+“Was it the Duke de Champdoce?”
+
+“That is the right one, a chap they say as has his cellars chock full of
+gold and silver.”
+
+“You are rather slow, my lad,” said Tantaine, with his assumed air of
+indifference. “Get on a bit, do.”
+
+Toto was much put out; for he had expected that his intelligence would
+have created an immense sensation.
+
+“Give a cove time to breathe in. Well, in half an hour out comes my
+Carry as lively as a flea. She got into a passing cab and away she went.
+Fortunately I can run a bit, and reached the Palais Royal in time to
+see Caroline change two notes of two hundred francs each at the
+money-changers.”
+
+“How did you find out that?”
+
+“By looking at ‘em. The paper was yellow.”
+
+Tantaine smiled kindly. “You know a banknote then?”
+
+“Yes, but I have precious few chances of handling them. Once I went into
+a money-changer’s shop and asked them just to let me feel one, and they
+said, ‘Get out sharp.’”
+
+“Is that all?” demanded Tantaine.
+
+“No; I have kept the best bit for a finish. I want to tell you that
+there are others on the lookout after Caroline.”
+
+Toto had no reason this time to grumble at the effect he had produced,
+for the old man gave such a jump that his hat fell off.
+
+“What are you saying?” said he.
+
+“Simply that for the last three days a big chap with a harp on his back
+has been keeping her in view. I twigged him at once, and he too saw her
+go into the swell crib that you say belongs to that Duke.”
+
+Tantaine pondered a little.
+
+“A street musician,” muttered he. “I must find out all about this. Now,
+Toto, listen to me; chuck Caroline over, and stick to the fellow with
+the harp; be off with you, for you have earned your money well.”
+
+As Chupin went off, the old man shook his head.
+
+“Too sharp by a good bit,” said he; “he won’t have a long lease of
+life.”
+
+Beaumarchef was about to ask Tantaine to remain in the office while
+he went off to put on his best clothes, but the old man stopped this
+request by saying,--
+
+“As M. Mascarin does not like to be disturbed, I will just go in without
+knocking. When the other gentlemen arrive, show them in; for look you
+here, my good friend, the pear is so ripe that if it is not plucked, it
+will fall to the ground.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A TURN OF THE SCREW.
+
+Dr. Hortebise was the first to arrive. It was a terrible thing for him
+to get up so early; but for Mascarin’s sake he consented even to this
+inconvenience. When he passed through the office, the room was full
+of clients; but this did not prevent the doctor from noticing the
+negligence of Beaumarchef’s costume.
+
+“Aha!” remarked the doctor, “on the drunk again, I am afraid.”
+
+“M. Mascarin is within,” answered the badgered clerk, endeavoring to put
+on an air of dignity; “and M. Tantaine is with him.”
+
+A brilliant idea flashed across the doctor’s mind, but it was with an
+air of gravity that he said,--
+
+“I shall be charmed to meet that most worthy old gentleman.”
+
+When, however, he entered the inner sanctum, he found Mascarin alone,
+occupied in sorting the eternal pieces of pasteboard.
+
+“Well, what news?” asked he.
+
+“There is none that I know of.”
+
+“What, have you not seen Paul?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Will he be here?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+Mascarin was often laconic, but he seldom gave such short answers as
+this.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked the doctor. “Your greeting is quite
+funereal. Are you not well?”
+
+“I am merely preoccupied, and that is excusable on the eve of the battle
+we are about to fight,” returned Mascarin.
+
+He only, however, told a portion of the truth; for there was more in
+the background, which he did not wish to confide to his friend. Toto
+Chupin’s revolt had disquieted him. Let there be but a single flaw in
+the axletree, and one day it will snap in twain; and Mascarin wanted to
+eliminate this flaw.
+
+“Pooh!” remarked the doctor, playing with his locket, “we shall succeed.
+What have we to fear, after all,--opposition on Paul’s part?”
+
+“Paul may resent a little,” answered Mascarin disdainfully; “but I have
+decided that he shall be present at our meeting of to-day. It will be
+a stormy one, so be prepared. We might give him his medicine in minims,
+but I prefer the whole dose at once.”
+
+“The deuce you do! Suppose he should be frightened, and make off with
+our secret.”
+
+“He won’t make off,” replied Mascarin in a tone which froze his
+listener’s blood. “He can’t escape from us any more than the cockchafer
+can from the string that a child has fastened to it. Do you not
+understand weak natures like his? He is the glove, I the strong hand
+beneath it.”
+
+The doctor did not argue this point, but merely murmured,--
+
+“Let us hope that it is so.”
+
+“Should we have any opposition,” resumed Mascarin, “it will come from
+Catenac. I may be able to force him into co-operation with us, but his
+heart will not be in the enterprise.”
+
+“Do you propose to bring Catenac into this affair?” asked Hortebise in
+great surprise.
+
+“Assuredly.”
+
+“Why have you changed your plan?”
+
+“Simply because I have recognized the fact that, if we dispensed with
+his services, we should be entirely at the mercy of a shrewd man of
+business, because----”
+
+He broke off, listened for a moment, and then said,--
+
+“Hush! I can hear his footstep.”
+
+A dry cough was heard outside, and in another moment Catenac entered the
+room.
+
+Nature, or profound dissimulation, had gifted Catenac with an exterior
+which made every one, when first introduced to him, exclaim, “This is an
+honest and trustworthy man.” Catenac always looked his clients boldly in
+the face. His voice was pleasant, and had a certain ring of joviality
+in it, and his manner was one of those easy ones which always insure
+popularity. He was looked upon as a shrewd lawyer; but yet he did not
+shine in court. He must therefore, to make those thirty thousand francs
+a year which he was credited with doing, have some special line of
+business. He assayed rather risky matters, which might bring both
+parties into the clutches of the criminal law, or, at any rate, leave
+them with a taint upon both their names. A sensational lawsuit is
+begun, and the public eagerly await the result; suddenly the whole thing
+collapses, for Catenac has acted as mediator. He has even settled the
+disputes of murderers quarreling over their booty. But he has even gone
+farther than this. More than once he has said of himself, “I have passed
+through the vilest masses of corruption.” In his office in the Rue Jacob
+he has heard whispered conferences which were enough to bring down the
+roof above his head. Of course this was the most lucrative business
+that passed into Catenac’s hands. The client conceals nothing from his
+attorney, and he belongs to him as absolutely as the sick man belongs to
+his physician or the penitent to his confessor.
+
+“Well, my dear Baptiste,” said he, “here I am; you summoned me, and I am
+obedient to the call.”
+
+“Sit down,” replied Mascarin gravely.
+
+“Thanks, my friend, many thanks, a thousand thanks; but I am much
+hurried; indeed I have not a moment to spare. I have matters on my hands
+of life and death.”
+
+“But for all that,” remarked Hortebise, “you can sit down for a moment.
+Baptiste has something to say to you which is as important as any of
+your matters can be.”
+
+With a frank and genial smile Catenac obeyed; but in his heart were
+anger and an abject feeling of alarm.
+
+“What is it that is so important?” asked he.
+
+Mascarin had risen and locked the door. When he had resumed his seat he
+said,--
+
+“The facts are very simple. Hortebise and I have decided to put our
+great plan into execution, which we have as yet only discussed generally
+with you. We have the Marquis de Croisenois with us.”
+
+“My dear sir,” broke in the lawyer.
+
+“Wait a little; we must have your assistance, and----”
+
+Catenac rose from his seat. “That is enough,” said he. “You have made a
+very great mistake if it is on this matter that you have sent for me; I
+told you this before.”
+
+He was turning away, and looking for his hat, proposed to beat a
+retreat; but Dr. Hortebise stood between him and the door, gazing upon
+him with no friendly expression of countenance. Catenac was not a man to
+be easily alarmed, but the doctor’s appearance was so threatening, and
+the smile upon Mascarin’s lips was of so deadly a character, that he
+stood still, positively frightened into immobility.
+
+“What do you mean?” stammered he; “what is it you say now?”
+
+“First,” replied the doctor, speaking slowly and distinctly,--“first, we
+wish that you should listen to us when we speak to you.”
+
+“I am listening.”
+
+“Then sit down again, and hear what Baptiste has to say.”
+
+The command Catenac had over his countenance was so great that it was
+impossible to see to what conclusion he had arrived from the words and
+manner of his confederates.
+
+“Then let Baptiste explain himself,” said he.
+
+“Before entering into matters completely,” said he coolly, “I first want
+to ask our dear friend and associate if he is prepared to act with us?”
+
+“Why should there be any doubt on that point?” asked the lawyer. “Do all
+my repeated assurances count as nothing?”
+
+“We do not want promises now; what we do want is good faith and real
+co-operation.”
+
+“Can it be that you--”
+
+“I ought to inform you,” continued Mascarin, unheeding the interruption,
+“that we have every prospect of success; and, if we carry the matter
+through, we shall certainly have a million apiece.”
+
+Hortebise had not the calm patience of his confederate, and exclaimed,--
+
+“You understand it well enough. Say Yes or No.”
+
+Catenac was in the agonies of indecision, and for fully a minute made no
+reply.
+
+“_No_, then!” he broke out in a manner which betrayed his intense
+agitation. “After due consideration, and having carefully weighed the
+chances for and against, I answer you decidedly, No.”
+
+Mascarin and Hortebise evidently expected this reply, and exchanged
+glances.
+
+“Permit me to explain,” said Catenac, “what you consider as a cowardly
+withdrawal upon my part--”
+
+“Call it treachery.”
+
+“I will not quibble about words. I wish to be perfectly straightforward
+with you.”
+
+“I am glad to hear it,” sneered the doctor, “though that is not your
+usual form.”
+
+“And yet I do not think that I have ever concealed my real opinion from
+you. It is fully ten years ago since I spoke to you of the necessity of
+breaking up this association. Can you recall what I said? I said only
+our extreme need and griping poverty justified our acts. They are now
+inexcusable.”
+
+“You talked very freely of your scruples,” observed Mascarin.
+
+“You remember my words then?”
+
+“Yes, and I remember too that those inner scruples never hindered you
+from drawing your share of the profits.”
+
+“That is to say,” burst in the doctor, “you repudiated the work, but
+shared the booty. You wished to play the game without staking anything.”
+
+Catenac was in no way disconcerted at this trenchant argument.
+
+“Quite true,” said he, “I always received my share; but I have done
+quite as much as you in putting the agency in its present prosperous
+condition. Does it not work smoothly like a perfect piece of mechanism?
+Have we not succeeded in nearly all our schemes? The income comes in
+monthly with extreme regularity, and I, according to my rights, have
+received one-third. If you desire to throw up this perilous means of
+livelihood, say so, and I will not oppose it.”
+
+“You are really too good,” sneered the doctor, with a look of menace in
+his glance.
+
+“Nor,” continued Catenac, “will I oppose you if you prefer to let
+matters stand as they are; but if you start on fresh enterprises, and
+embark on the tempestuous sea of danger, then I put down my foot and
+very boldly ‘halt.’ I will not take another step with you. I can see by
+the looks of both of you that you think me a fool and a coward. Heaven
+grant that the future may not show you only too plainly that I have been
+in the right. Think over this. For twenty years fortune has favored us,
+but, believe me, it is never wise to tempt her too far, for it is well
+known that at some time or other she always turns.”
+
+“Your imagery is really charming,” remarked Hortebise sarcastically.
+
+“Good, I have nothing else to say but to repeat my warning: _reflect_.
+Grand as your hopes and expectations may be, they are as nothing to the
+perils that you will encounter.”
+
+This cold flood of eloquence was more than the doctor could bear.
+
+“It is all very well for you,” exclaimed he, “to reason like this, for
+you are a rich man.”
+
+“I have enough to live on, I allow; for in addition to the income
+derived from my profession, I have saved two hundred thousand francs;
+and if you can be induced to renounce your projects, I will divide this
+sum with you. You have only to think.”
+
+Mascarin, who had taken no part in the dispute, now judged it time to
+interfere.
+
+“And so,” said he, turning to Catenac, “you have only two hundred
+thousand francs?”
+
+“That or thereabouts.”
+
+“And you offer to divide this sum with us. Really we ought to be deeply
+grateful to you, but----”
+
+Mascarin paused for a moment; then settling his spectacles more firmly,
+he went on,--
+
+“But even if you were to give us what you propose, you would still have
+eleven hundred thousand francs remaining!”
+
+Catenac burst into a pleasant laugh. “You are jesting,” said he.
+
+“I can prove the correctness of my assertion;” and as he spoke, Mascarin
+unlocked a drawer, and taking a small notebook from it, turned over the
+pages, and leaving it open at a certain place, handed it to the lawyer.
+
+“There,” said he, “that is made up to December last, and shows precisely
+how you stand financially. Twice, then, you have increased your funds.
+These deposits you will find in an addenda at the end of the book.”
+
+Catenac started to his feet; all his calmness had now disappeared.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “I have just the sum you name; and I, for that very
+reason, refuse to have anything further to do with your schemes. I have
+an income of sixty thousand francs; that is to say, sixty thousand good
+reasons for receiving no further risks. You envy me my good fortune, but
+did we not all start penniless? I have taken care of my money, while
+you have squandered yours. Hortebise has lost his patients, while I have
+increased the number of my clients; and now you want me to tread the
+dangerous road again. Not I; go your way, and leave me to go home.”
+
+Again he took up his hat, but a wave of the hand from Mascarin detained
+him.
+
+“Suppose,” said he coldly, “that I told you that your assistance was
+necessary to me.”
+
+“I should say so much the worse for you.”
+
+“But suppose I insist?”
+
+“And how can you insist? We are both in the same boat, and sink or swim
+together.”
+
+“Are you certain of that?”
+
+“So certain that I repeat from this day I wash my hands of you.”
+
+“I am afraid you are in error.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Because for twelve months past; I have given food and shelter to a girl
+of the name of Clarisse. Do you by any chance know her?”
+
+At the mention of this name, the lawyer started, as a man starts who,
+walking peacefully along, suddenly sees a deadly serpent coiled across
+his path.
+
+“Clarisse,” stammered he, “how did you know of her? who told you?”
+
+But the sarcastic sneer upon the lips of his two confederates
+wounded his pride so deeply, that in an instant he recovered his
+self-possession.
+
+“I am getting foolish,” said he, “to ask these men how they learned my
+secret. Do they not always work by infamous and underhand means?”
+
+“You see I know all,” remarked Mascarin, “for I foresaw the day would
+come when you would wish to sever our connection, and even give us up to
+justice, if you could do so with safety to yourself. I therefore took my
+precautions. One thing, however, I was not prepared for, and that was,
+that a man of your intelligence should have played so paltry a game,
+and even twelve months back thought of betraying us. It is almost
+incredible. Do you ever read the _Gazette des Tribunaux_? I saw in its
+pages yesterday a story nearly similar to your own. Shall I tell it to
+you? A lawyer who concealed his vices beneath a mantle of joviality and
+candor, brought up from the country a pretty, innocent girl to act as
+servant in his house. This lawyer occupied his leisure time in leading
+the poor child astray, and the moment at last came when the consequences
+of her weakness were too apparent. The lawyer was half beside himself at
+the approaching scandal. What would the neighbors say? Well, to cut the
+story short, the infant was suppressed,--you understand, suppressed, and
+the mother turned into the street.”
+
+“Baptiste, have mercy!”
+
+“It was a most imprudent act, for such things always leak out somehow.
+You have a gardener at your house at Champigny, and suppose the idea
+seized upon this worthy man to dig up the ground round the wall at the
+end of the garden.”
+
+“That is enough,” said Catenac, piteously. “I give in.”
+
+Mascarin adjusted his spectacles, as he always did in important moments.
+
+“You give in, do you? Not a bit. Even now you are endeavoring to find a
+means of parrying my home thrusts.”
+
+“But I declare to you----”
+
+“Do not be alarmed; dig as deeply as he might, your gardener would
+discover nothing.”
+
+The lawyer uttered a stifled exclamation of rage as he perceived the pit
+into which he had fallen.
+
+“He would find nothing,” resumed Mascarin, “and yet the story is all
+true. Last January, on a bitterly cold night, you dug a hole, and in
+it deposited the body of a new-born infant wrapped in a shawl. And what
+shawl? Why the very one that you purchased at the _Bon Marche_, when you
+were making yourself agreeable to Clarisse. The shopman who sold it to
+you has identified it, and is ready to give evidence when called upon.
+You may look for that shawl, Catenac, but you will not find it.”
+
+“Have you got that shawl?” asked Catenac hoarsely.
+
+“Am I a fool?” asked Mascarin contemptuously. “Tantaine has it; but _I_
+know where the body is, and will keep the information to myself. Do not
+be alarmed; act fairly, and you are safe; but make one treacherous move,
+and you will read in the next day’s papers a paragraph something to this
+effect: ‘Yesterday some workmen, engaged in excavations near so-and-so,
+discovered the body of a new-born infant. Every effort is being made
+to discover the author of the crime.’ You know me, and that I work
+promptly. To the shawl I have added a handkerchief and a few other
+articles belonging to Clarisse, which will render it an easy matter to
+fix the guilt on you.”
+
+Catenac was absolutely stunned, and had lost all power of defending
+himself. The few incoherent words that he uttered showed his state of
+utter despair.
+
+“You have killed me,” gasped he, “just as the prize, that I have been
+looking for for twenty years, was in my grasp.”
+
+“Work does a man no harm,” remarked the doctor sententiously.
+
+There was, however, little time to lose; the Marquis de Croisenois and
+Paul might be expected to arrive at any moment, and Mascarin hastened to
+restore a certain amount of calmness to his prostrate antagonist.
+
+“You make as much noise as if we were going to hand you over to the
+executioner on the spot. Do you think that we are such a pair of fools
+as to risk all these hazards without some almost certain chance of
+success? Hortebise was as much startled as yourself when I first spoke
+to him of this affair, but I explained everything fully to him, and now
+he is quite enthusiastic in the matter. Of course you can lay aside all
+fear, and, as a man of the world, will bear no malice against those who
+have simply played a better game than yourself.”
+
+“Go on,” said Catenac, forcing a smile, “I am listening.”
+
+Mascarin made a short pause.
+
+“What we want of you,” answered he, “will not compromise you in the
+slightest degree. I wish you to draw up a document, the particulars
+of which I will give you presently, and you will outwardly have no
+connection with the matter.”
+
+“Very good.”
+
+“But there is more yet. The Duke of Champdoce has placed a difficult
+task in your hands. You are engaged in a secret on his behalf.”
+
+“You know that also?”
+
+“I know everything that may be made subservient to our ends. I also know
+that instead of coming direct to me you went to the very man that we
+have every reason to dread, that fellow Perpignan, who is nearly as
+sharp as we are.”
+
+“Go on,” returned Catenac impatiently. “What do you expect from me on
+this point?”
+
+“Not much; you must only come to me first, and report any discovery you
+may have made, and never give any information to the Duke without first
+consulting us.”
+
+“I agree.”
+
+The contending parties seemed to have arrived at an amicable
+termination, and Dr. Hortebise smiled complacently.
+
+“Now,” said he, “shall we not confess, after all, that there was no use
+in making such a fuss?”
+
+“I allow that I was in the wrong,” answered Catenac meekly; and,
+extending his hands to his two associates with an oily smile, he said:
+“Let us forget and forgive.”
+
+Was he to be trusted? Mascarin and the doctor exchanged glances of
+suspicion. A moment afterward a knock came to the door, and Paul
+entered, making a timid bow to his two patrons.
+
+“My dear boy,” said Mascarin, “let me present you to one of my oldest
+and best friends.” Then, turning to Catenac, he added: “I wish to ask
+you to help and assist my young friend here. Paul Violaine is a good
+fellow, who has neither father nor mother, and whom we are trying to
+help on in his journey through life.”
+
+The lawyer started as he caught the strange, meaning smile which
+accompanied these words.
+
+“Great heavens!” said he, “why did you not speak sooner?”
+
+Catenac at once divined Mascarin’s project, and understood the allusion
+to the Duke de Champdoce.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+SOME SCRAPS OF PAPER.
+
+The Marquis de Croisenois was never punctual. He had received a note
+asking him to call on Mascarin at eleven o’clock, and twelve had struck
+some time before he made his appearance. Faultlessly gloved, his glass
+firmly fixed in his eye, and a light walking cane in his hand, and with
+that air of half-veiled insolence that is sometimes affected by certain
+persons who wish the world to believe that they are of great importance,
+the Marquis de Croisenois entered the room.
+
+At the age of twenty-five Henry de Croisenois affected the airs and
+manners of a lad of twenty, and so found many who looked upon his
+escapades with lenient eyes, ascribing them to the follies of youth.
+Under this youthful mask, however he concealed a most astute and cunning
+intellect, and had more than once got the better of the women with whom
+he had had dealings. His fortune was terribly involved, because he had
+insisted on living at the same rate as men who had ten times his income.
+Forming one of the recklessly extravagant band of which the Duke de
+Saumeine was the head, Croisenois, too, kept his racehorses, which
+was certainly the quickest way to wreck the most princely fortune. The
+Marquis had found out this, and was utterly involved, when Mascarin
+extended a helping hand to him, to which he clung with all the energy of
+a drowning man.
+
+Whatever Henry de Croisenois’ anxieties may have been on the day in
+question, he did not allow a symptom of them to appear, and on his
+entrance negligently drawled, “I have kept you waiting, I fear; but
+really my time is not my own. I am quite at your service now, and will
+wait until these gentlemen have finished their business with you.” And
+as he concluded, he again placed the cigar which he had removed while
+saying these words, to his lips.
+
+His manner was very insolent, and yet the amiable Mascarin did not seem
+offended, although he loathed the scent of tobacco.
+
+“We had begun to despair of seeing you, Marquis,” answered he politely.
+“I say so, because these gentlemen are here to meet you. Permit me to
+introduce to you, Dr. Hortebise, M. Catenac of the Parisian bar, and our
+secretary,” pointing as he spoke, to Paul.
+
+As soon as Croisenois had taken his seat, Mascarin went straight to the
+point, as a bullet to the target. “I do not intend,” began he, “to leave
+you in doubt for a moment. Beatings about the bush would be absurd among
+persons like ourselves.”
+
+At finding himself thus classed with the other persons present, the
+Marquis gave a little start, and then drawled out, “You flatter me,
+really.”
+
+“I may tell you, Marquis,” resumed Mascarin, “that your marriage has
+been definitely arranged by myself and my associates. All you have to do
+is to get the young lady’s consent; for that of the Count and Countess
+has already been secured.”
+
+“There will be no difficulty in that,” lisped the Marquis. “I will
+promise her the best horsed carriage in the Bois, a box at the opera,
+unlimited credit at Van Klopen’s, and perfect freedom. There will be
+no difficulty, I assure you. Of course, however, I must be presented by
+some one who holds a good position in society.”
+
+“Would the Viscountess de Bois Arden suit you?”
+
+“No one better; she is a relation of the Count de Mussidan.”
+
+“Good; then when you wish, Madame de Bois Arden will introduce you as a
+suitor for the young lady’s hand, and praise you up to the skies.”
+
+The Marquis looked very jubilant at hearing this. “All right,” cried he;
+“then that decides the matter.”
+
+Paul wondered whether he was awake or dreaming. He too had been promised
+a rich wife, and here was another man who was being provided for in the
+same manner. “These people,” muttered he, “seem to keep a matrimonial
+agency as well as a servants’ registry office!”
+
+“All that is left, then,” said the Marquis, “is to arrange the--shall I
+call it the commission?”
+
+“I was about to come to that,” returned Mascarin.
+
+“Well, I will give you a fourth of the dowry, and on the day of my
+marriage will hand you a cheque for that amount.”
+
+Paul now imagined that he saw how matters worked. “If I marry Flavia,”
+ thought he, “I shall have to share her dowry with these highly
+respectable gentlemen.”
+
+The offer made by the Marquis did not, however, seem to please Mascarin.
+“That is not what we want,” said he.
+
+“No,--well, must I give you more? Say how much.”
+
+Mascarin shook his head.
+
+“Well then, I will give you a third; it is not worth while to give you
+more.”
+
+“No, no; I would not take half, nor even the whole of the dowry. You may
+keep that as well as what you owe us.”
+
+“Well, but tell me what you _do_ want.”
+
+“I will do so,” answered Mascarin, adjusting his spectacles carefully;
+“but before doing so, I feel that I must give you a short account of the
+rise and progress of this association.”
+
+At this statement Hortebise and Catenac sprang to their feet in surprise
+and terror. “Are you mad?” said they at length, with one voice.
+
+Mascarin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Not yet,” answered he gently, “and I beg that you will permit me to go
+on.”
+
+“But surely we have some voice in the matter,” faltered Catenac.
+
+“That is enough,” exclaimed Mascarin angrily, “Am not I the head of this
+association? Do you think,” he continued in tones of deep sarcasm, “that
+we cannot speak openly before the Marquis?”
+
+Hortebise and the lawyer resignedly resumed their seats. Croisenois
+thought that a word from him might reassure them.
+
+“Among honest men--” began he.
+
+“We are not honest men,” interrupted Mascarin. “Sir,” added he in a
+severe tone, “nor are you either.”
+
+This plain speaking brought a bright flush to the face of the Marquis,
+who had half a mind to be angry, but policy restrained him, and he
+affected to look on the matter as a joke. “Your joke is a little
+personal,” said he.
+
+But Mascarin took no heed of his remark. “Listen to me,” said he, “for
+we have no time to waste, and do you,” he added, turning to Paul, “pay
+the greatest attention.”
+
+A moment of perfect silence ensued, broken only by the hum of voices in
+the outer office.
+
+“Marquis,” said Mascarin, whose whole face blazed with a gleam of
+conscious power, “twenty-five years ago I and my associates were young
+and in a very different position. We were honest then, and all the
+illusions of youth were in full force; we had faith and hope. We all
+then tenanted a wretched garret in the Rue de la Harpe, and loved each
+other like brothers.”
+
+“That was long, long ago,” murmured Hortebise.
+
+“Yes,” rejoined Mascarin; “and yet the effluxion of times does not
+hinder me from seeing things as they then were, and my heart aches as I
+compare the hopes of those days with the realities of the present. Then,
+Marquis, we were poor, miserably poor, and yet we all had vague hopes of
+future greatness.”
+
+Croisenois endeavored to conceal a sneer; the story was not a very
+interesting one.
+
+“As I said before, each one of us anticipated a brilliant career.
+Catenac had gained a prize by his ‘Treatise on the Transfer of Real
+Estate,’ and Hortebise had written a pamphlet regarding which the great
+Orfila had testified approval. Nor was I without my successes. Hortebise
+had unluckily quarrelled with his family. Catenac’s relatives were poor,
+and I, well, I had no family. I stood alone. We were literally starving,
+and I was the only one earning money. I prepared pupils for the military
+colleges, but as I only earned twenty-five sous a day by cramming a dull
+boy’s brain with algebra and geometry, that was not enough to feed us
+all. Well, to cut a long story short, the day came when we had not a
+coin among us. I forgot to tell you that I was devotedly attached to a
+young girl who was dying of consumption, and who had neither food nor
+fuel. What could I do? I knew not. Half mad, I rushed from the house,
+asking myself if I had better plead for charity or take the money I
+required by force from the first passer-by. I wandered along the
+quays, half inclined to confide my sorrow to the Seine, when suddenly
+I remembered it was a holiday at the Polytechnic School, and that if
+I went to the _Café Semblon_ or the Palais Royal, I should most likely
+meet with some of my old pupils, who could perhaps lend me a few sous.
+Five francs perhaps, Marquis,--that is a very small sum, but in that day
+it meant the life of my dear Marie and of my two friends. Have you ever
+been hungry, M. de Croisenois?”
+
+De Croisenois started; he had never suffered from hunger, but how could
+he tell what the future might bring? for his resources were so nearly
+exhausted, that even to-morrow he might be compelled to discard his
+fictitious splendor and sink into the abyss of poverty.
+
+“When I reached the _Café Semblon_,” continued Mascarin, “I could not
+see a single pupil, and the waiter to whom I addressed my inquiries
+looked at me with the utmost contempt, for my clothes were in tatters;
+but at length he condescended to inform me that the young gentlemen had
+been and gone, but that they would return. I said that I would wait for
+them. The man asked me if I would take anything, and when I replied in
+the negative, contemptuously pointed to a chair in a distant corner,
+where I patiently took my seat. I had sat for some time, when suddenly a
+young man entered the _café_, whose face, were I to live for a century,
+I shall never forget. He was perfectly livid, his features rigid, and
+his eyes wild and full of anguish. He was evidently in intense agony of
+mind or body. Evidently, however, it was not poverty that was oppressing
+him, for as he cast himself upon a sofa, all the waiters rushed forward
+to receive his orders. In a voice that was almost unintelligible,
+he asked for a bottle of brandy, and pen, ink, and paper. In some
+mysterious manner, the sight of this suffering brought balm to my aching
+heart. The order of the young man was soon executed, and pouring out a
+tumbler of brandy, he took a deep draught. The effect was instantaneous,
+he turned crimson, and for a moment almost fell back insensible. I kept
+my eyes on him, for a voice within me kept crying out that there was
+some mysterious link connecting this man and myself, and that his life
+was in some manner interwoven with mine, and that the influence he would
+exercise over me would be for evil. So strongly did this idea become
+rooted, that I should have left the _café_, had not my curiosity been so
+great. In the meantime the stranger had recovered himself, and seizing
+a pen, scrawled a few lines on a sheet of paper. Evidently he was not
+satisfied with his composition, for after reading it over, he lit a
+match and burnt the paper. He drank more brandy, and wrote a second
+letter, which, too, proved a failure, for he tore it to fragments, which
+he thrust into his waistcoat pocket. Again he commenced, using
+greater care. It was plain that he had forgotten where he was, for he
+gesticulated, uttered a broken sentence or two and evidently believed
+that he was in his own house. His last letter seemed to satisfy him, and
+he recopied it with care. He closed and directed it; then, tearing the
+original into pieces, he flung it under the table; then calling the
+waiter, he said, ‘Here are twenty francs; take this letter to the
+address on the envelope. Bring the answer to my house; here is my card.’
+The man ran out of the room, and the nobleman, only waiting to pay his
+bill, followed almost immediately. The morsels of white paper beneath
+the table had a strange fascination for me; I longed to gather them up,
+to put them together, and to learn the secret of the strange drama that
+had been acted before me. But, as I have told you, then I was honest and
+virtuous, and the meanness of such an act revolted all my instincts; and
+I should have overcome this temptation, had it not been for one of those
+trifling incidents which too often form the turning-point of a life.
+A draught from a suddenly opened door caught one of these morsels of
+paper, and wafted it to my feet. I stooped and picked it up, and read
+on it the ominous words, ‘blow out my brains!’ I had not been mistaken,
+then, and was face to face with some coming tragedy. Having once
+yielded, I made no further efforts at self-control. The waiters were
+running about; no one paid any attention to me; and creeping to the
+place that the unknown had occupied, I obtained possession of two more
+scraps of paper. Upon one I read, ‘shame and horror!’ upon the other,
+‘one hundred thousand francs by to-night.’ The meaning of these few
+words were as clear as daylight to me; but for all that, I managed to
+collect every atom of the torn paper, and piecing them together, read
+this:--
+
+“‘CHARLES,--‘I must have one hundred thousand francs to-night, and
+you are the only one to whom I can apply. The shame and horror of my
+position are too much for me. Can you send it me in two hours? As you
+act, so I regulate my conduct. I am either saved, or I blow out my
+brains.’
+
+“You are probably surprised, Marquis, at the accuracy of my memory, and
+even now I can see this scrawl as distinctly as if it were before me. At
+the end of this scrawl was a signature, one of the best known commercial
+names, which, in common with other financial houses, was struggling
+against a panic on the Bourse. My discovery disturbed me very much. I
+forgot all my miseries, and thought only of his. Were not our positions
+entirely similar? But by degrees a hideous temptation began to creep
+into my heart, and, as the minutes passed by, assume more vivid color
+and more tangible reality. Why should I not profit by this stolen
+secret? I went to the desk and asked for some wafers and a Directory.
+Then, returning, I fastened the torn fragments upon a clean sheet of
+paper, discovered the address of the writer, and then left the _café_.
+The house was situated in the Rue Chaussee d’Autin. For fully half an
+hour I paced up and down before his magnificent dwelling-place. Was he
+alive? Had the reply of Charles been in the affirmative? I decided at
+last to venture, and rang the bell. A liveried domestic appeared at my
+summons, and said that his master did not receive visitors at that hour;
+besides, he was at dinner. I was exasperated at the man’s insolence,
+and replied hotly, ‘If you want to save your master from a terrible
+misfortune, go and tell him that a man has brought him the rough draft
+of the letter he wrote a little time back at the _Café Semblon_.’ The
+man obeyed me without a word, no doubt impressed by the earnestness of
+my manner. My message must have caused intense consternation, for in
+a moment the footman reappeared, and, in an obsequious manner, said,
+‘Follow at once, sir; my master is waiting for you.’ He led me into a
+large room, magnificently furnished as a library, and in the centre of
+this room stood the man of the _Café Semblon_. His face was deadly pale,
+and his eyes blazed with fury. I was so agitated that I could hardly
+speak.
+
+“‘You have picked up the scraps of paper I threw away?’ exclaimed he.
+
+“I nodded, and showed him the fragments fastened on to the sheet of
+note-paper.
+
+“‘How much do you want for that?’ asked he. ‘I will give you a thousand
+francs.’
+
+“I declare to you, gentlemen, that up to this time I had no intention
+of making money by the secret. My intention in going had been simply to
+say, ‘I bring you this paper, of which some one else might have taken an
+undue advantage. I have done you a service; lend me a hundred francs.’
+This is what I meant to say, but his behavior irritated me, and I
+answered,--
+
+“‘No, I want two thousand francs.’
+
+“He opened a drawer, drew out a bundle of banknotes, and threw them in
+my face.
+
+“‘Pay yourself, you villain!’ said he.
+
+“I can, I fear, never make you understand what I felt at this undeserved
+insult. I was not myself, and Heaven knows that I was not responsible
+for any crime that I might have committed in the frenzy of the moment,
+and I was nearly doing so. That man will, perhaps, never see death so
+near him, save at his last hour. On his writing table lay one of those
+Catalan daggers, which he evidently used as a paper-cutter. I snatched
+it up, and was about to strike, when the recollection of Marie dying of
+cold and starvation occurred to me. I dashed the knife to the ground,
+and rushed from the house in a state bordering on insanity. I went into
+that house an honest man, and left it a degraded scoundrel. But I must
+finish. When I reached the street, the two banknotes which I had taken
+from the packet seemed to burn me like coals of fire. I hastened to a
+money-changer, and got coin for them. I think, from my demeanor, he
+must have thought that I was insane. With my plunder weighing me down,
+I regained our wretched garret in the Rue de la Harpe. Catenac and
+Hortebise were waiting for me with the utmost anxiety. You remember that
+day, my friends. Marquis, my story is especially intended for you. As
+soon as I entered the room, my friends ran up to me, delighted at seeing
+me return in safety, but I thrust them aside.
+
+“‘Let me alone!’ cried I; ‘I am no longer fit to take an honest man’s
+hand; but we have money, money!’ And I threw the bags upon the table.
+One of them burst, and a flood of silver coins rolled to every part of
+the room.
+
+“Marie started from her chair with upraised hands. ‘Money!’ she
+repeated, ‘money! we shall have food, and I won’t die.’
+
+“My friends, Marquis, were not as they are now, and they started back in
+horror, fearing that I had committed some crime.
+
+“‘No,’ said I, ‘I have committed no crime, not one, at least, that will
+bring me within the reach of the strong arm of the law. This money is
+the price of our honor, but no one will know that fact but ourselves.’
+
+“Marquis, there was no sleeping in the garret all that night; but when
+daylight peered through the broken windows, it beamed on a table covered
+with empty bottles, and round it were seated three men, who, having cast
+aside all honorable scruples, had sworn that they would arrive at wealth
+and prosperity by any means, no matter how foul and treacherous they
+might be. That is all.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+AN INFAMOUS TRADE.
+
+Mascarin, who was anxious to make as deep an impression as possible upon
+Croisenois and Paul, broke off his story abruptly, and paced up and down
+the room. Had his intention been to startle his audience, he had most
+certainly succeeded. Paul was breathless with interest, and Croisenois
+broke down in attempting to make one of his usual trivial remarks. He
+was not particularly intelligent, except as regarded his self-interests,
+and though, of course, he knew that there must be some connection
+between his interests and the recital that Mascarin had just made, he
+could not for the life of him make out what it was. Mascarin seemed
+utterly careless of the effect that he had produced. But the next time
+that his walk brought him to his desk he stopped, and, adjusting his
+glasses, said, “I trust, Marquis, that you will forgive this long
+preliminary address, which would really make a good sensational novel;
+but we have now arrived at the really practical part of the business.”
+ As he said these words, he took up an imposing attitude, with his elbow
+resting on the mantelpiece.
+
+“On the night of which I have spoken, I and my friends released
+ourselves from all the bonds of virtue and honor, and freed ourselves
+from all the fetters of duty to our fellow-men. The plan emanated from
+my brain complete in all its details in the will I made twenty years ago
+to my friends. Marquis, as the summer goes on, you know that the ripest
+and reddest cherries are the fullest flavored, just so, in the noblest
+and wealthiest of families in Paris there is not one that has not some
+terrible and ghostly secret which is sedulously concealed. Now, suppose
+that one man should gain possession of all of them, would he not be sole
+and absolute master? Would he not be more powerful than a despot on
+his throne? Would he not be able to sway society in any manner he might
+think fit? Well, I said to myself, I will be that man!”
+
+Ever since the Marquis had been in relation with Mascarin, he had
+shrewdly suspected that his business was not conducted on really fair
+principles.
+
+“What you mention,” said he, “is nothing but an elaborate and extended
+system of blackmail.”
+
+Mascarin bowed low, with an ironical smile on his face. “Just so,
+Marquis, just so; you have hit on the very name. The word is modern, but
+the operation doubtless dates from the earliest ages. The day upon which
+one man began to trade upon the guilty secret of another was the date
+of the institution of this line of business. If antiquity makes a thing
+respectable, then blackmailing is worthy of great respect.”
+
+“But, sir,” said the Marquis, with a flush upon his face, “but, sir--”
+
+“Pshaw!” broke in Mascarin, “does a mere word frighten you? Who has not
+done some of it in his time? Why, look at yourself. Do you not recollect
+this winter that you detected a young man cheating at cards? You said
+nothing to him at the time, but you found out that he was rich, and,
+calling upon him the next day, borrowed ten thousand francs. When do you
+intend to repay that loan?”
+
+Croisenois sank back in his chair, overcome with surprise at this
+display of knowledge on Mascarin’s part. “This is too terrible,”
+ muttered he, but Mascarin went on,--
+
+“I know, at least, two thousand persons in Paris who only exist by
+the exercise of this profession; for I have studied them all, from
+the convict who screws money out of his former companions, in penal
+servitude, to the titled villain, who, having discovered the frailty of
+some unhappy woman, forces her to give him her daughter as his wife.
+I know a mere messenger in the Rue Douai, who in five years amassed a
+comfortable fortune. Can you guess how? When he was intrusted with
+a letter, he invariably opened it, and made himself master of its
+contents, and if there was a compromising word in it, he pounced down
+upon either the writer or the person to whom it was addressed. I also
+know of one large limited company which pays an annual income to a
+scoundrel with half a dozen foreign orders, who has found out that they
+have broken their statutes of association, and holds proofs of their
+having done so. But the police are on the alert, and our courts deal
+very severely with blackmailers.”
+
+Mascarin went on: “The English, however, are our masters, for in London
+a compromising servant is as easily negotiable as a sound bill of
+exchange. There is in the city a respectable jeweller, who will advance
+money on any compromising letter with a good name at the foot. His shop
+is a regular pawnshop of infamy. In the States it has been elevated
+to the dignity of a profession, and the citizen at New York dreads the
+blackmailers more than the police, if he is meditating some dishonorable
+action. Our first operations did not bring in any quick returns, and the
+harvest promised to be a late one; but you have come upon us just as
+we are about to reap our harvest. The professions of Hortebise and
+Catenac--the one a doctor and the other a lawyer--facilitated our
+operations greatly. One administered to the diseases of the body,
+and the other to that of the purse, and, of course, thus they became
+professors of many secrets. As for me, the head and chief, it would not
+do to remain an idle looker-on. Our funds had dwindled down a good deal,
+and, after mature consideration, I decided to hire this house, and open
+a Servants’ Registry Office. Such an occupation would not attract any
+attention, and in the end it turned out a perfect success, as my friends
+can testify.”
+
+Catenac and Hortebise both nodded assent.
+
+“By the system which I have adopted,” resumed Mascarin, “the wealthy
+and respectable man is as strictly watched in his own house as is the
+condemned wretch in his cell; for no act of his escapes the eyes of the
+servants whom we have placed around him. He can hardly even conceal his
+thoughts from us. Even the very secret that he has murmured to his wife
+with closed doors reaches our ears.”
+
+The Marquis gave a supercilious smile.
+
+“You must have had some inkling of this,” observed Mascarin, “for you
+have never taken a servant from our establishment; but for all that,
+I am as well posted up in your affairs as yourself. You have even now
+about you a valet of whom you know nothing.”
+
+“Morel was recommended to me by one of my most intimate friends--Sir
+Richard Wakefield.”
+
+“But for all that I have had my suspicions of him; but we will talk of
+this later, and we will now return to the subject upon which we have
+met. As I told you, I conceal the immense power I had attained through
+our agency, and use it as occasion presents itself, and after twenty
+years’ patient labor, I am about to reap a stupendous harvest. The
+police pay enormous sums to their secret agents, while I, without
+opening my purse, have an army of devoted adherents. I see perhaps fifty
+servants of both sexes daily; calculate what this will amount to in a
+year.”
+
+There was an air of complacency about the man as he explained the
+working of his system, and a ring of triumph in his voice.
+
+“You must not think that all my agents are in my secrets, for the
+greater part of them are quite unaware of what they are doing, and in
+this lies my strength. Each of them brings me a slender thread, which I
+twine into the mighty cord by which I hold my slaves. These unsuspecting
+agents remind me of those strange Brazilian birds, whose presence is
+a sure sign that water is to be found near at hand. When one of them
+utters a note, I dig, and I find. And now, Marquis, do you understand
+the aim and end of our association?”
+
+“It has,” remarked Hortebise quietly, “brought us in some years two
+hundred and fifty thousand francs apiece.”
+
+If M. de Croisenois disliked prosy tales, he by no means underrated the
+eloquence of figures. He knew quite enough of Paris to understand that
+if Mascarin threw his net regularly, he would infallibly catch many
+fish. With this conviction firmly implanted in his mind, he did not
+require much urging to look with favor on the scheme, and, putting on a
+gracious smile, he now asked, “And what must I do to deserve admission
+into this association?”
+
+Paul had listened in wonder and terror, but by degrees all feelings of
+disgust at the criminality of these men faded away before the power that
+they unquestionably possessed.
+
+“If,” resumed Mascarin, “we have up to this met with no serious
+obstacles, it is because, though apparently acting rashly, we are in
+reality most prudent and cautious. We have managed our slaves well, and
+have not driven any one to desperation. But we are beginning to weary
+of our profession; we are getting old, and we have need of repose.
+We intend, therefore, to retire, but before that we wish to have
+all matters securely settled. I have an immense mass of documentary
+evidence, but it is not always easy to realize the value they represent,
+and I wait upon your assistance to enable me to do so.”
+
+Croisenois’ face fell. Was he to take compromising letters round to
+his acquaintances and boldly say, “Your purse or your honor?” He had no
+objection to share the profits of this ignoble trade, but he objected
+strongly to showing his connection with it openly. “No, no,” cried he
+hastily, “you must not depend upon me.”
+
+He seemed so much in earnest that Hortebise and Catenac exchanged
+glances of dismay.
+
+“Let us have no nonsense,” returned Mascarin sternly, “and wait a little
+before you display so much fierceness. I told you that my documentary
+evidence was of a peculiar kind. We very often had among our fish
+married people who cannot deal with their personal property. A husband,
+for instance, will say, ‘I can’t take ten thousand francs without my
+wife, knowing of it.’ Women say, ‘Why, I get all my money through my
+husband,’ and both are telling the truth. They kneel at my feet and
+entreat me to have mercy, saying, ‘Find me some excuse for using a
+portion of my funds and you shall have more than you ask.’ For a long
+time I have sought for this means, and at last I have found it in the
+Limited Company, which you, Marquis, will float next month.”
+
+“Really!” returned the Marquis. “I do not see--”
+
+“I beg your pardon; you see it all clearly. A husband who cannot,
+without fear of disturbing his domestic peace, put in five thousand
+francs, can put in ten thousand if he tells his wife, ‘It is an
+investment;’ and many a wife who has not any money of her own will
+persuade her husband to bring in the money we require by the proposal to
+take shares. Now, what do you say to the idea?”
+
+“I think that it is an excellent one, but what part am I to play in it?”
+
+“In taking the part of Chairman of the Company. I could not do so, being
+merely the proprietor of a Servant’s Registry Office. Hortebise, as a
+doctor, and more than all a homeopath, would inspire no confidence, and
+Catenac’s legal profession prevents him appearing in the matter openly.
+He will act as our legal adviser.”
+
+“But really I do not see anything about me that would induce people to
+invest,” remarked De Croisenois.
+
+“You are too modest; you have your name and rank, which, however we may
+look upon them, have a great effect upon the general public. There are
+many Companies who pay directors of rank and credible connection very
+largely. Before starting this enterprise you can settle all your debts,
+and the world will then conclude that you are possessed of great wealth,
+while, at the same time, the news of your approaching marriage with
+Mademoiselle du Mussidan will be the general talk of society. What
+better position could you be in?”
+
+“But I have the reputation of being a reckless spendthrift.”
+
+“All the better. The day the prospectus comes out with your name at the
+head of it, there will be a universal burst of laughter. Men will say,
+‘Do you see what Croisenois is at now? What on earth possessed him to go
+into Company work?’ But as this proceeding on your part will have paid
+your debts and given you Mademoiselle Sabine’s dowry, I think that the
+laugh will be on your side.”
+
+The prospect dazzled Des Croisenois.
+
+“And suppose I accept,” asked he, “what will be the end of the farce?”
+
+“Very simple. When all the shares are taken up, you will close the
+office and let the Company look after itself.”
+
+Croisenois started to his feet angrily. “Why,” cried he, “you intend
+to make a catspaw of me! Such a proceeding would send me to penal
+servitude.”
+
+“What an ungrateful man he is!” said Mascarin, appealing to his
+audience, “when I am doing all I can to prevent his going there.”
+
+“Sir!”
+
+But Catenac now felt it time to interfere. “You do not understand,”
+ remarked he, addressing Croisenois. “You will start a Company for the
+development of some native product, let us say Pyrenean marble, for
+instance, issue a prospectus, and the shares will be at once taken up by
+Mascarin’s clients.”
+
+“Well, what happens then?”
+
+“Why, out of the funds thus obtained we will take care when the crash
+comes to reimburse any outsiders who may have taken shares in the
+concern, telling them that the thing has been a failure, and that we are
+ruined; while Mascarin will take care to obtain from all his clients a
+discharge in full, so the Company will quietly collapse.”
+
+“But,” objected the Marquis, “all the shareholders will know that I am a
+rogue.”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“They would hold me in utter contempt.”
+
+“Perhaps so, but they would never venture to let you see it. I never
+thought that you would make objections; and whose character, however
+deep, will bear investigation?”
+
+“Are you sure that you hold your people securely?” asked he; “and that
+none of them will turn surly?”
+
+Mascarin was waiting for this question, and taking from his desk the
+pieces of cardboard which he took so much pains to arrange, he replied,
+“I have here the names of three hundred and fifty people who will each
+invest ten thousand francs in the Company. Listen to me, and judge for
+yourself.”
+
+He put all three pieces of cardboard together, and then drawing out one
+he read,--
+
+“‘N---, civil engineer. Five letters written by him to the gentleman
+who procured his appointment for him: worth fifteen thousand francs.’
+
+“‘P---, merchant. Absolute proof that his last bankruptcy was a
+fraudulent one, and that he kept back from his creditors two hundred
+thousand francs. Good for twenty thousand francs.’
+
+“‘Madame V---. A photograph taken in very light and airy costume. Poor,
+but can pay three thousand francs.’
+
+“‘M. H---. Three letters from her mother, proving that the daughter
+had compromised herself before marriage. Letter from a monthly nurse
+appended. Can be made to pay ten thousand francs.’
+
+“‘X---, a portion of his correspondence with L--- in 1848. Three
+thousand francs.’
+
+“‘Madame M. de M---. A true history of her adventure with M. J---.’”
+
+This sample was quite sufficient to satisfy M. de Croisenois. “Enough,”
+ cried he, “I yield. I bow before your gigantic power, which utterly
+surpasses that of the police. Give me your orders.”
+
+Before this Mascarin had conquered Hortebise and Paul Violaine, and now
+he had the Marquis at his feet. Many times during this conversation the
+Marquis had more than once endeavored to make up his mind to withdraw
+entirely from the business, but he had been unable to resist the strange
+fascination of that mysterious person who had been laying bare his
+scheme with such extraordinary audacity. The few vestiges of honesty
+that were still left in his corrupted soul revolted at the thought of
+the shameful compact into which he was about to enter, but the dazzling
+prospect held out before his eyes silenced his scruples, and he felt a
+certain pride in being the associate of men who possessed such seemingly
+illimitable power. Mascarin saw that there was no longer any necessity
+for the extreme firmness with which he had before spoken, and it was
+with the most studied courtesy that he replied: “I have no orders to
+give you, Marquis, our interests are identical, and we must all have a
+voice in the deliberations as to the best means of carrying them out.”
+
+This change from _hauteur_ to suavity gratified Croisenois’ pride
+immensely.
+
+“Now,” continued Mascarin, “let us speak of your own circumstances. You
+wrote to me recently that you had nothing, and I am aware that you have
+no expectations for the future.”
+
+“Excuse me, but there is the fortune of my poor brother George, who
+disappeared so mysteriously.”
+
+“Let me assure you,” answered Mascarin, “that we had better be perfectly
+frank with each other.”
+
+“And am I not so?” answered the Marquis.
+
+“Why, in talking of this imaginary fortune?”
+
+“It is not imaginary; it is real, and a very large one, too, about
+twelve or fourteen hundred thousand francs, and I can obtain it, for, by
+Articles 127 and 129 of the Code Napoleon---”
+
+He interrupted himself, as he saw an expression of hardly-restrained
+laughter upon the features of Dr. Hortebise.
+
+“Do not talk nonsense,” answered Mascarin. “You could at first have
+filed an affidavit regarding your brother’s disappearance, and applied
+to the Court to appoint you trustee, but this is now exactly what you
+wish to avoid.”
+
+“Why not, pray? Do you think----”
+
+“Pooh, pooh, but you have raised so much money on this inheritance that
+there is nothing of it left hardly, certainly not sufficient to pay your
+debts. It is the bait you used to allure your tradespeople into giving
+you credit.”
+
+At finding himself so easily fathomed, Croisenois burst into a peel of
+laughter. Mascarin had by this time thrown himself into an armchair, as
+though utterly worn out by fatigue.
+
+“There is no necessity, Marquis,” said he, “to detain you here longer.
+We shall meet again shortly, and settle matters. Meanwhile Catenac
+will draw up the prospectus and Articles of Association of the proposed
+Company, and post you up in the financial slang of which you must
+occasionally make use.”
+
+The Marquis and the lawyer at once rose and took their leave. As soon as
+the door had closed behind them, Mascarin seemed to recover his energy.
+
+“Well, Paul,” said he, “what do you think of all this?”
+
+Like all men with weak and ductile natures, Paul, after being almost
+prostrated by the first discovery of his master’s villainy, had now
+succeeded in smothering the dictates of his conscience, and adopted a
+cynical tone quite worthy of his companions.
+
+“I see,” said he, “that you have need of me. Well, I am not a Marquis,
+but you will find me quite as trustworthy and obedient.”
+
+Paul’s reply did not seem to surprise Mascarin, but it is doubtful
+whether he was pleased by it, for his countenance showed traces of a
+struggle between extreme satisfaction and intense annoyance, while the
+doctor was surprised at the cool audacity of the young man whose mind he
+had undertaken to form.
+
+Paul was a little disturbed by the long and continued silence of his
+patron, and at last he ventured to say timidly,--
+
+“Well, sir, I am anxious to know under what conditions I am to be shown
+the way to make my fortune and marry Mademoiselle Flavia Rigal, whom I
+love.”
+
+Mascarin gave a diabolical smile.
+
+“Whose dowry you love,” he observed. “Let us speak plainly.”
+
+“Pardon me, sir, I said just what I meant.”
+
+The doctor, who had not Mascarin’s reasons for gravity, now burst into a
+jovial laugh.
+
+“And that pretty Rose,” said he, “what of her?”
+
+“Rose is a creature of the past,” answered Paul. “I can now see what an
+idiot I was, and I have entirely effaced her from my memory, and I am
+half inclined to deplore that Mademoiselle Rigal is an heiress, the more
+so if it is to form a barrier between us.”
+
+This declaration seemed to make Mascarin more easy.
+
+“Reassure yourself, my boy,” said he, “we will remove that barrier; but
+I will not conceal from you that the part you have to play is much more
+difficult than that assigned to the Marquis de Croisenois; but if it is
+harder and more perilous, the reward will be proportionately greater.”
+
+“With your aid and advice I feel capable of doing everything necessary,”
+ returned Paul.
+
+“You will need great self-confidence, the utmost self-possession, and as
+a commencement you must utterly destroy your present identity.”
+
+“That I will do with the utmost willingness.”
+
+“You must become another person entirely; you must adopt his name, his
+gait, his behavior, his virtues, and even his failings. You must forget
+all that you have either said or done. You must always think that you
+are in reality the person you represent yourself to be, for this is the
+only way in which you can lead others into a similar belief. Your task
+will be a heavy one.”
+
+“Ah, sir,” cried the young man, enthusiastically, “can you doubt me?”
+
+“The glorious beam of success that shines ahead of you will take your
+attention from the difficulties and dangers of the road that you are
+treading.”
+
+The genial Dr. Hortebise rubbed his hands.
+
+“You are right,” cried he, “quite right.”
+
+“When you have done this,” resumed Mascarin, “we shall not hesitate to
+acquaint you with the secret of the lofty destiny that awaits you. Do
+you understand me fully?”
+
+Here the speaker was interrupted by the entrance of Beaumarchef, who had
+signified his desire to come in by three distinct raps upon the door.
+He was now gorgeous to look upon, for having taken advantage of a spare
+half hour, he had donned his best clothes.
+
+“What is it?” demanded Mascarin.
+
+“Here are two letters, sir.”
+
+“Thank you; hand them to me, and leave us.”
+
+As soon as they were once more alone, Mascarin examined the letters.
+
+“Ah,” cried he, “one from Van Klopen, and the other from the Hotel de
+Mussidan. Let us first see what our friend the man-milliner has to say.
+
+“DEAR SIR,--
+
+“You may be at ease. Our mutual friend Verminet has executed your orders
+most adroitly. At his instigation Gaston de Gandelu has forged the
+banker Martin Rigal’s signature on five different bills. I hold them,
+and awaiting your further orders regarding them, and also with respect
+to Madame de Bois Arden,
+
+“I remain your obedient servant,
+
+“VAN KLOPEN.”
+
+
+Tossing it on the table, Mascarin opened the other letter, which he also
+read aloud.
+
+“SIR,--
+
+“I have to report to you the breaking off of the marriage between
+Mademoiselle Sabine and M. de Breulh-Faverlay. Mademoiselle is very
+ill, and I heard the medical man say that she might not survive the next
+twenty-four hours.
+
+“FLORESTAN.”
+
+
+Mascarin was so filled with rage on learning this piece of news, which
+seemed likely to interfere with his plans, that he struck his hand down
+heavily on the table.
+
+“Damnation!” cried he. “If this little fool should die now, all our work
+will have to be recommenced.”
+
+He thrust aside his chair, and paced hurriedly up and down the room.
+
+“Florestan is right,” said he; “this illness of the girl comes on at the
+date of the rupture of the engagement. There is some secret that we must
+learn, for we dare not work in the dark.”
+
+“Shall I go to the Hotel de Mussidan?” asked Hortebise.
+
+“Not a bad idea. Your carriage is waiting, is it not? You can go in your
+capacity as a medical man.”
+
+The doctor was preparing to go, when Mascarin arrested his progress.
+
+“No,” said he, “I have changed my mind. We must neither of us be seen
+near the place. I expect that one of our mines has exploded; that the
+Count and Countess have exchanged confidences, and that between the two
+the daughter has been struck down.”
+
+“How shall we find this out?”
+
+“I will see Florestan and try and find out.”
+
+In an instant he vanished into his inner room, and as he changed his
+dress, continued to converse with the doctor.
+
+“This blow would be comparatively trifling, if I had not so much on
+hand, but I have Paul to look after. The Champdoce affair must be
+pressed on, for Catenac, the traitor, has put the Duke and Perpignan
+into communication. I must see Perpignan and discover how much has
+been told him, and how much he has guessed. I will also see Caroline
+Schimmel, and extract something from her. I wish to heaven that there
+were thirty-six hours in the day instead of only twenty-four.”
+
+By this time he had completed his change of costume and called the
+doctor into his room.
+
+“I am off, now,” whispered he; “do not lose sight of Paul for a single
+instant, for we are not sufficiently sure of him to let him go about
+alone with our secret in his possession. Take him to dine at Martin
+Rigal’s, and then make some excuse for keeping him all night at your
+rooms. See me to-morrow.”
+
+And he went out so hurriedly that he did not hear the cheery voice of
+the doctor calling after him,--
+
+“Good luck; I wish you all good luck.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A FRIENDLY RIVAL.
+
+On leaving the Hotel de Mussidan, M. de Breulh-Faverlay dismissed
+his carriage, for he felt as a man often does after experiencing some
+violent emotion, the absolute necessity for exercise, and to be alone
+with his thoughts, and by so doing recover his self-possession. His
+friends would have been surprised if they had seen him pacing hurriedly
+along the Champs Elysees. The usual calm of his manner had vanished, and
+the generally calm expression of his features was entirely absent. As he
+walked, he talked to himself, and gesticulated.
+
+“And this is what we call being a man of the world. We think ourselves
+true philosophers, and a look from a pair of beautiful, pleading eyes
+scatters all our theories to the winds.”
+
+He had loved Sabine upon the day on which he had asked for her hand,
+but not so fondly as upon this day when he had learned that she could no
+longer be his wife, for, from the moment he had made this discovery, she
+seemed to him more gifted and fascinating than ever. No one could have
+believed that he, the idol of society, the petted darling of the women,
+and the successful rival of the men, could have been refused by the
+young girl to whom he had offered his hand.
+
+“Yes,” murmured he with a sigh, “for she is just the companion for life
+that I longed for. Where could I find so intelligent an intellect and
+so pure a mind, united with such radiant beauty, so different from the
+women of society, who live but for dress and gossip. Has Sabine anything
+in common with those giddy girls who look upon life as a perpetual
+value, and who take a husband as they do a partner, because they cannot
+dance without one? How her face lighted up as she spoke of him, and how
+thoroughly she puts faith in him! The end of it all is that I shall die
+a bachelor. In my old age I will take to the pleasures of the table, for
+an excellent authority declares that a man can enjoy his four meals a
+day with comfort. Well, that is something to look forward to certainly,
+and it will not impair my digestion if my heirs and expectants come and
+squabble round my armchair. Ah,” he added, with a deep sigh, “my life
+has been a failure.”
+
+M. de Breulh-Faverlay was a very different type of man to that which
+both his friends and his enemies popularly supposed him to be. Upon the
+death of his uncle, he had plunged into the frivolous vortex of Parisian
+dissipation, but of this he had soon wearied.
+
+All that he had cared for was to see the doings of his racehorse
+chronicled in the sporting journals, and occasionally to expend a few
+thousand francs in presents of jewelry to some fashionable actress. But
+he had secretly longed for some more honorable manner of fulfilling his
+duties in life, and he had determined that before his marriage he would
+sell his stud and break with his old associates entirely; and now this
+wished-for marriage would never take place.
+
+When he entered his club, the traces of his agitation were so visible
+upon his face, that some of the card-players stopped their game to
+inquire if Chambertin, the favorite for the Chantilly cup, had broken
+down.
+
+“No, no,” replied he, as he hurriedly made his way to the writing-room,
+“Chambertin is as sound as a bell.”
+
+“What the deuce has happened to De Breulh?” asked one of the members.
+
+“Goodness gracious!” remarked the man to whom the question was
+addressed, “he seems in a hurry to write a letter.”
+
+The gentleman was right. M. de Breulh was writing a withdrawal from his
+demand for Sabine’s hand to M. de Mussidan, and he found the task by
+no means an easy one, for on reading it over he found that there was
+a valid strain of bitterness throughout it, which would surely attract
+attention and perhaps cause embarrassing questions to be put to him.
+
+“No,” murmured he, “this letter is quite unworthy of me.” And tearing it
+up, he began another, in which he strung together several conventional
+excuses, alleging the difficulty of breaking off his former habits and
+of an awkward entanglement which he had been unable to break with, as
+he had anticipated. When this little masterpiece of diplomacy was
+completed, he rang the bell, and, handing it to one of the club
+servants, told him to take it to the Count de Mussidan’s house. When
+this unpleasant duty was over, M. de Breulh had hoped to experience some
+feeling of relief, but in this he was mistaken. He tried cards, but rose
+from the table in a quarter of an hour; he ordered dinner, but appetite
+was wanting; he went to the opera, but then he did nothing but yawn, and
+the music grated on his nerves. At length he returned home. The day had
+seemed interminable, and he could not sleep, for Sabine’s face was ever
+before him. Who could this man be whom she so fondly loved and preferred
+before all others? He respected her too much not to feel assured that
+her choice was a worthy one, but his experience had taught him that when
+so many men of the world fell into strange entanglements, a poor girl
+without knowledge of the dangers around her might easily be entrapped.
+“If he is worthy of her,” thought he, “I will do my best to aid her; but
+if not, I will open her eyes.”
+
+At four o’clock in the morning he was still seated musing before the
+expiring embers of his fire; he had made up his mind to see Andre--there
+was no difficulty in this, for a man of taste and wealth can find a
+ready excuse for visiting the studio of a struggling artist. He had no
+fixed plan as to what he would say or do, he left all to chance, and
+with this decision he went to bed, and by two in the afternoon he drove
+straight to the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne.
+
+Andre’s discreet portress was as usual leaning on her broom in the
+gallery as M. de Breulh’s magnificent equipage drew up.
+
+“Gracious me!” exclaimed the worthy woman, dazzled by the gorgeousness
+of the whole turnout; “he can’t be coming here, he must have mistaken
+the house.”
+
+But her amazement reached its height when M. de Breulh, on alighting,
+asked for Andre.
+
+“Fourth story, first door to the right,” answered the woman; “but I will
+show you the way.”
+
+“Don’t trouble yourself;” and with these words M. de Breulh ascended the
+staircase that led to the painter’s studio and knocked on the door. As
+he did so, he heard a quick, light step upon the stairs, and a young
+and very dark man, dressed in a weaver’s blouse and carrying a tin pail
+which he had evidently just filled with water from the cistern, came up.
+
+“Are you M. Andre?” asked De Breulh.
+
+“That is my name, sir.”
+
+“I wish to say a few words to you.”
+
+“Pray come in,” replied the young artist, opening the door of his studio
+and ushering his visitor in. Andre’s voice and expression had made
+a favorable impression upon his visitor; but he was, in spite of his
+having thrown aside nearly all foolish prejudices, a little startled at
+his costume. He did not, however, allow his surprise to be visible.
+
+“I ought to apologize for receiving you like this,” remarked Andre
+quickly, “but a poor man must wait upon himself.” As he spoke, he threw
+off his blouse and set down the pail in a corner of the room.
+
+“I rather should offer my excuse for my intrusion,” returned M. de
+Breulh. “I came here by the advice of one of my friends;” he stopped for
+an instant, endeavoring to think of a name.
+
+“By Prince Crescensi, perhaps,” suggested Andre.
+
+“Yes, yes,” continued M. de Breulh, eagerly snatching at the rope the
+artist held out to him. “The Prince sings your praises everywhere,
+and speaks of your talents with the utmost enthusiasm. I am, on his
+recommendation, desirous of commissioning you to paint a picture for
+me, and I can assure you that in my gallery it will have no need to be
+ashamed of its companions.”
+
+Andre bowed, coloring deeply at the compliment.
+
+“I am obliged to you,” said he, “and I trust that you will not be
+disappointed in taking the Prince’s opinion of my talent.”
+
+“Why should I be so?”
+
+“Because, for the last four months I have been so busy that I have
+really nothing to show you.”
+
+“That is of no importance. I have every confidence in you.”
+
+“Then,” returned Andre, “all that we have to do is to choose a subject.”
+
+Andre’s manner had by this time so captivated De Breulh that he muttered
+to himself, “I really ought to hate this fellow, but on my word I like
+him better than any one I have met for a long time.”
+
+Andre had by this time placed a large portfolio on the table. “Here,”
+ said he, “are some twenty or thirty sketches; if any of them took your
+fancy, you could make your choice.”
+
+“Let me see them,” returned De Breulh politely, for having made an
+estimate of the young man’s character, he now wished to see what his
+artistic talents were like. With this object in view he examined all
+the sketches in the portfolio minutely, and then turned to those on the
+walls. Andre said nothing, but he somehow felt that this visit would
+prove the turning-point of his misfortunes. But for all that the young
+man’s heart was very sad, for it was two days since Sabine had left
+him, promising to write to him the next morning regarding M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay, but as yet he had received no communication, and he
+was on the tenterhooks of expectation, not because he had any doubt
+of Sabine, but for the reason that he had no means of obtaining any
+information of what went on in the interior of the Hotel de Mussidan.
+M. de Breulh had now finished his survey, and had come to the conclusion
+that though many of Andre’s productions were crude and lacking in
+finish, yet that he had the true artistic metal in him. He extended his
+hand to the young man and said forcibly, “I am no longer influenced by
+the opinion of a friend. I have seen and judged for myself, and am more
+desirous than ever of possessing one of your pictures. I have made my
+choice of a subject, and now let us discuss the details.”
+
+As he spoke he handed a little sketch to Andre. It was a view of
+everyday life, which the painter had entitled, “Outside the Barrier.”
+ Two men with torn garments and wine-flushed faces were struggling in
+tipsy combat, while on the right hand side of the picture lay a woman,
+bleeding profusely from a cut on the forehead, and two of her terrified
+companions were bending over her, endeavoring to restore her to
+consciousness. In the background were some flying figures, who were
+hastening up to separate the combatants. The sketch was one of real
+life, denuded of any sham element of romance, and this was the one that
+M. de Breulh had chosen. The two men discussed the size of the picture,
+and not a single detail was omitted.
+
+“I am sure that you will do all that is right,” remarked De Breulh. “Let
+your own inspiration guide you, and all will be well.” In reality he was
+dying to get away, for he felt in what a false position he was, and with
+a violent effort he approached the money part of the matter.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Andre, “it is impossible to fix a price; when
+completed, a picture may only be worth the canvas that it is painted on,
+or else beyond all price. Let us wait.”
+
+“Well,” broke in M. de Breulh, “what do you say to ten thousand francs?”
+
+“Too much,” returned Andre with a deprecatory wave of his hand; “far
+too much. If I succeed in it, as I hope to do, I will ask six thousand
+francs for it.”
+
+“Agreed!” answered De Breulh, taking from his pocket an elegant
+note-case with his crest and monogram upon it and extracting from it
+three thousand francs. “I will, as is usual, deposit half the price in
+advance.”
+
+Andre blushed scarlet. “You are joking,” said he.
+
+“Not at all,” answered De Breulh quietly; “I have my own way of doing
+business, from which I never deviate.”
+
+In spite of this answer Andre’s pride was hurt.
+
+“But,” remarked he, “this picture will not be ready for perhaps six or
+seven months. I have entered into a contract with a wealthy builder,
+named Candele, to execute the outside decorations of his house.”
+
+“Never mind that,” answered M. de Breulh; “take as long as you like.”
+
+Of course, after this, Andre could offer no further opposition; he
+therefore took the money without another word.
+
+“And now,” said De Breulh, as he paused for a moment at the open
+doorway, “let me wish you my good luck, and if you will come and
+breakfast with me one day, I think I can show you some pictures which
+you will really appreciate.” And handing his card to the artist, he went
+downstairs.
+
+At first Andre did not glance at the card, but when he did so, the
+letters seemed to sear his eyeballs like a red-hot iron. For a moment
+he could hardly breathe, and then a feeling of intense anger took
+possession of him, for he felt that he had been trifled with and
+deceived.
+
+Hardly knowing what he was doing, he rushed out on the landing, and,
+leaning over the banister, called out loudly, “Sir, stop a moment!”
+
+De Breulh, who had by this time reached the bottom of the staircase,
+turned round.
+
+“Come back, if you please,” said Andre.
+
+After a moment’s hesitation, De Breulh obeyed; and when he was again
+in the studio, Andre addressed him in a voice that quivered with
+indignation.
+
+“Take back these notes, sir; I will not accept them.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Only that I have thought the matter over, and that I will not accept
+your commission.”
+
+“And why this sudden change?”
+
+“You know perfectly well, M. de Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+The gentleman at once saw that Sabine had mentioned his name to the
+young artist, and with a slight lacking of generous feeling said,--
+
+“Let me hear your reasons, sir.”
+
+“Because, because----” stammered the young man.
+
+“Because is not an answer.”
+
+Andre’s confusion became greater. He would not tell the whole truth, for
+he would have died sooner than bring Sabine’s name into the discussion;
+and he could only see one way out of his difficulty.
+
+“Suppose I say that I do not like your manner or appearance,” returned
+he disdainfully.
+
+“Is it your wish to insult me, M. Andre?”
+
+“As you choose to take it.”
+
+M. de Breulh was not gifted with an immense stock of patience. He turned
+livid, and made a step forward; but his generous impulses restrained
+him, and it was in a voice broken by agitation that he said,--
+
+“Accept my apologies, M. Andre; I fear that I have played a part
+unworthy of you and of myself. I ought to have given you my name at
+once. I know everything.”
+
+“I do not comprehend you,” answered Andre in a glacial voice.
+
+“Why doubt, then, if you do not understand? However, I have given you
+cause to do so. But, let me reassure you, Mademoiselle Sabine has spoken
+to me with the utmost frankness; and, if you still distrust me, let me
+tell you that this veiled picture is her portrait. I will say
+more,” continued De Breulh gravely, as the artist still kept silent;
+“yesterday, at Mademoiselle de Mussidan’s request, I withdrew from my
+position as a suitor for her hand.”
+
+Andre had already been touched by De Breulh’s frank and open manner, and
+these last words entirely conquered him.
+
+“I can never thank you enough,” began he.
+
+But De Breulh interrupted him.
+
+“A man should not be thanked for performing his duty. I should lie to
+you if I said that I am not painfully surprised at her communication;
+but tell me, had you been in my place, would you not have acted in the
+same manner?”
+
+“I think that I should.”
+
+“And now we are friends, are we not?” and again De Breulh held out his
+hand, which Andre clasped with enthusiasm.
+
+“Yes, yes,” faltered he.
+
+“And now,” continued De Breulh, with a forced smile, “let us say no more
+about the picture, which was, after all, merely a pretext. As I came
+here I said to myself, ‘If the man to whom Mademoiselle de Mussidan has
+given her heart is worthy of her, I will do all I can to advance his
+suit with her family!’ I came here to see what you were like; and now
+I say to you, do me a great honor, and permit me to place myself, my
+fortune, and the influence of my friends, at your disposal.”
+
+The offer was made in perfect good faith, but Andre shook his head.
+
+“I shall never forget your kindness in making this offer, but----“; he
+paused for a moment, and then went on: “I will be as open as you have
+been, and will tell you the whole truth. You may think me foolish; but
+remember, though I am poor, I have still my self-respect to maintain. I
+love Sabine, and would give my life for her. Do not be offended at what
+I am about to say. I would, however, sooner give up her hand than be
+indebted for it to you.”
+
+“But this is mere madness.”
+
+“No, sir, it is the purest wisdom; for were I to accede to your wishes,
+I should feel deeply humiliated by the thought of your self-denial; for
+I should be madly jealous of the part you were playing. You are of high
+birth and princely fortune, while I am utterly friendless and unknown;
+all that I am deficient in you possess.”
+
+“But I have been poor myself,” interposed De Breulh, “and perhaps
+endured even greater miseries than ever you have done. Do you know what
+I was doing at your age? I was slowly starving to death at Sonora, and
+had to take the humblest position in a cattle ranch. Do you think that
+those days taught me nothing?”
+
+“You will be able to judge me all the more clearly then,” returned
+Andre. “If I raise myself up to Sabine’s level, as she begged me to,
+then I shall feel that I am your equal; but if I accept your aid, I am
+your dependent; and I will obey her wishes or perish in the effort.”
+
+Up to this moment the passion which stirred Andre’s inmost soul had
+breathed in every word he uttered; but, checking himself by a mighty
+effort, he resumed in a tone of greater calmness,--
+
+“But I ought to remember how much we already owe you, and I hope that
+you will allow me to call myself your friend?”
+
+M. de Breulh’s noble nature enabled him to understand Andre’s scruples;
+his feelings, however, would not for the instant enable him to speak.
+He slowly put the notes back in their receptacle, and then said in a low
+voice,--
+
+“Your conduct is that of an honorable man; and remember this, at all
+times and seasons you may rely upon De Breulh-Faverlay. Farewell!”
+
+As soon as he was alone, Andre threw himself into an armchair, and mused
+over this unexpected interview, which had proved a source of such solace
+to his feelings. All that he now longed for was a letter from Sabine.
+At this moment the portress entered with a letter. Andre was so occupied
+with his thoughts that he hardly noticed this act of condescension on
+the part of the worthy woman.
+
+“A letter!” exclaimed he; and, tearing it open, he glanced at the
+signature. But Sabine’s name was not there; it was signed Modeste.
+What could Sabine’s maid have to say to him? He felt that some great
+misfortune was impending, and, trembling with excitement, he read the
+letter.
+
+“SIR,--
+
+“I write to tell you that my mistress has succeeded in the matter she
+spoke of to you; but I am sorry to say that I have bad news to give you,
+for she is seriously ill.”
+
+“Ill!” exclaimed Andre, crushing up the letter in his hands, and dashing
+it upon the floor. “Ill! ill!” he repeated, not heeding the presence
+of the portress; “why, she may be dead;” and, snatching up his hat, he
+dashed downstairs into the street.
+
+As soon as the portress was left alone, she picked up the letter,
+smoothed it out, and read it.
+
+“And so,” murmured she, “the little lady’s name was Sabine--a pretty
+name; and she is ill, is she? I expect that the old gent who called this
+morning, and asked so many questions about M. Andre, would give a good
+deal for this note; but no, that would not be fair.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A COUNCIL OF WAR.
+
+Mad with his terrible forebodings, Andre hurried through the streets in
+the direction of the Hotel de Mussidan, caring little for the attention
+that his excited looks and gestures caused. He had no fixed plan as to
+what to do when he arrived there, and it was only on reaching the Rue
+de Matignon that he recovered sufficient coolness to deliberate and
+reflect.
+
+He had arrived at the desired spot; how should he set to work to obtain
+the information that he required? The evening was a dark one, and the
+gas-lamps showed a feeble light through the dull February fog. There
+were no signs of life in the Rue de Matignon, and the silence was only
+broken by the continuous surge of carriage wheels in the Faubourg Saint
+Honore. This gloom, and the inclemency of the weather, added to the
+young painter’s depression. He saw his utter helplessness, and felt
+that he could not move a step without compromising the woman he so
+madly adored. He walked to the gate of the house, hoping to gain some
+information even from the exterior aspect of the house; for it seemed to
+him that if Sabine were dying, the very stones in the street would utter
+sounds of woe and lamentation; but the fog had closely enwrapped the
+house, and he could hardly see which of the windows were lighted. His
+reasoning faculties told him that there was no use in waiting, but an
+inner voice warned him to stay. Would Modeste, who had written to him,
+divine, by some means that he was there, in an agony of suspense, and
+come out to give him information and solace? All at once a thought
+darted across his mind, vivid as a flash of lightning.
+
+“M. de Breulh will help me,” cried he; “for though I cannot go to the
+house, he will have no difficulty in doing so.”
+
+By good luck, he had M. de Breulh’s card in his pocket, and hurried
+off to his address. M. de Breulh had a fine house in the Avenue de
+l’Imperatrice, which he had taken more for the commodiousness of the
+stables than for his own convenience.
+
+“I wish to see M. de Breulh,” said Andre, as he stopped breathless at
+the door, where a couple of footmen were chatting.
+
+The men looked at him with supreme contempt. “He is out,” one of them at
+last condescended to reply.
+
+Andre had by this time recovered his coolness, and taking out De
+Breulh’s card, wrote these words on it in pencil: “One moment’s
+interview. ANDRE.”
+
+“Give this to your master as soon as he comes in,” said he.
+
+Then he descended the steps slowly. He was certain that M. de Breulh was
+in the house, and that he would send out after the person who had left
+the card almost at once. His conclusion proved right; in five minutes
+he was overtaken by the panting lackey, who, conducting him back to
+the house, showed him into a magnificently furnished library. De Breulh
+feared that some terrible event had taken place.
+
+“What has happened?” said he.
+
+“Sabine is dying;” and Andre at once proceeded to inform De Breulh of
+what had happened since his departure.
+
+“But how can I help you?”
+
+“You can go and make inquiries at the house.”
+
+“Reflect; yesterday I wrote to the Count, and broke off a marriage,
+the preliminaries of which had been completely settled; and within
+twenty-four hours to send and inquire after his daughter’s health would
+be to be guilty of an act of inexcusable insolence; for it would look
+as if I fancied that Mademoiselle de Mussidan had been struck down by my
+rupture of the engagement.”
+
+“You are right,” murmured Andre dejectedly.
+
+“But,” continued De Breulh, after a moment’s reflection, “I have a
+distant relative, a lady who is also a connection of the Mussidan
+family, the Viscountess de Bois Arden, and she will be glad to be of
+service to me. She is young and giddy, but as true as steel. Come with
+me to her; my carriage is ready.”
+
+The footmen were surprised at seeing their master on such terms of
+intimacy with the shabbily dressed young man, but ventured, of course,
+on no remarks.
+
+Not a word was exchanged during the brief drive to Madame de Bois
+Arden’s house.
+
+“Wait for me,” exclaimed De Breulh, springing from the vehicle as soon
+as it drew up; “I will be back directly.”
+
+Madame de Bois Arden is justly called one of the handsomest women in
+Paris. Very fair, with masses of black hair, and a complexion to which
+art has united itself to the gifts of nature, she is a woman who has
+been everywhere, knows everything, talks incessantly, and generally very
+well. She spends forty thousand francs per annum on dress. She is always
+committing all sorts of imprudent acts, and scandal is ever busy with
+her name. Half a dozen of the opposite sex have been talked of in
+connection with her, while in reality she is a true and faithful wife,
+for, in spite of all her frivolity, she adores her husband, and is
+in great awe of him. Such was the character of the lady into whose
+apartment M. de Breulh was introduced. Madame de Bois Arden was engaged
+in admiring a very pretty fancy costume of the reign of Louis XV., one
+of Van Klopen’s masterpieces, when M. de Breulh was announced, which she
+was going to wear, on her return from the opera, at a masquerade ball at
+the Austrian Ambassador’s. Madame de Bois Arden greeted her visitor with
+effusion, for they had been acquaintances from childhood, and always
+addressed each other by their Christian names.
+
+“What, you here at this hour, Gontran!” said the lady. “Is it a vision,
+or only a miracle?” But the smile died away upon her lips, as she caught
+a glimpse of her visitor’s pale and harassed face. “Is there anything
+the matter?” asked she.
+
+“Not yet,” answered he, “but there may be, for I hear that Mademoiselle
+de Mussidan is dangerously ill.”
+
+“Is she really? Poor Sabine! what is the matter with her?”
+
+“I do not know; and I want you, Clotilde, to send one of your people to
+inquire into the truth of what we have heard.”
+
+Madame de Bois Arden opened her eyes very wide.
+
+“Are you joking?” said she. “Why do you not send yourself?”
+
+“It is impossible for me to do so; and if you have any kindness of
+heart, you do as I ask you; and I want you also to promise me not to say
+a word of this to any one.”
+
+Excited as she was by this mystery, Madame de Bois Arden did not ask
+another question.
+
+“I will do exactly what you want,” replied she, “and respect your
+secret. I would go at once, were it not that Bois Arden will never sit
+down to dinner without me; but the moment we have finished I will go.”
+
+“Thanks, a thousand times; and now I will go home and wait for news from
+you.”
+
+“Not at all,--you will remain here to dinner.”
+
+“I must,--I have a friend waiting for me.”
+
+“Do as you please, then,” returned the Viscountess, laughing. “I will
+send round a note this evening.”
+
+De Breulh pressed her hand, and hurried down, and was met by Andre at
+the door, for he had been unable to sit still in the carriage.
+
+“Keep up your courage. Madame de Bois Arden had not heard of
+Mademoiselle Sabine’s illness, and this looks as if it was not a very
+serious matter. We shall have the real facts in three hours.”
+
+“Three hours!” groaned Andre, “what a lapse of time!”
+
+“It is rather long, I admit; but we will talk of her while we wait, for
+you must stay and dine with me.”
+
+Andre yielded, for he had no longer the energy to contest anything. The
+dinner was exquisite, but the two men were not in a condition of mind
+to enjoy it, and scarcely consumed anything. Vainly did they endeavor
+to speak on indifferent subjects, and when the coffee had been served in
+the library, they relapsed into utter silence. As the clock struck ten,
+however, a knock was heard at the door, then whisperings, and the rustle
+of female attire, and lastly Madame de Bois Arden burst upon them like a
+tornado.
+
+“Here I am,” cried she.
+
+It was certainly rather a hazardous step to pay such a late visit to a
+bachelor’s house, but then the Viscountess de Bois Arden did exactly as
+she pleased.
+
+“I have come here, Gontran,” exclaimed she, with extreme vehemence, “to
+tell you that I think your conduct is abominable and ungentlemanly.”
+
+“Clotilde!”
+
+“Hold your tongue! you are a wretch! Ah! now I can see why you did not
+wish to write and inquire about poor Sabine. You well knew the effect
+that your message would have on her.”
+
+M. de Breulh smiled as he turned to Andre and said,--
+
+“You see that I was right in what I told you.”
+
+This remark for the first time attracted Madame de Bois Arden’s
+attention to the fact that a stranger was present, and she trembled lest
+she had committed some grave indiscretion.
+
+“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed she, with a start, “why, I thought that we
+were alone!”
+
+“This gentleman has all my confidence,” replied M. de Breulh seriously;
+and as he spoke he laid his hand upon Andre’s shoulder. “Permit me to
+introduce M. Andre to you, my dear Clotilde; he may not be known to-day,
+but in a short time his reputation will be European.”
+
+Andre bowed, but for once in her life the Viscountess felt embarrassed,
+for she was surprised at the extremely shabby attire of this
+confidential friend, and then there seemed something wanting to the
+name.
+
+“Then,” resumed De Breulh, “Mademoiselle de Mussidan is really ill, and
+our information is correct.”
+
+“She is.”
+
+“Did you see her?”
+
+“I did, Gontran; and had you seen her, your heart would have been filled
+with pity, and you would have repented your conduct toward her. The
+poor girl did not even know me. She lay in her bed, whiter than the very
+sheets, cold and inanimate as a figure of marble. Her large black eyes
+were staring wildly, and the only sign of life she exhibited was when
+the great tears coursed down her cheeks.”
+
+Andre had determined to restrain every token of emotion in the presence
+of the Viscountess, but her recital was too much for him.
+
+“Ah!” said he, “she will die; I know it.”
+
+There was such intense anguish in his tone that even the practised woman
+of the world was softened.
+
+“I assure you, sir,” said she, “that you go too far; there is no present
+danger; the doctors say it is catalepsy, which often attacks persons of
+a nervous temperament upon the receipt of a sudden mental shock.”
+
+“But what shock has she received?” asked Andre.
+
+“No one told me,” answered she after a short pause, “that Sabine’s
+illness was caused by the breaking off of her engagement; but, of
+course, I supposed that it was.”
+
+“That was not the reason, Clotilde; but you have told us nothing; pray,
+go on,” interposed De Breulh.
+
+The extreme calmness of her cousin, and a glance which she observed
+passing between him and Andre, enlightened the Viscountess somewhat.
+
+“I asked as much as I dared,” she replied, “but I could only get the
+vaguest answers. Sabine looked as if she were dead, and her father and
+mother hovered around her couch like two spectres. Had they slain her
+with their own hands, they could not have looked more guilty; their
+faces frightened me.”
+
+“Tell me precisely what answers were given to your questions,” broke in
+he impatiently.
+
+“Sabine had seemed so agitated all day, that her mother asked her if she
+was suffering any pain.”
+
+“We know that already.”
+
+“Indeed!” replied the Viscountess, with a look of surprise. “It seems,
+cousin, that you saw Sabine that afternoon, but what became of her
+afterward no one appears to know; but there is positive proof that she
+did not leave the house, and received no letters. At all events, it was
+more than an hour after her maid saw her enter her own room. Sabine said
+a few unintelligible words to the girl, who, seeing the pallor upon her
+mistress’s face, ran up to her. Just as she did so, Sabine uttered a
+wild shriek, and fell to the ground. She was raised up and laid upon the
+bed, but since then she has neither moved nor spoken.”
+
+“That is not all,” said De Breulh, who had watched his cousin keenly.
+
+The Viscountess started, and avoided meeting her cousin’s eye.
+
+“I do not understand,” she faltered. “Why do you look at me like that?”
+
+De Breulh, who had been pacing up and down the room, suddenly halted in
+front of the Viscountess.
+
+“My dear Clotilde,” said he, “I am sure when I tell you that the tongue
+of scandal has often been busy with your name, I am telling you nothing
+new.”
+
+“Pooh!” answered the Viscountess. “What do I care for that?”
+
+“But I always defended you. You are indiscreet--your presence here
+tonight shows this; but you are, after all, a true woman,--brave and
+true as steel.”
+
+“What do you mean by this exordium, Gontran?”
+
+“This, Clotilde,--I want to know if I dare venture to intrust to you a
+secret which involves the honor of two persons, and, perhaps, the lives
+of more.”
+
+“Thank you, Gontran,” answered she calmly. “You have formed a correct
+judgment of me.”
+
+But here Andre felt that he must interpose, and, taking a step forward,
+said, “Have you the right to speak?”
+
+“My dear Andre,” said De Breulh, “this is a matter in which my honor is
+as much concerned as yours. Will you not trust me?” Then turning to the
+Viscountess, he added, “Tell us all you heard.”
+
+“It is only something I heard from Modeste. You had hardly left the
+house, when the Baron de Clinchain made his appearance.”
+
+“An eccentric old fellow, a friend of the Count de Mussidan’s. I know
+him.”
+
+“Just so; well, they had a stormy interview, and at the end of it, the
+Baron was taken ill, and it was with difficulty that he regained his
+carriage.”
+
+“That seems curious.”
+
+“Wait a bit. After that Octave and his wife had a terrible scene
+together, and Modeste thinks that her mistress must have heard
+something, for the Count’s voice rang through the house like thunder.”
+
+Every word that the Viscountess uttered strengthened De Breulh’s
+suspicions. “There is something mysterious in all this, Clotilde,”
+ said he, “as you will say when you know the whole truth,” and, without
+omitting a single detail, he related the whole of Sabine and Andre’s
+love story.
+
+Madame de Bois Arden listened attentively, sometimes thrilled with
+horror, and at others pleased with this tale of innocent love.
+
+“Forgive me,” said she, when her cousin had concluded; “my reproaches
+and accusations were equally unfounded.”
+
+“Yes, yes; never mind that; but I am afraid that there is some hidden
+mystery which will place a fresh stumbling-block in our friend Andre’s
+path.”
+
+“Do not say that,” cried Andre, in terror. “What is it?”
+
+“That I cannot tell; for Mademoiselle de Mussidan’s sake, I have
+withdrawn all my pretensions to her hand,--not to leave the field open
+to any other intruder, but in order that she may be your wife.”
+
+“How are we to learn what has really happened?” asked the Viscountess.
+
+“In some way or other we shall find out, if you will be our ally.”
+
+Most women are pleased to busy themselves about a marriage, and the
+Viscountess was cheered to find herself mixed up in so romantic a drama.
+
+“I am entirely at your beck and call,” answered she. “Have you any
+plan?”
+
+“Not yet, but I will soon. As far as Mademoiselle de Mussidan is
+concerned, we must act quite openly. Andre will write to her, asking
+for an explanation, and you shall see her to-morrow, and if she is well
+enough, give her his note.”
+
+The proposal was a startling one, and the Viscountess did not entertain
+it favorably.
+
+“No,” said she, “I think that would not do at all.”
+
+“Why not? However, let us leave it to Andre.”
+
+Andre, thus addressed, stepped forward, and said,--
+
+“I do not think that it would be delicate to let Mademoiselle de
+Mussidan know that her secret is known to any one else than ourselves.”
+
+The Viscountess nodded assent.
+
+“If,” continued Andre, “the Viscountess will be good enough to ask
+Modeste to meet me at the corner of the Avenue de Matignon; I shall be
+there.”
+
+“A capital idea, sir,” said the lady, “and I will give your message to
+Modeste.” She broke off her speech suddenly, and uttered a pretty little
+shriek, as she noticed that the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece
+pointed to twenty to twelve. “Great heavens!” cried she, “and I am going
+to a ball at the Austrian Embassy, and now not even dressed.” And, with
+a coquettish gesture, she drew her shawl around her, and ran out of
+the room, exclaiming as she descended the stairs, “I will call here
+to-morrow, Gontran, on my way to the Bois,” and disappeared like
+lightning.
+
+Andre and his host sat over the fire, and conversed for a long time. It
+seemed strange that two men who had met that morning for the first time
+should now be on such intimate terms of friendship; but such was the
+case, for a mutual feeling of admiration and respect had sprung up in
+their hearts.
+
+M. de Breulh wished to send Andre home in his carriage, but this the
+young man declined, and merely borrowed an overcoat to protect him from
+the inclemency of the weather.
+
+“To-morrow,” said he, as he made his way home, “Modeste shall tell all
+she knows, provided always that that charming society dame does not
+forget all about our existence before then.”
+
+Madame de Bois Arden, however, could sometimes be really in earnest.
+Upon her return from the ball she would not even go to bed, lest she
+should oversleep herself, and the next day Andre found Modeste waiting
+at the appointed spot, and learnt, to his great grief, that Sabine had
+not yet regained consciousness.
+
+The family doctor betrayed no uneasiness, but expressed a wish for a
+consultation with another medical man. Meanwhile, the girl promised
+to meet Andre morning and evening in the same place, and give him such
+scraps of information as she had been able to pick up. For two whole
+days Mademoiselle de Mussidan’s condition remained unchanged, and Andre
+spent his whole time between his own studio, the Avenue de Matignon, and
+M. de Breulh’s, where he frequently met Madame de Bois Arden.
+
+But on the third day Modest informed him, with tears in her eyes, that
+though the cataleptic fit had passed away, Sabine was struggling with
+a severe attack of fever. Modeste and Andre were so interested in their
+conversation, that they did not perceive Florestan, who had gone out to
+post a letter to Mascarin.
+
+“Listen, Modeste,” whispered Andre, “you tell me that she is in
+danger,--very great danger.”
+
+“The doctor said that the crisis would take place to-day; be here at
+five this evening.”
+
+Andre staggered like a madman to De Breulh’s house; and so excited was
+he that his friend insisted upon his taking some repose, and would not,
+when five o’clock arrived, permit Andre to go to the appointment alone.
+As they turned the corner, they saw Modeste hurrying toward them.
+
+“She is saved, she is saved!” said she, “for she has fallen into a
+tranquil sleep, and the doctor says that she will recover.”
+
+Andre and De Breulh were transported by this news; but they did not know
+that they were watched by two men, Mascarin and Florestan, who did not
+let one of their movements escape them. Warned by a brief note from
+Florestan, Mascarin had driven swiftly to Father Canon’s public-house,
+where he thought he was certain to find the domestic, but the man was
+not there, and Mascarin, unable to endure further suspense, sent for him
+to the Hotel de Mussidan. When the servant informed Mascarin that the
+crisis was safely passed, he drew a deep breath of relief; for he no
+longer feared that the frail structure that he had built up with such
+patient care for twenty long years would be shattered at a blow by
+the chill hand of death. He bent his brow, however, when he heard of
+Modeste’s daily interviews with the young man whom Florestan termed
+“Mademoiselle’s lover.”
+
+“Ah,” muttered he, “if I could only be present at one of those
+interviews!”
+
+“And, as you say,” returned Florestan, drawing out, as he spoke, a
+neat-looking watch, “it is just the hour of their meeting; and as the
+place is always the same, you--”
+
+“Come, then,” broke in his patron. They went out accordingly, and
+reached the Champs Elysees by a circuitous route. The place was
+admirably suited to their purpose, for close by were several of those
+little wooden huts, occupied in summer by the vendors of cakes and
+playthings.
+
+“Let us get behind one of these,” said Florestan. Night was drawing
+in, but objects could still be distinguished, and in about five minutes
+Florestan whispered, “Look, there comes Modeste, and there is the lover,
+but he has a pal with him to-night. Why, what can she be telling him? He
+seems quite overcome.”
+
+Mascarin divined the truth at once, and found that it would be a
+difficult task to interfere with the love of a man who displayed so much
+intensity of feeling.
+
+“Then,” remarked Mascarin, savagely, “that great booby, staggering about
+on his friend’s arm, is your young lady’s lover?”
+
+“Just so, sir.”
+
+“Then we must find out who he is.”
+
+Florestan put on a crafty air, and replied in gentle accents.
+
+“The day before yesterday, as I was smoking my pipe outside, I saw this
+young bantam swaggering down the street--not but what he seemed rather
+crestfallen; but I knew the reason for that, and should look just as
+much in the dumps if my young woman was laid up. I thought, as I had
+nothing to do, I might as well see who he was and where he lived; so,
+sticking my hands in my pockets, after him I sloped. He walked such a
+long way, that I got precious sick of my job, but at last I ran him
+to earth in a house. I went straight up to the lodge, and showed the
+portress my tobacco pouch, and said, ‘I picked up this; I think that the
+gentleman who has just gone in dropped it. Do you know him?’ ‘Of course
+I do,’ said she. ‘He is a painter; lives on the fourth floor; and his
+name is M. Andre.’”
+
+“Was the house in the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne?” broke in Mascarin.
+
+“You are right, sir,” returned the man, taken a little aback. “It seems,
+sir, that you are better informed than I am.”
+
+Mascarin did not notice the man’s surprise, but he was struck with the
+strange persistency with which this young man seemed to cross his plans,
+for he found that the acquaintance of Rose and the lover of Mademoiselle
+de Mussidan were one and the same person, and he had a presentiment that
+he would in some way prove a hindrance to his plans.
+
+The astute Mascarin concentrated all his attention upon Andre.
+
+The latter said something to Modeste, which caused that young woman to
+raise her hands to heaven, as though in alarm.
+
+“But who is the other?” asked he,--“the fellow that looks like an
+Englishman?”
+
+“Do you not know?” returned the lackey. “Why, that is M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+“What, the man who was to marry Sabine?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+Mascarin was not easily disconcerted, but this time a blasphemous oath
+burst from his lips.
+
+“Do you mean,” said he, “that De Breulh and this painter are friends?”
+
+“That is more than I can tell. You seem to want to know a lot,” answered
+Florestan, sulkily.
+
+Modeste had now left the young men, who walked arm in arm in the
+direction of the Avenue de l’Imperatrice.
+
+“M. de Breulh takes his dismissal easily enough,” observed Mascarin.
+
+“He was not dismissed; it was he that wrote and broke off the
+engagement.”
+
+This time Mascarin contrived to conceal the terrible blow that this
+information caused to him, and even made some jesting remark as he took
+leave of Florestan; but he was in truth completely staggered, for after
+thoroughly believing that the game was won, he saw that, though perhaps
+not lost, his victory was postponed for an indefinite period.
+
+“What!” said he, as he clenched his hand firmly, “shall the headstrong
+passion of this foolish boy mar my plans? Let him take care of himself;
+for if he walks in my path, he will find it a road that leads to his own
+destruction.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN ACADEMY OF MUSIC.
+
+Dr. Hortebise had for some time back given up arguing with Mascarin as
+to the advice the latter gave him. He had been ordered not to let Paul
+out of his sight, and he obeyed this command literally. He had taken him
+to dine at M. Martin Rigal’s, though the host himself was absent; from
+there he took Paul to his club, and finally wound up by forcing the
+young man to accept a bed at his house. They both slept late, and were
+sitting down to a luxurious breakfast, when the servant announced M.
+Tantaine, and that worthy man made his appearance with the same smile
+upon his face which Paul remembered so well in the Hotel de Perou.
+The sight of him threw the young man into a state of fury. “At last we
+meet,” cried he. “I have an account to settle with you.”
+
+“You have an account to settle with me?” asked Daddy Tantaine with a
+puzzled smile.
+
+“Yes; was it not through you that I was accused of theft by that old
+hag, Madame Loupins?”
+
+Tantaine shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Dear me,” said he; “I thought that M. Mascarin had explained
+everything, and that you were anxious to marry Mademoiselle Flavia, and
+that, above all, you were a young man of intelligence and tact.”
+
+Hortebise roared with laughter, and Paul, seeing his folly, blushed
+deeply and remained silent.
+
+“I regret having disturbed you, doctor,” resumed Tantaine, “but I had
+strict orders to see you.”
+
+“Is there anything new then?”
+
+“Yes; Mademoiselle de Mussidan is out of danger, and M. de Croisenois
+can commence proceedings at once.”
+
+The doctor drank off a glass of wine. “To the speedy marriage of our
+dear friend the Marquis and Mademoiselle Sabine,” said he gayly.
+
+“So be it,” said Tantaine; “I am also directed to beg M. Paul not to
+leave this house, but to send for his luggage and remain here.”
+
+Hortebise looked so much annoyed that Tantaine hastened to add: “Only as
+a temporary measure, for I am on the lookout for rooms for him now.”
+
+Paul looked delighted at the idea of having a home of his own.
+
+“Good!” exclaimed the doctor merrily. “And now, my dear Tantaine, as you
+have executed all your commissions, you can stay and breakfast with us.”
+
+“Thanks for the honor; but I am very busy with affairs of the Duke de
+Champdoce and must see Perpignan at once.” As he spoke he rose, making
+a little sign which Paul did not catch, and Hortebise accompanied him to
+the door of the vestibule. “Don’t leave that lad alone,” said Tantaine;
+“I will see about him to-morrow; meanwhile prepare him a little.”
+
+“I comprehend,” answered Hortebise; “my kind regards to that dear
+fellow, Perpignan.”
+
+This Perpignan was well known--some people said too well known--in
+Paris. His real name was Isidore Crocheteau, and he had started life
+as a cook in a Palais Royal restaurant. Unfortunately a breach of the
+Eighth Commandment had caused him to suffer incarceration for a period
+of three years, and on his release he bloomed out into a private inquiry
+agent. His chief customers were jealous husbands, but as surely as one
+of these placed an affair in his hands, he would go to the erring wife
+and obtain a handsome price from her for his silence.
+
+Mascarin and Perpignan had met in an affair of this kind; and as they
+mutually feared each other, they had tacitly agreed not to cross
+each other’s path in that great wilderness of crime--Paris. But while
+Perpignan knew nothing of Mascarin’s schemes and operations, the
+former was very well acquainted with the ex-cook’s doings. He knew,
+for instance, that the income from the Inquiry Office would not cover
+Perpignan’s expenses, who dressed extravagantly, kept a carriage,
+affected artistic tastes, played cards, betted on races, and liked good
+dinners at the most expensive restaurants. “Where can he get his money
+from?” asked Mascarin of himself; and, after a long search, he succeeded
+in solving the riddle.
+
+Daddy Tantaine, after leaving the doctor’s, soon arrived at the
+residence of M. Perpignan, and rang the bell.
+
+A fat woman answered the door. “M. Perpignan is out,” said she.
+
+“When will he be back?”
+
+“Some time this evening.”
+
+“Can you tell me where I can find him, as it is of the utmost importance
+to both of us that I should see him at once?”
+
+“He did not say where he was going to.”
+
+“Perhaps he is at the factory,” said Tantaine blandly.
+
+The fat woman was utterly taken aback by this suggestion. “What do you
+know about that?” faltered she.
+
+“You see I _do_ know, and that is sufficient for you. Come, is he
+there?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“Thank you, I will call on him then. An awfully long journey,” muttered
+Tantaine, as he turned away; “but, perhaps, if I catch the worthy man
+in the midst of all his little business affairs, he will be more free in
+his language, and not so guarded in his actual admissions.”
+
+The old man went to his task with a will. He passed down the Rue
+Toumenon, skirted the Luxemburg, and made his way into the Rue Guy
+Lussac; from thence he walked down the Rue Mouffetard, and thence direct
+into one of those crooked lanes which run between the Gobelins Factory
+and the Hopital de l’Oursine. This is a portion of the city utterly
+unknown to the greater number of Parisians. The streets are narrow and
+hardly afford room for vehicles. A valley forms the centre of the place,
+down which runs a muddy, sluggish stream, the banks of which are densely
+crowded with tanyards and iron works. On the one side of this valley is
+the busy Rue Mouffetard, and on the other one of the outer boulevards,
+while a long line of sickly-looking poplars mark the course of the
+semi-stagnant stream. Tantaine seemed to know the quarter well, and
+went on until he reached the Champs des Alouettes. Then, with a sigh of
+satisfaction, he halted before a large, three-storied house, standing on
+a piece of ground surrounded by a mouldering wooden fence. The aspect of
+the house had something sinister and gloomy about it, and for a moment
+Tantaine paused as if he could not make up his mind to enter it; but
+at last he did so. The interior was as dingy and dilapidated as the
+outside. There were two rooms on the ground floor, one of which was
+strewn with straw, with a few filthy-looking quilts and blankets spread
+over it. The next room was fitted up as a kitchen; in the centre was a
+long table composed of boards placed on trestles, and a dirty-looking
+woman with her head enveloped in a coarse red handkerchief, and grasping
+a big wooden spoon, was stirring the contents of a large pot in which
+some terrible-looking ingredients were cooking. On a small bed in a
+corner lay a little boy. Every now and then a shiver convulsed his
+frame, his face was deadly pale, and his hands almost transparent,
+while his great black eyes glittered with the wild delirium of fever.
+Sometimes he would give a deep groan, and then the old beldame would
+turn angrily and threaten to strike him with her wooden spoon.
+
+“But I am so ill,” pleaded the boy.
+
+“If you had brought home what you were told, you would not have been
+beaten, and then you would have had no fever,” returned the woman
+harshly.
+
+“Ah, me! I am sick and cold, and want to go away,” wailed the child; “I
+want to see mammy.”
+
+Even Tantaine felt uneasy at this scene, and gave a gentle cough to
+announce his presence. The old woman turned round on him with an angry
+snarl. “Who do you want here?” growled she.
+
+“Your master.”
+
+“He has not yet arrived, and may not come at all, for it is not his day;
+but you can see Poluche.”
+
+“And who may he be?”
+
+“He is the professor,” answered the hag contemptuously.
+
+“And where is he?”
+
+“In the music-room.”
+
+Tantaine went to the stairs, which were so dingy and dilapidated as to
+make an ascent a work of danger and difficulty. As he ascended higher,
+he became aware of a strange sound, something between the grinding
+of scissors and the snarling of cats. Then a moment’s silence, a loud
+execration, and a cry of pain. Tantaine passed on, and coming to a
+rickety door, he opened it, and in another moment found himself in what
+the old hag downstairs had called the music-room. The partitions of
+all the rooms on the floor had been roughly torn down to form this
+apartment; hardly a pane of glass remained intact in the windows; the
+dingy, whitewashed walls were covered with scrawls and drawings in
+charcoal. A suffocating, nauseous odor rose up, absolutely overpowering
+the smell from the neighboring tanyards. There was no furniture except a
+broken chair, upon which lay a dog whip with plaited leather lash. Round
+the room, against the wall, stood some twenty children, dirty, and in
+tattered clothes. Some had violins in their hands, and others stood
+behind harps as tall as themselves. Upon the violins Tantaine noticed
+there were chalk marks at various distances. In the middle of the room
+was a man, tall and erect as a dart, with flat, ugly features and lank,
+greasy hair hanging down on his shoulders. He, too, had a violin, and
+was evidently giving the children a lesson. Tantaine at once guessed
+that this was Professor Poluche.
+
+“Listen,” said he; “here, you Ascanie, play the chorus from the _Chateau
+de Marguerite_.” As he spoke he drew his bow across his instrument,
+while the little Savoyard did his best to imitate him, and in a
+squeaking voice, in nasal tone, he sang:
+
+“Ah! great heavens, how fine and grand Is the palace!”
+
+“You young rascal!” cried Poluche. “Have I not bid you fifty times that
+at the word ‘palace’ you are to place your bow on the fourth chalkmark
+and draw it across? Begin again.”
+
+Once again the boy commenced, but Poluche stopped him.
+
+“I believe, you young villain, that you are doing it on purpose. Now, go
+through the whole chorus again; and if you do not do it right, look out
+for squalls.”
+
+Poor Ascanie was so muddled that he forgot all his instructions. Without
+any appearance of anger, the professor took up the whip and administered
+half a dozen severe cuts across the bare legs of the child, whose shouts
+soon filled the room.
+
+“When you are done howling,” remarked Poluche, “you can try again;
+and if you do not succeed, no supper for you to-night, my lad. Now,
+Giuseppe, it is your turn.”
+
+Giuseppe, though younger than Ascanie, was a greater proficient on the
+instrument, and went through his task without a single mistake.
+
+“Good!” said Poluche; “if you get on like that, you will soon be fit to
+go out. You would like that, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the delighted boy, “and I should like to bring in a few
+coppers too.”
+
+But the Professor did not waste too much time in idle converse.
+
+“It is your turn now, Fabio,” said he.
+
+Fabio, a little mite of seven, with eyes black and sparkling as those of
+a dormouse, had just seen Tantaine in the doorway and pointed him out to
+the professor.
+
+Poluche turned quickly round and found himself face to face with
+Tantaine, who had come quickly forward, his hat in his hand.
+
+Had the professor seen an apparition, he could not have started more
+violently, for he did not like strangers.
+
+“What do you want?” asked he.
+
+“Reassure yourself, sir,” said Tantaine, after having for a few seconds
+enjoyed his evident terror; “I am the intimate friend of the gentleman
+who employs you, and have come here to discuss an important matter of
+business with him.”
+
+Poluche breathed more freely.
+
+“Take a chair, sir,” said he, offering the only one in the room. “My
+master will soon be here.”
+
+But Daddy Tantaine refused the offer, saying that he did not wish to
+intrude, but would wait until the lesson was over.
+
+“I have nearly finished,” remarked Poluche; “it is almost time to let
+these scamps have their soup.”
+
+Then turning to his pupils, who had not dared to stir a limb, he said,--
+
+“There, that is enough for to-day; you can go.”
+
+The children did not hesitate for a moment, but tumbled over each other
+in their eagerness to get away, hoping, perhaps, that he might omit to
+execute certain threats that he had held out during the lesson. The hope
+was a vain one, for the equitable Poluche went to the head of the stairs
+and called out in a loud voice,--
+
+“Mother Butor, you will give no soup to Monte and put Ravillet on half
+allowance.”
+
+Tantaine was much interested, for the scene was an entirely new one.
+
+The professor raised his eyes to heaven.
+
+“Would,” said he, “that I might teach them the divine science as I would
+wish; but the master would not allow me; indeed, he would dismiss me if
+I attempted to do so.”
+
+“I do not understand you.”
+
+“Let me explain to you. You know that there are certain old women who,
+for a consideration, will train a linnet or a bullfinch to whistle any
+air?”
+
+Tantaine, with all humility, confessed his ignorance of these matters.
+
+“Well,” said the professor, “the only difference between those old women
+and myself is, that they teach birds and I boys; and I know which I had
+rather do.”
+
+Tantaine pointed to the whip.
+
+“And how about this?” asked he.
+
+Poluche shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Put yourself in my place for a little while,” remarked he. “You see my
+master brings me all sorts of boys, and I have to cram music into them
+in the briefest period possible. Of course the child revolts, and I
+thrash him; but do not think he cares for this; the young imps thrive on
+blows. The only way that I can touch them is through their stomachs. I
+stop a quarter, a half, and sometimes the whole of their dinner. That
+fetches them, and you have no idea how a little starvation brings them
+on in music.”
+
+Daddy Tantaine felt a cold shiver creep over him as he listened to this
+frank exposition of the professor’s mode of action.
+
+“You can now understand,” remarked the professor, “how some airs become
+popular in Paris. I have forty pupils all trying the same thing. I am
+drilling them now in the _Marguerite_, and in a little time you will
+have nothing else in the streets.”
+
+Poluche was proceeding to give Tantaine some further information, when a
+step was heard upon the stairs, and the professor remarked,--
+
+“Here is the master; he never comes up here, because he is afraid of the
+stairs. You had better go down to him.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
+
+The ex-cook appeared before Tantaine in all his appalling vulgarity as
+the latter descended the stairs. The proprietor of the musical academy
+was a stout, red-faced man, with an insolent mouth and a cynical eye.
+He was gorgeously dressed, and wore a profusion of jewelry. He was
+much startled at seeing Tantaine, whom he knew to be the redoubtable
+Mascarin’s right-hand man. “A thousand thunders!” muttered he. “If these
+people have sent him here for me, I must take care what I am about,” and
+with a friendly smile he extended his hand to Tantaine.
+
+“Glad to see you,” said he. “Now, what can I do for you, for I hope you
+have come to ask me to do something?”
+
+“The veriest trifle,” returned Tantaine.
+
+“I am sorry that it is not something of importance, for I have the
+greatest respect for M. Mascarin.”
+
+This conversation had taken place in the window, and was interrupted
+every moment by the shouts and laughter of the children; but beneath
+these sounds of merriment came an occasional bitter wail of lamentation.
+
+“What is that?” inquired Perpignan, in a voice of thunder. “Who presumes
+to be unhappy in this establishment?”
+
+“It is two of the lads that I have put on half rations,” returned
+Poluche. “I’ll make them learn somehow or----”
+
+A dark frown on the master’s face arrested his further speech. “What do
+I hear?” roared Perpignan. “Do you dare, under my roof, to deprive those
+poor children of an ounce of food? It is scandalous, I may say, infamous
+on your part, M. Poluche.”
+
+“But, sir,” faltered the professor, “have you not told me hundreds of
+times--”
+
+“That you were an idiot, and would never be anything better. Go and tell
+Mother Butor to give these poor children their dinner.”
+
+Repressing further manifestations of rage, Perpignan took Tantaine by
+the arm and led him into a little side-room, which he dignified by the
+name of his office. There was nothing in it but three chairs, a common
+deal table, and a few shelves containing ledgers. “You have come on
+business, I presume,” remarked Perpignan.
+
+Tantaine nodded, and the two men seated themselves at the table, gazing
+keenly into each other’s eyes, as though to read the thoughts that moved
+in the busy brain.
+
+“How did you find out my little establishment down here?” asked
+Perpignan.
+
+“By a mere chance,” remarked Tantaine carelessly. “I go about a
+good deal, and hear many things. For instance, you have taken every
+precaution here, and though you are really the proprietor, yet the
+husband of your cook and housekeeper, Butor, is supposed to be the owner
+of the house--at least it stands in his name. Now, if anything untoward
+happened, you would vanish, and only Butor would remain a prey for the
+police.”
+
+Tantaine paused for a moment, and then slowly added, “Such tactics
+usually succeed unless a man has some secret enemy, who would
+take advantage of his knowledge, to do him an injury by obtaining
+irrefragable proofs of his complicity.”
+
+The ex-cook easily perceived the threat that was hidden under these
+words. “They know something,” muttered he, “and I must find out what it
+is.”
+
+“If a man has a clear conscience,” said he aloud, “he is all right. I
+have nothing to conceal, and therefore nothing to fear. You have now
+seen my establishment; what do you think of it?”
+
+“It seems to me a very well-conducted one.”
+
+“It may have occurred to you that a factory at Roubaix might have been a
+better investment, but I had not the capital to begin with.”
+
+Tantaine nodded. “It is not half a bad trade,” said he.
+
+“I agree with you. In the Rue St. Marguerite you will find more than
+one similar establishment; but I never cared for the situation of the
+Faubourg St. Antoine. My little angels find this spot more salubrious.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered Tantaine amicably, “and if they howl too much when
+they are corrected, there are not too many neighbors to hear them.”
+
+Perpignan thought it best to take no notice of this observation. “The
+papers are always pitching into us,” continued he. “They had much better
+stick to politics. The fact is, that the profits of our business are
+tremendously exaggerated.”
+
+“Well, you manage to make a living out of it?”
+
+“I don’t lose, I confess, but I have six little cherubs in hospital,
+besides the one in the kitchen, and these, of course, are a dead loss to
+me.”
+
+“That is a sad thing for you,” answered Tantaine gravely.
+
+Perpignan began to be amazed at his visitor’s coolness.
+
+“Damn it all,” said he, “if you and Mascarin think the business such
+a profitable one, why don’t you go in for it. You may perhaps think it
+easy to procure the kids; just try it. You have to go to Italy for most
+of them, then you have to smuggle them across the frontier like bales of
+contraband goods.”
+
+Perpignan paused to take a breath, and Tantaine asked,--
+
+“What sum do you make each of the lads bring in daily?”
+
+“That depends,” answered Perpignan hesitatingly.
+
+“Well, you can give an average?”
+
+“Say three francs then.”
+
+“Three francs!” repeated Tantaine with a genial smile, “and you have
+forty little cherubs, so that makes one hundred and twenty francs per
+day.”
+
+“Absurd!” retorted Perpignan; “do you think each of the lads bring in
+such a sum as that?”
+
+“Ah! you know the way to make them do so.”
+
+“I don’t understand you,” answered Perpignan, in whose voice a shade of
+anxiety now began to appear.
+
+“No offence, no offence,” answered Tantaine; “but the fact is, the
+newspapers are doing you a great deal of harm, by retailing some of the
+means adopted by your colleague to make the boys do a good day’s work.
+Do you recollect the sentence on that master who tied one of his lads
+down on a bed, and left him without food for two days at a stretch?”
+
+“I don’t care about such matters; no one can bring a charge of cruelty
+against me,” retorted Perpignan angrily.
+
+“A man with the kindest heart in the world may be the victim of
+circumstances.”
+
+Perpignan felt that the decisive moment was at hand.
+
+“What do you mean?” asked he.
+
+“Well, suppose, to punish one of your refractory lads, you were to shut
+him in the cellar. A storm comes on during the night, the gutter gets
+choked up, the cellar fills with water, and next morning you find the
+little cherub drowned like a rat in his hole?”
+
+Perpignan’s face was livid.
+
+“Well, and what then?” asked he.
+
+“Ah! now the awkward part of the matter comes. You would not care to
+send for the police, that might excite suspicion; the easiest thing is
+to dig a hole and shove the body into it.”
+
+Perpignan got up and placed his back against the door.
+
+“You know too much, M. Tantaine,--a great deal too much,” said he.
+
+Perpignan’s manner was most threatening; but Tantaine still smiled
+pleasantly, like a child who had just committed some simply mischievous
+act, the results of which it cannot foresee.
+
+“The sentence isn’t heavy,” he continued; “five years’ penal servitude,
+if evidence of previous good conduct could be put in; but if former
+antecedents were disclosed, such as a journey to Nancy----”
+
+This was the last straw, and Perpignan broke out,--
+
+“What do you mean?” said he; “and what do you want me to do?”
+
+“Only a trifling service, as I told you before. My dear sir, do not put
+yourself in a rage,” he added, as Perpignan seemed disposed to speak
+again. “Was it not you who first began to talk of your, ‘em--well, let
+us say business?”
+
+“Then you wanted to make yourself agreeable by talking all this rot to
+me. Well, shall I tell you in my turn what I think?”
+
+“By all means, if it will not be giving you too much trouble.”
+
+“Then I tell you that you have come here on an errand which no man
+should venture to do alone. You are not of the age and build for
+business like this. It is a misfortune--a fatal one perhaps--to put
+yourself in my power, in such a house as this.”
+
+“But, my dear sir, what is likely to happen to me?”
+
+The features of the ex-cook were convulsed with fury; he was in that mad
+state of rage in which a man has no control over himself. Mechanically
+his hand slipped into his pocket; but before he could draw it out again,
+Tantaine who had not lost one of his movements, sprang upon him and
+grasped him so tightly by the throat that he was powerless to adopt any
+offensive measures, in spite of his great strength and robust build.
+The struggle was not a long one; the old man hurled his adversary to the
+ground, and placed his foot on his chest, and held him down, his whole
+face and figure seemingly transfigured with the glories of strength and
+success.
+
+“And so you wished to stab me,--to murder a poor and inoffensive old
+man. Do you think that I was fool enough to enter your cut-throat door
+without taking proper precautions?” And as he spoke he drew a revolver
+from his bosom. “Throw away your knife,” added he sternly.
+
+In obedience to this mandate, Perpignan, who was now entirely
+demoralized, threw the sharp-pointed weapon which he had contrived to
+open in his pocket into a corner of the room.
+
+“Good,” said Tantaine. “You are growing more reasonable now. Of course I
+came alone, but do you think that plenty of people did not know where I
+was going to? Had I not returned to-night, do you think that my master,
+M. Mascarin, would have been satisfied? and how long do you think it
+would have been before he and the police would have been here. If you do
+not do all that I wish for the rest of your life, you will be the most
+ungrateful fellow in the world.”
+
+Perpignan was deeply mortified; he had been worsted in single combat,
+and now he was being found out, and these things had never happened to
+him before.
+
+“Well, I suppose that I must give in,” answered he sulkily.
+
+“Quite so; it is a pity that you did not think of that before.”
+
+“You vexed me and made me angry.”
+
+“Just so; well, now, get up, take that chair, and let us talk
+reasonably.”
+
+Perpignan obeyed without a word.
+
+“Now,” said Tantaine, “I came here with a really magnificent proposal.
+But I adopted the course I pursued because I wished to prove to you
+that _you_ belonged more absolutely to Mascarin than did your wretched
+foreign slaves to you. You are absolutely at his mercy, and he can crush
+you to powder whenever he likes.”
+
+“Your Mascarin is Satan himself,” muttered the discomfited man. “Who can
+resist him?”
+
+“Come, as you think thus, we can talk sensibly at last.”
+
+“Well,” answered Perpignan ruefully, as he adjusted his disordered
+necktie, “say what you like, I have no answer to make.”
+
+“Let us begin at the commencement,” said Tantaine. “For some days past
+your people have been following a certain Caroline Schimmel. A fellow of
+sixteen called Ambrose, a lad with a harp, was told off for this duty.
+He is not to be trusted. Only a night or two ago one of my men made him
+drunk; and fearing lest his absence might create surprise, drove him
+here in a cab, and left him at the corner.”
+
+The ex-cook uttered an oath.
+
+“Then you too are watching Caroline,” said he. “I knew well that there
+was some one else in the field, but that was no matter of mine.”
+
+“Well, tell me why you are watching her?”
+
+“How can you ask me? You know that my motto is silence and discretion,
+and that this is a secret intrusted to my honor.”
+
+Tantaine shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Why do you talk like that, when you know very well that you are
+following Ambrose on your own account, hoping by that means to penetrate
+a secret, only a small portion of which has been intrusted to you?”
+ remarked he.
+
+“Are you certain of this statement?” asked the man, with a cunning look.
+
+“So sure that I can tell you that the matter was placed in your hands by
+a certain M. Catenac.”
+
+The expression in Perpignan’s face changed from astonishment to fear.
+
+“Why, this Mascarin knows everything,” muttered he.
+
+“No,” replied Tantaine, “my master does not know everything, and the
+proof of this is, that I have come to ask you what occurred between
+Catenac’s client and yourself, and this is the service that we expect
+from you.”
+
+“Well, if I must, I must. About three weeks ago, one morning, I had just
+finished with half a dozen clients at my office in the Rue de Fame, when
+my servant brought me Catenac’s card. After some talk, he asked me if I
+could find out a person that he had utterly lost sight of. Of course I
+said, yes, I could. Upon this he asked me to make an appointment for ten
+the next morning, when some one would call on me regarding the affair.
+At the appointed time a shabbily dressed man was shown in. I looked at
+him up and down, and saw that, in spite of his greasy hat and threadbare
+coat, his linen was of the finest kind, and that his shoes were the work
+of one of our best bootmakers. ‘Aha,’ said I to myself, ‘you thought to
+take me in, did you!’ I handed him a chair, and he at once proceeded
+to let me into his reasons for coming. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘my life has not
+been a very happy one, and once I was compelled to take to the Foundling
+Asylum a child that I loved very dearly, the son of a woman whom I
+adored. She is dead now, and I am old and solitary. I have a small
+property, and would give half of it to recover the child. Tell me,
+is there any chance of my doing so?’ You must imagine, my dear sir,”
+ continued he, after a slight pause, “that I was much interested in this
+story, for I said to myself, that the man’s fortune must be a very small
+one if half of it would not amply repay me for making a journey to the
+Foundling Hospital. So I agreed to undertake the business, but the old
+fellow was too sharp for me. ‘Stop a bit, and let me finish,’ said he,
+‘and you will see that your task will not be so easy as you seem to
+think it.’ I, of course, bragged of my enormous sources of information,
+and the probability of ultimate success.”
+
+“Keep to your story,” said Tantaine impatiently, “I know all about
+that.”
+
+“I will leave you, then, to imagine all I said to the old man, who
+listened to me with great satisfaction. ‘I only hope that you are as
+skilful as M. Catenac says you are, and have as much influence and power
+as you assert, for no man has a finer chance than you now have. I have
+tried all means up to this, but I have failed.’ I went first to the
+hospital where the child had been placed, and they showed me the
+register containing the date of his admission, but no one knew what had
+become of him, for at twelve years of age he had left the place, and no
+one had heard of him since; and in spite of every effort, I have been
+unable to discover whether he is alive or dead.”
+
+“A pretty riddle to guess,” remarked Tantaine.
+
+“An enigma that it is impossible to solve,” returned Perpignan. “How is
+one to get hold of a boy who vanished ten years ago, and who must now be
+a grown-up man?”
+
+“We could do it.”
+
+Tantaine’s tone was so decided, that the other man looked sharply at
+him with a vague suspicion rising in his breast that the affair had also
+been placed in Mascarin’s hands; and if so, whether he had worked it
+with more success than himself.
+
+“You might, for all I know; but I felt that the clue was absolutely
+wanting,” answered Perpignan sulkily. “I put on a bold face, however,
+and asked for the boy’s description. The man told me that he could
+provide me with an accurate one, for that many people, notably the lady
+superior, remembered the lad. He could also give other details which
+might be useful.”
+
+“And these you obtained, of course?”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Are you joking?”
+
+“Not a bit. I do not know whether the old man was sharp enough to read
+in the expression of my features that I had not the smallest hope of
+success; be that as it may, he could give me no further information that
+day, declaring that he came in only to consult me, and that everything
+must be done in a most confidential way. I hastened to assure him that
+my office was a perfect tomb of secrets. He told me that he took that
+for granted. Then telling me that he wished me to draw up a _precis_ of
+my intended course, he took out a note for five hundred francs, which
+he handed to me for my time. I refused to take it, though it cost me
+a struggle to do so, for I thought that I should make more out of him
+later on. But he insisted on my taking it, saying that he would see me
+again soon, and that Catenac would communicate with me. He left me less
+interested in the search than in who this old man could possibly be.”
+
+Tantaine felt that Perpignan was telling the truth.
+
+“Did you not try and find out that?” asked he.
+
+Perpignan hesitated; but feeling convinced that there was no loophole
+for escape, he answered, “Hardly had my visitor left than, slipping on
+a cap and a workman’s blouse, I followed him in his track, and saw him
+enter one of the finest houses in the Rue de Varennes.”
+
+“He lived there then?”
+
+“He did, and he was a very well-known man--the Duke de Champdoce.”
+
+“Yes, I know all that,” answered Tantaine, placidly, “but I can’t, for
+the life of me, imagine the connection between the Duke and Caroline
+Schimmel.”
+
+Perpignan raised his eyebrows.
+
+“Why did you put a man to watch her?” asked Tantaine.
+
+“My reasons for doing so were most simple. I made every inquiry
+regarding the Duke; learned that he was very wealthy, and lived a very
+steady life. He is married, and loves his wife dearly. They had one son,
+whom they lost a year ago, and have never recovered from the shock. I
+imagine that this Duke, having lost his legitimate heir, wished me to
+find his other son. Do you not think that I am right?”
+
+“There is something in it; but, after all, you have not explained your
+reasons for watching Caroline.”
+
+Perpignan was no match for Mascarin’s right-hand man, but he was keen
+enough to discern that Tantaine was putting a string of questions to him
+which had been prepared in advance. This he, however, was powerless to
+resent.
+
+“As you may believe,” said he, “I made every inquiry into the past as
+well as the present of the Duke, and also tried to discover who was the
+mother of the child, but in this I entirely failed.”
+
+“What! not with all your means?” cried Tantaine, with a sneer.
+
+“Laugh at me as much as you like; but out of the thirty servants in the
+Champdoce establishment, not one has been there more than ten years.
+Nor could I anywhere lay my hands upon one who had been in the Duke’s
+service in his youth. Once, however, as I was in the wineshop in the Rue
+de Varennes, I quite by chance heard allusion made to a woman who had
+been in the service of the Duke twenty-five years ago, and who was
+now in receipt of a small allowance from him. This woman was Caroline
+Schimmel. I easily found out her address, and set a watch on her.”
+
+“And of what use will she be to you?”
+
+“Very little, I fear. And yet the allowance looks as if she had at one
+time done something out of the way for her employers. Can it be that she
+has any knowledge of the birth of this natural child?”
+
+“I don’t think much of your idea,” returned Tantaine carelessly.
+
+“Since then,” continued Perpignan, “the Duke has never put in an
+appearance in my office.”
+
+“But how about Catenac?”
+
+“I have seen him three times.”
+
+“Has he told you nothing more? Do you not even know in which hospital
+the child was placed?”
+
+“No; and on my last visit I plainly told him that I was getting sick of
+all this mystery; and he said that he himself was tired, and was sorry
+that he had ever meddled in the affair.”
+
+Tantaine was not surprised at hearing this, and accounted for Catenac’s
+change of front by the threats of Mascarin.
+
+“Well, what do you draw from this?” asked he.
+
+“That Catenac has no more information than I have. The Duke most likely
+proposes to drop the affair; but, were I in his place, I should be
+afraid to find the boy, however much I might at one time have desired
+to do so. He may be in prison--the most likely thing for a lad who, at
+twelve years of age, ran away from a place where he was well treated. I
+have, however, planned a mode of operation, for, with patience, money,
+and skill, much might be done.”
+
+“I agree with you.”
+
+“Then let me tell you. I have drawn an imaginary circle round Paris. I
+said to myself, ‘I will visit every house and inn in the villages round
+within this radius; I will enter every isolated dwelling, and will say
+to the inhabitants, “Do any of you remember at any time sheltering and
+feeding a child, dressed in such and such a manner?”’ giving at the
+same time a description of him. I am sure that I should find some one
+who would answer in the affirmative. Then I should gain a clue which I
+would follow up to the end.”
+
+This plan appeared so ingenious to Tantaine, that he involuntarily
+exclaimed,--
+
+“Good! excellent!”
+
+Perpignan hardly knew whether Tantaine was praising or blaming him. His
+manner might have meant either.
+
+“You are very fast,” returned he dismally. “Perhaps presently you will
+be good enough to allow that I am not an absolute fool. Do you really
+think that I am an idiot? At any rate, I sometimes hit upon a judicious
+combination. For example, with regard to this boy, I have a notion
+which, if properly worked might lead to something.”
+
+“Might I ask what it is?”
+
+“I speak confidentially. If it is impossible to lay our hands upon the
+real boy, why should we not substitute another?”
+
+At this suggestion, Tantaine started violently.
+
+“It would be most dangerous, most hazardous,” gasped he.
+
+“You are afraid, then?” said Perpignan, delighted at the effect his
+proposal had made.
+
+“It seems it is you who were afraid,” retorted Tantaine.
+
+“You do not know me when you say that,” said Perpignan.
+
+“If you were not afraid,” asked Tantaine, in his most oily voice, “why
+did you not carry out your plan?”
+
+“Because there was one obstacle that could not be got over.”
+
+“Well, I can’t see it myself,” returned Tantaine, desirous of hearing
+every detail.
+
+“Ah, there is one thing that I omitted in my narrative. The Duke
+informed me that he could prove the identity of the boy by certain
+scars.”
+
+“Scars? And of what kind, pray?”
+
+“Now you are asking me too much. I do not know.”
+
+On receiving this reply, Tantaine rose hastily from his chair, and thus
+concealed his agitation from his companion.
+
+“I have a hundred apologies to make for taking up so much of your
+valuable time. My master has got it into his head that you were after
+the same game as ourselves. He was mistaken, and now we leave the field
+clear to you.”
+
+Before Perpignan could make any reply, the old man had passed through
+the doorway. On the threshold he paused, and said,--
+
+“Were I in your place, I would stick to my first plan. You will never
+find the boy, but you will get several thousand francs out of the Duke,
+which I am sure will come in handy.”
+
+“There are scars now, then,” muttered Tantaine, as he moved away from
+the house, “and that Master Catenac never said a word about them!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+FATHER AND SON.
+
+Two hours after Andre had left the Avenue de Matignon, one of Mascarin’s
+most trusty emissaries was at his heels, who could watch his actions
+with the tenacity of a bloodhound. Andre, however, now that he had heard
+of Sabine’s convalescence, had entirely recovered the elasticity of his
+spirits, and would never have noticed that he was being followed. His
+heart, too, was much rejoiced at the friendship of M. de Breulh and the
+promise of assistance from the Viscountess de Bois Arden; and with the
+assistance of these two, he felt that he could end his difficulties.
+
+“I must get to work again,” muttered he, as he left M. de Breulh’s
+hospitable house. “I have already lost too much time. To-morrow, if you
+look up at the scaffolding of a splendid house in the Champs Elysees,
+you will see me at work.”
+
+Andre was busy all night with his plans for the rich contractor, M.
+Gandelu, who wanted as much ornamental work on the outside of his house
+as he had florid decorations within. He rose with the lark, and having
+gazed for a moment on Sabine’s portrait, started for the abode of M.
+Gandelu, the proud father of young Gaston. This celebrated contractor
+lived in a splendid house in the Rue Chasse d’Antin, until his more
+palatial residence should be completed.
+
+When Andre presented himself at the door, an old servant, who knew him
+well, strongly urged him not to go up.
+
+“Never,” said he, “in all the time that I have been with master, have I
+seen him in such a towering rage. Only just listen!”
+
+It was easy to hear the noise alluded to, mingled with the breaking of
+glass and the smashing of furniture.
+
+“The master has been at this game for over an hour,” remarked the
+servant, “ever since his lawyer, M. Catenac, has left him.”
+
+Andre, however, decided not to postpone his visit. “I must see him in
+spite of everything; show me up,” said he.
+
+With evident reluctance the domestic obeyed, and threw open the door of
+a room superbly furnished and decorated, in the centre of which stood M.
+Gandelu waving the leg of a chair frantically in his hand. He was a man
+of sixty years of age, but did not look fifty, built like a Hercules,
+with huge hands and muscular limbs which seemed to fret under the
+restraint of his fashionable garments. He had made his enormous fortune,
+of which he was considerably proud, by honest labor, and no one could
+say that he had not acted fairly throughout his whole career. He was
+coarse and violent in his manner, but he had a generous heart and never
+refused aid to the deserving and needy. He swore like a trooper, and his
+grammar was faulty; but for all that, his heart was in the right place,
+and he was a better man than many who boast of high birth and expensive
+education.
+
+“What idiot is coming here to annoy me?” roared he, as soon as the door
+was opened.
+
+“I have come by appointment,” answered Andre, and the contractor’s brow
+cleared as he saw who his visitor was.
+
+“Ah, it is you, is it? Take a seat; that is, if there is a sound chair
+left in the room. I like you, for you have an honest face and don’t
+shirk hard work. You needn’t color up, though; modesty is no fault. Yes,
+there is something in you, and when you want a hundred thousand
+francs to go into business with, here it is ready for you; and had I a
+daughter, you should marry her, and I would build your house for you.”
+
+“I thank you much,” said Andre; “but I have learned to depend entirely
+on myself.”
+
+“True,” returned Gandelu, “you never knew your parents; you never knew
+what a kind father would do for his child. Do you know my son?” asked
+he, suddenly turning upon Andre.
+
+This question at once gave Andre the solution of the scene before him.
+M. Gandelu was irritated at some folly that his son had committed. For
+a moment Andre hesitated; he did not care to say anything that might
+revive the old man’s feeling of anger, and therefore merely replied that
+he had only met his son Gaston two or three times.
+
+“Gaston,” cried the old man, with a bitter oath; “do not call him that.
+Do you think it likely that old Nicholas Gandelu would ever have been
+ass enough to call his son Gaston? He was called Peter, after his
+grandfather, but it wasn’t a good enough one for the young fool; he
+wanted a swell name, and Peter had too much the savor of hard work in
+it for my fine gentleman. But that isn’t all; I could let that pass,”
+ continued the old man. “Pray have you seen his cards? Over the name of
+Gaston de Gandelu is a count’s coronet. He a count indeed! the son of a
+man who has carried a hod for years!”
+
+“Young people will be young people,” Andre ventured to observe; but the
+old man’s wrath would not be assuaged by a platitude like this.
+
+“You can find no excuse for him, only the fellow is absolutely ashamed
+of his father. He consorts with titled fools and is in the seventh
+heaven if a waiter addresses him as ‘Count,’ not seeing that it is not
+he that is treated with respect, but the gold pieces of his old father,
+the working man.”
+
+Andre’s position was now a most painful one, and he would have given a
+good deal not to be the recipient of a confidence which was the result
+of anger.
+
+“He is only twenty, and yet see what a wreck he is,” resumed Gandelu.
+“His eyes are dim, and he is getting bald; he stoops, and spends his
+nights in drink and bad company. I have, however, only myself to blame,
+for I have been far too lenient; and if he had asked me for my head, I
+believe that I should have given it to him. He had only to ask and have.
+After my wife’s death, I had only the boy. Do you know what he has in
+this house? Why, rooms fit for a prince, two servants and four horses. I
+allow him monthly, fifteen hundred francs, and he goes about calling
+me a niggard, and has already squandered every bit of his poor mother’s
+fortune.” He stopped, and turned pale, for at that moment the door
+opened, and young Gaston, or rather Peter, slouched into the room.
+
+“It is the common fate of fathers to be disappointed in their offspring,
+and to see the sons who ought to have been their honor and glory the
+scourge to punish their worldly aspirations,” exclaimed the old man.
+
+“Good! that is really a very telling speech,” murmured Gaston
+approvingly, “considering that you have not made a special study of
+elocution.”
+
+Fortunately his father did not catch these words, and continued in a
+voice broken by emotion, “That, M. Andre, is my son, who for twenty
+years has been my sole care. Well, believe it or not, as you like, he
+has been speculating on my death, as you might speculate on a race-horse
+at Vincennes.”
+
+“No, no,” put in Gaston, but his father stopped him with a disdainful
+gesture.
+
+“Have at least the courage to acknowledge your fault. You thought me
+blind because I said nothing, but your past conduct has opened my eyes.”
+
+“But, father!”
+
+“Do not attempt to deny it. This very morning my man of business, M.
+Catenac, wrote to me, and with that real courage which only true
+friends possess, told me all. I must tell you, M. Andre,” resumed the
+contractor, “I was ill. I had a severe attack of the gout, such as a man
+seldom recovers from, and my son was constant in his attendance at my
+sick couch. This consoled me. ‘He loves me after all,’ said I. But it
+was only my testamentary arrangements that he wanted to discover, and
+he went straight to a money-lender called Clergot and raised a hundred
+thousand francs assuring the blood-sucker that I had not many hours to
+live.”
+
+“It is a lie!” cried Gaston, his face crimsoning with shame.
+
+The old man raised the leg of the chair in his hand, and made so
+threatening a movement that Andre flung himself between father and son.
+“Great heavens!” cried he, “think what you are doing, sir, and forbear.”
+
+The old man paused, passed his hand round his brow, and flung the weapon
+into a remote corner of the room. “I thank you,” said he, grasping
+Andre’s hand; “you have saved me from a great crime. In another moment I
+should have murdered him.”
+
+Gaston was no coward, and he still retained the position he had been in
+before.
+
+“This is quite romantic,” muttered he. “The governor seems to be going
+in for infanticide.”
+
+Andre did not allow him to finish the sentence, for, grasping the young
+man’s wrist, he whispered fiercely, “Not another word; silence!”
+
+“But I want to know what it all means?” answered the irrepressible
+youth.
+
+“I had in my hands,” said the old man, addressing Andre, and ignoring
+the presence of his son, “the important paper he had copied. Yes; not
+more than an hour ago I read it. These were the terms: if I died within
+eight days from the date of signature, my son agreed to pay a bonus of
+thirty thousand francs; but if I lived for one month, he would take up
+the bill by paying one hundred and fifty thousand. If, however, by any
+unforeseen chance, I should recover entirely, he bound himself to pay
+Clergot the hundred thousand francs.”
+
+The old man tore the cravat from his swelling throat, and wiped the
+beads of cold sweat that bedewed his brow.
+
+“When this man recovers his self-command,” thought Andre, “he will never
+forgive me for having been the involuntary listener to this terrible
+tale.” But in this Andre was mistaken, for unsophisticated nature
+requires sympathy, and Nichols Gandelu would have said the same to the
+first comer.
+
+“Before, however, delivering the hundred thousand francs, the usurer
+wished to make himself more secure, and asked for a certificate from
+some one who had seen me. This person was his friend. He spoke to me of
+a medical man, a specialist, who would understand my case at once. Would
+I not see him? Never had I seen my son so tender and affectionate. I
+yielded to his entreaties at last, and one evening I said to him, ‘Bring
+in this wonderful physician, if you really think he can do anything for
+me,’ and he did bring him.
+
+“Yes, M. Andre, he found a medical man base and vile enough to become
+the tool of my son, and a money-lender; and if I choose, I can expose
+him to the loathing of the world, and the contempt of his brethren.
+
+“The fellow came, and his visit lasted nearly an hour. I can see him
+now, asking questions and feeling my pulse. He went away at last, and my
+son followed him. They both met Clergot, who was waiting in the street.
+‘You can pay him the cash; the old man won’t last twenty-four hours
+longer,’ said the doctor; and then my son came back happy and radiant,
+and assured me that I should soon be well again. And strange as it may
+seem, a change for the better took place that very night. Clergot had
+asked for forty-eight hours in which to raise the sum required. He heard
+of my convalescence, and my son lost the money.
+
+“Was it courage you lacked?” asked the old man, turning for the first
+time to his son. “Did you not know that ten drops instead of one of the
+medicine I was taking would have freed you from me for ever?”
+
+Gaston did not seem at all overwhelmed. Indeed, he was wondering how the
+matter had reached his father’s ears, and how Catenac had discovered the
+rough draft of the agreement.
+
+The contractor had imagined that his son would implore forgiveness; but
+seeing that he remained obdurate, his violence burst forth again. “And
+do you know what use my son would make of my fortune? He would squander
+it on a creature he picked up out of the streets,--a woman he called
+Madame de Chantemille,--a fit companion for a noble count!”
+
+The shaft had penetrated the impassability which Gaston had up to this
+displayed. “You should not insult Zora,” said he.
+
+“I shall not,” returned his father with a grim laugh, “take the trouble
+to do that; you are not of age, and I shall clap your friend Madame de
+Chantemille into prison.”
+
+“You would not do that!”
+
+“Would I not? You are a minor; but your Zora, whose real name is Rose,
+is much older; the law is wholly on my side.”
+
+“But father--”
+
+“There is no use in crying; my lawyer has the matter in hand, and by
+nightfall your Zora will be securely caged.”
+
+This blow was so cruel and unexpected, that the young man could only
+repeat,--
+
+“Zora in prison!”
+
+“Yes, in the House of Correction, and from thence to Saint Lazare.
+Catenac told me the very things to be done.”
+
+“Shameful!” exclaimed Gaston, “Zora in prison! Why, I and my friends
+will lay siege to the place. I will go to the Court, stand by her side,
+and depose that this all comes from your devilish malignity. I will say
+that I love and esteem her, and that as soon as I am of age I will marry
+her; the papers will write about us. Go on, go on; I rather like the
+idea.”
+
+However great a man’s self-control may be, it has its limits. M. Gandelu
+had restrained himself even while he told his son of his villainous
+conduct; but these revolting threats were more than he could endure,
+and Andre seeing this, stepped forward, opened the door, and thrust the
+foolish youth into the corridor.
+
+“What have you done” cried the contractor; “do you not see that he will
+go and warn that vile creature, and that she will escape from justice?”
+
+And as Andre, fearing he knew not what, tried to restrain him, the old
+man, exerting all his muscular strength, thrust him on one side with
+perfect ease, and rushed from the room, calling loudly to his servants.
+
+Andre was horrified at the scene at which, in spite of himself, he had
+been compelled to assist as a witness. He was not a fool, and had lived
+too much in the world of art not to have witnessed many strange scenes
+and met with many dissolute characters; but, as a rule, the follies of
+the world had amused rather than disgusted him. But this display of want
+of feeling on the part of a son toward a father absolutely chilled his
+blood. In a few minutes M. Gandelu appeared with a calmer expression
+upon his face.
+
+“I will tell you how matters now stand,” said he, in a voice that
+quivered in spite of his efforts. “My son is locked up in his room,
+and a trustworthy servant whom he cannot corrupt has mounted guard over
+him.”
+
+“Do you not fear, sir, that in his excitement and anger he may----?”
+
+The contractor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“You do not know him,” answered he, “if you imagine that he resembles
+me in any way. What do you think that he is doing now? Lying on his bed,
+face downward, yelling for his Zora. Zora, indeed! As if that was a name
+fit for a Christian. How is it that these creatures are enabled to drug
+our boys and lead them anywhere? Had his mother not been a saint on
+earth, I should scarcely believe that he was my son.”
+
+The contractor sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
+
+“You are in pain, sir?” said Andre.
+
+“Yes; my heart is deeply wounded. Up to this time I have only felt as a
+father; now I feel as a man. To-morrow I send for my family and consult
+with them; and I shall advertise that for the future I will not be
+responsible for any debts that my son may contract. He shall not have a
+penny, and will soon learn how society treats a man with empty pockets.
+As to the girl, she will disappear in double quick time. I have
+thoroughly weighed the consequences of sending this girl to gaol, and
+they are very terrible. My son will do as he has threatened, I am sure
+of that; and I can picture him tied to that infamous creature for life,
+looking into her face, and telling her that he adores her, and glorying
+in his dishonor, which will be repeated by every Parisian newspaper.”
+
+“But is there no other way of proceeding?” asked Andre.
+
+“No, none whatever. If all modern fathers had my courage, we should not
+have so many profligate sons. It is impossible that this conferring with
+the doctor and the money-lender could have originated in my son’s weak
+brain. He is a mere child, and some one must have put him up to it.”
+
+The poor father was already seeking for some excuse for the son’s
+conduct.
+
+“I must not dwell on this longer,” continued Gandelu, “or I shall get as
+mad as I was before. I will look at your plans another day. Now, let us
+get out of the house. Come and look at the new building in the Champs
+Elysees.”
+
+The mansion in question was situated at the corner of the Rue de
+Chantilly, near the Avenue des Champs Elysees, and the frontage of it
+was still marked by scaffolding, so that but little of it could be
+seen. A dozen workmen, engaged by Andre, were lounging about. They had
+expected to see him early, and were surprised at his non-appearance,
+as he was usually punctuality itself. Andre greeted them in a friendly
+manner, but M. Gandelu, though he was always on friendly terms with his
+workmen, passed by them as if he did not even notice their existence. He
+walked through the different rooms and examined them carelessly, without
+seeming to take any interest in them, for his thoughts were with his
+son,--his only son.
+
+After a short time he returned to Andre.
+
+“I cannot stay longer,” said he; “I am not feeling well; I will be here
+to-morrow;” and he went away with his head bent down on his chest.
+
+The workmen noticed his strange and unusual manner.
+
+“He does not look very bright,” remarked one to his comrade. “Since
+his illness he has not been the same man. I think he must have had some
+terrible shock.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AN ARTFUL TRICK.
+
+Andre had removed his coat and donned his blouse, the sleeves of which
+were rolled up to his shoulders. “I must get to business,” murmured he,
+“to make up for lost time.” He set to work with great vigor, but had
+hardly got into the swing, when a lad came actively up the ladder and
+told him that a gentleman wished to see him, “and a real swell, too,”
+ added the boy. Andre was a good deal put out at being disturbed, but
+when he reached the street and saw that it was M. de Breulh-Faverlay
+who was waiting for him, his ill-humor disappeared like chaff before the
+wind.
+
+“Ah, this is really kind of you,” cried he; for he could never forget
+the debt of gratitude he owed to the gentleman. “A thousand thanks for
+remembering me. Excuse my not shaking hands, but see;” and he exhibited
+his palms all white with plaster. As he did so the smile died away on
+his lips, for he caught sight of his friend’s face.
+
+“What is the matter?” exclaimed he, anxiously. “Is Sabine worse? Has she
+had a relapse?”
+
+De Breulh shook his head, but the expression of his face clearly said,--
+
+“Would to heavens it were only that!”
+
+But the news that Sabine was not worse relieved Andre at once, and he
+patiently waited for his friend to explain.
+
+“I have seen her twice for you,” answered De Breulh; “but it is
+absolutely necessary that you should come to a prompt decision on an
+important affair.”
+
+“I am quite at your service,” returned Andre a good deal surprised and
+troubled.
+
+“Then come with me at once, I did not drive here, but we shall not be
+more than a quarter of an hour in reaching my house.”
+
+“I will follow you almost immediately. I only ask five minutes’ grace to
+go up to the scaffold again.”
+
+“Have you any orders to give?”
+
+“No, I have none.”
+
+“Why should you go, then?”
+
+“To make myself a little more presentable.”
+
+“Is it an annoyance or inconvenience for you to go out in that dress?”
+
+“Not a bit, I am thoroughly used to it; but it was for your sake.”
+
+“If that is all, come along.”
+
+“But people will stare at seeing you in company with a common workman.”
+
+“Let them stare.” And drawing Andre’s arm through his, M. de Breulh set
+off.
+
+Andre was right; many persons did turn round to look at the fashionably
+dressed gentleman walking arm in arm with a mason in his working attire,
+but De Breulh took but little heed, and to all Andre’s questions simply
+said, “Wait till we reach my house.”
+
+At length they arrived, without having exchanged twenty words, and
+entering the library closed the door. M. de Breulh did not inflict
+the torture of suspense upon his young friend a moment longer than was
+necessary.
+
+“This morning, about twelve o’clock, as I was crossing the Avenue de
+Matignon, I saw Modeste, who had been waiting for you more than an
+hour.”
+
+“I could not help it.”
+
+“I know that. As soon as she saw me, she ran up to me at once. She was
+terribly disappointed at not having seen you; but knowing our intimacy,
+she intrusted me with a letter for you from Mademoiselle de Mussidan.”
+
+Andre shuddered; he felt that the note contained evil tidings, with
+which De Breulh was already acquainted. “Give it to me,” said he, and
+with trembling hands he tore open the letter and perused its contents.
+
+“DEAREST ANDRE,--
+
+“I love you, and shall ever continue to do so, but I have duties--most
+holy ones--which I must fulfil; duties which my name and position demand
+of me, even should the act cost me my life. We shall never meet again in
+this world, and this letter is the last one you will ever receive from
+me. Before long you will see the announcement of my marriage. Pity me,
+for great as your wretchedness will be, it will be as nothing compared
+to mine. Heaven have mercy upon us both! Andre, try and tear me out
+of your heart. I have not even the right to die, and oh, my darling,
+this--this is the last word you will ever receive from your poor unhappy
+
+“SABINE.”
+
+
+If M. de Breulh had insisted upon taking Andre home with him before he
+handed him the letter, it was because Modeste had given him some inkling
+of its contents. He feared that the effect would be tremendous upon
+nerves so highly strung and sensitive as those of Andre. But he need
+not have been alarmed on this point. As the young painter mastered the
+contents of the letter his features became ghastly pale, and a shudder
+convulsed every nerve and muscle of his frame. With a mechanical gesture
+he extended the paper to M. de Breulh, uttering the one word, “Read.”
+
+His friend obeyed him, more alarmed by Andre’s laconism than he could
+have been by some sudden explosion of passion.
+
+“Do not lose heart,” exclaimed he.
+
+But Andre interrupted him. “Lose heart!” said he; “you do not know me.
+When Sabine was ill, perhaps dying, far away from me, I did feel cast
+down; but now that she tells me that she loves me, my feelings are of an
+entirely different nature.”
+
+M. de Breulh was about to speak, but Andre went on.
+
+“What is this marriage contract which my poor Sabine announces to me, as
+if it was her death-warrant? Her parents must all along have intended
+to break with you, but you were beforehand with them. Can they have
+received a more advantageous offer of marriage already? It is scarcely
+likely. When she confided the secret of her life to you, she certainly
+knew nothing of this. What terrible event has happened since then? My
+brave Sabine would never have submitted unless some coercion had been
+used that she could not struggle against; she would rather have quitted
+her father’s house for ever.”
+
+As Andre uttered these words De Breulh’s mind was busy with similar
+reflections, for Modeste had given him some hint of the approaching
+marriage, and had begged him to be most careful how he communicated the
+facts to Andre.
+
+“You must have noticed,” continued the young painter, “the strange
+coincidence between Sabine’s illness and this note. You left her happy
+and full of hope, and an hour afterward she falls senseless, as though
+struck by lightning; as soon as she recovers a little she sends me this
+terrible letter. Do you remember that Madame de Bois Arden told us that
+during Sabine’s illness her father and mother never left her bedside?
+Was not this for fear lest some guilty secret of theirs might escape her
+lips in a crisis of delirium?”
+
+“Yes, I remember that, and I have long had reason to imagine that there
+is some terrible family secret in the Mussidans’ family, such as we too
+often find among the descendants of noble houses.”
+
+“What can it be?”
+
+“That I have no means of ascertaining, but that there is one I am sure.”
+
+Andre turned away and paced rapidly up and down the room. “Yes,” said
+he, suddenly, “there is a mystery; but you and I will leave no stone
+unturned until we penetrate it.” He drew a chair close to the side
+of his friend, who was reclining on a couch. “Listen,” said he, “and
+correct me if you fancy that I am not right in what I am saying. Do you
+believe that the most terrible necessity alone has compelled Sabine to
+write this letter?”
+
+“Most certainly.”
+
+“Both the Count and Countess were willing to accept you as their
+son-in-law?”
+
+“Exactly so.”
+
+“Could M. de Mussidan have found a more brilliant match for his
+daughter, one who could unite so many advantages of experience and
+education to so enormous a fortune?”
+
+De Breulh could hardly repress a smile.
+
+“I am not wishing to pay you a compliment,” said Andre impatiently.
+“Reply to my question.”
+
+“Very well then, I admit that according to the opinion of the world, I
+was a most eligible suitor, and that M. de Mussidan would find it hard
+to replace me.”
+
+“Then tell me how it comes about that neither the Count nor the Countess
+has made any effort to prevent this rupture?”
+
+“Their pride, perhaps, has been wounded.”
+
+“Not so, for Modeste tells us that on the very day you sent the letter
+the Count was going to call on you to break off the engagement.”
+
+“Yes, that is so, if we are to believe Modeste.”
+
+As if to give more emphasis to his words, Andre started to his feet.
+“This,” cried he, “this man, who has so suddenly appeared upon the
+scene, will marry Sabine, not only against her own will, but against
+that of her parents, and for what reason? Who is this man, and what is
+the mysterious power that he possesses? His power is too great to spring
+from an honorable source. Sabine is sacrificing herself to this man for
+some reason or other, and he, like a dastardly cur, is ready to take
+advantage of the nobleness of her heart.”
+
+“I admit the correctness of your supposition,” said he; “and now, how do
+you propose to act?”
+
+“I shall do nothing as yet,” answered the young man, with a fierce gleam
+in his eyes. “Sabine asks me to tear her from my heart. I will affect
+to do so for the time. Modeste believes in me, and will help me. I have
+patience. The villain who has wrecked my life does not know me, and
+I will only reveal myself upon the day that I hold him helpless in my
+hand.”
+
+“Take care, Andre,” urged De Breulh; “a false step would ruin your hopes
+for ever.”
+
+“I will make none; as soon as I have this man’s name, I will insult him;
+there will be a duel, and I shall kill him--or he me.”
+
+“A duel will be the height of madness, and would ruin all your hopes of
+marriage with Sabine.”
+
+“The only thing that holds me back is that I do not wish that there
+should be a corpse between Sabine and myself. Blood on a bridal dress,
+they say, brings misery; and if this man is what I suspect him to be, I
+should be doing him too much honor if I crossed swords with him. No, I
+must have a deeper vengeance than this, for I can never forget that he
+nearly caused Sabine’s death.”
+
+He paused for a few seconds, and once again broke the silence which
+reigned in the room.
+
+“To abuse the power that he must possess shows what a miserable wretch
+he must be; and men do not attain such a height of infamy by a single
+bound. The course of his life must be full of similar crimes, growing
+deeper and deadlier as he moves on. I will make it my business to unmask
+him and to hold him up to the scorn and contempt of his fellow-men.”
+
+“Yes; that is the plan to pursue.”
+
+“And we will do so, sir. Ah! heaven help me! I say ‘we,’ for I have
+relied on you. The generous offer that you made to me I refused, and I
+was in the right in doing so; but I should now be a mere madman if I
+did not entreat you to grant me your aid and advice. We have both known
+hardship and are capable of going without food or sleep, if necessity
+requires it of us. We have both graduated in the school of poverty and
+sorrow. We can keep our plans to ourselves and act.”
+
+Andre paused, as if waiting for a reply, but his friend remained silent.
+
+“My plan is most simple,” resumed the young painter. “As soon as we know
+the fellow’s name we shall be able to act. He will never suspect us,
+and we can follow him like his very shadow. There are professional
+detectives who, for a comparatively small sum, will lay bare a man’s
+entire life. Are we not as clever as this fine fellow? We can work well
+together in our different circles; you, in the world of fashion, can
+pick up intelligence that I could not hope to gain; while I, from my
+lowly position, will study the hidden side of his life, for I can
+talk to the servants lounging at the front doors or the grooms at the
+public-houses without suspicion.”
+
+M. de Breulh was delighted at finding that he could have some occupation
+which would fill up the dreary monotony of his life.
+
+“I am yours!” cried he; “and will work with you heart and soul!”
+
+Before the artist could reply a loud blow was struck upon the library
+door, and a woman’s voice exclaimed,--
+
+“Let me in, Gontran, at once.”
+
+“It is Madame de Bois Arden,” remarked De Breulh, drawing the bolt back;
+and the Viscountess rushed hastily into the room and threw herself into
+a low chair.
+
+Her beautiful face was bedewed with tears, and she was in a terrible
+state of excitement.
+
+“What is the matter, Clotilde?” asked De Breulh kindly, as he took her
+hand.
+
+“Something terrible,” answered she with a sob; “but you may be able to
+help me. Can you lend me twenty thousand francs?”
+
+De Breulh smiled; a heavy weight had been lifted from his heart.
+
+“If that is all you require, do not shed any more tears.”
+
+“But I want them at once.”
+
+“Can you give me half an hour?”
+
+“Yes; but lose no time.”
+
+De Breulh drew a check and despatched his valet for the money.
+
+“A thousand thanks!” said the Viscountess; “but money is not all that I
+require, I want your advice.”
+
+Andre was about to leave the cousins together, but the lady stopped him.
+
+“Pray remain, M. Andre,” said she; “you are not at all in the way;
+besides, I shall have to speak of some one in whom you take a very deep
+interest--of Mademoiselle de Mussidan, in short.
+
+“I never knew such a strange occurrence,” continued the Viscountess,
+recovering her spirits rapidly, “as that to which, my dear Gontran,
+you owe my visit. Well, I was just going up to dress, for I had been
+detained by visitor after visitor, when at two o’clock another came
+before I could give my order, ‘Not at home.’ This was the Marquis de
+Croisenois, the brother of the man who twenty years ago disappeared in
+so mysterious a manner. I hardly knew him at all, though of course we
+have met in society, and he bows to me in the Bois, but that is all.”
+
+“And yet he called on you to-day?” remarked De Breulh.
+
+“Don’t interrupt me,” said the Viscountess. “Yes, he called, and that
+is enough. He is good-looking, faultlessly dressed, and talks well. He
+brought a letter from an old friend of my grandmother’s, the Marchioness
+d’Arlanges. She is a dear old thing, she uses awful language, and some
+of her stories are quite too--you know what I mean. In the letter the
+old lady said that the Marquis was one of her friends, and begged me for
+her sake to do him the service he required. Of course I asked him to be
+seated, and assured him that I would do anything that lay in my power.
+Then he began talking about M. de Clinchain, and told me a funny story
+about that eccentric man and a little actress, when I heard a great
+noise in the anteroom. I was about to ring and inquire the cause, when
+the door flew open and in came Van Klopen, the ladies’ tailor, with a
+very inflamed countenance. I thought that he had come in a hurry because
+he had hit on something extremely fetching and wished me to be the first
+to see it. But do you know what the impudent fellow wanted?”
+
+A smile shone in De Breulh’s eyes, as he answered,--
+
+“Money, perhaps!”
+
+“You are right,” returned the Viscountess, gravely; “he brought my bill
+into my very drawing-room, and handed it in before a stranger. I never
+thought that a man who supplies the most aristocratic portion of society
+could have been guilty of such a piece of impertinence. I ordered him
+to leave the room, taking it for granted that he would do so with an
+apology, but I was wrong. He flew into a rage and threatened me, and
+swore that if I did not settle the bill on the spot, he would go to my
+husband. The bill was nearly twenty thousand francs; imagine my horror!
+I was so thunderstruck at the amount that I absolutely entreated him to
+give me time. But my humility added to his annoyance, and taking a seat
+in an armchair, he declared that he would not move from it until he
+received his money, or had seen my husband.”
+
+“What was Croisenois doing all this time?” asked M. de Breulh.
+
+“He did nothing at first, but at this last piece of audacity he took
+out his pocketbook, and throwing it in Van Klopen’s face, said: ‘Pay
+yourself, you insolent scoundrel, and get out of this.’”
+
+“And the tailor went off?”
+
+“No. ‘I must give you a receipt,’ said he, and taking writing materials
+from his pocket, he wrote at the foot of the bill, ‘Received from the
+Marquis de Croisenois, on account of money owing by the Viscountess de
+Bois Arden, the sum of twenty thousand francs.’”
+
+“Well,” said De Breulh, looking very grave, “and after Van Klopen’s
+departure, I suppose Croisenois remained to ask the favor regarding
+which he had called?”
+
+“You are mistaken,” answered his cousin. “I had great difficulty in
+making him speak; but at last he confessed that he was deeply in love
+with Mademoiselle de Mussidan, and entreated me to present him to her
+parents and exert all my influence in his behalf.”
+
+Both the young men started.
+
+“That is the man!” cried they.
+
+“What do you mean?” asked the Viscountess, looking from one to the
+other.
+
+“That your Marquis de Croisenois is a despicable scoundrel, who had
+imposed upon the Marchioness d’Arlanges. Just you listen to our reasons
+for coming to this conclusion.” And with the most perfect clearness De
+Breulh had the whole state of the case before the Viscountess.
+
+The lady listened attentively, and then said,--
+
+“Your premises are wrong; just let me say a word on the matter. You say
+that there is some man who by means of the influence that he exercises
+over the Count and Countess, can coerce them into granting him Sabine’s
+hand. But, my dear Gontran, an utter stranger to the family could not
+exercise this power. Now M. de Croisenois has never entered the doors of
+the house, and came to me to ask for an introduction.”
+
+The justness of this remark silenced De Breulh, but Andre took another
+view of the matter.
+
+“This seems all right at a first glance, but still, after the
+extraordinary scene that the Viscountess has described, I should like to
+ask a few questions. Was not Van Klopen’s behavior very unexpected?”
+
+“It was brutal and infamous.”
+
+“Are you not one of his best customers?”
+
+“I am, and I have spent an enormous sum with him.”
+
+“But Van Klopen is nasty sometimes; did he not sue Mademoiselle de
+Riversac?” asked De Breulh.
+
+“But he did not, I expect, force his way into her drawing-room and
+behave outrageously before a perfect stranger. Do you know M. de
+Croisenois?” returned Andre.
+
+“Very slightly; he is of good family, and his brother George was much
+esteemed by all who knew him.”
+
+“Has he plenty of money?”
+
+“I do not think so, but in time he will inherit a large fortune; very
+likely he is over head and ears in debt.”
+
+“And yet he had twenty thousand francs in his pocketbook; is not that
+rather a large sum to carry when you are simply making a morning call?
+and it is curious, too, that it should have been the exact sum wanted.
+Then there is another point; the pocketbook was hurled into Van Klopen’s
+face. Did he submit without a word to such treatment?”
+
+“He certainly said nothing,” replied Madame de Bois Arden.
+
+“One question more, if you please. Did Van Klopen open the book and
+count the notes before he gave the receipt?”
+
+The Viscountess thought for a moment.
+
+“I was a good deal excited,” said she at length, “but I am almost sure
+that I saw no notes in Van Klopen’s hands.”
+
+Andre’s face grew radiant.
+
+“Good, very good; he was told to pay himself, and yet he never looked
+to see if the money was there, but gave a receipt at once. Of course, as
+Van Klopen kept the pocketbook, the Marquis could have had nothing in it
+besides the exact sum that was required.”
+
+“It does seem odd,” muttered De Breulh.
+
+“But,” said Andre, “your bill was not exactly twenty thousand francs,
+was it?”
+
+“No,” answered the Viscountess. “I ought to have had change to the
+amount of a hundred or a hundred and twenty francs, but I suppose he was
+too much excited to give it me.”
+
+“But for all that he could remember that he had writing materials with
+him, and gave you a receipt?”
+
+The Viscountess was utterly bewildered.
+
+“And,” continued Andre, “how is it that Van Klopen knew De Croisenois’
+name? And now, lastly, where is the receipt?”
+
+Madame de Bois Arden turned very pale and trembled violently.
+
+“Ah,” said she, “I felt sure that something was going to happen, and it
+was on this very point that I wanted your advice. Well, I have not got
+the receipt. M. de Croisenois crumpled it up in his hand and threw it
+on the table. After a while, however, he took it up and put it in his
+pocket.”
+
+“It is all perfectly clear,” said Andre in jubilant tones; “M. de
+Croisenois had need of your aid, he saw that he could not easily obtain
+it, and so sought to bind you by the means of a loan made to you at a
+time of great need.”
+
+“You are right,” said De Breulh.
+
+The Viscountess’ giddy mode of action had brought her into many scrapes,
+but never into so terrible a one as this.
+
+“Great heavens!” cried she, “what do you think that M. de Croisenois
+will do with this receipt?”
+
+“He will do nothing,” answered M. de Breulh, “if you do everything to
+advance his suit; but pause for an instant, and he will show the hand of
+steel which has up to now been covered by the velvet glove.”
+
+“I am not alarmed at a new slander?” returned the Viscountess.
+
+“And why not?” answered De Breulh. “You know very well that in these
+days of lavish expenditure and unbridled luxury there are many women
+in society who are so basely vile that they ruin their lovers with
+as little compunction as their frailer sisters. To-morrow even De
+Croisenois may say at the club, ‘On my word that little Bois Arden costs
+me a tremendous lot,’ and hands about this receipt for twenty thousand
+francs. What do you imagine that people will think then?”
+
+“The world knows me too well to think so ill of me.”
+
+“No, no, Clotilde, there is no charity in society; they will simply
+say that you are his mistress, and finding that the allowance from your
+husband is not enough for your needs, you are ruining your lover. There
+will be a significant laugh among the members, and in time, a very short
+time, the scandal in a highly sensational form will come to the ears of
+your husband.”
+
+The Viscountess wrung her hands.
+
+“It is too horrible,” wailed she. “And do you know that Bois Arden would
+put the worst construction on the whole affair, for he declares that a
+woman will sacrifice anything in order to outshine her sex in dress. Ah,
+I will never run up another bill anywhere; tell me, Gontran, what I had
+better do. Can you not get the receipt from De Croisenois?”
+
+M. de Breulh paused for a moment and then replied, “Of course I could do
+so, but such a step would be very damaging to your reputation. I have no
+proof; and if I went to him, he would deny everything of course, and it
+would make him your enemy for life.”
+
+“Besides,” added Andre, “you would put him on his guard, and he would
+escape us.”
+
+The unhappy woman glanced from one to the other in utter despair.
+
+“Then I am lost,” she exclaimed. “Am I to remain for the rest of my days
+in this villain’s power?”
+
+“Not so,” returned Andre, “for I hope soon to put it out of M. de
+Croisenois’ power to injure any one. What did he say when he asked you
+to introduce him to the Mussidans?”
+
+“Nothing pointed.”
+
+“Then, madame, do not disturb yourself to-night. So long as he hopes you
+will be useful, so long he will stay his hand. Do as he wishes; never
+allude to the receipt; introduce him and speak well of him, while I,
+aided by M. de Breulh, will do my utmost to unmask this scoundrel; and
+as long as he believes himself to be in perfect security, our task will
+be an easy one.”
+
+Just then the servant returned from the bank, and as soon as the man had
+left the room De Breulh took the notes and placed them in his cousin’s
+hand.
+
+“Here is the money for De Croisenois,” said he. “Take my advice, and
+give it to him this evening with a polite letter of thanks.”
+
+“A thousand thanks, Gontran; I will act as you advise.”
+
+“Remember you must not allude in your letter to his introduction to the
+Mussidans. What do you think, Andre?”
+
+“I think a receipt for the money would be a great thing,” answered he.
+
+“But such a demand would arouse his suspicions.”
+
+“I think not, madame, and I see a way of doing it; have you a maid upon
+whom you could rely?”
+
+“Yes, I have one.”
+
+“Good, then give the girl a letter and the notes done up in a separate
+parcel, and tell her exactly what she is to do. When she sees the
+Marquis, let her pretend to be alarmed at the great responsibility that
+she is incurring in carrying this large sum, and insist upon a receipt
+for her own protection.”
+
+“There is sound sense in that,” said De Breulh.
+
+“Yes, yes,” said the Viscountess, “Josephine will do--as sharp a girl as
+you could find in a day’s journey--and will manage the thing admirably.
+Trust to me,” she continued, as a smile of hope spread over her face;
+“I will keep De Croisenois in a good humor; he will confide in me, and
+I will tell you everything. But, oh dear! what shall I do without Van
+Klopen? Why, there is not another man in Paris fit to stand in his
+shoes.”
+
+With these words the Viscountess rose to leave.
+
+“I am completely worn out,” remarked she; “and I have a dinner-party
+to-night. Good-bye then, until we meet again;” and with her spirits
+evidently as joyous as ever, she tripped into her carriage.
+
+“Now,” said Andre, as soon as they were once more alone, “we are on
+the track of De Croisenois. He evidently holds Madame de Mussidan as he
+holds Madame de Bois Arden. His is a really honorable mode of action; he
+surprises a secret, and then turns extortioner.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A NEW SKIN.
+
+Dr. Hortebise’s private arrangements were sadly upset by his being
+compelled to accede to the desire of Tantaine and Mascarin, and in
+granting hospitality to Paul Violaine; and in spite of the brilliant
+visions of the future, he often devoutly wished that Mascarin and his
+young friend were at the other side of the world; but for all that
+he never thought of attempting to evade the order he had received. He
+therefore set himself steadily to his task, endeavoring to form Paul’s
+mind, blunt his conscience, and prepare him for the inevitable part that
+he would soon have to play.
+
+Paul found in him a most affable companion, pleasant, witty, and gifted
+with great conversational powers. Five days were thus spent breakfasting
+at well-known restaurants, driving in the Bois, and dining at clubs of
+which the doctor was a member, while the evenings were passed at the
+banker’s. The doctor played cards with his host, while Paul and
+Flavia conversed together in low whispers, or else hung over the piano
+together. But every kind of agreeable existence comes to an end, and one
+day Daddy Tantaine entered the room, his face radiant with delight.
+
+“I have secured you the sweetest little nest in the world,” cried he
+merrily. “It is not so fine as this, but more in accordance with your
+position.”
+
+“Where is it?” asked Paul.
+
+Tantaine waited. “You won’t wear out much shoe leather,” said he,
+“in walking to a certain banker’s, for your lodgings are close to his
+house.”
+
+That Tantaine had a splendid talent for arrangement Paul realized
+as soon as he entered his new place of abode, which was in the Rue
+Montmartre, and consisted of some neat, quiet rooms, just such as an
+artist who had conquered his first difficulties would inhabit. The
+apartments were on the third floor, and comprised a tiny entrance hall,
+sitting-room, bed and dressing room. A piano stood near the window in
+the sitting-room. The furniture and curtains were tasteful and in good
+order, but nothing was new. One thing surprised Paul very much; he had
+been told that the apartments had been taken and furnished three days
+ago, and yet it seemed as if they had been inhabited for years, and that
+the owner had merely stepped out a few minutes before. The unmade
+bed, and the half-burnt candles in the sleeping-room added to this
+impression, while on the rug lay a pair of worn slippers. The fire had
+not gone out entirely, and a half-smoked cigar lay on the mantelpiece.
+
+On the table in the sitting-room was a sheet of music paper, with a few
+bars jotted down upon it. Paul felt so convinced that he was in another
+person’s rooms, that he could not help exclaiming, “But surely some one
+has been living in these chambers.”
+
+“We are in your own home, my dear boy,” said Tantaine.
+
+“But you took over everything, I suppose, and the original proprietor
+simply walked out?”
+
+Tantaine smiled, as though an unequivocal compliment had been paid him.
+
+“Why, do you not know your own home?” asked he; “you have been living
+here for the last twelve months.”
+
+“I can’t understand you,” answered Paul, opening his eyes in
+astonishment; “you must be jesting.”
+
+“I am entirely in earnest; for more than a year you have been
+established here. If you want a proof of the correctness of my
+assertion, call up the porter.” He ran to the head of the staircase and
+called out, “Come up, Mother Brigaut.”
+
+In a few moments a stout old woman came panting into the room.
+
+“And how are you, Mother Brigaut?” said Tantaine gayly. “I have a word
+or two to say to you. You know that gentleman, do you not?”
+
+“What a question? as if I did not know one of the gentlemen lodging
+here?”
+
+“What is his name?”
+
+“M. Paul.”
+
+“What, plain M. Paul, and nothing else?”
+
+“Well, sir, it is not his fault if he did not know his father or
+mother.”
+
+“What does he do?”
+
+“He is a musician; he gives lessons on the piano, and composes music.”
+
+“Does he do a good business?”
+
+“I can’t say, sir, but I should guess about two or three hundred francs
+a month; and he makes that do, for he is economical and quiet, and as
+modest as a young girl.”
+
+Tantaine’s face shone all over with satisfaction.
+
+“You must have known M. Paul for some time, as you seem so thoroughly
+acquainted with his habits?” said he.
+
+“Well, I ought to, for he has been here nearly fifteen months, and all
+that time I have looked after his room.”
+
+“Do you know where he lived before he came here?”
+
+“Of course I do, for I went to inquire about him in the Rue Jacob. The
+people there were quite cut up at his leaving, but you see this was more
+handy for the music publisher in the Rue Richelieu, for whom he works.”
+
+“Good, Mother Brigaut; that will do; you can leave us now.”
+
+As Paul listened to this brief conversation, he wondered if he was awake
+or asleep. Tantaine stood at the door and watched the woman down stairs;
+then he closed it carefully, and coming up to Paul, said,--
+
+“Well, what do you think of all this?”
+
+At first Paul was so astounded that he could hardly find words in which
+to express himself; but he remembered the words that Dr. Hortebise had
+so often dinned into his ears during the last five days,--
+
+“Let nothing astonish you.”
+
+“I suppose,” said he at last, “that you had taught this old woman her
+lesson beforehand.”
+
+“Merciful powers!” exclaimed Tantaine in tones of extreme disgust. “If
+these are all the ideas you have gained from what you have heard, our
+task will not be by any means an easy one.”
+
+Paul was wounded by Tantaine’s contemptuous manner.
+
+“I understand well enough, sir,” answered he sulkily, “that this is
+merely a prologue to a romantic drama.”
+
+“You are right, my lad,” cried he, in a more satisfied voice; “and it is
+one that is quite indispensable. The plot of the drama will be revealed
+to you later on, and also the reward you will receive if you play your
+part well.”
+
+“But why cannot you tell me everything now?”
+
+Tantaine shook his head.
+
+“Have patience, you rash boy!” said he. “Rome was not built in a day. Be
+guided by me, and follow blindly the orders of those interested in you.
+This is your first lesson; think it over seriously.”
+
+“My first lesson! What do you mean?”
+
+“Call it a rehearsal if you like. All that the good woman told you,”
+ continued Tantaine, “you must look upon as true; nay, it is true, and
+when you believe this thoroughly, you are quite prepared for the fray,
+but until then you must remain quiescent. Remember this, you cannot
+impress others unless you firmly believe yourself. The greatest
+impostors of all ages have ever been their own dupes.”
+
+At the word impostor, Paul seemed about to speak, but a wave of
+Tantaine’s hand silenced him.
+
+“You must cast aside your old skin, and enter that of another. Paul
+Violaine, the natural son of a woman who kept a small drapery shop at
+Poitiers, Paul Violaine, the youthful lover of Rose, no longer exists.
+He died of cold and hunger in a garret in the Hotel de Perou, as M. de
+Loupins will testify when necessary.”
+
+The tone in which Tantaine spoke showed his intense earnestness, and
+with emphatic gestures he drove each successive idea into Paul’s brain.
+
+“You will rid yourself of your former recollections as you do of an old
+coat, which you throw aside, and forget the very existence of. And not
+only that, but you must lose your memory, and that so entirely, that if
+any one in the street calls out Violaine, you will never even dream of
+turning round.”
+
+Paul’s brain seemed to tremble beneath the crime that his companion was
+teaching him.
+
+“Who am I then?” asked he.
+
+A sardonic smile crossed Tantaine’s face.
+
+“You are just what the portress told you, Paul, and nothing more. Your
+first recollections are of a Foundling Hospital, and you never knew your
+parents. You have lived here fifteen months, and before that you resided
+in the Rue Jacob. The portress knows no more; but if you will come with
+me to the Rue Jacob, the people there can tell you more about your life
+when you were a lodger in the house. Perhaps, if you are careful, we may
+take you back to your more childish days, and even find you a father.”
+
+“But,” said Paul, “I might be questioned regarding my past life: what
+then? M. Rigal or Mademoiselle Flavia might interrogate me at any
+moment?”
+
+“I see; but do not disquiet yourself. You will be furnished with all
+necessary papers, so that you can account for all your life during the
+twenty-five years you spent in this world.”
+
+“Then I presume that the person into whose shoes I have crept was a
+composer and a musician like myself?”
+
+Again Tantaine’s patience gave way, and it was with an oath that he
+exclaimed,--
+
+“Are you acting the part of a fool, or are you one in reality? No one
+has ever been here except you. Did you not hear what the old woman said?
+She told you that you are a musician, a self-made one, and while waiting
+until your talents are appreciated, you give lessons in music.”
+
+“And to whom do I _give_ them?”
+
+Tantaine took three visiting cards from a china ornament on the
+mantelshelf.
+
+“Here are three pupils of yours,” said he, “who can pay you one hundred
+francs per month for two lessons a week, and two of them will assure you
+that you have taught them for some time. The third, Madame Grandorge, a
+widow, will vow that she owes all her success, which is very great, to
+your lessons. You will go and give these pupils their lessons at the
+hours noted on their cards, and you will be received as if you had often
+been to the house before; and remember to be perfectly at your ease.”
+
+“I will do my best to follow your instructions.”
+
+“One last piece of information. In addition to your lessons, you are in
+the habit of copying for certain wealthy amateurs the fragments of old
+and almost obsolete operas, and on the piano lies the work that you
+are engaged on for the Marquis de Croisenois, a charming composition
+by Valserra. You see,” continued Tantaine, taking Paul by the arm, and
+showing him round the room, “that nothing has been forgotten, and that
+you have lived here for years past. You have always been a steady young
+man, and have saved up a little money. In this drawer you will find
+eight certificates of scrip from the Bank of France.”
+
+Paul would have put many more questions, but the visitor was already on
+the threshold, and only paused to add these words,--
+
+“I will call here to-morrow with Dr. Hortebise.” Then, with a strange
+smile playing on his lips, he added, as Mascarin had before, “You will
+be a duke yet.”
+
+The old portress was waiting for Tantaine, and as soon as she saw him
+coming down the stairs immersed in deep thought, out she ran toward him
+with as much alacrity as her corpulency would admit.
+
+“Did I do it all right?” asked she.
+
+“Hush!” answered he, pushing her quickly into her lodge, the door of
+which stood open. “Hush! are you mad or drunk, to talk like this, when
+you do not know who is listening?”
+
+“I hope you were pleased with my success,” continued the woman, aghast
+at his sudden anger.
+
+“You did well--very well; you piled up the evidence perfectly. I shall
+have an excellent report to make of you to M. Mascarin.”
+
+“I am so glad; and now my husband and I are quite safe?”
+
+The old man shook his head with an air of doubt.
+
+“Well, I can hardly say that yet; the master’s arm is long and strong;
+but you have numerous enemies. All the servants in the house hate you,
+and would be glad to see you come to grief.”
+
+“Is that really so, sir? How can that be, for both I and my husband have
+been very kind to all of them?”
+
+“Yes, perhaps you have been lately, but how about the times before? You
+and your husband both acted very foolishly. Article 386 cannot be got
+now, and two women can swear that they saw you and your husband, with a
+bunch of keys in your hand, on the second floor.”
+
+The fat woman’s face turned a sickly yellow, she clasped her hands, and
+whined in tones of piteous entreaty,--
+
+“Don’t speak so loud, sir, I beg of you.”
+
+“You made a terrible mistake in not coming to my master earlier, for
+there had been then so much talk that the matter had reached the ears of
+the police.”
+
+“But for all that, if M. Mascarin pleased----”
+
+“He does please, my good woman, and is quite willing to serve you. I am
+sure that he will manage to break the inquiry; or if it must go on, he
+has several witnesses who will depose in your favor; but, you know, he
+gives nothing for nothing, and must have implicit obedience.”
+
+“Good, kind man that he is, my husband and I would go through fire and
+water for him, while my daughter, Euphenice, would do anything in the
+world for him.”
+
+Tantaine recoiled uneasily, for the old woman’s gratitude was so
+demonstrative that he feared she was about to embrace him.
+
+“All you have to do is to stick firmly to what you have said about
+Paul,” continued he, when he found himself at a safe distance; “and if
+ever you breathe a word of what you have been doing, he will hand you
+over to the law, and then take care of Article 386.”
+
+It was evident that this portion of the Code, that had reference to the
+robbery of masters by servants, struck terror into the woman’s soul.
+
+“If I stood on the scaffold,” said she, “I would tell the story about M.
+Paul exactly as I have been taught.”
+
+Her tone was so sincere, that Tantaine addressed her in a kindlier
+voice.
+
+“Stick to that,” said he, “and I can say to you, ‘Hope.’ Upon the day on
+which the young man’s business is settled you will get a paper from me,
+which will prove your complete innocence, and enable you to say, ‘I have
+been grossly maligned.’”
+
+“May the dear young man’s business be settled sharp,” said she.
+
+“It will not be long before it is so; but, remember, in the meantime you
+must keep an eye upon him.”
+
+“I will do so.”
+
+“And, remember, report to me whoever comes to see him, no matter who it
+may be.”
+
+“Not a soul can go upstairs without my seeing or hearing him.”
+
+“Well, if any one, save the master, Dr. Hortebise, or myself comes, do
+not lose a moment, but come and report.”
+
+“You shall know in five minutes.”
+
+“I wonder if that is all I have to say?” mused Tantaine. “Ah! I
+remember: note exactly the hour at which this young man comes and goes.
+Do not have any conversation with him; answer all questions he addresses
+you with a simple ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ and, as I said before, watch his every
+movement.”
+
+And Tantaine turned to go away, paying no attention to the woman’s eager
+protestations.
+
+“Keep a strict watch,” were his last words, “and, above all, see that
+the lad gets into no scrape.”
+
+In Tantaine’s presence Paul had endeavored to assume an air of bravado,
+but as soon as he was left alone he was seized with such mortal terror,
+that he sank in a half fainting condition into an easy-chair. He felt
+that he was not going to put on a disguise for a brief period, but for
+life, and that now, though he rose in life, wealth, title, even a
+wife would all have been obtained by a shameful and skilfully planned
+deception, and this deception he must keep up until the day of his
+death. He shuddered as he recalled Tantaine’s words, “Paul Violaine is
+dead.” He recalled the incidents in the life of the escaped galley-slave
+Coignard, who, under the name of Pontis de St. Helene, absolutely
+assumed the rank of a general officer, and took command of a domain.
+Coignard was recognized and betrayed by an old fellow-prisoner, and
+this was exactly the risk that Paul knew he must run, for any of his old
+companions might recognize and denounce him. Had he on such an occasion
+sufficient presence of mind to turn laughingly to his accuser, and say,
+“Really, my good fellow, you are in error, for I never set eyes on you
+before?”
+
+He felt that he could not do it, and had he any means of existence, he
+would have solved the difficulty by taking to flight. But he knew that
+men like Mascarin, Hortebise, and Tantaine were not easily eluded,
+and his heart sank within him as he remembered the various crumbs of
+information that each of these men had dropped before him. To agree to
+their sordid proposals, and to remain in the position in which he was,
+was certainly to incur a risk, but it was one that was a long way off,
+and might never eventually come to pass; while to change his mind would
+be as sure to bring down swift and condign punishment upon his head; and
+the weak young man naturally chose the more remote contingency, and with
+this determination the last qualms of his conscience expired.
+
+The first night he slept badly in his new abode, for it seemed to him as
+if the spectre of the man whose place he was to usurp was hovering
+over his couch. But with the dawn of day, and especially when the hour
+arrived for him to go out and give his lessons, he felt his courage
+return to him, though rashness perhaps would be the more correct word.
+And with a mien of perfect confidence he repaired to the house of
+Mademoiselle Grandorge, the oldest of his pupils. Impelled by the same
+feeling of curiosity as to how Paul would comport himself, both Dr.
+Hortebise and Father Tantaine had been hanging about the Rue Montmartre,
+and taking advantage of a heavy dray that was passing, caught a good
+glimpse of the young man.
+
+“Aha,” chuckled Tantaine, delighted at seeing Paul look so brisk and
+joyous, “our young cock is in full feather; last night he was decidedly
+rather nervous.”
+
+“Yes,” answered the doctor, “he is on the right road, and I think that
+we shall have no further trouble with him.”
+
+They then thought it would be as well to see Mother Brigaut, and were
+received by the old woman with slavish deference.
+
+“No one has been near the dear young gentleman,” said she, in reply to
+their questions. “Last night he came down about seven o’clock, and asked
+where the nearest eating-house was. I directed him to Du Val’s, and he
+was back by eight, and by eleven I saw that he had put out his light.”
+
+“How about to-day?”
+
+“I went up stairs at nine, and he had just finished dressing. He told
+me to get his breakfast ready, which I did. He ate well, and I said to
+myself, ‘Good; the bird is getting used to its cage.’”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Then he commenced singing like a very bird, the dear fellow. His voice
+is as sweet as his face; any woman would fall in love with him. I’m
+precious glad that my girl, Euphenice is nowhere near.”
+
+“And after that he went out?” continued Tantaine. “Did he say how long
+he would be away?”
+
+“Only to give his lessons. I suppose he expected that you would call.”
+
+“Very good,” remarked the old man; then, addressing Dr. Hortebise, he
+said, “Perhaps, sir, you are going to the Registry Office?”
+
+“Yes; I want to see Mascarin.”
+
+“He is not there; but if you want to see him on any special matter, you
+had better come to our young friend’s apartment, and await his arrival.”
+
+“Very well, I will do so,” answered the doctor.
+
+Hortebise was much more impressed than Paul with the skill of the hand
+which had imparted such a look of long occupation to the rooms.
+
+“On my word, the quiet simplicity of these rooms would induce any father
+to give his daughter to this young fellow.”
+
+The old man’s silence surprised him, and turning sharply round, he was
+struck by the gloomy look upon his features.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Hortebise, with some anxiety. “What is
+troubling you?”
+
+Tantaine had thrown himself into a chair, and for a moment made no
+reply; then, springing to his feet, he gave the expiring embers a
+furious kick, and faced the doctor with folded arms.
+
+“I see much trouble before us,” said he at last.
+
+The doctor’s face grew as gloomy as that of his companion.
+
+“Is it Perpignan who interferes?” asked he.
+
+“No, Perpignan is only a fool; but he will do what I tell him.”
+
+“Then I really do not see--”
+
+“Do not see,” exclaimed Tantaine; “but luckily for us all, I am not so
+blind. Have you forgotten this marriage of De Croisenois? There lies the
+danger. All had gone so smoothly, every combination had been arranged,
+and every difficulty foreseen, and now----”
+
+“Well, you had made too sure, that was all; and you were unprepared for
+the slightest check.”
+
+“Not so, but I had made no attempt to guard against the impossible.”
+
+“Of course, there are limits to all human intelligence, but pray explain
+yourself.”
+
+“This is it, then, doctor. The most adroit energy could never have
+put in our way such an obstacle as now threatens us. Have you in
+your experience of society ever come across a wealthy heiress who
+is indifferent to all the allurements of luxury, and is capable of
+disinterested love?”
+
+The doctor smiled an expressive denial.
+
+“But such an heiress does exist,” said Tantaine, “and her name is Sabine
+de Mussidan. She loves--and whom do you think?--why a mere painter, who
+has crossed my path three times already. He is full, too, of energy and
+perseverance, and for these qualities I have never met his equal.”
+
+“What, a man without friends, money, or position, what can--”
+
+A rapid gesture of Tantaine’s checked his companion’s speech.
+
+“Unfortunately he is not without friends,” remarked the genial Tantaine.
+“He has one friend at least; can you guess who it is? No less
+a personage than the man who was to have married Sabine, M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay.”
+
+At this unexpected news Hortebise remained silent and aghast.
+
+“How on earth those two met I cannot imagine. It must have been Sabine
+that brought them together, but the facts remain the same. They are
+close friends anyhow. And these two men have in their interests the very
+woman that I had selected to push De Croisenois’ suit.”
+
+“Is it possible?”
+
+“That is my present belief. At any rate, these three had a long
+interview last night, and doubtless came to a decision hostile to the
+interests of the Marquis.”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Hortebise, his lips tightly compressed with
+anxiety. “Do you mean that they are aware of the manner by which De
+Croisenois hopes to succeed?”
+
+“Look here?” answered Tantaine. “A general, on the eve of a battle,
+takes every precaution, but among his subordinates there are always
+fools, if not traitors. I had arranged a pretty little scene between
+Croisenois and Van Klopen, by which the Viscountess would be securely
+trapped. Unfortunately, though the rehearsal was excellent, the
+representation was simply idiotic. Neither of the actors took the least
+trouble to enter into the spirit of his part. I had arranged a scene
+full of delicacy and _finesse_, and they simply made a low, coarse
+exhibition of it and themselves. Fools! they thought it was the easiest
+thing in the world to deceive a woman; and finally the Marquis, to whom
+I had recommended the most perfect discretion, opened fire, and actually
+spoke of Sabine and his desire to press his suit. The Viscountess found,
+with a woman’s keen perceptions, that there was something arranged
+between Van Klopen and her visitor, and hurried off to her cousin, M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay for advice and assistance.”
+
+The doctor listened to this recital, pallid and trembling.
+
+“Who told you all this?” gasped he.
+
+“No one; I discovered it; and it was easy to do so. When we have a
+result, it is easy to trace it back to the cause. Yes, this is what took
+place.”
+
+“Why don’t you say at once that the whole scheme is knocked on the
+head?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Because I do not think that it is; I know that we have sustained a very
+severe check; but when you are playing _ecarte_ and your adversary has
+made five points to your one, you do not necessarily throw down the
+cards and give up the game? Not a bit; you hold on and strive to better
+your luck.”
+
+The worthy Dr. Hortebise did not know whether the most to admire the
+perseverance or deplore the obstinacy of the old man, and exclaimed,--
+
+“Why, this is utter madness; it is like plunging headlong into a deep
+pit, which you can easily see in your path.”
+
+Tantaine gave a long, low whistle.
+
+“My friend,” said he, “what in your opinion would be the best course to
+pursue?”
+
+“I should say, without a moment’s hesitation, turn up the whole scheme,
+and look out for another one, which, if less lucrative, would not be so
+full of danger. You had hoped to win the game, and with good reason too.
+Now throw aside all feelings of wounded vanity, and accept your defeat.
+After all, it does not matter to us who Mademoiselle de Mussidan
+marries. The great enterprise fortunately does not lie in this alliance.
+We have still the idea of the Company to which all old people must
+subscribe remaining to us, and we can work it up at once.”
+
+He stopped short, abashed by the look on Tantaine’s face.
+
+“It strikes me,” resumed the doctor, a little mortified, “that my
+proposal is not utterly ridiculous, and certainly deserves some
+consideration.”
+
+“Perhaps so; but is it a practical one?”
+
+“I see no reason why it should not be.”
+
+“Indeed, then, you look at the thing in a very different manner to
+myself. We are too far advanced, my dear doctor, to be our own masters.
+We must go on, and have no option to do otherwise. To beat a retreat
+would simply be to invite our enemies to fall upon our disorganized
+battalions. We must give battle; and as the first to strike has always
+the best chance of victory, we must strive to take the initiative.”
+
+“The idea is good, but these are mere words.”
+
+“Was the secret that we confided to De Croisenois only words?”
+
+This thrust went home.
+
+“Do you mean that you think he would betray us?” said he.
+
+“Why should he not if it were to his interests to do so? Reflect,
+Croisenois is almost at the end of his tether. We have dangled the line
+of a princely fortune before his eyes. Do you think he would do nothing
+if we were to say, ‘Excuse us, but we made a mistake; poor as you are,
+so you must remain, for we do not intend to help you?’”
+
+“But is it necessary to say that at all?”
+
+“Well, at any rate, whatever we choose to say, what limit do you think
+he will place upon his extortions now that he holds our secret? We have
+taught him his music, and he will make us do our part in the chorus, and
+can blackmail us as well as we can others.”
+
+“We played a foolish game,” answered Dr. Hortebise moodily.
+
+“No; we had to confide in some one. Besides, the two affairs, that of
+Madame de Mussidan and the Duke de Champdoce, ran so well together. They
+were the simultaneous emanations of my brain. I worked them up together,
+and together they must stand or fall.”
+
+“Then you are determined to go on?”
+
+“Yes; more determined than ever.”
+
+The doctor had been playing with his locket for some time, and the
+contact of the cold metal seemed to have affected his nerves; for it was
+in a trembling voice that he replied,--
+
+“I vowed long ago that we should sink or swim together.” He paused,
+and then, with a melancholy smile upon his face, continued,--“I have
+no intention of breaking my oath, you see; but I repeat, that your road
+seems to be a most perilous one, and I will add that I consider you
+headstrong and self-opinionated; but for all that I will follow you,
+even though the path you have chosen leads to the grave. I have at this
+moment a something between my fingers that will save me from shame and
+disgrace--a little pill to be swallowed, a gasp, a little dizziness, and
+all is over.”
+
+Tantaine did not seem to care for the doctor’s explanation.
+
+“There, that will do,” said he. “If things come to the worst, you can
+use the contents of your locket as much as you like, but in the meantime
+leave it alone, and do not keep jingling it in that distracting manner.
+For people of our stamp a danger well known is a comparatively slight
+peril, for threats furnish us with means of defence. Woe, I say, woe to
+the man who crosses my path, for I will hold my hand from nothing!” He
+stopped for a little, opened every door, and assured himself that there
+were no eavesdroppers, and then, in a low whisper, he said to Hortebise,
+“Do you not see that there is but one obstacle to our success, and
+that is Andre? Remove him, and the whole of our machinery will work as
+smoothly as ever.”
+
+Hortebise winced, as if suffering from a sudden pain.
+
+“Do you mean----?” asked he.
+
+But Tantaine interrupted him with a low laugh, terrible to listen to.
+
+“And why not?” said he. “Is it not better to kill than to be killed?”
+
+Hortebise trembled from head to foot. He had no objection to extorting
+money by the basest threats, but he drew the line at murder.
+
+“And suppose we were found out?” muttered he.
+
+“Nonsense! How could we be discovered? Justice always looks for a
+motive; how, then could they bring it home to us? They could only find
+out that a young lady adored by De Breulh had thrown him over in order
+to marry Andre.”
+
+“Horrible!” murmured the doctor, much shocked.
+
+“I daresay that it is horrible, and I have no wish to proceed to
+extremities. I only wish to speak of it as a remote possibility, and one
+that we may be compelled to adopt. I hate violence just as much as you
+do, and trust that it may not be necessary.”
+
+Just then the door opened, and Paul entered, a letter in his hand. He
+seemed in excellent spirits, and shook hands with both his visitors.
+
+Tantaine smiled sarcastically as he contrasted Paul’s high spirits with
+the state of depression in which he had left him not many hours ago.
+
+“Things are evidently going well with you,” remarked the doctor, forcing
+a smile.
+
+“Yes; I cannot find any reason for complaint.”
+
+“Have you given your lesson?”
+
+“Yes; what a delightful woman Madame Grandorge is! she has treated me so
+kindly.”
+
+“That is a good reason for your being so happy,” remarked the doctor,
+with a tinge of irony in his voice.
+
+“Ah, that is not the only reason,” returned Paul.
+
+“Shall I be indiscreet if I ask the real cause, then?”
+
+“I am not quite sure whether I ought to speak on this matter,” said he
+fatuously.
+
+“What! a love adventure already?” laughed the doctor.
+
+The vanity of Paul’s nature beamed out in a smile.
+
+“Keep your secret, my boy,” said Tantaine, in louder accents.
+
+This, of course, was enough to loosen Paul’s tongue.
+
+“Do you think, sir,” said he, “that I would keep anything from you?” He
+opened the letter he held in his hand, continuing: “The portress handed
+this to me as I came in; she said it was left by a bank messenger. Can
+you guess where it came from? Let me tell you--it is from Mademoiselle
+Flavia Rigal, and leaves no room to doubt of her sentiments toward me.”
+
+“Is that a fact?”
+
+“It is so; and whenever I choose, Mademoiselle Flavia will be only too
+ready to become Madame Paul.”
+
+For an instant a bright flush crimsoned old Tantaine’s wrinkled face,
+but it faded away almost as soon as it appeared.
+
+“Then you feel happy?” asked he, with a slight quiver in his voice.
+
+Paul threw back his coat, and, placing his fingers in the armholes of
+his waistcoat, remarked carelessly,--
+
+“Yes, of course, I am happy, as you may suppose; but the news is not
+particularly startling to me. On my third visit to M. Rigal’s, the girl
+let me know that I need not sigh in vain.”
+
+Tantaine covered his face with his hands as Paul passed his fingers
+through his hair, and, striking what he considered an imposing attitude,
+read as follows:--
+
+“MY DEAR PAUL,--
+
+“I was very naughty, and I repent of it. I could not sleep all night,
+for I was haunted by the look of sorrow I saw in your face when you took
+leave of me. Paul, I did it to try you. Can you forgive me? You might,
+for I suffered much more than you could have done. Some one who loves
+me--perhaps more than you do--has told me that when a girl shows all the
+depths of her heart to a man she runs the risk of his despising her. Can
+this be true? I hope not, Paul, for never--no, never--can I conceal my
+feelings; and the proof of my faith in you is that I am going now
+to tell you all. I am sure that if your good friend and mine, Dr.
+Hortebise, came to my father with a certain request from you, it would
+not be rejected.
+
+“Your own
+
+“FLAVIA.”
+
+
+“Did not this letter go straight to your heart?” asked Tantaine.
+
+“Of course it did. Why, she will have a million for her wedding
+portion!”
+
+On hearing these words, Tantaine started up with so threatening an
+aspect that Paul recoiled a step, but a warning look from the doctor
+restrained the old man’s indignation.
+
+“He is a perfect sham!” muttered he; “even his vices are mere pretence.”
+
+“He is our pupil, and is what we have made him,” whispered Tantaine.
+
+Meanwhile Tantaine had gone up to Paul, and, placing his hand
+caressingly on his shoulder, said,--
+
+“My boy, you will never know how much you owe to Mademoiselle Flavia.”
+
+Paul could not understand the meaning of this scene. These men had
+done their best to pervert his morals, and to deaden the voice of
+his conscience, and now that he had hoped to earn their praise by an
+affectation of cynicism they were displeased with him. Before,
+however, he could ask a question, Tantaine had completely recovered his
+self-command.
+
+“My dear boy,” said he, “I am quite satisfied with you. I came here
+to-day expecting to find you still undecided, and I am pleased with the
+change.”
+
+“But, sir--” said Paul.
+
+“On the contrary, you are firm and strong.”
+
+“Yes, he has got on so well,” said the doctor, “that we should now treat
+him as one of ourselves, and confide more in him. To-night, my young
+friend, M. Mascarin will get from Caroline Schimmel the solution of the
+riddle that has for so long perplexed us. Be at the office to-morrow at
+ten o’clock, and you shall be told everything.”
+
+Paul would have asked more questions, but Tantaine cut him short with a
+brief good-morning, and went off hurriedly, taking the doctor with him,
+and seemingly wishing to avoid a hazardous and unpleasant explanation.
+
+“Let us get out of this,” whispered he. “In another moment I should
+have knocked the conceited ass down. Oh, my Flavia! my poor Flavia! your
+weakness of to-day will yet cost you very dear!”
+
+Paul remained rooted to the ground, with an expression of surprise and
+confusion upon every line of his face. All his pride and vanity had
+gone. “I wonder,” muttered he, “what these disagreeable persons are
+saying about me? Perhaps laughing at my inexperience and ridiculing my
+aspirations.” The idea made him grind his teeth with rage; but he was
+mistaken, for neither Tantaine nor the doctor mentioned his name after
+they had left his apartment. As they walked up the Rue Montmartre,
+all their ideas were turning upon how it would be easiest to checkmate
+Andre.
+
+“I have not yet got sufficient information to act on,” remarked Tantaine
+meditatively. “My present plan is to remain perfectly quiescent, and I
+have told Croisenois not to make a move of any kind. I have an eye
+and ear watching and listening when they think themselves in perfect
+privacy. Very soon I shall fathom their plans, and then--, but in the
+meantime have faith in me, and do not let the matter worry you.”
+
+On the boulevard Tantaine took leave of his friend.
+
+“I shall very likely not see you to-night, for I have an appointment at
+the Grand Turk with that precious young rascal, Toto Chupin. I _must_
+find Caroline, for I am sure that with her lies the Champdoce secret.
+She is very cunning, but has a weakness for drink, and, with Satan’s
+help, I hope to find out the special liquor which will make her open her
+lips freely.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+AT THE GRAND TURK.
+
+Tantaine took a cab, and, promising the cabman a handsome gratuity if he
+would drive fast, stopped at the spot where the Rue Blanche intersects
+the Rue de Douai, and told the coachman to wait for him, and entered
+the house where the younger Gandelu had installed the fair Madame de
+Chantemille. It was some time before his ring at the door was answered,
+but at last the door was opened by a stout, red-faced girl, with an
+untidy cap. Upon seeing Tantaine, she uttered an exclamation of delight,
+for it was the cook that had been placed in Zora’s employment by M.
+Mascarin’s agency.
+
+“Ah, Daddy Tantaine,” said she, “you are as welcome as the sun in
+winter.”
+
+“Hush, hush,” returned the old man, gazing cautiously round him.
+
+“Don’t be frightened,” returned the girl. “Madame has gone to a place
+from whence there is no return ticket, at least, for some time. You know
+the greater the value of an article the closer we keep it under lock and
+key.”
+
+Tantaine gathered from this that Rose had been arrested, and his
+astonishment appeared to be unmeasured.
+
+“Surely you don’t mean that she has gone to quod?” said he.
+
+“It is as I tell you,” answered she; “but come in, and have a glass of
+wine, while you hear all about it.”
+
+She led the old man into the dining-room, round the table in which
+a half dozen guests were seated, just concluding a late breakfast.
+Tantaine at once recognized four of the several guests as servants whom
+he knew from their having applied for situations at the office, and
+there were two men of a very unprepossessing exterior.
+
+“We are having a regular spree to-day,” observed the cook, handing a
+bottle to Tantaine; “but yesterday there was not much of a jollification
+here, for just as I was setting about getting the dinner two fellows
+came in and asked for my mistress, and as soon as they saw her they
+clapped their hands on her and said that she must come to the stone jug.
+When madame heard this she shrieked so loud as to have been heard in the
+next street. She would not go a foot with them, clung to the furniture
+and banisters, so they just took her up by the head and feet, and
+carried her down to a cab that was standing at the door. I seem to bring
+ill luck wherever I go, for this is the fourth mistress I have seen
+taken off in this way; but come, you are taking nothing at all.”
+
+But Tantaine had had enough, and making an excuse, retired from a
+debauch which he saw would continue as long as the wine held out.
+
+“All is going well,” muttered he, as he climbed into the cab; “and now
+for the next one.”
+
+He drove straight to the house that the elder Gandelu was building in
+the Champs Elysees, and putting his head out of the window, he accosted
+a light, active young fellow who was warning the foot passengers not to
+pass under the scaffolding.
+
+“Anything new, La Cordille?” enquired the old man.
+
+“No, nothing; but tell the master I am keeping a good watch.”
+
+From there Tantaine visited a footman in De Breulh’s employment, and a
+woman in the service of Madame de Bois Arden. Then, paying his fare,
+he started on foot for Father Canon’s wine shop, in the Rue St. Honore,
+where he met Florestan, who was as saucy and supercilious to Tantaine
+as he was obsequious to Mascarin. But although he paid for Florestan’s
+dinner, all that he could extort from him was, that Sabine was terribly
+depressed. It was fully eight o’clock before Tantaine had got rid of
+Florestan, and hailing another cab, he ordered the driver to take him to
+the Grand Turk, in the Rue des Poissonniers.
+
+The magnificent sign of the Grand Turk dances in the breeze, and invites
+such youths as Toto Chupin and his companions. The whole aspect of the
+exterior seemed to invite the passers-by to step in and try the good
+cheer provided within,--a good _table d’hote_ at six p.m., coffee, tea,
+liquors, and a grand ball to complete the work of digestion. A long
+corridor leads to this earthly Eden, and the two doors at the end of
+it open, the one into the dining, and the other into the ball-room. A
+motley crew collected there for the evening meal, and on Sundays it is
+next to impossible to procure a seat. But the dining-room is the Grand
+Turk’s greatest attraction, for as soon as the dessert is over the head
+waiter makes a sign, and dishes and tablecloths are cleared away in
+a moment. The dining-room becomes a _café_, and the click of dominoes
+gives way to the rattle of forks, while beer flows freely. This,
+however, is nothing, for, at a second signal, huge folding doors are
+thrown open, and the strains of an orchestra ring out as an invitation
+to the ball, to which all diners are allowed free entrance. Nothing is
+danced but round dances, polkas, mazurkas, and waltzes.
+
+The German element was very strong at the Grand Turk, and if a gentleman
+wished to make himself agreeable to his fair partners, it was necessary
+for him, at any rate, to be well up in the Alsatian dialect. The master
+of the ceremonies had already called upon the votaries of Terpsichore to
+take their places for the waltz as Daddy Tantaine entered the hall. The
+scene was a most animated one, and the air heavy with the scent of beer
+and tobacco, and would have asphyxiated any one not used to venture into
+such places.
+
+It was the first time that he had ever visited the Grand Turk, and
+yet any one observing would have sworn that he was one of the regular
+frequenters as he marched idly through the rooms, making constant pauses
+at the bar. But glance around him as he might, he could see neither Toto
+Chupin nor Caroline Schimmel.
+
+“Have I come here for nothing,” muttered he, “or is the hour too early?”
+
+It was hard to waste time thus, but at last he sat down and ordered some
+beer. His eyes wandered to a large picture on the wall, representing a
+fat, eastern-looking man, with a white turban and loose, blue garments,
+seated in a crimson chair, with his feet resting upon a yellow carpet.
+One hand was caressing his protuberant paunch, while the other was
+extended toward a glass of beer. Evidently this is the Grand Turk. And
+finally by an odalisque, who fills his goblet with the foaming infusion
+of malt and hops. This odalisque is very fair and stout, and some fair
+Alsatian damsel has evidently sat as the model. As Tantaine was gazing
+upon this wondrous work of art he heard a squeaking voice just behind
+him.
+
+“That is certainly that young rogue Chupin,” muttered he.
+
+He turned sharply round, and two tables off, in a dark corner, he
+discovered the young gentleman that he had been looking for. As he
+gazed on the lad, he was not surprised that he had not recognized him
+at first, for Toto had been strangely transmogrified, and in no degree
+resembled the boy who had shivered in a tattered blouse in the archway
+near the Servants’ Registry Office. He was now gorgeous to behold. From
+the moment that he had got his hundred francs he had chalked out a new
+line of life for himself, and was busy pursuing it. He had found that
+he could make all his friends merry, and he had succeeded. He had made a
+selection from the most astounding wares that the Parisian tailor keeps
+on hand. He had sneered at young Gaston de Gandelu, and called him
+an ape; but he had aped the ape. He wore a very short, light coat, a
+waistcoat that was hideous from its cut and brilliancy, and trousers
+strapped tightly under his feet. His collar was so tall and stiff, that
+he had the greatest difficulty in turning his head. He had gone to a
+barber, and his lank hair had been artistically curled. The table in
+front of him was covered with glasses and bottles. Two shocking
+looking scamps of the true barrier bully type, with loose cravats and
+shiny-peaked caps, were seated by him, and were evidently his guests.
+Tantaine’s first impulse was to catch the debauched youth by the ear,
+but he hesitated for an instant and reflection conquered the impulse.
+With the utmost caution so that he might not attract Toto’s attention,
+he crept down to him, concealing himself as best he could behind one
+of the pillars that supported the gallery, and by this manoeuvre found
+himself so close to the lad that he could catch every word he said.
+
+Chupin was talking volubly.
+
+“Don’t you call me a swell, nor yet say that I brag,” said he. “I
+shall always make this kind of appearance, for to work in the manner I
+propose, a man must pay some attention to dress.”
+
+At this his companions roared with laughter.
+
+“All right,” returned Toto. “I’m precious sharp, though you may not
+think so, and shall go in for all kinds of elegant accomplishments, and
+come out a regular masher.”
+
+“Wonders will never cease,” answered one of the men. “When you go on
+your trip for action in the Bois among the toffs, will you take me with
+you?”
+
+“Any one can go to the Bois who has money: and just tell me who are
+those who make money. Why, those who have plenty of cheek and a good
+sound business. Well, I have learned my business from some real downy
+cards, who made it pay well. Why should I not do the same?”
+
+With a sickening feeling of terror, Tantaine saw that the lad was half
+drunk. What could he be going to say? and how much did he know? Toto’s
+guests evidently saw that he had taken too much; but as he seemed ready
+to let them into a secret, they paid great attention, and exchanged a
+look of intelligence. The young rogue’s new clothes and his liberality
+all proved that he had found a means of gaining money; the only question
+was what the plan could be. To induce him to talk they passed the bottle
+rapidly and flattered him up. The younger man of the two shook his head
+with a smile.
+
+“I don’t believe you have any business at all,” said he.
+
+“Nor have I, if by business you mean some low handicraft. It is brain
+work I mean, my boy; and that’s what I do.”
+
+“I don’t doubt that a bit,” answered the elder guest coaxingly.
+
+“Come on! Tell us what it is,” broke in the other. “You don’t expect us
+to take your word.”
+
+“It is as easy as lying,” replied Toto. “Listen a bit, and you shall
+have the whole bag of tricks. Suppose I saw Polyte steal a couple of
+pairs of boots from a trotter-case seller’s stall----”
+
+Polyte interrupted the narrator, protesting so strongly that he would
+not commit such an act, that Tantaine perceived at once that some such
+trifling act of larceny weighed heavily on his conscience.
+
+“You needn’t kick up such a row,” returned Toto. “I am only just putting
+it as a thing that might happen. We will say you had done the trick, and
+that I had twigged you. Do you know what I should go? Well, I would hunt
+up Polyte, and say quietly, ‘Halves, old man, or I will split.’”
+
+“And I should give you a crack in the jaw,” returned Polyte angrily.
+
+Forgetting his fine dress, Toto playfully put his thumb to his nose and
+extended his fingers.
+
+“You would not be such an ass,” said he. “You would say to yourself, ‘If
+I punch this chap, he will kick up no end of a row, and I shall be taken
+up, and perhaps sent to the mill.’ No; you would be beastly civil, and
+would end by doing just as I wished.”
+
+“And this is what you call your business, is it?”
+
+“Isn’t it a good one--the mugs stand the racket, and the downy cards
+profit by it?”
+
+“But there is no novelty in this; it is only blackmail after all.”
+
+“I never said it wasn’t; but it is blackmailing perfected into a
+system.”
+
+As Toto made this reply he hammered on the table, calling for more
+drink.
+
+“But,” remarked Polyte, with an air of disappointment, “you don’t get
+chances every day, and the business is often a precious poor one. You
+can’t always be seeing chaps prigging boots.”
+
+“Pooh! pooh!” answered Toto, “if you want to make money in this
+business, you must keep your eyes about you. Our customers don’t come
+to you, but there is nothing to prevent you going to them. You can hunt
+until you find them.”
+
+“And where are you to hunt, if you please?”
+
+“Ah, that’s tellings.”
+
+A long silence ensued, during which Tantaine was half tempted to come
+forward. By doing so he would assuredly nip all explanations in the bud;
+but, on the other hand, he wanted to hear all the young rascal had
+to say. He therefore only moved a little nearer, and listened more
+intently.
+
+Forgetting his curls, Toto was abstractedly passing his fingers through
+his hair, and reflecting with all the wisdom of a muddled brain.
+Finally, he came to the conclusion that he might speak, and, leaning
+forward, he whispered,--
+
+“You won’t peach if I tell you the dodge?”
+
+His companions assured him that he might have every confidence in them.
+
+“Very well; I make my money in the Champs Elysees, and sometimes get a
+harvest twice a day.”
+
+“But there are no shoemakers’ shops there.”
+
+“You are a fool,” answered Toto contemptuously. “Do you think I
+blackmail thieves? That wouldn’t be half good enough. Honest people, or
+at least people who call themselves honest, are my game. These are the
+ones who can be made to pay up.”
+
+Tantaine shuddered; he remembered that Mascarin had made use of the same
+expression, and at once surmised that Toto must have had an occasional
+ear to the keyhole.
+
+“But,” objected Polyte, “honest people have no occasion to pay up.”
+
+Toto struck his glass so heavily on the table that it flew to shivers.
+
+“Will you let me speak?” said he.
+
+“Go on, go on, my boy,” returned his friend.
+
+“Well, when I’m hard up for cash, I go into the Champs Elysees, and take
+a seat on one of the benches. From there I keep an eye on the cabs and
+see who gets out of them. If a respectable woman does so, I am sure of
+my bird.”
+
+“Do you think you know a respectable woman when you see her?”
+
+“I should think that I did. Well, when a respectable woman gets out of a
+cab where she ought not to have been, she looks about her on all sides,
+first to the right and then to the left, settles her veil, and, as soon
+as she is sure that no one is watching her, sets off as if old Nick was
+behind her.”
+
+“Well, what do you do then?”
+
+“Why, I take the number of the cab, and follow the lady home. Then
+I wait until she has had time to get to her own rooms, and go to the
+porter and say, ‘Will you give me the name of the lady who has just come
+in?’”
+
+“And do you think the porter is fool enough to do so?”
+
+“Not a bit; I always take the precaution of having a delicate little
+purse in my pocket; and when the man says, as he always does, ‘I don’t
+know,’ I pull out the purse, and say, ‘I am sorry for that, for she
+dropped this as she came in, and I wanted to return it to her.’ The
+porter at once becomes awfully civil; he gives the name and number,
+and up I go. The first time I content myself with finding out if she is
+married or single. If she is single, it is no go; but if the reverse, I
+go on with the job.”
+
+“Why, what do you do next?”
+
+“Next morning I go there, and hang about until I see the husband go out.
+Then I go upstairs, and ask for the wife. It is ticklish work then, my
+lads; but I say, ‘Yesterday, madame, I was unlucky enough to leave my
+pocketbook in cab number so-and-so. Now, as I saw you hail the vehicle
+immediately after I had left it, I have come to ask you if you saw my
+pocketbook.’ The lady flies into a rage, denies all knowledge of
+the book, and threatens to have me turned out. Then, with the utmost
+politeness, I say, ‘I see, madame, that there is nothing to be done
+but to communicate the matter to your husband.’ Then she gets alarmed,
+and--she pays.”
+
+“And you don’t see any more of her?”
+
+“Not that day; but when the funds are low, I call and say, ‘It is I
+again, madame; I am the poor young man who lost his money in such and
+such a cab on a certain day of the month.’ And so the game goes on. A
+dozen such clients give a fellow a very fair income. Now, perhaps, you
+understand why I am always so well dressed, and always have money in my
+pocket. When I was shabbily attired, they offered me a five-franc piece,
+but now they come down with a flimsy.”
+
+The young wretch spoke the truth; for to many women, who in a mad moment
+of passion may have forgotten themselves, and been tracked to their
+homes by some prowling blackmailer, life has been an endless journey of
+agony. Every knock at the door makes them start, and every footfall on
+the staircase causes a tremor as they think that the villain has come to
+betray their guilty secret.
+
+“That is all talk,” said Polyte; “such things are never done.”
+
+“They _are_ done,” returned Toto sulkily.
+
+“Have you ever tried the dodge yourself, then?” sneered Polyte.
+
+At another time Chupin would have lied, but the fumes of the drink he
+had taken, added to his natural self-conceit, had deprived him of all
+judgment.
+
+“Well,” muttered he, “if I have not done it myself exactly, I have seen
+others practise it often enough--on a much larger scale, it is true;
+but one can always do things in a more miniature fashion with perhaps a
+better chance of success.”
+
+“What! _you_ have seen this done?”
+
+“Of course I have.”
+
+“And had you a share in the swag?”
+
+“To a certain extent. I have followed the cabs times without number, and
+have watched the goings on of these fine ladies and gentlemen; only I
+was working for others, like the dog that catches the hare, and never
+has a bit of it to eat. No, all I got was dry bread, with a kick or a
+cuff for dessert. I sha’n’t put up with it any longer, and have made up
+my mind to open on my own account.”
+
+“And who has been employing you?”
+
+A flash of sense passed through Chupin’s muddled brain. He had never
+wished to injure Mascarin, but merely to increase his own importance by
+extolling the greatness of his employer.
+
+“I worked for people who have no equal in Paris,” said he proudly. “They
+don’t mince matters either, I can tell you; and they have more money
+than you could count in six months. There is not a thing they cannot do
+if they desire; and if I were to tell you----”
+
+He stopped short, his mouth wide open, and his eyes dilated with terror,
+for before him stood old Daddy Tantaine.
+
+Tantaine’s face had a most benign expression upon it, and in a most
+paternal voice he exclaimed,--
+
+“And so here you are at last, my lad; and, bless me, how fine! why, you
+look like a real swell.”
+
+But Toto was terribly disconcerted. The mere appearance of Tantaine
+dissipated the fumes of liquor which had hitherto clouded the boy’s
+brain, and by degrees he recollected all that he had said, and,
+becoming conscious of his folly, had a vague idea of some swift-coming
+retribution. Toto was a sharp lad, and he was by no means deceived by
+Tantaine’s outward semblance of friendliness, and he almost felt as if
+his life depended on the promptness of his decision. The question was,
+had the old man heard anything of the preceding conversation?
+
+“If the old rogue has been listening,” said he to himself, “I am in a
+hole, and no mistake.”
+
+It was, therefore, with a simulated air of ease that he answered,--
+
+“I was waiting for you, sir, and it was out of respect to you that I put
+on my very best togs.”
+
+“That was very nice of you; I ought to thank you very much. And now,
+will you--”
+
+Toto’s courage was coming back to him rapidly.
+
+“Will you take a glass of beer, or a liquor of brandy, sir?” said he.
+
+But Daddy Tantaine excused himself on the plea that he had just been
+drinking.
+
+“That is all the more reason for being thirsty,” remarked Toto. “My
+friends and I have drunk the contents of all these bottles since
+dinner.”
+
+Tantaine raised his shabby hat at this semi-introduction, and the
+two roughs bowed smoothly. They were not entirely satisfied with the
+appearance of the new-comer, and thought that this would be a good
+moment for taking leave of their host. The waltz had just concluded, and
+the master of the ceremonies was repeating his eternal refrain of--“Take
+your places, ladies and gentlemen;” and taking advantage of the noise,
+Toto’s friends shook hands with their host and adroitly mixed with the
+crowd.
+
+“Good fellows! jolly fellows;” muttered Toto, striving to catch a last
+glimpse of them.
+
+Tantaine gave a low, derisive whistle. “My lad,” said he, “you keep
+execrable company, and one day you will repent it.”
+
+“I can look after myself, sir.”
+
+“Do as you like, my lad; it is no business of mine. But, take my word
+for it, you will come to grief some day. I have told you that often
+enough.”
+
+“If the old rascal suspected anything,” thought Toto, “he would not talk
+in this way.”
+
+Wretched Toto! he did not know that when his spirits were rising
+the danger was terribly near, for Tantaine was just then saying to
+himself,--
+
+“Ah! this lad is much too clever--too clever by half. If I were going
+on with the business, and could make it worth his while, how useful he
+would be to me! but just now it would be most imprudent to allow him to
+wander about and jabber when he gets drunk.”
+
+Meanwhile Toto had called a waiter, and, flinging a ten-franc piece on
+the table, said haughtily: “Take your bill out of that.” But Tantaine
+pushed the money back toward the lad, and, drawing another ten-franc
+piece from his pocket, gave it to the waiter.
+
+This unexpected act of generosity put the lad in the best possible
+humor. “All the better for me,” exclaimed he; “and now let us hunt up
+Caroline Schimmel.”
+
+“Is she here? I could not find her.”
+
+“Because you did not know where to look for her. She is at cards in the
+coffee-room. Come along, sir.”
+
+But Tantaine laid his hand upon the boy’s arm.
+
+“One moment,” said he. “Did you tell the woman just what I ordered you
+to say?”
+
+“I did not omit a single word.”
+
+“Tell me what you said, then.”
+
+“For five days,” began the lad solemnly, “your Toto has been your
+Caroline’s shadow. We have played cards until all sorts of hours, and
+I took care that she should always win. I confided to her that I had a
+jolly old uncle,--a man not without means, a widower, and crazy to be
+married again,--who had seen her and had fallen in love with her.”
+
+“Good! my lad, good! and what did she say?”
+
+“Why, she grinned like half a dozen cats; only she is a bit artful, and
+I saw at once that she thought I was after her cards, but the mention of
+my uncle’s property soon chucked her off that idea.”
+
+“Did you give my name?”
+
+“Yes, at the end, I did. I knew that she had seen you, and so I kept it
+back as long as I could; but as soon as I mentioned it she looked rather
+confused, and cried out: ‘I know him quite well.’ So you see, sir, all
+you have now is to settle a day for the marriage. Come on; she expects
+you.”
+
+Toto was right. The late domestic of the Duke de Champdoce was playing
+cards; but as soon as she caught sight of Toto and his pretended uncle,
+in spite of her holding an excellent hand, she threw up her cards, and
+received him with the utmost civility. Toto looked on with delight.
+Never had he seen the old rascal (as he inwardly called him in his
+heart) so polite, agreeable, and talkative. It was easy to see that
+Caroline Schimmel was yielding to his fascinations, for she had never
+had such extravagant compliments whispered in her ear in so persuasive a
+tone. But Tantaine did not confine his attentions to wine only: he first
+ordered a bowl of punch, and then followed that up by a bottle of the
+best brandy. All the old man’s lost youth seemed to have come back
+to him: he sang, he drank, and he danced. Toto watched them in utter
+surprise, as the old man whirled the clumsy figure of the woman round
+the room.
+
+And he was rewarded for this tremendous exertion, for by ten o’clock she
+had consented, and Caroline left the Grand Turk on the arm of her future
+husband, having promised to take supper with him.
+
+Next morning, when the scavengers came down from Montmartre to ply their
+matutinal avocations, they found the body of a woman lying on her face
+on the pavement. They raised her up and carried her to an hospital.
+She was not dead, as had been at first supposed; and when the unhappy
+creature came to her senses, she said that her name was Caroline
+Schimmel, that she had been to supper at a restaurant with her
+betrothed, and that from that instant she remembered nothing. At her
+request, the surgeon had her conveyed to her home in the Rue Mercadet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE LAST LINK.
+
+For some days M. Mascarin had not shown himself at the office, and
+Beaumarchef was terribly harassed with inquiries regarding his absent
+master. Mascarin, on the day after the evening on which Tantaine had
+met Caroline Schimmel at the Grand Turk, was carefully shut up in
+his private room; his face and eyes were red and inflamed, and he
+occasionally sipped a glass of some cooling beverage which stood before
+him, and his compressed lips and corrugated brow showed how deeply he
+was meditating. Suddenly the door opened, and Dr. Hortebise entered the
+room.
+
+“Well!” exclaimed Mascarin, “have you seen the Mussidans, as I told you
+to do.”
+
+“Certainly,” answered Hortebise briskly; “I saw the Countess, and told
+her how pressing the holders of her letters were growing, and urged on
+her the necessity for immediate action. She told me that both she and
+her husband had determined to yield, and that Sabine, though evidently
+broken-hearted, would not oppose the marriage.”
+
+“Good,” said Mascarin; “and now, if Croisenois only follows out the
+orders that I have given him, the marriage will take place without
+the knowledge of either De Breulh or Andre. Then we need fear them no
+longer. The prospectus of the new Company is ready, and can be issued
+almost immediately; but we meet to-day to discuss not that matter, but
+the more important one of the heir to the Champdoce title.”
+
+A timid knock at the door announced the arrival of Paul who came in
+hesitatingly, as if doubtful what sort of a reception he might receive;
+but Mascarin gave him the warmest possible welcome.
+
+“Permit me,” said he, “to offer you my congratulations on having won
+the affections of so estimable and wealthy a young lady as Mademoiselle
+Flavia. I may tell you that a friend of mine has informed me of the very
+flattering terms in which her father, M. Rigal, spoke of you, and I can
+assure you that if our mutual friend Dr. Hortebise were to go to the
+banker with an offer of marriage on your part, you have no cause to
+dread a refusal.”
+
+Paul blushed with pleasure, and as he was stammering out a few words,
+the door opened for the third time, and Catenac made his appearance. To
+cover the lateness of his arrival, he had clothed his face in smiles,
+and advanced with outstretched hands toward his confederates; but
+Mascarin’s look and manner were so menacing, that he recoiled a few
+steps and gazed on him with an expression of the utmost wonder and
+surprise.
+
+“What is the meaning of this reception?” asked he.
+
+“Can you not guess?” returned Mascarin, his manner growing more and more
+threatening. “I have sounded the lowest depths of your infamy. I was
+sure the other day that you meant to turn traitor, but you swore to the
+contrary, and you--”
+
+“On my honor--”
+
+“It is useless. One word from Perpignan set us on the right track. Were
+you or were you not ignorant that the Duke de Champdoce had a certain
+way of recognizing his son, and that was by a certain ineffaceable
+scar?”
+
+“It had escaped my memory----”
+
+The words faded from his lips, for even his great self-command failed
+him under Mascarin’s disdainful glance.
+
+“Let me tell you what I think of you,” said the latter. “I knew that you
+were a coward and a traitor. Even convicts keep faith with each other,
+and I had not thought you so utterly infamous.”
+
+“Then why have you forced me to act contrary to my wishes?”
+
+This reply exasperated Mascarin so much that he grasped Catenac by the
+throat, and shook him violently.
+
+“I made use of you, you viper,” said he, “because I had placed you in
+such a position that you could not harm us. And now you will serve
+me because I will show you that I can take everything from you--name,
+money, liberty, and _life_. All depends upon our success. If we fail,
+you fall into an abyss of the depth and horrors of which you can have
+no conception. I knew with whom I had to deal, and took my measures
+accordingly. The most crushing proofs of your crime are in the hands of
+a person who has precise orders how to act. When I give the signal, he
+moves; and when he moves, you are utterly lost.”
+
+There was something so threatening in the silence that followed this
+speech that Paul grew faint with apprehension.
+
+“And,” went on Mascarin, “it would be an evil day for you if anything
+were to happen to Hortebise, Paul, or myself; for if one of us were to
+die suddenly, your fate would be sealed. You cannot say that you have
+not been warned.”
+
+Catenac stood with his head bent upon his breast, rooted to the ground
+with terror. He felt that he was bound, and gagged, and fettered hand
+and foot. Mascarin swallowed some of the cooling draught that stood
+before him, and tranquilly commenced,--
+
+“Suppose, Catenac, that I were to tell you that I know far more of the
+Champdoce matter than you do; for, after all, your knowledge is only
+derived from what the Duke has told you. You think that you have hit
+upon the truth; you were never more mistaken in your life. I, perhaps
+you are unaware, have been many years engaged in this matter. Perhaps
+you would like to know how I first thought of the affair. Do you
+remember that solicitor who had an office near the Law Courts, and did
+a great deal of blackmail business? If you do, you must remember that he
+got two years’ hard labor.”
+
+“Yes, I remember the man,” returned Catenac in a humble voice.
+
+“He used,” continued Mascarin, “to buy up waste paper, and search
+through the piles he had collected for any matters that might be
+concealed in the heterogeneous mass. And many things he must have found.
+In what sensational case have not letters played a prominent part? What
+man is there who has not at one time or other regretted that he has had
+pen and ink ready to his hand? If men were wise, they would use those
+patent inks, which fade from the paper in a few days. I followed his
+example, and, among other strange discoveries, I made this one.”
+
+He took from his desk a piece of paper--ragged, dirty, and creased--and,
+handing it to Hortebise and Paul, said,--
+
+“Read!”
+
+They did so, and read the following strange word:
+
+“TNAFNEERTONIOMZEDNEREITIPZEYAETNECONNISIUSEJECARG;”
+
+while underneath was written in another hand the word, “Never.”
+
+“It was evident that I had in my hands a letter written in cipher, and I
+concluded that the paper contained some important secret.”
+
+Catenac listened to this narrative with an air of contempt, for he was
+one of those foolish men who never know when it is best for them to
+yield.
+
+“I daresay you are right,” answered he with a slight sneer.
+
+“Thank you,” returned Mascarin coolly. “At any rate, I was deeply
+interested in solving this riddle, the more as I belonged to an
+association which owes its being and position to its skill in
+penetrating the secrets of others. I shut myself up in my room, and
+vowed that I would not leave it until I had worked out the cipher.”
+
+Paul, Hortebise, and Catenac examined the letter curiously, but could
+make nothing of it.
+
+“I can’t make head or tail of it,” said the doctor impatiently.
+
+Mascarin smiled as he took back the paper, and remarked,--
+
+“At first I was as much puzzled as you were, and more than once was
+tempted to throw the document into the waste-paper basket, but a secret
+feeling that it opened a way to all our fortunes restrained me. Of
+course there was the chance that I might only decipher some foolish
+jest, and no secret at all, but still I went on. If the commencement of
+the word was written in a woman’s hand, the last word had evidently
+been added by a man. But why should a cryptogram have been used? Was it
+because the demand was of so dangerous and compromising a character that
+it was impossible to put it in plain language? If so, why was the
+last word not in cipher? Simply because the mere rejection of what was
+certainly a demand would in no manner compromise the writer. You will
+ask how it happens that demand and rejection are both on the same sheet
+of paper. I thought this over, and came to the conclusion that the
+letter had once been meant for the post, but had been sent by hand.
+Perhaps the writers may have occupied rooms in the same house. The
+woman, in the anguish of her soul, may have sent the letter by a servant
+to her husband, and he, transported by rage, may have hurriedly
+scrawled this word across it, and returned it again: ‘Take this to your
+mistress.’ Having settled this point, I attacked the cipher, and, after
+fourteen hours’ hard work, hit upon its meaning.
+
+“Accidentally I held the piece of paper between myself and the light,
+with the side on which the writing was turned from me, and read it at
+once. It was a cryptogram of the simplest kind, as the letters forming
+the words were simply reversed. I divided the letters into words,
+and made out this sentence: ‘_Grace, je suis innocente. Ayez pitie;
+rendez-moi notre enfant_ (Mercy, I am innocent. Give me back our son).’”
+
+Hortebise snatched up the paper and glanced at it.
+
+“You are right,” said he; “it is the art of cipher writing in its
+infancy.”
+
+“I had succeeded in reading it,--but how to make use of it! The mass of
+waste paper in which I found it had been purchased from a servant in
+a country house near Vendome. A friend of mine, who was accustomed to
+drawing plans and maps, came to my aid, and discovered some faint
+signs of a crest in one corner of the paper. With the aid of a powerful
+magnifying glass, I discovered it to be the cognizance of the ducal
+house of Champdoce. The light that guided me was faint and uncertain,
+and many another man would have given up the quest. But the thought was
+with me in my waking hours, and was the companion of my pillow during
+the dark hours of the night. Six months later I knew that it was the
+Duchess who had addressed this missive to her husband, and why she had
+done so. By degrees I learned all the secret to which this scrap of
+paper gave me the clue; and if I have been a long while over it, it is
+because one link was wanting which I only discovered yesterday.”
+
+“Ah,” said the doctor, “then Caroline Schimmel has spoken.”
+
+“Yes; drink was the magician that disclosed the secret that for twenty
+years she had guarded with unswerving fidelity.”
+
+As Mascarin uttered these words he opened a drawer, and drew from it a
+large pile of manuscript, which he waved over his head with an air of
+triumph.
+
+“This is the greatest work that I have ever done,” exclaimed he. “Listen
+to it, Hortebise, and you shall see how it is that I hold firmly, at
+the same time, both the Duke and Duchess of Champdoce, and Diana the
+Countess of Mussidan. Listen to me, Catenac,--you who distrusted me, and
+were ready to play the traitor, and tell me if I do not grasp success in
+my strong right hand.” Then, holding out the roll of papers to Paul, he
+cried, “And do you, my dear boy, take this and read it carefully. Let
+nothing escape you, for there is not one item, however trivial it may
+seem to you, that has not its importance. It is the history of a great
+and noble house, and one in which you are more interested than you may
+think.”
+
+Paul opened the manuscript, and, in a voice which quivered with emotion,
+he read the facts announced by Mascarin, which he had entitled “The
+Mystery of Champdoce.”
+
+
+[The conclusion of this exciting narrative will be found in the volume
+called “The Mystery of Champdoce.”]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Caught In The Net, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAUGHT IN THE NET ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/drjekyllandmrhyde b/files/books/unrelated/drjekyllandmrhyde
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8dfdec0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/drjekyllandmrhyde
@@ -0,0 +1,3030 @@
+1)
+
+
+
+                             STORY OF THE DOOR
+
+MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was
+never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
+discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and
+yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to
+his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
+something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which
+spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but
+more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with
+himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for
+vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the
+doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for
+others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure
+of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined
+to help rather than to reprove.
+
+2)
+
+"I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my
+brother go to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was
+frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the
+last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as
+these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a
+shade of change in his demeanour.
+
+No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was
+undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be
+founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a
+modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands
+of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were
+those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his
+affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no
+aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to
+Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about
+town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in
+each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was
+reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that
+they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with
+obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men
+put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief
+jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure,
+but even resisted the calls
+
+3)
+
+of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
+
+It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a
+by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and
+what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the
+week-days. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed, and all
+emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of
+their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood along that
+thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling
+saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms
+and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in
+contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and
+with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and
+general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased
+the eye of the passenger.
+
+Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line
+was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a
+certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the
+street. It was two stories high; showed no window, nothing but a
+door on the lower story and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on
+the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and
+sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell
+nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the
+recess and struck matches on
+
+4)
+
+the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had
+tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no
+one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair
+their ravages.
+
+Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the by-street;
+but when they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his
+cane and pointed.
+
+"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion
+had replied in the affirmative, "It is connected in my mind," added
+he, "with a very odd story."
+
+"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, "and
+what was that?"
+
+"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield: "I was coming home
+from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a
+black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where
+there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after
+street, and all the folks asleep--street after street, all lighted
+up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church--till at
+last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens
+and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw
+two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a
+good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was
+running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the
+two ran into one another naturally enough at the
+
+5)
+
+corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man
+trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on
+the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.
+It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a
+view-halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought
+him back to where there was already quite a group about the
+screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but
+gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like
+running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family;
+and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his
+appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened,
+according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would
+be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken
+a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child's
+family, which was only natural. But the doctor's case was what
+struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular
+age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as
+emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every
+time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and
+white with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just
+as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question,
+we did the next best. We told the man we could
+
+6)
+
+and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name
+stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or
+any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time,
+as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him
+as best we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a
+circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle,
+with a kind of black, sneering coolness--frightened too, I could
+see that--but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. 'If you
+choose to make capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am
+naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says
+he. 'Name your figure.' Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds
+for the child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out;
+but there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and
+at last he struck. The next thing was to get the money; and where
+do you think he carried us but to that place with the door?--
+whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with the matter
+of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's,
+drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't mention,
+though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at
+least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but
+the signature was good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I
+took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole
+
+7)
+
+business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life,
+walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out of it
+with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he
+was quite easy and sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I
+will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself.'
+So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's father, and our
+friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my chambers;
+and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I
+gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it
+was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine."
+
+"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.
+
+"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story.
+For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really
+damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink
+of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of
+your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail, I suppose; an
+honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his
+youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in
+consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining
+all," he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing.
+
+From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly:
+"And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?"
+
+8)
+
+"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But I happen to
+have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other."
+
+"And you never asked about the--place with the door?" said Mr.
+Utterson.
+
+"No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly
+about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the
+day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a
+stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone
+goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last
+you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own
+back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I
+make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the
+less I ask."
+
+"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.
+
+"But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr. Enfield.
+"It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes
+in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of
+my adventure. There are three windows looking on the court on the
+first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they're
+clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so
+somebody must live there. And yet it's not so sure; for the
+buildings are so packed together about that court, that it's hard to
+say where one ends and another begins."
+
+9)
+
+The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then,
+"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."
+
+"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.
+
+"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I want
+to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the
+child."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do. It
+was a man of the name of Hyde."
+
+"H'm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to see?"
+
+"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his
+appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I
+never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be
+deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although
+I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man, and
+yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no
+hand of it; I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I
+declare I can see him this moment."
+
+Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously under a
+weight of consideration.
+
+"You are sure he used a key?" he inquired at last.
+
+"My dear sir..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.
+
+10)
+
+"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange. The
+fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is
+because I know it already. You see, Richard, your tale has gone
+home. If you have been inexact in any point, you had better correct
+it."
+
+"I think you might have warned me," returned the other, with a
+touch of sullenness. "But I have been pedantically exact, as you
+call it. The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still. I
+saw him use it, not a week ago."
+
+Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the young man
+presently resumed. "Here is another lesson to say nothing," said he.
+"I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to
+refer to this again."
+
+"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake hands on that,
+Richard."
+
+11)
+
+
+                        SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE
+
+THAT evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre
+spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of
+a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a
+volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of
+the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would
+go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, as soon as
+the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his
+business-room. There he opened his safe, took from the most private
+part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will,
+and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents. The will was
+holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took charge of it now that it
+was made, had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of
+it; it provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry
+Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were
+to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,"
+but that in case of
+
+12)
+
+Dr. Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period
+exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step
+into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free
+from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small
+sums to the members of the doctor's household. This document had
+long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him both as a lawyer and
+as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom the
+fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr.
+Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was
+his knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a
+name of which he could learn no more. It was worse when it began to
+be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of the shifting,
+insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped
+up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.
+
+"I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced the obnoxious
+paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is disgrace."
+
+With that he blew out his candle, put on a great-coat, and set
+forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of
+medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and
+received his crowding patients. "If any one knows, it will be
+Lanyon," he had thought.
+
+The solemn butler knew and welcomed him;
+
+13)
+
+he was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the
+door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine.
+This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a
+shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided
+manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and
+welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of the
+man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine
+feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school
+and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each
+other, and, what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed
+each other's company.
+
+After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject
+which so disagreeably pre-occupied his mind.
+
+"I suppose, Lanyon," said he "you and I must be the two oldest
+friends that Henry Jekyll has?"
+
+"I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon. "But I
+suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now."
+
+
+"Indeed?" said Utterson. "I thought you had a bond of common
+interest."
+
+"We had," was the reply. "But it is more than ten years since Henry
+Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in
+mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for
+old sake's sake, as they say,
+
+14)
+
+I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific
+balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have
+estranged Damon and Pythias."
+
+This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr.
+Utterson. "They have only differed on some point of science," he
+thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in the
+matter of conveyancing), he even added: "It is nothing worse than
+that!" He gave his friend a few seconds to recover his composure,
+and then approached the question he had come to put. "Did you ever
+come across a protege of his--one Hyde?" he asked.
+
+"Hyde?" repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of him. Since my time."
+
+That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back
+with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro,
+until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a
+night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness
+and besieged by questions.
+
+Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so
+conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was
+digging at the problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the
+intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged,
+or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
+of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
+
+15)
+
+before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware
+of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure
+of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the doctor's;
+and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down
+and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room
+in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling
+at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the
+curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo!
+there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and
+even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure
+in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time
+he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through
+sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more
+swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted
+city, and at every street-corner crush a child and leave her
+screaming. And still the figure had no face by which he might know
+it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled him and
+melted before his eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and
+grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an
+inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.
+If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would
+lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of
+mysterious
+
+16)
+
+things when well examined. He might see a reason for his friend's
+strange preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even
+for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face
+worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy: a
+face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the
+unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.
+
+From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the
+by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when
+business was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the face of the
+fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or
+concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.
+
+"If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."
+
+And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night;
+frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the
+lamps, unshaken, by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light
+and shadow. By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed, the
+by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of
+London from all round, very silent. Small sounds carried far;
+domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either
+side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any
+passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utterson had been some
+minutes at his post, when he was
+
+17)
+
+aware of an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of his
+nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect
+with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a
+great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and
+clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so
+sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong,
+superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry
+of the court.
+
+The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as
+they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from
+the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal with.
+He was small and very plainly dressed, and the look of him, even at
+that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's
+inclination. But he made straight for the door, crossing the
+roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his pocket
+like one approaching home.
+
+Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he
+passed. "Mr. Hyde, I think?"
+
+Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But his
+fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in
+the face, he answered coolly enough: "That is my name. What do you
+want?"
+
+"I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. "I am an old friend
+of Dr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utter-
+
+18)
+
+son of Gaunt Street--you must have heard my name; and meeting you
+so conveniently, I thought you might admit me."
+
+"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home," replied Mr. Hyde,
+blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,
+"How did you know me?" he asked.
+
+"On your side," said Mr. Utterson, "will you do me a favour?"
+
+"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"
+
+"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden
+reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair
+stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall
+know you again," said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."
+
+"Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "it is as well we have, met; and a
+propos, you should have my address." And he gave a number of a
+street in Soho.
+
+"Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been thinking
+of the will?" But he kept his feelings to himself and only grunted
+in acknowledgment of the address.
+
+"And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"
+
+"By description," was the reply.
+
+"Whose description?"
+
+19)
+
+"We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.
+
+"Common friends?" echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. "Who are
+they?"
+
+"Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.
+
+"He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. "I did
+not think you would have lied."
+
+"Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."
+
+
+The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment,
+with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and
+disappeared into the house.
+
+The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture of
+disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing
+every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in
+mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked,
+was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and
+dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable
+malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to
+the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and
+boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken
+voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these
+together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and
+fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. "There must be some-
+
+20)
+
+thing else," said the perplexed gentleman. "There is something
+more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems
+hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the
+old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul
+that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent?
+The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read
+Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."
+
+Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient,
+handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high
+estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of
+men: map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers, and the agents of
+obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was
+still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great
+air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness
+except for the fan-light, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A
+well-dressed, elderly servant opened the door.
+
+"Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor, as
+he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall, paved with
+flags, warmed (after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,
+open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak. "Will you
+wait here by the
+
+21)
+
+fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the dining room?"
+
+"Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near and leaned on
+the tall fender. This hall, in which he was now left alone, was a
+pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont
+to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London. But to-night there
+was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his
+memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea and distaste of
+life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in
+the flickering of the firelight on the polished cabinets and the
+uneasy starting of the shadow on the roof. He was ashamed of his
+relief, when Poole presently returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll
+was gone out.
+
+"I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room door, Poole," he
+said. "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr. Hyde
+has a key."
+
+"Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young
+man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.
+
+"Yes, sir, he do indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders to obey
+him."
+
+"I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.
+
+
+"O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the butler. "Indeed
+we see very little of
+
+22)
+
+him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the
+laboratory."
+
+"Well, good-night, Poole."
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Utterson." And the lawyer set out homeward with a
+very heavy heart. "Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind
+misgives me he is in deep waters! He was wild when he was young; a
+long while ago to be sure; but in the law of God, there is no
+statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old
+sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, PEDE
+CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the
+fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while on
+his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance
+some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there.
+His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their
+life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the
+many ill things he had done, and raised up again into a sober and
+fearful gratitude by the many that he had come so near to doing, yet
+avoided. And then by a return on his former subject, he conceived a
+spark of hope. "This Master Hyde, if he were studied," thought he,
+"must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him;
+secrets compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be like
+sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It turns me cold to
+think of this creature stealing like a
+
+23)
+
+thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening! And the
+danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the will,
+he may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulder to the
+wheel if Jekyll will but let me," he added, "if Jekyll will only let
+me." For once more he saw before his mind's eye, as clear as a
+transparency, the strange clauses of the will.
+
+24)
+
+
+
+                      DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE
+
+A FORTNIGHT later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one
+of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all
+intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr.
+Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had
+departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had
+befallen many scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he was
+liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the
+light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the
+threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company,
+practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich
+silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr.
+Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of
+the fire--a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with
+something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and
+kindness--you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr.
+Utterson a sincere and warm affection.
+
+25)
+
+
+"I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the latter.
+"You know that will of yours?"
+
+A close observer might have gathered that the topic was
+distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. "My poor
+Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client. I never
+saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that
+hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies.
+Oh, I know he's a good fellow--you needn't frown--an excellent
+fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound
+pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more
+disappointed in any man than Lanyon."
+
+"You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson, ruthlessly
+disregarding the fresh topic.
+
+"My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle
+sharply. "You have told me so."
+
+"Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer. "I have been
+learning something of young Hyde."
+
+The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips,
+and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear
+more," said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop."
+
+"What I heard was abominable," said Utterson.
+
+"It can make no change. You do not under-
+
+26)
+
+stand my position," returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency
+of manner. "I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very
+strange--a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that
+cannot be mended by talking."
+
+"Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a man to be trusted.
+Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no doubt I
+can get you out of it."
+
+"My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of you,
+this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you
+in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, ay,
+before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what
+you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart
+at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be
+rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again
+and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson, that I'm
+sure you'll take in good part: this is a private matter, and I beg
+of you to let it sleep."
+
+
+Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.
+
+"I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at last, getting
+to his feet.
+
+"Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the
+last time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I
+should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest
+in poor Hyde. I know you have seen
+
+27)
+
+him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But, I do sincerely
+take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if I am
+taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear
+with him and get his rights for him. I think you would, if you knew
+all; and it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise."
+
+"I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer.
+
+"I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the
+other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him
+for my sake, when I am no longer here."
+
+Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. "Well," said he, "I
+promise."
+
+28)
+
+
+
+                      THE CAREW MURDER CASE
+
+NEARLY a year later, in the month of October, 18---, London was
+startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more
+notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and
+startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far from the
+river, had gone up-stairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled
+over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was
+cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window overlooked, was
+brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically
+given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under
+the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say,
+with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had
+she felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the
+world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful
+gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; and
+advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at
+first she
+
+29)
+
+paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was
+just under the maid's eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the
+other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as
+if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed,
+from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only
+inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and
+the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an
+innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something
+high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye
+wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a
+certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she
+had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which
+he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen
+with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke
+out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing
+the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.
+The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much
+surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all
+bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like
+fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a
+storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the
+body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and
+sounds, the maid fainted.
+
+30)
+
+It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the
+police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in
+the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the
+deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and
+heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this
+insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the
+neighbouring gutter--the other, without doubt, had been carried
+away by the murderer. A purse and a gold watch were found upon the
+victim: but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped
+envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which
+bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.
+
+This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was out
+of bed; and he had no sooner seen it, and been told the
+circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip. "I shall say nothing
+till I have seen the body," said he; "this may be very serious. Have
+the kindness to wait while I dress." And with the same grave
+countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove to the police
+station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as he came into
+the cell, he nodded.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I recognise him. I am sorry to say that this is
+Sir Danvers Carew."
+
+"Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is it possible?" And the
+next moment his eye
+
+31)
+
+lighted up with professional ambition. "This will make a deal of
+noise," he said. "And perhaps you can help us to the man." And he
+briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken
+stick.
+
+Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when the
+stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken and
+battered as it was, he recognised it for one that he had himself
+presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.
+
+"Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?" he inquired.
+
+"Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what the
+maid calls him," said the officer.
+
+Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, "If you will
+come with me in my cab," he said, "I think I can take you to his
+house."
+
+It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of
+the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but
+the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled
+vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr.
+Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight;
+for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there
+would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some
+strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be
+quite broken up, and a haggard shaft
+
+32)
+
+of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The
+dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its
+muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had
+never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this
+mournful re-invasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like
+a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
+besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
+companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
+terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times assail
+the most honest.
+
+As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a
+little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a low French
+eating-house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny
+salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many
+women of different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a
+morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon
+that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his blackguardly
+surroundings. This was the home of Henry Jekyll's favourite; of a
+man who was heir to a quarter of a million sterling.
+
+An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She
+had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were
+excellent. Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at
+home; he had been in that night very late,
+
+33)
+
+but had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing
+strange in that; his habits were very irregular, and he was often
+absent; for instance, it was nearly two months since she had seen
+him till yesterday.
+
+"Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms," said the lawyer; and
+when the woman began to declare it was impossible, "I had better
+tell you who this person is," he added. "This is Inspector Newcomen
+of Scotland Yard."
+
+A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face. "Ah!" said
+she, "he is in trouble! What has he done?"
+
+Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances. "He don't seem a
+very popular character," observed the latter. "And now, my good
+woman, just let me and this gentleman have a look about us."
+
+In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman
+remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms;
+but these were furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was
+filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a
+good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from
+Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of
+many plies and agreeable in colour. At this moment, however, the
+rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly
+ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside
+out;
+
+34)
+
+lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of
+grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these
+embers the inspector disinterred the butt-end of a green
+cheque-book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other
+half of the stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched
+his suspicions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to
+the bank, where several thousand pounds were found to be lying to
+the murderer's credit, completed his gratification.
+
+"You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr. Utterson: "I have him in
+my hand. He must have lost his head, or he never would have left the
+stick or, above all, burned the cheque-book. Why, money's life to
+the man. We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank, and get
+out the handbills."
+
+This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Mr. Hyde
+had numbered few familiars--even the master of the servant-maid
+had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced; he had
+never been photographed; and the few who could describe him differed
+widely, as common observers will. Only on one point, were they
+agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity
+with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.
+
+35)
+
+
+
+                     INCIDENT OF THE LETTER
+
+IT was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to
+Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and
+carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had
+once been a garden, to the building which was indifferently known
+as the laboratory or the dissecting-rooms. The doctor had bought
+the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his own
+tastes being rather chemical than anatomical, had changed the
+destination of the block at the bottom of the garden. It was the
+first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his
+friend's quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with
+curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness
+as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now
+lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical apparatus,
+the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and
+the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola. At the further
+end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with red baize;
+
+36)
+
+and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received into the
+doctor's cabinet. It was a large room, fitted round with glass
+presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass and a
+business table, and looking out upon the court by three dusty
+windows barred with iron. A fire burned in the grate; a lamp was
+set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog
+began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr.
+Jekyll, looking deadly sick. He did not rise to meet his visitor,
+but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a changed voice.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had left them, "you
+have heard the news?"
+
+The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it in the square," he said.
+"I heard them in my dining-room."
+
+"One word," said the lawyer. "Carew was my client, but so are you,
+and I want to know what I am doing. You have not been mad enough to
+hide this fellow?"
+
+"Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God I
+will never set eyes on him again. I bind my honour to you that I am
+done with him in this world. It is all at an end. And indeed he does
+not want my help; you do not know him as I do; he is safe, he is
+quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be heard of."
+
+
+The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his friend's feverish
+manner. "You seem pretty
+
+37)
+
+sure of him," said he; "and for your sake, I hope you may be right.
+If it came to a trial, your name might appear."
+
+"I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I have grounds for
+certainty that I cannot share with any one. But there is one thing
+on which you may advise me. I have--I have received a letter; and
+I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police. I should like
+to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge wisely, I am
+sure; I have so great a trust in you."
+
+"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?" asked
+the lawyer.
+
+"No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care what becomes of
+Hyde; I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own character,
+which this hateful business has rather exposed."
+
+Utterson ruminated a while; he was surprised at his friend's
+selfishness, and yet relieved by it. "Well," said he, at last, "let
+me see the letter."
+
+The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed "Edward
+Hyde": and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's
+benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a
+thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his safety, as
+he had means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence. The
+lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the
+intimacy than he had looked for; and he blamed himself for some of
+his past suspicions.
+
+38)
+
+
+"Have you the envelope?" he asked.
+
+"I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what I was about.
+But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in."
+
+"Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.
+
+"I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply. "I have lost
+confidence in myself."
+
+"Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer. "And now one word
+more: it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about that
+disappearance?"
+
+The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness: he shut his
+mouth tight and nodded.
+
+"I knew it," said Utterson. "He meant to murder you. You have had a
+fine escape."
+
+"I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the doctor
+solemnly: "I have had a lesson--O God, Utterson, what a lesson I
+have had!" And he covered his face for a moment with his hands.
+
+On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with
+Poole. "By the by," said he, "there was a letter handed in to-day:
+what was the messenger like?" But Poole was positive nothing had
+come except by post; "and only circulars by that," he added.
+
+This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed. Plainly the
+letter had come by the laboratory door; possibly, indeed, it had
+been
+
+39)
+
+written in the cabinet; and if that were so, it must be differently
+judged, and handled with the more caution. The newsboys, as he went,
+were crying themselves hoarse along the footways: "Special edition.
+Shocking murder of an M. P." That was the funeral oration of one
+friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest
+the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the
+scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to make;
+and self-reliant as he was by habit, he began to cherish a longing
+for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, he thought,
+it might be fished for.
+
+Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with Mr.
+Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at a
+nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular
+old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his
+house. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where
+the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and
+smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town's life
+was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as of a
+mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. In the bottle the
+acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with
+time, As the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of
+hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards was ready to be set free
+
+40)
+
+and to disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted.
+There was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest;
+and he was not always sure that he kept as many as he meant. Guest
+had often been on business to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could
+scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
+house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he
+should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? and above all
+since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would
+consider the step natural and obliging? The clerk, besides, was a
+man of counsel; he would scarce read so strange a document without
+dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utterson might shape his
+future course.
+
+"This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said.
+
+"Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great deal of public feeling,"
+returned Guest. "The man, of course, was mad."
+
+"I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson. "I
+have a document here in his handwriting; it is between ourselves,
+for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly business at
+the best. But there it is; quite in your way a murderer's
+autograph."
+
+Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it
+with passion. "No, sir," he said: "not mad; but it is an odd hand."
+
+41)
+
+"And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.
+
+Just then the servant entered with a note.
+
+"Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk. "I thought I
+knew the writing. Anything private, Mr. Utterson?"
+
+"Only an invitation to dinner. Why? Do you want to see it?"
+
+"One moment. I thank you, sir"; and the clerk laid the two sheets
+of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. "Thank
+you, sir," he said at last, returning both; "it's a very
+interesting autograph."
+
+There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with
+himself. "Why did you compare them, Guest?" he inquired suddenly.
+
+"Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular
+resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only
+differently sloped."
+
+"Rather quaint," said Utterson.
+
+"It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest.
+
+"I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.
+
+"No, sir," said the clerk. "I understand."
+
+But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night than he locked the
+note into his safe, where it reposed from that time forward.
+"What!" he thought. "Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!" And his
+blood ran cold in his veins.
+
+
+
+42)
+
+
+
+                     REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON
+
+TIME ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the
+death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury; but Mr. Hyde
+had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had never
+existed. Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all
+disreputable: tales came out of the man's cruelty, at once so
+callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates,
+of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of his
+present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time he had left the
+house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply blotted
+out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to recover
+from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet with
+himself. The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of thinking, more
+than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that that evil
+influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He
+came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends,
+became once more their familiar guest
+
+43)
+
+and entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for
+charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion. He was
+busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to
+open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service;
+and for more than two months, the doctor was at peace.
+
+On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with a
+small party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had
+looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were
+inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door
+was shut against the lawyer. "The doctor was confined to the
+house," Poole said, "and saw no one." On the 15th, he tried again,
+and was again refused; and having now been used for the last two
+months to see his friend almost daily, he found this return of
+solitude to weigh upon his spirits. The fifth night he had in Guest
+to dine with him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon's.
+
+There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in,
+he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor's
+appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face.
+The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was
+visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much, these tokens
+of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer's notice, as a
+look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to
+
+44)
+
+some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely that the
+doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson was
+tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he must
+know his own state and that his days are counted; and the knowledge
+is more than he can bear." And yet when Utterson remarked on his
+ill-looks, it was with an air of greatness that Lanyon declared
+himself a doomed man.
+
+"I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover. It is a
+question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes,
+sir, I used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we should
+be more glad to get away."
+
+"Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson. "Have you seen him?"
+
+But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand. "I wish
+to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud, unsteady
+voice. "I am quite done with that person; and I beg that you will
+spare me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead."
+
+"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after a considerable pause,
+"Can't I do anything?" he inquired. "We are three very old friends,
+Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."
+
+"Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon; "ask himself."
+
+"He will not see me," said the lawyer.
+
+"I am not surprised at that," was the reply. "Some day, Utterson,
+after I am dead, you may
+
+45)
+
+perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell
+you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other
+things, for God's sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear
+of this accursed topic, then, in God's name, go, for I cannot bear
+it."
+
+As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
+complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause
+of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a
+long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly
+mysterious in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. "I do
+not blame our old friend," Jekyll wrote, "but I share his view
+that we must never meet. I mean from henceforth to lead a life of
+extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt
+my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you. You must
+suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a
+punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of
+sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I could not think that
+this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so
+unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten
+this destiny, and that is to respect my silence." Utterson was
+amazed; the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor
+had returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the
+prospect had smiled with every promise of a cheerful and an
+honoured age;
+
+46)
+
+and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole
+tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change
+pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words,
+there must lie for it some deeper ground.
+
+A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in something
+less than a fortnight he was dead. The night after the funeral,
+at which he had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of
+his business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy
+candle, drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by the
+hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend. "PRIVATE: for
+the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE and in case of his predecease
+to be destroyed unread," so it was emphatically superscribed; and
+the lawyer dreaded to behold the contents. "I have buried one
+friend to-day," he thought: "what if this should cost me
+another?" And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and
+broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise
+sealed, and marked upon the cover as "not to be opened till the
+death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll." Utterson could not
+trust his eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the
+mad will which he had long ago restored to its author, here again
+were the idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry Jekyll
+bracketed. But in the will, that idea had sprung from the
+sinister suggestion of
+
+47)
+
+the man Hyde; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and
+horrible. Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean? A
+great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition
+and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but
+professional honour and faith to his dead friend were stringent
+obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of his
+private safe.
+
+It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it; and
+it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired the
+society of his surviving friend with the same eagerness. He
+thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted and
+fearful. He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to
+be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to
+speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and
+sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that
+house of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its
+inscrutable recluse. Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to
+communicate. The doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined
+himself to the cabinet over the laboratory, where he would
+sometimes even sleep; he was out of spirits, he had grown very
+silent, he did not read; it seemed as if he had something on his
+mind. Utterson became so used to the unvarying character of these
+reports, that he fell off little by little in the frequency of
+his visits.
+
+48)
+
+
+
+                      INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW
+
+IT chanced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was on his usual walk
+with Mr. Enfield, that their way lay once again through the
+by-street; and that when they came in front of the door, both
+stopped to gaze on it.
+
+"Well," said Enfield, "that story's at an end at least. We shall
+never see more of Mr. Hyde."
+
+"I hope not," said Utterson. "Did I ever tell you that I once saw
+him, and shared your feeling of repulsion?"
+
+"It was impossible to do the one without the other," returned
+Enfield. "And by the way, what an ass you must have thought me,
+not to know that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll's! It was
+partly your own fault that I found it out, even when I did."
+
+"So you found it out, did you?" said Utterson. "But if that be
+so, we may step into the court and take a look at the windows. To
+tell you the truth, I am uneasy about poor Jekyll; and even
+outside, I feel as if the presence of a friend might do him
+good."
+
+49)
+
+The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature
+twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still bright
+with sunset. The middle one of the three windows was half-way
+open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an
+infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner,
+Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.
+
+"What! Jekyll!" he cried. "I trust you are better."
+
+"I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor, drearily, "very
+low. It will not last long, thank God."
+
+"You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer. "You should be out,
+whipping up the circulation like Mr. Enfield and me. (This is my
+cousin--Mr. Enfield--Dr. Jekyll.) Come, now; get your hat and
+take a quick turn with us."
+
+"You are very good," sighed the other. "I should like to very
+much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not. But
+indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a
+great pleasure; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place
+is really not fit."
+
+"Why then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing we
+can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we
+are."
+
+"That is just what I was about to venture to propose," returned
+the doctor with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered,
+before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded
+
+50)
+
+by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the
+very blood of the two gentlemen below. They saw it but for a
+glimpse, for the window was instantly thrust down; but that
+glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court
+without a word. In silence, too, they traversed the by-street;
+and it was not until they had come into a neighbouring
+thoroughfare, where even upon a Sunday there were still some
+stirrings of life, that Mr. Utterson at last turned and looked at
+his companion. They were both pale; and there was an answering
+horror in their eyes.
+
+"God forgive us, God forgive us," said Mr. Utterson.
+
+But Mr. Enfield only nodded his head very seriously and walked on
+once more in silence.
+
+51)
+
+
+
+                             THE LAST NIGHT
+
+MR. UTTERSON was sitting by his fireside one evening after
+dinner, when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.
+
+"Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?" he cried; and then
+taking a second look at him, "What ails you?" he added; "is the
+doctor ill?"
+
+"Mr. Utterson," said the man, "there is something wrong."
+
+
+"Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you," said the
+lawyer. "Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want."
+
+"You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, "and how he
+shuts himself up. Well, he's shut up again in the cabinet; and I
+don't like it, sir--I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson,
+sir, I'm afraid."
+
+"Now, my good man," said the lawyer, "be explicit. What are you
+afraid of?"
+
+"I've been afraid for about a week," returned Poole, doggedly
+disregarding the question, "and I can bear it no more."
+
+The man's appearance amply bore out his
+
+52)
+
+words; his manner was altered for the worse; and except for the
+moment when he had first announced his terror, he had not once
+looked the lawyer in the face. Even now, he sat with the glass of
+wine untasted on his knee, and his eyes directed to a corner of
+the floor. "I can bear it no more," he repeated.
+
+"Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have some good reason, Poole;
+I see there is something seriously amiss. Try to tell me what it
+is."
+
+"I think there's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely.
+
+
+"Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened and rather
+inclined to be irritated in consequence. "What foul play? What
+does the man mean?"
+
+"I daren't say, sir," was the answer; "but will you come along
+with me and see for yourself?"
+
+Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and
+great-coat; but he observed with wonder the greatness of the
+relief that appeared upon the butler's face, and perhaps with no
+less, that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to
+follow.
+
+It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon,
+lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying
+wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind made
+talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face. It seemed
+to have swept the
+
+53)
+
+streets unusually bare of passengers, besides; for Mr. Utterson
+thought he had never seen that part of London so deserted. He
+could have wished it otherwise; never in his life had he been
+conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his
+fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in
+upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity. The square,
+when they got there, was all full of wind and dust, and the thin
+trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing.
+Poole, who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled
+up in the middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting
+weather, took off his hat and mopped his brow with a red
+pocket-handkerchief. But for all the hurry of his coming, these
+were not the dews of exertion that he wiped away, but the
+moisture of some strangling anguish; for his face was white and
+his voice, when he spoke, harsh and broken.
+
+"Well, sir," he said, "here we are, and God grant there be
+nothing wrong."
+
+"Amen, Poole," said the lawyer.
+
+Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded manner; the door
+was opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, "Is that
+you, Poole?"
+
+"It's all right," said Poole. "Open the door." The hall, when
+they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the fire was built
+high; and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and
+
+54)
+
+women, stood huddled together like a flock of sheep. At the sight
+of Mr. Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering;
+and the cook, crying out, "Bless God! it's Mr. Utterson," ran
+forward as if to take him in her arms.
+
+"What, what? Are you all here?" said the lawyer peevishly. "Very
+irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from pleased."
+
+"They're all afraid," said Poole.
+
+Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the maid lifted
+up her voice and now wept loudly.
+
+"Hold your tongue!" Poole said to her, with a ferocity of accent
+that testified to his own jangled nerves; and indeed, when the
+girl had so suddenly raised the note of her lamentation, they had
+all started and turned toward the inner door with faces of
+dreadful expectation. "And now," continued the butler, addressing
+the knife-boy, "reach me a candle, and we'll get this through
+hands at once." And then he begged Mr. Utterson to follow him,
+and led the way to the back-garden.
+
+"Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as you can. I want you
+to hear, and I don't want you to be heard. And see here, sir, if
+by any chance he was to ask you in, don't go."
+
+Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termination, gave a
+jerk that nearly threw him from his balance; but he re-collected
+his courage
+
+55)
+
+and followed the butler into the laboratory building and through
+the surgical theatre, with its lumber of crates and bottles, to
+the foot of the stair. Here Poole motioned him to stand on one
+side and listen; while he himself, setting down the candle and
+making a great and obvious call on his resolution, mounted the
+steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on the red baize
+of the cabinet door.
+
+"Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he called; and even as he
+did so, once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.
+
+A voice answered from within: "Tell him I cannot see any one," it
+said complainingly.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of something like
+triumph in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr.
+Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen, where
+the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor.
+
+"Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, "was that my
+master's voice?"
+
+"It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very pale, but
+giving look for look.
+
+"Changed? Well, yes, I think so," said the butler. "Have I been
+twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his voice?
+No, sir; master's made away with; he was made, away with eight
+days ago, when we heard him cry out upon the name of God; and
+who's in there instead of him, and why it stays there, is a thing
+that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!"
+
+56)
+
+"This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a wild tale,
+my man," said Mr. Utterson, biting his finger. "Suppose it were
+as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been--well,
+murdered, what could induce the murderer to stay? That won't hold
+water; it doesn't commend itself to reason."
+
+"Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but I'll do
+it yet," said Poole. "All this last week (you must know) him, or
+it, or whatever it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying
+night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his
+mind. It was sometimes his way--the master's, that is--to
+write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
+We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a
+closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when
+nobody was looking. Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and
+thrice in the same day, there have been orders and complaints,
+and I have been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in
+town. Every time I brought the stuff back, there would be another
+paper telling me to return it, because it was not pure, and
+another order to a different firm. This drug is wanted bitter
+bad, sir, whatever for."
+
+"Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr. Utterson.
+
+Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which
+the lawyer, bending nearer
+
+57)
+
+to the candle, carefully examined. Its contents ran thus: "Dr.
+Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures them
+that their last sample is impure and quite useless for his
+present purpose. In the year 18---, Dr. J. purchased a somewhat
+large quantity from Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with
+the most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be
+left, to forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration.
+The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated." So
+far the letter had run composedly enough, but here with a sudden
+splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose. "For
+God's sake," he had added, "find me some of the old."
+
+"This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then sharply,
+"How do you come to have it open?"
+
+"The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he threw it back to me
+like so much dirt," returned Poole.
+
+"This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you know?" resumed
+the lawyer.
+
+"I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather sulkily;
+and then, with another voice, "But what matters hand-of-write?"
+he said. "I've seen him!"
+
+"Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson. "Well?"
+
+"That's it!" said Poole. "It was this way. I came suddenly into
+the theatre from the
+
+58)
+
+garden. It seems he had slipped out to look for this drug or
+whatever it is; for the cabinet door was open, and there he was
+at the far end of the room digging among the crates. He looked up
+when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and whipped up-stairs into
+the cabinet. It was but for one minute that I saw him, but the
+hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master,
+why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he
+cry out like a rat, and run from me? I have served him long
+enough. And then..." The man paused and passed his hand over his
+face.
+
+"These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr. Utterson,
+"but I think I begin to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is
+plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and
+deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of
+his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence
+his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul
+retains some hope of ultimate recovery--God grant that he be
+not deceived! There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole,
+ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs
+well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms."
+
+"Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor,
+"that thing was not my master, and there's the truth. My master"
+here he looked round him and began to whisper--"is
+
+59)
+
+a tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf."
+Utterson attempted to protest. "O, sir," cried Poole, "do you
+think I do not know my master after twenty years? Do you think I
+do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I
+saw him every morning of my life? No, Sir, that thing in the mask
+was never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never
+Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was
+murder done."
+
+"Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become my
+duty to make certain. Much as I desire to spare your master's
+feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove
+him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty to break in
+that door."
+
+"Ah Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler.
+
+"And now comes the second question," resumed Utterson: "Who is
+going to do it?"
+
+"Why, you and me," was the undaunted reply.
+
+"That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and whatever comes
+of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser."
+
+"There is an axe in the theatre," continued Poole; "and you might
+take the kitchen poker for yourself."
+
+The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his hand,
+and balanced it. "Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up, "that
+
+60)
+
+you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some
+peril?"
+
+"You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the butler.
+
+"It is well, then, that we should be frank," said the other. "We
+both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast.
+This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"
+
+"Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled up,
+that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if you
+mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was! You see, it
+was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
+way with it; and then who else could have got in by the
+laboratory door? You have not forgot, sir that at the time of the
+murder he had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't
+know, Mr. Utterson, if ever you met this Mr. Hyde?"
+
+"Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."
+
+"Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was
+something queer about that gentleman--something that gave a man
+a turn--I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this:
+that you felt it in your marrow kind of cold and thin."
+
+"I own I felt something of what you describe," said Mr. Utterson.
+
+"Quite so, sir," returned Poole. "Well, when
+
+61)
+
+that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals
+and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice. Oh,
+I know it's not evidence, Mr. Utterson. I'm book-learned enough
+for that; but a man has his feelings, and I give you my
+Bible-word it was Mr. Hyde!"
+
+"Ay, ay," said the lawyer. "My fears incline to the same point.
+Evil, I fear, founded--evil was sure to come--of that
+connection. Ay, truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is
+killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone
+can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room. Well, let our
+name be vengeance. Call Bradshaw."
+
+The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous.
+
+
+"Pull yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer. "This
+suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our
+intention to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to
+force our way into the cabinet. If all is well, my shoulders are
+broad enough to bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything should
+really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back,
+you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good
+sticks and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten
+minutes to get to your stations."
+
+As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch. "And now,
+Poole, let us get to ours,"
+
+62)
+
+he said; and taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the
+yard. The scud had banked over the moon, and it was now quite
+dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts into that
+deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro
+about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the
+theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed
+solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only
+broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the
+cabinet floor.
+
+"So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, and the
+better part of the night. Only when a new sample comes from the
+chemist, there's a bit of a break. Ah, it's an ill conscience
+that's such an enemy to rest! Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed
+in every step of it! But hark again, a little closer--put your
+heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the
+doctor's foot?"
+
+The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all
+they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy
+creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never
+anything else?" he asked.
+
+Poole nodded. "Once," he said. "Once I heard it weeping!"
+
+"Weeping? how that?" said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill
+of horror.
+
+"Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said
+
+63)
+
+the butler. "I came away with that upon my heart, that I could
+have wept too."
+
+But now the ten minutes drew to an end. Poole disinterred the axe
+from under a stack of packing straw; the candle was set upon the
+nearest table to light them to the attack; and they drew near
+with bated breath to where that patient foot was still going up
+and down, up and down, in the quiet of the night.
+
+"Jekyll," cried Utterson, with a loud voice, "I demand to see
+you." He paused a moment, but there came no reply. "I give you
+fair warning, our suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall
+see you," he resumed; "if not by fair means, then by foul! if not
+of your consent, then by brute force!"
+
+"Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have mercy!"
+
+
+"Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice--it's Hyde's!" cried Utterson.
+"Down with the door, Poole!"
+
+Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook the
+building, and the red baize door leaped against the lock and
+hinges. A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the
+cabinet. Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and
+the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was
+tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was
+not until the fifth, that the lock burst in sunder and the wreck
+of the door fell inwards on the carpet.
+
+64)
+
+
+The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that
+had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in. There lay the
+cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire
+glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin
+strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the
+business-table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea:
+the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the glazed
+presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in
+London.
+
+Right in the midst there lay the body of a man sorely contorted
+and still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its
+back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed in
+clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness;
+the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but
+life was quite gone; and by the crushed phial in the hand and the
+strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew
+that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.
+
+"We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or
+punish. Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us
+to find the body of your master."
+
+The far greater proportion of the building was occupied by the
+theatre, which filled almost the whole ground story and was
+lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper
+story at one end and looked upon the
+
+65)
+
+court. A corridor joined the theatre to the door on the
+by-street; and with this the cabinet communicated separately by a
+second flight of stairs. There were besides a few dark closets
+and a spacious cellar. All these they now thoroughly examined.
+Each closet needed but a glance, for all were empty, and all, by
+the dust that fell from their doors, had stood long unopened. The
+cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy lumber, mostly dating from
+the times of the surgeon who was Jekyll's predecessor; but even
+as they opened the door they were advertised of the uselessness
+of further search, by the fall of a perfect mat of cobweb which
+had for years sealed up the entrance. Nowhere was there any trace
+of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.
+
+Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He must be buried
+here," he said, hearkening to the sound.
+
+"Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine
+the door in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on
+the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust.
+
+"This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.
+
+"Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken? much as
+if a man had stamped on it."
+
+"Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty."
+The two men looked at each other with a scare. "This is beyond
+me,
+
+66)
+
+Poole," said the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet."
+
+They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an occasional
+awe-struck glance at the dead body, proceeded more thoroughly to
+examine the contents of the cabinet. At one table, there were
+traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some white
+salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an experiment in
+which the unhappy man had been prevented.
+
+"That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said
+Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise
+boiled over.
+
+This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was drawn
+cosily up, and the tea-things stood ready to the sitter's elbow,
+the very sugar in the cup. There were several books on a shelf;
+one lay beside the tea-things open, and Utterson was amazed to
+find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several
+times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand, with
+startling blasphemies.
+
+Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the searchers
+came to the cheval glass, into whose depths they looked with an
+involuntary horror. But it was so turned as to show them nothing
+but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a
+hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses, and
+their own pale and fearful countenances stooping to look in.
+
+67)
+
+"This glass have seen some strange things, sir," whispered Poole.
+
+"And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in the
+same tones. "For what did Jekyll"--he caught himself up at the
+word with a start, and then conquering the weakness--"what
+could Jekyll want with it?" he said.
+
+"You may say that!" said Poole. Next they turned to the
+business-table. On the desk among the neat array of papers, a
+large envelope was uppermost, and bore, in the doctor's hand, the
+name of Mr. Utterson. The lawyer unsealed it, and several
+enclosures fell to the floor. The first was a will, drawn in the
+same eccentric terms as the one which he had returned six months
+before, to serve as a testament in case of death and as a deed of
+gift in case of disappearance; but, in place of the name of
+Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable amazement, read the
+name of Gabriel John Utterson. He looked at Poole, and then back
+at the paper, and last of all at the dead malefactor stretched
+upon the carpet.
+
+"My head goes round," he said. "He has been all these days in
+possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see
+himself displaced; and he has not destroyed this document."
+
+He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the doctor's
+hand and dated at the top.
+
+68)
+
+"O Poole!" the lawyer cried, "he was alive and here this day. He
+cannot have been disposed of in so short a space, he must be
+still alive, he must have fled! And then, why fled? and how? and
+in that case, can we venture to declare this suicide? Oh, we must
+be careful. I foresee that we may yet involve your master in some
+dire catastrophe."
+
+"Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole.
+
+"Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly. "God grant I have
+no cause for it!" And with that he brought the paper to his eyes
+and read as follows:
+
+
+"MY DEAR UTTERSON,--When this shall fall into your hands, I
+shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the
+penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances
+of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be
+early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned
+me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more,
+turn to the confession of
+
+                  "Your unworthy and unhappy friend,
+                                        "HENRY JEKYLL."
+
+
+"There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson.
+
+"Here, sir," said Poole, and gave into his hands a considerable
+packet sealed in several places.
+
+69)
+
+The lawyer put it in his pocket. "I would say nothing of this
+paper. If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save
+his credit. It is now ten; I must go home and read these
+documents in quiet; but I shall be back before midnight, when we
+shall send for the police."
+
+They went out, locking the door of the theatre behind them; and
+Utterson, once more leaving the servants gathered about the fire
+in the hall, trudged back to his office to read the two
+narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained.
+
+70)
+
+
+
+                          DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE
+
+ON the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the
+evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of
+my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good
+deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of
+correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the
+night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse that
+should justify formality of registration. The contents increased
+my wonder; for this is how the letter ran:
+
+                                 "10th December, 18---
+
+"DEAR LANYON, You are one of my oldest friends; and although we
+may have differed at times on scientific questions, I cannot
+remember, at least on my side, any break in our affection. There
+was never a day when, if you had said to me, 'Jekyll, my life, my
+honour, my reason, depend upon you,' I would not have sacrificed
+my left hand to help you. Lanyon, my life, my honour my reason,
+are all at your mercy;
+
+71)
+
+if you fail me to-night I am lost. You might suppose, after this
+preface, that I am going to ask you for something dishonourable
+to grant. Judge for yourself.
+
+"I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-night--ay,
+even if you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to take a
+cab, unless your carriage should be actually at the door; and
+with this letter in your hand for consultation, to drive straight
+to my house. Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will find, him
+waiting your arrival with a locksmith. The door of my cabinet is
+then to be forced: and you are to go in alone; to open the glazed
+press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if it be
+shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as they stand, the
+fourth drawer from the top or (which is the same thing) the third
+from the bottom. In my extreme distress of wind, I have a morbid
+fear of misdirecting you; but even if I am in error, you may know
+the right drawer by its contents: some powders, a phial and a
+paper book. This drawer I beg of you to carry back with you to
+Cavendish Square exactly as it stands.
+
+"That is the first part of the service: now for the second. You
+should be back, if you set out at once on the receipt of this,
+long before midnight; but I will leave you that amount of margin,
+not only in the fear of one of those obstacles that can neither
+be prevented nor fore-
+
+72)
+
+seen, but because an hour when your servants are in bed is to be
+preferred for what will then remain to do. At midnight, then, I
+have to ask you to be alone in your consulting-room, to admit
+with your own hand into the house a man who will present himself
+in my name, and to place in his hands the drawer that you will
+have brought with you from my cabinet. Then you will have played
+your part and earned my gratitude completely. Five minutes
+afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation, you will have
+understood that these arrangements are of capital importance; and
+that by the neglect of one of them, fantastic as they must
+appear, you might have charged your conscience with my death or
+the shipwreck of my reason.
+
+"Confident as I am that you will not trifle with this appeal, my
+heart sinks and my hand trembles at the bare thought of such a
+possibility. Think of me at this hour, in a strange place,
+labouring under a blackness of distress that no fancy can
+exaggerate, and yet well aware that, if you will but punctually
+serve me, my troubles will roll away like a story that is told.
+Serve me, my dear Lanyon, and save
+                                       "Your friend,
+
+                                            "H. J.
+
+"P. S. I had already sealed this up when a fresh terror struck
+upon my soul. It is possible that the postoffice may fail me, and
+this letter
+
+73)
+
+not come into your hands until to-morrow morning. In that case,
+dear Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be most convenient for
+you in the course of the day; and once more expect my messenger
+at midnight. It may then already be too late; and if that night
+passes without event, you will know that you have seen the last
+of Henry Jekyll."
+
+
+Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was
+insane; but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt,
+I felt bound to do as he requested. The less I understood of this
+farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance;
+and an appeal so worded could not be set aside without a grave
+responsibility. I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom,
+and drove straight to Jekyll's house. The butler was awaiting my
+arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered
+letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a
+carpenter. The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we
+moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from which
+(as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll's private cabinet is most
+conveniently entered. The door was very strong, the lock
+excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and
+have to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the
+locksmith was near despair. But this last was a handy fellow,
+
+74)
+
+and after two hours' work, the door stood open. The press marked
+E was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, had it filled up with
+straw and tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish
+Square.
+
+Here I proceeded to examine its contents. The powders were neatly
+enough made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing
+chemist; so that it was plain they were of Jekyll's private
+manufacture; and when I opened one of the wrappers I found what
+seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of a white colour. The
+phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have been about
+half-full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the
+sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some
+volatile ether. At the other ingredients I could make no guess.
+The book was an ordinary version-book and contained little but a
+series of dates. These covered a period of many years, but I
+observed that the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite
+abruptly. Here and there a brief remark was appended to a date,
+usually no more than a single word: "double" occurring perhaps
+six times in a total of several hundred entries; and once very
+early in the list and followed by several marks of exclamation,
+"total failure!!!" All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told
+me little that was definite. Here were a phial of some tincture,
+a paper of some salt, and the record of a series of experi-
+
+75)
+
+ments that had led (like too many of Jekyll's investigations) to
+no end of practical usefulness. How could the presence of these
+articles in my house affect either the honour, the sanity, or the
+life of my flighty colleague? If his messenger could go to one
+place, why could he not go to another? And even granting some
+impediment, why was this gentleman to be received by me in
+secret? The more I reflected the more convinced I grew that I was
+dealing with a case of cerebral disease: and though I dismissed
+my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver, that I might be
+found in some posture of self-defence.
+
+Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the knocker
+sounded very gently on the door. I went myself at the summons,
+and found a small man crouching against the pillars of the
+portico.
+
+"Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.
+
+He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I had bidden
+him enter, he did not obey me without a searching backward glance
+into the darkness of the square. There was a policeman not far
+off, advancing with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I
+thought my visitor started and made greater haste.
+
+These particulars struck me, I confess, disagreeably; and as I
+followed him into the bright light of the consulting-room, I kept
+my hand ready on my weapon. Here, at last, I had a
+
+76)
+
+chance of clearly seeing him. I had never set eyes on him before,
+so much was certain. He was small, as I have said; I was struck
+besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his
+remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great
+apparent debility of constitution, and--last but not least--
+with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.
+This bore some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was
+accompanied by a marked sinking of the pulse. At the time, I set
+it down to some idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and merely
+wondered at the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had
+reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of
+man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the principle of
+hatred.
+
+This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance,
+struck in me what I can only describe as a disgustful curiosity)
+was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person
+laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of
+rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him in every
+measurement--the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to
+keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his
+haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders.
+Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from
+moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something abnormal
+and misbe-
+
+77)
+
+gotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me--
+something seizing, surprising, and revolting--this fresh
+disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that
+to my interest in the man's nature and character, there was added
+a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his fortune and status in
+the world.
+
+These observations, though they have taken so great a space to be
+set down in, were yet the work of a few seconds. My visitor was,
+indeed, on fire with sombre excitement.
+
+"Have you got it?" he cried. "Have you got it?" And so lively was
+his impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought
+to shake me.
+
+I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang
+along my blood. "Come, sir," said I. "You forget that I have not
+yet the pleasure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please."
+And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary
+seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a
+patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my
+pre-occupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer
+me to muster.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough. "What
+you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its
+heels to my politeness. I come here at the instance of your
+colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some
+moment; and I under-
+
+78)
+
+stood..." He paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could
+see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling
+against the approaches of the hysteria--"I understood, a
+drawer..."
+
+But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps
+on my own growing curiosity.
+
+"There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it lay
+on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.
+
+He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his
+heart: I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of
+his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed
+both for his life and reason.
+
+"Compose yourself," said I.
+
+He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of
+despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he
+uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified.
+And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well
+under control, "Have you a graduated glass?" he asked.
+
+I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him
+what he asked.
+
+He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of
+the red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which
+was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the
+crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly,
+and to throw off small
+
+79)
+
+fumes of vapour. Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition
+ceased and the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded
+again more slowly to a watery green. My visitor, who had watched
+these metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the glass
+upon the table, and then turned and looked upon me with an air of
+scrutiny.
+
+"And now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will you be wise?
+will you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in my
+hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? or
+has the greed of curiosity too much command of you? Think before
+you answer, for it shall be done as you decide. As you decide,
+you shall be left as you were before, and neither richer nor
+wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal
+distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul. Or, if
+you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of knowledge and
+new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in
+this room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a
+prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan."
+
+"Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly
+possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder
+that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I
+have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause
+before I see the end."
+
+"It is well," replied my visitor. "Lanyon,
+
+80)
+
+you remember your vows: what follows is under the seal of our
+profession. And now, you who have so long been bound to the most
+narrow and material views, you who have denied the virtue of
+transcendental medicine, you who have derided your superiors--
+behold!"
+
+He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry
+followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held
+on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I
+looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell--
+his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt
+and alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and
+leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from
+that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.
+
+"O God!" I screamed, and "O God!" again and again; for there
+before my eyes--pale and shaken, and half-fainting, and groping
+before him with his hands, like a man restored from death--
+there stood Henry Jekyll!
+
+What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set
+on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul
+sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my
+eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer. My life
+is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror
+sits by me at all hours of the day and night; I feel that my days
+are numbered, and that I
+
+81)
+
+must die; and yet I shall die incredulous. As for the moral
+turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence,
+I cannot, even in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror.
+I will say but one thing, Utterson, and that (if you can bring
+your mind to credit it) will be more than enough. The creature
+who crept into my house that night was, on Jekyll's own
+confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted for in every
+corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.
+                                               HASTIE LANYON
+
+82)
+
+
+
+                HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT OF THE CASE
+
+I WAS born in the year 18--- to a large fortune, endowed besides
+with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the
+respect of the wise and good among my fellow-men, and thus, as
+might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable
+and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a
+certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the
+happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with
+my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than
+commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about
+that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of
+reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my
+progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to
+a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned
+such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views
+that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost
+morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting
+
+83)
+
+nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my
+faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench
+than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of
+good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this
+case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that
+hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one
+of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a
+double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me
+were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside
+restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye
+of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow
+and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific
+studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the
+transcendental, re-acted and shed a strong light on this
+consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every
+day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the
+intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose
+partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful
+shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two,
+because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that
+point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same
+lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known
+for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent
+denizens. I, for my
+
+84)
+
+part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one
+direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side,
+and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough
+and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that
+contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could
+rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically
+both; and from an early date, even before the course of my
+scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked
+possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with
+pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the thought of the
+separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could but
+be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all
+that was unbearable; the unjust delivered from the aspirations
+might go his way, and remorse of his more upright twin; and the
+just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path,
+doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no
+longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this
+extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these
+incongruous fagots were thus bound together that in the agonised
+womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously
+struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?
+
+I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side-light
+began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I
+began to perceive
+
+85)
+
+more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling
+immateriality, the mist-like transience of this seemingly so
+solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to
+have the power to shake and to pluck back that fleshly vestment,
+even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. For two
+good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch
+of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that
+the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man's
+shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but
+returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.
+Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my
+discoveries were incomplete. Enough, then, that I not only
+recognised my natural body for the mere aura and effulgence of
+certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to
+compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from
+their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted,
+none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and
+bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul.
+
+I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of
+practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so
+potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity,
+might by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least
+inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that
+immaterial tabernacle which I
+
+86)
+
+looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so
+singular and profound, at last overcame the suggestions of alarm.
+I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from
+a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular
+salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient
+required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements,
+watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the
+ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off
+the potion.
+
+The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly
+nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the
+hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to
+subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness.
+There was something strange in my sensations, something
+indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I
+felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of
+a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images
+running like a mill-race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of
+obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I
+knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more
+wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil;
+and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like
+wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of
+these
+
+87)
+
+sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost
+in stature.
+
+There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands
+beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for the very
+purpose of these transformations. The night, however, was far
+gone into the morning--the morning, black as it was, was nearly
+ripe for the conception of the day--the inmates of my house
+were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I
+determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in
+my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein
+the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought,
+with wonder, the first creature of that sort that their
+unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through
+the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room,
+I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.
+
+I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know,
+but that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my
+nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was
+less robust and less developed than the good which I had just
+deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after
+all, nine-tenths a life of effort, virtue, and control, it had
+been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I
+think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller,
+
+88)
+
+slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon
+the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly
+on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still
+believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an
+imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that
+ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather
+of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural
+and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it
+seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided
+countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in
+so far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore
+the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first
+without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
+because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of
+good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind,
+was pure evil.
+
+I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive
+experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if
+I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before
+daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back
+to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more
+suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once more
+with the character, the stature, and the face of Henry Jekyll.
+
+89)
+
+That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached
+my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment
+while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must
+have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I
+had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no
+discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it
+but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and
+like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth.
+At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by
+ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the
+thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had
+now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly
+evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that
+incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had
+already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward
+the worse.
+
+Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my aversion to the
+dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at
+times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified,
+and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing
+toward the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily
+growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power
+tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup,
+to doff at once the body
+
+90)
+
+of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that
+of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the
+time to be humorous; and I made my preparations with the most
+studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which
+Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as housekeeper a
+creature whom I well knew to be silent and unscrupulous. On the
+other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I
+described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in
+the square; and to parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a
+familiar object, in my second character. I next drew up that will
+to which you so much objected; so that if anything befell me in
+the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde
+without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, on
+every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my
+position.
+
+Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while
+their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the
+first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that
+could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial
+respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off
+these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But
+for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think
+of it--I did not even exist! Let me but escape into my
+laboratory door, give me but a second or
+
+91)
+
+two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing
+ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like
+the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead,
+quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man
+who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.
+
+The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as
+I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But
+in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the
+monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was
+often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.
+This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth
+alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and
+villainous; his every act and thought centred on self; drinking
+pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to
+another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at
+times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation
+was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp
+of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was
+guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities
+seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was
+possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience
+slumbered.
+
+Into the details of the infamy at which I thus
+
+92)
+
+connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I
+have no design of entering; I mean but to point out the warnings
+and the successive steps with which my chastisement approached. I
+met with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I
+shall no more than mention. An act of cruelty to a child aroused
+against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other
+day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the child's
+family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life;
+and at last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward
+Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque
+drawn in the name of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily
+eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank
+in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own
+hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I
+thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.
+
+Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, I had been out
+for one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and woke
+the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations. It was in vain
+I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and tall
+proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I recognised
+the pattern of the bed-curtains and the design of the mahogany
+frame; something still kept insisting that I was not where I was,
+
+93)
+
+that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in the little
+room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the body of
+Edward Hyde. I smiled to myself, and, in my psychological way
+began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion,
+occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable
+morning doze. I was still so engaged when, in one of my more
+wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand. Now the hand of Henry
+Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional in shape and
+size: it was large, firm, white, and comely. But the hand which I
+now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London
+morning, lying half shut on the bed-clothes, was lean, corded,
+knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth
+of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.
+
+I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I was
+in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my
+breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and
+bounding from my bed, I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that
+met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin
+and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened
+Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked myself, and
+then, with another bound of terror--how was it to be remedied?
+It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs
+were in the
+
+94)
+
+cabinet--a long journey down two pairs of stairs, through the
+back passage, across the open court and through the anatomical
+theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck. It might
+indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was that,
+when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature? And
+then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back upon
+my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and
+going of my second self. I had soon dressed, as well as I was
+able, in clothes of my own size: had soon passed through the
+house, where Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at
+such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes later,
+Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting down,
+with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting.
+
+Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable incident, this
+reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian
+finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my
+judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever before
+on the issues and possibilities of my double existence. That part
+of me which I had the power of projecting, had lately been much
+exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as though
+the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though (when I
+wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide of
+blood; and I began to spy a danger that,
+
+95)
+
+if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be
+permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be
+forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably
+mine. The power of the drug had not been always equally
+displayed. Once, very early in my career, it had totally failed
+me; since then I had been obliged on more than one occasion to
+double, and once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the
+amount; and these rare uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole
+shadow on my contentment. Now, however, and in the light of that
+morning's accident, I was led to remark that whereas, in the
+beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of
+Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself
+to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this:
+that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and
+becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.
+
+Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had
+memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally
+shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most
+sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and
+shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was
+indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain
+bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from
+pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde
+
+96)
+
+had more than a son's indifference. To cast in my lot with
+Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly
+indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with
+Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to
+become, at a blow and for ever, despised and friendless. The
+bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another
+consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer
+smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even
+conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances
+were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man;
+much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted
+and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with
+so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part
+and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.
+
+Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded
+by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute
+farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light step,
+leaping impulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the
+disguise of Hyde. I made this choice perhaps with some
+unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho,
+nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready
+in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was true to my
+determination; for two months I led a life of such
+
+97)
+
+severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the
+compensations of an approving conscience. But time began at last
+to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of
+conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be
+tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after
+freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again
+compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.
+
+I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon
+his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the
+dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility;
+neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough
+allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate
+readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward
+Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been
+long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I
+took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity
+to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my
+soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the
+civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God,
+no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so
+pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable
+spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But
+I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing
+instincts
+
+98)
+
+by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree
+of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted,
+however slightly, was to fall.
+
+Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a
+transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight
+from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to
+succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium,
+struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist
+dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene
+of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of
+evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the
+topmost peg. I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance
+doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the
+lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on
+my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet
+still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of
+the avenger. Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the
+draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of
+transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll,
+with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon
+his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of
+self-indulgence was rent from head to foot, I saw my life as a
+whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had
+walked
+
+99)
+
+with my father's hand, and through the self-denying toils of my
+professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense
+of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening. I could have
+screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down
+the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory
+swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly
+face of my iniquity stared into my soul. As the acuteness of this
+remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy.
+The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth
+impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the
+better part of my existence; and oh, how I rejoiced to think it!
+with what willing humility, I embraced anew the restrictions of
+natural life! with what sincere renunciation, I locked the door
+by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under
+my heel!
+
+The next day, came the news that the murder had been overlooked,
+that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the
+victim was a man high in public estimation. It was not only a
+crime, it had been a tragic folly. I think I was glad to know it;
+I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and
+guarded by the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was now my city of
+refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and the hands of all
+men would be raised to take and slay him.
+
+100)
+
+I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say
+with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know
+yourself how earnestly in the last months of last year, I
+laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for
+others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for
+myself. Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and
+innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more
+completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose;
+and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of
+me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl
+for licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare
+idea of that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own
+person, that I was once more tempted to trifle with my
+conscience; and it was as an ordinary secret sinner, that I at
+last fell before the assaults of temptation.
+
+There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is
+filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally
+destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the
+fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had
+made discovery. It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot
+where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the
+Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with
+spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me
+licking the
+
+101)
+
+chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising
+subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I
+reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing
+myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy
+cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that
+vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and
+the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint;
+and then as in its turn the faintness subsided, I began to be
+aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater
+boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of
+obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my
+shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and
+hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been
+safe of all men's respect, wealthy, beloved--the cloth laying
+for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common
+quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to
+the gallows.
+
+My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more
+than once observed that, in my second character, my faculties
+seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic;
+thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have
+succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment. My drugs
+were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I
+
+102)
+
+to reach them? That was the problem that (crushing my temples in
+my hands) I set myself to solve. The laboratory door I had
+closed. If I sought to enter by the house, my own servants would
+consign me to the gallows. I saw I must employ another hand, and
+thought of Lanyon. How was he to be reached? how persuaded?
+Supposing that I escaped capture in the streets, how was I to
+make my way into his presence? and how should I, an unknown and
+displeasing visitor, prevail on the famous physician to rifle the
+study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my
+original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own
+hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that
+I must follow became lighted up from end to end.
+
+ Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and summoning
+a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street, the name
+of which I chanced to remember. At my appearance (which was
+indeed comical enough, however tragic a fate these garments
+covered) the driver could not conceal his mirth. I gnashed my
+teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile
+withered from his face--happily for him--yet more happily for
+myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from
+his perch. At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so
+black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look
+did they exchange in my
+
+103)
+
+presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private
+room, and brought me wherewithal to write. Hyde in danger of his
+life was a creature new to me; shaken with inordinate anger,
+strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to inflict pain. Yet the
+creature was astute; mastered his fury with a great effort of the
+will; composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon and one
+to Poole; and that he might receive actual evidence of their
+being posted, sent them out with directions that they should be
+registered.
+
+Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the private room,
+gnawing his nails; there he dined, sitting alone with his fears,
+the waiter visibly quailing before his eye; and thence, when the
+night was fully come, he set forth in the corner of a closed cab,
+and was driven to and fro about the streets of the city. He, I
+say--I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human;
+nothing lived in him but fear and hatred. And when at last,
+thinking the driver had begun to grow suspicious, he discharged
+the cab and ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes,
+an object marked out for observation, into the midst of the
+nocturnal passengers, these two base passions raged within him
+like a tempest. He walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering
+to himself, skulking through the less-frequented thoroughfares,
+counting the minutes that still divided him from midnight. Once a
+
+104)
+
+woman spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of lights. He smote
+her in the face, and she fled.
+
+When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my old friend
+perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but
+a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon
+these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear
+of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me. I
+received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it was partly
+in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed. I
+slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and
+profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me
+could avail to break. I awoke in the morning shaken, weakened,
+but refreshed. I still hated and feared the thought of the brute
+that slept within me, and I had not of course forgotten the
+appalling dangers of the day before; but I was once more at home,
+in my own house and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my
+escape shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivalled the
+brightness of hope.
+
+I was stepping leisurely across the court after breakfast,
+drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was seized
+again with those indescribable sensations that heralded the
+change; and I had but the time to gain the shelter of my cabinet,
+before I was once again raging and freezing with the passions of
+Hyde. It took on this occasion a double dose to recall me to
+
+105)
+
+myself; and alas! Six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the
+fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered.
+In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as
+of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the
+drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll. At all
+hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory
+shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my
+chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened. Under the strain of
+this continually-impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which
+I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought
+possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up
+and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and
+solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self. But
+when I slept, or when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I
+would leap almost without transition (for the pangs of
+transformation grew daily less marked) into the possession of a
+fancy brimming with images of terror, a soul boiling with
+causeless hatreds, and a body that seemed not strong enough to
+contain the raging energies of life. The powers of Hyde seemed to
+have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate
+that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was
+a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of
+that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of
+
+106)
+
+consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these
+links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant
+part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of
+life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the
+shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries
+and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that
+what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.
+And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer
+than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he
+heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour
+of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against
+him and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll,
+was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him
+continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his
+subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed
+the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was
+now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself
+regarded. Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me,
+scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books,
+burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and
+indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago
+have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his
+love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken
+
+107)
+
+and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the
+abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he
+fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart
+to pity him.
+
+It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this
+description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that
+suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought--no, not
+alleviation--but a certain callousness of soul, a certain
+acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for
+years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which
+has finally severed me from my own face and nature. My provision
+of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the
+first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for a fresh
+supply, and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the
+first change of colour, not the second; I drank it and it was
+without efficiency. You will learn from Poole how I have had
+London ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my
+first supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity
+which lent efficacy to the draught.
+
+About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement
+under the influence of the last of the old powders. This, then,
+is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think
+his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!)
+in the glass. Nor must I delay
+
+108)
+
+too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has
+hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of
+great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change
+take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces;
+but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his
+wonderful selfishness and Circumscription to the moment will
+probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like
+spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both, has
+already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I
+shall again and for ever re-indue that hated personality, I know
+how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue,
+with the most strained and fear-struck ecstasy of listening, to
+pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear
+to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or
+will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God
+knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is
+to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down
+the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of
+that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.
diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/essentialguidetocssandhtmlwebdesign b/files/books/unrelated/essentialguidetocssandhtmlwebdesign
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0bd0e0c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/essentialguidetocssandhtmlwebdesign
@@ -0,0 +1,44700 @@
+A MODERN, MODULAR APPROACH 
+TO STANDARDS-COMPLIANT WEB DESIGN. 
+
+
+THE GUIDE TO 
+
+
+CSS and HTML 
+
+Web Design 
+
+
+
+► CREATE CUTTING-EDGE, GOOD-LOOKING, 
+EFFICIENT WEB PAGES. 
+
+► WORK WITH STANDARDS-COMPLIANT 
+TECHNOLOGIES. 
+
+► COMBINE EXERCISES TO FASHION 
+COUNTLESS WEB PAGE DESIGNS. 
+
+
+friendsof 
+
+
+0 
+
+
+CRAIG GRANNELL 
+
+FOREWORD BY JON HICKS, HICKSDESIGN 
+
+
+an Apress- company 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Essential Guide to CSS 
+and HTML Web Design 
+
+
+Craig Grannell 
+
+
+friendsof 
+
+
+.0 
+
+
+DESIGNER 
+
+
+an Apress* company 
+
+
+
+The Essential Guide to CSS and 
+HTML Web Design 
+
+Copyright © 2007 by Craig Grannell 
+
+All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, 
+electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval 
+system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. 
+
+15BN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-907-5 
+
+I5BN-10 (pbk): 1-59059-907-1 
+
+Printed and bound in the United States of America 987654321 
+
+Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence 
+of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark 
+owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. 
+
+Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, 
+New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, 
+or visit www.springeronline.com. 
+
+For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2855 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 600, 
+Berkeley, CA 94705. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail in-fo@apress.com, 
+or visit www.apress.com. 
+
+The information in this book is distributed on an “as is" basis, without warranty. Although every precaution 
+has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to 
+any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or 
+indirectly by the information contained in this work. 
+
+The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the 
+Downloads section. 
+
+
+Credits 
+
+
+Lead Editors 
+
+Assistant Production Director 
+
+Chris Mills, 
+
+Kari Brooks-Copony 
+
+Tom Welsh 
+
+Technical Reviewer 
+
+Production Editor 
+
+Ellie Fountain 
+
+David Anderson 
+
+Editorial Board 
+
+Compositor 
+
+Dina Quan 
+
+Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, 
+
+Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, 
+
+Artist 
+
+Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Hassell, 
+
+April Milne 
+
+Matthew Moodie, Jeffrey Pepper, 
+
+Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, 
+
+Proofreader 
+
+Matt Wade, Tom Welsh 
+
+Nancy Sixsmith 
+
+Project Manager 
+
+Indexer 
+
+Kylie Johnston 
+
+Julie Grady 
+
+Copy Editor 
+
+Interior and Cover Designer 
+
+Damon Larson 
+
+Kurt Krames 
+
+
+Manufacturing Director 
+
+Tom Debolski 
+
+
+CONTENTS AT A GLANCE 
+
+
+About the Author.w 
+
+About the Technical Reviewer.^ 
+
+Acknowledgments. xix 
+
+Foreword. xxi 
+
+Introduction. xxiii 
+
+Chapter 1: An Introduction to Web Design. \ 
+
+Chapter 2: Web Page Essentials.M 
+
+Chapter 3: Working with Type.62 
+
+Chapter 4: Working with Images.119 
+
+Chapter 5: Using Links and Creating Navigation.1^ 
+
+Chapter 6: Tables: How Nature (and the W3C) Intended.233 
+
+Chapter 7: Page Layouts with CSS.257 
+
+Chapter 8: Getting User Feedback.313 
+
+Chapter 9: Dealing with Browser Quirks.347 
+
+Chapter 10: Putting Everything Together.372 
+
+Appendix A: XHTML Reference.399 
+
+Appendix B: Web Color Reference.447 
+
+Appendix C: Entities Reference.4^ 
+
+Appendix D: CSS Reference.472 
+
+Appendix E: Browser Guide.497 
+
+Appendix F: Software Guide.503 
+
+Index.509 
+
+
+III 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+About the Author.^ 
+
+About the Technical Reviewer.^ 
+
+Acknowledgments. xix 
+
+Foreword. xxi 
+
+Introduction.xxiii 
+
+
+Chapter 1: An Introduction to Web Design. 
+
+A brief history of the Internet.2 
+
+Why create a website?.3 
+
+Audience requirements.4 
+
+Web design overview .5 
+
+Why WYSIWYG tools aren’t used in this book.6 
+
+Introducing HTML and XHTML.6 
+
+Introducing the concept of HTML tags and elements.7 
+
+Nesting tags .7 
+
+Web standards and XHTML.8 
+
+Semantic markup.9 
+
+Introducing CSS.10 
+
+Separating content from design .10 
+
+The rules of CSS . 21 
+
+Types of CSS selectors.12 
+
+Class selectors.12 
+
+ID selectors.13 
+
+Grouped selectors. 21 
+
+Contextual selectors. ]A 
+
+Adding styles to a web page.1_5 
+
+The cascade. 2§ 
+
+The CSS box model explained. 2Z 
+
+Creating boilerplates. 21 
+
+Creating, styling, and restyling a web page . 20 
+
+
+V 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Working with website content. M 
+
+information architecture and site maps. ^ 
+
+Basic web page structure and iayout. ^ 
+
+Limitations of web design. ^ 
+
+Chapter 2: Web Page Essentials.M 
+
+starting with the essentiais.30 
+
+Document defaults.30 
+
+DOCTYPE declarations explained.32 
+
+XHTML Strict. ^ 
+
+XHTML Transitional. ^ 
+
+XHTML Frameset.33 
+
+HTML DOCTYPEs.33 
+
+Partial DTDs. ^ 
+
+What about the XML declaration?. ^ 
+
+The head section. ^ 
+
+Page titles. ^ 
+
+meta tags and search engines.37 
+
+Keywords and descriptions.37 
+
+revisit-after, robots, and author.38 
+
+Attaching external documents.38 
+
+Attaching external CSS files: The link method. ^ 
+
+Attaching CSS files: The ©import method. ^ 
+
+Attaching favicons and JavaScript.43 
+
+Checking paths.42 
+
+The body section.42 
+
+Content margins and padding in CSS.42 
+
+Zeroing margins and padding on all elements.43 
+
+Working with CSS shorthand for boxes. ^ 
+
+Setting a default font and font color. ^ 
+
+Web page backgrounds.45 
+
+Web page backgrounds in CSS.46 
+
+background-color.46 
+
+background-image.46 
+
+background-repeat. ^ 
+
+background-attachment.47 
+
+background-position.48 
+
+CSS shorthand for web backgrounds.48 
+
+Web page background ideas.49 
+
+Adding a background pattern.M 
+
+Drop shadows. ^ 
+
+A drop shadow that terminates with the content. ^ 
+
+Gradients.M 
+
+Watermarks. ^ 
+
+Closing your document. ^ 
+
+Naming your files.57 
+
+Commenting your work. ^ 
+
+Web page essentials checklist.W 
+
+
+VI 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Chapter 3: Working with Type. 61 
+
+An introduction to typography. §2 
+
+Styling text the old-fashioned way (or, why we hate font tags). M 
+
+A new beginning: Semantic markup.65 
+
+Paragraphs and headings . §& 
+
+Logical and physical styles. §& 
+
+Styles for emphasis (bold and italic). ^ 
+
+Deprecated and nonstandard physical styles.67 
+
+The big and small elements.67 
+
+Teletype, subscript, and superscript.67 
+
+Logical styles for programming-oriented content .68 
+
+Block quotes, quote citations, and definitions .68 
+
+Acronyms and abbreviations. ^ 
+
+Elements for inserted and deleted text.69 
+
+The importance of well-formed markup.70 
+
+The importance of end tags .70 
+
+Styling text using CSS. 71_ 
+
+Defining font colors. 7]_ 
+
+Defining fonts.72 
+
+Web-safe fonts.73 
+
+Sans-serif fonts for the Web.73 
+
+Serif fonts for the Web.74 
+
+Fonts for headings and monospace type .75 
+
+Mac vs. Windows: Anti-aliasing.76 
+
+Using images for text .77 
+
+Image-replacement techniques.78 
+
+Defining font size and line height.79 
+
+Setting text in pixels.80 
+
+Setting text using keywords and percentages.80 
+
+Setting text using percentages and ems. 81_ 
+
+Setting line height.82 
+
+Defining font-style, font-weight, and font-variant.83 
+
+CSS shorthand for font properties.84 
+
+Controlling text element margins.85 
+
+Using text-indent for print-like paragraphs .85 
+
+Setting letter-spacing and word-spacing.86 
+
+Controlling case with text-transform.87 
+
+Creating alternatives with classes and spans.87 
+
+Styling semantic markup.89 
+
+Styling semantic markup: A basic example with proportional line heights .90 
+
+Styling semantic markup: A modern example with sans-serif fonts .92 
+
+Styling semantic markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and 
+
+a baseline grid .95 
+
+Creating drop caps and pull quotes using CSS.98 
+
+Creating a drop cap using a CSS pseudo-element .% 
+
+Creating a drop cap with span elements and CSS . 1_00 
+
+Creating pull quotes in CSS . 1_02 
+
+Using classes and CSS overrides to create an alternate pull quote . 1_05 
+
+Adding reference citations. 1_06 
+
+
+VII 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Working with lists. 1_06 
+
+Unordered lists.1_07 
+
+Ordered lists.1_07 
+
+Definition lists.1_07 
+
+Nesting lists.1_08 
+
+Styling lists with CSS .1_08 
+
+list-style-image property. 1_09 
+
+Dealing with font-size inheritance.1_09 
+
+list-style-position property. 1J0 
+
+list-style-type property. 1J0 
+
+List style shorthand. 1_n 
+
+List margins and padding. 1_n 
+
+inline lists for navigation. 1_[2 
+
+Thinking creatively with lists. 1J2 
+
+Creating better-looking lists . 112 
+
+Displaying blocks of code online . 115 
+
+Chapter 4: Working with Images. 119 
+
+
+introduction. ]20 
+
+Color theory. ]20 
+
+Color wheels. 211 
+
+Additive and subtractive color systems. 211 
+
+Creating a color scheme using a color wheel. 211 
+
+Working with hex. 211 
+
+Web-safe colors. 211 
+
+Choosing formats for images. 211 
+
+JPEG. 211 
+
+GIF. 211 
+
+GiF89: The transparent GiF. 211 
+
+PNG. 211 
+
+Other image formats. 211 
+
+Common web image gaffes. 211 
+
+Using graphics for body copy. 211 
+
+Not working from original images. 211 
+
+Overwriting original documents. 211 
+
+Busy backgrounds. 211 
+
+Lack of contrast. 211 
+
+Using the wrong image format. 211 
+
+Resizing in FITML. 211 
+
+Not balancing quality and file size. 211 
+
+Text overlays and splitting images. 211 
+
+Stealing images and designs. 211 
+
+Working with images in XHTML. ]3A 
+
+Using alt text for accessibility benefits. 211 
+
+Descriptive alt text for link-based images. 211 
+
+Null alt attributes for interface images. 211 
+
+Using alt and title text for tooltips. 211 
+
+
+VIII 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Using CSS when working with images. 136 
+
+Applying CSS borders to images.1_36 
+
+Using CSS to wrap text around images. 1_3§ 
+
+Displaying random images. 1_32 
+
+Creating a JavaScript-based image randomizer . 
+
+Creating a PHP-based image randomizer . 
+
+Chapter 5: Using Links and Creating Navigation. 147 
+
+
+introduction to web navigation. 
+
+Navigation types.148 
+
+Inline navigation.149 
+
+Site navigation. 1^ 
+
+Search-based navigation.1_50 
+
+Creating and styling web page links.1_50 
+
+Absolute links. 1_^ 
+
+Relative links. 1_51 
+
+Root-relative links.1_52 
+
+internal page links . 1_51 
+
+Backward compatibility with fragment identifiers. 1_51 
+
+Top-of-page links.1_M 
+
+Link states. 1_51 
+
+Defining link states with CSS.1_% 
+
+Correctly ordering link states .1_56 
+
+The difference between a and a:link. 1_5Z 
+
+Editing link styles using CSS. 1_5Z 
+
+The :focus pseudo-class. 1_52 
+
+Multiple link states: The cascade .1_60 
+
+Styling multiple link states .1_60 
+
+Enhanced link accessibility and usability.1_62 
+
+The title attribute.1_63 
+
+Using accesskey and tabindex.1_63 
+
+Skip navigation links.1_64 
+
+Creating a skip navigation link . 165 
+
+Styling a skip navigation link . 166 
+
+Enhancing skip navigation with a background image . 168 
+
+Link targeting.1_69 
+
+Links and images. 225 
+
+Adding pop-ups to images. 171 
+
+Adding a pop-up to an image . 2Z1 
+
+image maps. 222 
+
+Faking images maps using CSS. 222 
+
+Using CSS to create a fake image map with rollovers . 222 
+
+Enhancing links with JavaScript. 2§1 
+
+Creating a pop-up window. 2§1 
+
+Creating an online gallery. 185 
+
+Switching images using JavaScript . 185 
+
+Adding captions to your image gallery . 222 
+
+Automated gallery scripts. 222 
+
+
+DC 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Collapsible page content.1% 
+
+Setting up a collapsible div .1% 
+
+Enhancing accessibility for collapsible content. 
+
+Modularizing the collapsible content script. 
+
+How to find targets for collapsible content scripts. 
+
+Creating navigation bars. 
+
+Using lists for navigation bars. 
+
+Using HTML lists and CSS to create a button-like vertical navigation bar .1% 
+
+Creating a vertical navigation bar with collapsible sections .200 
+
+Working with inline lists.202 
+
+Creating breadcrumb navigation .202 
+
+Creating a simple horizontal navigation bar .204 
+
+Creating a CSS-only tab bar that automates the active page .207 
+
+Graphical navigation with rollover effects. 2U_ 
+
+Using CSS backgrounds to create a navigation bar . 211 
+
+Using a grid image for multiple link styles and colors .214 
+
+Creating graphical tabs that expand with resized text .217 
+
+Creating a two-tier navigation menu . 220 
+
+Creating a drop-down menu . 224 
+
+Creating a multicolumn drop-down menu . 226 
+
+The dos and don’ts of web navigation. 2^ 
+
+Chapter 6: Tables: How Nature (and the W3C) Intended. 233 
+
+
+The great table debate. 23A 
+
+How tables work. 2^ 
+
+Adding a border. 2^ 
+
+Cell spacing and cell padding. 2^ 
+
+Spanning rows and cells. 2^ 
+
+Setting dimensions and alignment. 2^ 
+
+Vertical alignment of table cell content. 2^ 
+
+Creating accessible tables. 2^ 
+
+Captions and summaries. 2^ 
+
+Using table headers.240 
+
+Row groups.240 
+
+Scope and headers. 2£[ 
+
+Building a table. 242 
+
+Building the table .243 
+
+Styling a table.247 
+
+Adding borders to tables. 247 
+
+Styling the playlist table .248 
+
+Adding separator stripes.2M 
+
+Applying separator stripes . 2^ 
+
+Adding separator stripes with PHP.2W 
+
+Tables for layout.2W 
+
+
+X 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Chapter 7: Page Layouts with CSS. 257 
+
+
+Layout for the Web. 2^ 
+
+Grids and boxes. 2^ 
+
+Working with columns. 2^ 
+
+Fixed vs. liquid design. 2§0 
+
+Layout technology: Tables vs. CSS.2M 
+
+Logical element placement. 261 
+
+Workflow for CSS layouts.261_ 
+
+Anatomy of a layout: Tables vs. CSS.2K 
+
+Creating a page structure .2W 
+
+Box formatting. 2§3 
+
+CSS layouts: A single box. 2M 
+
+Creating a fixed-width wrapper . 264 
+
+Adding padding, margins, and backgrounds to a layout .265 
+
+Creating a maximum-width layout . 268 
+
+Using absolute positioning to center a box onscreen .2M 
+
+Nesting boxes: Boxouts.272 
+
+The float property .273 
+
+Creating a boxout .274 
+
+Advanced layouts with multiple boxes and columns.278 
+
+Working with two structural divs.278 
+
+Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts .278 
+
+Manipulating two structural divs for liquid layouts . 2^ 
+
+Placing columns within wrappers and clearing floated content.288 
+
+Placing columns within a wrapper . 288 
+
+Clearing floated content .290 
+
+Working with sidebars and multiple boxouts.293 
+
+Creating a sidebar with faux-column backgrounds .294 
+
+Boxouts revisited: Creating multiple boxouts within a sidebar .296 
+
+Creating flanking sidebars.298 
+
+Creating flanking sidebars .299 
+
+Automating layout variations.304 
+
+Using body class values and CSS to automate page layouts .304 
+
+Scrollable content areas.306 
+
+Working with frames.307 
+
+Working with internal frames (iframes).309 
+
+Scrollable content areas with CSS.310 
+
+Chapter 8: Getting User Feedback. 313 
+
+
+Introducing user feedback.314 
+
+Using mailto: URLs .314 
+
+Scrambling addresses.31_5 
+
+Working with forms.31_5 
+
+Creating a form.316 
+
+Adding controls.316 
+
+Improving form accessibility.318 
+
+The label, fieldset, and legend elements.318 
+
+Adding tabindex attributes .319 
+
+
+ya 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+CSS styling and layout for forms. 3^ 
+
+Adding styles to forms. 3^ 
+
+Advanced form layout with CSS. 3^ 
+
+Sending feedback. 3^ 
+
+Configuring nms FormMail. 3^ 
+
+Multiple recipients. 3^ 
+
+Script server permissions. 3^ 
+
+Sending form data using PHP. 3^ 
+
+Using e-mail to send form data. 3^ 
+
+A layout for contact pages. 3^ 
+
+Using microformats to enhance contact information. 3^ 
+
+Using microformats to enhance contact details . 3^ 
+
+Online microformat contacts resources. 3£1_ 
+
+Contact details structure redux. 3^ 
+
+Chapter 9: Dealing with Browser Quirks. 347 
+
+
+The final test. 3^ 
+
+Weeding out common errors.348 
+
+A browser test suite. 3^ 
+
+installing multiple versions of browsers.3W 
+
+Dealing with internet Explorer bugs.3M 
+
+Outdated methods for hacking CSS documents. 3^ 
+
+Conditional comments.3% 
+
+Dealing with rounding errors. 3^ 
+
+Alt text overriding title text. 3^ 
+
+Common fixes for Internet Explorer 5.x. 3^ 
+
+Box model fixes (5.x). 3^ 
+
+Centering layouts.3M 
+
+The text-transform bug. 3§0 
+
+Font-size inheritance in tables.3M 
+
+Common fixes for Internet Explorer 6 and 5.361_ 
+
+Fixing min-width and max-width.361_ 
+
+Double-float margin bug.361_ 
+
+Expanding boxes. 362 
+
+The 3-pixel text jog.3K 
+
+Whitespace bugs in styled lists.363 
+
+Problems with iframes.363 
+
+Ignoring the abbr element. 3M 
+
+PNG replacement. 364 
+
+Problems with CSS hover menus (drop-downs).365 
+
+Fixing hasLayout problems (the peekaboo bug).365 
+
+Targeting other browsers. 367 
+
+
+XII 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Chapter 10: Putting Everything Together. 371 
+
+
+Putting the pieces together.372 
+
+Managing style sheets.372 
+
+Creating a portfolio layout.373 
+
+About the design and required images.374 
+
+Putting the gallery together.374 
+
+Styling the gallery.375 
+
+Hacking for Internet Explorer.378 
+
+Creating an online storefront.378 
+
+About the design and required images.379 
+
+Putting the storefront together.380 
+
+Styling the storefront. 3^ 
+
+Fonts and fixes for the storefront layout.384 
+
+Creating a business website.387 
+
+About the design and required images.387 
+
+Putting the business site together.388 
+
+Styling the business website.389 
+
+Working with style sheets for print.392 
+
+Appendix A: XHTML Reference. 399 
+
+standard attributes.400 
+
+Core attributes.400 
+
+Keyboard attributes.400 
+
+Language attributes. 4^ 
+
+Event attributes. 4^ 
+
+Core events. 4^ 
+
+Form element events.402 
+
+Window events.403 
+
+XHTML elements and attributes.403 
+
+Appendix B: Web Color Reference. 447 
+
+
+Color values. 4^ 
+
+Web-safe colors.448 
+
+Color names.449 
+
+Appendix C: Entities Reference. 451 
+
+
+Characters used in XHTML.4W 
+
+Punctuation characters and symbols.4W 
+
+Quotation marks.4W 
+
+Spacing and nonprinting characters.4W 
+
+Punctuation characters.4M 
+
+Symbols.4M 
+
+Characters for European languages. 4^ 
+
+Currency signs. A§0 
+
+
+XIII 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+
+Mathematical, technical, and Greek characters.4M 
+
+Common mathematical characters. A§0 
+
+Advanced mathematical and technical characters.461_ 
+
+Greek characters. 463 
+
+Arrows, lozenge, and card suits. 466 
+
+Converting the nonstandard Microsoft set. 466 
+
+Appendix D: CSS Reference. 471 
+
+
+The CSS box model.472 
+
+Common CSS values.473 
+
+CSS properties and values. 474 
+
+Basic selectors.489 
+
+Pseudo-classes. 4^ 
+
+Pseudo-elements. 4^ 
+
+CSS boilerplates and management. 4^ 
+
+Modular style sheets.494 
+
+Appendix E: Browser Guide. 497 
+
+
+Firefox.4% 
+
+internet Explorer.498 
+
+Opera.4M 
+
+Safari.500 
+
+Other browsers.500 
+
+Appendix F: Software Guide. 503 
+
+Web design software.504 
+
+Graphic design software.505 
+
+The author’s toolbox.506 
+
+Index.509 
+
+
+XIV 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
+
+
+Craig Grannell is a well-known web designer and writer 
+who’s been flying the flag for web standards for a number 
+of years. Originally trained in the fine arts, the mid-1990s 
+saw Craig become immersed in the world of digital media, 
+his creative projects encompassing everything from video 
+and installation-based audio work, to strange live perform¬ 
+ances—sometimes with the aid of a computer, televisions, 
+videos, and a PA system, and sometimes with a small bag 
+of water above his head. His creative, playful art, which 
+usually contained a dark, satirical edge, struck a chord with 
+those who saw it, leading to successful appearances at a 
+number of leading European media arts festivals. 
+
+Craig soon realized he’d actually have to make a proper living, however. Luckily, the Web 
+caught his attention, initially as a means to promote his art via an online portfolio, but then 
+as a creative medium in itself, and he’s been working with it ever since. It was during this time 
+that he founded Snub Communications (www.snubcommunications.com), a design and writ¬ 
+ing agency whose clients have since included the likes of Rebellion Developments (publish¬ 
+ers of 2000 AD), IDG UK (publishers of Macworld, PC Advisor, Digital Arts, and other 
+magazines), and Swim Records. 
+
+Along with writing the book you’re holding right now, Craig has authored Web Designer’s 
+Reference (friends of ED, 2005) and various books on Dreamweaver, including Foundation 
+Web Design with Dreamweaver 8 (friends of ED, 2006). Elsewhere, he’s written numerous 
+articles for Computer Arts, MacFormat, .net/Practical Web Design, 4Talent, MacUser, the 
+dearly departed Cre@te Online, and many other publications besides. 
+
+When not designing websites, Craig can usually be found hard at work in his quest for global 
+superstardom by way of his eclectic audio project, the delights of which you can sample at 
+WWW . pro jectnoise .co.uk. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER 
+
+
+David Anderson is a biochemistry graduate from North West 
+England who first noticed the value of the Internet in the early 
+1990s while using it as a research tool to aid his academic studies. 
+He created his first website shortly after graduating in 1997, and 
+began to establish himself as a freelance developer while also 
+working in a variety of roles for several major UK companies until 
+eventually founding his own business, S2R Creations, in 2003. 
+
+David discovered the web standards movement early in his 
+career, and quickly adapted his working practices to utilize the 
+power and versatility of CSS and semantic HTML. Clients benefiting from his skills have 
+included New Directions Recruitment and Rex Judd Ltd. He has been sharing his knowledge 
+with members of various web development forums for over five years, has written for 
+Practical Web Design magazine, and has established his reputation as an authority on web 
+standards as a result. 
+
+When he isn’t developing websites, he can be found taking photos of anything that will stay 
+still long enough, as well as a few things that won’t. He shares his photos on Flickr, at 
+www.flickr.com/photos/ap4a, and also writes on his blog at www.ap4a.co.uk. 
+
+
+
+XVII 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
+
+
+Writing a book is a long process, involving many hours of effort. To see the final product is 
+exhilarating and extremely satisfying, but it couldn’t have happened without those who’ve 
+supported me along the way. In particular. I’d like to thank David Anderson, whose excellent 
+editing, reviewing, ideas, and suggestions were indispensable in the revision of the text. 
+Special thanks also to Chris Mills for getting the ball rolling, to Tom Welsh for picking up the 
+baton, and to Kylie Johnston for keeping everything ticking over. Thanks also to the other 
+members of the friends of ED team for their hard work in getting this publication into the 
+world. 
+
+I’m also extremely fortunate to have had the support of several other great designers. 1 par¬ 
+ticularly owe a debt of gratitude to Sarah Gay (www.stuffbysarah.net) for her highly useful, 
+selfless contributions, and to my former partner in crime David Powers, who once again 
+stepped in to assist with a couple of elements in the book. Thanks also to Jon Hicks, Matthew 
+Pennell, and Lokesh Dhakar for granting permission to include elements of their work, and to 
+the many designers whose work has been an inspiration over the years. 
+
+And, finally, thanks to Kay for once again being there for me and putting up with me while 1 
+wrote this book. 
+
+
+XIX 
+
+
+
+FOREWORD 
+
+
+Designing for the Web is a wonderful thing. The ability to publish something and have it 
+appear immediately and globally is an empowering feeling. I’ll never forget the first rush I felt 
+when, as a print designer, I could simply “upload” some files and have them be immediately 
+visible, rather than waiting in trepidation for the boxes to return from the printer. Back then 
+the Web was simpler, there were fewer materials and tools, and “styling” was something you 
+hacked together using bizarre hacks and workarounds to achieve even the simplest of tasks. 
+The browser landscape was equally testing. 
+
+Now we’re in a much better position. We have a wonderful thing called CSS that allows us to 
+style pages with concise style rules and leave the HTML to describe the content, not the pres¬ 
+entation. Content can be repurposed for different media. 
+
+But anyone keen to learn web design (from scratch, or to improve their existing skills) has a 
+bewildering job on their hands. The publishing market is saturated with good books on web 
+design, HTML, and CSS. Yet if you were asked for a single book that encompasses all three, 
+and that someone could understand without assuming any prior “Internet knowledge,” what 
+would you recommend? Still trying to think of one? 
+
+A regular contributor to .net/Practical Web Design magazine, Craig Grannell has written The 
+Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design for this purpose. Whether you need a reference 
+for unmemorable code like HTML entities, or need to know what on earth HTML entities are, 
+it’s all here. Laid out in an understandable and non-patronizing manner, every aspect of cre¬ 
+ating a site is covered. 
+
+There are still many challenges to face when designing sites, but the sheer fun of it is better 
+than ever. With this guide in your hands, more so! 
+
+
+Jon Hicks 
+Hicksdesign 
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION 
+
+
+The Web is an ever-changing, evolving entity, and it’s easy for a designer to get left behind. 
+As both a designer and writer, 1 see a lot of books on web design, and although many are well 
+written, few are truly integrated, modular resources that any designer can find useful in his 
+or her day-to-day work. Most web design books concentrate on a single technology (or, 
+commonly, a piece of software), leaving the designer to figure out how to put the pieces 
+together. 
+
+
+This book is different 
+
+The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design provides a modern, integrated approach 
+to web design. Each of the chapters looks at a specific aspect of creating a web page, such as 
+type, working with images, creating navigation, and creating layout blocks. In each case, rel¬ 
+evant technologies are explored in context and at the appropriate times, just as in real-world 
+projects—for example, markup is explored along with associated CSS and JavaScript, rather 
+than each technology being placed in separate chapters, and visual design ideas are dis¬ 
+cussed so you can get a feel for how code affects page layouts. Dozens of practical examples 
+are provided, which you can use to further your understanding of each subject. This highly 
+modular and integrated approach means that you can dip in and out of the book as you 
+need to, crafting along the way a number of web page elements that you can use on count¬ 
+less sites in the future. 
+
+Because the entire skills gamut is covered—from foundation to advanced—this book is ideal 
+for beginners and long-time professionals alike, if you’re making your first move into stan- 
+dards-based web design, the “ground floor” is covered, rather than an assumption being 
+made regarding your knowledge. However, contemporary ideas, techniques, and thinking are 
+explored throughout, ensuring that the book is just as essential for the experienced designer 
+wanting to work on CSS layouts, or the graphic designer who wants to discover how to cre¬ 
+ate cutting-edge websites. 
+
+This book’s advocacy of web standards, usability, and accessibility with a strong eye toward 
+visual design makes it of use to technologists and designers alike, enabling everyone to build 
+better websites. An entire chapter is devoted to browser issues, which should help ensure 
+your sites look great, regardless of the end user’s setup. And for those moments when a 
+
+
+XXIII 
+
+
+INTRODUCTION 
+
+
+particular tag or property value slips your mind, this book provides a comprehensive refer¬ 
+ence guide that includes important and relevant XHTML elements and attributes, XHTML 
+entities, web colors, and CSS 2.1 properties and values. 
+
+Remember that you can visit the friends of ED support forums at www.friendsofed.com/ 
+forums to discuss aspects of this book, or just to chat with like-minded designers and devel¬ 
+opers. You can also download files associated with this book from www.friendsofed.com— 
+just find the book in the friends of ED catalog located on the homepage, and then follow its 
+link to access downloads and other associated resources. 
+
+
+Layout conventions 
+
+To keep this book as clear and easy to follow as possible, the following conventions are used 
+throughout: 
+
+■ Important words or concepts are normally highlighted on the first appearance in bold 
+type. 
+
+■ Code is presented in fixed-width font. 
+
+■ New or changed code is normally presented in bold fixed-width font. 
+
+■ Pseudo-code and variable input are written in italic fixed-uidth font. 
+
+■ Menu commands are written in the form Menu >■ Submenu >■ Submenu. 
+
+■ Where I want to draw your attention to something. I’ve highlighted it like this: 
+
+
+f A 
+
+Ahem, don’t say I didn’t warn you. 
+
+V_^_ 
+
+
+m To make it easier to work through the exercises, each one has an introductory box 
+that lists where you can find any required files and the completed files within the 
+downloadable file archive. A short overview of what you’ll learn is also included. 
+
+■ Sometimes code won’t fit on a single line in a book. Where this happens, I use an 
+arrow like this: 
+
+This is a very, very long section of code that should be written all on 
+^ the same line without a break. 
+
+
+XXIV 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I 
+
+
+Zen 
+
+
+
+A demonstration of w 
+can be accomplishe* 
+visually through CSS-b 
+
+
+
+1 AN INTRODUCTION TO 
+
+WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+File Edit Options Navigate Annotate 
+
+Document Title: [lAbout NCSA Mosaic 
+Document URL: |http://www.ncsa.uiu^ 
+
+Nanoscience..Environmenta 
+
+NCSA's Mosaic I wasn't the 
+a major splash. In Novemb 
+pack of existing browsers 
+a more attractive interfa 
+to use and appealing to " 
+
+
+NCSA Mosaic for MS Windows 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Introducing the Internet and web design 
+
+■ Working with web standards 
+
+■ Working with XHTML 
+
+■ Understanding and creating CSS rules 
+
+■ Creating web page boilerplates 
+
+■ Organizing web page content 
+
+
+A brief history of the Internet 
+
+Even in the wildest dreams of science fiction and fantasy writers, few envisioned anything 
+that offers the level of potential that the Internet now provides for sharing information on 
+a worldwide basis. For both businesses and individuals, the Internet is now the medium of 
+choice, largely because it enables you to present your wares to the entire world on a 24/7 
+basis. But the technology’s origins were more ominous than and very different from the 
+ever-growing, sprawling free-for-all that exists today. 
+
+In the 1960s, the American military was experimenting with methods by which the US 
+authorities might be able to communicate in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. The sug¬ 
+gested solution was to replace point-to-point communication networks with one that was 
+more akin to a net. This meant information could find its way from place to place even if 
+certain sections of the network were destroyed. Despite the project eventually being 
+shelved by the Pentagon, the concept itself lived on, eventually influencing a network that 
+connected several American universities. 
+
+During the following decade, this fledgling network went international and began opening 
+itself up to the general public. The term Internet was coined in the 1980s, which also her¬ 
+alded the invention of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the net¬ 
+working software that makes possible communication between computers running on 
+different systems. During the 1980s, Tim Berners-Lee was also busy working on HTML, his 
+effort to weld hypertext to a markup language in an attempt to make communication of 
+research between himself and his colleagues simpler. 
+
+Despite the technology’s healthy level of expansion, the general public remained largely 
+unaware of the Internet until well into the 1990s. By this time, HTML had evolved from a 
+fairly loose set of rules—browsers having to make assumptions regarding coder intent and 
+rendering output—to a somewhat stricter set of specifications and recommendations. 
+This, along with a combination of inexpensive hardware, the advent of highly usable web 
+browsers such as Mosaic (see the following image), and improved communications tech¬ 
+nology, saw an explosion of growth that continues to this day. 
+
+Initially, only the largest brands dipped their toes into these new waters, but soon thou¬ 
+sands of companies were on the Web, enabling customers all over the globe to access 
+information, and later to shop online. Home users soon got in on the act, once it became 
+clear that the basics of web design weren’t rocket science, and that, in a sense, everyone 
+
+
+2 
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+could do it—all you needed was a text editor, an FTP client, and some web space. 
+Designers soon got in on the act, increasingly catered for by new elements within HTML; 
+Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which took a while to be adopted by browsers, but eventu¬ 
+ally provided a means of creating highly advanced layouts for the Web; and faster web 
+connections, which made media-rich sites accessible to the general public without forcing 
+them to wait ages for content to download. 
+
+Therefore, unlike most media, the Web is truly a tool for everyone, and in many countries, 
+the Internet has become ubiquitous. For those working in a related industry, it’s hard to 
+conceive that as recently as the mid-1990s relatively few people were even aware of the 
+Internet’s existence! 
+
+
+
+
+So, from obscure roots as a concept for military communications, the Internet has evolved 
+into an essential tool for millions of people, enabling them to communicate with each 
+other, research and gather information, telecommute, shop, play games, and become 
+involved in countless other activities on a worldwide basis. 
+
+
+Why create a website? 
+
+Before putting pen to paper (and mouse to keyboard), it’s important to think about the 
+reason behind putting a site online. Millions already exist, so why do you need to create 
+one yourself? Also, if you’re working for a company, perhaps you already have plenty of 
+marketing material, so why do you need a website as well? 
+
+
+3 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+I should mention here that I’m certainly not trying to put you off—far from it. Instead, I’m 
+trying to reinforce the point that planning is key in any web design project, and although 
+some people swear that “winging it” is the best way to go, most such projects end up gath¬ 
+ering virtual dust online. Therefore, before doing anything else, think through why you 
+should build a website and what you’re trying to achieve. 
+
+Companies and individuals alike have practical and commercial reasons for setting up a 
+website. A website enables you to communicate with like-minded individuals or potential 
+clients on a worldwide basis. If you’re a creative talent of some kind, you can use a website 
+to showcase your portfolio, offering online photographs, music tracks for download, or 
+poetry. If you fancy yourself as a journalist, a blog enables you to get your opinion out 
+there. If you own or work for a business, creating a website is often the most efficient 
+means of marketing your company. And even if you just have a hobby, a website can be a 
+great way of finding others who share your passion—while you may be the only person in 
+town who likes a particular movie or type of memorabilia, chances are there are thousands 
+of people worldwide who think the same, and a website can bring you all together. This is 
+perhaps why the paper fanzine has all but died, only to be reborn online, where develop¬ 
+ment costs are negligible and worldwide distribution is a cinch. 
+
+In practical terms, a website exists online all day, every day (barring the odd hiccup with 
+ISPs), which certainly isn’t the case with printed media, which is there one minute and in 
+the recycle trash the next. Distribution is less expensive than sending out printed mate¬ 
+rial—a thousand-page website can be hosted for $10 per month or less, but sending a 
+thousand-page document to one person (let alone a thousand or several thousand) may 
+cost more than that. Likewise, development (particularly corrections and updates) is often 
+significantly cheaper, too. For example, if you want to rework a print brochure, you have 
+to redesign it and then reprint it. Reworking a section of a website often means swapping 
+out a few files, which is efficient and affordable. So, for large companies and individuals 
+alike, the ability to have relevant information online in a form that can often be updated 
+in mere minutes, thereby keeping all interested parties up to date, is hard to resisti 
+
+
+Audience requirements 
+
+This book centers on the design and technology aspects of web design, but close attention 
+must always be paid to your potential audience. It’s no good forcing design ideas that 
+result in inappropriate visuals, unusable navigation to all but the most technically minded 
+of people, and huge download times on your site’s unsuspecting visitors. 
+
+Prior to creating a site, you must ascertain what your audience wants and expects in terms 
+of content, design, and how the site will work (by way of talking to the relevant people, 
+and also, if your budget allows, by using surveys and focus groups). You don’t have to take 
+all of your audience’s ideas into account (after all, many will be contradictory), but be 
+mindful of common themes and ensure they’re not ignored. 
+
+Technical considerations must be researched. If you’re targeting designers, you can be 
+fairly sure that a large proportion of the audience will be using monitors set to a high res¬ 
+olution and millions of colors, and you can design accordingly. If your site is aimed at busi¬ 
+ness users, be mindful that much of your potential audience will likely be using laptops (or 
+
+
+4 
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+older computers, for staff at the lower end of the ladder), with screen resolutions of 
+1024X768 or lower. 
+
+Determining the web browsers your audience members use is another important consid¬ 
+eration. Although use of web standards (used throughout this book) is more likely to 
+result in a highly compatible site, browser quirks still cause unforeseen problems; there¬ 
+fore, always check to see what browsers are popular with a site’s visitors, and ensure you 
+test in as many as you can. Sometimes you won’t have access to such statistics, or you may 
+just be after a “sanity check” regarding what’s generally popular. A couple of useful places 
+to research global web browser statistics are www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_ 
+stats.asp and www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/. Note, though, that any statistics you see 
+online are effectively guesswork and are not a definitive representation of the Web as a 
+whole; still, they do provide a useful, sizeable sample that’s often indicative of current 
+browser trends. 
+
+Although you might be used to checking browser usage, and then, based on the results, 
+designing for specific browsers, we’ll be adhering closely to web standards throughout this 
+book. When doing this, an “author once, work anywhere” approach is feasible, as long as 
+you’re aware of various browser quirks (many of which are explored in Chapter 9). Of 
+course, you should still always ensure you test sites in as many browsers as possible, just to 
+make sure everything works as intended. 
+
+
+
+Web design overview 
+
+Web design has evolved rapidly over the years. Initially, browsers were basic, and early ver¬ 
+sions of HTML were fairly limited in what they enabled designers to do. Therefore, many 
+older sites on the Web are plain in appearance. Additionally, the Web was originally largely 
+a technical repository, hence the boring layouts of many sites in the mid 1990s—after all, 
+statistics, documentation, and papers rarely need to be jazzed up, and the audience didn’t 
+demand such things anyway. 
+
+As with any medium finding its feet, things soon changed, especially once the general pub¬ 
+lic flocked to the Web. It was no longer enough for websites to be text-based information 
+repositories. Users craved—demanded, even—color! Images! Excitement! Animation! 
+Interaction! Even video and audio managed to get a foothold as compression techniques 
+improved and connection speeds increased. 
+
+The danger of eye candy became all too apparent as the turn of the century approached; 
+every site, it seemed, had a Flash intro, and the phrase “skip intro” became so common 
+that it eventually spawned a parody website. 
+
+These days, site design has tended toward being more restrained, as designers have 
+become more comfortable with using specific types of technologies for relevant and 
+appropriate purposes. Therefore, you’ll find beautifully designed XHTML- and CSS-based 
+sites sitting alongside highly animated Flash efforts. 
+
+Of late, special emphasis is being placed on usability and accessibility, and, in the majority 
+of cases, designers have cottoned to the fact that content must take precedence. However, 
+
+
+5 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+just because web standards, usability, and accessibility are key, that doesn’t mean design 
+should be thrown out the window. As we’ll see in later chapters, web standards do not 
+have to come at the expense of good design—far from it. In fact, a strong understanding 
+of web standards helps to improve websites, making it easier for you to create cutting- 
+edge layouts that work across platforms and are easy to update. It also provides you with 
+a method of catering for obsolete devices. 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+If you’re relatively new to web design, you may be wondering about the best platform 
+and software for creating websites. Ultimately, it matters little which platform you 
+choose, as long as you have access to the most popular browsers for testing purposes 
+(a list that I’d now include Apple’s Safari in, alongside Internet Explorer, Firefox, and 
+Opera). Regarding software, there’s an overview in Appendix E (“Browsers Guide”), but 
+this isn’t an exhaustive guide, so do your own research and find software to your liking. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Why WYSIWYG tools aren’t used in this book 
+
+With lots of software available and this book being design-oriented, you might wonder 
+why I’m not using WYSIWYG web design tools. This isn’t because I shun such tools—it’s 
+more that in order to best learn how to do something, you need to start from scratch, with 
+the foundations. Many web design applications make it tempting to “hide” the underlying 
+code from you, and most users end up relying on the graphical interface. This is fine until 
+something goes wrong and you don’t know how to fix it. 
+
+Removing software from the equation also means we concentrate on the underlying tech¬ 
+nology that drives web pages, without the distraction of working out which button does 
+what. It also ensures that the book will be relevant to you, regardless of what software you 
+use or your current skill level. Therefore, I suggest you install a quality text editor to work 
+through the exercises, or set your web design application to use its code view. Once you’re 
+familiar with the concepts outlined in this book, you can apply them to your work, what¬ 
+ever your chosen application for web design. This level of flexibility is important, because 
+you never know when you might have to switch applications—something that’s relatively 
+painless if you know how to design for the Web and understand technologies like CSS 
+and HTML. 
+
+
+Introducing HTML and XHTML 
+
+The foundation of the majority of web pages is HyperText Markup Language, commonly 
+known by its initials, HTML. A curious facet of the language is that it’s easy to pick up the 
+basics—anyone who’s computer literate should be able to piece together a basic page 
+after learning some tags—but it has enough flexibility and scope to keep designers inter¬ 
+ested and experimenting, especially when HTML is combined with Cascading Style Sheets 
+(CSS), which we’ll discuss later in this chapter. This section presents an overview of HTML 
+tags and elements, and how HTML and XHTML relate to web standards. 
+
+
+6 
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Introducing the concept of HTML tags and elements 
+
+HTML documents are text files that contain tags, which are used to mark up HTML ele¬ 
+ments. These documents are usually saved with the .html file extension, although some 
+prefer .htm, which is a holdover from DOS file name limitations, which restricted you to 
+eight characters for the file name and three for the extension. 
+
+The aforementioned tags are what web browsers use to display pages, and assuming the 
+browser is well behaved (most modern ones are), the display should conform to standards 
+as laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organization that develops 
+guidelines and specifications for many web technologies. 
+
+
+
+The W3C website is found at www.w 3 . 0 rg. The site offers numerous useful tools, 
+including validation services against which you can check your web pages. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+HTML tags are surrounded by angle brackets—for instance, <p> is a paragraph start tag. It’s 
+good practice to close tags once the element content or intended display effect con¬ 
+cludes, and this is done with an end tag. End tags are identical to the opening start tags, 
+but with an added forward slash: /. A complete HTML element looks like this: 
+
+<p>Here is a paragraph.</p> 
+
+This element consists of the following: 
+
+■ Start tag: <p> 
+
+■ Content: Here is a paragraph. 
+
+■ End tag: </p> 
+
+
+HTML doesn’t have a hard-and-fast rule regarding the case of tags, unlike XHTML, 
+which we’ll shortly be talking about and which will be used throughout the book. If 
+you look at the source code of HTML pages on the Web, you may see lowercase tags, 
+uppercase tags or, in the case of pages put together over a period of time, a mixture 
+of the two. That said, it’s still good practice with any markup language to be consis¬ 
+tent, regardless of whether the rules are more flexible. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+Nesting tags 
+
+There are many occasions when tags must be placed inside each other; this process is 
+called nesting. One reason for nesting is to apply basic styles to text-based elements. 
+Earlier, you saw the code for a paragraph element. We can now make the text bold by sur¬ 
+rounding the element content with a strong element: 
+
+<p><strong>Here is a paragraph.</strong></p> 
+
+
+7 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+You might be used to using the bold element to make text bold, but it is a physical 
+element that only amends the look of text rather than also conveying semantic mean¬ 
+ing. Logical elements, such as strong, convey meaning and add styling to text and are 
+therefore preferred. These will be covered in Chapter 3. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Note that the strong tags are nested within the paragraph tags (<p></p>), not the other 
+way around. That’s because the paragraph is the parent element to which formatting is 
+being applied. The paragraph could be made bold and italic by adding another element, 
+emphasis (<em></em>), as follows; 
+
+<p><strong><em>Here is a paragraph.</em></strong></p> 
+
+In this case, the strong and em tags could be in the opposite order, as they’re at the same 
+level in the hierarchy. However, you must always close nested tags in the reverse order to 
+that in which they’re opened, as shown in the previous code block, otherwise some 
+browsers may not display your work as intended. For instance, the following should be 
+avoided: 
+
+<p><strong><em>Here is a paragraph.</strong></em></p> 
+
+As previously mentioned, it’s good practice to close tags in HTML—even though it’s not a 
+requirement for all elements, being sloppy in this area can lead to errors. Take a look at 
+the following: 
+
+<p><strong><em>Here is a paragraph.</strong></p> 
+
+Here, the emphasis element isn’t closed, meaning subsequent text-based content on the 
+page is likely to be displayed in italics—so take care to close all your tags. 
+
+
+Web standards and XHTML 
+
+As mentioned earlier, we’ll be working with Extensible HyperText Markup Language 
+(XHTML) rules in this book, rather than HTML. The differences between HTML and XHTML 
+are few, but important, and largely came about because of the inconsistent way that 
+browsers displayed HTML. XHTML is stricter than HTML and has additional rules; oddly, 
+this actually makes it easier to learn, because you don’t have to worry about things like 
+which case to use for tags and whether they require closing. You have hard-and-fast rules 
+in each case. XHTML-specific rules are as follows. 
+
+All tags and attribute names must be in lowercase and must always be closed. Therefore, 
+the following is incorrect: 
+
+<P>This is a paragraph. 
+
+<P>This is another paragraph. 
+
+
+8 
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The preceding lines should be written like this: 
+
+<p>This is a paragraph.</p> 
+
+<p>This is another paragraph.</p> 
+
+Unlike HTML, all XHTML elements require an end tag, including empty elements (such as 
+br, img, and hr). The HTML for a carriage return is br. In XHTML, this must be written 
+<br></br> or, more usually, in a combination form that looks like this: <br />. The trailing 
+slash is placed at the end of the start tag, with a space prior to it (now typical practice, this 
+was initially done to ensure compatibility with aging browsers that would otherwise ignore 
+the tag entirely if the space wasn’t present). 
+
+Tags often have attributes that modify them in some way. For instance, two attributes for 
+the table cell tag td are nowrap (to stop content wrapping) and colspan (which states how 
+many columns this cell should span). In XHTML, attributes must be quoted and always 
+have a value. If necessary, the attribute name itself is repeated for the value. Therefore, the 
+following is incorrect: 
+
+<td colspan=2 nowraps 
+
+Instead, in XHTML, we write this: 
+
+<td colspan="2" nowrap="nowrap"> 
+
+Evolution is another aspect that we have to deal with. Just as the survival of the fittest 
+removes some species from nature, so too are tags (and attributes) unceremoniously 
+dumped from the W3C specifications. Such tags and attributes are referred to as 
+deprecated, meaning they are marked for removal from the standard and may not be sup¬ 
+ported in future browsers. In cases when deprecated tags are used in this book, this will be 
+highlighted (and likewise in the reference section); in most cases, these tags can be 
+avoided. 
+
+
+
+Semantic markup 
+
+In the previous few subsections, you may have noticed specific elements being used for 
+specific things. This is referred to as semantic markup and is a very important aspect of 
+modern web design. Plenty of (X)HTML elements exist, and each one has a clearly defined 
+purpose (although some have more than one use). Because of the flexibility of markup 
+languages, it's often possible to “wrongly” use elements, bashing your page into shape by 
+using elements for design tasks they’re not strictly suited for and certainly weren’t origi¬ 
+nally designed for. 
+
+During the course of this book, we’ll talk about semantics a fair amount. Ultimately, good 
+semantic design enables you to simplify your markup and also provides the greatest scope 
+for being able to style it with CSS (see the following section). By thinking a little before you 
+code and defining your content with the correct markup, you’ll end up with cleaner code 
+and make it much easier for yourself in the long run when it comes to adding presentation 
+to your content. 
+
+
+9 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Introducing CSS 
+
+css is the W3C standard for defining the visual presentation for web pages. HTML was 
+designed as a structural markup language, but the demands of users and designers 
+encouraged browser manufacturers to support and develop presentation-oriented tags. 
+These tags “polluted” HTML, pushing the language toward one of decorative style rather 
+than logical structure. Its increasing complexity made life hard for web designers, and 
+source code began to balloon for even basic presentation-oriented tasks. Along with 
+creating needlessly large HTML files, things like font tags created web pages that weren’t 
+consistent across browsers and platforms, and styles had to be applied to individual 
+elements—a time-consuming process. 
+
+The concept behind CSS was simple, yet revolutionary: remove the presentation and sepa¬ 
+rate design from content. Let HTML (and later XHTML) deal with structure, and use a 
+separate CSS document for the application of visual presentation. 
+
+The idea caught on, albeit slowly. The initial problem was browser support. At first, most 
+browsers supported only a small amount of the CSS standard—and badly at that. But 
+Internet Explorer 5 for Mac made great strides with regard to CSS support, and it was soon 
+joined by other browsers fighting for the crown of standards king. These days, every up-to- 
+date browser supports the majority of commonly used CSS properties and values, and 
+more besides. 
+
+Another problem has been educating designers and encouraging them to switch from old 
+to new methods. Benefits constantly need to be outlined and proven, and the new 
+methods taught. Most designers these days style text with CSS, but many still don’t use CSS 
+for entire web page layouts, despite the inherent advantages in doing so. This, of course, is 
+one of the reasons for this book: to show you, the designer, how CSS can be beneficial to 
+you—saving you (and your clients) time and money—and to provide examples for various 
+areas of web page design and development that you can use in your sites. 
+
+In this section we’ll look at separating content from design, CSS rules, CSS selectors and 
+how to use them, and how to add styles to a web page. 
+
+
+Separating content from design 
+
+Do you ever do any of the following? 
+
+■ Use tables for website layout 
+
+■ Use invisible GIFs to “push” elements around your web page 
+
+■ Hack Photoshop documents to bits and stitch them back together in a web page to 
+create navigation elements and more 
+
+■ Get frustrated when any combination of the previous leads to unwieldy web pages 
+that are a pain to edit 
+
+
+10 
+
+
+If so, the idea of separating content from design should appeal to you. On one hand, you 
+have your HTML documents, which house content marked up in a logical and semantic 
+manner. On the other hand, you have your CSS documents, giving you site-wide control of 
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+the presentation of your web page elements from a single source. Instead of messing 
+around with stretching transparent GIFs, and combining and splitting table cells, you can 
+edit CSS rules to amend the look of your site, which is great for not only those times when 
+things just need subtle tweaking, but also when you decide everything needs a visual over¬ 
+haul. After all, if presentation is taken care of externally, you can often just replace the CSS 
+to provide your site with a totally new design. 
+
+Designers (and clients paying for their time) aren’t the only ones to benefit from CSS. 
+Visitors will, too, in terms of faster download times, but also with regard to accessibility. 
+For instance, people with poor vision often use screen readers to surf the Web. If a site’s 
+layout is composed of complex nested tables, it might visually make sense; however, the 
+underlying structure may not be logical. View the source of a document and look at the 
+order of the content. A screen reader reads from the top to the bottom of the code and 
+doesn’t care what the page looks like in a visual web browser. Therefore, if the code com¬ 
+promises the logical order of the content (as complex tables often do), the site is 
+compromised for all those using screen readers. 
+
+Accessibility is now very important in the field of web design. Legislation is regularly 
+passed to strongly encourage designers to make sites accessible for web users with dis¬ 
+abilities. It’s likely that this trend will continue, encompassing just about everything except 
+personal web pages. (However, even personal websites shouldn’t be inaccessible.) 
+
+
+
+The rules of CSS 
+
+style sheets consist of a number of rules that define how various web page elements 
+should be displayed. Although sometimes bewildering to newcomers, CSS rules are simple 
+to break down. Each rule consists of a selector and a declaration. The selector begins a CSS 
+rule and specifies which part of the HTML document the rule will be applied to. The dec¬ 
+laration consists of a number of property/value pairs that set specific properties and 
+determine how the relevant element will look. In the following example, p is the selector 
+and everything thereafter is the declaration: 
+
+P { 
+
+color: blue; 
+
+} 
+
+As you probably know, p is the HTML tag for a paragraph. Therefore, if we attach this rule 
+to a web page (see the section “Adding styles to a web page” later on in this chapter for 
+how to do so), the declaration will be applied to any HTML marked up as a paragraph, 
+thereby setting the color of said paragraphs to blue. 
+
+
+CSS property names are not case sensitive, but it’s good to be consistent in web 
+design — it’s highly recommended to always use lowercase. Note, though, that 
+XML is case sensitive, so when using CSS with XHTML documents served with 
+the proper XHTML MIME type, everything must be consistent. Also, the W3 
+specifications recommend that CSS style sheets for XHTML should use lower¬ 
+case element and attribute names. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+11 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+When you write CSS rules, you place the declaration within curly brackets {}. Properties 
+and values are separated by a colon (:), and property/value pairs are terminated by a semi¬ 
+colon (;). Technically, you don’t have to include the final semicolon in a CSS rule, but most 
+designers consider it good practice to do so. This makes sense—^you may add 
+property/value pairs to a rule at a later date, and if the semicolon is already there, you 
+don’t have to remember to add it. 
+
+If we want to amend our paragraph declaration and define paragraphs as bold, we can do 
+so like this: 
+
+P { 
+
+color: blue; 
+
+font-weight:bold; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Tou don’t have to lay out CSS rules as done in this section; rather, you can add rules 
+as one long string. However, the formatting shown here is more readable in print. 
+Note that in the files available far dawnlaad, the formatting is changed slightly again: 
+the property/value pairs and clasing curly bracket are both tabbed inward, enabling 
+rapid vertical scanning of a CSS document’s selectors. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Types of CSS selectors 
+
+In the previous example, the most basic style of selector was used: an element selector. 
+This defines the visual appearance of the relevant HTML tag. In the sections that follow, 
+we’ll examine some other regularly used (and well-supported) CSS selectors: class, ID, 
+grouped, and contextual. 
+
+Class selectors 
+
+In some cases, you may wish to modify an element or a group of elements. For instance, 
+you may wish for your general website text to be blue, as in the examples so far, but some 
+portions of it to be red. The simplest way of doing this is by using a class selector. 
+
+In CSS, a class selector’s name is prefixed by a period (.), like this: 
+
+•warningText { 
+color: red; 
+
+} 
+
+This style is applied to HTML elements in any web page the style sheet is attached to using 
+the class attribute, as follows: 
+
+<h2 class="warningText">This heading is red.</h2> 
+
+<p class="warningText">This text is red.</p> 
+
+<p>This is a paragraph, <span class="warningText">and this text is 
+red</span>.</p> 
+
+
+12 
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+If you want a make a class specific to a certain element, place the relevant HTML tag 
+before the period in the CSS rule: 
+
+p.warningText { 
+color: red; 
+
+} 
+
+If you used this CSS rule with the HTML elements shown previously, the paragraph’s text 
+would remain red, but not the heading or span, due to the warningText class now being 
+exclusively tied to the paragraph selector only. 
+
+Usefully, it’s possible to style an element by using multiple class values. This is done by 
+listing multiple values in the class attribute, separated by spaces: 
+
+<p class="warningText hugeText"> 
+
+The previous example’s content would be styled as per the rules .warningText and 
+• hugeText. 
+
+ID selectors 
+
+ID selectors can be used only once on each web page. In HTML, you apply a unique iden¬ 
+tifier to an HTML element with the id attribute: 
+
+<p id="footer">8icopy; 200X The Company. All rights reserved.</p> 
+
+To style this element in CSS, precede the ID name with a hash mark (#): 
+
+p#footer { 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+In this case, the footer div would have 20 pixels of padding on all sides. 
+
+Essentially, then, classes can be used multiple times on a web page, but IDs cannot. 
+Typically, IDs are used to define one-off page elements, such as structural divisions, 
+whereas classes are used to define the style for multiple items. 
+
+Grouped selectors 
+
+Should you wish to set a property value for a number of different selectors, you can use 
+grouped selectors, which take the form of a comma-separated list: 
+
+hi, h2, h3, hA, hs, h6 { 
+color: green; 
+
+} 
+
+In the preceding example, all the website’s headings have been set to be green. Note that 
+you’re not restricted to a single rule for each element—^you can use grouped selectors for 
+common definitions and separate ones for specific property values, as follows: 
+
+
+
+13 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+hlj h2j h3j h4j hSj h6 { 
+color: green; 
+
+} 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: l.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+If you define a property value twice, browsers render your web element depending on 
+each rule’s position in the cascade. See the section “The cascade” later in the chapter 
+for more information. 
+
+y - J 
+
+
+Contextual selectors 
+
+This selector type is handy when working with advanced CSS. As the name suggests, 
+contextual selectors define property values for HTML elements depending on context. 
+Take, for instance, the following example: 
+
+<p>I am a paragraph.</p> 
+
+<p>So am I.</p> 
+
+<div id="navigation"> 
+
+<p>I am a paragraph within the navigation div.</p> 
+
+<p>Another paragraph within the navigation div.</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+You can style the page’s paragraphs as a whole and then define some specific values for 
+those within the navigation div by using a standard element selector for the former and a 
+contextual selector for the latter: 
+
+P { 
+
+color: black; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation p { 
+color: blue; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+As shown, syntax for contextual selectors (#navigation p) is simple—^you just separate the 
+individual selectors with some whitespace. The two rules shown previously have the fol¬ 
+lowing result: 
+
+
+14 
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+■ The p rule colors the web page’s paragraphs black. 
+
+■ The #navigation p rule overrides the p rule for paragraphs within the navigation 
+div, coloring them blue and making them bold. 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+By working with contextual selectors, it’s possible to get very specific with regard to styling 
+things on your website; we’ll be using these selectors regularly. 
+
+
+There are other types of selectors used for specific tasks. These will be covered as rel¬ 
+evant later in the book. 
+
+V_' 
+
+
+Adding styles to a web page 
+
+The most common (and useful) method of applying CSS rules to a web page is by using 
+external style sheets. CSS rules are defined in a text document, which is saved with the file 
+suffix .css. This document is attached to an HTML document in one of two ways, both of 
+which require the addition of HTML elements to the head section. 
+
+The first method of attaching a CSS file is to use a link tag: 
+
+clink rel="stylesheet" href="mystylesheet.css" type="text/css" 
+
+^ media="screen" /> 
+
+
+/ \ 
+
+Remember that we’re working with XHTML in this book, hence the trailing slash on 
+the link tag, a tag that has no content. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Alternatively, import the style sheet into the style element: 
+
+cstyle type="text/css" media="screen"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import url(mystylesheet.css); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+The second of these methods was initially used to “hide” CSS rules from noncompliant 
+browsers, thereby at least giving users of such devices access to the website’s content, if 
+not its design. In some browsers (notably Internet Explorer), however, this can cause a 
+“flash” of unstyled content before the page is loaded. This flash doesn’t occur when a link 
+element is also present. In the full site designs in Chapter 10, you’ll note that both meth¬ 
+ods are used—@import for importing the main style sheet for screen and link for linking 
+to a print style sheet. 
+
+
+15 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The style tag can also be used to embed CSS directly into the head section of a specific 
+HTML document, like this: 
+
+<head> 
+
+cstyle type="text/css"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+P { 
+
+color: black; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation p { 
+color: blue; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+</head> 
+
+You’ll find that many visual web design tools create CSS in this manner, but adding rules to 
+a style element is only worth doing if you have a one-page website, or if you want to 
+affect tags on a specific page, overriding those in an attached style sheet (see the next sec¬ 
+tion for more information). There’s certainly no point in adding styles like this to every 
+page, because updating them would then require every page to be updated, rather than 
+just an external style sheet. 
+
+The third method of applying CSS is to do so as an inline style, directly in an element’s 
+HTML tag: 
+
+
+<p style="color: blue;">This paragraph will be displayed in blue.</p> 
+
+As you can see, this method involves using the style attribute, and it’s only of use in very 
+specific, one-off situations. There's no point in using inline styles for all styling on your 
+website—to do so would give few benefits over the likes of archaic font tags. Inline styles 
+also happen to be deprecated in XHTML 1.1, so they’re eventually destined for the chop. 
+
+
+The cascade 
+
+It’s possible to define the rule for a given element multiple times: you can do so in the 
+same style sheet, and several style sheets can be attached to an HTML document. On top 
+of that, you may be using embedded style sheets and inline styles. The cascade is a way of 
+dealing with conflicts, and its simple rule is this: 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+The value closest to the element in question is the one that is applied. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+In the following example, the second font-size setting for paragraphs takes precedence 
+because it’s closest to paragraphs in the HTML: 
+
+
+16 
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: l.lem; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+
+} 
+
+Subsequently, paragraphs on pages the preceding rule is attached to are rendered at 
+1.2em. If a similar rule were placed as an embedded style sheet below the imported/linked 
+style sheet, that rule would take precedence, and if one were applied as an inline style 
+(directly in the relevant element), then that would take precedence over all others. 
+
+
+
+Note that it’s possible to import or link multiple style sheets in a web page’s head sec¬ 
+tion. The cascade principle still applies; in other words, any rules in a second attached 
+style sheet override those in the one preceding it. 
+
+V_^_ J 
+
+
+CSS uses the concept of inheritance. A document’s HTML elements form a strict hierarchy, 
+beginning with html, and then branching into head and body, each of which has numerous 
+descendant elements (such as title and meta for head, and p and img for body). When a 
+style is applied to an element, its descendants—those elements nested within it—often 
+take on CSS property values, unless a more specific style has been applied. However, not 
+all CSS style properties are inherited. See the CSS reference section of this book for more 
+details. 
+
+
+The CSS box model explained 
+
+The box model is something every designer working with CSS needs a full understanding 
+of, in order to know how elements interact with each other and also how various proper¬ 
+ties affect an element. Essentially, each element in CSS is surrounded by a box whose 
+dimensions are automated depending on the content. By using width and height proper¬ 
+ties in CSS, these dimensions can be defined in a specific manner. 
+
+You can set padding to surround the content and add a border and margins to the box. A 
+background image and background color can also be defined. Any background image or 
+color is visible behind the content and padding, but not the margin. The effective space an 
+element takes up is the sum of the box dimensions (which effectively define the available 
+dimensions for the box’s contents), padding, border, and margins. Therefore, a 500-pixel¬ 
+wide box with 20 pixels of padding at each side and a 5-pixel border will actually take up 
+550 pixels of horizontal space (5 + 20 + 500 + 20 + 5). 
+
+
+r \ 
+
+Note that in some cases, margins between two elements “collapse,” 
+leading to only the larger margin value being used. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+17 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+THE CSS BOX MODEL HIERARCHY 
+
+
+Content 
+
+
+
+Here’s some 
+
+content, cons 
+
+by the paddinS 
+been applico 
+some sample 
+
+constrained 
+padding that 
+applied. 
+
+
+grained 
+
+that's 
+
+Here’s 
+
+content, 
+
+the 
+
+been 
+
+
+Padding* 
+
+
+Border 
+
+
+Background image 
+
+
+Background coior 
+
+
+Margin* 
+
+
+* Transparent eiements 
+
+
+©Jon Hicks (www.hicksdesign.co.uk) 
+
+
+Creating boilerplates 
+
+Every web page looks different, just as every book or magazine is different from every 
+other one. However, under the hood there are often many similarities between sites, and 
+if you author several, you’ll soon note that you’re doing the same things again and 
+again. With that in mind, it makes sense to create some web page boilerplates—starting 
+points for all of your projects. In the download files, available from the Downloads 
+section of the friends of ED website (www.friendsofed.com), there are two boilerplates 
+folders: basic-boilerplates and advanced-boilerplates. In basic-boilerplates, the 
+XHTML-basic.html web page is a blank XHTML Strict document, and in advanced- 
+boilerplates, XHTML-extended.html adds some handy divs that provide a basic page 
+structure that’s common in many web pages, along with some additions to the head sec¬ 
+tion. (The former is used as a quick starting point for many of the tutorials in this book. 
+The latter is perhaps a better starting point for a full website project.) The CSS-with- 
+ToC.css document in advanced-boilerplates uses CSS comments to create sections in 
+the document to house related CSS rules. This is handy when you consider that a CSS doc¬ 
+ument may eventually have dozens of rules in it—this makes it easier for you to be able to 
+find them quickly. 
+
+
+18 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+CSS comments look like this: /* this is a comment */, and can be single-line or multiple¬ 
+line. In the advanced CSS boilerplate, a multiline comment is used for an introduction and 
+table of contents: 
+
+/* 
+
+
+
+STYLE SHEET FOR [WEB SITE] 
+Created by [AUTHOR NAME] 
+[URL OF AUTHOR] 
+
+ToC 
+
+1. defaults 
+
+2. structure 
+
+3. links and navigation 
+
+4. fonts 
+
+5. images 
+
+Notes 
+
+
+*/ 
+
+
+Each section of the document is then headed by a lengthy comment that makes it obvious 
+when a section has begun: 
+
+/*- 1 . defaults -*/ 
+
+* { 
+
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+body { 
+
+} 
+
+As you can see, property/value pairs and the closing curly bracket are indented by two 
+tabs in the document (represented by two spaces on this page), which makes it easier to 
+scan vertically through numerous selectors. (Note that for the bulk of this book, the rules 
+aren’t formatted in this way, because indenting only the property/value pairs differentiates 
+them more clearly in print; however, the download files all have CSS rules indented as per 
+the recommendations within this section.) Comments can also be used for subheadings, 
+which I tend to indent by one tab: 
+
+/* float-clearing rules */ 
+
+.separator { 
+clear: both; 
+
+} 
+
+Although the bulk of the style sheet’s rules are empty, just having a boilerplate to work 
+from saves plenty of time in the long run, ensuring you don’t have to key in the same 
+
+
+19 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+defaults time and time again. Use the one from the download files as the basis for your 
+own, but if you regularly use other elements on a page (such as pull quotes), be sure to 
+add those, too—after all, it’s quicker to amend a few existing rules to restyle them than it 
+is to key them in from scratch. 
+
+
+Along the same lines as boilerplates, you can save time by creating a snippets folder 
+on your hard drive. Use it to store snippets of code—HTML elements, CSS rules, and 
+so on—that you can reuse on various websites. Many applications have this function¬ 
+ality built in, so make use of it if your preferred application does. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+To show you the power of CSS, we’re going to work through a brief exercise using the boil¬ 
+erplates mentioned earlier. Don’t worry about understanding everything just yet, because 
+all of the various properties and values shown will be explained later in the book. 
+
+
+Creating, styling, and restyling a web page 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html and CSS-default.css from the basic- 
+boilerplates folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create, style, and restyle a web page. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+creating-and-styling-a-web-page.html, creating-and- 
+styling-a-web-page.css, creating-and-styling-a-web-page- 
+2.html, and creating-and-styling-a-web-page-2.css, in the 
+chapter 1 folder. 
+
+1. Copy XHTML- 
+
+■basic.html and CSS-default.css to your hard drive and rename 
+
+
+them creating-and-styling-a-web-page.html and creating-and-styling-a- 
+web-page.css. 
+
+2. Attach the style sheet. Type Creating and styling a web page in the title ele¬ 
+ment to give the page a title, and then amend the @import value so that the style 
+sheet is imported: 
+
+cstyle type="text/css" media="screen"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import url(creating-and-styling-a-web-page.css); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+3. Add some content. Within the wrapper div, add some basic page content, as 
+shown in the following code block. Note how the heading, paragraph, and quote 
+are marked up using a heading element (<hl></hl>), paragraph element (<p></p>), 
+and block quote element (<blockquote></blockquote>), rather than using styled 
+paragraphs for all of the text-based content. This is semantic markup, as discussed 
+briefly earlier in the chapter. 
+
+
+20 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<hl>A heading</hl> 
+
+<p>A paragraph of text, which is very exciting&mdash;something 
+^ that will live on through the generations.</p> 
+
+<blockquote> 
+
+<p>8ildquo;A quote about something, to make 
+^ people go "hmmmm" in a thoughtful manner.8[rdquoj</p> 
+</blockquote> 
+
+<p>Another paragraph, with equally exciting text; in fact, it8irsquo;s 
+^ so exciting, we're not sure it&rsquojs legal to print.</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+
+f \ 
+
+The items with ampersands and semicolons, such as Simdash; and 8irdquo;, are HTML 
+entities—see Appendix C (“Entities Reference”) for more details. 
+
+\ _ 
+
+
+Edit some CSS. Save and close the web page and then open the CSS document. 
+Amend the body rule within the defaults section of the CSS. This ensures the text 
+on the page is colored black and that the page’s background color is white. The 
+padding value ensures the page content doesn’t hug the browser window edges. 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+color: #000000; 
+background: #ffffff; 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+5. Style the wrapper. Add the following property values to the #wrapper rule to define 
+a fixed width for it and then center it (via the margin property’s auto value). 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+line-height: l.Sem; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+width: SOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . Style the text. Add the hi rule as shown, thereby styling the level-one heading: 
+hi { 
+
+font: 1.5em/1.8em Arial, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+7. Add the blockquote and blockquote p rules as shown. The former adds margins to 
+the sides of the block quote, thereby making the text stand out more, while the lat¬ 
+ter (a contextual selector) styles paragraphs within block quotes only, making them 
+italic and larger than standard paragraphs. Once you’ve done this, save your files 
+and preview the web page in a web browser; it should look like the following 
+image. (Don’t close the browser at this point.) 
+
+
+21 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+blockquote { 
+margin: 0 lOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+blockquote p { 
+font-style: italic; 
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+A HEADING 
+
+A paragraph of text, which is very exciting—something that will live on through the 
+generations. 
+
+”A quote about something, to make 
+people go "hmmmm" in a thoughtful 
+manner ." 
+
+Another paragraph, with equally exciting text; in fact, it's so exciting, we're not 
+sure it's legal to print. 
+
+
+8 . Duplicate creating-and-styling-a-web-page.css and rename it creating-and- 
+styling-a-web-page-2.css. Open creating-and-styling-a-web-page.html, and 
+amend the @import value, linking to the newly created CSS document: 
+
+@import url(creating-and-styling-a-web-page-2.css); 
+
+9. Open creating-and-styling-a-web-page-2.css and switch the values of color 
+and background in the first body rule. 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+background: #000000; 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+10. Replace the text-transform property/value pair from the hi rule with color: 
+#bbbbbb;. For the blockquote rule, make the following amendments, which add a 
+border to the left and right edges, and some horizontal padding around the block 
+quote’s contents. 
+
+blockquote { 
+margin: 0 lOOpx; 
+border-left: 3px solid #888888; 
+border-right: 3px solid #888888; 
+padding: 0 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+11. Finally, amend the blockquote p rule as shown: 
+
+blockquote p { 
+font-weight: bold; 
+font-size: l.Oem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+22 
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Refresh the web page in the browser, and you should see it immediately change, looking 
+like that shown in the following image. Effectively, nothing in the web page was changed 
+(you could have overwritten the rules in creating-and-styling-a-web-page.css rather 
+than creating a duplicate style sheet)—instead, the web page’s design was updated purely 
+by using CSS. (Note that in the download files, there are two sets of documents for this 
+exercise—one with the design as per step 7, and the other as per step 11, the latter of 
+which has the -2 suffix added to the HTML and CSS document file names.) 
+
+
+
+A heading 
+
+A paragraph of text, which is very exdting—something that will live on through the 
+generations. 
+
+**A quote about something, to make 
+people go "hmmmm" in a thoughtful 
+manner." 
+
+Another paragraph, with equally exdting text; In foct, It's so exdting, we're not 
+sure It's legal to print. 
+
+
+Although this was a very basic example, the same principle works with all CSS-based 
+design. Create a layout in CSS and chances are that when you come to redesign it, you may 
+not have to change much—or any—of the underlying code. A great example of this idea 
+taken to extremes is css Zen Garden (www.csszengarden.com), whose single web page is 
+radically restyled via dozens of submitted CSS documents. 
+
+
+Zen 
+
+Gar(ien 
+
+
+A demonstration of what 
+can be accongilished 
+visually through CSS-based 
+design. Select any style 
+sheet from the list to load it 
+into this page. 
+
+
+The Road to Enlightenment 
+
+Littering a dark and dreary road lay the past relics of browser-qiedfictags, incompatible DOMs, 
+and brot^n CSS support. 
+
+Today, we must clear the mind at past practices. Web enlightenment has been achieved tbanlsto 
+the tireless effmts of fcik like the W3C, WaSP and the majcr browser aeatats. 
+
+The css Zen Garden invites you to relax and meditate on the important lessons of the masters. 
+Begin to see vrith clarity. Learn to nse the (yet to be) time-hcaimd techniques in new and 
+invigarating fashicn. Become one with the web. 
+
+
+If 
+
+
+Retro Theater by Eric 
+R094 
+
+Uty Rond by Roee 
+
+
+Zen Anny by Carl 
+
+
+Download the somp/e 
+htmlfile and css file 
+
+
+So What is This About? 
+
+There is dearly a need for CSS to be taken seriousty by graphic artists. The Zen Garden aims to 
+exdte, inspire, and encourage partidpaticm. To begin, view some of the existing designs in the bst 
+Clicking on any me will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the cnly 
+thing that has changed is the external xss file. Yes, really. 
+
+
+CSS allows complete and total control over tiie style of a hypertext document. The only way this can be illustrated in a way that gets 
+people exdted is by demonstrating what it can truly be, once the reins are placed in the hands of those able to create beauty frmn 
+structure. To date, most examples d neat bricks and hades have been demonstrated by structurists and coders. Designers have yet to 
+make their mark. This needs to change. 
+
+
+Participation 
+
+Graphic artists only please. You are modifying this page, so strong CSS slaDs are necessary, but the example files are commented weQ 
+enough that even CSS novices can use them as starting points. Please see the CSS Resonree Gnidc for advanced tutmials and tips on 
+
+
+TtM Original by 
+Joachim Shottar 
+
+Floral Touefi by Jo4as 
+Jimmy 
+
+Eloganca In StmpHdty 
+by ManI Sttortar 
+
+DaczRng Saauty by 
+Deny SrlSuprlyooo 
+
+
+gaxt Ooaigns >• 
+Viojy Al Oastgna 
+
+
+View Thto Daaign's CSS 
+
+
+23 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Working with website content 
+
+Before we explore how to create the various aspects of a web page, we’re going to briefly 
+discuss working with website content and what you need to consider prior to creating your 
+site. Technology and design aren't the only factors that affect the success of a website. The 
+human element must also be considered. Most of the time, people use the Web to get 
+information of some sort, whether for research purposes or entertainment. Typically, 
+people want to be able to access this information quickly; therefore, a site must be struc¬ 
+tured in a logical manner. It’s imperative that a visitor doesn’t spend a great deal of time 
+looking for information that should be easy to find. Remember, there are millions of sites 
+out there, and if yours isn’t up to scratch, it’s easy for someone to go elsewhere. 
+
+
+There are exceptions to the general rule of a website having a structured and logical 
+design—notably sites that are experimental in nature or the equivalent of online art, 
+thereby requiring exploration. In these cases, it may actually be detrimental to present 
+a straightforward and totally logical site, but these cases are strictly a minority. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+\n this section, we’ll look specifically at information architecture and site maps, page lay¬ 
+out, design limitations, and usability. 
+
+
+Information architecture and site maps 
+
+Before you begin designing a website, you need to collate and logically organize the infor¬ 
+mation it’s going to contain. A site map usually forms the basis of a site’s navigation, and 
+you should aim to have the most important links immediately visible. What these links 
+actually are depends on the nature of your website, but it’s safe to say that prominent 
+links to contact details are a common requirement across all sites. A corporate website 
+may also need prominent links to products, services, and a press area. The resulting site 
+map for a corporate site might resemble the following illustration. 
+
+
+
+Here, the boxed links serve as the primary navigation and are effectively sections of the 
+website. Underneath each boxed link is a list of subcategories or pages housed within that 
+section. With this structure, it’s easy for a newcomer to the site to work out where 
+information is located. When working on site maps, try talking to people who might be 
+interested in the site to get their reaction to your organization of the content. When work- 
+
+
+24 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+ing for a client, ensure that they sign off on the site map, and that you get feedback on the 
+site map from people at all levels in the company and, if possible, from the company’s 
+customers. In all cases, seek the opinions of both the technically minded and relative com¬ 
+puter novices, because each may have different ideas about how information should be 
+structured. After all, most web designers are technically minded (or at least well versed in 
+using a computer), and they often forget that most people don’t use the Web as regularly 
+as they do. In other words, what seems obvious to you might not be to the general public. 
+
+For larger sites, or those with many categories, site maps can be complex. You may have to 
+create several versions before your site map is acceptable. Always avoid burying content 
+too deep. If you end up with a structure in which a visitor has to click several times to 
+access information, it may be worth reworking your site’s structure. 
+
+
+
+Basic web page structure and layout 
+
+Once you’ve sorted out the site map, avoid firing up your graphics package. It’s a good 
+idea to sketch out page layout ideas on paper before working on your PC or Mac. Not only 
+is this quicker than using graphics software, but it also allows you to compare many ideas 
+side by side. At this stage, you shouldn’t be too precious about the design—work quickly 
+and try to get down as many ideas as possible. From there, you can then refine your ideas, 
+combine the most successful elements of each, and then begin working on the computer. 
+
+
+
+Although the Web has no hard-and-fast conventions, themes run throughout successful 
+websites, many of which are evident in the following image of a version of my Snub 
+Communications homepage. 
+
+
+25 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Navigation 
+
+
+Intro 
+
+
+Contact 
+
+link 
+
+
+Project 
+
+links 
+
+
+A website’s navigation should be immediately accessible—^you should never have to scroll 
+to get to it. It’s also a good idea to have a masthead area that displays the organization’s 
+corporate brand (or, if it’s a personal site, whatever logo/identity you wish to be remem¬ 
+bered by, even if it’s only a URL). 
+
+The homepage should include an introduction of some sort that briefly explains what the 
+site is about, and it should have some pull-ins to other areas of the site. These pull-ins 
+could be in the form of news items that link to recent product launches, completed proj¬ 
+ects, and so on. 
+
+Most websites require a method for people to contact the site owner, and at least one 
+clear link to a contact page is essential. 
+
+Avoid constantly changing the design throughout the site. In print, this sometimes works 
+well and provides variation within a book or magazine. Online, people expect certain 
+things to be in certain places. Constantly changing the position of your navigation, the 
+links themselves, and even the general design and color scheme often creates the impres¬ 
+sion of an unprofessional site and makes it harder to use. 
+
+Ultimately, however your site ends up, and whatever your design, you need to ensure your 
+creation is as usable as possible. A good checklist—even if the points may seem entirely 
+obvious—is as follows: 
+
+■ Is the site easy to navigate? 
+
+■ Is it easy for users to locate content on each page? 
+
+■ Is it easy for users to find what they need on the site? 
+
+■ Are download times kept to a minimum? 
+
+■ Is the site suitable and relevant for its target audience? 
+
+■ Does the site use familiar conventions? 
+
+
+26 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+If you can answer yes to all these things, then you should be on the right track! 
+
+
+Regarding conventions, it’s important not to go overboard. For example, some web 
+gurus are adamant that default link colors should always be used. I think that’s sweet 
+and guaint, but somewhat archaic. As long as links are easy to differentiate from other 
+text and styled consistently throughout the site, that’s what matters. 
+
+\ - 1 _^_ J 
+
+
+
+Limitations of web design 
+
+Depending on your viewpoint, the inherent limitations of the Web are either a challenge 
+or a frustration. Print designers often feel the latter, and consider themselves hampered by 
+the Web when compared to the relative freedom of print design. Resolution is low, and 
+you can’t place whopping great images everywhere, because if you did download speeds 
+would slow to a crawl and all your visitors would go elsewhere. 
+
+Columns take on a different role online compared to in print, as they’re primarily used to 
+display several areas of content with the same level of prominence. You don’t use columns 
+online to display continuous copy, unless you use just one column. If you use several 
+columns, the visitor has to constantly scroll up and down to read everything. 
+
+There are other limitations when it comes to rendering text online. There are few web 
+standard fonts (detailed in Chapter 3); serifs, which work well on paper, don’t work so well 
+online; and reading text onscreen is already harder than reading print, so complex page 
+backgrounds should be avoided. 
+
+And then there are issues like not knowing what an end user’s setup is, and therefore 
+having to consider monitor resolution and color settings, what browser is being used, and 
+even the various potential setups of web browsers. Do you go for a liquid design, which 
+stretches with the browser window, or a fixed design, which is flanked by blank space at 
+larger monitor resolutions? 
+
+Don’t worry, this isn’t a pop quiz. These are questions that will be answered in this book, 
+but I mention them now to get you thinking and realizing that planning is key with regard 
+to web design. Because this is largely a book about concepts, ideas, and techniques, we 
+won’t return to talk about planning very much, hence drumming it in at this early stage. 
+
+Also, don’t get disheartened by the previous limitations spiel. The Web is a truly magnifi¬ 
+cent medium, and for every downside there’s something amazing to counter it. So what if 
+the resolution’s low? Nowhere else can you so effortlessly combine photography, video, 
+sound, and text. Sure, it’s all well and good to read a magazine, but the Web enables inter¬ 
+action, and navigation can be nonlinear, enabling you to link words within specific pieces 
+to other articles on your website or elsewhere on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong: the 
+Web is a great thing. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be interested in it, wouldn’t be designing for 
+it, and wouldn’t be writing this book. 
+
+
+27 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+mencum, magna oiam moiestie sapien, n 
+
+
+jam 0 O 0 • background-til... 
+
+
+
+2 WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+
+o pnarecra gravioa, ora magna moncus r| 
+jllam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit 
+
+
+iquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+tsuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed alic 
+ilus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bi 
+»rttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nul 
+)m magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit se 
+
+
+jisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+net rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuei 
+oin tincldunt, velit vel porta elementum, 
+quet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iacull! 
+cilisis. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Creating XHTML documents 
+
+■ Understanding document type definitions 
+
+■ Using meta tags 
+
+■ Attaching external documents 
+
+■ Working with the body section 
+
+■ Using CSS for web page backgrounds 
+
+■ Commenting your work 
+
+
+Starting with the essentials 
+
+You might wonder what’s meant by this chapter’s title: web page essentials. This chapter 
+will run through everything you need to do with a web page prior to working on the lay¬ 
+out and content, including creating the initial documents, attaching external documents to 
+HTML files, and dealing with the head section of the web page. Little of this is a thrill with 
+regard to visual design, which is why many designers ignore the topics we’ll cover, or stick 
+their fingers in their ears, hum loudly, and wish it would all go away (and then probably get 
+rather odd looks from nearby colleagues). However, as the chapter’s title states, everything 
+we’ll be talking about is essential for any quality web page, even if you don’t see exciting 
+things happening visually. 
+
+This chapter also explores web page backgrounds, which, although they should be used 
+sparingly and with caution, often come in handy. It’s worth bearing in mind that some 
+aspects discussed here will crop up later in the book. For example, CSS techniques used to 
+attach backgrounds to a web page can be used to attach a background to any web page 
+element (be that a div, table, heading, or paragraph). But before we get into any CSS 
+shenanigans, we’ll put our CSS cheerleading team on hold and look at how to properly 
+construct an XHTML document. 
+
+
+Document defaults 
+
+As mentioned in Chapter 1, we’ll be working with XHTML markup in this book rather than 
+HTML. Although XHTML markup differs slightly from HTML, the file suffix for XHTML web 
+pages remains .html (or .htm if you swear by old-fashioned 8.3 DOS naming techniques). 
+
+Although XHTML’s stricter rules make it easier to work with than HTML, you need to be 
+aware of the differences in the basic document structure. In HTML, many designers are 
+used to starting out with something like the following code: 
+
+<html> 
+
+<head> 
+
+<title></title> 
+
+</head> 
+
+
+30 
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+<body> 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+But in XHTML, a basic, blank document awaiting content may well look like this (although 
+there are variations): 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-strict.dtd"> 
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w 3 .org/i 999 /xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
+<head> 
+
+<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; 
+
+^ charset=utf-8" /> 
+
+<title></title> 
+
+</head> 
+
+<body> 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+Although this is similar to the minimal HTML document, there are important differences. 
+The most obvious is found at the beginning of the document: a DOCTYPE declaration that 
+states what document type definition (DTD) you are following (and no. I’m not shouting— 
+DOCTYPE is spelled in all caps according to the W3C). 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
+"http://www.w 3 .org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-strict.dtd"> 
+
+The DTD indicates to a web browser what markup you’re using, thereby enabling the 
+browser to accurately display the document in question (or at least as accurately as it 
+can—as shown in Chapter 9, browsers have various quirks, even when you’re using 100% 
+validated markup). 
+
+Next is the html start tag, which contains both a namespace and a language declaration. 
+The first of those is intended to reduce the ambiguity of defined elements within the web 
+page. (In XML, elements can mean different things, depending on what technology is being 
+used.) The language declaration indicates the (default) language used for the document’s 
+contents. This can assist various devices, for example enabling a screen reader in correctly 
+pronouncing words on a page, rather than assuming what the language is. (Also, internal 
+content can have language declarations applied to override the default, for example when 
+embedding some French within an English page.) The xml:lang attribute is a reserved 
+attribute of XML, while the lang attribute is a fallback, used for browsers that lack XML 
+support. Should the values of the two attributes differ, xml:lang outranks lang. 
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w 3 .org/i 999 /xhtml" xml:lang ="en" lang="en"> 
+
+You’ll also notice that a meta tag appears in the head section of the document: 
+
+<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
+
+To pass validation tests, you must declare your content type, which can be done using this 
+meta element. Here, the defined character set is UTF-8 (Unicode), the recommended 
+
+
+
+31 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+default encoding, and one that supports many languages and characters (so many charac¬ 
+ters needn’t be converted to HTML entities). 
+
+There are other sets in use, too, for the likes of Hebrew, Nordic, and Eastern European lan¬ 
+guages, and if you’re using them, the charset value would be changed accordingly. 
+Although www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets provides a thorough character set 
+listing, and www.czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html contains useful character set dia¬ 
+grams, it’s tricky to wade through it all, so listed here are some common values and their 
+associated languages: 
+
+■ ISO-8859-1 (Latini): Western European and American, including Afrikaans, Albanian, 
+Basque, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Faeroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, 
+Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-2 (Latin2): Central and Eastern European, including Croatian, Czech, 
+Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovene. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-3 (Latins): Southern European, including Esperanto, Galician, Maltese, 
+and Turkish. (See also ISO-8859-9.) 
+
+■ ISO-8859-4 (Latin4): Northern European, including Estonian, Greenlandic, Lappish, 
+Latvian, and Lithuanian. (See also ISO-8859-6.) 
+
+■ ISO-8859-5: Cyrillic, including Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, 
+and Ukrainian. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-6: Arabic. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-7: Modern Greek. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-8: Hebrew. 
+
+■ ISO-8859-9 (Latins): European. Replaces Icelandic-specific characters with Turkish 
+ones. 
+
+■ 150-8859-10 (Latin6): Nordic, including Icelandic, Inuit, and Lappish. 
+
+For an overview of the ISO-8859 standard, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8859. 
+
+
+DOCTYPE declarations explained 
+
+XHTML 1.0 offers you three choices of DOCTYPE declaration: XHTML Strict, XHTML 
+Transitional, and XHTML Frameset. In the initial example, the DOCTYPE declaration is the 
+first thing in the web page. This is always how it should be—^you should never have any 
+content or HTML elements prior to the DOCTYPE declaration. (An exception is the XML dec¬ 
+laration; see the section “What about the XML Declaration?” later in this chapter.) 
+
+XHTML Strict 
+
+For code purists, this is the DTD that does not allow the use of presentational markup or 
+deprecated elements: 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-strict.dtd"> 
+
+
+32 
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+It forces a stricter way of working, but tends to ensure greater browser compatibility when 
+you play by its rules, and so it’s used throughout this book. 
+
+XHTML Transitional 
+
+In common usage, this friendly DTD enables you to get away with using deprecated ele¬ 
+ments, and is useful for those rare occasions where you’d otherwise be banging your head 
+against a brick wall, trying to work out how to get around using one of those few still-use¬ 
+ful old tags: 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-transitional.dtd"> 
+
+Note that even if you end up solely using strict markup, the transitional DTD still ensures 
+browsers generally render elements correctly. 
+
+XHTML Frameset 
+
+Frames are a relic, and are rarely used online. However, for backward compatibility and for 
+those designers who still use them, there is a frameset-specific DTD (individual pages 
+within a frameset require one of the aforementioned DTDs): 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-frameset.dtd"> 
+
+
+
+A/ofe that in Gecko browsers, XHTML Transitional and Frameset are rendered in 
+“almost standards” mode. The main difference between this and standards mode is in 
+the formatting of tables, which is designed to largely match that of Internet Explorer, 
+making sliced-images-in-tables layouts less likely to fall apart. 
+
+v_ J 
+
+
+HTML DOCTYPEs 
+
+If you wish to work with HTML markup rather than XHTML, your documents still need a 
+DOCTYPE to pass validation. The three DOCTYPEs for HTML 4.01 more or less match those 
+for HTML: Strict, Transitional, and Frameset. 
+
+clDOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" 
+
+"http: //WWW .w3.org/TR/html4/strlet.dtd"> 
+
+clDOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
+
+clDOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd"> 
+
+
+33 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Partial DTDs 
+
+Always include full DTDs. Some older web design packages and online resources provide 
+incomplete or outdated ones that can switch browsers into “quirks” mode, displaying your 
+site as though it were written with browser-specific, old-fashioned markup and CSS, and 
+rendering the page accordingly (as opposed to complying strictly with web standards. The 
+argument for quirks mode was largely down to backward-compatibility. For example, it 
+enabled Internet Explorer 6 to display CSS layouts with the box model used by Internet 
+Explorer 5. This type of fix is today considered archaic—see Chapter 9 for modern 
+methods of backward compatibility, including conditional comments. For more on quirks 
+mode, read Wikipedia’s article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_mode. 
+
+For the record, an example of an incomplete DTD looks like this: 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
+"/DTD/xhtmll-transitional.dtd"> 
+
+In this case, the URI (web address) is relative. Unless you have the DTD in the relevant 
+place on your own website, the browser will display the page this DTD is included on in 
+quirks mode. (And, quite frankly, if you do have the DTD on your website instead of using 
+the one on the W3C’s site, you are very odd indeed.) The same thing happens if you leave 
+out DTDs entirely. Therefore, always include a DTD and always ensure it’s complete. 
+
+
+What about the XML declaration? 
+
+As stated earlier, there is an exception to the DTD being the first thing on a web page. The 
+one thing that can precede it is an XML declaration (often referred to as the XML prolog). 
+This unassuming piece of markup looks like this (assuming you’re using Unicode 
+encoding): 
+
+<?xml version="l.O" encoding=''utf-8''?> 
+
+The tag tells the browser which version of XML is being used and that the character encod¬ 
+ing is UTF-8. 
+
+
+For an overview of character sets, see the following URLs: www.w3.org/ 
+International/O-charset.html, www.w3.org/International/0-charset-lang.html, 
+and WWW. w3.org/International/O-charset-list.html. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Some web design applications add this tag by default when creating new XHTML docu¬ 
+ments, and the W3C recommends using it to declare the character encoding used within 
+your document. However, I don’t, because versions of Internet Explorer before version 7 
+take one look at the XML declaration, recoil in horror, and then spit out your site in a way 
+rather different from how you intended (the playfully-referred-to quirks mode discussed 
+earlier). 
+
+
+34 
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+Of course, Internet Explorer 6’s share of the market is in decline, but it’s likely to take at 
+least a couple of years from Internet Explorer 7’s release for its predecessor to become 
+extinct. Therefore, because the XML declaration has the potential to cause havoc with a 
+fair chunk of your likely audience, it’s cause for concern. However, as mentioned earlier, 
+there’s an alternative, compliant, totally safe option that you can use instead: 
+
+<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
+
+Using the preceding meta tag works fine, it does the same job as one of the main roles of 
+the XML declaration (stating the page’s character encoding), and no browsers choke on it. 
+The net result is that everyone goes home happy, and we can finally start talking about the 
+next part of a web page. 
+
+
+
+Although the content-type meta tag can be placed anywhere in the head of a web 
+page, it’s worth noting that some browsers don’t get the right encoding unless this tag 
+is the first element within the head section. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+The head section 
+
+The head section of a web page contains information about the document, the majority of 
+which is invisible to the end user. Essentially, it acts as a container for the tags outlined in 
+this section (which should generally be added in the same order that we run through 
+them). 
+
+
+Page titles 
+
+Many designers are so keen to get pages online that they forget to provide a title for each 
+page. Titles are added using the title element, as follows: 
+
+<title>IMAGES FROM ICELAND - photography by Craig Grannell</title> 
+
+The title is usually shown at the top of the browser window (and sometimes within the 
+active tab, if you’re using a browser that has a tabbed interface); the results of the previ¬ 
+ous code block are shown in the following image. 
+
+
+
+By default, web design packages usually do one of the following things with regard to the 
+title element: 
+
+
+Add no content. 
+
+Set the title element’s content as “Untitled Document.” 
+Set the title element’s content as the application’s name. 
+
+
+35 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The first of these results in no title being displayed for the web page and is invalid XHTML, 
+while the second means your page joins the legions online that have no title. The third 
+option is just as bad: using your web page to advertise the application you used to create 
+it. Therefore, add a title to every web page you create—in fact, make it one of the first 
+things you do, so you don’t forget. 
+
+With regard to the content of your web page titles, bear in mind that this is often the most 
+prominent thing returned in search engine results pages. Keep titles clear, concise, and 
+utterly to the point. Use too many words and the title will be clipped; use too few (or try 
+to get arty with characters) and you may end up with something that stumps search 
+engines and potential visitors, too. 
+
+Generally speaking, for the homepage at least, it’s good to include the name of the site or 
+organization, followed by an indication of the site’s reason for existence (and author or 
+location, if relevant). For instance, as shown in the following image, the Snub 
+Communications title includes the organization’s name, the primary services it offers, and 
+its author. 
+
+
+Snub Communications - web design and copywriting bv Craio Grannell... 
+
+Snub Communications provides quality design and copywriting services for anyone that 
+wants a top-notch, cost-effective solution. 
+www.snubcommunlcations.c<^/ - 10k - Cached - Similar oaoes 
+
+
+Some designers use the same title throughout their site. This is a bad idea—web page titles 
+are used as visual indicators by visitors trawling bookmarks or their browser’s history. This 
+is why I generally tend to use titles as a breadcrumb navigation of sorts, showing where a 
+page sits within the website’s hierarchy, like this: 
+
+<title>Company name - Services - Service name</title> 
+
+
+History 
+
+
+Bookmarks 
+
+
+Back 
+
+Forward 
+
+Home 
+
+
+Tools 
+
+
+Window 
+
+
+
+Snub Communicatio... Hampshire - London 
+Snub Communicatio... Thalamus Pubiishing 
+Snub Communicatio...ign - 2000 AD Books 
+Snub Communications - Externais 
+
+
+Snub Communications - Writing 
+
+
+Snub Communicatio...ign - Abaddon Books “ 
+Snub Communicatio... images from Iceland 
+snub communications - Coogie Search 
+Snub Communications - About 
+Snub Communicatio... Hampshire - London 
+
+Recently Closed Tabs ► 
+
+Show in Sidebar ■03SH 
+
+
+36 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+meta tags and search engines 
+
+The Web was once awash with tips for tweaking meta tags. This was because although 
+these tags are primarily there to provide information about the document, they were ini¬ 
+tially what most search engines used to categorize web pages and return results. It didn’t 
+take long for the shortfalls in the system to become apparent and for designers to abuse 
+them, and so many meta tags are today considered redundant. 
+
+Generally, search engines now trawl the content of the web page (including the contents 
+of the title element), trying to match a user’s search with the most important content on 
+the page. This is why strong use of semantic markup is essential—by correctly utilizing 
+headings, paragraphs, and other structural elements for text, and by avoiding overuse of 
+images for text content, modern search engines get a better handle on your content and 
+can therefore—in theory—return more accurate results to users. 
+
+Tagging and other forms of metadata are also becoming an increasingly popular search 
+engine aid, for both internal search engines—those within the site itself—and for the 
+search engines that return results from the whole of the Internet. Both are a means of 
+adding information to a website to aid users. Visual tags may show a number of keywords 
+associated with a blog posting, for example, enabling a user to see if something interests 
+them by the size of the word; search engines will latch onto the keywords and the content 
+of the piece itself. Metadata enables you to “embed” information in the page, aiding all 
+manner of devices, and potentially creating networks and links to like information. A form 
+of metadata—microformats—is explored in Chapter 8. 
+
+Despite this, it’s still worth being mindful of meta tags when creating web pages, for those 
+search engines that still make use of them—^just be aware that they’re not nearly as impor¬ 
+tant as they once were (with the possible exception of description). 
+
+Keywords and descriptions 
+
+Unless you’re totally new to web design, it’s likely you’ll be aware of the keywords and 
+description meta tags: 
+
+<meta name="keywords" content="keywords, separated^ by, commas" /> 
+
+<meta name="description" content="A short description about the Web 
+li* site" /> 
+
+
+
+r \ 
+
+Because meta tags are empty tags, they must be closed using a space 
+and trailing slash, as explained in Chapter 1. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+The first of these tags, keywords, should contain a list of words that users might type into 
+a search engine to find your site. Because of abuse (websites including thousands of words 
+in the meta tag content, in order to try and create a catchall in search engine results 
+pages), such lists are rarely used these days. Instead, search engines tend to look at the 
+entire content of a page to determine its relevance to someone’s search. If you choose to 
+include this element in your web page, 30 or fewer words and short phrases are sufficient. 
+
+
+37 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The contents of the description’s content attribute are returned by some search engines 
+in a results page along with the web page’s title. As with the title, keep things succinct, 
+otherwise the description will be cropped. Most search engines display a maximum of 
+200 characters, so 25 well-chosen words are just about all you can afford. 
+
+revisit-after, robots, and author 
+
+other meta tags also use name and content attributes. These tags assist search engines. In 
+the following example, the first tag provides an indication of how often they should return 
+(useful for regularly updated sites), and the second tag states whether the page should be 
+indexed or not. 
+
+<meta name="Revisit-After" content="30 Days" /> 
+
+<meta name="robots" content="all,index" /> 
+
+The content attribute of the robots meta tag can instead include the values noindex and 
+none, in order to block indexing, and follow or nofollow, depending on whether you want 
+search engine robots to follow links from the current page or not. 
+
+The author meta tag is of less use to search engines, and typically includes the page 
+author’s name and home URL. Designers sometimes use it as a means to declare the 
+author’s name and details, but it has little use beyond that. 
+
+<meta name="author" content="Craig Grannell for 
+
+^ www.snubcommunications.com." /> 
+
+
+Attaching external documents 
+
+A web page—as in the (X)HTML document—is primarily designed to contain content that 
+is structured in markup. Presentation should be dealt with via external CSS documents, 
+and behavior via external scripting documents. Although it is possible to work with the 
+likes of JavaScript and CSS within an HTML document, this goes against the modular 
+nature of good web design. It’s far easier to create, edit, and maintain a site if you work 
+with separate files for each technology. (The exception is if your “site” is only a single page, 
+therefore making it sensible to include everything in a single document.) 
+
+As already mentioned, XHTML documents are text files that are saved with the suffix .html 
+(or .htm). CSS and JavaScript files are also text documents, and their file suffixes are .css 
+and . js, respectively. When you start a project, having already set the relevant DOCTYPE 
+and added meta tags, it’s a good idea to create blank CSS and JavaScript files and to attach 
+them to your web page, so you can then work on any element as you wish. 
+
+Attaching external CSS files: The link method 
+
+In the previous chapter, you were shown how to attach CSS to a web page (see the section 
+“Adding styles to a web page” in Chapter 1), and we’ll briefly recap the process here. There 
+are two methods of attaching an external CSS file: the link method and the @import 
+method. 
+
+
+38 
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+The link tag specifies a relationship between the linked document and the document it’s 
+being linked to. In the context of attaching a CSS file, it looks something like this: 
+
+clink rel="StyleSheet" href="stylesheet.css" type="text/css" 
+media="all" /> 
+
+The attributes used are the following: 
+
+■ rel: Defines the relation from the parent document to the target 
+
+■ href: The location of the target file 
+
+■ type: The MIME type of the target document 
+
+■ media: The target medium of the target document 
+
+The title attribute is also occasionally used with the link element, either to provide 
+additional information or to be used as a “hook” for the likes of a style sheet switcher (see 
+www.alistapart.com/stories/alternate/ for more information). Any style sheet lacking 
+a title attribute (and a rel value of stylesheet) is persistent— always affecting a docu¬ 
+ment. These are by far the most common types of style sheets. A preferred style sheet also 
+takes a title along with the rel attribute and only one such style sheet can be used at a 
+time—typically the first, with subsequent ones ignored. On pages that offer alternate style 
+sheets (typically via a style switcher), the persistent styles are always used, and the first 
+preferred is the additional default; the preferred styles, however, can be swapped out by 
+selecting an alternative style sheet. (Note that in Firefox, you should avoid adding a title 
+attribute to any style sheet for print, because otherwise the content may not print.) 
+
+In the previous example, the media attribute is set to all, specifying that this style sheet is 
+intended for all devices. But it’s feasible to attach multiple style sheets to a web page, and 
+set the media attribute of each one to a different type. For instance, in the following exam¬ 
+ple, two CSS files are attached, one for screen and the other for printed output: 
+
+clink rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet.css" type="text/css'' 
+
+^ media=''screen" /> 
+
+clink rel="stylesheet" href="printcss.css'' type="text/css'' 
+media=''print'' /> 
+
+There are other media types, including aural, braille, projection, and tv, but few are 
+supported well. However, in Chapter 10, we’ll look at style sheets for print, which is one of 
+the alternatives to screen that is supported reasonably well in mainstream browsers. 
+
+Attaching CSS files: The @import method 
+
+A problem with the link method is that obsolete browsers see the style sheet but don’t 
+understand it. This can result in garbled layouts—and often in unusable websites for those 
+unfortunate enough to have to deal with such arcane web browsers. The solution is to 
+hide the CSS from such browsers by using a command that they don’t understand and so 
+will ignore. This is often referred to as the @import method. 
+
+
+
+39 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+As shown in the following example, the style element is used to do this: 
+
+<style type="text/css" media="all"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import url(stylesheet.css); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+
+The CSS specifications permit the use of the style sheet location as a 
+quoted string instead of enclosing it in url(). The method shown here 
+is more commonly supported, though. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+The following image shows the result in obsolete browsers, such as Netscape 4. The CSS is 
+hidden, so just the content is displayed. 
+
+
+
+However, compliant browsers see the CSS and render the site as shown in the following 
+image. 
+
+
+40 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+
+This method isn’t perfect. Some browsers think they can deal with CSS but can't, meaning 
+they understand @import, import the CSS, and then screw up the display anyway. Also, 
+some versions of Internet Explorer in some cases offer a flash of unstyled content, 
+although a workaround there is to have a link or script element in the web page's head 
+section (which will be likely, since sites should carry a print style sheet in addition to the 
+one for screen, or work with JavaScript). In any case, if you have to cater for obsolete and 
+alternative devices, using @import is probably the best bet, ensuring your site is accessible 
+to (almost) all. 
+
+Attaching favicons and JavaScript 
+
+Favicons are those little icons you often see in your browser's address bar. They are 
+attached using the link method discussed earlier, although you only need to include three 
+attributes: rel, href, and type. The type value can change, depending on the file type of 
+your favicon. For example, image/png is fine if you’ve used a PNG. 
+
+clink rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"/> 
+
+These days, favicons are almost ubiquitous, and they provide users with an additional 
+visual clue to a site’s identity. Although not particularly useful on their own, they can be 
+handy when trawling through a large bookmarks list—^you can look for the icon rather 
+than the text. However, don’t rely on them instead of a good web page title—they should 
+merely be an additional tool in your arsenal. 
+
+
+41 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Attaching a JavaScript file to a web page is similarly painless. You do so via the script ele¬ 
+ment, as follows: 
+
+cscript type="text/javascript" src="javascriptfile.js"></script> 
+
+
+You may have seen the language attribute used within script start tags, but this is 
+deprecated and won’t validate if you’re using XHTML Strict. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Checking paths 
+
+When working with external files, ensure paths between files are complete and don’t 
+become broken as files are moved around, otherwise your web page may lose track of the 
+CSS and JavaScript, affecting its display and functionality. If you’re using document-relative 
+links (i.e., links relative to the current document), remember to amend paths accordingly. 
+
+
+r \ 
+
+If you’re not sure how to work with the different types of links — absolute, relative, 
+and root-relative—read the guide in Chapters, at the beginning of the “Creating and 
+styling web page links’’ section. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+The body section 
+
+The body element is used to define the body of a web page, and it contains the docu¬ 
+ment’s content. No document content should ever be placed outside of the body element. 
+Sorry for the italic type, but this is something I see on a regular basis, so I wanted to nip 
+that one in the bud. 
+
+Although the body element has a number of possible attributes that can be included in its 
+start tag, mostly for defining link state color and backgrounds, these should be avoided. 
+This is because such things should be dealt with using CSS, which enables you to define 
+values on a site-wide basis, rather than having to do so for each individual page. The body 
+element attributes include the likes of alink, link, and vlink for defining link colors; text 
+for defining the default text color; and background and bgcolor for defining a background 
+pattern and color. There are also a number of proprietary attributes that were intended to 
+set padding around web page content, which aren’t worth mentioning further. In this next 
+section, we’ll look at the contemporary way of setting content margins and padding, 
+default font and color, and web page backgrounds. 
+
+
+Content margins and padding in CSS 
+
+
+42 
+
+
+Page margins and padding are easy to define using CSS. By setting these values once in an 
+external file, you can update settings site-wide by uploading an amended style sheet rather 
+than every single page on your site that has an amended body tag. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+Furthermore, in terms of page weight, CSS is more efficient. If using old methods, to cater 
+for all browsers, you set the following body attributes: 
+
+<body marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" 
+
+^ bottommargin="0" rightmargin="0"> 
+
+The equivalent in CSS is the following: 
+
+body { 
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+c ^ 
+
+If a CSS setting is 0, there’s no need to state a unit such as px or em. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+The reason both margin and padding are set to 0 is because some browsers define a 
+default padding value. Therefore, even if you set all body margins to 0, there would still be 
+a gap around your page content. Setting both the margin and padding to 0 in the body rule 
+ensures that all browsers display your content with no gaps around it. 
+
+
+Zeroing margins and padding on all elements 
+
+Although the previous block of code is clean and efficient, it isn’t something I use in my 
+websites. The reason for this is that browsers place default (and sometimes varying) 
+margins around various elements other than the page’s body, too. Therefore, my CSS 
+boilerplates always include the following: 
+
+* { 
+
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+The selector, *, is the universal selector, and the declaration therefore applies to all ele¬ 
+ments on the web page. In other words, add this rule to your CSS, and all default margins 
+and padding for all elements are removed, enabling you to start from scratch in all 
+browsers and define explicit values for those elements that need them. 
+
+
+Working with CSS shorthand for boxes 
+
+Both of the previous two code examples use CSS shorthand, and this is something that is 
+useful to get to grips with, in order to create the most efficient and easy-to-update CSS. 
+The previous example showed how to set all margins and padding values to 0, and this was 
+done in shorthand instead of writing out every single value. How CSS shorthand works for 
+boxes is like this: 
+
+
+43 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+■ A single value (margin: lOpx;): This is applied to all edges. 
+
+■ Two values (margin: lOpx 20px;): The first setting (lOpx) is applied to the top and 
+bottom edges. The second setting (20px) is applied to both the left and right edges 
+(20px each, not in total). 
+
+■ Three values (margin: lOpx 20px 30px;): The first setting (lOpx) is applied to the 
+top edge. The second setting (20px) is applied to both the left and right edges. The 
+third setting (30px) is applied to the bottom edge. 
+
+■ Four settings (margin: lOpx 20px 30px 40px;): Settings are applied clockwise 
+from the top (i.e., top: lOpx; right: 20px; bottom: 30px; left: 40px). 
+
+Shorthand’s benefits become obvious when comparing CSS shorthand with the equivalent 
+properties and values written out in full. For instance, the following shorthand 
+
+#box { 
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0 lOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+looks like this when written out in full: 
+
+#box { 
+
+margin-top: 0; 
+margin-right: 0; 
+margin-bottom: 0; 
+margin-left: 0; 
+padding-top: 0; 
+padding-right: lOOpx; 
+padding-bottom: 0; 
+padding-left: lOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+Whether or not you use shorthand is up to you. Some designers swear by it and others 
+because of it. Some web design applications have options to “force” shorthand or avoid it 
+entirely. I reckon it’s a good thing: CSS documents are usually more logical and shorter 
+because of shorthand. But if you don’t agree, feel free to keep on defining margins and 
+padding as relevant for every edge of every element. 
+
+
+Setting a default font and font color 
+
+As mentioned earlier, the body start tag was historically used to house attributes for deal¬ 
+ing with default text and background colors, link colors, and background images. In CSS, 
+link styles are dealt with separately (see Chapter S). We’ll look at how to apply back¬ 
+grounds later in this chapter. 
+
+
+44 
+
+
+At this point, it’s worth noting that, when working with CSS, the body selector is often used 
+to set a default font family and color for the website. We’ll discuss working with text in 
+more depth in the next chapter, but for now, check out the following CSS: 
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+body { 
+
+font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: #000000; 
+background-color: #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+This is straightforward. The font-family property sets a default font (in this case, 
+Verdana) and fallback fonts in case the first choice isn’t available on the user’s system. The 
+list must end with a generic family, such as sans-serif or serif, depending on your other 
+choices. The fonts are separated by commas in the list, and if you’re using multiple-word 
+fonts, they must be quoted ("Courier New", not Courier New). 
+
+The color property’s value defines the default color of text throughout the site. In the 
+preceding example, its value is #000000, which is the hexadecimal (hex) value for black 
+(when defining colors in CSS, it’s most common to use hex values, although you can use 
+comma-separated RGB values if you wish). It’s also advisable where possible to add a back¬ 
+ground color for accessibility; in this case, the background color is #ffffff—hex for 
+white. 
+
+
+
+/ \ 
+
+Although it’s possible to set a default size (and other property values) for 
+text in the body declaration, we’ll leave that for now, and instead explore 
+how best to do so in the following chapter. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+Web page backgrounds 
+
+Web page backgrounds used to be commonplace, but they became unpopular once 
+designers figured out that visitors to web pages didn’t want their eyes wrenched out by 
+gaudy tiled background patterns. With text being as hard to read onscreen as it is, it’s 
+adding insult to injury to inflict some nasty paisley mosaic background (or worse) on the 
+poor reader, too. 
+
+But, as affordable monitors continue to increase in size and resolution, designers face a 
+conundrum. If they’re creating a liquid design that stretches to fit the browser window, 
+text can become unreadable, because the eye finds it hard to scan text in wide columns. 
+And if they’re creating a fixed-width design, large areas of the screen often end up blank. 
+It’s for the latter design style that backgrounds can be useful, both in drawing the eye to 
+the content and providing some visual interest outside of the content area. 
+
+Like most things related to design, the use and style of backgrounds is subjective, but 
+some rules are worth bearing in mind. The most obvious is that a background should not 
+distract from your content. If you’re using background images, keep them simple, and 
+when you’re using color, ensure that the contrast and saturation with the page’s back¬ 
+ground color is fairly low, but the contrast with the text content over the background is 
+very high. Also, unless you’re using a subtle watermark, it’s generally bad form to put com¬ 
+plex images underneath text (a soft gradient or simple geometric shape can sometimes be 
+OK, however)—the low resolution of the Web means it’s harder to read text than the 
+
+
+45 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+print-based equivalent, and you don’t want to make this even tougher! Also, because back¬ 
+grounds are typically ancillary content, they should not significantly increase the loading 
+time of the page. 
+
+
+Web page backgrounds in CSS 
+
+Backgrounds are added to web page elements using a number of properties, as described 
+in the sections that follow. 
+
+background-color 
+
+This property sets the background color of the element. In the following example, the 
+page’s body background color has been set to ttffffff (which is hex for white): 
+
+body { 
+
+background-color: #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+background-image 
+
+This property sets a background image for the relevant element: 
+body { 
+
+background-image: url(background_image.jpg); 
+
+} 
+
+By using this CSS, you end up with a tiled background, as shown in the following image. 
+
+
+
+background-repeat 
+
+The properties explored so far mimic the range offered by deprecated HTML attributes, 
+but CSS provides you with control over the background’s tiling and positioning. The 
+background-repeat property can take four values, the default of which is repeat, creating 
+the tiled background just shown. 
+
+
+46 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+If background-repeat is set to no-repeat, the image is shown just once, as in the follow¬ 
+ing illustration. 
+
+
+
+If this property is set to repeat-x, the image tiles horizontally only. 
+
+
+
+And if the property is set to repeat-y, the image tiles vertically only. 
+
+
+
+background-attachment 
+
+This property has two possible values: scroll and fixed. The default is scroll, in which 
+the background works as normal, scrolling with the rest of the page. If you set the value to 
+fixed, the background image remains stationary while the remainder of the page scrolls. 
+
+
+47 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+background-position 
+
+This property’s values set the origin of the background by using two values that relate to 
+the horizontal and vertical position. The default background-position value is 0 0 (the 
+top left of the web page). 
+
+Along with keywords (center, left, and right for horizontal positioning; center, top, and 
+bottom for vertical positioning), you can use percentages and pixel values. It’s possible to 
+use a combination of percentages and pixel sizes, but you cannot mix keywords with 
+either. Therefore, it’s recommended that designers stick with using percentages and pixel 
+values—after all, keyword positioning can be emulated with numbers anyway (left top 
+being the same as 0 0, for instance). When setting values, they should always be defined in 
+the order horizontal-vertical. 
+
+When using keywords, it’s also recommended to use the order horizontal-vertical, because 
+both percentage- and pixel-based background positioning use this order, and it’s simpler 
+to remember a single rule. In the following example, the background would be positioned 
+on the left of the web page and positioned in the vertical center of the content: 
+
+body { 
+
+background-image: url(background_image.gif); 
+background-repeat: no-repeat; 
+background-position: left center; 
+
+} 
+
+Again, when using percentages or pixel values, the first value relates to the horizontal posi¬ 
+tion and the second to the vertical. So, to create the equivalent of the keyword example, 
+you’d use the following CSS: 
+
+body { 
+
+background-image: url(background_image.gif); 
+background-repeat: no-repeat; 
+
+background-position: 0 50%; 
+
+} 
+
+Note, however, when using background-position with the body element, that browsers 
+disagree slightly on where the background should be positioned vertically if the page 
+content isn’t taller than the viewing area. Internet Explorer and Safari assume the body is 
+the full view area height when there’s no content, thereby setting an image with a 
+background-position value of 50% 50% directly in the center of the viewing area. Firefox 
+and Opera instead assume the body has an effective height of 0, thereby placing the back¬ 
+ground vertically at the top of the view area (in fact, you only see the bottom half). For 
+consistency across browsers in this case, you can define both background-position and 
+background-attachment (as fixed), although this means the background will not scroll 
+with the page content. 
+
+CSS shorthand for web backgrounds 
+
+As when defining margins and padding, you can use shorthand for web background values, 
+bundling them into a single background property, although it’s worth stating that the 
+shorthand value overrides any previous settings in a CSS file for individual background 
+
+
+48 
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+properties. (For instance, if you use individual settings to define the background image, 
+and then subsequently use the shorthand for setting the color, the background image will 
+most likely not appear.) 
+
+When using shorthand, you can set the values in any order. Here’s an example: 
+body { 
+
+background: #ffffff url(background_image.gif) no-repeat fixed 50% 
+
+^ lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+Generally speaking, it’s best to use shorthand over separate background properties—it’s 
+quicker to type and easier to manage. You also don’t have to explicitly define every one of 
+the values; if you don’t, the values revert to their defaults. Therefore, the following is 
+acceptable: 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #ffffff url(background_image.gif) no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+Because the background-attachment value hasn’t been specified, this background would 
+scroll with the page, and because the background-position value hasn’t been defined, the 
+background would be positioned at 0%, 0%—the top left of the browser window. 
+
+
+
+Web page background ideas 
+
+Before finishing up this section on web page backgrounds, we’ll run through some exam¬ 
+ples that show the CSS and the result, along with the background image used. The files 
+within the basic-boilerplates folder can be used as starting points for web pages and 
+CSS documents. The images used in each case are in the chapter 2 folder of the download 
+files, and these should be placed in the same folder as the HTML and CSS document, 
+unless you amend path values accordingly. 
+
+Rename the files as appropriate for each example, ensuring you import the relevant CSS 
+file via the HTML document’s @import line. 
+
+For the HTML document, add several paragraphs within the existing div element that has 
+an id value of wrapper, as in the following code block (which, for space reasons, shows 
+only a single truncated paragraph—add more than this!): 
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<p>...</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+In CSS, there are also some common elements to add to the boilerplate. For the #wrapper 
+rule, add some padding to ensure the content within doesn’t hug the box’s edges, and a 
+background rule to color the box’s background white. Also, the width value defines the 
+width of the box’s content, while the margin settings center the box horizontally. (The 
+method will be discussed further in other chapters, but by setting 0 auto as the margin 
+values, vertical margins are removed and horizontal margins are set to auto, which center 
+the box horizontally in the browser window.) 
+
+
+49 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#wrapper { 
+padding: I8px; 
+background: #ffffff; 
+width: SOOpx; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+Note that in the download files, in order to keep things modular there are two #wrapper 
+rules in the CSS, and that’s what’s assumed in the previous code block. However, if you 
+prefer, add the property/value pairs from the previous code block to the style sheet’s 
+existing #wrapper rule. The same is true for many of the rules, such as the body rules in the 
+following subsections. 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Files at this point, ready for the following examples, are available in the chapter 2 
+folder of the download files (at www.friendsofed.com/downloads.htmli, named 
+backgrounds-default.html and backgrounds-default.css. 
+
+V- 
+
+
+Adding a background pattern 
+
+
+The following CSS can be used to add a patterned, tiled background to your web page: 
+body { 
+
+background: #ffffff url(background-tile.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+The following screenshot shows a page with a diagonal cross pattern, although you could 
+alternatively use diagonal stripes, horizontal stripes, squares, or other simple shapes. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+'^*V*V*' 
+
+twtVvvvW 
+
+
+
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, kj pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae llgula volutpat condlmentum. 
+
+Ailquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisl. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, 
+lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enIm nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+porttitor llgula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque Fadllsis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit 
+amet rhoncus ornare, erat ellt consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna dIam molestie sapien, non 
+aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam lac 0 0 0 . background-til... 
+
+
+fadllsis. 
+
+
+
+^wXwKwXXwd 
+Kwt^XwXXwtw 
+ix*x*x*xvivx*x^^^ 
+WMMMMP 
+
+RwX'CwXwXwv 
+
+IvXwtvXvwX 
+
+ES!Vr«U'UV<AfV<A?W% 
+
+
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. Morbi 
+egestas Feuglat fells. Integer adipiscing 
+cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium 
+Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Null< 
+
+Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ul 
+mauris dictum ellt, vel lacinia enim m< 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis, 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+gravida. Morbi ipsum Ipsum, porta nec, tempor Id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+
+
+vinAnAi'iininAnAnASi&ii 
+
+
+i^'XXvXvXCvCi 
+
+^vKwiwXw^ 
+
+»wXvKwXw9 
+
+IX<<<wXwXvv 
+
+
+50 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that if you remove many of the paragraphs fram the web page, the white back¬ 
+ground color ends with the content, since in CSS a container’s size by default only 
+stretches to that of its content. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Drop shadows 
+
+The following image shows a page with a content area and drop shadow. 
+
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nultam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id vellt vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+Aliqiiam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisl. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, 
+lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+porttltor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque facilisls erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit 
+amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat. Id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna dIam molestie sapien, non 
+allquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam laculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique 
+facilisis. 
+
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehlojla urna vel turpis. 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est quis ord consequat rutrum. Nullam 
+egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet 
+
+
+
+
+^ background-drop-shadow.gif @ 100% {Index) 
+
+.... .1{)9i..... 1^991I^)9i. l*9Pi..... I*)P, ^ ,1^9°. 
+
+
+Dot 41 QK.'tl.OK 
+
+
+JlL 
+
+
+gravida. Morbi Ipsum ipsum, porta nec, tempor Id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+
+
+
+
+
+This effect was achieved by creating the depicted background image and tiling it vertically. 
+In the body rule, the position was set to 50 % 0 in order to position the background cen¬ 
+trally on the horizontal axis. The background color of the web page is the same as the solid 
+background on the image itself, and so the image and color seamlessly blend. 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #878787 url(background-drop-shadow.gif) 50% 0 repeat-y; 
+
+} 
+
+Regarding the white area of the image, this is 536 pixels wide. This is because the wrapper 
+div’s width was earlier set to 500 pixels, and its padding value was set to 18 pixels. As you 
+will remember from the box model information from the previous chapter, padding is 
+added to the dimensions of a box, and so the overall width taken up by the wrapper div 
+is 536 pixels (18 + 500 + 18 = 536). 
+
+A drop shadow that terminates with the content 
+
+In the previous example, the white background of the content area is part of the image. 
+Therefore, if you remove most of the paragraphs in that example, the background stays as 
+it is, tiling vertically to the height of the viewing area. Using a different method, you can 
+instead have the background terminate with the content. 
+
+
+51 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Some additional markup is needed, due to this method requiring two background images: 
+one for the wrapper div (because, as per the white background in the “Adding a back¬ 
+ground pattern” section, you want the content area’s background to stop when the con¬ 
+tent runs out) and one for a shadow for the bottom edge of the wrapper div (otherwise 
+the shadows at the side will just stop dead, resulting in something like what’s shown in the 
+following image). 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, Ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Niillam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisl. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere saplen. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget eulsmod ullamcorper, 
+lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, Fermentum bibendum enIm nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatls. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandtt a, eros. 
+
+
+In terms of markup, add an empty div, as shown in the following code block: 
+
+? accumsa'n eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros.</p> 
+
+<div class="contentFooter"><!-- x --></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+In CSS, for the drop shadows flanking the content area to stop where the content does, 
+they need to be assigned to the wrapper div, not the web page’s body. Therefore, you 
+need to amend the body rule, removing the link to a background, but retaining the color 
+setting: 
+
+
+body { 
+
+background: #878787; 
+
+} 
+
+The #wrapper rule needs updating in two ways. First, the new background image needs to 
+be applied to the div—hence the new background property/value pair. However, because 
+the drop shadows are now shown within the wrapper div, it needs to take up more hori¬ 
+zontal space. Since the dimensions of the div’s content don’t need changing, this is 
+achieved by increasing the horizontal padding value. Also, because padding at the foot of 
+the div is no longer required (the contentFooter div effectively takes care of padding at 
+the bottom of the content area), the bottom padding value needs to be set to 0. These 
+padding values are done in shorthand, as per the method outlined in the “Working with 
+CSS shorthand for boxes” section earlier in this chapter. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+padding: I8px 36px 0; 
+
+background: url(background-drop-shadow-2.gif) 50% 0 repeat-y; 
+
+width: 500px; 
+
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+
+52 
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+Finally, the contentFooter div needs styling. Its height is defined on the basis of the 
+height of the background image (which is a slice of the Photoshop document shown in the 
+following image). The background is applied to the div in the same way as in previous 
+examples. 
+
+One major change, however, is the use of negative margins. The contentFooter div is 
+nested within the wrapper, which has 36 pixels of horizontal padding. This means that the 
+contentFooter div background doesn't reach the edges of the wrapper div by default, 
+leaving whitespace on its left and right sides. By using margins equal to the negative value 
+of this padding, the div can be “stretched” into place. 
+
+.contentFooter { 
+height: 20px; 
+
+background: url(background-drop-shadow-2-footer.gif) 50% 0; 
+margin: 0 -36px; 
+
+} 
+
+As you can see, the horizontal value for margin is -36px, the negative of the horizontal 
+padding value assigned to #wrapper. The addition of all these new rules results in the fol¬ 
+lowing image (which also shows the Photoshop image and exported GIF that makes up the 
+background). 
+
+
+
+
+An alternate method for getting this effect would be to place the contentFooter div out¬ 
+side of the wrapper and then use the same method of aligning it: 
+
+.contentFooter { 
+width: 500px; 
+height: 20px; 
+
+background: url(background-drop-shadow-2-footer.gif) 50% 0; 
+
+
+53 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+padding: 0 36px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+In order to ensure the background of the wrapper joins up with the shadow on the 
+contentFooter div, a single pixel of bottom padding needs to be applied to the #wrapper 
+rule: 
+
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+padding: I8px 36px Ipx; 
+
+background: url(background-drop-shadow-2.gif) 50% 0 repeat-y; 
+width: 500px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+Gradients 
+
+Tiled gradient images can be used to add depth and visual interest, without sapping 
+resources (the example’s image is under 2 KB in size). The depicted example is based on 
+the page from the “Drop shadows” section. The changes are an amendment to the back¬ 
+ground pair in the #wrapper rule, tiling the gradient image horizontally on the wrapper’s 
+background, and new padding settings, so the text doesn’t appear over the gradient. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+padding: 36px I8px I8px; 
+
+background: url(background-gradient.gif) repeat-x; 
+
+width: 500px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpls. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae llgula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla faciiisl. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere saplen. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, 
+lectus nunc ullamcorper orcf, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dul. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit 
+amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna dIam molestie saplen, non 
+aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam laculls. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique 
+^cilisis. 
+
+
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula umf 0 O 0 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est quis orci consequat rq i 
+egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molest] : 
+cursus convallis, saplen lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim 
+Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. 
+
+Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee uttrices, neque id dignissim 
+mauns dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. | io<m 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+
+
+
+background 
+
+
+54 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+Watermarks 
+
+Although it’s common for sites to be centered in the browser window, many designers 
+choose left-aligned sites that cling to the left edge of the browser window. Both design 
+styles are perfectly valid, but in an era of rapidly increasing monitor resolutions, you can 
+end up with a lot of dead space to the side of a fixed-width left-aligned design. And while 
+some of you might be saying, “Well, create flexible-width designs, then!” some designs 
+aren’t suited to that, and text-heavy sites tend to work better with fairly narrow text 
+columns, since most users find it hard to read very wide blocks of text. 
+
+All of this brings us to the final example in this chapter, which shows how to create water¬ 
+marks for a web page. In the following screenshot, the wrapper div is to the left, with a 
+background image to the right of this area. 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dok>r sit amet, a>nsectetuer adiplsdng ellt. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna ttioncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendlsse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+
+Allqua' 
+
+
+•■'mus pharetra 
+
+
+>sum. Donee 
+venenatis. 
+
+
+
+lOOX 
+
+conseaiW 
+
+
+Sed 
+
+vehicula 
+
+
+gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, temper id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+
+
+
+To achieve this effect, the margin property/value pair in the #wrapper rule has been 
+removed, and the following rule has been added: 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #878787 url(background-watermark-large.gif) no-repeat 
+^ 536px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+As mentioned earlier in the chapter, this assumes you’re adding a second body rule. 
+You can, however, just add the background property/value pair to the existing body 
+rule in the style sheet. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+55 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The image used is a transparent GIF, so the background color setting was made a medium- 
+gray (#878787). The reasoning behind using a transparent GIF is explained in Chapter 4, 
+but it relates to web browsers sometimes interpreting colors differently from graphics 
+packages. Therefore, it’s often easier to make the flat background color of a graphic trans¬ 
+parent and then use the web page background color in place of it. 
+
+The repeat setting is set to no-repeat, because we don’t want the image to tile. Finally, 
+the background’s position is set to 536px 0. The 0 setting means it hugs the top of the 
+browser window, while the 536px setting means the image is placed at 536 pixels from the 
+left. This is because the content area was earlier defined as 500 pixels wide with 18 pixels 
+of padding, and 18 + 500 + 18 = 536. 
+
+As mentioned earlier, backgrounds can be added to any web page element. For instance, 
+you can add a watermark to the wrapper div by using the following CSS: 
+
+#wrapper { 
+padding: I8px; 
+
+background: #ffffff url(background-watermark.gif) no-repeat 20px 
+^ 20px; 
+width: 500px; 
+
+} 
+
+This adds the background-watermark.gif image to the background of the content div, 
+and positions it 20 pixels from the top and 20 pixels from the left. Again, no-repeat is 
+used to stop the image from tiling. 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci rragna rboncus neque, id puMnar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendlsse kJ velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla llbero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget eulsmod ullamcorper, 
+lectus nunc ullamcorper orcl, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatls. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque radlisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit 
+amet rhoncus ornare, erat ellt consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam moiestie sapien, non 
+aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique 
+facilisis. 
+
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viveira gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. 
+Suspendlsse sagittls ante a uma. Morbi a est quis ord consequat rutrum. Nullam 
+egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc moiestie, nisi sit amet 
+cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. 
+Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla faclllsi. 
+
+Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee uittices, neque id dignissim uttrices, tellus 
+mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proln at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+gravida. Morbi ipsum Ipsum, porta nec, temper id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+
+
+
+56 
+
+
+In either case for the watermark backgrounds, the images scroll with the page content. 
+However, watermarks can also work well as fixed backgrounds—this can be achieved by 
+adding the fixed value to the background property in the body and #wrapper rules. 
+
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+Completed examples of all of the web pages in this section are in the 
+chapter 2 folder in the download files. 
+
+\ _y 
+
+
+Closing your document 
+
+Back at the start of this chapter, we examined basic HTML and XHTML documents. 
+Regardless of the technology used, the end of the document should look like this: 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+There are no variations or alternatives. A body end tag terminates the document’s content, 
+and an html end tag terminates the document itself. No web page content should come 
+after the body end tag, and no HTML content should come after the html end tag (white- 
+space is fine, and it’s common practice with server-side technologies to put functions after 
+the html end tag—^just don’t put any HTML there). 
+
+Also, you must only ever have one body and one head in an HTML document, as well as a 
+single html start tag and a single html end tag. 
+
+This is important stuff to bear in mind, and even if you think it’s obvious, there are millions 
+of pages out there—particularly those that utilize server-side includes and server-side 
+languages—that include multiple body tags and head tags, have content outside the body 
+tag, and have HTML outside the html tag. 
+
+Don’t do this in your own work. 
+
+
+
+Naming your files 
+
+Each designer has their own way of thinking when it comes to naming files and documents. 
+Personally, I like to keep document names succinct, but obvious enough that I can find 
+them rapidly via a trawl of my hard drive. Certain conventions, however, are key: all file 
+names should avoid illegal characters (such as spaces), and it’s good to be consistent 
+throughout your site. I find that naming files in lowercase and replacing spaces with 
+hyphens—like-this-for-example.html—works well. 
+
+
+Web designers have historically used underscores in place of spaces, but that 
+causes problems with some search engines, some of which run-in keywords, 
+effectively considering the words within the file name as one string. This 
+doesn’t happen with hyphens. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+57 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Commenting your work 
+
+The rules for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript comments are simple, but the actual characters 
+used are different in each case. 
+
+HTML comments begin with <!-- and end with -->, and can run over multiple lines, as 
+follows: 
+
+<1-- this is a comment in HTML --> 
+
+< 1 - 
+
+Multiple-line 
+
+HTML 
+
+comment 
+
+--> 
+
+In XHTML, double hyphens should not occur within the comment itself. Therefore, the fol¬ 
+lowing is not valid XHTML: 
+
+
+<1-- This is invalid -- as is the comment below --> 
+
+<! - > 
+
+
+The multiple-hyphen comment is commonly used by designers who favor hand-coding to 
+separate large chunks of code within a document. When working in XHTML, you can 
+replace the hyphens with a different character: 
+
+<I--oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo--> 
+
+CSS comments were covered in the “Creating boilerplates” section of Chapter 1, but we'll 
+briefly look through them again; they’re opened with /* and closed with */ and, like HTML 
+comments, can run over multiple lines, as shown here: 
+
+/* This is a comment in CSS */ 
+
+/* 
+
+Multiple-line 
+
+CSS 
+
+comment 
+
+*/ 
+
+
+Multiple-line comments in JavaScript are the same as in CSS, but single-line comments are 
+placed after double forward slashes: 
+
+// This is a single-line lavaScript comment. 
+
+Don’t use comments incorrectly. CSS comments in an HTML document won’t be problem¬ 
+atic from a rendering standpoint—but they will be displayed. HTML comments in CSS can 
+actually cause a CSS file to fail entirely. 
+
+
+58 
+
+
+
+
+WEB PAGE ESSENTIALS 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Along with enabling you to comment your work, comments can be used to disable 
+sections of code when testing web pages. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Web page essentials checklist 
+
+Congratulations—^you made it to the end of this chapter! I'm aware that some of this one 
+was about as much fun as trying to work out complex quadratic equations in your head, 
+but as mentioned at the start, you need to know this stuff. Imagine designing a site and it 
+suddenly not working the way you thought it would. It looks fine in your web design pack¬ 
+age and also in some web browsers, but it starts falling apart in others. Just removing an 
+XML declaration might be enough to fix the site. 
+
+If you take the elements of this chapter and form them into a simple checklist, you won’t 
+have to risk displaying those wonderful “Untitled Documents” to the entire world (or inad¬ 
+vertently advertising the package you used to create the page). To make your life easier, 
+you can refer to this checklist: 
+
+1 . Ensure the relevant DOCTYPE declaration and namespace is in place. 
+
+2 . Remove the XML declaration if it’s lurking. 
+
+3. Add a title tag and some content within it. 
+
+4 . Add a meta tag to define your character set. 
+
+5. If required, add keywords and description meta tags. 
+
+6 . Attach a CSS file (or files). 
+
+7 . Attach a JavaScript file (or files). 
+
+8 . If your web editor adds superfluous body attributes, delete them. 
+
+9 . Ensure there are no characters prior to the DOCTYPE declaration or after the html 
+end tag. 
+
+10 . Ensure no web page content appears outside the body element. 
+
+
+
+59 
+
+
+
+
+
+Lieorgia t 24 pxj 
+
+Georgia (i 2 px) 
+
+Georgia (9px) 
+
+Palatino (bold, 24px) 
+Palatino (24px) 
+
+Palatino (12px) 
+
+Palatino (9p>i) 
+
+Times New Roman (bol 
+Times New Roman (24p 
+
+
+3 WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consecteti 
+aliquet elementum erat Integer diam n 
+a, hendretit at, ml. MorbI risus mi, tinci 
+eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In ur 
+et, venertatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sec 
+tristique seneaus et netus et malesuada f 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, conseaetuer 
+
+elementum erat. Integer diam mi. venenai 
+
+
+★ 
+
+LIST - 1.1 
+
+
+■ List-2.1 
+
+■ List-2.2 
+
+
+□ List - 3.1 
+
+□ List-3.2 
+
+□ List-3.3 
+
+
+■ List-2.3 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Working with semantic markup 
+
+■ Defining font colors, families, and other styles 
+
+■ Understanding web-safe fonts 
+
+■ Creating drop caps and pull quotes 
+
+■ Rapidly editing styled text 
+
+■ Working to a grid 
+
+■ Creating and styling lists 
+
+
+An introduction to typography 
+
+Words are important—not just what they say, but how they look. To quote Ellen Lupton, 
+from her book Thinking with Type, “Typography is what language looks like.” Language has 
+always been symbolic, although the origins of such symbols (of certain letterforms relating 
+to, for example, animals) has largely been lost in written English; instead, we now have 
+rather more abstract symbols designed for repetition on the page or screen. 
+
+However, from the early calligraphy that was created by hand, through the movable type 
+(invented in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg during the 15th century) that enabled mass- 
+production printing via molded letterform casts, to the most advanced desktop-publishing 
+software available today, the ultimate aim of type has been one of record and information 
+provision. In other words, type itself is important from a design standpoint because it 
+needs to record whatever information is being written about, and that information needs 
+to be easily retrievable by anyone who wants to understand it. 
+
+Like all aspects of design, typography has massively evolved over the years, particularly 
+over the past couple of decades, where computers have enabled designers to more rapidly 
+experiment with lettering. Despite this, many conventions formed much earlier still have a 
+part to play: 
+
+■ Myriad fonts exist, and each one has a different look, and therefore a different 
+“feel;” you need to choose the most appropriate one for your purpose. (This is fur¬ 
+ther complicated by there being only a certain number of web-safe fonts, as you’ll 
+see later.) 
+
+■ Headings, strap-lines/stand-firsts (the introductory line that introduces a piece of 
+text, commonly used in editorial articles), and crossheads (short subheadings that 
+break up areas of body copy) should stand out, and the prominence of each piece 
+of text should be related to its level of importance (in other words, a crosshead 
+shouldn’t be more prominent than a main heading). 
+
+■ Footnotes often use text smaller than the main body copy text to signify their 
+lesser significance to the main text, but nonetheless provide useful supplementary 
+information. 
+
+
+62 
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+■ Decorative elements can be used to draw the reader’s attention to 
+specific parts of the text. Drop caps and initials—large initial let¬ 
+ters, flamboyant in classical typography, but typically more 
+restrained in modern work (see right)—enable a reader to rapidly 
+navigate to the beginning of a piece of text. Pull quotes—quotes 
+from the main body of the text, displayed in large lettering outside 
+of context—are often used in magazine articles to draw a reader’s 
+attention to a particular article, highlighting particularly interesting 
+quotes or information. 
+
+■ Spacing is just as important as content. Kerning —the spacing between letter 
+pairs—can be increased to add prominence to a heading. Leading —the amount of 
+added vertical spacing between lines of text—can also be adjusted. Increasing lead¬ 
+ing from its default can make text more legible. In books, a baseline grid is often 
+employed, ensuring that text always appears in the same place on each page. This 
+means that the text on the opposite side of the paper doesn’t appear in the gaps 
+between the lines on the page you’re reading. Baseline grids often make for 
+extremely pleasing vertical rhythm, and are regularly used in print publications; 
+they’re infrequently used online, but can nonetheless be of use, making a page of 
+text easier to read and navigate. 
+
+■ Columns can be used to make a page easier to read. This is common in newspapers 
+and magazines; online, the low resolution of monitors, and the (current) lack of 
+being able to auto-flow columns of text makes de facto text columns impractical, 
+but the reasoning behind columns is still handy to bear in mind. Generally, it’s con¬ 
+sidered easier to read text that has fairly narrow columns (although not too 
+narrow—if there are too few characters, reading and comprehension slow down)— 
+text that, for example, spans the entire width of a 23-inch monitor rapidly becomes 
+tiring to read. There are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to line length, 
+although some go by the “alphabet-and-a-half” rule (39 characters per line), some 
+advocate the “points-times-two” rule (double the point size and use the number 
+for the number of characters), and others recommend a dozen or so words, or 
+about 60 characters. 
+
+A few highly useful online resources for web typography can be found at the following 
+locations; 
+
+■ The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web; www.webtypography.net/ 
+
+■ Five Simple Steps to Better Typography: www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/detail/ 
+five_simple_steps_to_better_typography/ 
+
+■ Five Simple Steps to Designing Grid Systems: www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/ 
+detail/five_simple_steps_to_designing_grid_systems/ 
+
+When it comes to web design, some conventions are used, and others are ignored. In fact, 
+while web designers take the utmost care to get layouts right, scant few give the same 
+thought to text, merely choosing a font and arbitrarily setting other values, if they set 
+them at all. Once, this could be excused, but CSS has enabled web type to come a long 
+way, and although the same degree of control as print-based type isn’t possible, you can 
+do a lot more than just choose your preferred font for headings and body copy. 
+
+
+L orem ipsun 
+pharetra gr 
+sit amet en 
+pat. Sed quis velit. I 
+
+
+
+63 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter, we’ll take a look at the various components available when working on 
+web-based type (including elements and CSS properties), and provide some exercises, the 
+results from which you can use for the basis of your own sites’ type. As a final note in this 
+introduction, it’s also worth mentioning spelling and grammar. Both of these are clearly 
+way outside of the scope of this book, but they’re things designers tend to overlook. A site 
+with a lot of grammatical and spelling errors, especially in larger text (such as headings and 
+pull quotes) looks unprofessional. If in doubt when working on sites, consult (or get your 
+client to consult) a copywriter. 
+
+
+There are a couple of books worth digging out for more information on typography 
+and language. A decent primer on type design is Helen Lupton’s Thinking with Type. 
+For an entertaining (if not entirely accurate) history of the English language, read Bill 
+Bryson’s The Mother Tongue. 
+
+)_ J 
+
+
+Styling text the old-fashioned way (or, why we 
+hate font tags) 
+
+styling text online used to be all about font tags. When Netscape introduced the font ele¬ 
+ment—complete with size and color attributes—web designers wept tears of joy. When 
+Microsoft announced it would go further, adding a face attribute (enabling you to specify 
+the font family), web designers were giddy with anticipation. But things didn’t go accord¬ 
+ing to plan. Page sizes bloated as designers created pages filled with fonts of myriad sizes 
+and colors. Web users looked on aghast, wondering whether giant, orange body copy was 
+really the way to go, and whether it was worth waiting twice as long for such abominations 
+to download. 
+
+More important, it became apparent that font tags caused problems, including the fol¬ 
+lowing: 
+
+
+■ Inconsistent display across browsers and platforms 
+
+■ The requirement for font tags to be applied to individual elements 
+
+■ Difficulty ensuring fonts were consistent site-wide, because of having to style indi¬ 
+vidual elements 
+
+■ HTML geared toward presentation rather than logical structure 
+
+■ Large HTML documents due to all the extra elements 
+
+In addition, working with font tags is a time-consuming, boring process, and yet some 
+(although, thankfully, increasingly few) web designers remain blissfully ignorant of such 
+problems. In my opinion, if font tags weren’t HTML elements. I’d suggest they be taken 
+out back and shot. Today, there is no reason whatsoever to stick with them. Text can be 
+rapidly styled site-wide with CSS and, as we’ll see later in this chapter, CSS provides you 
+with a greater degree of control than font tags ever did. More crucially, font tags encour¬ 
+age badly formed documents, with designers relying on inline elements to style things like 
+headings, when there are perfectly good HTML elements better suited to that purpose. 
+
+
+64 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+HTML should be reserved for content and structure, and CSS for design. Web pages should 
+be composed of appropriate elements for each piece of content. This method of working, 
+called semantic markup, is what we're going to discuss next. 
+
+
+A new beginning: Semantic markup 
+
+Essentially, “semantic markup” means “using the appropriate tag at the relevant time,” and 
+well-formed semantic markup is an essential aspect of any website. The following is an 
+example of the wrong way of doing things—relying on font tags to create a heading and 
+double line breaks (<br /xbr />) for separating paragraphs: 
+
+<font size=''7" color=''red'' face=''Helvetica''>Article heading</font> 
+
+<br /xbr /> 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit ametj consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed aliquet 
+»» elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, 
+
+^ hendrerit at, mi. 
+
+<br /xbr /> 
+
+Ouisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, mattis 
+** et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. 
+
+The likelihood of this displaying consistently across browsers and platforms is low. More 
+important, the tags used don’t relate to the content. Therefore, if the styling is removed, 
+there's no indication regarding what role each element plays within the document struc¬ 
+ture and hierarchy—for instance, there would be no visual clues as to the importance of 
+the heading. Also, the use of double line breaks (<br /xbr />) instead of paragraph tags 
+means the “paragraphs” cannot be styled in CSS, because there’s nothing to inform the 
+web browser what the content actually is. 
+
+Instead, the example should be marked up like this: 
+
+<hl>Article heading</hl> 
+
+<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+»» aliquet elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus 
+** a, hendrerit at, mi.</p> 
+
+<p>Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, 
+
+^ mattis et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros.</p> 
+
+Here, the heading is marked up with the relevant tags, and paragraph elements are used 
+instead of double line breaks. This means the page’s structural integrity is ensured, and the 
+markup is logical and semantic. If attached CSS styles are removed, the default formatting 
+still makes obvious to the end user the importance of the headings, and will visually dis¬ 
+play them as such. 
+
+In this section, we’ll look at how to mark up paragraphs and headings, explore logical and 
+physical styles, and discuss the importance of well-formed semantic markup. 
+
+
+
+65 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Paragraphs and headings 
+
+With words making up the bulk of online content, the paragraph and heading HTML ele¬ 
+ments are of paramount importance. HTML provides six levels of headings, from hi to h6, 
+with hi being the top-level heading. The adjacent image shows how these headings, along 
+with a paragraph, typically appear by default in a browser. 
+
+<hl>Level one heading</hl> 
+
+<h2>Level two heading</h2> 
+
+<h3>Level three heading</h3> 
+
+<h4>Level four heading</h4> 
+
+<h5>Level five heading</h5> 
+
+<h6>Level six heading</h6> 
+
+<p>Default paragraph size</p> 
+
+By default, browsers put margins around para¬ 
+graphs and headings. This can vary from browser to 
+browser, but it can be controlled by CSS. Therefore, 
+there's no excuse for using double line breaks to 
+avoid default paragraph margins affecting web 
+page layouts. 
+
+Despite the typical default sizes, level-five and level-six headings are not intended as “tiny 
+text,” but as a way to enable you to structure your document, which is essential, as 
+headings help with assistive technology, enabling the visually disabled to efficiently surf 
+the Web. 
+
+In terms of general usage, it's generally recommended to stick to just one hi element per 
+document, used for the page's primary heading. The next level down—and the first level 
+in a sidebar—would be h2, and then h3, and so on. Take care not to use too many heading 
+levels, though—unless you're working on complex legal documents, you really shouldn't 
+be getting past level four. If you are, look at restructuring your document. 
+
+
+Level one heading 
+
+Level two heading 
+
+Level three heading 
+Level four heading 
+
+Level five heading 
+
+L«v*l six 
+
+Default paragraph size 
+
+
+Logical and physical styles 
+
+Once text is in place, it's common to add inline styles, which can be achieved by way of 
+logical and physical styles. Many designers are confused by the difference between the 
+two, especially because equivalents (such as the logical strong and physical b) tend to be 
+displayed the same in browsers. The difference is that logical styles describe what the con¬ 
+tent is, whereas physical styles merely define what the content looks like. This subtle dif¬ 
+ference is more apparent when you take into account things like screen readers. 
+
+In the markup I like to <em>emphasize</em> things, a screen reader emphasizes the 
+text surrounded by the em tags. However, replace the em tags with i tags and the screen 
+reader won't emphasize the word, although in a visual web browser the two pieces of 
+markup will almost certainly look identical. 
+
+
+66 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Styles for emphasis (bold and italic) 
+
+Physical styles enable you to make text <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>, and these are 
+the most commonly used inline physical styles. However, logical styles are becoming much 
+more widespread (the majority of web design applications, such as Dreamweaver, 
+now default to logical styles rather than physical ones). Typically, <strong>strong 
+emphasis</strong> emboldens text in a visual web browser and <em>emphasis</em> itali¬ 
+cizes text. 
+
+Deprecated and nonstandard physical styles 
+
+Many physical elements are considered obsolete, including the infamous blink (a 
+Netscape “innovation” used to flash text on and off, amusingly still supported in Firefox). 
+Some physical styles are deprecated: u (underline) and s (strikethrough; also strike) have 
+CSS equivalents using the text-decoration property (text-decoration: underline and 
+text-decoration: line-through, respectively). 
+
+The big and small elements 
+
+The big and small elements are used to increase and decrease the size of inline text (even 
+text defined in pixels in CSS). An example of the use of small might be in marking up text 
+that is semantically small print. An example of big might be to denote that a drop cap is a 
+big character, or for when adding asterisks to required form fields. 
+
+cinput type="text" name="realname" size="30" /> <big>*</big> 
+
+Note, however, that the change in size depends on individual web browsers, so it’s often 
+better to use span elements with a specific class relating to a font size defined in CSS (see 
+the section “Creating alternatives with classes and spans” later in the chapter), or ensure 
+that you define specific values in CSS for small and big elements when used in context. 
+
+Teletype, subscript, and superscript 
+
+This leaves three useful physical styles. The first, tt, renders text in a monospace font (a la 
+teletype text). The others, sub and sup, render text as subscript and superscript text, 
+respectively. These are useful for scientific documents, although there is a drawback: char¬ 
+acters are displayed at the same size, defined by the browser. You can get around this by 
+using a CSS tag selector and defining a new font size for each element. The following code 
+shows how to do this, and the accompanying screenshot shows a default sup element (at 
+the top of the image) and a CSS-styled sup element (at the bottom) in use. 
+
+sup { 
+
+font-size: 70%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+c=mc^ 
+
+c=mc^ 
+
+
+67 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Logical styles for programming-oriented content 
+
+Several logical styles do similar jobs, are programming-oriented, and are usually displayed 
+in a monospace font: 
+
+<code>Denotes a code sample.</code> 
+
+<kbd>Indicates text entered by the user.</kbd> 
+
+<samp>Indicates a programming sample.</samp> 
+
+The var element also relates to programming, signifying a variable. However, it is usually 
+displayed in italics. 
+
+Block quotes, quote citations, and definitions 
+
+The blockquote element is used to define a lengthy quotation and must be set within a 
+block-level element. Its cite attribute can be used to define the online location of quoted 
+material, although the cite element is perhaps more useful for this, enabling you to place 
+a visible citation (a reference to another document, such as an article) online; this is usu¬ 
+ally displayed in italics. See the “Creating drop caps and pull quotes using CSS” section for 
+more on using this element. 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that some web design applications — notably, early versions of Dreamweaver — 
+used the blockquote element to indent blocks of text, and this bad habit is still used 
+by some designers. Don’t do this—if you want to indent some text, use CSS. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+For shorter quotes that are inline, the q element can be used. This is also supposed to add 
+language-specific quotes before and after the content between the element’s tags. These 
+quotes vary by browser—Firefox adds “smart” quotes. Safari and Opera add “straight” 
+quotes, and Internet Explorer doesn’t display anything at all. The article “Long Live the Q 
+Tag,” by Stacey Cordoni (available at A List Apart; www.alistapart.com/articles/qtag), 
+offers a few workarounds, although none are ideal (one advises using JavaScript; another 
+uses CSS to hide the quotes in compliant browsers, and then says to add the quotes man¬ 
+ually, outside of the element’s tags. However, another alternative is to merely ensure that 
+the quoted content is differentiated from surrounding text, which can be done by setting 
+font-style in CSS to italic for the q element. 
+
+Finally, to indicate the defining instance of a term, you use the dfn element. This is used to 
+draw attention to the first use of such a term and is also typically displayed in italics. 
+
+Acronyms and abbreviations 
+
+Two logical styles assist with accessibility, enabling you to provide users with full forms of 
+abbreviations and acronyms by way of the title attribute; 
+
+<abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> 
+
+cacronym title="North Atlantic Treaty Organization">NATO</acronym> 
+
+This has two uses. For one, it allows users with disabilities (using screen readers) to access 
+the full form of the words in question. But anyone using a visual web browser can access 
+
+
+68 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+the information, too, because title attribute contents are usually displayed as a tooltip 
+when you hover your mouse over elements they’re used on. 
+
+To further draw attention to an abbreviation or acronym, style the tag in 
+CSS (using a tag selector), thereby making all such tags consistent across 
+an entire website. The following code is an example of this, the results of 
+which are shown in the example to the right (including the tooltip trig¬ 
+gered by hovering over the abbr element, which has a title attribute). 
+
+abbr { 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx dotted #000000; 
+background-color: yellow; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+f \ 
+
+You can provide an additional aid to users by setting cursor to help in 
+CSS for abbr elements. This changes the cursor to a question mark 
+while hovering over the element. 
+
+V_( 
+
+
+Elements for inserted and deleted text 
+
+The del and ins elements are used, respectively, to indicate deleted text and inserted text, 
+typically in a manner akin to the tracking features of word processing packages, although 
+they do not include the tracking functionality. The del element usually appears in strike¬ 
+through format, whereas ins usually appears underlined. Both accept cite and datetime 
+attributes. The former enables you to define a URL that explains why text was inserted or 
+deleted; the latter enables you to define the time and date that the text was amended— 
+see the <ins> and <del> entries in Appendix A (XHTML Reference) for accepted formats. 
+
+Note that these elements cannot be nested inside each other, for obvious reasons. 
+Following is an example of their use: 
+
+<p>I <del>deleted this</del> and then <ins>inserted this</ins>.</p> 
+
+
+I dolotcd this and then Inscncd this. 
+
+
+The default style of the ins element can prove problematic online. Because links are 
+underlined by default, users may attempt to click text marked up as inserted text and 
+wonder why nothing happens. It’s a good idea to amend the tag’s visual appearance by 
+changing the underline color. This can be done by removing the default underline and 
+replacing it with a bottom border, like so: 
+
+ins { 
+
+text-decoration: none; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid red; 
+
+} 
+
+
+69 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The bottom border resembles an underline, although it appears lower than the default 
+underline, which further differentiates inserted text from hypertext links. 
+
+
+The importance of well-formed markup 
+
+Many logical styles are rarely used online, because they look no different from text 
+marked up using the likes of the i element. However, as mentioned earlier, physical 
+appearance alone misses the point of HTML. Always using the most appropriate relevant 
+element means that you can later individually style each element in CSS, overriding the 
+default appearance if you wish. If the likes of citations, defining instances, and variables 
+are all marked up with i instead of cite, dfn, and var, there’s no way of distinguishing 
+each type of content and no way of manipulating their appearance on an individual basis. 
+Well-formed markup involves more than ensuring visual flexibility, though. Use of the cite 
+tag, for instance, enables you to manipulate the Document Object Model (DOM) to 
+extract a bibliography or list of quotations from a page or even a full website. The ability 
+to style logical tags like this with CSS is likely to be of increasing rather than diminishing 
+importance. 
+
+The importance of end tags 
+
+While we’re on the subject of well-formed markup, we’ll revisit the importance of end 
+tags. As mentioned earlier, XHTML demands that all tags be closed. Most browsers let you 
+get away with ignoring some end tags, though, such as on paragraphs. Some designers may 
+still have bad habits from working with HTML, for which many end tags are optional. Omit 
+many others at your peril. For instance, overlook a heading element end tag and a browser 
+considers subsequent content to be part of the heading and displays it accordingly. As 
+shown in the following image, two paragraphs are displayed as a heading because the ear¬ 
+lier heading element lacks an end tag. 
+
+
+A heading, not closed 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing 
+clit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci 
+magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non 
+turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendis.se id velit vitae 
+ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. 
+Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. 
+
+Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+
+..11--’ll---! f-«— 
+
+
+A similar problem occurs when you accidentally omit end tags when using logical and 
+physical elements. For instance, forget to close an emphasis element and the remainder of 
+the web page may be displayed in italics. 
+
+
+Some designers when hand-coding create both start and end tags at the same time, 
+and then populate the element with content, ensuring end tags are not forgotten. 
+
+\ _^_ J 
+
+
+70 
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Styling text using CSS 
+
+HTML is intended as a structural markup language, but the Web’s increasing popularity 
+meant it got “polluted” with tags designed for presentation. This made HTML more com¬ 
+plex than it needed to be, and such tags soon became a headache for web designers try¬ 
+ing to style page elements, such as text. In the bad ol’ days (the end of the 1990s), you’d 
+often see source code like this: 
+
+<font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#333333"> This markup is 
+^ <font size="+3"><small>really </small></font>bad, but it was sort of 
+^ the norm in the 1990s.</font> 
+
+WYSIWYG tools would insert new tags to override previous ones, adding to the page 
+weight and making it tough to ensure visual consistency site-wide. By and large, CSS erad¬ 
+icates these problems and enables far more control over text, as you’ll see in the following 
+sections. 
+
+This is a boon for graphic designers who used to loathe HTML’s lack of typographical con¬ 
+trol. However, the level of freedom evident in print design still isn’t quite so on the Web. 
+Restrictions imposed by browsers and the screen must be taken into account, such as it 
+being harder to read type onscreen than in print. This is largely related to resolution. Even 
+magazines with fairly low-quality print tend to be printed at around 200 dpi or more— 
+more than twice the resolution of a typical monitor. This means that very small text 
+(favored by many designers, who think such small text looks neat) becomes tricky to read 
+onscreen, because there aren’t enough pixels to create a coherent image. 
+
+I’ll note restrictions such as this at appropriate times during this section on styling text with 
+CSS, thereby providing advice on striking a balance between the visual appearance and 
+practicality of web-based text. 
+
+
+
+Defining font colors 
+
+In CSS, the color property value defines the foreground color of the relevant CSS ele¬ 
+ment, which for text sets its color. This can be set using hex, keywords, or RGB. The fol¬ 
+lowing examples show each method in turn, and all have the same result: setting 
+paragraphs to black. 
+
+P { 
+
+color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+color: black; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+color: rgb(0j0,0); 
+
+} 
+
+
+71 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Declaring colors using RGB is rare in web design—hex is most popular, especially because 
+CSS supports so few keywords (see the section “Working with hex” in Chapter 4). 
+
+Remember to test your choices on both Windows and Mac, because there are differences 
+in the default color space for each platform. In general terms, the Mac default display set¬ 
+tings are brighter (or Windows is darker, depending on your outlook on life); if you use 
+subtle dark tones on the Mac, or very light tones on Windows, the result might be tricky to 
+view on the other platform. This should cause few problems with text, but some designers 
+insist on rendering text with very little contrast to the background color, and this ends up 
+being even harder to read on a different platform from the one on which it was created. 
+
+
+The main tip to keep in mind for color with regard to web-based text is simple: always 
+provide plenty of contrast so that your text remains readable. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Defining fonts 
+
+The font-family property enables you to specify a list of font face values, starting with 
+your preferred first choice, continuing with alternates (in case your choice isn’t installed 
+on the user’s machine), and terminating in a generic font family, which causes the browser 
+to substitute a similar font (think of it as a last resort). 
+
+
+selector { 
+
+font-family: preferred, alterate 1, alterate 2, generic; 
+
+} 
+
+The most common generic font family names are serif and sans-serif, although when 
+you’re using monospace fonts (such as Courier New), you should end your list with 
+monospace. 
+
+
+Multiple-word font family names must be quoted (such as "Trebuchet MS" and "Times 
+New Roman"). You can use single or double quotes—^just be consistent. Single-word font 
+family names should never be quoted. Examples of font-family in use are as follows: 
+
+
+hi { 
+
+font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; 
+
+} 
+
+pre { 
+
+font-family: Courier, "Courier New", Monaco, monospace; 
+
+} 
+
+
+72 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+pre is the element for preformatted text, used to display monospace text in an iden¬ 
+tical fashion to how it’s formatted in the original HTML document. It’s commonly used 
+for online FAQs, film scripts, and the like. 
+
+V_^_y 
+
+
+Web-safe fonts 
+
+Print designers have a world of fonts at their disposal, but the same isn’t true online. 
+Rather than being limited by installed fonts, you’re restricted by common fonts across var¬ 
+ious platforms. If end users don’t have the same fonts installed as you, they won’t see your 
+design like you do, rendering your choices pointless. 
+
+Over the next few pages. I’ll provide an overview of different available fonts for the 
+Web, but there are some handy online references that you should also bookmark. A page 
+comparing fonts common to the Mac and Windows is available at www.ampsoft. 
+net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html, and www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/ 
+sampler-Monospace.shtml details available monospace fonts for various systems. 
+
+Sans-serif fonts for the Web 
+
+Arial is a common font choice, largely because of its dominance on Windows. Its poor 
+design makes it unreadable at small sizes and a poor choice for body copy, although it can 
+be of use for headings. Mac users should be wary of choosing Helvetica—it’s an excellent 
+font, but it’s not generally shipped with Windows. Although you can specify fallback fonts 
+in CSS, again, there’s little point in making your first choice something that the majority of 
+people won’t see. 
+
+
+
+Despite its lack of penetration on Windows, Helvetica is often used as a fallback sans- 
+serif font, due to its prevalence on Linux. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Better choices for body copy are Verdana or Trebuchet MS. The former is typically a good 
+choice, because its spacious nature makes it readable at any size. Its bubbly design renders 
+it less useful for headings, though. Trebuchet MS is perhaps less readable, but it has plenty 
+of character, and is sometimes an interesting alternative, simply because it isn’t used all 
+that much online. 
+
+In recent times, Lucida variants have become popular, due to Apple using it not only as the 
+default font in Mac OS X, but also on its website. Despite Lucida Grande not being avail¬ 
+able for Windows, Lucida Sans Unicode is common and similar enough to be used as a first 
+fallback. Usefully, Lucida is common on UNIX systems, meaning that sites using Lucida vari¬ 
+ants can look fairly similar text-wise across all three major operating systems. Another 
+pairing—albeit one that’s less common—is Tahoma and Geneva, so use those with care, 
+providing more generic fallbacks. 
+
+
+73 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+See the following images for a comparison of several sans-serif fonts on Mac (left) and 
+Windows (right). 
+
+
+Anal (bold, 24px) 
+
+Arial (24px) 
+
+Ahal (12px) 
+
+Arial (9px) 
+
+Lucida Grande (bold, 24px) 
+Lucida Grande (24px) 
+
+Lucida Grande (L2px) 
+
+Lucida Grande (9px) 
+
+Trebuchet MS (bold, 24px) 
+Trebuchet MS (24px) 
+
+Trebuchet AAS (12px) 
+
+Trebuchet AAS (9px) 
+
+Verdana (bold, 24px) 
+
+Verdana (24px) 
+
+Verdana (12px) 
+
+Verdana (9px) 
+
+
+Arial (bold, 24px) 
+
+Arial (24px) 
+
+Arial {12px) 
+
+Anal(9px} 
+
+Lucida Grande (bold, 24px) 
+Lucida Grande (24px) 
+
+Lucida Grande (1 2px) 
+
+Lucida Grande (9px) 
+
+Trebuchet MS (bold, 24px) 
+Trebuchet MS(24px) 
+
+Trebuchet MS (12px) 
+
+Trebuchet MS |9px) 
+
+Verdana (bold, 24px) 
+
+Verdana (24px) 
+
+Verdana (12px) 
+
+Verdana (9px) 
+
+
+Serif fonts for the Web 
+
+Although popular in print, serif fonts fare less well online. If using serifs, ensure you ren¬ 
+der them large enough so that they don’t break down into an illegible mess. Georgia is 
+perhaps the best available web-safe serif, especially when used at sizes equivalent to 
+12 pixels and above, and it can be more suitable than a sans-serif if you’re working with 
+traditional subject matter, or if you’re attempting to emulate print articles (such as in the 
+following screenshot of the online column Revert to Saved; www.reverttosaved.com). 
+
+
+reverttosaved 
+craig grannell 
+
+
+
+navigate: 
+
+now / then / contact 
+
+
+□□□□□□ 
+
+
+21. PLAIN ENGLISH (DOT COM) 
+
+
+Even with the dying echoes of the 'boom' from the web's recentish 'boom and bust' 
+still ringing in many people's ears, there's no denying that the Internet remains a 
+fast-moving place. However, v^e technology has changed, words and languag e seem 
+to have evolved even faster. Therefore, Revert to Saved is proud to present the 
+'Dumbass-techie-speak-to-plain-£nglish phrasebook'. Print it out and take it with you 
+wherever you go, as many of these phrases have spread beyond the confines of your 
+monitor, and you don't want to look stupid, do you? (Unlike, for instance, the people 
+that actually use these phrases...) 
+
+
+Dumbass techie speak 
+
+^ Plain English 
+
+We must be proactive in having a 
+
+Tve just read an Internet magazine 
+
+
+74 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+The other commonly available serif font, Times New Roman (Times being a rough equiva¬ 
+lent on Linux systems), is inferior to Georgia, but worth using as a fallback. Like Arial, its 
+popularity is the result of its prevalence as a system font. 
+
+Elsewhere, Palatino is fairly common—installed by default on Windows (as Palatino 
+Linotype), and available on Mac systems that have Classic or iWork installed. Mac owners 
+with Office will also have the virtually identical Book Antiqua. That said, if using these 
+fonts, you’ll still need to fall back to safer serifs, as mentioned earlier. 
+
+See the following illustration for a comparison of serif fonts on Mac (left) and Windows 
+(right). 
+
+
+
+Georgia (bold, 24px) 
+
+Georgia ( 24 px) 
+
+Georgia (i 2 px) 
+
+Georgia {9px) 
+
+Palatino (bold, 24px) 
+
+Palatino (24px) 
+
+Palatino (12px) 
+
+Palatino (9px) 
+
+Times New Roman (bold, 24px) 
+Times New Roman (24px) 
+
+Times New Roman (I2px) 
+
+Times Sev Rtanao (9px) 
+
+
+Georgia (bold, 24px) 
+
+Georgia (24px) 
+
+(Georgia (i 2 px) 
+
+Georgia (9px) 
+
+Palatino Linotype (bold, 24px) 
+Palatino Linotype (24px) 
+
+Padatino Unoti,'pe (12px) 
+
+P&Utiito Linotype (9pa9 
+
+Times New Roman (bold, 24px) 
+
+Times New Roman (24px) 
+
+Times New Roman (12px) 
+
+TiaKS New Rcoan (dps) 
+
+
+Fonts for headings and monospace type 
+
+The remaining “safe” fonts are typically display fonts (for headings) or monospace fonts 
+for when each character needs to be the same width—for example, when adding code 
+examples to a web page. 
+
+Arial Black and Impact are reasonable choices for headings, although they must be han¬ 
+dled with care. The bold version of Impact looks terrible (and isn’t displayed at all in some 
+browsers), and some browsers by default render headings in bold, so this must be over¬ 
+ridden in CSS. Often, large versions of fonts mentioned in the previous two sections are 
+superior. 
+
+Courier New is more useful and a good choice when you need a monospace font. Note 
+that falling back to Courier for Linux is recommended. The pairing of Lucida Console 
+(Windows) and Lucida Sans Typewriter or Monaco (Mac) may also be suitable for mono¬ 
+space work, if you’re looking for a less “computery” feel. 
+
+Few other fonts are worth a mention, barring perhaps Comic Sans MS, which is inexplica¬ 
+bly popular with novice web designers. To give the font its due, it is readable, but its quirky 
+and unprofessional nature makes it unsuitable for most purposes (even comic artists 
+eschew it in favor of personalized fonts). 
+
+
+75 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The following image shows several of the fonts mentioned in this section, again with Mac 
+versions on the left and Windows versions on the right. 
+
+
+Anal Black (bold, 24px) 
+Arial Black (24px) 
+
+Arlal Black (12px) 
+
+Arial Black (9px) 
+
+Courier New (bold, 24px) 
+
+Courier New (24px) 
+
+Courier New (12px) 
+
+Courier Kev (9px) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (bold, 24px) 
+Comic Sans MS (24px) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (12px) 
+
+Comic Sons MS (9px) 
+
+tnmumuma 
+
+Impact (24in] 
+
+Impact I12 ik] 
+
+MpKiniBa 
+
+Lucida Sans Typewriter 
+
+Lucida Sans Typewriter 
+
+Lucida Sans Typewriter 
+Lucida Sans Typewriter 
+
+
+Arial Black (bold, 24px) 
+Arial Black (24px) 
+
+Arial Black (12px) 
+
+Arial Black (Spx) 
+
+Courier New (bold, 24px) 
+
+Courier New (24px) 
+
+Courier New (12px) 
+
+Ceuxier Hew (Spx) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (bold, 24px) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (24px) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (12px) 
+
+Comic Sans MS (9px} 
+
+Impact Ibold, 24 ihI 
+Impact (24IIK] 
+
+Plp»Ctn2B(] 
+
+mpKickKi 
+
+Lucida Console 
+Lucida Console (24px) 
+
+Lucida Console (12px) 
+
+Lucidk Console C9px> 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+While Windows Vista arrived with six great new “C” fonts (the serifs Cambria and 
+Constantia; the sans-serifs Calibri, Candara, and Corbel; and the monospace Consolas), 
+they’re not—at the time of writing—being made freely available, so if you choose to 
+use them, ensure that you fall back to relevant alternatives. The new Microsoft fonts 
+are not used or mentioned again in this book. 
+
+V_^_ 
+
+
+Mac vs. Windows: Anti-aliasing 
+
+When choosing fonts, it’s worth noting that how they look differs on Mac and Windows. By 
+default, Macs anti-alias onscreen text, which affects spacing—in fact, various anti-aliasing 
+algorithms can make text look slightly different in each browser. On Windows, aliased text 
+has historically made for jagged edges, but Internet Explorer 7 smoothes type via the font¬ 
+smoothing technology ClearType, introduced in Windows XP (disabled by default in XP, but 
+enabled in Vista system-wide). 
+
+For body copy, font-smoothing (or not) isn’t a major problem—although some prefer 
+aliased text and some prefer anti-aliased, both are fine, as long as the font size is large 
+enough. However, when it comes to rendering large text—such as for headings—aliased 
+text is significantly less visually pleasing. 
+
+
+76 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Aliased text is a simplified version of the original font, reduced to a black-and-white 
+bitmap. Anti-aliased text attempts to emulate the soft curves of the original font by 
+introducing gray or colored pixels at the edges. 
+
+V_^_ 
+
+
+Although arguments rage regarding which is the best method of displaying fonts onscreen, 
+this is a moot point for web designers, because you don’t control the end user’s setup and 
+therefore must be aware of each possibility. 
+
+Using images for text 
+
+Limitations imposed by web-safe fonts lead some designers to seek out alternative meth¬ 
+ods of creating online type. It’s common to use graphics (mostly GIFs, but sometimes 
+Flash, due to its vector-based, scalable nature) for text. If you have to follow a corporate 
+design style under pain of death, the ability to use graphics can be a lifesaver—after all, 
+most browsers happily render images, and they can be marked up within heading ele¬ 
+ments, so you can control things like margins via CSS and also retain the structural 
+integrity of your document. 
+
+However, graphical text has its share of problems: 
+
+■ Some browsers do not enable you to resize graphical text in a browser. 
+
+■ Because the Web is low-resolution, when a page is printed out, graphical text looks 
+pixilated and of poor quality. 
+
+■ Although GIF-based text tends to be small in terms of file size, it’s still larger than 
+HTML-based text. 
+
+■ People using alternate browsers, such as screen readers, cannot “see” graphical text 
+(although you can use the alt attribute to compensate). 
+
+■ Graphical text cannot be copied and pasted. 
+
+■ Graphical text cannot be read by search engines. 
+
+■ Graphical text is a pain to update. To change a word, you must rework the original 
+image, export and upload it, and, if the image size has changed, you must edit the 
+appropriate HTML documents and upload those, too. 
+
+In my opinion, graphics should be used as a last resort. A company’s style can be made 
+apparent by the use of a corporate logo and other imagery rather than by the use of a 
+font. Also, never, ever render body copy as an image. There are many sites out there with 
+body copy rendered as images, and quite frankly, every one of them makes me want to 
+scream. Such sites are often full of typos (perhaps because amending them requires the 
+entire graphic to be reworked, re-exported, and uploaded again), cannot be printed at 
+quality, and cannot be copied to a text editor. Some suggest this means the site’s text is 
+“secure.” But this goes against one of the fundamental benefits of the Web: that people 
+can share information, and that it can be easily copied and sent on to others. Sure, this 
+presents copyright implications, but everything online is subject to copyright anyway. Also, 
+plenty of sites commit the cardinal sin of rendering things like contact details as a 
+
+
+77 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+graphic—I’m sure their customers very much appreciate having to type such things out by 
+hand rather than just being able to copy them into their digital address books. 
+
+Image-replacement techniques 
+
+If you need a greater degree of typographical control over a portion of text, such as the 
+site’s main heading, there is an option that enables you to include an image and also 
+enable the text to remain in place, which is useful for users surfing the Web with screen 
+readers. This is generally known as image replacement. Note that the technique should be 
+used with care and sparingly—even from a basic practical standpoint, it doesn’t make a 
+great deal of sense to set all of your headings as images, simply because it takes time to 
+create and export each one. 
+
+Of the techniques available for replacing images, the most common is to assign the rele¬ 
+vant piece of text (usually a heading) a class value in HTML, and also add a dummy span 
+element before its content: 
+
+<hl class="aFancyHeading"><span></span>A fancy heading</hl> 
+
+In an image editor, an image-based version of the heading is created and saved, and its 
+dimensions measured. Example files for this are a-fancy-heading.gif, image-replacement, 
+css, and image-replacement.html, located in the chapter 3 folder. In the CSS file, you’ll 
+see rules created to define the dimensions of the heading (.aFancyHeading) and span 
+(.aFancyHeading span). The heading’s position value is set to relative, and the span ele¬ 
+ment is then positioned in an absolute fashion, which ensures that it sits over the text- 
+based heading’s content. The width and height values ensure that the span (and therefore 
+its background image) expands to fill its container. (Note that when used in conjunction 
+with links, it’s useful to also set display: block within the CSS rule so that the entire area 
+becomes clickable and the cursor becomes a pointer—this is because some versions of 
+Internet Explorer use the arrow pointer instead of the usual finger pointer. Alternatively, 
+set cursor to pointer in CSS.) The overflow: hidden property/value pair ensures text 
+doesn't peek out from behind the image—an issue that sometimes occurs in Internet 
+Explorer or when text is resized. To deal with zoomed text in IE 7, it may also be necessary 
+to set a pixel font-size value for the heading that’s smaller than the height of the image. 
+
+
+Setting overflow to hidden can be an issue when this technique is used in conjunction 
+with linked replaced elements, such as linked mastheads and logos. When tabbing 
+through links, replaced elements that have an overflow setting of hidden will become 
+displaced on receiving the focus, revealing the underlying text as well as the image 
+overlaying it. Caution needs to be used here. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+The following image shows a page using this technique with and without CSS. 
+
+
+78 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+i\ ffiNCy tiefi<E)iN(5 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+Deque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu 
+dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+
+
+
+Some methods focus on hiding the text by setting display to none in CSS, but that can 
+cause problems for screen readers, so avoid doing this. Others use text-indent to shift 
+the text off of the page, although using absolute positioning with negative top and left 
+coordinates is better—this prevents vertical space being taken up by the offset text, which 
+is quite often noticeable, especially if margins haven’t been controlled. 
+
+
+Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (slFR) is an alternative to replacing text with GIF 
+images. Instead, is uses a combination of CSS, Flash, and JavaScript to switch out a 
+block of text. Note that although this provides a great deal of typographic flexibility, it 
+should still be used sparingly—pages where too much text is switched out using slFR 
+tend to be extremely sluggish. See slFR Beauty fwww.alvit.de/sifrbeauty/ 
+sifr-resources.phpl for resources and Mike Davidson’s site fwww.mikeindustries. 
+com/sifr/l for further information. 
+
+^ - J 
+
+
+Defining font size and line height 
+
+In theory, defining font sizes should be easy enough. You use the font-size property, and 
+then you can set the value to an absolute size, a relative size, a length, or a percentage. For 
+instance, you might set the following: 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 12px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+79 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Alternatively, you might go for something like this: 
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 150%; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 90%; 
+
+} 
+
+Each method of sizing fonts has its advantages and disadvantages, which we’ll briefly 
+explore in this section of the book. 
+
+Setting text in pixels 
+
+Many designers specify font sizes in pixels, largely because pixels are the only measure¬ 
+ment that allows you to be relatively certain that your text will look pretty much identical 
+across various browsers and platforms (in the same way that sizing page sections in pixels 
+enables you to keep output consistent). Unfortunately, unlike every other major browser 
+on the market, Internet Explorer for Windows cannot resize pixel-based text, which cre¬ 
+ates an accessibility problem (although a user can choose to ignore font sizes via the little- 
+known accessibility controls). Internet Explorer’s Text Size menu only allows resizing of text 
+sized using legacy methods, keywords, or relative units other than pixels. (Note that 
+Internet Explorer 7 can zoom the entire page, but not the text alone.) 
+
+Therefore, if you decide to size text in pixels, ensure that your text is very readable. Test it 
+on various people and listen to feedback. If complaints come your way regarding the fact 
+that someone “had trouble reading the words,” or rooted around for a microscope before 
+giving up and playing solitaire, you need to increase your pixel size settings. The resulting 
+page might not look quite as “designery,” but at least people will be able to read it. 
+
+Setting text using keywords and percentages 
+
+A combination of keywords and percentages became fairly popular for a while on the 
+Web. Available keyword values are xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, and 
+xx-large. A keyword is used to set the base value, using a body selector in CSS, and per¬ 
+centages are then used to set sizes for specific elements, such as headings, paragraphs, and 
+lists. Here’s an example: 
+
+body { 
+
+font-size: small; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 93%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Keyword values don’t compound, and most modern browsers set a tower limit, even 
+on xx-small, so text tends never to enter the realm of the illegible. 
+
+^ _ J 
+
+
+80 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Although Internet Explorer for Windows can resize text set with keywords (as can all other 
+browsers), this method has several disadvantages. The most problematic from a design 
+perspective is that percentage values aren’t particularly consistent across browsers and 
+platforms. Scaling tends to “jump” at fairly arbitrary percentage sizes, so while 93% may 
+look the same in all browsers (using default font-size settings, at least), 94% may look like 
+100% in one and 93% in another. Also, it’s often tricky to equate percentages with the pixel 
+(or point) sizes typically used in mock-ups. 
+
+Also, browsers have historically dealt with keywords badly. Early versions of Netscape 4 
+ignored keywords entirely, and later releases followed the original specification to the 
+letter, which was updated accordingly when it was discovered that anything smaller than 
+medium looked like an ink-footed ant had taken a stroll across your monitor. Not to be out¬ 
+done, Internet Explorer 4 and 5 welded CSS keywords to Netscape font size tags, result¬ 
+ing in the browser displaying everything at the next size down. (You can use conditional 
+comments to set a different font-size value for Internet Explorer 5—see Chapter 9 for 
+more on this method.) 
+
+In more modern versions of Internet Explorer, fonts that are set to Small in the View > Text 
+Size menu can make keyword-set CSS text hard to read, but users can increase the text 
+size by using a more sensible setting. Also, it’s worth noting that this is up to user choice, 
+and having a tiny minority of users screwing up their own settings and potentially ending 
+up with unreadable text is better than the vast majority not being able to resize the text 
+because its size is defined in pixels. Still, there’s a better method for achieving this, as we 
+shall see. 
+
+Setting text using percentages and ems 
+
+As mentioned, the problem with sizing text in pixels is that the text is not resizable in 
+Internet Explorer. The main problem with using keywords and percentages is that the text 
+size isn’t consistent across platforms or that easy to define—at least in terms of hitting a 
+specific target size. This third method—and the one I typically use for websites I design— 
+enables you to create font sizes that are targeted at a pixel size, but are also resizable in 
+Internet Explorer, since the measurements are relative units. 
+
+The system works by first setting a base font size of 62.5% using a body selector: 
+
+body { 
+
+font-size: 62.5%; 
+
+} 
+
+Since most browsers have a default font size of 16 pixels, the previous rule then sets the 
+default size to 62.5% of that value—in other words, 10 pixels. From here, ems can be used 
+to define font sizes of specific elements, using values that are one-tenth of the target pixel 
+size: 
+
+
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 2.0em; /* will be the equivalent of 20px */ 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; /* will be the equivalent of 12px */ 
+
+} 
+
+
+81 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The system isn’t perfect—relative values defined in ems can be inherited, so if a list item is 
+within another list item, the size of the nested item(s) may increase or decrease, depend¬ 
+ing on the value assigned to the parent. However, override rules can easily get around this 
+problem (see “Dealing with font-size inheritance” in the “Working with lists” section later 
+in the chapter), and the method generally leads to more satisfactory results from a design, 
+control, and user point of view than either of the other two methods mentioned. It is 
+worth noting, however, that this method is somewhat reliant on the user—if someone has 
+changed the default font size in their browser, your design may not look as intended on 
+their browser, since the value defined for body may be 62.5% of something other than 
+16 pixels. Still, few people muck around with their browser settings, and the general con¬ 
+sensus in the industry is that the 62.5% method is the one to go for. 
+
+
+C \ 
+
+If using this method, ensure that the font-size setting of ail text-oriented elements 
+you use on the site is adjusted, otherwise you’ll end up with some illegible text set at 
+62.5% of the default font size. Also ensure you test your work at a range of text sizes 
+in various browsers, to ensure things still look OK if the text is zoomed in or out. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+There is one other thing to bear in mind, though: Internet Explorer (again). Although the 
+majority of browser-specific issues are left until Chapter 9 of this book, we’ll make an 
+exception now. Internet Explorer has problems with text-zooming when the font size is set 
+below 100%, so an additional rule is required: 
+
+html { 
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+This doesn’t adversely affect other browsers, so you’ll find this rule in the boilerplate doc¬ 
+uments from the download files, even thought it should technically be in the conditional 
+comments documents. 
+
+Setting line height 
+
+Graphic designers will be familiar with leading, and the CSS line-height property enables 
+you to set this. Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to be fairly generous with leading for 
+web pages, because text is harder to read onscreen than in print; by placing larger gaps 
+between each line, the eye can more easily scan through large blocks of text. 
+
+When setting line-height, you have various options, and can use a number, length, or 
+percentage: 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 14px; 
+line-height: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: l.Sem; 
+line-height: l.6em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+82 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: l.lem; 
+line-height: 1.5; 
+
+} 
+
+The difference between the font-size and line-height measurements is the leading 
+value. Half the value is applied above the text and half below. Should you use a number 
+alone, rather than a length or percentage, that value is multiplied by the font-size setting 
+to define the line height. For example, if font-size is set to lOpx and line-height is set 
+to 1 . 5 , the line-height value becomes I5px. 
+
+Many web designers who have no graphic design experience ignore the line-height 
+property, but, as mentioned earlier, it’s essential for improving the legibility of a web page. 
+In the following screenshots, the left images shows the default spacing and the right one 
+shows increased line height, resulting in increased legibility. 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet 
+
+ConMcteojcr adiptKiBi eUt MoA) oonmodo, ipum sed pbaicn ^vkla. otei 
+DUfoa ftwocus Deque, id putvinar odki kwesi aoo tuipis. S'ulkm sit amet efiim. 
+
+SuspendhAC Id velli riae vokapK coadfaneuiuin AUquim eni votuqm. Scd 
+
+quis v«liL NuQa ticilisi. SuOa libcro. Vivairau pba/eoa posuete upiCB. Nam 
+
+Scd alxfujun. nunc cset eunmod uUamcofpcr, nunc ullamcofpcr 
+orI. fcRDeotum Mbeaduni cnlm oU) eget Ipsum. 
+
+Dodk pnnMDr ttfula eu dolor. .Maooenaa vitae ouIIb comcquM bben cuiau 
+vvoeoatb. Nam inagna coim. aocumsao cu. bltadit sed. Ma^ a. eras. Quisque 
+fictUw cnt a doi. Nan malcsuada oman dolor. Cm i^vida, diam dl amet 
+risonau orur. em elk eontecteaier oat, Id egeoas nfiih eget odio. 
+
+PttNn UncidiBil. veht vd poita eJementum, imgaa dsam mdeatK sapm, non abquct 
+massa pedc eu diam. AUquim lacvlk. Pusce c< et nuOa olsd^ hcfllsis. 
+Dodcc egei sem sk amet ligula vivetia gnvida. Etaan vdiicwla uraa vel tuspis. 
+Sui^endisM sagnts ame a ona. 
+
+Motbi a at qua otei ooniequai rutnun. Nultam egota* feugiat fehi. Integer 
+adIplidAg sonper Ugula. Nunc isdeade. nU dt amet emus convallk. s^leti leciiH 
+pretiuffl metus. vkae ptedum ealin wisi id lectus. Dooec vestibuluni. Eliam vel oibh. 
+NuQa laciliai. Maum ptuBctn. Dooec augue. Futcc ulinces, neque id digmuin 
+ultricea. teUus maufto dktum eflt. vel bcinla e&kn oietus eu mnc. 
+
+Pmn at ems noei eiw adlptacaig moUH. Dooec senper uipts ted diam. Sed 
+cottsequai ligula occ loeior. Im^cr cgei sem. Ul vine eotm eu est vdiinila giavida. 
+
+MrwKt in ai im iwtirs tmtta iwr If wt tirSnr ntmtt IVtlf n if n»nnp 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet 
+
+Coosecinuer adipisckig elk. Motbl coninodo, Ipcuin sed pbareoa gravida, ord 
+magna itmocua neque, id pulvmar odio lotctn non aupia. NuUam ail amet emni. 
+
+Suspemlisae id vdii vitae ligula vokitpatcondimeaiutii. Aliquam cm vokitpaL Sed 
+quis velta. NuQa IkclUsi. Nulla Ubem. Vlvaenus pbaietra posuere sapieo. Nam 
+
+aliquafn. nunc cgct cusumd uUamcoqicr. nunc uQamcorpcr 
+oici. fcemciMum Nheodum eoim nibb eget ipsuffl. 
+
+Donee poettkor Ugula cu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequai libero cutsus 
+venenaut. .Nam magna enitn, aocuiman cu, ikandil sed, blandil a, eim. Quiaque 
+facilisis eral a dui. Nam maleauadt omiR dolor. Cns gravida, diam sk amet 
+rbcflou oreare. em elk cociaecieaier em. id egeans pedc nkki ega adk>. 
+
+Pimn ttncldum, vein vel porta eleenemum, mageta diam moleane uplen, non abqiiet 
+massa pede diam. AUquam iaevlis. Pusce ct ipsum et ouDa tristique facilisis. 
+Dooec eget sem tk amet Ugula viverra gravida. Iklam vebiaiia uma vel ttnpis. 
+Suspoxlisae sagkiis ante a unu. 
+
+Mofbi a eat quit and consequat ninuoi. NuDam egesiat fcugiai fells. Integer 
+
+
+Defining font-style, font-weight, and font-variant 
+
+These three properties are straightforward. The first, font-style, enables you to set italic 
+or oblique text. The former is often a defined face within the font itself, whereas the latter 
+is usually computed. Typically, web browsers treat both the same, and only the italic 
+value is in general use (except for the occasional use of normal—the default value—in 
+order to override something set elsewhere). 
+
+An element’s font-style is set like this: 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-style: italic; 
+
+} 
+
+
+The font-weight property is intended to make a font heavier or lighter, and despite the 
+various available values, only bold and normal are in general use. This is detailed in full in 
+the font-weight entry of Appendix D (CSS Reference). 
+
+
+83 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+•introParagraph { 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+The font-variant property has two available values: normal (the default) and small-caps. 
+Small caps are often used to de-emphasize uppercase letters in abbreviations and 
+acronyms, and are similar in size to a typeface’s lowercase characters. This property only 
+affects lowercase letters, and display of small caps varies across browsers and platforms— 
+for example, older versions of Internet Explorer simply render such text entirely in normal 
+caps (i.e., in standard uppercase letters). 
+
+
+CSS shorthand for font properties 
+
+The CSS properties discussed so far can be written in shorthand, enabling you to cut down 
+on space and manage your CSS font settings with greater ease. Like some other shorthand 
+properties, some rules apply: 
+
+■ Some browsers are more forgiving than others regarding required and optional 
+values, but you should always specify the font-size and font-family values, in 
+that order. 
+
+■ Omitted values revert to default settings. 
+
+■ The font-style, font-weight, and font-variant values, if included, should be 
+placed at the start of the rule (in any order), prior to the font-size value. 
+
+■ The font-size and line-height values can be combined using the syntax 
+font-size/line-height (e.g., 12px/l6px for 12px font-size and I6px 
+line-height). 
+
+A complete font declaration in shorthand could therefore look like this: 
+
+P { 
+
+font: italic small-caps bold 100%/I.3em Arial, Helveticaj 
+^ sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+The equivalent in longhand is the following: 
+
+P { 
+
+font-style: italic; 
+font-variant: small-caps; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+font-size: 100%; 
+line-height: l.Bem; 
+
+font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+As you can see, this is rather weightier! 
+
+
+84 
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+An invalid font declaration is shown in the following code block. Here, the font-weight 
+value (bold) is incorrectly placed after the font-family value, and the font-size value is 
+missing. 
+
+p.invalid { 
+
+font: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif bold; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Controlling text element margins 
+
+By default, browsers place margins around block-level text-based elements (such as head¬ 
+ings and paragraphs), which can be overridden by CSS. However, many designers get con¬ 
+fused when dealing with margins, so a good rule of thumb is to first remove all element 
+margins via the universal selector (see the “Zeroing margins and padding on all elements” 
+section in Chapter 2 for more information). 
+
+* { 
+
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Once you’ve done this, you should primarily control spacing between text elements via the 
+bottom margins: 
+
+hi, h2 { 
+
+margin-bottom: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+margin-bottom: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+In the previous example, the margins below headings are small, enabling the eye to rapidly 
+travel from the heading to the related body copy. The margin at the bottom of each para¬ 
+graph is one character high. 
+
+Should you decide, after applying styles, that more room is required between paragraphs 
+and subsequent headings, apply a top margin to the relevant level (or levels) of heading, 
+but be aware that vertical margins collapse. 
+
+Later in the chapter, a few exercises will show how margins (along with various other set¬ 
+tings) can affect the way a page looks and feels. Certainly, margin definitions shouldn’t be 
+throwaway—like in music, where the gaps are almost as important as the notes, the white- 
+space in typography is almost as important as the content. 
+
+
+
+Using text-indent for print-like paragraphs 
+
+
+Because of people’s familiarity with non-indented paragraphs on the Web, the W3C rec¬ 
+ommends staying away from indented ones. However, there are times when designers 
+yearn for a more print-based design, as in the following image. 
+
+
+85 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Lorcm ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Moibi 
+commodo, ipsum scd phaietra gravida, orei magna ihoncus neque, 
+id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. NuUam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae liguia volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Scd quis velit. 
+
+Nulla faeilisi. Nulla libcro. Vivamus phaicira posuere sapicn. 
+Nam consectetuer. Scd aliquam, nunc cgct cuismod ullamcorpcr, 
+Icctus nunc ullamcorpcr orci, fcrmcntum bibcndum enim nibh cgct 
+ipsum. Donee porttitor liguia eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, cros. 
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malcsuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id 
+egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+
+AlAtru^nfiitn fyiaonta Hiaiyi fW^lAcfiA c-arsiAn aliniiAt tyitaccQ ah 
+
+
+For this effect, two things not previously discussed in this book are required: the text- 
+indent CSS property and an adjacent sibling selector. This type of selector uses the syntax 
+A+B, where B is the subject of the selector. For paragraph indentation, the CSS rule would 
+look something like the following code block: 
+
+P+P { 
+
+text-indent: l.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+In plain English, this is saying, “If a paragraph follows another paragraph, indent the text by 
+1.5 ems”. Therefore, paragraphs preceded by a different element, such as a heading, won’t 
+be indented, as is traditional in print. 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that prior to version 7, Internet Explorer didn’t support adjacent sibling selec¬ 
+tors, and so this effect won’t work in version 6 or below of Microsoft’s browser. A 
+workaround would be to use a style sheet linked via a conditional comment to indent 
+all paragraphs for Internet Explorer 6 and below. See the “Dealing with Internet 
+Explorer bugs’’ section in Chapter 9 for more on conditional comments. 
+
+\ _ 
+
+
+Setting letter-spacing and word-spacing 
+
+The letter-spacing and word-spacing properties work in the same way, taking length 
+values or a default of normal. For letter-spacing, the value increases whitespace between 
+characters, and for word-spacing, the defined value increases whitespace between words. 
+Negative values are permitted, which cause characters or words to bunch together (or 
+kem, if you’re a graphic designer). A certain amount of experimentation is recommended 
+if you decide to use these properties. Because the Web’s resolution is low, subtle kerning 
+changes are hard to achieve online, and the results often end up looking clunky. Also, 
+spacing varies from platform to platform. One occasion when letter-spacing is worth 
+experimenting with, however, is when styling headings for web pages: a small increase in 
+the letter-spacing value can help further distinguish headings from body copy. 
+
+Examples of these properties in use are shown in the following code block: 
+
+
+86 
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+hi { 
+
+letter-spacing: 3px; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+word-spacing: 2px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Controlling case with text-transform 
+
+The text-transtorm property enables you to change the case of letters within an element. 
+Available values are capitalize, uppercase, lowercase, and none (the default). The 
+uppercase and lowercase values force the text of the applied element into the relevant 
+case regardless of the original content (e.g., enabling you to override the case of the orig¬ 
+inal content for ensuring that headings are consistent site-wide), whereas capitalize sets 
+the first letter of each word in uppercase. 
+
+In the following example, the first heading is styled as uppercase, the second as 
+lowercase, and the third as capitalize. Note that I wouldn’t recommend such a mix of 
+styles in a website—these rules are just examples of the properties in use. 
+
+Here’s the HTML: 
+
+<hl>A heading</hl> 
+
+<h2>Another heading</h2> 
+
+<h3>A third heading</h3> 
+
+Here’s the CSS: 
+
+hi { 
+
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+text-transform: lowercase; 
+
+} 
+
+h3 { 
+
+text-transform: capitalize; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Creating alternatives with classes and spans 
+
+It’s common in web design to define alternatives to the rules set for tag selectors (hi, h2, 
+p, etc.). This tends to happen most often in one of two situations. The first is when creat¬ 
+ing alternate styles for a portion of a web page (as in print, it’s often beneficial to use 
+different text for sidebars and boxouts—standalone boxes on a magazine page, either 
+housing supplementary information to the main article, or an entirely independent piece 
+that needs to be visually distinct from other content on the page—and sidebars to ensure 
+that each area of content is easy to distinguish from another). In this situation, it’s sensible 
+to define a default rule for each element using an element selector, and then create an 
+
+
+A HEADING 
+
+another heading 
+
+A Third Heading 
+
+
+87 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+override for the portion of the page that requires different text by using a contextual 
+selector. 
+
+For example, imagine a typical web page that has a sidebar that’s marked up as a div with 
+an id value of sidebar. You might use a different paragraph font in the sidebar, to differ¬ 
+entiate the text, like so: 
+
+P { 
+
+font: 1.2em/1.5 Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; 
+margin-bottom: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+#sidebar p { 
+
+font: 1.2em/1.5 Arial, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+The other occasion where alternatives are required is when creating one-off styles to over¬ 
+ride an existing style. In such cases, you can define a class in the CSS and then use a class 
+attribute to apply it to an element. Should you only want a portion of some text to take on 
+the style, you can surround the selection with a span element and apply the class to that 
+instead. 
+
+For example, if you wanted to create some “warning” text, you could use the following 
+CSS: 
+
+
+•warningText { 
+color: #ff0000; 
+font-size: 120%; 
+
+} 
+
+This can then be applied as follows: 
+
+<p class="warningText">This paragraph takes on the styles defined in 
+** the warningText class</p> 
+
+<p>0nly <span class="warningText">this portion</span> of this 
+^ paragraph takes on the warningText class styles.</p> 
+
+Avoid overusing span elements, though. Text works best when it's consistent across the 
+page. 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that the preceding CSS style has a capital letter halfway through it—this case is 
+known as lowerCamelCase, and is a method of writing multiple-word style names, 
+because underscores and spaces must be avoided in CSS. Take care if you do this, 
+because styles are case sensitive. If you set a class attribute value to warningtext 
+instead of warningText, many browsers fail to display the style, reverting to the 
+default style for the relevant element. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+88 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Styling semantic markup 
+
+The exercises in this section will combine the elements discussed so far in this chapter, 
+showing how to use the knowledge gained to style some semantic markup. Three different 
+examples are on offer, showing how rapidly you can create great-looking text when work¬ 
+ing with CSS, and also how you can easily restyle a page of text without touching the 
+markup. The markup that you’ll use is as per that in the next code block; and the default 
+web page, without any CSS applied, is shown to its right. 
+
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<hl>Article heading</hl> 
+
+<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+^ aliquet elementum erat. Integer 
+^ diam mij venenatis non, cursus 
+^ a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus 
+^ mi, tincidunt ornare, tempus 
+^ ut, eleifend nec, risus.</p> 
+
+<p>Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. 
+
+^ In urna sem, vehicula ut, 
+
+^ mattis et, venenatis at, velit. 
+
+^ Ut sodales lacus sed eros. 
+
+^ Pellentesque tristique senectus et 
+^ netus et malesuada fames 
+^ ac turpis egestas.</p> 
+
+<h2>Curabitur sit amet risus</h2> 
+
+<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+
+^ consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+^ aliquet elementum erat. Integer 
+^ diam mi, venenatis non, cursus 
+^ a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, 
+
+^ ut, eleifend nec, risus.</p> 
+
+<p>0uisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, 
+
+^ mattis et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. 
+
+^ Pellentesque tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames 
+^ ac turpis egestas.</p> 
+
+<h3>Praesent rutrum</h3> 
+
+<p>Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. Vivamus 
+^ ligula nunc, dictum a, tincidunt in, dignissim ac, odio.</p> 
+<h3>Habitant morbid</h3> 
+
+<p>Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. Vivamus 
+^ ligula nunc, dictum a, tincidunt in, dignissim ac, odio.</p> 
+</div> 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed aliquet elementum 
+erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, 
+tincidunt omare, ten^us ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, venenatis 
+at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus et netus et 
+malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consecretuer adipiscing elit. Sed aliquet elementum 
+erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, 
+tincidunt omare, tenq>us ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, venenatis 
+at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus et netus et 
+malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Praesent nitnim 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum e nim in orci. Vivamus ligula nunc, 
+dictum a, tincidunt in, digrussim ac, odio. 
+
+Habitant morbid 
+
+Nam scelerisque di gni.ssim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. Vivamus ligula nunc, 
+diemm a, tincidunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+
+tincidunt ornare, tempus 
+
+
+
+The code block is simple. The text has three levels of headings, with paragraphs between 
+them. Everything’s enclosed in a div element, which will be styled to restrict the width of 
+its content. This makes it simpler to see how the leading—defined via line-height—is 
+working out. If you were surfing at full-screen on a large monitor, the paragraphs might 
+only be shown on a single line. 
+
+
+89 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The default CSS document for these exercises has some rules common to all three exam¬ 
+ples. These are shown in the following code block: 
+
+* { 
+
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+html { 
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+body { 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+font-size: 62.5%; 
+
+} 
+
+#wrapper { 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+width: 400px; 
+
+} 
+
+The first rule, *, removes margins and padding from all elements, as discussed previously. 
+The html and body rules set the default size of the text on the web page to 62.5%, as 
+explained in the “Setting text using percentages and ems” section earlier in this chapter. 
+Finally, the #wrapper rule defines a width for the wrapper div, and therefore for its content. 
+
+
+Styling semantic markup: A basic example with proportional line heights 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-starting-point.html and styling- 
+semantic-text-starting-point.css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to style headings and paragraphs using sans-serif fonts 
+(Verdana for body copy and Arial for headings) and proportional, 
+unitless line-height settings. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-l.html and styling-semantic-text-1, 
+css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+1. Define the font defaults. Using a body selector, define a default font for the 
+web page, along with a default line-height value. As this is a basic example, 
+Verdana is used as the primary font, falling back to Arial and Helvetica. The unitless 
+line-height value means that elements will have proportional line heights based 
+on their font-size values, unless otherwise stated. 
+
+body { 
+
+font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+line-height: 1.5; 
+
+} 
+
+
+90 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+In the CSS, you’ll end up with two body selectors if you follow this to the letter—one 
+for dealing with padding and setting the default font size to 62.5%, and the other for 
+defining the default font-family value for the page, along with the line-height. This 
+enables these exercises to remain modular; in a real site, although it’s acceptable to 
+use selectors more than once, you should ensure property values and rules are 
+correctly housed in the relevant section of your boilerplates—see Chapter 10 and 
+Appendix D (CSS Reference) for more information on CSS management. 
+
+V_^_ 
+
+
+2 . Define common settings for headings. In this example, the top two levels of head¬ 
+ings will have the same font-family value. Therefore, it makes sense to use a 
+grouped selector to define this property: 
+
+hi, h2 { 
+
+font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+3. Define specific values for headings. How you style headings will depend on their 
+purpose. For these exercises, hi is the page heading, h2 is a subheading, and h3 is a 
+crosshead to introduce a section of copy. With that in mind, the crosshead needs to 
+be of similar size to the paragraphs, the main heading needs to be most prominent, 
+and the subheading needs to be somewhere in between. Therefore, in the CSS, the 
+hi element has a font-size value of 2.5em, the h3 has a much smaller l.2em, and 
+the h2 has an in-between 2em. 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 2.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: 2em; 
+
+} 
+
+h3 { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+
+} 
+
+4. Style the paragraphs, using the following rule. Whereas the space around headings 
+is taken care of with the line-height setting defined in the body selector, that 
+doesn’t work for paragraphs, which must have distinct space between them. 
+Therefore, along with a font-size property/value pair, a margin-bottom value sets 
+the space between each paragraph to slightly more than the height of one character. 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: l.lem; 
+margin-bottom: l.lem; 
+
+} 
+
+5. Refine the element spacing. At this point, the spacing is still a little suspect—the 
+crossheads don’t stand out enough. Therefore, add a margin-top value to the h3 
+rule; this provides a little extra space between paragraphs and level-three headings. 
+(As mentioned earlier, vertical margins collapse, so the space between a paragraph 
+with a bottom margin of l.lem and a level-three heading with a top margin of 
+l.65em is l.65em, not the sum of the two margins, which would be 2.75em.) 
+
+
+
+91 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+h3 { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+margin-top: 1.65em; 
+
+} 
+
+h3j p { 
+
+margin-left: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows what your completed page should look like. 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+aliquet elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, 
+hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, tincidunt ornare, tempos ut, 
+eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, 
+mattis et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. 
+Pellentesque tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac 
+turpis egestas. 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+aliquet elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, 
+hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, tincidunt ornare, tempos ut, 
+eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, 
+mattis et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. 
+Pellentesque tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac 
+turpis egestas. 
+
+Praesent rutrum 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. 
+Vivamus ligula nunc, dictum a, tincidunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+Habitant morbid 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. 
+Vivamus ligula nunc, dictum a, tincidunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+
+styling semantic markup: A modern example with sans-serif fonts 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-starting-point.html and styling- 
+semantic-text-starting-point.css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a contemporary-looking page of text using Lucida 
+fonts, as per the text on Apple’s website. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-2.html and styling-semantic-text-2, 
+css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+92 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+1. Set the font defaults. As in the previous exercise, use a body rule to define the 
+default font for the page, the first couple of choices of which are Lucida variants 
+that are installed on Mac OS and Windows. Other fonts are provided for legacy or 
+alternate systems. 
+
+body { 
+
+font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", Lucida, Arial, 
+
+^ Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+line-height: 1.5; 
+
+} 
+
+
+3 
+
+
+2. Style the main heading. An hi rule is used to style the main heading. The restrictive 
+value for line-height makes the leading value the height of one character of the 
+heading, meaning there’s no space underneath it. This means you can define an 
+explicit padding-bottom value can be defined, followed by a border-bottom (here, 
+1 pixel, solid, and very light gray), followed by a margin-bottom value. The 
+padding-bottom and margin-bottom values are the same, creating a very tight, 
+clean feel for the heading. Elsewhere, the color setting knocks it back slightly so 
+that it doesn’t overpower the other content, and the font-weight value removes 
+the default bold setting that browsers apply to headings. This helps the block of 
+text appear light and clean. 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: 1.8em; 
+
+line-height: lem; 
+
+padding-bottom: 7px; 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #cccccc; 
+
+margin-bottom: 7px; 
+
+color: #666666; 
+
+font-weight: normal; 
+
+} 
+
+
+When removing the default bold style from headings, check them across 
+platforms —on some Windows systems, non-bold headings can look a bit 
+spindly, depending on the settings. 
+
+) - 
+
+
+3. Style the other headings. For the next two heading levels, font-size values are 
+assigned. In keeping with the modern style, the crossheads are the same size as the 
+paragraph text (styled in the next step)—^just displayed in bold; the subheading (h2) 
+is slightly larger, making it a little more prominent. Again, the headings are colored 
+to make them blend in a little more, and not distract from the paragraph text. 
+
+h2, h3 { 
+color: #333333; 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+
+} 
+
+h3 { 
+
+
+93 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+margin-top: 1.65em; 
+
+} 
+
+4. Style the paragraphs. The font-size setting is larger than that used on many web¬ 
+sites (which typically tend toward 11 pixels, which would require a 1.1 em value in 
+this example), but this ensures clarity, and again, enhances the clean nature of the 
+design. 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+margin-bottom: 1.2em; 
+
+} 
+
+The final rule—an adjacent sibling selector—styles the paragraph following the 
+main heading, making the intro paragraph bold. It’s colored a dark gray, rather than 
+black, which would be overpowering and wreck the balance of the page. 
+
+hl+p { 
+
+font-weight: bold; 
+color: #222222; 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows what your completed page should look like. 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amett consectetuer adiplscing ellL Sed 
+aiiquet elementum erat Integer dlam ml, venenatis non, cursus 
+a, hendrerit at, ml. Morbl rlsus ml, tincldunt omare, tempos ut, 
+eieifend nec, Hsus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, mattis 
+et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque 
+tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adiplscing elit. Sed aiiquet 
+elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit 
+at, mi. Morbi risus mi. tincldunt ornare, tempus ut, eieifend nec, 
+risus. 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In urna sem, vehicula ut, mattis 
+et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque 
+tristique seneaus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Praesent rutrum 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. 
+Vtvamus iigula nunc, dictum a, tincldunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+Habitant morbid 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in orci. 
+Vivamus Iigula nunc, diaum a, tincldunt in, dignissim ac. odio. 
+
+
+94 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Styling semantic markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and a baseline grid 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-starting-point.html, styling- 
+semantic-text-starting-point.css, and styling-semantic- 
+text-baseline.gif from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a page of traditional-looking text as per a printed 
+book. The text adheres strictly to a baseline grid, maintaining the 
+page’s vertical rhythm. This requires some extra calculations when 
+it comes to defining line-height values. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-3.html and styling-semantic-text-3, 
+css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+1. Define a default font for the page. Using a body rule, a default font is chosen for 
+the web page. This design primarily uses the Georgia font—a serif—to enhance the 
+traditional feel. 
+
+body { 
+
+font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; 
+
+} 
+
+At this point, it’s also important to decide on a target line-height value for the 
+page. For this example, it’s going to be l8px. 
+
+2. Style the main heading. Here’s where things get a little tricky. For these examples, 
+we’re working with relative units. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, the 62.5% 
+method means that you can define font sizes by setting the font-size value to a 
+setting in ems that’s one-tenth of the target size in pixels. So, in the following code 
+block, the hi rule’s font-size value of l.Sem means it’s effectively displayed at 
+18 pixels (assuming the user hasn’t messed around with their browser’s default set¬ 
+tings, again as mentioned earlier). 
+
+For the line-height value to hit the target of 18 pixels, it must therefore 
+be 18 pixels or a multiple of it. However, when using ems, this value is relative to 
+the font-size value. One em is equal to the height of one character, and since 
+the font-size has been set to l.Sem (which is equivalent to 18 pixels), we set 
+line-height to lem. This makes the line-height of the hi element the equivalent 
+of 18 pixels. 
+
+Similar thinking is used to define the value for margin-bottom—this needs to be 
+18 pixels to keep the vertical rhythm going, so the value is set to lem. 
+
+hi { 
+
+font-size: l.Sem; 
+line-height: lem; 
+margin-bottom: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+95 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3. Style the subheading. For the subheading, the font-size value is set to l.4em. To 
+keep the line-height vertical rhythm going, you need to find the value that will 
+multiply with the font-size setting to create 1.8 (since 1.8em is the equivalent of 
+18 pixels). You can get this by dividing 1.8 by the font-size value, which results in 
+a line-height value of l.2857l42em. To keep the rhythm going, this setting can 
+then be used for both the margin-top and margin-bottom values. 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: 1.4em; 
+line-height: l.2857142em; 
+margin-top: 1.2857142em; 
+margin-bottom: 1.2857l42em; 
+
+} 
+
+However, what this serves to do is isolate the heading on its own line, rather than 
+making it obviously lead to the subsequent paragraph. Two solutions exist for deal¬ 
+ing with this. The first is simply to remove the bottom margin; the second is to 
+create asymmetrical margins, making the top margin larger than the bottom one. 
+To keep the entire space the element takes up strictly within the grid and not inter¬ 
+rupt the vertical rhythm too much, it’s sensible to take half the margin-bottom 
+value and add it to the margin-top value. 
+
+h2 { 
+
+font-size: 1.4em; 
+line-height: l.2857142em; 
+
+margin-top: 1.9285713em; 
+margin-bottom: 0.6428571em; 
+
+} 
+
+4. Style the crossheads and paragraphs. For this example, the crossheads and para¬ 
+graphs are identical, save for the default styling on the headings that renders them 
+in bold. The font-size value is l.2em. Again, 1.8 is divided by the font-size figure 
+to arrive at the line-height and margin values, both of which are set to i.Sem. 
+Note that the h3 rule has no margin-bottom value, meaning that each level-three 
+heading hugs the subsequent paragraph. 
+
+h3 { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+line-height: l.Sem; 
+margin-top: I.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+line-height: l.Sem; 
+margin-bottom: I.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+At this point, your page should look like the following image. 
+
+
+96 
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng eliL Sed aliquet 
+elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, 
+mi. Morbi risus mi, tinddunt omare, tempos ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faudbus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, 
+venenatis at, veUt. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus 
+et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Curabitur sit amct risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng elit. Sed aliquet 
+elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, 
+mi. Morbi risus mi, tinddunt omare, tempus ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faudbus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, 
+venenatis at, veht. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus 
+et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Praesent rutrum 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in ord. Vivamus 
+ligula nunc, dictum a, tinddunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+Habitant morbid 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in ord. Vivamus 
+ligula nunc, dictum a, tinddunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+
+
+5. Add a (temporary) grid. When working on text that adheres to a baseline grid, it 
+can help to create a tiled background image that you can use to check whether 
+your measurements are accurate. The 18-pixel-high image file, styling-semantic- 
+text-baseline.gif, has a single-pixel line at the bottom of the image. When 
+applied to the wrapper div’s background via the #wrapper rule (see the following 
+code), a ruled background is shown. Although intended as a temporary design aid, 
+you could retain the grid permanently, because it can help readers to rapidly skim 
+text. However, the aid only works when a browser is using default settings—when 
+the text is enlarged, the background image stays as it is, resulting in the grid of the 
+image and the grid of the text being out of sync. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+width: 400px; 
+
+background: url(styling-semantic-text-baseline.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows how this image works behind the text styled in this 
+exercise—as you can see, the vertical rhythm is maintained right down the page. 
+
+
+97 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing eUt. Sed aliquet_ 
+
+elementum erat. Integer diaro mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, 
+mi. Morbi risus mi, tinddunt omare, tempos ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faudbus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, 
+venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus 
+et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+
+Curabitur sit amct risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng eUt. Sed aliquet 
+elementum erat. Integer diam mi, venenatis non, cursus a, hendrerit at, 
+mi. Morbi risus mi, tinddunt omare, tempus ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+Quisque faudbus lorem eget sapien. In uma sem, vehicula ut, mattis et, 
+venenatis at, veht. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque tristique senectus 
+et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+Praesent rutrum 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in ord. Vivamus 
+ligula nunc, dictum a, tinddunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+
+Habitant morbid _ 
+
+Nam scelerisque dignissim quam. Ut bibendum enim in ord. Vivamus 
+ligula nunc, dictum a, tinddunt in, dignissim ac, odio. 
+
+
+Creating drop caps and pull quotes using CSS 
+
+The previous exercise showed how something aimed primarily at the world of print 
+design—a baseline grid—can actually work well online, and this section will continue that 
+theme, showing how to use CSS to create drop caps and pull quotes. Drop caps—large let¬ 
+ters typically used at the start of a printed article—are rare online, although they can be a 
+useful way of drawing the eye to the beginning of the body copy. Pull quotes are more 
+common, and while part of their use in print—taking a choice quote and making it stand 
+out on the page to draw in the reader—is less effective online, pull quotes are still handy 
+for highlighting a piece of text (such as a quote or idea) or for providing client quotes on 
+a company website. 
+
+
+Creating a drop cap using a CSS pseudo-element 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-2.html and styling-semantic-text-2, 
+css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a drop cap for a website, and how to use the CSS 
+float property. Any element can be floated left or right in CSS, 
+and this causes subsequent content to wrap around it. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+drop-cap.html and drop-cap.css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+98 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+1 . Create a new rule that targets the relevant character. For this, you can use a 
+pseudo-element, first-letter, and the adjacent sibling selector created earlier in 
+the “Styling semantic markup” section. See Appendix D (“CSS Reference”) for more 
+on pseudo-elements. 
+
+hl+p:first-letter { 
+
+} 
+
+In plain English, this rule is saying, “Apply this rule to the first letter of the para¬ 
+graph that follows the level-one heading.” 
+
+2 . Float the character and increase its size. Add a float: left property/value pair to 
+float the first character in the paragraph to the left, which makes subsequent con¬ 
+tent wrap around it. Then set a large font-size value to increase the size of the 
+character compared to the surrounding text. 
+
+hl+p:first-letter { 
+
+float: left; 
+font-size: 3em; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Finally, tweak the positioning. Define a line-height value and margin-top value to 
+vertically position the character; you may need to experiment some when working 
+on your own designs outside of this exercise, since the values required are some¬ 
+what dependent on the font-size setting. The margin-right setting provides 
+some spacing between the drop cap and the subsequent text. 
+
+hl+p:first-letter { 
+float: left; 
+font-size: 3em; 
+
+line-height: l.Oem; 
+margin-top: -3px; 
+margin-right: O.lSem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+A/ofe that you can use the first-line pseudo-element to target the first 
+line of some text—for example, to make it bold, which is a commonly used 
+design element in magazines. 
+
+(- J 
+
+
+Although this technique is the most straightforward one for working with drop 
+caps, the results aren’t entirely satisfactory. Due to the way different browsers deal 
+with the first-letter pseudo-element, display isn’t particularly consistent across 
+browsers and platforms—see the following two images, which show the results in 
+Firefox and Safari. Therefore, if you want to use drop caps with more precision, it’s 
+best to fall back on a more old-fashioned but tried-and-tested method: the span 
+element. 
+
+
+99 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+L orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adlpisclng 
+S€d allquet elementum eraL Integer diam ml, vener 
+non, cursus a, hendrerit at, ml. Morbi risus mi, tind 
+ornare, tempos ut, elelfend nec, risus. 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+L orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscint 
+Sed aliquet elementum erat. Integer diam mi, vener 
+non, cursus a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, tincldun 
+tempus ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+
+Creating a drop cap with span elements and CSS 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-semantic-text-2•html and styling-semantic-text-2^ 
+css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a drop cap for a website, using span elements to aid 
+positioning. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+drop-cap-with-spans.html and drop-cap-with-spans.css from 
+the chapter 3 folder. The variant with colored backgrounds uses 
+the files drop-cap-with-spans-b.html and drop-cap-with-spans- 
+b,css. 
+
+
+1 . Add the span elements. Wrap a span element around the first character of the 
+paragraph and give it a class value of dropCap. Wrap another span element 
+around the initial character, without any class attribute. The additional span 
+makes it easier to fine-tune the positioning of the drop cap. 
+
+cpxspan class="dropCap"><span>L</span></span>orem ipsum dolor [...] 
+
+2 . Size the drop cap. Using a contextual selector, define a font-size setting of 4.8em 
+for the content of the span element within the dropCap span. This is the height of 
+three lines of text, from the top of a character in the first line to the bottom of a 
+character in the third. 
+
+•dropCap span { 
+font-size: 4.8em; 
+line-height: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Float the drop cap. In order for subsequent text to flow around the drop cap, it has 
+to be floated. This is done via the float: left property/value pair. The display: 
+block pair sets the dropCap span as a block-level element, enabling you to set edge 
+dimensions for it. By defining a height value that’s slightly smaller than the 
+font-size setting, subsequent text won’t sit underneath the drop cap once it’s cor¬ 
+rectly positioned. 
+
+•dropCap { 
+float: left; 
+height: 4-7em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+100 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+4 . Tweak positioning of the drop cap. Use top and left margins (positive and negative) 
+to move the drop cap into position, so that it correctly lines up with the other text 
+on the page. The margin-right setting ensures that text to the right of the drop 
+cap doesn’t hug it. 
+
+•dropCap { 
+float: left; 
+height: 4.7em; 
+margin-top: -0.2em; 
+margin-left: -0.4em; 
+margin-right: O.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows what your page should look like so far. 
+
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+L orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit 
+Sed aliquet elementum erat Integer diam mi, venenatis 
+non, cursus a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, tincldunt 
+omare, tempos ut, elelfend nec, risus. 
+
+
+5 . Review the code and add a colored background. This method also isn’t without its 
+problems—the span elements have no semantic value and are therefore “bloated 
+code”; and the values set in steps 2 and 3 require some experimentation for each 
+different font and paragraph setting you use them with. However, it usually doesn’t 
+take long to get everything working, and once you have a design, it’s easy enough 
+to tweak. For example, amend the rules as follows to change the drop cap to one 
+with a colored background: 
+
+•dropCap { 
+float: left; 
+height: 3.9em; 
+margin-top: -0.2em; 
+margin-left: -0.4em; 
+margin-right: O.Sem; 
+border: Ipx solid #aaaaaa; 
+background: #dddddd; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+padding: 0.2em 0.6em; 
+
+} 
+
+•dropCap span { 
+font-size: 4.0em; 
+line-height: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+101 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Article heading 
+
+orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng eiiL 
+Sed aliquet elementum erat Integer diam ml, venenatis 
+
+__J non, cursus a, hendrerit at, mi. Morbi risus mi, tincldunt 
+
+omare, tempos ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Note that the image-replacement techniques described earlier in the chap¬ 
+ter offer another means of adding a drop cap of a more graphical nature, 
+should such a thing be required. 
+
+\ _ ^ _ / 
+
+
+Creating pull quotes in CSS 
+
+
+Required files styling-semantic-text-2.html, styling-semantic-text-2.css, 
+quote-open.gif, and quote-close.gif from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn How to create a magazine-style pull quote, which can draw the 
+
+user’s attention to a quote or highlight a portion of an article. 
+
+Completed files pull-quote.html and pull-quote.css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add the HTML. The required markup for a basic pull quote is simple, centering 
+around the blockquote element and nesting a paragraph within. Add the following 
+to the web page, above the code <h2>Curabitur sit amet risus</h2>: 
+
+<blockquote> 
+
+<p>This is the pull quote. It's really very excitingj so read it now! 
+^ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</p> 
+</blockquote> 
+
+2 . Style the blockquote element. Create a blockquote rule and use the background 
+property to add the open quote image as its background. Set vertical margins that 
+are larger than the margins between the paragraphs (to ensure that the pull quote 
+stands out from the surrounding text) and the horizontal margins (to ensure that 
+the pull quote doesn't span the entire column width, which also helps it visually 
+stand out). 
+
+blockquote { 
+
+background: url(quote-open.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; 
+margin: 2.4em 2em; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style the pull quote paragraph text. Using the contextual selector blockquote p, 
+style the paragraph text within the blockquote element. Making the text bold and 
+larger than the surrounding copy helps it stand out—but to ensure it doesn’t 
+become too distracting, knock back its color a little. 
+
+
+102 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+blockquote p { 
+color: #555555; 
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+text-align: justify; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Use the background property to add the closing quote mark, which is added to the 
+paragraph, since you can only add one background image to an element in CSS. 
+The background’s position is set to 100% 90%—far right and almost at the bottom. 
+Setting it at the absolute bottom would align the closing quote with the bottom of 
+the leading under the last line of the paragraph text; setting the vertical position 
+value to 90%, however, lines up the closing quote with the bottom of the text itself. 
+
+blockquote p { 
+color: #555555; 
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+text-align: justify; 
+
+background: url(quote-close.gif) 100% 90% no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Tweak the positioning. If you test the page now, you’ll see the paragraph content 
+appearing over the top of the background images. To avoid this, padding needs to 
+be applied to the quote mark to force its content inward, but still leave the back¬ 
+ground images in place. Since the quote images are both 23 pixels wide, a horizon¬ 
+tal padding value of 33px provides room for the images and adds an additional 10 
+pixels so that the content of the paragraph doesn’t abut the quote marks. Finally, 
+the default margin-bottom value for paragraphs is overridden (via a 0 value), since 
+it’s redundant here. 
+
+blockquote p { 
+color: #555555; 
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+text-align: justify; 
+
+background: url(quote-close.gif) 100% 90% no-repeat; 
+
+padding: 0 33px; 
+margin-bottom: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows your pull quote page so far. 
+
+
+
+et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque 
+tristique seneaus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+44 This is the pull quote. It*s really very 
+exciting, so read it nowl Lorem ipsum dolor 
+sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit 99 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, conseaetuer adipiscing eitt. Sed aliquet 
+
+
+103 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+6 . Next, credit the quotation. To add a credit to the quote, add another paragraph, 
+with a nested cite element, inside which is the relevant content. 
+
+<blockquote> 
+
+<p>This is the pull quote. It's really very excitingj so read it now! 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</p> 
+<p><cite>Fred Bloggs</cite></p> 
+
+</blockquote> 
+
+7 . In CSS, add the following rule: 
+cite { 
+
+background: none; 
+display: block; 
+text-align: right; 
+font-size: l.lem; 
+font-weight: normal; 
+font-style: italic; 
+
+} 
+
+8 . Some of the property values in cite are there to override the settings from block- 
+quote p, and to ensure that the second paragraph’s text is clearly distinguishable 
+from the quote itself. However, at this point, both paragraphs within the block- 
+quote element have the closing-quote background, so a final rule is required. 
+
+blockquote>p+p { 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+This fairly complex rule uses both a child selector (>) and an adjacent selector (+), 
+and styles the paragraph that comes immediately after the paragraph that’s a child 
+element of the blockquote (which is the paragraph with the cite element). The 
+rule overrides the background value defined in step 5 for paragraphs within the 
+block quote). Note that this assumes the quote itself will only be a single para¬ 
+graph. If you have multi-paragraph quotes, you’ll need to apply a class to the final 
+paragraph and set the quote-close.gif image as a background on that, rather 
+than on blockquote p. 
+
+
+et, venenatis at, velit. Ut sodales lacus sed eros. Pellentesque 
+tristique seneaus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+(( This is the pull quote. It's really very 
+exciting, so read it now) Lorem ipsum dolor 
+sit amet, consectetuer ad^iscing elit 99 
+Fred Bloggs 
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing ellt. Sed allquet 
+
+
+
+
+“A 
+
+
+V 
+
+
+J 
+
+
+104 
+
+
+Note that the advanced selector shown isn’t understood by versions of Internet 
+Explorer prior to 7. The best workaround for that browser is to use conditional com¬ 
+ments (see Chapter 9) to remove the quote graphic backgrounds. 
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Using classes and CSS overrides to create an alternate pull quote 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+pull-quote.html and pull-quote.css from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use CSS classes to create alternatives to the default pull 
+quote. In this example, you’ll create a narrow pull quote that floats 
+to the right of the body copy. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+pull-quote-2.html and pull-quote-2.css from the chapter 3 
+folder. 
+
+
+1 . Amend the HTML. First, add a class to the blockquote element so that it can be 
+targeted in CSS: 
+
+cblockquote class="floatRight"> 
+
+2 . Position the blockquote. Create a new CSS rule that targets the blockquote from 
+the previous step by using the selector blockquote.floatRight. Set float and 
+width values to float the pull quote and define its width. 
+
+blockquote.floatRight { 
+float: rightj 
+width: 150px; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Remove the quote mark background image by setting background to none. Add the 
+two border property/value pairs shown to visually separate the pull quote from its 
+surroundings, drawing the eye to its content. 
+
+blockquote.floatRight { 
+float: right; 
+width: ISOpx; 
+background: none; 
+border-top: 5px solid #dddddd; 
+border-bottom: 5px solid #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Add padding and margins. First, add vertical padding to ensure that the pull quote’s 
+contents don’t hug the borders added in the previous step. Next, define margin 
+values, overriding those set for the default blockquote from the previous exercise. 
+Because this alternate pull quote is floated right, there’s no need for top and right 
+margins, hence them being set to 0; the bottom and left margin values are left 
+intact 
+
+blockquote.floatRight { 
+float: right; 
+width: 150px; 
+background: none; 
+border-top: 5px solid #dddddd; 
+border-bottom: 5px solid #dddddd; 
+padding: lOpx 0; 
+
+
+105 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+margin: 0 0 2em 2.4em; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Override the paragraph styles. The background and padding settings for the default 
+blockquote style are no longer needed, so they’re set to none and 0, respectively. 
+Finally, text-align is set to center, which is appropriate for a narrow pull quote 
+such as this. 
+
+blockquote.floatRight p { 
+text-align: center; 
+background: none; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Curabitur sit amet risus 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+
+This is the pull quote. 
+
+conseaetuer adipiscing elit. Sed 
+
+It’s really very 
+
+aliquet elementum erat. integer diam 
+
+exciting, so read it 
+
+mi, veneriatls non, cursus a, hendrerit 
+
+now! Lorem ipsum 
+
+at, mi. MorbI risus mi, tincidunt ornare. 
+
+dolor sit amet, 
+
+lempus ut, eleifend nec, risus. 
+
+consectetuer 
+
+Quisque faucibus lorem eget sapien. In 
+
+adipiscing elit 
+
+urna sem, vehicula ut, maitis et, 
+
+Fred Bloggs 
+
+venenatis at, velit. Ut sodaies lacus sed 
+eros. Pellentesque tristique seneaus et 
+neius et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. 
+
+
+Adding reference citations 
+
+The blockquote element can have a cite attribute, and the content from this attribute 
+can be displayed by using the following CSS rule. Note, however, that at the time of writ¬ 
+ing, this doesn’t work in Internet Explorer. 
+
+blockquote[cite]:after { 
+display : block; 
+margin : 0 0 5px; 
+padding : 0 0 2px 0; 
+font-weight : bold; 
+font-size : 90%; 
+
+content : "[source: "" " attr(cite)"]"; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Working with lists 
+
+This chapter concludes with the last of the major type elements: the list. We’ll first look at 
+the different types of lists—unordered, ordered, and definition—and also see how to nest 
+them. Then we’ll move on to cover how to style lists in CSS, list margins and padding, and 
+inline lists. 
+
+
+106 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+Unordered lists 
+
+The unordered list, commonly referred to as a bullet point list, is the most frequently seen 
+type of list online. The list is composed of an unordered list element (<ul></ul>) and any 
+number of list items within, each of which looks like this (prior to content being added): 
+<li></li>. An example of an unordered list follows, and the resulting browser display is 
+shown to the right. As you can see, browsers typically render a single-level unordered list 
+with solid black bullet points. 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List item one</li> 
+
+<li>List item two</li> 
+
+<li>List item 'n'</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+
+• List item one 
+
+• List item two 
+
+• List item'n' 
+
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Unlike HTML, XHTML lists require end tags on oil list elements. In 
+HTML, the </li> end tog was optional. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+Ordered lists 
+
+On occasion, list items must be stated in order, whereupon an ordered list is used. It works 
+in the same way as an unordered list, the only difference being the containing element, 
+which is <ol></ol>. 
+
+<ol> 
+
+<li>List item one</li> 
+
+<li>List item two</li> 
+
+<li>List item 'n'</li> 
+
+</ol> 
+
+
+1. List item one 
+
+2. List item two 
+
+3. List item'n' 
+
+
+Web browsers automatically insert the item numbers when you use ordered lists. The 
+only way of controlling numbering directly is via the start attribute, whose value dic¬ 
+tates the first number of the ordered list. Note, though, that this attribute is depre¬ 
+cated—use it and your web page will not validate as XHTML Strict. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Definition lists 
+
+A definition list isn’t a straightforward list of items. Instead, it’s a list of terms and explana¬ 
+tions. This type of list isn’t common online, but it has its uses. The list itself is enclosed in 
+the definition list element (<dl></dl>), and within the element are placed terms and def¬ 
+initions, marked up with <dt></dt> and <dd></dd>, respectively. Generally speaking, 
+browsers display the definition with an indented left-hand margin, as in the following 
+example. 
+
+
+107 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<dl> 
+
+<dt>Cat</dt> 
+
+<dd>Four-legged, hairy animal, with an 
+^ inflated sense of self-importance</dd> 
+
+<dt>Dog</dt> 
+
+<dd>Four-legged, hairy animal, often with 
+^ an inferiority complex</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+Nesting lists 
+
+Lists can be nested, but designers often do so incorrectly, screwing up their layouts and 
+rendering web pages invalid. The most common mistake is placing the nested list outside 
+any list items, as shown in the following incorrect example: 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List item one</li> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li>Nested list item one</li> 
+
+<li>Nested list item two</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+<li>List item two</li> 
+
+<li>List item 'n'</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+Nested lists must be placed inside a list item, after the relevant item that leads into the 
+nested list. Here’s an example: 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List item one 
+<ul> 
+
+<li>Nested list item one</li> 
+
+<li>Nested list item two</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+<li>List item two</li> 
+
+<li>List item 'n'</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+Always ensure that the list element that contains the nested list is closed with an end tag. 
+Not doing so is another common mistake, and although it’s not likely to cause as many 
+problems as the incorrect positioning of the list, it can still affect your layout. 
+
+
+Cat 
+
+Four-legged, hairy animal, 
+with an inflated smse of 
+self-importance ^ 
+
+Dog 
+
+Four-legged, hairy animal, 
+often with an inferiority 
+complex 
+
+
+Styling lists with CSS 
+
+Lists can be styled with CSS, making it easy to amend item spacing or create custom bullet 
+points. I tend to think bullet points work well for lists. They’re simple and—pardon the 
+pun—to the point. However, I know plenty of people would rather have something more 
+visually interesting, which is where the list-style-image property comes in. 
+
+
+108 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+list-style-image property 
+
+The list-style-image property replaces the standard bullet or number from an 
+unordered or ordered list with whatever image you choose. If you set the following in your 
+CSS, the resulting list will look like that shown to the right. (Note that this is the nested list 
+created earlier in this chapter.) 
+
+ul { 
+
+list-style-image: url(bullet.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+Contextual selectors were first mentioned in Chapter 1 
+(see the section “Types of CSS selectors”). These enable 
+you to style things in context, and this is appropriate when working with lists. You can style 
+list items with one type of bullet and nested list items with another. The original rule stays 
+in place but is joined by a second rule: 
+
+ul { 
+
+list-style-image: url(bullet.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+ul ul { 
+
+list-style-image: url(bullet-level-two.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+This second rule’s selector is ul ul, which means that the declaration is applied only to 
+unordered lists within an unordered list (i.e., nested lists). The upshot is that the top-level 
+list items remain with the original custom bullet, but the nested list items now have a dif¬ 
+ferent bullet graphic. 
+
+With this CSS, each subsequent level would have the nested list bullet point, but it’s feasi¬ 
+ble to change the bullet graphic for each successive level, by using increasingly complex 
+contextual selectors. 
+
+
+□ 
+
+List item one 
+
+
+-1 Nested list item one 
+
+
+-1 Nested list item two 
+
+□ 
+
+List item two 
+
+□ 
+
+List item 'n' 
+
+
+□ 
+
+List item one 
+
+
+□ Nested list item one 
+
+
+□ Nested list item two 
+
+□ 
+
+List item two 
+
+□ 
+
+List item 'n' 
+
+
+
+When using custom bullet images, be wary of making them too large. Some browsers 
+clip the bullet image, and some place the list contents at the foot of the image. In all 
+cases, the results look terrible. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Dealing with font-size inheritance 
+
+Most of the font-size definitions in this chapter (and indeed, in this book) use relative 
+units. The problem with using ems, however, is that they compound. For example, if you 
+have a typical nested list like the one just shown, and you define the following CSS, the 
+first level of the list will have text sized at I.Sem; but the second-level list is a list within a 
+list, so its font-size value will be compounded (1.5 X 1.5 = 2.25em). 
+
+
+109 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+html { 
+
+
+□ List Item one 
+
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+body { 
+
+
+j Nested list item one 
+j Nested list item two 
+
+
+font-size: 62.5%; 
+font-family: Verdana, Arial 
+
+
+□ List item two 
+
+□ List item 'n' 
+
+
+^ Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+li { 
+
+
+font-size: l.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+The simple workaround for this is to use a contextual selector—li li—to set an explicit 
+font-size value for list items within list items, as shown in the following rule. 
+
+li li { 
+
+font-size: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+With this, all nested lists take on the same font-size value as the parent list, which in this 
+case is l.Sem. 
+
+list-style-position property 
+
+This property has two values: inside and outside. The latter is how list items are usually 
+displayed: the bullet is placed in the list margin, and the left margin of the text is always 
+indented. However, if you use inside, bullets are placed where the first text character 
+would usually go, meaning that the text will wrap underneath the bullet. 
+
+list-style-type property 
+
+The list-style-type property is used to amend the bullets in an unordered or ordered 
+list, enabling you to change the default bullets to something else (other than a custom 
+image). In an unordered list, this defaults to disc (a black bullet), but other values are 
+available, such as circle (a hollow disc bullet), square (a square bullet), and none, which 
+results in no bullet points. For ordered lists, this defaults to decimal (resulting in a num¬ 
+bered list), but a number of other values are available, including lower-roman (i, ii, iii, etc.) 
+and upper-alpha (A, B, C, etc.) A full list of supported values is in Appendix D (CSS 
+Reference). 
+
+Generally speaking, the values noted are the best supported, along with the upper and 
+lower versions of roman and alpha for ordered lists. If a browser doesn’t understand the 
+numbering system used for an ordered list, it usually defaults to decimal. The W3C rec¬ 
+ommends using decimal whenever possible, because it makes web pages easier to navi¬ 
+gate. I agree—things like alpha and roman are too esoteric for general use, plus there’s 
+nothing in the CSS specifications to tell a browser what to do in an alphabetic system after 
+z is reached (although most browsers are consistent in going on to aa, ab, ac, etc.). 
+
+
+110 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+List style shorthand 
+
+As elsewhere in CSS, there is a shorthand property for list styles, and this is the aptly 
+named list-style property. An example of its use is shown in the following piece of CSS: 
+
+ul { 
+
+list-style-type: square; 
+list-style-position: inside; 
+list-style-image: url(bullet.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+which can be rewritten as follows: 
+ul { 
+
+list-style: square inside url(bullet.gif); 
+
+} 
+
+List margins and padding 
+
+Browsers don’t seem to be able to agree on how much padding and margin to place 
+around lists by default, and also how margin and padding settings affect lists in general. 
+This can be frustrating when developing websites that rely on lists and pixel-perfect ele¬ 
+ment placement. By creating a list and using CSS to apply a background color to the list 
+and a different color to list items, and then removing the page’s padding and margins, you 
+can observe how each browser creates lists and indents the bullet points and content. 
+
+In Gecko browsers (e.g., Mozilla Firefox), Opera, and Safari, the list background color is 
+displayed behind the bullet points, which suggests that those browsers place bullet points 
+within the list’s left-hand padding (because backgrounds extend into an element’s 
+padding). Internet Explorer shows no background color there, suggesting it places bullet 
+points within the list’s left-hand margin. 
+
+This is confirmed if you set the margin property to 0 for a ul selector in CSS. The list is 
+unaffected in all browsers but Internet Explorer, in which the bullets abut the left edge of 
+the web browser window. Conversely, setting padding to 0 makes the same thing happen 
+in Gecko browsers. Safari, and Opera. 
+
+To get all browsers on a level playing field, you must remove margins and padding, which, 
+as mentioned previously in this book, is done in CSS by way of the universal selector: 
+
+* { 
+
+margin: 0; 
+padding: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+With this in place, all browsers render lists in the same way, and you can set specific values 
+as appropriate. For example, bring back the bullet points (which may be at least partially 
+hidden if margins and padding are both zeroed) by setting either the margin-left or 
+padding-left value to l.Sem (i.e., set margin: 0 0 0 l.Sem or padding: 0 0 0 l.Sem). 
+The difference is that if you set padding-left, any background applied to the list will 
+
+
+111 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+appear behind the bullet points, but if you set margin-left, it won’t. Note that l.Sem is a 
+big enough value to enable the bullet points to display (in fact, lower values are usually 
+sufficient, too—although take care not to set values too low, or the bullets will be 
+clipped); setting a higher value places more space to the left of the bullet points. 
+
+
+Inline lists for navigation 
+
+Although most people think of lists as being vertically aligned, you can also display list 
+items inline. This is particularly useful when creating navigation bars, as you’ll see in 
+Chapter 5. To set a list to display inline, you simply add display: inline; to the li 
+selector. Adding list-style-type: none; to the ul selector ensures that the list sits 
+snug to the left of its container (omitting this tends to indent the list items). Adding a 
+margin-right value to li also ensures that the list items don’t sit right next to each other. 
+Here’s an example: 
+
+ul { 
+
+list-style-type: none; 
+
+} 
+
+li { 
+
+display: inline; 
+margin-right: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+Thinking creatively with lists 
+
+The final part of this chapter looks at creating lists with a little panache. Although most 
+lists are perfectly suited to straightforward bullet points, sometimes some added CSS and 
+imagery can go a long way. 
+
+
+Creating better-looking lists 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The HTML and CSS documents from the basic-boilerplates 
+folder as a starting point, along with the images better-list- 
+hollow-square.gif, better-list-shadow.gif, better-list- 
+square.gif, and better-list-star.gif from the chapter 3 
+folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to style a three-level list to look great, using background 
+images and overrides. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+better-looking-lists.html and better-looking-lists.css 
+from the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+112 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+1 . Create the list. Within the HTML document’s wrapper div, add the following code: 
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List - 1.1 
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List - 2.i</li> 
+
+<li>List - 2.2 
+<ul> 
+
+<li>List - 3.i</li> 
+
+<li>List - 3.2</li> 
+
+<li>List - 3.3</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+<li>List - 2.3</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+2 . Amend the body rule. Add some padding to the body element so that page content 
+doesn’t hug the browser window edges during testing: 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style the list elements. This kind of heavily styled list typically requires you to 
+define specific property values at one level and then override them if they’re not 
+required for subsequent levels. This is done by adding the three rules in the fol¬ 
+lowing code block. For this example, the top level of the list (styled via ul) has a 
+star background image that doesn’t repeat (the ipx vertical value is used to nudge 
+the image into place so it looks better positioned), and the list-style-type value 
+of none removes the default bullet points of all lists on the page. 
+
+For the second level of lists (the first level of nesting), styled via ul ul, a horizon¬ 
+tally tiling background image is added, giving the impression that the top-level list 
+is casting a soft shadow. The border-left setting creates a soft boundary to the 
+nested list’s left, thereby enclosing the content. The padding value ensures that 
+there’s space around nested lists. 
+
+For the third level of lists (the second level of nesting—that is, a nested list within 
+a nested list), styled via ul ul ul, no specific styles are required, but to deal with 
+inherited styles from ul ul, background is set to none and border-left is set to 0. 
+If this weren’t done, third-level lists would also have the shadow background and 
+dotted left-hand border. 
+
+ul { 
+
+list-style-type: none; 
+
+background: url(better-list-star.gif) 0 Ipx no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+ul ul { 
+
+background: url(better-list-shadow.gif) repeat-x; 
+border-left: ipx dotted #aaaaaa; 
+
+
+
+113 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+padding: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+ul ul ul { 
+background: none; 
+border-left: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Style the list item elements. For the top-level list items, the li rule styles them in 
+uppercase, adds some padding (to ensure the items don’t sit over the background 
+image applied in ul), and makes the text bold and gray. For the nested list items, 
+the li li rule overrides the text-transform property, returning the text to sen¬ 
+tence case, and adds a square gray bullet as a background image. The font-weight 
+value is an override, and the color setting is darker than for the parent list’s list 
+items so that the non-bold text of the nested list items stand out. Finally, for the 
+third-level list items, styled using the selector li li li, a background override pro¬ 
+vides a unique bullet point image (a hollow square). 
+
+li { 
+
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+padding-left: 20px; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+color: #666666; 
+
+} 
+
+li li { 
+
+text-transform: none; 
+
+background: url(better-list-square.gif) 0 2px no-repeat; 
+font-weight: normal; 
+color: #333333; 
+
+} 
+
+li li li { 
+
+background: url(better-list-hollow-square.gif) 0 2px no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+114 
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+When creating lists such as this, don’t overcomplicate things, and try to avoid going to 
+many levels of nesting, or combining ordered and unordered lists; otherwise, the 
+selectors required for overrides become extremely complicated. 
+
+\ _y 
+
+
+Displaying blocks of code online 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The HTML and CSS documents from the basic-boilerplates 
+folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to style a list for displaying code online (complete with 
+exercise headings and line numbers). 
+
+Completed files 
+
+display-code-online.html and display-code-online.css from 
+the chapter 3 folder. 
+
+
+
+1 . Create the list. Code blocks require terminology and descriptions, meaning that a 
+definition list can be used to mark them up. For this example, the code block from 
+the preceding “List style shorthand” section will be used. Within the wrapper div, 
+create a definition list and give it a class value of codeList. For the term, add a 
+description of the code, and for the definition, add an ordered list, with each line 
+of code within its own list item. Each line of code should also be nested within a 
+code element. 
+
+<dl class="codeList"> 
+
+<dt>Writing out list styles in full</dt> 
+
+<dd> 
+
+<ol> 
+
+<li><code>ul {</code></li> 
+
+<li><code>list-style-type: square;</code></li> 
+<li><code>list-style-position: inside;</code></li> 
+
+<li><code>list-style-image: url(bullet.gif);</code></li> 
+<li><code>}</code></li> 
+
+</ol> 
+
+</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+2 . Amend the body and #wrapper CSS rules, adding some padding to the former (so 
+the content doesn’t hug the browser window edges during testing) and a short¬ 
+hand font definition to the latter (in place of existing content). 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+font: 1.2em/1.5em 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Lucida, 
+
+^ Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+
+115 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3 . Style the list. Add the following rule, which adds a solid border around the defini¬ 
+tion list that has a codeList class value: 
+
+•codeList { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Style the definition term element. Add the following rule, which styles the dt ele¬ 
+ment. The rule colors the background of dt elements within any element with a 
+class value of codeList, and also adds some padding so the content of the dt 
+elements doesn’t hug their borders. The font-weight value of bold ensures the 
+content stands out, while the border-bottom value will be used as a device 
+throughout the other rules, separating components of the design with a fairly thin 
+white line. 
+
+.codeList dt { 
+background: #dddddd; 
+padding: 7px; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+border-bottom: 2px solid #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Style the list items within the ordered list by adding the following rule. The 
+margin-left value places the bullets within the definition list, rather than outside 
+of it. 
+
+.codeList li { 
+background: #ffffff; 
+margin-left: 2.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Note that in Internet Explorer, the bullets typically display further to the left than in 
+other browsers. This behavior can be dealt with by overriding the margin-left value 
+of . codeList li in an IE-specific style sheet attached using a conditional comment — 
+see Chapter 9 for more on this technique. 
+
+^ - J 
+
+
+6 . Finally, style the code elements. The background value is slightly lighter than that 
+used for the dt element, ensuring that each element is distinct. By setting display 
+to block, the code elements stretch to fill their container (meaning that the back¬ 
+ground color also does this). The borders ensure that each line of code is visibly 
+distinct, and the border-right setting essentially provides a border all the way 
+around the code lines, seeing as the border-bottom setting in .codeList dt 
+defines one at the top of the first line of code. The font is set to a monospace font, 
+and the padding values place some space around the code, making it easier to 
+read. 
+
+
+116 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH TYPE 
+
+
+•codeList code { 
+background: #eaeaea; 
+display: block; 
+border-bottom: 2px solid 
+border-right: 2px solid 
+
+font : 1.2em "Courier New", Courier, monospace; 
+padding: 2px lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+That just about wraps things up for online type. After all that text, it’s time to change track. 
+In Chapter 4, you’ll look at working with images on the Web, and in Chapter 5, you’ll com¬ 
+bine what you’ve learned so far and add anchors into the mix to create web navigation. 
+
+
+117 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+4 WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Understanding color theory 
+
+■ Choosing the best image format 
+
+■ Avoiding common mistakes 
+
+■ Working with images in XHTML 
+
+■ Using alt text to improve accessibility 
+
+■ Using CSS when working with images 
+
+■ Displaying a random image from a selection 
+
+
+Introduction 
+
+Although text makes up the bulk of the Web’s content, it’s inevitable that you’ll end up 
+working with images at some point—that is, unless you favor terribly basic websites akin to 
+those last seen in 1995. Images are rife online, comprising the bulk of interfaces, the navi¬ 
+gation of millions of sites, and a considerable amount of actual content, too. As the Web 
+continues to barge its way into every facet of life, this trend can only continue; visitors to 
+sites now expect a certain amount of visual interest, just as readers of a magazine expect 
+illustrations or photographs. 
+
+Like anything else, use and misuse of images can make or break a website—so, like else¬ 
+where in this book, this chapter covers more than the essentials of working with HTML and 
+CSS. Along with providing an overview of color theory, I’ve compiled a brief list of com¬ 
+mon mistakes that people make when working with images for the Web—after all, even 
+the most dedicated web designers pick up bad habits without realizing it. Finally, at the 
+end of the chapter. I’ll introduce your first piece of JavaScript, providing you with a handy 
+cut-out-and-keep script to randomize images on a web page. 
+
+
+Color theoiy 
+
+Color plays a massively important role in any field of design, and web design is no excep¬ 
+tion. Therefore, it seems appropriate to include in this chapter a brief primer on color the¬ 
+ory and working with colors on the Web. 
+
+
+120 
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
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+
+Color wheels 
+
+Circular color diagrams—commonly referred to as color wheels —were invented by 
+Newton and remain a common starting point for creative types wanting to understand the 
+relationship between colors and also for creating color schemes. On any standard color 
+wheel, the three primaiy colors are each placed one-third of the way around the wheel, 
+with secondary colors equally spaced between them—secondary colors being a mix of two 
+primary colors. Between secondary and primary colors are tertiary colors, the result of 
+mixing primary and secondary colors. Some color wheels blend the colors together, 
+creating a continuous shift from one color to another, while others have rather more 
+defined blocks of color; however, in all cases, the positioning is the same. 
+
+
+Additive and subtractive color systems 
+
+Onscreen colors use what’s referred to as an additive system, which is the color system 
+used by light—where black is the absence of color, and colored light is added together to 
+create color mixes. The additive primaries are red, green, and blue (hence the commonly 
+heard RGB when referring to definition of screen colors). Mix equal amounts of red, green, 
+and blue light and you end up with white; mix secondaries from the primaries and you end 
+up with magenta, yellow, and cyan. 
+
+In print, a subtractive system is used, similar to that used in the natural world. This works 
+by absorbing colors before they reach the eye—if an object reflects all light it appears 
+white, and if it absorbs all light, it appears black. Inks for print are transparent, acting as fil¬ 
+ters to enable light to pass through, reflect off the print base (such as paper), and produce 
+unabsorbed light. Typically, the print process uses cyan, magenta, and yellow as primaries, 
+along with a key color—black—since equal combination of three print inks tends to pro¬ 
+duce a muddy color rather than the black that it should produce in theory. 
+
+Although the technology within computers works via an additive system to display colors, 
+digital-based designers still tend to work with subtractive palettes when working on 
+designs (using red, yellow, and blue primaries), because that results in natural color com¬ 
+binations and palettes. 
+
+
+Creating a color scheme using a color wheel 
+
+Even if you have a great eye for color and can instinctively create great schemes for web¬ 
+sites, it pays to have a color wheel handy. These days, you don’t have to rely on reproduc¬ 
+tions in books or hastily created painted paper wheels. There are now digital color wheels 
+that enable you to experiment with schemes, including Color Consultant Pro for the 
+Mac (www.code-line.com/software/colorconsultantpro.html), shown in the following 
+screenshot, and Color Wheel Pro (www.color-wheel-pro.com) and Colorimpact 
+(www.tigercolor.com/Default.htm), both for Windows. 
+
+
+121 
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+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+When working on color schemes and creating a palette for a website, there are various 
+schemes available for you. The simplest is a monochromatic scheme, which involves varia¬ 
+tions in the saturation (effectively the intensity or strength) of a single hue. Such schemes 
+can be soothing—notably when based on green or blue—but also have a tendency to be 
+bland, unless used with striking design and black and white. A slightly richer scheme can 
+be created by using colors adjacent on the color wheel—this is referred to as an analogous 
+scheme, and is also typically considered harmonious and pleasing to the eye. 
+
+For more impact, a complementaiy scheme can be used, which uses colors on opposite 
+sides of the color wheel (such as red/green, orange/blue, and yellow/purple); this scheme 
+is often seen in art, such as a pointillist using orange dots in areas of blue to add depth. 
+Complementary schemes work well due to a subconscious desire for visual harmony—an 
+equal mix of complementary colors results in a neutral gray. Such effects are apparent in 
+human color vision: if you look at a solid plane of color, you’ll see its complementary color 
+when you close your eyes. 
+
+A problem with a straight complementary scheme is that overuse of its colors can result in 
+garish, tense design. A subtler but still attention-grabbing scheme can be created by using 
+a color and the hues adjacent to the complementary color. This kind of scheme (which 
+happens to be the one shown in the previous screenshot) is referred to as split- 
+complementaiy. 
+
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+122 
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+Another scheme that offers impact—and one often favored by artists—is the triadic 
+scheme, which essentially works with primary colors or shifted primaries—that is, colors 
+equally spaced around the color wheel. The scheme provides plenty of visual contrast and, 
+when used with care, can result in a balanced, harmonious result. 
+
+How colors “feel” also plays a part in how someone reacts to them—for example, people 
+often talk of “warm” and “cool” colors. Traditionally, cooler colors are said to be passive, 
+blending into backgrounds, while warmer colors are cheerier and welcoming. However, 
+complexity is added by color intensity—a strong blue will appear more prominent than a 
+pale orange. A color’s temperature is also relative, largely defined by what is placed 
+around it. On its own, green is cool, yet it becomes warm when surrounded by blues and 
+purples. 
+
+Against black and white, a color’s appearance can also vary. Against white, yellow appears 
+warm, but against black, yellow has an aggressive brilliance. However, blue appears dark 
+on white, but luminescent on black. 
+
+The human condition also adds a further wrench in the works. Many colors have cultural 
+significance, whether from language (cowardly yellow) or advertising and branding. One 
+person may consider a color one thing (green equals fresh), and another may have differ¬ 
+ent ideas entirely (green equals moldy). There’s also the problem of color blindness, which 
+affects a significant (although primarily male) portion of the population, meaning you 
+should never rely entirely on color to get a message across. Ultimately, stick to the follow¬ 
+ing rules, and you’ll likely have some luck when working on color schemes: 
+
+■ Work with a color wheel, and be mindful of how different schemes work. 
+
+■ Use tints and shades of a hue, but generally avoid entirely monochromatic 
+schemes—inject an adjacent color for added interest. 
+
+■ Create contrast by adding a complementary color. 
+
+■ Keep saturation levels and value levels the same throughout the scheme (a color’s 
+value increases the closer it is to white). 
+
+■ Keep things simple—using too many colors results in garish schemes. 
+
+■ Don’t rely on color to get a message across—if in doubt about the effects of color 
+blindness, test your design with a color blindness simulator application such as 
+Color Oracle (http://colororacle.cartography.ch/). 
+
+■ Go with your gut reaction—feelings play an important part when creating color 
+schemes. What feels right is often a good starting point. 
+
+
+Working with hex 
+
+The CSS specifications support just 17 color names: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, 
+lime, maroon, navy, olive, orange, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow. All other col¬ 
+ors must be written in another format, such as RGB numbers or percentages— 
+rgb(255.0.o) or rgb(l00%,0%,0%)—or hexadecimal format, which tends to be most 
+popular in online design. Note that to keep things consistent, it actually makes sense to 
+write all colors—even the 17 with supported names—in hex. Colors written in hex 
+
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+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
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+comprise a hash sign followed by six digits. The six digits are comprised of pairs, repre¬ 
+senting the red, green, and blue color values, respectively: 
+
+■ #XXxxxx: Red color value 
+
+■ #xxXXxx: Green color value 
+
+■ #xxxxXX: Blue color value 
+
+Because the hexadecimal system is used, the digits can range in value from 0 to f, with 0 
+being the lowest value (nothing) and f being the highest. Therefore, if we set the first two 
+digits to full (ff) and the others to 0, we get #ffoooo, which is the hex color value for red. 
+Likewise, #ooffoo is green and #ooooff is blue. 
+
+Of course, there are plenty of potential combinations—16.7 million of them, in fact. 
+Luckily, any half-decent graphics application will do the calculations for you, so you won’t 
+have to work out for yourself that black is #000000 and white is #ffffff—^just use an 
+application’s color picker/eyedropper tool, and it should provide you with the relevant hex 
+value. 
+
+
+When a hex value is made up of three pairs, the values can be abbreviated. For exam¬ 
+ple, the value #ffaa77 can be written #f a7. Some designers swear by this abbreviated 
+form. I tend to use the full six-figure hex value because it keeps things consistent. 
+
+V _^J 
+
+
+Web-safe colors 
+
+Modern PCs and Macs come with some reasonable graphics clout, but this wasn’t always 
+the case. In fact, many computers still in common use cannot display millions of colors. 
+Back in the 1990s, palette restrictions were even more ferocious, with many computers 
+limited to a paltry 256 colors (8-bit). Microsoft and Apple couldn’t agree on which colors 
+to use, hence the creation of the web-safe palette, which comprises just 216 colors that 
+are supposed to work accurately on both platforms without dithering. (For more informa¬ 
+tion about dithering, see the “GIF” section later in this chapter.) Applications such as 
+Photoshop have built-in web-safe palettes, and variations on the palette can be seen at 
+www.visibone.com. 
+
+Colors in the web-safe palette are made up of combinations of RGB in 20% increments, 
+and as you might expect, the palette is limited. Also discouraging, in the article “Death of 
+the Websafe Color Palette?” on Webmonkey (www.webmonkey.com/00/37/index2a.html; 
+posted September 6, 2000), David Lehn and Hadley Stern reported that all but 22 of these 
+colors were incorrectly shifted in some way when tested on a variety of platforms and 
+color displays—in other words, only 22 of the web-safe colors are actually totally 
+web-safe. 
+
+While the rise of PDAs means that the web-safe palette may make a comeback in special¬ 
+ist circles (although PDAs and even cell phones are increasingly powerful when it comes to 
+graphics), most designers these days ignore it. The majority of people using the Web have 
+displays capable of millions of colors, and almost everyone else can view at least 
+
+
+124 
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+thousands of colors. Unless you’re designing for a very specific audience with known 
+restricted hardware, stick with sRGB (the default color space of the Web—see 
+www.w 3 .org/Graphics/Color/sRGB) and design in millions of colors. And consider yourself 
+lucky that it’s not 1995. 
+
+
+Choosing formats for images 
+
+In order to present images online in the best possible way, it’s essential to choose the best 
+file format when exporting and saving them. Although the save dialogs in most graphics 
+editors present a bewildering list of possible formats, the Web typically uses just two: JPEG 
+and GIF (along with the GIF89, or transparent GIF, variant), although a third, PNG, is finally 
+gaining popularity, largely due to Internet Explorer 7 finally offering full support for it. 
+
+
+JPEG 
+
+The JPEG (joint Photographic Experts Group) format is used primarily for images that 
+require smooth color transitions and continuous tones, such as photographs. JPEG sup¬ 
+ports millions of colors, and relatively little image detail is lost—at least when compression 
+settings aren’t too high. This is because the format uses lossy compression, which removes 
+information that the eye doesn’t need. As the compression level increases, this informa¬ 
+tion loss becomes increasingly obvious, as shown in the following images. As you can see 
+from the image on the right, which is much more compressed than the one on the left, 
+nasty artifacts become increasingly dominant as the compression level increases. At 
+extreme levels of compression, an image will appear to be composed of linked blocks (see 
+the following two images, the originals of which are in the chapter 4 folder as tree.jpg 
+and tree-compressed.jpg). 
+
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+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
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+Although it’s tricky to define a cutoff point, it’s safe to say that for photographic work 
+where it’s important to retain quality and detail, 50 to 60% compression (40 to 50% quality) 
+is the highest you should go for. Higher compression is sometimes OK in specific circum¬ 
+stances, such as for very small image thumbnails, but even then, it’s best not to go over 
+70% compression. 
+
+If the download time for an image is unacceptably high, you could always try reducing the 
+dimensions rather than the quality—a small, detailed image usually looks better than a 
+large, heavily compressed image. Also, bear in mind that common elements—that is, 
+images that appear on every page of a website, perhaps as part of the interface—will be 
+cached and therefore only need to be downloaded once. Because of this, you can get away 
+with less compression and higher file sizes. 
+
+
+Be aware that applications have different means of referring to compression levels. 
+Some, such as Adobe applications, use a quality scale, in which 100 is uncompressed 
+and 0 is completely compressed. Others, such as Paint Shop Pro, use compression val¬ 
+ues, in which higher numbers indicate increased compression. Always be sure you 
+know which scale you’re using. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Some applications have the option to save progressive JPEGs. Typically, this format results 
+in larger file sizes, but it’s useful because it enables your image to download in multiple 
+passes. This means that a low-resolution version will display rapidly and gradually progress 
+to the quality you saved it at, allowing viewers to get a look at a simplified version of the 
+image without having to wait for it to load completely. 
+
+
+GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is in many ways the polar opposite of JPEG—it’s loss¬ 
+less, meaning that there’s no color degradation when images are compressed. However, 
+the format is restricted to a maximum of 256 colors, thereby rendering it ineffective for 
+color photographic images. Using GIF for such images tends to produce banding, in which 
+colors are reduced to the nearest equivalent. A fairly extreme example of this is shown in 
+the following illustration. 
+
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
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+
+GIF is useful for displaying images with large areas of flat color, such as logos, line art, and 
+type. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, you should generally avoid using graphics for 
+text on your web pages, but if you do, GIF is the best choice of format. 
+
+Although GIF is restricted to 256 colors, it’s worth noting that you don't have to use the 
+same 256 colors every time. Most graphics applications provide a number of palette 
+options, such as perceptual, selective, and Web. The first of those, perceptual, tends to pri¬ 
+oritize colors that the human eye is most sensitive to, thereby providing the best color 
+integrity. Selective works in a similar fashion, but balances its color choices with web-safe 
+colors, thereby creating results more likely to be safe across platforms. Web refers to the 
+216-color web-safe palette discussed earlier. Additionally, you often have the option to 
+lock colors, which forces your graphics application to use only the colors within the 
+palette you choose. 
+
+Images can also be dithered, which prevents continuous tones from becoming bands of 
+color. Dithering simulates continuous tones, using the available (restricted) palette. Most 
+graphics editors allow for three different types of dithering: diffusion, pattern, and noise— 
+all of which have markedly different effects on an image. Diffusion applies a random pat¬ 
+tern across adjacent pixels, whereas pattern applies a half-tone pattern rather like that 
+seen in low-quality print publications. Noise works rather like diffusion, but without dif¬ 
+fusing the pattern across adjacent pixels. Following are four examples of the effects of 
+dithering on an image that began life as a smooth gradient. The first image (1) has no 
+dither, and the gradient has been turned into a series of solid, vertical stripes. The second 
+image (2) shows the effects of diffusion dithering; the third (3), pattern; and the fourth (4), 
+noise. 
+
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+12 3 4 
+
+GIF89: The transparent GIF 
+
+The GIF89 file format is identical to GIF, with one important exception: you can remove 
+colors, which provides a very basic means of transparency and enables the background to 
+show through. Because this is not alpha transparency (a type of transparency that enables 
+a smooth transition from solid to transparent, allowing for many levels of opacity), it does¬ 
+n’t work in the way many graphic designers expect. You cannot, for instance, fade an 
+image’s background from color to transparent and expect the web page’s background to 
+show through—instead, GIF89’s transparency is akin to cutting a hole with a pair of scis¬ 
+sors: the background shows through the removed colors only. This is fine when the “hole” 
+has flat horizontal or vertical edges. But if you try this with irregular shapes—such as in the 
+following image of the cloud with drop shadow—^you’ll end up with ragged edges. In the 
+example, the idea was to have the cloud casting a shadow onto the gray background. 
+However, because GIFs can’t deal with alpha transparency, we instead end up with an 
+unwanted white outline. (One way around this is to export the image with the same back¬ 
+ground color as that of the web page, but this is only possible if the web page’s 
+background is a plain, flat color.) 
+
+Because of these restrictions, GIF89s are not used all that much these days. They do cling 
+on in one area of web design, though: as spacers for stretching table cells, in order to lay 
+out a page. However, in these enlightened times, that type of technique should be 
+avoided, since you can lay out precisely spaced pages much more easily using CSS. 
+
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
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+PNG 
+
+For years, PNG (pronounced ping, and short for Portable Network Graphics) lurked in the 
+wilderness as a capable yet unloved and unused format for web design. Designed primarily 
+as a replacement for GIF, the format has plenty to offer, including a far more flexible 
+palette than GIF and true alpha transparency. Some have mooted PNG as a JPEG replace¬ 
+ment, too, but this isn’t recommended—PNGs tend to be much larger than JPEGs for pho¬ 
+tographic images. For imagery with sharp lines, areas of flat color, or where alpha 
+transparency is required, it is, however, a good choice. 
+
+The reason PNG is still less common than GIF or JPEG primarily has to do with Internet 
+Explorer. Prior to version 7, Microsoft’s browser didn’t offer support for PNG alpha trans¬ 
+parency, instead replacing transparent areas with white or gray. Although a proprietary 
+workaround exists (see Chapter 9’s “Dealing with Internet Explorer bugs” section), it isn’t 
+intuitive, and it requires extra code. With post-version 6 releases of Internet Explorer 
+finally supporting alpha transparency (and Internet Explorer’s share of the market decreas¬ 
+ing somewhat, primarily due to competition from Firefox), it’s worth looking into PNG 
+when creating layouts. 
+
+The three adjacent images highlight the benefit of 
+PNG over GIF, as shown in a web browser. The first 
+illustration shows two PNGs on a white background. 
+
+The second illustration shows this background replaced 
+by a grid. Note how the button’s drop shadow is par¬ 
+tially see-through, while the circle’s center is revealed 
+as being partially transparent, increasing in opacity 
+toward its edge. The third illustration shows the clos¬ 
+est equivalent when using GIFs—the drop shadow is 
+surrounded by an ugly cutout, and the circle’s central 
+area loses its transparency. Upon closer inspection, 
+the circle is also surrounded by a jagged edge, and the 
+colors are far less smooth than those of the PNG. 
+
+
+
+f A 
+
+For more information about this format, 
+check out the PNG website at www.libpng. 
+org/pub/png. 
+
+I___ J 
+
+
+
+
+Other image formats 
+
+You may have worked on pages in the past and added the odd BMP or TIFF file, or seen 
+another site do the same. These are not standard formats for the Web, though, and while 
+they may work fine in some cases, they require additional software in order to render in 
+some browsers (in many cases, they won’t render at all, or they’ll render inconsistently 
+across browsers). Furthermore, JPEG, GIF, and PNG are well-suited to web design because 
+
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+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
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+they enable you to present a lot of visual information in a fairly small file. Presenting the 
+same in a TIFF or BMP won’t massively increase the image’s quality (when taking into 
+account the low resolution of the Web), but it will almost certainly increase download 
+times. Therefore, quite simply, don’t use any formats other than JPEG, GIF, or PNG for your 
+web images (and if you decide to use PNG transparency, be sure that your target audience 
+will be able to see the images). 
+
+
+Common web image gaffes 
+
+The same mistakes tend to crop up again and again when designers start working with 
+images. In order to avoid making them, read on to find out about some common ones 
+(and how to avoid them). 
+
+
+Using graphics for body copy 
+
+Some sites out there use graphics for body copy on web pages, in order to get more typo¬ 
+graphical control than CSS allows. However, using graphics for body copy causes text to 
+print poorly—much worse than HTML-based text. Additionally, it means the text can’t be 
+read by search engines, can’t be copied and pasted, and can’t be enlarged, unless you’re 
+using a browser (or operating system) that can zoom—and even then it will be pixilated. If 
+graphical text needs to be updated, it means reworking the original image (which could 
+include messing with line wraps, if words need to be added or removed), re-exporting it, 
+and reuploading it. 
+
+As mentioned in the “Image-replacement techniques” section of Chapter 3, the argument 
+is a little less clear-cut for headings (although I recommend using styled HTML-based text 
+for those, too), but for body copy, you should always avoid using images. 
+
+
+Not working from original images 
+
+If it turns out an image on a website is too large or needs editing in some way, the original 
+should be sourced to make any changes if the online version has been in any way com¬ 
+pressed. This is because continually saving a compressed image reduces its quality each 
+time. Also, under no circumstances should you increase the dimensions of a compressed 
+JPEG. Doing so leads to abysmal results every time. 
+
+
+Overwriting original documents 
+
+The previous problem gets worse if you’ve deleted your originals. Therefore, be sure that 
+you never overwrite the original files you’re using. If resampling JPEGs from a digital cam¬ 
+era for the Web, work with copies so you don’t accidentally overwrite your only copy of 
+that great photo you’ve taken with a much smaller, heavily compressed version. More 
+important, if you’re using an application that enables layers, save copies of the layered 
+documents prior to flattening them for export—otherwise you’ll regret it when having to 
+make that all-important change and having to start from scratch. 
+
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+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
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+Busy backgrounds 
+
+When used well, backgrounds can improve a website, adding visual interest and atmos¬ 
+phere—see the following image, showing the top of a version of the Snub 
+Communications homepage. However, if backgrounds are too busy, in terms of compli¬ 
+cated artwork and color, they’ll distract from the page’s content. If placed under text, they 
+may even make your site’s text-based content impossible to read. With that in mind, keep 
+any backgrounds behind content subtle—near-transparent single-color watermarks tend 
+to work best. 
+
+For backgrounds outside of the content area (as per the “Watermarks” section in Chapter 2), 
+you must take care, too. Find a balance in your design and ensure that the background 
+doesn’t distract from the content, which is the most important aspect of the site. 
+
+
+
+Lack of contrast 
+
+It’s common to see websites that don’t provide enough contrast between text content and 
+the background—for example, (very) light gray text on a white background, or pale text 
+on an only slightly darker background. Sometimes this lack of contrast finds its way into 
+other elements of the site, such as imagery comprising interface elements. This isn’t always 
+a major problem—in some cases, designs look stylish if a subtle scheme is used with care. 
+You should, however, ensure that usability isn’t affected—it’s all very well to have a subtle 
+color scheme, but not if it stops visitors from being able to easily find things like naviga¬ 
+tion elements, or from being able to read the text. 
+
+
+Using the wrong image format 
+
+Exporting photographs as GIFs, using BMPs or TIFFs online, rendering soft and blotchy line 
+art and text as a result of using the JPEG format—these are all things to avoid in the world 
+of creating images for websites. See the section “Choosing formats for images” earlier in 
+this chapter for an in-depth discussion of formats. 
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+Resizing in HTML 
+
+When designers work in WYSIWYG editing tools, relying on a drag-and-drop interface, it’s 
+sometimes tempting to resize all elements in this manner (and this can sometimes also be 
+done by accident), thereby compromising the underlying code of a web page. Where 
+images are concerned, this has a detrimental effect, because the pixel dimensions of the 
+image no longer tally with its width and height values. In some cases, this may lead to dis¬ 
+torted imagery (as shown in the rather extreme example that follows); it may also lead to 
+visually small images that have ridiculously large files sizes by comparison. In most cases, 
+distortion of detail will still occur, even when proportion is maintained. 
+
+
+
+There are exceptions to this rule, however, although they are rare. For instance, if you 
+work with pixel art saved as a GIF, you can proportionately enlarge an image, making 
+it large on the screen. Despite the image being large, the file size will be tiny. 
+
+V_____ J 
+
+
+Not balancing quality and file size 
+
+Bandwidth can be a problem in image-heavy sites—both in terms of the host getting ham¬ 
+mered when visitor numbers increase, and in terms of the visitors—many of whom may be 
+stuck with slower connections than you—having to download the images. Therefore, you 
+should always be sure that your images are highly optimized, in order to save on hosting 
+costs and ensure that your website’s visitors don’t have to suffer massive downloads. (In 
+fact, they probably won’t—they’ll more than likely go elsewhere.) 
+
+But this doesn’t mean that you should compress every image on your website into a slushy 
+mess (and I’ve seen plenty of sites where the creator has exported JPEGs at what looks like 
+90% compression—“just in case”). 
+
+Err on the side of caution, but remember: common interface elements are cached, so you 
+can afford to save them at a slightly higher quality. Any image that someone requests 
+(such as via a thumbnail on a portfolio site) is something they want to see, so these too 
+can be saved at a higher quality because the person is likely to wait. Also, there is no such 
+thing as an optimum size for web images. If you’ve read in the past that no web image 
+should ever be larger than 50 KB, it’s hogwash. The size of your images depends entirely 
+on context, the type of site you’re creating, and the audience you’re creating it for. 
+
+
+132 
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+Text overlays and splitting images 
+
+Some designers use various means to stop people from stealing images from their site and 
+reusing them. The most common are including a copyright statement on the image itself, 
+splitting the image into a number of separate images to make it harder to download, and 
+adding an invisible transparent GIF overlay. 
+
+The main problem with copyright statements is that they are often poorly realized (see the 
+following example), ruining the image with a garish text overlay. Ultimately, while anyone 
+can download images from your website to their hard drive, you need to remember that if 
+someone uses your images, they’re infringing your copyright, and you can deal with them 
+accordingly (and, if they link directly to images on your server, try changing the affected 
+images to something text-based, like “The scumbag whose site you’re visiting stole images 
+from me”). 
+
+
+
+As for splitting images into several separate files or placing invisible GIFs over images to try 
+to stop people from downloading them, don’t do this—there are simple workarounds in 
+either case, and you just end up making things harder for yourself when updating your 
+site. Sometimes you even risk compromising the structural integrity of your site when 
+using such methods. 
+
+
+Stealing images and designs 
+
+Too many people appear to think that the Internet is a free-for-all, outside of the usual 
+copyright restrictions, but this isn’t the case: copyright exists on the Web just like every¬ 
+where else. Unless you have permission to reuse an image you’ve found online, you 
+shouldn’t do so. If discovered, you may get the digital equivalent of a slap on the wrist, but 
+you could also be sued for copyright infringement. 
+
+
+133 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Although it’s all right to be influenced by someone else’s design, you should also ensure 
+you don’t simply rip off a creation found on the Web—otherwise you could end up in legal 
+trouble, or the subject of ridicule as a feature on Tim Murtaugh’s Pirated Sites forum (see 
+WWW. pirated-sites. com/vanilla/). 
+
+
+Working with images in XHTML 
+
+The img element is used to add images to a web page. It’s an empty tag, so it takes the 
+combined start and end tag form with a trailing slash, as outlined in Chapter 1. The follow¬ 
+ing code block shows an example of an image element, complete with relevant attributes: 
+
+<img src="sunset.]pg" height="200" width="400" alt="Sunset in 
+»» Reykjavik" /> 
+
+Perhaps surprisingly, the height and width attributes are actually optional, although I rec¬ 
+ommend including them because they assist the browser in determining the size of the 
+image before it downloads (thereby speeding up the process of laying out the page). The 
+only two image element attributes required in XHTML are src and alt. The first, src, is the 
+path to the image file to be displayed; and the second, alt, provides some alternative text 
+for when the image is not displayed. 
+
+
+Note that this chapter’s section on images largely concerns itself with inline images — 
+the addition of images to the content of a web page. For an overview of using images 
+as backgrounds, see the “Web page backgrounds’’ section of Chapter 2; for an 
+overview of working with images within web navigation and with links in general, see 
+much of Chapter 5. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Using alt text for accessibility benefits 
+
+Alternate text—usually referred to as “alt text,” after its attribute—is often ignored or 
+used poorly by designers, but it’s essential for improving the accessibility of web pages. 
+Visitors using screen readers rely on the alt attribute’s value to determine what an image 
+shows. Therefore, always include a succinct description of the image’s content and avoid 
+using the image’s file name, because that’s often of little help. Ignoring the alt attribute 
+not only renders your page invalid according to the W3C recommendations, but it also 
+means that screen readers (and browsers that cannot display images) end up with some¬ 
+thing like this for output: [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE]—not very helpful, to say the least. 
+
+
+Descriptive alt text for link-based images 
+
+Images often take on dual roles, being used for navigation purposes as well as additional 
+visual impact. In such cases, the fact that the image is a navigation aid is likely to be of 
+
+
+134 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+more significance than its visual appearance. For instance, many companies use logos as 
+links to a homepage—in such cases, some designers would suggest using “Company X 
+homepage” for the alt text, as it’s more useful than “Company X.” 
+
+Alternatively, stick with using the alt attribute for describing the image, and add a title 
+attribute to the link, using that to describe the target. Depending on user settings, the 
+link’s title attribute will be read out in the absence of any link text. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+If you don’t have access to screen-reading software for testing alt text and various 
+other accessibility aspects of a website, either install the text-based browser Lynx, or 
+run Opera in User mode, which can emulate a text browser. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Null alt attributes for interface images 
+
+In some cases, images have no meaning at all (e.g., if they’re a part of an interface), and 
+there is some debate regarding the best course of action with regard to such images’ alt 
+values. Definitely never type something like spacer or interface element, otherwise 
+screen readers and text browsers will drive their users crazy relaying these values back to 
+them. Instead, it’s recommended that you use a null alt attribute, which takes the form 
+alt='"'. 
+
+Null alt attributes are unfortunately not interpreted correctly by all screen readers; some, 
+upon discovering a null alt attribute, go on to read the image’s src value. A common 
+workaround is to use empty alt attributes, which just have blank space for the value 
+(alt=" "). However, the null alt attribute has valid semantics, so it should be used despite 
+some screen readers not being able to deal with it correctly. 
+
+Alternatively, try reworking your design so that images without meaning are applied as 
+background images to div elements, rather than placed inline. 
+
+
+Using alt and title text for tooltips 
+
+Although the W3C specifically states that alt 
+text shouldn’t be visible if the image can 
+been seen, Internet Explorer ignores this, dis¬ 
+playing alt text as a tooltip when the mouse 
+cursor hovers over an image, as shown in the 
+adjacent example. 
+
+
+
+Internet Explorer users are most likely accus¬ 
+tomed to this by now, and, indeed, you may 
+have used alt text to create tooltips in your 
+own work. If so, it’s time to stop. This behavior is not recommended by the W3C and it’s 
+also not common across all browsers and platforms. 
+
+
+135 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+If an image requires a tooltip, most browsers display the value of a title attribute as one. 
+In spite of this, if the text you’re intending for a pop-up is important, you should instead 
+place it within the standard text of your web page, rather than hiding it where most users 
+won’t see it. This is especially important when you consider that Firefox crops the values 
+after around 80 characters, unlike some browsers, which happily show multiline tooltips. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Another alternative for extended descriptions for images is the longdesc attrib¬ 
+ute. It’s not fully supported, but Firefox, SeaMonkey, and Netscape display the 
+attribute’s contents as a description field when you view image properties. It’s 
+also fully supported in the JAWS screen reader, thereby warranting its use 
+should your image descriptions be lengthy. 
+v_ J 
+
+
+Using CSS when working with images 
+
+In the following section, we’re going to look at relevant CSS for web page images. You’ll 
+see how best to apply borders to images and wrap text around them, as well as define 
+spacing between images and other page elements. 
+
+
+Applying CSS borders to images 
+
+You may have noticed earlier that I didn’t mention the border attribute when working 
+through the img element. This is because the border attribute is deprecated; adding bor¬ 
+ders to images is best achieved and controlled by using CSS. (Also, because of the flexibil¬ 
+ity of CSS, this means that if you only want a simple surrounding border composed of flat 
+color, you no longer have to add borders directly to your image files.) Should you want to 
+add a border to every image on your website, you could do so with the following CSS: 
+
+img { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+In this case, a 1-pixel solid border, colored black (#000000 in hex), would surround every 
+image on the site. Using contextual selectors, this can be further refined. For instance, 
+should you only want the images within a content area (marked up as a div with an id 
+value of content) to be displayed with a border, you could write the following CSS: 
+
+div#content img { 
+border: Ipx solid #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+136 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+Alternatively, you could set borders to be on by default, and override them in specific 
+areas of the website via a rule using grouped contextual selectors: 
+
+img { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+#masthead irng, tfooter imgj #sidebar img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Finally, you could override a global border setting by creating a noBorder class and then 
+assigning it to relevant images. In CSS, you’d write the following: 
+
+.noBorder { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+And in HTML, you’d add the noBorder class to any image that you didn’t want to have a 
+border: 
+
+<img class="noBorder" src="sunset.jpg" height="200" width="400" 
+
+^ alt="A photo of a sunset" /> 
+
+Clearly, this could be reversed (turning off borders by default and overriding this with, say, 
+an addBorder style that could be used to add borders to specific images). Obviously, you 
+should go for whichever system provides you with the greatest flexibility when it comes to 
+rapidly updating styles across the site and keeping things consistent when any changes 
+occur. Generally, the contextual method is superior for achieving this. 
+
+Although it’s most common to apply borders using the shorthand shown earlier, it’s possi¬ 
+ble to define borders on a per-side basis, as demonstrated in the “Using classes and CSS 
+overrides to create an alternate pull quote” exercise in Chapter 3. If you wanted to style a 
+specific image to resemble a Polaroid photograph, you could set equal borders on the top, 
+left, and right, and a larger one on the bottom. In HTML, you would add a class attribute 
+to the relevant image: 
+
+<img class="photo" src="sunset.jpg" height="300" width="300" 
+
+^ alt="Sunset photo" /> 
+
+In CSS, you would write the following: 
+
+.photo { 
+
+border-width: 8px 8px 20px; 
+border-style: solid; 
+border-color: #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+
+137 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The results of this are shown in the image to the 
+right. (Obviously, the white border only shows if 
+you have a contrasting background—^you wouldn’t 
+see a white border on a white background!) 
+
+Should you want to, you can also reduce the dec¬ 
+laration’s size by amalgamating the border-style 
+and border-color definitions: 
+
+.photo { 
+border: solid 
+
+border-width : 8px 8px 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that when you’ve used a contextual selector with an id value to style a bunch of 
+elements in context, overriding this often requires the contextual selector to again be 
+included in the override rule. In other words, a class value of . override would not 
+necessarily override values set in #box img, even if applied to an image in the box div. 
+
+In such cases, you’d need to add the id to the selector: #box .override. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+There are other border-style values that can be used with images, as well. Examples 
+include dashed and dotted—see the border-style entry in Appendix D (CSS Reference) 
+for a full list. However, overdone decoration can distract from the image, so always ensure 
+that your borders don’t overpower your imagery. 
+
+
+Using CSS to wrap text around images 
+
+You can use the float and margin properties to enable body copy to wrap around an 
+image. The method is similar to the pull quote example in the previous chapter, so we 
+won’t dwell too much on this. Suffice to say that images can be floated left or right, and 
+margins can be set around edges facing body copy in order to provide some whitespace. 
+For example, expanding on the previous example, you could add the following rules to 
+ensure that the surrounding body copy doesn’t hug the image: 
+
+.photo { 
+
+border-width: 8px 8px 20px 8px; 
+border-style: solid; 
+border-color: #ffffff; 
+float: right; 
+margin-left: 20px; 
+margin-bottom: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+138 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+This results in the following effect shown in the following image. 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat 
+condimentum. 
+
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quls velit. Nulla fadiisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula 
+eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, 
+btandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque racilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor, 
+eras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin 
+tinddunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam 
+molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam 
+vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipisdng semper ligula. Nunc 
+molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee 
+vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla fadlisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fus(% ultrices, neque id dignisstm 
+ultrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel ladnia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+
+
+See using-css-to-wrap-around-images.html, using-css-to-wrap-around-images.css, 
+and sunset.jpg in the chapter 4 folder for a working example of this page. 
+
+
+Displaying random images 
+
+This final section of the chapter looks at creating a simple system for displaying a random 
+image from a selection. This has several potential uses, such as randomizing banners on a 
+commercial website, or giving the impression that a site is updated more often than it is by 
+showing visitors some new content each time they arrive. Also, for portfolios, it’s useful to 
+present a random piece of work from a selection. 
+
+Prior to starting work, you need to prepare your images. Unless you’re prepared for sub¬ 
+sequent layout elements to shift upon each visit to the page, aim to export all your images 
+with equal dimensions. Should this not be an option, try to keep the same height setting. 
+Note, however, that you can use different file formats for the various images. It’s good 
+housekeeping to keep these images in their own folder, too; for this exercise, the images 
+are placed within assets/random-images. 
+
+
+139 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Creating a JavaScript-based image randomizer 
+
+
+Required files The image-randomizer-starting-point folder from the chapter 
+4 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn How to create an image randomizer using JavaScript. 
+
+Completed files The image-randomizer-javascript folder in the chapter 4 folder. 
+
+1 . Edit the HTML. Open randomizer.html. In the body of the web page, add the fol¬ 
+lowing img element. The src value is for the default image, and this is what’s shown 
+if JavaScript is unavailable. The id value is important—this is a hook for both the 
+JavaScript function written in steps 4 through 6 and a CSS rule to add a border to 
+the image. 
+
+<img src="assets/random-images/road.jpg" id="randomImage" 
+
+** name="randomImage" height="300" width="300" /> 
+
+Next, add an onload attribute to the body start tag, as shown in the following code 
+block. Note that the value of this attribute will be the name of the JavaScript 
+function. 
+
+<body onload="randomImage()"> 
+
+2 . In randomizer, js, create arrays for image file names and alt attribute values. For 
+the former, only the image file names are needed—not the path to them (that will 
+be added later). Note that the order of the items in the arrays must match—in 
+other words, the text in the first item of the chosenAltCopy array should be for the 
+first image in the chosenimage array. 
+
+var chosenImage=new Array(); 
+chosenimage[o]="stream.jpg"; 
+chosenImage[l]="river.jpg"; 
+chosenImage[2]="road.jpg"; 
+
+var chosenAltCopy=new Array(); 
+chosenAltCopy[0]="A stream in Iceland"; 
+chosenAltCopy[l]="A river in Skaftafell, Iceland"; 
+chosenAltCopy[2]="A near-deserted road in Iceland"; 
+
+3 . Create a random value. The following JavaScript provides a random value: 
+var getRan=Math.floor(Math.random()*chosenImage.length); 
+
+4 . Create a function. Add the following text to start writing the JavaScript function, 
+which was earlier dubbed randomimage (see step I’s onload value). If you’re not 
+familiar with JavaScript, then note that content from subsequent steps must be 
+inserted into the space between the curly brackets. 
+
+function randomImage() 
+
+{ 
+
+} 
+
+
+140 
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+5. Add JavaScript to set the image. By manipulating the Document Object Model 
+(DOM), we can assign values to an element via its id value. Here, the line states to 
+set the src attribute value of the element with the id value randomimage (i.e., the 
+image added in step 1) to the stated path value plus a random item from the 
+chosenimage array (as defined via getRan, a variable created in step 3). 
+
+document.getElementByld('randomimage').setAttribute 
+'src' , 'assets/random-images/'+chosenImage[getRan]); 
+
+6 . Add JavaScript to set the alt text. Setting the alt text works in a similar way to step 
+5, but the line is slightly simpler, due to the lack of a path value for the alt text: 
+
+document.getElementByld('randomimage').setAttribute 
+'alt' jChosenAltCopy[getRan]); 
+
+7. Style the image. In CSS, add the following two rules. The first removes borders by 
+default from images that are links. The second defines a border for the image 
+added in step 1, which has an id value of randomimage. 
+
+a img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#randomImage { 
+
+border: solid Ipx #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+Upon testing the completed files in a browser, each refresh should show a random image 
+from the selection, as shown in the following screenshot. (Note that in this image, the 
+padding value for body was set to 20px 0 0 20px, to avoid the random image hugging the 
+top left of the browser window.) 
+
+
+
+141 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+There are a couple of things to note regarding the script. To add further images/alt text, 
+copy the previous items in each array, increment the number in square brackets by one 
+and then amend the values—for example: 
+
+var chosenImage=new Array(); 
+chosenlmage[o]="stream.jpg"; 
+chosenImage[l]="river.jpg"; 
+chosenImage[2]="road.jpg"; 
+chosenImage[3]="harbor.jpg"; 
+
+var chosenAltCopy=new Array(); 
+chosenAltCopy[0]="A stream in Iceland"; 
+chosenAltCopy[l]="A river in Skaftafell, Iceland"; 
+chosenAltCopy[2]="A near-deserted road in Iceland"; 
+chosenAltCopy[3]="The harbor in Reykjavik "; 
+
+You’ll also note that in this example, the height and widths of the images is identical. 
+However, these can also be changed by editing the script. For example, to set a separate 
+height for each image, you’d first add the following array: 
+
+var chosenHeight=new Array(); 
+chosenHeight[0]="200"; 
+chosenHeight[l]="500"; 
+chosenHeight[2]="400"; 
+
+And you’d next add the following line to the function: 
+
+document.getElementByld('randomimage').setAttribute 
+' height' .chosenHeight [getRan]); 
+
+Remember, however, the advice earlier about the page reflowing if the image dimensions 
+vary—if you have images of differing sizes, your design will need to take this into account. 
+
+
+Creating a PHP-based image randomizer 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The image-randomizer-starting-point folder from the chapter 
+
+4 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create an image randomizer using PHP. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The image-randomizer-php folder in the chapter 4 folder. 
+
+
+If you have access to web space that enables you to work with PHP, it’s simple to create an 
+equivalent to the JavaScript exercise using PHP. The main benefit is that users who disable 
+JavaScript will still see a random image, rather than just the default. Note that you need 
+some method of running PHP files to work on this exercise, such as a local install of 
+Apache. Note also that prior to working through the steps, you should remove the HTML 
+document’s script element, and you should also amend the title element’s value, 
+changing it to something more appropriate. 
+
+
+142 
+
+
+
+
+WORKING WITH IMAGES 
+
+
+1. Define the CSS rules. In CSS, define a border style, as per step 7 of the previous 
+exercise, but also edit the existing paragraph rule with a font property/value pair, 
+because in this example, you’re going to add a caption based on the alt text value. 
+
+a img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#randomImage { 
+
+border: solid Ipx #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font: 1.2em/1.5em Verdana^ sans-serif; 
+margin-bottom: l.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+2. Set up the PHP tag. Change the file name of randomizer.html to randomizer.php 
+to make it a PHP document. Then, place the following on the page, in the location 
+where you want the randomized image to go. Subsequent code should be placed 
+within the PHP tags. 
+
+<?php 
+
+?> 
+
+3. Define the array. One array can be used to hold the information for the file names 
+and alt text. In each case, the alt text should follow its associated image. 
+
+Spicarray = array("stream" => "A photo of a stream", "river" => "A 
+** photo of a river", "road" => "A photo of a road"); 
+
+$randomkey = array_rand($picarray); 
+
+4. Print information to the web page. Add the following lines to write the img and p 
+elements to the web page, using a random item set from the array for the relevant 
+attributes. Note that the paragraph content is as per the alt text. Aside from the 
+caption, the resulting web page looks identical to the JavaScript example. 
+
+echo '<img src="assets/random-images/'.$randomkey.'.jpg" 
+
+^ alt="'.$picarray[$randomkey].'" width="300" height="300" 
+
+^ class="addBorder" />'; 
+
+echo '<p>'.$picarray[$randomkey].'</p>'; 
+
+5. Use an include. This is an extra step of sorts. If you want to make your PHP more 
+modular, you can copy everything within the PHP tags to an external document, 
+save it (e.g., as random-image.php) and then cut it into the web page as an include: 
+
+<?php 
+
+@include($_SERVER['D0CUMENT_R00T'] . "/random-image.php"); 
+
+?> 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+For more on working with PHP, see PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web 
+Design Made Easy, by David Powers. 
+
+I-!_) 
+
+
+143 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Hopefully you’ve found this chapter of interest and now feel you have a good grounding 
+in working with images on the Web. It’s amazing to think how devoid of visual interest the 
+Web used to be in contrast to today, now that images are essential to the vast majority of 
+sites. As I’ve mentioned before, the importance of images on the Web lies not only in con¬ 
+tent, but in interface elements as well, such as navigation—a topic we’re covering in the 
+next chapter. 
+
+
+144 
+
+
+
+5 USING LINKS AND CREATING 
+
+NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+r sit amet. 
+png elit. Morbi 
+id pbaretra 
+rhortcus neque, 
+n non turpis. 
+n. Suspendisse 
+plutpat 
+
+am erat volutpat. 
+
+
+sr.HHHHPOTWMVHi libero c 
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuad< 
+:r erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Drof^own Rnk two 
+
+
+Drop-down IlnkthrM 
+
+
+Drop-down Hnkfour 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Introducing web navigation 
+
+■ Creating links 
+
+■ Controlling CSS link states 
+
+■ Mastering the cascade 
+
+■ Looking at links and accessibility 
+
+■ Examining a JavaScript alternative to pop-ups 
+
+■ Creating navigation bars 
+
+■ Working with CSS-based rollovers 
+
+
+Introduction to web navigation 
+
+The primary concern of most websites is the provision of information. The ability to enable 
+nonlinear navigation via the use of links is one of the main things that sets the Web apart 
+from other media. But without organized, coherent, and usable navigation, even a site with 
+the most amazing content will fail. 
+
+During this chapter, we’ll work through how to create various types of navigation. Instead 
+of relying on large numbers of graphics and clunky JavaScript, we’ll create rollovers that 
+are composed of nothing more than simple HTML lists and a little CSS. And rather than 
+using pop-up windows to display large graphics when a thumbnail image is clicked, we’ll 
+cover how to do everything on a single page. 
+
+
+Navigation types 
+
+There are essentially three types of navigation online: 
+
+■ Inline navigation: General links within web page content areas 
+
+■ Site navigation: The primary navigation area of a website, commonly referred to as 
+a navigation bar 
+
+■ Search-based navigation: A search box that enables you to search a site via terms 
+you input yourself 
+
+
+Although I’ve separated navigation into these three distinct categories, lines blur, and not 
+every site includes all the different types of navigation. Also, various designers call each 
+navigation type something different, and there’s no official name in each case, so in the 
+following sections. I’ll expand a little on each type. 
+
+
+148 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Inline navigation 
+
+Inline navigation used to be the primary way of navigating the Web, which, many moons 
+ago, largely consisted of technical documentation. Oddly, inline navigation—links within a 
+web page’s body copy—is less popular than it once was. Perhaps this is due to the increas¬ 
+ing popularity of visually oriented web design tools, leading designers to concentrate more 
+on visuals than usability. Maybe it’s because designers have collectively forgotten that links 
+can be made anywhere and not just in navigation bars. In any case, links—inline links in 
+particular—are the main thing that differentiates the Web from other media, making it 
+unique. For instance, you can make specific words within a document link directly to 
+related content. A great example of this is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), the free ency¬ 
+clopedia. 
+
+
+
+Wikh’EDiA 
+
+The Free Encydopedij 
+
+
+navigation 
+
+■ Main page 
+
+■ Contents 
+
+■ Featured content 
+
+■ Current events 
+
+■ Random article 
+
+
+inte ractio n_ 
+
+■ About Wikipedia 
+
+■ Community portal 
+
+■ Recent changes 
+
+■ Fla upload wizard 
+
+■ Contact us 
+
+■ Make a donation 
+
+■ Help 
+
+
+search 
+
+
+Co I Search | 
+toolbox 
+
+■ What Inks here 
+
+■ Related changes 
+
+
+^ Sign In/crMto account 
+
+main page ~ 'dis^slon i j view source | | hislory ] 
+
+Yens cantmae^ denafians keep YWpfitMimvwgf 
+
+
+Welcxjme to Wikipedia, 
+
+■ Arts 
+
+■ History 
+
+■ Society 
+
+the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 
+
+■ Biography 
+
+■ Mathematics 
+
+■ Technology 
+
+1,879,295 articles in English 
+
+■ Geography 
+
+■ Science 
+
+■ All portals 
+
+
+Overview • Editing • Questions • Help Contents • Categories • Featured content • A-Z Index 
+
+
+Today's featured articte_| 
+
+is the convention of 
+advancing clocks so that afternoons have 
+more daylight and mornings have less. 
+Typically dodts are adjusted torward one 
+hour near the start of spring and are 
+I adjusted badeward in autumn; the ancients 
+
+lengthened summer hours Instead. Presaged by a 1784 satire, 
+modem DST was first proposed in 1907 by William Willett, and 
+1916 saw its first widespread use as a wartime measure aimed 
+at conserving coal. Despite controversy, many countries have 
+used It since then; details vary by location and change 
+occasionally. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, 
+sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working 
+hours, but causes problems for farmers and other workers 
+whose hours depend on the sun. Extra afternoon daylight cuts 
+traffic fatalities; its effect on health and crime is less clear. DST 
+is said to save electricity by reducing the need for artificial 
+
+
+
+In the news 
+
+
+■ Pakistani forces storm the 
+Lai Masjid in Islamabad, 
+bringing the seven-day 
+siege to an end. 
+
+■ Pope Benedict XVI 
+(pictured) removes 
+restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass. 
+
+• Venus Williams and Roger Federer win the 
+women's and men's singles, respectively, at the 
+2007 Wimbledon Champlon$hl|>s. 
+
+• Live Earth concerts are held at eleven 
+locations around the world in an effort to raise 
+awareness of global warming. 
+
+■ Sochi, Russia, Is chosen by the International 
+Olympic Committee as the host city tor the 2014 
+Winter Olympics. 
+
+
+
+
+Site navigation 
+
+Wikipedia showcases navigation types other than inline. To the left, underneath the logo, 
+is a navigation bar that is present on every page of the site, allowing users to quickly access 
+each section. This kind of thing is essential for most websites—long gone are the days 
+when users often expected to have to keep returning to a homepage to navigate to new 
+content. 
+
+As Wikipedia proves, just because you have a global navigation bar, that doesn’t mean you 
+should skimp on inline navigation. In recent times, I’ve seen a rash of sites that say things 
+like, “Thank you for visiting our website. If you have any questions, you can contact us by 
+
+
+149 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+clicking the contact details link on our navigation bar.” Quite frankly, this is bizarre. A bet¬ 
+ter solution is to say, “Thank you for visiting our website. If you have any questions, please 
+contact us,” and to turn “contact us” into a link to the contact details page. This might 
+seem like common sense, but not every web designer thinks in this way. 
+
+
+Search-based navigation 
+
+Wikipedia has a search box within its navigation sidebar. It’s said there are two types of 
+web users: those who eschew search boxes and those who head straight for them. The 
+thing is, search boxes are not always needed, despite the claims of middle managers the 
+world over. Indeed, most sites get by with well-structured and coherent navigation. 
+
+However, sites sometimes grow very large (typically those that are heavy on information 
+and that have hundreds or thousands of pages, such as technical repositories, review 
+archives, or large online stores, such as Amazon and eBay). In such cases, it’s often not fea¬ 
+sible to use standard navigation elements to access information. Attempting to do so leads 
+to users getting lost trying to navigate a huge navigation tree. 
+
+Unlike other types of navigation, search boxes aren’t entirely straightforward to set up, 
+requiring server-side scripting for their functionality. However, a quick trawl through 
+a search engine provides many options, including Google Custom Search Engine 
+(www.google.com/coop/cse/) and Yahoo Search Builder (http://builder.search.yahoo, 
+com/m/promo). 
+
+
+Creating and styling web page links 
+
+With the exception of search boxes, which are forms based on and driven by server-side 
+scripting, online navigation relies on anchor elements. In its simplest form, an anchor ele¬ 
+ment looks like this: 
+
+<a href="http: //WWW. friendsofed.com/">A link to the friends of ED 
+^ website</a> 
+
+
+By placing a trailing slash in this type of URL, you make only one call to the server 
+instead of two. Also, some incorrectly configured Apache servers generate a “File not 
+found” error if the trailing slash is omitted. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+The href attribute value is the URL of the destination document, which is often another 
+web page, but can in fact be any file type (MP3, PDF, JPEG, and so on). If the browser can 
+display the document type (either directly or via a plug-in), it does so; otherwise, it down¬ 
+loads the file (or brings up some kind of download prompt). 
+
+
+150 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Never omit end tags when working with links. Omitting </a> is not only 
+shoddy and invalid XHTML, but most browsers then turn all subsequent con¬ 
+tent on the page into a link. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+There are three ways of linking to a file; absolute links, relative links, and root-relative 
+links. We’ll cover these in the sections that follow, and you’ll see how to create internal 
+page links, style link states in CSS, and work with links and images. We’ll also discuss 
+enhanced link accessibility and usability, and link targeting. 
+
+
+Absolute links 
+
+The preceding example shows an absolute link, sometimes called a full URL, which is typi¬ 
+cally used when linking to external files (i.e., those on other websites). This type of link 
+provides the entire path to a destination file, including the file transfer protocol, domain 
+name, any directory names, and the file name itself. A longer example is 
+
+<a href="http: //WWW. wireviews.com/lyrics/instar.html">Instar lyrics</a> 
+
+In this case, the file transfer protocol is http://, the domain is wireviews.com, the direc¬ 
+tory is lyrics, and the file name is instar.html. 
+
+
+
+r \ 
+
+Depending on how the target site’s web server has been set up, you may or may not 
+have to include www prior to the domain name when creating this kind o f link. Usually 
+it’s best to include it, to be on the safe side. An exception is if you’re linking to a sub- 
+domain, such as http://browsers.evolt.org. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+If you’re linking to a website’s homepage, you can usually leave off the file name, as in the 
+earlier link to the friends of ED site, and the server will automatically pick up the default 
+document—assuming one exists—which can be index.html, default.htm, index.php, 
+index.asp, or some other name, depending on the server type. However, adding a trailing 
+slash after the domain is beneficial (such as http://www.wireviews.com/). If no default 
+document exists, you’ll be returned a directory listing or an error message, depending on 
+whether the server’s permissions settings enable users to browse directories. 
+
+
+Relative links 
+
+A relative link is one that locates a file in relation to the current document. Taking the 
+Wireviews example, if you were on the instar.html page, located inside the lyrics direc¬ 
+tory, and you wanted to link back to the homepage via a relative link, you would use the 
+following code: 
+
+<a href=". ./index. html">lAlireviews homepage</a> 
+
+
+151 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The index.html file name is preceded by .which tells the web browser to move up one 
+directory prior to looking for index.html. Moving in the other direction is done in the 
+same way as with absolute links: by preceding the file name with the path. Therefore, to 
+get from the homepage back to the instar.html page, you would write the following: 
+
+<a href="lyrics/instar.html">Instar lyrics</a> 
+
+In some cases, you need to combine both methods. For instance, this website has HTML 
+documents in both the lyrics and reviews folders. To get from the instar.html lyrics 
+page to a review, you have to go up one level, and then down into the relevant directory 
+to locate the file: 
+
+<a href="../reviews/alloy.html">Alloy review</a> 
+
+
+Root-relative links 
+
+Root-relative links work in a similar way to absolute links, but from the root of the website. 
+These links begin with a forward slash, which tells the browser to start the path to the file 
+from the root of the current website. Therefore, regardless of how many directories deep 
+you are in the Wireviews website, a root-relative link to the homepage always looks 
+like this: 
+
+<a href="/index.html">Homepage</a> 
+
+And a link to the instar.html page within the lyrics directory always looks like this: 
+
+<a href="/lyrics/instar.html">Instar lyrics</a> 
+
+This type of link therefore ensures you point to the relevant document without your 
+having to type an absolute link or mess around with relative links, and is, in my opinion, 
+the safest type of link to use for linking to documents elsewhere on a website. Should a 
+page be moved from one directory to one higher or lower in the hierarchy, none of the 
+links (including links to style sheets and script documents) would require changing. 
+Relative links, on the other hand, would require changing; and although absolute links 
+wouldn’t require changing, they take up more space and are less modular from a testing 
+standpoint; if you’re testing a site, you don’t want to be restricted to the domain in 
+question—^you may wish to host the site locally or on a temporary domain online so that 
+clients can access the work-in-progress creation. 
+
+
+All paths in href attributes must contain forward slashes only. Some software — 
+notably older releases from Microsoft—creates and permits backward slashes (e.g., 
+Iyrics\wire\l54.htmll, but this is nonstandard and does not work in non-Microsoft 
+web browsers. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+152 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Internal page links 
+
+Along with linking to other documents, it’s possible to link to another point in the same 
+web page. This is handy for things like a FAQ (frequently asked questions) list, enabling the 
+visitor to jump directly to an answer and then back to the list of questions; or for top-of- 
+page links, enabling a user single-click access to return to the likely location of a page’s 
+masthead and navigation, if they’ve scrolled to the bottom of a long document. 
+
+When linking to other elements on a web page, you start by providing an id value for any 
+element you want to be able to jump to. To link to that, you use a standard anchor ele¬ 
+ment (<a>) with an href value equal to that of your defined id value, preceded by a hash 
+symbol (#). 
+
+For a list of questions, you can have something like this: 
+
+<ul id="questions"> 
+
+<li><a href="#answerl">Question one</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#answer2">Question two</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#answer3">Question three</a></li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+Later on in the document, the first two answers might look like this: 
+
+<p id="answerl">The answer to question l!</p> 
+
+<p><a href="#questions">Back to questions</a></p> 
+
+<p id="answer2">The answer to question 2!</p> 
+
+<p><a href="#questions">Back to questions</a></p> 
+
+As you can see, each link’s href value is prefixed by a hash sign. When the link is clicked, 
+the web page jumps to the element with the relevant id value. Therefore, clicking the 
+Question one link, which has an href value of #answerl, jumps to the paragraph with the 
+id value of answeri. Clicking the Back to questions link, which has an id value of 
+#questions, jumps back to the list, because the unordered list element has an id of 
+questions. 
+
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+It’s worth bearing in mind that the page only jumps directly to the linked element if 
+there’s enough room underneath it. If the target element is at the bottom of the web 
+page, you’ll see it plus a browser window height of content above. 
+
+)_ J 
+
+
+Backward compatibility with fragment identifiers 
+
+In older websites, you may see a slightly different system for accessing content within a 
+web page, and this largely involves obsolete browsers such as Netscape 4 not understand¬ 
+ing how to deal with links that solely use the id attribute. Instead, you’ll see a fragment 
+identifier, which is an anchor tag with a name attribute, but no href attribute. For instance, 
+a fragment identifier for the first answer is as follows: 
+
+<p><a id="answerl" name="answerl">Answer ll</a></p> 
+
+
+153 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The reason for the doubling up, here—using both the name and id attributes, is because 
+the former is on borrowed time in web specifications, and it should therefore only be used 
+for backward compatibility. 
+
+
+Top-of-page links 
+
+Internal page links are sometimes used to create a top-of-page/back-to-top link. This is 
+particularly handy for websites that have lengthy pages—when a user has scrolled to the 
+bottom of the page, they can click the link to return to the top of the document, which 
+usually houses the navigation. The problem here is that the most common internal linking 
+method—targeting a link at #top—fails in many browsers, including Firefox and Opera. 
+
+<a href="#top">Back to top</a> 
+
+You’ve likely seen the previous sort of link countless times, but unless you’re using Internet 
+Explorer or Safari, it’s as dead as a dodo. There are various workarounds, though, one of 
+which is to include a fragment identifier at the top of the document. At the foot of the 
+web page is the Back to top link shown previously, and the fragment identifier is placed 
+at the top of the web page: 
+
+<a id="top" name="top"></a> 
+
+This technique isn’t without its problems, though. Some browsers ignore empty elements 
+such as this (some web designers therefore populate the element with a single space); it’s 
+tricky to get the element right at the top of the page and not to interfere with subsequent 
+content; and, if you’re working with XHTML Strict, it’s not valid to have an inline element 
+on its own, outside of a block element, such as p or div. 
+
+Two potential solutions are on offer. The simplest is to link the top-of-page link to your 
+containing div—the one within which your web page’s content is housed. For sites I 
+create—as you’ll see in Chapter 7—I typically house all content within a div that has an id 
+value of wrapper. This enables me to easily control the width of the layout, among other 
+things. In the context of this section of this chapter, the wrapper div also provides some¬ 
+thing for a top-of-page link to jump to. Clicking the link in the following code block would 
+enable a user to jump to the top of the wrapper div, at (or very near to) the top of the 
+web page. 
+
+<a href="#wrapper">Top of page</a> 
+
+Note that since standalone inline elements aren’t valid in XHTML Strict, the preceding 
+would either be housed within a paragraph or a footer div, depending on the site. 
+
+Another solution is to nest a fragment identifier within a div and then style the div to sit 
+at the top left of the web page. The HTML for this is the following: 
+
+<div id="topOfPageAnchor"> 
+
+<a id="top" name="top"> </a> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+154 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+In CSS, you would then add the following: 
+
+div#topOfPageAnchor { 
+position: absolute; 
+top: 0; 
+left: 0; 
+height: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Setting the div’s height to 0 means it takes up no space and is therefore not displayed; set¬ 
+ting its positioning to absolute means it’s outside the normal flow of the document, so it 
+doesn't affect subsequent page content. You can test this by setting the background color 
+of a following element to something vivid—it should sit tight to the edge of the browser 
+window edges. 
+
+
+Link states 
+
+By default, links are displayed underlined and in blue when viewed in a web browser. 
+However, links have five states, and their visual appearance varies depending on the cur¬ 
+rent state of the link. The states are as follows: 
+
+■ link: The link’s standard state, before any action has taken place 
+
+■ visited: The link’s state after having been clicked 
+
+■ hover: The link’s state while the mouse cursor is over it 
+
+■ focus: The link’s state while focused 
+
+■ active: The link’s state while being clicked 
+
+The visited and active states also have a default appearance. The former is displayed in 
+purple and the latter in red. Both are underlined. 
+
+If every site adhered to this default scheme, it would be easier to find where you’ve been 
+and where you haven’t on the Web. However, most designers prefer to dictate their own 
+color schemes rather than having blue and purple links peppering their designs. In my 
+view, this is fine. Despite what some usability gurus claim, most web users these days prob¬ 
+ably don’t even know what the default link colors are, and so hardly miss them. 
+
+In HTML, you may have seen custom link colors being set for the link, active, and 
+visited states via the link, alink, and vlink attributes of the body element. These attrib¬ 
+utes are deprecated, though, and should be avoided. This is a good thing, because you 
+need to define them in the body element of every page of your site, which is a tiresome 
+process—even more so if they later need changing; as you might have guessed, it’s easier 
+to define link states in CSS. 
+
+
+
+155 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Defining link states with CSS 
+
+css has advantages over the obsolete HTML method of defining link states. You gain con¬ 
+trol over the hover and focus states and can do far more than just edit the state colors— 
+although that’s what we’re going to do first. 
+
+Anchors can be styled by using a tag selector: 
+
+a { 
+
+color: #3366cc; 
+
+} 
+
+In this example, all anchors on the page—including links—are turned to a medium blue. 
+However, individual states can be defined by using pseudo-class selectors (so called 
+because they have the same effect as applying a class, even though no class is applied to 
+the element): 
+
+a:link { 
+color: #3366cc; 
+
+} 
+
+a:visited { 
+color: #666699; 
+
+} 
+
+a:hover { 
+color: #0066ff; 
+
+} 
+
+a:focus { 
+
+background-color: #ffff00; 
+
+} 
+
+a:active { 
+color: #cc00ff; 
+
+} 
+
+Correctly ordering link states 
+
+The various states have been defined in a specific order in the previous example: link, 
+visited, hover, focus, active. This is because certain states override others, and those 
+“closest” to the link on the web page take precedence. 
+
+There is debate regarding which order the various states should be in, so I can only pro¬ 
+vide my reasoning for this particular example. It makes sense for the link to be a certain 
+color when you hover over it, and then a different color on the active state (when 
+clicked), to confirm the click action. However, if you put the hover and active states in 
+the other order (active, hover), you may not see the active one when the link is clicked. 
+This is because you’re still hovering over the link when you click it. 
+
+The focus state is probably primarily use keyboard users, and so they won’t typically see 
+hover anyway. However, for mouse users, it makes logical sense to place focus after hover, 
+because it’s a more direct action—in other words, the link is selected, ready for activation 
+
+
+156 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+during the focus state; but if you ordered the states focus, hover, a link the cursor is 
+hovering over would not change appearance when focused, which from a user standpoint 
+is unhelpful. 
+
+
+A simple way of remembering the basic state order (the five states minus focusj is to 
+think of the words love, hate: link, visited, hover, active. If focus is included and 
+my order is used, there’s the slightly awkward (but equally memorable) love her for 
+olways//ove him for dways; link, visited, hover, focus, active. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+However, there is a counter argument that recommends putting focus before hover, so 
+that when an already focused link (or potentially any other focused element for non-IE 
+browsers) is hovered over, it will change from the focused state to indicate that it is now 
+being hovered over. Ultimately, this is a chicken-and-egg scenario—do you want a hovered 
+link to change from hover to focus to active? The focus will get lost somewhere in there 
+until the link is depressed (and the active state removed), by which time the link will be 
+in the process of being followed. 
+
+In the end, the decision should perhaps rest with how you’re styling states and what infor¬ 
+mation you want to present to the user, and often the focus state is a duplication of hover 
+anyway, for the benefit of keyboard users. And on some occasions, it doesn’t matter too 
+much where it’s put, if the styling method is much different from that for other states— 
+for example, when a border is applied to focus, but a change of color or removal of 
+underlines is used for the other states. However, if you decide on LVFHA or some other 
+order, you’ll have to make your own way of remembering the state order! 
+
+
+
+The difference between a and a:link 
+
+Many designers don’t realize the difference between the selectors a and a:link in CSS. 
+Essentially, the a selector styles all anchors, but a:link styles only those that are clickable 
+links (i.e., those that include an href attribute) that have not yet been visited. This means 
+that, should you have a site with a number of fragment identifiers, you can use the a: link 
+selector to style clickable links only, avoiding styling fragment identifiers, too. (This pre¬ 
+vents the problem of fragment identifiers taking on underlines, and also prevents the 
+potential problem of user-defined style sheets overriding the a rule.) However, if you 
+define a:link instead of a, you then must define the visited, hover, and active states, 
+otherwise they will be displayed in their default appearances. This is particularly important 
+when it comes to visited, because that state is mutually exclusive to link, and doesn’t 
+take on any of its styling. Therefore, if you set font-weight to bold via a: link alone, vis¬ 
+ited links will not appear bold (although the hover and active states will for unvisited 
+links—upon the links being visited, they will become hover and active states for visited 
+links and will be displayed accordingly). 
+
+
+Editing link styles using CSS 
+
+
+Along with changing link colors, CSS enables you to style links just like any other piece of 
+text. You can define specific fonts; edit padding, margins, and borders; change the font 
+
+
+157 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+weight and style; and also amend the standard link underline, removing it entirely if you 
+wish (by setting the text-decoration property to none). 
+
+ailink { 
+color: #3366cc; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+
+} 
+
+Removing the standard underline is somewhat controversial, even in these enlightened 
+times, and causes endless (and rather tedious) arguments among web designers. My view 
+is that it can be OK to do so, but with some caveats. 
+
+If you remove the standard underline, ensure your links stand out from the surrounding 
+copy in some other way. Having your links in the same style and color as other words and 
+not underlined is a very bad idea. The only exception is if you don’t want users to easily 
+find the links and click them (perhaps for a children’s game or educational site). 
+
+A common device used by web designers is to recolor links, in order to distinguish them 
+from body copy. However, this may not be enough (depending on the chosen colors), 
+because a significant proportion of the population has some form of color blindness. A 
+commonly quoted figure for color blindness in Western countries is 8%, with the largest 
+affected group being white males (the worldwide figure is lower, at approximately 4%). 
+Therefore, a change of color (to something fairly obvious) and a change of font weight to 
+bold often does the trick. 
+
+Whatever your choice, be consistent—don’t have links change style on different pages of 
+the site. Also, it’s useful to reinforce the fact that links are links by bringing back the 
+underline on the hover state. An example of this is shown to the right (see editing-link- 
+styles-using-css.html and editing-link-styles-using-css.html in the chapter 5 
+folder of the completed files). 
+
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbl 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id 
+pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse 
+id velit vitae ligula voiutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed 
+quis veiit. Nulla fa^isl . Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere 
+sapien. Nam conse^tuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum 
+enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. 
+
+
+Links are bold and orange, making them stand out from surrounding text. On the hover 
+state, the link darkens to red and the standard underline returns. The second of those 
+things is achieved by setting text-decoration to underline in the a:hover declaration. 
+Note that even when presented in grayscale, such as in this book, these two states can be 
+distinguished from surrounding text. 
+
+
+158 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+You can also combine pseudo-classes. For example, if you add the rules shown following 
+to a style sheet (these are from the editing-link-styles-using-css documents), you’d 
+have links going gray when visited, but turning red on the hover state (along with showing 
+the underline). Note that because the link and visited states are exclusive, the bold 
+value for font-weight is assigned using the grouped selector. It could also be applied to 
+individual rules, but this is neater. 
+
+ailinkj aivisited { 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+a:link { 
+color: #f26522; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+
+} 
+
+a:visited { 
+color: #8a8a8a; 
+
+} 
+
+a:hover { 
+color: #f22222; 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+
+} 
+
+a:active { 
+color: #000000; 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+
+} 
+
+If you decided that you wanted visited links to retain their visited color on the hover 
+state, you could add the following rule: 
+
+a:visited:hover { 
+color: #8a8a8a; 
+
+} 
+
+The :focus pseudo-class 
+
+Rarely used due to a lack of browser support, the :focus pseudo-class is worth being 
+mindful of. It enables you to define the link state of a focused link. Focusing usually occurs 
+when tabbing to a link, and so the :focus pseudo-class can be a handy usability aid. At the 
+time of writing, it works in Firefox and Safari, but is ignored in Opera and Internet 
+Explorer, although Microsoft’s browser does at least surround any focused links with a 
+dotted line. (Note that Firefox and Safari also surround focused links with a dotted line 
+and aqua border, respectively.) 
+
+The following example, used in editing-link-styles-using-css.css, turns the back¬ 
+ground of focused links yellow in compliant browsers: 
+
+a:focus { 
+
+background: yellow; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+159 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Multiple link states: The cascade 
+
+A common problem web designers come up against is multiple link styles within a docu¬ 
+ment. While you should be consistent when it comes to styling site links, there are specific 
+exceptions, one of which is site navigation. Web users are quite happy with navigation bar 
+links differing from standard inline links. Elsewhere, links may differ slightly in web page 
+footers, where links are often displayed in a smaller font than that used for other web 
+page copy; also, if a background color makes the standard link color hard to distinguish, it 
+might be useful to change it (although in such situations it would perhaps be best to 
+amend either the background or your default link colors). 
+
+A widespread error is applying a class to every link for which you want a style other than 
+the default—^you end up with loads of inline junk that can’t be easily amended at a later 
+date. Instead, with the careful use of divs (with unique ids) on the web page and contex¬ 
+tual selectors in CSS, you can rapidly style links for each section of a web page. 
+
+
+Styling multiple link states 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html and CSS-default.css from the basic- 
+boilerplates folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use the cascade to set styles for links housed in specific 
+areas of a web page. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+multiple-links-the-cascade.html and multiple-links-the- 
+cascade.css from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add the basic page content structure shown following, placing it within the existing 
+wrapper div of the boilerplate. This has three divs, which have id values of 
+navigation, content, and footer, respectively. The first houses an unordered list 
+that forms the basis of a navigation bar. The second is the content area, which has 
+an inline link within a paragraph. The third is the footer, which is sometimes used 
+to repeat the navigation bar links, albeit in a simplified manner. 
+
+<div id="navigation"> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+clixa href ="index.html">Homepage</ax/li> 
+
+<lixa href ="products.html">Products</ax/li> 
+
+<lixa href="contact-details.html">Contact details</ax/li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div id="content"> 
+
+<p>Hello there. Our new product is a <a href="banjo.html">fantastic 
+banjo</a>!</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div id="footer"> 
+
+
+160 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+<a href="index.html">Homepage</a> | <a hre-F="products.html"> 
+^Products</a> | <a href="contact-details.html">Contact 
+^ details</a> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+Note that the code block could be simplified, such as by dispensing with the naviga¬ 
+tion div and instead applying the relevant id value directly to the unordered list. 
+However, this exercise aims to show how to create links in context, using a simplified 
+web page layout that has specific areas for certain content types. See Chapters 7 and 
+10 for more on layout. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+2. Add some padding to the existing body rule in the CSS to add some spacing around 
+the page content: 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+padding: 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+• Homepage 
+
+• Products 
+
+• Contact details 
+
+Hello there. Our new product is a fantastic banlo l 
+Homepage | Products | Contact details 
+
+
+3 . Add some rules to define the main states for links on the web page. The following 
+
+rules color links orange, change them to red on the hover state, make them gray 
+
+on the visited state, and make them black on the active state. 
+
+a:link { 
+color: #f26522; 
+
+} 
+
+a:visited { 
+color: #8a8a8a; 
+
+} 
+
+a:hover { 
+color: #f22222; 
+
+} 
+
+a:active { 
+color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+161 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+4 . Next, style the navigation links. Contextual selectors are used to style the links 
+within the navigation div. 
+
+#navigation a, #navigation a:visited { 
+text-decoration: none; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+color: #666666; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+
+} 
+
+The first rule removes the underline from all links within the navigation div, ren¬ 
+ders them in bold and uppercase, and colors them a medium gray. The second rule 
+brings back the underline on the hover state. 
+
+
+You’ll note that the visited state is the same as the standard state in the previous 
+code block. While I don’t recommend doing this for links in a page’s general content 
+area, or for pages that have a lot of navigation links, I feel it’s acceptable for sites that 
+have a small number of navigation links, where it’s not likely a visitor will need notifi¬ 
+cation regarding which pages or sections have been accessed. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+5. Style the footer links. Add another contextual selector to style the footer links, 
+making them smaller than links elsewhere on the page: 
+
+#footer a:linkj #footer a:visited { 
+font-size: O.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+• HOMEPAGE 
+
+• PRODUCTS 
+
+• CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+Hello there. Our new product is a fantastic banio l 
+Homepage | Products | Contact details 
+
+
+And there we have it: three different link styles on the same page, without messing around 
+with classes. 
+
+
+Enhanced link accessibility and usability 
+
+We’ve already touched on accessibility and usability concerns during this chapter, so we’ll 
+now briefly run through a few attributes that can be used with anchors (and some with 
+area elements—see the “Image Maps” section later in the chapter) to enhance your web 
+page links. 
+
+
+162 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+The title attribute 
+
+Regular users of Internet Explorer for 
+Windows may be familiar with its habit of 
+popping up alt text as a tooltip. This has 
+encouraged web designers to wrongly fill alt 
+text with explanatory copy for those links that 
+require an explanation, rather than using the 
+alt text for a succinct overview of the image’s 
+content. Should you require a pop-up, add a 
+title attribute to your surrounding a ele¬ 
+ment to explain what will happen when the 
+link is clicked. The majority of web browsers 
+display its value when the link is hovered over 
+for a couple of seconds (see right), although 
+some older browsers, such as Netscape 4, 
+don’t provide this functionality. 
+
+<a href="large-image.html" title="Click to view a larger image"> 
+
+‘•■cimg src="image.jpg" alt="This is some text that explains what 
+^ the image is" width="400" height="300" /></a> 
+
+There are a few things to be mindful of when using title attributes. The first is that 
+behavior varies slightly between browsers, and the positioning and style of the tooltip can¬ 
+not be controlled. Internet Explorer exhibits some particularly quirky behavior. In addition 
+to displaying alt text as a tooltip, alt text defined within an img element will override (and 
+therefore be displayed instead of) title text for a surrounding a element. However, if the 
+title and alt attributes are both placed within the img element, the title attribute wins 
+out. Therefore, some technically unnecessary duplication of content is required to ensure 
+compliance from Internet Explorer. Also, Microsoft’s browser does not display title text 
+when you mouse over area elements within image maps. 
+
+
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Firefox tends to crop tooltips after 80 characters or so. Therefore, keep your title 
+text fairly succinct. If you need a much longer piece of text, implement the technique 
+described in the “Adding pop-ups to images" section later in this chapter. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Using accesskey and tabindex 
+
+I’ve bundled the accesskey and tabindex attributes because they have similar functions— 
+that is, enabling keyboard access to various areas of the web page. Most browsers enable 
+you to use the Tab key to cycle through links, although if you end up on a web page with 
+dozens of links, this can be a soul-destroying experience. (And before you say “So what?” 
+you should be aware that many web users cannot use a mouse. You don’t have to be 
+severely disabled or elderly to be in such a position either—something as common as 
+repetitive strain injury affects plenty of people’s ability to use a mouse.) 
+
+The accesskey attribute can be added to anchor and area elements. It assigns an access 
+key to the link, whose value must be a single character. In tandem with your platform’s 
+
+
+163 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+assigned modifier key (Alt for Windows and Ctrl for Mac), you press the key to highlight or 
+activate the link, depending on how the browser you’re using works. 
+
+<a href="index.html" accesskey="/">Home page</a> 
+
+An ongoing problem with access keys is that the shortcuts used to activate them are 
+mostly claimed by various technologies, leaving scant few characters. In fact, research con¬ 
+ducted by WATS.ca (www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=32) concluded that just three 
+characters were available that didn’t clash with anything at all: /, \ and ]. This, combined 
+with a total lack of standard access key assignments/bindings, has led to many accessibility 
+gurus conceding defeat, admitting that while there’s a definite need for the technology, it’s 
+just not there yet. 
+
+The tabindex attribute has proved more successful. This is used to define the attribute’s 
+value as anything from 0 (which excludes the element from the tabbing order, which can 
+be useful) to 32767, thereby setting its place in the tab order, although if you have 32,767 
+tabbable elements on your web page, you really do need to go back and reread the earlier 
+advice on information architecture (see Chapter 1). Note that tab orders needn’t be con¬ 
+secutive, so it’s wise to use tabindex in steps of ten, so you can later insert extra ones 
+without renumbering everything. 
+
+Not all browsers enable tabbing to links, and others require that you amend some prefer¬ 
+ences to activate this function, and so tabindex ultimately only really comes in handy 
+when working with forms, as you’ll see in Chapter 8. When used for too many other ele¬ 
+ments, you also run the risk of tabindex values hijacking the mouse cursor, meaning that 
+instead of the Tab key moving the user from the first form field to the second, it might end 
+up highlighting something totally different, elsewhere on the page. What’s logical to some 
+people—in terms of tab order—may not be to others, so always ensure you test your web¬ 
+sites thoroughly, responding to feedback. 
+
+Skip navigation links 
+
+Designers who work with CSS layouts tend to focus on information structure, rather than 
+blindly putting together layouts in a visual editor. This is good from an accessibility stand¬ 
+point, because you can ensure information is ordered in a logical manner by checking its 
+location in the code. However, when considering alternate browsers, it’s clear that some of 
+the information on the page will be potentially redundant. For example, while a user surf¬ 
+ing with a standard browser can ignore the masthead and navigation in a split second, rap¬ 
+idly focusing on the information they want to look at, someone using a screen reader will 
+have to sit through the navigation links being read out each time, which can prove 
+extremely tedious if there are quite a few links. 
+
+Various solutions exist to help deal with this problem, and although you can use CSS to 
+reorder the page information (most commonly by placing the code for the masthead at 
+the end of the HTML document and then using absolute positioning to display it at the top 
+when the page is viewed in a browser), it’s more common to use what’s typically referred 
+
+to as skip navigation. 
+
+
+164 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Creating a skip navigation link 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+skip-navigation-starting-point.html and skip-navigation- 
+starting-point, css from the chapter 5 folder as a starting 
+point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create some basic skip navigation. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+skip-navigation-completed.html and skip-navigation- 
+completed, css from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Examine the web page. Successful skip navigation relies in part on semantic and 
+logical document structure. Open skip-navigation-starting-point.html and 
+you’ll see it’s a basic web page, with all of the page’s content—title, navigation, and 
+main content—contained within a wrapper div; next is a masthead div, containing 
+a heading and a few links. Under the masthead div is a content div, which, suitably 
+enough, houses the page’s main content. The beginning of the content is immedi¬ 
+ately visible, even on monitors with low resolutions, but for users of screen readers, 
+the site’s name and navigation links will be read out every single time a page is 
+accessed—a tedious process for the user. 
+
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE 
+Home page About us Contact details 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. 
+Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, 
+nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim 
+nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+
+2 . Immediately after the body element start tag, add a div with an id value of 
+skipLink, which is a hook to later style the div and its link using CSS. The href 
+value for the anchor is set to #content. As you will remember from earlier in the 
+chapter, this will make the page jump to the element with an id value of content 
+when the link is clicked (i.e., the content div in this example’s case). 
+
+<div id="skipLink"> 
+
+<a href="#content">Skip to content</a> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+165 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3 . Test the web page. Already, the benefits of this are apparent. You can use Opera’s 
+User mode or CSS > Disable Styles > All Styles in the Firefox Web Developer tool¬ 
+bar to temporarily remove the CSS and emulate a text browser (roughly equating 
+to the content available to screen readers)—see the following left-hand image. 
+Click the skip to content link and the page will jump to the web page’s content—see 
+the right-hand image. Even with three links, this proves useful, but if the site has a 
+couple of dozen links, this improves usability for screen reader users no end. 
+
+
+
+0 0 0_ 4 Sk i p links 
+
+Newub Skip links ^ 
+
+^ ^ file;//localhost/Us ▼] ► 
+
+Find In page ^ f Find next User mode 
+
+l^yShowimages Fit to width lOOJJ ▼ 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+consectetuer adipiscing elit. Horbi 
+coounodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, 
+orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar 
+odio lorem bon turpis. Nullam sit amet 
+enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae 
+ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget 
+euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc 
+ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum 
+enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor 
+ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, 
+Mavigatat (Z] and [X] — Blenants! (Shlft-i-arrow kaya] 
+
+
+Styling a skip navigation link 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+skip-navigation-completed.html and skip-navigation- 
+completed, css from the chapter 5 folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to style skip navigation. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+skip-navigation-styled.html and skip-navigation-styled.css 
+from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+When skip navigation is styled, it’s common to set the containing div (in this case, the 
+skipLink one) to display: none, thereby making it invisible. This is all well and good in 
+theory, but some screen readers render CSS, meaning that your cunning skip navigation 
+won’t be accessible. Therefore, this exercise will show how to hide the skip navigation 
+within the existing page design. (Note that, depending on your site and target audience, 
+you may wish to leave the skip navigation visible to aid users whose sight is fine, but who 
+have difficulty with motor tasks. That said, the exercise still shows how to style skip navi¬ 
+gation in general, and should therefore prove useful regardless.) 
+
+
+166 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+1 . Style the skipLink div. Remove the skipLink div from the document flow 
+(thereby meaning it won’t affect the positioning of any other element) by setting 
+position to absolute in a CSS rule targeting the element (see the following code 
+snippet); Chapter 7 has more information on positioning div elements. The top 
+and right values define the div’s position in relation to its parent element (which 
+in this case is body—effectively the entire browser window view area). The settings 
+place the div inside the masthead. 
+
+#skipLink { 
+position: absolute; 
+top: 30px; 
+right: 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE 
+Home page About us Contact details 
+
+
+Skip to content 
+
+
+
+2 . Make the link invisible—via the use of contextual selectors you can set the link’s 
+color to blend with that of the web page element it’s positioned over. You can also 
+use the :hover and :focus pseudo-classes mentioned earlier in this chapter to 
+make the link visible on the hover and focus states. 
+
+#skipLink a:link, #skipLink a:visited { 
+color: ttcecece; 
+
+} 
+
+#skipLink a:hover, #skipLink a:focus { 
+color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE 
+Home page About us Contact details 
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE 
+
+Home page About us Contact details 
+
+
+Skip to^ntent 
+
+
+167 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Enhancing skip navigation with a background image 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+skip-navigation-completed.html, skip-navigation- 
+completed, css, and skip-navigation-down-arrow.gif from the 
+chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create skip navigation that sits centrally at the top of the 
+web page and is invisible, but that displays a rollover effect during 
+the hover and focus states. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+skip-navigation-background-image.html, skip-navigation- 
+background-image.css, and skip-navigation-down-arrow.gif 
+(unchanged during the tutorial) from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+1. Position the skipNav div. Add the following link to remove the skipNav div from 
+the document flow and position it at the top of the web page. The width and 
+text-align property values stretch the div to the full width of the browser win¬ 
+dow and center the text horizontally, respectively. 
+
+#skipLink { 
+position: 
+top: 0; 
+left: 0; 
+
+absolute; 
+
+
+width: 100%; 
+text-align: center; 
+
+} 
+
+2. Style the skip navigation link. Add the following rule to style the link within the 
+skipLink div. By setting display to block, the active area of the link stretches to 
+fill its container, thereby effectively making the entire containing div clickable. The 
+padding-bottom setting is important, because this provides space at the bottom of 
+the div for displaying the background image used for the hover state, added in the 
+next step. The color value is black (#000000) at this point, which ensures that the 
+text fits happily within the space available above the page content. (This may 
+change for users with non-default settings, but for the default and first zoom set¬ 
+ting, it’ll be fine.) 
+
+#skipLink a:link, #skipLink aivisited { 
+display: block; 
+color: #000000; 
+
+font: l.Oem Arial, Helveticaj sans-serif; 
+padding-top: 5px; 
+padding-bottom: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+168 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+3 . Recolor the skip navigation link. Change the color property so that the link blends 
+into the background. 
+
+#skipLink a:link, #skipLink aivisited { 
+display: block; 
+color: #fefefe; 
+
+font: l.Oem Arial, Helveticaj sans-serif; 
+padding-top: 5px; 
+padding-bottom: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Define the hover and focus states. Add the following rule to set the style for the 
+hover and focus states. This essentially makes the text visible (via the color set¬ 
+ting) and defines a background image—a wide GIF89 image with a downward¬ 
+facing arrow at its center now appears when the user places their mouse cursor 
+over the top of the web page. 
+
+#skipLink a:hover, #skipLink a:focus { 
+color: #000000; 
+
+background: url(skip-navigation-down-arrow.gif) 50% 100% no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Sko to content 
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE WEBSITE ^ 
+
+Home oaae About us Contact details 
+
+
+
+
+Link targeting 
+
+Although a fairly common practice online, link targeting—using the target attribute on a 
+and area elements (see the following code for an example), typically to open a link in 
+a new window—is not without its problems and should be avoided. 
+
+<a href="a-web-page.html" target="_blank">Open in a new window</a> 
+
+While some argue that this practice is beneficial, enabling users to look at external content 
+and return to your site, what it actually does is take control of the browser away from 
+users. After all, if someone actually wants to open content in a new window, they can do 
+so using keyboard commands and/or contextual menus. More important, opening docu¬ 
+ments in new windows breaks the history path. For many, this might not be a huge issue, 
+but for those navigating the Web via a screen reader, pop-ups are a menace. New content 
+opens up, is deemed to not be of interest, and the back function is invoked. But this is a 
+new window, with its own blank history. Gnashing of teeth ensues. There’s also the prob¬ 
+lem that you can’t guarantee what will happen when this attribute is used anyway—many 
+users configure browsers to suppress new windows, either forcing them to open in a new 
+tab or over the top of the current page. 
+
+
+There’s also the issue that target is deprecated. Although it remains valid when working 
+with XHTML Transitional (and XHTML Frameset), it’s not when using XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+169 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+There is, however, a JavaScript alternative for those very rare occasions where you need to 
+use a link to open a new window (this is explored on Bruce Lawson’s website, at www. 
+brucelawson.co.uk/2005/opening-links-in-new-windows-in-xhtml-strict-2/); essen¬ 
+tially, you attach the script to your web pages and then add rel="external" to the a start 
+tag for external links. Complying with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 
+(WCAG), the script also warns when new windows are about to be opened. Ultimately, 
+though, you should avoid new windows whenever possible. For occasions when you want 
+to provide a temporary new window (such as for a terms-and-conditions box during a 
+checkout process), use a JavaScript pop-up, or place the terms inline by using a scrollable 
+content area (see Chapter 7 for more on those). 
+
+
+Links and images 
+
+Although links are primarily text-based, it's possible to wrap anchor tags around an image, 
+thereby turning it into a link: 
+
+<a href="a-link.html"><img src="linked-image.gif" width="40" 
+li* height="40" /></a> 
+
+Some browsers border linked images with whatever link colors have been stated in CSS (or 
+the default colors, if no custom ones have been defined), which looks nasty and can dis¬ 
+place other layout elements. Historically, designers have gotten around this by setting the 
+border attribute within an img element to 0, but this has been deprecated. Therefore, it’s 
+best to use a CSS contextual selector to define images within links as having no border. 
+
+a img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Clearly, this can be overridden for specific links. Alternatively, you could set an “invisible” 
+border (one that matches the site’s background color) on one or more sides, and then set 
+its color to that of your standard hover color when the user hovers over the image. This 
+would then provide visual feedback to the user, confirming that the image is a link. 
+
+a img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid 
+
+} 
+
+a:hover img { 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #f22222; 
+
+} 
+
+In any case, you must always have usability and accessibility at the back of your mind when 
+working with image-based links. With regard to usability, is the image’s function obvious? 
+Plenty of websites use icons instead of straightforward text-based navigation, resulting in 
+frustrated users if the function of each image isn’t obvious. People don’t want to learn 
+what each icon is for, and they’ll soon move on to competing sites. With regard to 
+
+
+170 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+accessibility, remember that not all browsers can zoom images, and so if an image-based 
+link has text within it, ensure it’s big enough to read easily. Whenever possible, offer a text- 
+based alternative to image-based links, and never omit alt and title attributes (discussed 
+earlier in this chapter). The former can describe the image content and the latter can 
+describe the link target (i.e., what will happen when the link is clicked). 
+
+Therefore, the example from earlier becomes the following: 
+
+<a href="a-link.html"><img title="Visit our shop" 
+
+** src="linked-image.gif"width="40" height="40" 
+
+^ alt="Shopping trolley" /></a> 
+
+
+Adding pop-ups to images 
+
+On occasion, when a user hovers their mouse cursor over an image, you might like to add 
+a pop-up that’s a little more flamboyant than what a title attribute can provide. Using 
+CSS, you can add a fully stylable pop-up to an image, when the user moves their cursor 
+over it. Note, however, that this technique should be used sparingly, and you should never 
+rely on users accessing this information, unless you make it clear that the pop-up exists— 
+for example, you could use it for a game, showing the answer to a question when the user 
+mouses over an image. (However, if something is extremely important for your users to 
+see immediately, don’t hide it away in a pop-up—display it in plain sight.) The following 
+walkthrough shows you how to use pop-ups in such a way. 
+
+
+
+Adding a pop-up to an image 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html and CSS-default.css from the basic- 
+boilerplates folder as a starting point, along with the two image 
+files add-a-pop-up-image.jpg and add-a-pop-up-pop-up.jpg 
+from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a totally CSS-based pop-up that can be applied to 
+an image. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+add-a-pop-up.html and add-a-pop-up.css in the chapter 5 
+folder, along with the two images, which remain unchanged. 
+
+
+1 . Create a container for the pop-up. Add the div shown following to the web page, 
+within the wrapper; the div will act as a container for the pop-up. 
+
+<div id="popupContainer"> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+2 . Add the main image in the usual fashion, placing it inside the div created in step 1. 
+
+<img src="add-a-pop-up-image.]pg" alt="Landscape" width="500" 
+
+I* height="375" /> 
+
+
+171 
+
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+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3 . Add a link and pop-up content. Surround the image with a dummy link, and then 
+add a span element immediately after the image. Within this, place the pop-up 
+content, which can contain text and even other images. Text can be styled within 
+inline elements (strong, em, and anchors, for example). In this example, the span 
+contains an image, which will be floated right, and some text (which is truncated 
+for space reasons—the completed version in the download files is longer). To 
+ensure that the floated image is “cleared,” making the span’s background appear 
+behind it once styled, a clearFix class is added to the span start tag, and an asso¬ 
+ciated CSS rule created (in step 10). More on this float-clearing technique, along 
+with floats and clears in general, is given in Chapter 7. 
+
+<a href="#"><img src="add-a-pop-up-to-an-image.jpg" alt="Landscape" 
+
+^ width="500" height="375" /xspan class="clearFix"><img 
+^ src="add-a-pop-up-pop-up.jpg" alt="Winter shot" width="126" 
+
+^ height="215" /> 
+
+The text for the pop-up goes here...</span></a> 
+
+
+f -\ 
+
+Because you can’t place paragraphs within a span element, you need to stick to a 
+single block of text, or split paragraphs with double line breaks (<hi /xbr />), 
+despite the iffy semantics of doing that. 
+
+- J 
+
+
+4 . Set defaults. At this stage, the page content is displayed in a linear fashion—large 
+image followed by small image followed by text—so some CSS is now needed. In 
+the CSS document, add some padding to the existing body element, ensuring the 
+page content doesn’t hug the browser window edges when you’re testing the page. 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Give the images a border. Add the following rule to apply a thin gray border to the 
+images on the page. 
+
+img { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #666666; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . Define the pop-up area size. Add the following rule to define the size of the pop¬ 
+up area (the width setting defines its width and display: block stretches the 
+active area of the link to the size of its container—the image). The other settings 
+override link defaults, making the text within the div and anchor black and not 
+underlined. 
+
+#popupContainer a:link, #popupContainer a:visited { 
+position: relative; 
+display: block; 
+width: SOOpx; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+172 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+7 . Make the pop-up invisible. Add the following rule to make the pop-up initially not 
+display onscreen (i.e., outside of the viewing area of the browser). 
+
+#popupContainer a span { 
+position: absolute; 
+left: -lOOOOpx; 
+top: -lOOOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+8 . Style the span element. The following rule styles the span element during the 
+hover state. The display property value of block defines the pop-up as a block- 
+level element, rather than an inline one, while the position setting of relative 
+overrides that set in the previous step (as do the left and top values). The width 
+setting defines a width for the pop-up. The negative margin-top setting pulls the 
+pop-up upward, so it no longer sits under the main image. The value is the same 
+as the height of the main image minus the vertical offset required. (If it were set to 
+the height of the main image, the pop-up would sit flush to the top of the image 
+during the hover state, which looks cluttered.) The margin-left value provides a 
+horizontal offset, while the padding value places some padding within the span, so 
+its contents don’t hug its borders. The other settings style colors and fonts. 
+
+#popupContainer a:hover span, #popupContainer a:focus span, 
+
+** #popupContainer a:active span { 
+display: block; 
+position: relative; 
+left: 0; 
+top: 0; 
+width: 360px; 
+color: #000000; 
+
+font: 1.lem/1.5 Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+margin-top: -335px; 
+
+margin-left: 50px; 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+
+background-color: #e0e4ef; 
+
+border: Ipx solid #666666; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+The selector for step 8’s code block offers three alternate rautes for users to access 
+the pop-up: the hover state (for mouse users), the focus state (for keyboard users), 
+and the active state (for Internet Explorer keyboard users, since that browser doesn’t 
+yet support : focus). 
+
+^- J 
+
+
+9 . Next, a rule is needed to float the image within the span. The margin settings 
+ensure that the image doesn’t hug the text-based content. 
+
+#popupContainer a:hover span img, #popupContainer a:focus span img, 
+
+^ #popupContainer a:active span img { 
+border: Ipx solid #666666; 
+float: right; 
+
+
+173 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+margin-left: I5px; 
+margin-bottom: 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+10 . Apply the clearFix rule. Floated elements are outside the standard document 
+flow. Therefore, if there’s little text, the image appears to stick out of the span box, 
+as shown in the following example. 
+
+
+
+This can be fixed by adding the following rule (this technique is fully explained in 
+
+Chapter 7): 
+
+.clearFix:after { 
+content: "."j 
+display: block; 
+height: 0; 
+clear: both; 
+visibility: hidden; 
+
+} 
+
+
+174 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+
+Because of a bug in Internet Explorer pre-version 7, you need to add the following 
+rule to make the pop-up work in Internet Explorer 6 or 5.5: ttpopupContainer a: hover 
+{text-indent: 0;}. Ideally, this should be added in a style sheet linked via a condi¬ 
+tional comment—see Chapter 9 for more on hacks for old browsers. 
+
+V_y 
+
+
+Image maps 
+
+Image maps enable you to define multiple links within a single image; for example, if you 
+have a weather map, you could use an image map to link to each region’s weather fore¬ 
+cast; or if you had a picture of your office, you could use an image map to make each of 
+the objects clickable, leading to pages explaining more about each of them. Clickable 
+regions within image maps can be fairly basic—rectangles or circles—or complex polygo¬ 
+nal shapes. Note that there are both server-side and client-side versions of image maps— 
+server-side image maps are now considered obsolete and pose accessibility problems, and 
+even client-side image maps tend to be avoided by most designers, although use of alt text 
+can help them become reasonably accessible. 
+
+Regardless of the complexity of the image and the defined 
+regions, the method of creating an image map remains the 
+same. To the right is the image used in this section to show 
+how a basic image map is created. It contains three geometric 
+shapes that will be turned into clickable hot-spots. 
+
+The image is added to the web page in the usual way (and 
+within a block element, since img is an inline element), but 
+with the addition of a usemap attribute, whose value must be 
+preceded by a hash sign (#). 
+
+
+
+175 
+
+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<img src="image-map-image.gif" alt="Shapes" width="398" height="398" 
+^ usemap="#shapes" /> 
+
+</div> 
+
+The value of the usemap attribute must correlate with the name and id values of the asso¬ 
+ciated map element. Note that the name attribute is required for backward compatibility, 
+whereas the id attribute is mandatory. 
+
+<map id="shapes" name="shapes"> 
+
+</map> 
+
+The map element acts as a container for specifications regarding the map’s active areas, 
+which are added as area elements. 
+
+<map id="shapes" name="shapes"> 
+
+<area title="Access the squares page." shape="rect" 
+
+^ coords="29,27,173,17l" href="square.html" alt="A square" /> 
+
+<area title="Access the circles page" shape="circle" 
+
+^ coords="295,175,8l" href="circle.html" alt="A circle" /> 
+
+<area title="Access the triangles page" shape="poly" 
+
+^ coords="l77,231,269,369,84,369" href="triangle.html" 
+
+^ alt="A triangle" /> 
+
+</map> 
+
+Each of the preceding area elements has a shape attribute that corresponds to the 
+intended active link area: 
+
+■ rect defines a rectangular area; the coords (coordinates) attribute contains two 
+pairs that define the top-left and bottom-right corners of the rectangle in terms of 
+pixel values (which you either take from your original image or guess, should you 
+have amazing pixel-perfect vision). 
+
+■ circle is used to define a circular area; of the three values within the coords 
+attribute, the first two define the horizontal and vertical position of the circle’s 
+center, and the third defines the radius. 
+
+■ poly enables you to define as many coordinate pairs as you wish, which allows you 
+to define active areas for complex and irregular shapes—in the previous code 
+block, there are three pairs, each of which defines a corner of the triangle. 
+
+Creating image maps is a notoriously tedious process, and it’s one of the few occasions 
+when I advise using a visual web design tool, if you have one handy, which can be used to 
+drag out hot-spots. However, take care not to overlap defined regions—this is easy to do, 
+and it can cause problems with regard to each link’s active area. If you don’t have such a 
+tool handy, you’ll have to measure out the coordinates in a graphics package. 
+
+
+176 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+A/ote that some browsers will place a border around the image used for an 
+image map. This can be removed by using CSS to set the image’s border to 0 
+(either via applying a class to the image, or via a contextual selector). 
+
+V_y 
+
+
+Faking images maps using CSS 
+
+Although there’s no direct equivalent to image maps in CSS, you can fashion a similar 
+effect by creating block-level anchors (rather like the one in the pop-up example). The 
+most common way of structuring this “fake” image map is by using an unordered list, plac¬ 
+ing links within each list item, and using absolute positioning to set the locations of the 
+links. Further CSS trickery can be used to make all hot-spots visible when the mouse cur¬ 
+sor is placed over the image, and to change the image on the rollover state. 
+
+In the following exercise, a picture of three sheep minding their own business is going to 
+be used for the fake image map. When you mouse over the image, all three hot-spots will 
+be shown (as a 1 -pixel, black border). Placing the cursor over a hot-spot will then turn that 
+portion of the grayscale image into color (by way of placing a second image as a back¬ 
+ground on the hot-spot), along with showing a caption. 
+
+
+
+As you might imagine, with CSS being based around boxes, the technique tends to 
+work best with highly regular, box-shaped rollover areas. 
+
+K _!_ J 
+
+
+
+177 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Using CSS to create a fake image map with rollovers 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-baslc.html and CSS-default.css from the baslc- 
+bollerplates folder, along with image files fake-lmage-map- 
+color.jpg and fake-lmage-map-gray.jpg from the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to fake an image map using CSS, which will enable two levels 
+of rollover. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+fake-lmage-map.html and fake-image-map.css in the chapter 5 
+folder, along with the image files, which are unchanged. 
+
+
+1 . Add the structure for the fake image map. In the body of the HTML document, add 
+the following code, which structures the content for the fake image map. Note 
+how the unordered list has a unique class value and how each of the list items has 
+a class value referring to the hot-spot relating to a specific item on the image. 
+
+<ul class="sheepImageMap"> 
+
+<11 class="sheepOne"><a href="#"><span>Sheep one</span></a></li> 
+
+<11 class="sheepTwo"><a href="#"><span>Sheep two</span></a></ll> 
+
+<11 class="sheepThree"><a href="#"><span>Sheep three</span></a></ll> 
+</ul> 
+
+<p>Hover your mouse cursor over the sheepl</p> 
+
+2 . Set page defaults. Add some padding to the existing body rule: 
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arlal, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Add the following rule to style the unordered list. The font and text-transform 
+property values define the font styles for the captions. The background value 
+defines the grayscale image as the background for the list, and the width and 
+height values ensure the list’s dimensions are the same as that of the background 
+image. The position property is set to relative because this enables the list item 
+positioning to then be set from the top left of the unordered list, rather than from 
+the top left of the browser window. 
+
+•sheepImageMap { 
+
+font: l.Oem/1 Arlal, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+background: url(fake-lmage-map-gray.jpg); 
+
+width: 500px; 
+
+height: 375px; 
+
+position: relative; 
+
+margin-bottom: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+
+178 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+4 . Style the links. By setting display to block, the links stretch to fit their container 
+(the list items). The text-indent setting is used to massively offset the indent of 
+the text within the links, effectively making the text invisible by default, but keep¬ 
+ing the element itself visible and clickable. The text-decoration value of none 
+turns off the default underline for the links. 
+
+•sheepImageMap a { 
+display: block; 
+text-indent: -lOOOOOpx; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+
+} 
+
+
+f A 
+
+In some circumstances, offsetting using text-indent can lead to minor layout issues. 
+This wouldn’t be a problem in the layout being created here; but with more finely 
+tuned layouts, it could—due to some browsers keeping the space taken up by the ele¬ 
+ment's height available to it, and thus forcing subsequent content to appear below 
+where it’s meant to be by an equivalent amount In cases like those, absolute posi¬ 
+tioning and offsetting both vertically and horizontally works well. 
+
+V_^^_ 
+
+
+5. Set hot-spot borders. Utilizing the : hover pseudo-class, the following rule makes it 
+so that when the list is hovered over, the three hot-spots show a 1-pixel border: 
+
+.sheepImageMap:hover .sheepOne, .sheepImageMap:hover .sheepTwOj 
+^ .sheepImageMap:hover .sheepThree { 
+border: Ipx solid #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+179 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+6 . Add the following rule to style the list items, removing the default bullet point (via 
+the list-style value of none) and defining them to be positioned in an absolute 
+manner and displayed as block elements. 
+
+•sheepImageMap li { 
+list-style: none; 
+position: absolute; 
+display: block; 
+
+} 
+
+7 . Create the first hot-spot. In a graphics package, four values are required for each 
+hot-spot: its width, its height, and the distance from the top and left corners. These 
+are then translated, respectively, into the width, height, left, and top values in a 
+rule applied to the relevant hot-spot: 
+
+•sheepOne { 
+width: 80px; 
+height: 104px; 
+left: 60px; 
+top: 50px; 
+
+} 
+
+Two more rules complete the effect. The first ensures the relevant anchor has the 
+correct height (note how the height value is the same as in the previous rule): 
+
+.sheepOne a { 
+height: 104px; 
+
+} 
+
+The second rule sets the color version of the image to be displayed as a back¬ 
+ground on the hover state (as in, when the user mouses over the hot-spot area, the 
+relevant area is displayed in color). By default, the top left of the image will be 
+shown, and so negative positioning values are used to pull it into place. Note how 
+these are the negatives of the values defined for left and top in the .sheepOne 
+rule, minus 1 further pixel. The reason for the extra pixel is to take into account the 
+1-pixel border defined in step 5. If the borders weren’t used (although they are 
+handy, since they show all the hot-spots), the positioning values would just be the 
+direct negatives of the left and top values from .sheepOne. 
+
+.sheepOne a:hover { 
+
+background: url(fake-image-map-color.jpg) -6lpx -51px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+180 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+Note that the a selector is used in this exercise rather than a:link. Because the rules 
+are strictly based on context—anchors within the defined areas of the fake image 
+map—this is acceptable, and it saves having to use both :link and : visited selectors. 
+
+
+V 
+
+
+
+
+8 . Create the other hot-spots. The other two hot-spots are created in the same way as 
+
+the first one in step 7. Again, the positioning values in the hover states are negative 
+
+values minus 1 of the left and top values in the rules that defined the dimensions 
+
+and positions of the hot-spots. 
+
+•sheepTwo { 
+width: 200px; 
+height: 126px; 
+left: 141px; 
+top: I08px; 
+
+} 
+
+.sheepTwo a { 
+height: 126px; 
+
+} 
+
+.sheepTwo a:hover { 
+
+background: url(fake-image-map-color.jpg) -142px -109px; 
+
+} 
+
+.sheepThree { 
+width: 68px; 
+height: 38px; 
+left: 4l8px; 
+top: I9px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+181 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+•sheepThree a { 
+height: 38px; 
+
+} 
+
+.sheepThree a:hover { 
+
+background: url(fake-image-map-color.jpg) -419px -20px; 
+
+} 
+
+9 . Add styles for the captions. In step 4, the text-indent property was set to a huge 
+negative value, which made the text effectively disappear. To bring it back on the 
+hover state, add the following rule to your CSS, which also colors the text in white: 
+
+•sheepImageMap a:hover { 
+text-indent: 0; 
+color: 
+
+} 
+
+At this stage, the text still doesn’t stand out enough. Therefore, add the following 
+rule, which styles the span elements wrapped around the text in each list item, set¬ 
+ting a background color and adding some padding around the content: 
+
+.sheepImageMap a:hover span { 
+padding: 2px; 
+
+background-color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+This looks fine, but with some further absolute positioning, these captions can be 
+positioned elsewhere within the hot-spot. By adding the bolded rules shown fol¬ 
+lowing, the captions are positioned at the bottom right of the hot-spots, as shown 
+in the original example screenshot before the start of the exercise. 
+
+.sheepImageMap a:hover span { 
+padding: 2px; 
+
+background-color: #000000; 
+
+position: absolute; 
+bottom: 0; 
+right: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Pre-version 7, Internet Explorer didn’t respond to : hover unless it was used on a link. 
+Because of this, the borders will not appear in that browser, causing a 1-pixel “jog” up 
+and left when you mouse over a hot-spot. You can get around this by applying the 
+border to the following rules (via a conditional style sheet): .sheepOne a:hover, 
+.sheepTwo a:hover, ond .sheepThree a:hover. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+182 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Enhancing links with JavaScript 
+
+In this section, we’re going to use a little JavaScript, showing some methods of providing 
+enhanced interactivity and functionality to links. Note that in all cases, a non-JavaScript 
+backup (or fallback) to essential content is required for those who choose to surf the Web 
+with JavaScript disabled. In all cases, JavaScript can be added either to external JavaScript 
+files attached to your HTML documents (which is the preferred method; see the section 
+“Attaching favicons and JavaScript” in Chapter 2) or in a script element within the head 
+of the HTML page: 
+
+cscript type="text/iavascript"> 
+
+// <![CDATA[ 
+
+(script goes here) 
+
+// ]]> 
+
+</script> 
+
+Specifically, we’ll look at pop-up windows, swapping images using JavaScript, and toggling 
+div visibility with JavaScript. 
+
+
+
+Creating a pop-up window 
+
+Pop-up windows are mostly an annoyance, especially when automated and when they 
+remove browser controls. However, they are occasionally useful, such as for providing a 
+user with brief access to terms and conditions without interrupting a checkout process. 
+Some portfolio sites also use pop-up windows to display larger versions of images 
+(although we’ll later see a better method of creating an online gallery). 
+
+Should you require a pop-up window of your very own, the JavaScript is simple: 
+
+function newWindow() 
+
+{ 
+
+window.open("location.html"); 
+
+} 
+
+And this HTML calls the script using the onclick attribute: 
+
+<a href="location.html'' onclick="newWindow(); return false;"xOpen a 
+^ new window!</a> 
+
+Note how the href attribute still has a value, which caters to users with JavaScript disabled 
+(loading the document into the current window). The return false part of the onclick 
+value ensures the href value is ignored for browsers with JavaScript activated (otherwise 
+both the original and pop-up window would display with the new web page). 
+
+Creating a system to open windows with varied URLs requires only slight changes to both 
+script and HTML. The script changes to this: 
+
+function newlAlindow(webURL) 
+
+{ 
+
+window.open(webURL); 
+
+} 
+
+
+183 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The HTML changes to this: 
+
+<a href="location-one.html" onclick="newWindow('location-one.html'); 
+
+^ return false;">Open location one in a new window!</a> 
+
+<a href="location-two.html" onclick="newWindow('location-two.html'); 
+
+^ return false;">Open location two in a new window!</a> 
+
+Note how the target location is now within the single quotes of the onclick value. This 
+could be any file name, and the link type can be absolute, relative, or root-relative. To pro¬ 
+vide a warning when a pop-up is opened (as recommended by WCAG—Web Content 
+Accessibility Guidelines), you can add a single line to the JavaScript: 
+
+function newWindow(webURL) 
+
+{ 
+
+alertC'You are about to open a new window."); 
+
+window.open(webURL); 
+
+} 
+
+It's also possible to control the settings of a pop-up window. To do so, the script needs to 
+be amended as follows: 
+
+function newWindow(webURL) 
+
+{ 
+
+alertC'You are about to open a new window."); 
+var newUin = window.open(webURL,''new_window", 
+
+^"toolbar, location, directories, 
+
+^status, menubar, scrollbars, resizable, 
+
+^copyhistory, width=300, height=300''); 
+newWin.focusO; 
+
+} 
+
+The values within the set of quotes that begin "toolbar, location... enable you to set 
+the pop-up window’s dimensions and appearance. There must be no whitespace in the 
+features list, and it must all be on one line. Most of the items are self-explanatory, but 
+some that may not be are location, which defines whether the browser’s address bar is 
+visible, and directories, which defines whether secondary toolbars such as the links bar 
+are visible. Note that if you specify one or more of these, any you don’t specify will be 
+turned off—therefore, you must specify all the features you want in the pop-up window. 
+
+Now, a word of warning: as alluded to earlier, having control of the web browser wrenched 
+away from them makes some users want to kick a puppy. Therefore: 
+
+■ Never use JavaScript to pop up windows without the user knowing that it’s going to 
+happen. (The integrated alert mentioned earlier is one thing, but you should always 
+also mention next to the relevant link that a pop-up will be created if the link is 
+clicked.) 
+
+■ Never create a site that automatically pops up a window and removes the window 
+controls. 
+
+■ Never use a pop-up window unless it’s absolutely necessary. 
+
+
+184 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Some designers might argue about aesthetics and for the clean nature of a browser win¬ 
+dow at full-screen, devoid of its controls, but there are no real reasons for using pop-up 
+windows in this manner other than that; there are, however, counterarguments, such as 
+taking control from the user, the general annoyance factor, a full-screen window suddenly 
+covering everything else, and so on. Ultimately, pop-ups and nonrequested new windows 
+are a very bad thing, so avoid using them. 
+
+
+Creating an online gallery 
+
+As mentioned earlier, there’s a better way of creating an online gallery than using pop-up 
+windows when thumbnails are clicked. Instead, JavaScript can be used to swap out an 
+image that’s on a web page, replacing it with another, as shown in the following exercise. 
+
+
+Switching images using JavaScript 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+gallery-starting-point folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a basic online gallery that enables you to easily 
+switch the main image by clicking on thumbnails. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+gallery-completed folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add the script. Create a new text document and save it as gallery, js in the same 
+folder as the files from the gallery-starting-point folder. Add the following 
+to it: 
+
+function swapPhoto(photoSRC) { 
+document.images.imgPhoto.src = "assets/" + photoSRC; 
+
+} 
+
+Be aware of the case-sensitive nature of JavaScript and also the path to the images, 
+which is set here as assets/. 
+
+2 . Add the main image. This requires an id attribute that correlates with the one pro¬ 
+vided in step 1 (imgPhoto). Leave off the height and/or width attributes if your 
+images have varied dimensions. If your images have one identical dimension (such 
+as the same widths), include that, but omit the other. (The img is placed within a 
+div so that the document conforms to XHTML Strict. This also enables the gallery 
+width to be defined later in CSS.) 
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<img src="assets/image-l.jpg" width="500" height="375" id="imgPhoto" 
+^ alt="Main photo" /> 
+
+</div> 
+
+3 . Add thumbnails. In each case, the swapPhoto value is the file name of the image to 
+be loaded. Remember that the path to the images was defined in step 1, so it’s not 
+needed here. The href value links directly to the full-size image to accommodate 
+users who have disabled JavaScript. 
+
+
+185 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<a href="assets/image-l.jpg" onclick="javascript:swapPhoto 
+
+' image-1.ips'); return ■FalseC'ximg src="assets/image-l-t. jpg" 
+li* alt="sheep" width="100" height="75" /></a> 
+
+<a href="assets/image-2.jpg" onclick="javascript:swapPhoto 
+
+'image-2.jpg'): return false:"><img src="assets/image-2-t.jpg" 
+
+^ alt="hillside" width="100" height="75" /></a> 
+
+4 . Add some CSS. To the gallery.css file, add the following rules, the first of which 
+sets a width value for the wrapper div, and the second of which removes the 
+default border from image-based links. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 500px; 
+
+} 
+
+a img { 
+border: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+And that’s all there is to it. The solution is elegant and doesn’t require pop-up win¬ 
+dows. Instead, users can see thumbnails on the same page as the main image, mak¬ 
+ing navigation through the portfolio that much easier. For those users who don’t 
+have JavaScript, the values in the href attributes ensure they still get access to the 
+full-size images, too. 
+
+
+
+186 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Adding captions to your image gallery 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The gallery-completed folder from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+Without context, some pictures are meaningless, so this exercise 
+shows how to take the gallery created in the previous exercise and 
+add a caption to each image. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The gallery-captions folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Edit the script. Add the elements shown in bold to your script (in gallery.js). 
+These will enable you to target an element on the page with an id value of 
+caption, loading new text into it when a thumbnail is clicked. 
+
+function swapPhoto(photoSRC,theCaption) { 
+var displayedCaption = document.getElementById("caption")j 
+displayedCaption.firstChild.nodeValue = theCaption; 
+
+document.images.imgPhoto.src = "assets/" + photoSRC; 
+
+} 
+
+2 . Add a caption. Under the main image in the gallery.html file, add a paragraph 
+with an id value of caption, along with the caption text for the default image. 
+
+<img src="assets/image-l.]pg" width="500" height="375" id="imgPhoto" 
+alt="Main photo" /> 
+
+<p id="caption">Some sheep, grazing.</p> 
+
+3 . Edit the thumbnails. For each thumbnail, add some caption text, as shown follow¬ 
+ing. Ensure that there’s a comma between the two swapPhoto values you now have. 
+
+<a href="assets/image-l.jpg" onclick="javascript:swapPhoto 
+^('image-1.jpg','Some sheep, grazing.'); return false;"><img 
+^ src="assets/image-l-t.jpg" alt="sheep" width="100" 
+
+^ height="75" /></a> 
+
+
+
+Some characters are invalid for captions, because they terminate the script early. If 
+you want to add a single quote mark (often used as an apostrophe online, when 
+“smart" quotes aren’t being used), you must escape the character first, using a back¬ 
+slash, like so: \'. If you wish to add a double quote mark, you need to define it as an 
+HTML entity: Squot;. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+187 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+Automated gallery scripts 
+
+The kind of script mentioned in the previous exercise is great for creating a gallery fine- 
+tuned to your specific website: you can control the styles and positioning with ease. 
+However, there are a number of ready-made scripts online, one of the best of which is 
+Lightbox2 (www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/), by Lokesh Dhakar. The 
+script is highly automated, darkening the screen and providing next/previous buttons, 
+along with the capability to rapidly add captions. 
+
+In terms of setup, you attach the various scripts and the CSS file from the download files, 
+and check the paths to the included images (which can be replaced, if you don’t like the 
+defaults). You then simply add rel="lightbox" to any link or thumbnail that’s to be used 
+to activate the lightbox script. The optional title element enables you to add a caption. 
+
+<a href="assets/image-l.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="The caption"><img 
+^ src="assets/image-l-t.jpg" alt="thumbnail" width="lOO" 
+height="75" /></a> 
+
+It’s also possible to add more complex captions, including links, by using character entities 
+to encode the <, >, and " characters when adding HTML. (See Appendix C—“Entities 
+Reference”—for more on entities.) 
+
+<a href="assets/image-l.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="The caption - &lt; 
+^a href=8iquot;http://www.a-website.com&quot;8igt;Link content 
+^8ilt;/a8igt;"ximg src="assets/image-l-t.jpg" alt="thumbnail" 
+
+^ width="100" height="75" /></a> 
+
+
+188 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Usefully, groups of images can be defined just by adding square brackets and a group 
+name, directly after lightbox in the rel value. This automates the inclusion of prev and 
+next buttons, along with providing an image count (such as “Image 4 of 10”) for the cur¬ 
+rent group. 
+
+<a href="assets/image-l.jpg" rel="lightbox[groupName]" title="The 
+** caption"><img src="assets/image-l-t.jpg" alt="thumbnail" 
+
+^ width="100" height="75" /></a> 
+
+<a href="assets/image-2.jpg" rel="lightbox[groupName]" title="The 
+** second caption"ximg src="assets/image-2-t.jpg" alt="thumbnail" 
+
+^ width="100" height="75" /></a> 
+
+<a href="assets/image-3.jpg" rel="lightbox[groupName]" title="The 
+^ third caption"><img src="assets/image-3-t.jpg" alt="thumbnail" 
+width="l 00 " height="75" /></a> 
+
+The following image shows how the site looks (this example is from Pinkflag.com’s gallery 
+in the look section). If you’re fine with the look of the gallery (although some of its ele¬ 
+ments can be restyled and tweaked in CSS) and its popularity (it’s used on a lot of sites 
+these days), it can save a bit of time, and it’s also very easy for clients to update 
+themselves. For a more unique take, you’ll need to get your hands dirty with your 
+own code. 
+
+
+
+
+189 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Note that some may consider the behavior of Lightbox2 at odds with user expectation, 
+because the browser back button returns you to the previous page you visited, rather than 
+closing the lightbox. In my opinion, this is logical—after all, Lightbox2 is internal page con¬ 
+tent, not a separate page. However, if you’d like to override the default behavior and have 
+the back button on the browser close the lightbox, instructions are available from 
+WWW. cloversignsblog.com/2007/06/fixing-the-back-button-in-lightbox/. 
+
+
+Collapsible page content 
+
+The DOM enables you to access and dynamically control various aspects of a web page, 
+and this allows you to use a nifty little trick to toggle the visibility of divs. This has numer¬ 
+ous uses, from providing a method of hiding “spoiler” content unless someone wants to 
+see it, to various navigation-oriented uses, which will be more fully explored later in the 
+chapter. 
+
+
+Setting up a collapsible div 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The collapsible-div-starting-point folder from the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a collapsible div. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The collapsible-div-completed folder from the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+
+1 . Examine the script. Open collapsible-div. js. The code enables you to target any 
+div with a unique id value. Each time the script is run, it determines whether the 
+display value of the div is set to block (which makes it visible). If it is, the value is 
+set to none, thereby making it invisible. If it isn't set to block (which means it’s set 
+to none), the script sets the value to block. 
+
+function swap(targetld){ 
+if (document.getElementByld) 
+
+{ 
+
+target = document.getElementByld(targetld); 
+if (target.style.display == "block") 
+
+{ 
+
+target.style.display = "none"; 
+
+} 
+
+else 
+
+{ 
+
+target.style.display = "block"; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+190 
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+2 . Add a link. Add the code block shown following—when clicked, the link will toggle 
+the hidden content. The value within the onclick attribute (hiddenDiv, in this 
+case) is the id value of the div that this link will toggle. 
+
+<p><a href="#" title="Toggle section" onclick="toggleDiv('hiddenDiv'); 
+^ return false;">Toggle div!</o> 
+
+3 . Add a div, and give it an id value equal to the onclick value from the previous 
+step. Within the div, add whatever content you want. The style attribute makes 
+the div initially hidden. 
+
+<p><a href="#" title="Toggle section" onclick="toggleDiv('hiddenDiv'); 
+^ return false;"sToggle div!</a></p> 
+
+<div id="hiddenDiv" style="display: none;"> 
+
+<p>Initially hidden content goes here.</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+A combination of the previous two exercises can be seen in action in a previous version 
+of my Images from Iceland website—see www.snubcommunications.com/iceland/ 
+iceland-old.html. This site expands on the div toggler by also toggling the arrow images 
+when a section is toggled, and it shows what you can do with some straightforward 
+JavaScript, some decent photographs, and a bit of imagination. 
+
+
+
+
+Enhancing accessibility for collapsible content 
+
+Although the old version of the Images from Iceland site looks good, it has a problem in 
+common with the previous exercise: when JavaScript is disabled, the initially hidden con¬ 
+tent is inaccessible. The Iceland site was quickly knocked together a number of years back 
+and has been superseded with a new site, but for any site developed today, there should 
+be no excuses. 
+
+In the previous exercise, the hidden content is set to be hidden by default and the display 
+property is toggled via the JavaScript function. What therefore needs to be done is to 
+make the content visible by default and then override this, making it invisible, but only if 
+
+
+191 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+the user has JavaScript. The first thing to do is remove the style attribute from the fol¬ 
+lowing line of code: 
+
+<div id="hiddenDiv" style="display: none;"> 
+
+Next, a style sheet is created (named javascript-overrides.css for this example), with a 
+rule that targets the relevant div and sets display to none. 
+
+#hiddenDiv { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+Finally, amendments are made to the JavaScript file, adding some lines that attach the new 
+JavaScript document to the web page: 
+
+var cssNode = document.createElement('link'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('rel ', ' stylesheet'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('type', 'text/css'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('href , 'javascript-overrides.css'); 
+document.getElementsByTagName('head')[o].appendChild(cssNode); 
+
+The results of this are the following: 
+
+■ If a user has JavaScript enabled, javascript-overrides.css is loaded, applying the 
+display value of none to the togglable div. 
+
+■ If a user has JavaScript disabled, javascript-overrides.css is not loaded, mean¬ 
+ing the togglable div contents are visible. 
+
+See the collapsible-div-accessible folder within the chapter 5 folder for reference 
+files. 
+
+Modularizing the collapsible content script 
+
+Although the previous script works perfectly well for a single div, it’s awkward if you want 
+to use several divs over the course of a page. That’s how the old Images from Iceland site 
+works, and I had to keep track of id names and values while constructing it. However, it is 
+possible to make a toggler strip more modular, although this relies on keeping document 
+structure very strict as far as the collapsible sections go. The files for this section are in the 
+collapsible-div-modular folder within the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+The JavaScript is similar to that in the previous example. 
+
+function toggle(toggler) { 
+if(document.getElementByld) { 
+targetElement = toggler.parentNode.nextSibling; 
+
+if(targetElement.className == undefined) { 
+targetElement = toggler.parentNode.nextSibling.nextSibling; 
+
+} 
+
+
+192 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+if (targetElement.style.display == "block") { 
+targetElement.style.display = "none"; 
+
+} 
+
+else { 
+
+targetElement.style.display = "block"; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+The main change is that instead of targeting a div with a specific id value, the script 
+targets an element in relation to the one being used as a toggler, by way of the 
+parentNode/nextSibling JavaScript properties. 
+
+If you look at the HTML document, you’ll see that the parent of the anchor element is the 
+p element. What the next sibling element is depends on the browser—Internet Explorer 
+just looks for the next element in the document (div), but other browsers count white- 
+space as the next sibling. 
+
+<p><a href="#" title="Toggle section" onclick="toggle(this); return 
+li* false;"sToggle div ll</a></p> 
+
+<div class="expandable"> 
+
+<p>Initially hidden content (div l) goes here.</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+It would be possible to get around this by stripping whitespace. However, a line in the 
+JavaScript makes this unnecessary. 
+
+if(document.getElementByld) { 
+targetElement = toggler.parentNode.nextSibling; 
+
+if(targetElement.className == undefined) { 
+targetElement = toggler.parentNode.nextSibling.nextSibling; 
+
+} 
+
+The first line of the previous code block sets the target to the next sibling of the parent 
+element of the link. In Internet Explorer this works, but other browsers find only white- 
+space. Therefore, the second line essentially says, “If you find whitespace (undefined), 
+then set the target to the next sibling on.” It’s a bit of a workaround, but it’s only one line 
+of JavaScript. 
+
+The JavaScript also includes the method used in the preceding “Enhancing accessibility for 
+collapsible content” section, to make the togglable sections initially invisible in JavaScript- 
+enabled browsers only. Note that the related CSS is slightly different to that shown in the 
+previous section—instead of hidden content being in a div with an id value of hiddenDiv, 
+it’s now in multiple divs, all of which have a class value of expandable. Therefore, the 
+selector in the CSS rule has been updated accordingly: 
+
+.expandable { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+193 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Initially hidden content (div 1) goes here. 
+Toggle div 2! 
+
+
+Toggle div 1! 
+
+Initially hidden content (div 1) goes here. 
+frdegle'cL| l'!l 
+
+Initially hidden content (div 2) goes here. 
+
+
+This system enables you to use as many collapsible divs as you like on the page, and you 
+don’t have to set id values—the toggling is essentially automated. However, as mentioned 
+earlier, you must ensure that your structure remains the same for each area that can be 
+toggled, otherwise the script won’t find the correct element to make visible or invisible 
+when the links are clicked. 
+
+How to find targets for collapsible content scripts 
+
+If you want to change your document structure when using the script from the previous 
+section in this chapter, you need to find the parent/sibling path, in Internet Explorer and in 
+other browsers. If you’ve a good grasp of JavaScript, this should be simple; however, if you 
+don’t—or you just want to sanity-check your values—it’s simple to find out what an ele¬ 
+ment’s parent is, what it’s next sibling is, and various combinations thereof. 
+
+First, give your clickable element a unique id value: 
+
+<p><a id="linkToggler" href="#" title="Toggle section" 
+
+^ onclick="toggle(this); return false;">Toggle div l!</a></p> 
+
+Elsewhere within the web page, add the following script: 
+
+cscript type="text/iavascript"> 
+
+//<I[CDATA[ 
+
+alert(document.getElementById("linkToggler").nodeName); 
+
+//]]> 
+
+</script> 
+
+Before .nodeName, add whatever combination of .parentNode and .nextSibling you 
+like—here’s an example: 
+
+cscript type="text/iavascript"> 
+
+//<I[CDATA[ 
+
+alert(document.getElementById("linkToggler").parentNode. 
+^nextSibling. nextSibling. nodeName); 
+
+//]]> 
+
+</script> 
+
+When you load the web page in a browser, an alert message will be displayed. This will 
+detail what the target element is, based on the path defined in the previous code block. 
+
+
+194 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+In this section, you’ve seen a bare-bones, unstyled version of how to work with collapsible 
+content. Later in the chapter, this method will be used to create collapsible sections for a 
+navigation bar. 
+
+
+Creating navigation bars 
+
+The chapter has so far largely concentrated on inline navigation, so we’ll now turn our 
+attention to navigation bars. Before getting immersed in the technology, you need to 
+decide what names you’re going to use for your navigation bar’s items. When designing 
+the basic structure of the site, content should be grouped into categories, and this is often 
+defined by what the user can do with it. It therefore follows that navigation bar links tend 
+to be one of the following: 
+
+■ Action-based (buy now, contact us, read our history) 
+
+■ Site audience-based (end users, resellers, employees) 
+
+■ Topic-based (news, services, contact details) 
+
+Whenever possible, keep to one of the preceding categories rather than mixing topics and 
+actions. This sits easier with readers. Navigation links should also be succinct, to the point, 
+and appropriate to the brand and tone of the website. 
+
+In this section, we’ll cover using lists for navigation, styling list-based navigation bars, work¬ 
+ing with inline lists, and creating graphical navigation bars with rollover graphics. 
+
+
+Using lists for navigation bars 
+
+Think back to what we’ve covered to this point about semantic markup. Of the HTML ele¬ 
+ments that exist, which is the most appropriate for a navigation bar? If you said, “a table,” 
+go to the back of the class. Using tables for navigation bars might be a rapid way of get¬ 
+ting them up and running, but it’s not structurally sound. When looked at objectively, nav¬ 
+igation bars are essentially a list of links to various pages on the website. It therefore 
+follows that HTML lists are a logical choice to mark up navigation bars. 
+
+
+195 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+When creating the initial pass of the website, just create the list as it is, along with all the 
+associated pages, and let people play around with the bare-bones site. This enables users 
+to get a feel for its structure, without getting distracted by content, colors, and design. 
+However, sooner or later, you’re going to want to make that list look a little fancier. 
+
+Much of the remainder of this chapter is concerned with CSS and how it can be used to 
+style lists. From a plain HTML list, you can rapidly create exciting visual designs—and ones 
+that are easy to update, both in terms of content and design. After all, adding another nav¬ 
+igation link is usually just a matter of adding another list item. 
+
+
+Using HTML lists and CSS to create a button-like vertical navigation bar 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html and CSS-default.css from the basic- 
+boilerplates folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a vertically aligned navigation bar, and how to style 
+it with CSS to create a 3D-like effect for each of the list items. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The vertical-navigation-bar folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1. Create the list structure. Add the following code block to create the structure of 
+the navigation bar. By using nested lists, you can provide the navigation bar with a 
+hierarchical structure (and you can style each level in CSS). In this example, the list 
+has two levels. (Refer to Chapter 3 for an overview of correctly formatting lists.) 
+This list is nested within a div with an id value of navigation, which we’ll later take 
+advantage of by using contextual selectors. (For this example, dummy href values 
+of # are being used, but in a live site, always check that your links lead somewhere!) 
+
+
+<div id="navigation"> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li> 
+
+<a href="#">Section 
+<ul> 
+
+clixa href="#">A 
+clixa href="#">A 
+<lixa href="#">A 
+clixa href="#">A 
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+<li> 
+
+<a href="#">Section 
+<ul> 
+
+clixa href="#">A 
+cli>ca href="#">A 
+cli>ca href="#">A 
+cli>ca href="#">A 
+c/ul> 
+c/li> 
+
+
+onec/a> 
+
+link to 
+link to 
+link to 
+link to 
+
+
+twoc/a> 
+
+link to 
+link to 
+link to 
+link to 
+
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+a 
+
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+pagec/a>c/li> 
+
+
+196 
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+<li> 
+
+<a hre-F="#">Section three</a> 
+<ul> 
+
+<li><a href="#">A link to a 
+
+<li><a href="#">A link to a 
+
+<li><a href="#">A link to a 
+
+<li><a href="#">A link to a 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+page</a></li> 
+
+page</a></li> 
+
+page</a></li> 
+
+page</a></li> 
+
+
+2. Add some padding to the body element, so page content doesn’t hug the browser 
+window edges. Also, add the background-color pair shown following: 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+background-color: #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+3. Style the list. Add the following rule to remove the 
+default bullet points from unordered lists within the nav¬ 
+igation div, define a width for the lists, and also set the 
+default font style. 
+
+#navigation ul { 
+
+list-style-type: none; 
+width: 140px; 
+
+font: 1.2em/l Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+4. Set an override for nested lists. As you can see from the 
+previous image, the nested links have much larger text. 
+
+This is because font sizes in ems are inherited, and there¬ 
+fore the font size within the nested lists ends up at 
+1.2ems multiplied by 1.2ems. By adding the following 
+rule, the font size of nested lists is reset to lem, making 
+nested lists look the same as top-level lists. 
+
+#navigation ul ul { 
+font-size: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+5. Style the buttons. Use a contextual selector to style links within the navigation div 
+(i.e., the links within this list). These styles initially affect the entire list, but you’ll 
+later override them for level-two links. Therefore, the styles you’re working on now 
+are intended only for level-one links (which are for sections or categories). This 
+first set of property/value pairs turns off the default link underline, sets the list 
+items to uppercase, and defines the font weight as bold. 
+
+
+Section one 
+A link to a oaoe 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+Section two 
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+Section three 
+A link to a oaoe 
+
+A link to a page 
+
+A link to a paoe 
+
+A link to a oaoe 
+
+
+
+197 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+text-decoration: none; 
+text-transtorm: uppercase; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+
+6 . Set button display and padding. Still within the same rule, set the buttons to 
+display as block, thereby making the entire container an active link (rather than 
+just the link text). Add some padding so the links don’t hug the edge of the 
+container. 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+text-decoration: none; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+display: block; 
+padding: 3px 12px 3px 8px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+7. Define colors and borders. Define the button background and foreground colors, 
+setting the former to gray and the latter to white. Then add borders to create a 3D 
+effect. Borders can be styled individually. By setting the left and top borders to a 
+lighter shade than the background, and the right and bottom borders to a darker 
+shade, a 3D effect is achieved. (Don’t use black and white, because it will make the 
+result is too harsh.) 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+text-decoration: none; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+display: block; 
+padding: 3px I2px 3px 8px; 
+background-color: #666666; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+
+border-top: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+border-right: Ipx solid #333333; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #333333; 
+border-left: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+
+8 . 
+
+
+Define other link states. The hover state is defined by 
+just changing the background color, making it slightly 
+lighter. 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+
+background-color: #777777; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+A LINK TO A 
+
+PAGE 
+
+A LINK TO A 
+
+PAGE 
+
+A LINK TO A 
+
+
+The active state enables you to build on the 3D 
+
+effect: the padding settings are changed to move the text up and left by 1 pixel, the 
+background and foreground colors are made slightly darker, and the border colors 
+are reversed. 
+
+
+198 
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+#navigation a:active { 
+padding: 2px I3px 4px 7px; 
+background-color: # 444444 ; 
+color: #eeeeee; 
+
+border-top: Ipx solid #333333; 
+border-right: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+border-left: ipx solid #333333; 
+
+} 
+
+9 . Style nested list item links. The selector #navigation li li a enables you to style 
+links within a list item that are themselves within a list item (which happen to be in 
+the navigation div). In other words, you can create a declaration for level-two links. 
+These need to be differentiated from the section links, hence the following rule 
+setting them to lowercase and normal font weight (instead of bold). The padding 
+settings indent these links more than the section links, and the background and 
+foreground colors are different, being very dark gray (almost black) on light gray 
+rather than white on a darker gray. 
+
+#navigation li li a:link, #navigation li li a:visited { 
+text-decoration: none; 
+text-transform: lowercase; 
+font-weight: normal; 
+padding: 3px 3px 3px I7px; 
+background-color: #999999; 
+color: #111111; 
+
+} 
+
+10 . Style nested item hover and active states. This is done in the same way as per the 
+section links, changing colors as appropriate and again reversing the border colors 
+on the active state. 
+
+#navigation li li a:hover { 
+background-color: #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li li a:active { 
+padding: 2px 4px 4px l6px; 
+background-color: #888888; 
+color: #000000; 
+
+border-top: Ipx solid #333333; 
+border-right: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #dddddd; 
+border-left: ipx solid #333333; 
+
+} 
+
+The navigation bar is now complete and, as you can see from the following images 
+(which depict, from left to right, the default, hover, and active states), the but¬ 
+tons have a tactile feel to them. Should this not be to your liking, it’s easy to 
+change the look of the navigation bar because everything’s styled in CSS. To expand 
+on this design, you could introduce background images for each state, thereby 
+making the navigation bar even more graphical. However, because you didn’t 
+
+
+
+199 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+simply chop up a GIF, you can easily add and remove items from the navigation bar, 
+just by amending the list created in step 1. Any added items will be styled auto¬ 
+matically by the style sheet rules. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page „ 
+
+1 a link to a page a. 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+
+a link to a page^ 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+SECTION THREE 
+
+SECTION THREE 
+
+SECTION THREE 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Creating a vertical navigation bar with collapsible sections 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The files from vertical-navigation-bar in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to take the navigation bar created in the previous exercise 
+and make its sections collapsible. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+vertical-navigation-bar-collapsible in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Set up the JavaScript. Create a new JavaScript document and attach it to the HTML 
+file via a script element in the head of the document. (In the example files, this 
+document has been named vertical-navigation-bar.js.) First, add the 
+JavaScript lines first shown in the “Enhancing accessibility for collapsible content” 
+section: 
+
+var cssNode = document.createElement('link'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('rel ', ' stylesheet'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('type', 'text/css'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('href , 'javascript-overrides.css'); 
+document.getElementsByTagName('head')[o].appendChild(cssNode); 
+
+Next, add the toggler script shown in the “Modularizing the collapsible content 
+script” section, but amend the target element as shown: 
+
+function toggle(toggler) { 
+if(document.getElementByld) { 
+targetElement = toggler.nextSibling; 
+
+
+200 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+if(targetElement.className == undefined) { 
+targetElement = foggier.nextSibling.nextSibling; 
+} 
+
+if (targetElement.style.display == "block") 
+
+{ 
+
+targetElement.style.display = "none"; 
+
+} 
+
+else 
+
+{ 
+
+targetElement.style.display = "block"; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+C \ 
+
+A/ote that if you wanted to toggle different kinds of elements on your page, the two 
+scripts shown so far in this chapter would clash. Therefore, you would need to create 
+two different functions, with different names; for example, you could change all 
+instances of toggle(toggler) in this exercise to toggleNav(toggler). 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+
+2 . Amend the list. To each top-level navigation link, add the onclick attribute, as 
+shown following. And to each second-level list that you initially want to be invisible, 
+add the class attribute shown. For any list you want to be visible, instead add 
+style="display: block;". 
+
+<li> 
+
+<a href="#" onclick="toggle(this); return false;"sSection one</a> 
+
+<ul class="collapsibleList"> 
+
+clixa href="#">A link to a page</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">A link to a page</a></li> 
+clixa href="#">A link to a page</ax/li> 
+
+<lixa href="#">A link to a page</ax/li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+3 . Add a style sheet. Create and save the style sheet document javascript- 
+overrides, css, and add the following rule to initially hide any lists with the 
+collapsibleList class value in JavaScript-enabled browsers. 
+
+#navigation ul.collapsibleEist { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+The following images show the results (which depict, from left to right, the 
+default, hover, and active states). 
+
+
+201 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+a link to a page 
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+SECTION THREE 
+
+
+SECTION three'® 
+
+
+
+Working with inline lists 
+
+By default, list items are displayed in a vertical fashion, one under the other. However, this 
+behavior can be overridden in CSS, enabling you to create inline lists. This is handy for 
+website navigation, since many navigation bars are horizontally oriented. Some designers 
+mark up horizontal navigation up by using strings of links separated by vertical bars or 
+spaces: 
+
+
+<a href="link.html">A link</a> | <a href="link.html">A link</a> | 
+li* <a href="link.html">A link</a> 
+
+However, a horizontal navigation bar is still a list of links, and so semantically should be 
+marked up in the same way as the vertical navigation bar in the previous exercise. In this 
+section, you’ll find out how to work with inline lists, discovering how to create breadcrumb 
+navigation, CSS-only “tabbed” navigation, and various graphical navigation bars, complete 
+with rollover effects—all without relying on JavaScript. 
+
+
+Creating breadcrumb navigation 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html and CSS-default.css from the basic- 
+boilerplates folder, along with double-arrow.gif from 
+navigation-images within the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create breadcrumb navigation by using a list styled in CSS. 
+Breadcrumb links show the path you’ve taken to the current 
+document. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The breadcrumb-navigation folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+202 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+1 . Add the list. In the HTML document, add the following code for the breadcrumbs. 
+Note that the last item signifies the current page—this is why it’s not a link. 
+
+<ul id="breadcrumbs"> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Home page</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Reviews</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Live gigs</a></li> 
+
+<li>London, 2008</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+2 . Add some body padding. Add a padding value to the existing body rule, 
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style the list by adding the following rule. The font-size setting specifies the font 
+size for the list items, and the margin-bottom setting adds a margin under the list. 
+
+ul#breadcrumbs { 
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+margin-bottom: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Add the following rule to style the list items. By setting display to inline, list 
+items are stacked horizontally. The background value sets double-arrow.gif as the 
+background to each list item (ensure it’s in the same directory as the CSS docu¬ 
+ment, or modify the path accordingly); the positioning values ensure the back¬ 
+ground is set at 0 horizontally and 50% vertically, thereby vertically centering it at 
+the left—at least once no-repeat is set, which stops the background tiling. Finally, 
+the padding value sets padding at the right of each list item to lOpx, ensuring items 
+don’t touch the subsequent background image; the left padding value of I5px 
+provides room for the background image, ensuring the list item text doesn’t sit on 
+top of it. 
+
+#breadcrumbs li { 
+display: inline; 
+
+background: url(double-arrow.gif) 0 50% no-repeat; 
+padding: 0 lOpx 0 15px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Note that when list items are displayed inline, the default bullet points are not dis¬ 
+played. This is ane reason why the bullets in this example are backgraund images, 
+although we also wanted something more visually relevant, right-facing arrows show¬ 
+ing the path direction. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+» Home page » Reviews » Live alas » London, 2008 
+
+
+203 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+5 . Remove the first bullet. As the trail is leading from the first item, it shouldn’t have 
+a bullet. This can be dealt with via a simple, standards-compliant rule that removes 
+the background from only the list item that is the first child of the unordered list 
+(i.e., the first list item in the list): 
+
+ul#breadcrumbs li:first-child { 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Note that prior to Internet Explorer 7, first-child was not implemented cor¬ 
+rectly. If you want to create the same effect in Internet Explarer 6 and before, 
+you must instead apply a class ta the first list item and then style it to have no 
+background using CSS. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Creating a simple horizontal navigation bar 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The graphical-navigation-starting-point folder from the 
+chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a good-looking navigation bar, entirely based on 
+HTML text and styled using CSS. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The simple-horizontal-navigation-bar folder in the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+
+1 . Examine the web page. The web page for this exercise—graphical-navigation, 
+html—is designed for flexibility when it comes to styling elements on the page, 
+making it easy to change elements without touching the markup (this page is used 
+with a few modifications in subsequent exercises, too). 
+
+The page’s contents are placed within a wrapper div, within which are the mast¬ 
+head and content divs. The latter contains some paragraphs, and the former 
+includes a navContainer div, which houses a navigation div, which in turn houses 
+the unordered list shown in the following code ialock. (This nesting of divs isn't 
+required for all sites—often you can get away with a single div around the naviga¬ 
+tion list—or, indeed, none at all, applying the id value of navigation to the list 
+itself; however, having an additional wrapper or two is often useful for more com¬ 
+plex layouts.) 
+
+The list is an unordered list. The main difference to previous lists is the inclusion of 
+an id value for each list item. For horizontal lists, especially those that will be highly 
+styled, this is worth doing, because it enables you to work all manner of CSS trick¬ 
+ery later on, which can benefit the web page. (In fact, some of the techniques can 
+be applied to vertical lists, too.) 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li id="homePageLink"><a href="#">Home page</a></li> 
+
+<li id="servicesPageLink"><a href="#">Services</a></li> 
+
+
+204 
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+<li id="customerSupportPageLink"><a href="#">Customer support</a> 
+
+<li id="contactDetailsPageLink"><a href="#">Contact details</a></li> 
+</ul> 
+
+2 . Edit the body and p rules. This design is going to have a classic feel, so in the CSS 
+file, edit the body rule to amend the font set, add a light gray background, and 
+amend the p rule to change the font size. 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/l.5 Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; 
+background: #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+margin-bottom: lem; 
+
+
+5 
+
+
+3 . Style the structural divs. First, add a rule to style the wrapper div, as shown in the 
+following code block. This sets a fixed width for the div, centers it horizontally, and 
+applies borders on all edges except the top one. The background value provides a 
+white background for the page’s content. (Note that there’s plenty of explanation 
+about page layout in Chapter 7.) For the content area, add some horizontal 
+padding by adding the #content rule shown in the following code block. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+border-right: Ipx solid #898989; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #898989; 
+border-left: ipx solid #898989; 
+background: #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+#content { 
+
+padding: 0 ISpx; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Style the navigation container by adding the following rule to style the 
+navContainer div. In this rule, the font style for the navigation bar’s links is set, 
+and the text-align value centers the content horizontally. The padding value 
+applies some padding at the top and bottom of the navContainer div, ensuring 
+its content doesn’t hug its edges—in design, the space is often as important as the 
+content, so don’t cram things in. 
+
+#navContainer { 
+
+font: 1.lem/1 Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; 
+
+background: #d7d7d7; 
+
+text-align: center; 
+
+padding: 7px Opx; 
+
+border-top: Ipx solid #898989; 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #898989; 
+
+margin-bottom: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+
+205 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+♦ Homepage 
+♦ Semces 
+♦ Customer supiyrt 
+♦" "Contact details 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing dit Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+liioncus Deque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. NuUam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentunL Aliquam erat volutpat Sed quis velit Nulla Cacilisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+5 . Style the list items. Now that the structure’s styled, it’s time to get cracking on the 
+list. First, add a rule to remove the default bullets from the unordered list within 
+the navigation div. 
+
+#navigation ul { 
+list-style: none; 
+
+} 
+
+Next, set the list items to display inline, as with the breadcrumbs. Add some hor¬ 
+izontal padding, and also, as shown, add a border to each item’s right-hand edge, 
+which will act as a visual separator, making each link more distinct. 
+
+#navigation li { 
+display: inline; 
+padding: Opx 9px; 
+border-right: Ipx solid #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+If you test the page at this point, you’ll see that all the links have a right-edge bor¬ 
+der—not a terrible crime—but from a design standpoint, the one at the far right 
+shouldn’t have one (after all, separators are only needed between pairs of links). 
+Luckily, because of the id values applied to the list items earlier, each one can be 
+individually styled, which also means an override can be applied to a specific link. 
+In this case, add the following rule, which removes the border from the list item 
+with an id value of contactDetailsPageLink: 
+
+#navigation #contactDetailsPageLink { 
+border-right: none; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . The last thing to do is style the links. The following rules set the link text to upper¬ 
+case, removing the default underline and coloring them black by default. The links 
+are then gray on the visited state, have an underline on the hover state, and are 
+red on the active state. 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:link { 
+color: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:visited { 
+
+
+206 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+color: #222222; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:active { 
+color: #ff0000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+HOMEPAGE SERVICES CUSTOMER SUPPORT CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rfaoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. NuUam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentunL Aliquam erat volutpat Sed quis velit Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentumbibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan 
+
+
+In this example, the color of the navigation links—which have no underline—is the 
+same as the body copy. While this would be a very bad idea for inline links, it’s fine for 
+the navigation links, because they’re obviously distinct from the text elsewhere on the 
+page, due to the background color and horizontal line that separates the navigation 
+area from the content area. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Creating a CSS-only tab bar that automates the active page 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The graphical-navigation-starting-point folder from the 
+chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a tab-style navigation bar, using only CSS for styling 
+(no images). 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The css-only-tab-bar folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Edit the body element—in the HTML page, edit the body start tag, adding the class 
+value shown. Its significance will be explained later. 
+
+<body id="homePage"> 
+
+2 . Edit the body rule. In the CSS document, amend the body rule as shown to add a 
+light gray background: 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+
+207 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3 . Style structural divs. Add the following #wrapper rule, which defines a set width for 
+the page, centers it, and sets the background color to white. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+background: 
+
+} 
+
+Next, style the content div by adding the following rule, which adds a border to all 
+edges but the top one, and defines internal padding: 
+
+#content { 
+
+padding: 15px 15px 0; 
+border-right: Ipx solid #898989; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #898989; 
+border-left: ipx solid #898989; 
+
+} 
+
+These rules work slightly differently from those in the previous exercise. We want 
+the content borders to start right under the navigation, hence the padding 
+being applied to the top of the content div, rather than a margin below the 
+navContainer div. 
+
+4 . Style the navContainer div. Add the following rule to style the navContainer div. 
+The font settings define a size and family. Avoid setting a line-height value, 
+because that makes it much harder to line up the tabs with the borders later. The 
+padding value applies some padding above the soon-to-be-created tabs, and the 
+border-bottom value finally surrounds all edges of the content div with a border. 
+Because the wrapper div has a white background, this currently shows through the 
+navContainer div, and so a background setting is applied, using the same back¬ 
+ground color value as applied to the body element. 
+
+#navContainer { 
+
+font: l.lem Arial, Helveticaj sans-serif; 
+
+text-align: center; 
+
+padding: 20px 0 0; 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #909090; 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Style the list. Add the following rule to style the list. The bottom padding value 
+(5px here) adds padding to the bottom of the list, and needs to be equivalent to 
+the padding value you want to be under the text in each tab. 
+
+#navigation ul { 
+padding: 0 0 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+Next, style the list items to make them display inline. 
+
+#navigation li { 
+display: inline; 
+
+} 
+
+
+208 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Home paqA Sarvicfts CLiSttomar sunoort Contact datalls 
+
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus Deque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+
+
+
+6 . Add the following rule to style the links. Most of the property values should be 
+familiar by now. Note how the border value applies a border to each link; this, in 
+tandem with the background value, gives all the links the appearance of back¬ 
+ground tabs. The padding setting provides space around the link contents (and 
+note how the vertical padding value is the same as the bottom padding value in 
+step 5), and the margin-right setting adds some space between each tab. 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+color: #000000; 
+background: #bbbbbb; 
+border: Ipx solid #898989; 
+padding: 5px lOpx; 
+position: relative; 
+margin-right: 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+As per the previous exercise, the unwanted right-hand value for the rightmost tab 
+(in this case, the margin-right setting) can be overridden by using a contextual 
+selector that takes advantage of the id values defined in the HTML document’s 
+unordered list items. 
+
+#navigation #contactDetailsPageLink a:linkj #navigation 
+** #contactDetailsPageLink a:visited { 
+margin-right: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+7 . Style other link states. Add the following two rules to define the other link states. 
+The first makes the text slightly lighter when a link has been visited. The second 
+brings back the default underline on the hover state, along with making the link’s 
+background slightly lighter. 
+
+#navigation a:visited { 
+color: #222222; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+background: ttcccccc; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+209 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+HOMEPAGE I ] SBMCES [ CUSTOMER SUPPORT | CONTACT DETAILS | 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio torem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper orcl, fermentum bibendum enIm nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+
+
+
+8 . Create page-specific overrides. Remember back in step 1, when you defined an id 
+value for the body element? This can now be used to automate the active tab via 
+the following rule: 
+
+#homePage #homePageLink ailinkj #homePage #homePageLink aivisited, 
+
+^ #servicesPage #servicesPageLink a:link, ttservicesPage 
+^ #servicesPageLink arvisited, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:link, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:visited, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:link, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:visited { 
+background: 
+border-bottom-color: 
+
+} 
+
+The declaration is simple: a white background is applied and the bottom border 
+color is changed to white. The grouped selector is more complex, so I’ll start by 
+explaining the first contextual selector, which istthomePage #homePageLink a:link. 
+What this means is, “Apply the declaration to the link within an element with an id 
+of homePageLink that’s in an element with an id of homePage.” In the page you’ve 
+been working on, the body element has an id of homePage, and the first list element 
+in the unordered list has an id of homePageLink. Therefore, the link within this list 
+item is automatically given the style, making it look like the active tab (since the 
+background blends directly into the content area). 
+
+The other selectors in the grouped selector behave in the same way (in each case 
+for the link and visited styles); so if, for example, you change the id value of the 
+body start tag in the HTML document to customerSupportPage and then refresh 
+the web page, you’ll see the third link become the active tab. 
+
+
+I HOMEPAGE [ SERVICES | | CUSTOMER SUPPORT | | CONTACT DETAILS | 
+
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida. 
+
+
+
+210 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Graphical navigation with rollover effects 
+
+Working with text and CSS alone is fine, but designers are creative types and tend to like 
+working with graphics. Many enjoy creating more visually arresting navigation bars, which 
+make use of imagery and rollovers. Historically, such systems have required a number of 
+images (three or more per tab) and the use of JavaScript. However, it’s possible to use CSS, 
+the same unordered list as used for the previous two exercises, and just a single image to 
+create a graphical navigation bar, as shown in the next exercise. 
+
+
+Using CSS backgrounds to create a navigation bar 
+
+
+Required files The graphical-navigation-starting-point folder and css-tab- 
+rollover-image, gif from the navigation-images folder in the 
+chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn How to create a graphical navigation bar with four different states, 
+driven by CSS, without using any JavaScript. 
+
+Completed files The graphical-navigation-bar folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+
+For this exercise, graphical tabs will be created, using a single GIF image that contains four 
+variations on the graphic: three are for link states for which styles will be defined (active, 
+hover, and then link and visited, which share an image); the other is to flag the current 
+page. By applying this image as a background to links, and then amending its vertical posi¬ 
+tioning on each state, only the relevant portion of the image will be shown. This is great 
+for updating a site (you only need to amend a single image), and also from a bandwidth 
+standpoint (one image deals with every tab and every state—no need for preloading any¬ 
+thing), and it’s easy to implement. 
+
+
+
+1 . Edit the body element. Like in the previous exercise, edit the body start tag, adding 
+the id value shown. 
+
+<body id="homePage"> 
+
+
+211 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+2 . Style the structural divs. This page's structure is simple, as are the CSS rules 
+required to style it. The #wrapper rule sets a fixed width (which is four times the 
+width of one of the tabs) and centers the design in the browser window. The 
+#masthead rule adds some padding at the top of the masthead, so the tabs won’t 
+hug the top of the browser window. 
+
+The #navContainer rule has a bottom border (to firmly separate the navigation 
+from the other page content) and a defined height, which is the height of a tab. 
+The height setting is useful, because these tabs will be floated, meaning they’re 
+outside of the standard document flow. By giving the container a fixed height, the 
+border is shown in the right place; without the height definition, the border would 
+be displayed at the top of the navContainer div, because as far as browsers are 
+concerned, floated elements technically don’t take up any height within the stan¬ 
+dard document flow. 
+
+Finally, the ttcontent rule gives that area a background color and some padding. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 740px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+#masthead { 
+
+padding-top: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navContainer { 
+height: 30px; 
+
+border-bottom: 5px solid #ad3514; 
+
+} 
+
+#content { 
+padding: lOpx; 
+background-color: tteeeeee; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style list items. Items within the list are styled to float left. The background value 
+includes the location of the rollover image, with additional settings being 
+no-repeat (to stop it from tiling), and then 0 and 0, to ensure the relevant portion 
+of the rollover image is seen by default. The width and height values are the same 
+as that of the image: i85px and 30px, respectively. 
+
+#navigation li { 
+float: left; 
+
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image.gif) no-repeat 0 0; 
+width: I85px; 
+height: 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+212 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+Deque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed. blandit a. eros. Ouisoue facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras oravida. diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+4 . Next, style the links. The text is rendered in white, uppercase, and in Arial, and the 
+default underlines are removed. Setting display to block makes the entire link 
+container into an active link, thereby making the navigation bar work in the tradi¬ 
+tional manner (rather than just the text being active). Finally, the padding settings 
+position the text correctly over the background images. The height setting, com¬ 
+bined with the padding top setting of 9px, adds up to the height of the container— 
+30px. Without this, the space underneath the text would not be active. 
+
+#navigation a:link, #navigation aivisited { 
+font: bold l.lem Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+display: block; 
+height: 21px; 
+
+padding: 9px Opx Opx 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Style other link states. For the hover and active states, you define which portion 
+of the rollover graphic is supposed to be visible. This is done via background posi¬ 
+tion values. The first of these remains 0, because you always want to see the image 
+from its far left. The vertical reading depends on where the relevant portion of the 
+image appears in the rollover graphic. 
+
+If you check css-tab-rollover-image.gif in an image editor, you’ll see the hover 
+state graphic is 40 pixels from the top and the active state graphic is 80 pixels 
+from the top. This means the image needs to be vertically moved -40 pixels and 
+-80 pixels for the hover and active states, respectively. Therefore, the rules for 
+these states are as follows: 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image.gif) 0 -40px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:active { 
+
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image.gif) 0 -80px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+213 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+6 . Define the active section state. As per step 8 of the previous exercise, the active 
+state graphic can be set. In this case, this is done by displaying the fourth state in 
+the rollover image via the following rule: 
+
+#homePage #homePageLink ailinkj #homePage #homePageLink aivisited, 
+
+^ #servicesPage #servicesPageLink a:link, #servicesPage 
+^ #servicesPageLink a:visited, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:link, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:visited, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:link, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:visited { 
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image.gif) 0 -120px; 
+
+} 
+
+Again, you can change the id value of the body element to one of the other list 
+item id values to change the active section link. 
+
+
+P HOMEPAGE P SERVICES □ CUSTOMER SUPPORT ■ CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras qravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+P HOMEPAGE P SERVICES □ CUSTOMER SUPPORT P CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed. blandit a. eros. Quisoue facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+Using a grid image for multiple link styles and colors 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The files from the graphical-navigation-bar folder and 
+css-rollover-grid.gif from the navigation-images folder in 
+the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to amend the previous exercise, in order to create a different 
+tab for each link—still by using a single image. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The graphical-navigation-bar-grid folder in the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+
+214 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+Taking the previous exercise’s completed files as a starting point, along with 
+css-rollover-grid.gif, which will be used as the rollover image, you’re now going to 
+have a different tab for each link. This will be done via more background positioning and 
+by making use of the list item id values to create rules with contextual selectors specific to 
+each item. Naturally, the rollover image contains all of the states for the rollover images. 
+
+
+
+1 . Amend the list item style. To apply the new background to the list items, amend 
+the ttnavigation li rule: 
+
+#navigation li { 
+float: left; 
+display: inline; 
+width: I85px; 
+height: 30px; 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) no-repeat 0 0; 
+
+} 
+
+2 . Amend the navContainer div border. Because the tabs are now multicolored, the 
+orange border at the bottom of the navContainer div won’t look good, so change 
+it to dark gray. 
+
+#navContainer { 
+height: 30px; 
+
+border-bottom: 5px solid #333333; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Set specific background positions. Each tab now requires a separate background 
+position to show the relevant portion of the background image for each tab. Again, 
+negative margins are used to pull the image into place in each case. (Because the 
+different colors aren’t obvious in grayscale, the tabs also have unique icons at the 
+far left.) These rules should be placed after the #navigation a:link, ttnavigation 
+a: visited rule. 
+
+#navigation #homePageLink { 
+background-position: 0 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation #servicesPageLink { 
+background-position: -l85px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+215 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#navigation #customerSupportPageLink { 
+background-position: -370px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation #contactDetailsPageLink { 
+background-position: -555px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Edit the active-page state for each tab. The correct portion of the image needs to 
+show when a tab is the active page, and this is done by replacing the rule from 
+step 6 of the previous exercise with the following four rules, which should be 
+placed after the rules added in the previous step. 
+
+#homePage #homePageLink a:linkj #homePage #homePageLink a:visited { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) 0 -120px; 
+
+} 
+
+#servicesPage #servicesPageLink a:linkj #servicesPage 
+** #servicesPageLink a:visited { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -l85px -120pxj 
+
+} 
+
+#customerSupportPage #customerSupportPageLink a:link, 
+
+^ #customerSupportPage #customerSupportPageLink a:visited { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -370px -120px; 
+
+} 
+
+#contactDetailsPage #contactDetailsPageLink a:link, 
+
+^ #contactDetailsPage #contactDetailsPageLink a:visited { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -555px -120px; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Finally, the two rules for the hover and active states need to be replaced by four 
+rules each—one for each tab. Again, negative margin values are used to display the 
+relevant portion of the background image for each state for each image. Add these 
+rules after those from the previous step. 
+
+#navigation li#homePageLink a:hover { 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) 0 -40px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#servicesPageLink a:hover { 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -l85px -40px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#customerSupportPageLink a:hover { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -370px -40px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#contactDetailsPageLink a:hover { 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -555px -40px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#homePageLink a:active { 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) 0 -80px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#servicesPageLink a:active { 
+
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -l85px -80px; 
+
+
+216 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#customerSupportPageLink a:active { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -370px -80px; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li#contactDetailsPageLink a:active { 
+background: url(css-rollover-grid.gif) -555px -80px; 
+
+} 
+
+Once again, change the id value of the body element to amend the active section 
+link. 
+
+
+-^ 
+
+■ HOMEPAGE 
+
+1 -^ 
+
+• SERVICES 
+
+1 -^ 
+
+4 CUSTOMBt SUPPORT 
+
+1 
+
+A CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. k 
+
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+
+■ HOMEPAGE 
+
+• SERVICES 
+
+A CUSTOMER SUPPORT 
+
+A CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+1 .h 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisoue facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras oravida. diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+r-^ 
+
+Creating graphical tabs that expand with resized text 
+
+k_ 4 
+
+
+Required files The files from the graphical-navigation-bar folder, and the 
+images css-tab-rollover-image-left.gif and css-tab- 
+rollover-image-right.gif from the navigation-images folder 
+from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn How to amend the result from the “Using CSS backgrounds to 
+
+create a navigation bar” exercise, enabling the tabs to expand, 
+resizing with their content. 
+
+
+Completed files graphical-navigation-bar-sliding-doors in the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+
+With both of the graphical tab exercises so far, there is a problem: when the text is resized, 
+the tabs don’t resize with it. 
+
+
+217 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+a HOME PAGE 
+
+■ SERVICES 
+
+■ CUSTOMER 
+
+■ CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. 
+
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis 
+velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+This can be dealt with using a technique typically referred to as “sliding doors.” This 
+requires two images in place of the original background image tab—one for its left-hand 
+part and one for the right-hand part, with enough vertical repetition to expand horizon¬ 
+tally. With wider links, more of the right-hand image will be displayed. 
+
+
+
+/ \ 
+
+Note that the increase in flexibility in this method is only horizontal. If you need more 
+flexibility vertically, increase the height of each “state” in the graphical tabs, remove 
+the height vo/uesfrom both #navigation li ond#navigation a:link, #navigation 
+a:visited, and add a padding-bottom value to the latter of those two rules. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+1. Amend the list. To the list items, apply the css-tab-rollover-image-left.gif 
+background image, and add a padding-left value that’s the same width as the 
+image. This provides the left-hand side of each tab. The reason for the padding 
+value is so that the right-hand side of the tab (applied to the link) doesn’t overlap 
+the left-hand image. 
+
+#navigation li { 
+float: left; 
+
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image-left.gif) no-repeat 0 0; 
+padding-left: 30px; 
+height: 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+218 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+2 . Amend the link style. Because the padding at the left of the link is now dealt with 
+by the previous rule, there’s no need for a padding-left value in #navigation 
+ailinkj #navigation a:visited. However, because the link now stretches with 
+the content, a padding-right value is required, to stop the tab content in each 
+case from hugging the edge of the tab. This explains the amended values for the 
+padding property. For the background property, the image file name is amended, 
+along with its horizontal position, which is now at the far right (100%). 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+font: bold l.lem Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+display: block; 
+height: 21px; 
+
+padding: 9px 30px Opx Opx; 
+
+background: url(css-tab-rollover-image-right.gif) no-repeat 100% 0; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . With this technique, the left-hand portion of the tab is no longer an active link. It’s 
+therefore usually recommended to keep the left-hand image as narrow as possible. 
+In this example, the left-hand image is 30 pixels wide, but this was used to show 
+how to convert a standard graphical navigation bar into one where the tabs can 
+expand—it’s not recommended for the graphical design of such a system. However, 
+this means the hover and current page states need amending; otherwise, there’s no 
+feedback. Therefore, for #navigation a:hover, set text-decoration to underline, 
+and delete everything else within the rule; and for the large, complex rule at the 
+end, set color: #fff200; as the sole property/value pair in the declaration. 
+
+
+
+-^ 
+
+■ HOMEPAGE 
+
+!- 1 
+
+■ SERVICES 
+
+-1 
+
+■ CUSTOMER SUPPORT 
+
+!-^ 
+
+■ CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinarodio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+btandit sed, btandit a, eros. Quisque facitisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+- N 
+
+■ HOME PAGE 
+
+1 - N 
+
+■ SERVICES 
+
+1 - N 
+
+■ CUSTOMER SUPPORT 
+
+1 -^ 
+
+■ CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, 
+orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. 
+Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras 
+
+
+219 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Creating a two-tier navigation menu 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The files from the graphical-navigation-bar folder and the 
+images active-section-tab-background.gif and sub- 
+navigation-background-tile.gif from the navigation-images 
+folder from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a two-tier navigation system, with different 
+backgrounds and styles for each tier. This is another method for 
+dealing with navigation text resizing, and it’s also useful for larger 
+websites, providing a place for subnavigation. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+two-tier-navigation in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Edit the body element. In the HTML page, give the body start tag an id value of 
+homePage. 
+
+<body id="homePage"> 
+
+
+2 . Add some subnavigation. Open the HTML document and add another list for sub¬ 
+navigation, directly after the navigation div. 
+
+
+<div id="subNavigation"> 
+<ul> 
+
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+<li><a 
+</ul> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+href="#" 
+
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+>Sub-nav 
+
+
+one</a></li> 
+
+two</a></li> 
+
+three</a></li> 
+
+four</a></li> 
+
+five</a></li> 
+
+six</a></li> 
+
+seven</a></li> 
+
+
+3 . Amend the body rule. In the CSS document, edit the body rule to add a dark gray 
+background color and some padding at the top of the document. 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+background: #333333; 
+padding-top: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Style the structural divs—add the following three rules to style the three main 
+structural divs. Adding a light gray bottom border to the masthead makes the tran¬ 
+sition between the vibrant navigation to the black-text-on-white-background 
+content area less harsh. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 750px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+background-color: #ffffff; 
+
+
+220 
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+border: Ipx solid #555555; 
+
+} 
+
+#masthead { 
+
+border-bottom: 8px solid tcccccc; 
+
+} 
+
+#content { 
+background: 
+padding: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Add the following two rules to remove list defaults, center list content, and display 
+list items inline. 
+
+#navContainer ul { 
+text-align: center; 
+
+} 
+
+#navContainer li { 
+display: inline; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Home page Services Customer support Contact details 
+Sub-nav one Sub-nav two Sub-nav three Sub-nav four Sub-nav five Sub-nav six Sub-nav seven 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. VIvamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+6 . Style the navigation div and its links. Add the following three rules to style the 
+navigation div and the links within. The padding settings work as per the earlier 
+exercises in this chapter: again, the vertical padding must be kept constant 
+between the container and the links, hence the vertical padding being set to 6px in 
+both cases. Note the hover color—a bright yellow, designed to stand out against 
+both the black background of the main navigation bar and the orange background 
+of the subnavigation and highlighted tab. 
+
+#navigation { 
+
+background: #111111; 
+padding: 6px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:linkj #navigation a:visited { 
+font: bold 1.2em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: #ffffff; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+padding: 6px lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation a:hover { 
+color: #ffd800; 
+
+} 
+
+
+221 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+7 . Style the active page link. Using one of those grouped contextual selectors we 
+seem to like so much in this chapter, set a rule to style the active page link. In this 
+case, a background image is tiled horizontally and set to sit at the bottom of the 
+links. A background color is also defined, which is handy for if the text is zoomed— 
+if no background color were defined, the image might run out, leaving the naviga¬ 
+tion div’s background color to show through instead. This rule, however, ensures 
+that the background will always have some color, regardless of the font size. The 
+color setting itself was taken from the top pixel of the background image, so it 
+blends seamlessly with said image. 
+
+#homePage #homePageLink ailinkj #homePage #homePageLink aivisited, 
+
+^ #servicesPage #servicesPageLink a:link, #servicesPage 
+^ #servicesPageLink arvisited, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:link, #customerSupportPage 
+^ #customerSupportPageLink a:visited, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:link, #contactDetailsPage 
+^ #contactDetailsPageLink a:visited { 
+background: #28b767 url(active-section-tab-background.gif) 
+
+^ 0 100% repeat-x; 
+border-top: Ipx solid #ca8d5c; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Homepage Servicee Customer support Contact detaMs 
+
+
+Sub-r>av or>e Sub-nav two Sub-nav three Sub-nav four Sub-nav five Sub-nav six Sub-nav seven 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+8 . Add the following three rules to style the subnavigation. Here, a background image 
+is tiled horizontally behind the entire subNavigation div, and it works in a similar 
+way to the one used in step 7, blending into a background color if the text is 
+zoomed, dramatically changing the div’s height. The border-bottom setting pro¬ 
+vides a darker base to the navigation, which works better than having the light gray 
+masthead border directly beneath it. The margin-top setting pulls the entire 
+subNavigation div up two pixels, which stops the layout from splitting at some 
+levels of text zoom. 
+
+#subNavigation { 
+margin-top: -2px; 
+
+background: #b76628 url(sub-navigation-background-tile.gif) 0 100% 
+
+^ repeat-x; 
+
+
+222 
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #6b6b6b; 
+padding: 6px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+#subNavigation a:link, #subNavigation a:visited 
+font: bold l.lem Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: ttffffff; 
+text-decoration: none; 
+padding: 6px lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#subNavigation a:hover { 
+color: #ffd800; 
+
+} 
+
+As you can see from the following images, this navigation bar deals really well with 
+
+increased text sizes—only when the text is absolutely massive does it not work 
+
+entirely as expected, although, crucially, it still remains usable. 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi cormmodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sitametenim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod uflamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed. blandit a. eras. Quisoue facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras oravida. diam sit amet rhoncus 
+
+
+
+
+Home page 
+
+Services Customer support Contact details 
+
+Sub-nav one 
+
+Sub<nav two Sub-nav three Sub-nav four Sub-nav 
+five Sub-nav six Sub-nav seven 
+
+
+I Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+
+
+The subNavigation div in this technique sometimes suffers from the has Layout 
+bug in Internet Explorer 6. See Chapter 9 for o method of dealing with has Layout. 
+
+'v_ J 
+
+
+223 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Creating a drop-down menu 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from the graphical-navigation-bar folder and drop-down- 
+menu-background.gif (which is a crop of the list item background 
+image) from the navigation-images folder in the chapter 5 
+folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to work with an existing CSS-based navigation menu and 
+convert it into a drop-down menu. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The drop-down-menu folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+The next type of navigation we’re going to explore in this chapter is the drop-down menu. 
+In part popularized by operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS, drop-down 
+menus are convenient for storing plenty of links in a relatively small space. However, use 
+them with caution, because the second tier of navigation is initially hidden from view, 
+unlike in the previous exercise’s system, where it was visible. However, with drop-downs, 
+all second-tier navigation is available from the menu. 
+
+1 . Edit the web page. For any link you want to have a drop-down menu spawn from, 
+nest an unordered list in its parent list item, as per the example in the following 
+code block. 
+
+<li id="servicesPageLink"> 
+
+<a href="#">Services</a> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link one</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link two</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link three</a></li> 
+clixa href="#">Drop-down link four</a></li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+
+□ HOMEPAGE 
+
+
+HI IMOMMMH LMK l«0 ^ 
+
+
+! | ■ CUSTOMER SUPPORT I, ■ 
+
+'L.H DIIONMnMLMKOI«]B 
+
+^ iklm 
+
+II ■ DftOP-OOWN LINK TWO | 
+
+
+CONTACT OETATLS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, c<j 
+Deque, id pulvinar odio lorem i 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae liguli 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sap 
+orci, fermentum bibendum eni 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dul. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+ravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+
+
+|i erat volutpat. bed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+bam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+
+
+2 . Create the drop-downs. Test your page now, and it will look odd because nested list 
+items pick up the styles for the standard list items. To start dealing with this, add 
+position: relative; to the ttnavigation li rule, which will enable nested 
+absolute-positioned elements to take their top and left values from their containers 
+
+
+224 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+rather than the page as a whole. Then, after the existing rules in the CSS, add the 
+#navigation li ul rule shown in the following code block. By setting position to 
+absolute and left to a large negative value, the nested lists (i.e., the drop-down 
+menus) are placed offscreen by default, but are still accessible to screen readers. 
+Adding the top border helps visually separate the nested list from its parent but¬ 
+ton. 
+
+#navigation li ul { 
+
+border-top: Ipx solid #ad3514) 
+width: I85px; 
+position: absolute; 
+left: -lOOOOpx 
+
+} 
+
+Next, add the following rule to bring the nested lists back when you hover the 
+cursor over the parent list item. Upon doing so, the list item’s descendant list’s 
+display value is set to block, and it’s displayed directly underneath the parent 
+item. 
+
+ttnavigation li:hover ul { 
+display: block; 
+left: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style nested list items and links. Add the following rule to replace the default 
+background for list items with one specifically for the drop-down menus. The 
+border-bottom value visually separates each of the list items. 
+
+#navigation li li { 
+
+background: url(drop-down-menu-background.gif) repeat-y; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #ad3514; 
+
+} 
+
+Next, add the following rule to style nested list item links, overriding the 
+text-transform and padding values of top-level list items. 
+
+ttnavigation li li a:link, #navigation li li a:visited { 
+text-transform: none; 
+padding-left: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . The final step is to override the hover and active states. For this example, the 
+background value for top-level lists is overridden and the background image 
+removed (meaning the hover state for nested list links has no unique background). 
+To make the hover state stand out, the links are given a vibrant left border. This 
+also moves the text inward by the width of the border. 
+
+#navigation li li a:hover, #navigation li li a:active { 
+background: none; 
+border-left: 5px solid #f7bcld; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+225 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+These property values are common to both states, apart from the border color 
+(orange for the hover state and red for the active state, roughly matching the col¬ 
+ors applied to the top-level tab icons in the same states, although the orange is 
+brighter for the drop-downs so that they stand out more); therefore, add the fol¬ 
+lowing rule to change only the left border’s color on the active state: 
+
+#navigation li li a:active { 
+border-left-color: #edlc24) 
+
+} 
+
+
+- T 
+
+□ HOMEPAGE 
+
+■ SERVICES 
+
+- ^ 
+
+-^^ 
+
+■ CUSTOMER SUPPORT ■ CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, c(| 
+
+Dropdown link on« 
+
+
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem r 
+
+' Dropdown link two 
+
+
+) erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+jam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper 
+
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapl 
+
+DropHjown Hnk ttiroo 
+
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor.BHHHOTHHHHHVHI 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facitisis erat a dui. Nam m. 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget o 
+
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+alesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+dio. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+If you decide to create drop-down menu-based navigation, avoid copying an operat¬ 
+ing system’s menu style, because this may confuse visitors using that operating system 
+and irritate visitors using a rival system. The exception to this rule is if you’re creating 
+a site that centers around nostalgia for the days where operating systems used to 
+come on floppy disks. One such site—an amusing Mac OS System 7 look-alike—can 
+be found at http: //myoldmac. net/. 
+
+V_^_y 
+
+
+Creating a multicolumn drop-down menu 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The drop-down-menu folder from the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a multicolumn drop-down menu, based on the code 
+from the previous exercise. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+The drop-down-menu-multi-column folder in the chapter 5 folder. 
+
+
+The final example in this chapter is a multicolumn drop-down menu. These are increas¬ 
+ingly common, enabling sites to provide a lot of links in a drop-down that simply wouldn’t 
+fit on the screen if they were listed vertically. For an example of such a drop-down in 
+action (although one that uses a different method), visit www.2000adonline.com/books/ 
+and hover over the Books List link. 
+
+
+226 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+w 
+
+
+TO ORDER... PHONE THE HOTLINE ON 01621 877 250 OR BUY OTLINE AT WWW.2000ADSHOP.COM 
+
+
+A gbaDbon Z 
+EBooks 
+
+
+
+
+.. a whole new generation of 
+dark fantastic fiction...'* 
+
+
+WWW.ABADOONBOOKS.COM 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+
+s/mon Spurrier 
+Frazer Irving 
+
+MofeM 
+
+
+RECEKT RELEASES 
+
+
+HOME •ABOUT 2000 AD 
+
+• . . COMWG SOON 
+
+w" 
+
+Complete book Hst 
+
+• CREATORS • CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+
+
+UtMt books (A-0) 
+
+Latest books (F-Ra) 
+
+Utest books (Re-W) 
+
+1 ABC Warriors 
+
+FamAy 
+
+ted Seas 
+
+1 Alan Moore 
+
+Fiends of the Eastern Front 
+
+RedRazon 
+
+
+dimmer Rats 
+
+Robo-Himter 
+
+' Atavar 
+
+HevAigan’s Haircut 
+
+Rogue Trooper 
+
+Bad Company 
+
+Indigo Prime 
+
+Savage 
+
+Ballad of Halo Jones, The 
+
+Invasion! 
+
+Shakara 
+
+Banzai Battalion 
+
+Judge Arxierson 
+
+Shimura 
+
+' Babnan/Judge Oredd 
+
+Jut^e Death 
+
+Sinister Dexter 
+
+1 Bec&Kawl 
+
+Judge Dredd 
+
+Skizz 
+
+Bison 
+
+Leviathan 
+
+SUme 
+
+Button Man 
+
+Lobster Rarsdom 
+
+Strontium Dog 
+
+' Caballistio Inc. 
+
+Necrortauts 
+
+Storming Heaven 
+
+CarverHale 
+
+Nemesis the Wartodc 
+
+Thirteen 
+
+^ Deviin Waugh 
+
+NBcolaf Dante 
+
+ThfUl'Power Overload 
+
+D.R. aOuMi 
+
+Rain Dogs 
+
+Wardog 
+
+' Durham Red 
+
+
+XTNCT 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1 . Edit the HTML to remove the existing nested lists. Then, for the multicolumn drop¬ 
+down, decide which link you want it to spawn from and place an unordered link in 
+its parent list item, with a single list item of its own. Within that list item, place the 
+unordered lists for the columns in the drop-down, one after the other. Note that if 
+some columns have fewer items, they must still have the same number of list items. 
+However, list items can be left empty, despite this technically being a presentational 
+hack. (Note that HTML Tidy might have problems with this and trim the empty list 
+items. If you use that tool, add a nonbreaking space as the list’s content.) 
+
+
+<li id="servicesPage"> 
+
+<a href="#">Services</a> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+clixa href="#">Drop-down 
+clixa href="#">Drop-down 
+<lixa href="#">Drop-down 
+<lixa href="#">Drop-down 
+
+
+</ul> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<lixa 
+
+<lixa 
+
+
+href= 
+
+href= 
+
+
+'#">Drop-down 
+
+'#">Drop-down 
+
+
+link l.l</ax/li> 
+link l.2</ax/li> 
+link l.3</ax/li> 
+link l.4</ax/li> 
+
+
+link 2.1</ax/li> 
+link 2.2</ax/li> 
+
+
+227 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<li></li> 
+
+<li></li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link 
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link 
+<li><a href="#">Drop-down link 
+<li></li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+</li> 
+
+
+3.1</a></li> 
+
+3.2</a></li> 
+
+3.3</a></li> 
+
+
+2 . Next, edit the nested list. The list that contains the three lists that form the 
+columns of the drop-down needs styling. Having larger borders on multicolumn 
+drop-downs is a good idea, because it enables users to focus on the contents more 
+easily, hence the amended border setting in the following code block. The other 
+change is to the width setting, which must be a multiple of three (here, it’s set to 
+465px, meaning that each column will be 155 pixels wide). With multicolumn drop- 
+downs, it’s best to avoid making each column the same width as a tab, otherwise 
+the result will look strange. 
+
+#navigation li ul { 
+
+border: 2px solid #ad3514; 
+width: 465pxj 
+position: absolute; 
+left: -lOOOOpx 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Now, the list item within the nested list needs amending. For the previous exercise, 
+the #navigation li li rule dealt with the list items in the drop-down, but here it’s 
+primarily for the container of the three columns. Therefore, the height and width 
+settings need to be set to auto to enable the list item to stretch to fit its nested 
+items. The background image is superfluous, so it’s replaced by a flat color, and the 
+border-bottom pair is removed—the borders will be moved to list items within 
+the columns. 
+
+#navigation li li { 
+background: #d27448; 
+height: auto; 
+width: auto; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . The link rules should be styled next. Since the links are now one level deeper in the 
+list, instances of li li in the selectors are changed to li li li. In this example, 
+this change isn’t technically necessary, but it always pays to keep your selectors as 
+precise and accurate as possible. For the link and visited states, padding settings 
+for the top-level links are overridden, as are width and height settings. For the 
+other states, the border used for the hover and active effects is replaced by a 
+change in background color. Note that the rule that originally had both the hover 
+and active states in the selector (#navigation li li a:hoverj #navigation li 
+
+
+228 
+
+
+USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION 
+
+
+li a:active) now only requires the hover state (#navigation li li li a:hover), 
+because the rules have nothing in common. 
+
+#navigation li li li a:link, #navigation li li li a:visited { 
+text-transtorm: none; 
+
+padding: lOpx; 
+width: 135px; 
+height: auto; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li li li a:hover { 
+
+background: #ad3514; 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation li li li a:active { 
+
+background: #edlc24; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Style the column list items. Add a rule to define a width and height for the column 
+list items, along with a bottom border. The last of those things makes it easier to 
+scan the rows within the list, while the width and height settings ensure that the 
+layout isn’t affected if the list items have no links within. (If the width and height 
+settings were omitted, the list items within the columns would show their bottom 
+borders only underneath their content’s width—and not at all if they were empty.) 
+The height setting is defined in ems rather than pixels, because this makes it possi¬ 
+ble for the list items to stretch vertically if the web page’s text is resized. 
+
+#navigation li li li { 
+width: I55px; 
+height: 3em; 
+
+border-bottom: ipx solid #ad3514; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . Finally, add a rule to float and define a width for the lists that comprise the con¬ 
+tainers for the list items styled in the previous step. 
+
+ttnavigation ul ul ul { 
+border: 0; 
+width: 155px; 
+float: left; 
+position: relative; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+-^ 
+
+D HOMEPAGE 
+
+- 11 - 
+
+■ SERVICES ■ CUSTOMER SUPPORT ■ CONTACT Dl 
+
+-^ 
+
+ETAiLS 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, c< 
+
+Dropdown Hnk 1.1 Dropdown link 2.1 Dropdown link 3.1 
+
+la rhoncus 
+
+neque, id pulvinarodio lorem i 
+
+Dropdown ikik 1.2 Drep-down link 2.2 Drop-down Bnk 3.2 
+
+
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sap 
+
+'to 
+
+l^p*down link U Drop-down link 3.3 
+
+ullamcorper 
+
+
+Drop-down Ibik 14 
+
+
+btandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. 
+
+Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel turpis. 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. 
+
+
+229 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Although the drop-down examples work in currently shipping browsers, neither works 
+as is in Internet Explorer 6, because that browser doesn’t enable you to do anything 
+with the hover state unless it’s on a link. To cater for that browser, JavaScript must be 
+used as a backup. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+The dos and don’ts of web navigation 
+
+So, that’s the end of our navigation chapter. Before we move on to working with layout, 
+here are a few succinct tips regarding designing web navigation. 
+
+Do 
+
+■ Use appropriate types of navigation. 
+
+■ Provide alternate means of accessing information. 
+
+■ Ensure links stand out. 
+
+■ Take advantage of link states to provide feedback for users. 
+
+■ Get the link state order right (link, visited, hover, active). 
+
+■ Use styled lists for navigation. 
+
+■ Use CSS and as few images as possible (preferably one) for rollovers. 
+
+Don’t 
+
+■ Add search boxes just for the sake of it. 
+
+■ Use deprecated body attributes. 
+
+■ Style navigation links like normal body copy. 
+
+■ Use image maps unless absolutely necessary. 
+
+■ Open new windows from links or use pop-ups. 
+
+■ Use clunky JavaScript for rollovers. 
+
+
+230 
+
+
+
+
+
+6 TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND 
+THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Introducing how tables work 
+
+■ Using borders, padding, and spacing 
+
+■ Creating accessible tables 
+
+■ Enhancing tables with CSS 
+
+■ Designing tables for web page layout 
+
+
+The great table debate 
+
+Tables were initially intended as a means of displaying tabular data online, enabling web 
+designers to rapidly mark up things like price lists, statistical comparisons, specification 
+lists, spreadsheets, charts, forms, and so on (the following example shows a simple table, 
+taken from www.macuser.co.uk). 
+
+
+PRODUCT 
+
+SUPPLIER 
+
+PRICE 
+
+RATING 
+
+Canon Bubble Jet 19950 
+
+Pixmania.com 
+
+£446.00 
+
+5^ 
+
+Canon Bubble Jet 16500 
+
+Canon 
+
+£291.00 
+
+4 
+
+Epson Stylus Photo 2100 
+
+ebuyer. com 
+
+£434.00 
+
+4 
+
+Epson Stylus Photo 1290 
+
+Simply 
+
+£273.00 
+
+3 
+
+HP DesignJet 30 
+
+Dabs.com 
+
+£532.00 
+
+3 
+
+HP DeskJet 9650 
+
+Savastore.com 
+
+£329.00 
+
+3 
+
+
+It wasn’t long, however, before web designers realized that you could place any web con¬ 
+tent within table cells, and this rapidly led to web designers chopping up Photoshop lay¬ 
+outs and piecing them back together in table-based web pages, often by using automated 
+tools. CSS should have put an end to that, but many web designers continue to use tables 
+for layout because they’re simple to set up—even though they cause problems (see the 
+“Tables for layout” section later in the chapter). 
+
+The strong will of CSS advocates, who typically shout that tables are evil, sometimes leads 
+designers to believe that tables should be ditched entirely—however, that’s not the case at 
+all. As mentioned, tables have a specific purpose in HTML, and one that’s still valid. 
+Therefore, the bulk of this chapter is going to look at tables in the context for which 
+they’re intended: the formatting of tabular data. Web page layout will be looked at in the 
+next chapter, which concentrates on CSS layout. 
+
+
+234 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+How tables work 
+
+In this section, we’re going to look at how tables are structured, and some of the table 
+element’s attributes, which enable you to define the table’s dimensions and borders, along 
+with the spacing, padding, and alignment of its cells. 
+
+Tabular data works via a system of rows and columns, and HTML tables work in the same 
+way. The table element defines the beginning and end of a table. Within the table ele¬ 
+ment are table row elements (<tr></tr>), and nested within those are table cell elements 
+(<td></td>). The actual content is placed inside the td elements. Therefore, a simple table 
+with two rows containing two cells each is created like this: 
+
+<table> 
+
+<tr><td>Cell one</td><td>Cell two</td></tr> 
+
+<tr><td>Cell three</td><td>Cell four</td></tr> 
+
+</table> 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Always ensure that you include all end tags when working with tables. If you began 
+working with HTML in the mid-1990s, you may have learned that it’s OK to omit the 
+odd end tag from tables or table cells. However, not only does this result in invalid 
+XHTML, but some browsers won’t render tables accurately (or at all) when end tags 
+are omitted. Furthermore, there’s evidence to suggest some search engines can’t 
+properly spider pages that contain broken tables. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+
+Adding a border 
+
+You can place a border around table cells by using the border attribute and setting its 
+value to 1 or greater. The adjacent example shows how this looks in a web browser. 
+
+HTML borders for tables have a kind of 3D effect and tend to look clunky and old- 
+fashioned. If you want to add a border to a table, this is best done in CSS. 
+
+
+jCellone [Cell two 
+|CeU three jCell four 
+
+
+Cell spacing and cell padding 
+
+In addition to amending the border size, it’s possible to change the amount of padding 
+within a table’s cells, as well as the spacing between all the cells in a table. This is done with 
+the cellpadding and cellspacing attributes, respectively. In the rather extreme example 
+that follows, cellpadding is set to 20, cellspacing to 40, and border to 5, so that each 
+can be differentiated with ease (see the subsequent screenshot). As you can see, 
+cellspacing not only affects the spacing between the cells, but also the distance between 
+
+
+235 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+the cells and the table’s edges. (The CSS property border-spacing is intended to do the 
+same thing as cellspacing, but Internet Explorer to version 7 doesn’t support it.) 
+
+stable cellpadding="20" cellspacing="40" border="5"> 
+
+<tr><td>Cell one</td><td>Cell two</td></tr> 
+
+<tr><td>Cell three</td><td>Cell four</td></tr> 
+
+</table> 
+
+
+
+
+
+Cell one 
+
+
+Cell two 
+
+
+
+
+
+Cell three 
+
+
+Cell four 
+
+
+
+
+
+You might be thinking that design-wise, this example sucks, and you’d be right. The chunk- 
+o-vision 3D border isn’t particularly tasteful. However, you can omit the border attribute 
+and use CSS to style borders instead—see the “Styling a table” section later on in this 
+chapter. That section also details how to set padding in CSS, which provides you with site¬ 
+wide control over cell padding. CSS also gives you much finer control over the individual 
+elements in a table—whereas the inline HTML attributes impose a one-style-fits-all 
+straightjacket. 
+
+
+Spanning rows and cells 
+
+It’s sometimes necessary for data to span multiple rows or columns. This is achieved via 
+the rowspan and colspan attributes, respectively. In the following table, the first row has 
+three cells. However, in the second row, the first cell spans two rows and the second cell 
+spans two columns. This means the second row lacks a third cell, and the third row also 
+only has two cells (whose contents align with the second and third cells of the top row). 
+See the following screenshot of the table to help make sense of this. 
+
+stable border="l" cellpadding="2"> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td>A cell</td> 
+
+<td>Another cell</td> 
+
+<td>Yet another cell!</td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td rowspan="2">A cell that spans two rows</td> 
+
+<td colspan="2">A cell that spans two columns</td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+
+236 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+<td>Another cell</td> 
+<td>The last cell</td> 
+</tr> 
+
+</table> 
+
+
+A cell 
+
+Another cell | Yet another cell! 
+
+
+A cell that spans two columns 
+
+
+Another cell |Thc last cell 
+
+
+In the preceding HTML, the cell elements are indented to make it easier for you to 
+make them out. This wasn’t done earlier in the chapter. Either method of writing 
+markup is fine — it's up to you. Note, however, that if you use images within table cells, 
+this extra whitespace in the HTML sometimes causes layouts to break, and must there¬ 
+fore be deleted. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Take care when spanning rows or columns with a cell, because it’s easy to add extra cells 
+accidentally. For instance, in the preceding example, it would be easy to absentmindedly 
+add a third cell to both the second and third rows—however, doing so appends the extra 
+cells to the end of the table (see the following example), which looks bad, and—more 
+important—makes little structural sense. Also, some screen readers have difficulty han¬ 
+dling such data, often assigning the wrong headers to various pieces of data (see the 
+“Creating accessible tables” section later in the chapter for information on table headers). 
+
+
+A cell 
+
+Another cell |Yet another cell!| 
+
+A cell that spans two rows 
+
+A cell that spans two columns ||This shouldn't be here| 
+
+Another cell |The last cell || A wrongly added cell | 
+
+
+Setting dimensions and alignment 
+
+As you can see from the examples so far, browsers by default set cell sizes to the smallest 
+possible values that are large enough to accommodate the contents and any cell padding 
+settings defined. Although this is suitable for the majority of purposes, designers tend to 
+want more visual control over layouts. 
+
+Long-time designers may be well-versed in the practice of using height and width attrib¬ 
+utes to control table and cell dimensions, but beware. The width attribute is fine to use on 
+table start tags (the possible values of which are a number denoting the width in pixels of 
+the table, and a percentage, which is a percentage of the parent element’s size). However, 
+the height attribute is nonstandard and fails in the majority of web browsers (in fact, if 
+using an XHTML DTD, it fails in every currently shipping mainstream browser), which might 
+come as something of a shock to those people who enjoy centering content in a browser 
+window by using a table. 
+
+
+237 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+As for setting widths and heights within table cells, that’s something that should be 
+avoided altogether—height and width attributes within table cells are deprecated. You 
+might argue that this is irrelevant—after all, all major browsers support these attributes. 
+Although this is true, deprecated attributes are not guaranteed to be supported in the 
+future. Also, table cells always expand to accommodate the widest or tallest element in a 
+row or column. As a result of this, defining heights and widths is often a futile attempt to 
+control the uncontrollable. 
+
+
+Take care when using visual web design applications: many of them add deprecated 
+elements to tables if you manually drag the cells around. Use your favored applica¬ 
+tion’s preferences to turn off this feature, otherwise you’ll end up with obsolete and 
+redundant markup. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Vertical alignment of table cell content 
+
+If you set your table’s width to a small value, or if you have a 
+lot of content in one cell and relatively little in an adjacent 
+one, something else becomes apparent: web browsers verti¬ 
+cally align content in the middle of cells. (Generally, horizon¬ 
+tal alignment is, as with other text, to the left.) See the image 
+on the right for an example. 
+
+Historically, designers have used the valign attribute to 
+override this vertical-centering behavior—the attribute can 
+be added to a row or cell start tag, and set to top: 
+valign="top". Other values are middle (the default) and 
+bottom, the results of which are shown in the adjacent 
+screenshot. 
+
+The problem with valign is that it’s presentational markup and shouldn’t really be used; in 
+fact, because it’s a deprecated attribute—which means it can’t be used if you’re creating 
+valid XHTML Strict documents—^you should instead work with the CSS alternative, the 
+vertical-align property, which provides practically identical results. 
+
+As an example of vertical-align in use, say you wanted all cells within a table that had a 
+class value of priceList to be vertically aligned to the top; you could add the following 
+rule to your CSS; 
+
+table.priceList td { 
+vertical-align: top; 
+
+} 
+
+This results in the same effect as valign="top", as discussed earlier. Likewise, you can set 
+the vertical-align property to middle, bottom, and various other values, as outlined 
+in Appendix D, “CSS Reference.’’ 
+
+
+
+A cell with 
+
+Almost 
+
+considerably more 
+
+empty. 
+
+content within it than 
+
+
+the one to its left! 
+
+
+
+238 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+That’s pretty much where many web designers leave tables; however, there are other ele¬ 
+ments and attributes that should be used when creating tables, which will be covered in 
+the following sections. 
+
+
+Creating accessible tables 
+
+Many web designers ignore all but the most basic elements when working with tables, and 
+in doing so they end up with output that causes problems for screen readers. By correctly 
+and carefully structuring and formatting a table, not only will users of screen readers ben¬ 
+efit, but you as a designer will also have far more control over its visual appearance. 
+Additionally, extendable browsers like Firefox can also enable you to use the table data 
+in other ways, including outside of the browser. For example, the TableTools plug-in 
+(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ 2637 ) enables sorting, filtering, 
+and exporting of tabular data from a web page. A properly formatted table will enhance 
+this, making the table even more useful. Adding a few extra elements and attributes to 
+your table is a win-win situation, and it’s surprising to note how few designers bother with 
+anything other than rows and cells in their tables. 
+
+
+
+Captions and summaries 
+
+Two seldom-used table additions that enable you to provide explanations of a table’s con¬ 
+tents are the caption element and the summary attribute. The former is usually placed 
+directly after the table start tag, and enables you to provide a means of associating the 
+table’s title with the table itself. Obviously, this also helps users—particularly those with 
+screen readers. After reading the caption, the screen reader will go on to read the table 
+headers (see the “Using table headers” section later in this chapter). Without the caption, 
+the table’s contents might be relatively meaningless. 
+
+By default, most browsers center captions horizontally, and some set their contents in bold 
+type, but these default styles can be overridden with CSS. 
+
+The summary attribute, which is invisible in browsers, is used by screen readers to give the 
+user an overview of the table’s contents prior to accessing the content. The contents of 
+the summary attribute should be kept succinct, highlighting the most important aspects of 
+the table contents, letting the user know what to anticipate. 
+
+Many suggest that summaries should be included on all tables, but this isn’t necessarily the 
+case. A summary should be used only when it performs the task for which it’s designed: to 
+make available a succinct summary of data within a table. Should you be using tables for 
+layout (which I don’t recommend), there’s little point including summaries within each lay¬ 
+out table—after all, someone using a screen reader is hardly going to jump for joy upon 
+hearing, for the umpteenth time, “This table is used for laying out the web page.” 
+Summaries should save time, not waste it. 
+
+
+239 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Using table headers 
+
+Only a fraction of data tables on the Web make use of table headers, even though the 
+majority of tables include cell data that would be better placed within headers. The table 
+header cell element (<th></th>) performs a similar function to the standard table cell, but 
+is useful with regard to accessibility. Imagine a long data table comprised solely of stan¬ 
+dard cells. The first row likely contains the headers, but because they’re not differentiated, 
+a screen reader might treat them as normal cells, read them once, and then continue read¬ 
+ing the remainder of the data. (If it doesn’t do this, it still has to assume which cells are 
+headers, and it might guess wrong.) When using table headers, the data is usually read in 
+context (header/data, header/data, and so on), enabling the user to make sense of every¬ 
+thing. Things can be sped up slightly by using the abbr attribute—long table headers can 
+be cut down, reducing what needs to be repeated when a table’s data is being read out. 
+An example of table header cells and a row of data cells follows: 
+
+<th>Country</th><th abbr="Capital">Capital city</th> 
+
+<td>France</td><td>Paris</td> 
+
+In this case, a screen reader should read the headers and then provide them with the data 
+of each cell (Country: France, Capital: Paris, etc.). But even with screen-based browsers, the 
+inclusion of headers proves beneficial for users, because table header cell content by 
+default is styled differently from data cell content, meaning the two cell types can be 
+easily differentiated. 
+
+Although headers are often at the top of a table, they may also be aligned down the left- 
+hand side. Therefore, you also need to specify whether the header provides header infor¬ 
+mation for the remainder of the row, column, row group, or column group that contains 
+it. This can be done with the scope attribute, which is added to the table header start tag 
+and given the relevant value (row, col, rowgroup, or colgroup). It’s also possible to use the 
+headers attribute in conjunction with id values. See the following “Scope and headers” 
+section for more information. 
+
+
+Row groups 
+
+Row group elements are almost never used, the main reason being a supposed lack 
+of browser support. The three possible row group elements—<thead></thead>, 
+<tbody></tbody>, and <tfoot></tfoot>—enable browsers to support the scrolling of the 
+body area of long tables, with the head and foot of the table remaining fixed. 
+Furthermore, when tables are printed, the aforementioned elements enable the table 
+head and foot to be printed on each page. 
+
+Although browser support comes up short in some areas, I still recommend using row 
+groups, because they encourage you as a designer to think about the structure of the 
+tables you’re creating. Also, although browsers don’t do all they might with the elements, 
+they still recognize them, which means they can be used as selectors in CSS, enabling you 
+to set separate styles for the head, body, and foot data. 
+
+
+240 
+
+
+When using row groups, you can have one or more tbody elements and zero or one thead 
+and tfoot elements. They should be ordered with the head first, foot second, and 
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+body/bodies third, thereby enabling the browser to render the foot prior to receiving all 
+of the data. Note, however, that despite this order in HTML, browsers visually render the 
+row groups in the order you’d expect: head, body, and foot. 
+
+
+Scope and headers 
+
+Although table header cells provide a means of differentiating headers and other data, a 
+direct means of associating one with the other can be added via the use of various attrib¬ 
+utes. For simple data tables, the scope attribute, added to table headers, provides an indi¬ 
+cation of which data a heading refers to. For example, in the previous code block, the 
+table is oriented in columns—the headers are above their associated data. Therefore, 
+adding a scope attribute to the header cells, with a value of col, clearly defines this rela¬ 
+tionship—and this is something that comes in handy for screen readers. 
+
+<th scope="col">Country</th><th scope="col">Capital city</th> 
+<td>France</td><td>Paris</td> 
+
+If the alignment of the table were changed, with the headers at the left, the row value 
+would instead be used. 
+
+<th scope="row">Country</th><td>France</td> 
+
+<th scope="row">Capital city</th><td>Paris</td> 
+
+Note that if a table header contains colspan or rowspan attributes—for example, if a 
+header, such as food, spanned two columns (thereby having the attribute/value pair 
+colspan="2") and had underneath two further headings, such as fruit and vegetables— 
+you could set scope="colgroup" in the table header start tag. The equivalent is true for 
+headers with a rowspan attribute, whereupon the scope value changes to rowgroup. In 
+such cases, you also need to use the colgroup/rowgroup elements. 
+
+These are positioned between the caption and thead of the table (see the following code, 
+and see the following section for an overview of the various structural elements of tables 
+combined). 
+
+
+
+ccolgroup span="2"> 
+ccolgroup span="2"> 
+<thead> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope="colgroup" 
+<th scope="colgroup" 
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope 
+
+
+colspan= 
+
+colspan= 
+
+
+col">Citrus</th> 
+<th scope="col">Berry</th> 
+<th scope="col">Root</th> 
+col">Legume</th> 
+
+
+<th scope 
+</tr> 
+</thead> 
+
+
+2">Fruit</th> 
+
+2">Vegetable</th> 
+
+
+241 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+For more complex tables that have intricate structures, using many colspans or rowspans, 
+where it wouldn’t be immediately obvious where the relationship lies between a data 
+cell and a header, you can use id values and the headers element. Each table header cell 
+should be assigned a unique id value. Each table data cell that refers to one or more head¬ 
+ers requires a headers element. The value of the headers element is the id or ids that the 
+cell data refers to. Even for simpler data tables, this method can work well—see the fol¬ 
+lowing code block for how our fruit and vegetables table snippet works with id and 
+headers. 
+
+<thead> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th id="fruit" colspan="2">Fruit</th> 
+
+<th id="vegetables" colspan="2">Vegetable</th> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th id="citrus">Citrus</th> 
+
+<th id="berry" >Berry</th> 
+
+<th id="root" >Root</th> 
+
+<th id="legume" >Legume</th> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+</thead> 
+
+
+<tbody> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td headers= 
+<td headers= 
+<td headers= 
+<td headers= 
+</tr> 
+
+</tbody> 
+
+
+"fruit citrus">Lemon</td> 
+"fruit berry">Blueberry</td> 
+"vegetable root">Potato</td> 
+"vegetable legume">Pea</td> 
+
+
+Note that the code blocks in this section are here to highlight the attributes and elements 
+being discussed—they should not be seen as examples of complete tables. 
+
+
+You can instead use the axis attribute to categorize groups of header cells (ar data 
+cells), using code such as <th id="citrus" axis="fruit">. This helps imply the rela¬ 
+tionship between groups of headers via the markup, further benefiting screen reader 
+users. This can be particularly useful when an extra header row defining those cate¬ 
+gories hasn’t been used as it is in the previous code block (i.e., if the fruit and veg¬ 
+etable headings were omitted). 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Building a table 
+
+You’re now going to build a table, taking into account all of the information mentioned so 
+far. This will be based on an iTunes playlist. 
+
+
+242 
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+* 
+
+Name Time 
+
+Artist 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Count 
+
+1 
+
+ig In The Art Of Slopping 3:34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+5 
+
+2 
+
+Elearon John 3.18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+43 
+
+3 
+
+3 Templates 6:07 
+
+Silo 
+
+Instar 
+
+11 
+
+4 
+
+i3 Emerge 4:48 
+
+Fischerspooner 
+
+Fischerspooner #1 
+
+24 
+
+5 
+
+^ Banquet 3:21 
+
+Bloc Party 
+
+Silent Alarm 
+
+25 
+
+6 
+
+a Aiala 3:58 
+
+Cansei De Ser Se... 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy 
+
+10 
+
+7 
+
+1^ 1 Ain't Saying My Goodbyes 3:45 
+
+Tom Vek 
+
+We Have Sound 
+
+42 
+
+8 
+
+0 J6ga 5:05 
+
+Bjbrk 
+
+Homogenic 
+
+26 
+
+9 
+
+^ Kim Wilde 4:21 
+
+Charlotte Hatherley 
+
+Grey Will Fade 
+
+18 
+
+10 
+
+1^ Witness 4:04 
+
+The Delgados 
+
+The Great Eastern 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+1 ^ Feel Good Inc. 3:41 
+
+Goriliaz 
+
+Demon Days 
+
+21 
+
+12 
+
+1 ^ Returning Wheel 3:26 
+
+Malka Spigel 
+
+Hide 
+
+14 
+
+13 
+
+a P.E.T.R.O.L 6:21 
+
+Orbital 
+
+Pi (OSD 
+
+10 
+
+14 
+
+0 Pweization 3:08 
+
+Pop Will Eat Itself... 
+
+Karmadrome 
+
+12 
+
+15 
+
+S Betrayed 3:05 
+
+Projea Noise 
+
+Listen to me 
+
+31 
+
+16 
+
+0 When The Sun Hits 4:47 
+
+Slowdive 
+
+Souviaki 
+
+2 
+
+17 
+
+8 Little Eyes 4:20 
+
+Yo LaTengo 
+
+Summer Sun 
+
+29 
+
+
+As you can see from the screenshot, the playlist lends itself well to being converted to an 
+HTML table. At the top is the table head, which details each column’s data type (song 
+name, time, etc.). And although there’s no table foot, you can simply add some informa¬ 
+tion regarding whose choice of music this is—something of a signature—although the 
+table foot can also be used to provide a succinct summary of the table’s contents, akin to 
+the value of the summary attribute discussed earlier. 
+
+
+
+
+Required files 
+
+XHTML-basic.html from the basic-boilerplates folder as a 
+starting point, along with building-the-table-body.txt from 
+the chapter 6 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a table. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+building-the-table.html in the chapter 6 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Structure the table element. In order to emulate the structure of the iTunes 
+playlist, set the table’s width to a percentage value. This means the table will 
+stretch with the browser window. As explained earlier, you should also use the 
+summary attribute to succinctly detail what the table’s all about. 
+
+stable width="90%" border="l" cellspacing="0" 
+
+^ summary="Music selected by Craig Grannellj with details of song, 
+
+^ playing time, artist, album and play count."> 
+
+</table> 
+
+
+f s 
+
+Strictly speaking, the border attribute should be omitted. However, prior to adding 
+CSS rules, it's a handy way to more prominently show the table’s structure in a 
+browser. Note also the use of cellspacing— without this, most browsers place gaps 
+between the table cells of unstyled tables. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+243 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+2 . Add a caption. Immediately after the table start tag, add a caption element to pro¬ 
+vide the table with a title. 
+
+<caption>A playlist of great music</caption> 
+
+3 . Add the basic table structure. Use row groups to provide the table with its basic 
+structure. 
+
+<thead> 
+
+</thead> 
+
+<tfoot> 
+
+</tfoot> 
+
+<tbody> 
+
+</tbody> 
+
+
+Remember that row groups must be added in the order outlined in 
+the previous “Row groups” section. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+4 . Using table header cell elements, add the content for the table head (the column 
+headers) as in the following code block, remembering to include relevant scope 
+attribute/value pairs: 
+
+<thead> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope="col">Song Naitie</th> 
+
+<th scope="col">Time</th> 
+
+<th scope="col">Artist</th> 
+
+<th scope="col">Album</th> 
+
+<th scope="col">Play Count</th> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+</thead> 
+
+There’s no need to add any styling—not even strong tags. By default, most 
+browsers display table header cell content in bold (and centered) to differentiate it 
+from table data; also, in the following section, you’ll be using CSS to style every¬ 
+thing, anyway. 
+
+
+It’s always best to keep your HTML as simple as possible, and do any styling in CSS. 
+This reduces page load times, and means that you have a greater degree of control. It 
+also means that people without the ability to view CSS see the browser defaults, which 
+are sensible and clear. 
+
+)- J 
+
+
+244 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+5. Add table foot content. As mentioned, the footer for this table is to essentially be 
+a signature, stating who’s at fault for this selection of music. Because this is a single 
+line of text that could potentially span the entire table width, simply include a 
+single table cell, set to span five rows (using the colspan attribute). 
+
+<tfoot> 
+
+ctrxtd colspan="5">Music selection by: 
+
+^ WWW. snubcommunlcatlons.com</td></tr> 
+
+</tfoot> 
+
+6. Add table body content. Finally, add the table’s body content via the usual method, 
+using table row and table cell elements. This table will have nearly 20 rows, so to 
+save on trees, only the first two rows are detailed in the following printed code 
+block—^you can add all the others in the same way, or just copy across the content 
+of building-the-table-body.txt from the download files, to save inputting the 
+data yourself. 
+
+<tbody> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td>In The Art Of Stopping</td> 
+
+<td>3:34</td> 
+
+<td>Wire</td> 
+
+<td>Send</td> 
+
+<td>3</td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td>Electron 3ohn</td> 
+
+<td>3:l8</td> 
+
+<td>Worm Is Creen</td> 
+
+<td>Push Play</td> 
+
+<td>42</td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+</tbody> 
+
+
+
+/ \ 
+
+Take care that your table body content aligns correctly with your table head¬ 
+ers. Badly formed tables are one thing, but when the headers and data don’t 
+correlate, the table is useless. 
+
+\ _ J 
+
+
+The following image shows the table so far. 
+
+
+245 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+A playlist of great music 
+
+
+Song Name 
+
+Time 
+
+Artist 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Count 
+
+In The Ait Of Stopping 
+
+3:34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+3 
+
+Electron John 
+
+3:18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+42 
+
+Templates 
+
+6:07 
+
+SUo 
+
+Instar 
+
+9 
+
+Emerge 
+
+4:48 
+
+Fischerspooner 
+
+Fischerspooner #1 
+
+23 
+
+Banquet 
+
+3:21 
+
+Bloc Party 
+
+Silent Alarm 
+
+23 
+
+Alala 
+
+3:58 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy (CSS) 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy 
+
+6 
+
+I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes 
+
+3:45 
+
+Tom Vek 
+
+We Have Sound 
+
+40 
+
+J6ga 
+
+5:05 
+
+BjOrk 
+
+Homogenic 
+
+24 
+
+Kim WUde 
+
+4:21 
+
+Charlotte Hatheiley 
+
+Grey Will Fade 
+
+16 
+
+Wimess 
+
+4:04 
+
+The Delgados 
+
+The Great Eastern 
+
+9 
+
+Feel Good Inc. 
+
+3:41 
+
+Goiillaz 
+
+Demon Days 
+
+20 
+
+Returning Wheel 
+
+3:26 
+
+Malka Spigel 
+
+Hide 
+
+13 
+
+P£.TJt.OI,. 
+
+6:21 
+
+Orbital 
+
+Pi(OST) 
+
+8 
+
+Pweization 
+
+3:08 
+
+Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) 
+
+Kaimadrome 
+
+11 
+
+Betrayed 
+
+3:05 
+
+Project Noise 
+
+Listen to me 
+
+31 
+
+When The Sun Hits 
+
+4:47 
+
+Slowdive 
+
+Souvlaki 
+
+1 
+
+Little Eyes 
+
+4:20 
+
+Yo La Tengo 
+
+Summer Sun 
+
+28 
+
+Music selection by: www.snubcommunications.com 
+
+
+This table’s not pretty, but it’s structurally sound, and it includes all the relevant elements 
+to at least help make it accessible. As you can see, the addition of the caption and table 
+header cells also makes a difference. If you’re unsure of this, look at the following screen- 
+shot of the same table, with plain table data cells throughout and no caption. 
+
+
+Song Name 
+
+Time 
+
+Artist 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Count 
+
+In The Art Of Stopping 
+
+3:34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+3 
+
+Electron John 
+
+3:18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+42 
+
+Templates 
+
+6:07 
+
+SUo 
+
+Instar 
+
+9 
+
+Emerge 
+
+4:48 
+
+Fischerspooner 
+
+Fischerspooner #1 
+
+23 
+
+Banquet 
+
+3:21 
+
+Bloc Party 
+
+SUcnt Alarm 
+
+23 
+
+Alala 
+
+3:58 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy (CSS) 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy 
+
+6 
+
+I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes 
+
+3:45 
+
+Tom Vek 
+
+We Have Sound 
+
+40 
+
+Jdga 
+
+5:05 
+
+BjOik 
+
+Homogenic 
+
+24 
+
+Kim WUde 
+
+4:21 
+
+Charlotle Hatherley 
+
+Grey WUl Fade 
+
+16 
+
+Wimess 
+
+4:04 
+
+The Delgados 
+
+The Great Eastern 
+
+9 
+
+Feel Good Inc. 
+
+3:41 
+
+GorUlaz 
+
+Demon Days 
+
+20 
+
+Returning Wheel 
+
+3:26 
+
+MaUca Spigel 
+
+Hide 
+
+13 
+
+P£.TJt.OI.. 
+
+6:21 
+
+Orbital 
+
+Pi (OST) 
+
+8 
+
+Pweization 
+
+3:08 
+
+Pop WUl Eat Itself (PWEI) 
+
+Kaimadrome 
+
+11 
+
+Betrayed 
+
+3:05 
+
+Project Noise 
+
+Listen to me 
+
+31 
+
+When The Sun Hits 
+
+4:47 
+
+Slowdive 
+
+Souvlaki 
+
+1 
+
+Little Eyes 
+
+4:20 
+
+Yo La Tengo 
+
+Summer Sun 
+
+28 
+
+Music selection by: www.snubcommunications.com 
+
+
+All the information might be there, but it’s harder to pick out the headers, and users will 
+have to rely on body copy elsewhere to discover what the data in the table represents. 
+
+
+246 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+Styling a table 
+
+Flip back over the past few pages and you might notice that the table doesn't exactly bear 
+a striking resemblance to the iTunes playlist as yet. But then, we’re only halfway through 
+building the table. Now it’s time to start styling it using CSS. 
+
+
+Adding borders to tables 
+
+As mentioned earlier, it’s a good policy to avoid using the default HTML table border. It 
+looks ugly and old-fashioned, and it’s a far cry from a clean, flat, 1 -pixel border. You might 
+think it’s a straightforward process to add CSS borders to a table—logically, it makes sense 
+to simply add a border property/value pair to a grouped selector that takes care of both 
+the table headers and table data cells. 
+
+
+thj td { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #c9c9c9; 
+
+} 
+
+
+But this doesn’t work. As the screenshot to the right shows, this method 
+results in the correct single-pixel border around the edge of the table, 
+but creates double-thick borders everywhere else. This is because the 
+borders don’t collapse by default, meaning that the right-hand border of 
+one cell sits next to the left-hand border of an adjacent cell, and so on. 
+
+
+
+
+Time 
+
+
+3:34 W 
+
+
+Designers have historically gotten around this by using a rule to define a style for the top 
+and left borders of the table, and another to define a style for the right and bottom 
+borders of table cells. However, there’s a perfectly good property that 
+deals with the double-border syndrome: border-collapse. When this 
+property, with a value of collapse, is applied to the table element via an 
+element selector, borders collapse to a single border wherever possible. 
+
+The other available border-collapse property value, which reverts 
+borders back to their “standard” state, is separate. 
+
+
+
+
+Time 
+
+
+
+3:34 
+
+
+
+3:18 
+
+
+
+table { 
+
+border-collapse: collapse; 
+
+} 
+
+With this brief explanation of table borders completed, we’ll now move into exercise 
+mode and style the table. 
+
+
+
+247 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Styling the playlist table 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-the-playlist-table-starting-point.html, styling- 
+the-playlist-table-starting-point.css, and table-header- 
+stripe, gif from the chapter 6 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to style a table. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+styling-the-playlist-table.html and styling-the-playlist- 
+table.css in the chapter 6 folder (along with the GIF image, 
+which isn’t amended). 
+
+
+1 . Set things up. If they still exist, remove the border, cellpadding, and cellspacing 
+attributes within the table start tag. Add the universal selector rule (*) to remove 
+margins and padding, as shown a bunch of times already in this book. Also, set the 
+default font by using the html and body rules, as detailed in Chapter 3 of this book. 
+Because we’re creating a playlist based on the iTunes interface, it may as well be a 
+little more Apple-like, hence the use of Lucida variants as the primary fonts. Note 
+that the padding value in the body rule is there to ensure that the table doesn’t hug 
+the browser window when you’re previewing the page. 
+
+* { 
+
+padding: 0; 
+margin: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+html { 
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", Arial, 
+
+^ Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+padding: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+2 . Style the table borders. As per the “Adding borders to tables” section, style the 
+table borders. 
+
+table { 
+
+border-collapse: collapse; 
+
+} 
+
+th, td { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #c9c9c9; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Style the caption. The borders have been dealt with already, so the next step is 
+to style the caption, which currently lacks impact. The caption is effectively a title, 
+and titles should stand out. Therefore, place some padding underneath it, set 
+font-weight to bold, font-size to 1.3em, and text-transform to uppercase. 
+
+
+248 
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+Note that, in the following code block, CSS shorthand is used for three values for 
+setting padding; as you may remember from Chapter 2, the three values set the 
+top, horizontal (left and right), and bottom values, respectively; meaning the cap¬ 
+tion will have Opx padding everywhere except at the bottom, where the padding 
+will be 5px. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Note that Internet Explorer exhibits slightly quirky behavior when it comes to styling 
+caption elements, so be sure to thoroughly test any styles you define for this element. 
+
+
+caption { 
+
+font-weight: bold; 
+font-size: 1.3em; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+padding: 0 0 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+A PLAYLIST OF GREAT MUSIC 
+
+
+Song Name 
+
+1 Time 
+
+Artist 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Count 
+
+In The Art Of Stopping 
+
+3:34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+3 
+
+Electron John 
+
+3:18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+42 
+
+k'amnl'ttAr 
+
+IC-AT 
+
+Ciln 
+
+Inrtir 
+
+lo 
+
+
+
+4 . Style the header cells. To make the header cells stand out more, apply the CSS rule 
+outlined in the following code block. The url value set in the background property 
+adds a background image to the table headers, which mimics the subtle metallic 
+image shown in the same portion of the iTunes interface; the 0 50% values vertically 
+center the graphic; and the repeat-x setting tiles the image horizontally. From a 
+design standpoint, the default centered table heading text looks iffy, hence the 
+addition of a text-align property set to left. These settings ensure that the table 
+header contents stand out from the standard data cell content. 
+
+th { 
+
+background: url(table-header-stripe.gif) 0 50% repeat-x; 
+text-align: left; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Set the font and pad the cells. At the moment, the table cell text hugs the borders, 
+so it needs some padding; the text is also too small to comfortably read, so its size 
+needs increasing. This is dealt with by adding font-size and padding pairs to the 
+thj td rule, as shown; 
+
+thj td { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #c9c9c9; 
+font-size: l.lem; 
+padding: Ipx 4px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+249 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+6 . Style the footer. The footer content needs to be easy to differentiate from the 
+other data cells; you can achieve this by setting a background color for the entire 
+row within the tfoot element, and then by making the color of the text have less 
+contrast. Also, centering the text and making it smaller than text within the other 
+data cells ensures it doesn’t distract from the main content in the table. Centering 
+it also provides some balance, because the caption is also centered. 
+
+tfoot { 
+
+background-color: #dddddd; 
+color: #555555; 
+
+} 
+
+tfoot td { 
+font-size: l.Oem; 
+text-align: center; 
+
+} 
+
+
+A PLAYLIST OF GREAT MUSIC 
+
+
+Song Name 
+
+Time 
+
+Artist 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Count 
+
+In The Art Of Stopping 
+
+3:34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+3 
+
+Electron john 
+
+3:18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+42 
+
+Templates 
+
+6:07 
+
+Silo 
+
+Instar 
+
+9 
+
+Emerge 
+
+4:48 
+
+Fischerspooner 
+
+Fischerspooner #1 
+
+23 
+
+Banquet 
+
+3:21 
+
+Bloc Party 
+
+Silent Alarm 
+
+23 
+
+Alala 
+
+3;58 
+
+Cansel De Ser Sexy (CSS) 
+
+Cansel De Ser Sexy 
+
+6 
+
+1 Ain't Saying My Goodbyes 
+
+3:45 
+
+Tom Vek 
+
+We Have Sound 
+
+40 
+
+i6ga 
+
+5:05 
+
+Bjdrk 
+
+Homogenic 
+
+24 
+
+Kim Wilde 
+
+4:21 
+
+Charlotte Hatherley 
+
+Grey Will Fade 
+
+16 
+
+Witness 
+
+4:04 
+
+The Delgados 
+
+The Great Eastern 
+
+9 
+
+Feel Good Inc. 
+
+3:41 
+
+Coriliaz 
+
+Demon Days 
+
+20 
+
+Returning Wheel 
+
+3:26 
+
+MalkaSpigel 
+
+Hide 
+
+13 
+
+P.E.T.R.O.L 
+
+6:21 
+
+Orbital 
+
+Pi (OST) 
+
+8 
+
+Pweization 
+
+3:08 
+
+Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) 
+
+Karmadrome 
+
+11 
+
+Betrayed 
+
+3:05 
+
+Project Noise 
+
+Listen to me 
+
+31 
+
+When The Sun Hits 
+
+4:47 
+
+Slowdive 
+
+Souviaki 
+
+1 
+
+Little Eyes 
+
+4:20 
+
+Yo LaTengo 
+
+Summer Sun 
+
+28 
+
+Music seleaion by: www.snubcommunications.com 
+
+
+In Chapter 3, we warned against using text with low contrast against a background 
+graphic. In the case of the table’s footer in this exercise, the contrast is lower than for 
+other text, but it’s still readable; also, the content is not a huge chunk of body copy — 
+it’s only a single line of text. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Adding separator stripes 
+
+
+250 
+
+
+One of iTunes’s best visual features (and something seen in usable tables all over the 
+Internet, but more often in print and in applications) is missing from the completed table: 
+colored separator stripes, which assist you in rapidly scanning rows of data. Although you 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+could conceivably add a class (setting a background color) to alternating rows, such a 
+solution is poor when creating a static site—if you had to add a row in the middle of the 
+table, you’d need to update every subsequent table row start tag, which is hardly efficient. 
+
+David Miller’s article, “Zebra Tables,” on A List Apart (see www.alistapart.com/articles/ 
+zebratables/), offers a far more elegant solution. This was later reworked by Matthew 
+Pennell (www.thewatchmakerproject.com), whose article “Stripe Your Tables the 00 Way” 
+(WWW. thewatchmakerproject.com/journal/ 309 /stripe-your-tables-the-oo-way) offers 
+the lowdown on his technique, including an improved version of his script at www. 
+thewatchmakerproject.com/zebra.html. 
+
+
+Applying separator stripes 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+styling-the-playlist-table.html, styling-the-playlist- 
+table.css, table-header-stripe.gif, and styling-the- 
+playlist-table-stripes. js from the chapter 6 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to add separator stripes to a table. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+styling-the-playlist-table-stripes.html and styling-the- 
+playlist-table-stripes.css in the chapter 6 folder (along with 
+the GIF image and JavaScript document, neither of which are 
+amended). 
+
+
+1 . Link to the JavaScript document. Taking things up from the completed table from 
+the previous exercise (also available in the download files as styling-the- 
+playlist-table.html and styling-the-playlist-table.css), add a script ele¬ 
+ment in the HTML document’s head section to link to the JavaScript file 
+styling-the-playlist-table. js. Note that the JavaScript document is also avail¬ 
+able in the download files. 
+
+cscript src=''styling-the-playlist-table-stripes.js" 
+
+^ type="text/javascript"></script> 
+
+2 . Give the table a unique id. For the script to do its work, the table start tag must 
+be given a unique id value. This must match the value given in styling-the- 
+playlist-table. js in the onload function. Therefore, add the id attribute and 
+value shown in the following code block: 
+
+stable id="playlistl" width="90%" border="0" summary="A playlist of 
+^ great music, selected by www.snubcommunications.com."> 
+
+In the JavaScript, the relevant code that matches this is already defined, as shown 
+in the following code block: 
+
+window.onload = function() { 
+zebraTable.stripe('playlistl'); 
+
+} 
+
+
+251 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+3 . Assign a separator stripe style. The script creates alternating table rows, which are 
+given a class value of alt. This can then be styled in CSS by using a rule with the 
+selector tbody tr.alt td: 
+
+tbody tr.alt td { 
+background: #e7edf6; 
+
+} 
+
+The previous code block styles the background of alternate rows in a light blue. 
+
+4 . Define a table row hover state. The script also provides a hover state, making it 
+easy for users to highlight entire table rows by placing the mouse cursor over one 
+of the row’s cells. This is styled using the rule shown in the following code block. 
+Note that both background and color settings are defined, which pretty much 
+reverse the standard colors (white on blue, rather than black on a light color). This 
+makes the highlighted row stand out more, and is the same device applications 
+tend to use. Also note that there are two selectors here. The first is for compliant 
+browsers, which apply : hover rules to more than just anchors. The second is a fall¬ 
+back for older versions of Internet Explorer (before version 7), which didn’t do this. 
+
+tbody tr:hover td, tbody tr.over td { 
+background: #5389d7; 
+color: ttffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Remove some horizontal borders. With the stripes in place, the top and bottom 
+borders of table cells in the tbody area are now redundant. Therefore, remove 
+them by adding the following rule: 
+
+tbody td { 
+border-top: 0; 
+border-bottom: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Your table should now look like the following image. 
+
+
+A PLAYLIST OF GREAT MUSIC 
+
+
+, Song Name 
+
+Time 
+
+Aril SI 
+
+Album 
+
+Play Couni 
+
+In The Art Of Stopping 
+
+3.34 
+
+Wire 
+
+Send 
+
+3 
+
+Electron john 
+
+3:18 
+
+Worm Is Green 
+
+Push Play 
+
+42 
+
+Templates 
+
+6:07 
+
+Silo 
+
+Instar 
+
+9 
+
+Emerge 
+
+4:48 
+
+Fischerspooner 
+
+Fischerspooner #I 
+
+23 
+
+Banquet 
+
+3:21 
+
+Bloc Party 
+
+Silent Alarm 
+
+23 
+
+Alala 
+
+3:58 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy (CSS) 
+
+Cansei De Ser Sexy 
+
+6 
+
+1 Ain't Saying My Goodbyes 
+
+3:45 
+
+TomVek 
+
+We Have Sound 
+
+40 
+
+J6ga 
+
+5:05 
+
+Bjdrk ^ 
+
+Homogenic 
+
+24 
+
+Kim Wilde 
+
+4:21 
+
+Charlotte Hatherley 
+
+Grey Will Fade 
+
+16 
+
+Witness 
+
+4:04 
+
+The Delgados 
+
+The Great Eastern 
+
+9 
+
+Feel Good Inc. 
+
+3:41 
+
+Gorillaz 
+
+Demon Days 
+
+20 
+
+Returning Wheel 
+
+3:26 
+
+MalkaSpigel 
+
+Hide 
+
+13 
+
+P.E.T.R.O.L 
+
+6:21 
+
+Orbital 
+
+Pi (OST) 
+
+8 
+
+Pweization 
+
+3:08 
+
+Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) 
+
+Karmadrome 
+
+ll 
+
+Betrayed 
+
+3:05 
+
+Project Noise 
+
+Listen to me 
+
+31 
+
+When The Sun Hits 
+
+4:47 
+
+Slowdive 
+
+Souviaki 
+
+1 
+
+Little Eyes 
+
+4:20 
+
+Yo LaTengo 
+
+Summer Sun 
+
+28 
+
+
+Music selection by: www.snubcommunications.com 
+
+
+252 
+
+
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+To add stripes to more tables, just assign each one a unique id value and then 
+add another line to the window, onload function in the JavaScript document, as 
+per the instructions in this exercise. For example, if you added a table with an id 
+value of playlist2, the line of JavaScript to add to the function would be 
+ZebraTable.stripe('playlist2');. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Adding separator stripes with PHP 
+
+If you’re creating a table from data stored in a database, automating separator stripes is a 
+relatively simple process. After the PHP for retrieving data and the opening table markup 
+(including headers), you add the following: 
+
+$alternate = TRUE; 
+
+while ($row = mysql_fetch_object($sqlresult)) : 
+if($alternate) : 
+
+$class = ' class="alt"'; 
+
+$alternate = FALSE; 
+else : 
+
+$class = 
+
+$alternate = TRUE; 
+
+
+endif; 
+
+
+
+echo '<tr'.$class. '>'; 
+
+
+echo '<td>' . 
+
+$row->fieldl . 
+
+'</td>'; 
+
+echo '<td>' . 
+echo '</tr>'; 
+endwhile; 
+
+$row->field2 . 
+
+'</td>'; 
+
+
+
+This is then followed by the markup to close the table. Note that in this example, the alt 
+class value is applied to alternate table rows, so the CSS from the previous exercise should 
+still work fine. 
+
+
+Tables for layout 
+
+This section is going to be brief, because you should avoid using tables for layout, or even 
+components of a layout (excepting tabular data, obviously). There are exceptions—for 
+instance, some web designers consider tables acceptable for laying out forms. However, 
+generally speaking, tables are less accessible than CSS, harder to maintain and update, 
+slow to render in browsers, and don’t print particularly well. More importantly, once you 
+know how to create CSS-based layouts, you’ll mostly find working with tables for layout 
+frustrating and clunky. 
+
+
+253 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+A common way of creating tabular layouts is to chop up a Photoshop layout and use 
+images to stretch table cells to the correct size. (As mentioned earlier, table cells expand 
+to the dimensions of their content.) Many designers then use a 1-pixel invisible GIF89 
+(often referred to as a spacer or shim) to force content into position or stretch table cells 
+to a certain size. Because the 1-pixel GIF is a tiny file that’s cached, it can be used hundreds 
+of times without impacting download times. However, spacer and table layout usage pretty 
+much destroys the idea of a semantic Web. Because so much of the layout is defined via 
+inline HTML, updating it requires amendments to every page on the site (which must also 
+be uploaded and tested in each case), rather than the simple editing and uploading of an 
+external CSS file. 
+
+It is possible to combine CSS and tables—something that’s usually referred to as a transi¬ 
+tional layout, although one might argue that the “transition” from tables to CSS layouts 
+should now be considered an historic event. Such layouts are usually created to ensure 
+layout-based backward compatibility with obsolete devices. This direction should only be 
+taken when the target audience is known to definitely include a significant number of 
+users of very obsolete browsers, and also when the layout is paramount to the working of 
+the site (rather than just the content). When working on such a layout, there are a few 
+golden rules: 
+
+■ Avoid nesting tables whenever possible: Although tables can be nested like any 
+other HTML element, doing so makes for a web page that is slow to render and 
+nightmarish to navigate for a screen reader. (Obviously, there are exceptions, such 
+as if you need to present a table of tabular data within your layout table.) 
+
+■ Structure the information on the page logically: When designers use tables (partic¬ 
+ularly those exported from a graphics package), they have a tendency to think 
+solely about how the page looks rather than its underlying code. However, it’s 
+important to look at how the information appears in the HTML, because that’s how 
+a screen reader will see it. The content should still make sense with regard to its 
+flow and order even if the table is removed entirely. If it doesn’t, you need to 
+rework your table. (You can use Opera’s User mode to temporarily disable tables to 
+find out how your information is ordered without them. Chris Pederick’s Web 
+Developer toolbar for Firefox [www.chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/] 
+offers similar functionality via Miscellaneous > Linearize Page.) Ensure that content 
+is immediately available; if it isn’t, provide a link that skips past extraneous content, 
+such as the masthead and navigation—otherwise, people using screen readers will 
+be driven bonkers. (See www.w 3 .org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ for more on web con¬ 
+tent accessibility guidelines.) 
+
+■ Avoid deprecated attributes: For instance, there’s little point in setting the table’s 
+height to 100% when many web browsers ignore that rule (or need to be in quirks 
+mode to support it). 
+
+■ Use CSS whenever possible to position elements: To give an example—if you’re 
+working with a 3-cell table and want the middle cell’s content to begin 100 pixels 
+from the top of the cell, don’t use a spacer GIF. Instead, provide the cell with a class 
+or unique ID, and use CSS padding. 
+
+
+254 
+
+
+TABLES: HOW NATURE (AND THE W3C) INTENDED 
+
+
+The last two of these rules are primarily concerned with ensuring that if you design for 
+legacy browsers, you don’t compromise your work for more modern efforts. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+As I keep hammering home, CSS is the way to go for high-quality, modern web page lay¬ 
+outs, and tables should be left for the purpose for which they were designed—formatting 
+data. The arguments that rumbled on for a few years after the 1990s came to a close—that 
+browsers didn’t support enough CSS to make CSS layouts possible, and that visual design 
+tools such as Dreamweaver couldn’t cope with CSS layouts—are now pretty much moot. 
+Even the previous major release of the worst offender (yes. I’m talking about Internet 
+Explorer 6) has more than adequate support for the vast majority of CSS layouts, and any¬ 
+thing shipping today is more than capable of dealing with CSS. 
+
+In my experience, the main reason designers avoid CSS involves their not knowing how to 
+work with it. Suitably, then, the next chapter deals with this very issue—showing how 
+to create page layout elements using CSS. 
+
+
+
+255 
+
+
+
+
+
+7 PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+
+I elit. Morbi 
+
+f BOXOUT TITLE 
+
+'honcus 
+
+
+amet enim. 
+
+Pl^sellus allquatn enIm et tc 
+
+
+Quisque allquet, quam elem< 
+
+im. Aliquam 
+
+condimentum feuglat, tellus 
+
+0 . Vivamus 
+
+consectetuer wisl, vel nonurr 
+
+quam, nunc 
+
+sem neque In elit. Curabitur 
+
+Orel, 
+
+elelferx) wisl laculis Ipsum. 
+
+
+Pellentesque habitant morbi 
+
+
+tristique senectus et netus ei 
+
+consequat 
+
+malesuada fames ac turpls 
+
+m eu. 
+
+egestas. In non vellt non llgi 
+
+ji. Nam 
+
+laoreet ultrlces. Praesent ulb 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Explaining CSS workflow 
+
+■ Positioning web page elements with CSS 
+
+■ Creating boxouts and sidebars 
+
+■ Creating column-based layouts 
+
+■ Amending layouts, depending on body class settings 
+
+■ Creating scrollable content areas 
+
+
+Layout for the Web 
+
+Although recent years have seen various institutions offer web-oriented courses, the fact 
+remains that many web designers out there are not “qualified,” per se. What I mean by this 
+is that plenty of them have come from some sort of design or technology background 
+related to—but not necessarily a part of—the Web. Therefore, we often see print design¬ 
+ers moving over to the Web through curiosity or sheer necessity and technologists dipping 
+their toes into the field of design. 
+
+This accounts for the most common issues seen in web layouts: many designers coming 
+from print try to shoehorn their knowledge into their website designs, despite the Web 
+being a very different medium from print. Conversely, those with no design knowledge 
+lack the basic foundations and often omit design staples. Even those of us who’ve worked 
+with the Web almost from the beginning and who also come from a design or arts back¬ 
+ground sometimes forget that the best sites tend to be those that borrow the best ideas 
+from a range of media, and then tailor the results to the desired output medium. 
+
+In this section, we’ll take a brief look at a few layout techniques: grids and boxes, columns, 
+and fixed vs. liquid design. 
+
+
+Grids and boxes 
+
+Like print-oriented design, the basis of web page design tends to be formed from grids 
+and boxes. Regardless of the underlying layout technology (previously, tables; more 
+recently, CSS), web pages are formed of rectangular areas that are then populated with 
+content. However, unlike print design, web design tends to be horizontally and vertically 
+oriented, with few, if any, curves. This is largely because of the limitations of technology; 
+although text on a curve is a relatively simple thing to achieve in a desktop publishing 
+application, doing the same thing on the Web is extremely difficult, unless you’re render¬ 
+ing text as a graphic, or using XML (SVG), which isn’t well supported across browsers. 
+Similarly, although areas of rectangular color can easily be defined in CSS (by creating a 
+div of certain dimensions and then setting its background color), you currently need to 
+use graphics to have curved background areas and shapes (although rounded corners on 
+rectangular boxes can be dynamically added using JavaScript—see Nifty Corners Cube at 
+www.html.it/articoli/niftycube/). 
+
+
+258 
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+A good rule of thumb for web design is to keep things relatively simple. Plan the layout on 
+paper prior to going near any design applications, and simplify the structure as much as 
+possible. A typical web page may end up with as few as three or four structural areas (such 
+as masthead, navigation, content, and footer areas), which can then be styled to define 
+their relationship with each other and the page as a whole. 
+
+
+Working with columns 
+
+The vast majority of print media makes heavy use of columns. The main reason for this is 
+that the eye generally finds it easier to read narrow columns of text than paragraphs that 
+span the width of an entire page. However, when working with print, you have a finite and 
+predefined area within which to work, and by and large, the “user” can see the entire page 
+at once. Therefore, relationships between page elements can be created over the entire 
+page, and the eye can rapidly scan columns of text. 
+
+On the Web, things aren’t so easy. Web pages may span more than the screen height, 
+meaning that only the top portion of the page is initially visible. Should a print page be 
+translated directly to the Web, you may find that some elements essential for understand¬ 
+ing the page’s content are low down the page and not initially visible. Furthermore, if using 
+columns for text and content, you may end up forcing the user to scroll down and up the 
+page several times. Finally, it’s almost impossible—due to the variations in output from 
+various browsers and platforms—to ensure that text columns are the same length anyway. 
+(CSS should eventually enable designers to more easily deal with these problems, but it 
+will be some time before such solutions are supported.) 
+
+Therefore, web designers tend to eschew columns—but let’s not be too hasty. It’s worth 
+bearing in mind something mentioned earlier: the eye finds it tricky to read wide columns 
+of text. Therefore, it’s often good practice to limit the width of body copy on a website to 
+a comfortable reading width. Also, if you have multiple pieces of content that you want 
+the user to be able to access at the same time, columns can come in handy. This can be 
+seen in the following screenshots from the Thalamus Publishing website (www. 
+thalamus-books.com). 
+
+
+
+259 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+As you can see, the main, central column of the About page provides an overview of the 
+company. To the left is the site-wide search and an advertisement for one of the com¬ 
+pany’s publications; and to the right is a sidebar that provides ancillary information to sup¬ 
+port the main text. This provides text columns that are a comfortable, readable width, and 
+enables faster access to information than if the page content were placed in a linear, ver¬ 
+tical fashion. 
+
+
+Fixed vs. liquid design 
+
+As already mentioned in this book, the Web is a unique medium in that end users have 
+numerous different systems for viewing the web page. When designing for print, the 
+dimensions of each design are fixed, and although television resolutions are varied (PAL, 
+NTSC, HDTV), those designing for the screen work within a fixed frame—and regardless of 
+the size of the screen, the picture content is always the same. 
+
+In a similar fashion, it’s possible to design fixed-width sites for the Web. The earlier shot of 
+the Thalamus Books site is an example of this. Fixed-width sites are beneficial in that they 
+enable you to position elements exactly on a web page. However, because they don’t 
+expand with the browser window, fixed-width sites restrict you to designing for the lowest 
+common screen size for your intended audience, meaning that people using larger resolu¬ 
+tions see an area of blank space (or a background pattern). 
+
+You can get around this limitation by creating a liquid web design—one that stretches with 
+the web browser window. The benefit of a liquid design is that it’s irrelevant what resolu¬ 
+tion the end user’s machine has—the design stretches to fit. The drawback is that you 
+have to be mindful when designing that web page elements move, depending on each end 
+user’s monitor resolution and/or browser window size. You therefore cannot place ele¬ 
+ments with pixel-perfect precision. 
+
+Generally speaking, largely text-based sites tend to work best with liquid layouts, although 
+you have to take care to ensure the content area is always readable. (I’ve seen numerous 
+liquid sites where the text spans the entire web page width, which is tricky enough to read 
+at 800X600, let alone on larger monitor resolutions.) Sites that are largely image-based in 
+nature (such as portfolios and many online magazines) tend to work better as fixed web¬ 
+sites. For instance, for any site with fixed-width images at the top of text columns (com¬ 
+mon for online magazines), the images would not sit snugly within the columns if the 
+layout were liquid, and could instead end up lost among large areas of whitespace. 
+
+Overall, though, there are no hard-and-fast rules and, despite what some designers might 
+claim, neither fixed nor liquid design is better than the alternative. You should use what¬ 
+ever technique is suitable for each project you work on. Later in the chapter, you’ll see var¬ 
+ious methods for creating strict, fixed layout skeletons, liquid designs, and combinations of 
+the two. Some of these will then be turned into full page designs in Chapter 10. 
+
+
+Layout technology: Tables vs. CSS 
+
+Unless you’re the sort of person who favors very basic web pages, with most elements sit¬ 
+ting underneath each other, you’ll need to employ some kind of layout technology when 
+
+
+260 
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+designing your web pages. Historically, web designers tended to use tables for doing this, 
+combined with invisible GIFs (sometimes called spacers or shims) to stretch table cells to 
+the required size, in the early 2000s, CSS layouts gained a foothold, and now more and 
+more designers are moving toward CSS as a means of page layout. 
+
+With few exceptions, pretty much everything you can do with a table can be done faster, 
+better, and with a greater emphasis on accessibility when using CSS. With content and 
+design separated, it’s much easier to tweak or rework a website, because you’re editing an 
+external document that controls spacing and positioning, rather than messing around with 
+complex tables. We discuss one of CSS’s major benefits in this regard, how it encourages 
+logical element placement, in the next section. Tables should really be reserved for their 
+original purpose: formatting tabular data. 
+
+
+Logical element placement 
+
+Besides the ability to rapidly edit CSS-based layouts, the greatest benefit when using CSS is 
+the emphasis on accessibility, partly because it encourages the designer to think about the 
+structure of the document, and therefore logically place the elements within the web page 
+(first comes the masthead, then the navigation, then the content, etc.). Each element is 
+then styled to suit. 
+
+Using CSS for layout instead of tables is one way of working toward this ideal. The logical 
+placement of each element in the web page’s structure results in improved document 
+flow. And if you’re scratching your head, wondering what on earth I'm talking about, let 
+me explain. A web page should still make sense if you remove all formatting and design 
+elements. This is how a screen reader sees the page—it simply reads from the top of 
+the HTML page downward. Because of the way table-based layouts are created, most 
+designers aren’t concerned with how the document is structured—merely how it looks. 
+Therefore, although one element may follow another visually onscreen, that may not be 
+the case when you look at the document’s code. (Also, tables tend to encourage superflu¬ 
+ous markup, which can also hamper accessibility.) When working with CSS, the structure of 
+the web page isn’t compromised. 
+
+
+Workflow for CSS layouts 
+
+Many designers use CSS for styling fonts, but few venture further. This section—and, 
+indeed, much of this chapter—shows how straightforward creating CSS layouts can be, so 
+long as you carefully plan what you’re going to do. Upon working through the chapter, the 
+benefits of a CSS-based system will become obvious, including the following: rapidly edit¬ 
+ing a website’s entire visual appearance from a single, external file; fine-tuning the place¬ 
+ment of elements; and creating flowing, accessible pages. 
+
+Before we begin, it is worth mentioning that some browsers have problems with CSS, and 
+this is often given as a reason to not proceed with CSS-based layouts. Of those browsers 
+still in widespread use, Internet Explorer 6 (and the increasingly rare 5.x) for Windows 
+causes the most frustration; however, that browser’s usage is in terminal decline. And 
+although Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 7 don’t always see eye to eye, their 
+
+
+261 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+differences are generally slight. For supporting earlier browsers and dealing with bugs, 
+there are usually simple workarounds anyway (see Chapter 9), leading me to believe that 
+many naysayers of CSS are negative because they don’t know how to create such layouts. 
+
+
+Anatomy of a layout: Tables vs. CSS 
+
+To use a fine art analogy, working with tables is like painting by numbers: you create a 
+skeleton layout and then fill in the gaps with the content of choice. And, like painting by 
+numbers, a lot of work is required to change the layout after it’s completed. Working with 
+CSS is more akin to sculpting with clay: you begin with something simple and then gradu¬ 
+ally fashion your layout. Making changes, tweaks, and even additions at a later date is sim¬ 
+pler, and the whole process feels more organic. 
+
+Long-time web designers may feel intimidated by CSS because they don’t initially have the 
+skeleton layout of table borders to work with. In some ways, CSS sits at the extremes of 
+web technologies, being both very graphic and design-like (in its flexibility), but also quite 
+technical (in how it’s created). Tables tend to sit in the middle of these two extremes. 
+However, once you get the hang of CSS workflow, it soon becomes second nature. Now, 
+we’ll look at how to create a web page structure, and we’ll then recap the CSS box model. 
+
+
+Creating a page structure 
+
+We’ve covered semantic markup—that is, using HTML elements for the purpose for which 
+they were created. This theme continues when working with CSS-based layouts. With 
+tables, cells are used to lay out a design and are merged, split, chopped, and changed until 
+everything works visually. But when working with CSS, you need to be aware of the struc¬ 
+ture of your web page from the start. That way, you can create structural elements with id 
+values that relate to their purpose, and then style them to suit. 
+
+For basic page structure, you mostly work with the div element. This element has been 
+around for some time, but used to be used for aligning text left, right, or centrally. 
+However, its real purpose is as a divider element, used to divide a document into block- 
+level groups or divisions. Therefore, in CSS-based layouts, the div element’s role is pivotal: 
+a number of divs are added to the web page in logical order, creating the basic structure; 
+each is provided with a unique id relating to its purpose; and the divs are then styled to 
+provide spacing, padding, backgrounds, and so on. 
+
+
+\ust as tables can be abused, so too can div elements. Some websites seemingly suffer 
+from “divitis,” in which designers use too many divs, nesting many inside each other 
+or adding superfluous divs around elements that don’t need them. In all cases, you 
+should hone down your structure, using as few div elements as possible. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+262 
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Box formatting 
+
+The box model is mentioned elsewhere in this book (see Chapter 2 and again in Appendix 
+D—CSS Reference), and this is a timely place for a recap, because the box model is some¬ 
+thing that confuses some web designers. 
+
+In CSS, every element is considered to be within its own box, and you can define the 
+dimensions of the content and then add padding, a border, and a margin to each edge as 
+required, as shown in the following image. 
+
+THE CSS BOX MODEL HIERARCHY 
+
+
+Content 
+
+
+
+Padding* 
+Background image 
+Background color 
+
+
+Margin* 
+
+
+Border 
+
+
+“ Transparent elements 
+
+
+©Jon Hicks (www.hicksdesign.co.uk) 
+
+
+This is one of the trickiest things to understand about the CSS box model: padding, bor¬ 
+ders, and margins are added to the set dimensions of the content, and so the sum of these 
+elements is the overall space that they take up. In other words, a 100-pixel-wide element 
+with 20 pixels of padding will take up an overall width of 140 pixels, not 100 pixels with 
+20 pixels of padding within. 
+
+Note that the top and bottom margins on adjacent elements collapse, meaning that the 
+overall box dimensions aren’t necessarily fixed, depending on your design. For instance, if 
+you set the bottom margin to 50px on an element, and you have a top margin of lOOpx on 
+the element below it, the effective margin between the two elements will be 100 pixels, 
+not 150 pixels. 
+
+
+263 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Internet Explorer 5.x for Windows gets the box model wrong, placing padding and 
+borders inside the defined dimensions of an element. The bug is explained in full in 
+Chapter 9, which also offers workarounds to fix layouts that get broken in aging ver¬ 
+sions of Microsoft’s browser. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+CSS layouts: A single box 
+
+In the remainder of this chapter, we’ll walk through a number of common CSS layout tech¬ 
+niques, which can be combined to form countless layouts. In Chapter 10, these skeleton 
+layouts will form the basis of various full web page layouts, which will also integrate tech¬ 
+niques shown elsewhere in the book (such as navigation bars). 
+
+The starting point for any layout is a single box, which this section concentrates on. I typi¬ 
+cally refer to these as “wrappers” (and accordingly provide said divs with an id value of 
+wrapper); and you can think of them as site containers, used to define a width for the site, 
+or set a fixed-size design in the center of the browser window. 
+
+
+Creating a fixed-width wrapper 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from the basic-boilerplates folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a fixed-width div. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+create-a-fixed-width-wrapper in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Set things up. Rename the boilerplate documents to create-a-fixed-width- 
+wrapper.html and create-a-fixed-width-wrapper.css. Link the CSS document 
+to the web page by amending the url value of the style element. 
+
+@import url(create-a-fixed-width-wrapper.css); 
+
+2 . Add some content. The web page already has a div element with an id of wrapper. 
+Within it, add a bunch of paragraphs and test the web page. You’ll see that the con¬ 
+tent stretches with the browser window and goes right up to its edges—this is a 
+basic liquid design. If the browser window is very wide, this makes the content all 
+but unreadable. 
+
+
+
+264 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+3 . Restrict the wrapper’s width. In CSS, add the following rule: 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 600px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+The width setting defines a width in pixels for the wrapper div. The margin setting 
+provides automatic margins to the left and right of the div, which has the effect of 
+centering the layout in the browser window, as shown in the following screenshot. 
+
+
+
+Adding padding, margins, and backgrounds to a layout 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from add-starting-point in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to add style to a fixed-width div. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+add-completed in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add a page background. In the add-starting-point folder, there are two images, 
+both of which are gradients. One is a black gradient, fading toward gray at its bot¬ 
+tom edge; this is intended for a page background. Add this by adding the following 
+rule to the style sheet (after the add your code below comment): 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #4d4d4d url(page-background.gif) repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+The repeat-x value ensures that the background tiles horizontally only; the color 
+value #4d4d4d is the color of the bottom pixel of the gradient image, ensuring the 
+gradient seamlessly blends with the web page background. 
+
+
+265 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that in some examples in this book, selectors are used multiple times, such as 
+body here. This is perfectly acceptable, although if you want to merge rules, you can — 
+just be mindful of the cascade if you do so. 
+
+V_^_ J 
+
+
+2 . Add a border to the wrapper. Amend the #wrapper rule to add a border around 
+the wrapper. Note that the wrapper in this example sits flush with the top edge of 
+the browser window view area, and so no top border is needed. That’s why the 
+border-top pair is added, overriding the previous rule for the top border only. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 600px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+border: 2px solid #777777; 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+3 . Add a wrapper background. If you test the page now, the background shows 
+behind all of the page’s content, thereby making it unreadable. Therefore, add the 
+background pair to the rule, which sets a background color for the wrapper div, 
+and also sets the second image in the add-starting-point folder (a white-to-light- 
+gray vertical gradient) to tile horizontally at the bottom of the div: 
+
+
+266 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 600px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+border: 2px solid ^inill] 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+background: url(wrapper-background.gif) 0 100% repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+
+|Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+ISuspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+pcilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget 
+euismod ultamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+|Donec porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna | 
+enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare 
+Idolor. eras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh 
+^get odio. 
+
+IProin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestle sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu | 
+Idiam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula 
+Iviverra gravida. Etiam vehicuia uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+iMorbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper 
+|ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium 
+enim wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. 
+iFusce uttrices, neque id dignissim uttrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. I 
+
+
+IProin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec 
+portor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicuia gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+Kempor id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+
+4 . Add some padding. Test the page now and you’ll see two major layout errors com¬ 
+monly seen on the Web. First, the content hugs the edges of the div, which makes 
+it hard to read and also looks cluttered, despite the div being 600 pixels wide. 
+Secondly, the text at the bottom of the div is displayed over the gradient—it’s still 
+readable, but it looks a little messy. By adding padding (more to the bottom edge, 
+to account for the gradient), these issues are dealt with: 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 600px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+border: 2px solid #777777; 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+background: url(wrapper-background.gif) 0 100% repeat-x; 
+
+padding: 20px 20px 50px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+267 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum ck>lor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+fadlisL Nulla iibero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget 
+euismod uilamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat Iibero cursus venenatis. Nam magna 
+enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare 
+dolor, eras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh 
+eget odio. 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper 
+ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium 
+enim wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. 
+Fusee ultrices, neque id digntssim utthces, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec 
+tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+temper id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae Iibero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Note that due to the padding and borders added to this div, it now takes up 644 pixels 
+of horizontal space, due to the 20-pixel horizontal padding values and the 2-pixel bor¬ 
+ders. To return the overall width to 600 pixels, subtract the 44 pixels from the width 
+setting, reducing it to 556px. 
+
+V__ J 
+
+
+Creating a maximum-width layout 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from add-completed in the chapter 7 folder as a starting 
+point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create a div with a maximum width. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+max-width-example in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Amend a rule. Replace the width pair in the #wrapper rule with the max-width pair 
+shown following. This works much like you’d expect: the design works in a liquid 
+manner, up until the point at which the content area’s width (this does not include 
+the padding and borders) is the value defined for max-width, whereupon the lay¬ 
+out becomes fixed. 
+
+
+268 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+#wrapper { 
+max-width: 800px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+border: 2px solid ^inill] 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+background: url(wrapper-background.gif) 0 100% repeat-x; 
+
+padding: 20px 20px 50px; 
+
+} 
+
+2 . Amend the body rule. At small browser widths, the design fills the browser window. 
+If you still want some space around the wrapper, even when the browser window is 
+narrow, all you need do is amend the body rule, adding some horizontal padding. 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #4d4d4d url(page-background.gif) repeat-x; 
+
+padding: 0 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that it’s possible to use the min-width property to set the minimum width of a 
+div. In all cases when using max-width and min-width, be sure to test the usability of 
+your design at a wide range of browser window sizes. Also, these properties are not 
+understood by Internet Explorer 6; see Chapter 9 for workarounds. 
+
+V_^^_/ 
+
+
+Using absolute positioning to center a box onscreen 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from basic-boilerplates in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to center a div within the browser window. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+center-a-box-on-screen in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+The final exercise in this section shows how to center a box within the browser window, 
+horizontally and vertically. Note that this kind of layout isn’t particularly flexible, because 
+it needs the containing wrapper to have a fixed width and height. Therefore, take care 
+when using this device, because if your page has plenty of content, your users may be 
+forced to scroll a lot. 
+
+1 . Add a few paragraphs of text to the web page, placing them inside the wrapper div. 
+
+2 . Add some backgrounds and style the wrapper div. 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #666666; 
+
+} 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+
+269 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+background: #ffffff; 
+border: 4px solid #000000; 
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 400px; 
+height: 300px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing ellt. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, 
+id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae iigula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod uliamcorper, iectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor Iigula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat 
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit 
+sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+3 . Position the div. Set the wrapper div’s position value to absolute, and the top 
+and left values to 50 %. This sets the top-left position of the div to the center of 
+the browser window. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+background: 
+
+border: 4px solid #000000; 
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 400px; 
+height: 300px; 
+position: absolute; 
+top: 50 %; 
+left: 50 %; 
+
+} 
+
+
+270 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adip 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci m< 
+id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit ar 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condir 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. S 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamct 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+ripnpr pornitgyjgj^i 
+
+
+la eij dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+
+
+4 . Use negative margins. Clearly, the div is not positioned correctly as yet, and 
+that’s—as mentioned in the previous step—because absolute positioning and the 
+top and left values specify the position of the top left of the element they’re 
+applied to. In order to place the div centrally, negative top and left margins are 
+used to pull it into place, the values of which are half the width or height, depend¬ 
+ing on the margin in question. For the margin-left value, you need the negative of 
+half the horizontal space the div takes up, which is found by adding its width, 
+horizontal padding, and horizontal margin values (4 + 20 + 400 + 20 + 4 = 444), 
+dividing by two (222), and making the number negative (-222). Similarly, the 
+margin-top value is the sum of the vertical dimensions (300px height, two lots of 
+20px padding and two lots of 4px borders, which comes to 344px) divided by 2 and 
+made negative. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+background: #ffffff; 
+border: 4px solid #000000; 
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 400px; 
+height: 300px; 
+position: absolute; 
+top: 50%; 
+left: 50%; 
+
+margin-left: -222px; 
+margin-top: -172px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+271 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, 
+id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat 
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit 
+sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Note that if you use this kind of layout and have toa much content for your wrapper, 
+it will spill out of it. See later in the chapter for dealing with this issue by creating 
+scrollable areas for page content. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Nesting boxes: Boxouts 
+
+Boxouts are design elements commonly used in magazines, but they can, in principle, also 
+be used on the Web. A boxout is a box separate from other page content that is often 
+used to house images, captions, and other ancillary information. In magazines, these may 
+be used for supporting text, alternate features, or magazine mastheads (with contributor 
+information). Online, this enables you to immediately present content that’s complemen¬ 
+tary to the main text. 
+
+In the following screenshot of the 2000 AD Books website (www.2000adonline.com/ 
+books), a boxout is used to house thumbnails of upcoming books, with a link to a page 
+with further titles that are coming soon. 
+
+
+272 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+w 
+
+no 
+
+
+TOORDER... PHONE THE HOTLINE ON 01621 877 250 0RBUYOra.INEATWVVW.2000ADSHOP.COM 
+
+saaiFii 
+
+
+A 
+
+
+Sbaibon 
+
+
+WWWABADDONBOOKS.COM 
+
+
+HOME • ABOUT 2000 AD • BOOKS UST • COMNG SOON • CREATORS • CONTACT DETALS 
+
+
+2000 AD BOOKS: ZARJAZ, THRILL-POWERED GRAPHIC NOVELS 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+ra# 
+
+M. 
+
+
+- COMNG SOON - 
+
+
+!VE 
+
+
+
+TTie SImpIng Detective Judge Dredd: Mandrold 
+Simon Spurrier John H^ner 
+
+Frazer Irving Kev V^lker 
+
+More Miles coming soon ■■■ 
+
+
+BORAG THUNGG, EARTHLETSI 
+
+Welcome to the 2000AD Graphic Novels 
+website where Squaxx dex Thargo and 
+nevv4>les alike can And Intbrniatlon on our 
+latest releases and order from our vast 
+selection of frtrtll-packed publlcaflons. 
+
+From Judge Dredd to SI6ine we have 
+cdiected togefrier some of the greatest 
+stories this side of the Horsehead Nebula 
+and perhaps... even beyond. The reach of 
+thrill power should never be 
+underestimated. I vv^sh you \nnglop HudsockI 
+
+Thrashoruns, 
+
+
+Ttiarg. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RECENT RELEASES 
+
+
+IS 
+
+
+I 
+
+
+aame: 
+
+Books of Invasions. 
+Volume 3 
+
+
+
+
+Leatherlack 
+
+
+Strontium Poo: Thrill-Power Overload: 
+
+Search/Destrov Aoencv Thirty Years of 
+Rles02 2000 AD 
+
+
+Creating a boxout in CSS is mostly done by floating a div. 
+
+
+The float property 
+
+Mastering the float property is key to creating CSS-based web page layouts. It enables 
+you to float an element to the left or right of other web page content, which then wraps 
+around it. This enables you to do away with ugly hacks such as fixed-width tables aligned 
+right to create a boxout. 
+
+The benefit of using the float property over older methods is the ability to control a 
+styled boxout’s appearance site-wide from an external CSS file (and to control the cascade, 
+in order to amend the appearance of elements within it). Structurally, the page is also 
+more logical. 
+
+
+273 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from boxout-starting-point in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+
+
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create and style a boxout in CSS. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+boxout-complete in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+As mentioned earlier, boxouts can be handy on web pages 
+for displaying ancillary content simultaneously with the 
+main text (rather than having supporting text following the 
+main content). Like any other div, a boxout can also be 
+styled, which is what this exercise will show how to do. 
+
+Steps 1 through 3 show you how to create a basic, plain 
+boxout, and step 4 onward shows how to style it. The final 
+boxout will look like that shown in the image to the right: 
+the corners are rounded; the plain background of the con¬ 
+tent area darkens slightly at its base; and the heading is on 
+a colored background with a gradient (not obvious in a 
+grayscale book, but if you check out the completed files, 
+you’ll see it’s orange) and a white stripe beneath it to help 
+make the boxout’s heading and content distinct. 
+
+1 . Examine the web page. Open boxout.html and look at the page’s body content. 
+The content of the web page is within a wrapper div. The bulk of the page content 
+is a bunch of paragraphs. The boxout comprises a div with a class value of boxout, 
+and this is placed before the content the boxout is supposed to float right of. (In 
+other words, by placing the boxout before the other content, the other content 
+will wrap around it once the boxout is floated.) 
+
+2 . Style the wrapper and body. The boxout-starting-point folder contains the 
+images from the “Adding padding, margins, and backgrounds to a layout” exercise 
+earlier in this chapter, so add the body and #wrapper rules from that exercise to 
+style the page’s general layout. 
+
+body { 
+
+background: #4d4d4d url(page-background.gif) repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 600px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+border: 2px solid #777777; 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+background: url(wrapper-background.gif) 0 100% repeat-x; 
+
+padding: 20px 20px 50px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+BOXOUT TITLE 
+
+
+Pliasellus dllquam enim et tortor. 
+Quisque allquet, quam elementum 
+condlmenturri feuglat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisl, vel rtonummy 
+sem neque in ellt. Curabitur 
+elelfend wisi laculls ipsum. 
+Pellentesque habitant morbi 
+tristique senectus et netus et 
+malesuada fames ac turpis 
+eqestas. In non vellt non llgula 
+laoreet ultrices. Praesent ultrtcles 
+faclllsis nIsJ. 
+
+
+
+274 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+3 . Position the boxout. To do so, you need to float it right and assign it a fixed width— 
+if no width is set, the boxout will span the width of its container, which in this case 
+would be the width of the wrapper div. Margin values at the bottom and left 
+ensure that the boxout doesn’t hug content that wraps around it. 
+
+•boxout { 
+float: right; 
+width: l80px; 
+margin: 0 0 20px 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum ck>lor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna itioncus neque, 
+id pulvtnar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, iectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat 
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit 
+sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Boxout title 
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque aliquet, quam 
+elementum condimentum 
+feugiat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisi, vel 
+nonummy sem neque in elit. 
+Curabitur eleifend wisi iaculis 
+ipsum. Pellentesque habitant 
+morbi tristique senectus et 
+netus et malesuada fames ac 
+turpis egestas. In non velit 
+non ligula laoreet ultrices. 
+Praesent ultricies facilisis nisi. 
+
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie 
+
+sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. 
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis 
+ante a uma. 
+
+
+
+4 . Add a background. As shown earlier, the boxout has 
+a background, and this is added by applying a back¬ 
+ground image to the boxout that blends into a solid 
+background color. The background pair in the fol¬ 
+lowing code block does this—#elelel is a color 
+value taken from the top of the image; 0 100 % posi¬ 
+tions the image at the bottom left of the boxout 
+div; and no-repeat ensures that it doesn’t tile. 
+Finally, padding values are added. The background 
+image is 200 pixels wide, and the assigned width of 
+the div is l80px. Therefore, horizontal padding of 
+lOpx is required. This ensures that the entire image 
+is shown and that the boxout content doesn’t go 
+right up to the edge of the background. 
+
+
+Boxout title 
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque aliquet, quam 
+elementum condimentum 
+feugiat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisi, vel 
+nonummy sem neque in elit. 
+Curabitur eleifend wisi iaculis 
+ipsum. Pellentesque habitant 
+morbi tristique senectus et 
+netus et malesuada fames ac 
+turpis egestas. In non velit 
+non ligula laoreet ultrices. 
+Praesent ultricies facilisis nisi. 
+
+
+•boxout { 
+float: right; 
+width: l80px; 
+margin: 0 0 20px 20px; 
+
+background: #elelel url(boxout-bottom.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; 
+padding: 0 lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+
+275 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+5 . The boxout header now needs styling, which will 
+add the second part of the background. A contex¬ 
+tual selector is used for this, ensuring that the style 
+only applies to level-two headings within an ele¬ 
+ment with a class value of boxout. The first three 
+pairs in the rule style the header font (see Chapter 3 
+for more on styling type); the background pair works as per the one in step 4, 
+except that the solid background color was taken from the bottom pixel of the 
+background image. Also, as this image is applied at the top left, no positioning 
+values are required. 
+
+•boxout h2 { 
+
+font: bold 1.2em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+color: ttffffff; 
+
+background: #d7932a url(boxout-top-orange.gif) no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . Position the header. If you test the page, you’ll see that the header has a gap at its 
+left and right. This is because the header is within the boxout div, which has 10 pixels 
+of padding on its left and right edges. By applying negative margins of the same 
+value to the header, the horizontal space it takes up is increased to span the entire 
+width of the boxout. Some padding is then added to ensure that the heading text 
+doesn’t hug its container’s edges. Next, the bottom-border setting shown following 
+adds a single-pixel white line under the header. 
+
+•boxout h2 { 
+
+font: bold 1^2em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+color: ttffffff; 
+
+background: #d7932a url(boxout-top-orange^gif) no-repeat; 
+
+margin: 0 -lOpx lOpx; 
+
+padding: 5px lOpx; 
+
+border-bottom: Ipx solid #ffffff; 
+
+} 
+
+A final rule styles paragraphs within the boxout, differentiating them from other 
+text. 
+
+•boxout p { 
+font-size: 0^9em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+IXOUT TITLE 
+
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque aliquet, quam 
+elementum condimentum 
+feuglat, tellus odio 
+
+
+276 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat 
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam 
+malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget 
+odio. 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+
+BOXOUT TITLE 
+
+
+Phtasellus aliquam enim et tortor. 
+Quisque aliquet, quam elementum 
+condimentum feuglat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisl, vel twmimmv 
+sem neque In elit. Curabltur 
+elelfend wisl lacuils Ipsum. 
+Pellentesque habitant morbi 
+tristique senectus et r>etus et 
+malesuada fames ac turpis 
+egestas. In r>on velit r>on ligula 
+laoreet ultrlces. Praesent ultiicles 
+facilisis nisi. 
+
+
+Note that because of the way the header’s background is styled, using an image that 
+blends into a solid color, there’s no chance of the background running out, even if the 
+page’s text is massively zoomed (see the following image). Although the vast majority of 
+users will never use such settings, it always pays to see how well your sites fare when very 
+atypical settings are used in the browser. While some problems will be tricky to get 
+around, others just require a little lateral thinking, as shown here. 
+
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar 
+odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula 
+volutpat condimentum. 
+
+
+BOXOUT 
+
+TITLE 
+
+
+Phasellus 
+aliquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque 
+aliquet, quam 
+elementum 
+condimentum 
+feugiat, tellus 
+odio 
+
+
+277 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Advanced layouts with multiple boxes and 
+columns 
+
+
+The layouts so far in this chapter have laid the foundation, showing you how to get to grips 
+with creating a wrapper for site content and then nesting a div within the wrapper, pro¬ 
+viding a little added scope for layout. In this section, you’re going to find out how to fash¬ 
+ion the basic building blocks of more complex layouts, working with two and then three or 
+more structural divs, finding out how they can be styled using CSS. In all cases, try to think 
+in a modular fashion, because the methods for creating the basic building blocks shown 
+can be combined in many different ways to create all sorts of layouts. 
+
+One of the main reasons for working with two structural divs is to create columns on a 
+web page. Although columns of the sort found in newspapers and magazines should be 
+avoided online, columns can be useful when you’re working with various types of content. 
+For instance, you may offer current news in one column and an introduction to an organ¬ 
+ization in another. Using columns makes both sets of information immediately available. If 
+a linear layout is instead used, you’ll need to decide which information you want the user 
+to see first and which information will initially be out of sight. The general principle of 
+columns is about more than written site content, though. For example, you could use one 
+column to house a vertical navigation bar and another to contain thumbnail images relat¬ 
+ing to an article. 
+
+
+Working with two structural divs 
+
+In previous exercises, you’ve worked with two divs, but one has been nested within the 
+other. In the following exercise, you’ll work with two structural divs, seeing how seemingly 
+small changes to CSS rules can make a major difference to the layout of the web page. This 
+will highlight the flexibility of web layouts, showing how quickly you can build pages, and 
+also how easy it is to experiment with designs and make edits and rapid changes should 
+they be required. 
+
+
+Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from two-divs-starting-point in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use two structural divs to create various types of fixed- 
+width layouts, including two-column designs. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+two-divs-fixed-complete in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+278 
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+1 . Examine the code. Open up two-divs.html and you’ll see a simple page layout. A 
+level-one heading is followed by the first div, with an id value of divOne. This is 
+then followed by a second div, which has an id value of divTwo. Both divs have a 
+level-two heading and some paragraphs within. Some initial styles are also in the 
+style sheet, defining the fonts and placing 20 pixels of padding around the page’s 
+content (via the padding pair in the body rule) so the page content doesn’t hug the 
+browser window edge. 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum ck>ior sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci 
+magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. 
+Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor liguta eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+Div two 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. 
+Etiam vehicuta uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittls ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc 
+molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee 
+vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim 
+ultrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec tortor. 
+Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, tempor id, auctor 
+vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+
+2 . Add the background colors. When initially working on CSS layouts and hand¬ 
+coding, it’s often useful to apply background colors to your main structural divs. 
+This enables you to more easily see their edges and how they interact. Therefore, 
+add the following rules to your CSS: 
+
+#div0ne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+If you test the web page at this point, you’ll see the divs are positioned in a basic 
+linear fashion. The gap between the two occurs because the paragraphs have mar¬ 
+gins assigned on their bottom edges—therefore, the gap is from the margin of the 
+top div’s last paragraphs. 
+
+
+279 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, Ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci 
+magna rhoncus neque, id puMnar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. 
+Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Aiv two 
+
+tincidunt, velit vel porta eiementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu dIam. 
+
+iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique feKilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida, 
+vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc 
+Be, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee 
+Wum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim 
+itrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel iacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec tortor. 
+bteger eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, temper id, auctor 
+purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Note that for an actual website, you should use id (and classi values relevant and 
+appropriate to the content within them, as evidenced by wrapper and boxout earlier 
+in this chapter. The values of divOne and divTwo are used in this exercise to enable 
+you to easily keep track of each one. 
+
+V_^_ J 
+
+
+3 . Make the divs flush to each other. By adding padding-bottom values equal to the 
+margin-bottom value for paragraphs, you can make the div backgrounds flush to 
+subsequent content. 
+
+#divOne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+padding-bottom: 1.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+
+padding-bottom: 1.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+280 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem fpsum ctolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci 
+magna rhoncus neque, id puivinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendtsse id velit vitae liguia voiutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulia facilisi. 
+Nulia libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+uliamcorper, iectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttftor tiguta eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+jRiquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla thstique ^cilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet liguia viverra gravida, 
+fetiam vehicuta uma vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+MbM a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper liguia. Nunc 
+
+nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien iectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id Iectus. Donee 
+WMbllium. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim 
+iglitrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+ftOte at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat liguia nec tortor. 
+Inftmpreget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, tempor id, auctor 
+iMi, purus. Peilentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+
+4 . Float the divs to make columns. By adding width values and floating both divs in 
+the same direction, the divs stack horizontally, thereby creating columns. 
+
+#divOne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+padding-bottom: l.Sem; 
+float: left; 
+width: 350px; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+padding-bottom: l.Sem; 
+float: left; 
+width: 250px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+281 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis 
+erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, 
+id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. 
+Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget 
+aem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat 
+vftae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+eiementum, magna diam molestie 
+sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla 
+tristique facillsis. Donee eget sem sit 
+amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam 
+vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse 
+sa^ls ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. 
+Nullam egestas feugiat Tells. Integer 
+acMp i K ing semper ligula. Nunc molestie, 
+nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien 
+iectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim 
+wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam 
+vel nibh. Nulla Tacillsl. Mauris pharetra. 
+Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id 
+(fignissim ultrices, tellus mauris dictum 
+dtt, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+A/ofe ho\N with CSS layouts, each div only stretches to fill its content. This is in 
+marked contrast to an equivalent table-based layout, where cells (and therefore 
+their backgrounds) stretch to the overall height of the table. Later, you’ll find 
+out how to mimic full-height columns by using a background image (creating 
+what are known as faux columns). 
+
+v_ J 
+
+
+5 . Switch the column order. You can switch the stack direction by amending the float 
+values, changing left to right. This can be useful for when you want information 
+to be displayed in a certain order onscreen, but in a different order in code. For 
+example, your main content might be on the right and a sidebar on the left 
+onscreen, but screen readers would go through the main content before the 
+sidebar. 
+
+Note that floats start stacking from the edge of their container, which in this case is 
+20 pixels in from the browser window edge. For more control over the overall 
+layout, columns can be placed in a wrapper, which will be discussed later in the 
+chapter. 
+
+
+282 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+#divOne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+padding-bottom: l.Sem; 
+float: right; 
+width: 350px; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+padding-bottom: l.Sem; 
+float: right; 
+width: 250px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div two 
+
+Div one 
+
+Proln tinddunt, velit vel porta 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+
+elementum, magna diam molestie 
+
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orei magna 
+
+sapten, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+
+ARquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla 
+
+sit amet enim. 
+
+tiistique facitisis. Donee eget sem sit 
+
+
+amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+
+vehieula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse 
+
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla faeilisi. Nulla 
+
+Bagittti ante a uma. 
+
+ibero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+
+
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+
+Morbi a est quis orei eonsequat rutrum. 
+
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orei, fermentum 
+
+Nullam egestas feugiat Tells. Integer 
+
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+adpischig semper ligula. Nune molestie, 
+
+
+nisi sit amet eursus convallis, sapien 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+
+lactus pretium metus, vitae pretium enimeonsequat libero eursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+
+wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam 
+
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis 
+
+vel nibh. Nulla faeilisi. Mauris pharetra. 
+
+erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida. 
+
+Donee augue. Fusee ultriees, neque id 
+
+diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat. 
+
+(fl^iissim ultriees, tellus mauris dictum 
+
+d egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+PnMn at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. 
+
+
+Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed 
+
+
+consequet ligula nee tortor. Integer eget 
+
+
+■em. Ut vitae enim eu est vehieula 
+
+
+gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nee. 
+
+
+tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+
+
+Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat 
+
+
+vitae libero. Integer nee enim. 
+
+
+
+
+6 . Add padding and margins. Switch the right values for float back to left, and 
+then change the padding-bottom properties to padding, adding values for the top 
+and horizontal edges. A margin-right setting for #divOne provides a gap between 
+the two divs. 
+
+
+283 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#divOne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+padding: lOpx lOpx l.Sem; 
+float: left; 
+width: 350px; 
+margin-right: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+padding: lOpx lOpx l.Sem; 
+float: left; 
+width: 250px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum ck>tor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing ellt. 
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, ord magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turp'is. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis 
+erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, 
+Id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+elementum, magna diam molestle 
+sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iacults. Fusee et ipsum et nulla 
+tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit 
+amet ligula vtverra gravida. Etiam 
+vehicula uma vel turpls. Suspendisse 
+sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. 
+Nullam egestas feugiat fells. Integer 
+adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestle, 
+nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien 
+lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim 
+wlsi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam 
+vel nibh. Nulla ^cilisi. Mauris pharetra. 
+Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id 
+dignissim ultrices, tellus mauris dictum 
+elit, vel lacinta enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. 
+Donee semper turpls sed diam. Sed 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget 
+sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctuserat 
+vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+284 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+^^ 
+Manipulating two structural divs for liquid layouts 
+
+k_ A 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from two-divs-starting-point in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use two structural divs to create various types of liquid 
+layouts, including two-column designs. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+two-divs-liquid-complete in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+This exercise looks at working with liquid rather than fixed layouts. Because of the nature 
+of liquid layouts, there are some very important differences in method that must be taken 
+into account, as you’ll see. 
+
+1 . Add backgrounds and padding. As per the previous exercise, add background 
+colors to the two divs to make it easy to see their boundaries. 
+
+#divOne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+
+} 
+
+2 . Float the divs and set widths. As explained in the previous exercise, setting a width 
+for the two divs and then floating them both in the same direction enables you to 
+stack them horizontally, thereby providing columns. Note that in this exercise, we’ll 
+only be floating divs left, but you can float them right, too. Regarding width 
+values, you must ensure that their sum doesn’t exceed 100%, because otherwise the 
+divs will be wider in total than their container and will display in a linear fashion, 
+one under the other. 
+
+#div0ne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+float: left; 
+width: 40%; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+
+float: left; 
+width: 60%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+285 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+Div one 
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer 
+adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nuliam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat 
+condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed 
+quis velit. Nulla facitisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget 
+ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas 
+vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, btandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis 
+erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor, 
+eras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, 
+erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede 
+nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+Prolll tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam motestie 
+■pfcn, non allquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et 
+k>sum et nulla trlstique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula 
+Viverra gravida. Etiam vehkrula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse 
+•nte a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis ord consequat rutrum. Nuliam egestas feugiat 
+Ms. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestle, nisi sit amet 
+cursus convallls, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim 
+wW id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla ^Itisi. 
+Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim 
+Uttrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Praia at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed 
+diam. Sed consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae 
+anim eu est vehkrula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+tampor id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus 
+arat vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+3. Add a margin. In the previous exercise, a margin was included to separate the two 
+divs. This can be done here, again by adding a margin-right value to #divOne. 
+However, you need to ensure the overall width of the width and margin values 
+doesn’t exceed 100%. In this example, the margin is set to 2%, and 1% is removed 
+from each of the two width values to cater for this. 
+
+#div0ne { 
+
+background: #dddddd; 
+float: left; 
+width: 39%; 
+margin-right: 2%; 
+
+} 
+
+#divTwo { 
+
+background: #aaaaaa; 
+float: left; 
+width: 59%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+286 
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer 
+adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae liguia volutpat 
+condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed 
+quls velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. 
+Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget 
+euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc 
+ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum 
+enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor liguia eu dolor. Maecenas 
+vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatls. Nam magna enim, accumsan 
+eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque 
+facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare 
+dolor, eras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id 
+egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two I 
+
+PMl tinddunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie | 
+■^n, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iacutis. Fusee eti 
+Ipsum et nulla tristique fadlisis. Donee eget sem sit amet liguia 
+liverra gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. Suspendisse 
+I ante a uma. 
+
+
+NsMIa est quis ord consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat 
+Mb Integer adipisdng semper liguia. Nunc molestie, nisi sit ametj 
+CHrsus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim! 
+Wsi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. | 
+Nauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim | 
+nitrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc.i 
+
+(Mb at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper turpis sed 
+flHi- Sed consequat liguia nec tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae 
+aim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus 
+ml vitae libero. Integer nec enim. 
+
+
+
+4 . If you want to add padding to the divs, the method changes depending on the 
+required value. If you’re adding padding on a percentage basis, you add it in the 
+same way as the margin in step 3, removing relevant values from the width set¬ 
+tings. (For example, if you set the padding to 1% for both divs, this would mean 
+there would be 1 % of padding on each side, so 2% would need to be removed from 
+each width value to keep the combined width of the two divs under 100%.) 
+
+However, if you want to add pixel-based padding values, things become a little 
+more complex, because there's no way of specifying something like 39% - 20px for 
+a width. The most sensible workaround is to use nested divs: add a content div 
+within each of the two existing divs, and then set padding for those nested divs to 
+a pixel value. In HTML, you end up with the following: 
+
+<div id="div0ne"> 
+
+<div class="columnContent"> 
+
+[content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div id="divTwo"> 
+
+<div class="columnContent"> 
+
+[content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+You then apply a padding value to .columnContent in the CSS. 
+
+
+287 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+A/ote that, dearly, liquid layouts can have widths lower than 100%; this example 
+showed that percentage because it’s the most common width used for liquid layouts 
+and has the most problems to overcome. Also, rounding errors can cause problems 
+with liquid layouts when the width values add up to 100% — see the “Dealing with 
+rounding errors” section in Chapter 9 for more on this. 
+
+V_^_ J 
+
+
+Placing columns within wrappers and clearing 
+floated content 
+
+The heading of this section is a bit of a mouthful, but it makes sense at this point to com¬ 
+bine the two things it mentions—placing columns within wrappers and clearing floated 
+content—because once you’ve started working with columns, that’s what you’ll likely next 
+have to do. Placing columns within a wrapper enables you to position the overall layout 
+(for example, centering it within the browser window) and restrict its width to a set size in 
+pixels or a liquid measurement. Clearing floated content is an important concept to 
+understand, because floated content appears outside of the normal document flow; sub¬ 
+sequent content then wraps around floated content. Therefore, float an object left and 
+subsequent content will stack to its right. Also, backgrounds don’t appear behind floated 
+content if it isn’t cleared, because browsers consider floated elements to technically take 
+up no height. 
+
+
+Placing columns within a wrapper 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from two-divs-starting-point in the chapter 7 folder as a 
+starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use two structural divs to create a two-column fixed-width 
+layout, using both pixel- and percentage-based values. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+using-wrappers-to-contain-columns in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add a wrapper. Open the HTML document and place a div around the web page’s 
+content, and give the div an id value of wrapper. 
+
+<body> 
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+[web page content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+</body> 
+
+2 . Amend the body rule. Because the page will be fixed and centered, there’s no 
+longer a need for horizontal padding on the body element; therefore, amend the 
+body rule in the CSS file as follows: 
+
+
+288 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+body { 
+
+font: 62.5%/1.5 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+padding: 20px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Add the following rule to center the wrapper, per the “Creating a fixed-width 
+wrapper” exercise earlier in this chapter: 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Finally, add the following two rules to float the columns, set their widths, and then 
+place a margin between them (by adding a margin-right setting to the left-hand 
+column). 
+
+#divOne, #divTwo { 
+float: left; 
+width: 340px; 
+
+} 
+
+#divOne { 
+
+margin-right: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam 
+sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandlt sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque 
+facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam 
+molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. 
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam 
+vehtcula urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a 
+urna. 
+
+Morbi a est quis ord consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas 
+feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc 
+molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus 
+pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee 
+vestibuium. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla fadlisi. Mauris pharetra. 
+Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim ultrices, 
+tellus mauris dictum elit, vel ladnia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee semper 
+turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer 
+eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi 
+ipsum ipsum, porta nec, tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer 
+nec enim. 
+
+
+No matter the size of the browser window, the two-column design sits centrally horizon¬ 
+tally. 
+
+
+289 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Note that the fixed-width values for the two columns can be replaced with percentages: 
+
+#divOne, #divTwo { 
+float: left; 
+width: 49%; 
+
+} 
+
+#divOne { 
+margin-right: 2%; 
+
+} 
+
+In such cases, the width of each div (and the margin) is a percentage of the parent ele¬ 
+ment—the wrapper div—rather than the browser window. 
+
+
+When using percentages to size columns, it makes sense to use them also to size the 
+gutters and margins between them. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time trying to 
+match up column widths in percentages and margins in pixels. 
+
+V_y 
+
+
+Clearing floated content 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from using-wrappers-to-contain-columns in the chapter 7 
+folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to clear floated content, thereby making a wrapper’s 
+background display behind the content within it. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+clearing-floated-content in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . To highlight issues with content that doesn’t clear floated content, you need to 
+make some quick changes to the HTML and CSS from the using-wrappers-to- 
+contain-columns folder. First, add a paragraph of text after the closing tag of the 
+wrapper div: 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<p>Subsequent content...</p> 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+Next, add a background color to the #wrapper rule in the CSS, and change the 
+width and margin-right settings of the ttdivOne, #divTwo and #divOne rules, as 
+shown following: 
+
+
+290 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+background: #bbbbbb; 
+
+} 
+
+#divOne, #divTwo { 
+float: left; 
+width: BOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#divOne { 
+
+margin-right: 20px; 
+
+} 
+
+Upon previewing the amended page, you’ll see that the subsequent content stacks 
+to the right of the floated content; also, the background color for the wrapper 
+doesn’t extend behind the floated content. Both of these issues can be fixed by 
+clearing the floated content. 
+
+
+forking with two divs 
+
+
+Div one 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer 
+adipiscing elft. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id 
+pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nutlam sit amet 
+enim. 
+
+
+Div two Subsequent 
+
+Proin tinddunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna^ontent... 
+diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam iacutis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla 
+tristique fadlisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehieula uma vel turpis. 
+
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. 
+
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat 
+eondimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis 
+velit. Nulla faeilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, 
+nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc 
+ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim nibh 
+eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, 
+eros. Quisque fadlisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas 
+pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam 
+egestas feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper 
+ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus 
+convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae 
+pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. 
+Etiam vel nibh. Nulla faeilisi. Mauris pharetra. 
+Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim 
+ultrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim 
+metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee 
+semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat ligula nec 
+tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est 
+vehieula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+temper id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+neque. Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec 
+enim. 
+
+
+
+A/ofe that Internet Explorer’s behavior is different from other browsers here: the 
+wrapper isn’t being collapsed, so the background extends fully, and the paragraph of 
+text added after the wrapper doesn’t flow around the floated divs, presumably 
+because the wrapper isn’t collapsing. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+291 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+2 . Clear the floated content. There are two main methods for clearing floated con¬ 
+tent, both of which are worth having in your arsenal. The first was initially devel¬ 
+oped by Tony Aslett of CSS Creator (http://csscreator.com) and subsequently 
+expanded by the folks at Position Is Everything (see www.positioniseverything. 
+net/easyclearing.html for a full overview of the technique). First, add a class 
+value of clearFix to the container of the floated content (the wrapper div, in this 
+example), and then add the following rule in CSS: 
+
+.clearFixrafter { 
+content: "."j 
+display: block; 
+height: 0; 
+clear: both; 
+visibility: hidden; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Div one 
+
+Loram ipsum ctolor sit amet, consectetuer 
+adpisdng elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharatre gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id 
+puivinar odio (orem non turpis. Nuliam sit amet 
+
+«nlm. 
+
+Su^wndisse id veiit vitae iiguia voiutpat 
+oondimentum. Aiiquam erat voiutpat. Sed quis 
+vdR. Nulla facilisi. Nulia libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+poaucre sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aiiquam, 
+nunc eget euismod uliamcorper, lectus nunc 
+ullamcorper orci, Fermentum bibendum enim nibh 
+apat ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor Iiguia eu dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, 
+eras. Qutsque ^lisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas 
+pade nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Div two 
+
+Proin tincidunt, veiit vel porta elementum, magna 
+diam molestie sapien, non allquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aiiquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla 
+tristique Fadiisis. Donee eget sem sit amet Iiguia 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula uma vel turpis. 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nuliam 
+egestas feugiat Felis. Integer adipiscing semper 
+Iiguia. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus 
+convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae 
+pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. 
+Etiam vel nibh. Nulla Facilisi. Mauris pharetra. 
+Donee augue. Fusee ultnees, neque id dignissim 
+ultrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim 
+metus eu nunc. 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Donee 
+semper turpis sed diam. Sed consequat Iiguia nec 
+tortor. Integer eget sem. Ut vitae enim eu est 
+vehicula gravida. Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+tempor id, auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+neque. Nulla (uctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec 
+enim. 
+
+
+Subsequent content... 
+
+
+The magic of this method is in the CSS rule. By using the :after pseudo-selector, 
+content is added after the element the class is applied to (in this case, a period is 
+added after the wrapper div), and said content is set to clear the element, have no 
+height, and be rendered as invisible. The genius of the method is that you need no 
+extra markup to clear floats. 
+
+
+292 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+3 . Use an alternate method. The clearFix method is great for when you have content 
+following a containing wrapper. In some cases, you may not have this, though. For 
+example, place your subsequent content within the wrapper div, as shown: 
+
+</div> 
+
+<p>Subsequent content...</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</body> 
+
+</html> 
+
+The clearFix method won’t work here, because the content is now inside the div 
+that has the clearFix rule applied to it. Various options are open; the first is to 
+wrap the floated elements in an internal wrapper and apply the clearFix class to 
+that. In many cases, this will be fine, but you can end up with a case of divitis, 
+where many nested divs impair the clean nature of the markup. An alternate 
+option is to apply clearing directly to the element that follows the last piece of 
+floated content. In HTML, this would look as follows: 
+
+<p class="ClearFloats"> 
+
+In CSS, this is styled as follows: 
+
+•clearFloats { 
+clear: both; 
+
+} 
+
+Generally, the clearFix method is considered superior to adding styles to specific 
+elements, but on occasions when it doesn’t work for your design, it’s good to have 
+a fallback, so be mindful of both clearing methods when working on your designs. 
+
+
+Working with sidebars and multiple boxouts 
+
+In this chapter so far, you’ve seen how to create web page columns and also how to fash¬ 
+ion a boxout. In this section, two exercises will expand upon these ideas, showing how to 
+create two different layouts that make use of sidebars. Sidebars are common in print, 
+either for dividing up a page, thereby enabling a designer to show a main story and a 
+smaller story, or for providing an area for ancillary content to the main story, but without 
+having text wrapping underneath it (like in a boxout). The Pinkflag.com website (the offi¬ 
+cial website of the rock band Wire) makes use of sidebars throughout the site. In the fol¬ 
+lowing image, a page from the Us section is shown. The main section of the page shows a 
+photo of a band member, along with a short biography. In the sidebar is a selection of the 
+subject’s favorite tracks. 
+
+
+293 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+I Pinkflag.c. 
+
+
+SI Read Look Listen Shop Contact Links 
+
+
+Us: Colin Newman. 
+
+
+
+COLIN NEWMAN 
+
+Colin Newman is Wire's front-man, rhythm guitarist and main tunesmith. In 
+recent years, he's also become Wire's premier back-room boy, 
+responsible for mixing, post-production and authoring all Wire releases. He 
+also runs the Pinkflag label, which releases new and archive Wire material, 
+on behalf of the band. 
+
+As well as his involvement with Wire, Colin has worked on many other 
+projects. Along with releasing six solo albums, he's produced, arranged 
+and remixed The Virgin Prunes, Minimal Compact, French megastar Alain 
+Bashung, Hawkwind, Dead Man Ray and Silo. 
+
+
+SELECTED WORKS 
+Being Sucked In Again 
+There's something 
+wholly inexplicable about 
+this song. Each verse is 
+in a separate key and the 
+lyric, inspired by the 
+legend of the succubus, 
+has a nightmarish 
+quality. Yet despite this, 
+the piece has a timeless quality. I love the 
+beginning, the way the synth chords ping In like a 
+child miming a bullet (the resultof a poor 
+drop-in), the bass pedal and heavily 'mutronned' 
+guitar crashes that prefigure the arrival of the 
+guitar riff and drums, when the whole thing shifts 
+up a gear. One of the best Wire intros everl* 
+
+Madman's Honey (Alternate Mix) 
+
+This has almys been my 
+preferred version of this 
+song, done for a single 
+that never got released. 
+
+The main synth line was 
+based on the guitar line 
+the song was written 
+around, and during 
+Wire's 'retrospective' period in 2000 we did an 
+all-guitar version—a stage higlighti Like most 
+1980s Wire, which in my view is cast in an 
+
+
+
+
+Based on what you’ve seen so far, you might think the best way to create such a layout 
+would be to create a two-column layout and then add a border to one of the columns. 
+However, in CSS, borders and backgrounds stop as soon as the content does. Therefore, if 
+you add a border to the main content area, but the sidebar's content makes it taller than 
+the main content area, the separating border stops short. What you therefore need to do 
+is ensure that the two columns are placed in a wrapper, and then apply a vertically tiling 
+background to the wrapper, thereby “faking” the column separator. This technique is com¬ 
+monly referred to as creating faux columns, and is explained fully in the following exercise. 
+
+
+Creating a sidebar with faux-column backgrounds 
+
+
+Required files faux-columns-background.gif from the image folder and all files 
+from using-wrappers-to-contain-columns (both in the chapter 
+7 folder) as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn How to use two structural divs and a background image to create 
+
+faux columns. 
+
+
+Completed files faux-columns in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+294 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+1 . Clear the floated content, using the method outlined in step 2 of the “Clearing 
+floated content” exercise. 
+
+2 . Change the id values. When creating a website, you should amend your div id val¬ 
+ues to something appropriate for the content within them. Don’t use generic 
+names such as divOne and divTwo for a completed website. (They’ve been used for 
+some exercises in this chapter just to make the exercises simpler to work through.) 
+In both the HTML page and the CSS document, change all instances of divOne to 
+mainContent and all incidences of divTwo to sidebar. Amend the two level-two 
+headings in the web page accordingly, too. 
+
+3 . Change the width settings for the columns, making sidebar narrower than 
+mainContent. 
+
+#mainContent, #sidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 479px; 
+
+} 
+
+#mainContent { 
+margin-right: 41px; 
+
+} 
+
+#sidebar { 
+width: iSOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . Add the background image. Apply the background image (shown 
+right) to the wrapper div, as shown following. The horizontal position 
+
+is the width of the main content div, plus half the margin once 1 pixel _ 
+
+is removed from that value (because the width of the “border” in the 
+background image is a single pixel). By placing the background image 499 pixels 
+from the left, it ends up exactly halfway between the content of the two divs. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+background: url(faux-columns-background.gif) 499px 0 repeat-y; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . To make it easier to differentiate the two areas of text, change the size of the text 
+in the sidebar, making it smaller. 
+
+#sidebar { 
+width: iSOpx; 
+font-size: 90%; 
+
+} 
+
+Using a percentage value is a quick way of doing this, with all values being based on 
+those from the main content area. If you want to set specific values for each of the 
+text elements within the sidebar, you could do so using contextual selectors 
+(ttsidebar hi, ttsidebar p, etc.). 
+
+
+295 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+
+Main content 
+
+Lorem ipsum ctolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non 
+turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. 
+Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapten. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc 
+ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+Sidebar 
+
+Proln tincldunt, velit vel porta 
+elemerttum, magrva diam molestie 
+saplert, two allquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam laculls. Fusee et 
+Ipsum et nulla tnstique faclllsis. 
+Donee e^et sem sit amet ligula 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehleula 
+urru vel turpis. SusperxJisse 
+sagittls ante a urr>a. 
+
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Di ii«ni i» farilicic <»rnt A r1i li NAm mAlMiiArlA r%mArP rirtirvr frAC nrAvirlA rllAm Qit 
+
+
+Morbi a est quIs orci consequat 
+rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat 
+fells. Integer adipiscing semper 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+There is an alternate way to create faux columns as well—see step 5 of the “Creating 
+flanking sidebars" exercise later in the chapter. 
+
+\ _^_ J 
+
+
+Boxouts revisited: Creating multiple boxouts within a sidebar 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from multiple-boxouts-starting-point in the chapter 7 
+folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use faux columns, boxouts, and the cascade to create a 
+page design with a sidebar that contains multiple boxouts. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+multiple-boxouts-complete in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+1. Examine the 
+
+code. Open the web page and CSS document from multiple- 
+
+
+boxouts-starting-point, and also open the web page in a browser so you can see 
+what it looks like. Lots of work has already been done here, but it’s all stuff you 
+already know. Essentially, this page is a combination of the “Creating a boxout” and 
+“Creating a sidebar with faux-column backgrounds” exercises from earlier in the 
+chapter. A few changes have been made, however. The boxout has been duplicated 
+three times and placed within the sidebar, the float: right pair from .boxout has 
+been deleted (because the boxouts no longer need to float—they are within a con¬ 
+tainer that itself is floated), and some bottom padding has been added (to ensure 
+there’s a gap below the final paragraph of each boxout). 
+
+•boxout { 
+width: l80px; 
+padding: 0 lOpx Ipx; 
+margin: 0 0 20px; 
+
+background: #elelel url(boxout-bottom.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+
+296 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Also, the background from the faux columns exercise isn’t there, because the 
+vertical line the boxouts create is enough to make the column visually distinct— 
+another separator isn’t necessary. 
+
+2 . Add class values. While consistent style is good for a website, it’s sometimes neat 
+to offer multiple styles for an element. This can come in handy for categorization— 
+for example, each boxout in this design could contain information about a certain 
+area of the website, and therefore color coding them and providing each with an 
+icon (for those viewers with color vision difficulties) may help users navigate more 
+easily. Because you can use multiple class values in CSS, it’s possible to simply add 
+a second class value to each of the boxout divs and then create an override rule 
+for each in CSS. 
+
+<div class="boxout questionsHeader"> 
+
+[div content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div class="boxout chatHeader"> 
+
+[div content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div class="boxout toolsHeader"> 
+
+[div content] 
+
+</div> 
+
+3 . Add new CSS rules. In the multiple-boxouts-starting-point folder, you’ll find a 
+bunch of images with the boxout-top- prefix. These are additional tops for the 
+boxouts, each of which has a different color and icon. By using three contextual 
+rules, overrides are created, setting a new background color and image for each of 
+the three heading classes defined in step 2. 
+
+.questionsHeader h2 { 
+
+background: #d72a49 url(boxout-top-questions.gif) no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+•chatHeader h2 { 
+
+background: #2a84d7 url(boxout-top-chat.gif) no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+•toolsHeader h2 { 
+
+background: #d72abO url(boxout-top-tools.gif) no-repeat; 
+
+} 
+
+Note that these rules must be placed after the . boxout h2 rule in the CSS, because 
+the CSS cascade ensures that the rule closest to the element is applied. If these 
+were placed above the .boxout h2 rule, they would be overridden by it, resulting 
+in the boxouts all retaining their default appearance. 
+
+The following image shows what your page should now look like. 
+
+
+297 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae liguia volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et tortor. 
+Quisque allquet, quam elementum 
+condimentum feugiat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisl, vel nonummy 
+sem neque In el It. Curabitur 
+elelfend wisl laculls Ipsum. 
+
+
+Donee porttitor liguia eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat 
+libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam 
+malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus 
+ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget 
+odio. 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam 
+molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam 
+iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget 
+sem sit amet liguia viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel 
+turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a uma. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat 
+felis. Integer adipiscing semper liguia. Nunc molestie, nisi sit 
+amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae 
+pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. 
+Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. Fusee ultrices, 
+neque id dignissim ultrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia 
+enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+BOXOUT CHAT 
+
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et tortor. 
+Quisque aliquet, quam elementum 
+condimentum feugiat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisl, vel norKimmy 
+sem neque In elit. Curabitur 
+elelfend wisl laculls Ipsum. 
+
+
+Phasellus aliquam enim et tortor. 
+Quisque aliquet, quam elementum 
+condimentum feugiat, tellus odio 
+consectetuer wisl, vel nonummy 
+sem neque In elit. Curabitur 
+elelfend wisl laculls Ipsum. 
+
+
+Creating flanking sidebars 
+
+Although some sites can be designed around a two-column model, you’ll frequently need 
+more. This can be achieved by adding further columns to the pages created in earlier exer¬ 
+cises, or by nesting wrappers with two columns. (In other words, the first wrapper can con¬ 
+tain a sidebar and a wrapper, which itself contains the main content and another sidebar.) 
+
+The only issue with this is that it doesn't allow for information to be provided in code in an 
+order different from that shown on the screen. For users of alternate devices, a site with a 
+sidebar (perhaps for navigation and advertising), followed by the main content, followed 
+by another sidebar (perhaps for boxouts) would require them to wade through the first 
+sidebar before accessing the main content. You can get around this by using a “skip to 
+main content” link (as per the skip navigation link from Chapter 5), but you can also set 
+the content in the order you want in the code (main content, first sidebar, second sidebar) 
+and then use CSS to reorder the columns on the screen. 
+
+
+298 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Creating flanking sidebars 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from flanking-sidebars-starting-point in the chapter 7 
+folder as a starting point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to create flanking sidebars for a content area, thereby 
+enabling you to set content in one order in the code and another 
+
+
+onscreen. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+flanking-sidebars-liquid and flanking-sidebars-fixed in the 
+chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Check out the page. Open flanking-sidebars.html in a web browser and in a text 
+editor. In the code, you have a wrapper that contains a masthead, followed by a 
+wrapper for the columns, followed by a footer. Within the column wrapper are 
+three divs: mainContent, leftSidebar, and rightSidebar. Each of these has a con¬ 
+tent wrapper (as per step 4 of the “Manipulating two structural divs for liquid lay¬ 
+outs” exercise). In CSS, the page defaults and font styles are already set, as are 
+styles for the masthead and footer. The clearFix method (see the “Clearing floated 
+content” exercise) has also been used, since the three columns will be positioned 
+by being floated. Note that for this exercise, the layout will be a liquid one, based 
+on percentage values for widths and margins. 
+
+2 . Add the column backgrounds. Add the following two rules, which supply two back¬ 
+grounds for the divs. The first is applied to the column wrapper, setting the back¬ 
+ground to gray and adding a horizontally tiling drop-shadow image. The second is 
+applied to the main content div, defining its background as white, and setting its 
+own background. This will create a seamless shadow effect, but the main content 
+will be differentiated from the sidebar via a brighter background. 
+
+#columnWrapper { 
+
+background: #ebebeb url(assets/grey-shadow-top.gif) 0 0 repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+#mainContent { 
+
+background: #ffffff url(assets/white-shadow-top.gif) 0 0 repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+3 . Set column widths. Amend the #mainContent rule and add rules for the two side- 
+bars, floating all of the columns left and setting width values. This is a liquid design, 
+so percentages must be used, and they must add up to 100%. 
+
+#mainContent { 
+
+background: url(assets/white-shadow-top.gif) 0 0 repeat-x; 
+
+float: left; 
+width: 50%; 
+
+} 
+
+#leftSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 30%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+299 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#rightSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 20%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+PAGE TITLE 
+MAIN CONTENT 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, 
+psum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio 
+orem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula 
+^olutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. 
+Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed 
+iliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+Fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu 
+dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede 
+nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam 
+molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee 
+et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra 
+gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. 
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. 
+Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus 
+convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. 
+Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee 
+augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim ultrices, tellus mauris dictum 
+:lit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+LEFT SIDEBAR RIGHT SIDEBAR 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Nunc auctor bibendum eros. 
+Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed Maecenas porta accumsan 
+
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget mauris. Etiam enim enim, 
+sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida, elementum sed, bibendum 
+Morbi ipsum ipsum, porta nec, temper id, quis, rhoncus non, metus. 
+auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. Fusee neque dolor, adipiscing 
+Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec sed, consectetuer et, lacinia 
+enim. Phasellus aliquam enim et tortor. sit amet, quam. Suspendisse 
+Quisque elit sit amet mi. Phasellus wisi quam, consectetuer in, 
+
+pellentesque, erat eget elementum volutpat, blandit sed, suscipit eu, eros. 
+dolor nisi porta neque, vitae sodales ipsum Etiam ligula enim, tempor ut, 
+nibh in ligula. Maecenas mattis pulvinar blandit nec, mollis eu, lectus. 
+diam. Curabitur sed leo. Nam cursus. Vivamus iaculis. 
+
+Aenean risus purus, pharetra 
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. Maecenas portablandit quis, gravida a, 
+accumsan mauris. Etiam enim enim, 
+
+elementum sed, bibendum quis, rhoncus y 
+
+non, metus. Fusee neque dolor, adipiscing phasellus faucibus 
+
+sed, consectetuer et, lacinia sit amet, quam. jnterdum sapien. Duis quis 
+
+Suspendisse wisi quam, consectetuer in, _ -_i__ 
+
+>1 » • nunc. Sed enim. 
+
+blandit sed, suscipit eu, eros. Etiam ligula 
+enim, tempor ut, blandit nec, mollis eu, 
+lectus. Nam cursus. Vivamus iaculis. Aenean 
+risus purus, pharetra in, blandit quis, 
+gravida a, turpis. Donee nisi. Aenean eget 
+mi. Fusee mattis est id diam. Phasellus 
+faucibus interdum sapien. Duis quis nunc. 
+
+Sed enim. 
+
+
+This is the footer 
+
+
+4 . Position the sidebars. At the moment, the columns are in the order specified in the 
+code. However, via the use of margins, this order can be changed. For the main 
+content div, set a margin-left value equal to the width of the left sidebar. Next, 
+set a margin-left value for #leftSidebar that’s the negative value of the sum of 
+the width and left margin values of the main content area. 
+
+#mainContent { 
+
+background: #ffffff url(assets/white-shadow-top.gif) 0 0 repeat-x; 
+float: left; 
+width: 50%; 
+margin-left: 30%; 
+
+} 
+
+#leftSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 30%; 
+margin-left: -80%; 
+
+} 
+
+#rightSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 20%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+300 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+MAIN CONTENT 
+
+
+PAGE TITLE 
+CBFTSIDEBAR 
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit Morbi commodo, 
+Donee semper turpis sed diam, Sed ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orcl magna rhoncus neque, Id pulvinar odio 
+
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendlsse Id velit vitae ligula 
+
+sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula gravida, volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facillsi. 
+
+
+Nulla llbero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed 
+aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orcl, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee portbtor ligula eu 
+dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+
+Morbi ipsum Ipsum, porta nec, temper Id, 
+luctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque neque. 
+
+Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. Integer nec 
+enim. Phasellus aliquam enim et tortor. 
+
+Quisque elit sit amet mi. Phasellus 
+pellentesque, erat eget elementum volutpat, 
+
+dolor nisi porta neque, vitae sodales ipsum faclllsis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, 
+
+nibh in ligula. Maeoenas mattis pulvinar cohs'ct^a"- arat, id egestas pede 
+
+diam Curabitur sed leo odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam 
+
+molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee 
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. Maecenas portaet ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra 
+accumsan mauris. Etiam enim enim, gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. 
+
+lementum sed, bibendum quis, rhoncus Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat fells, 
+
+non, metus. Fusee neque dolor, adipiscing Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus 
+sed, consectetuer et, lacinia sit amet, quam. convallis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. 
+Suspendisse wisi quam, consectetuer in. Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facillsi. Mauris pharetra. Donee 
+blandit sed, suscipit eu, eros. Etiam ligula augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim ultrices, tellus mauris dictum 
+nim, temper ut, blandit nec, mollis eu, elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc, 
+ectus. Nam cursus. Vivamus Iaculis. Aenean 
+risus purus, pharetra in, blandit quis, 
+gravida a, turpis. Donee nisi. Aenean eget 
+mi. Fusee mattis est id diam. Phasellus 
+faucibus interdum sapien. Duls quis nunc. 
+
+Sed enim. 
+
+This is the footer 
+
+
+RIGHT SIDEBAR 
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. 
+Maecenas porta accumsan 
+mauris. Etiam enim enim, 
+elementum sed, bibendum 
+quis, rhoncus non, metus. 
+Fusee neque dolor, adipiscing 
+sed, consectetuer et, lacinia 
+sit amet, quam. Suspendisse 
+wisi quam, consectetuer in, 
+blandit sed, suscipit eu, eros. 
+Etiam ligula enim, tempor ut, 
+blandit nec, mollis eu, lectus. 
+Nam cursus. Vivamus iaculis. 
+Aenean risus purus, pharetra 
+in, blandit quis, gravida a, 
+turpis. Donee nisi. Aenean 
+eget mi. Fusee mattis est id 
+diam. Phasellus faucibus 
+interdum sapien. Duis quis 
+nunc. Sed enim. 
+
+
+
+Internet Explorer may cause problems with this layout, making the right-hand sidebar 
+sometimes appear beneath the others when the browser window is resized. This 
+is caused by a rounding error (see the “Dealing with rounding errors” section in 
+Chapter 9). Therefore, it’s often useful to amend one of the percentages (and any 
+related values), dropping them by 0.0001%—for example, change the width value of 
+#mainContent to 49.9999% and the margin-left value of#leftSidebar to 79.9999%. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+5 . Fine-tune the design. Add the three rules in the following code block to finish off 
+the layout and tidy things up. 
+
+.columnContentWrapper { 
+padding: 30px lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#mainContent, ttleftSidebar, #rightSidebar { 
+padding-bottom: 32767px 1 important; 
+margin-bottom: -32767px 1 important; 
+
+} 
+
+#columnWrapper { 
+overflow: hidden; 
+
+} 
+
+The first rule merely adds some padding to the column content wrappers. The next 
+rule applies a large amount of padding to the bottom of each column and a nega¬ 
+tive margin of the same size, bringing the document flow back to the point where 
+the padding begins. The use of overflow: hidden on the column container 
+
+
+301 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+removes the overflow below the longest column’s content. Note that the value 
+used here is the maximum allowed by Apple’s Safari. You can also use the second 
+rule in the previous code block to control padding by reducing the margin-bottom 
+value: the difference between the padding-bottom and margin-bottom values 
+effectively becomes padding, although in this exercise, padding has been dealt with 
+via the .columnContentWrapper rule. 
+
+
+PAGE TITLE 
+
+
+LEFT SIDEBAR 
+
+
+MAIN CONTENT 
+
+
+RIGHT SIDEBAR 
+
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing mollis. 
+Donee semper turpis sed diam. Sed 
+consequat ligula nec tortor. Integer eget 
+sem. Ut vitae enim eu est vehicula 
+gravida. Morbi Ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+temper id, auctor vitae, purus. 
+Pellentesque neque. Nulla luctus erat 
+vitae libera. Integer nec enim. Phasellus 
+aliquam enim et tortor. Quisque ellt sit 
+amet mi. Phasellus pellentesque, erat 
+eget elementum volutpat, dolor nisi 
+porta neque, vitae sodales ipsum nibh 
+in ligula. Maecenas mattis pulvinar 
+diam. Curabitur sed leo. 
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. Maecenas 
+porta accumsan mauris. Etiam enim 
+enim, elementum sed, bibendum quis, 
+rhoncus non, metus. Fusee neque dolor, 
+adipiscing sed, consectetuer et, lacinia 
+sit amet, quam. Suspendisse wisi quam, 
+consectetuer in, blandit sed, suscipit eu, 
+eros. Etiam ligula enim, tempor ut, 
+blandit nec, mollis eu, lectus. Nam 
+cursus. Vivamus iaculis. Aenean risus 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, 
+id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse 
+id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed 
+quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere 
+sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum 
+enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, 
+accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id 
+egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee 
+eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel 
+turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est quis orci 
+consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing 
+semper ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien 
+lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. Donee 
+vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee 
+augue. Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim ultrices, tellus mauris 
+dictum elit, vel lacinia enim metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+purus, pharetra in, blandit quis, gravida 
+a, turpis. Donee nisi. Aenean eget mi. 
+Fusee mattis est id diam. Phasellus 
+faucibus interdum sapien. Duis quis 
+nunc. Sed enim. 
+
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum 
+eros. Maecenas porta 
+accumsan mauris. Etiam 
+enim enim, elementum 
+sed, bibendum quis, 
+rhoncus non, metus. 
+
+Fusee neque dolor, 
+adipiscing sed, 
+consectetuer et, lacinia 
+sit amet, quam. 
+Suspendisse wisi quam, 
+consectetuer in, blandit 
+sed, suscipit eu, eros. 
+Etiam ligula enim, tempor 
+ut, blandit nec, mollis eu, 
+lectus. Nam cursus. 
+Vivamus iaculis. Aenean 
+risus purus, pharetra in, 
+blandit quis, gravida a, 
+turpis. Donee nisi. 
+
+Aenean eget mi. Fusee 
+mattis est id diam. 
+Phasellus faucibus 
+interdum sapien. Duis 
+quis nunc. Sed enim. 
+
+
+This is the footer 
+
+
+For this layout to work in Internet Explorer 6, you need to use a style sheet attached 
+via a conditional comment (see “Conditional comments’’ in Chapter 9) to set display 
+to inline-block for the #columnWrapper rule. Furthermore, that browser suffers 
+from the double-float margin bug (see the “Double-float margin bug’’ section in 
+Chapter 9); deal with this by setting display: inline to #mainContent, or by over¬ 
+riding the margin-left value of #mainContent, halving it via a style sheet attached via 
+a conditional comment. The layout also suffers from a slight cosmetic glitch in 
+Safari 2, with some space being shown above the footer’s border. To fix this, you can 
+add the following rule: /*\*/#wrapper {display: block;}— however, this should 
+really be added in a Safari-specific style sheet attached using JavaScript (see the 
+“Targeting other browsers” section in Chapter 9). 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+302 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+6 . Make the layout fixed. Amending the layout to a fixed one is simple. Because the 
+layout will no longer span the window width, a border needs to be placed around 
+the wrapper (otherwise the drop-shadow cutoffs at the left and right just look 
+weird). Therefore, add a padding-bottom value of 20px to the body rule, and create 
+the #wrapper rule shown following: 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+border: Ipx solid #555555; 
+border-top: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Next, update the width and margin-left values for the three rules shown in the 
+following code, being mindful of the relationships mentioned in step 4 and the fact 
+that the width values cannot exceed the value set for the wrapper's width in the 
+previous step. 
+
+#mainContent { 
+
+background: url(assets/white-shadow-top.gif) 0 0 repeat-x; 
+
+float: left; 
+width: 400px; 
+margin-left: 175px; 
+
+} 
+
+#leftSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 175px; 
+margin-left: -575px; 
+
+} 
+
+#rightSidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 125px; 
+
+} 
+
+The following image shows what your page should now look like. 
+
+
+
+PAGE TITLE 
+
+LEFT SIDEBAR MAIN CONTENT 
+
+
+Proin at eros non eros 
+adipiscing mollis. Donee 
+semper turpis sed diam. 
+5ed consequat ligula nec 
+tortor. Integer eget sem. 
+
+Ut vitae enim eu est 
+vehicula gravida. Morbi 
+ipsum ipsum, porta nec, 
+temper id, auctor vitae, 
+purus. Pellentesque neque. 
+Nulla luctus erat vitae 
+libero. Integer nec enim. 
+Phasellus aliquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque elit sit 
+amet mi. Phasellus 
+pellentesque, erat eget 
+elementum volutpat, dolor 
+nisi porta neque, vitae 
+sodales ipsum nibh in 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus 
+neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam 
+erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus 
+pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc 
+eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula 
+eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dul. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, 
+id egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede 
+eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. 
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula 
+urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est quis 
+orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas feugiat felis. Integer 
+
+
+RIGHT 
+
+SIDEBAR 
+
+Nunc auctor 
+bibendum eros. 
+Maecenas porta 
+accumsan mauris. 
+Ebam enim enim, 
+elementum sed, 
+bibendum quis, 
+rhoncus non, 
+metus. Fusee 
+neque dolor, 
+adipiscing sed, 
+consectetuer et, 
+lacinia sit amet, 
+quam. 
+
+Suspendisse wisi 
+quam, 
+
+consectetuer in, 
+blandit sed. 
+
+
+303 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Automating layout variations 
+
+The final exercise in this section shows how to automate page layouts in a similar manner 
+to automating navigation, as described in Chapter 5 (e.g., in the “Creating a CSS-only tab 
+bar that automates the active page” exercise). By defining a class value for the body ele¬ 
+ment, contextual selectors can be used to amend the layout of a web page. This technique 
+comes in handy when working on large sites that have many variations throughout, but 
+some consistent elements. For example, the site’s overall width, masthead, and footer may 
+remain constant, but the number of columns on the page may change, or they may 
+change widths. 
+
+
+Using body class values and CSS to automate page layouts 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+Files from faux-columns in the chapter 7 folder as a starting 
+point. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use body class values and contextual selectors to 
+automate page layouts. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+automate-page-layouts in the chapter 7 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Examine the files. The files from the “Creating a sidebar with faux-column back¬ 
+grounds” exercise are used as the basis for this one. The web page has two divs, 
+one for the main content (mainContent) and another for the sidebar (sidebar). 
+The default setup is for the main content area to take up most of the width and for 
+the sidebar to be narrow, with smaller text. During the next two steps, contextual 
+selectors will be designed to create two alternate layouts, one of which will have a 
+single column and one of which will split the columns evenly. 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+Main content 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing ellt. Morbi commodo, ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus r^eque, id pulvinarodio lorem nor^ 
+turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. 
+Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, (ectus nunc 
+ullamcorper orci, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+Sidebar 
+
+Proin tlncldunt, velit vei porta 
+eiementum, ma^na diam molestie 
+sapien, non allquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Ailquam lacuils. Fusee et 
+Ipsum et nulla tristique facllisis. 
+Dortec eget sem sit amet ligula 
+viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula 
+uma vei turpis. Suspervllsse 
+sagittls ante a uma. 
+
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. 
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit 
+
+ampt rhrtr^riiQ nmprp prnt plit rnr^ cprt pFi ipr pr»r iH ptip^pc np<ip r>ihh pnpt 
+
+
+MorbI a est quis orci cortsequat 
+rutrum. Nullam egestas feuglat 
+fells. Integer adipiscing semper 
+ligula. Nurtc molestie, nisi sit amet 
+
+
+2 . Create single-column rules. The way this method works is to create overrides for 
+relevant rules. The contextual selectors will begin with a class selector that will be 
+applied to the page’s body start tag, followed by the rules that require overriding. 
+For a single column, the wrapper no longer needs a background, the main content 
+area needs to be as wide as the wrapper (700 pixels), and the sidebar doesn’t need 
+
+
+304 
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+to be displayed. Also, the default margin-right value for #wrapper needs to be 
+overridden, otherwise the main content area will end up 700 pixels wide plus 41 
+pixels of margin. 
+
+•singleColumn #wrapper { 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+.singleColumn #mainContent { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin-right: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+.singleColumn #sidebar { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+This style can be applied to the web page by setting the body element’s class value 
+to singleColumn. 
+
+<body class="singleColumn"> 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+Main content 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, ord magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla 
+libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper ord, fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan 
+eu, blandit sed, blandit a, eros. Quisque facilisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet 
+rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+Note that when using designs such as this, be sure to empty the contents of non- 
+displayed divs— any content left within them is just a waste of bandwidth. 
+
+V_^!_ J 
+
+
+3 . Create an equal-column-split rule. For an equal column split, the column widths 
+need to be amended to the same value. But because the margin-right setting 
+defined earlier is 4lpx, the sidebar has been set to 1 pixel narrower than the main 
+content area. (An alternate option would have been to set both column widths to 
+330px and set margin-right in .equalSplitColumns #mainContent to 40px.) 
+The background-position horizontal value needs changing to reflect the new 
+column positions. Finally, because both columns command equal prominence, the 
+font-size setting for the sidebar is set to 100% in .equalSplitColumns #sidebar. 
+
+.equalSplitColumns #wrapper { 
+background-position: 350px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+.equalSplitColumns #mainContent { 
+
+
+305 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+width: 330px; 
+
+} 
+
+.equalSplitColumns #sidebar { 
+width: 329px; 
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+This style can be applied to the web page by setting the body element’s class value 
+to equalSplitColumns. 
+
+<body class="equalSplitColumns"> 
+
+
+Working with two divs 
+Main content 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing 
+elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci 
+magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non 
+turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+Allquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. 
+
+Nulla fibero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam 
+consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod 
+ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. 
+
+
+Sidebar 
+
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna 
+diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu 
+diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique 
+facilisis. Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. 
+Etiam vehicula urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis 
+ante a urna. 
+
+Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam egestas 
+feugiat fells. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc 
+molestie, nisi sit amet cursus convallis, sapien lectus 
+pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. 
+
+
+As mentioned, this exercise works in a similar way to some of the navigation ones in 
+Chapter 5. With a little thought, it should be easy enough to see how this automation 
+method can assist when creating websites. As long as the site’s structure has been carefully 
+planned, you can usually get away with a single navigation bar and a single structure, but 
+have multiple layouts, each one driven by the CSS variations and the body class value. 
+
+
+Scrollable content areas 
+
+
+Scrolling is a matter of fact on the Web. Although designers should be careful not to make 
+users scroll too much (or in multiple directions—sites that force both horizontal and ver¬ 
+tical scrolling tend to be awkward and annoying to use), some scrolling is inevitable with 
+the vast majority of websites. In the past, some designers created fixed sites that sat in the 
+middle of the browser window, content restricted by the viewing area. Various techniques 
+later enabled designers to get around this limitation, creating in-page scrollable content 
+areas. First came frames, and later came CSS-driven scrolling areas. Both enable you to 
+create in-page scrollable content, but although such things are explored in the final part of 
+this chapter, scrollable areas should be used with care—if you need a user to see some¬ 
+thing right away, don’t hide it “under the fold,” and remember that if you create a cen¬ 
+tered, fixed-view window, test it out using many different screen resolutions to ensure it 
+looks and works OK for all of your users. 
+
+
+306 
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+Working with frames 
+
+Elsewhere in this book, I mostly refer to web pages that comprise single documents, with 
+external files adding presentation information (CSS) or functionality (JavaScript or CSS). 
+Frames are different, requiring an HTML document called a frameset, which acts as a con¬ 
+tainer for a number of frames. The frameset has no actual content of its own—it’s just a 
+container used to order and place the frames. The frames are standard HTML documents. 
+Therefore, you use a frameset to carve up the available space in a browser window and 
+display several HTML documents simultaneously, each of which has the ability to scroll 
+independently. 
+
+Today, frames are considered a relic, disrupting the logical structure of your site because 
+of the way they’re created. Each frame is a separate HTML document, and everything is 
+stitched together with yet another HTML document—the frameset. This causes problems; 
+users of alternate devices may find a frame-based site hard to navigate; all users may come 
+across orphaned pages (pages outside of their framesets); bookmarking saves the frame- 
+set, not its pages; and design across frames isn’t possible. Also, because of the increase in 
+usage of design applications with templating features, and of PHP and server-side includes, 
+the ease-of-development aspect of frames is no longer relevant. Because of these issues, 
+the rest of this subsection is primarily here for the sake of completeness. 
+
+Although a frameset is still an HTML page, it requires a specific frameset DTD, which looks 
+like this: 
+
+clDOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" 
+
+"http: //WWW.W3 .org/TR/xhtmll/DTD/xhtmll-frameset.dtd"> 
+
+The frameset page lacks a body element (although it still requires head and title ele¬ 
+ments, along with defining the character set) and instead uses a frameset element, which 
+sets the attributes for how the frames are positioned. The frameset element houses frame 
+elements, which define the location and attribute of each frame. Note that this DTD 
+should only be used for the frameset and not for the individual pages that will be loaded 
+into the frameset—they should use whatever DTD is relevant to their content. 
+
+A basic two-column frameset may use a code block like the following one, the cols attrib¬ 
+ute defining the width of each frame (values can be numerals for a pixel value, a percent¬ 
+age, or a wildcard *, which sets the dimension to whatever space remains). For each frame 
+element, the src attribute defines the web page that will be displayed inside the frame. 
+
+cframeset cols="l50,*"> 
+
+<frame src="frame-one.html" /> 
+cframe src="frame-two.html" /> 
+
+</frameset> 
+
+
+307 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Frame 
+
+Frame two 
+
+one 
+
+
+
+To change the alignment of the frames and split the browser window horizontally, replace 
+the cols attribute in the frameset element with a rows attribute: 
+
+<frameset rows="l50,*"> 
+
+To add more frames in either case, just add more frame elements, but ensure that your 
+cols or rows values don’t add up to more than 100%. 
+
+You can also nest framesets, to create a combination of columns and rows: 
+
+<frameset rows="120,*"> 
+
+<frame src="frame-one.html" /> 
+
+<frameset cols="150,*"> 
+
+<frame src="frame-two.html" /> 
+
+<frame src="frame-three.html" /> 
+
+</frameset> 
+
+</frameset> 
+
+
+Frame one 
+
+Frame 
+
+two 
+
+Frame three 
+
+
+The following list describes some of the attributes that can be added to the frame ele¬ 
+ment, most of which amend the look of the frames: 
+
+■ frameborder: This attribute defines whether the frame’s border is displayed or 
+not—via a value of l or 0, respectively. Turning off the frame borders prevents 
+users from resizing frames. 
+
+
+308 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+■ marginheight and marginwidth: These define the margins within the frame and are 
+best set to 0; page content padding should be defined in CSS. 
+
+■ scrolling: This attribute sets parameters for the use of scroll bars—it can be set to 
+yes (scroll bars always on), no, or auto (scroll bars appear if required). 
+
+■ noresize: In XHTML, this attribute takes its own name for its value (noresize). 
+When set, the relevant frame can’t be resized. Beware of using this—if the content 
+is too big for the frame, users won’t be able to easily access the information. 
+
+There are two other attributes of note: longdesc and name, longdesc enables you to set a 
+URL with a long description of the frame’s contents (for browsers that don’t support 
+frames). The name attribute enables you to assign a unique name to the frame, which is 
+used for link-targeting purposes via the target attribute in anchors (the _top value 
+replaces the frameset with the linked document, while the value myFrame would open a 
+link in a frame with the name value of myFrame). However, this is not valid within 
+XHTML Strict, and therefore requires any documents that use it to be reverted to XHTML 
+Transitional. 
+
+For non-frames-compatible devices, use the noframes element (<noframes></noframes>) 
+to provide accessible content. This is placed inside the outermost frameset element, after 
+all the frames. 
+
+
+Working with internal frames (iframes) 
+
+The only type of frames in general use today are iframes. These enable you to update a 
+page section without reloading the rest of it. Popular sites using iframes include 
+Newstoday (www.newstoday.com/) and Pixelsurgeon (www.pixelsurgeon.com/), the latter 
+of which uses a small inline frame to display its news feed. 
+
+In a more general sense, this can be handy for enabling users to update a portion of a 
+site’s design without touching the rest of the design, and without resorting to a costly con¬ 
+tent management system. However, there are superior and more accessible alternatives to 
+this system, as you’ll see later in the chapter. 
+
+An iframe can be placed anywhere within a web page. Its available attributes are outlined 
+in Appendix A (XHTML Reference), but two worth mentioning here are width and height, 
+which define the dimensions of the iframe. Set these with caution, because it’s annoying if 
+an iframe is bigger than the viewable area, or if the content of the iframe is too big for its 
+defined dimensions. Note that these attributes can be omitted from HTML and instead 
+defined in CSS (by way of an iframe tag selector or by applying a class to the iframe). 
+
+Here’s some example code for an iframe: 
+
+ciframe src="internal_news.html" name="news" width="200" height="200" 
+
+^ scrolling="yes" frameborder="0">Your browser doesn't support 
+^ iframes. Please <a href="internal_news.html">click here 
+^ to see the iframe's content</a>.</iframe> 
+
+
+Note the succinct content for the iframe, which enables non-frames-compatible devices to 
+directly access the content of the iframe—compliant devices ignore this. 
+
+
+309 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Scrollable content areas with CSS 
+
+Although iframes can be useful for practical reasons, many designers use them for aes¬ 
+thetic reasons, in order to provide a lot of information on a single page. For example, 
+iframes are popular for lists of news items because they enable many hundreds of lines of 
+text to be contained in a small area. However, if this is your reason for using an iframe, 
+you’re better off replacing it with a div and using CSS to control the overflow. If you use 
+this method, the content will remain part of the web page, which is better for accessibility 
+and site maintenance. 
+
+To do this, create a div with a unique class value: 
+
+<div class="scrollableContent"> 
+
+[content...] 
+
+</div> 
+
+Then style it in CSS—the rule provides the div’s dimensions and determines how the div’s 
+overflow works: 
+
+•scrollableContent { 
+width: 200px; 
+height: 200px; 
+overflow: auto; 
+
+} 
+
+When overflow is set to auto, scroll bars only appear when the content is too large for the 
+set dimensions of the div. Other available values are hidden (display no scroll bars), 
+scroll (permanently display both scroll bars), and visible (render content outside of the 
+defined box area). Adding some padding, especially at the right-hand side of the scrollable 
+content box, helps improve the area aesthetically, ensuring that content doesn’t hug the 
+scroll bar. 
+
+.scrollableContent { 
+width: 200px; 
+height: 200px; 
+overflow: auto; 
+
+padding: 0 lOpx 0 0; 
+
+} 
+
+Note that by also using PHP includes (see PHP Solutions, by David Powers, for more on 
+those), you can even make scrollable content separate from the main web page, thereby 
+emulating another aspect of an iframe, but without resorting to using frames at all. 
+
+<div class="scrollableContent"> 
+
+<?php @include $_SERVER['D0CUMENT_R00T'] . 
+
+^ "/include/document-name.php"; ?> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+310 
+
+
+PAGE LAYOUTS WITH CSS 
+
+
+In this code block, @ suppresses errors, so if it didn’t work, you’d receive no indication— 
+removing @ would show any errors. Also, the document root setting sets the include to 
+take the HTML/document root instead of the server root as the starting point for looking 
+for the included file (when the file path starts with a /), so be aware of that when defining 
+paths. An alternative would be to use a relative path, such as include/document-name, 
+php. This would work without pointing to the server at the document root (so long as the 
+path was correct). 
+
+Another more accessible option than using iframe elements is to use the object element 
+to embed an external HTML document within a region of the page—when combined with 
+the scrolling div method shown in this section, it pretty much provides all the benefits of 
+an iframe with very few of the drawbacks (the content is on the page, unlike with frames 
+and iframes—their content remains external). 
+
+The following code block shows how an object element can be added to the page. Note 
+the alternate content within the object element, displayed if the browser cannot show the 
+object. This can be used to directly link to the file in the data attribute. 
+
+cobject data="a-file.html" type="text/html"> 
+
+<p>[alternate content]</p> 
+
+</object> 
+
+Like other elements, the object element can be styled using CSS, although Internet 
+Explorer adds a border, so you need to overwrite existing border settings using conditional 
+comments (see Chapter 9 for more on those) to prevent a double border. Also, if the con¬ 
+tent is too large for the object dimensions, it will scroll in whatever direction is needed, 
+unless you explicitly set overflow to hidden; however, this setting doesn’t work in Internet 
+Explorer and Opera. 
+
+
+311 
+
+
+8 GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Creating forms and adding fields and controls 
+
+■ Styling forms in CSS 
+
+■ Configuring a mailform CGI script 
+
+■ Sending forms using PHP 
+
+■ Creating a layout for a user feedback page 
+
+■ Creating an online business card using microformats 
+
+
+Introducing user feedback 
+
+One of the main reasons the Web has revolutionized working life and communications is 
+its immediacy. Unlike printed media, websites can be continually updated at relatively min¬ 
+imal cost and also be available worldwide on a 24/7 basis. However, communication isn’t 
+one-way, and the Web makes it very easy to enable site users to offer feedback. 
+
+
+Using mailto: URLs 
+
+One of the most common methods of providing immediate user feedback is by using 
+mailto: URLs within anchor tags. Instead of the anchor tag’s value being a file name or 
+URL, it begins with mailto: and is immediately followed by the recipient e-mail address. 
+
+<a href="mailto:someone@your.domain">Click to email!</a> 
+
+It’s possible to take this technique further. You can define multiple recipients by using a 
+comma-separated list, and by placing a question mark immediately after the final recipient 
+address, you can add further parameters, such as a subject and recipients to carbon copy 
+(cc) and blind carbon copy (bcc). If using more than one parameter, you must separate 
+them with encoded ampersands (Samp;). Note that spaces within the subject should also 
+be encoded (as %20). 
+
+<a href="mailto:someone@your.domain,someoneelse@your.domain?subject= 
+^Contact%20from%20website8iamp;cc=bigboss@your .domain ">Click 
+^ to emaill</a> 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+There should be no spaces in a mailto: value. Therefore, don't place spaces 
+before or after colons, commas, or the ? and = symbols. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Although this may sound great, there are several problems with such a system. First, e-mail 
+addresses online are often harvested by spambots. Second, a mailto: link relies on the 
+user having a preconfigured e-mail client ready to go—something that people working on 
+college and library machines most likely won’t have. Third, not all browsers support the 
+range of options explained earlier. 
+
+
+314 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+A way to combat the spambots is presented in the next section. For the second issue (the 
+mailto: link’s reliance on a preconfigured mail client), I recommend using forms for any 
+complex website feedback, which we will come to later on in this chapter. For the third 
+issue (browser support for the more advanced mailto: options), I recommend just keep¬ 
+ing things simple. Place your e-mail address online as a mailto: and enable the user to fill 
+in any other details, such common as the subject line. 
+
+
+Scrambling addresses 
+
+In my experience, having an e-mail address online for just a few days is enough to start 
+receiving regular spam. A workaround is to encrypt e-mail addresses using a bulletproof 
+concoction of JavaScript. The Enkoder form from Flivelogic is a neat way of going about 
+this, and produces decent results. 
+
+This online form at www.hivelogic.com/enkoder/form enables you to create a mailto: 
+link that’s composed of complex JavaScript. Although in time, spambots will likely break 
+this code, as they have with simpler encoders, it’s the best example I’ve seen, and the 
+results I’ve had with it have been good. Beware, though, that any users with JavaScript dis¬ 
+abled won’t see the address, so ensure that you cater to them by including some other 
+means of contacting the site owner. 
+
+
+Enkoder is also available as a plug-in for Ruby on Rails. 
+
+V_( 
+
+
+
+Working with forms 
+
+In this section, we’ll work through how to create a form and add controls. We’ll also look 
+at how to improve form accessibility by using the tabindex attribute, and the label, 
+fieldset, and legend elements. 
+
+As suggested earlier in the chapter, the best way of getting user feedback is through an 
+online form that the user fills in and submits. Fields are configured by the designer, 
+enabling the site owner to receive specific information. However, don’t go overboard: pro¬ 
+vide users with a massive, sprawling online form and they will most likely not bother filling 
+it in, and will go elsewhere. 
+
+Similarly, although you can use JavaScript to make certain form fields required, I’m not a 
+fan of this technique, because it annoys users. Some sites go overboard on this, “forcing” 
+users to input a whole bunch of details, some of which may simply not be applicable to the 
+user. In such cases, users will likely either go elsewhere or insert fake data, which helps 
+no one. 
+
+
+So, keep things simple and use the fewest fields possible. In the vast majority of cases, you 
+should be able to simply create name, e-mail address, and phone number fields, and 
+include a text area that enables users to input their query. 
+
+
+315 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Creating a form 
+
+Form controls are housed within a form element, whose attributes also determine the 
+location of the script used to parse it (see the “Sending feedback” section later in the 
+chapter). Other attributes define the encoding type used and the method by which the 
+browser sends the form’s data to the server. A typical start tag for a form therefore looks 
+like this: 
+
+<form action="http: //WWW. yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.cgi" 
+
+^ method="post"> 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+The preceding form start tag includes attributes that point at a CGI script, but alterna¬ 
+tive methods of sending forms exist, including PHP, ASP, and ColdFusion. Check with 
+your hosting company about the methods available for sending forms, and use the 
+technology supported by your ISP. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Adding controls 
+
+Some form controls are added using the input element. The type attribute declares what 
+kind of control the element is going to be. The most common values are text, which pro¬ 
+duces a single-line text input field; checkbox and radio, which are used for multiple- 
+choice options; and submit, which is used for the all-important Submit button. 
+
+Other useful elements include select, option, and optgroup, used for creating pop-up 
+lists, and textarea, which provides a means for the user to offer a multiple-line response 
+(this is commonly used in online forms for a question area). The basic HTML for a form 
+may therefore look like the following, producing the page depicted in the following screen 
+grab. 
+
+
+<form action="http: //WWW. yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.cgi" 
+^ method="post"> 
+
+<p><strong>Name</strong><br /> 
+
+<input type="text" name="realname" size="30" /></p> 
+<p><strong>Email addresss/strongxbr /> 
+
+<input type="text" name="email" size="30" /></p> 
+<p><strong>Telephone</strong><br /> 
+
+<input type="text" name="phone" size="30" /></p> 
+<p><strong>Are you a Web designer?</strong><br /> 
+
+<input type="radio" name="designer" value="yes" />Yes | 
+<input type="radio" name="designer" value="no" />No</p> 
+<p>What platform do you favor?<br /> 
+
+<select name="platform"> 
+
+<option selected="selected">Windows</option> 
+<option>Mac</option> 
+
+<option>Linux</options 
+<option>Other</options 
+
+
+316 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+</select></p> 
+
+<p><strong>Message</strong><br /> 
+
+<textarea name="message" rows="5" cols="30"></textarea></p> 
+xpxinput type="submit" name="SUBMIT" value="SUBMIT" /></p> 
+</form> 
+
+
+Name 
+
+
+Email address 
+
+
+Telephone 
+
+
+Are you a Web des^er? 
+<"Yesl <"No 
+
+
+What platform do you favor? 
+|Windov^_j 
+
+
+Windows 
+Mac 
+Linux 
+Other 
+
+
+SUBMIT I 
+
+
+
+The bulk of the HTML is pretty straightforward. In each case, the name attribute value 
+labels the control, meaning that you end up with the likes of Telephone: 555 555 555 in 
+your form results, rather than just a bunch of answers. For multiple-option controls (check 
+boxes and radio buttons), this attribute is identical, and an individual value attribute is set 
+in each start tag. 
+
+By default, controls of this type—along with the select list—are set to off (i.e., no values 
+selected), but you can define a default option. I’ve done this for the select list by setting 
+selected="selected" on the Windows option. You’d do the same on a radio button 
+to select it by default, and with a check box you’d set checked="checked". 
+
+Some of the attributes define the appearance of controls: the input element’s size attrib¬ 
+ute sets a character width for the fields, while the textarea’s rows and cols attributes set 
+the number of rows and columns, again in terms of characters. It’s also worth noting that 
+any content within the textarea element is displayed, so if you want it to start totally 
+blank, you must ensure that there’s nothing —not even whitespace—between the start and 
+end tags. (Some applications that reformat your code, and some website editors, place 
+whitespace here, which some browsers subsequently use as the default value/content of 
+the textarea. This results in the textarea’s content being partially filled with spaces, and 
+anyone trying to use it may then find their cursor’s initial entry point partway down the 
+text area, which can be off-putting.) 
+
+
+317 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Long-time web users may have noticed the omission of a Reset button in this example. 
+This button used to be common online, enabling the user to reset a form to its default 
+state, removing any content they’ve added. However, I’ve never really seen the point in 
+having it there, especially seeing as it’s easy to click by mistake, resulting in the user hav¬ 
+ing to fill in the form again, hence its absence from the examples in this chapter. However, 
+if you want to add such a button, you can do so by using the following code: 
+
+cinput type="reset" name="RESET" value="RESET" /> 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+A full list of controls is available in Appendix A (XHTML Reference). 
+
+k___ J 
+
+
+Improving form accessibility 
+
+Although there’s an onscreen visual relationship between form label text and the controls, 
+they’re not associated in any other way. This sometimes makes forms tricky to use for 
+those people using screen readers and other assistive devices. Also, by default, the Tab key 
+cycles through various web page elements in order, rather than jumping to the first form 
+field (and continuing through the remainder of the form before moving elsewhere). Both 
+of these issues are dealt with in this section. 
+
+The label, fieldset, and legend elements 
+
+The label element enables you to define relationships between the text labeling a form 
+control and the form control itself. In the following example, the Name text is enclosed in a 
+label element with the for attribute value of realname. This corresponds to the name and 
+id values of the form field associated with this text. 
+
+cpxlabel for="realname">Name</label><br /> 
+
+cinput type="text" name="realname" id="realname" size="30" /></p> 
+
+Most browsers don’t amend the content’s visual display when it’s nested within a label 
+element, although you can style the label in CSS. However, most apply an important 
+accessibility benefit: if you click the label, it gives focus to the corresponding form control 
+(in other words, it selects the form control related to the label). Note that the id attrib¬ 
+ute—absent from the form example earlier in the chapter—is required for this. If it’s 
+absent, clicking the text within the label element won’t cause the browser to do anything. 
+
+The fieldset element enables you to group a set of related form controls to which you 
+apply a label via the legend element. 
+
+<fieldset> 
+
+<legend>Personal information</legend> 
+cpxlabel for="realname">Name</labelxbr /> 
+
+<input type="text" id="realname" name="realname" size="30" /x/p> 
+cpxlabel for="email">Email addresss/labelxbr /> 
+
+<input type="text" id="email" name="email" size="30" /x/p> 
+
+<pxlabel for="phone">Telephone</labelxbr /> 
+
+<input type="text" id="phone" name="phone" size="30" /x/p> 
+</fieldset> 
+
+
+318 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+-Personal information 
+Name 
+
+
+Email address 
+
+
+Telephone 
+
+
+As you can see from the previous screenshot, these elements combine to surround the rel¬ 
+evant form fields and labels with a border and provide the group with an explanatory title. 
+
+
+Note that each browser styles forms and controls differently. Therefore, be sure to 
+test your forms in a wide range of browsers and don’t be too concerned with trying to 
+make things look exactly the same in each browser. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Adding tabindex attributes 
+
+The tabindex attribute was first mentioned in Chapter 5 (in the “Using accesskey and 
+tabindex” section). For forms, it's used to define the page's element tab order, and its 
+value can be set as anything from 0 to 32767 . Because the tabindex values needn't be 
+sequential, it's advisable to set them in increments of ten, enabling you to insert others 
+later, without having to rework every value on the page. With that in mind, you could 
+set tabindex=''lo'' on the realname field, tabindex=''20'' on the email field, and 
+tabindex=''30'' on the phone field (these field names are based on their id/name values 
+from the previous example). Assuming no other tabindex attributes with lower values are 
+elsewhere on the page, the realname field becomes the first element highlighted when the 
+Tab key is pressed, and then the cycle continues (in order) with the email and phone fields. 
+
+
+
+The reason for starting with 10 rather than 1 is because if you ignore the last digit, the 
+tabindex values become standard integers, starting with 1. In other words, remove 
+the final digits from 10, 20, and 30, and you end up with 1,2, and 3. This makes it eas¬ 
+ier to keep track of the tabindex order. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Note that whenever using tabindex, you run the risk of hijacking the mouse cursor, mean¬ 
+ing that instead of the Tab key moving the user from the first form field to the second, it 
+might end up highlighting something totally different, elsewhere on the page. What's log¬ 
+ical to some people in terms of tab order may not be to others, so always ensure you test 
+your websites thoroughly, responding to feedback. Generally, it makes sense to use the 
+value only for form fields, and then with plenty of care. 
+
+
+319 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+CSS styling and layout for forms 
+
+Earlier, we covered how to lay out a form using paragraphs and line breaks. In this section, 
+you’ll see how tables and CSS can also be used to produce a more advanced layout. 
+
+
+Adding styles to forms 
+
+Form fields can be styled, enabling you to get away from the rather clunky default look 
+offered by most browsers. Although the default appearance isn’t very attractive, it does 
+make obvious which elements are fields and which are buttons. Therefore, if you choose 
+to style forms in CSS, ensure that the elements are still easy to make out. 
+
+A simple, elegant style to apply to text input fields and text areas is as follows: 
+
+•formField { 
+
+border: Ipx solid #333333; 
+background-color: #dddddd; 
+padding: 2px; 
+
+} 
+
+In HTML, you need to add the usual class attribute to apply this rule to the relevant ele- 
+ment(s): 
+
+<input class="formField" tabindex="ll" type="text" id="realname" 
+
+^ name="realname" size="30" /> 
+
+
+
+This replaces the default 3D border with a solid, dark gray border, and it also sets the 
+background color as a light gray, thereby drawing attention to the form input fields. Note 
+that browsers that support : hover and : focus on more than just anchors can have these 
+states styled with different backgrounds, thereby providing further prompts. For example, 
+upon focusing a form field, you might change its background color, making it more obvi¬ 
+ous that it’s the field in focus. 
+
+Because the border in the previous code is defined using a class, it can be applied to mul¬ 
+tiple elements. The reason we don’t use a tag selector and apply this style to all input fields 
+is that radio buttons and check boxes look terrible with rectangular borders around them. 
+However, applying this style to the select element can work well. 
+
+Note that the background color in this example is designed to contrast slightly with the 
+page’s background color, but still provide plenty of contrast with any text typed into the 
+form fields; as always, pick your colors carefully when working with form styles. 
+
+
+320 
+
+
+The default Submit button style can be amended in a similar fashion, and padding can also 
+be applied to it. This is usually a good idea because it enables the button to stand out and 
+draws attention to the text within. 
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+Message 
+
+
+SUBMIT 
+
+
+Should you desire a more styled Submit button, you can instead use an image: 
+
+<input type ="image" src="submit.gif" height="20" width="100" 
+
+^ alt="Submit form" /> 
+
+Along with the fields and controls, it’s also possible to style the elements added in the pre¬ 
+vious section “The label, fieldset, and legend elements.” The fieldset rule applies a 
+1 -pixel dashed line around the elements grouped by the fieldset element, along with 
+adding some padding and a bottom margin. The legend rule amends the legend element’s 
+font and the padding around it, and sets the text to uppercase; it also adds a background 
+color so that the dotted line of the fieldset won’t be shown behind the legend text in 
+Internet Explorer. Note that not all browsers treat margins on legend elements in the same 
+way, so if you add a margin value, be sure to thoroughly test your page. The screenshot 
+that follows also includes the styles included in the default CSS document from the 
+basic-boilerplates folder. 
+
+fieldset { 
+
+border: Ipx dashed #555555; 
+padding: lOpx; 
+margin-bottom: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+legend { 
+
+padding: 0 lOpx; 
+
+font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: #000000; 
+background: #ffffff; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+321 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+A final style point worth bearing in mind is that you can define styles for the form itself. 
+This can be useful for positioning purposes (e.g., controlling the form’s width and its bot¬ 
+tom margin): the width setting can prove handy, since the fieldset border stretches to 
+the entire window width, which looks very odd if the form labels and controls take up only 
+a small area of the browser window. Reducing the form’s width to specifically defined 
+dimensions enables you to get around this. Alternatively, you can set a fixed width on the 
+fieldset itself (or float it, enabling you to display fieldsets side by side. 
+
+You can also color the form’s (or fieldset’s) background in addition to or instead of the 
+input fields, thereby making the entire form prominent. This is a device I’ve used on vari¬ 
+ous versions of the Snub Communications website’s contacts page, as shown in the fol¬ 
+lowing screenshot. 
+
+
+TELEPHONE 
+-»-44(0) 1252 622 352 
+
+POST 
+
+Snub Communications, c/o Craig Crannell 
+
+29 Darset Avenue, Fleet, Hampshire, GUSl 3QE, United Kingdom 
+
+EMAIL 
+
+All fields are optional. However, please provide some contact 
+details if you would like a reply. 
+
+Name 
+
+
+Email address 
+
+
+Telephofte 
+
+
+Message 
+
+
+SUBMIT 
+
+
+Regardless of the form styles you end up using, be sure to rigorously test across browsers, 
+because the display of form elements is not consistent. Some variations are relatively 
+minor—^you’ll find that defining values for font sizes, padding, and borders for input fields 
+doesn’t always result in fields of the same height, and that text fields and Submit buttons 
+don’t always align. A more dramatic difference is seen in versions of Safari prior to 3.0, 
+which ignore many CSS properties for forms, instead using the Mac OS X “Aqua” look and 
+feel—see the following screenshot for how the Snub Communications form looks in that 
+browser. Form functionality is not affected by this, but layouts can be. 
+
+
+322 
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+
+Advanced form layout with CSS 
+
+A common way of laying out forms is to use a table to line up the labels and form controls, 
+although with the output being non-tabular in nature, this method is not recommended 
+(CSS should be used for presentation, including positioning elements on a web page)—it’s 
+provided here to show a (partial) table layout that can be replicated in CSS. For our first 
+three fields, a table-based form may have something like this: 
+
+
+8 
+
+
+<fieldset> 
+
+<legend>Personal information</legend> 
+
+stable class="formTable" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" 
+^ summary="A contact details form."> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope="row"> 
+
+slabel for="realname">Name</label></th> 
+
+stdxinput class="formField" type="text" id="realname" 
+
+^ name="realname" size="30" /></td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope="row"><label for="email">Email address</label></th> 
+stdxinput class="formField" type="text" id="email" name="email" 
+^ size="30" /x/td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<th scope="row"xlabel for="phone">Telephone</labelx/th> 
+stdxinput class="formField" type="text" id="phone" name="phone" 
+size="30" /x/td> 
+
+</tr> 
+
+</table> 
+
+</fieldset> 
+
+
+323 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Because a class value was added to the 
+table, the contextual selector .formTable 
+th can be used as the selector for styling the 
+form labels, defining the text-align prop¬ 
+erty, along with other CSS properties such as 
+font-weight. Applying a padding-right value to these cells also produces a gap to the 
+right of the label cells. Another contextual selector, .formTable td, can then be used to 
+style the cells—for example, to add padding at the bottom of each cell. The image to the 
+right shows these styles applied to the various elements in the previous code block, along 
+with the styles shown in the “Adding styles to forms” section. 
+
+•formTable td { 
+padding: 0 0 5px 0; 
+
+} 
+
+•formTable th { 
+padding-right: lOpx; 
+text-align: right; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Note that the f ieldset and legend elements must surround the table containing the 
+relevant fields. If using these elements, you may need multiple tables for your form. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Although forms are not tabular in nature, using a table to create a form can result in a 
+pleasing visual appearance, with the labels right-aligned and placed next to their associ¬ 
+ated labels. This kind of layout can be replicated using CSS, via a structure built from divs 
+to replace the table rows. This method retains semantic integrity, via the semantic rela¬ 
+tionship created by the label and associated field’s id. Using CSS for form layout also 
+brings with it the benefit of being able to rapidly restyle and move form components. 
+
+
+This isn’t a complete form — it’s just a guide to using this method. This example lacks, 
+for instance, a Submit button and many of the controls in the example from earlier in 
+the chapter. 
+
+V _ J 
+
+
+<form action="http: //WWW. yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.cgi" 
+
+^ method="post"> 
+
+<fieldset> 
+
+<legend>Personal information</legend> 
+
+<div class="row clearFix"> 
+
+<label for="realname">Name</label> <input class="formField" 
+^ type="text" id="realname" name="realname" size="30" /> 
+</div> 
+
+<div class="row clearFix "> 
+
+
+324 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+<label for="email">Email address</label> <input class="formField" 
+^ type="text" id="email" name="email" size="30" /> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div class="row clearFix "> 
+
+<label for="phone">Telephone</label> <input class="formField" 
+
+^ type="text" id="phone" name="phone" size="30" /> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</-Fieldset> 
+
+</form> 
+
+
+Note the use of the clearing device, the clearFix class value, as outlined in 
+Chapter 7’s “Placing columns within wrappers and clearing floated content” section. 
+
+V__ J 
+
+
+Various styles are then defined in CSS. The form itself has its width restricted, and label 
+elements are floated left, the text within aligned right, and the font-weight property set 
+to bold. The width setting is large enough to contain the largest of the text labels. 
+
+form { 
+
+width: 350px; 
+
+} 
+
+label { 
+float: left; 
+text-align: right; 
+font-weight: bold; 
+width: 95px; 
+
+} 
+
+The form controls—the input elements—are floated right. Because only input elements 
+within the div rows should be floated (rather than all of the input elements on the page), 
+the contextual selector .row input is used. (The containing divs have a class value of 
+row.) The width setting is designed to provide a gap between the labels and input ele¬ 
+ments. 
+
+
+
+.row input{ 
+float: right; 
+width: 220px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Finally, to make a gap between the rows, a .row class 
+is added and given a margin-bottom value. 
+
+.row { 
+
+margin-bottom: 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+325 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The method works fine in all browsers except Internet Explorer, which doesn’t apply 
+margin-bottom correctly. However, the slightly different layout in Internet Explorer can 
+largely be fixed by adding the following in a style sheet attached via an IE-specific condi¬ 
+tional comment: 
+
+.row { 
+
+clear: both; 
+margin-top: 5px; 
+
+} 
+
+Alternatively, add the following: 
+
+•clearFix { 
+
+display: inline-block; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Example forms for the sections in this chapter are available in the 
+chapter 8 folder of the download files. 
+
+'v_ J 
+
+
+Sending feedback 
+
+In this section, you’ll check out how to send form data using a CGI script and PHP. Once 
+users submit information, it needs to go somewhere and have a method of getting there. 
+Several techniques are available for parsing forms, but we’re first going to cover using a 
+server-side CGI script. Essentially, this script collects the information submitted, formats it, 
+and delivers it to the addresses you configure within the script. 
+
+FormMail, available from Matt’s Script Archive (www.scriptarchive.com), is probably the 
+most common, and a number of web hosts preconfigure this script in their web space 
+packages. However, FormMail does have flaws, and it hasn’t kept up with current technol¬ 
+ogy. A better script is nms FormMail (available from http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/ 
+and described next)—it emulates the behavior of FormMail but takes a more modern and 
+bug-free approach. 
+
+
+Configuring nms FormMail 
+
+The thought of editing and configuring scripts gives some designers the willies, but nms 
+FormMail takes only a couple of minutes to get up and running. First, you need to add 
+some more input elements to your web page, after the form start tag: 
+
+cinput type="hidden" name="subject" value="Contact form from 
+^ website" /> 
+
+cinput type="hidden" name="redirect" 
+
+^ value="http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-thanks.html" /> 
+
+
+326 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+Mote, that some browsers display an outline where hidden fields are if input elements 
+are set to display as block. In such cases, you can apply a class value of hidden to 
+the relevant fields, with display set to none. 
+
+V_!_ J 
+
+
+Obviously, the values in the preceding elements need changing for your site. The subject 
+value can be whatever you like—^just make it obvious, so you or your clients can use an 
+e-mail package to filter website form responses efficiently. 
+
+The redirect value isn’t required, but it's good to provide positive feedback to users, not 
+only to confirm that their form has been sent, but also to communicate that their query 
+will be dealt with as soon as possible. Many “thank you” pages online tend to look a little 
+barren, with a single paragraph of text. That’s why I tend to make this page a duplicate of 
+my standard contact page, but with the confirmation paragraph above the form. The script 
+itself needs only minimal editing. Because CGI scripts tend to break with slight errors, I 
+highly recommend editing them in a text editor that doesn’t affect document formatting, 
+such as HTML-Kit for Windows (www.chami.com) or BBEdit for Mac (www.barebones.com). 
+
+The first line of the script defines the location of Perl on your web host’s server. Your host¬ 
+ing company can provide this, so you can amend the path accordingly. 
+
+#1/usr/bin/perl -wT 
+
+Elsewhere, you only need to edit some values in the user configuration section. The 
+$mailprog value defines the location of the sendmail binary on your web host’s server. 
+You can find this out from your web host’s system admin. 
+
+$mailprog = '/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t'; 
+
+The $postmaster value is the address that receives bounced messages if e-mails cannot be 
+delivered. It should be a different address from that of the intended recipient. 
+
+$postmaster = 'someone@your.domain'; 
+
+The @referers value lists IP addresses or domain names that can access this script, thereby 
+stopping just anyone from using your script and your server resources. For instance, the 
+Snub Communications mail form has snubcommunications.com and the site’s IP address 
+for this value (as a space-delimited list). If you use localhost, that enables local testing, if 
+you have the relevant software set up on your PC. 
+
+@referers = qw(dave.org.uk 209.207.222.64 localhost); 
+
+The @allow_mail_to value contains the addresses to which form results can be sent, again 
+as a space-delimited list. If you include just a domain here, then any address on that 
+domain is valid as a recipient. If you’re using only one address, set the $max_recipients 
+value to 1 to increase security. 
+
+@allow_mail_to = qw(you@your.domain some.one.else@your.domain 
+^ localhost); 
+
+
+
+327 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Multiple recipients 
+
+You can also use the script to e-mail multiple recipients. To do so, an additional hidden 
+input element is needed in the HTML: 
+
+cinput type="hidden" name="recipient" value="emailgroup" /> 
+
+And in the script itself, two lines are changed. The @allow_mail_to value is removed, 
+because it’s catered for by the newly amended %recipient_alias. Both are shown here: 
+
+@allow_mail_to = (); 
+
+%recipient_alias = ('emailgroup => 
+
+^ 'your-name@your.domain,your-name@somewhere-else.domain'); 
+
+Should a script be used for multiple groups of recipients, you need a unique value for each 
+in the HTML and to amend the %recipient_alias value accordingly: 
+
+%recipient_alias = ('emailgroupl' => 'your-name@your.domain,your-name@ 
+^somewhere-else.domain', 'emailgroup2' => 'foo@your.domain'); 
+
+Script server permissions 
+
+Upload the script to your site’s cgi-bin. Once there, 
+the script’s permissions must be set. Exactly how this is 
+achieved depends on what FTP client you’re using. 
+
+Some enable you to right-click and “get info,” while 
+others have a permissions or CHMOD command buried 
+among their menus. Consult your documentation and 
+find out which your client has. If you can, use the 
+CHMOD command to set the octal numbers for the 
+script (thereby altering the file permissions) to 755. If 
+you have to manually set permissions, do so as per the 
+screenshot to the right. Check that the script’s file 
+extension matches that in your form element’s action 
+attribute (.pi or .cgi—the latter is usually preferred 
+by servers). Also, you might want to amend your 
+script’s name (and update the form element’s action 
+value accordingly), in an attempt to outfox automated 
+spammers. (This explains the rather odd name of the 
+script in the adjacent screenshot.) 
+
+
+0 O O funkychicken.cgi Info 
+
+
+^ funkychicken. 
+
+
+eg I 
+
+
+T C«neral; 
+
+Kind; Document 
+Size; 75 KB (76,998 bytes) 
+Where; /cgi-bin/funkychicken.cgi 
+Created; n/a 
+
+Modified; Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00;00 
+
+
+^ Owner and Croup; 
+
+
+▼ Permissions; 
+
+User; ^ Read ^ Write 0 Execute 
+
+^ Read Q Write S Execute 
+
+0 Read □ Write S Execute 
+
+
+Croup 
+
+World 
+
+Octal 
+
+
+755 rwxr-xr-x 
+
+
+"^Apply to enclosed items.. ] ^ Apply ^ 
+
+
+C \ 
+
+Not o// hosts require you to place CGI scripts in a cgi-bin directory: some prefer a cgi 
+directory, and some enable you to place such scripts anywhere on the server. If in 
+doubt, talk to your web host’s support people about the specific requirements for 
+your account. Also note that not all hosts enable CGI support, and so if you want to 
+use such a script, check that it’s possible with your host before you spend a load of 
+time trying to set something up that’s not permitted and won’t run anyway. 
+
+\ _^_ J 
+
+
+328 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+Sending form data using PHP 
+
+If your hosting company offers support for PHP, the most widely used server-side technol¬ 
+ogy, there is no need to install a CGI script such as FormMail. Everything can be done with 
+PHP’s built-in mail() function. As a minimum, the function requires the following three 
+pieces of information: 
+
+■ The address(es) the mail is being sent to 
+
+■ The subject line 
+
+■ The message itself 
+
+An optional fourth argument to mail() permits you to send additional information in the 
+e-mail headers, such as from, cc, and bcc addresses, and to specify a particular character 
+encoding (if, for instance, you need to include accented characters or an Asian language 
+in the e-mail). Unfortunately, spammers frequently exploit this ability to add extra e-mail 
+headers, so you need to check the form input for suspicious content and stop the 
+e-mail from being sent if any is found. A script written by my fellow friends of ED author, 
+David Powers, does this for you automatically. Even if you have no experience working 
+with PHP, the following instructions should have you up and running quickly: 
+
+1 . Copy process_mail.inc.php from the download files to the same folder (direc¬ 
+tory) as the page containing the form. This is the PHP script that does all the hard 
+work. You don't need to make any changes to it. 
+
+2 . Save the page containing the form with a PHP extension—for instance, 
+feedback.php. Amend the opening form tag like this: 
+
+<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post"> 
+
+3 . At the top of the page, insert the following PHP code block above the DOCTYPE. 
+Although I’ve warned you elsewhere in the book never to place any content above 
+the DOCTYPE, it’s perfectly safe to do so in this case, because the PHP code doesn't 
+produce any HTML output. 
+
+<?php 
+
+if (array_key_exists('SUBMIT', $_POST)) { 
+
+//mail processing script 
+
+$to = 'me@example.com'; // use your own email address 
+$subject = 'Feedback from website'; 
+
+// list expected fields 
+
+$expected = array('realname'j 'email', 'phone', 'message'); 
+
+// set required fields 
+
+$required = array('realname', 'email', 'message'); 
+
+$headers = 'From: My website<feedback@example.corns'; 
+
+$process = 'process_mail.inc.php'; 
+if (file_exists($process) && is_readable($process)) { 
+include($process); 
+
+} 
+
+else { 
+
+$mailSent = false; 
+
+
+
+329 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+mail($to, 'Server problem'j "$process cannot be read", $headers); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+?> 
+
+4 . This script begins by checking whether the PHP $_P0ST array has been set. This 
+happens only when a user clicks the form’s Submit button, so this entire block of 
+code will be ignored when the page first loads. It sets the address to which the 
+e-mail is to be sent and the subject line. It then checks that all required fields have 
+been filled in, and sends the form input for processing by process_mail.inc.php. 
+If the mail processing file can’t be found, the script e-mails an error message 
+to you. 
+
+To adapt this script to your own form, you need to change some of the values, as 
+explained in upcoming steps. 
+
+
+PHP is case sensitive. Make sure that you use the same combination of uppercase and 
+lowercase in the PHP script as in the name attributes in the form. Also be careful to 
+copy the script exactly. Missing semicolons, commas, or quotes will cause the script to 
+fail, and may result in ugly error messages or a blank screen. 
+
+V_1_ J 
+
+
+5 . Change SUBMIT in the second line of the script to the same value as the name of the 
+form’s Submit button. 
+
+6 . Replace me@example.com with the e-mail address that the feedback is to be sent to. 
+Make sure the address is in quotes, and that the line ends with a semicolon. 
+
+If you want to send the e-mail to multiple addresses, separate them with commas 
+like this: 
+
+$to= 'me@example.com, him@example.com, her@example.com'; 
+
+7 . Replace the content inside the quotes in the following line (Feedback from website) 
+with whatever you want the subject line to say. 
+
+8 . Next, list the name attributes of each form element as a comma-separated list 
+between the parentheses in the following line: 
+
+$expected = array( 'realname', 'email', 'phone', 'message'); 
+
+This tells the script what form input you’re expecting. This is very important, as it 
+prevents malicious users from trying to pass unexpected—and possibly danger¬ 
+ous—data through your form. Any form field not included in this list will be 
+ignored, so make sure you update the list whenever you add a new field to a form. 
+
+Note that the commas go outside the quotes. You can use single or double quotes. 
+It doesn’t matter as long as each set of quotes is a matching pair. 
+
+9 . The next line of code looks very similar: 
+
+$required = arrayCrealname', 'email', 'message'); 
+
+
+330 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+This is used to check whether all required fields have been filled in. You’ll notice 
+that I’ve omitted phone from the list, so the script will treat it as optional. The order 
+of items in the $expected and $required arrays is not important, but it makes 
+maintenance easier if you use the same order as they appear in the form. 
+
+10 . The next line looks like this: 
+
+$headers = 'From: My website<feedback@example.com>'; 
+
+This sets the e-mail’s From: header. Change My website <feedback@example.com> 
+to the name and e-mail address that you want the e-mail to be sent from. 
+
+There are many additional headers you can add to an e-mail, such as Cc, or Bcc. 
+You can also set the encoding to UTF-8 (for messages that require accents or Asian 
+languages). The following example shows how to add a cc address and UTF-8 
+encoding: 
+
+$headers = "From: My website<feedback@example.com>\r\n"; 
+
+$headers .= "Cc: copycat@example.com\r\n"; 
+
+$headers .= "Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8"; 
+
+There are a couple of important points to note about this code. First, the headers 
+are enclosed in double quotes. This is because each header must be on a separate 
+line, and the characters \r\n at the end of the first two lines represent a carriage 
+return and new line when enclosed in double quotes. You need these two charac¬ 
+ters at the end of each header except the last one. Second, there’s a period in front 
+of the equal sign in the second and third lines. This has the effect of stringing all 
+the values together so the script treats the headers as a single block. 
+
+One nice touch with e-mail headers is to put the user’s e-mail address in the 
+Reply-to field of the e-mail, so all the user has to do is click Reply in their e-mail 
+program to send a message back to the right person. Unfortunately, this is fre¬ 
+quently used by spammers to inject malicious code into your script. The code in 
+process_mail.inc.php filters out potential attacks and inserts the sender’s e-mail 
+address only if it’s safe to do so. Consequently, there is no need to add a Reply-to 
+header yourself; it’s done automatically by the script. 
+
+If you want to use a special encoding, such as UTF-8, for your e-mails, make sure 
+the web page containing the form uses the same encoding in its meta tag. 
+
+You don’t need to use all these headers. Just remove the complete line for any you 
+don’t want. 
+
+11 . You don’t need to make any other changes to the code you inserted in step 3. 
+
+12 . The script in process_mail.inc.php processes the form input and sends the e-mail 
+if there are no problems. The final stage is to let the user know what happened. 
+
+Immediately above the form in the main part of your page, insert the following 
+code: 
+
+<?php 
+
+if ($_P0ST && isset($missing) 8i8i lempty($missing)) { 
+
+?> 
+
+<p class="warning">Not all required fields were filled in.</p> 
+
+<?php 
+
+
+
+331 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+} 
+
+elseif ($_P0ST 8181 !$mailSent) { 
+
+?> 
+
+<p class="warning">Sorryj there was a problem sending your message. 
+Please try later.</p> 
+
+<?php 
+
+} 
+
+elseif ($_P0ST 8181 $mailSent) { 
+
+?> 
+
+<p><strong>Your message has been sent. Thank you for your feedback. 
+</strong></p> 
+
+<?php } ?> 
+
+This block of code displays an appropriate message depending on the outcome. 
+Put whatever messages you like in place of the ones shown here, and add the fol¬ 
+lowing rule to your style sheet: 
+
+.warning { 
+font-weight: bold; 
+color: ttffOOOO; 
+
+} 
+
+If you’re using a visual HTML editor like Dreamweaver, all three messages will 
+appear to be displayed at once. However, when you load the page onto your web¬ 
+site, the PHP conditional logic hides all the messages, and only the appropriate one 
+is displayed after the user submits the form. 
+
+13 . Save the page and upload it to your hosting company, together with process_ 
+mail.inc.php. Test it. In a few moments, you should receive the test message in 
+your inbox. That’s all there is to it! 
+
+If you get error messages or a blank screen, it means you have made a mistake in 
+the script. Check the commas, quotes, and semicolons carefully. If you get a mes¬ 
+sage saying that process_mail.inc.php cannot be read, it probably means that 
+you have forgotten to upload it, or that it’s not in the same folder as the form. 
+
+
+Although these instructions should be sufficient to help you get a PHP form working 
+successfully, server-side coding can seem intimidating if you’ve never done it before. If 
+you would like to learn mare about working with PHP and Dreamweaver, see The 
+Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CSS with CSS, Ajax, and PHP, by David Pawers; or you 
+can check out PHP Solutions, also by David Powers, for a very approachable non- 
+Dreamweaver-specific book on PHP. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+332 
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+Using e-mail to send form data 
+
+In rare cases, it may not be possible to set up a form to send form data (although even 
+most free web hosts tend to provide users with some kind of form functionality, even if it’s 
+a shared script that doesn’t allow a great deal of customization). If you find yourself in this 
+sticky situation, it’s possible to use a mailto: URL for the form’s action attribute value. 
+This causes browsers to e-mail the form parameters and values to the specified address. 
+
+<form method="post" action="mailto:anemailaddress@somewhere.com" 
+
+^ enctype="text/plain"> 
+
+This might seem a simpler method than messing around with CGI scripts, but it has major 
+shortfalls: 
+
+■ Some browsers don’t support mailto: as a form action. 
+
+■ The resulting data may arrive in a barely readable (or unreadable) format, and you 
+have no control over this. 
+
+■ This method isn’t secure. 
+
+■ The user won’t be redirected and may therefore not realize data has been sent. 
+
+That last problem can be worked around by adding a JavaScript alert to the form start tag: 
+
+<form method="post" action="mailto:anemailaddress@somewhere.com" 
+
+^ enctype="text/plain" onsubmit="window.alert('This form is being 
+^ sent by email. Thank you for contacting us.')"> 
+
+Of course, this relies on JavaScript being active on the user’s browser—but, then again, this 
+is a last resort. 
+
+
+
+C \ 
+
+Note the enctype attribute in the previous code block. This defines the MIME type 
+used to encode the form’s content before it’s sent to the server, so it doesn’t become 
+scrambled. By default, the attribute’s value is application/x-www-form-urlencoded, 
+which is suitable for most forms; however, multipart/form-data is available for when 
+the user is able to use a form to upload files. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+A layout for contact pages 
+
+Once you’ve completed a form, you need to integrate it into your site in a way that most 
+benefits the site’s visitors. I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s a good idea to offer 
+users multiple methods of contact on the same page. This makes it easy for them to con¬ 
+tact you, as it requires fewer clicks than the fairly common presentation of a form and link 
+to other contact details. 
+
+
+333 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The following images show a couple of example layouts. The first is from the Thalamus 
+Publishing website, which has the contact form on the right (with a minimum of fields); to 
+the left is the other contact information—address, telephone number, fax number, e-mail, 
+and so on, along with other addresses and details relevant to this organization (such as 
+sales representatives). 
+
+
+
+THALAMUS PUBLISHING 
+
+
+HOME ABOUT BOOKS PUBLISHERS CONTACTS 
+
+
+th^amus (thata mas) n. pt. a... 
+
+Mass of grey matter forming the lateral waits of the 
+ctiencephalor' and Involved in the transmission and 
+integration of certain sertsations. 
+
+
+Contact Thalamus Books 
+
+Contact us by submitting the form below or via post and telephone, as per the 'head office* details 
+in the side bar at the left-hand side of this page. 
+
+
+SEARCH THIS SITE 
+
+Enter keywords or ISBN numbers below to search 
+our website for particular titles. 
+
+
+HEAD OPnCE 
+
+Thalamus Publishing, 
+
+an imprint of Interrtational Media SolutioRS Ltd 
+
+4 Attorney's Wale 
+
+Bui Ring 
+
+Ludlow 
+
+Shropshire 
+
+SY81AA 
+
+United Kingdom 
+
+Tel; ♦44(0)1584 874977 
+Fax: ♦44(0)1584 872125 
+Publishir>g Director: Olver Frey 
+Emal: sales flithalamus-books.com 
+Website: www.thalamus-books.com 
+EUROPEAN SALES 
+
+E-P-R European Publishers Representation 
+Att Joe Ported 
+Via Luigi Salma. 7 
+20094 Corsico (Ml), Italy 
+
+Teh ♦39 02 04510 3601 
+Fax: ♦39 02 04510 6426 
+Emal: E-P-Rafeero.lt 
+UK SALES 
+
+
+Name 
+
+I 
+
+Email address 
+
+I 
+
+Talaphone number 
+
+I 
+
+Booktitle/ISBN 
+
+I 
+
+Reason for cpntadting us _ 
+
+I publisher co-edition request ^ 
+
+Com merits/message 
+
+
+I Submit~| 
+
+
+Please note that any personal details collected via this site, including email addresses and 
+telephone numbers, will only be used for the purpose of getting in touch with you as 
+appropriate. 
+
+Under no circumstances will any such details be passed on to third-party organisations. 
+
+
+With this company having plenty of contact information, this two-column approach makes 
+a lot of sense, and the prominence of the form is handy, because many queries can be 
+dealt with more efficiently via e-mail. 
+
+For Snub Communications, my own site, things are simpler—I don’t have a preference as 
+to how people contact me, so all possibilities have pretty much the same prominence. The 
+form area is made to stand out slightly more (thereby giving all contact details relatively 
+equal prominence) by way of its background color. 
+
+
+334 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+
+CONTACTS 
+
+
+Email address 
+
+
+snub communications 
+
+
+HOME ABOUT DESIGN WRITING EXTERNALS CONTACTS 
+
+2000 AO Book* Abaddon Book* 0*i*y Inlarlor* Digit 
+PilaMakar Oithaad Imagaa from lealand PC Adviaor ProVan VCTa 
+Thalamua Publiahing Wab Ooaignar'a Rafaranea 
+
+
+Our office hours are from 10 a.m.to 6 p.m. UK time Monday to 
+Thursday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays. Contact us via any of 
+the means below. 
+
+
+^ TELEPHONE 
+(k -kAACO) 12S2 622 352 
+
+
+Snub Communications, c /0 Craig Crannell 
+
+29 Darset Avenue, Fleet, Hampshire,GUSl 3QE. United Kingdom 
+
+
+All fields are optional. However, please provide some contact 
+details if you would like a reply. 
+
+
+Privacy peliey; Ml poraonal detala oolected via the aka. including emal 
+eddraaaa* and talapbona nuflk>ei*. wl only be uaed for the puipoee of 
+getting ii touch with you as appn>p<iata. Undar no cacunatanoaa wkl any 
+audi detaia be paaaed on to thid-pe/ty otganiaation*. 
+
+
+
+Again, everything is in one place, rather than spread out over several pages, which makes 
+sending feedback to and/or getting in contact with the organization convenient for the 
+end user. The Snub Communications site doesn’t require a map, but if it did, a link to it 
+would appear on this page, too. The map page itself would likely resemble this one to 
+some extent, but with the map in place of the form and image—in other words, the page 
+would still include a telephone number and other contact details; after all, it’s frustrating 
+to have a map to an organization’s location, get lost, and then discover you don’t have the 
+organization’s detailsl 
+
+We’re not going to dwell on exactly how to create these layouts, because we’ve already 
+covered the techniques in the previous chapter—it’s just a question of creating a two- 
+column layout and cutting in the form (and other details) as appropriate. 
+
+
+335 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Using microformats to enhance contact 
+information 
+
+As shown in the previous section, user feedback may come in the form of a telephone call 
+or letter, rather than an e-mail, and therefore you should always add other forms of con¬ 
+tact details to a website—even if the site is an online store, customers will need other ways 
+to get in touch (faceless multinational organizations, take note). In the most basic sense, 
+these can be marked up by using some headings and paragraphs, as follows: 
+
+<hl>Contact details</hl> 
+
+<h2>Mail</h2> 
+
+<p><strong>Company namec/strongxbr /> 
+
+00 , Street Namesbr /> 
+
+Town or Citysbr /> 
+
+County or Regionsbr /> 
+
+Postal/ZIP codesbr /> 
+
+Country name</p> 
+
+<h2>Telephone/fax</h2> 
+
+Tel: +1 (0)0000 555555<br /> 
+
+Fax: +1 (0)0000 555556<br /> 
+
+Mobile/cell: +1 (0)7000 555555</p> 
+
+Now, there’s nothing at all wrong with the previous block of code: it’s valid, it does the job 
+perfectly well, and it’s semantically sound, which also means it’s easy enough to style using 
+CSS. However, by utilizing microformats, the page’s functionality can be enhanced without 
+compromising the markup. 
+
+More about microformats can be found at the microformats website at www. 
+microformats. org, and in the book Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0, 
+by John Allsopp, so I won’t dwell on them too much. In short, though, microformats pro¬ 
+vide a way of adding commonly used semantics to web pages, working with common tech¬ 
+nologies, such as XHTML. For the example, you’re going to see how to take a basic set of 
+contact details and then use microformats to provide users with a means of efficiently 
+downloading and storing the information as a vCard—the vCard format being that 
+commonly used by address books). The semantic information is also of use to any other 
+application that is microformat-aware—for example, some Firefox plug-ins are able to 
+auto-detect microformat information on any web page and enable a user to browse and 
+manipulate it. 
+
+
+336 
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+Using microformats to enhance contact details 
+
+
+Required files 
+
+The files from using-microformats-starting-point in the 
+chapter 8 folder. 
+
+What you’ll learn 
+
+How to use microformats to enhance a set of contact details. 
+
+Completed files 
+
+using-microformats-completed in the chapter 8 folder. 
+
+
+1 . Add a surrounding div. Open using-microformats, 
+html, and place a div with a class value of vcard 
+around the contact details content, as shown (trun¬ 
+cated) following: 
+
+<hl>Contact details</hl> 
+
+<div class="vcard"> 
+
+<h2>Mail</h2> 
+
+[...] 
+
+Mobile/cell: +1 (0)7000 555555</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+2 . Structure the address. Marking up the address is fairly 
+simple, and few changes are required to the general 
+structure of the code. However, because each individual set of information requires 
+its own container, and the best way of creating a container for the address is to 
+place it within a block element of its own, the company name and the address each 
+need their own paragraphs, rather than a line break separating the two. The orga¬ 
+nization’s paragraph is then given a class value of fn org. Here, fn stands for “full 
+name” and org defines that the name belongs to an organization, rather than a 
+person. 
+
+The address paragraph’s class value is adr, and each line of the address is placed 
+within a span element. The various class values assigned to the spans denote 
+which element of the address the content refers to, and those are all straightfor¬ 
+ward to understand. However, address books—and therefore microformats— 
+enable you to distinguish between different types of data. For example, you can 
+have a work address or a home address. This can be defined by adding the relevant 
+word (e.g., work) and wrapping it in a span with a class value of type, thereby 
+defining the type for the parent property. In this case, the address is being defined 
+as a work address. 
+
+For cases when you don’t want this information shown on the web page (which will 
+likely be most of the time—after all, adding a lowercase “work” in front of the 
+street name hardly looks great), add a second class value, hidden. Later, CSS will 
+be used to make content with a hidden value invisible. 
+
+<h2>Mail</h2> 
+
+<p class="fn org">Company name</p> 
+
+<p class="adr"> 
+
+<span class="type hidden">work</span> 
+
+<span class="street-address">00. Street Namec/spanxbr /> 
+
+
+Contact details 
+
+Mail 
+
+Company name 
+00, Street Name 
+Town or City 
+County or Region 
+Postal/ZlP code 
+Country name 
+
+Telephone/fax 
+
+Tel: +1 (0)0000 555555 
+Fax: +1 (0)0000 555556 
+Mobile/celi: +1 (0)7000 555555 
+
+
+
+337 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<span class="locality">Town or City</span><br /> 
+
+<span class="region">County or Region</span><br /> 
+
+<span class="postal-code">Postal/ZIP code</span> 
+
+<span class="country-name">Country name</span> 
+
+</p> 
+
+3 . Structure the telephone/fax details. Each definition for a telephone number 
+requires its own container, and so the single paragraph must be split into three, as 
+shown in the following code block. Each paragraph’s class value should be tel. As 
+with the address, a span with a class value of type hidden is used to define the 
+type for each parent property. For tel, there are various options available, includ¬ 
+ing work, home, fax, cell, pager, and video. Should duplicate types be required 
+(such as for a work fax), two type spans are added. As for the contact number 
+itself, that’s placed in a span element with a class value of value. 
+
+<h2>Telephone/fax</h2> 
+
+<p class="tel"> 
+
+Tel: <span class="type hidden">work</span> 
+
+<span class="value">+l (O)OOOO 555555</span></p> 
+
+<p class="tel"> 
+
+Fax: <span class="type hidden">fax</span> 
+
+<span class="type hidden">work</span> 
+
+<span class="value">+l (O)OOOO 555556</span></p> 
+
+<p class="tel"> 
+
+Mobile/cell: <span class="type hidden">cell</span> 
+
+<span class="value">+l (0)7000 555555</span></p> 
+
+
+A/ote that with some address books, only a limited amount of data seems to get 
+exported—specifics about work and home phone numbers may not. As always, test 
+your work on a range of platforms and applications. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+4 . Style headings and paragraphs. The style sheet, 
+using-microformats, css, already has some 
+defined styles, which do the usual removal of 
+margins and padding and setting of the default 
+font size. The body rule also adds some padding 
+to the page content so that it doesn’t hug the 
+browser window edges. To this, add the following 
+three rules, which style the headings and para¬ 
+graphs. Both headings are rendered in uppercase 
+Arial, helping them to stand out, aiding visual 
+navigation of the contact details. 
+
+hi { 
+
+font: bold 1.5em/1.2em Arialj Helvetica 
+sans-serif; 
+margin-bottom: 1.2em; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+
+CONTACT DETAILS 
+MAIL 
+
+Company name 
+
+work 00, Street Name 
+Town or City 
+County or Region 
+Postal/ZIP code 
+Country name 
+
+TELEPHONE/FAX 
+
+Tel: work+1 (0)0000 555555 
+
+Fax: faxwork+1 (0)0000 555556 
+
+Mobile/cell: cell+1 (0)7000 555555 
+
+
+338 
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+h2 { 
+
+font: bold 1.25em/1.44em Arial, Helvetica sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+P { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+line-height: l.5em; 
+margin-bottom: 1.5em; 
+
+} 
+
+5 . Hide hidden elements. As noted in steps 2 and 3, some information requires a type 
+to be defined for it, but as you can see in the previous image, this is displayed 
+onscreen like any other content. This is why the hidden value was also applied to 
+the relevant span elements. By adding the following rule, these spans are made 
+invisible. 
+
+•hidden { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+6 . Deal with margin issues. Because the telephone 
+details are each in an individual paragraph, they 
+each have a bottom margin, and this makes the lay¬ 
+out look awful. The same problem also affects the 
+company name paragraph. However, because each 
+paragraph has its own class attribute value, it’s 
+easy to remove the bottom margins from the rele¬ 
+vant paragraphs using the following rule: 
+
+•tel, .fn { 
+margin-bottom: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+7 . Embolden the company name. Balance-wise, the 
+company name could do with standing out more. This is within a paragraph that 
+has a class value of org, so making the contents bold is child’s play—^just add the 
+following rule. 
+
+•org { 
+
+font-weight: bold; 
+
+} 
+
+8 . Finally, style the vcard div via the following rule. This sets a background color, 
+width, border, and padding, but perhaps the most important property here is 
+margin-bottom. This is required because the margins from paragraphs with a tel 
+class were removed in step 6. When you add a bottom margin to the vcard div, the 
+typical spacing you’d expect after a paragraphs returns. 
+
+.vcard { 
+width: 200px; 
+background: tteeeeee; 
+border: Ipx solid #cccccc; 
+
+
+CONTACT DETAILS 
+MAIL 
+
+Company name 
+00, Street Name 
+Town or City 
+County or Region 
+Postal/ZIP code 
+Country name 
+
+TELEPHONE/FAX 
+Tel: +1 (0)0000 555555 
+Fax: +1 (0)0000 555556 
+Mobile/cell: +1 (0)7000 555555 
+
+
+
+339 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+padding: 8px; 
+margin-bottom: l.Sem; 
+
+} 
+
+
+CONTACT DETAILS 
+
+MAIL 
+
+Company name 
+
+00, Street Name 
+Town or Qty 
+County or Region 
+Postal/ZIP code 
+Country name 
+
+TELEPHONE/FAX 
+Tel: +1 (0)0000 555555 
+Fax: +1 (0)0000 555556 
+Mobile/cell: +1 (0)7000 555555 
+
+
+Note that further simplification of some elements of the code shown in the exercise is 
+possible. For example, where you have the Fax line, the type span could be directly 
+wrapped around the relevant label, and the hidden class removed. 
+
+Where before you had the following: 
+
+<p class="tel"> 
+
+Fax: <span class="type hidden">fax</span> 
+
+<span class="type hidden">worl«/span> 
+
+<span class="value">+l (O)OOOO 555556</span></p> 
+
+you’ll now have this: 
+
+<p class="tel"> 
+
+<span class="type">Fax</span>: 
+
+<span class="type hidden">work</span> 
+
+<span class="value">+l (O)OOOO 555556</span></p> 
+
+The same is also true for the Mobile/cell line. 
+
+Note also that this is a relatively new technology, so it’s not without its drawbacks. As men¬ 
+tioned earlier, some details are not carried through to some address books. Also, the need 
+to hide extra data is problematic, since under some circumstances (such as in text read¬ 
+ers), it will be displayed, which could lead to confusion. However, with the popularity of 
+microformats increasing all the time, they're still worthy of investigation, hence my includ¬ 
+ing this example in this book. 
+
+
+340 
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+Online microformat contacts resources 
+
+If you decide to use microformats to enhance your site’s contact details, there are two 
+websites you need to bookmark. The first is Technorati’s Contacts Feed Service, at 
+www.technorati.com/contacts. This enables you to input the URL of a page with hCard 
+information (i.e., the sort of page created in the previous exercise) and get a vCard out of 
+it, which can be added to your address book. 
+
+
+Add hCard contacts to your address book tsa 
+
+Enter the URL of a page with hCard contact inforniatlon {What Is hCard?) to autonnatically add the contact 
+Infornrtatlon on that page Into your address book application. 
+
+URL: |http://lechnorati.com/aboiJt/contact.html Get hCard Contacts] 
+
+Get hCards favelet 
+
+Favelets let you take the power of the Technorati Contacts Feed Service with you wherever you go. Drag the following 
+Get hCard Contacts link into your bookmarks / favorites bar, and use it when viewing a page with hCards to add them 
+to your address book automatically. 
+
+> Get hCard Contacts - Add hCard contacts from the page you're on to your address book. 
+
+For more information on the hCard microformat, see the hCard speclflcatton. 
+
+The Technorati Contacts Feed Service is currently beta. 
+
+« Technorati Home 
+
+
+
+Usefully, the site’s system enables you to automate the system via the kind of web page 
+created earlier. If you upload a page like the one created in the previous exercise, and then 
+add the following code (amending the URL after contacts/), you’ll have a link on the 
+contacts page that uses the microformat information to create a vCard that users can 
+download. 
+
+<p><a href="http://technorati.com/contacts/http://yourdomain.com/ 
+^yourcontactpageurl.html">Download vCard</a>. (<em>This process 
+»» may take a few seconds.</em>)</p> 
+
+A second handy resource is Tantek Gelik’s hCard creator (amusingly titled the hCard-o- 
+matic), at www.microformats.org/code/hcard/creator. This enables you to automate 
+much of the process from the previous exercise—^you put your values into the field on the 
+left, and the code is built live in the field at the right of the page. 
+
+
+341 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+hCard Creator 
+
+
+
+code 
+
+<dlv Ids** d aw-' VcafdS 
+
+<span class=‘fn'^x^ar» 
+
+^ 8tyles*tont-8izesmallerr>'n)ls <a hrefs‘htlpy/micrototTnat8.orgMlkl/hcard‘>hCard</a> 
+created with the <a hrefs'httpy/mlcroformats.orgA»de^card/a'eaior*>hCard creator</a>.<^> 
+
+
+preview 
+
+
+Tbis hCard creatal with te hCml cteaiof . 
+
+
+Contact details structure redux 
+
+In this chapter, and in the microformats exercise, the address and other contact details 
+were styled using paragraphs and line breaks. An alternative structure, which perhaps has 
+greater integrity from a semantic standpoint, is to use a definition list, with further nested 
+definition lists within. At the top level, the term is Contact details and the definition is 
+the actual contact details. At the next level, there are two terms. Mail and Telephone/fax, 
+each with respective definitions. For the latter, the definition has a third definition within, 
+providing term/definition pairs for the different types of telephone and fax numbers. 
+
+<dl> 
+
+<dt>Contact details</dt> 
+
+<dd> 
+
+<dl class="vcard"> 
+
+<dt>Mail</dt> 
+
+<dd> 
+
+<address> 
+
+<strong>Company namec/strongxbr /> 
+
+OOj Street Namecbr /> 
+
+Town or Citycbr /> 
+
+County or Regioncbr /> 
+
+Postal/ZIP codecbr /> 
+
+Country name 
+</address> 
+
+</dd> 
+
+<dt>Telephone/fax</dt> 
+
+<dd> 
+
+<dl> 
+
+
+342 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GETTING USER FEEDBACK 
+
+
+<dt>Tel:</dt> 
+
+<dd>+l (0)0000 555555</dd> 
+
+<dt>Fax:</dt> 
+
+<dd>+l (0)0000 555556</dd> 
+
+<dt>Mobile/cell:</dt> 
+
+<dd>+l (0)7000 555555</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+For the CSS, use the existing rules from using-microformats.css in the using- 
+microformats-starting-point folder, and the .vcard rule from the previous exercise. 
+The following rules can then be used to style the definition list and its contents. 
+
+First, the dt rule is used to style the Contact details text (as per the hi element in the 
+previous exercise), with the dd dt rule providing override styles for dt elements within a 
+dd element. This rule is aimed to style the equivalent of the h2 elements from the previous 
+exercise: the Mail and Telephone/fax text. The dd dd dt rule provides a third level of 
+override, styling the dt elements within the telephone/fax definition list. Also, because the 
+dt/dd pairs are displayed in a linear fashion by default, the dd dd dt rule floats the 
+telephone/fax list dt elements to the left, enabling the dd elements to stack to the right in 
+each case. 
+
+
+8 
+
+
+font: bold 1.5em/1.2em Arialj Helvetica sans-serif; 
+margin-bottom: 1.2em; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+dd dt { 
+
+font: bold 1.2em/1.5em Arialj Helvetica sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+margin-bottom: 0; 
+
+} 
+
+dd dd dt { 
+float: left; 
+padding-right: 5px; 
+display: block; 
+text-transform: none; 
+
+} 
+
+The next two rules deal with formatting and fine-tuning of the text. The address rule adds 
+the gap between the bottom of the address and the telephone/fax heading, along with 
+reverting the address element content to normal text (it’s italic by default). The second 
+rule in the following code block defines a font for the address element content and the 
+content of the telephone/fax definition list’s term and definition. 
+
+
+343 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+address { 
+
+padding-bottom: l.Sem; 
+font-style: normal; 
+
+} 
+
+address, dd dd dt, dd dd dd { 
+font: 1.2em/1.5em Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+With these styles added, the contact details look virtually identical to those in the exercise. 
+At this point, you can add hooks for the vCard as per steps 2 and 3 of the “Using micro¬ 
+formats to enhance contact details” exercise. See contact-details-structure-redux.css 
+and contact-details-structure-redux.html in the chapter 8 folder for the completed 
+files. 
+
+We’ve covered plenty of ground here, so now it’s time to leave the subject of collecting 
+user feedback and progress to the next chapter, which explores how to test your websites 
+and deal with common browser bugs. 
+
+
+344 
+
+
+
+9 DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Weeding out common web page errors 
+
+■ Creating a browser test suite 
+
+■ Installing multiple versions of Internet Explorer 
+
+■ Catering for unruly web browsers 
+
+■ Common fixes for Internet Explorer bugs 
+
+■ Targeting other browsers with JavaScript 
+
+
+The final test 
+
+One time web designers envy designers in other fields is when it comes to testing websites. 
+Although we’re a long way from the “design a site for each browser” mentality that 
+afflicted the medium in the late 1990s, we’ve still not reached the holy grail of “author 
+once, display anywhere.” 
+
+The methods outlined in this book take you most of the way there, providing a solid foun¬ 
+dation for websites that should need little tweaking to get them working across all web 
+browsers. However, to say such sites will never need any amendments is naive in the 
+extreme. Therefore, unless authoring for an internal corporate environment where every¬ 
+one uses exactly the same browser, designers must always ensure they thoroughly test 
+sites in a range of browsers. 
+
+
+Weeding out common errors 
+
+Testing in browsers isn’t everything; in fact, you may find that your site fails to work for no 
+reason whatsoever, tear your hair out, and then find the problem lurking in your code 
+somewhere. With that in mind, you should either work with software that has built-in and 
+current validation tools (many have outdated tools, based on old versions of online equiv¬ 
+alents), or bookmark and regularly use the W3C’s suite of online tools: the Markup 
+Validation Service (http://validat0r.w3.org/), CSS Validation Service (http://jigsaw. 
+w3.org/css-validat0r/). Feed Validation Service (http://validat0r.w3.org/feed/). 
+Link Checker (http://validat0r.w3.org/checklink), and others (www.w3.org/QA/T00ls/) 
+as relevant. 
+
+
+348 
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+m: 
+
+
+Markup Validation Service 
+
+Check the markup (HTML, XHTML) of Web documents 
+
+
+Validate by URI Validate by File Upload Validate by Direct Input 
+
+Validate by URI 
+Validate a document online: 
+
+
+Address: 
+
+More Options 
+
+
+Character Encoding 
+
+1 (detect automatically) 
+
+d 
+
+P Only if missing 
+
+Document Type 
+
+I (detect automatically) 
+
+d 
+
+r Only if missing 
+
+^ List Messages Sequentially Group Error Messages by type 
+
+
+
+V Show Source 
+
+r Clean up Markup with HTML Tidy 
+
+
+
+l~ Show Outline 
+
+f Validate error pages 
+
+
+r Verbose Output 
+
+
+c 
+
+
+Check 
+
+
+
+
+other useful online services include WDG Link Valet (www.htmlhelp.com/tools/valet/), 
+WDG HTML Validator (www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/), and Total Validator (www. 
+totalvalidator.com/). Accessibility-oriented services include HP’s Color Contrast Verification 
+Tool(www.hp.com/hpinto/abouthp/accessibility/webaccessibility/color_tool.html); 
+Etre’s Colour Blindness Simulator (www.etre.com/tools/colourblindsimulator/); and 
+the Cynthia Says Portal Tester (www.cynthiasays.com/fulloptions.asp), which can 
+aid you in Section 508 and WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative—see www.w3.org/WAI/) 
+compliance. 
+
+Here are some of the more common errors you might make that are often overlooked: 
+
+■ Spelling errors: Spell a start tag wrong and an element likely won’t appear; spell an 
+end tag wrong and it may not be closed properly, wrecking the remaining layout. In 
+CSS, misspelled property or value names can cause rules—and therefore entire lay¬ 
+outs—to fail entirely. British English users should also remember to check for and 
+weed out British spellings—setting colour won’t work in CSS, and yet we see that 
+extra u in plenty of web pages (which presumably have their authors scratching 
+their heads, wondering why the colors aren’t being applied properly). 
+
+■ Incorrect use of symbols in CSS: If a CSS rule isn’t working as expected, ensure 
+you’ve not erred when it comes to the symbols used in the CSS selector. It’s a 
+simple enough mistake to use # when you really mean . and vice versa. 
+
+
+
+349 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+■ Lack of consistency: When working in XHTML, all elements and attributes must be 
+lowercase. In CSS, tag selectors should also be lowercase. However, user-defined id 
+and class values can be in whatever case the author chooses. Ultimately, decide 
+on a convention and stick to it—always. If you set a class value to myvalue in CSS 
+and myValue in HTML, chances are things won’t work. For the record, I prefer 
+lowerCamelCase, but there’s no reason for choosing a particular case. 
+
+■ Not closing elements, attributes, and rules: An unclosed element in HTML may 
+cause the remainder of the web page (or part of it) to not display correctly. 
+Similarly, not closing an HTML attribute makes all of the page’s content until the 
+next double quote part of the attribute. Not closing a CSS rule may cause part or 
+all of the style sheet to not work. Note that CSS pairs that aren’t terminated with a 
+semicolon may cause subsequent rules to partially or wholly fail. A good tip to 
+avoid accidentally not closing elements or rules is to add the end tag/closing 
+bracket immediately after adding the start tag/opening bracket. This also helps to 
+avoid incorrect nesting of elements. 
+
+■ Multiple rule sets: In CSS, ensure that if you use a selector more than once, any 
+overrides are intentional. It’s a common error for a designer to duplicate a rule set 
+and have different CSS property values conflicting in different areas of the CSS. 
+
+■ Errors with the head and body elements: As stated earlier in the book, HTML con¬ 
+tent should not appear outside of the html element, and body content should not 
+appear outside of the body element. Common errors with these elements include 
+placing content between the closing head element tag (</head>) and the body start 
+tag (<body>), and including multiple html and body elements. 
+
+■ Inaccessible content: Here, we’re talking in a more general sense, rather than about 
+accessibility for screen reader users. If you create a site with scrollable areas, 
+ensure users can access the content within, even if browser settings aren’t at their 
+defaults. Problems mostly occur when overflow is set to hidden. Similarly, 
+textarea elements that don’t have properly marked-up cols and rows settings 
+will often be tiny when viewed without CSS (these attributes are functional as well 
+as presentational). The same is true for text input fields without a defined size 
+attribute. 
+
+■ Dead links: These can take on many forms, such as a link to another page being 
+dead, an image not showing up, or external documents not being accessible by the 
+web page. If a JavaScript function isn’t working for some reason, try checking to see 
+whether you’ve actually linked it—in some cases, the simpler and most obvious 
+errors are the ones that slip through the net. Also, if things aren’t working on a live 
+site, check the paths—^you may have accidentally created a direct link to a file on 
+your local machine, which obviously won’t be accessible to the entire Internet. 
+Spaces within href values or the original file names can also be accidentally over¬ 
+looked. 
+
+■ Whitespace errors: In CSS, do not place whitespace between class/id indicators and 
+the selector name, or between numerals and units for measurements. However, do 
+not omit whitespace from between contextual selectors, otherwise you’ll “com¬ 
+bine” them into a new, probably unknown, one. 
+
+■ Using multiple units: In CSS, a value can only accept a single unit—the likes of 
+50 %px can cause a rule to partially or wholly fail. 
+
+
+350 
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+A browser test suite 
+
+Appendix E (Browser Guide) details when various browsers were created, their approxi¬ 
+mate share of the market, and the major problems they cause. However, it’s important to 
+note that the market is in continual change—^just a quick look at Netscape’s fortunes 
+should be enough to prove that. Utterly dominant during the period when the Web first 
+started to become mainstream, its share of the market was decimated by the then-upstart 
+Internet Explorer, and it’s now all but vanished. The point, of course, is that you cannot 
+predict how the browser market will change, and although Internet Explorer is sitting 
+proud today, its share of the market has been hit hard in recent years by Firefox, and this 
+downward trend for Microsoft’s browser could continue ... or not. Also, each year sees 
+new releases of web browsers, with new features and updated—but usually incomplete— 
+standards support. 
+
+All of this is a roundabout way of saying that you need to think hard about browsers when 
+you’re creating your work. Don’t only test sites in a single browser, and don’t use the most 
+popular for your starting point if it’s not the most standards-compliant. Instead, use a 
+browser with a good grasp of web standards for your first line of tests, until you’ve got 
+your templates working. I personally use the Gecko engine as a starting point—more 
+specifically, I favor Firefox as an initial choice of browser. Opera is also a decent choice, 
+and Mac users can probably get away with using Safari for initial tests. 
+
+Once the basic structure is up and running, I test in a range of alternate web browsers, typ¬ 
+ically in the following order: 
+
+1. The other compliant browsers: Typically, I use Firefox as a starting point, although 
+sometimes I use Safari. Whichever one you choose to start in, it’s a good idea to 
+test in the other compliant browsers first. Sometimes, one will pick up a coding 
+error the others don’t, and it’s a good sanity check to ensure everything’s working 
+well. If you’re lucky, everything will work fine right away in all of these browsers, on 
+both Mac and Windows. 
+
+2. A browser in text mode: What I mean by this is testing the site without CSS, which 
+is a way of somewhat figuring out if it’s usable on alternate devices. Old hands 
+might use Lynx for this, but I instead use the Accessibility layout option of Opera’s 
+User mode (see the following screenshot). The Firefox Web Developer toolbar 
+(www.chrispederick.com) offers similar options. 
+
+3. Internet Explorer 7 for Windows: Although this release of Internet Explorer is a vast 
+improvement over previous efforts, it’s not as standards-compliant as the other 
+mainstream browsers. Therefore, tests need to be done to ensure everything’s 
+working properly, not least because Internet Explorer 7 is the most popular 
+browser in terms of market share. If things aren’t working right, conditional com¬ 
+ments need to be used (see the “Dealing with Internet Explorer bugs” section later 
+in the chapter). 
+
+
+
+351 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+4. Internet Explorer 6 for Windows: Previously the most popular browser, this release 
+is still in heavy use. Fairly compliant, it nonetheless has a raft of bugs, and complex 
+CSS layouts will almost certainly need a little tweaking to work properly, again via 
+the use of conditional comments. Note that because only Windows XP users can 
+upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to 7 (7 being the native browser for Windows 
+Vista), a fair number of users—those with an earlier version of Windows—will likely 
+use 6 for some time to come. 
+
+5. Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows: How far you go back, in terms of versions of 
+Internet Explorer, depends on your target market, the client’s budget, and general 
+expectations. Typically, I test the most recent three major versions of Microsoft’s 
+browser, due to their heavy usage. Internet Explorer 5.0 can be considered almost 
+extinct, however. Overall, Internet Explorer 5.5 has more problems than Internet 
+Explorer 6, although most of them are easy enough to work around. Generally, I 
+don’t aim to get sites working perfectly in this browser—a few cosmetic oddities 
+are acceptable, in my opinion, because there’s no point in compromising a totally 
+compliant site to make it more compatible for an aging browser whose market 
+share is in rapid decline. Ensuring content is accessible in the browser is essential, 
+however, and the primary concern when dealing with obsolete browsers. 
+
+6. Eveiything—all over again: When any major changes are made, you need to go back 
+through your browsers and make sure the changes haven’t screwed anything up. 
+
+
+352 
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+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+There are other browsers out there, but the preceding list will deal with the vast majority 
+of your users. However, always try to find out the potential audience for a website to 
+ascertain whether you should place more focus on a particular browser. For example, if 
+authoring a site for a mostly Mac-based audience, it might make sense to use Safari as the 
+basis for testing, and perhaps even wheel out the long-canceled Internet Explorer 5 for 
+Mac, just to make sure your site works in it. 
+
+At each stage of testing, I recommend that you save HTML and CSS milestones on a very 
+regular basis. If something fails in a browser, create a copy of your files and work on a fix. 
+Don’t continually overwrite files, because it’s sometimes useful—and, indeed, necessary— 
+to go back to previous versions. 
+
+Whichever browsers you test in, it’s important to not avoid the “other side.” Windows 
+users have long seen the Mac as being inconsequential, but at the time of writing Safari 
+now counts for about 4% of all web users, and the trend for Mac sales (as a percentage of 
+the market) is upward. Usefully, there’s now a version of Safari for Windows, but even the 
+Mac and Windows versions of Firefox show slight differences in the way sites are handled 
+(mostly regarding text). Even worse, many Mac-based designers don’t test on a Windows 
+PC or in Internet Explorer, which has the bulk of the market. If you’re a Windows user, grab 
+a cheap Mac that’s capable of running Mac OS X (such as a second-hand iBook or a Mac 
+mini), and if you’re a Mac user, either grab a cheap Windows PC to test with or run 
+Windows as a virtual machine (via Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion) on an Intel Mac or 
+using Virtual PC if you have a PPC-based machine. (You can also use Boot Camp on an Intel 
+Mac, but that requires booting back and forth between Windows and Mac OS X, so using 
+a virtual environment is more efficient unless you have two computers.) Linux users also 
+have a range of browsers to test on. Firefox is popular on that platform, and Safari is a 
+rough analog for Konqueror. It is worth noting, however, that the default fonts with Linux 
+vary considerably from those that you’d expect on a Mac or Windows PC—so you should 
+always define fallback fonts accordingly, and test in Linux if possible. See Chapter 3 for 
+more on font stacks. 
+
+
+
+Installing multiple versions of browsers 
+
+One of the big problems when it comes to web design testing is that some browser man¬ 
+ufacturers don’t enable you to run multiple versions of their products. The two biggest 
+culprits here are, unsurprisingly, Microsoft and Apple, who presumably argue that as their 
+browsers rely on system-level code, they can’t provide standalone testing environments 
+for older releases. Luckily, enterprising developers have proven this to not be the case. 
+Online, there are now a number of sites that enable you to install standalone versions of 
+previous incarnations of Internet Explorer. By far the best is Tredosoft’s effort, which pack¬ 
+ages everything up into a no-nonsense installer. This enables you to install standalones for 
+Internet Explorer versions from 6 way back to 3 (the following image shows an example of 
+three versions of Internet Explorer running simultaneously). Usefully, conditional com¬ 
+ments work fine, too, which wasn’t the case with earlier standalones. Download the 
+installer from www.tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE. Alternatively, you can manually install the 
+versions you require from Evolt (http://browsers.evolt.org/) and use the information 
+at Position Is Everything (www.positioniseverything.net/articles/multiIE.html) to 
+repair lost functionality. 
+
+
+353 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+Address |n httpi/ywww.snjbcommjntcatlons, 
+
+
+Favorites Tools 
+
+
+, Address [Qhttpi/^iw.snubcommunications.com/ 
+
+
+HOME ABOUT DESIGN WRITING 
+
+
+2000 AO Books 
+
+
+brand and 
+
+
+j^Snub Communicalions web design and copywriting by Craig Grannell Hampshire London Windows Internet Explorer 
+
+
+3 Snub Communications - ¥reb design and copywriting byCraig ... | 
+
+
+*f XJ iGoogle 
+
+
+_I: Fite Edt Favortes Tr,.;.[r. Help 
+
+Communications-[j Q @ ^ 
+
+
+* ^ Qsnub 
+
+
+CL 
+
+
+3 Snub Communications -web design and copywriting byCraigG... 
+
+
+snub communications 
+
+
+snub communications p 
+
+
+• Internet 
+
+
+O Internet 
+
+
+C ^ ^ Snub Communications... f 3 Snub Communications... 3 Snub Commurycallons. 
+
+
+n;4‘» 
+
+
+In a similar vein, Michel Fortin has produced standalone versions of Safari for the Mac, 
+available from www.michelf.com/projects/multi-safari/. However, because of the 
+nature of WebKit (the application framework that’s the basis for Safari), there are limita¬ 
+tions regarding which versions of the browser can be run on which versions of Mac OS X. 
+David Hellsing of David’s Kitchen also notes in his “Browser Suite for Developers” article 
+(www.monc.se/kitchen/91/browser-suite-for-developers) that you can use the WebKit 
+nightly builds instead of the public downloads, in order to test in multiple versions of 
+Safari. Links are available from the article. 
+
+Elsewhere, things are simpler. For Firefox, different versions can happily live on the same 
+machine, although they can’t be run simultaneously, unless you start each version with a 
+different profile—see “Geek to Live: Manage Multiple Firefox Profiles,” by Gina Trapani 
+(www.lifehacker.com/software/firefox/geek-to-live--manage-multiple-firefox-w- 
+profiles- 231646 .php), for how to do this on Windows; and “Running Multiple 
+Firefox Versions Concurrently,” by Jeroen Coumans (www.jeroencoumans.nl/journal/ 
+multiple-firefox-versions), for how to do this on Mac OS X. Opera is even simpler: you 
+can install multiple versions and run them without having to do anything special. 
+
+
+Dealing with Internet Explorer bugs 
+
+As mentioned elsewhere, Microsoft made a huge leap forward with Internet Explorer 7, 
+but it’s still not without its problems. Also, because Microsoft’s browser enjoyed such an 
+immense market share for so long, older versions remain in use for years, sometimes 
+enjoying a share of the market that manages to eclipse every other browser apart from the 
+
+
+354 
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+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+latest release of Internet Explorer. With this in mind, along with the sad fact that 
+Microsoft’s browser has been the least compliant one out there for a long time now, this 
+section is dedicated to exploring how to deal with the most common Internet Explorer 
+bugs. These are all worth committing to memory, because if you’re working on CSS lay¬ 
+outs, these bugs will affect your designs at some point, and yet most of the fixes are 
+extremely simple. 
+
+
+Outdated methods for hacking CSS documents 
+
+Historically, web designers have resorted to exploiting parsing bugs in order to get around 
+Internet Explorer problems. Perhaps the most famous of these is Tantek Gelik’s box model 
+hack, designed to get around Internet Explorer S.x’s inability to correctly deal with the box 
+model: it places padding and borders within the defined content dimensions of a box, 
+rather than on the outside. In other words, a box with a width setting of 300px and 
+padding of 20px should take up a total width of 340 pixels in a compliant browser, but in 
+IE 5.x, it only takes up 300 pixels. Also, only 260 pixels are available for content, due to the 
+40-pixel padding being placed inside the defined width of the box. 
+
+Tantek’s hack works by exploiting a CSS-parsing bug. In the following code block, padding 
+is set in the rule, along with a width for Internet Explorer 5.x, which terminates the rule in 
+the voice-family lines. Compliant browsers continue reading, thereby using the second 
+width value to override the first. The net result is that all browsers show the box at the 
+correct width. 
+
+• box { 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 340pxj 
+voice-family: 
+voice-family: inherit; 
+width: 300px; 
+
+} 
+
+A further rule is added by some designers to cater for Opera’s then-inability to read past 
+the voice-family lines—the “be nice to Opera” hack took advantage of Internet Explorer 
+5.x not understanding child selectors, and therefore used one to set the correct width in 
+that browser: 
+
+htmlsbody .box { 
+width: 300px; 
+
+} 
+
+The box model hack itself was later simplified further, to the simplified box model hack (or 
+SBMH), which involved using a single backslash in the second pair to get Internet Explorer 
+5.x to terminate the rule: 
+
+• box { 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 340px; 
+w\idth: 300px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+355 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In a sense the opposite of the box model hack, the star HTML hack is also often seen, in 
+order to make only Internet Explorer see a rule: 
+
+* html .box { 
+background: #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+There are myriad other CSS hacks out there, but they won’t be explored here. Not only do 
+hacks mess up your otherwise clean and compliant style sheet, but they’re also not future- 
+proof, as evidenced when the star HTML hack stopped working upon the release of 
+Internet Explorer 7. Also, hacks often need overrides, as evidenced by the “be nice to 
+Opera” hack. A far better and more future-proof method is to ditch CSS hacks entirely, 
+instead making a totally clean style sheet for a website, and using conditional comments to 
+fix bugs in Internet Explorer. 
+
+
+Conditional comments 
+
+Conditional comments are proprietary code that’s only understood by Microsoft browsers 
+from version 5 onward, but as they’re wrapped up in standard HTML comments, they 
+don’t affect other browsers, and they are also considered perfectly valid by the W3C’s val¬ 
+idation services. What conditional comments enable you to do is target either a specific 
+release of Internet Explorer or a group of releases by way of expressions. An example of a 
+conditional comment is shown in the following code block: 
+
+<l--[if IE 6]> 
+
+[specific instructions for Internet Explorer 6 go here] 
+
+<1[endif]--> 
+
+Anything placed inside this comment will only be shown in Internet Explorer 6—all other 
+browsers ignore the content. This is most useful for adding IE-specific style sheets to a web 
+page, within which you can place overrides. For example, rather than using the box model 
+hack shown earlier in the chapter, you would have a clean style sheet, and then override 
+specific values in a separate style sheet for Internet Explorer 5.x, attached within a condi¬ 
+tional comment. 
+
+Generally, problems with Internet Explorer fall into the following camps: rare issues with 
+Internet Explorer 7, problems that affect versions 6 and below, and problems that specifi¬ 
+cally affect version 5.x. With that in mind, I mostly add three IE-specific style sheets to my 
+web pages, with the newest release at the top. Conditional comments are generally added 
+after the “default,” or clean, style sheets (which in this case are the main style sheet 
+added using a style element, and a print style sheet added using a link element). 
+
+<style type="text/css" media="screen"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import url(x.css); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+clink rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" href="x-print.css" 
+type="text/css'' media=''print" /> 
+
+
+356 
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+<!--[if IE 7]> 
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie-7-hacks.css" 
+
+** media="screen" /> 
+
+<![endif]--> 
+
+<!--[if Ite IE 6]> 
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie-61te-hacks.css" 
+
+»» media="screen" /> 
+
+<![endif]--> 
+
+<!--[if It IE 6]> 
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie-5-hacks.css" 
+
+** media="screen" /> 
+
+<![endif]--> 
+
+Within the comments, Ite IE 6 means “less than or equal to Internet Explorer 6,” so any¬ 
+thing added to ie-61te-hacks.css affects Internet Explorer 6 and below; It IE 6 means 
+“less than Internet Explorer 6,” so anything added to ie-5-hacks.css affects versions of 
+Internet Explorer below 6. An alternate way of attaching a style sheet for Internet Explorer 
+5 would be to use the syntax if IE 5. Since the cascade still affects the rules within style 
+sheets attached inside conditional comments, it makes sense to fix things for Internet 
+Explorer 6 and below first, and then work backward to Internet Explorer 5.x to fix the few 
+remaining things that need sorting out. 
+
+
+f \ 
+
+See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512.aspx for more on con¬ 
+ditional comments. The hasLayout site —www.haslayout.net— also offers useful 
+information on conditional comments. 
+
+V- J 
+
+
+Note that the preceding code block also includes a link to a print style sheet—print style 
+sheets are covered in Chapter 10. 
+
+
+
+r \ 
+
+The advanced boilerplates from the download files (in the advanced-boilerplates 
+folder) include the preceding code block. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Let’s now examine the example from earlier, which has the following code hack to deal 
+with the box model issues that affect versions of Internet Explorer below 6: 
+
+.box { 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 340px; 
+voice-family: 
+voice-family: inherit; 
+width: 300px; 
+
+} 
+
+When using conditional comments, you’d make the rule in the default style sheet clean, 
+with no hacks: 
+
+
+357 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+• box { 
+
+padding: 20px; 
+width: 300pxj 
+
+} 
+
+You’d then add a rule to your style sheet that only Internet Explorer versions below 6 can 
+see (the one within the conditional comment that references It IE 6 in the large code 
+block shown earlier). 
+
+• box { 
+
+width: 340px; 
+
+} 
+
+Compliant browsers read the rule in the clean style sheet. Internet Explorer versions below 
+6 then override the width value, thereby displaying the box as intended. Unlike when 
+using a CSS hack, however, the CSS hasn’t been compromised in any way. The majority of 
+problems detailed in the “Common fixes for Internet Explorer” sections later in the chap¬ 
+ter are to do with CSS, and therefore require conditional comments when they’re being 
+dealt with. 
+
+
+Dealing with rounding errors 
+
+Problem: In liquid layouts with floated elements, rounding errors sometimes cause the 
+widths of the elements to add up to more than 100%. This causes one of the floated ele¬ 
+ments to wrongly stack under the others. This problem is known to affect all versions of 
+Internet Explorer. For an example, see the following image (from the “Creating flanking 
+sidebars” exercise in Chapter 7), in which the right-hand sidebar is wrongly sitting under¬ 
+neath the left-hand sidebar. 
+
+
+mattis pulvinar diam. Curabitur sed leo. 
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. Maecenas porta 
+accumsan mauris. Etiam enim enim, elementum 
+sed, bibendum quis, rhoncus non, metus. Fusee 
+neque dolor, adipiscing sed, consectetuer et, 
+lacinia sit amet, quam. Suspendisse wisi quam, 
+consectetuer in, blandrt sed, suscipit eu, eros. 
+Etiam ligula enim, temper ut, blandit nec, mollis 
+eu, lectus. Nam cursus. Vivamus iaculis. Aenean 
+risus purus, pharetra in, blandit quis, gravida a, 
+turpis. Donee nisi. Aenean eget mi. Fusee mattis 
+est id diam. Phasellus faucibus interdum sapien. 
+Duis quis nunc. Sed enim. 
+
+
+amet rhoncus omare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet 
+massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. 
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel turpis. 
+Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est quis orci consequat rutrum. Nullam 
+egestas feugiat felis. Integer adipiscing semper ligula. Nunc molestie, nisi sit amet 
+cursus convailis, sapien lectus pretium metus, vitae pretium enim wisi id lectus. 
+Donee vestibulum. Etiam vel nibh. Nulla facilisi. Mauris pharetra. Donee augue. 
+Fusee ultrices, neque id dignissim uKrices, tellus mauris dictum elit, vel lacinia enim 
+metus eu nunc. 
+
+
+RIGHT SIDEBAR 
+
+Nunc auctor bibendum eros. 
+Maecenas porta accumsan 
+mauris. Etiam enim enim, 
+elementum sed, bibendum 
+quis, rhoncus non, metus. 
+Fusee neque dolor, adipiscing 
+sed, consectetuer et, lacinia sit 
+amet, quam. Suspendisse wisi 
+
+
+358 
+
+
+Solution: As explained in the focus point within the “Creating flanking sidebars” exercise, 
+rounding errors can be dealt with by reducing one of the percentage values of a column 
+by as little as 0.0001%, although sometimes this reduction needs to be increased. 
+
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+Alt text overriding title text 
+
+Problem: If you have an image with alt text nested inside a link that has a title element, 
+the title element will be overridden. This is largely due to Internet Explorer wrongly dis¬ 
+playing the content of the alt attribute as a tooltip. 
+
+Solution: The only way around this problem is to duplicate the title attribute and place a 
+copy of it within the img element. This is superfluous markup, but it fixes the issue in 
+Internet Explorer and does not adversely affect other web browsers. 
+
+<a href="sunset.html" title="Click to view a larger image"><img 
+^ title="Sunset in Reykjav&iacutejk" src="sunset.jpg" alt="Sunset in 
+^ Reykjav&iacutejk" width="400" height="300" /></a> 
+
+
+Common fixes for Internet Explorer 5.x 
+
+A few major problems are known to affect Internet Explorer 5.x specifically, and were fixed 
+in versions 6 and above. When using any of the fixes from the following Solution sections, 
+add them to an IE 5-specific style sheet (see the conditional comment earlier that begins 
+<!--[if It IE 6]>). 
+
+Box model fixes (5.x) 
+
+Problem: Internet Explorer 5.x wrongly applies padding and border values within the 
+defined dimensions of a box (which is what the box model specifies). In the following 
+example, the overall width taken up by the box should be the sum of its border, padding, 
+and width values (420px). (Note that when using shorthand, you need to be mindful that 
+the amount of space they take up is double the value. In other words, if you set padding 
+to 50px, 50 pixels of padding is applied to both horizontal edges. Therefore, in the follow¬ 
+ing code block, the sum to find the overall width of the values in the rule is 300 + 50 + 50 
++ 10 + 10.) However, in Internet Explorer 5.x, the box is only 300 pixels wide—the padding 
+and border are placed inside the defined width, leaving only 180 pixels for content. This 
+issue tends to affect most C55-based layouts. 
+
+•boxout { 
+width: 300px; 
+padding: 50px; 
+border: lOpx solid #000000; 
+
+} 
+
+Solution: Override the width setting by setting a new value in the style sheet attached via 
+a conditional comment. The value should take into account the shortcomings listed previ¬ 
+ously and therefore needs to equal the value of the relevant dimension (depending on 
+whether you’re defining a width or a height), along with the relevant padding and border 
+values. 
+
+
+
+•boxout { 
+width: 420px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+359 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Centering layouts 
+
+Problem: The browser doesn’t understand margin: auto, so when, for example, a wrapper 
+is horizontally centered using the following code block, the resulting layout will be incor¬ 
+rectly aligned to the left of the browser window. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+width: 700px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+Solution: A workaround for this problem is to use the text-align property to align every¬ 
+thing within the page body centrally. You then set the alignment back to the default of 
+left in your wrapper (or wrappers, if you’ve used more than one). If you’ve used 
+other/additional layout elements that have been centered (e.g., if you have separate mast¬ 
+head, content, and footer containers, rather than your entire page structure placed within 
+a single wrapper), those elements will also need the text-align: left override. 
+
+body { 
+
+text-align: center; 
+
+} 
+
+#wrapper { 
+text-align: left; 
+
+} 
+
+The text-transform bug 
+
+Problem: The browser ignores a text-transform value if line-height is defined in the 
+same rule. 
+
+hi { 
+
+font: bold 1.2em/1.4em Arialj Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+Solution: Reconfirm the text-transform value in the style sheet linked via a conditional 
+comment. 
+
+hi { 
+
+text-transform: uppercase; 
+
+} 
+
+Font-size inheritance in tables 
+
+Problem: When using relative units, text within table cells may be displayed at the wrong 
+size (too large). 
+
+Solution: Set font-size to 100 % in a table rule in a style sheet linked via a conditional 
+comment. 
+
+
+360 
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+table { 
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Common fixes for Internet Explorer 6 and 5 
+
+Internet Explorer 6 was a step up by Microsoft, away from the disaster (from a standards 
+point of view) that was Internet Explorer 5.x. That said, it still had plenty of shortcomings 
+of its own, the vast majority of which were dealt with when Internet Explorer 7 finally 
+jumped on in. Any fixes from the Solution sections that follow should be added to an IE 
+6-and-below-specific style sheet (see the conditional comment earlier that begins <! --[if 
+Ite IE 6]>). 
+
+Fixing min-width and max-width 
+
+Problem: The browser does not understand min-width and max-width, thereby causing 
+problems with semiliquid layouts that have minimum and maximum widths, rather than 
+set width values. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+min-width: 700px; 
+max-width: llOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+Solution: Use a proprietary IE expression to enable Internet Explorer to emulate the func¬ 
+tionality of min-width and max-width. In the code, the expression essentially states that if 
+the browser window width is less than 702 pixels, set the wrapper width to 700px (these 
+values—702 pixels and 700px—are numerically different to prevent Internet Explorer 6 
+from freezing); if it’s more than 1102 pixels, set the wrapper width to iioopx; and other¬ 
+wise set it to auto. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+width: expression(document.body.clientWidth < 702? "700px" : 
+
+^ document.body.clientWidth > 1102? "llOOpx" : "auto"); 
+
+} 
+
+Double-float margin bug 
+
+Problem: The browser doubles the value of any margin in the same direction as a float. For 
+example, in the following code, the right-floated boxout with a margin-right value of 
+30 pixels would actually be shown in Internet Explorer 6 and below to have a 60-pixel 
+margin-right value. Note that this problem only occurs for the first float in any float row. 
+
+.boxout { 
+width: BOOpx; 
+float: right; 
+margin-right: 30px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+361 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Solution: Override the margin-right value, and halve it. 
+
+•boxout { 
+
+margin-right: 15px; 
+
+} 
+
+Alternatively, if appropriate, display: inline can be defined in the original CSS rule, 
+which results in the IE-specific override becoming unnecessary. 
+
+Expanding boxes 
+
+Problem: An element with a string that’s too wide for it doesn’t break out of its container; 
+instead, the browser stretches the container to contain it. 
+
+Solution: Use the word-wrap property with the break-word value, assigning it to the rele¬ 
+vant container. 
+
+#sidebar { 
+
+word-wrap: break-word; 
+
+} 
+
+Note that this is a CSS 3 property that’s not particularly well supported, and while it fixes 
+the layout, it doesn’t emulate the correct standards-compliant approach of the string 
+breaking out of the box—instead, it breaks the string into a number of separate lines. An 
+alternative is to set overflow on the container to hidden, thereby hiding the overflow and 
+returning the layout to normal, at the expense of not being able to see the long string. 
+Generally, when you come up against this problem, it makes sense to rework your string, 
+because while the layout won’t be affected in standards-compliant browsers, it will still 
+look bad. 
+
+Internet Explorer 5.x sometimes also expands a box when italics are used for some of the 
+text, although the problem is somewhat random. Setting overflow to visible for the con¬ 
+tainer often fixes the problem. Alternatively, setting the value to hidden crops the unruly 
+few extra pixels. 
+
+The 3-pixel text jog 
+
+Problem: Inline content next to a floated ele¬ 
+ment is pushed away by 3 pixels. In the 
+depicted example, the content in the dotted 
+line has a 3-pixel jog in the text that appears 
+under the floated element. 
+
+
+Solution: Apply the “Holly hack,” a 1% height 
+value to the relevant containing element(s). 
+See three-pixel-jog.html in the chapter 9 
+folder of the download files. Try removing 
+height: 1%; from #textWrapper to see how 
+the page looks without the hack. 
+
+
+Float 
+
+
+Lorem ip sum dolor sit amet, 
+consectetuer adipiscing elit. 
+Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magjia 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar 
+odio lorem non turpis. 
+Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae 
+ligula volutpat condimentum. 
+Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed 
+iquis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla 
+jlibero. 
+
+
+362 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+Whitespace bugs in styled lists 
+
+Problem: The browser wrongly interprets whitespace in the code as actual space in styled 
+navigation lists, thereby placing space between lists and list items. This affects lists such as 
+that created in Chapter 5’s “Using HTML lists and CSS to create a button-like vertical navi¬ 
+gation bar” exercise. 
+
+Solution: There are several solutions to this problem, the most 
+
+drastic of which is to remove whitespace from the relevant por- 
+
+tions of code (between the list items). You can also leave a space — a n o a page —| 
+
+between the last character of the link text and the closing </a> tag, a link to a page | 
+
+assuming this doesn’t compromise your layout in any way. 
+
+Otherwise, use one of the following rules: — ajinkto a page —| 
+
+, allnktoapage 
+
+li { 1 
+
+display: inline; 
+
+} allnktoapage | 
+
+^'float: left; I 
+
+width: nnnpx; allnktoapage | 
+
+} I 
+
+g I allnktoapage | 
+
+display: block; 
+
+float: left; allnktoapage ] 
+
+clear: left; 
+
+width: nnnpx; allnktoapage | 
+
+^ allnktoanaoe I 
+
+
+Note that in the preceding code, where nnnpx is shown, nnn should a link to a page | 
+be replaced with a numerical value. - 
+
+Problems with (frames 
+
+Problem: Internet Explorer spawns both horizontal and vertical scroll bars when content is 
+larger than the declared width or height. This means that if your iframe is 200 pixels high, 
+but your content is 400 pixels high, you’ll end up with a vertical scroll bar and a horizontal 
+one, even if your content is narrower than the iframe dimensions. Other browsers don’t 
+make this mistake, displaying only the relevant scroll bar. Also, styling iframes can cause 
+problems. Turning off the default border is a good move, because it looks clunky. Adding 
+a border using CSS should be possible by applying it directly to the iframe (via a class or 
+iframe tag selector): in practice, however, this partially fails in Internet Explorer versions 6 
+and below, creating an ugly gap between your scroll bars and iframe borders (which hap¬ 
+pens to be the same size as the defined border). 
+
+Solution: If you know your iframe content is always going to be too large for the iframe, 
+set scrolling="yes" in the iframe start tag. Alternatively, add a conditional comment in 
+the head of the iframe content document, with the following code, experimenting with 
+the width property until the scroll bar disappears. If you use similar iframes on a number 
+of pages, you should instead assign a class value to the body element of the relevant pages 
+and define the htmlj body rule in an IE 6-and-below-specific style sheet. 
+
+
+SECTION ONE 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+SECTION TWO 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+SECTION THREE 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a page 
+
+
+a link to a 
+
+
+£ 231 . 
+
+
+363 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+<!--[if Ite IE 6]> 
+
+<style type="text/css"> 
+htmlj body {marginrO; width:l80px;} 
+
+</style> 
+
+<![endif]--> 
+
+For border styles, you can work around the problem in one of two ways: you can override 
+the original border value, setting it to 0 for Internet Explorer 6 and below; or you can nest 
+the iframe in a div and provide the div with a border instead. 
+
+Ignoring the abbr element 
+
+Problem: The browser does not recognize the abbr element, completely ignoring it. 
+
+Solution: Use JavaScript to fix the behavior (at least for those users who have JavaScript 
+enabled), as shown in “<ABBR> Support in IE,” by Jason Davis (www.browserland.org/ 
+scripts/abbrhack/). Note that since Internet Explorer 7 does not exhibit this behavior, 
+the script should be targeted at earlier versions of the browser only, by using conditional 
+comments. 
+
+PNG replacement 
+
+Problem; The browser does not display PNG transparency—rather than a background 
+showing through a semitransparent PNG, the transparency is shown as solid white. 
+
+Solution: For backgrounds, use the AlphalmageLoader filter as shown. Here’s the clean CSS: 
+
+.boxout { 
+
+background: url(an-image.png); 
+
+} 
+
+And here’s the override CSS for the IE style sheet: 
+
+.boxout { 
+
+filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphalmageLoader 
+'••(src='an-image.png' ,sizingMethod='scale'); 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+For individual images, either put up with old versions of Internet Explorer not displaying 
+them as intended, or create some additional content for Internet Explorer that can be 
+swapped out for the PNG image. 
+
+Here’s the HTML: 
+
+<img src=''an-image.png'' width=''300'' height=''300'' alt=''An image" 
+
+^ class="pnglmage" /> 
+
+<img src="shim.gif" width="300" height="300" alt="An image" 
+
+^ class="IEImage" /> 
+
+
+364 
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+Here’s the clean CSS: 
+
+•lEImage { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+And here’s the override CSS for the IE style sheet: 
+
+•pnglmage { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+•lEImage { 
+
+filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader 
+^(src='an-image.png' ,sizingMethod='scale'); 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+Note that shim.gif should be a transparent GIF with no content. 
+
+
+Replacing PNG images manually is a tedious task if you’ve got more than a couple on 
+your site, if you regularly work with PNG transparency, it’s worth investigating 
+JavaScript alternatives (such as the one shown ot www.bjorkoy.eom/past/2007/4/8/ 
+the_easiest_way_to_png/l for automating the method shown in this section. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Problems with CSS hover menus (drop-downs) 
+
+Problem: The browser supports : hover only on links, rather than on any element, thereby 
+making drop-downs like that in Chapter 5’s “Creating a drop-down menu” exercise fail. 
+
+Solution: Use some kind of JavaScript fallback system. There are various options for this, 
+but the simplest is the solution offered by Peter Nederlof at www.xs4all.nl/~peterned/ 
+csshover.html. All you need to do is download either csshover.htc or csshover2.htc, 
+place it somewhere within your site’s hierarchy, and then link to it through a rule in a style 
+sheet linked via a conditional comment. 
+
+body { 
+
+behavior: url(csshover2.htc); 
+
+} 
+
+Another solution is to use HTML Dog’s Suckerfish Dropdowns (www.htmldog.com/ 
+articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/), which works nicely all the way back to Internet 
+Explorer 5, and uses perfectly valid CSS. 
+
+
+
+Fixing hasLayout problems (the peekaboo bug) 
+
+
+Problem: Due to the archaic nature of some aspects of the Internet Explorer rendering 
+engine, it sometimes serves up some rather odd bugs, and perhaps the most irritating of 
+these is the so-called peekaboo bug, also known as the disappearing content bug. Fairly 
+
+
+365 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+common (but also fairly random as to whether it occurs), it typically affects layouts that 
+use floats and clearing divs, and it can cause elements to partially disappear below a given 
+point, or for content to flicker on and off as a page is scrolled. 
+
+The problem occurs due to a proprietary Internet Explorer concept called “layout,” which 
+refers to how elements render their content and interact with other elements. Some ele¬ 
+ments have layout by default, others don’t, and some CSS properties (irreversibly) trigger 
+it. Any property that gains layout in some way has Microsoft’s proprietary hasLayout prop¬ 
+erty set to true. If an element doesn’t have layout, the property is set to false. 
+Unfortunately, there’s no way to directly set hasLayout for any element, even in an IE- 
+specific style sheet, and yet hasLayout is the cause of many layout problems in Internet 
+Explorer. 
+
+The hasLayout-trigger.html document within the hasLayout folder from the chapter 9 
+folder of the download files always exhibits the peekaboo bug. The page’s structure is 
+extremely simple: a wrapper has within it three divs; the first is floated right and given a 
+50% width, the second has no style applied, and the third is a clearing div. By default, 
+when the page is loaded, the second div cannot be seen in Internet Explorer 6 or below 
+(see the following left-hand image)—only by scrolling, selecting content, or resizing the 
+window can you make the “missing” content reappear. In a compliant browser, however, 
+this problem doesn’t occur (see the following right-hand image). 
+
+
+3 Z;\Documents\Ctients\Apre5s\Es5ential CSSVch9\d1\hasL(iyD... 
+
+
+Fie Edit View Favorites Tools Help 
+
+Back ^ Search Favorites 
+
+: Address ssential CSS\ch9\di(hasLayout\liasL8yout-trigger,html v Q Go ; Links ” 
+
+
+Proin at eros non eros adipiscing 
+mollis. Donee senqjerturpis sed 
+diam. Sed consequat ligula nec 
+tortor. iiteger eget sem. Ut vitae 
+enim eu est vehicula gravida. Morbi 
+ipsum ^sura, porta nec, temper id. 
+auctor vitae, purus. Pellentesque 
+neque. 
+
+Nulla luctus erat vitae libero. I^pl 
+nec enim. Phasellus aSquam enim et 
+tortor. Quisque aliquet, quam 
+elementum condimentumfeugiat, 
+tellus odio consectetuer wisi, vel 
+nonummy sem neque in elit. 
+
+
+lone ^ Internet 
+
+
+
+Note that hasLayout issues still affect Internet Explorer 7, although they are thankfully 
+rarer than in previous versions of Microsoft’s browser. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Solution: Should you come across this problem when working on your own sites, the solu¬ 
+tion is to give layout to the containing div. The best method for doing this is to set the 
+proprietary zoom property to i in a style sheet linked via a conditional comment. 
+
+
+366 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEALING WITH BROWSER QUIRKS 
+
+
+Try doing this for the ttwrapper rule in the ie6-lte-hacks.css file (see the following code 
+block), and you’ll see that the hasLayout problem no longer affects the page—the content 
+that wasn’t initially visible should now be displayed properly. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+zoom: 1; 
+
+} 
+
+
+It’s probably worth noting that zoom, like some of the other things mentioned in the 
+Internet Explorer fixes, will not validate. However, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no 
+real urgency or reason to make IE-specific style sheets validate. Keep your main style 
+sheet clean and valid, and then add whatever you need to get things working in 
+Internet Explorer—although always use as few additions as possible, even when work¬ 
+ing with conditional comments. In some cases, however, height: 1% should provide 
+the same effect, and this is valid CSS. 
+
+)_ J 
+
+
+Targeting other browsers 
+
+Generally, targeting browsers other than Internet Explorer is unnecessary. All other cur¬ 
+rently shipping browsers are pretty well behaved. However, under extreme circumstances, 
+there are exceptions. For users who still have to deal with Internet Explorer for Mac, you 
+can create overrides by importing a style sheet via a style element, but omitting url and 
+leaving no space between @import and the opening bracket 
+
+cstyle type="text/css" media="screen"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import("ie-mac-hacks.css"); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+This can be placed in the same style element as the import line for the clean style sheet: 
+
+cstyle type="text/css" media="screen"> 
+
+/* <![CDATA[ */ 
+
+@import url(clean.css); 
+
+@import("ie-mac-hacks.css"); 
+
+/* ]]> */ 
+
+</style> 
+
+For any other overrides, you need to resort to JavaScript which isn’t an ideal solution— 
+after all, there are still plenty of people out there who routinely turn off JavaScript—but 
+it’s the best we’ve got. 
+
+
+
+367 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+For targeting a specific platform, you can use a script like this, added to an external 
+JavaScript file: 
+
+if (navigator.platform.indexOf('Mac')l= -l) { 
+var cssNode = document.createElement('link'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('rel', 'stylesheet'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('type', 'text/css'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('href', 'mac-hacks.css'); 
+document.getElementsByTagName('head')[o].appendChild(cssNode); 
+
+} 
+
+In this case, if the user has a Mac, the style sheet mac-hacks.css will be linked to, but if 
+the user has a different operating system, it won’t. (Win and Linux are values for other 
+popular operating systems that you may wish to target.) 
+
+To target specific browsers, use the following code block, replacing BrowserName with 
+Firefox, IE (for Internet Explorer, although conditional comments are a better bet for 
+dealing with IE issues), Mozilla, Netscape, OmniWeb, Opera, or Safari. Obviously, you also 
+need to change the file name of the CSS document in the href line, too, from 
+hacks-file.css to the relevant CSS document for your chosen browser in the first line of 
+the script. 
+
+if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('BrowserName')1= -l) { 
+
+var cssNode = document.createElement('link'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('rel', 'stylesheet'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('type', 'text/css'); 
+cssNode.setAttribute('href', 'hacks-file.css'); 
+document.getElementsByTagName('head')[o].appendChild(cssNode); 
+
+} 
+
+
+368 
+
+
+
+10 PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In this chapter: 
+
+■ Combining methods to create website designs 
+
+■ Creating a blog layout 
+
+■ Creating a storefront layout 
+
+■ Creating a homepage layout 
+
+■ Creating an online gallery 
+
+■ Working with style sheets for print output 
+
+
+Putting the pieces together 
+
+The majority of this book intentionally works in a modular manner. The idea is that you 
+can work on the various components as you wish and then combine them to form all man¬ 
+ner of websites. This chapter shows how this process can work. Three layouts will be 
+explored, and elements from each one will be heavily based on exercises from elsewhere 
+in this book. You’ll see the Photoshop mock-up, a breakdown of its structure, and instruc¬ 
+tions for how the completed files were put together—mostly using techniques you’ve 
+already worked with in this book. In all cases, the completed files are available in the 
+download files (in the chapter 10 folder). Note that these layouts are mock-ups of web¬ 
+sites, with a single page designed, not complete websites. However, there’s enough mate¬ 
+rial here to use as the basis for your own designs, although you shouldn’t use them as 
+is—after all, you’re not the only person with a copy of this book! 
+
+
+Note that in the following sections, there are references to exercises elsewhere in the 
+book, stating that the code was more or less copied and pasted. In all cases, ensure 
+you check the paths to any linked files — mostly, the book has used a totally flat struc¬ 
+ture for files. In this chapter, images are always placed in an assets folder. Therefore, 
+paths to images need updating accordingly when using portions of exercises from 
+elsewhere in the book. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Managing style sheets 
+
+In the download files, there are two sets of boilerplates. The basic-boilerplates folder is 
+the one used for the exercises throughout the book. The XHTML document contains only 
+a single wrapper div, while the CSS document has a handful of rules that are designed to 
+reset margins and padding and define a default font. Projects in this chapter are instead 
+based on the documents from the advanced-boilerplates folder. This contains a more 
+complex web page and a style sheet that uses CSS comments to split the document into 
+sections. The “Creating boilerplates” section in Chapter 2 provided an overview of the rea¬ 
+soning behind this technique, and the “CSS boilerplates and management” section in 
+Appendix D (CSS Reference) does largely the same thing. However, because this section 
+will examine CSS rules within certain sections of each style sheet, a brief overview is 
+required here, too. 
+
+
+372 
+
+
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+Essentially, you can use CSS comments for writing notes within a style sheet—whatever’s 
+between CSS comments (which begin /* and end */) is ignored by browsers. Comments 
+can be multiline or single-line, and you can therefore use comments to create sections in 
+the style sheet for various “groups” of rules. For example, you can use the following to 
+introduce a group of rules on forms: 
+
+/*-forms-*/ 
+
+Taking things further, a multiline comment can be added at the start of the document. This 
+can include a table of contents, and the various section headers within the style sheet can 
+be numbered, thereby making navigation and editing even easier. As also explained else¬ 
+where, I indent both property/value pairs and the closing quote of the declaration, as 
+shown in the following code block (with a tab being represented by four spaces): 
+
+#sidebar { 
+
+float: right; 
+
+} 
+
+This makes it simpler to scan the left-hand side of the document for selectors. Note that 
+although the rules within the remainder of this chapter are not formatted in this manner, 
+the rules within the download file style sheets are. 
+
+
+Creating a portfolio layout 
+
+This section will show how I created a layout for an online portfolio, suitable for a designer 
+or photographer (professional or otherwise) to show off their wares. The Photoshop file 
+for the document is gallery-layout.psd, in the PSD mock-ups folder within the chapter 
+10 folder of the download files. The completed web page (along with associated files) is 
+within the gallery-website folder, within the chapter 10 folder. The following image 
+shows the Photoshop mock-up of the page. 
+
+
+
+
+373 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+About the design and required images 
+
+As you can see from the previous screenshot, this page has a simple structure. The fixed- 
+width layout has a masthead that contains the name of the portfolio and is bordered on 
+the bottom, creating a visual separator between the site’s name and its contents. The main 
+content area is split into two columns. On the right are thumbnail images, and on the left 
+are the main image, a caption, and basic instructions regarding how to use the page. 
+
+From the mock-up, only one image was exported: the site’s heading from the masthead. 
+Although it would be possible to approximate this in HTML text, the size of the heading 
+and the nonstandard font used (Helvetica Neue) means it made more sense to export it as 
+a GIF. Image replacement was used to ensure the heading remains accessible. The other 
+images—the thumbnails and full-size ones—aren’t in the mock-up, but were fine-tuned, 
+optimized, and exported separately and placed in the assets folder, along with the head¬ 
+ing image. Note that I used a convention for file names: thumbnails share the name of 
+their full-size parent, but with -t appended. 
+
+
+Putting the gallery together 
+
+When putting this page together, techniques were used from the following exercises and 
+sections in this book: 
+
+■ Creating a fixed-width wrapper (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Placing columns within a wrapper (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Styling semantic markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and a baseline grid 
+(Chapter 3) 
+
+■ Image-replacement techniques (Chapter 3) 
+
+■ Switching images using JavaScript (Chapter 5) 
+
+■ Adding captions to your image gallery (Chapter 5) 
+
+I also took on board various techniques discussed in Chapter 4 regarding working with 
+images. 
+
+Open index.html and examine the code. The head section imports a style sheet, uses a 
+conditional comment to link to an IE 5-specific style sheet (because once the layout was 
+done, there were layout issues in Internet Explorer 5.5) and the JavaScript file gallery, js. 
+The JavaScript document is identical to the one from the “Adding captions to your image 
+gallery” exercise in Chapter 5. 
+
+The page’s basic structure is simple: the page is contained within a wrapper div. Within 
+that, there is a masthead and a content area, the latter of which has two columns, formed 
+from div elements with id values of mainImageContainer and thumbnailsContainer. If 
+the content were removed, this structure would look like that in the following code block: 
+
+
+374 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<div id="masthead"></div> 
+
+<div id="content"> 
+
+<div id="mainImageContainer"></div> 
+
+<div id="thumbnailsContainer"></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+If you’ve read through Chapter 7, you’ll see that this layout is formed using techniques 
+shown in the “Creating a fixed-width wrapper,” “Placing columns within a wrapper,” and 
+“Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts” exercises. 
+
+Within the masthead div is a level-one heading with an empty span element. This is as per 
+the image-replacement method shown in the “Image-replacement techniques” section of 
+Chapter 3. The CSS applied to the elements (shown later in this section) effectively places 
+the span over the text and sets the heading image exported from the mock-up as its back¬ 
+ground. 
+
+<hl class="mainHeading"><span></span>Pictures of Padstow</hl> 
+
+In the mainImageContainer div, there’s an image, a caption, and explanatory text. Note 
+the id value for the image—this is a hook for both the JavaScript and CSS, as explained in 
+the “Switching images using JavaScript” and “Adding captions to your image gallery” exer¬ 
+cises in Chapter 5. 
+
+The thumbnailsContainer div contains an unordered list, each item from which contains 
+a linked thumbnail image, and an example of which is shown in the following code block: 
+
+<li><a href="assets/boat.jpg" onclick="javascript:swapPhoto 
+^('boat.jpg','A docked boat, with distant clouds rolling in.'); 
+
+^ return false;"><img src="assets/boat-t.jpg" alt="A docked 
+^ boat." width="80" height="60" /></a></li> 
+
+Again, the various elements of the code are explained in the aforementioned exercises 
+from Chapter 5. The only difference here is the use of the list, which is used to provide 
+structure for the 18 images—as you’ve seen elsewhere in the book, CSS makes it possible 
+to style lists in any manner of ways. 
+
+
+
+Styling the gallery 
+
+The pictures-of-padstow.css document contains the styles for this layout, and these 
+styles are arranged into sections, as explained earlier in the chapter. The defaults section 
+includes two rules. The first is the universal selector (*), used to remove padding and mar¬ 
+gins (as per the “Zeroing margins and padding on all elements” section in Chapter 2). The 
+second is a body rule with a commented-out background pair. If you remove the CSS com¬ 
+ments and load the web page into your browser, you’ll see a background grid, as shown in 
+the following screenshot (the baseline grid’s height is 20 pixels per line). It’s worth leaving 
+
+
+375 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+the rules in place when working with baseline grids, because if you make changes to your 
+page later, you can temporarily turn the grid back on to ensure rhythm is being main¬ 
+tained. Having a commented-out property/value pair in your CSS makes no noticeable dif¬ 
+ference to file download times anyway. 
+
+
+
+In the structure section of the CSS, the #wrapper rule defines a fixed width for the page’s 
+wrapper, and the margin property value of 0 auto centers the page in the browser window 
+(as explained in Chapter 7’s “Creating a fixed-width wrapper” exercise). The ttmasthead 
+rule sets some padding at its top (to place some space above the heading), adds a single¬ 
+pixel bottom border, and adds a bottom margin, again for spacing reasons. Note that the 
+values within this rule, taken in combination with the height of the heading (23 pixels) 
+ensure that the vertical rhythm is maintained. The two other rules in the section style the 
+two columns, floating them, giving them fixed widths, and adding some space between 
+them, as per the “Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts” exercise in 
+Chapter 7. 
+
+In the fonts section of the CSS, the default font size is set using the html and body rules, 
+as per the “Setting text using percentages and ems” section in Chapter 3. The 
+hl.mainHeading and hl.mainHeading span rules are the image-replacement technique in 
+full swing, as per the “Image-replacement techniques” section in Chapter 3. Note the 
+hl.mainHeading rule’s font-size value, which ensures that the text doesn’t spill out from 
+behind the image in Internet Explorer when zooming the page. While defining font size in 
+pixels is generally a bad idea, it’s largely irrelevant here, because the HTML text is only 
+likely to be seen if the CSS isn’t shown. (For anyone surfing with images off, a portfolio is 
+kind of useless, and even if they’re determined to press on regardless, the 20px value 
+ensures that the heading text is likely to be legible for them anyway.) 
+
+
+376 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+hl.mainHeading { 
+position: relative; 
+width: 342px; 
+height: 28px; 
+overflow: hidden; 
+padding-bottom: 19px; 
+font-size: 20px; 
+line-height: lem; 
+
+} 
+
+hl.mainHeading span { 
+position: absolute; 
+
+background: #ffffff url(assets/pictures-of-padstow.gif) no-repeat; 
+width: 100%; 
+height: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+The p rule sizes the paragraph, and the line-height value is determined by dividing the 
+baseline grid line height (2em, derived from the 20 pixel target—see the “Styling semantic 
+markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and a baseline grid” exercise in Chapter 3 
+for the thinking behind this) by the font-size value: 2.0 divided by 1.1 equals 1.81818181 
+(recurring, but you can stop after a half-dozen or so decimal places in CSS). 
+
+P { 
+
+font: 1.lem/1.8l8l8l8lem Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+color: #898989; 
+
+} 
+
+The p em rule reduces the font-size value for the emphasized text in the instructions 
+paragraph, while the tthumbnailsContainer li rule displays the list items within the 
+thumbnailsContainer div inline, stacking them horizontally. 
+
+#thumbnailsContainer li { 
+display: inline; 
+
+} 
+
+The final section in the style sheet is for images, and the three rules are as follows: a img, 
+which removes borders from linked images; #imgPhoto, which defines the margin under 
+the main image; and tthumbnailsContainer img, which floats the images within the 
+thumbnailsContainer div, ensuring there’s no space between them. 
+
+The completed page is shown in the following image. 
+
+
+
+377 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+Hacking for Internet Explorer 
+
+As mentioned earlier, there’s also a style sheet for Internet Explorer 5, attached using a 
+conditional comment. This document, ie-5-hacks.css, has four rules. The body and 
+#wrapper rules deal with that browser not centering the site (see the “Centering layouts” 
+section in Chapter 9). The hl.mainHeading rule adds extra padding to the bottom of the 
+heading to cater for Internet Explorer 5’s poor handling of the box model (again, see 
+Chapter 9), while the final rule deals with the browser placing margins around the thumb¬ 
+nail images. The defined negative horizontal margins (shown in the following code block) 
+pull the thumbnails back into position. 
+
+#thumbnailsContainer img { 
+margin: 0 -3px; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Creating an online storefront 
+
+This section will detail how I created a layout for an online storefront, providing the user 
+with a quick and simple means of accessing a number of product categories by way of a 
+multicolumn drop-down menu. The Photoshop file for the document is store-front- 
+layout, psd, in the PSD mock-ups folder within the chapter 10 folder of the download 
+files. The completed web page (along with associated files) is within the store-website 
+folder, within the chapter 10 folder. The following image shows the Photoshop mock-up 
+of the page. 
+
+
+378 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+BUYSOMESTUFF 
+
+
+Shopping basKet | Checkout ] Account | Helpdesk 
+
+
+CO.UK 
+
+
+
+Lorefn ipsum dotor 
+Sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng 
+dit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magna 
+rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio 
+iorem non turpb. Nutlam sit amet 
+enim. Suspendisse id velit vttae 
+liguta volutpat condimentum. 
+
+Aliquant erat volutpat 
+Sed quis vdit. Nulla ^dlisi. Nulla 
+tibero. Vivamus pharetra posuere 
+sapten. Nam consectetuer. Sed 
+aliquam, nunc eget eutsmod ullam- 
+corper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh 
+eget ipsum. 
+
+Donee porttitor 
+
+Ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat libero cursus venenabs. 
+Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, 
+blandit sed, blandit a, eros.Quisque 
+tadlisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada 
+omare dolor, Cras gravida, diam sit 
+amet rhoncus omare, erat elit con¬ 
+sectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh 
+eget odio. Proin tinddunt, velit vd 
+porta elementum, magna diam 
+
+
+RECENTLY ARRIVED 
+
+
+Item name | $X.XX | In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisdng dit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhonojs neque, id pulvinar odio lorem r>on turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+SuspeiKlisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. 
+Nulla ^cilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+Item name | $X.XX | In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cortsectetuer adipisdng dit. Morbi comrr>odo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, ord magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio iorem rwn turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. 
+Nulla ^citisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+Item name | $X.XX | In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit arriet, consectetuer adipisdng dit. Morbi comrrwdo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magrta rhoncus r>eque, id pulvirtar odio lorem rwn turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspernlisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. 
+Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam cortsectetuer. 
+
+
+LOREM IPSUM 
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscirtg elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, ord magna 
+rhortcus neque, id pulvirtar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspertdisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat 
+condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla fadlisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. 
+Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+About the design and required images 
+
+Prior to working on this design, I decided that it would be a semi-liquid layout, with a max¬ 
+imum width of around 1000 pixels and a minimum width slightly larger than the width of 
+the four tabs (which total 740 pixels). This explains the use of the blue gradient behind the 
+tabs, providing a transition between the dark orange stripe and the white masthead area 
+when the site is displayed wider. Without this, the jolt between these two elements would 
+be too harsh. This also explains the lack of fixed-width elements elsewhere in the design— 
+images are floated right and recently added items are displayed in a linear fashion. With a 
+liquid layout, displaying these three containers as columns wouldn’t be entirely straight¬ 
+forward (although it could be done by replacing the images with divs that have back¬ 
+ground images large enough to cater for changes in column width; however, at narrow 
+widths, the images would be cropped). 
+
+In terms of imagery, the logo was exported, as was a portion of the gradient image (which 
+was tiled horizontally). Had I been working entirely from scratch on this layout, the tab 
+states would also have been included in and exported from the mock-up, but I took those 
+directly from the drop-down exercise from Chapter 5. The inline images in the document 
+are all just a single gray square saved as temporary-image.gif. Clearly, in an actual site, all 
+of those images would show items for sale! 
+
+
+
+379 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Putting the storefront together 
+
+When working on this layout, I made use of techniques shown in the following exercises: 
+
+■ Creating a maximum-width layout (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Placing columns within a wrapper (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Manipulating two structural divs for liquid layouts (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Creating a sidebar with faux-column backgrounds (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Creating a boxout (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Creating breadcrumb navigation (Chapter 5) 
+
+■ Creating a multicolumn drop-down menu (Chapter 5) 
+
+Open index.html and examine the code. The head section imports a style sheet, uses con¬ 
+ditional comments to link to three IE-specific style sheets (one for Internet Explorer in 
+general, one for Internet Explorer 6 and below, and one for Internet Explorer versions 
+below 6), and attaches the JavaScript file store, js. The JavaScript document is not going 
+to be explored fully. The reason for its inclusion at all is because Internet Explorer prior to 
+version 7 does not show the drop-down menu if the technique shown earlier in the book 
+is used. By adding the JavaScript within the linked document, behavior in all generally used 
+versions of Internet Explorer becomes identical. 
+
+The page’s structure is shown in the following code block. The page is contained within a 
+wrapper div. Within that, there is a masthead that contains a logo div and a navContainer 
+div (which itself contains a navigation div). After the masthead is a content div that con¬ 
+tains two columns, formed from div elements with id values of sidebar and mainContent. 
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<div id="masthead"> 
+
+<div id="logo"></div> 
+
+<div id="navContainer"> 
+
+<div id="navigation"></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div id="content"> 
+
+<div id="sidebar"></div> 
+
+<div id="mainContent"></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+In the masthead, prior to the logo div, is an unordered list with an id value of pullNav. 
+This is used for the pull-navigation at the top right of the design (including the shopping 
+basket, checkout, account, and helpdesk links). 
+
+<ul id="pullNav"> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Shopping basket</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Checkout</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Account</a></li> 
+
+<li><a href="#">Helpdesk</a></li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+
+380 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+The logo div contains a linked image (linked to # in this example, but in a live site, this 
+would be linked to the website’s home page). The navContainer contents are literally 
+identical to those in Chapter 5’s “Creating a multicolumn drop-down menu” exercise. 
+
+In the content area, the sidebar div contents are straightforward: level-two headings are 
+twice followed by unordered lists full of links (intended for links to top sellers and items 
+coming soon), and a third heading is followed by a paragraph of text. In the mainContent 
+div, a level-one heading is followed by an introductory paragraph and a horizontal rule. 
+Next are the page’s recently arrived item highlights. These each take the form of a con¬ 
+taining div (with an id value of itemContainer), and each of these containers contains 
+two divs, itemimage (which houses an image) and itemDetails. Each itemDetails div 
+contains an unordered list for the name, price, stock notification and dispatch details, 
+along with a paragraph of descriptive text. Two of the list items have class values, which 
+are used as hooks for CSS styles. 
+
+<div class="itemContainer"> 
+
+<div class="itemlmage"> 
+
+<a href="#"><img src="assets/temporary-image.gif" alt="[temporary 
+^ image]" width="100" height="l00" /></a> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div class="itemDetails"> 
+
+<ul> 
+
+<li class="itemName"><a href="#">Item name</a></li> 
+
+<li class="itemCost">£X.XX</li> 
+
+<li>In stock</li> 
+
+<li>Usually dispatched within 24 hours</li> 
+
+</ul> 
+
+<p>Lorem ipsum dolor [...]</p> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+After the three-item container blocks is a second horizontal rule, and then the main con¬ 
+tent area’s final content: a level-two heading and a paragraph of text. Because the item 
+containers each have a bottom border style assigned in CSS, the second horizontal rule 
+results in a double border. Because of its semantic significance, it needs to remain, which 
+leaves the choice of making it invisible by CSS or making the final item container’s bottom 
+border invisible, which is what’s been done. (If you look at the class attribute of the third 
+itemContainer div, it has a second value, lastItemContainer.) 
+
+Finally, after the two columns, but inside the content div, is a single footer paragraph con¬ 
+taining a copyright statement. 
+
+
+
+Styling the storefront 
+
+The store.css document contains the styles for this layout, arranged into sections, as 
+noted earlier in the chapter. The defaults section includes two rules. The first is the uni¬ 
+versal selector (*), used to remove padding and margins (as per the “Zeroing margins and 
+padding on all elements” section in Chapter 2). The second is a body rule, which adds some 
+top and bottom padding to the web page, ensuring that there’s always some whitespace 
+around the design. 
+
+
+381 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+In the structure section are a number of rules for styling the page’s structural elements. 
+The #wrapper rule provides both a maximum and minimum width for the site wrapper, 
+along with centering the site via the margin value. 
+
+#wrapper { 
+
+max-width: lOOOpx; 
+min-width: 760px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+The #masthead rule adds a large bottom border of 18 pixels to the masthead. 
+
+#masthead { 
+
+border-bottom: I8px solid Ueeeeee; 
+
+} 
+
+At this point, the reasoning for the #masthead rule won’t be apparent, so I’ll explain. The 
+design as a whole has 18 pixels of padding around the content area. It also uses faux 
+columns (as outlined in Chapter 7’s “Creating a sidebar with faux-column backgrounds” 
+exercise) to apply a vertical separator stripe between the two columns (the sidebar and 
+the main content area). However, from a design standpoint, it looks much nicer if the col¬ 
+umn doesn’t start right from the top of the content area, and there’s instead some space 
+above it. Because the background is applied to the content div, the background image by 
+default starts from the top of the content area. To avoid this, one option would be to add 
+further markup that “covers” a portion of the separator stripe (via a div with a back¬ 
+ground color, a fixed height, and a width that spans the entire content div’s width). 
+However, adding a border to the bottom of the masthead that has the same color as the 
+content area’s background has the same effect. Sure, this is kind of a hack, but it doesn’t 
+cause any problems from a structural standpoint, and no semantics are affected. If you do 
+this sort of thing, however, always remember where the various elements of the visual 
+design lie in CSS, and use comments to remind yourself, if you need to. 
+
+Anyway, onward. The #logo rule is much simpler, adding some padding at the bottom and 
+left of the div that houses the site logo. The reason for adding padding at the left is 
+because otherwise the logo would abut the browser window edge at a screen resolution of 
+800X600. The ttcontent rule adds some horizontal padding, along with the column- 
+stripe.gif image as a vertically tiling background image (the aforementioned faux- 
+column technique). Note the horizontal position of 27%. This is designed to sit roughly 
+within the margin to the right of the sidebar div—see the following code block for the 
+width and margin-right values of the sidebar and mainContent divs. Logically, a value of 
+26% should be set, because that would be the width of the sidebar, plus half of the 
+margin-right value. However, the padding value of #content messes with that calculation 
+somewhat, because the two columns don’t span the entire width that the content div 
+background occupies, since that stretches to the edge of the padding, which is 18 pixels on 
+each horizontal edge. A setting of 26% therefore results in the vertical stripe appearing too 
+far to the left; adding 1% results in a more pleasing position for the background. 
+
+#content { 
+
+padding: 0 I8px; 
+
+background: tteeeeee url(assets/column-stripe.gif) 27% 0 repeat-y; 
+
+
+382 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+} 
+
+#sidebar { 
+float: left; 
+width: 24%; 
+margin-right: 4%; 
+
+} 
+
+#mainContent { 
+float: left; 
+width: 72%; 
+
+} 
+
+Next, the .itemContainer rule defines a border and margin at the bottom of the 
+itemContainer divs. This is overridden for the last of the three containers by the 
+
+• lastltemContainer rule to avoid a double underline (as explained earlier). The 
+
+• itemContainer:after rule is essentially the same as the clearFix rule (see the “Clearing 
+floated content” exercise in Chapter 7), clearing floated content so that the 
+itemContainer divs don’t stack incorrectly. The .itemimage rule floats the divs contain¬ 
+ing the images right, adding some bottom and left margins so that other content doesn't 
+abut them. Finally, the hr rule defines settings for the horizontal rule (although note that 
+Internet Explorer deals with hr margins differently from other browsers, making them 
+larger—this will be dealt with via conditional comments). 
+
+In the navigation section, the first three rules define colors for default, visited, and 
+hover/focus link states, while the next three style the pull-navigation. The ttpullNav rule 
+floats the pull-navigation list right and adds some right padding, while #pullNav li sets 
+the list items within to display inline, adding the vertical-bar.gif image as a background 
+and some padding. The ul#pullNav li:first-child rule then removes the background 
+from the first of the list items. The code is shown in the following block, and a full expla¬ 
+nation is shown in the “Creating breadcrumb navigation” exercise in Chapter 5. 
+
+#pullNav { 
+float: right; 
+padding-right: lOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+#pullNav li { 
+display: inline; 
+
+background: url(assets/vertical-bar.gif) 0 55% no-repeat; 
+padding: 0 3px 0 8px; 
+
+} 
+
+ul#pullNav li:first-child { 
+background: none; 
+
+} 
+
+The remainder of the rules are copied from Chapter 5’s “Creating a multicolumn drop¬ 
+down menu” exercise, and the path values to the css-tab-rollover-image.gif have 
+been amended accordingly to take into account that the image is now being housed in an 
+assets folder. There are two other changes as well, to cater for the layout the menu is 
+being used with. First, #navContainer has a horizontally tiling background image (the gra¬ 
+dient) applied, and the #navigation ul rule has width and margin values to center the list 
+horizontally, in the same way the wrapper div was centered earlier. 
+
+
+
+383 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+#navContainer { 
+height: 30px; 
+
+border-bottom: 5px solid #ad3514; 
+
+background: url(assets/nav-background.gif) repeat-xj 
+
+} 
+
+#navigation ul { 
+
+list-style-type: none; 
+
+width: 740px; 
+margin: 0 auto; 
+
+} 
+
+Fonts and fixes for the storefront layout 
+
+In the fonts section of the CSS, the default font size is set using the html and body rules, as 
+per the “Setting text using percentages and ems” section in Chapter 3. The hi rule defines 
+the lead heading, and I've done something that’s not been done elsewhere in the book: 
+the heading is floated left. This enables subsequent content to wrap around the heading, 
+and is something I rarely do, but for this design, it made sense for the heading to be more 
+of an introduction to the introductory paragraph itself, and displaying it inline was the way 
+to do that. The padding-right value ensures there’s some space before the subsequent 
+paragraph. The line-height setting was calculated after the values for p and hi+p were 
+defined, and the final figure was calculated in the same proportional manner as per hi+p 
+(see later in the section). 
+
+hi { 
+
+float: left; 
+padding-right: 0.3em; 
+
+font: bold 1.4em/1.2571428em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+
+} 
+
+The next three rules, h2, #sidebar h2, and p, style the level-two headings, level-two head¬ 
+ings in the sidebar, and paragraphs, respectively. There’s nothing of note here, but refer to 
+Chapter 3 if there’s something you’re not familiar with. Next is the hi+p rule. This increases 
+the font size of the paragraph that immediately follows the level-one heading, giving it 
+more prominence. Because the font-size value has been increased, the line-height 
+value has to be decreased proportionately in order for the text to all line up correctly. The 
+p and hl+p rules are shown in the following code block. 
+
+P { 
+
+font: 1.lem/1.6em Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; 
+margin-bottom: 1.6em; 
+
+} 
+
+hl+p { 
+
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+line-height: l.4666666em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+384 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+The next rule, #content ul, #pullNav, sets the default font and bottom margin for the 
+two types of horizontally aligned list (the pull-navigation and the item details lists in the 
+main content area). The three subsequent rules, #content .itemDetails ul, .itemDetails 
+li, and .itemDetails li:first-child, style the lists in the itemContainer divs in pretty 
+much the same way as for the pull-navigation. The main difference is the white back¬ 
+ground applied to the list items, which was added during the build stage in order to make 
+the item details stand out more (see the detail below). This sort of thing happens all the 
+time when I create sites—mock-ups should always be more a guideline than something to 
+slavishly and exactly reproduce in the final site. If you can think of an improvement (and 
+the client is happy with it, if you’re working on a commercial project), then make changes! 
+
+
+RECENTLY ARRIVED 
+
+Item name | £X.XX | In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ips 
+
+
+The remaining rules in this section are all straightforward. The .itemNamej .itemCost rule 
+emboldens the text in the list items with the class values of itemName and itemCost, 
+thereby making the name and cost stand out more. And p.footer styles the footer para¬ 
+graph. In this rule, clear is set to both so that the footer clears the two floated columns, 
+and the text is aligned right. However, the footer also serves other purposes of a more 
+decorative nature. The background is set to white, an 18-pixel top border the same color 
+as the content background is defined, and negative horizontal margins of l8px are set, 
+along with padding of l8px. What this does is make the background of the footer white 
+and span the entire width of the content div, including its padding. The top border deals 
+with the faux-column separator in the same way as the bottom border on the masthead. A 
+detail of the resulting footer is shown in the following image. 
+
+
+enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, 
+blandit a, eros.Quisque facilisis erat 
+a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. 
+
+
+GRAVIDA OIAM SIT AMET 
+
+Rhoncus ornare, erat etit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta 
+elementum, magna diam molestie sapien, non aiiquet massa pede eu diam. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum 
+et nulla tristinue fariliAis. 
+
+@ 200X Buy5ome5tuff.co.uk 
+
+The last three rules are 
+linked images. The next. 
+
+in the images section. The first, a img, removes borders from 
+.itemimage img, adds a border to images within the itemimage 
+
+
+divs, and .itemimage img: hover changes the border color on the hover state, indicating 
+that the link is clickable (seeing as all of the item images are surrounded by links). 
+
+As mentioned earlier, this layout also has three style sheets linked via conditional com¬ 
+ments to deal with Internet Explorer issues. The first, ie-hacks.css, has line-height 
+overrides for hi and hl+p, which line up the heading and paragraphs properly in 
+Microsoft’s browser. A rounding problem causes a horizontal scroll bar to appear at nar¬ 
+row browser window sizes, so the #mainContent rule’s width value is overridden with a 
+setting of 71.9%. Finally, the hr rule defines vertical margin values to make the horizontal 
+rules in Internet Explorer behave in a similar manner to other browsers. 
+
+
+385 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The ie-61te-hacks.css document has some fixes for Internet Explorer 6 and below. The 
+#wrapper rule deals with Internet Explorer 6 and below not understanding max-width and 
+min-width, and uses a Microsoft-proprietary expression to compensate for this failing. The 
+#content rule is a hasLayout hack, which stops the entire layout from jolting when the 
+tabs are rolled over. The #pullNav li, .itemDetails li rule removes the vertical bars 
+from the inline lists, since Internet Explorer prior to version 7 doesn’t understand the 
+:first-child pseudo-class used to set specific values for the initial list item in each inline 
+list. The next two rules, #dmenu li.over ul and #dmenu li li li, deal with issues relat¬ 
+ing to the drop-down menu. The first is a hook for the JavaScript, ensuring that the drop¬ 
+down appears as expected in Internet Explorer 6 and below. The second removes the 
+bottom borders from the list items, since they don’t appear correctly in Internet Explorer 
+versions below 7. Finally, because Internet Explorer 6 and below don’t allow CSS : hover 
+rules on anything other than links, a new rule is required to change the borders around 
+the images on the hover state: 
+
+#content a:hover img { 
+border: Ipx solid #ad3514; 
+
+} 
+
+The ie-5-hacks.css style sheet contains rules for centering components and dealing with 
+positioning issues. 
+
+The completed web page is shown in the following image, with the drop-down active. 
+
+
+BUYSOMESTUFF 
+
+
+.CO.UK 
+
+
+Shoooino basket | Checkout 
+
+
+
+Elit morbi commodo 
+
+losum sed oharetra 
+
+Orel maona rhoncut 
+
+Neoug kl Dulvtnar 
+
+Odic lofem non 
+
+Turois 
+
+Nullam sit amet enim 
+
+Coming soon 
+
+.VC.IIt 
+
+Vitae liaula vclutoat 
+
+Condimentum 
+AIlQuam erat volutoat 
+
+Sed fluis vellt 
+
+Nulla facilisi 
+
+Nulla hbero 
+Vivamus oharetra 
+
+Posuere sacicn 
+Nam con&ectetuer 
+
+Sod aliquam 
+
+Nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus 
+nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum 
+bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Ugula 
+eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla 
+consequat Hbero cursus vervenabs. Nam 
+magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, 
+blandit a, eros.Quisque facillsis erat a 
+dul. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. 
+
+
+psum sed pharetra gravida, orcl 
+Id vellt vitae ligula 
+D. Vivamus pharetra posuere 
+
+
+RECENTLY ARRIVED 
+
+Item name | £X.XX | Instock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id vellt vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat Sed quis velit Nulla 
+facilisi. Nulla Hbero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+Item name I £XJ(X I In stock I Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+facilisi. Nulla Hbero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+Item name | £X.XX | In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours 
+Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, Ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam srt amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+facilisi. Nulla Hbero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. 
+
+
+GRAVIDA DIAM SIT AMET 
+
+Rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, 
+magna diam molesbe sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diem. Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla trisboue facillsis . 
+
+
+gl 2aOX BuvSomeStuff.CO.uk 
+
+
+386 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+Creating a business website 
+
+This section will detail how I created the third layout in this chapter, which is suitable for a 
+business website. This makes use of the two-tier navigation system devised in Chapter 5, 
+and although the entire design doesn’t adhere strictly to a baseline grid, I decided that it 
+would be good for the content area to do so, to create a more pleasing rhythm for the 
+content area of the page. The Photoshop file for the document is sme-layout.psd, in the 
+PSD mock-ups folder within the chapter 10 folder of the download files. The completed 
+web page (along with associated files) is within the sme-website folder, within the chapter 
+10 folder. The following image shows the Photoshop mock-up of the page. 
+
+
+
+
+/Iff n CTj Q Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi 
+
+iA/ 6^ *rJL(Xy ^lOO\Sf ^nC. commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque. 
+
+
+
+Homepage Servicee Customer airport Contact Petals 
+
+
+
+8ub>navene Sub-navtwe 8ub-nev three 9ub-nevfeur Sub-rwvfhre Sub-naveix 8ub-nav seven 
+
+
+
+For all your flooring needs 
+
+Lorem ipsum dok>r sit amet, conseaetuer adipiscing eitt. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed 
+pharetra gravida, orci magrta rtioncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem rton turpis. Nuliam sit 
+amet enim. Suspertdisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat cortdimentum. Miquam erat voiutpat. 
+
+Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla llbero. Vivamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam con- 
+sectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget euismod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+fermentum bibendum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae 
+nulla consequat libero cursus venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed, blandit 
+a, eros.Quisque facllisis erat a dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit an>et 
+rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+This is the pull quote, it's really very 
+exciting, so read it now! Lorem ipsum dolor 
+sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing eliL 99 
+
+Fred Btoggs 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor 
+
+Sit amet. conseaetuer adipiscing eltt Morbi commodo. ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rtiorKus neque, id pulvinar 
+odio lorem non turpis. Nuliam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id 
+velit vitae ligula voiutpat condimentum. AJiquam erat volutpat. 
+Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero. Vivamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam conseaetuer. Sed aJiquam, nunc eget 
+euismod ullamcorper. leaus nunc ullamcorper orci, fermentum 
+
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui 
+Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet 
+rhoncus ornare, erat elit conseaetuer erat, id egestas pede 
+nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elementum, 
+rrtagna diam molestie sapien, non aliquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et ipsum et nulla tristique fadiisis. 
+Donee eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula 
+urna vel turpis. Suspendisse sagittis ante a urna. Morbi a est 
+
+
+
+About the design and required images 
+
+This design is clean and modern. The site is fixed-width, with a dark background color for 
+the overall page; a dark gradient from the top draws the attention toward the top of the 
+page. The masthead contains the company logo, along with a short sentence regarding 
+what the organization offers. Below that is the navigation, followed by the content area. 
+
+
+387 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The content area is simple: an introductory heading and paragraph (with a floated image 
+to the right) is followed by a client quote. Below that is a large horizontal rule, which is fol¬ 
+lowed by two columns. 
+
+Image-wise, the masthead background was exported (with the sentence turned off—that 
+was added in HTML text), as was the background gradient. Other images were sourced 
+from elsewhere, the temporary image being the same one as in the previous layout 
+example, and the navigation images being taken directly from the example created for 
+Chapter 5. 
+
+
+Putting the business site together 
+
+When creating this layout, I made use of methods shown in the following exercises/sections: 
+
+■ Creating a fixed-width wrapper (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Manipulating two structural divs for fixed-width layouts (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Placing columns within a wrapper (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Creating a two-tier navigation menu (Chapter 5) 
+
+■ Using CSS to wrap text around images (Chapter 4) 
+
+■ Gradients (Chapter 2, from the “Web page background ideas” section) 
+
+■ Styling semantic markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and a baseline grid 
+(Chapter 3) 
+
+■ Creating a boxout (Chapter 7) 
+
+■ Creating pull quotes in CSS (Chapter 3) 
+
+Open index.html and examine the code. The head section imports a style sheet and uses 
+conditional comments to link to three IE-specific style sheets (one for Internet Explorer in 
+general, one for Internet Explorer 6 and below, and one for Internet Explorer versions 
+below 6). Note that the body element has an id value—this dictates the active tab, as per 
+the method shown in the “Creating a two-tier navigation menu” exercise in Chapter 5. 
+
+The page’s structure is shown in the following code block. The page is contained within a 
+wrapper div. Within that, there is a masthead that contains a logo div and a navContainer 
+div (which itself contains a navigation div and a subNavigation div). After the masthead 
+is a content div. Without content, the skeleton structure looks like that shown in the fol¬ 
+lowing code block: 
+
+<div id="wrapper"> 
+
+<div id="masthead"> 
+
+<div id="logo"></div> 
+
+<div id="navContainer"> 
+
+<div id="navigation"></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+<div id="content"></div> 
+
+</div> 
+
+
+388 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+In the logo div is the paragraph about the company, and the contents of the 
+navContainer div are identical to those from “Creating a two-tier navigation menu” in 
+Chapter 5. 
+
+The content div begins with a level-one heading, immediately followed by an image with 
+a class value of leadimage. The image is positioned here because it will be floated right, 
+and you need to place floated content before the content you want it to float left or right 
+of (see the “Using CSS to wrap text around images” section in Chapter 4). This is followed 
+by a paragraph of text and then a blockquote element, as per “Creating pull quotes in 
+CSS” from Chapter 3. 
+
+Next, a horizontal rule provides a visual break from the introductory content, followed by 
+two divs that have class values of columnLeft and columnRight. As you’ve no doubt 
+guessed, these are the two columns; each contains an image, a level-two heading, and a 
+paragraph. The final piece of code within the content div is a footer paragraph. 
+
+
+Styling the business website 
+
+The sme.css document contains the styles for this layout, arranged into sections, as per 
+the discussion earlier in this chapter. The defaults section includes two rules. The first is 
+the universal selector (*), used to remove padding and margins (as per “Zeroing margins 
+and padding on all elements” in Chapter 2). The second is a body rule, which adds some 
+vertical padding to the web page, ensuring there’s always some space before and after the 
+bordered content (having borders directly touch browser window edges makes for a 
+cluttered and visually unappealing design), and defines the page background—a dark 
+gray color (#333333) into which is blended the horizontally tiled background image 
+page-background.gif. 
+
+body { 
+
+padding: 20px 0; 
+
+background: #333333 url(assets/page-background.gif) repeat-x; 
+
+} 
+
+In the structure section, the ttwrapper rule defines a fixed width for the wrapper, horizon¬ 
+tally centers it, and defines a one-pixel border around its edges. The ttmasthead rule defines 
+the thick, light gray border under the masthead, and #logo sets the masthead-background, 
+jpg image as a background for the logo div, along with setting the height of the div 
+(which is the same height as the image) and adding a one-pixel bottom margin (otherwise 
+the top border of the navigation items doesn’t show). 
+
+Next, the #content rule sets 18 pixels of padding around the content area’s contents, and 
+defines the background color as white (otherwise the dark gray page background would 
+show through). There’s also a commented-out rule for the baseline grid image, added for 
+the same reason as in the Pictures from Padstow example (see the first paragraph of the 
+“Styling the gallery” section, earlier in this chapter). Note that 18 pixels is the target base¬ 
+line grid line height for this design. 
+
+
+
+389 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Next, the hr rule styles the horizontal rule, making it light gray and ensuring that it takes 
+up a couple of “rows” in the grid (0.7em plus 2.9em is 3.6em, which because of the 
+standard text sizing used throughout this book equates by default to 36px—twice the tar¬ 
+get line height of l8px). 
+
+hr { 
+
+height: 0.7em; 
+margin-bottom: 2.9em; 
+background-color: ttcccccc; 
+color: #cccccc; 
+border: none; 
+
+} 
+
+The final two rules in the section, .columnLeft, .columnRight (.columnLeft, 
+• columnRight is a grouped selector, not two separate rules) and .columnLeft, float the 
+two column divs, set fixed widths for them (equally, since this property is placed in the 
+grouped selector), and define a margin-right value for the left-hand column so that 
+there's space between the two columns. 
+
+The next section, links and navigation, is copied wholesale from Chapter 5’s “Creating a 
+two-tier navigation menu” exercise. There are no changes. Nothing to see here . . . move 
+along. 
+
+Next is the fonts section. This section’s all pretty straightforward, assuming you’ve read 
+and digested the “Styling semantic markup: A traditional example with serif fonts and a 
+baseline grid” exercise in Chapter 3. As usual, the html and body rules reset the font size, 
+as per the “Setting text using percentages and ems” section in Chapter 3. The body rule 
+also sets the preferred font to a Lucida variant (eventually falling back to Arial and 
+Helvetica). The hi, h2, and p rules then set font-size, line-height, and margin-bottom 
+values for their respective elements, line-height values being calculated by dividing 1.8 
+by the font-size value. (If you’re going “wha?” the “Styling semantic markup: A traditional 
+example with serif fonts and a baseline grid” exercise in Chapter 3 has all the answers.) 
+
+Override rules follow, with specific settings for the masthead paragraph defined via 
+#masthead p—the color is set to white, and padding is used to position the block of text. 
+
+#masthead p { 
+color: #ffffff; 
+font-size: 1.2em; 
+padding: 24px 20px 0 320px; 
+line-height: l.3em; 
+
+} 
+
+
+390 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+The p.footer rule is used to clear any floated content; the rule also aligns the text right 
+and adds some top padding to shift it further away from other page content (ensuring the 
+footer isn’t a distraction). The various blockquote and cite rules are variants on the 
+method shown in Chapter 3’s “Creating pull quotes in CSS” exercise. Again, somewhat 
+complex line-height and margin values are used to take into account the baseline grid. 
+
+Finally, the images section has four rules. The first, a img, removes borders from linked 
+images. Next, ttcontent img applies a one-pixel border to images within the content div. 
+After that, the img.leadimage rule floats the image after the main heading right, adding 
+some margins at the bottom and left edges to ensure there’s some whitespace between 
+the image and other content. And then .columnLeft img, .columnRight img sets the 
+images within the columns to display as block, which removes the default overhang 
+browsers that otherwise apply to images (as they do to text). The margin-bottom value 
+ensures subsequent content is aligned with the baseline grid. Note that the height of the 
+images, as defined in HTML, is 70 pixels. Add two pixels from the borders and you have 72, 
+a multiple of 18, ensuring that the actual images adhere to the baseline grid, too—at least 
+when browsers are at their default settings. 
+
+.columnLeft img, .columnRight img { 
+display: block; 
+margin-bottom: 1.8em; 
+
+} 
+
+In terms of Internet Explorer fixes, few things are needed for this layout. For ie- 
+hacks.css, Internet Explorer’s problems dealing with hr margins are dealt with by provid¬ 
+ing new margin-top and margin-bottom values. For the ie-lte6-hacks.css document 
+(which affects Internet Explorer 6 and below), the blockquote, blockquote p rule 
+removes the pull quote background images. Also, a hasLayout bug causes the background 
+behind the navigation to show incorrectly. This is fixed by giving layout to the element by 
+way of a width value. 
+
+#navigation { 
+width: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+In ie-5-hacks.css, the two rules center the layout in the browser window. 
+
+The completed layout is shown in the following screenshot. 
+
+
+
+391 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+nil p ^Tl /} Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing ellt. Morbl 
+
+lA/C *eJL.Ciy ^lOOKSf ^tXC» commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orcl magna rhoncus r>ec 
+
+Homepage Services Customer support Contact details 
+
+Jffi 
+
+Sub>navene Sub>navtwe Sub>navthrM Sub>navfeur ^SutMisvfive 8ub>navslx Sub-navseven 
+
+
+For all your flooring needs 
+
+Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbl commodo, ipsum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orcl magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. 
+Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. 
+Nulla facilisl. Nulla libero. VIvamus pharetra posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, 
+nunc eget eulsmod ullamcorper, lectus nunc ullamcorper orcl, fermentum bibendum enim nibh 
+eget ipsum. Donee porttitor ligula eu dolor. Maecenas vitae nulla consequat libero cursus 
+venenatis. Nam magna enim, accumsan eu, blandit sed. blandit a. eros. Quisque facilisis erat a 
+dui. Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus ornare, erat elit 
+consectetuer erat. Id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+This is the pull quote. It's really very exciting, so 
+read it now) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
+consectetuer adipiscing eliL 99 
+
+Fred Btoggs 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor 
+
+Sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbl commodo. ipsum 
+sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar 
+odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit arrret enim. Suspwndisse Id 
+velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. 
+Sed quis velit. Nulla facillsi. Nulla libero. VIvamus pharetra 
+posuere sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed aliquam, nunc eget 
+eulsmod ullamcorper. lectus nunc ullamcorper orcl, fermentum. 
+
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dui 
+
+Nam malesuada ornare dolor. Cras gravida, diam sit amet 
+rhoncus ornare, erat elit consectetuer erat. Id egestas pede 
+nibh eget odio. Proin tincidunt, velit vel porta elemenium, 
+magna diam molestie sapien, non allquet massa pede eu diam. 
+Aliquam iaculis. Fusee et Ipsum et nulla tristique facilisis. Donee 
+eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. Etiam vehicula urna vel 
+turpis. Suspendisse sagittls ante a urna. 
+
+
+C 2007 We Uy Floors. Inc. 
+
+
+Working with style sheets for print 
+
+This chapter’s final section briefly looks at using CSS to create a printable version of a web¬ 
+site layout. Printing from the Web is still a bit of a hit-and-miss affair, and even using CSS 
+doesn't solve every problem, although browser support for print-oriented CSS is improv¬ 
+ing. If you omit a print style sheet, though, chances are the output will be significantly 
+worse. Browsers may have varying opinions on how to present both fixed and liquid lay¬ 
+outs, and you may end up with bizarre results. Most likely, however, if you omit a print 
+style sheet, all of the elements on your web page will just be printed in a linear fashion, 
+using system defaults for the fonts—not nice. 
+
+
+392 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+In the old days (and, frankly, in the not-so-old days, since the practice somehow survives), 
+designers often worked on so-called printer-friendly sites, run in parallel with the main 
+site. However, if you’re using CSS layouts, it’s possible to create a style sheet specifically for 
+print, which you can use to dictate exactly which elements on the page you want to print, 
+which you want to omit, and how you want to style those that can be printed. 
+
+As mentioned earlier in the book, a print style sheet is attached to web pages using the 
+following HTML: 
+
+clink rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"media="print" 
+
+»» href="print-style-sheet.css" /> 
+
+The media attribute value of print restricts the CSS solely to print, and within the print 
+style sheet, you define styles specifically for print, such as different fonts and margins. In 
+the example in the download files. I’ve used a version of the business website, which you 
+can access via the sme-website-print folder in the chapter 10 folder. The print style 
+sheet is sme-print.css, and if you compare it to the main style sheet, you’ll see that it’s 
+much simpler and massively honed down. 
+
+The defaults section houses a single body rule, defining padding (to take into account vary¬ 
+ing printer margins, 5% is a good horizontal padding to use), the background color (white 
+is really the only choice you should use, and it’s usually the default, but setting it explicitly 
+ensures this is the case), the text color (black is best for contrast when printing), and the 
+font. There’s absolutely no point in trying to ape your onscreen design and typography in 
+print—instead, use values that enhance the printed version. In the example’s body rule 
+(shown in the following code block), serif fonts are defined for font-family, because ser¬ 
+ifs are easier to read in print. Note that you’re not only restricted to web-safe fonts at this 
+point either—^you can define choices based on fonts that come with the default install of 
+Windows and Mac OS, hence the choices of Baskerville (Mac) and Palatino Linotype 
+(Windows), prior to Times New Roman and Times. 
+
+body { 
+
+padding: 0 S%; 
+background: #ffffff; 
+
+font-family: BaskervillOj "Palatino Linotype", "Times New Roman", 
+
+^ "Times", serif; 
+line-height: l6pt; 
+
+} 
+
+In the structure section, the #masthead declaration sets display to none. That’s because 
+this area of the page is of no use for printed output—^you simply don’t need website mast¬ 
+head and navigation offline. (This is, of course, a generalization, and in rare cases this may 
+not be applicable; however, in the vast, vast majority of websites I’ve created, the printed 
+version has not required the masthead and navigation links.) Note that if other areas aren’t 
+required, just use a grouped selector instead of this rule with a lone selector, as shown in 
+the following code block (which isn’t in the example CSS): 
+
+#elementl, #element2, .classl, .class2 {/* these items won't be 
+
+^ printed */ 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+393 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Because pixel values don’t tend to translate to print well, some settings may need to be 
+redefined. An example in this case is the two-column section of the page. The widths and 
+margins were initially defined in pixels, but in the print CSS, it makes more sense to define 
+these values in percentages. (Note that the 9.99% value is there in case of rounding 
+errors.) 
+
+
+•columnLeft, .columnRight { 
+float: left; 
+width: 45%; 
+
+} 
+
+.columnLeft { 
+margin-right: 9.99%; 
+
+} 
+
+In the links and navigation section, only one rule remains. While links are of no real use 
+offline, it’s still a good idea to make it apparent what text-based content was originally a 
+link, in order for people to be able to find said links should they want to, or for reasons of 
+context. Just ensuring the default underline is in place should do, and that can be done via 
+the following rule: 
+
+a:linkj a:visited { 
+text-decoration: underline; 
+
+} 
+
+For browsers other than Internet Explorer (although JavaScript workarounds exist for IE 
+compatibility—e.g., see www.grafx.com.au/dik//printLinkURLs.html), you can also pro¬ 
+vide the href values alongside any printed links by using the following code: 
+
+a:link:after, a:visited:after { 
+content: " (" attr(href) ") "; 
+font-size: 90%; 
+
+} 
+
+In terms of fonts, keeping things simple makes sense. It’s also worth noting that because 
+you’re working with print, sizes in points are more useful than sizes in pixels. (Note that 
+in the body rule, the line-height value was i6pt, not 16px or 1.6em.) Therefore, the 
+font-size values all reflect that. Note in the p.footer rule that floated content still needs 
+clearing in the print style sheets. 
+
+The final section, images, is not changed much. The images within the columns were 
+deemed superfluous, and so display has been set to none for .columnLeft img, 
+
+. columnRight img. Elsewhere, the margins on the floated image have been set to values in 
+centimeters (cm) and the border value for ttcontent img is in millimeters (mm), since we’re 
+working in print. (Values in pixels are permitted, but they tend to be less accurate when 
+working with print style sheets—for example, if elements have a one-pixel border, they 
+may not all be even when printed.) 
+
+
+394 
+
+
+PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER 
+
+
+One final thing that’s useful to know is how to create print-only content. In this example, 
+removing the masthead from the print output has also removed the site’s corporate ID. A 
+cunning way to bring this back is to create a black-and-white version of the company logo, 
+and add that as the first item on the web page, within a div that has an id value of 
+printLogo. 
+
+<div id="printLogo"> 
+
+<img src="assets/we-lay-floors-bw-logo.gif" alt="Web Lay Floors, 
+
+^ Inc. logo" width="267" height="70" /> 
+
+</div> 
+
+Then, in the main style sheet, create a rule that displays this element offscreen when the 
+page is loaded in a browser window. 
+
+#printLogo { 
+
+position: absolute; 
+left: -lOOOpx; 
+
+} 
+
+The content will then show up in print, but not online. Note, however, that you should be 
+mindful to not hide weighty images in this manner, otherwise you’ll compromise download 
+speeds for anyone using your website in a browser, only for making things slightly better 
+for those printing the site. A small, optimized GIF should be sufficient. 
+
+If there’s other content you want to hide in this manner, you can also create a generic 
+printOnly class to apply to elements you want hidden in the browser, but visible in print. 
+The following CSS rule applied to your screen style sheet would be sufficient for doing 
+this: 
+
+
+.printOnly { 
+display: none; 
+
+} 
+
+The reason for not using this generic method with the logo is because at the time of writ¬ 
+ing, Opera appears to only print images cached from the normal page view—in other 
+words, if the image isn’t displayed in the standard browser window. Opera won’t print it. 
+Therefore, if using the generic printOnly class, be aware that any images hidden won’t 
+print in Opera, but text will. 
+
+
+f A 
+
+If you’ve used Internet Explorer expressions for fixing layout issues with IE 6 and 
+lower (see Chapter 9), these may “leak" into the print version, regardless of 
+whether you’ve attached the style sheet by using a media attribute of screen. In 
+such cases, use a conditional comment to attach an IE-specific print CSS that 
+overrides the expression value or values. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+An example of how the print style sheet looks is shown in the following screenshot. 
+
+
+395 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+floats, 3nc. 
+
+For all your flooring needs 
+
+lx)reni ipsum dolor sii aiiiei. consccieiiicr adipiscing elii. 
+
+Morbi coinnuxlo, ipsum scd phareira gra\’ida, orci 
+magiia rhoncus neque. id puKinar odio lorem non turpis. 
+
+Nullani si( ainet enim. Suspendissc id \cli( \itae li^la 
+voluipai condimentiim. .\liquam era( volutpat. Sed quis 
+vclil. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libcro. \’ivainus pbareira 
+|X)sucre sapien. Nam consecicuier. Sod aliquam. nunc 
+ogei ouismod ullamcor|)cr. lectus nunc ullamcorper orci, 
+ronncnium bibondum enim nibh eget ipsum. Donee 
+pontitor ligtila eu dolor. Maecenas \iiae nulla consequat 
+
+libcro cursus venenaiis. Nam magna enim. accumsan eu. blandit scd. blandit a. eros. 
+Qiiisque facilisis oral a dui. Nam malesuada oniare dolor. Cras graNida. diam sit aniei 
+rhoncus omare. oral elii consecteiuer oral, id egestas pede nibh eget odio. 
+
+
+
+This is the pull quote. It's really very 
+exciting, so read it now! Lorem ipsum 
+dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing 
+elit. 
+
+
+Fred Wu^!^s 
+
+
+Lorem ipsum dolor 
+
+Sii amei. consecteiuer adipiscing elit. 
+.Morbi commodo, i|Kum sed pharetra 
+gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque. id 
+puKinar odio loix'in non tuqiis. Nullam 
+sii amet enim. Sus|x*ndisse id velil vitae 
+ligula volutpat condimentum. .-\liquam 
+ertil volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla 
+facilisi. Nulla lil)en). V'ivamus pharetra 
+|x)suerc sapien. Nam consectetuer. Sed 
+aiK|uain. nunc egel euisinod 
+ullaincoqxT, lecius nunc ullamcorper 
+orci. femieniiini. 
+
+
+Quisque facilisis erat a dut 
+
+Nam malesuada omare dolor. Cras 
+gravida, diam sit amet rhoncus omare, 
+erat elit consectetuer oral, id egestas 
+nibh eget odio. Pn)in tinciduni, 
+velit vel jwrta eleinenium, magna diam 
+moleslie sapien, non aliquot massa {x*de 
+eu diam. .\liquani iaculis. Fusee et 
+i|)sum et nulla tristitjue facilLsLs. Donee 
+eget sem sit amet ligula viverra gravida. 
+Ktiam vehicula uma vel iuq)is. 
+Suspendissc sa^ttis ante a uma. 
+
+
+© 2(M)7 \Vc Liv Floors. Inc. 
+
+
+Note that you can take things further in terms of layout, but it’s best to keep it simple. 
+Also, ensure that you use the Print Preview functions of your browser test suite to thor¬ 
+oughly test your print style sheet output and ensure that there are no nasty surprises for 
+visitors to your site. Ultimately, it’s worth the extra hassle—^just amending the fonts and 
+page margins and removing images and page areas that are irrelevant to the printed ver¬ 
+sion of the site not only improves your users’ experience, but also makes the site seem 
+more professional. 
+
+
+396 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+This section of the reference guide details, in alphabetical order, generally 
+supported elements and associated attributes. This is not intended as an 
+exhaustive guide; rather, its aim is to list those elements important and 
+relevant to current web design. Archaic deprecated elements such as font 
+and layer are therefore ignored, as well as many attributes once associated 
+with the body element, but the guide includes still occasionally useful 
+deprecated and nonstandard elements and attributes such as embed and 
+target. 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+f ^ 
+
+Note that in the following pages, various styles are used for the attribute names and 
+values. For the sake of clarity, quote marks have been omitted, but never forget that 
+XHTML attributes must be quoted. Therefore, where you see the likes of iA=name in 
+this reference section, the final output would be id="name". 
+
+V_!_ 
+
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+standard attributes are common to many elements. For brevity, they are listed in full here 
+rather than in the XHTML element table later in the chapter. For each element in the forth¬ 
+coming table, I simply state which groups of standard attributes are applicable to the element. 
+
+
+Core attributes 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+class=classname 
+
+Specifies a CSS class to define the element’s visual appearance. 
+
+id=name 
+
+Defines a unique reference ID for the element. 
+
+style=style 
+
+Sets an inline style. Deprecated in XHTML 1.1, so it should be 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+used sparingly and with caution. 
+
+title=string 
+
+Specifies the element’s title. Often used with links to provide a 
+tooltip expanding on the link’s purpose or the target’s content. 
+
+
+Not valid in these elements: base, head, html, meta, param, script, style, and title. 
+_!_ J 
+
+
+Keyboard attributes 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+accesskey=character 
+
+Defines a keyboard shortcut to access an element. The short¬ 
+cut must be a single character. Most commonly used with 
+navigation links. 
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Using accesskey and tabindex.” 
+
+tabindex=number 
+
+Defines the tab order of an element. Most commonly used 
+with form input elements. Setting the value to 0 excludes 
+the element from the tabbing order. The maximum value 
+allowed is 32767. The tabindex values on a page needn’t be 
+consecutive (for instance, you could use multiples of 10, to 
+leave space for later additions). 
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Using accesskey and tabindex.” 
+
+
+400 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Language attributes 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+dir=dir 
+
+Specifies the text rendering direction: left-to-right (Itr, the 
+default) or right-to-left (rtl). 
+
+lang=language 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the language for the tag’s contents, using two-letter 
+primary iS0639 codes and optional dialect codes. Included 
+for backward compatibility with HTML. Used together with 
+xml:lang (see below) in XHTML 1.0, but deprecated in 
+
+XHTML 1.1. 
+
+
+Examples: 
+
+lang="en" (English) 
+lang="en-US" (US English) 
+
+
+IS0639 codes include the following: ar (Arabic), zh 
+(Chinese), nl (Dutch), fr (French), de (German), el (Greek), 
+he (Hebrew), it (Italian), ja Oapanese), pt (Portuguese), ru 
+(Russian), sa (Sanskrit), es (Spanish), and ur (Urdu). 
+
+xml: lang=language 
+
+Replaces lang in XHTML 1.1, but both should be used 
+together in XHTML 1.0 to ensure backward compatibility with 
+HTML and older browsers, xml:lang takes precedence over 
+lang if set to a different value. 
+
+
+A/of valid in these elements: base, br, frame, frameset, hr, iframe, param, and script. 
+
+^^_ J 
+
+
+Event attributes 
+
+As of HTML 4.0, it’s been possible to trigger browser actions by way of HTML events. Again, 
+these are listed in full here and referred to for the relevant elements of the XHTML ele¬ 
+ment table. In XHTML, all event names must be in lowercase (e.g., onclick, not onClick). 
+
+
+
+Core events 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+onclick=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user clicks the ele¬ 
+ment’s content area 
+
+ondblclick=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user double-clicks the 
+element’s content area 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+401 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+onkeydown=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user presses a key while 
+the element’s content area is focused 
+
+onkeypress=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user presses and 
+releases a key while the element’s content area is focused 
+
+onkeyup=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user releases a pressed 
+key while the element’s content area is focused 
+
+onmousedown=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user presses down 
+the mouse button while the cursor is over the element’s 
+content area 
+
+onmousemove=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user moves the mouse 
+cursor in the element’s content area 
+
+onmouseout=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user moves the mouse 
+cursor off the element’s content area 
+
+onmouseover=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user moves the mouse 
+cursor onto the element’s content area 
+
+onmouseup=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the user releases the mouse 
+button on the element’s content area 
+
+
+Not valid in these elements: base, bdo, br, frame, frameset, head, html, iframe, meta, 
+param, script, style, and title. 
+
+V_^_ J 
+
+
+Form element events 
+
+These events are generally restricted to form elements, although some other elements 
+
+
+accept some of them. 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+onblur=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the element loses focus 
+
+onchange=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the element changes 
+
+onfocus=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the element is focused 
+
+
+402 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+onieset=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when a form is reset 
+
+onselect=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the element is selected 
+
+onsubmit=scr 2 pt 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when a form is submitted 
+
+
+Window events 
+
+These events are valid only in the following elements: body and frameset. 
+
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+onload=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the document loads 
+
+onunload=script 
+
+Specifies a script to be run when the document unloads 
+
+
+Although onresize is part ofDOM2, it’s not recognized by the XHTML specification. If an 
+onresize event is required, it cannot be applied directly to the body element. Instead, 
+you must declare it in the document head using window.onresize=functionName. 
+
+V_^ 
+
+
+XHTML elements and attributes 
+
+The following pages list XHTML elements, associated attributes, and descriptions for all. 
+Unless otherwise stated, assume an element is allowed in pages with XHTML Strict, XHTML 
+Transitional, or XHTML Frameset DTDs. Do not use elements or attributes with DTDs that 
+don’t allow them. For instance, the target attribute cannot be used with XHTML Strict— 
+doing so renders the page invalid. 
+
+Some elements are shown with a trailing forward slash. These are empty tags. Instead of 
+having a start tag, content, and an end tag, these elements have a combined form. This 
+takes the form of a start tag with an added trailing forward slash. Prior to the slash, a space 
+is usually added. For instance, <br /> denotes a line break. 
+
+
+
+403 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<!-- ... --> 
+
+
+Defines a comment. 
+
+No attributes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 2, 
+
+“Commenting your work.” 
+
+
+<!D0CTYPE> 
+
+(required) 
+
+
+Specifies a DTD for the 
+document. This is required 
+for a valid XHTML document. 
+
+No attributes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 2, “DOCTYPE 
+declarations explained.” 
+
+
+<a> 
+
+
+Defines an anchor. Can link to 
+another document by using the 
+href attribute, or create an 
+anchor within a document by 
+using the id or name attributes. 
+Despite the number of 
+available attributes, some 
+aren’t well supported. 
+
+Generally, href, name, title, 
+and target are commonly 
+used, along with class and id 
+for use as CSS or scripting 
+hooks. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onfocus 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Creating 
+and styling web page links.” 
+
+
+
+href=URL 
+
+Defines the link target. 
+
+
+
+naiTie=/7flme 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Names an anchor. Due to be 
+replaced by id in future 
+versions of XHTML. When 
+defining a fragment 
+identifier in XHTML 1.0, 
+id must be used. 
+
+
+
+iel=relationship 
+
+Specifies the relationship 
+from the current document to 
+the target document. 
+
+Common values include next, 
+prev, parent, child, index, 
+toe, and glossary. Also used 
+within link elements to define 
+the relationship of linked CSS 
+documents (e.g., to establish 
+default and alternative style 
+sheets). 
+
+
+
+404 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+iey=relationship 
+
+Specifies the relationship 
+from the target document 
+to the current document. 
+Common values include 
+next, prev, parent, child, 
+index, toe, and glossary. 
+
+
+
+target= blank] 
+parent] self] 
+top][name] 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines where the target URL 
+opens. Primarily of use with 
+frames, stating which frame 
+a target should open in. 
+Commonly used in web 
+pages to open external links 
+in a new window—a practice 
+that should be avoided, 
+because it breaks the 
+browser history path. 
+Unavailable in XHTML TO, so 
+cannot be used with XHTML 
+
+1.0 Strict documents. 
+
+However, target is available 
+in XHTML 1.1 using the 
+target module. 
+
+
+
+type=MIAI£ type 
+
+Specifies the MIME type of 
+the target. For instance, if 
+linking to a plain text file, 
+you might use the following: 
+
+
+
+
+<a href="document.txt" 
+
+^ type="text/plain"> 
+
+
+<abbr> 
+
+
+Identifies the element 
+content as an abbreviation. 
+
+This can be useful for 
+nonvisual web browsers. 
+
+For example: 
+
+<abbr 
+
+^ title="Doctor">Dr.</abbr> 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Acronyms 
+and abbreviations.” 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+405 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<acronym> 
+
+
+Identifies the element 
+content as an acronym. This 
+can be useful for nonvisual 
+web browsers. For example: 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+<acronym title="North 
+Atlantic Treaty 
+0rganization">NAT0 
+</acronym> 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, 
+
+“Acronyms and 
+abbreviations.” 
+
+
+<address> 
+
+
+Used to define addresses, 
+signatures, or document 
+authors. Typically rendered 
+in italics, with a line break 
+above and below (but no 
+additional space). 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Contact 
+details structure redux.” 
+
+
+<applet> 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+
+Adds an applet to the web 
+page. Deprecated in favor of 
+the object element, but still 
+required for embedding 
+some Java applets. This 
+element cannot be used with 
+an XHTML Strict DOCTYPE. 
+Likewise, all of the element’s 
+attributes are deprecated and 
+cannot be used with the 
+
+XHTML Strict DOCTYPE. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=position 
+
+Defines text alignment 
+around the element. Possible 
+values are left, right, top, 
+middle, and bottom. 
+
+
+
+alt=string 
+
+Alternate text for browsers 
+that don’t support applets. 
+
+
+
+archive=L//?L 
+
+Defines a list of URLs with 
+classes to be preloaded. 
+
+
+
+406 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+code=URL 
+
+(required) 
+
+Specifies either the name of 
+the class file that contains the 
+applet’s compiled applet 
+subclass or the path to get 
+the class file, including the 
+class file itself. 
+
+
+
+
+This attribute is required if 
+the object attribute is 
+missing, and vice versa. If 
+both are present, they must 
+use the same class name. 
+
+Note: the value is case- 
+sensitive. 
+
+
+
+codebase=L//?i 
+
+Base URL of the applet. 
+
+
+
+height=numLier 
+
+(required) 
+
+Pixel height of the applet. 
+
+This attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+hspace=number 
+
+Sets horizontal space around 
+the applet. 
+
+
+
+r\ame=nanie 
+
+Sets a unique name for this 
+instance of the applet, which 
+can be used in scripts. 
+
+
+
+object=nome 
+
+Defines a resource’s name 
+that contains a serialized 
+representation of the applet. 
+
+
+
+vspace=number 
+
+Sets vertical space around the 
+applet. 
+
+
+
+width=nwfflber 
+
+(required) 
+
+Pixel width of the applet. This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+<area /> 
+
+
+Defines a clickable area 
+within a client-side image 
+map. Should be nested within 
+a map element (see separate 
+<map> entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Image 
+maps.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onfocus 
+
+
+alt=string 
+
+(required) 
+
+Provides alternate text for 
+nonvisual browsers. This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+407 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element Attribute 
+
+Description Standard attributes 
+
+coords= 
+
+coordinates list 
+
+Specifies coordinates for the 
+clickable image map area. 
+
+Values are defined as a 
+comma-separated list. The 
+number of values depends on 
+the shape attribute value: 
+
+For rect, four values are 
+required, defining the 
+coordinates on the x and y 
+axes of the top-left and 
+bottom-right corners. 
+
+For circle, three values are 
+required, with the first two 
+defining the x and y 
+coordinates of the hot-spot 
+center, and the third defining 
+the circle’s radius. 
+
+For poly, each pair of x and y 
+values defines a point of the 
+hot-spot’s. 
+
+href=URL 
+
+The link target. 
+
+nohie-f=nohref 
+
+Enables you to set the 
+defined area to have no 
+action when the user selects 
+it. nohref is the only possible 
+value of this attribute. 
+
+shape=rect| 
+circle 1 poly 1 
+default 
+
+Defines the shape of the 
+clickable region. 
+
+target= blank\ 
+parent\ self} 
+top\[name] 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines where the target URL 
+opens. Cannot be used in 
+
+XHTML Strict 
+
+
+408 
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<b> 
+
+
+Renders text as bold. 
+
+This element is a physical 
+style, which defines what 
+the content looks like 
+(presentation only), rather 
+than a logical style, which 
+defines what the content 
+is (which is beneficial for 
+technologies like screen 
+readers), it’s recommended 
+to use the logical element 
+<strong></strong> in place 
+of <b></b> (see separate 
+<strong> entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Styles 
+for emphasis (bold and 
+italic).” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<base /> 
+
+
+Specifies a base URL for 
+relative URLs on the web 
+page. 
+
+
+
+hiei=URL 
+
+(required) 
+
+Defines the base URL to use. 
+This attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+target= blank] 
+parent] self] 
+top][name] 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines where to open page 
+links. Can be overridden by 
+inline target attributes. 
+
+Cannot be used in XHTML 
+Strict 
+
+
+<bdo> 
+
+
+Overrides the default text 
+direction. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+
+dii=ltr\rtl 
+
+(required) 
+
+Defines text direction as 
+left to right (Itr) or right 
+to left (rtl). This attribute 
+is required. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+409 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<big> 
+
+
+Increments text size to 
+the next size larger as 
+compared to surrounding 
+text. Because the size 
+differential is determined 
+by the browser, precise 
+text size changes are 
+better achieved via span 
+elements and CSS. Some 
+browsers misinterpret 
+this tag and render text 
+as bold. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “The 
+big and small elements.” 
+
+
+<blockquote> 
+
+
+Defines a lengthy quotation. 
+
+To validate as XHTML Strict, 
+enclosed content must be set 
+within a block-level element 
+(such as <p></p>). 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+Although it is common for 
+web designers to use this 
+element to indent content, 
+the W3C strongly 
+recommends using CSS 
+for such things. 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Block 
+quotes, quote citations, and 
+definitions,” and “Creating 
+drop caps and pull quotes 
+using CSS.” 
+
+
+
+cite=URL 
+
+Defines the online location 
+of quoted material. 
+
+
+<body> 
+
+(required) 
+
+
+Defines the document’s body 
+and contains the document’s 
+contents. This is a required 
+element for XHTML web 
+pages. (In HTML, it is 
+optional and implied when 
+absent. However, it’s good 
+practice to always include 
+the element.) 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onload, 
+onunload 
+
+<br /> 
+
+
+Inserts a single line break. 
+
+Core attributes 
+
+
+410 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<button> 
+
+
+Defines a push button 
+element within a form. Works 
+similarly to buttons created 
+with the input element, but 
+offers greater rendering 
+scope. This is because all 
+content becomes the content 
+of the button, enabling the 
+creation of buttons with text 
+and images. For example: 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onfocus 
+
+
+
+<button type="submit"> 
+
+Order nowl <img 
+'-■src="go.gif" alt="Go" 
+
+/> 
+
+
+
+disable(i=disablecl 
+
+Disables the button, disabled 
+is the only possible value of 
+this attribute. 
+
+
+
+r\ame=nanie 
+
+Defines the button’s name. 
+
+
+
+tYpe=button\reset 
+submit 
+
+Identifies the button’s type. 
+
+
+
+\/alue=string 
+
+Defines the button’s initial 
+value. 
+
+
+<caption> 
+
+
+Defines a caption for a table. 
+Seldom used, but 
+recommended because it 
+enables you to associate a 
+table’s title with its contents. 
+Omitting the caption may 
+mean the table’s contents are 
+meaningless out of context. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Captions 
+and summaries.” 
+
+
+<cite> 
+
+
+Defines content as a citation. 
+Usually rendered in italics. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Block 
+quotes, quote citations, and 
+definitions.” 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+411 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<code> 
+
+
+Defines content as computer 
+code sample text. Usually 
+rendered in a monospace font. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Logical styles 
+for programming-oriented 
+content,” and the “Displaying 
+blocks of code online” exercise. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<col /> 
+
+
+Defines properties for a column or 
+group of columns within a 
+colgroup. Attributes defined 
+within a col element override 
+those set in the containing 
+colgroup element, col is an empty 
+element that contains attributes 
+only. The following example sets 
+the column widths of the table’s 
+first three columns to 10, 30, and 
+
+50 pixels, respectively: 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+ccolgroup span="3"> 
+
+<col width="10"></col> 
+
+<col width="30"></col> 
+
+<col width="50"></col> 
+</colgroup> 
+
+See also the <colgroup> entry. 
+
+
+
+align=2e/t I I 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you use the CSS text-align 
+property instead (see its entry in the 
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+span=/i 
+
+Defines how many successive 
+columns are affected by the col 
+tag. Use only when the surround¬ 
+ing colgroup element does not 
+specify the number of columns. 
+
+
+
+
+The following example creates a 
+colgroup with five columns, with 
+each of the middle three columns 
+
+30 pixels wide: 
+
+
+
+
+<colgroup> 
+
+<col width="10" /> 
+
+<col width=" 30 " span="3" /> 
+<col width="50" /> 
+
+</colgroup> 
+
+
+
+412 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+\/align=top\middle \ 
+bottom]baseline 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical 
+alignment of table cell 
+content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property 
+(see its entry in the CSS 
+reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+width=percentage/ 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the width of the 
+column. Overrides the width 
+settings in colgroup. 
+
+
+<colgroup> 
+
+
+Defines a column group 
+within a table, enabling you 
+to define formatting for the 
+columns within. See the 
+<col /> entry for examples. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Scope 
+and headers.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal 
+alignment of the table cell 
+content within the colgroup. 
+
+It’s recommended that you 
+instead use the CSS text- 
+align property (see its entry 
+in the CSS reference) to 
+do this. 
+
+
+
+span=number 
+
+Defines how many columns the 
+colgroup should span. Do not 
+use if any of the col tags within 
+the colgroup also use span, 
+because a colgroup definition 
+will be ignored in favor of span 
+attributes defined within the 
+col elements. 
+
+
+
+\/align=top\middle \ 
+bottom]baseline 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical 
+alignment of the table cell 
+content within the colgroup. 
+
+It’s recommended that you 
+instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property 
+(see its entry in the CSS 
+reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+413 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+Midth=percentage/ 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the width of columns 
+within the colgroup. Can be 
+overridden by the width 
+settings of individual col 
+elements. 
+
+
+<dd> 
+
+
+Defines a definition 
+description within a definition 
+list. See the <dl> entry for an 
+example. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, 
+
+“Definition lists,” and the 
+“Displaying blocks of code 
+online” exercise. 
+
+
+<del> 
+
+
+Indicates deleted text. Usually 
+appears in strikethrough 
+format. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Elements 
+for inserted and deleted 
+text.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+cite=URL 
+
+Defines the URL of a 
+document that explains why 
+the text was deleted. 
+
+
+
+datetime=dote 
+
+Defines the date and time 
+that the text was amended. 
+Various formats are possible, 
+including YYYY-MM-DD and 
+YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD 
+(where TZD is the time zone 
+designator). See www.w3.org/ 
+TR/1998/NOTE-datetime- 
+19980827 for more date and 
+time formatting information. 
+
+
+<d-Fn> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed content as 
+the defining instance of a 
+term. Usually rendered in 
+italics. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Block 
+quotes, quote citations, and 
+definitions.” 
+
+
+
+414 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<div> 
+
+
+Defines a division within a 
+web page. Perhaps one of 
+the most versatile but least 
+understood elements. Used 
+in combination with an id or 
+class, the div tag element 
+allows sections of a page to 
+be individually styled and is 
+the primary XHTML element 
+used for the basis of CSS- 
+based web page layouts. 
+
+See also Chapter 7, 
+
+“Workflow for CSS layouts.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<dl> 
+
+
+Defines a definition list. 
+Contains pairs of term and 
+definition elements, as 
+follows: 
+
+<dl> 
+
+<dt>Windows</dt> 
+<dd>Operating system 
+^made by Microsoft.</dd> 
+<dt>Mac 0S</dt> 
+<dd>Operating system 
+^made by Apple.</dd> 
+
+</dl> 
+
+See also Chapter 3, 
+
+“Definition lists,” and the 
+“Displaying blocks of code 
+online” exercise. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<dt> 
+
+
+Defines a definition term 
+within a definition list. See 
+the <dl> entry for an 
+example. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, 
+
+“Definition lists,” and the 
+“Displaying blocks of code 
+online” exercise. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+415 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<em> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed content as 
+emphasized. Generally 
+renders as italics in a browser 
+and is preferred over the use 
+of <i></i>. See separate 
+<i> entry. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Block 
+quotes, quote citations, and 
+definitions.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<embed> 
+
+(nonstandard) 
+
+
+Embeds an object. 
+
+Nonstandard and not 
+supported by any XHTML 
+DOCTYPE. If this is included in 
+a web page, the page will not 
+validate. Poor browser 
+support for the W3C 
+preferred alternative, object, 
+left developers with little 
+choice other than to use this 
+nonstandard element when 
+embedding Flash or other 
+multimedia into a web page. 
+Support for object has now 
+improved, although embed 
+may still be required in some 
+circumstances. 
+
+
+
+align=Je/t I right I 
+top I bottom 
+
+Defines the alignment of the 
+embedded object in relation 
+to the surrounding text. 
+
+
+
+height=nwfflfaer 
+
+Defines the height of the 
+object in pixels. 
+
+
+
+hidden=yes |/io 
+
+Hides the player or media file 
+when set to yes. Defaults to no. 
+
+
+
+hspace=nwfflher 
+
+Sets horizontal space around 
+the object. 
+
+
+
+nanie=/7flme 
+
+Sets a name for the object. 
+
+
+
+pluginspage=L//?L 
+
+Defines a URL for information 
+on installing the relevant 
+plug-in. 
+
+
+
+416 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+sic=URL 
+
+Provides the location of the 
+
+
+
+(required) 
+
+object to be embedded. This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+type=MIAI£ type 
+
+Specifies the MIME type of 
+the plug-in required to run 
+the file. 
+
+
+
+vspace=number 
+
+Sets vertical space around the 
+object. 
+
+
+
+width=nwffli)er 
+
+Defines the width of the 
+object in pixels. 
+
+
+<fieldset> 
+
+
+Creates a group of related 
+
+Core attributes, 
+
+
+
+form elements by nesting 
+
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+them within the fieldset 
+element. Usually used in 
+tandem with the legend 
+element to enhance form 
+accessibility (see the 
+<legend> entry for more 
+information). 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, 
+
+“Improving form 
+accessibility.” 
+
+
+
+accesskey= 
+
+Defines a keyboard shortcut 
+
+
+
+character 
+
+to access an element. 
+
+
+<form> 
+
+
+Indicates the start and end 
+
+Core attributes. 
+
+
+
+of a form. Cannot be nested 
+
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+within another form element. 
+Generally, the method and 
+action attributes are most 
+used. 
+
+Core events, 
+onreset, onsubmit 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Working 
+with forms.” 
+
+
+
+accept=content- 
+
+Specifies a comma-separated 
+
+
+
+type list 
+
+list of MIME types that the 
+server processing the form 
+can handle correctly. 
+
+
+
+accept- 
+
+Specifies a comma-separated 
+
+
+
+charset=charset 
+
+list of character sets for 
+
+
+
+list 
+
+form data. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+417 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+action=L//?L 
+
+(required) 
+
+The URL of the form 
+processing application where 
+the data is sent once the 
+form is submitted. This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+enctype=encoding 
+
+The MIME type used to 
+encode the form’s content 
+before it’s sent to the server, 
+so it doesn’t become 
+scrambled. Defaults to 
+application/x-www-form- 
+urlencoded. Other options 
+are multipart/form-data, 
+which can be used when the 
+user is able to upload files, 
+and text-plain, which 
+can be used when using a 
+mailto: value for the action 
+instead of a server-side script 
+to parse the form data. 
+
+
+
+method=get\post 
+
+Specifies the http method 
+used to submit the form data. 
+The post value is most 
+commonly used. 
+
+
+
+nanie=/7flme 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the form’s name. 
+Cannot be used in XHTML 
+
+Strict 
+
+
+
+target= blank\ 
+parent\ self\ 
+top\[name] 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines where the target URL 
+is opened. Cannot be used in 
+XHTML Strict 
+
+
+<frame> 
+
+
+Defines a frame. This element 
+and its attributes must only 
+be used with the XHTML 
+Frameset DTD, and not with 
+XHTML Strict or XHTML 
+Transitional. 
+
+Core attributes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Working 
+with frames.” 
+
+
+
+418 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element Attribute Description Standard attributes 
+
+
+frameborder=0|l 
+
+Defines whether frame 
+borders are present 
+(frameborder="l") or not 
+(frameborder="0"). 
+
+longdesc=L//?i 
+
+Defines a URL for a long 
+description of the frame 
+contents for non-frames- 
+compatible browsers. 
+
+marginheight= 
+
+number 
+
+The vertical space between 
+the frame edges and its 
+contents (measured in pixels). 
+
+marginwidth= 
+
+number 
+
+The horizontal space between 
+the frame edges and its 
+contents (measured in pixels). 
+
+name=naine 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines a name for the frame. 
+
+noresize=noresize 
+
+Stops the user from resizing 
+the frame. The only available 
+value is noresize. 
+
+scrolling=outo/ 
+no lyes 
+
+Specifies whether scroll bars 
+appear when the frame 
+contents are too large for the 
+visible area. The yes value 
+mean permanent scroll bars 
+are shown; no means scroll 
+bars don’t appear, even if the 
+content is too large for the 
+frame; and auto means scroll 
+bars appear when the content 
+is too large for the frame. 
+
+src=URL 
+
+Defines the location of the 
+frame’s default HTML 
+document. 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+419 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<frameset> 
+
+
+Defines a frameset. Must 
+have either a cols or a rows 
+attribute. This element and 
+its attributes must only be 
+used with the XHTML 
+
+Frameset DTD, and not with 
+XHTML Strict or XHTML 
+Transitional. 
+
+Core attributes 
+onload, onunload 
+
+
+
+<frameset cols="l50j* "> 
+<frame src= 
+‘•"frame-one.html" /> 
+
+<frame src= 
+‘•"frame-two.html" /> 
+</frameset> 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Working 
+with frames.” 
+
+
+
+cols=percentage/ 
+
+number"* 
+
+Defines the number and sizes 
+of columns (vertical frames). 
+When setting the value to 
+the frame it’s applied to takes 
+up all remaining browser 
+window space for that 
+dimension. If more than one 
+value is *, the remaining space 
+is split between those frames 
+the * value is assigned to. 
+
+
+
+rows=percentage/ 
+
+number"* 
+
+Defines the number and sizes 
+of rows (horizontal frames). 
+
+See the preceding entry for 
+an explanation of how the * 
+value works. 
+
+
+
+420 
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<hn> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed contents as 
+
+Core attributes. 
+
+
+
+a heading. Available levels are 
+
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+1 to 6. Note that although h4 
+through h6 tend to be 
+displayed smaller than body 
+copy by default, they are not 
+a means to create small text; 
+rather, they are a way to 
+enable you to structure your 
+document. This is essential, 
+because headings help with 
+assistive technology, enabling 
+the visually impaired to 
+efficiently surf the Web. 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, 
+
+“Paragraphs and headings.” 
+
+
+<head> 
+
+
+Defines the header of the 
+
+Language attributes 
+
+(required) 
+
+
+HTML file. Houses 
+information-based elements, 
+such as base, link, meta, 
+script, style, and title. 
+
+This is a required element for 
+XHTML web pages. (It’s 
+optional for HTML, but 
+implied when absent. 
+
+However, it’s good practice 
+to always include a head 
+element in web pages.) 
+
+
+
+profile=(7/?/. 
+
+The location of a metadata 
+profile for this document. 
+
+Not commonly used. 
+
+
+<hr /> 
+
+
+Inserts a horizontal rule. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+
+Core events 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+421 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<html> 
+
+(required) 
+
+
+Defines the start and end of 
+the HTML document. This is 
+a required element for 
+
+XHTML web pages. (It’s 
+optional for HTML, but 
+implied when absent. 
+
+However, it’s good practice 
+to always include a head 
+element in web pages.) No 
+
+HTML content should be 
+placed before the html start 
+tag or after the html end tag. 
+
+Language attributes 
+
+
+xmlns=namespace 
+
+Defines the XML namespace 
+(e.g., http://www.w3.org/ 
+1999/xhtml). 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Document 
+defaults.” 
+
+
+<i> 
+
+
+Renders text as italic. This 
+element is a physical style, 
+which defines what the 
+content looks like (presenta¬ 
+tion only), rather than a 
+logical style, which defines 
+what the content is (which is 
+beneficial for technologies 
+like screen readers). It’s 
+generally preferable to use 
+the logical element <em></em> 
+in place of <i></i>. See the 
+preceding <em> entry. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Styles for 
+emphasis (bold and italic).” 
+
+
+<iframe> 
+
+
+Defines an inline frame. 
+
+Content within the element 
+is displayed only in browsers 
+that cannot display the 
+iframe. This element and its 
+attributes cannot be used in 
+XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Working 
+with internal frames 
+(iframes).” 
+
+
+
+422 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description Standard attributes 
+
+
+frameborder=0|l 
+
+Defines whether a frame 
+border is present 
+(frameborder="l") or not 
+(frameborder="0"). 
+
+
+height=percentflge/ 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the iframe’s height. 
+
+
+longdesc=L//?i 
+
+Defines a URL for a long 
+description of the iframe’s 
+contents for non-frames- 
+compatible browsers. 
+
+
+marginheight= 
+
+The vertical space (in pixels) 
+
+
+number 
+
+between the iframe’s edges 
+and its contents. 
+
+
+marginwidth= 
+
+The horizontal space (in 
+
+
+number 
+
+pixels) between the iframe’s 
+edges and its contents. 
+
+
+r\ame=nanie 
+
+Defines a name for the 
+
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+iframe. 
+
+
+scrolling=owto| 
+
+Specifies whether scroll bars 
+
+
+no\yes 
+
+appear when the iframe’s 
+contents are too large for the 
+visible area. The yes value 
+means permanent scroll bars 
+are shown; no means scroll 
+bars don’t appear, even if the 
+content is too large for the 
+frame; and auto means scroll 
+bars appear when the content 
+is too large for the frame. 
+
+
+sic=URL 
+
+Defines the location of the 
+iframe’s default HTML 
+document. 
+
+
+uidth=percentage/ 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the iframe’s width. 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+423 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<img /> 
+
+
+Inserts an image. Both the 
+src and alt attributes are 
+required; although many web 
+designers omit the alt 
+attribute, it’s essential for 
+screen readers. The height 
+and width values are 
+recommended, too, in order 
+to assist the browser in 
+rapidly laying out the page. 
+
+The border value, despite 
+common usage, is deprecated 
+and should be avoided. Use 
+
+CSS to determine whether 
+images have borders. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 4, “Working 
+with images in XHTML.” 
+
+
+
+alt=text 
+
+(required) 
+
+Provides alternate text for 
+nonvisual browsers. Should 
+provide an indication of an 
+image’s content or, if it’s a link, 
+its function. When an image has 
+no visual semantic significance, 
+include it via CSS. If that’s not 
+possilbe, use alt="". This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+boidiei=number 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines a border. Despite its 
+common usage, this attribute is 
+deprecated and cannot be used 
+in XHTML Strict. Instead, use 
+
+CSS to set borders on images. 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 4, “Applying 
+
+CSS borders to images.” 
+
+
+
+height=/iufflfaer 
+
+Defines the image’s height in 
+pixels. 
+
+
+
+ismap=(7/?L 
+
+Defines the image as a server- 
+side image map. The image 
+must be contained within an 
+anchor tag. Server-side image 
+maps require specialized 
+setup and are rarely used. Do 
+not confuse this attribute 
+with usemap (see the 
+upcoming usemap entry). 
+
+
+
+424 
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+longdesc=L//?i 
+
+Provides the location of a 
+document containing a long 
+description of the image. 
+
+
+
+sic=URL 
+
+(required) 
+
+The URL of the image to be 
+displayed. This attribute is 
+required. 
+
+
+
+usemap=URL 
+
+Defines the image as a client- 
+side image map. 
+
+
+
+width=nuinber 
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Image 
+maps.” 
+
+Defines the image’s width in 
+pixels. 
+
+
+<input /> 
+
+
+Defines a form input field. 
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Adding 
+controls.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onchange, onfocus, 
+onselect 
+
+
+accept=2ist 
+
+A list of MIME types that can 
+be accepted by this element. 
+Only used with type="file". 
+
+
+
+alt=text 
+
+Provides alternate text for 
+nonvisual browsers. Only used 
+with type="image". 
+
+
+
+checked=c^ec/fed 
+
+Sets input element’s default 
+state to checked. The only 
+value for this attribute is 
+checked. Only used with 
+type="checkbox" and 
+type="iadio". 
+
+
+
+disabled=disabled 
+
+Disables the input element. 
+
+The only value for this 
+attribute is disabled. Cannot 
+be used with type="bidden". 
+
+
+
+maxlengtb=nuinber 
+
+Defines the maximum 
+number of characters 
+allowed. Only used with 
+type= "text". 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+425 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description Standard attributes 
+
+
+nanie=/7flme 
+
+(required*) 
+
+Defines a name for the input 
+element. 
+
+
+
+* Required for the following 
+types: button, checkbox, 
+file, hidden, image, 
+password, text, and radio. 
+
+
+ieadonly=readonly 
+
+Indicates the input element 
+is read-only and cannot be 
+modified. The only value for 
+this attribute is readonly. 
+
+Only used with type="text" 
+and type="password". 
+
+
+size=number 
+
+Defines in characters (not 
+pixels) the width of the input 
+element. (For pixel-defined 
+widths, use CSS.) 
+
+
+
+Cannot be used with 
+type=" hidden". 
+
+
+sic=URL 
+
+Defines the URL of the image 
+to be displayed. Only used 
+with type= "image 
+
+
+type=button | 
+checkboxifilel 
+hiclden\image\ 
+passwoid\iadio \ 
+reset |swLifflit| text 
+
+Defines the input element 
+type. Defaults to text. 
+
+
+value=stri/i 3 
+(required when 
+type=checkbox and 
+type=radio) 
+
+When type="button", type= 
+
+"reset", or type="submit", it 
+defines button text. 
+
+When type="checkbox" or 
+type="radio", it defines the 
+result of the input element; the 
+result being sent when the form 
+is submitted. 
+
+
+
+When type="hidden", 
+type="password", or 
+type="text", it defines the 
+element’s default value. 
+
+
+
+When type="image", it defines 
+the result of the field passed to 
+the script. Cannot be used with 
+type="file". 
+
+
+426 
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<ins> 
+
+
+Defines inserted text. Usually 
+appears in underline format, 
+which can be confusing 
+because links are also under¬ 
+lined. It’s therefore 
+recommended that you use 
+
+CSS to change the underline 
+color. 
+
+ins { 
+
+text-decoration: none; 
+border-bottom: Ipx solid red; 
+} 
+
+See also Chapter 3 , "Elements for 
+inserted and deleted text." 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+cite=URL 
+
+Defines the URL of a 
+document that explains why 
+the text was inserted. 
+
+
+
+datetme=date 
+
+Defines the date and time 
+that the text was amended. 
+Various formats are possible, 
+including YYYY-MM-DD and 
+YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD 
+(where TZD is the time zone 
+designator). See www.w3.0rg/ 
+TR/1998/NOTE-datetime- 
+19980827 for more date and 
+time formatting information. 
+
+
+<kbd> 
+
+
+Defines “keyboard” text 
+(text inputted by the user). 
+Usually rendered in a 
+monospace font. 
+
+See also Chapter 3 , “Logical 
+styles for programming- 
+oriented content.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+427 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<label> 
+
+
+Assigns a label to a form 
+control, enabling you to define 
+relationships between text 
+labels and form controls. For 
+example: 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onfocus 
+
+
+
+cpxstrongxlabel for= 
+"realname">Name</label> 
+</strongxbr /> 
+
+<input type="text" 
+name="realname" 
+id="realname" size="30" 
+/x/p> 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “The label, 
+fieldset, and legend elements.” 
+
+
+
+accesskey= 
+
+character 
+
+Defines a keyboard shortcut 
+to access an element. 
+
+
+
+for=text 
+
+Defines the form element 
+that the label is for. Value 
+must be the same as the 
+associated control element’s 
+id attribute value. 
+
+
+<legend> 
+
+
+Defines a caption for a 
+fieldset. Must be nested 
+within a fieldset element. 
+
+For example: 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+<fieldset> 
+
+<legend>Caption for this 
+fieldset</legend> 
+
+[form labels/controls] 
+</fieldset> 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “The 
+label, fieldset, and legend 
+elements.” 
+
+
+
+accesskey= 
+
+character 
+
+Defines a keyboard shortcut 
+to access an element. 
+
+
+<li> 
+
+
+Defines a list item. Must be 
+nested within <ol> or <ul> 
+elements (see the separate 
+<ol> and <ul> entries). 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Working 
+with lists.” 
+
+
+
+428 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element Attribute 
+
+Description Standard attributes 
+
+type=/orfflot 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the list type for the 
+list item. (See the <ol> and 
+<ul> entries for possible 
+values.) Cannot be used in 
+
+XHTML Strict. 
+
+value=/iufflber 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the number of the 
+item in an ordered list. Cannot 
+be used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+<link /> 
+
+Defines the relationship Core attributes, 
+
+between two linked language attributes 
+
+documents. Must be placed ^ pwents 
+
+in the head section of a 
+
+document. Mainly used for 
+
+attaching external style sheets 
+
+and favicons to a document. 
+
+Also, modern blogging systems 
+use link elements to define 
+relationships between the 
+current document and others, 
+such as XML feeds, next and 
+previous pages, and archives. 
+
+When used fully, link 
+elements can have 
+considerable accessibility and 
+usability benefits; for example, 
+some modern browsers use 
+the data to provide extra 
+navigation toolbars/options. 
+
+See also Chapter 2 , “Attaching 
+external CSS files: The link 
+method,” and “Attaching 
+favicons and JavaScript.” 
+
+charset=charset 
+
+Defines the character set of 
+the target document. 
+
+hie-f=URL 
+
+The URL of the target. 
+
+hreflang= 
+language code 
+
+Defines the language of the 
+linked document. 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+429 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+media=ffledio 
+type list 
+
+Defines the target medium 
+for the linked document (all, 
+aural, braille, handheld, 
+print, projection, screen, 
+tty, or tv). More than one 
+medium can be combined in 
+a comma-delimited list. 
+
+
+
+i[:el=relationship 
+
+Specifies the relationship from 
+the current document to the 
+target document (alternate, 
+appendix, bookmark, chapter, 
+contents, copyright, glossary, 
+help, index, next, prev, 
+section, start, stylesheet, 
+or subsection). More than one 
+relationship can be combined 
+in a space-separated list. 
+
+
+
+T[:ey=relationship 
+
+Specifies the relationship from 
+the target document to the 
+current document (see the 
+preceding entry for values). 
+
+
+
+target= blank] 
+parent] self] 
+top][name] 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines where the target URL 
+opens. Cannot be used in 
+
+XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+type=MIM£ type 
+
+Specifies the target’s MIME 
+type, such as text/css or 
+text/javascript. 
+
+
+<map> 
+
+
+Contains client-side image 
+map specifications. Contains 
+one or more area elements 
+(see preceding <area /> 
+entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 5 , “Image 
+maps.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onfocus 
+
+
+id=name 
+
+(required) 
+
+Defines a unique name for the 
+map. This attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+r\ame=nanie 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines a unique name for 
+the map. (Superseded by id, 
+but can be used for backward 
+compatibility.) 
+
+
+
+430 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<meta /> 
+
+
+Provides meta information 
+
+Language attributes 
+
+
+about the document. Must be 
+placed inside the HTML 
+page’s head section. Each 
+meta element requires a 
+content attribute and also 
+an http-equiv or a name 
+attribute. Most commonly 
+used to define the character 
+set, and to set keywords and 
+descriptions for search 
+engines (increasingly 
+ineffective, as search engines 
+now pay more attention to 
+page content and links than 
+to meta tags). 
+
+See also Chapter 2 , “meta 
+tags and search engines,” and 
+“What about the XML 
+declaration?” 
+
+content=strir)g Defines the value of the 
+
+(required) meta tag property. 
+
+http-equiv=stri/i9 Specifies the http equivalent 
+
+name for the meta 
+information. Examples are 
+content-type, expires, 
+refresh, and set-cookie. 
+
+r)ame=string Specifies a name for the meta 
+
+information. Examples are 
+author, description, 
+generator, and keywords. 
+
+scheme=strir)9 Specifies the metadata profile 
+
+scheme. 
+
+
+Nested within embed elements 
+and displayed only when the 
+browser cannot display the 
+embedded object. Nonstandard 
+and not supported by any 
+XHTML DOCTYPE. If this is 
+included in a web page, the 
+page will not validate. 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+<noembed> 
+
+(nonstandard) 
+
+
+431 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<noframes> 
+
+
+Defines content to be displayed in 
+non-frames-compatible browsers. 
+Should be placed inside a frameset 
+element. Intended for use with 
+
+XHTML Frameset DOCTYPE only. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+<noscript> 
+
+
+Defines content to be displayed in 
+browsers that don’t support 
+scripting. This is considered a 
+“block-level” element, so it cannot 
+be nested in an element that 
+accepts only inline content, such 
+as a paragraph, heading, or 
+preformatted text. Can be used 
+inside a div, form, or list item. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+<ob]ect> 
+
+
+Defines an embedded object. 
+
+See also Chapter 7, "Scrollable 
+content areas with CSS." 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+archive=(7/?L 
+
+Defines a list of URLs to resources 
+used by the object. 
+
+
+
+boidei=number 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Sets the object’s border width. 
+
+Cannot be used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+classid=(7/?L 
+
+Defines the URL of the object. 
+
+
+
+codebase=L//?L 
+
+Defines the base URL of the object. 
+
+
+
+codetype=MIAI£ 
+
+type 
+
+Defines the object’s MIME type. 
+
+
+
+data=URL 
+
+Defines the URL of the object’s data. 
+
+
+
+declaie=declare 
+
+Declares an object but does not 
+download it until the object is used. 
+The only value for this attribute is 
+declare. 
+
+
+
+height=number 
+
+Defines the object’s height in pixels. 
+
+
+
+432 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+name=nanie 
+
+Sets a unique name for this instance 
+of the object, which can be used in 
+scripts. 
+
+
+
+standby=text 
+
+Defines text to display while the 
+object is downloading. 
+
+
+
+type=MIM£ type 
+
+Defines the object data’s MIME type. 
+
+
+
+usemap=L//?i 
+
+Specifies the client-side image map 
+to use with the object. 
+
+
+
+width=/iwffltier 
+
+Defines the object’s width in pixels. 
+
+
+<ol> 
+
+
+Defines the start and end of an 
+ordered list. Contains one or more 
+li elements, (see preceding <li> 
+entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Ordered lists.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+stait=number 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Starts the list numbering at the 
+defined value instead of 1. Cannot 
+be used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+type=l|4|o|I|I 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the list numbering system 
+(l=default numerals, A=uppercase 
+letters, a=lowercase letters, 
+I=uppercase Roman numerals, and 
+i=lowercase Roman numerals). 
+
+Cannot be used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+433 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<optgroup> 
+
+
+Defines a form option group, 
+enabling you to group related 
+options in a select element. 
+
+Beware: display output varies 
+between browsers. Some italicize 
+optgroup label values to highlight 
+them, while others highlight them 
+by inverting the optgroup label 
+value. Others display them as per 
+option values. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+cselect name="> 
+coptgroup label="fruits"> 
+coption value="Apple"> 
+Apple</option> 
+coption value="Pear"> 
+
+^ Pear</option> 
+
+</optgroup> 
+
+coptgroup label="vegetables"> 
+coption value="Carrot"> 
+
+^ Carrot</option> 
+coption value="Turnip"> 
+
+^ Turnip</option> 
+
+</optgroup> 
+
+</select> 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Adding 
+controls.” 
+
+
+
+disabled=disabled 
+
+Disables the option group. The only 
+value for this attribute is disabled. 
+
+
+
+label=string 
+
+(required) 
+
+Defines a label for the optgroup. 
+
+This attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+tabir\dex=number 
+
+Defines the tab order of an 
+element. 
+
+
+<option> 
+
+
+Defines an option within a drop¬ 
+down list. Nested within a select 
+element and can be placed within 
+optgroup elements. (See separate 
+<select> and <optgroup> entries.) 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Adding 
+controls.” 
+
+
+
+disabled=disabled 
+
+Disables the option. The only value 
+for this attribute is disabled. 
+
+
+
+434 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+label=string 
+
+Defines a label for this option. 
+
+
+
+selected=selected 
+
+Sets the option as the default. The 
+only value for this attribute is 
+selected. 
+
+
+
+yalue=string 
+
+Defines the value of the option to 
+be sent when the form is submitted. 
+
+
+<P> 
+
+
+Defines a paragraph. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Paragraphs and 
+headings.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<param> 
+
+
+Supplies parameters for applets and 
+objects. Must be enclosed within an 
+applet or object element, and 
+must come at the start of the 
+content of the enclosing element. 
+
+
+
+id=name 
+
+Defines a unique reference ID for 
+the element. 
+
+
+
+r\ame=nanie 
+
+Defines a unique name for the 
+element. 
+
+
+
+type=MIM£ type 
+
+Specifies the MIME type for the 
+element. 
+
+
+
+yalue=string 
+
+Defines the element's value. 
+
+
+
+valuetype=c/ota | 
+object\ref 
+
+Specifies the MIME type of the value 
+as data, ref (the value of a URL 
+pointing to the data), or object (the 
+value of an object within the 
+document). 
+
+
+<pre> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed contents as 
+preformatted text, thereby 
+preserving the formatting from the 
+HTML document. Usually displayed 
+in a monospace font. Cannot 
+contain images, objects, or any 
+of the following tags: big, small, 
+sub, and sup. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+435 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+width=nwffli)er 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the maximum number of 
+characters per line. This attribute is 
+deprecated; use CSS to define the 
+element width instead. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+<q> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed content as a short 
+quotation. Some browsers 
+automatically insert quote marks. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Block quotes, 
+quote citations, and definitions.” 
+
+
+
+cite=URL 
+
+Defines the location of quoted 
+online material. 
+
+
+<s> 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+
+Defines strikethrough text. This 
+element is deprecated and cannot 
+be used in XHTML Strict. It’s 
+recommended to use the <del> 
+element (see separate <del> entry) 
+instead. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<samp> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed content as a 
+computer code sample. Usually 
+rendered in a monospace font. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Logical styles 
+for programming-oriented content.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<script> 
+
+
+Inserts a script into the document. 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Attaching 
+favicons and JavaScript.” 
+
+
+
+chaiset=charset 
+
+Defines the script’s character set. 
+
+
+
+defei=defer 
+
+Indicates the script doesn’t generate 
+document content. This attribute’s 
+only value is defer. This allows the 
+browser to delay parsing the script 
+until after the page has loaded. 
+Although this may speed up loading, 
+it will generate script errors if user 
+interaction results in a call to a 
+script that still hasn’t been parsed. 
+
+Use with care. 
+
+
+
+436 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+language=encoding 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the scripting language. 
+Superseded by the type attribute, 
+and no longer required. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+sic=URL 
+
+Provides the URL of an external 
+script. 
+
+
+
+type=MIM£ type 
+(required) 
+
+Defines the MIME type of the 
+scripting language, such as 
+text/javascript or text/vbscript. 
+This attribute is required. 
+
+
+<select> 
+
+
+Creates a drop-down menu or 
+scrolling list (depending on whether 
+multiple has been set). This 
+element is a container for option 
+and optional optgroup elements. 
+
+(see separate <option> and 
+<optgroup> entries). 
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Adding 
+controls.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+keyboard attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onchange, onfocus 
+
+
+disabled=disabled 
+
+Disables the element. The only value 
+for this attribute is disabled. 
+
+
+
+multiple=fflultiple 
+
+Specifies that multiple items can be 
+selected. If absent, only single 
+options can be selected. If included, 
+the select element displays as a 
+scrolling list rather than a drop¬ 
+down menu. The only value for this 
+attribute is multiple. 
+
+
+
+nam=nanie 
+
+Defines a name for the element. 
+
+
+
+size=number 
+
+Sets the element to a pop-up menu 
+when the value is 1, or a scrolling list 
+when the value is greater than 1. 
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+437 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<small> 
+
+
+Reduces text size as compared to 
+the surrounding text. Because the 
+browser determines the size 
+differential, precise text size changes 
+are better achieved via span 
+elements and CSS. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “The big and 
+small elements.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<span> 
+
+
+Identifies a span of inline elements for 
+applying styles to. For example: 
+
+<p>Use span elements to create 
+»» <span class="styleName">styled 
+^inline text</span>.</p> 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<strike> 
+
+
+Defines strikethrough text. This 
+
+Core attributes. 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+
+element is deprecated and cannot 
+be used in XHTML Strict. It’s 
+recommended to use the <del> 
+element (see separate <del> entry) 
+instead. 
+
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<strong> 
+
+
+Defines enclosed content as 
+strongly emphasized. Generally 
+renders as bold text in browsers 
+and is preferred over <b></b>. 
+
+(see separate <b> entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Logical and 
+physical styles.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<style> 
+
+
+Used to embed CSS rules in the head 
+of a web page or to import CSS files. 
+
+cstyle type="text/css" 
+-■media="all"> 
+
+@import url(stylesheet.css); 
+•thisPageOnly { 
+color: #de3de3j 
+} 
+
+</style> 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Attaching CSS 
+files: The ©import method.” 
+
+Language attributes 
+
+
+438 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+media=Jist 
+
+(required) 
+
+Defines target media on which this 
+style can be rendered. Possible 
+values are all, aural, braille, 
+handheld, print, projection, 
+screen, tty, and tv. 
+
+
+
+title=string 
+
+Specifies the element’s title. 
+
+
+
+type=MIM£ type 
+(required) 
+
+Defines the MIME type of the style’s 
+contents. The only currently viable 
+value is text/css, although this may 
+change in the future. The value 
+text/javascript is also allowed. 
+
+
+<sub> 
+
+
+Defines contents as subscript text. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Teletype, 
+subscript, and superscript.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<sup> 
+
+
+Defines contents as superscript text. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Teletype, 
+subscript, and superscript.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<table> 
+
+boidei=number 
+
+Defines the start and end of a table. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “How tables 
+work.” 
+
+Defines the table border width. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+cellpadding= 
+percentage/number 
+
+Defines the space between cell 
+edges and contents. 
+
+
+
+cellspacing= 
+
+percentage\number 
+
+Defines the space between 
+table cells. 
+
+
+
+smmary=string 
+
+Provides a summary of the table 
+contents for nonvisual browsers. 
+
+
+
+\fiidtb=percentage \ 
+number 
+
+Defines the table’s width in pixels or 
+as a percentage of the available 
+space within its parent element. 
+
+
+<tbody> 
+
+
+Defines the table body. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Row groups” 
+and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+439 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you use the CSS text-align 
+property instead (see its entry in the 
+
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+\/align=top\middle \ 
+bottom 1 baseline 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+<td> 
+
+
+Defines a table cell. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “How tables 
+work” and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you use the CSS text-align 
+property instead (see its entry in the 
+
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+axis=nanie 
+
+Provides a name for a related group of 
+cells. Not commonly used. 
+
+
+
+
+(Note: any td cells containing the axis 
+attribute are/should be treated as 
+table header cells by the user agent.) 
+
+
+
+colspan=number 
+
+Defines how many columns the cell 
+spans. 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Spanning rows 
+and cells.” 
+
+
+
+headers=ic/ list 
+
+A list of cell IDs that provide header 
+information for this cell, thereby 
+enabling nonvisual browsers to 
+associate header information with 
+the cell. If more than one value is 
+used, values are space separated. 
+Example: 
+
+
+
+
+<th id="theTitle" 
+
+»» scope="col">The title</th> 
+
+<th id="price" 
+
+»» scope="col">Price</th> 
+
+<td headers="theTitle">A new 
+book</td> 
+
+<td headers="price">$29.99</td> 
+
+
+
+440 
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+height=/iwfflfaer 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the height of a cell in pixels. 
+
+This attribute is deprecated—use CSS 
+to define cell dimensions. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+
+nomap=noifl/rap 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Disables text wrapping. The only value 
+for this attribute is nowrap. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. Use the CSS 
+white-space property (see its entry in 
+the CSS reference) instead. 
+
+
+
+iowspan=number 
+
+Defines how many rows the cell 
+spans. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Spanning rows 
+and cells.” 
+
+
+
+valign=top| middle\ 
+
+bottom\baseline 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+mdth=number 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the width of a cell in pixels. 
+
+This attribute is deprecated—use CSS 
+to define cell dimensions. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+<textarea> 
+
+
+Defines a text area within a form. 
+
+Any element content is displayed as 
+the textarea’s default value, and 
+that includes spaces. Therefore, if 
+you want a blank textarea, avoid 
+having any spaces between the start 
+and end tags. Although the cols and 
+rows attributes are required, you can 
+override these settings by using CSS. 
+
+See also Chapter 8, “Adding 
+controls.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events, onblur, 
+onchange, onfocus 
+
+
+cols=number 
+
+(required) 
+
+Specifies the visible width in 
+characters of the textarea. This 
+attribute is required. 
+
+
+
+disabled=disabled 
+
+Disables the element. The only value 
+for this attribute is disabled. 
+
+
+
+name=nanie 
+
+
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+441 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+ieadonly=reaclonly 
+
+Indicates the textarea is read-only 
+and cannot be modified. The only 
+value for this attribute is readonly. 
+
+
+
+io\fis=number 
+
+(required) 
+
+Specifies the visible height 
+(expressed as a number of rows) of 
+the textarea. This attribute is 
+required. 
+
+
+<tfoot> 
+
+
+Defines a table footer. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Row groups” 
+and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you use the CSS text-align 
+property instead (see its entry in the 
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+\/align=top\middle \ 
+
+bottom\baseline 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+<th> 
+
+
+Defines a table header cell. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “How tables 
+work” and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+abbi=string 
+
+Provides an abbreviation of the cell’s 
+contents. Browsers can then choose 
+to use this if they are short on space 
+or to aid accessibility. Not commonly 
+used, but particularly potentially 
+useful for screen readers. 
+
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS text- 
+align property (see its entry in the 
+
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+axis=nanie 
+
+Provides a name for a related group 
+of cells. Not commonly used. 
+
+
+
+442 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description Standard attributes 
+
+
+colspan=number 
+
+Defines how many columns the cell 
+spans. 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Spanning rows 
+and cells.” 
+
+
+headers=id list 
+
+A list of cell IDs that provide header 
+information for this cell, thereby 
+enabling nonvisual browsers to 
+associate header information with 
+the cell, if more than one value is 
+used, values are space separated. 
+
+Example: 
+
+
+
+<th id="theTitle" 
+
+scope="col">The title</th> 
+
+<th id="price" 
+
+^ scope="col">Price</th> 
+
+<td headers="theTitle">A new 
+^ booi«/td> 
+
+<td headers="price">$29.99</td> 
+
+
+height=/iufflfaer 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the height of a cell in pixels. 
+
+This attribute is deprecated—use CSS 
+to define cell dimensions. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict 
+
+
+novir3p=noifl/rap 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Disables text wrapping. The only 
+value for this attribute is nowrap. 
+
+Cannot be used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+(Use CSS uhitespace instead.) 
+
+
+iowspan=number 
+
+Defines how many rows the cell 
+spans. 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Spanning rows 
+and cells.” 
+
+
+scope=col 1 
+colgroup\row\ 
+rougroup 
+
+States whether the cell provides 
+header information for the rest 
+of the row, column, rowgroup, or 
+colgroup that contains it. (See the 
+headers description.) 
+
+
+valign=top| middle\ 
+
+bottom\baseline 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+443 
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+
+width=nwffli)er 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the width of a cell in pixels. 
+
+This attribute is deprecated—use CSS 
+to define cell dimensions. Cannot be 
+used in XHTML Strict. 
+
+
+<thead> 
+
+
+Defines a table header. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Row groups” 
+and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you use the CSS text-align 
+property instead (see its entry in the 
+
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+valign=top|ffliddle| 
+bottom]baseline 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+<title> 
+
+(required) 
+
+
+Defines the title of a document. This 
+is a required element for web pages. 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Page titles.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+<tr> 
+
+
+Defines a table row. 
+
+See also Chapter 6, “How tables 
+work” and “Building a table.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+align=left\right\ 
+
+justify\center 
+
+(deprecated) 
+
+Defines the horizontal alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS text- 
+align property (see its entry in the 
+
+CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+
+\/align=top\middle \ 
+bottom]baseline 
+(deprecated) 
+
+Specifies the vertical alignment of 
+table cell content. It’s recommended 
+that you instead use the CSS 
+vertical-align property (see its 
+entry in the CSS reference) to do this. 
+
+
+<tt> 
+
+
+Renders as teletype (monospaced) 
+text. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Teletype, 
+subscript, and superscript.” 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+444 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+XHTML REFERENCE 
+
+
+Element 
+
+Attribute 
+
+Description 
+
+Standard attributes 
+
+<ul> 
+
+
+Defines the start and end of an 
+unordered list. Contains one or more 
+li elements (see separate <li> entry). 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Unordered lists.” 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attributes 
+
+Core events 
+
+<var> 
+
+
+Defines contents as a variable name. 
+Usually rendered in italics. 
+
+Core attributes, 
+language attribute 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Logical styles for 
+programming-oriented content.” 
+
+Core events 
+
+
+445 
+
+
+
+
+
+B WEB COLOR REFERENCE 
+
+
+This section of the reference guides provides an overview of how to write 
+color values for the Web, as well as a full list of supported color names. See 
+the “Color theory” section in Chapter 4 for a discussion of color theory. 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Color values 
+
+On the Web, colors are displayed by mixing red, green, and blue (RGB) light. Values range 
+from 0 to 255 and can be written as such (e.g., rgb(5,233,70)), but they are more com¬ 
+monly written in hexadecimal. Colors written in hex consist of a hash sign (#) followed by 
+six digits. The six digits are made up of pairs, representing the red, green, and blue color 
+values, respectively. 
+
+■ #XXxxxx: Red color value 
+
+■ #xxXXxx: Green color value 
+
+■ #xxxxXX: Blue color value 
+
+Hexadecimal notation is a numbering system that has 16, rather than 10, as its base. Digits 
+range from 0 to f, with 0 to 9 representing the same value as ordinary numbers, and the 
+letters a to f representing 10 to 15. The letters can be either uppercase or lowercase. If you 
+set the first two digits to their highest value (ff) and the others to null, you get #ffoooo, 
+which is the hex color value for red. If you write #ooffoo, you get green, and if you write 
+#ooooff, you get blue. If all are set to full, you get white (#ffffff), and if all are null 
+values, you get black (#000000). 
+
+Hexadecimal can also be written in shorthand if the six-digit value is composed of pairs in 
+which both numbers are the same. For instance, #ff6600 (orange) can be written as #f60, 
+and #ffffff (white) can be written as #fff. All three pairs must consist of equal numbers. 
+For instance, you cannot use shorthand for #ffffol. Also, although hexadecimal can be 
+written in shorthand, many designers choose not to do so, because when all color values 
+are written in full, it tends to be easier to scan CSS files for specific values. 
+
+
+Web-safe colors 
+
+The 216-color web-safe palette uses hex combinations of the following hex value pairs 
+only: 00, 33, 66, 99, cc, and ff—for example, #cc6699, #33ff66, and #ff0000. 
+
+Using these pairs provides you with 216 colors that are said to not dither on Macs and 
+Windows PCs that have 8-bit monitors (256 colors). Because the vast majority of monitors 
+sold since 2000 are able to display thousands or millions of colors, this palette is now 
+rarely used and is generally considered archaic and obsolete. 
+
+
+Color names 
+
+Although a significant number of HTML color names are supported by major browsers, the 
+CSS standard only recognizes the following 17. 
+
+
+448 
+
+
+WEB COLOR REFERENCE 
+
+
+Color name 
+
+Color hex value 
+
+Shorthand hex 
+
+RGB 
+
+Aqua 
+
+#ooffff 
+
+#off 
+
+0,255,255 
+
+Black 
+
+#000000 
+
+#000 
+
+0,0,0 
+
+Blue 
+
+#ooooff 
+
+#00f 
+
+0,0,255 
+
+Fuchsia 
+
+#ffooff 
+
+#fof 
+
+255,0,255 
+
+Gray (or Grey) 
+
+#808080 
+
+n/a 
+
+128,128,128 
+
+Green 
+
+#008000 
+
+n/a 
+
+0,128,0 
+
+Lime 
+
+#ooffoo 
+
+#ofo 
+
+0,255,0 
+
+Maroon 
+
+#800000 
+
+n/a 
+
+128,0,0 
+
+Navy 
+
+#000080 
+
+n/a 
+
+0,0,128 
+
+Olive 
+
+#808000 
+
+n/a 
+
+128,128,0 
+
+Orange 
+
+#ffa500 
+
+n/a 
+
+255,165,0 
+
+Purple 
+
+#800080 
+
+n/a 
+
+128,0,128 
+
+Red 
+
+#ffoooo 
+
+#foo 
+
+255,0,0 
+
+Silver 
+
+#C0c0c0 
+
+n/a 
+
+192,192,192 
+
+Teal 
+
+#008080 
+
+n/a 
+
+0,128,128 
+
+White 
+
+
+#fff 
+
+255,255,255 
+
+Yellow 
+
+#ffffoo 
+
+#ffo 
+
+255,255,0 
+
+
+Although each color name in the preceding table begins with a capital letter (for book 
+style purposes), color names are case insensitive, and lowercase is most commonly used. 
+However, most designers ignore color names entirely, using hex all the time for 
+consistency’s sake—a practice that the W3C recommends. 
+
+
+
+449 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+C ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Generally speaking, characters not found in the normal alphanumeric set 
+must be added to a web page by way of character entities. These take the 
+form &#n;, with n being a two- to four-digit number. Many entities also have 
+a name, which tends to be more convenient and memorable: these are also 
+listed. However, entities are case sensitive, so take care when adding them 
+to your web pages. 
+
+Although most browsers display nonalphanumeric characters when the 
+relevant encoding is specified, it’s sometimes necessary to use entities to 
+ensure your page displays as intended across a large range of machines. 
+
+Most reference guides tend to list entities in numerical order, but I find 
+it more useful to browse by grouped items, so 1 list entities alphabetically 
+within sections such as “Common punctuation and symbols” and “Characters 
+for European languages.” (The exception is for Greek characters, which I’ve 
+listed in the order of the Greek alphabet, rather than in alphabetical order 
+from an English language perspective.) 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Characters used in XHTML 
+
+The less-than and ampersand characters are used in XHTML markup, and to avoid invalid 
+and broken pages, these should be added to your web pages as entities. It’s also common 
+(although not required) to add greater-than and quotation marks as entities. 
+
+The ampersand character is commonly used in URL query strings (particularly when work¬ 
+ing with server-side languages), and in such cases, the & must be replaced by the entity 
+name or number (it will still be correctly interpreted by the browser). 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+II 
+
+Quotation mark (straight) 
+
+Squot; 
+
+&#34; 
+
+& 
+
+Ampersand 
+
+Samp; 
+
+8i#38; 
+
+< 
+
+Less-than sign 
+
+&lt; 
+
+8(#60; 
+
+> 
+
+Greater-than sign 
+
+&gt; 
+
+&# 62 ; 
+
+
+Punctuation characters and symbols 
+
+Although many web designers tend to get around punctuation character limitations by 
+using double hyphens (—) in place of em dashes (—), triple periods (. . .) in place of an 
+ellipsis (...), and straight quotation marks ("") instead of “smart” quotes (“”), XHTML sup¬ 
+ports many punctuation characters as character entities. Likewise, plenty of symbols are 
+supported in XHTML, so you needn’t write (c) when the copyright symbol is available. 
+
+This section lists all such characters and is split into four subsections: quotation marks, 
+spacing and nonprinting characters, punctuation characters, and symbols. 
+
+Quotation marks 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+■ 
+
+Left single 
+
+Slsquo; 
+
+8i#82l6; 
+
+
+Right single 
+
+Srsquo; 
+
+&#8217; 
+
+“ 
+
+Left double 
+
+Sldquo; 
+
+&# 8220 ; 
+
+
+Right double 
+
+Srdquo; 
+
+&#8221; 
+
+< 
+
+Single left angle 
+
+Slsaquo; 
+
+&#8249; 
+
+
+452 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+> 
+
+Single right angle 
+
+Srsaquo; 
+
+8i#8250; 
+
+« 
+
+Double left angle 
+
+Slaquo; 
+
+8i#171; 
+
+» 
+
+Double right angle 
+
+Sraquo; 
+
+Mist, 
+
+
+Single low-9 
+
+Ssbquo; 
+
+8i#82i8; 
+
+
+Double low-9 
+
+Sbdquo; 
+
+M8222; 
+
+
+Spacing and nonprinting characters 
+
+
+On Windows, zero-width joiner and zero-width nonjoiner may be displayed by default 
+as a vertical bar with an x on top and a vertical bar, respectively. To display these as 
+nonprinting characters, you may need to install the Arabic language pack. 
+
+V_ J 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+
+Em space 
+
+Semsp; 
+
+8(#8195; 
+
+
+En space 
+
+Sensp; 
+
+&#8194; 
+
+Nonprinting 
+
+Left-to-right mark 
+
+&lrm; 
+
+8(#8206; 
+
+
+Nonbreaking space 
+
+Snbsp; 
+
+8(#160; 
+
+
+Overline 
+
+Soline; 
+
+8(#8254; 
+
+Nonprinting 
+
+Right-to-left mark 
+
+&rlm; 
+
+8i#8207; 
+
+
+Thin space 
+
+Sthinsp; 
+
+&#820l; 
+
+Nonprinting 
+
+Zero-width joiner 
+
+&zwj; 
+
+&#8205; 
+
+Nonprinting 
+
+Zero-width nonjoiner 
+
+&zwn]; 
+
+8i#8204; 
+
+
+453 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Punctuation characters 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+Broken vertical bar 
+
+Eibrvbar; 
+
+8i#l66; 
+
+• 
+
+Bullet point 
+
+&bull; 
+
+8i#8226; 
+
+t 
+
+Dagger 
+
+^dagger; 
+
+8i#8224; 
+
+
+Double dagger 
+
+^Dagger; 
+
+&#8225; 
+
+If 
+
+Double prime, seconds, 
+inches 
+
+EiPrime; 
+
+&#8243; 
+
+
+Ellipsis 
+
+Shellip; 
+
+&#8230; 
+
+— 
+
+Em dash 
+
+&mdash; 
+
+&#8212; 
+
+- 
+
+En dash 
+
+&ndash; 
+
+8i#8211; 
+
+/ 
+
+Fraction slash 
+
+Sfrasl; 
+
+8(#8260; 
+
+i 
+
+Inverted exclamation 
+mark 
+
+&iexcl; 
+
+8i#l6l; 
+
+c 
+
+Inverted question mark 
+
+Eiiquest; 
+
+&#191; 
+
+’ 
+
+Prime, minutes, feet 
+
+Eiprime; 
+
+&#8242; 
+
+- 
+
+Soft hyphen 
+
+Eishy; 
+
+&#173; 
+
+
+Symbols 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+
+Blackletter capital 1, 
+imaginary part 
+
+Simage; 
+
+&#8465; 
+
+SR 
+
+Blackletter capital R, 
+real part 
+
+&real; 
+
+&#8476; 
+
+© 
+
+Copyright symbol 
+
+Scopy; 
+
+&#169; 
+
+a 
+
+Feminine ordinal 
+
+Sordf; 
+
+&#170; 
+
+
+454 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+0 
+
+Masculine ordinal 
+
+Sordm; 
+
+8i#l86; 
+
+- 
+
+Not sign 
+
+Snot; 
+
+8i#172; 
+
+11 
+
+Paragraph sign 
+
+Spara; 
+
+8i#l82; 
+
+%0 
+
+Per mille symbol 
+
+Spermil; 
+
+&#8240; 
+
+® 
+
+Registered trademark 
+symbol 
+
+&reg; 
+
+8i#174; 
+
+§ 
+
+Section sign 
+
+Bisect; 
+
+&#167; 
+
+TM 
+
+Trademark symbol 
+
+Strade; 
+
+&#8482; 
+
+P 
+
+Script capital P, 
+power set 
+
+Sweierp; 
+
+&#8472; 
+
+
+Characters for European languages 
+
+For any characters that have accents, circumflexes, or other additions, entities are avail¬ 
+able. However, many of these entities have their roots in the days when ASCII was the only 
+available encoding method. These days, as long as you use the appropriate input method, 
+and the page is correctly encoded, you may not need to use these entities. They are still 
+listed here, though, for times when you just want to be on the safe side. 
+
+Take care when adding these, because case is important. In most cases, capitalizing the 
+first letter of the entity name results in an uppercase character, but this isn’t always so 
+(notably the Icelandic characters “eth” and “thorn,” the uppercase versions of which 
+require the entire entity name to be in uppercase). 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+
+Acute accent (no letter) 
+
+Sacute; 
+
+&#180; 
+
+
+Cedilla (no letter) 
+
+Scedil; 
+
+&#184; 
+
+'' 
+
+Circumflex spacing 
+modifier 
+
+Scire; 
+
+&#710; 
+
+- 
+
+Macron accent 
+
+Smacr; 
+
+&#175; 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+455 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+
+Middle dot 
+
+Smiddot; 
+
+&#i83; 
+
+- 
+
+Tilde 
+
+Stilde; 
+
+&#732; 
+
+
+Umlaut 
+
+Suml; 
+
+&#168; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase A, acute 
+accent 
+
+SiAacute; 
+
+&#193; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, acute 
+accent 
+
+Saacute; 
+
+M225; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase a, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+SiAcirc; 
+
+8(#194; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Sacirc; 
+
+&#226; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase A, grave 
+accent 
+
+SiAgrave; 
+
+8(#192; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, grave 
+accent 
+
+Sagrave; 
+
+8i#224; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase A, ring 
+
+SiAring; 
+
+&#197; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, ring 
+
+Saring; 
+
+&#229; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase A, tilde 
+
+SiAtilde; 
+
+&#195; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, tilde 
+
+Satilde; 
+
+&#227; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase A, umlaut 
+
+SiAuml; 
+
+&#196; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase a, umlaut 
+
+Sauml; 
+
+&#228; 
+
+/€ 
+
+Uppercase AE ligature 
+
+SiAElig; 
+
+&#198; 
+
+ae 
+
+Lowercase ae ligature 
+
+Siaelig; 
+
+&#230; 
+
+C 
+
+Uppercase C, cedilla 
+
+SiCcedil; 
+
+&#199; 
+
+? 
+
+Lowercase c, cedilla 
+
+Sccedil; 
+
+&#23l; 
+
+E 
+
+Uppercase E, acute 
+accent 
+
+SEacute; 
+
+&#20l; 
+
+
+456 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+e 
+
+Lowercase e, acute 
+accent 
+
+Seacute; 
+
+&#233; 
+
+E 
+
+Uppercase E, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+SiEcirc; 
+
+M202; 
+
+e 
+
+Lowercase e, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Secirc; 
+
+&#234; 
+
+E 
+
+Uppercase E, grave 
+accent 
+
+SEgrave; 
+
+&#200; 
+
+e 
+
+Lowercase e, grave 
+accent 
+
+Segrave; 
+
+&#232; 
+
+E 
+
+Uppercase E, umlaut 
+
+SiEuml; 
+
+&#203; 
+
+e 
+
+Lowercase e, umlaut 
+
+Sieuml; 
+
+&#235; 
+
+O 
+
+Uppercase eth 
+
+8iETH; 
+
+8i#208; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase eth 
+
+Seth; 
+
+8i#240; 
+
+( 
+
+Uppercase 1, acute 
+accent 
+
+Slacute; 
+
+&#205; 
+
+1 
+
+Lowercase i, acute 
+accent 
+
+Siacute; 
+
+&#237; 
+
+1 
+
+Uppercase 1, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Silcirc; 
+
+8i#206; 
+
+T 
+
+Lowercase i, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Siicirc; 
+
+M238; 
+
+i 
+
+Uppercase 1, grave 
+accent 
+
+Slgrave; 
+
+8i#204; 
+
+1 
+
+Lowercase i, grave 
+accent 
+
+Sigrave; 
+
+&#236; 
+
+T 
+
+Uppercase 1, umlaut 
+
+Siluml; 
+
+&#207; 
+
+T 
+
+Lowercase i, umlaut 
+
+Siiuml; 
+
+&#239; 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+457 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+N 
+
+Uppercase N, tilde 
+
+SiNtilde; 
+
+8i#209; 
+
+n 
+
+Lowercase n, tilde 
+
+Sntilde; 
+
+&#24i; 
+
+6 
+
+Uppercase 0, acute 
+accent 
+
+SiOacute; 
+
+8i#211; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase o, acute 
+accent 
+
+Soacute; 
+
+8i#243; 
+
+6 
+
+Uppercase 0, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+&Ocirc; 
+
+8i#212; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase o, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Socirc; 
+
+8i#244; 
+
+6 
+
+Uppercase 0, grave 
+accent 
+
+SOgrave; 
+
+&#210; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase o, grave 
+accent 
+
+Sograve; 
+
+8i#242; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase 0, slash 
+
+SOslash; 
+
+&#216; 
+
+0 
+
+Lowercase o, slash 
+
+Soslash; 
+
+8i#248; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase 0, tilde 
+
+SOtilde; 
+
+&#213; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase o, tilde 
+
+Sotilde; 
+
+&#245; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase 0, umlaut 
+
+SOuml; 
+
+&#214; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase o, umlaut 
+
+Souml; 
+
+&#246; 
+
+(E 
+
+Uppercase OE ligature 
+
+SOElig; 
+
+&#338; 
+
+oe 
+
+Lowercase oe ligature 
+
+Soelig; 
+
+&#339; 
+
+§ 
+
+Uppercase S, caron 
+
+SScaron; 
+
+&#352; 
+
+s 
+
+Lowercase s, caron 
+
+Sscaron; 
+
+&#353; 
+
+& 
+
+Lowercase sz ligature 
+
+&szlig; 
+
+&#223; 
+
+
+458 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+t> 
+
+Uppercase thorn 
+
+81 THORN; 
+
+&#222; 
+
+\> 
+
+Lowercase thorn 
+
+Sithorn; 
+
+&#254; 
+
+U 
+
+Uppercase U, acute 
+accent 
+
+SUacute; 
+
+&#2lS; 
+
+U 
+
+Lowercase u, acute 
+accent 
+
+Suacute; 
+
+&# 250 ; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase U, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+&Ucirc; 
+
+8(#219; 
+
+u 
+
+Lowercase u, circumflex 
+accent 
+
+Sucirc; 
+
+&#2Si; 
+
+u 
+
+Uppercase U, grave 
+accent 
+
+SUgrave; 
+
+8i#217; 
+
+u 
+
+Lowercase u, grave 
+accent 
+
+Sugrave; 
+
+&#249; 
+
+u 
+
+Uppercase U, umlaut 
+
+SLIuml; 
+
+&#220; 
+
+u 
+
+Lowercase u, umlaut 
+
+&uuml; 
+
+&#252; 
+
+y 
+
+Uppercase Y, acute 
+accent 
+
+SiYacute; 
+
+&#22l; 
+
+y 
+
+Lowercase y, acute 
+accent 
+
+Syacute; 
+
+&#253; 
+
+Y 
+
+Uppercase Y, umlaut 
+
+SiYuml; 
+
+&#376; 
+
+y 
+
+Lowercase y, umlaut 
+
+Siyuml; 
+
+&#255; 
+
+
+459 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Currency signs 
+
+Although the dollar sign is supported in XHTML, other common currency symbols are not. 
+However, several can be added by way of entities, as shown in the following table. 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+4 
+
+Cent 
+
+Scent; 
+
+&#162; 
+
+□ 
+
+General currency sign 
+
+Scurren; 
+
+&#164; 
+
+€ 
+
+Euro 
+
+Seuro; 
+
+&#8364; 
+
+£ 
+
+Pound 
+
+Spound; 
+
+&#163; 
+
+¥ 
+
+Yen 
+
+Syen; 
+
+&#165; 
+
+
+Mathematical, technical, and 
+Greek characters 
+
+This set of entities combines mathematical and technical symbols and the Greek alphabet 
+(which is commonly used in scientific work). For ease of use, this section is divided into 
+three subsections: common mathematical characters (fractions and the most commonly 
+used mathematical symbols), advanced mathematical and technical characters (characters 
+of interest to those marking up technical documents or anything other than basic mathe¬ 
+matical text), and Greek characters. 
+
+Common mathematical characters 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+o 
+
+Degree sign 
+
+Sdeg; 
+
+&#176; 
+
+
+Division sign 
+
+Sdivide; 
+
+&#247; 
+
+'/2 
+
+Fraction—one half 
+
+&fracl2; 
+
+&#189; 
+
+’A 
+
+Fraction—one quarter 
+
+&fracl4; 
+
+&#188; 
+
+% 
+
+Fraction—three quarters 
+
+&frac34; 
+
+&#190; 
+
+> 
+
+Greater-than sign 
+
+&gt; 
+
+&#62; 
+
+
+460 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+> 
+
+Greater-than or equal 
+to sign 
+
+&ge; 
+
+8i#8805; 
+
+< 
+
+Less-than sign 
+
+8ilt; 
+
+8(#60; 
+
+< 
+
+Less-than or equal to sign 
+
+8ile; 
+
+8(#8804; 
+
+- 
+
+Minus sign 
+
+Sminus; 
+
+8i#8722; 
+
+X 
+
+Multiplication sign 
+
+Stimes; 
+
+&#21S; 
+
+1 
+
+Superscript one 
+
+Ssupl; 
+
+&#185; 
+
+2 
+
+Superscript two 
+
+8isup2; 
+
+M178; 
+
+3 
+
+Superscript three 
+
+SsupS; 
+
+&#179; 
+
+
+Advanced mathematical and technical characters 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+N 
+
+Alef symbol, first 
+transfinite cardinal 
+
+Salefsym; 
+
+&#850i; 
+
+= 
+
+Almost equal to, 
+asymptotic to 
+
+Sasymp; 
+
+&#8776; 
+
+L 
+
+Angle 
+
+Sang; 
+
+&#8736; 
+
+
+Approximately equal to 
+
+Scong; 
+
+&#8773; 
+
+* 
+
+Asterisk operator 
+
+Slowast; 
+
+M8727; 
+
+© 
+
+Circled plus, direct sum 
+
+Soplus; 
+
+&#8853; 
+
+® 
+
+Circled times, vector 
+product 
+
+Sotimes; 
+
+&#8855; 
+
+B 
+
+Contains as member 
+
+8ini; 
+
+8(#8715; 
+
+
+Dot operator 
+
+Ssdot; 
+
+8(#8901; 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+461 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+e 
+
+Element of 
+
+Siisin; 
+
+8i#8712; 
+
+0 
+
+Empty set, null set, 
+diameter 
+
+Sempty; 
+
+&#8709; 
+
+V 
+
+For all 
+
+Sforall; 
+
+&#8704; 
+
+/ 
+
+Function, florin (Latin 
+small f with hook) 
+
+Sfnof; 
+
+&#402; 
+
+= 
+
+Identical to 
+
+Sequiv; 
+
+&#8801; 
+
+oo 
+
+Infinity 
+
+Siinfin; 
+
+&#8734) 
+
+J 
+
+Integral 
+
+Sint; 
+
+&#8747) 
+
+n 
+
+Intersection, cap 
+
+Scap; 
+
+&#8745; 
+
+
+Left ceiling 
+
+Slceil; 
+
+&#8968; 
+
+L 
+
+Left floor 
+
+Silfloor; 
+
+&#8970; 
+
+A 
+
+Logical and, wedge 
+
+Sand; 
+
+&#8743) 
+
+V 
+
+Logical or, vee 
+
+Sor; 
+
+&#8744) 
+
+|J 
+
+Micro sign 
+
+Simicro; 
+
+&#181; 
+
+V 
+
+Nabla, backward 
+difference 
+
+Snabla; 
+
+&#8711) 
+
+n 
+
+N-ary product, product 
+sign 
+
+Sprod; 
+
+8(#8719; 
+
+I 
+
+N-ary summation 
+
+8isum; 
+
+&#8721; 
+
+
+Not an element of 
+
+Snotin; 
+
+&#8713; 
+
+
+Not a subset of 
+
+Snsub; 
+
+&#8836; 
+
++ 
+
+Not equal to 
+
+Sne; 
+
+&#8800; 
+
+a 
+
+Partial differential 
+
+Spart; 
+
+&#8706; 
+
++ 
+
+Plus-minus sign, plus-or- 
+minus sign 
+
+Siplusmn; 
+
+&#177; 
+
+
+462 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+OC 
+
+Proportional to 
+
+Siprop; 
+
+&#8733; 
+
+1 
+
+Right ceiling 
+
+Sirceil; 
+
+&#8969; 
+
+J 
+
+Right floor 
+
+Srfloor; 
+
+&#8971; 
+
+V 
+
+Square root, radical sign 
+
+Siradic; 
+
+&#8730; 
+
+c 
+
+Subset of 
+
+Ssub; 
+
+&#8834; 
+
+c 
+
+Subset of or equal to 
+
+Ssube; 
+
+&#8838; 
+
+D 
+
+Superset of 
+
+&sup; 
+
+&#8835; 
+
+D 
+
+Superset of or equal to 
+
+8isupe; 
+
+&#8839; 
+
+3 
+
+There exists 
+
+Sexist; 
+
+&#8707; 
+
+
+Therefore 
+
+&there4; 
+
+&#8756; 
+
+- 
+
+Tilde operator, varies with, 
+similar to, approximately 
+
+Ssim; 
+
+&#8764; 
+
+U 
+
+Union, cup 
+
+Scup; 
+
+&#8746; 
+
+1 
+
+Up tack, orthogonal to, 
+perpendicular 
+
+Sperp; 
+
+&#8869; 
+
+
+Greek characters 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase alpha 
+
+SAlpha; 
+
+&#9i3; 
+
+a 
+
+Lowercase alpha 
+
+Salpha; 
+
+&#945; 
+
+B 
+
+Uppercase beta 
+
+SBeta; 
+
+&#9i4; 
+
+P 
+
+Lowercase beta 
+
+Sbeta; 
+
+&#946; 
+
+r 
+
+Uppercase gamma 
+
+SGamma; 
+
+&#915; 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+463 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+Y 
+
+Lowercase gamma 
+
+Sigamma; 
+
+&#947; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase delta 
+
+SDelta; 
+
+&#916; 
+
+6 
+
+Lowercase delta 
+
+Sdelta; 
+
+&#948; 
+
+E 
+
+Uppercase epsilon 
+
+SiEpsilon; 
+
+&#917; 
+
+E 
+
+Lowercase epsilon 
+
+Sepsilon; 
+
+&#949; 
+
+z 
+
+Uppercase zeta 
+
+SZeta; 
+
+&#918; 
+
+
+Lowercase zeta 
+
+Sizeta; 
+
+&#950; 
+
+H 
+
+Uppercase eta 
+
+8iEta; 
+
+&#919; 
+
+n 
+
+Lowercase eta 
+
+Seta; 
+
+&#951; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase theta 
+
+STheta; 
+
+&#920; 
+
+0 
+
+Lowercase theta 
+
+Sitheta; 
+
+&#952; 
+
+I 
+
+Uppercase iota 
+
+Slota; 
+
+&#921; 
+
+L 
+
+Lowercase iota 
+
+Siiota; 
+
+&#953; 
+
+K 
+
+Uppercase kappa 
+
+SKappa; 
+
+&#922; 
+
+K 
+
+Lowercase kappa 
+
+Skappa; 
+
+&#954; 
+
+A 
+
+Uppercase lambda 
+
+SiLambda; 
+
+&#923; 
+
+X 
+
+Lowercase lambda 
+
+Silambda; 
+
+&#955; 
+
+M 
+
+Uppercase mu 
+
+8iMu; 
+
+&#924; 
+
+(X 
+
+Lowercase mu 
+
+Smu; 
+
+&#956; 
+
+N 
+
+Uppercase nu 
+
+8iNu; 
+
+&#925; 
+
+V 
+
+Lowercase nu 
+
+Snu; 
+
+&#957; 
+
+s 
+
+Uppercase xi 
+
+&Xi; 
+
+M926; 
+
+§ 
+
+Lowercase xi 
+
+&xi; 
+
+&#958; 
+
+0 
+
+Uppercase omicron 
+
+SOmicron; 
+
+&#927; 
+
+
+464 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+o 
+
+Lowercase omicron 
+
+Somicron; 
+
+&#959; 
+
+n 
+
+Uppercase pi 
+
+8iPi; 
+
+&#928; 
+
+71 
+
+Lowercase pi 
+
+&pi; 
+
+&#960; 
+
+p 
+
+Uppercase rho 
+
+&Rho; 
+
+&#929; 
+
+p 
+
+Lowercase rho 
+
+8irho; 
+
+&#961; 
+
+5 
+
+Lowercase final sigma 
+
+Ssigmaf; 
+
+&#%2; 
+
+2 
+
+Uppercase sigma 
+
+SiSigma; 
+
+&#931; 
+
+o 
+
+Lowercase sigma 
+
+Ssigma; 
+
+&#963; 
+
+T 
+
+Uppercase tau 
+
+8iTau; 
+
+&#932; 
+
+T 
+
+Lowercase tau 
+
+8itau; 
+
+&#964; 
+
+Y 
+
+Uppercase upsilon 
+
+SUpsilon; 
+
+&#933; 
+
+V 
+
+Lowercase upsilon 
+
+Supsilon; 
+
+&#965; 
+
+
+Uppercase phi 
+
+8iPhi; 
+
+&#934; 
+
+<1) 
+
+Lowercase phi 
+
+8iphi; 
+
+8i#966; 
+
+X 
+
+Uppercase chi 
+
+8iChi; 
+
+&#935; 
+
+X 
+
+Lowercase chi 
+
+Schi; 
+
+&#967; 
+
+
+Uppercase psi 
+
+8iPsi; 
+
+8(#936; 
+
+
+Lowercase psi 
+
+8ipsi; 
+
+8(#968; 
+
+Q 
+
+Uppercase omega 
+
+SOmega; 
+
+&#937; 
+
+(0 
+
+Lowercase omega 
+
+Somega; 
+
+&#969; 
+
+
+Small theta symbol 
+
+Sithetasym; 
+
+&#977; 
+
+Y 
+
+Greek upsilon with hook 
+
+Supsih; 
+
+&#978; 
+
+VJ 
+
+Greek pi symbol 
+
+Spiv; 
+
+M982; 
+
+
+465 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Arrows, lozenge, and card suits 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Entity name 
+
+Entity number 
+
+J 
+
+Carriage return 
+
+Scrarr; 
+
+&#8629; 
+
+1 
+
+Down arrow 
+
+Sdarr; 
+
+&#8595; 
+
+
+Down double arrow 
+
+&dArr; 
+
+&#8659; 
+
+- 
+
+Left arrow 
+
+Silarr; 
+
+&#8592; 
+
+- 
+
+Left double arrow 
+
+&lArr; 
+
+&#8656; 
+
+
+Left-right arrow 
+
+Sharr; 
+
+&#8596; 
+
+
+Left-right double arrow 
+
+8ihArr; 
+
+8(#8660; 
+
+- 
+
+Right arrow 
+
+Srarr; 
+
+&#8594) 
+
+- 
+
+Right double arrow 
+
+SrArr; 
+
+&#8658; 
+
+T 
+
+Up arrow 
+
+Suarr; 
+
+&#8593; 
+
+t 
+
+Up double arrow 
+
+8iuArr; 
+
+&#8657; 
+
+
+0 
+
+Lozenge 
+
+&loz; 
+
+&#9674) 
+
+
+* 
+
+Clubs suit 
+
+Sclubs; 
+
+&#9827) 
+
+♦ 
+
+Diamonds suit 
+
+Sdiams; 
+
+&#9830; 
+
+¥ 
+
+Hearts suit 
+
+Shearts; 
+
+&#9829) 
+
+4k 
+
+Spades suit 
+
+Sspades; 
+
+&#9824) 
+
+
+Converting the nonstandard Microsoft set 
+
+The final table in this section lists the nonstandard Microsoft set and modern equivalents. 
+Some older HTML editors, such as Dreamweaver 4, insert nonstandard entity values into 
+web pages, causing them to fail validation. Here, we present the outdated nonstandard 
+value and its corresponding approved alternatives (entity name and entity number, either 
+of which can be used). 
+
+
+466 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ENTITIES REFERENCE 
+
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+Nonstandard 
+
+value 
+
+Entity 
+
+name 
+
+Entity 
+
+number 
+
+» 
+
+Single low-9 quote 
+
+8i#130; 
+
+Ssbquo; 
+
+8i#82l8; 
+
+/ 
+
+Lowercase Latin f with 
+hook (florin) 
+
+8i#131; 
+
+Sfnof; 
+
+8i#402; 
+
+
+Double low-9 quote 
+
+8i#132; 
+
+Sbdquo; 
+
+&tt8222; 
+
+
+Ellipsis 
+
+&#133; 
+
+Shellip; 
+
+8i#8230; 
+
+t 
+
+Dagger 
+
+&#134; 
+
+^dagger; 
+
+8i#8224) 
+
+
+Double dagger 
+
+&#135; 
+
+^Dagger; 
+
+8i#8225) 
+
+'' 
+
+Circumflex spacing 
+modifier 
+
+8i#136; 
+
+&circ; 
+
+8i#710; 
+
+%0 
+
+Per mille symbol 
+
+8i#137; 
+
+Spermil; 
+
+8i#8240; 
+
+§ 
+
+Uppercase S, caron 
+
+8i#138; 
+
+SScaron; 
+
+&#352; 
+
+< 
+
+Less-than sign 
+
+8i#139; 
+
+Sit; 
+
+8i#60; 
+
+CE 
+
+Uppercase OE ligature 
+
+8i#140; 
+
+SOElig; 
+
+&#338; 
+
+‘ 
+
+Left single quote 
+
+8i#145; 
+
+Slsquo; 
+
+8i#82l6; 
+
+’ 
+
+Right single quote 
+
+8i#146; 
+
+Srsquo; 
+
+8i#8217; 
+
+“ 
+
+Left double quote 
+
+8i#147; 
+
+Sldquo; 
+
+M8220; 
+
+” 
+
+Right double quote 
+
+8i#148; 
+
+Srdquo; 
+
+&#8221; 
+
+• 
+
+Bullet point 
+
+8i#149; 
+
+Sbull; 
+
+M8226; 
+
+- 
+
+En dash 
+
+8i#150; 
+
+Sndash; 
+
+M8211; 
+
+— 
+
+Em dash 
+
+&#l5l; 
+
+Simdash; 
+
+M8212; 
+
+~ 
+
+Tilde 
+
+8i#152; 
+
+Stilde; 
+
+&#732; 
+
+TM 
+
+Trademark symbol 
+
+8i#153; 
+
+Strade; 
+
+&#8482; 
+
+
+continues 
+
+
+467 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+
+Nonstandard 
+
+Entity 
+
+Entity 
+
+Character 
+
+Description 
+
+value 
+
+name 
+
+number 
+
+§ 
+
+Lowercase s, caron 
+
+8(#154; 
+
+Sscaron; 
+
+&#353; 
+
+> 
+
+Greater-than sign 
+
+&#155; 
+
+&gt; 
+
+&#62; 
+
+oe 
+
+Lowercase oe ligature 
+
+8(#156; 
+
+Soelig; 
+
+&#339; 
+
+Y 
+
+Uppercase Y, umlaut 
+
+&#159; 
+
+SYuml; 
+
+&#376 
+
+
+468 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+D CSS REFERENCE 
+
+
+This section includes a table listing CSS properties and values. In many cases, 
+properties have specific values, which are listed in full. However, some values 
+are common across many properties. These are outlined in the “Common CSS 
+values” section, and in the CSS properties and values table these values are 
+shown in italics. The end of the section includes information on basic selectors, 
+pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements, CSS boilerplates, and CSS management. 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The CSS box model 
+
+In CSS, every element is considered to be within its own box, and you can define the 
+dimensions of the content and then add padding, a border, and a margin to each edge as 
+required, as shown in the following image. 
+
+THE CSS BOX MODEL HIERARCHY 
+
+
+Content 
+
+
+
+ne i:aniple 
+ons rained 
+
+g that’s 
+Here’s 
+
+content, 
+
+the 
+been 
+
+
+I by 
+
+
+Padding* 
+
+
+Border 
+
+
+Background image 
+
+
+Background coior 
+
+
+Margin* 
+
+
+* Transparent eiements 
+
+
+© Jon Hicks (www.hicksdesign.co.uk) 
+
+
+Padding, borders, and margins are added to the set dimensions of the content, so the sum 
+of these elements is the overall space that they take up. For example, a 100-pixel-wide ele¬ 
+ment with 20 pixels of padding will take up an overall width of 140 pixels, not 100 pixels 
+with 20 pixels of padding within. 
+
+
+472 
+
+
+Note that the top and bottom margins on adjacent elements collapse. For example, if you 
+set the bottom margin to 50px on an element, and set a top margin of lOOpx on the ele¬ 
+ment below, the margin between the two elements will be 100 pixels, not 150 pixels. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Internet Explorer 5.x for Windows gets the box model wrong, placing padding and 
+borders inside the defined dimensions of an element. The bug is explained in 
+Chapter 9, which also offers workarounds to fix layouts that get broken in aging 
+versions of Microsoft’s browser. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+Common CSS values 
+
+In addition to the values listed in the following table, a property may have a value of 
+inherit, whereupon it takes the same value as its parent. Some properties are inherited 
+by default—see the CSS properties and values table for more information. 
+
+
+
+Value 
+
+Formats 
+
+color 
+
+Color name. See Appendix B (Color Reference) for information on 
+available CSS color names. 
+
+
+rgb(n,n,n): Where n is a value from 0 to 255 or a percentage. 
+
+#rrggbb: Hexadecimal color format (preferred). 
+
+length 
+
+An optional sign (+ or -), followed by a number and one of the fol¬ 
+lowing units (there should be no whitespace between the number and 
+unit): 
+
+
+%: A percentage, 
+cm: Centimeters. 
+
+em: One em is equal to the font size of the parent or current element 
+
+(see following focus point for elaboration). 
+
+ex: One ex is, in theory, equal to the font size of the x character of 
+
+the current element. Most browsers render ex as half an em. 
+
+in: Inches. 
+
+mm: Millimeters. 
+
+pc: Picas, ipc = I2pt. 
+
+pt: Points. Ipt = l/72in. 
+
+px: Pixels. 
+
+
+For zero values, the unit identifier may be omitted. Generally, px, em, 
+and % are the best units for screen design, and pt is best for print fonts. 
+
+number 
+
+An optional sign (+ or -) followed by a number. 
+
+percentage 
+
+An optional sign (+ or -) followed by a number, immediately followed 
+by the percentage symbol. 
+
+url 
+
+The word url immediately followed by parentheses, within which is 
+placed a URL. The URL can optionally be enclosed in single or double 
+quotes. 
+
+
+473 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+When setting element dimensions (width, height, margins, etc.), one em is equal to 
+the font size of that element. However, when setting font sizes for an element, one em 
+is equal to the font size of its parent element. In both cases, this is measured relative 
+to the dimensions of the M character. 
+
+V_ 
+
+
+CSS properties and values 
+
+In the tables within this section, default values are listed in bold and shorthand properties 
+are shaded in gray. A number of tables online list browser compatibility with regard to CSS. 
+Some good examples of these and related resources can be found at the following URLs: 
+
+■ www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_support/index.html: CSS sup¬ 
+port for most browsers 
+
+■ www.webdevout.net/browser-support-css: CSS support for Internet Explorer, 
+Firefox, and Opera 
+
+■ www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html: Concentrates on quirks 
+
+■ www.macedition.com/cb/resources/macbrowsercsssupport.html: CSS2 support 
+in old Mac browsers—note: not updated since 2004 
+
+■ www.macedition.com/cb/resources/abridgedcsssupport.html: CSS2 support chart 
+for old browsers—note: not updated since 2004 
+
+■ www.css 3 .info/selectors-test/: Live CSS3 support testing of your browser 
+
+■ http://devedge-temp.mozilla.org/toolbox/sidebars/: Useful sidebar reference 
+tools for Gecko browser users 
+
+Remember that such charts are guides only, are sometimes out of date, and should not be 
+considered a replacement for thorough testing in a range of web browsers. 
+
+To inherit a parent element’s style for a property, use the value inherit. To raise a prop¬ 
+erty’s weight in the cascade, use I important. Important declarations override all others. 
+
+p {color: red limportant;} 
+
+Add comments to CSS files as follows: 
+
+/* 
+
+This is a comment in CSS 
+*/ 
+
+/* This is a single-line comment */ 
+
+
+474 
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+background 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining background 
+property values in a single declaration. 
+
+Values can be any of those from 
+background-attachment, background- 
+color, background-image, background- 
+position, and background-repeat, in any 
+order. Example: 
+
+background: #ffffff 
+^ url(background.gif) fixed left 
+^ repeat-y; 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Web page 
+backgrounds in CSS” and “CSS shorthand 
+for web backgrounds.” 
+
+No 
+
+background-attachment 
+
+scroll 1 fixed 
+
+Determines whether a background image 
+is fixed or scrolls with the page. 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “background- 
+attachment.” 
+
+No 
+
+background-color 
+
+transparent | 
+
+color 
+
+Defines an element’s background color. 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “background-color.” 
+
+No 
+
+background-image 
+
+none | url 
+
+Sets an element’s background image. 
+Example: 
+
+background-image: 
+
+^ url(background image.jpg); 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “background-image.” 
+
+No 
+
+
+Defines the initial position of the No 
+
+background image. Defaults to 0,0. Values 
+are usually paired: x,y. Combinations of 
+keyword, length, and percentage are 
+permitted, although combining keywords 
+with either length or percentages is buggy 
+in some browsers. If only one keyword is 
+provided, the other defaults to center. If 
+only one length or percentage is given, it 
+sets the horizontal position, and the 
+vertical position defaults to 50%. 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “background-position.” 
+
+
+background-position length \ 
+
+percentage \ top | 
+center | bottom | 
+left I right 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+475 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+background-repeat 
+
+repeat | 
+repeat-x | 
+repeat-y | 
+no-repeat 
+
+Defines how the background image tiles. 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “background-repeat.” 
+
+No 
+
+border 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining border property 
+values in a single declaration. Values can 
+be any of those from border-width, 
+border-style,and border-color. 
+
+Borders are drawn on top of a box’s 
+background. Example: 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+border: Ipx solid #000000; 
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 4, “Applying CSS borders 
+to images,” and Chapter 6, “Styling a 
+table.” 
+
+
+border-bottom 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining bottom border 
+property values (see border). 
+
+No 
+
+border-bottom-color 
+
+color 1 transparent 
+
+Sets the bottom border color. 
+
+No 
+
+border-bottom-style 
+
+(See border-style.) 
+
+Sets the bottom border style. 
+
+No 
+
+border-bottom-width 
+
+(See border-width.) 
+
+Sets the bottom border width. 
+
+No 
+
+border-collapse 
+
+collapse 1 separate 
+
+Defines a table’s border model. In the 
+separate border model, which is the 
+default, each table cell has its own distinct 
+borders, but in the collapsed border 
+model, adjacent table cells share borders. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 6, “Adding borders to 
+tables.” 
+
+
+border-color 
+
+color 1 transparent 
+
+Defines the element’s border color. 
+
+Defaults to the element’s color. 
+
+No 
+
+border-left 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining left border 
+property values (see border). 
+
+No 
+
+border-left-color 
+
+color 1 transparent 
+
+Sets the left border color. 
+
+No 
+
+border-left-style 
+
+(See border-style.) 
+
+Sets the left border style. 
+
+No 
+
+border-left-width 
+
+(See border-width.) 
+
+Sets the left border width. 
+
+No 
+
+
+476 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+border-right 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining right border 
+property values (see border). 
+
+No 
+
+border-right-color 
+
+color 1 transparent 
+
+Sets the right border color. 
+
+No 
+
+border-right-style 
+
+(See border-style.) 
+
+Sets the right border style. 
+
+No 
+
+border-right-width 
+
+(See border-width.) 
+
+Sets the right border width. 
+
+No 
+
+border-spacing 
+
+length length 
+
+Defines the distance between borders or 
+adjacent table cells when using the 
+separated borders model. (See 
+border-collapse.) If a single length is 
+given, it’s used for horizontal and vertical 
+values; if two lengths are provided, the 
+first is used for the horizontal spacing 
+and the second for the vertical spacing. 
+Negative values are not permitted. 
+
+Yes 
+
+border-style 
+
+dashed | dotted | 
+double 1 groove | 
+inset 1 none | 
+outset 1 ridge | 
+solid 
+
+Sets the style of an element's borders. 
+
+Can work as shorthand, with one style per 
+edge, from the top clockwise. Example: 
+
+border-style: solid dashed dotted 
+^ groove; 
+
+Not all styles are supported in all 
+browsers. Notably, Internet Explorer 5 
+and 6 render dotted as dashed when a 
+border is 1 pixel in width. 
+
+No 
+
+border-top 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining top border 
+property values (see border). 
+
+No 
+
+border-top-color 
+
+color 1 transparent 
+
+Sets the top border color. 
+
+No 
+
+border-top-style 
+
+(See border-style.) 
+
+Sets the top border style. 
+
+No 
+
+border-top-width 
+
+(See border-width.) 
+
+Sets the top border width. 
+
+No 
+
+border-width 
+
+length \ medium | 
+thick 1 thin 
+
+Sets the width of an element’s borders. 
+
+Can work as shorthand: 
+
+border-width: Ipx 2px 3px 4px; 
+
+See also Chapter 4, “Applying CSS borders 
+to images.” 
+
+No 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+477 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property Values Description Inherited 
+
+
+bottom auto | length \ Determines the vertical offset of the No 
+
+percentage element’s bottom edge from the bottom 
+
+edge of its parent element if the parent is 
+positioned; if not, then offset is 
+determined from the first positioned 
+ancestor. Must be used with a position 
+value of relative, absolute, or fixed. 
+
+
+caption-side bottom | top Specifies the position of table caption Yes 
+
+elements with relation to the table 
+element box. 
+
+
+Moves the element down until its margins No 
+are clear of floated elements to its left, 
+right, or both sides. (See the float entry.) 
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Placing columns 
+within wrappers and clearing floated 
+content.” 
+
+
+clip auto I (shape) Creates a clipping area for an absolute No 
+
+positioned element to determine the 
+visible area. As of CSS 2.1, the only 
+available shape is rect. Example: 
+clip: rect(5pXj 60px, ISpXj 20px); 
+
+As per the preceding code block, 
+dimensions are stated as a comma- 
+separated list, and percentage lengths are 
+not permitted. The dimensions are, as per 
+typical CSS shorthand, in the following 
+order: top, right, bottom, left. The top and 
+bottom values specify offsets from the top 
+border edge of the box. The left and right 
+measurements specify offsets from the left 
+border edge of the box in left-to-right text 
+and from the right border edge of the box 
+in right-to-left text. The defined region 
+clips out any aspect of the element that 
+falls outside the clipping region. The 
+preceding example creates a window 
+40 pixels wide and 10 pixels high, through 
+which the content of the clipped element 
+is visible. Everything else is hidden. See 
+also www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visufx. 
+html#propdef-clip. 
+
+
+clear 
+
+
+both I left I 
+none | right 
+
+
+478 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+color 
+
+color 
+
+Sets an element’s foreground color (i.e., 
+the color of the text). 
+
+Yes 
+
+content 
+
+normal | (string) 
+
+1 >Jrl 1 
+
+counterCnome) | 
+
+counterCnome, 
+
+list-style-type) 
+
+1 counters(/ioffle, 
+string) \ 
+counters(noffle, 
+string, list- 
+style-type) | 
+open-quote | 
+close-quote | no- 
+open-quote 1 no- 
+close-quote 1 
+attr(X) 
+
+Generates content to attach before or after 
+a CSS selector, using the : before and 
+rafter pseudo-elements. Example: 
+
+#users h2:before { 
+content: "Username: 
+display: inline; 
+
+} 
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Placing columns within 
+wrappers and clearing floated content.” 
+
+No 
+
+counter-increment 
+
+none | 
+
+identifier number 
+
+Increments a counter when the current 
+selector is encountered. The identifier 
+defines the selector, ID, or class that is to 
+be incremented; the optional number 
+defines the increment amount. Used in 
+conjunction with content. Browser support 
+for this property is poor. 
+
+No 
+
+counter-reset 
+
+none | 
+
+identifier number 
+
+Defines a new value for the specified 
+counter whenever the current selector is 
+encountered. 
+
+No 
+
+cursor 
+
+auto 1 crosshair | 
+default 1 help | 
+pointer | move | 
+progress | text | 
+wait 1 n-resize | 
+ne-resize | 
+e-resize | 
+se-resize | 
+s-resize | 
+sw-resize | 
+nw-resize | 
+w-resize | url 
+
+Defines the cursor type to be displayed. 
+
+Can be a comma-separated list. Cursors 
+vary by system, so use this property with 
+care. Also, if using custom cursors via the 
+url value, include a generic cursor at the 
+end of the list, in case of compatibility 
+problems. 
+
+Note: Internet Explorer 5.x for Windows 
+does not recognize pointer, the correct 
+
+CSS value for displaying a hand-shaped 
+cursor. Instead, it uses the nonstandard 
+value hand, which can be applied using a 
+style sheet attached via a conditional 
+comment. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+479 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+
+480 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+481 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+font-style 
+
+italic 1 normal | 
+oblique 
+
+Sets the font’s style. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Defining font-style, 
+font-weight, and font-variant.” 
+
+Yes 
+
+font-variant 
+
+normal | 
+small-caps 
+
+Sets the font to display in small caps. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Defining font-style, 
+font-weight, and font-variant.” 
+
+Yes 
+
+font-weight 
+
+lighter | normal 
+
+1 bold 1 bolder | 
+number* 
+
+Sets the font weight. 
+
+* When using a number, it must be a 
+multiple of 100 between 100 and 900 
+inclusive. The value 700 is considered 
+equivalent to bold, and 400 is synonymous 
+with normal. In practice, numbers are 
+supported inconsistently and poorly in 
+browsers. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Defining font-style, 
+font-weight, and font-variant.” 
+
+
+height 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the content height of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+left 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Determines the horizontal offset of the 
+element’s left edge from the left edge of 
+its parent element if the parent is 
+positioned; if not, then offset is 
+determined from the first positioned 
+ancestor. Must be used with a position 
+value of relative, absolute, or fixed. 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+See also the Chapter 7 exercise, “Using 
+absolute positioning to center a box 
+onscreen.” 
+
+
+letter-spacing 
+
+length \ normal 
+
+Amends kerning (i.e., the space between 
+characters). Positive and negative values 
+are permitted. Relative values are 
+determined once and then inherited. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Setting letter-spacing 
+and word-spacing.” 
+
+
+
+482 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+line-height 
+
+normal | length \ 
+number \ 
+percentage 
+
+Controls the element’s leading. When the 
+line-height value is larger than the 
+font-size value, the difference (which is 
+the leading) is halved, and this new value 
+is applied to the top and bottom of the 
+element’s inline box. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Setting line height.” 
+
+
+list-style 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining list properties in a 
+single declaration. Values can be those from 
+list-style-type, list-style-position, 
+and list-style-image. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Styling lists with CSS” 
+and “List style shorthand.” 
+
+
+list-style-image 
+
+none | url 
+
+Defines an image for list bullet points. 
+
+Yes 
+
+list-style-position 
+
+inside | outside 
+
+Determines whether the bullet point 
+appears as the first character of the list 
+item content (inside) or in default 
+fashion (outside). 
+
+Yes 
+
+list-style-type 
+
+none | disc | 
+circle | square | 
+decimal | 
+decimal-leading- 
+zero 1 lower- 
+alpha 1 upper- 
+alpha 1 lower- 
+greek | lower- 
+latin 1 upper- 
+latin 1 lower- 
+roman 1 upper- 
+roman 1 armenian 
+
+1 georgian 
+
+Sets the bullet point style. If a browser 
+doesn’t understand an ordered list value, it 
+defaults to decimal. Generally, none, 
+circle, square, decimal, and the alpha 
+and roman values are best supported. The 
+
+W3C recommends using decimal for 
+ordered lists whenever possible. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+483 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+margin 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining margin properties 
+in a single declaration. Examples: 
+margin: 0; (sets all margins to 0) 
+margin: 0 lOpx 20px 30px; (sets 
+individual margins for each edge) 
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Content margins and 
+padding in CSS” and “Working with CSS 
+shorthand for boxes.” 
+
+No 
+
+margin-bottom 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the bottom margin. Defaults to 0. 
+
+Note that browsers usually override the 
+zero value by applying default margins to 
+most block elements. Set margins explicitly 
+to 0 to cancel the browser’s default. See 
+Chapter 2, “Zeroing margins and padding 
+on all elements.” 
+
+No 
+
+margin-left 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the left margin. Defaults to 0. Note 
+that browsers usually override the zero 
+value by applying default margins to most 
+block elements. Set margins explicitly to 0 
+to cancel the browser's default. See 
+
+Chapter 2, “Zeroing margins and padding 
+on all elements.” 
+
+No 
+
+margin-right 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the right margin. Defaults to 0. Note 
+that browsers usually override the zero 
+value by applying default margins to most 
+block elements. Set margins explicitly to 0 
+to cancel the browser's default. See 
+
+Chapter 2, “Zeroing margins and padding 
+on all elements.” 
+
+No 
+
+margin-top 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the top margin. Defaults to 0. Note 
+that browsers usually override the zero 
+value by applying default margins to most 
+block elements. Set margins explicitly to 0 
+to cancel the browser's default. See 
+
+Chapter 2, “Zeroing margins and padding 
+on all elements.” 
+
+No 
+
+max-height 
+
+none | length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the maximum height of an element. 
+
+Does not apply to table elements. 
+
+No 
+
+
+484 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+max-width 
+
+none | length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the maximum width of an element. 
+
+Does not apply to table elements. 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+See also the Chapter 7 exercise, “Creating a 
+maximum-width layout.” 
+
+
+min-height 
+
+none | length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the minimum height of an element. 
+
+Does not apply to table elements. 
+
+No 
+
+min-width 
+
+none | length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the minimum width of an element. 
+
+Does not apply to table elements. 
+
+No 
+
+orphans 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the number of lines of a paragraph 
+that must be left at the bottom of a page 
+when printing. Defaults to 2. Defined 
+number must be an integer. Very poorly 
+supported. 
+
+Yes 
+
+outline 
+
+
+Shorthand for defining outline properties 
+in a single declaration. Outlines are 
+rendered outside the border edge and do 
+not affect document flow. Example: 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+•highlight { 
+
+outline: Ipx dotted #ff0000; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+Not supported by Internet Explorer up to 
+and including version 7. 
+
+
+outline-color 
+
+color 1 invert 
+
+Sets the color of an outline. Defaults to 
+invert, which inverts the color of the 
+pixels onscreen, ensuring the outline is 
+visible. 
+
+No 
+
+outline-style 
+
+dashed | dotted | 
+double 1 groove | 
+inset 1 none | 
+outset 1 ridge | 
+solid 
+
+Sets the style of an outline. 
+
+No 
+
+outline-width 
+
+length \ medium | 
+thick 1 thin 
+
+Sets the width of an outline. 
+
+No 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+485 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+overflow 
+
+auto 1 
+scroll 
+
+hidden | 
+
+1 visible 
+
+Determines what happens when content is 
+too large for the defined dimensions of 
+the element. 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+
+auto: If content is clipped, the browser 
+displays a scroll bar. 
+
+hidden: Content is clipped, and content 
+outside the element’s box is not visible, 
+scroll: Content is clipped, but a scroll 
+bar is made available, 
+visible: Content is not clipped and may 
+be rendered outside of the element’s 
+containing box. 
+
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 7, “Scrollable content 
+areas with CSS.” 
+
+
+padding 
+
+
+
+Shorthand to define padding properties in 
+a single declaration. Examples: 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+
+padding: 0; (sets padding on all sides to 0) 
+padding: 0 lOpx 20px 30px; (sets 
+individual padding for each edge) 
+
+
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 2, “Content margins and 
+padding in CSS” and “Working with CSS 
+shorthand for boxes.” 
+
+
+padding-bottom 
+
+length 
+
+1 percentage 
+
+Sets the bottom padding of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+padding-left 
+
+length 
+
+1 percentage 
+
+Sets the left padding of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+padding-right 
+
+length 
+
+1 percentage 
+
+Sets the right padding of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+padding-top 
+
+length 
+
+1 percentage 
+
+Sets the top padding of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+page-break-after 
+
+auto 1 
+avoid 
+right 
+
+always | 
+left 1 
+
+Determines whether a page break should 
+appear after the element when printing. 
+Poorly supported. 
+
+No 
+
+page-break-before 
+
+auto 1 
+avoid 
+right 
+
+always | 
+left 1 
+
+Determines whether a page break should 
+appear before the element when printing. 
+Poorly supported. 
+
+No 
+
+page-break-inside 
+
+auto 1 
+
+avoid 
+
+Determines whether a page break should 
+appear inside the element when printing. 
+Poorly supported. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+486 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+position 
+
+absolute | fixed | 
+relative | static 
+
+Determines the positioning method used 
+to render the element’s box: 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+absolute: Element is placed in a specific 
+location outside of normal document flow, 
+using the top, right, bottom, and left 
+properties. 
+
+fixed: As per absolute, but the element 
+remains stationary when the screen scrolls. 
+Poorly supported by some browsers, 
+relative: Offset from the static position 
+by the values set using top, right, bottom, 
+and left properties, 
+static: The default. The top, right, 
+bottom, and left properties do not affect 
+the element if this value is set. The 
+element is not removed from the 
+document’s normal flow. 
+
+
+
+
+Various examples of this property in use 
+are found in Chapters 5 and 7. 
+
+
+quotes 
+
+none | string 
+string 
+
+Determines the type of quote marks to be 
+used for embedded quotations. The string 
+contains paired quoted values, which 
+determine each level of quote embedding. 
+The default depends on the user agent 
+(browser). 
+
+Yes 
+
+right 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Determines the horizontal offset of the 
+element’s right edge from the right edge 
+of its parent element if the parent is 
+positioned; if not, then offset is 
+determined from the first positioned 
+ancestor. Must be used with a position 
+value of relative, absolute, or fixed. 
+
+No 
+
+table-layout 
+
+auto 1 fixed 
+
+Controls the layout algorithm used to 
+render tables. Using fixed, table columns 
+are based on analysis of the first row and 
+rendered accordingly. This can speed up 
+processing time, but may lead to columns 
+that are too narrow for subsequently 
+downloaded content. 
+
+No 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+487 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+text-align 
+
+center | justify | 
+left* 1 right 
+
+Sets the text alignment for an element. 
+
+* The default is left in left-to-right 
+languages and right in right-to-left 
+languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and 
+
+Urdu. Should be used instead of the HTML 
+align attribute. 
+
+Yes 
+
+text-decoration 
+
+blink 1 line- 
+through 1 none | 
+overline | 
+underline 
+
+Adds decoration to text. Values may be 
+combined in a space-separated list, and 
+the default depends on the element in 
+question. 
+
+Note that browsers may ignore blink but 
+still be considered compliant. Examples: 
+
+text-decoration: underline; 
+text decoration: underline 
+^ line-through; 
+
+See also Chapter 5, “Editing link styles 
+using CSS.” 
+
+No 
+
+text-indent 
+
+length \ percentage 
+
+Sets the horizontal indent of an element’s 
+first line of text. Defaults to 0. 
+
+Yes 
+
+text-transform 
+
+capitalize | 
+lowercase | 
+none | uppercase 
+
+Sets the case of an element’s text. 
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Controlling case with 
+text-transform.” 
+
+Yes 
+
+top 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Determines the vertical offset of the 
+element’s top edge from the top edge of 
+its parent element if the parent is 
+positioned; if not, then offset is determined 
+from the first positioned ancestor. Must be 
+used with a position value of relative, 
+absolute, or fixed. 
+
+See also the Chapter 7 exercise, “Using 
+absolute positioning to center a box 
+onscreen.” 
+
+No 
+
+
+488 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+unicode-bidi 
+
+bidi-override | 
+embed | normal 
+
+Enables overrides for text direction. The 
+embed value forces text to be displayed 
+with regard to the associated direction 
+property. The bidi-override value also 
+overrides the default Unicode ordering 
+scheme. 
+
+No 
+
+
+
+This is a complex subject concerned with 
+inserting elements of right-to-left text in 
+blocks of left-to-right text (such as 
+embedding Arabic or Hebrew in English, or 
+vice versa). For details about working with 
+bidirectional text, see www.w3.org/ 
+International/resource-index. 
+html#bidi. 
+
+
+vertical-align 
+
+length \ 
+percentage \ 
+baseline | 
+bottom 1 middle 
+
+1 top 1 sub 1 
+super 1 
+text-bottom | 
+text-top 
+
+Determines the vertical alignment of an 
+element. Applies to inline elements and 
+those within table cells. Should be used in 
+place of the HTML valign attribute. If a 
+percentage value is used, that refers to the 
+element’s line-height value. 
+
+No 
+
+visibility 
+
+collapse 1 hidden | 
+
+visible 
+
+Sets the visibility of an element. When 
+hidden is used, the element box is invisible 
+but still affects page layout (use display: 
+none for an element to not affect 
+document flow). When collapse is used, 
+results are similar to hidden, except for 
+spanned table cells, which may appear 
+clipped. 
+
+Yes 
+
+white-space 
+
+normal | nowrap | 
+pre 1 pre-wrap | 
+pre-line 
+
+Determines how whitespace within an 
+element is handled. Browser support for 
+pre-line and pre-wrap is poor. 
+
+Yes 
+
+widows 
+
+number 
+
+Defines the number of lines of a 
+paragraph that must be left at the top of a 
+page when printing. Defaults to 2. Defined 
+number must be an integer. Very poorly 
+supported. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+Continued 
+
+
+489 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Property 
+
+Values 
+
+Description 
+
+Inherited 
+
+width 
+
+auto 1 length \ 
+percentage 
+
+Sets the content width of an element. 
+
+No 
+
+word-spacing 
+
+length \ normal 
+
+Provides space between words in addition 
+to the default settings. 
+
+Yes 
+
+
+
+See also Chapter 3, “Setting letter-spacing 
+and word-spacing.” 
+
+
+z-index 
+
+auto 1 number 
+
+Changes an element’s position in the stack. 
+Higher numbers are “closer” and lower 
+numbers are “further away.” Negative 
+values are permitted, but will result in 
+content not being displayed in some 
+browsers. 
+
+No 
+
+
+Basic selectors 
+
+This section outlines the most commonly used selectors, along with their syntax. Note that 
+selectors for pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements are covered in the following two sec¬ 
+tions, rather than being duplicated. 
+
+
+Some selectors are not fully supported in all browsers. Notably, child and adjacent 
+selectors are not supported by versions of Internet Explorer prior to 7. See www. 
+webdevout.net/browser-support-css for an overview of basic selector support. 
+
+V_!_!_ J 
+
+
+Selector type 
+
+Syntax 
+
+Description 
+
+Universal 
+
+* 
+
+Matches any element. Can be used in context 
+to attach a rule to all elements within 
+another element (e.g., #sidebar *). 
+
+Type 
+
+element 
+
+Matches any element of type element. For 
+example: hi. 
+
+Class 
+
+.value 
+
+Matches an element with a class value of 
+value. 
+
+ID 
+
+ttvalue 
+
+Matches an element with an id value of 
+value. 
+
+
+490 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+Selector type 
+
+Syntax 
+
+Description 
+
+Descendant 
+
+element descendant 
+
+Matches a descendant element that is a 
+descendant of the element of type element. 
+
+For example, div p targets paragraphs that 
+are descendants of div elements. 
+
+Child 
+
+elementschild 
+
+Matches an element that is a child of another 
+element. Similar to but more precise than 
+descendant selectors, rules are applied to 
+elements that are direct children of the par¬ 
+ent only. For example, div p matches all 
+paragraphs within all divs. div>p only 
+matches paragraphs that are direct children 
+of divs, and so would not match a paragraph 
+within a table within a div. 
+
+Adjacent 
+
+elementl+elementl 
+
+Matches element!, adjacent to elementl. For 
+example, hl+h2 matches any h2 element that 
+directly follows an hi element within the web 
+page, with no other elements in between. 
+
+Attribute 
+
+element[attribute] 
+
+Matches an element of type element that 
+has an attribute of type attribute. Further 
+clarification can be added via the syntax 
+element[attribute="value " ] (targets 
+element with attribute with value equal to 
+value), element[attribute~=''value"] (tar¬ 
+gets element with attribute that has a list of 
+space-separated values, of which one is equal 
+to value), element[lang=value] (targets 
+element with a lang attribute equal to value). 
+
+
+Note that the word element in the preceding table refers to a general element on the 
+
+web page, rather than a de facto HTML element. 
+
+V_^_y 
+
+
+Pseudo-classes 
+
+Pseudo-classes initially provided additional styles relating to a selector's state, but now 
+also include those that apply styles to conceptual document components. 
+
+
+491 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Pseudo<lass 
+
+Description 
+
+ractive 
+
+The state when an element is active (e.g., when a link is being 
+clicked) 
+
+:first-child 
+
+Affects the first descendant of an element 
+
+:focus 
+
+The state when an element is focused to accept keyboard input 
+
+:hover 
+
+The state when the pointer is over an element 
+
+:lang 
+
+Applies to elements with the specified language (defined using 
+xml:lang) 
+
+:link 
+
+Applies to an unvisited link 
+
+rvisited 
+
+Applies to a visited link 
+
+
+Pseudo-elements 
+
+Pseudo-elements enable generated content that's not in the document source and the 
+styling of conceptual document components. 
+
+
+Pseudo-element 
+
+Description 
+
+rafter 
+
+Used in conjunction with content to generate content after an ele¬ 
+ment. For example: 
+
+
+hlrafter {content: url(bleep.wav);} 
+
+:before 
+
+Used in conjunction with content to generate content before an 
+element. 
+
+rfirst-letter 
+
+Styles the first letter of an element. 
+
+rfirst-line 
+
+Styles the first rendered line of a “block-level” element. 
+
+
+CSS boilerplates and management 
+
+By using CSS comments and a monospace font when editing CSS, it’s possible to create 
+clear sections within the style sheet and a table of contents, enabling you to more easily 
+manage rules. A full example is available in the advanced-boilerplates folder of the 
+download files. An example of a table of contents is shown following: 
+
+
+492 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+/* 
+
+STYLE SHEET FOR [WEB SITE] 
+
+Created by [AUTHOR NAME] 
+
+[URL OF AUTHOR] 
+
+ToC 
+
+1. defaults 
+
+2. structure 
+
+3. links and navigation 
+
+4. fonts 
+
+5. images 
+
+6. tables 
+
+7. forms 
+
+Notes 
+
+*! 
+
+An example of a section of a boilerplate is shown following, with empty rules waiting to be 
+filled. Fiere, a single tab is represented by eight spaces. Note how the property/value pairs 
+and closing curly quotes are indented equally. This makes it easier to scan the far-left side 
+of the document for selectors. 
+
+/* - 4 . fonts-*/ 
+
+html { 
+
+font-size: 100%; 
+
+} 
+
+body { 
+
+font-size: 62.5%; 
+
+} 
+
+hlj hi, h3, hA, p, ul { 
+
+} 
+
+hi { 
+
+} 
+
+h2 { 
+
+} 
+
+h3 { 
+
+} 
+
+h4 { 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+493 
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+P { 
+
+} 
+
+ul { 
+
+} 
+
+The use of the CSS comment to introduce the section, with a string of hyphens before and 
+after the section name, provides a useful visual separator for when directly editing code. 
+Subsections are best added by indenting them the same amount as the property/value 
+pairs; rule-specific comments are best placed after the opening curly quote; pair-specific 
+comments are best placed after the pair. See the following for examples. 
+
+Sub-section introduction: 
+
+/* — sidebar headings — */ 
+
+#sidebar h2 { 
+
+} 
+
+#sidebar h3 { 
+
+} 
+
+Rule-specific comment: 
+
+•boxoutProducts {/* used on sales and purchase pages */ 
+
+} 
+
+Pair-specific comment: 
+
+body.advert h2 { 
+
+font-size: l.Sem; 
+
+text-transform: uppercase; /* over-ride for ad pages only */ 
+
+} 
+
+
+f s. 
+
+Note that the indents in this section are different from those shown elsewhere in this 
+book. This is intentional, in order to provide a close match to the code in the actual 
+style sheet, rather than something that works better on the printed page. 
+
+V_1_i_ 
+
+
+Modular style sheets 
+
+From a management perspective, I find it easiest to work with a single style sheet, albeit 
+one that already has a number of elements prewritten. However, you can also work in a 
+modular manner, creating a number of small boilerplate documents (e.g., to reset margins 
+and padding and define font size defaults) and area-specific style sheets (for navigation, 
+layout, forms, etc.), and then importing them into your CSS via an @import line. As an 
+example, you could save the clearFix rule (shown following, and used in various exercises 
+throughout the book, notably in Chapter 7’s “Clearing floated content” exercise) in its own 
+style sheet as clearfix.css. 
+
+
+494 
+
+
+
+
+css REFERENCE 
+
+
+•clearFix:after { 
+content: "."j 
+display: block; 
+height: 0; 
+clear: both; 
+visibility: hidden; 
+
+} 
+
+This could then be imported into your main style sheet as follows: 
+
+@import url(clearfix.css); 
+
+You can import as many style sheets as you want, depending on how modular you want to 
+be, and how you want to organize your CSS. For example, at the time of writing, this 
+book’s technical editor, David Anderson, imports all of his CSS, using eight @import lines to 
+do so, and separating out his CSS into categories such as “generic,” “navigation,” and 
+“forms”. How you decide to work is up to you. 
+
+
+
+495 
+
+
+
+E BROWSER GUIDE 
+
+
+This appendix provides a brief overview of the mainstream browsers in 
+general use at the time of writing, including a little history about them, 
+estimated market share, and how standards-compliant they are (along with 
+whether they pass the Web Standards Project Acid2 Browser Test, at 
+www.webstandards.org/action/acid 2 /). Note that new versions of browsers are 
+regularly released, so this section is intended only as a guide. Details are 
+accurate as of October 2007. 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Fi refox 
+
+■ Full name: Mozilla Firefox. 
+
+■ Initial year of release: 2004 (as 1.0). 
+
+■ OS: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (unofficial ports to various other systems exist). 
+
+■ Website: www.mozilla.com/firefox/. 
+
+■ Market share estimate: 10-15%. 
+
+■ Trend: Steady growth. 
+
+■ Engine: Gecko. 
+
+■ Compliance: High. Firefox makes an excellent base for development, although as of 
+2.0, it fails a few advanced elements of the Acid2 Browser Test. 
+
+■ Comments: Initially devised as an unofficial branch of the Mozilla project, Firefox’s 
+aim was to be a compact, speedy browser, devoid of the feature-creep evident in 
+its parent. Initially innovative, bringing tabbed browsing and incremental find (find- 
+as-you-type) functionality to the masses, Firefox’s market share rapidly grew as 
+standards-aware websites formed an aggressive switch marketing campaign, 
+designed to tear complacent users away from Internet Explorer. Should you work 
+with Firefox, I highly recommend you install Chris Pederick’s Web Developer tool¬ 
+bar, available from www.chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/. 
+
+
+Internet Explorer 
+
+■ Full name: Windows Internet Explorer. 
+
+■ Initial year of release: 1995. 
+
+■ OS: Microsoft Windows. 
+
+■ Website: www.microsoft.com/ie. 
+
+■ Market share estimate: Around 80%. (This figure is combined, split more or less 
+evenly between Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6, with a low and dimin¬ 
+ishing number of users running version 5.x.) 
+
+■ Trend: Slow decline. 
+
+■ Engine: Trident. 
+
+
+498 
+
+
+BROWSER GUIDE 
+
+
+■ Compliance: Reasonable for version 7, although it dramatically fails Acid2. Poor for 
+version 6 and before, which require fixes for many advanced CSS properties and 
+values. 
+
+■ Comments: Despite being initially ignored, Microsoft’s Mosaic-derived browser 
+became embroiled in the infamous browser wars of the late 1990s, regularly adding 
+new features and capabilities to eclipse rival Netscape Navigator. With the battle 
+won by 1999, Microsoft’s browser seemingly lapsed into a semicomatose state. 
+Version S’s standards support was dire (unlike the Mac version, which was later 
+canceled), and while version 6 was an improvement, it still lagged behind its rivals, 
+including the then-new Firefox, resulting in its previously all-dominant market 
+share (which rose to a high of around 95%) being hit hard for nearly two years. In 
+late 2006, the final public release of version 7 appeared, with much-improved stan¬ 
+dards support (although this aspect remains inferior to that of its rivals) and fea¬ 
+tures available in rival browsers (such as tabbed browsing). A Microsoft-produced 
+developer toolbar is available for version 7 of Internet Explorer; it’s available from 
+WWW .microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid= 
+e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5eldb91038&displaylang=en. 
+
+
+Opera 
+
+■ Full name: Opera. 
+
+■ Initial year of release: 1996 (first public release). 
+
+■ OS: Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OS, Linux, BeOS, Solaris, and others. 
+
+■ Website: www.opera.com/. 
+
+■ Market share estimate: Under 2%. 
+
+■ Trend: Stable. 
+
+■ Engine: Presto. 
+
+■ Compliance: Excellent. Passes Acid2, making it an excellent alternative to Firefox 
+for a development base. 
+
+■ Comments: Starting life as a research project for a Norwegian telecom company. 
+Opera has grown into a feature-packed, standards-compliant browser. Its innova¬ 
+tive features—some of which are of direct benefit to developers—often lead its 
+rivals, although the browser has been hampered over the years by a cluttered and 
+superficially complex interface, and the browser for a long time identifying itself as 
+Internet Explorer. Because of this, market share figures for Opera were—and 
+indeed possibly still are—artificially low. However, in terms of reach. Opera has 
+plenty of potential: there are versions of the browser for a massive range of 
+systems, including for handheld devices. A developer toolbar is available from 
+www.operawiki.info/WebDevToolbar. 
+
+
+E 
+
+
+499 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Safari 
+
+
+■ Full name: Safari. 
+
+■ Initial year of release: 2003. 
+
+■ OS: Mac OS X, Windows. 
+
+■ Website: www.apple.com/safari/. 
+
+■ Market share estimate: About 4%. 
+
+■ Trend: Slow growth. 
+
+■ Engine: KHTML. 
+
+■ Compliance: Excellent, with reservations (see comments). Passes Acid2, making it 
+suitable for a development base. 
+
+■ Comments: Most likely developed as a reaction to Microsoft axing Internet 
+Explorer for Mac, Safari rapidly became the primary browser for Mac users. Its 
+clean interface complements the KHTML engine, which is one of the most compli¬ 
+ant in existence. (Indeed, Safari was the first browser to pass Acid2.) Although 
+initially available to Mac users only, June 2007 saw the first beta of Safari for 
+Windows, primarily intended as an aid to Windows-based developers creating con¬ 
+tent for Apple’s iPhone. Safari has some shortcomings regarding JavaScript support, 
+and its method of anti-aliasing text is significantly different to other browsers. Prior 
+to version 3, CSS borders and colors for form fields and buttons were ignored, the 
+Mac OS Aqua equivalents instead being “forced.” 
+
+
+Other browsers 
+
+A number of other web browsers exist, although their market share is so minimal as to be 
+considered all but insignificant. A possible exception to this is Linux-based Konqueror, 
+although with its KHTML engine, you should expect similar results to those in Safari. 
+Elsewhere, some browsers are based on Gecko (such as SeaMonkey/Mozilla and Flock), 
+some on Trident (such as AOL Explorer/OpenRide), and one on both (Netscape Browser). 
+
+
+500 
+
+
+
+F SOFTWARE GUIDE 
+
+
+Opinions on the merit of software tools are usually pretty subjective. This 
+chapter isn’t supposed to be some kind of definitive guide on web design 
+software and each application’s pros and cons—instead, it aims to provide 
+an overview of the most popular solutions on the market, along with insight 
+into the tools I myself use on a daily basis. 
+
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+Web design software 
+
+Adobe Dreamweaver (www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/) is the market leader for 
+web design software on both Windows and Mac platforms. Formerly a Macromedia prod¬ 
+uct, the application joined the Adobe stable after Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. 
+Dreamweaver’s position at the top of the pile is no accident: for several versions now, it 
+has concentrated on standards-compliance and lean code, but has also provided a flexible 
+interface that enables designers to take either a code-based or a layout-based approach to 
+web page design and the creation of dynamic websites. Although the CSS update was 
+underwhelming, Dreamweaver remains the only WYSIWYG web design tool that I recom¬ 
+mend to people with any enthusiasm. 
+
+Adobe GoLive (www.adobe.com/products/golive/), formerly the Mac-only CyberStudio, 
+was unceremoniously ousted from Adobe’s Creative Suite bundles once Dreamweaver CSS 
+arrived. Taking a more graphic-design approach, many of the tools in GoLive 9 are seem¬ 
+ingly derived from Adobe's desktop publishing application, InDesign. Although the appli¬ 
+cation is fairly easy to use, it pales beside Dreamweaver when it comes to working with 
+CSS-based sites and web standards, and using its control panel tends to result in unwieldy 
+span-infested markup and a document littered with inline styles. 
+
+Microsoft Expression Web (www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/expression-web) 
+arrived on the scene in very late 2006, and after the disaster that was Microsoft Frontpage, 
+was a surprisingly strong effort from Microsoft. While weaker than Dreamweaver, it man¬ 
+aged—at the time of release—to provide some CSS tools superior to Adobe’s application, 
+and although its workflow is inferior to Dreamweaver’s, it’s a surprisingly capable and user- 
+friendly application. Unfortunately, Microsoft Expression Web is hampered by a lack of 
+support for PHP (it concentrates primarily on Microsoft-originated technologies) and the 
+lack of a Mac OS X release. However, for Windows-based web designers only interested in 
+static sites, and those who develop ASP.NET-based sites, it’s worth a look. 
+
+Other applications in this area are more extreme in terms of working method than those 
+discussed so far, either relying on a purely layout-based approach, or being based around 
+hand-coding. An example of a purely layout-oriented application is the Mac-only Softpress 
+Freeway (www.softpress.com/), which is even more geared toward print designers than 
+GoLive and has an interface akin to QuarkXPress. Software geared toward hand-coding 
+includes BBEdit (Mac OS X, www.barebones.com/), TextMate (Mac OS X, www.macromates, 
+com/), HomeSite (Windows, www.adobe.com/products/homesite/), HTML Kit (Windows, 
+www.chami.com/html-kit/), and TopSlyle Pro (Windows, www.newsgator.com/Individuals/ 
+TopStyle/Default.aspx). 
+
+
+504 
+
+
+SOFTWARE GUIDE 
+
+
+Graphic design software 
+
+Adobe Photoshop (www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/) is a Mac and Windows appli¬ 
+cation that’s pretty much ubiquitous in the print design world. Immensely powerful and 
+surprisingly user-friendly once you get to grips with the interface, more recent versions 
+have provided a number of tools geared toward web designers, including a decent Save 
+for Web function. Now part of the same suite as Dreamweaver, Photoshop integrates with 
+the popular web design application, and if you can afford it, the application is pretty much 
+unbeatable for bitmap editing. 
+
+Adobe Photoshop Elements (www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel) is also available for 
+Mac and Windows, and is a cut-down consumer-oriented version of Photoshop. Although 
+not as feature-rich as its bigger brother, Elements nonetheless has enough useful tools to 
+warrant purchase for any designer on a tight budget. Note that the Mac and Windows ver¬ 
+sions of Elements are significantly different in terms of feature set, with the Mac version 
+lacking a number of the extras from the Windows version (although many of those deal 
+with asset organization, a task iPhoto can deal with on Mac OS X). 
+
+Adobe Fireworks (www.adobe.com/products/fireworks/) is a Mac and Windows applica¬ 
+tion formerly part of Macromedia’s suite of web design tools. Previously something of a 
+web-focused rival to Photoshop, Adobe has repositioned Fireworks as a tool primarily 
+aimed at rapidly working up mockups of websites. However, its tool set is such that it’s just 
+as capable as Photoshop for working up entire layouts. (In fact, the vector tools within 
+Fireworks are generally considered superior to Photoshop’s equivalents), and at a much 
+lower cost. 
+
+Corel Paint Shop Pro (www.corel.com/) is a Windows-only graphics editor, which has his¬ 
+torically been seen as a low-budget alternative to Photoshop. Enabling users to edit both 
+bitmap and vector graphics, previous versions of the application were well suited to web 
+design, and its price point—significantly lower than Photoshop’s—made it a good choice 
+for designers on a tight budget. More recent versions have seen the application focus 
+rather more significantly on photo editing, however. 
+
+GIMP (www.gimp.org/)—the GNU Image Manipulation Program—is the closest open 
+source equivalent to Photoshop, and is available in various flavors for Linux, Windows, and 
+Mac OS X (although the main Mac version requires X11 to run, with native ports being 
+rather flaky by comparison). Primarily a bitmap editor, the application includes a surprising 
+range of tools equivalent to those found in Adobe’s market-leading application, although 
+it lacks strong color model support, and the omission of a free transform tool is a disap¬ 
+pointment. 
+
+Adobe Illustrator (www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/) is a Mac and Windows appli¬ 
+cation for working with vector graphics. Although the majority of web graphics are 
+bitmap-based, there’s nothing to stop you from using a vector-oriented application for 
+crafting the initial design, and Illustrator’s tools prove flexible when creating sites with 
+clean lines and large blocks of color. Usefully, the application has a modicum of tools for 
+web publishing. 
+
+
+505 
+
+
+THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CSS AND HTML WEB DESIGN 
+
+
+The author’s toolbox 
+
+I often get asked what hardware and software I use, so here is a quick list: 
+
+■ Hardware: I use a Mac Pro, with lots of extra RAM and several hard drives for daily 
+and weekly backups, along with a MacBook as a backup machine. I personally pre¬ 
+fer Mac 05 X over Windows, but with Intel Macs, the real advantage is being able 
+to design on the Mac, test on Mac and Windows, and host stuff locally for testing 
+on the built-in Apache server. 
+
+■ Design software: I mostly use Adobe Photoshop for layout design, although Adobe 
+Illustrator is wheeled out occasionally. Color Consultant Pro (www.code-line.com/ 
+software/colorconsultantpro.html) assists with color schemes, while Color 
+Oracle (http://colororacle.cartography.ch/) and Sim Daltonism (www.michelf. 
+com/projects/sim-daltonism/) both enable me to check whether designs are 
+usable for people who are color blind. 
+
+■ Authoring software: This will likely come as no surprise if you’ve read this book, but 
+I tend to favor a code-based approach to creating site templates. However, I don’t 
+like wasting time, so applications that speed up code creation are a must. CSSEdit 
+(www.macrabbit.com/cssedit/) is my weapon of choice for CSS, and it’s perhaps 
+the best piece of shareware available for the Mac (worth the entry price just for its 
+preview override function, which enables you to override a live site’s CSS with a 
+local file). For code, I tend to flit between BBEdit and TextMate. For managing con¬ 
+tent and sites, I sometimes use Dreamweaver, and for uploading everything. Panic’s 
+Transmit (www.panic.com/transmit/) is unbeatable. 
+
+■ Miscellaneous software: A few bits of shareware provide supporting roles when I’m 
+working: ImageWell (www.xtralean.com/IWOverview.html) is handy for batch pro¬ 
+cessing images without requiring you to open up Photoshop; Paparazzi (www. 
+derailer.org/paparazzi/) makes it simple to take full-page grabs of any web¬ 
+site—handy for the portfolio; Headdress (http://headdress.twinsparc.com/) 
+makes virtual hosting a breeze, removing the need to muck about with config files; 
+and SuperDuper (www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/) is essential for creating 
+system clones, which suddenly become extremely important on those inevitable 
+days when my main hard drive decides to keel over and die. 
+
+
+506 
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+Numbers and symbols 
+
+<!— . .. —> element, 404 
+
+# (hash sign), 175 
+
+* (universal selector), 4^ 375, 381, 389, 490 
+2000 AD Books website, 272 
+
+3-pixel text jog, 362 
+
+A 
+
+<a> element, 404-405 
+a img rule, 377, 385, 391 
+a selector, 157, 181 
+a;link selector, 157 
+<abbr> element, 69, 364, 405 
+abbr=string attribute, 442 
+abbreviations, 68-69 
+absolute links, 151 
+absolute positioning, 269-272 
+accept-charset=charset list attribute, 417 
+accept=content-type list attribute, 417 
+accept=list attribute, 425 
+accessibility, ^ 1_|_ 
+alt text for, 134 
+of collapsed content, 191-192 
+of forms, 318-319 
+of tables, 239-246 
+
+Accessibility layout option, in Opera, 351 
+
+accesskey attribute, 163-164, 400, 417, 428 
+
+<acronym> element, 406 
+
+acronyms, 68-69 
+
+action attribute, 328, 418 
+
+:active pseudo-class, 491 
+
+active state, 155-156 
+
+additive color system, 121 
+
+<address> element, 406, 409-411 
+
+adjacent selectors, 86, 490 
+
+Adobe Dreamweaver, 504 
+
+Adobe Fireworks, 505 
+
+Adobe GoLive, 504 
+
+Adobe Illustrator, 505-506 
+
+Adobe Photoshop, 505-506 
+
+Adobe Photoshop Elements, 505 
+
+advanced-boilerplates folder, 1_8, 372 
+
+:after pseudo-selector, 292, 491 
+
+aliased text, 76 
+
+align attribute, 406, £1^ £3, £6, 440, ££ 444 
+
+alignment, table, 237-239 
+
+alink attribute, 155 
+
+@allow_mail_to value, 327-328 
+
+alpha transparency, 129 
+
+AlphalmageLoader filter, 364 
+
+alt attribute, 134-136, 406, 424, 425 
+
+alternate styles, 87 
+
+
+alternative (alt) text, 134-136, 163, 359 
+alternatives 
+defining, 87-88 
+for pull quotes, 105-106 
+analogous color scheme, 122 
+anchor elements, 1_50 
+angle brackets, 7 
+anti-aliasing, 76-77 
+<applet> element, 406-407 
+archive=URL attribute, 406, 432 
+<area> element, 176, 407-408 
+Arial Black, 
+
+Arial font, 7^ 
+arrow characters, 466 
+attribute selector, 490 
+
+attributes, 9, 254. See also specific attributes 
+
+audience requirements, 4-5 
+
+author tag, ^ 
+
+authoring software, 506 
+
+axis attribute, 242, 440, 442 
+
+B 
+
+<b> element, 409 
+background colors, 1_7, £, 279, 475 
+background property, 103, 475 
+background-attachment property, 47, 475 
+background-color property, 46, 475 
+background-image property, 475 
+background-position property, 48, 475 
+background-repeat property, 46, 475 
+backgrounds, 45-56, 294 
+
+adding to CS5 layouts, 265-268 
+busy, 131 
+in C55, 46-49 
+drop shadows, 51-54 
+faux column, 294-296 
+floated content and, 288-292 
+ideas for, 49-56 
+images, £, 169-169 
+patterns, M 
+
+for skip navigation, 168-169 
+watermarks, 55-56 
+backward compatibility, ^ 153 
+<base /> element, 409 
+baseline grids, 63, 97-98, 376 
+basic-boilerplates folder, 1_8, 372 
+BBEdit, 504, 506 
+<bdo> element, 409 
+be nice to Opera hack, 3^ 
+
+:before pseudo-element, 491 
+Berners-Lee, Tim, 2 
+<big> element, &A 410 
+blink, 67 
+
+
+510 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+<blockquote> element, 68, 102, 104-106, 410 
+BMP format, 129, 131_ 
+
+body class values, using to automate layouts, 304-306 
+body copy 
+
+rendered as image, Tl_ 
+using graphics for, 130 
+<body> element, 4^ ^ 350, 410 
+body rule, 375, 381, 393 
+body section, 42-45 
+font and font color, 44 
+margins and padding, 42-43 
+body selector, ^ 
+body start tag, 44 
+boilerplates 
+
+advanced-boilerplates folder, 18, 372 
+basic-boilerplates folder, 1_8, 372 
+creating, 18-23 
+bold font, 67 
+Book Antiqua font, 75 
+
+border property, 136-138, 235-236, 243, 247, 476-477 
+border-color property, 138, 476 
+border=n attribute, 424, 439 
+borders, 1_7, 294 
+
+applying to images, 136-138 
+for linked images, 170 
+table, 235, 247-249 
+bottom property, 477 
+box models, 17, 263-264, 355, 359, 472 
+boxes 
+
+centering, 269-272 
+CS5 shorthand for, 43-44 
+expanding, 3^ 
+for layout, 258-259 
+nesting, 272-277 
+boxouts, 272-277, 293-297 
+<br /> element, £[0 
+breadcrumb navigation, 202-207 
+browser guide, 498-500 
+browser test suite, 351-354 
+browsers 
+
+font sizes and, 81_ 
+
+installing multiple versions of, 353-354 
+quirks mode, M 
+support, for CSS, 1_0^ 261 
+targeting other, 367-368 
+testing in text mode, 351 
+bullet point lists, 107 
+business website 
+creating, 387-391 
+design and images for, 387 
+styling, 389-391 
+<button> element, 411 
+
+
+c 
+
+Calibri font, 76 
+calligraphy, ^ 
+
+Cambria font, 1^ 
+
+Candara font, 76 
+capitalization, 87 
+<caption> element, 239, 244, 411 
+caption-side property, 478 
+card suites, 466 
+cascade, 16-17, 160-162, 297 
+Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), ^ See o(so CSS layouts 
+adding to a page, 15-16 
+advantages of, 64 T\_ 
+attaching external files, 38-39 
+backgrounds in, 46-49, 211-230 
+boilerplates and management, 492-494 
+borders, 136-138, 236, 247 
+box model, 17, 263-264, 355, 359, 472 
+cascade, 16-17, 160-162, 297 
+comments, 18-19, 58, ^ 493 
+common values, 473-474 
+creating boilerplates, 18-23 
+defining alternatives in, 87-88 
+defining link states with, 156 
+drop caps, 98-102 
+drop-down menus, 224-226 
+editing link styles with, 157-159 
+faking image maps with, 177-182 
+font colors with, 71-72 
+font properties in, 84-85 
+font size, 79-83 
+fonts in, 71-85 
+for forms, 320-325 
+HTML and, 6 
+
+image-replacement techniques, 78-79 
+
+images with, 136-143 
+
+inline lists, 202-207 
+
+introduction to, 10-17 
+
+letter-spacing property, 86 
+
+line height in, 79-83 
+
+link styling with, 160-162 
+
+list navigation styling with, 196-200 
+
+list styling with, 108-112 
+
+managing, 372-373, 494-494 
+
+margins in, 85 
+
+navigation bar styling with, 200-201, 207-230 
+outdated methods for hacking, 355-356 
+for printable layouts, 392-396 
+properties and values, 474-489 
+pseudo-classes, 491 
+pseudo-elements, 491 
+pull quotes, ^ 102-106 
+rules of, 11-12 
+
+
+511 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+selectors, 12-15, 489-491 
+separating content from design, 10-11 
+table borders in, 247 
+vs. table layouts, 260 
+text styling with, 71-106 
+text wrapping images, 138-139 
+case sensitivity, of PHP, 330 
+case, of letters, 87 
+cell spacing, 235-236 
+cellpadding attribute, 235, 439 
+cellspacing attribute, 235, 439 
+CGI scripts 
+editing, 327 
+
+for user feedback, 326-328 
+cgi-bin directory, setting permissions for, 328 
+character entities 
+arrows, 466 
+card suites, 466 
+
+converting nonstandard Microsoft set, 466-468 
+
+currency signs, 460 
+
+for European languages, 455-459 
+
+Greek characters, 463-465 
+
+lozenge, 466 
+
+mathematical characters, 460-463 
+overview, 451 
+
+punctuation characters and symbols, 452-455 
+technical characters, 461-463 
+used in XHTML, 4^ 
+character sets, ^ 
+charset=charset attribute, 429, 436 
+checked=checked attribute, 425 
+child selector, 490 
+CHMOD command, 328 
+circle attribute, 176 
+cite attribute, 68-69, 106 
+<cite> element, 68, 104, 411 
+cite=URL attribute, £0, £4, £7, £6 
+class attribute, 320 
+class selectors, 12-13, 490 
+class value, 78, 305-306 
+class=classname attribute, 400 
+classes. See also specific classes 
+creating alternatives with, 88 
+pull quotes and, 105-106 
+classid=URL attribute, 432 
+clear property, 478 
+clearFix method, 292-293, 325 
+clearFix rule, 174, 383, 494 
+ClearType, 76 
+
+client-side image maps, 175 
+clip property, 478 
+closing tags, missing, £0 
+code blocks, in lists, 115-116 
+<code> element, 412 
+
+
+codebase=URL attribute, 407, 432 
+codetype=MlME type attribute, 432 
+<col /> element, 412-413 
+<colgroup> element, 413-414 
+collapsed content 
+
+accessibility of, 191-192 
+on navigation bars, 200-201 
+script modularization, 192-194 
+targets for scripts, 194-195 
+collapsible div tags, 190-195 
+Color Consultant Pro, 121 
+Color Contrast Verification Tool, 349 
+color names, 449 
+Color Oracle, 506 
+color property, £, 6£ 71-72, 478 
+color reference, 448-449 
+color schemes, 121-123 
+color theory, 120-125 
+color values, 448, 473 
+Color Wheel Pro, 121 
+color wheels, 121, 123 
+Colorlmpact, 121 
+colors 
+
+additive, 121 
+background, 1_7, 46, 279 
+cool, 123 
+defining, 383 
+font. 44-45, 71-72 
+hexadecimal system for, 123 
+primary, 121 
+secondary, 121 
+subtractive, 121 
+tertiary, 121_ 
+warm, 123 
+web-safe, 124-125 
+Colour Blindness Simulator, 349 
+cols attribute, 307 
+cols=n attribute, 420, 441 
+colspan attribute, 236-237, 241, 245, 440, £3 
+.columnLeft img rule, £1_ 
+
+.columnLeft rule, 390 
+.columnRight img rule, 391 
+.columnRight rule, 390 
+columns, 63 
+
+creating with two structural divs, 278-288 
+faux, 282, 294-297, 382 
+placing within wrappers, 288-290 
+sizing, using percentages, £0 
+styling, 376 
+
+working with, 259-260 
+comments, £ 
+
+conditional, 356-358, 385 
+CSS, 18-19, 58, 373, 493 
+complementary color scheme, 122 
+
+
+512 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+conditional comments, 356-358, 385 
+Consolas font, 1^ 
+
+Constantia font, 76 
+contact information 
+structure for, 342-344 
+using microformats to enhance, 336-341 
+contact pages, 26, 333-335 
+Contacts Feed Service, 341 
+content 
+
+collapsible, 190-195 
+inaccessible, 350 
+inline, 362 
+print-only, 395 
+scrollable areas, 306-311 
+separating from design, 10-11 
+working with, 24-27 
+content attribute, ^ 479 
+#content .itemDetails ul rule, 385 
+#content img rule, 391 
+#content rule, 382, 38§. ^ 
+
+#content ul, #pullNav rule, 385 
+
+content type declaration, ^ 
+
+content-type meta tag, ^ 
+
+contextual selectors, 14-15, 88, 109, 304-306 
+
+contrast, lack of, 131 
+
+cool colors, 123 
+
+coords=coordinates list attribute, 408 
+
+copyright issues, 133 
+
+Corbel font, 76 
+
+core attributes, XHTML, 400 
+
+core events, XHTML, 401-402 
+
+corporate logo, 77 
+
+counter-increment property, 479 
+
+counter-reset property, 479 
+
+Courier New font, 75 
+
+crossheads, 62, 96 
+
+CSS. See Cascading Style Sheets 
+
+CSS Creator, ^ 
+
+.css file extension, 1_5^ ^ 
+
+CSS layouts. See also Cascading Style Sheets 
+advanced, 278-306 
+
+columns within wrappers, 288-290 
+flanking sidebars, 298-303 
+multiple boxouts, 293-294, 296-297 
+sidebars, 293-297 
+two structural divs, 278-288 
+automating variations, 304-306 
+backgrounds, adding, 265-266 
+box models, 17, 263-264355, 358, 472 
+boxouts, 272-277 
+browser support for, 261 
+centering, 360 
+creating page structure, 262 
+for forms, 323-325 
+
+
+logical element placement and, 261 
+margins, adding, 265-266 
+maximum-width, 268-269 
+padding, adding, 265-266 
+scrollable content areas, 306-311 
+single box, 264-272 
+vs. tables, 262 
+workflow for, 261-264 
+CSS shorthand 
+
+for backgrounds, 48-49 
+for boxes, 43-44 
+CSS-parsing bug, 355 
+CSS-with-ToC.css document, 1_8 
+CSSEdit, ^ 
+currency signs, 460 
+cursor property, 479 
+curves, 258 
+custom bullets, 109 
+Cynthia Says Portal Tester, 349 
+
+D 
+
+data, tabular, 235 
+data=URL attribute432 
+datetime attribute, 69, 414, 427 
+<dd> element, £[_4 
+dead links, 350 
+declaration, rule, 11-12 
+declare=declare attribute, 432 
+decorative elements, 63 
+defer=defer attribute, 436 
+definition list <dl> element 107 
+definition lists, 107, 342-344 
+<del> element, 69-70, 414 
+deprecated attributes, 254 
+descendant selector, 490 
+description tag, 37-38 
+designs 
+
+separating content from, 10-11 
+stealing, 133 
+
+desktop-publishing software, 62 
+<dfn> element, 68, £[4 
+diffusion dithering, 127 
+dir=dir attribute, 401 
+direction property, 479 
+
+disabled=disabled attribute, 411,425, 434, 437, 441 
+display property, 480 
+dithering, 124, 127 
+<div> element, 89, 415 
+
+centering, with absolute positioning, 269-272 
+
+collapsible, 190-195 
+
+fixed width, 264-266 
+
+page structure and, 262 
+
+maximum-width, 268-269 
+
+
+513 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+<dl> element, 415 
+#dmenu rule, 386 
+DOCTYPE declarations, 31-33 
+<!DOCTYPE> element, 404 
+document flow, 261 
+Document Object Model (DOM), 141 
+document type definitions (DTDs), 31, 34 
+document-relative links, 42 
+documents 
+
+attaching external, 38-42 
+opening in new windows, 169-170 
+double quotes, 331 
+double-float margin bug, 302, 361 
+Dreamweaver, 504 
+drop caps, 6^ 98-102 
+drop shadows, 51-54 
+drop-down menus 
+creating, 224-226 
+multicolumn, 226-230 
+problems with, 365 
+<dt> element, 415 
+
+E 
+
+e-mail 
+
+headers, 329-331 
+sending form data via, 333 
+e-mail addresses 
+harvesting of, 314 
+scrambling, 315 
+element selector, 87 
+elements. See also specific types 
+multiple class values, 1_3 
+parent/sibling paths, 194-195 
+<em> element, 66, 416 
+<embed> element, 416-417 
+emphasis, 67 
+
+empty-cells property, 480 
+ems, 81_ 
+
+enctype attribute, 333, 418 
+
+end tags, 7. 57, 70, 235 
+
+Enkoder form, 31_5 
+
+entities. See character entities 
+
+errors, common, 349-350 
+
+European languages, characters for, 455-459 
+
+event attributes, XHTML, 401-403 
+
+Evolt, ^ 
+
+external documents, attaching, 38-42 
+external files, checking paths of, 42 
+external style sheets, 15-16 
+
+
+F 
+
+face attribute, 64 
+
+faux columns, 282, 294-297, 382 
+
+favicons, attaching, 41-42 
+
+Feed Validation 5ervice, 348 
+
+<fieldset> element, 318, 322, 324, 417 
+
+fieldset rule, 321 
+
+file compression, 125-126 
+
+files 
+
+external, 42 
+naming, 57 
+Firefox, 351-354, 498 
+;first-child pseudo-class, 491 
+;first-letter pseudo-element, 492 
+;first-line pseudo-element, 492 
+:focus pseudo-class, 491 
+fixed design, 27 
+fixed-width div, 264-266 
+fixed-width layouts, 260, 278-283, 288-289 
+flanking sidebars, 298-303 
+float property, 98-99, 138-139, 273, 480 
+floated content, clearing, 288-293 
+floats, 282^ ^ 
+
+:focus pseudo-class, 159 
+focus state, of links, 155-156 
+font colors 
+
+defining, 71-72 
+setting default, 44-45 
+font declaration, invalid, 85 
+font properties, shorthand for, 84-85 
+font property, 481 
+font sizes, 79-83, 90 
+defining, 376 
+
+inheritance of, 82, 109-110, 360 
+in percentages, 80-82 
+in pixels, 80-81 
+setting, 384 
+using ems, 81_ 
+using keywords, 80-81 
+font tags, 64-65 
+
+font-family property, 45, 72-77, 84, 481 
+
+font-size property, 79, 84, 90-91, 109-110, 377, 482 
+
+font-smoothing, 76 
+
+font-style property, 83-84, 482 
+
+font-variant property, 83-84, 482 
+
+font-weight property, 83-84, 482 
+
+fonts, 62 
+
+anti-aliasing, 76-77 
+defining in C5S, 72-77 
+for headings, 75-76 
+monospace, 72^ 75-76 
+properties of, 83-84 
+for print, 393-394 
+
+
+514 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+sans serif, 72-74, 93-94 
+serif, 12^ 74-75, 95 
+setting default, 44-45 
+styling, 376, 390 
+web-safe, 73-76 
+footers, styling, 385 
+footnotes, 62 
+for=text attribute, 428 
+<form> element, 316, 417-418 
+form element events, XHTML, 402-403 
+FormMail, 326-328 
+forms, 315-319 
+
+accessibility of, 318-319 
+adding controls, 316-318 
+adding styles to, 320, 322 
+creating, 316 
+layout, with C55, 323-325 
+sending, 326-333 
+using e-mail, 333 
+with FormMail, 326-328 
+to multiple recipients, 3^ 
+using PHP, 329-332 
+styling with CSS, 320-325 
+using microformats to enhance, 336-341 
+fragment identifiers, 153-154 
+<frame> element, 307-309, 418-419 
+frameborder=01 1_ attribute, 419, 423 
+frames, ^ 
+
+iframes, m 363-364 
+working with, 307-309 
+<frameset> element, 307, 420 
+framesets, 307 
+friends of ED website, 1_8 
+full URLs, 1^ 
+
+G 
+
+Gecko browsers, ^ 3^ 
+
+Geneva font, 73 
+Georgia font, 74, 95 
+
+GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), 126-129 
+G1F89 format, 128 
+GIMP, 505 
+GoLive, 504 
+
+Google Custom Search Engine, 150 
+grammar, 64 
+
+graphic design software, 505 
+
+graphical navigation, with rollover effects, 211-230 
+
+graphical tabs, expandable, 217-218 
+
+graphics 
+
+for body copy, 130 
+for text, 77-79 
+Greek characters, 463-465 
+grid images, for styling links, 214-217 
+
+
+grids, for layout, 258-259 
+grouped selectors, 13-14 
+
+H 
+
+hi rule, ^ 
+hl+p rule, ^ 
+hash sign (#), 175 
+hasLayout property, 365, 391 
+heard information, 341 
+<head> element, 350, 421 
+head section, 1_7, ^ 35-42 
+
+attaching external documents in, 38-42 
+meta tags, 37-38 
+page titles, 35-36 
+Headdress, 506 
+headers element, 242 
+headers=id list attribute, 440, 443 
+headings, 62 
+fonts for, 75-76 
+semantic markup of, 66 
+styling, 90-92, 95 
+
+height attribute, 17, m 237-238, 482 
+
+height=n attribute, 423, 424, 432, 441,443 
+
+height=number attribute, 416 
+
+Helvetica font, 73 
+
+hexadecimal format, 123, 448 
+
+hidden fields, 327 
+
+hidden property, 78 
+
+hidden=yes | no attribute, £[6 
+
+<hn> element, 421 
+
+Holly hack, 362 
+
+homepage 
+
+content for, ^ 
+title for, 36 
+HomeSite, 504 
+
+horizontal navigation bars, 202-207 
+hover menus, problems with, 365 
+:hover pseudo-class, 179, 182, 491 
+hover state, 155-158 
+<hr /> element, 421 
+hr rule, 383, 390 
+href attribute, 150, 152-153 
+href=URL attribute, 40£ 408, 409, 429 
+hreflang=language code attribute, 429 
+hspace=number attribute, 407, 416 
+HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). See also specific 
+elements 
+
+closing documents, 57 
+comments, ^ 
+development of, 2 
+DOCTYPES, 33 
+entities, 
+
+introduction to, 6-7 
+
+
+515 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+tags, 7^ 31_ 
+vs. XHTML, 8, 30-32 
+<html> element, 7, ^ ^ 422 
+.html file extension, ^ 
+
+HTML Kit, 504 
+html start tag, 31_ 
+
+HTML-Kit for Windows, ^ 
+hyperlinks. See links 
+
+I 
+
+<i> element, 422 
+icons, for navigation, 170 
+id attribute, 153 
+ID selectors, 490 
+id values, 1£K ^ ^ 
+
+id=name attribute, 400, 430, 435 
+<iframe> element, 422-423 
+iframes, ^ 363-364 
+image formats, 125-131 
+GIF, 126-127 
+G1F89, 128 
+JPEG, 125-126 
+PNG, 129 
+using wrong, 131 
+image gallery 
+
+adding captions to, 187 
+creating, 185-190 
+image maps, 175-182 
+
+image-replacement techniques, 78-79, 102, 376 
+images 
+
+adding pop-ups to, 171-175 
+
+alternative text for, 134-136 
+
+applying CSS borders to, 136-138 
+
+background, 46, 168-169 
+
+for body copy, 130 
+
+common mistakes with, 130-134 
+
+CSS with, 136-143 
+
+displaying random, 139-143 
+
+dithering, 127 
+
+file sizes of, 132 
+
+interface, 135 
+
+introduction to, 120 
+
+as links, 134, 170-175 
+
+for navigation bars, 211-230 
+
+optimized, 132 
+
+original, 130 
+
+quality of, 132 
+
+resizing in HTML, 1^ 
+
+splitting, 133 
+
+stealing, 133 
+
+styling, 377, ^ ^ 
+
+for text, 77-79 
+
+text overlays, 133 
+
+
+text wrapping, 138-139 
+tooltips, 1_^ 
+in XHTML, 134-136 
+ImageWell, 506 
+
+<img /> element, 134-136, 424-425 
+img.leadlmage rule, 391 
+#imgPhoto rule, 377 
+Impact font, 7^ 
+
+©import method, ^ £|_ 
+
+indented text, 85-86 
+
+information architecture, 24-25 
+
+inherit value, 474 
+
+inline content, 362 
+
+inline navigation, 148-149 
+
+inline quotes, ^ 
+
+inline styles, 1_6, 66-70 
+
+limportant declaration, 4M 
+
+<input /> element, 316-317, 325, 425-426 
+
+ins element, 69-70 
+
+.itemContainer rule, 383 
+
+.itemContainer:after rule, 383 
+
+.itemCost rule, 385 
+
+.itemDetails li rule, 385 
+
+.itemDetails li:first-child rule, 385 
+
+.itemlmage img rule, 385 
+
+.itemlmage img:hover rule, 385 
+
+.itemlmage rule, 383 
+
+.itemName rule, 385 
+
+<ins> element, 427 
+
+interface images, 135 
+
+internal frames. See iframes 
+
+internal links, 1_^ 
+
+Internet, history of, 2^ 
+
+Internet Explorer, 498 
+
+alpha transparency and, 129 
+bugs in, 302, 354-365 
+double-float margin bug, 302 
+fixes for, 359-365, 391 
+flanking sidebars in, 301 
+floated content and, 291 
+hacks for, 385 
+market share for, 351 
+standalone installations of, 353 
+Internet Explorer 5 
+
+common fixes for, 361-365 
+style sheet for, 378 
+Internet Explorer 5^ 3^ 
+
+Internet Explorer 5oq common fixes for, 359-360 
+Internet Explorer 6, ^ 352 
+common fixes for, 361-365 
+conditional comments and, 356 
+drop-down lists and, 230 
+Internet Explorer ^ 351, 354 
+ismap=URL attribute, 424 
+
+
+516 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+ISO-8859 standard, n 
+italics, ^ 
+
+itemimage div rule, 385 
+
+J 
+
+JavaScript 
+
+adding table separator stripes with, 251-253 
+attaching, 41-42 
+collapsible content, 190-195 
+creating image gallery with, 185-190 
+creating pop-up windows, 183-185 
+encrypting e-mail addresses with, 315 
+enhancing links with, 183-195 
+image randomizer creation with, 139-142 
+JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format, 125- 
+.js file extension, ^ 
+
+K 
+
+<kbd> element, 427 
+kerning, 63 
+
+keyboard attributes, XHTML, 400 
+keyword values, for font sizes, 80-81 
+<keywords> element, 37-38 
+Konqueror, 500 
+
+L 
+
+<label> element, 318, 428 
+label=string attribute, 434, 435 
+lang attribute, ^ 42, 401 
+dang pseudo-class, 491 
+language attributes, XHTML, 401 
+language declarations, ^ 
+language-specific quotes, 68 
+language=encoding attribute, 437 
+languages, characters for 
+
+European languages, 455-459 
+Greek language, 463-465 
+layouts. See also C5S layouts 
+basic, 25-27 
+centering, 378 
+for contact pages, 333-335 
+liquid, 27, 285-288 
+maximum-width, 268-269 
+portfolio, 373-378 
+tables vs. CSS, 260 
+leading, 6^ 82 
+left property, 482 
+<legend> element, 324, 428 
+legend rule, 321 
+length value, 473 
+
+
+letter-spacing property, 86, 482 
+<li> element, 107, 428-429 
+Lightbox2, 188, ™ 
+line height, 79-83 
+line length, ^ 
+
+line-height property, 6^ 82-83, 377, 483 
+link attribute, 155 
+Link Checker, ^ 
+
+<link /> element, 38-39, 429-430 
+dink pseudo-class, 491 
+link states, 155-62 
+
+correctly ordering, 156-157 
+defining, with CSS, 156 
+styling multiple, 160-162 
+link tags, 1_^ ^ 
+
+26 link targeting, 169-170 
+link-based images, 134 
+links. See also navigation 
+
+a selector vs. adink selector, 157 
+absolute, 151 
+
+accessibility and usability of, 162-169 
+color, 158 
+
+creating and styling, 150-170 
+dead, 350 
+
+document-relative, 42 
+
+editing styles, with CSS, 157-159 
+
+end tags with, 151 
+
+enhancing with JavaScript, 183-195 
+
+images as, 170-175 
+
+internal, 153 
+
+multiple styles, with grid images, 214-227 
+relative, 4^ 151-152 
+root-relative, 1_^ 
+top-of-page, 154-155 
+underlines for, 158 
+Linux, 75, 353 
+liquid layouts, 27, 285-288 
+liquid web design, 260 
+list element <li>, 107, 428-429 
+list styles, shorthand for, 111 
+list-style property, 483 
+list-style-image property, 109, 483 
+list-style-position property, 110, 483 
+list-style-type property, 110, 483 
+lists, 106 
+
+for blocks of code, 115-116 
+
+creating better looking, 112-115 
+
+definition, 107 
+
+inline, 202-207 
+
+margins, 111-112 
+
+for navigation, 112, 195-210 
+
+nesting, 108 
+
+ordered, 107 
+
+padding, 111-112 
+
+
+517 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+styling with CSS, 108-112 
+unordered, 107 
+whitespace bugs in, 363 
+logical element placement, 261 
+logical styles, 66, 68-69 
+#logo rule, 382 
+
+longdesc attribute, 136, 419, 423, 425 
+
+lossless compression, 126 
+
+lossy compression, 125 
+
+lowerCamelCase, 88 
+
+lowercase attribute, 87 
+
+lozenge characters, 466 
+
+Lucida Console, 
+
+Lucida fonts, 75, 93-94 
+Lucida Grande, 73 
+Lucida Sans Typewriter, 75 
+Lucida Sans Unicode, 73 
+
+
+M 
+
+Mac OS X, ^ 
+
+Mac Pro, 506 
+Macs 
+
+color display on, 72 
+fonts for, 72^ l'a-11 
+mailO function, 329-332 
+$mailprog value, 327 
+mailto: URLs, 314, ^ 
+
+<map> element, 176, 430 
+margin property, 138-139, 376, 483 
+margin-bottom property, 484 
+margin-left property, 484 
+margin-right property, 484 
+margin-top property, 484 
+marginheight=n attribute, 419, 423 
+margins, 17, 42-43, 66, 91, 96 
+adding to CSS layouts, 265-268 
+adding to liquid layouts, 286 
+box, 263 
+controlling, 85 
+
+double-float margin bug, 361 
+list, 111-112 
+
+marginwidth=n attribute, 423 
+marginwidth=number attribute, 419 
+markup, well-formed, 70 
+Markup Validation Service, 348 
+#masthead p rule, 390 
+#masthead rule, 382 
+mathematical characters, 460-463 
+max-height property, 484 
+max-width property, 361, 484 
+maximum-width layouts, 268-269 
+maxlength=n attribute, 425 
+&mdash;, 21 
+
+
+media attribute, ^ 
+media=list attribute, 439 
+media=media type list attribute, 430 
+menus. See also navigation 
+drop-down, 224-226, 365 
+multicolumn drop-down, 226-230 
+<meta /> element, 31_, 431 
+meta tags 
+author, ^ 
+content-type, ^ 
+description, 37-38 
+keywords, 37-38 
+revisit-after, ^ 
+robots, ^ 
+
+search engines and, 37-38 
+method=get | post attribute, 418 
+microformats, 336-341 
+
+Microsoft characters, nonstandard set, 466-468 
+
+Microsoft Expression Web, 504 
+
+min-height property, 484 
+
+min-width property, 269, 361, 484 
+
+modular style sheets, 494 
+
+Monaco font, 75 
+
+monochromatic color schemes, 122 
+monospace fonts, 72. 75-76 
+Mosaic, 2 
+
+mouse, use of, 163 
+movable type, 62 
+Mozilla Firefox, 498 
+
+multicolumn drop-down menus, 226-230 
+multiple=multiple attribute, 437 
+
+
+N 
+
+name attribute, ^ 317 
+
+name=name attribute, 407, 411,416, 418, 419, 426, 430, 
+433, 435, 437, 441 
+name=string attribute, 431 
+namespaces, ^ 
+
+naming conventions, of thumbnail images, 374 
+#navContainer rule, 212, 383 
+navigation. See also links 
+basic, 24-25 
+breadcrumb, 202-204 
+creating and styling links, 150-170 
+designing, 26 
+dos and don’ts, 230 
+image maps, 175-176 
+faking, with CSS, 177-182 
+images for, 134 
+inline, 148-149 
+inline lists for, 1_|_2 
+introduction to, 148 
+search-based, 148, 150 
+
+
+518 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+site, 148-150 
+site maps, 24-25 
+skip links, 164-169 
+types of, 148-150 
+navigation bars 
+
+with collapsible sections, 200-201 
+creating, 195-230 
+drop-down menus, 224-230 
+with expandable tabs, 217-218 
+graphical, with rollover effects, 211-230 
+horizontal, 202-207 
+inline lists, 202-207 
+lists for, 195-210 
+
+multicolumn drop-down menus, 226-230 
+names for items on, 195 
+styling links, 160-162 
+tab-style, 207-210 
+two-tier, 220-223 
+vertical, styled with CSS, 196-200 
+#navigation ul rule, 383 
+nesting 
+
+boxes, 272-277 
+lists, ira 
+tags, 7^8 
+Netscape, 3^ 
+nms FormMail, 326-328 
+noBorder class, 137 
+<noembed> element, 431 
+<noframes> element, 309, 432 
+nohref=nohref attribute, 408 
+noise dithering, 1_27 
+nonprinting characters, 453 
+nonstandard Microsoft set, 466-468 
+noresize=noresize attribute, 419 
+<noscript> element, 432 
+nowrap=nowrap attribute, 441-443 
+null alt attributes, 135 
+number value, 473 
+
+o 
+
+<object> element, 311, 432-433 
+object=name attribute, 407 
+<ol> element, 433 
+onblur=script event, 402 
+onchange=script event, 402 
+onclick attribute, 183 
+onclick=script attribute, 401 
+ondblclick=script attribute, 401_ 
+onfocus=script event, 402 
+onkeydown=script attribute, 402 
+onkeypress=script attribute, 402 
+onkeyup=script attribute, 402 
+
+
+online gallery 
+creating, 185-190 
+styling, 375-377 
+online storefront layout 
+creating, 378-386 
+design and images for, 379 
+fonts for, 384 
+styling, 381-383 
+techniques for, 380-381 
+onload=script event, 403 
+onmousedown=script attribute, 402 
+onmousemove=script attribute, 402 
+onmouseout=script attribute, 402 
+onmouseover=script attribute, 402 
+onmouseup=script attribute, 402 
+onreset=script event, 403 
+onselect=script event, 403 
+onsubmit=script event, 403 
+onunload=script event, 403 
+Opera, 351,354, 499 
+<optgroup> element, 316, 434 
+<option> element, 316, 434-435 
+ordered lists, 107 
+original images, 130 
+orphans property, 485 
+outline property, 485 
+outline-color property, 485 
+outline-style property, 485 
+outline-width property, 485 
+overflow property, 485 
+overflow settings, 78^ 310 
+
+P 
+
+<p> element, 435 
+p em rule, 377 
+p rule, 377 
+p.footer rule, 391 
+padding, 42-43 
+
+adding to CSS layouts, 265-268 
+adding to liquid layouts, 287 
+list, 111-112 
+padding property, 486 
+padding-bottom property, 486 
+padding-left property, 486 
+padding-right property, 486 
+padding-top property, 486 
+padding values, pixel-based, 287 
+page content. See content 
+page margins, 42-43 
+page structure, creating in CSS, 262 
+page titles, 35-36 
+page-break-after property, 486 
+page-break-before property, 486 
+
+
+519 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+page-break-inside property, 486 
+Palatino font, IS 
+Paparazzi, 506 
+paragraphs 
+
+indented text for, 85-86 
+semantic markup of, 66 
+styling, 90-92, 96 
+<param> element, 435 
+parent/sibling paths, finding, 194-195 
+parsing bugs, 355 
+pattern dithering, 1_27 
+peekaboo bug, 365 
+percent value, 473 
+perceptual palette, 127 
+period (.), 1_2 
+
+permissions, script server, 328 
+Photoshop, 505-506 
+Photoshop Elements, 505 
+PHP 
+
+adding table separator stripes with, 253 
+creating image randomizer with, 142-144 
+includes, scrollable content and, 310 
+sending form data using, 329-332 
+physical styles, 66-67 
+Pinkflag.com website, 293 
+pixel-based padding, 287 
+pixels, 80-81 
+
+pluginspage=URL attribute, 416 
+
+PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format, 129 
+
+PNG transparency, 364-365 
+
+poly attribute, 176 
+
+pop-ups 
+
+adding to images, 171-175 
+creating, 183-185 
+portfolio layouts 
+creating, 373-378 
+design and images for, 374 
+styling, 375-377 
+techniques for, 374-375 
+Position Is Everything, 292, 353 
+position property, 486 
+positioning, absolute, 269-272 
+$postmaster value, 327 
+$_POST array, ^ 
+
+<pre> element, 435-436 
+
+presentation-oriented tags, 1_0 
+
+primary colors, 121 
+
+print design, vs. web design, 258, 260 
+
+print-only content, 395 
+
+printable layouts, style sheets for, 392-396 
+
+printOnly class, 395 
+
+profile=URL attribute, 421 
+
+programming-oriented content, 68 
+
+pseudo-class selectors, 156 
+
+
+pseudo-classes, 159, 491. See also specific classes 
+
+pseudo-elements, 98-99, 491. 5ee also specific elements 
+
+pull caps, 98 
+
+pull quotes, 6^ 102-106 
+
+#pullNav li rule, 383 
+
+#pullNav rule, 383 
+
+pull-navigation, 380, 383 
+
+punctuation characters and symbols, 452-455 
+
+Q 
+
+<q> element, 68, 436 
+quirks mode, M 
+quotation marks, 452-453 
+quotations, 68 
+quotes, pull, 98, 102-106 
+quotes property, 487 
+
+R 
+
+random images, 139-143 
+&rdquo;, 
+
+readonly=readonly attribute, 426, 442 
+
+recipient_alias value, 328 
+
+rect attribute, 176 
+
+redirect value, 327 
+
+reference citations, 106 
+
+@referers value, 327 
+
+rel=relationship attribute, 404, 430 
+
+relative links, 151 
+
+Reply-to field, 331 
+
+Reset button, 318 
+
+rev=relationship attribute, 405, 430 
+revisit-after tag, ^ 
+
+RGB colors, 72, 121,448 
+right property, 487 
+robots tag, ^ 
+
+rollover effect, for graphical navigation, 211-230 
+
+root-relative links, 152 
+
+rounding errors, 288, 301, 358 
+
+row group elements, 240-241 
+
+rows attribute, 308 
+
+rows=% I n\''* attribute, 420 
+
+rows=n attribute, 442 
+
+rowspan attribute, 236-237, 241, 441, 443 
+
+* rule, ^ 
+
+rule sets, multiple, 350 
+rules 
+
+defining, with the cascade, 16-17 
+of CSS, 11-12 
+
+
+520 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+s 
+
+<s> element, 436 
+
+Safari, m 3^ 353-354, 500 
+
+<samp> element, 436 
+
+sans serif fonts, 72-74, 93-94 
+
+Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (slFR), 79 
+
+scheme=string attribute, 431 
+
+scope attribute, 241-242, 244 
+
+scope=col I colgroup | row | rowgroup attribute, 443 
+
+screen readers, 21, 32, 66, 239-242 
+
+<script> element, 183, 436-437 
+
+script server permissions, 328 
+
+script start tags, 42 
+
+scripts, for image galleries, 188-190 
+
+scrolling, content areas, 306-311 
+
+scrolling=auto | no | yes attribute, 419, 423 
+
+search boxes, 150 
+
+search engines, meta tags and, 37-38 
+search-based navigation, 148-150 
+secondary colors, 121 
+5ection 508 compliance, 349 
+<select> element, 316, 437 
+selected=selected attribute, 435 
+selective palette, 127 
+selectors. See also specific selectors 
+class, 12-13 
+common, 489, 491 
+contextual, 14-15 
+grouped, 13-14 
+ID, 23 
+rule, 11-12 
+types of, 12-15 
+
+semantic markup, 9, 65-70, 262 
+defined, 65 
+
+importance of well-formed, 70 
+logical and physical styles, 66-70 
+paragraphs and headings, 66 
+styling, 89-97 
+sendmail binary, 327 
+separator stripes, for tables, 250-253 
+serif fonts, 72, 74-75, 95 
+server-side image maps, 175 
+shape attribute, 176 
+
+shape=rect | circle | poly | default attribute, 408 
+shims, 254, 261 
+#sidebar h2 rule, 384 
+sidebars 
+
+flanking, 298-303 
+working with, 293-297 
+5im Daltonism, 506 
+simplicity, in web design, 259 
+simplified box model hack (or 5BMH), 355 
+site design. See web design 
+
+
+site maps, 24-25 
+site navigation. See navigation 
+size attribute, 64 
+size=n attribute, 426, 437 
+skip navigation links, 164-169 
+background images for, 168-169 
+creating, 165-166 
+styling, 166-167 
+<small> element, ^ 438 
+snippets folder, 20 
+5oftpress Freeway, 504 
+software 
+
+graphic design, 505 
+Web design, 504 
+software guide, 504-506 
+spacers, 254, 261 
+spacing, 63, 92, 453 
+spam, combating, 315 
+spambots, 314-315 
+<span> element, 78, 172-173, 438 
+alternatives and, 88 
+drop caps with, 100-102 
+span=n attribute, 412, 413 
+spelling, 64 
+spelling errors, 349 
+
+split-complementary color scheme, 122 
+src attribute, 234 
+
+src=URL attribute, 427, 429, 423, 42^ 426, 437 
+sRGB design, 125 
+stand-firsts, 62 
+
+standard attributes, XHTML, 400-401 
+
+standards=based design, 6 
+
+standby=text attribute, 433 
+
+star HTML hack, 356 
+
+start attribute, 107 
+
+start tag, body element, 42 
+
+start=n attribute, 433 
+
+states, link, 155-156 
+
+strap-lines, 62 
+
+<strike> element, 438 
+
+strikethrough (s), 67 
+
+<strong> element, 438 
+
+structural divs 
+
+creating faux columns with, 294-295 
+creating two-column fixed-width layout with, 288-289 
+for fixed-width layouts, 278-283 
+for liquid layouts, 285-288 
+working with two, 278-288 
+style attribute, 26 
+
+<style> element, 15-16, 40, 367, 438-439 
+style sheets. See also Cascading 5tyle 5heets 
+alternate, 39 
+external, 15-16 
+linking multiple, 22 
+
+
+521 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+managing, 372-373 
+modular, 494 
+persistent, 39 
+preferred, ^ 
+for print, 392-396 
+style=stylename attribute, 400-401 
+styles 
+
+abbreviations, 68-69 
+acronyms, 68-69 
+adding to forms, 320-322 
+adding to web pages, 15-16 
+deprecated, 67 
+for emphasis, 67 
+
+for inserted and deleted text, 69-70 
+inline, 1_^ 66-70 
+text, 71-106 
+<sub> element, 439 
+Submit button 
+styling, 320 
+using image for, 321 
+subscript (sub), ^ 
+subtractive color system, 121 
+summary attribute, 239, 243 
+summary=string attribute, 439 
+<sup> element, 439 
+SuperDuper, 506 
+superscript (sup), 67 
+symbols, m 454-455 
+
+T 
+
+tab-style navigation bars, 207-210 
+
+tabindex attribute, 163-164, 319 
+
+tabindex=number attribute, 400, 434 
+
+table cell elements <td>, 235, 440-444 
+
+table cells, vertical alignment of content, 238-239 
+
+<table> element, 235, 439 
+
+table headers, 240-242 
+
+table row elements <tr>, 235, 444 
+
+table-layout property, 487 
+
+tables 
+
+accessibility of, 239-246 
+alignment of, 237-239 
+borders, 235, 247-249 
+building, 242, 244-246 
+captions, 239, 244 
+cell padding, 235-236 
+cell spacing, 235-236 
+column spans, 236-237 
+font-size inheritance in, 360 
+for layout, 2^ 253-255 
+for layouts, vs. C55, 260, 262 
+nesting, 254 
+row groups, 240-241 
+
+
+row spans, 236-237 
+separator stripes, 250-253 
+setting dimensions of, 237-239 
+styling, 247-253 
+summary attribute, 239, 243 
+workings of, 235-239 
+tabular data, 235-237 
+tag attributes, 9 
+tag selectors, 69, 87-88 
+tagging, 37 
+tags. See specific tags 
+Tahoma font, 73 
+target attribute, 169-170 
+
+target=_blank | _parent | +self | _top | [name attribute, 405, 
+408-409, 418, 430 
+<tbody> element, 240, 439-440 
+<td> element, 235, 440-444 
+TCP/IP, 2 
+
+technical characters, 461-463 
+teletype text (TT), 67 
+tertiary colors, 121 
+testing 
+
+browser test suite, 351-354 
+validation tools for, 349 
+websites, 348, 350 
+text 
+
+alt, 134-136, 163, 359 
+controlling case, 87 
+deleted, 69-70 
+hiding, 79 
+in pixels, 80 
+indented, 85-86 
+inserted, 69-70 
+letter spacing, 86 
+margins, 85 
+
+styling with CS5, 71-106 
+styling with font tag, 64-65 
+using images for, 77-79 
+word spacing, 86 
+
+wrapping around images, 138-139 
+text-align property, 487 
+text-decoration property, 6^ 158, 487 
+text-indent property, 79, 85-86, 179, 182, 487 
+text-transform bug, 360 
+text-transform property, 87, 487-488 
+<textarea> element, 316-317, 441-442 
+TextMate, 504, 506 
+<tfoot> element, 240, 442 
+Thalamus Publishing website, 259 
+<th> element, 442 
+<thead> element, 240, 444 
+thumbnail images, naming conventions, 374 
+#thumbnailsContainer img rule, 377 
+TIFF format, 129, 131 
+
+
+522 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+Times New Roman font, 75 
+title attribute, ^ 68, 135, 163 
+<title> element, 35-37, 444 
+title text, alt text overriding, 359 
+title=string attribute, 400, 439 
+tooltips, 135 
+top property, 488 
+top-of-page links, 154-155 
+TopStyle Pro, 504 
+Total Validator, 349 
+<tr> element, 235, 444 
+transitional layouts, 254 
+
+Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), 2 
+Transmit, 506 
+transparency 
+G1F89 and, 128 
+
+PNG format and, 129, 364-365 
+Trebuchet MS font, 73 
+Tredosoft, 353 
+triadic color scheme, 123 
+<tt> element, 444 
+
+two-tier navigation systems, 220-223 
+
+type attribute, 316 
+
+type selector, 490 
+
+tvpe=1 IAI a I i I i attribute433 
+
+type=button | checkbox | file | hidden | image | password | rad 
+io I reset | submit | text attribute, 426 
+type=button | reset | submit attribute, 411 
+type=format attribute, 429 
+
+type=MlME type attribute, 405, £7, 430, 433, 43^ 437, 
+
+439 
+
+typography, introduction to, 62-64 
+
+u 
+
+<ul> element, 107, 445 
+
+ul#pullNav li:first-child rule, 383 
+
+underline (u), 67 
+
+Unicode-bidi property, 488 
+
+universal selector (*), 43, 375, 381, 389, 490 
+
+unordered list element <ul>, 107, 445 
+
+unordered lists, 107, 445 
+
+uppercase attribute, 87 
+
+url value, 473-474 
+
+usability, ^ ^ 
+
+usemap attribute, 175 
+
+usemap=URL attribute, 425, 433 
+
+user feedback 
+
+forms for, 315-319 
+introduction to, 314-315 
+mailto: URLS for, 314 
+sending, 326-333 
+
+using microformats to enhance, 336-341 
+UTF-8 (Unicode) character set, 31 
+
+
+V 
+
+validation tools, £_, 348 
+valign attribute, 238-239 
+
+vaiign=top I middle | bottom | baseline attribute, 413, 440, 
+441,442, 443, 444 
+vaiue=n attribute, 429 
+vaiue=string attribute, 411, 426, 435 
+vaiuetype=data | object | ref attribute, 435 
+<var> element, 68, 445 
+vCard format, 336, 341 
+Verdana font, 
+
+vertical-align property, 238-239, 488 
+visibility property, 488 
+visited state, 155, 159 
+
+visual presentation, 1_0. 5ee also Cascading Style Sheets 
+visual tags, £ 
+vlink attribute, 155 
+vspace=number attribute, 407, 417 
+
+w 
+
+WAl (Web Accessibility Initiative), 349 
+warm colors, 123 
+watermarks, 55-56 
+WDG HTML Validator, 349 
+WDG Link Valet, ^ 
+web browsers, ^ 5 
+CSS support and, 1_5 
+DTD and, £ 
+font sizes in, 82 
+guide to, 498-500 
+restrictions of, T]_ 
+web color reference, 448-449 
+web design. See also web pages; websites 
+accessibility and, 1_|_ 
+conventions, 63 
+fixed vs. liquid, 260 
+limitations of, £ 
+overview, 5-6 
+vs. print design, 258, 260 
+semantic markup and, 9 
+separating content from design, 10-11 
+simplicity in, 259 
+software, 504 
+usability and, 26 
+
+web designers, backgrounds of, 258 
+web layouts. See also CSS layouts 
+columns, 259-260 
+CSS vs. tables for, 260 
+fixed vs. liquid, 260 
+grids and boxes, 258-259 
+logical element placement and, 261 
+tables vs. CSS, 262 
+
+
+523 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX 
+
+
+web navigation. See navigation 
+web page links. See links 
+web pages. See also web design; websites 
+adding styles to, 15-16 
+attaching external documents, 38-42 
+backgrounds, 45-56 
+basic structure of, 25-27 
+body section, 42-45 
+boilerplate creation, 18-23 
+centering in browser window, 376 
+creating, styling, and restyling (exercise), 20-23 
+dimensions of, 259 
+essentials for, ^ ^ 
+head section, 35-39, 41-42 
+Web palette, 127 
+web standards, 6, 8^ 
+web typography, 63 
+web-safe colors, 124-125, 448 
+web-safe fonts, 73-76 
+WebKit, ^ 
+
+website content. See content 
+websites. See also web design; web pages 
+business website, 387-391 
+common errors in, 349-350 
+creating, 387-391 
+design and images for, 387 
+styling, 389-391 
+audience requirements, 4^ 
+reasons to create, 3^4 
+testing, 348-354 
+white-space property, 489 
+whitespace bugs, 350, 363 
+widows property, 489 
+width attribute, 17, m 237-238, 489 
+width=% I n attribute, m £14, 4^ 4^ 
+width=n attribute, 425, 433, 436, 441, 444 
+width=number attribute, 417 
+Wikipedia, 149-150 
+Window events, XHTML, 403 
+Windows 
+
+color display in, 72^ 
+fonts for, 74-77 
+word-spacing property, 86, 489 
+word-wrap property, 362 
+World Wide Web Consortium (WC3), 7 
+#wrapper rule, 49, ^ 90, £12, 376, ^ ^ ^ 
+wrappers, 264-272 
+
+fixed-width, 264-265, 288-289 
+maximum-width, 268-269 
+placing columns within, 288-290 
+WYSIWYG editing tools, 6, 71, 132 
+
+
+X 
+
+XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) 
+character entities used in, 452 
+comments, 58 
+core attributes, 400 
+core events, 401-402 
+elements and attributes, 403-445 
+event attributes, 401-403 
+form element events, 402-403 
+vs. HTML, 8, 30-32 
+images in, 134-136 
+introduction to, 8-9 
+keyboard attributes, 400 
+lack of consistency in, 350 
+language attributes, 401 
+standard attributes, 400-401 
+Window events, 403 
+XHTML documents 
+closing, S7 
+
+document defaults, 30-32 
+XHTML frameset, ^ 
+
+XHTML strict, 32 
+XHTML transitional, ^ 
+
+XML declarations, 34-35 
+XML Prologs, 34-35 
+xmLlang attribute, £|_ 
+xmlns=namespace attribute, 422 
+xml;lang=language attribute, 401 
+
+Y 
+
+Yahoo Search Builder, 150 
+
+z 
+
+z-index property, 489 
+
+
+524 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+wwTf sTitoNc wn coNTmr 
+
+
+Hob O^Sip end 
+
+Irheio Mil 
+
+for Business Nebsifes 
+
+
+By Kevin Potts 
+
+ISBN-10; 1-59059-839-3 | ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-839-9 
+Published August 2007 
+400 Pages 
+
+
+• Write strong web content 
+
+• Maximize your search engine marketing 
+
+• Learn how accessibility and web standards 
+apply to corporate sites 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+• Be inspired by 10 web design lessons from 10 of 
+the world’s best web designers 
+
+• Get creative with cutting-edge XHTML, CSS, and 
+DOM scripting techniques 
+
+• Learn breathtaking design skills while remaining 
+standards-compliant 
+
+
+CAMERON ADAMS - MARK BOULTON - ANDY CLARKE 
+SIMON COLUSON - jEFF CROFT - DEREK FEATHERSTONE 
+IAN LLOYD - ETHAN MARCOTTE - DAN RUBIN - ROB WEYCHERT 
+
+
+•NTROOUCnON 8Y ANOr BUOO. AUTHOR OF CSS MASniTf 
+
+
+
+Web Standards Creativity 
+
+Innovations in Web Design with 
+XHTML, CSS, and DOM Scripting 
+
+
+Cameron Adams, Mark Boulton, Andy Clarke, Simon Collison, 
+Jeff Croft, Derek Featherstone, Ian Lloyd, Ethan Marcotte, 
+
+Dan Rubin, Rob Weycher 
+
+Introduction by Andy Budd 
+
+ISBN-10: 1-59059-803-2 | ISBN-13 978-1-59059-803-0 
+Published March 2007 
+288 Pages 
diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/fileno113 b/files/books/unrelated/fileno113
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0619af1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/fileno113
@@ -0,0 +1,20356 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of File No. 113, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: File No. 113
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #3803]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FILE NO. 113 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+FILE NO. 113
+
+By Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+In the Paris evening papers of Tuesday, February 28, 1866, under the
+head of _Local Items_, the following announcement appeared:
+
+
+“A daring robbery, committed against one of our most eminent bankers,
+M. Andre Fauvel, caused great excitement this morning throughout the
+neighborhood of Rue de Provence.
+
+“The thieves, who were as skilful as they were bold, succeeded in
+making an entrance to the bank, in forcing the lock of a safe that has
+heretofore been considered impregnable, and in possessing themselves
+of the enormous sum of three hundred and fifty thousand francs in
+bank-notes.
+
+“The police, immediately informed of the robbery, displayed their
+accustomed zeal, and their efforts have been crowned with success.
+Already, it is said, P. B., a clerk in the bank, has been arrested,
+and there is every reason to hope that his accomplices will be speedily
+overtaken by the hand of justice.”
+
+
+For four days this robbery was the town talk of Paris.
+
+Then public attention was absorbed by later and equally interesting
+events: an acrobat broke his leg at the circus; an actress made her
+debut at a small theatre: and the _item_ of the 28th was soon forgotten.
+
+But for once the newspapers were--perhaps intentionally--wrong, or at
+least inaccurate in their information.
+
+The sum of three hundred and fifty thousand francs certainly had been
+stolen from M. Andre Fauvel’s bank, but not in the manner described.
+
+A clerk had also been arrested on suspicion, but no decisive proof had
+been found against him. This robbery of unusual importance remained, if
+not inexplicable, at least unexplained.
+
+The following are the facts as they were related with scrupulous
+exactness at the preliminary examination.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The banking-house of Andre Fauvel, No. 87 Rue de Provence, is an
+important establishment, and, owing to its large force of clerks,
+presents very much the appearance of a government department.
+
+On the ground-floor are the offices, with windows opening on the street,
+fortified by strong iron bars sufficiently large and close together to
+discourage all burglarious attempts.
+
+A large glass door opens into a spacious vestibule where three or four
+office-boys are always in waiting.
+
+On the right are the rooms to which the public is admitted, and from
+which a narrow passage leads to the principal cash-room.
+
+The offices of the corresponding clerk, book-keeper, and general
+accounts are on the left.
+
+At the farther end is a small court on which open seven or eight little
+wicket doors. These are kept closed, except on certain days when notes
+are due; and then they are indispensable.
+
+M. Fauvel’s private office is on the first floor over the offices, and
+leads into his elegant private apartments.
+
+This private office communicates directly with the bank by means of
+a narrow staircase, which opens into the room occupied by the head
+cashier.
+
+This room, which in the bank goes by the name of the “cash-office,” is
+proof against all attacks, no matter how skilfully planned; indeed, it
+could almost withstand a regular siege, sheeted as it is like a monitor.
+
+The doors, and the partition where the wicket door is cut, are covered
+with thick sheets of iron; and a heavy grating protects the fireplace.
+
+Fastened in the wall by enormous iron clamps is a safe, a formidable
+and fantastic piece of furniture, calculated to fill with envy the poor
+devil who easily carries his fortune in a pocket-book.
+
+This safe, which is considered the masterpiece of the firm of Becquet,
+is six feet in height and four and a half in width, made entirely of
+wrought iron, with triple sides, and divided into isolated compartments
+in case of fire.
+
+The safe is opened by an odd little key, which is, however, the least
+important part of the mechanism. Five movable steel buttons, upon which
+are engraved all the letters of the alphabet, constitute the real power
+of this ingenious safe.
+
+Before inserting the key into the lock, the letters on the buttons must
+be in the exact position in which they were placed when the safe was
+locked.
+
+In M. Fauvel’s bank, as everywhere, the safe was always closed with a
+word that was changed from time to time.
+
+This word was known only to the head of the bank and the cashier, each
+of whom had also a key to the safe.
+
+In a fortress like this, a person could deposit more diamonds than the
+Duke of Brunswick’s, and sleep well assured of their safety.
+
+But one danger seemed to threaten, that of forgetting the secret word
+which was the “Open sesame” of the safe.
+
+On the morning of the 28th of February, the bank-clerks were all busy
+at their various desks, about half-past nine o’clock, when a middle-aged
+man of dark complexion and military air, clad in deep mourning, appeared
+in the office adjoining the “safe,” and announced to the five or six
+employees present his desire to see the cashier.
+
+He was told that the cashier had not yet come, and his attention was
+called to a placard in the entry, which stated that the “cash-room” was
+opened at ten o’clock.
+
+This reply seemed to disconcert and annoy the newcomer.
+
+“I expected,” he said, in a tone of cool impertinence, “to find someone
+here ready to attend to my business. I explained the matter to M. Fauvel
+yesterday. I am Count Louis de Clameran, an iron-manufacturer at Oloron,
+and have come to draw three hundred thousand francs deposited in this
+bank by my late brother, whose heir I am. It is surprising that no
+direction was given about it.”
+
+Neither the title of the noble manufacturer, nor his explanations,
+appeared to have the slightest effect upon the clerks.
+
+“The cashier has not yet arrived,” they repeated, “and we can do nothing
+for you.”
+
+“Then conduct me to M. Fauvel.”
+
+There was a moment’s hesitation; then a clerk named Cavaillon, who was
+writing near a window, said:
+
+“The chief is always out at this hour.”
+
+“Then I will call again,” replied M. de Clameran.
+
+And he walked out, as he had entered, without saying “Good-morning,” or
+even touching his hat.
+
+“Not very polite, that customer,” said little Cavaillon, “but he will
+soon be settled, for here comes Prosper.”
+
+Prosper Bertomy, head cashier of Fauvel’s banking-house, was a tall,
+handsome man, of about thirty, with fair hair and large dark-blue eyes,
+fastidiously neat, and dressed in the height of fashion.
+
+He would have been very prepossessing but for a cold, reserved
+English-like manner, and a certain air of self-sufficiency which spoiled
+his naturally bright, open countenance.
+
+“Ah, here you are!” cried Cavaillon, “someone has just been asking for
+you.”
+
+“Who? An iron-manufacturer, was it not?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Well, he will come back again. Knowing that I would get here late this
+morning, I made all my arrangements yesterday.”
+
+Prosper had unlocked his office-door, and, as he finished speaking,
+entered, and closed it behind him.
+
+“Good!” exclaimed one of the clerks, “there is a man who never lets
+anything disturb him. The chief has quarrelled with him twenty times for
+always coming too late, and his remonstrances have no more effect upon
+him than a breath of wind.”
+
+“And very right, too; he knows he can get anything he wants out of the
+chief.”
+
+“Besides, how could he come any sooner? a man who sits up all night, and
+leads a fast life, doesn’t feel like going to work early in the morning.
+Did you notice how very pale he looked when he came in?”
+
+“He must have been playing heavily again. Couturier says he lost fifteen
+thousand francs at a sitting last week.”
+
+“His work is none the worse done for all that,” interrupted Cavaillon.
+“If you were in his place--”
+
+He stopped short. The cash-room door suddenly opened, and the cashier
+appeared before them with tottering step, and a wild, haggard look on
+his ashy face.
+
+“Robbed!” he gasped out: “I have been robbed!”
+
+Prosper’s horrified expression, his hollow voice and trembling limbs,
+betrayed such fearful suffering that the clerks jumped up from their
+desks, and ran toward him. He almost dropped into their arms; he was
+sick and faint, and fell into a chair.
+
+His companions surrounded him, and begged him to explain himself.
+
+“Robbed?” they said; “where, how, by whom?”
+
+Gradually, Prosper recovered himself.
+
+“All the money I had in the safe,” he said, “has been stolen.”
+
+“All?”
+
+“Yes, all; three packages, each containing one hundred notes of a
+thousand francs, and one package of fifty thousand. The four packages
+were wrapped in a sheet of paper, and tied together.”
+
+With the rapidity of lightning, the news of the robbery spread
+throughout the banking-house, and the room was soon filled with curious
+listeners.
+
+“Tell us, Prosper,” said young Cavaillon, “did you find the safe broken
+open?”
+
+“No; it is just as I left it.”
+
+“Well then, how, why----”
+
+“Yesterday I put three hundred and fifty thousand francs in the safe;
+and this morning they are gone.”
+
+All were silent except one old clerk, who did not seem to share the
+general consternation.
+
+“Don’t distress yourself, M. Bertomy,” he said: “perhaps the chief
+disposed of the money.”
+
+The unhappy cashier started up with a look of relief; he eagerly caught
+at the idea.
+
+“Yes!” he exclaimed, “you are right: the chief must have taken it.”
+
+But, after thinking a few minutes, he said in a tone of deep
+discouragement:
+
+“No, that is impossible. During the five years that I have had charge of
+the safe, M. Fauvel has never opened it except in my presence. Several
+times he has needed money, and has either waited until I came, or sent
+for me, rather than touch it in my absence.”
+
+“Well,” said Cavaillon, “before despairing, let us ascertain.”
+
+But a messenger had already informed M. Fauvel of the disaster.
+
+As Cavaillon was about to go in quest of him, he entered the room.
+
+M. Andre Fauvel appeared to be a man of fifty, inclined to corpulency,
+of medium height, with iron-gray hair; and, like all hard workers, he
+had a slight stoop.
+
+Never did he by a single action belie the kindly expression of his face.
+
+He had a frank air, a lively, intelligent eye, and large, red lips.
+
+Born in the neighborhood of Aix, he betrayed, when animated, a slight
+Provencal accent that gave a peculiar flavor to his genial humor.
+
+The news of the robbery had extremely agitated him, for his usually
+florid face was now quite pale.
+
+“What is this I hear? what has happened?” he said to the clerks, who
+respectfully stood aside when he entered the room.
+
+The sound of M. Fauvel’s voice inspired the cashier with the factitious
+energy of a great crisis. The dreaded and decisive moment had come; he
+arose, and advanced toward his chief.
+
+“Monsieur,” he began, “having, as you know, a payment to make this
+morning, I yesterday drew from the Bank of France three hundred and
+fifty thousand francs.”
+
+“Why yesterday, monsieur?” interrupted the banker. “I think I have a
+hundred times ordered you to wait until the day of the payment.”
+
+“I know it, monsieur, and I did wrong to disobey you. But the evil is
+done. Yesterday evening I locked the money up: it has disappeared, and
+yet the safe has not been broken open.”
+
+“You must be mad!” exclaimed M. Fauvel: “you are dreaming!”
+
+These few words destroyed all hope; but the very horror of the situation
+gave Prosper, not the coolness of a matured resolution, but that sort
+of stupid, stolid indifference which often results from unexpected
+catastrophes.
+
+It was with apparent calmness that he replied:
+
+“I am not mad; neither, unfortunately, am I dreaming: I am simply
+telling the truth.”
+
+This tranquillity at such a moment appeared to exasperate M. Fauvel. He
+seized Prosper by the arm, and shook him roughly.
+
+“Speak!” he cried out. “Speak! who do you pretend to say opened the
+safe? Answer me!”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“No one but you and I knew the secret word. No one but you and myself
+had keys.”
+
+This was a formal accusation; at least, all the auditors present so
+understood it.
+
+Yet Prosper’s strange calmness never left him for an instant. He quietly
+released himself from M. Fauvel’s grasp, and very slowly said:
+
+“In other words, monsieur, I am the only person who could have taken
+this money.”
+
+“Unhappy wretch!”
+
+Prosper drew himself to his full height, and, looking M. Fauvel full in
+the face, added:
+
+“Or you!”
+
+The banker made a threatening gesture; and there is no knowing what
+would have happened if they had not been interrupted by loud and angry
+voices at the entry-door.
+
+A man insisted upon entering in spite of the protestations of the
+errand-boys, and succeeded in forcing his way in. It was M. de Clameran.
+
+The clerks stood looking on, bewildered and motionless. The silence was
+profound, solemn.
+
+It was easy to see that some terrible question, a question of life or
+death, was being weighed by all these men.
+
+The iron-founder did not appear to observe anything unusual. He
+advanced, and without lifting his hat said, in the same impertinent
+tone:
+
+“It is after ten o’clock, gentlemen.”
+
+No one answered; and M. de Clameran was about to continue, when, turning
+around, he for the first time saw the banker, and walking up to him
+said:
+
+“Well, monsieur, I congratulate myself upon finding you in at last. I
+have been here once before this morning, and found the cash-room not
+opened, the cashier not arrived, and you absent.”
+
+“You are mistaken, monsieur, I was in my office.”
+
+“At any rate, I was told you were out; that gentleman over there assured
+me of the fact.”
+
+And the iron-founder pointed out Cavaillon.
+
+“However, that is of little importance,” he went on to say. “I return,
+and this time not only the cash-room is closed, but I am refused
+admittance to the banking-house, and find myself compelled to force my
+way in. Be so good as to tell me whether I can have my money.”
+
+M. Fauvel’s flushed face turned pale with anger as he listened to this
+insolence; yet he controlled himself.
+
+“I would be obliged to you monsieur, for a short delay.”
+
+“I thought you told me--”
+
+“Yes, yesterday. But this morning, this very instant, I find I have been
+robbed of three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+M. de Clameran bowed ironically, and said:
+
+“Shall I have to wait long?”
+
+“Long enough for me to send to the bank.”
+
+Then turning his back on the iron-founder, M. Fauvel said to his
+cashier:
+
+“Write and send as quickly as possible to the bank an order for three
+hundred thousand francs. Let the messenger take a carriage.”
+
+Prosper remained motionless.
+
+“Do you hear me?” said the banker angrily.
+
+The cashier trembled; he seemed as if trying to shake off a terrible
+nightmare.
+
+“It is useless to send,” he said in a measured tone; “we owe this
+gentleman three hundred thousand francs, and we have less than one
+hundred thousand in the bank.”
+
+M. de Clameran evidently expected this answer, for he muttered:
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+Although he pronounced this word, his voice, his manner, his face
+clearly said:
+
+“This comedy is well acted; but nevertheless it is a comedy, and I don’t
+intend to be duped by it.”
+
+Alas! After Prosper’s answer, and the iron-founder’s coarsely expressed
+opinion, the clerks knew not what to think.
+
+The fact was, that Paris had just been startled by several financial
+crashes. The thirst for speculation caused the oldest and most reliable
+houses to totter. Men of the most unimpeachable honor had to sacrifice
+their pride, and go from door to door imploring aid.
+
+Credit, that rare bird of security and peace, rested with none, but
+stood with upraised wings, ready to fly off at the first rumor of
+suspicion.
+
+Therefore this idea of a comedy arranged beforehand between the banker
+and his cashier might readily occur to the minds of people who, if not
+suspicious, were at least aware of all the expedients resorted to
+by speculators in order to gain time, which with them often meant
+salvation.
+
+M. Fauvel had had too much experience not to instantly divine the
+impression produced by Prosper’s answer; he read the most mortifying
+doubt on the faces around him.
+
+“Oh! don’t be alarmed, monsieur,” said he to M. de Clameran, “this house
+has other resources. Be kind enough to await my return.”
+
+He left the room, went up the narrow steps leading to his study, and
+in a few minutes returned, holding in his hand a letter and a bundle of
+securities.
+
+“Here, quick, Couturier!” he said to one of his clerks, “take my
+carriage, which is waiting at the door, and go with monsieur to M. de
+Rothschild’s. Hand him this letter and these securities; in exchange,
+you will receive three hundred thousand francs, which you will hand to
+this gentleman.”
+
+The iron-founder was visibly disappointed; he seemed desirous of
+apologizing for his impertinence.
+
+“I assure you, monsieur, that I had no intention of giving offence. Our
+relations, for some years, have been such that I hope--”
+
+“Enough, monsieur,” interrupted the banker, “I desire no apologies. In
+business, friendship counts for nothing. I owe you money: I am not ready
+to pay: you are pressing: you have a perfect right to demand what is
+your own. Follow my clerk: he will pay you your money.”
+
+Then he turned to his clerks who stood curiously gazing on, and said:
+
+“As for you, gentlemen, be kind enough to resume your desks.”
+
+In an instant the room was cleared of everyone except the clerks who
+belonged there; and they sat at their desks with their noses almost
+touching the paper before them, as if too absorbed in their work to
+think of anything else.
+
+Still excited by the events so rapidly succeeding each other, M.
+Andre Fauvel walked up and down the room with quick, nervous steps,
+occasionally uttering some low exclamation.
+
+Prosper remained leaning against the door, with pale face and fixed
+eyes, looking as if he had lost the faculty of thinking.
+
+Finally the banker, after a long silence, stopped short before Prosper;
+he had determined upon the line of conduct he would pursue.
+
+“We must have an explanation,” he said. “Let us go into your office.”
+
+The cashier mechanically obeyed without a word; and his chief followed
+him, taking the precaution to close the door after him.
+
+The cash-room bore no evidences of a successful burglary. Everything was
+in perfect order; not even a paper was misplaced.
+
+The safe was open, and on the top shelf lay several rouleaus of gold,
+overlooked or disdained by the thieves.
+
+M. Fauvel, without troubling himself to examine anything, took a seat,
+and ordered his cashier to do the same. He had entirely recovered his
+equanimity, and his countenance wore its usual kind expression.
+
+“Now that we are alone, Prosper,” he said, “have you nothing to tell
+me?”
+
+The cashier started, as if surprised at the question. “Nothing,
+monsieur, that I have not already told you.”
+
+“What, nothing? Do you persist in asserting a fable so absurd and
+ridiculous that no one can possibly believe it? It is folly! Confide in
+me: it is your only chance of salvation. I am your employer, it is true;
+but I am before and above all your friend, your best and truest friend.
+I cannot forget that in this very room, fifteen years ago, you were
+intrusted to me by your father; and ever since that day have I had cause
+to congratulate myself on possessing so faithful and efficient a
+clerk. Yes, it is fifteen years since you came to me. I was then just
+commencing the foundation of my fortune. You have seen it gradually
+grow, step by step, from almost nothing to its present height. As my
+wealth increased, I endeavored to better your condition; you, who,
+although so young, are the oldest of my clerks. At each inventory of my
+fortune, I increased your salary.”
+
+Never had Prosper heard him express himself in so feeling and paternal a
+manner. Prosper was silent with astonishment.
+
+“Answer,” pursued M. Fauvel: “have I not always been like a father to
+you? From the first day, my house has been open to you; you were treated
+as a member of my family; Madeleine and my sons looked upon you as a
+brother. But you grew weary of this peaceful life. One day, a year ago,
+you suddenly began to shun us; and since then----”
+
+The memories of the past thus evoked by the banker seemed too much for
+the unhappy cashier; he buried his face in his hands, and wept bitterly.
+
+“A man can confide everything to his father without fear of being
+harshly judged,” resumed M. Fauvel. “A father not only pardons, he
+forgets. Do I not know the terrible temptations that beset a young man
+in a city like Paris? There are some inordinate desires before which the
+firmest principles must give way, and which so pervert our moral sense
+as to render us incapable of judging between right and wrong. Speak,
+Prosper, Speak!”
+
+“What do you wish me to say?”
+
+“The truth. When an honorable man yields, in an hour of weakness, to
+temptation, his first step toward atonement is confession. Say to me,
+Yes, I have been tempted, dazzled: the sight of these piles of gold
+turned my brain. I am young: I have passions.”
+
+“I?” murmured Prosper. “I?”
+
+“Poor boy,” said the banker, sadly; “do you think I am ignorant of the
+life you have been leading since you left my roof a year ago? Can you
+not understand that all your fellow-clerks are jealous of you? that they
+do not forgive you for earning twelve thousand francs a year? Never have
+you committed a piece of folly without my being immediately informed of
+it by an anonymous letter. I could tell the exact number of nights
+you have spent at the gaming-table, and the amount of money you have
+squandered. Oh, envy has good eyes and a quick ear! I have great
+contempt for these cowardly denunciations, but was forced not only to
+heed them, but to make inquiries myself. It is only right that I should
+know what sort of a life is led by the man to whom I intrust my fortune
+and my honor.”
+
+Prosper seemed about to protest against this last speech.
+
+“Yes, my honor,” insisted M. Fauvel, in a voice that a sense of
+humiliation rendered still more vibrating: “yes, my credit might have
+been compromised to-day by this M. de Clameran. Do you know how much
+I shall lose by paying him this money? And suppose I had not had the
+securities which I have sacrificed? you did not know I possessed them.”
+
+The banker paused, as if hoping for a confession, which, however, did
+not come.
+
+“Come, Prosper, have courage, be frank. I will go upstairs. You will
+look again in the safe: I am sure that in your agitation you did not
+search thoroughly. This evening I will return; and I am confident that,
+during the day, you will have found, if not the three hundred and fifty
+thousand francs, at least the greater portion of it; and to-morrow
+neither you nor I will remember anything about this false alarm.”
+
+M. Fauvel had risen, and was about to leave the room, when Prosper
+arose, and seized him by the arm.
+
+“Your generosity is useless, monsieur,” he said, bitterly; “having
+taken nothing, I can restore nothing. I have searched carefully; the
+bank-notes have been stolen.”
+
+“But by whom, poor fool? By whom?”
+
+“By all that is sacred, I swear that it was not by me.”
+
+The banker’s face turned crimson. “Miserable wretch!” cried he, “do you
+mean to say that I took the money?”
+
+Prosper bowed his head, and did not answer.
+
+“Ah! it is thus, then,” said M. Fauvel, unable to contain himself any
+longer. “And you dare--. Then, between you and me, M. Prosper Bertomy,
+justice shall decide. God is my witness that I have done all I could to
+save you. You will have yourself to thank for what follows. I have sent
+for the commissary of police: he must be waiting in my study. Shall I
+call him down?”
+
+Prosper, with the fearful resignation of a man who abandons himself,
+replied, in a stifled voice:
+
+“Do as you will.”
+
+The banker was near the door, which he opened, and, after giving the
+cashier a last searching look, said to an office-boy:
+
+“Anselme, ask the commissary of police to step down.”
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+If there is one man in the world whom no event can move or surprise, who
+is always on his guard against deceptive appearances, and is capable
+of admitting everything and explaining everything, it certainly is a
+Parisian commissary of police.
+
+While the judge, from his lofty place, applies the code to the facts
+submitted to him, the commissary of police observes and watches all
+the odious circumstances that the law cannot reach. He is perforce the
+confidant of disgraceful details, domestic crimes, and tolerated vices.
+
+If, when he entered upon his office, he had any illusions, before the
+end of a year they were all dissipated.
+
+If he does not absolutely despise the human race, it is because often,
+side by side with abominations indulged in with impunity, he discovers
+sublime generosities which remain unrewarded.
+
+He sees impudent scoundrels filching public respect; and he consoles
+himself by thinking of the modest, obscure heroes whom he has also
+encountered.
+
+So often have his previsions been deceived, that he has reached a state
+of complete scepticism. He believes in nothing, neither in evil nor in
+absolute good; not more in virtue than in vice.
+
+His experience has forced him to come to the sad conclusion that not
+men, but events, are worth considering.
+
+The commissary sent for by M. Fauvel soon made his appearance.
+
+It was with a calm air, if not one of perfect indifference, that he
+entered the office.
+
+He was followed by a short man dressed in a full suit of black, which
+was slightly relieved by a crumpled collar.
+
+The banker, scarcely bowing to him, said:
+
+“Doubtless, monsieur, you have been apprised of the painful circumstance
+which compels me to have recourse to your assistance?”
+
+“It is about a robbery, I believe.”
+
+“Yes; an infamous and mysterious robbery committed in this office,
+from the safe you see open there, of which my cashier” (he pointed to
+Prosper) “alone possesses the key and the word.”
+
+This declaration seemed to arouse the unfortunate cashier from his dull
+stupor.
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur,” he said to the commissary in a low tone. “My
+chief also has the word and the key.”
+
+“Of course, that is understood.”
+
+The commissary at once drew his own conclusions.
+
+Evidently these two men accused each other.
+
+From their own statements, one or the other was guilty.
+
+One was the head of an important bank: the other was a simple cashier.
+
+One was the chief: the other was the clerk.
+
+But the commissary of police was too well skilled in concealing his
+impressions to betray his thoughts by any outward sign. Not a muscle of
+his face moved.
+
+But he became more grave, and alternately watched the cashier and M.
+Fauvel, as if trying to draw some profitable conclusion from their
+behavior.
+
+Prosper was very pale and dejected. He had dropped into a seat, and his
+arms hung inert on either side of the chair.
+
+The banker, on the contrary, remained standing with flashing eyes and
+crimson face, expressing himself with extraordinary violence.
+
+“And the importance of the theft is immense,” continued M. Fauvel; “they
+have taken a fortune, three hundred and fifty thousand francs. This
+robbery might have had the most disastrous consequences. In times
+like these, the want of this sum might compromise the credit of the
+wealthiest banking-house in Paris.”
+
+“I believe so, if notes fall due.”
+
+“Well, monsieur, I had this very day a heavy payment to make.”
+
+“Ah, really!”
+
+There was no mistaking the commissary’s tone; a suspicion, the first,
+had evidently entered his mind.
+
+The banker understood it; he started, and said, quickly:
+
+“I met the demand, but at the cost of a disagreeable sacrifice. I ought
+to add further that, if my orders had been obeyed, the three hundred and
+fifty thousand francs would not have been in.”
+
+“How is that?”
+
+“I never desire to have large sums of money in my house over-night. My
+cashier had positive orders to wait always until the last moment before
+drawing money from the Bank of France. I above all forbade him to leave
+money in the safe over-night.”
+
+“You hear this?” said the commissary to Prosper.
+
+“Yes, monsieur,” replied the cashier, “M. Fauvel’s statement is quite
+correct.”
+
+After this explanation, the suspicions of the commissary, instead of
+being strengthened, were dissipated.
+
+“Well,” he said, “a robbery has been perpetrated, but by whom? Did the
+robber enter from without?”
+
+The banker hesitated a moment.
+
+“I think not,” he said at last.
+
+“And I am certain he did not,” said Prosper.
+
+The commissary expected and was prepared for those answers; but it did
+not suit his purpose to follow them up immediately.
+
+“However,” said he, “we must make ourselves sure of it.” Turning toward
+his companion:
+
+“M. Fanferlot,” he said, “go and see if you cannot discover some traces
+that may have escaped the attention of these gentlemen.”
+
+M. Fanferlot, nicknamed the Squirrel, was indebted to his prodigious
+agility for this title, of which he was not a little proud. Slim and
+insignificant in appearance he might, in spite of his iron muscles, be
+taken for a bailiff’s under clerk, as he walked along buttoned up to the
+chin in his thin black overcoat. He had one of those faces that impress
+us disagreeably--an odiously turned-up nose, thin lips, and little,
+restless black eyes.
+
+Fanferlot, who had been on the police force for five years, burned to
+distinguish himself, to make for himself a name. He was ambitious. Alas!
+he was unsuccessful, lacking opportunity--or genius.
+
+Already, before the commissary spoke to him, he had ferreted everywhere;
+studied the doors, sounded the partitions, examined the wicket, and
+stirred up the ashes in the fireplace.
+
+“I cannot imagine,” said he, “how a stranger could have effected an
+entrance here.”
+
+He walked around the office.
+
+“Is this door closed at night?” he inquired.
+
+“It is always locked.”
+
+“And who keeps the key?”
+
+“The office-boy, to whom I always give it in charge before leaving the
+bank,” said Prosper.
+
+“This boy,” said M. Fauvel, “sleeps in the outer room on a
+sofa-bedstead, which he unfolds at night, and folds up in the morning.”
+
+“Is he here now?” inquired the commissary.
+
+“Yes, monsieur,” answered the banker.
+
+He opened the door and called:
+
+“Anselme!”
+
+This boy was the favorite servant of M. Fauvel, and had lived with him
+for ten years. He knew that he would not be suspected; but the idea of
+being connected in any way with a robbery is terrible, and he entered
+the room trembling like a leaf.
+
+“Did you sleep in the next room last night?” asked the commissary.
+
+“Yes, monsieur, as usual.”
+
+“At what hour did you go to bed?”
+
+“About half-past ten; I had spent the evening at a cafe near by, with
+monsieur’s valet.”
+
+“Did you hear no noise during the night?”
+
+“Not a sound; and still I sleep so lightly, that, if monsieur comes down
+to the cash-room when I am asleep, I am instantly awakened by the sound
+of his footsteps.”
+
+“Monsieur Fauvel often comes to the cash-room at night, does he?”
+
+“No, monsieur; very seldom.”
+
+“Did he come last night?”
+
+“No, monsieur, I am very certain he did not; for I was kept awake nearly
+all night by the strong coffee I had drunk with the valet.”
+
+“That will do; you can retire,” said the commissary.
+
+When Anselme had left the room, Fanferlot resumed his search. He opened
+the door of the private staircase.
+
+“Where do these stairs lead to?” he asked.
+
+“To my private office,” replied M. Fauvel.
+
+“Is not that the room whither I was conducted when I first came?”
+ inquired the commissary.
+
+“The same.”
+
+“I would like to see it,” said Fanferlot, “and examine the entrances to
+it.”
+
+“Nothing is more easy,” said M. Fauvel, eagerly; “follow me, gentlemen,
+and you come too, Prosper.”
+
+M. Fauvel’s private office consisted of two rooms; the waiting-room,
+sumptuously furnished and beautifully decorated, and the study where he
+transacted business. The furniture in this room was composed of a large
+office-desk, several leather-covered chairs, and, on either side of the
+fireplace, a secretary and a book-shelf.
+
+These two rooms had only three doors; one opened on the private
+stairway, another into the banker’s bedroom, and the third into the main
+vestibule. It was through this last door that the banker’s clients and
+visitors were admitted.
+
+M. Fanferlot examined the study at a glance. He seemed puzzled, like
+a man who had flattered himself with the hope of discovering some
+indication, and had found nothing.
+
+“Let us see the adjoining room,” he said.
+
+He passed into the waiting-room, followed by the banker and the
+commissary of police.
+
+Prosper remained alone in the study.
+
+Despite the disordered state of his mind, he could not but perceive that
+his situation was momentarily becoming more serious.
+
+He had demanded and accepted the contest with his chief; the struggle
+had commenced; and now it no longer depended upon his own will to arrest
+the consequences of his action.
+
+They were about to engage in a bitter conflict, utilizing all weapons,
+until one of the two should succumb, the loss of honor being the cost of
+defeat.
+
+In the eyes of justice, who would be the innocent man?
+
+Alas! the unfortunate cashier saw only too clearly that the chances
+were terribly unequal, and was overwhelmed with the sense of his own
+inferiority.
+
+Never had he thought that his chief would carry out his threats; for,
+in a contest of this nature, M. Fauvel would have as much to risk as his
+cashier, and more to lose.
+
+He was sitting near the fireplace, absorbed in the most gloomy
+forebodings, when the banker’s chamber-door suddenly opened, and a
+beautiful girl appeared on the threshold.
+
+She was tall and slender; a loose morning gown, confined at the waist
+by a simple black ribbon, betrayed to advantage the graceful elegance of
+her figure. Her black eyes were large and soft; her complexion had
+the creamy pallor of a white camellia; and her beautiful dark hair,
+carelessly held together by a tortoise-shell comb, fell in a profusion
+of soft curls upon her exquisite neck. She was Madeleine, M. Fauvel’s
+niece, of whom he had spoken not long before.
+
+Seeing Prosper in the study, where probably she expected to find her
+uncle alone, she could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+Prosper started up as if he had received an electric shock. His eyes,
+a moment before so dull and heavy, now sparkled with joy as if he had
+caught a glimpse of a messenger of hope.
+
+“Madeleine,” he gasped, “Madeleine!”
+
+The young girl was blushing crimson. She seemed about to hastily
+retreat, and stepped back; but, Prosper having advanced toward her, she
+was overcome by a sentiment stronger than her will, and extended her
+hand, which he seized and pressed with much agitation.
+
+They stood thus face to face, but with averted looks, as if they dared
+not let their eyes meet for fear of betraying their feelings; having
+much to say, and not knowing how to begin, they stood silent.
+
+Finally Madeleine murmured, in a scarcely audible voice:
+
+“You, Prosper--you!”
+
+These words broke the spell. The cashier dropped the white hand which he
+held, and answered bitterly:
+
+“Yes, this is Prosper, the companion of your childhood, suspected,
+accused of the most disgraceful theft; Prosper, whom your uncle has
+just delivered up to justice, and who, before the day is over, will be
+arrested, and thrown into prison.”
+
+Madeleine, with a terrified gesture, cried in a tone of anguish:
+
+“Good heavens! Prosper, what are you saying?”
+
+“What, mademoiselle! do you not know what has happened? Have not your
+aunt and cousins told you?”
+
+“They have told me nothing. I have scarcely seen my cousins this
+morning; and my aunt is so ill that I felt uneasy, and came to tell
+uncle. But for Heaven’s sake speak: tell me the cause of your distress.”
+
+Prosper hesitated. Perhaps it occurred to him to open his heart to
+Madeleine, of revealing to her his most secret thoughts. A remembrance
+of the past chilled his confidence. He sadly shook his head, and
+replied:
+
+“Thanks, mademoiselle, for this proof of interest, the last, doubtless,
+that I shall ever receive from you; but allow me, by being silent, to
+spare you distress, and myself the mortification of blushing before
+you.”
+
+Madeleine interrupted him imperiously:
+
+“I insist upon knowing.”
+
+“Alas, mademoiselle!” answered Prosper, “you will only too soon learn my
+misfortune and disgrace; then, yes, then you will applaud yourself for
+what you have done.”
+
+She became more urgent; instead of commanding, she entreated; but
+Prosper was inflexible.
+
+“Your uncle is in the adjoining room, mademoiselle, with the commissary
+of police and a detective. They will soon return. I entreat you to
+retire that they may not find you here.”
+
+As he spoke he gently pushed her through the door, and closed it upon
+her.
+
+It was time, for the next moment the commissary and Monsieur Fauvel
+entered. They had visited the main entrance and waiting-room, and had
+heard nothing of what had passed in the study.
+
+But Fanferlot had heard for them.
+
+This excellent bloodhound had not lost sight of the cashier. He said to
+himself, “Now that my young gentleman believes himself to be alone,
+his face will betray him. I shall detect a smile or a wink that will
+enlighten me.”
+
+Leaving M. Fauvel and the commissary to pursue their investigations, he
+posted himself to watch. He saw the door open, and Madeleine appear upon
+the threshold; he lost not a single word or gesture of the rapid scene
+which had passed.
+
+It mattered little that every word of this scene was an enigma. M.
+Fanferlot was skilful enough to complete the sentences he did not
+understand.
+
+As yet he only had a suspicion; but a mere suspicion is better than
+nothing; it is a point to start from. So prompt was he in building a
+plan upon the slightest incident that he thought he saw in the past of
+these people, who were utter strangers to him, glimpses of a domestic
+drama.
+
+If the commissary of police is a sceptic, the detective has faith; he
+believes in evil.
+
+“I understand the case now,” said he to himself. “This man loves the
+young lady, who is really very pretty; and, as he is quite handsome,
+I suppose his love is reciprocated. This love-affair vexes the banker,
+who, not knowing how to get rid of the importunate lover by fair means,
+has to resort to foul, and plans this imaginary robbery, which is very
+ingenious.”
+
+Thus to M. Fanferlot’s mind, the banker had simply robbed himself, and
+the innocent cashier was the victim of an odious machination.
+
+But this conviction was, at present, of little service to Prosper.
+
+Fanferlot, the ambitious, who had determined to obtain renown in his
+profession, decided to keep his conjectures to himself.
+
+“I will let the others go their way, and I’ll go mine,” he said.
+“When, by dint of close watching and patient investigation I shall have
+collected proof sufficient to insure certain conviction, I will unmask
+the scoundrel.”
+
+He was radiant. He had at last found the crime, so long looked for,
+which would make him celebrated. Nothing was wanting, neither the odious
+circumstances, nor the mystery, nor even the romantic and sentimental
+element represented by Prosper and Madeleine.
+
+Success seemed difficult, almost impossible; but Fanferlot, the
+Squirrel, had great confidence in his own genius for investigation.
+
+Meanwhile, the search upstairs completed, M. Fauvel and the commissary
+returned to the room where Prosper was waiting for them.
+
+The commissary, who had seemed so calm when he first came, now looked
+grave and perplexed. The moment for taking a decisive part had come, yet
+it was evident that he hesitated.
+
+“You see, gentlemen,” he began, “our search has only confirmed our first
+suspicion.”
+
+M. Fauvel and Prosper bowed assentingly.
+
+“And what do you think, M. Fanferlot?” continued the commissary.
+
+Fanferlot did not answer.
+
+Occupied in studying the safe-lock, he manifested signs of a lively
+surprise. Evidently he had just made an important discovery.
+
+M. Fauvel, Prosper, and the commissary rose, and surrounded him.
+
+“Have you discovered any trace?” said the banker, eagerly.
+
+Fanferlot turned around with a vexed air. He reproached himself for not
+having concealed his impressions.
+
+“Oh!” said he, carelessly, “I have discovered nothing of importance.”
+
+“But we should like to know,” said Prosper.
+
+“I have merely convinced myself that this safe has been recently opened
+or shut, I know not which, with great violence and haste.”
+
+“Why so?” asked the commissary, becoming attentive.
+
+“Look, monsieur, at this scratch near the lock.”
+
+The commissary stooped down, and carefully examined the safe; he saw
+a light scratch several inches long that had removed the outer coat of
+varnish.
+
+“I see the scratch,” said he, “but what does that prove?”
+
+“Oh, nothing at all!” said Fanferlot. “I just now told you it was of no
+importance.”
+
+Fanferlot said this, but it was not his real opinion.
+
+This scratch, undeniably fresh, had for him a signification that escaped
+the others. He said to himself, “This confirms my suspicions. If the
+cashier had stolen millions, there was no occasion for his being in
+a hurry; whereas the banker, creeping down in the dead of night with
+cat-like footsteps, for fear of awakening the boy in the ante-room,
+in order to rifle his own money-safe, had every reason to tremble, to
+hurry, to hastily withdraw the key, which, slipping along the lock,
+scratched off the varnish.”
+
+Resolved to unravel by himself the tangled thread of this mystery, the
+detective determined to keep his conjectures to himself; for the same
+reason he was silent as to the interview which he had overheard between
+Madeleine and Prosper.
+
+He hastened to withdraw attention from the scratch upon the lock.
+
+“To conclude,” he said, addressing the commissary, “I am convinced that
+no one outside of the bank could have obtained access to this room. The
+safe, moreover, is intact. No suspicious pressure has been used on the
+movable buttons. I can assert that the lock has not been tampered with
+by burglar’s tools or false keys. Those who opened the safe knew the
+word, and possessed the key.”
+
+This formal affirmation of a man whom he knew to be skilful ended the
+hesitation of the commissary.
+
+“That being the case,” he replied, “I must request a few moments’
+conversation with M. Fauvel.”
+
+“I am at your service,” said the banker.
+
+Prosper foresaw the result of this conversation. He quietly placed his
+hat on the table, to show that he had no intention of attempting to
+escape, and passed into the adjoining room.
+
+Fanferlot also went out, but not before the commissary had made him a
+sign, and received one in return.
+
+This sign signified, “You are responsible for this man.”
+
+The detective needed no admonition to make him keep a strict watch. His
+suspicions were too vague, his desire for success was too ardent, for
+him to lose sight of Prosper an instant.
+
+Closely following the cashier, he seated himself in a dark corner of the
+room, and, pretending to be sleepy, he fixed himself in a comfortable
+position for taking a nap, gaped until his jaw-bone seemed about to be
+dislocated, then closed his eyes, and kept perfectly quiet.
+
+Prosper took a seat at the desk of an absent clerk. The others were
+burning to know the result of the investigation; their eyes shone with
+curiosity, but they dared not ask a question.
+
+Unable to refrain himself any longer, little Cavaillon, Prosper’s
+defender, ventured to say:
+
+“Well, who stole the money?”
+
+Prosper shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Nobody knows,” he replied.
+
+Was this conscious innocence or hardened recklessness? The clerks
+observed with bewildered surprise that Prosper had resumed his usual
+manner, that sort of icy haughtiness that kept people at a distance, and
+made him so unpopular in the bank.
+
+Save the death-like pallor of his face, and the dark circles around
+his swollen eyes, he bore no traces of the pitiable agitation he had
+exhibited a short time before.
+
+Never would a stranger entering the room have supposed that this young
+man idly lounging in a chair, and toying with a pencil, was resting
+under an accusation of robbery, and was about to be arrested.
+
+He soon stopped playing with the pencil, and drew toward him a sheet of
+paper upon which he hastily wrote a few lines.
+
+“Ah, ha!” thought Fanferlot the Squirrel, whose hearing and sight were
+wonderfully good in spite of his profound sleep, “eh! eh! he makes his
+little confidential communication on paper, I see; now we will discover
+something positive.”
+
+His note written, Prosper folded it carefully into the smallest possible
+size, and after furtively glancing toward the detective, who remained
+motionless in his corner, threw it across the desk to little Cavaillon
+with this one word:
+
+“Gypsy!”
+
+All this was so quickly and skilfully done that Fanferlot was
+confounded, and began to feel a little uneasy.
+
+“The devil take him!” said he to himself; “for a suffering innocent this
+young dandy has more pluck and nerve than many of my oldest customers.
+This, however, shows the result of education!”
+
+Yes: innocent or guilty, Prosper must have been endowed with great
+self-control and power of dissimulation to affect this presence of mind
+at a time when his honor, his future happiness, all that he held dear in
+life, were at stake. And he was only thirty years old.
+
+Either from natural deference, or from the hope of gaining some ray of
+light by a private conversation, the commissary determined to speak to
+the banker before acting decisively.
+
+“There is not a shadow of doubt, monsieur,” he said, as soon as they
+were alone, “this young man has robbed you. It would be a gross neglect
+of duty if I did not secure his person. The law will decide whether he
+shall be released, or sent to prison.”
+
+The declaration seemed to distress the banker.
+
+He sank into a chair, and murmured:
+
+“Poor Prosper!”
+
+Seeing the astonished look of his listener, he added:
+
+“Until to-day, monsieur, I have always had the most implicit faith in
+his honesty, and would have unhesitatingly confided my fortune to his
+keeping. Almost on my knees have I besought and implored him to confess
+that in a moment of desperation he had taken the money, promising him
+pardon and forgetfulness; but I could not move him. I have loved
+him; and even now, in spite of the trouble and humiliation that he is
+bringing upon me, I cannot bring myself to feel harshly toward him.”
+
+The commissary looked as if he did not understand.
+
+“What do you mean by humiliation, monsieur?”
+
+“What!” said M. Fauvel, excitedly; “is not justice the same for all?
+Because I am the head of a bank, and he only a clerk, does it follow
+that my word is more to be relied upon than his? Why could I not have
+robbed myself? Such things have been done. They will ask me for facts;
+and I shall be compelled to expose the exact situation of my house,
+explain my affairs, disclose the secret and method of my operations.”
+
+“It is true, monsieur, that you will be called upon for some
+explanation; but your well-known integrity--”
+
+“Alas! He was honest, too. His integrity has never been doubted.
+Who would have been suspected this morning if I had not been able to
+instantly produce a hundred thousand crowns? Who would be suspected if I
+could not prove that my assets exceed my liabilities by more than three
+millions?”
+
+To a strictly honorable man, the thought, the possibility of suspicion
+tarnishing his fair name, is cruel suffering. The banker suffered, and
+the commissary of police saw it, and felt for him.
+
+“Be calm, monsieur,” said he; “before the end of a week justice
+will have collected sufficient proof to establish the guilt of this
+unfortunate man, whom we may now recall.”
+
+Prosper entered with Fanferlot, whom they had much trouble to awaken,
+and with the most stolid indifference listened to the announcement of
+his arrest.
+
+In response, he calmly said:
+
+“I swear that I am innocent.”
+
+M. Fauvel, much more disturbed and excited than his cashier, made a last
+attempt.
+
+“It is not too late yet, poor boy,” he said: “for Heaven’s sake
+reflect----”
+
+Prosper did not appear to hear him. He drew from his pocket a small key,
+which he laid on the table, and said:
+
+“Here is the key of your safe, monsieur. I hope for my sake that you
+will some day be convinced of my innocence; and I hope for your sake
+that the conviction will not come too late.”
+
+Then, as everyone was silent, he resumed:
+
+“Before leaving I hand over to you the books, papers, and accounts
+necessary for my successor. I must at the same time inform you that,
+without speaking of the stolen three hundred and fifty thousand francs,
+I leave a deficit in cash.”
+
+“A deficit!” This ominous word from the lips of a cashier fell like a
+bombshell upon the ears of Prosper’s hearers.
+
+His declaration was interpreted in divers ways.
+
+“A deficit!” thought the commissary: “how, after this, can his guilt be
+doubted? Before stealing this whole contents of the safe, he has kept
+his hand in by occasional small thefts.”
+
+“A deficit!” said the detective to himself, “now, no doubt, the very
+innocence of this poor devil gives his conduct an appearance of great
+depravity; were he guilty, he would have replaced the first money by a
+portion of the second.”
+
+The grave importance of Prosper’s statement was considerably diminished
+by the explanation he proceeded to make.
+
+“There is a deficit of three thousand five hundred francs on my cash
+account, which has been disposed of in the following manner: two
+thousand taken by myself in advance on my salary; fifteen hundred
+advanced to several of my fellow-clerks. This is the last day of the
+month; to-morrow the salaries will be paid, consequently--”
+
+The commissary interrupted him:
+
+“Were you authorized to draw money whenever you wished to advance the
+clerks’ pay?”
+
+“No; but I knew that M. Fauvel would not have refused me permission to
+oblige my friends in the bank. What I did is done everywhere; I have
+simply followed my predecessor’s example.”
+
+The banker made a sign of assent.
+
+“As regards that spent by myself,” continued the cashier, “I had a sort
+of right to it, all of my savings being deposited in this bank; about
+fifteen thousand francs.”
+
+“That is true,” said M. Fauvel; “M. Bertomy has at least that amount on
+deposit.”
+
+This last question settled, the commissary’s errand was over, and his
+report might now be made. He announced his intention of leaving, and
+ordered to cashier to prepare to follow him.
+
+Usually, this moment when stern reality stares us in the face, when
+our individuality is lost and we feel that we are being deprived of our
+liberty, this moment is terrible.
+
+At this fatal command, “Follow me,” which brings before our eyes the
+yawning prison gates, the most hardened sinner feels his courage fail,
+and abjectly begs for mercy.
+
+But Prosper lost none of that studied phlegm which the commissary of
+police secretly pronounced consummate impudence.
+
+Slowly, with as much careless ease as if going to breakfast with a
+friend, he smoothed his hair, drew on his overcoat and gloves, and said,
+politely:
+
+“I am ready to accompany you, monsieur.”
+
+The commissary folded up his pocket-book, and bowed to M. Fauvel, saying
+to Prosper:
+
+“Come!”
+
+They left the room, and with a distressed face, and eyes filled with
+tears that he could not restrain, the banker stood watching their
+retreating forms.
+
+“Good Heaven!” he exclaimed: “gladly would I give twice that sum to
+regain my old confidence in poor Prosper, and be able to keep him with
+me!”
+
+The quick-eared Fanferlot overheard these words, and prompted to
+suspicion, and ever disposed to impute to others the deep astuteness
+peculiar to himself, was convinced they had been uttered for his
+benefit.
+
+He had remained behind the others under pretext of looking for an
+imaginary umbrella, and, as he reluctantly departed, said he would call
+in again to see if it had been found.
+
+It was Fanferlot’s task to escort Prosper to prison; but, as they were
+about starting, he asked the commissary to leave him at liberty to
+pursue another course, a request which his superior granted.
+
+Fanferlot had resolved to obtain possession of Prosper’s note, which he
+knew to be in Cavaillon’s pocket.
+
+To obtain this written proof, which must be an important one, appeared
+the easiest thing in the world. He had simply to arrest Cavaillon,
+frighten him, demand the letter, and, if necessary, take it by force.
+
+But to what would this disturbance lead? To nothing unless it were an
+incomplete and doubtful result.
+
+Fanferlot was convinced that the note was intended, not for the young
+clerk, but for a third person.
+
+If exasperated, Cavaillon might refuse to divulge who this person was,
+who after all might not bear the name “Gypsy” given by the cashier. And,
+even if he did answer his questions, would he not lie?
+
+After a mature reflection, Fanferlot decided that it would be
+superfluous to ask for a secret when it could be surprised. To quietly
+follow Cavaillon, and keep close watch on him until he caught him in the
+very act of handing over the letter, was but play for the detective.
+
+This method of proceeding, moreover, was much more in keeping with the
+character of Fanferlot, who, being naturally soft and stealthy, deemed
+it due to his profession to avoid all disturbance or anything resembling
+evidence.
+
+Fanferlot’s plan was settled when he reached the vestibule.
+
+He began talking with an office-boy, and, after a few apparently idle
+questions, had discovered that the Fauvel bank had no outlet on the Rue
+de la Victoire, and that consequently all the clerks were obliged to
+pass in and out through the main entrance on the Rue de Provence.
+
+From this moment the task he had undertaken no longer presented a shadow
+of difficulty. He rapidly crossed the street, and took up his position
+under a gateway.
+
+His post of observation was admirably chosen; not only could he see
+everyone who entered and came out of the bank, but also commanded a view
+of all the windows, and by standing on tiptoe could look through the
+grating, and see Cavaillon bending over his desk.
+
+Fanferlot waited a long time, but did not wax impatient, for he had
+often had to remain on watch entire days and nights at a time, with much
+less important objects in view than the present one. Besides, his mind
+was busily occupied in estimating the value of his discoveries, weighing
+his chances, and, like Perrette with her pot of milk, building the
+foundation of his fortune upon present success.
+
+Finally, about one o’clock, he saw Cavaillon rise from his desk, change
+his coat, and take down his hat.
+
+“Very good!” he exclaimed, “my man is coming out; I must keep my eyes
+open.”
+
+The next moment Cavaillon appeared at the door of the bank; but
+before stepping on the pavement he looked up and down the street in an
+undecided manner.
+
+“Can he suspect anything?” thought Fanferlot.
+
+No, the young clerk suspected nothing; only having a commission to
+execute, and fearing his absence would be observed, he was debating with
+himself which would be the shortest road for him to take.
+
+He soon decided, entered the Faubourg Montmartre, and walked up the Rue
+Notre Dame de Lorette so rapidly, utterly regardless of the grumbling
+passers-by whom he elbowed out of his way, that Fanferlot found it
+difficult to keep him in sight.
+
+Reaching the Rue Chaptal, Cavaillon suddenly stopped, and entered the
+house numbered 39.
+
+He had scarcely taken three steps in the narrow corridor when he felt a
+touch on his shoulder, and turning abruptly, found himself face to face
+with Fanferlot.
+
+He recognized him at once, and turning very pale he shrank back, and
+looked around for means of escape.
+
+But the detective, anticipating the attempt, barred the passage-way.
+Cavaillon saw that he was fairly caught.
+
+“What do you want with me?” he asked in a voice tremulous with fright.
+
+Fanferlot was distinguished among his confreres for his exquisite
+suavity and unequalled urbanity. Even with his prisoners he was the
+perfection of courtesy, and never was known to handcuff a man without
+first obsequiously apologizing for being compelled to do so.
+
+“You will be kind enough, my dear monsieur,” he said, “to excuse the
+great liberty I take; but I really am under the necessity of asking you
+for a little information.”
+
+“Information! From me, monsieur?”
+
+“From you, my dear monsieur; from M. Eugene Cavaillon.”
+
+“But I do not know you.”
+
+“Ah, yes; you remember seeing me this morning. It is only about a
+trifling matter, and you will overwhelm me with obligations if you will
+do me the honor to accept my arm, and step outside for a moment.”
+
+What could Cavaillon do? He took Fanferlot’s arm, and went out with him.
+
+The Rue Chaptal is not one of those noisy thoroughfares where
+foot-passengers are in perpetual danger of being run over by numberless
+vehicles dashing to and fro; there were but two or three shops, and from
+the corner of Rue Fontaine occupied by an apothecary, to the entrance of
+the Rue Leonie, extended a high, gloomy wall, broken here and there by a
+small window which lighted the carpenters’ shops behind.
+
+It was one of those streets where you could talk at your ease, without
+having to step from the sidewalk every moment. So Fanferlot and
+Cavaillon were in no danger of being disturbed by passers-by.
+
+“What I wished to say is, my dear monsieur,” began the detective, “that
+M. Prosper Bertomy threw you a note this morning.”
+
+Cavaillon vaguely foresaw that he was to be questioned about this note,
+and instantly put himself on his guard.
+
+“You are mistaken,” he said, blushing to his ears.
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur, for presuming to contradict you, but I am quite
+certain of what I say.”
+
+“I assure you that Prosper never gave me anything.”
+
+“Pray, monsieur, do not persist in a denial; you will compel me to prove
+that four clerks saw him throw you a note written in pencil and closely
+folded.”
+
+Cavaillon saw the folly of further contradicting a man so well informed;
+so he changed his tactics, and said:
+
+“It is true Prosper gave me a note this morning; but it was intended for
+me alone, and after reading it I tore it up, and threw the pieces in the
+fire.”
+
+This might be the truth. Fanferlot feared so; but how could he assure
+himself of the fact? He remembered that the most palpable tricks often
+succeed the best, and trusting to his star, he said at hazard:
+
+“Permit me to observe that this statement is not correct; the note was
+intrusted to you to give to Gypsy.”
+
+A despairing gesture from Cavaillon apprised the detective that he was
+not mistaken; he breathed again.
+
+“I swear to you, monsieur,” began the young man.
+
+“Do not swear, monsieur,” interrupted Fanferlot; “all the oaths in the
+world would be useless. You not only preserved the note, but you came
+to this house for the purpose of giving it to Gypsy, and it is in your
+pocket now.”
+
+“No, monsieur, no!”
+
+Fanferlot paid no attention to this denial, but continued in his
+gentlest tone:
+
+“And I am sure you will be kind enough to give it to me; believe me,
+nothing but the most absolute necessity--”
+
+“Never!” exclaimed Cavaillon; and, believing the moment favorable, he
+suddenly attempted to jerk his arm from under Fanferlot’s, and escape.
+
+But his efforts were vain; the detective’s strength was equal to his
+suavity.
+
+“Don’t hurt yourself, young man,” he said, “but take my advice, and
+quietly give up the letter.”
+
+“I have not got it.”
+
+“Very well; see, you reduce me to painful extremities. If you persist
+in being so obstinate, I shall call two policemen, who will take you by
+each arm, and escort you to the commissary of police; and, once there, I
+shall be under the painful necessity of searching your pockets, whether
+you will or not.”
+
+Cavaillon was devoted to Prosper, and willing to make any sacrifice
+in his behalf; but he clearly saw that it was worse than useless to
+struggle any longer, as he would have no time to destroy the note. To
+deliver it under force was no betrayal; but he cursed his powerlessness,
+and almost wept with rage.
+
+“I am in your power,” he said, and then suddenly drew from his
+pocket-book the unlucky note, and gave it to the detective.
+
+Fanferlot trembled with pleasure as he unfolded the paper; yet, faithful
+to his habits of fastidious politeness, before reading it, he bowed to
+Cavaillon, and said:
+
+“You will permit me, will you not, monsieur?” Then he read as follows:
+
+
+“DEAR NINA--If you love me, follow my instructions instantly, without
+a moment’s hesitation, without asking any questions. On the receipt of
+this note, take everything you have in the house, absolutely everything,
+and establish yourself in furnished rooms at the other end of Paris. Do
+not appear in public, but conceal yourself as much as possible. My life
+may depend on your obedience.
+
+“I am accused of an immense robbery, and am about to be arrested. Take
+with you five hundred francs which you will find in the secretary.
+
+“Leave your address with Cavaillon, who will explain what I have not
+time to tell. Be hopeful, whatever happens. Good-by. PROSPER.”
+
+
+Had Cavaillon been less bewildered, he would have seen blank
+disappointment depicted on the detective’s face after the perusal of the
+note.
+
+Fanferlot had cherished the hope that he was about to possess a very
+important document, which would clearly prove the guilt or innocence of
+Prosper; whereas he had only seized a love-letter written by a man who
+was evidently more anxious about the welfare of the woman he loved than
+about his own.
+
+Vainly did he puzzle over the letter, hoping to discover some hidden
+meaning; twist the words as he would, they proved nothing for or against
+the writer.
+
+The two words “absolutely everything” were underscored, it is true; but
+they could be interpreted in so many ways.
+
+The detective, however, determined not to drop the matter here.
+
+“This Mme. Nina Gypsy is doubtless a friend of M. Prosper Bertomy?”
+
+“She is his particular friend.”
+
+“Ah, I understand; and she lives here at No. 39?”
+
+“You know it well enough, as you saw me go in there.”
+
+“I suspected it to be the house, monsieur; now tell me whether the
+apartments she occupies are rented in her name.”
+
+“No. Prosper rents them.”
+
+“Exactly; and on which floor, if you please?”
+
+“On the first.”
+
+During this colloquy, Fanferlot had folded up the note, and slipped it
+into his pocket.
+
+“A thousand thanks, monsieur, for the information; and, in return, I
+will relieve you of the trouble of executing your commission.”
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Yes: with your permission, I will myself take this note to Mme. Nina
+Gypsy.”
+
+Cavaillon began to remonstrate; but Fanferlot cut him short by saying:
+
+“I will also venture to give you a piece of advice. Return quietly to
+your business, and have nothing more to do with this affair.”
+
+“But Prosper is a good friend of mine, and has saved me from ruin more
+than once.”
+
+“Only the more reason for your keeping quiet. You cannot be of the
+slightest assistance to him, and I can tell you that you may be of
+great injury. As you are known to be his devoted friend, of course your
+absence at this time will be remarked upon. Any steps that you take in
+this matter will receive the worst interpretation.”
+
+“Prosper is innocent, I am sure.”
+
+Fanferlot was of the same opinion, but he had no idea of betraying his
+private thoughts; and yet for the success of his investigations it was
+necessary to impress the importance of prudence and discretion upon the
+young man. He would have told him to keep silent concerning what had
+passed between them, but he dared not.
+
+“What you say may be true,” he said. “I hope it is, for the sake of M.
+Bertomy, and on your own account too; for, if he is guilty, you will
+certainly be very much annoyed, and perhaps suspected of complicity, as
+you are well known to be intimate with him.”
+
+Cavaillon was overcome.
+
+“Now you had best take my advice, monsieur, and return to your business,
+and--. Good-morning, monsieur.”
+
+The poor fellow obeyed. Slowly and with swelling heart he returned
+to the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. He asked himself how he could serve
+Prosper, warn Mme. Gypsy, and, above all, have his revenge upon this
+odious detective, who had just made him suffer cruel humiliation.
+
+He had no sooner turned the corner of the street, than Fanferlot entered
+No. 39, gave his name to the porter as Prosper Bertomy, went upstairs,
+and knocked at the first door he came to.
+
+It was opened by a youthful footman, dressed in the most fanciful
+livery.
+
+“Is Mme. Gypsy at home?”
+
+The groom hesitated; seeing this, Fanferlot showed his note, and said:
+
+“M. Prosper told me to hand this note to madame, and wait for an
+answer.”
+
+“Walk in, and I will let madame know you are here.”
+
+The name of Prosper produced its effect. Fanferlot was ushered into
+a little room furnished in blue and gold silk damask. Heavy curtains
+darkened the windows, and hung in front of the doors. The floor was
+covered with a blue velvet carpet.
+
+“Our cashier was certainly well lodged,” murmured the detective.
+
+But he had no time to purse his inventory. One of the door-curtains was
+pushed aside, and Mme. Nina Gypsy stood before him.
+
+Mme. Gypsy was quite young, small, and graceful, with a brown or rather
+gold-colored quadroon complexion, with the hands and feet of a child.
+
+Long curling silk lashes softened the piercing brilliancy of her large
+black eyes; her lips were full, and her teeth were very white.
+
+She had not yet made her toilet, but wore a velvet dressing-wrapper,
+which did not conceal the lace ruffles beneath. But she had already been
+under the hands of a hairdresser.
+
+Her hair was curled and frizzed high on her forehead, and confined by
+narrow bands of red velvet; her back hair was rolled in an immense coil,
+and held by a beautiful gold comb.
+
+She was ravishing. Her beauty was so startling that the dazzled
+detective was speechless with admiration.
+
+“Well,” he said to himself, as he remembered the noble, severe beauty of
+Madeleine, whom he had seen a few hours previous, “our young gentleman
+certainly has good taste--very good taste--two perfect beauties!”
+
+While he thus reflected, perfectly bewildered, and wondering how
+he could begin the conversation, Mme. Gypsy eyed him with the most
+disdainful surprise; she was waiting for this shabby little man in a
+threadbare coat and greasy hat to explain his presence in her dainty
+parlor.
+
+She had many creditors, and was recalling them, and wondering which one
+had dared send this man to wipe his dusty boots on her velvet carpets.
+
+After scrutinizing him from head to foot with undisguised contempt, she
+said, haughtily:
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+Anyone but Fanferlot would have been offended at her insolent manner;
+but he only noticed it to gain some notion of the young woman’s
+disposition.
+
+“She is bad-tempered,” he thought, “and is uneducated.”
+
+While he was speculating upon her merits, Mme. Nina impatiently tapped
+her little foot, and waited for an answer; finally she said:
+
+“Why don’t you speak? What do you want here?”
+
+“I am charged, my dear madame,” he answered in his softest tone, “by M.
+Bertomy, to give you this note.”
+
+“From Prosper! You know him, then?”
+
+“I have that honor, madame; indeed, I may be so bold as to claim him as
+a friend.”
+
+“Monsieur! _You_ a friend of Prosper!” exclaimed Mme. Gypsy in a
+scornful tone, as if her pride were wounded.
+
+Fanferlot did not condescend to notice this offensive exclamation. He
+was ambitious, and contempt failed to irritate him.
+
+“I said a friend of his, madame, and there are few people who would have
+the courage to claim friendship for him now.”
+
+Mme. Gypsy was struck by the words and manner of Fanferlot.
+
+“I never could guess riddles,” she said, tartly: “will you be kind
+enough to explain what you mean?”
+
+The detective slowly drew Prosper’s note from his pocket, and, with a
+bow, presented it to Mme. Gypsy.
+
+“Read, madame,” he said.
+
+She certainly anticipated no misfortune; although her sight was
+excellent, she stopped to fasten a tiny gold eyeglass on her nose, then
+carelessly opened the note.
+
+At a glance she read its contents.
+
+She turned very red, then very pale; she trembled as if with a nervous
+chill; her limbs seemed to give way, and she tottered so that Fanferlot,
+thinking she was about to fall, extended his arms to catch her.
+
+Useless precaution! Mme. Gypsy was one of those women whose inert
+listlessness conceals indomitable energy; fragile-looking creatures
+whose powers of endurance and resistance are unlimited; cat-like in
+their soft grace and delicacy, especially cat-like in their nerves and
+muscles of steel.
+
+The dizziness caused by the shock she had received quickly passed off.
+She tottered, but did not fall, and stood up looking stronger than
+ever; seizing the wrist of the detective, she held it as if her delicate
+little hand were a vice, and cried out:
+
+“Explain yourself! what does all this mean? Do you know anything about
+the contents of this note?”
+
+Although Fanferlot betrayed courage in daily contending with the most
+dangerous rascals, he was positively terrified by Mme. Gypsy.
+
+“Alas!” he murmured.
+
+“Prosper is to be arrested, accused of being a thief?”
+
+“Yes, madame, he is accused of taking three hundred and fifty thousand
+francs from the bank-safe.”
+
+“It is false, infamous, absurd!” she cried. She had dropped Fanferlot’s
+hand; and her fury, like that of a spoiled child, found vent in violent
+actions. She tore her web-like handkerchief, and the magnificent lace on
+her gown, to shreds.
+
+“Prosper steal!” she cried; “what a stupid idea! Why should he steal? Is
+he not rich?”
+
+“M. Bertomy is not rich, madame; he has nothing but his salary.”
+
+The answer seemed to confound Mme. Gypsy.
+
+“But,” she insisted, “I have always seen him have plenty of money; not
+rich--then----”
+
+She dared not finish; but her eye met Fanferlot’s, and they understood
+each other.
+
+Mme. Nina’s look meant:
+
+“He committed this robbery in order to gratify my extravagant whims.”
+
+Fanferlot’s glance answered:
+
+“Very likely, madame.”
+
+A few minutes’ reflection convinced Nina that her first impression
+was the correct one. Doubt fled after hovering for an instant over her
+agitated mind.
+
+“No!” she cried, “I regret to say that Prosper would never have stolen
+one cent for me. One can understand a man robbing a bank to obtain means
+of bestowing pleasure and luxury upon the woman he loves; but Prosper
+does not love me, he never has loved me.”
+
+“Oh, fair lady!” protested the gallant and insinuating Fanferlot, “you
+surely cannot mean what you say.”
+
+Her beautiful eyes filled with tears, as she sadly shook her head, and
+said:
+
+“I mean exactly what I say. It is only too true. He is ready to gratify
+my every wish, you may say; what does that prove? Nothing. I am too
+well convinced that he does not love me. I know what love is. Once I was
+beloved by an affectionate, true-hearted man; and my own sufferings of
+the last year make me know how miserable I must have made him by my cold
+return. Alas! we must suffer ourselves before we can feel for others.
+No, I am nothing to Prosper; he would not care if--”
+
+“But then, madame, why--”
+
+“Ah, yes,” interrupted Nina, “why? you will be very wise if you can
+answer me. For a year have I vainly sought an answer to this question,
+so sad to me. I, a woman, cannot answer it; and I defy you to do so. You
+cannot discover the thoughts of a man so thoroughly master of himself
+that never is a single thought passing in his mind to be detected upon
+his countenance. I have watched him as only a woman can watch the man
+upon whom her fate depends, but it has always been in vain. He is kind
+and indulgent; but he does not betray himself, never will he commit
+himself. Ignorant people call him weak, yielding: I tell you that
+fair-haired man is a rod of iron painted like a reed!”
+
+Carried away by the violence of her feelings, Mme. Nina betrayed her
+inmost thoughts. She was without distrust, never suspecting that the
+stranger listening to her was other than a friend of Prosper.
+
+As for Fanferlot, he congratulated himself upon his success. No one but
+a woman could have drawn him so excellent a portrait; in a moment of
+excitement she had given him the most valuable information; he now
+knew the nature of the man with whom he had to deal, which in an
+investigation like that he was pursuing is the principal point.
+
+“You know that M. Bertomy gambles,” he ventured to say, “and gambling is
+apt to lead a man--”
+
+Mme. Gypsy shrugged her shoulders, and interrupted him:
+
+“Yes, he plays,” she said, “but he is not a gambler. I have seen him
+lose and gain large sums without betraying the slightest agitation. He
+plays as he drinks, as he sups, as he falls in love--without passion,
+without enthusiasm, without pleasure. Sometimes he frightens me; he
+seems to drag about a body without a soul. Ah, I am not happy! Never
+have I been able to overcome his indifference, and indifference so
+great, so reckless, that I often think it must be despair; nothing will
+convince me that he has not some terrible secret, some great misfortune
+weighing upon his mind, and making life a burden.”
+
+“Then he has never spoken to you of his past?”
+
+“Why should he tell me? Did you not hear me? I tell you he does not love
+me!”
+
+Mme. Nina was overcome by thoughts of the past, and tears silently
+coursed down her cheeks.
+
+But her despair was only momentary. She started up, and, her eyes
+sparkling with generous resolution, she cried out:
+
+“But I love him, and I will save him! I will see his chief, the
+miserable wretch who dares to accuse him. I will haunt the judges, and
+I will prove that he is innocent. Come, monsieur, let us start, and I
+promise you that before sunset he shall be free, or I shall be in prison
+with him.”
+
+Mme. Gypsy’s project was certainly laudable, and prompted by the noblest
+sentiments; but unfortunately it was impracticable.
+
+Moreover, it would be going counter to the plans of the detective.
+
+Although he had resolved to reserve to himself all the difficulties
+as well as the benefits of this inquiry, Fanferlot saw clearly that
+he could not conceal the existence of Mme. Nina from the judge of
+instruction. She would necessarily be brought into the case, and sought
+for. But he did not wish her to take any steps of her own accord. He
+proposed to have her appear when and how he judged proper, so that he
+might gain for himself the merit of having discovered her.
+
+His first step was to endeavor to calm the young woman’s excitement. He
+thought it easy to prove to her that the least interference in favor of
+Prosper would be a piece of folly.
+
+“What will you gain by acting thus, my dear madame?” he asked. “Nothing.
+I can assure you that you have not the least chance of success. Remember
+that you will seriously compromise yourself. Who knows if you will not
+be suspected as M. Bertomy’s accomplice?”
+
+But this alarming perspective, which had frightened Cavaillon into
+foolishly giving up a letter which he might so easily have retained,
+only stimulated Gypsy’s enthusiasm. Man calculates, while woman follows
+the inspirations of her heart. Our most devoted friend, if a man,
+hesitates and draws back: if a woman, rushes undauntedly forward,
+regardless of the danger.
+
+“What matters the risk?” she exclaimed. “I don’t believe any danger
+exists; but, if it does, so much the better: it will be all the more to
+my credit. I am sure Prosper is innocent; but, if he should be guilty, I
+wish to share the punishment which awaits him.”
+
+Mme. Gypsy’s persistence was becoming alarming. She hastily drew around
+her a cashmere shawl, and, putting on her hat, declared that she was
+ready to walk from one end of Paris to the other, in search of the
+judge.
+
+“Come, monsieur,” she said with feverish impatience. “Are you not coming
+with me?”
+
+Fanferlot was perplexed. Happily he always had several strings to his
+bow.
+
+Personal considerations having no hold upon this impulsive nature, he
+resolved to appeal to her interest in Prosper.
+
+“I am at your command, fair lady,” he said; “let us go if you desire
+it; only permit me, while there is yet time, to say that we are very
+probably going to do great injury to M. Bertomy.”
+
+“In what way, if you please?”
+
+“Because we are taking a step that he expressly forbade in his letter;
+we are surprising him--giving him no warning.”
+
+Nina scornfully tossed her head, and replied:
+
+“There are some people who must be saved without warning, and against
+their will. I know Prosper: he is just the man to let himself be
+murdered without a struggle, without speaking a word--to give himself up
+through sheer recklessness and despair.”
+
+“Excuse me, madame,” interrupted the detective: “M. Bertomy has by
+no means the appearance of a man who has given up in despair. On the
+contrary, I think he has already laid his plan of defence. By showing
+yourself, when he advised you to remain in concealment, you will be very
+likely to make vain his most careful precautions.”
+
+Mme. Gypsy was silently weighing the value of Fanferlot’s objections.
+Finally she said:
+
+“I cannot remain here inactive, without attempting to contribute in
+some way to his safety. Can you not understand that this floor burns my
+feet?”
+
+Evidently, if she was not absolutely convinced, her resolution was
+shaken. Fanferlot saw that he was gaining ground, and this certainty,
+making him more at ease, gave weight to his eloquence.
+
+“You have it in your power, madame,” he said, “to render a great service
+to the man you love.”
+
+“In what way, monsieur, in what way?”
+
+“Obey him, my child,” said Fanferlot, in a paternal manner.
+
+Mme. Gypsy evidently expected very different advice.
+
+“Obey,” she murmured, “obey!”
+
+“It is your duty,” said Fanferlot with grave dignity, “it is your sacred
+duty.”
+
+She still hesitated; and he took from the table Prosper’s note, which
+she had laid there, then continued:
+
+“What! M. Bertomy at the most trying moment, when he is about to be
+arrested, stops to point out your line of conduct; and you would render
+vain this wise precaution! What does he say to you? Let us read over
+this note, which is like the testament of his liberty. He says, ‘If you
+love me, I entreat you, obey.’ And you hesitate to obey. Then you do not
+love him. Can you not understand, unhappy child, that M. Bertomy has his
+reasons, terrible, imperious reasons, for your remaining in obscurity
+for the present?”
+
+Fanferlot understood these reasons the moment he put his foot in the
+sumptuous apartment of the Rue Chaptal; and, if he did not expose them
+now, it was because he kept them as a good general keeps his reserve,
+for the purpose of deciding the victory.
+
+Mme. Gypsy was intelligent enough to divine these reasons.
+
+“Reasons for my hiding! Prosper wishes, then, to keep everyone in
+ignorance of our intimacy.”
+
+She remained thoughtful for a moment; then a ray of light seemed to
+cross her mind, and she cried:
+
+“Oh, I understand now! Fool that I was for not seeing it before! My
+presence here, where I have been for a year, would be an overwhelming
+charge against him. An inventory of my possessions would be taken--of my
+dresses, my laces, my jewels--and my luxury would be brought against him
+as a crime. He would be asked to tell where he obtained so much money to
+lavish all these elegancies on me.”
+
+The detective bowed, and said:
+
+“That is true, madame.”
+
+“Then I must fly, monsieur, at once. Who knows that the police are not
+already warned, and may appear at any moment?”
+
+“Oh,” said Fanferlot with easy assurance, “you have plenty of time; the
+police are not so very prompt.”
+
+“No matter!”
+
+And, leaving the detective alone in the parlor, Mme. Nina hastily
+ran into her bedroom, and calling her maid, her cook, and her little
+footman, ordered them to empty her bureau and chests of their contents,
+and assisted them to stuff her best clothing and jewels into her trunks.
+
+Suddenly she rushed back to Fanferlot and said:
+
+“Everything will be ready to start in a few minutes, but where am I to
+go?”
+
+“Did not M. Bertomy say, my dear lady, to the other end of Paris? To a
+hotel, or furnished apartments.”
+
+“But I don’t know where to find any.”
+
+Fanferlot seemed to be reflecting; but he had great difficulty in
+concealing his delight at a sudden idea that flashed upon him; his
+little black eyes fairly danced with joy.
+
+“I know of a hotel,” he said at last, “but it might not suit you. It is
+not elegantly furnished like this room.”
+
+“Would I be comfortable there?”
+
+“Upon my recommendation you would be treated like a queen, and, above
+all, concealed.”
+
+“Where is it?”
+
+“On the other side of the river, Quai Saint Michel, the Archangel, kept
+by Mme. Alexandre.”
+
+Mme. Nina was never long making up her mind.
+
+“Here are pen and paper; write your recommendation.”
+
+He rapidly wrote, and handed her the letter.
+
+“With these three lines, madame, you can make Mme. Alexandre do anything
+you wish.”
+
+“Very good. Now, how am I to let Cavaillon know my address? It was he
+who should have brought me Prosper’s letter.”
+
+“He was unable to come, madame,” interrupted the detective, “but I will
+give him your address.”
+
+Mme. Gypsy was about to send for a carriage, but Fanferlot said he was
+in a hurry, and would send her one. He seemed to be in luck that day;
+for a cab was passing the door, and he hailed it.
+
+“Wait here,” he said to the driver, after telling him that he was a
+detective, “for a little brunette who is coming down with some trunks.
+If she tells you to drive her to Quai Saint Michel, crack your whip; if
+she gives you any other address, get down from your seat, and arrange
+your harness. I will keep in sight.”
+
+He stepped across the street, and stood in the door of a wine-store.
+He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the loud cracking of a whip
+apprised him that Mme. Nina had started for the Archangel.
+
+“Aha,” said he, gayly, “I told _her_, at any rate.”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+At the same hour that Mme. Nina Gypsy was seeking refuge at the
+Archangel, so highly recommended by Fanferlot the Squirrel, Prosper
+Bertomy was being entered on the jailer’s book at the police office.
+
+Since the moment when he had resumed his habitual composure, he had not
+faltered.
+
+Vainly did the people around him watch for a suspicious expression, or
+any sign of giving way under the danger of his situation.
+
+His face was like marble.
+
+One would have supposed him insensible to the horrors of his condition,
+had not his heavy breathing, and the beads of perspiration standing on
+his brow, betrayed the intense agony he was suffering.
+
+At the police office, where he had to wait two hours while the
+commissary went to receive orders from higher authorities, he entered
+into conversation with the two bailiffs who had charge of him.
+
+At twelve o’clock he said he was hungry, and sent to a restaurant near
+by for his breakfast, which he ate with a good appetite; he also drank
+nearly a bottle of wine.
+
+While he was thus occupied, several clerks from the prefecture, who
+have to transact business daily with the commissary of police, curiously
+watched him. They all formed the same opinion, and admiringly said to
+each other:
+
+“Well, he is made of strong material, he is!”
+
+“Yes, my dandy looks too lamb-like to be left to his own devices. He
+ought to have a strong escort.”
+
+When he was told that a coach was waiting for him at the door, he at
+once got up; but, before going out, he requested permission to light a
+cigar, which was granted.
+
+A flower-girl stood just by the door, with her stand filled with all
+varieties of flowers. He stopped and bought a bunch of violets. The
+girl, seeing that he was arrested, said, by way of thanks:
+
+“Good luck to you, my poor gentleman!”
+
+He appeared touched by this mark of interest, and replied:
+
+“Thanks, my good woman, but ‘tis a long time since I have had any.”
+
+It was magnificent weather, a bright spring morning. As the coach went
+along Rue Montmartre, Prosper kept his head out of the window, at the
+same time smilingly complaining at being imprisoned on such a lovely
+day, when everything outside was so sunny and pleasant.
+
+“It is singular,” he said, “I never felt so great a desire to take a
+walk.”
+
+One of the bailiffs, a large, jovial, red-faced man, received this
+remark with a hearty burst of laughter, and said:
+
+“I understand.”
+
+To the court clerk, while he was going through the formalities of the
+commitment, Prosper replied with haughty brevity to the indispensable
+questions asked him.
+
+But when he was ordered to empty his pockets on the table, and they
+began to search him, his eyes flashed with indignation, and a single
+tear dropped upon his flushed cheek. In an instant he had recovered his
+stony calmness, and stood up motionless, with his arms raised in the air
+so that the rough creatures about him could more conveniently ransack
+him from head to foot, to assure themselves that he had no suspicious
+object hid under his clothes.
+
+The search would have, perhaps, been carried to the most ignominious
+lengths, but for the intervention of a middle-aged man of rather
+distinguished appearance, who wore a white cravat and gold spectacles,
+and was sitting quite at home by the fire.
+
+He started with surprise, and seemed much agitated, when he saw Prosper
+brought in by the bailiffs; he stepped forward, and seemed about to
+speak to him, then suddenly changed his mind, and sat down again.
+
+In spite of his own troubles, Prosper could not help seeing that this
+man kept his eyes fastened upon him. Did he know him? Vainly did he try
+to recollect having met him before.
+
+This man, treated with all the deference due to a chief, was no less a
+personage than M. Lecoq, a celebrated member of the detective corps.
+
+When the men who were searching Prosper were about to take off his
+boots, saying that a knife might be concealed in them. M. Lecoq waved
+them aside with an air of authority, and said:
+
+“You have done enough.”
+
+He was obeyed. All the formalities being ended, the unfortunate cashier
+was taken to a narrow cell; the heavily barred door was swung to and
+locked upon him; he breathed freely; at last he was alone.
+
+Yes, he believed himself to be alone. He was ignorant that a prison is
+made of glass, that the accused is like a miserable insect under the
+microscope of an entomologist. He knew not that the walls have stretched
+ears and watchful eyes.
+
+He was so sure of being alone that he at once gave vent to his
+suppressed feelings, and, dropping his mask of impassibility, burst
+into a flood of tears. His long-restrained anger now flashed out like a
+smouldering fire.
+
+In a paroxysm of rage he uttered imprecations and curses. He dashed
+himself against the prison-walls like a wild beast in a cage.
+
+Prosper Bertomy was not the man he appeared to be.
+
+This haughty, correct gentleman had ardent passions and a fiery
+temperament.
+
+One day, when he was about twenty-four years of age, he had become
+suddenly fired by ambition. While all of his desires were repressed,
+imprisoned in his low estate, like an athlete in a strait-jacket, seeing
+around him all these rich people with whom money assumed the place of
+the wand in the fairy-tale, he envied their lot.
+
+He studied the beginnings of these financial princes, and found that at
+the starting-point they possessed far less than himself.
+
+How, then, had they succeeded? By force of energy, industry, and
+assurance.
+
+He determined to imitate and excel them.
+
+From this day, with a force of will much less rare than we think, he
+imposed silence upon his instincts. He reformed not his morals, but his
+manners; and so strictly did he conform to the rules of decorum, that
+he was regarded as a model of propriety by those who knew him, and had
+faith in his character; and his capabilities and ambition inspired the
+prophecy that he would be successful in attaining eminence and wealth.
+
+And the end of all was this: imprisoned for robbery; that is, ruined!
+
+For he did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew that, guilty or
+innocent, a man once suspected is as ineffaceably branded as the
+shoulder of a galley-slave.
+
+Therefore what was the use of struggling? What benefit was a triumph
+which could not wash out the stain?
+
+When the jailer brought him his supper, he found him lying on his
+pallet, with his face buried in the pillow, weeping bitterly.
+
+Ah, he was not hungry now! Now that he was alone, he fed upon his own
+bitter thoughts. He sank from a state of frenzy into one of stupefying
+despair, and vainly did he endeavor to clear his confused mind, and
+account for the dark cloud gathering about him; no loop-hole for escape
+did he discover.
+
+The night was long and terrible, and for the first time he had nothing
+to count the hours by, as they slowly dragged on, but the measured tread
+of the patrol who came to relieve the sentinels. He was wretched.
+
+At dawn he dropped into a sleep, a heavy, oppressive sleep, which was
+more wearisome than refreshing; from which he was startled by the rough
+voice of the jailer.
+
+“Come, monsieur,” he said, “it is time for you to appear before the
+judge of instruction.”
+
+He jumped up at once, and, without stopping to repair his disordered
+toilet, said:
+
+“Come on, quick!”
+
+The constable remarked, as they walked along:
+
+“You are very fortunate in having your case brought before an honest
+man.”
+
+He was right.
+
+Endowed with remarkable penetration, firm, unbiased, equally free from
+false pity and excessive severity, M. Patrigent possessed in an eminent
+degree all the qualities necessary for the delicate and difficult office
+of judge of instruction.
+
+Perhaps he was wanting in the feverish activity which is sometimes
+necessary for coming to a quick and just decision; but he possessed
+unwearying patience, which nothing could discourage. He would cheerfully
+devote years to the examination of a case; he was even now engaged on a
+case of Belgian bank-notes, of which he did not collect all the threads,
+and solve the mystery, until after four years’ investigation.
+
+Thus it was always to his office that they brought the endless lawsuits,
+half-finished inquests, and tangled cases.
+
+This was the man before whom they were taking Prosper; and they were
+taking him by a difficult road.
+
+He was escorted along a corridor, through a room full of policemen, down
+a narrow flight of steps, across a kind of cellar, and then up a steep
+staircase which seemed to have no terminus.
+
+Finally he reached a long narrow galley, upon which opened many doors,
+bearing different numbers.
+
+The custodian of the unhappy cashier stopped before one of these doors,
+and said:
+
+“Here we are; here your fate will be decided.”
+
+At this remark, uttered in a tone of deep commiseration, Prosper could
+not refrain from shuddering.
+
+It was only too true, that on the other side of this door was a man upon
+whose decision his freedom depended.
+
+Summoning all his courage, he turned the door-knob, and was about to
+enter when the constable stopped him.
+
+“Don’t be in such haste,” he said; “you must sit down here, and wait
+till your turn comes; then you will be called.”
+
+The wretched man obeyed, and his keeper took a seat beside him.
+
+Nothing is more terrible and lugubrious than this gallery of the judges
+of instruction.
+
+Stretching the whole length of the wall is a wooden bench blackened by
+constant use. This bench has for the last ten years been daily occupied
+by all the murderers, thieves, and suspicious characters of the
+Department of the Seine.
+
+Sooner or later, fatally, as filth rushes to a sewer, does crime
+reach this gallery, this dreadful gallery with one door opening on the
+galleys, the other on the scaffold. This place was vulgarly and pithily
+denominated by a certain magistrate as the great public wash-house of
+all the dirty linen in Paris.
+
+When Prosper reached the gallery it was full of people. The bench was
+almost entirely occupied. Beside him, so close as to touch his shoulder,
+sat a man with a sinister countenance, dressed in rags.
+
+Before each door, which belonged to a judge of instruction, stood groups
+of witnesses talking in an undertone.
+
+Policemen were constantly coming and going with prisoners. Sometimes,
+above the noise of their heavy boots, tramping along the flagstones,
+could be heard a woman’s stifled sobs, and looking around you would
+see some poor mother or wife with her face buried in her handkerchief,
+weeping bitterly.
+
+At short intervals a door would open and shut, and a bailiff call out a
+name or number.
+
+This stifling atmosphere, and the sight of so much misery, made the
+cashier ill and faint; he was feeling as if another five minutes’ stay
+among these wretched creatures would make him deathly sick, when a
+little old man dressed in black, wearing the insignia of his office, a
+steel chain, cried out:
+
+“Prosper Bertomy!”
+
+The unhappy man arose, and, without knowing how, found himself in the
+office of the judge of instruction.
+
+For a moment he was blinded. He had come out of a dark room; and the one
+in which he now found himself had a window directly opposite the door,
+so that a flood of light fell suddenly upon him.
+
+This office, like all those on the gallery, was of a very ordinary
+appearance, small and dingy.
+
+The wall was covered with cheap dark green paper, and on the floor was a
+hideous brown carpet, very much worn.
+
+Opposite the door was a large desk, filled with bundles of law-papers,
+behind which was seated the judge, facing those who entered, so that his
+face remained in the shade, while that of the prisoner or witness whom
+he questioned was in a glare of light.
+
+At the right, before a little table, sat a clerk writing, the
+indispensable auxiliary of the judge.
+
+But Prosper observed none of these details: his whole attention was
+concentrated upon the arbiter of his fate, and as he closely examined
+his face he was convinced that the jailer was right in calling him an
+honorable man.
+
+M. Patrigent’s homely face, with its irregular outline and short red
+whiskers, lit up by a pair of bright, intelligent eyes, and a kindly
+expression, was calculated to impress one favorably at first sight.
+
+“Take a seat,” he said to Prosper.
+
+This little attention was gratefully welcomed by the prisoner, for he
+had expected to be treated with harsh contempt. He looked upon it as a
+good sign, and his mind felt a slight relief.
+
+M. Patrigent turned toward the clerk, and said:
+
+“We will begin now, Sigault; pay attention.”
+
+“What is your name?” he then asked, looking at Prosper.
+
+“Auguste Prosper Bertomy.”
+
+“How old are you?”
+
+“I shall be thirty the 5th of next May.”
+
+“What is your profession?”
+
+“I am--that is, I was--cashier in M. Andre Fauvel’s bank.”
+
+The judge stopped to consult a little memorandum lying on his desk.
+Prosper, who followed attentively his every movement, began to be
+hopeful, saying to himself that never would a man so unprejudiced have
+the cruelty to send him to prison again.
+
+After finding what he looked for, M. Patrigent resumed the examination.
+
+“Where do you live?”
+
+“At No. 39, Rue Chaptal, for the last four years. Before that time I
+lived at No. 7, Boulevard des Batignolles.”
+
+“Where were you born?”
+
+“At Beaucaire in the Department of the Gard.”
+
+“Are your parents living?”
+
+“My mother died two years ago; my father is still living.”
+
+“Does he live in Paris?”
+
+“No, monsieur: he lives at Beaucaire with my sister, who married one of
+the engineers of the Southern Canal.”
+
+It was in broken tones that Prosper answered these last questions.
+There are moments in the life of a man when home memories encourage
+and console him; there are also moments when he would be thankful to be
+without a single tie, and bitterly regrets that he is not alone in the
+world.
+
+M. Patrigent observed the prisoner’s emotion, when he spoke of his
+parents.
+
+“What is your father’s calling?” he continued.
+
+“He was formerly superintendent of the bridges and canals; then he
+was employed on the Southern Canal, with my brother-in-law; now he has
+retired from business.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. The judge had turned his chair around, so
+that, although his head was apparently averted, he had a good view of
+the workings of Prosper’s face.
+
+“Well,” he said, abruptly, “you are accused of having robbed M. Fauvel
+of three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+During the last twenty-four hours the wretched young man had had time to
+familiarize himself with the terrible idea of this accusation; and yet,
+uttered as it was in this formal, brief tone, it seemed to strike him
+with a horror which rendered him incapable of opening his lips.
+
+“What have you to answer?” asked the judge.
+
+“That I am innocent, monsieur; I swear that I am innocent!”
+
+“I hope you are,” said M. Patrigent, “and you may count upon me to
+assist you to the extent of my ability in proving your innocence. You
+must have defence, some facts to state; have you not?”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, what can I say, when I cannot understand this dreadful
+business myself? I can only refer you to my past life.”
+
+The judge interrupted him:
+
+“Let us be specific; the robbery was committed under circumstances that
+prevent suspicion from falling upon anyone but M. Fauvel and yourself.
+Do you suspect anyone else?”
+
+“No, monsieur.”
+
+“You declare yourself to be innocent, therefore the guilty party must be
+M. Fauvel.”
+
+Prosper remained silent.
+
+“Have you,” persisted the judge, “any cause for believing that M. Fauvel
+robbed himself?”
+
+The prisoner preserved a rigid silence.
+
+“I see, monsieur,” said the judge, “that you need time for reflection.
+Listen to the reading of your examination, and after signing it you will
+return to prison.”
+
+The unhappy man was overcome. The last ray of hope was gone. He heard
+nothing of what Sigault read, and he signed the paper without looking at
+it.
+
+He tottered as he left the judge’s office, so that the keeper was forced
+to support him.
+
+“I fear your case looks dark, monsieur,” said the man, “but don’t be
+disheartened; keep up your courage.”
+
+Courage! Prosper had not a spark of it when he returned to his cell; but
+his heart was filled with anger and resentment.
+
+He had determined that he would defend himself before the judge, that
+he would prove his innocence; and he had not had time to do so. He
+reproached himself bitterly for having trusted to the judge’s benevolent
+face.
+
+“What a farce,” he angrily exclaimed, “to call that an examination!”
+
+It was not really an examination, but a mere formality.
+
+In summoning Prosper, M. Patrigent obeyed Article 93 of the Criminal
+Code, which says, “Every suspected person under arrest must be examined
+within twenty-four hours.”
+
+But it is not in twenty-four hours, especially in a case like this, with
+no evidence or material proof, that a judge can collect the materials
+for an examination.
+
+To triumph over the obstinate defence of a prisoner who shuts himself up
+in absolute denial as if in a fortress, valid proofs are needed. These
+weapons M. Patrigent was busily preparing. If Prosper had remained a
+little longer in the gallery, he would have seen the same bailiff who
+had called him come out to the judge’s office, and cry out:
+
+“Number three.”
+
+The witness, who was awaiting his turn, and answered the call for number
+three, was M. Fauvel.
+
+The banker was no longer the same man. Yesterday he was kind and affable
+in his manner: now, as he entered the judge’s room, he seemed irritated.
+Reflection, which usually brings calmness and a desire to pardon,
+brought him anger and a thirst for vengeance.
+
+The inevitable questions which commence every examination had scarcely
+been addressed to him before his impetuous temper gained the mastery,
+and he burst forth in invectives against Prosper.
+
+M. Patrigent was obliged to impose silence upon him, reminding him of
+what was due to himself, no matter what wrongs he had suffered at the
+hands of his clerk.
+
+Although he had very slightly examined Prosper, the judge was now
+scrupulously attentive and particular in having every question answered.
+Prosper’s examination had been a mere formality, the stating and proving
+a fact. Now it related to collecting the attendant circumstances and
+the most trifling particulars, so as to group them together, and reach a
+just conclusion.
+
+“Let us proceed in order,” said the judge, “and pray confine yourself
+to answering my questions. Did you ever suspect your cashier of being
+dishonest?”
+
+“Certainly not. Yet there were reasons which should have made me
+hesitate to trust him with my funds.”
+
+“What reasons?”
+
+“M. Bertomy played cards. I have known of his spending whole nights at
+the gaming table, and losing immense sums of money. He was intimate with
+an unprincipled set. Once he was mixed up with one of my clients, M. de
+Clameran, in a scandalous gambling affair which took place at the house
+of some disreputable woman, and wound up by being tried before the
+police court.”
+
+For some minutes the banker continued to revile Prosper.
+
+“You must confess, monsieur,” interrupted the judge, “that you were very
+imprudent, if not culpable, to have intrusted your safe to such a man.”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, Prosper was not always thus. Until the past year he was
+a model of goodness. He lived in my house as one of my family; he spent
+all of his evenings with us, and was the bosom friend of my eldest son
+Lucien. One day, he suddenly left us, and never came to the house again.
+Yet I had every reason to believe him attached to my niece Madeleine.”
+
+M. Patrigent had a peculiar manner of contracting his brows when he
+thought he had discovered some new proof. He now did this, and said:
+
+“Might not this admiration for the young lady have been the cause of M.
+Bertomy’s estrangement?”
+
+“How so?” said the banker with surprise. “I was willing to bestow
+Madeleine upon him, and, to be frank, was astonished that he did not ask
+for her hand. My niece would be a good match for any man, and he should
+have considered himself fortunate to obtain her. She is beautiful, and
+her dowry will be half a million.”
+
+“Then you can see no motive for your cashier’s conduct?”
+
+“It is impossible for me to account for it. I have, however, always
+supposed that Prosper was led astray by a young man whom he met at my
+house about this time, M. Raoul de Lagors.”
+
+“Ah! and who is this young man?”
+
+“A relative of my wife; a very attractive, intelligent young man,
+somewhat wild, but rich enough to pay for his follies.”
+
+The judge wrote the name Lagors at the bottom of an already long list on
+his memorandum.
+
+“Now,” he said, “we are coming to the point. You are sure that the theft
+was not committed by anyone in your house?”
+
+“Quite sure, monsieur.”
+
+“You always kept your key?”
+
+“I generally carried it about on my person; and, whenever I left it at
+home, I put it in the secretary drawer in my chamber.”
+
+“Where was it the evening of the robbery?”
+
+“In my secretary.”
+
+“But then--”
+
+“Excuse me for interrupting you,” said M. Fauvel, “and to permit me to
+tell you that, to a safe like mine, the key is of no importance. In the
+first place, one is obliged to know the word upon which the five movable
+buttons turn. With the word one can open it without the key; but without
+the word--”
+
+“And you never told this word to anyone?”
+
+“To no one, monsieur, and sometimes I would have been puzzled to know
+myself with what word the safe had been closed. Prosper would change it
+when he chose, and, if he had not informed me of the change, would have
+to come and open it for me.”
+
+“Had you forgotten it on the day of the theft?”
+
+“No: the word had been changed the day before; and its peculiarity
+struck me.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Gypsy, g, y, p, s, y,” said the banker, spelling the name.
+
+M. Patrigent wrote down this name.
+
+“One more question, monsieur: were you at home the evening before the
+robbery?”
+
+“No; I dined and spent the evening with a friend; when I returned home,
+about one o’clock, my wife had retired, and I went to bed immediately.”
+
+“And you were ignorant of the amount of money in the safe?”
+
+“Absolutely. In conformity with my positive orders, I could only suppose
+that a small sum had been left there over-night; I stated this fact to
+the commissary in M. Bertomy’s presence, and he acknowledged it to be
+the case.”
+
+“Perfectly correct, monsieur: the commissary’s report proves it.” M.
+Patrigent was for a time silent. To him everything depended upon this
+one fact, that the banker was unaware of the three hundred and fifty
+thousand francs being in the safe, and Prosper had disobeyed orders
+by placing them there over-night; hence the conclusion was very easily
+drawn.
+
+Seeing that his examination was over, the banker thought that he would
+relieve his mind of what was weighing upon it.
+
+“I believe myself above suspicion, monsieur,” he began, “and yet I can
+never rest easy until Bertomy’s guilt has been clearly proved. Calumny
+prefers attacking a successful man: I may be calumniated: three hundred
+and fifty thousand francs is a fortune capable of tempting even a
+rich man. I would be obliged if you would have the condition of my
+banking-house examined. This examination will prove that I could have
+no interest in robbing my own safe. The prosperous condition of my
+affairs--”
+
+“That is sufficient, monsieur.”
+
+M. Patrigent was well informed of the high standing of the banker, and
+knew almost as much of his affairs as did M. Fauvel himself.
+
+He asked him to sign his testimony, and then escorted him to the door of
+his office, a rare favor on his part.
+
+When M. Fauvel had left the room, Sigault indulged in a remark.
+
+“This seems to be a very cloudy case,” he said; “if the cashier is
+shrewd and firm, it will be difficult to convict him.”
+
+“Perhaps it will,” said the judge, “but let us hear the other witnesses
+before deciding.”
+
+The person who answered to the call for number four was Lucien, M.
+Fauvel’s eldest son.
+
+He was a tall, handsome young man of twenty-two. To the judge’s
+questions he replied that he was very fond of Prosper, was once very
+intimate with him, and had always regarded him as a strictly honorable
+man, incapable of doing anything unbecoming a gentleman.
+
+He declared that he could not imagine what fatal circumstances could
+have induced Prosper to commit a theft. He knew he played cards, but not
+to the extent that was reported. He had never known him to indulge in
+expenses beyond his means.
+
+In regard to his cousin Madeleine, he replied:
+
+“I always thought that Prosper was in love with Madeleine, and, until
+yesterday, I was certain he would marry her, knowing that my father
+would not oppose their marriage. I have always attributed the
+discontinuance of Prosper’s visits to a quarrel with my cousin, but
+supposed they would end by becoming reconciled.”
+
+This information, more than that of M. Fauvel, threw light upon
+Prosper’s past life, but did not apparently reveal any evidence which
+could be used in the present state of affairs.
+
+Lucien signed his deposition, and withdrew.
+
+Cavaillon’s turn for examination came next. The poor fellow was in a
+pitiable state of mind when he appeared before the judge.
+
+Having, as a great secret, confided to a friend his adventure with the
+detective, and being jeered at for his cowardice in giving up the note,
+he felt great remorse, and passed the night in reproaching himself for
+having ruined Prosper.
+
+He endeavored to repair, as well as he could, what he called his
+treason.
+
+He did not exactly accuse M. Fauvel, but he courageously declared that
+he was the cashier’s friend, and that he was as sure of his innocence as
+he was of his own.
+
+Unfortunately, besides his having no proofs to strengthen his
+assertions, these were deprived of any value by his violent professions
+of friendship for the accused.
+
+After Cavaillon, six or eight clerks of the Fauvel bank successively
+defiled in the judge’s office; but their depositions were nearly all
+insignificant.
+
+One of them, however, stated a fact which the judge carefully noted.
+He said he knew that Prosper had speculated on the Bourse through the
+medium of M. Raoul de Lagors, and had gained immense sums.
+
+Five o’clock struck before the list of witnesses summoned for the day
+was exhausted. But the task of M. Patrigent was not yet finished. He
+rang for his bailiff, who instantly appeared, and said to him:
+
+“Go at once, and bring Fanferlot here.”
+
+It was some time before the detective answered the summons. Having met
+a colleague on the gallery, he thought it his duty to treat him to a
+drink; and the bailiff had found it necessary to bring him from the
+little inn at the corner.
+
+“How is it that you keep people waiting?” said the judge, when he
+entered bowing and scraping. Fanferlot bowed more profoundly still.
+
+Despite his smiling face, he was very uneasy. To prosecute the Bertomy
+case alone, it required a double play that might be discovered at any
+moment; to manage at once the cause of justice and his own ambition, he
+ran great risks, the least of which was the losing of his place.
+
+“I have a great deal to do,” he said, to excuse himself, “and have not
+wasted any time.”
+
+And he began to give a detailed account of his movements. He was
+embarrassed, for he spoke with all sorts of restrictions, picking out
+what was to be said, and avoiding what was to be left unsaid. Thus he
+gave the history of Cavaillon’s letter, which he handed to the judge;
+but he did not breathe a word of Madeleine. On the other hand, he gave
+biographical details, very minute indeed, of Prosper and Mme. Gypsy,
+which he had collected from various quarters during the day.
+
+As he progressed the conviction of M. Patrigent was strengthened.
+
+“This young man is evidently guilty,” he said. Fanferlot did not reply;
+his opinion was different, but he was delighted that the judge was
+on the wrong track, thinking that his own glory would thereby be the
+greater when he discovered the real culprit. True, this grand discovery
+was as far off as it had ever been; but Fanferlot was hopeful.
+
+After hearing all he had to tell, the judge dismissed Fanferlot, telling
+him to return the next day.
+
+“Above all,” he said, as Fanferlot left the room, “do not lose sight of
+the girl Gypsy; she must know where the money is, and can put us on the
+track.”
+
+Fanferlot smiled cunningly.
+
+“You may rest easy about that, monsieur; the lady is in good hands.”
+
+Left to himself, although the evening was far advanced, M. Patrigent
+continued to busy himself with the case, and to arrange that the rest of
+the depositions should be made.
+
+This case had actually taken possession of his mind; it was, at the same
+time, puzzling and attractive. It seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of
+mystery, and he determined to penetrate and dispel it.
+
+The next morning he was in his office much earlier than usual. On this
+day he examined Mme. Gypsy, recalled Cavaillon, and sent again for M.
+Fauvel. For several days he displayed the same activity.
+
+Of all the witnesses summoned, only two failed to appear.
+
+One was the office-boy sent by Prosper to bring the money from the city
+bank; he was ill from a fall.
+
+The other was M. Raoul de Lagors.
+
+But their absence did not prevent the file of papers relating to
+Prosper’s case from daily increasing; and on the ensuing Monday, five
+days after the robbery, M. Patrigent thought he held in his hands enough
+moral proof to crush the accused.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+While his whole past was the object of the most minute investigations,
+Prosper was in prison, in a secret cell.
+
+The two first days had not appeared very long.
+
+He had requested, and been granted, some sheets of paper, numbered,
+which he was obliged to account for; and he wrote, with a sort of rage,
+plans of defence and a narrative of justification.
+
+The third day he began to be uneasy at not seeing anyone except the
+condemned prisoners who were employed to serve those confined in secret
+cells, and the jailer who brought him his food.
+
+“Am I not to be examined again?” he would ask.
+
+“Your turn is coming,” the jailer invariably answered.
+
+Time passed; and the wretched man, tortured by the sufferings of
+solitary confinement which quickly breaks the spirit, sank into the
+depths of despair.
+
+“Am I to stay here forever?” he moaned.
+
+No, he was not forgotten; for on Monday morning, at one o’clock, an hour
+when the jailer never came, he heard the heavy bolt of his cell pushed
+back.
+
+He ran toward the door.
+
+But the sight of a gray-headed man standing on the sill rooted him to
+the spot.
+
+“Father,” he gasped, “father!”
+
+“Your father, yes!”
+
+Prosper’s astonishment at seeing his father was instantly succeeded by a
+feeling of great joy.
+
+A father is one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of
+need, when all else fails, we remember this man upon whose knees we sat
+when children, and who soothed our sorrows; and although he can in no
+way assist us, his presence alone comforts and strengthens.
+
+Without reflecting, Prosper, impelled by tender feeling, was about to
+throw himself on his father’s bosom.
+
+M. Bertomy harshly repulsed him.
+
+“Do not approach me!” he exclaimed.
+
+He then advanced into the cell, and closed the door. The father and son
+were alone together, Prosper heart-broken, crushed; M. Bertomy angry,
+almost threatening.
+
+Cast off by this last friend, by his father, the miserable young man
+seemed to be stupefied with pain and disappointment.
+
+“You too!” he bitterly cried. “You, you believe me guilty? Oh, father!”
+
+“Spare yourself this shameful comedy,” interrupted M. Bertomy: “I know
+all.”
+
+“But I am innocent, father; I swear it by the sacred memory of my
+mother.”
+
+“Unhappy wretch,” cried M. Bertomy, “do not blaspheme!”
+
+He seemed overcome by tender thoughts of the past, and in a weak, broken
+voice, he added:
+
+“Your mother is dead, Prosper, and little did I think that the day would
+come when I could thank God for having taken her from me. Your crime
+would have killed her, would have broken her heart!”
+
+After a painful silence, Prosper said:
+
+“You overwhelm me, father, and at the moment when I need all my courage;
+when I am the victim of an odious plot.”
+
+“Victim!” cried M. Bertomy, “victim! Dare you utter your insinuations
+against the honorable man who has taken care of you, loaded you with
+benefits, and had insured you a brilliant future! It is enough for you
+to have robbed him; do not calumniate him.”
+
+“For pity’s sake, father, let me speak!”
+
+“I suppose you would deny your benefactor’s kindness. Yet you were at
+one time so sure of his affection, that you wrote me to hold myself in
+readiness to come to Paris and ask M. Fauvel for the hand of his niece.
+Was that a lie too?”
+
+“No,” said Prosper in a choked voice, “no.”
+
+“That was a year ago; you then loved Mlle. Madeleine; at least you wrote
+to me that you--”
+
+“Father, I love her now, more than ever; I have never ceased to love
+her.”
+
+M. Bertomy made a gesture of contemptuous pity.
+
+“Indeed!” he cried, “and the thought of the pure, innocent girl whom you
+loved did not prevent your entering upon a path of sin. You loved her:
+how dared you, then, without blushing, approach her presence after
+associating with the shameless creatures with whom you were so
+intimate?”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, let me explain by what fatality Madeleine--”
+
+“Enough, monsieur, enough. I told you that I know everything. I saw M.
+Fauvel yesterday; this morning I saw the judge, and ‘tis to his kindness
+that I am indebted for this interview. Do you know what mortification
+I suffered before being allowed to see you? I was searched and made to
+empty all of my pockets, on suspicion of bringing you arms!”
+
+Prosper ceased to justify himself, but in a helpless, hopeless way,
+dropped down upon a seat.
+
+“I have seen your apartments, and at once recognized the proofs of your
+crime. I saw silk curtains hanging before every window and door, and
+the walls covered with pictures. In my father’s house the walls were
+whitewashed; and there was but one arm-chair in the whole house, and
+that was my mother’s. Our luxury was our honesty. You are the first
+member of our family who has possessed Aubusson carpets; though, to be
+sure, you are the first thief of our blood.”
+
+At this last insult Prosper’s face flushed crimson, but he remained
+silent and immovable.
+
+“But luxury is necessary now,” continued M. Bertomy, becoming more
+excited and angry as he went on, “luxury must be had at any price. You
+must have the insolent opulence and display of an upstart, without being
+an upstart. You must support worthless women who wear satin slippers
+lined with swan’s-down, like those I saw in your rooms, and keep
+servants in livery--and you steal! And bankers no longer trust their
+safe-keys with anybody; and every day honest families are disgraced by
+the discovery of some new piece of villainy.”
+
+M. Bertomy suddenly stopped. He saw that his son was not in a condition
+to hear any more reproaches.
+
+“But I will say no more,” he said. “I came here not to reproach, but
+to, if possible, save the honor of our name, to prevent it from being
+published in the papers bearing the names of thieves and murderers.
+Stand up and listen to me!”
+
+At the imperious tone of his father, Prosper arose. So many successive
+blows had reduced him to a state of torpor.
+
+“First of all,” began M. Bertomy, “how much have you remaining of the
+stolen three hundred and fifty thousand francs?”
+
+“Once more, father,” replied the unfortunate man in a tone of hopeless
+resignation, “once more I swear I am innocent.”
+
+“So I supposed you would say. Then our family will have to repair the
+injury you have done M. Fauvel.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“The day he heard of your crime, your brother-in-law brought me your
+sister’s dowry, seventy thousand francs. I succeeded in collecting a
+hundred and forty thousand francs more. This makes two hundred and ten
+thousand francs which I have brought with me to give to M. Fauvel.”
+
+This threat aroused Prosper from his torpor.
+
+“You shall do nothing of the kind!” he cried with unrestrained
+indignation.
+
+“I will do so before the sun goes down this day. M. Fauvel will grant me
+time to pay the rest. My pension is fifteen hundred francs. I can live
+upon five hundred, and am strong enough to go to work again; and your
+brother-in-law--”
+
+M. Bertomy stopped short, frightened at the expression of his son’s
+face. His features were contracted with such furious rage that he was
+scarcely recognizable, and his eyes glared like a maniac’s.
+
+“You dare not disgrace me thus!” he cried; “you have no right to do it.
+You are free to disbelieve me yourself, but you have no right for taking
+a step that would be a confession of guilt, and ruin me forever. Who
+and what convinces you of my guilt? When cold justice hesitates, you,
+my father, hesitate not, but, more pitiless than the law, condemn me
+unheard!”
+
+“I only do my duty.”
+
+“Which means that I stand on the edge of a precipice, and you push me
+over. Do you call that your duty? What! between strangers who accuse me,
+and myself who swear that I am innocent, you do not hesitate? Why? Is
+it because I am your son? Our honor is at stake, it is true; but that is
+only the more reason why you should sustain me, and assist me to defend
+myself.”
+
+Prosper’s earnest, truthful manner was enough to unsettle the firmest
+convictions, and make doubt penetrate the most stubborn mind.
+
+“Yet,” said M. Bertomy in a hesitating tone, “everything seems to accuse
+you.”
+
+“Ah, father, you do not know that I was suddenly banished from
+Madeleine’s presence; that I was compelled to avoid her. I became
+desperate, and tried to forget my sorrow in dissipation. I sought
+oblivion, and found shame and disgust. Oh, Madeleine, Madeleine!”
+
+He was overcome with emotion; but in a few minutes he started up with
+renewed violence in his voice and manner.
+
+“Everything is against me!” he exclaimed, “but no matter. I will justify
+myself or perish in the attempt. Human justice is liable to error;
+although innocent, I may be convicted: so be it. I will undergo my
+penalty; but people are not kept galley-slaves forever.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean, father, that I am now another man. My life, henceforth, has an
+object, vengeance! I am the victim of a vile plot. As long as I have a
+drop of blood in my veins, I will seek its author. And I will certainly
+find him; and then bitterly shall he expiate all of my cruel suffering.
+The blow came from the house of Fauvel, and I will live to prove it.”
+
+“Take care: your anger makes you say things that you will repent
+hereafter.”
+
+“Yes, I see, you are going to descant upon the probity of M. Andre
+Fauvel. You will tell me that all the virtues have taken refuge in the
+bosom of this patriarchal family. What do you know about it? Would this
+be the first instance in which the most shameful secrets are concealed
+beneath the fairest appearances? Why did Madeleine suddenly forbid me to
+think of her? Why has she exiled me, when she suffers as much from our
+separation as I myself, when she still loves me? For she does love me. I
+am sure of it. I have proofs of it.”
+
+The jailer came to say that the time allotted to M. Bertomy had expired,
+and that he must leave the cell.
+
+A thousand conflicting emotions seemed to rend the old man’s heart.
+
+Suppose Prosper were telling the truth: how great would be his remorse,
+if he had added to his already great weight of sorrow and trouble! And
+who could prove that he was not sincere?
+
+The voice of this son, of whom he had always been so proud, had aroused
+all his paternal affection, so violently repressed. Ah, were he guilty,
+and guilty of a worse crime, still he was his son, his only son!
+
+His countenance lost its severity, and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+He had resolved to leave, as he had entered, stern and angry: he had
+not the cruel courage. His heart was breaking. He opened his arms, and
+pressed Prosper to his heart.
+
+“Oh, my son!” he murmured. “God grant you have spoken the truth!”
+
+Prosper was triumphant: he had almost convinced his father of his
+innocence. But he had not time to rejoice over this victory.
+
+The cell-door again opened, and the jailer’s gruff voice once more
+called out:
+
+“It is time for you to appear before the court.”
+
+He instantly obeyed the order.
+
+But his step was no longer unsteady, as a few days previous: a complete
+change had taken place within him. He walked with a firm step, head
+erect, and the fire of resolution in his eye.
+
+He knew the way now, and he walked a little ahead of the constable who
+escorted him.
+
+As he was passing through the room full of policemen, he met the man
+with gold spectacles, who had watched him so intently the day he was
+searched.
+
+“Courage, M. Prosper Bertomy,” he said: “if you are innocent, there are
+those who will help you.”
+
+Prosper started with surprise, and was about to reply, when the man
+disappeared.
+
+“Who is that gentleman?” he asked of the policeman.
+
+“Is it possible that you don’t know him?” replied the policeman with
+surprise. “Why, it is M. Lecoq, of the police service.”
+
+“You say his name is Lecoq?”
+
+“You might as well say ‘monsieur,’” said the offended policeman; “it
+would not burn your mouth. M. Lecoq is a man who knows everything that
+he wants to know, without its ever being told to him. If you had had
+him, instead of that smooth-tongued imbecile Fanferlot, your case would
+have been settled long ago. Nobody is allowed to waste time when he has
+command. But he seems to be a friend of yours.”
+
+“I never saw him until the first day I came here.”
+
+“You can’t swear to that, because no one can boast of knowing the
+real face of M. Lecoq. It is one thing to-day, and another to-morrow;
+sometimes he is a dark man, sometimes a fair one, sometimes quite young,
+and then an octogenarian: why, not seldom he even deceives me. I begin
+to talk to a stranger, paf! the first thing I know, it is M. Lecoq!
+Anybody on the face of the earth might be he. If I were told that you
+were he, I should say, ‘It is very likely.’ Ah! he can convert himself
+into any shape and form he chooses. He is a wonderful man!”
+
+The constable would have continued forever his praises of M. Lecoq, had
+not the sight of the judge’s door put an end to them.
+
+This time, Prosper was not kept waiting on the wooden bench: the judge,
+on the contrary, was waiting for him.
+
+M. Patrigent, who was a profound observer of human nature, had contrived
+the interview between M. Bertomy and his son.
+
+He was sure that between the father, a man of such stubborn honor, and
+the son, accused of theft, an affecting scene would take place, and this
+scene would completely unman Prosper, and make him confess.
+
+He determined to send for him as soon as the interview was over, while
+all his nerves were vibrating with terrible emotions: he would tell the
+truth, to relieve his troubled, despairing mind.
+
+His surprise was great to see the cashier’s bearing; resolute without
+obstinacy, firm and assured without defiance.
+
+“Well,” he said, “have you reflected?”
+
+“Not being guilty, monsieur, I had nothing to reflect upon.”
+
+“Ah, I see the prison has not been a good counsellor; you forget that
+sincerity and repentance are the first things necessary to obtain the
+indulgence of the law.”
+
+“I crave no indulgence, monsieur.”
+
+M. Patrigent looked vexed, and said:
+
+“What would you say if I told you what had become of the three hundred
+and fifty thousand francs?”
+
+Prosper shook his head sadly.
+
+“If it were known, monsieur, I would not be here, but at liberty.”
+
+This device had often been used by the judge, and generally succeeded;
+but, with a man so thoroughly master of himself, there was small chance
+of success. It had been used at a venture, and failed.
+
+“Then you persist in accusing M. Fauvel?”
+
+“Him, or someone else.”
+
+“Excuse me: no one else, since he alone knew the word. Had he any
+interest in robbing himself?”
+
+“I can think of none.”
+
+“Well, now I will tell you what interest you had in robbing him.”
+
+M. Patrigent spoke as a man who was convinced of the facts he was about
+to state; but his assurance was all assumed.
+
+He had relied upon crushing, at a blow, a despairing wretched man, and
+was nonplussed by seeing him appear as determined upon resistance.
+
+“Will you be good enough to tell me,” he said, in a vexed tone, “how
+much you have spent during the last year?”
+
+Prosper did not find it necessary to stop to reflect and calculate.
+
+“Yes, monsieur,” he answered, unhesitatingly: “circumstances made it
+necessary for me to preserve the greatest order in my wild career; I
+spent about fifty thousand francs.”
+
+“Where did you obtain them?”
+
+“In the first place, twelve thousand francs were left to me by my
+mother. I received from M. Fauvel fourteen thousand francs, as my
+salary, and share of the profits. By speculating in stocks, I gained
+eight thousand francs. The rest I borrowed, and intend repaying out of
+the fifteen thousand francs which I have deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank.”
+
+The account was clear, exact, and could be easily proved; it must be a
+true one.
+
+“Who lent you the money?”
+
+“M. Raoul de Lagors.”
+
+This witness had left Paris the day of the robbery, and could not be
+found; so, for the time being, M. Patrigent was compelled to rely upon
+Prosper’s word.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I will not press this point; but tell me why, in spite
+of the formal order of M. Fauvel, you drew the money from the Bank of
+France the night before, instead of waiting till the morning of the
+payment?”
+
+“Because M. de Clameran had informed me that it would be agreeable,
+necessary even, for him to have his money early in the morning. He will
+testify to that fact, if you summon him; and I knew that I should reach
+my office late.”
+
+“Then M. de Clameran is a friend of yours?”
+
+“By no means. I have always felt repelled by him; but he is the intimate
+friend of M. Lagors.”
+
+While Sigault was writing down these answers, M. Patrigent was racking
+his brain to imagine what could have occurred between M. Bertomy and his
+son, to cause this transformation in Prosper.
+
+“One more thing,” said the judge: “how did you spend the evening, the
+night before the crime?”
+
+“When I left my office, at five o’clock, I took the St.-Germain train,
+and went to Vesinet, M. de Lagors’s country seat, to carry him fifteen
+hundred francs which he had asked for; and, finding him not at home, I
+left it with his servant.”
+
+“Did he tell you that M. de Lagors was going away?”
+
+“No, monsieur. I did not know that he had left Paris.”
+
+“Where did you go when you left Vesinet?”
+
+“I returned to Paris, and dined at a restaurant with a friend.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+Prosper hesitated.
+
+“You are silent,” said M. Patrigent; “then I shall tell you how you
+employed your time. You returned to your rooms in the Rue Chaptal,
+dressed yourself, and attended a _soiree_ given by one of those women
+who style themselves dramatic artistes, and who are a disgrace to
+the stage; who receive a hundred crowns a year, and yet keep their
+carriages, at Mlle. Wilson’s.”
+
+“You are right, monsieur.”
+
+“There is heavy playing at Wilson’s?”
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“You are in the habit of visiting places of this sort. Were you not
+connected in some way with a scandalous adventure which took place at
+the house of a woman named Crescenzi?”
+
+“I was summoned to testify, having witnessed a theft.”
+
+“Gambling generally leads to stealing. And did you not play baccarat at
+Wilson’s, and lose eighteen hundred francs?”
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur, only eleven hundred.”
+
+“Very well. In the morning you paid a note of a thousand francs.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“Moreover, there remained in your desk five hundred francs, and you had
+four hundred in your purse when you were arrested. So that altogether,
+in twenty-four hours, four thousand five hundred francs--”
+
+Prosper was not discountenanced, but stupefied.
+
+Not being aware of the powerful means of investigation possessed by the
+law, he wondered how in so short a time the judge could have obtained
+such accurate information.
+
+“Your statement is correct, monsieur,” he said finally.
+
+“Where did all this money come from? The evening before you had so
+little that you were obliged to defer the payment of a small bill.”
+
+“The day to which you allude, I sold through an agent some bonds I had,
+about three thousand francs; besides, I took from the safe two thousand
+francs in advance on my salary.”
+
+The prisoner had given clear answers to all the questions put to him,
+and M. Patrigent thought he would attack him on a new point.
+
+“You say you have no wish to conceal any of your actions; then why did
+you write this note to one of your companions?” Here he held up the
+mysterious note.
+
+This time the blow struck. Prosper’s eyes dropped before the inquiring
+look of the judge.
+
+“I thought,” he stammered, “I wished--”
+
+“You wished to screen this woman?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur; I did. I knew that a man in my condition, accused of
+a robbery, has every fault, every weakness he has ever indulged in,
+charged against him as a great crime.”
+
+“Which means that you knew that the presence of a woman at your house
+would tell very much against you, and that justice would not excuse this
+scandalous defiance of public morality. A man who respects himself so
+little as to associate with a worthless woman, does not elevate her to
+his standard, but he descends to her base level.”
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“I suppose you know who the woman is, whom you permit to bear the honest
+name borne by your mother?”
+
+“Mme. Gypsy was a governess when I first knew her. She was born at
+Oporto, and came to France with a Portuguese family.”
+
+“Her name is not Gypsy; she has never been a governess, and she is not a
+Portuguese.”
+
+Prosper began to protest against this statement; but M. Patrigent
+shrugged his shoulders, and began looking over a large file of papers on
+his desk.
+
+“Ah, here it is,” he said, “listen: Palmyre Chocareille, born at Paris
+in 1840, daughter of James Chocareille, undertaker’s assistant, and of
+Caroline Piedlent, his wife.”
+
+Prosper looked vexed and impatient; he did not know that the judge was
+reading him this report to convince him that nothing can escape the
+police.
+
+“Palmyre Chocareille,” he continued, “at twelve years of age was
+apprenticed to a shoemaker, and remained with him until she was sixteen.
+Traces of her for one year are lost. At the age of seventeen she is
+hired as a servant by a grocer on the Rue St. Denis, named Dombas, and
+remains there three months. She lives out during this same year,
+1857, at eight different places. In 1858 she entered the store of a
+fan-merchant in Choiseul Alley.”
+
+As he read, the judge watched Prosper’s face to observe the effect of
+these revelations.
+
+“Toward the close of 1858 she was employed as a servant by Madame Munes,
+and accompanied her to Lisbon. How long she remained in Lisbon, and
+what she did while she remained there, is not reported. But in 1861 she
+returned to Paris, and was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for
+assault and battery. Ah, she returned from Portugal with the name of
+Nina Gypsy.”
+
+“But I assure you, monsieur,” Prosper began.
+
+“Yes, I understand; this history is less romantic, doubtless, than the
+one related to you; but then it has the merit of being true. We lose
+sight of Palmyre Chocareille, called Gypsy, upon her release from
+prison, but we meet her again six months later, having made the
+acquaintance of a travelling agent named Caldas, who became infatuated
+with her beauty, and furnished her a house near the Bastille. She
+assumed his name for some time, then she deserted him to devote herself
+to you. Did you ever hear of this Caldas?”
+
+“Never, monsieur.”
+
+“This foolish man so deeply loved this creature that her desertion drove
+him almost insane from grief. He was a very resolute man, and publicly
+swore that he would kill his rival if he ever found him. The current
+report afterward was, that he committed suicide. He certainly sold
+the furniture of the House occupied by Chocareille, and suddenly
+disappeared. All the efforts made to discover him proved fruitless.”
+
+The judge stopped a moment as if to give Prosper time for reflection,
+and then slowly said:
+
+“And this is the woman whom you made your companion, the woman for whom
+you robbed the bank!”
+
+Once more M. Patrigent was on the wrong track, owing to Fanferlot’s
+incomplete information.
+
+He had hoped that Prosper would betray himself by uttering some
+passionate retort when thus wounded to the quick; but he remained
+impassible. Of all the judge said to him his mind dwelt upon only one
+word--Caldas, the name of the poor travelling agent who had killed
+himself.
+
+“At any rate,” insisted M. Patrigent, “you will confess that this girl
+has caused your ruin.”
+
+“I cannot confess that, monsieur, for it is not true.”
+
+“Yet she is the occasion of your extravagance. Listen.” The judge here
+drew a bill from the file of papers. “During December you paid her
+dressmaker, Van Klopen, for two walking dresses, nine hundred francs;
+one evening dress, seven hundred francs; one domino, trimmed with lace,
+four hundred francs.”
+
+“I spent this money cheerfully, but nevertheless I was not especially
+attached to her.”
+
+M. Patrigent shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“You cannot deny the evidence,” said he. “I suppose you will also say
+that it was not for this girl’s sake you ceased spending your evenings
+at M. Fauvel’s?”
+
+“I swear that she was not the cause of my ceasing to visit M. Fauvel’s
+family.”
+
+“Then why did you cease, suddenly, your attentions to a young lady whom
+you confidently expected to marry, and whose hand you had written to
+your father to demand for you?”
+
+“I had reasons which I cannot reveal,” answered Prosper with emotion.
+
+The judge breathed freely; at last he had discovered a vulnerable point
+in the prisoner’s armor.
+
+“Did Mlle. Madeleine banish you?”
+
+Prosper was silent, and seemed agitated.
+
+“Speak,” said M. Patrigent; “I must tell you that this circumstance is
+one of the most important in your case.”
+
+“Whatever the cost may be, on this subject I am compelled to keep
+silence.”
+
+“Beware of what you do; justice will not be satisfied with scruples of
+conscience.”
+
+M. Patrigent waited for an answer. None came.
+
+“You persist in your obstinacy, do you? Well, we will go on to the next
+question. You have, during the last year, spent fifty thousand francs.
+Your resources are at an end, and your credit is exhausted; to continue
+your mode of life was impossible. What did you intend to do?”
+
+“I had no settled plan. I thought it might last as long as it would, and
+then I----”
+
+“And then you would draw from the safe!”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, if I were guilty, I should not be here! I should never
+have been such a fool as to return to the bank; I should have fled.”
+
+M. Patrigent could not restrain a smile of satisfaction, and exclaimed:
+
+“Exactly the argument I expected you to use. You showed your shrewdness
+precisely by staying to face the storm, instead of flying the country.
+Several recent suits have taught dishonest cashiers that flight abroad
+is dangerous. Railways travel fast, but telegrams travel faster. A
+French thief can be arrested in London within forty-eight hours after
+his description has been telegraphed. Even America is no longer a
+refuge. You remained prudently and wisely, saying to yourself, ‘I will
+manage to avoid suspicion; and, even if I am found out, I shall be free
+again after three or five years’ seclusion, with a large fortune to
+enjoy.’ Many people would sacrifice five years of their lives for three
+hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+“But monsieur, had I calculated in the manner you describe, I should not
+have been content with three hundred and fifty thousand francs; I should
+have waited for an opportunity to steal half a million. I often have
+that sum in charge.”
+
+“Oh! it is not always convenient to wait.”
+
+Prosper was buried in deep thought for some minutes.
+
+“Monsieur,” he finally said, “there is one detail I forgot to mention
+before, and it may be of importance.”
+
+“Explain, if you please.”
+
+“The office messenger whom I sent to the Bank of France for the money
+must have seen me tie up the bundle, and put it away in the safe. At any
+rate, he knows that I left the bank before he did.”
+
+“Very well; the man shall be examined. Now you can return to your
+cell; and once more I advise you to consider the consequences of your
+persistent denial.”
+
+M. Patrigent thus abruptly dismissed Prosper because he wished to
+immediately act upon this last piece of information.
+
+“Sigault,” said he as soon as Prosper had left the room, “is not this
+Antonin the man who was excused from testifying because he sent a
+doctor’s certificate declaring him too ill to appear?”
+
+“It is, monsieur.”
+
+“Where doe he live?”
+
+“Fanferlot says he was so ill that he was taken to the hospital--the
+Dubois Hospital.”
+
+“Very well. I am going to examine him to-day, this very hour. Take your
+pen and paper, and send for a carriage.”
+
+It was some distance from the Palais de Justice to the Dubois Hospital;
+but the cabman, urged by the promise of a large fee, made his sorry
+jades fly as if they were blooded horses.
+
+Would Antonin be able to answer any questions?
+
+The physician in charge of the hospital said that, although the man
+suffered horribly from a broken knee, his mind was perfectly clear.
+
+“That being the case, monsieur,” said the judge, “I wish to examine him,
+and desire that no one be admitted while he makes his deposition.”
+
+“Oh! you will not be intruded upon, monsieur; his room contains four
+beds, but they are just now unoccupied.”
+
+When Antonin saw the judge enter, followed by a little weazened man in
+black, with a portfolio under his arm, he at once knew what he had come
+for.
+
+“Ah,” he said, “monsieur comes to see me about M. Bertomy’s case?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+M. Patrigent remained standing by the sick-bed while Sigault arranged
+his papers on a little table.
+
+In answer to the usual questions, the messenger swore that he was named
+Antonin Poche, was forty years old, born at Cadaujac (Gironde), and was
+unmarried.
+
+“Now,” said the judge, “are you well enough to clearly answer any
+questions I may put?”
+
+“Certainly, monsieur.”
+
+“Did you, on the 27th of February, go to the Bank of France for the
+three hundred and fifty thousand francs that were stolen?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“At what hour did you return with the money?”
+
+“It must have been five o’clock when I got back.”
+
+“Do you remember what M. Bertomy did when you handed him the notes? Now,
+do not be in a hurry; think before you answer.”
+
+“Let me see: first he counted the notes, and made them into four
+packages; then he put them in the safe; and then--it seems to me--and
+then he locked the safe; and, yes, I am not mistaken, he went out!”
+
+He uttered these last words so quickly, that, forgetting his knee, he
+half started up, but, with a cry of pain, sank back in bed.
+
+“Are you sure of what you say?” asked the judge.
+
+M. Patrigent’s solemn tone seemed to frighten Antonin.
+
+“Sure?” he replied with marked hesitation, “I would bet my head on it,
+yet I am not sure!”
+
+It was impossible for him to be more decided in his answers. He had been
+frightened. He already imagined himself in difficulty, and for a trifle
+would have retracted everything.
+
+But the effect was already produced; and when they retired M. Patrigent
+said to Sigault:
+
+“This is a very important piece of evidence.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+The Archangel Hotel, Mme. Gypsy’s asylum, was the most elegant building
+on the Quai St. Michel.
+
+A person who pays her fortnight’s board in advance is treated with
+consideration at this hotel.
+
+Mme. Alexandre, who had been a handsome woman, was now stout, laced till
+she could scarcely breathe, always over-dressed, and fond of wearing a
+number of flashy gold chains around her fat neck.
+
+She had bright eyes and white teeth; but, alas, a red nose. Of all her
+weaknesses, and Heaven knows she had indulged in every variety, only one
+remained; she loved a good dinner, washed down with plenty of good wine.
+
+She also loved her husband; and, about the time M. Patrigent was leaving
+the hospital, she began to be worried that her “little man” had not
+returned to dinner. She was about to sit down without him, when the
+hotel-boy cried out:
+
+“Here is monsieur.”
+
+And Fanferlot appeared in person.
+
+Three years before, Fanferlot had kept a little office of secret
+intelligence; Mme. Alexandre was a trader without a license in perfumery
+and toilet articles, and, finding it necessary to watch some of her
+suspicious customers, engaged Fanferlot’s services; this was the origin
+of their acquaintance.
+
+If they went through the marriage ceremony for the good of the mayoralty
+and the church, it was because they imagined it would, like a baptism,
+wash out the sins of the past.
+
+Upon this momentous day, Fanferlot gave up his secret intelligence
+office, and entered the police, where he had already been occasionally
+employed, and Mme. Alexandre retired from trade.
+
+Uniting their savings, they hired and furnished the “Archangel,”
+ which they were now carrying on prosperously well, esteemed by their
+neighbors, who were ignorant of Fanferlot’s connection with the police
+force.
+
+“Why, how late you are, my little man!” she exclaimed, as she dropped
+her knife and fork, and rushed forward to embrace him.
+
+He received her caresses with an air of abstraction.
+
+“My back is broken,” he said. “I have been the whole day playing
+billiards with Evariste, M. Fauvel’s valet, and allowed him to win as
+often as he wished, a man who does not know what ‘the pool’ is! I became
+acquainted with him yesterday, and now I am his best friend. If I wish
+to enter M. Fauvel’s service in Antonin’s place, I can rely upon M.
+Evariste’s good word.”
+
+“What, you be an office messenger? you?”
+
+“Of course I would. How else am I to get an opportunity of studying my
+characters, if I am not on the spot to watch them all the time?”
+
+“Then the valet gave you no news?”
+
+“He gave me none that I could make use of, and yet I turned him inside
+out, like a glove. This banker is a remarkable man; you don’t often meet
+with one of his sort nowadays. Evariste says he has not a single vice,
+not even a little defect by which his valet could gain ten sous. He
+neither smokes, drinks, nor plays; in fact, he is a saint. He is worth
+millions, and lives as respectably and quietly as a grocer. He is
+devoted to his wife, adores his children, is lavishly hospitable, and
+seldom goes into society.”
+
+“Then his wife is young?”
+
+“She must be about fifty.”
+
+Mme. Alexandre reflected a minute, then asked:
+
+“Did you inquire about the other members of the family?”
+
+“Certainly. The younger son is in the army. The elder son, Lucien, lives
+with his parents, and is as proper as a young lady; so good, indeed,
+that he is stupid.”
+
+“And what about the niece?”
+
+“Evariste could tell me nothing about her.”
+
+Mme. Alexandre shrugged her fat shoulders.
+
+“If you have discovered nothing, it is because there is nothing to be
+discovered. Still, do you know what I would do, if I were you?”
+
+“Tell me.”
+
+“I would consult with M. Lecoq.”
+
+Fanferlot jumped up as if he had been shot.
+
+“Now, that’s pretty advice! Do you want me to lose my place? M. Lecoq
+does not suspect that I have anything to do with the case, except to
+obey his orders.”
+
+“Nobody told you to let him know you were investigating it on your own
+account. You can consult him with an air of indifference, as if you were
+not at all interested; and, after you have got his opinion, you can take
+advantage of it.”
+
+The detective weighed his wife’s words, and then said:
+
+“Perhaps you are right; yet M. Lecoq is so devilishly shrewd, that he
+might see through me.”
+
+“Shrewd!” echoed Mme. Alexandre, “shrewd! All of you at the police
+office say that so often, that he has gained his reputation by it: you
+are just as sharp as he is.”
+
+“Well, we will see. I will think the matter over; but, in the meantime,
+what does the girl say?”
+
+The “girl” was Mme. Nina Gypsy.
+
+In taking up her abode at the Archangel, the poor girl thought she
+was following good advice; and, as Fanferlot had never appeared in her
+presence since, she was still under the impression that she had obeyed
+a friend of Prosper’s. When she received her summons from M. Patrigent,
+she admired the wonderful skill of the police in discovering her
+hiding-place; for she had established herself at the hotel under a
+false, or rather her true name, Palmyre Chocareille.
+
+Artfully questioned by her inquisitive landlady, she had, without any
+mistrust, confided her history to her.
+
+Thus Fanferlot was able to impress the judge with the idea of his being
+a skilful detective, when he pretended to have discovered all this
+information from a variety of sources.
+
+“She is still upstairs,” answered Mme. Alexandre. “She suspects nothing;
+but to keep her in her present ignorance becomes daily more difficult.
+I don’t know what the judge told her, but she came home quite beside
+herself with anger. She wanted to go and make a fuss at M. Fauvel’s;
+then she wrote a letter which she told Jean to post for her; but I kept
+it to show you.”
+
+“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “you have a letter, and did not tell
+me before? Perhaps it contains the clew to the mystery. Give it to me,
+quick.”
+
+Obeying her husband, Mme. Alexandre opened a little cupboard, and took
+out a letter which she handed to him.
+
+“Here, take it,” she said, “and be satisfied.”
+
+Considering that she used to be a chambermaid, Palmyre Chocareille,
+since become Mme. Gypsy, wrote a good letter.
+
+It bore the following address, written in a free, flowing hand:
+
+
+FOR M. L. DE CLAMERAN,
+
+Forge-Master, Hotel du Louvre.
+
+To be handed to M. Raoul de Lagors.
+
+(In great haste.)
+
+
+“Oh, ho!” said Fanferlot, accompanying his exclamation with a little
+whistle, as was his habit when he thought he had made a grand discovery.
+“Oh, ho!”
+
+“Do you intend to open it?” questioned Mme. Alexandre.
+
+“A little bit,” said Fanferlot, as he dexterously opened the envelope.
+
+Mme. Alexandre leaned over her husband’s shoulder, and they both read
+the following letter:
+
+
+“MONSIEUR RAOUL--Prosper is in prison, accused of a robbery which he
+never committed. I wrote to you three days ago.”
+
+
+“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “this silly girl wrote, and I never saw
+the letter?”
+
+“But, little man, she must have posted it herself, the day she went to
+the Palais de Justice.”
+
+“Very likely,” said Fanferlot propitiated. He continued reading:
+
+
+“I wrote to you three days ago, and have no reply. Who will help Prosper
+if his best friends desert him? If you don’t answer this letter, I shall
+consider myself released from a certain promise, and without scruple
+will tell Prosper of the conversation I overheard between you and M. de
+Clameran. But I can count on you, can I not? I shall expect you at the
+Archangel day after to-morrow, between twelve and four.
+
+“NINA GYPSY”
+
+
+The letter read, Fanferlot at once proceeded to copy it.
+
+“Well!” said Mme. Alexandre, “what do you think?”
+
+Fanferlot was delicately resealing the letter when the door of the hotel
+office was abruptly opened, and the boy twice whispered, “Pst! Pst!”
+
+Fanferlot rapidly disappeared into a dark closet. He had barely time to
+close the door before Mme. Gypsy entered the room.
+
+The poor girl was sadly changed. She was pale and hollow-cheeked, and
+her eyes were red with weeping.
+
+On seeing her, Mme. Alexandre could not conceal her surprise.
+
+“Why, my child, you are not going out?”
+
+“I am obliged to do so, madame; and I come to ask you to tell anyone
+that may call during my absence to wait until I return.”
+
+“But where in the world are you going at this hour, sick as you are?”
+
+For a moment Mme. Gypsy hesitated.
+
+“Oh,” she said, “you are so kind that I am tempted to confide in you;
+read this note which a messenger just now brought to me.”
+
+“What!” cried Mme. Alexandre perfectly aghast: “a messenger enter my
+house, and go up to your room!”
+
+“Is there anything surprising in that?”
+
+“Oh, oh, no! nothing surprising.”
+
+And in a tone loud enough to be heard in the closet she read the note:
+
+
+“A friend of Prosper who can neither receive you, nor present himself
+at your house, is very anxious to speak to you. Be in the stage-office
+opposite the Saint Jacques tower, to-night at nine precisely, and the
+writer will approach, and tell you what he has to say.
+
+“I have appointed this public place for the rendezvous so as to relieve
+your mind of all fear.”
+
+
+“And you are going to this rendezvous?”
+
+“Certainly, madame.”
+
+“But it is imprudent, foolish; it is a snare to entrap you.”
+
+“It makes no difference,” interrupted Gypsy. “I am so unfortunate
+already that I have nothing more to dread. Any change would be a
+relief.”
+
+And, without waiting to hear any more, she went out. The door had
+scarcely closed upon Mme. Gypsy, before Fanferlot bounced out of the
+closet.
+
+The mild detective was white with rage, and swore violently.
+
+“What is the meaning of this?” he cried. “Am I to stand by and have
+people walking over the Archangel, as if it were a public street?”
+
+Mme. Alexandre stood trembling, and dared not speak.
+
+“Was ever such impudence heard of before!” he continued. “A messenger
+comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody!
+I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a
+sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not
+to keep the appointment!”
+
+“But, my dear--”
+
+“Had you not sense enough to know that I would follow her, and discover
+what she is attempting to conceal? Come, make haste, and help me, so
+that she won’t recognize me.”
+
+In a few minutes Fanferlot was completely disguised by a thick beard, a
+wig, and one of those long linen blouses worn by dishonest workmen, who
+go about seeking labor, and, at the same time, hoping they may not find
+any.
+
+“Have you your handcuffs?” asked the solicitous Mme. Alexandre.
+
+“Yes, yes: make haste and put that letter to M. de Clameran in the
+post-office, and--and keep good watch.”
+
+And without waiting for his wife’s reply, who cried out, “Good luck!”
+ Fanferlot darted into the street.
+
+Mme. Gypsy had ten minutes’ start of him; but he ran up the street he
+knew she must have taken, and overtook her near the Change Bridge.
+
+She was walking with the uncertain gait of a person who, impatient to
+be at a rendezvous, has started too soon, and is obliged to occupy
+the intervening time; she would walk very rapidly, then retrace her
+footsteps, and proceed slowly.
+
+On Chatelet Place she strolled up and down several times, read the
+theatre-bills, and finally took a seat on a bench. One minute before a
+quarter of nine, she entered the stage-office, and sat down.
+
+A moment after, Fanferlot entered; but, as he feared that Mme. Gypsy
+might recognize him in spite of his heavy beard, he took a seat at the
+opposite end of the room, in a dark corner.
+
+“Singular place for a conversation,” he thought, as he watched the
+young woman. “Who in the world could have made this appointment in a
+stage-office? Judging from her evident curiosity and uneasiness, I could
+swear she has not the faintest idea for whom she is waiting.”
+
+Meanwhile, the office was gradually filling with people. Every minute
+a man would shriek out the destination of an omnibus which had just
+arrived, and the bewildered passengers would rush in to get tickets, and
+inquire when the omnibus would leave.
+
+As each new-comer entered, Gypsy would tremble, and Fanferlot would say,
+“This is he!”
+
+Finally, as the Hotel-de-Ville clock was striking nine, a man entered,
+and, without going to the ticket-window, walked directly up to Gypsy,
+bowed, and took a seat beside her.
+
+He was a medium-sized man, rather stout, with a crimson face, and
+fiery-red whiskers. His dress was that of a well-to-do merchant, and
+there was nothing in his manner or appearance to excite attention.
+
+Fanferlot watched him eagerly.
+
+“Well, my friend,” he said to himself, “in future I shall recognize you,
+no matter where we meet; and this very evening I will find out who you
+are.”
+
+Despite his intent listening, he could not hear a word spoken by the
+stranger or Gypsy. All he could do was to judge by their pantomime and
+countenances, what the subject of their conversation might be.
+
+When the stout man bowed and spoke to her, the girl looked so surprised
+that it was evident she had never seen him before. When he sat down by
+her, and said a few words, she jumped up with a frightened look, as
+if seeking to escape. A single word and look made her resume her seat.
+Then, as the stout man went on talking, Gypsy’s attitude betrayed great
+apprehension. She positively refused to do something; then suddenly she
+seemed to consent, when he stated a good reason for her so doing. At
+one moment she appeared ready to weep, and the next her pretty face was
+illumined by a bright smile. Finally, she shook hands with him, as if
+she was confirming a promise.
+
+“What can all that mean?” said Fanferlot to himself, as he sat in his
+dark corner, biting his nails. “What an idiot I am to have stationed
+myself so far off!”
+
+He was thinking how he could manage to approach nearer without arousing
+their suspicions, when the fat man arose, offered his arm to Mme. Gypsy,
+who accepted it without hesitation, and together they walked toward the
+door.
+
+They were so engrossed with each other, that Fanferlot thought he could,
+without risk, follow them; and it was well he did; for the crowd was
+dense outside, and he would soon have lost them.
+
+Reaching the door, he saw the stout man and Gypsy cross the pavement,
+approach a hackney-coach, and enter it.
+
+“Very good,” muttered Fanferlot, “I’ve got them now. There is no use of
+hurrying any more.”
+
+While the coachman was gathering up his reins, Fanferlot prepared
+his legs; and, when the coach started, he followed in a brisk trot,
+determined upon following it to the end of the earth.
+
+The cab went up the Boulevard Sebastopol. It went pretty fast; but it
+was not for nothing that Fanferlot had won the name of “Squirrel.” With
+his elbows glued to his sides, and holding his breath, he ran on.
+
+By the time he had reached the Boulevard St. Denis, he began to get
+breathless, and stiff from a pain in his side. The cabman abruptly
+turned into the Rue Faubourg St. Martin.
+
+But Fanferlot, who, at eight years of age, had been familiar with every
+street in Paris, was not to be baffled: he was a man of resources. He
+seized the springs of the coach, raised himself up by the strength of
+his wrists, and hung on behind, with his legs resting on the axle-tree
+of the back wheels. He was not quite comfortable, but then, he no longer
+ran the risk of being distanced.
+
+“Now,” he chuckled, behind his false beard, “you may drive as fast as
+you please, M. Cabby.”
+
+The man whipped up his horses, and drove furiously along the hilly
+street of the Faubourg St. Martin.
+
+Finally the cab stopped in front of a wine-store, and the driver jumped
+down from his seat, and went in.
+
+The detective also left his uncomfortable post, and crouching in
+a doorway, waited for Gypsy and her companion to get out, with the
+intention of following closely upon their heels.
+
+Five minutes passed, and still there were no signs of them.
+
+“What can they be doing all this time?” grumbled the detective.
+
+With great precautions, he approached the cab, and peeped in.
+
+Oh, cruel deception! it was empty!
+
+Fanferlot felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice-water over him;
+he remained rooted to the spot with his mouth stretched, the picture of
+blank bewilderment.
+
+He soon recovered his wits sufficiently to burst forth in a volley of
+oaths, loud enough to rattle all the window-panes in the neighborhood.
+
+“Tricked!” he said, “fooled! Ah! but won’t I make them pay for this!”
+
+In a moment his quick mind had run over the gamut of possibilities,
+probable and improbable.
+
+“Evidently,” he muttered, “this fellow and Gypsy entered one door, and
+got out of the other; the trick is simple enough. If they resorted
+to it, ‘tis because they feared being watched. If they feared being
+watched, they have uneasy consciences: therefore--”
+
+He suddenly interrupted his monologue as the idea struck him that he had
+better attempt to find out something from the driver.
+
+Unfortunately, the driver was in a very surly mood, and not only refused
+to answer, but shook his whip in so threatening a manner that Fanferlot
+deemed it prudent to beat a retreat.
+
+“Oh, Lord,” he muttered, “perhaps he and the driver are one and the
+same!”
+
+But what could he do now, at this time of night? He could not imagine.
+He walked dejectedly back to the quay, and it was half-past eleven when
+he reached his own door.
+
+“Has the little fool returned?” he inquired of Mme. Alexandre, the
+instant she opened the door for him.
+
+“No; but here are two large bundles which have come for her.”
+
+Fanferlot hastily opened the bundles.
+
+They contained three calico dresses, some coarse shoes, and some linen
+caps.
+
+“Well,” said the detective in a vexed tone, “now she is going to
+disguise herself. Upon my word, I am getting puzzled! What can she be up
+to?”
+
+When Fanferlot was sulkily walking down the Faubourg St. Martin, he
+had fully made up his mind that he would not tell his wife of his
+discomfiture.
+
+But once at home, confronted with a new fact of a nature to negative all
+his conjectures, his vanity disappeared. He confessed everything--his
+hopes so nearly realized, his strange mischance, and his suspicions.
+
+They talked the matter over, and finally decided that they would not
+go to bed until Mme. Gypsy, from whom Mme. Alexandre was determined to
+obtain an explanation of what had happened, returned. At one o’clock the
+worthy couple were about giving over all hope of her re-appearance, when
+they heard the bell ring.
+
+Fanferlot instantly slipped into the closet, and Mme. Alexandre remained
+in the office to received Gypsy.
+
+“Here you are at last, my dear child!” she cried. “Oh, I have been so
+uneasy, so afraid lest some misfortune had happened!”
+
+“Thanks for your kind interest, madame. Has a bundle been sent here for
+me?”
+
+Poor Gypsy’s appearance had strikingly changed; she was very sad, but
+not as before dejected. To her melancholy of the last few days, had
+succeeded a firm and generous resolution, which was betrayed in her
+sparkling eyes and resolute step.
+
+“Yes, two bundles came for you; here they are. I suppose you saw M.
+Bertomy’s friend?”
+
+“Yes, madame; and his advice has so changed my plans, that, I regret to
+say, I must leave you to-morrow.”
+
+“Going away to-morrow! then something must have happened.”
+
+“Oh! nothing that would interest you, madame.”
+
+After lighting her candle at the gas-burner, Mme. Gypsy said
+“Good-night” in a very significant way, and left the room.
+
+“And what do you think of that, Mme. Alexandre?” questioned Fanferlot,
+emerging from his hiding-place.
+
+“It is incredible! This girl writes to M. de Clameran to meet her here,
+and then does not wait for him.”
+
+“She evidently mistrusts us; she knows who I am.”
+
+“Then this friend of the cashier must have told her.”
+
+“Nobody knows who told her. I shall end by believing that I am among
+a gang of thieves. They think I am on their track, and are trying to
+escape me. I should not be at all surprised if this little rogue has the
+money herself, and intends to run off with it to-morrow.”
+
+“That is not my opinion; but listen to me: you had better take my
+advice, and consult M. Lecoq.”
+
+Fanferlot meditated awhile, then exclaimed.
+
+“Very well; I will see him, just for your satisfaction; because I
+know that, if I have discovered nothing, neither has he. But, if
+he undertakes to be domineering, it won’t do; for, if he shows his
+insolence to me, _I_ will make him know his place!”
+
+Notwithstanding this brave speech, the detective passed an uneasy night,
+and at six o’clock the next morning he was up--it was necessary to rise
+very early if he wished to catch M. Lecoq at home--and, refreshed by a
+cup of strong coffee, he directed his steps toward the dwelling of the
+celebrated detective.
+
+Fanferlot the Squirrel certainly was not afraid of his patron, as he
+called him; for he started out with his nose in the air, and his hat
+cocked on one side.
+
+But by the time he reached the Rue Montmartre, where M. Lecoq lived,
+his courage had vanished; he pulled his hat over his eyes, and hung
+his head, as if looking for relief among the paving-stones. He slowly
+ascended the steps, pausing several times, and looking around as if he
+would like to fly.
+
+Finally he reached the third floor, and stood before a door decorated
+with the arms of the famous detective--a cock, the symbol of
+vigilance--and his heart failed him so that he had scarcely the courage
+to ring the bell.
+
+The door was opened by Janouille, M. Lecoq’s old servant, who had very
+much the manner and appearance of a grenadier. She was as faithful to
+her master as a watch-dog, and always stood ready to attack anyone who
+did not treat him with the august respect which she considered his due.
+
+“Well, M. Fanferlot,” she said, “you come in time for once in your life.
+Your patron wants to see you.”
+
+Upon this announcement, Fanferlot was seized with a violent desire to
+retreat. By what chance could Lecoq want anything of him?
+
+While he thus hesitated, Janouille seized him by the arm, and pulled him
+in, saying:
+
+“Do you want to take root there? Come along, your patron is waiting for
+you.”
+
+In the middle of a large room curiously furnished, half library and half
+green-room, was seated at a desk the same person with gold spectacles,
+who had said to Prosper at the police-office, “Have courage.”
+
+This was M. Lecoq in his official character.
+
+Upon Fanferlot’s entrance, as he advanced respectfully, bowing till
+his backbone was a perfect curve, M. Lecoq laid down his pen, and said,
+looking sharply at him:
+
+“Ah, here you are, young man. Well, it seems that you haven’t made much
+progress in the Bertomy case.”
+
+“Why,” murmured Fanferlot, “you know--”
+
+“I know that you have muddled everything until you can’t see your way
+out; so that you are ready to give up.”
+
+“But, M. Lecoq, it was not I----”
+
+M. Lecoq arose, and walked up and down the room: suddenly he confronted
+Fanferlot, and said, in a tone of scornful irony:
+
+“What would you think, Master Squirrel, of a man who abuses the
+confidence of those who employ him, who reveals just enough to lead the
+prosecution on the wrong scent, who sacrifices to his own foolish vanity
+the cause of justice and the liberty of an unfortunate man?”
+
+Fanferlot started back with a frightened look.
+
+“I should say,” he stammered, “I should say--”
+
+“You would say this man ought to be punished, and dismissed from his
+employment; and you are right. The less a profession is honored, the
+more honorable should those be who belong to it. And yet you have been
+false to yours. Ah! Master Fanferlot, we are ambitious, and we try to
+make the police force serve our own views! We let Justice stray her way,
+and we go ours. One must be a more cunning bloodhound than you are, my
+friend, to be able to hunt without a huntsman. You are too self-reliant
+by half.”
+
+“But, patron, I swear--”
+
+“Silence! Do you pretend to say that you did your duty, and told all
+to the judge of instruction? Whilst others were informing against the
+cashier, you undertook to inform against the banker. You watched his
+movements: you became intimate with his valet.”
+
+Was M. Lecoq really angry, or pretending to be? Fanferlot, who knew him
+well, was puzzled to know whether all this indignation was real.
+
+“If you were only skilful,” he continued, “but no: you wish to be
+master, and you are not fit to be a journeyman.”
+
+“You are right, patron,” said Fanferlot, piteously, for he saw that
+it was useless for him to deny anything. “But how could I go about an
+affair like this, where there was not even a trace or sign to start
+from?”
+
+M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“You are an ass! Why, don’t you know that on the very day you were sent
+for with the commissary to verify the robbery, you held--I do not say
+certainly, but very probably held--in your great stupid hands the means
+of knowing which key had been used when the money was stolen?”
+
+“How! What!”
+
+“You want to know, do you? I will tell you. Do you remember the scratch
+you discovered on the safe-door? You were so struck by it, that you
+exclaimed directly you saw it. You carefully examined it, and were
+convinced that it was a fresh scratch, only a few hours old. You
+thought, and rightly too, that this scratch was made at the time of the
+theft. Now, with what was it made? Evidently with a key. That being
+the case, you should have asked for the keys both of the banker and the
+cashier. One of them would have had some particles of the hard green
+paint sticking to it.”
+
+Fanferlot listened with open mouth to this explanation. At the last
+words, he violently slapped his forehead with his hand, and cried out:
+
+“Imbecile! Imbecile!”
+
+“You have rightly named yourself,” said M. Lecoq. “Imbecile! This proof
+stares you right in the face, and you don’t see it! This scratch is the
+sole and only clew to work the case upon, and you must go and lose the
+traces of it. If I find the guilty party, it will be by means of this
+scratch; and I am determined that I will find him.”
+
+At a distance the Squirrel very bravely abused and defied M. Lecoq; but,
+in his presence, he yielded to the influence which this extraordinary
+man exercised upon all who approached him.
+
+This exact information, these minute details of all his secret
+movements, and even thoughts, so upset his mind that he could not think
+where and how M. Lecoq had obtained them. Finally he said, humbly:
+
+“You must have been looking up this case, patron?”
+
+“Probably I have; but I am not infallible, and may have overlooked some
+important evidence. Take a seat, and tell me all you know.”
+
+M. Lecoq was not the man to be hoodwinked, so Fanferlot told the exact
+truth, a rare thing for him to do. However as he reached the end of his
+statement, a feeling of mortified vanity prevented his telling how he
+had been fooled by Gypsy and the stout man.
+
+Unfortunately for poor Fanferlot, M. Lecoq was always fully informed on
+every subject in which he interested himself.
+
+“It seems to me, Master Squirrel, that you have forgotten something. How
+far did you follow the empty coach?”
+
+Fanferlot blushed, and hung his head like a guilty school-boy.
+
+“Oh, patron!” he cried, “and you know about that too! How could you
+have----”
+
+But a sudden idea flashed across his brain: he stopped short, bounded
+off his chair, and cried:
+
+“Oh! I know now: you were the large gentleman with red whiskers.”
+
+His surprise gave so singular an expression to his face that M. Lecoq
+could not restrain a smile.
+
+“Then it was you,” continued the bewildered detective; “you were the
+large gentleman at whom I stared, so as to impress his appearance upon
+my mind, and I never recognized you! Patron, you would make a superb
+actor, if you would go on the stage; but I was disguised, too--very well
+disguised.”
+
+“Very poorly disguised; it is only just to you that I should let you
+know what a failure it was, Fanferlot. Do you think that a heavy beard
+and a blouse are a sufficient transformation? The eye is the thing to be
+changed--the eye! The art lies in being able to change the eye. That is
+the secret.”
+
+This theory of disguise explained why the lynx-eyed Lecoq never appeared
+at the police-office without his gold spectacles.
+
+“Then, patron,” said Fanferlot, clinging to his idea, “you have been
+more successful than Mme. Alexandre; you have made the little girl
+confess? You know why she leaves the Archangel, why she does not wait
+for M. de Clameran, and why she bought calico dresses?”
+
+“She is following my advice.”
+
+“That being the case,” said the detective dejectedly, “there is nothing
+left for me to do, but to acknowledge myself an ass.”
+
+“No, Squirrel,” said M. Lecoq, kindly, “you are not an ass. You
+merely did wrong in undertaking a task beyond your capacity. Have you
+progressed one step since you started this affair? No. That shows that,
+although you are incomparable as a lieutenant, you do not possess the
+qualities of a general. I am going to present you with an aphorism;
+remember it, and let it be your guide in the future: _A man can shine in
+the second rank, who would be totally eclipsed in the first_.”
+
+Never had Fanferlot seen his patron so talkative and good-natured.
+Finding his deceit discovered, he had expected to be overwhelmed with
+a storm of anger; whereas he had escaped with a little shower that had
+cooled his brain. Lecoq’s anger disappeared like one of those heavy
+clouds which threaten in the horizon for a moment, and then are suddenly
+swept away by a gust of wind.
+
+But this unexpected affability made Fanferlot feel uneasy. He was afraid
+that something might be concealed beneath it.
+
+“Do you know who the thief is, patron?”
+
+“I know no more than you do, Fanferlot; and you seem to have made up
+your mind, whereas I am still undecided. You declare the cashier to be
+innocent, and the banker guilty. I don’t know whether you are right or
+wrong. I started after you, and have only reached the preliminaries of
+my search. I am certain of but one thing, and that is, that a scratch
+was on the safe-door. That scratch is my starting-point.”
+
+As he spoke, M. Lecoq took from his desk and unrolled an immense sheet
+of drawing-paper.
+
+On this paper was photographed the door of M. Fauvel’s safe. The
+impression of every detail was perfect. There were the five movable
+buttons with the engraved letters, and the narrow, projecting brass
+lock: The scratch was indicated with great exactness.
+
+“Now,” said M. Lecoq, “here is our scratch. It runs from top to bottom,
+starting from the hole of the lock, diagonally, and, observe, from left
+to right; that is to say, it terminates on the side next to the private
+staircase leading to the banker’s apartments. Although very deep at the
+key-hole, it ends off in a scarcely perceptible mark.”
+
+“Yes, patron, I see all that.”
+
+“Naturally you thought that this scratch was made by the person who took
+the money. Let us see if you were right. I have here a little iron box,
+painted with green varnish like M. Fauvel’s safe; here it is. Take a
+key, and try to scratch it.”
+
+“The deuce take it!” he said after several attempts, “this paint is
+awfully hard to move!”
+
+“Very hard, my friend, and yet that on the safe is still harder and
+thicker. So you see the scratch you discovered could not have been made
+by the trembling hand of a thief letting the key slip.”
+
+“Sapristi!” exclaimed Fanferlot, stupefied: “I never should have thought
+of that. It certainly required great force to make the deep scratch on
+the safe.”
+
+“Yes, but how was that force employed? I have been racking my brain
+for three days, and only yesterday did I come to a conclusion. Let us
+examine together, and see if our conjectures present enough chances of
+probability to establish a starting-point.”
+
+M. Lecoq abandoned the photograph, and, walking to the door
+communicating with his bedroom, took the key from the lock, and, holding
+it in his hand, said:
+
+“Come here, Fanferlot, and stand by my side: there; very well. Now
+suppose that I want to open this door, and you don’t want me to open
+it; when you see me about to insert the key, what would be your first
+impulse?”
+
+“To put my hands on your arm, and draw it toward me so as to prevent
+your introducing the key.”
+
+“Precisely so. Now let us try it; go on.” Fanferlot obeyed; and the key
+held by M. Lecoq, pulled aside from the lock, slipped along the door,
+and traced upon it a diagonal scratch, from top to bottom, the exact
+reproduction of the one in the photograph.
+
+“Oh, oh, oh!” exclaimed Fanferlot in three different tones of
+admiration, as he stood gazing in a revery at the door.
+
+“Do you begin to understand now?” asked M. Lecoq.
+
+“Understand, patron? Why, a child could understand it now. Ah, what a
+man you are! I see the scene as if I had been present. Two persons were
+present at the robbery; one wished to take the money, the other wished
+to prevent its being taken. That is clear, that is certain.”
+
+Accustomed to triumphs of this sort, M. Lecoq was much amused at
+Fanferlot’s enthusiasm.
+
+“There you go off, half-primed again,” he said, good-humoredly: “you
+regard as sure proof a circumstance which may be accidental, and at the
+most only probable.”
+
+“No, patron, no! a man like you could not be mistaken: doubt no longer
+exists.”
+
+“That being the case, what deductions would you draw from our
+discovery?”
+
+“In the first place, it proves that I am correct in thinking the cashier
+innocent.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Because, at perfect liberty to open the safe whenever he wished to
+do so, it is not likely that he would have brought a witness when he
+intended to commit the theft.”
+
+“Well reasoned, Fanferlot. But on this supposition the banker would be
+equally innocent: reflect a little.”
+
+Fanferlot reflected, and all of his animation vanished.
+
+“You are right,” he said in a despairing tone. “What can be done now?”
+
+“Look for the third rogue, or rather the real rogue, the one who opened
+the safe, and stole the notes, and who is still at large, while others
+are suspected.”
+
+“Impossible, patron--impossible! Don’t you know that M. Fauvel and his
+cashier had keys, and they only? And they always kept these keys in
+their pockets.”
+
+“On the evening of the robbery the banker left his key in the
+secretary.”
+
+“Yes; but the key alone was not sufficient to open the safe; the word
+also must be known.”
+
+M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
+
+“What was the word?” he asked.
+
+“Gypsy.”
+
+“Which is the name of the cashier’s grisette. Now keep your eyes open.
+The day you find a man sufficiently intimate with Prosper to be aware of
+all the circumstances connected with this name, and at the same time on
+a footing with the Fauvel family which would give him the privilege
+of entering M. Fauvel’s chamber, then, and not until then, will you
+discover the guilty party. On that day the problem will be solved.”
+
+Self-sufficient and vain, like all famous men, M. Lecoq had never had a
+pupil, and never wished to have one. He worked alone, because he hated
+assistants, wishing to share neither the pleasures of success nor the
+pain of defeat.
+
+Thus Fanferlot, who knew his patron’s character, was surprised to hear
+him giving advice, who heretofore had only given orders.
+
+He was so puzzled, that in spite of his pre-occupation he could not help
+betraying his surprise.
+
+“Patron,” he ventured to say, “you seem to take a great interest in this
+affair, you have so deeply studied it.”
+
+M. Lecoq started nervously, and replied, frowning:
+
+“You are too curious, Master Squirrel; be careful that you do not go too
+far. Do you understand?”
+
+Fanferlot began to apologize.
+
+“That will do,” interrupted M. Lecoq. “If I choose to lend you a helping
+hand, it is because it suits my fancy to do so. It pleases me to be the
+head, and let you be the hand. Unassisted, with your preconceived ideas,
+you never would have found the culprit; if we two together don’t find
+him, my name is not Lecoq.”
+
+“We shall certainly succeed if you interest yourself in the case.”
+
+“Yes, I am interested in it, and during the last four days I have
+discovered many important facts. But listen to me. I have reasons for
+not appearing in this affair. No matter what happens, I forbid your
+mentioning my name. If we succeed, all the success must be attributed
+to you. And, above all, don’t try to find out what I choose to keep from
+you. Be satisfied with what explanations I give you. Now, be careful.”
+
+These conditions seemed quite to suit Fanferlot.
+
+“I will obey your instructions, and be discreet.”
+
+“I shall rely upon you. Now, to begin, you must carry this photograph
+to the judge of instruction. I know M. Patrigent is much perplexed about
+this case. Explain to him, as if it were your own discovery, what I have
+just shown you; repeat for his benefit the scene we have acted, and I am
+convinced that this evidence will determine him to release the cashier.
+Prosper must be at liberty before I can commence my operations.”
+
+“Of course, patron, but must I let him know that I suspect anyone
+besides the banker or cashier?”
+
+“Certainly. Justice must not be kept in ignorance of your intention of
+following up this affair. M. Patrigent will tell you to watch Prosper;
+you will reply that you will not lose sight of him. I myself will answer
+for his being in safe-keeping.”
+
+“Suppose he asks me about Gypsy?”
+
+M. Lecoq hesitated for a moment.
+
+“Tell him,” he finally said, “that you persuaded her, in the interest
+of Prosper, to live in a house where she can watch someone whom you
+suspect.”
+
+Fanferlot was joyously picking up his hat to go, when M. Lecoq checked
+him by waving his hand, and said:
+
+“I have not finished. Do you know how to drive a carriage and manage
+horses?”
+
+“Why, patron, can you ask this of a man who used to be a rider in the
+Bouthor Circus?”
+
+“Very well. As soon as the judge dismisses you, return home immediately,
+make yourself a wig and the complete dress of a valet; and, having
+dressed yourself, take this letter to the Agency on Delorme Street.”
+
+“But, patron--”
+
+“There must be no but, my friend; the agent will send you to M.
+de Clameran, who is looking for a valet, his man having left him
+yesterday.”
+
+“Excuse me if I venture to suggest that you are making a mistake. This
+Clameran is not the cashier’s friend.”
+
+“Why do you always interrupt me?” said M. Lecoq imperiously. “Do what I
+tell you, and don’t disturb your mind about the rest. Clameran is not a
+friend of Prosper’s, I know; but he is the friend and protector of
+Raoul de Lagors. Why so? Whence the intimacy of these two men of such
+different ages? That is what I must find out. I must also find out who
+this forge-master is who lives in Paris, and never goes to attend to
+his furnaces. A jolly fellow, who takes it into his head to live at the
+Hotel du Louvre, in the midst of a tumultuous, ever-changing crowd, is
+a fellow difficult to watch. Through you I will have an eye upon him. He
+has a carriage, you are to drive it; and you will soon be able to give
+me an account of his manner of life, and of the sort of people with whom
+he associates.”
+
+“You shall be obeyed, patron.”
+
+“Another thing. M. de Clameran is irritable and suspicious. You will be
+presented to him under the name of Joseph Dubois. He will demand your
+certificate of good character. Here are three, which state that you have
+lived with the Marquis de Sairmeuse and the Count de Commarin, and that
+you have just left the Baron de Wortschen, who went to Germany the other
+day. Now keep your eyes open; be careful of your dress and manners.
+Be polite, but not excessively so. And, above all things, don’t be
+obsequious; it might arouse suspicion.”
+
+“I understand, patron. Where shall I report to you?”
+
+“I will call on you every day. Until I tell you differently, don’t step
+foot in this house; you might be followed. If anything important should
+happen, send a note to your wife, and she will inform me. Go, and be
+prudent.”
+
+The door closed on Fanferlot as M. Lecoq passed into his bedroom.
+
+In the twinkling of an eye he had divested himself of the appearance of
+a police officer. He took off his stiff cravat and gold spectacles, and
+removed the close wig from his thick black hair. The official Lecoq had
+disappeared, leaving in his place the genuine Lecoq whom nobody knew--a
+handsome young man, with a bold, determined manner, and brilliant,
+piercing eyes.
+
+But he only remained himself for an instant. Seated before a
+dressing-table covered with more cosmetics, paints, perfumes, false
+hair, and other unmentionable shams, than are to be found on the
+toilet-tables of our modern belles, he began to undo the work of nature,
+and make himself a new face.
+
+He worked slowly, handling his brushes with great care. But in an hour
+he had accomplished one of his daily masterpieces. When he had finished,
+he was no longer Lecoq: he was the large gentleman with red whiskers,
+whom Fanferlot had failed to recognize.
+
+“Well,” he said, casting a last look in the mirror, “I have forgotten
+nothing: I have left nothing to chance. All my plans are fixed; and I
+shall make some progress to-day, provided the Squirrel does not waste
+time.”
+
+But Fanferlot was too happy to waste a minute. He did not run, he flew,
+toward the Palais de Justice.
+
+At last he was now able to convince someone that he, Fanferlot, was a
+man of wonderful perspicacity.
+
+As to acknowledging that he was about to obtain a triumph with the ideas
+of another man, he never thought of it. It is generally in perfect good
+faith that the jackdaw struts in the peacock’s feathers.
+
+His hopes were not deceived. If the judge was not absolutely and
+fully convinced, he admired the ingenuity and shrewdness of the whole
+proceeding, and complimented the proud jackdaw upon his brilliancy.
+
+“This decides me,” he said, as he dismissed Fanferlot. “I will make out
+a favorable report to-day; and it is highly probable that the accused
+will be released to-morrow.”
+
+He began at once to write out one of these terrible decisions of “Not
+proven,” which restores liberty, but not honor, to the accused man;
+which says that he is not guilty, but does not say he is innocent.
+
+“Whereas there do not exist sufficient charges against the accused,
+Prosper Bertomy, in pursuance of Article 128 of the Criminal Code,
+we hereby declare that we find no grounds for prosecution against the
+aforesaid prisoner at this present time; and we order that he shall be
+released from the prison where he is confined, and set at liberty by the
+jailer,” etc.
+
+“Well,” he said to the clerk, “here is another one of those crimes
+which justice cannot clear up. The mystery remains to be solved. This is
+another file to be stowed away among the archives of the record-office.”
+
+And with his own hand he wrote on the cover of the bundle of papers
+relating to Prosper’s case, the number of the package, File No. 113.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Prosper had been languishing in his private cell for nine days, when on
+Thursday morning the jailer came to inform him of the judge’s decision.
+He was conducted before the officer who had searched him when he was
+arrested; and the contents of his pocket, his watch, penknife, and
+several little pieces of jewelry, were restored to him; then he was told
+to sign a large sheet of paper, which he did.
+
+He was next led across a dark passage, and almost pushed through a door,
+which was abruptly shut upon him.
+
+He found himself on the quay: he was alone; he was free.
+
+Free! Justice had confessed her inability to convict him of the crime of
+which he was accused.
+
+Free! He could walk about, he could breathe the pure air; but every door
+would be closed against him.
+
+Only acquittal after due trial would restore him to his former position
+among men.
+
+A decision of “Not proven” had left him covered with suspicion.
+
+The torments inflicted by public opinion are more fearful than those
+suffered in a prison cell.
+
+At the moment of his restoration to liberty, Prosper so cruelly suffered
+from the horror of his situation, that he could not repress a cry of
+rage and despair.
+
+“I am innocent! God knows I am innocent!” he cried out. But of what use
+was his anger?
+
+Two strangers, who were passing, stopped to look at him, and said,
+pityingly, “He is crazy.”
+
+The Seine was at his feet. A thought of suicide crossed his mind.
+
+“No,” he said, “no! I have not even the right to kill myself. No: I will
+not die until I have vindicated my innocence!”
+
+Often, day and night, had Prosper repeated these words, as he walked
+his cell. With a heart filled with a bitter, determined thirst for
+vengeance, which gives a man the force and patience to destroy or
+wear out all obstacles in his way, he would say, “Oh! why am I not at
+liberty? I am helpless, caged up; but let me once be free!”
+
+Now he was free; and, for the first time, he saw the difficulties of the
+task before him. For each crime, justice requires a criminal: he could
+not establish his own innocence without producing the guilty man; how
+find the thief so as to hand him over to the law?
+
+Discouraged, but not despondent, he turned in the direction of his
+apartments. He was beset by a thousand anxieties. What had taken place
+during the nine days that he had been cut off from all intercourse with
+his friends? No news of them had reached him. He had heard no more of
+what was going on in the outside world, than if his secret cell had been
+a grave.
+
+He slowly walked along the streets, with his eyes cast down dreading to
+meet some familiar face. He, who had always been so haughty, would now
+be pointed at with the finger of scorn. He would be greeted with cold
+looks and averted faces. Men would refuse to shake hands with him. He
+would be shunned by honest people, who have no patience with a thief.
+
+Still, if he could count on only one true friend! Yes: he was sure of
+one. But what friend would believe him when his father, who should have
+been the last to suspect him, had refused to believe him?
+
+In the midst of his sufferings, when he felt almost overwhelmed by the
+sense of his wretched, lonely condition, he thought of Gypsy.
+
+He had never loved the poor girl: indeed, at times he almost hated her;
+but now he felt a longing to see her. He wished to be with her, because
+he knew that she loved him, and that nothing would make her believe him
+guilty; because he knew that a woman remains true and firm in her faith,
+and is always faithful in the hour of adversity, although she sometimes
+fails in prosperity.
+
+On entering the Rue Chaptal, Prosper saw his own door, but hesitated to
+enter it.
+
+He suffered from the timidity which an honest man always feels when he
+knows he is viewed with suspicion.
+
+He dreaded meeting anyone whom he knew; yet he could not remain in the
+street. He entered.
+
+When the porter saw him, he uttered an exclamation of glad surprise, and
+said:
+
+“Ah, here you are at last, monsieur. I told everyone you would come out
+as white as snow; and, when I read in the papers that you were arrested
+for robbery, I said, ‘My third-floor lodger a thief! Never would I
+believe such a thing, never!’”
+
+The congratulations of this ignorant man were sincere, and offered from
+pure kindness of heart; but they impressed Prosper painfully, and he cut
+them short by abruptly asking:
+
+“Madame of course has left: can you tell me where she has gone?”
+
+“Dear me, no, monsieur. The day of your arrest, she sent for a hack, got
+into it with her trunks, and disappeared; and no one has seen or heard
+of her since.”
+
+This was another blow to the unhappy cashier.
+
+“And where are my servants?”
+
+“Gone, monsieur; your father paid and discharged them.”
+
+“I suppose you have my keys?”
+
+“No, monsieur; when your father left here this morning at eight o’clock,
+he told me that a friend of his would take charge of your rooms until
+you should return. Of course you know who he is--a stout gentleman with
+red whiskers.”
+
+Prosper was stupefied. What could be the meaning of one of his father’s
+friends being in his rooms? He did not, however, betray any surprise,
+but quietly said:
+
+“Yes: I know who it is.”
+
+He quickly ran up the stairs, and knocked at his door.
+
+It was opened by his father’s friend.
+
+He had been accurately described by the porter. A fat man, with a red
+face, sensual lips, brilliant eyes, and of rather coarse manners, stood
+bowing to Prosper, who had never seen him before.
+
+“Delighted to make your acquaintance, monsieur,” said he to Prosper.
+
+He seemed to be perfectly at home. On the table lay a book, which he had
+taken from the bookcase; and he appeared ready to do the honors of the
+house.
+
+“I must say, monsieur,” began Prosper.
+
+“That you are surprised to find me here? So I suppose. Your father
+intended introducing me to you; but he was compelled to return to
+Beaucaire this morning; and let me add that he departed thoroughly
+convinced, as I myself am, that you never took a cent from M. Fauvel.”
+
+At this unexpected good news, Prosper’s face lit up with pleasure.
+
+“Here is a letter from your father, which I hope will serve as an
+introduction between us.”
+
+Prosper opened the letter; and as he read his eyes grew brighter, and a
+slight color returned to his pale face.
+
+When he had finished, he held out his hand to the large gentleman, and
+said:
+
+“My father, monsieur, tells me you are his best friend; he advises me to
+have absolute confidence in you, and follow your counsel.”
+
+“Exactly. This morning your father said to me, ‘Verduret’--that is my
+name--‘Verduret, my son is in great trouble, he must be helped out.’ I
+replied, ‘I am ready,’ and here I am to help you. Now the ice is broken,
+is it not? Then let us go to work at once. What do you intend to do?”
+
+This question revived Prosper’s slumbering rage. His eyes flashed.
+
+“What do I intend to do?” he said, angrily: “what should I do but seek
+the villain who has ruined me?”
+
+“So I supposed; but have you any hopes of success?”
+
+“None; yet I shall succeed, because, when a man devotes his whole life
+to the accomplishment of an object, he is certain to achieve it.”
+
+“Well said, M. Prosper; and, to be frank, I fully expected that this
+would be your purpose. I have therefore already begun to think and
+act for you. I have a plan. In the first place, you will sell this
+furniture, and disappear from the neighborhood.”
+
+“Disappear!” cried Prosper, indignantly, “disappear! Why, monsieur?
+Do you not see that such a step would be a confession of guilt, would
+authorize the world to say that I am hiding so as to enjoy undisturbed
+the stolen fortune?”
+
+“Well, what then?” said the man with the red whiskers; “did you not say
+just now the sacrifice of your life is made? The skilful swimmer thrown
+into the river by malefactors is careful not to rise to the surface
+immediately: on the contrary, he plunges beneath, and remains there as
+long as his breath holds out. He comes up again at a great distance, and
+lands out of sight; then, when he is supposed to be dead, lost forever
+to the sight of man, he rises up and has his vengeance. You have an
+enemy? Some petty imprudence will betray him. But, while he sees you
+standing by on the watch, he will be on his guard.”
+
+It was with a sort of amazed submission that Prosper listened to this
+man, who, though a friend of his father, was an utter stranger to
+himself.
+
+He submitted unconsciously to the ascendency of a nature so much more
+energetic and forcible than his own. In his helpless condition he was
+grateful for friendly assistance, and said:
+
+“I will follow your advice, monsieur.”
+
+“I was sure you would, my dear friend. Let us reflect upon the course
+you should pursue. And remember that you will need every cent of the
+proceeds of the sale. Have you any ready money? no, but you must have
+some. Knowing that you would need it at once, I brought an upholsterer
+here; and he will give twelve thousand francs for everything excepting
+the pictures.”
+
+The cashier could not refrain from shrugging his shoulders, which M.
+Verduret observed.
+
+“Well,” said he, “it is rather hard, I admit, but it is a necessity. Now
+listen: you are the invalid, and I am the doctor charged to cure you;
+if I cut to the quick, you will have to endure it. It is the only way to
+save you.”
+
+“Cut away then, monsieur,” answered Prosper.
+
+“Well, we will hurry, for time passes. You have a friend, M. de Lagors?”
+
+“Raoul? Yes, monsieur, he is an intimate friend.”
+
+“Now tell me, who is this fellow?”
+
+The term “fellow” seemed to offend Prosper.
+
+“M. de Lagors, monsieur,” he said, haughtily, “is M. Fauvel’s nephew; he
+is a wealthy young man, handsome, intelligent, cultivated, and the best
+friend I have.”
+
+“Hum!” said M. Verduret, “I shall be delighted to make the acquaintance
+of one adorned by so many charming qualities. I must let you know that I
+wrote him a note in your name asking him to come here, and he sent word
+that he would be here directly.”
+
+“What! do you suppose--”
+
+“Oh, I suppose nothing! Only I must see this young man. Also, I have
+arranged and will submit to you a little plan of conversation--”
+
+A ring at the front door interrupted M. Verduret.
+
+“Sacrebleu! adieu to my plan; here he is! Where can I hide so as to hear
+and see?”
+
+“There, in my bedroom; leave the door open and the curtain down.”
+
+A second ring was heard.
+
+“Now remember, Prosper,” said M. Verduret in a warning tone, “not
+one word to this man about your plans, or about me. Pretend to be
+discouraged, helpless, and undecided what to do.”
+
+And he disappeared behind the curtain, as Prosper ran to open the door.
+
+Prosper’s portrait of M. de Lagors had not been an exaggerated one.
+So handsome a face and manly a figure could belong only to a noble
+character.
+
+Although Raoul said that he was twenty-four, he appeared to be not more
+than twenty. He had a superb figure, well knit and supple; a beautiful
+white brow, shaded by soft chestnut curly hair, soft blue eyes which
+beamed with frankness.
+
+His first impulse was to throw himself into Prosper’s arms.
+
+“My poor, dear friend!” he said, “my poor Prosper!”
+
+But beneath these affectionate demonstrations there was a certain
+constraint, which, if it escaped the cashier, was noticed by M.
+Verduret.
+
+“Your letter, my dear Prosper,” said Raoul, “made me almost ill, I was
+so frightened by it. I asked myself if you could have lost your mind.
+Then I left everything, to fly to your assistance; and here I am.”
+
+Prosper did not seem to hear him; he was pre-occupied about the letter
+which he had not written. What were its contents? Who was this stranger
+whose assistance he had accepted?
+
+“You must not feel discouraged,” continued M. de Lagors: “you are young
+enough to commence life anew. Your friends are still left to you. I have
+come to say to you, Rely upon me; I am rich, half of my fortune is at
+your disposal.”
+
+This generous offer, made at a moment like this with such frank
+simplicity, deeply touched Prosper.
+
+“Thanks, Raoul,” he said with emotion, “thank you! But unfortunately all
+the money in the world would be of no use now.”
+
+“Why so? What are you going to do? Do you propose to remain in Paris?”
+
+“I know not, Raoul. I have made no plans yet. My mind is too confused
+for me to think.”
+
+“I will tell you what to do,” replied Raoul quickly, “you must start
+afresh; until this mysterious robbery is explained you must keep away
+from Paris. It will never do for you to remain here.”
+
+“And suppose it never should be explained?”
+
+“Only the more reason for your remaining in oblivion. I have been
+talking about you to Clameran. ‘If I were in Prosper’s place,’ he said,
+‘I would turn everything into money, and embark for America; there I
+would make a fortune, and return to crush with my millions those who
+have suspected me.’”
+
+This advice offended Prosper’s pride, but he said nothing. He was
+thinking of what the stranger had said to him.
+
+“I will think it over,” he finally forced himself to say. “I will see. I
+would like to know what M. Fauvel says.”
+
+“My uncle? I suppose you know that I have declined the offer he made me
+to enter his banking-house, and we have almost quarrelled. I have not
+set foot in his house for over a month; but I hear of him occasionally.”
+
+“Through whom?”
+
+“Through your friend Cavaillon. My uncle, they say, is more distressed
+by this affair than you are. He does not attend to his business, and
+wanders about as if he had lost every friend on earth.”
+
+“And Mme. Fauvel, and”--Prosper hesitated--“and Mlle. Madeleine, how are
+they?”
+
+“Oh,” said Raoul lightly, “my aunt is as pious as ever; she has mass
+said for the benefit of the sinner. As to my handsome, icy cousin, she
+cannot bring herself down to common matters, because she is entirely
+absorbed in preparing for the fancy ball to be given day after to-morrow
+by MM. Jandidier. She has discovered, so one of her friends told me, a
+wonderful dressmaker, a stranger who has suddenly appeared from no one
+knows where, who is making a costume of Catherine de Medici’s maid of
+honor; and it is to be a marvel of beauty.”
+
+Excessive suffering brings with it a sort of dull insensibility and
+stupor; and Prosper thought that there was nothing left to be inflicted
+upon him, and had reached that state of impassibility from which he
+never expected to be aroused, when this last remark of M. de Lagors made
+him cry out with pain:
+
+“Madeleine! Oh, Madeleine!”
+
+M. de Lagors, pretending not to have heard him, rose from his chair, and
+said:
+
+“I must leave you now, my dear Prosper; on Saturday I will see these
+ladies at the ball, and will bring you news of them. Now, do have
+courage, and remember that, whatever happens, you have a friend in me.”
+
+Raoul shook Prosper’s hand, closed the door after him, and hurried
+up the street, leaving Prosper standing immovable and overcome by
+disappointment.
+
+He was aroused from his gloomy revery by hearing the red-whiskered man
+say, in a bantering tone:
+
+“So these are your friends.”
+
+“Yes,” said Prosper with bitterness. “You heard him offer me half his
+fortune?”
+
+M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders with an air of compassion.
+
+“That was very stingy on his part,” he said, “why did he not offer the
+whole? Offers cost nothing; although I have no doubt that this sweet
+youth would cheerfully give ten thousand francs to put the ocean between
+you and him.”
+
+“Monsieur! what reason?”
+
+“Who knows? Perhaps for the same reason that he had not set foot in his
+uncle’s house for a month.”
+
+“But that is the truth, monsieur, I am sure of it.”
+
+“Naturally,” said M. Verduret with a provoking smile. “But,” he
+continued with a serious air, “we have devoted enough time to this
+Adonis. Now, be good enough to change your dress, and we will go and
+call on M. Fauvel.”
+
+This proposal seemed to stir up all of Prosper’s anger.
+
+“Never!” he exclaimed with excitement, “no, never will I voluntarily set
+eyes on that wretch!”
+
+This resistance did not surprise M. Verduret.
+
+“I can understand your feelings toward him,” said he, “but at the same
+time I hope you will change your mind. For the same reason that I wished
+to see M. de Lagors, do I wish to see M. Fauvel; it is necessary, you
+understand. Are you so very weak that you cannot put a constraint upon
+yourself for five minutes? I shall introduce myself as one of your
+relatives, and you need not open your lips.”
+
+“If it is positively necessary,” said Prosper, “if--”
+
+“It is necessary; so come on. You must have confidence, put on a brave
+face. Hurry and fix yourself up a little; it is getting late, and I am
+hungry. We will breakfast on our way there.”
+
+Prosper had hardly passed into his bedroom when the bell rang again.
+M. Verduret opened the door. It was the porter, who handed him a thick
+letter, and said:
+
+“This letter was left this morning for M. Bertomy; I was so flustered
+when he came that I forgot to hand it to him. It is a very odd-looking
+letter; is it not, monsieur?”
+
+It was indeed a most peculiar missive. The address was not written, but
+formed of printed letters, carefully cut from a book, and pasted on the
+envelope.
+
+“Oh, ho! what is this?” cried M. Verduret; then turning toward the
+porter he cried, “Wait.”
+
+He went into the next room, and closed the door behind him; there he
+found Prosper, anxious to know what was going on.
+
+“Here is a letter for you,” said M. Verduret.
+
+He at once tore open the envelope.
+
+Some bank-notes dropped out; he counted them; there were ten.
+
+Prosper’s face turned purple.
+
+“What does this mean?” he asked.
+
+“We will read the letter and find out,” replied M. Verduret.
+
+The letter, like the address, was composed of printed words cut out and
+pasted on a sheet of paper.
+
+It was short but explicit:
+
+
+“MY DEAR PROSPER--A friend, who knows the horror of your situation,
+sends you this succor. There is one heart, be assured, that shares your
+sufferings. Go away; leave France; you are young; the future is before
+you. Go, and may this money bring you happiness!”
+
+
+As M. Verduret read the note, Prosper’s rage increased. He was angry and
+perplexed, for he could not explain the rapidly succeeding events which
+were so calculated to mystify his already confused brain.
+
+“Everybody wishes me to go away,” he cried; “then there must be a
+conspiracy against me.”
+
+M. Verduret smiled with satisfaction.
+
+“At last you begin to open your eyes, you begin to understand. Yes,
+there are people who hate you because of the wrong they have done you;
+there are people to whom your presence in Paris is a constant danger,
+and who will not feel safe till they are rid of you.”
+
+“But who are these people, monsieur? Tell me, who dares send this
+money?”
+
+“If I knew, my dear Prosper, my task would be at an end, for then I
+would know who committed the robbery. But we will continue our searches.
+I have finally procured evidence which will sooner or later become
+convincing proof. I have heretofore only made deductions more or less
+probable; I now possess knowledge which proves that I was not mistaken.
+I walked in darkness: now I have a light to guide me.”
+
+As Prosper listened to M. Verduret’s reassuring words, he felt hope
+arising in his breast.
+
+“Now,” said M. Verduret, “we must take advantage of this evidence,
+gained by the imprudence of our enemies, without delay. We will begin
+with the porter.”
+
+He opened the door and called out:
+
+“I say, my good man, step here a moment.”
+
+The porter entered, looking very much surprised at the authority
+exercised over his lodger by this stranger.
+
+“Who gave you this letter?” said M. Verduret.
+
+“A messenger, who said he was paid for bringing it.”
+
+“Do you know him?”
+
+“I know him well; he is the errand-runner who keeps his cart at the
+corner of the Rue Pigalle.”
+
+“Go and bring him here.”
+
+After the porter had gone, M. Verduret drew from his pocket his diary,
+and compared a page of it with the notes which he had spread over the
+table.
+
+“These notes were not sent by the thief,” he said, after an attentive
+examination of them.
+
+“Do you think so, monsieur?”
+
+“I am certain of it; that is, unless the thief is endowed with
+extraordinary penetration and forethought. One thing is certain: these
+ten thousand francs are not part of the three hundred and fifty thousand
+which were stolen from the safe.”
+
+“Yet,” said Prosper, who could not account for this certainty on the
+part of his protector, “yet----”
+
+“There is no doubt about it: I have the numbers of all the stolen
+notes.”
+
+“What! When even I did not have them?”
+
+“But the bank did, fortunately. When we undertake an affair we must
+anticipate everything, and forget nothing. It is a poor excuse for a
+man to say, ‘I did not think of it’ when he commits some oversight. I
+thought of the bank.”
+
+If, in the beginning, Prosper had felt some repugnance about confiding
+in his father’s friend, the feeling had now disappeared.
+
+He understood that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only
+by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient
+perspicacity of this singular man.
+
+Verduret continued talking to himself, as if he had absolutely forgotten
+Prosper’s presence:
+
+“Then, as this package did not come from the thief, it can only come
+from the other person, who was near the safe at the time of the robbery,
+but could not prevent it, and now feels remorse. The probability of
+two persons assisting at the robbery, a probability suggested by the
+scratch, is now converted into undeniable certainty. _Ergo_, I was
+right.”
+
+Prosper listening attentively tried hard to comprehend this monologue,
+which he dared not interrupt.
+
+“Let us seek,” went on the fat man, “this second person, whose
+conscience pricks him, and yet who dares not reveal anything.”
+
+He read the letter over several times, scanning the sentences, and
+weighing every word.
+
+“Evidently this letter was composed by a woman,” he finally said. “Never
+would one man doing another man a service, and sending him money, use
+the word ‘succor.’ A man would have said, loan, money, or some other
+equivalent, but succor, never. No one but a woman, ignorant of masculine
+susceptibilities, would have naturally made use of this word to express
+the idea it represents. As to the sentence, ‘There is one heart,’ and so
+on, it could only have been written by a woman.”
+
+“You are mistaken, monsieur,” said Prosper: “no woman is mixed up in
+this affair.”
+
+M. Verduret paid no attention to this interruption, perhaps he did not
+hear it; perhaps he did not care to argue the matter.
+
+“Now, let us see if we can discover whence the printed words were taken
+to compose this letter.”
+
+He approached the window, and began to study the pasted words with all
+the scrupulous attention which an antiquarian would devote to an old,
+half-effaced manuscript.
+
+“Small type,” he said, “very slender and clear; the paper is thin and
+glossy. Consequently, these words have not been cut from a newspaper,
+magazine, or even a novel. I have seen type like this, I recognize it at
+once; Didot often uses it, so does Mme. de Tours.”
+
+He stopped with his mouth open, and eyes fixed, appealing laboriously to
+his memory.
+
+Suddenly he struck his forehead exultantly.
+
+“Now I have it!” he cried; “now I have it! Why did I not see it at
+once? These words have all been cut from a prayer-book. We will look, at
+least, and then we shall be certain.”
+
+He moistened one of the words pasted on the paper with his tongue, and,
+when it was sufficiently softened, he detached it with a pin. On the
+other side of this word was printed a Latin word, _Deus_.
+
+“Ah, ha,” he said with a little laugh of satisfaction. “I knew it.
+Father Taberet would be pleased to see this. But what has become of
+the mutilated prayer-book? Can it have been burned? No, because a
+heavy-bound book is not easily burned. It is thrown in some corner.”
+
+M. Verduret was interrupted by the porter, who returned with the
+messenger from the Rue Pigalle.
+
+“Ah, here you are,” he said encouragingly. Then he showed the envelope
+of the letter, and said:
+
+“Do you remember bringing this letter here this morning?”
+
+“Perfectly, monsieur. I took particular notice of the direction; we
+don’t often see anything like it.”
+
+“Who told you to bring it? a gentleman, or a lady?”
+
+“Neither, monsieur; it was a porter.”
+
+This reply made the porter laugh very much, but not a muscle of M.
+Verduret’s face moved.
+
+“A porter? Well, do you know this colleague of yours.”
+
+“I never even saw him before.”
+
+“How does he look?”
+
+“He was neither tall nor short; he wore a green vest, and his medal.”
+
+“Your description is so vague that it would suit every porter in the
+city; but did your colleague tell you who sent the letter?”
+
+“No, monsieur. He only put ten sous in my hand, and said, ‘Here, carry
+this to No. 39, Rue Chaptal: a coachman on the boulevard handed it to
+me.’ Ten sous! I warrant you he made more than that by it.”
+
+This answer seemed to disconcert M. Verduret. So many precautions taken
+in sending the letter disturbed him, and disarranged his plans.
+
+“Do you think you would recognize the porter again?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, if I saw him.”
+
+“How much do you gain a day as a porter?”
+
+“I can’t tell exactly; but my corner is a good stand, and I am busy
+doing errands nearly all day. I suppose I make from eight to ten
+francs.”
+
+“Very well; I will give you ten francs a day if you will walk about the
+streets, and look for the porter who brought this letter. Every evening,
+at eight o’clock, come to the Archangel, on the Quai Saint Michel, give
+me a report of your search, and receive your pay. Ask for M. Verduret.
+If you find the man I will give you fifty francs. Do you accept?”
+
+“I rather think I will, monsieur.”
+
+“Then don’t lose a minute. Start off!”
+
+Although ignorant of M. Verduret’s plans, Prosper began to comprehend
+the sense of his investigations. His fate depended upon their success,
+and yet he almost forgot this fact in his admiration of this singular
+man; for his energy, his bantering coolness when he wished to discover
+anything, the surety of his deductions, the fertility of his expedients,
+and the rapidity of his movements, were astonishing.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Prosper when the porter had left the room, “do you
+still think you see a woman’s hand in this affair?”
+
+“More than ever; and a pious woman too, and a woman who has two
+prayer-books, since she could cut up one to write to you.”
+
+“And you hope to find the mutilated book?”
+
+“I do, thanks to the opportunity I have of making an immediate search;
+which I will set about at once.”
+
+Saying this, he sat down, and rapidly scratched off a few lines on a
+slip of paper, which he folded up, and put in his vest-pocket.
+
+“Are you ready to go to M. Fauvel’s? Yes? Come on, then; we have
+certainly earned our breakfast to-day.”
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+When Raoul de Lagors spoke of M. Fauvel’s extraordinary dejection, he
+had not exaggerated.
+
+Since the fatal day when, upon his denunciation, his cashier had been
+arrested, the banker, this active, energetic man of business, had been
+a prey to the most gloomy melancholy, and absolutely refused to take any
+interest in his affairs, seldom entering the banking-house.
+
+He, who had always been so domestic, never came near his family except
+at meals, when he would swallow a few mouthfuls, and hastily leave the
+room.
+
+Shut up in his study, he would deny himself to visitors. His anxious
+countenance, his indifference to everybody and everything, his constant
+reveries and fits of abstraction, betrayed the preoccupation of some
+fixed idea, or the tyrannical empire of some hidden sorrow.
+
+The day of Prosper’s release, about three o’clock, M. Fauvel was, as
+usual, seated in his study, with his elbows resting on the table, and
+his face buried in his hands, when his office-boy rushed in, and with a
+frightened look said:
+
+“Monsieur, the former cashier, M. Bertomy, is here with one of his
+relatives; he says he must see you on business.”
+
+The banker at these words started up as if he had been shot.
+
+“Prosper!” he cried in a voice choked by anger, “what! does he dare--”
+
+Then remembering that he ought to control himself before his servant, he
+waited a few moments, and then said, in a tone of forced calmness:
+
+“Ask them to walk in.”
+
+If M. Verduret had counted upon witnessing a strange and affecting
+sight, he was not disappointed.
+
+Nothing could be more terrible than the attitude of these two men as
+they stood confronting each other. The banker’s face was almost purple
+with suppressed anger, and he looked as if about to be struck by
+apoplexy. Prosper was as pale and motionless as a corpse.
+
+Silent and immovable, they stood glaring at each other with mortal
+hatred.
+
+M. Verduret curiously watched these two enemies, with the indifference
+and coolness of a philosopher, who, in the most violent outbursts of
+human passion, merely sees subjects for meditation and study.
+
+Finally, the silence becoming more and more threatening, he decided to
+break it by speaking to the banker:
+
+“I suppose you know, monsieur, that my young relative has just been
+released from prison.”
+
+“Yes,” replied M. Fauvel, making an effort to control himself, “yes, for
+want of sufficient proof.”
+
+“Exactly so, monsieur, and this want of proof, as stated in the decision
+of ‘Not proven,’ ruins the prospects of my relative, and compels him to
+leave here at once for America.”
+
+M. Fauvel’s features relaxed as if he had been relieved of some fearful
+agony.
+
+“Ah, he is going away,” he said, “he is going abroad.”
+
+There was no mistaking the resentful, almost insulting intonation of the
+words, “going away!”
+
+M. Verduret took no notice of M. Fauvel’s manner.
+
+“It appears to me,” he continued, in an easy tone, “that Prosper’s
+determination is a wise one. I merely wished him, before leaving Paris,
+to come and pay his respects to his former chief.”
+
+The banker smiled bitterly.
+
+“M. Bertomy might have spared us both this painful meeting. I have
+nothing to say to him, and of course he can have nothing to tell me.”
+
+This was a formal dismissal; and M. Verduret, understanding it thus,
+bowed to M. Fauvel, and left the room, accompanied by Prosper, who had
+not opened his lips.
+
+They had reached the street before Prosper recovered the use of his
+tongue.
+
+“I hope you are satisfied, monsieur,” he said, in a gloomy tone; “you
+exacted this painful step, and I could only acquiesce. Have I gained
+anything by adding this humiliation to the others which I have
+suffered?”
+
+“You have not, but I have,” replied M. Verduret. “I could find no way of
+gaining access to M. Fauvel, save through you; and now I have found out
+what I wanted to know. I am convinced that M. Fauvel had nothing to do
+with the robbery.”
+
+“Oh, monsieur!” objected Prosper, “innocence can be feigned.”
+
+“Certainly, but not to this extent. And this is not all. I wished to
+find out if M. Fauvel would be accessible to certain suspicions. I am
+now confident that he is.”
+
+Prosper and his companion had stopped to talk more at their ease, near
+the corner of the Rue Lafitte, in the middle of a large space which had
+lately been cleared by pulling down an old house.
+
+M. Verduret seemed to be anxious, and was constantly looking around as
+if he expected someone.
+
+He soon uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.
+
+At the other end of the vacant space, he saw Cavaillon, who was
+bareheaded and running.
+
+He was so excited that he did not even stop to shake hands with Prosper,
+but darted up to M. Verduret, and said:
+
+“They have gone, monsieur!”
+
+“How long since?”
+
+“They went about a quarter of an hour ago.”
+
+“The deuce they did! Then we have not an instant to lose.”
+
+He handed Cavaillon the note he had written some hours before at
+Prosper’s house.
+
+“Here, send him this, and then return at once to your desk; you might be
+missed. It was very imprudent in you to come out without your hat.”
+
+Cavaillon ran off as quickly as he had come. Prosper was stupefied.
+
+“What!” he exclaimed. “You know Cavaillon?”
+
+“So it seems,” answered M. Verduret with a smile, “but we have no time
+to talk; come on, hurry!”
+
+“Where are we gong now?”
+
+“You will soon know; walk fast!”
+
+And he set the example by striding rapidly toward the Rue Lafayette. As
+they went along he continued talking more to himself than to Prosper.
+
+“Ah,” said he, “it is not by putting both feet in one shoe, that one
+wins a race. The track once found, we should never rest an instant.
+When the savage discovers the footprints of an enemy, he follows it
+persistently, knowing that falling rain or a gust of wind may efface
+the footprints at any moment. It is the same with us: the most trifling
+incident may destroy the traces we are following up.”
+
+M. Verduret suddenly stopped before a door bearing the number 81.
+
+“We are going in here,” he said to Prosper; “come.”
+
+They went up the steps, and stopped on the second floor, before a door
+over which was a large sign, “Fashionable Dressmaker.”
+
+A handsome bell-rope hung on the wall, but M. Verduret did not touch it.
+He tapped with the ends of his fingers in a peculiar way, and the door
+instantly opened as if someone had been watching for his signal on the
+other side.
+
+The door was opened by a neatly dressed woman of about forty. She
+quietly ushered M. Verduret and Prosper into a neat dining-room with
+several doors opening into it.
+
+This woman bowed humbly to M. Verduret, as if he were some superior
+being.
+
+He scarcely noticed her salutation, but questioned her with a look. His
+look said:
+
+“Well?”
+
+She bowed affirmatively:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“In there?” asked M. Verduret in a low tone, pointing to one of the
+doors.
+
+“No,” said the woman in the same tone, “over there, in the little
+parlor.”
+
+M. Verduret opened the door pointed out, and pushed Prosper into the
+little parlor, whispering, as he did so:
+
+“Go in, and keep your presence of mind.”
+
+But his injunction was useless. The instant he cast his eyes around
+the room into which he had so unceremoniously been pushed without any
+warning, Prosper exclaimed, in a startled voice:
+
+“Madeleine!”
+
+It was indeed M. Fauvel’s niece, looking more beautiful than ever. Hers
+was that calm, dignified beauty which imposes admiration and respect.
+
+Standing in the middle of the room, near a table covered with silks and
+satins, she was arranging a skirt of red velvet embroidered in gold;
+probably the dress she was to wear as maid of honor to Catherine de
+Medicis.
+
+At sight of Prosper, all the blood rushed to her face, and her beautiful
+eyes half closed, as if she were about to faint; she clung to the table
+to prevent herself from falling.
+
+Prosper well knew that Madeleine was not one of those cold-hearted women
+whom nothing could disturb, and who feel sensations, but never a true
+sentiment.
+
+Of a tender, dreamy nature, she betrayed in the minute details of her
+life the most exquisite delicacy. But she was also proud, and incapable
+of in any way violating her conscience. When duty spoke, she obeyed.
+
+She recovered from her momentary weakness, and the soft expression of
+her eyes changed to one of haughty resentment. In an offended tone she
+said:
+
+“What has emboldened you, monsieur, to be watching my movements? Who
+gave you permission to follow me, to enter this house?”
+
+Prosper was certainly innocent. He would have given worlds to explain
+what had just happened, but he was powerless, and could only remain
+silent.
+
+“You promised me upon your honor, monsieur,” continued Madeleine, “that
+you would never again seek my presence. Is this the way you keep your
+word?”
+
+“I did promise, mademoiselle, but----”
+
+He stopped.
+
+“Oh, speak!”
+
+“So many things have happened since that terrible day, that I think I am
+excusable in forgetting, for one hour, an oath torn from me in a moment
+of blind weakness. It is to chance, at least to another will than my
+own, that I am indebted for the happiness of once more finding myself
+near you. Alas! the instant I saw you my heart bounded with joy. I did
+not think, no I could not think, that you would prove more pitiless than
+strangers have been, that you would cast me off when I am so miserable
+and heart-broken.”
+
+Had not Prosper been so agitated he could have read in the eyes of
+Madeleine--those beautiful eyes which had so long been the arbiters of
+his destiny--the signs of a great inward struggle.
+
+It was, however, in a firm voice that she replied:
+
+“You know me well enough, Prosper, to be sure than no blow can strike
+you without reaching me at the same time. You suffer, I suffer with you:
+I pity you as a sister would pity a beloved brother.”
+
+“A sister!” said Prosper, bitterly. “Yes, that was the word you used the
+day you banished me from your presence. A sister! Then why during three
+years did you delude me with vain hopes? Was I a brother to you the day
+we went to Notre Dame de Fourvieres, that day when, at the foot of the
+altar, we swore to love each other for ever and ever, and you fastened
+around my neck a holy relic and said, ‘Wear this always for my sake,
+never part from it, and it will bring you good fortune’?”
+
+Madeleine attempted to interrupt him by a supplicating gesture: he would
+not heed it, but continued with increased bitterness:
+
+“One month after that happy day--a year ago--you gave me back my
+promise, told me to consider myself free from any engagement, and never
+to come near you again. If I could have discovered in what way I had
+offended you--But no, you refused to explain. You drove me away, and to
+obey you I told everyone that I had left you of my own accord. You told
+me that an invincible obstacle had arisen between us, and I believed
+you, fool that I was! The obstacle was your own heart, Madeleine. I
+have always worn the medal; but it has not brought me happiness or good
+fortune.”
+
+As white and motionless as a statue, Madeleine stood with bowed head
+before this storm of passionate reproach.
+
+“I told you to forget me,” she murmured.
+
+“Forget!” exclaimed Prosper, excitedly, “forget! Can I forget! Is it in
+my power to stop, by an effort of will, the circulation of my blood? Ah,
+you have never loved! To forget, as to stop the beatings of the heart,
+there is but one means--death!”
+
+This word, uttered with the fixed determination of a desperate, reckless
+man, caused Madeleine to shudder.
+
+“Miserable man!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, miserable man, and a thousand times more miserable than you can
+imagine! You can never understand the tortures I have suffered, when for
+a year I would awake every morning, and say to myself, ‘It is all over,
+she has ceased to love me!’ This great sorrow stared me in the face
+day and night in spite of all my efforts to dispel it. And you speak of
+forgetfulness! I sought it at the bottom of poisoned cups, but found it
+not. I tried to extinguish this memory of the past, that tears my heart
+to shreds like a devouring flame; in vain. When the body succumbed, the
+pitiless heart kept watch. With this corroding torture making life a
+burden, do you wonder that I should seek rest which can only be obtained
+by suicide?”
+
+“I forbid you to utter that word.”
+
+“You forget, Madeleine, that you have no right to forbid me, unless you
+love me. Love would make you all powerful, and me obedient.”
+
+With an imperious gesture Madeleine interrupted him as if she wished to
+speak, and perhaps to explain all, to exculpate herself.
+
+But a sudden thought stopped her; she clasped her hands despairingly,
+and cried:
+
+“My God! this suffering is beyond endurance!”
+
+Prosper seemed to misconstrue her words.
+
+“Your pity comes too late,” he said. “There is no happiness in store for
+one like myself, who has had a glimpse of divine felicity, had the
+cup of bliss held to his lips, and then dashed to the ground. There
+is nothing left to attach me to life. You have destroyed my holiest
+beliefs; I came forth from prison disgraced by my enemies; what is to
+become of me? Vainly do I question the future; for me there is no hope
+of happiness. I look around me to see nothing but abandonment, ignominy,
+and despair!”
+
+“Prosper, my brother, my friend, if you only knew----”
+
+“I know but one thing, Madeleine, and that is, that you no longer love
+me, and that I love you more madly than ever. Oh, Madeleine, God only
+knows how I love you!”
+
+He was silent. He hoped for an answer. None came.
+
+But suddenly the silence was broken by a stifled sob.
+
+It was Madeleine’s maid, who, seated in a corner, was weeping bitterly.
+
+Madeleine had forgotten her presence.
+
+Prosper had been so surprised at finding Madeleine when he entered
+the room, that he kept his eyes fastened upon her face, and never once
+looked about him to see if anyone else were present.
+
+He turned in surprise and looked at the weeping woman.
+
+He was not mistaken: this neatly dressed waiting-maid was Nina Gypsy.
+
+Prosper was so startled that he became perfectly dumb. He stood there
+with ashy lips, and a chilly sensation creeping through his veins.
+
+The horror of the situation terrified him. He was there, between the two
+women who had ruled his fate; between Madeleine, the proud heiress
+who spurned his love, and Nina Gypsy, the poor girl whose devotion to
+himself he had so disdainfully rejected.
+
+And she had heard all; poor Gypsy had witnessed the passionate avowal
+of her lover, had heard him swear that he could never love any woman but
+Madeleine, that if his love were not reciprocated he would kill himself,
+as he had nothing else to live for.
+
+Prosper could judge of her sufferings by his own. For she was wounded
+not only in the present, but in the past. What must be her humiliation
+and danger on hearing the miserable part which Prosper, in his
+disappointed love, had imposed upon her?
+
+He was astonished that Gypsy--violence itself--remained silently
+weeping, instead of rising and bitterly denouncing him.
+
+Meanwhile Madeleine had succeeded in recovering her usual calmness.
+
+Slowly and almost unconsciously she had put on her bonnet and shawl,
+which were lying on the sofa.
+
+Then she approached Prosper, and said:
+
+“Why did you come here? We both have need of all the courage we can
+command. You are unhappy, Prosper; I am more than unhappy, I am most
+wretched. You have a right to complain: I have not the right to shed a
+tear. While my heart is slowly breaking, I must wear a smiling face. You
+can seek consolation in the bosom of a friend: I can have no confidant
+but God.”
+
+Prosper tried to murmur a reply, but his pale lips refused to
+articulate; he was stifling.
+
+“I wish to tell you,” continued Madeleine, “that I have forgotten
+nothing. But oh! let not this knowledge give you any hope; the future
+is blank for us, but if you love me you will live. You will not, I know,
+add to my already heavy burden of sorrow, the agony of mourning your
+death. For my sake, live; live the life of a good man, and perhaps the
+day will come when I can justify myself in your eyes. And now, oh, my
+brother, oh, my only friend, adieu! adieu!”
+
+She pressed a kiss upon his brow, and rushed from the room, followed by
+Nina Gypsy.
+
+Prosper was alone. He seemed to be awaking from a troubled dream. He
+tried to think over what had just happened, and asked himself if he were
+losing his mind, or whether he had really spoken to Madeleine and seen
+Gypsy?
+
+He was obliged to attribute all this to the mysterious power of the
+strange man whom he had seen for the first time that very morning.
+
+How did he gain this wonderful power of controlling events to suit his
+own purposes?
+
+He seemed to have anticipated everything, to know everything. He was
+acquainted with Cavaillon, he knew all Madeleine’s movements; he had
+made even Gypsy become humble and submissive.
+
+Thinking all this, Prosper had reached such a degree of exasperation,
+that when M. Verduret entered the little parlor, he strode toward him
+white with rage, and in a harsh, threatening voice, said to him:
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+The stout man did not show any surprise at this burst of anger, but
+quietly answered:
+
+“A friend of your father’s; did you not know it?”
+
+“That is no answer, monsieur; I have been surprised into being
+influenced by a stranger, and now--”
+
+“Do you want my biography, what I have been, what I am, and what I may
+be? What difference does it make to you? I told you that I would save
+you; the main point is that I am saving you.”
+
+“Still I have the right to ask by what means you are saving me.”
+
+“What good will it do you to know what my plans are?”
+
+“In order to decide whether I will accept or reject them?”
+
+“But suppose I guarantee success?”
+
+“That is not sufficient, monsieur. I do not choose to be any longer
+deprived of my own free will, to be exposed without warning to trials
+like those I have undergone to-day. A man of my age must know what he is
+doing.”
+
+“A man of your age, Prosper, when he is blind, takes a guide, and does
+not undertake to point out the way to his leader.”
+
+The half-bantering, half-commiserating tone of M. Verduret was not
+calculated to calm Prosper’s irritation.
+
+“That being the case, monsieur,” he cried, “I will thank you for your
+past services, and decline them for the future, as I have no need of
+them. If I attempted to defend my honor and my life, it was because
+I hoped that Madeleine would be restored to me. I have been convinced
+to-day that all is at an end between us; I retire from the struggle, and
+care not what becomes of me now.”
+
+Prosper was so decided, that M. Verduret seemed alarmed.
+
+“You must be mad,” he finally said.
+
+“No, unfortunately I am not. Madeleine has ceased to love me, and of
+what importance is anything else?”
+
+His heart-broken tone aroused M. Verduret’s sympathy, and he said, in a
+kind, soothing tone:
+
+“Then you suspect nothing? You did not fathom the meaning of what she
+said?”
+
+“You were listening,” cried Prosper fiercely.
+
+“I certainly was.”
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Yes. It was a presumptuous thing to do, perhaps; but the end justified
+the means in this instance. I am glad I did listen, because it has
+enabled me to say to you, Take courage, Prosper: Mlle. Madeleine loves
+you; she has never ceased to love you.”
+
+Like a dying man who eagerly listens to deceitful promises of recovery,
+although he feels himself sinking into the grave, did Prosper feel his
+sad heart cheered by M. Verduret’s assertion.
+
+“Oh,” he murmured, suddenly calmed, “if only I could hope!”
+
+“Rely upon me, I am not mistaken. Ah, I could see the torture endured by
+this generous girl, while she struggled between her love, and what she
+believed to be her duty. Were you not convinced of her love when she
+bade you farewell?”
+
+“She loves me, she is free, and yet she shuns me.”
+
+“No, she is not free! In breaking off her engagement with you, she
+was governed by some powerful, irrepressible event. She is sacrificing
+herself--for whom? We shall soon know; and the secret of her
+self-sacrifice will discover to us the secret of her plot against you.”
+
+As M. Verduret spoke, Prosper felt all his resolutions of revolt slowly
+melting away, and their place taken by confidence and hope.
+
+“If what you say were true!” he mournfully said.
+
+“Foolish young man! Why do you persist in obstinately shutting your eyes
+to the proof I place before you? Can you not see that Mlle. Madeleine
+knows who the thief is? Yes, you need not look so shocked; she knows the
+thief, but no human power can tear it from her. She sacrifices you, but
+then she almost has the right, since she first sacrificed herself.”
+
+Prosper was almost convinced; and it nearly broke his heart to leave
+this little parlor where he had seen Madeleine.
+
+“Alas!” he said, pressing M. Verduret’s hand, “you must think me a
+ridiculous fool! but you don’t know how I suffer.”
+
+The man with the red whiskers sadly shook his head, and his voice
+sounded very unsteady as he replied, in a low tone:
+
+“What you suffer, I have suffered. Like you, I loved, not a pure, noble
+girl, yet a girl fair to look upon. For three years I was at her feet,
+a slave to her every whim; when, one day she suddenly deserted me who
+adored her, to throw herself in the arms of a man who despised her.
+Then, like you, I wished to die. Neither threats nor entreaties could
+induce her to return to me. Passion never reasons, and she loved my
+rival.”
+
+“And did you know this rival?”
+
+“I knew him.”
+
+“And you did not seek revenge?”
+
+“No,” replied M. Verduret with a singular expression, “no: fate took
+charge of my vengeance.”
+
+For a minute Prosper was silent; then he said:
+
+“I have finally decided, monsieur. My honor is a sacred trust for which
+I must account to my family. I am ready to follow you to the end of the
+world; dispose of me as you judge proper.”
+
+That same day Prosper, faithful to his promise, sold his furniture, and
+wrote a letter to his friends announcing his intended departure to San
+Francisco.
+
+In the evening he and M. Verduret installed themselves in the
+“Archangel.”
+
+Mme. Alexandre gave Prosper her prettiest room, but it was very ugly
+compared with the coquettish little parlor on the Rue Chaptal. His state
+of mind did not permit him, however, to notice the difference between
+his former and present quarters. He lay on an old sofa, meditating upon
+the events of the day, and feeling a bitter satisfaction in his isolated
+condition.
+
+About eleven o’clock he thought he would raise the window, and let the
+cool air fan his burning brow; as he did so a piece of paper was blown
+from among the folds of the window-curtain, and lay at his feet on the
+floor.
+
+Prosper mechanically picked it up, and looked at it.
+
+It was covered with writing, the handwriting of Nina Gypsy; he could not
+be mistaken about that.
+
+It was the fragment of a torn letter; and, if the half sentences did not
+convey any clear meaning, they were sufficient to lead the mind into all
+sorts of conjectures.
+
+The fragment read as follows:
+
+“of M. Raoul, I have been very im . . . plotted against him, of whom
+never . . . warn Prosper, and then . . . best friend. he . . . hand of
+Mlle. Ma . . .”
+
+Prosper never closed his eyes during that night.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Not far from the Palais Royal, in the Rue St. Honore, is the sign of “La
+Bonne Foi,” a small establishment, half cafe and half shop, extensively
+patronized by the people of the neighborhood.
+
+It was in the smoking-room of this modest cafe that Prosper, the day
+after his release, awaited M. Verduret, who had promised to meet him at
+four o’clock.
+
+The clock struck four; M. Verduret, who was punctuality itself,
+appeared. He was more red-faced and self-satisfied, if possible, than
+the day before.
+
+As soon as the servant had left the room to obey his orders, he said to
+Prosper:
+
+“Well, are our commissions executed?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“Have you seen the costumer?”
+
+“I gave him your letter, and everything you ordered will be sent to the
+Archangel to-morrow.”
+
+“Very good; you have not lost time, neither have I. I have good news for
+you.”
+
+The “Bonne Foi” is almost deserted at four o’clock. The hour for coffee
+is passed, and the hour for absinthe has not yet come. M. Verduret and
+Prosper could talk at their ease without fear of being overheard by
+gossiping neighbors.
+
+M. Verduret drew forth his memorandum-book, the precious diary which,
+like the enchanted book in the fairy-tale, had an answer for every
+question.
+
+“While awaiting our emissaries whom I appointed to meet here, let us
+devote a little time to M. de Lagors.”
+
+At this name Prosper did not protest, as he had done the night previous.
+Like those imperceptible insects which, having once penetrated the root
+of a tree, devour it in a single night, suspicion, when it invades our
+mind, soon develops itself, and destroys our firmest beliefs.
+
+The visit of Lagors, and Gypsy’s torn letter, had filled Prosper with
+suspicions which had grown stronger and more settled as time passed.
+
+“Do you know, my dear friend,” said M. Verduret, “what part of France
+this devoted friend of yours comes from?”
+
+“He was born at St. Remy, which is also Mme. Fauvel’s native town.”
+
+“Are you certain of that?”
+
+“Oh, perfectly so, monsieur! He has not only often told me so, but I
+have heard him tell M. Fauvel; and he would talk to Mme. Fauvel by the
+hour about his mother, who was cousin to Mme. Fauvel, and dearly beloved
+by her.”
+
+“Then you think there is no possible mistake or falsehood about this
+part of his story?”
+
+“None in the least, monsieur.”
+
+“Well, things are assuming a queer look.”
+
+And he began to whistle between his teeth; which, with M. Verduret, was
+a sign of intense inward satisfaction.
+
+“What seems so, monsieur?” inquired Prosper.
+
+“What has just happened; what I have been tracing. Parbleu!” he
+exclaimed, imitating the manner of a showman at a fair, “here is
+a lovely town, called St. Remy, six thousand inhabitants; charming
+boulevards on the site of the old fortifications; handsome hotel;
+numerous fountains; large charcoal market, silk factories, famous
+hospital, and so on.”
+
+Prosper was on thorns.
+
+“Please be so good, monsieur, as to explain what you----”
+
+“It also contains,” continued M. Verduret, “a Roman triumphal arch,
+which is of unparalleled beauty, and a Greek mausoleum; but no Lagors.
+St. Remy is the native town of Nostradamus, but not of your friend.”
+
+“Yet I have proofs.”
+
+“Naturally. But proofs can be fabricated; relatives can be improvised.
+Your evidence is open to suspicion. My proofs are undeniable, perfectly
+authenticated. While you were pining in prison, I was preparing my
+batteries and collecting munition to open fire. I wrote to St. Remy, and
+received answers to my questions.”
+
+“Will you let me know what they were?”
+
+“Have patience,” said M. Verduret as he turned over the leaves of
+his memoranda. “Ah, here is number one. Bow respectfully to it, ‘tis
+official.”
+
+He then read:
+
+
+“‘LAGORS.--Very old family, originally from Maillane, settled at St.
+Remy about a century ago.’”
+
+
+“I told you so,” cried Prosper.
+
+“Pray allow me to finish,” said M. Verduret.
+
+“‘The last of the Lagors (Jules-Rene-Henri) bearing without warrant
+the title of count, married in 1829 Mlle. Rosalie-Clarisse Fontanet,
+of Tarascon; died December 1848, leaving no male heir, but left two
+daughters. The registers make no mention of any person in the district
+bearing the name of Lagors.’
+
+“Now what do you think of this information?” queried the fat man with a
+triumphant smile.
+
+Prosper looked amazed.
+
+“But why did M. Fauvel treat Raoul as his nephew?”
+
+“Ah, you mean as his wife’s nephew! Let us examine note number two: it
+is not official, but it throws a valuable light upon the twenty thousand
+livres income of your friend.”
+
+“‘_Jules-Rene-Henri_ de Lagors, last of his name, died at St. Remy on
+the 29th of December, 1848, in a state of great poverty. He at one time
+was possessed of a moderate fortune, but invested it in a silk-worm
+nursery, and lost it all.
+
+“‘He had no son, but left two daughters, one of whom is a teacher at
+Aix, and the other married a retail merchant at Orgon. His widow, who
+lives at Montagnette, is supported entirely by one of her relatives, the
+wife of a rich banker in Paris. No person of the name of Lagors lives in
+the district of Arles.’
+
+“That is all,” said M. Verduret; “don’t you think it enough?”
+
+“Really, monsieur, I don’t know whether I am awake or dreaming.”
+
+“You will be awake after a while. Now I wish to remark one thing. Some
+people may assert that the widow Lagors had a child born after her
+husband’s death. This objection has been destroyed by the age of your
+friend. Raoul is twenty-four, and M. de Lagors has not been dead twenty
+years.”
+
+“But,” said Prosper thoughtfully, “who can Raoul be?”
+
+“I don’t know. The fact is, I am more perplexed to find out who he is,
+than to know whom he is not. There is one man who could give us all the
+information we seek, but he will take good care to keep his mouth shut.”
+
+“You mean M. de Clameran?”
+
+“Him, and no one else.”
+
+“I have always felt the most inexplicable aversion toward him. Ah, if we
+could only get his account in addition to what you already have!”
+
+“I have been furnished with a few notes concerning the Clameran family
+by your father, who knew them well; they are brief, but I expect more.”
+
+“What did my father tell you?”
+
+“Nothing favorable, you may be sure. I will read you the synopsis of
+this information:
+
+“‘Louis de Clameran was born at the Chateau de Clameran, near Tarascon.
+He had an elder brother named Gaston, who, in consequence of an affray
+in which he had the misfortune to kill one man and badly wound another,
+was compelled to fly the country in 1842. Gaston was an honest, noble
+youth, universally beloved. Louis, on the contrary, was a wicked,
+despicable fellow, detested by all who knew him.
+
+“‘Upon the death of his father, Louis came to Paris, and in less than
+two years had squandered not only his own patrimony, but also the share
+of his exiled brother.
+
+“‘Ruined and harassed by debt, Louis entered the army, but behaved so
+disgracefully that he was dismissed.
+
+“‘After leaving the army we lose sight of him; all we can discover is,
+that he went to England, and thence to a German gambling resort, where
+he became notorious for his scandalous conduct.
+
+“‘In 1865 we find him again at Paris. He was in great poverty, and his
+associates were among the most depraved classes.
+
+“‘But he suddenly heard of the return of his brother Gaston to Paris.
+Gaston had made a fortune in Mexico; but being still a young man,
+and accustomed to a very active life, he purchased, near Orloron, an
+iron-mill, intending to spend the remainder of his life in working at
+it. Six months ago he died in the arms of his brother Louis. His death
+provided our De Clameran an immense fortune, and the title of marquis.’”
+
+
+“Then,” said Prosper, “from all this I judge that M. de Clameran was
+very poor when I met him for the first time at M. Fauvel’s?”
+
+“Evidently.”
+
+“And about that time Lagors arrived from the country?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“And about a month after his appearance Madeleine suddenly banished me?”
+
+“Well,” exclaimed M. Verduret, “I am glad you are beginning to
+understand the state of affairs.”
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of a stranger.
+
+The new-comer was a dandified-looking coachman, with elegant black
+whiskers, shining boots with fancy tops; buff breeches, and a yellow
+waistcoat with red and black stripes.
+
+After cautiously looking around the room, he walked straight up to the
+table where M. Verduret sat.
+
+“What is the news, Master Joseph Dubois?” said the stout man eagerly.
+
+“Ah, patron, don’t speak of it!” answered the servant: “things are
+getting warm.”
+
+Prosper concentrated all his attention upon this superb domestic. He
+thought he recognized his face. He had certainly somewhere seen that
+retreating forehead and those little restless black eyes, but where and
+when he could not remember.
+
+Meanwhile, Master Joseph had taken a seat at a table adjoining the
+one occupied by M. Verduret and Prosper; and, having called for some
+absinthe, was preparing it by holding the water aloft and slowly
+dropping it in the glass.
+
+“Speak!” said M. Verduret.
+
+“In the first place, patron, I must say that the position of valet and
+coachman to M. de Clameran is not a bed of roses.”
+
+“Go on: come to the point. You can complain to-morrow.”
+
+“Very good. Yesterday my master walked out at two o’clock. I, of course,
+followed him. Do you know where he went? The thing was as good as a
+farce. He went to the Archangel to keep the appointment made by ‘Nina
+Gypsy.’”
+
+“Well, make haste. They told him she was gone. Then?”
+
+“Then? Ah! he was not at all pleased, I can tell you. He hurried back to
+the hotel where the other, M. de Lagors, awaited him. And, upon my soul,
+I have never heard so much swearing in my life! M. Raoul asked him
+what had happened to put him in such a bad humor. ‘Nothing,’ replied my
+master, ‘except that little devil has run off, and no one knows where
+she is; she has slipped through our fingers.’ Then they both appeared
+to be vexed and uneasy. Lagors asked if she knew anything serious. ‘She
+knows nothing but what I told you,’ replied Clameran; ‘but this nothing,
+falling in the ear of a man with any suspicions, will be more than
+enough to work on.’”
+
+M. Verduret smiled like a man who had his reasons for appreciating at
+their just value De Clameran’s fears.
+
+“Well, your master is not without sense, after all; don’t you think he
+showed it by saying that?”
+
+“Yes, patron. Then Lagors exclaimed, ‘If it is as serious as that,
+we must get rid of this little serpent!’ But my master shrugged his
+shoulders, and laughing loudly said, ‘You talk like an idiot; when one
+is annoyed by a woman of this sort, one must take measures to get rid of
+her administratively.’ This idea seemed to amuse them both very much.”
+
+“I can understand their being entertained by it,” said M. Verduret; “it
+is an excellent idea; but the misfortune is, it is too late to carry it
+out. The nothing which made Clameran uneasy has already fallen into a
+knowing ear.”
+
+With breathless curiosity, Prosper listened to this report, every word
+of which seemed to throw light upon past events. Now, he thought, he
+understood the fragment of Gypsy’s letter. He saw that this Raoul, in
+whom he had confided so deeply, was nothing more than a scoundrel. A
+thousand little circumstances, unnoticed at the time, now recurred to
+his mind, and made him wonder how he could have been so blind so long.
+
+Master Joseph Dubois continued his report:
+
+“Yesterday, after dinner, my master decked himself out like a
+bridegroom. I shaved him, curled his hair, and perfumed him with special
+care, after which I drove him to the Rue de Provence to call on Mme.
+Fauvel.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Prosper, “after the insulting language he used the day
+of the robbery, did he dare to visit the house?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, he not only dared this, but he also stayed there until
+midnight, to my great discomfort; for I got as wet as a rat, waiting for
+him.”
+
+“How did he look when he came out?” asked M. Verduret.
+
+“Well, he certainly looked less pleased then when he went in. After
+putting away my carriage, and rubbing down my horses, I went to see if
+he wanted anything; I found the door locked, and he swore at me like a
+trooper, through the key-hole.”
+
+And, to assist the digestion of this insult, Master Joseph here gulped
+down a glass of absinthe.
+
+“Is that all?” questioned M. Verduret.
+
+“All that occurred yesterday, patron; but this morning my master rose
+late, still in a horrible bad humor. At noon Raoul arrived, also in
+a rage. They at once began to dispute, and such a row! why, the most
+abandoned housebreakers and pickpockets would have blushed to hear such
+Billingsgate. At one time my master seized the other by the throat and
+shook him like a reed. But Raoul was too quick for him; he saved himself
+from strangulation by drawing out a sharp-pointed knife, the sight of
+which made my master drop him in a hurry, I can tell you.”
+
+“But what did they say?”
+
+“Ah, there is the rub, patron,” said Joseph in a piteous tone; “the
+scamps spoke English, so I could not understand them. But I am sure they
+were disputing about money.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Because I learned at the Exposition that the word ‘argent’ means money
+in every language in Europe; and this word they constantly used in their
+conversation.”
+
+M. Verduret sat with knit brows, talking in an undertone to himself; and
+Prosper, who was watching him, wondered if he was trying to understand
+and construct the dispute by mere force of reflection.
+
+“When they had done fighting,” continued Joseph, “the rascals began to
+talk in French again; but they only spoke of a fancy ball which is to
+be given by some banker. When Raoul was leaving, my master said, ‘Since
+this thing is inevitable, and it must take place to-day, you had better
+remain at home, at Vesinet, this evening.’ Raoul replied, ‘Of course.’”
+
+Night was approaching, and the smoking-room was gradually filling
+with men who called for absinthe or bitters, and youths who perched
+themselves up on high stools, and smoked their pipes.
+
+“It is time to go,” said M. Verduret; “your master will want you,
+Joseph; besides, here is someone come for me. I will see you to-morrow.”
+
+The new-comer was no other than Cavaillon, more troubled and frightened
+than ever. He looked uneasily around the room, as if he expected the
+whole police force to appear, and carry him off to prison.
+
+He did not sit down at M. Verduret’s table, but stealthily gave his hand
+to Prosper, and, after assuring himself that no one was observing them,
+handed M. Verduret a package, saying:
+
+“She found this in a cupboard.”
+
+It was a handsomely bound prayer-book. M. Verduret rapidly turned over
+the leaves, and soon found the pages from which the words pasted on
+Prosper’s letter had been cut.
+
+“I had moral proofs,” he said, handing the book to Prosper, “but here is
+material proof sufficient in itself to save you.”
+
+When Prosper looked at the book he turned pale as a ghost. He recognized
+this prayer-book instantly. He had given it to Madeleine in exchange for
+the medal.
+
+He opened it, and on the fly-leaf Madeleine had written, “Souvenir of
+Notre Dame de Fourvieres, 17 January, 1866.”
+
+“This book belongs to Madeleine,” he cried.
+
+M. Verduret did not reply, but walked toward a young man dressed like a
+brewer, who had just entered the room.
+
+He glanced at the note which this person handed to him, and hastened
+back to the table, and said, in an agitated tone:
+
+“I think we have got them now!”
+
+Throwing a five-franc piece on the table, and without saying a word to
+Cavaillon, he seized Prosper’s arm, and hurried from the room.
+
+“What a fatality!” he said, as he hastened along the street: “we may
+miss them. We shall certainly reach the St. Lazare station too late for
+the St. Germain train.”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, where are you going?” asked Prosper.
+
+“Never mind, we can talk after we start. Hurry!”
+
+Reaching Palais Royal Place, M. Verduret stopped before one of the hacks
+belonging to the railway station, and examined the horses at a glance.
+
+“How much for driving us to Vesinet?” he asked of the driver.
+
+“I don’t know the road very well that way.”
+
+The name of Vesinet was enough for Prosper.
+
+“Well,” said the driver, “at this time of night, in such dreadful
+weather, it ought to be--twenty-five francs.”
+
+“And how much more for driving very rapidly?”
+
+“Bless my soul! Why, monsieur, I leave that to your generosity; but if
+you put it at thirty-five francs--”
+
+“You shall have a hundred,” interrupted M. Verduret, “if you overtake a
+carriage which has half an hour’s start of us.”
+
+“Tonnerre de Brest!” cried the delighted driver; “jump in quick: we are
+losing time!”
+
+And, whipping up his lean horses, he galloped them down the Rue de
+Valois at lightning speed.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Leaving the little station of Vesinet, we come upon two roads. One, to
+the left, macadamized and kept in perfect repair, leads to the village,
+of which there are glimpses here and there through the trees. The other,
+newly laid out, and just covered with gravel, leads through the woods.
+
+Along the latter, which before the lapse of five years will be a busy
+street, are built a few houses, hideous in design, and at some distance
+apart; rural summer retreats of city merchants, but unoccupied during
+the winter.
+
+It was at the junction of these two roads that Prosper stopped the hack.
+
+The driver had gained his hundred francs. The horses were completely
+worn out, but they had accomplished all that was expected of them; M.
+Verduret could distinguish the lamps of a hack similar to the one he
+occupied, about fifty yards ahead of him.
+
+M. Verduret jumped out, and, handing the driver a bank-note, said:
+
+“Here is what I promised you. Go to the first tavern you find on the
+right-hand side of the road as you enter the village. If we do not meet
+you there in an hour, you are at liberty to return to Paris.”
+
+The driver was overwhelming in his thanks; but neither Prosper nor his
+friend heard them. They had already started up the new road.
+
+The weather, which had been inclement when they set out, was now
+fearful. The rain fell in torrents, and a furious wind howled dismally
+through the dense woods.
+
+The intense darkness was rendered more dreary by the occasional
+glimmer of the lamps at the distant station, which seemed about to be
+extinguished by every new gust of wind.
+
+M. Verduret and Prosper had been running along the muddy road for about
+five minutes, when suddenly the latter stopped and said:
+
+“This is Raoul’s house.”
+
+Before the gate of an isolated house stood the hack which M. Verduret
+had followed. Reclining on his seat, wrapped in a thick cloak, was the
+driver, who, in spite of the pouring rain, was already asleep, evidently
+waiting for the person whom he had brought to this house a few minutes
+ago.
+
+M. Verduret pulled his cloak, and said, in a low voice:
+
+“Wake up, my good man.”
+
+The driver started, and, mechanically gathering his reins, yawned out:
+
+“I am ready: come on!”
+
+But when, by the light of the carriage-lamps, he saw two men in this
+lonely spot, he imagined that they wanted his purse, and perhaps his
+life.
+
+“I am engaged!” he cried out, as he cracked his whip in the air; “I am
+waiting here for someone.”
+
+“I know that, you fool,” replied M. Verduret, “and only wish to ask you
+a question, which you can gain five francs by answering. Did you not
+bring a middle-aged lady here?”
+
+This question, this promise of five francs, instead of reassuring the
+coachman, increased his alarm.
+
+“I have already told you I am waiting for someone,” he said, “and, if
+you don’t go away and leave me alone, I will call for help.”
+
+M. Verduret drew back quickly.
+
+“Come away,” he whispered to Prosper, “the cur will do as he says; and,
+alarm once given, farewell to our projects. We must find some other
+entrance than by this gate.”
+
+They then went along the wall surrounding the garden, in search of a
+place where it was possible to climb up.
+
+This was difficult to discover, the wall being twelve feet high, and the
+night very dark. Fortunately, M. Verduret was very agile; and, having
+decided upon the spot to be scaled, he drew back a few feet, and making
+a sudden spring, seized one of the projecting stones above him, and,
+drawing himself up by aid of his hands and feet, soon found himself on
+top of the wall.
+
+It was now Prosper’s turn to climb up; but, though much younger than
+his companion, he had not his agility and strength, and would never have
+succeeded if M. Verduret had not pulled him up, and then helped him down
+on the other side.
+
+Once in the garden, M. Verduret looked about him to study the situation.
+
+The house occupied by M. de Lagors was built in the middle of an immense
+garden. It was narrow, two stories high, and with garrets.
+
+Only one window, in the second story, was lighted.
+
+“As you have often been here,” said M. Verduret, “you must know all
+about the arrangement of the house: what room is that where we see the
+light?”
+
+“That is Raoul’s bed-chamber.”
+
+“Very good. What rooms are on the first floor?”
+
+“The kitchen, pantry, billiard-room, and dining-room.”
+
+“And on the floor above?”
+
+“Two drawing-rooms separated by folding doors, and a library.”
+
+“Where do the servants sleep?”
+
+“Raoul has none at present. He is waited on by a man and his wife, who
+live at Vesinet; they come in the morning, and leave after dinner.”
+
+M. Verduret rubbed his hands gleefully.
+
+“That suits our plans exactly,” he said; “there is nothing to prevent
+our hearing what Raoul has to say to this person who has come from Paris
+at ten o’clock at night, to see him. Let us go in.”
+
+Prosper seemed averse to this, and said:
+
+“It is a serious thing for us to do, monsieur.”
+
+“Bless my soul! what else did we come here for? Did you think it was
+a pleasure-trip, merely to enjoy this lovely weather?” he said in a
+bantering tone.
+
+“But we might be discovered.”
+
+“Suppose we are? If the least noise betrays our presence, you have only
+to advance boldly as a friend come to visit a friend, and, finding the
+door open walked in.”
+
+But unfortunately the heavy oak door was locked. M. Verduret shook it in
+vain.
+
+“How foolish!” he said with vexation, “I ought to have brought my
+instruments with me. A common lock which could be opened with a nail,
+and I have not even a piece of wire!”
+
+Thinking it useless to attempt the door, he tried successively every
+window on the ground-floor. Alas! each blind was securely fastened on
+the inside.
+
+M. Verduret was provoked. He prowled around the house like a fox around
+a hen-coop, seeking an entrance, but finding none. Despairingly he came
+back to the spot in front of the house, whence he had the best view of
+the lighted window.
+
+“If I could only look in,” he cried. “Just to think that in there,” and
+he pointed to the window, “is the solution of the mystery; and we are
+cut off from it by thirty or forty feet of cursed blank wall!”
+
+Prosper was more surprised than ever at his companion’s strange
+behavior. He seemed perfectly at home in this garden; he ran about
+without any precaution; so that one would have supposed him accustomed
+to such expeditions, especially when he spoke of picking the lock of
+an occupied house, as if he were talking of opening a snuff-box. He
+was utterly indifferent to the rain and sleet driven in his face by the
+gusts of wind as he splashed about in the mud trying to find some way of
+entrance.
+
+“I must get a peep into that window,” he said, “and I will, cost what it
+may!”
+
+Prosper seemed to suddenly remember something.
+
+“There is a ladder here,” he cried.
+
+“Why did you not tell me that before? Where is it?”
+
+“At the end of the garden, under the trees.”
+
+They ran to the spot, and in a few minutes had the ladder standing
+against the wall.
+
+But to their chagrin they found the ladder six feet too short. Six long
+feet of wall between the top of the ladder and the lighted window was a
+very discouraging sight to Prosper; he exclaimed:
+
+“We cannot reach it.”
+
+“We _can_ reach it,” cried M. Verduret triumphantly.
+
+And he quickly placed himself a yard off from the house, and, seizing
+the ladder, cautiously raised it and rested the bottom round on his
+shoulders, at the same time holding the two uprights firmly and steadily
+with his hands. The obstacle was overcome.
+
+“Now mount,” he said to his companion.
+
+Prosper did not hesitate. The enthusiasm of difficulties so skilfully
+conquered, and the hope of triumph, gave him a strength and agility
+which he had never imagined he possessed. He made a sudden spring, and,
+seizing the lower rounds, quickly climbed up the ladder, which swayed
+and trembled beneath his weight.
+
+But he had scarcely looked in the lighted window when he uttered a cry
+which was drowned in the roaring tempest, and dropped like a log down on
+the wet grass, exclaiming:
+
+“The villain! the villain!”
+
+With wonderful promptness and vigor M. Verduret laid the ladder on the
+ground, and ran toward Prosper, fearing that he was dead or dangerously
+injured.
+
+“What did you see? Are you hurt?” he whispered.
+
+But Prosper had already risen. Although he had had a violent fall, he
+was unhurt; he was in a state when mind governs matter so absolutely
+that the body is insensible to pain.
+
+“I saw,” he answered in a hoarse voice, “I saw Madeleine--do you
+understand, Madeleine--in that room, alone with Raoul!”
+
+M. Verduret was confounded. Was it possible that he, the infallible
+expert, had been mistaken in his deductions?
+
+He well knew that M. de Lagors’s visitor was a woman; but his own
+conjectures, and the note which Mme. Gypsy had sent to him at the
+tavern, had fully assured him that this woman was Mme. Fauvel.
+
+“You must be mistaken,” he said to Prosper.
+
+“No, monsieur, no. Never could I mistake another for Madeleine. Ah! you
+who heard what she said to me yesterday, answer me: was I to expect such
+infamous treason as this? You said to me then, ‘She loves you, she loves
+you!’ Now do you think she loves me? speak!”
+
+M. Verduret did not answer. He had first been stupefied by his mistake,
+and was now racking his brain to discover the cause of it, which was
+soon discerned by his penetrating mind.
+
+“This is the secret discovered by Nina,” continued Prosper. “Madeleine,
+this pure and noble Madeleine, whom I believed to be as immaculate as
+an angel, is in love with this thief, who has even stolen the name he
+bears; and I, trusting fool that I was, made this scoundrel my best
+friend. I confided to him all my hopes and fears; and he was her lover!
+Of course they amused themselves by ridiculing my silly devotion and
+blind confidence!”
+
+He stopped, overcome by his violent emotions. Wounded vanity is the
+worst of miseries. The certainty of having been so shamefully deceived
+and betrayed made Prosper almost insane with rage.
+
+“This is the last humiliation I shall submit to,” he fiercely cried. “It
+shall not be said that I was coward enough to stand by and let an insult
+like this go unpunished.”
+
+He started toward the house; but M. Verduret seized his arm and said:
+
+“What are you going to do?”
+
+“Have my revenge! I will break down the door; what do I care for the
+noise and scandal, now that I have nothing to lose? I shall not attempt
+to creep into the house like a thief, but as a master, as one who has a
+right to enter; as a man who, having received an insult which can only
+be washed out with blood, comes to demand satisfaction.”
+
+“You will do nothing of the sort, Prosper.”
+
+“Who will prevent me?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“You? do not hope that you will be able to deter me. I will appear
+before them, put them to the blush, kill them both, then put an end
+to my own wretched existence. That is what I intend to do, and nothing
+shall stop me!”
+
+If M. Verduret had not held Prosper with a vice-like grip, he would have
+escaped, and carried out his threat.
+
+“If you make any noise, Prosper, or raise an alarm, all your hopes are
+ruined.”
+
+“I have no hopes now.”
+
+“Raoul, put on his guard, will escape us, and you will remain dishonored
+forever.”
+
+“What difference is it to me?”
+
+“It makes a great difference to me. I have sworn to prove your
+innocence. A man of your age can easily find a wife, but can never
+restore lustre to a tarnished name. Let nothing interfere with the
+establishing of your innocence.”
+
+Genuine passion is uninfluenced by surrounding circumstances. M.
+Verduret and Prosper stood foot-deep in mud, wet to the skin, the rain
+pouring down on their heads, and yet seemed in no hurry to end their
+dispute.
+
+“I will be avenged,” repeated Prosper with the persistency of a fixed
+idea, “I will avenge myself.”
+
+“Well, avenge yourself like a man, and not like a child!” said M.
+Verduret angrily.
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Yes, I repeat it, like a child. What will you do after you get into
+the house? Have you any arms? No. You rush upon Raoul, and a struggle
+ensues; while you two are fighting, Madeleine jumps in her carriage, and
+drives off. What then? Which is the stronger, you or Raoul?”
+
+Overcome by the sense of his powerlessness, Prosper was silent.
+
+“And arms would be of no use,” continued M. Verduret: “it is fortunate
+you have none with you, for it would be very foolish to shoot a man whom
+you can send to the galleys.”
+
+“What must I do?”
+
+“Wait. Vengeance is a delicious fruit, that must ripen in order that we
+may fully enjoy it.”
+
+Prosper was unsettled in his resolution; M. Verduret seeing this brought
+forth his last and strongest argument.
+
+“How do we know,” he said, “that Mlle. Madeleine is here on her own
+account? Did we not come to the conclusion that she was sacrificing
+herself for the benefit of someone else? That superior will which
+compelled her to banish you may have constrained this step to-night.”
+
+That which coincides with our secret wishes is always eagerly welcomed.
+This supposition, apparently improbable, struck Prosper as possibly
+true.
+
+“That might be the case,” he murmured, “who knows?”
+
+“I would soon know,” said M. Verduret, “if I could see them together in
+that room.”
+
+“Will you promise me, monsieur, to tell me the exact truth, all that you
+see and hear, no matter how painful it may be for me?”
+
+“I swear it, upon my word of honor.”
+
+Then, with a strength of which a few minutes before he would not have
+believed himself possessed, Prosper raised the ladder, placed the last
+round on his shoulders, and said to M. Verduret:
+
+“Mount!”
+
+M. Verduret rapidly ascended the ladder without even shaking it, and had
+his head on a level with the window.
+
+Prosper had seen but too well. There was Madeleine at this hour of the
+night, alone with Raoul de Lagors in his room!
+
+M. Verduret observed that she still wore her shawl and bonnet.
+
+She was standing in the middle of the room, talking with great
+animation. Her look and gestures betrayed indignant scorn. There was an
+expression of ill-disguised loathing upon her beautiful face.
+
+Raoul was seated by the fire, stirring up the coals with a pair of
+tongs. Every now and then, he would shrug his shoulders, like a man
+resigned to everything he heard, and had no answer, except, “I cannot
+help it. I can do nothing for you.”
+
+M. Verdure would willingly have given the diamond ring on his finger to
+be able to hear what was said; but the roaring wind completely drowned
+their voices.
+
+“They are evidently quarrelling,” he thought; “but it is not a lovers’
+quarrel.”
+
+Madeleine continued talking; and it was by closely watching the face
+of Lagors, clearly revealed by the lamp on the mantel, that M. Verduret
+hoped to discover the meaning of the scene before him.
+
+At one moment Lagors would start and tremble in spite of his apparent
+indifference; the next, he would strike at the fire with the tongs, as
+if giving vent to his rage at some reproach uttered by Madeleine.
+
+Finally Madeleine changed her threats into entreaties, and, clasping her
+hands, almost fell at his knees.
+
+He turned away his head, and refused to answer save in monosyllables.
+
+Several times she turned to leave the room, but each time returned, as
+if asking a favor, and unable to make up her mind to leave the house
+till she had obtained it.
+
+At last she seemed to have uttered something decisive; for Raoul quickly
+rose and opened a desk near the fireplace, from which he took a bundle
+of papers, and handed them to her.
+
+“Well,” thought M. Verduret, “this looks bad. Can it be a compromising
+correspondence which the fair one wants to secure?”
+
+Madeleine took the papers, but was apparently still dissatisfied. She
+again entreated him to give her something else. Raoul refused; and then
+she threw the papers on the table.
+
+The papers seemed to puzzle M. Verduret very much, as he gazed at them
+through the window.
+
+“I am not blind,” he said, “and I certainly am not mistaken; those
+papers, red, green, and yellow, are pawnbroker’s tickets!”
+
+Madeleine turned over the papers as if looking for some particular ones.
+She selected three, which she put in her pocket, disdainfully pushing
+the others aside.
+
+She was evidently preparing to take her departure, for she said a few
+words to Raoul, who took up the lamp as if to escort her downstairs.
+
+There was nothing more for M. Verduret to see. He carefully descended
+the ladder, muttering to himself. “Pawnbroker’s tickets! What infamous
+mystery lies at the bottom of all this?”
+
+The first thing he did was to remove the ladder.
+
+Raoul might take it into his head to look around the garden, when he
+came to the door with Madeleine, and if he did so the ladder could
+scarcely fail to attract his attention.
+
+M. Verduret and Prosper hastily laid it on the ground, regardless of
+the shrubs and vines they destroyed in doing so, and then concealed
+themselves among the trees, whence they could watch at once the front
+door and the outer gate.
+
+Madeleine and Raoul appeared in the doorway. Raoul set the lamp on the
+bottom step, and offered his hand to the girl; but she refused it with
+haughty contempt, which somewhat soothed Prosper’s lacerated heart.
+
+This scornful behavior did not, however, seem to surprise or hurt
+Raoul. He simply answered by an ironical gesture which implied, “As you
+please!”
+
+He followed her to the gate, which he opened and closed after her; then
+he hurried back to the house, while Madeleine’s carriage drove rapidly
+away.
+
+“Now, monsieur,” said Prosper, “you must tell me what you saw. You
+promised me the truth no matter how bitter it might be. Speak; I can
+bear it, be it what it may!”
+
+“You will only have joy to bear, my friend. Within a month you will
+bitterly regret your suspicions of to-night. You will blush to think
+that you ever imagined Mlle. Madeleine to be intimate with a man like
+Lagors.”
+
+“But, monsieur, appearances----”
+
+“It is precisely against appearances that we must be on our guard.
+Always distrust them. A suspicion, false or just, is always based on
+something. But we must not stay here forever; and, as Raoul has fastened
+the gate, we shall have to climb back again.”
+
+“But there is the ladder.”
+
+“Let it stay where it is; as we cannot efface our footprints, he will
+think thieves have been trying to get into the house.”
+
+They scaled the wall, and had not walked fifty steps when they heard the
+noise of a gate being unlocked. The stood aside and waited; a man soon
+passed on his way to the station.
+
+“That is Raoul,” said M. Verduret, “and Joseph will report to us that
+he has gone to tell Clameran what has just taken place. If they are only
+kind enough to speak French!”
+
+He walked along quietly for some time, trying to connect the broken
+chain of his deductions.
+
+“How in the deuce,” he abruptly asked, “did this Lagors, who is devoted
+to gay society, come to choose a lonely country house to live in?”
+
+“I suppose it was because M. Fauvel’s villa is only fifteen minutes’
+ride from here, on the Seine.”
+
+“That accounts for his staying here in the summer; but in winter?”
+
+“Oh, in winter he has a room at the Hotel du Louvre, and all the year
+round keeps an apartment in Paris.”
+
+This did not enlighten M. Verduret much; he hurried his pace.
+
+“I hope our driver has not gone. We cannot take the train which is about
+to start, because Raoul would see us at the station.”
+
+Although it was more than an hour since M. Verduret and Prosper left the
+hack at the branch road, they found it waiting for them in front of the
+tavern.
+
+The driver could not resist the desire to change his five-franc piece;
+he had ordered dinner, and, finding his wine very good, was calling for
+more, when he looked up and saw his employers.
+
+“Well, you are in a strange state!” he exclaimed.
+
+Prosper replied that they had gone to see a friend, and, losing their
+way, had fallen into a pit; as if there were pits in Vesinet forest.
+
+“Ah, that is the way you got covered with mud, is it?” exclaimed the
+driver, who, though apparently contented with this explanation, strongly
+suspected that his two customers had been engaged in some nefarious
+transaction.
+
+This opinion seemed to be entertained by everyone present, for they
+looked at Prosper’s muddy clothes and then at each other in a knowing
+way.
+
+But M. Verduret stopped all comment by saying:
+
+“Come on.”
+
+“All right, monsieur: get in while I settle my bill; I will be there in
+a minute.”
+
+The drive back was silent and seemed interminably long. Prosper at
+first tried to draw his strange companion into conversation, but, as he
+received nothing but monosyllables in reply, held his peace for the rest
+of the journey. He was again beginning to feel irritated at the absolute
+empire exercised over him by this man.
+
+Physical discomfort was added to his other troubles. He was stiff and
+numb; every bone in him ached with the cold.
+
+Although mental endurance may be unlimited, bodily strength must in the
+end give way. A violent effort is always followed by reaction.
+
+Lying back in a corner of the carriage, with his feet upon the front
+seat, M. Verduret seemed to be enjoying a nap; yet he was never more
+wide awake.
+
+He was in a perplexed state of mind. This expedition, which, he had
+been confident, would resolve all his doubts, had only added mystery to
+mystery. His chain of evidence, which he thought so strongly linked, was
+completely broken.
+
+For him the facts remained the same, but circumstances had changed. He
+could not imagine what common motive, what moral or material complicity,
+what influences, could have existed to make the four actors in his
+drama, Mme. Fauvel, Madeleine, Raoul, and Clameran, seem to have the
+same object in view.
+
+He was seeking in his fertile mind, that encyclopaedia of craft and
+subtlety, for some combination which would throw light on the problem
+before him.
+
+The midnight bells were ringing when they reached the Archangel, and for
+the first time M. Verduret remembered that he had not dined.
+
+Fortunately Mme. Alexandre was still up, and in the twinkling of an eye
+had improvised a tempting supper. It was more than attention, more than
+respect, that she showed her guest. Prosper observed that she gazed
+admiringly at M. Verduret all the while he was eating his supper.
+
+“You will not see me to-morrow,” said M. Verduret to Prosper, when
+he had risen to leave the room; “but I will be here about this time
+to-morrow night. Perhaps I shall discover what I am seeking at MM.
+Jandidier’s ball.”
+
+Prosper was dumb with astonishment. What! would M. Verduret think of
+appearing at a ball given by the wealthiest and most fashionable bankers
+in Paris? This accounted for his sending to the costumer.
+
+“Then you are invited to this ball?”
+
+The expressive eyes of M. Verduret danced with amusement.
+
+“Not yet,” he said, “but I shall be.”
+
+Oh, the inconsistency of the human mind! Prosper was tormented by the
+most serious preoccupations. He looked sadly around his chamber, and, as
+he thought of M. Verduret’s projected pleasure at the ball, exclaimed:
+
+“Ah, how fortunate he is! To-morrow he will have the privilege of seeing
+Madeleine.”
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The Rue St. Lazare was adorned by the palatial residences of the
+Jandidier brothers, two celebrated financiers, who, if deprived of the
+prestige of immense wealth, would still be looked up to as remarkable
+men. Why cannot the same be said of all men?
+
+These two mansions, which were thought marvels at the time they were
+built, were entirely distinct from each other, but so planned that they
+could be turned into one immense house when so desired.
+
+When MM. Jandidier gave parties, they always had the movable partitions
+taken away, and thus obtained the most superb salon in Paris.
+
+Princely magnificence, lavish hospitality, and an elegant, graceful
+manner of receiving their guests, made these entertainments eagerly
+sought after by the fashionable circles of the capital.
+
+On Saturday, the Rue St. Lazare was blocked up by a file of carriages,
+whose fair occupants were impatiently awaiting their turn to drive up
+to the door, through which they could catch the tantalizing strains of a
+waltz.
+
+It was a fancy ball; and nearly all of the costumes were superb, though
+some were more original than elegant.
+
+Among the latter was a clown. Everything was in perfect keeping: the
+insolent eye, coarse lips, high cheek-bones, and a beard so red that it
+seemed to emit flames in the reflection of the dazzling lights.
+
+He wore top-boots, a dilapidated hat on the back of his head, and a
+shirt-ruffle trimmed with torn lace.
+
+He carried in his left hand a canvas banner, upon which were painted
+six or eight pictures, coarsely designed like those found in strolling
+fairs. In his right he waved a little switch, with which he would every
+now and then strike his banner, like a quack retailing his wares.
+
+Quite a crowd surrounded this clown, hoping to hear some witty speeches
+and puns; but he kept near the door, and remained silent.
+
+About half-past ten he quitted his post.
+
+M. and Mme. Fauvel, followed by their niece Madeleine, had just entered.
+
+A compact group immediately formed near the door.
+
+During the last ten days, the affair of the Rue de Provence had been the
+universal topic of conversation; and friends and enemies were alike
+glad to seize this opportunity of approaching the banker, some to tender
+their sympathy, and others to offer equivocal condolence, which of all
+things is the most exasperating and insulting.
+
+Belonging to the battalion of grave, elderly men, M. Fauvel had not
+assumed a fancy costume, but merely threw over his shoulders a short
+silk domino.
+
+On his arm leaned Mme. Fauvel, _nee_ Valentine de la Verberie, bowing
+and gracefully greeting her numerous friends.
+
+She had once been remarkably beautiful; and to-night the effect of the
+soft wax-lights, and her very becoming dress, half restored her
+youthful freshness and comeliness. No one would have supposed her to be
+forty-eight years old.
+
+She wore a dress of the later years of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign,
+magnificent and severe, of embroidered satin and black velvet, without
+the adornment of a single jewel.
+
+She looked so graceful and elegant in this court dress and powdered
+hair, that some ill-natured gossips said it was a pity to see a real
+La Verberie, so well fitted to adorn a queen’s drawing-room, as all her
+ancestors had done before her, thrown away upon a man whom she had only
+married for his money.
+
+But Madeleine was the object of universal admiration, so dazzlingly
+beautiful and queenlike did she appear in her costume of maid of honor,
+which seemed to have been especially invented to set forth her beautiful
+figure.
+
+Her loveliness expanded in the perfumed atmosphere and soft light of
+the ball-room. Never had her hair looked so black, her complexion so
+exquisite, or her large eyes so brilliant.
+
+Having greeted the hosts, Madeleine took her aunt’s arm, while M. Fauvel
+wandered through the rooms in search of the card-table, the usual refuge
+of bored men, when they are enticed to the ball-room by their womankind.
+
+The ball was now at its height.
+
+Two orchestras, led by Strauss and one of his lieutenants, filled the
+two mansions with intoxicating music. The motley crowd whirled in the
+waltz until they presented a curious confusion of velvets, satins,
+laces, and diamonds. Almost every head and bosom sparkled with jewels;
+the palest cheeks were rosy; heavy eyes now shone like stars; and the
+glistening shoulders of fair women were like drifted snow in an April
+sun.
+
+Forgotten by the crowd, the clown had taken refuge in the embrasure of
+a window, and seemed to be meditating upon the gay scene before him; at
+the same time, he kept his eye upon a couple not far off.
+
+It was Madeleine, dancing with a splendidly dressed doge. The doge was
+the Marquis de Clameran.
+
+He appeared to be radiant, rejuvenated, and well satisfied with the
+impression he was making upon his partner; at the end of a quadrille
+he leaned over her, and whispered compliments with the most unbounded
+admiration; and she seemed to listen, if not with pleasure, at least
+without repugnance. She now and then smiled, and coquettishly shrugged
+her shoulders.
+
+“Evidently,” muttered the clown, “this noble scoundrel is paying court
+to the banker’s niece; so I was right yesterday. But how can Mlle.
+Madeleine resign herself to so graciously receive his insipid flattery?
+Fortunately, Prosper is not here now.”
+
+He was interrupted by an elderly man wrapped in a Venetian mantle, who
+said to him:
+
+“You remember, M. Verduret,”--this name was uttered half seriously, half
+banteringly--“what you promised me?”
+
+The clown bowed with great respect, but not the slightest shade of
+humility.
+
+“I remember,” he replied.
+
+“But do not be imprudent, I beg you.”
+
+“M. the Count need not be uneasy; he has my promise.”
+
+“Very good. I know the value of it.”
+
+The count walked off; but during this short colloquy the quadrille had
+ended, and M. de Clameran and Madeleine were lost to sight.
+
+“I shall find them near Mme. Fauvel,” said the clown.
+
+And he at once started in search of the banker’s wife.
+
+Incommoded by the stifling heat of the room, Mme. Fauvel had sought
+a little fresh air in the grand picture-gallery, which, thanks to the
+talisman called gold, was now transformed into a fairy-like garden,
+filled with orange-trees, japonicas, laurel, and many rare exotics.
+
+The clown saw her seated near a grove, not far from the door of the
+card-room. Upon her right was Madeleine, and near her stood Raoul de
+Lagors, dressed in a costume of Henri III.
+
+“I must confess,” muttered the clown from his post of observation, “that
+the young scamp is a very handsome man.”
+
+Madeleine appeared very sad. She had plucked a japonica from a tree near
+by, and was mechanically pulling it to pieces as she sat with her eyes
+downcast.
+
+Raoul and Mme. Fauvel were engaged in earnest conversation. Their faces
+were composed, but the gestures of one and the trembling of the other
+betrayed a serious discussion.
+
+In the card-room sat the doge, M. de Clameran, so placed as to have
+full view of Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine, although himself concealed by an
+angle of the room.
+
+“It is the continuation of yesterday’s scene,” thought the clown. “If
+I could only get behind the oleander-tree, I might hear what they are
+saying.”
+
+He pushed his way through the crowd, and, just as he had reached the
+desired spot, Madeleine arose, and, taking the arm of a bejewelled
+Persian, walked away.
+
+At the same moment Raoul went into the card-room, and whispered a few
+words to De Clameran.
+
+“There they go,” muttered the clown. “The two scoundrels certainly hold
+these poor women in their power; and they are determined to make them
+suffer before releasing them. What can be the secret of their power?”
+
+His attention was attracted by a commotion in the picture-gallery; it
+was caused by the announcement of a wonderful minuet to be danced in the
+ball-room; the arrival of the Countess de Commarin as Aurora; and the
+presence of the Princess Korasoff, with her superb emeralds, which were
+reported to be the finest in the world.
+
+In an instant the gallery became almost deserted. Only a few
+forlorn-looking people remained; mostly sulky husbands, and some
+melancholy youths looking awkward and unhappy in their gay fancy
+dresses.
+
+The clown thought it a favorable opportunity for carrying out his
+project.
+
+He abruptly left his corner, flourishing his switch, and beating his
+banner, and, crossing the gallery, seated himself in a chair between
+Mme. Fauvel and the door. As soon as the people had collected in a
+circle around him, he commenced to cough in an affected manner, like a
+stump orator about to make a speech.
+
+Then he struck a comical attitude, standing up with his body twisted
+sideways, and his hat on one ear, and with great buffoonery and
+volubility made the following remarks:
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen, this very morning I obtained a license from the
+authorities of this town. And what for? Why gentlemen, for the purpose
+of exhibiting to you a spectacle which has already won the admiration of
+the four quarters of the globe, and several universities besides. Inside
+of this booth, ladies, is about to commence the representation of a most
+remarkable drama, acted for the first time at Pekin, and translated into
+several languages by our most celebrated authors. Gentlemen, you can
+take your seats; the lamps are lighted, and the actors are changing
+their dress.”
+
+Here he stopped speaking, and imitated to perfection the feats which
+mountebanks play upon horns and kettle-drums.
+
+“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he resumed, “you wish to know what I am
+doing outside, if the piece is to be performed under the tent. The fact
+is, gentlemen, that I wish to give you a foretaste of the agitations,
+sensations, emotions, palpitations, and other entertainments which
+you may enjoy by paying the small sum of ten sous. You see this superb
+picture? It represents eight of the most thrilling scenes in the drama.
+Ah, I see you begin to shudder already; and yet this is nothing compared
+to the play itself. This splendid picture gives you no more idea of the
+acting than a drop of water gives an idea of the sea, or a spark of fire
+of the sun. My picture, gentlemen, is merely to give you a foretaste of
+what is in the tent; as the steam oozing from a restaurant gives you a
+taste, or rather a smell, of what is within.”
+
+“Do you know this clown?” asked an enormous Turk of a melancholy Punch.
+
+“No, but he can imitate a trumpet splendidly.”
+
+“Oh, very well indeed! But what is he driving at?”
+
+The clown was endeavoring to attract the attention of Mme. Fauvel, who,
+since Raoul and Madeleine had left her, sat by herself in a mournful
+revery.
+
+He succeeded in his object.
+
+The showman’s shrill voice brought the banker’s wife back to a sense
+of reality; she started, and looked quickly about her, as if suddenly
+awakened from a troubled dream.
+
+“Now, ladies, we are in China. The first picture on my canvas, here,
+in the left corner”--here he touched the top daub--“represents the
+celebrated Mandarin Li-Fo, in the bosom of his family. This pretty woman
+leaning over him is his wife; and these children playing on the carpet
+are the bonds of love between this happy pair. Do you not inhale the
+odor of sanctity and happiness emanating from this speaking picture,
+gentlemen?
+
+“Mme. Li-Fo is the most virtuous of women, adoring her husband and
+idolizing her children. Being virtuous she is happy; for the wise
+Confucius says, ‘The ways of virtue are more pleasant than the ways of
+vice.’”
+
+Mme. Fauvel had left her seat, and approached nearer to the clown.
+
+“Do you see anything on the banner like what he is describing?” asked
+the melancholy Punch of his neighbor.
+
+“No, not a thing. Do you?”
+
+The fact is, that the daubs of paint on the canvas represented one thing
+as well as another, and the clown could call them whatever he pleased.
+
+“Picture No. 2!” he cried, after a flourish of music. “This old lady,
+seated before a mirror tearing out her hair--especially the gray
+ones--you have seen before; do you recognize her? No, you do not. She is
+the fair mandarine of the first picture. I see the tears in your eyes,
+ladies and gentlemen. Ah! you have cause to weep; for she is no longer
+virtuous, and her happiness has departed with her virtue. Alas, it is
+a sad tale! One fatal day she met, on the streets of Pekin, a young
+ruffian, fiendish, but beautiful as an angel, and she loved him--the
+unfortunate woman loved him!”
+
+The last words were uttered in the most tragic tone as he raised his
+clasped hands to heaven.
+
+During this tirade he had whirled around, so that he found himself
+facing the banker’s wife, whose countenance he closely watched while he
+was speaking.
+
+“You are surprised, gentlemen,” he continued; “I am not. The great
+Bilboquet has proved to us that the heart never grows old, and that the
+most vigorous wall-flowers flourish on old ruins. This unhappy woman is
+nearly fifty years old--fifty years old, and in love with a youth! Hence
+this heart-rending scene which should serve as a warning to us all.”
+
+“Really!” grumbled a cook dressed in white satin, who had passed the
+evening in carrying around bills of fare, which no one read, “I thought
+he was going to amuse us.”
+
+“But,” continued the clown, “you must go inside of the booth to
+witness the effects of the mandarine’s folly. At times a ray of reason
+penetrates her diseased brain, and then the sight of her anguish would
+soften a heart of stone. Enter, and for the small sum of ten sous you
+shall hear sobs such as the Odeon never echoed in its halcyon days. The
+unhappy woman has waked up to the absurdity and inanity of her blind
+passion; she confesses to herself that she is madly pursuing a phantom.
+She knows but too well that he, in the vigor and beauty of youth, cannot
+love a faded old woman like herself, who vainly makes pitiable efforts
+to retain the last remains of her once entrancing beauty. She feels
+that the sweet words he once whispered in her charmed ear were deceitful
+falsehoods. She knows that the day is near when she will be left alone,
+with nothing save his mantle in her hand.”
+
+As the clown addressed this voluble description to the crowd before him,
+he narrowly watched the countenance of the banker’s wife.
+
+But nothing he had said seemed to affect her. She leaned back in her
+arm-chair perfectly calm, and occasionally smiled at the tragic manner
+of the showman.
+
+“Good heavens!” muttered the clown uneasily, “can I be on the wrong
+track?”
+
+He saw that his circle of listeners was increased by the presence of the
+doge, M. de Clameran.
+
+“The third picture,” he said, after a roll of drums, “depicts the
+old mandarine after she has dismissed that most annoying of
+guests--remorse--from her bosom. She promises herself that interest
+shall supply the place of love in chaining the too seductive youth to
+her side. It is with this object that she invests him with false honors
+and dignity, and introduces him to the chief mandarins of the capital
+of the Celestial Empire; then, since so handsome a youth must cut a fine
+figure in society, and as a fine figure cannot be cut without money,
+the lady must needs to sacrifice all of her possessions for his sake.
+Necklaces, rings, bracelets, diamonds, and pearls, all are surrendered.
+The monster carries all these jewels to the pawnbrokers on Tien-Tsi
+Street, and then has the cruelty to refuse her the tickets, so that she
+may have a chance of redeeming her treasures.”
+
+The clown thought that at last he had hit the mark. Mme. Fauvel began to
+betray signs of agitation.
+
+Once she made an attempt to rise from her chair; but it seemed as if her
+strength failed her, and she sank back, forced to listen to the end.
+
+“Finally, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the clown, “the richly stored
+jewel-cases became empty. The day came when the mandarine had nothing
+more to give. It was then that the young scoundrel conceived the project
+of carrying off the jasper button belonging to the Mandarin Li-Fo--a
+splendid jewel of incalculable value, which, being the badge of his
+dignity, was kept in a granite chest, and guarded by three soldiers
+night and day. Ah! the mandarine resisted a long time! She knew the
+innocent soldiers would be accused and crucified, as is the custom in
+Pekin; and this thought restrained her. But her lover besought her so
+tenderly, that she finally yielded to his entreaties; and--the jasper
+button was stolen. The fourth picture represents the guilty couple
+stealthily creeping down the private stairway: see their frightened
+look--see--”
+
+He abruptly stopped. Three or four of his auditors rushed to the
+assistance of Mme. Fauvel, who seemed about to faint; and at the same
+time he felt his arm roughly seized by someone behind him.
+
+He turned around and faced De Clameran and Lagors, both of whom were
+pale with anger.
+
+“What do you want, gentlemen?” he inquired politely.
+
+“To speak to you,” they both answered.
+
+“I am at your service.”
+
+And he followed them to the end of the picture-gallery, near a window
+opening on a balcony.
+
+Here they were unobserved except by the man in the Venetian cloak, whom
+the clown had so respectfully addressed as “M. the Count.”
+
+The minuet having ended, the orchestras were resting, and the crowd
+began to rapidly fill the gallery.
+
+The sudden faintness of Mme. Fauvel had passed off unnoticed save by a
+few, who attributed it to the heat of the room. M. Fauvel had been sent
+for; but when he came hurrying in, and found his wife composedly
+talking to Madeleine, his alarm was dissipated, and he returned to the
+card-tables.
+
+Not having as much control over his temper as Raoul, M. de Clameran
+angrily said:
+
+“In the first place, monsieur, I would like to know who you are.”
+
+The clown determined to answer as if he thought the question were a
+jest, replied in the bantering tone of a buffoon:
+
+“You want my passport, do you, my lord doge? I left it in the hands of
+the city authorities; it contains my name, age, profession, domicile,
+and every detail--”
+
+With an angry gesture, M. de Clameran interrupted him.
+
+“You have just committed a gross insult!”
+
+“I, my lord doge?”
+
+“Yes, you! What do you mean by telling this abominable story in this
+house?”
+
+“Abominable! You may call it abominable; but I, who composed it, have a
+different opinion of it.”
+
+“Enough, monsieur; you will at least have the courage to acknowledge
+that your performance was a vile insinuation against Mme. Fauvel?”
+
+The clown stood with his head thrown back, and mouth wide open, as if
+astounded at what he heard.
+
+But anyone who knew him would have seen his bright black eyes sparkling
+with malicious satisfaction.
+
+“Bless my heart!” he cried, as if speaking to himself. “This is the
+strangest thing I ever heard of! How can my drama of the Mandarine Li-Fo
+have any reference to Mme. Fauvel, whom I don’t know from Adam or Eve?
+I can’t think how the resemblance----unless----but no, that is
+impossible.”
+
+“Do you pretend,” said M. de Clameran, “to be ignorant of M. Fauvel’s
+misfortune?”
+
+The clown looked very innocent, and asked:
+
+“What misfortune?”
+
+“The robbery of which M. Fauvel was the victim. It has been in
+everyone’s mouth, and you must have heard of it.”
+
+“Ah, yes, yes; I remember. His cashier ran off with three hundred and
+fifty thousand francs. Pardieu! It is a thing that almost daily happens.
+But, as to discovering any connection between this robbery and my play,
+that is another matter.”
+
+M. de Clameran made no reply. A nudge from Lagors had calmed him as if
+by enchantment.
+
+He looked quietly at the clown, and seemed to regret having uttered the
+significant words forced from him by angry excitement.
+
+“Very well,” he finally said in his usual haughty tone; “I must have
+been mistaken. I accept your explanation.”
+
+But the clown, hitherto so humble and silly-looking, seemed to take
+offence at the word, and, assuming a defiant attitude, said:
+
+“I have not made, nor do I intend making, any explanation.”
+
+“Monsieur,” began De Clameran.
+
+“Allow me to finish, if you please. If, unintentionally, I have offended
+the wife of a man whom I highly esteem, it is his business to seek
+redress, and not yours. Perhaps you will tell me he is too old to demand
+satisfaction: if so, let him send one of his sons. I saw one of them in
+the ball-room to-night; let him come. You asked me who I am; in return I
+ask you who are you--you who undertake to act as Mme. Fauvel’s champion?
+Are you her relative, friend, or ally? What right have you to insult
+her by pretending to discover an allusion to her in a play invented for
+amusement?”
+
+There was nothing to be said in reply to this. M. de Clameran sought a
+means of escape.
+
+“I am a friend of M. Fauvel,” he said, “and this title gives me the
+right to be as jealous of his reputation as if it were my own. If this
+is not a sufficient reason for my interference, I must inform you that
+his family will shortly be mine: I regard myself as his nephew.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Next week, monsieur, my marriage with Madeleine will be publicly
+announced.”
+
+This news was so unexpected, so startling that for a moment the clown
+was dumb; and now his surprise was genuine.
+
+But he soon recovered himself, and, bowing with deference, said, with
+covert irony:
+
+“Permit me to offer my congratulations, monsieur. Besides being the
+belle to-night, Mlle. Madeleine is worth, I hear, half a million.”
+
+Raoul de Lagors had anxiously been watching the people near them, to see
+if they overheard this conversation.
+
+“We have had enough of this gossip,” he said, in a disdainful tone;
+“I will only say one thing more, master clown, and that is, that your
+tongue is too long.”
+
+“Perhaps it is, my pretty youth, perhaps it is; but my arm is still
+longer.”
+
+De Clameran here interrupted them by saying:
+
+“It is impossible for one to seek an explanation from a man who conceals
+his identity under the guise of a fool.”
+
+“You are at liberty, my lord doge, to ask the master of the house who I
+am--if you dare.”
+
+“You are,” cried Clameran, “you are--”
+
+A warning look from Raoul checked the forge-master from using an epithet
+which would have led to an affray, or at least a scandalous scene.
+
+The clown stood by with a sardonic smile, and, after a moment’s silence,
+stared M. de Clameran steadily in the face, and in measured tones said:
+
+“I was the best friend, monsieur, that your brother Gaston ever had. I
+was his adviser, and the confidant of his last wishes.”
+
+These few words fell like a clap of thunder upon De Clameran.
+
+He turned deadly pale, and stared back with his hands stretched out
+before him, as if shrinking from a phantom.
+
+He tried to answer, to protest against this assertion, but the words
+froze on his lips. His fright was pitiable.
+
+“Come, let us go,” said Lagors, who was perfectly cool.
+
+And he dragged Clameran away, half supporting him, for he staggered like
+a drunken man, and clung to every object he passed, to prevent falling.
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed the clown, in three different tones, “oh, oh!”
+
+He himself was almost as much astonished as the forge-master, and
+remained rooted to the spot, watching the latter as he slowly left the
+room.
+
+It was with no decided object in view that he had ventured to use the
+last mysteriously threatening words, but he had been inspired to do
+so by his wonderful instinct, which with him was like the scent of a
+blood-hound.
+
+“What can this mean?” he murmured. “Why was he so frightened? What
+terrible memory have I awakened in his base soul? I need not boast of my
+penetration, or the subtlety of my plans. There is a great master, who,
+without any effort, in an instant destroys all my chimeras; he is called
+‘Chance.’”
+
+His mind had wandered far from the present scene, when he was brought
+back to his situation by someone touching him on the shoulder. It was
+the man in the Venetian cloak.
+
+“Are you very satisfied, M. Verduret?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes, and no, M. the Count. No, because I have not completely achieved
+the object I had in view when I asked you for an invitation here
+to-night; yes, because these two rascals behaved in a manner which
+dispels all doubt.”
+
+“And yet you complain--”
+
+“I do not complain, M. the Count: on the contrary, I bless chance, or
+rather Providence, which has just revealed to me the existence of a
+secret that I did not before even suspect.”
+
+Five or six people approached the count, and he went off with them after
+giving the clown a friendly nod.
+
+The latter instantly threw aside his banner, and started in pursuit of
+Mme. Fauvel. He found her sitting on a sofa in the large salon, engaged
+in an animated conversation with Madeleine.
+
+“Of course they are talking over the scene; but what has become of
+Lagors and De Clameran?”
+
+He soon saw them wandering among the groups scattered about the room,
+and eagerly asking questions.
+
+“I will bet my head these honorable gentlemen are trying to find out
+who I am. Keep it up, my friends, ask everybody in the room; I wish you
+success!”
+
+They soon gave it up, but were so preoccupied, and anxious to be alone
+in order to reflect and deliberate, that, without waiting for supper,
+they took leave of Mme. Fauvel and her niece, saying they were going
+home.
+
+The clown saw them go up to the dressing-room for their cloaks, and in a
+few minutes leave the house.
+
+“I have nothing more to do here,” he murmured; “I might as well go too.”
+
+He completely covered his dress with a domino, and started for home,
+thinking the cold frosty air would cool his confused brain.
+
+He lit a cigar, and, walking up the Rue St. Lazare, crossed the Rue
+Notre Dame de Lorette, and struck into the Faubourg Montmartre.
+
+A man suddenly started out from some place of concealment, and rushed
+upon him with a dagger.
+
+Fortunately the clown had a cat-like instinct, which enabled him
+to protect himself against immediate danger, and detect any which
+threatened.
+
+He saw, or rather divined, the man crouching in the dark shadow of a
+house, and had the presence of mind to strike an attitude which enabled
+him to ward off the assassin by spreading out his arms before him.
+
+This movement certainly saved his life; for he received in his arm a
+furious stab, which would have instantly killed him had it penetrated
+his breast.
+
+Anger, more than pain, made him cry out:
+
+“Ah, you villain!”
+
+And recoiling a few feet, he put himself on the defensive.
+
+But the precaution was useless.
+
+Seeing his blow miss, the assassin did not return to the attack, but
+made rapidly off.
+
+“That was certainly Lagors,” said the clown, “and Clameran must be
+somewhere near. While I walked around one side of the church, they must
+have gone the other and lain in wait for me.”
+
+His wound began to pain him; he stood under a gas-lamp to examine it.
+
+It did not appear to be dangerous, but the arm was cut through to the
+bone.
+
+He tore his handkerchief into four bands, and tied his arm up with the
+dexterity of a surgeon.
+
+“I must be on the track of some great crime, since these fellows are
+resolved upon murder. When such cunning rogues are only in danger of the
+police court, they do not gratuitously risk the chance of being tried
+for murder.”
+
+He thought by enduring a great deal of pain he might still use his arm;
+so he started in pursuit of his enemy, taking care to keep in the middle
+of the road, and avoid all dark corners.
+
+Although he saw no one, he was convinced that he was being pursued.
+
+He was not mistaken. When he reached the Boulevard Montmartre, he
+crossed the street, and, as he did so, distinguished two shadows which
+he recognized. They crossed the same street a little higher up.
+
+“I have to deal with desperate men,” he muttered. “They do not even take
+pains to conceal their pursuit of me. They seem to be accustomed to this
+kind of adventure, and the carriage trick which fooled Fanferlot would
+never succeed with them. Besides, my light hat is a perfect beacon to
+lead them on in the night.” He continued his way up the boulevard, and,
+without turning his head, was sure that his enemies were thirty feet
+behind him.
+
+“I must get rid of them somehow,” he said to himself. “I can neither
+return home nor to the Archangel with these devils at my heels. They are
+following me to find out where I live, and who I am. If they discover
+that the clown is M. Verduret, and that M. Verduret is M. Lecoq, my
+plans will be ruined. They will escape abroad with the money, and I
+shall be left to console myself with a wounded arm. A pleasant ending to
+all my exertions!”
+
+The idea of Raoul and Clameran escaping him so exasperated him that for
+an instant he thought of having them arrested at once.
+
+This was easy; for he had only to rush upon them, scream for help,
+and they would all three be arrested, carried to the watch-house, and
+consigned to the commissary of police.
+
+The police often resort to this ingenious and simple means of arresting
+a malefactor for whom they are on the lookout, and whom they cannot
+seize without a warrant.
+
+The next day there is a general explanation, and the parties, if
+innocent, are dismissed.
+
+The clown had sufficient proof to sustain him in the arrest of Lagors.
+He could show the letter and the mutilated prayer-book, he could reveal
+the existence of the pawnbroker’s tickets in the house at Vesinet, he
+could display his wounded arm. He could force Raoul to confess how
+and why he had assumed the name of Lagors, and what his motive was in
+passing himself off for a relative of M. Fauvel.
+
+On the other hand, in acting thus hastily, he was insuring the safety of
+the principal plotter, De Clameran. What proofs had he against him? Not
+one. He had strong suspicions, but no well-grounded charge to produce
+against him.
+
+On reflection the clown decided that he would act alone, as he had thus
+far done, and that alone and unaided he would discover the truth of all
+his suspicions.
+
+Having reached this decision, the first step to be taken was to put his
+followers on the wrong scent.
+
+He walked rapidly up the Rue Sebastopol, and, reaching the square of
+the Arts et Metiers, he abruptly stopped, and asked some insignificant
+questions of two constables who were standing talking together.
+
+The manoeuvre had the result he expected; Raoul and Clameran stood
+perfectly still about twenty steps off, not daring to advance.
+
+Twenty steps! That was as much start as the clown wanted. While talking
+with the constables, he had pulled the bell of the door before which
+they were standing, and its hollow sound apprised him that the door was
+open. He bowed, and entered the house.
+
+A minute later the constables had passed on, and Lagors and Clameran in
+their turn rang the bell. When the concierge appeared, they asked who it
+was that had just gone in disguised as a clown.
+
+They were told that no such person had entered, and that none of
+the lodgers had gone out disguised that night. “However,” added the
+concierge, “I am not very sure, for this house has a back door which
+opens on the Rue St. Denis.”
+
+“We are tricked,” interrupted Lagors, “and will never know who the clown
+is.”
+
+“Unless we learn it too soon for our own good,” said Clameran musingly.
+
+While Lagors and Clameran were anxiously trying to devise some means of
+discovering the clown’s identity, Verduret hurried up the back street,
+and reached the Archangel as the clock struck three.
+
+Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and
+ran down to open the door for him.
+
+“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out? Did you see
+Madeleine? Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”
+
+But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where
+he might be overheard.
+
+“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this
+cut, which burns like fire.”
+
+“Heavens! Are you wounded?”
+
+“Yes, it is a little souvenir of your friend Raoul. Ah, I will soon
+teach him the danger of chopping up a man’s arm!”
+
+Prosper was surprised at the look of merciless rage on his friend’s
+face, as he calmly washed and dressed his arm.
+
+“Now, Prosper, we will talk as much as you please. Our enemies are on
+the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made
+a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable
+to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the
+effect for the cause. The day I was convinced that culpable relations
+existed between Raoul and Mme. Fauvel, I thought I held the end of
+the thread that must lead us to the truth. I should have been more
+mistrustful; this solution was too simple, too natural.”
+
+“Do you suppose Mme. Fauvel to be innocent?”
+
+“Certainly not. But her guilt is not such as I first supposed. I
+imagined that, infatuated with a seductive young adventurer, Mme. Fauvel
+had first bestowed upon him the name of one of her relatives, and then
+introduced him as her nephew. This was an adroit stratagem to gain him
+admission to her husband’s house.
+
+“She began by giving him all the money she could could dispose of; later
+she let him take her jewels to the pawnbrokers; when she had nothing
+more to give, she allowed him to steal the money from her husband’s
+safe. That is what I first thought.”
+
+“And in this way everything was explained?”
+
+“No, this did not explain everything, as I well knew at the time, and
+should, consequently, have studied my characters more thoroughly. How
+is Clameran’s position to be accounted for, if my first idea was the
+correct one?”
+
+“Clameran is Lagors’s accomplice of course.”
+
+“Ah, there is the mistake! I for a long time believed Lagors to be the
+principal person, when, in fact, he is not. Yesterday, in a dispute
+between them, the forge-master said to his dear friend, ‘And, above all
+things, my friend, I would advise you not to resist me, for if you do I
+will crush you to atoms.’ That explains all. The elegant Lagors is not
+the lover of Mme. Fauvel, but the tool of Clameran. Besides, did our
+first suppositions account for the resigned obedience of Madeleine? It
+is Clameran, and not Lagors, whom Madeleine obeys.”
+
+Prosper began to remonstrate.
+
+M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders. To convince Prosper he had only to
+utter one word: to tell him that three hours ago Clameran had announced
+his intended marriage with Madeleine; but he did not.
+
+“Clameran,” he continued, “Clameran alone has Mme. Fauvel in his power.
+Now, the question is, what is the secret of this terrible influence he
+has gained over her? I have positive proof that they have not met
+since their early youth until fifteen months ago; and, as Mme. Fauvel’s
+reputation has always been above the reach of slander, we must seek in
+the past for the cause of her resigned obedience to his will.”
+
+“We can never discover it,” said Prosper mournfully.
+
+“We can discover it as soon as we know Clameran’s past life. Ah,
+to-night he turned as white as a sheet when I mentioned his brother
+Gaston’s name. And then I remembered that Gaston died suddenly, while
+his brother Louis was making a visit.”
+
+“Do you think he was murdered?”
+
+“I think the men who tried to assassinate me would do anything. The
+robbery, my friend, has now become a secondary detail. It is quite
+easily explained, and, if that were all to be accounted for, I would say
+to you, My task is done, let us go ask the judge of instruction for a
+warrant of arrest.”
+
+Prosper started up with sparkling eyes.
+
+“Ah, you know--is it possible?”
+
+“Yes, I know who gave the key, and I know who told the secret word.”
+
+“The key might have been M. Fauvel’s. But the word----”
+
+“The word you were foolish enough to give. You have forgotten, I
+suppose. But fortunately Gypsy remembered. You know that, two days
+before the robbery, you took Lagors and two other friends to sup with
+Mme. Gypsy? Nina was sad, and reproached you for not being more devoted
+to her.”
+
+“Yes, I remember that.”
+
+“But do you remember what you replied to her?”
+
+“No, I do not,” said Prosper after thinking a moment.
+
+“Well, I will tell you: ‘Nina, you are unjust in reproaching me with
+not thinking constantly of you; for at this very moment your dear name
+guards M. Fauvel’s safe.’”
+
+The truth suddenly burst upon Prosper like a thunderclap. He wrung his
+hands despairingly, and cried:
+
+“Yes, oh, yes! I remember now.”
+
+“Then you can easily understand the rest. One of the scoundrels went to
+Mme. Fauvel, and compelled her to give up her husband’s key; then, at
+a venture, placed the movable buttons on the name of Gypsy, opened the
+safe, and took the three hundred and fifty thousand francs. And Mme.
+Fauvel must have been terribly frightened before she yielded. The day
+after the robbery the poor woman was near dying; and it was she who at
+the greatest risk sent you the ten thousand francs.”
+
+“But which was the thief, Raoul or Clameran? What enables them to thus
+tyrannize over Mme. Fauvel? And how does Madeleine come to be mixed up
+in the affair?”
+
+“These questions, my dear Prosper, I cannot yet answer; therefore I
+postpone seeing the judge. I only ask you to wait ten days; and, if I
+cannot in that time discover the solution of this mystery, I will return
+and go with you to report to M. Patrigent all that we know.”
+
+“Are you going to leave the city?”
+
+“In an hour I shall be on the road to Beaucaire. It was from that
+neighborhood that Clameran came, as well as Mme. Fauvel, who was a Mlle.
+de la Verberie before marriage.”
+
+“Yes, I knew both families.”
+
+“I must go there to study them. Neither Raoul nor Clameran can escape
+during my absence. The police are watching them. But you, Prosper, must
+be prudent. Promise me to remain a prisoner here during my trip.”
+
+All that M. Verduret asked, Prosper willingly promised. But he did not
+wish to be left in complete ignorance of his projects for the future, or
+of his motives in the past.
+
+“Will you not tell me, monsieur, who you are, and what reasons you had
+for coming to my rescue?”
+
+The extraordinary man smiled sadly, and said:
+
+“I tell, in the presence of Nina, on the day before your marriage with
+Madeleine.”
+
+Once left to his own reflections, Prosper began to appreciate the
+powerful assistance rendered by his friend.
+
+Recalling the field of investigation gone over by his mysterious
+protector, he was amazed at its extent.
+
+How many facts had been discovered in a week, and with what precision,
+although he had pretended to be on the wrong track! Verduret had grouped
+his evidence, and reached a result which Prosper felt he never could
+have hoped to attain by his own exertions.
+
+He was conscious that he possessed neither Verduret’s penetration nor
+his subtlety. He did not possess this art of compelling obedience,
+of creating friends at every step, and the science of making men and
+circumstances unite in the attainment of a common result.
+
+He began to regret the absence of his friend, who had risen up in the
+hour of adversity. He missed the sometimes rough but always kindly
+voice, which had encouraged and consoled him.
+
+He felt wofully lost and helpless, not daring to act or think for
+himself, more timid than a child when deserted by his nurse.
+
+He had the good sense to follow the recommendations of his mentor. He
+remained shut up in the Archangel, not even appearing at the windows.
+
+Twice he had news of M. Verduret. The first time he received a letter in
+which this friend said he had seen his father, and had had a long talk
+with him. Afterward, Dubois, M. de Clameran’s valet, came to tell him
+that his “patron” reported everything as progressing finely.
+
+On the ninth day of his voluntary seclusion, Prosper began to feel
+restless, and at ten o’clock at night set forth to take a walk, thinking
+the fresh air would relieve the headache which had kept him awake the
+previous night.
+
+Mme. Alexandre, who seemed to have some knowledge of M. Verduret’s
+affairs, begged Prosper to remain at home.
+
+“What can I risk by taking a walk at this time, in a quiet part of
+the city?” he asked. “I can certainly stroll as far as the Jardin des
+Plantes without meeting anyone.”
+
+Unfortunately he did not strictly follow this programme; for, having
+reached the Orleans railway station, he went into a cafe near by, and
+called for a glass of ale.
+
+As he sat sipping his glass, he picked up a daily paper, _The Sun_, and
+under the head of “Fashionable Gossip,” signed Jacques Durand, read the
+following:
+
+
+“We understand that the niece of one of our most prominent bankers,
+M. Andre Fauvel, will shortly be married to M. le Marquis Louis de
+Clameran. The engagement has been announced.”
+
+
+This news, coming upon him so unexpectedly, proved to Prosper the
+justness of M. Verduret’s calculations.
+
+Alas! why did not this certainty inspire him with absolute faith? why
+did it not give him courage to wait, the strength of mind to refrain
+from acting on his own responsibility?
+
+Frenzied by distress of mind, he already saw Madeleine indissolubly
+united to this villain, and, thinking that M. Verduret would perhaps
+arrive too late to be of use, determined at all risks to throw an
+obstacle in the way of the marriage.
+
+He called for pen and paper, and forgetting that no situation can excuse
+the mean cowardice of an anonymous letter, wrote in a disguised hand the
+following lines to M. Fauvel:
+
+
+“DEAR SIR--You consigned your cashier to prison; you acted prudently,
+since you were convinced of his dishonesty and faithlessness.
+
+“But, even if he stole three hundred and fifty thousand francs from
+your safe, does it follow that he also stole Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds, and
+pawned them at the Mont-de-Piete, where they now are?
+
+“Warned as you are, if I were you, I would not be the subject of public
+scandal. I would watch my wife, and would be distrustful of handsome
+cousins.
+
+“Moreover, I would, before signing the marriage contract of Mlle.
+Madeleine, inquire at the Prefecture of Police, and obtain some
+information concerning the noble Marquis de Clameran.
+
+“A FRIEND.”
+
+
+Prosper hastened off to post his letter. Fearing that it would not reach
+M. Fauvel in time, he walked up to the Rue Cardinal Lemoine, and put it
+in the main letter-box, so as to be certain of its speedy delivery.
+
+Until now he had not doubted the propriety of his action.
+
+But now when too late, when he heard the sound of his letter falling
+into the box, a thousand scruples filled his mind. Was it not wrong to
+act thus hurriedly? Would not this letter interfere with M. Verduret’s
+plans? Upon reaching the hotel, his doubts were changed into bitter
+regrets.
+
+Joseph Dubois was waiting for him; he had received a despatch from his
+patron, saying that his business was finished, and that he would return
+the next evening at nine o’clock.
+
+Prosper was wretched. He would have given all he had to recover the
+anonymous letter.
+
+And he had cause for regret.
+
+At that very hour M. Verduret was taking his seat in the cars at
+Tarascon, meditating upon the most advantageous plan to be adopted in
+pursuance of his discoveries.
+
+For he had discovered everything, and now must bring matters to a
+crisis.
+
+Adding to what he already knew, the story of an old nurse of Mlle. de
+la Verberie, the affidavit of an old servant who had always lived in the
+Clameran family, and the depositions of the Vesinet husband and wife who
+attended M. Lagors at his country house, the latter having been sent to
+him by Dubois (Fanferlot), with a good deal of information obtained from
+the prefecture of police, he had worked up a complete case, and could
+now act upon a chain of evidence without a missing link.
+
+As he had predicted, he had been compelled to search into the distant
+past for the first causes of the crime of which Prosper had been the
+victim.
+
+The following is the drama, as he wrote it out for the benefit of the
+judge of instruction, knowing that it would contain grounds for an
+indictment against the malefactors.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE DRAMA
+
+About two leagues from Tarascon, on the left bank of the Rhone, not
+far from the wonderful gardens of M. Audibert, stood the chateau of
+Clameran, a weather-stained, neglected, but massive structure.
+
+Here lived, in 1841, the old Marquis de Clameran and his two sons,
+Gaston and Louis.
+
+The marquis was an eccentric old man. He belonged to the race of nobles,
+now almost extinct, whose watches stopped in 1789, and who kept time
+with the past century.
+
+More attached to his illusions than to his life, the old marquis
+insisted upon considering all the stirring events which had happened
+since the first revolution as a series of deplorable practical jokes.
+
+Emigrating with the Count d’Artois, he did not return to France until
+1815, with the allies.
+
+He should have been thankful to Heaven for the recovery of a portion of
+his immense family estates; a comparatively small portion, to be sure,
+but full enough to support him comfortably: he said, however, that he
+did not think the few paltry acres were worth thanking God for.
+
+At first, he tried every means to obtain an appointment at court; but
+seeing all his efforts fail, he resolved to retire to his chateau, which
+he did, after cursing and pitying his king, whom he had worshipped.
+
+He soon became accustomed to the free and indolent life of a country
+gentleman.
+
+Possessing fifteen thousand francs a year, he spent twenty-five or
+thirty thousand, borrowing from every source, saying that a genuine
+restoration would soon take place, and that then he would regain
+possession of all his properties.
+
+Following his example, his younger son lived extravagantly. Louis was
+always in pursuit of adventure, and idled away his time in drinking and
+gambling. The elder son, Gaston, anxious to participate in the stirring
+events of the time, prepared himself for action by quietly working,
+studying, and reading certain papers and pamphlets surreptitiously
+received, the very mention of which was considered a hanging matter by
+his father.
+
+Altogether the old marquis was the happiest of mortals, living well,
+drinking high, hunting much, tolerated by the peasants, and execrated
+by the gentlemen of the neighborhood, who regarded him with contempt and
+raillery.
+
+Time never hung heavy on his hands, except in mid-summer, when the
+valley of the Rhone was intensely hot; and even then he had infallible
+means of amusement, always new, though ever the same.
+
+He detested, above all, his neighbor the Countess de la Verberie.
+
+The Countess de la Verberie, the “bete noire” of the marquis, as he
+ungallantly termed her, was a tall, dry woman, angular in appearance and
+character, cold and arrogant toward her equals, and domineering over her
+inferiors.
+
+Like her noble neighbor, she too had emigrated; and her husband was
+afterward killed at Lutzen, but unfortunately not in the French ranks.
+
+In 1815, the countess came back to France. But while the Marquis de
+Clameran returned to comparative ease, she could obtain nothing from
+royal munificence, but the small estate and chateau of La Verberie.
+
+It is true that the chateau of La Verberie would have contented most
+people; but the countess never ceased to complain of her unmerited
+poverty, as she called it.
+
+The pretty chateau was more modest in appearance than the manor of the
+Clamerans; but it was equally comfortable, and much better regulated by
+its proud mistress.
+
+It was built in the middle of a beautiful park, one of the wonders of
+that part of the country. It reached from the Beaucaire road to the
+river-bank, a marvel of beauty, with its superb old oaks, yoke-elms, and
+lovely groves, its meadow, and clear stream of water winding in among
+the trees.
+
+The countess had but one child--a lovely girl of eighteen, named
+Valentine; fair, slender, and graceful, with large, soft eyes, beautiful
+enough to make the stone saints of the village church thrill in their
+niches, when she knelt piously at their feet.
+
+The renown of her great beauty, carried on the rapid waters of the
+Rhone, was spread far and wide.
+
+Often the bargemen and the robust wagoners, driving their powerful
+horses along the road, would stop to gaze with admiration upon Valentine
+seated under some grand old tree on the banks of the river, absorbed in
+her book.
+
+At a distance her white dress and flowing tresses made her seem a
+mysterious spirit from another world, these honest people said; they
+thought it a good omen when they caught a glimpse of her as they passed
+up the river. All along between Arles and Valence she was spoken of as
+the “lovely fairy” of La Verberie.
+
+If M. de Clameran detested the countess, Mme. de la Verberie execrated
+the marquis. If he nicknamed her “the witch,” she never called him
+anything but “the old gander.”
+
+And yet they should have agreed, for at heart they cherished the same
+opinions, with different ways of viewing them.
+
+He considered himself a philosopher, scoffed at everything, and had an
+excellent digestion. She nursed her rancor, and grew yellow and thin
+from rage and envy.
+
+Nevertheless, they might have spent many pleasant evenings together,
+for, after all, they were neighbors. From Clameran could be seen
+Valentine’s greyhound running about the park of La Verberie; from La
+Verberie glimpses were had of the lights in the dining-room windows of
+Clameran.
+
+And, as regularly as these lights appeared, every evening, the countess
+would say, in a spiteful tone:
+
+“Ah, now their orgies are about to commence!”
+
+The two chateaux were only separated by the fast-flowing Rhone, which at
+this spot was rather narrow.
+
+But between the two families existed a hatred deeper and more difficult
+to avert than the course of the Rhone.
+
+What was the cause of this hatred?
+
+The countess, no less than the marquis, would have found it difficult to
+tell.
+
+It was said that under the reign of Henri IV. or Louis XIII. a La
+Verberie betrayed the affections of a fair daughter of the Clamerans.
+
+This misdeed led to a duel and bloodshed.
+
+This groundwork of facts had been highly embellished by fiction; handed
+down from generation to generation, it had now become a long tragic
+history of robbery, murder, and rapine, which precluded any intercourse
+between the two families.
+
+The usual result followed, as it always does in real life, and often in
+romances, which, however exaggerated they may be, generally preserve a
+reflection of the truth which inspires them.
+
+Gaston met Valentine at an entertainment; he fell in love with her at
+first sight.
+
+Valentine saw Gaston, and from that moment his image filled her heart.
+
+But so many obstacles separated them!
+
+For over a year they both religiously guarded their secret, buried like
+a treasure in the inmost recesses of their hearts.
+
+And this year of charming, dangerous reveries decided their fate. To
+the sweetness of the first impression succeeded a more tender sentiment;
+then came love, each having endowed the other with superhuman qualities
+and ideal perfections.
+
+Deep, sincere passion can only expand in solitude; in the impure air of
+a city it fades and dies, like the hardy plants which lose their color
+and perfume when transplanted to hot-houses.
+
+Gaston and Valentine had only seen each other once, but seeing was to
+love; and, as the time passed, their love grew stronger, until at last
+the fatality which had presided over their first meeting brought them
+once more together.
+
+They both happened to be spending the day with the old Duchess
+d’Arlange, who had returned to the neighborhood to sell her property.
+
+They spoke to each other, and like old friends, surprised to find that
+they both entertained the same thoughts and echoed the same memories.
+
+Again they were separated for months. But soon, as if by accident, they
+happened to be at a certain hour on the banks of the Rhone, and would
+sit and gaze across at each other.
+
+Finally, one mild May evening, when Mme. de la Verberie had gone to
+Beaucaire, Gaston ventured into the park, and appeared before Valentine.
+
+She was not surprised or indignant. Genuine innocence displays none
+of the startled modesty assumed by conventional innocence. It never
+occurred to Valentine that she ought to bid Gaston to leave her.
+
+She leaned upon his arm, and strolled up and down the grand old avenue
+of oaks. They did not say they loved each other, they felt it; but they
+did say that their love was hopeless. They well knew that the inveterate
+family feud could never be overcome, and that it would be folly to
+attempt it. They swore never, never to forget each other, and tearfully
+resolved never to meet again; never, not even once more!
+
+Alas! Valentine was not without excuse. With a timid, loving heart, her
+expansive affection was repressed and chilled by a harsh mother. Never
+had there been one of those long private talks between the Countess
+de la Verberie and Valentine which enabled a good mother to read her
+daughter’s heart like an open book.
+
+Mme. de la Verberie saw nothing but her daughter’s beauty. She was wont
+to rub her hands, and say:
+
+“Next winter I will borrow enough money to take the child to Paris, and
+I am much mistaken if her beauty does not win her a rich husband who
+will release me from poverty.”
+
+She called this loving her daughter!
+
+The second meeting was not the last. Gaston dared not trust to a
+boatman, so he was obliged to walk a league in order to cross the
+bridge. Then he thought it would be shorter to swim the river; but he
+could not swim well, and to cross the Rhone where it ran so rapidly was
+rash for the most skilful swimmers.
+
+One evening, however, Valentine was startled by seeing him rise out of
+the water at her feet.
+
+She made him promise never to attempt this exploit again. He repeated
+the feat and the promise the next evening and every successive evening.
+
+As Valentine always imagined he was being drowned in the furious
+current, they agreed upon a signal. At the moment of starting, Gaston
+would put a light in his window at Clameran, and in fifteen minutes he
+would be at his idol’s feet.
+
+What were the projects and hopes of the lovers? Alas! they projected
+nothing, they hoped for nothing.
+
+Blindly, thoughtlessly, almost fearlessly, they abandoned themselves to
+the dangerous happiness of a daily rendezvous; regardless of the storm
+that must erelong burst over their devoted heads, they revelled in their
+present bliss.
+
+Is not every sincere passion thus? Passion subsists upon itself and in
+itself; and the very things which ought to extinguish it, absence
+and obstacles, only make it burn more fiercely. It is exclusive and
+undisturbed; reflects neither of the past nor of the future; excepting
+the present, it sees and cares for nothing.
+
+Moreover, Valentine and Gaston believed everyone ignorant of their
+secret.
+
+They had always been so cautious! they had kept such strict watch! They
+had flattered themselves that their conduct had been a masterpiece of
+dissimulation and prudence.
+
+Valentine had fixed upon the hour when she was certain her mother would
+not miss her. Gaston had never confided to anyone, not even to his
+brother Louis. They never breathed each other’s name. They denied
+themselves a last sweet word, a last kiss, when they felt it would be
+more safe.
+
+Poor blind lovers! As if anything could be concealed from the idle
+curiosity of country gossips; from the slanderous and ever-watchful
+enemies who are incessantly on the lookout for some new bit of
+tittle-tattle, good or bad, which they improve upon, and eagerly spread
+far and near.
+
+They believed their secret well kept, whereas it had long since
+been made public; the story of their love, the particulars of their
+rendezvous, were topics of conversation throughout the neighborhood.
+
+Sometimes, at dusk, they would see a bark gliding along the water, near
+the shore, and would say to each other:
+
+“It is a belated fisherman, returning home.”
+
+They were mistaken. The boat contained malicious spies, who delighted
+in having discovered them, and hastened to report, with a thousand false
+additions, the result of their expedition.
+
+One dreary November evening, Gaston was awakened to the true state of
+affairs. The Rhone was so swollen by heavy rains that an inundation was
+daily expected. To attempt to swim across this impetuous torrent, would
+be tempting God. Therefore Gaston went to Tarascon, intending to cross
+the bridge there, and walk along the bank to the usual place of meeting
+at La Verberie. Valentine expected him at eleven o’clock.
+
+Whenever Gaston went to Tarascon, he dined with a relative living there;
+but on this occasion a strange fatality led him to accompany a friend to
+the hotel of the “Three Emperors.”
+
+After dinner, they went not the Cafe Simon, their usual resort, but to
+the little cafe in the market-place, where the fairs were held.
+
+The small dining-hall was filled with young men. Gaston and his friend
+called for a bottle of beer, and began to play billiards.
+
+After they had been playing a short time, Gaston’s attention was
+attracted by peals of laughter from a party at the other end of the
+room.
+
+From this moment, preoccupied by this continued laughter, of which he
+was evidently the subject, he knocked the balls carelessly in every
+direction. His conduct surprised his friend, who said to him:
+
+“What is the matter? You are missing the simplest shots.”
+
+“It is nothing.”
+
+The game went on a while longer, when Gaston suddenly turned as white as
+a sheet, and, throwing down his cue, strode toward the table which was
+occupied by five young men, playing dominoes and drinking wine.
+
+He addressed the eldest of the group, a handsome man of twenty-six, with
+fierce-looking eyes, and a heavy black mustache, named Jules Lazet.
+
+“Repeat, if you dare,” he said, in a voice trembling with passion, “the
+remark you just now made!”
+
+“I certainly will repeat it,” said Lazet, calmly. “I said, and I say
+it again, that a nobleman’s daughter is no better than a mechanic’s
+daughter; that virtue does not always accompany a titled name.”
+
+“You mentioned a particular name!”
+
+Lazet rose from his chair as if he knew his answer would exasperate
+Gaston, and that from words they would come to blows.
+
+“I did,” he said, with an insolent smile: “I mentioned the name of the
+pretty little fairy of La Verberie.”
+
+All the coffee-drinkers, and even two travelling agents who were dining
+in the cafe, rose and surrounded the two young men.
+
+The provoking looks, the murmurs, or rather shouts, which welcomed him
+as he walked up to Lazet, proved to Gaston that he was surrounded by
+enemies.
+
+The wickedness and evil tongue of the old marquis were bearing their
+fruit. Rancor ferments quickly and fiercely among the people of
+Provence.
+
+Gaston de Clameran was not a man to yield, even if his foes were a
+hundred, instead of fifteen or twenty.
+
+“No one but a coward,” he said, in a clear, ringing voice, which the
+pervading silence rendered almost startling, “no one but a contemptible
+coward would be infamous enough to calumniate a young girl who has
+neither father nor brother to defend her honor.”
+
+“If she has no father or brother,” sneered Lazet, “she has her lovers,
+and that suffices.”
+
+The insulting words, “her lovers,” enraged Gaston beyond control; he
+slapped Lazet violently in the face.
+
+Everyone in the cafe simultaneously uttered a cry of terror. Lazet’s
+violence of character, his herculean strength and undaunted courage,
+were well known. He sprang across the table between them, and seized
+Gaston by the throat. Then arose a scene of excitement and confusion.
+Clameran’s friend, attempting to assist him, was knocked down with
+billiard-cues, and kicked under a table.
+
+Equally strong and agile, Gaston and Lazet struggled for some minutes
+without either gaining an advantage.
+
+Lazet, as loyal as he was courageous, would not accept assistance from
+his friends. He continually called out:
+
+“Keep away; let me fight it out alone!”
+
+But the others were too excited to remain inactive spectators of the
+scene.
+
+“A quilt!” cried one of them, “a quilt to make the marquis jump!”
+
+Five or six young men now rushed upon Gaston, and separated him from
+Lazet. Some tried to throw him down, others to trip him up.
+
+He defended himself with the energy of despair, exhibiting in his
+furious struggles a strength of which he himself had not been conscious.
+He struck right and left as he showered fierce epithets upon his
+adversaries for being twelve against one.
+
+He was endeavoring to get around the billiard-table so as to be near the
+door, and had almost succeeded, when an exultant cry arose:
+
+“Here is the quilt! the quilt!” they cried.
+
+“Put him in the quilt, the pretty fairy’s lover!”
+
+Gaston heard these cries. He saw himself overcome, and suffering an
+ignoble outrage at the hands of these enraged men.
+
+By a dexterous movement he extricated himself from the grasp of the
+three who were holding him, and felled a fourth to the ground.
+
+His arms were free; but all his enemies returned to the charge.
+
+Then he seemed to lose his head, and, seizing a knife which lay on the
+table where the travelling agents had been dining, he plunged it into
+the breast of the first man who rushed upon him.
+
+This unfortunate man was Jules Lazet. He dropped to the ground.
+
+There was a second of silent stupor.
+
+Then four or five of the young men rushed forward to raise Lazet. The
+landlady ran about wringing her hands, and screaming with fright. Some
+of the assailants rushed into the street shouting, “Murder! Murder!”
+
+The others once more turned upon Gaston with cries of “Vengeance! kill
+him!”
+
+He saw that he was lost. His enemies had seized the first objects they
+could lay their hands upon, and he received several wounds. He jumped
+upon the billiard-table, and, making a rapid spring, dashed through the
+large glass window of the cafe. He was fearfully cut by the broken glass
+and splinters, but he was free.
+
+Gaston had escaped, but he was not yet saved. Astonished and
+disconcerted at his desperate feat, the crowd for a moment were
+stupefied; but, recovering their presence of mind, they started in
+pursuit of him.
+
+The weather was bad, the ground wet and muddy, and heavy black clouds
+were rolling westward; but the night was not dark.
+
+Gaston ran on from tree to tree, making frequent turnings, every moment
+on the point of being seized and surrounded, and asking himself what
+course he should take.
+
+Finally he determined, if possible, to regain Clameran.
+
+With incredible rapidity he darted diagonally across the fair-ground, in
+the direction of the levee which protected the valley of Tarascon from
+inundations.
+
+Unfortunately, upon reaching this levee, planted with magnificent trees
+which made it one of the most charming walks of Provence, Gaston forgot
+that the entrance was closed by a gate with three steps, such as are
+always placed before walks intended for foot-passengers, and rushed
+against it with such violence that he was thrown back and badly bruised.
+
+He quickly sprang up; but his pursuers were upon him.
+
+This time he could expect no mercy. The infuriated men at his heels
+yelled that fearful cry which in the evil days of lawless bloodshed had
+often echoed in that valley: “In the Rhone with him! In the Rhone with
+the marquis!”
+
+His reason had abandoned him; he no longer knew what he did. His
+forehead was cut, and the blood trickled from the wound into his eyes,
+and blinded him.
+
+He must escape, or die in the attempt.
+
+He had tightly clasped the bloody knife with which he had stabbed Lazet.
+He struck his nearest foe; the man fell to the ground with a heavy
+groan.
+
+A second blow gained him a moment’s respite, which gave him time to open
+the gate and rush along the levee.
+
+Two men were kneeling over their wounded companion, and five others
+resumed the pursuit.
+
+But Gaston flew fast, for the horror of his situation tripled his
+energy; excitement deadened the pain of his wounds; with elbows held
+tight to his sides, and holding his breath, he went along at such a
+speed that he soon distanced his pursuers; the noise of their feet
+became gradually more indistinct, and finally ceased.
+
+Gaston ran on for a mile, across fields and over hedges; fences and
+ditches were leaped without effort and when he knew he was safe from
+capture he sank down at the foot of a tree to rest.
+
+This terrible scene had taken place with inconceivable rapidity. Only
+forty minutes had elapsed since Gaston and his friend entered the cafe.
+
+But during this short time how much had happened! These forty minutes
+had given more cause for sorrow and remorse than the whole of his
+previous life put together.
+
+Entering this tavern with head erect and a happy heart, enjoying present
+existence, and looking forward to a yet better future, he left it
+ruined; for he was a murderer! Henceforth he would be under a ban--an
+outcast!
+
+He had killed a man, and still convulsively held the murderous
+instrument; he cast it from him with horror.
+
+He tried to account for the dreadful circumstances which had just taken
+place; as if it were of any importance to a man lying at the bottom of
+an abyss to know which stone had slipped, and precipitated him from the
+summit.
+
+Still, if he alone had been ruined! But Valentine was dragged down with
+him: she was disgraced yet more than himself; her reputation was gone.
+And it was his want of self-command which had cast to the winds this
+honor, confided to his keeping, and which he held far dearer than his
+own.
+
+But he could not remain here bewailing his misfortune. The police must
+soon be on his track. They would certainly go to the chateau of Clameran
+to seek him; and before leaving home, perhaps forever, he wished to say
+good-by to his father, and once more press Valentine to his heart.
+
+He started to walk, but with great pain, for the reaction had come, and
+his nerves and muscles, so violently strained, had now begun to relax;
+the intense heat caused by his struggling and fast running was replaced
+by a cold perspiration, aching limbs, and chattering teeth. His hip and
+shoulder pained him almost beyond endurance. The cut on his forehead had
+stopped bleeding, but the coagulated blood around his eyes blinded him.
+
+After a painful walk he reached his door at ten o’clock.
+
+The old valet who admitted him started back terrified.
+
+“Good heavens, monsieur! what is the matter?”
+
+“Silence!” said Gaston in the brief, compressed tone always inspired by
+imminent danger, “silence! where is my father?”
+
+“M. the marquis is in his room with M. Louis. He has had a sudden
+attack of the gout, and cannot put his foot to the ground; but you,
+monsieur----”
+
+Gaston did not stop to listen further. He hurried to his father’s room.
+
+The old marquis, who was playing backgammon with Louis, dropped his
+dice-box with a cry of horror, when he looked up and saw his eldest son
+standing before him covered with blood.
+
+“What is the matter? what have you been doing, Gaston?”
+
+“I have come to embrace you for the last time, father, and to ask for
+assistance to escape abroad.”
+
+“Do you wish to fly the country?”
+
+“I must fly, father, and instantly; I am pursued, the police may be here
+at any moment. I have killed two men.”
+
+The marquis was so shocked that he forgot the gout, and attempted to
+rise; a violent twinge made him drop back in his chair.
+
+“Where? When?” he gasped.
+
+“At Tarascon, in a cafe, an hour ago; fifteen men attacked me, and I
+seized a knife to defend myself.”
+
+“The old tricks of ‘93,” said the marquis. “Did they insult you, Gaston?
+What was the cause of the attack?”
+
+“They insulted in my presence the name of a noble young girl.”
+
+“And you punished the rascals? Jarnibleu! You did well. Who ever heard
+of a gentleman allowing insolent puppies to speak disrespectfully of a
+lady of quality in his presence? But who was the lady you defended?”
+
+“Mlle. Valentine de la Verberie.”
+
+“What!” cried the marquis, “what! the daughter of that old witch! Those
+accursed de la Verberies have always brought misfortune upon us.”
+
+He certainly abominated the countess; but his respect for her noble
+blood was greater than his resentment toward her individually, and he
+added:
+
+“Nevertheless, Gaston, you did your duty.”
+
+Meanwhile, the curiosity of St. Jean, the marquis’s old valet, made him
+venture to open the door, and ask:
+
+“Did M. the marquis ring?”
+
+“No, you rascal,” answered M. de Clameran: “you know very well I did
+not. But, now you are here, be useful. Quickly bring some clothes for
+M. Gaston, some fresh linen, and some warm water: hasten and dress his
+wounds.”
+
+These orders were promptly executed, and Gaston found he was not so
+badly hurt as he had thought. With the exception of a deep stab in his
+left shoulder, his wounds were not serious.
+
+After receiving all the attentions which his condition required, Gaston
+felt like a new man, ready to brave any peril. His eyes sparkled with
+renewed energy and excitement.
+
+The marquis made a sign to the servants to leave the room.
+
+“Do you still think you ought to leave France?” he asked Gaston.
+
+“Yes, father.”
+
+“My brother ought not to hesitate,” interposed Louis: “he will be
+arrested here, thrown into prison, vilified in court, and--who knows?”
+
+“We all know well enough that he will be convicted,” grumbled the old
+marquis. “These are the benefits of the immortal revolution, as it is
+called. Ah, in my day we three would have taken our swords, jumped on
+our horses, and, dashing into Tarascon, would soon have--. But those
+good old days are passed. To-day we have to run away.”
+
+“There is no time to lose,” observed Louis.
+
+“True,” said the marquis, “but to fly, to go abroad, one must have
+money; and I have none by me to give him.”
+
+“Father!”
+
+“No, I have none. Ah, what a prodigal old fool I have been! If I only
+had a hundred louis!”
+
+Then he told Louis to open the secretary, and hand him the money-box.
+
+The box contained only nine hundred and twenty francs in gold.
+
+“Nine hundred and twenty francs,” cried the marquis: “it will never
+do for the eldest son of our house to fly the country with this paltry
+sum.”
+
+He sat lost in reflection. Suddenly his brow cleared, and he told Louis
+to open a secret drawer in the secretary, and bring him a small casket.
+
+Then the marquis took from his neck a black ribbon, to which was
+suspended the key of the casket.
+
+His sons observed with what deep emotion he unlocked it, and slowly
+took out a necklace, a large cross, several rings, and other pieces of
+jewelry.
+
+His countenance assumed a solemn expression.
+
+“Gaston, my dear son,” he said, “at a time like this your life may
+depend upon bought assistance; money is power.”
+
+“I am young, father, and have courage.”
+
+“Listen to me. The jewels belonged to the marquise, your sainted mother,
+a noble, holy woman, who is now in heaven watching over us. These
+jewels have never left me. During my days of misery and want, when I was
+compelled to earn a livelihood by teaching music in London, I piously
+treasured them. I never thought of selling them; and to mortgage them,
+in the hour of direst need, would have seemed to be a sacrilege. But now
+you must take them, my son, and sell them for twenty thousand livres.”
+
+“No, father no; I cannot take them!”
+
+“You must, Gaston. If your mother were on earth, she would tell you
+to take them, as I do now. I command you to take and use them. The
+salvation, the honor, of the heir of the house of Clameran, must not be
+imperilled for want of a little gold.”
+
+With tearful eyes, Gaston sank on his knees, and, carrying his father’s
+hand to his lips, said:
+
+“Thanks, father, thanks! In my heedless, ungrateful presumption I have
+hitherto misjudged you. I did not know your noble character. Forgive me.
+I accept; yes, I accept these jewels worn by my dear mother; but I take
+them as a sacred deposit, confided to my honor, and for which I will
+some day account to you.”
+
+In their emotion, the marquis and Gaston forgot the threatened danger.
+But Louis was not touched by the affecting scene.
+
+“Time presses,” he said: “you had better hasten.”
+
+“He is right,” cried the marquis: “go, Gaston, go, my son; and God
+protect the heir of the Clamerans!”
+
+Gaston slowly got up and said, with an embarrassed air:
+
+“Before leaving you, my father, I must fulfil a sacred duty. I have
+not told you everything. I love Valentine, the young girl whose honor I
+defended this evening.”
+
+“Oh!” cried the marquis, thunderstruck, “oh, oh!”
+
+“And I entreat you, father, to ask Mme. de la Verberie for the hand of
+her daughter. Valentine will gladly join me abroad, and share my exile.”
+
+Gaston stopped, frightened at the effect of his words. The old marquis
+had become crimson, or rather purple, as if struck by apoplexy.
+
+“Preposterous!” he gasped. “Impossible! Perfect folly!”
+
+“I love her, father, and have promised her never to marry another.”
+
+“Then always remain a bachelor.”
+
+“I shall marry her!” cried Gaston, excitedly. “I shall marry her because
+I have sworn I would, and I will not be so base as to desert her.”
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“I tell you, Mlle. de la Verberie must and shall be my wife. It is too
+late for me to draw back. Even if I no longer loved her, I would still
+marry her, because she has given herself to me; because, can’t you
+understand--what was said at the cafe to-night was true: I have but one
+way of repairing the wrong I have done Valentine--by marrying her.”
+
+Gaston’s confession, forced from him by circumstances, produced a
+very different impression from that which he had expected. The enraged
+marquis instantly became cool, and his mind seemed relieved of an
+immense weight. A wicked joy sparkled in his eyes, as he replied:
+
+“Ah, ha! she yielded to your entreaties, did she? Jarnibleu! I am
+delighted. I congratulate you, Gaston: they say she is a pretty little
+fool.”
+
+“Monsieur,” interrupted Gaston, indignantly; “I have told you that I
+love her, and have promised to marry her. You seem to forget.”
+
+“Ta, ta ta!” cried the marquis, “your scruples are absurd. You know full
+well that her great-grandfather led our great-grandmother astray. Now we
+are quits! I am delighted at the retaliation, for the old witch’s sake.”
+
+“I swear by the memory of my mother, that Valentine shall be my wife!”
+
+“Do you dare assume that tone toward me?” cried the exasperated marquis.
+“Never, understand me clearly; never will I give my consent. You know
+how dear to me is the honor of our house. Well, I would rather see you
+tried for murder, and even chained to the galleys, than married to this
+worthless jade!”
+
+This last word was too much for Gaston.
+
+“Then your wish shall be gratified, monsieur. I will remain here, and be
+arrested. I care not what becomes of me! What is life to me without the
+hope of Valentine? Take back these jewels: they are useless now.”
+
+A terrible scene would have taken place between the father and son, had
+they not been interrupted by a domestic who rushed into the room, and
+excitedly cried:
+
+“The gendarmes! here are the gendarmes!”
+
+At this news the old marquis started up, and seemed to forget his gout,
+which had yielded to more violent emotions.
+
+“Gendarmes!” he cried, “in my house at Clameran! They shall pay dear for
+their insolence! You will help me, will you not, my men?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered the servants. “Down with the gendarmes! down with
+them!”
+
+Fortunately Louis, during all this excitement, preserved his presence of
+mind.
+
+“To resist would be folly,” he said. “Even if we repulsed the gendarmes
+to-night, they would return to-morrow with reinforcements.”
+
+“Louis is right,” said the marquis, bitterly. “Might is right, as they
+said in ‘93. The gendarmes are all powerful. Do they not even have the
+impertinence to come up to me while I am hunting, and ask to see my
+shooting-license?--I, a Clameran, show a license!”
+
+“Where are they?” asked Louis of the servants.
+
+“At the outer gate,” answered La Verdure, one of the grooms. “Does not
+monsieur hear the noise they are making with their sabres?”
+
+“Then Gaston must escape over the garden wall.”
+
+“It is guarded, monsieur,” said La Verdure, “and the little gate in
+the park besides. There seems to be a regiment of them. They are even
+stationed along the park walls.”
+
+This was only too true. The rumor of Lazet’s death had spread like
+wildfire throughout the town of Tarascon, and everybody was in a state
+of excitement. Not only mounted gendarmes, but a platoon of hussars from
+the garrison, had been sent in pursuit of the murderer.
+
+At least twenty young men of Tarascon were volunteer guides to the armed
+force.
+
+“Then,” said the marquis, “we are surrounded?”
+
+“Not a single chance for escape,” groaned St. Jean.
+
+“We shall see about that, Jarnibleu!” cried the marquis. “Ah, we are not
+the strongest, but we can be the most adroit. Attention! Louis, my son,
+you and La Verdure go down to the stable, and mount the fastest horses;
+then as quietly as possible station yourselves, you, Louis, at the park
+gate, and you, La Verdure, at the outer gate. Upon the signal I shall
+give you by firing a pistol, let every door be instantly opened, while
+Louis and Verdure dash through the gates, and make the gendarmes pursue
+them.”
+
+“I will make them fly,” said La Verdure.
+
+“Listen. During this time, Gaston, aided by St. Jean, will scale the
+park wall, and hasten along the river to the cabin of Pilorel, the
+fisherman. He is an old sailor of the republic, and devoted to our
+house. He will take Gaston in his boat; and, when they are once on the
+Rhone, there is nothing to be feared save the wrath of God. Now go, all
+of you: fly!”
+
+Left alone with his son, the old man slipped the jewelry into a silk
+purse, and, handing them once more to Gaston, said, as he stretched out
+his arms toward him:
+
+“Come here, my son, and let me embrace you, and bestow my blessing.”
+
+Gaston hesitated.
+
+“Come,” insisted the old man in broken tones, “I must embrace you for
+the last time: I may never see you again. Save yourself, save your name,
+Gaston, and then--you know how I love you, my son: take back the jewels.
+Come.”
+
+For an instant the father and son clung to each other, overpowered by
+emotion.
+
+But the continued noise at the gates now reaches their ears.
+
+“We must part!” said M. de Clameran, “go!” And, taking from his desk
+a little pair of pistols, he handed them to his son, and added, with
+averted eyes, “You must not be captured alive, Gaston!”
+
+Gaston did not immediately descend to the park.
+
+He yearned to see Valentine, and give her one last kiss before leaving
+France, and determined to persuade Pilorel to stop the boat as they went
+by the park of La Verberie.
+
+He hastened to his room, placed the signal in the window so that
+Valentine might know he was coming, and waited for an answering light.
+
+“Come, M. Gaston,” entreated old St. Jean, who could not understand the
+strange conduct. “For God’s sake make haste! your life is at stake!”
+
+At last he came running down the stairs, and had just reached the
+vestibule when a pistol-shot, the signal given by the marquis, was
+heard.
+
+The loud swinging open of the large gate, the rattling of the sabres
+of the gendarmes, the furious galloping of many horses, and a chorus of
+loud shouts and angry oaths, were next heard.
+
+Leaning against the window, his brow beaded with cold perspiration, the
+Marquis de Clameran breathlessly awaited the issue of this expedient,
+upon which depended the life of his eldest son.
+
+His measures were excellent, and deserved success. As he had ordered,
+Louis and La Verdure dashed out through the gate, one to the right, the
+other to the left, each one pursued by a dozen mounted men. Their horses
+flew like arrows, and kept far ahead of the pursuers.
+
+Gaston would have been saved, but for the interference of fate; but was
+it fate, or was it malice?
+
+Suddenly Louis’s horse stumbled, and fell to the ground with his rider.
+The gendarmes rode up, and at once recognized the second son of M. de
+Clameran.
+
+“This is not the assassin!” they cried. “Let us hurry back, else he will
+escape!”
+
+They returned just in time to see, by the uncertain light of the moon
+peeping from behind a cloud, Gaston climbing the garden wall.
+
+“There is our man!” exclaimed the corporal. “Keep your eyes open, and
+gallop after him!”
+
+They spurred their horses, and hastened to the spot where Gaston had
+jumped from the wall.
+
+On a wooded piece of ground, even if it be hilly, an agile man, if he
+preserves his presence of mind, can escape a number of horsemen. The
+ground on this side of the park was favorable to Gaston. He found
+himself in an immense madder-field; and, as is well known, as this
+valuable root must remain in the ground three years, the furrows are
+necessarily ploughed very deep. Horses cannot even walk over its uneven
+surface; indeed, they can scarcely stand steadily upon it.
+
+This circumstance brought the gendarmes to a dead halt.
+
+Four rash hussars ventured in the field, but they and their beasts were
+soon rolling between hillocks.
+
+Jumping from ridge to ridge, Gaston soon reached a large field, freshly
+ploughed, and planted with young chestnuts.
+
+As his chances of escape increased, the excitement grew more intense.
+The pursuers urged each other on, and called out to head him off, every
+time they saw Gaston run from one clump of trees to another.
+
+Being familiar with the country, young De Clameran was confident of
+eluding his pursuers. He knew that the next field was a thistle-field,
+and was separated from the chestnut by a long, deep ditch.
+
+He resolved to jump into this ditch, run along the bottom, and climb out
+at the farther end, while they were looking for him among the trees.
+
+But he had forgotten the swelling of the river. Upon reaching the ditch,
+he found it full of water.
+
+Discouraged but not disconcerted, he was about to jump across, when
+three horsemen appeared on the opposite side.
+
+They were gendarmes who had ridden around the madder-field and
+chestnut-trees, knowing they could easily catch him on the level ground
+of the thistle-field.
+
+At the sight of these three men, Gaston stood perplexed.
+
+He should certainly be captured if he attempted to run through the
+field, at the end of which he could see the cabin of Pilorel the
+ferryman.
+
+To retrace his steps would be surrendering to the hussars.
+
+At a little distance on his right was a forest, but he was separated
+from it by a road upon which he heard the sound of approaching horses.
+He would certainly be caught there.
+
+Foes in front of him, foes behind him, foes on the right of him! What
+was on his left?
+
+On his left was the surging, foaming river.
+
+What hope was left? The circle of which he was the centre was fast
+narrowing.
+
+Must he, then, fall back upon suicide? Here in an open field, tracked by
+police like a wild beast, must he blow his brains out? What a death for
+a De Clameran!
+
+No! He would seize the one chance of salvation left him: a forlorn,
+desperate, perilous chance, but still a chance--the river.
+
+Holding a pistol in either hand, he ran and leaped upon the edge of a
+little promontory, projecting three yards into the Rhone.
+
+This cape of refuge was formed by the immense trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+The tree swayed and cracked fearfully under Gaston’s weight, as he stood
+on the extreme end, and looked around upon his pursuers; there were
+fifteen of them, some on the right, some on the left, all uttering cries
+of joy.
+
+“Do you surrender?” called out the corporal.
+
+Gaston did not answer; he was weighing his chances. He was above the
+park of La Verberie; would he be able to swim there, granting that he
+was not swept away and drowned the instant he plunged into the angry
+torrent before him?
+
+He pictured Valentine, at this very moment, watching, waiting, and
+praying for him on the other shore.
+
+“For the last time I command you to surrender!” cried the corporal.
+
+The unfortunate man did not hear; he was deafened by the waters which
+were roaring and rushing around him.
+
+In a supreme moment like this, with his foot upon the threshold of
+another world, a man sees his past life rise before him, and seldom does
+he find cause for self-approval.
+
+Although death stared him in the face, Gaston calmly considered which
+would be the best spot to plunge into, and commended his soul to God.
+
+“He will stand there until we go after him,” said a gendarme: “so we
+might as well advance.”
+
+Gaston had finished his prayer.
+
+He flung his pistols in the direction of the gendarmes: he was ready.
+
+He made the sign of the cross, then, with outstretched arms, dashed head
+foremost into the Rhone.
+
+The violence of his spring detached the few remaining roots of the old
+tree; it oscillated a moment, whirled over, and then drifted away.
+
+The spectators uttered a cry of horror and pity; anger seemed to have
+deserted them in their turn.
+
+“That is an end of him,” muttered one of the gendarmes. “It is useless
+for one to fight against the Rhone; his body will be picked up at Arles
+to-morrow.”
+
+The hussars seemed really remorseful at the tragic fate of the brave,
+handsome young man, whom a moment before they had pursued with so much
+bitter zeal. They admired his spirited resistance, his courage, and
+especially his resignation, his resolution to die.
+
+True French soldiers, their sympathies were now all upon the side of the
+vanquished, and every man of them would have done all in his power to
+assist in saving the drowning man, and aiding his escape.
+
+“An ugly piece of work!” grumbled the old quartermaster who had command
+of the hussars.
+
+“Bast!” exclaimed the philosophic corporal, “the Rhone is no worse than
+the court of assizes: the result would be the same. Right about, men;
+march! The thing that troubles me is the idea of that poor old man
+waiting to hear his son’s fate. I would not be the one to tell him what
+has happened. March!”
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Valentine knew, that fatal evening, that Gaston would have to walk to
+Tarascon, to cross the bridge over the Rhone which connected Tarascon
+with Beaucaire, and did not expect to see him until eleven o’clock, the
+hour which they had fixed upon the previous evening.
+
+But, happening to look up at the windows of Clameran, she saw lights
+hurrying to and fro in an unusual manner, even in rooms that she knew to
+be unoccupied.
+
+A presentiment of impending misfortune chilled her blood, and stopped
+the beatings of her heart.
+
+A secret and imperious voice within told her that something
+extraordinary was going on at the chateau of Clameran.
+
+What was it? She could not imagine; but she knew, she felt, that some
+dreadful misfortune had happened.
+
+With her eyes fastened upon the dark mass of stone looming in the
+distance, she watched the going and coming of the lights, as if their
+movements would give her a clew to what was taking place within those
+walls.
+
+She raised her window, and tried to listen, fancying she could hear an
+unusual sound, even at such a distance. Alas! she heard nothing but the
+rushing roar of the angry river.
+
+Her anxiety grew more insufferable every moment; and she felt as if she
+would faint were this torturing suspense to last much longer, when the
+well-known, beloved signal appeared suddenly in Gaston’s window, and
+told her that her lover was about to swim across the Rhone.
+
+She could scarcely believe her eyes; she must be under the influence of
+a dream; her amazement prevented her answering the signal, until it had
+been repeated three times.
+
+Then, more dead than alive, with trembling limbs she hastened along the
+park to the river-bank.
+
+Never had she seen the Rhone so furious. Since Gaston was risking his
+life in order to see her, she could no longer doubt that something
+fearful had occurred at Clameran.
+
+She fell on her knees, and with clasped hands, and her wild eyes fixed
+upon the dark waters, besought the pitiless waves to yield up her dear
+Gaston.
+
+Every dark object which she could distinguish floating in the middle of
+the torrent assumed the shape of a human form.
+
+At one time, she thought she heard, above the roaring of the water, the
+terrible, agonized cry of a drowning man.
+
+She watched and prayed, but her lover came not.
+
+Still she waited.
+
+While the gendarmes and hussars slowly and silently returned to the
+chateau of Clameran, Gaston experienced one of those miracles which
+would seem incredible were they not confirmed by the most convincing
+proof.
+
+When he first plunged into the river, he rolled over five or six times,
+and was then drawn toward the bottom. In a swollen river the current is
+unequal, being much stronger in some places than in others; hence the
+great danger.
+
+Gaston knew it, and guarded against it. Instead of wasting his strength
+in vain struggles, he held his breath, and kept still. About twenty-five
+yards from the spot where he had plunged in, he made a violent spring
+which brought him to the surface.
+
+Rapidly drifting by him was the old tree.
+
+For an instant, he was entangled in the mass of weeds and debris which
+clung to its roots, and followed in its wake; an eddy set him free. The
+tree and its clinging weeds swept on. It was the last familiar friend,
+gone.
+
+Gaston dared not attempt to reach the opposite shore. He would have to
+land where the waves dashed him.
+
+With great presence of mind he put forth all his strength and dexterity
+to slowly take an oblique course, knowing well that there was no hope
+for him if the current took him crosswise.
+
+This fearful current is as capricious as a woman, which accounts for
+the strange effects of inundations; sometimes it rushes to the right,
+sometimes to the left, sparing one shore and ravaging the other.
+
+Gaston was familiar with every turn of the river; he knew that just
+below Clameran was an abrupt turning, and relied upon the eddy formed
+thereby, to sweep him in the direction of La Verberie.
+
+His hopes were not deceived. An oblique current suddenly swept him
+toward the right shore, and, if he had not been on his guard, would have
+sunk him.
+
+But the eddy did not reach as far as Gaston supposed, and he was still
+some distance from the shore, when, with the rapidity of lightning, he
+was swept by the park of La Verberie.
+
+As he floated by, he caught a glimpse of a white shadow among the trees;
+Valentine still waited for him.
+
+He was gradually approaching the bank, as he reached the end of La
+Verberie, and attempted to land.
+
+Feeling a foothold, he stood up twice, and each time was thrown down by
+the violence of the waves. He escaped being swept away by seizing some
+willow branches, and, clinging to them, raised himself, and climbed up
+the steep bank.
+
+He was safe at last.
+
+Without taking time to breathe, he darted in the direction of the park.
+
+He came just in time. Overcome by the intensity of her emotions,
+Valentine had fainted, and lay apparently lifeless on the damp
+river-bank.
+
+Gaston’s entreaties and kisses aroused her from her stupor.
+
+“Gaston!” she cried, in a tone that revealed all the love she felt for
+him. “Is it indeed you? Then God heard my prayers, and had pity on us.”
+
+“No, Valentine,” he murmured. “God has had no pity.”
+
+The sad tones of Gaston’s voice convinced her that her presentiment of
+evil was true.
+
+“What new misfortune strikes us now?” she cried. “Why have you thus
+risked your life--a life far dearer to me than my own? What has
+happened?”
+
+“This is what has happened, Valentine: our love-affair is the jest of
+the country around; our secret is a secret no longer.”
+
+She shrank back, and, burying her face in her hands, moaned piteously.
+
+“This,” said Gaston, forgetting everything but his present misery, “this
+is the result of the blind enmity of our families. Our noble and pure
+love, which ought to be a glory in the eyes of God and man, has to be
+concealed, and, when discovered, becomes a reproach as though it were
+some evil deed.”
+
+“Then all is known--all is discovered!” murmured Valentine. “Oh, Gaston,
+Gaston!”
+
+While struggling for his life against furious men and angry elements,
+Gaston had preserved his self-possession; but the heart-broken tone of
+his beloved Valentine overcame him. He swung his arms above his head,
+and exclaimed:
+
+“Yes, they know it; and oh, why could I not crush the villains for
+daring to utter your adored name? Ah, why did I only kill two of the
+scoundrels!”
+
+“Have you killed someone, Gaston?”
+
+Valentine’s tone of horror gave Gaston a ray of reason.
+
+“Yes,” he replied with bitterness, “I have killed two men. It was for
+that that I have crossed the Rhone. I could not have my father’s name
+disgraced by being tried and convicted for murder. I have been tracked
+like a wild beast by mounted police. I have escaped them, and now I am
+flying my country.”
+
+Valentine struggled to preserve her composure under this last unexpected
+blow.
+
+“Where do you hope to find an asylum?” she asked.
+
+“I know not. Where I am to go, what will become of me, God only knows!
+I only know that I am going to some strange land, to assume a false name
+and a disguise. I shall seek some lawless country which offers a refuge
+to murderers.”
+
+Gaston waited for an answer to this speech. None came, and he resumed
+with vehemence:
+
+“And before disappearing, Valentine, I wished to see you, because now,
+when I am abandoned by everyone else, I have relied upon you, and had
+faith in your love. A tie unites us, my darling, stronger and more
+indissoluble than all earthly ties--the tie of love. I love you more
+than life itself, my Valentine; before God you are my wife; I am
+yours and you are mine, for ever and ever! Would you let me fly alone,
+Valentine? To the pain and toil of exile, to the sharp regrets of a
+ruined life, would you, could you, add the torture of separation?”
+
+“Gaston, I implore you--”
+
+“Ah, I knew it,” he interrupted, mistaking the sense of her exclamation;
+“I knew you would not let me go off alone. I knew your sympathetic heart
+would long to share the burden of my miseries. This moment effaces the
+wretched suffering I have endured. Let us go! Having our happiness to
+defend, having you to protect, I fear nothing; I can brave all, conquer
+all. Come, my Valentine, we will escape, or die together! This is the
+long-dreamed-of happiness! The glorious future of love and liberty open
+before us!”
+
+He had worked himself into a state of delirious excitement. He seized
+Valentine around the waist, and tried to draw her toward the gate.
+
+As Gaston’s exaltation increased, Valentine became composed and almost
+stolid in her forced calmness.
+
+Gently, but with a quiet firmness, she withdrew herself from his
+embrace, and said sadly, but resolutely:
+
+“What you wish is impossible, Gaston!”
+
+This cold, inexplicable resistance confounded her lover.
+
+“Impossible? Why, Valentine----”
+
+“You know me well enough, Gaston, to be convinced that sharing the
+greatest hardships with you would to me be the height of happiness. But
+above the tones of your voice to which I fain would yield, above the
+voice of my own heart which urges me to follow the one being upon whom
+all its affections are centred, there is another voice--a powerful,
+imperious voice--which bids me to stay: the voice of duty.”
+
+“What! Would you think of remaining here after the horrible affair of
+to-night, after the scandal that will be spread to-morrow?”
+
+“What do you mean? That I am lost, dishonored? Am I any more so to-day
+than I was yesterday? Do you think that the jeers and scoffs of
+the world could make me suffer more than do the pangs of my guilty
+conscience? I have long since passed judgment upon myself, Gaston; and,
+although the sound of your voice and the touch of your hand would make
+me forget all save the bliss of your love, no sooner were you away than
+I would weep tears of shame and remorse.”
+
+Gaston listened immovable, stupefied. He seemed to see a new Valentine
+standing before him, an entirely different woman from the one whose
+tender soul he thought he knew so well.
+
+“Your mother, what will she say?” he asked.
+
+“It is my duty to her that keeps me here. Do you wish me to prove an
+unnatural daughter, and desert a poor, lonely, friendless old woman, who
+has nothing but me to cling to? Could I abandon her to follow a lover?”
+
+“But our enemies will inform her of everything, Valentine, and think how
+she will make you suffer!”
+
+“No matter. The dictates of conscience must be obeyed. Ah, why can I
+not, at the price of my life, spare her the agony of hearing that her
+only daughter, her Valentine, has disgraced her name? She may be hard,
+cruel, pitiless toward me; but have I not deserved it? Oh, my only
+friend, we have been revelling in a dream too beautiful to last! I have
+long dreaded this awakening. Like two weak, credulous fools we imagined
+that happiness could exist beyond the pale of duty. Sooner or later
+stolen joys must be dearly paid for. After the sweet comes the bitter;
+we must bow our heads, and drink the cup to the dregs.”
+
+This cold reasoning, this sad resignation, was more than the fiery
+nature of Gaston could bear.
+
+“You shall not talk thus!” he cried. “Can you not feel that the bare
+idea of your suffering humiliation drives me mad?”
+
+“Alas! I see nothing but disgrace, the most fearful disgrace, staring me
+in the face.”
+
+“What do you mean, Valentine?”
+
+“I have not told you, Gaston, I am----”
+
+Here she stopped, hesitated, and then added:
+
+“Nothing! I am a fool.”
+
+Had Gaston been less excited, he would have suspected some new
+misfortune beneath this reticence of Valentine; but his mind was too
+full of one idea--that of possessing her.
+
+“All hope is not lost,” he continued. “My father is kind-hearted, and
+was touched by my love and despair. I am sure that my letters, added to
+the intercession of my brother Louis, will induce him to ask Mme. de la
+Verberie for your hand.”
+
+This proposition seemed to frighten Valentine.
+
+“Heaven forbid that the marquis should take this rash step!”
+
+“Why, Valentine?”
+
+“Because my mother would reject his offer; because, I must confess it
+now, she has sworn I shall marry none but a rich man; and your father is
+not rich, Gaston, so you will have very little.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Gaston, with disgust, “is it to such an unnatural
+mother that you sacrifice me?”
+
+“She is my mother; that is sufficient. I have not the right to judge
+her. My duty is to remain with her, and remain I shall.”
+
+Valentine’s manner showed such determined resolution, that Gaston saw
+that further prayers would be in vain.
+
+“Alas!” he cried, as he wrung his hands with despair, “you do not love
+me; you have never loved me!”
+
+“Gaston, Gaston! you do not think what you say! Have you no mercy?”
+
+“If you loved me,” he cried, “you could never, at this moment of
+separation, have the cruel courage to coldly reason and calculate. Ah,
+far different is my love for you. Without you the world is void; to lose
+you is to die. What have I to live for? Let the Rhone take back this
+worthless life, so miraculously saved; it is now a burden to me!”
+
+And he rushed toward the river, determined to bury his sorrow beneath
+its waves; Valentine seized his arm, and held him back.
+
+“Is this the way to show your love for me?” she asked.
+
+Gaston was absolutely discouraged.
+
+“What is the use of living?” he said, dejectedly. “What is left to me
+now?”
+
+“God is left to us, Gaston; and in his hands lies our future.”
+
+As a shipwrecked man seizes a rotten plank in his desperation, so
+Gaston eagerly caught at the word “_future_,” as a beacon in the gloomy
+darkness surrounding him.
+
+“Your commands shall be obeyed,” he cried with enthusiasm. “Away with
+weakness! Yes, I will live, and struggle, and triumph. Mme. de la
+Verberie wants gold; well, she shall have it; in three years I will be
+rich, or I shall be dead.”
+
+With clasped hands Valentine thanked Heaven for this sudden
+determination, which was more than she had dared hope for.
+
+“But,” said Gaston, “before going away I wish to confide to you a sacred
+deposit.”
+
+He drew from his pocket the purse of jewels, and, handing them to
+Valentine, added:
+
+“These jewels belonged to my poor mother; you, my angel, are alone
+worthy of wearing them. I thought of you when I accepted them from my
+father. I felt that you, as my affianced wife, were the proper person to
+have them.”
+
+Valentine refused to accept them.
+
+“Take them, my darling, as a pledge of my return. If I do not come back
+within three years, you may know that I am dead, and then you must keep
+them as a souvenir of him who so much loved you.”
+
+She burst into tears, and took the purse.
+
+“And now,” said Gaston, “I have a last request to make. Everybody
+believes me dead, but I cannot let my poor old father labor under this
+impression. Swear to me that you will go yourself to-morrow morning, and
+tell him that I am still alive.”
+
+“I will tell him, myself,” she said.
+
+Gaston felt that he must now tear himself away before his courage failed
+him; each moment he was more loath to leave the only being who bound
+him to this world; he enveloped Valentine in a last fond embrace, and
+started up.
+
+“What is your plan of escape?” she asked.
+
+“I shall go to Marseilles, and hide in a friend’s house until I can
+procure a passage to America.”
+
+“You must have assistance; I will secure you a guide in whom I have
+unbounded confidence; old Menoul, the ferryman, who lives near us. He
+owns the boat which he plies on the Rhone.”
+
+The lovers passed through the little park gate, of which Gaston had the
+key, and soon reached the boatman’s cabin.
+
+He was asleep in an easy-chair by the fire. When Valentine stood before
+him with Gaston, the old man jumped up, and kept rubbing his eyes,
+thinking it must be a dream.
+
+“Pere Menoul,” said Valentine, “M. Gaston is compelled to fly the
+country; he wants to be rowed out to sea, so that he can secretly
+embark. Can you take him in your boat as far as the mouth of the Rhone?”
+
+“It is impossible,” said the old man, shaking his head; “I would not
+dare venture on the river in its present state.”
+
+“But, Pere Menoul, it would be of immense service to me; would you not
+venture for my sake?”
+
+“For your sake? certainly I would, Mlle. Valentine: I will do anything
+to gratify you. I am ready to start.”
+
+He looked at Gaston, and, seeing his clothes wet and covered with mud,
+said to him:
+
+“Allow me to offer you my dead son’s clothes, monsieur; they will serve
+as a disguise: come this way.”
+
+In a few minutes Pere Menoul returned with Gaston, whom no one would
+have recognized in his sailor dress.
+
+Valentine went with them to the place where the boat was moored. While
+the old man was unfastening it, the disconsolate lovers tearfully
+embraced each other for the last time.
+
+“In three years, my own Valentine; promise to wait three years for me!
+If alive, I will then see you.”
+
+“Adieu, mademoiselle,” interrupted the boatman; “and you, monsieur, hold
+fast, and keep steady.”
+
+Then with a vigorous stroke of the boat-hook he sent the bark into the
+middle of the stream.
+
+Three days later, thanks to the assistance of Pere Menoul, Gaston was
+concealed on the three-masted American vessel, Tom Jones, which was to
+start the next day for Valparaiso.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+Cold and white as a marble statue, Valentine stood on the bank of the
+river, watching the frail bark which was carrying her lover away. It
+flew along the Rhone like a bird in a tempest, and after a few seconds
+appeared like a black speck in the midst of the heavy fog which floated
+over the water, then was lost to view.
+
+Now that Gaston was gone, Valentine had no motive for concealing her
+despair; she wrung her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break. All
+her forced calmness, her bravery and hopefulness, were gone. She felt
+crushed and lost, as if the sharp pain in her heart was the forerunner
+of the torture in store for her; as if that swiftly gliding bark had
+carried off the better part of herself.
+
+While Gaston treasured in the bottom of his heart a ray of hope, she
+felt there was nothing to look forward to but shame and sorrow.
+
+The horrible facts which stared her in the face convinced her that
+happiness in this life was over; the future was worse than blank. She
+wept and shuddered at the prospect.
+
+She slowly retraced her footsteps through the friendly little gate which
+had so often admitted poor Gaston; and, as she closed it behind her,
+she seemed to be placing an impassable barrier between herself and
+happiness.
+
+Before entering, Valentine walked around the chateau, and looked up at
+the windows of her mother’s chamber.
+
+They were brilliantly lighted, as usual at this hour, for Mme. de la
+Verberie passed half the night in reading, and slept till late in the
+day.
+
+Enjoying the comforts of life, which are little costly in the country,
+the selfish countess disturbed herself very little about her daughter.
+
+Fearing no danger in their isolation, she left her at perfect liberty;
+and day and night Valentine might go and come, take long walks, and sit
+under trees for hours at a time, without restriction.
+
+But on this night Valentine feared being seen. She would be called upon
+to explain the torn, muddy condition of her dress, and what answer could
+she give?
+
+Fortunately she could reach her room without meeting anyone.
+
+She needed solitude in order to collect her thoughts, and to pray for
+strength to bear the heavy burden of her sorrows, and to withstand the
+angry storm about to burst over her head.
+
+Seated before her little work-table, she emptied the purse of jewels,
+and mechanically examined them.
+
+It would be a sweet, sad comfort to wear the simplest of the rings, she
+thought, as she slipped the sparkling gem on her finger; but her mother
+would ask her where it came from. What answer could she give? Alas,
+none.
+
+She kissed the purse, in memory of Gaston, and then concealed the sacred
+deposit in her bureau.
+
+When she thought of going to Clameran, to inform the old marquis of the
+miraculous preservation of his son’s life, her heart sank.
+
+Blinded by his passion, Gaston did not think, when he requested this
+service, of the obstacles and dangers to be braved in its performance.
+
+But Valentine saw them only too clearly; yet it did not occur to her for
+an instant to break her promise by sending another, or by delaying to go
+herself.
+
+At sunrise she dressed herself.
+
+When the bell was ringing for early mass, she thought it a good time to
+start on her errand.
+
+The servants were all up, and one of them named Mihonne, who always
+waited on Valentine, was scrubbing the vestibule.
+
+“If mother asks for me,” said Valentine to the girl, “tell her I have
+gone to early mass.”
+
+She often went to church at this hour, so there was nothing to be feared
+thus far; Mihonne looked at her sadly, but said nothing.
+
+Valentine knew that she would have difficulty in returning to breakfast.
+She would have to walk a league before reaching the bridge, and it was
+another league thence to Clameran; in all she must walk four leagues.
+
+She set forth at a rapid pace. The consciousness of performing an
+extraordinary action, the feverish anxiety of peril incurred, increased
+her haste. She forgot that she had worn herself out weeping all night;
+that this fictitious strength could not last.
+
+In spite of her efforts, it was after eight o’clock when she reached the
+long avenue leading to the main entrance of the chateau of Clameran.
+
+She had only proceeded a few steps, when she saw old St. Jean coming
+down the path.
+
+She stopped and waited for him; he hastened his steps at sight of her,
+as if having something to tell her.
+
+He was very much excited, and his eyes were swollen with weeping.
+
+To Valentine’s surprise, he did not take off his hat to bow, and when he
+came up to her, he said, rudely:
+
+“Are you going up to the chateau, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If you are going after M. Gaston,” said the servant, with an
+insolent sneer, “you are taking useless trouble. M. the count is dead,
+mademoiselle; he sacrificed himself for the sake of a worthless woman.”
+
+Valentine turned white at this insult, but took no notice of it.
+St. Jean, who expected to see her overcome by the dreadful news, was
+bewildered at her composure.
+
+“I am going to the chateau,” she said, quietly, “to speak to the
+marquis.”
+
+St. Jean stifled a sob, and said:
+
+“Then it is not worth while to go any farther.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because the Marquis of Clameran died at five o’clock this morning.”
+
+Valentine leaned against a tree to prevent herself from falling.
+
+“Dead!” she gasped.
+
+“Yes,” said St. Jean, fiercely; “yes, dead!”
+
+A faithful servant of the old regime, St. Jean shared all the passions,
+weaknesses, friendships, and enmities of his master. He had a horror of
+the La Verberies. And now he saw in Valentine the woman who had caused
+the death of the marquis whom he had served for forty years, and of
+Gaston whom he worshipped.
+
+“I will tell you how he died,” said the bitter old man. “Yesterday
+evening, when those hounds came and told the marquis that his eldest
+son was dead, he who was as hardy as an oak, and could face any danger,
+instantly gave way, and dropped as if struck by lightning. I was there.
+He wildly beat the air with his hands, and fell without opening his
+lips; not one word did he utter. We put him to bed, and M. Louis
+galloped into Tarascon for a doctor. But the blow had struck too deeply.
+When Dr. Raget arrived he said there was no hope.
+
+“At daybreak, the marquis recovered consciousness enough to ask for M.
+Louis, with whom he remained alone for some minutes. The last words he
+uttered were, ‘Father and son the same day; there will be rejoicing at
+La Verberie.’”
+
+Valentine might have soothed the sorrow of the faithful servant, by
+telling him Gaston still lived; but she feared it would be indiscreet,
+and, unfortunately, said nothing.
+
+“Can I see M. Louis?” she asked after a long silence.
+
+This question seemed to arouse all the anger slumbering in the breast of
+poor St. Jean.
+
+“You! You would dare take such a step, Mlle. de la Verberie? What! would
+you presume to appear before him after what has happened? I will never
+allow it! And you had best, moreover, take my advice, and return home at
+once. I will not answer for the tongues of the servants here, when they
+see you.”
+
+And, without waiting for an answer, he hurried away.
+
+What could Valentine do? Humiliated and miserable, she could only
+wearily drag her aching limbs back the way she had so rapidly come early
+that morning. On the road, she met many people coming from the town,
+where they had heard of the events of the previous night; and the poor
+girl was obliged to keep her eyes fastened to the ground in order
+to escape the insulting looks and mocking salutations with which the
+gossips passed her.
+
+When Valentine reached La Verberie, she found Mihonne waiting for her.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” she said, “make haste, and go in the house. Madame
+had a visitor this morning, and ever since she left has been crying
+out for you. Hurry; and take care what you say to her, for she is in a
+violent passion.”
+
+Much has been said in favor of the patriarchal manners of our ancestors.
+
+Their manners may have been patriarchal years and years ago; but our
+mothers and wives nowadays certainly have not such ready hands and quick
+tongues, and are sometimes, at least, elegant in manner, and choice in
+their language.
+
+Mme. de La Verberie had preserved the manners of the good old times,
+when grand ladies swore like troopers, and impressed their remarks by
+slaps in the face.
+
+When Valentine appeared, she was overwhelmed with coarse epithets and
+violent abuse.
+
+The countess had been informed of everything, with many gross additions
+added by public scandal. An old dowager, her most intimate friend, had
+hurried over early in the morning, to offer her this poisoned dish of
+gossip, seasoned with her own pretended condolences.
+
+In this sad affair, Mme. de la Verberie mourned less over her daughter’s
+loss of reputation, than over the ruin of her own projects--projects
+of going to Paris, making a grand marriage for Valentine, and living in
+luxury the rest of her days.
+
+A young girl so compromised would not find it easy to get a husband.
+It would now be necessary to keep her two years longer in the country,
+before introducing her into Parisian society. The world must have time
+to forget this scandal.
+
+“You worthless wretch!” cried the countess with fury; “is it thus you
+respect the noble traditions of our family? Heretofore it has never been
+considered necessary to watch the La Verberies; they could take care of
+their honor: but you must take advantage of your liberty to cover our
+name with disgrace!”
+
+With a sinking heart, Valentine had foreseen this tirade. She felt
+that it was only a just punishment for her conduct. Knowing that the
+indignation of her mother was just, she meekly hung her head like a
+repentant sinner at the bar of justice.
+
+But this submissive silence only exasperated the angry countess.
+
+“Why do you not answer me?” she screamed with flashing eyes and a
+threatening gesture. “Speak! you----”
+
+“What can I say, mother?”
+
+“Say, miserable girl? Say that they lied when they accused a La Verberie
+of disgracing her name! Speak: defend yourself!”
+
+Valentine mournfully shook her head, but said nothing.
+
+“It is true, then?” shrieked the countess, beside herself with rage;
+“what they said is true?”
+
+“Forgive me, mother: have mercy! I am so miserable!” moaned the poor
+girl.
+
+“Forgive! have mercy! Do you dare to tell me I have not been deceived by
+this gossip to-day? Do you have the insolence to stand there and glory
+in your shame? Whose blood flows in your veins? You seem to be ignorant
+that some faults should be persistently denied, no matter how glaring
+the evidence against them. And you are my daughter! Can you not
+understand that an ignominious confession like this should never be
+forced from a woman by any human power? But no, you have lovers, and
+unblushingly avow it. Why not run over the town and tell everybody?
+Boast of it, glory in it: it would be something new!”
+
+“Alas! you are pitiless, mother!”
+
+“Did you ever have any pity on me, my dutiful daughter? Did it ever
+occur to you that your disgrace would kill me? No: I suppose you
+and your lover have often laughed at my blind confidence; for I had
+confidence in you: I had perfect faith in you. I believed you to be
+as innocent as when you lay in your cradle. And it has come to this:
+drunken men make a jest of your name in a billiard-room, then fight
+about you, and kill each other. I intrusted to you the honor of
+our name, and what did you do with it? You handed it over to the
+first-comer!”
+
+This was too much for Valentine. The words, “first-comer,” wounded
+her pride more than all the other abuse heaped upon her. She tried to
+protest against this unmerited insult.
+
+“Ah, I have made a mistake in supposing this to be the first one,” said
+the countess. “Among your many lovers, you choose the heir of our worst
+enemy, the son of those detested Clamerans. Among all, you select a
+coward who publicly boasted of your favors; a wretch who tried to avenge
+himself for the heroism of our ancestors by ruining you and me--an old
+woman and a child!”
+
+“No, mother, you do him wrong. He loved me, and hopes for your consent.”
+
+“Wants to marry you, does he? Never, never shall that come to pass! I
+would rather see you lower than you are, in the gutter, laid in your
+coffin, than see you the wife of that man!”
+
+Thus the hatred of the countess was expressed very much in the terms
+which the old marquis had used to his son.
+
+“Besides,” she added, with a ferocity of which only a bad woman is
+capable, “your lover is drowned, and the old marquis is dead. God is
+just; we are avenged.”
+
+The words of St. Jean, “There will be rejoicing at La Verberie,” rung
+in Valentine’s ears, as she saw the countess’s eyes sparkle with wicked
+joy.
+
+This was too much for the unfortunate girl.
+
+For half an hour she had been exerting all of her strength to bear this
+cruel violence from her mother; but her physical endurance was not equal
+to the task. She turned pale, and with half-closed eyes tried to seize a
+table, as she felt herself falling; but her head fell against a bracket,
+and with bleeding forehead she dropped at her mother’s feet.
+
+The cold-hearted countess felt no revival of maternal love, as she
+looked at her daughter’s lifeless form. Her vanity was wounded, but
+no other emotion disturbed her. Hers was a heart so full of anger and
+hatred that there was no room for any nobler sentiment.
+
+She rang the bell; and the affrighted servants, who were trembling in
+the passage at the loud and angry tones of that voice, of which they all
+stood in terror, came running in.
+
+“Carry mademoiselle to her room,” she ordered: “lock her up, and bring
+me the key.”
+
+The countess intended keeping Valentine a close prisoner for a long
+time.
+
+She well knew the mischievous, gossiping propensities of country people,
+who, from mere idleness, indulge in limitless scandal. A poor fallen
+girl must either leave the country, or drink to the very dregs the
+chalice of premeditated humiliations, heaped up and offered her by her
+neighbors. Each clown delights in casting a stone at her.
+
+The plans of the countess were destined to be disconcerted.
+
+The servants came to tell her that Valentine was restored to
+consciousness, but seemed to be very ill.
+
+She replied that she would not listen to such absurdities, that it was
+all affectation; but Mihonne insisted upon her going up and judging for
+herself. She unwillingly went to her daughter’s room, and saw that her
+life was in danger.
+
+The countess betrayed no apprehension, but sent to Tarascon for Dr.
+Raget, who was the oracle of the neighborhood; he was with the Marquis
+of Clameran when he died.
+
+Dr. Raget was one of those men who leave a blessed memory, which lives
+long after they have left this world.
+
+Intelligent, noble-hearted, and wealthy, he devoted his life to his art;
+going from the mansions of the rich to the hovels of the poor, without
+ever accepting remuneration for his services.
+
+At all hours of the night and day, his gray horse and old buggy might
+be seen, with a basket of wine and soup under the seat, for his poorer
+patients.
+
+He was a little, bald-headed man of fifty, with a quick, bright eye, and
+pleasant face.
+
+The servant fortunately found him at home; and he was soon standing
+at Valentine’s bed-side, with a grave, perplexed look upon his usually
+cheerful face.
+
+Endowed with profound perspicacity, quickened by practice, he studied
+Valentine and her mother alternately; and the penetrating gaze which
+he fastened on the old countess so disconcerted her that she felt her
+wrinkled face turning very red.
+
+“This child is very ill,” he abruptly said.
+
+Mme. de la Verberie made no reply.
+
+“I desire,” continued the doctor, “to remain alone with her for a few
+minutes.”
+
+The countess dared not resist the authority of a man of Dr. Raget’s
+character, and retired to the next room, apparently calm, but in reality
+disturbed by the most gloomy forebodings.
+
+At the end of half an hour--it seemed a century--the doctor entered the
+room where she was waiting. He, who had witnessed so much suffering
+and misery all his life, was agitated and nervous after talking with
+Valentine.
+
+“Well,” said the countess, “what is the matter?”
+
+“Summon all your courage, madame,” he answered sadly, “and be prepared
+to grant indulgence and pardon to your suffering child. Mlle. Valentine
+will soon become a mother.”
+
+“The worthless creature! I feared as much.”
+
+The doctor was shocked at this dreadful expression of the countess’s
+eye. He laid his hand on her arm, and gave her a penetrating look,
+beneath which she instantly quailed.
+
+The doctor’s suspicions were correct.
+
+A dreadful idea had flashed across Mme. de la Verberie’s mind--the idea
+of destroying this child which would be a living proof of Valentine’s
+sin.
+
+Feeling that her evil intention was divined, the proud woman’s eyes fell
+beneath the doctor’s obstinate gaze.
+
+“I do not understand you, Dr. Raget,” she murmured.
+
+“But I understand you, madame; and I simply tell you that a crime does
+not obliterate a fault.”
+
+“Doctor!”
+
+“I merely say what I think, madame. If I am mistaken in my impression,
+so much the better for you. At present, the condition of your daughter
+is serious, but not dangerous. Excitement and distress of mind have
+unstrung her nerves, and she now has a high fever; but I hope by great
+care and good nursing that she will soon recover.”
+
+The countess saw that the good doctor’s suspicions were not dissipated;
+so she thought she would try affectionate anxiety, and said:
+
+“At least, doctor, you can assure me that the dear child’s life is not
+in danger?”
+
+“No, madame,” answered Dr. Raget with cutting irony, “your maternal
+tenderness need not be alarmed. All the poor child needs is rest of
+mind, which you alone can give her. A few kind words from you will do
+her more good than all of my prescriptions. But remember, madame,
+that the least shock or nervous excitement will produce the most fatal
+consequences.”
+
+“I am aware of that,” said the hypocritical countess, “and shall be very
+careful. I must confess that I was unable to control my anger upon first
+hearing your announcement.”
+
+“But now that the first shock is over, madame, being a mother and a
+Christian, you will do your duty. My duty is to save your daughter and
+her child. I will call to-morrow.”
+
+Mme. de la Verberie had no idea of having the doctor go off in this
+way. She called him back, and, without reflecting that she was betraying
+herself, cried out:
+
+“Do you pretend to say, monsieur, that you will prevent my taking every
+means to conceal this terrible misfortune that has fallen upon me? Do
+you wish our shame to be made public, to make me the laughing-stock of
+the neighborhood?”
+
+The doctor reflected without answering; the condition of affairs was
+grave.
+
+“No, madame,” he finally said; “I cannot prevent your leaving La
+Verberie: that would be overstepping my powers. But it is my duty to
+hold you to account for the child. You are at liberty to go where you
+please; but you must give me proof of the child’s living, or at least
+that no attempts have been made against its life.”
+
+After uttering these threatening words he left the house, and it was in
+good time; for the countess was choking with suppressed rage.
+
+“Insolent upstart!” she said, “to presume to dictate to a woman of my
+rank! Ah, if I were not completely at his mercy!”
+
+But she was at his mercy, and she knew well enough that it would be
+safest to obey.
+
+She stamped her foot with anger, as she thought that all her ambitious
+plans were dashed to the ground.
+
+No more hopes of luxury, of a millionaire son-in-law, of splendid
+carriages, rich dresses, and charming card-parties where she could lose
+money all night without disturbing her mind.
+
+She would have to die as she had lived, neglected and poor; and this
+future life of deprivation would be harder to bear than the past,
+because she no longer had bright prospects to look forward to. It was a
+cruel awakening from her golden dreams.
+
+And it was Valentine who brought this misery upon her.
+
+This reflection aroused all her inherent bitterness, and she felt toward
+her daughter one of those implacable hatreds which, instead of being
+quenched, are strengthened by time.
+
+She wished she could see Valentine lying dead before her; above all
+would she like the accursed infant to come to grief.
+
+But the doctor’s threatening look was still before her, and she dared
+not attempt her wicked plans. She even forced herself to go and say a
+few forgiving words to Valentine, and then left her to the care of the
+faithful Mihonne.
+
+Poor Valentine! she prayed that death might kindly end her sufferings.
+She had neither the moral nor physical courage to fight against her
+fate, but hopelessly sank beneath the first blow, and made no attempt to
+rally herself.
+
+She was, however, getting better. She felt that dull, heavy sensation
+which always follows violent mental or physical suffering; she was still
+able to reflect, and thought:
+
+“Well, it is over; my mother knows everything. I no longer have her
+anger to fear, and must trust to time for her forgiveness.”
+
+This was the secret which Valentine had refused to reveal to Gaston,
+because she feared that he would refuse to leave her if he knew it; and
+she wished him to escape at any price of suffering to herself. Even now
+she did not regret having followed the dictates of duty, and remained at
+home.
+
+The only thought which distressed her was Gaston’s danger. Had he
+succeeded in embarking? How would she find out? The doctor had allowed
+her to get up; but she was not well enough to go out, and she did not
+know when she should be able to walk as far as Pere Menoul’s cabin.
+
+Happily the devoted old boatman was intelligent enough to anticipate her
+wishes.
+
+Hearing that the young lady at the chateau was very ill, he set about
+devising some means of informing her of her friend’s safety. He went to
+La Verberie several times on pretended errands, and finally succeeded in
+seeing Valentine. One of the servants was present, so he could not speak
+to her; but he made her understand by a significant look that Gaston was
+out of danger.
+
+This knowledge contributed more toward Valentine’s recovery than all the
+medicines administered by the doctor, who, after visiting her daily for
+six weeks, now pronounced his patient sufficiently strong to bear the
+fatigues of a journey.
+
+The countess had waited with the greatest impatience for this decision.
+In order to prevent any delay, she had already sold at a discount half
+of her incoming rents, supposing that the sum thus raised, twenty-five
+thousand francs, would suffice for all contingent expenses.
+
+For a fortnight she had been calling on all of her neighbors to bid them
+farewell, saying that her daughter had entirely recovered her health,
+and that she was going to take her to England to visit a rich old uncle,
+who had repeatedly written for her.
+
+Valentine looked forward to this journey with terror, and shuddered
+when, on the evening that the doctor gave her permission to set out, her
+mother came to her room, and said:
+
+“We will start the day after to-morrow.”
+
+Only one day left! And Valentine had been unable to let Louis de
+Clameran know that his brother was still living.
+
+In this extremity she was obliged to confide in Mihonne, and sent her
+with a letter to Louis.
+
+But the faithful servant had a useless walk.
+
+The chateau of Clameran was deserted; all the servants had been
+dismissed, and M. Louis, whom they now called the marquis, had gone
+abroad.
+
+At last they started. Mme. de la Verberie, feeling that she could trust
+Mihonne, decided to take her along; but first made her sacredly promise
+eternal secrecy.
+
+It was in a little village near London that the countess, under the
+assumed name of Mrs. Wilson, took up her abode with her daughter and
+maid-servant.
+
+She selected England, because she had lived there a long time, and was
+well acquainted with the manners and habits of the people, and spoke
+their language as well as she did her own.
+
+She had also kept up her acquaintanceship with some of the English
+nobility, and often dined and went to the theatre with her friends in
+London. On these occasions she always took the humiliating precaution of
+locking up Valentine until she should return.
+
+It was in this sad, solitary house, in the month of May, that the son
+of Valentine de la Verberie was born. He was taken to the parish
+priest, and christened Valentin-Raoul Wilson. The countess had prepared
+everything, and engaged an honest farmer’s wife to adopt the child,
+bring him up as her own, and, when old enough, have him taught a trade.
+For doing this the countess paid her five hundred pounds.
+
+Little Raoul was given over to his adopted parent a few hours after his
+birth.
+
+The good woman thought him the child of an English lady, and there
+seemed no probability that he would ever discover the secret of his
+birth.
+
+Restored to consciousness, Valentine asked for her child. She yearned
+to clasp it to her bosom; she implored to be allowed to hold her babe in
+her arms for only one minute.
+
+But the cruel countess was pitiless.
+
+“Your child!” she cried, “you must be dreaming; you have no child. You
+have had brain fever, but no child.”
+
+And as Valentine persisted in saying that she knew the child was alive,
+and that she must see it, the countess was forced to change her tactics.
+
+“Your child is alive, and shall want for nothing,” she said sharply;
+“let that suffice; and be thankful that I have so well concealed your
+disgrace. You must forget what has happened, as you would forget a
+painful dream. The past must be ignored--wiped out forever. You know me
+well enough to understand that I will be obeyed.”
+
+The moment had come when Valentine should have asserted her maternal
+rights, and resisted the countess’s tyranny.
+
+She had the idea, but not the courage to do so.
+
+If, on one side, she saw the dangers of an almost culpable
+resignation--for she, too, was a mother!--on the other she felt crushed
+by the consciousness of her guilt.
+
+She sadly yielded; surrendered herself into the hands of a mother whose
+conduct she refrained from questioning, to escape the painful necessity
+of condemning it.
+
+But she secretly pined, and inwardly rebelled against her sad
+disappointment; and thus her recovery was delayed for several months.
+
+Toward the end of July, the countess took her back to La Verberie.
+This time the mischief-makers and gossips were skilfully deceived. The
+countess went everywhere, and instituted secret inquiries, but heard no
+suspicions of the object of her long trip to England. Everyone believed
+in the visit to the rich uncle.
+
+Only one man, Dr. Raget, knew the truth; and, although Mme. de la
+Verberie hated him from the bottom of her heart, she did him the justice
+to feel sure that she had nothing to fear from his indiscretion.
+
+Her first visit was paid to him.
+
+When she entered the room, she abruptly threw on the table the official
+papers which she had procured especially for him.
+
+“These will prove to you, monsieur, that the child is living, and well
+cared for at a cost that I can ill afford.”
+
+“These are perfectly right, madame,” he replied, after an attentive
+examination of the papers, “and, if your conscience does not reproach
+you, of course I have nothing to say.”
+
+“My conscience reproaches me with nothing, monsieur.”
+
+The old doctor shook his head, and gazing searchingly into her eyes,
+said:
+
+“Can you say that you have not been harsh, even to cruelty?”
+
+She turned away her head, and, assuming her grand air, answered:
+
+“I have acted as a woman of my rank should act; and I am surprised to
+find in you an advocate and abettor of misconduct.”
+
+“Ah, madame,” said the doctor, “it is your place to show kindness to the
+poor girl; and if you feel none yourself, you have no right to complain
+of it in others. What indulgence do you expect from strangers toward
+your unhappy daughter, when you, her mother, are so pitiless?”
+
+This plain-spoken truth offended the countess, and she rose to leave.
+
+“Have you finished what you have to say, Dr. Raget?” she asked,
+haughtily.
+
+“Yes, madame; I have done. My only object was to spare you eternal
+remorse. Good-day.”
+
+The good doctor was mistaken in his idea of Mme. de la Verberie’s
+character. She was utterly incapable of feeling remorse; but she
+suffered cruelly when her selfish vanity was wounded, or her comfort
+disturbed.
+
+She resumed her luxurious mode of living, but, having disposed of a part
+of her income, found it difficult to make both ends meet.
+
+This furnished her with an inexhaustible text for complaint; and at
+every meal she reproached Valentine so unmercifully, that the poor girl
+shrank from coming to the table.
+
+She seemed to forget her own command, that the past should be buried in
+oblivion, and constantly recurred to it for food for her anger; a day
+seldom passed, that she did not say to Valentine:
+
+“Your conduct has ruined me.”
+
+One day her daughter could not refrain from replying:
+
+“I suppose you would have pardoned the fault, had it enriched us.”
+
+But these revolts of Valentine were rare, although her life was a series
+of tortures inflicted with inquisitorial cruelty.
+
+Even the memory of Gaston had become a suffering.
+
+Perhaps, discovering the uselessness of her sacrifice, of her courage,
+and her devotion to what she had considered her duty, she regretted not
+having followed him. What had become of him? Might he not have contrived
+to send her a letter, a word to let her know that he was still alive?
+Perhaps he was not dead. Perhaps he had forgotten her. He had sworn to
+return a rich man before the lapse of three years. Would he ever return?
+
+There was a risk in his returning under any circumstances. His
+disappearance had not ended the terrible affair of Tarascon. He was
+supposed to be dead; but as there was no positive proof of his death,
+and his body could not be found, the law was compelled to yield to the
+clamor of public opinion.
+
+The case was brought before the assize court; and, in default of
+appearance, Gaston de Clameran was sentenced to several years of close
+confinement.
+
+As to Louis de Clameran, no one knew positively what had become of
+him. Some people said he was leading a life of reckless extravagance in
+Paris.
+
+Informed of these facts by her faithful Mihonne, Valentine became
+more gloomy and hopeless than ever. Vainly did she question the dreary
+future; no ray appeared upon the dark horizon of her life.
+
+Her elasticity was gone; and she had finally reached that state of
+passive resignation peculiar to people who are oppressed and cowed at
+home.
+
+In this miserable way, passed four years since the fatal evening when
+Gaston left her.
+
+Mme. de la Verberie had spent these years in constant discomfort. Seeing
+that she could not live upon her income, and having too much pride to
+sell her land, which was so badly managed that it only brought her in
+two per cent, she mortgaged her estate in order to raise money only to
+be spent as soon as borrowed.
+
+In such matters, it is the first step that costs; and, after having once
+commenced to live upon her capital, the countess made rapid strides in
+extravagance, saying to herself, “After me, the deluge!” Very much as
+her neighbor, the late Marquis of Clameran, had managed his affairs, she
+was now conducting hers, having but one object in view--her own comfort
+and pleasure.
+
+She made frequent visits to the neighboring towns of Nimes and Avignon;
+she sent to Paris for the most elegant toilets, and entertained a great
+deal of company. All the luxury that she had hoped to obtain by the
+acquisition of a rich son-in-law, she determined to give herself,
+utterly regardless of the fact that she was reducing her child to
+beggary. Great sorrows require consolation!
+
+The summer that she returned from London, she did not hesitate to
+indulge her fancy for a horse; it was rather old, to be sure, but, when
+harnessed to a second-hand carriage bought on credit at Beaucaire, made
+quite a good appearance.
+
+She would quiet her conscience, which occasionally reproached her for
+this constant extravagance, by saying, “I am so unhappy!”
+
+The unhappiness was that this luxury cost her dear, very dear.
+
+After having sold the rest of her rents, the countess first mortgaged
+the estate of La Verberie, and then the chateau itself.
+
+In less than four years she owed more than forty thousand francs, and
+was unable to pay the interest of her debt.
+
+She was racking her mind to discover some means of escape from her
+difficulties, when chance came to her rescue.
+
+For some time a young engineer, employed in surveys along the Rhone, had
+made the village of Beaucaire the centre of his operations.
+
+Being handsome, agreeable, and of polished manners, he had been warmly
+welcomed by the neighboring society, and the countess frequently met
+him at the houses of her friends where she went to play cards in the
+evenings.
+
+This young engineer was named Andre Fauvel.
+
+The first time he met Valentine he was struck by her beauty, and after
+once looking into her large, melancholy eyes, his admiration deepened
+into love; a love so earnest and passionate, that he felt that he could
+never be happy without her.
+
+Before being introduced to her, his heart had surrendered itself to her
+charms.
+
+He was wealthy; a splendid career was open to him, he was free; and he
+swore that Valentine should be his.
+
+He confided all his matrimonial plans to an old friend of Mme. de la
+Verberie, who was as noble as a Montmorency, and as poor as Job.
+
+With the precision of a graduate of the polytechnic school, he had
+enumerated all his qualifications for being a model son-in-law.
+
+For a long time the old lady listened to him without interruption;
+but, when he had finished, she did not hesitate to tell him that his
+pretensions were presumptuous.
+
+What! he, a man of no pedigree, a Fauvel, a common surveyor, to aspire
+to the hand of a La Verberie!
+
+After having enumerated all the superior advantages of that superior
+order of beings, the nobility, she condescended to take a common-sense
+view of the case, and said:
+
+“However, you may succeed. The poor countess owes money in every
+direction; not a day passes without the bailiffs calling upon her; so
+that, you understand, if a rich suitor appeared, and agreed to her terms
+for settlements--well, well, there is no knowing what might happen.”
+
+Andre Fauvel was young and sentimental: the insinuations of the old lady
+seemed to him preposterous.
+
+On reflection, however, when he had studied the character of the
+nobility in the neighborhood, who were rich in nothing but prejudices,
+he clearly saw that pecuniary considerations alone would be strong
+enough to decide the proud Countess de la Verberie to grant him her
+daughter’s hand.
+
+This certainly ended his hesitations, and he turned his whole attention
+to devising a plan for presenting his claim.
+
+He did not find this an easy thing to accomplish. To go in quest of a
+wife with her purchase-money in his hand was repugnant to his feelings,
+and contrary to his ideas of delicacy. But he had no one to urge his
+suit for him on his own merits; so he was compelled to shut his eyes to
+the distasteful features of his task, and treat his passion as a matter
+of business.
+
+The occasion so anxiously awaited, to explain his intentions, soon
+presented itself.
+
+One day he entered a hotel at Beaucaire, and, as he sat down to dinner,
+he saw that Mme. de la Verberie was at the adjoining table. He blushed
+deeply, and asked permission to sit at her table, which was granted with
+a most encouraging smile.
+
+Did the countess suspect the love of the young engineer? Had she been
+warned by her friend?
+
+At any rate, without giving Andre time to gradually approach the subject
+weighing on his mind, she began to complain of the hard times, the
+scarcity of money, and the grasping meanness of the trades-people.
+
+She had come to Beaucaire, indeed, to borrow money, and found every bank
+and cash-box closed against her; and her lawyer had advised her to sell
+her land for what it would bring. This made her very angry.
+
+Temper, joined to that secret instinct of the situation of affairs which
+is the sixth sense of a woman, loosened her tongue, and made her more
+communicative to this comparative stranger than she had ever been to
+her bosom friends. She explained to him the horror of her situation,
+her present needs, her anxiety for the future, and, above all, her great
+distress at not being able to marry off her beloved daughter. If she
+only had a dowry for her child!
+
+Andre listened to these complaints with becoming commiseration, but in
+reality he was delighted.
+
+Without giving her time to finish her tale, he began to state what he
+called his view of the matter.
+
+He said that, although he sympathized deeply with the countess, he could
+not account for her uneasiness about her daughter.
+
+What? Could she be disturbed at having no dowry for her? Why, the rank
+and beauty of Mlle. Valentine were a fortune in themselves, of which any
+man might be proud.
+
+He knew more than one man who would esteem himself only too happy if
+Mlle. Valentine would accept his name, and confer upon him the sweet
+duty of relieving her mother from all anxiety and care. Finally, he did
+not think the situation of the countess’s affairs nearly so desperate as
+she imagined. How much money would be necessary to pay off the mortgages
+upon La Verberie? About forty thousand francs, perhaps? Indeed! That was
+but a mere trifle.
+
+Besides, this sum need not be a gift from the son-in-law; if she chose,
+it might be a loan, because the estate would be his in the end, and in
+time the land would be double its present value; it would be a pity to
+sell now. A man, too, worthy of Valentine’s love could never let his
+wife’s mother want for the comforts and luxuries due to a lady of her
+age, rank, and misfortunes. He would be only too glad to offer her a
+sufficient income, not only to provide comfort, but even luxury.
+
+As Andre spoke, in a tone too earnest to be assumed, it seemed to the
+countess that a celestial dew was dropping upon her pecuniary wounds.
+Her countenance was radiant with joy, her fierce little eyes beamed with
+the most encouraging tenderness, her thin lips were wreathed in the most
+friendly smiles.
+
+One thought disturbed the young engineer.
+
+“Does she understand me seriously?” he thought.
+
+She certainly did, as her subsequent remarks proved. He saw that the
+would-be sentimental old lady had an eye to business.
+
+“Alas!” she sighed, “La Verberie cannot be saved by forty thousand
+francs; the principal and interest of the debt amount to sixty
+thousand.”
+
+“Oh, either forty or sixty thousand is nothing worth speaking of.”
+
+“Four thousand francs is not enough to support a lady respectably,”
+ she said after a pause. “Everything is so dear in this section of the
+country! But with six thousand francs--yes, six thousand francs would
+make me happy!”
+
+The young man thought that her demands were becoming excessive, but with
+the generosity of an ardent lover he said:
+
+“The son-in-law of whom we are speaking cannot be very devoted to Mlle.
+Valentine, if the paltry sum of two thousand francs were objected to for
+an instant.”
+
+“You promise too much!” muttered the countess.
+
+“The imaginary son-in-law,” she finally added, “must be an honorable man
+who will fulfil his promises. I have my daughter’s happiness too much
+at heart to give her to a man who did not produce--what do you call
+them?--securities, guarantees.”
+
+“Decidedly,” thought Fauvel with mortification, “we are making a bargain
+and sale.”
+
+Then he said aloud:
+
+“Of course, your son-in-law would bind himself in the marriage contract
+to--”
+
+“Never! monsieur, never! Put such an agreement in the marriage contract!
+Think of the impropriety of the thing! What would the world say?”
+
+“Permit me, madame, to suggest that your pension should be mentioned as
+the interest of a sum acknowledged to have been received from you.”
+
+“Well, that might do very well; that is very proper.”
+
+The countess insisted upon taking Andre home in her carriage. During
+the drive, no definite plan was agreed upon between them; but they
+understood each other so well, that, when the countess set the young
+engineer down at his own door, she invited him to dinner the next day,
+and held out her skinny hand which Andre kissed with devotion, as he
+thought of the rosy fingers of Valentine.
+
+When Mme. de la Verberie returned home, the servants were dumb with
+astonishment at her good-humor: they had not seen her in this happy
+frame of mind for years.
+
+And her day’s work was of a nature to elevate her spirits: she had been
+unexpectedly raised from poverty to affluence. She, who boasted of
+such proud sentiments, never stopped to think of the infamy of the
+transaction in which she had been engaged: it seemed quite right in her
+selfish eyes.
+
+“A pension of six thousand francs!” she thought, “and a thousand crowns
+from the estate, that makes nine thousand francs a year! My daughter
+will live in Paris after she is married, and I can spend the winters
+with my dear children without expense.”
+
+At this price, she would have sold, not only one, but three daughters,
+if she had possessed them.
+
+But suddenly her blood ran cold at a sudden thought, which crossed her
+mind.
+
+“Would Valentine consent?”
+
+Her anxiety to set her mind at rest sent her straightway to her
+daughter’s room. She found Valentine reading by the light of a
+flickering candle.
+
+“My daughter,” she said abruptly, “an estimable young man has demanded
+your hand in marriage, and I have promised it to him.”
+
+On this startling announcement, Valentine started up and clasped her
+hands.
+
+“Impossible!” she murmured, “impossible!”
+
+“Will you be good enough to explain why it is impossible?”
+
+“Did you tell him, mother, who I am, what I am? Did you confess----”
+
+“Your past fully? No, thank God, I am not fool enough for that, and I
+hope you will have the sense to imitate my example, and keep silent on
+the subject.”
+
+Although Valentine’s spirit was completely crushed by her mother’s
+tyranny, her sense of honor made her revolt against this demand.
+
+“You certainly would not wish me to marry an honest man, mother, without
+confessing to him everything connected with the past? I could never
+practise a deception so base.”
+
+The countess felt very much like flying into a passion; but she knew
+that threats would be of no avail in this instance, where resistance
+would be a duty of conscience with her daughter. Instead of commanding,
+she entreated.
+
+“Poor child,” she said, “my poor, dear Valentine. If you only knew the
+dreadful state of our affairs, you would not talk in this heartless way.
+Your folly commenced our ruin; now it is at its last stage. Do you know
+that our creditors threaten to drive us away from La Verberie? Then what
+will become of us, my poor child? Must I in my old age go begging from
+door to door? We are on the verge of ruin, and this marriage is our only
+hope of salvation.”
+
+These tearful entreaties were followed by plausible arguments.
+
+The fair-spoken countess made use of strange and subtle theories.
+What she formerly regarded as a monstrous crime, she now spoke of as a
+peccadillo.
+
+She could understand, she said, her daughter’s scruples if there were
+any danger of the past being brought to light; but she had taken such
+precautions that there was no fear of that.
+
+Would it make her love her husband any the less? No. Would he be made
+any happier for hearing that she had loved before? No. Then why say
+anything about the past?
+
+Shocked, bewildered, Valentine asked herself if this was really her
+mother? The haughty woman, who had always been such a worshipper of
+honor and duty, to contradict every word she had uttered during her
+life! Valentine could not understand the sudden change.
+
+But she would have understood it, had she known to what base deeds a
+mind blunted by selfishness and vanity can lend itself.
+
+The countess’s subtle arguments and shameful sophistry neither moved
+nor convinced her; but she had not the courage to resist the tearful
+entreaties of her mother, who ended by falling on her knees, and with
+clasped hands imploring her child to save her from worse than death.
+
+Violently agitated, distracted by a thousand conflicting emotions,
+daring neither to refuse nor to promise, fearing the consequences of a
+decision thus forced from her, the unhappy girl begged her mother for a
+few hours to reflect.
+
+Mme. de la Verberie dared not refuse this request, and acquiesced.
+
+“I will leave you, my daughter,” she said, “and I trust your own heart
+will tell you how to decide between a useless confession and your
+mother’s salvation.”
+
+With these words she left the room indignant but hopeful.
+
+And she had grounds for hope. Placed between two obligations equally
+sacred, equally binding, but diametrically opposite, Valentine’s
+troubled mind could no longer clearly discern the path of duty. Could
+she reduce her mother to want and misery? Could she basely deceive the
+confidence and love of an honorable man? However she decided, her future
+life would be one of suffering and remorse.
+
+Alas! why had she not a wise and kind adviser to point out the right
+course to pursue, and assist her in struggling against evil influences?
+Why had she not that gentle, discreet friend who had inspired her with
+hope and courage in her first dark sorrow--Dr. Raget?
+
+Formerly the memory of Gaston had been her guiding star: now this
+far-off memory was nothing but a faint mist--a sort of vanishing dream.
+
+In romance we meet with heroines of lifelong constancy: real life
+produces no such miracles.
+
+For a long time Valentine’s mind had been filled with the image of
+Gaston. As the hero of her dreams she dwelt fondly on his memory; but
+the shadows of time had gradually dimmed the brilliancy of her idol, and
+now only preserved a cold relic, over which she sometimes wept.
+
+When she arose the next morning, pale and weak from a sleepless, tearful
+night, she had almost resolved to confess everything to her suitor.
+
+But when evening came, and she went down to see Andre Fauvel, the
+presence of her mother’s threatening, supplicating eye destroyed her
+courage.
+
+She said to herself, “I will tell him to-morrow.” Then she said, “I will
+wait another day; one more day can make no difference.”
+
+The countess saw all these struggles, but was not made uneasy by them.
+
+She knew by experience that, when a painful duty is put off, it is never
+performed.
+
+There was some excuse for Valentine in the horror of her situation.
+Perhaps, unknown to herself, she felt a faint hope arise within her. Any
+marriage, even an unhappy one, offered the prospect of a change, of
+a new life, a relief from the insupportable suffering she was now
+enduring.
+
+Sometimes, in her ignorance of human life, she imagined that time and
+close intimacy would take it easier for her to confess her terrible
+fault; that it would be the most natural thing in the world for Andre to
+pardon her, and insist upon marrying her, since he loved her so deeply.
+
+That he sincerely loved her, she knew full well. It was not the
+impetuous passion of Gaston, with its excitements and terrors, but
+a calm, steady affection, more lasting than the intoxicating love of
+Gaston was ever likely to be. She felt a sort of blissful rest in its
+legitimacy and constancy.
+
+Thus Valentine gradually became accustomed to Andre’s soothing presence,
+and was surprised into feeling very happy at the constant delicate
+attentions and looks of affection that he lavished upon her. She did not
+feel any love for him yet; but a separation would have distressed her
+deeply.
+
+During the courtship the countess’s conduct was a masterpiece.
+
+She suddenly ceased to importune her daughter, and with tearful
+resignation said she would not attempt to influence her decision, that
+her happy settlement in life was the only anxiety that weighed upon her
+mind.
+
+But she went about the house sighing and groaning as if she were upon
+the eve of starving to death. She also made arrangements to be tormented
+by the bailiffs. Attachments and notices to quit poured in at La
+Verberie, which she would show to Valentine and, with tears in her eyes,
+say:
+
+“God grant we may not be driven from the home of our ancestors before
+your marriage, my darling!”
+
+Knowing that her presence was sufficient to freeze any confession on her
+daughter’s lips, she never left her alone with Andre.
+
+“Once married,” she thought, “they can settle the matter to suit
+themselves. I shall not then be disturbed by it.”
+
+She was as impatient as Andre, and hastened the preparations for the
+wedding. She gave Valentine no opportunity for reflection. She kept her
+constantly busy, either in driving to town to purchase some article of
+dress, or in paying visits.
+
+At last the eve of the wedding-day found her anxious and oppressed with
+fear lest something should prevent the consummation of her hopes and
+labors. She was like a gambler who had ventured his last stake.
+
+On this night, for the first time, Valentine found herself alone with
+the man who was to become her husband.
+
+She was sitting at twilight, in the parlor, miserable and trembling,
+anxious to unburden her mind, and yet frightened at the very thought of
+doing so, when Andre entered. Seeing that she was agitated, he pressed
+her hand, and gently begged her to tell him the cause of her sorrow.
+
+“Am I not your best friend,” he said, “and ought I not to be the
+confidant of your troubles, if you have any? Why these tears, my
+darling?”
+
+Now was the time for her to confess, and throw herself upon his
+generosity. But her trembling lips refused to open when she thought of
+his pain and anguish, and the anger of her mother, which would be caused
+by the few words she would utter. She felt that it was too late; and,
+bursting into tears, she cried out, “I am afraid--What shall I do?”
+
+Imagining that she was merely disturbed by the vague fears experienced
+by most young girls when about to marry, he tried, with tender, loving
+words, to console and reassure her, promising to shield her from every
+care and sorrow, if she would only trust to his devoted love. But what
+was his surprise to find that his affectionate words only increased her
+distress; she buried her face in her hands, and wept as if her heart
+would break.
+
+While she was thus summoning her courage, and he was entreating her
+confidence, Mme. de la Verberie came hurrying into the room for them to
+sign the contract.
+
+The opportunity was lost; Andre Fauvel was left in ignorance.
+
+The next day, a lovely spring morning, Andre Fauvel and Valentine de la
+Verberie were married at the village church.
+
+Early in the morning, the chateau was filled with the bride’s friends,
+who came, according to custom, to assist at her wedding toilet.
+
+Valentine forced herself to appear calm, even smiling; but her face was
+whiter than her veil; her heart was torn by remorse. She felt as though
+the sad truth were written upon her brow; and this pure white dress was
+a bitter irony, a galling humiliation.
+
+She shuddered when her most intimate school-mate placed the wreath of
+orange-blossoms upon her head. These emblems of purity seemed to burn
+her like a band of red-hot iron. One of the wire stems of the flowers
+scratched her forehead, and a drop of blood fell upon her snowy robe.
+
+What an evil omen! Valentine was near fainting when she thought of the
+past and the future connected by this bloody sign of woe.
+
+But presages are deceitful, as it proved with Valentine; for she became
+a happy woman and a loving wife.
+
+Yes, at the end of her first year of married life, she confessed to
+herself that her happiness would be complete if she could only forget
+the terrible past.
+
+Andre adored her. He had been wonderfully successful in his business
+affairs; he wished to be immensely rich, not for himself, but for the
+sake of his beloved wife, whom he would surround with every luxury. He
+thought her the most beautiful woman in Paris, and determined that she
+should be the most superbly dressed.
+
+Eighteen months after her marriage, Madame Fauvel presented her husband
+with a son. But neither this child, nor a second son born a year later,
+could make her forget the first one of all, the poor, forsaken babe who
+had been thrown upon strangers, mercenaries, who valued the money, but
+not the child for whom it was paid.
+
+She would look at her two sons, surrounded by every luxury which money
+could give, and murmur to herself:
+
+“Who knows if the abandoned one has bread to eat?”
+
+If she only knew where he was: if she only dared inquire! But she was
+afraid.
+
+Sometimes she would be uneasy about Gaston’s jewels, constantly fearing
+that their hiding-place would be discovered. Then she would think, “I
+may as well be tranquil; misfortune has forgotten me.”
+
+Poor, deluded woman! Misfortune is a visitor who sometimes delays his
+visits, but always comes in the end.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Louis de Clameran, the second son of the marquis, was one of those
+self-controlled men who, beneath a cool, careless manner, conceal a
+fiery temperament, and ungovernable passions.
+
+All sorts of extravagant ideas had begun to ferment in his disordered
+brain, long before the occurrence which decided the destiny of the
+Clameran family.
+
+Apparently occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, this precocious
+hypocrite longed for a larger field in which to indulge his evil
+inclinations, secretly cursing the stern necessity which chained him
+down to this dreary country life, and the old chateau, which to him was
+more gloomy than a prison, and as lifeless as the grave.
+
+This existence, dragged out in the country and the small neighboring
+towns, was too monotonous for his restless nature. The paternal
+authority, though so gently expressed, exasperated his rebellious
+temper. He thirsted for independence, riches, excitement, and all the
+unknown pleasures that pall upon the senses simultaneously with their
+attainment.
+
+Louis did not love his father, and he hated his brother Gaston.
+
+The old marquis, in his culpable thoughtlessness, had kindled this
+burning envy in the heart of his second son.
+
+A strict observer of traditional rights, he had always declared that the
+eldest son of a noble house should inherit all the family possessions,
+and that he intended to leave Gaston his entire fortune.
+
+This flagrant injustice and favoritism inspired Louis with envious
+hatred for his brother.
+
+Gaston always said that he would never consent to profit by this
+paternal partiality, but would share equally with his brother. Judging
+others by himself, Louis placed no faith in this assertion, which he
+called an ostentatious affectation of generosity.
+
+Although this hatred was unsuspected by the marquis and Gaston, it was
+betrayed by acts significant enough to attract the attention of the
+servants, who often commented upon it.
+
+They were so fully aware of Louis’s sentiments toward his brother that,
+when he was prevented from escaping because of the stumbling horse, they
+refused to believe it an accident; and, whenever Louis came near would
+mutter, “Fratricide!”
+
+A deplorable scene took place between Louis and St. Jean, who was
+allowed, on account of his fifty years’ faithful service, to take
+liberties which he sometimes abused by making rough speeches to his
+superiors.
+
+“It is a great pity,” said the old servant, “that a skilful rider like
+yourself should have fallen at the very moment when your brother’s life
+depended upon your horsemanship.”
+
+At this broad insinuation, Louis turned pale, and threateningly cried
+out:
+
+“You insolent dog, what do you mean?”
+
+“You know well enough what I mean, monsieur,” the old man said,
+significantly.
+
+“I do not know! Explain your impertinence: speak, I tell you!”
+
+The man only answered by a meaning look, which so incensed Louis that
+he rushed toward him with upraised whip, and would have beaten him
+unmercifully, had not the other servants interfered, and dragged St.
+Jean from the spot.
+
+This altercation occurred while Gaston was in the madder-field trying to
+escape his pursuers.
+
+After a while the gendarmes and hussars returned, with slow tread and
+sad faces, to say that Gaston de Clameran had plunged into the Rhone,
+and was instantly drowned.
+
+This melancholy news was received with groans and tears by everyone save
+Louis, who remained calm and unmoved: not a single muscle of his face
+quivered.
+
+But his eyes sparkled with triumph. A secret voice cried within him,
+“Now you are assured of the family fortune, and a marquis’s coronet.”
+
+He was no longer the poverty-stricken younger son, but the sole heir of
+the Clamerans.
+
+The corporal of the gendarmes had said:
+
+“I would not be the one to tell the poor old man that his son is
+drowned.”
+
+Louis felt none of the tender-hearted scruples of the brave old soldier.
+He instantly went to his father’s sick-room, and said, in a firm voice:
+
+“My brother had to choose between disgrace and death; he is dead.”
+
+Like a sturdy oak stricken by lightning, the marquis tottered and fell
+when these fatal words sounded in his ears. The doctor soon arrived, but
+alas! only to say that science was of no avail.
+
+Toward daybreak, Louis, without a tear, received his father’s last sigh.
+
+Louis was now the master.
+
+All the unjust precautions taken by the marquis to elude the law, and
+insure beyond dispute the possession of his entire fortune to his eldest
+son, turned against him.
+
+By means of a fraudulent deed of trust drawn by his dishonest lawyer,
+M. de Clameran had disposed everything so that, on the day of his death,
+every farthing he owned would be Gaston’s.
+
+Louis alone was benefited by this precaution. He came into possession
+without even being called upon for the certificate of his brother’s
+death.
+
+He was now Marquis of Clameran; he was free, he was comparatively rich.
+He who had never had twenty-five crowns in his pocket at once, now found
+himself the possessor of two hundred thousand francs.
+
+This sudden, unexpected fortune so completely turned his head that he
+forgot his skilful dissimulation. His demeanor at the funeral of the
+marquis was much censured. He followed the coffin, with his head bowed
+and his face buried in a handkerchief; but this did not conceal the
+buoyancy of his spirit, and the joy which sparkled in his eyes.
+
+The day after the funeral, Louis sold everything that he could dispose
+of, horses, carriages, and family plate.
+
+The next day he discharged all the old servants, who had hoped to end
+their days beneath the hospitable roof of Clameran. Several, with
+tears in their eyes, took him aside, and entreated him to let them stay
+without wages. He roughly ordered them to be gone, and never appear
+before his eyes again.
+
+He sent for his father’s lawyer, and gave him a power of attorney to
+sell the estate, and received in return the sum of twenty thousand
+francs as the first payment in advance.
+
+At the close of the week, he locked up the chateau, with a vow never to
+cross its sill again, and left the keys in the keeping of St. Jean, who
+owned a little house near Clameran, and would continue to live in the
+neighborhood.
+
+Poor St. Jean! little did he think that, in preventing Valentine from
+seeing Louis, he had ruined the prospects of his beloved Gaston.
+
+On receiving the keys he asked one question:
+
+“Shall we not search for your brother’s body, M. the marquis?” he
+inquired in broken-hearted tones. “And, if it is found, what must be
+done with it?”
+
+“I shall leave instructions with my notary,” replied Louis. And he
+hurried away from Clameran as if the ground burnt his feet. He went
+to Tarascon, where he had already forwarded his baggage, and took the
+stage-coach which travelled between Marseilles and Paris, the railroad
+not yet being finished.
+
+At last he was off. The lumbering old stage rattled along, drawn by six
+horses; and the deep gullies made by the wheels seemed so many abysses
+between the past and the future.
+
+Lying back in a corner of the stage, Louis de Clameran enjoyed in
+anticipation the fields of pleasure spread before his dazzled eyes. At
+the end of the journey, Paris rose up before him, radiant, brilliantly
+dazzling as the sun.
+
+Yes, he was going to Paris, the promised land, the city of wonders,
+where every Aladdin finds a lamp. There all ambitions are crowned,
+all dreams realized, all passions, all desires, good and evil, can be
+satisfied.
+
+There the fast-fleeting days are followed by nights of ever-varied
+pleasure and excitement. In twenty theatres tragedy weeps, or comedy
+laughs; whilst at the opera the most beautiful women in the world,
+sparkling with diamonds, are ready to die with ecstasy at the sound of
+divine music; everywhere noise, excitement, luxury, and pleasure.
+
+What a dream! The heart of Louis de Clameran was swollen with desire,
+and he felt that he should go mad if the horses crawled with such
+torturing slowness: he would like to spring from the old stage, and fly
+to his haven of delight.
+
+He never once thought of the past with a pang of regret. What mattered
+it to him how his father and brother had died? All his energies were
+devoted to penetrating the mysterious future that now awaited him.
+
+Was not every chance in his favor? He was young, rich, handsome, and
+a marquis. He had a constitution of iron; he carried twenty thousand
+francs in his pocket, and would soon have ten times as many more.
+
+He, who had always been poor, regarded this sum as an exhaustless
+treasure.
+
+And at nightfall, when he jumped from the stage upon the brilliantly
+lighted street of Paris, he seemed to be taking possession of the grand
+city, and felt as though he could buy everything in it.
+
+His illusions were those natural to all young men who suddenly come into
+possession of a patrimony after years of privation.
+
+It is this ignorance of the real value of money that squanders fortunes,
+and fritters away accumulated patrimonies so laboriously earned and
+saved in the frugal provinces.
+
+Imbued with his own importance, accustomed to the deference of the
+country people, the young marquis came to Paris with the expectation
+of being a lion, supposing that his name and fortune were sufficient to
+place him upon any pinnacle he might desire.
+
+He was mortified to discover his error. To his great surprise he
+discovered that he possessed nothing which constituted a position in
+this immense city. He found that in the midst of this busy, indifferent
+crowd, he was lost, as unnoticed as a drop of water in a torrent.
+
+But this unflattering reality could not discourage a man who was
+determined to gratify his passion at all costs. His ancestral name
+gained him but one privilege, disastrous for his future: it opened to
+him the doors of the Faubourg St. Germain.
+
+There he became intimate with men of his own age and rank, whose incomes
+were larger than his principal.
+
+Nearly all of them confessed that they only kept up their extravagant
+style of living by dint of skilful economy behind the scenes, and by
+regulating their vices and follies as judiciously as a hosier would
+manage his Sunday holidays.
+
+This information astonished Louis, but did not open his eyes. He
+endeavored to imitate the dashing style of these economically wasteful
+young men, without pretending to conform to their prudential rules. He
+learned how to spend, but not how to settle his accounts as they did.
+
+He was Marquis of Clameran, and, having given himself a reputation of
+great wealth, he was welcomed by the _elite_ of society; if he made no
+friends, he had at least many acquaintances. Among the set into which he
+was received immediately upon his arrival, he found ten satellites who
+took pleasure in initiating him into the secrets of fashionable life,
+and correcting any little provincialisms betrayed in his manners and
+conversation.
+
+He profited well and quickly by their lessons. At the end of three
+months he was fairly launched; his reputation as a skilful gambler and
+one of the fastest men in Paris was fully established.
+
+He had rented handsome apartments, with a coach-house and stable for
+three horses.
+
+Although he only furnished this bachelor’s establishment with what was
+necessary and comfortable, he found that comforts were very costly in
+this instance.
+
+So that the day he took possession of his apartments, and looked
+over his bills, he made the startling discovery that this short
+apprenticeship of Paris had cost him fifty-thousand francs, one-fourth
+of his fortune.
+
+Still he clung to his brilliant friends, although in a state of
+inferiority which was mortifying to his vanity, like a poor squire
+straining every nerve to make his nag keep up with blooded horses in a
+race.
+
+Fifty thousand francs! For a moment Louis had a faint idea of retreating
+from the scene of temptation. But what a fall! Besides, his vices
+bloomed and flourished in this charming centre. He had heretofore
+considered himself fast; but the past was a state of unsophisticated
+verdancy, compared with the thousand attractive sins in which he now
+indulged.
+
+Then the sight of suddenly acquired fortunes, and the many examples of
+the successful results of hazardous ventures, inflamed his mind, and
+persuaded him to try his fortune in the game of speculation.
+
+He thought that in this great, rich city, he certainly could succeed in
+seizing a share of the loaves and fishes.
+
+But how? He had no idea, and he did not seek to find one. He imagined
+that his good fortune would some day come, and that all he had to do was
+to wait for it.
+
+This is one of the errors which it is time to destroy.
+
+Fortune is not to be wasted upon idle fools.
+
+In this furious race of self-interest, it requires great skill to
+bestride the capricious mare called Opportunity, and make her lead to
+the end in view. Every winner must possess a strong will and a dexterous
+hand. But Louis did not devote much thought to the matter. Like the
+foolish man who wished to draw the prize without contributing to the
+raffle, he thought:
+
+“Bast! opportunity, chance, a rich marriage will put me all right
+again!”
+
+The rich bride failed to appear, and his last louis had gone the way of
+its predecessors.
+
+To a pressing demand for money, his notary replied by a refusal.
+
+“Your lands are all gone,” he wrote; “you now possess nothing but the
+chateau. It is very valuable, but it is difficult, if not impossible,
+to find a purchaser of so large an amount of real estate, in its
+present condition. I will use every effort to make a good sale, and
+if successful, will inform you of the fact immediately.” Louis was
+thunderstruck at this final catastrophe, as much surprised as if he
+could have expected any other result. But what could he do?
+
+Ruined, with nothing to look forward to, the best course was to imitate
+the large number of poor fools who each year rise up, shine a moment,
+then suddenly disappear.
+
+But Louis could not renounce this life of ease and pleasure which he had
+been leading for the last three years. After leaving his fortune on the
+battle-ground, he was willing to leave the shreds of his honor.
+
+He first lived on the reputation of his dissipated fortune; on the
+credit remaining to a man who has spent much in a short space of time.
+
+This resource was soon exhausted.
+
+The day came when his creditors seized all they could lay their hands
+upon, the last remains of his opulence, his carriages, horses, and
+costly furniture.
+
+He took refuge in a quiet hotel, but he could not keep away from the
+wealthy set whom he considered his friends.
+
+He lived upon them as he had lived upon the tradesmen who furnished his
+supplies. Borrowing from one louis up to twenty-five, from anybody who
+would lend to him, he never pretended to pay them. Constantly betting,
+no one ever saw him pay a wager. He piloted all the raw young men who
+fell into his hands, and utilized, in rendering shameful services, an
+experience which had cost him two hundred thousand francs; he was half
+courtier, half adventurer.
+
+He was not banished, but was made to cruelly expiate the favor of being
+tolerated. No one had the least regard for his feelings, or hesitated to
+tell him to his face what was thought of his unprincipled conduct.
+
+Thus, when alone in his little den, he would give way to fits of violent
+rage. He had not yet reached a state of callousness to be able to endure
+these humiliations without the keenest torture to his false pride and
+vanity.
+
+Envy and covetousness had long since stifled every sentiment of honor
+and self-respect in his base heart. For a few years of opulence he was
+ready to commit any crime.
+
+And, though he did not commit a crime, he came very near it, and was
+the principal in a disgraceful affair of swindling and extortion, which
+raised such an outcry against him that he was obliged to leave Paris.
+
+Count de Commarin, an old friend of his father, hushed up the matter,
+and furnished him with money to take him to England.
+
+And how did he manage to live in London?
+
+The detectives of the most corrupt capital in existence were the only
+people who knew his means of support.
+
+Descending to the last stages of vice, the Marquis of Clameran finally
+found his level in a society composed of shameless women and gamblers.
+
+Compelled to quit London, he travelled over Europe, with no other
+capital than his knavish audacity, deep depravity, and his skill at
+cards.
+
+Finally, in 1865, he had a run of good luck at Homburg, and returned to
+Paris, where he imagined himself entirely forgotten.
+
+Eighteen years had passed since he left Paris.
+
+The first step which he took on his return, before even settling himself
+in Paris, was to make a visit to his old home.
+
+Not that he had any relative or friend in that part of the country, from
+whom he could expect any assistance; but he remembered the old manor,
+which his notary had been unable to sell.
+
+He thought that perhaps by this time a purchaser had appeared, and he
+determined to go himself and ascertain how much he should receive for
+this old chateau, which had cost one hundred thousand francs in the
+building.
+
+On a beautiful October evening he reached Tarascon, and there learned
+that he was still the owner of the chateau of Clameran. The next
+morning, he set out on foot to visit the paternal home, which he had not
+seen for twenty-five years.
+
+Everything was so changed that he scarcely recognized this country,
+where he had been born, and passed his youth.
+
+Yet the impression was so strong, that this man, tried by such varied,
+strange adventures, for a moment felt like retracing his steps.
+
+He only continued his road because a secret, hopeful voice cried in him,
+“Onward, onward!”--as if, at the end of the journey, was to be found a
+new life and the long-wished-for good fortune.
+
+As Louis advanced, the changes appeared less striking; he began to be
+familiar with the ground.
+
+Soon, through the trees, he distinguished the village steeple, then the
+village itself, built upon the gentle rising of a hill, crowned by a
+wood of olive-trees.
+
+He recognized the first houses he saw: the farrier’s shed covered with
+ivy, the old parsonage, and farther on the village tavern, where he and
+Gaston used to play billiards.
+
+In spite of what he called his scorn of vulgar prejudices, he felt a
+thrill of strange emotion as he looked on these once familiar objects.
+
+He could not overcome a feeling of sadness as scenes of the past rose up
+before him.
+
+How many events had occurred since he last walked along this path, and
+received a friendly bow and smile from every villager.
+
+Then life appeared to him like a fairy scene, in which his every wish
+was gratified. And now, he had returned, dishonored, worn out, disgusted
+with the realities of life, still tasting the bitter dregs of the cup
+of shame, stigmatized, poverty-stricken, and friendless, with nothing to
+lose, and nothing to look forward to.
+
+The few villagers whom he met turned and stood gazing after this
+dust-covered stranger, and wondered who he could be.
+
+Upon reaching St. Jean’s house, he found the door open; he walked into
+the immense empty kitchen.
+
+He rapped on the table, and was answered by a voice calling out:
+
+“Who is there?”
+
+The next moment a man of about forty years appeared in the doorway, and
+seemed much surprised at finding a stranger standing in his kitchen.
+
+“What will you have, monsieur?” he inquired.
+
+“Does not St. Jean, the old valet of the Marquis of Clameran, live
+here?”
+
+“My father died five years ago, monsieur,” replied the man in a sad
+tone.
+
+This news affected Louis painfully, as if he had expected this old
+man to restore him some of his lost youth; the last link was gone. He
+sighed, and, after a silence, said:
+
+“I am the Marquis of Clameran.”
+
+The farmer, at these words, uttered an exclamation of joy. He seized
+Louis’s hand, and, pressing it with respectful attention, cried:
+
+“You are the marquis! Alas!” he continued, “why is not my poor father
+alive to see you? he would be so happy! His last words were about his
+dear masters, and many a time did he sigh and mourn at not receiving any
+news of you. He is beneath the sod now, resting after a well-spent life;
+but I, Joseph, his son, am here to take his place, and devote my life to
+your service. What an honor it is to have you in my house! Ah, my wife
+will be happy to see you; she has all her life heard of the Clamerans.”
+
+Here he ran into the garden, and called: “Toinette! I say, Toinette!
+Come here quickly!”
+
+This cordial welcome delighted Louis. So many years had gone by since he
+had been greeted with an expression of kindness, or felt the pressure of
+a friendly hand.
+
+In a few moments a handsome, dark-eyed young woman entered the room, and
+stood blushing with confusion at sight of the stranger.
+
+“This is my wife, monsieur,” said Joseph, leading her toward Louis, “but
+I have not given her time to put on her finery. This is M. the marquis,
+Antoinette.”
+
+The farmer’s wife bowed, and, having nothing to say, gracefully uplifted
+her brow upon which the marquis pressed a kiss.
+
+“You will see the children in a few minutes, M. the marquis,” said
+Joseph; “I have sent to the school for them.”
+
+The worthy couple overwhelmed the marquis with attentions.
+
+After so long a walk he must be hungry, they said; he must take a glass
+of wine now, and breakfast would soon be ready; they would be so proud
+and happy if M. the marquis would partake of a country breakfast!
+
+Louis willingly accepted their invitation; and Joseph went to the cellar
+after the wine, while Toinette ran to catch her fattest pullet.
+
+In a short time, Louis sat down to a table laden with the best of
+everything on the farm, waited upon by Joseph and his wife, who watched
+him with respectful interest and awe.
+
+The children came running in from school, smeared with the juice of
+berries. After Louis had embraced them they stood off in a corner, and
+gazed at him with eyes wide open, as if he were a rare curiosity.
+
+The important news had spread, and a number of villagers and countrymen
+appeared at the open door, to speak to the Marquis of Clameran.
+
+“I am such a one, M. the marquis; don’t you remember me?” “Ah! I should
+have recognized you anywhere.” “The late marquis was very good to me.”
+ Another would say, “Don’t you remember the time when you lent me your
+gun to go hunting?”
+
+Louis welcomed with secret delight all these protestations and proofs of
+devotion which had not chilled with time.
+
+The kindly voices of these honest people recalled many pleasant moments
+of the past, and made him feel once more the fresh sensations of his
+youth.
+
+Here, at least, no echoes of his stormy life had been heard; no
+suspicions of his shameful career were entertained by these humble
+villagers on the borders of the Rhone.
+
+He, the adventurer, the bully, the base accomplice of London swindlers,
+delighted in these marks of respect and veneration, bestowed upon him as
+the representative of the house of Clameran; it seemed to make him
+once more feel a little self-respect, as if the future were not utterly
+hopeless.
+
+Ah, had he possessed only a quarter of his squandered inheritance, how
+happy he would be to peacefully end his days in this his native village!
+
+But this rest after so many vain excitements, this haven after so many
+storms and shipwrecks, was denied him. He was penniless; how could he
+live here when he had nothing to live upon?
+
+This thought of his pressing want gave him courage to ask Joseph for the
+key of the chateau, that he might go and examine its condition.
+
+“You won’t need the key, except the one to the front door, M. the
+marquis,” replied Joseph.
+
+It was but too true. Time had done its work, and the lordly manor
+of Clameran was nothing but a ruin. The rain and sun had rotted the
+shutters so that they were crumbling and dilapidated.
+
+Here and there were traces of the friendly hand of St. Jean, who had
+tried to retard the total ruin of the old chateau; but of what use were
+his efforts?
+
+Within, the desolation was still greater. All of the furniture which
+Louis had not dared to sell stood in the position he left it, but in
+what a state! All of the tapestry hangings and coverings were moth-eaten
+and in tatters; nothing seemed left but the dust-covered woodwork of the
+chairs and sofas.
+
+Louis was almost afraid to enter these grand, gloomy rooms, where every
+footfall echoed until the air seemed to be filled with sounds strange
+and ominous.
+
+He almost expected to see the angry old marquis start from some dark
+corner, and heap curses on his head for having dishonored the name.
+
+He turned pale with terror, when he suddenly recalled the scene of his
+fatal stumble and poor Gaston’s death. The room was surely inhabited by
+the spirits of these two murdered men. His nerves could not bear it, and
+he hurried out into the open air and sunshine.
+
+After a while, he recovered sufficiently to remember the object of his
+visit.
+
+“Poor St. Jean was foolish to let the furniture in the chateau drop to
+pieces. Why did he not use it?”
+
+“My father would not have dared to touch anything without receiving an
+order, M. the marquis.”
+
+“He was very unwise to wait for an order, when anything was going
+to destruction without benefiting anyone. As the chateau is fast
+approaching the condition of the furniture, and my fortune does not
+permit me to repair it, I will sell it before the walls crumble away.”
+
+Joseph could scarcely believe his ears. He regarded the selling of the
+chateau of Clameran as a sacrilege; but he was not bold of speech, like
+his father, so he dared not express an opinion.
+
+“Would there be difficulty in selling this ruin?” continued Louis.
+
+“That depends upon the price you ask, M. the marquis; I know a man who
+would purchase the property if he could get it cheap.”
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“M. Fougeroux, who lives on the other side of the river. He came from
+Beaucaire, and twelve years ago married a servant-maid of the late
+Countess de la Verberie. Perhaps M. the marquis remembers her--a plump,
+bright-eyed brunette, named Mihonne.”
+
+Louis did not remember Mihonne.
+
+“When can we see this Fougeroux?” he inquired.
+
+“To-day; I will engage a boat to take us over.”
+
+“Well, let us go now. I have no time to lose.”
+
+An entire generation has passed away since Louis had last crossed the
+Rhone in old Pilorel’s boat.
+
+The faithful ferryman had been buried many years, and his duties were
+now performed by his son, who, possessing great respect for traditional
+opinions, was delighted at the honor of rowing the Marquis of Clameran
+in his boat, and soon had it ready for Louis and Joseph to take their
+seats.
+
+As soon as they were fairly started, Joseph began to warn the marquis
+against the wily Fougeroux.
+
+“He is a cunning fox,” said the farmer; “I have had a bad opinion of him
+ever since his marriage, which was a shameful affair altogether. Mihonne
+was over fifty years of age, and he was only twenty-four, when he
+married her; so you may know it was money, and not a wife, that he
+wanted. She, poor fool, believed that the young scamp really loved her,
+and gave herself and her money up to him. Women will be trusting fools
+to the end of time! And Fougeroux is not the man to let money lie idle.
+He speculated with Mihonne’s gold, and is now very rich. But she, poor
+thing, does not profit by his wealth; one can easily understand his not
+feeling any love for her, when she looks like his grandmother; but he
+deprives her of the necessaries of life, and beats her cruelly.”
+
+“He would like to plant her six feet under ground,” said the ferryman.
+
+“Well, it won’t be long before he has the satisfaction of burying her,”
+ said Joseph; “the poor old woman has been in almost a dying condition
+ever since Fougeroux brought a worthless jade to take charge of the
+house, and makes his wife wait upon her like a servant.”
+
+When they reached the opposite shore, Joseph asked young Pilorel to
+await their return.
+
+Joseph knocked at the gate of the well-cultivated farm, and inquired for
+the master; the farm-boy said that “M. Fougeroux” was out in the field,
+but he would go and tell him.
+
+He soon appeared. He was an ill-looking little man, with a red beard and
+small, restless eyes.
+
+Although M. Fougeroux professed to despise the nobility and the clergy,
+the hope of driving a good bargain made him obsequious to Louis. He
+insisted upon ushering his visitor into “the parlor,” with may bows and
+repetitions of “M. the marquis.”
+
+Upon entering the room, he roughly ordered an old woman, who was
+crouching over some dying embers, to make haste and bring some wine for
+M. the marquis of Clameran.
+
+At this name, the old woman started as if she had received an electric
+shock. She opened her mouth to say something, but a look from her tyrant
+froze the words upon her lips. With a frightened air she hobbled out to
+obey his orders, and in a few minutes returned with a bottle of wine and
+three glasses.
+
+Then she resumed her seat by the fire, and kept her eyes fastened upon
+the marquis.
+
+Could this really be the merry, pretty Mihonne, who had been the
+confidant of the little fairy of Verberie?
+
+Valentine herself would never have recognized this poor, shrivelled,
+emaciated old woman.
+
+Only those who are familiar with country life know what hard work and
+worry can do to make a woman old.
+
+The bargain, meanwhile, was being discussed between Joseph and
+Fougeroux, who offered a ridiculously small sum for the chateau, saying
+that he would only buy it to tear down, and sell the materials. Joseph
+enumerated the beams, joists, ashlars, and the iron-work, and volubly
+praised the old domain.
+
+As for Mihonne, the presence of the marquis had a wonderful effect upon
+her.
+
+If the faithful servant had hitherto never breathed the secret confided
+to her probity, it was none the less heavy for her to bear.
+
+After marrying, and being so harshly treated that she daily prayed for
+death to come to her relief, she began to blame everybody but herself
+for her misfortunes.
+
+Weakly superstitious, she traced back the origin of her sorrows to the
+day when she took the oath on the holy gospel during mass.
+
+Her constant prayers that God would send her a child to soothe her
+wounded heart, being unanswered, she was convinced that she was cursed
+with barrenness for having assisted in the abandonment of an innocent,
+helpless babe.
+
+She often thought, that by revealing everything, she could appease the
+wrath of Heaven, and once more enjoy a happy home. Nothing but her
+love for Valentine gave her strength to resist a constant temptation to
+confess everything.
+
+But to-day the sight of Louis decided her to relieve her mind. She
+thought there could be no danger in confiding in Gaston’s brother. Alas
+for woman’s tongue!
+
+The sale was finally concluded. It was agreed that Fougeroux should give
+five thousand two hundred and eighty francs in cash for the chateau, and
+land attached; and Joseph was to have the old furniture.
+
+The marquis and the new owner of the chateau shook hands, and noisily
+called out the essential word:
+
+“Agreed!”
+
+Fougeroux went himself to get the “bargain bottle” of old wine.
+
+The occasion was favorable to Mihonne; she walked quickly over to where
+the marquis stood, and said in a nervous whisper:
+
+“M. the marquis, I must speak with you apart.”
+
+“What can you want to tell me, my good woman?”
+
+“It is a secret of life and death. This evening, at dusk, meet me in the
+walnut wood, and I will tell you everything.”
+
+Hearing her husband’s approaching step, she darted back to her corner by
+the fire.
+
+Fougeroux filled the glasses, and drank to the health of Clameran.
+
+As they returned to the boat, Louis tried to think what could be the
+object of this singular rendezvous.
+
+“Joseph, what the deuce can that old witch want with me?” he said
+musingly.
+
+“Who can tell? She used to be in the service of a lady who was very
+intimate with M. Gaston; so my father used to say. If I were in your
+place I would go and see what she wanted, monsieur. You can dine with
+me, and, after dinner, Pilorel will row you over.”
+
+Curiosity decided Louis to go, about seven o’clock, to the walnut wood,
+where he found Mihonne impatiently awaiting him.
+
+“Ah, here you are, at last, M. the marquis,” she said, in a tone of
+relief. “I was afraid you would disappoint me.”
+
+“Yes, here I am, my good woman, to listen to what you have to say.”
+
+“I have many things to say. But first tell me some news of your
+brother.”
+
+Louis regretted having come, supposing from this request that the old
+woman was childish, and might bother him for hours with her senseless
+gabble.
+
+“You know well enough that my poor brother was drowned in the Rhone.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Mihonne, “are you ignorant, then, of his escape?
+Yes, he did what has never been done before; he swam across the swollen
+Rhone. The next day Mlle. Valentine went to Clameran to tell the news;
+but St. Jean prevented her from seeing you. Afterward I carried a letter
+from her, but you had left the country.”
+
+Louis could not believe this strange revelation.
+
+“Are you not mixing up dreams with real events, my good woman?” he said
+banteringly.
+
+“No,” she replied, mournfully shaking her head. “If Pere Menoul were
+alive, he would tell you how he took charge of your brother until he
+embarked for Marseilles. But that is nothing compared to the rest. M.
+Gaston has a son.”
+
+“My brother had a son! You certainly have lost your mind, my poor
+woman.”
+
+“Alas, no. Unfortunately for my happiness in this world and in the
+world to come, I am only telling the truth; he had a child, and Mlle.
+Valentine was its mother. I took the poor babe, and carried it to a
+woman whom I paid to take charge of it.”
+
+Then Mihonne described the anger of the countess, the journey to London,
+and the abandonment of little Raoul.
+
+With the accurate memory natural to people unable to read and write,
+she related the most minute particulars--the names of the village, the
+nurse, the child’s Christian name, and the exact date of everything
+which had occurred.
+
+Then she told of Valentine’s wretched suffering, of the impending ruin
+of the countess, and finally how everything was happily settled by the
+poor girl’s marriage with an immensely rich man, who was now one of the
+richest bankers in Paris, and was named Fauvel.
+
+A harsh voice calling, “Mihonne! Mihonne!” here interrupted the old
+woman.
+
+“Heavens!” she cried in a frightened tone, “that is my husband, looking
+for me.”
+
+And, as fast as her trembling limbs could carry her, she hurried to the
+farm-house.
+
+For several minutes after her departure, Louis stood rooted to the spot.
+
+Her recital had filled his wicked mind with an idea so infamous, so
+detestable, that even his vile nature shrank for a moment from its
+enormity.
+
+He knew Fauvel by reputation, and was calculating the advantages he
+might gain by the strange information of which he was now possessed by
+means of the old Mihonne. It was a secret, which, if skilfully managed,
+would bring him in a handsome income.
+
+The few faint scruples he felt were silenced by the thought of an old
+age spent in poverty. After the price of the chateau was spent, to what
+could he look forward? Beggary.
+
+“But first of all,” he thought, “I must ascertain the truth of the old
+woman’s story; then I will decide upon a plan.”
+
+This was why, the next day, after receiving the five thousand two
+hundred and eighty francs from Fougeroux, Louis de Clameran set out for
+London.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+During the twenty years of her married life, Valentine had experienced
+but one real sorrow; and this was one which, in the course of nature,
+must happen sooner or later.
+
+In 1859 her mother caught a violent cold during one of her frequent
+journeys to Paris, and, in spite of every attention which money could
+procure, she became worse, and died.
+
+The countess preserved her faculties to the last, and with her dying
+breath said to her daughter:
+
+“Ah, well! was I not wise in prevailing upon you to bury the past? Your
+silence has made my old age peaceful and happy, and I now thank you for
+having done your duty to yourself and to me. You will be rewarded on
+earth and in heaven, my dear daughter.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel constantly said that, since the loss of her mother, she had
+never had cause to shed a tear.
+
+And what more could she wish for? As years rolled on, Andre’s love
+remained steadfast; he was as devoted a husband as the most exacting
+woman could wish. To his great love was added that sweet intimacy which
+results from long conformity of ideas and unbounded confidence.
+
+Everything prospered with this happy couple. Andre was twice as wealthy
+as he had ever hoped to be even in his wildest visions; every wish of
+Valentine was anticipated by Andre; their two sons, Lucien and Abel,
+were handsome, intelligent young men, whose honorable characters
+and graceful bearing reflected credit upon their parents, who had so
+carefully watched over their education.
+
+Nothing seemed wanting to insure Valentine’s felicity. When her husband
+and sons were at their business, her solitude was cheered by the
+intelligent, affectionate companionship of a young girl whom she loved
+as her own daughter, and who in return filled the place of a devoted
+child.
+
+Madeleine was M. Fauvel’s niece, and when an infant had lost both
+parents, who were poor but very worthy people. Valentine begged to adopt
+the babe, thinking she could thus, in a measure, atone for the desertion
+of the poor little creature whom she had abandoned to strangers.
+
+She hoped that this good work would bring down the blessings of God upon
+her.
+
+The day of the little orphan’s arrival, M. Fauvel invested for her ten
+thousand francs, which he presented to Madeleine as her dowry.
+
+The banker amused himself by increasing this ten thousand francs in the
+most marvellous ways. He, who never ventured upon a rash speculation
+with his own money, always invested it in the most hazardous schemes,
+and was always so successful, that at the end of fifteen years the ten
+thousand francs had become half a million.
+
+People were right when they said that the Fauvel family were to be
+envied.
+
+Time had dulled the remorse and anxiety of Valentine. In the
+genial atmosphere of a happy home, she had found rest, and almost
+forgetfulness. She had suffered so much at being compelled to deceive
+Andre that she hoped she was now at quits with fate.
+
+She began to look forward to the future, and her youth seemed buried
+in an impenetrable mist, and was, as it were, the memory of a painful
+dream.
+
+Yes, she believed herself saved, and her very feeling of security made
+the impending danger more fearful in its shock.
+
+One rainy November day, her husband had gone to Provence on business.
+She was sitting, gazing into the bright fire, and thankfully meditating
+upon her present happiness, when the servant brought her a letter, which
+had been left by a stranger, who refused to give his name.
+
+Without the faintest presentiment of evil, she carelessly broke the
+seal, and in an instant was almost petrified by the words which met her
+terrified eye:
+
+
+“MADAME--Would it be relying too much upon the memories of the past to
+hope for half an hour of your time?
+
+“To-morrow, between two and three, I will do myself the honor of calling
+upon you.
+
+“THE MARQUIS OF CLAMERAN.”
+
+
+Fortunately, Mme. Fauvel was alone.
+
+Trembling like a leaf, she read the letter over and over again, as if
+to convince herself that she was not the victim of a horrible
+hallucination.
+
+Half a dozen times, with a sort of terror, she whispered that name once
+so dear--Clameran! spelling it aloud as if it were a strange name which
+she could not pronounce. And the eight letters forming the name seemed
+to shine like the lightning which precedes a clap of thunder.
+
+Ah! she had hoped and believed that the fatal past was atoned for,
+and buried in oblivion; and now it stood before her, pitiless and
+threatening.
+
+Poor woman! As if all human will could prevent what was fated to be!
+
+It was in this hour of security, when she imagined herself pardoned,
+that the storm was to burst upon the fragile edifice of her happiness,
+and destroy her every hope.
+
+A long time passed before she could collect her scattered thoughts
+sufficiently to decide upon a course of conduct.
+
+Then she began to think she was foolish to be so frightened. This
+letter was written by Gaston, of course; therefore she need feel no
+apprehension. Gaston had returned to France, and wished to see her. She
+could understand this desire, and she knew too well this man, upon whom
+she had lavished her young affection, to attribute any bad motives to
+his visit.
+
+He would come; and finding her the wife of another, the mother of grown
+sons, they would exchange thoughts of the past, perhaps a few regrets;
+she would restore the jewels which she had faithfully kept for him; he
+would assure her of his lifelong friendship, and--that would be all.
+
+But one distressing doubt beset her agitated mind. Should she conceal
+from Gaston the birth of his son?
+
+To confess was to expose herself to many dangers. It was placing herself
+at the mercy of a man--a loyal, honorable man to be sure--confiding
+to him not only her own peace, honor, and happiness, but the honor and
+happiness of her family, of her noble husband and loving sons.
+
+Still silence would be a crime. She had abandoned her child, denied him
+the cares and affection of a mother; and now should she add to her sin
+by depriving him of the name and fortune of his father?
+
+She was still undecided when the servant announced dinner.
+
+But she had not the courage to meet the glance of her sons. She sent
+word that she was not well, and would not be down to dinner. For the
+first time in her life she rejoiced at her husband’s absence.
+
+Madeleine came hurrying into her aunt’s room to see what was the matter;
+but Valentine dismissed her, saying she would try to sleep off her
+indisposition.
+
+She wished to be alone in her trouble, and see if she could decide upon
+some plan for warding off this impending ruin.
+
+The dreaded morrow came.
+
+She counted the hours until two o’clock. After that, she counted the
+minutes.
+
+At half-past two the servant announced:
+
+“M. the Marquis of Clameran.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel had promised herself to be calm, even cold. During a long,
+sleepless night, she had mentally arranged beforehand every detail of
+this painful meeting. She had even decided upon what she should say.
+She would reply this, and ask that; her words were all selected, and her
+speech ready.
+
+But, at the dreaded moment, her strength gave way; she turned as cold as
+marble, and could not rise from her seat; she was speechless, and, with
+a frightened look, silently gazed upon the man who respectfully bowed,
+and stood in the middle of the room.
+
+Her visitor was about fifty years of age, with iron-gray hair and
+mustache, and a cold, severe cast of countenance; his expression was one
+of haughty severity as he stood there in his full suit of black.
+
+The agitated woman tried to discover in his face some traces of the
+man whom she had so madly loved, who had pressed her to his heart, and
+besought her to remain faithful until he should return from a foreign
+land, and lay his fortune at her feet--the father of her son.
+
+She was surprised to discover no resemblance to the youth whose memory
+had haunted her life; no, never would she have recognized this stranger
+as Gaston.
+
+As he continued to stand motionless before her, she faintly murmured:
+
+“Gaston!”
+
+He sadly shook his head, and replied:
+
+“I am not Gaston, madame. My brother succumbed to the misery and
+suffering of exile: I am Louis de Clameran.”
+
+What! it was not Gaston, then, who had written to her; it was not Gaston
+who stood before her!
+
+She trembled with terror; her head whirled, and her eyes grew dim.
+
+It was not he! And she had committed herself, betrayed her secret by
+calling him “Gaston.”
+
+What could this man want?--this brother in whom Gaston had never
+confided? What did he know of the past?
+
+A thousand probabilities, each one more terrible than the other, flashed
+across her brain.
+
+Yet she succeeded in overcoming her weakness so that Louis scarcely
+perceived it.
+
+The fearful strangeness of her situation, the very imminence of peril,
+inspired her with coolness and self-possession.
+
+Haughtily pointing to a chair, she said to Louis with affected
+indifference:
+
+“Will you be kind enough, monsieur, to explain the object of this
+unexpected visit?”
+
+The marquis, seeming not to notice this sudden change of manner, took a
+seat without removing his eyes from Mme. Fauvel’s face.
+
+“First of all, madame,” he began, “I must ask if we can be overheard by
+anyone?”
+
+“Why this question? You can have nothing to say to me that my husband
+and children should not hear.”
+
+Louis shrugged his shoulders, and said:
+
+“Be good enough to answer me, madame; not for my sake, but for your
+own.”
+
+“Speak, then, monsieur; you will not be heard.”
+
+In spite of this assurance, the marquis drew his chair close to the sofa
+where Mme. Fauvel sat, so as to speak in a very low tone, as if almost
+afraid to hear his own voice.
+
+“As I told you, madame, Gaston is dead; and it was I who closed his
+eyes, and received his last wishes. Do you understand?”
+
+The poor woman understood only too well, but was racking her brain to
+discover what could be the purpose of this fatal visit. Perhaps it was
+only to claim Gaston’s jewels.
+
+“It is unnecessary to recall,” continued Louis, “the painful
+circumstances which blasted my brother’s life. However happy your own
+lot has been, you must sometimes have thought of this friend of your
+youth, who unhesitatingly sacrificed himself in defence of your honor.”
+
+Not a muscle of Mme. Fauvel’s face moved; she appeared to be trying to
+recall the circumstances to which Louis alluded.
+
+“Have you forgotten, madame?” he asked with bitterness: “then I must
+explain more clearly. A long, long time ago you loved my unfortunate
+brother.”
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Ah, it is useless to deny it, madame: I told you that Gaston confided
+everything to me--everything,” he added significantly.
+
+But Mme. Fauvel was not frightened by this information. This
+“everything” could not be of any importance, for Gaston had gone abroad
+in total ignorance of her secret.
+
+She rose, and said with an apparent assurance she was far from feeling:
+
+“You forget, monsieur, that you are speaking to a woman who is now
+advanced in life, who is married, and who has grown sons. If your
+brother loved me, it was his affair, and not yours. If, young and
+ignorant, I was led into imprudence, it is not your place to remind me
+of it. This past which you evoke I buried in oblivion twenty years ago.”
+
+“Thus you have forgotten all that happened?”
+
+“Absolutely all; everything.”
+
+“Even your child, madame?”
+
+This question, uttered in a sneer of triumph, fell upon Mme. Fauvel like
+a thunder-clap. She dropped tremblingly into her seat, murmuring:
+
+“My God! How did he discover it?”
+
+Had her own happiness alone been at stake, she would have instantly
+thrown herself upon a Clameran’s mercy. But she had her family to
+defend, and the consciousness of this gave her strength to resist him.
+
+“Do you wish to insult me, monsieur?” she asked.
+
+“Do you pretend to say you have forgotten Valentin-Raoul?”
+
+She saw that this man did indeed know all. How? It little mattered. He
+certainly knew; but she determined to deny everything, even the most
+positive proofs, if he should produce them.
+
+For an instant she had an idea of ordering the Marquis of Clameran
+to leave the house; but prudence stayed her. She thought it best to
+discover how much he really knew.
+
+“Well,” she said with a forced laugh, “will you be kind enough to state
+what you wish with me?”
+
+“Certainly, madame. Two years ago the vicissitudes of exile took my
+brother to London. There, at the house of a friend, he met a young man
+by the name of Raoul. Gaston was so struck by the youth’s appearance and
+intelligence, that he inquired who he was, and discovered that beyond a
+doubt this boy was his son, and your son, madame.”
+
+“This is quite a romance you are relating.”
+
+“Yes, madame, a romance the denouement of which is in your hands. Your
+mother certainly used every precaution to conceal your secret; but the
+best-laid plans always have some weak point. After your marriage, one of
+your mother’s London friends came to Tarascon, and spread the report
+of what had taken place at the English village. This lady also revealed
+your true name to the nurse who was bringing up the child. Thus
+everything was discovered by my brother, who had no difficulty in
+obtaining the most positive proofs of the boy’s parentage.”
+
+Louis closely watched Mme. Fauvel’s face to see the effect of his words.
+
+To his astonishment she betrayed not the slightest agitation or alarm;
+she was smiling as if entertained by the recital of his romance.
+
+“Well, what next?” she asked carelessly.
+
+“Then, madame, Gaston acknowledged the child. But the Clamerans are
+poor; my brother died on a pallet in a lodging-house; and I have only
+an income of twelve hundred francs to live upon. What is to become of
+Raoul, alone with no relations or friends to assist him? My brother’s
+last moments were embittered by anxiety for the welfare of his child.”
+
+“Really, monsieur----”
+
+“Allow me to finish,” interrupted Louis. “In that supreme hour Gaston
+opened his heart to me. He told me to apply to you. ‘Valentine,’ said
+he, ‘Valentine will remember the past, and will not let our son want for
+anything; she is wealthy, she is just and generous; I die with my mind
+at rest.’”
+
+Mme. Fauvel rose from her seat, and stood, evidently waiting for her
+visitor to retire.
+
+“You must confess, monsieur,” she said, “that I have shown great
+patience.”
+
+This imperturbable assurance amazed Louis.
+
+“I do not deny,” she continued, “that I at one time possessed the
+confidence of M. Gaston de Clameran. I will prove it by restoring to you
+your mother’s jewels, with which he intrusted me on his departure.”
+
+While speaking she took from beneath the sofa-cushion the purse of
+jewels, and handed it to Louis.
+
+“These jewels would have been given to the owner the instant they
+were called for, monsieur, and I am surprised that your brother never
+reclaimed them.”
+
+Louis betrayed his astonishment at the sight of the jewels. He tried to
+cover his embarrassment by boldly saying:
+
+“I was told not to mention this sacred trust.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel, without making any reply, laid her hand on the bell-rope
+and quietly said:
+
+“You will allow me to end this interview, monsieur, which was only
+granted for the purpose of placing in your hands these precious jewels.”
+
+Thus dismissed, M. de Clameran was obliged to take his leave without
+attaining his object.
+
+“As you will, madame,” he said, “I leave you; but before doing so I
+must tell you the rest of my brother’s dying injunctions: ‘If Valentine
+disregards the past, and refuses to provide for our son, I enjoin it
+upon you to compel her to do her duty.’ Meditate upon these words,
+madame, for what I have sworn to do, upon my honor, shall be done!”
+
+At last Mme. Fauvel was alone. She could give vent to her despair.
+
+Exhausted at her efforts at self-restraint during the presence of
+Clameran, she felt weary and crushed in body and spirit.
+
+She had scarcely strength to drag herself up to her chamber, and lock
+the door.
+
+Now there was no room for doubt; her fears had become realities. She
+could fathom the abyss into which she was about to be hurled, and knew
+that in her fall she would drag her family with her.
+
+God alone, in this hour of danger, could help her, could save her from
+destruction. She prayed.
+
+“Oh, my God!” she cried, “punish me for my great sin, and I will
+evermore adore thy chastising hand! I have been a bad daughter, an
+unworthy mother, and a perfidious wife. Smite me, oh, God, and only me!
+In thy just anger spare the innocent, have pity upon my husband and my
+children!”
+
+What were her twenty years of happiness compared to this hour of misery?
+A bitter remorse; nothing more. Ah, why did she listen to her mother?
+Why had she committed moral suicide?
+
+Hope had fled; despair had come.
+
+This man who had left her presence with a threat upon his lips would
+return to torture her now. How could she escape him?
+
+To-day she had succeeded in subduing her heart and conscience; would she
+again have the strength to master her feelings?
+
+She well knew that her calmness and courage were entirely due to the
+inaptness of Clameran.
+
+Why did he not use entreaties instead of threats?
+
+When Louis spoke of Raoul, she could scarcely conceal her emotion; her
+maternal heart yearned toward the innocent child who was expiating his
+mother’s faults.
+
+A chill of horror passed over her at the idea of his enduring the pangs
+of hunger.
+
+Her child wanting bread, when she, his mother, was rolling in wealth!
+
+Ah, why could she not lay all her possessions at his feet? With what
+delight would she undergo the greatest privations for his sake! If she
+could but send him enough money to support him comfortably!
+
+But no; she could not take this step without compromising herself and
+her family.
+
+Prudence forbade her acceptance of the intervention of Louis de
+Clameran.
+
+To confide in him, was placing herself, and all she held dear, at his
+mercy--at the mercy of a man who inspired her with instinctive terror.
+
+Then she began to ask herself if he had spoken the truth, or had trumped
+up this story to frighten her?
+
+In thinking over Louis’s story, it seemed improbable and disconnected.
+
+If Gaston had been living in Paris, in the poverty described by his
+brother, why had he not demanded of the married woman the deposit
+intrusted to the maiden?
+
+Why, when anxious about the future of their child, had he not come to
+her, if he had such confidence in her generosity? If he intrusted her on
+his death-bed, why had he not shown this trust while living?
+
+A thousand vague apprehensions beset her mind; she felt suspicion and
+distrust of everyone and everything.
+
+She was aware that the time had come for her to take a decisive step,
+and upon this step depended her whole future peace and happiness. If she
+once yielded, what would not be exacted of her in the future? She would
+certainly be made to suffer if she refused to yield. If she had only
+some wise friend to advise her!
+
+For a moment she thought of throwing herself at her husband’s feet and
+confessing all.
+
+Unfortunately, she thrust aside this means of salvation. She pictured
+to herself the mortification and sorrow that her noble-hearted husband
+would suffer upon discovering, after a lapse of twenty years, how
+shamefully he had been deceived, how his confidence and love had been
+betrayed.
+
+Having been once deceived, would he ever trust her again? Would he
+believe in her fidelity as a wife, when he discovered that she had
+uttered her marriage vows to love and honor him, when her heart was
+already given to another?
+
+She knew Andre was too magnanimous to ever allude to her horrible fault,
+and would use every means to conceal it. But his domestic happiness
+would be gone forever. His chair at the fireside would be left empty;
+his sons would shun her presence, and every family bond would be
+severed.
+
+Then again, would peace be preserved by her silence? Would not Clameran
+end by betraying her to Andre?
+
+She thought of ending her doubts by suicide; but her death would not
+silence her implacable enemy, who, not being able to disgrace her while
+alive, would dishonor her memory.
+
+Fortunately, the banker was still absent; and, during the two days
+succeeding Louis’s visit, Mme. Fauvel could keep her room under pretence
+of sickness.
+
+But Madeleine, with her feminine instinct, saw that her aunt was
+troubled by something worse than nervous headache, for which the
+physician was prescribing all sorts of remedies, with no beneficial
+effect.
+
+She remembered that this sudden illness dated from the visit of the
+melancholy looking stranger, who had been closeted for a long time with
+her aunt.
+
+Madeleine supposed something was weighing upon the miserable woman’s
+mind, and the second day of her sickness ventured to say:
+
+“What makes you so sad, dear aunt? If you will not tell me, do let me
+bring our good cure to see you.”
+
+With a sharpness foreign to her nature, which was gentleness itself,
+Mme. Fauvel refused to assent to her niece’s proposition.
+
+What Louis calculated upon happened.
+
+After long reflection, not seeing any issue to her deplorable situation,
+Mme. Fauvel determined to yield.
+
+By consenting to everything demanded of her, she had a chance of saving
+her husband from suffering and disgrace.
+
+She well knew that to act thus was to prepare a life of torture for
+herself; but she alone would be the victim, and, at any rate, she would
+be gaining time. Heaven might at last interpose, and save her from ruin.
+
+In the meantime, M. Fauvel had returned home, and Valentine resumed her
+accustomed duties.
+
+But she was no longer the happy mother and devoted wife, whose smiling
+presence was wont to fill the house with sunshine and comfort. She was
+melancholy, anxious, and at times irritable.
+
+Hearing nothing of Clameran, she expected to see him appear at any
+moment; trembling at every knock, and turning pale when a strange step
+was heard to enter, she dared not leave the house, for fear he should
+come during her absence.
+
+Her agony was like that of a condemned man, who, each day as he wakes
+from his uneasy slumber, asks himself, “Am I to die to-day?”
+
+Clameran did not come; he wrote, or rather, as he was too prudent to
+furnish arms which could be used against him, he had a note written,
+which Mme. Fauvel alone might understand, in which he said that he was
+quite ill, and unable to call upon her; and hoped she would be so good
+as to come to his room the next day; she had only to ask for 317, Hotel
+du Louvre.
+
+The letter was almost a relief for Mme. Fauvel. Anything was preferable
+to suspense. She was ready to consent to everything.
+
+She burned the letter, and said, “I shall go.”
+
+The next day at the appointed hour, she dressed herself in a plain black
+silk, a large bonnet which concealed her face, and, putting a thick veil
+in her pocket to be used if she found it necessary, started forth.
+
+After hurriedly walking several squares, she thought she might, without
+fear of being recognized, call a coach. In a few minutes she was set
+down at the Hotel du Louvre. Here her uneasiness increased. Her circle
+of acquaintances being large, she was in terror of being recognized.
+What would her friends think if they saw her at the Hotel du Louvre
+disguised in this old dress?
+
+Anyone would naturally suspect an intrigue, a rendezvous; and her
+character would be ruined forever.
+
+This was the first time since her marriage that she had had occasion for
+mystery; and her efforts to escape notice were in every way calculated
+to attract attention.
+
+The porter said that the Marquis of Clameran’s rooms were on the third
+floor.
+
+She hurried up the stairs, glad to escape the scrutinizing glances of
+several men standing near; but, in spite of the minute directions given
+by the porter, she lost her way in one of the long corridors of the
+hotel.
+
+Finally, after wandering about for some time, she found a door bearing
+the number sought--317.
+
+She stood leaning against the wall with her hand pressed to her
+throbbing heart, which seemed bursting.
+
+Now, at the moment of risking this decisive step, she felt paralyzed
+with fright. She would have given all she possessed to find herself safe
+in her own home.
+
+The sight of a stranger entering the corridor ended her hesitation.
+
+With a trembling hand she knocked at the door.
+
+“Come in,” said a voice from within.
+
+She entered the room.
+
+It was not the Marquis of Clameran who stood in the middle of the
+room, but a young man, almost a youth, who bowed to Mme. Fauvel with a
+singular expression on his handsome face.
+
+Mme. Fauvel thought that she had mistaken the room.
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur,” she said, blushing deeply. “I thought that this
+was the Marquis of Clameran’s room.”
+
+“It is his room, madame,” replied the young man; then, seeing she was
+silent and about to leave, he added:
+
+“I presume I have the honor of addressing Mme. Fauvel?”
+
+She bowed affirmatively, shuddering at the sound of her own name,
+frightened at this proof of Clameran’s betrayal of her secret to a
+stranger.
+
+With visible anxiety she awaited an explanation.
+
+“Reassure yourself, madame,” said the young man: “you are as safe here
+as if you were in your own house. M. de Clameran desired me to make his
+excuses; he will not have the honor of seeing you to-day.”
+
+“But, monsieur, from an urgent letter sent by him yesterday, I was led
+to suppose--to infer--that he----”
+
+“When he wrote to you, madame, he had projects in view which he has
+since renounced.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was too agitated and troubled to think clearly. Beyond the
+present she could see nothing.
+
+“Do you mean,” she asked with distrust, “that he has changed his
+intentions?”
+
+The young man’s face was expressive of sad compassion, as if he shared
+the sufferings of the unhappy woman before him.
+
+“The marquis has renounced,” he said, in a melancholy tone, “what he
+wrongly considered a sacred duty. Believe me, he hesitated a long time
+before he could decide to apply to you on a subject painful to you
+both. When he began to explain his apparent intrusion upon your private
+affairs, you refused to hear him, and dismissed him with indignant
+contempt. He knew not what imperious reasons dictated your conduct.
+Blinded by unjust anger, he swore to obtain by threats what you refused
+to give voluntarily. Resolved to attack your domestic happiness, he had
+collected overwhelming proofs against you. Pardon him: an oath given to
+his dying brother bound him.
+
+“These convincing proofs,” he continued, as he tapped his finger on a
+bundle of papers which he had taken from the mantel, “this evidence that
+cannot be denied, I now hold in my hand. This is the certificate of the
+Rev. Dr. Sedley; this is the declaration of Mrs. Dobbin, the farmer’s
+wife; and these others are the statements of the physician and of
+several persons of high social position who were acquainted with Mme. de
+la Verberie during her stay in London. Not a single link is missing. I
+had great difficulty in getting these papers away from M. de Clameran.
+Had he anticipated my intention of thus disposing of them, they would
+never have been surrendered to my keeping.”
+
+As he finished speaking, the young man threw the bundle of papers into
+the fire where they blazed up; and in a moment nothing remained of them
+but a little heap of ashes.
+
+“All is now destroyed, madame,” he said, with a satisfied air. “The
+past, if you desire it, is as completely annihilated as those papers.
+If anyone, thereafter, dares accuse you of having had a son before your
+marriage, treat him as a vile calumniator. No proof against you can be
+produced; none exists. You are free.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel began to understand the sense of this scene; the truth
+dawned upon her bewildered mind.
+
+This noble youth, who protected her from the anger of De Clameran, who
+restored her peace of mind and the exercise of her own free will, by
+destroying all proofs of her past, was, must be, the child whom she had
+abandoned: Valentin-Raoul.
+
+In an instant, all was forgotten save the present. Maternal tenderness,
+so long restrained, now welled up and overflowed as with intense emotion
+she murmured:
+
+“Raoul!”
+
+At this name, uttered in so thrilling a tone, the youth started and
+tottered, as if overcome by an unhoped-for happiness.
+
+“Yes, Raoul,” he cried, “Raoul, who would a thousand times rather die
+than cause his mother a moment’s pain; Raoul, who would shed his life’s
+blood to spare her one tear.”
+
+She made no attempt to struggle against nature’s yearnings; her longing
+to clasp to her heart this long-pined-for first-born must be gratified
+at all costs.
+
+She opened her arms, and Raoul sprang forward with a cry of joy:
+
+“Mother! my blessed mother! Thanks be to God for this first kiss!”
+
+Alas! this was the sad truth. The deserted child had never been blest by
+a mother’s kiss. This dear son whom she had never seen before, had
+been taken from her, despite her prayers and tears, without a mother’s
+blessing, a mother’s embrace. After twenty years waiting, should it be
+denied him now?
+
+But joy so great, following upon so many contending emotions, was more
+than the excited mother could bear; she sank back in her chair almost
+fainting, and with distended eyes gazed in a bewildered, eager way upon
+her long-lost son, who was now kneeling at her feet.
+
+With tenderness she stroked the soft chestnut curls, and drank in the
+tenderness of his soft dark eyes, and expressive mouth, as he murmured
+words of filial affection in her craving ear.
+
+“Oh, mother!” he said, “words cannot describe my feelings of pain
+and anguish upon hearing that my uncle had dared to threaten you. He
+threaten you! He repents already of his cruelty; he did not know you as
+I do. Yes, my mother, I have known you for a long, long time. Often have
+my father and I hovered around your happy home to catch a glimpse of you
+through the window. When you passed by in your carriage, he would say
+to me, ‘There is your mother, Raoul!’ To look upon you was our greatest
+joy. When we knew you were going to a ball, we would wait near the door
+to see you enter, in your satin and diamonds. How often have I followed
+your fast horses to see you descend from the carriage and enter wealthy
+doors, which I could never hope to penetrate! And how my noble father
+loved you always! When he told his brother to apply to you in my behalf,
+he was unconscious of what he said; his mind was wandering.”
+
+Tears, the sweetest tears she had ever shed, coursed down Mme. Fauvel’s
+cheeks, as she listened to the musical tones of Raoul’s voice.
+
+This voice was so like Gaston’s, that she seemed once more to be
+listening to the lover of her almost forgotten youth.
+
+She was living over again those stolen meetings, those long hours of
+bliss, when Gaston was at her side, as they sat and watched the river
+rippling beneath the trees.
+
+It seemed only yesterday that Gaston had pressed her to his faithful
+heart; she saw him still saying gently:
+
+“In three years, Valentine! Wait for me!”
+
+Andre, her two sons, Madeleine, all were forgotten in this new-found
+affection.
+
+Raoul continued in tender tones:
+
+“Only yesterday I discovered that my uncle had been to demand for me a
+few crumbs of your wealth. Why did he take such a step? I am poor, it is
+true, very poor; but I am too familiar with poverty to bemoan it. I have
+a clear brain and willing hands: that is fortune enough for a young man.
+You are very rich. What is that to me? Keep all your fortune, my beloved
+mother; but do not repel my affection; let me love you. Promise me
+that this first kiss shall not be the last. No one will ever know of
+my new-found happiness; not by word or deed will I do aught to let the
+world suspect that I possess this great joy.”
+
+And Mme. Fauvel had dreaded this son! Ah, how bitterly did she now
+reproach herself for not having flown to meet him the instant she heard
+that he was living!
+
+She questioned him regarding the past; she wished to know how he had
+lived, what he had been doing.
+
+He replied that he had nothing to conceal; his existence had been that
+of every poor boy, who had nothing to look forward to but a life of
+labor and privation.
+
+The farmer’s wife who had brought him up was a kind-hearted woman,
+and had always treated him with affection. She had even given him an
+education superior to his condition in life, because, as she always
+said, he would make himself a great name, and attain to wealth, if he
+were taught.
+
+When about sixteen years of age, she procured him a situation in a
+banking-house; and he was getting a salary, which, though small, was
+enough to support him and supply a few luxuries for his adopted mother.
+
+One day a stranger came to him and said:
+
+“I am your father: come with me.”
+
+Since then nothing was wanting to his happiness, save a mother’s
+tenderness. He had suffered but one great sorrow, and that was the day
+when Gaston de Clameran, his father, had died in his arms.
+
+“But now,” he said, “all is forgotten, that one sorrow is forgotten in
+my present happiness. Now that I see you and possess your love, I forget
+the past, and ask for nothing more.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was oblivious of the lapse of time, and was startled when
+Raoul exclaimed:
+
+“Why, it is seven o’clock!”
+
+Seven o’clock! What would her family think of this long absence? Her
+husband must be even now awaiting dinner.
+
+“Shall I see you again, mother?” asked Raoul in a beseeching tone, as
+they were about to separate.
+
+“Oh, yes!” she replied, fondly, “yes, often; every day, to-morrow.”
+
+But now, for the first time since her marriage, Mme. Fauvel perceived
+that she was not mistress of her actions. Never before had she had
+occasion to wish for uncontrolled liberty.
+
+She left her heart and soul behind her in the Hotel du Louvre, where she
+had just found her son. She was compelled to leave him, to undergo the
+intolerable agony of composing her face to conceal this great happiness,
+which had changed her whole life and being. She was angry with fate
+because she could not remain with her first-born son.
+
+Having some difficulty in procuring a carriage, it was half-past seven
+before she reached the Rue de Provence, when she found the family
+waiting for her.
+
+She thought her husband silly, and even vulgar, when he joked her upon
+letting her poor children starve to death, while she was promenading the
+boulevards.
+
+So strange are the sudden effects of a new passion, that she regarded
+almost with contempt this unbounded confidence reposed in her.
+
+She replied to his jest with a forced calmness, as if her mind were
+really as free and undisturbed as it had been before Clameran’s visit.
+
+So intoxicated had been her sensations while with Raoul, that in her joy
+she was incapable of desiring anything else, of dreaming of aught save
+the renewal of these delightful emotions.
+
+No longer was she a devoted wife, an affectionate mother to this
+household which looked up to her as though she were a superior being.
+She took no interest in the two sons who were a short while since her
+chief pride and joy. They had always been petted and indulged in every
+way; they had a father, they were rich; whist the other, the other! oh,
+how much reparation was due to him!
+
+She almost regarded her family as responsible for Raoul’s sufferings, so
+blinded was she in her devotion to her martyr, as she called him.
+
+Her folly was complete. No remorse for the past, no apprehensions for
+the future, disturbed the satisfied present. To her the future was
+to-morrow; eternity was the sixteen hours which must elapse before
+another interview.
+
+She seemed to think that Gaston’s death absolved the past, and changed
+the present.
+
+Her sole regret was her marriage. Free, with no family ties, she could
+have consecrated herself exclusively to Raoul. How gladly would she have
+sacrificed her affluence to enjoy poverty with him!
+
+She felt no fear that her husband and sons would suspect the thoughts
+which absorbed her mind; but she dreaded her niece.
+
+She imagined that Madeleine looked at her strangely on her return from
+the Hotel du Louvre. She must suspect something; but did she suspect the
+truth?
+
+For several days she asked embarrassing questions, as to where her aunt
+went, and with whom she had been during these long absences from home.
+
+This disquietude and seeming curiosity changed the affection which Mme.
+Fauvel had hitherto felt for her adopted daughter into positive dislike.
+
+She regretted having placed over herself a vigilant spy from whom she
+could not escape. She pondered what means she could take to avoid the
+penetrating watchfulness of a girl who was accustomed to read in her
+face every thought that crossed her mind.
+
+With unspeakable satisfaction she solved the difficulty in a way which
+she thought would please all parties.
+
+During the last two years the banker’s cashier and _protege_, Prosper
+Bertomy, had been devoted in his attentions to Madeleine. Mme. Fauvel
+decided to do all in her power to hasten matters, so that, Madeleine
+once married and out of the house, there would be no one to criticise
+her own movements. She could then spend most of her time with Raoul
+without fear of detection.
+
+That evening, with a duplicity of which she would have been incapable a
+few weeks before, she began to question Madeleine about her sentiments
+toward Prosper:
+
+“Ah, ha, mademoiselle,” she said, gayly, “I have discovered your secret.
+You are going on at a pretty rate! The idea of your choosing a husband
+without my permission!”
+
+“Why, aunt! I thought you----”
+
+“Yes, I know; you thought I had suspected the true state of affairs!
+That is precisely what I have done.”
+
+Then, in a serious tone, she said:
+
+“Therefore nothing remains to be done except to obtain the consent of
+Master Prosper. Do you think he will grant it?”
+
+“Oh, Aunt Valentine! he would be too happy.”
+
+“Ah, indeed! you seem to know all about it; perhaps you do not care for
+any assistance in carrying out your wishes?”
+
+Madeleine, blushing and confused, hung her head, and said nothing. Mme.
+Fauvel drew her toward her, and continued affectionately:
+
+“My dear child, do not be distressed: you have done nothing wrong, and
+need fear no opposition to your wishes. Is it possible that a person of
+your penetration supposed us to be in ignorance of your secret? Did you
+think that Prosper would have been so warmly welcomed by your uncle and
+myself, had we not approved of him in every respect?”
+
+Madeleine threw her arms around her aunt’s neck, and said:
+
+“Oh, my dear aunt, you make me so happy! I am very grateful for your
+love and kindness. I am very glad that you are pleased with my choice.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel said to herself:
+
+“I will make Andre speak to Prosper, and before two months are over the
+marriage must take place. Madeleine once married, I shall have nothing
+to fear.”
+
+Unfortunately, Mme. Fauvel was so engrossed by her new passion that she
+put off from day to day her project of hastening the marriage, until it
+was too late. Spending a portion of each day at the Hotel du Louvre with
+Raoul, and, when separated from him, devoting her thoughts to insuring
+him an independent fortune and a good position, she could think of
+nothing else.
+
+She had not yet spoken to him of money or business.
+
+She imagined that she had discovered in him his father’s noble
+qualities; that the sensitiveness which is so easily wounded was
+expressed in his every word and action.
+
+She anxiously wondered if he would ever accept the least assistance from
+her. The Marquis of Clameran quieted her doubts on this point.
+
+She had frequently met him since the day on which he had so frightened
+her, and to her first aversion had succeeded a secret sympathy. She felt
+kindly toward him for the affection he lavished on her son.
+
+If Raoul, with the heedlessness of youth, mocked at the future, Louis,
+the man of the world, looked upon it with different eyes. He was anxious
+for the welfare of his nephew, and constantly complained of the idle
+life he was now leading.
+
+One day, after praising the attractive qualities of Raoul, he said:
+
+“This pleasant life is very well, as long as it lasts; but people cannot
+live upon air, and, as my handsome nephew has no fortune, it would be
+only prudent for us to procure him some employment.”
+
+“Ah, my dear uncle, do let me enjoy my present happiness. What is the
+use of any change? What do I want?”
+
+“You want for nothing at present, Raoul; but when your resources are
+exhausted, and mine, too--which will be in a short time--what will
+become of you?”
+
+“_Bast!_ I will enter the army. All the Clamerans are born soldiers; and
+if a war comes----”
+
+Mme. Fauvel laid her hand upon his lips, and said in a tone of
+reproachful tenderness:
+
+“Cruel boy, become a soldier? would you, then, deprive me of the joy of
+seeing you?”
+
+“No, my mother; no.”
+
+“You must agree to whatever plans we make for your good,” said Louis;
+“and not be talking of any wild schemes of your own.”
+
+“I am ready to obey; but not yet. One of these days I will go to work,
+and make a fortune.”
+
+“How, poor, foolish boy? What can you do?”
+
+“_Dame!_ I don’t know now; but set your mind at rest, I will find a
+way.”
+
+Finding it impossible to make this self-sufficient youth listen to
+reason, Louis and Mme. Fauvel, after discussing the matter fully,
+decided that assistance must be forced upon him, and his path in life
+marked out for him.
+
+It was difficult, however, to choose a profession; and Clameran thought
+it prudent to wait awhile, and study the bent of the young man’s mind.
+In the meanwhile it was decided that Mme. Fauvel should place funds at
+Clameran’s disposal for Raoul’s support.
+
+Regarding Gaston’s brother in the light of a father to her child, Mme.
+Fauvel soon found him indispensable. She continually longed to see
+him, either to consult him concerning some step to be taken for Raoul’s
+benefit, or to impress upon him some good advice to be given.
+
+Thus she was well pleased, when one day he requested the honor of being
+allowed to call upon her at her own house.
+
+Nothing was easier than to introduce the Marquis of Clameran to her
+husband as an old friend of her family; and, after once being admitted,
+he might come as often as he chose.
+
+Mme. Fauvel congratulated herself upon this arrangement.
+
+Afraid to go to Raoul every day, and in constant terror lest her letters
+to him should be discovered, and his replies fall into her husband’s
+hands, she was delighted at the prospect of having news of him from
+Clameran.
+
+For a month, things went on very smoothly, when one day the marquis
+confessed that Raoul was giving him a great deal of trouble. His
+hesitating, embarrassed manner frightened Mme. Fauvel. She thought
+something dreadful had happened, and that he was trying to break the bad
+news gently.
+
+“What is the matter?” she said, turning pale.
+
+“I am sorry to say,” replied Clameran, “that this young man has
+inherited all the pride and passions of his ancestors. He is one
+of those natures who stop at nothing, who only find incitement in
+opposition; and I can think of no way of checking him in his mad
+career.”
+
+“Merciful Heaven! what has he been doing?”
+
+“Nothing especially censurable; that is, nothing irreparable, thus far;
+but I am afraid of the future. He is unaware of the liberal allowance
+which you have placed in my hands for his benefit; and, although he
+thinks that I support him, there is not a single indulgence which
+he denies himself; he throws away money as if he were the son of a
+millionaire.”
+
+Like all mothers, Mme. Fauvel attempted to excuse her son.
+
+“Perhaps you are a little severe,” she said. “Poor child, he has
+suffered so much! He has undergone so many privations during his
+childhood, that this sudden happiness and wealth has turned his head;
+he seizes it as a starving man seizes a piece of bread. Is it surprising
+that he should refuse to listen to reason until hungry nature shall have
+been gratified? Ah, only have patience, and he will soon return to
+the path of sober duty. He has too noble a heart to do anything really
+wrong.”
+
+“He has suffered so much!” was Mme. Fauvel’s constant excuse for Raoul.
+This was her invariable reply to M. de Clameran’s complaints of his
+nephew’s conduct.
+
+And, having once commenced, he was now constant in his accusations
+against Raoul.
+
+“Nothing restrains his extravagance and dissipation,” Louis would say in
+a mournful voice; “the instant a piece of folly enters his head, it is
+carried out, no matter at what cost.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel saw no reason why her son should be thus harshly judged.
+
+“You must remember,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “that from infancy
+he has been left to his own unguided impulses. The unfortunate boy never
+had a mother to tend and counsel him. You must remember, too, that he
+has never known a father’s guidance.”
+
+“There is some excuse for him, to be sure; but nevertheless he must
+change his present course. Could you not speak seriously to him, madame?
+You have more influence over him than I.”
+
+She promised, but forgot her good resolution when with Raoul. She had
+so little time to devote to him, that it seemed cruel to spend it in
+reprimands. Sometimes she would hurry from home for the purpose of
+following the marquis’s advice; but, the instant she saw Raoul, her
+courage failed; a pleading look from his soft, dark eyes silenced the
+rebuke upon her lips; the sound of his voice banished every anxious
+thought, and lulled her mind to the present happiness.
+
+But Clameran was not a man to lose sight of the main object, in what he
+considered a sentimental wasting of time. He would have no compromise of
+duty.
+
+His brother had bequeathed to him, as a precious trust, his son Raoul;
+he regarded himself, he said, as his guardian, and would be held
+responsible in another world for his welfare.
+
+He entreated Mme. Fauvel to use her influence, when he found himself
+powerless in trying to check the heedless youth in his headlong career.
+She ought, for the sake of her child, to see more of him, study his
+disposition, and daily admonish him in his duty to himself and to her.
+
+“Alas,” the poor woman replied, “that would be my heart’s desire. But
+how can I do it? Have I the right to ruin myself? I have other children,
+for whom I must be careful of my reputation.”
+
+This answer appeared to astonish Clameran. A fortnight before, Mme.
+Fauvel would not have alluded to her other sons.
+
+“I will think the matter over,” said Louis, “And perhaps when I see
+you next I shall be able to submit to you a plan which will reconcile
+everything.”
+
+The reflections of a man of so much experience could not be fruitless.
+He had a relieved, satisfied look, when he called to see Mme. Fauvel on
+the following week.
+
+“I think I have solved the problem,” he said.
+
+“What problem?”
+
+“The means of saving Raoul.”
+
+He explained himself by saying, that as Mme. Fauvel could not, without
+arousing her husband’s suspicions, continue her daily visits to Raoul,
+she must receive him at her own house.
+
+This proposition shocked Mme. Fauvel; for though she had been imprudent,
+even culpable, she was the soul of honor, and naturally shrank from the
+idea of introducing Raoul into the midst of her family, and seeing him
+welcomed by her husband, and perhaps become the friend of his sons.
+Her instinctive sense of justice made her declare that she would never
+consent to such an infamous step.
+
+“Yes,” said the marquis, thoughtfully, “there is some risk; but then, it
+is the only chance of saving your child.”
+
+She resisted with so much firmness and indignation that Louis was
+astonished, and for a time nonplussed; though he by no means let the
+subject drop, but seized every opportunity of impressing upon her
+tortured mind that Raoul’s salvation depended entirely upon her.
+
+“No,” she would always reply, “no! Never will I be so base and
+perfidious to my husband!”
+
+Unfortunate woman! little did she know of the pitfalls which stand ever
+ready to swallow up wanderers from the path of virtue.
+
+Before a week had passed, she listened to this project, which at first
+had filled her with horror, with a willing ear, and even began to devise
+means for its speedy execution.
+
+Yes, after a cruel struggle, she finally yielded to the pressure of
+Clameran’s politely uttered threats and Raoul’s wheedling entreaties.
+
+“But how,” she asked, “upon what pretext can I receive Raoul?”
+
+“It would be the easiest thing in the world,” replied Clameran, “to
+admit him as an ordinary acquaintance, and, indeed, to place him on
+the same footing which I myself occupy--that of an intimate friend and
+habitue of your drawing-rooms. But Raoul must have more than this; he
+needs your constant care.”
+
+After torturing Mme. Fauvel for a long time, he finally revealed his
+scheme.
+
+“We have in our hands,” he said, “the solution of this problem, which
+may be so easily reached that I regard it as an inspiration.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel eagerly scanned his face as she listened with the pitiable
+resignation of a martyr.
+
+“Have you not a cousin, a widow lady, who had two daughters, living at
+St. Remy?” asked Louis.
+
+“Yes, Mme. de Lagors.”
+
+“Precisely so. What fortune has she?”
+
+“She is poor, monsieur, very poor.”
+
+“And, but for the assistance you render her secretly, she would be
+thrown upon the charity of the world.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was bewildered at finding the marquis so well informed of
+her private affairs.
+
+“How could you have discovered this?” she asked.
+
+“Oh, I know all about this affair, and many others besides. I know, for
+example, that your husband has never met any of your relatives, and that
+he is not even aware of the existence of your cousin De Lagors. Do you
+begin to comprehend my plan?”
+
+She not only understood it, but also knew that she would end by being a
+party to it.
+
+“All will succeed if you follow my instructions,” said Louis. “To-morrow
+or next day, you will receive a letter from your cousin at St. Remy,
+telling you that she has sent her son to Paris on a visit, and begs you
+to receive and watch over him. Naturally you show this letter to your
+husband; and a few days afterward he warmly welcomes your nephew, Raoul
+de Lagors, a handsome, rich, attractive young man, who does everything
+he can to please you both.”
+
+“Monsieur,” replied Mme. Fauvel, “my cousin is a pious, honorable woman,
+and nothing would induce her to countenance so shameful a transaction.”
+
+The marquis smiled scornfully, and said:
+
+“Who told you that I intended to confide in her?”
+
+“But you would be obliged to do so! How else?”
+
+“You are very simple, madame. The letter which you will receive, and
+show to your husband, will be dictated by me, and posted at St. Remy
+by a friend of mine. If I spoke of the obligations under which you have
+placed your cousin, it was merely to show you that, in case of accident,
+her own interest would make her serve you. Do you see any obstacle to
+this plan, madame?”
+
+Mme. Fauvel’s eyes flashed with indignation.
+
+“Is my will of no account?” she exclaimed. “You seem to have made your
+arrangements without consulting me at all.”
+
+“Excuse me,” said the marquis, with ironical politeness, “but I knew
+that you would take the same view of the matter as myself. Your good
+sense would convince you of the necessity of using every possible means
+of rescuing your child from destruction.”
+
+“But it is a crime, monsieur, that you propose--an abominable crime! My
+mind revolts at the very idea of it!”
+
+This speech seemed to arouse all the bad passions slumbering in
+Clameran’s bosom; and his pale face had a fiendish expression as he
+fiercely replied:
+
+“We had better end this humbuggery, and come to a clear understanding at
+once. Before you begin to talk about crime, think over your past life.
+You were not so timid and scrupulous when you gave yourself up to your
+lover; neither did you hesitate to faithlessly refuse to share his
+exile, although for your sake he had just jeopardized his life by
+killing two men. You felt no scruples at abandoning your child in
+London; although rolling in wealth, you never even inquired if this poor
+waif had bread to eat. You felt no scruples about marrying M. Fauvel.
+Did you tell your confiding husband of the lines of shame concealed
+beneath that orange wreath? Did you hesitate to confirm and strengthen
+his happy delusion, that his lips had pressed the first kiss upon your
+brow? No! All these crimes you indulged in; and, when in Gaston’s name
+I demand reparation, you indignantly refuse. But, mark my words, madame,
+it is too late! You ruined the father; but you shall save the son, or,
+by all the saints in heaven, I swear you shall no longer cheat the world
+of its esteem.”
+
+“I will obey you, monsieur,” murmured the trembling, frightened woman.
+
+The following week Raoul, now Raoul de Lagors, was seated at the
+banker’s dinner-table, between Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+It was not without the most painful suffering and self-condemnation that
+Mme. Fauvel submitted to the will of the pitiless Marquis of Clameran.
+
+She had used every argument and entreaty to soften him; but he merely
+looked upon her with a triumphant, sneering smile, when she knelt at his
+feet, implored him to be merciful and spare her the shame and remorse
+of committing another crime. Spare her this torture, and she would grant
+anything else he wished, give Raoul all she possessed while alive, and
+insure him a handsome competency after her death.
+
+Alas! neither tears nor prayers moved him. Disappointed, and almost
+desperate, she sought the intercession of her son.
+
+Raoul was in a state of furious indignation at the sight of his mother’s
+distress, and hastened to demand an apology from Clameran.
+
+But he had reckoned without his host. He soon returned with downcast
+eyes, and moodily angry at his own powerlessness, declaring that safety
+demanded a complete surrender to the tyrant.
+
+Now only did the wretched woman fully fathom the abyss into which she
+was being dragged, and clearly see the labyrinth of crime of which she
+was becoming the victim.
+
+And all this suffering was the consequence of a fault, an interview
+granted to Gaston. Ever since that fatal day she had been vainly
+struggling against the implacable logic of events. Her life had been
+spent in trying to overcome the past, and now it had risen to crush her.
+
+The hardest thing of all to do, the act that most wrung her heart, was
+showing to her husband the forged letter from St. Remy, and saying that
+she expected to see her rich young nephew in a day or two. ‘Tis hard to
+deceive those who trust and love us.
+
+But words cannot paint the torture she endured on the evening that she
+introduced Raoul to her family, and saw the honest banker cordially
+shake hands with this nephew of whom he had never heard before, and
+affectionately say to him:
+
+“I am not surprised that a rich young fellow like yourself should prefer
+Paris to St. Remy, and nothing will give me more pleasure than your
+visit; for I seldom have an opportunity of welcoming a relative of my
+dear wife, for whose sake I take an interest in everyone coming from St.
+Remy.”
+
+Raoul exerted his utmost to deserve this warm reception.
+
+If his early education had been neglected, and he lacked those delicate
+refinements of manner and conversation which home influence imparts, his
+superior tact concealed these defects.
+
+He possessed the happy faculty of reading characters, and adapting his
+conversation to the minds of his listeners.
+
+Before a week had gone by, he was a favorite with M. Fauvel, intimate
+with Abel and Lucien, and inseparable from Prosper Bertomy, the cashier,
+who spent all his evenings with the banker’s family.
+
+Charmed at the favorable impression made by Raoul, Mme. Fauvel recovered
+comparative ease of mind, and at times almost congratulated herself
+upon having obeyed the marquis, as she saw all around her contented and
+happy. Once more she began to hope that peace had not deserted her, that
+God had forgiven her.
+
+Alas! she rejoiced too soon.
+
+Raoul’s intimacy with his cousins threw him among a set of rich young
+men, whose extravagance he not only imitated, but surpassed. He daily
+grew more dissipated and reckless. Gambling, racing, expensive suppers,
+made money slip through his fingers like grains of sand.
+
+This proud young man, whose sensitive delicacy not long since made
+him refuse to accept aught save affection from his mother, now never
+approached her without demanding large sums of money.
+
+At first she gave with pleasure, not stopping to count the rolls of
+notes she would eagerly run to bring him. But as he each time increased
+his demands, until they finally reached a sum far larger than she
+could bestow, her eyes were opened to the ruinous effects of her lavish
+generosity.
+
+This rich woman, whose magnificent diamonds, elegant toilets, and
+superb equipages were the admiration and envy of Paris, now suffered
+the keenest torture. She had no more money to give her son; and what
+so pains the female heart as being unable to gratify the wishes of a
+beloved being?
+
+Her husband never thought of giving her a fixed sum for the year’s
+expenses, or of asking how she disposed of her money. The day after the
+wedding he gave her a key to his secretary, and told her, that what was
+his was hers, to use as she thought best. And, ever since, she had been
+in the habit of freely taking all the money necessary for keeping up the
+hospitable, elegant house over which she so gracefully presided; for her
+own dress, and many charitable purposes that the world never knew of.
+
+But the fact of her having always been so modest in her personal
+expenses that her husband used to jestingly say that he was afraid she
+would end by being a miser; and her judicious, well-regulated management
+of household expenditures, causing her to spend much the same amount
+each year--prevented her now being able to dispose of large sums,
+without giving rise to embarrassing questions.
+
+M. Fauvel, the most generous of millionaires, delighted to see his
+wife indulge in any extravagance, no matter how foolish; but he would
+naturally expect to see traces of the money spent, something to show for
+it.
+
+The banker might suddenly discover that double the usual amount of
+money was used in the house; and, if he should ask the cause of this
+astonishing outlay, what answer could she give?
+
+In three months, Raoul had squandered a little fortune. In the first
+place, he was obliged to have bachelor’s apartments, prettily furnished,
+and a handsome outfit from a fashionable tailor, besides the thousand
+little things indispensable to a society man; he must have a blooded
+horse and a coupe. His doting mother felt it her duty to give him these
+luxuries, when her other sons were enjoying everything of the sort,
+besides many other advantages of which her poor Raoul was deprived.
+But each day the extravagance of his fancies increased, and Mme. Fauvel
+began to be alarmed when his demands far exceeded her ability to gratify
+them.
+
+When she would gently remonstrate, Raoul’s beautiful eyes would fill
+with tears, and in a sad, humble tone he would say:
+
+“Alas! you are right to refuse me this gratification. What claim have I?
+I must not forget that I am only the poor son of Valentine, not the rich
+banker’s child!”
+
+This touching repentance wrung her heart, so that she always ended by
+granting him more than he had asked for. The poor boy had suffered
+so much that it was her duty to console him, and atone for her past
+neglect.
+
+She soon discovered that he was jealous and envious of his two
+brothers--for, after all, they were his brothers--Abel and Lucien.
+
+“You never refuse them anything,” he would resentfully say: “they were
+fortunate enough to enter life by the golden gate. Their every wish
+is gratified; they enjoy wealth, position, home affection, and have a
+splendid future awaiting them.”
+
+“But what is lacking to your happiness, my son? Have you not everything
+that money can give? and are you not first in my affections?” asked his
+distressed mother.
+
+“What do I want? Apparently nothing, in reality everything. Do I possess
+anything legitimately? What right have I to your affection, to the
+comforts and luxuries you heap upon me, to the name I bear? Is not my
+life an extortion, my very birth a fraud?”
+
+When Raoul talked in this strain, she would weep, and overwhelm him with
+caresses and gifts, until she imagined that every jealous thought was
+vanished from his mind.
+
+As spring approached, she told Raoul she designed him to spend the
+summer in the country, near her villa at St. Germain. She wanted to have
+him with her all the time, and this was the only way of gratifying her
+wish. She was surprised to find her proposal readily acquiesced in. In
+a few days he told her he had rented a little house at Vesinet, and
+intended having his furniture moved into it.
+
+“Then, just think, dear mother, what a happy summer we will spend
+together!” he said, with beaming eyes.
+
+She was delighted for many reasons, one of which was that the expenses
+of the prodigal son would necessarily be lessened. Anxiety as to the
+exhausted state of her finances made her bold enough to chide him at the
+dinner-table one day for having lost two thousand francs at the races
+that morning.
+
+“You are severe, my dear,” said M. Fauvel with the carelessness of a
+rich man, who considered this sum a mere trifle. “Mamma Lagors won’t
+object to footing his bills; mammas are created for the special purpose
+of paying bills.”
+
+And, not observing that his wife had turned pale at these jocular words,
+he turned to Raoul, and added:
+
+“Don’t disturb yourself about a small sum like this, my boy; when you
+want money, come to me.”
+
+What could Mme. Fauvel say? Had she not followed Clameran’s orders, and
+told her husband that Raoul was wealthy? She could not go now and tell
+him that he would never recover any money which he lent to a penniless
+spendthrift.
+
+Why had she been made to tell this unnecessary lie?
+
+She suspected the snare laid for her; but now it was too late to escape
+it: struggles would only more deeply entangle her in its meshes.
+
+The banker’s offer was soon accepted. That same week Raoul went to his
+uncle’s bank, and boldly borrowed ten thousand francs.
+
+When Mme. Fauvel heard of this piece of audacity, she wrung her hands in
+despair.
+
+“What can he want with so much money?” she moaned to herself: “what
+wicked extravagance is it for?” For some time Clameran had kept away
+from Mme. Fauvel’s house. She decided to write and ask him to come and
+advise her as to what steps should be taken to check Raoul.
+
+She hoped that this energetic, determined man, who was so fully awake
+to his duties as a guardian and an uncle, would make Raoul listen to
+reason, and instantly refund the borrowed money.
+
+When Clameran heard what his graceless nephew had done, his surprise and
+anger were unbounded. He expressed so much indignation against Raoul,
+that Mme. Fauvel was frightened at the storm she had raised, and began
+to make excuses for her son.
+
+While they were discussing the matter, Raoul came in, and a violent
+altercation ensued between him and Clameran.
+
+But the suspicions of Mme. Fauvel were aroused; she watched them, and it
+seemed to her--could it be possible--that their anger was feigned; that,
+although they abused and even threatened each other in the bitterest
+language, their eyes twinkled with amusement.
+
+She dared not breathe her doubts; but, like a subtle poison which
+disorganizes everything with which it comes in contact, this new
+suspicion filled her thoughts, and added to her already intolerable
+sufferings.
+
+Yet she never once thought of blaming Raoul; nor for a moment did she
+feel displeased with her idolized son. She accused the marquis of taking
+advantage of the youthful weakness and inexperience of his nephew.
+
+She knew that she would have to suffer insolence and extortion from this
+man who had her completely in his power; but she could not imagine what
+object he now had in view, for she plainly saw that he was aiming
+at something more than his nephew’s success in life. He constantly
+concealed some plan to benefit himself at her expense; but assuredly her
+darling Raoul could not be an accomplice in any plot to harass her.
+
+Clameran himself soon cleared her mind of all doubts.
+
+One day, after complaining more bitterly than usual of Raoul, and
+proving to Mme. Fauvel that it was impossible for this state of affairs
+to continue much longer, and a catastrophe was inevitable, he would up
+by saying there was one means of salvation left.
+
+This was that he, Clameran, must marry Madeleine!
+
+Mme. Fauvel was prepared for almost any base proposal save this one. She
+knew that his cupidity and insolence stopped at nothing, but never did
+she imagine he would have the wild presumption to aspire to Madeleine’s
+hand.
+
+If she had renounced all hope of happiness for herself, if she consented
+to the sacrifice of her own peace of mind, it was because she thus hoped
+to insure the undisturbed felicity of her household, of her husband,
+whom she had sinned against.
+
+This unexpected declaration shocked her, and for a moment she was
+speechless.
+
+“Do you suppose for an instant, monsieur,” she indignantly exclaimed,
+“that I will consent to any such disgraceful project? Sacrifice
+Madeleine, and to you!”
+
+“I certainly do suppose so, madame; in fact, I am certain of it,” he
+answered with cool insolence.
+
+“What sort of a woman do you think I am, monsieur? Alas, I am to
+eternally suffer for a fault committed twenty years ago; have I not
+already been more than adequately punished? And does it become you to
+be constantly reproaching me with my long-past imprudence? You have no
+right to be thus harassing me, till I dare not say my life is my own!
+Your power is at an end, and God only knows how deeply I regret having
+been insane enough to yield to its base sway! So long as I alone was
+to be the tool, you found me weak and timid; but, now that you seek the
+ruin of those I love, I rebel against your usurped authority. I have
+still a little conscience left, and nothing under heaven will force me
+to sacrifice my gentle, pure-hearted Madeleine!”
+
+“May I inquire, madame, why you regard Mlle. Madeleine’s becoming the
+Marchioness of Clameran as a disgrace and a sacrifice?”
+
+“My niece chose, of her own free will, a husband whom she will shortly
+marry. She loves M. Prosper Bertomy.”
+
+The marquis disdainfully shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“A school-girl love-affair,” said he; “she will forget all about it, if
+you wish her to do so.”
+
+“I do not wish it. I wish her to marry him.”
+
+“Listen to me,” he replied, in the low, suppressed tone of a man trying
+to control himself: “let us not waste time in these idle discussions.
+Hitherto you have always commenced by protesting against my proposed
+plans, and in the end acknowledge the good sense and justness of my
+arguments; now, for once why not yield without going through with the
+customary preliminaries? I ask it as a favor.”
+
+“Never,” said Mme. Fauvel, “never will I yield.”
+
+Clameran paid no attention to this interruption, but went on:
+
+“I insist upon this marriage, mainly on your account, although it will
+enable me to re-establish my own affairs, as well as yours and Raoul’s.
+Of course you see that the allowance you give your son is insufficient
+for his extravagant style of living. The time approaches when, having
+nothing more to give him, you will have to encroach upon your husband’s
+money-drawer to such an extent that longer concealment will be
+impossible. When that day comes what is to be done? Perhaps you have
+some feasible plan of escape?”
+
+Mme. Fauvel shuddered. The dreadful day of discovery could not be far
+off, and no earthly way was there to escape it.
+
+The marquis went on:
+
+“Assist me now, and, instead of having to make a shameful confession,
+you will thank me for having saved you. Mlle. Madeleine is rich: her
+dowry will enable me to supply the deficiency, and spare you all further
+anxiety about Raoul.”
+
+“I would rather be ruined than be saved by such means.”
+
+“But I will not permit you to ruin us all. Remember, madame, that we are
+associated in a common cause, the future welfare of Raoul; and, although
+you have a right to rush upon destruction yourself, you certainly shall
+not drag us with you.”
+
+“Cease your importunities,” she said, looking him steadily in the eye.
+“I have made up my mind irrevocably.”
+
+“To what?”
+
+“To do everything and anything to escape your shameful persecution.
+Oh! you need not smile. I shall throw myself at M. Fauvel’s feet, and
+confess everything. He is noble-hearted and generous, and, knowing how I
+have suffered, will forgive me.”
+
+“Do you think so?” said Clameran derisively.
+
+“You mean to say that he will be pitiless, and banish me from his roof.
+So be it; it will only be what I deserve. There is no torture that I
+cannot bear, after what I have suffered through you.”
+
+This inconceivable resistance so upset all the marquis’s plans that he
+lost all constraint, and, dropping the mask of politeness, appeared in
+his true character.
+
+“Indeed!” he said in a fierce, brutal tone, “so you have decided to
+confess to your loving, magnanimous husband! A famous idea! What a
+pity you did not think of it before; it is rather late to try it now.
+Confessing everything the first day I called on you, you might have been
+forgiven. Your husband might have pardoned a youthful fault atoned for
+by twenty years of irreproachable conduct; for none can deny that you
+have been a faithful wife and a good mother. But picture the indignation
+of your trusting husband when you tell him that this pretended nephew,
+whom you imposed upon his family circle, who sat at his table, who
+borrowed his money, is your illegitimate son! M. Fauvel is, no doubt,
+an excellent, kind-hearted man; but I scarcely think he will pardon a
+deception of this nature, which betrays such depravity, duplicity, and
+audacity.”
+
+All that the angry marquis said was horribly true; yet Mme. Fauvel
+listened unflinchingly, as if the coarse cruelty of his words
+strengthened her resolution to have nothing more to do with him, but to
+throw herself on her husband’s mercy.
+
+“Upon my soul,” he went on, “you must be very much infatuated with this
+M. Bertomy! Between the honor of your husband’s name, and pleasing
+this love-sick cashier, you refuse to hesitate. Well, I suppose he will
+console you. When M. Fauvel divorces you, and Abel and Lucien avert
+their faces at your approach, and blush at being your sons, you will be
+able to say, ‘I have made Prosper happy!’”
+
+“Happen what may, I shall do what is right,” said Mme. Fauvel.
+
+“You shall do what I say!” cried Clameran, threateningly. “Do you
+suppose that I will allow your sentimentality to blast all my hopes?
+I shall tolerate no such folly, madame, I can assure you. Your niece’s
+fortune is indispensable to us, and, more than that--I love the fair
+Madeleine, and am determined to marry her.”
+
+The blow once struck, the marquis judged it prudent to await the result.
+With cool politeness, he continued:
+
+“I will leave you now, madame, to think the matter over, and you cannot
+fail to view it in the same light as I do. You had better take my
+advice, and consent to this sacrifice of prejudice, as it will be the
+last required of you. Think of the honor of your family, and not of your
+niece’s love-affair. I will return in three days for your answer.”
+
+“Your return is unnecessary, monsieur: I shall tell my husband
+everything to-night.”
+
+If Mme. Fauvel had not been so agitated herself, she would have detected
+an expression of alarm upon Clameran’s face.
+
+But this uneasiness was only momentary. With a shrug, which meant, “Just
+as you please,” he said:
+
+“I think you have sense enough to keep your secret.”
+
+He bowed ceremoniously, and left the room, but slammed the front door
+after him so violently as to prove that his restrained anger burst forth
+before leaving the house.
+
+Clameran had cause for fear. Mme. Fauvel’s determination was not
+feigned. She was firm in her resolve to confess.
+
+“Yes,” she cried, with the enthusiasm of a noble resolution, “yes, I
+will tell Andre everything!”
+
+She believed herself to be alone, but turned around suddenly at the
+sound of footsteps, and found herself face to face with Madeleine, who
+was pale and swollen-eyed with weeping.
+
+“You must obey this man, aunt,” she quietly said.
+
+Adjoining the parlor was a little card-room separated only by a heavy
+silk curtain, instead of a door.
+
+Madeleine was sitting in this little room when the marquis arrived, and,
+as there was no egress save through the parlor, had remained, and thus
+overheard the conversation.
+
+“Good Heaven!” cried Mme. Fauvel with terror, “do you know----”
+
+“I know everything, aunt.”
+
+“And you wish me to sacrifice you to this fiend?”
+
+“I implore you to let me save you from misery.”
+
+“You certainly despise and hate M. de Clameran; how can you think I
+would let you marry him?”
+
+“I do despise him, aunt, and shall always regard him as the basest of
+men; nevertheless I will marry him.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was overcome by the magnitude of this devotion.
+
+“And what is to become of Prosper, my poor child--Prosper, whom you
+love?”
+
+Madeleine stifled a sob, and said in a firm voice:
+
+“To-morrow I will break off my engagement with M. Bertomy.”
+
+“I will never permit such a wrong,” cried Mme. Fauvel. “I will not add
+to my sins by suffering an innocent girl to bear their penalty.”
+
+The noble girl sadly shook her head, and replied:
+
+“Neither will I suffer dishonor to fall upon this house, which is my
+home, while I have power to prevent it. Am I not indebted to you for
+more than life? What would I now be had you not taken pity on me? A
+factory girl in my native village. You warmly welcomed the poor orphan,
+and became a mother to her. Is it not to your husband that I owe the
+fortune which excites the cupidity of this wicked Clameran? Are not Abel
+and Lucien brothers to me? And now, when the happiness of all who have
+been loving and generous to me is at stake, do you suppose I would
+hesitate? No. I will become the wife of Clameran.”
+
+Then began a struggle of self-sacrifice between Mme. Fauvel and her
+niece, as to which should be the victim; only the more sublime, because
+each offered her life to the other, not from any sudden impulse, but
+deliberately and willingly.
+
+But Madeleine carried the day, fired as she was by that holy enthusiasm
+of sacrifice which is the sustaining element of martyrs.
+
+“I am responsible to none but myself,” said she, well knowing this to be
+the most vulnerable point she could attack; “whilst you, dear aunt, are
+accountable to your husband and children. Think of the pain and sorrow
+of M. Fauvel if he should learn the truth; it would kill him.”
+
+The generous girl was right. She knew her uncle’s heart.
+
+After having sacrificed her husband to her mother, Mme. Fauvel was about
+to immolate her husband and children for Raoul.
+
+As a general thing, a first fault draws many others in its train. As an
+impalpable flake is the beginning of an avalanche, so an imprudence is
+often the prelude to a great crime.
+
+To false situations there is but one safe issue: truth.
+
+Mme. Fauvel’s resistance grew weaker and more faint, as her niece
+pointed out the line for her to pursue: the path of wifely duty.
+
+“But,” she faintly argued, “I cannot accept your sacrifice. What sort of
+a life will you lead with this man?”
+
+“We can hope for the best,” replied Madeleine with a cheerfulness she
+was far from feeling; “he loves me, he says; perhaps he will be kind to
+me.”
+
+“Ah, if I only knew where to obtain money! It is money that the grasping
+man wants; money alone will satisfy him.”
+
+“Does he not want it for Raoul? Has not Raoul, by his extravagant
+follies, dug an abyss which must be bridged over by money? If I could
+only believe M. de Clameran!”
+
+Mme. Fauvel looked at her niece with bewildered curiosity.
+
+What! this inexperienced girl had weighed the matter in its different
+lights before deciding upon a surrender; whereas, she, a wife and a
+mother, had blindly yielded to the inspirations of her heart!
+
+“What do you mean? Madeleine, what do you suspect?”
+
+“I mean this, aunt: that I do not believe that Clameran has any thought
+of his nephew’s welfare. Once in possession of my fortune, he may leave
+you and Raoul to your fates. And there is another dreadful suspicion
+that tortures my mind.”
+
+“A suspicion?”
+
+“Yes, and I would reveal it to you, if I dared; if I did not fear that
+you--”
+
+“Speak!” insisted Mme. Fauvel. “Alas! misfortune has given me strength
+to bear all things. There is nothing worse than has already happened. I
+am ready to hear anything.”
+
+Madeleine hesitated; she wished to enlighten her credulous aunt, and yet
+hesitated to distress her.
+
+“I would like to be certain,” she said, “that some secret understanding
+between M. de Clameran and Raoul does not exist. Do you not think they
+are acting a part agreed upon for the purpose of extorting money?”
+
+Love is blind and deaf. Mme. Fauvel would not remember the laughing
+eyes of the two men, upon the occasion of the pretended quarrel in her
+presence. Infatuation had drowned suspicion. She could not, she would
+not, believe in such hypocrisy. Raoul plot against the mother? Never!
+
+“It is impossible,” she said, “the marquis is really indignant and
+distressed at his nephew’s mode of life, and he certainly would not
+countenance any disgraceful conduct. As to Raoul, he is vain, trifling,
+and extravagant; but he has a good heart. Prosperity has turned his
+head, but he loves me still. Ah, if you could see and hear him, when
+I reproach him for his faults, your suspicions would fly to the winds.
+When he tearfully promises to be more prudent, and never again give me
+trouble, he means to keep his word; but perfidious friends entice
+him away, and he commits some piece of folly without thinking of the
+consequences.”
+
+Mothers always blame themselves and everyone else for the sins of their
+sons. The innocent friends come in for the principal share of censure,
+each mother’s son leading the other astray.
+
+Madeleine had not the heart to undeceive her aunt.
+
+“God grant that what you say may be true,” she said; “if so, this
+marriage will not be useless. We will write to M. de Clameran to-night.”
+
+“Why to-night, Madeleine? We need not hurry so. Let us wait a little;
+something else might happen to save us.”
+
+These words, this confidence in chance, in a mere nothing, revealed
+Mme. Fauvel’s true character, and accounted for her troubles. Timid,
+hesitating, easily swayed, she never could come to a firm decision, form
+a resolution, and abide by it, in spite of all arguments brought to
+bear against it. In the hour of peril she would always shut her eyes and
+trust to chance for a relief which never came. Never once did she think
+to ward off trouble by her own exertions.
+
+Quite different was Madeleine’s character. Beneath her gentle timidity
+lay a strong, self-reliant will. Once decided upon what was right and
+just, nothing could change her. If it was her duty to make a sacrifice,
+it was to be carried out to the letter; no hesitation and sighs for
+what might have been; she shut out all deceitful illusions, and walked
+straight forward without one look back.
+
+“We had better end the matter at once, dear aunt,” she said, in a
+gentle, but firm tone. “Believe me, the reality of misfortune is not as
+painful as its apprehension. You cannot bear the shocks of sorrow, and
+delusive hopes of happiness, much longer. Do you know what anxiety of
+mind has done to you? Have you looked in the mirror during the last four
+months?”
+
+She led her aunt up to the glass, and said:
+
+“Look at yourself.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was indeed a mere shadow of her former self.
+
+She had reached the perfidious age when a woman’s beauty, like a
+full-blown rose, fades in a day.
+
+Four months of trouble had made her an old woman. Sorrow had stamped its
+fatal seal upon her brow. Her fair, soft skin was wrinkled, her golden
+hair was streaked with silver, and her large, soft eyes had a painfully
+frightened look.
+
+“Do you not agree with me,” continued Madeleine, pityingly, “that peace
+of mind is necessary to you? Do you not see that you are a wreck of your
+former self? It is a miracle that M. Fauvel has not noticed this sad
+change in you!”
+
+Mme. Fauvel, who flattered herself that she had displayed wonderful
+dissimulation, shook her head.
+
+“Alas, my poor aunt! you think you concealed your secret from all: you
+may have blinded my uncle, but I suspected all along that something
+dreadful was breaking your heart.”
+
+“You suspected what, Madeleine? Not the truth?”
+
+“No, I was afraid--Oh, pardon an unjust suspicion, my dear aunt, but I
+was wicked enough to suppose----”
+
+She stopped, too distressed to finish her sentence; then, making a
+painful effort, she added, as her aunt signed to her to go on:
+
+“I was afraid that perhaps you loved another man than my uncle; it was
+the only construction that I could put upon your strange conduct.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel buried her face, and groaned. Madeleine’s suspicion was, no
+doubt, entertained by others.
+
+“My reputation is gone,” she moaned.
+
+“No, dear aunt, no; do not be alarmed about that. No one has had
+occasion to observe you as I have; it was only a dreadful thought which
+penetrated my mind in spite of my endeavors to dispel it. Have courage:
+we two can fight the world and silence our enemies. You shall be saved,
+aunt: only trust in me.”
+
+The Marquis of Clameran was agreeably surprised that evening by
+receiving a letter from Mme. Fauvel, saying that she consented to
+everything, but must have a little time to carry out the plan.
+
+Madeleine, she said, could not break off her engagement with M. Bertomy
+in a day. M. Fauvel would make objections, for he had an affection for
+Prosper, and had tacitly approved of the match. It would be wiser to
+leave to time the smoothing away of certain obstacles which a sudden
+attack might render insurmountable.
+
+A line from Madeleine, at the bottom of the letter, assured him that she
+fully concurred with her aunt.
+
+Poor girl! she did not spare herself. The next day she took Prosper
+aside, and forced from him the fatal promise to shun her in the
+future, and to take upon himself the responsibility of breaking their
+engagement.
+
+He implored Madeleine to at least explain the reason of this banishment,
+which destroyed all of his hopes for happiness.
+
+She quietly replied that her peace of mind and honor depended upon his
+blind obedience to her will.
+
+He left her with death in his soul.
+
+As he went out of the house, the marquis entered.
+
+Yes, he had the audacity to come in person, to tell Mme. Fauvel that,
+now he had the promise of herself and Madeleine, he would consent to
+wait awhile.
+
+He himself saw the necessity of patience, knowing that he was not liked
+by the banker.
+
+Having the aunt and niece on his side, or rather in his power, he was
+certain of success. He said to himself that the moment would come when a
+deficit impossible to be paid would force them to hasten the wedding.
+
+Raoul did all he could to bring matters to a crisis.
+
+Mme. Fauvel went sooner than usual to her country seat, and Raoul at
+once moved into his house at Vesinet. But living in the country did not
+lessen his expenses.
+
+Gradually he laid aside all hypocrisy, and now only came to see his
+mother when he wanted money; and his demands were frequent and more
+exorbitant each time.
+
+As for the marquis, he prudently absented himself, awaiting the
+propitious moment.
+
+At the end of three weeks he met the banker at a friend’s, and was
+invited to dinner the next day.
+
+Twenty people were seated at the table; and, as the dessert was being
+served, the banker suddenly turned to Clameran and said:
+
+“I have a piece of news for you, monsieur. Have you any relatives of
+your name?”
+
+“None that I know of, monsieur.”
+
+“I am surprised. About a week ago, I became acquainted with another
+Marquis of Clameran.”
+
+Although so hardened by crime, impudent enough to deny anything,
+Clameran was so taken aback that he sat with pale face and a blank look,
+silently staring at M. Fauvel.
+
+But he soon recovered enough self-control to say hurriedly:
+
+“Oh, indeed! That is strange. A Clameran may exist; but I cannot
+understand the title of marquis.”
+
+M. Fauvel was not sorry to have the opportunity of annoying a guest
+whose aristocratic pretensions had often piqued him.
+
+“Marquis or not,” he replied, “the Clameran in question seems to be able
+to do honor to the title.”
+
+“Is he rich?”
+
+“I have reason to suppose that he is very wealthy. I have been notified
+to collect for him four hundred thousand francs.”
+
+Clameran had a wonderful faculty of self-control; he had so schooled
+himself that his face never betrayed what was passing in his mind. But
+this news was so startling, so strange, so pregnant of danger, that his
+usual assurance deserted him.
+
+He detected a peculiar look of irony in the banker’s eye.
+
+The only persons who noticed this sudden change in the marquis’s matter
+were Madeleine and her aunt. They saw him turn pale, and exchange a
+meaning look with Raoul.
+
+“Then I suppose this new marquis is a merchant,” said Clameran after a
+moment’s pause.
+
+“That I don’t know. All that I know is, that four hundred thousand
+francs are to be deposited to his account by some ship-owners at Havre,
+after the sale of the cargo of a Brazilian ship.”
+
+“Then he comes from Brazil?”
+
+“I do not know, but I can give you his Christian name.”
+
+“I would be obliged.”
+
+M. Fauvel arose from the table, and brought from the next room a
+memorandum-book, and began to read over the names written in it.
+
+“Wait a moment,” he said, “let me see--the 22nd, no, it was later than
+that. Ah, here it is: Clameran, Gaston. His name is Gaston, monsieur.”
+
+But this time Louis betrayed no emotion or alarm; he had had sufficient
+time to recover his self-possession, and nothing could not throw him off
+his guard.
+
+“Gaston?” he queried, carelessly. “I know who he is now. He must be the
+son of my father’s sister, whose husband lived at Havana. I suppose,
+upon his return to France, he must have taken his mother’s name, which
+is more sonorous than his father’s, that being, if I recollect aright,
+Moirot or Boirot.”
+
+The banker laid down his memorandum-book, and, resuming his seat, went
+on:
+
+“Boirot or Clameran,” said he, “I hope to have the pleasure of inviting
+you to dine with him before long. Of the four hundred thousand francs
+which I was ordered to collect for him, he only wishes to draw one
+hundred, and tells me to keep the rest on running account. I judge from
+this that he intends coming to Paris.”
+
+“I shall be delighted to make his acquaintance.”
+
+Clameran broached another topic, and seemed to have entirely forgotten
+the news told him by the banker.
+
+Although apparently engrossed in the conversation of his neighbor at the
+table, he closely watched Mme. Fauvel and her niece.
+
+He saw that they were unable to conceal their agitation, and stealthily
+exchanged significant looks.
+
+Evidently the same terrible idea had crossed their minds.
+
+Madeleine seemed more nervous and startled than her aunt. When M. Fauvel
+uttered Gaston’s name, she saw Raoul begin to draw back in his chair and
+glance in a frightened manner toward the window, like a detected thief
+looking for means of escape.
+
+Raoul, less experienced than his uncle, was thoroughly discountenanced.
+He, the original talker, the lion of a dinner-party, never at a loss
+for some witty speech, was now perfectly dumb; he sat anxiously watching
+Louis.
+
+At last the dinner ended, and as the guests passed into the
+drawing-room, Clameran and Raoul managed to remain last in the
+dining-room.
+
+When they were alone, they no longer attempted to conceal their anxiety.
+
+“It is he!” said Raoul.
+
+“I have no doubt of it.”
+
+“Then all is lost; we had better make our escape.”
+
+But a bold adventurer like Clameran had no idea of giving up the ship
+till forced to do so.
+
+“Who knows what may happen?” he asked, thoughtfully. “There is hope yet.
+Why did not that muddle-headed banker tell us where this Clameran is to
+be found?”
+
+Here he uttered a joyful exclamation. He saw M. Fauvel’s memorandum-book
+lying on the table.
+
+“Watch!” he said to Raoul.
+
+Seizing the note-book, he hurriedly turned over the leaves, and, in an
+undertone, read:
+
+“Gaston, Marquis of Clameran, Oloron, Lower Pyrenees.”
+
+“Well, does finding out his address assist us?” inquired Raoul, eagerly.
+
+“It may save us: that is all. Let us return to the drawing-room; our
+absence might be observed. Exert yourself to appear unconcerned and gay.
+You almost betrayed us once by your agitation.”
+
+“The two women suspect something.”
+
+“Well, suppose they do?”
+
+“The best thing that we can do is escape; the sooner we leave Paris, the
+better.”
+
+“Do you think we should do any better in London? Don’t be so easily
+frightened. I am going to plant my batteries, and I warrant they will
+prove successful.”
+
+They joined the other guests. But, if their conversation had not been
+overheard their movements had been watched.
+
+Madeleine looked through the half-open door, and saw Clameran consulting
+her uncle’s note-book, and whispering to Raoul. But what benefit would
+she derive from this proof of the marquis’s villany? She knew now that
+he was plotting to obtain her fortune, and she would be forced to yield
+it to him; that he had squandered his brother’s fortune, and was now
+frightened at the prospect of having to account for it. Still this did
+not explain Raoul’s conduct. Why did he show such fear?
+
+Two hours later, Clameran was on the road to Vesinet with Raoul,
+explaining to him his plans.
+
+“It is my precious brother, and no mistake,” he said. “But that need not
+alarm you so easily, my lovely nephew.”
+
+“Merciful powers! Doesn’t the banker expect to see him any day? Is he
+not liable to pounce down on me to-morrow?”
+
+“Don’t be an idiot!” interrupted Clameran. “Does he know that Fauvel
+is Valentine’s husband? That is what we must find out. If he knows that
+little fact, we must take to our heels; if he is ignorant of it, our
+case is not desperate.”
+
+“How will you find out?”
+
+“By simply asking him.”
+
+Raoul exclaimed at his ally’s cunning:
+
+“That is a dangerous thing to do,” he said.
+
+“‘Tis not as dangerous as sitting down with our hands folded. And, as to
+running away at the first suspicion of alarm, it would be imbecility.”
+
+“Who is going to look for him?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Oh, oh, oh!” exclaimed Raoul in three different tones. Clameran’s
+audacity confounded him.
+
+“But what am I going to do?” he inquired after a moment’s silence.
+
+“You will oblige me by remaining here and keeping quiet. I will send you
+a despatch if there is danger; and then you can decamp.”
+
+As they parted at Raoul’s door, Clameran said:
+
+“Now, remember. Stay here, and during my absence be very intimate at
+your devoted mother’s. Be the most dutiful of sons. Abuse me as much as
+you please to her; and, above all, don’t indulge in any folly; make no
+demands for money; keep your eyes open. Good-by. To-morrow evening I
+will be at Oloron talking with this new Clameran.”
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+After leaving Valentine de la Verberie, Gaston underwent great peril and
+difficulty in effecting his escape.
+
+But for the experienced and faithful Menoul, he never would have
+succeeded in embarking.
+
+Having left his mother’s jewels with Valentine, his sole fortune
+consisted of not quite a thousand francs; and with this paltry sum in
+his pocket, the murderer of two men, a fugitive from justice, and with
+no prospect of earning a livelihood, he took passage for Valparaiso.
+
+But Menoul was a bold and experienced sailor.
+
+While Gaston remained concealed in a farm-house at Camargue, Menoul went
+to Marseilles, and that very evening discovered, from some of his sailor
+friends, that a three-masted American vessel was in the roadstead, whose
+commander, Captain Warth, a not over-scrupulous Yankee, would be glad to
+welcome on board an able-bodied man who would be of assistance to him at
+sea.
+
+After visiting the vessel, and finding, during a conversation over
+a glass of rum with the captain, that he was quite willing to take a
+sailor without disturbing himself about his antecedents, Menoul returned
+to Gaston.
+
+“Left to my own choice, monsieur,” he said, “I should have settled this
+matter on the spot; but you might object to it.”
+
+“What suits you, suits me,” interrupted Gaston.
+
+“You see, the fact is, you will be obliged to work very hard. A sailor’s
+life is not boy’s play. You will not find much pleasure in it. And I
+must confess that the ship’s company is not the most moral one I ever
+saw. You never would imagine yourself in a Christian company. And the
+captain is a regular swaggering bully.”
+
+“I have no choice,” said Gaston. “Let us go on board at once.”
+
+Old Menoul’s suspicions were correct.
+
+Before Gaston had been on board the Tom Jones forty-eight hours, he saw
+that chance had cast him among a collection of the most depraved bandits
+and cut-throats.
+
+The vessel, which seemed to have recruited at all points of the compass,
+possessed a crew composed of every variety of thievish knaves; each
+country had contributed a specimen.
+
+But Gaston’s mind was undisturbed as to the character of the people with
+whom his lot was cast for several months.
+
+It was only his miserable wounded body, that the vessel was carrying
+to a new country. His heart and soul rested in the shady park of La
+Verberie, beside his lovely Valentine. He took no note of the men around
+him, but lived over again those precious hours of bliss beneath the old
+tree on the banks of the Rhone, where his beloved had confided her heart
+to his keeping, and sworn to love him forever.
+
+And what would become of her now, poor child, when he was no longer
+there to love, console, and defend her?
+
+Happily, he had no time for sad reflections.
+
+His every moment was occupied in learning the rough apprenticeship of a
+sailor’s life. All his energies were spent in bearing up under the heavy
+burden of labor allotted to him. Being totally unaccustomed to manual
+work, he found it difficult to keep pace with the other sailors, and for
+the first week or two he was often near fainting at his post, from sheer
+fatigue; but indomitable energy kept him up.
+
+This was his salvation. Physical suffering calmed and deadened his
+mental agony. The few hours relaxation granted him were spent in heavy
+sleep; the instant his weary body touched his bunk, his eyes closed, and
+no moment did he have to mourn over the past.
+
+At rare intervals, when the weather was calm, and he was relieved
+from his constant occupation of trimming the sails, he would anxiously
+question the future, and wonder what he should do when this irksome
+voyage was ended.
+
+He had sworn that he would return before the end of three years, rich
+enough to satisfy the exactions of Mme. de la Verberie. How should he be
+able to keep this boastful promise? Stern reality had convinced him
+that his projects could never be realized, except by hard work and
+long waiting. What he hoped to accomplish in three years was likely to
+require a lifetime.
+
+Judging from the conversation of his companions, he was not now on the
+road to fortune.
+
+The Tom Jones set sail for Valparaiso, but certainly went in a
+roundabout way to reach her destination.
+
+The real fact was, that Captain Warth proposed visiting the Gulf of
+Guinea.
+
+A friend of his, the “Black Prince,” he said, with a loud laugh, was
+waiting for him at Badagri, to exchange a cargo of “_ebony_” for some
+pipes of rum, and a hundred flint-lock muskets which were on board the
+Tom Jones.
+
+Gaston soon saw that he was serving his apprenticeship on a slaver, one
+of the many ships sent yearly by the free and philanthropic Americans,
+who made immense fortunes by carrying on the slave-trade.
+
+Although this discovery filled Gaston with indignation and shame, he was
+prudent enough to conceal his impressions.
+
+His remonstrances, no matter how eloquent, would have made no change in
+the opinions of Captain Warth regarding a traffic which brought him
+in more than a hundred per cent, in spite of the French and English
+cruisers, the damages, sometimes entire loss of cargoes, and many other
+risks.
+
+The crew admired Gaston when they learned that he had cut two men into
+mince-meat when they were insolent to him; this was the account of
+Gaston’s affair, as reported to the captain by old Menoul.
+
+Gaston wisely determined to keep on friendly terms with the villains, as
+long as he was in their power. To express disapproval of their conduct
+would have incurred the enmity of the whole crew, without bettering his
+own situation.
+
+He therefore kept quiet, but swore mentally that he would desert on the
+first opportunity.
+
+This opportunity, like everything impatiently longed for, came not.
+
+By the end of three months, Gaston had become so useful and popular that
+Captain Warth found him indispensable.
+
+Seeing him so intelligent and agreeable, he liked to have him at his own
+table, and would spend hours at cards with him or consulting about
+his business matters. The mate of the ship dying, Gaston was chosen to
+replace him. In this capacity he made two successful voyages to Guinea,
+bringing back a thousand blacks, whom he superintended during a trip of
+fifteen hundred leagues, and finally landed them on the coast of Brazil.
+
+When Gaston had been with Captain Warth about three years, the Tom Jones
+stopped at Rio Janeiro for a month, to lay in supplies. He now decided
+to leave the ship, although he had become somewhat attached to the
+friendly captain, who was after all a worthy man, and never would have
+engaged in the diabolical traffic of human beings, but for his little
+angel daughter’s sake. He said that his child was so good and beautiful,
+that she deserved a large fortune. Each time that he sold a black, he
+would quiet any faint qualms of conscience by saying, “It is for little
+Mary’s good.”
+
+Gaston possessed twelve thousand francs, as his share of the profits,
+when he landed at Brazil.
+
+As a proof that the slave-trade was repugnant to his nature, he left the
+slaver the moment he possessed a little capital with which to enter some
+honest business.
+
+But he was no longer the high-minded, pure-hearted Gaston, who had
+so devotedly loved and perilled his life for the little fairy of La
+Verberie.
+
+It is useless to deny that evil examples are pernicious to morals.
+The most upright characters are unconsciously influenced by bad
+surroundings. As the exposure to rain, sun, and sea-air first darkened
+and then hardened his skin, so did wicked associates first shock and
+then destroy the refinement and purity of Gaston’s mind. His heart
+had become as hard and coarse as his sailor hands. He still remembered
+Valentine, and sighed for her presence; but she was no longer the sole
+object of affection, the one woman in the world to him. Contact with sin
+had lowered his standard of women.
+
+The three years, after which he had pledged himself to return, had
+passed; perhaps Valentine was expecting him. Before deciding on any
+definite project, he wrote to an intimate friend at Beaucaire to learn
+what had happened during his long absence. He expressed great anxiety
+about his family and neighbors.
+
+He also wrote to his father, asking why he had never answered the many
+letters which he had sent to him by returning sailors, who would have
+safely forwarded the replies.
+
+At the end of a year, he received an answer from his friend.
+
+The letter almost drove him mad.
+
+It told him that his father was dead; that his brother had left France,
+Valentine was lately married, and that he, Gaston, had been sentenced to
+ten years’ imprisonment for murder.
+
+Henceforth he was alone in the world; with no country, no family, no
+home, and disgraced by a public sentence.
+
+Valentine was married, and he had no object in life! He would hereafter
+have faith in no one, since she, Valentine, had cast him off, forgotten
+him. What could he expect of others, when she had broken her troth, had
+lacked the courage to keep her promise and wait for him?--she, whom he
+had so trusted.
+
+In his despair, he almost regretted the Tom Jones. Yes, he sighed for
+the wicked slaver crew, his life of excitement and peril. The dangers
+and triumphs of those bold pirates whose only care was to heap up money
+would have been preferable to his present wretchedness.
+
+But Gaston was not a man to be long cast down.
+
+“Money is the cause of it all!” he said with rage. “If the lack of money
+can bring such misery, its possession must bestow intense happiness.
+Henceforth I will devote all my energies to getting money.”
+
+He set to work with a greedy activity, which increased each day. He
+tried all the many speculations open to adventurers. Alternately he
+traded in furs, worked in a mine, and cultivated lands.
+
+Five times he went to bed rich, and waked up ruined; five times, with
+the patience of the castor, whose hut is swept away by each returning
+tide, he recommenced the foundation of his fortune.
+
+Finally, after long weary years of toil and struggle, he was worth a
+million in gold, besides immense tracts of land.
+
+He had often said that he would never leave Brazil, that he wanted to
+end his days in Rio. He had forgotten that love for his native land
+never dies in the heart of a Frenchman. Now that he was rich, he wished
+to die in France.
+
+He made inquiries, and found that the law of limitations would permit
+him to return without being disturbed by the authorities. He left his
+property in charge of an agent, and embarked for France, taking a large
+portion of his fortune with him.
+
+Twenty-three years and four months had elapsed since he fled from home.
+
+On a bright, crisp day in January, 1866, he once again stepped on
+French soil. With a sad heart, he stood upon the quays at Bordeaux, and
+compared the past with the present.
+
+He had departed a young man, ambitious, hopeful, and beloved; he
+returned gray-haired, disappointed, trusting no one.
+
+Gold could not supply the place of affection. He had said that riches
+would bring happiness: his wealth was immense, and he was miserable.
+
+His health, too, began to suffer from this sudden change of climate.
+Rheumatism confined him to his bed for several months. As soon as
+he could sit up, the physicians sent him to the warm baths, where he
+recovered his health, but not his spirits. He felt his lonely condition
+more terribly in his own country than when in a foreign land.
+
+He determined to divert his mind by engaging in some occupation which
+would keep him too busy to think of himself and his disappointment.
+Charmed with the beauty of the Pyrenees, and the lovely valley of Aspe,
+he resolved to take up his abode there.
+
+An iron-mill was for sale near Oloron, on the borders of the Gara; he
+bought it with the intention of utilizing the immense quantity of wood,
+which, for want of means of transportation, was being wasted in the
+mountains.
+
+He was soon settled comfortably in his new home, and enjoying a busy,
+active life.
+
+One evening, as he was ruminating over the past, his servant brought him
+a card, and said the gentleman was waiting to see him.
+
+He read the name on the card: _Louis de Clameran_.
+
+Many years had passed since Gaston had experienced such violent
+agitation. His blood rushed to his face, and he trembled like a leaf.
+
+The old home affections which he thought dead now sprung up anew in his
+heart. A thousand confused memories rushed through his mind. Like one
+in a dream, he tottered toward the door, gasping, in a smothered, broken
+voice:
+
+“My brother! oh, my brother!”
+
+Hurriedly passing by the frightened servant, he ran downstairs.
+
+In the passage stood a man: it was Louis de Clameran.
+
+Gaston threw his arms around his neck and held him in a close embrace
+for some minutes, and then drew him into the room.
+
+Seated close beside him, with his two hands tightly clasped in those of
+Louis, Gaston gazed at his brother as a fond mother would gaze at her
+son just returned from the battle-field.
+
+There was scarcely any danger and excitement which the mate of the
+redoubtable Captain Warth had not experienced; nothing had ever before
+caused him to lose his calm presence of mind, to force him to betray
+that he had a heart. The sight of this long unseen brother seemed to
+have changed his nature; he was like a woman, weeping and laughing at
+once.
+
+“And is this really Louis?” he cried. “My dear brother! Why, I should
+have recognized you among a thousand; the expression of your face is
+just the same; your smile takes me back twenty-three years.”
+
+Louis did indeed smile, just as he smiled on that fatal night when his
+horse stumbled, and prevented Gaston’s escape.
+
+He smiled now as if he was perfectly happy at meeting his brother.
+
+And he was much more at ease than he had been a few moments before. He
+had exerted all the courage he possessed to venture upon this meeting.
+Nothing but pressing necessity would have induced him to face this
+brother, who seemed to have risen from the dead to reproach him for his
+crimes.
+
+His teeth chattered and he trembled in every limb when he rang Gaston’s
+bell, and handed the servant his card, saying:
+
+“Take this to your master.”
+
+The few moments before Gaston’s appearance seemed to be centuries. He
+said to himself:
+
+“Perhaps it is not he; if it is he, does he know? Does he suspect
+anything? How will he receive me?”
+
+He was so anxious, that when he saw Gaston running downstairs, he felt
+like fleeing from the house without speaking to him.
+
+Not knowing the nature of Gaston’s feelings, whether he was hastening
+toward him in anger or brotherly love, he stood perfectly motionless.
+But one glance at his brother’s face convinced him that he was the same
+affectionate, credulous, trusting Gaston of old; and, now that he was
+certain that his brother harbored no suspicions, he smilingly received
+the demonstrations lavished upon him.
+
+“After all,” continued Gaston, “I am not alone in the world; I shall
+have someone to love, someone to care for me.”
+
+Then, as if suddenly struck by a thought, he said:
+
+“Are you married, Louis?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That is a pity, a great pity. It would so add to my happiness to see
+you the husband of a good, affectionate woman, the father of bright,
+lovely children! It would be a comfort to have a happy family about me.
+I should look upon them all as my own. To live alone, without a loving
+wife to share one’s joys and sorrows, is not living at all: it is a sort
+of living death. There is no joy equal to having the affection of a true
+woman whose happiness is in your keeping. Oh the sadness of having only
+one’s self to care for! But what am I saying? Louis, forgive me. I
+have you now, and ought not that to be enough? I have a brother, a kind
+friend who will be interested in me, and afford me company, instead of
+the weariness of solitude.”
+
+“Yes, Gaston, yes: I am your best friend.”
+
+“Of course you are. Being my brother, you are naturally my true friend.
+You are not married, you say. Then we will have to do the best we
+can, and keep house for ourselves. We will live together like two old
+bachelors, as we are, and be as happy as kings; we will lead a gay life,
+and enjoy everything that can be enjoyed. I feel twenty years younger
+already. The sight of your face renews my youth, and I feel as active
+and strong as I did the night I swam across the swollen Rhone. And that
+was long, long ago. The struggles, privations, and anxieties endured
+since, have been enough to age any man. I feel old, older than my
+years.”
+
+“What an idea!” interrupted Louis: “why, you look younger than I do.”
+
+“You are jesting.”
+
+“I swear I think you look the younger.”
+
+“Would you have recognized me?”
+
+“Instantly. You are very little changed.”
+
+And Louis was right. He himself had an old, worn-out, used-up
+appearance; while Gaston, in spite of his gray hair and weather-beaten
+face, was a robust man, in the full maturity of his prime.
+
+It was a relief to turn from Louis’s restless eyes and crafty smile to
+Gaston’s frank, honest face.
+
+“But,” said Gaston, “how did you know that I was living? What kind
+chance guided you to my house?”
+
+Louis was prepared for this question. During his eighteen hours’ ride by
+the railway, he had arranged all his answers, and had his story ready.
+
+“We must thank Providence for this happy meeting,” he replied. “Three
+days ago, a friend of mine returned from the baths, and mentioned that
+he had heard that a Marquis of Clameran was near there, in the Pyrenees.
+You can imagine my surprise. I instantly supposed that some impostor had
+assumed our name. I took the next train, and finally found my way here.”
+
+“Then you did not expect to see me?”
+
+“My dear brother, how could I hope for that? I thought that you were
+drowned twenty-three years ago.”
+
+“Drowned! Mlle. de la Verberie certainly told you of my escape? She
+promised that she would go herself, the next day, and tell my father of
+my safety.”
+
+Louis assumed a distressed look, as if he hesitated to tell a sad truth,
+and said, in a regretful tone:
+
+“Alas! she never told us.”
+
+Gaston’s eyes flashed with indignation. He thought that perhaps
+Valentine had been glad to get rid of him.
+
+“She did not tell you?” he exclaimed. “Did she have the cruelty to let
+you mourn my death? to let my old father die of a broken heart? Ah, she
+must have been very fearful of what the world says. She sacrificed me,
+then, for the sake of her reputation.”
+
+“But why did you not write to us?” asked Louis.
+
+“I did write as soon as I had an opportunity; and Lafourcade wrote back,
+saying that my father was dead, and that you had left the country.”
+
+“I left Clameran because I believed you to be dead.”
+
+After a long silence, Gaston arose, and walked up and down the room as
+if to shake off a feeling of sadness; then he said, cheerfully:
+
+“Well, it is of no use to mourn over the past. All the memories in the
+world, good or bad, are not worth one slender hope for the future; and
+thank God, we have a bright future before us. Let us bury the past, and
+enjoy life together.”
+
+Louis was silent. His footing was not sure enough to risk any questions.
+
+“But here I have been talking incessantly for an hour,” said Gaston,
+“and I dare say that you have not dined.”
+
+“No, I have not, I confess.”
+
+“Why did you not say so before? I forgot that I had not dined myself.
+I will not let you starve, the first day of your arrival. I will make
+amends by giving you some splendid old Cape wine.”
+
+He pulled the bell, and ordered the servant to hasten dinner, adding
+that it must be an excellent one; and within an hour the two brothers
+were seated at a sumptuous repast.
+
+Gaston kept up an uninterrupted stream of questions. He wished to know
+all that had happened during his absence.
+
+“What about Clameran?” he abruptly asked.
+
+Louis hesitated a moment. Should he tell the truth, or not?
+
+“I have sold Clameran,” he finally said.
+
+“The chateau too?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You acted as you thought best,” said Gaston sadly; “but it seems to me
+that, if I had been in your place, I should have kept the old homestead.
+Our ancestors lived there for many generations, and our father lies
+buried there.”
+
+Then seeing Louis appear sad and distressed, he quickly added:
+
+“However, it is just as well; it is in the heart that memory dwells, and
+not in a pile of old stones. I myself had not the courage to return to
+Provence. I could not trust myself to go to Clameran, where I would have
+to look into the park of La Verberie. Alas, the only happy moments of my
+life were spent there!”
+
+Louis’s countenance immediately cleared. The certainty that Gaston had
+not been to Provence relieved his mind of an immense weight.
+
+The next day Louis telegraphed to Raoul:
+
+“Wisdom and prudence. Follow my directions. All goes well. Be sanguine.”
+
+All was going well; and yet Louis, in spite of his skilfully applied
+questions, had obtained none of the information which he had come to
+obtain.
+
+Gaston was communicative on every subject except the one in which Louis
+was interested. Was this silence premeditated, or simply unconscious?
+Louis, like all villains, was ever ready to attribute to others the bad
+motives by which he himself would be influenced.
+
+Anything was better than this uncertainty; he determined to ask his
+brother plainly what his intentions were in regard to money matters.
+
+He thought the dinner-table a favorable opportunity, and began by
+saying:
+
+“Do you know, my dear Gaston, that thus far we have discussed every
+topic except the most important one?”
+
+“Why do you look so solemn, Louis? What is the grave subject of which
+you speak?”
+
+“Our father’s estate. Supposing you to be dead, I inherited, and have
+disposed of it.”
+
+“Is that what you call a serious matter?” said Gaston with an amused
+smile.
+
+“It certainly is very serious to me; as you have a right to half of the
+estate, I must account to you for it. You have--”
+
+“I have,” interrupted Gaston, “a right to ask you never to allude to the
+subject again. It is yours by limitation.”
+
+“I cannot accept it upon those terms.”
+
+“But you must. My father only wished to have one of us inherit his
+property; we will be carrying out his wishes by not dividing it.”
+
+Seeing that Louis’s face still remained clouded, he went on:
+
+“Ah, I see what annoys you, my dear Louis; you are rich, and think that
+I am poor, and too proud to accept anything from you. Is it not so?”
+
+Louis started at this question. How could he reply so as not to commit
+himself?
+
+“I am not rich,” he finally said.
+
+“I am delighted to hear it,” cried Gaston. “I wish you were as poor as
+Job, so that I might share what I have with you.”
+
+Dinner over, Gaston rose and said:
+
+“Come, I want to visit with you, my--that is, our property. You must see
+everything about the place.”
+
+Louis uneasily followed his brother. It seemed to him that Gaston
+obstinately shunned anything like an explanation.
+
+Could all this brotherly confidence be assumed to blind him as to his
+real plans? Why did Gaston inquire into his brother’s past and future,
+without revealing his own? Louis’s suspicions were aroused, and he
+regretted his over-hasty seeking of Gaston.
+
+But his calm, smiling face betrayed none of the anxious thoughts which
+filled his mind.
+
+He was called upon to praise everything. First he was taken over the
+house and servants’ quarters, then to the stable, kennels, and the
+vast, beautifully laid-out garden. Across a pretty meadow was the
+iron-foundery in full operation. Gaston, with all the enthusiasm of
+a new proprietor, explained everything, down to the smallest file and
+hammer.
+
+He detailed all his projects; how he intended substituting wood for
+coal, and how, besides having plenty to work the forge, he could make
+immense profits by felling the forest trees, which had hitherto been
+considered impracticable. He would cut a hundred cords of wood that
+year.
+
+Louis approved of everything; but only answered in monosyllables, “Ah,
+indeed! excellent idea; quite a success.”
+
+His mind was tortured by a new pain; he was paying no attention to
+Gaston’s remarks, but enviously comparing all this wealth and prosperity
+with his own poverty.
+
+He found Gaston rich, respected, and happy, enjoying the price of his
+own labor and industry; whilst he--Never had he so cruelly felt the
+misery of his own condition; and he had brought it on himself, which
+only made it more aggravating.
+
+After a lapse of twenty-three years, all the envy and hate he had felt
+toward Gaston, when they were boys together, revived.
+
+“What do you think of my purchase?” asked Gaston, when the inspection
+was over.
+
+“I think you possess, my dear brother, a most splendid piece of
+property, and on the loveliest spot in the world. It is enough to excite
+the envy of any poor Parisian.”
+
+“Do you really think so?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then, my dear Louis,” said Gaston joyfully, “this property is yours, as
+well as mine. You like this lovely Bearn more than the dusty streets of
+Paris? I am very glad that you prefer the comforts of living on your
+own estate, to the glitter and show of a city life. Everything you can
+possibly want is here, at your command. And, to employ our time, there
+is the foundery. Does my plan suit you?”
+
+Louis was silent. A year ago this proposal would have been eagerly
+welcomed. How gladly he would have seized this offer of a comfortable,
+luxurious home, after having been buffeted about the world so long! How
+delightful it would have been to turn over a new leaf, and become an
+honest man!
+
+But he saw with disappointment and rage that he would now be compelled
+to decline it.
+
+He was no longer free. He could not leave Paris.
+
+He had become entangled in one of those hazardous plots which are fatal
+if neglected, and whose failure generally leads the projector to the
+galleys.
+
+Alone, he could easily remain where he was: but he was trammelled with
+an accomplice.
+
+“You do not answer me,” said Gaston with surprise; “are there any
+obstacles to my plans?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“What is the matter, then?”
+
+“The matter is, my dear brother, that the salary of an office which I
+hold in Paris is all that I have to support me.”
+
+“Is that your only objection? Yet you just now wanted to pay me back
+half of the family inheritance! Louis, that is unkind; you are not
+acting as a brother should.”
+
+Louis hung his head. Gaston was unconsciously telling the truth.
+
+“I should be a burden to you, Gaston.”
+
+“A burden! Why, Louis, you must be mad! Did I not tell you I am very
+rich? Do you suppose that you have seen all I possess? This house and
+the iron-works do not constitute a fourth of my fortune. Do you think
+that I would have risked my twenty years’ savings in an experiment of
+this sort? The forge may be a failure; and then what would become of me,
+if I had nothing else?
+
+“I have invested money which yields me an income of eighty thousand
+francs. Besides, my grants in Brazil have been sold, and my agent has
+already deposited four hundred thousand francs to my credit as part
+payment.”
+
+Louis trembled with pleasure. He was, at last, to know the extent of the
+danger hanging over him. Gaston had finally broached the subject which
+had caused him so much anxiety, and he determined that it should now be
+explained before their conversation ended.
+
+“Who is your agent?” he asked with assumed indifference.
+
+“My old partner at Rio. He deposited the money at my Paris banker’s.”
+
+“Is this banker a friend of yours?”
+
+“No; I never heard of him until my banker at Pau recommended him to me
+as an honest, reliable man; he is immensely wealthy, and stands at the
+head of the financiers in Paris. His name is Fauvel, and he lives on the
+Rue de Provence.”
+
+Although prepared for hearing almost anything, and determined to betray
+no agitation, Louis turned deadly pale.
+
+“Do you know this banker?” asked Gaston.
+
+“Only by reputation.”
+
+“Then we can make his acquaintance together; for I intend accompanying
+you to Paris, when you return there to settle up your affairs before
+establishing yourself here to superintend the forge.”
+
+At this unexpected announcement of a step which would prove his utter
+ruin, Louis was stupefied. In answer to his brother’s questioning look,
+he gasped out.
+
+“You are going to Paris?”
+
+“Certainly I am. Why should I not go?”
+
+“There is no reason why.”
+
+“I hate Paris, although I have never been there. But I am called there
+by interest, by sacred duties,” he hesitatingly said. “The truth is, I
+understand that Mlle. de la Verberie lives in Paris, and I wish to see
+her.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+Gaston was silent and thoughtful for some moments, and then said,
+nervously:
+
+“I will tell you, Louis, why I wish to see her. I left our family jewels
+in her charge, and I wish to recover them.”
+
+“Do you intend, after a lapse of twenty-three years, to claim these
+jewels?”
+
+“Yes--or rather no. I only make the jewels an excuse for seeing her.
+I must see her because--because--she is the only woman I ever really
+loved!”
+
+“But how will you find her?”
+
+“Oh! that is easy enough. Anyone can tell me the name of her husband,
+and then I will go to see her. Perhaps the shortest way to find out,
+would be to write to Beaucaire. I will do so to-morrow.”
+
+Louis made no reply.
+
+Men of his character, when brought face to face with imminent danger,
+always weigh their words, and say as little as possible, for fear of
+committing themselves by some indiscreet remark.
+
+Above all things, Louis was careful to avoid raising any objections
+to his brother’s proposed trip to Paris. To oppose the wishes of a
+determined man has the effect of making him adhere more closely to them.
+Each argument is like striking a nail with a hammer. Knowing this, Louis
+changed the conversation, and nothing more during the day was said of
+Valentine or Paris.
+
+At night, alone in his room, he brought his cunning mind to bear upon
+the difficulties of his situation, and wondered by what means he could
+extricate himself.
+
+At first the case seemed hopeless, desperate. During twenty years, Louis
+had been at war with society, trusted by none, living upon his wits,
+and the credulity of foolish men enabling him to gain an income without
+labor; and, though he generally attained his ends, it was not without
+great danger and constant dread of detection.
+
+He had been caught at the gaming-table with his hands full of duplicate
+cards; he had been tracked all over Europe by the police, and obliged to
+fly from city to city under an assumed name; he had sold to cowards his
+skilful handling of the sword and pistol; he had been repeatedly thrown
+into prison, and always made his escape. He had braved everything, and
+feared nothing. He had often conceived and carried out the most criminal
+plans, without the slightest hesitation or remorse. And now here he sat,
+utterly bewildered, unable to think clearly; his usual impudence and
+ready cunning seemed to have deserted him.
+
+Thus driven to the wall, he saw no means of escape, and was almost
+tempted to confess all, and throw himself upon his brother’s clemency.
+Then he thought that it would be wiser to borrow a large sum from
+Gaston, and fly the country.
+
+Vainly did he think over the wicked experiences of the past: none of the
+former successful stratagems could be resorted to in the present case.
+
+Fatally, inevitably, he was about to be caught in a trap laid by
+himself.
+
+The future was fraught with danger, worse than danger--ruin and
+disgrace.
+
+He had to fear the wrath of M. Fauvel, his wife and niece. Gaston would
+have speedy vengeance the moment he discovered the truth; and Raoul,
+his accomplice, would certainly turn against him, and become his most
+implacable enemy.
+
+Was there no possible way of preventing a meeting between Valentine and
+Gaston?
+
+None that he could think of.
+
+Their meeting would be his destruction.
+
+Lost in reflection, he paid no attention to the flight of time. Daybreak
+still found him sitting at the window with his face buried in his hands,
+trying to come to some definite conclusion what he should say and do to
+keep Gaston away from Paris.
+
+“It is vain for me to think,” he muttered. “The more I rack my brain,
+the more confused it becomes. There is nothing to be done but gain time,
+and wait for an opportunity.”
+
+The fall of the horse at Clameran was what Louis called “an
+opportunity.”
+
+He closed the window, and, throwing himself upon the bed, was soon in a
+sound sleep; being accustomed to danger, it never kept him awake.
+
+At the breakfast-table, his calm, smiling face bore no traces of a
+wakeful, anxious night.
+
+He was in a gayer, more talkative mood than usual, and said he would
+like to ride over the country, and visit the neighboring towns. Before
+leaving the table, he had planned several excursions which were to take
+place during the week.
+
+He hoped to keep Gaston so amused and occupied, that he would forget all
+about going to Paris in search of Valentine.
+
+He thought that with time, and skilfully put objections, he could
+dissuade his brother from seeking out his former love. He relied upon
+being able to convince him that this absolutely unnecessary interview
+would be painful to both, embarrassing to him, and dangerous to her.
+
+As to the jewels, if Gaston persisted in claiming them, Louis could
+safely offer to go and get them for him, as he had only to redeem them
+from the pawnbroker.
+
+But his hopes and plans were soon scattered to the winds.
+
+“You know,” said Gaston, “I have written.”
+
+Louis knew well enough to what he alluded, but pretended to be very much
+surprised, and said:
+
+“Written? To whom? Where? For what?”
+
+“To Beaucaire, to ask Lafourcade the name of Valentine’s husband.”
+
+“You are still thinking of her?”
+
+“She is never absent from my thoughts.”
+
+“You have not given up your idea of going to see her?”
+
+“Of course not.”
+
+“Alas, Gaston! you forget that she whom you once loved is now the wife
+of another, and possibly the mother of a large family. How do you know
+that she will consent to see you? Why run the risk of destroying her
+domestic happiness, and planting seeds of remorse in your own bosom?”
+
+“I know I am a fool; but my folly is dear to me, and I would not cure it
+if I could.”
+
+The quiet determination of Gaston’s tone convinced Louis that all
+remonstrances would be unavailing.
+
+Yet he remained the same in his manner and behavior, apparently
+engrossed in pleasure parties; but, in reality, his only thought was the
+mail. He always managed to be at the door when the postman came, so that
+he was the first to receive his brother’s letters.
+
+When he and Gaston were out together at the time of the postman’s visit,
+he would hurry into the house first, so as to look over the letters
+which were always laid in a card-basket on the hall table.
+
+His watchfulness was at last rewarded.
+
+The following Sunday, among the letters handed to him by the postman,
+was one bearing the postmark of Beaucaire.
+
+He quickly slipped it into his pocket; and, although he was on the point
+of mounting his horse to ride with Gaston, he said that he must run up
+to his room to get something he had forgotten; this was to gratify his
+impatient desire to read the letter.
+
+He tore it open, and, seeing “Lafourcade” signed at the bottom of three
+closely written pages, hastily devoured the contents.
+
+After reading a detailed account of events entirely uninteresting to
+him, Louis came to the following passage relating to Valentine:
+
+
+“Mlle. de la Verberie’s husband is an eminent banker named Andre Fauvel.
+I have not the honor of his acquaintance, but I intend going to see him
+shortly. I am anxious to submit to him a project that I have conceived
+for the benefit of this part of the country. If he approves of it, I
+shall ask him to invest in it, as his name will be of great assistance
+to the scheme. I suppose you have no objections to my referring him to
+you, should he ask for my indorsers.”
+
+
+Louis trembled like a man who had just made a narrow escape from death.
+He well knew that he would have to fly the country if Gaston received
+this letter.
+
+But though the danger was warded off for the while, it might return and
+destroy him at any moment.
+
+Gaston would wait a week for an answer, then he would write again;
+Lafourcade would instantly reply to express surprise that his first
+letter had not been received; all of this correspondence would occupy
+about twelve days. In those twelve days Louis would have to think over
+some plan for preventing Lafourcade’s visit to Paris; since, the instant
+he mentioned the name of Clameran to the banker, everything would be
+discovered.
+
+Louis’s meditations were interrupted by Gaston, who called from the
+lower passage:
+
+“What are you doing, Louis? I am waiting for you.”
+
+“I am coming now,” he replied.
+
+Hastily thrusting Lafourcade’s letter into his trunk, Louis ran down to
+his brother.
+
+He had made up his mind to borrow a large sum from Gaston, and go off to
+America; and Raoul might get out of the scrape as best he could.
+
+The only thing which now disturbed him was the sudden failure of the
+most skilful combination he had ever conceived; but he was not a man to
+fight against destiny, and determined to make the best of the emergency,
+and hope for better fortune in his next scheme.
+
+The next day about dusk, while walking along the pretty road leading
+from the foundery to Oloron, he commenced a little story which was to
+conclude by asking Gaston to lend him two hundred thousand francs.
+
+As they slowly went along arm in arm, about half a mile from the
+foundery they met a young laborer who bowed as he passed them.
+
+Louis dropped his brother’s arm, and started back as if he had seen a
+ghost.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Gaston, with astonishment.
+
+“Nothing, except I struck my foot against a stone, and it is very
+painful.”
+
+Gaston might have known by the tremulous tones of Louis’s voice that
+this was a lie. Louis de Clameran had reason to tremble; in this workman
+he recognized Raoul de Lagors.
+
+Instinctive fear paralyzed and overwhelmed him.
+
+The story he had planned for the purpose of obtaining the two hundred
+thousand francs was forgotten; his volubility was gone; and he silently
+walked along by his brother’s side, like an automaton, totally incapable
+of thinking or acting for himself.
+
+He seemed to listen, he did listen; but the words fell upon his ear
+unmeaningly; he could not understand what Gaston was saying, and
+mechanically answered “yes” or “no,” like one in a dream.
+
+Whilst necessity, absolute necessity, kept him here at Gaston’s side,
+his thoughts were all with the young man who had just passed by.
+
+What had brought Raoul to Oloron? What plot was he hatching? Why was he
+disguised as a laborer? Why had he not answered the many letters which
+Louis had written him from Oloron? He had ascribed this silence to
+Raoul’s carelessness, but now he saw it was premeditated. Something
+disastrous must have happened at Paris; and Raoul, afraid to commit
+himself by writing, had come himself to bring the bad news. Had he come
+to say that the game was up, and they must fly?
+
+But, after all, perhaps he was mistaken in supposing this to be his
+accomplice. It might be some honest workman bearing a strong resemblance
+to Raoul.
+
+If he could only run after this stranger, and speak to him! But no, he
+must walk on up to the house with Gaston, quietly, as if nothing had
+happened to arouse his anxiety. He felt as if he would go mad if his
+brother did not move faster; the uncertainty was becoming intolerable.
+
+His mind filled with these perplexing thoughts, Louis at last reached
+the house; and Gaston, to his great relief, said that he was so tired
+that he was going directly to bed.
+
+At last he was free!
+
+He lit a cigar, and, telling the servant not to sit up for him, went
+out.
+
+He knew that Raoul, if it was Raoul, would be prowling near the house,
+waiting for him.
+
+His suspicions were well founded.
+
+He had barely proceeded thirty yards, when a man suddenly sprang from
+behind a tree, and stood before him.
+
+The night was clear, and Louis recognized Raoul.
+
+“What is the matter?” he impatiently demanded; “what has happened?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“What! Do you mean to say that nothing has gone wrong in Paris--that no
+one is on our track?”
+
+“Not the slightest danger of any sort. And moreover, but for your
+inordinate greed of gain, everything would have succeeded admirably; all
+was going on well when I left Paris.”
+
+“Then why have you come here?” cried Louis fiercely. “Who gave you
+permission to desert your post, when your absence might bring ruin upon
+us? What brought you here?”
+
+“That is my business,” said Raoul with cool impertinence.
+
+Louis seized the young man’s wrists, and almost crushed them in his
+vicelike grasp.
+
+“Explain this strange conduct of yours,” he said, in a tone of
+suppressed rage. “What do you mean by it?”
+
+Without apparent effort Raoul released his hands from their
+imprisonment, and jeeringly said:
+
+“Hein! Gently, my friend! I don’t like being roughly treated; and, if
+you don’t know how to behave yourself, I have the means of teaching
+you.”
+
+At the same time he drew a revolver from his pocket.
+
+“You must and shall explain yourself,” insisted Louis: “if you
+don’t----”
+
+“Well, if I don’t? Now, you might just as well spare yourself the
+trouble of trying to frighten me. I intend to answer your questions when
+I choose; but it certainly won’t be here, in the middle of the road,
+with the bright moonlight showing us off to advantage. How do you know
+people are not watching us this very minute? Come this way.”
+
+They strode through the fields, regardless of Gaston’s plants, which
+were trampled under foot in order to take a short cut.
+
+“Now,” began Raoul, when they were at a safe distance from the road,
+“now, my dear uncle, I will tell you what brings me here. I have
+received and carefully read your letters. I read them over again. You
+wished to be prudent; and the consequence was, that your letters were
+unintelligible. Only one thing did I understand clearly: we are in
+danger.”
+
+“Only the more reason for your watchfulness and obedience.”
+
+“Very well put: only, before braving danger, my venerable and beloved
+uncle, I want to know its extent. I am not a man to retreat in the hour
+of peril, but I want to know exactly how much risk I am running.”
+
+“I told you to keep quiet, and follow my directions.”
+
+“But to do this would imply that I have perfect confidence in you, my
+dear uncle,” said Raoul, sneeringly.
+
+“And why should you not? What reasons for distrust have you after all
+that I have done for you? Who went to London, and rescued you from a
+state of privation and ignominy? I did. Who gave you a name and position
+when you had neither? I did. And who is working now to maintain your
+present life of ease, and insure you a splendid future? I am. And how do
+you repay me?”
+
+“Superb, magnificent, inimitable!” said Raoul, with mocking derision.
+“But, while on the subject, why don’t you prove that you have sacrificed
+yourself for my sake? You did not need me as a tool for carrying out
+plans for your own benefit; did you? oh no, not at all! Dear, kind,
+generous, disinterested uncle! You ought to have the Montyon prize;
+I think I must recommend you as the most deserving person I have ever
+met!”
+
+Clameran was so angry at these jeering words that he feared to trust
+himself to speak.
+
+“Now, my good uncle,” continued Raoul more seriously, “we had better end
+this child’s play, and come to a clear understanding. I follow you here,
+because I thoroughly understand your character, and have just as much
+confidence in you as you deserve, and not a particle more. If it were
+for your advantage to ruin me, you would not hesitate one instant. If
+danger threatened us, you would fly alone, and leave your dutiful nephew
+to make his escape the best way he could. Oh! don’t look shocked, and
+pretend to deny it; your conduct is perfectly natural, and in your place
+I would act the same way. Only remember this, that I am not a man to
+be trifled with. Now let us cease these unnecessary recriminations, and
+come to the point: what is your present plan?”
+
+Louis saw that his accomplice was too shrewd to be deceived, and that
+the safest course was to trust all to him, and to pretend that he had
+intended doing so all along.
+
+Without any show of anger, he briefly and clearly related all that had
+occurred at his brother’s.
+
+He told the truth about everything except the amount of his brother’s
+fortune, the importance of which he lessened as much as possible.
+
+“Well,” said Raoul, when the report was ended, “we are in a nice fix.
+And do you expect to get out of it?”
+
+“Yes, if you don’t betray me.”
+
+“I wish you to understand, marquis, that I have never betrayed anyone
+yet; don’t judge me by yourself, I beg. What steps will you take to get
+free of this entanglement?”
+
+“I don’t know; but something will turn up. Oh, don’t be alarmed; I’ll
+find some means of escape: so you can return home with your mind at
+rest. You run no risk in Paris, and ‘tis the best place for you. I will
+stay here to watch Gaston.”
+
+Raoul reflected for some moments, and then said:
+
+“Are you sure I am not in danger at Paris?”
+
+“What are you afraid of? We have Mme. Fauvel so completely in our power
+that she would not dare speak a word against you; even if she knew the
+whole truth, what no one but you and I know, she would not open her
+lips, but be only too glad to hush up matters so as to escape punishment
+for her fault from her deceived husband and a censuring world.”
+
+“I know we have a secure hold on her,” said Raoul. “I am not afraid of
+her giving any trouble.”
+
+“Who, then?”
+
+“An enemy of your own making, my respected uncle; a most implacable
+enemy--Madeleine.”
+
+“Fiddlesticks!” replied Clameran, disdainfully.
+
+“It is very well for you to treat her with contempt,” said Raoul,
+gravely; “but I can tell you, you are much mistaken in your estimate of
+her character. I have studied her lately, and see that she is devoted to
+her aunt, and ready to make any sacrifice to insure her happiness. But
+she has no idea of doing anything blindly, of throwing herself away
+if she can avoid it. She has promised to marry you. Prosper is
+broken-hearted at being discarded, it is true; but he has not given up
+hope. You imagine her to be weak and yielding, easily frightened? It’s a
+great mistake. She is self-reliant and fearless. More than that, she is
+in love, my good uncle; and a woman will defend her lover as a tigress
+defends her young. She will fight to the bitter end before marrying
+anyone save Prosper.”
+
+“She is worth five hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“So she is; and at five per cent we would each have an income of twelve
+thousand five hundred francs. But, for all that, you had better take my
+advice, and give up Madeleine.”
+
+“Never; I swear by Heaven!” exclaimed Clameran. “Rich or poor, she shall
+be mine! I first wanted her money, but now I want her; I love her for
+herself, Raoul!”
+
+Raoul seemed to be amazed at this declaration of his uncle.
+
+He raised his hands, and started back with astonishment.
+
+“Is it possible,” he said, “that you are in love with Madeleine?--you!”
+
+“Yes,” replied Louis, sullenly. “Is there anything so very extraordinary
+in it?”
+
+“Oh, no, certainly not! only this sentimental view of the matter
+explains your strange behavior. Alas, you love Madeleine! Then, my
+venerable uncle, we might as well surrender at once.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Because you know the axiom, ‘When the heart is interested the head is
+lost.’ Generals in love always lose their battles. The day is not far
+off when your infatuation of Madeleine will make you sell us both for
+a smile. And, mark my words, she is shrewd, and watching us as only an
+enemy can watch.”
+
+With a forced laugh Clameran interrupted his nephew.
+
+“Just see how you fire up for no cause,” he said; “you must dislike the
+charming Madeleine very much, if you abuse her in this way.”
+
+“She will prove to be our ruin: that is all.”
+
+“You might as well be frank, and say you are in love with her yourself.”
+
+“I am only in love with her money,” replied Raoul, with an angry frown.
+
+“Then what are you complaining of? I shall give you half her fortune.
+You will have the money without being troubled with the wife; the profit
+without the burden.”
+
+“I am not over fifty years old,” said Raoul conceitedly. “I can
+appreciate a pretty woman better than you.”
+
+“Enough of that,” interrupted Louis angrily. “The day I relieved your
+pressing wants, and brought you to Paris, you promised to follow my
+directions, to help me carry out my plan; did you not?”
+
+“Yes; but not the plot you are hatching now! You forget that my liberty,
+perhaps my life, is at stake. You may hold the cards, but I must have
+the right of advising you.”
+
+It was midnight before the accomplices separated.
+
+“I won’t stand idle,” said Louis. “I agree with you that something must
+be done at once. But I can’t decide what it shall be on the spur of the
+moment. Meet me here at this hour to-morrow night, and I will have some
+plan ready for you.”
+
+“Very good. I will be here.”
+
+“And remember, don’t be imprudent!”
+
+“My costume ought to convince you that I am not anxious to be recognized
+by anyone. I left such an ingenious alibi, that I defy anybody to
+prove that I have been absent from my house at Vesinet. I even took the
+precaution to travel in a third-class car. Well, good-night. I am going
+to the inn.”
+
+Raoul went off after these words, apparently unconscious of having
+aroused suspicion in the breast of his accomplice.
+
+During his adventurous life, Clameran had transacted “business” with too
+many scamps not to know the precise amount of confidence to place in a
+man like Raoul.
+
+The old adage, “Honor among thieves,” seldom holds good after the
+“stroke.” There is always a quarrel over the division of the spoils.
+
+This distrustful Clameran foresaw a thousand difficulties and
+counter-plots to be guarded against in his dealings with Raoul.
+
+“Why,” he pondered, “did the villain assume this disguise? Why this
+alibi at Paris? Can he be laying a trap for me? It is true that I have
+a hold upon him; but then I am completely at his mercy. Those accursed
+letters which I have written to him, while here, are so many proofs
+against me. Can he be thinking of cutting loose from me, and making off
+with all the profits of our enterprise?”
+
+Louis never once during the night closed his eyes; but by daybreak he
+had fully made up his mind how to act, and with feverish impatience
+waited for evening to come, to communicate his views with Raoul.
+
+His anxiety made him so restless that the unobserving Gaston finally
+noticed it, and asked him what the matter was; if he was sick, or
+troubled about anything.
+
+At last evening came, and, at the appointed hour, Louis went to the
+field where they had met the night previous, and found Raoul lying on
+the grass smoking a fragrant cigar, as if he had no other object in life
+except to blow little clouds of smoke in the air, and count the stars in
+the clear sky above him.
+
+“Well?” he carelessly said, as Louis approached, “have you decided upon
+anything?”
+
+“Yes. I have two projects, either of which would probably accomplish our
+object.”
+
+“I am listening.”
+
+Louis was silently thoughtful for a minute, as if arranging his thoughts
+so as to present them as clearly and briefly as possible.
+
+“My first plan,” he began, “depends upon your approval. What would you
+say, if I proposed to you to renounce the affair altogether?”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Would you consent to disappear, leave France, and return to London, if
+I paid you a good round sum?”
+
+“What do you call a good round sum?”
+
+“I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+“My respected uncle,” said Raoul with a contemptuous shrug, “I am
+distressed to see how little you know me! You try to deceive me, to
+outwit me, which is ungenerous and foolish on your part; ungenerous,
+because it fails to carry out our agreement; foolish, because as you
+know well enough, my power equals yours.”
+
+“I don’t understand you.”
+
+“I am sorry for it. I understand myself, and that is sufficient. Oh!
+I understand you, my dear uncle. I have watched you with careful eyes,
+which are not to be deceived; I see through you clearly. If you offer me
+one hundred and fifty thousand francs, it is because you intend to walk
+off with half a million for yourself.”
+
+“You are talking like a fool,” said Clameran with virtuous indignation.
+
+“Not at all; I only judge the future by the past. Of all the large sums
+extorted from Mme. Fauvel, often against my wishes, I never received a
+tenth part.”
+
+“But you know we have a reserve fund.”
+
+“All very good; but you have the keeping of it, my good uncle. It is
+very nice for you, but not so funny for me. If our little plot were
+to be discovered to-morrow, you would walk off with the money-box, and
+leave your devoted nephew to be sent to prison.”
+
+“Ingrate!” muttered Louis, as if distressed at these undeserved
+reproaches of his protege.
+
+“You have hit on the very word I was trying to remember,” cried Raoul:
+“‘ingrate’ is the name that just suits you. But we have not time for
+this nonsense. I will end the matter by proving how you have been trying
+to deceive me.”
+
+“I would like to hear you do so if you can.”
+
+“Very good. In the first place, you told me that your brother only
+possessed a modest competency. Now, I learn that Gaston has an income
+of at least sixty thousand francs. It is useless for you to deny it; and
+how much is this property worth? A hundred thousand crowns. He had four
+hundred thousand francs deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank. Total, seven
+hundred thousand francs. And, besides all this, the broker in Oloron
+has orders to buy up a large amount of stocks and railroad shares, which
+will require large cash payments. I have not wasted my day, you see, and
+have obtained all the information I came for.”
+
+Raoul’s information was too concise and exact for Louis to deny it.
+
+“You might have sense enough,” Raoul went on, “to know how to manage
+your forces if you undertake to be a commander. We had a splendid game
+in our hands; and you, who held the cards, have made a perfect muddle of
+it.”
+
+“I think--”
+
+“That the game is lost? That is my opinion too, and all through you. You
+have no one to blame but yourself.”
+
+“I could not control events.”
+
+“Yes, you could, if you had been shrewd. Fools sit down and wait for an
+opportunity; sensible men make one. What did we agree upon in London?
+We were to implore my good mother to assist us a little, and, if she
+complied with our wishes, we were to be flattering and affectionate in
+our devotion to her. And what was the result? At the risk of killing
+the golden goose, you have made me torment the poor woman until she is
+almost crazy.”
+
+“It was prudent to hasten matters.”
+
+“You think so, do you? Was it also to hasten matters that you took it
+into your head to marry Madeleine? That made it necessary to let her
+into the secret; and, ever since, she has advised and set her aunt
+against us. I would not be surprised if she makes her confess everything
+to M. Fauvel, or even inform against us at the police-office.”
+
+“I love Madeleine!”
+
+“You told me that before. And suppose you do love her. You led me into
+this piece of business without having studied its various bearings,
+without knowing what you were about. No one but an idiot, my beloved
+uncle, would go and put his foot into a trap, and then say, ‘If I had
+only known about it!’ You should have made it your business to know
+everything. You came to me, and said, ‘Your father is dead,’ which was
+a lie to start with; perhaps you call it a mistake. He is living; and,
+after what we have done, I dare not appear before him. He would have
+left me a million, and now I shall not get a sou. He will find his
+Valentine, and then good-by.”
+
+“Enough!” angrily interrupted Louis. “If I have made a mistake, I know
+how to redeem it. I can save everything yet.”
+
+“You can? How so?”
+
+“That is my secret,” said Louis gloomily.
+
+Louis and Raoul were silent for a minute. And this silence between them,
+in this lonely spot, at dead of night, was so horribly significant that
+both of them shuddered.
+
+An abominable thought had flashed across their evil minds, and without a
+word or look they understood each other.
+
+Louis broke the ominous silence, by abruptly saying:
+
+“Then you refuse to disappear if I pay you a hundred and fifty thousand
+francs? Think it over before deciding: it is not too late yet.”
+
+“I have fully thought it over. I know you will not attempt to deceive
+me any more. Between certain ease, and the probability of an immense
+fortune, I choose the latter at all risks. I will share your success or
+your failure. We will swim or sink together.”
+
+“And you will follow my instructions?”
+
+“Blindly.”
+
+Raoul must have been very certain of Louis’s intentions of resorting to
+the most dangerous extremities, must have known exactly what he intended
+to do; for he did not ask him a single question. Perhaps he dared not.
+Perhaps he preferred doubt to shocking certainty, as if he could thus
+escape the remorse attendant upon criminal complicity.
+
+“In the first place,” said Louis, “you must at once return to Paris.”
+
+“I will be there in forty-eight hours.”
+
+“You must be very intimate at Mme. Fauvel’s, and keep me informed of
+everything that takes place in the family.”
+
+“I understand.”
+
+Louis laid his hand upon Raoul’s shoulder, as if to impress upon his
+mind what he was about to say.
+
+“You have a sure means of being restored to your mother’s confidence and
+affection, by blaming me for everything that has happened to distress
+her. Abuse me constantly. The more odious you render me in her eyes and
+those of Madeleine, the better you will serve me. Nothing would please
+me more than to be denied admittance to the house when I return to
+Paris. You must say that you have quarrelled with me, and that, if I
+still come to see you, it is because you cannot prevent it, and you will
+never voluntarily have any intercourse with me. That is the scheme; you
+can develop it.”
+
+Raoul listened to these strange instructions with astonishment.
+
+“What!” he cried: “you adore Madeleine, and take this means of showing
+it? An odd way of carrying on a courtship, I must confess. I will be
+shot if I can comprehend.”
+
+“There is no necessity for your comprehending.”
+
+“All right,” said Raoul submissively; “if you say so.”
+
+Then Louis reflected that no one could properly execute a commission
+without having at least an idea of its nature.
+
+“Did you ever hear,” he asked Raoul, “of the man who burnt down his
+lady-love’s house so as to have the bliss of carrying her out in his
+arms?”
+
+“Yes: what of it?”
+
+“At the proper time, I will charge you to set fire, morally, to Mme.
+Fauvel’s house; and I will rush in, and save her and her niece. Now,
+in the eyes of those women my conduct will appear more magnanimous and
+noble in proportion to the contempt and abuse they have heaped upon me.
+I gain nothing by patient devotion: I have everything to hope from a
+sudden change of tactics. A well-managed stroke will transform a demon
+into an angel.”
+
+“Very well, a good idea!” said Raoul approvingly, when his uncle had
+finished.
+
+“Then you understand what is to be done?”
+
+“Yes, but will you write to me?”
+
+“Of course; and if anything should happen at Paris----”
+
+“I will telegraph to you.”
+
+“And never lose sight of my rival, the cashier.”
+
+“Prosper? not much danger of our being troubled by him, poor boy! He is
+just now my most devoted friend. Trouble has driven him into a path of
+life which will soon prove his destruction. Every now and then I pity
+him from the bottom of my soul.”
+
+“Pity him as much as you like; but don’t interfere with his
+dissipation.”
+
+The two men shook hands, and separated apparently the best friends in
+the world; in reality the bitterest enemies.
+
+Raoul would not forgive Louis for having attempted to appropriate all
+the booty, and leave him in the lurch, when it was he who had risked the
+greatest dangers.
+
+Louis, on his part, was alarmed at the attitude taken by Raoul. Thus far
+he had found his nephew tractable, and even blindly obedient; and now
+he had suddenly become rebellious and threatening. Instead of ordering
+Raoul, he was forced to consult and bargain with him.
+
+What could be more wounding to his vanity and self-conceit than the
+reproaches, well founded though they were, to which he had been obliged
+to listen, from a mere youth?
+
+As he walked back to his brother’s house, thinking over what had just
+occurred, Louis swore that sooner or later he would be revenged, and
+that, as soon as he could get rid of Raoul he would do so, and would do
+him some great injury.
+
+But, for the present, he was so afraid lest the young villain should
+betray him, or thwart his plans in some way, that he wrote to him the
+next day, and every succeeding day, full particulars of everything that
+happened. Seeing how important it was to restore his shaken confidence,
+Louis entered into the most minute details of his plans, and asked
+Raoul’s advice about every step he took.
+
+The situation remained the same. The dark cloud remained threateningly
+near, but grew no larger.
+
+Gaston seemed to have forgotten that he had written to Beaucaire, and
+never mentioned Valentine’s name once.
+
+Like all men accustomed to a busy life, Gaston was miserable except
+when occupied, and spent his whole time in the foundery, which seemed to
+absorb him entirely.
+
+When he began the experiment of felling the woods, his losses had been
+heavy; but he determined to continue the work until it should be equally
+beneficial to himself and the neighboring land-owners.
+
+He engaged the services of an intelligent engineer, and thanks to
+untiring energy, and the new improvements in machinery, his profits soon
+more than equalled his expenses.
+
+“Now that we are doing so well,” said Gaston joyously, “we shall
+certainly make twenty-five thousand francs next year.”
+
+Next year! Alas, poor Gaston!
+
+Five days after Raoul’s departure, one Saturday afternoon, Gaston was
+suddenly taken ill.
+
+He had a sort of vertigo, and was so dizzy that he was forced to lie
+down.
+
+“I know what is the matter,” he said. “I have often been ill in this way
+at Rio. A couple of hours’ sleep will cure me. I will go to bed, and you
+can send someone to awaken me when dinner is ready, Louis; I shall be
+all right by that time.”
+
+But, when the servant came to announce dinner, he found Gaston much
+worse. He had a violent headache, a choking sensation in his throat, and
+dimness of vision. But his worst symptom was dysphonia; he would try
+to articulate one word, and find himself using another. His jaw-bones
+became so stiff that it was with the greatest difficulty that he opened
+his mouth.
+
+Louis came up to his brother’s room, and urged him to send for the
+physician.
+
+“No,” said Gaston, “I won’t have any doctor to make me ill with
+all sorts of medicines; I know what is the matter with me, and my
+indisposition will be cured by a simple remedy which I have always
+used.”
+
+At the same time he ordered Manuel, his old Spanish servant, who had
+lived with him for ten years, to prepare him some lemonade.
+
+The next day Gaston appeared to be much better. He ate his breakfast,
+and was about to take a walk, when the pains of the previous day
+suddenly returned, in a more violent form.
+
+Without consulting his brother, Louis sent to Oloron for Dr. C----,
+whose wonderful cures at Eaux Bonnes had won him a wide reputation.
+
+The doctor declared that there was no danger, and merely prescribed a
+dose of valerian, and a blister with some grains of morphine sprinkled
+on it.
+
+But in the middle of the night, all the symptoms suddenly changed for
+the worse. The pain in the head was succeeded by a fearful oppression,
+and the sick man suffered torture in trying to get his breath; daybreak
+found him still tossing restlessly from pillow to pillow.
+
+When Dr. C---- came early in the morning, he appeared very much
+surprised at this change for the worse. He inquired if they had not
+administered an overdose of morphine. Manuel said that he had put the
+blister on his master, and the doctor’s directions had been accurately
+followed.
+
+The doctor, after having examined Gaston, and found his breathing heavy
+and irregular, prescribed a heavy dose of sulphate of quinine; he then
+retired, saying he would return the next day.
+
+As soon as the doctor had gone, Gaston sent for a friend of his, a
+lawyer, to come to him as soon as possible.
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, what do you want with a lawyer?” inquired Louis.
+
+“I want his advice, brother. It is useless to try and deceive ourselves;
+I know I am extremely ill. Only timid fools are superstitious about
+making their wills; if I defer it any longer, I may be suddenly taken
+without having arranged my affairs. I would rather have the lawyer at
+once, and then my mind will be at rest.”
+
+Gaston did not think he was about to die, but, knowing the uncertainty
+of life, determined to be prepared for the worst; he had too often
+imperilled his life, and been face to face with death, to feel any fear
+now.
+
+He had made his will while ill at Bordeaux; but, now that he had
+found Louis, he wished to leave him all his property, and sent for his
+business man to advise as to the best means of disposing of his wealth
+for his benefit.
+
+The lawyer was a shrewd, wiry little man, very popular because he had
+a faculty for always gaining suits which other attorneys had lost,
+or declined to try, because of their groundlessness. Being perfectly
+familiar with all the intricacies of the law, nothing delighted him more
+than to succeed in eluding some stringent article of the code; and often
+he sacrificed large fees for the sake of outwitting his opponent, and
+controverting the justness of a decision.
+
+Once aware of his client’s wishes and intentions, he had but one
+idea: and that was, to carry them out as inexpensively as possible,
+by skilfully evading the heavy costs to be paid by the inheritor of an
+estate.
+
+He explained to Gaston that he could, by an act of partnership,
+associate Louis in his business enterprises, by signing an
+acknowledgment that half of the money invested in these various
+concerns, belonged to and had been advanced by his brother; so that, in
+the event of Gaston’s death, Louis would only have to pay taxes on half
+the fortune.
+
+Gaston eagerly took advantage of this fiction; not that he thought
+of the money saved by the transaction if he died, but this would be
+a favorable opportunity for sharing his riches with Louis, without
+wounding his delicate sensibility.
+
+A deed of partnership between Gaston and Louis de Clameran, for the
+working of a cast-iron mill, was drawn up; this deed acknowledged
+Louis to have invested five hundred thousand francs as his share of the
+capital; therefore half of the iron-works was his in his own right.
+
+When Louis was called in to sign the paper, he violently opposed his
+brother’s project.
+
+“Why do you distress me by making these preparations for death, merely
+because you are suffering from a slight indisposition? Do you think that
+I would consent to accept your wealth during your lifetime? If you die,
+I am your heir; if you live, I enjoy your property as if it were my
+own. What more can you wish? Pray do not draw up any papers; let things
+remain as they are, and turn all your attention to getting well.”
+
+Vain remonstrances. Gaston was not a man to be persuaded from
+accomplishing a purpose upon which he had fully set his heart. When,
+after mature deliberation, he made a resolution, he always carried it
+out in spite of all opposition.
+
+After a long and heroic resistance, which betrayed great nobleness of
+character and rare disinterestedness, Louis, urged by the physician,
+finally yielded, and signed his name to the papers drawn up by the
+lawyer.
+
+It was done. Now he was legally Gaston’s partner, and possessor of half
+his fortune. No court of law could deprive him of what had been deeded
+with all the legal formalities, even if his brother should change his
+mind and try to get back his property.
+
+The strangest sensations now filled Louis’s breast.
+
+He was in a state of delirious excitement often felt by persons suddenly
+raised from poverty to affluence.
+
+Whether Gaston lived or died, Louis was the lawful possessor of an
+income of twenty-five thousand francs, without counting the eventual
+profits of the iron-works.
+
+At no time in his life had he hoped for or dreamed of such wealth. His
+wildest wishes were surpassed. What more could he want?
+
+Alas! he wanted the power of enjoying these riches; they had come too
+late.
+
+This fortune, fallen from the skies, should have filled his heart with
+joy; whereas it only made him melancholy and angry.
+
+This unlooked-for happiness seemed to have been sent by cruel fate as
+a punishment for his past sins. What could be more terrible than seeing
+this haven of rest open to him, and to be prevented from enjoying it
+because of his own vile plottings?
+
+Although his conscience told him that he deserved this misery, he blamed
+Gaston entirely for his present torture. Yes, he held Gaston responsible
+for the horrible situation in which he found himself.
+
+His letters to Raoul for several days expressed all the fluctuations of
+his mind, and revealed glimpses of coming evil.
+
+“I have twenty-five thousand livres a year,” he wrote to him, a few
+hours after signing the agreement of partnership; “and I possess in my
+own right five hundred thousand francs. One-fourth of this sum would
+have made me the happiest of men a year ago. Now it is of no use to me.
+All the gold on earth could not remove one of the difficulties of our
+situation. Yes, you were right. I have been imprudent; but I pay dear
+for my precipitation. We are now going down hill so rapidly that nothing
+can save us; we must fall to the very bottom. To attempt stopping half
+way would be madness. Rich or poor, I have cause to tremble as long as
+there is any risk of a meeting between Gaston and Valentine. How can
+they be kept apart? Will my brother renounce his plan of discovering the
+whereabouts of this woman whom he so loved?”
+
+No; Gaston would never be turned from his search for his first love, as
+he proved by calling for her in the most beseeching tones when he was
+suffering his worst paroxysms of pain.
+
+He grew no better. In spite of the most careful nursing his symptoms
+changed, but showed no improvement.
+
+Each attack was more violent than the preceding.
+
+Toward the end of the week the pains left his head, and he felt well
+enough to get up and partake of a slight nourishment.
+
+But poor Gaston was a mere shadow of his former self. In one week he had
+aged ten years. His strong constitution was broken. He, who ten days ago
+was boasting of his vigorous health, was now weak and bent like an old
+man. He could hardly drag himself along, and shivered in the warm sun as
+if he were bloodless.
+
+Leaning on Louis’s arm, he slowly walked down to look at the forge, and,
+seating himself before a furnace at full blast, he declared that he felt
+very much better, that this intense heat revived him.
+
+His pains were all gone, and he could breathe without difficulty.
+
+His spirits rose, and he turned to the workmen gathered around, and said
+cheerfully:
+
+“I was not blessed with a good constitution for nothing, my friends, and
+I shall soon be well again.”
+
+When the neighbors called to see him, and insisted that this illness
+was entirely owing to change of climate, Gaston replied that he supposed
+they were right, and that he would return to Rio as soon as he was well
+enough to travel.
+
+What hope this answer roused in Louis’s breast!
+
+“Yes,” he eagerly said, “I will go with you; a trip to Brazil would be
+charming! Let us start at once.”
+
+But the next day Gaston had changed his mind.
+
+He told Louis that he felt almost well, and was determined not to leave
+France. He proposed going to Paris to consult the best physicians; and
+then he would see Valentine.
+
+That night he grew worse.
+
+As his illness increased, he became more surprised and troubled at not
+hearing from Beaucaire.
+
+He wrote again in the most pressing terms, and sent the letter by a
+courier who was to wait for the answer.
+
+This letter was never received by Lafourcade.
+
+At midnight, Gaston’s sufferings returned with renewed violence, and for
+the first time Dr. C---- was uneasy.
+
+A fatal termination seemed inevitable. Gaston’s pain left him in a
+measure, but he was growing weaker every moment. His mind wandered,
+and his feet were as cold as ice. On the fourteenth day of his illness,
+after lying in a stupor for several hours, he revived sufficiently
+to ask for a priest, saying that he would follow the example of his
+ancestors, and die like a Christian.
+
+The priest left him after half an hour’s interview, and all the workmen
+were summoned to receive the farewell greeting of their master.
+
+Gaston spoke a few kind words to them all, saying that he had provided
+for them in his will.
+
+After they had gone, he made Louis promise to carry on the iron-works,
+embraced him for the last time, and sank back on his pillow in a dying
+state.
+
+As the bell tolled for noon he quietly breathed his last, murmuring,
+softly, “In three years, Valentine; wait for me.”
+
+Now Louis was in reality Marquis of Clameran, and besides he was a
+millionaire.
+
+Two weeks later, having made arrangements with the engineer in charge of
+the iron-works to attend to everything during his absence, he took his
+seat in the train for Paris.
+
+He had sent the following significant telegram to Raoul the night
+previous: “I will see you to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+Faithful to the programme laid down by his accomplice, while Louis
+watched at Oloron, Raoul remained in Paris with the purpose of
+recovering the confidence and affection of Mme. Fauvel, and of lulling
+any suspicions which might arise in her breast.
+
+The task was difficult, but not impossible.
+
+Mme. Fauvel had been distressed by Raoul’s wild extravagance, but had
+never ceased to love him.
+
+Whatever faults he had committed, whatever future follies he might
+indulge in, he would always remain her best-loved child, her first-born,
+the living image of her noble, handsome Gaston, the lover of her youth.
+
+She adored her two sons, Lucien and Abel; but she could not overcome an
+indulgent weakness for the unfortunate child, torn from her arms the
+day of his birth, abandoned to the mercies of hired strangers, and for
+twenty years deprived of home influences and a mother’s love.
+
+She blamed herself for Raoul’s misconduct, and accepted the
+responsibility of his sins, saying to herself, “It is my fault. But for
+me, he would not have been exposed to the temptations of the world.”
+
+Knowing these to be her sentiments, Raoul did not hesitate to take
+advantage of them.
+
+Never were more irresistible fascinations employed for the
+accomplishment of a wicked object. Beneath an air of innocent
+frankness, this precocious scoundrel concealed wonderful astuteness
+and penetration. He could at will adorn himself with the confiding
+artlessness of youth, so that angels might have yielded to the soft
+look of his large dark eyes. There were few women living who could have
+resisted the thrilling tones of his sympathetic voice.
+
+During the month of Louis’s absence, Mme. Fauvel was in a state of
+comparative happiness.
+
+Never had this mother and wife--this pure, innocent woman, in spite of
+her first and only fault--enjoyed such tranquillity. She felt as one
+under the influence of enchantment, while revelling in the sunshine of
+filial love, which almost bore the character of a lover’s passion;
+for Raoul’s devotion was ardent and constant, his manner so tender and
+winning, that anyone would have taken him for Mme. Fauvel’s suitor.
+
+As she was still at her country-seat, and M. Fauvel went into the city
+every morning at nine o’clock, and did not return till six, she had the
+whole of her time to devote to Raoul. When she had spent the morning
+with him at his house in Vesinet, she would often bring him home to dine
+and spend the evening with her.
+
+All his past faults were forgiven, or rather the whole blame of them was
+laid upon Clameran; for, now that he was absent, had not Raoul once more
+become her noble, generous, affectionate son, the pride and consolation
+of her life?
+
+Raoul enjoyed the life he was leading, and took such an interest in the
+part that he was playing, that his acting was perfect. He possessed
+the faculty which makes cheats successful, faith in his own impostures.
+Sometimes he would stop to think whether he was telling the truth, or
+acting a shameful comedy.
+
+His success was wonderful. Even Madeleine, the prudent, distrustful
+Madeleine, without being able to shake off her prejudice against the
+young adventurer, confessed that perhaps she had been influenced by
+appearances, and had judged unjustly.
+
+Raoul not only never asked for money, but even refused it when offered;
+saying that, now that his uncle was away, his expenses were but
+trifling.
+
+Affairs were in this happy state when Louis arrived from Oloron.
+
+Although now immensely rich, he resolved to make no change in his style
+of living, but returned to his apartments at the Hotel du Louvre.
+
+His only outlay was the purchase of a handsome carriage; and this was
+driven by Manuel, who consented to enter his service, although Gaston
+had left him a handsome little fortune, more than sufficient to support
+him comfortably.
+
+Louis’s dream, the height of his ambition, was to be ranked among the
+great manufacturers of France.
+
+He was prouder of being called “iron-founder” than of his marquisate.
+
+During his adventurous life, he had met with so many titled gamblers and
+cut-throats, that he no longer believed in the prestige of nobility.
+It was impossible to distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine. He
+thought what was so easily imitated was not worth the having.
+
+Dearly bought experience had taught him that our unromantic century
+attaches no value to armorial bearings, unless their possessor is rich
+enough to display them upon a splendid coach.
+
+One can be a marquis without a marquisate, but it is impossible to be a
+forge-master without owning iron-works.
+
+Louis now thirsted for the homage of the world. All the badly digested
+humiliations of the past weighed upon him.
+
+He had suffered so much contempt and scorn from his fellow-men, that he
+burned to avenge himself. After a disgraceful youth, he longed to live a
+respected and honored old age.
+
+His past career disturbed him little. He was sufficiently acquainted
+with the world to know that the noise of his coach-wheels would silence
+the jeers of those who knew his former life.
+
+These thoughts fermented in Louis’s brain as he journeyed from Pau to
+Paris. He troubled his mind not in the least about Raoul, determined to
+use him as a tool so long as he needed his services, and then pay him a
+large sum if he would go back to England.
+
+All these plans and thoughts were afterward found noted down in the
+diary which he had in his pocket at the time of the journey.
+
+The first interview between the accomplices took place at the Hotel du
+Louvre.
+
+Raoul, having a practical turn of mind, said he thought that they both
+ought to be contented with the result already obtained, and that it
+would be folly to try and grasp anything more.
+
+“What more do we want?” he asked his uncle. “We now possess over a
+million; let us divide it and keep quiet. We had better be satisfied
+with our good luck, and not tempt Providence.”
+
+But this moderation did not suit Louis.
+
+“I am rich,” he replied, “but I desire more than wealth. I am determined
+to marry Madeleine: I swear she shall be my wife! In the first place,
+I madly love her, and then, as the nephew of the most eminent banker in
+Paris, I at once gain high position and public consideration.”
+
+“I tell you, uncle, your courtship will involve you in great risks.”
+
+“I don’t care if it does. I choose to run them. My intention is to share
+my fortune with you; but I will not do so till the day after my wedding.
+Madeleine’s fortune will then be yours.”
+
+Raoul was silent. Clameran held the money, and was therefore master of
+the situation.
+
+“You don’t seem to anticipate any difficulty in carrying out your
+wishes,” he said discontentedly; “how are you to account for your
+suddenly acquired fortune? M. Fauvel knows that a Clameran lived at
+Oloron, and had money in his bank. You tell him that you never heard of
+this person bearing your name, and then, at the end of the month, you
+come and say that you have inherited his fortune. People don’t inherit
+fortunes from perfect strangers; so you had better trump up some
+relationship.”
+
+“You are an innocent youth, nephew; your ingenuousness is amusing.”
+
+“Explain yourself.”
+
+“Certainly. The banker, his wife, and Madeleine must be informed that
+the Clameran of Oloron was a natural son of my father, consequently
+my brother, born at Hamburg, and recognized during the emigration. Of
+course, he wished to leave his fortune to his own family. This is the
+story which you must tell Mme. Fauvel to-morrow.”
+
+“That is a bold step to take.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Inquiries might be made.”
+
+“Who would make them? The banker would not trouble himself to do so.
+What difference is it to him whether I had a brother or not? My title as
+heir is legally authenticated; and all he has to do is to pay the money
+he holds, and there his business ends.”
+
+“I am not afraid of his giving trouble.”
+
+“Do you think that Mme. Fauvel and her niece will ask any questions? Why
+should they? They have no grounds for suspicion. Besides, they cannot
+take a step without compromising themselves. If they knew all our
+secrets I would not have the least fear of their making revelations.
+They have sense enough to know that they had best keep quiet.”
+
+Not finding any other objections to make, Raoul said:
+
+“Very well, then, I obey you; but I am not to call upon Mme. Fauvel for
+any more money, am I?”
+
+“And why not, pray?”
+
+“Because, my uncle, you are rich now.”
+
+“Suppose I am rich,” replied Louis, triumphantly; “what is that to you?
+Have we not quarrelled about the means of making this money? and did you
+not heap abuse upon me until I consider myself justified in refusing you
+any assistance whatever? However, I will overlook the past. And, when I
+explain my present plan, you will feel ashamed of your former doubts and
+suspicion. You will say with me, ‘Success is certain.’”
+
+Louis de Clameran’s scheme was very simple, and therefore unfortunately
+presented the strongest chances of success.
+
+“We will go back and look at our balance-sheet. As heretofore, my
+brilliant nephew, you seem to have misunderstood my management of this
+affair; I will now explain it to you.”
+
+“I am listening.”
+
+“In the first place, I presented myself to Mme. Fauvel, and said not,
+‘Your money or your life,’ but ‘Your money or your reputation!’ It was
+a rude blow to strike, but effective. As I expected, she was frightened,
+and regarded me with the greatest aversion.”
+
+“Aversion is a mild term, uncle.”
+
+“I know that. Then I brought you upon the scene; and, without flattering
+you in the least, I must say that your opening act was a perfect
+success. I was concealed behind the curtain, and saw your first
+interview; it was sublime! She saw you, and loved you: you spoke a few
+words and won her heart.”
+
+“And but for you?”
+
+“Let me finish. This was the first act of our comedy. Let us pass to the
+second. Your extravagant follies--your grandfather would have said,
+your dissoluteness--soon changed our respective situations. Mme. Fauvel,
+without ceasing to worship you--you resemble Gaston so closely--was
+uneasy about you. She was so frightened that she was forced to come to
+me for assistance.”
+
+“Poor woman!”
+
+“I acted my part very well, as you must confess. I was grave, cold,
+indignant, and represented the distressed uncle to perfection. I spoke
+of the old probity of the Clamerans, and bemoaned that the family honor
+should be dragged in the dust by a degenerate descendant. For a
+short time I triumphed at your expense; Mme. Fauvel forgot her former
+prejudice against me, and soon showed that she esteemed and liked me.”
+
+“That must have been a long time ago.”
+
+Louis paid no attention to this ironical interruption.
+
+“Now we come to the third scene,” he went on to say, “the time when Mme.
+Fauvel, having Madeleine for an adviser, judged us at our true value.
+Oh! you need not flatter yourself that she did not fear and despise us
+both. If she did not hate you, Raoul, it was because a mother’s heart
+always forgives a sinful child. A mother can despise and worship her son
+at the same time.”
+
+“She has proved it to me in so many touching ways, that!--yes, even I,
+hardened as I am--was moved, and felt remorse.”
+
+“Parbleu! I have felt some pangs myself. Where did I leave off? Oh, yes!
+Mme. Fauvel was frightened, and Madeleine, bent on sacrificing herself,
+had discarded Prosper, and consented to marry me, when the existence
+of Gaston was suddenly revealed. And what has happened since? You have
+succeeded in convincing Mme. Fauvel that you are pure, and that I am
+blacker than hell. She is blinded by your noble qualities, and she and
+Madeleine regard me as your evil genius, whose pernicious influence led
+you astray.”
+
+“You are right, my venerated uncle; that is precisely the position you
+occupy.”
+
+“Very good. Now we come to the fifth act, and our comedy needs entire
+change of scenery. We must veer around.”
+
+“Change our tactics?”
+
+“You think it difficult, I suppose? Nothing easier. Listen attentively,
+for the future depends upon your skilfulness.”
+
+Raoul leaned back in his chair, with folded arms, as if prepared for
+anything, and said:
+
+“I am ready.”
+
+“The first thing for you to do,” said Louis, “is to go to Mme. Fauvel
+to-morrow, and tell her the story about my natural brother. She will not
+believe you, but that makes no difference. The important thing is, for
+you to appear convinced of the truth of what you tell her.”
+
+“Consider me convinced.”
+
+“Five days hence, I will call on M. Fauvel, and confirm the notification
+sent him by my notary at Oloron, that the money deposited in the bank
+now belongs to me. I will repeat, for his benefit, the story of the
+natural brother, and ask him to keep the money until I call for it, as I
+have no occasion for it at present. You, who are so distrustful, my good
+nephew, may regard this deposit as a guarantee of my sincerity.”
+
+“We will talk of that another time. Go on.”
+
+“Then I will go to Mme. Fauvel, and say, ‘Being very poor, my dear
+madame, necessity compelled me to claim your assistance in the support
+of my brother’s son, who is also yours. This youth is worthless and
+extravagant.’”
+
+“Thanks, my good uncle.”
+
+“‘He has poisoned your life when he should have added to your happiness;
+he is a constant anxiety and sorrow to your maternal heart. I have come
+to offer my regrets for your past trouble, and to assure you that you
+will have no annoyance in the future. I am now rich, and henceforth take
+the whole responsibility of Raoul upon myself. I will provide handsomely
+for him.’”
+
+“Is that what you call a scheme?”
+
+“Parbleu, you will soon see whether it is. After listening to this
+speech, Mme. Fauvel will feel inclined to throw herself in my arms, by
+way of expressing her gratitude and joy. She will refrain, however,
+on account of her niece. She will ask me to relinquish my claim on
+Madeleine’s hand, now that I am rich. I will roundly tell her, No. I
+will make this an opportunity for an edifying display of magnanimity and
+disinterestedness. I will say, ‘Madame, you have accused me of cupidity.
+I am now able to prove your injustice. I have been infatuated, as every
+man must be, by the beauty, grace, and intelligence of Mlle. Madeleine;
+and--I love her. If she were penniless, my devotion would only be the
+more ardent. She has been promised to me, and I must insist upon this
+one article of our agreement. This must be the price of my silence. And,
+to prove that I am not influenced by her fortune, I give you my sacred
+promise, that, the day after the wedding, I will send Raoul a stock
+receipt of twenty-five thousand livres per annum.”
+
+Louis expressed himself with such convincing candor, that Raoul, an
+artist in knavery, was charmed and astonished.
+
+“Beautifully done,” he cried, clapping his hands with glee. “That last
+sentence will create a chasm between Mme. Fauvel and her niece. The
+promise of a fortune for me will certainly bring my mother over to our
+side.”
+
+“I hope so,” said Louis with pretended modesty. “And I have strong
+reasons for hoping so, as I shall be able to furnish the good lady with
+excellent arguments for excusing herself in her own eyes. You know when
+someone proposes some little--what shall we call it?--transaction to an
+honest person, it must be accompanied by justifications sufficient to
+quiet all qualms of conscience. I shall prove to Mme. Fauvel and her
+niece that Prosper has shamefully deceived them. I shall prove to them
+that he is cramped by debts, dissipated, and a reckless gambler, openly
+associating with a woman of no character.”
+
+“And very pretty, besides, by Jove! You must not neglect to expatiate
+upon the beauty and fascinations of the adorable Gypsy; that will be
+your strongest point.”
+
+“Don’t be alarmed; I shall be more eloquent than a popular divine. Then
+I will explain to Mme. Fauvel that if she really loves her niece, she
+will persuade her to marry, not an insignificant cashier, but a man of
+position, a great manufacturer, a marquis, and, more than this, one rich
+enough to establish you in the world.”
+
+Raoul was dazzled by this brilliant prospect.
+
+“If you don’t decide her, you will make her waver,” he said.
+
+“Oh! I don’t expect a sudden change. I only intend planting the germ in
+her mind; thanks to you, it will develop, flourish, and bear fruit.”
+
+“Thanks to me?”
+
+“Allow me to finish. After making my speeches I shall disappear from the
+scene, and your role will commence. Of course your mother will repeat
+the conversation to you, and then we can judge of the effect produced.
+But remember, you must scorn to receive any assistance from me. You must
+swear that you will brave all privation, want, famine even, rather than
+accept a cent from a base man whom you hate and despise; a man who--But
+you know exactly what you are to say. I can rely upon you for good
+acting.”
+
+“No one can surpass me when I am interested in my part. In pathetic
+roles I am always a success, when I have had time to prepare myself.”
+
+“I know you are. But this disinterestedness need not prevent you from
+resuming your dissipations. You must gamble, bet, and lose more money
+than you ever did before. You must increase your demands, and say that
+you must have money at all costs. You need not account to me for any
+money you can extort from her. All you get is your own to spend as you
+please.”
+
+“You don’t say so! If you mean that--”
+
+“You will hurry up matters, I’ll be bound.”
+
+“I can promise you, no time shall be wasted.”
+
+“Now listen to what you are to do, Raoul. Before the end of three
+months, you must have exhausted the resources of these two women. You
+must force from them every franc they can raise, so that they will be
+wholly unable to procure money to supply your increasing demands. In
+three months I must find them penniless, absolutely ruined, without even
+a jewel left.”
+
+Raoul was startled at the passionate, vindictive tone of Louis’s voice
+as he uttered these last words.
+
+“You must hate these women, if you are so determined to make them
+miserable,” he said.
+
+“I hate them?” cried Louis. “Can’t you see that I madly love Madeleine,
+love her as only a man of my age can love? Is not her image ever in my
+mind? Does not the very mention of her name fire my heart, and make me
+tremble like a school-boy?”
+
+“Your great devotion does not prevent you planning the destruction of
+her present happiness.”
+
+“Necessity compels me to do so. Nothing but the most cruel deceptions
+and the bitterest suffering would ever induce her to become my wife, to
+take me as the lesser of two evils. The day on which you have led Mme.
+Fauvel and her niece to the extreme edge of the precipice, pointed out
+its dark depths, and convinced them that they are irretrievably lost, I
+shall appear, and rescue them. I will play my part with such grandeur,
+such lofty magnanimity, that Madeleine will be touched, will forget her
+past enmity, and regard me with favorable eyes. When she finds that it
+is her sweet self, and not her money, that I want, she will soften, and
+in time yield to my entreaties. No true woman can be indifferent to a
+grand passion. I don’t pretend to say that she will love me at first;
+but, if she will only consent to be mine, I ask for nothing more; time
+will do much, even for a poor devil like myself.”
+
+Raoul was shocked at this cold-blooded perversity of his uncle;
+but Clameran showed his immense superiority in wickedness, and the
+apprentice admired the master.
+
+“You would certainly succeed, uncle,” he said, “were it not for the
+cashier. Between you and Madeleine, Prosper will always stand; if not in
+person, certainly in memory.”
+
+Louis smiled scornfully, and, throwing away his cigar, which had died
+out, said:
+
+“I don’t mind Prosper, or attach any more importance to him than to that
+cigar.”
+
+“But she loves him.”
+
+“So much the worse for him. Six months hence, she will despise him; he
+is already morally ruined, and at the proper time I will make an end of
+him socially. Do you know whither the road of dissipation leads, my good
+nephew? Prosper supports Gypsy, who is extravagant; he gambles, keeps
+fast horses, and gives suppers. Now, you gamble yourself, and know how
+much money can be squandered in one night; the losses of baccarat
+must be paid within twenty-four hours. He has lost heavily, must pay,
+and--has charge of a money-safe.”
+
+Raoul protested against this insinuation.
+
+“It is useless to tell me that he is honest, that nothing would induce
+him to touch money that does not belong to him. I know better. Parbleu!
+I was honest myself until I learned to gamble. Any man with a grain of
+sense would have married Madeleine long ago, and sent us flying bag and
+baggage. You say she loves him! No one but a coward would be defrauded
+of the woman he loved and who loved him. Ah, if I had once felt
+Madeleine’s hand tremble in mine, if her rosy lips had once pressed a
+kiss upon my brow, the whole world could not take her from me. Woe
+to him who dared stand in my path! As it is, Prosper annoys me, and I
+intend to suppress him. With your aid I will so cover him with disgrace
+and infamy, that Madeleine will drive every thought of him from her
+mind, and her love will turn to hate.”
+
+Louis’s tone of rage and vengeance startled Raoul, and made him regard
+the affair in a worse light than ever.
+
+“You have given me a shameful, dastardly role to play,” he said after a
+long pause.
+
+“My honorable nephew has scruples, I suppose,” said Clameran sneeringly.
+
+“Not exactly scruples; yet I confess--”
+
+“That you want to retreat? Rather too late to sing that tune, my friend.
+You wish to enjoy every luxury, have your pockets filled with gold, cut
+a fine figure in high society, and remain virtuous. Are you fool enough
+to suppose a poor man can be honest? ‘Tis a luxury pertaining to the
+wealthy. Did you ever see people such as we draw money from the pure
+fount of virtue? We must fish in muddy waters, and then wash ourselves
+clean, and enjoy the result of our labor.”
+
+“I have never been rich enough to be honest,” said Raoul humbly; “but
+I must say it goes hard with me to torture two defenceless, frightened
+women, and ruin the character of a poor devil who regards me as his best
+friend. It is a low business!”
+
+This resistance exasperated Louis to the last degree.
+
+“You are the most absurd, ridiculous fool I ever met,” he cried. “An
+opportunity occurs for us to make an immense fortune. All we have to
+do is to stretch out our hands and take it; when you must needs prove
+refractory, like a whimpering baby. Nobody but an ass would refuse to
+drink when he is thirsty, because he sees a little mud at the bottom
+of the bucket. I suppose you prefer theft on a small scale, stealing by
+driblets. And where will your system lead you? To the poor-house or the
+police-station. You prefer living from hand to mouth, supported by Mme.
+Fauvel, having small sums doled out to you to pay your little gambling
+debts.”
+
+“I am neither ambitious nor cruel.”
+
+“And suppose Mme. Fauvel dies to-morrow: what will become of you? Will
+you go cringing up to the widower, and implore him to continue your
+allowance?”
+
+“Enough said,” cried Raoul, angrily interrupting his uncle. “I never
+had any idea of retreating. I made these objections to show you what
+infamous work you expect of me, and at the same time prove to you that
+without my assistance you can do nothing.”
+
+“I never pretended to the contrary.”
+
+“Then, my noble uncle, we might as well settle what my share is to be.
+Oh! it is not worth while for you to indulge in idle protestations. What
+will you give me in case of success? and what if we fail?”
+
+“I told you before. I will give you twenty-five thousand livres a year,
+and all you can secure between now and my wedding-day.”
+
+“This arrangement suits me very well; but where are your securities?”
+
+This question was discussed a long time before it was satisfactorily
+settled by the accomplices, who had every reason to distrust each other.
+
+“What are you afraid of?” asked Clameran.
+
+“Everything,” replied Raoul. “Where am I to obtain justice, if you
+deceive me? From this pretty little poniard? No, thank you. I would be
+made to pay as dear for your hide, as for that of an honest man.”
+
+Finally, after long debate and much recrimination, the matter was
+arranged, and they shook hands before separating.
+
+Alas! Mme. Fauvel and her niece soon felt the evil effects of the
+understanding between the villains.
+
+Everything happened as Louis had arranged.
+
+Once more, when Mme. Fauvel had begun to breathe freely, and to hope
+that her troubles were over, Raoul’s conduct suddenly changed; he became
+more extravagant and dissipated than ever.
+
+Formerly, Mme. Fauvel would have said, “I wonder what he does with all
+the money I give him?” Now she saw where it went.
+
+Raoul was reckless in his wickedness; he was intimate with actresses,
+openly lavishing money and jewelry upon them; he drove about with four
+horses, and bet heavily on every race. Never had he been so exacting
+and exorbitant in his demands for money; Mme. Fauvel had the greatest
+difficulty in supplying his wants.
+
+He no longer made excuses and apologies for spending so much; instead
+of coaxingly entreating, he demanded money as a right, threatening to
+betray Mme. Fauvel to her husband if she refused him.
+
+At this rate, all the possessions of Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine soon
+disappeared. In one month, all their money had been squandered. Then
+they were compelled to resort to the most shameful expedients in the
+household expenses. They economized in every possible way, making
+purchases on credit, and making tradesmen wait; then they changed
+figures in the bills, and even invented accounts of things never bought.
+
+These imaginary costly whims increased so rapidly, that M. Fauvel one
+day said, as he signed a large check, “Upon my word, ladies, you will
+buy out all the stores, if you keep on this way. But nothing pleases me
+better than to see you gratify every wish.”
+
+Poor women! For months they had bought nothing, but had lived upon the
+remains of their former splendor, having all their old dresses made
+over, to keep up appearances in society.
+
+More clear-sighted than her aunt, Madeleine saw plainly that the day
+would soon come when everything would have to be explained.
+
+Although she knew that the sacrifices of the present would avail
+nothing in the future, that all this money was being thrown away without
+securing her aunt’s peace of mind, yet she was silent. A high-minded
+delicacy made her conceal her apprehensions beneath an assumed calmness.
+
+The fact of her sacrificing herself made her refrain from uttering
+anything like a complaint or censure. She seemed to forget herself
+entirely in her efforts to comfort her aunt.
+
+“As soon as Raoul sees we have nothing more to give,” she would say, “he
+will come to his senses, and stop all this extravagance.”
+
+The day came when Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine found it impossible to give
+another franc.
+
+The evening previous, Mme. Fauvel had a dinner-party, and with
+difficulty scraped together enough money to defray the expenses.
+
+Raoul appeared, and said that he was in the greatest need of money,
+being forced to pay a debt of two thousand francs at once.
+
+In vain they implored him to wait a few days, until they could with
+propriety ask M. Fauvel for money. He declared that he must have it now,
+and that he would not leave the house without it.
+
+“But I have no way of getting it for you,” said Mme. Fauvel desperately;
+“you have taken everything from me. I have nothing left but my diamonds:
+do you want them? If they can be of use, take them.”
+
+Hardened as the young villain was, he blushed at these words.
+
+He felt pity for this unfortunate woman, who had always been so kind
+and indulgent to him, who had so often lavished upon him her maternal
+caresses. He felt for the noble girl who was the innocent victim of a
+vile plot.
+
+But he was bound by an oath; he knew that a powerful hand would save
+these women at the brink of the precipice. More than this, he saw
+an immense fortune at the end of his road of crime, and quieted his
+conscience by saying that he would redeem his present cruelty by honest
+kindness in the future. Once out of the clutches of Clameran, he would
+be a better man, and try to return some of the kind affection shown him
+by these poor women.
+
+Stifling his better impulses, he said harshly to Mme. Fauvel, “Give me
+the jewels; I will take them to the pawnbroker’s.” Mme. Fauvel handed
+him a box containing a set of diamonds. It was a present from her
+husband the day he became worth a million.
+
+And so pressing was the want of these women who were surrounded by
+princely luxury, with their ten servants, beautiful blooded horses, and
+jewels which were the admiration of Paris, that they implored him to
+bring them some of the money which he would procure on the diamonds, to
+meet their daily wants.
+
+He promised, and kept his word.
+
+But they had revealed a new source, a mine to be worked; he took
+advantage of it.
+
+One by one, all Mme. Fauvel’s jewels followed the way of the diamonds;
+and, when hers were all gone, those of Madeleine were given up.
+
+A recent law-suit, which showed how a young and beautiful woman had
+been kept in a state of terror and almost poverty, by a rascal who had
+possession of her letters, a sad case which no honest man could read
+without blushing for his sex, has revealed to what depths human infamy
+can descend.
+
+And such abominable crimes are not so rare as people suppose.
+
+How many men are supported entirely by stolen secrets, from the coachman
+who claims ten louis every month of the foolish girl whom he drove to
+a rendezvous, to the elegant dandy in light kids, who discovered a
+financial swindle, and makes the parties interested buy his silence,
+cannot be known.
+
+This is called the extortion of hush-money, the most cowardly and
+infamous of crimes, which the law, unfortunately, can rarely overtake
+and punish.
+
+“Extortion of hush-money,” said an old prefect of police, “is a trade
+which supports at least a thousand scamps in Paris alone. Sometimes
+we know the black-mailer and his victim, and yet we can do nothing.
+Moreover, if we were to catch the villain in the very act, and hand him
+over to justice, the victim, in her fright at the chance of her secret
+being discovered, would turn against us.”
+
+It is true, extortion has become a business. Very often it is the
+business of loafers, who spend plenty of money, when everyone knows they
+have no visible means of support, and of whom people ask, “What do they
+live upon?”
+
+The poor victims do not know how easy it would be to rid themselves
+of their tyrants. The police are fully capable of faithfully
+keeping secrets confided to them. A visit to the Rue de Jerusalem, a
+confidential communication with a head of the bureau, who is as silent
+as a father confessor, and the affair is arranged, without noise,
+without publicity, without anyone ever being the wiser. There are traps
+for “master extortioners,” which work well in the hands of the police.
+
+Mme. Fauvel had no defence against the scoundrels who were torturing
+her, save prayers and tears; these availed her little.
+
+Sometimes Mme. Fauvel betrayed such heart-broken suffering when Raoul
+begged her for money which she had no means of obtaining, that he would
+hurry away disgusted at his own brutal conduct, and say to Clameran:
+
+“You must end this dirty business; I cannot stand it any longer. I
+will blow any man’s brains out, or fight a crowd of cut-throats, if you
+choose; but as to killing by agony and fright these two poor miserable
+women, whom I am really fond of, I am not going to do it. You ask for
+more than I can do. I am not quite the cowardly hound you take me for.”
+
+Clameran paid no attention to these remonstrances: indeed, he was
+prepared for them.
+
+“It is not pleasant, I know,” he replied; “but necessity knows no law.
+Have a little more perseverance and patience; we have almost got to the
+end.”
+
+The end was nearer than Clameran supposed. Toward the latter part
+of November, Mme. Fauvel saw that it was impossible to postpone the
+catastrophe any longer, and as a last effort determined to apply to the
+marquis for assistance.
+
+She had not seen him since his return from Oloron, except once, when he
+came to announce his accession to wealth. At that time, persuaded that
+he was the evil genius of Raoul, she had received him very coldly, and
+did not invite him to repeat his visit.
+
+She hesitated about speaking to her niece of the step she intended
+taking, because she feared violent opposition.
+
+To her great surprise Madeleine warmly approved of it.
+
+Trouble had made her keen-sighted and suspicious. Reflecting on past
+events, comparing and weighing every act and speech of Raoul, she was
+now convinced that he was Clameran’s tool.
+
+She thought that Raoul was too shrewd to be acting in this shameful way,
+ruinously to his own interests, if there were not some secret motive
+at the bottom of it all. She saw that this persecution was more feigned
+than real.
+
+So thoroughly was she convinced of this, that, had it only concerned
+herself alone, she would have firmly resisted the oppression, certain
+that the threatened exposure would never take place.
+
+Recalling, with a shudder, certain looks of Clameran, she guessed the
+truth, that the object of all this underhand work was to force her to
+become his wife.
+
+Determined on making the sacrifice, in spite of her repugnance toward
+the man, she wished to have the deed done at once; anything was
+preferable to this terrible anxiety, to the life of torture which Raoul
+made her lead. She felt that her courage might fail if she waited and
+suffered much longer.
+
+“The sooner you see M. de Clameran the better for us, aunt,” she said,
+after talking the project over.
+
+The next day Mme. Fauvel called on the marquis at the Hotel du Louvre,
+having sent him a note announcing her intended visit.
+
+He received her with cold, studied politeness, like a man who had been
+misunderstood and had been unjustly wounded.
+
+After listening to her report of Raoul’s scandalous behavior, he became
+very indignant, and swore that he would soon make him repent of his
+heartlessness.
+
+But when Mme. Fauvel told of the immense sums of money forced from her,
+Clameran seemed confounded, as if he could not believe it.
+
+“The worthless rascal!” he exclaimed, “the idea of his audacity! Why,
+during the last four months, I have given him more than twenty thousand
+francs, which I would not have done except to prevent him from applying
+to you, as he constantly threatened to do.”
+
+Seeing an expression of doubtful surprise upon Mme. Fauvel’s face, Louis
+arose, and took from his desk some receipts signed by Raoul. The total
+amount was twenty-three thousand five hundred francs.
+
+Mme. Fauvel was shocked and amazed.
+
+“He has obtained forty thousand francs from me,” she faintly said, “so
+that altogether he has spent sixty thousand francs in four months.”
+
+“I can’t imagine what he does with it,” said Clameran, “unless he spends
+it on actresses.”
+
+“Good heavens! what can these creatures do with all the money lavished
+on them?”
+
+“That is a question I cannot answer, madame.”
+
+He appeared to pity Mme. Fauvel sincerely; he promised that he would
+at once see Raoul, and reason with him about the shameful life he was
+leading; perhaps he could be persuaded to reform. Finally, after many
+protestations of friendship, he wound up by placing his fortune at her
+disposal.
+
+Although Mme. Fauvel refused his offer, she appreciated the kindness of
+it, and on returning home said to Madeleine:
+
+“Perhaps we have mistaken his character; he may be a good man after
+all.”
+
+Madeleine sadly shook her head. She had anticipated just what happened.
+Clameran’s magnanimity and generosity confirmed her presentiments.
+
+Raoul came to see his uncle, and found him radiant.
+
+“Everything is going on swimmingly, my smart nephew,” said Clameran;
+“your receipts acted like a charm. Ah, you are a partner worth having.
+I congratulate you upon your success. Forty thousand francs in four
+months!”
+
+“Yes,” said Raoul carelessly. “I got about that much from pawnbrokers.”
+
+“Pests! Then you must have a nice little sum laid by.”
+
+“That is my business, uncle, and not yours. Remember our agreement.
+I will tell you this much: Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine have turned
+everything they could into money; they have nothing left, and I have had
+enough of my role.”
+
+“Your role is ended. I forbid you to hereafter ask for a single
+centime.”
+
+“What are you about to do? What has happened?”
+
+“The mine is loaded, nephew, and I am awaiting an opportunity to set
+fire to it.”
+
+Louis de Clameran relied upon making his rival, Prosper Bertomy, furnish
+him this ardently desired opportunity.
+
+He loved Madeleine too passionately to feel aught save the bitterest
+hate toward the man whom she had freely chosen, and who still possessed
+her heart.
+
+Clameran knew that he could marry her at once if he chose; but in what
+way? By holding a sword of terror over her head, and forcing her to be
+his. He became frenzied at the idea of possessing her person, while her
+heart and soul would always be with Prosper.
+
+Thus he swore that, before marrying, he would so cover Prosper with
+shame and ignominy that no honest person would speak to him. He had
+first thought of killing him, but, fearing that Madeleine would enshrine
+and worship his memory, he determined to disgrace him.
+
+He imagined that there would be no difficulty in ruining the unfortunate
+young man. He soon found himself mistaken.
+
+Though Prosper led a life of reckless dissipation, he preserved order
+in his disorder. If in a state of miserable entanglement, and obliged to
+resort to all sorts of make-shifts to escape his creditors, his caution
+prevented the world from knowing it.
+
+Vainly did Raoul, with his pockets full of gold, try to tempt him to
+play high; every effort to hasten his ruin failed.
+
+When he played he did not seem to care whether he lost or won; nothing
+aroused him from his cold indifference.
+
+His friend Nina Gypsy was extravagant, but her devotion to Prosper
+restrained her from going beyond certain limits.
+
+Raoul’s great intimacy with Prosper enabled him to fully understand the
+state of his mind; that he was trying to drown his disappointment in
+excitement, but had not given up all hope.
+
+“You need not hope to beguile Prosper into committing any piece of
+folly,” said Raoul to his uncle; “his head is as cool as a usurer’s. He
+never goes beyond a certain degree of dissipation. What object he has in
+view I know not. Perhaps, when he has spent his last napoleon, he will
+blow his brains out; he certainly never will descend to any dishonorable
+act. As to tampering with the money-safe intrusted to his keeping----”
+
+“We must force him on,” replied Clameran, “lead him into extravagances,
+make Gypsy call on him for costly finery, lend him plenty of money.”
+
+Raoul shook his head, as if convinced that his efforts would be vain.
+
+“You don’t know Prosper, uncle: we can’t galvanize a dead man. Madeleine
+killed him the day she discarded him. He takes no interest in anything
+on the face of the earth.”
+
+“We can wait and see.”
+
+They did wait; and, to the great surprise of Mme. Fauvel, Raoul once
+more became an affectionate and dutiful son, as he had been during
+Clameran’s absence. From reckless extravagance he changed to great
+economy. Under pretext of saving money, he remained at Vesinet, although
+it was very uncomfortable and disagreeable there in the winter. He
+said he wished to expiate his sins in solitude. The truth was, that,
+by remaining in the country, he insured his liberty, and escaped his
+mother’s visits.
+
+It was about this time that Mme. Fauvel, charmed with the improvement in
+Raoul, asked her husband to give him some employment.
+
+M. Fauvel was delighted to please his wife, and at once offered Raoul
+the place of corresponding clerk with a salary of five hundred francs a
+month.
+
+The appointment pleased Raoul; but, in obedience to Clameran’s command,
+he refused it, saying his vocation was not banking.
+
+This refusal so provoked the banker, that he told Raoul, if he was so
+idle and lazy, not to call on him for money again, or expect him to do
+anything to assist him. Raoul seized this pretext for ostensibly ceasing
+his visits.
+
+When he wanted to see his mother, he would come in the afternoon, when
+he knew that M. Fauvel would be from home; and he only came often enough
+to keep informed of what was going on in the household.
+
+This sudden lull after so many storms appeared ominous to Madeleine.
+She was more certain that ever that the plot was now ripe, and would
+suddenly burst upon them, without warning. She did not impart her
+presentiment to her aunt, but prepared herself for the worst.
+
+“What can they be doing?” Mme. Fauvel would say; “can they have ceased
+to persecute us?”
+
+“Yes: what can they be doing?” Madeleine would murmur.
+
+Louis and Raoul gave no signs of life, because, like expert hunters,
+they were silently hiding, and watching for a favorable opportunity of
+pouncing upon their victims.
+
+Never losing sight of Prosper for a day, Raoul had exhausted every
+effort of his fertile mind to compromise his honor, to insnare him into
+some inextricable entanglement. But, as he had foreseen, the cashier’s
+indifference offered little hope of success.
+
+Clameran began to grow impatient at this delay, and had fully determined
+to bring matters to a crisis himself, when one morning, about three
+o’clock, he was aroused by Raoul.
+
+He knew that some event of great importance must have happened, to make
+his nephew come to his house at this hour of the morning.
+
+“What is the matter?” he anxiously inquired.
+
+“Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything. I have just left Prosper.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I had him, Mme. Gypsy, and three other friends to dine with me. After
+dinner, I made up a game of baccarat, but Prosper took no interest in
+it, although he was quite tipsy.”
+
+“You must be drunk yourself to come here waking me up in the middle
+of the night, to hear this idle gabble,” said Louis angrily. “What the
+devil do you mean by it?”
+
+“Now, don’t be in a hurry; wait until you hear the rest.”
+
+“Morbleu! speak, then!”
+
+“After the game was over, we went to supper; Prosper became intoxicated,
+and betrayed the secret name with which he closes the money-safe.”
+
+At these words Clameran uttered a cry of triumph.
+
+“What was the word?”
+
+“The name of his friend.”
+
+“Gypsy! Yes, that would be five letters.”
+
+Louis was so excited that he jumped out of bed, slipped on his
+dressing-gown, and began to stride up and down the chamber.
+
+“Now we have got him!” he said with vindictive satisfaction. “There’s no
+chance of escape for him now! Ah, the virtuous cashier won’t touch the
+money confided to him: so we must touch it for him. The disgrace will be
+just as great, no matter who opens the safe. We have the word; you know
+where the key is kept.”
+
+“Yes; when M. Fauvel goes out he always leaves the key in the drawer of
+his secretary, in his chamber.”
+
+“Very good. Go and get this key from Mme. Fauvel. If she does not give
+it up willingly, use force: so that you get it, that is the point; then
+open the safe, and take out every franc it contains. Ah, Master Bertomy,
+you shall pay dear for being loved by the woman whom I love!”
+
+For five minutes Clameran indulged in such a tirade of abuse against
+Prosper, mingled with rhapsodies of love for Madeleine, that Raoul
+thought him almost out of his mind.
+
+“Before crying victory,” he said, “you had better consider the drawbacks
+and difficulties. Prosper might change the word to-morrow.”
+
+“Yes, he might; but it is not probable he will; he will forget what he
+said while drunk; besides, we can hasten matters.”
+
+“That is not all. M. Fauvel has given orders that no large sum shall be
+kept in the safe over-night; before closing the bank everything is sent
+to the Bank of France.”
+
+“A large sum will be kept there the night I choose.”
+
+“You think so?”
+
+“I think this: I have a hundred thousand crowns deposited with M.
+Fauvel: and if I desire the money to be paid over to me early some
+morning, directly the bank is opened, of course the money will be kept
+in the safe the previous night.”
+
+“A splendid idea!” cried Raoul admiringly.
+
+It was a good idea; and the plotters spent several hours in studying its
+strong and weak points.
+
+Raoul feared that he would never be able to overcome Mme. Fauvel’s
+resistance. And, even if she yielded the key, would she not go directly
+and confess everything to her husband? She was fond of Prosper, and
+would hesitate a long time before sacrificing him.
+
+But Louis felt no uneasiness on this score.
+
+“One sacrifice necessitates another,” he said: “she has made too many
+to draw back at the last one. She sacrificed her adopted daughter;
+therefore she will sacrifice a young man, who is, after all, a
+comparative stranger to her.”
+
+“But madame will never believe any harm of Prosper; she will always have
+faith in his honor; therefore--”
+
+“You talk like an idiot, my verdant nephew!”
+
+Before the conversation had ended, the plan seemed feasible. The
+scoundrels made all their arrangements, and fixed the day for committing
+the crime.
+
+They selected the evening of the 7th of February, because Raoul knew
+that M. Fauvel would be at a bank-director’s dinner, and Madeleine was
+invited to a party on that evening.
+
+Unless something unforeseen should occur, Raoul knew that he would find
+Mme. Fauvel alone at half-past eight o’clock.
+
+“I will ask M. Fauvel this very day,” said Clameran, “to have my money
+on hand for Tuesday.”
+
+“That is a very short notice, uncle,” objected Raoul. “You know there
+are certain forms to be gone through, and he can claim a longer time
+wherein to pay it over.”
+
+“That is true, but our banker is proud of always being prepared to pay
+any amount of money, no matter how large; and if I say I am pressed, and
+would like to be accommodated on Tuesday, he will make a point of having
+it ready for me. Now, you must ask Prosper, as a personal favor to you,
+to have the money on hand at the opening of the bank.”
+
+Raoul once more examined the situation, to discover if possible a grain
+of sand which might be converted into a mountain at the last moment.
+
+“Prosper and Gypsy are to be at Vesinet this evening,” he said, “but I
+cannot ask them anything until I know the banker’s answer. As soon as
+you arrange matters with him, send me word by Manuel.”
+
+“I can’t send Manuel, for an excellent reason; he has left me; but I can
+send another messenger.”
+
+Louis spoke the truth; Manuel was gone. He had insisted on keeping
+Gaston’s old servant in his service, because he thought it imprudent to
+leave him at Oloron, where his gossiping might cause trouble.
+
+He soon became annoyed by Manuel’s loyalty, who had shared the perils
+and good fortunes of an excellent master for many years; and determined
+to rid himself of this last link which constantly reminded him of
+Gaston. The evening before, he had persuaded Manuel to return to
+Arenys-de-mer, a little port of Catalonia, his native place; and Louis
+was looking for another servant.
+
+After breakfasting together, they separated.
+
+Clameran was so elated by the prospect of success, that he lost sight of
+the great crime intervening. Raoul was calm, but resolute. The shameful
+deed he was about to commit would give him riches, and release him
+from a hateful servitude. His one thought was liberty, as Louis’s was
+Madeleine.
+
+Everything seemed to progress finely. The banker did not ask for the
+notice of time, but promised to pay the money at the specified hour.
+Prosper said he would have it ready early in the morning.
+
+The certainty of success made Louis almost wild with joy. He counted the
+hours, and the minutes, which passed but too slowly.
+
+“When this affair is ended,” he said to Raoul, “I will reform and be a
+model of virtue. No one will dare hint that I have ever indulged in any
+sins, great or small.”
+
+But Raoul became more and more sad as the time approached. Reflection
+gradually betrayed the blackness of the contemplated crime.
+
+Raoul was bold and determined in the pursuit of his own gratifications
+and wickedness; he could smile in the face of his best friend, while
+cheating him of his last napoleon at cards; and he could sleep well
+after stabbing his enemy in the heart; but he was young.
+
+He was young in sin. Vice had not yet penetrated to his marrow-bones:
+corruption had not yet crowded into his soul enough to uproot and
+destroy every generous sentiment.
+
+It had not been so very long since he had cherished a few holy beliefs.
+The good intentions of his boyhood were not quite obliterated from his
+sometimes reproachful memory.
+
+Possessing the daring courage natural to youth, he despised the cowardly
+part forced upon him; this dark plot, laid for the destruction of two
+helpless women, filled him with horror and disgust. His heart revolted
+at the idea of acting the part of Judas toward his mother to betray her
+between two kisses.
+
+Disgusted by the cool villainy of Louis, he longed for some unexpected
+danger to spring up, some great peril to be braved, so as to excuse
+himself in his own eyes, to give him the spirit to carry through
+the scheme; for he would like to reap the benefits without doing the
+revolting work.
+
+But no; he well knew that he ran no risk, not even that of being
+arrested and sent to the galleys. For he was certain that, if M. Fauvel
+discovered everything, he would do his best to hush it up, to conceal
+every fact connected with the disgraceful story which would implicate
+his wife. Although he was careful not to breathe it to Clameran, he felt
+a sincere affection for Mme. Fauvel, and was touched by the indulgent
+fondness which she so unchangingly lavished upon him. He had been happy
+at Vesinet, while his accomplice, or rather his master, was at Oloron.
+He would have been glad to lead an honest life, and could not see the
+sense of committing a crime when there was no necessity for it. He hated
+Clameran for not consenting to let the matter drop, now that he was rich
+enough to live in affluence the rest of his life, and who, for the sake
+of gratifying a selfish passion, was abusing his power, and endangering
+the safety and happiness of so many people. He longed for an opportunity
+of thwarting his plots, if it could be done without also ruining
+himself.
+
+His resolution, which had been so firm in the beginning, was growing
+weaker and weaker as the hours rolled on: as the crisis approached, his
+horror of the deed increased.
+
+Seeing this uncertain state of Raoul’s mind, Louis never left him, but
+continued to paint for him a dazzling future, position, wealth, and
+freedom. Possessing a large fortune, he would be his own master, gratify
+his every wish, and make amends to his mother for his present undutiful
+conduct. He urged him to take pride in acting his part in this little
+comedy, which would soon be over without doing harm to anyone.
+
+He prepared, and forced his accomplice to rehearse, the scene which was
+to be enacted at Mme. Fauvel’s, with as much coolness and precision as
+if it were to be performed at a public theatre. Louis said that no piece
+could be well acted unless the actor was interested and imbued with the
+spirit of his role.
+
+But the more urgently Louis pressed upon him the advantages to be
+derived from success, the oftener he sounded in his ears the magic
+words, “five hundred thousand francs,” the more loudly did Raoul’s
+conscience cry out against the sinful deed.
+
+On Monday evening, about six o’clock, Raoul felt so depressed and
+miserable, that he had almost made up his mind to refuse to move another
+step, and to tell Louis that he must find another tool to carry out his
+abominable plot.
+
+“Are you afraid?” asked Clameran, who had anxiously watched these inward
+struggles.
+
+“Yes, I am afraid. I am not cursed with your ferocious nature and iron
+will. I am the most miserable dog living!”
+
+“Come, cheer up, my boy! You are not yourself to-day. Don’t fail me at
+the last minute, when everything depends upon you. Just think that we
+have almost finished; one more stroke of our oars, and we are in port.
+You are only nervous: come to dinner, and a bottle of Burgundy will soon
+set you right.”
+
+They were walking along the boulevard. Clameran insisted upon their
+entering a restaurant, and having dinner in a private room.
+
+Vainly did he strive, however, to chase the gloom from Raoul’s pale
+face; he sat listening, with a sullen frown, to his friend’s jests about
+“swallowing the bitter pill gracefully.”
+
+Urged by Louis, he drank two bottles of wine, in hopes that intoxication
+would inspire him with courage to do the deed, which Clameran impressed
+upon his mind must and should be done before many more hours had passed
+over his head.
+
+But the drunkenness he sought came not; the wine proved false; at the
+bottom of the last bottle he found disgust and rage.
+
+The clock struck eight.
+
+“The time has come,” said Louis firmly.
+
+Raoul turned livid; his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled so that
+he was unable to stand on his feet.
+
+“Oh, I cannot do it!” he cried in an agony of terror and rage.
+
+Clameran’s eyes flashed with angry excitement at the prospect of all his
+plans being ruined at the last moment. But he dared not give way to his
+anger, for fear of exasperating Raoul, whom he knew to be anxious for an
+excuse to quarrel; so he quietly pulled the bell-rope. A boy appeared.
+
+“A bottle of port,” he said, “and a bottle of rum.”
+
+When the boy returned with the bottles, Louis filled a goblet with the
+two liquors mixed, and handed it to Raoul.
+
+“Drink this,” he said in a tone of command.
+
+Raoul emptied the glass at one draught, and a faint color returned to
+his ashy cheeks. He arose, and snatching up his hat, cried fiercely:
+
+“Come along!”
+
+But before he had walked half a square, the factitious energy inspired
+by drink deserted him.
+
+He clung to Clameran’s arm, and was almost dragged along in the
+direction of the banker’s house, trembling like a criminal on his way to
+the scaffold.
+
+“If I can once get him in the house,” thought Louis, “and make him
+begin, the excitement of his mother’s opposition will make him carry
+it through successfully. The cowardly baby! I would like to wring his
+neck!”
+
+Although his breast was filled with these thoughts and fears, he was
+careful to conceal them from Raoul, and said soothingly:
+
+“Now, don’t forget our arrangement, and be careful how you enter the
+house; everything depends upon your being unconcerned and cool, to avoid
+arousing suspicion in the eyes of anyone you may meet. Have you a pistol
+in your pocket?”
+
+“Yes, yes! Let me alone!”
+
+It was well that Clameran had accompanied Raoul; for, when he got in
+sight of the door, his courage gave way, and he longed to retreat.
+
+“A poor, helpless woman!” he groaned, “and an honest man who pressed my
+hand in friendship yesterday, to be cowardly ruined, betrayed by me! Ah,
+it is too base! I cannot!”
+
+“Come, don’t be a coward! I thought you had more nerve. Why, you might
+as well have remained virtuous and honest; you will never earn your salt
+in this sort of business.”
+
+Raoul overcame his weakness, and, silencing the clamors of his
+conscience, rushed up the steps, and pulled the bell furiously.
+
+“Is Mme. Fauvel at home?” he inquired of the servant who opened the
+door.
+
+“Madame is alone in the sitting-room adjoining her chamber,” was the
+reply.
+
+Raoul went upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Clameran’s last injunction to Raoul was:
+
+“Be very cautious when you enter the room; your appearance must tell
+everything, so you can avoid preliminary explanations.”
+
+The recommendation was useless.
+
+The instant that Raoul went into the little salon, the sight of his
+pale, haggard face and wild eyes caused Mme. Fauvel to spring up with
+clasped hands, and cry out:
+
+“Raoul! What has happened? Speak, my son!”
+
+The sound of her tender, affectionate voice acted like an electric shock
+upon the young bandit. He shook like a leaf. But at the same time his
+mind seemed to change. Louis was not mistaken in his estimate of his
+companion’s character. Raoul was on the stage, his part was to be
+played; his assurance returned to him; his cheating, lying nature
+assumed the ascendant, and stifled any better feeling in his heart.
+
+“This misfortune is the last I shall ever suffer, mother!”
+
+Mme. Fauvel rushed toward him, and, seizing his hand, gazed searchingly
+into his eyes, as if to read his very soul.
+
+“What is the matter? Raoul, my dear son, do tell me what troubles you.”
+
+He gently pushed her from him.
+
+“The matter is, my mother,” he said in a voice of heart-broken despair,
+“that I am an unworthy, degenerate son! Unworthy of you, unworthy of my
+noble father!”
+
+She tried to comfort him by saying that his errors were all her fault,
+and that he was, in spite of all, the pride of her heart.
+
+“Alas!” he said, “I know and judge myself. No one can reproach me for
+my infamous conduct more bitterly than does my own conscience. I am
+not naturally wicked, but only a miserable fool. At times I am like an
+insane man, and am not responsible for my actions. Ah, my dear mother,
+I would not be what I am, if you had watched over my childhood. But
+brought up among strangers, with no guide but my own evil passions,
+nothing to restrain me, no one to advise me, no one to love me, owning
+nothing, not even my stolen name, I am cursed with vanity and unbounded
+ambition. Poor, with no one to assist me but you, I have the tastes and
+vices of a millionnaire’s son.
+
+“Alas for me! When I found you, the evil was done. Your affection, your
+maternal love, the only true happiness of my life, could not save me. I,
+who had suffered so much, endured so many privations, even the pangs of
+hunger, became spoiled by this new life of luxury and pleasure which
+you opened before me. I rushed headlong into extravagance, as a drunkard
+long deprived of liquor seizes and drains to the dregs the first bottle
+in his reach.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel listened, silent and terrified, to these words of despair
+and remorse, which Raoul uttered with vehemence.
+
+She dared not interrupt him, but felt certain some dreadful piece of
+news was coming.
+
+Raoul continued in a sad, hopeless tone:
+
+“Yes, I have been a weak fool. Happiness was within my reach, and I
+had not the sense to stretch forth my hand and grab it. I rejected a
+heavenly reality to eagerly pursue a vain phantom. I, who ought to have
+spent my life at your feet, and daily striven to express my gratitude
+for your lavish kindness, have made you unhappy, destroyed your peace of
+mind, and, instead of being a blessing, I have been a curse ever since
+the first fatal day you welcomed me to your kind heart. Ah, unfeeling
+brute that I was, to squander upon creatures whom I despised, a fortune,
+of which each gold piece must have cost you a tear! Too late, too late!
+With you I might have been a good and happy man!”
+
+He stopped, as if overcome by the conviction of his evil deeds, and
+seemed about to burst into tears.
+
+“It is never too late to repent, my son,” murmured Mme. Fauvel in
+comforting tones.
+
+“Ah, if I only could!” cried Raoul; “but no, it is too late! Besides,
+can I tell how long my good resolutions will last? This is not the first
+time that I have condemned myself pitilessly. Stinging remorse for each
+new fault made me swear to lead a better life, to sin no more. What was
+the result of these periodical repentances? At the first temptation I
+forgot my remorse and good resolutions. I am weak and mean-spirited,
+and you are not firm enough to govern my vacillating nature. While
+my intentions are good, my actions are villainous. The disproportion
+between my extravagant desires, and the means of gratifying them, is too
+great for me to endure any longer. Who knows to what fearful lengths my
+unfortunate disposition may lead me? However, I will take my fate in my
+own hands!” he finally said with a reckless laugh.
+
+“Oh, Raoul, my dear son,” cried Mme. Fauvel in an agony of terror,
+“explain these dreadful words; am I not your mother? Tell me what
+distresses you; I am ready to hear the worst.”
+
+He appeared to hesitate, as if afraid to crush his mother’s heart by the
+terrible blow he was about to inflict. Then in a voice of gloomy despair
+he replied:
+
+“I am ruined.”
+
+“Ruined?”
+
+“Yes, ruined; and I have nothing more to expect or hope for. I am
+dishonored, and all through my own fault; no one is to be blamed but
+myself.”
+
+“Raoul!”
+
+“It is the sad truth, my poor mother; but fear nothing: I shall not
+trail in the dust the name which you bestowed upon me. I will at least
+have the courage not to survive my dishonor. Come, mother, don’t pity
+me, or distress yourself; I am one of those miserable beings fated to
+find no peace save in the arms of death. I came into the world with
+misfortune stamped upon my brow. Was not my birth a shame and disgrace
+to you? Did not the memory of my existence haunt you day and night,
+filling your soul with remorse? And now, when I am restored to you after
+many years’ separation, do I not prove to be a bitter curse instead of a
+blessing?”
+
+“Ungrateful boy! Have I ever reproached you?”
+
+“Never! Your poor Raoul will die with your beloved name on his lips;
+his last words a prayer to Heaven to heap blessings upon your head, and
+reward your long-suffering devotion.”
+
+“Die? You die, my son!”
+
+“It must be, my dear mother; honor compels it. I am condemned by judges
+from whose decision no appeal can be taken--my conscience and my will.”
+
+An hour ago, Mme. Fauvel would have sworn that Raoul had made her suffer
+all the torments that a woman could endure; but now she felt that all
+her former troubles were nothing compared with her present agony.
+
+“My God! Raoul, what have you been doing?”
+
+“Money was intrusted to me: I gambled and lost it.”
+
+“Was it a large sum?”
+
+“No; but more than I can replace. My poor mother, have I not taken
+everything from you? Did you not give me your last jewel?”
+
+“But M. de Clameran is rich. He placed his fortune at my disposal. I
+will order the carriage, and go to him.”
+
+“But M. de Clameran is absent, and will not return to Paris until next
+week; and if I do not have the money this evening, I am lost. Alas! I
+have thought deeply, and, although it is hard to die so young, still
+fate wills it so.”
+
+He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and, with a forced smile, said:
+
+“This will settle everything.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was too excited and frightened to reflect upon the horror
+of Raoul’s behavior, and that these wild threats were a last resort
+for obtaining money. Forgetful of the past, careless of the future, her
+every thought concentrated upon the present, she comprehended but
+one fact: that her son was about to commit suicide, and that she was
+powerless to prevent the fearful deed.
+
+“Oh, wait a little while my son!” she cried. “Andre will soon return
+home, and I will ask him to give me--How much did you lose?”
+
+“Thirty thousand francs.”
+
+“You shall have them to-morrow.”
+
+“But I must have the money to-night.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel wrung her hands in despair.
+
+“Oh! why did you not come to me sooner, my son? Why did you not have
+confidence enough in me to come at once for help? This evening! There is
+no one in the house to open the money-safe; if it were not for that--if
+you had only come before Andre went out--”
+
+“The safe!” cried Raoul, with sudden joy, as if this magic word had
+thrown a ray of light upon his dark despair; “do you know where the key
+is kept?”
+
+“Yes: it is in the next room.”
+
+“Well!” he exclaimed, with a bold look that caused Mme. Fauvel to lower
+her eyes, and keep silent.
+
+“Give me the key, mother,” he said in a tone of entreaty.
+
+“Oh, Raoul, Raoul!”
+
+“It is my life I am asking of you.”
+
+These words decided her; she snatched up a candle, rushed into her
+chamber, opened the secretary, and took out M. Fauvel’s key.
+
+But, when about to hand it to Raoul, she seemed to suddenly see the
+enormity of what she was doing.
+
+“Oh, Raoul! my son,” she murmured, “I cannot! Do not ask me to commit
+such a dreadful deed!”
+
+He said nothing, but sadly turned to leave the room; then coming back to
+his mother said:
+
+“Ah, well; it makes but little difference in the end! At least, you will
+give me one last kiss, before we part forever, my darling mother!”
+
+“What could you do with the key, Raoul?” interrupted Mme. Fauvel. “You
+do not know the secret word of the buttons.”
+
+“No; but I can try to open it without moving the buttons.”
+
+“You know that money is never kept in the safe over-night.”
+
+“Nevertheless, I can make the attempt. If I open the safe, and find
+money in it, it will be a miracle, showing that Heaven has pitied my
+misfortune, and provided relief.”
+
+“And if you are not successful, will you promise me to wait until
+to-morrow, to do nothing rash to-night?”
+
+“I swear it, by my father’s memory.”
+
+“Then take the key and follow me.”
+
+Pale and trembling, Raoul and Mme. Fauvel passed through the banker’s
+study, and down the narrow staircase leading to the offices and
+cash-room below.
+
+Raoul walked in front, holding the light, and the key of the safe.
+
+Mme. Fauvel was convinced that it would be utterly impossible to open
+the safe, as the key was useless without the secret word, and of course
+Raoul had no way of discovering what that was.
+
+Even granting that some chance had revealed the secret to him, he would
+find but little in the safe, since everything was deposited in the Bank
+of France. Everyone knew that no large sum was ever kept in the safe
+after banking hours.
+
+The only anxiety she felt was, how Raoul would bear the disappointment,
+and how she could calm his despair.
+
+She thought that she would gain time by letting Raoul try the key; and
+then, when he could not open the safe, he would keep his promise, and
+wait until the next day. There was surely no harm in letting him try the
+lock, when he could not touch the money.
+
+“When he sees there is no chance of success,” she thought, “he will
+listen to my entreaties; and to-morrow--to-morrow----”
+
+What she could do to-morrow she knew not, she did not even ask herself.
+But in extreme situations the least delay inspires hope, as if a short
+respite meant sure salvation.
+
+The condemned man, at the last moment, begs for a reprieve of a day, an
+hour, a few seconds. Raoul was about to kill himself: his mother prayed
+to God to grant her one day, not even a day, one night; as if in this
+space of time some unexpected relief would come to end her misery.
+
+They reached Prosper’s office, and Raoul placed the light on a high
+stool so that it lighted the whole room.
+
+He then summoned up all his coolness, or rather that mechanical
+precision of movement, almost independent of will, of which men
+accustomed to peril avail themselves in time of need.
+
+Rapidly, with the dexterity of experience, he slipped the buttons on the
+five letters composing the name of G, y, p, s, y.
+
+His features, during this short operation, expressed the most intense
+anxiety. He was fearful that his nervous energy might give out; of not
+being able to open the safe; of not finding the money there when
+he opened it; of Prosper having changed the word; or perhaps having
+neglected to leave the money in the safe.
+
+Mme. Fauvel saw these visible apprehensions with alarm. She read in his
+eyes that wild hope of a man who, passionately desiring an object,
+ends by persuading himself that his own will suffices to overcome all
+obstacles.
+
+Having often been present when Prosper was preparing to leave his
+office, Raoul had fifty times seen him move the buttons, and lock the
+safe, just before leaving the bank. Indeed, having a practical turn
+of mind, and an eye to the future, he had even tried to lock the safe
+himself on several occasions, while waiting for Prosper.
+
+He inserted the key softly, turned it around, pushed it farther in,
+and turned it a second time; then thrust it in suddenly, and turned it
+again. His heart beat so loudly that Mme. Fauvel could hear its throbs.
+
+The word had not been changed; the safe opened.
+
+Raoul and his mother simultaneously uttered a cry; she of terror, he of
+triumph.
+
+“Shut it again!” cried Mme. Fauvel, frightened at the incomprehensible
+result of Raoul’s attempt: “Come away! Don’t touch anything, for
+Heaven’s sake! Raoul!”
+
+And, half frenzied, she clung to Raoul’s arm, and pulled him away so
+abruptly, that the key was dragged from the lock, and, slipping along
+the glossy varnish of the safe-door, made a deep scratch some inches
+long.
+
+But at a glance Raoul discovered, on the upper shelf of the safe, three
+bundles of bank-notes. He snatched them up with his left hand, and
+slipped them inside his vest.
+
+Exhausted by the effort she had just made, Mme. Fauvel dropped Raoul’s
+arm, and, almost fainting with emotion, clung to the back of a chair.
+
+“Have mercy, Raoul!” she moaned. “I implore you to put back that money
+and I solemnly swear that I will give you twice as much to-morrow. Oh,
+my son, have pity upon your unhappy mother!”
+
+He paid no attention to these words of entreaty, but carefully examined
+the scratch on the safe. He was alarmed at this trace of the robbery,
+which it was impossible for him to cover up.
+
+“At least you will not take all,” said Mme. Fauvel; “just keep enough to
+save yourself, and put back the rest.”
+
+“What good would that do? The discovery will be made that the safe has
+been opened; so I might as well take all as a part.”
+
+“Oh, no! not at all. I can account to Andre; I will tell him I had a
+pressing need for a certain sum, and opened the safe to get it.”
+
+In the meantime Raoul had carefully closed the safe.
+
+“Come, mother, let us go back to the sitting-room. A servant might go
+there to look for you, and be astonished at our absence.”
+
+Raoul’s cruel indifference and cold calculations at such a moment filled
+Mme. Fauvel with indignation. She saw that she had no influence over her
+son, that her prayers and tears had no effect upon his hard heart.
+
+“Let them be astonished,” she cried: “let them come here and find us! I
+will be relieved to put an end to this tissue of crime. Then Andre will
+know all, and drive me from his house. Let come what will, I shall
+not sacrifice another victim. Prosper will be accused of this theft
+to-morrow. Clameran defrauded him of the woman he loved, and now you
+would deprive him of his honor! I will have nothing to do with so base a
+crime.”
+
+She spoke so loud and angrily that Raoul was alarmed. He knew that the
+errand-boy slept in a room close by, and might be in bed listening to
+her, although it was early in the evening.
+
+“Come upstairs!” he said, seizing Mme. Fauvel’s arm.
+
+But she clung to a table and refused to move a step.
+
+“I have been cowardly enough to sacrifice Madeleine,” she said, “but I
+will not ruin Prosper.”
+
+Raoul had an argument in reserve which he knew would make Mme. Fauvel
+submit to his will.
+
+“Now, really,” he said with a cynical laugh, “do you pretend that you do
+not know Prosper and I arranged this little affair together, and that he
+is to have half the booty?”
+
+“Impossible! I never will believe such a thing of Prosper!”
+
+“Why, how do you suppose I discovered the secret word? Who do you
+suppose disobeyed orders, and left the money in the safe?”
+
+“Prosper is honest.”
+
+“Of course he is, and so am I too. The only thing is, that we both need
+money.”
+
+“You are telling a falsehood, Raoul!”
+
+“Upon my soul, I am not. Madeleine rejected Prosper, and the poor fellow
+has to console himself for her cruelty; and these sorts of consolations
+are expensive, my good mother.”
+
+He took up the candle, and gently but firmly led Mme. Fauvel toward the
+staircase.
+
+She mechanically suffered herself to be led along, more bewildered by
+what she had just heard than she was at the opening of the safe-door.
+
+“What!” she gasped, “can Prosper be a thief?”
+
+She began to think herself the victim of a terrible nightmare, and that,
+when she waked, her mind would be relieved of this intolerable torture.
+She helplessly clung to Raoul’s arm as he helped her up the narrow
+little staircase.
+
+“You must put the key back in the secretary,” said Raoul, as soon as
+they were in the chamber again.
+
+But she did not seem to hear him; so he went and replaced the safe-key
+in the place from which he had seen her take it.
+
+He then led, or rather carried, Mme. Fauvel into the little
+sitting-room, and placed her in an easy-chair.
+
+The set, expressionless look of the wretched woman’s eyes, and her dazed
+manner, frightened Raoul, who thought that she had lost her mind, that
+her reason had finally given way beneath this last terrible shock.
+
+“Come, cheer up, my dear mother,” he said in coaxing tones as he rubbed
+her icy hands; “you have saved my life, and rendered an immense service
+to Prosper. Don’t be alarmed; everything will come out right in the
+end. Prosper will be accused, perhaps arrested; he expects that, and is
+prepared for it; he will deny his culpability; and, as there is no proof
+against him, he will be set at liberty immediately.”
+
+But these falsehoods were wasted on Mme. Fauvel, who was incapable of
+understanding anything said to her.
+
+“Raoul,” she moaned in a broken-hearted tone, “Raoul, my son, you have
+killed me.”
+
+Her gentle voice, kind even in its despairing accents, touched the very
+bottom of Raoul’s perverted heart, and once more his soul was wrung
+by remorse; so that he felt inclined to put back the stolen money, and
+comfort the despairing woman whose life and reason he was destroying.
+The thought of Clameran restrained him.
+
+Finding his efforts to restore Mme. Fauvel fruitless, that, in spite
+of all his affectionate regrets and promises, she still sat silent,
+motionless, and death-like; and fearing that M. Fauvel or Madeleine
+might enter at any moment, and demand an explanation, he hastily pressed
+a kiss upon his mother’s brow, and hurried from the house.
+
+At the restaurant, in the room where they had dined, Clameran, tortured
+by anxiety, awaited his accomplice.
+
+He wondered if at the last moment, when he was not near to sustain him,
+Raoul would prove a coward, and retreat; if any unforeseen trifle had
+prevented his finding the key; if any visitors were there; and, if so,
+would they depart before M. Fauvel’s return from the dinner-party?
+
+He had worked himself into such a state of excitement, that, when Raoul
+returned, he flew to him with ashy face and trembling all over, and
+could scarcely gasp out:
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The deed is done, uncle, thanks to you; and I am now the most
+miserable, abject villain on the face of the earth.”
+
+He unbuttoned his vest, and, pulling out the four bundles of bank-notes,
+angrily dashed them upon the table, saying, in a tone of scorn and
+disgust:
+
+“Now I hope you are satisfied. This is the price of the happiness,
+honor, and perhaps the life of three people.”
+
+Clameran paid no attention to these angry words. With feverish eagerness
+he seized the notes, and rattled them in his hand as if to convince
+himself of the reality of success.
+
+“Now Madeleine is mine!” he cried excitedly.
+
+Raoul looked at Clameran in silent disgust. This exhibition of joy was
+a shocking contrast to the scene in which he had just been an actor. He
+was humiliated at being the tool of such a heartless scoundrel as he now
+knew Clameran to be.
+
+Louis misinterpreted this silence, and said gayly:
+
+“Did you have much difficulty?”
+
+“I forbid you ever to allude to this evening’s work,” cried Raoul
+fiercely. “Do you hear me? I wish to forget it.”
+
+Clameran shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of anger, and said in a
+bantering tone:
+
+“Just as you please, my handsome nephew: I rather think you will want
+to remember it though, when I offer you these three hundred and fifty
+thousand francs. You will not, I am sure, refuse to accept them as a
+slight souvenir. Take them: they are yours.”
+
+This generosity seemed neither to surprise nor satisfy Raoul.
+
+“According to our agreement,” he said sullenly, “I was to have more than
+this.”
+
+“Of course: this is only part of your share.”
+
+“And when am I to have the rest, if you please?”
+
+“The day I marry Madeleine, and not before, my boy. You are too valuable
+an assistant to lose at present; and you know that, though I don’t
+mistrust you, I am not altogether sure of your sincere affection for
+me.”
+
+Raoul reflected that to commit a crime, and not profit by it, would be
+the height of absurdity. He had come with the intention of breaking off
+all connection with Clameran; but he now determined that he would not
+abandon his accomplice until he had been well paid for his services.
+
+“Very well,” he said, “I accept this on account; but remember, I will
+never do another piece of work like this to-night. You can do what you
+please; I shall flatly refuse.”
+
+Clameran burst into a loud laugh, and said:
+
+“That is sensible: now that you are rich, you can afford to be honest.
+Set your conscience at rest, for I promise you I will require nothing
+more of you save a few trifling services. You can retire behind the
+scenes now, while I appear upon the stage; my role begins.”
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+For more than an hour after Raoul’s departure, Mme. Fauvel remained in a
+state of stupor bordering upon unconsciousness.
+
+Gradually, however, she recovered her senses sufficiently to comprehend
+the horrors of her present situation; and, with the faculty of thought,
+that of suffering returned.
+
+The dreadful scene in which she had taken part was still before her
+affrighted vision; all the attending circumstances, unnoticed at the
+time, now struck her forcibly.
+
+She saw that she had been the dupe of a shameful conspiracy: that Raoul
+had tortured her with cold-blooded cruelty, had taken advantage of her
+tenderness, and had speculated upon her fright.
+
+But had Prosper anything to do with the robbery? This Mme. Fauvel had
+no way of finding out. Ah, Raoul knew how the blow would strike when he
+accused Prosper. He knew that Mme. Fauvel would end by believing in the
+cashier’s complicity.
+
+The unhappy woman sat and thought over every possible way in which Raoul
+could find out the secret word without Prosper’s knowledge. She rejected
+with horror the idea that the cashier was the instigator of the crime;
+but, in spite of herself, it constantly recurred. And finally she felt
+convinced that what Raoul said must be true; for who but Prosper could
+have betrayed the word? And who but Prosper could have left so large an
+amount of money in the safe, which, by order of the banker, was to be
+always left empty at night?
+
+Knowing that Prosper was leading a life of extravagance and dissipation,
+she thought it very likely that he had, from sheer desperation, resorted
+to this bold step to pay his debts; her blind affection, moreover, made
+her anxious to attribute the crime to anyone, rather than to her darling
+son.
+
+She had heard that Prosper was supporting one of those worthless
+creatures whose extravagance impoverishes men, and whose evil influence
+perverts their natures. When a young man is thus degraded, will he
+stop at any sin or crime? Alas! Mme. Fauvel knew, from her own sad
+experience, to what depths even one fault can lead. Although she
+believed Prosper guilty, she did not blame him, but considered herself
+responsible for his sins.
+
+Had she not herself banished the poor young man from the fireside which
+he had begun to regard as his own? Had she not destroyed his hopes of
+happiness, by crushing his pure love for a noble girl, whom he looked
+upon as his future wife, and thus driven him into a life of dissipation
+and sin?
+
+She was undecided whether to confide in Madeleine, or bury the secret in
+her own breast.
+
+Fatally inspired, she decided to keep silent.
+
+When Madeleine returned home at eleven o’clock, Mme. Fauvel not only was
+silent as to what had occurred, but even succeeded in so concealing all
+traces of her agitation, that she escaped any questions from her niece.
+
+Her calmness never left her when M. Fauvel and Lucien returned, although
+she was in terror lest her husband should go down to the cash-room to
+see that everything was safely locked up. It was not his habit to open
+the money-safe at night, but he sometimes did.
+
+As fate would have it, the banker, as soon as he entered the room, began
+to speak of Prosper, saying how distressing it was that so interesting a
+young man should be thus throwing himself away, and wondering what could
+have happened to make him suddenly cease his visits at the house, and
+resort to bad company.
+
+If M. Fauvel had looked at the faces of his wife and niece while he
+harshly blamed the cashier, he would have been puzzled at their strange
+expressions.
+
+All night long Mme. Fauvel suffered the most intolerable agony. She
+counted each stroke of the town-clock, as the hours dragged on.
+
+“In six hours,” she said to herself, “in five hours--in four hours--in
+three hours--in one hour--all will be discovered; and then what will
+happen? Heaven help me!”
+
+At sunrise she heard the servants moving about the house. Then the
+office-shutters opened; then, later, she heard the clerks going into the
+bank.
+
+She attempted to get up, but felt so ill and weak that she sank back
+on her pillow; and lying there, trembling like a leaf, bathed in cold
+perspiration, she awaited the discovery of the robbery.
+
+She was leaning over the side of the bed, straining her ear to catch a
+sound from the cash-room, when Madeleine, who had just left her, rushed
+into the room.
+
+The white face and wild eyes of the poor girl told Mme. Fauvel that the
+crime was discovered.
+
+“Do you know what has happened, aunt?” cried Madeleine, in a shrill,
+horrified tone. “Prosper is accused of robbery, and the police have come
+to take him to prison!”
+
+A groan was Mme. Fauvel’s only answer.
+
+“Raoul or the marquis is at the bottom of this,” continued Madeleine
+excitedly.
+
+“How can they be concerned in it, my child?”
+
+“I can’t tell yet; but I only know that Prosper is innocent. I have just
+seen him, spoken to him. He would never have looked me in the face had
+he been guilty.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel opened her lips to confess all: fear kept her silent.
+
+“What can these wretches want?” said Madeleine: “what new sacrifice do
+they demand? Dishonor Prosper! Good heavens! Why did they not kill him
+at once? He would rather be dead than disgraced!”
+
+Here the entrance of M. Fauvel interrupted Madeleine. The banker was so
+angry that he could scarcely speak.
+
+“The worthless scoundrel!” he cried; “to think of his daring to accuse
+me! To insinuate that I robbed my own safe! And that Marquis de Clameran
+must needs doubt my good faith in keeping my engagement to pay his
+money!”
+
+Then, without noticing the effect of his story upon the two women, he
+proceeded to relate all that had occurred downstairs.
+
+“I was afraid this extravagance would lead to something terrible,” he
+said in conclusion; “you know I told you last night that Prosper was
+growing worse in his conduct, and that he would get into trouble.”
+
+Throughout the day Madeleine’s devotion to her aunt was severely tried.
+
+The generous girl saw disgrace heaped upon the man she loved. She had
+perfect faith in his innocence; she felt sure she knew who had laid the
+trap to ruin him; and yet she could not say a word in his defence.
+
+Fearing that Madeleine would suspect her of complicity in the theft, if
+she remained in bed and betrayed so much agitation, Mme. Fauvel arose
+and dressed for breakfast.
+
+It was a dreary meal. No one tasted a morsel. The servants moved about
+on their tiptoes, as silently as if a death had occurred in the family.
+
+About two o’clock, a servant came to M. Fauvel’s study, and said that
+the Marquis de Clameran desired to see him.
+
+“What!” cried the banker; “does he dare----”
+
+Then, after a moment’s reflection, he added:
+
+“Ask him to walk up.”
+
+The very name of Clameran had sufficed to arouse all the slumbering
+wrath of M. Fauvel. The victim of a robbery, finding his safe empty at
+the moment that he was called upon to make a heavy payment, he had been
+constrained to conceal his anger and resentment; but now he determined
+to have his revenge upon his insolent visitor.
+
+But the marquis declined to come upstairs. The messenger returned with
+the answer that the gentleman had a particular reason for seeing M.
+Fauvel in the office below, where the clerks were.
+
+“What does this fresh impertinence mean?” cried the banker, as he
+angrily jumped up and hastened downstairs.
+
+M. de Clameran was standing in the middle of the room adjoining the
+cash-room; M. Fauvel walked up to him, and said bluntly:
+
+“What do you want now, monsieur? You have been paid your money, and I
+have your receipt.”
+
+To the surprise of all the clerks, and the banker himself, the marquis
+seemed not in the least offended at this rude greeting, but answered in
+a deferential but not at all humble manner:
+
+“You are hard upon me, monsieur; but I deserve it, and that is why I am
+here. A gentleman always acknowledges when he is in the wrong: in this
+instance I am the offender; and I flatter myself that my past will
+permit me to say so without being accused of cowardice or lack of
+self-respect. I insisted upon seeing you here instead of in your study,
+because, having been rude to you in the presence of your clerks, I
+wished them to hear me apologize for my behavior of this morning.”
+
+Clameran’s speech was so different from his usual overbearing, haughty
+conduct, that surprise almost stupefied the banker, and he could only
+answer:
+
+“I must say that I was hurt by your doubts, insinuations, suspicions of
+my honor----”
+
+“This morning,” continued the marquis, “I was irritated, and
+thoughtlessly gave way to my temper. Although I am gray-headed, my
+disposition is as excitable as that of a fiery young man of twenty
+years; and I hope you will forget words uttered in a moment of
+excitement, and now deeply regretted.”
+
+M. Fauvel, being a kind-hearted though quick-tempered man, could
+appreciate Clameran’s feelings; and, knowing that his own high
+reputation for scrupulous honesty could not be affected by any hasty or
+abusive language uttered by a creditor, at once calmed down before so
+frank an apology; and, holding out his hand to Clameran, said:
+
+“Let us forget what happened, monsieur.”
+
+They conversed in a friendly manner for some minutes; and, after
+Clameran had explained why he had such pressing need of the money at
+that particular hour of the morning, turned to leave, saying that he
+would do himself the honor of calling upon Mme. Fauvel during the day.
+
+“That is, if a visit from me would not be considered intrusive,” he said
+with a shade of hesitation. “Perhaps, after the trouble of this morning,
+she does not wish to be disturbed.”
+
+“Oh, no!” said the banker; “come, by all means; I think a visit from you
+would cheer her mind. I shall be from home all day, trying to trace this
+unfortunate affair.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was in the same room where Raoul had threatened to kill
+himself the night previous; she looked very pale and ill as she lay on a
+sofa. Madeleine was bathing her forehead.
+
+When M. de Clameran was announced, they both started up as if a phantom
+had appeared before them.
+
+Although Louis had been gay and smiling when he parted from M. Fauvel
+downstairs, he now wore a melancholy aspect, as he gravely bowed, and
+refused to seat himself in the chair which Mme. Fauvel motioned him to
+take.
+
+“You will excuse me, ladies, for intruding at this time of your
+affliction; but I have a duty to fulfil.”
+
+The two women were silent; they seemed to be waiting for him to explain.
+He added in an undertone:
+
+“I know all.”
+
+By an imploring gesture, Mme. Fauvel tried to stop him. She saw that he
+was about to reveal her secret to Madeleine.
+
+But Louis would not see this gesture; he turned his whole attention to
+Madeleine, who haughtily said:
+
+“Explain yourself, monsieur.”
+
+“Only one hour ago,” he replied, “I discovered that Raoul last night
+forced from his mother the key of the money-safe, and stole three
+hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+Madeleine crimsoned with shame and indignation; she leaned over the
+sofa, and seizing her aunt’s wrist shook it violently, and in a hollow
+voice cried:
+
+“It is false, is it not, aunt? speak!”
+
+“Alas! alas!” groaned Mme. Fauvel. “What have I done?”
+
+“You have allowed Prosper to be accused,” cried Madeleine; “you have
+suffered him to be arrested, and disgraced for life.”
+
+“Forgive me,” sighed Mme. Fauvel. “He was about to kill himself; I was
+so frightened! Then you know--Prosper was to share the money: he gave
+Raoul the secret word--”
+
+“Good Heavens! Aunt, how could you believe such a falsehood as that?”
+
+Clameran interrupted them.
+
+“Unfortunately, what your aunt says of M. Bertomy is the truth,” he said
+in a sad tone.
+
+“Your proofs, monsieur; where are your proofs?”
+
+“Raoul’s confession.”
+
+“Raoul is false.”
+
+“That is only too true: but how did he find out the word, if M. Bertomy
+did not reveal it? And who left the money in the safe but M. Bertomy?”
+
+These arguments had no effect upon Madeleine.
+
+“And now tell me,” she said scornfully, “what became of the money?”
+
+There was no mistaking the significance of these words: they meant:
+
+“You are the instigator of the robbery, and of course you have taken
+possession of the money.”
+
+This harsh accusation from a girl whom he so passionately loved, when,
+grasping bandit as he was, he gave up for her sake all the money gained
+by his crime, so cruelly hurt Clameran that he turned livid. But his
+mortification and anger did not prevent him from pursuing the part he
+had prepared and studied.
+
+“A day will come, mademoiselle,” he said, “when you will deeply regret
+having treated me so cruelly. I understand your insinuation; you need
+not attempt to deny it.”
+
+“I have no idea of denying anything, monsieur.”
+
+“Madeleine!” remonstrated Mme. Fauvel, who trembled at the rising anger
+of the man who held her fate in his hands, “Madeleine, be careful!”
+
+“Mademoiselle is pitiless,” said Clameran sadly; “she cruelly punishes
+an honorable man whose only fault is having obeyed his brother’s
+dying injunctions. And I am here now, because I believe in the joint
+responsibility of all the members of a family.”
+
+Here he slowly drew from his pocket several bundles of bank-notes, and
+laid them on the mantel-piece.
+
+“Raoul stole three hundred and fifty thousand francs,” he said: “I
+return the same amount. It is more than half my fortune. Willingly would
+I give the rest to insure this being the last crime committed by him.”
+
+Too inexperienced to penetrate this bold, and yet simple plan of
+Clameran’s, Madeleine was dumb with astonishment; all her calculations
+were upset.
+
+Mme. Fauvel, on the contrary, accepted this restitution as salvation
+sent from heaven.
+
+“Oh, thanks, monsieur, thanks!” she cried, gratefully clasping
+Clameran’s hand in hers; “you are goodness itself!”
+
+Louis’s eye lit up with pleasure. But he rejoiced too soon. A minute’s
+reflection brought back all of Madeleine’s distrust. She thought this
+magnanimity and generosity unnatural in a man whom she considered
+incapable of a noble sentiment, and at once concluded that it must
+conceal some snare beneath.
+
+“What are we to do with the money?” she demanded.
+
+“Restore it to M. Fauvel, mademoiselle.”
+
+“We restore it, monsieur, and how? Restoring the money is denouncing
+Raoul, and ruining my aunt. Take back your money, monsieur. We will not
+touch it.”
+
+Clameran was too shrewd to insist; he took up the money, and prepared to
+leave.
+
+“I comprehend your refusal, mademoiselle, and must find another way
+of accomplishing my wish. But, before retiring, let me say that your
+injustice pains me deeply. After the promise you made to me, I had
+reason to hope for a kinder welcome.”
+
+“I will keep my promise, monsieur; but not until you have furnished
+security.”
+
+“Security! And for what? Pray, explain yourself.”
+
+“Something to protect my aunt against the molestations of Raoul after
+my--marriage. What is to prevent his coming to extort money from his
+mother after he has squandered my dowry? A man who spends a hundred
+thousand francs in four months will soon run through my little fortune.
+We are making a bargain; I give you my hand in exchange for the honor
+and life of my aunt; and of course you must give me some guarantee to
+secure the performance of your promise.”
+
+“Oh! I will give you ample securities,” cried Clameran, “such as will
+quiet all your suspicious doubts of my good faith. Alas! you will
+not believe in my devotion; what shall I do to convince you of its
+sincerity? Shall I try to save M. Bertomy?”
+
+“Thanks for the offer, monsieur,” replied Madeleine disdainfully; “if
+Prosper is guilty, let him be punished by the law; if he is innocent,
+God will protect him.”
+
+Here Madeleine stood up, to signify that the interview was over.
+
+Clameran bowed, and left the room.
+
+“What pride! What determination! The idea of her demanding securities
+of me!” he said to himself as he slowly walked away. “But the proud girl
+shall be humbled yet. She is so beautiful! and, if I did not so madly
+love her, I would kill her on the spot!”
+
+Never had Clameran been so irritated.
+
+Madeleine’s quiet determination and forethought had unexpectedly thrown
+him off his well-laid track; not anticipating any such self assertion on
+her part, he was disconcerted, and at a loss how to proceed.
+
+He knew that it would be useless to attempt deceiving a girl of
+Madeleine’s character a second time; he saw that she had penetrated his
+motives sufficiently to put her on the defensive, and prepare her for
+any new surprise. Moreover, she would prevent Mme. Fauvel from being
+frightened and forced into submission any longer.
+
+With mortification and rage, Louis saw that after all his plotting, when
+success was in his reach, when his hopes were almost crowned, he had
+been foiled and scornfully set at defiance by a girl: the whole thing
+would have to be gone over again.
+
+Although Madeleine had resigned herself to sacrifice, it was still
+evident that she had no idea of doing so blindly, and would not hazard
+her aunt’s and her own happiness upon the uncertainty of a verbal
+promise.
+
+Clameran racked his brain to furnish guarantees; how could he convince
+her that Raoul had no idea or desire of annoying Mme. Fauvel in the
+future?
+
+He could not tell Madeleine that her dowry was to be the bribe received
+by Raoul for his future good behavior and past crimes.
+
+The knowledge of all the circumstances of this shameful criminal
+intrigue would have reassured her upon her aunt’s peace of mind; but
+then it would never do to inform her of these details, certainly not
+before the marriage.
+
+What securities could he give? Not one could he think of.
+
+But Clameran was not one of those slow-minded men who take weeks to
+consider a difficulty. When he could not untie a knot, he would cut it.
+
+Raoul was a stumbling-block to his wishes, and he swore to rid himself
+of his troublesome accomplice as soon as possible.
+
+Although it was not an easy matter to dispose of so cunning a knave,
+Clameran felt no hesitation in undertaking to accomplish his purpose. He
+was incited by one of those passions which age renders terrible.
+
+The more certain he was of Madeleine’s contempt and dislike, the more
+determined he was to marry her. His love seemed to be a sort of insane
+desire to possess and call his own the one being whom he recognized as
+his superior in every way.
+
+But he had sense enough to see that he might ruin his prospects by undue
+haste, and that the safest course would be to await the result of the
+robbery and its effect upon Prosper.
+
+He waited in anxious expectation of a summons from Mme. Fauvel. At last
+he concluded that Madeleine was waiting for him to make the next move in
+the direction of yielding.
+
+He was right; Madeleine knew that after the last bold step the
+accomplices would remain quiet for a while; she knew resistance could
+have no worse results than would cowardly submission; and therefore
+assumed the entire responsibility of managing the affair so as to keep
+at bay both Raoul and Clameran.
+
+She knew that Mme. Fauvel would be anxious to accept any terms of peace,
+but she determined to use all her influence to prevent her doing this,
+and to force upon her the necessity of preserving a dignified silence.
+
+This accounted for the silence of the two women, who were quietly
+waiting for their adversaries to renew hostilities.
+
+They even succeeded in concealing their anxiety beneath assumed
+indifference; never asking any questions about the robbery, or those in
+any way connected with it.
+
+M. Fauvel brought them an account of Prosper’s examination, the many
+charges brought against him, his obstinate denial of having stolen the
+money; and finally how, after great perplexity and close study of the
+case by the judge of instruction, the cashier had been discharged for
+want of sufficient proof against him.
+
+Since Clameran’s offer to restore the notes, Mme. Fauvel had not doubted
+Prosper’s guilt. She said nothing, but inwardly accused him of having
+seduced her son from the path of virtue, and enticed him into crime--her
+son whom she would never cease to love, no matter how great his faults.
+
+Madeleine had perfect faith in Prosper’s innocence.
+
+She was so confident of his being restored to liberty that she ventured
+to ask her uncle, under pretext of some charitable object, to give
+her ten thousand francs, which she sent to the unfortunate victim of
+circumstantial evidence; who, from what she had heard of his poverty,
+must be in need of assistance.
+
+In the letter--cut from her prayer-book to avoid detection by
+writing--accompanying the money, she advised Prosper to leave France,
+because she knew that it would be impossible for a man of his proud
+nature to remain on the scene of his disgrace; the greater his
+innocence, the more intolerable his suffering.
+
+Besides, Madeleine, at that time feeling that she would be obliged to
+marry Clameran, was anxious to have the man she loved far, far away from
+her.
+
+On the day that this anonymous present was sent, in opposition to the
+wishes of Mme. Fauvel, the two poor women were entangled fearfully in
+pecuniary difficulties.
+
+The tradesmen whose money had been squandered by Raoul refused to give
+credit any longer, and insisted upon their bills being paid at once;
+saying they could not understand how a man of M. Fauvel’s wealth and
+position could keep them waiting for such insignificant sums.
+
+The butcher, grocer, and wine-merchant had bills of one, two, and five
+hundred francs only; but, not having even that small amount, Mme. Fauvel
+had difficulty in prevailing upon them to receive a part on account, and
+wait a little longer for the residue.
+
+Some of the store-keepers threatened to ask the banker for their money,
+if everything was not settled before the end of the week.
+
+Alas! Mme. Fauvel’s indebtedness amounted to fifteen thousand francs.
+
+Madeleine and her aunt had declined all invitations during the winter,
+to avoid purchasing evening dresses; having always been remarkable for
+their superb toilets, seldom appearing in the same ball-dress twice,
+they dared not give rise to comment by wearing their old dresses, and
+knowing that M. Fauvel would be the first to ask the cause of this
+sudden change, as he liked to see them always the best-dressed women in
+the room.
+
+But at last they were obliged to appear in public. M. Fauvel’s most
+intimate friends, the Messrs. Jandidier, were about to give a splendid
+ball, and, as fate would have it, a fancy ball, which would require the
+purchasing of costumes.
+
+Where would the money come from?
+
+They had been owing a large bill to their dressmaker for over a year.
+Would she consent to furnish them dresses on credit? They were ashamed
+to ask her.
+
+Madeleine’s new maid, Palmyre Chocareille, extricated them from this
+difficulty.
+
+This girl, who seemed to have suffered all the minor ills of
+life--which, after all, are the hardest to bear--seemed to have divined
+her mistress’s anxiety.
+
+At any rate, she voluntarily informed Madeleine that a friend of hers,
+a first-class dressmaker, had just set up for herself, and would be glad
+to furnish materials and make the dresses on credit, for the sake of
+obtaining the patronage of Mme. Fauvel and her niece, which would at
+once bring her plenty of fashionable customers.
+
+But, after this dilemma was settled, a still greater one presented
+itself.
+
+Mme. Fauvel and her niece could not appear at a ball without jewelry;
+and every jewel they owned had been taken by Raoul, and pawned.
+
+After thinking the matter over, Madeleine decided to ask Raoul to take
+some of the stolen money, and redeem the last set of jewels he had
+forced from his mother. She informed her aunt of her intention, and
+said, in a tone that admitted of no contradiction:
+
+“Appoint an interview with Raoul: he will not dare to refuse you; and I
+will go in your stead.”
+
+The next day, the courageous girl took a cab, and, regardless of the
+inclement weather, went to Vesinet.
+
+She would have been filled with consternation had she known that M.
+Verduret and Prosper were following close behind, and witnessed her
+interview from the top of a ladder.
+
+Her bold step was fruitless. Raoul swore that he had divided with
+Prosper; that his own half of the money was spent, and that he had not a
+napoleon wherewith to redeem anything.
+
+He even refused to give up the pledges; and Madeleine had to resort
+to threats of exposure, before she could induce him to surrender the
+tickets of four or five trifling articles that were indispensable to
+their toilet.
+
+Clameran had ordered him to refuse positively to give up a single
+ticket, because he hoped that in their distress they would call upon him
+for relief.
+
+The violent altercation witnessed by Clameran’s new valet, Joseph
+Dubois, had been caused by the exaction of this promise.
+
+The accomplices were at that time on very bad terms. Clameran was
+seeking a safe means of getting rid of Raoul; and the young scamp,
+having a presentiment of his uncle’s intentions, was determined to
+outwit him.
+
+Nothing but the certainty of impending danger could reconcile them. The
+danger was revealed to them both at the Jandidier ball.
+
+Who was the mysterious mountebank that indulged in such transparent
+allusions to Mme. Fauvel’s private troubles, and then said, with
+threatening significance to Louis: “I was the best friend of your
+brother Gaston?”
+
+Who he was, where he came from, they could not imagine; but they
+clearly saw that he was a dangerous enemy, and forthwith attempted to
+assassinate him upon his leaving the ball.
+
+Having been followed and watched by their would-be victim, they became
+alarmed--especially when he suddenly disappeared--and wisely decided
+that the safest thing they then could do was to return quietly to their
+hotel.
+
+“We cannot be too guarded in our conduct,” whispered Clameran; “we must
+discover who he is before taking any further steps in this matter.”
+
+Once more, Raoul tried to induce him to give up his project of marrying
+Madeleine.
+
+“Never!” he exclaimed fiercely, “I will marry her or perish in the
+attempt!”
+
+He thought that, now they were warned, the danger of being caught was
+lessened; when on his guard, few people could entrap so experienced and
+skilful a rogue.
+
+Little did Clameran know that a man who was a hundred-fold more skilful
+than he was closely pursuing him.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE CATASTROPHE
+
+Such are the facts that, with an almost incredible talent for
+investigation, had been collected and prepared by the stout man with the
+jovial face who had taken Prosper under his protection, M. Verduret.
+
+Reaching Paris at nine o’clock in the evening, not by the Lyons road
+as he had said, but by the Orleans train, M. Verduret hurried up to the
+Archangel, where he found the cashier impatiently expecting him.
+
+“You are about to hear some rich developments,” he said to Prosper, “and
+see how far back into the past one has to seek for the primary cause of
+a crime. All things are linked together and dependent upon each other in
+this world of ours. If Gaston de Clameran had not entered a little
+cafe at Tarascon to play a game of billiards twenty years ago, your
+money-safe would not have been robbed three weeks ago.
+
+“Valentine de la Verberie is punished in 1866 for the murder committed
+for her sake in 1840. Nothing is neglected or forgotten, when stern
+Retribution asserts her sway. Listen.”
+
+And he forthwith related all that he had discovered, referring, as he
+went along, to a voluminous manuscript which he had prepared, with many
+notes and authenticated proofs attached.
+
+During the last week M. Verduret had not had twenty-four hours’ rest,
+but he bore no traces of fatigue. His iron muscles braved any amount of
+labor, and his elastic nature was too well tempered to give way beneath
+such pressure.
+
+While any other man would have sunk exhausted in a chair, he stood up
+and described, with the enthusiasm and captivating animation peculiar
+to him, the minutest details and intricacies of the plot that he had
+devoted his whole energy to unravelling; personating every character he
+brought upon the scene to take part in the strange drama, so that his
+listener was bewildered and dazzled by his brilliant acting.
+
+As Prosper listened to this narrative of events happening twenty years
+back, the secret conversations as minutely related as if overheard the
+moment they took place, it sounded more like a romance than a statement
+of plain facts.
+
+All these ingenious explanations might be logical, but what foundation
+did they possess? Might they not be the dreams of an excited
+imagination?
+
+M. Verduret did not finish his report until four o’clock in the morning;
+then he cried, with an accent of triumph:
+
+“And now they are on their guard, and sharp, wary rascals too: but they
+won’t escape me; I have cornered them beautifully. Before a week is
+over, Prosper, you will be publicly exonerated, and will come out of
+this scrape with flying colors. I have promised your father you shall.”
+
+“Impossible!” said Prosper in a dazed way, “it cannot be!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“All this you have just told me.”
+
+M. Verduret opened wide his eyes, as if he could not understand anyone
+having the audacity to doubt the accuracy of _his_ report.
+
+“Impossible, indeed!” he cried. “What! have you not sense enough to see
+the plain truth written all over every fact, and attested by the best
+authority? Your thick-headedness exasperates me to the last degree.”
+
+“But how can such rascalities take place in Paris, in our very midst,
+without----”
+
+“Parbleu!” interrupted the fat man, “you are young, my friend! Are you
+innocent enough to suppose that crimes, forty times worse than this,
+don’t occur every day? You think the horrors of the police-court are
+the only ones. Pooh! You only read in the _Gazette des Tribunaux_ of the
+cruel melodramas of life, where the actors are as cowardly as the knife,
+and as treacherous as the poison they use. It is at the family fireside,
+often under shelter of the law itself, that the real tragedies of
+life are acted; in modern crimes the traitors wear gloves, and cloak
+themselves with public position; the victims die, smiling to the last,
+without revealing the torture they have endured to the end. Why, what
+I have just related to you is an everyday occurrence; and you profess
+astonishment.”
+
+“I can’t help wondering how you discovered all this tissue of crime.”
+
+“Ah, that is the point!” said the fat man with a self-satisfied smile.
+“When I undertake a task, I devote my whole attention to it. Now, make
+a note of this: When a man of ordinary intelligence concentrates his
+thoughts and energies upon the attainment of an object, he is certain to
+obtain ultimate success. Besides that, I have my own method of working
+up a case.”
+
+“Still I don’t see what grounds you had to go upon.”
+
+“To be sure, one needs some light to guide one in a dark affair like
+this. But the fire in Clameran’s eye at the mention of Gaston’s name
+ignited my lantern. From that moment I walked straight to the solution
+of the mystery, as I would walk to a beacon-light on a dark night.”
+
+The eager, questioning look of Prosper showed that he would like to know
+the secret of his protector’s wonderful penetration, and at the same
+time be more thoroughly convinced that what he had heard was all
+true--that his innocence would be more clearly proved.
+
+“Now confess,” cried M. Verduret, “you would give anything in the world
+to find out how I discovered the truth?”
+
+“I certainly would, for it is the darkest of mysteries, marvellous!”
+
+M. Verduret enjoyed Prosper’s bewilderment. To be sure, he was neither
+a good judge nor a distinguished amateur; but he was an astonished
+admirer, and sincere admiration is always flattering, no matter whence
+it comes.
+
+“Well,” he replied, “I will explain my system. There is nothing
+marvellous about it as you will soon see. We worked together to find the
+solution of the problem, so you know my reasons for suspecting Clameran
+as the prime mover in the robbery. As soon as I had acquired this
+certainty, my task was easy. You want to know what I did? I placed
+trustworthy people to watch the parties in whom I was most interested.
+Joseph Dubois took charge of Clameran, and Nina Gypsy never lost sight
+of Mme. Fauvel and her niece.”
+
+“I cannot comprehend how Nina ever consented to this service.”
+
+“That is my secret,” replied M. Verduret. “Having the assistance of good
+eyes and quick ears on the spot, I went to Beaucaire to inquire into the
+past, so as to link it with what I knew of the present. The next day I
+was at Clameran; and the first step I took was to find the son of St.
+Jean, the old valet. An honest man he was, too; open and simple as
+nature herself; and he made a good bargain in selling me his madder.”
+
+“Madder?” said Prosper with a puzzled look; “what did you----”
+
+“Of course I wanted to buy his madder. Of course I did not appear to
+him as I do to you now. I was a countryman wanting to buy madder; he
+had madder for sale; so we began to bargain about the price. The debate
+lasted almost all day, during which time we drank a dozen bottles of
+wine. About supper-time, St. Jean was as drunk as a bunghole, and I had
+purchased nine hundred francs’ worth of madder which your father will
+sell to-morrow.”
+
+Prosper’s astonished countenance made M. Verduret laugh heartily.
+
+“I risked nine hundred francs,” he continued, “but thread by thread I
+gathered the whole history of the Clamerans, Gaston’s love-affair, his
+flight, and the stumbling of the horse ridden by Louis. I found also
+that about a year ago Louis returned, sold the chateau to a man named
+Fougeroux, whose wife, Mihonne, had a secret interview with Louis the
+day of the purchase. I went to see Mihonne. Poor woman! her rascally
+husband has pounded all the sense out of her; she is almost idiotic. I
+told her I came from the Clameran family, and she at once related to me
+everything she knew.”
+
+The apparent simplicity of this mode of investigation confounded
+Prosper. He wondered it had not occurred to him before.
+
+“From that time,” continued M. Verduret, “the skein began to
+disentangle; I held the principal thread. I now set about finding out
+what had become of Gaston. Lafourcade, who is a friend of your father,
+informed me that he had bought a foundery, and settled in Oloron, where
+he soon after suddenly died. Thirty-six hours later I was at Oloron.”
+
+“You are certainly indefatigable!” said Prosper.
+
+“No, but I always strike while the iron is hot. At Oloron I met Manuel,
+who had gone there to make a little visit before returning to Spain.
+From him I obtained a complete history of Gaston’s life, and all the
+particulars of his death. Manuel also told me of Louis’s visit; and the
+inn-keeper described a young workman who was there at the same time,
+whom I at once recognized as Raoul.”
+
+“But how did you know of all the conversations between the villains?”
+ said Prosper. “You seem to be aware of their secret thoughts.”
+
+“You evidently think I have been drawing upon my imagination. You will
+soon see to the contrary,” said Verduret good-humoredly. “While I was
+at work down there, my aids did not sit with their hands tied together.
+Mutually distrustful, Clameran and Raoul preserved all the letters
+received from each other. Joseph Dubois copied them, or the important
+portions of them, and forwarded them to me. Nina spent her time
+listening at all doors under her supervision, and sent me a faithful
+report. Finally, I have at the Fauvels another means of investigation
+which I will reveal to you later.”
+
+“I understand it all now,” murmured Prosper.
+
+“And what have you been doing during my absence, my young friend?” asked
+M. Verduret; “have you heard any news?”
+
+At this question Prosper turned crimson. But he knew that it would never
+do to keep silent about his imprudent step.
+
+“Alas!” he stammered, “I read in a newspaper that Clameran was about to
+marry Madeleine; and I acted like a fool.”
+
+“What did you do?” inquired Verduret anxiously.
+
+“I wrote an anonymous letter to M. Fauvel, informing him that his wife
+was in love with Raoul--”
+
+M. Verduret here brought his clinched fist down upon the little table
+near by, with such violence that the thin plank was shivered. His
+cheerful face in an instant clouded over.
+
+“What folly!” he exclaimed, “how could you go and ruin everything?”
+
+He arose from his seat, and strode up and down the room, oblivious of
+the lodgers below, whose windows shook with every angry stamp of his
+foot.
+
+“What made you act so like a child, an idiot, a fool?” he said
+indignantly to Prosper.
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Here you are, drowning; an honest man springs into the water to save
+you, and just as he approaches the shore you entangle his feet to
+prevent him from swimming! What was my last order to you when I left
+here?”
+
+“To keep quiet, and not go out of the hotel.”
+
+“Well.”
+
+The consciousness of having done a foolish thing made Prosper appear
+like a frightened school-boy, accused by his teacher of playing truant.
+
+“It was night, monsieur,” he hesitatingly said, “and, having a violent
+headache, I took a walk along the quay thinking there was no risk in
+my entering a cafe; there I picked up a paper, and read the dreadful
+announcement.”
+
+“Did you not promise to trust everything to me?”
+
+“You were absent, monsieur; and you yourself might have been surprised
+by an unexpected--”
+
+“Only fools are ever surprised into committing a piece of folly,” cried
+M. Verduret impatiently. “To write an anonymous letter! Do you know to
+what you expose me? Breaking a sacred promise made to one of the few
+persons whom I highly esteem among my fellow-beings. I shall be looked
+upon as a liar, a cheat--I who--”
+
+He abruptly stopped, as if afraid to trust himself to speak further;
+after calming down a little, he turned to Prosper, and said:
+
+“The best thing we can do is to try and repair the harm you have done.
+When and where did you post this idiotic letter?”
+
+“Yesterday evening, at the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. It hardly reached
+the bottom of the box before I regretted having written it.”
+
+“You had better have regretted it before dropping it in. What time was
+it?”
+
+“About ten o’clock.”
+
+“Then your sweet little letter must have reached M. Fauvel with his
+early mail; probably he was alone in his study when he read it.”
+
+“I know he was: he never goes down to the bank until he has opened his
+letters.”
+
+“Can you recall the exact terms of your letter? Stop and think, for it
+is very important that I should know.”
+
+“Oh, it is unnecessary for me to reflect. I remember the letter as if I
+had just written it.”
+
+And almost verbatim he repeated what he had written.
+
+After attentively listening, M. Verduret sat with a perplexed frown
+upon his face, as if trying to discover some means of repairing the harm
+done.
+
+“That is an awkward letter,” he finally said, “to come from a person
+who does not deal in such things. It leaves everything to be understood
+without specifying anything; it is vague, jeering, insidious. Repeat it
+to me.”
+
+Prosper obeyed, and his second version did not vary from the first in a
+single word.
+
+“Nothing could be more alarming than that allusion to the cashier,” said
+the fat man, repeating the words after Prosper. “The question, ‘Was it
+also he who stole Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds?’ is simply fearful. What could
+be more exasperating than the sarcastic advice, ‘In your place, I would
+not have any public scandal, but would watch my wife?’ The effect of
+your letter must have been terrible,” he added thoughtfully as he stood
+with folded arms looking at poor Prosper. “M. Fauvel is quick-tempered,
+is he not?”
+
+“He has a violent temper, when aroused.”
+
+“Then the mischief is not irreparable.”
+
+“What! do you suppose--”
+
+“I think that an impulsive man is afraid of himself, and seldom carries
+out his first angry intentions. That is our chance of salvation. If,
+upon the receipt of your bomb-shell, M. Fauvel, unable to restrain
+himself, rushed into his wife’s room, and cried, ‘Where are your
+diamonds?’ Mme. Fauvel will confess all; and then good-by to our hopes.”
+
+“Why would this be disastrous?”
+
+“Because, the moment Mme. Fauvel opens her lips to her husband, our
+birds will take flight.”
+
+Prosper had never thought of this eventuality.
+
+“Then, again,” continued M. Verduret, “it would deeply distress another
+person.”
+
+“Anyone whom I know?”
+
+“Yes, my friend, and very well too. I should certainly be chagrined to
+the last degree, if these two rascals escape, without having obtained
+complete satisfaction from them.”
+
+“It seems to me that you know how to take care of yourself, and can do
+anything you please.”
+
+M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders, and said:
+
+“Did you not perceive the gaps in my narrative?”
+
+“I did not.”
+
+“That is because you don’t know how to listen. In the first place, did
+Louis de Clameran poison his brother, or not?”
+
+“Yes; I am sure of it, from what you tell me.”
+
+“There you are! You are much more certain, young man, than I am. Your
+opinion is mine; but what proof have we? None. I skilfully questioned
+Dr. C----. He has not the shadow of suspicion; and Dr. C---- is no
+quack; he is a cultivated, observing man of high standing. What poisons
+produce the effects described? I know of none; and yet I have studied up
+on poisons from Pomerania digitalis to Sauvresy aconite.”
+
+“The death took place so opportunely----”
+
+“That anybody would be convinced of foul play. That is true; but chance
+is sometimes a wonderful accomplice in crime. In the second place, I
+know nothing of Raoul’s antecedents.”
+
+“Is information on that point necessary?”
+
+“Indispensable, my friend; but we will soon know something. I have sent
+off one of my men--excuse me, I mean one of my friends--who is very
+expert and adroit, M. Palot; and he writes that he is on the track. I am
+interested in the history of this sentimental, sceptical young rascal. I
+have an idea that he must have been a brave, honest sort of youth before
+Clameran ruined him.”
+
+Prosper was no longer listening.
+
+M. Verduret’s words had inspired him with confidence. Already he saw
+the guilty men arraigned before the bar of justice; and enjoyed, in
+anticipation, this assize-court drama, where he would be publicly
+exonerated and restored to position.
+
+Then he would seek Madeleine; for now he understood her strange conduct
+at the dressmaker’s, and knew that she had never ceased to love him.
+
+This certainty of future happiness restored all the self-possession that
+had deserted him the day he found the safe robbed. For the first time he
+was astonished at the peculiarity of his situation.
+
+Prosper had at first only been surprised at the protection of M.
+Verduret and the extent of his investigations: now he asked himself,
+what could have been his motives for acting thus?
+
+What price did he expect for this sacrifice of time and labor?
+
+His anxiety made him say nervously:
+
+“It is unjust to us both, monsieur, for you to preserve your incognito
+any longer. When you have saved the honor and life of a man, you should
+at least let him know whom he is to thank for it.”
+
+“Oh!” said M. Verduret smilingly, “you are not out of the woods yet. You
+are not married either: so you must wait a little longer; patience and
+faith.”
+
+The clock struck six.
+
+“Good heavens!” exclaimed M. Verduret. “Can it be six o’clock? I did
+hope to have a good night’s rest, but I must keep on moving. This is no
+time to be asleep.”
+
+He went into the passage, and, leaning over the balusters, called, “Mme.
+Alexandre! I say, Mme. Alexandre!”
+
+The hostess of the Archangel, the portly wife of Fanferlot the Squirrel,
+evidently had not been to bed. This fact struck Prosper.
+
+She appeared, obsequious, smiling, and eager to please.
+
+“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” she inquired.
+
+“You can send your--Joseph Dubois and Palmyre to me as soon as possible.
+Let me know when they arrive. I will rest a few minutes, and you can
+awake me when they come.”
+
+As soon as Mme. Alexandre left the room, the fat man unceremoniously
+threw himself on the bed.
+
+“You have no objections, I suppose?” he said to Prosper.
+
+In five minutes he was fast asleep; and Prosper sat by the bed watching
+him with a perplexed gaze, wondering who this strange man could be.
+
+About nine o’clock someone tapped timidly at the door.
+
+Slight as the noise was, it aroused M. Verduret, who sprang up, and
+called out:
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+Prosper arose and opened the door.
+
+Joseph Dubois, the valet of the Marquis of Clameran, entered.
+
+This important assistant of M. Verduret was breathless from fast
+running; and his little rat eyes were more restless than ever.
+
+“Well, patron, I am glad to see you once more,” he cried. “Now you can
+tell me what to do; I have been perfectly lost during your absence, and
+have felt like a jumping monkey with a broken string.
+
+“What! did you get frightened too?”
+
+“Bless me! I think I had cause for alarm when I could not find you
+anywhere. Yesterday afternoon I sent you three despatches, to the
+addresses you gave me, Lyons, Beaucaire, and Oloron, but received no
+answer. I was almost crazy with anxiety when your message reached me
+just now.”
+
+“Things are getting hot, then.”
+
+“Hot! They are burning! The place is too warm to hold me any longer;
+upon my soul, I can’t stand it!”
+
+M. Verduret occupied himself in repairing his toilet, become disarranged
+by lying down.
+
+When he had finished, he threw himself in an easy-chair, and said to
+Joseph Dubois, who remained respectfully standing, cap in hand, like a
+soldier awaiting orders:
+
+“Explain yourself, my boy, and quickly, if you please; no
+circumlocution.”
+
+“It is just this, patron. I don’t know what your plans are, or what line
+you are taking now; but I can just tell you this: that you will have to
+wind up the affair pretty quickly.”
+
+“That is your opinion, Master Joseph?”
+
+“Yes, patron, because if you wait any longer, good-by to our covey: you
+will certainly find an empty cage, and the birds flown. You smile? Yes,
+I know you are clever, and can accomplish anything; but they are cunning
+blades, and as slippery as eels. They know that they are watched, too.”
+
+“The devil they do!” cried M. Verduret. “Who has been committing
+blunders?”
+
+“Oh! nobody has done anything wrong,” replied Joseph. “You know, patron,
+that they suspected something long ago. They gave you a proof of it, the
+night of the fancy ball; that ugly cut on your arm was the beginning.
+Ever since, they have had one eye open all the time. They had begun to
+feel easier, when all of a sudden, yesterday, _ma foi_, they began to
+smell a rat!”
+
+“Was that the cause of your telegrams?”
+
+“Of course. Now listen: yesterday morning when my master got up, about
+ten o’clock, he took it into his head to arrange the papers in his desk;
+which, by the way, has a disgusting lock which has given me a deal of
+trouble. Meanwhile, I pretended to be fixing the fire, so as to remain
+in the room to watch him. Patron, the man has an eye like a Yankee! At
+the first glance he saw, or rather divined, that his papers had been
+meddled with, he turned livid, and swore an oath; Lord, what an oath!”
+
+“Never mind the oath; go on.”
+
+“Well, how he discovered the little attentions I had devoted to
+his letters, I can’t imagine. You know how careful I am. I had put
+everything in perfect order; just as I found things I left them, when,
+lo and behold! my noble marquis picks up each paper, one at a time,
+turns it over, and smells it. I was just thinking I would offer him a
+magnifying-glass, when all of a sudden he sprang up, and with one kick
+sent his chair across the room, and flew at me with his eyes flashing
+like two pistols. ‘Somebody has been at my papers,’ he shrieked; ‘this
+letter has been photographed!’ B-r-r-r! I am not a coward, but I can
+tell you that my heart stood perfectly still; I saw myself as dead
+as Caesar, cut into mince-meat; and says I to myself, ‘Fanfer--excuse
+me--Dubois, my friend, you are lost, dead;’ and I thought of Mme.
+Alexandre.”
+
+M. Verduret was buried in thought, and paid no attention to the worthy
+Joseph’s analysis of his personal sensations.
+
+“What happened next?” said Verduret after a few minutes.
+
+“Why, he was just as frightened as I was, patron. The rascal did not
+even dare to touch me. To be sure, I had taken the precaution to get out
+of his reach; we talked with a large table between us. While wondering
+what could have enabled him to discover the secret, I defended myself
+with virtuous indignation. I said:
+
+“‘It cannot be; M. le marquis is mistaken. Who would dare touch his
+papers?’
+
+“Bast! Instead of listening to me, he flourished an open letter, and
+said:
+
+“‘This letter has been photographed! here is proof of it!’ and he
+pointed to a little yellow spot on the paper, shrieking out, ‘Look!
+Smell! Smell it, you devil! It is--’ I forget the name he called it, but
+some acid used by photographers.”
+
+“I know, I know,” said M. Verduret; “go on; what next?”
+
+“Then, patron, we had a scene; what a scene! He ended by seizing me by
+the throat, and shaking me like a plum-tree, saying he would shake me
+until I told him who I was, what I knew, and where I came from. As if I
+knew, myself! I was obliged to account for every minute of my time
+since I had been in his service. The devil was worse than a judge of
+instruction, in his questions. Then he sent for the hotel porter,
+who had charge of the front door, and questioned him closely, but in
+English, so that I could not understand. After a while, he cooled down,
+and when the boy was gone, presented me with twenty francs, saying, ‘I
+am sorry I was so sharp with you; you are too stupid to have been guilty
+of the offence.’”
+
+“He said that, did he?”
+
+“He used those very words to my face, patron.”
+
+“And you think he meant what he said?”
+
+“Certainly I do.”
+
+The fat man smiled, and whistled a little tune expressive of contempt.
+
+“If you think that,” he said, “Clameran was right in his estimate of
+your brilliancy.”
+
+It was easy to see that Joseph Dubois was anxious to hear his patron’s
+grounds for considering him stupid, but dared not ask.
+
+“I suppose I am stupid, if you think so,” said poor Fanferlot humbly.
+“Well, after he had done blustering about the letters, M. le marquis
+dressed, and went out. He did not want his carriage, but I saw him hire
+a cab at the hotel door. I thought he had perhaps disappeared forever;
+but I was mistaken. About five o’clock he returned as gay as a
+bull-finch. During his absence, I had telegraphed to you.”
+
+“What! did you not follow him?”
+
+“I stayed on the spot in case of his return; but one of our friends kept
+watch on him, and this friend gave me a report of my dandy’s movements.
+First he went to a broker’s, then to the bank and discount office: so he
+must be collecting his money to take a little trip.”
+
+“Is that all he did?”
+
+“That is all, patron. But I must tell you how the rascals tried to shut
+up, ‘administratively,’ you understand, Mlle. Palmyre. Fortunately you
+had anticipated something of the kind, and given orders to watch over
+her safety. But for you, she would now be in prison.”
+
+Joseph looked up to the ceiling by way of trying to remember something
+more. Finding nothing there, he said:
+
+“That is all. I rather think M. Patrigent will rub his hands with
+delight when I carry him my report. He did not expect to see me any
+more, and has no idea of the facts I have collected to swell the size of
+his FILE 113.”
+
+There was a long silence. Joseph was right in supposing that the crisis
+had come. M. Verduret was arranging his plan of battle while waiting
+for the report of Nina--now Palmyre, upon which depended his point of
+attack.
+
+But Joseph Dubois began to grow restless and uneasy.
+
+“What must I do now, patron?” he asked.
+
+“Return to the hotel; probably your master had noticed your absence; but
+he will say nothing about it, so continue--”
+
+Here M. Verduret was interrupted by an exclamation from Prosper, who was
+standing near a window.
+
+“What is the matter?” he inquired.
+
+“There is Clameran!” cried Prosper, “over there.”
+
+M. Verduret and Joseph ran to the window.
+
+“Where is he?” said Joseph, “I don’t see him.”
+
+“There, at the corner of the bridge, behind that orange-woman’s stall.”
+
+Prosper was right. It was the noble Marquis of Clameran, who, hid behind
+the stall, was watching for his servant to come out of the Archangel.
+
+At first the quick-sighted Verduret had some doubts whether it was the
+marquis, who, being skilled in these hazardous expeditions, managed to
+conceal himself behind a pillar so as to elude detection.
+
+But a moment came, when, elbowed by the pressing crowd, he was obliged
+to come out on the pavement in full view of the window.
+
+“Now don’t you see I was right!” cried the cashier.
+
+“Well,” said the amazed Joseph, “I am amazed!”
+
+M. Verduret seemed not in the least surprised, but quietly said:
+
+“The game needs hunting. Well, Joseph, my boy, do you still think that
+your noble master was duped by your acting injured innocence?”
+
+“You assured me to the contrary, patron,” said Joseph in an humble tone;
+“and your opinion is more convincing than all the proofs in the world.”
+
+“This pretended outburst of rage was premeditated on the part of your
+noble master. Knowing that he is being tracked, he naturally wishes to
+discover who his adversaries are. You can imagine how uncomfortable he
+must be at this uncertainty. Perhaps he thinks his pursuers are some of
+his old accomplices, who, being starved, want a piece of his cake. He
+will remain there until you come out: then he will come in to find out
+who you are.”
+
+“But, patron, I can go home without his seeing me.”
+
+“Yes, I know. You will climb the little wall separating the Archangel
+from the wine-merchant’s yard, and keep along the stationer’s area,
+until you reach the Rue de la Huchette.”
+
+Poor Joseph looked as if he had just received a bucket of ice-water upon
+his head.
+
+“Exactly the way I was going, patron,” he gasped out. “I heard that you
+knew every plank and door of all the houses in Paris, and it certainly
+must be so.”
+
+The fat man made no reply to Joseph’s admiring remarks. He was thinking
+how he could catch Clameran.
+
+As to the cashier, he listened wonderingly, watching these strangers,
+who seemed determined to reinstate him in public opinion, and punish his
+enemies, while he himself stood by powerless and bewildered. What their
+motives for befriending him could be, he vainly tried to discover.
+
+“I will tell you what I can do,” said Joseph after deep thought.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“I can innocently walk out of the front door, and loaf along the street
+until I reach the Hotel du Louvre.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Dame! Clameran will come in and question Mme. Alexandre, whom you can
+instruct beforehand; and she is smart enough to put any sharper off the
+track.”
+
+“Bad plan!” pronounced M. Verduret decidedly; “a scamp so compromised
+as Clameran is not easily put off the track; now his eyes are opened, he
+will be pretty hard to catch.”
+
+Suddenly, in a brief tone of authority which admitted of no
+contradiction, the fat man said:
+
+“I have a way. Has Clameran, since he found that his papers had been
+searched, seen Lagors?”
+
+“No, patron.”
+
+“Perhaps he has written to him?”
+
+“I’ll bet you my head he has not. Having your orders to watch his
+correspondence, I invented a little system which informs me every time
+he touches a pen; during the last twenty-four hours the pens have not
+been touched.”
+
+“Clameran went out yesterday.”
+
+“But the man who followed him says he wrote nothing on the way.”
+
+“Then we have time yet!” cried Verduret. “Hurry! Hurry! I give you
+fifteen minutes to make yourself a head; you know the sort; I will watch
+the rascal until you come up.”
+
+The delighted Joseph disappeared in a twinkling; while Prosper and M.
+Verduret remained at the window observing Clameran, who, according to
+the movements of the crowd, was sometimes lost to sight, and sometimes
+just in front of the window, but was evidently determined not to quit
+his post until he had obtained the information he sought.
+
+“Why do you devote yourself exclusively to the marquis?” asked Prosper.
+
+“Because, my friend,” replied M. Verduret, “because--that is my
+business, and not yours.”
+
+Joseph Dubois had been granted a quarter of an hour in which to
+metamorphose himself; before ten minutes had elapsed he reappeared.
+
+The dandified coachman with Bergami whiskers, red vest, and foppish
+manners, was replaced by a sinister-looking individual, whose very
+appearance was enough to scare any rogue.
+
+His black cravat twisted around a paper collar, and ornamented by an
+imitation diamond pin; his long-tailed black boots and heavy cane,
+revealed the employee of the Rue de Jerusalem, as plainly as the
+shoulder-straps mark a soldier.
+
+Joseph Dubois had vanished forever; and from his livery, phoenix-like
+and triumphant, arose the radiant Fanferlot, surnamed the Squirrel.
+
+When Fanferlot entered the room, Prosper uttered a cry of surprise and
+almost fright.
+
+He recognized the man who had assisted the commissary of police to
+examine the bank on the day of the robbery.
+
+M. Verduret examined his aide with a satisfied look, and said:
+
+“Not bad! There is enough of the police-court air about you to alarm
+even an honest man. You understood me perfectly this time.”
+
+Fanferlot was transported with delight at this compliment.
+
+“What must I do now, patron?” he inquired.
+
+“Nothing difficult for an adroit man: but remember, upon the precision
+of our movements depends the success of my plan. Before arresting
+Lagors, I wish to dispose of Clameran. Now that the rascals are
+separated, the first thing to do is to prevent their coming together.”
+
+“I understand,” said Fanferlot, snapping his little rat-like eyes; “I am
+to create a diversion.”
+
+“Exactly. Go out by the Rue de la Huchette, and hasten to St. Michel’s
+bridge; loaf along the bank, and finally sit on the steps of the quay,
+so that Clameran may know he is being watched. If he doesn’t see you, do
+something to attract his attention.”
+
+“Parbleu! I will throw a stone into the water,” said Fanferlot, rubbing
+his hands with delight at his own brilliant idea.
+
+“As soon as Clameran has seen you,” continued M. Verduret, “he will be
+alarmed, and instantly decamp. Knowing there are reasons why the police
+should be after him, he will hasten to escape you; then comes the time
+for you to keep wide awake; he is a slippery eel, and cunning as a rat.”
+
+“I know all that; I was not born yesterday.”
+
+“So much the better. You can convince him of that. Well, knowing you
+are at his heels, he will not dare to return to the Hotel du Louvre,
+for fear of being called on by troublesome visitors. Now, it is very
+important that he should not return to the hotel.”
+
+“But suppose he does?” said Fanferlot.
+
+M. Verduret thought for a minute, and then said:
+
+“It is not probable that he will do so; but if he should, you must wait
+until he comes out again, and continue to follow him. But he won’t enter
+the hotel; very likely he will take the cars: but in that event don’t
+lose sight of him, no matter if you have to follow him to Siberia. Have
+you money with you?”
+
+“I will get some from Mme. Alexandre.”
+
+“Very good. Ah! one more word. If the rascal takes the cars, send
+me word. If he beats about the bush until night, be on your guard,
+especially in lonely places; the desperado is capable of any enormity.”
+
+“If necessary, must I fire?”
+
+“Don’t be rash; but, if he attacks you, of course defend yourself. Come,
+‘tis time you were gone.”
+
+Dubois-Fanferlot went out. Verduret and Prosper resumed their post of
+observation.
+
+“Why all this secrecy?” inquired Prosper. “Clameran is charged with ten
+times worse crimes than I was ever accused of, and yet my disgrace was
+made as public as possible.”
+
+“Don’t you understand,” replied the fat man, “that I wish to separate
+the cause of Raoul from that of the marquis? But, sh! look!”
+
+Clameran had left his place near the orange-woman’s stand, and
+approached the bridge, where he seemed to be trying to make out some
+unexpected object.
+
+“Ah!” said M. Verduret; “he has just discovered our man.”
+
+Clameran’s uneasiness was quite apparent; he walked forward a few steps,
+as if intending to cross the bridge; then, suddenly turning around,
+rapidly walked in the direction of the Rue St. Jacques.
+
+“He is caught!” cried M. Verduret with delight.
+
+At that moment the door opened, and Mme. Nina Gypsy, _alias_ Palmyre
+Chocareille, entered.
+
+Poor Nina! Each day spent in the service of Madeleine seemed to have
+aged her a year.
+
+Tears had dimmed the brilliancy of her beautiful black eyes; her rosy
+cheeks were pale and hollow, and her merry smile was quite gone.
+
+Poor Gypsy, once so gay and spirited, now crushed beneath the burden of
+her sorrows, was the picture of misery.
+
+Prosper thought that, wild with joy at seeing him, and proud of having
+so nobly devoted herself to his interest, Nina would throw her arms
+around his neck, and say how much she loved him. To his surprise, Nina
+scarcely spoke to him. Although his every thought had been devoted to
+Madeleine since he discovered the reasons for her cruelty, he was hurt
+by Nina’s cold manner.
+
+The girl stood looking at M. Verduret with a mixture of fear and
+devotion, like a poor dog that has been cruelly treated by its master.
+
+He, however, was kind and gentle in his manner toward her.
+
+“Well, my dear,” he said encouragingly, “what news do you bring me?”
+
+“Something is going on at the house, monsieur, and I have been trying
+to get here to tell you; at last, Mlle. Madeleine made an excuse for
+sending me out.”
+
+“You must thank Mlle. Madeleine for her confidence in me. I suppose she
+carried out the plan we decided upon?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“She receives the Marquis of Clameran’s visits?”
+
+“Since the marriage has been decided upon, he comes every day, and
+mademoiselle receives him with kindness. He seems to be delighted.”
+
+These answers filled Prosper with anger and alarm. The poor young man,
+not comprehending the intricate moves of M. Verduret, felt as if he
+were being tossed about from pillar to post, and made the tool and
+laughing-stock of everybody.
+
+“What!” he cried; “this worthless Marquis of Clameran, an assassin and
+a thief, allowed to visit at M. Fauvel’s, and pay his addresses to
+Madeleine? Where are the promises, monsieur, which you have made? Have
+you merely been amusing yourself by raising my hopes, to dash them--”
+
+“Enough!” interrupted M. Verduret harshly; “you are too green to
+understand anything, my friend. If you are incapable of helping
+yourself, at least have sense enough to refrain from importuning
+those who are working for you. Do you not think you have already done
+sufficient mischief?”
+
+Having administered this rebuke, he turned to Gypsy, and said in softer
+tones:
+
+“Go on, my child: what have you discovered?”
+
+“Nothing positive, monsieur; but enough to make me nervous, and fearful
+of impending danger. I am not certain, but suspect from appearances,
+that some dreadful catastrophe is about to happen. It may only be a
+presentiment. I cannot get any information from Mme. Fauvel; she refuses
+to answer any hints, and moves about like a ghost, never opening her
+lips. She seems to be afraid of her niece, and to be trying to conceal
+something from her.”
+
+“What about M. Fauvel?”
+
+“I was just about to tell you, monsieur. Some fearful misfortune has
+happened to him, you may depend upon it. He wanders about as if he had
+lost his mind. Something certainly occurred yesterday; his voice even
+is changed. He is so harsh and irritable that mademoiselle and M. Lucien
+were wondering what could be the matter with him. He seems to be on the
+eve of giving way to a burst of anger; and there is a wild, strange look
+about his eyes, especially when he looks at madame. Yesterday evening,
+when M. de Clameran was announced, he jumped up, and hurried out of the
+room, saying that he had some work to do in his study.”
+
+A triumphant exclamation from M. Verduret interrupted Mme. Gypsy. He was
+radiant.
+
+“Hein!” he said to Prosper, forgetting his bad humor of a few minutes
+before; “Hein! What did I tell you?”
+
+“He has evidently----”
+
+“Been afraid to give way to his first impulse; of course he has. He is
+now seeking for proofs of your assertions. He must have them by this
+time. Did the ladies go out yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, a part of the day.”
+
+“What became of M. Fauvel?”
+
+“The ladies took me with them; we left M. Fauvel at home.”
+
+“Not a doubt of it!” cried the fat man; “he looked for proofs, and found
+them, too! Your letter told him exactly where to go. Ah, Prosper, that
+unfortunate letter gives more trouble than everything else together.”
+
+These words seemed to throw a sudden light on Mme. Gypsy’s mind.
+
+“I understand it now!” she exclaimed. “M. Fauvel knows everything.”
+
+“That is, he thinks he knows everything; and what he has been led to
+fear, and thinks he has discovered, is worse than the true state of
+affairs.”
+
+“That accounts for the order which M. Cavaillon overheard him give to
+his servant-man, Evariste.”
+
+“What order?”
+
+“He told Evariste to bring every letter that came to the house, no
+matter to whom addressed, into his study, and hand them to him; saying
+that, if this order was disobeyed, he should be instantly discharged.”
+
+“At what time was this order given?” asked M. Verduret.
+
+“Yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“That is what I was afraid of,” cried M. Verduret. “He has clearly made
+up his mind what course to pursue, and is keeping quiet so as to
+make his vengeance more sure. The question is, Have we still time to
+counteract his projects? Have we time to convince him that the anonymous
+letter was incorrect in some of its assertions?”
+
+He tried to hit upon some plan for repairing the damage done by
+Prosper’s foolish letter.
+
+“Thank you for your information, my dear child,” he said after a long
+silence. “I will decide at once what steps to take, for it will never
+do to sit quietly and let things go on in this way. Return home without
+delay, and be careful of everything you say and do; for M. Fauvel
+suspects you of being in the plot. Send me word of anything that
+happens, no matter how insignificant it may be.”
+
+Nina, thus dismissed, did not move, but said timidly:
+
+“What about Caldas, monsieur?”
+
+This was the third time during the last fortnight that Prosper had heard
+this name, Caldas.
+
+The first time it had been whispered in his ear by a
+respectable-looking, middle-aged man, who offered his protection one
+day, when passing through the police-office passage.
+
+The second time, the judge of instruction had mentioned it in connection
+with Gypsy’s history.
+
+Prosper thought over all the men he had ever been connected with, but
+could recall none named Caldas.
+
+The impassable M. Verduret started and trembled at the mention of this
+name, but, quickly recovering himself, said:
+
+“I promised to find him for you, and I will keep my promise. Now you
+must go; good-morning.”
+
+It was twelve o’clock, and M. Verduret suddenly remembered that he
+was hungry. He called Mme. Alexandre, and the beaming hostess of the
+Archangel soon placed a tempting breakfast before Prosper and his
+friend.
+
+But the savory broiled oysters and flaky biscuit failed to smooth the
+perplexed brow of M. Verduret.
+
+To the eager questions and complimentary remarks of Mme. Alexandre, he
+answered:
+
+“Chut, chut! let me alone; keep quiet.”
+
+For the first time since he had known the fat man, Prosper saw him
+betray anxiety and hesitation.
+
+He remained silent as long as he could, and then uneasily said:
+
+“I am afraid I have embarrassed you very much, monsieur.”
+
+“Yes, you have dreadfully embarrassed me,” replied M. Verduret. “What on
+earth to do now, I don’t know! Shall I hasten matters, or keep quiet and
+wait for the next move? And I am bound by a sacred promise. Come, we had
+better go and advise with the judge of instruction. He can assist me.
+Come with me; let us hurry.”
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+As M. Verduret had anticipated, Prosper’s letter had a terrible effect
+upon M. Fauvel.
+
+It was toward nine o’clock in the morning, and M. Fauvel had just
+entered his study when his mail was brought in.
+
+After opening a dozen business letters, his eyes fell on the fatal
+missive sent by Prosper.
+
+Something about the writing struck him as peculiar.
+
+It was evidently a disguised hand, and although, owing to the fact of
+his being a millionnaire, he was in the habit of receiving anonymous
+communications, sometimes abusive, but generally begging him for money,
+this particular letter filled him with an indefinite presentiment of
+evil. A cold chill ran through his heart, and he dreaded to open it.
+
+With absolute certainty that he was about to learn of a new calamity,
+he broke the seal, and opening the coarse cafe paper, was shocked by the
+following words:
+
+
+“DEAR SIR--You have handed your cashier over to the law, and you acted
+properly, convinced as you were of his dishonesty.
+
+“But if it was he who took three hundred and fifty thousand francs from
+your safe, was it he also who took Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds?”
+
+
+This was a terrible blow to a man whose life hitherto had been an
+unbroken chain of prosperity, who could recall the past without one
+bitter regret, without remembering any sorrow deep enough to bring forth
+a tear.
+
+What! His wife deceive him! And among all men, to choose one vile enough
+to rob her of her jewels, and force her to be his accomplice in the ruin
+of an innocent young man!
+
+For did not the letter before him assert this to be a fact, and tell him
+how to convince himself of its truth?
+
+M. Fauvel was as bewildered as if he had been knocked on the head with a
+club. It was impossible for his scattered ideas to take in the enormity
+of what these dreadful words intimated. He seemed to be mentally and
+physically paralyzed, as he sat there staring blankly at the letter.
+
+But this stupefaction suddenly changed to indignant rage.
+
+“What a fool I am!” he cried, “to listen to such base lies, such
+malicious charges against the purest woman whom God ever sent to bless a
+man!”
+
+And he angrily crumpled up the letter, and threw it into the empty
+fireplace, saying:
+
+“I will forget having read it. I will not soil my mind by letting it
+dwell upon such turpitude!”
+
+He said this, and he thought it; but, for all that, he could not open
+the rest of his letters. The anonymous missive stood before his eyes in
+letters of fire, and drove every other thought from his mind.
+
+That penetrating, clinging, all-corroding worm, suspicion, had taken
+possession of his soul; and as he leaned over his desk, with his
+face buried in his hands, thinking over many things which had lately
+occurred, insignificant at the time, but fearfully ominous now, this
+unwillingly admitted germ of suspicion grew and expanded until it became
+certainty.
+
+But, resolved that he would not think of his wife in connection with so
+vile a deed, he imagined a thousand wild excuses for the mischief-maker
+who took this mode of annoying him; of course there was no truth in his
+assertions, but from curiosity he would like to know who had written it.
+And yet suppose----
+
+“Merciful God! can it be true?” he wildly cried, as the idea of his
+wife’s guilt would obstinately return to his troubled mind.
+
+Thinking that the writing might throw some light on the mystery, he
+started up and tremblingly picked the fatal letter out of the ashes.
+Carefully smoothing it out, he laid it on his desk, and studied the
+heavy strokes, light strokes, and capitals of every word.
+
+“It must be from some of my clerks,” he finally said, “someone who is
+angry with me for refusing to raise his salary; or perhaps it is the one
+that I dismissed the other day.”
+
+Clinging to this idea, he thought over all the young men in his
+bank; but not one could he believe capable of resorting to so base a
+vengeance.
+
+Then he wondered where the letter had been posted, thinking this might
+throw some light upon the mystery. He looked at the envelope, and read
+the post-mark:
+
+“Rue du Cardinal Lemoine.”
+
+This fact told him nothing.
+
+Once more he read the letter, spelling over each word, and trying to put
+a different construction on the horrible phrases that stared him in the
+face.
+
+It is generally agreed that an anonymous letter should be treated with
+silent contempt, and cast aside as the malicious lies of a coward who
+dares not say to a man’s face what he secretly commits to paper, and
+forces upon him.
+
+This is all very well in theory, but is difficult to practise when
+the anonymous letter comes. You throw it in the fire, it burns; but,
+although the paper is destroyed by the flames, doubt remains. Suspicion
+arises from its ashes, like a subtle poison penetrates the inmost
+recesses of the mind, weakens its holiest beliefs, and destroys its
+faith.
+
+The trail of the serpent is left.
+
+The wife suspected, no matter how unjustly, is no longer the wife in
+whom her husband trusted as he would trust himself: the pure being who
+was above suspicion no longer exists. Suspicion, no matter whence the
+source, has irrevocably tarnished the brightness of his idol.
+
+Unable to struggle any longer against these conflicting doubts, M.
+Fauvel determined to resolve them by showing the letter to his wife; but
+a torturing thought, more terrible than any he had yet suffered, made
+him sink back in his chair in despair.
+
+“Suppose it be true!” he muttered to himself; “suppose I have been
+miserably duped! By confiding in my wife, I shall put her on her guard,
+and lose all chance of discovering the truth.”
+
+Thus were realized all Verduret’s presumptions.
+
+He had said, “If M. Fauvel does not yield to his first impulse, if he
+stops to reflect, we have time to repair the harm done.”
+
+After long and painful meditation, the banker finally decided to wait,
+and watch his wife.
+
+It was a hard struggle for a man of his frank, upright nature, to play
+the part of a domestic spy, and jealous husband.
+
+Accustomed to give way to sudden bursts of anger, but quickly mastering
+them, he would find it difficult to be compelled to preserve his
+self-restraint, no matter how dreadful the discoveries might be. When
+he collected the proofs of guilt one by one, he must impose silence upon
+his resentment, until fully assured of possessing certain evidence.
+
+There was one simple means of ascertaining whether the diamonds had been
+pawned.
+
+If the letter lied in this instance, he would treat it with the scorn it
+deserved. If, on the other hand, it should prove to be true!
+
+At this moment, the servant announced breakfast; and M. Fauvel looked
+in the glass before leaving his study, to see if his face betrayed
+the emotion he felt. He was shocked at the haggard features which it
+reflected.
+
+“Have I no nerve?” he said to himself: “oh! I must and shall control my
+feelings until I find out the truth.”
+
+At table he talked incessantly, so as to escape any questions from his
+wife, who, he saw, was uneasy at the sight of his pale face.
+
+But, all the time he was talking, he was casting over in his mind
+expedients of getting his wife out of the house long enough for him to
+search her bureau.
+
+At last he asked Mme. Fauvel if she were going out before dinner.
+
+“Yes,” said she: “the weather is dreadful, but Madeleine and I must do
+some shopping.”
+
+“At what time shall you go?”
+
+“Immediately after breakfast.”
+
+He drew a long breath as if relieved of a great weight.
+
+In a short time he would know the truth.
+
+His uncertainty was so torturing to the unhappy man that he preferred
+the most dreadful reality to his present agony.
+
+Breakfast over, he lighted a cigar, but did not remain in the
+dining-room to smoke it, as was his habit. He went into his study to try
+and compose his nerves.
+
+He took the precaution to send Lucien on a message so as to be alone in
+the house.
+
+After the lapse of half an hour, he heard the carriage roll away with
+his wife and niece.
+
+Hurrying into Mme. Fauvel’s room, he opened the drawer of the
+chiffonnier, where she kept her jewels.
+
+The last dozen or more leather and velvet boxes, containing superb sets
+of jewelry which he had presented to her, were gone!
+
+Twelve boxes remained. He nervously opened them.
+
+They were all empty!
+
+The anonymous letter had told the truth.
+
+“Oh, it cannot be!” he gasped in broken tones. “Oh, no, no!”
+
+He wildly pulled open every drawer in the vain hope of finding them
+packed away. Perhaps she kept them elsewhere.
+
+He tried to hope that she had sent them to be reset; but no, they were
+all superbly set in the latest fashion; and, moreover, she never would
+have sent them all at once. He looked again.
+
+Nothing! not one jewel could he find.
+
+He remembered that he had asked his wife at the Jandidier ball why she
+did not wear her diamonds; and she had replied with a smile:
+
+“Oh! what is the use? Everybody knows them so well; and, besides, they
+don’t suit my costume.”
+
+Yes, she had made the answer without blushing, without showing the
+slightest sign of agitation or shame.
+
+What hardened impudence! What base hypocrisy concealed beneath an
+innocent, confiding manner!
+
+And she had been thus deceiving him for twenty years! But suddenly a
+gleam of hope penetrated his confused mind--slight, barely possible;
+still a straw to cling to:
+
+“Perhaps Valentine has put her diamonds in Madeleine’s room.”
+
+Without stopping to consider the indelicacy of what he was about to do,
+he hurried into the young girl’s room, and pulled open one drawer after
+another. What did he find?
+
+Not Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds; but Madeleine’s seven or eight boxes also
+empty.
+
+Great heavens! Was this gentle girl, whom he had treated as a daughter,
+an accomplice in this deed of shame? Had she contributed her jewelry to
+add to the disgrace of the roof that sheltered her?
+
+This last blow was almost too much for the miserable man. He sank almost
+lifeless into a chair, and wringing his hands, groaned over the wreck of
+his happiness. Was this the happy future to which he had looked forward?
+Was the fabric of his honor, well-being, and domestic bliss, to be
+dashed to the earth and forever lost in a day? Were his twenty years’
+labor and high-standing to end thus in shame and sorrow?
+
+Apparently nothing was changed in his existence; he was not materially
+injured; he could not reach forth his hand, and heal or revenge the
+smarting wound; the objects around him were unchanged; everything went
+on in the outside world just as it had gone on during the last twenty
+years; and yet what a horrible change had taken place in his own heart!
+While the world envied his prosperity and happiness, here he sat, more
+heartsore and wearied of life than the worst criminal that ever stood
+before the inquisition.
+
+What! Valentine, the pure young girl whom he had loved and married in
+spite of her poverty, in spite of her cold offering of calm affection in
+return for his passionate devotion; Valentine, the tender, loving wife,
+who, before a year of married life had rolled by, so often assured
+him that her affection had grown into a deep, confiding love, that her
+devotion had grown stronger every day, and that her only prayer was that
+God would take them both together, since life would be a burden without
+her noble husband to shield and cherish her--could she have been acting
+a lie for twenty years?
+
+She, the darling wife, the mother of his sons!
+
+His sons? Good God! Were they his sons?
+
+If she could deceive him now when she was silver-haired, had she not
+deceived him when she was young?
+
+Not only did he suffer in the present, but the uncertainty of the past
+tortured his soul.
+
+He was like a man who is told that the exquisite wine he has drank
+contains poison.
+
+Confidence is never half-way: it is, or it is not. His confidence was
+gone. His faith was dead.
+
+The wretched banker had rested his every hope and happiness on the
+love of his wife. Believing that she had proved faithless, that she had
+played him false, and was unworthy of trust, he admitted no
+possibility of peaceful joy, and felt tempted to seek consolation from
+self-destruction. What had he to live for now, save to mourn over the
+ashes of the past?
+
+But this dejection did not last long. Indignant anger, and thirst for
+vengeance, made him start up and swear that he would lose no time in
+vain regrets.
+
+M. Fauvel well knew that the fact of the diamonds being stolen was not
+sufficient ground upon which to bring an accusation against any of the
+accomplices.
+
+He must possess overwhelming proofs before taking any active steps.
+Success depended upon present secrecy.
+
+He began by calling his valet, and ordering him to bring to him every
+letter that should come to the house.
+
+He then wrote to a notary at St. Remy, for minute and authentic
+information about the Lagors family, and especially about Raoul.
+
+Finally, following the advice of the anonymous letter, he went to the
+Prefecture of Police, hoping to obtain a biography of Clameran.
+
+But the police, fortunately for many people, are as discreetly silent as
+the grave. They guard their secrets as a miser his treasure.
+
+Nothing but an order from the chief judge could open those formidable
+green boxes, and reveal their secrets.
+
+M. Fauvel was politely asked what motives urged him to inquire into the
+past life of a French citizen; and, as he declined to state his reasons,
+the chief of police told him he had better apply to the Procureur for
+the desired information.
+
+This advice he could not follow. He had sworn that the secret of his
+wrongs should be confined to the three persons interested. He chose to
+avenge his own injuries, to be alone the judge and executioner.
+
+He returned home more angry than ever; there he found the despatch
+answering the one which he had sent to St. Remy. It was as follows:
+
+
+“The Lagors are very poor, and there has never been any member of the
+family named Raoul. Mme. Lagors had no son, only two daughters.”
+
+
+This information dashed his last hope.
+
+The banker thought, when he discovered his wife’s infamy, that she
+had sinned as deeply as a woman could sin; but he now saw that she had
+practised a system more shocking than the crime itself.
+
+“Wretched creature!” he cried with anguish; “in order to see her lover
+constantly, she dared introduce him to me under the name of a nephew who
+never existed. She had the shameless courage to bring him beneath her
+husband’s roof, and seat him at my fireside, between my sons; and I,
+confiding fool that I was, welcomed the villain, and lent him money.”
+
+Nothing could equal the pain of wounded pride and mortification which he
+suffered at the thought that Raoul and Mme. Fauvel had amused themselves
+with his good-natured credulity and obtuseness.
+
+Nothing but death could wipe out an injury of this nature. But the very
+bitterness of his resentment enabled him to restrain himself until the
+time for punishment came. With grim satisfaction he promised himself
+that his acting would be as successful as theirs.
+
+That day he succeeded in concealing his agitation, and kept up a flow of
+talk at dinner; but at about nine o’clock, when Clameran called on the
+ladies, he rushed from the house, for fear that he would be unable to
+control his indignation at the sight of this destroyer of his happiness;
+and did not return home until late in the night.
+
+The next day he reaped the fruit of his prudence.
+
+Among the letters which his valet brought him at noon, was one bearing
+the post-mark of Vesinet.
+
+He carefully opened the envelope, and read:
+
+
+“DEAR AUNT--It is imperatively necessary for me to see you to-day; so do
+not fail to come to Vesinet.
+
+“I will explain why I give you this trouble, instead of calling at your
+house.
+
+“RAOUL.”
+
+
+“I have them now!” cried M. Fauvel trembling with satisfaction at the
+near prospect of vengeance.
+
+Eager to lose no time, he opened a drawer, took out a revolver, and
+examined the hammer to see if it worked easily.
+
+He imagined himself alone, but a vigilant eye was watching his
+movements. Gypsy, immediately upon her return from the Archangel,
+stationed herself at the key-hole of the study-door, and saw all that
+occurred.
+
+M. Fauvel laid the pistol on the mantel-piece, and nervously resealed
+the letter, which he then took to the box where the letters were usually
+left, not wishing anyone to know that Raoul’s letter had passed through
+his hands.
+
+He was only absent two minutes, but, inspired by the imminence of the
+danger, Gypsy darted into the study, and rapidly extracted the balls
+from the revolver.
+
+“Thank Heaven!” she murmured: “this peril is averted, and M. Verduret
+will now perhaps have time to prevent a murder. I must send Cavaillon to
+tell him.”
+
+She hurried into the bank, and sent the clerk with a message, telling
+him to leave it with Mme. Alexandre, if M. Verduret had left the hotel.
+
+An hour later, Mme. Fauvel ordered her carriage, and went out.
+
+M. Fauvel jumped into a hackney-coach, and followed her.
+
+“God grant that M. Verduret may reach there in time!” cried Nina to
+herself, “otherwise Mme. Fauvel and Raoul are lost.”
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+The moment that the Marquis of Clameran perceived that Raoul de Lagors
+was the only obstacle between him and Madeleine, he swore that the
+obstacle should soon be removed.
+
+That very day he took steps for the accomplishment of his purpose. As
+Raoul was walking out to Vesinet about midnight, he was stopped at a
+lonely spot, by three men, who asked him what o’clock it was; while
+looking at his watch, the ruffians fell upon him suddenly, and but for
+Raoul’s wonderful strength and agility, would have left him dead on the
+spot.
+
+As it was, he soon, by his skilfully plied blows (for he had become a
+proficient in fencing and boxing in England), made his enemies take to
+their heels.
+
+He quietly continued his walk home, fully determined to be hereafter
+well armed when he went out at night.
+
+He never for an instant suspected his accomplice of having instigated
+the assault.
+
+But two days afterward, while sitting in a cafe, a burly, vulgar-looking
+man, a stranger to him, interrupted him several times while talking,
+and, after making several rough speeches as if trying to provoke a
+quarrel, finally threw a card in his face, saying its owner was ready to
+grant him satisfaction when and where he pleased.
+
+Raoul rushed toward the man to chastise him on the spot; but his friends
+held him back, telling him that it would be much more gentlemanly to run
+a sword through his vulgar hide, than have a scuffle in a public place.
+
+“Very well, then: you will hear from me to-morrow,” he said scornfully
+to his assailant. “Wait at your hotel until I send two friends to
+arrange the matter with you.”
+
+As soon as the stranger had left, Raoul recovered from his excitement,
+and began to wonder what could have been the motive for this evidently
+premeditated insult.
+
+Picking up the card of the bully, he read:
+
+
+W. H. B. JACOBSON. Formerly Garibaldian volunteer, Ex-officer of the
+army of the South. (Italy, America.)
+
+30, Rue Leonie.
+
+
+Raoul had seen enough of the world to know that these heroes who cover
+their visiting-cards with titles have very little glory elsewhere than
+in their own conceit.
+
+Still the insult had been offered in the presence of others; and, no
+matter who the offender was, it must be noticed. Early the next morning
+Raoul sent two of his friends to make arrangements for a duel. He gave
+them M. Jacobson’s address, and told them to report at the Hotel du
+Louvre, where he would wait for them.
+
+Having dismissed his friends, Raoul went to find out something about M.
+Jacobson; and, being an expert at the business of unravelling plots and
+snares, he determined to discover who was at the bottom of this duel
+into which he had been decoyed.
+
+The information obtained was not very promising.
+
+M. Jacobson, who lived in a very suspicious-looking little hotel whose
+inmates were chiefly women of light character, was described to him as
+an eccentric gentleman, whose mode of life was a problem difficult to
+solve. No one knew his means of support.
+
+He reigned despotically in the hotel, went out a great deal, never came
+in until midnight, and seemed to have no capital to live upon, save his
+military titles, and a talent for carrying out whatever was undertaken
+for his own benefit.
+
+“That being his character,” thought Raoul, “I cannot see what object he
+can have in picking a quarrel with me. What good will it do him to run a
+sword through my body? Not the slightest; and, moreover, his pugnacious
+conduct is apt to draw the attention of the police, who, from what I
+hear, are the last people this warrior would like to have after him.
+Therefore he must have some reason for pursuing me; and I must find out
+what it is.”
+
+The result of his meditations was, that Raoul, upon his return to the
+Hotel du Louvre, did not mention a word of his adventure to Clameran,
+whom he found already up.
+
+At half-past eight his seconds arrived.
+
+M. Jacobson had selected the sword, and would fight that very hour, in
+the woods of Vincennes.
+
+“Well, come along,” cried Raoul gayly. “I accept the gentleman’s
+conditions.”
+
+They found the Garibaldian waiting; and after an interchange of a few
+thrusts Raoul was slightly wounded in the right shoulder.
+
+The “Ex-superior officer of the South” wished to continue the combat;
+but Raoul’s seconds--brave young men--declared that honor was satisfied,
+and that they had no intention of subjecting their friend’s life to
+unnecessary hazards.
+
+The ex-officer was forced to admit that this was but fair, and
+unwillingly retired from the field. Raoul went home delighted at having
+escaped with nothing more serious than a little loss of blood, and
+resolved to keep clear of all so-called Garibaldians in the future.
+
+In fact, a night’s reflection had convinced him that Clameran was the
+instigator of the two attempts to kill him. Mme. Fauvel having told
+him what conditions Madeleine placed on her consent to marriage, Raoul
+instantly saw how necessary his removal would be, now that he was an
+impediment in the way of Clameran’s success. He recalled a thousand
+little remarks and events of the last few days, and, on skilfully
+questioning the marquis, had his suspicions changed into certainty.
+
+This conviction that the man whom he had so materially assisted in his
+criminal plans was so basely ungrateful as to turn against him, and hire
+assassins to murder him in cold blood, inspired in Raoul a resolution to
+take speedy vengeance upon his treacherous accomplice, and at the same
+time insure his own safety.
+
+This treason seemed monstrous to Raoul. He was as yet not sufficiently
+experienced in ruffianism to know that one villain always sacrifices
+another to advance his own projects; he was credulous enough to believe
+in the adage, “there’s honor among thieves.”
+
+His rage was naturally mingled with fright, well knowing that his life
+hung by a thread, when it was threatened by a daring scoundrel like
+Clameran.
+
+He had twice miraculously escaped; a third attempt would more than
+likely prove fatal.
+
+Knowing his accomplice’s nature, Raoul saw himself surrounded by snares;
+he saw death before him in every form; he was equally afraid of going
+out, and of remaining at home. He only ventured with the most suspicious
+caution into the most public places; he feared poison more than the
+assassin’s knife, and imagined that every dish placed before him tasted
+of strychnine.
+
+As this life of torture was intolerable, he determined to anticipate a
+struggle which he felt must terminate in the death of either Clameran or
+himself; and, if he were doomed to die, to be first revenged. If he went
+down, Clameran should go too; better kill the devil than be killed by
+him.
+
+In his days of poverty, Raoul had often risked his life to obtain a few
+guineas, and would not have hesitated to make short work of a person
+like Clameran.
+
+But with money prudence had come. He wished to enjoy his four hundred
+thousand francs without being compromised by committing a murder which
+might be discovered; he therefore began to devise some other means
+of getting rid of his dreaded accomplice. Meanwhile, he devoted his
+thoughts to some discreet way of thwarting Clameran’s marriage with
+Madeleine. He was sure that he would thus strike him to the heart, and
+this was at least a satisfaction.
+
+Raoul was persuaded that, by openly siding with Madeleine and her aims,
+he could save them from Clameran’s clutches. Having fully resolved upon
+this course, he wrote a note to Mme. Fauvel asking for an interview.
+
+The poor woman hastened to Vesinet convinced that some new misfortune
+was in store for her.
+
+Her alarm was groundless. She found Raoul more tender and affectionate
+than he had ever been. He saw the necessity of reassuring her, and
+winning his old place in her forgiving heart, before making his
+disclosures.
+
+He succeeded. The poor lady had a smiling and happy air as she sat in an
+arm-chair, with Raoul kneeling beside her.
+
+“I have distressed you too long, my dear mother,” he said in his softest
+tones, “but I repent sincerely: now listen to my--”
+
+He had not time to say more; the door was violently thrown open, and
+Raoul, springing to his feet, was confronted by M. Fauvel.
+
+The banker had a revolver in his hand, and was deadly pale.
+
+It was evident that he was making superhuman efforts to remain calm,
+like a judge whose duty it is to justly punish crime.
+
+“Ah,” he said with a horrible laugh, “you look surprised. You did not
+expect me? You thought that my imbecile credulity insured your safety.”
+
+Raoul had the courage to place himself before Mme. Fauvel, and to stand
+prepared to receive the expected bullet.
+
+“I assure you, uncle,” he began.
+
+“Enough!” interrupted the banker with an angry gesture, “let me hear no
+more infamous falsehoods! End this acting, of which I am no longer the
+dupe.”
+
+“I swear to you--”
+
+“Spare yourself the trouble of denying anything. I know all. I know who
+pawned my wife’s diamonds. I know who committed the robbery for which an
+innocent man was arrested and imprisoned.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel, white with terror, fell upon her knees.
+
+At last it had come--the dreadful day had come. Vainly had she added
+falsehood to falsehood; vainly had she sacrificed herself and others:
+all was discovered.
+
+She saw that all was lost, and wringing her hands she tearfully moaned:
+
+“Pardon, Andre! I beg you, forgive me!”
+
+At these heart-broken tones, the banker shook like a leaf. This voice
+brought before him the twenty years of happiness which he had owed
+to this woman, who had always been the mistress of his heart, whose
+slightest wish had been his law, and who, by a smile or a frown, could
+make him the happiest or the most miserable of men. Alas! those days
+were over now.
+
+Could this wretched woman crouching at his feet be his beloved
+Valentine, the pure, innocent girl whom he had found secluded in the
+chateau of La Verberie, who had never loved any other than himself?
+Could this be the cherished wife whom he had worshipped for so many
+years?
+
+The memory of his lost happiness was too much for the stricken man. He
+forgot the present in the past, and was almost melted to forgiveness.
+
+“Unhappy woman,” he murmured, “unhappy woman! What have I done that you
+should thus betray me? Ah, my only fault was loving you too deeply,
+and letting you see it. One wearies of everything in this world, even
+happiness. Did pure domestic joys pall upon you, and weary you, driving
+you to seek the excitement of a sinful passion? Were you so tired of the
+atmosphere of respect and affection which surrounded you, that you must
+needs risk your honor and mine by braving public opinion? Oh, into
+what an abyss you have fallen, Valentine! and, oh, my God! if you were
+wearied by my constant devotion, had the thought of your children no
+power to restrain your evil passions; could you not remain untarnished
+for their sake?”
+
+M. Fauvel spoke slowly, with painful effort, as if each word choked him.
+
+Raoul, who listened with attention, saw that if the banker knew some
+things, he certainly did not know all.
+
+He saw that erroneous information had misled the unhappy man, and that
+he was still a victim of false appearances.
+
+He determined to convince him of the mistake under which he was
+laboring, and said:
+
+“Monsieur, I hope you will listen.”
+
+But the sound of Raoul’s voice was sufficient to break the charm.
+
+“Silence!” cried the banker with an angry oath, “silence!”
+
+For some moments nothing was heard but the sobs of Mme. Fauvel.
+
+“I came here,” continued the banker, “with the intention of killing you
+both. But I cannot kill a woman, and I will not kill an unarmed man.”
+
+Raoul once more tried to speak.
+
+“Let me finish!” interrupted M. Fauvel. “Your life is in my hands; the
+law excuses the vengeance of an injured husband; but I refuse to take
+advantage of it. I see on your mantel a revolver similar to mine; take
+it, and defend yourself.”
+
+“Never!”
+
+“Defend yourself!” cried the banker raising his arm, “if you do not--”
+
+Feeling the barrel of M. Fauvel’s revolver touch his breast, Raoul in
+self-defence seized his own pistol, and prepared to fire.
+
+“Stand in that corner of the room, and I will stand in this,” continued
+the banker; “and when the clock strikes, which will be in a few seconds,
+we will both fire.”
+
+They took the places designated, and stood perfectly still.
+
+But the horror of the scene was too much for Mme. Fauvel to witness any
+longer without interposing. She understood but one thing: her son and
+her husband were about to kill each other before her very eyes. Fright
+and horror gave her strength to start up and rush between the two men.
+
+“For God’s sake, have mercy, Andre!” she cried, wringing her hands with
+anguish, “let me tell you everything; don’t kill--”
+
+This burst of maternal love, M. Fauvel thought the pleadings of a
+criminal woman defending her lover.
+
+He roughly seized his wife by the arm, and thrust her aside, saying with
+indignant scorn:
+
+“Get out of the way!”
+
+But she would not be repulsed; rushing up to Raoul, she threw her arms
+around him, and said to her husband:
+
+“Kill me, and me alone; for I am the guilty one.”
+
+At these words M. Fauvel glared at the guilty pair, and, deliberately
+taking aim, fired.
+
+Neither Raoul nor Mme. Fauvel moved. The banker fired a second time;
+then a third.
+
+He cocked the pistol for a fourth shot, when a man rushed into the room,
+snatched the pistol from the banker’s hand, and, throwing him on the
+sofa, ran toward Mme. Fauvel.
+
+This man was M. Verduret, who had been warned by Cavaillon, but did not
+know that Mme. Gypsy had extracted the balls from M. Fauvel’s revolver.
+
+“Thank Heaven!” he cried, “she is unhurt.”
+
+“How dare you interfere?” cried the banker, who by this time had
+joined the group. “I have the right to avenge my honor when it has been
+degraded; the villain shall die!”
+
+M. Verduret seized the banker’s wrists in a vice-like grasp, and
+whispered in his ear:
+
+“Thank God you are saved from committing a terrible crime; the anonymous
+letter deceived you.”
+
+In violent situations like this, all the untoward, strange attending
+circumstances appear perfectly natural to the participators, whose
+passions have already carried them beyond the limits of social
+propriety.
+
+Thus M. Fauvel never once thought of asking this stranger who he was and
+where he came from.
+
+He heard and understood but one fact: the anonymous letter had lied.
+
+“But my wife confesses she is guilty,” he stammered.
+
+“So she is,” replied M. Verduret, “but not of the crime you imagine. Do
+you know who that man is, that you attempted to kill?”
+
+“Her lover!”
+
+“No: her son!”
+
+The words of this stranger, showing his intimate knowledge of the
+private affairs of all present, seemed to confound and frighten Raoul
+more than M. Fauvel’s threats had done. Yet he had sufficient presence
+of mind to say:
+
+“It is the truth!”
+
+The banker looked wildly from Raoul to M. Verduret; then, fastening his
+haggard eyes on his wife, exclaimed:
+
+“It is false! you are all conspiring to deceive me! Proofs!”
+
+“You shall have proofs,” replied M. Verduret, “but first listen.”
+
+And rapidly, with his wonderful talent for exposition, he related the
+principal points of the plot he had discovered.
+
+The true state of the case was terribly distressing to M. Fauvel, but
+nothing compared with what he had suspected.
+
+His throbbing, yearning heart told him that he still loved his wife. Why
+should he punish a fault committed so many years ago, and atoned for by
+twenty years of devotion and suffering?
+
+For some moments after M. Verduret had finished his explanation, M.
+Fauvel remained silent.
+
+So many strange events had happened, rapidly following each other in
+succession, and culminating in the shocking scene which had just taken
+place, that M. Fauvel seemed to be too bewildered to think clearly.
+
+If his heart counselled pardon and forgetfulness, wounded pride and
+self-respect demanded vengeance.
+
+If Raoul, the baleful witness, the living proof of a far-off sin, were
+not in existence, M. Fauvel would not have hesitated. Gaston de Clameran
+was dead; he would have held out his arms to his wife, and said:
+
+“Come to my heart! your sacrifices for my honor shall be your
+absolution; let the sad past be forgotten.”
+
+But the sight of Raoul froze the words upon his lips.
+
+“So this is your son,” he said to his wife--“this man, who has plundered
+you and robbed me!”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was unable to utter a word in reply to these reproachful
+words.
+
+“Oh!” said M. Verduret, “madame will tell you that this young man is the
+son of Gaston de Clameran; she has never doubted it. But the truth is--”
+
+“What!”
+
+“That, in order to swindle her, he has perpetrated a gross imposture.”
+
+During the last few minutes Raoul had been quietly creeping toward the
+door, hoping to escape while no one was thinking of him.
+
+But M. Verduret, who anticipated his intentions, was watching him out of
+the corner of one eye, and stopped him just as he was about leaving the
+room.
+
+“Not so fast, my pretty youth,” he said, dragging him into the middle of
+the room; “it is not polite to leave us so unceremoniously. Let us
+have a little conversation before parting; a little explanation will be
+edifying!”
+
+The jeering words and mocking manner of M. Verduret made Raoul turn
+deadly pale, and start back as if confronted by a phantom.
+
+“The clown!” he gasped.
+
+“The same, friend,” said the fat man. “Ah, now that you recognize me,
+I confess that the clown and myself are one and the same. Yes, I am the
+mountebank of the Jandidier ball; here is proof of it.”
+
+And turning up his sleeve he showed a deep cut on his arm.
+
+“I think that this recent wound will convince you of my identity,” he
+continued. “I imagine you know the villain that gave me this little
+decoration, that night I was walking along the Rue Bourdaloue. That
+being the case, you know, I have a slight claim upon you, and shall
+expect you to relate to us your little story.”
+
+But Raoul was so terrified that he could not utter a word.
+
+“Your modesty keeps you silent,” said M. Verduret. “Bravo! modesty
+becomes talent, and for one of your age you certainly have displayed a
+talent for knavery.”
+
+M. Fauvel listened without understanding a word of what was said.
+
+“Into what dark depths of shame have we fallen!” he groaned.
+
+“Reassure yourself, monsieur,” replied M. Verduret with great respect.
+“After what I have been constrained to tell you, what remains to be said
+is a mere trifle. I will finish the story.
+
+“On leaving Mihonne, who had given him a full account of the misfortunes
+of Mlle. Valentine de la Verberie, Clameran hastened to London.
+
+“He had no difficulty in finding the farmer’s wife to whom the old
+countess had intrusted Gaston’s son.
+
+“But here an unexpected disappointment greeted him.
+
+“He learned that the child, whose name was registered on the parish
+books as Raoul-Valentin Wilson, had died of the croup when eighteen
+months old.”
+
+“Did anyone state such a fact as that?” interrupted Raoul: “it is
+false.”
+
+“It was not only stated, but proved, my pretty youth,” replied M.
+Verduret. “You don’t suppose I am a man to trust to verbal testimony; do
+you?”
+
+He drew from his pocket several officially stamped documents, with red
+seals attached, and laid them on the table.
+
+“These are declarations of the nurse, her husband, and four witnesses.
+Here is an extract from the register of births; this is a certificate
+of registry of his death; and all these are authenticated at the French
+Embassy. Now are you satisfied, young man?”
+
+“What next?” inquired M. Fauvel.
+
+“The next step was this,” replied M. Verduret. “Clameran, finding
+that the child was dead, supposed that he could, in spite of this
+disappointment, obtain money from Mme. Fauvel; he was mistaken. His
+first attempt failed. Having an inventive turn of mind, he determined
+that the child should come to life. Among his large circle of rascally
+acquaintances, he selected a young fellow to impersonate Raoul-Valentin
+Wilson; and the chosen one stands before you.”
+
+Mme. Fauvel was in a pitiable state. And yet she began to feel a ray of
+hope; her acute anxiety had so long tortured her, that the truth was a
+relief; she would thank Heaven if this wicked man was proved to be no
+son of hers.
+
+“Can this be possible?” she murmured, “can it be?”
+
+“Impossible!” cried the banker: “an infamous plot like this could not be
+executed in our midst!”
+
+“All this is false!” said Raoul boldly. “It is a lie!”
+
+M. Verduret turned to Raoul, and, bowing with ironical respect, said:
+
+“Monsieur desires proofs, does he? Monsieur shall certainly have
+convincing ones. I have just left a friend of mine, M. Palot, who
+brought me valuable information from London. Now, my young gentleman,
+I will tell you the little story he told me, and then you can give your
+opinion of it.
+
+“In 1847 Lord Murray, a wealthy and generous nobleman, had a jockey
+named Spencer, of whom he was very fond. At the Epsom races, this jockey
+was thrown from his horse, and killed. Lord Murray grieved over the
+loss of his favorite, and, having no children of his own, declared his
+intention of adopting Spencer’s son, who was then but four years old.
+
+“Thus James Spencer was brought up in affluence, as heir to the immense
+wealth of the noble lord. He was a handsome, intelligent boy, and gave
+satisfaction to his protector until he was sixteen years of age; when he
+became intimate with a worthless set of people, and turned out badly.
+
+“Lord Murray, who was very indulgent, pardoned many grave faults; but
+one fine morning he discovered that his adopted son had been imitating
+his signature upon some checks. He indignantly dismissed him from the
+house, and told him never to show his face again.
+
+“James Spencer had been living in London about four years, managing to
+support himself by gambling and swindling, when he met Clameran, who
+offered him twenty-five thousand francs to play a part in a little
+comedy which he had arranged to suit the actors.”
+
+“You are a detective!” interrupted Raoul.
+
+The fat man smiled grimly.
+
+“At present,” he replied, “I am merely a friend of Prosper Bertomy. It
+depends entirely upon your behavior which character I appear in while
+settling up this little affair.”
+
+“What do you expect me to do?”
+
+“Restore the three hundred and fifty thousand francs which you have
+stolen.”
+
+The young rascal hesitated a moment, and then said:
+
+“The money is in this room.”
+
+“Very good. This frankness is creditable, and will benefit you. I know
+that the money is in this room, and also exactly where it is to be
+found. Be kind enough to look behind that cupboard, and you will find
+the three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
+
+Raoul saw that his game was lost. He tremblingly went to the cupboard,
+and pulled out several bundles of bank-notes, and an enormous package of
+pawn-broker’s tickets.
+
+“Very well done,” said M. Verduret, as he carefully examined the money
+and papers: “this is the most sensible step you ever took.”
+
+Raoul relied on this moment, when everybody’s attention would be
+absorbed by the money, to make his escape. He slid toward the door,
+gently opened it, slipped out, and locked it on the outside; the key
+being still in the lock.
+
+“He has escaped!” cried M. Fauvel.
+
+“Naturally,” replied M. Verduret, without even looking up: “I thought he
+would have sense enough to do that.”
+
+“But is he to go unpunished?”
+
+“My dear sir, would you have this affair become a public scandal? Do you
+wish your wife’s name to be brought into a case of this nature before
+the police-court?”
+
+“Oh, monsieur!”
+
+“Then the best thing you can do, is to let the rascal go scot free. Here
+are receipts for all the articles which he has pawned, so that we should
+consider ourselves fortunate. He has kept fifty thousand francs, but
+that is all the better for you. This sum will enable him to leave
+France, and we shall never see him again.”
+
+Like everyone else, M. Fauvel yielded to the ascendancy of M. Verduret.
+
+Gradually he had awakened to the true state of affairs; prospective
+happiness no longer seemed impossible, and he felt that he was indebted
+to the man before him for more than life. But for M. Verduret, where
+would have been his honor and domestic peace?
+
+With earnest gratitude he seized M. Verduret’s hand as if to carry it to
+his lips, and said, in broken tones:
+
+“Oh, monsieur! how can I ever find words to express how deeply I
+appreciate your kindness? How can I ever repay the great service you
+have rendered me?”
+
+M. Verduret reflected a moment, and then said:
+
+“If you feel under any significant obligations to me, monsieur, you have
+it in your power to return them. I have a favor to ask of you.”
+
+“A favor? you ask of me? Speak, monsieur, you have but to name it. My
+fortune and life are at your disposal.”
+
+“I will not hesitate, then, to explain myself. I am Prosper’s friend,
+and deeply interested in his future. You can exonerate him from this
+infamous charge of robbery; you can restore him to his honorable
+position. You can do more than this, monsieur. He loves Mlle.
+Madeleine.”
+
+“Madeleine shall be his wife, monsieur,” interrupted the banker: “I give
+you my word of honor. And I will so publicly exonerate him, that not
+a shadow of suspicion will rest upon his name. I will place him in
+a position which will prevent slander from reproaching him with the
+painful remembrance of my fatal error.”
+
+The fat man quietly took up his hat and cane, as if he had been paying
+an ordinary morning call, and turned to leave the room, after saying,
+“Good-morning.” But, seeing the weeping woman raise her clasped hands
+appealingly toward him, he said hesitatingly:
+
+“Monsieur, excuse my intruding any advice; but Mme. Fauvel--”
+
+“Andre!” murmured the wretched wife, “Andre!”
+
+The banker hesitated a moment; then, following the impulse of his heart,
+ran to his wife, and, clasping her in his arms, said tenderly:
+
+“No, I will not be foolish enough to struggle against my deep-rooted
+love. I do not pardon, Valentine: I forget; I forget all!”
+
+M. Verduret had nothing more to do at Vesinet.
+
+Without taking leave of the banker, he quietly left the room, and,
+jumping into his cab, ordered the driver to return to Paris, and drive
+to the Hotel du Louvre as rapidly as possible.
+
+His mind was filled with anxiety about Clameran. He knew that Raoul
+would give him no more trouble; the young rogue was probably taking his
+passage for some foreign land at that very moment. But Clameran should
+not escape unpunished; and how this punishment could be brought about
+without compromising Mme. Fauvel, was the problem to be solved.
+
+M. Verduret thought over the various cases similar to this, but not one
+of his former expedients could be applied to the present circumstances.
+He could not deliver the villain over to justice without involving Mme.
+Fauvel.
+
+After long thought, he decided that an accusation of poisoning must come
+from Oloron. He would go there and work upon “public opinion,” so that,
+to satisfy the townspeople, the authorities would order a post-mortem
+examination of Gaston. But this mode of proceeding required time; and
+Clameran would certainly escape before another day passed over his head.
+He was too experienced a knave to remain on slippery ground, now that
+his eyes were open to the danger which menaced him. It was almost dark
+when the carriage stopped in front of the Hotel du Louvre; M. Verduret
+noticed a crowd of people collected together in groups, eagerly
+discussing some exciting event which seemed to have just taken
+place. Although the policeman attempted to disperse the crowd by
+authoritatively ordering them to “Move on! Move on!” they would merely
+separate in one spot to join a more clamorous group a few yards off.
+
+“What has happened?” demanded M. Verduret of a lounger near by.
+
+“The strangest thing you ever heard of,” replied the man; “yes, I saw
+him with my own eyes. He first appeared at that seventh-story window; he
+was only half-dressed. Some men tried to seize him; but, bast! with the
+agility of a squirrel, he jumped out upon the roof, shrieking, ‘Murder!
+murder!’ The recklessness of his conduct led me to suppose--”
+
+The gossip stopped short in his narrative, very much surprised and
+vexed; his questioner had vanished.
+
+“If it should be Clameran!” thought M. Verduret; “if terror has deranged
+that brain, so capable of working out great crimes! Fate must have
+interposed----”
+
+While thus talking to himself, he elbowed his way through the crowded
+court-yard of the hotel.
+
+At the foot of the staircase he found M. Fanferlot and three
+peculiar-looking individuals standing together, as if waiting for
+someone.
+
+“Well,” cried M. Verduret, “what is the matter?”
+
+With laudable emulation, the four men rushed forward to report to their
+superior officer.
+
+“Patron,” they all began at once.
+
+“Silence!” said the fat man with an oath; “one at a time. Quick! what is
+the matter?”
+
+“The matter is this, patron,” said Fanferlot dejectedly. “I am doomed
+to ill luck. You see how it is; this is the only chance I ever had of
+working out a beautiful case, and, paf! my criminal must go and fizzle!
+A regular case of bankruptcy!”
+
+“Then it is Clameran who--”
+
+“Of course it is. When the rascal saw me this morning, he scampered off
+like a hare. You should have seen him run; I thought he would never stop
+this side of Ivry: but not at all. On reaching the Boulevard des Ecoles,
+a sudden idea seemed to strike him, and he made a bee-line for his
+hotel; I suppose, to get his pile of money. Directly he gets here, what
+does he see? these three friends of mine. The sight of these gentlemen
+had the effect of a sunstroke upon him; he went raving mad on the spot.
+The idea of serving me such a low trick at the very moment I was sure of
+success!”
+
+“Where is he now?”
+
+“At the prefecture, I suppose. Some policemen handcuffed him, and drove
+off with him in a cab.”
+
+“Come with me.”
+
+M. Verduret and Fanferlot found Clameran in one of the private cells
+reserved for dangerous prisoners.
+
+He had on a strait-jacket, and was struggling violently against three
+men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him
+to swallow a potion.
+
+“Help!” he shrieked; “help, for God’s sake! Do you not see my brother
+coming after me? Look! he wants to poison me!”
+
+M. Verduret took the physician aside, and questioned him about the
+maniac.
+
+“The wretched man is in a hopeless state,” replied the doctor; “this
+species of insanity is incurable. He thinks someone is trying to poison
+him, and nothing will persuade him to eat or drink anything; and, as
+it is impossible to force anything down his throat, he will die of
+starvation, after having suffered all the tortures of poison.”
+
+M. Verduret, with a shudder, turned to leave the prefecture, saying to
+Fanferlot:
+
+“Mme. Fauvel is saved, and by the interposition of God, who has himself
+punished Clameran!”
+
+“That don’t help me in the least,” grumbled Fanferlot. “The idea of all
+my trouble and labor ending in this flat, quiet way! I seem to be born
+for ill-luck!”
+
+“Don’t take your blighted hopes of glory so much to heart,” replied
+M. Verduret. “It is a melancholy fact for you that _File No. 113_ will
+never leave the record-office; but you must bear your disappointment
+gracefully and heroically. I will console you by sending you as bearer
+of despatches to a friend of mine, and what you have lost in fame will
+be gained in gold.”
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+Four days had passed since the events just narrated, when one morning
+M. Lecoq--the official Lecoq, who resembled the dignified head of
+a bureau--was walking up and down his private office, at each turn
+nervously looking at the clock, which slowly ticked on the mantel, as
+if it had no intention of striking any sooner than usual, to gratify the
+man so anxiously watching its placid face.
+
+At last, however, the clock did strike; and just then the faithful
+Janouille opened the door, and ushered in Mme. Nina and Prosper Bertomy.
+
+“Ah,” said M. Lecoq, “you are punctual; lovers are generally so.”
+
+“We are not lovers, monsieur,” replied Mme. Gypsy. “M. Verduret gave
+us express orders to meet here in your office this morning, and we have
+obeyed.”
+
+“Very good,” said the celebrated detective: “then be kind enough to wait
+a few minutes; I will tell him you are here.”
+
+During the quarter of an hour that Nina and Prosper remained alone
+together, they did not exchange a word. Finally a door opened, and M.
+Verduret appeared.
+
+Nina and Prosper eagerly started toward him; but he checked them by one
+of those peculiar looks which no one ever dared resist.
+
+“You have come,” he said severely, “to hear the secret of my conduct.
+I have promised, and will keep my word, however painful it may be to
+my feelings. Listen, then. My best friend is a loyal, honest man,
+named Caldas. Eighteen months ago this friend was the happiest of men.
+Infatuated by a woman, he lived for her alone, and, fool that he was,
+imagined that she felt the same love for him.”
+
+“She did!” cried Gypsy, “yes, she always loved him.”
+
+“She showed her love in a peculiar way. She loved him so much, that
+one fine day she left him, and ran off with another man. In his first
+moments of despair, Caldas wished to kill himself. Then he reflected
+that it would be wiser to live, and avenge himself.”
+
+“And then,” faltered Prosper.
+
+“Then Caldas avenged himself in his own way. He made the woman who
+deserted him recognize his immense superiority over his rival. Weak,
+timid, and helpless, the rival was disgraced, and falling over the verge
+of a precipice, when the powerful hand of Caldas reached forth and saved
+him. You understand all now, do you not? The woman is Nina; the rival is
+yourself; and Caldas is--”
+
+With a quick, dexterous movement, he threw off his wig and whiskers, and
+stood before them the real, intelligent, proud Lecoq.
+
+“Caldas!” cried Nina.
+
+“No, not Caldas, not Verduret any longer: but Lecoq, the detective!”
+
+M. Lecoq broke the stupefied silence of his listeners by saying to
+Prosper:
+
+“It is not to me alone that you owe your salvation. A noble girl
+confided to me the difficult task of clearing your reputation. I
+promised her that M. Fauvel should never know the shameful secrets
+concerning his domestic happiness. Your letter thwarted all my plans,
+and made it impossible for me to keep my promise. I have nothing more to
+say.”
+
+He turned to leave the room, but Nina barred his exit.
+
+“Caldas,” she murmured, “I implore you to have pity on me! I am _so_
+miserable! Ah, if you only knew! Be forgiving to one who has always
+loved you, Caldas! Listen.”
+
+Prosper departed from M. Lecoq’s office alone.
+
+On the 15th of last month, was celebrated, at the church of Notre Dame
+de Lorette, the marriage of M. Prosper Bertomy and Mlle. Madeleine
+Fauvel.
+
+The banking-house is still on the Rue de Provence; but as M. Fauvel has
+decided to retire from business, and live in the country, the name of
+the firm has been changed, and is now--
+
+“Prosper Bertomy & Co.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of File No. 113, by Emile Gaboriau
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/frankenstein b/files/books/unrelated/frankenstein
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..163bcca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/frankenstein
@@ -0,0 +1,7801 @@
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen,
+and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines.
+Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.
+
+
+
+Frankenstein;
+
+
+or, the Modern Prometheus
+
+
+
+
+by
+
+
+Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+Letter 1
+
+Letter 2
+
+Letter 3
+
+Letter 4
+
+Chapter 1
+
+Chapter 2
+
+Chapter 3
+
+Chapter 4
+
+Chapter 5
+
+Chapter 6
+
+Chapter 7
+
+Chapter 8
+
+Chapter 9
+
+Chapter 10
+
+Chapter 11
+
+Chapter 12
+
+Chapter 13
+
+Chapter 14
+
+Chapter 15
+
+Chapter 16
+
+Chapter 17
+
+Chapter 18
+
+Chapter 19
+
+Chapter 20
+
+Chapter 21
+
+Chapter 22
+
+Chapter 23
+
+Chapter 24
+
+
+
+
+
+Letter 1
+
+_To Mrs. Saville, England._
+
+
+St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.
+
+
+You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the
+commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil
+forebodings.  I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure
+my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success
+of my undertaking.
+
+I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of
+Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which
+braces my nerves and fills me with delight.  Do you understand this
+feeling?  This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards
+which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
+Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent
+and vivid.  I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of
+frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the
+region of beauty and delight.  There, Margaret, the sun is for ever
+visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a
+perpetual splendour.  There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put
+some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished;
+and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in
+wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable
+globe.  Its productions and features may be without example, as the
+phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered
+solitudes.  What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?  I
+may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may
+regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this
+voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever.  I
+shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world
+never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by
+the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to
+conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this
+laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little
+boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his
+native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you
+cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all
+mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole
+to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are
+requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at
+all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
+
+These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my
+letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me
+to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as
+a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual
+eye.  This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I
+have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have
+been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean
+through the seas which surround the pole.  You may remember that a
+history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the
+whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library.  My education was neglected,
+yet I was passionately fond of reading.  These volumes were my study
+day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which
+I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction
+had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
+
+These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets
+whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven.  I also
+became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation;
+I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the
+names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.  You are well
+acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment.
+But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my
+thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
+
+Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking.  I
+can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this
+great enterprise.  I commenced by inuring my body to hardship.  I
+accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea;
+I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often
+worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my
+nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those
+branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive
+the greatest practical advantage.  Twice I actually hired myself as an
+under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I
+must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second
+dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest
+earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services.
+
+And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose?
+My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to
+every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging
+voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is
+firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am
+about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which
+will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits
+of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
+
+This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia.  They fly
+quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in
+my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach.  The
+cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs—a dress which I have
+already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the
+deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise
+prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins.  I have no
+ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petersburgh and
+Archangel.
+
+I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my
+intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the
+insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary
+among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to
+sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how
+can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years,
+will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon,
+or never.
+
+Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on you,
+and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your
+love and kindness.
+
+Your affectionate brother,
+
+R. Walton
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Letter 2
+
+
+
+
+_To Mrs. Saville, England._
+
+
+Archangel, 28th March, 17—.
+
+
+How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow!
+Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise.  I have hired a
+vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have
+already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly
+possessed of dauntless courage.
+
+But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the
+absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no
+friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there
+will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no
+one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts
+to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of
+feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose
+eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I
+bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet
+courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose
+tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a
+friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution
+and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me
+that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild
+on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas’ books of voyages.
+At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own
+country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its
+most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the
+necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native
+country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many
+schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my
+daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters
+call it) _keeping;_ and I greatly need a friend who would have sense
+enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to
+endeavour to regulate my mind.
+
+Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the
+wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet
+some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these
+rugged bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage
+and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase
+more characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an
+Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices,
+unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of
+humanity. I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel;
+finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist
+in my enterprise.
+
+The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the
+ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This
+circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made
+me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years
+spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the
+groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to
+the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be
+necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness
+of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt
+myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services. I heard
+of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the
+happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved
+a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable
+sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw
+his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in
+tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her,
+confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor,
+and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend
+reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover,
+instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his
+money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he
+bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his
+prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young
+woman’s father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old
+man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who,
+when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned
+until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her
+inclinations. “What a noble fellow!” you will exclaim. He is
+so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind
+of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct
+the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which
+otherwise he would command.
+
+Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can
+conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am
+wavering in my resolutions.  Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage
+is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation.  The
+winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it
+is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail
+sooner than I expected.  I shall do nothing rashly:  you know me
+sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the
+safety of others is committed to my care.
+
+I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my
+undertaking.  It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of
+the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which
+I am preparing to depart.  I am going to unexplored regions, to “the
+land of mist and snow,” but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not
+be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and
+woeful as the “Ancient Mariner.”  You will smile at my allusion, but I
+will disclose a secret.  I have often attributed my attachment to, my
+passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that
+production of the most imaginative of modern poets.  There is something
+at work in my soul which I do not understand.  I am practically
+industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and
+labour—but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief
+in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out
+of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited
+regions I am about to explore.
+
+But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after
+having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of
+Africa or America?  I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to
+look on the reverse of the picture.  Continue for the present to write to
+me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when
+I need them most to support my spirits.  I love you very tenderly. 
+Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.
+
+Your affectionate brother,
+  Robert Walton
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Letter 3
+
+
+
+
+_To Mrs. Saville, England._
+
+
+July 7th, 17—.
+
+
+My dear Sister,
+
+I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe—and well advanced
+on my voyage.  This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on
+its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not
+see my native land, perhaps, for many years.  I am, however, in good
+spirits:  my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the
+floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers
+of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We
+have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of
+summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales,
+which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire
+to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not
+expected.
+
+No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a
+letter.  One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are
+accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and
+I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.
+
+Adieu, my dear Margaret.  Be assured that for my own sake, as well as
+yours, I will not rashly encounter danger.  I will be cool,
+persevering, and prudent.
+
+But success _shall_ crown my endeavours.  Wherefore not?  Thus far I
+have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars
+themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph.  Why not
+still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element?  What can stop the
+determined heart and resolved will of man?
+
+My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.  But I must
+finish.  Heaven bless my beloved sister!
+
+R.W.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Letter 4
+
+
+
+
+_To Mrs. Saville, England._
+
+
+August 5th, 17—.
+
+
+So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear
+recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before
+these papers can come into your possession.
+
+Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed
+in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which
+she floated.  Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we
+were compassed round by a very thick fog.  We accordingly lay to,
+hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.
+
+About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out
+in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to
+have no end.  Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to
+grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly
+attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own
+situation.  We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by
+dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a
+being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature,
+sat in the sledge and guided the dogs.  We watched the rapid progress
+of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the
+distant inequalities of the ice.
+
+This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed,
+many hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that
+it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by
+ice, it was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the
+greatest attention.
+
+About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before
+night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the
+morning, fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which
+float about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to
+rest for a few hours.
+
+In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and
+found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently
+talking to someone in the sea.  It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we
+had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large
+fragment of ice.  Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human
+being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel.
+He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of
+some undiscovered island, but a European.  When I appeared on deck the
+master said, “Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish
+on the open sea.”
+
+On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a
+foreign accent.  “Before I come on board your vessel,” said he,
+“will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?”
+
+You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed
+to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have
+supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not
+have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford.  I
+replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the
+northern pole.
+
+Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board.
+Good God!  Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for
+his safety, your surprise would have been boundless.  His limbs were
+nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and
+suffering.  I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.  We attempted
+to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh
+air he fainted.  We accordingly brought him back to the deck and
+restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to
+swallow a small quantity.  As soon as he showed signs of life we
+wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the
+kitchen stove.  By slow degrees he recovered and ate a little soup,
+which restored him wonderfully.
+
+Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often
+feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding.  When he
+had in some measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and
+attended on him as much as my duty would permit.  I never saw a more
+interesting creature:  his eyes have generally an expression of
+wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone
+performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most
+trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with
+a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled.  But he
+is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his
+teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him.
+
+When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off
+the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not
+allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body
+and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose.
+Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice
+in so strange a vehicle.
+
+His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and
+he replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”
+
+“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we
+saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice.”
+
+This aroused the stranger’s attention, and he asked a multitude of
+questions concerning the route which the dæmon, as he called him, had
+pursued.  Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, “I have,
+doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good
+people; but you are too considerate to make inquiries.”
+
+“Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to
+trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine.”
+
+“And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have
+benevolently restored me to life.”
+
+Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the
+ice had destroyed the other sledge.  I replied that I could not answer
+with any degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near
+midnight, and the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety
+before that time; but of this I could not judge.
+
+From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the
+stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for
+the sledge which had before appeared; but I have persuaded him to remain in
+the cabin, for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the atmosphere.
+I have promised that someone should watch for him and give him instant
+notice if any new object should appear in sight.
+
+Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the
+present day.  The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very
+silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin.
+Yet his manners are so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all
+interested in him, although they have had very little communication
+with him.  For my own part, I begin to love him as a brother, and his
+constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion.  He must
+have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck
+so attractive and amiable.
+
+I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend
+on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been
+broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother
+of my heart.
+
+I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals,
+should I have any fresh incidents to record.
+
+
+
+
+August 13th, 17—.
+
+
+My affection for my guest increases every day.  He excites at once my
+admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree.  How can I see so
+noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant
+grief?  He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and
+when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art,
+yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.
+
+He is now much recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck,
+apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although
+unhappy, he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he
+interests himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently
+conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to him without
+disguise. He entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my
+eventual success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken
+to secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which he evinced to use the
+language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul
+and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would
+sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my
+enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for
+the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should
+acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a
+dark gloom spread over my listener’s countenance. At first I
+perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before
+his eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle
+fast from between his fingers; a groan burst from his heaving breast. I
+paused; at length he spoke, in broken accents: “Unhappy man! Do you
+share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me;
+let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”
+
+Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the
+paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened
+powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were
+necessary to restore his composure.
+
+Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise
+himself for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of
+despair, he led me again to converse concerning myself personally. He asked
+me the history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it
+awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a
+friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than
+had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could
+boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing.
+
+“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “we are
+unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than
+ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to
+perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most
+noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting
+friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for
+despair. But I—I have lost everything and cannot begin life
+anew.”
+
+As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled
+grief that touched me to the heart.  But he was silent and presently
+retired to his cabin.
+
+Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he
+does the beauties of nature.  The starry sky, the sea, and every sight
+afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of
+elevating his soul from earth.  Such a man has a double existence:  he
+may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he
+has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a
+halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.
+
+Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine
+wanderer?  You would not if you saw him.  You have been tutored and
+refined by books and retirement from the world, and you are therefore
+somewhat fastidious; but this only renders you the more fit to
+appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful man.  Sometimes I
+have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that
+elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew.  I
+believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing
+power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled
+for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a
+voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.
+
+
+
+
+August 19th, 17—.
+
+
+Yesterday the stranger said to me, “You may easily perceive, Captain
+Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes.  I had
+determined at one time that the memory of these evils should die with
+me, but you have won me to alter my determination.  You seek for
+knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the
+gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine
+has been.  I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be
+useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same
+course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me
+what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one
+that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you
+in case of failure.  Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually
+deemed marvellous.  Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might
+fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things
+will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would
+provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers
+of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series
+internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed.”
+
+You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered
+communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by
+a recital of his misfortunes.  I felt the greatest eagerness to hear
+the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong
+desire to ameliorate his fate if it were in my power.  I expressed
+these feelings in my answer.
+
+“I thank you,” he replied, “for your sympathy, but it is
+useless; my fate is nearly fulfilled.  I wait but for one event, and then I
+shall repose in peace.  I understand your feeling,” continued he,
+perceiving that I wished to interrupt him; “but you are mistaken, my
+friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my
+destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is
+determined.”
+
+He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I
+should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have
+resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to
+record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during
+the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This
+manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who
+know him, and who hear it from his own lips—with what interest and
+sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my
+task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me
+with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in
+animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul
+within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which
+embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it—thus!
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most
+distinguished of that republic.  My ancestors had been for many years
+counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public
+situations with honour and reputation.  He was respected by all who
+knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public
+business.  He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the
+affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his
+marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a
+husband and the father of a family.
+
+As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot
+refrain from relating them.  One of his most intimate friends was a
+merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous
+mischances, into poverty.  This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a
+proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty
+and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been
+distinguished for his rank and magnificence.  Having paid his debts,
+therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his
+daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in
+wretchedness.  My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and
+was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances.
+He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct
+so little worthy of the affection that united them.  He lost no time in
+endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin
+the world again through his credit and assistance.
+
+Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten
+months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery,
+he hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the
+Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort
+had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but
+it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in
+the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a
+merchant’s house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction;
+his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for
+reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that at the end
+of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.
+
+His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw
+with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that
+there was no other prospect of support.  But Caroline Beaufort
+possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support
+her in her adversity.  She procured plain work; she plaited straw and
+by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to
+support life.
+
+Several months passed in this manner.  Her father grew worse; her time
+was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence
+decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving
+her an orphan and a beggar.  This last blow overcame her, and she knelt
+by Beaufort’s coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the
+chamber.  He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who
+committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he
+conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a
+relation.  Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.
+
+There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but
+this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted
+affection.  There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind
+which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love
+strongly.  Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the
+late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set
+a greater value on tried worth.  There was a show of gratitude and
+worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the
+doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her
+virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing
+her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace
+to his behaviour to her.  Everything was made to yield to her wishes
+and her convenience.  He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is
+sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her
+with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and
+benevolent mind.  Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto
+constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through.  During
+the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had
+gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after
+their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change
+of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders,
+as a restorative for her weakened frame.
+
+From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born
+at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained
+for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each
+other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very
+mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and
+my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my
+first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something
+better—their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on
+them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in
+their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled
+their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed
+towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit
+of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during
+every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity,
+and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but
+one train of enjoyment to me.
+
+For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a
+daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five
+years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they
+passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent
+disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my
+mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a
+passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been
+relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the
+afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale
+attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number
+of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst
+shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother,
+accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife,
+hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to
+five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far
+above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were
+dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her
+hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her
+clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was
+clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of
+her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold
+her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent,
+and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.
+
+The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and
+admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was
+not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a
+German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with
+these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been
+long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their
+charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory
+of Italy—one among the _schiavi ognor frementi,_ who exerted
+himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its
+weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria
+was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and
+a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude
+abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles.
+
+When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of
+our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed
+to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter
+than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his
+permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their
+charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed
+a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty
+and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They
+consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza
+became the inmate of my parents’ house—my more than
+sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and
+my pleasures.
+
+Everyone loved Elizabeth.  The passionate and almost reverential
+attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my
+pride and my delight.  On the evening previous to her being brought to
+my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my
+Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.”  And when, on the morrow, she
+presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish
+seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth
+as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.  All praises bestowed on
+her I received as made to a possession of my own.  We called each other
+familiarly by the name of cousin.  No word, no expression could body
+forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than
+sister, since till death she was to be mine only.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in
+our ages.  I need not say that we were strangers to any species of
+disunion or dispute.  Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and
+the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us
+nearer together.  Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated
+disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense
+application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge.
+She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets;
+and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss
+home —the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons,
+tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of
+our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight.
+While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the
+magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their
+causes.  The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.
+Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature,
+gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the
+earliest sensations I can remember.
+
+On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave
+up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native
+country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a _campagne_ on Belrive,
+the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a
+league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the
+lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my
+temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was
+indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united
+myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry
+Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular
+talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for
+its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance.  He
+composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and
+knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into
+masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of
+Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous
+train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands
+of the infidels.
+
+No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself.  My
+parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence.
+We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to
+their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights
+which we enjoyed.  When I mingled with other families I distinctly
+discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted
+the development of filial love.
+
+My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some
+law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits
+but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things
+indiscriminately.  I confess that neither the structure of languages,
+nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states
+possessed attractions for me.  It was the secrets of heaven and earth
+that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of
+things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man
+that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical,
+or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.
+
+Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral
+relations of things.  The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes,
+and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was
+to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the
+gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species.  The saintly soul
+of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.
+Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of
+her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us.  She was
+the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become
+sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that
+she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness.  And
+Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?  Yet
+he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his
+generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for
+adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of
+beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring
+ambition.
+
+I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood,
+before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of
+extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides,
+in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which
+led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would
+account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my
+destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost
+forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent
+which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.
+
+Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire,
+therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my
+predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went
+on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the
+weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I
+chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it
+with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful
+facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new
+light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my
+discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my
+book and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste
+your time upon this; it is sad trash.”
+
+If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me
+that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern
+system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers
+than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while
+those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I
+should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my
+imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my
+former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never
+have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance
+my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was
+acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest
+avidity.
+
+When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this
+author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and
+studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me
+treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always
+having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of
+nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern
+philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied.
+Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking
+up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his
+successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted
+appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same
+pursuit.
+
+The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted
+with their practical uses.  The most learned philosopher knew little
+more.  He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal
+lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery.  He might dissect,
+anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes
+in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him.  I
+had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep
+human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and
+ignorantly I had repined.
+
+But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew
+more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their
+disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth
+century; but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of
+Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite
+studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a
+child’s blindness, added to a student’s thirst for knowledge.
+Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest
+diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir
+of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an
+inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could
+banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but
+a violent death!
+
+Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a
+promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which
+I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I
+attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a
+want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was
+occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand
+contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of
+multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish
+reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas.
+
+When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near
+Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It
+advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once
+with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained,
+while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight.
+As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an
+old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so
+soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing
+remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found
+the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the
+shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld
+anything so utterly destroyed.
+
+Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of
+electricity.  On this occasion a man of great research in natural
+philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on
+the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of
+electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me.
+All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa,
+Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by
+some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my
+accustomed studies.  It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever
+be known.  All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew
+despicable.  By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps
+most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former
+occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed
+and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a
+would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of
+real knowledge.  In this mood of mind I betook myself to the
+mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as
+being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.
+
+Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments
+are we bound to prosperity or ruin.  When I look back, it seems to me
+as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the
+immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort
+made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even
+then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me.  Her victory was
+announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which
+followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting
+studies.  It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with
+their prosecution, happiness with their disregard.
+
+It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual.
+Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and
+terrible destruction.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I
+should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt.  I had
+hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it
+necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made
+acquainted with other customs than those of my native country.  My
+departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day
+resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life
+occurred—an omen, as it were, of my future misery.
+
+Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was
+in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to
+persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first
+yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her
+favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She
+attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity
+of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this
+imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother
+sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the
+looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her
+deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert
+her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. “My
+children,” she said, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were
+placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the
+consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to
+my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy
+and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are
+not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to
+death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.”
+
+She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death.
+I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent
+by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the
+soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance.  It is so
+long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day
+and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed
+for ever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been
+extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear
+can be hushed, never more to be heard.  These are the reflections of
+the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the
+evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences.  Yet from whom has
+not that rude hand rent away some dear connection?  And why should I
+describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?  The time at
+length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and
+the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a
+sacrilege, is not banished.  My mother was dead, but we had still
+duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the
+rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the
+spoiler has not seized.
+
+My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events,
+was now again determined upon.  I obtained from my father a respite of
+some weeks.  It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose,
+akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of
+life.  I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me.  I was
+unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above
+all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled.
+
+She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all.
+She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and
+zeal.  She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call
+her uncle and cousins.  Never was she so enchanting as at this time,
+when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us.
+She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget.
+
+The day of my departure at length arrived.  Clerval spent the last
+evening with us.  He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit
+him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain.  His
+father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the
+aspirations and ambition of his son.  Henry deeply felt the misfortune
+of being debarred from a liberal education.  He said little, but when
+he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a
+restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details
+of commerce.
+
+We sat late.  We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor
+persuade ourselves to say the word “Farewell!”  It was said, and we
+retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the
+other was deceived; but when at morning’s dawn I descended to the
+carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there—my father
+again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to
+renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last
+feminine attentions on her playmate and friend.
+
+I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in
+the most melancholy reflections.  I, who had ever been surrounded by
+amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual
+pleasure—I was now alone.  In the university whither I was going I
+must form my own friends and be my own protector.  My life had hitherto
+been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible
+repugnance to new countenances.  I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and
+Clerval; these were “old familiar faces,” but I believed myself
+totally unfitted for the company of strangers.  Such were my reflections as
+I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose.  I
+ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge.  I had often, when at home,
+thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had
+longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. 
+Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to
+repent.
+
+I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my
+journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing.  At length the
+high white steeple of the town met my eyes.  I alighted and was
+conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased.
+
+The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to
+some of the principal professors.  Chance—or rather the evil
+influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me
+from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s
+door—led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy.  He
+was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He
+asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches
+of science appertaining to natural philosophy.  I replied carelessly, and
+partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal
+authors I had studied.  The professor stared.  “Have you,” he
+said, “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?”
+
+I replied in the affirmative.  “Every minute,” continued M. Krempe with
+warmth, “every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly
+and entirely lost.  You have burdened your memory with exploded systems
+and useless names.  Good God!  In what desert land have you lived,
+where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you
+have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they
+are ancient?  I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific
+age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus.  My dear
+sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew.”
+
+So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books
+treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and
+dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following
+week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural
+philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow
+professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he
+omitted.
+
+I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long
+considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I
+returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any
+shape.  M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a
+repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in
+favour of his pursuits.  In rather a too philosophical and connected a
+strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come
+to concerning them in my early years.  As a child I had not been
+content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural
+science.  With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my
+extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the
+steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the
+discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists.
+Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy.
+It was very different when the masters of the science sought
+immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now
+the scene was changed.  The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit
+itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in
+science was chiefly founded.  I was required to exchange chimeras of
+boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.
+
+Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my
+residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming
+acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new
+abode.  But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information
+which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures.  And although I
+could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver
+sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M.
+Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town.
+
+Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing
+room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very
+unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an
+aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his
+temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person
+was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard.
+He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and
+the various improvements made by different men of learning, pronouncing
+with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took
+a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of
+its elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he
+concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I
+shall never forget:
+
+“The ancient teachers of this science,” said he,
+“promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters
+promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that
+the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem
+only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or
+crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses
+of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the
+heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of
+the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers;
+they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even
+mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”
+
+Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of
+the fate—enounced to destroy me.  As he went on I felt as if my soul
+were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were
+touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was
+sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception,
+one purpose.  So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of
+Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps
+already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and
+unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.
+
+I closed not my eyes that night.  My internal being was in a state of
+insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I
+had no power to produce it.  By degrees, after the morning’s dawn,
+sleep came.  I awoke, and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream.
+There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to
+devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a
+natural talent.  On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit.  His
+manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public,
+for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in
+his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness.  I
+gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had
+given to his fellow professor.  He heard with attention the little
+narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius
+Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had
+exhibited. He said that “These were men to whose indefatigable zeal
+modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their
+knowledge.  They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names
+and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a
+great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light.  The
+labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever
+fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.”  I
+listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption
+or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my
+prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured
+terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his
+instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have
+made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended
+labours.  I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to
+procure.
+
+“I am happy,” said M. Waldman, “to have gained a
+disciple; and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt of
+your success. Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the
+greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that
+I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not
+neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry
+chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your
+wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty
+experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural
+philosophy, including mathematics.”
+
+He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his
+various machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and
+promising me the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in
+the science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of
+books which I had requested, and I took my leave.
+
+Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the
+most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.
+I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination,
+which modern inquirers have written on these subjects.  I attended the
+lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the
+university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense
+and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive
+physiognomy and manners, but not on that account the less valuable.  In
+M. Waldman I found a true friend.  His gentleness was never tinged by
+dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and
+good nature that banished every idea of pedantry.  In a thousand ways
+he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse
+inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension.  My application was at
+first fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and
+soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the
+light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.
+
+As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress
+was rapid.  My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and
+my proficiency that of the masters.  Professor Krempe often asked me,
+with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman
+expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress.  Two years
+passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was
+engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I
+hoped to make.  None but those who have experienced them can conceive
+of the enticements of science.  In other studies you go as far as
+others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in
+a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.
+A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must
+infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and I, who
+continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit and was
+solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly that at the end of two
+years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical
+instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the
+university.  When I had arrived at this point and had become as well
+acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as
+depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my
+residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought
+of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident
+happened that protracted my stay.
+
+One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was
+the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with
+life.  Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?
+It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a
+mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming
+acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our
+inquiries.  I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined
+thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of
+natural philosophy which relate to physiology.  Unless I had been
+animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this
+study would have been irksome and almost intolerable.  To examine the
+causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.  I became
+acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I
+must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.
+In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my
+mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors.  I do not ever
+remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared
+the apparition of a spirit.  Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and
+a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of
+life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become
+food for the worm.  Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of
+this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and
+charnel-houses.  My attention was fixed upon every object the most
+insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings.  I saw how the
+fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of
+death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm
+inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.  I paused, examining and
+analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change
+from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this
+darkness a sudden light broke in upon me—a light so brilliant and
+wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity
+of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so
+many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same
+science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a
+secret.
+
+Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman.  The sun does not
+more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is
+true.  Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the
+discovery were distinct and probable.  After days and nights of
+incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of
+generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing
+animation upon lifeless matter.
+
+The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery
+soon gave place to delight and rapture.  After so much time spent in
+painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the
+most gratifying consummation of my toils.  But this discovery was so
+great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been
+progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result.
+What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation
+of the world was now within my grasp.  Not that, like a magic scene, it
+all opened upon me at once:  the information I had obtained was of a
+nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them
+towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already
+accomplished.  I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead
+and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly
+ineffectual light.
+
+I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes
+express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with
+which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end
+of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that
+subject.  I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was,
+to your destruction and infallible misery.  Learn from me, if not by my
+precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of
+knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town
+to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature
+will allow.
+
+When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated
+a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.
+Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to
+prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of
+fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable
+difficulty and labour.  I doubted at first whether I should attempt the
+creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my
+imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to
+doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful
+as man.  The materials at present within my command hardly appeared
+adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should
+ultimately succeed.  I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my
+operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be
+imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes
+place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present
+attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success.  Nor
+could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any
+argument of its impracticability.  It was with these feelings that I
+began the creation of a human being.  As the minuteness of the parts
+formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first
+intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say,
+about eight feet in height, and proportionably large.  After having
+formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully
+collecting and arranging my materials, I began.
+
+No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like
+a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success.  Life and death
+appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and
+pour a torrent of light into our dark world.  A new species would bless
+me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would
+owe their being to me.  No father could claim the gratitude of his
+child so completely as I should deserve theirs.  Pursuing these
+reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless
+matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible)
+renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.
+
+These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking
+with unremitting ardour.  My cheek had grown pale with study, and my
+person had become emaciated with confinement.  Sometimes, on the very
+brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the
+next day or the next hour might realise.  One secret which I alone
+possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon
+gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless
+eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.  Who shall conceive
+the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps
+of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless
+clay?  My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but
+then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed
+to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.  It was
+indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed
+acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had
+returned to my old habits.  I collected bones from charnel-houses and
+disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human
+frame.  In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house,
+and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase,
+I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from
+their sockets in attending to the details of my employment.  The
+dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials;
+and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation,
+whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I
+brought my work near to a conclusion.
+
+The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in
+one pursuit.  It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields
+bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant
+vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.  And the
+same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also
+to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had
+not seen for so long a time.  I knew my silence disquieted them, and I
+well remembered the words of my father:  “I know that while you are
+pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall
+hear regularly from you.  You must pardon me if I regard any
+interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties
+are equally neglected.”
+
+I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings, but I could
+not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which
+had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination.  I wished, as it
+were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection
+until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature,
+should be completed.
+
+I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect
+to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was
+justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from
+blame.  A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and
+peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to
+disturb his tranquillity.  I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge
+is an exception to this rule.  If the study to which you apply yourself
+has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for
+those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that
+study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human
+mind.  If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit
+whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic
+affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Cæsar would have spared his
+country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the
+empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.
+
+But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my
+tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.
+
+My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my
+silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before.
+Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not
+watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always
+yielded me supreme delight—so deeply was I engrossed in my
+occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near
+to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had
+succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared
+rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other
+unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment.
+Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most
+painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow
+creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at
+the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone
+sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and
+amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself
+both of these when my creation should be complete.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment
+of my toils.  With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I
+collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a
+spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.  It was
+already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the
+panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the
+half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature
+open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
+
+How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate
+the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to
+form?  His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as
+beautiful.  Beautiful!  Great God!  His yellow skin scarcely covered
+the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous
+black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these
+luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
+that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which
+they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
+
+The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings
+of human nature.  I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole
+purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.  For this I had
+deprived myself of rest and health.  I had desired it with an ardour
+that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty
+of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my
+heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I
+rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my
+bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.  At length lassitude
+succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the
+bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness.
+But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest
+dreams.  I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in
+the streets of Ingolstadt.  Delighted and surprised, I embraced her,
+but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with
+the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I
+held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her
+form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.
+I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my
+teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and
+yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window
+shutters, I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had
+created.  He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they
+may be called, were fixed on me.  His jaws opened, and he muttered some
+inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.  He might have
+spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to
+detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.  I took refuge in the
+courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained
+during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest
+agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if
+it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I
+had so miserably given life.
+
+Oh!  No mortal could support the horror of that countenance.  A mummy
+again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.  I
+had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those
+muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing
+such as even Dante could not have conceived.
+
+I passed the night wretchedly.  Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and
+hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly
+sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness.  Mingled with
+this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had
+been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a
+hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!
+
+Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my
+sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple
+and clock, which indicated the sixth hour.  The porter opened the gates
+of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into
+the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the
+wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my
+view.  I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but
+felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured
+from a black and comfortless sky.
+
+I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by
+bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind.  I
+traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or
+what I was doing.  My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I
+hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me:
+  
+  Like one who, on a lonely road,
+  Doth walk in fear and dread,
+  And, having once turned round, walks on,
+  And turns no more his head;
+  Because he knows a frightful fiend
+  Doth close behind him tread.
+  
+  [Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner.”]
+
+
+
+Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various
+diligences and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I knew not why;
+but I remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming
+towards me from the other end of the street. As it drew nearer I observed
+that it was the Swiss diligence; it stopped just where I was standing, and
+on the door being opened, I perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me,
+instantly sprung out. “My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed he,
+“how glad I am to see you! How fortunate that you should be here at
+the very moment of my alighting!”
+
+Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence brought back
+to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear
+to my recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror
+and misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months,
+calm and serene joy. I welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial
+manner, and we walked towards my college. Clerval continued talking for
+some time about our mutual friends and his own good fortune in being
+permitted to come to Ingolstadt. “You may easily believe,” said
+he, “how great was the difficulty to persuade my father that all
+necessary knowledge was not comprised in the noble art of book-keeping;
+and, indeed, I believe I left him incredulous to the last, for his constant
+answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the Dutch
+schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: ‘I have ten thousand florins
+a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.’ But his
+affection for me at length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has
+permitted me to undertake a voyage of discovery to the land of
+knowledge.”
+
+“It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left
+my father, brothers, and Elizabeth.”
+
+“Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from
+you so seldom.  By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their
+account myself.  But, my dear Frankenstein,” continued he, stopping
+short and gazing full in my face, “I did not before remark how very ill
+you appear; so thin and pale; you look as if you had been watching for
+several nights.”
+
+“You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged in one
+occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see;
+but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an
+end and that I am at length free.”
+
+I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to
+allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night.  I walked with a
+quick pace, and we soon arrived at my college.  I then reflected, and
+the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my
+apartment might still be there, alive and walking about.  I dreaded to
+behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry should see him.
+Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the
+stairs, I darted up towards my own room.  My hand was already on the
+lock of the door before I recollected myself.  I then paused, and a
+cold shivering came over me.  I threw the door forcibly open, as
+children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in
+waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared.  I stepped
+fearfully in:  the apartment was empty, and my bedroom was also freed
+from its hideous guest.  I could hardly believe that so great a good
+fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy
+had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval.
+
+We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast;
+but I was unable to contain myself.  It was not joy only that possessed
+me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse
+beat rapidly.  I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same
+place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud.
+Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival,
+but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes
+for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless
+laughter frightened and astonished him.
+
+“My dear Victor,” cried he, “what, for God’s sake,
+is the matter?  Do not laugh in that manner.  How ill you are!  What is the
+cause of all this?”
+
+“Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I
+thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; “_he_ can
+tell. Oh, save me!  Save me!”  I imagined that the monster seized me;
+I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.
+
+Poor Clerval!  What must have been his feelings?  A meeting, which he
+anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness.  But I
+was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless and did not
+recover my senses for a long, long time.
+
+This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for
+several months.  During all that time Henry was my only nurse.  I
+afterwards learned that, knowing my father’s advanced age and unfitness
+for so long a journey, and how wretched my sickness would make
+Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my
+disorder.  He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive
+nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery, he
+did not doubt that, instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest
+action that he could towards them.
+
+But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and
+unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life.
+The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever
+before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.  Doubtless my
+words surprised Henry; he at first believed them to be the wanderings
+of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which I
+continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder
+indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.
+
+By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and
+grieved my friend, I recovered.  I remember the first time I became
+capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I
+perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young
+buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window.  It was
+a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my
+convalescence.  I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in
+my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as
+cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion.
+
+“Dearest Clerval,” exclaimed I, “how kind, how very good
+you are to me. This whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you
+promised yourself, has been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever
+repay you? I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I
+have been the occasion, but you will forgive me.”
+
+“You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get
+well as fast as you can; and since you appear in such good spirits, I
+may speak to you on one subject, may I not?”
+
+I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an object on
+whom I dared not even think?
+
+“Compose yourself,” said Clerval, who observed my change of
+colour, “I will not mention it if it agitates you; but your father
+and cousin would be very happy if they received a letter from you in your
+own handwriting. They hardly know how ill you have been and are uneasy at
+your long silence.”
+
+“Is that all, my dear Henry?  How could you suppose that my first
+thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and
+who are so deserving of my love?”
+
+“If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad
+to see a letter that has been lying here some days for you; it is from
+your cousin, I believe.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+Clerval then put the following letter into my hands.  It was from my
+own Elizabeth:
+
+“My dearest Cousin,
+
+“You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear
+kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account.  You are
+forbidden to write—to hold a pen; yet one word from you, dear Victor,
+is necessary to calm our apprehensions.  For a long time I have thought
+that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have
+restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt.  I have
+prevented his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so
+long a journey, yet how often have I regretted not being able to
+perform it myself!  I figure to myself that the task of attending on
+your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never
+guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of
+your poor cousin.  Yet that is over now:  Clerval writes that indeed
+you are getting better.  I eagerly hope that you will confirm this
+intelligence soon in your own handwriting.
+
+“Get well—and return to us.  You will find a happy, cheerful home and
+friends who love you dearly.  Your father’s health is vigorous, and he
+asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a
+care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance.  How pleased you would
+be to remark the improvement of our Ernest!  He is now sixteen and full
+of activity and spirit.  He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter
+into foreign service, but we cannot part with him, at least until his
+elder brother returns to us.  My uncle is not pleased with the idea of
+a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had your
+powers of application.  He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his
+time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the
+lake.  I fear that he will become an idler unless we yield the point
+and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected.
+
+“Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken
+place since you left us.  The blue lake and snow-clad mountains—they
+never change; and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are
+regulated by the same immutable laws.  My trifling occupations take up
+my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing
+none but happy, kind faces around me.  Since you left us, but one
+change has taken place in our little household.  Do you remember on
+what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family?  Probably you do not;
+I will relate her history, therefore in a few words.  Madame Moritz,
+her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the
+third.  This girl had always been the favourite of her father, but
+through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her, and
+after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill.  My aunt observed
+this, and when Justine was twelve years of age, prevailed on her mother
+to allow her to live at our house.  The republican institutions of our
+country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which
+prevail in the great monarchies that surround it.  Hence there is less
+distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the
+lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are
+more refined and moral.  A servant in Geneva does not mean the same
+thing as a servant in France and England.  Justine, thus received in
+our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our
+fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a
+sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.
+
+“Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours; and I
+recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one
+glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that
+Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica—she looked so
+frank-hearted and happy.  My aunt conceived a great attachment for her,
+by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that
+which she had at first intended.  This benefit was fully repaid;
+Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world:  I do not
+mean that she made any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but
+you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress.
+Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate,
+yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt.  She
+thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her
+phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her.
+
+“When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied in their own
+grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness
+with the most anxious affection.  Poor Justine was very ill; but other
+trials were reserved for her.
+
+“One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the
+exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless.  The
+conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think that the
+deaths of her favourites was a judgement from heaven to chastise her
+partiality.  She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor
+confirmed the idea which she had conceived.  Accordingly, a few months
+after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her
+repentant mother.  Poor girl!  She wept when she quitted our house; she
+was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness
+and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable
+for vivacity.  Nor was her residence at her mother’s house of a nature
+to restore her gaiety.  The poor woman was very vacillating in her
+repentance.  She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness,
+but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her
+brothers and sister.  Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz
+into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is
+now at peace for ever.  She died on the first approach of cold weather,
+at the beginning of this last winter.  Justine has just returned to us;
+and I assure you I love her tenderly.  She is very clever and gentle,
+and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien and her
+expression continually remind me of my dear aunt.
+
+“I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling
+William.  I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with
+sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair.  When he
+smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with
+health.  He has already had one or two little _wives,_ but Louisa Biron
+is his favourite, a pretty little girl of five years of age.
+
+“Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little
+gossip concerning the good people of Geneva.  The pretty Miss Mansfield
+has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching
+marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq.  Her ugly
+sister, Manon, married M. Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn. Your
+favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes
+since the departure of Clerval from Geneva.  But he has already
+recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of marrying a
+lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier.  She is a widow, and much
+older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with
+everybody.
+
+“I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin; but my anxiety
+returns upon me as I conclude.  Write, dearest Victor,—one line—one
+word will be a blessing to us.  Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his
+kindness, his affection, and his many letters; we are sincerely
+grateful.  Adieu!  my cousin; take care of yourself; and, I entreat
+you, write!
+
+“Elizabeth Lavenza.
+
+
+“Geneva, March 18th, 17—.”
+
+
+
+“Dear, dear Elizabeth!” I exclaimed, when I had read her
+letter: “I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety
+they must feel.” I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me; but
+my convalescence had commenced, and proceeded regularly. In another
+fortnight I was able to leave my chamber.
+
+One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the
+several professors of the university.  In doing this, I underwent a
+kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had
+sustained.  Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the
+beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even
+to the name of natural philosophy.  When I was otherwise quite restored
+to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony
+of my nervous symptoms.  Henry saw this, and had removed all my
+apparatus from my view.  He had also changed my apartment; for he
+perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had
+previously been my laboratory.  But these cares of Clerval were made of
+no avail when I visited the professors.  M. Waldman inflicted torture
+when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I
+had made in the sciences.  He soon perceived that I disliked the
+subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to
+modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science
+itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out.  What
+could I do?  He meant to please, and he tormented me.  I felt as if he
+had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which
+were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death.  I
+writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt.
+Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the
+sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his
+total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn.  I
+thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak.  I saw plainly
+that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from
+me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence
+that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in
+him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which
+I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply.
+
+M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at that time, of
+almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even
+more pain than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. “D—n
+the fellow!” cried he; “why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has
+outstript us all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nevertheless true. A
+youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly
+as in the gospel, has now set himself at the head of the university; and if
+he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of countenance.—Ay,
+ay,” continued he, observing my face expressive of suffering,
+“M. Frankenstein is modest; an excellent quality in a young man.
+Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval: I was
+myself when young; but that wears out in a very short time.”
+
+M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned
+the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.
+
+Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural science; and his
+literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me.  He
+came to the university with the design of making himself complete
+master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for
+the plan of life he had marked out for himself.  Resolved to pursue no
+inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as affording
+scope for his spirit of enterprise.  The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit
+languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on
+the same studies.  Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I
+wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt
+great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not
+only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists.  I
+did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for
+I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary
+amusement.  I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well
+repaid my labours.  Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy
+elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of
+any other country.  When you read their writings, life appears to
+consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,—in the smiles and frowns
+of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart.  How
+different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!
+
+Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was
+fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several
+accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable,
+and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring.  I felt this
+delay very bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved
+friends.  My return had only been delayed so long, from an
+unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become
+acquainted with any of its inhabitants.  The winter, however, was spent
+cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came
+its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.
+
+The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily
+which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a
+pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a
+personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited.  I acceded
+with pleasure to this proposition:  I was fond of exercise, and Clerval
+had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature
+that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.
+
+We passed a fortnight in these perambulations:  my health and spirits
+had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the
+salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and
+the conversation of my friend.  Study had before secluded me from the
+intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial; but
+Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart; he again taught
+me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children.
+Excellent friend!  how sincerely you did love me, and endeavour to
+elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own.  A selfish
+pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and
+affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy creature
+who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care.
+When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most
+delightful sensations.  A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with
+ecstasy.  The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring
+bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud.  I
+was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed
+upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an
+invincible burden.
+
+Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: he
+exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled
+his soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly
+astonishing: his conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in
+imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful
+fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew
+me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.
+
+We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were
+dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were
+high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+On my return, I found the following letter from my father:—
+
+“My dear Victor,
+
+“You have probably waited impatiently for a letter to fix the date of
+your return to us; and I was at first tempted to write only a few
+lines, merely mentioning the day on which I should expect you.  But
+that would be a cruel kindness, and I dare not do it.  What would be
+your surprise, my son, when you expected a happy and glad welcome, to
+behold, on the contrary, tears and wretchedness?  And how, Victor, can
+I relate our misfortune?  Absence cannot have rendered you callous to
+our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on my long absent
+son?  I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is
+impossible; even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words
+which are to convey to you the horrible tidings.
+
+“William is dead!—that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed
+my heart, who was so gentle, yet so gay!  Victor, he is murdered!
+
+“I will not attempt to console you; but will simply relate the
+circumstances of the transaction.
+
+“Last Thursday (May 7th), I, my niece, and your two brothers, went to
+walk in Plainpalais.  The evening was warm and serene, and we prolonged
+our walk farther than usual.  It was already dusk before we thought of
+returning; and then we discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone
+on before, were not to be found.  We accordingly rested on a seat until
+they should return.  Presently Ernest came, and enquired if we had seen
+his brother; he said, that he had been playing with him, that William
+had run away to hide himself, and that he vainly sought for him, and
+afterwards waited for a long time, but that he did not return.
+
+“This account rather alarmed us, and we continued to search for him
+until night fell, when Elizabeth conjectured that he might have
+returned to the house.  He was not there.  We returned again, with
+torches; for I could not rest, when I thought that my sweet boy had
+lost himself, and was exposed to all the damps and dews of night;
+Elizabeth also suffered extreme anguish.  About five in the morning I
+discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen blooming and
+active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless; the
+print of the murder’s finger was on his neck.
+
+“He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible in my
+countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth.  She was very earnest to
+see the corpse.  At first I attempted to prevent her but she persisted,
+and entering the room where it lay, hastily examined the neck of the
+victim, and clasping her hands exclaimed, ‘O God!  I have murdered my
+darling child!’
+
+“She fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty.  When she again
+lived, it was only to weep and sigh.  She told me, that that same
+evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valuable
+miniature that she possessed of your mother.  This picture is gone, and
+was doubtless the temptation which urged the murderer to the deed.  We
+have no trace of him at present, although our exertions to discover him
+are unremitted; but they will not restore my beloved William!
+
+“Come, dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth.  She weeps
+continually, and accuses herself unjustly as the cause of his death;
+her words pierce my heart.  We are all unhappy; but will not that be an
+additional motive for you, my son, to return and be our comforter?
+Your dear mother!  Alas, Victor!  I now say, Thank God she did not live
+to witness the cruel, miserable death of her youngest darling!
+
+“Come, Victor; not brooding thoughts of vengeance against the assassin,
+but with feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of
+festering, the wounds of our minds.  Enter the house of mourning, my
+friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not
+with hatred for your enemies.
+
+“Your affectionate and afflicted father,
+
+“Alphonse Frankenstein.
+
+
+
+“Geneva, May 12th, 17—.”
+
+
+
+Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was
+surprised to observe the despair that succeeded the joy I at first
+expressed on receiving new from my friends.  I threw the letter on the
+table, and covered my face with my hands.
+
+“My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me
+weep with bitterness, “are you always to be unhappy?  My dear friend,
+what has happened?”
+
+I motioned him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the
+room in the extremest agitation.  Tears also gushed from the eyes of
+Clerval, as he read the account of my misfortune.
+
+“I can offer you no consolation, my friend,” said he;
+“your disaster is irreparable.  What do you intend to do?”
+
+“To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order the horses.”
+
+During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to say a few words of consolation;
+he could only express his heartfelt sympathy.  “Poor William!” said he,
+“dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother!  Who that had
+seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his
+untimely loss!  To die so miserably; to feel the murderer’s grasp!  How
+much more a murdered that could destroy radiant innocence!  Poor little
+fellow! one only consolation have we; his friends mourn and weep, but
+he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever.
+A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain.  He can no longer
+be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable
+survivors.”
+
+Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the words
+impressed themselves on my mind and I remembered them afterwards in
+solitude.  But now, as soon as the horses arrived, I hurried into a
+cabriolet, and bade farewell to my friend.
+
+My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry on, for I longed
+to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends; but when I
+drew near my native town, I slackened my progress. I could hardly sustain
+the multitude of feelings that crowded into my mind. I passed through
+scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for nearly six years.
+How altered every thing might be during that time! One sudden and
+desolating change had taken place; but a thousand little circumstances
+might have by degrees worked other alterations, which, although they were
+done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive. Fear overcame me; I
+dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble,
+although I was unable to define them.
+
+I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of mind. I
+contemplated the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm; and the
+snowy mountains, “the palaces of nature,” were not changed. By
+degrees the calm and heavenly scene restored me, and I continued my journey
+towards Geneva.
+
+The road ran by the side of the lake, which became narrower as I
+approached my native town.  I discovered more distinctly the black
+sides of Jura, and the bright summit of Mont Blanc.  I wept like a
+child.  “Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your
+wanderer?  Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and
+placid.  Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?”
+
+I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on
+these preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative
+happiness, and I think of them with pleasure.  My country, my beloved
+country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again
+beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely
+lake!
+
+Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also
+closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still
+more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I
+foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human
+beings. Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only in one single
+circumstance, that in all the misery I imagined and dreaded, I did not
+conceive the hundredth part of the anguish I was destined to endure.
+
+It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates
+of the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at
+Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city. The sky
+was serene; and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot
+where my poor William had been murdered. As I could not pass through the
+town, I was obliged to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais.
+During this short voyage I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont
+Blanc in the most beautiful figures. The storm appeared to approach
+rapidly, and, on landing, I ascended a low hill, that I might observe its
+progress. It advanced; the heavens were clouded, and I soon felt the rain
+coming slowly in large drops, but its violence quickly increased.
+
+I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm
+increased every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash
+over my head.  It was echoed from Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of
+Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the
+lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant
+every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself
+from the preceding flash.  The storm, as is often the case in
+Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The
+most violent storm hung exactly north of the town, over the part of the
+lake which lies between the promontory of Belrive and the village of
+Copêt. Another storm enlightened Jura with faint flashes; and another
+darkened and sometimes disclosed the Môle, a peaked mountain to the
+east of the lake.
+
+While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with
+a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my
+hands, and exclaimed aloud, “William, dear angel! this is thy
+funeral, this thy dirge!” As I said these words, I perceived in the
+gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood
+fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning
+illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its
+gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs
+to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy
+dæmon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I
+shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that
+idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth
+chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure
+passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could
+have destroyed the fair child. _He_ was the murderer! I could not
+doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the
+fact. I thought of pursuing the devil; but it would have been in vain, for
+another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly
+perpendicular ascent of Mont Salêve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the
+south. He soon reached the summit, and disappeared.
+
+I remained motionless.  The thunder ceased; but the rain still
+continued, and the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness.  I
+revolved in my mind the events which I had until now sought to forget:
+the whole train of my progress toward the creation; the appearance of
+the works of my own hands at my bedside; its departure.  Two years had
+now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and
+was this his first crime?  Alas!  I had turned loose into the world a
+depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not
+murdered my brother?
+
+No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the
+night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air.  But I did not
+feel the inconvenience of the weather; my imagination was busy in
+scenes of evil and despair.  I considered the being whom I had cast
+among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes
+of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light
+of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced
+to destroy all that was dear to me.
+
+Day dawned; and I directed my steps towards the town.  The gates were
+open, and I hastened to my father’s house.  My first thought was to
+discover what I knew of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be
+made.  But I paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A
+being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at
+midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible mountain.  I
+remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at
+the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of
+delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable.  I well knew that
+if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have
+looked upon it as the ravings of insanity.  Besides, the strange nature
+of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited
+as to persuade my relatives to commence it.  And then of what use would
+be pursuit?  Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the
+overhanging sides of Mont Salêve?  These reflections determined me, and
+I resolved to remain silent.
+
+It was about five in the morning when I entered my father’s house.  I
+told the servants not to disturb the family, and went into the library
+to attend their usual hour of rising.
+
+Six years had elapsed, passed in a dream but for one indelible trace, and I
+stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father before my
+departure for Ingolstadt. Beloved and venerable parent! He still remained
+to me. I gazed on the picture of my mother, which stood over the
+mantel-piece. It was an historical subject, painted at my father’s
+desire, and represented Caroline Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling
+by the coffin of her dead father. Her garb was rustic, and her cheek pale;
+but there was an air of dignity and beauty, that hardly permitted the
+sentiment of pity. Below this picture was a miniature of William; and my
+tears flowed when I looked upon it. While I was thus engaged, Ernest
+entered: he had heard me arrive, and hastened to welcome me:
+“Welcome, my dearest Victor,” said he. “Ah! I wish you
+had come three months ago, and then you would have found us all joyous and
+delighted. You come to us now to share a misery which nothing can
+alleviate; yet your presence will, I hope, revive our father, who seems
+sinking under his misfortune; and your persuasions will induce poor
+Elizabeth to cease her vain and tormenting self-accusations.—Poor
+William! he was our darling and our pride!”
+
+Tears, unrestrained, fell from my brother’s eyes; a sense of mortal
+agony crept over my frame.  Before, I had only imagined the
+wretchedness of my desolated home; the reality came on me as a new, and
+a not less terrible, disaster.  I tried to calm Ernest; I enquired more
+minutely concerning my father, and here I named my cousin.
+
+“She most of all,” said Ernest, “requires consolation; she accused
+herself of having caused the death of my brother, and that made her
+very wretched.  But since the murderer has been discovered—”
+
+“The murderer discovered!  Good God! how can that be? who could attempt
+to pursue him?  It is impossible; one might as well try to overtake the
+winds, or confine a mountain-stream with a straw.  I saw him too; he
+was free last night!”
+
+“I do not know what you mean,” replied my brother, in accents of
+wonder, “but to us the discovery we have made completes our misery.  No
+one would believe it at first; and even now Elizabeth will not be
+convinced, notwithstanding all the evidence.  Indeed, who would credit
+that Justine Moritz, who was so amiable, and fond of all the family,
+could suddenly become so capable of so frightful, so appalling a crime?”
+
+“Justine Moritz!  Poor, poor girl, is she the accused?  But it is
+wrongfully; every one knows that; no one believes it, surely, Ernest?”
+
+“No one did at first; but several circumstances came out, that have
+almost forced conviction upon us; and her own behaviour has been so
+confused, as to add to the evidence of facts a weight that, I fear,
+leaves no hope for doubt.  But she will be tried today, and you will
+then hear all.”
+
+He then related that, the morning on which the murder of poor William
+had been discovered, Justine had been taken ill, and confined to her
+bed for several days.  During this interval, one of the servants,
+happening to examine the apparel she had worn on the night of the
+murder, had discovered in her pocket the picture of my mother, which
+had been judged to be the temptation of the murderer.  The servant
+instantly showed it to one of the others, who, without saying a word to
+any of the family, went to a magistrate; and, upon their deposition,
+Justine was apprehended.  On being charged with the fact, the poor girl
+confirmed the suspicion in a great measure by her extreme confusion of
+manner.
+
+This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied
+earnestly, “You are all mistaken; I know the murderer.  Justine, poor,
+good Justine, is innocent.”
+
+At that instant my father entered.  I saw unhappiness deeply impressed
+on his countenance, but he endeavoured to welcome me cheerfully; and,
+after we had exchanged our mournful greeting, would have introduced
+some other topic than that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed,
+“Good God, papa!  Victor says that he knows who was the murderer of
+poor William.”
+
+“We do also, unfortunately,” replied my father, “for indeed I had
+rather have been for ever ignorant than have discovered so much
+depravity and ungratitude in one I valued so highly.”
+
+“My dear father, you are mistaken; Justine is innocent.”
+
+“If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty.  She is to be
+tried today, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will be acquitted.”
+
+This speech calmed me.  I was firmly convinced in my own mind that
+Justine, and indeed every human being, was guiltless of this murder.  I
+had no fear, therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be
+brought forward strong enough to convict her.  My tale was not one to
+announce publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon as
+madness by the vulgar.  Did any one indeed exist, except I, the
+creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the
+existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance
+which I had let loose upon the world?
+
+We were soon joined by Elizabeth.  Time had altered her since I last
+beheld her; it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of
+her childish years.  There was the same candour, the same vivacity, but
+it was allied to an expression more full of sensibility and intellect.
+She welcomed me with the greatest affection.  “Your arrival, my dear
+cousin,” said she, “fills me with hope.  You perhaps will find some
+means to justify my poor guiltless Justine.  Alas! who is safe, if she
+be convicted of crime?  I rely on her innocence as certainly as I do
+upon my own.  Our misfortune is doubly hard to us; we have not only
+lost that lovely darling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sincerely
+love, is to be torn away by even a worse fate.  If she is condemned, I
+never shall know joy more.  But she will not, I am sure she will not;
+and then I shall be happy again, even after the sad death of my little
+William.”
+
+“She is innocent, my Elizabeth,” said I, “and that shall
+be proved; fear nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the assurance
+of her acquittal.”
+
+“How kind and generous you are! every one else believes in her guilt,
+and that made me wretched, for I knew that it was impossible:  and to
+see every one else prejudiced in so deadly a manner rendered me
+hopeless and despairing.”  She wept.
+
+“Dearest niece,” said my father, “dry your tears. If she
+is, as you believe, innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and the
+activity with which I shall prevent the slightest shadow of
+partiality.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+
+We passed a few sad hours until eleven o’clock, when the trial was to
+commence.  My father and the rest of the family being obliged to attend
+as witnesses, I accompanied them to the court.  During the whole of
+this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture.  It was to
+be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would
+cause the death of two of my fellow beings:  one a smiling babe full of
+innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every
+aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror.
+Justine also was a girl of merit and possessed qualities which promised
+to render her life happy; now all was to be obliterated in an
+ignominious grave, and I the cause!  A thousand times rather would I
+have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I
+was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have
+been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have
+exculpated her who suffered through me.
+
+The appearance of Justine was calm.  She was dressed in mourning, and
+her countenance, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her
+feelings, exquisitely beautiful.  Yet she appeared confident in
+innocence and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by
+thousands, for all the kindness which her beauty might otherwise have
+excited was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the
+imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed.  She
+was tranquil, yet her tranquillity was evidently constrained; and as
+her confusion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she
+worked up her mind to an appearance of courage.  When she entered the
+court she threw her eyes round it and quickly discovered where we were
+seated.  A tear seemed to dim her eye when she saw us, but she quickly
+recovered herself, and a look of sorrowful affection seemed to attest
+her utter guiltlessness.
+
+The trial began, and after the advocate against her had stated the
+charge, several witnesses were called.  Several strange facts combined
+against her, which might have staggered anyone who had not such proof
+of her innocence as I had.  She had been out the whole of the night on
+which the murder had been committed and towards morning had been
+perceived by a market-woman not far from the spot where the body of the
+murdered child had been afterwards found.  The woman asked her what she
+did there, but she looked very strangely and only returned a confused
+and unintelligible answer.  She returned to the house about eight
+o’clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she
+replied that she had been looking for the child and demanded earnestly
+if anything had been heard concerning him.  When shown the body, she
+fell into violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days.  The
+picture was then produced which the servant had found in her pocket;
+and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was the same
+which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed round
+his neck, a murmur of horror and indignation filled the court.
+
+Justine was called on for her defence.  As the trial had proceeded, her
+countenance had altered.  Surprise, horror, and misery were strongly
+expressed.  Sometimes she struggled with her tears, but when she was
+desired to plead, she collected her powers and spoke in an audible
+although variable voice.
+
+“God knows,” she said, “how entirely I am innocent. But I
+do not pretend that my protestations should acquit me; I rest my innocence
+on a plain and simple explanation of the facts which have been adduced
+against me, and I hope the character I have always borne will incline my
+judges to a favourable interpretation where any circumstance appears
+doubtful or suspicious.”
+
+She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she had passed
+the evening of the night on which the murder had been committed at the
+house of an aunt at Chêne, a village situated at about a league from
+Geneva.  On her return, at about nine o’clock, she met a man who asked
+her if she had seen anything of the child who was lost.  She was
+alarmed by this account and passed several hours in looking for him,
+when the gates of Geneva were shut, and she was forced to remain
+several hours of the night in a barn belonging to a cottage, being
+unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to whom she was well known.  Most
+of the night she spent here watching; towards morning she believed that
+she slept for a few minutes; some steps disturbed her, and she awoke.
+It was dawn, and she quitted her asylum, that she might again endeavour
+to find my brother.  If she had gone near the spot where his body lay,
+it was without her knowledge.  That she had been bewildered when
+questioned by the market-woman was not surprising, since she had passed
+a sleepless night and the fate of poor William was yet uncertain.
+Concerning the picture she could give no account.
+
+“I know,” continued the unhappy victim, “how heavily and
+fatally this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of
+explaining it; and when I have expressed my utter ignorance, I am only left
+to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been
+placed in my pocket. But here also I am checked. I believe that I have no
+enemy on earth, and none surely would have been so wicked as to destroy me
+wantonly. Did the murderer place it there? I know of no opportunity
+afforded him for so doing; or, if I had, why should he have stolen the
+jewel, to part with it again so soon?
+
+“I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see no room for
+hope.  I beg permission to have a few witnesses examined concerning my
+character, and if their testimony shall not overweigh my supposed
+guilt, I must be condemned, although I would pledge my salvation on my
+innocence.”
+
+Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and
+they spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they
+supposed her guilty rendered them timorous and unwilling to come
+forward.  Elizabeth saw even this last resource, her excellent
+dispositions and irreproachable conduct, about to fail the accused,
+when, although violently agitated, she desired permission to address
+the court.
+
+“I am,” said she, “the cousin of the unhappy child who
+was murdered, or rather his sister, for I was educated by and have lived
+with his parents ever since and even long before his birth. It may
+therefore be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion, but
+when I see a fellow creature about to perish through the cowardice of her
+pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I
+know of her character. I am well acquainted with the accused. I have lived
+in the same house with her, at one time for five and at another for nearly
+two years. During all that period she appeared to me the most amiable and
+benevolent of human creatures. She nursed Madame Frankenstein, my aunt, in
+her last illness, with the greatest affection and care and afterwards
+attended her own mother during a tedious illness, in a manner that excited
+the admiration of all who knew her, after which she again lived in my
+uncle’s house, where she was beloved by all the family. She was
+warmly attached to the child who is now dead and acted towards him like a
+most affectionate mother. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that,
+notwithstanding all the evidence produced against her, I believe and rely
+on her perfect innocence. She had no temptation for such an action; as to
+the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it,
+I should have willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value
+her.”
+
+A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and powerful
+appeal, but it was excited by her generous interference, and not in
+favour of poor Justine, on whom the public indignation was turned with
+renewed violence, charging her with the blackest ingratitude.  She
+herself wept as Elizabeth spoke, but she did not answer.  My own
+agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial.  I believed
+in her innocence; I knew it.  Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a
+minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have
+betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy?  I could not sustain the
+horror of my situation, and when I perceived that the popular voice and
+the countenances of the judges had already condemned my unhappy victim,
+I rushed out of the court in agony.  The tortures of the accused did
+not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of
+remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.
+
+I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness.  In the morning I went to
+the court; my lips and throat were parched.  I dared not ask the fatal
+question, but I was known, and the officer guessed the cause of my
+visit.  The ballots had been thrown; they were all black, and Justine
+was condemned.
+
+I cannot pretend to describe what I then felt.  I had before
+experienced sensations of horror, and I have endeavoured to bestow upon
+them adequate expressions, but words cannot convey an idea of the
+heart-sickening despair that I then endured.  The person to whom I
+addressed myself added that Justine had already confessed her guilt.
+“That evidence,” he observed, “was hardly required in so glaring a
+case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our judges like to
+condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it ever so
+decisive.”
+
+This was strange and unexpected intelligence; what could it mean?  Had
+my eyes deceived me?  And was I really as mad as the whole world would
+believe me to be if I disclosed the object of my suspicions?  I
+hastened to return home, and Elizabeth eagerly demanded the result.
+
+“My cousin,” replied I, “it is decided as you may have expected; all
+judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty
+should escape.  But she has confessed.”
+
+This was a dire blow to poor Elizabeth, who had relied with firmness upon
+Justine’s innocence. “Alas!” said she. “How shall I
+ever again believe in human goodness? Justine, whom I loved and esteemed as
+my sister, how could she put on those smiles of innocence only to betray?
+Her mild eyes seemed incapable of any severity or guile, and yet she has
+committed a murder.”
+
+Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my
+cousin. My father wished her not to go but said that he left it to her own
+judgment and feelings to decide. “Yes,” said Elizabeth,
+“I will go, although she is guilty; and you, Victor, shall accompany
+me; I cannot go alone.” The idea of this visit was torture to me, yet
+I could not refuse.
+
+We entered the gloomy prison chamber and beheld Justine sitting on some
+straw at the farther end; her hands were manacled, and her head rested on
+her knees. She rose on seeing us enter, and when we were left alone with
+her, she threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly. My
+cousin wept also.
+
+“Oh, Justine!” said she.  “Why did you rob me of my last consolation?
+I relied on your innocence, and although I was then very wretched, I
+was not so miserable as I am now.”
+
+“And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked?  Do you also
+join with my enemies to crush me, to condemn me as a murderer?” Her
+voice was suffocated with sobs.
+
+“Rise, my poor girl,” said Elizabeth; “why do you kneel,
+if you are innocent? I am not one of your enemies, I believed you
+guiltless, notwithstanding every evidence, until I heard that you had
+yourself declared your guilt. That report, you say, is false; and be
+assured, dear Justine, that nothing can shake my confidence in you for a
+moment, but your own confession.”
+
+“I did confess, but I confessed a lie.  I confessed, that I might
+obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than
+all my other sins.  The God of heaven forgive me!  Ever since I was
+condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced,
+until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I
+was.  He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if
+I continued obdurate.  Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked
+on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition.  What could I do?
+In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly
+miserable.”
+
+She paused, weeping, and then continued, “I thought with horror, my
+sweet lady, that you should believe your Justine, whom your blessed
+aunt had so highly honoured, and whom you loved, was a creature capable
+of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated.
+Dear William! dearest blessed child!  I soon shall see you again in
+heaven, where we shall all be happy; and that consoles me, going as I
+am to suffer ignominy and death.”
+
+“Oh, Justine!  Forgive me for having for one moment distrusted you.
+Why did you confess?  But do not mourn, dear girl.  Do not fear.  I
+will proclaim, I will prove your innocence.  I will melt the stony
+hearts of your enemies by my tears and prayers.  You shall not die!
+You, my playfellow, my companion, my sister, perish on the scaffold!
+No!  No!  I never could survive so horrible a misfortune.”
+
+Justine shook her head mournfully.  “I do not fear to die,” she said;
+“that pang is past.  God raises my weakness and gives me courage to
+endure the worst.  I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember
+me and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the
+fate awaiting me.  Learn from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to
+the will of heaven!”
+
+During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room,
+where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me.  Despair!
+Who dared talk of that?  The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass
+the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such
+deep and bitter agony.  I gnashed my teeth and ground them together,
+uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul.  Justine started.  When
+she saw who it was, she approached me and said, “Dear sir, you are very
+kind to visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty?”
+
+I could not answer.  “No, Justine,” said Elizabeth; “he is more
+convinced of your innocence than I was, for even when he heard that you
+had confessed, he did not credit it.”
+
+“I truly thank him.  In these last moments I feel the sincerest
+gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness.  How sweet is
+the affection of others to such a wretch as I am!  It removes more than
+half my misfortune, and I feel as if I could die in peace now that my
+innocence is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin.”
+
+Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself.  She indeed
+gained the resignation she desired.  But I, the true murderer, felt the
+never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or
+consolation.  Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was
+the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair
+moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.  Anguish and
+despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within
+me which nothing could extinguish.  We stayed several hours with
+Justine, and it was with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear
+herself away.  “I wish,” cried she, “that I were to die with you; I
+cannot live in this world of misery.”
+
+Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with difficulty
+repressed her bitter tears.  She embraced Elizabeth and said in a voice
+of half-suppressed emotion, “Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth,
+my beloved and only friend; may heaven, in its bounty, bless and
+preserve you; may this be the last misfortune that you will ever
+suffer!  Live, and be happy, and make others so.”
+
+And on the morrow Justine died.  Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence
+failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the
+criminality of the saintly sufferer.  My passionate and indignant
+appeals were lost upon them.  And when I received their cold answers
+and heard the harsh, unfeeling reasoning of these men, my purposed
+avowal died away on my lips.  Thus I might proclaim myself a madman,
+but not revoke the sentence passed upon my wretched victim.  She
+perished on the scaffold as a murderess!
+
+From the tortures of my own heart, I turned to contemplate the deep and
+voiceless grief of my Elizabeth.  This also was my doing!  And my
+father’s woe, and the desolation of that late so smiling home all was
+the work of my thrice-accursed hands!  Ye weep, unhappy ones, but these
+are not your last tears!  Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and
+the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be heard!
+Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, much-loved friend; he
+who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes, who has no
+thought nor sense of joy except as it is mirrored also in your dear
+countenances, who would fill the air with blessings and spend his life
+in serving you—he bids you weep, to shed countless tears; happy beyond
+his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destruction
+pause before the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad torments!
+
+Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair,
+I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and
+Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+
+Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have
+been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of
+inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope
+and fear.  Justine died, she rested, and I was alive.  The blood flowed
+freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my
+heart which nothing could remove.  Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered
+like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond
+description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet
+behind.  Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of virtue.
+I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment
+when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow
+beings.  Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience
+which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and
+from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and
+the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures
+such as no language can describe.
+
+This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never
+entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained.  I shunned
+the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me;
+solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
+
+My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my disposition
+and habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the feelings of his
+serene conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with fortitude and
+awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me.
+“Do you think, Victor,” said he, “that I do not suffer
+also? No one could love a child more than I loved your
+brother”—tears came into his eyes as he spoke—“but
+is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting
+their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty
+owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment,
+or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for
+society.”
+
+This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I
+should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if
+remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my
+other sensations.  Now I could only answer my father with a look of
+despair and endeavour to hide myself from his view.
+
+About this time we retired to our house at Belrive.  This change was
+particularly agreeable to me.  The shutting of the gates regularly at
+ten o’clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that
+hour had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome
+to me.  I was now free.  Often, after the rest of the family had
+retired for the night, I took the boat and passed many hours upon the
+water.  Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the wind; and
+sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to
+pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable reflections.  I
+was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only
+unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and
+heavenly—if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and
+interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore—often,
+I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters
+might close over me and my calamities for ever.  But I was restrained,
+when I thought of the heroic and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly
+loved, and whose existence was bound up in mine.  I thought also of my
+father and surviving brother; should I by my base desertion leave them
+exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I had let loose
+among them?
+
+At these moments I wept bitterly and wished that peace would revisit my
+mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that
+could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of
+unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had
+created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling
+that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime,
+which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past.
+There was always scope for fear so long as anything I loved remained
+behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot be conceived. When I thought of
+him I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to
+extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed. When I
+reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge burst all bounds
+of moderation. I would have made a pilgrimage to the highest peak of the
+Andes, could I, when there, have precipitated him to their base. I wished
+to see him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his
+head and avenge the deaths of William and Justine.
+
+Our house was the house of mourning. My father’s health was deeply
+shaken by the horror of the recent events. Elizabeth was sad and
+desponding; she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; all
+pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tears she
+then thought was the just tribute she should pay to innocence so blasted
+and destroyed. She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth
+wandered with me on the banks of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our
+future prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from
+the earth had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest
+smiles.
+
+“When I reflect, my dear cousin,” said she, “on the miserable death of
+Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before
+appeared to me.  Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and
+injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient
+days or imaginary evils; at least they were remote and more familiar to
+reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come home, and men
+appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood.  Yet I am
+certainly unjust.  Everybody believed that poor girl to be guilty; and
+if she could have committed the crime for which she suffered, assuredly
+she would have been the most depraved of human creatures.  For the sake
+of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend,
+a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if
+it had been her own!  I could not consent to the death of any human
+being, but certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to
+remain in the society of men.  But she was innocent.  I know, I feel
+she was innocent; you are of the same opinion, and that confirms me.
+Alas!  Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can
+assure themselves of certain happiness?  I feel as if I were walking on
+the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and
+endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss.  William and Justine were
+assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free,
+and perhaps respected.  But even if I were condemned to suffer on the
+scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change places with such a
+wretch.”
+
+I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony.  I, not in deed,
+but in effect, was the true murderer.  Elizabeth read my anguish in my
+countenance, and kindly taking my hand, said, “My dearest friend, you
+must calm yourself.  These events have affected me, God knows how
+deeply; but I am not so wretched as you are.  There is an expression of
+despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance that makes me
+tremble.  Dear Victor, banish these dark passions.  Remember the
+friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you.  Have we lost
+the power of rendering you happy?  Ah!  While we love, while we are
+true to each other, here in this land of peace and beauty, your native
+country, we may reap every tranquil blessing—what can disturb our
+peace?”
+
+And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every
+other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my
+heart?  Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror, lest at
+that very moment the destroyer had been near to rob me of her.
+
+Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of
+heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were
+ineffectual.  I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial
+influence could penetrate.  The wounded deer dragging its fainting
+limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had
+pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me.
+
+Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but
+sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily
+exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable
+sensations.  It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left
+my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought
+in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and
+my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.  My wanderings were directed
+towards the valley of Chamounix.  I had visited it frequently during my
+boyhood.  Six years had passed since then: _I_ was a wreck, but nought
+had changed in those savage and enduring scenes.
+
+I performed the first part of my journey on horseback.  I afterwards
+hired a mule, as the more sure-footed and least liable to receive
+injury on these rugged roads.  The weather was fine; it was about the
+middle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death of
+Justine, that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe.  The
+weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in
+the ravine of Arve.  The immense mountains and precipices that overhung
+me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and
+the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as
+Omnipotence—and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less
+almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here
+displayed in their most terrific guise.  Still, as I ascended higher,
+the valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character.
+Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the
+impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from
+among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty.  But it was
+augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and
+shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another
+earth, the habitations of another race of beings.
+
+I passed the bridge of Pélissier, where the ravine, which the river
+forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that
+overhangs it.  Soon after, I entered the valley of Chamounix.  This
+valley is more wonderful and sublime, but not so beautiful and
+picturesque as that of Servox, through which I had just passed.  The
+high and snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries, but I saw no
+more ruined castles and fertile fields.  Immense glaciers approached
+the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and
+marked the smoke of its passage.  Mont Blanc, the supreme and
+magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding _aiguilles_,
+and its tremendous _dôme_ overlooked the valley.
+
+A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during this
+journey.  Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and
+recognised, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the
+lighthearted gaiety of boyhood.  The very winds whispered in soothing
+accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.  Then again the
+kindly influence ceased to act—I found myself fettered again to grief
+and indulging in all the misery of reflection.  Then I spurred on my
+animal, striving so to forget the world, my fears, and more than all,
+myself—or, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted and threw myself on
+the grass, weighed down by horror and despair.
+
+At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix.  Exhaustion succeeded
+to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured.
+For a short space of time I remained at the window watching the pallid
+lightnings that played above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of
+the Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath.  The same lulling sounds
+acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations; when I placed my head
+upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed
+the giver of oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+
+I spent the following day roaming through the valley.  I stood beside
+the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that
+with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to
+barricade the valley.  The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before
+me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were
+scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious
+presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling
+waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the
+avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the
+accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws,
+was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in
+their hands.  These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the
+greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving.  They elevated me
+from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my
+grief, they subdued and tranquillised it.  In some degree, also, they
+diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the
+last month.  I retired to rest at night; my slumbers, as it were,
+waited on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I
+had contemplated during the day.  They congregated round me; the
+unstained snowy mountain-top, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods,
+and ragged bare ravine, the eagle, soaring amidst the clouds—they all
+gathered round me and bade me be at peace.
+
+Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke?  All of
+soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every
+thought.  The rain was pouring in torrents, and thick mists hid the
+summits of the mountains, so that I even saw not the faces of those
+mighty friends.  Still I would penetrate their misty veil and seek them
+in their cloudy retreats.  What were rain and storm to me?  My mule was
+brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of
+Montanvert.  I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous
+and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it.
+It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the
+soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy.
+The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the
+effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing
+cares of life.  I determined to go without a guide, for I was well
+acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the
+solitary grandeur of the scene.
+
+The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short
+windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the
+mountain.  It is a scene terrifically desolate.  In a thousand spots
+the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie
+broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent,
+leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon
+other trees.  The path, as you ascend higher, is intersected by ravines
+of snow, down which stones continually roll from above; one of them is
+particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking
+in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw
+destruction upon the head of the speaker.  The pines are not tall or
+luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene.
+I looked on the valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers
+which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite
+mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain
+poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I
+received from the objects around me.  Alas!  Why does man boast of
+sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders
+them more necessary beings.  If our impulses were confined to hunger,
+thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by
+every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may
+convey to us.
+
+  We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
+       We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day.
+  We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
+       Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
+  It is the same:  for, be it joy or sorrow,
+       The path of its departure still is free.
+  Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
+       Nought may endure but mutability!
+
+
+
+It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent.  For some
+time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice.  A mist covered
+both that and the surrounding mountains.  Presently a breeze dissipated
+the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier.  The surface is very
+uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and
+interspersed by rifts that sink deep.  The field of ice is almost a
+league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it.  The
+opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock.  From the side where I
+now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league;
+and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty.  I remained in a recess
+of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene.  The sea,
+or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains,
+whose aerial summits hung over its recesses.  Their icy and glittering
+peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds.  My heart, which was
+before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed,
+“Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow
+beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion,
+away from the joys of life.”
+
+As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance,
+advancing towards me with superhuman speed.  He bounded over the
+crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his
+stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.  I was
+troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me,
+but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains.  I
+perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!)
+that it was the wretch whom I had created.  I trembled with rage and
+horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in
+mortal combat.  He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish,
+combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness
+rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes.  But I scarcely
+observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance,
+and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious
+detestation and contempt.
+
+“Devil,” I exclaimed, “do you dare approach me? And do
+not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?
+Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And,
+oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore
+those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!”
+
+“I expected this reception,” said the dæmon.  “All men hate the
+wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all
+living things!  Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature,
+to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of
+one of us.  You purpose to kill me.  How dare you sport thus with life?
+Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of
+mankind.  If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and
+you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it
+be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”
+
+“Abhorred monster!  Fiend that thou art!  The tortures of hell are too
+mild a vengeance for thy crimes.  Wretched devil!  You reproach me with
+your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I
+so negligently bestowed.”
+
+My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the
+feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another.
+
+He easily eluded me and said,
+
+“Be calm!  I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred
+on my devoted head.  Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to
+increase my misery?  Life, although it may only be an accumulation of
+anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.  Remember, thou hast made
+me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my
+joints more supple.  But I will not be tempted to set myself in
+opposition to thee.  I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and
+docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part,
+the which thou owest me.  Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every
+other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy
+clemency and affection, is most due.  Remember that I am thy creature;
+I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou
+drivest from joy for no misdeed.  Everywhere I see bliss, from which I
+alone am irrevocably excluded.  I was benevolent and good; misery made
+me a fiend.  Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
+
+“Begone!  I will not hear you.  There can be no community between you
+and me; we are enemies.  Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight,
+in which one must fall.”
+
+“How can I move thee?  Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a
+favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and
+compassion?  Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed
+with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?  You, my
+creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures,
+who owe me nothing?  They spurn and hate me.  The desert mountains and
+dreary glaciers are my refuge.  I have wandered here many days; the
+caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the
+only one which man does not grudge.  These bleak skies I hail, for they
+are kinder to me than your fellow beings.  If the multitude of mankind
+knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for
+my destruction.  Shall I not then hate them who abhor me?  I will keep
+no terms with my enemies.  I am miserable, and they shall share my
+wretchedness.  Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver
+them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that
+not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be
+swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage.  Let your compassion be
+moved, and do not disdain me.  Listen to my tale; when you have heard
+that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve.
+But hear me.  The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they
+are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.  Listen
+to me, Frankenstein.  You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with
+a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature.  Oh, praise the
+eternal justice of man!  Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me,
+and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.”
+
+“Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined, “circumstances of
+which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and
+author?  Cursed be the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw
+light!  Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you!
+You have made me wretched beyond expression.  You have left me no power
+to consider whether I am just to you or not.  Begone!  Relieve me from
+the sight of your detested form.”
+
+“Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and placed his hated hands
+before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; “thus I take from
+thee a sight which you abhor.  Still thou canst listen to me and grant
+me thy compassion.  By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this
+from you.  Hear my tale; it is long and strange, and the temperature of
+this place is not fitting to your fine sensations; come to the hut upon
+the mountain.  The sun is yet high in the heavens; before it descends
+to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and illuminate another
+world, you will have heard my story and can decide.  On you it rests,
+whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless
+life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of
+your own speedy ruin.”
+
+As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed.  My heart
+was full, and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the
+various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to
+his tale.  I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my
+resolution.  I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my
+brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion.
+For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards
+his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I
+complained of his wickedness.  These motives urged me to comply with
+his demand.  We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the opposite
+rock.  The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend; we
+entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy
+heart and depressed spirits.  But I consented to listen, and seating
+myself by the fire which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began
+his tale.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+
+“It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of
+my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct.
+A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard,
+and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I
+learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.  By
+degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I
+was obliged to shut my eyes.  Darkness then came over me and troubled
+me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now
+suppose, the light poured in upon me again.  I walked and, I believe,
+descended, but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations.
+Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my
+touch or sight; but I now found that I could wander on at liberty, with
+no obstacles which I could not either surmount or avoid.  The light
+became more and more oppressive to me, and the heat wearying me as I
+walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade.  This was the
+forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by the side of a brook resting
+from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger and thirst.  This
+roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries which I
+found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground.  I slaked my thirst
+at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.
+
+“It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it
+were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate.  Before I had quitted
+your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some
+clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of
+night.  I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could
+distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat
+down and wept.
+
+“Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of
+pleasure.  I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the
+trees.  [The moon]  I gazed with a kind of wonder.  It moved slowly,
+but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of berries.
+I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with
+which I covered myself, and sat down upon the ground.  No distinct
+ideas occupied my mind; all was confused.  I felt light, and hunger,
+and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on
+all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could
+distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with
+pleasure.
+
+“Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had
+greatly lessened, when I began to distinguish my sensations from each
+other.  I gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with
+drink and the trees that shaded me with their foliage.  I was delighted
+when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my
+ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had
+often intercepted the light from my eyes.  I began also to observe,
+with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me and to perceive the
+boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me.  Sometimes I
+tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but was unable.
+Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the
+uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into
+silence again.
+
+“The moon had disappeared from the night, and again, with a lessened
+form, showed itself, while I still remained in the forest.  My
+sensations had by this time become distinct, and my mind received every
+day additional ideas.  My eyes became accustomed to the light and to
+perceive objects in their right forms; I distinguished the insect from
+the herb, and by degrees, one herb from another.  I found that the
+sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the blackbird and
+thrush were sweet and enticing.
+
+“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been
+left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the
+warmth I experienced from it.  In my joy I thrust my hand into the live
+embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.  How strange,
+I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects!  I
+examined the materials of the fire, and to my joy found it to be
+composed of wood.  I quickly collected some branches, but they were wet
+and would not burn.  I was pained at this and sat still watching the
+operation of the fire.  The wet wood which I had placed near the heat
+dried and itself became inflamed.  I reflected on this, and by touching
+the various branches, I discovered the cause and busied myself in
+collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it and have a
+plentiful supply of fire.  When night came on and brought sleep with
+it, I was in the greatest fear lest my fire should be extinguished.  I
+covered it carefully with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches
+upon it; and then, spreading my cloak, I lay on the ground and sank
+into sleep.
+
+“It was morning when I awoke, and my first care was to visit the fire.
+I uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly fanned it into a flame.  I
+observed this also and contrived a fan of branches, which roused the
+embers when they were nearly extinguished.  When night came again I
+found, with pleasure, that the fire gave light as well as heat and that
+the discovery of this element was useful to me in my food, for I found
+some of the offals that the travellers had left had been roasted, and
+tasted much more savoury than the berries I gathered from the trees.  I
+tried, therefore, to dress my food in the same manner, placing it on
+the live embers.  I found that the berries were spoiled by this
+operation, and the nuts and roots much improved.
+
+“Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day
+searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. When
+I found this, I resolved to quit the place that I had hitherto
+inhabited, to seek for one where the few wants I experienced would be
+more easily satisfied.  In this emigration I exceedingly lamented the
+loss of the fire which I had obtained through accident and knew not how
+to reproduce it.  I gave several hours to the serious consideration of
+this difficulty, but I was obliged to relinquish all attempt to supply
+it, and wrapping myself up in my cloak, I struck across the wood
+towards the setting sun.  I passed three days in these rambles and at
+length discovered the open country.  A great fall of snow had taken
+place the night before, and the fields were of one uniform white; the
+appearance was disconsolate, and I found my feet chilled by the cold
+damp substance that covered the ground.
+
+“It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain food and
+shelter; at length I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which
+had doubtless been built for the convenience of some shepherd.  This
+was a new sight to me, and I examined the structure with great
+curiosity.  Finding the door open, I entered.  An old man sat in it,
+near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast.  He turned on
+hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the
+hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form
+hardly appeared capable.  His appearance, different from any I had ever
+before seen, and his flight somewhat surprised me.  But I was enchanted
+by the appearance of the hut; here the snow and rain could not
+penetrate; the ground was dry; and it presented to me then as exquisite
+and divine a retreat as Pandæmonium appeared to the dæmons of hell
+after their sufferings in the lake of fire.  I greedily devoured the
+remnants of the shepherd’s breakfast, which consisted of bread, cheese,
+milk, and wine; the latter, however, I did not like.  Then, overcome by
+fatigue, I lay down among some straw and fell asleep.
+
+“It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which
+shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my
+travels; and, depositing the remains of the peasant’s breakfast in a
+wallet I found, I proceeded across the fields for several hours, until
+at sunset I arrived at a village.  How miraculous did this appear!  The
+huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses engaged my admiration by
+turns.  The vegetables in the gardens, the milk and cheese that I saw
+placed at the windows of some of the cottages, allured my appetite. One
+of the best of these I entered, but I had hardly placed my foot within
+the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted.
+The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until,
+grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I
+escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel,
+quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had
+beheld in the village.  This hovel however, joined a cottage of a neat
+and pleasant appearance, but after my late dearly bought experience, I
+dared not enter it.  My place of refuge was constructed of wood, but so
+low that I could with difficulty sit upright in it.  No wood, however,
+was placed on the earth, which formed the floor, but it was dry; and
+although the wind entered it by innumerable chinks, I found it an
+agreeable asylum from the snow and rain.
+
+“Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter,
+however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more
+from the barbarity of man.  As soon as morning dawned I crept from my
+kennel, that I might view the adjacent cottage and discover if I could
+remain in the habitation I had found.  It was situated against the back
+of the cottage and surrounded on the sides which were exposed by a pig
+sty and a clear pool of water.  One part was open, and by that I had
+crept in; but now I covered every crevice by which I might be perceived
+with stones and wood, yet in such a manner that I might move them on
+occasion to pass out; all the light I enjoyed came through the sty, and
+that was sufficient for me.
+
+“Having thus arranged my dwelling and carpeted it with clean straw, I
+retired, for I saw the figure of a man at a distance, and I remembered
+too well my treatment the night before to trust myself in his power.  I
+had first, however, provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf
+of coarse bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink
+more conveniently than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by
+my retreat.  The floor was a little raised, so that it was kept
+perfectly dry, and by its vicinity to the chimney of the cottage it was
+tolerably warm.
+
+“Being thus provided, I resolved to reside in this hovel until
+something should occur which might alter my determination.  It was
+indeed a paradise compared to the bleak forest, my former residence,
+the rain-dropping branches, and dank earth.  I ate my breakfast with
+pleasure and was about to remove a plank to procure myself a little
+water when I heard a step, and looking through a small chink, I beheld
+a young creature, with a pail on her head, passing before my hovel. The
+girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike what I have since found
+cottagers and farmhouse servants to be.  Yet she was meanly dressed, a
+coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb; her fair
+hair was plaited but not adorned:  she looked patient yet sad.  I lost
+sight of her, and in about a quarter of an hour she returned bearing
+the pail, which was now partly filled with milk.  As she walked along,
+seemingly incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose
+countenance expressed a deeper despondence.  Uttering a few sounds with
+an air of melancholy, he took the pail from her head and bore it to the
+cottage himself.  She followed, and they disappeared.  Presently I saw
+the young man again, with some tools in his hand, cross the field
+behind the cottage; and the girl was also busied, sometimes in the
+house and sometimes in the yard.
+
+“On examining my dwelling, I found that one of the windows of the
+cottage had formerly occupied a part of it, but the panes had been
+filled up with wood. In one of these was a small and almost
+imperceptible chink through which the eye could just penetrate.
+Through this crevice a small room was visible, whitewashed and clean
+but very bare of furniture. In one corner, near a small fire, sat an
+old man, leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude. The
+young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage; but presently she
+took something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat
+down beside the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play
+and to produce sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the
+nightingale. It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch who had
+never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver hair and benevolent
+countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence, while the gentle
+manners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mournful air
+which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of
+which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he then
+pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her work, knelt
+at his feet. He raised her and smiled with such kindness and affection
+that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature; they were
+a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced,
+either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the
+window, unable to bear these emotions.
+
+“Soon after this the young man returned, bearing on his shoulders a
+load of wood.  The girl met him at the door, helped to relieve him of
+his burden, and taking some of the fuel into the cottage, placed it on
+the fire; then she and the youth went apart into a nook of the cottage,
+and he showed her a large loaf and a piece of cheese.  She seemed
+pleased and went into the garden for some roots and plants, which she
+placed in water, and then upon the fire.  She afterwards continued her
+work, whilst the young man went into the garden and appeared busily
+employed in digging and pulling up roots.  After he had been employed
+thus about an hour, the young woman joined him and they entered the
+cottage together.
+
+“The old man had, in the meantime, been pensive, but on the appearance
+of his companions he assumed a more cheerful air, and they sat down to
+eat.  The meal was quickly dispatched.  The young woman was again
+occupied in arranging the cottage, the old man walked before the
+cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth.
+Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent
+creatures.  One was old, with silver hairs and a countenance beaming
+with benevolence and love; the younger was slight and graceful in his
+figure, and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry, yet his
+eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and despondency.  The
+old man returned to the cottage, and the youth, with tools different
+from those he had used in the morning, directed his steps across the
+fields.
+
+“Night quickly shut in, but to my extreme wonder, I found that the
+cottagers had a means of prolonging light by the use of tapers, and was
+delighted to find that the setting of the sun did not put an end to the
+pleasure I experienced in watching my human neighbours.  In the evening
+the young girl and her companion were employed in various occupations
+which I did not understand; and the old man again took up the
+instrument which produced the divine sounds that had enchanted me in
+the morning.  So soon as he had finished, the youth began, not to play,
+but to utter sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the
+harmony of the old man’s instrument nor the songs of the birds; I since
+found that he read aloud, but at that time I knew nothing of the
+science of words or letters.
+
+“The family, after having been thus occupied for a short time,
+extinguished their lights and retired, as I conjectured, to rest.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 12
+
+“I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep.  I thought of the
+occurrences of the day.  What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners
+of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not.  I
+remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from
+the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I
+might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would
+remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to discover the
+motives which influenced their actions.
+
+“The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun.  The young woman
+arranged the cottage and prepared the food, and the youth departed
+after the first meal.
+
+“This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it.
+The young man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in
+various laborious occupations within.  The old man, whom I soon
+perceived to be blind, employed his leisure hours on his instrument or
+in contemplation.  Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the
+younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion.  They
+performed towards him every little office of affection and duty with
+gentleness, and he rewarded them by his benevolent smiles.
+
+“They were not entirely happy.  The young man and his companion often
+went apart and appeared to weep.  I saw no cause for their unhappiness,
+but I was deeply affected by it.  If such lovely creatures were
+miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being,
+should be wretched.  Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy?  They
+possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every
+luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious viands
+when hungry; they were dressed in excellent clothes; and, still more,
+they enjoyed one another’s company and speech, interchanging each day
+looks of affection and kindness.  What did their tears imply?  Did they
+really express pain?  I was at first unable to solve these questions,
+but perpetual attention and time explained to me many appearances which
+were at first enigmatic.
+
+“A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of
+the uneasiness of this amiable family:  it was poverty, and they
+suffered that evil in a very distressing degree.  Their nourishment
+consisted entirely of the vegetables of their garden and the milk of
+one cow, which gave very little during the winter, when its masters
+could scarcely procure food to support it.  They often, I believe,
+suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the two
+younger cottagers, for several times they placed food before the old
+man when they reserved none for themselves.
+
+“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly.  I had been accustomed,
+during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own
+consumption, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on
+the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and
+roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood.
+
+“I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist
+their labours.  I found that the youth spent a great part of each day
+in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often
+took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home
+firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.
+
+“I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she
+opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great
+pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the
+youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed, with pleasure,
+that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the
+cottage and cultivating the garden.
+
+“By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that
+these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and
+feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words
+they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the
+minds and countenances of the hearers.  This was indeed a godlike science,
+and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it. But I was baffled in
+every attempt I made for this purpose. Their pronunciation was quick, and
+the words they uttered, not having any apparent connection with visible
+objects, I was unable to discover any clue by which I could unravel the
+mystery of their reference.  By great application, however, and after having
+remained during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I
+discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of
+discourse; I learned and applied the words, _fire, milk, bread,_ and
+_wood._ I learned also the names of the cottagers themselves. The youth
+and his companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only
+one, which was _father._ The girl was called _sister_ or
+_Agatha,_ and the youth _Felix, brother,_ or _son_. I cannot
+describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas appropriated to each of
+these sounds and was able to pronounce them.  I distinguished several other
+words without being able as yet to understand or apply them, such as _good,
+dearest, unhappy._
+
+“I spent the winter in this manner.  The gentle manners and beauty of
+the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I
+felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys.  I saw
+few human beings besides them, and if any other happened to enter the
+cottage, their harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced to me the
+superior accomplishments of my friends.  The old man, I could perceive,
+often endeavoured to encourage his children, as sometimes I found that
+he called them, to cast off their melancholy.  He would talk in a
+cheerful accent, with an expression of goodness that bestowed pleasure
+even upon me.  Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled
+with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away unperceived; but I
+generally found that her countenance and tone were more cheerful after
+having listened to the exhortations of her father.  It was not thus
+with Felix.  He was always the saddest of the group, and even to my
+unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more deeply than his
+friends.  But if his countenance was more sorrowful, his voice was more
+cheerful than that of his sister, especially when he addressed the old
+man.
+
+“I could mention innumerable instances which, although slight, marked
+the dispositions of these amiable cottagers.  In the midst of poverty
+and want, Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the first little
+white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground.  Early in
+the morning, before she had risen, he cleared away the snow that
+obstructed her path to the milk-house, drew water from the well, and
+brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual
+astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible
+hand.  In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes for a neighbouring
+farmer, because he often went forth and did not return until dinner,
+yet brought no wood with him.  At other times he worked in the garden,
+but as there was little to do in the frosty season, he read to the old
+man and Agatha.
+
+“This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I
+discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when
+he talked.  I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs
+for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend
+these also; but how was that possible when I did not even understand
+the sounds for which they stood as signs?  I improved, however,
+sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of
+conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I
+easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to
+the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become
+master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them
+overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast
+perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted.
+
+“I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty,
+and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself
+in a transparent pool!  At first I started back, unable to believe that
+it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became
+fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was
+filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.
+Alas!  I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable
+deformity.
+
+“As the sun became warmer and the light of day longer, the snow
+vanished, and I beheld the bare trees and the black earth.  From this
+time Felix was more employed, and the heart-moving indications of
+impending famine disappeared.  Their food, as I afterwards found, was
+coarse, but it was wholesome; and they procured a sufficiency of it.
+Several new kinds of plants sprang up in the garden, which they
+dressed; and these signs of comfort increased daily as the season
+advanced.
+
+“The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at noon, when it did
+not rain, as I found it was called when the heavens poured forth its
+waters.  This frequently took place, but a high wind quickly dried the
+earth, and the season became far more pleasant than it had been.
+
+“My mode of life in my hovel was uniform.  During the morning I
+attended the motions of the cottagers, and when they were dispersed in
+various occupations, I slept; the remainder of the day was spent in
+observing my friends.  When they had retired to rest, if there was any
+moon or the night was star-light, I went into the woods and collected
+my own food and fuel for the cottage.  When I returned, as often as it
+was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow and performed those
+offices that I had seen done by Felix.  I afterwards found that these
+labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and
+once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words _good
+spirit, wonderful_; but I did not then understand the signification
+of these terms.
+
+“My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the
+motives and feelings of these lovely creatures; I was inquisitive to
+know why Felix appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad.  I thought
+(foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to
+these deserving people.  When I slept or was absent, the forms of the
+venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent Felix
+flitted before me.  I looked upon them as superior beings who would be
+the arbiters of my future destiny.  I formed in my imagination a
+thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of
+me.  I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle
+demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and
+afterwards their love.
+
+“These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to
+the acquiring the art of language.  My organs were indeed harsh, but
+supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their
+tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease.
+It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose
+intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved
+better treatment than blows and execration.
+
+“The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly altered the
+aspect of the earth.  Men who before this change seemed to have been
+hid in caves dispersed themselves and were employed in various arts of
+cultivation.  The birds sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves
+began to bud forth on the trees.  Happy, happy earth!  Fit habitation
+for gods, which, so short a time before, was bleak, damp, and
+unwholesome.  My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of
+nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil,
+and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 13
+
+“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story.  I shall relate
+events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been,
+have made me what I am.
+
+“Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies
+cloudless.  It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy
+should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure.  My
+senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and
+a thousand sights of beauty.
+
+“It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested
+from labour—the old man played on his guitar, and the children
+listened to him—that I observed the countenance of Felix was
+melancholy beyond expression; he sighed frequently, and once his father
+paused in his music, and I conjectured by his manner that he inquired
+the cause of his son’s sorrow.  Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and
+the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped at the door.
+
+“It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a country-man as a guide.
+The lady was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black
+veil.  Agatha asked a question, to which the stranger only replied by
+pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felix.  Her voice was
+musical but unlike that of either of my friends.  On hearing this word,
+Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she saw him, threw up her
+veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression.  Her
+hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes were
+dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular
+proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with
+a lovely pink.
+
+“Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of
+sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of
+ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable; his
+eyes sparkled, as his cheek flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I
+thought him as beautiful as the stranger.  She appeared affected by
+different feelings; wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held
+out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously and called her, as
+well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian.  She did not appear to
+understand him, but smiled.  He assisted her to dismount, and
+dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage.  Some
+conversation took place between him and his father, and the young
+stranger knelt at the old man’s feet and would have kissed his hand,
+but he raised her and embraced her affectionately.
+
+“I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds
+and appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither understood
+by nor herself understood the cottagers.  They made many signs which I
+did not comprehend, but I saw that her presence diffused gladness
+through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the
+morning mists.  Felix seemed peculiarly happy and with smiles of
+delight welcomed his Arabian.  Agatha, the ever-gentle Agatha, kissed
+the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to her brother, made
+signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful until she
+came.  Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances,
+expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend.  Presently I
+found, by the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger
+repeated after them, that she was endeavouring to learn their language;
+and the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the
+same instructions to the same end.  The stranger learned about twenty
+words at the first lesson; most of them, indeed, were those which I had
+before understood, but I profited by the others.
+
+“As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early.  When they
+separated Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, ‘Good night
+sweet Safie.’  He sat up much longer, conversing with his father, and
+by the frequent repetition of her name I conjectured that their lovely
+guest was the subject of their conversation.  I ardently desired to
+understand them, and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but found
+it utterly impossible.
+
+“The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual
+occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the
+old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly
+beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my
+eyes.  She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or
+dying away like a nightingale of the woods.
+
+“When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first
+declined it.  She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in
+sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger.  The old
+man appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatha endeavoured to
+explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she
+bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music.
+
+“The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration
+that joy had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends.
+Safie was always gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the
+knowledge of language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most
+of the words uttered by my protectors.
+
+“In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and
+the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the
+scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods;
+the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal
+rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably
+shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never
+ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same
+treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I entered.
+
+“My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily
+master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than
+the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken
+accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that
+was spoken.
+
+“While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as
+it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field
+for wonder and delight.
+
+“The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney’s _Ruins
+of Empires_. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not
+Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this
+work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the
+Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history
+and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave
+me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different
+nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous
+genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue
+of the early Romans—of their subsequent degenerating—of the
+decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard
+of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the
+hapless fate of its original inhabitants.
+
+“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings.  Was
+man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so
+vicious and base?  He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil
+principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and
+godlike.  To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour
+that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on
+record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more
+abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm.  For a long time I
+could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or
+even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of
+vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and
+loathing.
+
+“Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me.
+While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the
+Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me.  I
+heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid
+poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood.
+
+“The words induced me to turn towards myself.  I learned that the
+possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and
+unsullied descent united with riches.  A man might be respected with
+only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered,
+except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to
+waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!  And what was I? Of
+my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I
+possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property.  I was, besides,
+endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even
+of the same nature as man.  I was more agile than they and could
+subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with
+less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs.  When I looked
+around I saw and heard of none like me.  Was I, then, a monster, a blot
+upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?
+
+“I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted
+upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with
+knowledge.  Oh, that I had for ever remained in my native wood, nor
+known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
+
+“Of what a strange nature is knowledge!  It clings to the mind when it
+has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock.  I wished sometimes to
+shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one
+means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death—a state
+which I feared yet did not understand.  I admired virtue and good
+feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my
+cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except
+through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
+unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of
+becoming one among my fellows.  The gentle words of Agatha and  the
+animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me.  The mild
+exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved
+Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!
+
+“Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply.  I heard of the
+difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the
+father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the
+older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up
+in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained
+knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which
+bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.
+
+“But where were my friends and relations?  No father had watched my
+infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if
+they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I
+distinguished nothing.  From my earliest remembrance I had been as I
+then was in height and proportion.  I had never yet seen a being
+resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me.  What was I?  The
+question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.
+
+“I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to
+return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various
+feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated
+in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in
+an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them).”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 14
+
+“Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my friends.  It was
+one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding
+as it did a number of circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to
+one so utterly inexperienced as I was.
+
+“The name of the old man was De Lacey.  He was descended from a good
+family in France, where he had lived for many years in affluence,
+respected by his superiors and beloved by his equals.  His son was bred
+in the service of his country, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the
+highest distinction.  A few months before my arrival they had lived in
+a large and luxurious city called Paris, surrounded by friends and
+possessed of every enjoyment which virtue, refinement of intellect, or
+taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could afford.
+
+“The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin.  He was a
+Turkish merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some
+reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government.
+He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from
+Constantinople to join him.  He was tried and condemned to death.  The
+injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant;
+and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime
+alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation.
+
+“Felix had accidentally been present at the trial; his horror and
+indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the
+court.  He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then
+looked around for the means.  After many fruitless attempts to gain
+admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an
+unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the
+unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the
+execution of the barbarous sentence.  Felix visited the grate at night
+and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour.  The Turk,
+amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer
+by promises of reward and wealth.  Felix rejected his offers with
+contempt, yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit
+her father and who by her gestures expressed her lively gratitude, the
+youth could not help owning to his own mind that the captive possessed
+a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard.
+
+“The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made
+on the heart of Felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in
+his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he
+should be conveyed to a place of safety.  Felix was too delicate to
+accept this offer, yet he looked forward to the probability of the
+event as to the consummation of his happiness.
+
+“During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for
+the escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several
+letters that he received from this lovely girl, who found means to
+express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old
+man, a servant of her father who understood French.  She thanked him in
+the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent, and
+at the same time she gently deplored her own fate.
+
+“I have copies of these letters, for I found means, during my residence
+in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters
+were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha.  Before I depart I will
+give them to you; they will prove the truth of my tale; but at present,
+as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat
+the substance of them to you.
+
+“Safie related that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a
+slave by the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of
+the father of Safie, who married her.  The young girl spoke in high and
+enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the
+bondage to which she was now reduced.  She instructed her daughter in
+the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of
+intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female
+followers of Muhammad.  This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly
+impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again
+returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem,
+allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to
+the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble
+emulation for virtue.  The prospect of marrying a Christian and
+remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in
+society was enchanting to her.
+
+“The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed, but on the night
+previous to it he quitted his prison and before morning was distant
+many leagues from Paris.  Felix had procured passports in the name of
+his father, sister, and himself.  He had previously communicated his
+plan to the former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under
+the pretence of a journey and concealed himself, with his daughter, in
+an obscure part of Paris.
+
+“Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont
+Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable
+opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions.
+
+“Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his
+departure, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she
+should be united to his deliverer; and Felix remained with them in
+expectation of that event; and in the meantime he enjoyed the society
+of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest
+affection.  They conversed with one another through the means of an
+interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks; and Safie
+sang to him the divine airs of her native country.
+
+“The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place and encouraged the hopes
+of the youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other
+plans.  He loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a
+Christian, but he feared the resentment of Felix if he should appear
+lukewarm, for he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer
+if he should choose to betray him to the Italian state which they
+inhabited.  He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled
+to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and
+secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed.  His plans
+were facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.
+
+“The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their
+victim and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer.  The
+plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were
+thrown into prison.  The news reached Felix and roused him from his
+dream of pleasure.  His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay
+in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of
+her whom he loved.  This idea was torture to him.  He quickly arranged
+with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity
+for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a
+boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian,
+he hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the
+law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding.
+
+“He did not succeed.  They remained confined for five months before the
+trial took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune
+and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country.
+
+“They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I
+discovered them.  Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for
+whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on
+discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin,
+became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with
+his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him,
+as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.
+
+“Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered
+him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family.  He could
+have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his
+virtue, he gloried in it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss
+of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable.  The
+arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul.
+
+“When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth
+and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her
+lover, but to prepare to return to her native country.  The generous
+nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to
+expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his
+tyrannical mandate.
+
+“A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment and told
+her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn
+had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the
+French government; he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to
+Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours.  He
+intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential
+servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his
+property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn.
+
+“When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it
+would become her to pursue in this emergency.  A residence in Turkey
+was abhorrent to her; her religion and her feelings were alike averse
+to it.  By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she
+heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where
+he then resided.  She hesitated some time, but at length she formed her
+determination.  Taking with her some jewels that belonged to her and a
+sum of money, she quitted Italy with an attendant, a native of Leghorn,
+but who understood the common language of Turkey, and departed for
+Germany.
+
+“She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage
+of De Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill.  Safie nursed her
+with the most devoted affection, but the poor girl died, and the
+Arabian was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country
+and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world.  She fell, however,
+into good hands.  The Italian had mentioned the name of the spot for
+which they were bound, and after her death the woman of the house in
+which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safety at
+the cottage of her lover.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 15
+
+“Such was the history of my beloved cottagers.  It impressed me deeply.
+I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire
+their virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind.
+
+“As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and
+generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to
+become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities
+were called forth and displayed.  But in giving an account of the
+progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred
+in the beginning of the month of August of the same year.
+
+“One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I
+collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on
+the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and
+some books.  I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. 
+Fortunately the books were written in the language, the elements of which I
+had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of _Paradise Lost_, a volume
+of _Plutarch’s Lives_, and the _Sorrows of Werter_. The
+possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually
+studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were
+employed in their ordinary occupations.
+
+“I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books.  They produced
+in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me
+to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection.  In
+the _Sorrows of Werter_, besides the interest of its simple and affecting
+story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon
+what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a
+never-ending source of speculation and astonishment.  The gentle and
+domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and
+feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded
+well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which
+were for ever alive in my own bosom.  But I thought Werter himself a
+more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character
+contained no pretension, but it sank deep.  The disquisitions upon
+death and suicide were calculated to fill  me with wonder.  I did not
+pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards
+the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely
+understanding it.
+
+“As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and
+condition.  I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely
+unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I
+was a listener.  I sympathised with and partly understood them, but I
+was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none.
+‘The path of my departure was free,’ and there was none to lament my
+annihilation.  My person was hideous and my stature gigantic.  What did
+this mean?  Who was I?  What was I?  Whence did I come?  What was my
+destination?  These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to
+solve them.
+
+“The volume of _Plutarch’s Lives_ which I possessed contained the
+histories of the first founders of the ancient republics.  This book
+had a far different effect upon me from the _Sorrows of Werter_.  I
+learned from Werter’s imaginations despondency and gloom, but Plutarch
+taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my
+own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages.  Many
+things I read surpassed my understanding and experience.  I had a very
+confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers,
+and boundless seas.  But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns and
+large assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been the
+only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book
+developed new and mightier scenes of action.  I read of men concerned
+in public affairs, governing or massacring their species.  I felt the
+greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as
+far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they
+were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone.  Induced by these
+feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa,
+Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus.  The
+patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a
+firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had
+been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should
+have been imbued with different sensations.
+
+“But _Paradise Lost_ excited different and far deeper emotions.  I read
+it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as
+a true history.  It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the
+picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of
+exciting.  I often referred the several situations, as their similarity
+struck me, to my own.  Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to
+any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine
+in every other respect.  He had come forth from the hands of God a
+perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of
+his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from
+beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone.
+Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for
+often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter
+gall of envy rose within me.
+
+“Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings.  Soon
+after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of
+the dress which I had taken from your laboratory.  At first I had
+neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in
+which they were written, I began to study them with diligence.  It was
+your journal of the four months that preceded my creation.  You
+minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress
+of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic
+occurrences.  You doubtless recollect these papers.  Here they are.
+Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed
+origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances
+which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious
+and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own
+horrors and rendered mine indelible.  I sickened as I read.  ‘Hateful
+day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony.  ‘Accursed creator!
+Why did you form a monster so hideous that even _you_ turned from me in
+disgust?  God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own
+image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the
+very resemblance.  Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire
+and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.’
+
+“These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude;
+but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and
+benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should
+become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they  would
+compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity.  Could they turn
+from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion
+and friendship?  I resolved, at least, not to despair, but in every way
+to fit myself for an interview with them which would decide my fate.  I
+postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance
+attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail.
+Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every
+day’s experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking
+until a few more months should have added to my sagacity.
+
+“Several changes, in the meantime, took place in the cottage.  The
+presence of Safie diffused happiness among its inhabitants, and I also
+found that a greater degree of plenty reigned there.  Felix and Agatha
+spent more time in amusement and conversation, and were assisted in
+their labours by servants.  They did not appear rich, but they were
+contented and happy; their feelings were serene and peaceful, while
+mine became every day more tumultuous.  Increase of knowledge only
+discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was.  I
+cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person
+reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail
+image and that inconstant shade.
+
+“I endeavoured to crush these fears and to fortify myself for the trial
+which in a few months I resolved to undergo; and sometimes I allowed my
+thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and
+dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathising with my
+feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic countenances breathed
+smiles of consolation.  But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my
+sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone.  I remembered Adam’s
+supplication to his Creator.  But where was mine?  He had abandoned me,
+and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.
+
+“Autumn passed thus.  I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay
+and fall, and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it
+had worn when I first beheld the woods and the lovely moon.  Yet I did
+not heed the bleakness of the weather; I was better fitted by my
+conformation for the endurance of cold than heat.  But my chief
+delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay
+apparel of summer; when those deserted me, I turned with more attention
+towards the cottagers.  Their happiness was not decreased by the
+absence of summer.  They loved and sympathised with one another; and
+their joys, depending on each other, were not interrupted by the
+casualties that took place around them.  The more I saw of them, the
+greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my
+heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see
+their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost
+limit of my ambition.  I dared not think that they would turn them from
+me with disdain and horror.  The poor that stopped at their door were
+never driven away.  I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a
+little food or rest:  I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not
+believe myself utterly unworthy of it.
+
+“The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken
+place since I awoke into life.  My attention at this time was solely
+directed towards my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my
+protectors.  I revolved many projects, but that on which I finally
+fixed was to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be alone.
+I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my
+person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly
+beheld me.  My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it; I
+thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain
+the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means
+be tolerated by my younger protectors.
+
+“One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground
+and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha,
+and Felix departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own
+desire, was left alone in the cottage.  When his children had departed,
+he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more
+sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before.  At first his
+countenance was illuminated with pleasure, but as he continued,
+thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded; at length, laying aside the
+instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection.
+
+“My heart beat quick; this was the hour and moment of trial, which
+would decide my hopes or realise my fears. The servants were gone to a
+neighbouring fair.  All was silent in and around the cottage; it was an
+excellent opportunity; yet, when I proceeded to execute my plan, my
+limbs failed me and I sank to the ground.  Again I rose, and exerting
+all the firmness of which I was master, removed the planks which I had
+placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat.  The fresh air revived
+me, and with renewed determination I approached the door of their
+cottage.
+
+“I knocked. ‘Who is there?’ said the old man. ‘Come in.’
+
+“I entered. ‘Pardon this intrusion,’ said I; ‘I am
+a traveller in want of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me if you
+would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire.’
+
+“‘Enter,’ said De Lacey, ‘and I will try in what
+manner I can to relieve your wants; but, unfortunately, my children are
+from home, and as I am blind, I am afraid I shall find it difficult to
+procure food for you.’
+
+“‘Do not trouble yourself, my kind host; I have food; it is
+warmth and rest only that I need.’
+
+“I sat down, and a silence ensued.  I knew that every minute was
+precious to me, yet I remained irresolute in what manner to commence
+the interview, when the old man addressed me.
+
+‘By your language, stranger, I suppose you are my countryman; are you
+French?’
+
+“‘No; but I was educated by a French family and understand that
+language only.  I am now going to claim the protection of some friends,
+whom I sincerely love, and of whose favour I have some hopes.’
+
+“‘Are they Germans?’
+
+“‘No, they are French.  But let us change the subject.  I am an
+unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation
+or friend upon earth.  These amiable people to whom I go have never
+seen me and know little of me.  I am full of fears, for if I fail
+there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.’
+
+“‘Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but
+the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are
+full of brotherly love and charity.  Rely, therefore, on your hopes;
+and if these friends are good and amiable, do not despair.’
+
+“‘They are kind—they are the most excellent creatures in the world;
+but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me.  I have good
+dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree
+beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they
+ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable
+monster.’
+
+“‘That is indeed unfortunate; but if you are really blameless, cannot
+you undeceive them?’
+
+“‘I am about to undertake that task; and it is on that account that I
+feel so many overwhelming terrors.  I tenderly love these friends; I
+have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily
+kindness towards them; but they believe that I wish to injure them, and
+it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome.’
+
+“‘Where do these friends reside?’
+
+“‘Near this spot.’
+
+“The old man paused and then continued, ‘If you will unreservedly
+confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in
+undeceiving them.  I am blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but
+there is something in your words which persuades me that you are
+sincere.  I am poor and an exile, but it will afford me true pleasure
+to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.’
+
+“‘Excellent man!  I thank you and accept your generous offer.  You
+raise me from the dust by this kindness; and I trust that, by your aid,
+I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow
+creatures.’
+
+“‘Heaven forbid!  Even if you were really criminal, for that can only
+drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue.  I also am
+unfortunate; I and my family have been condemned, although innocent;
+judge, therefore, if I do not feel for your misfortunes.’
+
+“‘How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor?  From your lips
+first have I heard the voice of kindness directed towards me; I shall
+be for ever grateful; and your present humanity assures me of success
+with those friends whom I am on the point of meeting.’
+
+“‘May I know the names and residence of those friends?’
+
+“I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to
+rob me of or bestow happiness on me for ever.  I struggled vainly for
+firmness sufficient to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my
+remaining strength; I sank on the chair and sobbed aloud.  At that
+moment I heard the steps of my younger protectors.  I had not a moment
+to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, ‘Now is the
+time!  Save and protect me!  You and your family are the friends whom I
+seek.  Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!’
+
+“‘Great God!’ exclaimed the old man.  ‘Who are you?’
+
+“At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and
+Agatha entered.  Who can describe their horror and consternation on
+beholding me?  Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her
+friend, rushed out of the cottage.  Felix darted forward, and with
+supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung, in
+a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently
+with a stick.  I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends
+the antelope.  But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and
+I refrained.  I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when,
+overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general
+tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 16
+
+“Cursed, cursed creator!  Why did I live?  Why, in that instant, did I
+not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly
+bestowed?  I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my
+feelings were those of rage and revenge.  I could with pleasure have
+destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with
+their shrieks and misery.
+
+“When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and
+now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my
+anguish in fearful howlings.  I was like a wild beast that had broken
+the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging
+through the wood with a stag-like swiftness.  Oh!  What a miserable
+night I passed!  The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees
+waved their branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird
+burst forth amidst the universal stillness.  All, save I, were at rest
+or in enjoyment; I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and
+finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread
+havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed
+the ruin.
+
+“But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I became
+fatigued with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in
+the sick impotence of despair.  There was none among the myriads of men
+that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness
+towards my enemies?  No; from that moment I declared everlasting war
+against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me
+and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.
+
+“The sun rose; I heard the voices of men and knew that it was
+impossible to return to my retreat during that day.  Accordingly I hid
+myself in some thick underwood, determining to devote the ensuing hours
+to reflection on my situation.
+
+“The pleasant sunshine and the pure air of day restored me to some
+degree of tranquillity; and when I considered what had passed at the
+cottage, I could not help believing that I had been too hasty in my
+conclusions.  I had certainly acted imprudently.  It was apparent that
+my conversation had interested the father in my behalf, and  I was a
+fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children.  I
+ought to have familiarised the old De Lacey to me, and by degrees to
+have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should have
+been  prepared for my approach.  But I did not believe my errors to be
+irretrievable, and after much consideration I resolved to return to the
+cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my
+party.
+
+“These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank into a profound
+sleep; but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by
+peaceful dreams.  The horrible scene of the preceding day was for ever
+acting before my eyes; the females were flying and the enraged Felix
+tearing me from his father’s feet.  I awoke exhausted, and finding that
+it was already night, I crept forth from my hiding-place, and went in
+search of food.
+
+“When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps towards the
+well-known path that conducted to the cottage.  All there was at peace.
+I crept into my hovel and remained in silent expectation of the
+accustomed hour when the family arose.  That hour passed, the sun
+mounted high in the heavens, but the cottagers did not appear.  I
+trembled violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune.  The inside
+of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion; I cannot describe the
+agony of this suspense.
+
+“Presently two countrymen passed by, but pausing near the cottage, they
+entered into conversation, using violent gesticulations; but I did not
+understand what they said, as they spoke the language of the country,
+which differed from that of my protectors.  Soon after, however, Felix
+approached with another man; I was surprised, as I knew that he had not
+quitted the cottage that morning, and waited anxiously to discover from
+his discourse the meaning of these unusual appearances.
+
+“‘Do you consider,’ said his companion to him,
+‘that you will be obliged to pay three months’ rent and to lose
+the produce of your garden? I do not wish to take any unfair advantage, and
+I beg therefore that you will take some days to consider of your
+determination.’
+
+“‘It is utterly useless,’ replied Felix; ‘we can
+never again inhabit your cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest
+danger, owing to the dreadful circumstance that I have related. My wife and
+my sister will never recover from their horror. I entreat you not to reason
+with me any more. Take possession of your tenement and let me fly from this
+place.’
+
+“Felix trembled violently as he said this.  He and his companion
+entered the cottage, in which they remained for a few minutes, and then
+departed.  I never saw any of the family of De Lacey more.
+
+“I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of
+utter and stupid despair.  My protectors had departed and had broken
+the only link that held me to the world.  For the first time the
+feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to
+control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I
+bent my mind towards injury and death.  When I thought of my friends,
+of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the
+exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a gush of
+tears somewhat soothed me.  But again when I reflected that they had
+spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to
+injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects.  As
+night advanced, I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage,
+and after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden,
+I waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my
+operations.
+
+“As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly
+dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore
+along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my
+spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection.  I lighted the
+dry branch of a tree and danced with fury around the devoted cottage,
+my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon
+nearly touched.  A part of its orb was at length hid, and I waved my
+brand; it sank, and with a loud scream I fired the straw, and heath,
+and bushes, which I had collected.  The wind fanned the fire, and the
+cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it and
+licked it with their forked and destroying tongues.
+
+“As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of
+the habitation, I quitted the scene and sought for refuge in the woods.
+
+“And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps?  I
+resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated
+and despised, every country must be equally horrible.  At length the
+thought of you crossed my mind.  I learned from your papers that you
+were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness
+than to him who had given me life?  Among the lessons that Felix had
+bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted; I had learned from
+these the relative situations of the different countries of the earth.
+You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, and towards
+this place I resolved to proceed.
+
+“But how was I to direct myself?  I knew that I must travel in a
+southwesterly direction to reach my destination, but the sun was my
+only guide.  I did not know the names of the towns that I was to pass
+through, nor could I ask information from a single human being; but I
+did not despair.  From you only could I hope for succour, although
+towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred.  Unfeeling,
+heartless creator!  You had endowed me with perceptions and passions
+and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.
+But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I
+determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from
+any other being that wore the human form.
+
+“My travels were long and the sufferings I endured intense.  It was
+late in autumn when I quitted the district where I had so long resided.
+I travelled only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a
+human being.  Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless;
+rain and snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the surface
+of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter.  Oh,
+earth!  How often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being!  The
+mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall
+and bitterness.  The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more
+deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart.  Snow
+fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not.  A few incidents
+now and then directed me, and I possessed a map of the country; but I
+often wandered wide from my path.  The agony of my feelings allowed me
+no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could
+not extract its food; but a circumstance that happened when I arrived
+on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered its warmth
+and the earth again began to look green, confirmed in an especial
+manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings.
+
+“I generally rested during the day and travelled only when I was
+secured by night from the view of man.  One morning, however, finding
+that my path lay through a deep wood, I ventured to continue my journey
+after the sun had risen; the day, which was one of the first of spring,
+cheered even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of
+the air.  I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long
+appeared dead, revive within me.  Half surprised by the novelty of
+these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and
+forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.  Soft tears
+again bedewed my cheeks, and I even raised my humid eyes with
+thankfulness towards the blessed sun, which bestowed such joy upon me.
+
+“I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I came to its
+boundary, which was skirted by a deep and rapid river, into which many
+of the trees bent their branches, now budding with the fresh spring.
+Here I paused, not exactly knowing what path to pursue, when I heard
+the sound of voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade
+of a cypress.  I was scarcely hid when a young girl came running
+towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if she ran from
+someone in sport.  She continued her course along the precipitous sides
+of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped, and she fell into the
+rapid stream.  I rushed from my hiding-place and with extreme labour,
+from the force of the current, saved her and dragged her to shore.  She
+was senseless, and I endeavoured by every means in my power to restore
+animation, when I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic,
+who was probably the person from whom she had playfully fled.  On
+seeing me, he darted towards me, and tearing the girl from my arms,
+hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood.  I followed speedily, I
+hardly knew why; but when the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun,
+which he carried, at my body and fired.  I sank to the ground, and my
+injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood.
+
+“This was then the reward of my benevolence!  I had saved a human being
+from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable
+pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone.  The feelings of
+kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments
+before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth.  Inflamed by
+pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.  But the
+agony of my wound overcame me; my pulses paused, and I fainted.
+
+“For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods, endeavouring to
+cure the wound which I had received.  The ball had entered my shoulder,
+and I knew not whether it had remained there or passed through; at any
+rate I had no means of extracting it.  My sufferings were augmented
+also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their
+infliction.  My daily vows rose for revenge—a deep and deadly revenge,
+such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had
+endured.
+
+“After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my journey.  The
+labours I endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or
+gentle breezes of spring; all joy was but a mockery which insulted my
+desolate state and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for
+the enjoyment of pleasure.
+
+“But my toils now drew near a close, and in two months from this time I
+reached the environs of Geneva.
+
+“It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hiding-place among
+the fields that surround it to meditate in what manner I should apply
+to you.  I was oppressed by fatigue and hunger and far too unhappy to
+enjoy the gentle breezes of evening or the prospect of the sun setting
+behind the stupendous mountains of Jura.
+
+“At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection,
+which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came
+running into the recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of
+infancy.  Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me that this
+little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have
+imbibed a horror of deformity.  If, therefore, I could seize him and
+educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in
+this peopled earth.
+
+“Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him
+towards me.  As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before
+his eyes and uttered a shrill scream; I drew his hand forcibly from his
+face and said, ‘Child, what is the meaning of this?  I do not intend to
+hurt you; listen to me.’
+
+“He struggled violently. ‘Let me go,’ he cried;
+‘monster! Ugly wretch! You wish to eat me and tear me to pieces. You
+are an ogre. Let me go, or I will tell my papa.’
+
+“‘Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.’
+
+“‘Hideous monster!  Let me go.  My papa is a syndic—he is M.
+Frankenstein—he will punish you.  You dare not keep me.’
+
+“‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have
+sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’
+
+“The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried
+despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a
+moment he lay dead at my feet.
+
+“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish
+triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I too can create desolation;
+my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and
+a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’
+
+“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his
+breast.  I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman.  In spite
+of my malignity, it softened and attracted me.  For a few moments I
+gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her
+lovely lips; but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was
+for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could
+bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in
+regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one
+expressive of disgust and affright.
+
+“Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage?  I only
+wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in
+exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind and perish in the
+attempt to destroy them.
+
+“While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had
+committed the murder, and seeking a more secluded hiding-place, I
+entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty.  A woman was
+sleeping on some straw; she was young, not indeed so beautiful as her
+whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect and blooming in the
+loveliness of youth and health.  Here, I thought, is one of those whose
+joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me.  And then I bent over
+her and whispered, ‘Awake, fairest, thy lover is near—he who would
+give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes; my
+beloved, awake!’
+
+“The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me.  Should she
+indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus
+would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me.
+The thought was madness; it stirred the fiend within me—not I, but
+she, shall suffer; the murder I have committed because I am for ever
+robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone.  The crime had
+its source in her; be hers the punishment!  Thanks to the lessons of
+Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work
+mischief.  I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of
+the folds of her dress.  She moved again, and I fled.
+
+“For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place,
+sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and
+its miseries for ever.  At length I wandered towards these mountains,
+and have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning
+passion which you alone can gratify.  We may not part until you have
+promised to comply with my requisition.  I am alone and miserable; man
+will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself
+would not deny herself to me.  My companion must be of the same species
+and have the same defects.  This being you must create.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 17
+
+The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the
+expectation of a reply.  But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to
+arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his
+proposition.  He continued,
+
+“You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the
+interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.  This you alone
+can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to
+concede.”
+
+The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had
+died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and
+as he said this I could no longer suppress the rage that burned within
+me.
+
+“I do refuse it,” I replied; “and no torture shall ever extort a
+consent from me.  You may render me the most miserable of men, but you
+shall never make me base in my own eyes.  Shall I create another like
+yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world.  Begone!  I
+have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent.”
+
+“You are in the wrong,” replied the fiend; “and instead
+of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I
+am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator,
+would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I
+should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you
+could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the
+work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him
+live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would
+bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance.
+But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our
+union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will
+revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and
+chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear
+inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor
+finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of
+your birth.”
+
+A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was wrinkled
+into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold; but presently
+he calmed himself and proceeded—
+
+“I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do
+not reflect that _you_ are the cause of its excess. If any being felt
+emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a
+hundredfold; for that one creature’s sake I would make peace with the
+whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised.
+What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of
+another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it
+is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It is true, we shall be
+monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more
+attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be
+harmless and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! My creator, make me
+happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I
+excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my
+request!”
+
+I was moved.  I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences
+of my consent, but I felt that there was some justice in his argument.
+His tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature
+of fine sensations, and did I not as his maker owe him all the portion
+of happiness that it was in my power to bestow?  He saw my change of
+feeling and continued,
+
+“If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see
+us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America.  My food is not
+that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite;
+acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment.  My companion will
+be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare.
+We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on
+man and will ripen our food.  The picture I present to you is peaceful
+and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the
+wantonness of power and cruelty.  Pitiless as you have been towards me,
+I now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment
+and persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire.”
+
+“You propose,” replied I, “to fly from the habitations of
+man, to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your
+only companions. How can you, who long for the love and sympathy of man,
+persevere in this exile? You will return and again seek their kindness, and
+you will meet with their detestation; your evil passions will be renewed,
+and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction.
+This may not be; cease to argue the point, for I cannot consent.”
+
+“How inconstant are your feelings! But a moment ago you were moved by
+my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints?
+I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that
+with the companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man and
+dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places. My evil passions
+will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly
+away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker.”
+
+His words had a strange effect upon me.  I compassionated him and
+sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when
+I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my
+feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred.  I tried to stifle
+these sensations; I thought that as I could not sympathise with him, I
+had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which
+was yet in my power to bestow.
+
+“You swear,” I said, “to be harmless; but have you not
+already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust
+you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by
+affording a wider scope for your revenge?”
+
+“How is this?  I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer.  If
+I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion;
+the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall
+become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant.  My vices
+are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will
+necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.  I shall feel
+the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of
+existence and events from which I am now excluded.”
+
+I paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various
+arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which
+he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight
+of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had
+manifested towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my
+calculations; a creature who could exist in the ice-caves of the glaciers
+and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices
+was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a
+long pause of reflection I concluded that the justice due both to him and
+my fellow creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request.
+Turning to him, therefore, I said,
+
+“I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever,
+and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall
+deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile.”
+
+“I swear,” he cried, “by the sun, and by the blue sky of
+heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my
+prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your
+home and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with
+unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall
+appear.”
+
+Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in
+my sentiments.  I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than
+the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the
+sea of ice.
+
+His tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of
+the horizon when he departed.  I knew that I ought to hasten my descent
+towards the valley, as I should soon be encompassed in darkness; but my
+heart was heavy, and my steps slow.  The labour of winding among the
+little paths of the mountain and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced
+perplexed me, occupied as I was by the emotions which the occurrences
+of the day had produced.  Night was far advanced when I came to the
+halfway resting-place and seated myself beside the fountain.  The stars
+shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them; the dark pines
+rose before me, and every here and there a broken tree lay on the
+ground; it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange
+thoughts within me.  I wept bitterly, and clasping my hands in agony, I
+exclaimed, “Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock
+me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as
+nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness.”
+
+These were wild and miserable thoughts, but I cannot describe to you
+how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how I
+listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its
+way to consume me.
+
+Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix; I took no
+rest, but returned immediately to Geneva.  Even in my own heart I could
+give no expression to my sensations—they weighed on me with a
+mountain’s weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them.
+Thus I returned home, and entering the house, presented myself to the
+family.  My haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm, but I
+answered no question, scarcely did I speak.  I felt as if I were placed
+under a ban—as if I had no right to claim their sympathies—as if
+never more might I enjoy companionship with them.  Yet even thus I
+loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate
+myself to my most abhorred task.  The prospect of such an occupation
+made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream,
+and that thought only had to me the reality of life.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 18
+
+Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and
+I could not collect the courage to recommence my work.  I feared the
+vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my
+repugnance to the task which was enjoined me.  I found that I could not
+compose a female without again devoting several months to profound
+study and laborious disquisition.  I had heard of some discoveries
+having been made by an English philosopher, the knowledge of which was
+material to my success, and I sometimes thought of obtaining my
+father’s consent to visit England for this purpose; but I clung to
+every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step in an
+undertaking whose immediate necessity began to appear less absolute to
+me.  A change indeed had taken place in me; my health, which had
+hitherto declined, was now much restored; and my spirits, when
+unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise, rose proportionably.  My
+father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts
+towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy,
+which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring
+blackness overcast the approaching sunshine.  At these moments I took
+refuge in the most perfect solitude.  I passed whole days on the lake
+alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the
+rippling of the waves, silent and listless.  But the fresh air and
+bright sun seldom failed to restore me to some degree of composure, and
+on my return I met the salutations of my friends with a readier smile
+and a more cheerful heart.
+
+It was after my return from one of these rambles that my father,
+calling me aside, thus addressed me,
+
+“I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former
+pleasures and seem to be returning to yourself.  And yet you are still
+unhappy and still avoid our society.  For some time I was lost in
+conjecture as to the cause of this, but yesterday an idea struck me,
+and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it.  Reserve on such a
+point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all.”
+
+I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued—
+
+“I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your
+marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the
+stay of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your
+earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and
+tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience of
+man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my plan may have
+entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any
+wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may have met with another
+whom you may love; and considering yourself as bound in honour to
+Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which you appear
+to feel.”
+
+“My dear father, reassure yourself.  I love my cousin tenderly and
+sincerely.  I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my
+warmest admiration and affection.  My future hopes and prospects are
+entirely bound up in the expectation of our union.”
+
+“The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor,
+gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced.  If you
+feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast
+a gloom over us.  But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so
+strong a hold of your mind that I wish to dissipate.  Tell me,
+therefore, whether you object to an immediate solemnisation of the
+marriage.  We have been unfortunate, and recent events have drawn us
+from that everyday tranquillity befitting my years and infirmities. You
+are younger; yet I do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent
+fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future
+plans of honour and utility that you may have formed.  Do not suppose,
+however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on
+your part would cause me any serious uneasiness.  Interpret my words
+with candour and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and
+sincerity.”
+
+I listened to my father in silence and remained for some time incapable
+of offering any reply.  I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of
+thoughts and endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion.  Alas!  To me
+the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and
+dismay.  I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled
+and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not
+impend over me and my devoted family!  Could I enter into a festival
+with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the
+ground?  I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with
+his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from
+which I expected peace.
+
+I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to
+England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers
+of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable
+use to me in my present undertaking.  The latter method of obtaining
+the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I
+had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my
+loathsome task in my father’s house while in habits of familiar
+intercourse with those I loved.  I knew that a thousand fearful
+accidents might occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to
+thrill all connected with me with horror.  I was aware also that I
+should often lose all self-command, all capacity of hiding the
+harrowing sensations that would possess me during the progress of my
+unearthly occupation.  I must absent myself from all I loved while thus
+employed.  Once commenced, it would quickly be achieved, and I might be
+restored to my family in peace and happiness.  My promise fulfilled,
+the monster would depart for ever.  Or (so my fond fancy imaged) some
+accident might meanwhile occur to destroy him and put an end to my
+slavery for ever.
+
+These feelings dictated my answer to my father.  I expressed a wish to
+visit England, but concealing the true reasons of this request, I
+clothed my desires under a guise which excited no suspicion, while I
+urged my desire with an earnestness that easily induced my father to
+comply.  After so long a period of an absorbing melancholy that
+resembled madness in its intensity and effects, he was glad to find
+that I was capable of taking pleasure in the idea of such a journey,
+and he hoped that change of scene and varied amusement would, before my
+return, have restored me entirely to myself.
+
+The duration of my absence was left to my own choice; a few months, or
+at most a year, was the period contemplated.  One paternal kind
+precaution he had taken to ensure my having a companion.  Without
+previously communicating with me, he had, in concert with Elizabeth,
+arranged that Clerval should join me at Strasburgh.  This interfered
+with the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of my task; yet at the
+commencement of my journey the presence of my friend could in no way be
+an impediment, and truly I rejoiced that thus I should be saved many
+hours of lonely, maddening reflection.  Nay, Henry might stand between
+me and the intrusion of my foe.  If I were alone, would he not at times
+force his abhorred presence on me to remind me of my task or to
+contemplate its progress?
+
+To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood that my union
+with Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return.  My father’s
+age rendered him extremely averse to delay.  For myself, there was one
+reward I promised myself from my detested toils—one consolation for my
+unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when,
+enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and
+forget the past in my union with her.
+
+I now made arrangements for my journey, but one feeling haunted me
+which filled me with fear and agitation.  During my absence I should
+leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy and
+unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my
+departure.  But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go, and
+would he not accompany me to England?  This imagination was dreadful in
+itself, but soothing inasmuch as it supposed the safety of my friends.
+I was agonised with the idea of the possibility that the reverse of
+this might happen.  But through the whole period during which I was the
+slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of
+the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend
+would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his
+machinations.
+
+It was in the latter end of September that I again quitted my native
+country.  My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth
+therefore acquiesced, but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of
+my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief.  It had
+been her care which provided me a companion in Clerval—and yet a man
+is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman’s
+sedulous attention.  She longed to bid me hasten my return; a thousand
+conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful, silent
+farewell.
+
+I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me away, hardly
+knowing whither I was going, and careless of what was passing around.
+I remembered only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on
+it, to order that my chemical instruments should be packed to go with
+me.  Filled with dreary imaginations, I passed through many beautiful
+and majestic scenes, but my eyes were fixed and unobserving.  I could
+only think of the bourne of my travels and the work which was to occupy
+me whilst they endured.
+
+After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed
+many leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I waited two days for
+Clerval.  He came.  Alas, how great was the contrast between us!  He
+was alive to every new scene, joyful when he saw the beauties of the
+setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new
+day.  He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and
+the appearances of the sky.  “This is what it is to live,” he cried;
+“now I enjoy existence!  But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are
+you desponding and sorrowful!” In truth, I was occupied by gloomy
+thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden
+sunrise reflected in the Rhine.  And you, my friend, would be far more
+amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an
+eye of feeling and delight, than in listening to my reflections.  I, a
+miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to
+enjoyment.
+
+We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasburgh to
+Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London.  During this
+voyage we passed many willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns.
+We stayed a day at Mannheim, and on the fifth from our departure from
+Strasburgh, arrived at Mainz.  The course of the Rhine below Mainz
+becomes much more picturesque.  The river descends rapidly and winds
+between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms.  We saw
+many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by
+black woods, high and inaccessible.  This part of the Rhine, indeed,
+presents a singularly variegated landscape.  In one spot you view
+rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with
+the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory,
+flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river
+and populous towns occupy the scene.
+
+We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers
+as we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and my spirits
+continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the
+bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to
+drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger. And if these
+were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry? He felt as if he had
+been transported to Fairy-land and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by
+man. “I have seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes
+of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the
+snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black
+and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance
+were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay
+appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore
+up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be
+on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain,
+where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and
+where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the
+nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud;
+but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The
+mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a
+charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled.
+Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the
+island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and now
+that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village
+half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely the spirit that inhabits
+and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those who
+pile the glacier or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains of
+our own country.”
+
+Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words and
+to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a
+being formed in the “very poetry of nature.” His wild and
+enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His
+soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that
+devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only
+in the imagination. But even human sympathies were not sufficient to
+satisfy his eager mind. The scenery of external nature, which others regard
+only with admiration, he loved with ardour:—
+
+     ——The sounding cataract
+     Haunted him like a passion:  the tall rock,
+     The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
+     Their colours and their forms, were then to him
+     An appetite; a feeling, and a love,
+     That had no need of a remoter charm,
+     By thought supplied, or any interest
+     Unborrow’d from the eye.
+     
+                    [Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”.]
+
+
+
+And where does he now exist?  Is this gentle and lovely being lost
+for ever?  Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful
+and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the
+life of its creator;—has this mind perished?  Does it now only exist
+in my memory?  No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and
+beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and
+consoles your unhappy friend.
+
+Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but a slight
+tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart,
+overflowing with the anguish which his remembrance creates.  I will
+proceed with my tale.
+
+Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland; and we resolved to
+post the remainder of our way, for the wind was contrary and the stream of
+the river was too gentle to aid us.
+
+Our journey here lost the interest arising from beautiful scenery, but we
+arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded by sea to England.
+It was on a clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I first saw
+the white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new scene;
+they were flat but fertile, and almost every town was marked by the
+remembrance of some story. We saw Tilbury Fort and remembered the Spanish
+Armada, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich—places which I had heard
+of even in my country.
+
+At length we saw the numerous steeples of London, St. Paul’s towering
+above all, and the Tower famed in English history.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 19
+
+London was our present point of rest; we determined to remain several
+months in this wonderful and celebrated city.  Clerval desired the
+intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this
+time, but this was with me a secondary object; I was principally
+occupied with the means of obtaining the information necessary for the
+completion of my promise and quickly availed myself of the letters of
+introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the most
+distinguished natural philosophers.
+
+If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness,
+it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure.  But a blight had
+come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of
+the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest
+was so terribly profound.  Company was irksome to me; when alone, I
+could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of
+Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory
+peace.  But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to
+my heart.  I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my
+fellow men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and
+Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled
+my soul with anguish.
+
+But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was inquisitive
+and anxious to gain experience and instruction.  The difference of
+manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of
+instruction and amusement.  He was also pursuing an object he had long
+had in view.  His design was to visit India, in the belief that he had
+in his knowledge of its various languages, and in the views he had
+taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the progress of
+European colonization and trade.  In Britain only could he further the
+execution of his plan.  He was for ever busy, and the only check to his
+enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind.  I tried to conceal this
+as much as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures
+natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by
+any care or bitter recollection.  I often refused to accompany him,
+alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone.  I now also
+began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this
+was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling
+on the head.  Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme
+anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips
+to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.
+
+After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person in
+Scotland who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned the
+beauties of his native country and asked us if those were not sufficient
+allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth,
+where he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation, and I,
+although I abhorred society, wished to view again mountains and streams and
+all the wondrous works with which Nature adorns her chosen dwelling-places.
+
+We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now
+February. We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the
+north at the expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not
+intend to follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford,
+Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of
+this tour about the end of July. I packed up my chemical instruments and
+the materials I had collected, resolving to finish my labours in some
+obscure nook in the northern highlands of Scotland.
+
+We quitted London on the 27th of March and remained a few days at
+Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest.  This was a new scene to us
+mountaineers; the majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of
+stately deer were all novelties to us.
+
+From thence we proceeded to Oxford.  As we entered this city, our minds
+were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted
+there more than a century and a half before.  It was here that Charles
+I. had collected his forces.  This city had remained faithful to him,
+after the whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of
+Parliament and liberty.  The memory of that unfortunate king and his
+companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Goring, his queen, and
+son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they
+might be supposed to have inhabited.  The spirit of elder days found a
+dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps.  If these
+feelings had not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of
+the city had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration.
+The colleges are ancient and picturesque; the streets are almost
+magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it through meadows
+of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters,
+which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and spires, and
+domes, embosomed among aged trees.
+
+I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the
+memory of the past and the anticipation of the future.  I was formed
+for peaceful happiness.  During my youthful days discontent never
+visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by _ennui_, the sight of what
+is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in
+the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate
+elasticity to my spirits.  But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has
+entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what
+I shall soon cease to be—a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity,
+pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.
+
+We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs
+and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most
+animating epoch of English history.  Our little voyages of discovery
+were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented
+themselves.  We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden and the
+field on which that patriot fell.  For a moment my soul was elevated
+from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas
+of liberty and self-sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments
+and the remembrancers.  For an instant I dared to shake off my chains
+and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had eaten
+into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my
+miserable self.
+
+We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next
+place of rest.  The country in the neighbourhood of this village
+resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but
+everything is on a lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of
+distant white Alps which always attend on the piny mountains of my
+native country.  We visited the wondrous cave and the little cabinets
+of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the same
+manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix.  The latter name
+made me tremble when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit
+Matlock, with which that terrible scene was thus associated.
+
+From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in
+Cumberland and Westmorland.  I could now almost fancy myself among the
+Swiss mountains.  The little patches of snow which yet lingered on the
+northern sides of the mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the
+rocky streams were all familiar and dear sights to me.  Here also we
+made some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into
+happiness.  The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater than
+mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he found
+in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have
+imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his
+inferiors.  “I could pass my life here,” said he to me; “and among
+these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine.”
+
+But he found that a traveller’s life is one that includes much pain
+amidst its enjoyments.  His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and
+when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit
+that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again
+engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties.
+
+We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland
+and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period
+of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them
+to travel on.  For my own part I was not sorry.  I had now neglected my
+promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the dæmon’s
+disappointment.  He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance
+on my relatives.  This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment
+from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace.  I waited
+for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were delayed I was
+miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived and I
+saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to
+read and ascertain my fate.  Sometimes I thought that the fiend
+followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion.
+When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment,
+but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of
+his destroyer.  I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the
+consciousness of which haunted me.  I was guiltless, but I had indeed
+drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime.
+
+I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might
+have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well
+as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him.
+But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic
+castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur’s
+Seat, St. Bernard’s Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for
+the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was
+impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey.
+
+We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew’s, and
+along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us.
+But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into
+their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and
+accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland
+alone.  “Do you,” said I, “enjoy yourself, and let this be our
+rendezvous.  I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with
+my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a short
+time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more
+congenial to your own temper.”
+
+Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to
+remonstrate.  He entreated me to write often.  “I had rather be with
+you,” he said, “in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch
+people, whom I do not know; hasten, then, my dear  friend, to return,
+that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in
+your absence.”
+
+Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of
+Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the
+monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have
+finished, that he might receive his companion.
+
+With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of
+the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place
+fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were
+continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely
+affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its
+inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs
+gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they
+indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from
+the mainland, which was about five miles distant.
+
+On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of
+these was vacant when I arrived.  This I hired.  It contained but two
+rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable
+penury.  The thatch had fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the
+door was off its hinges.  I ordered it to be repaired, bought some
+furniture, and took possession, an incident which would doubtless have
+occasioned some surprise had not all the senses of the cottagers been
+benumbed by want and squalid poverty.  As it was, I lived ungazed at
+and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes
+which I gave, so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations
+of men.
+
+In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening,
+when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to
+listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet.  It was a
+monotonous yet ever-changing scene.  I thought of Switzerland; it was
+far different from this desolate and appalling landscape.  Its hills
+are covered with vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the
+plains.  Its fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky, and when
+troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively
+infant when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean.
+
+In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived, but
+as I proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and
+irksome to me.  Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my
+laboratory for several days, and at other times I toiled day and night
+in order to complete my work.  It was, indeed, a filthy process in
+which I was engaged.  During my first experiment, a kind of
+enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my
+mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes
+were shut to the horror of my proceedings.  But now I went to it in
+cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.
+
+Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in
+a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from
+the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I
+grew restless and nervous.  Every moment I feared to meet my
+persecutor.  Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing
+to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much
+dreaded to behold.  I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow
+creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion.
+
+In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably
+advanced.  I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager
+hope, which I dared not trust myself to question but which was
+intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken
+in my bosom.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 20
+
+I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was just
+rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment, and I
+remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my
+labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention
+to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me which led me to
+consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was
+engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled
+barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it for ever with the bitterest
+remorse. I was now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was
+alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her
+mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had
+sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she
+had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and
+reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her
+creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived
+loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence
+for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn
+with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him,
+and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being
+deserted by one of his own species.
+
+Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world,
+yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon
+thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon
+the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a
+condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit,
+to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved
+by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by
+his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my
+promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me
+as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at
+the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.
+
+I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by
+the light of the moon the dæmon at the casement.  A ghastly grin
+wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task
+which he had allotted to me.  Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he
+had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide
+and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress and claim the
+fulfilment of my promise.
+
+As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of
+malice and treachery.  I thought with a sensation of madness on my
+promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion,
+tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.  The wretch saw me
+destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for
+happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.
+
+I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own
+heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I
+sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate
+the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most
+terrible reveries.
+
+Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea;
+it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature
+reposed under the eye of the quiet moon.  A few fishing vessels alone
+specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound
+of voices as the fishermen called to one another.  I felt the silence,
+although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity, until my ear
+was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a
+person landed close to my house.
+
+In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one
+endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a
+presentiment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the peasants who
+dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the sensation
+of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you in vain
+endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the spot.
+
+Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; the door
+opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he
+approached me and said in a smothered voice,
+
+“You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you
+intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery;
+I left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among
+its willow islands and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many
+months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland. I have
+endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my
+hopes?”
+
+“Begone!  I do break my promise; never will I create another like
+yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness.”
+
+“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself
+unworthy of my condescension.  Remember that I have power; you believe
+yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of
+day will be hateful to you.  You are my creator, but I am your master;
+obey!”
+
+“The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is
+arrived.  Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but
+they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in
+vice.  Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon whose
+delight is in death and wretchedness?  Begone!  I am firm, and your
+words will only exasperate my rage.”
+
+The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the
+impotence of anger. “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a
+wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had
+feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn.
+Man! You may hate, but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and misery,
+and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for
+ever. Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of my
+wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge
+remains—revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but
+first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your
+misery. Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with
+the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall
+repent of the injuries you inflict.”
+
+“Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice.
+I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend
+beneath words.  Leave me; I am inexorable.”
+
+“It is well.  I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your
+wedding-night.”
+
+I started forward and exclaimed, “Villain!  Before you sign my
+death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe.”
+
+I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with
+precipitation.  In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot
+across the waters with an arrowy swiftness and was soon lost amidst the
+waves.
+
+All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage to
+pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the ocean. I
+walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination
+conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not
+followed him and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered him
+to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland. I shuddered
+to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge.
+And then I thought again of his words—“_I will be with you on
+your wedding-night._” That, then, was the period fixed for the
+fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and
+extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I
+thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she
+should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I
+had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall
+before my enemy without a bitter struggle.
+
+The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became
+calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into
+the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last
+night’s contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I
+almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow
+creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me. I
+desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily, it is true,
+but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If I returned, it was to
+be sacrificed or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a
+dæmon whom I had myself created.
+
+I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it
+loved and miserable in the separation.  When it became noon, and the
+sun rose higher, I lay down on the grass and was overpowered by a deep
+sleep.  I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves
+were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery.  The sleep
+into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as
+if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to
+reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the
+words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared
+like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
+
+The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my
+appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a
+fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet;
+it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval entreating me to
+join him.  He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where
+he was, that letters from the friends he had formed in London desired
+his return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his
+Indian enterprise.  He could not any longer delay his departure; but as
+his journey to London might be followed, even sooner than he now
+conjectured, by his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of
+my society on him as I could spare.  He besought me, therefore, to
+leave my solitary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might proceed
+southwards together.  This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and
+I determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days.
+
+Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered
+to reflect; I must pack up my chemical instruments, and for that purpose I
+must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must
+handle those utensils the sight of which was sickening to me. The next
+morning, at daybreak, I summoned sufficient courage and unlocked the door
+of my laboratory. The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had
+destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had
+mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to collect myself and
+then entered the chamber. With trembling hand I conveyed the instruments
+out of the room, but I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics of my
+work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants; and I accordingly
+put them into a basket, with a great quantity of stones, and laying them
+up, determined to throw them into the sea that very night; and in the
+meantime I sat upon the beach, employed in cleaning and arranging my
+chemical apparatus.
+
+Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place
+in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the dæmon.  I had
+before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with
+whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film
+had been taken from before my eyes and that I for the first time saw
+clearly.  The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur
+to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not
+reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it.  I had resolved in
+my own mind that to create another like the fiend I had first made
+would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness, and I
+banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different
+conclusion.
+
+Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting my
+basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the shore.
+The scene was perfectly solitary; a few boats were returning towards land,
+but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the commission of a
+dreadful crime and avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my
+fellow creatures. At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was
+suddenly overspread by a thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment of
+darkness and cast my basket into the sea; I listened to the gurgling sound
+as it sank and then sailed away from the spot. The sky became clouded, but
+the air was pure, although chilled by the northeast breeze that was then
+rising. But it refreshed me and filled me with such agreeable sensations
+that I resolved to prolong my stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a
+direct position, stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the
+moon, everything was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as its
+keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a short time I
+slept soundly.
+
+I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I
+found that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high, and
+the waves continually threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found
+that the wind was northeast and must have driven me far from the coast from
+which I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my course but quickly found
+that if I again made the attempt the boat would be instantly filled with
+water. Thus situated, my only resource was to drive before the wind. I
+confess that I felt a few sensations of terror. I had no compass with me
+and was so slenderly acquainted with the geography of this part of the
+world that the sun was of little benefit to me. I might be driven into the
+wide Atlantic and feel all the tortures of starvation or be swallowed up in
+the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me. I had already
+been out many hours and felt the torment of a burning thirst, a prelude to
+my other sufferings. I looked on the heavens, which were covered by clouds
+that flew before the wind, only to be replaced by others; I looked upon the
+sea; it was to be my grave. “Fiend,” I exclaimed, “your
+task is already fulfilled!” I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and
+of Clerval—all left behind, on whom the monster might satisfy his
+sanguinary and merciless passions. This idea plunged me into a reverie so
+despairing and frightful that even now, when the scene is on the point of
+closing before me for ever, I shudder to reflect on it.
+
+Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the
+horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea became
+free from breakers.  But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick
+and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high
+land towards the south.
+
+Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I endured
+for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of
+warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes.
+
+How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have
+of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail with a
+part of my dress and eagerly steered my course towards the land. It had a
+wild and rocky appearance, but as I approached nearer I easily perceived
+the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore and found myself
+suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of civilised man. I
+carefully traced the windings of the land and hailed a steeple which I at
+length saw issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was in a state of
+extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town, as a place
+where I could most easily procure nourishment. Fortunately I had money with
+me. As I turned the promontory I perceived a small neat town and a good
+harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected
+escape.
+
+As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several
+people crowded towards the spot.  They seemed much surprised at my
+appearance, but instead of offering me any assistance, whispered
+together with gestures that at any other time might have produced in me
+a slight sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they
+spoke English, and I therefore addressed them in that language.  “My
+good friends,” said I, “will you be so kind as to tell me the name of
+this town and inform me where I am?”
+
+“You will know that soon enough,” replied a man with a hoarse voice.
+“Maybe you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste,
+but you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you.”
+
+I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a
+stranger, and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and
+angry countenances of his companions.  “Why do you answer me so
+roughly?”  I replied.  “Surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to
+receive strangers so inhospitably.”
+
+“I do not know,” said the man, “what the custom of the
+English may be, but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains.”
+
+While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly
+increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which
+annoyed and in some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn, but
+no one replied. I then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose from the
+crowd as they followed and surrounded me, when an ill-looking man
+approaching tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come, sir, you must
+follow me to Mr. Kirwin’s to give an account of yourself.”
+
+“Who is Mr. Kirwin?  Why am I to give an account of myself?  Is not
+this a free country?”
+
+“Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks.  Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate,
+and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was
+found murdered here last night.”
+
+This answer startled me, but I presently recovered myself. I was innocent;
+that could easily be proved; accordingly I followed my conductor in silence
+and was led to one of the best houses in the town. I was ready to sink from
+fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic
+to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into
+apprehension or conscious guilt. Little did I then expect the calamity that
+was in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair
+all fear of ignominy or death.
+
+I must pause here, for it requires all my fortitude to recall the memory of
+the frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to my
+recollection.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 21
+
+I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate, an old
+benevolent man with calm and mild manners.  He looked upon me, however,
+with some degree of severity, and then, turning towards my conductors,
+he asked who appeared as witnesses on this occasion.
+
+About half a dozen men came forward; and, one being selected by the
+magistrate, he deposed that he had been out fishing the night before with
+his son and brother-in-law, Daniel Nugent, when, about ten o’clock,
+they observed a strong northerly blast rising, and they accordingly put in
+for port. It was a very dark night, as the moon had not yet risen; they did
+not land at the harbour, but, as they had been accustomed, at a creek about
+two miles below. He walked on first, carrying a part of the fishing tackle,
+and his companions followed him at some distance. As he was proceeding
+along the sands, he struck his foot against something and fell at his
+length on the ground. His companions came up to assist him, and by the
+light of their lantern they found that he had fallen on the body of a man,
+who was to all appearance dead. Their first supposition was that it was the
+corpse of some person who had been drowned and was thrown on shore by the
+waves, but on examination they found that the clothes were not wet and even
+that the body was not then cold. They instantly carried it to the cottage
+of an old woman near the spot and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore it
+to life. It appeared to be a handsome young man, about five and twenty
+years of age. He had apparently been strangled, for there was no sign of
+any violence except the black mark of fingers on his neck.
+
+The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest me, but
+when the mark of the fingers was mentioned I remembered the murder of
+my brother and felt myself extremely agitated; my limbs trembled, and a
+mist came over my eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for
+support.  The magistrate observed me with a keen eye and of course drew
+an unfavourable augury from my manner.
+
+The son confirmed his father’s account, but when Daniel Nugent was
+called he swore positively that just before the fall of his companion, he
+saw a boat, with a single man in it, at a short distance from the shore;
+and as far as he could judge by the light of a few stars, it was the same
+boat in which I had just landed.
+
+A woman deposed that she lived near the beach and was standing at the door
+of her cottage, waiting for the return of the fishermen, about an hour
+before she heard of the discovery of the body, when she saw a boat with
+only one man in it push off from that part of the shore where the corpse
+was afterwards found.
+
+Another woman confirmed the account of the fishermen having brought the
+body into her house; it was not cold.  They put it into a bed and
+rubbed it, and Daniel went to the town for an apothecary, but life was
+quite gone.
+
+Several other men were examined concerning my landing, and they agreed
+that, with the strong north wind that had arisen during the night, it
+was very probable that I had beaten about for many hours and had been
+obliged to return nearly to the same spot from which I had departed.
+Besides, they observed that it appeared that I had brought the body
+from another place, and it was likely that as I did not appear to know
+the shore, I might have put into the harbour ignorant of the distance
+of the town of —— from the place where I had deposited the corpse.
+
+Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken into
+the room where the body lay for interment, that it might be observed what
+effect the sight of it would produce upon me. This idea was probably
+suggested by the extreme agitation I had exhibited when the mode of the
+murder had been described. I was accordingly conducted, by the magistrate
+and several other persons, to the inn. I could not help being struck by the
+strange coincidences that had taken place during this eventful night; but,
+knowing that I had been conversing with several persons in the island I had
+inhabited about the time that the body had been found, I was perfectly
+tranquil as to the consequences of the affair.
+
+I entered the room where the corpse lay and was led up to the coffin. How
+can I describe my sensations on beholding it? I feel yet parched with
+horror, nor can I reflect on that terrible moment without shuddering and
+agony. The examination, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses,
+passed like a dream from my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henry
+Clerval stretched before me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on
+the body, I exclaimed, “Have my murderous machinations deprived you
+also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other
+victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my
+benefactor—”
+
+The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and
+I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions.
+
+A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death; my
+ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the
+murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my
+attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was
+tormented; and at others I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping
+my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror. Fortunately, as I spoke
+my native language, Mr. Kirwin alone understood me; but my gestures and
+bitter cries were sufficient to affright the other witnesses.
+
+Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not
+sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming
+children, the only hopes of their doting parents; how many brides and
+youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the
+next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I
+made that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of
+the wheel, continually renewed the torture?
+
+But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from
+a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by
+gaolers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon.
+It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding; I had
+forgotten the particulars of what had happened and only felt as if some
+great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me; but when I looked around
+and saw the barred windows and the squalidness of the room in which I
+was, all flashed across my memory and I groaned bitterly.
+
+This sound disturbed an old woman who was sleeping in a chair beside
+me.  She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her
+countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterise
+that class.  The lines of her face were hard and rude, like that of
+persons accustomed to see without sympathising in sights of misery. Her
+tone expressed her entire indifference; she addressed me in English,
+and the voice struck me as one that I had heard during my sufferings.
+
+“Are you better now, sir?” said she.
+
+I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, “I believe I am;
+but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am
+still alive to feel this misery and horror.”
+
+“For that matter,” replied the old woman, “if you mean about the
+gentleman you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you
+were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you!  However, that’s none
+of my business; I am sent to nurse you and get you well; I do my duty
+with a safe conscience; it were well if everybody did the same.”
+
+I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a
+speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt
+languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed.  The whole series
+of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it
+were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force
+of reality.
+
+As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew
+feverish; a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed
+me with the gentle voice of love; no dear hand supported me.  The
+physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared
+them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the
+expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the
+second.  Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the
+hangman who would gain his fee?
+
+These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had
+shown me extreme kindness.  He had caused the best room in the prison
+to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who
+had provided a physician and a nurse.  It is true, he seldom came to
+see me, for although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of
+every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the agonies and
+miserable ravings of a murderer.  He came, therefore, sometimes to see
+that I was not neglected, but his visits were short and with long
+intervals.
+
+One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes
+half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I was overcome by gloom
+and misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to
+remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one time I
+considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the
+penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been. Such were my
+thoughts when the door of my apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered.
+His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to
+mine and addressed me in French,
+
+“I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to
+make you more comfortable?”
+
+“I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me; on the whole
+earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.”
+
+“I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to
+one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune.  But you will, I
+hope, soon quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can
+easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge.”
+
+“That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become
+the most miserable of mortals.  Persecuted and tortured as I am and
+have been, can death be any evil to me?”
+
+“Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonising than the
+strange chances that have lately occurred.  You were thrown, by some
+surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality,
+seized immediately, and charged with murder.  The first sight that was
+presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so
+unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across
+your path.”
+
+As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on
+this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at
+the knowledge he seemed to possess concerning me.  I suppose some
+astonishment was exhibited in my countenance, for Mr. Kirwin hastened
+to say,
+
+“Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on
+your person were brought me, and I examined them that I might discover some
+trace by which I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune
+and illness. I found several letters, and, among others, one which I
+discovered from its commencement to be from your father. I instantly wrote
+to Geneva; nearly two months have elapsed since the departure of my letter.
+But you are ill; even now you tremble; you are unfit for agitation of any
+kind.”
+
+“This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event;
+tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am
+now to lament?”
+
+“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr. Kirwin with
+gentleness; “and someone, a friend, is come to visit you.”
+
+I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it
+instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my
+misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for
+me to comply with his hellish desires.  I put my hand before my eyes,
+and cried out in agony,
+
+“Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not
+let him enter!”
+
+Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance.  He could not help
+regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in
+rather a severe tone,
+
+“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father
+would have been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.”
+
+“My father!” cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed
+from anguish to pleasure.  “Is my father indeed come?  How kind, how
+very kind!  But where is he, why does he not hasten to me?”
+
+My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps he
+thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium,
+and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence.  He rose and
+quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it.
+
+Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the
+arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him and cried,
+
+“Are you then safe—and Elizabeth—and Ernest?”
+
+My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare and endeavoured, by
+dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my
+desponding spirits; but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of
+cheerfulness. “What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!”
+said he, looking mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance
+of the room. “You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems
+to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
+
+The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too
+great to be endured in my weak state; I shed tears.
+
+“Alas! Yes, my father,” replied I; “some destiny of the
+most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I
+should have died on the coffin of Henry.”
+
+We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the
+precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that
+could ensure tranquillity.  Mr. Kirwin came in and insisted that my
+strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion.  But the
+appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel, and I
+gradually recovered my health.
+
+As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black
+melancholy that nothing could dissipate.  The image of Clerval was
+for ever before me, ghastly and murdered.  More than once the agitation
+into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous
+relapse.  Alas!  Why did they preserve so miserable and detested a
+life?  It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now
+drawing to a close.  Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these
+throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears
+me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also
+sink to rest.  Then the appearance of death was distant, although the
+wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours
+motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that
+might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
+
+The season of the assizes approached.  I had already been three months
+in prison, and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a
+relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country
+town where the court was held.  Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every
+care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defence.  I was spared
+the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal, as the case was not
+brought before the court that decides on life and death.  The grand
+jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I was on the Orkney
+Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found; and a fortnight
+after my removal I was liberated from prison.
+
+My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a
+criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh
+atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country.  I did not
+participate in these feelings, for to me the walls of a dungeon or a
+palace were alike hateful.  The cup of life was poisoned for ever, and
+although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I
+saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by
+no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.  Sometimes
+they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark
+orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed
+them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I
+first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.
+
+My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection.  He talked
+of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and Ernest; but
+these words only drew deep groans from me.  Sometimes, indeed, I felt a
+wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved
+cousin or longed, with a devouring _maladie du pays_, to see once more
+the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early
+childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a
+prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and
+these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and
+despair.  At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the
+existence I loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance
+to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence.
+
+Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally
+triumphed over my selfish despair.  It was necessary that I should
+return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those
+I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any
+chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to
+blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to
+the existence of the monstrous image which  I had endued with the
+mockery of a soul still more monstrous.  My father still desired to
+delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a
+journey, for I was a shattered wreck—the shadow of a human being.  My
+strength was gone.  I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day
+preyed upon my wasted frame.
+
+Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience,
+my father thought it best to yield. We took our passage on board a vessel
+bound for Havre-de-Grace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores.
+It was midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to
+the dashing of the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my
+sight, and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should
+soon see Geneva. The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream;
+yet the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested
+shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me, told me too forcibly
+that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval, my friend and dearest
+companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation. I
+repassed, in my memory, my whole life; my quiet happiness while residing
+with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my departure for
+Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on
+to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night in
+which he first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a
+thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.
+
+Ever since my recovery from the fever, I had been in the custom of taking
+every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was by means of this drug
+only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of
+life. Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I now
+swallowed double my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did
+not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a
+thousand objects that scared me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind
+of nightmare; I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck and could not free
+myself from it; groans and cries rang in my ears. My father, who was
+watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves
+were around, the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here: a sense of
+security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour
+and the irresistible, disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm
+forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly
+susceptible.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 22
+
+The voyage came to an end.  We landed, and proceeded to Paris.  I soon
+found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I
+could continue my journey.  My father’s care and attentions were
+indefatigable, but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and
+sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill.  He wished me to
+seek amusement in society.  I abhorred the face of man.  Oh, not
+abhorred!  They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt
+attracted even to the most repulsive among them, as to creatures of an
+angelic nature and celestial mechanism.  But I felt that I had no right
+to share their intercourse.  I had unchained an enemy among them whose
+joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans.  How they
+would, each and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world, did they know
+my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me!
+
+My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by
+various arguments to banish my despair.  Sometimes he thought that I
+felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of
+murder, and he endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride.
+
+“Alas!  My father,” said I, “how little do you know me. 
+Human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such
+a wretch as I felt pride.  Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent
+as I, and she suffered the same charge; she died for it; and I am the cause
+of this—I murdered her.  William, Justine, and Henry—they all
+died by my hands.”
+
+My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same
+assertion; when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an
+explanation, and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of
+delirium, and that, during my illness, some idea of this kind had presented
+itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I preserved in my
+convalescence. I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence
+concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be
+supposed mad, and this in itself would for ever have chained my tongue. But,
+besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my
+hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of
+his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was
+silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret.
+Yet, still, words like those I have recorded would burst uncontrollably
+from me. I could offer no explanation of them, but their truth in part
+relieved the burden of my mysterious woe.
+
+Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder,
+“My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My dear son, I entreat
+you never to make such an assertion again.”
+
+“I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the heavens, who
+have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth.  I am the
+assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations.
+A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have
+saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not
+sacrifice the whole human race.”
+
+The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were
+deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and
+endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts.  He wished as much as
+possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in
+Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my
+misfortunes.
+
+As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my
+heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own
+crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them.  By the utmost
+self-violence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which
+sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners
+were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey
+to the sea of ice.
+
+A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the
+following letter from Elizabeth:
+
+“My dear Friend,
+
+“It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle
+dated at Paris; you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may
+hope to see you in less than a fortnight.  My poor cousin, how much you
+must have suffered!  I expect to see you looking even more ill than
+when you quitted Geneva.  This winter has been passed most miserably,
+tortured as I have been by anxious suspense; yet I hope to see peace in
+your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of
+comfort and tranquillity.
+
+“Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable
+a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time.  I would not disturb you at
+this period, when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a
+conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders
+some explanation necessary before we meet.
+
+Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If
+you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied.
+But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet
+be pleased with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the
+case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I
+have often wished to express to you but have never had the courage to begin.
+
+“You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of
+your parents ever since our infancy.  We were told this when young, and
+taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take
+place.  We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I
+believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But
+as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each
+other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our
+case?  Tell me, dearest Victor.  Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual
+happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love another?
+
+“You have travelled; you have spent several years of your life at
+Ingolstadt; and I confess to you, my friend, that when I saw you last
+autumn so unhappy, flying to solitude from the society of every
+creature, I could not help supposing that you might regret our
+connection and believe yourself bound in honour to fulfil the wishes of
+your parents, although they opposed themselves to your inclinations.
+But this is false reasoning.  I confess to you, my friend, that I love
+you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant
+friend and companion.   But it is your happiness I desire as well as my
+own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally
+miserable unless it were the dictate of your own free choice.  Even now
+I weep to think that, borne down as you are by the cruellest
+misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word _honour_, all hope of that
+love and happiness which would alone restore you to yourself.  I, who
+have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries
+tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes.  Ah! Victor, be assured
+that your cousin and playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be
+made miserable by this supposition.  Be happy, my friend; and if you
+obey me in this one request, remain satisfied that nothing on earth
+will have the power to interrupt my tranquillity.
+
+“Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow, or the
+next day, or even until you come, if it will give you pain.  My uncle
+will send me news of your health, and if I see but one smile on your
+lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I
+shall need no other happiness.
+
+“Elizabeth Lavenza.
+
+
+
+“Geneva, May 18th, 17—”
+
+
+
+This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of
+the fiend—“_I will be with you on your
+wedding-night!_” Such was my sentence, and on that night would the
+dæmon employ every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of
+happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings. On that night he
+had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so; a
+deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he were
+victorious I should be at peace and his power over me be at an end. If he
+were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! What freedom? Such as the
+peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his
+cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless,
+penniless, and alone, but free. Such would be my liberty except that in my
+Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas, balanced by those horrors of
+remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death.
+
+Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some
+softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal
+dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the
+angel’s arm bared to drive me from all hope. Yet I would die to make
+her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet,
+again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate. My
+destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner, but if my torturer
+should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would
+surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge. He had vowed
+_to be with me on my wedding-night_, yet he did not consider that
+threat as binding him to peace in the meantime, for as if to show me that
+he was not yet satiated with blood, he had murdered Clerval immediately
+after the enunciation of his threats. I resolved, therefore, that if my
+immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my
+father’s happiness, my adversary’s designs against my life
+should not retard it a single hour.
+
+In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth.  My letter was calm and
+affectionate.  “I fear, my beloved girl,” I said, “little happiness
+remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in
+you.  Chase away your idle fears; to you alone do I consecrate my life
+and my endeavours for contentment.  I have one secret, Elizabeth, a
+dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with
+horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only
+wonder that I survive what I have endured.  I will confide this tale of
+misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place,
+for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us.  But
+until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude to it.  This I most
+earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply.”
+
+In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth’s letter we returned
+to Geneva. The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection, yet tears were
+in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I saw a
+change in her also. She was thinner and had lost much of that heavenly
+vivacity that had before charmed me; but her gentleness and soft looks of
+compassion made her a more fit companion for one blasted and miserable as I
+was.
+
+The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness
+with it, and when I thought of what had passed, a real insanity possessed
+me; sometimes I was furious and burnt with rage, sometimes low and
+despondent. I neither spoke nor looked at anyone, but sat motionless,
+bewildered by the multitude of miseries that overcame me.
+
+Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice
+would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human
+feelings when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When reason
+returned, she would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with
+resignation. Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the
+guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is
+otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.
+
+Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with
+Elizabeth. I remained silent.
+
+“Have you, then, some other attachment?”
+
+“None on earth.  I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with
+delight.  Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate
+myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin.”
+
+“My dear Victor, do not speak thus.  Heavy misfortunes have befallen
+us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love
+for those whom we have lost to those who yet live.  Our circle will be
+small but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune.
+And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of
+care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly
+deprived.”
+
+Such were the lessons of my father.  But to me the remembrance of the
+threat returned; nor can you wonder that, omnipotent as the fiend had
+yet been in his deeds of blood, I should almost regard him as
+invincible, and that when he had pronounced the words “_I shall be with
+you on your wedding-night_,” I should regard the threatened fate as
+unavoidable.  But death was no evil to me if the loss of Elizabeth were
+balanced with it, and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful
+countenance, agreed with my father that if my cousin would consent, the
+ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined,
+the seal to my fate.
+
+Great God!  If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish
+intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself
+for ever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over
+the earth than have consented to this miserable marriage.  But, as if
+possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real
+intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I
+hastened that of a far dearer victim.
+
+As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or
+a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me. But I concealed my
+feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the
+countenance of my father, but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer
+eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our union with placid contentment,
+not unmingled with a little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed,
+that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness might soon dissipate
+into an airy dream and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.
+
+Preparations were made for the event, congratulatory visits were received,
+and all wore a smiling appearance. I shut up, as well as I could, in my own
+heart the anxiety that preyed there and entered with seeming earnestness
+into the plans of my father, although they might only serve as the
+decorations of my tragedy. Through my father’s exertions a part of
+the inheritance of Elizabeth had been restored to her by the Austrian
+government. A small possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It
+was agreed that, immediately after our union, we should proceed to Villa
+Lavenza and spend our first days of happiness beside the beautiful lake
+near which it stood.
+
+In the meantime I took every precaution to defend my person in case the
+fiend should openly attack me.  I carried pistols and a dagger
+constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and
+by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity.  Indeed, as the
+period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be
+regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for
+in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty as the day fixed
+for its solemnisation drew nearer and I heard it continually spoken of
+as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent.
+
+Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to
+calm her mind.  But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my
+destiny, she was melancholy, and a presentiment of evil pervaded her;
+and perhaps also she thought of the dreadful secret which I had
+promised to reveal to her on the following day.  My father was in the
+meantime overjoyed, and, in the bustle of preparation, only recognised in
+the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a bride.
+
+After the ceremony was performed a large party assembled at my
+father’s, but it was agreed that Elizabeth and I should commence our
+journey by water, sleeping that night at Evian and continuing our
+voyage on the following day.  The day was fair, the wind favourable;
+all smiled on our nuptial embarkation.
+
+Those were the last moments of my life during which I enjoyed the
+feeling of happiness.  We passed rapidly along; the sun was hot, but we
+were sheltered from its rays by a kind of canopy while we enjoyed the
+beauty of the scene, sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw
+Mont Salêve, the pleasant banks of Montalègre, and at a distance,
+surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc, and the assemblage of snowy
+mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her; sometimes coasting the
+opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the
+ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost
+insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it.
+
+I took the hand of Elizabeth.  “You are sorrowful, my love.  Ah!  If
+you knew what I have suffered and what I may yet endure, you would
+endeavour to let me taste the quiet and freedom from despair that this
+one day at least permits me to enjoy.”
+
+“Be happy, my dear Victor,” replied Elizabeth; “there is, I hope,
+nothing to distress you; and be assured that if a lively joy is not
+painted in my face, my heart is contented.  Something whispers to me
+not to depend too much on the prospect that is opened before us, but I
+will not listen to such a sinister voice.  Observe how fast we move
+along and how the clouds, which sometimes obscure and sometimes rise
+above the dome of Mont Blanc, render this scene of beauty still more
+interesting.  Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in
+the clear waters, where we can distinguish every pebble that lies at
+the bottom.  What a divine day!  How happy and serene all nature
+appears!”
+
+Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and mine from all
+reflection upon melancholy subjects.  But her temper was fluctuating;
+joy for a few instants shone in her eyes, but it continually gave place
+to distraction and reverie.
+
+The sun sank lower in the heavens; we passed the river Drance and
+observed its path through the chasms of the higher and the glens of the
+lower hills.  The Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached
+the amphitheatre of mountains which forms its eastern boundary.  The
+spire of Evian shone under the woods that surrounded it and the range
+of mountain above mountain by which it was overhung.
+
+The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with amazing rapidity,
+sank at sunset to a light breeze; the soft air just ruffled the water
+and caused a pleasant motion among the trees as we approached the
+shore, from which it wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and
+hay.  The sun sank beneath the horizon as we landed, and as I touched
+the shore I felt those cares and fears revive which soon were to clasp
+me and cling to me for ever.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 23
+
+It was eight o’clock when we landed; we walked for a short time on the
+shore, enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and
+contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured
+in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines.
+
+The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with great violence
+in the west.  The moon had reached her summit in the heavens and was
+beginning to descend; the clouds swept across it swifter than the
+flight of the vulture and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the
+scene of the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless waves
+that were beginning to rise.  Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended.
+
+I had been calm during the day, but so soon as night obscured the
+shapes of objects, a thousand fears arose in my mind.  I was anxious
+and watchful, while my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in
+my bosom; every sound terrified me, but I resolved that I would sell my
+life dearly and not shrink from the conflict until my own life or that
+of my adversary was extinguished.
+
+Elizabeth observed my agitation for some time in timid and fearful silence,
+but there was something in my glance which communicated terror to her, and
+trembling, she asked, “What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor?
+What is it you fear?”
+
+“Oh! Peace, peace, my love,” replied I; “this night, and
+all will be safe; but this night is dreadful, very dreadful.”
+
+I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how
+fearful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife,
+and I earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her
+until I had obtained some knowledge as to the situation of my enemy.
+
+She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages
+of the house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to
+my adversary.  But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to
+conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the
+execution of his menaces when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful
+scream.  It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired.  As I
+heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the
+motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood
+trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This
+state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed
+into the room.
+
+Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the
+destruction of the best hope and the purest creature on earth? She was
+there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down
+and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I
+turn I see the same figure—her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung
+by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this and live? Alas!
+Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment
+only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless on the ground.
+
+When I recovered I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn; their
+countenances expressed a breathless terror, but the horror of others
+appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I
+escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my
+wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy. She had been moved from the
+posture in which I had first beheld her, and now, as she lay, her head upon
+her arm and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might have
+supposed her asleep. I rushed towards her and embraced her with ardour, but
+the deadly languor and coldness of the limbs told me that what I now held
+in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished.
+The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her neck, and the
+breath had ceased to issue from her lips.
+
+While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I happened to look up.
+The windows of the room had before been darkened, and I felt a kind of
+panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber.
+The shutters had been thrown back, and with a sensation of horror not to be
+described, I saw at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred.
+A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his
+fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards
+the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired; but he eluded me,
+leaped from his station, and running with the swiftness of lightning,
+plunged into the lake.
+
+The report of the pistol brought a crowd into the room. I pointed to
+the spot where he had disappeared, and we followed the track with
+boats; nets were cast, but in vain.  After passing several hours, we
+returned hopeless, most of my companions believing it to have been a
+form conjured up by my fancy.  After having landed, they proceeded to
+search the country, parties going in different directions among the
+woods and vines.
+
+I attempted to accompany them and proceeded a short distance from the
+house, but my head whirled round, my steps were like those of a drunken
+man, I fell at last in a state of utter exhaustion; a film covered my
+eyes, and my skin was parched with the heat of fever.  In this state I
+was carried back and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what had
+happened; my eyes wandered round the room as if to seek something that
+I had lost.
+
+After an interval I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room
+where the corpse of my beloved lay.  There were women weeping around; I
+hung over it and joined my sad tears to theirs; all this time no
+distinct idea presented itself to my mind, but my thoughts rambled to
+various subjects, reflecting confusedly on my misfortunes and their
+cause.  I was bewildered, in a cloud of wonder and horror.  The death
+of William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and lastly
+of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my only remaining
+friends were safe from the malignity of the fiend; my father even now
+might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his
+feet.  This idea made me shudder and recalled me to action.  I started
+up and resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed.
+
+There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake; but the
+wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it was
+hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men
+to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced relief from
+mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt,
+and the excess of agitation that I endured rendered me incapable of any
+exertion. I threw down the oar, and leaning my head upon my hands, gave way
+to every gloomy idea that arose. If I looked up, I saw scenes which were
+familiar to me in my happier time and which I had contemplated but the day
+before in the company of her who was now but a shadow and a recollection.
+Tears streamed from my eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment, and I saw
+the fish play in the waters as they had done a few hours before; they had
+then been observed by Elizabeth. Nothing is so painful to the human mind as
+a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower,
+but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had
+snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no creature had ever been
+so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of
+man.
+
+But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last
+overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have reached their
+_acme_, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to you. Know
+that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left desolate. My
+own strength is exhausted, and I must tell, in a few words, what remains of
+my hideous narration.
+
+I arrived at Geneva. My father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk
+under the tidings that I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old
+man! His eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their
+delight—his Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with
+all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life, having
+few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain. Cursed, cursed
+be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hairs and doomed him to waste
+in wretchedness! He could not live under the horrors that were accumulated
+around him; the springs of existence suddenly gave way; he was unable to
+rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms.
+
+What then became of me?  I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and
+darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me.  Sometimes,
+indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales
+with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a
+dungeon.  Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear
+conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my
+prison.  For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I
+understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation.
+
+Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I
+awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge.  As the
+memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their
+cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable dæmon whom I had
+sent abroad into the world for my destruction.  I was possessed by a
+maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed
+that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal
+revenge on his cursed head.
+
+Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes; I began to
+reflect on the best means of securing him; and for this purpose, about
+a month after my release, I repaired to a criminal judge in the town
+and told him that I had an accusation to make, that I knew the
+destroyer of my family, and that I required him to exert his whole
+authority for the apprehension of the murderer.
+
+The magistrate listened to me with attention and kindness. “Be
+assured, sir,” said he, “no pains or exertions on my part shall
+be spared to discover the villain.”
+
+“I thank you,” replied I; “listen, therefore, to the
+deposition that I have to make. It is indeed a tale so strange that I
+should fear you would not credit it were there not something in truth
+which, however wonderful, forces conviction. The story is too connected to
+be mistaken for a dream, and I have no motive for falsehood.” My
+manner as I thus addressed him was impressive but calm; I had formed in my
+own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death, and this purpose
+quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life. I now related
+my history briefly but with firmness and precision, marking the dates with
+accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation.
+
+The magistrate appeared at first perfectly incredulous, but as I continued
+he became more attentive and interested; I saw him sometimes shudder with
+horror; at others a lively surprise, unmingled with disbelief, was painted
+on his countenance.
+
+When I had concluded my narration, I said, “This is the being whom I
+accuse and for whose seizure and punishment I call upon you to exert your
+whole power. It is your duty as a magistrate, and I believe and hope that
+your feelings as a man will not revolt from the execution of those
+functions on this occasion.”
+
+This address caused a considerable change in the physiognomy of my own
+auditor. He had heard my story with that half kind of belief that is given
+to a tale of spirits and supernatural events; but when he was called upon
+to act officially in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity
+returned. He, however, answered mildly, “I would willingly afford you
+every aid in your pursuit, but the creature of whom you speak appears to
+have powers which would put all my exertions to defiance. Who can follow an
+animal which can traverse the sea of ice and inhabit caves and dens where
+no man would venture to intrude? Besides, some months have elapsed since
+the commission of his crimes, and no one can conjecture to what place he
+has wandered or what region he may now inhabit.”
+
+“I do not doubt that he hovers near the spot which I inhabit, and if
+he has indeed taken refuge in the Alps, he may be hunted like the chamois
+and destroyed as a beast of prey. But I perceive your thoughts; you do not
+credit my narrative and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the
+punishment which is his desert.”
+
+As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the magistrate was intimidated.
+“You are mistaken,” said he. “I will exert myself, and if
+it is in my power to seize the monster, be assured that he shall suffer
+punishment proportionate to his crimes. But I fear, from what you have
+yourself described to be his properties, that this will prove
+impracticable; and thus, while every proper measure is pursued, you should
+make up your mind to disappointment.”
+
+“That cannot be; but all that I can say will be of little avail.  My
+revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I
+confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul.  My rage
+is unspeakable when I reflect that the murderer, whom I have turned
+loose upon society, still exists.  You refuse my just demand; I have
+but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to
+his destruction.”
+
+I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was a frenzy
+in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness
+which the martyrs of old are said to have possessed.  But to a Genevan
+magistrate, whose mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of
+devotion and heroism, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of
+madness.  He endeavoured to soothe me as a nurse does a child and
+reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium.
+
+“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of
+wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”
+
+I broke from the house angry and disturbed and retired to meditate on
+some other mode of action.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 24
+
+My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was
+swallowed up and lost.  I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone
+endowed me with strength and composure; it moulded my feelings and
+allowed me to be calculating and calm at periods when otherwise
+delirium or death would have been my portion.
+
+My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever; my country, which, when I
+was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became
+hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels
+which had belonged to my mother, and departed.
+
+And now my wanderings began which are to cease but with life. I have
+traversed a vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships
+which travellers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet. How I
+have lived I hardly know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon
+the sandy plain and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I dared
+not die and leave my adversary in being.
+
+When I quitted Geneva my first labour was to gain some clue by which I
+might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy.  But my plan was unsettled,
+and I wandered many hours round the confines of the town, uncertain
+what path I should pursue.  As night approached I found myself at the
+entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father
+reposed.  I entered it and approached the tomb which marked their
+graves.  Everything was silent except the leaves of the trees, which
+were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark, and the
+scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested
+observer.  The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to
+cast a shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the
+mourner.
+
+The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to
+rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also lived,
+and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on the grass
+and kissed the earth and with quivering lips exclaimed, “By the
+sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the
+deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the
+spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the dæmon who caused this misery,
+until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will
+preserve my life; to execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun
+and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my
+eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering
+ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed
+and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now
+torments me.”
+
+I had begun my adjuration with solemnity and an awe which almost assured me
+that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion, but
+the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my utterance.
+
+I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish
+laugh.  It rang on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed
+it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter.
+Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by frenzy and have
+destroyed my miserable existence but that my vow was heard and that I
+was reserved for vengeance.  The laughter died away, when a well-known
+and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an
+audible whisper, “I am satisfied, miserable wretch!  You have
+determined to live, and I am satisfied.”
+
+I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil
+eluded my grasp.  Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and shone
+full upon his ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more than
+mortal speed.
+
+I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task.  Guided by a
+slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly.  The
+blue Mediterranean appeared, and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend
+enter by night and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea.  I
+took my passage in the same ship, but he escaped, I know not how.
+
+Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I
+have ever followed in his track.  Sometimes the peasants, scared by
+this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself,
+who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die,
+left some mark to guide me.  The snows descended on my head, and I saw
+the print of his huge step on the white plain.  To you first entering
+on life, to whom care is new and agony unknown, how can you understand
+what I have felt and still feel?  Cold, want, and fatigue were the
+least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil
+and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good
+followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured would suddenly
+extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties.  Sometimes,
+when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under the exhaustion, a repast
+was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me.  The
+fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate, but
+I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had
+invoked to aid me.  Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and
+I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the
+few drops that revived me, and vanish.
+
+I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the dæmon
+generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the
+country chiefly collected.  In other places human beings were seldom
+seen, and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my
+path.  I had money with me and gained the friendship of the villagers
+by distributing it; or I brought with me some food that I had killed,
+which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had
+provided me with fire and utensils for cooking.
+
+My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during
+sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! Often, when most
+miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. The
+spirits that guarded me had provided these moments, or rather hours, of
+happiness that I might retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage. Deprived of
+this respite, I should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was
+sustained and inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I saw my
+friends, my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the benevolent
+countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my Elizabeth’s
+voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often, when wearied by
+a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should
+come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest
+friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to
+their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and
+persuade myself that they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that
+burned within me, died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards the
+destruction of the dæmon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the
+mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the
+ardent desire of my soul.
+
+What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed, he
+left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in stone that guided
+me and instigated my fury. “My reign is not yet
+over”—these words were legible in one of these
+inscriptions—“you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I
+seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of
+cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if
+you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my
+enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable
+hours must you endure until that period shall arrive.”
+
+Scoffing devil!  Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee,
+miserable fiend, to torture and death.  Never will I give up my search
+until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my
+Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare for me the
+reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage!
+
+As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and the
+cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The peasants were
+shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to
+seize the animals whom starvation had forced from their hiding-places to
+seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be
+procured; and thus I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance.
+
+The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours. One
+inscription that he left was in these words: “Prepare! Your toils
+only begin; wrap yourself in furs and provide food, for we shall soon enter
+upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting
+hatred.”
+
+My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I
+resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on Heaven to support
+me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts,
+until the ocean appeared at a distance and formed the utmost boundary
+of the horizon.  Oh!  How unlike it was to the blue seasons of the
+south!  Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by
+its superior wildness and ruggedness.  The Greeks wept for joy when
+they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with
+rapture the boundary of their toils.  I did not weep, but I knelt down
+and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in
+safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary’s gibe,
+to meet and grapple with him.
+
+Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus
+traversed the snows with inconceivable speed.  I know not whether the
+fiend possessed the same advantages, but I found that, as before I had
+daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him, so much so that
+when I first saw the ocean he was but one day’s journey in advance, and
+I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach.  With new
+courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched
+hamlet on the seashore.  I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the
+fiend and gained accurate information.  A gigantic monster, they said,
+had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols,
+putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage through fear of
+his terrific appearance.  He had carried off their store of winter
+food, and placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a
+numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same
+night, to the joy of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his
+journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land; and they
+conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the
+ice or frozen by the eternal  frosts.
+
+On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair.
+He had escaped me, and I must commence a destructive and almost endless
+journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few
+of the inhabitants could long endure and which I, the native of a
+genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive.  Yet at the idea
+that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance
+returned, and like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling.
+After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered
+round and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey.
+
+I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of
+the Frozen Ocean, and purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I
+departed from land.
+
+I cannot guess how many days have passed since then, but I have endured
+misery which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution
+burning within my heart could have enabled me to support.  Immense and
+rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often heard
+the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction.  But
+again the frost came and made the paths of the sea secure.
+
+By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I should guess that
+I had passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction
+of hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of
+despondency and grief from my eyes.  Despair had indeed almost secured
+her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery.  Once, after
+the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible toil gained the
+summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking under his fatigue,
+died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye
+caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain.  I strained my sight to
+discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I
+distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a well-known
+form within.  Oh!  With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart!
+Warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might
+not intercept the view I had of the dæmon; but still my sight was
+dimmed by the burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that
+oppressed me, I wept aloud.
+
+But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their
+dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food, and after an
+hour’s rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly
+irksome to me, I continued my route.  The sledge was still visible, nor
+did I again lose sight of it except at the moments when for a short
+time some ice-rock concealed it with its intervening crags.  I indeed
+perceptibly gained on it, and when, after nearly two days’ journey, I
+beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within
+me.
+
+But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were
+suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had
+ever done before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its progress, as
+the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every moment more ominous
+and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind arose; the sea roared;
+and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake, it split and cracked with a
+tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished; in a few
+minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left
+drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and
+thus preparing for me a hideous death.
+
+In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died, and I
+myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your
+vessel riding at anchor and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life.
+I had no conception that vessels ever came so far north and was astounded
+at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars, and
+by these means was enabled, with infinite fatigue, to move my ice raft in
+the direction of your ship. I had determined, if you were going southwards,
+still to trust myself to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my
+purpose. I hoped to induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue
+my enemy. But your direction was northwards. You took me on board when my
+vigour was exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied
+hardships into a death which I still dread, for my task is unfulfilled.
+
+Oh!  When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the dæmon, allow
+me the rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live?  If I do,
+swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him
+and satisfy my vengeance in his death.  And do I dare to ask of you to
+undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I have undergone?
+No; I am not so selfish.  Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear, if
+the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he
+shall not live—swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated
+woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes.  He is eloquent
+and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my heart; but
+trust him not.  His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery
+and fiend-like malice.  Hear him not; call on the names of William,
+Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and
+thrust your sword into his heart.  I will hover near and direct the
+steel aright.
+
+Walton, _in continuation._
+
+
+August 26th, 17—.
+
+
+You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not
+feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles
+mine?  Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his
+tale; at others, his voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with
+difficulty the words so replete with anguish.  His fine and lovely eyes
+were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow
+and quenched in infinite wretchedness.  Sometimes he commanded his
+countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents with a
+tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a
+volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression
+of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.
+
+His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest truth,
+yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he showed me,
+and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship, brought to me a
+greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than his asseverations,
+however earnest and connected. Such a monster has, then, really existence!
+I cannot doubt it, yet I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I
+endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his
+creature’s formation, but on this point he was impenetrable.
+
+“Are you mad, my friend?” said he. “Or whither does your
+senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the
+world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace! Learn my miseries and do not seek
+to increase your own.”
+
+Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history; he asked
+to see them and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places,
+but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held
+with his enemy. “Since you have preserved my narration,” said
+he, “I would not that a mutilated one should go down to
+posterity.”
+
+Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest
+tale that ever imagination formed.  My thoughts and every feeling of my
+soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale
+and his own elevated and gentle manners have created.  I wish to soothe
+him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of
+every hope of consolation, to live?  Oh, no!  The only joy that he can
+now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and
+death.  Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and
+delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his
+friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or
+excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his
+fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a
+remote world.  This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render
+them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.
+
+Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and
+misfortunes.  On every point of general literature he displays
+unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension.  His
+eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates
+a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love,
+without tears.  What a glorious creature must he have been in the days
+of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin!  He seems
+to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.
+
+“When younger,” said he, “I believed myself destined for
+some great enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness
+of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of
+the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been oppressed,
+for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that
+might be useful to my fellow creatures. When I reflected on the work I had
+completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational
+animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But
+this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now
+serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my speculations and hopes
+are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am
+chained in an eternal hell. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of
+analysis and application were intense; by the union of these qualities I
+conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Even now I cannot
+recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod
+heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea
+of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty
+ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! My friend, if you had known me as I once
+was, you would not recognise me in this state of degradation. Despondency
+rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell,
+never, never again to rise.”
+
+Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a friend; I have
+sought one who would sympathise with and love me. Behold, on these desert
+seas I have found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his
+value and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea.
+
+“I thank you, Walton,” he said, “for your kind intentions towards so
+miserable a wretch; but when you speak of new ties and fresh
+affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone?  Can any
+man be to me as Clerval was, or any woman another Elizabeth?  Even
+where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence,
+the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our
+minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.  They know our
+infantine dispositions, which, however they may be afterwards modified,
+are never eradicated; and they can judge of our actions with more
+certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives.  A sister or a
+brother can never, unless indeed such symptoms have been shown early,
+suspect the other of fraud or false dealing, when another friend,
+however strongly he may be attached, may, in spite of himself, be
+contemplated with suspicion.  But I enjoyed friends, dear not only
+through habit and association, but from their own merits; and wherever
+I am, the soothing voice of my Elizabeth and the conversation of
+Clerval will be ever whispered in my ear. They are dead, and but one
+feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life.  If I
+were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive
+utility to my fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it.  But
+such is not my destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I
+gave existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die.”
+
+My beloved Sister,
+
+September 2d.
+
+
+I write to you, encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am ever
+doomed to see again dear England and the dearer friends that inhabit
+it.  I am surrounded by mountains of ice which admit of no escape and
+threaten every moment to crush my vessel.  The brave fellows whom I
+have persuaded to be my companions look towards me for aid, but I have
+none to bestow.  There is something terribly appalling in our
+situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me.  Yet it is
+terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered
+through me.  If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
+
+And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will not hear of my
+destruction, and you will anxiously await my return. Years will pass, and
+you will have visitings of despair and yet be tortured by hope. Oh! My
+beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt expectations is,
+in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death. But you have a husband
+and lovely children; you may be happy. Heaven bless you and make you so!
+
+My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion.  He
+endeavours to fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession
+which he valued.  He reminds me how often the same accidents have
+happened to other navigators who have attempted this sea, and in spite
+of myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries.  Even the sailors feel
+the power of his eloquence; when he speaks, they no longer despair; he
+rouses their energies, and while they hear his voice they believe these
+vast mountains of ice are mole-hills which will vanish before the
+resolutions of man.  These feelings are transitory; each day of
+expectation delayed fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny
+caused by this despair.
+
+September 5th.
+
+
+A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest that, although it is
+highly probable that these papers may never reach you, yet I cannot
+forbear recording it.
+
+We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in imminent danger
+of being crushed in their conflict.  The cold is excessive, and many of
+my unfortunate comrades have already found a grave amidst this scene of
+desolation.  Frankenstein has daily declined in health; a feverish fire
+still glimmers in his eyes, but he is exhausted, and when suddenly
+roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again into apparent
+lifelessness.
+
+I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny.
+This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend—his
+eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlessly—I was roused by half
+a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin.  They
+entered, and their leader addressed me.  He told me that he and his
+companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in deputation
+to me to make me a requisition which, in justice, I could not refuse.
+We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they
+feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free
+passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and
+lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted
+this.  They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn
+promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my
+course southwards.
+
+This speech troubled me.  I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived
+the idea of returning if set free.  Yet could I, in justice, or even in
+possibility, refuse this demand?  I hesitated before I answered, when
+Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly
+to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled,
+and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour.  Turning towards the men,
+he said,
+
+“What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then,
+so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious
+expedition? “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was
+smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and
+terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth
+and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and
+these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this
+was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the
+benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men
+who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now,
+behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first
+mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content
+to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and
+peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm
+firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come
+thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove
+yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your
+purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your
+hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it
+shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace
+marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and
+who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”
+
+He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings expressed
+in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design and heroism, that can
+you wonder that these men were moved? They looked at one another and were
+unable to reply. I spoke; I told them to retire and consider of what had
+been said, that I would not lead them farther north if they strenuously
+desired the contrary, but that I hoped that, with reflection, their courage
+would return.
+
+They retired and I turned towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor and
+almost deprived of life.
+
+How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die than
+return shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled.  Yet I fear such will be my
+fate; the men, unsupported by ideas of glory and honour, can never
+willingly continue to endure their present hardships.
+
+September 7th.
+
+
+The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed.
+Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back
+ignorant and disappointed.  It requires more philosophy than I possess
+to bear this injustice with patience.
+
+September 12th.
+
+
+It is past; I am returning to England.  I have lost my hopes of utility
+and glory; I have lost my friend.  But I will endeavour to detail these
+bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted
+towards England and towards you, I will not despond.
+
+September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder were heard
+at a distance as the islands split and cracked in every direction. We were
+in the most imminent peril, but as we could only remain passive, my chief
+attention was occupied by my unfortunate guest whose illness increased in
+such a degree that he was entirely confined to his bed. The ice cracked
+behind us and was driven with force towards the north; a breeze sprang from
+the west, and on the 11th the passage towards the south became perfectly
+free. When the sailors saw this and that their return to their native
+country was apparently assured, a shout of tumultuous joy broke from them,
+loud and long-continued. Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke and asked the
+cause of the tumult. “They shout,” I said, “because they
+will soon return to England.”
+
+“Do you, then, really return?”
+
+“Alas!  Yes; I cannot withstand their demands.  I cannot lead them
+unwillingly to danger, and I must return.”
+
+“Do so, if you will; but I will not.  You may give up your purpose, but
+mine is assigned to me by Heaven, and I dare not.  I am weak, but
+surely the spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me with
+sufficient strength.”  Saying this, he endeavoured to spring from the
+bed, but the exertion was too great for him; he fell back and fainted.
+
+It was long before he was restored, and I often thought that life was
+entirely extinct.  At length he opened his eyes; he breathed with
+difficulty and was unable to speak.  The surgeon gave him a composing
+draught and ordered us to leave him undisturbed. In the meantime he
+told me that my friend had certainly not many hours to live.
+
+His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient. I sat
+by his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed, and I thought he slept; but
+presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and bidding me come near,
+said, “Alas! The strength I relied on is gone; I feel that I shall
+soon die, and he, my enemy and persecutor, may still be in being. Think
+not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I feel that burning
+hatred and ardent desire of revenge I once expressed; but I feel myself
+justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During these last days I
+have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable.
+In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was
+bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and
+well-being. This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to
+that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to
+my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or
+misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to
+create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity
+and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction
+beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I
+know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that he may
+render no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction was
+mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I
+asked you to undertake my unfinished work, and I renew this request now,
+when I am only induced by reason and virtue.
+
+“Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends to fulfil
+this task; and now that you are returning to England, you will have
+little chance of meeting with him.  But the consideration of these
+points, and the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties, I
+leave to you; my judgment and ideas are already disturbed by the near
+approach of death.  I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I
+may still be misled by passion.
+
+“That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in
+other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the
+only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years.  The forms of
+the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms.  Farewell,
+Walton!  Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it
+be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in
+science and discoveries.  Yet why do I say this?  I have myself been
+blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.”
+
+His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his
+effort, he sank into silence.  About half an hour afterwards he
+attempted again to speak but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and
+his eyes closed for ever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed
+away from his lips.
+
+Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this
+glorious spirit?  What can I say that will enable you to understand the
+depth of my sorrow?  All that I should express would be inadequate and
+feeble.  My tears flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of
+disappointment.  But I journey towards England, and I may there find
+consolation.
+
+I am interrupted.  What do these sounds portend?  It is midnight; the
+breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir.  Again there
+is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin
+where the remains of Frankenstein still lie.  I must arise and examine.
+Good night, my sister.
+
+Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the
+remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to detail
+it; yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete without this
+final and wonderful catastrophe.
+
+I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable
+friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to
+describe—gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its
+proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long
+locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and
+apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my
+approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror and sprung
+towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of
+such loathsome yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily and
+endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer.
+I called on him to stay.
+
+He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards the
+lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and
+every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some
+uncontrollable passion.
+
+“That is also my victim!” he exclaimed. “In his murder my
+crimes are consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its
+close! Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it
+avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee
+by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer
+me.”
+
+His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had suggested to
+me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in destroying his
+enemy, were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. I
+approached this tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to his
+face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness. I
+attempted to speak, but the words died away on my lips. The monster
+continued to utter wild and incoherent self-reproaches. At length I
+gathered resolution to address him in a pause of the tempest of his passion.
+
+“Your repentance,” I said, “is now superfluous. If you
+had listened to the voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse
+before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity,
+Frankenstein would yet have lived.”
+
+“And do you dream?” said the dæmon.  “Do you think that I was then
+dead to agony and remorse?  He,” he continued, pointing to the corpse,
+“he suffered not in the consummation of the deed. Oh!  Not the
+ten-thousandth portion of the anguish that was mine during the
+lingering detail of its execution.  A frightful selfishness hurried me
+on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse.  Think you that the
+groans of Clerval were music to my ears?  My heart was fashioned to be
+susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice
+and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without
+torture such as you cannot even imagine.
+
+“After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken
+and overcome.  I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I
+abhorred myself.  But when I discovered that he, the author at once of
+my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for
+happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me
+he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the
+indulgence of which I was for ever barred, then impotent envy and bitter
+indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance.  I
+recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished.  I
+knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the
+slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not
+disobey.  Yet when she died!  Nay, then I was not miserable.  I had
+cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my
+despair.  Evil thenceforth became my good.  Urged thus far, I had no
+choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly
+chosen.  The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable
+passion.  And now it is ended; there is my last victim!”
+
+I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called
+to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and
+persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my
+friend, indignation was rekindled within me. “Wretch!” I said.
+“It is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you
+have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are
+consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend!
+If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would
+he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you
+feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn
+from your power.”
+
+“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being.
+“Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to
+be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery.
+No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of
+virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being
+overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has
+become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into
+bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am
+content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am
+well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once
+my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once
+I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would
+love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was
+nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has
+degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no
+malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the
+frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same
+creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent
+visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the
+fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man
+had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
+
+“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my
+crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them
+he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured
+wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did
+not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still
+I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.  Was there no
+injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all
+humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his
+friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic
+who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous
+and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an
+abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my
+blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.
+
+“But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and
+the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to
+death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have
+devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and
+admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that
+irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but
+your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the
+hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the
+imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands
+will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.
+
+“Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work
+is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man’s death is needed to
+consummate the series of my being and accomplish that which must be done,
+but it requires my own. Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this
+sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which brought me
+thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall
+collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its
+remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would
+create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the
+agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet
+unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no
+more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no
+longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light,
+feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my
+happiness. Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first
+opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the
+rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to
+me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by
+crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in
+death?
+
+“Farewell!  I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these
+eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive
+and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better
+satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou
+didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness;
+and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think
+and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than
+that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to
+thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my
+wounds until death shall close them for ever.
+
+“But soon,” he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I
+shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning
+miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and
+exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration
+will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit
+will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus.
+Farewell.”
+
+He sprang from the cabin-window as he said this, upon the ice raft
+which lay close to the vessel.  He was soon borne away by the waves and
+lost in darkness and distance.
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Frankenstein, by
+Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/hamlet b/files/books/unrelated/hamlet
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/hamlet
@@ -0,0 +1,5063 @@
+Project Gutenberg EBook of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the
+United States, you’ll have to check the laws of the country where you
+are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Hamlet
+
+Author: William Shakespeare
+
+Release Date: November 1998 [EBook #1524]
+
+Last Updated: December 27, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAMLET ***
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by Dianne Bean.
+
+
+THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
+
+
+
+
+by William Shakespeare
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ACT I Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. Scene II.
+Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle Scene III. A room in Polonius’s
+house. Scene IV. The platform. Scene V. A more remote part of the
+Castle.
+
+ACT II Scene I. A room in Polonius’s house. Scene II. A room in the
+Castle.
+
+ACT III Scene I. A room in the Castle. Scene II. A hall in the Castle.
+Scene III. A room in the Castle. Scene IV. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ACT IV Scene I. A room in the Castle. Scene II. Another room in the
+Castle. Scene III. Another room in the Castle. Scene IV. A plain in
+Denmark. Scene V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle. Scene VI. Another
+room in the Castle. Scene VII. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ACT V Scene I. A churchyard. Scene II. A hall in the Castle.
+
+
+
+
+ Dramatis Personæ
+
+HAMLET, Prince of Denmark. CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle.
+The GHOST of the late king, Hamlet’s father. GERTRUDE, the Queen,
+Hamlet’s mother, now wife of Claudius. POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.
+LAERTES, Son to Polonius. OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius. HORATIO,
+Friend to Hamlet. FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway. VOLTEMAND, Courtier.
+CORNELIUS, Courtier. ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier. GUILDENSTERN, Courtier.
+MARCELLUS, Officer. BARNARDO, Officer. FRANCISCO, a Soldier OSRIC,
+Courtier. REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius. Players. A Gentleman,
+Courtier. A Priest. Two Clowns, Grave-diggers. A Captain. English
+Ambassadors. Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers,
+and Attendants.
+
+SCENE. Elsinore.
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
+
+ Enter Francisco and Barnardo, two sentinels.
+
+BARNARDO. Who’s there?
+
+FRANCISCO. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
+
+BARNARDO. Long live the King!
+
+FRANCISCO. Barnardo?
+
+BARNARDO. He.
+
+FRANCISCO. You come most carefully upon your hour.
+
+BARNARDO. ’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
+
+FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold, And I am sick
+at heart.
+
+BARNARDO. Have you had quiet guard?
+
+FRANCISCO. Not a mouse stirring.
+
+BARNARDO. Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The
+rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
+
+ Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
+
+FRANCISCO. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?
+
+HORATIO. Friends to this ground.
+
+MARCELLUS. And liegemen to the Dane.
+
+FRANCISCO. Give you good night.
+
+MARCELLUS. O, farewell, honest soldier, who hath reliev’d you?
+
+FRANCISCO. Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+MARCELLUS. Holla, Barnardo!
+
+BARNARDO. Say, what, is Horatio there?
+
+HORATIO. A piece of him.
+
+BARNARDO. Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
+
+MARCELLUS. What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?
+
+BARNARDO. I have seen nothing.
+
+MARCELLUS. Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief
+take hold of him Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
+Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of
+this night, That if again this apparition come He may approve our eyes
+and speak to it.
+
+HORATIO. Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.
+
+BARNARDO. Sit down awhile, And let us once again assail your ears, That
+are so fortified against our story, What we two nights have seen.
+
+HORATIO. Well, sit we down, And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
+
+BARNARDO. Last night of all, When yond same star that’s westward from
+the pole, Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven Where now it
+burns, Marcellus and myself, The bell then beating one—
+
+MARCELLUS. Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.
+
+ Enter Ghost.
+
+BARNARDO. In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.
+
+MARCELLUS. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
+
+BARNARDO. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
+
+HORATIO. Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
+
+BARNARDO It would be spoke to.
+
+MARCELLUS. Question it, Horatio.
+
+HORATIO. What art thou that usurp’st this time of night, Together with
+that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did
+sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak.
+
+MARCELLUS. It is offended.
+
+BARNARDO. See, it stalks away.
+
+HORATIO. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
+
+ [_Exit Ghost._]
+
+MARCELLUS. ’Tis gone, and will not answer.
+
+BARNARDO. How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale. Is not this
+something more than fantasy? What think you on’t?
+
+HORATIO. Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible
+and true avouch Of mine own eyes.
+
+MARCELLUS. Is it not like the King?
+
+HORATIO. As thou art to thyself: Such was the very armour he had on
+When he th’ambitious Norway combated; So frown’d he once, when in an
+angry parle He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. ’Tis strange.
+
+MARCELLUS. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial
+stalk hath he gone by our watch.
+
+HORATIO. In what particular thought to work I know not; But in the
+gross and scope of my opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our
+state.
+
+MARCELLUS. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this
+same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of
+the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon And foreign mart for
+implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
+Does not divide the Sunday from the week. What might be toward, that
+this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who
+is’t that can inform me?
+
+HORATIO. That can I; At least, the whisper goes so. Our last King,
+Whose image even but now appear’d to us, Was, as you know, by
+Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride, Dar’d
+to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet, For so this side of our
+known world esteem’d him, Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d
+compact, Well ratified by law and heraldry, Did forfeit, with his life,
+all those his lands Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror; Against
+the which, a moiety competent Was gaged by our King; which had return’d
+To the inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he been vanquisher; as by the
+same cov’nant And carriage of the article design’d, His fell to Hamlet.
+Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle, hot and full, Hath in
+the skirts of Norway, here and there, Shark’d up a list of lawless
+resolutes, For food and diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach
+in’t; which is no other, As it doth well appear unto our state, But to
+recover of us by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid
+lands So by his father lost. And this, I take it, Is the main motive of
+our preparations, The source of this our watch, and the chief head Of
+this post-haste and rummage in the land.
+
+BARNARDO. I think it be no other but e’en so: Well may it sort that
+this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch so like the King
+That was and is the question of these wars.
+
+HORATIO. A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye. In the most high and
+palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves
+stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the
+Roman streets; As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
+Disasters in the sun; and the moist star, Upon whose influence
+Neptune’s empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. And
+even the like precurse of fierce events, As harbingers preceding still
+the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth
+together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen.
+
+ Re-enter Ghost.
+
+But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again! I’ll cross it, though it
+blast me. Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
+Speak to me. If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do
+ease, and grace to me, Speak to me. If thou art privy to thy country’s
+fate, Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O speak! Or if thou hast
+uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, For
+which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, Speak of it. Stay, and
+speak!
+
+ [_The cock crows._]
+
+Stop it, Marcellus!
+
+MARCELLUS. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
+
+HORATIO. Do, if it will not stand.
+
+BARNARDO. ’Tis here!
+
+HORATIO. ’Tis here!
+
+ [_Exit Ghost._]
+
+MARCELLUS. ’Tis gone! We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it
+the show of violence, For it is as the air, invulnerable, And our vain
+blows malicious mockery.
+
+BARNARDO. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
+
+HORATIO. And then it started, like a guilty thing Upon a fearful
+summons. I have heard The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth
+with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and at
+his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, Th’extravagant
+and erring spirit hies To his confine. And of the truth herein This
+present object made probation.
+
+MARCELLUS. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever
+’gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
+The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no
+spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets
+strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm; So hallow’d and
+so gracious is the time.
+
+HORATIO. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But look, the morn
+in russet mantle clad, Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
+Break we our watch up, and by my advice, Let us impart what we have
+seen tonight Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life, This spirit, dumb to
+us, will speak to him. Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As
+needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
+
+MARCELLUS. Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know Where we shall
+find him most conveniently.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius,
+ Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.
+
+KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be
+green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our
+whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe; Yet so far hath
+discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
+Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister,
+now our queen, Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as
+’twere with a defeated joy, With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
+With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale
+weighing delight and dole, Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d
+Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For
+all, our thanks. Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras, Holding a
+weak supposal of our worth, Or thinking by our late dear brother’s
+death Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, Colleagued with this
+dream of his advantage, He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,
+Importing the surrender of those lands Lost by his father, with all
+bonds of law, To our most valiant brother. So much for him. Now for
+ourself and for this time of meeting: Thus much the business is: we
+have here writ To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, Who, impotent and
+bed-rid, scarcely hears Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress His
+further gait herein; in that the levies, The lists, and full
+proportions are all made Out of his subject: and we here dispatch You,
+good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand, For bearers of this greeting to old
+Norway, Giving to you no further personal power To business with the
+King, more than the scope Of these dilated articles allow. Farewell;
+and let your haste commend your duty.
+
+CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND. In that, and all things, will we show our
+duty.
+
+KING. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
+
+ [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]
+
+And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? You told us of some suit.
+What is’t, Laertes? You cannot speak of reason to the Dane, And lose
+your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, That shall not be my offer,
+not thy asking? The head is not more native to the heart, The hand more
+instrumental to the mouth, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
+What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
+
+LAERTES. Dread my lord, Your leave and favour to return to France, From
+whence though willingly I came to Denmark To show my duty in your
+coronation; Yet now I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and
+wishes bend again toward France, And bow them to your gracious leave
+and pardon.
+
+KING. Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?
+
+POLONIUS. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laboursome
+petition; and at last Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent. I do
+beseech you give him leave to go.
+
+KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces
+spend it at thy will! But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—
+
+HAMLET. [_Aside._] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
+
+KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
+
+HAMLET. Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun.
+
+QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look
+like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for
+thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives
+must die, Passing through nature to eternity.
+
+HAMLET. Ay, madam, it is common.
+
+QUEEN. If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee?
+
+HAMLET. Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems. ’Tis not alone my
+inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy
+suspiration of forc’d breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
+Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, moods,
+shows of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed seem, For they
+are actions that a man might play; But I have that within which passeth
+show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
+
+KING. ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these
+mourning duties to your father; But you must know, your father lost a
+father, That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial
+obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere In
+obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly
+grief, It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a
+mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool’d; For what we
+know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
+Why should we in our peevish opposition Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a
+fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason
+most absurd, whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath
+cried, From the first corse till he that died today, ‘This must be so.’
+We pray you throw to earth This unprevailing woe, and think of us As of
+a father; for let the world take note You are the most immediate to our
+throne, And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest
+father bears his son Do I impart toward you. For your intent In going
+back to school in Wittenberg, It is most retrograde to our desire: And
+we beseech you bend you to remain Here in the cheer and comfort of our
+eye, Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
+
+QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. I pray thee stay
+with us; go not to Wittenberg.
+
+HAMLET. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
+
+KING. Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply. Be as ourself in Denmark.
+Madam, come; This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to
+my heart; in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
+But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, And the King’s rouse the
+heaven shall bruit again, Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]
+
+HAMLET. O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve
+itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon
+’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and
+unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on’t! Oh fie!
+’tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank and gross in
+nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months
+dead—nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was to this
+Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem
+the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must
+I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had
+grown By what it fed on; and yet, within a month— Let me not think
+on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman! A little month, or ere those shoes
+were old With which she followed my poor father’s body Like Niobe, all
+tears.—Why she, even she— O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
+Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle, My father’s
+brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. Within a month?
+Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her
+galled eyes, She married. O most wicked speed, to post With such
+dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
+But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
+
+ Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.
+
+HORATIO. Hail to your lordship!
+
+HAMLET. I am glad to see you well: Horatio, or I do forget myself.
+
+HORATIO. The same, my lord, And your poor servant ever.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you: And what
+make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?— Marcellus?
+
+MARCELLUS. My good lord.
+
+HAMLET. I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.— But what, in faith,
+make you from Wittenberg?
+
+HORATIO. A truant disposition, good my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I would not hear your enemy say so; Nor shall you do my ear
+that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself.
+I know you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore? We’ll
+teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
+
+HORATIO. My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
+
+HAMLET. I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student. I think it was to see
+my mother’s wedding.
+
+HORATIO. Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
+
+HAMLET. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly
+furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in
+heaven Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio. My father,—methinks I see
+my father.
+
+HORATIO. Where, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
+
+HORATIO. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
+
+HAMLET. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon
+his like again.
+
+HORATIO. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
+
+HAMLET. Saw? Who?
+
+HORATIO. My lord, the King your father.
+
+HAMLET. The King my father!
+
+HORATIO. Season your admiration for a while With an attent ear, till I
+may deliver Upon the witness of these gentlemen This marvel to you.
+
+HAMLET. For God’s love let me hear.
+
+HORATIO. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and
+Barnardo, on their watch In the dead waste and middle of the night,
+Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father, Armed at point
+exactly, cap-à-pie, Appears before them, and with solemn march Goes
+slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d By their oppress’d and
+fear-surprised eyes, Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they,
+distill’d Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb, and speak
+not to him. This to me In dreadful secrecy impart they did, And I with
+them the third night kept the watch, Where, as they had deliver’d, both
+in time, Form of the thing, each word made true and good, The
+apparition comes. I knew your father; These hands are not more like.
+
+HAMLET. But where was this?
+
+MARCELLUS. My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
+
+HAMLET. Did you not speak to it?
+
+HORATIO. My lord, I did; But answer made it none: yet once methought It
+lifted up it head, and did address Itself to motion, like as it would
+speak. But even then the morning cock crew loud, And at the sound it
+shrunk in haste away, And vanish’d from our sight.
+
+HAMLET. ’Tis very strange.
+
+HORATIO. As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true; And we did think it
+writ down in our duty To let you know of it.
+
+HAMLET. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch
+tonight?
+
+Mar. and BARNARDO. We do, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Arm’d, say you?
+
+Both. Arm’d, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. From top to toe?
+
+BOTH. My lord, from head to foot.
+
+HAMLET. Then saw you not his face?
+
+HORATIO. O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.
+
+HAMLET. What, look’d he frowningly?
+
+HORATIO. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
+
+HAMLET. Pale, or red?
+
+HORATIO. Nay, very pale.
+
+HAMLET. And fix’d his eyes upon you?
+
+HORATIO. Most constantly.
+
+HAMLET. I would I had been there.
+
+HORATIO. It would have much amaz’d you.
+
+HAMLET. Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?
+
+HORATIO. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
+
+MARCELLUS and BARNARDO. Longer, longer.
+
+HORATIO. Not when I saw’t.
+
+HAMLET. His beard was grizzled, no?
+
+HORATIO. It was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver’d.
+
+HAMLET. I will watch tonight; Perchance ’twill walk again.
+
+HORATIO. I warrant you it will.
+
+HAMLET. If it assume my noble father’s person, I’ll speak to it, though
+hell itself should gape And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, If
+you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, Let it be tenable in your
+silence still; And whatsoever else shall hap tonight, Give it an
+understanding, but no tongue. I will requite your loves. So, fare ye
+well. Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve, I’ll visit you.
+
+ALL. Our duty to your honour.
+
+HAMLET. Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
+
+ [_Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo._]
+
+My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well; I doubt some foul play:
+would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds
+will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE III. A room in Polonius’s house.
+
+ Enter Laertes and Ophelia.
+
+LAERTES. My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell. And, sister, as the
+winds give benefit And convoy is assistant, do not sleep, But let me
+hear from you.
+
+OPHELIA. Do you doubt that?
+
+LAERTES. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion
+and a toy in blood; A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not
+permanent, sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
+No more.
+
+OPHELIA. No more but so?
+
+LAERTES. Think it no more. For nature crescent does not grow alone In
+thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes, The inward service of the
+mind and soul Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now, And now no
+soil nor cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will; but you must
+fear, His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own; For he himself is
+subject to his birth: He may not, as unvalu’d persons do, Carve for
+himself; for on his choice depends The sanctity and health of this
+whole state; And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d Unto the
+voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head. Then if he says
+he loves you, It fits your wisdom so far to believe it As he in his
+particular act and place May give his saying deed; which is no further
+Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your
+honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs, Or lose
+your heart, or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster’d importunity.
+Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister; And keep you in the rear of
+your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid
+is prodigal enough If she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself
+scopes not calumnious strokes: The canker galls the infants of the
+spring Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d, And in the morn and
+liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary
+then, best safety lies in fear. Youth to itself rebels, though none
+else near.
+
+OPHELIA. I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my
+heart. But good my brother, Do not as some ungracious pastors do, Show
+me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst like a puff’d and
+reckless libertine Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And
+recks not his own rede.
+
+LAERTES. O, fear me not. I stay too long. But here my father comes.
+
+ Enter Polonius.
+
+A double blessing is a double grace; Occasion smiles upon a second
+leave.
+
+POLONIUS. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame. The wind sits
+in the shoulder of your sail, And you are stay’d for. There, my
+blessing with you.
+
+ [_Laying his hand on Laertes’s head._]
+
+And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy
+thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. Be thou
+familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their
+adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel; But do
+not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d
+comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear’t that
+th’opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy
+voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy
+habit as thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not
+gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France of the
+best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
+Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and
+friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to
+thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou
+canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this
+in thee.
+
+LAERTES. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
+
+LAERTES. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well What I have said to you.
+
+OPHELIA. ’Tis in my memory lock’d, And you yourself shall keep the key
+of it.
+
+LAERTES. Farewell.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+POLONIUS. What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
+
+OPHELIA. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
+
+POLONIUS. Marry, well bethought: ’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
+Given private time to you; and you yourself Have of your audience been
+most free and bounteous. If it be so,—as so ’tis put on me, And that in
+way of caution,—I must tell you You do not understand yourself so
+clearly As it behoves my daughter and your honour. What is between you?
+Give me up the truth.
+
+OPHELIA. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection
+to me.
+
+POLONIUS. Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl, Unsifted in
+such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders, as you call
+them?
+
+OPHELIA. I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
+
+POLONIUS. Marry, I’ll teach you; think yourself a baby; That you have
+ta’en these tenders for true pay, Which are not sterling. Tender
+yourself more dearly; Or,—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
+Roaming it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.
+
+OPHELIA. My lord, he hath importun’d me with love In honourable
+fashion.
+
+POLONIUS. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
+
+OPHELIA. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost
+all the holy vows of heaven.
+
+POLONIUS. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood
+burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows: these blazes,
+daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, Even in their
+promise, as it is a-making, You must not take for fire. From this time
+Be something scanter of your maiden presence; Set your entreatments at
+a higher rate Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, Believe so
+much in him that he is young; And with a larger tether may he walk Than
+may be given you. In few, Ophelia, Do not believe his vows; for they
+are brokers, Not of that dye which their investments show, But mere
+implorators of unholy suits, Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
+The better to beguile. This is for all. I would not, in plain terms,
+from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give
+words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. Look to’t, I charge you; come your
+ways.
+
+OPHELIA. I shall obey, my lord.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE IV. The platform.
+
+ Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.
+
+HAMLET. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
+
+HORATIO. It is a nipping and an eager air.
+
+HAMLET. What hour now?
+
+HORATIO. I think it lacks of twelve.
+
+MARCELLUS. No, it is struck.
+
+HORATIO. Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season Wherein
+the spirit held his wont to walk.
+
+ [_A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within._]
+
+What does this mean, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail,
+and the swaggering upspring reels; And as he drains his draughts of
+Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of
+his pledge.
+
+HORATIO. Is it a custom?
+
+HAMLET. Ay marry is’t; And to my mind, though I am native here, And to
+the manner born, it is a custom More honour’d in the breach than the
+observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduc’d and
+tax’d of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish
+phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes From our achievements,
+though perform’d at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute. So
+oft it chances in particular men That for some vicious mole of nature
+in them, As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty, Since nature
+cannot choose his origin, By their o’ergrowth of some complexion, Oft
+breaking down the pales and forts of reason; Or by some habit, that too
+much o’erleavens The form of plausive manners;—that these men,
+Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being Nature’s livery or
+Fortune’s star,— His virtues else,—be they as pure as grace, As
+infinite as man may undergo, Shall in the general censure take
+corruption From that particular fault. The dram of evil Doth all the
+noble substance often doubt To his own scandal.
+
+HORATIO. Look, my lord, it comes!
+
+ Enter Ghost.
+
+HAMLET. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of
+health or goblin damn’d, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts
+from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com’st in such a
+questionable shape That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
+King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance;
+but tell Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their
+cerements; why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d, Hath
+op’d his ponderous and marble jaws To cast thee up again! What may this
+mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel, Revisit’st thus
+the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
+So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches
+of our souls? Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
+
+ [_Ghost beckons Hamlet._]
+
+HORATIO. It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment
+did desire To you alone.
+
+MARCELLUS. Look with what courteous action It waves you to a more
+removed ground. But do not go with it.
+
+HORATIO. No, by no means.
+
+HAMLET. It will not speak; then will I follow it.
+
+HORATIO. Do not, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s
+fee; And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as
+itself? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
+
+HORATIO. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the
+dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
+And there assume some other horrible form Which might deprive your
+sovereignty of reason, And draw you into madness? Think of it. The very
+place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain
+That looks so many fadoms to the sea And hears it roar beneath.
+
+HAMLET. It waves me still. Go on, I’ll follow thee.
+
+MARCELLUS. You shall not go, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Hold off your hands.
+
+HORATIO. Be rul’d; you shall not go.
+
+HAMLET. My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As
+hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
+
+ [_Ghost beckons._]
+
+Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
+
+ [_Breaking free from them._]
+
+By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me. I say, away!—Go on,
+I’ll follow thee.
+
+ [_Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet._]
+
+HORATIO. He waxes desperate with imagination.
+
+MARCELLUS. Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.
+
+HORATIO. Have after. To what issue will this come?
+
+MARCELLUS. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
+
+HORATIO. Heaven will direct it.
+
+MARCELLUS. Nay, let’s follow him.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE V. A more remote part of the Castle.
+
+ Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.
+
+GHOST. Mark me.
+
+HAMLET. I will.
+
+GHOST. My hour is almost come, When I to sulph’rous and tormenting
+flames Must render up myself.
+
+HAMLET. Alas, poor ghost!
+
+GHOST. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall
+unfold.
+
+HAMLET. Speak, I am bound to hear.
+
+GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
+
+HAMLET. What?
+
+GHOST. I am thy father’s spirit, Doom’d for a certain term to walk the
+night, And for the day confin’d to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes
+done in my days of nature Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am
+forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold
+whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood,
+Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and
+combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like
+quills upon the fretful porcupine. But this eternal blazon must not be
+To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy
+dear father love—
+
+HAMLET. O God!
+
+GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
+
+HAMLET. Murder!
+
+GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul,
+strange, and unnatural.
+
+HAMLET. Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation
+or the thoughts of love May sweep to my revenge.
+
+GHOST. I find thee apt; And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
+That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this.
+Now, Hamlet, hear. ’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A
+serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of
+my death Rankly abus’d; but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that
+did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.
+
+HAMLET. O my prophetic soul! Mine uncle!
+
+GHOST. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of
+his wit, with traitorous gifts,— O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the
+power So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust The will of my most
+seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling off was there, From
+me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with
+the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch whose
+natural gifts were poor To those of mine. But virtue, as it never will
+be mov’d, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; So lust,
+though to a radiant angel link’d, Will sate itself in a celestial bed
+And prey on garbage. But soft! methinks I scent the morning air; Brief
+let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, My custom always of the
+afternoon, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole With juice of cursed
+hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous
+distilment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That
+swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of
+the body; And with a sudden vigour it doth posset And curd, like eager
+droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine; And
+a most instant tetter bark’d about, Most lazar-like, with vile and
+loathsome crust All my smooth body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a
+brother’s hand, Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d: Cut off
+even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d; No
+reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my
+head. O horrible! O horrible! most horrible! If thou hast nature in
+thee, bear it not; Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for
+luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursu’st this act, Taint
+not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught; leave
+her to heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick
+and sting her. Fare thee well at once! The glow-worm shows the matin to
+be near, And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu, adieu.
+Hamlet, remember me.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+HAMLET. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I
+couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not
+instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee? Ay, thou poor
+ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember
+thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond
+records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth
+and observation copied there; And thy commandment all alone shall live
+Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes,
+by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling damned
+villain! My tables. Meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and
+smile, and be a villain! At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
+
+ [_Writing._]
+
+So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word; It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember
+me.’ I have sworn’t.
+
+HORATIO and MARCELLUS. [_Within._] My lord, my lord.
+
+MARCELLUS. [_Within._] Lord Hamlet.
+
+HORATIO. [_Within._] Heaven secure him.
+
+HAMLET. So be it!
+
+MARCELLUS. [_Within._] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
+
+HAMLET. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.
+
+ Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
+
+MARCELLUS. How is’t, my noble lord?
+
+HORATIO. What news, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. O, wonderful!
+
+HORATIO. Good my lord, tell it.
+
+HAMLET. No, you’ll reveal it.
+
+HORATIO. Not I, my lord, by heaven.
+
+MARCELLUS. Nor I, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. How say you then, would heart of man once think it?— But you’ll
+be secret?
+
+HORATIO and MARCELLUS. Ay, by heaven, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he’s an
+arrant knave.
+
+HORATIO. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us
+this.
+
+HAMLET. Why, right; you are i’ the right; And so, without more
+circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part: You,
+as your business and desires shall point you,— For every man hath
+business and desire, Such as it is;—and for my own poor part, Look you,
+I’ll go pray.
+
+HORATIO. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I’m sorry they offend you, heartily; Yes faith, heartily.
+
+HORATIO. There’s no offence, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio, And much offence
+too. Touching this vision here, It is an honest ghost, that let me tell
+you. For your desire to know what is between us, O’ermaster’t as you
+may. And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
+Give me one poor request.
+
+HORATIO. What is’t, my lord? We will.
+
+HAMLET. Never make known what you have seen tonight.
+
+HORATIO and MARCELLUS. My lord, we will not.
+
+HAMLET. Nay, but swear’t.
+
+HORATIO. In faith, my lord, not I.
+
+MARCELLUS. Nor I, my lord, in faith.
+
+HAMLET. Upon my sword.
+
+MARCELLUS. We have sworn, my lord, already.
+
+HAMLET. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
+
+GHOST. [_Cries under the stage._] Swear.
+
+HAMLET. Ha, ha boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny? Come on,
+you hear this fellow in the cellarage. Consent to swear.
+
+HORATIO. Propose the oath, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Never to speak of this that you have seen. Swear by my sword.
+
+GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.
+
+HAMLET. _Hic et ubique?_ Then we’ll shift our ground. Come hither,
+gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my sword. Never to speak of
+this that you have heard. Swear by my sword.
+
+GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.
+
+HAMLET. Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ th’earth so fast? A worthy
+pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
+
+HORATIO. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
+
+HAMLET. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more
+things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your
+philosophy. But come, Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How
+strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,— As I perchance hereafter shall
+think meet To put an antic disposition on— That you, at such times
+seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake,
+Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As ‘Well, we know’, or ‘We
+could and if we would’, Or ‘If we list to speak’; or ‘There be and if
+they might’, Or such ambiguous giving out, to note That you know aught
+of me:—this not to do. So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
+Swear.
+
+GHOST. [_Beneath._] Swear.
+
+HAMLET. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen, With all my love I
+do commend me to you; And what so poor a man as Hamlet is May do
+t’express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack.
+Let us go in together, And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The
+time is out of joint. O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it
+right. Nay, come, let’s go together.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+SCENE I. A room in Polonius’s house.
+
+ Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.
+
+POLONIUS. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
+
+REYNALDO. I will, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you
+visit him, to make inquiry Of his behaviour.
+
+REYNALDO. My lord, I did intend it.
+
+POLONIUS. Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir, Enquire me
+first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who, what means, and
+where they keep, What company, at what expense; and finding By this
+encompassment and drift of question, That they do know my son, come you
+more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it. Take you as
+’twere some distant knowledge of him, As thus, ‘I know his father and
+his friends, And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?
+
+REYNALDO. Ay, very well, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. ‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well; But if’t be
+he I mean, he’s very wild; Addicted so and so;’ and there put on him
+What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank As may dishonour him;
+take heed of that; But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips As are
+companions noted and most known To youth and liberty.
+
+REYNALDO. As gaming, my lord?
+
+POLONIUS. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, Quarrelling, drabbing.
+You may go so far.
+
+REYNALDO. My lord, that would dishonour him.
+
+POLONIUS. Faith no, as you may season it in the charge. You must not
+put another scandal on him, That he is open to incontinency; That’s not
+my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly That they may seem the
+taints of liberty; The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind, A savageness
+in unreclaimed blood, Of general assault.
+
+REYNALDO. But my good lord—
+
+POLONIUS. Wherefore should you do this?
+
+REYNALDO. Ay, my lord, I would know that.
+
+POLONIUS. Marry, sir, here’s my drift, And I believe it is a fetch of
+warrant. You laying these slight sullies on my son, As ’twere a thing a
+little soil’d i’ th’ working, Mark you, Your party in converse, him you
+would sound, Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes The youth you
+breathe of guilty, be assur’d He closes with you in this consequence;
+‘Good sir,’ or so; or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman’— According to the phrase
+or the addition Of man and country.
+
+REYNALDO. Very good, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. And then, sir, does he this,— He does—What was I about to
+say? By the mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?
+
+REYNALDO. At ‘closes in the consequence.’ At ‘friend or so,’ and
+‘gentleman.’
+
+POLONIUS. At ‘closes in the consequence’ ay, marry! He closes with you
+thus: ‘I know the gentleman, I saw him yesterday, or t’other day, Or
+then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say, There was he
+gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse, There falling out at tennis’: or
+perchance, ‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’— _Videlicet_, a
+brothel, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falsehood takes this
+carp of truth; And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses,
+and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out. So by my
+former lecture and advice Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
+
+REYNALDO. My lord, I have.
+
+POLONIUS. God b’ wi’ you, fare you well.
+
+REYNALDO. Good my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. Observe his inclination in yourself.
+
+REYNALDO. I shall, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. And let him ply his music.
+
+REYNALDO. Well, my lord.
+
+POLONIUS. Farewell.
+
+ [_Exit Reynaldo._]
+
+ Enter Ophelia.
+
+How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?
+
+OPHELIA. Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.
+
+POLONIUS. With what, in the name of God?
+
+OPHELIA. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber, Lord Hamlet, with his
+doublet all unbrac’d, No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,
+Ungart’red, and down-gyved to his ankle, Pale as his shirt, his knees
+knocking each other, And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had
+been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors, he comes before me.
+
+POLONIUS. Mad for thy love?
+
+OPHELIA. My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.
+
+POLONIUS. What said he?
+
+OPHELIA. He took me by the wrist and held me hard; Then goes he to the
+length of all his arm; And with his other hand thus o’er his brow, He
+falls to such perusal of my face As he would draw it. Long stay’d he
+so, At last,—a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus
+waving up and down, He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound As it did
+seem to shatter all his bulk And end his being. That done, he lets me
+go, And with his head over his shoulder turn’d He seem’d to find his
+way without his eyes, For out o’ doors he went without their help, And
+to the last bended their light on me.
+
+POLONIUS. Come, go with me. I will go seek the King. This is the very
+ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itself, And leads the
+will to desperate undertakings, As oft as any passion under heaven That
+does afflict our natures. I am sorry,— What, have you given him any
+hard words of late?
+
+OPHELIA. No, my good lord; but as you did command, I did repel his
+letters and denied His access to me.
+
+POLONIUS. That hath made him mad. I am sorry that with better heed and
+judgment I had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle, And meant to
+wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy! It seems it is as proper to our
+age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions As it is common for the
+younger sort To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King. This must be
+known, which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide than hate
+to utter love.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. A room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.
+
+KING. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Moreover that we much
+did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty
+sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call
+it, Since nor th’exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was.
+What it should be, More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
+So much from th’understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat
+you both That, being of so young days brought up with him, And since so
+neighbour’d to his youth and humour, That you vouchsafe your rest here
+in our court Some little time, so by your companies To draw him on to
+pleasures and to gather, So much as from occasion you may glean,
+Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That, open’d, lies within
+our remedy.
+
+QUEEN. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you, And sure I am, two
+men there are not living To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
+To show us so much gentry and good will As to expend your time with us
+awhile, For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall
+receive such thanks As fits a king’s remembrance.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Both your majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have
+of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. We both obey, And here give up ourselves, in the full
+bent, To lay our service freely at your feet To be commanded.
+
+KING. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
+
+QUEEN. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz. And I beseech you
+instantly to visit My too much changed son. Go, some of you, And bring
+these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Heavens make our presence and our practices Pleasant and
+helpful to him.
+
+QUEEN. Ay, amen.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants._]
+
+ Enter Polonius.
+
+POLONIUS. Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully
+return’d.
+
+KING. Thou still hast been the father of good news.
+
+POLONIUS. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty,
+as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King: And I do
+think,—or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
+As it hath us’d to do—that I have found The very cause of Hamlet’s
+lunacy.
+
+KING. O speak of that, that do I long to hear.
+
+POLONIUS. Give first admittance to th’ambassadors; My news shall be the
+fruit to that great feast.
+
+KING. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
+
+ [_Exit Polonius._]
+
+He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found The head and source of
+all your son’s distemper.
+
+QUEEN. I doubt it is no other but the main, His father’s death and our
+o’erhasty marriage.
+
+KING. Well, we shall sift him.
+
+ Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.
+
+Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?
+
+VOLTEMAND. Most fair return of greetings and desires. Upon our first,
+he sent out to suppress His nephew’s levies, which to him appear’d To
+be a preparation ’gainst the Polack; But better look’d into, he truly
+found It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d, That so his
+sickness, age, and impotence Was falsely borne in hand, sends out
+arrests On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys, Receives rebuke from
+Norway; and in fine, Makes vow before his uncle never more To give
+th’assay of arms against your Majesty. Whereon old Norway, overcome
+with joy, Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee, And his
+commission to employ those soldiers So levied as before, against the
+Polack: With an entreaty, herein further shown, [_Gives a paper._] That
+it might please you to give quiet pass Through your dominions for this
+enterprise, On such regards of safety and allowance As therein are set
+down.
+
+KING. It likes us well; And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,
+Answer, and think upon this business. Meantime we thank you for your
+well-took labour. Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:. Most
+welcome home.
+
+ [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]
+
+POLONIUS. This business is well ended. My liege and madam, to
+expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night
+night, and time is time. Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
+Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs
+and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. Mad
+call I it; for to define true madness, What is’t but to be nothing else
+but mad? But let that go.
+
+QUEEN. More matter, with less art.
+
+POLONIUS. Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he is mad, ’tis
+true: ’tis true ’tis pity; And pity ’tis ’tis true. A foolish figure,
+But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then. And
+now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say,
+the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause.
+Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend, I have a
+daughter—have whilst she is mine— Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
+Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise. [_Reads._] _To the
+celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia_— That’s an
+ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile phrase: but you shall
+hear. [_Reads._] _these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c._
+
+QUEEN. Came this from Hamlet to her?
+
+POLONIUS. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful. [_Reads._]
+_Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt
+truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. O dear Ophelia, I am ill at
+these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee
+best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady,
+whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET._ This in obedience hath my
+daughter show’d me; And more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell
+out by time, by means, and place, All given to mine ear.
+
+KING. But how hath she receiv’d his love?
+
+POLONIUS. What do you think of me?
+
+KING. As of a man faithful and honourable.
+
+POLONIUS. I would fain prove so. But what might you think, When I had
+seen this hot love on the wing, As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you
+that, Before my daughter told me, what might you, Or my dear Majesty
+your queen here, think, If I had play’d the desk or table-book, Or
+given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, Or look’d upon this love with
+idle sight, What might you think? No, I went round to work, And my
+young mistress thus I did bespeak: ‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy
+star. This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her, That she should
+lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
+Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, And he, repulsed,—a short
+tale to make— Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch,
+thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
+Into the madness wherein now he raves, And all we wail for.
+
+KING. Do you think ’tis this?
+
+QUEEN. It may be, very likely.
+
+POLONIUS. Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that, That I have
+positively said ‘’Tis so,’ When it prov’d otherwise?
+
+KING. Not that I know.
+
+POLONIUS. Take this from this, if this be otherwise. [_Points to his
+head and shoulder._] If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth
+is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.
+
+KING. How may we try it further?
+
+POLONIUS. You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the
+lobby.
+
+QUEEN. So he does indeed.
+
+POLONIUS. At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I
+behind an arras then, Mark the encounter. If he love her not, And be
+not from his reason fall’n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state,
+But keep a farm and carters.
+
+KING. We will try it.
+
+ Enter Hamlet, reading.
+
+QUEEN. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
+
+POLONIUS. Away, I do beseech you, both away I’ll board him presently.
+O, give me leave.
+
+ [_Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants._]
+
+How does my good Lord Hamlet?
+
+HAMLET. Well, God-a-mercy.
+
+POLONIUS. Do you know me, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Excellent well. You’re a fishmonger.
+
+POLONIUS. Not I, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Then I would you were so honest a man.
+
+POLONIUS. Honest, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Ay sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
+picked out of ten thousand.
+
+POLONIUS. That’s very true, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good
+kissing carrion,— Have you a daughter?
+
+POLONIUS. I have, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not
+as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.
+
+POLONIUS. How say you by that? [_Aside._] Still harping on my daughter.
+Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far
+gone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
+love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my
+lord?
+
+HAMLET. Words, words, words.
+
+POLONIUS. What is the matter, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Between who?
+
+POLONIUS. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men
+have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging
+thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of
+wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most
+powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it
+thus set down. For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a
+crab you could go backward.
+
+POLONIUS. [_Aside._] Though this be madness, yet there is a method
+in’t.— Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Into my grave?
+
+POLONIUS. Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [_Aside._] How pregnant
+sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on,
+which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I
+will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him
+and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave
+of you.
+
+HAMLET. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more
+willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.
+
+POLONIUS. Fare you well, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. These tedious old fools.
+
+ Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+POLONIUS. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. [_To Polonius._] God save you, sir.
+
+ [_Exit Polonius._]
+
+GUILDENSTERN. My honoured lord!
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. My most dear lord!
+
+HAMLET. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
+Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. As the indifferent children of the earth.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Happy in that we are not over-happy; On Fortune’s cap we
+are not the very button.
+
+HAMLET. Nor the soles of her shoe?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Neither, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Faith, her privates we.
+
+HAMLET. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a
+strumpet. What’s the news?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
+
+HAMLET. Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me
+question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved
+at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Prison, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Denmark’s a prison.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Then is the world one.
+
+HAMLET. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and
+dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. We think not so, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or
+bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for
+your mind.
+
+HAMLET. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
+king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very
+substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
+
+HAMLET. A dream itself is but a shadow.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality
+that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
+
+HAMLET. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d
+heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I
+cannot reason.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We’ll wait upon you.
+
+HAMLET. No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my
+servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully
+attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at
+Elsinore?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.
+
+HAMLET. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you.
+And sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you
+not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
+deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. What should we say, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there
+is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not
+craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for
+you.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. To what end, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights
+of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of
+our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
+charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent
+for or no.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. [_To Guildenstern._] What say you?
+
+HAMLET. [_Aside._] Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold
+not off.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. My lord, we were sent for.
+
+HAMLET. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your
+discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I
+have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all
+custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition
+that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory;
+this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging
+firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
+appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of
+vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason? How infinite
+in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable? In action
+how like an angel? In apprehension, how like a god? The beauty of the
+world, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this
+quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither,
+though by your smiling you seem to say so.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
+
+HAMLET. Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten
+entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the
+way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.
+
+HAMLET. He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have
+tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target;
+the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in
+peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle a’ th’
+sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall
+halt for’t. What players are they?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the
+tragedians of the city.
+
+HAMLET. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation
+and profit, was better both ways.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late
+innovation.
+
+HAMLET. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the
+city? Are they so followed?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. No, indeed, they are not.
+
+HAMLET. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there
+is, sir, an ayry of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of
+question, and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the
+fashion, and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many
+wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come
+thither.
+
+HAMLET. What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they
+escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?
+Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
+players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers
+do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the
+nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was for a
+while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to
+cuffs in the question.
+
+HAMLET. Is’t possible?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
+
+HAMLET. Do the boys carry it away?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.
+
+HAMLET. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and
+those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty,
+forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.
+’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.
+
+ [_Flourish of trumpets within._]
+
+GUILDENSTERN. There are the players.
+
+HAMLET. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The
+appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you
+in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must show
+fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You
+are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. In what, my dear lord?
+
+HAMLET. I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I
+know a hawk from a handsaw.
+
+ Enter Polonius.
+
+POLONIUS. Well be with you, gentlemen.
+
+HAMLET. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That
+great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an
+old man is twice a child.
+
+HAMLET. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark
+it.—You say right, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.
+
+POLONIUS. My lord, I have news to tell you.
+
+HAMLET. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in
+Rome—
+
+POLONIUS. The actors are come hither, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Buzz, buzz.
+
+POLONIUS. Upon my honour.
+
+HAMLET. Then came each actor on his ass—
+
+POLONIUS. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
+history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
+tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene
+individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus
+too light, for the law of writ and the liberty. These are the only men.
+
+HAMLET. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
+
+POLONIUS. What treasure had he, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Why— ’One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved
+passing well.’
+
+POLONIUS. [_Aside._] Still on my daughter.
+
+HAMLET. Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?
+
+POLONIUS. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I
+love passing well.
+
+HAMLET. Nay, that follows not.
+
+POLONIUS. What follows then, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then, you know, It came to pass,
+as most like it was. The first row of the pious chanson will show you
+more. For look where my abridgement comes.
+
+ Enter four or five Players.
+
+You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well.
+Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’d since I
+saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady
+and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I
+saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a
+piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you
+are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything
+we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your
+quality. Come, a passionate speech.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. What speech, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or
+if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the
+million, ’twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and
+others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an
+excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much
+modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the
+lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that
+might indite the author of affectation, but called it an honest method,
+as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One
+speech in it, I chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and
+thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it
+live in your memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see: _The
+rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—_ It is not so: it begins
+with Pyrrhus— _The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his
+purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous
+horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d With heraldry
+more dismal. Head to foot Now is he total gules, horridly trick’d With
+blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Bak’d and impasted with the
+parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and a damned light To their
+vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o’ersized with
+coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old
+grandsire Priam seeks._ So, proceed you.
+
+POLONIUS. ’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good
+discretion.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. _Anon he finds him, Striking too short at Greeks. His
+antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to
+command. Unequal match’d, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes
+wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Th’unnerved father
+falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming
+top Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner
+Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword, Which was declining on the milky head
+Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick. So, as a painted tyrant,
+Pyrrhus stood, And like a neutral to his will and matter, Did nothing.
+But as we often see against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the
+rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush
+as death, anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region; so after
+Pyrrhus’ pause, Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work, And never did
+the Cyclops’ hammers fall On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,
+With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword Now falls on Priam. Out,
+out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods, In general synod, take away
+her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl
+the round nave down the hill of heaven, As low as to the fiends._
+
+POLONIUS. This is too long.
+
+HAMLET. It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prythee say on. He’s
+for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. _But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—_
+
+HAMLET. ‘The mobled queen’?
+
+POLONIUS. That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. _Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames With
+bisson rheum. A clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood, and
+for a robe, About her lank and all o’erteemed loins, A blanket, in
+th’alarm of fear caught up— Who this had seen, with tongue in venom
+steep’d, ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d. But if
+the gods themselves did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make
+malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, The
+instant burst of clamour that she made,— Unless things mortal move them
+not at all,— Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And
+passion in the gods._
+
+POLONIUS. Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s
+eyes. Pray you, no more.
+
+HAMLET. ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good
+my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
+be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the
+time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their
+ill report while you live.
+
+POLONIUS. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
+
+HAMLET. God’s bodikin, man, better. Use every man after his desert, and
+who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.
+The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
+
+POLONIUS. Come, sirs.
+
+HAMLET. Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.
+
+ [_Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First._]
+
+Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play _The Murder of Gonzago_?
+
+FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech
+of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t,
+could you not?
+
+FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
+
+ [_Exit First Player._]
+
+[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_] My good friends, I’ll leave you
+till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+HAMLET. Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone. O what a rogue and
+peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a
+fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own
+conceit That from her working all his visage wan’d; Tears in his eyes,
+distraction in’s aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
+With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! For Hecuba? What’s
+Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would
+he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would
+drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid
+speech; Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, Confound the ignorant,
+and amaze indeed, The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull
+and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my
+cause, And can say nothing. No, not for a king Upon whose property and
+most dear life A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me
+villain, breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my
+face? Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throat As deep as
+to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it
+cannot be But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall To make oppression
+bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this
+slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous,
+lecherous, kindless villain! Oh vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This
+is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder’d, Prompted to
+my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with
+words And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
+About, my brain! I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play,
+Have by the very cunning of the scene, Been struck so to the soul that
+presently They have proclaim’d their malefactions. For murder, though
+it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I’ll have
+these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine
+uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but
+blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil,
+and the devil hath power T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
+Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such
+spirits, Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds More relative than
+this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the
+King.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+KING. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts
+on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With
+turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what
+cause he will by no means speak.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a
+crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some
+confession Of his true state.
+
+QUEEN. Did he receive you well?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Most like a gentleman.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. But with much forcing of his disposition.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Niggard of question, but of our demands, Most free in his
+reply.
+
+QUEEN. Did you assay him to any pastime?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’er-raught
+on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of
+joy To hear of it. They are about the court, And, as I think, they have
+already order This night to play before him.
+
+POLONIUS. ’Tis most true; And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties
+To hear and see the matter.
+
+KING. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so
+inclin’d. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his
+purpose on to these delights.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. We shall, my lord.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+KING. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, For we have closely sent for Hamlet
+hither, That he, as ’twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Her
+father and myself, lawful espials, Will so bestow ourselves that,
+seeing unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge, And gather by
+him, as he is behav’d, If’t be th’affliction of his love or no That
+thus he suffers for.
+
+QUEEN. I shall obey you. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That
+your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I
+hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your
+honours.
+
+OPHELIA. Madam, I wish it may.
+
+ [_Exit Queen._]
+
+POLONIUS. Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you, We will
+bestow ourselves.—[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book, That show of such
+an exercise may colour Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
+’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage And pious action we
+do sugar o’er The devil himself.
+
+KING. [_Aside._] O ’tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth
+give my conscience! The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
+Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most
+painted word. O heavy burden!
+
+POLONIUS. I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
+
+ [_Exeunt King and Polonius._]
+
+ Enter Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler
+in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or
+to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To
+die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and
+the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
+Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to
+dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may
+come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.
+There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would
+bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud
+man’s contumely, The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay, The
+insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy
+takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who
+would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But
+that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country, from
+whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather
+bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus
+conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of
+resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And
+enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard their currents
+turn awry And lose the name of action. Soft you now, The fair Ophelia!
+Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember’d.
+
+OPHELIA. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day?
+
+HAMLET. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
+
+OPHELIA. My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long
+to re-deliver. I pray you, now receive them.
+
+HAMLET. No, not I. I never gave you aught.
+
+OPHELIA. My honour’d lord, you know right well you did, And with them
+words of so sweet breath compos’d As made the things more rich; their
+perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax
+poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Ha, ha! Are you honest?
+
+OPHELIA. My lord?
+
+HAMLET. Are you fair?
+
+OPHELIA. What means your lordship?
+
+HAMLET. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no
+discourse to your beauty.
+
+OPHELIA. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
+
+HAMLET. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
+honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can
+translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but
+now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
+
+OPHELIA. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
+
+HAMLET. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate
+our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.
+
+OPHELIA. I was the more deceived.
+
+HAMLET. Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
+sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of
+such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very
+proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
+thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
+them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
+heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a
+nunnery. Where’s your father?
+
+OPHELIA. At home, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
+nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell.
+
+OPHELIA. O help him, you sweet heavens!
+
+HAMLET. If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry.
+Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
+calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs
+marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you
+make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.
+
+OPHELIA. O heavenly powers, restore him!
+
+HAMLET. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given
+you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and
+you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your
+ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad. I say, we
+will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but
+one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+OPHELIA. O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s,
+soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword, Th’expectancy and rose of the
+fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th’observ’d of
+all observers, quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and
+wretched, That suck’d the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble
+and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and
+harsh, That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth Blasted with
+ecstasy. O woe is me, T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
+
+ Enter King and Polonius.
+
+KING. Love? His affections do not that way tend, Nor what he spake,
+though it lack’d form a little, Was not like madness. There’s something
+in his soul O’er which his melancholy sits on brood, And I do doubt the
+hatch and the disclose Will be some danger, which for to prevent, I
+have in quick determination Thus set it down: he shall with speed to
+England For the demand of our neglected tribute: Haply the seas and
+countries different, With variable objects, shall expel This something
+settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him
+thus From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?
+
+POLONIUS. It shall do well. But yet do I believe The origin and
+commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
+You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said, We heard it all. My lord,
+do as you please, But if you hold it fit, after the play, Let his queen
+mother all alone entreat him To show his grief, let her be round with
+him, And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear Of all their
+conference. If she find him not, To England send him; or confine him
+where Your wisdom best shall think.
+
+KING. It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Hamlet and certain Players.
+
+HAMLET. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
+trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players
+do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
+too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very
+torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must
+acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
+offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
+passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
+who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb
+shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing
+Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. I warrant your honour.
+
+HAMLET. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your
+tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
+special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for
+anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at
+the first and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the mirror up to
+nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the
+very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this
+overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot
+but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in
+your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players
+that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to
+speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor
+the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed
+that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not
+made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
+
+FIRST PLAYER. I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.
+
+HAMLET. O reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns
+speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will
+themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
+too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then
+to be considered. That’s villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
+in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
+
+ [_Exeunt Players._]
+
+ Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?
+
+POLONIUS. And the Queen too, and that presently.
+
+HAMLET. Bid the players make haste.
+
+ [_Exit Polonius._]
+
+Will you two help to hasten them?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will, my lord.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+HAMLET. What ho, Horatio!
+
+ Enter Horatio.
+
+HORATIO. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
+
+HAMLET. Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man As e’er my conversation
+cop’d withal.
+
+HORATIO. O my dear lord.
+
+HAMLET. Nay, do not think I flatter; For what advancement may I hope
+from thee, That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits To feed and
+clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d? No, let the candied
+tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
+Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was
+mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath
+seal’d thee for herself. For thou hast been As one, in suffering all,
+that suffers nothing, A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast
+ta’en with equal thanks. And bles’d are those Whose blood and judgment
+are so well co-mingled That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger To
+sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion’s
+slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of
+heart, As I do thee. Something too much of this. There is a play
+tonight before the King. One scene of it comes near the circumstance
+Which I have told thee, of my father’s death. I prythee, when thou
+see’st that act a-foot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe
+mine uncle. If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
+It is a damned ghost that we have seen; And my imaginations are as foul
+As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet
+to his face; And after we will both our judgments join In censure of
+his seeming.
+
+HORATIO. Well, my lord. If he steal aught the whilst this play is
+playing, And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
+
+HAMLET. They are coming to the play. I must be idle. Get you a place.
+
+ Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia,
+ Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others.
+
+KING. How fares our cousin Hamlet?
+
+HAMLET. Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air,
+promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
+
+KING. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not
+mine.
+
+HAMLET. No, nor mine now. [_To Polonius._] My lord, you play’d once i’
+th’university, you say?
+
+POLONIUS. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
+
+HAMLET. What did you enact?
+
+POLONIUS. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol.
+Brutus killed me.
+
+HAMLET. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be
+the players ready?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
+
+QUEEN. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
+
+HAMLET. No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.
+
+POLONIUS. [_To the King._] O ho! do you mark that?
+
+HAMLET. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
+
+ [_Lying down at Ophelia’s feet._]
+
+OPHELIA. No, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I mean, my head upon your lap?
+
+OPHELIA. Ay, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Do you think I meant country matters?
+
+OPHELIA. I think nothing, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
+
+OPHELIA. What is, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Nothing.
+
+OPHELIA. You are merry, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Who, I?
+
+OPHELIA. Ay, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?
+For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
+within’s two hours.
+
+OPHELIA. Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a
+suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?
+Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a
+year. But by’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he
+suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O,
+for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!’
+
+ Trumpets sound. The dumb show enters.
+
+_Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he
+her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her
+up, and declines his head upon her neck. Lays him down upon a bank of
+flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow,
+takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the King’s ears, and
+exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate
+action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again,
+seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner
+woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in
+the end accepts his love._
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+OPHELIA. What means this, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Marry, this is miching mallicho; it means mischief.
+
+OPHELIA. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
+
+ Enter Prologue.
+
+HAMLET. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel;
+they’ll tell all.
+
+OPHELIA. Will they tell us what this show meant?
+
+HAMLET. Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to
+show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.
+
+OPHELIA. You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.
+
+PROLOGUE. _For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency,
+We beg your hearing patiently._
+
+HAMLET. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
+
+OPHELIA. ’Tis brief, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. As woman’s love.
+
+ Enter a King and a Queen.
+
+PLAYER KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round Neptune’s
+salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with
+borrow’d sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since
+love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred
+bands.
+
+PLAYER QUEEN. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count
+o’er ere love be done. But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far
+from cheer and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though
+I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: For women’s fear
+and love holds quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity. Now what my
+love is, proof hath made you know, And as my love is siz’d, my fear is
+so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little
+fears grow great, great love grows there.
+
+PLAYER KING. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too: My
+operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this
+fair world behind, Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind For husband
+shalt thou—
+
+PLAYER QUEEN. O confound the rest. Such love must needs be treason in
+my breast. In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but
+who kill’d the first.
+
+HAMLET. [_Aside._] Wormwood, wormwood.
+
+PLAYER QUEEN. The instances that second marriage move Are base respects
+of thrift, but none of love. A second time I kill my husband dead, When
+second husband kisses me in bed.
+
+PLAYER KING. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do
+determine, oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent
+birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the
+tree, But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ’tis that
+we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves
+in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The
+violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves
+destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy
+grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not
+strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change, For ’tis a
+question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else
+fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The
+poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on
+fortune tend: For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in
+want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. But
+orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run
+That our devices still are overthrown. Our thoughts are ours, their
+ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, But die
+thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
+
+PLAYER QUEEN. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light, Sport and
+repose lock from me day and night, To desperation turn my trust and
+hope, An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope, Each opposite that
+blanks the face of joy, Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
+Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I
+be wife.
+
+HAMLET. [_To Ophelia._] If she should break it now.
+
+PLAYER KING. ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits
+grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep.
+[_Sleeps._]
+
+PLAYER QUEEN. Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us
+twain.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+HAMLET. Madam, how like you this play?
+
+QUEEN. The lady protests too much, methinks.
+
+HAMLET. O, but she’ll keep her word.
+
+KING. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?
+
+HAMLET. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’
+world.
+
+KING. What do you call the play?
+
+HAMLET. _The Mousetrap._ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image
+of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife
+Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’
+that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let
+the gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung.
+
+ Enter Lucianus.
+
+This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
+
+OPHELIA. You are a good chorus, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the
+puppets dallying.
+
+OPHELIA. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
+
+HAMLET. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
+
+OPHELIA. Still better, and worse.
+
+HAMLET. So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy
+damnable faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for
+revenge.
+
+LUCIANUS. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
+Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of
+midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice
+infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurp
+immediately.
+
+ [_Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears._]
+
+HAMLET. He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago.
+The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see
+anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
+
+OPHELIA. The King rises.
+
+HAMLET. What, frighted with false fire?
+
+QUEEN. How fares my lord?
+
+POLONIUS. Give o’er the play.
+
+KING. Give me some light. Away.
+
+All. Lights, lights, lights.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio._]
+
+HAMLET. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For
+some must watch, while some must sleep, So runs the world away. Would
+not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest of my fortunes
+turn Turk with me; with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me
+a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
+
+HORATIO. Half a share.
+
+HAMLET. A whole one, I. For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm
+dismantled was Of Jove himself, and now reigns here A very,
+very—pajock.
+
+HORATIO. You might have rhymed.
+
+HAMLET. O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand
+pound. Didst perceive?
+
+HORATIO. Very well, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Upon the talk of the poisoning?
+
+HORATIO. I did very well note him.
+
+HAMLET. Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders. For if the king
+like not the comedy, Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie. Come,
+some music.
+
+ Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, a whole history.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. The King, sir—
+
+HAMLET. Ay, sir, what of him?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.
+
+HAMLET. With drink, sir?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. No, my lord; rather with choler.
+
+HAMLET. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to
+the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him
+into far more choler.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and
+start not so wildly from my affair.
+
+HAMLET. I am tame, sir, pronounce.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of
+spirit, hath sent me to you.
+
+HAMLET. You are welcome.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
+breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do
+your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be
+the end of my business.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, I cannot.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. What, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such
+answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my
+mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into
+amazement and admiration.
+
+HAMLET. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no
+sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to
+bed.
+
+HAMLET. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any
+further trade with us?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you once did love me.
+
+HAMLET. And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do
+surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to
+your friend.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, I lack advancement.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King
+himself for your succession in Denmark?
+
+HAMLET. Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something
+musty.
+
+ Re-enter the Players with recorders.
+
+O, the recorders. Let me see one.—To withdraw with you, why do you go
+about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
+unmannerly.
+
+HAMLET. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
+
+GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot.
+
+HAMLET. I pray you.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. Believe me, I cannot.
+
+HAMLET. I do beseech you.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. I know no touch of it, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. ’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger
+and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most
+eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I
+have not the skill.
+
+HAMLET. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You
+would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck
+out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
+the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in
+this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think
+I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you
+will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
+
+ Enter Polonius.
+
+God bless you, sir.
+
+POLONIUS. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.
+
+HAMLET. Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
+
+POLONIUS. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.
+
+HAMLET. Methinks it is like a weasel.
+
+POLONIUS. It is backed like a weasel.
+
+HAMLET. Or like a whale.
+
+POLONIUS. Very like a whale.
+
+HAMLET. Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the
+top of my bent.—I will come by and by.
+
+POLONIUS. I will say so.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+HAMLET. By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]
+
+’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and
+hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot
+blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on.
+Soft now, to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The
+soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I
+will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be
+hypocrites. How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals
+never, my soul, consent.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE III. A room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+KING. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness
+range. Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith
+dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our
+estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his
+lunacies.
+
+GUILDENSTERN. We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear
+it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your
+Majesty.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. The single and peculiar life is bound With all the
+strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from ’noyance; but much
+more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The
+cease of majesty Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw What’s near
+it with it. It is a massy wheel Fix’d on the summit of the highest
+mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis’d and
+adjoin’d; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence,
+Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone Did the King sigh, but with a
+general groan.
+
+KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters
+put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will haste us.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+ Enter Polonius.
+
+POLONIUS. My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras
+I’ll convey myself To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him
+home, And as you said, and wisely was it said, ’Tis meet that some more
+audience than a mother, Since nature makes them partial, should
+o’erhear The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege, I’ll call upon
+you ere you go to bed, And tell you what I know.
+
+KING. Thanks, dear my lord.
+
+ [_Exit Polonius._]
+
+O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest
+curse upon’t,— A brother’s murder! Pray can I not, Though inclination
+be as sharp as will: My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And,
+like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall
+first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker
+than itself with brother’s blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet
+heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront
+the visage of offence? And what’s in prayer but this twofold force, To
+be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll
+look up. My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my
+turn? Forgive me my foul murder! That cannot be; since I am still
+possess’d Of those effects for which I did the murder,— My crown, mine
+own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence?
+In the corrupted currents of this world Offence’s gilded hand may shove
+by justice, And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law.
+But ’tis not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In
+his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d Even to the teeth and
+forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? What rests? Try
+what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot
+repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that
+struggling to be free, Art more engag’d! Help, angels! Make assay: Bow,
+stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of
+the new-born babe. All may be well.
+
+ [_Retires and kneels._]
+
+ Enter Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. And now I’ll do’t.
+And so he goes to heaven; And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d:
+A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same
+villain send To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. He
+took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown,
+as flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven? But
+in our circumstance and course of thought, ’Tis heavy with him. And am
+I then reveng’d, To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit
+and season’d for his passage? No. Up, sword, and know thou a more
+horrid hent: When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage, Or in
+th’incestuous pleasure of his bed, At gaming, swearing; or about some
+act That has no relish of salvation in’t, Then trip him, that his heels
+may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damn’d and black As
+hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. This physic but prolongs thy
+sickly days.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+ The King rises and advances.
+
+KING. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts
+never to heaven go.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Queen and Polonius.
+
+POLONIUS. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him, Tell him his
+pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your Grace hath
+screen’d and stood between Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en
+here. Pray you be round with him.
+
+HAMLET. [_Within._] Mother, mother, mother.
+
+QUEEN. I’ll warrant you, Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming.
+
+ [_Polonius goes behind the arras._]
+
+ Enter Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Now, mother, what’s the matter?
+
+QUEEN. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
+
+HAMLET. Mother, you have my father much offended.
+
+QUEEN. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
+
+HAMLET. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
+
+QUEEN. Why, how now, Hamlet?
+
+HAMLET. What’s the matter now?
+
+QUEEN. Have you forgot me?
+
+HAMLET. No, by the rood, not so. You are the Queen, your husband’s
+brother’s wife, And, would it were not so. You are my mother.
+
+QUEEN. Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
+
+HAMLET. Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge. You go not
+till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you.
+
+QUEEN. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho!
+
+POLONIUS. [_Behind._] What, ho! help, help, help!
+
+HAMLET. How now? A rat? [_Draws._] Dead for a ducat, dead!
+
+ [_Makes a pass through the arras._]
+
+POLONIUS. [_Behind._] O, I am slain!
+
+ [_Falls and dies._]
+
+QUEEN. O me, what hast thou done?
+
+HAMLET. Nay, I know not. is it the King?
+
+ [_Draws forth Polonius._]
+
+QUEEN. O what a rash and bloody deed is this!
+
+HAMLET. A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and
+marry with his brother.
+
+QUEEN. As kill a king?
+
+HAMLET. Ay, lady, ’twas my word.— [_To Polonius._] Thou wretched, rash,
+intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune,
+Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.— Leave wringing of your
+hands. Peace, sit you down, And let me wring your heart, for so I
+shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not
+braz’d it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
+
+QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue In noise so
+rude against me?
+
+HAMLET. Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls
+virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an
+innocent love, And sets a blister there. Makes marriage vows As false
+as dicers’ oaths. O such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks
+The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s
+face doth glow, Yea this solidity and compound mass, With tristful
+visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.
+
+QUEEN. Ay me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
+
+HAMLET. Look here upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit
+presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow,
+Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to
+threaten and command, A station like the herald Mercury New lighted on
+a heaven-kissing hill: A combination and a form indeed, Where every god
+did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man. This
+was your husband. Look you now what follows. Here is your husband, like
+a mildew’d ear Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you
+on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have
+you eyes? You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the
+blood is tame, it’s humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what
+judgment Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have, Else could
+you not have motion; but sure that sense Is apoplex’d, for madness
+would not err Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d But it
+reserv’d some quantity of choice To serve in such a difference. What
+devil was’t That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without
+feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling
+sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope. O
+shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a
+matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her
+own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the
+charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders
+will.
+
+QUEEN. O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very
+soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave
+their tinct.
+
+HAMLET. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew’d
+in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty.
+
+QUEEN. O speak to me no more; These words like daggers enter in mine
+ears; No more, sweet Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. A murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part
+the tithe Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings, A cutpurse of the
+empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And
+put it in his pocket!
+
+QUEEN. No more.
+
+HAMLET. A king of shreds and patches!—
+
+ Enter Ghost.
+
+Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What
+would your gracious figure?
+
+QUEEN. Alas, he’s mad.
+
+HAMLET. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps’d in time
+and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O
+say!
+
+GHOST. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted
+purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits. O step between her and
+her fighting soul. Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to
+her, Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. How is it with you, lady?
+
+QUEEN. Alas, how is’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
+And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your
+spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your
+bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand an end. O
+gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool
+patience. Whereon do you look?
+
+HAMLET. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares, His form and cause
+conjoin’d, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look
+upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects.
+Then what I have to do Will want true colour; tears perchance for
+blood.
+
+QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?
+
+HAMLET. Do you see nothing there?
+
+QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
+
+HAMLET. Nor did you nothing hear?
+
+QUEEN. No, nothing but ourselves.
+
+HAMLET. Why, look you there! look how it steals away! My father, in his
+habit as he liv’d! Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
+
+ [_Exit Ghost._]
+
+QUEEN. This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation
+ecstasy Is very cunning in.
+
+HAMLET. Ecstasy! My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, And
+makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utter’d. Bring
+me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would
+gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction
+to your soul That not your trespass, but my madness speaks. It will but
+skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all
+within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past,
+avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To
+make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of
+these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and
+woo for leave to do him good.
+
+QUEEN. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
+
+HAMLET. O throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the
+other half. Good night. But go not to mine uncle’s bed. Assume a
+virtue, if you have it not. That monster custom, who all sense doth
+eat, Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions
+fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on.
+Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next
+abstinence. The next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of
+nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous
+potency. Once more, good night, And when you are desirous to be bles’d,
+I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord [_Pointing to Polonius._]
+I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so, To punish me with this, and
+this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow
+him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So again, good night. I
+must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains
+behind. One word more, good lady.
+
+QUEEN. What shall I do?
+
+HAMLET. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King
+tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
+And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with
+his damn’d fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I
+essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let
+him know, For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a
+paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide? Who would do
+so? No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the
+house’s top, Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, To try
+conclusions, in the basket creep And break your own neck down.
+
+QUEEN. Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath, And breath of life,
+I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.
+
+HAMLET. I must to England, you know that?
+
+QUEEN. Alack, I had forgot. ’Tis so concluded on.
+
+HAMLET. There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will
+trust as I will adders fang’d,— They bear the mandate, they must sweep
+my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For ’tis the sport to
+have the enginer Hoist with his own petard, and ’t shall go hard But I
+will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O,
+’tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet. This man
+shall set me packing. I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
+Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor Is now most still, most
+secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish peating knave. Come,
+sir, to draw toward an end with you. Good night, mother.
+
+ [_Exit Hamlet dragging out Polonius._]
+
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+KING. There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves You must
+translate. ’tis fit we understand them. Where is your son?
+
+QUEEN. Bestow this place on us a little while.
+
+ [_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out._]
+
+Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
+
+KING. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
+
+QUEEN. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the
+mightier. In his lawless fit Behind the arras hearing something stir,
+Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’ And in this brainish
+apprehension kills The unseen good old man.
+
+KING. O heavy deed! It had been so with us, had we been there. His
+liberty is full of threats to all; To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
+Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d? It will be laid to us,
+whose providence Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt
+This mad young man. But so much was our love We would not understand
+what was most fit, But like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it
+from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
+
+QUEEN. To draw apart the body he hath kill’d, O’er whom his very
+madness, like some ore Among a mineral of metals base, Shows itself
+pure. He weeps for what is done.
+
+KING. O Gertrude, come away! The sun no sooner shall the mountains
+touch But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed We must with all
+our majesty and skill Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
+
+ Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath
+Polonius slain, And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him. Go
+seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray
+you haste in this.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends, And let them know
+both what we mean to do And what’s untimely done, so haply slander,
+Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, As level as the cannon to his
+blank, Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name, And hit the
+woundless air. O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Safely stowed.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. [_Within._] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
+
+HAMLET. What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.
+
+ Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
+
+HAMLET. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence, And bear
+it to the chapel.
+
+HAMLET. Do not believe it.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Believe what?
+
+HAMLET. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be
+demanded of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a
+king?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his
+authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he
+keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be
+last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but
+squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. I understand you not, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us
+to the King.
+
+HAMLET. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.
+The King is a thing—
+
+GUILDENSTERN. A thing, my lord!
+
+HAMLET. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King, attended.
+
+KING. I have sent to seek him and to find the body. How dangerous is it
+that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
+He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment,
+but their eyes; And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
+But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending
+him away must seem Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown By
+desperate appliance are reliev’d, Or not at all.
+
+ Enter Rosencrantz.
+
+How now? What hath befall’n?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord, We cannot get
+from him.
+
+KING. But where is he?
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.
+
+KING. Bring him before us.
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
+
+ Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.
+
+KING. Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
+
+HAMLET. At supper.
+
+KING. At supper? Where?
+
+HAMLET. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation
+of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for
+diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
+maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable
+service,—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
+
+KING. Alas, alas!
+
+HAMLET. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat
+of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
+
+KING. What dost thou mean by this?
+
+HAMLET. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through
+the guts of a beggar.
+
+KING. Where is Polonius?
+
+HAMLET. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not
+there, seek him i’ th’other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him
+not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into
+the lobby.
+
+KING. [_To some Attendants._] Go seek him there.
+
+HAMLET. He will stay till you come.
+
+ [_Exeunt Attendants._]
+
+KING. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,— Which we do
+tender, as we dearly grieve For that which thou hast done,—must send
+thee hence With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself; The bark is
+ready, and the wind at help, Th’associates tend, and everything is bent
+For England.
+
+HAMLET. For England?
+
+KING. Ay, Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Good.
+
+KING. So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
+
+HAMLET. I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England!
+Farewell, dear mother.
+
+KING. Thy loving father, Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is
+one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+KING. Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not;
+I’ll have him hence tonight. Away, for everything is seal’d and done
+That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.
+
+ [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
+
+And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,— As my great power
+thereof may give thee sense, Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
+After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us,—thou mayst
+not coldly set Our sovereign process, which imports at full, By letters
+conjuring to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
+For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me. Till I
+know ’tis done, Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.
+
+ Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching.
+
+FORTINBRAS. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that
+by his license, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march
+Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his Majesty would
+aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye; And let him know
+so.
+
+CAPTAIN. I will do’t, my lord.
+
+FORTINBRAS. Go softly on.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but the Captain._]
+
+ Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c.
+
+HAMLET. Good sir, whose powers are these?
+
+CAPTAIN. They are of Norway, sir.
+
+HAMLET. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
+
+CAPTAIN. Against some part of Poland.
+
+HAMLET. Who commands them, sir?
+
+CAPTAIN. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
+
+HAMLET. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
+
+CAPTAIN. Truly to speak, and with no addition, We go to gain a little
+patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five
+ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway or the
+Pole A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
+
+HAMLET. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
+
+CAPTAIN. Yes, it is already garrison’d.
+
+HAMLET. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate
+the question of this straw! This is th’imposthume of much wealth and
+peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies.
+I humbly thank you, sir.
+
+CAPTAIN. God b’ wi’ you, sir.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+ROSENCRANTZ. Will’t please you go, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
+
+ [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]
+
+How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge. What
+is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and
+feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
+Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike
+reason To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or
+some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th’event,— A thought
+which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts
+coward,—I do not know Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do, Sith I
+have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do’t. Examples gross
+as earth exhort me, Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a
+delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
+Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure
+To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell.
+Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly
+to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake. How stand I
+then, That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, Excitements of my
+reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The
+imminent death of twenty thousand men That, for a fantasy and trick of
+fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the
+numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To
+hide the slain? O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody or be
+nothing worth.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman.
+
+QUEEN. I will not speak with her.
+
+GENTLEMAN. She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be
+pitied.
+
+QUEEN. What would she have?
+
+GENTLEMAN. She speaks much of her father; says she hears There’s tricks
+i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at
+straws, speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense. Her speech
+is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to
+collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own
+thoughts, Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
+Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing
+sure, yet much unhappily. ’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may
+strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
+
+QUEEN. Let her come in.
+
+ [_Exit Gentleman._]
+
+To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to
+some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills
+itself in fearing to be spilt.
+
+ Enter Ophelia.
+
+OPHELIA. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
+
+QUEEN. How now, Ophelia?
+
+OPHELIA. [_Sings._] How should I your true love know From another one?
+By his cockle bat and staff And his sandal shoon.
+
+QUEEN. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
+
+OPHELIA. Say you? Nay, pray you mark. [_Sings._] He is dead and gone,
+lady, He is dead and gone, At his head a grass green turf, At his heels
+a stone.
+
+QUEEN. Nay, but Ophelia—
+
+OPHELIA. Pray you mark. [_Sings._] White his shroud as the mountain
+snow.
+
+ Enter King.
+
+QUEEN. Alas, look here, my lord!
+
+OPHELIA. [_Sings._] Larded all with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the
+grave did go With true-love showers.
+
+KING. How do you, pretty lady?
+
+OPHELIA. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.
+Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your
+table!
+
+KING. Conceit upon her father.
+
+OPHELIA. Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you
+what it means, say you this: [_Sings._] Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s
+day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your
+Valentine.
+
+   Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes, And dupp’d the chamber door,
+   Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more.
+
+KING. Pretty Ophelia!
+
+OPHELIA. Indeed la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t. [_Sings._]
+By Gis and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie for shame! Young men will
+do’t if they come to’t; By Cock, they are to blame.
+
+   Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promis’d me to wed. So would I
+   ha’ done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.
+
+KING. How long hath she been thus?
+
+OPHELIA. I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot
+choose but weep, to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My
+brother shall know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel.
+Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good
+night, good night.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+KING. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
+
+ [_Exit Horatio._]
+
+O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father’s
+death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single
+spies, But in battalions. First, her father slain; Next, your son gone;
+and he most violent author Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
+Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers For good
+Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly In hugger-mugger to inter
+him. Poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgment, Without
+the which we are pictures or mere beasts. Last, and as much containing
+as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France, Feeds on his
+wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his
+ear With pestilent speeches of his father’s death, Wherein necessity,
+of matter beggar’d, Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and
+ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering piece, in many
+places Gives me superfluous death.
+
+ [_A noise within._]
+
+QUEEN. Alack, what noise is this?
+
+KING. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
+
+ Enter a Gentleman.
+
+What is the matter?
+
+GENTLEMAN. Save yourself, my lord. The ocean, overpeering of his list,
+Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a
+riotous head, O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord, And, as
+the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
+The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes
+shall be king!’ Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
+‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’
+
+QUEEN. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry. O, this is counter,
+you false Danish dogs.
+
+ [_A noise within._]
+
+KING. The doors are broke.
+
+ Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.
+
+LAERTES. Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.
+
+Danes. No, let’s come in.
+
+LAERTES. I pray you, give me leave.
+
+DANES. We will, we will.
+
+ [_They retire without the door._]
+
+LAERTES. I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my
+father.
+
+QUEEN. Calmly, good Laertes.
+
+LAERTES. That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard; Cries
+cuckold to my father, brands the harlot Even here between the chaste
+unsmirched brow Of my true mother.
+
+KING. What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so
+giant-like?— Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person. There’s such
+divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would,
+Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus
+incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:— Speak, man.
+
+LAERTES. Where is my father?
+
+KING. Dead.
+
+QUEEN. But not by him.
+
+KING. Let him demand his fill.
+
+LAERTES. How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with. To hell,
+allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the
+profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the
+worlds, I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I’ll be
+reveng’d Most throughly for my father.
+
+KING. Who shall stay you?
+
+LAERTES. My will, not all the world. And for my means, I’ll husband
+them so well, They shall go far with little.
+
+KING. Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear
+father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge That, sweepstake, you will
+draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?
+
+LAERTES. None but his enemies.
+
+KING. Will you know them then?
+
+LAERTES. To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms; And, like the
+kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.
+
+KING. Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I
+am guiltless of your father’s death, And am most sensibly in grief for
+it, It shall as level to your judgment ’pear As day does to your eye.
+
+DANES. [_Within._] Let her come in.
+
+LAERTES. How now! What noise is that?
+
+ Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.
+
+O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt, Burn out the sense
+and virtue of mine eye. By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
+Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister,
+sweet Ophelia! O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits Should be
+as mortal as an old man’s life? Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis
+fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it
+loves.
+
+OPHELIA. [_Sings._] They bore him barefac’d on the bier, Hey no nonny,
+nonny, hey nonny And on his grave rain’d many a tear.— Fare you well,
+my dove!
+
+LAERTES. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not
+move thus.
+
+OPHELIA. You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how
+the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s
+daughter.
+
+LAERTES. This nothing’s more than matter.
+
+OPHELIA. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember.
+And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
+
+LAERTES. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
+
+OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you;
+and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you
+must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you
+some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he
+made a good end. [_Sings._] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
+
+LAERTES. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself She turns to
+favour and to prettiness.
+
+OPHELIA. [_Sings._] And will he not come again? And will he not come
+again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death-bed, He never will come
+again.
+
+   His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll. He is gone,
+   he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ha’ mercy on his soul.
+
+And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+LAERTES. Do you see this, O God?
+
+KING. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go
+but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they
+shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. If by direct or by collateral
+hand They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our
+life, and all that we call ours To you in satisfaction; but if not, Be
+you content to lend your patience to us, And we shall jointly labour
+with your soul To give it due content.
+
+LAERTES. Let this be so; His means of death, his obscure burial,— No
+trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal
+ostentation,— Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I
+must call’t in question.
+
+KING. So you shall. And where th’offence is let the great axe fall. I
+pray you go with me.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Horatio and a Servant.
+
+HORATIO. What are they that would speak with me?
+
+SERVANT. Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
+
+HORATIO. Let them come in.
+
+ [_Exit Servant._]
+
+I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not
+from Lord Hamlet.
+
+ Enter Sailors.
+
+FIRST SAILOR. God bless you, sir.
+
+HORATIO. Let him bless thee too.
+
+FIRST SAILOR. He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for
+you, sir. It comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if
+your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.
+
+HORATIO. [_Reads._] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this,
+give these fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him.
+Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment
+gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a
+compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant
+they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have
+dealt with me like thieves of mercy. But they knew what they did; I am
+to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent,
+and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I
+have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much
+too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring
+thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for
+England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou
+knowest thine, HAMLET.’
+
+Come, I will give you way for these your letters, And do’t the
+speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.
+
+ Enter King and Laertes.
+
+KING. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me
+in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
+That he which hath your noble father slain Pursu’d my life.
+
+LAERTES. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against
+these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety,
+wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up.
+
+KING. O, for two special reasons, Which may to you, perhaps, seem much
+unsinew’d, But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother Lives
+almost by his looks; and for myself,— My virtue or my plague, be it
+either which,— She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the
+star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other
+motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the
+general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their
+affection, Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert
+his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, Too slightly timber’d for so
+loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again, And not where I had
+aim’d them.
+
+LAERTES. And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into
+desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood
+challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge
+will come.
+
+KING. Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think That we are
+made of stuff so flat and dull That we can let our beard be shook with
+danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more. I lov’d your
+father, and we love ourself, And that, I hope, will teach you to
+imagine—
+
+ Enter a Messenger.
+
+How now? What news?
+
+MESSENGER. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. This to your Majesty; this to
+the Queen.
+
+KING. From Hamlet! Who brought them?
+
+MESSENGER. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not. They were given
+me by Claudio. He receiv’d them Of him that brought them.
+
+KING. Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
+
+ [_Exit Messenger._]
+
+[_Reads._] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your
+kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I
+shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my
+sudden and more strange return. HAMLET.’
+
+What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse,
+and no such thing?
+
+LAERTES. Know you the hand?
+
+KING. ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ’Naked!’ And in a postscript here he
+says ‘alone.’ Can you advise me?
+
+LAERTES. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come, It warms the very
+sickness in my heart That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, ‘Thus
+diest thou.’
+
+KING. If it be so, Laertes,— As how should it be so? How otherwise?—
+Will you be rul’d by me?
+
+LAERTES. Ay, my lord; So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
+
+KING. To thine own peace. If he be now return’d, As checking at his
+voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To
+exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but
+fall; And for his death no wind shall breathe, But even his mother
+shall uncharge the practice And call it accident.
+
+LAERTES. My lord, I will be rul’d; The rather if you could devise it so
+That I might be the organ.
+
+KING. It falls right. You have been talk’d of since your travel much,
+And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine.
+Your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that
+one, and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege.
+
+LAERTES. What part is that, my lord?
+
+KING. A very riband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too, for youth no
+less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears Than settled
+age his sables and his weeds, Importing health and graveness. Two
+months since Here was a gentleman of Normandy,— I’ve seen myself, and
+serv’d against, the French, And they can well on horseback, but this
+gallant Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat, And to such
+wondrous doing brought his horse, As had he been incorps’d and
+demi-natur’d With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought That I
+in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did.
+
+LAERTES. A Norman was’t?
+
+KING. A Norman.
+
+LAERTES. Upon my life, Lamond.
+
+KING. The very same.
+
+LAERTES. I know him well. He is the brooch indeed And gem of all the
+nation.
+
+KING. He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report
+For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most
+especially, That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed If one could
+match you. The scrimers of their nation He swore had neither motion,
+guard, nor eye, If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet
+so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your
+sudden coming o’er to play with him. Now, out of this,—
+
+LAERTES. What out of this, my lord?
+
+KING. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the
+painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart?
+
+LAERTES. Why ask you this?
+
+KING. Not that I think you did not love your father, But that I know
+love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time
+qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame
+of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a
+like goodness still, For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his
+own too much. That we would do, We should do when we would; for this
+‘would’ changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are
+tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this ‘should’ is like a
+spendthrift sigh That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer:
+Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake To show yourself your
+father’s son in deed, More than in words?
+
+LAERTES. To cut his throat i’ th’ church.
+
+KING. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have
+no bounds. But good Laertes, Will you do this, keep close within your
+chamber. Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home: We’ll put on
+those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the
+fame The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together And wager on
+your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all
+contriving, Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, Or with a
+little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of
+practice, Requite him for your father.
+
+LAERTES. I will do’t. And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I
+bought an unction of a mountebank So mortal that, but dip a knife in
+it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all
+simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death
+This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point With this contagion,
+that if I gall him slightly, It may be death.
+
+KING. Let’s further think of this, Weigh what convenience both of time
+and means May fit us to our shape. If this should fail, And that our
+drift look through our bad performance. ’Twere better not assay’d.
+Therefore this project Should have a back or second, that might hold If
+this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see. We’ll make a solemn wager on
+your cunnings,— I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry, As
+make your bouts more violent to that end, And that he calls for drink,
+I’ll have prepar’d him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If
+he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, Our purpose may hold there.
+
+ Enter Queen.
+
+How now, sweet Queen?
+
+QUEEN. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow.
+Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.
+
+LAERTES. Drown’d! O, where?
+
+QUEEN. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoary
+leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make
+Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal
+shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers
+call them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to
+hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself
+Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like,
+awhile they bore her up, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
+As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and
+indued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her
+garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her
+melodious lay To muddy death.
+
+LAERTES. Alas, then she is drown’d?
+
+QUEEN. Drown’d, drown’d.
+
+LAERTES. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I
+forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let
+shame say what it will. When these are gone, The woman will be out.
+Adieu, my lord, I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But
+that this folly douts it.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+KING. Let’s follow, Gertrude; How much I had to do to calm his rage!
+Now fear I this will give it start again; Therefore let’s follow.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+
+ACT V
+
+SCENE I. A churchyard.
+
+ Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully
+seeks her own salvation?
+
+SECOND CLOWN. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave
+straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own
+defence?
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Why, ’tis found so.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. It must be _se offendendo_, it cannot be else. For here
+lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an
+act hath three branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal,
+she drowned herself wittingly.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the
+man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will
+he nill he, he goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and
+drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his
+own death shortens not his own life.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. But is this law?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a
+gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk
+should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more
+than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
+gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up
+Adam’s profession.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Was he a gentleman?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. He was the first that ever bore arms.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Why, he had none.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
+Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms?
+I’ll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
+purpose, confess thyself—
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Go to.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the
+shipwright, or the carpenter?
+
+SECOND CLOWN. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand
+tenants.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. I like thy wit well in good faith, the gallows does well.
+But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost
+ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the
+gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a
+carpenter?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Marry, now I can tell.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. To’t.
+
+SECOND CLOWN. Mass, I cannot tell.
+
+ Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will
+not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question
+next, say ‘a grave-maker’. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go,
+get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.
+
+ [_Exit Second Clown._]
+
+[_Digs and sings._]
+
+   In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To
+   contract, O, the time for, a, my behove, O methought there was
+   nothing meet.
+
+HAMLET. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at
+grave-making?
+
+HORATIO. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
+
+HAMLET. ’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier
+sense.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] But age with his stealing steps Hath claw’d me
+in his clutch, And hath shipp’d me into the land, As if I had never
+been such.
+
+ [_Throws up a skull._]
+
+HAMLET. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the
+knave jowls it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the
+first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now
+o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?
+
+HORATIO. It might, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How
+dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised
+my lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?
+
+HORATIO. Ay, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked
+about the mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we
+had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but
+to play at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, For and a
+shrouding-sheet; O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is
+meet.
+
+ [_Throws up another skull._]
+
+HAMLET. There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
+Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and
+his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about
+the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of
+battery? Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land,
+with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
+his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his
+recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers
+vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the
+length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his
+lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself
+have no more, ha?
+
+HORATIO. Not a jot more, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
+
+HORATIO. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
+
+HAMLET. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I
+will speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Mine, sir. [_Sings._] O, a pit of clay for to be made For
+such a guest is meet.
+
+HAMLET. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours. For
+my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.
+
+HAMLET. Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for
+the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.
+
+HAMLET. What man dost thou dig it for?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. For no man, sir.
+
+HAMLET. What woman then?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. For none neither.
+
+HAMLET. Who is to be buried in’t?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.
+
+HAMLET. How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or
+equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I
+have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
+peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.—How
+long hast thou been a grave-maker?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our
+last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.
+
+HAMLET. How long is that since?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the
+very day that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into
+England.
+
+HAMLET. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there;
+or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
+
+HAMLET. Why?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. ’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad
+as he.
+
+HAMLET. How came he mad?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Very strangely, they say.
+
+HAMLET. How strangely?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
+
+HAMLET. Upon what ground?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and
+boy, thirty years.
+
+HAMLET. How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many
+pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last
+you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
+
+HAMLET. Why he more than another?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that he
+will keep out water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of
+your whoreson dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath lain in
+the earth three-and-twenty years.
+
+HAMLET. Whose was it?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it
+was?
+
+HAMLET. Nay, I know not.
+
+FIRST CLOWN. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of
+Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the
+King’s jester.
+
+HAMLET. This?
+
+FIRST CLOWN. E’en that.
+
+HAMLET. Let me see. [_Takes the skull._] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him,
+Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath
+borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my
+imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I
+have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols?
+your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table
+on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen?
+Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch
+thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prythee,
+Horatio, tell me one thing.
+
+HORATIO. What’s that, my lord?
+
+HAMLET. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?
+
+HORATIO. E’en so.
+
+HAMLET. And smelt so? Pah!
+
+ [_Throws down the skull._]
+
+HORATIO. E’en so, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not
+imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping
+a bung-hole?
+
+HORATIO. ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.
+
+HAMLET. No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty
+enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died, Alexander
+was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth
+we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they
+not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,
+Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept
+the world in awe Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw. But
+soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.
+
+ Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and
+ Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c.
+
+The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow? And with such maimed
+rites? This doth betoken The corse they follow did with desperate hand
+Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate. Couch we awhile and mark.
+
+ [_Retiring with Horatio._]
+
+LAERTES. What ceremony else?
+
+HAMLET. That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
+
+LAERTES. What ceremony else?
+
+PRIEST. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d As we have warranties.
+Her death was doubtful; And but that great command o’ersways the order,
+She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d Till the last trumpet.
+For charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on
+her. Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites, Her maiden strewments,
+and the bringing home Of bell and burial.
+
+LAERTES. Must there no more be done?
+
+PRIEST. No more be done. We should profane the service of the dead To
+sing sage requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls.
+
+LAERTES. Lay her i’ th’earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
+May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist’ring angel
+shall my sister be When thou liest howling.
+
+HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia?
+
+QUEEN. [_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. I hop’d
+thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to
+have deck’d, sweet maid, And not have strew’d thy grave.
+
+LAERTES. O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose
+wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the
+earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. [_Leaps
+into the grave._] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of
+this flat a mountain you have made, To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish
+head Of blue Olympus.
+
+HAMLET. [_Advancing._] What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis?
+whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them
+stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. [_Leaps
+into the grave._]
+
+LAERTES. [_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul!
+
+HAMLET. Thou pray’st not well. I prythee take thy fingers from my
+throat; For though I am not splenative and rash, Yet have I in me
+something dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!
+
+KING. Pluck them asunder.
+
+QUEEN. Hamlet! Hamlet!
+
+All. Gentlemen!
+
+HORATIO. Good my lord, be quiet.
+
+ [_The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave._]
+
+HAMLET. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme Until my eyelids
+will no longer wag.
+
+QUEEN. O my son, what theme?
+
+HAMLET. I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all
+their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
+
+KING. O, he is mad, Laertes.
+
+QUEEN. For love of God forbear him!
+
+HAMLET. ’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do: Woul’t weep? woul’t fight?
+woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself? Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a
+crocodile? I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with
+leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I. And if
+thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till
+our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like
+a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth, I’ll rant as well as thou.
+
+QUEEN. This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
+Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are
+disclos’d, His silence will sit drooping.
+
+HAMLET. Hear you, sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I lov’d
+you ever. But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The
+cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+KING. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
+
+ [_Exit Horatio._]
+
+[_To Laertes_] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
+We’ll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, set some
+watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument. An hour
+of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.
+
+ Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
+
+HAMLET. So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other; You do
+remember all the circumstance?
+
+HORATIO. Remember it, my lord!
+
+HAMLET. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not
+let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes.
+Rashly, And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know, Our indiscretion
+sometime serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should
+teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we
+will.
+
+HORATIO. That is most certain.
+
+HAMLET. Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
+Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire, Finger’d their packet, and in
+fine, withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold, My fears
+forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found,
+Horatio, Oh royal knavery! an exact command, Larded with many several
+sorts of reasons, Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too, With
+ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That on the supervise, no leisure
+bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be
+struck off.
+
+HORATIO. Is’t possible?
+
+HAMLET. Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure. But wilt thou
+hear me how I did proceed?
+
+HORATIO. I beseech you.
+
+HAMLET. Being thus benetted round with villanies,— Or I could make a
+prologue to my brains, They had begun the play,—I sat me down, Devis’d
+a new commission, wrote it fair: I once did hold it, as our statists
+do, A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much How to forget that
+learning; but, sir, now It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know The
+effect of what I wrote?
+
+HORATIO. Ay, good my lord.
+
+HAMLET. An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his
+faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish,
+As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween
+their amities, And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge, That on the
+view and know of these contents, Without debatement further, more or
+less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time
+allow’d.
+
+HORATIO. How was this seal’d?
+
+HAMLET. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. I had my father’s signet
+in my purse, Which was the model of that Danish seal: Folded the writ
+up in the form of the other, Subscrib’d it: gave’t th’impression;
+plac’d it safely, The changeling never known. Now, the next day Was our
+sea-fight, and what to this was sequent Thou know’st already.
+
+HORATIO. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.
+
+HAMLET. Why, man, they did make love to this employment. They are not
+near my conscience; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow.
+’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell
+incensed points Of mighty opposites.
+
+HORATIO. Why, what a king is this!
+
+HAMLET. Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon,— He that hath
+kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother, Popp’d in between th’election and
+my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such
+cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And
+is’t not to be damn’d To let this canker of our nature come In further
+evil?
+
+HORATIO. It must be shortly known to him from England What is the issue
+of the business there.
+
+HAMLET. It will be short. The interim is mine; And a man’s life’s no
+more than to say ‘One’. But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to
+Laertes I forgot myself; For by the image of my cause I see The
+portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours. But sure the bravery of his
+grief did put me Into a tow’ring passion.
+
+HORATIO. Peace, who comes here?
+
+ Enter Osric.
+
+OSRIC. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
+
+HAMLET. I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly?
+
+HORATIO. No, my good lord.
+
+HAMLET. Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He
+hath much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his
+crib shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough; but, as I say,
+spacious in the possession of dirt.
+
+OSRIC. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a
+thing to you from his Majesty.
+
+HAMLET. I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet
+to his right use; ’tis for the head.
+
+OSRIC. I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.
+
+HAMLET. No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is northerly.
+
+OSRIC. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
+
+HAMLET. Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
+
+OSRIC. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as ’twere—I cannot tell
+how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid
+a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,—
+
+HAMLET. I beseech you, remember,—
+
+ [_Hamlet moves him to put on his hat._]
+
+OSRIC. Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is
+newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of
+most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing.
+Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of
+gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of what part a
+gentleman would see.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know,
+to divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and
+yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity
+of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion
+of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his
+semblable is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage,
+nothing more.
+
+OSRIC. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
+
+HAMLET. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more
+rawer breath?
+
+OSRIC. Sir?
+
+HORATIO. Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will
+do’t, sir, really.
+
+HAMLET. What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
+
+OSRIC. Of Laertes?
+
+HORATIO. His purse is empty already, all’s golden words are spent.
+
+HAMLET. Of him, sir.
+
+OSRIC. I know you are not ignorant,—
+
+HAMLET. I would you did, sir; yet in faith if you did, it would not
+much approve me. Well, sir?
+
+OSRIC. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is,—
+
+HAMLET. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in
+excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.
+
+OSRIC. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him,
+by them in his meed he’s unfellowed.
+
+HAMLET. What’s his weapon?
+
+OSRIC. Rapier and dagger.
+
+HAMLET. That’s two of his weapons. But well.
+
+OSRIC. The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses, against
+the which he has imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and
+poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the
+carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the
+hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.
+
+HAMLET. What call you the carriages?
+
+HORATIO. I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.
+
+OSRIC. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
+
+HAMLET. The phrase would be more german to the matter if we could carry
+cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six
+Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three
+liberal conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish.
+Why is this all imponed, as you call it?
+
+OSRIC. The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you and
+him, he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for
+nine. And it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would
+vouchsafe the answer.
+
+HAMLET. How if I answer no?
+
+OSRIC. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
+
+HAMLET. Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it
+is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the
+gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if
+I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
+
+OSRIC. Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?
+
+HAMLET. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
+
+OSRIC. I commend my duty to your lordship.
+
+HAMLET. Yours, yours.
+
+ [_Exit Osric._]
+
+He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s
+turn.
+
+HORATIO. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
+
+HAMLET. He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has
+he,—and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes
+on,— only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a
+kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the
+most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial,
+the bubbles are out,
+
+ Enter a Lord.
+
+LORD. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who
+brings back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if
+your pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer
+time.
+
+HAMLET. I am constant to my purposes, they follow the King’s pleasure.
+If his fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be
+so able as now.
+
+LORD. The King and Queen and all are coming down.
+
+HAMLET. In happy time.
+
+LORD. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes
+before you fall to play.
+
+HAMLET. She well instructs me.
+
+ [_Exit Lord._]
+
+HORATIO. You will lose this wager, my lord.
+
+HAMLET. I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in
+continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think
+how ill all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter.
+
+HORATIO. Nay, good my lord.
+
+HAMLET. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as
+would perhaps trouble a woman.
+
+HORATIO. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their
+repair hither, and say you are not fit.
+
+HAMLET. Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the
+fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to
+come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness
+is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave
+betimes?
+
+ Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric and Attendants with foils &c.
+
+KING. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
+
+ [_The King puts Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s._]
+
+HAMLET. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong; But pardon’t
+as you are a gentleman. This presence knows, and you must needs have
+heard, How I am punish’d with sore distraction. What I have done That
+might your nature, honour, and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim
+was madness. Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet. If Hamlet from
+himself be ta’en away, And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
+Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His
+madness. If’t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d; His
+madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy. Sir, in this audience, Let my
+disclaiming from a purpos’d evil Free me so far in your most generous
+thoughts That I have shot my arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother.
+
+LAERTES. I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should
+stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof,
+and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I
+have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor’d. But till
+that time I do receive your offer’d love like love, And will not wrong
+it.
+
+HAMLET. I embrace it freely, And will this brother’s wager frankly
+play.— Give us the foils; come on.
+
+LAERTES. Come, one for me.
+
+HAMLET. I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance Your skill shall
+like a star i’ th’ darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed.
+
+LAERTES. You mock me, sir.
+
+HAMLET. No, by this hand.
+
+KING. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the
+wager?
+
+HAMLET. Very well, my lord. Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker
+side.
+
+KING. I do not fear it. I have seen you both; But since he is better’d,
+we have therefore odds.
+
+LAERTES. This is too heavy. Let me see another.
+
+HAMLET. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
+
+ [_They prepare to play._]
+
+OSRIC. Ay, my good lord.
+
+KING. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet give the
+first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all
+the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet’s
+better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that
+which four successive kings In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the
+cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the
+cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
+‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear
+a wary eye.
+
+HAMLET. Come on, sir.
+
+LAERTES. Come, my lord.
+
+ [_They play._]
+
+HAMLET. One.
+
+LAERTES. No.
+
+HAMLET. Judgment.
+
+OSRIC. A hit, a very palpable hit.
+
+LAERTES. Well; again.
+
+KING. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Here’s to thy
+health.
+
+ [_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within._]
+
+Give him the cup.
+
+HAMLET. I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.
+
+ [_They play._]
+
+Come. Another hit; what say you?
+
+
+LAERTES. A touch, a touch, I do confess.
+
+KING. Our son shall win.
+
+QUEEN. He’s fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub
+thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
+
+HAMLET. Good madam.
+
+KING. Gertrude, do not drink.
+
+QUEEN. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.
+
+KING. [_Aside._] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.
+
+HAMLET. I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.
+
+QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face.
+
+LAERTES. My lord, I’ll hit him now.
+
+KING. I do not think’t.
+
+LAERTES. [_Aside._] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience.
+
+HAMLET. Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass
+with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
+
+LAERTES. Say you so? Come on.
+
+ [_They play._]
+
+OSRIC. Nothing neither way.
+
+LAERTES. Have at you now.
+
+ [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and
+ Hamlet wounds Laertes._]
+
+KING. Part them; they are incens’d.
+
+HAMLET. Nay, come again!
+
+ [_The Queen falls._]
+
+OSRIC. Look to the Queen there, ho!
+
+HORATIO. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
+
+OSRIC. How is’t, Laertes?
+
+LAERTES. Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric. I am justly
+kill’d with mine own treachery.
+
+HAMLET. How does the Queen?
+
+KING. She swoons to see them bleed.
+
+QUEEN. No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the
+drink! I am poison’d.
+
+ [_Dies._]
+
+HAMLET. O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d: Treachery! Seek it out.
+
+ [_Laertes falls._]
+
+LAERTES. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the
+world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life; The
+treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenom’d. The foul
+practice Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again.
+Thy mother’s poison’d. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.
+
+HAMLET. The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work.
+
+ [_Stabs the King._]
+
+OSRIC and LORDS. Treason! treason!
+
+KING. O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.
+
+HAMLET. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this
+potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother.
+
+ [_King dies._]
+
+LAERTES. He is justly serv’d. It is a poison temper’d by himself.
+Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death
+come not upon thee, Nor thine on me.
+
+ [_Dies._]
+
+HAMLET. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio.
+Wretched Queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
+That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time,—as this
+fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,—
+But let it be. Horatio, I am dead, Thou liv’st; report me and my cause
+aright To the unsatisfied.
+
+HORATIO. Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
+Here’s yet some liquor left.
+
+HAMLET. As th’art a man, Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll
+have’t. O good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus
+unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
+Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy
+breath in pain, To tell my story.
+
+ [_March afar off, and shot within._]
+
+What warlike noise is this?
+
+OSRIC. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, To the
+ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley.
+
+HAMLET. O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’er-crows my
+spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy
+th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him,
+with the occurrents more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is
+silence.
+
+ [_Dies._]
+
+HORATIO. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And
+flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Why does the drum come hither?
+
+ [_March within._]
+
+ Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.
+
+FORTINBRAS. Where is this sight?
+
+HORATIO. What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease
+your search.
+
+FORTINBRAS. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is
+toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So
+bloodily hast struck?
+
+FIRST AMBASSADOR. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England
+come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To
+tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, That Rosencrantz and
+Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks?
+
+HORATIO. Not from his mouth, Had it th’ability of life to thank you. He
+never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this
+bloody question, You from the Polack wars, and you from England Are
+here arriv’d, give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to
+the view, And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world How these things
+came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, Of
+accidental judgments, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning
+and forc’d cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on the
+inventors’ heads. All this can I Truly deliver.
+
+FORTINBRAS. Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the
+audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights
+of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite
+me.
+
+HORATIO. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth
+whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently
+perform’d, Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance On
+plots and errors happen.
+
+FORTINBRAS. Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
+For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally; and
+for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly
+for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field,
+but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
+
+ [_A dead march._]
+
+ [_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is
+ shot off._]
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAMLET***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/hislastbow b/files/books/unrelated/hislastbow
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c10363d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/hislastbow
@@ -0,0 +1,12665 @@
+HIS 
+LAST 
+BOW 
+
+
+
+A CONAN DOYLE 
+
+
+
+S. EDWIN CORLE, JR. 
+
+HIS BOOK 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW: 
+
+A REMINISCENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 
+
+
+
+BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 
+
+
+
+mS LAST BOW 
+
+A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR 
+
+THE VALLEY OF FEAR 
+
+THE POISON BELT 
+
+THE LOST WORLD 
+
+THE CASE OF OSCAR SLATER 
+
+THE GERMAN WAR 
+
+NEW YORK 
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+A REMINISCENCE 
+OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 
+
+
+
+BY 
+
+ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 
+
+AUTHOR OF 
+
+"THE ADVENTURES or SHERLOCK HOLMES," 
+"THE BOER WAR," ETC. 
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK 
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, IQiy, 
+BY GEOBGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
+
+
+
+PREFACE 
+
+THE friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be 
+glad to learn that he is still alive and well, 
+though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks 
+of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in 
+a small farm upon the Downs five miles from 
+Eastbourne, where his time is divided between 
+philosophy and agriculture. During this period 
+of rest he has refused the most princely offers to 
+take up various cases, having determined that his 
+retirement was a permanent one. The approach 
+of the German war caused him, however, to lay 
+his remarkable combination of intellectual and 
+practical activity at the disposal of the Govern- 
+ment, with historical results which are recounted 
+in His Last Bow. Several previous experiences 
+which have lain long in my portfolio have been 
+added to His Last Bow so as to complete the 
+volume. 
+
+JOHN H. WATSON, M.D. 
+
+
+
+[v] 
+
+2031475 
+
+
+
+CONTENTS 
+
+CHAPTER PAGH 
+
+I THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE . . 11 
+II THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD Box . 62 
+
+III THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE . . 98 
+
+IV THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON 
+
+PLANS 130 
+
+V THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 179 
+
+VT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CAR- 
+FAX 205 
+
+VII THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S FOOT . . 239 
+VIII His LAST Bow . 282 
+
+
+
+[vii] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA 
+LODGE 
+
+
+
+I. THE SINGULAR EXPERIENCE OF MR. JOHN 
+
+SCOTT ECCLES 
+
+I FIND it recorded in my notebook that it 
+was a bleak and windy day towards the end 
+of March in the year 1892. Holmes had re- 
+ceived a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch, and 
+he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, 
+but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he 
+stood in front of the fire afterwards with a 
+thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an 
+occasional glance at the message. Suddenly 
+he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle 
+in his eyes. 
+
+"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you 
+as a man of letters," said he. "How do you 
+define the word 'grotesque'?" 
+
+"Strange remarkable," I suggested. 
+
+He shook his head at my definition. 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"There is surely something more than that," 
+said he; "some underlying suggestion of the 
+tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind 
+back to some of those narratives with which you 
+have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will 
+recognise how often the grotesque has deepened 
+into the criminal. Think of that little affair of 
+the red-headed men. That was grotesque enough 
+in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate at- 
+tempt at robbeiy. Or y again, there was that 
+most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, 
+which led straight to a murderous conspiracy. 
+The word puts me on the alert." 
+
+"Have you it there?" I asked. 
+
+He read the telegram aloud. 
+
+"Have just had most incredible and grotesque 
+experience. May I consult you? Scott Eccles, 
+Post Office, Charing Cross." 
+
+"Man or woman?" I asked. 
+
+"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever 
+send a reply-paid telegram. She would have 
+come." 
+
+"Will you see him?" 
+
+"My dear Watson, you know how bored I 
+have been since we locked up Colonel Carruthers. 
+My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself 
+to pieces because it is not connected up with 
+the work for which it was built. Life is common- 
+place, the papers are sterile; audacity and ro- 
+mance seem to have passed for ever from the 
+[12] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether 
+I am ready to look into any new problem, how- 
+ever trivial it may prove ? But here, unless I am 
+mistaken, is our client." 
+
+A measured step was heard upon the stairs, 
+and a moment later a stout, tall, grey-whiskered 
+and solemnly respectable person was ushered 
+into the room. His life history was written in 
+his heavy features and pompous manner. From 
+his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was 
+a Conservative, a Churchman, a good citizen, 
+orthodox and conventional to the last degree. 
+But some amazing experience had disturbed his 
+native composure and left its traces in his bris- 
+tling hair, his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flur- 
+ried, excited manner. He plunged instantly 
+into his business. 
+
+"I have had a most singular and unpleasant 
+experience, Mr. Holmes," said he. "Never in 
+my life have I been placed in such a situation. 
+It is most improper most outrageous. I must 
+insist upon some explanation." He swelled 
+and puffed in his anger. 
+
+"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said 
+Holmes, in a soothing voice. "May I ask, in 
+the first place, why you came to me at all?" 
+
+"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter 
+which concerned the police, and yet, when you 
+have heard the facts, you must admit that I could 
+not leave it where it was. Private detectives 
+
+[13] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+are a class with whom I have absolutely no sym- 
+pathy, but none the less, having heard your 
+name " 
+
+"Quite so. But, in the second place, why did 
+you not come at once?" 
+
+"What do you mean?" 
+
+Holmes glanced at his watch. 
+
+"It is a quarter past two," he said. "Your 
+telegram was dispatched about one. But no one 
+can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing 
+that your disturbance dates from the moment of 
+your waking." 
+
+Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair 
+and felt his unshaven chin. 
+
+"You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave 
+a thought to my toilet. I was only too glad to 
+get out of such a house. But I have been run- 
+ning round making inquiries before I came to 
+you. I went to the house agents, you know, and 
+they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all 
+right and that everything was in order at Wis- 
+teria Lodge." 
+
+"Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing. 
+"You are like my friend Dr. Watson, who has 
+a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end fore- 
+most. Please arrange your thoughts and let 
+me know, in their due sequence, exactly what 
+those events are which have sent you out un- 
+brushed and unkempt, with dress boots and waist- 
+[14] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+coat buttoned awry, in search of advice and as- 
+sistance." 
+
+Our client looked down with a rueful face at 
+his own unconventional appearance. 
+
+"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, 
+and I am not aware that in my whole life such a 
+thing has ever happened before. But I will tell 
+you the whole queer business, and when I have 
+done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has 
+been enough to excuse me." i 
+
+But his narrative was nipped in the bud. 
+There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson 
+opened the door to usher in two robust and 
+official-looking individuals, one of whom was 
+well known to us as Inspector Gregson of 
+Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, with- 
+in his limitations, a capable officer. He shook 
+hands with Holmes, and introduced his comrade 
+as Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary. 
+
+"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and 
+our trail lay in this direction." He turned his 
+bulldog eyes upon our visitor. "Are you 
+Mr. John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, 
+Lee?" 
+
+"I am." 
+
+"We have been following you about all the 
+morning." 
+
+"You traced him through the telegram, no 
+doubt," said Holmes. 
+
+"Exactly, Mr. Holmes. We picked up the 
+
+[15] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+scent at Charing Cross Post Office and came 
+on here." 
+
+"But why do you follow me? What do you 
+want?" 
+
+"We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as 
+to the events which led up to the death last 
+night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, 
+near Esher." 
+
+Our client had sat up with staring eyes and 
+every tinge of colour struck from his astonished 
+face. 
+
+"Dead? Did you say he was dead?" 
+
+"Yes, sir, he is dead." 
+
+"But how? An accident?" 
+
+"Murder, if ever there was one upon earth." 
+
+"Good God! This is awful! You don't mean 
+you don't mean that I am suspected?" 
+
+"A letter of yours was found in the dead man's 
+pocket, and we know by it that you had planned 
+to pass last night at his house." 
+
+"So I did." 
+
+"Oh, you did, did you?" 
+
+Out came the official notebook. 
+
+"Wait a bit, Gregson," said Sherlock Holmes. 
+"All you desire is a plain statement, is it not?" 
+
+"And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles 
+that it may be used against him." 
+
+"Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it 
+when you entered the room. I think, Watson, 
+a brandy and soda would do him no harm. 
+[16] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+Now, sir, I suggest that you take no notice of 
+this addition to your audience, and that you 
+proceed with your narrative exactly as you 
+would have done had you never been inter- 
+rupted." 
+
+Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and 
+the colour had returned to his face. With a 
+dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he 
+plunged at once into his extraordinary state- 
+ment. 
+
+"I am a bachelor," said he, "and, being of a 
+sociable turn, I cultivate a large number of 
+friends. Among these are the family of a re- 
+tired brewer called Melville, living at Albemarle 
+Mansion, Kensington. It was at his table that 
+I met some weeks ago a young fellow named 
+Garcia. He was, I understood, of Spanish de- 
+scent and connected in some way with the Em- 
+bassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing 
+in his manners, and as good-looking a man as 
+ever I saw in my life. 
+
+"In some way we struck up quite a friend- 
+ship, this young fellow and I. He seemed to 
+take a fancy to me from the first, and within 
+two days of our meeting he came to see me at 
+Lee. One thing led to another, and it ended in 
+his inviting me out to spend a few days at his 
+house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher and Ox- 
+shott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to 
+fulfil this engagement. 
+
+[17] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"He had described his household to me before 
+I went there. He lived with a faithful servant, 
+a countryman of his own, who looked after all 
+his needs. This fellow could speak English and 
+did his housekeeping for him. Then there was 
+a wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom 
+he had picked up in his travels, who could serve 
+an excellent dinner. I remember that he re- 
+marked what a queer household it was to find 
+in the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with 
+him, though it has proved a good deal queerer 
+than I thought. 
+
+"I drove to the place about two miles on 
+the south side of Esher. The house was a fair- 
+sized one, standing back from the road, with 
+a curving drive which was banked with high 
+evergreen shrubs. It was an old, tumble-down 
+building in a crazy state of disrepair. When 
+the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in 
+front of the blotched and weather-stained door, 
+I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a 
+man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the 
+door himself, however, and greeted me with a 
+great show of cordiality. I was handed over 
+to the manservant, a melancholy, swarthy in- 
+dividual, who led the way, my bag in his hand, 
+to my bedroom. The whole place was depress- 
+ing. Our dinner was tete-a-tete, and though 
+my host did his best to be entertaining, his 
+thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he 
+[18] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly 
+understand him. He continually drummed his 
+fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and gave 
+other signs of nervous impatience. The dinner 
+itself was neither well served nor well cooked, 
+and the gloomy presence of the taciturn servant 
+did not help to enliven us. I can assure you 
+that many times in the course of the evening 
+I wished that I could invent some excuse which 
+would take me back to Lee. 
+
+"One thing comes back to my memory which 
+may have a bearing upon the business that you 
+two gentlemen are investigating. I thought 
+nothing of it at the time. Near the end of din- 
+ner a note was handed in by the servant. I 
+noticed that after my host had read it he seemed 
+even more distrait and strange than before. He 
+gave up all pretence at conversation and sat, 
+smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own 
+thoughts, but he made no remark as to the con- 
+tents. About eleven I was glad to go to bed. 
+Some time later Garcia looked in at my door 
+the room was dark at the time and asked me 
+if I had rung. I said that I had not. He apolo- 
+gised for having disturbed me so late, saying 
+that it was nearly one o'clock. I dropped off 
+after this and slept soundly all night. 
+
+"And now I come to the amazing part of my 
+tale. When I woke it was broad daylight. I 
+glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly 
+
+[19] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+nine. I had particularly asked to be called at 
+eight, so I was very much astonished at this 
+forgetfulness. I sprang up and rang for the 
+servant. There was no response. I rang again 
+and again, with the same result. Then I came 
+to the conclusion that the bell was out of order. 
+I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs 
+in an exceedingly bad temper to order some hot 
+water. You can imagine my surprise when I 
+found that there was no one there. I shouted 
+in the hall. There was no answer. Then I ran 
+from room to room. All were deserted. My 
+host had shown me which was his bedrom the 
+night before, so I knocked at the door. No reply. 
+I turned the handle and walked in. The room 
+was empty, and the bed had never been slept 
+in. He had gone with the rest. The foreign 
+host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all 
+had vanished in the night! That was the end 
+of my visit to Wisteria Lodge." 
+
+Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and 
+chuckling as he added this bizarre incident to 
+his collection of strange episodes. 
+
+"Your experience is, so far as I know, per- 
+fectly unique," said he. "May I ask, sir, what 
+you did then?" 
+
+"I was furious. My first idea was that I 
+
+had been the victim of some absurd practical 
+
+joke. I packed my things, banged the hall 
+
+door behind me, and set off for Esher, with my 
+
+[20] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+bag in my hand. I called at Allan Brothers', 
+the chief land agents in the village, and found 
+that it was from this firm that the villa had 
+been rented. It struck me that the whole pro- 
+ceeding could hardly be for the purpose of 
+making a fool of me, and that the main object 
+must be to get out of the rent. It is late in 
+March, so quarter-day is at hand. But this 
+theory would not work. The agent was obliged 
+to me for my warning, but told me that the 
+rent had been paid in advance. Then I made 
+my way to town and called at the Spanish 
+Embassy. The man was unknown there. After 
+this I went to see Melville, at whose house I 
+had first met Garcia, but I found that he really 
+knew rather less about him than I did. Finally, 
+when I got your reply to my wire I came out 
+to you, since I gather that you are a person 
+who gives advice in difficult cases. But now, 
+Mr. Inspector, I understand, from what you said 
+when you entered the room, that you can carry 
+the story on, and that some tragedy has occurred. 
+I can assure you that every word I have said 
+is the truth, and that, outside of what I have 
+told you, I know absolutely nothing about the 
+fate of this man. My only desire is to help the 
+law in every possible way." 
+
+"I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles I am sure 
+of it," said Inspector Gregson, in a very amia- 
+ble tone. "I am bound to say that everything 
+
+[21] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+which you have said agrees very closely with 
+the facts as they have come to our notice. For 
+example, there was that note which arrived dur- 
+ing dinner. Did you chance to observe what 
+became of it?" 
+
+"Yes, I did. Garcia rolled it up and threw 
+it into the fire." 
+
+"What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?" 
+
+The country detective was a stout, puffy, red 
+man, whose face was only redeemed from gross- 
+ness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost 
+hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and 
+brow. With a slow smile he drew a folded and 
+discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket. 
+
+"It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he over- 
+pitched it. I picked this out unburned from the 
+back of it." 
+
+Holmes smiled his appreciation. 
+
+"You must have examined the house very care- 
+fully, to find a single pellet of paper." 
+
+"I did, Mr. Holmes. It's my way. Shall I 
+read it, Mr. Gregson?" 
+
+The Londoner nodded. 
+
+"The note is written upon ordinary cream- 
+laid paper without watermark. It is a quarter- 
+sheet. The paper is cut off in two snips with 
+a short-bladed scissors. It has been folded over 
+three times and sealed with purple wax, put on 
+hurriedly and pressed down with some flat, oval 
+object. It is addressed to Mr. Garcia, Wisteria 
+[22] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+Lodge. It says: 'Our own colours, green and 
+white. Green open, white shut. Main stair, 
+first corridor, seventh right, green baize. God 
+speed. D/ It is a woman's writing, done with 
+a sharp-pointed pen, but the address is either done 
+with another pen or by someone else. It is thicker 
+and bolder, as you see." 
+
+"A very remarkable note," said Holmes, 
+glancing it over. "I must compliment you, 
+Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in 
+your examination of it. A few trifling points 
+might perhaps be added. The oval seal is un- 
+doubtedly a plain sleeve-link what else is of such 
+a shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors. 
+Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see 
+the same slight curve in each." 
+
+The country detective chuckled. 
+
+"I thought I had squeezed all the juice out 
+of it, but I see there was a little over," he said. 
+"I'm bound to say that I make nothing of the 
+note except that there was something on hand, 
+and that a woman, as usual, was at the bottom 
+of it." 
+
+Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat' 
+during this conversation. 
+
+"I am glad you found the note, since it cor- 
+roborates my story," said he. "But I beg to 
+point out that I have not yet heard what has 
+happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of 
+his household." 
+
+[23] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"As to Garcia," said Gregson, "that is easily 
+answered. He was found dead this morning 
+upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his 
+home. His head had been smashed to pulp 
+by heavy blows of a sand-bag or some such 
+instrument, which had crushed rather than 
+wounded. It is a lonely corner, and there is no 
+house within a quarter of a mile of the spot. He 
+had apparently been struck down first from 
+behind, but his assailant had gone on beating him 
+long after he was dead. It was a most furious 
+assault. There are no footsteps nor any clue 
+to the criminals." 
+
+"Robbed?" 
+
+"JXTo, there was no attempt at robbery." 
+
+"This is very painful very painful and 
+terrible," said Mr. Scott Eccles, in a querulous 
+voice; "but it is really uncommonly hard upon 
+me. I had nothing to do with my host going 
+off upon a nocturnal excursion and meeting so 
+sad an end. How do I come to be mixed up 
+with the case?" 
+
+"Very simply, sir," Inspector Baynes an- 
+swered. "The only document found in the 
+pocket of the deceased was a letter from you 
+saying that you would be with him on the night 
+of his death. It was the envelope of this letter 
+which gave us the dead man's name and address. 
+It was after nine this morning when we reached 
+his house and found neither you nor anyone 
+[24] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson to run 
+you down in London while I examined Wisteria 
+Lodge. Then I came into town, joined Mr. 
+Gregson, and here we are." 
+
+"I think now," said Gregson, rising, "we 
+had best put this matter into an official shape. 
+You will come round with us to the station, 
+Mr. Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement 
+in writing." 
+
+"Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain 
+your services, Mr. Holmes. I desire you to 
+spare no expense and no pains to get at the 
+truth." 
+
+My friend turned to the country inspector. 
+
+"I suppose that you have no objection to my 
+collaborating with you, Mr. Baynes?" 
+
+"Highly honoured, sir, I am sure." 
+
+"You appear to have been very prompt and 
+businesslike in all that you have done. Was 
+there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour 
+that the man met his death?" 
+
+"He had been there since one o'clock. There 
+was rain about that time, and his death had 
+certainly been before the rain." 
+
+"But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. 
+Baynes," cried our client. "His voice is un- 
+mistakable. I could swear to it that it was he 
+who addressed me in my bedroom at that very 
+hour." 
+
+[25] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Remarkable, but by no means impossible," 
+said Holmes, smiling. 
+
+"You have a clue?" asked Gregson. 
+
+"On the face of it the case is not a very 
+complex one, though it certainly presents some 
+novel and interesting features. A further knowl- 
+edge of facts is necessary before I would venture 
+to give a final and definite opinion. By the way, 
+Mr. Baynes, did you find anything remarkable 
+besides this note in your examination of the 
+house?" 
+
+The detective looked at my friend in a singular 
+way. 
+
+"There were," said he, "one or two very 
+remarkable things. Perhaps when I have fin- 
+ished at the police-station you would care to 
+come out and give me your opinion of them." 
+
+"I am entirely at your service," said Sherlock 
+Holmes, ringing the bell. "You will show 
+these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly 
+send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay 
+a five-shilling reply." 
+
+We sat for some time in silence after our 
+visitors had left. Holmes smoked hard, with 
+his brows drawn down over his keen eyes, and 
+his head thrust forward in the eager way charac- 
+teristic of the man. 
+
+"Well, Watson," he asked, turning suddenly 
+upon me, "what do you make of it?" 
+[26] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+"I can make nothing of this mystification of 
+Scott Eccles." 
+
+"But the crime?" 
+
+"Well, taken with the disappearance of the 
+man's companions, I should say that they were 
+in some way concerned in the murder and had 
+fled from justice." 
+
+"That is certainly a possible point of view. 
+On the face of it you must admit, however, that 
+it is very strange that his two servants should 
+have been in a conspiracy against him and 
+should have attacked him on the one night 
+when he had a guest. They had him alone at their 
+mercy every other night in the week." 
+
+"Then why did they fly?" 
+
+"Quite so. Why did they fly? There is 
+a big fact. Another big fact is the remarkable 
+experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, 
+my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of 
+human ingenuity to furnish an explanation 
+which would cover both these big facts? If 
+it were one which would also admit of the mys- 
+terious note with its very curious phraseology, 
+why, then it would be worth accepting as a 
+temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which 
+come to our knowledge all fit themselves into 
+the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually, 
+become a solution." 
+
+"But what is our hypothesis?" 
+
+[27] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Holmes leaned back in his chair with half- 
+closed eyes. 
+
+"You must admit, my dear Watson, that the 
+idea of a joke is impossible. There were grave 
+events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the 
+coaxing of Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had 
+some connection with them." 
+
+"But what possible connection?" 
+
+"Let us take it link by link. There is, on 
+the face of it, something unnatural about this 
+strange and sudden friendship between the 
+young Spaniard and Scott Eccles. It was 
+the former who forced the pace. He called 
+upon Eccles at the other end of London on the 
+very day after he first met him, and he kept 
+in close touch with him until he got him down 
+to Esher. Now, what did he want with Eccles? 
+What could Eccles supply? I see no charm in 
+the man. He is not particularly intelligent 
+not a man likely to be congenial to a quick- 
+witted Latin. Why, then, was he picked out 
+from all the other people whom Garcia met as 
+particularly suited to his purpose? Has he any 
+one outstanding quality? I say that he has. 
+He is the very type of conventional British 
+respectability, and the very man as a witness to 
+impress another Briton. You saw yourself how 
+neither of the inspectors dreamed of questioning 
+his statement, extraordinary as it was." 
+
+"But what was he to witness?" 
+[28] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+"Nothing, as things turned out, but every- 
+thing had they gone another way. That is how 
+I read the matter." 
+
+"I see, he might have proved an alibi." 
+
+"Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have 
+proved an alibi. We will suppose, for argu- 
+ment's sake, that the household of Wisteria 
+Lodge are confederates in some design. The 
+attempt, whatever it may be, is to come off, we 
+will say, before one o'clock. By some juggling 
+of the clocks it is quite possible that they may 
+have got Scott Eccles to bed earlier than he 
+thought, but in any case it is likely that when 
+Garcia went out of his way to tell him that it 
+was one it was really not more than twelve. If 
+Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be 
+back by the hour mentioned he had evidently 
+a powerful reply to any accusation. Here was 
+this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear 
+in any court of law that the accused was in his 
+house all the time. It was an insurance against 
+the worst." 
+
+"Yes, yes, I see that. But how about the 
+disappearance of the others?" 
+
+"I have not all my facts yet, but I do 
+not think there are any insuperable difficulties. 
+Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. 
+You find yourself insensibly twisting them round 
+to fit your theories." 
+
+"And the message?" 
+
+[29] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"How did it run? 'Our own colours, green 
+and white.' Sounds like racing. 'Green open, 
+white shut.' That is clearly a signal. 'Main 
+stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.' 
+This is an assignation. We may find a jealous 
+husband at the bottom of it all. It was clearly 
+a dangerous quest. She would not have said 
+'God speed' had it not been so. 'D.' that should 
+be a guide." 
+
+"The man was a Spaniard. I suggest that 
+*D' stands for Dolores, a common female name 
+in Spain." 
+
+"Good, Watson, very good but quite in- 
+admissible. A Spaniard would write to a 
+Spaniard in Spanish. The writer of this note 
+is certainly English. Well, we can only possess 
+our souls in patience, until this excellent in- 
+spector comes back for us. Meanwhile we can 
+thank our lucky fate which has rescued us for 
+a few short hours from the insufferable fatigues 
+of idleness." 
+
+An answer had arrived to Holmes's telegram 
+before our Surrey officer had returned. Holmes 
+read it, and was about to place it in his note- 
+book when he caught a glimpse of my expectant 
+face. He tossed it across with a laugh. 
+
+"We are moving in exalted circles," said he. 
+
+The telegram was a list of names and ad- 
+dresses: "Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir 
+[30] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr. Hynes 
+Hynes, J.P., Purdey Place; Mr. James Baker 
+Williams, Forton Old Hall; Mr. Henderson, 
+High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Wai- 
+sling." 
+
+"This is a very obvious way of limiting our 
+field of operations," said Holmes. "No doubt 
+Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already 
+adopted some similar plan." 
+
+"I don't quite understand." 
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, we have already 
+arrived at the conclusion that the message 
+received by Garcia at dinner was an appoint- 
+ment or an assignation. Now, if the obvious 
+reading of it is correct, and in order to keep 
+this tryst one has to ascend a main stair and 
+seek the seventh door in a corridor, it is per- 
+fectly clear that the house is a very large one. 
+It is equally certain that this house cannot be 
+more than a mile or two from Oxshott, since 
+Garcia was walking in that direction, and hoped, 
+according to my reading of the facts, to be back 
+in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of 
+an alibi, which would only be valid up to one 
+o'clock. As the number of large houses close 
+to Oxshott must be limited, I adopted the 
+obvious method of sending to the agents men- 
+tioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of 
+them. Here they are in this telegram, and the 
+
+[31] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+other end of our tangled skein must lie among 
+them." 
+
+It was nearly six o'clock before we found 
+ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher, 
+with Inspector Baynes as our companion. 
+
+Holmes and I had taken things for the night, 
+and found comfortable quarters at the Bull. 
+Finally we set out in the company of the detec- 
+tive on our visit to Wisteria Lodge. It was a 
+cold, dark March evening, with a sharp wind and 
+a fine rain beating upon our faces, a fit setting 
+for the wild common over which our road passed 
+and the tragic goal to which it led us. 
+
+
+
+II. THE TIGER OF SAN PEDRO 
+
+A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of 
+miles brought us to a high wooden gate, which 
+opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The 
+curved and shadowed drive led us to a low, 
+dark house, pitch-black against a slate-coloured 
+sky. From the front window upon the left of 
+the door there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light. 
+
+"There's a constable in possession," said 
+Baynes. "I'll knock at the window." He 
+stepped across the grass plot and tapped with 
+his hand on the pane. Through the fogged 
+glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a chair 
+[32] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry from 
+within the room. An instant later a white- 
+faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened 
+the door, the candle wavering in his trembling 
+hand. 
+
+"What's the matter, Walters?" asked Baynes, 
+sharply. 
+
+The man mopped his forehead with his hand- 
+kerchief and gave a long sigh of relief. 
+
+"I am glad you have come, sir. It has been 
+a long evening and I don't think my nerve is as 
+good as it was." 
+
+"Your nerve, Walters? I should not have 
+thought you had a nerve in your body." 
+
+"Well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and 
+the queer thing in the kitchen. Then when you 
+tapped at the window I thought it had come 
+again." 
+
+"That what had come again?" 
+
+"The devil, sir, for all I know. It was at 
+the window." 
+
+"What was at the window, and when?" 
+
+"It was just about two hours ago. The 
+light was just fading. I was sitting reading in 
+the chair. I don't know what made me look 
+up, but there was a face looking in at me 
+through the lower pane. Lord, sir, what a face 
+it was! I'll see it in my dreams." 
+
+"Tut, tut, Walters!; Thi is not talk for a 
+police-constable." 
+
+[33] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, 
+and there's no use to deny it. It wasn't black, 
+sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know, 
+but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash 
+of milk in it. Then there was the size of it 
+it was twice yours, sir. And the look of it 
+the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of 
+white teeth like a hungry beast. I tell you, 
+sir, I couldn't move a finger, nor get my breath, 
+till it whisked away and was gone. Out I ran 
+and through the shrubbery, but thank God 
+there was no one there." 
+
+"If I didn't know you were a good man, 
+Walters, I should put a black mark against you 
+for this. If it were the devil himself a constable 
+on duty should never thank God that he could 
+not lay his hands upon him. I suppose the 
+whole thing is not a vision and a touch of 
+nerves?" 
+
+"That, at least, is very easily settled," said 
+Holmes, lighting his little pocket lantern. 
+"Yes," he reported, after a short examination 
+of the grass bed, "a number twelve shoe, I 
+should say. If he was all on the same scale as 
+his foot he must certainly have been a giant." 
+
+"What became of him?" 
+
+"He seems to have broken through the 
+shrubbery and made for the road." 
+
+"Well," said the inspector, with a grave and 
+thoughtful face, "whoever he may have been, 
+[34] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone 
+for the present, and we have more immediate 
+things to attend to. Now, Mr. Holmes, with 
+your permission, I will show you round the 
+house." 
+
+The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had 
+yielded nothing to a careful search. Apparently 
+the tenants had brought little or nothing with 
+them, and all the furniture down to the smallest 
+details had been taken over with the house. 
+A good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx 
+and Co., High Holborn, had been left behind., 
+Telegraphic inquiries had been already made 
+which showed that Marx knew nothing of his 
+customer save that he was a good payer. Odds 
+and ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them 
+in Spanish, an old-fashioned pinflre revolver, 
+and a guitar were amongst the personal property. 
+
+"Nothing in all this," said Baynes, stalking, 
+candle in hand, from room to room. "But 
+now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to 
+the kitchen." 
+
+It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the 
+back of the house, with a straw litter in one 
+corner, which served apparently as a bed for 
+the cook. The table was piled with half-eaten 
+dishes and dirty plates, the debris of last night's 
+dinner. 
+
+"Look at this," said Baynes. "What do 
+you make of it?" 
+
+[35] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+He held up his candle before an extraordinary 
+object which stood at the back of the dresser. 
+It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered 
+that it was difficult to say what it might have 
+been. One could but say that it was black 
+and leathery and that it bore some resemblance 
+to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I 
+examined it, I thought that it was a mummified 
+negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted 
+and ancient monkey. Finally I was left in 
+doubt as to whether it was animal or human. 
+A double band of white shells was strung round 
+the centre of it. 
+
+"Very interesting very interesting, indeed!" 
+said Holmes peering at this sinister relic. "Any- 
+thing more?" 
+
+In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and 
+held forward his candle. The limbs and body 
+of some large, white bird, torn savagely to 
+pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all 
+over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the 
+severed head. 
+
+"A white cock," said he; most interesting! It 
+is really a very curious case." 
+
+But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister 
+exhibit to the last. From under the sink he 
+drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity 
+of blood. Then from the table he took a 
+platter heaped with small pieces of charred 
+bone. 
+
+[36] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+"Something has been killed and something 
+has been burned. We raked all these out of 
+the fire. We had a doctor in this morning. 
+He says that they are not human." 
+
+Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. 
+
+"I must congratulate you, inspector, on 
+handling so distinctive and instructive a case. 
+Your powers, if I may say so without offence, 
+seem superior to your opportunities." 
+
+Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with 
+pleasure. 
+
+"You're right, Mr. Holmes. We stagnate in 
+the provinces. A case of this sort gives a man 
+a chance, and I hope that I shall take it. What 
+do you make of these bones?" 
+
+"A lamb, I should say, or a kid." 
+
+"And the white cock?" 
+
+"Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious. I should 
+say almost unique." 
+
+"Yes, sir, there must have been some very 
+strange people with some very strange ways in 
+this house. One of them is dead. Did his 
+companions follow him and kill him? If they 
+did we should have them, for every port is 
+watched. But my own views are different. 
+Yes, sir, my own views are very different." 
+
+"You have a theory then?" 
+
+"And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes. It's 
+only due to my own credit to do so. Your 
+name is made, but I have still to make mine. 
+
+[37] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+I should be glad to be able to say afterwards 
+that I had solved it without your help." 
+
+Holmes laughed good-humouredly. 
+
+"Well, well, inspector," said he. "Do you 
+follow your path and I will follow mine. My 
+results are always very much at your service 
+if you care to apply to me for them. I think 
+that I have seen all that I wish in this house, 
+and that my time may be more profitably 
+employed elsewhere. Au revoir and good luck!" 
+
+I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which 
+might have been lost upon anyone but myself, 
+that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive 
+as ever to the casual observer, there were none 
+the less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of 
+tension in his brightened eyes and brisker 
+manner which assured me that the game was 
+afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and 
+after mine I asked no questions. Sufficient for 
+me to share the sport and lend my humble 
+help to the capture without distracting that 
+intent brain with needless interruption. All 
+would come round to me in due time. 
+
+I waited, therefore but, to my ever-deepen- 
+ing disappointment I waited in vain. Day 
+succeeded day, and my friend took no step 
+forward. One morning he spent in town, and 
+I learned from a casual reference that he had 
+visited the British Museum. Save for this one 
+excursion, he spent his days in long, and often 
+[38] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+solitary walks, or in chatting with a number of 
+village gossips whose acquaintance he had cul- 
+tivated. 
+
+"I'm sure, Watson, a week in the country 
+will be invaluable to you," he remarked. "It 
+is very pleasant to see the first green shoots 
+upon the hedges and the catkins on the hazels 
+once again. With a spud, a tin box, and an ele- 
+mentary book on botany, there are instructive 
+days to be spent." He prowled about with this 
+equipment himself, but it was a poor show of 
+plants which he would bring back of an evening. 
+
+Occasionally in our rambles we came across 
+Inspector Baynes. His fat, red face wreathed 
+itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as 
+he greeted my companion. He said little about 
+the case, but from that little we gathered that 
+he also was not dissatisfied at the course of 
+events. I must admit, however, that I was some- 
+what surprised when, some five days after the 
+crime, I opened my morning paper to find in 
+large letters: 
+
+"THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY 
+
+A SOLUTION 
+ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN." 
+
+Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been 
+stung when I read the head-lines. 
+
+[39] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"By Jove!" he cried. "You don't mean that 
+Baynes has got him?" 
+
+"Apparently," said I, as I read the following 
+report : 
+
+"Great excitement was caused in Esher and 
+the neighbouring district when it was learned 
+late last night that an arrest had been affected 
+in connection with the Oxshott murder. It 
+will be remembered that Mr. Garcia, of Wisteria 
+Lodge, was found dead on Oxshott Common, 
+his body showing signs of extreme violence, and 
+that on the same night his servant and his cook 
+fled, which appeared to show their participa- 
+tion in the crime. It was suggested, but never 
+proved, that the deceased gentleman may have 
+had valuables in the house, and that their 
+abstraction was the motive of the crime. Every 
+effort was made by Inspector Baynes, who has 
+the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding place 
+of the fugitives, and he had good reason to 
+believe that they had not gone far, but were 
+lurking in some retreat which had been already 
+prepared. It was certain from the first, how- 
+ever, that they would eventually be detected, as 
+the cook, from the evidence of one or two 
+tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him 
+through the window, was a man of most remark- 
+able appearance being a huge and hideous 
+mulatto, with yellowish features of a pronounced 
+negroid type. This man has been seen since 
+the crime, for he was detected and pursued by 
+[40] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+Constable Walters on the same evening, when 
+he had the audacity to revisit Wisteria Lodge. 
+Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit 
+must have some purpose in view, and was likely, 
+therefore, to be repeated, abandoned the house, 
+but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery. The 
+man walked into the trap, and was captured 
+last night after a struggle, in which Constable 
+Downing was badly bitten by the savage. We 
+understand that when the prisoner is brought 
+before the magistrates a remand will be applied 
+for by the police, and that great developments 
+are hoped from his capture." 
+
+"Really we must see Baynes at once," cried 
+Holmes, picking up his hat. "We will just 
+catch him before he starts." We hurried down 
+the village street and found, as we had ex- 
+pected, that the inspector was just leaving his 
+lodgings. 
+
+"You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?" he 
+asked, holding one out to us. 
+
+"Yes, Baynes, I've seen it. Pray don't 
+think it a liberty if I give you a word of friendly 
+warning." 
+
+"Of warning, Mr. Holmes?" 
+
+"I have looked into this case with some care, 
+and I am not convinced that you are on the right 
+lines. I don't want you to commit yourself too 
+far. unless vou are sure." 
+
+[41] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"You're very kind, Mr. Holmes." 
+
+"I assure you I speak for your good." 
+
+It seemed to me that something like a wink 
+quivered for an instant over one of Mr. Baynes's 
+tiny eyes. 
+
+"We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. 
+Holmes. That's what I am doing." 
+
+"Oh, very good," said Holmes. "Don't blame 
+me." 
+
+"No, sir; I believe you mean well by me. 
+But we all have our own systems, Mr. Holmes. 
+You have yours, and maybe I have mine." 
+
+"Let us say no more about it." 
+
+"You're welcome always to my news. This 
+fellow is a perfect savage, as strong as a cart- 
+horse and as fierce as the devil. He chewed 
+Downing's thumb nearly off before they could 
+master him. He hardly speaks a word of 
+English, and we can get nothing out of him but 
+grunts." 
+
+"And you think you have evidence that he 
+murdered his late master?" 
+
+"I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn't say 
+so. We all have our little ways. You try 
+yours and I will try mine. That's the agree- 
+ment." 
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked 
+away together. "I can't make the man out. 
+He seems to be riding for a fall. Well, as he 
+[42] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+says, we must each try our own way and see 
+what comes of it. But there's something in 
+Inspector Baynes which I can't quite under- 
+stand." 
+
+"Just sit down in that chair, Watson," said 
+Sherlock Holmes, when we had returned to our 
+apartment at the Bull. "I want to put you in 
+touch with the situation, as I may need your 
+help to-night. Let me show you the evolution 
+of this case, so far as I have been able to follow 
+it. Simple as it has been in its leading fea- 
+tures, it has none the less presented surprising 
+difficulties in the way of an arrest. There are 
+gaps in that direction which we have still to 
+fill. 
+
+"We will go back to the note which was 
+handed in to Garcia upon the evening of his 
+death. We may put aside this idea of Baynes's 
+that Garcia's servants were concerned in the 
+matter. The proof of this lies in the fact that 
+it was he who had arranged for the presence of 
+Scott Eccles, which could only have been done 
+for the purpose of an alibi. It was Garcia, then, 
+who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal 
+enterprise, in hand that night, in the course of 
+which he met his death. I say criminal because 
+only a man with a criminal enterprise desires to 
+establish an alibi. Who, then is most likely to 
+have taken his life? Surely the person against 
+
+[43] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+whom the criminal enterprise was directed. So 
+far it seems to me that we are on safe ground. 
+
+"We can now see a reason for the disappear- 
+ance of Garcia's household. They were all 
+confederates in the same unknown crime. If 
+it came off then Garcia returned, any possible 
+suspicion would be warded off by the English- 
+man's evidence, and all would be well. But 
+the attempt was a dangerous one, and if Garcia 
+did not return by a certain hour it was probable 
+that his own life had been sacrificed. It had 
+been arranged, therefore, that in such a case his 
+two subordinates were to make for some pre- 
+arranged spot, where they could escape investi- 
+gation and be in a position afterwards to renew 
+their attempt. That would fully explain the 
+facts, would it not?" 
+
+The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to 
+straighten out before me. I wondered, as I 
+always did, how it had not been obvious to me 
+before. 
+
+"But why should one servant return?" 
+
+"We can imagine that, in the confusion of 
+flight, something precious, something which he 
+could not bear to part with, had been left behind. 
+That would explain his persistence, would it 
+not?" 
+
+"Well, what is the next step?" 
+
+"The next step is the note received by 
+Garcia at the dinner. It indicates a con- 
+[44] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+federate at the other end. Now, where was the 
+other end? I have already shown you that it 
+could only lie in some large house, and that the 
+number of large houses is limited. My first 
+days in this village were devoted to a series of 
+walks, in which in the intervals of my botanical 
+researches I made a reconnaissance of all the 
+large houses and an examination of the family 
+history of the occupants. One house, and only 
+one, riveted my attention. It is the famous 
+old Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile 
+on the farther side of Oxshott, and less than 
+half a mile from the scene of the tragedy. 
+The other mansions belonged to prosaic and 
+respectable people who live far aloof from 
+romance. But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, 
+was by all accounts a curious man, to whom 
+curious adventures might befall. I concentrated 
+my attention, therefore, upon him and his 
+household. 
+
+"A singular set of people, Watson the man 
+himself the most singular of them all. I man- 
+aged to see him on a plausible pretext, but 
+I seemed to read in his dark, deep-set, brooding 
+eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true 
+business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, 
+with iron-grey hair, great bunched black eye- 
+brows, the step of a deer, and the air of an 
+emperor a fierce, masterful man, with a red- 
+hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is 
+
+[45] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+either a foreigner or has lived long in the Tropics, 
+for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whip- 
+cord. His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is 
+undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, 
+suave and cat-like with a poisonous gentleness 
+of speech. You see, Watson, we have come 
+already upon two sets of foreigners one at 
+Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable so our 
+gaps are beginning to close. 
+
+"These two men, close and confidential 
+friends, are the centre of the household; but 
+there is one other person, who for our immediate 
+purpose may be even more important. Hen- 
+derson has two children girls of eleven and 
+thirteen. Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an 
+Englishwoman of forty or thereabouts. There 
+is also one confidential manservant. This little 
+group forms the real family, for they travel 
+about together, and Henderson is a great 
+traveller, always on the move. It is only 
+within the last few weeks that he has returned, 
+after a year's absence, to High Gable. I may 
+add that he is enormously rich, and whatever 
+his whims may be he can very easily satisfy 
+them. For the rest, his house is full of butlers, 
+footmen, maidservants, and the usual overfed, 
+underworked staff of a large English country- 
+house. 
+
+"So much I learned partly from village 
+gossip and partly from my own observation. 
+[46] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+There are no better instruments than discharged 
+servants with a grievance, and I was lucky 
+enough to find one. I call it luck, but it would 
+not have come my way had I not been looking 
+out for it. As Baynes remarks, we all have our 
+systems. It was my system which enabled me 
+to find John Warner, late gardener of High 
+Gable, sacked in a moment of temper by his 
+imperious employer. He in turn had friends 
+among the indoor servants, who unite in their 
+fear and dislike of their master. So I had my 
+key to the secrets of the establishment. 
+
+"Curious people, Watson! I don't pretend 
+to understand it all yet, but very curious people 
+anyway. It's a double-winged house, and the 
+servants live on one side, the family on the 
+other. There's no link between the two save for 
+Henderson's own servant, who serves the family's 
+meals. Everything is carried to a certain door, 
+which forms the one connection. Governess and 
+children hardly go out at all, except into the 
+garden. Henderson never by any chance walks 
+alone. His dark secretary is like his shadow. 
+The gossip among the servants is that their 
+master is terribly afraid of something. 'Sold 
+his soul to the devil in exchange for money/ 
+says Warner, 'and expects his creditor to 
+come up and claim his own.' Where they came 
+from, or who they are, nobody has an idea. 
+They are very violent. Twice Henderson has 
+
+[47] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his 
+long purse and heavy compensation have kept 
+him out of the courts. 
+
+"Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situa- 
+tion by this new information. We may take 
+it that the letter came out of this strange 
+household, and was an invitation to Garcia to 
+carry out some attempt which had already been 
+planned. Who wrote the note? It was some- 
+one within the citadel, and it was a woman. 
+Who then, but Miss Burnet, the governess? 
+All our reasoning seems to point that way. At 
+any rate, we may take it as a hypothesis, and 
+see what consequences it would entail. I may 
+add that Miss Burnet's age and character make 
+it certain that my first idea that there might 
+be a love interest in our story is out of the 
+question. 
+
+"If she wrote the note she was presumably 
+the friend and confederate of Garcia. What, 
+then, might she be expected to do if she heard 
+of his death? If he met it in some nefarious 
+enterprise her lips might be sealed. Still, in 
+her heart she must retain bitterness and hatred 
+against those who had killed him, and would 
+presumably help so far as she could to have 
+revenge upon them. Could we see her, then 
+and try to use her? That was my first thought. 
+But now we come to a sinister fact. Miss 
+Burnet has not been seen by any human eye 
+[48] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+since the night of the murder. From that 
+evening she has utterly vanished. Is she alive? 
+Has she perhaps met her end on the same night 
+as the friend whom she had summoned? Or 
+is she merely a prisoner? There is the point which 
+we still have to decide. 
+
+"You will appreciate the difficulty of the 
+situation, Watson. There is nothing upon which 
+we can apply for a warrant. Our whole 
+scheme might seem fantastic if laid before a 
+magistrate. The woman's disappearance counts 
+for nothing, since in that extraordinary house- 
+hold any member of it might be invisible for a 
+week. And yet she may at the present moment 
+be in danger of her life. All I can do is to watch 
+the house and leave my agent, Warner, on guard 
+at the gates. We can't let such a situation con- 
+tinue. If the law can do nothing we must take 
+the risk ourselves." 
+
+"What do you suggest?" 
+
+"I know which is her room. It is accessible 
+from the top of an outhouse. My suggestion is 
+that you and I go to-night and see if we can 
+strike at the very heart of the mystery." 
+
+It was not, I must confess, a very alluring 
+prospect. The old house with its atmosphere 
+of murder, the singular and formidable inhabi- 
+tants, the unknown dangers of the approach, 
+and the fact that we were putting ourselves 
+legally in a false position, all combined to damp 
+
+[49] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+my ardour. But there was something in the 
+ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it 
+impossible to shrink from any adventure which 
+he might recommend. One knew that thus, 
+and only thus, could a solution be found. I 
+clasped his hand in silence, and the die was 
+cast. 
+
+But it was not destined that our investigation 
+should have so adventurous an ending. It was 
+about five o'clock, and the shadows of the 
+March evening were beginning to fall, when an 
+excited rustic rushed into our room. 
+
+"They've gone, Mr. Holmes. They went by 
+the last train. The lady broke away, and I've 
+got her in a cab downstairs." 
+
+"Excellent, Warner!" cried Holmes, spring- 
+ing to his feet. "Watson, the gaps are closing 
+rapidly." 
+
+In the cab was a woman, half -collapsed from 
+nervous exhaustion. She bore upon her aquiline 
+and emaciated face the traces of some recent 
+tragedy. Her head hung listlessly upon her 
+breast, but as she raised it and turned her dull 
+eyes upon us, I saw that her pupils were dark 
+dots in the centre of the broad grey iris. She 
+was drugged with opium. 
+
+"I watched at the gate, same as you advised, 
+
+Mr. Holmes," said our emissary, the discharged 
+
+gardener. "When the carriage came out I 
+
+followed it to the station. She was like one 
+
+[50] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+walking in her sleep; but when they tried to 
+get her into the train she came to life and 
+struggled. They pushed her into the carriage. 
+She fought her way out again. I took her part, 
+got her into a cab, and here we are. I shan't 
+forget the face at the carriage window as I 
+led her away. I'd have a short life if he 
+had his way the black-eyed, scowling, yellow 
+devil." 
+
+We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, 
+and a couple of cups of the strongest coffee soon 
+cleared her brain from the mists of the drug. 
+Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the 
+situation rapidly explained to him. 
+
+"Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I 
+want," said the inspector, warmly, shaking my 
+friend by the hand. "I was on the same scent 
+as you from the first." 
+
+"What! You were after Henderson?" 
+
+"Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling 
+in the shrubbery at High Gable I was up one of 
+the trees in the plantation and saw you down 
+below. It was just who would get his evidence 
+first." 
+
+"Then why did you arrest the mulatto?" 
+
+Baynes chuckled. 
+
+"I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, 
+felt that he was suspected, and that he would 
+lie low and make no move so long as he thought 
+he was in any danger. I arrested the wrong man 
+
+[51] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+to make him believe that our eyes were off him. 
+I knew he would be likely to clear off then and 
+give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet." 
+
+Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's 
+shoulder. 
+
+"You will rise high in your profession. You 
+have instinct and intuition," said he. 
+
+Baynes flushed with pleasure. 
+
+"I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the 
+station all the week. Wherever the High Gable 
+folk go he will keep them in sight. But he must 
+have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke 
+away. However, your man picked her up, and 
+it all ends well. We can't arrest without her 
+evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a 
+statement the better." 
+
+"Every minute she gets stronger," said 
+Holmes, glancing at the governess. "But tell 
+me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?" 
+
+"Henderson," the inspector answered, "is Don 
+Murillo, once called the Tiger of San Pedro." 
+
+The Tiger of San Pedro! The whole history 
+of the man came back to me in a flash. He had 
+made his name as the most lewd and blood- 
+thirsty tyrant that had ever governed any 
+country with a pretence to civilization. Strong, 
+fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient virtue 
+to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a 
+cowering people for ten or twelve years. His 
+name was a terror through all Central America. 
+[52] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+At the end of that time there was a universal 
+rising against him. But he was as cunning as 
+he was cruel, and at the first whisper of coming 
+trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures 
+aboard a ship which was manned by devoted 
+adherents. It was an empty palace which was 
+stormed by the insurgents next day. The 
+Dictator, his two children, his secretary, and his 
+wealth had all escaped them. From that moment 
+he had vanished from the world, and his identity 
+had been a frequent subject for comment in 
+the European Press. 
+
+"Yes, sir; Don Murillo, the Tiger of San 
+Pedro," said Baynes. "If you look it up you 
+will find that the San Pedro colours are green 
+and white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes. 
+Henderson he called himself, but I traced him 
+back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, 
+where his ship came in in '86. They've been 
+looking for him all the time for their revenge, 
+but it is only now that they have begun to find 
+him out." 
+
+"They discovered him a year ago," said 
+Miss Burnet, who had sat up and was now 
+intently following the conversation. "Once 
+already his life has been attempted; but some 
+evil spirit shielded him. Now, again, it is the 
+noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while 
+the monster goes safe. But another will come, 
+and yet another, until some day justice will 
+
+[53] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+be done; that is as certain as the rise of to- 
+morrow's sun." Her thin hands clenched, and 
+her worn face blanched with the passion of her 
+hatred. 
+
+"But how come you into this matter, Miss 
+Burnet?" asked Holmes. "How can an Eng- 
+lish lady join in such a murderous affair?" 
+
+"I join in it because there is no other way in 
+the world by which justice can be gained. 
+What does the law of England care for the 
+rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, 
+or for the ship-load of treasure which this man 
+has stolen? To you they are like crimes com- 
+mitted in some other planet. But we know. We 
+have learned the truth in sorrow and in suffer- 
+ing. To us there is no fiend in hell like Juan 
+Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims 
+still cry for vengeance." 
+
+"No doubt," said Holmes, "he was as you 
+say. I have heard that he was atrocious. But 
+how are you affected?" 
+
+"I will tell you it all. This villain's policy 
+was to murder, on one pretext or another, 
+every man who showed such promise that he 
+might in time come to be a dangerous rival. 
+My husband yes, my real name is Signora 
+Victor Durando was the San Pedro Minister 
+in London. He met me and married me there. 
+A nobler man never lived upon earth. Un- 
+happily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled 
+[54] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+him on some pretext, and had him shot. With 
+a premonition of his fate he had refused to take 
+me with him. His estates were confiscated, 
+and I was left with a pittance and a broken 
+heart. 
+
+"Then came the downfall of the tyrant. He 
+escaped as you have just described. But the 
+many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest 
+and dearest had suffered torture and death at 
+his hands, would not let the matter rest. They 
+banded themselves into a society which should 
+never be dissolved until the work was done. 
+It was my part after we had discovered in the 
+transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to 
+attach myself to his household and keep the 
+others in touch with his movements. This I 
+was able to do by securing the position of 
+governess in his family. He little knew that 
+the woman who faced him at every meal was 
+the woman whose husband he had hurried at 
+an hour's notice into eternity. I smiled on him, 
+did my duty to his children, and bided my time. 
+An attempt was made in Paris, and failed. We 
+zigzagged swiftly here and there over Europe, 
+to throw off the pursuers, and finally returned 
+to this house, which he had taken upon his first 
+arrival in England. 
+
+"But here also the ministers of justice were 
+waiting. Knowing that he would return there, 
+Garcia, who is the son of the former highest 
+
+[55] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two 
+trusty companions of humble station, all three 
+fired with the same reasons for revenge. He 
+could do little during the day, for Murillo took 
+every precaution, and never went out save 
+with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was 
+known in the days of his greatness. At night, 
+however, he slept alone, and the avenger might 
+find him. On a certain evening, which had been 
+prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, 
+for the man was for ever on the alert, and con- 
+tinually changed his room. I was to see that 
+the doors were open and the signal of a green or 
+white light in a window which faced the drive 
+was to give notice if all was safe, or if the attempt 
+had better be postponed. 
+
+"But everything went wrong with us. In 
+some way I had excited the suspicion of Lopez, 
+the secretary. He crept up behind me, and 
+sprang upon me just as I had finished the note. 
+He and his master dragged me to my room, 
+and held judgment upon me as a convicted 
+traitress. Then and there they would have 
+plunged their knives into me, could they have 
+seen how to escape the consequence of the deed. 
+Finally, after much debate, they concluded that 
+my murder was too dangerous. But they de- 
+termined to get rid for ever of Garclr. They 
+had gagged me, and Murillo twisted my arm 
+round until I gave him the address. I swear 
+[56] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+that he might have twisted it off had I under- 
+stood what it would mean to Garcia. Lopez 
+addressed the note which I had written, sealed 
+it with his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand 
+of the servant, Jose. How they murdered him 
+I do not know, save that it was Murillo's hand 
+who struck him down, for Lopez had remained 
+to guard me. I believe he must have waiter 
+among the gorse bushes through which the path 
+winds and struck him down as he passed. At 
+first they were of a mind to let him enter the 
+house and to kill him as a detected burglar; 
+but they argued that if they were mixed up in 
+an inquiry their own identity would at once be 
+publicly disclosed and they would be open to 
+further attacks. With the death of Garcia the 
+pursuit might cease, since such a death might 
+frighten others from the task. 
+
+"All would now have been well for them 
+had it not been for my knowledge of what they 
+had done. I have no doubt that there were 
+times when my life hung in the balance. I was 
+confined to my room, terrorised by the most 
+horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my 
+spirit see this stab on my shoulder and the 
+bruises from end to end of my arms and a gag 
+was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion 
+when I tried to call from the window. For 
+five days this cruel imprisonment continued, 
+with hardly enough food to hold body and soul 
+
+[57] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+together. This afternoon a good lunch was 
+brought me, but the moment after I took it I 
+knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of 
+dream I remember being half-led, half-carried 
+to the carriage; in the same state I was con- 
+veyed to the train. Only then, when the 
+wheels were almost moving did I suddenly 
+realise that my liberty lay in my own hands. 
+I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and 
+had* it not been for the help of this good man, 
+who led me to the cab, I should never have 
+broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond 
+their power for ever." 
+
+We had all listened intently to this remark- 
+able statement. It was Holmes who broke the 
+silence. 
+
+"Our difficulties are not over," he remarked, 
+shaking his head. "Our police work ends, but 
+our legal work begins." 
+
+"Exactly," said I. "A plausible lawyer could 
+make it out as an act of self-defence. There 
+may be a hundred crimes in the background, 
+but it is only on this one that they can be 
+tried." 
+
+"Come, come," said Baynes, cheerily; "I think 
+better of the law than that. Self-defence 
+is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood 
+with the object of murdering him is another, 
+whatever danger you may fear from him. No, 
+no; we shall all be justified when we see the 
+[58] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+tenants of High Gable at the next Guildford 
+
+Assizes." 
+
+It is a matter of history, however, that a 
+little time was still to elapse before the Tiger of 
+San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily 
+and bold, he and his companion threw their 
+pursuer off their track by entering a lodging- 
+house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the 
+back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day 
+they were seen no more in England. Some six 
+months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva 
+and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both mur- 
+dered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at 
+Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, 
+and the murderers were never arrested. Inspec- 
+tor Baynes visited us at Baker Street with a 
+printed description of the dark face of the sec- 
+retary, and of the masterful features, the mag- 
+netic black eyes, and the tufted brows of his 
+master. We could not doubt that justice, if 
+belated, had come at last. 
+
+"A chaotic case, my dear Watson," said 
+Holmes, over an evening pipe. "It will not 
+be possible for you to present it in that compact 
+form which is dear to your heart. It covers 
+two continents, concerns two groups of mys- 
+terious persons, and is further complicated by 
+the highly respectable presence of our friend 
+Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that 
+
+[59] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and 
+a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. 
+It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a 
+perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our 
+worthy collaborator the inspector, have kept 
+our close hold on the essentials and so been 
+guided along the crooked and winding path. 
+Is there any point which is not quite clear to 
+you?" 
+
+"The object of the mulatto cook's return?" 
+"I think that the strange creature in the 
+kitchen may account for it. The man was a 
+primitive savage from the backwoods of San 
+Pedro, and this was his fetish. When his com- 
+panion and he had fled to some prearranged 
+retreat already occupied, no doubt by a con- 
+federate the companion had persuaded him 
+to leave so compromising an article of furniture. 
+But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he 
+was driven back to it next day, when, on re- 
+connoitring through the window, he found 
+policeman Walters in possession. He waited 
+three days longer, and then his piety or his super- 
+stition drove him to try once more. Inspec- 
+tor Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had 
+minimised the incident before me, had really 
+recognised its importance, and had left a trap 
+into which the creature walked. Any other point, 
+Watson?" 
+
+"The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred 
+[60] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE 
+
+bones, all the mystery of that weird kitchen?" 
+Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in 
+
+his notebook. 
+
+"I spent a morning in the British Museum 
+
+reading up that and other points. Here is a 
+
+quotation from Eckermann's Foodooism and the 
+
+Negroid Religions: 
+
+' 'The true Voodoo-worshipper attempts noth- 
+ing of importance without certain sacrifices which 
+are intended to propitiate his unclean gods. In 
+extreme cases these rites take the form of human 
+sacrifices followed by cannibalism. The more 
+usual victims are a white cock, which is plucked 
+in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is 
+cut and body burned.' 
+
+"So you see our savage friend was very 
+orthodox in his ritual. It is grotesque, Watson," 
+Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his note- 
+book; "but, as I have had occasion to remark, 
+there is but one step from the grotesque to the 
+horrible." 
+
+
+
+[61] 
+
+
+
+II 
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARD- 
+BOARD BOX 
+
+
+
+IN choosing a few typical cases which illustrate 
+the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, 
+Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far 
+as possible, to select those which presented the 
+minimum of sensationalism, while offering a 
+fair field for his talents. It is, however, un- 
+fortunately, impossible entirely to separate the 
+sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler 
+is left in the dilemma that he must either 
+sacrifice details which are essential to his state- 
+ment, and so give a false impression of the prob- 
+lem, or he must use matter which chance, and 
+not choice, has provided him with. With this 
+short preface I shall turn to my notes of what 
+proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly ter- 
+rible, chain of events. 
+
+It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker 
+Street was like an oven, and the glare of the 
+sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house 
+[62] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+across the road was painful to the eye. It was 
+hard to believe that these were the same walls 
+which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of 
+winter. Our blinds were half -drawn, and Holmes 
+lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading 
+a letter which he had received by the morning 
+post. For myself, my term of service in India 
+had trained me to stand heat better than cold, 
+and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But 
+the morning paper was uninteresting. Parlia- 
+ment had risen. Everybody was out of town, 
+and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest 
+or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank 
+account had caused me to postpone my holiday, 
+and as to my companion, neither the country 
+nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to 
+him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five 
+millions of people, with his filaments stretching 
+out and running through them, responsive to 
+every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved 
+crime. Appreciation of nature found no place 
+among his many gifts, and his only change was 
+when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of 
+the town to track down his brother of the country. 
+
+Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for 
+conversation I had tossed aside the barren paper 
+and, leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown 
+study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke 
+in upon my thoughts. 
+
+"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does 
+
+[63] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+seem a most preposterous way of settling a 
+dispute." 
+
+"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and 
+then suddenly realising how he had echoed 
+the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in 
+my chair and stared at him in blank amaze- 
+ment. 
+
+"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is 
+beyond anything which I could have imagined." 
+
+He laughed heartily at my perplexity. 
+
+"You remember," said he, "that some little 
+time ago when I read you the passage in one of 
+Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows 
+the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you 
+were inclined to treat the matter as a mere 
+tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking 
+that I was constantly in the habit of doing the 
+same thing you expressed incredulity." 
+
+"Oh, no!" 
+
+"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear 
+Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So 
+when I saw you throw down your paper and 
+enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy 
+to have the opportunity of reading it off, and 
+eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that 
+I had been in rapport with you." 
+
+But I was still far from satisfied. "In the 
+
+example which you read to me," said I, "the 
+
+reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions 
+
+of the man whom he observed. If I remember 
+
+[64] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked 
+up at the stars, and so on. But I have been 
+seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can 
+I have given you?" 
+
+"You do yourself an injustice. The features 
+are given to man as the means by which he shall 
+express his emotions, and yours are faithful 
+servants." 
+
+"Do you mean to say that you read my train 
+of thoughts from my features?" 
+
+"Your features, and especially your eyes. 
+Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your 
+reverie commenced?" 
+
+"No, I cannot." 
+
+"Then I will tell you. After throwing down 
+your paper, which was the action which drew 
+my attention to you, you sat for half a minute 
+with a vacant expression. Then your eyes 
+fixed themselves upon your newly-framed pic- 
+ture of General Gordon, and I saw by the altera- 
+tion in your face that a train of thought had 
+been started. But it did not lead very far. 
+Your eyes flashed across to the unframed 
+portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands 
+upon the top of your books. Then you glanced 
+up at the wall, and of course your meaning was 
+obvious. You were thinking that if the portrait 
+were framed, it would just cover that bare 
+space and correspond with Gordon's picture 
+over there." 
+
+[65] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"You have followed me wonderfully!" I 
+exclaimed. 
+
+"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But 
+now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and 
+you looked hard across as if you were studying 
+the character in his features. Then your eyes 
+ceased to pucker, but you continued to look 
+across, and your face was thoughtful. You 
+were recalling the incidents of Beecher 's career. 
+I was well aware that you could not do this 
+without thinking of the mission which he under- 
+took on behalf of the North at the time of the 
+Civil War, for I remember your expressing your 
+passionate indignation at the way in which he 
+was received by the more turbulent of our 
+people. You felt so strongly about it, that I 
+knew you could not think of Beecher without 
+thinking of that also. When a moment later 
+I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, 
+I suspected that your mind had now turned to 
+the Civil War, and when I observed that your 
+lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands 
+clenched, I was positive that you were indeed 
+thinking of the gallantry which was shown by 
+both sides in that desperate struggle. But then, 
+again, your face grew sadder; you shook your 
+head. You were dwelling upon the sadness 
+and horror and useless waste of life. Your 
+hand stole towards your own old wound and a 
+smile quivered on your lips, which showed me 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+that the ridiculous side of this method of 
+settling international questions had forced itself 
+upon your mind. At this point I agreed with 
+you that it was preposterous, and was glad to 
+find that all my deductions had been correct." 
+
+"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you 
+have explained it, I confess that I am as amazed 
+as before." 
+
+"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I 
+assure you. I should not have intruded it 
+upon your attention had you not shown some 
+incredulity the other day. But I have in my 
+hands here a little problem which may prove 
+to be more difficult of solution than my small 
+essay in thought reading. Have you observed 
+in the paper a short paragraph referring to the 
+remarkable contents of a packet sent through 
+the post to Miss Gushing, of Cross Street, 
+Croydon?" 
+
+"No, I saw nothing." 
+
+"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just 
+toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial 
+column. Perhaps you would be good enough to 
+read it aloud." 
+
+I picked up the paper which he had thrown 
+back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It 
+was headed, "A Gruesome Packet." 
+
+"Miss Susan Gushing, living at Cross Street, 
+Croydon, has been made the victim of what 
+must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting 
+
+[67] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+practical joke, unless some more sinister mean- 
+ing should prove to be attached to the incident. 
+At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small 
+packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed in 
+by the postman. A cardboard box was inside, 
+which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying 
+this, Miss Gushing was horrified to find two 
+human ears, apparently quite freshly severed. 
+The box had been sent by parcel post from 
+Belfast upon the morning before. There is no 
+indication as to the sender, and the matter is the 
+more mysterious as Miss dishing, who is a 
+maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, 
+and has so few acquaintances or correspondents 
+that it is a rare event for her to receive anything 
+through the post. Some years ago, however, 
+when she resided at Penge, she let apartments 
+in her house to three young medical students, 
+whom she was obliged to get rid of on account 
+of their noisy and irregular habits. The police 
+are of opinion that this outrage may have been 
+perpetrated upon Miss Gushing by these youths, 
+who owed her a grudge, and who hoped to 
+frighten her by sending her these relics of the 
+dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to 
+the theory by the fact that one of these students 
+came from the north of Ireland, and, to the 
+best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In 
+the meantime, the matter is being actively inves- 
+tigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest 
+[68] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE- OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+of our detective officers, being in charge of the 
+case." 
+
+"So much for the Daily Chronicle'' said 
+Holmes, as I finished reading. "Now for our 
+friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this 
+morning, in which he says: 'I think that this 
+case is very much in your line. We have every 
+hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a 
+little difficulty in getting anything to work 
+upon. We have, of course r wired to the Belfast 
+post-office, but a large number of parcels were 
+handed in upon that day, and they have no 
+mearis of identifying this particular one, or of 
+remembering the sender. The box is a half- 
+pound box of honeydew tobacco, and does not 
+help us in any way. The medical student theory 
+still appears to me to be the most feasible, but 
+if you should have a few hours to spare, I should 
+be very happy to see you out here. I shall be 
+either at the house or in the police-station all 
+day.' What say you, Watson? Can you rise 
+superior to the heat, and run down to Croydon 
+with me on the off chance of a case for your 
+annals?" 
+
+"I was longing for something to do." 
+
+"You shall have it then. Ring for our boots, 
+and tell them to order a cab. I'll be back in a 
+moment, when I have changed my dressing-gown 
+and filled my cigar-case." 
+
+A shower of rain fell while we were in the 
+
+[69] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+train, and the heat was far less oppressive in 
+Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on 
+a wire, so that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and 
+as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at the 
+station. A walk of five minutes took us to 
+Cross Street, where Miss Gushing resided. 
+
+It was a very long street of two-story brick 
+houses, neat and prim, with whitened stone steps 
+and little groups of aproned women gossiping at 
+the doors. Half-way down, Lestrade stopped 
+and tapped at a door, which was opened by a 
+small servant girl. Miss Gushing was sitting 
+in the front room, into which we were ushered. 
+She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle 
+eyes, and grizzled hair curving down over her 
+temples on each side. A worked antimacassar 
+lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured silks 
+stood upon a stool beside her. 
+
+"They are in the outhouse, those dreadful 
+things," said she, as Lestrade entered. "I wish 
+that you would take them away altogether." 
+
+"So I shall, Miss Gushing. I only kept them 
+here until my friend, Mr. Holmes, should have 
+seen them in your presence." 
+
+"Why in my presence, sir?" 
+
+"In case he wished to ask any questions." 
+
+"What is the use of asking me questions, when 
+I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?" 
+
+"Quite so, madam," said Holmes, in his sooth- 
+ing way. "I have no doubt that you have been 
+[70] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+annoyed more than enough already over this 
+business." 
+
+"Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman 
+and live a retired life. It is something new for 
+me to see my name in the papers and to find 
+the police in my house. I won't have those 
+things in here, Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to 
+see them you must go to the outhouse." 
+
+It was a small shed in the narrow garden 
+which ran behind the house. Lestrade went 
+in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, 
+with a piece of brown paper and some string. 
+There was a bench at the end of the path, and 
+we all sat down while Holmes examined, one 
+by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed 
+to him. 
+
+"The string is exceedingly interesting," he 
+remarked, holding it up to the light and sniffing 
+at it. "What do you make of this string, 
+Lestrade?" 
+
+"It has been tarred." 
+
+"Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. 
+You have, also, no doubt, remarked that Miss 
+Gushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as 
+can be seen by the double fray on each side. 
+This is of importance." 
+
+"I cannot see the importance," said Le- 
+strade. 
+
+"The importance lies in the fact that the 
+
+[71] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a 
+peculiar character." 
+
+"It is very neatly tied. I had already made 
+a note to that effect," said Lestrade, com- 
+placently. 
+
+"So much for the string, then," said Holmes, 
+smiling, "now for the box wrapper. Brown 
+paper, with a distinct smell of coffee. What, 
+did not observe it? I think there can be no 
+doubt of it. Address printed in rather strag- 
+gling characters : 'Miss S. Gushing, Cross Street, 
+Croydon.' Done with a broad-pointed pen, 
+probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The 
+word Croydon has been originally spelt with an 
+i, which has been changed to y. The parcel was 
+directed then by a man the printing is dis- 
+tinctly masculine of limited education and un- 
+acquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, 
+so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound 
+honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save 
+two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It 
+is filled with rough salt of the quality used for 
+preserving hides and other of the coarser com- 
+mercial purposes. And embedded in it are these 
+very singular enclosures." 
+
+He took out the two ears as he spoke, and 
+laying a board across his knee, he examined 
+them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending 
+forward on each side of him, glanced alternately 
+at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, 
+[72] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+eager face of our companion. Finally he re- 
+turned them to the box once more, and sat for 
+a while in deep meditation. 
+
+"You have observed, of course," said he at 
+last, "that the ears are not a pair." 
+
+"Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were 
+the practical joke of some students from the 
+dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them 
+to send two odd ears as a pair." 
+
+"Precisely. But this is not a practical joke." 
+
+"You are sure of it?" 
+
+"The presumption is strongly against it. 
+Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with 
+preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs 
+of this. They are fresh too. They have been 
+cut off with a blunt instrument, which would 
+hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, 
+carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preserva- 
+tives which would suggest themselves to the medi- 
+cal mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that 
+there is no practical joke here, but that we are 
+investigating a serious crime." 
+
+A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to 
+my companion's words and saw the stern gravity 
+which had hardened his features. This brutal 
+preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange 
+and inexplicable horror in the background. Le- 
+strade, however, shook his head like a man who 
+is only half convinced. 
+
+"There are objections to the joke theory, no 
+
+[73] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+doubt," said he; "but there are much stonger 
+reasons against the other. We know that this 
+woman has led a most quiet and respectable life 
+at Penge and here for the last twenty years. 
+She has hardly been away from her home for a 
+day during that time. Why on earth, then, 
+should any criminal send her the proofs of his 
+guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consum- 
+mate actress, she understands quite as little of 
+the matter as we do?" 
+
+"That is the problem which we have to solve," 
+Holmes answered, "and for my part I shall set 
+about it by presuming that my reasoning is cor- 
+rect, and that a double murder has been com- 
+mitted. One of these ears is a woman's, small, 
+finely formed, and pierced for an earring. The 
+other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and 
+also pierced for an earring. These two people 
+are presumably dead, or we should have heard 
+their story before now. To-day is Friday. The 
+packet was posted on Thursday morning. The 
+tragedy then, occurred on Wednesday or Tues- 
+day, or earlier. If the two people were mur- 
+dered, who but their murderer would have sent 
+this sign of his work to Miss Gushing? We may 
+take it that the sender of the packet is the man 
+whom we want. But he must have some strong 
+reason for sending Miss Gushing this packet. 
+What reason then? It must have been to tell 
+her that the deed was done; or to pain her, per- 
+[74] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+haps. But in that case she knows who it is. 
+Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why 
+should she call the police in? She might have 
+buried the ears, and no one would have been the 
+wiser. That is what she would have done if she 
+had wished to shield the criminal. But if she 
+does not wish to shield him she would give his 
+name. There is a tangle here which needs 
+straightening out." He had been talking in a 
+high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the 
+garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his 
+feet and walked towards the house. 
+
+"I have a few questions to ask Miss Gushing," 
+said he. 
+
+"In that case I may leave you here," said Le- 
+strade, "for I have another small business on 
+hand. I think that I have nothing further to 
+learn from Miss Gushing. -You will find me at 
+the police-station." 
+
+"We shall look in on our way to the train," 
+answered Holmes. A moment later he and I 
+were back in the front room, where the impas- 
+sive lady was still quietly working away at her 
+antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we 
+entered, and looked at us with her frank, search- 
+ing blue eyes. 
+
+"I am convinced, sir," she said, "that this mat- 
+ter is a mistake, and that the parcel was never 
+meant for me at all. I have said this several 
+times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but 
+
+[75] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+he simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in 
+the world, as far as I know, so why should any- 
+one play me such a trick?" 
+
+"I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss 
+Gushing," said Holmes, taking a seat beside her. 
+"I think that it is more than probable . . ." he 
+paused, and I was surprised, on glancing round 
+to see that he was staring with singular intent- 
+ness at the lady's profile. Surprise and satisfac- 
+tion were both for an instant to be read upon his 
+eager face, though when she glanced round to 
+find out the cause of his silence he had become 
+as demure as ever. I stared hard myself at her 
+flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt ear- 
+rings, her placid features ; but I could see nothing 
+which could account for my companion's evident 
+excitement. 
+
+"There were one or two questions " 
+
+"Oh, I am weary of questions!" cried Miss 
+Gushing, impatiently. 
+
+"You have two sisters, I believe." 
+
+"How could you know that?" 
+
+"I observed the very instant that I entered 
+the room that you have a portrait group of three 
+ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is un- 
+doubtedly yourself, while the others are so ex- 
+ceedingly like you that there could be no doubt 
+of the relationship." 
+
+"Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sis- 
+ters, Sarah and Mary." 
+[76] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+"And here at my elbow is another portrait, 
+taken at Liverpool, of your younger sister, in the 
+company of a man who appears to be a steward 
+by his uniform. I observe that she was unmar- 
+ried at the time.'* 
+
+"You are very quick at observing." 
+
+"That is my trade." 
+
+"Well, you are quite right. But she was mar- 
+ried to Mr. Browner a few days afterwards. 
+He was on the South American line when that 
+was taken, but he was so fond of her that he 
+couldn't abide to leave her for so long, and he 
+got into the Liverpool and London boats." 
+
+"Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?" 
+
+"No, the May Day, when last I heard. Jim 
+came down here to see me once. That was be- 
+fore he broke the pledge; but afterwards he 
+would always take drink when he was ashore, 
+and a little drink would send him stark, staring 
+mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever he took 
+a glass in his hand again. First he dropped 
+me, then he quarrelled with Sarah, and now that 
+Mary has stopped writing we don't know how 
+things are going with them." 
+
+It was evident that Miss Gushing had come 
+upon a subject on which she felt very deeply. 
+Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was s 
+shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely 
+communicative. She told us many details about 
+her brother-in-law the steward, and then wan- 
+
+[77] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+dering off on to the subject of her former lodg- 
+ers, the medical students, she gave us a long ac- 
+count of their delinquencies, with their names 
+and those of their hospitals. Holmes listened 
+attentively to everything, throwing in a question 
+from time to time. 
+
+"About your second sister, Sarah," said he. 
+"I wonder since you are both maiden ladies, that 
+you do not keep house together." 
+
+"Ah! you don't know Sarah's temper, or you 
+would wonder no more. I tried it when I came 
+to Croydon, and we kept on until about two 
+months ago, when we had to part. I don't want 
+to say a word against my own sister, but she was 
+always meddlesome and hard to please, was 
+Sarah." 
+
+"You say that she quarrelled with your Liver- 
+pool relations." 
+
+"Yes, and they were the best of friends at one 
+time. Why, she went up there to live in order to 
+be near them. And now she has no word hard 
+enough for Jim Browner. The last six months 
+that she was here she would speak of nothing but 
+his drinking and his ways. He had caught her 
+meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his 
+mind, and that was the start of it." 
+
+"Thank you, Miss Gushing," said Holmes, 
+
+rising and bowing. "Your sister Sarah lives, I 
+
+think you said, at New Street, Wellington? 
+
+Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should 
+
+[78] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+have been troubled over a case with which, as 
+you say, you have nothing whatever to do." 
+
+There was a cab passing as we came out, and 
+Holmes hailed it. 
+
+"How far to Wallington?" he asked. 
+
+"Only about a mile, sir." 
+
+"Very good. Jump in, Watson. We must 
+strike while the iron is hot. Simple as the case 
+is, there have been one or two very instructive 
+details in connection with it. Just pull up at a 
+telegraph office as you pass, cabby." 
+
+Holmes sent off a short wire, and for the rest 
+of the drive lay back in the cab with his hat 
+tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. 
+Our driver pulled up at a house which was not 
+unlike the one which we had just quitted. My 
+companion ordered him to wait, and had his 
+hand upon the knocker, when the door opened 
+and a grave young gentleman in black, with a 
+very shiny hat, appeared on the step. 
+
+"Is Miss Gushing at home?" asked Holmes. 
+
+"Miss Sarah Gushing is extremely ill," said 
+he. "She has been suffering since yesterday 
+from brain symptoms of great severity. As her 
+medical adviser, I cannot possibly take the re- 
+sponsibility of allowng anyone to see her. I 
+should recommend you to call again in ten days." 
+He drew on his gloves, closed the door, and 
+marched off down the street. 
+
+[79] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Well, if we can't, we can't," said Holmes, 
+cheerfully. 
+
+"Perhaps she could not, or would not have told 
+you much." 
+
+"I did not wish her to tell me anything. I 
+only wanted to look at her. However, I think 
+that I have got all that I want. Drive us to 
+some decent hotel, cabby, where we may have 
+some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down 
+upon friend Lestrade at the police-station." 
+
+We had a pleasant little meal together, during 
+which Holmes would talk about nothing but vio- 
+lins, narrating with great exultation how he had 
+purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth 
+at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker's 
+in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings. 
+This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour 
+over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote 
+after anecdote of that extraordinary man. The 
+afternoon was far advanced and the hot glare had 
+softened into a mellow glow before we found our- 
+selves at the police-station. Lestrade was wait- 
+ing for us at the door. 
+
+"A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes," said he. 
+
+"Ha! It is the answer!" He tore it open, 
+glanced his eyes over it, and crumpled it into 
+his pocket; "That's all right," said he. 
+
+"Have you found out anything?" 
+
+"I have found out everything!" 
+[80] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+"What!" Lestrade stared at him in amaze- 
+ment. "You are joking." 
+
+"I was never more serious in my life. A 
+shocking crime has been committed, and I think 
+I have now laid bare every detail of it." 
+
+"And the criminal?" 
+
+Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back 
+of one of his visiting cards and threw it over to 
+Lestrade. 
+
+"That is the name," he said. "You cannot ef- 
+fect an arrest until to-morrow night at the earli- 
+est. I should prefer that you do not mention 
+my name at all in connection with the case, as I 
+choose to be only associated with those crimes 
+which present some difficulty in their solution. 
+Come on, Watson." We strode off together to 
+the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a 
+delighted face at the card which Holmes had 
+thrown him. 
+
+"The case," said Sherlock Holmes, as we 
+chatted over our cigars that night in our rooms 
+at Baker Street, "is one where, as in the investiga- 
+tions which you have chronicled under the names 
+of the 'Study in Scarlet' and of the 'Sign of 
+Four/ we have been compelled to reason back- 
+ward from effects to causes. I have written to 
+Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details 
+which are now wanting, and which he will only 
+get after he has secured his man. That he may 
+
+[81] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+be safely trusted to do, for although he is abso- 
+lutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a 
+bull-dog when he once understands what he has 
+to do, and indeed, it is just this tenacity which 
+has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard." 
+
+"Your case is not complete, then?" I asked. 
+
+"It is fairly complete in essentials. We 
+know who the author of the revolting business 
+is, although one of the victims still escapes us. 
+Of course, you have formed your own conclu- 
+sions." 
+
+"I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward 
+of a Liverpool boat, is the man whom you sus- 
+pect?" 
+
+"Oh ! it is more than a suspicion." 
+
+"And yet I cannot see anything save very 
+vague indications." 
+
+"On the contrary, to my mind nothing could 
+be more clear. Let me run over the principal 
+steps. We approached the case, you remember, 
+with an absolutely blank mind, which is always 
+an advantage. We had formed no theories. We 
+were simply there to observe and to draw infer- 
+ences from our observations. What did we see 
+first? A very placid and respectable lady, who 
+seemed quite innocent of any secret, and a por- 
+trait which showed me that she had two younger 
+sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind that 
+the box might have been meant for one of these. 
+I set the idea aside as one which could be dis- 
+[82] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+proved or confirmed at our leisure. Then we 
+went to the garden, as you remember, and we 
+saw the very singular contents of the little yel- 
+low box. 
+
+"The string was of the quality which is used 
+by sail-makers aboard ship, and at once a whiff 
+of the sea was perceptible in our investigation. 
+When I observed that the knot was one which 
+is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been 
+posted at a port, and that the male ear was 
+pierced for an earring which is so much more 
+common among sailors than landsmen, I was 
+quite certain that all the actors in the tragedy 
+were to be found among our seafaring classes. 
+
+"When I came to examine the address of the 
+packet I observed that it was to Miss S. Gushing. 
+Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss 
+Gushing, and although her initial was 'S' it might 
+belong to one of the others as well. In that case 
+we should have to commence our investigation 
+from a fresh basis altogether. I therefore went 
+in to the house with the intention of clearing up 
+this point. I was about to assure Miss Gushing 
+that I was convinced that a mistake had been 
+made, when you may remember that I came sud- 
+denly to a stop. The fact was that I had just 
+seen something which filled me with surprise, and 
+at the same time narrowed the field of our in- 
+quiry immensely. 
+
+"As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, 
+
+[83] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+that there is no part of the body which varies 
+so much as the human ear. Each ear is as a 
+rule quite distinctive, and differs from all other 
+ones. In last year's Anthropological Journal 
+you will find two short monographs from my pen 
+upon the subject. I had, therefore, examined 
+the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert, and 
+had carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. 
+Imagine my surprise then, when, on looking at 
+Miss Gushing, I perceived that her ear corre- 
+sponded exactly with the female ear which I had 
+just inspected. The matter was entirely beyond 
+coincidence. There was the same shortening of 
+the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper 
+lobe, the same convolution of the inner cartilage. 
+In all essentials it was the same ear. 
+
+"Of course, I at once saw the enormous impor- 
+tance of the observation. It was evident that the 
+victim was a blood relation, and probably a very 
+close one. I began to talk to her about her fam- 
+ily, and you remember that she at once gave us 
+some exceedingly valuable details. 
+
+"In the first place, her sister's name was Sarah, 
+and her address had, until recently, been the 
+same, so that it was quite obvious how the mis- 
+take had occurred, and for whom the packet was 
+meant. Then we heard of this steward, married 
+to the third sister, and learned that he had at one 
+time been so intimate with Miss Sarah that she 
+had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near 
+[84] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards di- 
+vided them. This quarrel had put a stop to all 
+communications for some months, so that if 
+Browner had occasion to address a packet to 
+Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so 
+to her old address. 
+
+"And now the matter had begun to straighten 
+itself out wonderfully. We had learned of the 
+existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of 
+strong passions you remember that he threw up 
+what must have been a very superior berth, in 
+order to be nearer to his wife subject, too, to oc- 
+casional fits of hard drinking. We had reason to 
+believe that his wife had been murdered, and that 
+a man presumably a seafaring man had been 
+murdered at the same time. Jealousy, of course, 
+at once suggests itself as the motive for the crime. 
+And why should these proofs of the deed be sent 
+to Miss Sarah Gushing? Probably because dur- 
+ing her residence in Liverpool she had some hand 
+in bringing about the events which led to the 
+tragedy. You will observe that this line of boats 
+calls at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, 
+presuming that Browner had committed the deed, 
+and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the 
+May Day, Belfast would be the first place at 
+which he could post his terrible packet. 
+
+"A second solution was at this stage obviously 
+possible, and although I thought it exceedingly 
+unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before 
+
+[85] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+going further. An unsuccessful lover might 
+have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male 
+ear might have belonged to the husband. There 
+were many grave objections to this theory, but 
+it was conceivable. I therefore sent off a tele- 
+gram to my friend Algar, of the Liverpool force, 
+and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were 
+at home, and if Browner had departed in the 
+May Day. Then we went on to Wallington to 
+visit Miss Sarah. 
+
+"I was curious, in the first place, to see how 
+far the family ear had been reproduced in her. 
+Then, of course, she might give us very impor- 
+tant information, but I was not sanguine that 
+she would. She must have heard of the business 
+the day before, since all Croydon was ringing 
+with it, and she alone could have understood for 
+whom the packet was meant. If she had been 
+willing to help justice she would probably have 
+communicated with the police already. How- 
+ever, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we 
+went. We found that the news of the arrival of 
+the packet for her illness dated from that time 
+had such an effect upon her as to bring on 
+brain fever. It was clearer than ever that she 
+understood its full significance, but equally clear 
+that we should have to wait some time for any 
+assistance from her. 
+
+"However, we were really independent of her 
+help. Our answers were waiting for us at the 
+[86] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+police-station, where I had directed Algar to send 
+them. Nothing could be more conclusive. Mrs. 
+Browner's house had been closed for more than 
+three days, and the neighbours were of opinion 
+that she had gone south to see her relatives. It 
+had been ascertained at the shipping offices that 
+Browner had left aboard of the May Day, and 
+I calculate that she is due in the Thames to-mor- 
+row night. When he arrives he will be met by 
+the obtuse but resolute Lestrade, and I have 
+no doubt that we shall have all our details 
+filled in." 
+
+Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his 
+expectations. Two days later he received a 
+bulky envelope, which contained a short note 
+from the detective, and a type-written document, 
+which covered several pages of foolscap. 
+
+"Lestrade has got him all right," said Holmes, 
+glancing up at me. "Perhaps it would interest 
+you to hear what he says." 
+
+"MY DEAR MR. HOLMES, In accordance 
+with the scheme which we had formed in order 
+to test our theories" "the 'we' is rather fine, 
+Watson, is it not?" "I went down to the Albert 
+Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the s.s. 
+May Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, 
+and London Steam Packet Company. On in- 
+quiry, I found that there was a steward on board 
+of the name of James Browner and that he had 
+
+[87] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary 
+manner that the captain had been compelled to 
+relieve him of his duties. On descending to his 
+berth, I found him seated upon a chest with his 
+head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to 
+and fro. He is a big, powerful chap, clean- 
+shaven, and very swarthy something like Al- 
+dridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry af- 
+fair. He jumped up when he heard my busi- 
+ness, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a 
+couple of river police, who were round the corner, 
+but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he 
+held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies. 
+We brought him along to the cells, and his box 
+as well, for we thought there might be something 
+incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife, such 
+as most sailors have, we got nothing for our 
+trouble. However, we find that we shall want 
+no more evidence, for on being brought before 
+the inspector at the station, he asked leave to 
+make a statement, which was, of course, taken 
+down, just as he made it, by our shorthand man. 
+We had three copies type-written, one of which 
+I inclose. The affair proves, as I always thought 
+it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I 
+am obliged to you for assisting me in my investi- 
+gation. With kind regards, yours very truly. 
+G. LESTKADE." 
+
+"Hum! The investigation really was a very 
+simple one," remarked Holmes; "but I don't 
+think it struck him in that light when he first 
+[88] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+called us in. However, let us see what Jim 
+Browner has to say for himself, This is his 
+statement, as made before Inspector Montgom- 
+ery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has 
+the advantage of being verbatim." 
+
+"Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal 
+to say. I have to make a clean breast of it all. 
+You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I 
+don't care a plug which you do. I tell you I've 
+not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don't 
+believe I ever will again until I get past all wak- 
+ing. Sometimes it's his face, but most generally 
+it's hers. I'm never without one or the other be- 
+fore me. He looks frowning and black-like, but 
+she has a kind o' surprise upon her face. Aye, 
+the white lamb, she might well be surprised when 
+she read death on a face that had seldom looked 
+anything but love upon her before. 
+
+"But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse 
+of a broken man put a blight on her and set the 
+blood rotting in her veins ! It's not that I want 
+to clear myself. I know that I went back to 
+drink, like the beast that I was. But she would 
+have forgiven me; she would have stuck as close 
+to me as a rope to a block if that woman had 
+never darkened our door. For Sarah Gushing 
+loved me that's the root of the business she 
+loved me, until all her love turned to poisonous 
+hate when she knew that I thought more of my 
+
+[89] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+wife's foot-mark in the mud than I did of her 
+whole body and soul. 
+
+"There were three sisters altogether. The old 
+one was just a good woman, the second was a 
+devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was 
+thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I 
+married. We were just as happy as the day was 
+long when we set up house together, and in all 
+Liverpool there was no better woman than my 
+Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, 
+and the week grew into a month, and one thing 
+led to another, until she was just one of our- 
+selves. 
+
+"I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were 
+putting a little money by, and all was as bright 
+as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have 
+thought that it could have come to this? Who- 
+ever would have dreamed it ? 
+
+"I used to be home for the week-ends very 
+often, and sometimes if the ship were held back 
+for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, 
+and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, 
+Sarah. She was a fine tall woman, black and 
+quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying 
+her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark 
+from a flint. But when little Mary was there 
+I had never a thought of her, and that I swear 
+as I hope for God's mercy. 
+
+"It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked 
+to be alone with me, or to coax me out for a walk 
+[90] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+with her, but I had never thought anything of 
+that. But one evening my eyes were opened. 
+I had come up from the ship and found my wife 
+out, but Sarah at home. 'Where's Mary?' I 
+asked. 'Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts/ 
+I was impatient and paced up and down the 
+room. 'Can't you be happy for five minutes 
+without Mary, Jim?' says she. 'It's a bad com- 
+pliment to me that you can't be contented with 
+my society for so short a time.' 'That's all right, 
+my lass,' said I, putting out my hand towards 
+her in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers 
+in an instant, and they burned as if they were in 
+a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all 
+there. There was no need for her to speak, nor 
+for me either. I frowned and drew my hand 
+away. Then she stood by my side in silence for 
+a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me 
+on the shoulder. 'Steady old Jim!' said she; 
+and with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran out 
+of the room. 
+
+"Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her 
+whole heart and soul, and she is a woman who 
+can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on bid- 
+ing with us a besotted fool but I never said 
+a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. 
+Things went on much as before, but after a time 
+I began to find that there was a bit of a change 
+in Mary herself. She had always been so trust- 
+ing and so innocent, but now she became queer 
+
+[91] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+and suspicious, wanting to know where I had 
+been and what I had been doing, and whom my 
+letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, 
+and a thousand such follies. Day by day she 
+grew queerer and more irritable, and we had 
+causeless rows about nothing. I was fairly puz- 
+zled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and 
+Mary were just inseparable. I can see now how 
+she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my 
+wife's mind against me, but I was such a blind 
+beetle that I could not understand it at the time. 
+Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink 
+again, but I think I should not have done it if 
+Mary had been the same as ever. She had some 
+reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap 
+between us began to be wider and wider. And 
+then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things 
+became a thousand times blacker. 
+
+"It was to see Sarah that he came to my house 
+first, but soon it was to see us, for he was a man 
+with winning ways, and he made friends wher- 
+ever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering 
+chap, smart and curled, who had seen half the 
+world, and could talk of what he had seen. He 
+was good company, I won't deny it, and he had 
+wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, 
+so that I think there must have been a time when 
+he knew more of the poop than the forecastle. 
+For a month he was in and out of my house, and 
+never once did it cross my mind that harm might 
+[92] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+come of his soft, tricky ways. And then at last 
+something made me suspect, and from that day 
+my peace was gone for ever. 
+
+"It was only a little thing too. I had come into 
+the parlour unexpected, and as I walked in at 
+the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife's 
+face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, 
+and she turned away with a look of disappoint- 
+ment. That was enough for me. There was no 
+one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have 
+mistaken for mine. If I could have seen him 
+then I should have killed him. for I have always 
+been like a madman when my temper gets loose. 
+Mary saw the devil's light in my eyes, and she 
+ran forward with her hands in my sleeve. 'Don't, 
+Jim, don't!' says she. 'Where's Sarah?' I asked. 
+'In the kitchen,' says she. 'Sarah,' says I, as I 
+went in, 'this man Fairbairn is never to darken 
+my door again.' 'Why not?' says she. 'Be- 
+cause I order it.' 'Oh!' says she, 'if my friends 
+are not good enough for this house, then I am 
+not good enough for it either.' 'You can do 
+what you like,' says I, 'but if Fairbairn shows 
+his face here again, I'll send you one of his ears 
+for a keepsake.' She was frightened by my face, 
+I think, for she never answered a word, and the 
+same evening she left my house. 
+
+"Well, I don't know now whether it was pure 
+devilry on the part of this woman, or whether 
+she thought that she could turn me against my 
+
+[93] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Any- 
+way, she took a house just two streets off, and let 
+lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn used to stay there, 
+and Mary would go round to have tea with her 
+sister and him. How often she went I don't 
+know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke 
+in at the door, Fairbairn got away over the back 
+garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. 
+I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I 
+found her in his company again, and I led her 
+back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as 
+white as a piece of paper. There was no trace 
+of love between us any longer. I could see that 
+she hated me and feared me, and when the 
+thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised 
+me as well. 
+
+"Well, Sarah found that she could not make 
+a living in Liverpool, so she went back, as I un- 
+derstand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and 
+things jogged on much the same as ever at home. 
+And then came this last week and all the misery 
+and ruin. 
+
+"It was in this way. We had gone on the 
+May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but 
+a hogshead got loose and started one of our 
+plates, so that we had to put back into port for 
+twelve hours. I left the ship and came home, 
+thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, 
+and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see 
+me so soon. The thought was in my head as I 
+[94] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+turned into my own street, and at that moment a 
+cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the 
+side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, 
+with never a thought for me as I stood watching 
+them from the footpath. 
+
+"I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that 
+from that moment I was not my own master, 
+and it is all like a dim dream when I look back 
+on it. I had been drinking hard of late, and the 
+two things together fairly turned my brain. 
+There's something throbbing in my head now, 
+like a docker's hammer, but that morning I 
+seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing 
+in my ears. 
+
+"Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the 
+cab. I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I 
+tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I 
+got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see 
+them without being seen. They pulled up soon 
+at the railway station. There was a good crowd 
+round the booking-office, so I got quite close to 
+them without being seen. They took tickets for 
+New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three 
+carriages behind them. When we reached it they 
+walked along the Parade, and I was never more 
+than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw 
+them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a 
+very hot day, and they thought no doubt that 
+it would be cooler on the water. 
+
+"It was just as if they had been given into 
+
+[95] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+my hands. There was a bit of a haze, and you 
+could not see more than a few hundred yards. 
+I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. 
+I could see the blurr of their craft, but they were 
+going nearly as fast as I, and they must have 
+been a long mile from the shore before I caught 
+them up. The haze was like a curtain all round 
+us, and there were we three in the middle of it. 
+My God, shall I ever forget their faces when 
+they saw who was in the boat that was closing 
+in upon them? She screamed out. He swore 
+like a madman, and jabbed at me with an oar, 
+for he must have seen death in my eyes. I got 
+past it and got one in with my stick, that crushed 
+his head like an egg. I would have spared her, 
+perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her 
+arms round him, crying out to him, and calling 
+him 'Alec.' I struck again, and she lay stretched 
+beside him. I was like a wild beast then that 
+had tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by 
+the Lord, she should have joined them. I pulled 
+out my knife, and well, there! I've said enough. 
+It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought 
+how Sarah would feel when she had such signs 
+as these of what her meddling had brought about. 
+Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a 
+plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I 
+knew very well that the owner would think that 
+they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had 
+drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got 
+[96] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX 
+
+back to land, and joined my ship without a soul 
+having a suspicion of what had passed. That 
+night I made up the packet for Sarah Gushing, 
+and next day I sent it from Belfast. 
+
+"There you have the whole truth of it. You 
+can hang me, or do what you like with me, but 
+you cannot punish me as I have been punished 
+already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those 
+two faces staring at me staring at me as they 
+stared when my boat broke through the haze. 
+I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow ; 
+and if I have another night of it I shall be either 
+mad or dead before morning. You won't put 
+me alone into a cell, sir? For pity's sake don't, 
+and may you be treated in your day of agony 
+as you treat me now." 
+
+"What is the meaning of it, Watson?'* said 
+Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. 
+"What object is served by this circle of misery 
+and violence and fear? It must tend to some 
+end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which 
+is unthinkable. But what end? There is the 
+great standing perennial problem to which hu- 
+man reason is as far from an answer as ever." 
+
+
+
+[97] 
+
+
+
+Ill 
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED 
+CIRCLE 
+
+
+
+PART I 
+
+T T TELL, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you 
+VV have any particular cause for uneasiness, 
+nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some 
+value, should interfere in the matter. I really 
+have other things to engage me." So spoke 
+Sherlock Holmes, and turned back to the great 
+scrapbook in which he was arranging and in- 
+dexing some of his recent material. 
+
+But the landlady had the pertinacity, and also 
+the cunning, of her sex. She held her ground 
+firmly. 
+
+"You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine 
+last year," she said "Mr. Fairdale Hobbs." 
+
+"Ah, yes a simple matter." 
+
+"But he would never cease talking of it your 
+kindness, sir, and the way in which you brought 
+light into the darkness. I remembered his words 
+[98] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I 
+know you could if you only would." 
+
+Holmes was accessible upon the side of flat- 
+tery, and also, to do him justice, upon the side 
+of kindliness. The two forces made him lay 
+down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation 
+and pushed back his chair. 
+
+"Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, 
+then. You don't object to tobacco, I take it? 
+Thank you, Watson the matches! You are 
+uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger 
+remains in his rooms and you cannot see him. 
+Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your 
+lodger you often would not see me for weeks on 
+end." 
+
+"No doubt, sir; but this is different. It fright- 
+ens me, Mr. Holmes. I can't sleep for fright. 
+To hear his quick step moving Here and moving 
+there from early morning to late at night, and 
+yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him 
+it's more than I can stand. My husband is as 
+nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work 
+all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he 
+hiding for? What has he done? Except for 
+the girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and 
+it's more than my nerves can stand." 
+
+Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin 
+fingers upon the woman's shoulder. He had an 
+almost hypnotic power of soothing when he 
+wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, 
+
+[99] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+and her agitated features smoothed into their 
+usual commonplace. She sat down in the chair 
+which he had indicated. 
+
+"If I take it up I must understand every de- 
+tail," said he. "Take time to consider. The 
+smallest point may be the most essential. You 
+say that the man came ten days ago, and paid you 
+for a fortnight's board and lodging?" 
+
+"He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings 
+a week. There is a small sitting-room and bed- 
+room, and all complete, at the top of the house." 
+
+"Well?" 
+
+"He said, Til pay you five pounds a week if 
+I can have it on my own terms.' I'm a poor 
+woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and 
+the money meant much to me. He took out a 
+ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then 
+and there. 'You can have the same every fort- 
+night for a long time to come if you keep the 
+terms,' he said. 'If not, I'll have no more to do 
+with you.' " 
+
+"What were the terms?" 
+
+"Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key 
+of the house. That was all right. Lodgers often 
+have them. Also, that he was to be left entirely 
+to himself, and never, upon any excuse, to be dis- 
+turbed." 
+
+"Nothing wonderful in that, surely?" 
+
+"Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all rea- 
+son. He has been there for ten days, and 
+[100] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once 
+set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step 
+of his pacing up and down, up and down, night, 
+morning, and noon; but except on thajt first 
+night he has never once gone out of the house." 
+
+"Oh, he went out the first night, did he?" 
+
+"Yes, sir, and returned very late after we 
+were all in bed. He told me after he had taken 
+the rooms that he would do so, and asked me not 
+to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair 
+after midnight." 
+
+"But his meals?" 
+
+"It was his particular direction that we should 
+always, when he rang, leave his meal upon a 
+chair, outside his door. Then he rings again 
+when he has finished, and we take it down from 
+the same chair. If he wants anything else he 
+prints it on a slip of paper and 1 'S it." 
+
+"Prints it?" 
+
+"Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, 
+nothing more. Here's one I brought to show 
+you SOAP. Here's another MATCH. 
+This is one he left the first morning DAILY 
+GAZETTE. I leave that paper with his break- 
+fast every morning." 
+
+"Dear me, Watson," said Holmes, staring 
+with great curiosity at the slips of foolscap which 
+the landlady had handed to him, "this is certainly 
+a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; 
+but why print? Printing is a clumsy process. 
+
+[101] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Why not write? What would it suggest, Wat- 
+son?" 
+
+"That he desired to conceal his handwriting." 
+
+"But why? What can it matter to him that 
+his landlady should have a word of his writing? 
+Still, it may be as you say. Then, again, why 
+such laconic messages?" 
+
+"I cannot imagine." 
+
+"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent specu- 
+lation. The words are written with a broad- 
+pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pat- 
+tern. You will observe that the paper is torn 
+away at the side here after the printing was done, 
+so that the 'S' of 'SOAP' is partly gone. Sug- 
+gestive, Watson, is it not?" 
+
+"Of caution?" 
+
+"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, 
+some thumt ^ ".'it, something which might give 
+a clue to the person's identity. Now, Mrs. 
+Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, 
+dark, and bearded. What age would he be?" 
+
+"Youngish, sir not over thirty." 
+
+"Well, can you give me no further indica- 
+tions?" 
+
+"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought 
+he was a foreigner by his accent." 
+
+"And he was well dressed?" 
+
+"Very smartly dressed, sir quite the gentle- 
+man. Dark clothes nothing you would note." 
+
+"He gave no name?" 
+[102] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+"No, sir." 
+
+"And has had no letters or callers?" 
+
+"None." 
+
+"But surely you or the girl enter his room 
+of a morning?" 
+
+"No, sir; he looks after himself entirely." 
+
+"Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. 
+What about his luggage?" 
+
+"He had one big brown bag with him nothing 
+else." 
+
+"Well, we don't seem to have much material 
+to help us. Do you say nothing has come out of 
+that room absolutely nothing?" 
+
+The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; 
+from it she shook out two burnt matches and a 
+cigarette-end upon the table. 
+
+"They were on his tray this morning. I 
+brought them because I had heard that you can 
+read great things out of small ones." 
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders. 
+
+"There is nothing here," said he. "The 
+matches have, of course, been used to light cig- 
+arettes. That is obvious from the shortness of 
+the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in 
+lighting a pipe or cigar. But, dear me ! this cig- 
+arette stub is certainly remarkable. The gentle- 
+man was bearded and moustached, you say?" 
+
+"Yes, sir." 
+
+"I don't understand that. I should say that 
+only a clean-shaven man could have smoked this. 
+
+[103] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Why, Watson, even your modest moustache 
+would have been singed." 
+
+"A holder?" I suggested. 
+
+"No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there 
+could not he two people in your rooms, Mrs. 
+Warren?" 
+
+"No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder 
+it can keep life in one." 
+
+"Well, I think we must wait for a little more 
+material. After all, you have nothing to com- 
+plain of. You have received your rent, and he 
+is not a troublesome lodger, though he is cer- 
+tainly an unusual one. He pays you well, and 
+if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct busi- 
+ness of yours. We have no excuse for an intru- 
+sion upon his privacy until we have some reason 
+to think that there is a guilty reason for it. I've 
+taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of it. 
+Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely 
+upon my assistance if it should be needed. 
+
+"There are certainly some points of interest in 
+this case, Watson," he remarked, when the land- 
+lady had left us. "It may. of course, be trivial 
+individual eccentricity ; or it may be very much 
+deeper than appears on the surface. The first 
+thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility 
+that the person now in the rooms may be entirely 
+different from the one who engaged them." 
+
+"Why should you think so?" 
+
+"Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it 
+[104] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+not suggestive that the only time the lodger went 
+out was immediately after his taking the rooms? 
+He came back or someone came back when 
+all witnesses were out of the way. We have no 
+proof that the person who came back was the per- 
+son who went out. Then, again, the man who 
+took the rooms spoke English well. This other, 
+however, prints 'match' when it should have been 
+'matches.' I can imagine that the word was 
+taken out of a dictionary, which would give the 
+noun but not the plural. The laconic style may 
+be to conceal the absence of knowledge of Eng- 
+lish. Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to 
+suspect that there has been a substitution of 
+lodgers." 
+
+"But for what possible end?" 
+
+"Ah! there lies our problem. There is one 
+rather obvious line of investigation." He took 
+down the great book in which, day by day, he filed 
+the agony columns of the various London jour- 
+nals. "Dear me!" said he, turning over the 
+pages, "what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleat- 
+ings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! 
+But surely the most valuable hunting-ground 
+that ever was given to a student of the unusual! 
+This person is alone, and cannot be approached 
+by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy 
+which is desired. How is any news or any mes- 
+sage to reach him from without? Obviously 
+by advertisement through a newspaper. There 
+
+[105] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+seems no other way, and fortunately we need con- 
+cern ourselves with the one paper only. Here 
+are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fort- 
+night. 'Lady with a black boa at Prince's Skat- 
+ing Club' that we may pass. 'Surely Jimmy 
+will not break his mother's heart' that appears 
+to be irrelevant. 'If the lady who fainted in 
+the Brixton bus' she does not interest me. 
+
+'Every day my heart longs ' Bleat, Watson 
+
+unmitigated bleat! Ah! this is a little more 
+possible. Listen to this: 'Be patient. Will 
+find some sure means of communication. Mean- 
+while, this column. G.' That is two days after 
+Mrs. Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds plaus- 
+ible, does it not? The mysterious one could un- 
+derstand English, even if he could not print it. 
+Let us see if we can pick up the trace again. 
+Yes, here we are- three days later. 'Am mak- 
+ing successful arrangements. Patience and pru- 
+dence. The clouds will pass. G.' Nothing for a 
+week after that. Then comes something much 
+more definite : 'The path is clearing. If I find 
+chance signal message remember code agreed 
+one A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon. 
+G.' That was in yesterday's paper, and there 
+is nothing in to-day's. It's all very appropriate 
+to Mrs. Warren's lodger. If we wait a little, 
+Watson, I don't doubt that the affair will grow 
+more intelligible." 
+
+So it proved; for in the morning I found my 
+[106] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+friend standing on the hearthrug with his back 
+to the fire, and a smile of complete satisfaction 
+upon his face. 
+
+"How's this, Watson?" he cried, picking up 
+the paper from the table. " 'High red house 
+with white stone facings. Third floor. Second 
+window left. After dusk. G.' That is definite 
+enough. I think after breakfast we must make 
+a little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren's neigh- 
+bourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren ! what news do you 
+bring us this morning?" 
+
+Our client had suddenly burst into the room 
+with an explosive energy which told of some new 
+and momentous development. 
+
+"It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes!" she cried. 
+"I'll have no more of it! He shall pack out of 
+that with his baggage. I would have gone 
+straight up and told him so, only I thought it was 
+but fair to you to take your opinion first. But 
+I'm at the end of my patience, and when it comes 
+to knocking my old man about " 
+
+"Knocking Mr. Warren about?" 
+
+"Using him roughly, anyway." 
+
+"But who used him roughly?" 
+
+"Ah! that's what we want to know! It was 
+this morning, sir. Mr. Warren is a timekeeper 
+at Morton and Waylight's, in Tottenham Court 
+Road. He has to be out of the house before 
+seven. Well, this morning he had not gone ten 
+paces down the road when two men came up be- 
+
+[107] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+hind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled 
+him into a cab that was beside the kerb. They 
+drove him an hour, and then opened the door and 
+shot him out. He lay in the roadway so shaken 
+in his wits that he never saw what became of the 
+cab. When he picked himself up he found he 
+was on Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus 
+home, and there he lies now on the sofa, while I 
+came straight round to tell you what had hap- 
+pened." 
+
+"Most interesting," said Holmes. "Did he 
+observe the appearance of these men did he hear 
+them talk?" 
+
+"No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that 
+he was lifted up as if by magic and dropped 
+as if by magic. Two at least were in it, and 
+maybe three." 
+
+"And you connect this attack with your 
+lodger?" 
+
+"Well, we've lived there fifteen years and no 
+such happenings ever came before. I've had 
+enough of him. Money's not everything. I'll 
+have him out of my house before the day is done." 
+
+"Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. 
+I begin to think that this affair may be very 
+much more important than appeared at first 
+sight. It is clear now that some danger is threat- 
+ening your lodger. It is equally clear that his 
+enemies, lying in wait for him near your door, 
+mistook your husband for him in the foggy 
+[108] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+morning light. On discovering their mistake 
+they released him. What they would have done 
+had it not been a mistake, we can only conjec- 
+ture." 
+
+"Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?" 
+
+"I have a great fancy to see this lodger of 
+yours, Mrs. Warren." 
+
+"I don't see how that is to be managed, unless 
+you break in the door. I always hear him unlock 
+it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray." 
+
+"He has to take the tray in. Surely we could 
+conceal ourselves and see him do it." 
+
+The landlady thought for a moment. 
+
+"Well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. I 
+could arrange a looking-glass, maybe, and if you 
+were behind the door " 
+
+"Excellent!" said Holmes. "When does he 
+lunch?" 
+
+"About one, sir." 
+
+"Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in 
+time. For the present, Mrs. Warren, good-bye." 
+
+At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon 
+the steps of Mrs. Warren's house a high, thin, 
+yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a nar- 
+row thoroughfare at the north-east side of the 
+British Museum. Standing as it does near the 
+corner of the street, it commands a view down 
+Howe Street, with its more pretentious houses. 
+Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, 
+
+[109] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+a row of residential flats, which projected so 
+that they could not .fail to catch the eye. 
+
+"See, Watson!" said he. " 'High red house 
+with stone facings.' There is the signal station 
+all right. We know the place, and we know the 
+code ; so surely our task should be simple. There's 
+a 'To Let' card in that window. It is evidently 
+an empty flat to which the confederate has ac- 
+cess. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?" 
+
+"I have it all ready for you. If you will both 
+come up and leave your boots below on the land- 
+ing, I'll put you there now." 
+
+It was an excellent hiding-place which she had 
+arranged. The mirror was so placed that, seated 
+in the dark, we could very plainly see the door 
+opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and 
+Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle an- 
+nounced that our mysterious neighbour had rung. 
+Presently the landlady appeared with the tray, 
+laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, 
+and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouch- 
+ing together in the angle of the door, we kept our 
+eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the 
+landlady's footsteps died away, there was the 
+creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and 
+two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray 
+from the chair. An instant later it was hurriedly 
+replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beau- 
+tiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening 
+of the box-room. Then the door crashed to, the 
+[110] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+key turned once more, and all was silence. 
+Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole 
+down the stair. 
+
+"I will call again in the evening," said he to 
+the expectant landlady. "I think, Watson, we 
+can discuss this business better in our own quar- 
+ters." 
+
+"My surmise, as you saw, proved to be cor- 
+rect," said he, speaking from the depths of his 
+easy-chair. "There has been a substitution of 
+lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we 
+should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, 
+Watson." 
+
+"She saw us." 
+
+"Well, she saw something to alarm her. That 
+is certain. The general sequence of events is 
+pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in 
+London from a very terrible and instant danger. 
+The measure of that danger is the rigour of their 
+precautions. The man, who has some work 
+which he must do, desires to leave the woman in 
+absolute safety while he does it. It is not an 
+easy problem, but he solved it in an original fash- 
+ion, and so effectively that her presence was not 
+even known to the landlady who supplies her 
+with food. The printed messages, as is now evi- 
+dent, were to prevent her sex being discovered 
+by her writing. The man cannot come near the 
+woman, or he will guide their enemies to her. 
+Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So 
+far all is clear." 
+
+"But what is at the root of it?" 
+
+"Ah, yes, Watson severely practical, as 
+usual! What is at the root of it all? Mrs. 
+Warren's whimsical problem enlarges somewhat 
+and assumes a more sinister aspect as we pro- 
+ceed. This much we can say : that it is no ordi- 
+nary love escapade. You saw the woman's face 
+at the sign of danger. We have heard, too, of 
+the attack upon the landlord, which was un- 
+doubtedly meant for the lodger. These alarms, 
+and the desperate need for secrecy, argue that 
+the matter is one of life or death. The attack 
+upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy, 
+whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the 
+substitution of the female lodger for the male. 
+It is very curious and complex, Watson." 
+
+"Why should you go further in it ? What have 
+you to gain from it?" 
+
+"What, indeed? It is Art for Art's sake, 
+Watson. I suppose when you doctored you 
+found yourself studying cases without thought 
+of a fee?" 
+
+"For my education, Holmes." 
+
+"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series 
+of lessons with the greatest for the last. This 
+is an instructive case. There is neither money 
+nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy 
+it up. When dusk comes we should find our- 
+[112] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+selves one stage advanced in our investigation." 
+When we returned to Mrs. Warren's rooms, 
+the gloom of a London winter evening had thick- 
+ened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of 
+colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares 
+of the windows and the blurred haloes of the gas- 
+lamps. As we peered from the darkened sitting- 
+room of the lodging-house, one more dim light 
+glimmered high up through the obscurity. 
+
+"Someone is moving in that room," said 
+Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and eager face 
+thrust forward to the window-pane. ''Yes, I 
+can see his shadow. There he is again! He has a 
+candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He 
+wants to be sure that she is on the look-out. Now 
+he begins to flash. Take the message also, Wat- 
+son, that we may check each other. A single flash 
+that is 'A,' surely. Now, then. How many did 
+you make it? Twenty. So did I. That should 
+mean 'T.' AT that's intelligible enough! 
+Another 'T.' Surely this is the beginning of a 
+second word. Now, then TENTA. Dead 
+stop. That can't be all, Watson? 'ATTEN- 
+TA' gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three 
+words 'AT. TEN. TA,' unless 'T. A.' are a 
+person's initials. There it goes again! What's 
+that? ATTE why, it is the same message over 
+again. Curious, Watson, very curious! Now 
+he is off once more! AT why, he is repeating 
+it for the third time. 'ATTENT A' three times ! 
+
+[113] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+How often will he repeat it? No, that seems to 
+be the finish. He has withdrawn from the win- 
+dow. What do you make of it, Watson?" 
+
+"A cipher message, Holmes." 
+
+My companion gave a sudden chuckle of com- 
+prehension. "And not a very obscure cipher, 
+Watson," said he. "Why, of course, it is Ital- 
+ian! The 'A' means that it is addressed to a 
+woman. 'Beware! Beware! Beware!' How's 
+that, Watson?" 
+
+"I believe you have hit it." 
+
+"Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent mes- 
+sage, thrice repeated to make it more so. But 
+beware of what? Wait a bit; he is coming to the 
+window once more." 
+
+Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouch- 
+ing man and the whisk of the small flame across 
+the window, as the signals were renewed. They 
+came more rapidly than before so rapid that it 
+was hard to follow them. 
+
+" TERICOLO' 'Pericolo' Eh, what's that, 
+Watson? Danger, isn't it? Yes, by Jove, it's 
+a danger signal. There he goes again ! 'PERI.' 
+Halloa, what on earth " 
+
+The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmer- 
+ing square of window had disappeared, and the 
+third floor formed a dark band round the lofty 
+building, with its tiers of shining casements. 
+That last warning cry had been suddenly cut 
+short. How, and by whom? The same thought 
+[114] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes 
+sprang up from where he crouched by the win- 
+dow. 
+
+"This is serious, Watson," he cried. "There 
+is some devilry going forward! Why should 
+such a message stop in such a way? I should 
+put Scotland Yard in touch with this business 
+and yet, it is too pressing for us to leave. rt 
+
+"Shall I go for the police?" 
+
+"We must define the situation a little more 
+clearly. It may bear some more innocent 
+interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go across 
+ourselves and see what we can make of it." 
+
+
+
+PART II 
+
+As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I 
+glanced back at the building which we had 
+left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, 
+I could see the shadow of a head, a woman's head, 
+gazing tensely, rigidly, out into the night, wait- 
+ing with breathless suspense for the renewal of 
+that interrupted message. At the doorway of 
+the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat 
+and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing. 
+He started as the hall-light fell upon our faces. 
+
+"Holmes!" he cried. 
+
+"Why, Gregson!" said my companion, as he 
+shook hands with the Scotland Yard detective. 
+
+[115] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Journeys end with lovers' meetings. What 
+brings you here?" 
+
+"The same reasons that bring you, I expect," 
+said Gregson. "How you got on to it I can't 
+imagine." 
+
+"Different threads, but leading up to the same 
+tangle. I've been taking the signals." 
+
+"Signals?" 
+
+"Yes, from that window. They broke off in 
+the middle. We came over to see the reason. 
+But since it is safe in your hands I see no object 
+in continuing the business." 
+
+"Wait a bit!" cried Gregson, eagerly. "I'll 
+do you this justice, Mr. Holmes, that I was never 
+in a case yet that I didn't feel stronger for having 
+you on my side. There's only the one exit to 
+these flats, so we have him safe." 
+
+"Who is he?" 
+
+"Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. 
+Holmes. You must give us best this time." He 
+struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on 
+which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered 
+over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far 
+side of the street. "May I introduce you to Mr. 
+Sherlock Holmes?" he said to the cabman. "This 
+is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton's American 
+Agency." 
+
+"The hero of the Long Island Cave mystery?" 
+said Holmes. "Sir, I am pleased to meet you." 
+
+The American, a quiet, businesslike young 
+[116] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+man, with a clean-shaven, hatchet face, flushed 
+up at the words of commendation. "I am on 
+the trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes," said he. 
+"If I can get Gorgiano " 
+
+"What ! Gorgiano of the Red Circle ?" 
+
+"Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, 
+we've learned all about him in America. We 
+know he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and 
+yet we have nothing positive we can take him on. 
+I tracked him over from New York, and I've 
+been close to him for a week in London, waiting 
+some excuse to get my hand on his collar. Mr. 
+Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big ten- 
+ement house, and there's only the one door, so he 
+can't slip us. There's three folk come out since 
+he went in, but I'll swear he wasn't one of them." 
+
+"Mr. Holmes talks of signals," said Gregson. 
+"I expect, as usual, he knows a good deal that 
+we don't." 
+
+In a few clear words Holmes explained the 
+situation as it had appeared to us. The Ameri- 
+can struck his hands together with vexation. 
+
+"He's on to us!" he cried. 
+
+"Why do you think so?" 
+
+"Well, it figures out that way, does it not? 
+Here he is, sending out messages to an accomplice 
+there are several of his gang in London. Then 
+suddenly, just as by your own account he was tell- 
+ing them that there was danger, he broke short 
+off. What could it mean except that from the 
+
+[117] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+window he had suddenly either caught sight of 
+us in the street, or in some way come to under- 
+stand how close the danger was, and that he 
+must act right away if he was to avoid it? What 
+do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?" 
+
+"That we go up at once and see for ourselves." 
+"But we have no warrant for his arrest." 
+"He is in unoccupied premises under suspi- 
+cious circumstances," said Gregson. "That is 
+good enough for the moment. When we have 
+him by the heels we can see if New York can't 
+help us to keep him. I'll take the responsibility 
+of arresting him now." 
+
+Our official detectives may blunder in the mat- 
+ter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. 
+Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate 
+murderer with the same absolutely quiet and 
+businesslike bearing with which he would have 
+ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard. 
+The Pinkerton man had tried to push past him, 
+but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. Lon- 
+don dangers were the privilege of the London 
+force. 
+
+The door of the left-hand flat upon the third 
+landing was standing ajar. Gregson pushed it 
+open. Within all was absolute silence and dark- 
+ness. I struck a match, and lit the detective's 
+lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied 
+into a flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise. On 
+the deal boards of the carpetless floor there was 
+[118] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+outlined a fresh track of blood. The red steps 
+pointed towards us, and led away from an inner 
+room, the door of which was closed. Gregson 
+flung it open and held his light full blaze in front 
+of him, whilst we all peered eagerly over his 
+shoulders. 
+
+In the middle of the floor of the empty room 
+was huddled the figure of an enormous man, his 
+clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible 
+in its contortion, and his head encircled by a 
+ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad 
+wet circle upon the white woodwork. His knees 
+were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, 
+and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned 
+throat there projected the white haft of a knife 
+driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as he 
+was, the man must have gone down like a pole- 
+axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his 
+right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two- 
+edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a 
+black kid glove. 
+
+"By George! it's Black Gorgiano himself!" 
+cried the American detective. "Someone has got 
+ahead of us this time." 
+
+"Here is the candle in the window, Mr. 
+Holmes," said Gregson. "Why, whatever are 
+you doing?" 
+
+Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, 
+and was passing it backwards and forwards across 
+the window-panes. Then he peered into the 
+
+[119] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the 
+floor. 
+
+"I rather think that will be helpful," said he. 
+He came over and stood in deep thought while 
+the two professionals were examining the body. 
+"You say that three people came out from the 
+flat while you were waiting downstairs," said he, 
+at last. "Did you observe them closely?" 
+
+"Yes, I did." 
+
+"Was there a fellow about thirty, black- 
+bearded, dark, of middle size?" 
+
+"Yes; he was the last to pass me." 
+
+"That is your man, I fancy. I can give you 
+his description, and we have a very excellent out- 
+line of his footmark. That should be enough for 
+you." 
+
+"Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions 
+of London." 
+
+"Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best 
+to summon this lady to your aid." 
+
+We all turned round at the words. There, 
+framed in the doorway, was a tall and beautiful 
+woman the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury. 
+Slowly she advanced, her face pale and drawn 
+with a frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed 
+and staring, her terrified gaze riveted upon the 
+dark figure on the floor. 
+
+"You have killed him!" she muttered. "Oh, 
+Dio mio, you have killed him!" Then I heard 
+a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she 
+[120] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+sprang into the air with a cry of joy. Round and 
+round the room she danced, her hands clapping^ 
+her dark eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, 
+and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations pour- 
+ing from her lips. It was terrible and amazing 
+to see such a woman so convulsed with joy at such 
+a sight. Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us 
+all with a questioning stare. 
+
+"But you! You are police, are you not? You 
+have killed Giuseppe Gorgiano. Is it not so?" 
+
+"We are police, madam." 
+
+She looked round into the shadows of the room. 
+
+"But where, then, is Gennaro?" she asked. 
+"He is my husband, Gennaro Lucca. I am Em- 
+ilia Lucca, and we are both from New York. 
+Where is Gennaro? He called me this moment 
+from this window, and I ran with all my speed." 
+
+"It was I who called," said Holmes. 
+
+"You ! How could you call ?" 
+
+"Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your 
+presence here was desirable. I knew that I had 
+only to flash 'Vieni' and you would surely come." 
+
+The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my 
+companion. 
+
+"I do not understand how you know these 
+things," she said. "Giuseppe Gorgiano how 
+
+did he " She paused, and then suddenly her 
+
+face lit up with pride and delight. "Now I see 
+it ! My Gennaro ! My splendid, beautiful Gen- 
+xiaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm, he 
+
+[121] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+did it, with his own strong hand he killed the 
+monster ! Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are ! 
+What woman could ever be worthy of such a 
+man?" 
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lucca," said the prosaic Gregson, 
+laying his hand upon the lady's sleeve with as 
+little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill 
+hooligan, "I am not very clear yet who you are 
+or what you are ; but you've said enough to make 
+it very clear that we shall want you at the Yard." 
+
+"One moment, Gregson," said Holmes. "I 
+rather fancy that this lady may be as anxious to 
+give us information as we can be to get it. You 
+understand, madam, that your husband will be ar- 
+rested and tried for the death of the man who lies 
+before us? What you say may be used in evi- 
+dence. But if you think that he has acted from 
+motives which are not criminal, and which he 
+would wish to have known, then you cannot serve 
+him better than by telling us the whole story." 
+
+"Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing," 
+said the lady. "He was a devil and a monster, 
+and there can be no judge in the world who would 
+punish my husband for having killed him." 
+
+"In that case," said Holmes, "my suggestion 
+is that we lock this door, leave things as we found 
+them, go with this lady to her room, and form 
+our opinion after we have heard what it is that she 
+has fa gay to us." 
+[122] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in 
+the small sitting-room of Signer a Lucca, lis- 
+tening to her remarkable narrative of those sin- 
+ister events, the ending of which we had chanced 
+to witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but 
+very unconventional English, which, for the sake 
+of clearness, I will make grammatical. 
+
+"I was born in Posilippo, near Naples," said 
+she, "and was the daughter of Augusto Barelli, 
+who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of 
+that part. Gennaro was in my father's employ- 
+ment, and I came to love him, as any woman 
+must. He had neither money nor position 
+nothing but his beauty and strength and energy 
+so my father forbade the match. We fled to- 
+gether, were married at Bari, and sold my jewels 
+to gain the money which would take us to Amer- 
+ica. This was four years ago, and we have been 
+in New York ever since. 
+
+"Fortune was very good to us at first. Gen- 
+naro was able to do a service to an Italian gen- 
+tleman he saved him from some ruffians in the 
+place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful 
+friend. His name was Tito Castalotte, and he 
+was the senior partner of the great firm of Casta- 
+lotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit importers 
+of New York. Signer Zamba is an invalid, and 
+our new friend Castalotte has all power within 
+the firm, which employs more than three hundred 
+men. He took my husband into his employment, 
+
+[123] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+made him head of a department, and showed his 
+goodwill towards him in every way. Signor 
+Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he 
+felt as if Gennaro was his son, and both my hus- 
+band and I loved him as if he were our father. 
+We had taken and furnished a little house in 
+Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed assured, 
+when that black cloud appeared which was soon 
+to overspread our sky. 
+
+"One night, when Gennaro returned from his 
+work, he brought a fellow-countryman back with 
+him. His name was Gorgiano, and he had come 
+also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as 
+you can testify, for you have looked upon his 
+corpse. Not only was his body that of a giant, 
+but everything about him was grotesque, gigan- 
+tic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder 
+in our little house. There was scarce room for 
+the whirl of his great arms as he talked. His 
+thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were ex- 
+aggerated and monstrous. He talked, or rather 
+roared, with such energy that others could but sit 
+and listen, cowed with the mighty stream of 
+words. His eyes blazed at you and held you at 
+his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful 
+man. I thank God that he is dead ! 
+
+"He came again and again. Yet I was aware 
+
+that Gennaro was no more happy than I was in 
+
+his presence. My poor husband would sit pale 
+
+and listless, listening to the endless raving upon 
+
+[124] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+politics and upon social questions which made up 
+our visitor's conversation. Gennaro said noth- 
+ing, but I who knew him so well could read in 
+his face some emotion which I had never seen 
+there before. At first I thought that it was dis- 
+like. And then, gradually, I understood that it 
+was more than dislike. It was fear a deep, se- 
+cret, shrinking fear. That night the night that 
+I read his terror I put my arms round him and 
+I implored him by his love for me and by all that 
+he held dear to hold nothing from me, and to tell 
+me why this huge man overshadowed him so. 
+
+"He told me, and my own heart grew cold as 
+ice as I listened. My poor Gennaro, in his wild 
+and fiery days, when all the world seemed against 
+him and his mind was driven half mad by the 
+injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, 
+the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Car- 
+bonari. The oaths and secrets of this brother- 
+hood were frightful; but once within its rule no 
+escape was possible. When we had fled to 
+America Gennaro thought that he had cast it 
+all off for ever. What was his horror one even- 
+ing to meet in the streets the very man who had 
+initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a 
+man who had earned the name of 'Death' in the 
+South of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in 
+murder! He had come to New York to avoid 
+the Italian police, and he had already planted a 
+branch of this dreadful society in his new home. 
+
+[125] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+All this Gennaro told me, and showed me a sum- 
+mons which he had received that very day, a Red 
+Circle drawn upon the head of it, telling him that 
+a lodge would be held upon a certain date, and 
+that his presence at it was required and ordered. 
+
+"That was bad enough, but worse was to come. 
+I had noticed for some time that when Gorgiano 
+came to us, as he constantly did, in the evening, 
+he spoke much to me; and even when his words 
+were to my husband those terrible, glaring, wild- 
+beast eyes of his were always turned upon me. 
+One night his secret came out. I had awakened 
+what he called 'love' within him the love of a 
+brute a savage. Gennaro had not yet returned 
+when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me 
+in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's em- 
+brace, covered me with kisses, and implored me 
+to come away with him. I was struggling and 
+screaming when Gennaro entered and attacked 
+him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled 
+from the house which he was never more to enter. 
+It was a deadly enemy that we made that night. 
+
+"A few days later came the meeting. Gen- 
+naro returned from it with a face which told me 
+that something dreadful had occurred. It was 
+worse than we could have imagined possible. 
+The funds of the society were raised by black- 
+mailing rich Italians and threatening them with 
+violence should they refuse the money. It 
+seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and bene- 
+[126] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+factor, had been approached. He had refused 
+to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices 
+to the police. It was resolved now that such an 
+example should be made of him as would prevent 
+any other victim from rebelling. At the meeting 
+it was arranged that he and his house should be 
+blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing 
+of lots as to who should carry out the deed. Gen- 
+naro saw our enemy's cruel face smiling at him as 
+he dipped his hand in the bag. No doubt it had 
+been pre-arranged in some fashion, for it was the 
+fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the man- 
+date for murder, which lay upon his palm. He 
+was to kill his best friend, or he was to expose him- 
+self and me to the vengeance of his comrades. 
+It was part of their fiendish system to punish 
+those whom they feared or hated by injuring not 
+only their own persons, but those whom they 
+loved, and it was the knowledge of this which 
+hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro's head 
+and drove him nearly crazy with apprehension. 
+"All that night we sat together, our arms 
+round each other, each strengthening each for 
+the troubles that lay before us. The very next 
+evening had been fixed for the ai ' _.jjt. By mid- 
+day my husband and I were on our way to Lon- 
+don, but not before he had given our benefac- 
+tor full warning of his danger, and had also left 
+such information for the police as would safe- 
+guard his life for the future. 
+
+[127] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. 
+We were sure that our enemies would be behind 
+us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his 
+private reasons for vengeance, but in any case 
+we knew how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he 
+could be. Both Italy and America are full of 
+stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they were 
+exerted it would be now. My darling made use of 
+the few clear days which our start had given us in 
+arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion 
+that no possible danger could reach me. For his 
+own part, he wished to be free that he might com- 
+municate both with the American and with the 
+Italian police. I do not myself know where he 
+lived, or how. All that I learned was through the 
+columns of a newspaper. But once, as I looked 
+through my window, I saw two Italians watching 
+the house, and I understood that in some way 
+Gorgiano had found out our retreat. Finally 
+Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he 
+would signal to me from a certain window, but 
+when the signals came they were nothing but 
+warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It 
+is very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano 
+to be close _ A ..;:a him, and that, thank God! he 
+was ready for him when he came. And now, 
+gentlemen, I would ask you whether we have 
+anything to fear from the Law, or whether any 
+judge upon earth would condemn my Gennaro 
+for what he has done?" 
+[128] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE 
+
+"Well, Mr. Gregson," said the American, look- 
+ing across at the official, "I don't know what 
+your British point of view may be, but I guess 
+that in New York this lady's husband will receive 
+a pretty general vote of thanks." 
+
+"She will have to come with me and see the 
+Chief," Gregson answered. "If what she says 
+is corroborated, I do not think she or her hus- 
+band has much to fear. But what I can't make 
+head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth you 
+got yourself mixed up in the matter." 
+
+"Education, Gregson, education. Still seek- 
+ing knowledge at the old university. Well, 
+Watson, you have one more specimen of the 
+tragic and grotesque to add to your collection. 
+By the way, it is not eight o'clock, and a Wagner 
+night at Covent Garden ! If we hurry, we might 
+be in time for the second act." 
+
+
+
+[129] 
+
+
+
+IV 
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE- 
+PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+
+
+IN the third week of November, in the year 
+1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon 
+London. From the Monday to the Thursday 
+I doubt whether it was ever possible from our 
+windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the 
+opposite houses. The first day Holmes had 
+spent in cross-indexing his huge book of refer- 
+ences. The second and third had been patiently 
+occupied upon a subject which he had recently 
+made his hobby the music of the Middle Ages. 
+But when, for the fourth time, after pushing 
+back our chairs from breakfast we saw the 
+greasy, heavy brown swirl still drifting past us 
+and condensing in oily drops upon the window- 
+panes, my comrade's impatient and active 
+nature could endure this drab existence no 
+longer. He paced restlessly about our sitting- 
+room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his 
+[130] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against 
+inaction. 
+
+"Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?" 
+he said. 
+
+I was aware that by anything of interest, 
+Holmes meant anything of criminal interest. 
+There was the news of a revolution, of a possible 
+war, and of an impending change of Govern- 
+ment; but these did not come within the horizon 
+of my companion. I could see nothing recorded 
+in the shape of crime which was not commonplace 
+and futile. Holmes groaned and resumed his 
+restless meanderings. 
+
+"The London criminal is certainly a dull fel- 
+low," said he, in the querulous voice of the sports- 
+man whose game has failed him. "Look out of 
+this window, Watson. See how the figures loom 
+up, are dimly seen, and then blend once more into 
+the cloud-bank. The thief or the murderer could 
+roam London on such a day as the tiger does the 
+jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evi- 
+dent only to his victim." 
+
+"There have," said I, "been numerous petty 
+thefts." 
+
+Holmes snorted his contempt. 
+
+"This great and sombre stage is set for some- 
+thing more worthy than that," said he. "It is 
+fortunate for this community that I am not a 
+criminal." 
+
+"It is, indeed!" said I, heartily. 
+
+[131] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Suppose that I were Brooks or Woodhouse, 
+or any of the fifty men who have good reason 
+for taking my life, how long could I survive 
+against my own pursuit? A summons, a bogus 
+appointment, and all would be over. It is well 
+they don't have days of fog in the Latin coun- 
+tries the countries of assassination. By Jove! 
+here comes something at last to break our dead 
+monotony." 
+
+It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes 
+tore it open and burst out laughing. 
+
+"Well, well! What next?" said he. "Brother 
+Mycroft is coming round." 
+
+"Why not?" I asked. 
+
+"Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car 
+coming down a country lane. Mycroft has his 
+rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodg- 
+ings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall that is his 
+cycle. Once, and only once, he has been 
+here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed 
+him?" 
+
+"Does he not explain?" 
+
+Holmes handed me his brother's telegram. 
+
+"Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming 
+at once. MYCROFT." 
+
+"Cadogan West? I have heard the name." 
+
+"It recalls nothing to my mind. But 
+that Mycroft should break out in this erratic 
+fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit. 
+By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?" 
+[132] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRTJCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+I had some vague recollection of an explana- 
+tion at the time of the Adventure of the Greek 
+Interpreter. 
+
+"You told me that he had some small office 
+under the British Government." 
+
+Holmes chuckled. 
+
+"I did not know you quite so well in those 
+days. One has to be discreet when one talks 
+of high matters of state. You are right in think- 
+ing that he is under the British Government. 
+You would also be right in a sense if you 
+said that occasionally he is the British Govern- 
+ment." 
+
+"My dear Holmes!" 
+
+"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft 
+draws four hundred and fifty pounds a year, re- 
+mains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any 
+kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but 
+remains the most indispensable man in the 
+country." 
+
+"But how?" 
+
+"Well, his position is unique. He has made 
+it for himself. There has never been anything 
+like it before, nor will be again. He has the 
+tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest 
+capacity for storing facts, of any man living. 
+The same great powers which I have turned 
+to the detection of crime he has used for this 
+particular business. The conclusions of every 
+department are passed to him, and he is the 
+
+[133] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+central exchange, the clearing-house, which makes 
+out the balance. All other men are specialists, 
+but his specialism is omniscience. We will 
+suppose that a Minister needs information as 
+to a point which involves the Navy, India, 
+Canada and the bimetallic question; he could 
+get his separate advices from various depart- 
+ments upon each, but only Mycroft can 
+focus them all, and say off-hand how each 
+factor would affect the other. They began by 
+using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now 
+he has made himself an essential. In that great 
+brain of his everything is pigeon-holed, and can 
+be handed out in an instant. Again and again 
+his word has decided the national policy. He 
+lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save 
+when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends 
+if I call upon him and ask him to advise me on 
+one of my little problems. But Jupiter is 
+descending to-day. What on earth can it 
+mean? Who is Cadogan West, and what is he 
+to Mycroft?" 
+
+"I have it," I cried, and plunged among the 
+litter of papers upon the sofa. "Yes, yes, here 
+he is, sure enough ! Cadogan West was the young 
+man who was found dead on the Underground on 
+Tuesday morning." 
+
+Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe half-way 
+to his lips. 
+
+"This must be serious, Watson. A death 
+[134] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+which has caused my brother to alter his habits 
+can be no ordinary one. What in the world can 
+he have to do with it? The case was featureless 
+as I remember it. The young man had appar- 
+ently fallen out of the train and killed himself. 
+He had not been robbed, and there was no par- 
+ticular reason to suspect violence. Is that not 
+so?" 
+
+"There has been an inquest," said I, "and a 
+good many fresh facts have come out. Looked 
+at more closely, I should certainly say that it 
+was a curious case." 
+
+"Judging by its effect upon my brother, I 
+should think it must be a most extraordinary 
+one." He snuggled down in his armchair. "Now, 
+Watson, let us have the facts." 
+
+"The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West. 
+He was twenty-seven years of age, unmarried, 
+and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal." 
+
+"Government employ. Behold the. link with 
+brother Mycroft!" 
+
+"He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday 
+night. Was last seen by his fiancee, Miss 
+Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the 
+fog about 7.30 that evening. There was no 
+quarrel between them and she can give no 
+motive for his action. The next thing heard 
+of him was when his dead body was discovered 
+by a plate-layer named Mason, just outside 
+
+[135] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Aldgate Station on the Underground system in 
+London." 
+
+"When?" 
+
+"The body was found at six on the Tuesday 
+morning. It was lying wide of the metals 
+upon the left hand of the track as one goes east- 
+ward, at a point close to the station, where the 
+line emerges from the tunnel in which it runs. 
+The head was badly crushed an injury which 
+might well have been caused by a fall 
+from the train. The body could only have come 
+on the line in that way. Had it been carried 
+down from any neighbouring street, it must have 
+passed the station barriers, where a collector is 
+always standing. This point seems absolutely 
+certain." 
+
+"Very good. The case is definite enough. 
+The man, dead or alive, either fell or was pre- 
+cipitated from a tain. So much is clear to me. 
+Continue." 
+
+"The trains which traverse the lines of rail 
+V>eside which the body was found are those which 
+run from west to east, some being purely Metro- 
+politan, and some from Willesden and outlying 
+junctions. It can be stated for certain that this 
+young man, when he met his death, was travelling 
+in this direction at some late hour of the night, 
+but at what point he entered the train it is im- 
+possible to state." 
+
+"His ticket, of course, would show that." 
+[136] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRTJCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+"There was no ticket in his pockets." 
+
+"No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really 
+very singular. According to my experience it 
+is not possible to reach the platform of a Metro- 
+politan train without exhibiting one's ticket. 
+Presumably, then, the young man had one. Was 
+it taken from him. in order to conceal the station 
+from which he came? It is possible. Or 
+did he drop it in the carriage? That also is pos- 
+sible. But the point is of curious interest. 
+I understand that there was no sign of rob- 
+bery?" 
+
+"Apparently not. There is a list here of his 
+possessions. His purse contained two pounds 
+fifteen. He had also a cheque-book on the 
+Woolwich branch of the Capital and Coun- 
+ties Bank. Through this his identity was estab- 
+lished. There were also two dress-circle tickets 
+for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very 
+evening. Also a small packet of technical 
+papers." 
+
+Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction. 
+
+"There we have it at last, Watson! British Gov- 
+ernment Woolwich. Arsenal Technical pa- 
+pers Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete. 
+But here he comes, if I am not mistaken to 
+speak for himself." 
+
+A moment later the tall and portly form of 
+Mycroft Holmes was ushered into the room. 
+Heavily built and massive, there was a sugges- 
+
+[137] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+tion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, 
+but above this unwieldy frame there was perched 
+a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its 
+steel-grey, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and 
+so subtle in its play of expression, that after the 
+first glance one forgot the gross body and remem- 
+bered only the dominant mind. 
+
+At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of 
+Scotland Yard thin and austere. The gravity 
+of both their faces foretold some weighty quest. 
+The detective shook hands without a word. My- 
+croft Holmes struggled out of his overcoat and 
+subsided into an armchair. 
+
+"A most annoying business, Sherlock," said 
+he. "I extremely dislike altering my habits, but 
+the powers that be would take no denial. In the 
+present state of Siam it is most awkward that 
+I should be away from the office. But it is a real 
+crisis. I have never seen the Prime Minister so 
+upset. As to the Admiralty it is buzzing like 
+an overturned bee-hive. Have you read up the 
+case?" 
+
+"We have just done so. What were the tech- 
+nical papers?" 
+
+"Ah, there's the point! Fortunately, it has 
+not come out. The Press would be furious if it 
+did. The papers which this wretched youth had 
+in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Part- 
+ington submarine." 
+
+v Mycrof t Holmes spoke with a solemnity which 
+[138] 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+showed his sense of the importance of the subject. 
+His brother and I sat expectant. 
+
+"Surely you have heard of it ? I thought every- 
+one had heard of it." 
+
+"Only as a name." 
+
+"Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. 
+It has been the most jealously guarded of all 
+Government secrets. You may take it from me 
+that naval warfare becomes impossible within the 
+radius of a Bruce-Partington's operation. Two 
+years ago a very large sum was smuggled through 
+the Estimates and was expended in acquir- 
+ing a monopoly of the invention. Every effort 
+has been made to keep the secret. The plans, 
+which are exceedingly intricate, comprising 
+some thirty separate patents, each essential to 
+^the working of the whole, are kept in an 
+elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining 
+the Arsenal, with burglar-proof doors and 
+windows. Under no conceivable circumstances 
+were the plans to be taken from the office. If 
+the Chief Constructor of the Navy desired to 
+consult them, even he was forced to go to the 
+Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet here 
+we find them in the pockets of a dead junior 
+clerk in the heart of London. From an official 
+point of view it's simply awful." 
+
+"But you have recovered them?" 
+
+"No, Sherlock, no! That's the pinch. We 
+have not. Ten papers were taken from Wool- 
+
+[139] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+wich. There were seven in the pockets of 
+Cadogan West. The three most essential are 
+gone stolen, vanished. You must drop every- 
+thing, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty 
+puzzles of the police-court. It's a vital inter- 
+national problem that you have to solve. Why 
+did Cadogan West take the papers, where are 
+the missing ones, how did he die, how came his 
+body where it was found, how can the evil be 
+set right ? Find an answer to all these questions, 
+and you will have done good service for your 
+country." 
+
+"Why do you not solve it yourself, My croft? 
+You can see as far as I." 
+
+"Possibly, Sherlock. But it is a question of 
+getting details. Give me your details, and from 
+an arm-chair I will return you an excellent ex- 
+pert opinion. But to run here and run there, to 
+cross-question railway guards, and lie on my face 
+with a lens to my eye it is not my metier. No, 
+you are the one man who can clear the matter up. 
+If you have a fancy to see your name in the next 
+honours list " 
+
+My friend smiled and shook his head. 
+
+"I play the game for the game's own sake/' 
+said he. "But the problem certainly presents 
+some points of interest, and I shall be very 
+pleased to look into it. Some more facts, 
+please." 
+
+"I have jotted down the more essential ones 
+[140] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE- PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+upon this sheet of paper, together with a few 
+addresses which you will find of service. The 
+actual official guardian of the papers is the 
+famous Government expert, Sir James Walter, 
+whose decorations and sub-titles fill two lines 
+of a book of reference. He has grown grey in 
+the service, is a gentleman, a favoured guest in 
+the most exalted houses, and above all a man 
+whose patriotism is beyond suspicion. He is one 
+of two who have a key of the safe. I may add 
+that the papers were undoubtedly in the office 
+during working hours on Monday, and that Sir 
+James left for London about three o'clock 
+taking his key with him. He was at the house 
+of Admiral Sinclair at Barclay Square during 
+the whole of the evening when this incident oc- 
+curred." 
+
+"Has the fact been verified?" 
+
+"Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, 
+has testified to his departure from Woolwich, 
+and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in London; 
+so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the 
+problem." 
+
+"Who was the other man with a key?" 
+
+"The senior clerk and draughtsman, Mr. Sid- 
+ney Johnson. He is a man of forty, married, 
+with five children. He is a silent, morose man, 
+but he has, on the whole, an excellent record 
+in the public service. He is unpopular with his 
+colleagues, but a hard worker. According to 
+
+[141] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+his own account, corroborated only by the 
+word of his wife, he was at home the whole of 
+Monday evening after office hours, and his key 
+has never left the watch-chain upon which it 
+hangs." 
+
+"Tell us about Cadogan West." 
+
+"He has been ten years in the Service, and 
+has done good work. He has the reputation of 
+being hot-headed and impetuous, but a straight, 
+honest man. We have nothing against him. He 
+was next Sidney Johnson in the office. His du- 
+ties brought him into daily, personal contact with 
+the plans. No one else had the handling of 
+them." 
+
+"Who locked the plans up that night?" 
+
+"Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk." 
+
+"Well, it is surely perfectly clear who took 
+them away. They are actually found upon the 
+person of this junior clerk, Cadogan West. That 
+seems final, does it not ?" 
+
+"It does, Sherlock, and yet it leaves so much 
+unexplained. In the first place, why did he take 
+them?" 
+
+"I presume they were of value?" 
+
+"He could have got several thousands for them 
+very easily." 
+
+"Can you suggest any possible motive for 
+taking the papers to London except to sell 
+them?" 
+
+"No, I cannot." 
+[142] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTUEE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+"Then we must take that as our working 
+hypothesis. Young West took the papers. Now 
+this could only be done by having a false 
+key " 
+
+"Several false keys. 'He had to open the build- 
+ing and the room." 
+
+"He had, then, several false keys. He took 
+the papers to London to sell the secret, intend- 
+ing, no doubt, to have the plans themselves 
+back in the safe next morning before they were 
+missed. While in London on this treasonable 
+mission he met his end." 
+
+"How?" 
+
+"We will suppose that he was travelling back 
+to Woolwich when he was killed and thrown 
+out of the compartment." 
+
+"Aldgate, where the body was found, is con- 
+siderably past the station for London Bridge, 
+which would be his route to Woolwich." 
+
+"Many circumstances could be imagined under 
+which he would pass London Bridge. There was 
+someone in the carriage, for example with whom 
+he was having an absorbing interview. This in- 
+terview led to a violent scene, in which he lost his 
+life. Possibly he tried to leave the carriage, fell 
+out on the line, and so met his end. The other 
+closed the door. There was a thick fog, and noth- 
+ing could be seen." 
+
+"No better explanation can be given with our 
+present knowledge; and yet consider, Sherlock, 
+
+[143] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+how much you leave untouched. We will sup- 
+pose, for argument's sake, that young Cadogan 
+West had determined to convey these papers 
+to London. He would naturally have made 
+an appointment with the foreign agent and 
+kept his evening clear. Instead of that he 
+took two tickets for the theatre, escorted 
+his fiancee half-way there, and then suddenly 
+disappeared." 
+
+"A blind," said Lestrade, who had sat lis- 
+tening with some impatience to the conversa- 
+tion. 
+
+"A very singular one. That is objection No. 
+1. Objection No. 2: We will suppose that he 
+reaches London and sees the foreign agent. He 
+must bring back the papers before morning or 
+the loss will be discovered. He took away ten. 
+Only seven were in his pocket. What had be- 
+come of the other three? He certainly would 
+not leave them of his own free will. Then, again, 
+where is the price of his treason? One would 
+have expected to find a large sum of money in 
+his pocket." 
+
+"It seems to me perfectly clear," said Les- 
+trade. "I have no doubt at all as to what oc- 
+curred. He took the papers to sell them. He 
+saw the agent. They could not agree as to price. 
+He started home again, but the agent went with 
+him. In the train the agent murdered him, took 
+[144] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+the more essential papers, and threw his body 
+from the carriage. That would account for 
+everything, would it not?" 
+
+"Why had he no ticket?" 
+
+"The ticket would have shown which station 
+was nearest the agent's house. Therefore he took 
+it from the murdered man's pocket." 
+
+"Good, Lestrade, very good," said Holmes. 
+"Your theory holds together. But if this is true, 
+then the case is at an end. On the one hand the 
+traitor is dead. On the other the plans of the 
+Bruce-Partington submarine are presumably al- 
+ready on the Continent. What is there for us to 
+do?" 
+
+"To act, Sherlock to act!" cried Mycroft, 
+springing to his feet, "All my instincts are 
+against this explanation. Use your powers ! Go 
+to the scene of the crime! See the people con- 
+cerned! Leave no stone unturned! In all your 
+career you have never had so great a chance of 
+serving your country." 
+
+"Well, well!" said Holmes, shrugging his 
+shoulders. "Come, Watson! And you, Les- 
+trade, could you favour us with your company 
+for an hour or two? We will begin our investi- 
+gation by a visit to Aldgate Station. Good-bye, 
+Mycroft. I shall let you have a report before 
+evening, but I warn you in advance that you 
+have little to expect." 
+
+[145] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+An hour later, Holmes, Lestrade and I, stood 
+upon the underground railroad at the point 
+where it emerges from the tunnel immediately 
+before Aldgate Station. A courteous red-faced 
+old gentleman represented the railway company. 
+
+"This is where the young man's body lay," 
+said he, indicating a spot about three feet from 
+the metals. ''It could not have fallen from 
+above, for these, as you see, are all blank walls. 
+Therefore, it could only have come from a train, 
+and that train, so far as we can trace it, must 
+have passed about midnight on Monday." 
+
+"Have the carriages been examined for any 
+sign of violence?" 
+
+"There are no such signs, and no ticket has 
+been found." 
+
+"No record of a door being found open?" 
+
+"None." 
+
+"We have had some fresh evidence this morn- 
+ing," said Lestrade. "A passenger who passed 
+Aldgate in an ordinary Metropolitan train about 
+11.40 on Monday night declares that he heard a 
+heavy thud, as of a body striking the line, just 
+before the train reached the station. There was 
+dense fog, however, and nothing could be seen. 
+He made no report of it at the time. Why, what- 
+ever is the matter with Mr. Holmes?" 
+
+My friend was standing with an expression 
+of strained intensity upon his face, staring at 
+the railway metals where they curved out of the 
+[146] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+tunnel. Aldgate is a junction, and there was a 
+network of points. On these his eager, question- 
+ing eyes were fixed, and I saw on his keen, alert 
+face that tightening of the lips, that quiver of 
+the nostrils, and concentration of the heavy tufted 
+brows which I knew so well. 
+
+"Points," he muttered; "the points." 
+
+"What of it? What do you mean?" 
+
+"I suppose there are no great number of points 
+on a system such as this?" 
+
+"No ; there are very few." 
+
+"And a curve, too. Points, and a curve. By 
+Jove ! if it were only so." 
+
+"What is it, Mr. Holmes? Have you a clue?" 
+
+"An idea an indication, no more. But the 
+case certainly grows in interest. Unique, per- 
+fectly unique, and yet why not? I do not see 
+any indications of bleeding on the line." 
+
+"There were hardly any." 
+
+"But I understand that there was a consider- 
+able wound." 
+
+"The bone was crushed, but there was no great 
+external injury." 
+
+"And yet one would have expected some bleed- 
+ing. Would it be possible for me to inspect the 
+train which contained the passenger who heard 
+the thud of a fall in the fog?" 
+
+"I fear not, Mr. Holmes. The train has been 
+broken up before now, and the carriages redis- 
+tributed." 
+
+[147] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"I can assure you, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, 
+"that every carriage has been carefully examined. 
+I saw to it myself." 
+
+It was one of my friend's most obvious weak- 
+nesses that he was impatient with less alert in- 
+telligences than his own. 
+
+"Very likely," said he, turning away. "As it 
+happens, it was not the carriages which I desired 
+to examine. Watson, we have done all we can 
+here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr. 
+Lestrade. I think our investigations must now 
+carry us to Woolwich." 
+
+At London Bridge, Holmes wrote a telegram 
+to his brother, which he handed to me before dis- 
+patching it. It ran thus : 
+
+"See some light in the darkness, but it may pos- 
+sibly flicker out. Meanwhile, please send by 
+messenger, to await return at Baker Street, a 
+complete list of all foreign spies or international 
+agents known to be in England, with full ad- 
+dress. SHERLOCK." 
+
+"That should be helpful, Watson," he re- 
+marked, as we took our seats in the Woolwich 
+train. "We certainly owe brother My croft a 
+debt for having introduced us to what promises 
+to be a really very remarkable case." 
+
+His eager face still wore that expression of 
+intense and high-strung energy, which showed 
+[148] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+me that some novel and suggestive circumstance 
+had opened up a stimulating line of thought. 
+See the foxhound with hanging ears and droop- 
+ing tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare 
+it with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes 
+and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high 
+scent such was the change in Holmes since the 
+morning. He was a different man to the limp 
+and lounging figure in the mouse-coloured 
+dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only 
+a few hours before round the fog-girt room. 
+
+"There is material here. There is scope," said 
+he. "I am dull indeed not to have understood its 
+possibilities." 
+
+"Even now they are dark to me." 
+
+"The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of 
+one idea which may lead us far. The man met 
+his death elsewhere, and his body was on the 
+roof of a carriage." 
+
+"On the roof!" 
+
+"Remarkable, is it not? But consider the facts. 
+Is it a coincidence that it is found at the very 
+point where the train pitches and sways as it 
+comes round on the points? Is not that the place 
+where an object upon the roof might be expected 
+to fall off? The points would affect no object 
+inside the train. Either the body fell from the 
+roof, or a very curious coincidence has occurred. 
+But now consider the question of the blood. Of 
+course, there was no bleeding on the line if the 
+
+[149] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+body had bled elsewhere. Each fact is sugges- 
+tive in itself. Together they have a cumulative 
+force." 
+
+"And the ticket, too!" I cried. 
+
+"Exactly. We could not explain the absence 
+of a ticket. This would explain it. Everything 
+fits together." 
+
+"But suppose it were so, we are still as far as 
+ever from unravelling the mystery of his death. 
+Indeed, it becomes not simpler, but stranger." 
+
+"Perhaps," said Holmes, thoughtfully; "per- 
+haps." He relapsed into a silent reverie, which 
+lasted until the slow train drew up at last in 
+Woolwich Station. There he called a cab and 
+drew Mycroft's paper from his pocket. 
+
+"We have quite a little round of afternoon 
+calls to make," said he. "I think that Sir James 
+Walter claims our first attention." 
+
+The house of the famous official was a fine 
+villa with green lawns stretching down to the 
+Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting, 
+and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking 
+through. A butler answered our ring. 
+
+"Sir James, sir!" said he, with solemn face. 
+"Sir James died this morning." 
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Holmes, in amazement. 
+"How did he die?" 
+
+"Perhaps you would care to step in, sir, and 
+see his brother, Colonel Valentine?" 
+
+"Yes, we had best do so." 
+[150] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, 
+where an instant later we were joined by a very 
+tall, handsome, light-bearded man of fifty, the 
+younger brother of the dead scientist. His 
+wild eyes, stained cheeks, and unkempt hair all 
+spoke of the sudden blow which had fallen upon 
+the household. He was hardly articulate as he 
+spoke of it. 
+
+"It was this horrible scandal," said he. "My 
+brother, Sir James, was a man of very sensitive 
+honour, and he could not survive such an affair. 
+It broke his heart. He was always so proud of 
+the efficiency of his department, and this was a 
+crushing blow." 
+
+"We had hoped that he might have given us 
+some indications which would have helped us to 
+clear the matter up." 
+
+"I assure you that it was all a mystery to him 
+as it is to you and to all of us. He had already 
+put all his knowledge at the disposal of the police. 
+Naturally, he had no doubt that Cadogan West 
+was guilty. But all the rest was inconceivable." 
+
+"You cannot throw any new light upon the 
+affair?" 
+
+"I know nothing myself save what I have read 
+or heard. I have no desire to be discourteous, 
+but you can understand, Mr. Holmes, that we 
+are much disturbed at present, and I must ask 
+you to hasten this interview to an end." 
+
+"This is indeed an unexpected development," 
+
+[151] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+said my friend when we had regained the cab. 
+"I wonder if the death was natural, or whether 
+the poor old fellow killed himself! If the latter, 
+may it be taken as some sign of self-reproach for 
+duty neglected? We must leave that question 
+to the future. Now we shall turn to the Cado- 
+gan Wests." 
+
+A small but well-kept house in the outskirts 
+of the town sheltered the bereaved mother. The 
+old lady was too dazed with grief to be of any 
+use to us, but at her side was a white-faced young 
+lady, who introduced herself as Miss Violet West- 
+bury, the fiancee of the dead man, and the last 
+to see him upon that fatal night. 
+
+"I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes," she said. 
+"I have not shut an eye since the tragedy, think- 
+ing, thinking, thinking, night and day, what the 
+true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most 
+single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon 
+earth. He would have cut his right hand off be- 
+fore he would sell a State secret confided to his 
+keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous 
+to anyone who knew him." 
+
+"But the facts, Miss Westbury?" 
+"Yes, yes; I admit I cannot explain them." 
+"Was he in any want of money?" 
+"No; his needs were very simple and his salary 
+ample. He had saved a few hundreds, and we 
+were to marry at the New Year," 
+[152] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE- PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+"No signs of any mental excitement? Come, 
+Miss Westbury, be absolutely frank with us." 
+
+The quick eye of my companion had noted 
+some change in her manner. She coloured and 
+hesitated. 
+
+"Yes," she said, at last. "I had a feeling that 
+there was something on his mind." 
+
+"For long?" 
+
+"Only for the last week or so. He was thought- 
+ful and worried. Once I pressed him about it. 
+He admitted that there was something, and that 
+it was concerned with his official life. 'It is too 
+serious for me to speak about, even to you,' said 
+he. I could get nothing more." 
+
+Holmes looked grave. 
+
+"Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to 
+tell against him, go on. We cannot say what it 
+may lead to." 
+
+"Indeed I have nothing more to tell. Once or 
+twice it seemed to me that he was on the point 
+of telling me something. He spoke one evening 
+of the importance of the secret, and I have some 
+recollection that he said that no doubt foreign 
+spies would pay a great deal to have it." 
+
+My friend's face grew graver still. 
+
+"Anything else?" 
+
+"He said that we were slack about such mat- 
+ters that it would be easy for a traitor to get 
+the plans." 
+
+[153] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Was it only recently that he made such re- 
+marks?" 
+
+"Yes, quite recently." 
+
+"Now tell us of that last evening." 
+
+"We were to go to the theatre. The fog was 
+so thick that a cab was useless. We walked, and 
+our way took us close to the office. Suddenly he 
+darted away into the fog." 
+
+"Without a word?" 
+
+"He gave an exclamation; that was all. I 
+waited but he never returned. Then I walked 
+home. Next morning, after the office opened, 
+they came to inquire. About twelve o'clock we 
+heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr. Holmes if you 
+could only, only save his honour ! It was so much 
+to him." 
+
+Holmes shook his head sadly. 
+
+"Come, Watson," said he, "our ways lie else- 
+where. Our next station must be the office from 
+which the papers were taken. 
+
+"It was black enough before against this young 
+man, but our inquiries make it blacker," he re- 
+marked, as the cab lumbered off. "His coming 
+marriage gives a motive for the crime. He natu- 
+rally wanted money. The idea was in his head, 
+since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl 
+an accomplice in the treason by telling her his 
+plans. It is all very bad." 
+
+"But surely, Holmes, character goes for some- 
+thing? Then, again, why should he leave the 
+[154] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+girl in the street and dart away to commit a 
+felony?" 
+
+"Exactly! There are certainly objections. 
+But it is a formidable case which they have to 
+meet." 
+
+Mr. Sidney Johnson, the senior clerk, met us 
+at the office, and received us with that respect 
+which my companion's card always commanded. 
+He was a thin, gruff, bespectacled man of middle 
+age, his cheeks haggard, and his hands twitching 
+from the nervous strain to which he had been 
+subjected. 
+
+"It is bad, Mr. Holmes, very bad ! Have you 
+heard of the death of the chief?" 
+
+"We h&,ve just come from his house." 
+
+"The place is disorganized. The chief dead, 
+Cadogan West dead, our papers stolen. And 
+yet, when we closed our door on Monday evening 
+we were as efficient an office as any in the Gov- 
+ernment service. Good God, it's dreadful to 
+think of! That West, of all men, should have 
+done such a thing!" 
+
+"You are sure of his guilt, then?" 
+
+"I can see no other way out of it. And yet 
+I would have trusted him as I trust myself." 
+
+"At what hour was the office closed on Mon- 
+day?" 
+
+"At five." 
+
+"Did you close it?" 
+
+"I am always the last man out." 
+
+[155] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Where were the plans?" 
+
+"In that safe. I put them there myself." 
+
+"Is there no watchman to the building?" 
+
+"There is; but he has other departments to 
+look after as well. He is an old soldier and a 
+most trustworthy man. He saw nothing that 
+evening. Of course, the fog was very thick." 
+
+"Suppose that Cadogan West wished to make 
+his way into the building after hours; he would 
+need three keys, would he not, before he could 
+reach the papers?" 
+
+"Yes, he would. The key of the outer door, 
+the key of the office, and the key of the safe." 
+
+"Only Sir James Walter and you had those 
+keys?" ' 
+
+"I had no keys of the doors only of the safe." 
+
+"Was Sir James a man who was orderly in his 
+habits?" 
+
+"Yes, I think he was. I know that so far as 
+those three keys are concerned he kept them on 
+the same ring. I have often seen them there." 
+
+"And that ring went with him to London?" 
+
+"He said so." 
+
+"And your key never left your possession?" 
+
+"Never." 
+
+"Then West, if he is the culprit, must have 
+
+had a duplicate. And yet none was found upon 
+
+his body. One other point: if a clerk in this 
+
+office desired to sell the plans, would it not be 
+
+[156] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+simpler to copy the plans for himself than to take 
+the originals, as was actually done?" 
+
+"It would take considerable technical knowl- 
+edge to copy the plans in an effective way." 
+
+"But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or 
+West had that technical knowledge?" 
+
+"No doubt we had, but I beg you won't try 
+to drag me into the matter, Mr. Holmes. What 
+is the use of our speculating in this way when 
+the original plans were actually found on West?" 
+
+"Well, it is certainly singular that he should 
+run the risk of taking originals if he could safely 
+have taken copies, which would have equally 
+served his turn." 
+
+"Singular, no doubt and yet he did so." 
+
+"Every inquiry in this case reveals something 
+inexplicable. Now there are three papers still 
+missing. They are, as I understand, the vital 
+ones." 
+
+"Yes, that is so." 
+
+"Do you mean to say that anyone holding 
+these three papers, and without the seven others, 
+could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?" 
+
+"I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. 
+But to-day I have been over the drawings again, 
+and I am not so sure of it. The double valves 
+with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn 
+in one of the papers which have been returned. 
+Until the foreigners had invented that for them- 
+
+[157] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+selves they could not make the boat. Of course, 
+they might soon get over the difficulty." 
+
+"But the three missing drawings are the most 
+important?" 
+
+"Undoubtedly." 
+
+"I think, with your permission, I will now take 
+a stroll round the premises. I do not recall any 
+other question which I desired to ask." 
+
+He examined the lock of the safe, the door 
+of the room, and finally the iron shutters of the 
+window. It was only when we were on the 
+lawn outside that his interest was strongly ex- 
+cited. There was a laurel bush outside the win- 
+dow, and several of the branches bore signs of 
+having been twisted or snapped. He examined 
+them carefully with his lens, and then some dim 
+and vague marks upon the earth beneath. Fi- 
+nally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron 
+shutters, and he pointed out to me that they 
+hardly met in the centre, and that it would be 
+possible for anyone outside to see what was 
+going on within the room. 
+
+"The indications are ruined by the three days' 
+delay. They may mean something or nothing. 
+Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich 
+can help us further. It is a small crop which we 
+have gathered. Let us see if we can do better 
+in London." 
+
+Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest 
+before we left Woolwich Station. The clerk in 
+[158] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+the ticket office was able to say with confidence 
+that he saw Cadogan West whom he knew well 
+by sight upon the Monday night, and that he 
+went to London by the 8.15 to London Bridge. 
+He was alone, and took a single third-class ticket. 
+The clerk was struck at the time by his excited 
+and nervous manner. So shaky was he that he 
+could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk 
+had helped him with it. A reference to the time- 
+table showed that the 8.15 was the first train 
+which it was possible for West to take after he 
+had left the lady about 7.30. 
+
+"Let us reconstruct, Watson," said Holmes, 
+after half an hour of silence. "I am not aware 
+that in all our joint researches we have ever had 
+a case which was more difficult to get at. Every 
+fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh 
+ridge beyond. And yet we have surely made 
+some appreciable progress. 
+
+"The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has 
+in the main been against young Cadogan West; 
+but the indications at the window would lend 
+themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. 
+Let us suppose, for example, that he had been 
+approached by some foreign agent. It might 
+have been done under such pledges as would 
+have prevented him from speaking of it, and 
+yet would have affected his thoughts in the 
+direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. 
+Very good. We will now suppose that as he 
+
+[159] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+went to the theatre with the young lady he sud- 
+denly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same 
+agent going in the direction of the office. He 
+was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions. 
+Everything gave way to his duty. He followed 
+the man, reached the window, saw the abstraction 
+of the documents, and pursued the thief. In 
+this way we get over the objection that no one 
+would take originals when he could make copies. 
+This outsider had to take originals. So far it 
+holds together." 
+
+"What is the next step ?" 
+
+"Then we come into difficulties. One would 
+imagine that under such circumstances the first 
+act of young Cadogan West would be to seize 
+the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not 
+do so? Could it have been an official superior 
+who took the papers? That would explain 
+West's conduct. Or could the chief have given 
+West the slip in the fog, and West started at 
+once to London to head him off from his own 
+rooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms 
+were? The call must have been very pressing, 
+since he left his girl standing in the fog, and made 
+no effort to communicate with her. Our scent 
+runs cold here, and there is a vast gap between 
+either hypothesis and the laying of West's body, 
+with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a 
+Metropolitan train. My instinct now is to work 
+from the other end. If My croft has given us 
+[160] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+the list of addresses we may be able to pick our 
+man, and follow two tracks instead of one." 
+
+Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker 
+Street. A Government messenger had brought 
+it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw 
+it over to me. 
+
+"There are numerous small fry, but few who 
+would handle so big an affair. The only men 
+worth considering are Adolph Meyer, of 13, 
+
+(Great George Street, Westminster: Louis La 
+Rothiere, of Campden Mansions, Netting Hill; 
+and Hugo Oberstein, 13, Caulfield Gardens, 
+Kensington. The latter was known to be in 
+town on Monday, and is now reported as having 
+left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. 
+The Cabinet awaits your final report with the 
+utmost anxiety. Urgent representations have 
+arrived from the very highest quarter. The 
+whole force of the State is at your back if you 
+should need it. MYCROFT." 
+
+"I'm afraid," said Holmes, smiling, "that all 
+the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men can- 
+not avail in this matter." He had spread out his 
+big map of London, and leaned eagerly over it. 
+"Well, well," said he presently, with an exclama- 
+tion of satisfaction, "things are turning a little 
+in our direction at last. Why, Watson, I do 
+honestly believe that we are going to pull it off 
+
+[161] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+after all." He slapped me on the shoulder with 
+a sudden burst of hilarity. "I am going out 
+now. It is only a reconnaissance. I will do 
+nothing serious without my trusted comrade and 
+biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and 
+the odds are that you will see me again in an 
+hour or two. If time hangs heavy get foolscap 
+and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we 
+saved the State." 
+
+I felt some reflection of his elation in my own 
+mind, for I knew well that he would not depart 
+so far from his usual austerity of demeanour un- 
+less there was good cause for exultation. All the 
+long November evening I waited, filled with im- 
+patience for his return. At last, shortly after 
+nine o'clock there arrived a messenger with a 
+note: 
+
+"Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Glou- 
+cester Road, Kensington. Please come at once 
+and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a 
+dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H." 
+
+It was a nice equipment for a respectable citi- 
+zen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets. 
+I stowed them all discretely away in my overcoat, 
+and drove straight to the address given. There 
+sat my friend at a little round table near the door 
+of the garish Italian restaurant. 
+
+"Have you had something to eat? Then join 
+[162] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+me in a coffee and cura9oa. Try one of the pro- 
+prietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than 
+one would expect. Have you the tools?" 
+
+"They are here, in my overcoat." 
+
+"Excellent. Let me give you a short sketch of 
+what I have done, with some indication of what 
+we are about to do. Now it must be evident to 
+you, Watson, that this young man's body was 
+placed on the roof of the train. That was clear 
+from the instant that I determined the fact that 
+it was from the roof, and not from a carriage, 
+that he had fallen." 
+
+"Could it not have been dropped from a 
+bridge?" 
+
+"I should say it was impossible. If you ex- 
+amine the roofs you will find that they are slightly 
+rounded, and there is no railing round them. 
+Therefore, we can say for certain that young 
+Cadogan West was placed on it." 
+
+"How could he be placed there?" 
+
+"That was the question which we had to an- 
+swer. There is only one possible way. You are 
+aware that the underground runs clear of tunnels 
+at some points in the West-end. I had a vague 
+memory that as I have travelled by it I have oc- 
+casionally seen windows just above my head. 
+Now, suppose that a train halted under such 
+a window, would there be any difficulty in laying 
+a body upon the roof?" 
+
+"It seems most improbable." 
+
+[163] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"We must fall back upon the old axiom that 
+when all other contingencies fail, whatever re- 
+mains, however improbable, must be the truth. 
+Here all other contingencies have failed. When 
+I found that the leading international agent, who 
+had just left London, lived in a row of houses 
+which abutted upon the Underground, I was so 
+pleased that you were a little astonished at my 
+sudden frivolity." 
+
+"Oh, that was it, was it?" 
+
+"Yes, that was it. Mr. Hugo Oberstein, of 
+13, Caulfield Gardens, had become my objective. 
+I began my operations at Gloucester Road Sta- 
+tion, where a very helpful official walked with me 
+along the track, and allowed me to satisfy myself, 
+not only that the back-stair windows of Caulfield 
+Gardens open on the line, but the even more 
+essential fact that, owing to the intersection of 
+one of the larger railways, the Underground 
+trains are frequently held motionless for some 
+minutes at that very spot." 
+
+"Splendid, Holmes! You have got it!" 
+
+"So far so far, Watson. We advance, but 
+the goal is afar. Well, having seen the back of 
+Caulfield Gardens, I visited the front and satis- 
+fled myself that the bird was indeed flown. It is 
+a considerable house, unfurnished, so far as I 
+could judge, in the upper rooms. Oberstein 
+lived there with a single valet, who was probably 
+a confederate entirely in his confidence. We 
+[164] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+must bear in mind that Oberstein has gone to 
+the Continent to dispose of his booty, but not 
+with any idea of flight; for he had no reason to 
+fear a warrant, and the idea of an amateur domi- 
+ciliary visit would certainly never occur to him. 
+Yet that is precisely what we are about to make." 
+
+"Could we not get a warrant and legalise it?" 
+
+"Hardly on the evidence." 
+
+"What can we hope to do?" 
+
+"We cannot tell what correspondence may be 
+there." 
+
+"I don't like it, Holmes." 
+
+"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the 
+street. I'll do the criminal part. It's not a 
+time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft's 
+note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted 
+person who waits for news. We are bound to 
+
+go." 
+
+My answer was to rise from the table. 
+
+"You are right, Holmes. We are bound to 
+go." 
+
+He sprang up and shook me by the hand. 
+
+"I knew you would not shrink at the last," said 
+he, and for a moment I saw something in his 
+eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had 
+ever seen. The next instant he was his master- 
+ful, practical self once more. 
+
+"It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. 
+Let us walk," said he. "Don't drop the instru- 
+
+[165] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+ments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious char- 
+acter would be a most unfortunate complication." 
+
+Caulfield Gardens was one of those lines of 
+flat-faced, pillared, and porticoed houses which 
+are so prominent a product of the middle Victo- 
+rian epoch in the West-end of London. Next 
+door there appeared to be a children's party, 
+for the merry buzz of young voices and the clat- 
+ter of a piano resounded through the night. The 
+fog still hung about and screened us with its 
+friendly shade. Holmes had lit his lantern and 
+flashed it upon the massive door. 
+
+"This is a serious proposition," said he. "It 
+is certainly bolted as well as locked. We would 
+do better in the area. There is an excellent arch- 
+way down yonder in case a too zealous police- 
+man should intrude. Give me a hand, Watson, 
+and I'll do the same for you." 
+
+A minute later we were both in the area. 
+Hardly had we reached the dark shadows before 
+the step of the policeman was heard in the fog 
+above. As its soft rhythm died away, Holmes 
+set to work upon the lower door. I saw him 
+stoop and strain until with a sharp crash it flew 
+open. We sprang through into the dark pas- 
+sage, closing the area door behind us. Holmes 
+led the way up the curving, uncarpeted stair. His 
+little fan of yellow light shone upon a low win- 
+dow. 
+
+"Here we are, Watson this must be the one." 
+[166] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+He threw it open, and as he did so there was a 
+low, harsh murmur, growing steadily into a loud 
+roar as a train dashed past us in the dark- 
+ness. Holmes swept his light along the win- 
+dow-sill. It was thickly coated with soot from 
+the passing engines, but the black surface was 
+blurred and rubbed in places. 
+
+"You can see where they rested the body. 
+Halloa, Watson! what is this? There can be 
+no doubt that it is a blood mark." He was point- 
+ing to faint discolorations along the woodwork of 
+the window. "Here it is on the stone of the stair 
+also. The demonstration is complete. Let us 
+stay here until a train stops." 
+
+We had not long to wait. The very next train 
+roared from the tunnel as before, but slowed in 
+the open, and then, with a creaking of brakes, 
+pulled up immediately beneath us. It was not 
+four feet from the window-ledge to the roof 
+of the carriages. Holmes softly closed the win- 
+dow. 
+
+"So far we are justified," said he. "What do 
+you think of it, Watson?" 
+
+"A masterpiece. You have never risen to 
+a greater height." 
+
+"I cannot agree with you there. From the 
+moment that I conceived the idea of the body 
+being upon the roof, which surely was not a very 
+abstruse one, all the rest was inevitable. If it 
+were not for the grave interests involved the 
+
+,[167] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+affair up to this point would be insignificant. 
+Our difficulties are still before us. But perhaps 
+we may find something here which may help 
+us." 
+
+We had ascended the kitchen stair and en- 
+tered the suite of rooms upon the first floor. One 
+was a dining-room, severely furnished and con- 
+taining nothing of interest. A second was a 
+bedroom, which also drew blank. The remain- 
+ing room appeared more promising, and my com- 
+panion settled down to a systematic examination. 
+It was littered with books and papers, and was 
+evidently used as a study. Swiftly and method- 
+ically Holmes turned over the contents of drawer 
+after drawer and cupboard after cupboard, but 
+no gleam of success came to brighten his aus- 
+tere face. At the end of an hour he was no fur- 
+ther than when he started. 
+
+"The cunning dog has covered his tracks," 
+said he. "He has left nothing to incriminate 
+him. His dangerous correspondence has been 
+destroyed or removed. This is our last chance." 
+
+It was a small tin cash-box which stood upon 
+the writing-desk. Holmes prised it open with 
+his chisel. Several rolls of paper were within, 
+covered with figures and calculations, without 
+any note to show to what they referred. The re- 
+curring words, "Water pressure" and "Pressure 
+to the square inch" suggested some possible rela- 
+tion to a submarine. Holmes tossed them all im- 
+[168] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+patiently aside. There only remained an en- 
+velope with some small newspaper slips inside it. 
+He shook them out on the table, and at once I 
+saw by his eager face that his hopes had been 
+raised. 
+
+"What's this, Watson? Eh? What's this? 
+Record of a series of messages in the advertise- 
+ments of a paper. Daily Telegraph agony col- 
+umn by the print and paper. Right-hand top 
+corner of a page. No dates but messages ar- 
+range themselves. This must be the first : 
+
+" 'Hoped to hear sooner. Terms agreed to. 
+Write fully to address given on card. Pierrot.' 
+
+"Next comes: 'Too complex for description. 
+Must have full report. Stuff awaits you when 
+goods delivered. Pierrot/ 
+
+"Then comes 'Matter presses. Must with- 
+draw offer unless contract completed. Make ap- 
+pointment by letter. Will confirm by advertise- 
+ment. Pierrot.' 
+
+"Finally: 'Monday night after nine. Two 
+taps. Only ourselves. Do not be so suspicious. 
+Payment in hard cash when goods delivered. 
+Pierrot.' 
+
+"A fairly complete record, Watson! If we 
+could only get at the man at the other end!" He 
+sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the 
+table. Finally he sprang to his feet. 
+
+"Well, perhaps it won't be so difficult after all. 
+There is nothing more to be done here, Watson. 
+
+[169] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+I think we might drive round to the offices of 
+the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good day's 
+work to a conclusion." 
+
+Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come 
+round by appointment after breakfast next day 
+and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our 
+proceedings of the day before. The profes- 
+sional shook his head over our confessed bur- 
+glary. 
+
+"We can't do these things in the force, Mr. 
+Holmes," said he. "No wonder you get results 
+that are beyond us. But some of these days 
+you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and 
+your friend in trouble." 
+
+"For England, home and beauty eh, Wat- 
+son? Martyrs on the altar of our country. But 
+what do you think of it, Mycroft?" 
+
+"Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what 
+use will you make of it?" 
+
+Holmes picked up the Daily Telegraph which 
+lay upon the table. 
+
+"Have you seen Pierrot's advertisement to- 
+day?" 
+
+"What! Another one?" 
+
+"Yes, here it is: 'To-night. Same hour. 
+Same place. Two taps. Most vitally impor- 
+tant. Your own safety at stake. Pierrot.' " 
+
+"By George!" cried Lestrade. "If he an- 
+swers that we've got him!" 
+[170] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+"That was my idea when I put it in. I think 
+if you could both make it convenient to come 
+with us about eight o'clock to Caulfield Gardens 
+we might possibly get a little nearer to a solu- 
+tion." 
+
+One of the most remarkable characteristics of 
+Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his 
+brain out of action and switching all his thoughts 
+on to lighter things whenever he had convinced 
+himself that he could no longer work to advan- 
+tage. I remember that during the whole of that 
+memorable day he lost himself in a monograph 
+which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic 
+Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had none 
+of this power of detachment, and the day, in con- 
+sequence, appeared to be interminable. The 
+great national importance of the issue, the sus- 
+pense in high quarters, the direct nature of the 
+experiment which we were trying all combined 
+to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me 
+when at last, after a light dinner, we set out 
+upon our expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft 
+met us by appointment at the outside of Glou- 
+cester Road Station. The area door of Ober- 
+stein's house had been left open the night before, 
+and it was necessary for me, as Mycroft Holmes 
+absolutely and indignantly declined to climb the 
+railings, to pass in and open the hall door. By 
+
+[171] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+nine o'clock we were all seated in the study, wait- 
+ing patiently for our man. 
+
+An hour passed and yet another. When eleven 
+struck, the measured beat of the great church 
+clock seemed to sound the dirge of our hopes. 
+Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their 
+seats and looking twice a minute at their watches. 
+Holmes sat silent and composed, his eyelids half 
+shut, but every sense on the alert. He raised his 
+head with a sudden jerk. 
+
+"He is coming," said he. 
+
+There had been a furtive step past the door. 
+Now it returned. We heard a shuffling sound 
+'outside, and then two sharp taps with the 
+knocker. Holmes rose, motioning to us to re- 
+main seated. The gas in the hall was a mere 
+point of light. He opened the outer door, and 
+then as a dark figure slipped past him he closed 
+and fastened it. "This way!" we heard him say, 
+and a moment later our man stood before us. 
+Holmes had followed him closely, and as the man 
+turned with a cry of surprise and alarm he caught 
+him by the collar and threw him back into the 
+room. Before our prisoner had recovered his 
+balance the door was shut and Holmes standing 
+with his back against it. The man glared round 
+him, staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor. 
+With the shock, his broad-brimmed hat flew from 
+his head, his cravat slipped down from his lips, 
+and there was the long light beard and the soft, 
+[172] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine 
+Walter. 
+
+Holmes gave a whistle of surprise. 
+
+"You can write me down an ass this time, 
+Watson," said he. "This was not the bird that 
+I was looking for." 
+
+"Who is he?" asked Mycroft eagerly. 
+
+"The younger brother of the late Sir James 
+Walter, the head of the Submarine Department. 
+Yes, yes ; I see the fall of the cards. He is com- 
+ing to. I think that you had best leave his exam- 
+ination to me." 
+
+We had carried the prostrate body to the sofa. 
+Now our prisoner sat up, looked round him with 
+a horror-stricken face, and passed his hand over 
+his forehead, like one who cannot believe his own 
+senses. 
+
+"What is this?" he asked. "I came here to 
+visit Mr. Oberstein." 
+
+"Everything is known, Colonel Walter," said 
+Holmes. "How an English gentleman could be- 
+have in such a manner is beyond my compre- 
+hension. But your whole correspondence and 
+relations with Oberstein are within our knowl- 
+edge. So also are the circumstances connected 
+with the death of young Cadogan West. Let 
+me advise you to gain at least the small credit 
+for repentance and confession, since there are 
+still some details which we can only learn from 
+your lips." 
+
+[173] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+The man groaned and sank his face in his 
+hands. We waited, but he was silent. 
+
+"I can assure you/' said Holmes, "that every 
+essential is already known. We know that you 
+were pressed for money; that you took an im- 
+press of the keys which your brother held; and 
+that you entered into a correspondence with 
+Oberstein, who answered your letters through 
+the advertisement columns of the Daily Tele- 
+graph. We are aware that you went down to 
+the office in the fog on Monday night, but that 
+you were seen and followed by young Cadogan 
+West, who had probably some previous reason 
+to suspect you. He saw your theft, but could 
+not give the alarm, as it was just possible that 
+you were taking the papers to your brother in 
+London. Leaving all his private concerns, like 
+the good citizen that he was, he followed you 
+closely in the fog, and kept at your heels until 
+you reached this very house. There he inter- 
+vened, and then it was, Colonel Walter, that to 
+treason you added the more terrible crime of 
+murder." 
+
+"I did not! I did not! Before God I swear 
+that I did not !" cried our wretched prisoner. 
+
+"Tell us then, how Cadogan West met his end 
+before you laid him upon the roof of a railway 
+carriage." 
+
+"I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the 
+rest. I confess it. It was just as you say. A 
+[174] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS 
+
+Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed 
+the money badly. Oberstein offered ine >five 
+thousand. It was to save myself from ruin. 
+But as to murder, I am as innocent as you." 
+
+"What happened, then?" 
+
+"He had his suspicions before, and he fol- 
+lowed me as you describe. I never knew it until 
+I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and 
+one could not see three yards. I had given two 
+taps and Oberstein had come to the door. The 
+young man rushed up and demanded to know 
+what we were about to do with the papers. 
+Oberstein had a short life-preserver. He always 
+carried it with him. As West forced his way 
+after us into the house Oberstein struck him on 
+the head. The blow was a fatal one. He was 
+dead within five minutes. There he lay in the 
+hall, and we were at our wits' end what to do. 
+Then Oberstein had this idea about the trains 
+which halted under his back window. But first 
+he examined the papers which I had brought. 
+He said that three of them were essential, and 
+that he must keep them. 'You cannot keep 
+them/ said I. 'There will be a dreadful row 
+at Woolwich if they are not returned.' 'I must 
+keep them,' said he, 'for they are so technical that 
+it is impossible in the time to make copies.' 'Then 
+they must all go back together to-night,' said I. 
+He thought for a. little, and then he cried out 
+that he had it. 'Three I will keep,' said he. 
+
+[175] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+'The others we will stuff into the pocket of this 
+young man. When he is found the whole busi- 
+ness will assuredly be put to his account/ I 
+could see no other way out of it, so we did as he 
+suggested. We waited half an hour at the win- 
+dow before a train stopped. It was so thick 
+that nothing could be seen, and we had no diffi- 
+culty in lowering West's body on to the train. 
+That was the end of the matter so far as I was 
+concerned." 
+
+"And your brother?" 
+
+"He said nothing, but he had caught me once 
+with his keys, and I think that he suspected. I 
+read in his eyes that he suspected. As you know, 
+he never held up his head again." 
+
+There was silence in the room. It was broken 
+by Mycroft Holmes. 
+
+"Can you not make reparation? It would 
+ease your conscience, and possibly your punish- 
+ment." 
+
+"What reparation can I make?" 
+
+"Where is Oberstein with the papers?" 
+
+"I do not know." 
+
+"Did he give you no address?" 
+
+"He said that letters to the Hotel du Louvre, 
+Paris, would eventually reach him." 
+
+"Then reparation is still within your power," 
+said Sherlock Holmes. 
+
+"I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow 
+[176] 
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE OF THE BRUCE-PAETINGTON PLANS 
+
+no particular good-will. He has been my ruin 
+and my downfall." 
+
+"Here are paper and pen. Sit at this desk 
+and write to my dictation. Direct the envelope 
+to the address given. That is right. Now the 
+letter: 'Dear Sir, With regard to our trans- 
+action, you will no doubt have observed by now 
+that one essential detail is missing. I have a 
+tracing which will make it complete. This has 
+involved me in extra trouble, however, and I 
+must ask you for a further advance of five hun- 
+dred pounds. I will not trust it to the post, nor 
+will I take anything but gold or notes. I would 
+come to you abroad, but it would excite remark 
+if I left the country at present. Therefore I 
+shall expect to meet you in the smoking-room of 
+the Charing Cross Hotel at noon on Saturday. 
+Remember that only English notes, or gold, will 
+be taken.' That will do very well. I shall be 
+very much surprised if it does not fetch our man." 
+
+And it did! It is a matter of history that 
+secret history of a nation which is often so much 
+more intimate and interesting than its public 
+chronicles that Oberstein, eager to complete the 
+coup of his lifetime, came to the lure and was 
+safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British 
+prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable 
+Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for 
+auction in all the naval centres of Europe. 
+
+[177] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Colonel Walter died in prison towards the end 
+of the second year of his sentence. As to Holmes, 
+he returned refreshed to his monograph upon 
+the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, which has since 
+been printed for private circulation, and is said 
+by experts to be the last word upon the subject. 
+Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally 
+that my friend spent a day at Windsor, whence 
+he returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie- 
+pin. When I asked him if he had bought it, he 
+answered that it was a present from a certain 
+gracious lady in whose interests he had once been 
+fortunate enough to carry out a small commis- 
+sion. He said no more; but I fancy that I 
+could guess at that lady's august name, and I 
+have little doubt that the emerald pin will for 
+ever recall to my friend's memory the adventure 
+of the Bruce-Partington plans. 
+
+
+
+[178] 
+
+
+
+V 
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING 
+DETECTIVE 
+
+
+
+MRS. HUDSON, the landlady of Sherlock 
+Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. 
+Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all 
+hours by throngs of singular and often undesira- 
+ble characters, but her remarkable lodger showed 
+an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which 
+must have sorely tried her patience. His incred- 
+ible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange 
+hours, his occasional revolver practice within 
+doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific 
+experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and 
+danger which hung around him made him the 
+very worst tenant in London. On the other 
+hand, his payments were princely. I have no 
+doubt that the house might have been purchased 
+at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms 
+during the years that I was with him. 
+
+The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him, 
+and never dared to interfere with him, however 
+
+[179] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+outrageous his proceedings might seem. She 
+was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable 
+gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with 
+women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, 
+but he was always a chivalrous opponent. 
+Knowing how genuine was her regard for 
+him, I listened earnestly to her story when 
+she came to my rooms in the second year 
+of my married life and told me of the sad condi- 
+tion to which my poor friend was reduced. 
+
+"He's dying, Dr. Watson," said she. "For 
+three days he has been sinking, and I doubt if 
+he will last the day. He would not let me get 
+a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones 
+sticking out of his face and his great bright 
+eyes looking at me I could stand no more of it. 
+'With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I 
+am going for a doctor this very hour,' said I. 
+'Let it be Watson, then,' said he. I wouldn't 
+waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may 
+not see him alive." 
+
+I was horrified, for I had heard nothing of his 
+illness. I need not say that I rushed for my coat 
+and my hat. As we drove back I asked for the 
+details. 
+
+"There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been 
+working at a case down at Rotherhithe, in an 
+alley near the river, and he has brought this ill- 
+ness back with him. He took to his bed on 
+Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. 
+[180] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+For these three days neither food nor drink has 
+passed his lips." 
+
+"Good God! Why did you not call in a doc- 
+tor?" 
+
+"He wouldn't have it, sir. You know how 
+masterful he is. I didn't dare to disobey him. 
+But he's not long for this world, as you'll see for 
+yourself the moment that you set eyes on him." 
+
+He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In 
+the dim light of a foggy November day the sick- 
+room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, 
+wasted face staring at me from the bed which 
+sent a chill to my heart. His eyes had the bright- 
+ness of fever, there was a hectic flush upon either 
+cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips ; the thin 
+hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his 
+voice was croaking and spasmodic. He lay list- 
+lessly as I entered the room, but the sight of me 
+brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes. 
+
+"Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon 
+evil days," said he, in a feeble voice, but with 
+something of his old carelessness of manner. 
+
+"My dear fellow!" I cried, approaching him. 
+
+"Stand back! Stand right back!" said he, 
+with the sharp imperiousness which I had asso- 
+ciated only with moments of crisis. "If you ap- 
+proach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the 
+house." 
+
+"But why?" 
+
+"Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?" 
+
+[181] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more 
+masterful than ever. It was pitiful, however, 
+to see his exhaustion. 
+
+"I only wished to help," I explained. 
+
+"Exactly! You will help best by doing what 
+you are told." 
+
+"Certainly, Holmes." 
+
+He relaxed the austerity of his manner. 
+
+"You are not angry?" he asked, gasping for 
+breath. 
+
+Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw 
+him lying in such a plight before me? 
+
+"It's for your own sake, Watson," he croaked. 
+
+"For my sake?" 
+
+"I know what is the matter with me. It is a 
+coolie disease from Sumatra a thing that the 
+Dutch know more about than we, though they 
+have made little of it up to date. One thing only 
+is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is hor- 
+ribly contagious." 
+
+He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long 
+hands twitching and jerking as he motioned me 
+away. 
+
+"Contagious by touch, Watson that's it, by 
+touch. Keep your distance and all is well." 
+
+"Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose 
+that such a consideration weighs with me for an 
+instant? It would not affect me in the case of a 
+stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me 
+from doing my duty to so old a friend?" 
+[182] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a 
+look of furious anger. 
+
+"If you will stand there I will talk. If you 
+do not you must leave the room." 
+
+I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary 
+qualities of Holmes that I have always deferred 
+to his wishes, even when I least understood them. 
+But now all my professional instincts were 
+aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at 
+least was his in a sick-room. 
+
+"Holmes," said I, "you are not yourself. A 
+sick man is but a child, and so I will treat you. 
+Whether you like it or not, I will examine your 
+symptoms and treat you for them." 
+
+He looked at me with venomous eyes. 
+
+"If I am to have a doctor whether I will or 
+not, let me at least have someone in whom I have 
+confidence," said he. 
+
+"Then you have none in me?" 
+
+"In your friendship, certainly. But facts are 
+facts, Watson, and after all you are only a gen- 
+eral practitioner with very limited experience and 
+mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to 
+say these things, but you leave me no choice." 
+
+I was bitterly hurt. 
+
+"Such a remark is unworthy of you, Holmes. 
+It shows me very clearly the state of your own 
+nerves. But if you have no confidence in me I 
+would not intrude my services. Let me bring 
+Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of 
+
+[183] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+the best men in London. But someone you must 
+have, and that is final. If you think that I am 
+going to stand here and see you die without either 
+helping you myself or bringing anyone else to 
+help you, then you have mistaken your man." 
+
+"You mean well, Watson," said the sick man, 
+with something between a sob and a groan. "Shall 
+I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do 
+you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do 
+you know of the black Formosa corruption?" 
+
+"I have never heard of either." 
+
+"There are many problems of disease, many 
+strange pathological possibilities, in the East, 
+Watson." He paused after each sentence to 
+collect his failing strength. "I have learned so 
+much during some recent researches which have a 
+medico-criminal aspect. It was in the course of 
+them that I contracted this complaint. You can 
+do nothing." 
+
+"Possibly not. But I happen to know that 
+Dr. Ainstree, the greatest living authority upon 
+tropical disease, is now in London. All remon- 
+strance is useless, Holmes. I am going this in- 
+stant to fetch him." I turned resolutely to the 
+door. 
+
+Never have I had L such a shock! In an in- 
+stant, with a tiger-spring, the dying man had 
+intercepted me. I heard the sharp snap of a 
+twisted key. The next moment he had stag- 
+[184] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+gered back to his bed, exhausted and panting 
+after his one tremendous outflame of energy. 
+
+"You won't take the key from me by force, 
+Watson. I've got you, my friend. Here you 
+are, and here you will stay until I will otherwise. 
+But I'll humour you." (All this in little gasps, 
+with terrible struggles for breath between.) 
+"You've only my own good at heart. Of course 
+I know that very well. You shall have your 
+way, but give me time to get my strength. Not 
+now, Watson, not now. It's four o'clock. At 
+six you can go." 
+
+"This is insanity, Holmes." 
+
+"Only two hours, Watson. I promise you will 
+go at six. Are you content to wait?" 
+
+"I seem to have no choice." 
+
+"None in the world, Watson. Thank you, I 
+need no help in arranging the clothes. You will 
+please keep your distance. Now, Watson, there 
+is one other condition that I would make. You 
+will seek help, not from the man you mention, but 
+from the one that I choose." 
+
+"By all means." 
+
+"The first three sensible words that you have 
+uttered since you entered this room, Watson. 
+You will find some books over there. I am some- 
+what exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels 
+when it pours electricity into a non-conductor? 
+At six, Watson, we resume our conversation." 
+
+But it was destined to be resumed long before 
+
+[185] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+that hour, and in circumstances which gave me 
+a shock hardly second to that caused by his 
+spring to the door. I had stood for some min- 
+utes looking at the silent figure in the bed. His 
+face was almost covered by the clothes and he 
+appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to settle 
+down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, 
+examining the pictures of celebrated criminals 
+with which every wall was adorned. Finally, 
+in my aimless perambulation, I came to the man- 
+telpiece. A litter of pipes, tobacco-pouches, syr- 
+inges, penknives, revolver cartridges, and other 
+debris was scattered over it. In the midst of 
+these was a small black and white ivory box with 
+a sliding lid. It was a neat little thing, and I had 
+stretched out my hand to examine it more closely, 
+when 
+
+It was a dreadful cry that he gave a yell 
+which might have been heard down the street. 
+My skin went cold and my hair bristled at that 
+horrible scream. As I turned I caught a glimpse 
+of a convulsed face and frantic eyes. I stood 
+paralysed, with the little box in my hand. 
+
+"Put it down! Down, this instant, Watson 
+this instant, I say!" His head sank back upon 
+the pillow and he gave a deep sigh of relief as I 
+replaced the box upon the mantelpiece. "I hate 
+to have my things touched, Watson. You know 
+that I hate it. You fidget me beyond endur- 
+ance. You, a doctor you are enough to drive 
+[186] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+a patient into an asylum. Sit down, man, and 
+let me have my rest!" 
+
+The incident left a most unpleasant impression 
+upon my mind. The violent and causeless ex- 
+citement, followed by this brutality of speech, 
+so far removed from his usual suavity, showed me 
+how deep was the disorganisation of his mind. 
+Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most de- 
+plorable. I sat in silent dejection until the stip- 
+ulated time had passed. He seemed to have 
+been watching the clock a's well as I, for it was 
+hardly six before he began to talk with the same 
+feverish animation as before. 
+
+"Now, Watson," said he. "Have you any 
+change in your pocket?" 
+
+"Yes." 
+
+"Any silver?" 
+
+"A good deal." 
+
+"How many half-crowns?" 
+
+"I have five." 
+
+"Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfor- 
+tunate, Watson ! However, such as they are you 
+can put them in your watch-pocket. And all 
+the rest of your money in your left trouser- 
+pocket. Thank you. It will balance you so 
+much better like that." 
+
+This was raving insanity. He shuddered, and 
+again made a sound between a cough and a sob. 
+
+"You will now light the gas, Watson, but you 
+will be very careful that not for one instant shall 
+
+[187] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+it be more than half on. I implore you to be 
+careful, Watson. Thank you, that is excellent. 
+No, you need not draw the blind. Now you will 
+have the kindness to place some letters and pa- 
+pers upon this table within my reach. Thank you. 
+Now some of that litter from the mantelpiece. 
+Excellent, Watson! There is a sugar-tongs 
+there. Kindly raise that small ivory box with its 
+assistance. Place it here among the papers. 
+Good ! You can now go and fetch Mr. Culver- 
+ton Smith, of 13, Lower Burke Street." 
+
+To tell the truth, my desire to fetch a doctor 
+had somewhat weakened, for poor Holmes was so 
+obviously delirious that it seemed dangerous to 
+leave him. However, he was as eager now to 
+consult the person named as he had been ob- 
+stinate in refusing. 
+
+"I never heard the name," said I. 
+
+"Possibly not, my good Watson. It may sur- 
+prise you to know that the man upon earth who 
+is best versed in this disease is not a medical man, 
+but a planter. Mr. Culverton Smith is a well- 
+known resident of Sumatra, now visiting Lon- 
+don. An outbreak of the disease upon his plan- 
+tation, which was distant from medical aid, 
+caused him to study it himself, with some rather 
+far-reaching consequences. He is a very me- 
+thodical person, and I did not desire you to start 
+before six because I was well aware that you 
+would not find him in his study. If you could 
+[188] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+persuade him to come here and give us the bene- 
+fit of his unique experience of this disease, the 
+investigation of which has been his dearest hobby, 
+I cannot doubt that he could help me." 
+
+I give Holmes's remarks as a consecutive 
+whole, and will not attempt to indicate how they 
+were interrupted by gaspings for breath and 
+those clutchings of his hands which indicated the 
+pain from which he was suffering. His appear- 
+ance had changed for the worse during the few 
+hours that I had been with him. Those hectic 
+spots were more pronounced, the eyes shone more 
+brightly out of darker hollows, and a cold sweat 
+glimmered upon his brow. He still retained, 
+however, the jaunty gallantry of his speech. To 
+the last gasp he would always be the master. 
+
+"You will tell him exactly how you have left 
+me," said he. "You will convey the very im- 
+pression which is in your own mind a dying 
+man a dying and delirious man. Indeed, I 
+cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is 
+not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the crea- 
+tures seem. Ah, I am wandering ! Strange how 
+the brain controls the brain! What was I say- 
+ing, Watson?" 
+
+"My directions for Mr. Culverton Smith." 
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember. My life depends upon 
+it. Plead with him, Watson. There is no good 
+feeling between us. His nephew, Watson I 
+had suspicions of foul play and I allowed him to 
+
+[189] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+see it. The boy died horribly. He has a grudge 
+against me. You will soften him, Watson. 
+Beg him, pray him, get him here by any means. 
+He can save me only he!" 
+
+"I will bring him in a cab, if I have to carry 
+him down to it." 
+
+"You will do nothing of the sort. You will 
+persuade him to come. And then you will re- 
+turn in front of him. Make any excuse so as 
+not to come with him. Don't forget, Watson. 
+You won't fail me. You never did fail me. No 
+doubt there are natural enemies which limit the 
+increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson, 
+we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be 
+overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible! You'll 
+convey all that is in your mind." 
+
+I left him full of the image of this magnificent 
+intellect babbling like a foolish child. He had 
+handed me the key, and with a happy thought 
+I took it with me lest he should lock himself in. 
+Mrs. Hudson was waiting, trembling and weep- 
+ing, in the passage. Behind me as I passed 
+from the flat I heard Holmes 's high, thin voice 
+in some delirious chant. Below, as I stood whis- 
+tling for a cab, a man came on me through the fog. 
+
+"How is Mr. Holmes, sir?" he asked. 
+
+It was an old acquaintance, Inspector Morton, 
+of Scotland Yard, dressed in unofficial tweeds. 
+
+"He is very ill," I answered. 
+
+He looked at me in a most singular fashion. 
+[190] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+Had it not been too fiendish, I could have imag- 
+ined that the gleam of the fanlight showed exul- 
+tation in his face. 
+
+"I heard some rumour of it," said he 
+
+The cab had driven up, and I left hinio 
+
+Lower Burke Street proved to be a line of 
+fine houses lying in the vague borderland between 
+Netting Hill and Kensington. The particular 
+one at which my cabman pulled up had an air 
+of smug and demure respectability in its old- 
+fashioned iron railings, its massive folding-door, 
+and its shining brasswork. All was in keeping 
+with a solemn butler who appeared framed in 
+the pink radiance of a tinted electric light behind 
+him. 
+
+"Yes, Mr. Culverton Smith is in. Dr. Wat- 
+son! Very good, sir, I will take up your card." 
+
+My humble name and title did not appear to 
+impress Mr. Culverton Smith. Through the 
+half-open door I heard a high, petulant, pene- 
+trating voice. 
+
+"Who is this person? What does he want? 
+Dear me, Staples, how often have I said that 
+I am not to be disturbed in my hours of study?" 
+
+There came a gentle flow of soothing explana- 
+tion from the butler. 
+
+"Well, I won't see him, Staples. I can't have 
+my work interrupted like this. I am not at 
+home. Say so. Tell him to come in the morn- 
+ing if he really must see me." 
+
+[191] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Again the gentle murmur. 
+
+"Well, well, give him that message. He can 
+come in the morning, or he can stay away. My 
+work must not be hindered." 
+
+I thought of Holmes tossing upon his bed of 
+sickness, and counting the minutes, perhaps, until 
+I could bring help to him. It was not a time 
+to stand upon ceremony. His life depended 
+upon my promptness. Before the apologetic 
+butler had delivered his message I had pushed 
+past him and was in the room. 
+
+With a shrill cry of anger a man rose from 
+a reclining chair beside the fire. I saw a great 
+yellow face, coarse-grained and greasy, with 
+heavy, double-chin, and two sullen, menacing 
+grey eyes which glared at me from under tufted 
+and sandy brows. A high bald head had a small 
+velvet smoking-cap poised coquettishly upon one 
+side of its pink curve. The skull was of enor- 
+mous capacity, arid yet, as I looked down I saw 
+to my amazement that the figure of the man was 
+small and frail, twisted in the shoulders and back 
+like one who has suffered from rickets in his 
+childhood. 
+
+"What's this?" he cried, in a high, screaming 
+voice. "What is the meaning of this intrusion? 
+Didn't I send you word that I would see you 
+to-morrow morning?" 
+
+"I am sorry," said I, "but the matter cannot 
+
+be delayed. Mr. Sherlock Holmes 
+
+[192] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+The mention of my friend's name had an ex- 
+traordinary effect upon the little man. The look 
+of anger passed in an instant from his face. His 
+features became tense and alert. 
+
+"Have you come from Holmes?" he asked. 
+
+"I have just left him." 
+
+"What about Holmes ? How is he ?" 
+
+"He is desperately ill. That is why I have 
+come." 
+
+The man motioned me to a chair, and turned 
+to resume his own. As he did so I caught a 
+glimpse of his face in the mirror over the man- 
+telpiece. I could have sworn that it was set in a 
+malicious and abominable smile. Yet I per- 
+suaded myself that it must have been some nerv* 
+ous contraction which I had surprised, for he 
+turned to me an instant later with genuine con- 
+cern upon his features. 
+
+"I am sorry to hear this," said he. "I only 
+know Mr. Holmes through some business deal- 
+ings which we have had, but I have every respect 
+for his talents and his character. He is an ama- 
+teur of crime, as I am of disease. For him the 
+villain, for me the microbe. There are my pris- 
+ons," he continued, pointing to a row of bottles 
+and jars which stood upon a side table. "Among 
+those gelatine cultivations some of the very worst 
+offenders in the world are now doing time." 
+
+"It was on account of your special knowledge 
+that Mr. Holmes desired to see you. He has a 
+
+[193] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+high opinion of you, and thought that you were 
+the one man in London who could help him." 
+
+The little man started, and the jaunty smok- 
+ing-cap slid to the floor. 
+
+"Why ?" he asked. "Why should Mr. Holmes 
+think that I could help him in his trouble?" 
+
+"Because of your knowledge of Eastern dis- 
+eases." 
+
+"But why should he think that this disease 
+which he has contracted is Eastern?" 
+
+"Because, in some professional inquiry, he has 
+been working among Chinese sailors down in the 
+docks." 
+
+Mr. Culverton Smith smiled pleasantly and 
+picked up his smoking-cap. 
+
+"Oh, that's it is it?" said he. "I trust the 
+matter is not so grave as you suppose. How 
+long has he been ill?" 
+
+"About three days." 
+
+"Is he delirious?" 
+
+"Occasionally." 
+
+"Tut, tut! This sounds serious. It would be 
+inhuman not to answer his call. I very much re- 
+sent any interruption to my work, Dr. Watson, 
+but this case is certainly exceptional. I will 
+come with you at once." 
+
+I remembered Holmes's injunction. 
+
+"I have another appointment," said I. 
+
+"Very good. I will go alone. I have a note 
+[194] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+of Mr. Holmes's address. You can rely upon 
+my being there within half an hour at most." 
+
+It was with a sinking heart that I re-entered 
+Holmes's bedroom. For all that I knew the 
+worst might have happened in my absence. To 
+my enormous relief, he had improved greatly in 
+the interval. His appearance was as ghastly as 
+ever, but all trace of delirium had left him and 
+he spoke in a feeble voice, it is true, but with even 
+more than his usual crispness and lucidity. 
+
+"Well, did you see him, Watson?" 
+
+"Yes; he is coming." 
+
+"Admirable, Watson! Admirable! You are 
+the best of messengers." 
+
+"He wished to return with me." 
+
+"That would never do, Watson. That would 
+be obviously impossible. Did he ask what ailed 
+me?" 
+
+"I told him about the Chinese in the East-end." 
+
+"Exactly! Well, Watson, you have done all 
+that a good friend could. You can now disap- 
+pear from the scene." 
+
+"I must wait and hear his opinion, Holmes." 
+
+"Of course you must. But I have reasons to 
+suppose that this opinion would be very much 
+more frank and valuable if he imagines that we 
+are alone. There is just room behind the head 
+of my bed, Watson." 
+
+"My dear Holmes!" 
+
+"I fear there is no alternative, Watson. The 
+
+[195] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+room does not lend itself to concealment, which is 
+as well, as it is the less likely to arouse suspicion. 
+But just there, Watson, I fancy that it could be 
+done." Suddenly he sat up with a rigid intent- 
+ness upon his haggard face. "There are the 
+wheels, Watson. Quick, man, if you love me! 
+And don't budge, whatever happens whatever 
+happens, do you hear? Don't speak! Don't 
+move! Just listen with all your ears." Then 
+in an instant his sudden access of strength de- 
+parted, and his masterful, purposeful talk droned 
+away into the low, vague murmurings of a semi- 
+delirious man. 
+
+From the hiding-place into which I had been so 
+swiftly hustled I heard the footfalls upon the 
+stair, with the opening and the closing of the bed- 
+room door. Then, to my surprise, there came 
+a long silence, broken only by the heavy 
+breathings and gaspings of the sick man. I 
+could imagine that our visitor was standing by 
+the bedside and looking down at the sufferer. 
+At last that strange hush was broken. 
+
+"Holmes !" he cried. "Holmes !" in the insist- 
+ent tone of one who awakens a sleeper. "Can't 
+you hear me, Holmes?" There was a rustling, 
+as if he had shaken the sick man roughly by the 
+shoulder. 
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Smith?" Holmes whispered. 
+"I hardly dared hope that you would come." 
+
+The other laughed. 
+[196] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+"I should imagine not," he said. "And yet, 
+you see, I am here. Coals of fire, Holmes coals 
+of fire!" 
+
+"It is very good of you very noble of you. 
+I appreciate your special knowledge." 
+
+Our visitor sniggered. 
+
+"You do. You are, fortunately, the only man 
+in London who does. Do you know what is the 
+matter with you?" 
+
+"The same," said Holmes. 
+
+"Ah! You recognise the symptoms?" 
+
+"Only too well." 
+
+"Well, I shouldn't be surprised, Holmes. I 
+shouldn't be surprised if it were the same. A 
+bad look-out for you if it is. Poor Victor was a 
+dead man on the fourth day a strong, hearty 
+young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very 
+surprising that he should have contracted an out- 
+of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London 
+a disease, too, of which I had made such a very 
+special study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. 
+Very smart of you to notice it, but rather un- 
+charitable to suggest that it was cause and effect." 
+
+"I knew that you did it." 
+
+"Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn't 
+prove it, anyhow. But what do you think of 
+yourself spreading reports about me like that, 
+and then crawling to me for help the moment you 
+are in trouble? What sort of a game is that 
+eh?" 
+
+[197] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the 
+sick man. "Give me the water!" he gasped. 
+
+"You're precious near your end, my friend, 
+but I don't want you to go till I have had a word 
+with you. That's why I give you water. There, 
+don't slop it about ! That's right. Can you un- 
+derstand what I say?" 
+
+Holmes groaned. 
+
+"Do what you can for me. Let bygones be 
+bygones," he whispered. "I'll put the words out 
+of my head I swear I will. Only cure me, and 
+I'll forget it." 
+
+"Forget what?" 
+
+"Well, about Victor Savage's death. You as 
+good as admitted just now that you had done it. 
+I'll forget it." 
+
+"You can forget it or remember it, just as 
+you like. I don't see you in the witness-box. 
+Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I 
+assure you. It matters nothing to me that you 
+should know how my nephew died. It's not him 
+we are talking about. It's you." 
+
+"Yes, yes." 
+
+"The fellow who came for me I've forgotten 
+his name said that you contracted it down in 
+the East-end among the sailors." 
+
+"I could only account for it so." 
+
+"You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are 
+you not? Think yourself smart, don't you? 
+You came across someone who was smarter this 
+[198] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+time. Now cast your mind back, Holmes. Can 
+you think of no other way you could have got 
+this thing?" 
+
+"I can't think. My mind is gone. For Heav- 
+en's sake help me !" 
+
+"Yes, I will help you. I'll help you to un- 
+derstand just where you are and how you got 
+there. I'd like you to know before you die." 
+
+"Give me something to ease my pain." 
+
+"Painful, is it? Yes, the coolies used to do 
+some squealing towards the end. Takes you as 
+cramp, I fancy." 
+
+"Yes, yes; it is cramp." 
+
+"Well, you can hear what I say, anyhow. Lis- 
+ten now! Can you remember any unusual inci- 
+dent in your life just about the time your symp- 
+toms began?" 
+
+"No, no; nothing." 
+
+"Think again." 
+
+"I'm too ill to think." 
+
+"Well, then, I'll help you. Did anything 
+come by post?" 
+
+"By post?" 
+
+"A box by chance?" 
+
+"I'm fainting I'm gone!" 
+
+"Listen, Holmes!" There was a sound as if 
+he was shaking the dying man, and it was all 
+that I could do to hold myself quiet in my hiding- 
+place. "You must hear me. You shall hear me. 
+Do you remember a box an ivory box? It 
+
+[199] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+came on Wednesday. You opened it do you 
+remember?" 
+
+"Yes, yes, I opened it. There was a sharp 
+spring inside it. Some joke " 
+
+"It was no joke, as you will find to your cost. 
+You fool, you would have it and you have got it. 
+Who asked you to cross my path? If you had 
+left me alone I would not have hurt you." 
+
+"I remember," Holmes gasped. "The spring! 
+It drew blood. This box this on the table." 
+
+"The very one, by George! And it may as 
+well leave the room in my pocket. There goes 
+your last shred of evidence. But you have the 
+truth now, Holmes, and you can die with the 
+knowledge that I killed you. You knew too 
+much of the fate of Victor Savage, so I have 
+sent you to share it. You are very near your 
+end, Holmes. I will sit here and I will watch 
+you die." 
+
+Holmes 's voice had sunk to an almost inaudi- 
+ble whisper. 
+
+"What is that?" said Smith. "Turn up the 
+gas? Ah, the shadows begin to fall, do they? 
+Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see you the 
+better." He crossed the room and the light sud- 
+denly brightened. "Is there any other little 
+service that I can do you, my friend?" 
+
+"A match and a cigarette." 
+
+I nearly called out in my joy and my amaze- 
+went. He was speaking in his natural voice a 
+[200] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+little weak, perhaps, but the very voice I knew. 
+There was a long pause, and I felt that Culverton 
+Smith was standing in silent amazement looking 
+down at his companion. 
+
+"What's the meaning of this?" I heard him 
+say at last, in a dry, rasping tone. 
+
+"The best way of successfully acting a part 
+is to be it," said Holmes. "I give you my word 
+that for three days I have tasted neither food nor 
+drink until you were good enough to pour me 
+out that glass of water. But it is the tobacco 
+which I find most irksome. Ah, here are some 
+cigarettes." I heard the striking of a match. 
+"That is very much better. Halloa! halloa! Do 
+I hear the step of a friend?" 
+
+There were footfalls outside, the door opened, 
+and Inspector Morton appeared. 
+
+"All is in order and this is your man," said 
+Holmes. 
+
+The officer gave the usual cautions. 
+
+"I arrest you on the charge of the murder of 
+one Victor Savage," he concluded. 
+
+"And you might add of the attempted murder 
+of one Sherlock Holmes," remarked my friend 
+with a chuckle. "To save an invalid trouble, in- 
+spector, Mr. Culverton Smith was good enough 
+to give our signal by turning up the gas. By 
+the way, the prisoner has a small box in the right- 
+hand pocket of his coat which it would be as well 
+to remove. Thank you. I would handle it gin- 
+
+[201] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+gerly if I were you. Put it down here. It may 
+play its part in the trial." 
+
+There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed 
+by the clash of iron and a cry of pain. 
+
+"You'll only get yourself hurt," said the in- 
+spector. "Stand still, will you?" There was 
+the click of the closing handcuffs. 
+
+"A nice trap!" cried the high, snarling voice. 
+"It will bring you into the dock, Holmes, not 
+me. He asked me to come here to cure him. I 
+was sorry for him and I came. Now he will pre- 
+tend, no doubt, that I have said anything which 
+he may invent which will corroborate his insane 
+suspicions. You can lie as you like, -Holmes. 
+My word is always as good as yours." 
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Holmes. "I had to- 
+tally forgotten him. My dear Watson, I owe you 
+a thousand apologies. To think that I should 
+have overlooked you! I need not introduce you 
+to Mr. Culverton Smith, since I understand that 
+you met somewhat earlier in the evening. Have 
+you the cab below? I will follow you when I am 
+dressed, for I may be of some use at the station. 
+
+"I never needed it more," said Holmes, as he 
+refreshed himself with a glass of claret and some 
+biscuits in the intervals of his toilet. "However^ 
+as you know, my habits are irregular, and such a 
+feat means less to me than to most men. It was 
+very essential that I should impress Mrs. Hud- 
+son with the reality of my condition, since she was 
+[202] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE 
+
+to convey it to you, and you in turn to him. You 
+won't be offended, Watson? You will realise 
+that among your many talents dissimulation finds 
+no place, and that if you had shared my secret 
+you would never have been able to impress Smith 
+with the urgent necessity of his presence, which 
+was the vital point of the whole scheme. Know- 
+ing his vindictive nature, I was perfectly certain 
+that he would come to look upon his handiwork." 
+
+"But your appearance, Holmes your ghastly 
+face?" 
+
+"Three days of absolute fast does not improve 
+one's beauty, Watson. For the rest, there is 
+nothing which a sponge may not cure. With 
+vaseline upon one's forehead, belladonna in one's 
+eyes, rouge over the cheek-bones, and crusts of 
+beeswax round one's lips, a very satisfying effect 
+can be produced. Malingering is a subject upon 
+which I have sometimes thought of writing a 
+monograph. A little occasional talk about half- 
+crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous subject 
+produces a pleasing effect of delirium." 
+
+"But why would you not let me near you, since 
+there was in truth no infection?" 
+
+"Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you im- 
+agine that I have no respect for your medical 
+talents? Could I fancy that your astute judg- 
+ment would pass a dying man who, however 
+weak, had no rise of pulse or temperature? At 
+four yards, I could deceive you. If I failed to do 
+
+[203] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp ? 
+No, Watson, I would not touch that box. You 
+can just see if you look at it sideways where the 
+sharp spring like a viper's tooth emerges as you 
+open it. I dare say it was by some such device 
+that poor Savage, who stood between this mon- 
+ster and a reversion, was done to death. My 
+correspondence, however, is, as you know, a va- 
+ried one, and I am somewhat upon my guard 
+against any packages which reach me. It was 
+clear to me, however, that by pretending that he 
+had really succeeded in his design I might sur- 
+prise a confession. That pretence I have carried 
+out with the thoroughness of the true artist. 
+Thank you, Watson, you must help me on with 
+my coat. When we have finished at the police- 
+station I think that something nutritious at 
+Simpson's would not be out of place." 
+
+
+
+[204] 
+
+
+
+VI 
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY 
+FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+
+
+BUT why Turkish?" asked Mr. Sherlock 
+Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I was 
+reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, 
+and my protruded feet had attracted his ever- 
+active attention. 
+
+"English," I answered, in some surprise. "I 
+got them at Latimer's, in Oxford Street." 
+
+Holmes smiled with an expression of weary 
+patience. 
+
+"The bath!" he said; "the bath! Why the 
+relaxing and expensive Turkish rather than the 
+invigorating home-made article?" 
+
+"Because for the last few days I have been 
+feeling rheumatic and old. A Turkish bath is 
+what we call an alterative in medicine a fresh 
+starting-point, a cleanser of the system. 
+
+"By the way, Holmes," I added, "I have no 
+doubt the connection between my boots and a 
+Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a 
+
+[205] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you 
+if you would indicate it." 
+
+"The train of reasoning is not very obscure, 
+Watson," said Holmes, with a mischievous twin- 
+kle. "It belongs to the same elementary class of 
+deduction which I should illustrate if I were to 
+ask you who shared your cab in your drive this 
+morning." 
+
+"I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an ex- 
+planation," said I, with some asperity. 
+
+"Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logi- 
+cal remonstrance. Let me see, what were the 
+points? Take the last one first the cab. You 
+observe that you have some splashes on the left 
+sleeve and shoulder of your coat. Had you sat 
+in the centre of a hansom you would probably 
+have had no splashes, and if you had they would 
+certainly have been symmetrical. Therefore it 
+is clear that you sat at the side. Therefore it is 
+equally clear that you had a companion." 
+
+"That is very evident." 
+
+"Absurdly commonplace, is it not?" 
+
+"But the boots and the bath?" 
+
+"Equally childish. You are in the habit of 
+doing up your boots in a certain way. I see 
+them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate 
+double bow, which is not your usual method of 
+tying them. You have, therefore, had them off. 
+Who has tied them? A bootmaker or the boy 
+at the bath. It is unlikely that it is the boot- 
+[206] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+maker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, 
+what remains? The bath. Absurd, is it not? 
+But, for all that, the Turkish bath has served a 
+purpose." 
+
+"What is that?" 
+
+"You say that you have had it because you need 
+a change. Let me suggest that you take one. 
+How would Lausanne do, my dear Watson 
+first-class tickets and all expenses paid on a 
+princely scale?" 
+
+"Splendid! But why?" 
+
+Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took 
+his notebook from his pocket. 
+
+"One of the most dangerous classes in the 
+world," said he, "is the drifting and friendless 
+woman. She is the most harmless, and often the 
+most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable 
+inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She 
+is migratory. She has sufficient means to take 
+her from country to country and from hotel to 
+hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of 
+obscure pensions and boarding-houses. She is 
+a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is 
+gobbled up she is hardly missed. I much fear 
+that some evil has come to the Lady Frances 
+Carfax." 
+
+I was relieved at this sudden descent from the 
+general to the particular. Holmes consulted his 
+notes. 
+
+"Lady Frances," he continued, "is the sole sur- 
+
+[207] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+vivor of the direct family of the late Earl of Ruf- 
+ton. The estates went, as you may remember, 
+in the male line. She was left with limited means, 
+but with some very remarkable old Spanish jewel- 
+lery of silver and curiously-cut diamonds to which 
+she was fondly attached too attached, for she re- 
+fused to leave them with her banker and always 
+carried them about with her. A rather pathetic 
+figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, 
+still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange 
+chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years 
+ago was a goodly fleet." 
+
+"What has happened to her, then?" 
+
+"Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances ? 
+Is she alive or dead? There is our problem. 
+She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years 
+it has been her invariable custom to write every 
+second week to Miss Dobney, her old governess, 
+who has long retired, and lives in Camberwell. 
+It is this Miss Dobney who has consulted me. 
+Nearly five weeks have passed without a word. 
+The last letter was from the Hotel National at 
+Lausanne. Lady Frances seems to have left 
+there and given no address. The family are 
+anxious, and, as they are exceedingly wealthy, 
+no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter 
+up." 
+
+"Is Miss Dobney the only source of informa- 
+tion? Surely she had other correspondents?" 
+
+"There is one correspondent who is a sure 
+[208] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+draw, Watson. That is the bank. Single ladies 
+must live, and their pass-books are compressed 
+diaries. She banks at Silvester's. I have glanced 
+over her account. The last cheque but one paid 
+her bill at Lausanne, but it was a large one and 
+probably left her with cash in hand. Only one 
+cheque has been drawn since." 
+
+"To whom, and where?" 
+
+"To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to 
+show where the cheque was drawn. It was 
+cashed at the Credit Lyonnais at Montpelier less 
+than three weeks ago. The sum was fifty 
+pounds." 
+
+"And who is Miss Marie Devine?" 
+
+"That also I have been able to discover. Miss 
+Marie Devine was the maid of Lady Frances 
+Carfax. Why she should have paid her this 
+cheque we have not yet determined. I have no 
+doubt, however, that your researches will soon 
+clear the matter up." 
+
+"My researches !" 
+
+"Hence the health-giving expedition to Lau- 
+sanne. You know that I cannot possibly leave 
+London while old Abrahams is in such mortal 
+terror of his life. Besides, on general principles 
+it is best that I should not leave the country. 
+Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it 
+causes an unhealthy excitement among the crim- 
+inal classes. Go, then, my dear Watson, and if 
+my humble counsel can ever be valued at so ex- 
+
+[209] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+travagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits 
+your disposal night and day at the end of the 
+Continental wire." 
+
+Two days later found me at the National Ho- 
+tel at Lausanne, where I received every courtesy 
+at the hands of M. Moser, the well-known man- 
+ager. Lady Frances, as he informed me, had 
+stayed there for several weeks. She had been 
+much liked by all who met her. Her age was not 
+more than forty. She was still handsome, and 
+bore every sign of having in her youth been a 
+very lovely woman. M. Moser knew nothing of 
+any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked 
+by the servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's 
+bedroom was always scrupulously locked. Marie 
+Devine, the maid, was as popular as her mistress. 
+She was actually engaged to one of the head 
+waiters in the hotel, and there was no difficulty 
+in getting her address. It was 11, Rue de Tra- 
+jan, Montpelier. All this I jotted down, and 
+felt that Holmes himself could not have been 
+more adroit in collecting his facts. 
+
+Only one corner still remained in the shadow. 
+No light which I possessed could clear up the 
+cause for the lady's sudden departure. She was 
+very happy at Lausanne. There was every rea- 
+son to believe that she intended to remain for 
+the season in her luxurious rooms overlooking 
+the lake. And yet she had left at a single day's 
+[210] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+notice, which involved her in the useless payment 
+of a week's rent. Only Jules Vibart, the lover 
+of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. He 
+connected the sudden departure with the visit to 
+the hotel a day or two before of a tall, dark, 
+bearded man. ff Un sauvage un veritable sauv- 
+agel" cried Jules Vibart. The man had rooms 
+somewhere in the town. He had been seen talk- 
+ing earnestly to madame on the promenade by 
+the lake. Then he had called. She had refused 
+to see him. He was English, but of his name 
+there was no record. Madame had left the place 
+immediately afterwards. Jules Vibart, and, 
+what was of more importance, Jules Vibart's 
+sweetheart, thought that this call and this depar- 
+ture were cause and effect. Only one thing 
+Jules could not discuss. That was the reason 
+why Marie had left her mistress. Of that he 
+could or would say nothing. If I wished to 
+know, I must go to Montpelier and ask her. 
+
+So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The 
+second was devoted to the place which Lady 
+Frances Carfax had sought when she left Lau- 
+sanne. Concerning this there had been some 
+secrecy, which confirmed the idea that she had 
+gone with the intention of throwing someone off 
+her track. Otherwise why should not her lug- 
+gage have been openly labelled for Baden? Both 
+she and it reached the Rhenish spa by some cir- 
+cuitous route. Thus much I gathered from the 
+
+[211] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+manager of Cook's local office. So to Baden I 
+went, after dispatching to Holmes an account of 
+all my proceedings, and receiving in reply a tele- 
+gram of half -humorous commendation. 
+
+At Baden the track was not difficult to follow. 
+Lady Frances had stayed at the Englischer Hof 
+for a fortnight. Whilst there she had made the 
+acquaintance of a Dr. Shlessinger and his wife, 
+a missionary from South America. Like most 
+lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her comfort 
+and occupation in religion. Dr. Shlessinger's 
+remarkable personality, his whole-hearted devo- 
+tion, and the fact that he was recovering from a 
+disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic 
+duties, affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. 
+Shlessinger in the nursing of the convalescent 
+saint. He spent his day, as the manager de- 
+scribed it to me, upon a lounge-chair on the ver- 
+andah, with an attendant lady upon either side of 
+him. He was preparing a map of the Holy 
+Land, with special reference to the kingdom of 
+the Midianites, upon which he was writing a 
+monograph. Finally, having improved much in 
+health, he and his wife had returned to London, 
+and Lady Frances had started thither in their 
+company. This was just three weeks before, and 
+the manager had heard nothing since. As to the 
+maid, Marie, she had gone off some days before- 
+hand in floods of tears, after informing the other 
+maids that she was leaving service for ever. Dr. 
+[212] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+Shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole party 
+before his departure. 
+
+"By the way," said the landlord, in conclusion, 
+"you are not the only friend of Lady Frances 
+Carfax who is inquiring after her just now. Only 
+a week or so ago we had a man here upon the 
+same errand." 
+
+"Did he give a name?" I asked. 
+
+"None; but he was an Englishman, though of 
+an unusual type." 
+
+"A savage?" said I, linking my facts after the 
+fashion of my illustrious friend. 
+
+"Exactly. That describes him very well. He 
+is a bulky, bearded, sunburned fellow, who looks 
+as if he would be more at home in a farmers' inn 
+than in a fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, 
+I should think, and one whom I should be sorry 
+to offend." 
+
+Already the mystery began to define itself, 
+as figures grow clearer with the lifting of a fog. 
+Here was this good and pious lady pursued from 
+place to place by a sinister and unrelenting fig- 
+ure. She feared him, or she would not have fled 
+from Lausanne. He had still followed. Sooner 
+or later he would overtake her. Had he already 
+overtaken her? Was that the secret of her con- 
+tinued silence ? Could the good people who were 
+her companions not screen her from his violence 
+or his blackmail? What horrible purpose, what 
+
+[213] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+deep design, lay behind this long pursuit? There 
+was the problem which I had to solve. 
+
+To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and 
+surely I had got down to the roots of the matter. 
+In reply I had a telegram asking for a descrip- 
+tion of Dr. Shlessinger's left ear. Holmes's ideas 
+of humour are strange and occasionally offensive, 
+so I took no notice of his ill-timed jest indeed, 
+I had already reached Montpelier in my pursuit 
+of the maid, Marie, before his message came. 
+
+I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant 
+and in learning all that she could tell me. She 
+was a devoted creature, who had only left her 
+mistress because she was sure that she was in good 
+hands, and because her own approaching mar- 
+riage made a separation inevitable in any case. 
+Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, 
+shown some irritability of temper towards her 
+during their stay in Baden, and had even ques- 
+tioned her once as if she had suspicions of her 
+honesty, and this had made the parting easier than 
+it would otherwise have been. Lady Frances 
+had given her fifty pounds as a wedding-present. 
+Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the 
+stranger who had driven her mistress from Lau- 
+sanne. With her own eyes she had seen him seize 
+the lady's wrist with great violence on the public 
+promenade by the lake. He was a fierce and 
+terrible man. She believed that it was out of 
+dread of him that Lady Frances had accepted 
+[214] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+the escort of the Shlessingers to London. She 
+had never spoken to Marie about it, but many lit- 
+tle signs had convinced the maid that her mistress 
+lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension. 
+So far she had got in her narrative, when sud- 
+denly she sprang from her chair and her face was 
+convulsed with surprise and fear. "See!" she 
+cried. "The miscreant follows still! There is 
+the very man of whom I speak." 
+
+Through the open sitting-room window I saw 
+a huge, swarthy man with a bristling black beard 
+walking slowly down the centre of the street and 
+staring eagerly at the numbers of the houses. 
+It was clear that, like myself, he was on the track 
+of the maid. Acting upon the impulse of the 
+moment, I rushed out and accosted him. 
+
+"You are an Englishman," I said. 
+
+"What if I am?" he asked, with a most villain- 
+ous scowl. 
+
+"May I ask what your name is?" 
+
+"No, you may not," said he, with decision. 
+
+The situation was awkward, but the most direct 
+way is often the best. 
+
+"Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?" I asked. 
+
+He stared at me in amazement. 
+
+"What have you done with her? Why have 
+you pursued her? I insist upon an answer!" 
+said I. 
+
+The fellow gave a bellow of anger and sprang 
+upon me like a tiger. I have held my own in 
+
+[215] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron 
+and the fury of a fiend. His hand was on my 
+throat and my senses were nearly gone before an 
+unshaven French ouvrier, in a blue blouse, darted 
+out from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel in his 
+hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack over 
+the forearm, which made him leave go his hold. 
+He stood for an instant fuming with rage and 
+uncertain whether he should not renew his attack. 
+Then, with a snarl of anger, he left me and en- 
+tered the cottage from which I had just come. 
+I turned to thank my preserver, who stood beside 
+me in the roadway. 
+
+"Well, Watson," said he, "a very pretty hash 
+you have made of it! I rather think you had 
+better come back with me to London by the night 
+express." 
+
+An hour afterwards Sherlock Holmes, in his 
+usual garb and style, was seated in my private 
+room at the hotel. His explanation of his sud- 
+den and opportune appearance was simplicity it- 
+self, for, finding that he could get away from 
+London, he determined to head me off at the next 
+obvious point of my travels. In the disguise of 
+a working-man he had sat in the cabaret waiting 
+for my appearance. 
+
+"And a singularly consistent investigation you 
+have made, my dear Watson," said he. "I can- 
+riot at the moment recall any possible blunder 
+which you have omitted. The total effect of 
+[216] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEAEANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+your proceedings has been to give the alarm ev- 
+erywhere and yet to discover nothing." 
+
+"Perhaps you would have done no better," I 
+answered, bitterly. 
+
+"There is no 'perhaps' about it. I have done 
+better. Here is the Hon. Philip Green, who is 
+a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we 
+may find in him the starting-point for a more 
+successful investigation." 
+
+A card had come up on a salver, and it was 
+followed by the same bearded ruffian who had 
+attacked me in the street. He started when he 
+saw me. 
+
+"What is this, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "I 
+had your note and I have come. But what has 
+this man to do with the matter?" 
+
+"This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Wat- 
+son, who is helping us in this affair." 
+
+The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, 
+with a few words of apology. 
+
+"I hope I didn't harm you. When you ac- 
+cused me of hurting her I lost my grip of my- 
+self. Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days. 
+My nerves are like live wires. But this situa- 
+tion is beyond me. What I want to know, in 
+the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how in the wo "Id 
+you came to hear of my existence at all." 
+
+"I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady 
+Frances's governess." 
+
+[217] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap! I re- 
+member her well." 
+
+"And she remembers you. It was in the days 
+before before you found it better to go to South 
+Africa." 
+
+"Ah, I see you know my whole story. I need 
+hide nothing from you. I swear to you, Mr. 
+Holmes, that there never was in this world a man 
+who loved a woman with a more whole-hearted 
+love than I had for Frances. I was a wild 
+youngster, I know not worse than others of my 
+class. But her mind was pure as snow. She 
+could not bear a shadow of coarseness. So, 
+when she came to hear of things that I had done, 
+she would have no more to say to me. And yet 
+she loved me that is the wonder of it! loved 
+me well enough to remain single all her sainted 
+days just for my sake alone. When the years 
+had passed and I had made my money at Bar- 
+berton I thought perhaps I could seek her out and 
+soften her. I had heard that she was still un- 
+married. I found her at Lausanne, and tried all 
+I knew. She weakened, I think, but her will 
+was strong, and when next I called she had left 
+the town. I traced her to Baden, and then after 
+a time heard that her maid was here. I'm a 
+rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when 
+Dr. Watson spoke to me as he did I lost hold of 
+myself for a moment. But for God's sake tell 
+me what has become of the Lady Frances." 
+[218] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+"That is for us to find out," said Sherlock 
+Holmes, with peculiar gravity. "What is your 
+London address, Mr. Green?" 
+
+"The Langham Hotel will find me." 
+"Then may I recommend that you return there 
+and be on hand in case I should want you? I 
+have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you 
+may rest assured that all that can be done will be 
+done for the safety of Lady Frances. I can say 
+no more for the instant. I will leave you this 
+card so that you may be able to keep in touch 
+with us. Now, Watson, if you will pack your 
+bag I will cable to Mrs. Hudson to make one of 
+her best efforts for two hungry travellers at 
+seven-thirty to-morrow." 
+
+A telegram was awaiting us when we reached 
+our Baker Street rooms, which Holmes read with 
+an exclamation of interest and threw across to 
+me. "Jagged or torn," was the message, and 
+the place of origin Baden. 
+
+"What is this?" I asked. 
+
+"It is everything," Holmes answered. "You 
+may remember my seemingly irrelevant question 
+as to this clerical gentleman's left ear. You 
+did not answer it." 
+
+"I had left Baden, and could not inquire." 
+
+"Exactly. For this reason I sent a duplicate 
+to the manager of the Englischer Hof, whose 
+answer lies here." 
+
+[219] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"What does it show?" 
+
+"It shows, my dear Watson, that we are deal- 
+ing with an exceptionally astute and dangerous 
+man. The Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, missionary 
+from South America, is none other than Holy 
+Peters, one of the most unscrupulous rascals that 
+Australia has ever evolved and for a young 
+country it has turned out some very finished 
+types. His particular specialty is the beguiling 
+of lonely ladies by playing upon their religious 
+feelings, and his so-called wife, an Englishwo- 
+man named Fraser, is a worthy helpmate. The 
+nature of his tactics suggested his identity to 
+me, and this physical peculiarity he was badly 
+bitten in a saloon-fight at Adelaide in '89 con- 
+firmed my suspicion. This poor lady is in the 
+hands of a most infernal couple, who will stick 
+at nothing, Watson. That she is already dead is 
+a very likely supposition. If not> she is un- 
+doubtedly in some sort of confinement, and un- 
+able to write to Miss Dobney or her other friends. 
+It is always possible that she never reached Lon- 
+don, or that she has passed through it, but the 
+former is improbable, as, with their system of 
+registration, it is not easy for foreigners to play 
+tricks with the Continental police ; and the latter 
+is also unlikely, as these rogues could not hope to 
+find any other place where it would be as easy 
+to keep a person under restraint. All my in- 
+stincts tell me that she is in London, but, as we 
+[220] 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+have at present no possible means of telling 
+where, we can only take the obvious steps, eat 
+our dinner, and possess our souls in patience. 
+Later in the evening I will stroll down and have 
+a word with friend Lestrade at Scotland Yard." 
+
+But neither the official police nor Holmes 's 
+own small, but very efficient, organisation sufficed 
+to clear away the mystery. Amid the crowded 
+millions of London the three persons we sought 
+were as completely obliterated as if they had 
+never lived. Advertisements were tried, and 
+failed. Clues were followed, and led to nothing. 
+Every criminal resort which Shlessinger might 
+frequent was drawn in vain. His old associates 
+were watched, but they kept clear of him. And 
+then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense, 
+there came a flash of light. A silver-and-bril- 
+liant pendant of old Spanish design had been 
+pawned at Bevington's, in Westminster Road. 
+The pawner was a large, clean-shaven man of 
+clerical appearance. His name and address 
+were demonstrably false. The ear had escaped 
+notice, but the description was surely that of 
+Shlessinger. 
+
+Three times had our bearded friend from the 
+Langham called for news the third time within 
+an hour of this fresh development. His clothes 
+were getting looser on his great body. He 
+seemed to be wilting away in his anxiety. "If 
+you will only give me something to do!" was his 
+
+[221] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+constant wail. At last Holmes could oblige him. 
+
+"He has begun to pawn the jewels. We 
+should get him now." 
+
+"But does this mean that any harm has be- 
+fallen the Lady Frances?" 
+
+Holmes shook his head very gravely. 
+
+"Supposing that they have held her prisoner 
+up to now, it is clear that they cannot let her loose 
+without their own destruction. We must pre- 
+pare for the worst." 
+
+"What can I do?" 
+
+"These people do not know you by sight?" 
+
+"No." 
+
+"It is possible that he will go to some other 
+pawnbroker in the future. In that case, we must 
+begin again. On the other hand, he has had a 
+fair price and no questions asked, so if he is in 
+need of ready-money he will probably come back 
+to Bevington's. I will give you a note to them, 
+and they will let you wait in the shop. If the 
+fellow comes you will follow him home. But no 
+indiscretion, and, above all, no violence. I put 
+you on your honour that you will take no step 
+without my knowledge and consent." 
+
+For two days the Hon. Philip Green (he was, 
+I may mention, the son of the famous admiral 
+of that name who commanded the Sea of Azof 
+fleet in the Crimean War) brought us no news. 
+On the evening of the third he rushed into our 
+sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle 
+[222] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+of his powerful frame quivering with excitement. 
+
+"We have him! We have him!" he cried. 
+
+He was incoherent in his agitation. Holmes 
+soothed him with a few words, and thrust him 
+into an armchair. 
+
+"Come, now, give us the order of events," said 
+he. 
+
+"She came only an hour ago. It was the 
+wife, this time, but the pendant she brought was 
+the fellow of the other. She is a tall, pale wo- 
+man, with ferret eyes." 
+
+"That is the lady," said Holmes. 
+
+"She left the office and I followed her. She 
+walked up the Kennington Road, and I kept be- 
+hind her. Presently she went into a shop. Mr. 
+Holmes, it was an undertaker's." 
+
+My companion started. "Well?" he asked, in 
+that vibrant voice which told of the fiery soul 
+behind the cold, grey face. 
+
+"She was talking to the woman behind the 
+counter. I entered as well. 'It is late,' I heard 
+her say, or words to that effect. The woman 
+was excusing herself. 'It should be there before 
+now,' she answered. 'It took longer, being out 
+of the ordinary.' They both stopped and looked 
+at me, so I asked some question and then left the 
+shop." 
+
+"You did excellently well. What happened 
+next?" 
+
+"The woman came out, but I had hid myself in 
+
+[223] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+a doorway. Her suspicions had been aroused, 
+I think, for she looked round her. Then she 
+called a cab and got in. I was lucky enough to 
+get another and so to follow her. She got down 
+at last at No. 36, Poultney Square, Brixton. I 
+drove past, left my cab at the corner of the square, 
+and watched the house." 
+
+"Did you see anyone?" 
+
+"The windows were all in darkness save one on 
+the lower floor. The blind was down, and I 
+could not see in. I was standing there, wonder- 
+ing what I should do next, when a covered van 
+drove up with two men in it. They descended, 
+took something out of the van, and carried it 
+up the steps to the hall door. Mr. Holmes, it 
+was a coffin." 
+
+"Ah!" 
+
+"For an instant I was on the point of rushing 
+in. The door had been opened to admit the men 
+and their burden. It was the woman who had 
+opened it. But as I stood there she caught a 
+glimpse of me, and I think that she recognised 
+me. I saw her start, and she hastily closed the 
+door. I remembered my promise to you, and 
+here I am." 
+
+"You have done excellent work," said Holmes 
+scribbling a few words upon a half-sheet of pa- 
+per. "We can do nothing legal without a war- 
+rant, and you can serve the cause best by taking 
+this note down to the authorities and getting one. 
+[224] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEABANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+There may be some difficulty, but I should think 
+that the sale of the jewellery should be sufficient. 
+Lestrade will see to all details." 
+
+"But they may murder her in the meanwhile. 
+What could the coffin mean, and for whom could 
+it be but for her?" 
+
+"We will do all that can be done, Mr. Green. 
+Not a moment will be lost. Leave it in our 
+hands. Now, Watson," he added, as our client 
+hurried away, "he will set the regular forces on 
+the move. We are, as usual, the irregulars, and 
+we must take our own line of action. The situa- 
+tion strikes me as so desperate that the most ex- 
+treme measures are justified. Not a moment 
+is to be lost in getting to Poultney Square. 
+
+"Let us try to reconstruct the situation," said 
+he, as we drove swiftly past the Houses of Par- 
+liament and over Westminster Bridge. "These 
+villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to Lon- 
+don, after first alienating her from her faithful 
+maid. If she has written any letters they have 
+been intercepted. Through some confederate 
+they have engaged a furnished house. Once in- 
+side it, they have made her a prisoner, and they 
+have become possessed of the valuable jewellery 
+which has been their object from the first. Al- 
+ready they have begun to sell part of it, which 
+seems safe enough to them, since they have no 
+reason to think that anyone is interested in the 
+lady's fate. When she is released she will, of 
+
+[225] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+course, denounce them. Therefore, she must not 
+be released. But they cannot keep her under 
+lock and key for ever. So murder is their only 
+solution." 
+
+"That seems very clear." 
+
+"Now we will take another line of reasoning. 
+When you follow two separate chains of thought, 
+Watson, you will find some point of intersection 
+which should approximate to the truth. We will 
+start now, not from the lady, but from the coffin, 
+and argue backwards. That incident proves, 
+I fear, beyond all doubt that the lady is dead. 
+It points also to an orthodox burial with proper 
+accompaniment of medical certificate and official 
+sanction. Had the lady been obviously mur- 
+dered, they would have buried her in a hole in the 
+back garden. But here all is open and regular. 
+What does that mean? Surely that they have 
+done her to death in some way which has de- 
+ceived the doctor, and simulated a natural end 
+poisoning, perhaps. And yet how strange 
+that they should ever let a doctor approach her 
+unless he were a confederate, which is hardly a 
+credible proposition." 
+
+"Could they have forged a medical certifi- 
+cate?" 
+
+"Dangerous, Watson, very dangerous. No, 
+
+I hardly see them doing that. Pull up, cabby! 
+
+This is evidently the undertaker's, for we have 
+
+just passed the pawnbroker's. Would you go 
+
+[226] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+in, Watson? Your appearance inspires confi- 
+dence. Ask what hour the Poultney Square 
+funeral takes place to-morrow." 
+
+The woman in the shop answered me without 
+hesitation that it was to be at eight o'clock in 
+the morning. "You see, Watson, no mystery; 
+everything above-board! In some way the legal 
+forms have undoubtedly been complied with, and 
+they think that they have little to fear. Well, 
+there's nothing for it now but a direct frontal at- 
+tack. Are you armed?" 
+
+"My stick!" 
+
+"Well, well, we shall be strong enough. 
+'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.' 
+We simply can't afford to wait for the police, or 
+to keep within the four corners of the law. You 
+can drive off, cabby. Now, Watson, we'll just 
+take our luck together, as we have occasionally 
+done in the past." 
+
+He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark 
+house in the centre of Poultney Square. It was 
+opened immediately, and the figure of a tall wo- 
+man was outlined against the dim-lit hall. 
+
+"Well, what do you want?" she asked, sharply, 
+peering at us through the darkness. 
+
+"I want to speak to Dr. SMessinger," said 
+Holmes. 
+
+"There is no such person here," she answered, 
+and tried to close the door, but Holmes had 
+jammed it with his foot. 
+
+[22T] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Well, I want to see the man who lives here, 
+whatever he may call himself," said Holmes, 
+firmly. 
+
+She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. 
+"Well, come in!" said she. "My husband is not 
+afraid to face any man in the world." She closed 
+the door behind us, and showed us into a sitting- 
+room on the right side of the hall, turning up the 
+gas as she left us. "Mr. Peters will be with you 
+in an instant," she said. 
+
+Her words were literally true, for we had 
+hardly time to look around the dusty and moth- 
+eaten apartment in which we found ourselves be- 
+fore the door opened and a big, clean-shaven 
+bald-headed man stepped lightly into the room. 
+He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, 
+and a general air of superficial benevolence 
+which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth. 
+
+"There is surely some mistake here, gentle- 
+men," he said, in an unctuous, make-every thing- 
+easy voice. "I fancy that you have been mis- 
+directed. Possibly if you tried farther down the 
+street " 
+
+"That will do ; we have no time to waste," said 
+my companion, firmly. "You are Henry Peters, 
+of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of 
+Baden and South America. I am as sure of that 
+as that my own name is Sherlock Holmes." 
+
+Peters, as I will now call him, started and 
+stared hard at his formidable pursuer. "I guess 
+[228] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+your name does not frighten me, Mr. Holmes," 
+said he, coolly. "When a man's conscience is 
+easy 'you can't rattle him. What is your busi- 
+ness in my house?" 
+
+"I want to know what you have done with the 
+Lady Frances Carfax, whom you brought away 
+with you from Baden." 
+
+"I'd be very glad if you could tell me where 
+that lady may be," Peters answered, coolly. "I've 
+a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds, 
+and nothing to show for it but a couple of trump- 
+ery pendants that the dealer would hardly look 
+at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me 
+at Baden (it is a fact that I was using another 
+name at the time-) , and she stuck on to us until 
+we came to London. I paid her bill and her 
+ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip, 
+and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay 
+her bills. You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I'm 
+your debtor." 
+
+"I mean to find her," said Sherlock Holmes. 
+"I'm going through this house till I do find her." 
+
+"Where is your warrant?" 
+
+Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. 
+"This will have to serve till a better one comes." 
+
+"Why, you are a common burglar." 
+
+"So you might describe me," said Holmes, 
+cheerfully. "My companion is also a danger- 
+ous ruffian. And together we are going through 
+your house." 
+
+[229] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+Our opponent opened the door. 
+
+"Fetch a policeman, Annie!" said he. There 
+was a whisk of feminine skirts down the passage, 
+and the hall door was opened and shut. 
+
+"Our time is limited, Watson," said Holmes. 
+"If you try to stop us, Peters, you will most cer- 
+tainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was 
+brought into your house?" 
+
+"What do you want with the coffin? It is in 
+use. There is a body in it." 
+
+"I must see that body." 
+
+"Never with my consent." 
+
+"Then without it." With a quick movement 
+Holmes pushed the fellow to one side and passed 
+into the hall. A door half open stood immedi- 
+ately before us. We entered. It was the din- 
+ing-room. On the table, under a half-lit chan- 
+delier, the coffin was lying. Holmes turned up 
+the gas and raised the lid. Deepi down in the 
+recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure. 
+The glare from the lights above beat down upon 
+an aged and withered face. By no possible proc- 
+ess of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this 
+worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady 
+Frances. Holmes's face showed his amazement, 
+and also his relief. 
+
+"Thank God!" he muttered. "It's someone 
+else." 
+
+"Ah, you've blundered badly for once, Mr. 
+[230] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+Sherlock Holmes," said Peters, who had fol- 
+lowed us into the room. 
+
+"Who is this dead woman?" 
+
+"Well, if you really must know, she is an old 
+nurse of my wife's, Rose Spender her name, 
+whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse In- 
+firmary. We brought her round here, called in 
+Dr. Horsom, of 13, Firbank Villas mind you 
+take the address, Mr. Holmes and had her 
+carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On 
+the third day she died certificate says senile de- 
+cay but that's only the doctor's opinion, and, 
+of course, you know better. We ordered her 
+funeral to be carried out by Stimson and Co., 
+of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at 
+eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Can you pick 
+any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You've made a 
+silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. 
+I'd give something for a photograph of your 
+gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that 
+lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax, 
+and only found a poor old woman of ninety." 
+
+Holmes's expression was as impassive as ever 
+under the jeers of his antagonist, but his clenched 
+hands betrayed his acute annoyance. 
+
+"I am going through your house," said he. 
+
+"Are you, though!" cried Peters, as a woman's 
+voice and heavy steps sounded in the passage. 
+"We'll soon see about that. This way, officers, 
+if you please. These men have forced their way 
+
+[231] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+into my house, and I cannot get rid of them. 
+Help me to put them out." 
+
+A sergeant and a constable stood in the door- 
+way. Holmes drew his card from his case. 
+
+"This is my name and address. This is my 
+friend, Dr. Watson." 
+
+"Bless you, sir, we know you very well," said 
+the sergeant, "but you can't stay here without a 
+warrant." 
+
+"Of course not. I quite understand that." 
+
+"Arrest him!" cried Peters. 
+
+"We know where to lay our hands on this gen- 
+tleman if he is wanted," said the sergeant, majes- 
+tically, "but you'll have to go, Mr. Holmes." 
+
+"Yes, Watson, we shall have to go." 
+
+A minute later we were in the street once 
+more. Holmes was as cool as ever, but I was 
+hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant 
+had followed us. 
+
+"Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that's the law." 
+
+"Exactly, sergeant; you could not do other- 
+wise." 
+
+"I expect there was good reason for your pres- 
+ence there. If there is anything I can do " 
+
+"It's a missing lady, sergeant, and we think 
+she is in that house. I expect a warrant pres- 
+ently." 
+
+"Then I'll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. 
+Holmes. If anything comes along, I will surely 
+let you know." 
+[232] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+It was only nine o'clock, and we were off full 
+cry upon the trail at once. First we drove to 
+Brixton Workhouse Infirmary, where we found 
+that it was indeed the truth that a charitable cou- 
+ple had called some days before, that they had 
+claimed an imbecile old woman as a former ser- 
+vant, and that they had obtained permission to 
+take her away with them. No surprise was ex- 
+pressed at the news that she had since died. 
+
+The doctor was our next goal. He had been 
+called in, had found the woman dying of pure 
+senility, had actually seen her pass away, and 
+had signed the certificate in due form. "I as- 
+sure you that everything was perfectly normal 
+and there was no room for foul play in the mat- 
+ter," said he. Nothing in the house had struck 
+him as suspicious, save that for people of their 
+class it was remarkable that they should have no 
+servant. So far and no farther went the doctor. 
+
+Finally, we found our way to Scotland Yard. 
+There had been difficulties of procedure in regard 
+to the warrant. Some delay was inevitable. 
+The magistrate's signature might not be ob- 
+tained until next morning. If Holmes would 
+call about nine he could go down with Lestrade 
+and see it acted upon. So ended the day, save 
+that near midnight our friend, the sergeant, 
+called to say that he had seen flickering lights 
+here and there in the windows of the great dark 
+house, but that no one had left it and none had 
+
+[233] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+entered. We could but pray for patience, and 
+wait for the morrow. 
+
+Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conver- 
+sation and too restless for sleep. I left him 
+smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows knot- 
+ted together, and his long, nervous fingers tap- 
+ping upon the arms of his chair, as he turned over 
+in his mind every possible solution of the mys- 
+tery. Several times in the course of the night I 
+heard him prowling about the house. Finally, 
+just after I had been called in the morning, he 
+rushed into my room. He was in his dressing- 
+gown, but his pale, hollow-eyed face told me that 
+his night had been a sleepless one. 
+
+"What time was the funeral? Eight, was it 
+not?" he asked, eagerly. "Well, it is seven- 
+twenty now. Good heavens, Watson, what has 
+become of any brains that God has given me? 
+Quick, man, quick! It's life or death a hun- 
+dred chances on death to one on life. I'll never 
+forgive myself, never, if we are too late I" 
+
+Five minutes had not passed before we were 
+flying in a hansom down Baker Street. But 
+even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed 
+Big Ben, and eight struck as we tore down the 
+Brixton Road. But others were late as well as 
+we. Ten minutes after the hour the hearse was 
+still standing at the door of the house, and even 
+as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin, 
+supported by three men, appeared on the thresh- 
+[234] " 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+old. Holmes darted forward and barred their 
+way. 
+
+"Take it back!" he cried, laying his hand on 
+the breast of the foremost. "Take it back this 
+instant!" 
+
+"What the devil do you mean? Once again I 
+ask you, where is your warrant?" shouted the 
+furious Peters, his big red face glaring over the 
+farther end of the coffin. 
+
+"The warrant is on its way. This coffin shall 
+remain in the house until it comes." 
+
+The authority in Holmes's voice had its effect 
+upon the bearers. Peters had suddenly van- 
+ished into the house, and they obeyed these new 
+orders. "Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a 
+screw-driver I" he shouted, as the coffin was re- 
+placed upon the table. "Here's one for you, my 
+man! A sovereign if the lid comes off in a min- 
+ute! Ask no questions work away! That's 
+good! Another! And another! Now pull all 
+together! It's giving! It's giving! Ah, that 
+does it at last!" 
+
+With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. 
+As we did so there came from the inside a stupe- 
+fying and overpowering smell of chloroform. A 
+body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton- 
+wool, which had been soaked in the narcotic. 
+Holmes plucked it off and disclosed the statu- 
+esque face of a handsome and spiritual woman of 
+middle age. -In an instant he had passed his 
+
+[235] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+arm round the figure and raised her to a sitting 
+position. 
+
+"Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? 
+Surely we are not too late!" 
+
+For half an hour it seemed that we were. 
+What with actual suif ocation, and what with the 
+poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the Lady 
+Frances seemed to have passed the last point of 
+recall. And then, at last, with artificial respira- 
+tion, with injected ether, with every device that 
+science could suggest, some flutter of life, some 
+quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, 
+spoke of the slowly returning life. A cab had 
+driven up, and Holmes, parting the blind, looked 
+out at it. "Here is Lestrade with his warrant," 
+said he. "He will find that his birds have flown. 
+And here," he added, as a heavy step hurried 
+along the passage, "is someone who has a better 
+right to nurse this lady than we have. Good 
+morning, Mr. Green; I think that the sooner we 
+can move the Lady Frances the better. Mean- 
+while, the funeral may proceed, and the poor old 
+woman who still lies in that coffin may go to her 
+last resting-place alone." 
+
+"Should you care to add the case to your an- 
+nals, my dear Watson," said Holmes that even- 
+ing, "it can only be as an example of that tem- 
+porary eclipse to which even the best-balanced 
+mind may be exposed. Such slips are common 
+[236] 
+
+
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX 
+
+to all mortals, and the greatest is he who can rec- 
+ognise and repair them. To this modified credit 
+I may, perhaps, make some claim. My night 
+was haunted by the thought that somewhere a 
+clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation, 
+had come under my notice and had been too eas- 
+ily dismissed. Then, suddenly, in the grey of 
+the morning, the words came back to me. It was 
+the remark of the undertaker's wife, as reported 
+by Philip Green. She had said, 'It should be 
+there before now. It took longer, being out of 
+the ordinary.' It was the coffin of which she 
+spoke. It had been out of the ordinary. That 
+could only mean that it had been made to some 
+special measurement. But why? Why? Then 
+in an instant I remembered the deep sides, and 
+the little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so 
+large a coffin for so small a body? To leave 
+room for another body. Both would be buried 
+under the one certificate. It had all been so clear, 
+if only my own sight had not been dimmed. At 
+eight the Lady Frances would be buried. Our 
+one chance was to stop the coffin before it left 
+the house. 
+
+"It was a desperate chance that we might find 
+her alive, but it was a chance, as the result 
+showed. These people had never, to my knowl- 
+edge, done a murder. They might shrink from 
+actual violence at the last. They could bury her 
+with no sign of how she met her end, and even if 
+
+[237] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+she were exhumed there was a chance for them. 
+I hoped that such considerations might prevail 
+with them. You can reconstruct the scene well 
+enough. You saw the horrible den upstairs, 
+where the poor lady had been kept so long. They 
+rushed in and overpowered her with their chloro- 
+form, carried her down, poured more into the 
+coffin to insure against her waking, and then 
+screwed down the lid. A clever device, Watson. 
+It is new to me in the annals of crime. If our 
+ex-missionary friends escape the clutches of 
+Lestrade, I shall expect to hear of some brilliant 
+incidents in their future career." 
+
+
+
+[238] 
+
+
+
+VII 
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S 
+FOOT 
+
+
+
+IN recording from time to time some of the 
+curious experiences and interesting recol- 
+lections which I associate with my long and inti- 
+mate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I 
+have continually been faced by difficulties caused 
+by his own aversion to publicity. To his sombre 
+and cynical spirit all popular applause was al- 
+ways abhorrent, and nothing amused him more 
+at the end of a successful case than to hand over 
+the actual exposure to some orthodox official, 
+and to listen with a mocking smile to the general 
+chorus of misplaced congratulation. It was in- 
+deed, this attitude upon the part of my friend, 
+and certainly not any lack of interesting material 
+which has caused me of late years to lay very few 
+of my records before the public. My partici- 
+pation in some of his adventures was always a 
+privilege which entailed discretion and reticence 
+upon me. 
+
+[239] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+It was, then, with considerable surprise that I 
+received a telegram from Holmes last Tuesday 
+he has never been known to write where a tele- 
+gram would serve in the following terms: "Why 
+not tell them of the Cornish horror strangest 
+case I have handled." I have no idea what back- 
+ward sweep of memory had brought the matter 
+fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him 
+to desire that I should recount it; but I hasten, 
+before another cancelling telegram may arrive, 
+to hunt out the notes which give me the exact 
+details of the case, and to lay the narrative before 
+my readers. 
+
+It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 
+that Holmes's iron constitution showed some 
+symptoms of giving way in the face of constant 
+hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, 
+perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. 
+In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of 
+Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction 
+to Holmes I may some day recount, gave 
+positive injunctions that the famous private 
+agent would lay aside all his cases and sur- 
+render himself to complete rest if he wished 
+to avert an absolute break- down. The state 
+of his health was not a matter in which he 
+himself took the faintest interest, for his men- 
+tal detachment was absolute, but he was induced 
+at last, on the threat of being permanently dis- 
+qualified from work, to give himself a complete 
+[240] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the 
+early spring of that year we found ourselves 
+together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at 
+the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula. 
+
+It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well 
+suited to the grim humour of my patient. From 
+the windows of our little white-washed house, 
+which stood high upon a grassy headland, we 
+looked down upon the whole sinister semi-circle 
+of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing 
+vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge- 
+swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have 
+met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies 
+placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed 
+craft to tack into it for rest and protection. 
+
+Then comes the sudden swirl round of the 
+wind, the blustering gale from the south-west, 
+the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last 
+battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mar- 
+iner stands far out from that evil place. 
+
+On the land side our surroundings were as 
+sombre as on the sea. It was a country of roll- 
+ing moors, lonely and dun-coloured, with an occa- 
+sional church tower to mark the site of some 
+old-world village. In every direction upon these 
+moors there were traces of some vanished race 
+which had passed utterly away, and left as its 
+sole record strange monuments of stone, ir- 
+regular mounds which contained the burned ashes 
+of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted 
+
+[241] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+at prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery 
+of the place, with its sinister atmosphere of for- 
+gotten nations, appealed to the imagination of 
+my friend, and he spent much of his time in long 
+walks and solitary meditations upon the moor. 
+The ancient Cornish language had also arrested 
+his attention, and he had, I remember, conceived 
+the idea that it was akin to the Chaldean, and 
+had been largely derived from the Phoenician 
+traders in tin. He had received a consignment 
+of books upon philology and was settling down to 
+develop this thesis, when suddenly, to my sorrow 
+and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, 
+even in that land of dreams, plunged into a prob- 
+lem at our very doors which was more intense, 
+more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious 
+than any of those which had driven us from Lon- 
+don. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy rou- 
+tine were violently interrupted, and we were pre- 
+cipitated into the midst of a series of events which 
+caused the utmost excitement not only in Corn- 
+wall, but throughout the whole West of Eng- 
+land. Many of my readers may retain some rec- 
+ollection of what was called at the time "The 
+Cornish Horror," though a most imperfect ac- 
+count of the matter reached the London Press. 
+Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true 
+details of this inconceivable affair to the public. 
+I have said that scattered towers marked the 
+villages which dotted this part of Cornwall. The 
+[242] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredannick 
+Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hun- 
+dred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, 
+moss-grown church. The vicar of the parish, Mr. 
+Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and 
+as such Holmes had made his acquaintance. He 
+was a middle-aged man, portly and affable, with 
+a considerable fund of local lore. At his invita- 
+tion we had taken tea at the vicarage, and had 
+come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an 
+independent gentleman, who increased the cler- 
+gyman's scanty resources by taking rooms in 
+his large, straggling house. The vicar, being a 
+bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrange- 
+ment, though he had little in common with his 
+lodger, who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, 
+with a stoop which gave the impression of actual, 
+physical deformity. I remember that during 
+our short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but 
+his lodger strangely reticent, a sad-faced, intro- 
+spective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding 
+apparently upon his own affairs. 
+
+These were tbf ^"^ men who entered abruptly 
+into our little sitting-room on Tuesday, March 
+the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we 
+were smoking together, preparatory to our daily 
+excursion upon the moors. 
+
+"Mr. Holmes," said the vicar, in an agitated 
+voice, "the most extraordinary and tragic affair 
+has occurred during the night. It is the most 
+
+[243] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+unheard-of business. We can only regard it as 
+a special Providence that you should chance to 
+be here at the time, for in all England you are 
+the one man we need." 
+
+I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very 
+friendly eyes ; but Holmes toke his pipe from his 
+lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound 
+who hears the view-halloa. He waved his hand 
+to the sofa, and our palpitating visitor with his 
+agitated companion sat side by side upon it. Mr. 
+Mortimer Tregennis was more self-contained 
+than the clergyman, but the twitching of his thin 
+hands and the brightness of his dark eyes showed 
+that they shared a common emotion. 
+
+"Shall I speak or you?" he asked of the vicar. 
+
+"Well, as you seem to have made the discov- 
+ery, whatever it may be, and the vicar to have 
+had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do 
+the speaking," said Holmes. 
+
+I glanced at the hastily-clad clergyman, with 
+the formally-dressed lodger seated beside him, 
+and was amused at the surprise which Holmes 's 
+simple deduction had brou'" 1 '* x< : their faces. 
+
+"Perhaps I had best say a few words first," 
+said the vicar, "and then you can judge if you 
+will listen to the details from Mr. Tregennis, or 
+whether we should not hasten at once to the scene 
+of this mysterious affair. I may explain, then, 
+that our friend here spent last evening in the 
+company of his two brothers, Owen and George, 
+[244] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+and of his sister Brenda, at their house of Tre- 
+dannick Wartha, which is near the old stone 
+cross upon the moor. He left them shortly after 
+ten o'clock, playing cards round the dining-room 
+table, in excellent health and spirits. This morn- 
+ing, being an early riser, he walked in that direc- 
+tion before breakfast, and was overtaken by the 
+carriage of Dr. Richards, who explained that he 
+had just been sent for on a most urgent call to 
+Tredannick Wartha. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis 
+naturally went with him. When he arrived at 
+Tredannick Wartha he found an extraordinary 
+state of things. His two brothers and his sister 
+were seated round the table exactly as he had left 
+them, the cards still spread in front of them and 
+the candles burned down to their sockets. The 
+sister lay back stone-dead in her chair, while the 
+two brothers sat on each side of her laughing, 
+shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean 
+out of them. All three of them, the dead woman 
+and the two demented men, retained upon their 
+faces an expression of the utmost horror a con- 
+vulsion of terror which was dreadful to look upon. 
+There was no sign of the presence of anyone in 
+the house, except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and 
+housekeeper, who declared that she had slept 
+deeply and heard no sound during the night. 
+Nothing had been stolen or disarranged, and 
+there is absolutely no explanation of what the 
+ji error can be which has frightened a woman to 
+
+[245] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+death and two strong men out of their senses. 
+There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, 
+and if you can help us to clear it up you will have 
+done a great work." 
+
+I had hoped that in some way I could coax my 
+companion back into the quiet which had been the 
+object of our journey; but one glance at his in- 
+tense face and contracted eyebrows told me how 
+vain was now the expectation. He sat for some 
+little time in silence, absorbed in the strange 
+drama which had broken in upon our peace. 
+
+"I will look into this matter," he said at last. 
+"On the face of it, it would appear to be a case 
+of a very exceptional nature. Have you been 
+there yourself, Mr, Roundhay?" 
+
+"No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought 
+back the account to the vicarage, and I at once 
+hurried over with him to consult you." 
+
+"How far is it to the house where this singular 
+tragedy occurred?" 
+
+"About a mile inland." 
+
+"Then we shall walk over together. But, be- 
+fore we start, I must ask you a few questions, 
+Mr. Mortimer Tregennis." 
+
+The other had been silent all this time, but I 
+had observed that his more controlled excitement 
+was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of 
+the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, 
+his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin 
+hands clasped convulsively together. His pale 
+[246] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experi- 
+ence which had befallen his family, and his dark 
+eyes seemed to reflect something of the horror of 
+the scene. 
+
+"Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes," said he 
+eagerly. "It is a bad thing to speak of, but 
+I will answer you the truth." 
+
+"Tell me about last night." 
+
+"Well, Mr, Holmes, I supped there, as the 
+vicar has said, and my elder brother George pro- 
+posed a game of whist afterwards. We sat down 
+about nine o'clock. It was a quarter-past ten 
+when I moved to go. I left them all round the 
+table, as merry as could be." 
+
+"Who let you out?" 
+
+"Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself 
+out. I shut the hall door behind me. The win- 
+dow of the room in which they sat was closed, but 
+the blind was not drawn down. There was no 
+change in door or window this morning, nor any 
+reason to think that any stranger had been to 
+the house. Yet there they sat, driven clean mad 
+with terror, and Grenda lying dead of fright, 
+with her head hanging over the arm of the chair. 
+I'll never get the sight of that room out of my 
+mind so long as I live. 9 ' 
+
+"The facts, as you state them, are certainly 
+most remarkable," said Holmes. "I take it that 
+you have no theory yourself which can in any 
+way account for them?" 
+
+[247] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes; devilish!" cried 
+Mortimer Tregennis. "It is not of this world. 
+Something has come into that room which has 
+dashed the light of reason from their minds. 
+What human contrivance could do that?" 
+
+"I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is 
+beyond humanity it is certainly beyond me. Yet 
+we must exhaust all natural explanations before 
+we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to 
+yourself, Mr. Tregennis, I take it you were di- 
+vided in some way from your family, since they 
+lived together and you had rooms apart?" 
+
+"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter 
+is past and done with. We were a family of tin- 
+miners at Redruth, but we sold out our venture 
+to a company, and so retired with enough to keep 
+us. I won't deny that there was some feeling 
+about the division of the money and it stood be- 
+tween us for a time, but it was all forgiven and 
+forgotten, and we were the best of friends to- 
+gether." 
+
+"Looking back at the evening which you spent 
+together, does anything stand out in your mem- 
+ory as throwing any possible light upon the trag- 
+edy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any 
+clue which can help me." 
+
+"There is nothing at all, sir." 
+
+"Your people were in their usual spirits?" 
+
+"Never better." 
+[248] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+"Were they nervous people? Did they ever 
+show any apprehension of coming danger?" 
+
+"Nothing of the kind." 
+
+"You have nothing to add then, which could 
+assist me?" 
+
+Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for 
+a moment. 
+
+"There is one thing occurs to me," said he at 
+last. "As we sat at the table my back was to 
+the window, and my brother George, he being my 
+partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once 
+look hard over my shoulder, so I turned round 
+and looked also. The blind was iip and the 
+window shut, but I could just make out the 
+bushes on the lawn, and it seemed to me for a mo- 
+ment that I saw something moving among them. 
+I couldn't even say if it were man or animal, 
+but I just thought there was something there. 
+When I asked him what he was looking at, he 
+told me that he had the same feeling. That is all 
+that I can say." 
+
+"Did you not investigate?" 
+
+"No; the matter passed as unimportant." 
+
+"You left them, then, without any premoni- 
+tion of evil?" 
+
+"None at all." 
+
+"I am not clear how you came to hear the news 
+so early this morning." 
+
+"I am an early riser, and generally take a walk 
+before breakfast. This morning I had hardly 
+
+[249] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+started when the doctor in his carriage overtook 
+me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent 
+a boy down with an urgent message. I sprang 
+in beside him and we drove on. When we got 
+there we looked into that dreadful room. The 
+candles and the fire must have burned out hours 
+before, and they had been sitting there in the 
+dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said 
+Brenda must have been dead at least six hours. 
+There were no signs of violence. She just lay 
+across the arm of the chair with that look on her 
+face. George and Owen were singing snatches 
+of songs and gibbering like two great apes. Oh, 
+it was awful to see! I couldn't stand it, and 
+the doctor was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he 
+fell into a chair in a sort of faint, and we nearly 
+had him on our hands as well." 
+
+"Remarkable most remarkable! "said Holmes, 
+rising and taking his hat. "I think, perhaps, we 
+had better go down to Tredannick Wartha with- 
+out further delay. I confess that I have seldom 
+known a case which at first sight presented a 
+more singular problem." 
+
+Our proceedings of that first morning did little 
+to advance the investigation. It was marked, 
+however, at the outset by an incident which left 
+the most sinister impression upon my mind. The 
+approach to the spot at which the tragedy oc- 
+curred is down a narrow, winding, country lane. 
+[250] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S FOOT 
+
+While we made our way along it we heard the 
+rattle of a carriage coming towards us, and stood 
+aside to let it pass. As it drove by us I caught a 
+glimpse through the closed window of a horribly 
+contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. 
+Those staring eyes and gnashing teeth flashed 
+past us like a dreadful vision. 
+
+"My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, 
+white to his lips. "They are taking them to 
+Helston." 
+
+We looked with horror after the black carriage, 
+lumbering upon its way. Then we turned our 
+steps towards this ill-omened house in which they 
+had met their strange fate. 
+
+It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a 
+villa than a cottage, with a considerable garden 
+which was already, in that Cornish air, well filled 
+with spring flowers. Towards this garden the 
+window of the sitting-room fronted, and from it, 
+according to Mortimer Tregennis, must have 
+come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror 
+in a single instant blasted their minds. Holmes 
+walked slowly and thoughtfully among the 
+flower-plots and along the path before we entered 
+the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, 
+I remember, that he stumbled over the watering- 
+pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet 
+and the garden path. Inside the house we were 
+met by the elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs. 
+Porter, who, with the aid of a young girl, looked 
+
+[251] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+after the wants of the family. She readily an- 
+swered all Holmes's questions. She had heard 
+nothing in the night. Her employers had all been 
+in excellent spirits lately, and she had never 
+known them more cheerful and prosperous. She 
+had fainted with horror upon entering the room 
+in the morning and seeing that dreadful company 
+round the table. She had, when she recovered, 
+thrown open the window to let the morning air 
+in, and had run down to the lane, whence she sent 
+a farm-lad for the doctor. The lady was on her 
+bed upstairs, if we cared to see her. It took four 
+strong men to get the brothers into the asylum 
+carriage. She would not herself stay in the 
+house another day, and was starting that very 
+afternoon to rejoin her family at St. Ives. 
+
+We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. 
+Miss Brenda Tregennis had been a very beau- 
+tiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. 
+Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in 
+death, but there still lingered upon it something 
+of that convulsion of horror which had been her 
+last human emotion. From her bedroom we de- 
+scended to the sitting-room where this strange 
+tragedy had actually occurred. The charred 
+ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On 
+the table were the four guttered and burned-out 
+candles, with the cards scattered over its surface. 
+The chairs had been moved back against the 
+walls, but all else was as it had been the night 
+[252] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+before. Holmes paced with light, swift steps 
+about the room ; he sat in the various chairs, draw- 
+ing them up and reconstructing their positions. 
+He tested how much of the garden was visible; 
+he examined the floor, the ceiling? and the fire- 
+place; but never once did I see that sudden 
+brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips 
+which would have told me that he saw some gleam 
+of light in this utter darkness. 
+
+"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they al- 
+ways a fire in this small room on a spring even- 
+ing?" 
+
+Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night 
+was cold and damp. For that reason, after his 
+arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you going 
+to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. 
+
+My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my 
+arm. "I think, Watson, that I shall resume that 
+course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so 
+often and so justly condemned," said he. "With 
+your permission, gentlemen, we will now return 
+to our cottage, for I am not aware that any new 
+factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will 
+turn the facts over in my mind, Mr. Tregennis, 
+and should anything occur to me I will certainly 
+communicate with you and the vicar. In the 
+meantime I wish you both good morning." 
+
+It was not until long after we were back in 
+Poldhu Cottage that Holmes broke his complete 
+and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his arm- 
+
+[253] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+chair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible 
+amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black 
+brows drawn down, his forehead contracted, his 
+eyes vacant and far away. Finally, he laid down 
+his pipe and sprang to his feet. 
+
+"It won't do, Watson!" said he, with a laugh. 
+"Let us walk along the cliffs together and search 
+for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them 
+than clues to this problem. To let the brain work 
+without sufficient material is like racing an en- 
+gine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, 
+sunshine, and patience, Watson all else will 
+come. 
+
+"Now, let us calmly define our position, Wat- 
+son/' he continued, as we skirted the cliffs to- 
+gether. "Let us get a firm grip of the very little 
+which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise 
+we may be ready to fit them into their places. I 
+take it, in the first place, that neither of us is pre- 
+pared to admit diabolical intrusions into the af- 
+fairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that en- 
+tirely out of our minds. Very good. There re- 
+main three persons who have been grievously 
+stricken by some conscious or unconscious human 
+agency. That is firm ground. Now, when did 
+this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative 
+to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Morti- 
+mer Tregennis had left the room. That is a very 
+important point. The presumption is that it 
+was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards 
+[254] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+still lay upon the table. It was already past 
+their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not 
+changed their position or pushed back their 
+chairs. I repeat, then, that the occurrence was 
+immediately after his departure, and not later 
+than eleven o'clock last night. 
+
+"Our next obvious step is to check, so far as 
+we can, the movements of Mortimer Tregennis 
+after he left the room. In this there is no diffi- 
+culty, and they seem to be above suspicion. 
+Knowing my methods as you do, you were, of 
+course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy wa- 
+ter-pot expedient by which I obtained a clearer 
+impress of his foot than might otherwise have 
+been possible. The wet, sandy path took it ad- 
+mirably. Last night was also wet, you will re- 
+member, and it was not difficult having obtained 
+a sample print to pick out his track among oth- 
+ers and to follow his movements. He appears 
+to have walked away swiftly in the direction of 
+the vicarage. 
+
+"If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared 
+from the scene, and yet some outside person af- 
+fected the card-players, how can we reconstruct 
+that person, and how was such an impression of 
+horror conveyed? Mrs. Porter may be elim- 
+inated. She is evidently harmless. Is there any 
+evidence that someone crept up to the garden 
+window and in some manner produced so ter- 
+rific an effect that he drove those who saw it out 
+
+[255] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+of their senses? The only suggestion in this di- 
+rection comes from Mortimer Tregennis himself, 
+who says that his brother spoke about some move- 
+ment in the garden. That is certainly remark- 
+able, as the night was rainy, cloudy, and dark. 
+Anyone who had the design to alarm these peo- 
+ple would be compelled to place his very face 
+against the glass before he could be seen. There 
+is a three-foot flower-border outside this win- 
+dow, but no indication of a footmark. It is dif- 
+ficult to imagine, then, how an outsider could 
+have made so terrible an impression upon the 
+company, nor have we found any possible mo- 
+tive for so strange and elaborate an attempt. 
+You perceive our difficulties, Watson?" 
+
+"They are only too clear," I answered, with 
+conviction. 
+
+"And yet, with a little more material, we may 
+prove that they are not insurmountable," said 
+Holmes. "I fancy that among your extensive 
+archives, Watson, you may find some which were 
+nearly as obscure. Meanwhile, we shall put the 
+case aside until more accurate data are available, 
+and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit 
+of neolithic man." 
+
+I may have commented upon my friend's 
+power of mental detachment, but never have I 
+wondered at it more than upon that spring morn- 
+ing in Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed 
+upon celts, arrowheads, and shards, as lightly as 
+[256] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+if no sinister mystery was waiting for his solu- 
+tion. It was not until we had returned in the 
+afternoon to our cottage that we found a visitor 
+awaiting us, who soon brought our minds back 
+to the matter in hand. Neither of us needed to 
+be told who that visitor was. The huge body, 
+the craggy and deeply-seamed face with the fierce 
+eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which 
+nearly brushed our cottage ceiling, the beard 
+golden at the fringes and white near the lips, save 
+for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar 
+all these were as well known in London as in 
+Africa, and could only be associated with the tre- 
+mendous personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale, the 
+great lion-hunter and explorer. 
+
+We had heard of his presence in the district, 
+and had once or twice caught sight of his tall 
+figure upon the moorland paths. He made no 
+advances to us, however, nor would we have 
+dreamed of doing so to him, as it was well known 
+that it was his love of seclusion which caused him 
+to spend the greater part of the intervals between 
+his journeys in a small bungalow buried in the 
+lonely wood of Beauchamp Arriance. Here, 
+amid his books and his maps, he lived an abso- 
+lutely lonely life, attending to his own simple 
+wants, and paying little apparent heed to the 
+affairs of his neighbours. It was a surprise to 
+me, therefore, to hear him asking Holmes in an 
+eager voice, whether he had made any advance 
+
+[257] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode. 
+"The county police are utterly at fault," said he; 
+"but perhaps your wider experience has sug- 
+gested some conceivable explanation. My only 
+claim to being taken into your confidence is that 
+during my many residences here I have come to 
+know this family of Tregennis very well indeed, 
+upon my Cornish mother's side I could call them 
+cousins and their strange fate has naturally 
+been a great shock to me. I may tell you that 
+I had got as far as Plymouth upon my way to 
+Africa, but the news reached me this morning, 
+and I came straight back again to help in the in- 
+quiry." 
+
+Holmes raised his eyebrows. 
+
+"Did you lose your boat through it?" 
+
+"I will take the next." 
+
+"Dear me! that is friendship indeed." 
+
+"I tell you they were relatives." 
+
+"Quite so cousins of your mother. Was 
+your baggage aboard the ship?" 
+
+"Some of it, but the main part at the hotel." 
+
+"I see. But surely this event could not have 
+found its way into the Plymouth morning pa- 
+pers?" 
+
+"No, sir; I had a telegram." 
+
+"Might I ask from whom?" 
+
+A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the 
+explorer. 
+
+"You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes." 
+[258] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+"It is my business." 
+
+With an effort, Dr. Sterndale recovered his 
+ruffled composure. 
+
+"I have no objection to telling you," he said. 
+"It was Mr. Roundhay, the vicar, who sent me 
+the telegram which recalled me." 
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes. "I may say in 
+answer to your original question, that I have not 
+cleared my mind entirely on the subject of this 
+case, but that I have every hope of reaching some 
+conclusion. It would be premature to say more." 
+
+"Perhaps you would not mind telling me if 
+your suspicions point in any particular direc- 
+tion?" 
+
+"No, I can hardly answer that." 
+
+"Then I have wasted my time, and need not 
+prolong my visit." The famous doctor strode 
+out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour., and 
+within five minutes Holmes had followed him. 
+I saw him no more until the evening, when he 
+returned with a slow step and haggard face which 
+assured me that he had made no great progress 
+with his investigation. He glanced at a tele- 
+gram which awaited him, and threw it into the 
+grate. 
+
+"From the Plymouth hotel, Watson," he said. 
+"I learned the name of it from the vicar, and I 
+wired to make certain that Dr. Leon Sterndale's 
+account was true. It appears that he did in- 
+deed spend last night there, and that he has actu- 
+
+[259] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+ally allowed some of his baggage to go on to 
+Africa, while he returned to be present at this 
+investigation. What do you make of that, Wat- 
+son?" 
+
+"He is deeply interested." 
+
+"Deeply interested yes. There is a thread 
+here which we have not yet grasped, and which 
+might lead us through the tangle. Cheer up, 
+Watson, for I am very sure that our material has 
+not yet all come to hand. When it does, we may 
+soon leave our difficulties behind us." 
+
+Little did I think how soon the words of 
+Holmes would be realised, or how strange and 
+sinister would be that new development which 
+opened up an entirely fresh line of investigation. 
+I was shaving at my window in the morning when 
+I heard the rattle of hoofs, and, looking up, saw 
+a dogcart coming at a gallop down the road. 
+It pulled up at our door, and our friend the 
+vicar sprang from it and rushed up our garden 
+path. Holmes was already dressed, and we 
+hastened down to meet him. 
+
+Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly 
+articulate, but at last in gasps and bursts his 
+tragic story came out of him. 
+
+"We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes ! My poor 
+
+parish is devil-ridden!" he cried. "Satan himself 
+
+is loose in it ! We are given over into his hands !" 
+
+He danced about in his agitation, a ludicrous 
+
+[260] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+object if it were not for his ashy face and startled 
+eyes. Finally he shot out his terrible news. 
+
+"Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the 
+night, and with exactly the same symptoms as 
+the rest of his family." 
+
+Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an 
+instant. 
+
+"Can you fit us both into your dogcart?" 
+
+"Yes, I can." 
+
+"Then, Watson, we will postpone our break- 
+fast. Mr. Roundhay, we are entirely at your 
+disposal. Hurry hurry, before things get dis- 
+arranged." 
+
+The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicar- 
+age, which were in an angle by themselves, the 
+one above the other. Below was a large sitting- 
+room; above, his bedroom. They looked out 
+upon a croquet lawn which came up to the win- 
+dows. We had arrived before the doctor or the 
+police, so that everything was absolutely undis- 
+turbed. Let me describe exactly the scene as we 
+saw it upon that misty March morning. It has 
+left an impression which can never be effaced 
+from my mind. 
+
+The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible 
+and depressing stuffiness. The servant who had 
+first entered had thrown up the window, or it 
+would have been even more intolerable. This 
+might partly be due to the fact that a lamp stood 
+flaring and smoking on the centre table. Beside 
+
+[261] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+it sat the dead man, leaning back in his chair, 
+his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed 
+up on to his forehead, and his lean, dark face 
+turned towards the window and twisted into the 
+same distortion of terror which had marked the 
+features of his dead sister. His limbs were con- 
+vulsed and his fingers contorted as though he 
+had died in a very paroxysm of fear. He was 
+fully clothed, though there were signs that his 
+dressing had been done in a hurry. We had al- 
+ready learned that his bed had been slept in, and 
+that the tragic end had come to him in the early 
+morning. 
+
+One realised the red-hot energy which under- 
+lay Holmes's phlegmatic exterior when one saw 
+the sudden change which came over him from the 
+moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In 
+an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, 
+his face set, his limbs quivering with eager activ- 
+ity. He was out on the lawn, in through the 
+window, round the room, and up into the bed- 
+room, for all the world like a dashing foxhound 
+drawing a cover. In the bedroom he made a 
+rapid cast around, and ended by throwing open 
+the window, which appeared to give him some 
+fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of 
+it with loud ejaculations of interest and delight. 
+Then he rushed down the stair, out through the 
+open window, threw himself upon his face on 
+the lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, 
+[262] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+all with the energy of the hunter who is at the 
+very heels of his quarry. The lamp, which was 
+an ordinary standard, he examined with minute 
+care, making certain measurements upon its 
+bowl. He carefully scrutinised w r ith his lens the 
+talc shield which covered the top of the chimney, 
+and scraped off some ashes which adhered to its 
+upper surface, putting some of them into an en- 
+velope, which he placed in his pocket-book. 
+Finally, just as the doctor and the official police 
+put in an appearance, he beckoned to the vicar 
+and we all three went out upon the lawn. 
+
+"I am glad to say that my investigation has 
+not been entirely barren," he remarked. "I can- 
+not remain to discuss the matter with the police, 
+but I should be exceedingly obliged, Mr. Round- 
+hay, if you would give the inspector my compli- 
+ments and direct his attention to the bedroom 
+window and to the sitting-room lamp. Each is 
+suggestive, and together they are almost conclu- 
+sive. If the police would desire further informa- 
+tion I shall be happy to see any of them at the 
+cottage. And now, Watson, I think that, per- 
+haps, we shall be better employed elsewhere." 
+
+It may be that the police resented the intru- 
+sion of an amateur, or that they imagined them- 
+selves to be upon some hopeful line of investi- 
+gation; but it is certain that we heard nothing 
+from them for the next two days. During this 
+time Holmes spent some of his time smoking 
+
+[263] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater por- 
+tion in country walks which he undertook alone, 
+returning after many hours without remark as 
+to where he had been. One experiment served 
+to show me the line of his investigation. He had 
+bought a lamp which was the duplicate of the 
+one which had burned in the room of Mortimer 
+Tregennis on the morning of the tragedy. This 
+he filled with the same oil as that used at the 
+vicarage, and he carefully timed the period which 
+it would take to be exhausted. Another experi- 
+ment which he made was of a more unpleasant 
+nature, and one which I am not likely ever to 
+forget. 
+
+"You will remember, Watson," he remarked 
+one afternoon, "that there is a single common 
+point of resemblance in the varying reports 
+which have reached us. This concerns the 
+effect of the atmosphere of the room in each 
+case upon those who had first entered it. You 
+will recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in de- 
+scribing the episode of his last visit to his brother's 
+house, remarked that the doctor on entering the 
+room fell into a chair? You had forgotten? 
+Well, I can answer for it that it was so. Now, 
+you will remember also that Mrs. Porter, the 
+housekeeper, told us that she herself fainted 
+upon entering the room and had afterwards 
+opened the window. In the second case that 
+of Mortimer Tregennis himself you cannot 
+[264] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+have forgotten the horrible stuffiness of the 
+room when we arrived, though the servant had 
+thrown open the window. That servant, I found 
+upon inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to 
+her bed. You will admit, Watson, that these 
+facts are very suggestive. In each case there 
+is evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. In each 
+case, also, there is combustion going on in the 
+room in the one case a fire, in the other a lamp. 
+The fire was needed, but the lamp was lit as a 
+comparison of the oil consumed will show long 
+after it was broad daylight. Why? Surely be- 
+cause there is some connection between three 
+things the burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, 
+finally, the madness or death of those unfortu- 
+nate people. That is clear, is it not?" 
+
+"It would appear so." 
+
+"At least we may accept it as a working 
+hypothesis. We will suppose, then, that some- 
+thing was burned in each case which produced 
+an atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. 
+Very good. In the first instance that of the 
+Tregennis family this substance was placed in 
+the fire. Now the window was shut, but the 
+fire would naturally carry fumes to some extent 
+up the chimney. Hence one would expect the 
+effects of the poison to be less than in the second 
+case, where there was less escape for the vapour. 
+The result seems to indicate that it was so, since 
+in the first case only the woman, who had pre- 
+
+[265] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+sumably the more sensitive organism, was killed, 
+the others exhibiting that temporary or perma- 
+nent lunacy which is evidently the first eff ect of 
+the drug. In the second case the result was com- 
+plete. The facts, therefore, seem to bear out the 
+theory of a poison which worked by combustion. 
+
+"With this train of reasoning in my head I 
+naturally looked about in Mortimer Tregennis's 
+room to find some remains of this substance. The 
+obvious place to look was the talc shield or smoke- 
+guard of the lamp. There, sure enough, I per- 
+ceived a number of flaky ashes, and round the 
+edges a fringe of brownish powder, which had 
+not yet been consumed. Half of this I took, 
+as you saw, and I placed it in an envelope." 
+
+"Why half, Holmes?" 
+
+"It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand 
+in the way of the official police force. I leave 
+them all the evidence which I found. The poison 
+still remained upon the talc, had they the wit to 
+find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; 
+we will, however, take the precaution to open our 
+window to avoid the premature decease of two 
+deserving members of society, and you will seat 
+yourself near that open window in an arm-chair, 
+unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have 
+nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see 
+it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. 
+This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we 
+may be the same distance from the poison, and 
+[266] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+face to face. The door we will leave ajar. Each 
+is now in a position to watch the other and to 
+bring the experiment to an end should the symp- 
+toms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, 
+then, I take our powder or what remains of it 
+from the envelope, and I lay it above the burn- 
+ing lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down 
+and await developments." 
+
+They were not long in coming. I had hardly 
+settled in my chair before I was conscious of a 
+thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At 
+the very first whiff of it my brain and my imag- 
+ination were beyond all control. A thick, black 
+cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told 
+me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to 
+spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all 
+that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous 
+and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague 
+shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud- 
+bank, each a menace and a warning of something 
+coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller 
+upon the threshold, whose very shadow would 
+blast my soul. A freezing horror took posses- 
+sion of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that 
+my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was 
+opened, and my tongue like leather. The tur- 
+moil within my brain was such that something 
+must surely snap. I tried to scream, and was 
+vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was 
+my own voice, but distant and detached from my- 
+
+[267] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+self. At the same moment, in some effort of 
+escape, I broke through that cloud of despair, and 
+had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, arid 
+drawn with horror the very look which I had 
+seen upon the features of the dead. It was that 
+vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of 
+strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my 
+arms round Holmes, and together we lurched 
+through the door, and an instant afterwards had 
+thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and 
+were lying side by side, conscious only of the 
+glorious sunshine which was bursting its way 
+through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt 
+us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the 
+mists from a landscape, until peace and reason 
+had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, 
+wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with 
+apprehension at each other to mark the last 
+traces of that terrific experience which we had 
+undergone. 
+
+"Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at 
+last, with an unsteady voice, "I owe you both my 
+thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable 
+experiment even for oneself, and doubly so for a 
+friend. I am really very sorry." 
+
+"You know," I answered, with some emotion, 
+for I had never seen so much of Holmes's heart 
+before, "that it is my greatest joy and privilege 
+to help you." 
+
+He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, 
+[268] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVII/S FOOT 
+
+half -cynical vein which was his habitual attitude 
+to those about him. "It would be superfluous to 
+drive us mad, my dear Watson," said he. "A 
+candid observer would certainly declare that we 
+were so already before we embarked upon so 
+wild an experiment. I confess that I never im- 
+agined that the effect could be so sudden and so 
+severe." He dashed into the cottage, and reap- 
+pearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's 
+length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. 
+"We must give the room a little time to clear. 
+I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a 
+shadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were 
+produced?" 
+
+"None whatever." 
+
+"But the cause remains as obscure as before. 
+Come into the arbour here and let us discuss it 
+together. That villainous stuff seems still to lin- 
+ger round my throat. I think we must admit 
+that all the evidence points to this man, Mortimer 
+Tregennis, having been the criminal in the first 
+tragedy, though he was the victim in the second 
+one. We must remember, in the first place, that 
+there is some story of a family quarrel, followed 
+by a reconciliation. How bitter that quarrel 
+may have been, or how hollow the reconciliation 
+we cannot tell. When I think of Mortimer Tre- 
+gennis, with the foxy face and the small shrewd, 
+beady eyes, behind the spectacles, he is not a man 
+whom I should judge to be of a particularly for- 
+
+[269] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+giving disposition. Well, in the next place, you 
+will remember that this idea of someone moving 
+in the garden, which took our attention for a mo- 
+ment from the real cause of the tragedy, ema- 
+nated from him. He had a motive in misleading 
+us. Finally, if he did not throw this substance 
+into the fire at the moment of leaving the room, 
+who did do so? The affair happened immedi- 
+ately after his departure. Had anyone else come 
+in, the family would certainly have risen from 
+the table. Besides, in peaceful Cornwall, visitors 
+do not arrive after ten o'clock at night. We 
+may take it, then, that all the evidence points 
+to Mortimer Tregennis as the culprit." 
+"Then his own death was suicide!" 
+"Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not 
+impossible supposition. The man who had the 
+guilt upon his soul of having brought such a fate 
+upon his own family might well be driven by re- 
+morse to inflict it upon himself. There are, how- 
+ever, some cogent reasons against it. Fortu- 
+nately, there is one man in England who knows 
+all about it, and I have made arrangements by 
+which we shall hear the facts this afternoon from 
+his own lips. Ah! he is a little before his time. 
+Perhaps you would kindly step this way, Dr. 
+Leon Sterndale. We have been conducting a 
+chemical experiment indoors which has left our 
+little room hardly fit for the reception of so dis- 
+tinguished a visitor." 
+[270] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVII/S FOOT 
+
+I had heard the click of the garden gate, and 
+now the majestic figure of the great African ex- 
+plorer appeared upon the path. He turned in 
+some surprise towards the rustic arbour in which 
+we sat. 
+
+"You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your 
+note about an hour ago, and I have come, though 
+I really do not know why I should obey your 
+summons." 
+
+"Perhaps we can clear the point up before 
+we separate," said Holmes. "Meanwhile, I am 
+much obliged to you for your courteous acquies- 
+cence. You will excuse this informal reception 
+in the open air, but my friend Watson and I have 
+nearly furnished an additional chapter to what 
+the papers call the Cornish Horror, and we pre- 
+fer a clear atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, 
+since the matters which we have to discuss will af- 
+fect you personally in a very intimate fashion, 
+it is as well that we should talk where there can 
+be no eavesdropping." 
+
+The explorer took his cigar from his lips and 
+gazed sternly at my companion. 
+
+"I am at a loss to know, sir," he said, "what 
+you can have to speak about which affects me 
+personally in a very intimate fashion." 
+
+"The killing of Mortimer Tregennis," said 
+Holmes. 
+
+For a moment I wished that I were armed. 
+Sterndale's fierce face turned to a dusky red, 
+
+[271] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate veins 
+started out in his forehead, while he sprang for- 
+ward with clenched hands towards my compan- 
+ion. Then he stopped, and with a violent effort 
+he resumed a cold, rigid calmness, which was, per- 
+haps, more suggestive of danger than his hot- 
+headed out-burst. 
+
+"I have lived so long among savages and be- 
+yond the law," said he, "that I have got into the 
+way of being a law to myself. You would do 
+well, Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no 
+desire to do you an injury." 
+
+"Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, 
+Dr. Sterndale. Surely the clearest proof of it is 
+that, knowing what I know, I have sent for you 
+and not for the police." 
+
+Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, 
+perhaps, the first time in his adventurous life. 
+There was a calm assurance of power in Holmes's 
+manner which could not be withstood. Our vis- 
+itor stammered for a moment, his great hands 
+opening and shutting in his agitation. 
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked, at last. "If 
+this is bluff upon your part, Mr. Holmes, you 
+have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let 
+us have no more beating about the bush. What 
+do you mean?" 
+
+"I will tell you," said Holmes, "and the reason 
+why I tell you is that I hope frankness may beget 
+frankness. What my next step may be will de- 
+[272] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+pend entirely upon the nature of your own de- 
+fence." 
+
+"My defence?" 
+
+"Yes, sir." 
+
+"My defence against what?" 
+
+"Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tre- 
+gennis." 
+
+Sterndale mopped his forehead with his hand- 
+kerchief. "Upon my word, you are getting on," 
+said he. "Do all your successes depend upon this 
+prodigious power of bluff?" 
+
+"The bluff," said Holmes, sternly, "is upon 
+your side, Dr. Leon Sterndale, and not upon 
+mine. As a proof I will tell you some of the 
+facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of 
+your return from Plymouth, allowing much of 
+your property to go on to Africa, I will say 
+noth'ing save that it first informed me that you 
+were one of the factors which had to be taken into 
+account in reconstructing this drama " 
+
+"I came back " 
+
+"I have heard your reasons and regard them 
+as unconvincing and inadequate. We will pass 
+that. You came down here to ask me whom I 
+suspected. I refused to answer you. You then 
+went to the vicarage, waited outside it for some 
+time, and finally returned to your cottage." 
+
+"How do you know that?" 
+
+"I followed you." 
+
+"I saw no one." 
+
+[273] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"That is what you may expect to see when 
+I follow you. You spent a restless night at your 
+cottage, and you formed certain plans, which in 
+the early morning you proceeded to put into exe- 
+cution. Leaving your door just as day was 
+breaking, you filled your pocket with some red- 
+dish gravel that was lying heaped beside your 
+gate." 
+
+Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at 
+Holmes in amazement. 
+
+"You then walked swiftly for the mile which 
+separated you from the vicarage. You were 
+wearing, I may remark, the same pair of ribbed 
+tennis shoes which are at the present moment 
+upon your feet. At the vicarage you passed 
+through the orchard and the side hedge, coming 
+out under the window of the lodger Tregennis. 
+It was now daylight, but the household was not 
+yet stirring. You drew some of the gravel from 
+your pocket, and you threw it up at the window 
+above you." 
+
+Sterndale sprang to his feet. 
+
+"I believe that you are the devil himself!" he 
+cried. 
+
+Holmes smiled at the compliment. "It took 
+two, or possibly three, handfuls before the lodger 
+came to the window. You beckoned him to come 
+down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to 
+his sitting-room. You entered by the window. 
+There was an interview a short one during 
+[274] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVII/S FOOT 
+
+which you walked up and down the room. Then 
+you passed out and closed the window, standing 
+on the lawn outside smoking a cigar and watch- 
+ing what occurred. Finally, after the death of 
+Tregennis, you withdrew as you had come. Now, 
+Dr. Sterndale, how do you justify such conduct, 
+and what were the motives for your actions? If 
+you prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my 
+assurance that the matter will pass out of my 
+hands for ever." 
+
+Our visitor's face had turned ashen grey as he 
+listened to the words of his accuser. Now he sat 
+for some time in thought with his face sunk in 
+his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive ges- 
+ture he plucked a photograph from his breast- 
+pocket and threw it on the rustic table before us. 
+
+"That is why I have done it," said he. 
+
+It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful 
+woman. Holmes stooped over it. 
+
+"Brenda Tregennis," said he. 
+
+"Yes, Brenda Tregennis," repeated our visi- 
+tor. "For years I have loved her. For years 
+she has loved me. There is the secret of that 
+Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled 
+at. It has brought me close to the one thing on 
+earth that was dear to me. I could not marry 
+her, for I have a wife who has left me for years 
+and yet whom, by the deplorable laws of Eng- 
+land, I could not divorce. For years Brenda 
+waited. For years I waited. And this is what 
+
+[275] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+we have waited for." A terrible sob shook his 
+great frame, and he clutched his throat under his 
+brindled beard. Then with an effort he mastered 
+himself and spoke on. 
+
+"The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. 
+He would tell you that she was an angel upon 
+earth. That was why he telegraphed to me and 
+I returned. What was my baggage or Africa to 
+me when I learned that such a fate had come 
+upon my darling? There you have the missing 
+clue to my action, Mr. Holmes." 
+
+"Proceed," said my friend. 
+
+Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper 
+packet and laid it upon the table. On the out- 
+side was written, "Radix pedis diaboli" with a 
+red poison label beneath it. He pushed it 
+towards me. "I understand that you are a doc- 
+tor, sir. Have you ever heard of this prepara- 
+tion?" 
+
+"Devil's-foot root! No, I have never heard 
+of it." 
+
+"It is no reflection upon your professional 
+knowledge," said he, "for I believe that, save for 
+one sample in a laboratory at Buda, there is 
+no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet 
+found its way either into the pharmacopoeia or 
+into the literature of toxicology. The root is 
+shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; 
+hence the fanciful name given by a botanical mis- 
+sionary. It is used as an ordeal poison by the 
+[276] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL S FOOT 
+
+medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa, 
+and is kept as a secret among them. This par- 
+ticular specimen I obtained under very extraor- 
+dinary circumstances in the Ubanghi country." 
+He opened the paper as he spoke, and disclosed 
+a heap of reddish-brown, snuff -like powder. 
+
+"Well, sir?" asked Holmes sternly. 
+
+"I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that 
+actually occurred, for you already know so much 
+that it is clearly to my interest that you should 
+know all. I have already explained the rela- 
+tionship in which I stood to the Tregennis family. 
+For the sake of the sister I was friendly with the 
+brothers. There was a family quarrel about 
+money which estranged this man Mortimer, but 
+it was supposed to be made up, and I afterwards 
+met him as I did the others. He was a sly, sub- 
+tle, scheming man, and several things arose which 
+gave me a suspicion of him, but I had no cause 
+for any positive quarrel. 
+
+"One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came 
+down to my cottage and I showed him some of 
+my African curiosities. Among other things I 
+exhibited this powder, and I told him of its 
+strange properties, how it stimulates those brain 
+centres which control the emotion of fear, and 
+how either madness or death is the fate of the un- 
+happy native who is subjected to the ordeal by 
+the priest of his tribe. I told him also how pow- 
+erless European science would be to detect it. 
+
+[277] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+How he took it I cannot say, for I never left the 
+room, but there is no doubt that it was then, while 
+I was opening cabinets and stooping to boxes, 
+that he managed to abstract some of the devil's- 
+f oot root. I well remember how he plied me with 
+questions as to the amount and the time that was 
+needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he 
+could have a personal reason for asking. 
+
+"I thought no more of the matter until the 
+vicar's telegram reached me at Plymouth. This 
+villain had thought that I would be at sea before 
+the news could reach me, and that I should be 
+lost for years in Africa. But I returned at once. 
+Of course, I could not listen to the details without 
+feeling assured that my poison had been used. I 
+came round to see you on the chance that some 
+other explanation had suggested itself to you. 
+But there could be none. I was convinced that 
+Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for 
+the sake of money, and with the idea, perhaps, 
+that if the other members of his family were all 
+insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint 
+property, he had used the devil's-foot powder 
+upon them, driven two of them out of their senses, 
+and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being 
+whom I have ever loved or who has ever loved me. 
+There was his crime; what was to be his punish- 
+ment? 
+
+"Should I appeal to the law? Where were my 
+proofs? I knew that the facts were true, but 
+[278] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+could I help to make a jury of countrymen be- 
+lieve so fantastic a story? I might or I might 
+not. But I could not afford to fail. My soul 
+cried out for revenge. I have said to you once 
+before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of 
+my life outside the law, and that I have come 
+at last to be a law to myself. So it was now. I 
+determined that the fate which he had given to 
+others should be shared by himself. Either that or 
+I would do justice upon him with my own hand. 
+In all England there can be no man who sets less 
+value upon his own life than I do at the present 
+moment. 
+
+"Now I have told you all. You have yourself 
+supplied the rest. I did, as you say, after a rest- 
+less night, set off early from my cottage. I 
+foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gath- 
+ered some gravel from the pile which you have 
+mentioned, and I used it to throw up to his win- 
+dow. He came down and admitted me through 
+the window of the sitting-room. I laid his of- 
+fence before him. I told him that I had come 
+both as judge and executioner. The wretch sank 
+into a chair paralysed at the sight of my revolver. 
+I lit the lamp, put the powder above it, and stood 
+outside the window, ready to carry out my threat 
+to shoot him should he tiy to leave the room. In 
+five minutes he died. My God! how he died! 
+But my heart was flint, for he endured nothing 
+which my innocent darling had not felt before 
+
+[279] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+him. There is my story, Mr. Holmes. Per- 
+haps, if you loved a woman, you would have done 
+as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your 
+hands. You can take what steps you like. As 
+I have already said, there is no man living who 
+can fear death less than I do." 
+
+Holmes sat for some little time in silence. 
+
+"What were your plans?" he asked, at last. 
+
+"I had intended to bury myself in Central 
+Africa. My work there is but half finished." 
+
+"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, 
+at least, am not prepared to prevent you." 
+
+Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed 
+gravely, and walked from the arbour. Holmes 
+lit his pipe and handed me his pouch. 
+
+"Some fumes which are not poisonous would be 
+a welcome change," said he. "I think you must 
+agree, Watson, that it is not a case in which we 
+are called upon to interfere. Our investigation 
+has been independent, and our action shall be 
+so also. You would not denounce the man?" 
+
+"Certainly not," I answered. 
+
+"I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and 
+if the woman I loved had met such an end, I 
+might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has 
+done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not 
+offend your intelligence by explaining what is 
+obvious. The gravel upon the window-sill was, 
+of course, the starting-point of my research. It 
+was unlike anything in the vicarage garden. 
+[280] 
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVILS FOOT 
+
+Only when my attention had been drawn to Dr. 
+Sterndale and his cottage did I find its counter- 
+part. The lamp shining in broad daylight and 
+the remains of powder upon the shield were suc- 
+cessive links in a fairly obvious chain. And now, 
+my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the 
+matter from our mind, and go back with a clear 
+conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots 
+which are surely to be traced in the Cornish 
+branch of the great Celtic speech." 
+
+
+
+[281] 
+
+
+
+VIII 
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+AN EPILOGUE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 
+
+IT was nine o'clock at night upon the second 
+of August the most terrible August in the 
+history of the world. One might have thought 
+already that God's curse hung heavy over a de- 
+generate world, for there was an awesome hush 
+and a feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry 
+and stagnant air. The sun had long set, but one 
+blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the 
+distant west. Above, the stars were shining 
+brightly; and below, the lights of the shipping 
+glimmered in the bay. The two famous Ger- 
+mans stood beside the stone parapet of the gar- 
+den walk, with the long low, heavily gabled house 
+behind them, and they looked down upon the 
+broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great 
+chalk cliff on which Von Bork, like some wander- 
+ing eagle, had perched himself four years before. 
+They stood with their heads close together, talk- 
+[282] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+ing in low, confidential tones. From below the 
+two glowing ends of their cigars might have been 
+the smouldering eyes of some malignant fiend 
+looking down in the darkness. 
+
+A remarkable man this Von Bork a man who 
+could hardly be matched among all the devoted 
+agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents which 
+had first recommended him for the English mis- 
+sion, the most important mission of all, but since 
+he had taken it over, tKose talents had become 
+more and more manifest to the half-dozen people 
+in the world who were really in touch with the 
+truth. One of these was his present companion, 
+Baron Von Herling, the chief secretary of the 
+legation, whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car 
+was blocking the country lane as it waited to 
+waft its owner back to London. 
+
+"So far as I can judge the trend of events, 
+you will probably be back in Berlin within the 
+week," the secretary was saying. "When you 
+get there, my dear Von Bork, I think you will be 
+surprised at the welcome you will receive. I 
+happen to know what is thought in the highest 
+quarters of your work in this country." He was 
+a huge man, the secretary, deep, broad, and tall, 
+with a slow, heavy fashion of speech which had 
+been his main asset in his political career. 
+
+Von Bork laughed. 
+
+"They are not very hard to deceive," he re- 
+
+[283] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+marked. "A more docile, simple folk could not 
+be imagined." 
+
+"I don't know about that," said the other 
+thoughtfully. "They; have strange limits and 
+one must learn to observe them. It is that sur- 
+face simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for 
+the stranger. One's first impression is that they 
+are entirely soft. Then one comes suddenly 
+upon something very hard, and you know that 
+you have reached the limit, and must adapt your- 
+self to the fact. They have, for example, their 
+insular conventions which simply must be ob- 
+served." 
+
+"Meaning, 'good form' and that sort of thing?" 
+Von Bork sighed, as one who had suffered much. 
+
+"Meaning British prejudice in all its queer 
+manifestations. As an example I may quote one 
+of my own worst blunders I can afford to talk 
+of my blunders, for you know my work well 
+enough to be aware of my successes. It was on 
+my first arrival. I was invited to a week-end 
+gathering at the country house of a cabinet minis- 
+ter. The conversation was amazingly indis- 
+creet." 
+
+Von Bork nodded. "I've been there," said he 
+dryly. 
+
+"Exactly. Weil, I naturally sent a resume 
+
+of the information to Berlin. Unfortunately our 
+
+good Chancellor is a little heavy-handed in these 
+
+matters, and he transmitted a remark which 
+
+[284] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+showed that he was aware of what had been said. 
+This, of course, took the trail straight up to me. 
+You've no idea the harm that it did me. There 
+was nothing soft about our British hosts on that 
+occasion, I can assure you. I was two years 
+living it down. Now you, with this sporting pose 
+of yours." 
+
+"No, no, don't call it a pose. A pose is an 
+artificial thing. This is quite natural. I am a 
+born sportsman. I enjoy it." 
+
+"Well, that makes it the more effective. You 
+yacht against them, you hunt with them, you play 
+polo, you match them in every game, your four- 
+in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even 
+heard that you go the length of boxing with the 
+young officers. What is the result? Nobody 
+takes you seriously. You are a 'good old sport,' 
+'quite a decent fellow for a German,' a hard- 
+drinking, night-club, knock-about-town, devil- 
+may-care young fellow. And all the time this 
+quiet country house of yours is the centre of half 
+the mischief in England, and the sporting squire 
+the most astute secret-service man in Europe. 
+Genius, my dear Von Bork genius!" 
+
+"You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may 
+claim that my four years in this country have not 
+been unproductive. I've never shown you my 
+little store. Would you mind stepping in for a 
+moment." 
+
+The door of the study opened straight on to 
+
+[285] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+the terrace. Von Bork pushed it back, and, 
+leading the way, he clicked the switch of the elec- 
+tric light. He then closed the door behind the 
+bulky form which followed him, and carefully ad- 
+justed the heavy curtain over the latticed win- 
+dow. Only when all these precautions had been 
+taken and tested did he turn his sunburned aqui- 
+line face to his guest. 
+
+"Some of my papers have gone," said he, 
+"when my wife and the houshold left yesterday 
+for Flushing they took the less important with 
+them. I must, of course, claim the protection 
+of the embassy for the others." 
+
+"Your name has already been filed as one of 
+the personal suite. There will be no difficulties 
+for you or your baggage. Of course, it is just 
+possible that we may not have to go. England 
+may leave France to her fate. We are sure that 
+there is no binding treaty between them." 
+
+"And Belgium?" 
+
+"Yes, and Belgium, too." 
+
+Von Bork shook his head. "I don't see how 
+that could be. There is a definite treaty there. 
+She could never recover from such a humiliation." 
+
+"She would at least have peace for the mo- 
+ment." 
+
+"But her honour?" 
+
+"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. 
+Honour is a mediseval conception. Besides Eng- 
+land is not ready. It is an inconceivable thing, 
+[286] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+but even our special war tax of fifty million, 
+which one would think made our purpose as clear 
+as if we had advertised it on the front page of 
+the Times, has not roused these people from their 
+slumbers. Here and there one hears a question. 
+It is my business to find an answer. Here and 
+there also there is an irritation. It is my business 
+to soothe it. But I can assure you that so far as 
+the essentials go the storage of munitions, the 
+preparation for submarine attack, the arrange- 
+ments for making high explosives nothing is 
+prepared. How, then, can England come in, es- 
+pecially when we have stirred her up such a devil's 
+brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking Furies, 
+and God knows what to keep her thoughts at 
+home." 
+
+"She must think of her future." 
+
+"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in 
+the future, we have our own very definite plans 
+about England, and that your information will 
+be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow 
+with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we 
+are perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall 
+be more ready still. I should think they would 
+be wiser to fight with allies than without them, 
+but that is their own affair. This week is their 
+week of destiny. But you were speaking of your 
+papers." He sat in the armchair with the light 
+shining upon his broad bald head, while he 
+puffed sedately at his cigar. 
+
+[287] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+The large oak-pannelled, book-lined room had 
+a curtain hung in the further corner. When this 
+was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe. 
+Von Bork detached a small key from his watch 
+chain, and after some considerable manipulation 
+of the lock he swung open the heavy door. 
+
+"Look!" said he, standing clear, with a wave of 
+his hand. 
+
+The light shone vividly into the opened safe, 
+and the secretary of the embassy gazed with an 
+absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed pigeon- 
+holes with which it was furnished. Each pigeon- 
+hole had its label, and his eyes as he glanced along 
+them read a long series of such titles as "Fords," 
+"Harbour-defences," "Aeroplanes," "Ireland," 
+"Egypt," "Portsmouth forts," "The Channel," 
+"Rosythe," and a score of others. Each com- 
+partment was bristling with papers and plans. 
+
+"Colossal!" said the secretary. Putting down 
+his cigar he softly clapped his fat hands. 
+
+"And all in four years, Baron. Not such a 
+bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding 
+country squire. But the gem of my collection 
+is coming and there is the setting all ready for it." 
+He pointed to a space over which "Naval Sig- 
+nals" was printed. 
+
+"But you have a good dossier there already." 
+
+"Out of date and waste paper. Tl;c Admir- 
+alty in some way got the alarm and every code 
+has been changed. It was a blow, Baron the 
+[288] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+worst set-back in my whole campaign. But 
+thanks to my cheque-book and the good Altamont 
+all will be well to-night." 
+
+The Baron looked at his watch, and gave a 
+guttural exclamation of disappointment. 
+
+"Well, I really can wait no longer. You can 
+imagine that things are moving at present in 
+Carlton Terrace and that we have all to be at 
+our posts. I had hoped to be able to bring news of 
+your great coup. Did Altamont name no hour?" 
+
+Von Bork pushed over a telegram. 
+
+"Will come without fail to-night and bring 
+new sparking plugs. Altamont." 
+
+"Sparking plugs, eh?" 
+
+"You see he poses as a motor expert and I 
+keep a full garage. In our code everything 
+likely to come up is named after some spare part. 
+If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an 
+oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs 
+are naval signals." 
+
+"From Portsmouth at mid-day," said the sec- 
+retary, examining the superscription. "By the 
+way, what do you give him?" 
+
+"Five hundred pounds for this particular job. 
+Of course he has a salary as well." 
+
+"The greedy rogue. They are useful, these 
+traitors, but I grudge them their blood money." 
+
+"I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a won- 
+derful worker. If I pay him well, at least he 
+delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. Be- 
+
+[289] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+sides he is not a traitor. I assure you that our 
+most pan-Germanic Junker is a sucking dove in 
+his feelings towards England as compared with a 
+real bitter Irish- American." 
+
+"Oh, an Irish- American?" 
+
+"If you heard him talk you would not doubt 
+it. Sometimes I assure you I can hardly under- 
+stand him. He seems to have declared war on 
+the King's English as well as on the English 
+King. Must you really go? He may be here 
+any moment." 
+
+"No. I'm sorry, but I have already over- 
+stayed my time. We shall expect you early to- 
+morrow, and when you get that signal book 
+through the little door on the Duke of York's 
+steps you can put a triumphant Finis to your 
+record in England. What! Tokay!" He in- 
+dicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which 
+stood with two high glasses upon a salver. 
+
+"May I offer you a glass before your jour- 
+ney?" 
+
+"No, thanks. But it looks like revelry." 
+
+"Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he 
+took a fancy to my Tokay. He is a touchy fel- 
+low and needs humouring in small things. I 
+have to study him, I assure you." They had 
+strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it 
+to the further end where at a touch from the 
+Baron's chauffeur the great car shivered and 
+chuckled. "Those are the lights of Harwich, I 
+[290} 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+suppose," said the secretary, pulling on his dust 
+coat. "How still and peaceful it all seems. 
+There may be other lights within the week, and 
+the English coast a less tranquil place! The 
+heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all 
+that the good Zeppelin promises us comes true. 
+By the way, who is that?" 
+
+Only one window showed a light behind them ; 
+in it there stood a lamp, and beside it, seated at 
+a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a 
+country cap. She was bending over her knitting 
+and stopping occasionally to stroke a large black 
+cat upon a stool beside her. 
+
+"That is Martha, the only servant I have left." 
+
+The secretary chuckled. 
+
+"She might almost personify Britannia," said 
+he, "with her complete self-absorption and gen- 
+eral air of comfortable somnolence. Well, au 
+revoir, Von Bork!" with a final wave of his 
+hand he sprang into the car, and a moment later 
+the two golden cones from the headlights shot 
+forward through the darkness. The secretary 
+lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limou- 
+sine, with his thoughts so full of the impending 
+European tragedy that he hardly observed that 
+as his car swung round the village street it nearly 
+passed over a little Ford coming in the opposite 
+direction. 
+
+Von Bork walked slowly back to the study 
+when the last gleams of the motor lamps had 
+
+[291] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+faded into the distance. As he passed he ob- 
+served that his old housekeeper had put out her 
+lamp and retired. It was a new experience to 
+him, the silence and darkness of his widespread 
+house, for his family and household had been a 
+large one. It was a relief to him, however, to 
+think that they were all in safety and that, but 
+for that one old woman who had lingered in the 
+kitchen, he had the whole place to himself. There 
+was a good deal of tidying up to do inside his 
+study and he set himself to do it, until his keen, 
+handsome face was flushed with the heat of the 
+burning papers. A leather valise stood beside 
+his table, and into this he began to pack very 
+neatly and systematically the precious contents 
+of his safe. He had hardly got started with the 
+work, however, when his quick ears caught the 
+sound of a distant car, Instantly he gave an ex- 
+clamation of satisfaction, strapped up the valise, 
+shut the safe, locked it, and hurried out on to the 
+terrace. He was just in time to see the lights of 
+a small car come to a halt at the gate. A pas- 
+senger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly 
+towards him, while the chauffeur, a heavily built, 
+elderly man, with a grey moustache settled down, 
+like one who resigns himself to a long vigil. 
+
+"Well?" asked Von Bork eagerly, running for- 
+ward to meet his visitor. 
+
+For answer the man waved a small brown- 
+paper parcel triumphantly above his head. 
+[292] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"You can give me the glad hand to-night, 
+Mister," he cried. "I'm bringing home the ba- 
+con at last." 
+
+"The signals?" 
+
+"Same as I said in my cable. Every last one 
+of them, semaphore, lamp code, Marconi a 
+copy, mind you, not the original. That was too 
+dangerous. But it's the real goods, and you 
+can lay to that," he slapped the German upon 
+the shoulder with a rough familiarity from which 
+the other winced. 
+
+"Come in," he said. "I'm all alone in the 
+house. I was only waiting for this. Of course 
+a copy is better than the original. If an original 
+were missing they would change the whole thing. 
+You think it's all safe about the copy?" 
+
+The Irish- American had entered the study and 
+stretched his long limbs from the armchair. He 
+was a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut fea- 
+tures and a small goatee beard which gave him 
+a general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle 
+Sam. A half -smoked, sodden cigar hung from 
+the corner of his mouth, and as he sat down he 
+struck a match and relit it. "Making ready for 
+a move?" he remarked as he looked round him. 
+"Say, Mister," he added, as his eyes fell upon 
+the safe from which the curtain was now removed, 
+"you don't tell me you keep your papers in that?" 
+
+"Why not?" 
+
+"Gosh, in a wide-open contraption like that! 
+
+[293] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+And they reckon you to be some spy. Why, a 
+Yankee crook would be into that with a can- 
+opener. If I'd known that any letter of mine 
+was goin' to lie loose in a thing like that I'd have 
+been a mug to write to you at all." 
+
+"It would puzzle any crook to force that safe," 
+Von Bork answered. "You won't cut that metal 
+with any tool." 
+
+"But the lock?" 
+
+"No, it's a, double combination lock. You 
+know what that is?" 
+
+"Search me," said the American. 
+
+"Well, you need a word as well as a set of 
+figures before you can get the lock to work." 
+He rose and showed a double-radiating disc 
+round the keyhole. "This outer one is for the 
+letters, the inner one for the figures." 
+
+"Well, well, that's fine." 
+
+"So it's not quite as simple as you thought. 
+It was four years ago that I had it made, and 
+what do you think I chose for the word and fig- 
+ures." 
+
+"It's beyond me." 
+
+"Well, I chose August for the word, and 1914 
+for the figures, and here we are." 
+
+The American's face showed his surprise and 
+admiration. 
+
+"My, but that was smart! You had it down 
+to a fine thing." 
+
+"Yes, a few of us even then could have 
+[294] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+guessed the date. Here it is, and I'm shut- 
+ting down to-morrow morning." 
+
+"Well, I guess you'll have to fix me up also. 
+I'm not staying in this goldarned country all on 
+my lonesome. In a week or less from what I see, 
+John Bull will be on his hind legs and fair ramp- 
+ing. I'd rather watch him from over the water." 
+
+"But you're an American citizen?" 
+
+"Well, so was Jack James an American citi- 
+zen, but he's doing time in Portland all the same. 
+It cuts no ice with a British copper to tell him 
+you're an American citizen. 'It's British law and 
+order over here,' says he. By the way, Mister, 
+talking of Jack James, it seems to me you don't 
+do much to cover your men." 
+
+"What do you mean?" Von Bork asked 
+sharply. 
+
+"Well, you are their employer, ain't you? It's 
+up to you to see that they don't fall down. But 
+they do fall down, and when did you ever pick 
+them up? There's James " 
+
+"It was James's own fault. You know that 
+yourself. He was too self-willed for the job." 
+
+"James was a bonehead I give you that. 
+Then there was Hollis." 
+
+"The man was mad." 
+
+"Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. 
+It's enough to make a man bughouse when he 
+has to play a part from morning to night with a 
+
+[295] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+hundred guys all ready to set the coppers wise 
+to him. But now there is Steiner 
+
+Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face 
+turned a shade paler. 
+
+"What about Steiner?" 
+
+"Well, they've got him, that's all. They 
+raided his store last night, and he and his papers 
+are all in Portsmouth gaol. You'll go off and 
+he, poor devil, will have to stand the racket, and 
+lucky if he gets off with his life. That's why I 
+want to get over the water as soon as you do." 
+
+Von Bork was a strong, self-contained man, 
+but it was easy to see that the news had shaken 
+him. 
+
+"How could they have got on to Steiner," he 
+muttered. "That's the worst blow yet." 
+
+"Well, you nearly had a worse one, for I be- 
+lieve they are not far off me." , 
+
+"You don't mean that!" 
+
+"Sure thing. My landlady down Fratton way 
+had some inquiries, and when I heard of it I 
+guessed it was time for me to hustle. But what 
+I want to know, Mister, is how the coppers know 
+these things? Steiner is the fifth man you've 
+lost since I signed on with you, and I know the 
+name of the sixth if I don't get a move on. How 
+do you explain it, and ain't you ashamed to see 
+your men go down like this?" 
+
+Von Bork flushed crimson. 
+
+"How dare you speak in such a way!" 
+[296] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"If I didn't dare things, Mister, I wouldn't 
+be in your service. But I'll tell you straight 
+what is in my mind. I've heard that with you 
+German politicians when an agent has done his 
+work you are not sorry to see him put away." 
+
+Von Bork sprang to his feet. 
+
+"Do you dare to suggest that I have given 
+away my own agents!" 
+
+"I don't stand for that, Mister, but there's 
+a stool pigeon or a cross somewhere, and it's up 
+to you to find out where it is. Anyhow I am 
+taking no more chances. It's me for little Hol- 
+land, and the sooner the better." 
+
+Von Bork had mastered his anger. 
+
+"We have been allies too long to quarrel now 
+at the very hour of victory," he said. "You've 
+done splendid work, and taken risks and I can't 
+forget it. By all means go to Holland, and you 
+can get a boat from Rotterdam to New York. 
+No other line will be safe a week from now. I'll 
+take that book and pack it with the rest." 
+
+The American held the small parcel in his 
+hand, but made no motion to give it up. 
+
+"What about the dough?" he asked. 
+
+"The what?" 
+
+"The boodle. The reward. The 500. The 
+gunner turned damned nasty at the last, and I 
+had to square him with an extra hundred dollars 
+or it would have been nitsky for you and me. 
+'Nothin' doin' 1' says he, and he meant it too, but 
+
+[297] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+the last hundred did it. It's cost me two hun- 
+dred pound from first to last, so it isn't likely I'd 
+give it up without gettin' my wad." 
+
+Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. "You 
+don't seem to have a very high opinion of my 
+honour," said he, "you want the money before 
+you give up the book." 
+
+"Well, Mister, it is a business proposition." 
+
+"All right. Have your way." He sat down 
+at the table and scribbled a cheque, which he 
+tore from the book, but he refrained from handing 
+it to his companion. "After all, since we are 
+to be on such terms, Mr. Altamont," said he, 
+"I don't see why I should trust you any more 
+than you trust me. Do you understand?" he 
+added, looking back over hisi shoulder at the 
+American. "There's the cheque upon the table. 
+I claim the right to examine that parcel before 
+you pick the money up." 
+
+The American passed it over without a word. 
+Von Bork undid a winding of string and two 
+wrappers of paper. Then he sat gazing for a 
+moment in silent amazement at a small blue book 
+which lay before him. Across the cover was 
+printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of 
+Bee Culture. Only for one instant did the mas- 
+ter spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscrip- 
+tion. The next he was gripped at the back of 
+his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed 
+sponge was held in front of his writhing face. 
+[298] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Another glass, Watson 1" said Mr. Sherlock 
+Holmes, as he extended the bottle of Imperial 
+Tokay. 
+
+The thickset chauffeur, who had seated him- 
+self by the table, pushed forward his glass with 
+some eagerness. 
+
+"It is a good wine, Holmes." 
+
+"A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend 
+upon the sofa has assured me that it is from 
+Franz Joseph's special cellar at the Schoen- 
+brunn Palace. Might I trouble you to open the 
+window, for chloroform vapour does not help the 
+palate." 
+
+The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in 
+front of it was removing dossier after dossier, 
+swiftly examining each, and then packing it 
+neatly in Von Bork's valise. The German lay 
+upon the sofa sleeping stertorously with a strap 
+round his upper arms and another round his legs. 
+
+"We need not hurry ourselves, Watson. We 
+are safe from interruption. Would you mind 
+touching the bell. There is no one in the house 
+except old Martha who has played her part to 
+admiration. I got her the situation here when 
+first I took the matter up. Ah, Martha, you 
+will be glad to hear that all is well." 
+
+The pleasant old lady had appeared in the 
+doorway. She curtseyed with a smile to Mr. 
+Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension 
+at the figure upon the sofa. 
+
+[299] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"It is all right, Martha. He has not been 
+hurt at all." 
+
+"I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to 
+his lights he has been a kind master. He wanted 
+me to go with his wife to Germany yesterday, 
+but that would hardly have suited your plans, 
+would it, sir?" 
+
+"No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were 
+here I was easy in my mind. We waited some 
+time for your signal to-night." 
+
+"It was the secretary, sir." 
+
+"I know. His car passed ours." 
+
+"I thought he would never go. I knew that 
+it would not suit your plans, sir, to find him 
+here." 
+
+"No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we 
+waited half an hour or so until I saw your lamp 
+go out and knew that the coast was clear. You 
+can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, 
+at Claridge's Hotel." 
+
+"Very good, sir." 
+
+"I suppose you have everything ready to 
+leave." 
+
+"Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. 
+I have the addresses as usual." 
+
+"Very good, Martha. I will look into them 
+to-morrow. Good-night. These papers," he 
+continued, as the old lady vanished, "are not of 
+very great importance for, of course, the infor- 
+mation which they represent has been sent off 
+[300] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+long ago to the German Govenment. These are 
+the originals which could not safely be got out 
+of the country." 
+
+"Then they are of no use." 
+
+"I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. 
+They will at least show our people what is known 
+arid what is not. I may say that a good many of 
+these papers have come through me, and I need 
+not add are thoroughly untrustworthy. It 
+would brighten my declining years to see a Ger- 
+man cruiser navigating the Solent according to 
+the minefield plans which I have furnished. But 
+you, Watson," he stopped his work and took his 
+old friend by the shoulders, "I've hardly seen you 
+in the light yet. How have the years used you? 
+You look the same blithe boy as ever." 
+
+"I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I 
+have seldom felt so happy as when I got your 
+wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the 
+car. But you, Holmes you have changed very 
+little save for that horrible goatee." 
+
+"These are the sacrifices one makes for one's 
+country, Watson," said Holmes, pulling at his 
+little tuft. "To-morrow it will be but a dread- 
+ful memory. With my hair cut and a few other 
+superficial changes I shall no doubt reappear at 
+Claridge's to-morrow as I was before this Amer- 
+ican stunt I beg your pardon, Watson, my well 
+of English seems to be permanently defiled be- 
+fore this American job came my way." 
+
+[301] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"But you had retired, Holmes. We heard of 
+you as living the life of a hermit among your 
+bees and your books in a small farm upon the 
+South Downs." 
+
+"Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my 
+leisured ease, the magnum opus of my latter 
+years!" He picked up the volume from the ta- 
+ble and read out the whole title, Practical Hand- 
+book of Bee Culture, with some Observations 
+upon the Segregation of the Queen. Alone I 
+did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and 
+laborious days, when I watched the little working 
+gangs as once I watched the criminal world of 
+London." 
+
+"But how did you get to work again?" 
+
+"Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The 
+Foreign Minister alone I could have withstood, 
+but when the Premier also deigned to visit my 
+
+humble roof ! The fact is, Watson, that 
+
+this gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too good 
+for our people. He was in a class by himself. 
+Things were going wrong, and no one could un- 
+derstand why they were going wrong. Agents 
+were suspected or even caught, but there was evi- 
+dence of some strong and secret central force. It 
+was absolutely necessary to expose it. Strong 
+pressure was brought upon me to look into the 
+matter. It has cost me two years, Watson, but 
+they have not been devoid of excitement. When 
+I say that I started my pilgrimage at Chicago, 
+[302] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, 
+gave serious trouble to the constabulary at 
+Skibbareen and so eventually caught the eye of 
+a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who recom- 
+mended me as a likely man, you will realise that 
+the matter was complex. Since then I have been 
+honoured by his confidence, which has not pre- 
+vented most of his plans going subtly wrong and 
+five of his best agents being in prison. I 
+watched them, Watson, and I picked them as 
+they ripened. Well, sir, I hope that you are 
+none the worse 1" 
+
+The last remark was addressed to Von Bork 
+himself, who after much gasping and blinking 
+had lain quietly listening to Holmes's statement. 
+He broke out now into a furious stream of Ger- 
+man invective, his face convulsed with passion. 
+Holmes continued his swift investigation of docu- 
+ments while his prisoner cursed and swore. 
+
+"Though unmusical, German is the most; ex- 
+pressive of all languages," he observed, when 
+Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. 
+"Hullo! Hullo!" he added, as he looked hard at 
+the corner of a tracing before putting it in the 
+box. "This should put another bird in the cage. 
+I had no idea that the paymaster was such a 
+rascal, though I have long had an eye upon him. 
+Mister Von Bork, you have a great deal to an- 
+swer for." 
+
+The prisoner had raised himself with some diffi- 
+
+[303] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+culty upon the sofa and was staring with a strange 
+mixture of amazement and hatred at his captor. 
+
+"I shall get level with you, Altamont," he 
+said, speaking with slow deliberation, "if it takes 
+me all my life I shall get level with you!" 
+
+"The old sweet song," said Holmes. "How 
+often have I heard it in days gone by. It was 
+a favourite ditty of the late lamented Professor 
+Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also 
+been known to warble it. And yet I live and 
+keep bees upon the South Downs." 
+
+"Curse you, yoii( double traitor!" cried the 
+German, straining against his bonds and glaring 
+murder from his furious eyes. 
+
+"No, no, it is not so bad as that," said Holmes, 
+smiling. "As my speech surely shows you, Mr. 
+Altamont of Chicago had no existence in fact. 
+I used him and he is gone." 
+
+"Then who are you?" 
+
+"It is really immaterial who I am, but since 
+the matter seems to interest you, Mr. Von Bork, 
+I may say that this is not my first acquaintance 
+with the members of your family. I have done 
+a good deal of business in Germany in the past 
+and my name is probably familiar to you." 
+
+"I would wish to know it," said the Prussian 
+grimly. 
+
+"It was I who brought about the separation 
+between Irene Adler and the late King of Bo- 
+hemia when your cousin Heinrich was the Im- 
+[304] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+perial Envoy. It was I also who saved from 
+murder, by the Nihilist Klopman, Count Von 
+und Zu Grafenstein, who was your mother's 
+elder brother. It was I " 
+
+Von Bork sat up in amazement. 
+
+"There is only one man," he cried. 
+
+"Exactly," said Holmes. 
+
+Von Bork groaned and sank back on the sofa. 
+"And most of that information came through 
+you," he cried. "What is it worth? What 
+have I done? It is my ruin for ever!" 
+
+"It is certainly a little untrustworthy," said 
+Holmes. "It will require some checking and 
+you have little time to check it. Your admiral 
+may find the new guns rather larger than he ex- 
+pects, and the cruisers perhaps a trifle faster." 
+
+Von Bork clutched at his own throat in de- 
+spair. 
+
+"There are a good many other points of de- 
+tail which will, no doubt, come to light in good 
+time. But you have one quality which is very 
+rare in a German, Mr. Von Bork, you are a 
+sportsman and you will bear me no ill-will when 
+you realise that you, who have outwitted so many 
+other people, have at last been outwitted your- 
+self. After all, you have done your best for 
+your country, and I have done my best for mine, 
+and what could be more natural? Besides," he 
+added, not unkindly, as he laid his hand upon the 
+shoulder of the prostrate man, "it is better than 
+
+[305] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+to fall before some more ignoble foe. These pa- 
+pers are now ready, Watson. If you will help 
+me with our prisoner, I think that we may get 
+started for London at once." 
+
+It was no easy task to move Von Bork, for 
+he was a strong and a desperate man. Finally, 
+holding either arm, the two friends walked him 
+very slowly down the garden walk which he had 
+trod with such proud confidence when he re- 
+ceived the congratulations of the famous diplo- 
+matist only a few hours before. After a short, 
+final struggle he was hoisted, still bound hand 
+and foot, into the spare seat of the little car. 
+His precious valise was wedged in beside him. 
+
+"I trust that you are as comfortable as circum- 
+stances permit," said Holmes, when the final 
+arrangements were made. "Should I be guilty 
+of a liberty if I lit a cigar and placed it between 
+your lips?" 
+
+But all amenities were wasted upon the angry 
+German. 
+
+"I suppose you realise, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," 
+said he, "that if your Government bears you 
+out in this treatment it becomes an act of war." 
+
+"What about your Government and all this 
+treatment?" said Holmes, tapping the valise. 
+
+"You are a private individual. You have no 
+warrant for my arrest. The whole proceeding 
+is absolutely illegal and outrageous." 
+
+"Absolutely," said Holmes. 
+[306] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+"Kidnapping a German subject." 
+"And stealing his private papers." 
+"Well, you realise your position, you and your 
+accomplice here. If I were to shout for help 
+
+as we pass through the village " 
+
+"My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish 
+you would probably enlarge the two limited titles 
+of our village inns by giving us 'The Dangling 
+Prussian' as a sign-post. The Englishman is a 
+patient creature, but at present his temper is a 
+little inflamed and it would be as well not to try 
+him too far. No, Mr. Von Bork, you will go 
+with us in a quiet, sensible fashion to Scotland 
+Yard, whence you can send for your friend, 
+Baron Von Herling, and see if even now you may 
+not fill that place which he has reserved for you in 
+the ambassadorial suite. As to you, Watson, 
+you are joining us with your old service, as I 
+understand, so London won't be out of your way. 
+Stand with me here upon the terrace for it may 
+be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have." 
+
+The two friends chatted in intimate converse 
+for a few minutes, recalling once again the days 
+of the past whilst their prisoner vainly wriggled 
+to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned 
+to the car, Holmes pointed back to the moonlit 
+sea, and shook a thoughtful head. 
+
+"There's an east wind coming, Watson." 
+"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.'* 
+"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed 
+
+[307] 
+
+
+
+HIS LAST BOW 
+
+
+
+point in a changing age. There's an east wind 
+coming all the same, such a wind as never blew 
+on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Wat- 
+son, and a good many of us may wither before 
+its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, 
+and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the 
+sunshine when the storm has cleared. Start her 
+up, Watson, for it's time that we were on our 
+way. I have a cheque for five hundred pounds 
+which should be cashed early, for the drawer is 
+quite capable of stopping it, if he can." 
+
+
+
+THE END 
+
+
+
+[308] 
+
+
+
+D ec . 
+
+
+
+
+UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
+
+
+
+A 000026329 3 
diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/introductiontojavaprogramming b/files/books/unrelated/introductiontojavaprogramming
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/introductiontojavaprogramming
@@ -0,0 +1,52534 @@
+INTRODUCTION TO 
+
+Programming 
+
+in Java - 
+
+
+
+
+An Interdisciplinary Approach 
+
+Robert Sedgewick Kevin Wayne 
+
+
+
+
+
+Introduction 
+
+to 
+
+Programming in Java 
+
+
+
+Introduction 
+
+to 
+
+Programming in Java 
+
+An Interdisciplinary Approach 
+
+
+Robert Sedgewick 
+and 
+
+Kevin Wayne 
+
+
+Princeton University 
+
+
+▲ 
+
+TT 
+
+
+PEARSON 
+
+Addison 
+
+Wesley 
+
+
+Boston San Francisco New York 
+London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Madrid 
+Mexico City Munich Paris Cape Town Hong Kong Montreal 
+
+
+Publisher 
+Executive Editor 
+Associate Editor 
+Associate Managing Editor 
+Senior Designer 
+Digital Assets Manager 
+Senior Media Producer 
+Senior Marketing Manager 
+Marketing Assistant 
+Senior Author Support/ 
+Technology Specialist 
+Senior Manufacturing Buyer 
+Copyeditor 
+
+Composition and Illustrations 
+
+
+Greg Tobin 
+Michael Hirsch 
+Lindsey Triebel 
+Jeffrey Holcomb 
+Joyce Cosentino Wells 
+Marianne Groth 
+Bethany Tidd 
+Michelle Brown 
+Sarah Milmore 
+
+Joe Vetere 
+
+Carol Melville 
+
+Genevieve d’Entremont 
+
+Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne 
+
+
+Cover Image: © Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne 
+
+Page 353 © 2006 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Banque d’ Images, ADAGP / Art 
+Resource, NY 
+
+Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trade- 
+marks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Addison- Wesley was aware of a trademark claim, the 
+designations have been printed in initial caps or all caps. 
+
+The interior of this book was composed in Adobe InDesign. 
+
+
+Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
+
+
+Sedgewick, Robert, 1946- 
+
+Introduction to programming in Java : an interdisciplinary approach / by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne, 
+p. cm. 
+
+Includes index. 
+
+ISBN 978-0-321-49805-2 (alk. paper) 
+
+1. Java (Computer program language) 2. Computer programming. I. Wayne, Kevin Daniel, 1971- II. Title. 
+QA76.73.J38S413 2007 
+005.13’3— dc22 
+
+2007020235 
+
+
+Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, 
+stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 
+recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of 
+America. For information on obtaining permission for use of material in this work, please submit a written request 
+to Pearson Education, Inc., Rights and Contracts Department, 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA 02116, 
+fax (617) 671-3447, or online at http : //www . pearsoned . com/1 egal /permi ssi ons . htm. 
+
+
+ISBN-13: 978-0-321-49805-2 
+ISBN-10: 0-321-49805-4 
+
+
+123456789 10— CRW— 11 10 09 08 07 
+
+
+
+
+T he basis for education in the last millennium was “reading, writing, and arith- 
+metic;” now it is reading, writing, and computing. Learning to program is an 
+essential part of the education of every student in the sciences and engineering. 
+Beyond direct applications, it is the first step in understanding the nature of com- 
+puter science’s undeniable impact on the modern world. This book aims to teach 
+programming to those who need or want to learn it, in a scientific context. 
+
+Our primary goal is to empower students by supplying the experience and 
+basic tools necessary to use computation effectively. Our approach is to teach stu- 
+dents that writing a program is a natural, satisfying, and creative experience (not 
+an onerous task reserved for experts). We progressively introduce essential con- 
+cepts, embrace classic applications from applied mathematics and the sciences to 
+illustrate the concepts, and provide opportunities for students to write programs 
+to solve engaging problems. 
+
+We use the Java programming language for all of the programs in this book — 
+we refer to Java after programming in the title to emphasize the idea that the book 
+is about fundamental concepts in programming, not Java per se. This book teaches 
+basic skills for computational problem-solving that are applicable in many modern 
+computing environments, and is a self-contained treatment intended for people 
+with no previous experience in programming. 
+
+This book is an interdisciplinary approach to the traditional CS1 curriculum, 
+where we highlight the role of computing in other disciplines, from materials sci- 
+ence to genomics to astrophysics to network systems. This approach emphasizes 
+for students the essential idea that mathematics, science, engineering, and com- 
+puting are intertwined in the modern world. While it is a CS1 textbook designed 
+for any first-year college student interested in mathematics, science, or engineer- 
+ing (including computer science), the book also can be used for self-study or as a 
+supplement in a course that integrates programming with another field. 
+
+
+v 
+
+
+Coverage The book is organized around four stages of learning to program: ba- 
+sic elements, functions, object-oriented programming, and algorithms (with data 
+structures). We provide the basic information readers need to build confidence in 
+writing programs at each level before moving to the next level. An essential feature 
+of our approach is to use example programs that solve intriguing problems, sup- 
+ported with exercises ranging from self-study drills to challenging problems that 
+call for creative solutions. 
+
+Basic elements include variables, assignment statements, built-in types of 
+data, flow of control (conditionals and loops), arrays, and input/output, including 
+graphics and sound. 
+
+Functions and modules are the student’s first exposure to modular program- 
+ming. We build upon familiarity with mathematical functions to introduce Java 
+static methods, and then consider the implications of programming with func- 
+tions, including libraries of functions and recursion. We stress the fundamental 
+idea of dividing a program into components that can be independently debugged, 
+maintained, and reused. 
+
+Object-oriented programming is our introduction to data abstraction. We em- 
+phasize the concepts of a data type (a set of values and a set of operations on them) 
+and an object (an entity that holds a data-type value) and their implementation 
+using Java’s class mechanism. We teach students how to use, create, and design data 
+types. Modularity, encapsulation, and other modern programming paradigms are 
+the central concepts of this stage. 
+
+Algorithms and data structures combine these modern programming para- 
+digms with classic methods of organizing and processing data that remain effec- 
+tive for modern applications. We provide an introduction to classical algorithms 
+for sorting and searching as well as fundamental data structures (including stacks, 
+queues, and symbol tables) and their application, emphasizing the use of the scien- 
+tific method to understand performance characteristics of implementations. 
+
+Applications in science and engineering are a key feature of the text. We moti- 
+vate each programming concept that we address by examining its impact on spe- 
+cific applications. We draw examples from applied mathematics, the physical and 
+biological sciences, and computer science itself, and include simulation of physical 
+systems, numerical methods, data visualization, sound synthesis, image process- 
+ing, financial simulation, and information technology. Specific examples include a 
+treatment in the first chapter of Markov chains for web page ranks and case stud- 
+ies that address the percolation problem, N-body simulation, and the small-world 
+
+
+
+phenomenon. These applications are an integral part of the text. They engage stu- 
+dents in the material, illustrate the importance of the programming concepts, and 
+provide persuasive evidence of the critical role played by computation in modern 
+science and engineering. 
+
+Our primary goal is to teach the specific mechanisms and skills that are need- 
+ed to develop effective solutions to any programming problem. We work with com- 
+plete Java programs and encourage readers to use them. We focus on programming 
+by individuals, not library programming or programming in the large (which we 
+treat briefly in an appendix). 
+
+Use in the Curriculum This book is intended for a first-year college course 
+aimed at teaching novices to program in the context of scientific applications. 
+Taught from this book, prospective majors in any area of science and engineering 
+will learn to program in a familiar context. Students completing a course based on 
+this book will be well-prepared to apply their skills in later courses in science and 
+engineering and to recognize when further education in computer science might 
+be beneficial. 
+
+Prospective computer science majors, in particular, can benefit from learning 
+to program in the context of scientific applications. A computer scientist needs the 
+same basic background in the scientific method and the same exposure to the role 
+of computation in science as does a biologist, an engineer, or a physicist. 
+
+Indeed, our interdisciplinary approach enables colleges and universities to 
+teach prospective computer science majors and prospective majors in other fields 
+of science and engineering in the same course. We cover the material prescribed by 
+CS1, but our focus on applications brings life to the concepts and motivates stu- 
+dents to learn them. Our interdisciplinary approach exposes students to problems 
+in many different disciplines, helping them to more wisely choose a major. 
+
+Whatever the specific mechanism, the use of this book is best positioned early 
+in the curriculum. First, this positioning allows us to leverage familiar material 
+in high school mathematics and science. Second, students who learn to program 
+early in their college curriculum will then be able to use computers more effectively 
+when moving on to courses in their specialty. Like reading and writing, program- 
+ming is certain to be an essential skill for any scientist or engineer. Students who 
+have grasped the concepts in this book will continually develop that skill through a 
+lifetime, reaping the benefits of exploiting computation to solve or to better under- 
+stand the problems and projects that arise in their chosen field. 
+
+
+
+Prerequisites This book is meant to be suitable for typical science and engi- 
+neering students in their first year of college. That is, we do not expect preparation 
+beyond what is typically required for other entry-level science and mathematics 
+courses. 
+
+Mathematical maturity is important. While we do not dwell on mathematical ma- 
+terial, we do refer to the mathematics curriculum that students have taken in high 
+school, including algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Most students in our target 
+audience (those intending to major in the sciences and engineering) automatically 
+meet these requirements. Indeed, we take advantage of their familiarity with the 
+basic curriculum to introduce basic programming concepts. 
+
+Scientific curiosity is also an essential ingredient. Science and engineering students 
+bring with them a sense of fascination in the ability of scientific inquiry to help ex- 
+plain what goes on in nature. We leverage this predilection with examples of simple 
+programs that speak volumes about the natural world. We do not assume any spe- 
+cific knowledge beyond that provided by typical high school courses in mathemat- 
+ics, physics, biology, or chemistry. 
+
+Programming experience is not necessary, but also is not harmful. Teaching pro- 
+gramming is our primary goal, so we assume no prior programming experience. 
+But writing a program to solve a new problem is a challenging intellectual task, so 
+students who have written numerous programs in high school can benefit from 
+taking an introductory programming course based on this book (just as students 
+who have written numerous essays in high school can benefit from an introductory 
+writing course in college). The book can support teaching students with varying 
+backgrounds because the applications appeal to both novices and experts alike. 
+
+Experience using a computer is also not necessary, but also is not at all a problem. 
+College students use computers regularly, to communicate with friends and rela- 
+tives, listen to music, process photos, and many other activities. The realization that 
+they can harness the power of their own computer in interesting and important 
+ways is an exciting and lasting lesson. 
+
+In summary, virtually all students in science and engineering are prepared to take a 
+course based on this book as a part of their first-semester curriculum. 
+
+
+
+Goals What can instructors of upper-level courses in science and engineering 
+expect of students who have completed a course based on this book? 
+
+We cover the CS1 curriculum, but anyone who has taught an introductory 
+programming course knows that expectations of instructors in later courses are 
+typically high: each instructor expects all students to be familiar with the computing 
+environment and approach that he or she wants to use. A physics professor might 
+expect some students to design a program over the weekend to run a simulation; an 
+engineering professor might expect other students to be using a particular package 
+to numerically solve differential equations; or a computer science professor might 
+expect knowledge of the details of a particular programming environment. Is it 
+realistic to meet such diverse expectations? Should there be a different introductory 
+course for each set of students? Colleges and universities have been wrestling with 
+such questions since computers came into widespread use in the latter part of the 
+20th century. Our answer to them is found in this common introductory treatment 
+of programming, which is analogous to commonly accepted introductory courses 
+in mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry. An Introduction to Programming 
+strives to provide the basic preparation needed by all students in science and en- 
+gineering, while sending the clear message that there is much more to understand 
+about computer science than programming. Instructors teaching students who 
+have studied from this book can expect that they have the knowledge and experi- 
+ence necessary to enable them to adapt to new computational environments and to 
+effectively exploit computers in diverse applications. 
+
+What can students who have completed a course based on this book expect to ac- 
+complish in later courses? 
+
+Our message is that programming is not difficult to learn and that harness- 
+ing the power of the computer is rewarding. Students who master the material in 
+this book are prepared to address computational challenges wherever they might 
+appear later in their careers. They learn that modern programming environments, 
+such as the one provided by Java, help open the door to any computational prob- 
+lem they might encounter later, and they gain the confidence to learn, evaluate, 
+and use other computational tools. Students interested in computer science will be 
+well-prepared to pursue that interest; students in science and engineering will be 
+ready to integrate computation into their studies. 
+
+
+
+Booksite An extensive amount of information that supplements this text may 
+be found on the web at 
+
+http : //www . cs . pri nceton . edu/IntroProg rammi ng 
+
+For economy, we refer to this site as the booksite throughout. It contains material 
+for instructors, students, and casual readers of the book. We briefly describe this 
+material here, though, as all web users know, it is best surveyed by browsing. With a 
+few exceptions to support testing, the material is all publicly available. 
+
+One of the most important implications of the booksite is that it empow- 
+ers instructors and students to use their own computers to teach and learn the 
+material. Anyone with a computer and a browser can begin learning to program 
+by following a few instructions on the booksite. The process is no more difficult 
+than downloading a media player or a song. As with any website, our booksite is 
+continually evolving. It is an essential resource for everyone who owns this book. In 
+particular, the supplemental materials are critical to our goal of making computer 
+science an integral component of the education of all scientists and engineers. 
+
+For instructors, the booksite contains information about teaching. This in- 
+formation is primarily organized around a teaching style that we have developed 
+over the past decade, where we offer two lectures per week to a large audience, 
+supplemented by two class sessions per week where students meet in small groups 
+with instructors or teaching assistants. The booksite has presentation slides for the 
+lectures, which set the tone. 
+
+For teaching assistants, the booksite contains detailed problem sets and pro- 
+gramming projects, which are based on exercises from the book but contain much 
+more detail. Each programming assignment is intended to teach a relevant concept 
+in the context of an interesting application while presenting an inviting and engag- 
+ing challenge to each student. The progression of assignments embodies our ap- 
+proach to teaching programming. The booksite fully specifies all the assignments 
+and provides detailed, structured information to help students complete them in 
+the allotted time, including descriptions of suggested approaches and outlines for 
+what should be taught in class sessions. 
+
+For students, the booksite contains quick access to much of the material in the 
+book, including source code, plus extra material to encourage self-learning. Solu- 
+tions are provided for many of the book’s exercises, including complete program 
+code and test data. There is a wealth of information associated with programming 
+assignments, including suggested approaches, checklists, FAQs, and test data. 
+
+
+x 
+
+
+
+For casual readers (including instructors, teaching assistants, and students!), 
+the booksite is a resource for accessing all manner of extra information associated 
+with the book’s content. All of the booksite content provides web links and other 
+routes to pursue more information about the topic under consideration. There is 
+far more information accessible than any individual could fully digest, but our goal 
+is to provide enough to whet any reader’s appetite for more information about the 
+book’s content. 
+
+Acknowledgements This project has been under development since 1992, so 
+far too many people have contributed to its success for us to acknowledge them 
+all here. Special thanks are due to Anne Rogers for helping to start the ball rolling; 
+to Dave Hanson, Andrew Appel, and Chris van Wyk, for their patience in explain- 
+ing data abstraction; and to Lisa Worthington, for being the first to truly relish 
+the challenge of teaching this material to first-year students. We also gratefully ac- 
+knowledge the efforts of /dev/126 (the summer students who have contributed 
+so much of the content); the faculty, graduate students, and teaching staff who 
+have dedicated themselves to teaching this material over the past 15 years here at 
+Princeton; and the thousands of undergraduates who have dedicated themselves to 
+learning it. 
+
+
+Robert Sedgewick 
+Madeira, Portugal 
+
+Kevin Wayne 
+
+San Francisco, California 
+
+
+July, 2007 
+
+
+
+
+Preface 1/ 
+
+Elements of Programming 3 
+
+1.1 Your First Program 4 
+
+1 .2 Built-in Types of Data 1 4 
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 46 
+
+1.4 Arrays 86 
+
+1.5 Input and Output 120 
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 162 
+
+Functions and Modules 183 
+
+2.1 Static Methods 184 
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 218 
+
+2.3 Recursion 254 
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 286 
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 315 
+
+3.1 Data Types 316 
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 370 
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 416 
+
+3.4 Case Study: Al-body Simulation 456 
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 471 
+
+4.1 Performance 472 
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 510 
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 550 
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 608 
+
+4.5 Case Study: Small World 650 
+
+Context 695 
+
+Index 699 
+
+
+
+
+1.1 Your First Program 4 
+
+1 .2 Built-in Types of Data 14 
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 46 
+
+1.4 Arrays 86 
+
+1.5 Input and Output 120 
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer. . . 162 
+
+
+O ur goal in this chapter is to convince you that writing a program is easier than 
+writing a piece of text, such as a paragraph or essay. Writing prose is difficult: 
+we spend many years in school to learn how to do it. By contrast, just a few building 
+blocks suffice to enable us to write programs that can help solve all sorts of fascinat- 
+ing, but otherwise unapproachable, problems. In this chapter, we take you through 
+these building blocks, get you started on programming in Java, and study a variety 
+of interesting programs. You will be able to express yourself (by writing programs) 
+within just a few weeks. Like the ability to write prose, the ability to program is a 
+lifetime skill that you can continually refine well into the future. 
+
+In this book, you will learn the Java programming language. This task will be 
+much easier for you than, for example, learning a foreign language. Indeed, pro- 
+gramming languages are characterized by no more than a few dozen vocabulary 
+words and rules of grammar. Much of the material that we cover in this book could 
+be expressed in the C or C++ languages, or any of several other modern program- 
+ming languages. But we describe everything specifically in Java so that you can get 
+started creating and running programs right away. On the one hand, we will focus 
+on learning to program, as opposed to learning details about Java. On the other 
+hand, part of the challenge of programming is knowing which details are relevant 
+in a given situation. Java is widely used, so learning to program in this language will 
+enable you to write programs on many computers (your own, for example). Also, 
+learning to program in Java will make it easy for you learn other languages, includ- 
+ing lower-level languages such as C and specialized languages such as Matlab. 
+
+
+3 
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1 . 1 Your First Program 
+
+In this section, our plan is to lead you into the world of Java programming by tak- 
+ing you through the basic steps required to get a simple program running. The Java 
+system is a collection of applications, not unlike many of the other applications 
+that you are accustomed to using (such 
+
+as your word processor, email program, 1U Hello, World 6 
+
+and internet browser). As with any ap- u.2 Using a command-line argument . . 8 
+
+plication, you need to be sure that Java Programs in this section 
+
+is properly installed on your computer. It 
+comes preloaded on many computers, or 
+
+you can download it easily. You also need a text editor and a terminal application. 
+Your first task is to find the instructions for installing such a Java programming 
+environment on your computer by visiting 
+
+http : //www. cs . pri nceton . edu/IntroProgrammi ng 
+
+We refer to this site as the booksite. It contains an extensive amount of supplemen- 
+tary information about the material in this book for your reference and use. You 
+will find it useful to have your browser open to this site while programming. 
+
+Programming in Java To introduce you to developing Java programs, we 
+break the process down into three steps. To program in Java, you need to: 
+
+• Create a program by typing it into a file named, say, MyCode . j ava. 
+
+• Compile it by typing j avac MyCode . j ava in a terminal window. 
+
+• Run (or execute ) it by typing java MyCode in the terminal window. 
+
+In the first step, you start with a blank screen and end with a sequence of typed 
+characters on the screen, just as when you write an email message or a paper. Pro- 
+grammers use the term code to refer to program text and the term coding to refer 
+to the act of creating and editing the code. In the second step, you use a system ap- 
+plication that compiles your program (translates it into a form more suitable for the 
+computer) and puts the result in a file named MyCode . cl ass. In the third step, you 
+transfer control of the computer from the system to your program (which returns 
+control back to the system when finished). Many systems have several different 
+ways to create, compile, and execute programs. We choose the sequence described 
+here because it is the simplest to describe and use for simple programs. 
+
+
+/ . / Your First Program 
+
+
+Creating a program. A Java program is nothing more than a sequence of charac- 
+ters, like a paragraph or a poem, stored in a file with a .java extension. To create 
+one, therefore, you need only define that sequence of characters, in the same way 
+as you do for email or any other computer application. You can use any text editor 
+for this task, or you can use one of the more sophisticated program development 
+environments described on the booksite. Such environments are overkill for the 
+sorts of programs we consider in this book, but they are not difficult to use, have 
+many useful features, and are widely used by professionals. 
+
+Compiling a program. At first, it might seem that Java is designed to be best un- 
+derstood by the computer. To the contrary, the language is designed to be best un- 
+derstood by the programmer (that’s you). The computer’s language is far more 
+primitive than Java. A compiler is an application that translates a program from the 
+Java language to a language more suitable for executing on the computer. The com- 
+piler takes a file with a .java extension as input (your program) and produces a 
+file with the same name but with a . cl ass extension (the computer-language ver- 
+sion). To use your Java compiler, type in a terminal window the javac command 
+followed by the file name of the program you want to compile. 
+
+Executing a program. Once you compile the program, you can run it. This is the 
+exciting part, where your program takes control of your computer (within the con- 
+straints of what the Java system allows). It is perhaps more accurate to say that your 
+computer follows your instructions. It is even more accurate to say that a part of 
+the Java system known as the Java Virtual Machine (the JVM, for short) directs your 
+computer to follow your instructions. To use the JVM to execute your program, 
+type the j ava command followed by the program name in a terminal window. 
+
+
+use any text editor to type javac HelloWo rid. java type java Hell 0W0 rid 
+
+create your program to compile your program to execute your program 
+
+
+
+Developing a Java program 
+
+
+
+
+
+6 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Program 1.1.1 Hello, World 
+
+public class HelloWorld 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+System. out. print("Hello, World") ; 
+System. out. printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This code is a Java program that accomplishes a simple task. It is traditionally a beginner’s first 
+program. The box below shows what happens when you compile and execute the program. The 
+terminal application gives a command prompt (% in this book) and executes the commands 
+that you type ( j avac and then java in the example below). The result in this case is that the 
+program prints a message in the terminal window (the third line). 
+
+
+
+
+
+% javac HelloWorld. java 
+% java HelloWorld 
+Hello, World 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.1.1 is an example of a complete Java program. Its name is He! 1 oWorl d, 
+which means that its code resides in a file named Hell oWo r 1 d . j ava (by convention 
+in Java). The program’s sole action is to print a message back to the terminal win- 
+dow. For continuity, we will use some standard Java terms to describe the program, 
+but we will not define them until later in the book: Program 1.1.1 consists of a single 
+class named Hel 1 oWorl d that has a single method named mai n () . This method uses 
+two other methods named System. out. print () and System. out. printlnO to 
+do the job. (When referring to a method in the text, we use () after the name to 
+distinguish it from other kinds of names.) Until Section 2.1, where we learn about 
+classes that define multiple methods, all of our classes will have this same structure. 
+For the time being, you can think of “class” as meaning “program.” 
+
+The first line of a method specifies its name and other information; the rest is 
+a sequence of statements enclosed in braces and each followed by a semicolon. For 
+the time being, you can think of “programming” as meaning “specifying a class 
+
+
+/ . / Your First Program 
+
+
+7 
+
+
+name and a sequence of statements for its main() method.” In the next two sec- 
+tions, you will learn many different kinds of statements that you can use to make 
+programs. For the moment, we will just use statements for printing to the terminal 
+like the ones in Hel 1 oWorl d. 
+
+When you type java followed by a 
+class name in your terminal application, the 
+system calls the mainO method that you 
+defined in that class, and executes its state- 
+ments in order, one by one. Thus, typing 
+java Hell 0 W 0 rid causes the system to call 
+on the mai n () method in Program 1.1.1 and 
+execute its two statements. The first state- 
+ment calls on System . out .print () to print 
+in the terminal window the message be- 
+tween the quotation marks, and the second 
+statement calls on System. out. printlnO 
+to terminate the line. 
+
+Since the 1970s, it has been a tradition that a beginning programmer’s first 
+program should print "Hello, World". So, you should type the code in Program 
+1.1.1 into a file, compile it, and execute it. By doing so, you will be following in the 
+footsteps of countless others who have learned how to program. Also, you will be 
+checking that you have a usable editor and terminal application. At first, accom- 
+plishing the task of printing something out in a terminal window might not seem 
+very interesting; upon reflection, however, you will see that one of the most basic 
+functions that we need from a program is its ability to tell us what it is doing. 
+
+For the time being, all our program code will be just like Program 1 . 1 . 1 , ex- 
+cept with a different sequence of statements in mainO. Thus, you do not need to 
+start with a blank page to write a program. Instead, you can 
+
+• Copy Hell oWorl d . j ava into a new file having a new program name of 
+your choice, followed by . j ava. 
+
+• Replace Hel 1 oWorl d on the first line with the new program name. 
+
+• Replace the System. out. print O and System. out. printlnO statements 
+with a different sequence of statements (each ending with a semicolon). 
+
+Your program is characterized by its sequence of statements and its name. Each 
+Java program must reside in a file whose name matches the one after the word 
+cl ass on the first line, and it also must have a . java extension. 
+
+
+text file named Hell oWorl d. java 
+
+
+
+body 
+
+Anatomy of a program 
+
+
+
+
+
+8 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.1.2 Using a command-line argument 
+
+public class UseArgument 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+System. out. print("Hi , "); 
+
+System. out. pri nt(args[0]) ; 
+
+System. out. printlnC". How are you?"); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This program shows the way in which we can control the actions of our programs: by providing 
+an argument on the command line. Doing so allows us to tailor the behavior of our programs. 
+
+
+% javac UseArgument. java 
+j % java UseArgument Alice 
+Hi , Alice. How are you? 
+% java UseArgument Bob 
+Hi, Bob. How are you? 
+
+
+Errors. It is easy to blur the distinction among editing, compiling, and executing 
+programs. You should keep them separate in your mind when you are learning to 
+program, to better understand the effects of the errors that inevitably arise. You 
+can find several examples of errors in the Q&A at the end of this section. You can 
+fix or avoid most errors by carefully examining the program as you create it, the 
+same way you fix spelling and grammatical errors when you compose an email 
+message. Some errors, known as compile-time errors, are caught when you compile 
+the program, because they prevent the compiler from doing the translation. Other 
+errors, known as run-time errors, do not show up until you execute the program. 
+In general, errors in programs, also commonly known as bugs, are the bane of a 
+programmer’s existence: the error messages can be confusing or misleading, and 
+the source of the error can be very hard to find. One of the first skills that you will 
+learn is to identify errors; you will also learn to be sufficiently careful when coding, 
+to avoid making many of them in the first place. 
+
+
+
+1 . 1 Your First Program 
+
+
+9 
+
+
+Impuat and Owtpuat Typically, we want to provide input to our programs: data 
+that they can process to produce a result. The simplest way to provide input data is 
+illustrated in UseArgument (Program 1.1.2). Whenever UseArgument is executed, 
+it reads the command-line argument that you type after the program name and 
+prints it back out to the terminal as part of the message. The result of executing 
+this program depends on what we type after the program name. After compiling 
+the program once, we can run it for different command-line arguments and get 
+different printed results. We will discuss in more detail the mechanism that we use 
+to pass arguments to our programs later, in Section 2.1. In the meantime, you can 
+use args [0] within your program’s body to represent the string that you type on 
+the command line when it is executed, just as in UseArgu- 
+ment. 
+
+Again, accomplishing the task of getting a program 
+to write back out what we type in to it may not seem in- 
+teresting at first, but upon reflection you will realize that 
+another basic function of a program is its ability to re- 
+spond to basic information from the user to control what 
+the program does. The simple model that UseArgument 
+represents will suffice to allow us to consider Java’s basic 
+programming mechanism and to address all sorts of inter- 
+esting computational problems. 
+
+Stepping back, we can see that UseArgument does neither more nor less than 
+implement a function that maps a string of characters (the argument) into another 
+string of characters (the message printed back to the terminal). When using it, we 
+might think of our Java program as a black box that converts our input string to 
+some output string. This model is attractive because it is not only simple but also 
+sufficiently general to allow completion, in principle, of any computational task. 
+For example, the Java compiler itself is nothing more than a program that takes 
+one string of characters as input (a . j ava file) and produces another string of 
+characters as output (the corresponding . cl ass file). Later, we will be able to write 
+programs that accomplish a variety of interesting tasks (though we stop short of 
+programs as complicated as a compiler). For the moment, we live with various lim- 
+itations on the size and type of the input and output to our programs; in Section 
+1.5, we will see how to incorporate more sophisticated mechanisms for program 
+input and output. In particular, we can work with arbitrarily long input and output 
+strings and other types of data such as sound and pictures. 
+
+
+Al i ce -< input string 
+
+i 
+
+■ 
+
+black box 
+
+output string 
+
+Hi, Alice. How are you? 
+
+A bird's-eye view of a Java program 
+
+
+
+10 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. Why Java? 
+
+A. The programs that we are writing are very similar to their counterparts in sev- 
+eral other languages, so our choice of language is not crucial. We use Java because 
+it is widely available, embraces a full set of modern abstractions, and has a variety 
+of automatic checks for mistakes in programs, so it is suitable for learning to pro- 
+gram. There is no perfect language, and you certainly will be programming in other 
+languages in the future. 
+
+Q. Do I really have to type in the programs in the book to try them out? I believe 
+that you ran them and that they produce the indicated output. 
+
+A. Everyone should type in and run HelloWorld. Your understanding will be 
+greatly magnified if you also run UseArgument, try it on various inputs, and modify 
+it to test different ideas of your own. To save some typing, you can find all of the 
+code in this book (and much more) on the booksite. This site also has information 
+about installing and running Java on your computer, answers to selected exercises, 
+web links, and other extra information that you may find useful or interesting. 
+
+Q. What is the meaning of the words publ i c, stati c and voi d? 
+
+A. These keywords specify certain properties of mai n () that you will learn about 
+later in the book. For the moment, we just include these keywords in the code (be- 
+cause they are required) but do not refer to them in the text. 
+
+Q. What is the meaning of the //, /*, and */ character sequences in the code? 
+
+A. They denote comments, which are ignored by the compiler. A comment is either 
+text in between /* and */ or at the end of a line after //. As with most online code, 
+the code on the booksite is liberally annotated with comments that explain what it 
+does; we use fewer comments in code in this book because the accompanying text 
+and figures provide the explanation. 
+
+Q. What are Java’s rules regarding tabs, spaces, and newline characters? 
+
+A. Such characters are known as whitespace characters. Java compilers consider 
+all whitespace in program text to be equivalent. For example, we could write Hel - 
+
+
+
+
+/ . / Your First Program 
+
+
+11 
+
+
+
+loWorld as follows: 
+
+public class HelloWorld { public static void main ( String [] 
+args) { System. out. print("Hello, World") ; System. out. 
+
+printlnO ;} } 
+
+But we do normally adhere to spacing and indenting conventions when we write 
+Java programs, just as we always indent paragraphs and lines consistently when we 
+write prose or poetry. 
+
+Q. What are the rules regarding quotation marks? 
+
+A. Material inside quotation marks is an exception to the rule defined in the pre- 
+vious question: things within quotes are taken literally so that you can precisely 
+specify what gets printed. If you put any number of successive spaces within the 
+quotes, you get that number of spaces in the output. If you accidentally omit a 
+quotation mark, the compiler may get very confused, because it needs that mark to 
+distinguish between characters in the string and other parts of the program. 
+
+Q. What happens when you omit a brace or misspell one of the words, like pub! i c 
+or stati c or voi d or mai n? 
+
+A. It depends upon precisely what you do. Such errors are called syntax errors and 
+are usually caught by the compiler. For example, if you make a program Bad that is 
+exactly the same as HelloWorld except that you omit the line containing the first 
+left brace (and change the program name from Hel loWorld to Bad), you get the 
+following helpful message: 
+
+% javac Bad. java 
+
+Bad. java: 2: expected 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+A 
+
+1 error 
+
+From this message, you might correctly surmise that you need to insert a left brace. 
+But the compiler may not be able to tell you exactly what mistake you made, so the 
+error message may be hard to understand. For example, if you omit the second left 
+brace instead of the first one, you get the following messages: 
+
+
+12 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+% javac Bad.j ava 
+
+Bad. java: 4: expected 
+
+System. out. print("Hello, World") ; 
+
+A 
+
+Bad.java: 7: 'class' or 'interface' expected 
+
+} 
+
+A 
+
+Bad.java:8: 'class' or 'interface' expected 
+
+A 
+
+3 errors 
+
+One way to get used to such messages is to intentionally introduce mistakes into a 
+simple program and then see what happens. Whatever the error message says, you 
+should treat the compiler as a friend, for it is just trying to tell you that something 
+is wrong with your program. 
+
+Q. Can a program use more than one command-line argument? 
+
+A. Yes, you can use many arguments, though we normally use just a few. Note that 
+the count starts at 0, so you refer to the first argument as args [0] , the second one 
+as args [1] , the third one as args [2], and so forth. 
+
+Q. What Java methods are available for me to use? 
+
+A. There are literally thousands of them. We introduce them to you in a deliberate 
+fashion (starting in the next section) to avoid overwhelming you with choices. 
+
+Q. When I ran UseArgument, I got a strange error message. What’s the problem? 
+
+A. Most likely, you forgot to include a command-line argument: 
+
+% java UseArgument 
+
+Hi, Exception in thread “main” 
+
+j ava . 1 ang . Ar raylndexOutOf BoundsExcepti on : 0 
+
+at UseArgument . mai n (UseArgument . j ava : 6) 
+
+The JVM is complaining that you ran the program but did not type an argument as 
+promised. You will learn more details about array indices in Section 1 .4. Remember 
+this error message: you are likely to see it again. Even experienced programmers 
+forget to type arguments on occasion. 
+
+
+
+/ . / Your First Program 
+
+
+13 
+
+
+
+1.1.1 Write a program that prints the He! 1 o , Worl d message 10 times. 
+
+1 . 1.2 Describe what happens if you omit the following in Hel 1 oWorl d . j ava: 
+
+a. public 
+
+b. stati c 
+
+c. voi d 
+
+d. args 
+
+1 . 1.3 Describe what happens if you misspell (by, say, omitting the second letter) 
+the following in Hel 1 oWorl d . j ava: 
+
+a. public 
+
+b. stati c 
+
+c. voi d 
+
+d. args 
+
+1 . 1.4 Describe what happens if you try to execute UseArgument with each of the 
+following command lines: 
+
+a. java UseArgument java 
+
+b. java UseArgument @!&a% 
+
+c. java UseArgument 1234 
+
+d. java UseArgument. java Bob 
+
+e. java UseArgument Alice Bob 
+
+1 . 1.5 Modify UseArgument . java to make a program UseThree .java that takes 
+three names and prints out a proper sentence with the names in the reverse of the 
+order given, so that, for example, java UseThree Alice Bob Carol gives Hi 
+Carol, Bob, and Alice. 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1 a 2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+When programming in Java, you must always be aware of the type of data that your 
+program is processing. The programs in Section 1.1 process strings of characters, 
+many of the programs in this section process numbers, and we consider numer- 
+ous other types later in the book. Under- 
+standing the distinctions among them is 
+so important that we formally define the 
+idea: a data type is a set of values and a set 
+of operations defined on those values. You 
+are familiar with various types of num- 
+bers, such as integers and real numbers, 
+and with operations defined on them, 
+such as addition and multiplication. In mathematics, we are accustomed to think- 
+ing of sets of numbers as being infinite; in computer programs we have to work 
+with a finite number of possibilities. Each operation that we perform is well-de- 
+fined only for the finite set of values in an associated data type. 
+
+There are eight primitive types of data in Java, mostly for different kinds of 
+numbers. Of the eight primitive types, we most often use these: i nt for integers; 
+doubl e for real numbers; and bool ean for true-false values. There are other types 
+of data available in Java libraries: for example, the programs in Section 1.1 use the 
+type Stri ng for strings of characters. Java treats the Stri ng type differently from 
+other types because its usage for input and output is essential. Accordingly, it shares 
+some characteristics of the primitive types: for example, some of its operations are 
+built in to the Java language. For clarity, we refer to primitive types and String 
+collectively as built-in types. For the time being, we concentrate on programs that 
+are based on computing with built-in types. Later, you will learn about Java library 
+data types and building your own data types. Indeed, programming in Java is often 
+centered on building data types, as you shall see in Chapter 3. 
+
+After defining basic terms, we consider several sample programs and code 
+fragments that illustrate the use of different types of data. These code fragments 
+do not do much real computing, but you will soon see similar code in longer pro- 
+grams. Understanding data types (values and operations on them) is an essential 
+step in beginning to program. It sets the stage for us to begin working with more 
+intricate programs in the next section. Every program that you write will use code 
+like the tiny fragments shown in this section. 
+
+
+1.2.1 
+
+String concatenation example . . . 
+
+20 
+
+1.2.2 
+
+Integer multiplication and division 
+
+22 
+
+1.2.3 
+
+Quadratic formula 
+
+24 
+
+1.2.4 
+
+Leap year 
+
+27 
+
+1.2.5 
+
+Casting to get a random integer . . 
+
+33 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+15 
+
+
+type 
+
+set of values 
+
+common operators 
+
+sample literal values 
+
+int 
+
+integers 
+
++ - * / % 
+
+99 -12 2147483647 
+
+double 
+
+floating-point numbers 
+
++ - * / 
+
+3.14 -2.5 6.022e23 
+
+boolean 
+
+boolean values 
+
+Mill 
+
+true false 
+
+char 
+
+characters 
+
+
+*A' T '%' '\n' 
+
+String 
+
+sequences of characters 
+
++ 
+
+"AB" Hello" "2.5" 
+
+
+Basic built-in data types 
+
+
+Definitions To talk about data types, we need to introduce some terminology. 
+To do so, we start with the following code fragment: 
+
+int a, b, c; 
+a = 1234; 
+b = 99; 
+c = a + b; 
+
+The first line is a declaration that declares the names of three variables to be the 
+identifiers a, b, and c and their type to be i nt. The next three lines are assignment 
+statements that change the values of the variables, using the literals 1234 and 99, 
+and the expression a + b, with the end result that c has the value 1333. 
+
+Identifiers. We use identifiers to name variables (and many other things) in Java. 
+An identifier is a sequence of letters, digits, _, and $, the first of which is not a digit. 
+The sequences of characters abc, Ab$, abcl23, and a_b are all legal Java identifiers, 
+but Ab*, labc, and a+b are not. Identifiers are case-sensitive, so Ab, ab, and AB are all 
+different names. You cannot use certain reserved words — such as publ i c, stati c, 
+i nt, doubl e, and so forth — to name variables. 
+
+Literals. A literal is a source-code representation of a data-type value. We use 
+strings of digits like 1234 or 99 to define i nt literal values, and add a decimal point 
+as in 3 . 14159 or 2 . 71828 to define doubl e literal values. To specify a bool ean val- 
+ue, we use the keywords true or fal se, and to specify a Stri ng, we use a sequence 
+of characters enclosed in quotes, such as "Hello, Worl d". We will consider other 
+kinds of literals as we consider each data type in more detail. 
+
+
+Variables. A variable is a name that we use to refer to a data-type value. We use 
+variables to keep track of changing values as a computation unfolds. For example, 
+
+
+
+16 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+we use the variable n in many programs to count things. We create a variable in a 
+declaration that specifies its type and gives it a name. We compute with it by using 
+the name in an expression that uses operations defined for its type. Each variable 
+always stores one of the permissible data-type values. 
+
+
+Declaration statements. A declaration statement associates a variable name with 
+
+
+a type at compile time. Java requires us to use declarations to specify the names 
+and types of variables. By doing so, we are being explicit about any computation 
+that we are specifying. Java is said to be a strongly-typed language, because the Java 
+compiler can check for consistency at compile time (for example, it does not permit 
+us to add a String to a double). This situation is precisely analogous to making 
+sure that quantities have the proper units in a sci- declaration smement 
+
+
+entific application (for example, it does not make 
+sense to add a quantity measured in inches to an- 
+other measured in pounds). Declarations can ap- 
+pear anywhere before a variable is first used — most 
+often, we put them at the point of first use. 
+
+
+variable name 
+
+assignment 
+
+statement 
+
+
+
+combined declaration 
+
+Assignment statements. An assignment statement and aSi,s " mcnl itatement 
+
+associates a data-type value with a variable. When using a primitive data type 
+
+we write c = a + b in Java, we are not expressing 
+
+mathematical equality, but are instead expressing an action: set the value of the 
+variable c to be the value of a plus the value of b. It is true that c is mathematically 
+equal to a + b immediately after the assignment statement has been executed, but 
+the point of the statement is to change the value of c (if necessary). The left-hand 
+side of an assignment statement must be a single variable; the right-hand side can 
+be an arbitrary expression that produces values of the type. For example, we can say 
+discriminant* b*b - 4*a*c in Java, but we cannot say a + b = b + aorl = a. 
+In short, the meaning of= is decidedly not the same as in mathematical equations. For 
+example, a = b is certainly not the same as b = a, and while the value of c is the 
+value of a plus the value of b after c = a + b has been executed, that may cease to 
+be the case if subsequent statements change the values of any of the variables. 
+
+
+Initialization. In a simple declaration, the initial value of the variable is unde- 
+fined. For economy, we can combine a declaration with an assignment statement to 
+provide an initial value for the variable. 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+17 
+
+
+Tracing changes in variable values. As a final check on your understanding of 
+the purpose of assignment statements, convince yourself that the following code 
+exchanges the values of a and b (assume that a and b are i nt variables): 
+int t = a; 
+a = b; 
+b = t; 
+
+To do so, use a time-honored method of examining pro- 
+gram behavior: study a table of the variable values after 
+each statement (such a table is known as a trace). 
+
+Expressions. An expression is a literal, a variable, or a 
+sequence of operations on literals and/or variables that 
+produces a value. For primitive types, expressions look just like mathematical for- 
+mulas, which are based on familiar symbols or operators that specify data-type 
+operations to be performed on one or more operands. Each operand can be any 
+expression. Most of the operators that we use are binary operators that take exactly 
+two operands, such as x + 1 ory / 2. An expression that is enclosed in parentheses 
+is another expression with the same value. For example, we can write 4 * (x - 3) or 
+4*x - 12 on the right-hand side of an assignment statement 
+and the compiler will understand what we mean. 
+
+Precedence. Such expressions are shorthand for specifying a 
+sequence of computations: in what order should they be per- 
+formed? Java has natural and well-defined precedence rules 
+(see the booksite) that fully specify this order. For arithmetic 
+operations, multiplication and division are performed before 
+addition and subtraction, so that a-b*c and a-(b*c) represent the same sequence 
+of operations. When arithmetic operators have the same precedence, the order is 
+determined by left-associativity, so that a-b-c and (a-b) -c represent the same se- 
+quence of operations. You can use parentheses to override the rules, so you should 
+not need to worry about the details of precedence for most of the programs that 
+you write. (Some of the programs that you read might depend subtly on prece- 
+dence rules, but we avoid such programs in this book.) 
+
+Converting strings to primitive values for command-line arguments. Java 
+provides the library methods that we need to convert the strings that we type as 
+
+
+operands 
+(and expressions) 
+
+
+
+1*1 j MC X - 3 )1 
+
+operator 
+
+Anatomy of an expression 
+
+
+int 
+
+a, b; 
+
+undefined 
+
+undefined 
+
+
+a = 
+
+1234; 
+
+1234 
+
+undefined 
+
+
+b = 
+
+99; 
+
+1234 
+
+99 
+
+
+int 
+
+t = a; 
+
+1234 
+
+99 
+
+1234 
+
+a = 
+
+b; 
+
+99 
+
+99 
+
+1234 
+
+b = 
+
+t; 
+
+99 
+
+1234 
+
+1234 
+
+
+Your first trace 
+
+
+
+
+18 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+command-line arguments into numeric values for primitive types. We use the 
+Java library methods Integer. par selntO and Double. parseDoubleO for 
+this purpose. For example, typing Integer. parselnt("123") in program text 
+yields the literal value 123 (typing 123 has the same effect) and the code Integer . 
+parselnt (args [0] ) produces the same result as the literal value typed as a string 
+on the command line. You will see several examples of this usage in the programs 
+in this section. 
+
+Converting primitive type values to strings for output. As mentioned at the be- 
+ginning of this section, the Java built-in String type obeys special rules. One of 
+these special rules is that you can easily convert any type of data to a Stri ng: when- 
+ever we use the + operator with a Stri ng as one of its operands, Java automatically 
+converts the other to a Stri ng, producing as a result the Stri ng formed from the 
+characters of the first operand followed by the characters of the second operand. 
+For example, the result of these two code fragments 
+
+String a = "1234"; String a = "1234"; 
+
+String b = "99"; int b = 99; 
+
+String c = a + b; String c = a + b; 
+
+are both the same: they assign to c the value "123499". We use this automatic 
+conversion liberally to form Stri ng values for System . out . pri nt () and System . 
+out . pri ntl n () for output. For example, we can write statements like this one: 
+
+System. out. pri ntln (a + " + " + b + " = " + c) ; 
+
+If a, b , and c are int variables with the values 1234, 99, and 1333, respectively, then 
+this statement prints out the string 1234 + 99 = 1333. 
+
+With these mechanisms, our view of each Java program as a black box that takes 
+string arguments and produces string results is still valid, but we can now interpret 
+those strings as numbers and use them as the basis for meaningful computation. 
+Next, we consider these details for the basic built-in types that you will use most 
+often (strings, integers, floating-point numbers, and true-false values), along with 
+sample code illustrating their use. To understand how to use a data type, you need 
+to know not just its defined set of values, but also which operations you can per- 
+form, the language mechanism for invoking the operations, and the conventions 
+for specifying literal values. 
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+19 
+
+
+values 
+
+typical 
+
+literals 
+
+operation 
+
+operator 
+
+
+sequences of characters 
+Hello," "1 " " * " 
+concatenate 
+
+
+Java's built-in String data type 
+
+
+Characters and Strings A char is an alphanumeric character or symbol, like 
+the ones that you type. There are 2 16 different possible character values, but we 
+usually restrict attention to the ones that represent letters, 
+numbers, symbols, and whitespace characters such as tab 
+and newline. Literals for char are characters enclosed in 
+single quotes; for example, ' a ' represents the letter a. For 
+tab, newline, backslash, single quote and double quote, we 
+use the special escape sequences '\t', '\n', * \\ ' , ' \ ' 
+and 'Y", respectively. The characters are encoded as 
+16-bit integers using an encoding scheme known as Uni- 
+code, and there are escape sequences for specifying special 
+characters not found on your keyboard (see the booksite). 
+
+We usually do not perform any operations directly on characters other than assign- 
+ing values to variables. 
+
+A Stri ng is a sequence of characters. A literal Stri ng is a sequence of charac- 
+ters within double quotes, such as "Hel 1 o , Worl d". The Stri ng data type is not a 
+primitive type, but Java sometimes treats it like one. For example, the concatenation 
+operator (+) that we just considered is built in to the language as a binary operator 
+in the same way as familiar operations on numbers. 
+
+The concatenation operation (along with the ability to declare Stri ng vari- 
+ables and to use them in expressions and assignment statements) is sufficiently 
+powerful to allow us to attack some nontrivial computing tasks. As an example, 
+
+Ruler (Program 1.2.1) computes a table of 
+values of the ruler function that describes 
+the relative lengths of the marks on a ruler. 
+One noteworthy feature of this computa- 
+tion is that it illustrates how easy is is to craft 
+short programs that produce huge amounts 
+of output. If you extend this program in the 
+obvious way to print five lines, six lines, sev- 
+en lines, and so forth, you will see that each 
+time you add just two statements to this 
+program, you increase the size of its output by precisely one more than a factor of 
+two. Specifically, if the program prints n lines, the nth line contains 2" — 1 numbers. 
+For example, if you were to add statements in this way so that the program prints 
+30 lines, it would attempt to print more than 1 billion numbers. 
+
+
+expression 
+
+value 
+
+"Hi, " + "Bob" 
+
+"Hi, Bob" 
+
+"1" + " 2 " + "1" 
+
+"1 2 1" 
+
+"1234" + " + " + "99" 
+
+"1234 + 99 
+
+"1234" + "99" 
+
+"123499" 
+
+
+Typical Stri ng expressions 
+
+
+
+20 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+mmBSSSSBBk 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.2. 1 String concatenation example 
+
+
+public class Ruler 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+String rulerl = "1"; 
+
+String ruler2 = rulerl + " 2 ' 
+
+String ruler3 = ruler2 + " 3 ' 
+
+String ruler4 = ruler3 + " 4 ' 
+
+System. out. println (rulerl) ; 
+
+System . out . p ri ntl n(ruler2); 
+
+System. out. println(ruler3) ; 
+
+System. out. pri ntl n(ruler4) ; 
+
+
+rulerl; 
+
+ruler2; 
+
+ruler3; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+> 
+
+
+This program prints the relative lengths of the subdivisions on a ruler. The nth line of output 
+is the relative lengths of the marks on a ruler subdivided in intervals of 1/2" of an inch. For 
+example, the fourth line of output gives the relative lengths of the marks that indicate intervals 
+of one-sixteenth of an inch on a ruler. 
+
+
+1 
+
+% javac Ruler. java 
+% java Ruler 
+
+r 
+
+i 1 i 
+
+1 
+
+1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 
+
+i 1 i 1 i 1 i 
+
+12 1 
+
+12 13 12 1 
+
+1 121312141213121 
+
+121312141213121 
+
+H The ruler function for n- 4 j 
+
+
+As just discussed, our most frequent use (by far) of the concatenation operation is 
+to put together results of computation for output with System . out . pri nt() and 
+System . out . pri ntl n () . For example, we could simplify UseArgument (Program 
+1.1.2) by replacing its three statements with this single statement: 
+
+System. out. printlnO'Hi , " + args[0] + ". How are you?"); 
+
+We have considered the String type first precisely because we need it for output 
+(and command-line input) in programs that process other types of data. 
+
+
+
+7.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+21 
+
+
+Integers An int is an integer (natural number) between -2147483648 (— 2 31 ) 
+and 2147483647 (2 31 — 1). These bounds derive from the fact that integers are rep- 
+resented in binary with 32 binary digits: there are 2 32 possible values. (The term 
+binary digit is omnipresent in computer science, and we nearly always use the ab- 
+breviation bit: a bit is either 0 or 1.) The range of possible int values is asymmetric 
+because zero is included with the positive values. See the booksite for more details 
+about number representation, but in the present context it suffices to know that 
+an i nt is one of the finite set of values in the range 
+
+just given. Sequences of the characters 0 through 9, expression value cc 
+
+possibly with a plus or minus sign at the beginning 5 + 3 8 
+
+(that, when interpreted as decimal numbers, fall 5-3 2 
+
+within the defined range), are integer literal values. 5*3 15 
+
+We use ints frequently because they naturally arise c 0 - 
+
+.... 7 7 5/3 1 nofrai 
+
+when implementing programs. 5 % 3 2 
+
+Standard arithmetic operators for addition/ ° ^ ra 
+
+subtraction (+ and -), multiplication (*), division 1/0 run-i 
+
+(/), and remainder (%) for the int data type are 3*5-2 13 * has 
+
+built in to Java. These operators take two i nt op- 3 + 5/2 5 /has 
+
+erands and produce an i nt result, with one signifi- 3-5-2 -4 left a 
+
+cant exception — division or remainder by zero is ( 3 - 5 ) - 2 -4 bet 
+
+not allowed. These operations are defined just as in 3 -( 5 - 2 ) 0 unai 
+
+grade school (keeping in mind that all results must ~ ^ . , . 
+
+£ . x . , , Typical int expression 
+
+be integers): given two i nt values a and b, the value 
+
+of a / b is the number of times b goes into a with 
+
+the fractional part discarded , and the value of a % b is the remainder that you get 
+when you divide a by b. For example, the value of 17 / 3 is 5, and the value of 17 % 3 
+is 2. The i nt results that we get from arithmetic operations are just what we expect, 
+except that if the result is too large to fit into i nt’s 32-bit representation, then it 
+will be truncated in a well-defined manner. This situation is known as overflow . In 
+
+
+3 + 5/2 
+
+
+no fractional part 
+remainder 
+run-time error 
+* has precedence 
+/ has precedence 
+left associative 
+
+
+) - 2 -4 better style 
+
+- 2 ) 0 unambiguous 
+
+Typical int expressions 
+
+
+values integers between — 2 3 1 and + 2 3 1 — 1 
+
+typical literals 1234 99 -99 0 1000000 
+
+
+operations 
+
+add 
+
+subtract 
+
+multiply 
+
+divide 
+
+remainder 
+
+operators 
+
++ 
+
+- 
+
+* 
+
+/ 
+
+% 
+
+
+Java's built-in i nt data type 
+
+
+
+22 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Program 1.2.2 Integer multiplication and division 
+
+public class IntOps 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int a = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+int b = Integer. parseIntCargs[l]) ; 
+int p = a * b; 
+int q = a / b; 
+int r = a % b; 
+
+System. out. println (a + 
+
+System. out. println (a + 
+
+System. out. println (a + 
+
+System. out. println (a + 
+
+
+$ si 
+
+
+KS 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+Arithmetic for integers is built in to Java. Most of this code is devoted to the task of getting the 
+values in and out; the actual arithmetic is in the simple statements in the middle of the program 
+that assign values to p, q, and r. 
+
+
+
+
+javac IntOps. java 
+% java IntOps 1234 99 
+1234 * 99 = 122166 
+
+1234 / 99 = 12 
+
+1234 % 99 = 46 
+
+1234 = 12 * 99 + 46 
+
+
+general, we have to take care that such a result is not misinterpreted by our code. 
+For the moment, we will be computing with small numbers, so you do not have to 
+worry about these boundary conditions. 
+
+Program 1.2.2 illustrates basic operations for manipulating integers, such as 
+the use of expressions involving arithmetic operators. It also demonstrates the use 
+of Integer. parselntO to convert String values on the command line to int 
+values, as well as the use of automatic type conversion to convert i nt values to 
+Stri ng values for output. 
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+23 
+
+
+Three other built-in types are different representations of integers in Java. 
+The long, short, and byte types are the same as i nt except that they use 64, 16, 
+and 8 bits respectively, so the range of allowed values is accordingly different. Pro- 
+grammers use long when working with huge integers, and the other types to save 
+space. You can find a table with the maximum and minimum values for each type 
+on the booksite, or you can figure them out for yourself from the numbers of bits. 
+
+Floating-point numbers The double type is for representing floating-point 
+numbers, for use in scientific and commercial applications. The internal represen- 
+tation is like scientific notation, so that we can compute with numbers in a huge 
+range. We use floating-point numbers to repre- 
+sent real numbers, but they are decidedly not the expression value 
+
+same as real numbers! There are infinitely many 
+real numbers, but we can only represent a finite 
+number of floating-points in any digital com- 
+puter representation. Floating-point numbers 
+do approximate real numbers sufficiently well 
+that we can use them in applications, but we of- 
+ten need to cope with the fact that we cannot 
+always do exact computations. 
+
+We can use a sequence of digits with a 
+decimal point to type floating-point numbers. 
+
+For example, 3 . 14159 represents a six-digit ap- 
+proximation to 7 r. Alternatively, we can use a notation like scientific notation: the 
+literal 6 . 022e23 represents the number 6.022 X 10 23 . As with integers, you can use 
+these conventions to write floating-point literals in your programs or to provide 
+floating-point numbers as string parameters on the command line. 
+
+The arithmetic operators +, -, *, and / are defined for double. Beyond the 
+built-in operators, the Java Math library defines the square root, trigonometric 
+
+
+3.141 + .03 
+3.141 - .03 
+6.02e23 / 2.0 
+
+5.0 / 3.0 
+10.0 % 3.141 
+
+1.0 / 0.0 
+Math.sqrt(2.0) 
+Math.sqrt(-l.O) 
+
+
+3.171 
+
+3.111 
+
+3.01e23 
+
+1.6666666666666667 
+
+0.577 
+
+Infinity 
+
+1.4142135623730951 
+
+NaN 
+
+
+Typical doubl e expressions 
+
+
+values 
+
+typical literals 
+operations 
+operators 
+
+
+real numbers (specified by IEEE 754 standard) 
+
+3.14159 6.022e23 -3.0 2.0 1.4142135623730951 
+
+add subtract multiply divide 
+
++ / 
+
+
+Java's built-in doubl e data type 
+
+
+
+24 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.2.3 Quadratic formula 
+
+
+public class Quadratic 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double b = Double. parseDouble (args [0]) ; 
+double c = Double. parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+double discriminant = b*b - 4.0*c; 
+double d = Math.sqrt(discriminant) ; 
+System. out. println((-b + d) / 2.0); 
+System. out. println((-b - d) / 2.0); 
+
+
+This program prints out the roots of the polynomial x 2 + bx + c, using the quadratic formula. 
+For example, the roots ofx 2 -3x + 2 are 1 and 2 since we can factor the equation as (x - 1) 
+(x - 2 ); the roots ofx 2 -x-lare<f and 1 - <|>, where <() is the golden ratio, and the roots of x 2 + 
+x + 1 are not real numbers. 
+
+
+
+% javac Quadratic. java 
+% java Quadratic -3.0 2.0 
+2.0 
+1.0 
+
+
+% java Quadratic -1.0 -1.0 
+
+1.618033988749895 
+
+-0.6180339887498949 
+
+% java Quadratic 1.0 1.0 
+
+NaN 
+
+NaN 
+
+
+functions, logarithm/exponential functions, and other common functions for 
+floating-point numbers. To use one of these values in an expression, we write the 
+name of the function followed by its argument in parentheses. For example, you 
+can use the code Math . sqrt(2 . 0) when you want to use the square root of 2 in an 
+expression. We discuss in more detail the mechanism behind this arrangement in 
+Section 2.1 and more details about the Math library at the end of this section. 
+
+When working with floating point numbers, one of the first things that 
+you will encounter is the issue of precision: 5. 0/2.0 is 2.5 but 5. 0/3.0 is 
+1 . 6666666666666667. In Section 1.5, you will learn Java’s mechanism for control- 
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+ling the number of significant digits that you see in output. Until then, we will work 
+with the Java default output format. 
+
+The result of a calculation can be one of the special values Inf i ni ty (if the 
+number is too large to be represented) or NaN (if the result of the calculation is 
+undefined). Though there are myriad details to consider when calculations involve 
+these values, you can use doubl e in a natural way and begin to write Java programs 
+instead of using a calculator for all kinds of calculations. For example, Program 
+1.2.3 shows the use of doubl e values in computing the roots of a quadratic equa- 
+tion using the quadratic formula. Several of the exercises at the end of this section 
+further illustrate this point. 
+
+As with long, short, and byte for integers, there is another representation 
+for real numbers called float. Programmers sometimes use float to save space 
+when precision is a secondary consideration. The double type is useful for about 
+15 significant digits; the f 1 oat type is good for only about 7 digits. We do not use 
+float in this book. . 
+
+
+values 
+
+
+true or false 
+
+
+Booleans The boolean type has just two values: true literals 
+and f al se. These are the two possible bool ean literals. Ev- operations 
+
+ery bool ean variable has one of these two values, and every operators 
+
+bool ean operation has operands and a result that takes on 
+just one of these two values. This simplicity is deceiving — ^ ava s b ° o1 ean ^ ata 
+
+bool ean values lie at the foundation of computer science. 
+
+The most important operations defined for booleans are and (&&), or (II). 
+and not ( ! ), which have familiar definitions: 
+
+• a && b is true if both operands are true, and fal se if either is fal se. 
+
+• a || b is fal se if both operands are fal se, and true if either is true. 
+
+• ! a is true if a is fal se, and fal se if a is true. 
+
+Despite the intuitive nature of these definitions, it is worthwhile to fully specify 
+each possibility for each operation in tables known as truth tables. The not function 
+
+
+true false 
+and or n 
+&& || 
+
+
+a 
+
+! a 
+
+a 
+
+b 
+
+a && b 
+
+a | | b 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+
+Truth-table definitions of bool ean operations 
+
+
+
+26 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+a 
+
+b 
+
+a && b 
+
+!a 
+
+!b 
+
+!a || !b 
+
+K!a || !b) 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+false 
+
+true 
+
+
+Truth-table proof that a && b and 
+
+Ida || ! 
+
+b) are identical 
+
+
+has only one operand: its value for each of the two possible values of the operand is 
+specified in the second column. The and and or functions each have two operands: 
+there are four different possibilities for operand input values, and the values of the 
+functions for each possibility are specified in the right two columns. 
+
+We can use these operators with parentheses to develop arbitrarily complex 
+expressions, each of which specifies a well-defined boolean function. Often the 
+same function appears in different guises. For example, the expressions (a && b) 
+and ! ( ! a 1 1 ! b) are equivalent. 
+
+The study of manipulating expressions of this kind is known as Boolean logic. 
+This field of mathematics is fundamental to computing: it plays an essential role 
+in the design and operation of computer hardware itself, and it is also a starting 
+point for the theoretical foundations of computation. In the present context, we are 
+interested in bool ean expressions because we use them to control the behavior of 
+our programs. Typically, a particular condition of interest is specified as a boolean 
+expression and a piece of program code is written to execute one set of statements 
+if the expression is true and a different set of statements if the expression is fal se. 
+The mechanics of doing so are the topic of Section 1.3. 
+
+Comparisons Some mixed- type operators take operands of one type and pro- 
+duce a result of another type. The most important operators of this kind are the 
+comparison operators ==, ! =, <, <=, >, and >=, which all are defined for each primi- 
+tive numeric type and produce a bool ean result. Since operations are defined only 
+
+
+non-negative discriminant? (b*b - 4.0*a*c) >=0.0 
+
+beginning of a century? (year % 100) == 0 
+
+legal month? (month >= 1) && (month <= 12) 
+
+Typical comparison expressions 
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+27 
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.2.4 Leap year 
+
+public class LeapYear 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int year = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+boolean isLeapYear; 
+isLeapYear = (year % 4 == 0); 
+isLeapYear = isLeapYear && (year % 100 != 0); 
+isLeapYear = isLeapYear || (year % 400 == 0); 
+System . out . pri ntl n (isLeapYear) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+% javac LeapYear. java 
+% java LeapYear 2004 
+true 
+
+% java LeapYear 1900 
+fal se 
+
+% java LeapYear 2000 
+true 
+
+
+
+This program tests whether an integer corresponds to a leap year in the Gregorian calendar. A 
+year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4 (2004), unless it is divisible by 100 in which case it is not 
+(1900), unless it is divisible by 400 in which case it is (2000). 
+
+
+r / -i 
+
+
+spf 
+
+
+with respect to data types, each of these symbols stands for many operations, one 
+for each data type. It is required that both operands be of the same type. The result 
+is always bool ean. 
+
+Even without going into the details of number representation, it is clear that 
+the operations for the various types are really quite different: for example, it is one 
+thing to compare two i nts to check that (2 <= 2) is true but quite another to 
+compare two doubl es to check whether (2.0 <= 0 . 002e3) is true or fal se. Still, 
+these operations are well-defined and useful to write code that tests for conditions 
+such as (b*b - 4 . 0*a*c) >= 0.0, which is frequently needed, as you will see. 
+
+
+28 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+The comparison operations have lower precedence than arithmetic operators 
+and higher precedence than boolean operators, so you do not need the parentheses 
+in an expression like (b*b - 4.0*a*c) >= 0.0, and you could write an expression 
+like month >= 1 && month <= 12 without parentheses to test whether the value of 
+the i nt variable month is between 1 and 12. (It is better style to use the parentheses, 
+
+
+op 
+
+meaning 
+
+true 
+
+false 
+
+== 
+
+equal 
+
+2 == 2 
+
+2 == 3 
+
+! = 
+
+not equal 
+
+3 != 2 
+
+2 != 2 
+
+< 
+
+less than 
+
+2 < 13 
+
+2 < 2 
+
+<= 
+
+less than or equal 
+
+2 <= 2 
+
+3 <= 2 
+
+> 
+
+greater than 
+
+13 > 2 
+
+2 > 13 
+
+>= 
+
+greater than or equal 
+
+3 >= 2 
+
+2 >= 3 
+
+
+Comparisons with i nt operands and a bool ean result 
+
+
+however.) 
+
+Comparison operations, together 
+with boolean logic, provide the basis for 
+decision-making in Java programs. Pro- 
+gram 1.2.4 is an example of their use, 
+and you can find other examples in the 
+exercises at the end of this section. More 
+importantly, in Section 1.3 we will see 
+the role that boolean expressions play in 
+more sophisticated programs. 
+
+
+Library methods and APIs As we have seen, many programming tasks in- 
+volve using Java library methods in addition to the built-in operations on data-type 
+values. The number of available library methods is vast. As you learn to program, 
+you will learn to use more and more library methods, but it is best at the beginning 
+to restrict your attention to a relatively small set of methods. In this chapter, you 
+have already used some of Java’s methods for printing, for converting data from 
+one type to another, and for computing mathematical functions (the Java Math li- 
+brary). In later chapters, you will learn not just how to use other methods, but how 
+to create and use your own methods. 
+
+For convenience, we will consistently summarize the library methods that you 
+need to know how to use in tables like this one: 
+
+
+public class System. out 
+
+void print(String s) prints 
+
+void println (String s) print s, followed by a newline 
+
+void printlnO print a newline 
+
+Note: Any type of data can be used (and will be automatically converted to Stri ngj. 
+
+Excerpts from Java's library for standard output 
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+29 
+
+
+Such a table is known as an application programming interface (API). It provides 
+the information that you need to write an application program that uses the meth- 
+ods. Here i$ an API for the most commonly used methods in Java’s Math library: 
+
+
+public class Math 
+
+double abs (double a) absolute value of a 
+
+double max (double a, double b) maximum of a and b 
+
+double min (double a, double b) minimum of a and b 
+
+Note 1: absO, max(), and min() are defined also for i nt, 1 ong, and float. 
+
+double sin (double theta) sine function 
+
+double cos (double theta) cosine function 
+
+double tan(double theta) tangent function 
+
+Note 2: Angles are expressed in radians. Use toDeg rees () and toRadi ans () to convert. 
+Note 3: Use asi n(), acos(), and atan() for inverse functions. 
+
+double expCdouble a) exponential (e a ) 
+
+doubl e log (doubl e a) natural log (log e a, or In a) 
+
+double pow(double a, double b) raise a to the bth power (a b ) 
+
+
+long round (double a) 
+double randomO 
+double sqrt (double a) 
+
+double E 
+double PI 
+
+
+round to the nearest integer 
+random number in [0, 1) 
+square root of a 
+
+value of e (constant) 
+value of it (constant) 
+
+
+See booksite for other available functions. 
+
+Excerpts from Java's mathematics library 
+
+
+With the exception of randomO, these methods implement mathematical func- 
+tions — they use their arguments to compute a value of a specified type. Each meth- 
+od is described by a line in the API that specifies the information you need to know 
+in order to use the method. The code in the tables is not the code that you type to 
+use the method; it is known as the method’s signature . The signature specifies the 
+type of the arguments, the method name, and the type of the value that the method 
+computes (the return value). When your program is executed, we say that it calls the 
+system library code for the method, which returns the value for use in your code. 
+
+
+
+30 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+library name 
+
+
+signature 
+
+\ r 
+
+
+e method name 
+
+, / 
+
+double sqrt (double a) 
+
+f 1 
+
+return type argument type 
+
+
+Anatomy of a method signature 
+
+
+y Note that random () does not implement a mathematical 
+
+public class Math function because it does not take an argument. On the other 
+
+method name hand, System, out . pri nt() and System, out. printlnO 
+
+bi e S qrt (double a) I do not implement mathematical functions because they do 
+
+} not return values and therefore do not have a return type. 
+
+n type argument type (This condition is specified in the signature by the keyword 
+. . void.) 
+
+of a method signature In your code, you can use a library method by typ- 
+
+ing its name followed by arguments of the specified type, 
+enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas. You can 
+use this code in the same way as you use variables and literals in expressions. When 
+you do so, you can expect that method to 
+
+compute a value of the appropriate type, as l,brary na ™ me p d name 
+
+documented in the left column of the API. double d = Math. sqrt (b*b - 4.0* 
+
+For example, you can write expressions like \ retum type argument / 
+Math.sin(x) * Math. cos (y) and so on. 
+
+Method arguments may also be expressions, Using a library method 
+
+as in Math. sqrt (b*b - 4.0*a*c). 
+
+The Math library also defines the precise constant values PI (for it) and E (for 
+e), so that you can use those names to refer to those constants in your programs. 
+For example, the value of Math . sin (Math . PI/2) is 1.0 and the value of Math . 
+1 og (Math . E) is 1 . 0 (because Math . si n () takes its argument in radians and Math . 
+log() implements the natural logarithm function). 
+
+To be complete, we also include here the following API for Java’s conversion 
+methods, which we use for command-line arguments: 
+
+
+library name method name 
+
+\ / 
+
+double d = Math. sqrt (b*b - 
+
+\ / 
+
+N return type argument 
+
+Using a library method 
+
+
+4.0*a*c) ; 
+
+
+int Integer. parseInt(Stri ng s) convert s to an i nt value 
+
+double Double. parseDouble(String s) converts to a double value 
+long Long.parseLong(String s) converts to a long value 
+
+Java library methods for converting strings to primitive types 
+
+
+You do not need to use methods like these to convert from i nt, double, and long 
+values to String values for output, because Java automatically converts any val- 
+ue used as an argument to System. out. pri nt() or System. out. printlnO to 
+Stri ng for output. 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+31 
+
+
+expression 
+
+library 
+
+type 
+
+value 
+
+Integer. parselnt ("123") 
+
+Integer 
+
+int 
+
+123 
+
+Math. sqrt(5. 0*5.0 - 4. 0*4.0) 
+
+Math 
+
+double 
+
+3.0 
+
+Math. random () 
+
+Math 
+
+double 
+
+random in [0, 1) 
+
+Math. round (3. 14159) 
+
+Math 
+
+long 
+
+3 
+
+
+Typical expressions that use Java library methods 
+
+
+These APIs are typical of the online documentation that is the standard in 
+modern programming. There is extensive online documentation of the Java APIs 
+that is used by professional programmers, and it is available to you (if you are in- 
+terested) direcdy from the Java website or through our booksite. You do not need 
+to go to the online documentation to understand the code in this book or to write 
+similar code, because we present and explain in the text all of the library methods 
+that we use in APIs like these and summarize them in the endpapers. More impor- 
+tant, in Chapters 2 and 3 you will learn in this book how to develop your own APIs 
+and to implement functions for your own use. 
+
+Type conversion One of the primary rules of modern programming is that you 
+should always be aware of the type of data that your program is processing. Only 
+by knowing the type can you know precisely which set of values each variable can 
+have, which literals you can use, and which operations you can perform. Typical 
+programming tasks involve processing multiple types of data, so we often need to 
+convert data from one type to another. There are several ways to do so in Java. 
+
+Explicit type conversion. You can use a method that takes an argument of one 
+type (the value to be converted) and produces a result of another type. We have 
+already used the Integer . parselnt () and Double. parseDoubl e () library meth- 
+ods to convert Stri ng values to i nt and doubl e values, respectively. Many other 
+methods are available for conversion among other types. For example, the library 
+method Math. round () takes a double argument and returns a long result: the 
+nearest integer to the argument. Thus, for example, Math. round (3. 14159) and 
+Math . round(2 . 71828) are both of type 1 ong and have the same value (3). 
+
+Explicit cast. Java has some built-in type conversion conventions for primitive 
+types that you can take advantage of when you are aware that you might lose infor- 
+
+
+
+32 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+mation. You have to make your intention to do so explicit by using a device called a 
+cast. You cast an expression from one primitive type to another by prepending the 
+desired type name within parentheses. For example, the expression (i nt) 2 . 71828 
+is a cast from double to int that produces an int with value 2. The conversion 
+methods defined for casts throw away information in a reasonable way (for a full 
+list, see the booksite). For example, casting a floating-point number to an integer 
+discards the fractional part by rounding towards zero. If you want a different result, 
+such as rounding to the nearest integer, you must use the explicit conversion meth- 
+od Math . round (), as just discussed (but you then need to use an explicit cast to 
+i nt, since that method returns a long). Randomlnt (Program 1.2.5) is an example 
+that uses a cast for a practical computation. 
+
+Automatic promotion for numbers. You can use data of any primitive numeric 
+type where a value whose type has a larger range of values is expected, because Java 
+automatically converts to the type with the larger range. This kind of conversion is 
+called promotion. For example, we 
+
+
+used numbers all of type doubl e 
+in Program 1.2.3, so there is no 
+conversion. If we had chosen to 
+
+expression 
+
+expression 
+
+type 
+
+expression 
+
+value 
+
+"1234" + 99 
+
+String 
+
+"123499" 
+
+make b and c of type i nt (using 
+
+Integer. parselnt("123 n ) 
+
+int 
+
+123 
+
+Integer. parselntO to convert 
+
+(int) 2.71828 
+
+int 
+
+2 
+
+the command-line arguments), 
+
+Math . round (2 . 71828) 
+
+long 
+
+3 
+
+automatic promotion would be 
+
+(int) Math. round (2. 71828) 
+
+int 
+
+3 
+
+used to evaluate the expression 
+
+(int) Math. round (3. 14159) 
+
+int 
+
+3 
+
+b*b - 4.0*c. First, c is promot- 
+
+11 * 0.3 
+
+double 
+
+3.3 
+
+ed to double to multiply by the 
+
+(int) 11 * 0.3 
+
+double 
+
+3.3 
+
+doubl e literal 4 . 0, with a doubl e 
+
+11 * (int) 0.3 
+
+int 
+
+0 
+
+result. Then, the i nt value b*b is 
+
+(int) (11 * 0.3) 
+
+int 
+
+3 
+
+promoted to doubl e for the sub- 
+traction, leaving a double result. 
+Or, we might have written b*b - 
+
+Typical type conversions 
+
+
+
+4*c. In that case, the expression b*b - 4*c would be evaluated as an i nt and then 
+the result promoted to doubl e, because that is what Math . sq rt 0 expects. Promo- 
+tion is appropriate because your intent is clear and it can be done with no loss of in- 
+formation. On the other hand, a conversion that might involve loss of information 
+(for example, assigning a doubl e to an i nt) leads to a compile-time error. 
+
+
+
+7.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+33 
+
+
+|S 
+1 '' 
+
+
+Program 1.2.5 Casting to get a random integer 
+
+public class Randomlnt 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+
+double r = Math. random () ; // uniform between 0 and 1 
+int n = (int) (r * N); // uniform between 0 and N-l 
+
+System. out. println(n) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program uses the Java method Math, random () to generate a random number r in the 
+interval [0, 1), then multiplies r by the command-line argument N to get a random number 
+greater than or equal to 0 and less than N, then uses a cast to truncate the result to be an integer 
+n between 0 and N-l. 
+
+
+% javac Randomlnt. java 
+
+% java Randomlnt 1000 
+548 
+
+% java Randomlnt 1000 
+141 
+
+% java Randomlnt 1000000 
+135032 
+
+
+
+
+msmmmm 
+
+
+Casting has higher precedence than arithmetic operations — any cast is applied to 
+the value that immediately follows it. For example, if we write i nt n = (i nt) 11 
+* 0 . 3, the cast is no help: the literal 11 is already an integer, so the cast (i nt) has 
+no effect. In this example, the compiler produces a possi bl e loss of precision 
+error message because there would be a loss of precision in converting the resulting 
+value (3 . 3) to an i nt for assignment to n. The error is helpful because the intended 
+computation for this code is likely (i nt) (11 *0.3), which has the value 3, not 
+3.3. 
+
+
+
+
+34 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Beginning programmers tend to find type conversion to be an annoyance, but expe- 
+rienced programmers know that paying careful attention to data types is a key to 
+success in programming. It is well worth your while to take the time to understand 
+what type conversion is all about. After you have written just a few programs, you 
+will understand that these rules help you to make your intentions explicit and to 
+avoid subtle bugs in your programs. 
+
+S ummar y A data type is a set of values and a set of operations on those values. 
+Java has eight primitive data types: bool ean, char, byte, short, i nt, 1 ong, f 1 oat, 
+and doubl e. In Java code, we use operators and expressions like those in familiar 
+mathematical expressions to invoke the operations associated with each type. The 
+boolean type is for computing with the logical values true and false; the char 
+type is the set of character values that we type; and the other six are numeric types, 
+for computing with numbers. In this book, we most often use bool ean, i nt, and 
+double; we do not use short or float. Another data type that we use frequently, 
+Stri ng, is not primitive, but Java has some built-in facilities for Stri ngs that are 
+like those for primitive types. 
+
+When programming in Java, we have to be aware that every operation is de- 
+fined only in the context of its data type (so we may need type conversions) and 
+that all types can have only a finite number of values (so we may need to live with 
+imprecise results). 
+
+The bool ean type and its operations — &&, | | , and ! — are the basis for logi- 
+cal decision-making in Java programs, when used in conjunction with the mixed- 
+type comparison operators ==, ! =, <, >, <=, and >=. Specifically, we use bool ean 
+expressions to control Java’s conditional (i f ) and loop (for and whi 1 e) constructs, 
+which we will study in detail in the next section. 
+
+The numeric types and Java’s libraries give us the ability to use Java as an ex- 
+tensive mathematical calculator. We write arithmetic expressions using the built-in 
+operators +, -, *, /, and % along with Java methods from the Math library. Although 
+the programs in this section are quite rudimentary by the standards of what we will 
+be able to do after the next section, this class of programs is quite useful in its own 
+right. You will use primitive types and basic mathematical functions extensively 
+in Java programming, so the effort that you spend now understanding them will 
+certainly be worthwhile. 
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+35 
+
+
+
+Q. What happens if I forget to declare a variable? 
+
+A. The compiler complains, as shown below for a program IntOpsBad, which is 
+the same as Program 1.2.2 except that the i nt variable p is omitted from the decla- 
+ration statement. 
+
+% javac IntOpsBad. java 
+
+IntOpsBad. java: 7: cannot resolve symbol 
+
+symbol : variable p 
+
+location: class IntOpsBad 
+
+p = a * b; 
+
+A 
+
+IntOpsBad. java: 10: cannot resolve symbol 
+symbol : variable p 
+location: class IntOpsBad 
+
+System. out. println (a + " * " + b + " ■ " + p) ; 
+
+A 
+
+2 errors 
+
+
+The compiler says that there are two errors, but there is really just one: the declara- 
+tion of p is missing. If you forget to declare a variable that you use often, you will 
+get quite a few error messages. A good strategy is to correct the first error and check 
+that correction before addressing later ones. 
+
+Q. What happens if I forget to initialize a variable? 
+
+A. The compiler checks for this condition and will give you a variable might 
+not have been i ni ti al i zed error message if you try to use the variable in an 
+expression. 
+
+Q. Is there a difference between = and == ? 
+
+A. Yes, they are quite different! The first is an assignment operator that changes 
+the value of a variable, and the second is a comparison operator that produces a 
+bool ean result. Your ability to understand this answer is a sure test of whether you 
+understood the material in this section. Think about how you might explain the 
+difference to a friend. 
+
+
+
+
+36 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. Why do i nt values sometime become negative when they get large? 
+
+A. If you have not experienced this phenomenon, see Exercise 1 .2. 10. The problem 
+has to do with the way integers are represented in the computer. You can learn the 
+details on the booksite. In the meantime, a safe strategy is using the i nt type when 
+you know the values to be less than ten digits and the 1 ong type when you think the 
+values might get to be ten digits or more. 
+
+Q. It seems wrong that Java should just let i nts overflow and give bad values. 
+Shouldn’t Java automatically check for overflow? 
+
+A. Yes, this issue is a contentious one among programmers. The short answer for 
+now is that the lack of such checking is one reason such types are called primitive 
+data types. A little knowledge can go a long way in avoiding such problems. Again, 
+it is fine to use the i nt type for small numbers, but when values run into the bil- 
+lions, you cannot. 
+
+Q. What is the value of Math . abs (-2147483648) ? 
+
+A. -2147483648. This strange (but true) result is a typical example of the effects of 
+integer overflow. 
+
+Q. It is annoying to see all those digits when printing a f 1 oat or a doubl e. Can we 
+get System . out . pri ntl n () to print out just two or three digits after the decimal 
+point? 
+
+A, That sort of task involves a closer look at the method used to convert from 
+double to String. The Java library function System. out. pri ntf() is one way 
+to do the job, and it is similar to the basic printing method in the C programming 
+language and many modern languages, as discussed in Section 1.5. Until then, we 
+will live with the extra digits (which is not all bad, since doing so helps us to get 
+used to the different primitive types of numbers). 
+
+Q. How can I initialize a doubl e variable to infinity? 
+
+A. Java has built-in constants available for this purpose: Double. POSITIVE_IN- 
+FINITY and Doubl e . NECATIVE_INFINITY. 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+37 
+
+
+
+Q. What is the value of Math. round(6.022e23)? 
+
+A. You should get in the habit of typing in a tiny Java program to answer such 
+questions yourself (and trying to understand why your program produces the re- 
+sult that it does). 
+
+Q. Can you compare a doubl e to an i nt? 
+
+A. Not without doing a type conversion, but remember that Java usually does the 
+requisite type conversion automatically. For example, if x is an i nt with the value 
+3, then the expression (x < 3 . 1) is true — Java converts x to doubl e (because 3 . 1 
+is a doubl e literal) before performing the comparison. 
+
+Q. Are expressions like 1/0 and 1. 0/0 . 0 legal in Java? 
+
+A. No and yes. The first generates a run-time exception for division by zero (which 
+stops your program because the value is undefined); the second is legal and has the 
+value Inf i ni ty. 
+
+Q. Are there functions in Java’s Math library for other trigonometric functions, like 
+cosecant, secant, and cotangent? 
+
+A. No, because you could use Math . si n(), Math . cos(), and Math . tan() to com- 
+pute them. Choosing which functions to include in an API is a tradeoff between the 
+convenience of having every function that you need and the annoyance of having 
+to find one of the few that you need in a long list. No choice will satisfy all users, 
+and the Java designers have many users to satisfy. Note that there are plenty of re- 
+dundancies even in the APIs that we have listed. For example, you could use Math . 
+si n (x) /Math . cos (x) instead of Math . tan (x) . 
+
+Q. Can you use < and > to compare Stri ng variables? 
+
+A. No. Those operators are defined only for primitive types. 
+
+Q. How about == and ! = ? 
+
+A. Yes, but the result may not be what you expect, because of the meanings these 
+operators have for non-primitive types. For example, there is a distinction between 
+
+
+
+
+38 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+a String and its value. The expression "abc" == "ab" + x is false when x is a 
+Stri ng with value "c" because the two operands are stored in different places in 
+memory (even though they have the same value). This distinction is essential, as 
+you will learn when we discuss it in more detail in Section 3.1. 
+
+Q. What is the result of division and remainder for negative integers? 
+
+A. The quotient a / b rounds toward 0; the remainder a % b is defined such that 
+(a / b) * b + a % b is always equal to a. For example, -14/3 and 14/-3 are both 
+-4, but -14 % 3 is -2 and 14 % -3 is 2. 
+
+Q. Will (a < b < c) test whether three numbers are in order? 
+
+A. No, that will not compile. You need to say (a < b && b < c). 
+
+Q. Fifteen digits for floating-point numbers certainly seems enough to me. Do I 
+really need to worry much about precision? 
+
+A. Yes, because you are used to mathematics based on real numbers with infinite 
+precision, whereas the computer always deals with approximations. For example, 
+(0.1 + 0.1==0.2) is true but (0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1==0.3) is false! Pitfalls like this 
+are not at all unusual in scientific computing. Novice programmers should avoid 
+comparing two floating-point numbers for equality. 
+
+Q. Why do we say (a && b) and not (a & b)? 
+
+A. Java also has a & operator that we do not use in this book but which you may 
+encounter if you pursue advanced programming courses. 
+
+Q. Why is the value of 10A6 not 1000000 but 12? 
+
+A. The a operator is not an exponentiation operator, which you must have been 
+thinking. Instead, it is an operator like & that we do not use in this book. You want 
+the literal le6. You could also use Math . pow(10 , 6) but doing so is wasteful if you 
+are raising 10 to a known power. 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+39 
+
+
+
+1.2.1 Suppose that a and b are i nt values. What does the following sequence of 
+statements do? 
+
+int t = a; b = t; a = b; 
+
+1.2.2 Write a program that uses Math . si n () and Math . cos () to check that the 
+value of cos 2 0 + sin 2 0 is approximately 1 for any 0 entered as a command-line argu- 
+ment. Just print the value. Why are the values not always exactly 1? 
+
+1.2.3 Suppose that a and b are i nt values. Show that the expression 
+(! (a && b) && (a | | b)) || ((a && b) | | ! (a 1 1 b)) 
+
+is equivalent to true. 
+
+1.2.4 Suppose that a and b are i nt values. Simplify the following expression: 
+( ! (a < b) && ! (a > b)). 
+
+1.2.5 The exclusive or operator a for boolean operands is defined to be true if 
+they are different, f al se if they are the same. Give a truth table for this function. 
+
+1.2.6 Why does 10/3 give 3 and not 3.333333333? 
+
+Solution. Since both 10 and 3 are integer literals, Java sees no need for type conver- 
+sion and uses integer division. You should write 10 . 0/3 . 0 if you mean the numbers 
+to be doubl e literals. If you write 10/3 . 0 or 10 . 0/3, Java does implicit conversion 
+to get the same result. 
+
+1.2.7 What do each of the following print? 
+
+a. System. out. println (2 + "be"); 
+
+b. System. out. println (2 + 3 + "be"); 
+
+c. System. out. println((2+3) + "be"); 
+
+d. System. out. println ("be" + (2+3)); 
+
+e. System, out. println ("be" + 2 + 3); 
+
+
+Explain each outcome. 
+
+
+
+40 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 2.8 Explain how to use Program 1.2.3 to find the square root of a number. 
+
+1 . 2.9 What do each of the following print? 
+
+a. System. out. println('b') ; 
+
+b. System. out. println('b' + 'c'); 
+
+c. System. out. printlnf (char) ('a' + 4)); 
+
+Explain each outcome. 
+
+1 . 2.10 Suppose that a variable a is declared as i nt a = 2147483647 (or equiva- 
+lently, Integer . MAX_VALUE). What do each of the following print? 
+
+a. System. out. println (a) ; 
+
+b. System. out. pri ntl n (a+1) ; 
+
+c. System, out. pri ntl n (2-a) ; 
+
+d. System. out. pri ntl n (-2-a) ; 
+
+e. System, out. pri ntl n (2*a) ; 
+f System. out. pri ntl n (4*a) ; 
+
+Explain each outcome. 
+
+1 . 2.11 Suppose that a variable a is declared as double a = 3. 14159. What do each 
+of the following print? 
+
+a. System. out. pri ntl n (a) ; 
+
+b. System. out. pri ntl n (a+ 1) ; 
+
+c. System, out. pri ntl n (8/ (int) a); 
+
+d. System. out. pri ntl n (8/a) ; 
+
+e. System, out. println ((int) (8/a)); 
+
+Explain each outcome. 
+
+1 . 2.12 Describe what happens if you write sqrt instead of Math, sqrt in Program 
+
+
+1 . 2.13 What is the value of (Math . sqrt(2) * Math . sqrt(2) == 2) ? 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+41 
+
+
+
+1.2.14 Write a program that takes two positive integers as command-line argu- 
+ments and prints true if either evenly divides the other. 
+
+1.2.15 Write a program that takes three positive integers as command-line argu- 
+ments and prints true if any one of them is greater than or equal to the sum of the 
+other two and false otherwise. (Note: This computation tests whether the three 
+numbers could be the lengths of the sides of some triangle.) 
+
+1.2.16 A physics student gets unexpected results when using the code 
+F = G * massl * mass2 / r * r; 
+
+
+to compute values according to the formula F = Gm,m 2 / r 2 . Explain the problem 
+and correct the code. 
+
+
+1.2.17 Give the value of a after the execution of each of the following sequences: 
+
+
+int a = 1; 
+a = a + a; 
+a = a + a; 
+a = a + a; 
+
+
+boolean a = true; int a = 2; 
+a = !a; a = a * a; 
+a = !a; a = a * a; 
+a = !a; a = a * a; 
+
+
+1.2.18 Suppose that x and y are doubl e values that represent the Cartesian coor- 
+dinates of a point (x,y) in the plane. Give an expression whose value is the distance 
+of the point from the origin. 
+
+1.2.19 Write a program that takes two int values a and b from the command line 
+and prints a random integer between a and b. 
+
+1.2.20 Write a program that prints the sum of two random integers between 1 and 
+6 (such as you might get when rolling dice). 
+
+1.2.21 Write a program that takes a doubl e value t from the command line and 
+prints the value of sin(2t) + sin(3f). 
+
+1.2.22 Write a program that takes three doubl e values x 0 , v 0> and t from the com- 
+mand line and prints the value of x 0 + v 0 f + gt 2 / 2, where g is the constant 9.78033. 
+(Note: This value the displacement in meters after t seconds when an object is 
+thrown straight up from initial position x 0 at velocity v 0 meters per second.) 
+
+1.2.23 Write a program that takes two i nt values m and d from the command line 
+and prints true if day d of month m is between 3/20 and 6/20, fal se otherwise. 
+
+
+
+
+42 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+
+
+1.2.24 Loan payments. Write a program that calculates the monthly payments 
+you would have to make over a given number of years to pay off a loan at a given 
+interest rate compounded continuously, taking the number of years t, the principal 
+P, and the annual interest rate r as command-line arguments. The desired value is 
+given by the formula Pe rt . Use Math . exp(). 
+
+
+1.2.25 Wind chill. Given the temperature t (in Fahrenheit) and the wind speed v 
+(in miles per hour), the National Weather Service defines the effective temperature 
+(the wind chill) to be: 
+
+w = 35.74 + 0.6215 t + (0.4275 t - 35.75) v 016 
+Write a program that takes two doubl e command-line arguments t and v and 
+prints out the wind chill. Use Math . pow(a, b) to compute a b . Note: The formula is 
+not valid if t is larger than 50 in absolute value or if v is larger than 120 or less than 
+3 (you may assume that the values you get are in that range). 
+
+
+1.2.26 Polar coordinates. Write a program that converts from Car- 
+tesian to polar coordinates. Your program should take two real num- 
+bers x and y on the command line and print the polar coordinates r 
+and 0. Use the Java method Math . atan2 (y , x) which computes the 
+arctangent value of y/x that is in the range from — tt to tt. 
+
+
+
+Polar coordinates 
+
+
+1.2.27 Gaussian random numbers. One way to generate a random 
+number taken from the Gaussian distribution is to use the Box-Muller formula 
+
+
+w = sin(2 -it v) (— 2 In u) m 
+
+where u and v are real numbers between 0 and 1 generated by the Math . random () 
+method. Write a program StdCaussian that prints out a standard Gaussian ran- 
+dom variable. 
+
+
+1.2.28 Order check. Write a program that takes three doubl e values x, y, and z 
+as command-line arguments and prints true if the values are strictly ascending or 
+descending (x<y<zorx>y>z), and f al se otherwise. 
+
+1.2.29 Day of the week. Write a program that takes a date as input and prints the 
+day of the week that date falls on. Your program should take three command line 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+43 
+
+
+
+parameters: m (month), d (day), and y (year). For m, use 1 for January, 2 for Febru- 
+ary, and so forth. For output, print 0 for Sunday, 1 for Monday, 2 for Tuesday, and 
+so forth. Use the following formulas, for the Gregorian calendar: 
+
+To = y- (14 - m)l 12 
+
+x = y 0 + y 0 l4 - V 100 + V 400 
+
+m 0 = m + 12 X ((14 — m) / 12) — 2 
+d 0 = (d + x + (31Xm 0 )/12) % 7 
+
+Example: On what day of the week was February 14, 2000? 
+
+y 0 = 2000 - 1 = 1999 
+
+x = 1999 + 1999/4 - 1999/100 + 1999/400 = 2483 
+m 0 = 2 + 12X1 - 2 = 12 
+
+d 0 = (14 + 2483 + (31 X 12) / 12) % 7 = 2500 % 7 = 1 
+Answer: Monday. 
+
+1 . 2.30 Uniform random numbers. Write a program that prints five uniform ran- 
+dom values between 0 and 1, their average value, and their minimum and maxi- 
+mum value. Use Math . random 0 , Math . mi n () , and Math . max () . 
+
+1 . 2.31 Mercator projection. The Mercator projection is a conformal (angle preserv- 
+ing) projection that maps latitude <p and longitude A. to rectangular coordinates 
+(x,y). It is widely used — for example, in nautical charts and in the maps that you 
+print from the web. The projection is defined by the equations x = X — A. 0 and 
+y = 1/2 In ((1 4- sin 9) / (1 — sin cp)), where \ 0 is the longitude of the point in the 
+center of the map. Write a program that takes A. 0 and the latitude and longitude of 
+a point from the command line and prints its projection. 
+
+1 . 2.32 Color conversion. Several different formats are used to represent color. For 
+example, the primary format for LCD displays, digital cameras, and web pages, 
+known as the RGB format, specifies the level of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) 
+on an integer scale from 0 to 255. The primary format for publishing books and 
+magazines, known as the CMYK format, specifies the level of cyan (C), magenta 
+(M), yellow (Y), and black (K) on a real scale from 0.0 to 1.0. Write a program RG- 
+BtoCMYK that converts RGB to CMYK. Take three integers — r, g, and b — from the 
+
+
+
+
+44 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+command line and print the equivalent CMYK values. If the RGB values are all 0, 
+then the CMY values are all 0 and the K value is 1; otherwise, use these formulas: 
+
+w = max ( r / 255, g/ 255, b / 255 ) 
+c = (w — (r/255))/w 
+m = (w — ( g / 255)) / w 
+y = (xv — (b/ 255)) / w 
+k = 1 — w 
+
+
+1.2.33 Great circle. Write a program GreatCi rcl e that takes four command-line 
+arguments — xl, yl, x2, and y2 — (the latitude and longitude, in degrees, of two 
+points on the earth) and prints out the great-circle distance between them. The 
+great-circle distance (in nautical miles) is given by the equation: 
+
+d- 60 arccos(sin(x 1 ) sin(x 2 ) + cos(x 1 ) cos(x 2 ) cos(yj — y 2 )) 
+
+Note that this equation uses degrees, whereas Java’s trigonometric functions use 
+radians. Use Math.toRadiansO and Math.toDegreesO to convert between the 
+two. Use your program to compute the great-circle distance between Paris (48.87° 
+N and —2.33° W) and San Francisco (37.8° N and 122.4° W). 
+
+1.2.34 Three-sort. Write a program that takes three i nt values from the command 
+line and prints them in ascending order. Use Math. min Q and Math. max Q. 
+
+
+1.2.35 Dragon curves. Write a program to print 
+the instructions for drawing the dragon curves of 
+order 0 through 5. The instructions are strings of 
+F, L, and R characters, where F means “draw line 
+while moving 1 unit forward,” L means “turn left,” 
+and R means “turn right.” A dragon curve of order 
+N is formed when you fold a strip of paper in half N 
+times, then unfold to right angles. The key to solving 
+this problem is to note that a curve of order N is a 
+curve of order N— 1 followed by an L followed by a 
+curve of order N— 1 traversed in reverse order, and 
+
+
+J" 
+
+j— | FLFLFRF 
+
+
+
+FLFLFRFLFLFRFRF 
+
+
+Dragon curves of order 0, 1,2 , and 3 
+
+
+then to figure out a similar description for the reverse curve . 
+
+
+
+
+1.2 Built-in Types of Data 
+
+
+45 
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+In the programs that we have examined to this point, each of the statements in the 
+program is executed once, in the order given. Most programs are more complicated 
+because the sequence of statements and the number of times each is executed can 
+vary. We use the term control flow to refer to statement sequencing in a program. In 
+this section, we introduce statements that 
+allow us to change the control flow, using 
+logic about the values of program vari- 
+ables. This feature is an essential compo- 
+nent of programming. 
+
+Specifically, we consider Java state- 
+ments that implement conditionals, where 
+some other statements may or may not 
+be executed depending on certain condi- 
+tions, and loops, where some other state- 
+ments may be executed multiple times, 
+again depending on certain conditions. As you will see in numerous examples in 
+this section, conditionals and loops truly harness the power of the computer and 
+will equip you to write programs to accomplish a broad variety of tasks that you 
+could not contemplate attempting without a computer. 
+
+If statements Most computations require different actions for different inputs. 
+One way to express these differences in Java is the i f statement: 
+
+if (<boo7ean expression^ { <statements> } 
+
+This description introduces a formal notation known as a template that we will 
+use to specify the format of Java constructs. We put within angle brackets (< >) a 
+construct that we have already defined, to indicate that we can use any instance of 
+that construct where specified. In this case, <boolean expression represents an 
+expression that has a boolean value, such as one involving a comparison operation, 
+and <statements> represents a statement block (a sequence of Java statements, 
+each terminated by a semicolon). This latter construct is fam il iar to you: the body 
+of mai n () is such a sequence. If the sequence is a single statement, the curly braces 
+are optional. It is possible to make formal definitions of <boolean expression 
+and <statements>, but we refrain from going into that level of detail. The meaning 
+
+
+1.3.1 Flipping a fair coin 49 
+
+1.3.2 Your first while loop . . 51 
+
+1.3.3 Computing powers of two . . . . . 53 
+
+1.3.4 Your first nested loops 59 
+
+1.3.5 Harmonic numbers 61 
+
+1.3.6 Newton’s method 62 
+
+1.3.7 Converting to binary 64 
+
+1.3.8 Gambler’s ruin simulation 66 
+
+1.3.9 Factoring integers 69 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+47 
+
+
+of an i f statement is self-explanatory: the statement(s) in the sequence are to be 
+executed if and only if the expression is true. 
+
+As a simple example, suppose that you want to compute the absolute value of 
+an i nt value x. This statement does the job: 
+
+
+if (x < 0) x = -x; 
+
+As a second simple example, consider the following statement: 
+
+if (x > y) 
+
+{ 
+
+int t = x; 
+x = y; 
+y = t; 
+
+} 
+
+
+boolean 
+
+expression 
+
+if ( |x > y I ) 
+{ 
+
+sequence 
+statements 
+
+
+> 
+
+Anatomy of an if statement 
+
+
+int t = x; 
+x = y; 
+
+y - t; 
+
+
+This code puts x and y in ascending order by exchanging them if 
+necessary. 
+
+You can also add an el se clause to an i f statement, to express the concept of 
+executing either one statement (or sequence of statements) or another, depending 
+on whether the boolean expression is true or fal se, as in the following template: 
+
+
+if (<boo7ean expression') <statements T> 
+else <statements F> 
+
+
+As a simple example of the need for an el se clause, consider the following code, 
+which assigns the maximum of two i nt values to the variable max: 
+
+if (x > y) max = x; 
+else max = y; 
+
+One way to understand control flow is to visualize it with a diagram called a flow- 
+chart. Paths through the flowchart correspond to flow-of-control paths in the pro- 
+
+
+if (x < 0) x = -x; if < x > max = x ; 
+
+else max = y; 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+48 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+absolute value 
+
+if (x < 0) x = -x; 
+
+put x and y 
+into 
+
+sorted order 
+
+if (x > y) 
+
+{ 
+
+int t = x; 
+y = x; 
+x = t; 
+
+} 
+
+maximum of 
+x and y 
+
+if (x > y) max = x; 
+else max = y; 
+
+error check 
+for division 
+operation 
+
+if (den == 0) System. out. println("Division by zero"); 
+else System. out. println("Quotient = " + num/den) ; 
+
+
+double discriminant = b*b - 4.0*c; 
+if (discriminant < 0.0) 
+
+{ 
+
+System. out. println("No real roots"); 
+
+} 
+
+else 
+
+{ 
+
+System. out. println((-b + Math.sqrt(discriminant))/2 .0) ; 
+System. out. println((-b - Math.sqrt(discriminant))/2 .0) ; 
+
+} 
+
+error check 
+for quadratic 
+formula 
+
+
+Typical examples of using i f statements 
+
+
+gram. In the early days of computing, when programmers used low-level languages 
+and difficult-to-understand flows of control, flowcharts were an essential part of 
+programming. With modern languages, we use flowcharts just to understand basic 
+building blocks like the i f statement. 
+
+The accompanying table contains some examples of the use of i f and i f- 
+el se statements. These examples are typical of simple calculations you might need 
+in programs that you write. Conditional statements are an essential part of pro- 
+gramming. Since the semantics (meaning) of statements like these is similar to their 
+meanings as natural-language phrases, you will quickly grow used to them. 
+
+Program 1.3.1 is another example of the use of the if-else statement, in 
+this case for the task of simulating a coin flip. The body of the program is a single 
+statement, like the ones in the table above, but it is worth special attention because 
+it introduces an interesting philosophical issue that is worth contemplating: can a 
+computer program produce random values? Certainly not, but a program can pro- 
+duce numbers that have many of the properties of random numbers. 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+49 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.3.1 Flipping a fair coin 
+
+public class Flip 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Simulate a coin flip. 
+
+if (Math. randomO < 0.5) System. out. println("Heads") ; 
+else System. out. println("Tails") ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This program uses Math . randomO to simulate a coin flip. Each time you run it, it prints either 
+heads or tails. A sequence of flips will have many of the same properties as a sequence that you 
+would get by flipping a fair coin, but it is not a truly random sequence. 
+
+
+% java Flip 
+Heads 
+
+% java Flip 
+Tails 
+
+% java Flip 
+Tai 1 s 
+
+
+
+
+ms 
+
+
+While loops Many computations are inherently repetitive. The basic Java con- 
+struct for handling such computations has the following format: 
+
+while (,<boolean expression) { <statements> } 
+
+The whi 1 e statement has the same form as the i f statement (the only difference be- 
+ing the use of the keyword while instead of i f ), but the meaning is quite different. 
+It is an instruction to the computer to behave as follows: if the expression is fal se, 
+do nothing; if the expression is true, execute the sequence of statements (just as 
+with i f ) but then check the expression again, execute the sequence of statements 
+again if the expression is true, and continue as long as the expression is true. We 
+often refer to the statement block in a loop as the body of the loop. As with the i f 
+statement, the braces are optional if a whi 1 e loop body has just one statement. 
+
+The whi 1 e statement is equivalent to a sequence of identical i f statements: 
+
+
+50 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+if 
+
+if 
+
+if 
+
+
+( <boolean 
+( cboolean 
+( <boolean 
+
+
+expression) 
+
+expression) 
+
+expression) 
+
+
+<statements> 
+
+<statements> 
+
+<statements> 
+
+
+initialization is a 
+separate statement 
+
+N \ , 
+int 
+
+
+braces are 
+optional ^ 
+when body 
+is a single ^ •> 
+statement * 
+
+
+v 
+
+while 
+{ 
+
+
+loop 
+
+continuation 
+
+condition 
+
+= i; / 
+
+(IZ 
+
+
+~N/2l ) 
+
+
+v = 2*v; 
+
+
+t 
+
+body 
+
+
+Anatomy of a whi 1 e loop 
+
+
+4; 
+
+< 
+
+
+At some point, the code in one of the statements must 
+change something (such as the value of some variable in 
+the boolean expression) to make the boolean expression 
+f al se, and then the sequence is broken. 
+
+A common programming paradigm involves main- 
+taining an integer value that keeps track of the number of 
+
+times a loop iterates. We start at some initial value, and then increment the value 
+by 1 each time through the loop, testing whether it exceeds a predetermined maxi- 
+mum before deciding to continue. TenHellos 
+(Program 1.3.2) is a simple example of this para- 
+digm that uses a whi 1 e statement. The key to the 
+computation is the statement 
+
+
+(i <= 10) 
+
+
+int i 
+while 
+{ 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (i 
+i = i +1; 
+
+
++ "th Hello"); 
+
+
+i = i +1; 
+
+As a mathematical equation, this statement is 
+nonsense, but as a Java assignment statement it 
+makes perfect sense: it says to compute the value 
+i + 1 and then assign the result to the variable i . 
+If the value of i was 4 before the statement, it be- 
+comes 5 afterwards; if it was 5 it becomes 6; and 
+so forth. With the initial condition inTenHellos 
+that the value of i starts at 4, the statement block 
+is executed five times until the sequence is bro- 
+ken, when the value of i becomes 11. 
+
+Using the while loop is barely worthwhile for this simple task, but you will 
+soon be addressing tasks where you will need to specify that statements be repeated 
+far too many times to contemplate doing it without loops. There is a profound 
+difference between programs with while statements and programs without them, 
+because while statements allow us to specify a potentially unlimited number of 
+statements to be executed in a program. In particular, the while statement allows 
+us to specify lengthy computations in short programs. This ability opens the door 
+to writing programs for tasks that we could not contemplate addressing without a 
+
+
+
+Flowchart example ( while statement) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals ana Loops 
+
+
+Program 1.3.2 Your first while loop 
+
+public class TenHellos 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print 10 Hellos. 
+
+System. out. println ("1st Hello") ; 
+System. out. println ("2nd Hello") ; 
+System. out. println("3rd Hello") ; 
+int i = 4; 
+while (i <= 10) 
+
+{ // Print the ith Hello. 
+
+System.out.println(i + "th Hello"); 
+i = i + 1; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This program uses a while loop for the simple, repetitive task of printing the output shown 
+below. After the third line, the lines to be printed differ only in the value of the index counting 
+the line printed, so we define a variable i to contain that index. After initializing the value of 
+i to 4, we enter into a while loop where we use the value of i in the System, out .pri ntln() 
+statement and increment it each time through the loop. After printing 10th Hel 1 o, the value 
+of i becomes 11 and the loop terminates. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+% java TenHellos 
+
+f i 
+
+i <= 10 
+
+output 
+
+1st Hello 
+
+2nd Hello 
+
+1 4 
+
+true 
+
+4th Hello 
+
+3rd Hello 
+
+| i 5 
+
+true 
+
+5th Hello 
+
+4th Hello 
+
+5th Hello 
+
+E 6 
+
+i- i 
+
+true 
+
+6th Hello 
+
+6th Hello 
+
+1 7 
+
+true 
+
+7th Hello 
+
+7th Hello 
+
+8th Hello 
+
+| 8 
+
+true 
+
+8th Hello 
+
+9th Hello 
+
+! i 9 
+
+true 
+
+9th Hello 
+
+10th Hello 
+
+; io 
+
+true 
+
+10th Hello 
+
+
+$ a 
+
+false 
+
+
+
+Trace of j ava 
+
+TenHel los 
+
+
+
+
+52 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+computer. But there is also a price to pay: as your pro- 
+grams become more sophisticated, they become more 
+difficult to understand. 
+
+PowersOfTwo (Program 1.3.3) uses a while loop 
+to print out a table of the powers of 2. Beyond the loop 
+control counter i , it maintains a variable v that holds 
+the powers of two as it computes them. The loop body 
+contains three statements: one to print the current 
+power of 2, one to compute the next (multiply the cur- 
+rent one by 2), and one to increment the loop control 
+counter. 
+
+There are many situations in computer science 
+where it is useful to be familiar with powers of 2. You 
+should know at least the first 10 values in this table 
+and you should note that 2 10 is about 1 thousand, 2 20 is 
+about 1 million, and 2 30 is about 1 billion. 
+
+PowersOfTwo is the prototype for many use- 
+ful computations. By varying the computations that 
+change the accumulated value and the way that the 
+loop control variable is incremented, we can print out 
+tables of a variety of functions (see Exercise 1.3.1 1). 
+
+It is worthwhile to carefully examine the behav- 
+ior of programs that use loops by studying a trace of 
+the program. For example, a trace of the operation of 
+PowersOfTwo should show the value of each variable 
+before each iteration of the loop and the value of the 
+conditional expression that controls the loop. Trac- 
+ing the operation of a loop can be very tedious, but it 
+is nearly always worthwhile to run a trace because it 
+clearly exposes what a program is doing. 
+
+PowersOfTwo is nearly a self-tracing program, 
+because it prints the values of its variables each time 
+through the loop. Clearly, you can make any program 
+produce a trace of itself by adding appropriate System . 
+out . pri ntl n 0 statements. Modern programming en- 
+vironments provide sophisticated tools for tracing, but 
+
+
+i 
+
+V 
+
+i <= N 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+true 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+true 
+
+2 
+
+4 
+
+true 
+
+3 
+
+8 
+
+true 
+
+4 
+
+16 
+
+true 
+
+5 
+
+32 
+
+true 
+
+6 
+
+64 
+
+true 
+
+7 
+
+128 
+
+true 
+
+8 
+
+256 
+
+true 
+
+9 
+
+512 
+
+true 
+
+10 
+
+1024 
+
+true 
+
+11 
+
+2048 
+
+true 
+
+12 
+
+4096 
+
+true 
+
+13 
+
+8192 
+
+true 
+
+14 
+
+16384 
+
+true 
+
+15 
+
+32768 
+
+true 
+
+16 
+
+65536 
+
+true 
+
+17 
+
+131072 
+
+true 
+
+18 
+
+262144 
+
+true 
+
+19 
+
+524288 
+
+true 
+
+20 
+
+1048576 
+
+true 
+
+21 
+
+2097152 
+
+true 
+
+22 
+
+4194304 
+
+true 
+
+23 
+
+8388608 
+
+true 
+
+24 
+
+16777216 
+
+true 
+
+25 
+
+33554432 
+
+true 
+
+26 
+
+67108864 
+
+true 
+
+27 
+
+134217728 
+
+true 
+
+28 
+
+268435456 
+
+true 
+
+29 
+
+536870912 
+
+true 
+
+30 
+
+1073741824 
+
+false 
+
+
+Trace of java PowersOfTwo 29 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+S3 
+
+
+■ i 1 — - — •_!„. 
+
+
+Program 1.3.3 Computing powers of two 
+
+
+P ■ ’ 
+
+n 
+
+
+
+
+
+public class PowersOfTwo 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+{ // Print the first N powers of 2. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int v = 1; 
+int i = 0; 
+while (i <= N) 
+
+{ // Print ith power of 2. 
+
+System. out. printing + " " + v); 
+v = 2 * v; 
+i = i + 1; 
+
+} 
+
+
+N 
+
+loop termination value 
+
+i 
+
+loop control counter 
+
+V 
+
+current power of 2 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program takes a command-line argument N and prints a table of the powers of 2 that are 
+less than or equal to 2 N . Each time through the loop, we increment the value of i and double 
+the value of v. We show only the first three and the last three lines of the table; the program 
+prints N+l lines. 
+
+
+' lit B i 
+
+
+
+
+% java PowersOfTwo 29 
+0 1 
+1 2 
+2 4 
+
+27 134217728 
+
+28 268435456 
+
+29 536870912 
+
+
+this tried-and-true method is simple and effective. You certainly should add print 
+statements to the first few loops that you write, to be sure that they are doing pre- 
+cisely what you expect. 
+
+There is a hidden trap in PowersOfTwo, because the largest integer in Java's 
+i nt data type is 2 31 - 1 and the program does not test for that possibility. If you 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+invoke it with java PowersOfTwo 31, you may be surprised by the last line of 
+output: 
+
+1073741824 
+
+-2147483648 
+
+The variable v becomes too large and takes on a negative value because of the way 
+Java represents integers. The maximum value of an i nt is available for us to use as 
+Integer . MAX_VALUE. A better version of Program 1.3.3 would use this value to test 
+for overflow and print an error message if the user types too large a value, though 
+getting such a program to work properly for all inputs is trickier than you might 
+think. (For a similar challenge, see Exercise 1.3.14.) 
+
+As a more complicated example, suppose that we 
+want to compute the largest power of two that is less 
+than or equal to a given positive integer N. If N is 13 we 
+want the result 8; if N is 1000, we want the result 512; if N 
+is 64, we want the result 64; and so forth. This computa- 
+tion is simple to perform with a whi 1 e loop: 
+
+int v = 1; 
+
+while (v <= N/2) 
+v = 2*v; 
+
+It takes some thought to convince yourself that this sim- 
+ple piece of code produces the desired result. You can do 
+so by making these observations: 
+
+• v is always a power of 2. 
+
+• v is never greater than N. 
+
+• v increases each time through the loop, so the loop 
+must terminate. 
+
+• After the loop terminates, 2*v is greater than N. 
+
+Reasoning of this sort is often important in understanding how whi 1 e loops work. 
+Even though many of the loops you will write are much simpler than this one, you 
+should be sure to convince yourself that each loop you write is going to behave as 
+you expect. 
+
+The logic behind such arguments is the same whether the loop iterates just 
+a few times, as in TenHellos, dozens of times, as in PowersOfTwo, or millions of 
+times, as in several examples that we will soon consider. That leap from a few tiny 
+cases to a huge computation is profound. When writing loops, understanding how 
+
+
+
+Flowchart for the statements 
+
+int v = 1; 
+while (v <= N/2) 
+v = 2*v; 
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+55 
+
+
+the values of the variables change each time through the loop (and checking that 
+understanding by adding statements to trace their values and running for a small 
+number of iterations) is essential. Having done so, you can confidently remove 
+those training wheels and truly unleash the power of the computer. 
+
+For loops As you will see, the while loop allows us to write programs for all 
+manner of applications. Before considering more examples, we will look at an al- 
+ternate Java construct that allows us even more flexibility when writing programs 
+with loops. This alternate notation is not fundamentally different from the basic 
+whi 1 e loop, but it is widely used because it often allows us to write more compact 
+and more readable programs than if we used only while statements. 
+
+For notation. Many loops follow this scheme: initialize an index variable to some 
+value and then use a while loop to test a loop continuation condition involving 
+the index variable, where the last statement in the while loop increments the index 
+variable. You can express such loops directly with Java’s for notation: 
+
+for ( <initialize > ; <boolean expression>; <increment>') 
+
+{ 
+
+<statements> 
+
+} 
+
+This code is, with only a few exceptions, equivalent to 
+<initiaiize>; 
+
+while ( <booiean expression^ 
+
+{ 
+
+<statements> 
+
+<increment>; 
+
+} 
+
+Your Java compiler might even produce identical results for the two loops. In truth, 
+<initial ize> and <increment> can be any statements at all, but we nearly always 
+use for loops to support this typical initialize-and-increment programming idiom. 
+For example, the following two lines of code are equivalent to the corresponding 
+lines of code in TenHel los (Program 1.3.2): 
+
+for (int i =4; i <=10; i - i +1) 
+
+System. out. print! n(i + "th Hello"); 
+
+
+
+56 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Typically, we work with a slightly more compact version of this code, using the 
+shorthand notation discussed next. 
+
+Compound assignment idioms. Modifying the value of a variable is something 
+that we do so often in programming that Java provides a variety of different short- 
+hand notations for the purpose. For example, the following four statements all in- 
+crement the value of i by 1 in Java: 
+
+i = i + 1 ; i ++ ; ++i ; i += 1 ; 
+
+You can also say i — or — i or i -= 1 or i = i -1 to decrement that value of i by 1. 
+Most programmers use i ++ or i — in for loops, though any of the others would do. 
+The ++ and — constructs are normally used for integers, but the compound assign- 
+ment constructs are useful operations for any arithmetic operator in any primitive 
+numeric type. For example, you can say v *= 2orv += v instead of v = 2*v.All 
+of these idioms are for notational convenience, nothing more. This combination of 
+shortcuts came into widespread use with the C programming language in the 1970s 
+and have become standard. They have survived the test of time because they lead to 
+compact, elegant, and easily understood programs. When you learn to write (and 
+to read) programs that use them, you will be able to transfer that skill to program- 
+ming in numerous modern languages, not just Java. 
+
+Scope. The scope of a variable is the part of the program where it is defined. Gen- 
+erally the scope of a variable is comprised of the statements that follow the decla- 
+ration in the same block as the declaration. For this purpose, the code in the for 
+loop header is considered to be in the same block as the for loop body. Therefore, 
+the while and for formulations of loops are not quite equivalent: in a typical for 
+loop, the incrementing variable is not available for use in later statements; in the 
+corresponding while loop, it is. This distinction is often a reason to use a while 
+instead of a for loop. 
+
+Choosing among different formulations of the same computation is a matter of 
+each programmer’s taste, as when a writer picks from among synonyms or chooses 
+between using active and passive voice when composing a sentence. You will not 
+find good hard-and-fast rules on how to compose a program any more than you 
+will find such rules on how to compose a paragraph. Your goal should be to find a 
+style that suits you, gets the computation done, and can be appreciated by others. 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+57 
+
+
+The accompanying table includes 
+several code fragments with typical 
+examples of loops used in Java code. 
+
+Some of these relate to code that you 
+have already seen; others are new code 
+for straightforward computations. To 
+cement your understanding of loops 
+in Java, put these code snippets into a 
+class’s code that takes an integer N from 
+the command line (like PowersOfTwo) 
+and compile and run them. Then, write 
+some loops of your own for similar computations of your own invention, or do 
+some of the early exercises at the end of this section. There is no substitute for the 
+experience gained by running code that you create yourself, and it is imperative 
+that you develop an understanding of how to write Java code that uses loops. 
+
+
+print largest power of two 
+less than or equal to N 
+
+int v = 1; 
+while (v <= N/2) 
+v = 2*v; 
+
+System. out. print! n(v) ; 
+
+compute a finite sum 
+
+(1 +2 + ...+N) 
+
+int sum = 0; 
+
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+sum += i ; 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (sum) ; 
+
+compute a finite product 
+(N! = lx2 x ... x N) 
+
+int product = 1; 
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+product *= i ; 
+
+System . out . p ri ntl n (product) ; 
+
+print a table of 
+function values 
+
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+System. out. printing + " " + 2*Math.PI*i/N); 
+
+print the ruler function 
+(see Program 1.2.1) 
+
+String ruler = " " ; 
+for (int i =1; i <= N; i++) 
+ruler = ruler + i + ruler; 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (rul er) ; 
+
+
+Typical examples of using for and while statements 
+
+
+declare and initialize 
+initialize another « loop control variable 
+
+
+variable in a 
+separate N 
+statement 
+
+
+loop 
+
+\ continuation 
+
+\ condition increment 
+
+S'nt v = 1;\ | / 
+
+for ( lint i = ~0j |i <= Nfc |i++| ) 
+
+{ 
+
+
+System. out. print! n(i + " " + v); 
+v = 2*v; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+t 
+
+body 
+
+
+Anatomy of a for loop (that prints powers of 2) 
+
+
+
+
+
+58 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Nesting The i f, whi 1 e, and for statements have the same status as assignment 
+statements or any other statements in Java. That is, we can use them whenever a 
+statement is called for. In particular, we can use one or more of them in the <body> 
+of another to make compound statements. As a first example, DivisorPattern 
+(Program 1.3.4) has a for loop whose statements are a for loop (whose statement 
+is an i f statement) and a print statement. It prints a pattern of asterisks where the 
+ith row has an asterisk in each position corresponding to divisors of i (the same 
+holds true for the columns). 
+
+To emphasize the nesting, we use indentation in the program code. We refer 
+to the i loop as the outer loop and the j loop as the inner loop. The inner loop iter- 
+ates all the way through for each iteration of the outer loop. As usual, the best way 
+to understand a new programming construct like this is to study a trace. 
+
+Di vi sorPattern has a complicated control structure, as you can see from its 
+flowchart. A diagram like this illustrates the importance of using a limited num- 
+ber of simple control structures in programming. With nesting, you can compose 
+loops and conditionals to build programs that are easy to understand even though 
+they may have a complicated control structure. A great many useful computations 
+can be accomplished with just one or two levels of nesting. For example, many pro- 
+grams in this book have the same general structure as Di vi sorPattern. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+59 
+
+
+
+Program 1.3.4 Your first nested loops 
+
+
+
+
+public class DivisorPattern 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print a square that visualizes divisors, 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+
+{ // Print the ith line 
+
+for (int j = 1; j <= N; j++) 
+
+{ // Print the jth entry in the ith line, 
+if ((i % j == 0) || (j % i == 0)) 
+System. out. print ("* "); 
+else 
+
+System. out. print(" "); 
+
+} 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (i ) ; 
+
+
+^ number of rows 
+
+and columns 
+i row index 
+j column index 
+
+
+
+This program takes an integer N as the command-line argument and uses nested for loops to 
+print an N-fry-N table with an asterisk in row i and column j if either i divides j or j divides 
+i . The loop control variables i and j control the computation. 
+
+
+% java DivisorPattern 3 
+* * * 2. 
+
+* * 2 
+
+* * 3 
+
+% java DivisorPattern 16 
+
+****************2 
+
+* * * * * * * * *2 
+
+* * * * * * 3 
+
+* * * * * * 4 
+
+* * * * 5 
+
+* * * * * a 
+
+
+Hi 
+
+WM 
+
+
+
+asam 
+
+iliiiPiilP 
+
+P 
+
+i 
+
+i 
+
+j i 
+
+% j 
+
+j % i 
+
+output 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+* 
+
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+i 
+
+0 
+
+* 
+
+
+1 
+
+3 
+
+i 
+
+0 
+
+* 
+
+1 
+
+
+2 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+* 
+
+
+2 
+
+2 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+* 
+
+: i 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+2 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+
+3 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+* 
+
+
+3 
+
+2 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+
+
+3 
+
+3 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+* 
+
+3 
+
+
+Trace of j 
+
+iava 
+
+DivisorPattern 3 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+As a second example of nesting, consider the following program fragment, 
+which a tax preparation program might use to compute income tax rates: 
+
+
+if 
+
+
+(i ncome 
+
+< 
+
+0) 
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+0.0 
+
+else 
+
+if 
+
+(income 
+
+< 
+
+47450) 
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+.22 
+
+else 
+
+if 
+
+(i ncome 
+
+< 
+
+114650) 
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+.25 
+
+el se 
+
+if 
+
+(i ncome 
+
+< 
+
+174700) 
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+.28 
+
+else 
+
+if 
+
+(i ncome 
+
+< 
+
+311950) 
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+.33 
+
+else 
+
+
+
+
+
+rate 
+
+= 
+
+.35 
+
+
+In this case, a number of if statements are nested to test from among a number 
+of mutually exclusive possibilities. This construct is a special one that we use often. 
+Otherwise, it is best to use braces to resolve ambiguities when nesting i f state- 
+ments. This issue and more examples are addressed in the Q&A and exercises. 
+
+Applications The ability to program with loops immediately opens up the full 
+world of computation. To emphasize this fact, we next consider a variety of exam- 
+ples. These examples all involve working with the types of data that we considered 
+in Section 1.2, but rest assured that the same mechanisms serve us well for any 
+computational application. The sample programs are carefully crafted, and by 
+studying and appreciating them, you will be prepared to write your own programs 
+containing loops, as requested in many of the exercises at the end of this section. 
+
+The examples that we consider here involve computing with numbers. Sev- 
+eral of our examples are tied to problems faced by mathematicians and scientists 
+throughout the past several centuries. While computers have existed for only 50 
+years or so, many of the computational methods that we use are based on a rich 
+mathematical tradition tracing back to antiquity. 
+
+Finite sum. The computational paradigm used by PowersOfT- 
+wo is one that you will use frequently. It uses two variables — one 
+as an index that controls a loop and the other to accumulate a 
+computational result. Harmonic (Program 1.3.5) uses the same 
+paradigm to evaluate the finite sum H N = 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 
+
+1 IN. These numbers, which are known as the Harmonic num- 
+bers, arise frequently in discrete mathematics. Harmonic numbers are the discrete 
+analog of the logarithm. They also approximate the area under the curve y = 1/x. 
+You can use Program 1.3.5 as a model for computing the values of other sums (see 
+Exercise 1.3.16). 
+
+
+Hum 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+61 
+
+
+
+public class Harmonic 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+{ // Compute the Nth Harmonic number, 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+double sum =0.0; 
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+
+{ // Add the ith term to the sum 
+
+sum += 1.0/i ; 
+
+> 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (sum) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+number of terms in sum 
+1 loop index 
+sum cumulated sum 
+
+
+This program computes the value of the Nth Harmonic number. The value is known from math- 
+ematical analysis to be about ln(N) + 0.57721 for large N. Note that ln(10000) ~ 9.21034. 
+
+
+
+% java Harmonic 2 
+1.5 
+
+% java Harmonic 10 
+2.9289682539682538 
+% java Harmonic 10000 
+9.787606036044348 
+
+
+
+
+I 
+
+
+Computing the square root. How are functions in Java’s Math li- 
+brary, such as Math . sqrt(), implemented? Sqrt (Program 1.3.6) 
+illustrates one technique. To compute the square root function, it 
+uses an iterative computation that was known to the Babylonians 
+over 4,000 years ago. It is also a special case of a general com- 
+putational technique that was developed in the 17th century by 
+Isaac Newton and Joseph Raphson and is widely known as New- 
+ton’s method. Under generous conditions on a given function /(x), 
+Newton’s method is an effective way to find roots (values of x for 
+which the function is 0). Start with an initial estimate, t 0 . Given the 
+
+
+
+
+62 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+W0& 
+
+
+Program 1.3.6 Newton’s method 
+
+
+public class Sqrt 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double c = Double.parseDouble(args[0]) ; 
+double epsilon = le-15; 
+double t = c; 
+
+while (Math.abs(t - c/t) > epsilon * t) 
+
+{ // Replace t by the average of t and c/t. 
+
+t = (c/t + t) / 2.0; 
+
+} 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (t) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+c argument 1 
+
+epsilon error tolerance H 
+
+t estimate of c || 
+
+
+This program computes the square root of its command-line argument to 15 decimal places of 
+M accuracy, using Newton's method (see text). 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+% java Sqrt 2.0 
+1. 414213562373095 
+% java Sqrt 2544545 
+1595.1630010754388 
+
+
+iteration 
+
+
+2.0000000000000000 1.0 
+1.5000000000000000 1.3333333333333333 
+
+1.4166666666666665 1.4117647058823530 
+
+1.4142156862745097 1.4142114384748700 
+
+1.4142135623746899 1.4142135623715002 
+
+1.4142135623730950 1.4142135623730951 
+
+
+estimate t } , compute j 5 1.4142135623730950 1.4142135623730951 B 
+
+a new estimate by ] Trace o/ java Sqrt 2.0 1 
+
+drawing a line tan- 
+gent to the curve y 
+
+=/(x) at the point (f,,/(f ; )) and set h+i to the x-coordinate of the point where that 
+line hits the x-axis. Iterating this process, we get closer to the root. 
+
+Computing the square root of a positive number c is equivalent to finding the 
+positive root of the function f(x) = x 2 - c. For this special case, Newton’s method 
+amounts to the process implemented in Sqrt (see Exercise 1.3.17). Start with the 
+estimate t = c. If t is equal to c/t, then t is equal to the square root of c, so the com- 
+putation is complete. If not, refine the estimate by replacing t with the average of t 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+63 
+
+
+and c/t. With Newton’s method, we get the value of the 
+square root of 2 accurate to 15 places in just 5 iterations 
+of the loop. 
+
+Newton’s method is important in scientific com- 
+puting because the same iterative approach is effec- 
+tive for finding the roots of a broad class of functions, 
+including many for which analytic solutions are not 
+known (so the Java Math library would be no help). 
+Nowadays, we take for granted that we can find what- 
+ever values we need of mathematical functions; before 
+computers, scientists and engineers had to use tables or 
+computed values by hand. Computational techniques 
+that were developed to enable calculations by hand 
+needed to be very efficient, so it is not surprising that 
+many of those same techniques are effective when we 
+use computers. Newton’s method is a classic example of 
+this phenomenon. Another useful approach for evalu- 
+ating mathematical functions is to use Taylor series ex- 
+pansions (see Exercises 1.3.35-36). 
+
+Number conversion. Binary (Program 1.3.7) prints 
+the binary (base 2) representation of the decimal num- 
+ber typed as the command-line argument. It is based on 
+decomposing a number into a sum of powers of two. 
+For example, the binary representation of 19 is 10011, 
+which is the same as saying that 19 = 16 + 2+ 1. To 
+compute the binary representation of N, we consider the 
+powers of 2 less than or equal to N in decreasing order 
+to determine which belong in the binary decomposi- 
+tion (and therefore correspond to a 1 bit in the binary 
+representation). The process corresponds precisely to 
+using a balance scale to weigh an object, using weights 
+whose values are powers of two. First, we find largest 
+weight not heavier than the object. Then, considering 
+the weights in decreasing order, we add each weight to 
+test whether the object is lighter. If so, we remove the 
+
+
+
+less than 16 + 8 
+
+10??? 
+
+
+
+less than 16 + 4 
+
++ 
+
+100?? 
+
+
+
+
+10000 + 10+1 = 10011 
+
+
+Scale analog to binary conversion 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+64 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+111 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.3.7 Converting to binary 
+
+
+
+public class Binary 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print binary representation of N. 
+
+int N = Integer .parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int v = 1; 
+while (v <= N/2) 
+v = 2*v; 
+
+// Now v is the largest power of 2 <= N. 
+
+
+integer to convert 
+current power of 2 
+current excess 
+
+■ f 
+
+
+int n = N; 
+while (v > 0) 
+
+{ // Cast out powers of 2 in decreasing order, 
+
+if (n < v) { System. out. pri nt (0) ; } 
+
+else { System. out. print(l) ; n -= v; > 
+
+v = v/2; 
+
+} 
+
+System, out. pri ntlnQ ; 
+
+
+This program prints the binary representation of a positive integer given as the command-line 
+argument, by casting out powers of 2 in decreasing order ( see text). 
+
+
+% java Binary 100000000 
+101111101011110000100000000 
+
+
+
+
+
+mmmmm 
+
+
+weight; if not, we leave the weight and try the next one. Each weight corresponds to 
+a bit in the binary representation of the weight of the object: leaving a weight corre- 
+sponds to a 1 bit in the binary representation of the object’s weight, and removing a 
+weight corresponds to a 0 bit in the binary representation of the object’s weight. 
+
+In Bi nary, the variable v corresponds to the current weight being tested, and 
+the variable n accounts for the excess (unknown) part of the object’s weight (to 
+
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+65 
+
+
+n 
+
+binary 
+
+representation 
+
+V 
+
+o 
+
+A 
+
+> 
+
+binary 
+
+representation 
+
+> 
+
+V 
+
+c 
+
+output 
+
+19 
+
+10011 
+
+16 
+
+true 
+
+10000 
+
+false 
+
+1 
+
+3 
+
+0011 
+
+8 
+
+true 
+
+1000 
+
+true 
+
+0 
+
+3 
+
+Oil 
+
+4 
+
+true 
+
+100 
+
+true 
+
+0 
+
+3 
+
+01 
+
+2 
+
+true 
+
+10 
+
+false 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+true 
+
+1 
+
+false 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+
+0 
+
+false 
+
+
+
+
+
+Trace of casting-out-powers-of-two loop for java Binary 19 
+
+
+simulate leaving a weight on the balance, we just subtract that weight from n). The 
+value of v decreases through the powers of two. When it is larger than n, Bi nary 
+prints 0; otherwise, it prints 1 and subtracts v from n. As usual, a trace (of the val- 
+ues of n, v, n < v, and the output bit for each loop iteration) can be very useful in 
+helping you to understand the program. Read from top to bottom in the rightmost 
+column of the trace, the output is 10011, the binary representation of 19. 
+
+Converting data from one representation to another is a frequent theme in 
+writing computer programs. Thinking about conversion emphasizes the distinc- 
+tion between an abstraction (an integer like the number of hours in a day) and a 
+representation of that abstraction (24 or 11000). The irony here is that the com- 
+puter’s representation of an integer is actually based on its binary representation. 
+
+
+Simulation. Our next example is different in char- 
+acter from the ones we have been considering, but 
+it is representative of a common situation where we 
+use computers to simulate what might happen in 
+the real world so that we can make informed deci- 
+sions. The specific example that we consider now is 
+from a thoroughly studied class of problems known 
+as gambler's ruin. Suppose that a gambler makes a 
+series of fair $1 bets, starting with some given ini- 
+tial stake. The gambler always goes broke eventually, 
+but when we set other limits on the game, various 
+questions arise. For example, suppose that the gam- 
+
+
+goal 
+
+
+stake 
+
+
+win 
+
+
+0 
+
+
+
+goal 
+stake 
+
+0 
+
+Gambler simulation sequences 
+
+
+
+
+66 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1 3 
+
+
+stake 
+
+initial stake 
+
+goal 
+
+walkaway goal 
+
+T 
+
+number of trials 
+
+bets 
+
+bet count 
+
+wins 
+
+win count 
+
+cash 
+
+cash on hand 
+
+
+.. - . - . 'i ,:■■ r . r ; ■ ■ ■ .-. /■'V . . .. . ■ ■ . .y j 
+
+Program 1.3.8 Gambler’s ruin simulation 
+
+public class Gambler 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Run T experiments that start with $stake 
+
+// and terminate on $0 or $goal . 
+int stake = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int goal = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [2]) ; 
+int bets = 0; 
+int wins = 0; 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ // Run one experiment, 
+
+int cash = stake; 
+while (cash > 0 && cash < goal) 
+
+{ // Simulate one bet. 
+
+bets++; 
+
+if (Math. random () <0.5) cash++; 
+else cash--; 
+
+} // Cash is either 0 (ruin) or $goal (win), 
+
+if (cash == goal) wins++; 
+
+} 
+
+System. out. print! n(100*wins/T + "% wins"); 
+
+System. out. println("Avg # bets: " + bets/T) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+The inner while loop in this program simulates a gambler with $stake who makes a series 
+of $1 bets, continuing until going broke or reaching $goal . The running time of this program 
+is proportional to T times the average number of bets. For example, the third command below 
+causes nearly 100 million random numbers to be generated. 
+
+
+
+% java Gambler 10 20 1000 
+
+50% wins 
+
+Avg # bets: 100 
+
+% java Gambler 50 250 100 
+
+19% wins 
+
+Avg It bets: 11050 
+% java Gambler 500 2500 100 
+21% wins 
+
+Avg # bets: 998071 
+
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+67 
+
+
+bier decides ahead of time to walk away after reaching a certain goal. What are the 
+chances that the gambler will win? How many bets might be needed to win or lose 
+the game? What is the maximum amount of money that the gambler will have dur- 
+ing the course of the game? 
+
+Gambler (Program 1.3.8) is a simulation that can help answer these ques- 
+tions. It does a sequence of trials, using Math . random () to simulate the sequence 
+of bets, continuing until the gambler is broke or the goal is reached, and keeping 
+track of the number of wins and the number of bets. After running the experiment 
+for the specified number of trials, it averages and prints out the results. You might 
+wish to run this program for various values of the command-line arguments, not 
+necessarily just to plan your next trip to the casino, but to help you think about the 
+following questions: Is the simulation an accurate reflection of what would hap- 
+pen in real life? How many trials are needed to get an accurate answer? What are 
+the computational limits on performing such a simulation? Simulations are widely 
+used in applications in economics, science, and engineering, and questions of this 
+sort are important in any simulation. 
+
+In the case of Gambler, we are verifying classical results from probability the- 
+ory, which say the probability of success is the ratio of the stake to the goal and that the 
+expected number of bets is the product of the stake and the desired gain (the difference 
+between the goal and the stake). For example, if you want to go to Monte Carlo to 
+try to turn $500 into $2,500, you have a reasonable (20%) chance of success, but 
+you should expect to make a million $1 bets! If you try to turn $1 into $1,000, you 
+have a .1% chance and can expect to be done (ruin, most likely) in about 999 bets. 
+
+Simulation and analysis go hand-in-hand, each validating the other. In prac- 
+tice, the value of simulation is that it can suggest answers to questions that might 
+be too difficult to resolve with analysis. For example, suppose that our gambler, 
+recognizing that there will never be enough time to make a million bets, decides 
+ahead of time to set an upper limit on the number of bets. How much money can 
+the gambler expect to take home in that case? You can address this question with 
+an easy change to Program 1.3.8 (see Exercise 1.3.24), but addressing it with math- 
+ematical analysis is not so easy. 
+
+
+
+68 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+i 
+
+N 
+
+2 
+
+3757208 
+
+3 
+
+469651 
+
+4 
+
+469651 
+
+5 
+
+469651 
+
+6 
+
+469651 
+
+7 
+
+469651 
+
+8 
+
+67093 
+
+9 
+
+67093 
+
+10 
+
+67093 
+
+11 
+
+67093 
+
+12 
+
+67093 
+
+13 
+
+67093 
+
+14 
+
+397 
+
+15 
+
+397 
+
+16 
+
+397 
+
+17 
+
+397 
+
+18 
+
+397 
+
+19 
+
+397 
+
+20 
+
+397 
+
+
+output 
+
+
+2 2 2 
+
+
+Factoring. A prime is an integer greater than one whose only positive divisors are 
+one and itself. The prime factorization of an integer is the multiset of primes whose 
+product is the integer. For example, 3757208 = 2*2*2*7*13*13*397. Factors 
+(Program 1.3.9) computes the prime factorization of any given positive integer. In 
+contrast to many of the other programs that we have seen (which we could do in a 
+few minutes with a calculator or even a pencil and paper), 
+this computation would not be feasible without a comput- 
+er. How would you go about trying to find the factors of 
+a number like 287994837222311? You might find the fac- 
+tor 17 quickly, but even with a calculator it would take you 
+quite a while to find 1739347. 
+
+Although Factors is compact and straightforward, 
+it certainly will take some thought to for you to convince 
+yourself that it produces the desired result for any given in- 
+teger. As usual, following a trace that shows the values of the 
+variables at the beginning of each iteration of the outer for 
+loop is a good way to understand the computation. For the 
+case where the initial value of N is 3757208, the inner whi 1 e 
+loop iterates three times when i is 2, to remove the three 
+factors of 2; then zero times when i is 3, 4, 5, and 6, since 
+none of those numbers divide 469651; and so forth. Trac- 
+ing the program for a few example inputs clearly reveals its 
+basic operation. To convince ourselves that the program will 
+behave as expected for all inputs, we reason about what we 
+expect each of the loops to do. The whi 1 e loop clearly prints 
+and removes from n all factors of i , but the key to under- 
+standing the program is to see that the following fact holds 
+at the beginning of each iteration of the for loop: n has no 
+factors between 2 and i -1. Thus, if i is not prime, it will not 
+divide n; if i is prime, the whi 1 e loop will do its job. Once 
+we know that n has no factors less than or equal to i, we also know that it has no 
+factors greater than n/i , so we need look no further when i is greater than n/i . 
+
+In a more naive implementation, we might simply have used the condition (i 
+< n) to terminate the for loop. Even given the blinding speed of modern comput- 
+ers, such a decision would have a dramatic effect on the size of the numbers that 
+we could factor. Exercise 1.3.26 encourages you to experiment with the program to 
+
+
+13 13 
+
+
+397 
+
+Trace of java Factors 3757208 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+69 
+
+
+Program 1.3.9 Factoring integers 
+
+
+public class Factors 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print the prime factors of N. 
+
+long N = Long. parseLong (args [0]) ; 
+long n = N; 
+
+for (long i = 2; i <= n/i ; i++) 
+
+{ // Test whether i is a factor, 
+
+while (n % i == 0) 
+
+{ // Cast out and print i factors, 
+
+n /= i; 
+
+System. out. print(i + " "); 
+
+} // Any factors of n are greater than i 
+
+} 
+
+if (n > 1) System. out. print (n) ; 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n () ; 
+
+
+integer to factor 
+unfactored part 
+potential factor 
+
+
+This program prints the prime factorization of any positive integer in Java’s long data type. The 
+code is simple, but it takes some thought to convince oneself that it is correct (see text). 
+
+
+% java Factors 3757208 
+2 2 2 7 13 13 397 
+
+
+% java Factors 287994837222311 
+17 1739347 9739789 
+
+
+learn the effectiveness of this simple change. On a computer that can do billions 
+of operations per second, we could factor numbers on the order of 10 9 in a few 
+seconds; with the (i <= n/i ) test we can factor numbers on the order of 10 18 in a 
+comparable amount of time. Loops give us the ability to solve difficult problems, 
+but they also give us the ability to construct simple programs that run slowly, so we 
+must always be cognizant of performance. 
+
+In modern applications in cryptography, there are important situations where 
+we wish to factor truly huge numbers (with, say, hundreds or thousands of digits). 
+Such a computation is prohibitively difficult even with the use of a computer. 
+
+
+70 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Other conditional and loop constructs To more fully cover the Java lan- 
+guage, we consider here four more control-flow constructs. You need not think 
+about using these constructs for every program that you write, because you are 
+likely to encounter them much less frequently than the i f, whi 1 e, and for state- 
+ments. You certainly do not need to worry about using these constructs until you 
+are comfortable using i f, whi 1 e, and for. You might encounter one of them in a 
+program in a book or on the web, but many programmers do not use them at all 
+and we do not use any of them outside this section. 
+
+Break statement. In some situations, we want to immediately exit a loop without 
+letting it run to completion. Java provides the break statement for this purpose. 
+For example, the following code is an effective way to test whether a given integer 
+N>1 is prime: 
+
+i nt i ; 
+
+for (i = 2; i <= N/i ; i++) 
+if (N % i == 0) break; 
+
+if (i > N/i) System. out. println(N + " is prime"); 
+
+There are two different ways to leave this loop: either the break statement is ex- 
+ecuted (because i divides N, so N is not prime) or the for loop condition is not 
+satisfied (because no i with i <= N/i was found that divides N, which implies that 
+N is prime). Note that we have to declare i outside the for loop instead of in the 
+initialization statement so that its scope extends beyond the loop. 
+
+Continue statement. Java also provides a way to skip to the next iteration of a 
+loop: the conti nue statement. When a conti nue is executed within a loop body, 
+the flow of control transfers directly to the increment statement for the next itera- 
+tion of the loop. 
+
+Switch statement. The i f and i f-el se statements allow one or two alternatives 
+in directing the flow of control. Sometimes, a computation naturally suggests more 
+than two mutually exclusive alternatives. We could use a sequence or a chain of 
+i f-el se statements, but the Java swi tch statement provides a direct solution. Let 
+us move right to a typical example. Rather than printing an i nt variable day in a 
+program that works with days of the weeks (such as a solution to Exercise 1.2.29), 
+it is easier to use a swi tch statement, as follows: 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+71 
+
+
+switch (day) 
+
+{ 
+
+case 0: System. out. println("Sun") ; break; 
+case 1: System. out. println("Mon") ; break; 
+case 2: System. out. print! n("Tue") ; break; 
+case 3: System. out. print! n("Wed") ; break; 
+case 4: System. out. println("Thu") ; break; 
+case 5: System. out. println("Fri") ; break; 
+case 6: System. out. println("Sat") ; break; 
+
+} 
+
+
+When you have a program that seems to have a long and regular sequence of i f 
+statements, you might consider consulting the booksite and using a swi tch state- 
+ment, or using an alternate approach described in Section 1.4. 
+
+
+Do-while loop. Another way to write a loop is to use the template 
+do { <statements> } while {<boolean expression ^ ; 
+The meaning of this statement is the same as 
+
+while ( <boolean expression >) { <statements> } 
+
+
+except that the first test of the condition is omitted. If the condition initially holds, 
+there is no difference. For an example in which do-while is useful, consider the 
+problem of generating points that are randomly distributed in the unit disk. We 
+can use Math . random () to generate x and y coordinates independently to get points 
+that are randomly distributed in the 2-by-2 square centered on the origin. Most 
+points fall within the unit disk, so we just reject those that do not. We always want 
+to generate at least one point, so a do-whi 1 e loop is ideal for this computation. The 
+following code sets x and y such that the point (x, y) is randomly distributed in the 
+unit disk: 
+
+
+do 
+
+{ // Scale x and y to be random in (-1, 1) . 
+
+x = 2. 0*Math. random O - 1.0; 
+y = 2.0*Math. randomO - 1.0; 
+
+} while (Math.sqrt(x*x + y*y) > 1.0); 
+
+
+Since the area of the disk is tt and the area of the square is 4, the 
+expected number of times the loop is iterated is 4 /tt (about 1.27). 
+
+
+
+
+
+72 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Infinite loops Before you write programs that use loops, you need to think 
+about the following issue: what if the loop-continuation condition in a whi 1 e loop 
+is always satisfied? With the statements that you have learned so far, one of two bad 
+things could happen, both of which you need to learn to cope with. 
+
+First, suppose that such a loop calls System . out . pri ntl n () . For example, if 
+the condition in TenHell os were (i > 3) instead of (i <= 10) , it would always 
+be true. What happens? Nowadays, we use print as an abstraction to mean display 
+in a terminal window and the result of attempting to display an unlimited number 
+of lines in a terminal window is dependent on operating-system conventions. If 
+your system is set up to have print mean print characters on 
+a piece of paper, you might run out of paper or have to un- 
+plug the printer. In a terminal window, you need a stop printing 
+operation. Before running programs with loops on your own, 
+you make sure that you know what to do to “pull the plug” on 
+an infinite loop of System . out . pri ntl n () calls and then test 
+out the strategy by making the change to T enHel 1 os indicated 
+above and trying to stop it. On most systems, cctrl -c> means 
+stop the current program, and should do the job. 
+
+Second, nothing might happen. If your program has an 
+infinite loop that does not produce any output, it will spin 
+through the loop and you will see no results at all. When you 
+find yourself in such a situation, you can inspect the loops to 
+make sure that the loop exit condition always happens, but the 
+problem may not be easy to identify. One way to locate such 
+a bug is to insert calls to System, out. pri ntl n() to produce 
+a trace. If these calls fall within an infinite loop, this strategy 
+reduces the problem to the case discussed in the previous para- 
+graph, but the output might give you a clue about what to do. 
+
+You might not know (or it might not matter) whether a loop is infinite or just 
+very long. Even BadHel 1 os eventually would terminate after printing over a billion 
+lines because of overflow. If you invoke Program 1 .3.8 with arguments such as j ava 
+Gambler 100000 200000 100, you may not want to wait for the answer. You will 
+learn to be aware of and to estimate the running time of your programs. 
+
+Why not have Java detect infinite loops and warn us about them? You might 
+be surprised to know that it is not possible to do so, in general. This counterintui- 
+tive fact is one of the fundamental results of theoretical computer science. 
+
+
+public class BadHellos 
+
+int i = 4; 
+while (i > 3) 
+
+{ 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n 
+(i + "th Hello"); 
+i = i + 1; 
+
+} 
+
+
+% java BadHellos 
+
+1st Hello 
+
+2nd Hello 
+
+3rd Hello 
+
+5th Hello 
+
+6th Hello 
+
+7th Hello 
+
+
+An infinite loop 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+73 
+
+
+program 
+
+description 
+
+Flip 
+
+simulate a coin flip 
+
+TenHellos 
+
+your first loop 
+
+Power sOfTwo 
+
+compute and print a table of values 
+
+Divisor Pattern 
+
+your first nested loop 
+
+Harmonic 
+
+compute finite sum 
+
+Sqrt 
+
+classic iterative algorithm 
+
+Binary 
+
+basic number conversion 
+
+Gambler 
+
+simulation with nested loops 
+
+Factors 
+
+while loop within a for loop 
+
+
+Summary For reference, the accompanying table lists the programs that we 
+have considered in this section. They are representative of the kinds of tasks we can 
+address with short programs comprised of i f , whi 1 e, and for statements process- 
+ing built-in types of data. These types of 
+computations are an appropriate way to 
+become familiar with the basic Java flow- 
+of-control constructs. The time that you 
+spend now working with as many such 
+programs as you can will certainly pay 
+off for you in the future. 
+
+To learn how to use condition- 
+als and loops, you must practice writ- 
+ing and debugging programs with if, 
+while, and for statements. The exer- 
+cises at the end of this section provide 
+many opportunities for you to begin this 
+process. For each exercise, you will write 
+a Java program, then run and test it. All 
+programmers know that it is unusual to 
+have a program work as planned the first 
+
+time it is run, so you will want to have an understanding of your program and an 
+expectation of what it should do, step by step. At first, use explicit traces to check 
+your understanding and expectation. As you gain experience, you will find yourself 
+thinking in terms of what a trace might produce as you compose your loops. Ask 
+yourself the following kinds of questions: What will be the values of the variables 
+after the loop iterates the first time? The second time? The final time? Is there any 
+way this program could get stuck in an infinite loop? 
+
+Loops and conditionals are a giant step in our ability to compute: i f, whi 1 e, 
+and for statements take us from simple straight-line programs to arbitrarily com- 
+plicated flow of control. In the next several chapters, we will take more giant steps 
+that will allow us to process large amounts of input data and allow us to define 
+and process types of data other than simple numeric types. The i f , whi 1 e, and 
+for statements of this section will play an essential role in the programs that we 
+consider as we take these steps. 
+
+
+Summary of programs in this section 
+
+
+
+74 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. What is the difference between = and ==? 
+
+A. We repeat this question here to remind you to be sure not to use = when you 
+mean == in a conditional expression. The expression (x = y) assigns the value of 
+y to x, whereas the expression (x == y) tests whether the two variables currently 
+have the same values. In some programming languages, this difference can wreak 
+havoc in a program and be difficult to detect, but Java’s type safety usually will 
+come to the rescue. For example, if we make the mistake of typing (t = goal ) 
+instead of (t == goal) in Program 1.3.8, the compiler finds the bug for us: 
+
+javac Gambler. java 
+
+Gambler. java: 18: incompatible types 
+
+found : int 
+
+requi red : bool ean 
+
+if (t = goal) wins++; 
+
+A 
+
+1 error 
+
+Be careful about writing i f (x = y) when x and y are bool ean variables, since this 
+will be treated as an assignment statement, which assigns the value of y to x and 
+evaluates to the truth value of y. For example, instead of writing i f (isPrime = 
+false), you should write if (! isPrime). 
+
+Q. So I need to pay attention to using == instead of = when writing loops and con- 
+ditionals. Is there something else in particular that I should watch out for? 
+
+A. Another common mistake is to forget the braces in a loop or conditional with a 
+multi-statement body. For example, consider this version of the code in Gambl er: 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+for (cash = stake; cash > 0 && cash < goal; bets++) 
+if (Math. random () <0.5) cash++; 
+else cash — ; 
+
+if (cash == goal) wins++; 
+
+
+The code appears correct, but it is dysfunctional because the second i f is outside 
+both for loops and gets executed just once. Our practice of using explicit braces for 
+long statements is precisely to avoid such insidious bugs. 
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+75 
+
+
+
+Q. Anything else? 
+
+A. The third classic pitfall is ambiguity in nested i f statements: 
+
+if <exprl> if <expr2> <stmntA> else <stmntB> 
+
+In Java this is equivalent to 
+
+if <exprl> {if <expr2> <stmntA> else <stmntB> } 
+
+even if you might have been thinking 
+
+if <exprl> {if <expr2> <stmntA> } else <stmntB> 
+
+Again, using explicit braces is a good way to avoid this pitfall. 
+
+Q. Are there cases where I must use a for loop but not a whi 1 e, or vice versa? 
+
+A. No. Generally, you should use a for loop when you have an initialization, an 
+increment, and a loop continuation test (if you do not need the loop control vari- 
+able outside the loop). But the equivalent whi 1 e loop still might be fine. 
+
+Q. What are the rules on where we declare the loop-control variables? 
+
+A. Opinions differ. In older programming languages, it was required that all vari- 
+ables be declared at the beginning of a <body>, so many programmers are in this 
+habit and there is a lot of code out there that follows this convention. But it makes a 
+lot of sense to declare variables where they are first used, particularly in for loops, 
+when it is normally the case that the variable is not needed outside the loop. How- 
+ever, it is not uncommon to need to test (and therefore declare) the loop-control 
+variable outside the loop, as in the primality-testing code we considered as an ex- 
+ample of the break statement. 
+
+Q. What is the difference between ++i and i++? 
+
+A. As statements, there is no difference. In expressions, both increment i , but ++i 
+has the value after the increment and i ++ the value before the increment. In this 
+book, we avoid statements like x = ++i that have the side effect of changing vari- 
+able values. So, it is safe to not worry much about this distinction and just use i ++ 
+
+
+
+
+76 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+in for loops and as a statement. When we do use ++i in this book, we will call at- 
+tention to it and say why we are using it. 
+
+Q. So, < 7/77 tia 7 ize> and <increment> can be any statements whatsoever in a for 
+loop. How can I take advantage of that? 
+
+A. Some experts take advantage of this ability to create compact code fragments, 
+but, as a beginner, it is best for you to use a whi 1 e loop in such situations. In fact, 
+the situation is even more complicated because <initialize> and <increment> 
+can be sequences of statements, separated by commas. This notation allows for code 
+that initializes and modifies other variables besides the loop index. In some cases, 
+this ability leads to compact code. For example, the following two lines of code 
+could replace the last eight lines in the body of the mai n() method in Power sOfTwo 
+(Program 1.3.3): 
+
+for (int i =0, v = 1; i <= n; i++, v *= 2) 
+
+System. out. printlnfi + " " + v); 
+
+Such code is rarely necessary and better avoided, particularly by beginners. 
+
+Q Can I use a doubl e value as an index in a for loop? 
+
+A It is legal, but generally bad practice to do so. Consider the following loop: 
+
+for (double x = 0.0; x <= 1.0; x += 0.1) 
+
+System.out.printlnCx + “ “ + Math.sin(x)) ; 
+
+How many times does it iterate? The number of iterations depends on an equality 
+test between doubl e values, which may not always give the result that you expect. 
+
+
+Q. Anything else tricky about loops? 
+
+A. Not all parts of a for loop need to be filled 
+in with code. The initialization statement, the 
+boolean expression, the increment statement, 
+and the loop body can each be omitted. It is gen- 
+erally better style to use a whi 1 e statement than 
+null statements in a for loop. In the code in this 
+book, we avoid null statements. 
+
+
+int v = 1; 
+
+while (v <= N/2) mill increment 
+V *= 2 ; statement 
+
+I 
+
+for (int v = 1; v <= N/2; ) 
+v *= 2; 
+
+for (int v = 1; v <= N/2; v *= 2) 
+
+J null loop body 
+
+Three equivalent loops 
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+77 
+
+
+
+1 . 3.1 Write a program that takes three integer command-line arguments and 
+prints equal if all three are equal, and not equal otherwise. 
+
+1 . 3.2 Write a more general and more robust version of Quadratic (Program 
+1.2.3) that prints the roots of the polynomial ax 2 + bx + c, prints an appropriate 
+message if the discriminant is negative, and behaves appropriately (avoiding divi- 
+sion by zero) if a is zero. 
+
+1 . 3.3 What (if anything) is wrong with each of the following statements? 
+
+a. if (a > b) then c = 0; 
+
+b. if a > b { c = 0; } 
+
+c. if (a > b) c = 0; 
+
+d. if (a > b) c = 0 else b = 0; 
+
+1 . 3.4 Write a code fragment that prints true if the doubl e variables x and y are 
+both strictly between 0 and 1 and f al se otherwise. 
+
+1 . 3.5 Improve your solution to Exercise 1.2.25 by adding code to check that the 
+values of the command-line arguments fall within the ranges of validity of the for- 
+mula, and also adding code to print out an error message if that is not the case. 
+
+1 . 3.6 Suppose that i and j are both of type i nt. What is the value of j after each 
+of the following statements is executed? 
+
+a. for (i = 0, j = 0; i < 10; i++) j += i ; 
+
+b. for (i =0, j = 1; i <10; i++) j += j; 
+
+c. for (j = 0; j < 10; j++) j += j ; 
+
+d. for (i = 0, j = 0; i < 10; i++) j += j++; 
+
+1 . 3.7 Rewrite TenHellos to make a program Hellos that takes the number of 
+lines to print as a command-line argument. You may assume that the argument is 
+less than 1000. Hint: Use i % 10 and i % 100 to determine when to use st, nd, rd, or 
+th for printing the i th He! 1 o. 
+
+1 . 3.8 Write a program that, using one for loop and one i f statement, prints the 
+
+
+
+
+78 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+integers from 1,000 to 2,000 with five integers per line. Hint: Use the % operation. 
+
+1.3.9 Write a program that takes an integer N as a command-line argument, 
+uses Math . random () to print N uniform random values between 0 and 1, and then 
+prints their average value (see Exercise 1.2.30). 
+
+1.3.10 Describe what happens when you try to print a ruler function (see the table 
+on page 57) with a value of N that is too large, such as 100. 
+
+1.3.11 Write a program FunctionGrowth that prints a table of the values logN, 
+N, AT log N, N 2 , N\ and 2 N for N = 16, 32, 64, ... , 2048. Use tabs (\t characters) to 
+line up columns. 
+
+1.3.12 What are the values of m and n after executing the following code? 
+
+int n = 123456789; 
+int m = 0; 
+while (n != 0) 
+
+{ 
+
+m = (10 * m) + (n % 10); 
+n = n / 10; 
+
+} 
+
+1.3.13 What does the following program print ? 
+
+int f = 0, g = 1; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i <= 15; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (f ) ; 
+
+f = f + g; 
+
+g = f - g; 
+
+} 
+
+Solution. Even an expert programmer will tell you that the only way to under- 
+stand a program like this is to trace it. When you do, you will find that it prints the 
+values 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 134, 233, 377, and 610. These numbers are 
+the first sixteen of the famous Fibonacci sequence, which are defined by the follow- 
+ing formulas: F 0 = 0 ,F l = 1, and F„ = F„. j + F n _ 2 for n > 1. The Fibonacci sequence 
+arises in a surprising variety of contexts, they have been studied for centuries, and 
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+79 
+
+
+
+many of their properties are well-known. For example, the ratio of successive num- 
+bers approaches the golden ratio 4> (about 1.618) as n approaches infinity. 
+
+1.3.14 Write a program that takes a command-line argument N and prints all the 
+positive powers of two less than or equal to N. Make sure that your program works 
+properly for all values of N. (Integer . parselnt () will generate an error if N is too 
+large, and your program should print nothing if N is negative.) 
+
+1.3.15 Expand your solution to Exercise 1.2.24 to print a table giving the total 
+amount paid and the remaining principal after each monthly payment. 
+
+1.3.16 Unlike the harmonic numbers, the sum l/l 2 + 1/2 2 + ... + 1/N 2 does con- 
+verge to a constant as N grows to infinity. (Indeed, the constant is tt 2 /6, so this 
+formula can be used to estimate the value of it.) Which of the following for loops 
+computes this sum? Assume that N is an i nt initialized to 1000000 and sum is a 
+doubl e initialized to 0 . 0. 
+
+a. for (int i =1; i <= N; i++) sum += 1 / (i*i); 
+
+b. for (int i =1; i <= N; i++) sum += 1.0 / i*i; 
+
+c. for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) sum += 1.0 / (i*i); 
+
+d. for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) sum += 1 / (1.0*i*i); 
+
+1.3.17 Show that Program 1.3.6 implements Newton’s method for finding the 
+square root of c. Hint : Use the fact that the slope of the tangent to a (differentiable) 
+function f(x) at x = t is f'(t) to find the equation of the tangent line and then use 
+that equation to find the point where the tangent line intersects the x-axis to show 
+that you can use Newton’s method to find a root of any function as follows: at each 
+iteration, replace the estimate f by t — f(t) / f'(t). 
+
+1.3.18 Using Newton’s method, develop a program that takes integers N and k as 
+command-line arguments and prints the kth root of N (Hint: see Exercise 1.3.17). 
+
+1.3.19 Modify Bi nary to get a program Kary that takes i and k as command-line 
+arguments and converts i to base k. Assume that i is an integer in Java’s 1 ong data 
+type and that k is an integer between 2 and 16. For bases greater than 10, use the 
+letters A through F to represent the 11th through 16th digits, respectively. 
+
+
+
+
+80 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1.3.20 Write a code fragment that puts the binary representation of a positive 
+integer N into a Stri ng s. 
+
+Solution. Java has a built-in method Integer . toBi naryStri ng(N) for this job, 
+but the point of the exercise is to see how such a method might be implemented. 
+Working from Program 1.3.7, we get the solution 
+
+String s = 
+int v = 1; 
+
+while (v <= n/2) v = 2*v; 
+while (v > 0) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n < v) { s += 0; } 
+
+else { s += 1; n -= v; } 
+
+v = v/2; 
+
+} 
+
+A simpler option is to work from right to left: 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (int n = N; n > 0; n /= 2) 
+s = (n % 2) + s; 
+
+Both of these methods are worthy of careful study. 
+
+1.3.21 Write a version of Gambler that uses two nested whi 1 e loops or two nested 
+for loops instead of a whi 1 e loop inside a for loop. 
+
+1.3.22 Write a program Gambler Plot that traces a gambler’s ruin simulation by 
+printing a line after each bet in which one asterisk corresponds to each dollar held 
+by the gambler. 
+
+1.3.23 Modify Gambler to take an extra command-line argument that specifies 
+the (fixed) probability that the gambler wins each bet. Use your program to try to 
+learn how this probability affects the chance of winning and the expected number 
+of bets. Try a value of p close to .5 (say, .48). 
+
+1.3.24 Modify Gambler to take an extra command-line argument that specifies 
+the number of bets the gambler is willing to make, so that there are three possible 
+
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+81 
+
+
+
+ways for the game to end: the gambler wins, loses, or runs out of time. Add to the 
+output to give the expected amount of money the gambler will have when the game 
+ends. Extra credit : Use your program to plan your next trip to Monte Carlo. 
+
+1.3.25 Modify Factors to print just one copy each of the prime divisors. 
+
+1.3.26 Run quick experiments to determine the impact of using the termination 
+condition (i <= N/i) instead of (i < N) in Factors in Program 1.3.9. For each 
+method, find the largest n such that when you type in an n digit number, the pro- 
+gram is sure to finish within 10 seconds. 
+
+1.3.27 Write a program Checkerboard that takes one command-line argument N 
+and uses a loop within a loop to print out a two-dimensional N-by-N checkerboard 
+pattern with alternating spaces and asterisks. 
+
+1.3.28 Write a program GCD that finds the greatest common divisor (gcd) of two 
+integers using Euclid’s algorithm , which is an iterative computation based on the 
+following observation: if x is greater than y, then if y divides x, the gcd of x and y is 
+y; otherwise, the gcd of x and y is the same as the gcd of x % y and y. 
+
+1.3.29 Write a program RelativelyPrime that takes one command-line argu- 
+ment N and prints out an N-by-N table such that there is an * in row i and column j 
+if the gcd of i and j is 1 (i and j are relatively prime) and a space in that position 
+otherwise. 
+
+1.3.30 Write a program PowersOfK that takes an integer k as command-line argu- 
+ment and prints all the positive powers of k in the Java 1 ong data type. Note : The 
+constant Long . MAX_VALUE is the value of the largest integer in 1 ong. 
+
+1.3.31 Generate a random point (x, y, z ) on the surface of a sphere using Mar- 
+saglia’s method: Pick a random point (a, b) in the u nit disk u sing the m ethod de- 
+scribed at the end of this section. Then, set x = 2 a J 1 -a 2 - b 2 . y = 2 b Jl -a 2 - b 2 . 
+and z = 1-2 (a 2 + b 2 ). 
+
+
+
+82 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1.3.32 Ramanujan’s taxi. Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician 
+who became famous for his intuition for numbers. When the English mathemati- 
+cian G. H. Hardy came to visit him one day, Hardy remarked that the number of 
+his taxi was 1729, a rather dull number. To which Ramanujan replied, “No, Hardy! 
+No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as 
+the sum of two cubes in two different ways.” Verify this claim by writing a program 
+that takes a command-line argument N and prints out all integers less than or equal 
+to N that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. In other 
+words, find distinct positive integers a, b, c, and d such that a 3 + b 3 -c 3 + d 3 . Use four 
+nested for loops. 
+
+1.3.33 Checksum. The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a 10-digit 
+code that uniquely specifies a book. The rightmost digit is a checksum digit that 
+can be uniquely determined from the other 9 digits, from the condition that d 1 + 
+ld 2 +3 d 3 + ... + 10 d l0 must be a multiple of 1 1 (here d t denotes the ith digit from the 
+right) . The checksum digit d i can be any value from 0 to 1 0. The ISBN convention is 
+to use the character 'X' to denote 10. Example: the checksum digit corresponding 
+to 020131452 is 5 since 5 is the only value of x between 0 and 10 for which 
+
+10-0 + 9-2 + 8-0 + 7-1 + 6-3 + 5-1 +4-4 +3-5 + 2-2 + 1-x 
+
+is a multiple of 1 1. Write a program that takes a 9-digit integer as a command-line 
+argument, computes the checksum, and prints out the the ISBN number. 
+
+1.3.34 Counting primes. Write a program Pri meCounter that takes a command- 
+line argument N and finds the number of primes less than or equal to N. Use it to 
+print out the number of primes less than or equal to 10 million. Note : if you are not 
+careful, your program may not finish in a reasonable amount of time! 
+
+1.3.35 2D random walk. A two-dimensional random walk simulates the behavior 
+of a particle moving in a grid of points. At each step, the random walker moves 
+north, south, east, or west with probability equal to 1/4, independent of previous 
+moves. Write a program RandomWal ke r that takes a command-line argument N and 
+estimates how long it will take a random walker to hit the boundary of a 2N-by-2N 
+square centered at the starting point. 
+
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+83 
+
+
+
+1 . 3.36 Exponential function. Assume that x is a positive variable of type double. 
+Write a code fragment that uses the Taylor series expansion to set the value of sum 
+to e x = 1 + x + x 2 /2\ + x 3 /3! + . . . . 
+
+Solution. The purpose of this exercise is to get you to think about how a library 
+function like Math . exp() might be implemented in terms of elementary operators. 
+Try solving it, then compare your solution with the one developed here. 
+
+We start by considering the problem of computing one term. Suppose that x 
+and term are variables of type doubl e and n is a variable of type i nt. The following 
+code fragment sets term to x N / N\ using the direct method of having one loop for 
+the numerator and another loop for the denominator, then dividing the results: 
+
+double num =1.0, dem = 1.0; 
+for (int i =1; i <= n; i++) num *= x; 
+for (int i =1; i <= n; i++) den *= i; 
+double term = num/den; 
+
+A better approach is to use just a single for loop: 
+double term =1.0; 
+
+for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) term *= x/i ; 
+
+Besides being more compact and elegant, the latter solution is preferable because 
+it avoids inaccuracies caused by computing with huge numbers. For example, the 
+two-loop approach breaks down for values like x = 10 and N = 100 because 100! is 
+too large to represent as a doubl e. 
+
+To compute e*, we nest this for loop within another for loop: 
+
+double term = 1.0; 
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int n = 1; sum != sum + term; n++) 
+
+{ 
+
+sum += term; 
+term = 1.0; 
+
+for (int i =1; i <= n; i++) term *= x/i; 
+
+} 
+
+The number of times the loop iterates depends on the relative values of the next 
+term and the accumulated sum. Once the value of the sum stops changing, we 
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+leave the loop. (This strategy is more efficient than using the termination condi- 
+tion (term > 0) because it avoids a significant number of iterations that do not 
+change the value of the sum.) This code is effective, but it is inefficient because the 
+inner for loop recomputes all the values it computed on the previous iteration of 
+the outer for loop. Instead, we can make use of the term that was added in on the 
+previous loop iteration and solve the problem with a single for loop: 
+
+double term = 1.0; 
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int n = 1; sum != sum + term; n++) 
+
+{ 
+
+sum += term; 
+term *= x/n; 
+
+} 
+
+1 . 3.37 Trigonometric functions. Write two programs, Sin and Cos, that 
+compute the sine and cosine functions using their Taylor series expansions 
+sin x = x — x 3 /3\ + x 5 /5\ — ... and cos x = 1 — x 2 I2\ + x 4 /4! — . . . . 
+
+1 . 3.38 Experimental analysis. Run experiments to determine the relative costs of 
+Math. exp () and the methods from Exercise 1.3.36 for computing e x : the direct 
+method with nested for loops, the improvement with a single for loop, and the 
+latter with the termination condition (term > 0) . Use trial-and-error with a com- 
+mand-line argument to determine how many times your computer can perform 
+each computation in 10 seconds. 
+
+1 . 3.39 Pepys problem. In 1693 Samuel Pepys asked Isaac Newton which is more 
+likely: getting 1 at least once when rolling a fair die six times or getting 1 at least 
+twice when rolling it 12 times. Write a program that could have provided Newton 
+with a quick answer. 
+
+1 . 3.40 Game simulation. In the 1970s game show Let’s Make a Deal, a contestant 
+is presented with three doors. Behind one of them is a valuable prize. After the con- 
+testant chooses a door, the host opens one of the other two doors (never revealing 
+the prize, of course). The contestant is then given the opportunity to switch to the 
+other unopened door. Should the contestant do so? Intuitively, it might seem that 
+
+
+1.3 Conditionals and Loops 
+
+
+85 
+
+
+
+the contestant’s initial choice door and the other unopened door are equally likely 
+to contain the prize, so there would be no incentive to switch. Write a program Mon- 
+teHal 1 to test this intuition by simulation. Your program should take a command- 
+line argument N, play the game N times using each of the two strategies (switch or 
+do not switch), and print the chance of success for each of the two strategies. 
+
+1 . 3.41 Median-of-5. Write a program that takes five distinct integers from the 
+command line and prints the median value (the value such that two of the others 
+are smaller and two are larger). Extra credit: Solve the problem with a program that 
+compares values fewer than seven times for any given input. 
+
+1 . 3.42 Sorting three numbers. Suppose that the variables a, b, c, and t are all of 
+the same numeric primitive type. Prove that the following code puts a, b, and c in 
+ascending order: 
+
+if (a > b) { t = a; a = b; b = t; } 
+
+if (a > c) { t = a; a = c; c = t; } 
+
+if (b > c) { t = b; b = c; c = t; } 
+
+1 . 3.43 Chaos. Write a program to study the following simple model for popula- 
+
+tion growth, which might be applied to study fish in a pond, bacteria in a test tube, 
+or any of a host of similar situations. We suppose that the population ranges from 
+0 (extinct) to 1 (maximum population that can be sustained). If the population at 
+time t is x, then we suppose the population at time t + 1 to be rx(l -x), where the 
+argument r, known as the fecundity parameter, controls the rate of growth. Start 
+with a small population — say, x = 0.01 — and study the result of iterating the model, 
+for various values of r. For which values of r does the population stabilize at x = 1 
+— 1/r ? Can you say anything about the population when r is 3.5? 3.8? 5? 
+
+1 . 3.44 Euler’s sum-of-powers conjecture. In 1769 Leonhard Euler formulated a 
+generalized version of Fermat’s Last Theorem, conjecturing that at least n nth pow- 
+ers are needed to obtain a sum that is itself an nth power, for n > 2. Write a program 
+to disprove Euler’s conjecture (which stood until 1967), using a quintuply nested 
+loop to find four positive integers whose 5th power sums to the 5th power of an- 
+other positive integer. That is, find a, b, c, d, and e such that a 5 + b 5 + c 5 + d 5 = e 5 . 
+Use the 1 ong data type. 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+In this section, we consider a fundamental programming construct known as the 
+array. The primary purpose of an array is to facilitate storing and manipulating 
+large quantities of data. Arrays play an essential role in many data processing tasks. 
+They also correspond to vectors and matrices, which are widely used in science and 
+in scientific programming. We will con- 
+
+
+sider basic properties of array processing 
+in Java, with many examples illustrating 
+why they are useful. 
+
+An array stores a sequence of values 
+that are all of the same type. Processing 
+
+
+1.4.1 Sampling without replacement. . . 94 
+
+1.4.2 Coupon collector simulation . . . . 98 
+
+1.4.3 Sieve of Eratosthenes .... ... .100 
+
+1.4.4 Self-avoiding random walks ... .109 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+such a set of values is very common. We 
+
+
+migh t have exam scores, stock prices, nucleotides in a DNA strand, or characters in 
+a book. Each of these examples involve a large number of values that are all of the 
+
+
+same type. 
+
+We want not only to store values but also directly access each in- 
+dividual value. The method that we use to refer to individual values in a 
+an array is numbering and then indexing them. If we have N values, we 
+think of them as being numbered from 0 to N— 1 . Then, we can unam- 
+biguously specify one of them by referring to the ith value for any value 
+of i from 0 to N— 1. To refer to the i th value in an array a, we use the 
+notation a[i], pronounced a sub i. This Java construct is known as a 
+one-dimensional array. 
+
+The one-dimensional array is our first example in this book of a 
+data structure (a method for organizing data). We also consider in this 
+section a more complicated data structure known as a two-dimensional 
+array. Data structures play an essential role in modern programming — 
+
+Chapter 4 is largely devoted to the topic. 
+
+Typically, when we have a large amount of data to process, we first put all of 
+the data into one or more arrays. Then we use array indexing to refer to individual 
+values and to process the data. We consider such applications when we discuss data 
+input in Section 1.5 and in the case study that is the subject of Section 1.6. In this 
+section, we expose the basic properties of arrays by considering examples where 
+our programs first populate arrays with computed values from experimental stud- 
+ies and then process them. 
+
+
+
+An array 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+87 
+
+
+Arrays ins Java Making an array in a Java program involves three distinct steps: 
+
+• Declare the array name and type. 
+
+• Create the array. 
+
+• Initialize the array values. 
+
+To declare the array, you need to specify a name and the type of data it will contain. 
+To create it, you need to specify its size (the number of values). For example, the 
+following code makes an array of N numbers of type doubl e, all initialized to 0 . 0: 
+
+doublet] a; 
+
+a = new doubl e[N]; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+a[i] = 0.0; 
+
+The first statement is the array declaration. It is just like a declaration of a variable 
+of the corresponding primitive type except for the square brackets following the 
+type name, which specify that we are declaring an array. The second statement cre- 
+ates the array. This action is unnecessary for variables of a primitive type (so we 
+have not seen a similar action before), but it is needed for all other types of data in 
+Java (see Section 3.1). In the code in this book, we normally keep the array length in 
+an integer variable N, but any integer- valued expression will do. The for statement 
+initializes the N array values. We refer to each value by putting its index in brackets 
+after the array name. This code sets all of the array entries to the value 0 . 0. 
+
+When you begin to write code that uses an array, you must be sure that your 
+code declares, creates, and initializes it. Omitting one of these steps is a common 
+programming mistake. For economy in code, we often take advantage of Java’s de- 
+fault array initialization convention and combine all three steps into a single state- 
+ment. For example, the following statement is equivalent to the code above: 
+
+doubl e[] a = new doubl e[N]; 
+
+The code to the left of the equal sign constitutes the declaration; the code to the 
+right constitutes the creation. The for loop is unnecessary in this case because the 
+default initial value of variables of type doubl e in a Java array is 0 . 0, but it would 
+be required if a nonzero value were desired. The default initial value is zero for all 
+numbers and f al se for type bool ean. For Stri ng and other non-primitive types, 
+the default is the value null, which you will learn about in Chapter 3. 
+
+After declaring and creating an array, you can refer to any individual value 
+anywhere you would use a variable name in a program by enclosing an integer in- 
+
+
+
+88 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+dex in braces after the array name. We refer to the i th item with the code a [i ] . The 
+explicit initialization code shown earlier is an example of such a use. The obvious 
+advantage of using arrays is to avoid explicitly naming each variable individually. 
+Using an array index is virtually the same as appending the index to the array name: 
+for example, if we wanted to process eight variables of type doubl e, we could de- 
+clare each of them individually with the declaration 
+
+double aO, al, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7; 
+
+
+and then refer to them as aO, al and so forth instead of declaring them with dou- 
+ble[] a = new double[8] and referring to them as a [0], a [1], and so forth. But 
+naming dozens of individual variables in this way would be cumbersome and nam- 
+ing millions is untenable. 
+
+As an example of code that uses arrays, consider using arrays to represent vec- 
+tors. We consider vectors in detail in Section 3.3; for the moment, think of a vector 
+as a sequence of real numbers. The dot product of two vectors (of the same length) 
+is the sum of the products of their corresponding components. The dot product 
+of two vectors that are represented as one-dimensional arrays x [] and y [] that are 
+each of length 3 is the expression x [0] *y [0] + x [1] *y [1] + x [2] *y [2] . If we 
+represent the two vectors as one-dimensional arrays x[] and y[] that are each of 
+length N and of type double, the dot product is 
+easy to compute: 
+
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; 
+sum += x[i]*y[i] ; 
+
+
+1 ++) 
+
+
+i 
+
+x[i] 
+
+y[i] 
+
+x[i]*y[i] 
+
+sum 
+
+
+
+
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+.30 
+
+.50 
+
+.15 
+
+.15 
+
+1 
+
+.60 
+
+.10 
+
+.06 
+
+.21 
+
+2 
+
+.10 
+
+.40 
+
+.04 
+
+.25 
+
+.25 
+
+
+Trace of dot product computation 
+
+
+The simplicity of coding such computations 
+makes the use of arrays the natural choice for all 
+kinds of applications. (Note that when we use the 
+notation x [] , we are referring to the whole array, 
+as opposed to x [i ] , which is a reference to the i th 
+entry.) 
+
+The accompanying table has many examples of array-processing code, and we 
+will consider even more examples later in the book, because arrays play a central 
+role in processing data in many applications. Before considering more sophisticat- 
+ed examples, we describe a number of important characteristics of programming 
+with arrays. 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+89 
+
+
+create an array 
+with random values 
+
+doublet] a = new doubl e [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+a(i] = Math. randomO ; 
+
+print the array values, 
+one per line 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (a [i ] ) ; 
+
+find the maximum of 
+the array values 
+
+double max = Doubl e.NEGATIVE_INFINITY; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+if (a[i ] > max) max = a [i ] ; 
+
+compute the average of 
+the array values 
+
+double sum =0.0; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+sum += a[i] ; 
+
+double average = sum / N; 
+
+copy to another array 
+
+doublet] b = new doubl efN] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+b[i] = a[i] ; 
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N/2; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double temp = b [i ] ; 
+b[i] = bCN-l-i] ; 
+b [N-i -1] = temp; 
+
+} 
+
+reverse the elements 
+within an array 
+
+
+Typical array-processing code (for arrays ofN doubl e values) 
+
+
+Zero-based indexing. We always refer to the first element of an array as a [0] , the 
+second as a[l] , and so forth. It might seem more natural to you to refer to the first 
+element as a[l], the second value as a [2], and so forth, but starting the index- 
+ing with 0 has some advantages and has emerged as the convention used in most 
+modern programming languages. Misunderstanding this convention often leads to 
+off- by one-errors that are notoriously difficult to avoid and debug, so be careful! 
+
+
+Array length. Once we create an array, its size is fixed. The reason that we need to 
+explicitly create arrays at runtime is that the Java compiler cannot know how much 
+space to reserve for the array at compile time (as it can for primitive- type values). 
+Our convention is to keep the size of the array in a variable N whose value can be 
+set at runtime (usually it is the value of a command-line argument). Java’s stan- 
+dard mechanism is to allow a program to refer to the length of an array a[] with 
+the code a. 1 ength; we normally use N to create the array, or set the value of N to 
+a . 1 ength. Note that the last element of an array is always a [a . 1 ength-1] . 
+
+
+
+90 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Memory representation. Arrays are fundamental data structures in that they 
+have a direct correspondence with memory systems on virtually all computers. 
+The elements of an array are stored consecutively in memory, so that it is easy 
+to quickly access any array value. Indeed, we can view memory itself as a giant 
+array. On modern computers, memory is implemented in hardware as 
+a sequence of indexed memory locations that each can be quickly ac- 
+cessed with an appropriate index. When referring to computer memory, 
+we normally refer to a location’s index as its address. It is convenient to 
+think of the name of the array — say, a — as storing the memory address 
+S of the first element of the array a [0] . For the purposes of illustration, 
+
+j/ suppose that the computer’s memory is organized as 1,000 values, with 
+addresses from 000 to 999. (This simplified model ignores the fact that 
+array elements can occupy differing amounts of memory depending on 
+their type, but you can ignore such details for the moment.) Now, sup- 
+pose that an array of eight elements is stored in memory locations 523 
+1 through 530. In such a situation, Java would store the memory address 
+1 (index) of the first array value somewhere else in memory, along with 
+the array length. We refer to the address as a pointer and think of it as 
+pointing to the referenced memory location. When we specify a [i ] , the 
+| compiler generates code that accesses the desired value by adding the 
+index i to the memory address of the array a[] . For example, the Java 
+code a [4] would generate machine code that finds the value at memory 
+location 523 + 4 = 527. Accessing element i of an array is an efficient 
+operation because it simply requires adding two integers and then refer- 
+encing memory — just two elementary operations. Extending the model 
+to handle different-sized array elements just involves multiplying the 
+index by the element size before adding to the array address. 
+
+5 Memory allocation. When you use new to create an array, Java reserves 
+Memory representation s P ace hi memory for it. This process is called memory allocation. The 
+same process is required for all variables that you use in a program. We 
+call attention to it now because it is your responsibility to use new to al- 
+locate memory for an array before accessing any of its elements. If you fail to adhere 
+to this rule, you will get a compile-time uninitialized variable error. Java automati- 
+cally initializes all of the values in an array when it is created. You should remember 
+that the time required to create an array is proportional to its length. 
+
+
+000 
+
+
+
+
+' 
+
+
+
+: 
+
+123 
+
+523 
+
+124 
+
+8 
+
+1 
+
+T~ 
+
+a. length 
+
+B 
+
+■ ' 
+
+523 : 
+
+a[0] 
+
+524 
+
+a[l] 
+
+525 
+
+a[2] 
+
+526 
+
+a[3] 
+
+527 
+
+a [4] 
+
+528 
+
+a[5] 
+
+529 | 
+
+a[6] 
+
+530 
+
+! a[7] 
+
+
+' 
+
+
+999 ; 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+91 
+
+
+Bounds checking. As already indicated, you must be careful when programming 
+with arrays. It is your responsibility to use legal indices when accessing an array 
+element. If you have created an array of size N and use an index whose value is less 
+than 0 or greater than N-l, your program will terminate with an Arraylndex- 
+OutOfBounds run-time exception. (In many programming languages, such buffer 
+overflow conditions are not checked by the system. Such unchecked errors can and 
+do lead to debugging nightmares, but it is also not uncommon for such an error to 
+go unnoticed and remain in a finished program. You might be surprised to know 
+that such a mistake can be exploited by a hacker to take control of a system, even 
+your personal computer, to spread viruses, steal personal information, or wreak 
+other malicious havoc.) The error messages provided by Java may seem annoying 
+to you at first, but they are small price to pay to have a more secure program. 
+
+Setting array values at compile time. When we have a small number of literal 
+values that we want to keep in array, we can declare and initialize it by listing the 
+values between curly braces, separated by commas. For example, we might use the 
+following code in a program that processes playing cards. 
+
+String [] suit = { "Clubs", "Diamonds", "Hearts", "Spades" >; 
+
+String [] rank = 
+
+{ 
+
+"2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", 
+
+"Jack", "Queen", "King", "Ace" 
+
+}; 
+
+After creating the two arrays, we can use them to print out a random card name, 
+such as Queen of Cl ubs, as follows: 
+
+int i = (int) (Math. randomO * rank. length) ; 
+
+int j = (int) (Math. randomO * suit. length) ; 
+
+System. out. println (rank [i] + " of " + suit[j]); 
+
+This code uses the idiom introduced in Section 1.2 to generate random indices and 
+then uses the indices to pick strings out of the arrays. Whenever the values of all 
+array entries are known at compile time (and the size of the array is not too large) 
+it makes sense to use this method of initializing the array — just put all the values in 
+braces on the right hand side of an assignment in the array declaration. Doing so 
+implies array creation, so the new keyword is not needed. 
+
+
+
+92 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Setting array values at runtime. A more typical situation is when we wish to 
+compute the values to be stored in an array. In this case, we can use array names 
+with indices in the same way we use variable names on the left side of assignment 
+statements. For example, we might use the following code to initialize an array of 
+size 52 that represents a deck of playing cards, using the two arrays just defined: 
+
+String[] deck = new String [suit. length * rank. length] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < suit. length; i++) 
+for (int j = 0; j < rank. length; j++) 
+
+deck[rank.length*i + j] = rank[i] + " of " + sui t [ j ] ; 
+
+
+After this code has been executed, if you were to print out the contents of deck in 
+order from deck [0] through deck [51] using System . out . pri ntl n () , you would 
+get the sequence 
+
+2 of Clubs 
+2 of Diamonds 
+2 of Hearts 
+
+2 of Spades 
+
+3 of Clubs 
+
+3 of Diamonds 
+
+Ace of Hearts 
+Ace of Spades 
+
+
+Exchange. Frequently, we wish to exchange two values in an array. Continuing our 
+example with playing cards, the following code exchanges the cards at position i 
+and j using the same idiom that we traced as our first example of the use of assign- 
+ment statements in Section 1.2: 
+
+String t = deck[i]; 
+deck[i] = deck[j]; 
+deck[j] = t; 
+
+When we use this code, we are assured that we are perhaps changing the order of 
+the values in the array but not the set of values in the array. When i and j are equal, 
+the array is unchanged. When i and j are not equal, the values a[i ] and a[j] are 
+found in different places in the array. For example, if we were to use this code with 
+i equal to 1 and j equal to 4 in the deck array of the previous example, it would 
+leave 3 of Clubs in deck [1] and 2 of Diamonds in deck [4]. 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+93 
+
+
+Shuffle. The following code shuffles our deck of cards: 
+
+int N = deck. length; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int r = i + (int) (Math. random () * (N-i)); 
+
+String t = deck[i]; 
+deck[i] = deck[r] ; 
+deck[r] = t; 
+
+} 
+
+Proceeding from left to right, we pick a random card from deck[i] through 
+deck[N-l] (each card equally likely) and exchange it with deck[i]. This code is 
+more sophisticated than it might seem: First, we ensure that the cards in the deck 
+after the shuffle are the same as the cards in the deck before the shuffle by using 
+the exchange idiom. Second, we ensure that the shuffle is random by choosing uni- 
+formly from the cards not yet chosen. 
+
+Sampling without replacement. In many situations, we want to draw a random 
+sample from a set such that each member of the set appears at most once in the 
+sample. Drawing numbered ping-pong balls from a basket for a lottery is an ex- 
+ample of this kind of sample, as is dealing a hand from a deck of cards. Sampl e 
+(Program 1.4.1) illustrates how to sample, using the basic operation underlying 
+shuffling. It takes command-line arguments M and N and creates a permutation of 
+size N (a rearrangement of the integers from 0 to N-l) whose first M entries com- 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+0 
+
+l 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+9 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+12 
+
+13 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+
+
+0 
+
+l 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+9 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+12 
+
+13 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+0 
+
+9 
+
+9 
+
+i 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+12 
+
+13 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+1 
+
+5 
+
+9 
+
+5 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+1 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+12 
+
+13 
+
+14 
+
+.15 
+
+2 
+
+13 
+
+9 
+
+5 
+
+13 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+1 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+1 . 1 . 
+
+12 
+
+2 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+3 
+
+5 
+
+9 
+
+5 
+
+13 
+
+1 
+
+4 
+
+3 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+11 
+
+12 
+
+2 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+4 
+
+11 
+
+9 
+
+5 
+
+13 
+
+1 
+
+11 
+
+3 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+4 
+
+12 
+
+2 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+5 
+
+8 
+
+9 
+
+5 
+
+13 
+
+1 
+
+11 
+
+8 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+3 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+4 
+
+12 
+
+2 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+
+
+E 
+
+5 
+
+13 
+
+1 
+
+11 
+
+E 
+
+1 6 
+
+7 
+
+3 
+
+0 
+
+10 
+
+4 
+
+12 
+
+2 
+
+14 
+
+15 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Trace o/java 
+
+Sampl e 
+
+6 
+
+16 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+94 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Program 1.4.1 Sampling without replacement 
+
+public class Sample 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print a random sample of M integers 
+
+// from 0 ... N-l (no duplicates), 
+int M = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+int[] perm = new i nt [N] ; 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+// Initialize perm[]. 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; 
+perm[j] = j; 
+
+// Take sample, 
+for (int i =0; i 
+
+
+j++) 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+// Print sample, 
+for (int i =0; i < M; i++) 
+System. out. print(perm[i] + 
+System. out. print! n() ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program takes two command-line arguments M and N and produces a sample of M of the 
+integers from 0 to N-l. This process is useful, not just in state and local lotteries, but in scien- 
+tific applications of all sorts. If the first argument is equal to the second, the result is a random 
+permutation of the integers from 0 to N-l. If the first argument is greater than the second, the 
+program will terminate with an ArrayOutOfBounds exception. 
+
+
+
+% java Sample 6 16 
+9 5 13 1 11 8 
+
+
+
+< M; i++) 
+
+II Exchange perm[i] with a random element to its right. 
+
+int r = i + (int) (Math.randomO * (N-i )) ; 
+
+int t = perm[r] ; 
+
+perm[r] = perm[i]; 
+
+perm[i] = t; 
+
+
+% java Sample 10 1000 
+
+656 488 298 534 811 97 813 156 424 109 
+
+% java Sample 20 20 
+
+6 12 9 8 13 19 0 2 4 5 18 1 14 16 17 3 7 11 10 15 
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+95 
+
+
+prise a random sample. The accompanying trace of the contents of the perm[] 
+array at the end of each iteration of the main loop (for a run where the values of M 
+and N are 6 and 16, respectively) illustrates the process. 
+
+If the values of r are chosen such that each value in the given range is equally 
+likely, then perm[0] through perm[M-l] are a random sample at the end of the 
+process (even though some elements might move multiple times) because each 
+element in the sample is chosen by taking each item not yet sampled, with equal 
+probability for each choice. One important reason to explicitly compute the per- 
+mutation is that we can use it to print out a random sample of any array by using 
+the elements of the permutation as indices into the array. Doing so is often an at- 
+tractive alternative to actually rearranging the array because it may need to be in 
+order for some other reason (for instance, a company might wish to draw a random 
+sample from a list of customers that is kept in alphabetical order). To see how this 
+trick works, suppose that we wish to draw a random poker hand from our deck [] 
+array, constructed as just described. We use the code in Sampl e with N = 52 and M 
+= 5 and replace perm[i] with deck [perm [i]] in the System, out. print 0 state- 
+ment (and change it to pri ntl n () ), resulting in output such as the following: 
+
+3 of Clubs 
+Jack of Hearts 
+6 of Spades 
+Ace of Clubs 
+10 of Diamonds 
+
+Sampling like this is widely used as the basis for statistical studies in polling, scien- 
+tific research, and many other applications, whenever we want to draw conclusions 
+about a large population by analyzing a small random sample. 
+
+Precomputed values. One simple application of arrays is to save values that you 
+have computed, for later use. As an example, suppose that you are writing a pro- 
+gram that performs calculations using small values of the harmonic numbers (see 
+Program 1.3.5). An efficient approach is to save the values in an array, as follows: 
+
+doublet] H = new double[N]; 
+for (int i =1; i < N; i++) 
+
+H[i] = H[i -1] + 1.0/1; 
+
+Then you can just use the code H [i ] to refer to any of the values. Precomputing val- 
+ues in this way is an example of a space-time tradeoff, by investing in space (to save 
+
+
+
+96 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+the values) we save time (since we do not need to recompute them). This method 
+is not effective if we need values for huge N, but it is very effective if we need values 
+for small N many different times. 
+
+Simplifying repetitive code. As an example of another simple application of ar- 
+rays, consider the following code fragment, which prints out the name of a month 
+given its number (1 for January, 2 for February, and so forth): 
+
+if (m == 1) System. out. print’ll! ("Jan") ; 
+
+else if (m == 2) System. out. println("Feb") ; 
+
+else if (m == 3) System. out. println ("Mar") ; 
+
+else if (m == 4) System. out. println ("Apr ") ; 
+
+else if (m == 5) System. out. println ("May") ; 
+
+else if (m == 6) System. out. println("Jun") ; 
+
+else if (m == 7) System. out. println("Jul") ; 
+
+else if (m — 8) System. out. println ("Aug") ; 
+else if (m == 9) System. out. println ("Sep") ; 
+else if (m == 10) System. out. println ("Oct") ; 
+else if (m == 11) System. out. pri ntl n("Nov") ; 
+else if (m == 12) System. out. println("Dec") ; 
+
+
+We could also use a swi tch statement, but a much more compact alternative is to 
+use a Stri ng array consisting of the names of each month: 
+
+
+String [] months = 
+
+{ 
+
+"Jan", "Feb", "Mar", 
+"Jul", "Aug", "Sep", 
+
+}; 
+
+
+"Apr", 
+
+"Oct", 
+
+
+System. out. pri ntl n (months [m]) ; 
+
+
+"May" , 
+"Nov" , 
+
+
+"Jun", 
+
+"Dec" 
+
+
+This technique would be especially useful if you needed to access the name of a 
+month by its number in several different places in your program. Note that we in- 
+tentionally waste one slot in the array (element 0) to make months [1] correspond 
+to January, as required. 
+
+
+Assignments and equality tests. Suppose that you have created the two arrays a [] 
+and b [] . What does it mean to assign one to the other with the code a = b ; ? Simi- 
+larly, what does it mean to test whether the two arrays are equal with the code (a 
+== b) ? The answers to these questions may not be what you first assume, but if you 
+think about the array memory representation, you will see that Java’s interpretation 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+97 
+
+
+of these operations makes sense: An assignment makes the names a and b refer to 
+the same array. The alternative would be to have an implied loop that assigns each 
+value in b to the corresponding value in a. Similarly, an equality test checks whether 
+the two names refer to the same array. The alternative would be to have an implied 
+loop that tests whether each value in one array is equal to the corresponding value 
+in the other array. In both cases, the implementation in Java is very simple: it just 
+performs the standard operation as if the array name were a variable whose value 
+is the memory address of the array. Note that there are many other operations 
+that you might want to perform on arrays: for example, it would be nice in some 
+applications to say a = a + b and have it mean “add the corresponding element 
+in b [] to each element in a [] ,” but that statement is not legal in Java. Instead, we 
+write an explicit loop to perform all the additions. We will consider in detail Java’s 
+mechanism for satisfying such higher-level programming needs in Section 3.2. In 
+typical applications, we use this mechanism, so we rarely need to use Java’s assign- 
+ments and equality tests with arrays. 
+
+With these basic definitions and examples out of the way, we can now consider two 
+applications that both address interesting classical problems and illustrate the fun- 
+damental importance of arrays in efficient computation. In both cases, the idea of 
+using data to index into an array plays a central role and enables a computation that 
+would not otherwise be feasible. 
+
+Coupon collector Suppose that you have a shuffled deck of cards and 
+you turn them face up, one by one. How many cards do you need to turn 
+up before you have seen one of each suit? How many cards do you need to 
+turn up before seeing one of each value? These are examples of the famous 
+coupon collector problem. In general, suppose that a trading card company 
+issues trading cards with N different possible cards: how many do you have 
+to collect before you have all N possibilities, assuming that each possibility is equal- 
+ly likely for each card that you collect? 
+
+Coupon collecting is no toy problem. For example, it is very often the case that 
+scientists want to know whether a sequence that arises in nature has the same char- 
+acteristics as a random sequence. If so, that fact might be of interest; if not, further 
+investigation may be warranted to look for patterns that might be of importance. 
+For example, such tests are used by scientists to decide which parts of genomes 
+are worth studying. One effective test for whether a sequence is truly random is 
+
+
+*[* 
+
+
+Coupon collection 
+
+
+
+
+98 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Program 1.4.2 Coupon collector simulation 
+
+
+public class CouponCol lector 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Generate random values in (0..N] until finding each one. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+boolean[] found = new boolean[N]; 
+int cardcnt = 0, valent = 0; N range 
+
+while (valent < N) cardcnt values generated 
+
+{ // Generate another value. valcnt differentvaluesfound 
+
+int val = (int) (Math. random() * N) ; , . n ,, , . 
+
+cardcn t++ ' round LJ table of found values 
+
+if (! found [val ] ) 
+
+
+val cnt++ ; 
+
+found [val] = true; 
+
+} 
+
+} // N different values found. 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (cardcnt) ; 
+
+
+This program simulates coupon collection by taking a command-line argument N and generat- 
+ing random numbers between 0 and N-l until getting every possible value. 
+
+
+SSlffilil 
+
+
+% java CouponCol lector 1000 
+6583 
+
+% java CouponCol lector 1000 
+6477 
+
+% java CouponCol lector 1000000 
+12782673 
+
+
+the coupon collector test: compare the number of elements that need to be exam- 
+ined before all values are found against the corresponding number for a uniformly 
+random sequence. CouponCol 1 ector (Program 1.4.2) is an example program that 
+simulates this process and illustrates the utility of arrays. It takes the value of N from 
+the command line and generates a sequence of random integer values between 0 
+
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+99 
+
+
+val 
+
+
+found 
+
+0 1 2 3 4 5 
+
+
+F F 
+T F 
+
+
+and N— 1 using the code (i nt) (Math . randomO * N) (see Program 1.2.5). Each 
+value represents a card: for each card, we want to know if we have seen that value 
+before. To maintain that knowledge, we use an array found [] , which uses the card 
+value as an index: found [i ] is true if we have seen 
+a card with value i and fal se if we have not. When 
+we get a new card that is represented by the integer 
+val , we check whether we have seen its value before 
+simply by accessing found [val ] . The computation 
+consists of keeping count of the number of distinct 
+values seen and the number of cards generated and 
+printing the latter when the former gets to N. 
+
+As usual, the best way to understand a program 
+is to consider a trace of the values of its variables for 
+a typical run. It is easy to add code to CouponCol - 
+lector that produces a trace that gives the values 
+of the variables at the end of the while loop for a 
+typical run. In the accompanying figure, we use F 
+for the value fal se and T for the value true to make 
+the trace easier to follow. Tracing programs that use 
+large arrays can be a challenge: when you have an 
+array of size N in your program, it represents N vari- 
+ables, so you have to list them all. Tracing programs 
+
+that use Math . randomO also can be a challenge because you get a different trace 
+every time you run the program. Accordingly, we check relationships among vari- 
+ables carefully. Here, note that val cnt always is equal to the number of true values 
+in found []. 
+
+Without arrays, we could not contemplate simulating the coupon collector 
+process for huge N; with arrays it is easy to do so. We will see many examples of 
+such processes throughout the book. 
+
+
+valent cardcnt 
+
+
+0 
+
+4 
+0 
+1 
+2 
+
+5 
+0 
+1 
+3 
+
+
+T F 7 F F F 
+
+T F 7 F T F 
+
+TFTFTF 
+TTTFTF 
+T 1" T F T F 
+
+7 T T FIT 
+
+
+I T 
+T T 
+
+
+TFTT 
+
+TFTT 
+
+
+T 7 T T 7 7 
+
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+5 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+
+9 
+
+10 
+
+
+Trace for a typical run of 
+java CouponCol lector 6 
+
+
+Sieve of Eratosthenes Prime numbers play an important role in mathematics 
+and computation, including cryptography. A prime number is an integer greater 
+than one whose only positive divisors are one and itself. The prime counting func- 
+tion 'tt(IV) is the number of primes less than or equal to N. For example, tt( 25) = 9 
+since the first nine primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 1 1, 13, 17, 19, and 23. This function plays a 
+central role in number theory. 
+
+
+
+100 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+N 
+
+isPrime[i] 
+
+primes 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.4.3 Sieve of Eratosthenes 
+
+public class PrimeSieve 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print the number of primes <= N. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+boolean[] isPrime = new boolean[N+l] ; 
+for (int i =2; i <= N; i++) 
+isPrime[i] = true; 
+
+for (int i = 2; i <= N/i ; i++) 
+
+{ if (isPrime[i]) 
+
+{ // Mark multiples of i as nonprime, 
+
+for (int j = i; j <= N/i ; j++) 
+isPrime[i * j] = false; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+// Count the primes, 
+int primes = 0; 
+for (int i =2; i <= N; i++) 
+if (isPrime[i]) primes++; 
+
+System . out . pri ntl n (pri mes) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This program takes a command-line argument N and computes the number of primes less than 
+or equal to N. To do so , it computes an array of boolean values with i sPri me [i ] set to true if 
+i is prime , and to false otherwise . First, it sets to true all array elements in order to indicate 
+that no numbers are initially known to be nonprime. Then it sets to fal se array elements cor- 
+responding to indices that are known to be nonprime (multiples of known primes). If a[i] is 
+still true after all multiples of smaller primes have been set to false, then we know i to be 
+prime. The termination test in the second for loop is i <= N/i instead of the naive i <= N be- 
+cause any number with no factor less than N/i has no factor greater than N/i, so we do not have 
+to look for such factors. This improvement makes it possible to run the program for large N. 
+
+
+argument 
+is i prime? 
+prime counter \ 
+
+
+% java PrimeSieve 25 
+9 
+
+% java PrimeSieve 100 
+25 
+
+% java PrimeSieve 1000000000 
+50847534 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+101 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+isPrime 
+
+
+2 3 4 5 6 
+
+T T T T T 
+
+2 T T F T F 
+
+3 T T F T F 
+
+5 T I F T F 
+
+T T F T F 
+
+
+7 
+
+T 
+
+I 
+
+I 
+
+
+8 9 
+
+T T 
+F T 
+F F 
+
+
+10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 
+
+TTTTTTTTTT 
+FTFTFTFT FT 
+
+F I F I F F F T F T 
+
+
+20 
+
+T 
+
+F 
+
+F 
+
+
+21 22 
+
+T T 
+T F 
+F F 
+
+
+23 
+
+T 
+
+T 
+
+T 
+
+
+24 25 
+
+T T 
+F T 
+F T 
+
+
+TFFFTFTFFFTFTFFFT 
+
+TFFFTFTFFFTFT F F FT 
+
+
+F F 
+F F 
+
+
+Trace of java PrimeSieve 25 
+
+
+One approach to counting primes is to use a program like Factors (Program 
+1.3.9). Specifically, we could modify the code in Factors to set a boolean value to 
+be true if a given number is prime and fal se otherwise (instead of printing out 
+factors), then enclose that code in a loop that increments a counter for each prime 
+number. This approach is effective for small N, but becomes too slow as N grows. 
+
+PrimeSieve (Program 1.4.3) takes a command-line integer N and computes 
+the prime count using a technique known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes. The program 
+uses a boolean array i sPrime[] to record which integers are prime. The goal is 
+to set i sPrime[i ] to true if i is prime, and to fal se otherwise. The sieve works 
+as follows: Initially, set all array elements to true, indicating that no factors of any 
+integer have yet been found. Then, repeat the following steps as long as i <= N/i : 
+
+• Find the next smallest i for which no factors have been found. 
+
+• Leave i sPri me [i ] as true since i has no smaller factors. 
+
+• Set the i sPri me [] entries for all multiples of i to be fal se. 
+
+When the nested for loop ends, we have set the i sPri me [] entries for all nonprimes 
+to be fal se and have left the i sPri me [] entries for all primes as true. With one 
+more pass through the array, we can count the number of primes less than or equal 
+to N. As usual, it is easy to add code to print a trace. For programs such as Prime- 
+Si eve, you have to be a bit careful — it contains a nested for-i f-for, so you have 
+to pay attention to the braces in order to put the print code in the correct place. 
+Note that we stop when i > N/i , just as we did for Factors. 
+
+With PrimeSieve, we can compute ir(N) for large N y limited primarily by 
+the maximum array size allowed by Java. This is another example of a space-time 
+tradeoff. Programs like Pri meSi eve play an important role in helping mathemati- 
+cians to develop the theory of numbers, which has many important applications. 
+
+
+
+102 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Two-dimemsiomal arrays In many applications, a convenient way to store in- 
+formation is to use a table of numbers organized in a rectangular table and refer 
+to rows and columns in the table. For example, a teacher might need to maintain 
+a table with a row corresponding to each student and a column corresponding to 
+each assignment, a scientist might need to maintain a table of experimental data 
+with rows corresponding to experiments and columns corre- 
+sponding to various outcomes, or a programmer might want 
+to prepare an image for display by setting a table of pixels to 
+various grayscale values or colors. 
+
+The mathematical abstraction corresponding to such 
+tables is a matrix ; the corresponding Java construct is a two- 
+dimensional array. You are likely to have already encountered 
+many applications of matrices and two-dimensional arrays, 
+and you will certainly encounter many others in science, in 
+engineering, and in computing applications, as we will dem- 
+onstrate with examples throughout this book. As with vectors 
+and one-dimensional arrays, many of the most important ap- 
+plications involve processing large amounts of data, and we 
+defer considering those applications until we consider input 
+and output, in Section 1.5. 
+
+Extending Java array constructs to handle two-dimen- 
+sional arrays is straightforward. To refer to the element in row 
+a two-dimensional array a [] [] , we use the notation a [i ] [ j ] ; to declare a two-di- 
+mensional array, we add another pair of brackets; and to create the array, we specify 
+the number of rows followed by the number of columns after the type name (both 
+within brackets), as follows: 
+
+double[][] a = new double [M] [N] ; 
+
+We refer to such an array as an M-by-N array. By convention, the first dimension 
+is the number of rows and the second is the number of columns. As with one- 
+dimensional arrays, Java initializes all entries in arrays of numbers to zero and in 
+arrays of boolean values to fal se. 
+
+Initialization. Default initialization of two-dimensional arrays is useful because 
+it masks more code than for one-dimensional arrays. The following code is equiva- 
+lent to the single-line create-and-initialize idiom that we just considered: 
+
+
+a[l][2] 
+
+
+99 
+
+00 
+
+98 
+
+f98~ 
+
+57 
+
+78 
+
+92 
+
+77 
+
+76 
+
+94 
+
+32 
+
+11 
+
+99 
+
+34 
+
+22 
+
+90 
+
+46 
+
+54 
+
+76 
+
+59 
+
+88 
+
+92 
+
+66 
+
+89 
+
+97 
+
+71 
+
+24 
+
+89 
+
+29 
+
+38 
+
+
+column 2 
+
+
+Anatomy of a 
+two-dimensional array 
+
+
+i and column j of 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+103 
+
+
+double [] [] a; 
+
+a = new double [M] [N] ; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < M; i++) 
+
+{ // Initialize the ith row. 
+
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+a[i][j] = 0.0; 
+
+} 
+
+This code is superfluous when initializing to zero, but the nested for loops are 
+needed to initialize to some other value(s). As you will see, this code is a model for 
+the code that we use to access or modify each element of a two-dimensional array. 
+
+Output. We use nested for loops for many array-processing operations. For ex- 
+ample, to print an M-by-N array in the familiar tabular format, we would use the 
+following code 
+
+for (int i =0; i < M; i++) 
+
+{ // Print the ith row. 
+
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+
+System. out. pri nt(a[i ] [j] + " "); 
+
+System, out. printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+regardless of the array elements’ type. If desired, we 
+could add code to embellish the output with row and 
+column numbers (see Exercise 1.4.6), but Java pro- 
+grammers typically tabulate arrays with row numbers 
+running top to bottom from 0 and column number 
+running left to right from 0. Generally, we also do so 
+and do not bother to use labels. 
+
+
+Memory representation. Java represents a two-di- 
+mensional array as an array of arrays. A matrix with 
+M rows and N columns is actually an array of length 
+M, each entry of which is an array of length N. In a 
+two-dimensional Java array a [] [] , we can use the code 
+a[i] to refer to the ith row (which is a one-dimen- 
+sional array), but we have no corresponding way to 
+refer to a column. 
+
+
+a [] [] 
+\ 
+
+
+a[0] [0] 
+
+a[0] [1] 
+
+a[0] [2] 
+
+a[l] [0] 
+
+a[l] [1] 
+
+a[l] [2] 
+
+a[2] [0] 
+
+a[2] [1] 
+
+a[2] [2] 
+
+a[3] [0] 
+
+a[3] [1] 
+
+a[3] [2] 
+
+a [4] [0] 
+
+a [4] [1] 
+
+a [4] [2] 
+
+iUlii i 
+
+ggfjgjj 
+
+
+a[6] [0] 
+
+a[6] [1] 
+
+a[6] [2] 
+
+a [7] [0] 
+
+a[7] [1] 
+
+a[7] [2] 
+
+a [8] [0] 
+
+a [8] [1] 
+
+a[8] [2] 
+
+a[9] [0] 
+
+a[9] [1] 
+
+a[9] [2] 
+
+
+A 10-by-3 array 
+
+
+
+104 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Setting values at compile time. The Java method for initial- 
+izing an array of values at compile time follows immediately 
+from the representation. A two-dimensional array is an array 
+of rows, each row initialized as a one-dimensional array. To 
+initialize a two-dimensional array, we enclose in braces a list 
+of terms to initialize the rows, separated by commas. Each 
+term in the list is itself a list: the values for the array elements 
+in the row, enclosed in braces and separated by commas. 
+
+
+int[][] < 
+{ 
+
+{ 99, 
+
+{ 98, 
+
+{ 92, 
+
+{ 94, 
+{ 99, 
+
+{ 90, 
+{ 76, 
+{ 92, 
+{ 97, 
+{ 89, 
+{ 0 , 
+
+
+85, 
+
+57, 
+
+77, 
+
+32, 
+
+34, 
+
+46, 
+
+59, 
+
+66 , 
+
+71, 
+
+29, 
+
+0 , 
+
+
+98, 
+
+78, 
+
+76, 
+
+11 , 
+
+22 , 
+
+54, 
+
+88 , 
+
+89, 
+
+24, 
+
+38, 
+
+0 , 
+
+
+Spreadsheets. One familiar use of arrays is a spreadsheet for 
+maintaining a table of numbers. For example, a teacher with 
+M students and N test grades for each student might main- 
+tain an (M + 1 ) -by- (N + 1 ) array, reserving the last column for 
+each student’s average grade and the last row for the average 
+test grades. Even though we typically do such computations 
+within specialized applications, it is worthwhile to study the 
+underlying code as an introduction to array processing. To compute the average 
+grade for each student (average values for each row), sum the entries for each row 
+and divide by N. The row-by-row order in which this code processes the matrix 
+
+
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 }, 
+0 } 
+
+
+}; 
+
+Compile-time initialization 
+of a two-dimensional array 
+
+
+N = 3 
+
+
+averages 
+in column N 
+
+
+M = 10 
+
+
+99 
+
+85 
+
+98 
+
+94 
+
+98 
+
+57 
+
+78 
+
+77 
+
+1 92 
+
+77 
+
+76 
+
+81 1 
+
+94 
+
+32 
+
+11 
+
+45 
+
+99 
+
+34 
+
+22 
+
+51 
+
+90 
+
+46 
+
+54 
+
+63 
+
+76 
+
+59 
+
+88 
+
+74 
+
+92 
+
+66 
+
+89 
+
+82 
+
+97 
+
+71 
+
+24 
+
+64 
+
+89 
+
+29 
+
+38 
+
+52 
+
+92 
+
+55 
+
+57- 
+
+
+
+85 + 57+. . .+29 
+10 
+
+
+92 + 77+76 
+/ 3 
+
+
+column 
+averages 
+in row M 
+
+
+Compute row averages 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+
+{ // Compute average for row i 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+sum += a[i] [j] ; 
+
+a[i][N] = (int) Math. round (sum/N) ; 
+
+
+Compute column averages 
+
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // Compute average for column j 
+
+double sum =0.0; 
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+sum += a[i] [j] ; 
+
+a[M][j] = (int) Math. round (sum/M) ; 
+
+
+Typical spreadsheet calculations 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+105 
+
+
+entries is known as row-major order. Similarly, to compute the average test grade 
+(average values for each column), sum the entries for each column and divide by 
+M. The column-by-column order in which this code processes the matrix entries is 
+known as column-major order. 
+
+
+
+c[] [] 
+
+
+Matrix addition 
+
+
+
+Matrix operations. Typical applications in science and 
+engineering involve representing matrices as two-di- 
+mensional arrays and then implementing various math- 
+ematical operations with matrix operands. Again, even 
+though such processing is often done within specialized 
+applications, it is worthwhile for you to understand the 
+underlying computation. For example, we can add two 
+N-by-N matrices as follows: 
+
+double[][] c = new double [N] [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+c[i][j] = a [i ] [j] + b[i] [j] ; 
+
+
+Similarly, we can multiply two matrices. You may have 
+learned matrix multiplication, but if you do not recall or 
+
+
+are not familiar with it, the Java code below for square matrices is es- 
+sentially the same as the mathematical definition. Each entry c [i ] [ j ] 
+in the product of a [] and b [] is computed by taking the dot product 
+of row i of a [] with column j of b [] . 
+
+
+a[] [] 
+
+
+
+doubled [] c = new double [N] [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ 
+
+// Compute dot product of row i and column j. 
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+c[i] [j] += a [i ] [k]*b[k] [j] ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+column 2 
+
+1 
+
+
+ip^M.50 
+
+-lu .^o’.io 
+
+
+c[l] [2] = 
+
+
+7m Biaggl 
+
+.31 m 
+
+
+.5 
+
+.1 
+
+.4 
+
+
+The definition extends to matrices that are not necessarily square (see 
+Exercise 1.4.17). 
+
+
+Matrix multiplication 
+
+
+
+106 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Special cases of matrix multiplication. Two special cases of matrix multiplication 
+are important. These special cases occur when one of the dimensions of one of the 
+matrices is 1, so it may be viewed as a vector. We have matrix-vector multiplication, 
+where we multiply an M-by-N matrix by a column vector (an N-by-1 matrix) to get 
+
+
+Matrix-vector multiplication a[][]*x[] = b[] 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+
+{ // Dot product of row i and x[]. 
+
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+b[i] += a[i] [j]*x[j] ; 
+
+} 
+
+a[][] b[] 
+
+~99 85 98] [94" 
+
+98 57 78 77 
+
+92 77 76 X [] 81 
+
+94 32 11 _ _ 45 
+
+99 34 22 .33 51 ^ row 
+
+90 46 54 .33 63 averages 
+
+76 59 88 -33 74 
+
+92 66 89 82 
+
+97 71 24 64 
+
+_89 29 38j |_52_ 
+
+
+Vector-matrix multiplication y[]*a[][] = c[] 
+
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // Dot product of y[] and column j. 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+c[j] += y[i]*a[i] [j] ; 
+
+} 
+
+y[] [ .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 ] 
+
+
+an M-by-1 column vector result (each entry 
+in the result is the dot product of the corre- 
+sponding row in the matrix with the oper- 
+and vector). The second case is vector-matrix 
+multiplication , where we multiply a row vector 
+(a 1-by-M matrix) by an M-by-N matrix to 
+get a 1-by-N row vector result (each entry in 
+the result is the dot product of the operand 
+vector with the corresponding column in the 
+matrix). These operations provide a succinct 
+way to express numerous matrix calculations. 
+For example, the row-average computation 
+for such a spreadsheet with M rows and N 
+columns is equivalent to a matrix-vector 
+multiplication where the column vector has 
+M entries all equal to 1/M. Similarly, the col- 
+umn-average computation in such a spread- 
+sheet is equivalent to a vector-matrix multi- 
+plication where the row vector has N entries 
+all equal to 1/N. We return to vector-matrix 
+multiplication in the context of an important 
+application at the end of this chapter. 
+
+
+a[][] 99 85 
+
+98 57 
+
+92 77 
+
+94 32 
+
+99 34 
+
+90 46 
+
+76 59 
+
+92 66 
+
+97 71 
+
+_89 29 
+
+c[] [92 55 
+
+
+98 
+
+78 
+
+76 
+
+11 
+
+22 
+
+54 
+
+88 
+
+89 
+
+24 
+
+38 J 
+
+1 M column 
+
+57 -* averages 
+
+
+Ragged arrays . There is actually no require- 
+ment that all rows in a two-dimensional array 
+have the same length — an array with rows of 
+nonuniform length is known as a ragged array 
+(see Exercise 1.4.32 for an example applica- 
+tion). The possibility of ragged arrays creates 
+the need for more care in crafting array-pro- 
+cessing code. For example, this code prints 
+
+
+Matrix-vector and vector-matrix multiplication the contents of a ragged array: 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+107 
+
+
+for (int i =0; i < a. length; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int j=0; j < a[i ] . length; j++) 
+
+System. out. print(a[i] [j] + " "); 
+
+System, out. printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+This code tests your understanding of Java arrays, so you should take the time to 
+study it. In this book, we normally use square or rectangular arrays, whose dimen- 
+sion is given by a variable M or N. Code that uses a [i ] . 1 ength in this way is a clear 
+signal to you that an array is ragged. 
+
+Multidimensional arrays. The same notation extends to allow us to write code 
+using arrays that have any number of dimensions. For instance, we can declare and 
+initialize a three-dimensional array with the code 
+
+doublet] [][] a = new double [N] [N] [N] ; 
+and then refer to an entry with code like a [i ] [ j ] [k] , and so forth. 
+
+Two-dimensional arrays provide a natural representation for matrices, which are 
+omnipresent in science, mathematics, and engineering. They also provide a natural 
+way to organize large amounts of data, a key factor in spreadsheets and many other 
+computing applications. Through Cartesian coordinates, two- and three-dimen- 
+sional arrays also provide the basis for a models of the physical world. We consider 
+their use in all three arenas throughout this book. 
+
+Example: self-avoiding random walks Suppose that you leave 
+your dog in the middle of a large city whose streets form a familiar grid 
+pattern. We assume that there are N north-south streets and N east-west 
+streets all regularly spaced and fully intersecting in a pattern known as a 
+lattice. Trying to escape the city, the dog makes a random choice of which 
+way to go at each intersection, but knows by scent to avoid visiting any 
+place previously visited. But it is possible for the dog to get stuck in a 
+dead end where there is no choice but to revisit some intersection. What 
+is the chance that this will happen? This amusing problem is a simple 
+example of a famous model known as the self-avoiding random walk, 
+which has important scientific applications in the study of polymers and 
+in statistical mechanics, among many others. For example, you can see 
+
+
+
+
+108 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+that this process models a chain of material growing a bit at a time, until no growth 
+is possible. To better understand such processes, scientists seek to understand the 
+properties of self-avoiding walks. 
+
+The dog’s escape probability is certainly dependent on the size of the city. In 
+a tiny 5-by-5 city, it is easy to convince yourself that the dog is certain to escape. 
+But what are the chances of escape when the city is large? We are also interested in 
+other parameters. For example, how long is the dog’s path, on the average? How 
+often does the dog come within one block of a previous position other than the 
+one just left, on the average? How often does the dog come within one block of 
+escaping? These sorts of properties are important in the various applications just 
+mentioned. 
+
+Sel f Avoi di ngWal k (Program 1.4.4) is a simulation of this situation that uses 
+a two-dimensional bool ean array, where each entry represents an intersection. The 
+value true indicates that the dog has visited the intersection; fal se indicates that 
+the dog has not visited the intersection. The path starts in the center and takes ran- 
+dom steps to places not yet visited until getting stuck or escaping at a boundary. For 
+simplicity, the code is written so that if a random choice is made to go to a spot that 
+has already been visited, it takes no action, trusting that some subsequent random 
+choice will find a new place (which is assured because the code explicitly tests for a 
+dead end and leaves the loop in that case). 
+
+Note that the code depends on Java initializing all of the array entries to fal se 
+for each experiment. It also exhibits an important programming technique where 
+we code the loop exit test in the while statement as a guard against an illegal state- 
+ment in the body of the loop. In this case, the whi 1 e loop continuation test serves 
+as a guard against an out-of-bounds array access within the loop. This corresponds 
+to checking whether the dog has escaped. Within the loop, a successful dead-end 
+test results in a break out of the loop. 
+
+As you can see from the sample runs, the unfortunate truth is that your dog 
+is nearly certain to get trapped in a dead end in a large city. If you are interested in 
+learning more about self-avoiding walks, you can find several suggestions in the ex- 
+ercises. For example, the dog is virtually certain to escape in the three-dimensional 
+version of the problem. While this is an intuitive result that is confirmed by our 
+tests, the development of a mathematical model that explains the behavior of self- 
+avoiding walks is a famous open problem: despite extensive research, no one knows 
+a succinct mathematical expression for the escape probability, the average length of 
+the path, or any other important parameter. 
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+109 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+., - . - .. j 
+
+
+Program 1.4.4 Self-avoiding random walks 
+
+public class Sel f Avoi di ngWal k 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Do T random sel f-avoi ding walks 
+
+// in an N-by-N lattice 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+int deadEnds = 0; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+
+N lattice size 
+
+T number of trials 
+
+deadEnds trials resulting in a dead end 
+a[] [] intersections visited 
+
+x, y current position 
+
+r random number in ( 0 , 1 ) 
+
+
+boolean[][] a = new boolean[N] [N] ; 
+int x = N/2 , y = N/2; 
+
+while (x > 0 && x < N-l && y > 0 && y < N-l) 
+
+{ // Check for dead end and make a random move. 
+
+a[x][y] = true; 
+
+if (a[x-l] [y] && a[x+l] [y] && a[x] [y-1] && a[x][y+l]) 
+
+{ deadEnds++; break; } 
+
+double r = Math. random () ; 
+
+if (r < 0.25) { if (!a[x+l][y]) x++; } 
+
+
+else if (r < 0.50) { if ( 
+else if (r < 0.75) { if ( 
+else if (r < 1.00) { if ( 
+
+
+a[x+l][y]) x++; } 
+a[x-l][y]) x—; } 
+a[x] [y+1]) y++; } 
+a[x] [y-1]) y— ; } 
+
+
+System.out.println(100*deadEnds/T + "% dead ends"); 
+
+
+This program takes command-line arguments N and T and computes T self-avoiding walks in 
+an N-by-N lattice. For each walk , it creates a boolean array , ; starts the walk in the center , and 
+continues until either a dead end or a boundary is reached. The result of the computation is the 
+percentage of dead ends. As usual , increasing the number of experiments increases the precision 
+of the results. 
+
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 5 100 
+0 % dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 20 100 
+36% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 40 100 
+80% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 80 100 
+98% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 160 100 
+100% dead ends 
+
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 5 1000 
+0% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 20 1000 
+32% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 40 1000 
+70% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 80 1000 
+95% dead ends 
+
+% java SelfAvoidingWalk 160 1000 
+100% dead ends 
+
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+ill 
+
+
+Summary Arrays are the fourth basic element (after assignments, conditionals, 
+and loops) found in virtually every programming language, completing our cover- 
+age of basic Java constructs. As you have seen with the sample programs that we 
+have presented, you can write programs that can solve all sorts of problems using 
+just these constructs. 
+
+Arrays are prominent in many of the programs that we consider, and the basic 
+operations that we have discussed here will serve you well in addressing many pro- 
+gramming tasks. When you are not using arrays explicitly (and you are sure to be 
+doing so frequently), you will be using them implicitly, because all computers have 
+a memory that is conceptually equivalent to an indexed array. 
+
+The fundamental ingredient that arrays add to our programs is a potentially 
+huge increase in the size of a program’s state. The state of a program can be defined 
+as the information you need to know to understand what a program is doing. In a 
+program without arrays, if you know the values of the variables and which state- 
+ment is the next to be executed, you can normally determine what the program 
+will do next. When we trace a program, we are essentially tracking its state. When 
+a program uses arrays, however, there can be too huge a number of values (each of 
+which might be changed in each statement) for us to effectively track them all. This 
+difference makes writing programs with arrays more of a challenge than writing 
+programs without them. 
+
+Arrays directly represent vectors and matrices, so they are of direct use in 
+computations associated with many basic problems in science and engineering. Ar- 
+rays also provide a succinct notation for manipulating a potentially huge amount 
+of data in a uniform way, so they play a critical role in any application that involves 
+processing large amounts of data, as you will see throughout this book. 
+
+
+
+112 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. Some Java programmers use i nt a [] instead of i nt [] a to declare arrays. What’s 
+the difference? 
+
+A. In Java, both are legal and equivalent. The former is how arrays are declared in 
+C. The latter is the preferred style in Java since the type of the variable i nt [] more 
+clearly indicates that it is an array of integers. 
+
+Q. Why do array indices start at 0 instead of 1? 
+
+A. This convention originated with machine-language programming, where the 
+address of an array element would be computed by adding the index to the address 
+of the beginning of an array. Starting indices at 1 would entail either a waste of 
+space at the beginning of the array or a waste of time to subtract the 1. 
+
+Q. What happens if I use a negative number to index an array? 
+
+A. The same thing as when you use an index that is too big. Whenever a program 
+attempts to index an array with an index that is not between zero and the array 
+length minus one, Java will issue an ArraylndexOutOfBoundsException and ter- 
+minate the program. 
+
+Q. What happens when I compare two arrays with (a == b)? 
+
+A. The expression evaluates to t rue only if a [] and b [] refer to the same array, not 
+if they have the same sequence of elements. Unfortunately, this is rarely what you 
+want. 
+
+Q. If a [] is an array, why does System . out . pri ntl n (a) print out a hexadecimal 
+integer, like @f62373 , instead of the elements of the array? 
+
+A. Good question. It is printing out the memory address of the array, which, un- 
+fortunately, is rarely what you want. 
+
+Q. What other pitfalls should I watch out for when using arrays? 
+
+A. It is very important to remember that Java always initializes arrays when you 
+create them, so that creating an array takes time proportional to the size of the array. 
+
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+113 
+
+
+
+1 . 4.1 Write a program that declares and initializes an array a [] of size 1000 and 
+accesses a [1000] . Does your program compile? What happens when you run it? 
+
+1 . 4.2 Describe and explain what happens when you try to compile a program 
+with the following statement: 
+
+int N = 1000; 
+
+int[] a = new int[N*N*N*N] ; 
+
+
+1 . 4.3 Given two vectors of length N that are represented with one-dimensional 
+arrays, write a code fragment that computes the Euclidean distance between them 
+(the square root of the sums of the squares of the differences between correspond- 
+ing entries). 
+
+1 . 4.4 Write a code fragment that reverses the order of a one-dimensional array 
+a[] of Stri ng values. Do not create another array to hold the result. Hint: Use the 
+code in the text for exchanging two elements. 
+
+1 . 4.5 What is wrong with the following code fragment? 
+int[] a; 
+
+for (int i =0; i <10; i++) 
+a[i] = i * i ; 
+
+Solution. It does not allocate memory for a[] with new. This code results in a 
+variable a might not have been initialized compile-time error. 
+
+1 . 4.6 Write a code fragment that prints the contents of a two-dimensional bool- 
+ean array, using * to represent true and a space to represent f al se. Include row and 
+column numbers. 
+
+1 . 4.7 What does the following code fragment print? 
+
+int[] a = new int [10]; 
+for (int i =0; i <10; i++) 
+a[i] = 9 - i ; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) 
+a[i] = a[a[i ] ] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) 
+
+System. out. print! n (a [i]) ; 
+
+
+
+
+114 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 4.8 What values does the following code put in the array a [] ? 
+
+int N = 10; 
+
+int[] a = new int[N]; 
+
+a[0] = 1; 
+
+a[l] = 1; 
+
+for (int i =2; i < N; i++) 
+a[i] = a[i-l] + a[i -2] ; 
+
+1 . 4.9 What does the following code fragment print? 
+
+int[] a = { 1, 2, 3 }; 
+int[] b = { 1, 2, 3 }; 
+
+System. out. println (a == b) ; 
+
+1 . 4.10 Write a program Deal that takes an command-line argument N and prints 
+N poker hands (five cards each) from a shuffled deck, separated by blank lines. 
+
+1 . 4.11 Write code fragments to create a two-dimensional array b[] [] that is a 
+copy of an existing two-dimensional array a[] [] , under each of the following as- 
+sumptions: 
+
+a. a[] [] is square 
+
+b. a[] [] is rectangular 
+
+c. a [][] maybe ragged 
+
+Your solution to b should work for a, and your solution to c should work for both 
+b and a, but your code should get progressively more complicated. 
+
+1 . 4.12 Write a code fragment to print the transposition (rows and columns 
+changed) of a square two-dimensional array. For the example spreadsheet array in 
+the text, you code would print the following: 
+
+
+99 
+
+98 
+
+92 
+
+94 
+
+99 
+
+90 
+
+76 
+
+92 
+
+97 
+
+89 
+
+85 
+
+57 
+
+77 
+
+32 
+
+34 
+
+46 
+
+59 
+
+66 
+
+71 
+
+29 
+
+98 
+
+78 
+
+76 
+
+11 
+
+22 
+
+54 
+
+88 
+
+89 
+
+24 
+
+38 
+
+
+1 . 4.13 Write a code fragment to transpose a square two-dimensional array in place 
+without creating a second array. 
+
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+115 
+
+
+
+1 . 4.14 Write a program that takes an integer N from the command line and cre- 
+ates an N-by-N boolean array a[] [] such that a[i ] [j] is true if i and j are rela- 
+tively prime (have no common factors), and f al se otherwise. Use your solution to 
+Exercise 1.4.6 to print the array. Hint. Use sieving. 
+
+1 . 4.15 Write a program that computes the product of two square matrices of 
+boolean values, using the or operation instead of + and the and operation instead 
+of*. 
+
+1 . 4.16 Modify the spreadsheet code fragment in the text to compute a weighted 
+average of the rows, where the weights of each test score are in a one-dimensional 
+array wei ghts [] . For example, to assign the last of the three tests in our example to 
+be twice the weight of the others, you would use 
+
+doublet] weights = { .25, .25, .50 }; 
+
+Note that the weights should sum to 1. 
+
+1 . 4.17 Write a code fragment to multiply two rectangular matrices that are not 
+necessarily square. Note: For the dot product to be well-defined, the number of col- 
+umns in the first matrix must be equal to the number of rows in the second matrix. 
+Print an error message if the dimensions do not satisfy this condition. 
+
+1 . 4.18 Modify Sel f Avoi di ngWal k (Program 1.4.4) to calculate and print the av- 
+erage length of the paths as well as the dead-end probability. Keep separate the 
+average lengths of escape paths and dead-end paths. 
+
+1 . 4.19 Modify Sel fAvoi di ngWal k to calculate and print the average area of the 
+smallest axis-oriented rectangle that encloses the path. Keep separate statistics for 
+escape paths and dead-end paths. 
+
+
+
+116 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 4.20 Dice simulation. The following code computes the exact probability distri- 
+bution for the sum of two dice: 
+
+doublet] dist = new double [13]; 
+for (int i =1; i <= 6; i++) 
+for (int j = 1; j <= 6; j++) 
+dist[i+j] += 1.0; 
+
+for (int k = 1; k <= 12; k++) 
+dist[k] /= 36.0; 
+
+The value dist[k] is the probability that the dice sum to k. Run experiments to 
+validate this calculation simulating N dice throws, keeping track of the frequencies 
+of occurrence of each value when you compute the sum of two random integers 
+between 1 and 6. How large does N have to be before your empirical results match 
+the exact results to three decimal places? 
+
+1 . 4.21 Longest plateau. Given an array of integers, find the length and location of 
+the longest contiguous sequence of equal values where the values of the elements 
+just before and just after this sequence are smaller. 
+
+1 . 4.22 Empirical shuffle check. Run computational experiments to check that our 
+shuffling code works as advertised. Write a program ShuffleTest that takes com- 
+mand-line arguments M and N, does N shuffles of an array of size M that is initial- 
+ized with a [i ] = i before each shuffle, and prints an M-by-M table such that row 
+i gives the number of times i wound up in position j for all j. All entries in the 
+array should be close to N/M. 
+
+1 . 4.23 Bad shuffling. Suppose that you choose a random integer between 0 and 
+N-l in our shuffling code instead of one between i and N-l. Show that the resulting 
+order is not equally likely to be one of the N! possibilities. Run the test of the previ- 
+ous exercise for this version. 
+
+1 . 4.24 Music shuffling. You set your music player to shuffle mode. It plays each of 
+the N songs before repeating any. Write a program to estimate the likelihood that 
+you will not hear any sequential pair of songs (that is, song 3 does not follow song 
+2, song 10 does not follow song 9, and so on). 
+
+
+
+
+1.4 Arrays 
+
+
+117 
+
+
+
+1.4.24 Minima in permutations. Write a program that takes an integer N from 
+the command line, generates a random permutation, prints the permutation, and 
+prints the number of left-to-right minima in the permutation (the number of times 
+an element is the smallest seen so far). Then write a program that takes integers M 
+and N from the command line, generates M random permutations of size N, and 
+prints the average number of left-to-right minima in the permutations generated. 
+Extra credit: Formulate a hypothesis about the number of left-to-right minima in 
+a permutation of size N, as a function of N. 
+
+1.4.25 Inverse permutation. Write a program that reads in a permutation of the 
+integers 0 to N-l from N command-line arguments and prints the inverse permu- 
+tation. (If the permutation is in an array a[], its inverse is the array b[] such that 
+a [b [i ] ] = b [a [i ] ] = i .) Be sure to check that the input is a valid permutation. 
+
+1.4.26 Hadamard matrix. The N-by-N Hadamard matrix H(N) is a boolean ma- 
+trix with the remarkable property that any two rows differ in exactly N/2 entries. 
+(This property makes it useful for designing error-correcting codes.) H{ 1) is a 
+1 -by- 1 matrix with the single entry true, and for N> 1 , H(2N) is obtained by align- 
+ing four copies of H(N) in a large square, and then inverting all of the entries in the 
+lower right N-by-N copy, as shown in the following examples (with T representing 
+true and F representing fal se, as usual). 
+
+H(l) H(2) Hj 4) 
+
+T T T T T T T 
+
+T F T F T F 
+
+T T F F 
+T F F T 
+
+Write a program that takes one command-line argument N and prints H(N). As- 
+sume that N is a power of 2. 
+
+1.4.27 Rumors. Alice is throwing a party with N other guests, including Bob. Bob 
+starts a rumor about Alice by telling it to one of the other guests. A person hearing 
+this rumor for the first time will immediately tell it to one other guest, chosen at 
+random from all the people at the party except Alice and the person from whom 
+
+
+118 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+they heard it. If a person (including Bob) hears the rumor for a second time, he or 
+she will not propagate it further. Write a program to estimate the probability that 
+everyone at the party (except Alice) will hear the rumor before it stops propagating. 
+Also calculate an estimate of the expected number of people to hear the rumor. 
+
+1 . 4.28 Find a duplicate. Given an array of N elements with each element between 
+1 and N, write an algorithm to determine whether there are any duplicates. You do 
+not need to preserve the contents of the given array, but do not use an extra array. 
+
+1 . 4.29 Counting primes. Compare PrimeSi eve with the method that we used to 
+demonstrate the break statement, at the end of Section 1.3. This is a classic example 
+of a time-space tradeoff: PrimeSi eve is fast, but requires a boolean array of size 
+N; the other approach uses only two integer variables, but is substantially slower. 
+Estimate the magnitude of this difference by finding the value of N for which this 
+second approach can complete the computation in about the same time as java 
+PrimeSeive 1000000. 
+
+1 . 4.30 Minesweeper. Write a program that takes 3 command-fine arguments M, 
+N, and p and produces an M-by-N boolean array where each entry is occupied with 
+probability p. In the minesweeper game, occupied cells represent bombs and empty 
+cells represent safe cells. Print out the array using an asterisk for bombs and a period 
+for safe cells. Then, replace each safe square with the number of neighboring bombs 
+(above, below, left, right, or diagonal) and print out the solution. 
+
+* * . . . * * 1 0 0 
+
+3 3 2 0 0 
+
+. * . . . 1*10 0 
+
+Try to write your code so that you have as few special cases as possible to deal with, 
+by using an (M+2)-by-(N+2) boolean array. 
+
+1 . 4.31 Self-avoiding walk length. Suppose that there is no limit on the size of the 
+grid. Run experiments to estimate the average walk length. 
+
+1 . 4.32 Three-dimensional self-avoiding walks. Run experiments to verify that the 
+dead-end probability is 0 for a three-dimensional self-avoiding walk and to com- 
+pute the average walk length for various values of N. 
+
+
+
+119 
+
+
+
+1 . 4.33 Random walkers. Suppose that N random walkers, starting in the center 
+of an N-by-N grid, move one step at a time, choosing to go left, right, up, or down 
+with equal probability at each step. Write a program to help formulate and test a 
+hypothesis about the number of steps taken before all cells are touched. 
+
+1 . 4.34 Bridge hands. In the game of bridge, four players are dealt hands of 13 
+cards each. An important statistic is the distribution of the number of cards in each 
+suit in a hand. Which is the most likely, 5-3-3-2, 4-4-3-2, or 4-3-3-3? 
+
+1 . 4.35 Birthday problem. Suppose that people enter an empty room until a pair 
+of people share a birthday. On average, how many people will have to enter before 
+there is a match? Run experiments to estimate the value of this quantity. Assume 
+birthdays to be uniform random integers between 0 and 364. 
+
+1 . 4.36 Coupon collector. Run experiments to validate the classical mathematical 
+result that the expected number of coupons needed to collect N values is about 
+NH n . For example, if you are observing the cards carefully at the blackjack table 
+(and the dealer has enough decks randomly shuffled together), you will wait until 
+about 235 cards are dealt, on average, before seeing every card value. 
+
+1 . 4.37 Binomial coefficients. Write a program that builds and prints a two-dimen- 
+sional ragged array a such that a [N] [k] contains the probability that you get exactly 
+k heads when you toss a coin N times. Take a command-line argument to specify the 
+maximum value of N. These numbers are known as the binomial distribution : if you 
+multiply each entry in row i by 2 N , you get the binomial coefficients (the coefficients 
+ofx^in (x+l) N ) arranged in Pascal’s triangle. To compute them, start with a[N] [0] 
+= 0 for all N and a [1] [1] =1, then compute values in successive rows, left to right, 
+with a[N] [k] = (a[N-l][k] + a[N-l] [k-l])/2. 
+
+
+Pascal's triangle 
+l 
+
+l 1 
+12 1 
+13 3 1 
+1 4 6 4 1 
+
+
+binomial distribution 
+l 
+
+1/2 1/2 
+
+1/4 1/2 1/4 
+
+1/8 3/8 3/8 1/8 
+
+1/16 1/4 3/8 1/4 1/16 
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+In this section we extend the set of simple abstractions (command-line input and 
+standard output) that we have been using as the interface between our Java pro- 
+grams and the outside world to include 
+standard input, standard drawing, and 
+standard audio. Standard input makes it 
+convenient for us to write programs that 
+process arbitrary amounts of input and 
+to interact with our programs; standard 
+drawing makes it possible for us to work 
+with graphical representations of images, 
+freeing us from having to encode every- 
+thing as text; and standard audio adds 
+sound. These extensions are easy to use, and you will find that they bring you to yet 
+another new world of programming. 
+
+The abbreviation I/O is universally understood to mean input/output, a col- 
+lective term that refers to the mechanisms by which programs communicate with 
+the outside world. Your computer’s operating system controls the physical devices 
+that are connected to your computer. To implement the standard I/O abstractions, 
+we use libraries of methods that interface to the operating system. 
+
+You have already been accepting argument values from the command line 
+and printing strings in a terminal window; the purpose of this section is to provide 
+you with a much richer set of tools for processing and presenting data. Like the 
+System . out . pri nt () and System . out . pri ntl n () methods that you have been 
+using, these methods do not implement mathematical functions — their purpose is 
+to cause some side effect, either on an input device or an output device. Our prime 
+concern is using such devices to get information into and out of our programs. 
+
+An essential feature of standard I/O mechanisms is that there is no limit on 
+the amount of input or output data, from the point of view of the program. Your 
+programs can consume input or produce output indefinitely. 
+
+One use of standard I/O mechanisms is to connect your programs to files on 
+your computer’s disk. It is easy to connect standard input, standard output, stan- 
+dard drawing, and standard audio to files. Such connections make it easy to have 
+your Java programs save or load results to files for archival purposes or for later 
+reference by other programs or other applications. 
+
+
+1.5.1 Generating a random sequence. . .122 
+
+1.5.2 Interactive user input . . . . . . . . 129 
+
+1.5.3 Averaging a stream of numbers. . . 130 
+
+1.5.4 A simple filter .134 
+
+1.5.5 Input-to-drawing filter . . . . . ...139 
+
+1.5.6 Bouncing ball 145 
+
+1.5.7 Digital signal processing . . . . . .150 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+121 
+
+
+Bird’s-eye view The conventional model that we have been using for Java pro- 
+gramming has served us since Section 1.1. To build context, we begin by briefly 
+reviewing the model. 
+
+A Java program takes input values from the command line and prints a string 
+of characters as output. By default, both command-line input and standard output 
+are associated with the application that takes commands (the one in which you 
+have been typing the java and javac commands). We use the generic term termi- 
+nal window to refer to this application. This model has proven to be a convenient 
+and direct way for us to interact with our programs and data. 
+
+Command-line input. This mechanism, which we have been using to provide 
+input values to our programs, is a standard part of Java programming. All classes 
+have a mai n () method that takes a Stri ng array args [] as its argument. That ar- 
+ray is the sequence of command-line arguments that we type, provided to Java by 
+the operating system. By convention, both Java and the operating system process 
+the arguments as strings, so if we intend for an argument to be a number, we use 
+a method such as Integer. parselntO or Double. par seDoubleO to convert it 
+from Stri ng to the appropriate type. 
+
+Standard output. To print output values in our programs, we have been using 
+the system methods System . out . pri ntl n () and System . out . pri nt () . Java puts 
+the results of a program’s sequence of calls on these methods into the form of an 
+abstract stream of characters known as standard output. By default, the operating 
+system connects standard output to the terminal window. All of the output in our 
+programs so far has been appearing in the terminal window. 
+
+For reference, and as a starting point, RandomSeq (Program 1.5.1) is a program 
+that uses this model. It takes a command-line argument N and produces an output 
+sequence of N random numbers between 0 and 1. 
+
+Now we are going to complement command-line input and standard output with 
+three additional mechanisms that address their limitations and provide us with a 
+far more useful programming model. These mechanisms give us a new bird’s-eye 
+view of a Java program in which the program converts a standard input stream and 
+a sequence of command-line arguments into a standard output stream, a standard 
+drawing, and a standard audio stream. 
+
+
+
+122 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+PHp»;p: 
+
+
+Si 
+
+
+, i 
+
+
+Program 1.5.1 Generating a random sequence 
+
+
+
+public class RandomSeq 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print a random sequence of N real values in [0, 1) 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+System . out . p ri ntl n (Math . random () ) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program illustrates the conventional model that we have been using so far for Java pro- 
+gramming. It takes a command-line argument N and prints N random numbers between 0 and 
+1. From the program’s point of view, there is no limit on the length of the output sequence. 
+
+
+
+
+
+% java RandomSeq 1000000 
+
+0.2498362 5S4343327 
+
+0.5578468691774513 
+
+0.5702167639727175 
+
+0.32191774192688727 
+
+0.6865902823177537 
+
+
+
+
+
+Standard input. Our class Stdln is a library that implements a standard input 
+abstraction to complement the standard output abstraction. Just as you can print 
+a value to standard output at any time during the execution of your program, you 
+can read a value from a standard input stream at any time. 
+
+Standard drawing. Our class StdDraw allows you to create drawings with your 
+programs. It uses a simple graphics model that allows you to create drawings con- 
+sisting of points and lines in a window on your computer. StdDraw also includes 
+facilities for text, color, and animation. 
+
+Standard audio. Our class StdAudio allows you to create sound with your pro- 
+grams. It uses a standard format to convert arrays of numbers into sound. 
+
+
+
+7.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+123 
+
+
+To use both command-line input and standard output, you have been using built-in 
+Java facilities. Java also has built-in facilities that support abstractions like standard 
+input, standard draw, and standard audio, but they are somewhat more complicated 
+to use, so we have developed a simpler interface 
+to them in our Stdln, StdDraw, and StdAudi o li- 
+braries. To logically complete our programming 
+model, we also include a StdOut library. To use 
+these libraries, download Stdln. java, StdOut. 
+java, StdDraw. java, and StdAudi o. java and 
+place them in the same directory as your pro- 
+gram (or use one of the other mechanisms for 
+sharing libraries described on the booksite). 
+
+The standard input and standard output 
+abstractions date back to the development of 
+the Unix operating system in the 1970s and are 
+found in some form on all modern systems. Al- 
+though they are primitive by comparison to vari- 
+ous mechanisms developed since, modern programmers still depend on them as a 
+reliable way to connect data to programs. We have developed for this book standard 
+draw and standard audio in the same spirit as these earlier abstractions to provide 
+you with an easy way to produce visual and aural output. 
+
+Standard output Java’s System. out. printO and System. out. println() 
+methods implement the basic standard output abstraction that we need. Never- 
+theless, to treat standard input and standard output in a uniform manner (and 
+to provide a few technical improvements), starting in this section and continuing 
+through the rest of the book, we use similar methods that are defined in our StdOut 
+library. StdOut. printO and StdOut. printlnO are nearly the same as the Java 
+methods that you have been using (see the booksite for a discussion of the differ- 
+ences, which need not concern you now). The StdOut . pri ntf () method is a main 
+topic of this section and will be of interest to you now because it gives you more 
+control over the appearance of the output. It was a feature of the C language of the 
+early 1970s that still survives in modern languages because it is so useful. 
+
+Since the first time that we printed doubl e values, we have been distracted by 
+excessive precision in the printed output. For example, when we use System . out . 
+print(Math. PI) we get the output 3.141592653589793, even though we might 
+
+
+
+command-line 
+
+arguments 
+
+
+standard output 
+
+
+standard drawing 
+
+A bird’s-eye view of a Java program (revisited) 
+
+
+
+
+
+124 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+public class StdOut 
+
+void print(String s) prints 
+
+void pri ntln(Stri ng S) prints, followed by newline 
+
+voi d pri ntl n () print a new line 
+
+void pri ntf (String f, ... ) formatted print 
+
+API for our library of static methods for standard output 
+
+
+prefer to see 3 . 14 or 3 . 14159. The pri nt() and pri ntl n() methods present each 
+number to 15 decimal places even when we would be happy with just a few digits 
+of precision. The pri ntf () method is more flexible: it allows us to specify the 
+number of digits and the precision when converting data type values to strings for 
+output. With pri ntf O, we can write StdOut. pri ntf ("%7. 5f" , Math. PI) to get 
+3 . 14159, and we can replace System . out . pri nt (t) with 
+
+StdOut. pri ntf ("The square root of %.lf is %.6f", c, t); 
+in Newton (Program 1.3.6) to get output like 
+
+The square root of 2.0 is 1.414214 
+
+Next, we describe the meaning and operation of these statements, along with ex- 
+tensions to handle the other built-in types of data. 
+
+
+Formatted printing basics. In its simplest form, pri ntf O takes two arguments. 
+The first argument is & format string that describes how to convert the second ar- 
+gument into a string for output. The simplest type of format string begins with % 
+and ends with a one-letter conversion code. The conversion codes that we use most 
+frequently are d (for decimal values from Java’s integer types), f (for floating-point 
+
+values), and s (for String values). Between the % 
+and the conversion code is an integer that specifies 
+the field width of the converted value (the number 
+of characters in the converted output string). By 
+default, blanks are added on the left to make the 
+length of the converted output equal to the field 
+width; if we want the blanks on the right, we can 
+insert a minus sign before the field width. (If the 
+
+
+format 
+
+string 
+
+1 
+
+
+StdOut . pri ntf (" %[Zl • 
+
+
+field width 
+
+
+/ 
+
+
+number to print 
+
+1 
+
+, Math. PI) 
+
+
+X 
+
+
+conversion code 
+
+
+precision 
+
+
+Anatomy of a formatted print statement 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+125 
+
+
+converted output string is larger than the field width, the field width is ignored.) 
+Following the width, we have the option of including a period followed by the 
+number of digits to put after the decimal point (the precision) for a double value 
+or the number of characters to take from the beginning of the string for a Stri ng 
+value. The most important thing to remember about using printfO is that the 
+conversion code in the format and the type of the corresponding argument must match. 
+That is, Java must be able to convert from the type of the argument to the type re- 
+quired by the conversion code. Every type of data can be converted to Stri ng, but 
+if you write StdOut . pri ntf ("%12d" , Math . PI) or StdOut . pri ntf ("%4 . 2f " , 
+512), you will get an Illegal FormatConversionException run-time error. 
+
+Format string. The first argument of printfO is a String that may contain 
+characters other than a format string. Any part of the argument that is not part of a 
+format string passes through to the output, with the format string replaced by the 
+argument value (converted to a string as specified). For example, the statement 
+
+StdOut. pri ntf ("PI is approximately %.2f\n", Math. PI); 
+
+prints the line 
+
+PI is approximately 3.14 
+
+Note that we need to explicitly include the newline character \n in the argument in 
+order to print a new line with pri ntf (). 
+
+
+type 
+
+code 
+
+typical 
+
+literal 
+
+int 
+
+d 
+
+512 
+
+double 
+
+f 
+
+1595.1680010754388 
+
+
+e 
+
+
+String 
+
+s 
+
+"Hello, World" 
+
+
+sample 
+
+format strings 
+
+converted string 
+values for output 
+
+"%14d" 
+
+" 512" 
+
+"%-14d" 
+
+"512 
+
+"%14.2f" 
+
+" 1595.17" 
+
+"%. 7f" 
+
+"1595.1680011" 
+
+"%14.4e" 
+
+" 1. 5952e+03" 
+
+"%14s" 
+
+" Hello, World" 
+
+"%-14s" 
+
+"Hello, World " 
+
+"%-14.5s" 
+
+"Hello 
+
+
+Format conventions for pri ntf () (see the booksitefor many other options) 
+
+
+
+126 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Multiple arguments. The pri ntf () function can take more than two arguments. 
+In this case, the format string will have a format specifier for each additional argu- 
+ment, perhaps separated by other characters to pass through to the output. For 
+example, if you were making payments on a loan, you might use code whose inner 
+loop contains the statements 
+
+String formats = "%3s $%6.2f $%7.2f $%5.2f\n"; 
+
+StdOut. pri ntf (formats, month [i], pay, balance, interest); 
+
+
+to print the second and subsequent lines in a table like this (see Exercise 1.5.14): 
+
+
+
+payment 
+
+bal ance 
+
+interest 
+
+Dan 
+
+$299.00 
+
+$9742.67 
+
+$41.67 
+
+Feb 
+
+$299.00 
+
+$9484.26 
+
+$40.59 
+
+Mar 
+
+$299.00 
+
+$9224.78 
+
+$39.52 
+
+
+Formatted printing is convenient because this sort of code is much more compact 
+than the string-concatenation code that we have been using. 
+
+Standard input Our Stdln library takes data from a standard input stream that 
+may be empty or may contain a sequence of values separated by whitespace (spaces, 
+tabs, newline characters, and the like). Each value is a Stri ng or a value from one of 
+Java’s primitive types. One of the key features of the standard input stream is that 
+your program consumes values when it reads them. Once your program has read 
+a value, it cannot back up and read it again. This assumption is restrictive, but it 
+reflects physical characteristics of some input devices and simplifies implementing 
+the abstraction. The library consists of the nine methods: i sEmptyO, readlntO, 
+readDoubleO, readLongO, readBooleanO, readCharO, readStringO, read- 
+Li ne () , and readAl 1 () . Within the input stream model, these methods are large- 
+ly self-documenting (the names describe their effect), but their precise operation is 
+worthy of careful consideration, so we will consider several examples in detail. 
+
+Typing input. When you use the java command to invoke a Java program from 
+the command line, you actually are doing three things: issuing a command to start 
+executing your program, specifying the values of the command line arguments, 
+and beginning to define the standard input stream. The string of characters that 
+you type in the terminal window after the command line is the standard input 
+stream. When you type characters, you are interacting with your program. The 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+127 
+
+
+public class Stdln 
+
+
+bool ean 
+
+isEmptyO 
+
+true if no more values, fal se otherwise 
+
+int 
+
+readlntO 
+
+read a value of type int 
+
+double 
+
+readDoubleO 
+
+read a value of type doubl e 
+
+long 
+
+readLongO 
+
+read a value of type long 
+
+bool ean 
+
+readBool ean() 
+
+read a value of type bool ean 
+
+char 
+
+readCharO 
+
+read a value of type char 
+
+String 
+
+readStringO 
+
+read a value of type St ri ng 
+
+String 
+
+readLinef) 
+
+read the rest of the line 
+
+String 
+
+readAl 1 () 
+
+read the rest of the text 
+
+
+API for our library of static methods for standard input 
+
+
+program waits for you to create the standard input stream. For example, consider 
+the following program, which takes a command-line argument N, then reads N 
+numbers from standard input and adds them: 
+
+public class Addlnts 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselntfargs [0] ) ; 
+int sum = 0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int value = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+sum += value; 
+
+} 
+
+StdOut.println("Sum is " + sum); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+When you type j ava Addlnts 4, after the program takes the command-line argu- 
+ment, it calls the method Stdln . readlntO and waits for you to type an integer. 
+Suppose that you want 144 to be the first value. As you type 1, then 4, and then 4, 
+nothing happens, because Stdln does not know that you are done typing the in- 
+teger. But when you then type <return> to signify the end of your integer, Stdln . 
+readlntO immediately returns the value 144, which your program adds to sum 
+
+
+
+128 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+and then calls Stdln . readlntO again. Again, nothing happens until you type the 
+second value: if you type 2, then 3, then 3, and then <return> to end the number, 
+Stdln. readlntO returns the value 233, which your program again adds to sum. 
+After you have typed four numbers in this way, Addlnts expects no more input and 
+prints out the sum, as desired. 
+
+Input format. If you type abc or 12.2 or true when 
+Stdln. readlntO is expecting an int, it will respond 
+with a NumberFormatException. The format for each 
+type is the same as you have been using for literal val- 
+ues within Java programs. For convenience, Stdln treats 
+strings of consecutive whitespace characters as identical 
+to one space and allows you to delimit your numbers 
+with such strings. It does not matter how many spaces 
+you put between numbers, or whether you enter num- 
+bers on one line or separate them with tab characters 
+or spread them out over several lines, (except that your 
+terminal application processes standard input one line at a time, so it will wait un- 
+til you type <return> before sending all of the numbers on that line to standard 
+input). You can mix values of different types in an input stream, but whenever the 
+program expects a value of a particular type, the input stream must have a value 
+of that type. 
+
+Interactive user input. TwentyQuestions (Program 1.5.2) is a simple example 
+of a program that interacts with its user. The program generates a random integer 
+and then gives clues to a user trying to guess the number. (As a side note: by using 
+binary search, you can always get to the answer in at most twenty questions. See 
+Section 4.2.) The fundamental difference between this program and others that 
+we have written is that the user has the ability to change the control flow while the 
+program is executing. This capability was very important in early applications of 
+computing, but we rarely write such programs nowadays because modern applica- 
+tions typically take such input through the graphical user interface, as discussed 
+in Chapter 3. Even a simple program like TwentyQuestions illustrates that writ- 
+ing programs that support user interaction is potentially very difficult because you 
+have to plan for all possible user inputs. 
+
+
+command line 
+
+\ 
+
+
+% java Addlnts 4 
+
+
+command-line 
+
+argument 
+
+
+144 
+233 
+3 77 
+10241 
+
+
+standard input stream 
+
+
+Sum is 1778 
+
+
+\ 
+
+standard output stream 
+Anatomy of a command 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+129 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.5.2 Interactive user input 
+
+public class TwentyQuestions 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Generate a number and answer questions 
+
+// while the user tries to guess the value, 
+int N = 1 + (int) (Math. random() * 1000000); 
+StdOut. print ("I'm thinking of a number "); 
+StdOut.println ("between 1 and 1,000,000"); 
+int m = 0; 
+while (m != N) 
+
+{ // Solicit one guess and provide one answer 
+
+StdOut. print ("What's your guess? "); 
+m = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+if (m == N) StdOut.println ("You win!"); 
+if (m < N) StdOut.println ("Too low "); 
+if (m > N) StdOut. println("Too high"); 
+
+
+
+hidden value 
+user's guess 
+
+
+This program plays a simple guessing game. You type numbers , each of which is an implicit 
+question (“Is this the number?”) and the program tells you whether your guess is too high or 
+too low. You can always get it to print You wi n ! with less than twenty questions. To use this 
+program , you need to first download Stdln .java and StdOut .java into the same directory 
+as this code (which is in a file named TwentyQuestions .java). 
+
+
+% java TwentyQuestions 
+
+I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 1,000,000 
+What’s your guess? 500000 
+Too high 
+
+What’s your guess? 250000 
+Too low 
+
+What’s your guess? 375000 
+Too high 
+
+What’s your guess? 312500 
+Too high 
+
+What’s your guess? 300500 
+Too low 
+
+
+130 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Program 1.5.3 Averaging a stream of numbers 
+
+
+public class Average 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Average the numbers on the input stream, 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+int cnt = 0; 
+
+while (! Stdln. is Empty ()) 
+
+{ // Read a number and cumulate the sum. 
+
+double value = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+sum += value; 
+cnt++; 
+
+} 
+
+double average = sum / cnt; 
+
+StdOut.println ("Average is " + average); 
+
+
+cnt count of numbers read 
+sum cumulated sum 
+
+
+This program reads in a sequence of real numbers from standard input and prints their average 
+on standard output (provided that the sum does not overflow). From its point of view, there is 
+no limit on the size of the input stream. The commands on the right below use redirection and 
+piping (discussed in the next subsection) to provide 100,000 numbers to average. 
+
+
+
+
+% java Average 
+
+10.0 5.0 6.0 
+
+5.0 
+
+7.0 32.0 
+<ctrl-d> 
+Average is 10.5 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+% java RandomSeq 100000 > data.txt 
+% java Average < data.txt 
+Average is 0.5010473676174824 
+
+% java RandomSeq 100000 | java Average 
+Average is 0.5000499417963857 
+
+
+Processing an arbitrary- size input stream. Typically, input streams are finite: 
+your program marches through the input stream, consuming values until the 
+stream is empty. But there is no restriction of the size of the input stream, and some 
+programs simply process all the input presented to them. Average (Program 1.5.3) 
+is an example that reads in a sequence of real numbers from standard input and 
+prints their average. It illustrates a key property of using an input stream: the length 
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+131 
+
+
+of the stream is not known to the program. We type all the numbers that we have, 
+and then the program averages them. Before reading each number, the program 
+uses the method Stdln . i sEmpty () to check whether there are any more numbers 
+in the input stream. How do we signal that we have no more data to type? By con- 
+vention, we type a special sequence of characters known as the end-of-file sequence. 
+Unfortunately, the terminal applications that we typically encounter on modern 
+operating systems use different conventions for this critically important sequence. 
+In this book, we use cctrl -d> (many systems require cctrl -d> to be on a line by 
+itself); the other widely used convention is cctrl -z> on a line by itself. Average 
+is a simple program, but it represents a profound new capability in programming: 
+with standard input, we can write programs that process an unlimited amount of 
+data. As you will see, writing such programs is an effective approach for numerous 
+data-processing applications. 
+
+Standard input is a substantial step up from the command-line input model that 
+we have been using, for two reasons, as illustrated by TwentyQuesti ons and Aver- 
+age. First, we can interact with our program — with command-line arguments, we 
+can only provide data to the program before it begins execution. Second, we can 
+read in large amounts of data — with command-line arguments, we can only enter 
+values that fit on the command line. Indeed, as illustrated by Average, the amount 
+of data can be potentially unlimited, and many programs are made simpler by that 
+assumption. A third raison d’etre for standard input is that your operating system 
+makes it possible to change the source of standard input, so that you do not have to 
+type all the input. Next, we consider the mechanisms that enable this possibility. 
+
+Redirection and piping For many applications, typing input data as a stan- 
+dard input stream from the terminal window is untenable because our program’s 
+processing power is then limited by the amount of data that we can type (and our 
+typing speed). Similarly, we often want to save the information printed on the stan- 
+dard output stream for later use. To address such limitations, we next focus on the 
+idea that standard input is an abstraction — the program just expects its input and 
+has no dependence on the source of the input stream. Standard output is a similar 
+abstraction. The power of these abstractions derives from our ability (through the 
+operating system) to specify various other sources for standard input and standard 
+output, such as a file, the network, or another program. All modern operating sys- 
+tems implement these mechanisms. 
+
+
+
+132 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Redirecting standard output to a file. By adding a simple directive to the com- 
+mand that invokes a program, we can redirect its standard output to a file, either for 
+permanent storage or for input to another program at a later time. For example, 
+
+% java RandomSeq 1000 > data.txt 
+
+specifies that the standard output stream is not to be printed in the terminal win- 
+dow, but instead is to be written to a text file named data.txt. Each call to Sys- 
+tem . out . pri nt () or System . out . pri ntl n () appends text at the end of that file. 
+
+In this example, the end result is a file that contains 1,000 random values. No out- 
+put appears in the terminal window: it goes directly into the file named after the > 
+symbol. Thus, we can save away information for later retrieval. Note that we do not 
+
+java RandomSeq 1000 > data.txt have to chan g e RandomSeq (Program 1.5.1) in anyway 
+
+for this mechanism to work — it is using the standard 
+output abstraction and is unaffected by our use of a 
+different implementation of that abstraction. You can 
+use this mechanism to save output from any program 
+that you write. Once we have expended a significant 
+Redirecting standard output to a file amount of effort to obtain a result, we often want to 
+
+save the result for later reference. In a modern system, 
+you can save some information by using cut-and-paste or some similar mecha- 
+nism that is provided by the operating system, but cut-and-paste is inconvenient 
+for large amounts of data. By contrast, redirection is specifically designed to make 
+it easy to handle large amounts of data. 
+
+Redirecting from a file to standard input. Similarly, we can redirect standard 
+input so that Stdln reads data from a file instead of the terminal application: 
+
+% java Average < data.txt 
+
+This command reads a sequence of numbers from the file data . txt and computes 
+
+their average value. Specifically, the < symbol is a directive that tells the operating 
+
+system to implement the standard input stream . . ^ ^ 
+
+, r , java Average < data.txt 
+
+by reading from the text file data . txt instead of 
+
+waiting for the user to type something into the 
+terminal window. When the program calls St- 
+dln . readDoubl e () , the operating system reads 
+
+the value from the file. The file data . txt could Redirecting from a file to standard input 
+
+
+data.txt 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+133 
+
+
+have been created by any application, not just a Java program — virtually every ap- 
+plication on your computer can create text files. This facility to redirect from a file 
+to standard input enables us to create data-driven code where we can change the 
+data processed by a program without having to change the program at all. Instead, 
+we keep data in files and write programs that read from standard input. 
+
+Connecting two programs. The most flexible way to implement the standard in- 
+put and standard output abstractions is to specify that they are implemented by 
+our own programs! This mechanism is called piping. For example, the command 
+
+% java RandomSeq 1000 | java Average 
+
+specifies that the standard output for RandomSeq and the standard input stream for 
+Average are the same stream. The effect is as if RandomSeq were typing the num- 
+bers it generates into the terminal window while Average is running. This example 
+also has the same effect as the following sequence of commands: 
+
+% java RandomSeq 1000 > data.txt 
+
+% java Average < data.txt 
+
+In this case, the file data.txt is not created. This difference is profound, because 
+it removes another limitation on the size of the input and output streams that we 
+can process. For example, we could replace 1000 in our example with 1000000000, 
+even though we might not have the 
+space to save a billion numbers on our 
+computer (we do need the time to pro- 
+cess them, however). When RandomSeq 
+calls System. out. printlnf), a string 
+is added to the end of the stream; when 
+Average calls Stdln. readlntO, a 
+string is removed from the beginning 
+of the stream. The timing of precisely 
+what happens is up to the operating 
+system: it might run RandomSeq until it produces some output, and then run Av- 
+erage to consume that output, or it might run Average until it needs some output, 
+and then run RandomSeq until it produces the needed output. The end result is the 
+same, but our programs are freed from worrying about such details because they 
+work solely with the standard input and standard output abstractions. 
+
+
+java RandomSeq 1000 | java Average 
+
+
+
+Piping the output of one program to the input of another 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+134 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Program 1.5.4 A simple filter j| 
+
+public class RangeFilter , , , ™ 
+
+^ 10 lower bound of n 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) hl upper bound of r 
+
+{ // Filter out numbers not between lo and hi. t current number 
+
+int lo = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; .i.m« 
+
+int hi = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; IS 
+
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) m 
+
+{ // Process one number. M 
+
+int t = Stdln.readlntO; I 
+
+if (t >= lo && t <= hi) StdOut.print(t + " "); || 
+
+StdOut.printlnQ ; m 
+
+
+This filter copies to the output stream the numbers from the input stream that fall inside the 
+range given by the command-line parameters. There is no limit on the length of the streams. 
+
+
+
+
+% java RangeFilter 100 400 f 
+358 1330 55 165 689 1014 3066 387 575 843 203 48 292 877 65 998 I 
+<ctrl-d> | 
+358 165 387 203 292 § 
+
+
+Filters. Piping, a core feature of the original Unix system of the early 1970s, still 
+survives in modern systems because it is a simple abstraction for communicating 
+among disparate programs. Testimony to the power of this abstraction is that many 
+Unix programs are still being used today to process files that are thousands or mil- 
+lions of times larger than imagined by the programs’ authors. We can comm u nicate 
+with other Java programs via calls on methods, but standard input and standard 
+output allow us to communicate with programs that were written at another time 
+and, perhaps, in another language. With standard input and standard output, we 
+are agreeing on a simple interface to the outside world. For many common tasks, 
+it is convenient to think of each program as a filter that converts a standard input 
+stream to a standard output stream in some way, with piping as the command 
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+mechanism to connect programs together. For example, RangeFilter (Program 
+1.5.4) takes two command-line arguments and prints on standard output those 
+numbers from standard input that fall within the specified range. You might imag- 
+ine standard input to be measurement data from some instrument, with the filter 
+being used to throw away data outside the range of interest for the experiment at 
+hand. Several standard filters that were designed for Unix still survive (sometimes 
+with different names) as commands in modern operating systems. For example, 
+the sort filter puts the lines on standard input in sorted order: 
+
+% java RandomSeq 6 | sort 
+
+0.035813305516568916 
+
+0.14306638757584322 
+
+0.348292877655532103 
+
+0.5761644592016527 
+
+0.7234592733392126 
+
+0.9795908813988247 
+
+We discuss sorting in Section 4.2. A second useful filter is grep, which prints the 
+lines from standard input that match a given pattern. For example, if you type 
+
+% grep lo < RangeFilter. java 
+
+you get the result 
+
+// Filter out numbers not between lo and hi. 
+int lo = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+
+if (t >= lo && t <= hi) StdOut.printft + " ") ; 
+
+Programmers often use tools such as grep to get a quick reminder of variable 
+names or language usage details. A third useful filter is more, which reads data from 
+standard input and displays it in your terminal window one screenful at a time. For 
+example, if you type 
+
+% java RandomSeq 1000 | more 
+
+you will see as many numbers as fit in your terminal window, but more will wait 
+for you to hit the space bar before displaying each succeeding screenful. The term 
+filter is perhaps misleading: it was meant to describe programs like RangeFilter 
+that write some subsequence of standard input to standard output, but it is now 
+often used to describe any program that reads from standard input and writes to 
+standard output. 
+
+
+
+136 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Multiple streams. For many common tasks, we want to write programs that take 
+input from multiple sources and/or produce output intended for multiple destina- 
+tions. In Section 3.1 we discuss our Out and In libraries, which generalize StdOut 
+and Stdln to allow for multiple input and output streams. These libraries include 
+provisions not just for redirecting these streams to and from files, but also from 
+arbitrary web pages. 
+
+Processing large amounts of information plays an essential role in many applica- 
+tions of computing. A scientist may need to analyze data collected from a series of 
+experiments, a stock trader may wish to analyze information about recent financial 
+transactions, or a student may wish to maintain collections of music and mov- 
+ies. In these and countless other applications, data-driven programs are the norm. 
+Standard output, standard input, redirection, and piping provides us with the ca- 
+pability to address such applications with our Java programs. We can collect data 
+into files on our computer through the web or any of the standard devices and use 
+redirection and piping to connect data to our programs. Many (if not most) of the 
+programming examples that we consider throughout this book have this ability. 
+
+Standard drawing Up to this point, our input/output abstractions have fo- 
+cused exclusively on text strings. Now we introduce an abstraction for producing 
+drawings as output. This library is easy to use and allows us to take advantage of a 
+visual medium to cope with far more information than is possible with just text. 
+
+As with standard input, our standard drawing abstraction is implemented in 
+a library that you need to download from the booksite, StdD raw. java. Standard 
+drawing is very simple: we imagine an abstract drawing device capable of drawing 
+lines and points on a two-dimensional canvas. The device is capable of responding 
+to the commands that our programs issue in the form of calls to methods in Std- 
+Draw such as the following: 
+
+public class StdDraw {basic drawing commands) 
+
+void linefdouble xO, double yO, double xl, double yl) 
+
+void point (double x, double y) 
+
+
+Like the methods for standard input and standard output, these methods are nearly 
+self-documenting: StdDraw. 1 i ne() draws a straight line segment connecting the 
+
+
+
+7.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+137 
+
+
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, yO, xl, yl) ; 
+
+
+point (x 0 , y 0 ) with the point (x v yf) whose coor- 
+dinates are given as arguments. StdDraw. poi nt () 
+draws a spot centered on the point (x, y) whose co- 
+ordinates are given as arguments. The default scale 
+is the unit square (all coordinates between 0 and 
+1). The standard implementation displays the can- 
+vas in a window on your computer’s screen, with 
+black lines and points on a white background. 
+The window includes a menu option to save your 
+drawing to a file, in a format suitable for publish- 
+ing on paper or on the web. 
+
+
+Your first drawing . The Hel 1 oWorl d equivalent for graphics programming with 
+StdDraw is to draw a triangle with a point inside. To form the triangle, we draw 
+three lines: one from the point (0, 0) at the lower left corner to the point (1, 0), 
+
+
+one from that point to the third point at ( 1/2, 
+>/3/2), and one from that point back to (0, 0). 
+As a final flourish, we draw a spot in the mid- 
+dle of the triangle. Once you have success- 
+fully downloaded StdDraw. java and then 
+compiled and run T ri angl e, you are off and 
+running to write your own programs that 
+draw figures comprised of lines and points. 
+This ability literally adds a new dimension to 
+the output that you can produce. 
+
+When you use a computer to create 
+drawings, you get immediate feedback (the 
+drawing) so that you can refine and improve 
+your program quickly. With a computer pro- 
+gram, you can create drawings that you could 
+not contemplate making by hand. In particu- 
+lar, instead of viewing our data as just num- 
+bers, we can use pictures, which are far more 
+expressive. We will consider other graphics 
+examples after we discuss a few other draw- 
+ing commands. 
+
+
+public class Triangle 
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+{ 
+
+double t = Math.sqrt(3.0)/2.0; 
+StdDraw. line (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0); 
+StdDraw. line (1.0, 0.0, 0.5, t) ; 
+StdDraw. line (0.5, t, 0.0, 0.0); 
+StdDraw. point (0.5, t/3.0); 
+
+
+
+Your first drawing 
+
+
+
+138 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Control commands. The default coordinate system for standard drawing is the 
+unit square, but we often want to draw plots at different scales. For example, a 
+typical situation is to use coordinates in some range for the x-coordinate, or the 
+y-coordinate, or both. Also, we often want to draw lines of different thickness and 
+points of different size from the standard. To accommodate these needs, StdDraw 
+has the following methods: 
+
+public class StdDraw (basic control commands) 
+
+void setXscale (double xO, double xl) reset x range to (x 0 ,x,) 
+void setYscaleCdouble yO, double yl) reset y range to (y 0 ,y,) 
+void setPenRadi us (double r) set pen radius to r 
+
+Note: Methods with the same names but no arguments reset to default values. 
+
+For example, when we issue the command StdDraw . setXscal e (0 , N) , we are tell- 
+ing the drawing device that we will be using x-coordinates between 0 and N. Note 
+that the two-call sequence 
+
+StdDraw. setXscale(xO, xl); 
+
+StdDraw. setYscale(yO, yl); 
+
+sets the drawing coordinates to be within a bound- 
+ing box whose lower left corner is at (x 0 , y 0 ) and 
+whose upper right corner is at (x p yf). If you use 
+integer coordinates, Java casts them to double, as 
+expected. Scaling is the simplest of the transforma- 
+tions commonly used in graphics. In the applica- 
+tions that we consider in this chapter, we use it in a 
+straightforward way to match our drawings to our 
+data. 
+
+The pen is circular, so that lines have rounded 
+ends, and when you set the pen radius to r and draw 
+a point, you get a circle of radius r. The default pen 
+radius is .002 and is not affected by coordinate scal- 
+ing. This default is about 1/500 the width of the de- 
+fault window, so that if you draw 200 points equally 
+spaced along a horizontal or vertical line, you will 
+
+
+int N = 50; 
+
+StdDraw. setXscal e(0, N); 
+StdDraw. setYscale(0, N); 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+StdDraw. line(0, N-i , i, 0); 
+
+
+(N,N) 
+
+
+
+Scaling to integer coordinates 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+139 
+
+
+
+Program 1.5.5 Input-to-drawing filter 
+
+public class PlotFilter 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Plot points in standard input. 
+
+// Scale as per first four values. 
+
+double xO = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double yO = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double xl = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double yl = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+StdDraw.setXscaleCxO, xl); 
+StdDraw.setYscale(yO, yl) ; 
+
+// Read and plot the rest of the points. 
+
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read and plot a point, 
+
+double x = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double y = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+StdDraw. point (x, y) ; 
+
+
+xO left bound 
+yo bottom bound 
+xl right bound 
+yl top bound 
+x, y current point 
+
+
+Some data is inherently visual The file USA. txt on the booksite has the coordinates of the US 
+cities with populations over 500 (by convention , the first four numbers are the minimum and 
+maximum x and y values). 
+
+
+
+
+
+140 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+be able to see individual circles, but if you draw 250 such points, the result will look 
+like a line. When you issue the command StdDraw.setPenRadius(.Ol), you are 
+saying that you want the thickness of the lines and the size of the points to be five 
+times the .002 standard. 
+
+Filtering data to a standard drawing. One of the simplest applications of stan- 
+dard draw is to plot data, by filtering it from standard input to the drawing. PI ot- 
+Fi Iter (Program 1.5.5) is such a filter: it reads a sequence of points defined by (x, 
+y) coordinates and draws a spot at each point. It adopts the convention that the 
+first four numbers on standard input specify the bounding box, so that it can scale 
+the plot without having to make an extra pass through all the points to determine 
+the scale (this kind of convention is typical with such data files). The graphical 
+representation of points plotted in this way is far more expressive (and far more 
+compact) than the numbers themselves or anything that we could create with the 
+standard output representation that our programs have been limited to until now. 
+The plotted image that is produced by Program 1.5.5 makes it far easier for us to 
+infer properties of the cities (such as, for example, clustering of population centers) 
+than does a list of the coordinates. Whenever we are processing data that represents 
+the physical world, a visual image is likely to be one of the most meaningful ways 
+that we can use to display output. PlotFilter illustrates just how easily you can 
+create such an image. 
+
+Plotting a function graph. Another important use of StdDraw is to plot experi- 
+mental data or the values of a mathematical function. For example, suppose that 
+we want to plot values of the function y = sin(4x) + sin(20x) in the interval [0, tt] . 
+Accomplishing this task is a prototypical example of sampling: there are an infinite 
+number of points in the interval, so we have to make do with evaluating the function 
+at a finite number of points within the interval. We sample the function by choos- 
+ing a set of x- values, then computing y-values by evaluating the function at each 
+x-value. Plotting the function by connecting successive points with lines produces 
+what is known as a piecewise linear approximation. The simplest way to proceed is 
+to regularly space the x values: we decide ahead of time on a sample size, then space 
+the x-coordinates by the interval size divided by the sample size. To make sure that 
+the values we plot fall in the visible canvas, we scale the x-axis corresponding to the 
+interval and the y-axis corresponding to the maximum and minimum values of the 
+function within the interval. The smoothness of the curve depends on properties 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+141 
+
+
+of the function and the size of the sample. 
+
+If the sample size is too small, the rendition 
+of the function may not be at all accurate 
+(it might not be very smooth, and it might 
+miss major fluctuations); if the sample is 
+too large, producing the plot may be time- 
+consuming, since some functions are time- 
+consuming to compute. (In Section 2.4, we 
+will look at a method for plotting a smooth 
+curve without using an excessive number of 
+points.) You can use this same technique to 
+plot the function graph of any function you 
+choose: decide on an x-interval where you 
+want to plot the function, compute function 
+values evenly spaced through that interval 
+and store them in an array, determine and 
+set the y-scale, and draw the line segments. 
+
+Outline and filled shapes. StdDraw also includes methods to draw circles, rect- 
+angles, and arbitrary polygons. Each shape defines an outline. When the method 
+name is just the shape name, that outline is traced by the drawing pen. When the 
+name begins with f i 1 1 ed, the named shape is instead filled solid, not traced. As 
+usual, we summarize the available methods in an API: 
+
+public class StdDraw ( shapes ) 
+
+void ci rcle (double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void filledCi rcle (double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void square(double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void filledSquare(double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void polygon (doublet] x, doublet] y) 
+
+void filledPolygon (doublet] x, doublet] y) 
+
+
+doublet] x = new double[N+l]; 
+doublet] y = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+x [i ] = Math. PI * i / N; 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+yti] = Math.sin(4*x(i]) + Math.sin(20*xti]) ; 
+StdDraw. setXscale(0, Math. PI); 
+
+StdDraw. setVscale(-2.0, 2.0); 
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+
+StdDraw. line(x(i-l], y[i-l], x[i], yti]); 
+
+N = 20 N= 200 
+
+
+
+The arguments for ci rcl e () and fill edCi rcl e () define a circle of radius r cen- 
+tered at (x,y); the arguments for square () and filledSquareQ define a square 
+
+
+
+142 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+of side length 2 r centered on (x, y); and the arguments for pol ygon () and f i 1 1 ed- 
+PolygonO define a sequence of points that we connect by lines, including one 
+from the last point to the first point. If you want to define 
+
+
+
+shapes other than squares or circles, use one of these meth- 
+ods. For example, 
+
+double[] xd = { x-r, x, x+r, x }; 
+double [] yd = { y, y+r, y, y-r }; 
+
+StdDraw. pol ygon (xd, yd); 
+
+plots a diamond (a rotated 2r-by-2r square) centered on 
+the point (x,y). 
+
+Text and color. Occasionally, you may wish to annotate or 
+highlight various elements in your drawings. StdDraw has 
+a method for drawing text, another for setting parameters 
+associated with text, and another for changing the color 
+of the ink in the pen. We make scant use of these features 
+in this book, but they can be very useful, particularly for 
+drawings on your computer screen. You will find many ex- 
+amples of their use on the booksite. 
+
+
+StdDraw. square (x, y, r); public class StdDraw (text and color commands) 
+
+
+
+doublet] x = {xO, xl, x2, x3}; 
+doublet] y = (yO, yl, y2, y3>; 
+StdD raw . pol ygon (x , y) ; 
+
+
+void text (double x, double y, String s) 
+void setFont(Font f) 
+void setPenColor(Color c) 
+
+In this code, Font and Color are non-primitive types that 
+you will learn about in Section 3.1. Until then, we leave 
+the details to StdDraw. The available pen colors are BLACK, 
+BLUE, CYAN, DARK_GRAY, GRAY, GREEN, LIGHT_GRAY, MA- 
+GENTA, ORANGE, PINK, RED, WHITE, and YELLOW, defined as 
+constants within StdDraw. For example, the call StdDraw. 
+setPenCol or (StdDraw. GRAY) changes to gray ink. The 
+
+
+default ink color is BLACK. The default font in StdDraw suffices for most of the 
+
+
+drawings that you need (and you can find information on using other fonts on 
+
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+143 
+
+
+the booksite). For example, you might wish to use 
+these methods to annotate function plots to high- 
+light relevant values, and you might find it useful to 
+develop similar methods to annotate other parts of 
+your drawings. 
+
+Shapes, color, and text are basic tools that you 
+can use to produce a dizzying variety of images, 
+but you should use them sparingly. Use of such ar- 
+tifacts usually presents a design challenge, and our 
+StdDraw commands are crude by the standards of 
+modern graphics libraries, so that you are likely to 
+need an extensive number of calls to them to pro- 
+duce the beautiful images that you may imagine. On 
+the other hand, using color or labels to help focus on 
+important information in drawings is often worth- 
+while, as is using color to represent data values. 
+
+Animation. The StdDraw library supplies addi- 
+tional methods that provide limitless opportunities 
+for creating interesting effects. 
+
+
+StdDraw. square (.2, .8, .1); 
+StdDraw. filledSquareC. 8, .8, .2); 
+StdDraw. circle (.8, .2, .2); 
+doublet] xd = { .1, .2, .3, .2 }; 
+doublet] yd = { .2, .3, .2, .1 }; 
+StdDraw. filledPolygon(xd, yd); 
+StdDraw. text (.2, .5, "black text") 
+StdDraw . setPenCol or (StdDraw . WHITE) 
+StdDraw. text(. 8, .8, "white text") 
+
+
+
+Shape and text examples 
+
+
+public class StdDraw (advanced control commands) 
+
+
+void setCanvasSize(int w, int h) 
+
+void cl ear () 
+void cl ear (Color c) 
+voi d showfi nt dt) 
+voi d showQ 
+
+
+create canvas in screen window of 
+width from w and height h (in pixels) 
+
+clear the canvas to white (default) 
+
+clear the canvas; color it c 
+
+draw, then pause dt milliseconds 
+
+draw, turn off pause mode 
+
+
+The default canvas size is 512-by-512 pixels; if you want to change it, call set- 
+CanvasSizeO before any drawing commands. The cl ear () and show() methods 
+support dynamic changes in the images on the computer screen. Such effects can 
+provide compelling visualizations. We give an example next that also works for the 
+printed page. There are more examples in the booksite that are likely to capture 
+your imagination. 
+
+
+
+144 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Bouncing ball. The Hel 1 oWorl d of animation is to produce a black ball that ap- 
+pears to move around on the canvas. Suppose that the ball is at position (r x , r y ) and 
+we want to create the impression of moving it to a new position nearby, such as, for 
+example, (r x + .01, r y + .02). We do so in two steps: 
+
+• Erase the drawing. 
+
+• Draw a black ball at the new position. 
+
+To create the illusion of movement, we iterate these steps for a whole sequence of 
+positions (one that will form a straight line, in this case). But these two steps do 
+not suffice, because the computer is so quick at drawing that the image of the ball 
+will rapidly flicker between black and white instead of creating an animated im- 
+age. Accordingly, StdDraw has a show() method that allows us to control when the 
+results of drawing actions are actually shown on the display. You can think of it as 
+collecting all of the lines, points, shapes, and text that we tell it to draw, and then 
+immediately drawing them all when we issue the show() command. To control the 
+apparent speed, show() takes an argument dt that tells StdDraw to wait dt mil- 
+liseconds after doing the drawing. By default, StdDraw issues a show() after each 
+lineO, pointO, or other drawing command; we turn that option off when we 
+call StdDraw. show(t) and turn it back on when we call StdDraw. show() with no 
+arguments. With these commands, we can create the illusion of motion with the 
+following steps: 
+
+• Erase the drawing (but do not show the result). 
+
+• Draw a black ball at the new position. 
+
+• Show the result of both commands, and wait for a brief time. 
+
+BouncingBall (Program 1.5.6) implements these steps to create the illusion of a 
+ball moving in the 2-by-2 box centered on the origin. The current position of the 
+ball is (r x , r y ), and we compute the new position at each step by adding v x to r x and v y 
+to r y . Since (v x> v y ) is the fixed distance that the ball moves in each time unit, it rep- 
+resents the velocity. To keep the ball in the drawing, we simulate the effect of the ball 
+bouncing off the walls according to the laws of elastic collision. This effect is easy 
+to implement: when the ball hits a vertical wall, we just change the velocity in the 
+x-direction from v x to -v x , and when the ball hits a horizontal wall, we change the 
+velocity in the y-direction from v y to -v y . Of course, you have to download the code 
+from the booksite and run it on your computer to see motion. To make the image 
+clearer on the printed page, we modified Bounci ngBal 1 to use a gray background 
+that also shows the track of the ball as it moves (see Exercise 1.5.34). 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+145 
+
+
+
+Program 1.5.6 Bouncing ball 
+
+
+Hi 
+
+
+
+
+public class Bound ngBall 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Simulate the movement of a bouncing ball. 
+
+StdDraw.setXscale(-1.0, 1.0); 
+
+StdDraw. setYscale(-1.0, 1.0); 
+double rx = .480, ry = .860; 
+double vx = .015, vy = .023; 
+double radius = .05; 
+while(true) 
+
+{ // Update ball position and draw it there. 
+
+if (Math.abs(rx + vx) + radius > 1.0) vx = -vx; 
+
+if (Math.abs(ry + vy) + radius > 1.0) vy = -vy; 
+
+rx = rx + vx; 
+ry = ry + vy; 
+
+StdDraw.clearO ; 
+
+StdDraw.fi lledCi rcle(rx, ry, radius); 
+
+StdDraw. show(20) ; 
+
+
+
+position 
+velocity 
+wait time 
+ball radius 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+> 
+
+
+This program simulates the movement of a bouncing ball in the box with coordinates between 
+-1 and +1. The ball bounces off the boundary according to the laws of elastic collision. The 
+20-millisecond wait for StdDraw. show() keeps the black image of the ball persistent on the 
+screen , even though most of the ball's pixels alternate between black and white. If you modify 
+this code to take the wait time dt as a command-line argument , you can control the speed of 
+the ball. The images below y which show the track of the ball are produced by a modified version 
+of this code (see Exercise 1.5.34). 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+146 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Standard drawing completes our programming model by adding a “picture is worth 
+a thousand words” component. It is a natural abstraction that you can use to better 
+open up your programs to the outside world. With it, you can easily produce the 
+function plots and visual representations of data that are commonly used in science 
+and engineering. We will put it to such uses frequently throughout this book. Any 
+time that you spend now working with the sample programs on the last few pages 
+will be well worth the investment. You can find many useful examples on the book- 
+site and in the exercises, and you are certain to find some outlet for your creativity 
+by using StdDraw to meet various challenges. Can you draw an AT-pointed star? Can 
+you make our bouncing ball actually bounce (add gravity)? You may be surprised 
+at how easily you can accomplish these and other tasks. 
+
+
+public class StdDraw 
+
+
+void line (double xO, double yO, double xl, double yl) 
+
+void point (double x, double y) 
+
+void text (double x, double y, String s) 
+
+void ci rcle (double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void filledCi rcle(double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void square(double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void filledSquare(double x, double y, double r) 
+
+void polygon (doublet] x, double [] y) 
+
+void filledPolygon(double[] x, doubled y) 
+
+
+void setXscale (double xO, double xl) 
+
+void setYscale(double yO, double yl) 
+
+void setPenRadi us (double r) 
+
+void setPenColor(Color c) 
+
+void setFont(Font f) 
+
+void setCanvasSize(int w, int h) 
+
+void clear(Color c) 
+
+void show(int dt) 
+
+void save(String filename) 
+
+
+reset x range to (x 0 , x,) 
+
+reset y range to (y 0 , y,) 
+
+set pen radius to r 
+
+set pen color to c 
+
+set text font to f 
+
+set canvas to w-by-b window 
+
+clear the canvas; color it c 
+
+show all; pause dt milliseconds 
+
+save to a . j pg or w . png file 
+
+
+Note: Methods with the same names but no arguments reset to default values. 
+
+
+API for our library of static methods for standard drawing 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+147 
+
+
+Stamdard audio As a final example of a basic abstraction for output, we consid- 
+er StdAudio, a library that you can use to play, manipulate, and synthesize sound 
+files. You probably have used your computer to process music. Now you can write 
+programs to do so. At the same time, you will learn some concepts behind a ven- 
+erable and important area of computer science and scientific computing: digital 
+signal processing. We will only scratch the surface of this fascinating subject, but you 
+may be surprised at the simplicity of the underlying concepts. 
+
+
+Concert A. Sound is the perception of the vibration of molecules, in particular, 
+the vibration of our eardrums. Therefore, oscillation is the key to understanding 
+sound. Perhaps the simplest place to start is to consider the musical note A above 
+middle C, which is known as concert A. This note is nothing more than a sine wave, 
+scaled to oscillate at a frequency of 440 times per second. The function sin(f) re- 
+peats itself once every 2 tt units on the x-axis, so if we measure t in seconds and plot 
+the function sin(2irf X440), we get a curve that oscillates 440 times per second. 
+When you play an A by plucking a guitar string, pushing air through a trumpet, or 
+causing a small cone to vibrate in a speaker, this sine wave is the prominent part 
+of the sound that you hear and recognize as concert A. We measure frequency in 
+hertz (cycles per second). When you double or halve the frequency, you move up or 
+down one octave on the scale. For example, 880 hertz is one octave above concert 
+A and 110 hertz is two octaves below concert A. For reference, the frequency range 
+of human hearing is about 20 to 20,000 hertz. The amplitude (y- value) of a sound 
+corresponds to the volume. We plot our curves between — 1 and + 1 and assume 
+that any devices that record and play sound will scale as appropriate, with further 
+scaling controlled by you when you turn the volume knob. 
+
+
+
+
+note i frequency 
+
+
+A 
+
+
+0 
+
+440.00 
+
+
+/ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ 
+
+All or 
+
+Bb 
+
+1 
+
+466.16 
+
+
+'wwvwx/v 
+
+B 
+
+
+2 
+
+493.88 
+
+
+'VWWVWVY 
+
+C 
+
+
+3 
+
+523.25 
+
+
+'WVWWWV' 
+
+CU or 
+
+Db 
+
+4 
+
+554.37 
+
+
+WAAAA/WVW 
+
+D 
+
+
+5 
+
+587.33 
+
+
+VWVAAAAAAAA 
+
+DU or 
+
+Eb 
+
+6 
+
+622.25 
+
+
+/ \A/\A/VWWVW' 
+
+E 
+
+
+7 
+
+659.26 
+
+
+WWWWWVW 
+
+F 
+
+
+8 
+
+698.46 
+
+\ 
+
+WVWWWWWV 
+
+FU or 
+
+Gb 
+
+9 
+
+739.99 
+
+WXAAAAAAAAAAAA 
+
+G 
+
+
+10 
+
+783.99 
+
+440 x 2' n: 
+
+VWVAAAAAAAAAAAA 
+
+GU or 
+
+Ab 
+
+11 
+
+830.61 
+
+'VWWWVWWWW 
+
+A 
+
+
+12 
+
+880.00 
+
+
+wwwvwwww# 
+
+Notes , numbers, and waves 
+
+
+
+
+148 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Other notes. A simple mathematical formula characterizes the other notes on the 
+chromatic scale. There are twelve notes on the chromatic scale, divided equally on a 
+logarithmic (base 2) scale. We get the ith note above 
+
+a given note by multiplying its frequency by the 1/40 second (various sample rates) 
+(i/12)th power of 2. In other words, the frequency 5,512 samples/second, 137 samples 
+
+of each note in the chromatic scale is precisely the •• ••• •• - * ••• 
+
+frequency of the previous note in the scale multi- 
+plied by the twelfth root of two (about 1.06). This •' 
+
+information suffices to create music! For example, 11,025 samples/second, 275 samples 
+
+
+to play the tune Frere Jacques, we just need to play 
+each of the notes ABC# Aby producing sine waves 
+of the appropriate frequency for about half a second 
+and then repeat the pattern. The primary method in 
+the StdAudi o library, StdAudi 0 . pi ay () , allows you 
+to do just that. 
+
+
+
+
+Sampling. For digital sound, we represent a curve 
+by sampling it at regular intervals, in precisely the 
+same manner as when we plot function graphs. 
+We sample sufficiently often that we have an ac- 
+curate representation of the curve — a widely used 
+sampling rate for digital sound is 44,100 samples 
+per second. For concert A, that rate corresponds to 
+plotting each cycle of the sine wave by sampling it 
+at about 100 points. Since we sample at regular in- 
+tervals, we only need to compute the y-coordinates 
+of the sample points. It is that simple: we represent 
+sound as an array of numbers (doubl e values that are 
+between —1 and +1). Our standard sound library 
+method StdAudi o. pi ay () takes an array as its ar- 
+gument and plays the sound represented by that ar- 
+ray on your computer. For example, suppose that 
+you want to play concert A for 10 seconds. At 44,100 
+samples per second, you need an array of 441,001 
+doubl e values. To fill in the array, use a for loop that 
+samples the function sin(2iTrX440) at t = 0/44100, 
+
+
+44,100 samples/second, 1,102 samples 
+
+
+
+44,100 samples/second (various times) 
+
+
+1/40 second, 1,102 samples 
+
+
+
+1/1000 second 
+
+
+1/200 second, 220 samples 
+
+
+
+1/1000 second 
+
+
+1/1000 second, 44 samples 
+
+
+
+Sampling a sine wave 
+
+
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+149 
+
+
+1/44100, 2/44100, 3/44100, . . . 441000/44100. Once we fill the array with these 
+values, we are ready for StdAudi o . pi ay (), as in the following code: 
+
+int sps = 44100; // samples per second 
+
+int hz = 440; // concert A 
+
+double duration =10.0; // ten seconds 
+
+int N = (int) (sps * duration); // total number of samples 
+
+doublet] a = new double[N+l]; 
+
+for (int i =0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Math.sin(2*Math.PI * i * hz / sps); 
+
+StdAudio.pl ay (a) ; 
+
+This code is the Hel 1 oWorl d of digital audio. Once you use it to get your computer 
+to play this note, you can write code to play other notes and make music! The dif- 
+ference between creating sound and plotting an oscillating curve is nothing more 
+than the output device. Indeed, it is instructive and entertaining to send the same 
+numbers to both standard draw and standard audio (see Exercise 1.5.27). 
+
+
+Saving to a file. Music can take up a lot of space on your computer. At 44,100 
+samples per second, a four-minute song corresponds to 4X60X44100=10,584,000 
+numbers. Therefore, it is common to represent the numbers corresponding to a 
+song in a binary format that uses less space than the string-of-digits representation 
+that we use for standard input and output. Many such formats have been developed 
+in recent years — StdAudi o uses the .wav format. You can find some information 
+about the .wav format on the booksite, but you do not need to know the details, 
+because StdAudi o takes care of the conversions for you. Our standard library for 
+audio allows you to play .wav files, to write programs to create and manipulate ar- 
+rays of doubl e values, and to read and write them as . wav files. 
+
+
+public class StdAudi o 
+
+void play(String file) play the given .wav file 
+
+voi d pi ay (doubl e [] a) play the given sound wave 
+
+void pi ay (double x) play sample for 1/44100 second 
+
+void save(String file, doublet] a) save to a .wav file 
+doublet] read (String file) readfroma.wav file 
+
+API for our library of static methods for standard audio 
+
+
+
+150 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+il 
+
+
+Program 1.5.7 Digital signal processing 
+
+
+public class PlayThatTune 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read a tune from Stdln and play it. 
+
+int sps = 44100; 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read and play one note, 
+
+int pitch = Stdln. readlntO; 
+double duration = Stdln. readDoubleC); 
+double hz = 440 * Math.pow(2, pitch / 12.0); 
+int N = (int) (sps * duration); 
+doublet] a = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i =0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Math.sin(2*Math.PI * i * hz / sps); 
+StdAudio.pl ay (a) ; 
+
+
+pitch 
+
+distance from A 
+
+duration 
+
+note play time 
+
+hz 
+
+frequency 
+
+N 
+
+number of samples 
+
+a[] 
+
+sampled sine wave 
+
+
+This is a data-driven program that plays pure tones from the notes on the chromatic scale, 
+specified on standard input as a pitch (distance from concert A) and a duration (in seconds). 
+The test client reads the notes from standard input, creates an array by sampling a sine wave 
+of the specified frequency and duration at 44100 samples per second, and then plays each note 
+by calling StdAudi o . pi ay () . 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+151 
+
+
+PlayThatTune (Program 1.5.7) is an example that shows how easily we can 
+create music with StdAudi o. It takes notes from standard input, indexed on the 
+chromatic scale from concert A, and plays them on standard audio. You can imag- 
+ine all sorts of extensions on this basic scheme, some of which are addressed in the 
+exercises. We include StdAudi o in our basic arsenal of programming tools because 
+sound processing is one important application of scientific computing that is cer- 
+tainly familiar to you. Not only has the commercial application of digital signal 
+processing had a phenomenal impact on modern society, but the science and en- 
+gineering behind it combines physics and computer science in interesting ways. 
+We will study more components of digital signal processing in some detail later in 
+the book. (For example, you will learn in Section 2.1 how to create sounds that are 
+more musical than the pure sounds produced by PI ayThatTune.) 
+
+I/O is a particularly convincing example of the power of abstraction because stan- 
+dard input, standard output, standard draw, and standard audio can be tied to dif- 
+ferent physical devices at different times without making any changes to programs. 
+Although devices may differ dramatically, we can write programs that can do I/O 
+without depending on the properties of specific devices. From this point forward, 
+we will use methods from StdOut, Stdln, StdDraw, and/or StdAudi o in nearly ev- 
+ery program in this book, and you will use them in nearly all of your programs, so 
+make sure to download copies of these libraries. For economy, we collectively refer 
+to these libraries as Std*. One important advantage of using such libraries is that 
+you can switch to new devices that are faster, cheaper, or hold more data without 
+changing your program at all. In such a situation, the details of the connection are 
+a matter to be resolved between your operating system and the Std* implementa- 
+tions. On modern systems, new devices are typically supplied with software that 
+resolves such details automatically for both the operating system and for Java. 
+
+Conceptually, one of the most significant features of the standard input, stan- 
+dard output, standard draw, and standard audio data streams is that they are infi- 
+nite: from the point of view of your program, there is no limit on their length. This 
+point of view not only leads to programs that have a long useful life (because they 
+are less sensitive to changes in technology than programs with built-in limits). It 
+also is related to the Turing machine, an abstract device used by theoretical com- 
+puter scientists to help us understand fundamental limitations on the capabilities 
+of real computers. One of the essential properties of the model is the idea of a finite 
+discrete device that works with an unlimited amount of input and output. 
+
+
+
+152 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. Why are we not using the standard Java libraries for input, graphics, and sound? 
+
+A. We are using them, but we prefer to work with simpler abstract models. The 
+Java libraries behind Stdln, StdDraw, and StdAudio are built for production pro- 
+gramming, and the libraries and their APIs are a bit unwieldy. To get an idea of 
+what they are like, look at the code in Stdln . j ava, StdDraw . j ava, and StdAudi o . 
+java. 
+
+Q. So, let me get this straight. If I use the format %2 . 4f for a doubl e value, I get two 
+digits before the decimal point and four digits after, right? 
+
+A. No, that specifies just four digits after the decimal point. The first value is the 
+width of the whole field. You want to use the format %7 . 2f to specify seven charac- 
+ters in total, four before the decimal point, the decimal point itself, and two digits 
+after the decimal point. 
+
+Q. What other conversion codes are there for pri ntf ()? 
+
+A. For integer values, there is o for octal and x for hexadecimal. There are also nu- 
+merous formats for dates and times. See the booksite for more information. 
+
+Q. Can my program re-read data from standard input? 
+
+A. No. You only get one shot at it, in the same way that you cannot undo a pri nt- 
+ln() command. 
+
+Q. What happens if my program attempts to read data from standard input after it 
+is exhausted? 
+
+A. You will get an error. Stdln . i sEmpty O allows you to avoid such an error by 
+checking whether there is more input available. 
+
+Q. What does the error message Exception in thread "main" java.lang. 
+NoClassDefFoundError: Stdln mean? 
+
+A. You probably forgot to put Stdln . j ava in your working directory. 
+
+Q. I have a different working directory for each project that I am working on, so I 
+
+
+
+
+have copies of StdOut . j ava, Stdln . j ava, StdDraw . j ava, and StdAudi o . j ava in 
+each of them. Is there some better way? 
+
+A. Yes. You can put them all in one directory and use the “classpath” mechanism to 
+tell Java where to find them. This mechanism is operating-system dependent — you 
+can find instructions on how to use it on the booksite. 
+
+Q. My terminal window hangs at the end of a program using StdAudi o. How can 
+I avoid having to use <ctrl -c> to get a command prompt? 
+
+A. Add a call to System . exi t (0) as the last line in mai n 0 . Don’t ask why. 
+
+Q. So I use negative integers to go below concert A when making input files for 
+PI ayThatTune? 
+
+A. Right. Actually, our choice to put concert A at 0 is arbitrary. A popular standard, 
+known as the MIDI Tuning Standard, starts numbering at the C five octaves below 
+concert A. By that convention, concert A is 69 and you do not need to use negative 
+numbers. 
+
+Q. Why do I hear weird results on standard audio when I try to sonify a sine wave 
+with a frequency of 30,000 Hertz (or more)? 
+
+A. The Nyquist frequency, defined as one-half the sampling frequency, represents 
+the highest frequency that can be reproduced. For standard audio, the sampling 
+frequency is 44,100, so the Nyquist frequency is 22,050. 
+
+
+
+154 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 5.1 Write a program that reads in integers (as many as the user enters) from 
+standard input and prints out the maximum and minimum values. 
+
+1 . 5.2 Modify your program from the previous exercise to insist that the integers 
+must be positive (by prompting the user to enter positive integers whenever the 
+value entered is not positive). 
+
+1 . 5.3 Write a program that takes an integer N from the command line, reads 
+N doubl e values from standard input, and prints their mean (average value) and 
+standard deviation (square root of the sum of the squares of their differences from 
+the average, divided by N- 1). 
+
+1 . 5.4 Extend your program from the previous exercise to create a filter that prints 
+all the values that are further than 1.5 standard deviations from the mean. Use an 
+array. 
+
+1 . 5.5 Write a program that reads in a sequence of integers and prints out both 
+the integer that appears in a longest consecutive run and the length of the run. For 
+example, if the input is 122151177771 1, then your program should 
+print Longest run: 4 consecutive 7s. 
+
+1 . 5.6 Write a filter that reads in a sequence of integers and prints out the integers, 
+removing repeated values that appear consecutively. For example, if the input i 
+1221511777711111111 1, your program should print out 
+12 15 17 1. 
+
+1 . 5.7 Write a program that takes a command-line argument N, reads in N-l dis- 
+tinct integers between 1 and N, and determines the missing value. 
+
+1 . 5.8 Write a program that reads in positive real numbers from standard input 
+and prints out their geometric and harmonic means. The geometric mean of N posi- 
+tive numbers x v x# ..., x N is (xj X x^ X ... X x N ) 1/N . The harmonic mean is {\/x x + 1/ 
+x 2 + ... + Vx N ) / (1 /N).Hint: For the geometric mean, consider taking logs to avoid 
+overflow. 
+
+1 . 5.9 Suppose that the file input.txt contains the two strings F and F. What 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+155 
+
+
+
+does the following command do (see Exercise 1.2.35)? 
+
+java Dragon < input.txt | java Dragon | java Dragon 
+
+public class Dragon 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+String dragon = Stdln. readstring () ; 
+
+String nogard = Stdln. readstring () ; 
+
+StdOut. print (dragon + "L" + nogard); 
+
+StdOut. print (" "); 
+
+StdOut. print (dragon + "R" + nogard); 
+
+StdOut. println() ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+1.5.10 Write a filter Ten Per Li ne that takes a sequence of integers between 0 and 
+99 and prints 10 integers per line, with columns aligned. Then write a program 
+RandomlntSeq that takes two command-line arguments M and N and outputs N 
+random integers between 0 and M-l. Test your programs with the command java 
+RandomlntSeq 200 100 | java TenPerLine. 
+
+1.5.1 1 Write a program that reads in text from standard input and prints out the 
+number of words in the text. For the purpose of this exercise, a word is a sequence 
+of non-whitespace characters that is surrounded by whitespace. 
+
+1.5.12 Write a program that reads in lines from standard input with each line 
+containing a name and two integers and then uses pri ntf () to print a table with a 
+column of the names, the integers, and the result of dividing the first by the second, 
+accurate to three decimal places. You could use a program like this to tabulate bat- 
+ting averages for baseball players or grades for students. 
+
+1.5.13 Which of the following require saving all the values from standard input (in 
+an array, say), and which could be implemented as a filter using only a fixed number 
+of variables? For each, the input comes from standard input and consists of N real 
+numbers between 0 and 1. 
+
+
+
+
+156 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+• Print the maximum and minimum numbers. 
+
+• Print the kth smallest value. 
+
+• Print the sum of the squares of the numbers. 
+
+• Print the average of the N numbers. 
+
+• Print the percentage of numbers greater than the average. 
+
+• Print the N numbers in increasing order. 
+
+• Print the N numbers in random order. 
+
+1 . 5.14 Write a program that prints a table of the monthly payments, remaining 
+principal, and interest paid for a loan, taking three numbers as command-line argu- 
+ments: the number of years, the principal, and the interest rate (see Exercise 1.2.24). 
+
+1 . 5.15 Write a program that takes three command-line arguments x, y, and z, 
+reads from standard input a sequence of point coordinates (x ; , y ; , z ; ), and prints the 
+coordinates of the point closest to (x, y, z ). Recall that the square of the distance 
+between (x, y, z) and (x ; , y t , z ( ) is (x — x,) 2 + (y — y { ) 2 + (z — z,) 2 . For efficiency, do 
+not use Math. sqrt() or Math.powC). 
+
+1 . 5.16 Given the positions and masses of a sequence of objects, write a program 
+to compute their center-of-mass, or centroid. The centroid is the average position 
+of the N objects, weighted by mass. If the positions and masses are given by (x ; , y f 
+m t ), then the centroid (x, y, m) is given by: 
+
+m = m, + m 2 + ... + tn N 
+x = (ntjX, + ... + m n x N ) / m 
+y =(m 1 y l + ... + m n y N )/ m 
+
+1 . 5.17 Write a program that reads in a sequence of real numbers between — 1 and 
++ 1 and prints out their average magnitude, average power, and the number of zero 
+crossings. The average magnitude is the average of the absolute values of the data 
+values. The average power is the average of the squares of the data values. The num- 
+ber of zero crossings is the number of times a data value transitions from a strictly 
+negative number to a strictly positive number, or vice versa. These three statistics 
+are widely used to analyze digital signals. 
+
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+157 
+
+
+
+1 . 5.18 Write a program that takes a command-line argument N and plots an N-by- 
+N checkerboard with red and black squares. Color the lower left square red. 
+
+1 . 5.19 Write a program that takes as command-line arguments an integer N and 
+a double value p (between 0 and 1), plots N equally spaced points of size on the cir- 
+cumference of a circle, and then, with probability p for each pair of points, draws a 
+gray line connecting them. 
+
+
+16 .125 
+
+
+
+16 .25 16 .5 16 1.0 
+
+
+
+1 . 5.20 Write code to draw hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. To draw a heart, 
+draw a diamond, then attach two semicircles to the upper left and upper right sides. 
+
+1 . 5.21 Write a program that takes a command-line argument N and plots a rose 
+with N petals (if N is odd) or 2 N petals (if N is even), by plotting the polar coordi- 
+nates (r, 0) of the function r = sin(N 0) for 0 ranging from 0 to 2 tt radians. 
+
+
+5 8 9 
+
+
+
+1 . 5.22 Write a program that takes a string s from the command line and displays 
+it in banner style on the screen, moving from left to right and wrapping back to the 
+beginning of the string as the end is reached. Add a second command-line argu- 
+ment to control the speed. 
+
+
+
+
+158 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1.5.23 Modify PlayThatTune to take additional command-line arguments that 
+control the volume (multiply each sample value by the volume) and the tempo 
+(multiply each note’s duration by the tempo). 
+
+1.5.24 Write a program that takes the name of a . wav file and a playback rate r as 
+command-line arguments and plays the file at the given rate. First, use StdAudi o . 
+read() to read the file into an array a[]. If r = 1, just play a[] ; otherwise create 
+a new array b[] of approximate size r times a. length. If r < 1, populate b[] by 
+sampling from the original; if r > 1, populate b [] by interpolating from the original. 
+Then play b[]. 
+
+1.5.25 Write programs that uses StdDraw to create each of the following designs. 
+
+
+
+1.5.26 Write a program Ci rcles that draws filled circles of random size at ran- 
+dom positions in the unit square, producing images like those below. Your program 
+should take four command-line arguments: the number of circles, the probability 
+that each circle is black, the minimum radius, and the maximum radius. 
+
+
+200 1 .01 .01 100 1 .01 .05 500 .5 .01 .05 50 .75 .1 .2 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+159 
+
+
+
+1.5.27 Visualizing audio. Modify PI ayThatTune to send the values played to stan- 
+dard drawing, so that you can watch the sound waves as they are played. You will 
+have to experiment with plotting multiple curves in the drawing canvas to synchro- 
+nize the sound and the picture. 
+
+1 .5.28 Statistical polling. When collecting statistical data for certain political polls, 
+it is very important to obtain an unbiased sample of registered voters. Assume that 
+you have a file with N registered voters, one per line. Write a filter that prints out a 
+random sample of size M (see Program 1.4.1). 
+
+1 .5.29 Terrain analysis. Suppose that a terrain is represented by a two-dimension- 
+al grid of elevation values (in meters). Apeak is a grid point whose four neighboring 
+cells (left, right, up, and down) have strictly lower elevation values. Write a program 
+Peaks that reads a terrain from standard input and then computes and prints the 
+number of peaks in the terrain. 
+
+1.5.30 Histogram. Suppose that the standard input stream is a sequence of dou- 
+bl e values. Write a program that takes an integer N and two doubl e values l and r 
+from the command fine and uses StdDraw to plot a histogram of the count of the 
+numbers in the standard input stream that fall in each of the N intervals defined by 
+dividing (/, r) into N equal-sized intervals. 
+
+1.5.31 Spirographs. Write a program that takes three parameters R, r, and a from 
+the command line and draws the resulting spirograph. A spirograph (technically, 
+an epicycloid) is a curve formed by rolling a circle of radius r around a larger fixed 
+circle of radius R. If the pen offset from the center of the rolling circle is (r+a), then 
+the equation of the resulting curve at time t is given by 
+
+x(t) = (R + r) cos (t) — (r + a) cos ((R + r)t/r ) 
+y(t) = (R + r) sin ( t ) - (r + a) sin ((R + r)t/r) 
+
+
+Such curves were popularized by a best-selling toy that contains discs with gear 
+teeth on the edges and small holes that you could put a pen in to trace spirographs. 
+
+
+
+
+160 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 5.32 Clock. Write a program that displays an animation of the second, minute, 
+and hour hands of an analog clock. Use the method StdDraw. show(lOOO) to up- 
+date the display roughly once per second. 
+
+1 . 5.33 Oscilloscope. Write a program to simulate the output of an oscilloscope 
+and produce Lissajous patterns. These patterns are named after the French physi- 
+cist, Jules A. Lissajous, who studied the patterns that arise when two mutually per- 
+pendicular periodic disturbances occur simultaneously. Assume that the inputs are 
+sinusoidal, so that the following parametric equations describe the curve: 
+
+x(t) = A x sin (w x t + 0J 
+y{t) = A y sin (w y t + 0 y ) 
+
+Take the six parameters A x w x 0^ Ay w y , and Q y from the command line. 
+
+1 . 5.34 Bouncing ball with tracks. Modify Bounci ngBal 1 to produce images like 
+the ones shown in the text, which show the track of the ball on a gray background. 
+
+1 . 5.35 Bouncing ball with gravity. Modify Bounci ngBall to incorporate gravity 
+in the vertical direction. Add calls to StdAudio.playO to add one sound effect 
+when the ball hits a wall and a different one when it hits the floor. 
+
+1 . 5.36 Random tunes. Write a program that uses StdAudi o to play random tunes. 
+Experiment with keeping in key, assigning high probabilities to whole steps, repeti- 
+tion, and other rules to produce reasonable melodies. 
+
+1 . 5.37 Tile patterns. Using your solution to Exercise 1.5.25, write a program 
+Til ePattern that takes a command-line argument N and draws an N-by-N pattern, 
+using the tile of your choice. Add a second command-line argument that adds a 
+checkerboard option. Add a third command-line argument for color selection. Us- 
+ing the patterns on the facing page as a starting point, design a tile floor. Be creative! 
+Note: These are all designs from antiquity that you can find in many ancient (and 
+modern) buildings. 
+
+
+
+1.5 Input and Output 
+
+
+161 
+
+
+
+<“S /A 
+
+W W W W W 
+/“*% 
+
+W w w w w w 
+
+<~s 
+
+w w w w w w 
+
+
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+Communicating across the web has become an integral part of everyday life. This 
+communication is enabled in part by scientific studies of the structure of the web, 
+a subject of active research since its inception. We next consider a simple model of 
+the web that has proven to be a particularly successful approach to understand- 
+ing some of its properties. Variants of 
+
+this model are widely used and have been . , . „ „ ... .. 
+
+a key factor m the explosive growth of L6 .2 Simulating a random surfer 167 
+
+search applications on the web. 1.6.3 Mixing a Markov chain . . . . . . .174 
+
+The model is known as the random Programs in this section 
+
+surfer model, and is simple to describe. 
+
+We consider the web to be a fixed set of 
+
+
+pages, with each page containing a fixed set of hyperlinks (for brevity, we use the 
+term links), and each link a reference to some other page. We study what happens 
+to a person (the random surfer) who randomly moves from page to page, either by 
+typing a page name into the address bar or by clicking a link on the current page. 
+
+The underlying mathematical model behind the web model is known as the 
+graph, which we will consider in detail at the end of the book (in Section 4.5). 
+
+
+
+Pages and links 
+
+
+We defer discussion of details about processing 
+graphs until then. Instead, we concentrate on 
+calculations associated with a natural and well- 
+studied probabilistic model that accurately de- 
+scribes the behavior of the random surfer. 
+
+The first step in studying the random 
+surfer model is to formulate it more precise- 
+ly. The crux of the matter is to specify what it 
+means to randomly move from page to page. 
+The following intuitive 90-10 rule captures 
+both methods of moving to a new page: As- 
+sume that 90 per cent of the time the random 
+surfer clicks a random link on the current page 
+(each link chosen with equal probability) and 
+that 10 percent of the time the random surfer 
+goes directly to a random page (all pages on the 
+web chosen with equal probability). 
+
+
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+163 
+
+
+You can immediately see that this model has flaws, because you know from 
+your own experience that the behavior of a real web surfer is not quite so simple: 
+
+• No one chooses links or pages with equal probability. 
+
+• There is no real potential to surf directly to each page on the web. 
+
+• The 90-10 (or any fixed) breakdown is just a guess. 
+
+• It does not take the back button or bookmarks into account. 
+
+• We can only afford to work with a small sample of the web. 
+
+Despite these flaws, the model is sufficiently rich that computer scientists have 
+learned a great deal about properties of the web by studying it. To appreciate the 
+model, consider the small example on the previous page. Which page do you think 
+the random surfer is most likely to visit? 
+
+Each person using the web behaves a bit like the random surfer, so under- 
+standing the fate of the random surfer is of intense interest to people building web 
+infrastructure and web applications. The model is a tool for understanding the ex- 
+perience of each of the hundreds of millions of web users. In this section, you will 
+use the basic programming tools from this chapter 
+to study the model and its implications. 
+
+Input format We want to be able to study the 
+behavior of the random surfer on various web mod- 
+els, not just one example. Consequently, we want to 
+write data-driven code, where we keep data in files 
+and write programs that read the data from standard 
+input. The first step in this approach is to define an 
+input format that we can use to structure the infor- 
+mation in the input files. We are free to define any convenient input format. 
+
+Later in the book, you will learn how to read web pages in Java programs 
+(Section 3.1) and to convert from names to numbers (Section 4.4) as well as other 
+techniques for efficient graph processing. For now, we assume that there are N web 
+pages, numbered from 0 to N-l, and we represent links with ordered pairs of such 
+numbers, the first specifying the page containing the link and the second specifying 
+the page to which it refers. Given these conventions, a straightforward input for- 
+mat for the random surfer problem is an input stream consisting of an integer (the 
+value of N) followed by a sequence of pairs of integers (the representations of all 
+the links). Stdln treats all sequences of whitespace characters as a single delimiter, 
+so we are free to either put one link per line or arrange them several to a line. 
+
+
+
+% more tiny.txt 
+5 -< — N 
+0 1 
+
+12 12 
+13 13 14 
+
+2 3 \ 
+
+4 0 4 2 
+
+Random surfer input format 
+
+
+
+164 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Transition matrix We use a two-dimensional matrix, that we refer to as the 
+transition matrix, to completely specify the behavior of the random surfer. With N 
+web pages, we define an N-by-N matrix such that the entry in row i and column j 
+is the probability that the random surfer moves to page j when on page i . Our first 
+task is to write code that can create such a matrix for any given input. By the 90-10 
+rule, this computation is not difficult. We do so in three steps: 
+
+• Read N, and then create arrays counts [] [] and outDegree [] . 
+
+• Read the links and accumulate counts so that counts [i ] [ j] counts the 
+links from i to j and outDegree [i] counts the links from i to anywhere. 
+
+• Use the 90-10 rule to compute the probabilities. 
+
+The first two steps are elementary, and the third is not much more difficult: multi- 
+ply counts [i ] [ j ] by . 90/ deg ree [i ] if there is a link from i to j (take a random 
+link with probability .9), and then add . 10/N to each entry (go to a random page 
+with probability .1). Transition (Program 1.6.1) performs this calculation: It is a 
+filter that converts the list-of-links representation of a web model into a transition- 
+matrix representation. 
+
+The transition matrix is significant because each row represents a discrete 
+probability distribution — the entries fully specify the behavior of the random surf- 
+er’s next move, giving the probability of surfing to each page. Note in particular 
+that the entries sum to 1 (the surfer always goes somewhere). 
+
+The output of Transition defines another file format, one for matrices of 
+doubl e values: the numbers of rows and columns followed by the values for matrix 
+entries. Now, we can write programs that read and process transition matrices. 
+
+
+
+5 
+
+0 1 
+
+12 12 
+13 13 
+
+2 3 
+
+3 0 
+
+4 0 4 2 
+
+
+leap probabilities 
+
+
+1 4 
+
+
+link counts 
+
+“o 1 0 0 0 
+
+0 0 2 2 1 
+
+0 0 0 1 0 
+
+1 0 0 0 0 
+
+.10 10 0 
+
+link probabilities 
+
+
+degrees 
+
+“lj 
+
+5 
+1 
+1 
+2 . 
+
+transition matrix 
+
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+. 02 " 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+
+0 .90 0 0 0 “ 
+
+0 0 .36 .36 .18 
+
+0 0 0 .90 0 
+
+. 90 0 0 0 0 
+
+.45 0 .45 0 0 
+
+
+02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+. 02 " 
+
+02 
+
+.02 
+
+.38 
+
+.38 
+
+.20 
+
+02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+92 
+
+.02 
+
+92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+47 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+
+Transition matrix computation 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+165 
+
+
+
+II ' • , l StHf Si I 
+
+
+iltfli 
+
+
+Program 1.6.1 Computing the transition matrix 
+
+public class Transition 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print random-surfer probabilites. 
+
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+int[][] counts = new i nt [N] [N] ; 
+int[] outDegree = new i nt [N] ; 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Accumulate link counts, 
+
+int i = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+int j = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+outDegree [i]++; 
+counts [i] [j]++; 
+
+
+
+1 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+m 
+
+N 
+
+number of pages j 
+
+j counts [i] [j] 
+
+count of lin ks fro m | 
+
+page i to page j 1 
+
+j outDegree [i] 
+
+count of links from I 
+page i to anywhere I 
+
+| P 
+
+transition probability I 
+
+
+StdOut.println(N + " " + N); 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ // Print probability distribution for row i. 
+
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // Print probability for column j. 
+
+double p = .90*counts[i] [j] /outDegree [i] + .10/N; 
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%8 . 5f " , p); 
+
+} 
+
+StdOut. pri ntln() ; 
+
+
+This program is a filter that reads links from standard input and produces the corresponding m 
+transition matrix on standard output. First, it processes the input to count the outlinks from mfi. 
+each page. Then it applies the 90- 1 0 rule to compute the transition matrix (see text). It assumes M. 
+that there are no pages that have no outlinks in the input (see Exercise 1.6.3). ■ 
+
+
+% java Transition < tiny.txt 
+5 5 
+
+0.02000 0.92000 0.02000 0.02000 0.02000 
+0.02000 0.02000 0.38000 0.38000 0.20000 
+0.02000 0.02000 0.02000 0.92000 0.02000 
+0.92000 0.02000 0.02000 0.02000 0.02000 
+0.47000 0.02000 0.47000 0.02000 0.02000 
+
+
+
+166 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+Simulation Given the transition matrix, simulating the behavior of the random 
+surfer involves surprisingly little code, as you can see in RandomSurfer (Program 
+1.6.2). This program reads a transition matrix and surfs according to the rules, 
+starting at page 0 and taking the number of moves as a command-line argument. 
+It counts the number of times that the surfer visits each page. Dividing that count 
+by the number of moves yields an estimate of the probability that a random surfer 
+winds up on the page. This probability is known as the page’s rank. In other words, 
+RandomSurfer computes an estimate of all page ranks. 
+
+One random move. The key to the computation is the random move, which is 
+specified by the transition matrix. We maintain a variable page whose value is the 
+current location of the surfer. Row page of the matrix gives, for each j, the prob- 
+ability that the surfer next goes to j. In other words, when the surfer is at page, 
+
+our task is to generate a random inte- 
+ger between 0 and N-l according to the 
+distribution given by row page in the 
+transition matrix (the one-dimensional 
+array p [page] ). How can we accomplish 
+this task? We can use Math . random () to 
+generate a random number r between 0 
+and 1, but how does that help us get to 
+a random page? One way to answer this 
+question is to think of the probabilities 
+in row page as defining a set of N inter- 
+vals in (0, 1) with each probability corresponding to an interval length. Then our 
+random variable r falls into one of the intervals, with probability precisely specified 
+by the interval length. This reasoning leads to the following code: 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ //Find interval containing r. 
+sum += p[page] [j] ; 
+if (r < sum) { page = j; break; } 
+
+} 
+
+The variable sum tracks the endpoints of the intervals defined in row p [page] , and 
+the for loop finds the interval containing the random value r. For example, sup- 
+pose that the surfer is at page 4 in our example. The transition probabilities are .47, 
+
+
+j 0 12 3 4 
+
+probabilities pipage'] [j] .47 .02 .47 .02 .02 
+
+cumulated sum values A7 .49 .96 .98 1.0 
+
+\ / 
+
+generate . 71 , return 2 
+
+i h m 
+
+t /\ /t\ 
+
+0.0 .47 .49 .96 .98 1.0 
+
+Generating a random integer from a discrete distribution 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+Program 1.6.2 Simulating a random surfer 
+
+public class RandomSurfer 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Simulate random-surfer leaps and links, 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int N = Stdln. readlnt() ; 
+
+Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+// Read transition matrix. 
+
+doubled [] P = new double [N] [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+p[i][j] = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+
+int page = 0; // Start at page 0. 
+int[] freq = new int[N]; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ // Make one random move, 
+
+double r = Math. randomO ; 
+double sum = 0.0; 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // Find interval containing r. 
+
+sum += p[page] [j] ; 
+if (r < sum) { page = j; break; } 
+
+} 
+
+freq [page] ++; 
+
+
+p[i] [j] 
+
+
+freq[i] 
+
+
+number of moves 
+number of page 
+current page 
+
+probability that the 
+surfer moves from 
+page i to page j 
+
+number of times the 
+surfer hits page i 
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) // Print page ranks 
+
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%8 . 5f " , (double) freq[i] / T) ; 
+StdOut.printlnQ ; 
+
+
+This program uses a transition matrix to simulate the behavior of a random surfer. It takes the 
+number of moves as a command-line argument, reads the transition matrix, performs the in- 
+dicated number of moves as prescribed by the matrix, and prints the relative frequency of hit- 
+ting each page. The key to the computation is the random move to the next page (see text). 
+
+
+% java Transition < tiny.txt | java RandomSurfer 100 
+0.24000 0.23000 0.16000 0.25000 0.12000 
+% java Transition < tiny.txt | java RandomSurfer 10000 
+0.27280 0.26530 0.14820 0.24830 0.06540 
+% java Transition < tiny.txt | java RandomSurfer 1000000 
+0.27324 0.26568 0.14581 0.24737 0.06790 
+
+
+
+
+
+168 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+.02, .47, .02, and .02, and sum takes on the values 0 . 0, 0 . 47, 0 . 49, 0 . 96, 0 . 98, and 
+1.0. These values indicate that the probabilities define the five intervals (0, .47), 
+(.47, .49), (.49, .96), (.96, .98), and (.98, 1), one for each page. Now, suppose that 
+Math . random () returns the value . 71 . We increment j from 0 to 1 to 2 and stop 
+there, which indicates that . 71 is in the interval (.49, .96), so we send the surfer to 
+the third page (page 2). Then, we perform the same computation for p [2] , and the 
+random surfer is off and surfing. For large N, we can use binary search to substan- 
+tially speed up this computation (see Exercise 4.2.36). Typically, we are interested 
+in speeding up the search in this situation because we are likely to need a huge 
+number of random moves, as you will see. 
+
+Markov chains. The random process that describes the surfer’s behavior is known 
+as a Markov chain, named after the Russian mathematician Andrey Markov, who 
+developed the concept in the early 20th century. Markov chains are widely appli- 
+cable, well-studied, and have many remarkable and useful properties. For exam- 
+ple, you may have wondered why RandomSurfer starts the random surfer at page 
+0 whereas you might have expected a random choice. A basic limit theorem for 
+Markov chains says that the surfer could start anywhere, because the probability 
+that a random surfer eventually winds up on any particular page is the same for all 
+starting pages! No matter where the surfer starts, the process eventually stabilizes to 
+a point where further surfing provides no further information. This phenomenon 
+is known as mixing. Though this phenomenon is perhaps counterintuitive at first, 
+it explains coherent behavior in a situation that might seem chaotic. In the present 
+context, it captures the idea that the web looks pretty much the same to everyone 
+after surfing for a sufficiently long time. However, not all Markov chains have this 
+mixing property. For example, if we eliminate the random leap from our model, 
+certain configurations of web pages can present problems for the surfer. Indeed, 
+there exist on the web sets of pages known as spider traps, which are designed to 
+attract incoming links but have no outgoing links. Without the random leap, the 
+surfer could get stuck in a spider trap. The primary purpose of the 90-10 rule is to 
+guarantee mixing and eliminate such anomalies. 
+
+Page ranks. The RandomSurfer simulation is straightforward: it loops for the in- 
+dicated number of moves, randomly surfing through the graph. Because of the 
+mixing phenomenon, increasing the number of iterations gives increasingly ac- 
+curate estimates of the probability that the surfer lands on each page (the page 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+169 
+
+
+ranks). How do the results compare with your intuition when you first thought 
+about the question? You might have guessed that page 4 was the lowest-ranked 
+page, but did you think that pages 0 and 1 would rank higher than page 3? If we 
+want to know which page is the highest rank, we need more precision and more 
+accuracy. RandomSurfer needs 10" moves to get answers precise to n decimal places 
+and many more moves for those answers to stabilize to an accurate value. For our 
+example, it takes tens of thousands of iterations to get answers accurate to two 
+decimal places and millions of iterations to get answers accurate to three places (see 
+Exercise 1.6.5). The end result is that page 0 beats page 1 by 27.3% to 26.6%. That 
+such a tiny difference would appear in such a small problem is quite surprising: if 
+you guessed that page 0 is the most likely spot for the surfer to end up, you were 
+lucky! Accurate page rank estimates for the web are valuable in practice for many 
+reasons. First, using them to put in order the pages that match the search criteria 
+for web searches proved to be vastly more in line with people’s expectations than 
+previous methods. Next, this measure of confidence and reliability led to the in- 
+vestment of huge amounts of money in web advertising based on page ranks. Even 
+in our tiny example, page ranks might be used to convince advertisers to pay up to 
+four times as much to place an ad on page 0 as on page 4. Comput- 
+ing page ranks is mathematically sound, an interesting computer 
+science problem, and big business, all rolled into one. 
+
+Visualizing the histogram. With StdDraw, it is also easy to create a 
+visual representation that can give you a feeling for how the random 
+surfer visit frequencies converge to the page ranks. Simply add 
+
+StdDraw. clear() ; 
+
+StdDraw. setXscale(-l, N) ; 
+
+StdDraw. setYscale(0, t); 
+
+StdDraw . setPenRadi us ( . 5/N) ; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdDraw. linefi , 0, i, freq[i]); 
+
+StdDraw. show(20) ; 
+
+
+
+Hi 
+
+Page ranks with 
+
+
+0 .27 
+
+1 .27 
+
+3 .25 
+
+2 .15 
+
+4 .07 
+
+
+i. 
+
+histogram 
+
+
+to the random move loop, run RandomSurfer for large values of T, and you will see 
+a drawing of the frequency histogram that eventually stabilizes to the page ranks. 
+After you have used this tool once, you are likely to find yourself using it every time 
+
+
+
+170 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+you want to study a new model (perhaps with some minor adjustments to handle 
+larger models). 
+
+Studying other models. RandomSurfer and Transition are excellent examples of 
+data-driven programs. You can easily create a data model just by creating a file like 
+ti ny . txt that starts with an integer N and then specifies pairs of integers between 
+0 and N-l that represent links connecting pages. You are encouraged to run it for 
+various data models as suggested in the exercises, or to make up some models of 
+your own to study. If you have ever wondered how web page ranking works, this 
+calculation is your chance to develop better intuition about what causes one page 
+to be ranked more highly than another. What kind of page is likely to be rated 
+highly? One that has many links to other pages, or one that has just a few links to 
+other pages? The exercises in this section present many opportunities to study the 
+behavior of the random surfer. Since RandomSurfer uses standard input, you can 
+write simple programs that generate large input models, pipe their output to Ran- 
+domSurfer, and therefore study the random surfer on large models. Such flexibility 
+is an important reason to use standard input and standard output. 
+
+Directly simulating the behavior of a random surfer to understand the structure 
+of the web is appealing, but it has limitations. Think about the following question: 
+Could you use it to compute page ranks for a web model with millions (or billions!) 
+of web pages and links? The quick answer to this question is no, because you can- 
+not even afford to store the transition matrix for such a large number of pages. A 
+matrix for millions of pages would have trillions of entries. Do you have that much 
+space on your computer? Could you use RandomSurfer to find page ranks for a 
+smaller model with, say, thousands of pages? To answer this question, you might 
+run multiple simulations, record the results for a large number of trials, and then 
+interpret those experimental results. We do use this approach for many scientific 
+problems (the gambler’s ruin problem is one example; Section 2.4 is devoted to 
+another), but it can be very time-consuming, as a huge number of trials may be 
+necessary to get the desired accuracy. Even for our tiny example, we saw that it takes 
+millions of iterations to get the page ranks accurate to three or four decimal places. 
+For larger models, the required number of iterations to obtain accurate estimates 
+becomes truly huge. 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+171 
+
+
+Mixing a Markov chain It is important to remember that the page ranks are a 
+property of the web model, not any particular approach for computing it. That is, 
+RandomSurfer is just one way to compute page ranks. Fortunately, a simple com- 
+putational model based on a well-studied area of mathematics provides a far more 
+efficient approach than simulation to the problem of computing page ranks. That 
+model makes use of the basic arithmetic operations on two-dimensional matrices 
+that we considered in Section 1.4. 
+
+Squaring a Markov chain. What is the probability that the random surfer will 
+move from page i to page j in two moves? The first move goes to an intermedi- 
+ate page k, so we calculate the probability of moving from i to k and then from k 
+to j for all possible k and add up the results. For 
+our example, the probability of moving from 1 
+to 2 in two moves is the probability of moving 
+from 1 to 0 to 2 (.02X.02), plus the probability 
+of moving from 1 to 1 to 2 (.02X.38), plus the 
+probability of moving from 1 to 2 to 2 (.38X.02), 
+plus the probability of moving from 1 to 3 to 2 
+(.38X.02), plus the probability of moving from 
+1 to 4 to 2 (.20X.47), which adds up to a grand 
+total of .1172. The same process works for each 
+pair of pages. This calculation is one that we have 
+seen before, in the definition of matrix multipli- 
+cation: the entry in row i and column j in the 
+result is the dot product of row i and column j in 
+the original. In other words, the result of multi- 
+plying p [] [] by itself is a matrix where the entry 
+in row i and column j is the probability that the 
+random surfer moves from page i to page j in 
+two moves. Studying the entries of the two-move 
+transition matrix for our example is well worth 
+your time and will help you better understand the 
+movement of the random surfer. For instance, the 
+largest entry in the square is the one in row 2 and column 0, reflecting the fact that 
+a surfer starting on page 2 has only one link out, to page 3, where there is also only 
+one link out, to page 0. Therefore, by far the most likely outcome for a surfer start- 
+
+
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.38 
+
+.38 
+
+.20 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.05 
+
+.04 
+
+.36 
+
+.37 
+
+.19 
+
+.45 
+
+.04 
+
+| . 12 
+
+\. 37 _ 
+
+.02 
+
+.86 
+
+.04 
+
+.04 
+
+.05 
+
+.02 
+
+.05 
+
+.85 
+
+.04 
+
+.05 
+
+.02 
+
+.05 
+
+.44 
+
+.04 
+
+.45 
+
+.02 
+
+
+probability of 
+surfing from i to 2 
+in one move 
+
+
+N 
+
+probability of 
+surfing from 1 to i 
+in one move 
+
+
+probability of 
+surfing from 1 to 2 
+in two moves 
+(dot product) 
+
+
+Squaring a Markov chain 
+
+
+
+172 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+ing on page 2 is to end up in page 0 after two moves. All of the other two-move 
+routes involve more choices and are less probable. It is important to note that this 
+is an exact computation (up to the limitations of Java’s floating-point precision), in 
+contrast to RandomSurfer, which produces an estimate and needs more iterations 
+to get a more accurate estimate. 
+
+The power method. We might then calculate the probabilities for three moves by 
+multiplying by p [] [] again, and for four moves by multiplying by p [] [] yet again, 
+and so forth. However, matrix-matrix multiplication is expensive, and we are actu- 
+ally interested in a vector- matrix calculation. For our example, we start with the 
+vector 
+
+[ 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ] 
+
+which specifies that the random surfer starts on page 0. Multiplying this vector by 
+the transition matrix gives the vector 
+
+[.02 .92 .02 .02 .02 ] 
+
+which is the probabilities that the surfer winds up on each of the pages after one 
+step. Now, multiplying this vector by the transition matrix gives the vector 
+
+[.05 .04 .36 .37 .19 ] 
+
+which contains the probabilities that the surfer winds up on each of the pages after 
+two steps. For example, the probability of moving from 0 to 2 in two moves is the 
+probability of moving from 0 to 0 to 2 (.02X.02), plus the probability of mov- 
+ing from 0 to 1 to 2 (.92X.38), plus the probability of moving from 0 to 2 to 2 
+(.02X.02), plus the probability of moving from 0 to 3 to 2 (.02X.02), plus the prob- 
+ability of moving from 0 to 4 to 2 (.02X.47), which adds up to a grand total of .36 
+. From these initial calculations, the pattern is clear: The vector giving the probabili- 
+ties that the random surfer is at each page after t steps is precisely the product of the 
+corresponding vector for t — 1 steps and the transition matrix. By the basic limit theo- 
+rem for Markov chains, this process converges to the same vector no matter where 
+we start; in other words, after a sufficient number of moves, the probability that 
+the surfer ends up on any given page is independent of the starting point. Markov 
+(Program 1.6.3) is an implementation that you can use to check convergence for 
+our example. For instance, it gets the same results (the page ranks accurate to two 
+decimal places) as RandomSurfer, but with just 20 matrix-vector multiplications 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+rank[] 
+
+p[] [] 
+
+first move 
+
+T 02 .92 .02 .02 .02~ 
+
+
+.02 .02 .38 .38 .20 
+
+[ 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ] * 
+
+.02 .02 .02 .92 .02 
+
+
+.92 .02 .02 .02 .02 
+
+
+.47 .02 .47 .02 .02 
+
+
+newRank[] 
+
+
+[ .02 .92 .02 .02 .02 ] 
+
+\ \ t / / 
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in one move 
+
+
+second move 
+
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in one move 
+
+
+/ / 1 \ \ 
+
+
+[ .02 .92 .02 .02 .02 ] 
+
+
+* 
+
+
+third move 
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in two moves 
+
+/ / 1 \ \ 
+
+[ .05 .04 .36 .37 .19 ] * 
+
+
+
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+om i to 2 
+
+
+in one move 
+
+
+702 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02" 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.38 
+
+.38 
+
+.20 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+T02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02’ 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+00 
+
+m 
+
+.38 
+
+.20 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+
+probability of surfing from 0 to 2 
+in two moves (dot product) 
+
+l 
+
+[ .05 .04 [736] .37 .19 ] 
+
+\ \ t / / 
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to 1 in two moves 
+
+
+[ .44 .06 .12 .36 .03 ] 
+
+\ \ t / / 
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in three moves 
+
+
+20th move 
+
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in 19 moves 
+
+/ / M \ 
+
+[ .27 .26 .15 .25 .07 ] * 
+
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.38 
+
+UJ 
+
+00 
+
+.20 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.92 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.47 
+
+.02 
+
+.02 
+
+
+[ .27 .26 .15 .25 .07 ] 
+
+\ \. t / / 
+
+probabilities of surfing 
+from 0 to i in 20 moves 
+(steady state) 
+
+
+173 
+
+
+The power method for computing page ranks (limit values of transition probabilities) 
+
+
+
+
+
+174 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+
+Program 1.6.3 Mixing a Markov chain 
+public class Markov 
+
+{ // Compute page ranks after T moves. j 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ N 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; p[][] 
+
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+Stdln.readlntO; rank[] 
+
+// Read p[][] from Stdln. newRankt; 
+
+doubled □ P = new double [N] [N] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+p[i][j] = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+
+// Use the power method to compute page ranks. 
+
+doublet] rank = new double[N]; 
+
+rank[0] = 1.0; 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ // Compute effect of next move on page ranks, 
+
+doublet] newRank = new doublets ; 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // New rank of page j is dot product 
+
+// of old ranks and column j of p[](]. 
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+
+newRankfj] += rank(k]*pfk] tj] ; 
+
+} 
+
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+ranktj] = newRankfj]; 
+
+} 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) // Print page ranks. 
+
+Std0ut.printf("%8. 5f" , rankfi]) ; 
+StdOut.printlnQ ; 
+
+
+
+
+§ 
+
+T 
+
+1 
+
+number of iterations j 
+
+N 
+
+number of pages ! 
+
+pci □ 
+
+transition matrix | 
+
+rank[] 
+
+page ranks I 
+
+newRank [] 
+
+new page ranks | 
+
+
+This program reads a transition matrix from standard input and computes the probabilities 
+that a random surfer lands on each page (page ranks) after the number of steps specified as 
+command-line argument. 
+
+
+
+% java Transition < tiny.txt | java Markov 20 
+0.27245 0.26515 0.14669 0.24764 0.06806 
+
+
+% java Transition < tiny.txt | java Markov 40 
+0.27303 0.26573 0.14618 0.24723 0.06783 
+
+
+
+
+176 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+instead of the tens of thousands of iterations needed by RandomSu rf e r . Another 20 
+multiplications gives the results accurate to three decimal places, as compared with 
+millions of iterations for RandomSu rfer, and just a few more give the results to full 
+precision (see Exercise 1.6.6). 
+
+Markov chains are well-studied, but their impact on the web was not truly felt un- 
+til 1998, when two graduate students, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, had the au- 
+dacity to build a Markov chain and compute the probabilities that a random surfer 
+hits each page for the whole web. Their work revolutionized web search and is the 
+basis for the page ranking method used by Google, the highly successful web search 
+company that they founded. Specifically, the company periodically recomputes the 
+random surfer’s probability for each page. Then, when you do a search, it lists the 
+pages related to your search keywords in order of these ranks. Such page ranks 
+now predominate because they somehow correspond to the expectations of typi- 
+cal web users, reliably providing them with relevant web pages for typical searches. 
+The computation that is involved is enormously time-consuming, due to the huge 
+number of pages on the web, but the result has turned out to be enormously profit- 
+able and well worth the expense. The method used in Markov is far more efficient 
+than simulating the behavior of a random surfer, but it is still too slow to actually 
+compute the probabilities for a huge matrix corresponding to all the pages on the 
+web. That computation is enabled by better data structures for graphs (see Chapter 
+4). 
+
+Lessons Developing a full understanding of the random surfer model is beyond 
+the scope of this book. Instead, our purpose is to show you an application that in- 
+volves writing a bit more code than the short programs that we have been using to 
+teach specific concepts. What specific lessons can we learn from this case study? 
+
+We already have a full computational model. Primitive types of data and strings, 
+conditionals and loops, arrays, and standard input/output enable you to address in- 
+teresting problems of all sorts. Indeed, it is a basic precept of theoretical computer 
+science that this model suffices to specify any computation that can be performed 
+on any reasonable computing device. In the next two chapters, we discuss two criti- 
+cal ways in which the model has been extended to drastically reduce the amount of 
+time and effort required to develop large and complex programs. 
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+177 
+
+
+Data-driven code is prevalent. The concept of using standard input and output 
+streams and saving data in files is a powerful one. We write filters to convert from 
+one kind of input to another, generators that can produce huge input files for study, 
+and programs that can handle a wide variety of different models. We can save data 
+for archiving or later use. We can also process data derived from some other source 
+and then save it in a file, whether it is from a scientific instrument or a distant 
+website. The concept of data-driven code is an easy and flexible way to support this 
+suite of activities. 
+
+Accuracy can be elusive. It is a mistake to assume that a program produces ac- 
+curate answers simply because it can print numbers to many decimal places of 
+precision. Often, the most difficult challenge that we face is ensuring that we have 
+accurate answers. 
+
+Uniform random numbers are only a start. When we speak informally about 
+random behavior, we often are thinking of something more complicated than the 
+“every value equally likely” model that Math . random () gives us. Many of the prob- 
+lems that we consider involve working with random numbers from other distribu- 
+tions, such as RandomSurfer. 
+
+Efficiency matters. It is also a mistake to assume that your computer is so fast that 
+it can do any computation. Some problems require much more computational ef- 
+fort than others. Chapter 4 is devoted to a thorough discussion of evaluating the 
+performance of the programs that you write. We defer detailed consideration of 
+such issues until then, but remember that you always need to have some general 
+idea of the performance requirements of your programs. 
+
+Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from writing programs for complicated 
+problems like the example in this section is that debugging is difficult. The polished 
+programs in the book mask that lesson, but you can rest assured that each one is 
+the product of a long bout of testing, fixing bugs, and running the programs on nu- 
+merous inputs. Generally we avoid describing bugs and the process of fixing them 
+in the text because that makes for a boring account and overly focuses attention on 
+bad code, but you can find some examples and descriptions in the exercises and on 
+the booksite. 
+
+
+
+178 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 6.1 Modify T ransi ti on to take the leap probability from the command line 
+and use your modified version to examine the effect on page ranks of switching to 
+an 80-20 rule or a 95-5 rule. 
+
+1 . 6.2 Modify T ransi ti on to ignore the effect of multiple links. That is, if there 
+are multiple links from one page to another, count them as one link. Create a small 
+example that shows how this modification can change the order of page ranks. 
+
+1 . 6.3 Modify T ransi ti on to handle pages with no outgoing links, by filling rows 
+corresponding to such pages with the value 1/N. 
+
+1 . 6.4 The code fragment in RandomSu rf e r that generates the random move fails 
+if the probabilities in the row p [page] do not add up to 1 . Explain what happens in 
+that case, and suggest a way to fix the problem. 
+
+1 . 6.5 Determine, to within a factor of 10, the number of iterations required by 
+RandomSu rfer to compute page ranks to four decimal places and to five decimal 
+places for ti ny . txt. 
+
+1 . 6 . 6 . Determine the number of iterations required by Markov to compute page 
+ranks to three decimal places, to four decimal places, and to ten decimal places for 
+tiny.txt. 
+
+1 . 6.7 Download the file medi um . txt from the booksite (which reflects the 50- 
+page example depicted in this section) and add to it links from page 23 to every 
+other page. Observe the effect on the page ranks, and discuss the result. 
+
+1 . 6.8 Add to medi um . txt (see the previous exercise) links to page 23 from every 
+other page, observe the effect on the page ranks, and discuss the result. 
+
+1 . 6.9 Suppose that your page is page 23 in medi um . txt. Is there a link that you 
+could add from your page to some other page that would raise the rank of your 
+page? 
+
+1 . 6.10 Suppose that your page is page 23 in medi um . txt. Is there a link that you 
+could add from your page to some other page that would lower the rank of that 
+page? 
+
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+179 
+
+
+
+1.6.11 Use T ransi ti on and RandomSurfer to determine the transition probabili- 
+ties for the eight-page example shown below. 
+
+1.6.12 Use T ransi ti on and Markov to determine the transition probabilities for 
+the eight-page example shown below. 
+
+
+
+
+180 
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+
+
+1 . 6.13 Matrix squaring. Write a program like Markov that computes page ranks 
+by repeatedly squaring the matrix, thus computing the sequence p, p 2 , p 4 , p 8 , p 16 , 
+and so forth. Verify that all of the rows in the matrix converge to the same values. 
+
+1 . 6.14 Random web. Write a generator for T ransi ti on that takes as input a page 
+count N and a link count M and prints to standard output N followed by M random 
+pairs of integers from 0 to N-l. (See Section 4.5 for a discussion of more realistic 
+web models.) 
+
+1 . 6.15 Hubs and authorities. Add to your generator from the previous exercise a 
+fixed number of hubs, which have links pointing to them from 10% of the pages, 
+chosen at random, and authorities, which have links pointing from them to 10% of 
+the pages. Compute page ranks. Which rank higher, hubs or authorities? 
+
+1 . 6.16 Page ranks. Design an array of pages and links where the highest-ranking 
+page has fewer links pointing to it than some other page. 
+
+1 . 6.17 Hitting time. The hitting time for a page is the expected number of moves 
+between times the random surfer visits the page. Run experiments to estimate page 
+hitting times for ti ny . txt, compare with page ranks, formulate a hypothesis about 
+the relationship, and test your hypothesis on medi um . txt. 
+
+1 . 6.18 Cover time. Write a program that estimates the time required for the ran- 
+dom surfer to visit every page at least once, starting from a random page. 
+
+1 . 6.19 Graphical simulation. Create a graphical simulation where the size of the 
+dot representing each page is proportional to its rank. To make your program data- 
+driven, design a file format that includes coordinates specifying where each page 
+should be drawn. Test your program on medi um . txt. 
+
+
+
+
+1.6 Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+
+
+
+
+2.1 Static Methods 184 
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 218 
+
+2.3 Recursion 254 
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 286 
+
+
+T his chapter is centered on a construct that has as profound an impact on con- 
+trol flow as do conditionals and loops: the function, which allows us to trans- 
+fer control back and forth between different pieces of code. Functions (which are 
+known as static methods in Java) are important because they allow us to clearly 
+separate tasks within a program and because they provide a general mechanism 
+that enables us to reuse code. 
+
+We group functions together in modules, which we can compile independent- 
+ly. We use modules to break a computational task into subtasks of a reasonable size. 
+You will learn in this chapter how to build modules of your own and to use them, 
+in a style of programming known as modular programming. 
+
+Some modules are developed with the primary intent of providing code that 
+can be reused later by many other programs. We refer to such modules as libraries. 
+In particular, we consider in this chapter libraries for generating random numbers, 
+analyzing data, and input/output for arrays. Libraries vastly extend the set of op- 
+erations that we use in our programs. 
+
+We pay special attention to functions that transfer control to themselves. This 
+process is known as recursion. At first, recursion may seem counterintuitive, but it 
+allows us to develop simple programs that can address complex tasks that would 
+otherwise be much more difficult to handle. 
+
+Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within programs, you should do so. We 
+repeat this mantra throughout this chapter, and end the chapter with an example 
+showing how a complex programming task can be handled by breaking it into 
+smaller subtasks, then independently developing modules that interact with one 
+another to address the subtasks. 
+
+
+183 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+2.1 Static Methods 
+
+The Java construct for implementing functions is known as the static method. The 
+modifier stati c distinguishes this kind of method from the kind discussed later 
+in Chapter 3 — we will apply it consistently for now and discuss the difference then. 
+
+
+You have actually been using static meth- 
+ods since the beginning of this book, 2 u Newton>s method (revisited) . . . . i 86 
+
+from printing with System . out . p n nt- 2 . 1.2 Gaussian functions . . . 195 
+
+ln() to mathematical functions such as 2.1.3 Coupon collector (revisited) . . , .197 
+
+Math.absO and Math.sqrtQ to all of 2.1.4 Play that tune (revisited) 205 
+
+
+the methods in Stdln, StdOut, StdDraw, Programs in this section 
+
+and StdAudio. Indeed, every Java pro- 
+gram that you have written has a static 
+
+method named mai n () . In this section, you will learn how to define and use static 
+methods. 
+
+In mathematics, a function maps a value of a specified type (the domain ) 
+to another value of another specified type (the range). For example, the function 
+f{x) = x 2 maps 2 to 4, 3 to 9, 4 to 16, and so forth. At first, we work with static 
+methods that implement mathematical functions, because they are so familiar. 
+Many standard functions are implemented in Java’s Math library, but scientists and 
+engineers work with a broad variety of mathematical functions, which cannot all 
+be included in the library. At the beginning of this section, you will learn how to 
+implement and use such functions on your own. 
+
+Later, you will learn that we can do more with static methods than implement 
+mathematical functions: static methods can have strings and other types as their 
+range or domain, and they can have side effects such as producing output. We also 
+consider in this section how to use static methods to organize programs and thus 
+to simplify complicated programming tasks. 
+
+Static methods support a key concept that will pervade your approach to pro- 
+gramming from this point forward: Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within 
+programs, you should do so. We will be overemphasizing this point throughout this 
+section and reinforcing it throughout this book. When you write an essay, you break 
+it up into paragraphs; when you write a program, you will break it up into methods. 
+Separating a larger task into smaller ones is much more important in program- 
+ming than in writing, because it greatly facilitates debugging, maintenance, and re- 
+use, which are all critical in developing good software. 
+
+
+2. 1 Static methods 
+
+
+185 
+
+
+Using and defining static methods As you know from using Java’s Math li- 
+brary, the use of static methods is easy to understand. For example, when you write 
+Math . abs (a-b) in a program, the effect is as if you were to replace that code by the 
+value that is computed by Java’s Math . abs () method when presented with the val- 
+ue a-b. This usage is so intuitive that we have hardly needed to comment on it. If 
+you think about what the system has to do to create this effect, you will see that it 
+involves changing a program’s control flow. The implications of being able to change 
+the control flow in this way is as profound as doing so for conditionals and loops. 
+
+You can define static methods other than mai n () in a . j ava file, as illustrated 
+in Newton (Program 2.1.1). This implementation is better than our original imple- 
+mentation of Newton’s algorithm (Program 1.3.6) because it clearly separates the 
+two primary tasks performed by the program: calculating the square root and in- 
+teracting with the user. Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within programs, you 
+should do so. The code here differs from Program 
+1.3.6 in two additional respects. First, sqrt() re- 
+turns Doubl e . NaN when its argument is negative; 
+second, mai n() tests sqrt() not just for one val- 
+ue, but for all the values given on the command 
+line. A static method must return a well-defined 
+value for each possible argument, and taking mul- 
+tiple command-line arguments facilitates testing 
+that Newton operates as expected for various in- 
+put values. 
+
+While Newton appeals to our familiarity 
+with mathematical functions, we will examine 
+it in detail so that you can think carefully about 
+what a static method is and how it operates. 
+
+Control flow. Newton comprises two static meth- 
+ods: sqrt() and main(). Even though sqrt() 
+appears first in the code, the first statement exe- 
+cuted when the program is executed is, as always, 
+the first statement in mai n () . The next few state- 
+ments operate as usual, except that the code sq rt (a [i ] ) , which is known as a func- 
+tion call on the static method sq rt () , causes a transfer of control (to the first line of 
+code in sqrtQ) , each time that it is encountered. Moreover, the value of c within 
+
+
+public class Newton 
+{ 
+
+
+r 
+
+
+public static double sqrt (double c) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (c < 0) return Double. NaN; 
+double err = le-15; 
+double t = c; 
+
+while (Math. abs (t - c/t) > err * t) 
+t = (c/t + t) / 2.0; 
+return t; 
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = args. length; 
+doublet] a = new doubl e[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Doubl e.parseDouble(args[i]) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+
+double x = (sqrt(a[i]) ;) - 
+
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (x) ; 
+
+
+> i 
+
+Flow of control for a call on a static method 
+
+
+
+186 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+/ jj^j '■ •' f ' y :■ W'3>\ ‘ ■ ' 1*1M ! V f , *'■ ’ ^ ^ ,* f f 
+
+
+Program 2.1.1 Newton’s method (revisited) 
+
+public class Newton 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double sqrt (double c) 
+
+{ // Compute the square root of c. 
+
+if (c < 0) return Double. NaN; 
+double err = le-15; 
+double t = c; 
+
+while (Math.abs(t - c/t) > err * t) 
+t = (c/t + t) / 2.0; 
+return t; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print square roots of arguments, 
+
+int N = args. length; 
+doubled a = new double[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Double.parseDouble(args[i]) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ // Print square root of ith argument, 
+
+double x = sqrt(a[i]); 
+
+StdOut.pri ntln(x); 
+
+} 
+
+
+err desired precision 
+
+t current estimate 
+
+
+
+N argument count 
+
+a[] argument values 
+
+
+
+This program defines two static methods , one named sqrt() that computes the square root 
+of its argument using Newtons algorithm (see Program 1.3.6) and one named mai n(), which 
+tests sq rt () on command-line argument values. The constant values NaN and Inf i ni ty stand 
+for “not a number ” and infinity, respectively. 
+
+
+% java Newton 1.0 2.0 3.0 1000000.1 
+
+1.0 
+
+1.414213562373095 
+
+1.7320508075688772 
+
+1000.000499999875 
+
+% java Newton NaN Infinity 0 -0 -2 
+NaN 
+
+Inf i ni ty 
+0.0 
+- 0.0 
+NaN 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+187 
+
+
+sq rt () is initialized to the value of a [i ] within mai n () at the time of the call. Then 
+the statements in sqrt() are executed in sequence, as usual, until reaching a re- 
+turn statement, which transfers control back to the statement in main() contain- 
+ing the call on sqrt(). Moreover, the effect of the call is the same as if sqrt(a[0] ) 
+were a variable whose value is the value of t in sqrt() when the return t state- 
+ment is executed. The end result exacdy matches our intuition: the first value as- 
+signed to x and printed is precisely the value computed by code in sq rt () (with the 
+value of c initialized to a[0]). Next, the same process transfers control to sqrt 
+again (with the value of c initialized to a[l] ), and so forth. 
+
+Function call trace. One simple approach to fol- 
+lowing the control flow through function calls is 
+to imagine that each function prints its name and 
+argument when it is called and its return value just 
+before returning, with indentation added on calls 
+and subtracted on returns. The result is a special 
+case of the process of tracing a program by print- 
+ing the values of its variables, which we have been 
+using since Section 1.2. However, the added inden- 
+tation exposes the flow of the control, and helps 
+us check that each function has the effect that we 
+expect. Adding calls on StdOut . pri ntf () to trace 
+a program’s control flow in this way is a fine way to begin to understand what it is 
+doing (see Exercise 2.1.7). If the return values match our expectations, we need not 
+trace the function code in detail, saving us a substantial amount of work. 
+
+Anatomy of a static method. The square root function maps a nonnegative real 
+number to a nonnegative real number; the sqrt() static method in Newton maps 
+a doubl e to a doubl e. The first line of a static method, known as its signature , de- 
+scribes this information. The type of the domain is indicated in parentheses after 
+the function name, along with a name called an argument variable that we will use 
+to refer to the argument. The type of the range is indicated before the function 
+name — we can put code that calls this function anywhere we could put an expres- 
+sion of that type. We will discuss the meaning of the pub! i c keyword in the next 
+section and the meaning of the stati c keyword in Chapter 3. (Technically, the sig- 
+nature in Java does not include these keyword modifiers or the return type, but we 
+
+
+main({l, 2}) 
+sqrt(l) 
+
+Math.abs(O) 
+return 0.0 
+return 1.0 
+sqrt(2) 
+
+Math.abs(l.O) 
+return 1.0 
+
+Math . abs (1 . 416666666666667) 
+return 1.416666666666667 
+
+return 1.414213562373095 
+return 
+
+Function call trace for java Newton 1 2 
+
+
+
+188 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+signature 
+
+
+return 
+
+type 
+
+
+method 
+
+name 
+
+
+argument 
+type 
+
+
+argument 
+
+variable 
+
+
+\-\-i 
+
+
+^ ^ - ' ■ > - - T — 
+
+public static Idoublellsqrtl ( Idouble cl ) 
+
+
+local 
+
+variables z 
+
+method 
+
+body 
+
+
+if (c < 0) 
+
+
+Idouble 
+
+
+err 
+
+
+return Double. NaN; 
+= le-15 ; 
+
+
+Idouble tl= c; 
+
+
+leave that distinction for experts.) 
+
+Following the signature is the 
+body of the method, enclosed 
+in braces. For sqrt() this code 
+is the same as we discussed in 
+Section 1.3, except that the last 
+statement is a return statement, 
+which causes a transfer of control 
+back to the point where the static 
+method was called. For any given 
+initial value of the argument vari- 
+able, the method must compute 
+a return value. The variables that 
+
+are declared and used in the body of the method are known as local variables. There 
+are two local variables in sqrt(): err and t. These variables are local to the code in 
+the body of the method and cannot be used outside of the method. 
+
+
+while |(Math.abs(t - c/t)| > err 
+t = (c/ t + t) / 2.0; \ 
+|retur n tT| \ 
+
+
+t) 
+
+
+
+
+return statement 
+
+
+call on another method 
+
+
+Anatomy of a static method 
+
+
+Properties of static methods For the rest of this chapter, your programming 
+will be centered on creating and using static methods, so it is worthwhile to con- 
+sider in more detail their basic properties. 
+
+
+Terminology. As we have been doing throughout, it is useful to draw a distinction 
+between abstract concepts and Java mechanisms to implement them (the Java i f 
+statement implements the conditional, the whi 1 e statement implements the loop, 
+and so forth). There are several concepts rolled up in the idea of a function, and 
+Java constructs corresponding to each, as summarized in the following table: 
+
+
+concept 
+
+Java construct 
+
+description 
+
+function 
+
+static method 
+
+mapping 
+
+domain 
+
+argument type 
+
+set of values where function is defined 
+
+range 
+
+return type 
+
+set of values a function can return 
+
+formula 
+
+method body 
+
+function definition 
+
+
+When we use a symbolic name in a formula that defines a mathematical function 
+(such as/(x) = 1 + x + x 2 ), the symbol is a placeholder for some value in the domain 
+
+
+
+
+2. 1 Static methods 
+
+
+189 
+
+
+that will be substituted into the formula when computing the function value. In 
+Java, the symbol that we use is the name of an argument variable. It represents the 
+particular value of interest where the function is to be evaluated. 
+
+
+Scope. The scope of a variable name is the set of statements that can refer to that 
+name. The general rule in Java is that the scope of the variables in a block of state- 
+ments is limited to the statements in that block. In particular, the scope of a variable 
+in a static method is limited to that method’s body. Therefore, you cannot refer to 
+a variable in one static method that is declared in another. If the method includes 
+smaller blocks — for example, the body of an i f or a for statement — the scope of 
+any variables declared in one of those blocks is limited to just the statements with- 
+in the block. Indeed, it is common practice to use the same variable names in inde- 
+pendent blocks of code. When we do so, we are declaring different independent 
+variables. For example, we have been following this practice when we use an index 
+i in two different for loops in the same program. A guiding principle when design- 
+ing software is that each variable should be defined so that its scope is as small as 
+possible. One of the important reasons that we use static methods is that they ease 
+debugging by limiting variable scope. 
+
+
+scope of 
+c, err, and t 
+
+
+public class Newton 
+{ 
+
+public static double sqrtCdouble c) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (c < 0) return Double. NaN; 
+double err = le-15; 
+
+^ double t = c; 
+
+while (Math.abs(t - c/t) > err * t) 
+t = (c/t + t) / 2.0; 
+return t; 
+
+> 
+
+
+this code cannot refer to 
+args [], N, or a[] 
+
+
+scope of 
+
+args[], N, and a[] 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = args. length; 
+doublet] a = new double[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Double. parseDouble (args [i]) ; 
+
+\ 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i ++ ) scope of i > 
+
+double x = sqrt(a[i]); 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n(x) ; 
+
+} scope of i and x 
+
+
+this code cannot refer to 
+^ c[],err, ort 
+
+
+; two different 
+variables 
+
+
+Scope of local and argument variables 
+
+
+
+190 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Argument variables. You can use argument variables anywhere in the code in the 
+body of the function in the same way you use local variables. The only difference 
+between an argument variable and a local variable is that the argument variable is 
+initialized with the argument value provided by the calling code. This approach 
+is known as pass by value. The method works with the value of its arguments, not 
+the arguments themselves. One consequence of this approach is that changing the 
+value of an argument variable within a static method has no effect on the calling 
+code. An alternative known as pass by reference, where the method actually works 
+with the calling code’s variable, is favored in some programming environments 
+(and actually is akin to the way Java works for nonprimitive arguments, as we will 
+see). For clarity, we do not change argument variables in the code in this book: our 
+static methods take the values of argument variables and produce a result. 
+
+Multiple methods. You can define as many static methods as you want in a . j ava 
+file. Each has a body that consists of a sequence of statements enclosed in braces. 
+These methods are independent, except that they may refer to each other through 
+calls. They can appear in any order in the file. 
+
+Calling other static methods. As evidenced by mai n () calling sq rt () and sq rt () 
+calling Math.absO in Newton, any static method defined in a .java file can call 
+any other static method in the same file or any static method in a Java library such 
+as Math. Also, as we see in the next section, a static method can call a static method 
+in any .java file in the same directory. In Section 2.3, we consider the ramifica- 
+tions of the idea that a static method can even call itself. 
+
+Multiple arguments. Like a mathematical function, a Java static method can take 
+on more than one argument, and therefore can have more than one argument vari- 
+able. For example, the following method computes the length of the hypotenuse of 
+a right triangle with sides of length a and b: 
+
+public static double hypotenuse (double a, double b) 
+
+{ return Math.sqrt(a*a + b*b); } 
+
+Although the argument variables are of the same type in this case, in general they 
+can be of different types. The type and the name of each argument variable is de- 
+clared in the function signature, separated by commas. 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+191 
+
+
+absolute value of an 
+i nt value 
+
+public static int abs(int x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x < 0) return -x; 
+else return x; 
+
+} 
+
+absolute value of a 
+double value 
+
+public static double abs (double x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x < 0.0) return -x; 
+else return x; 
+
+} 
+
+primality test 
+
+public static boolean isPrime(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N < 2) return false; 
+for (int i = 2; i <= N/i ; i++) 
+if (N % i == 0) return false; 
+return true; 
+
+} 
+
+hypotenuse of 
+a right triangle 
+
+public static double hypotenuse (double a, double b) 
+
+{ return Math.sqrt(a*a + b*b); } 
+
+Harmonic number 
+
+public static double H(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+for (int i = 1; i <= N; i++) 
+sum += 1.0 / i ; 
+return sum; 
+
+} 
+
+uniform random 
+integer in [0, N) 
+
+public static int uniform(int N) 
+
+{ return (int) (Math. random () * N); } 
+
+draw a triangle 
+
+public static void drawTri angle (double xO, double yO, 
+
+double xl, double yl, 
+double x2, double y2 ) 
+
+{ 
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, yO, xl, yl); 
+
+StdDraw.line(xl, yl, x2, y2); 
+
+StdDraw.line(x2, y2, xO, y0); 
+
+} 
+
+
+Typical code for implementing functions 
+
+
+
+192 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Overloading. Static methods whose signatures differ are different static methods. 
+For example, we often want to define the same operation for values of different 
+numeric types, as in the following static methods for computing absolute values: 
+
+public static int abs(int x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x < 0) return -x; 
+else return x; 
+
+} 
+
+public static double abs (double x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x < 0.0) return -x; 
+else return x; 
+
+} 
+
+These are two different methods, but sufficiently similar so as to justify using the 
+same name (abs). Using one name for two static methods whose signatures differ 
+is known as overloading, and is common in Java programming. For example, the 
+Java Math library uses this approach to provide implementations of Math. abs (), 
+Math. mi n(), and Math. max () for all primitive numeric types. Another common 
+use of overloading is to define two different versions of a function, one that takes 
+an argument and another that uses a default value of that argument. 
+
+Single return value. Like a mathematical function, a Java static method can pro- 
+vide only one return value, of the type declared in the method signature. This policy 
+is not as restrictive as it might seem. First, you will see in Chapter 3 that many types 
+of data in Java can contain more information than a value of a single primitive 
+type. Second, you will see later in this section that we can use arrays as arguments 
+and return values for static methods. 
+
+Multiple return statements. Control goes back to the calling program as soon as 
+the first return statement in a static method is reached. You can put return state- 
+ments wherever you need them, as in sqrt(). Even though there may be multiple 
+return statements, any static method returns a single value each time it is invoked: 
+the value following the first return statement encountered. Some programmers 
+insist on having only one return per function, but we are not so strict in this 
+book. 
+
+
+
+2. / Static methods 
+
+
+193 
+
+
+Side effects. A static method may use the keyword voi d as its return type, to indi- 
+cate that it has no return value. An explicit return is not necessary in a voi d static 
+method: control returns to the caller after the last statement. In this book, we use 
+voi d static methods for two primary purposes: 
+
+• For I/O, using Stdln, StdOut, StdDraw, and StdAudi o 
+
+• To manipulate the contents of arrays 
+
+You have been using voi d static methods for output since mai n () in Hel 1 oWorl d, 
+and we will discuss their use with arrays later in this section. A voi d static method 
+is said to produce side effects (consume input, produce output, or otherwise change 
+the state of the system). For example, the mai n() static method in our programs 
+has a voi d return type because its purpose is to produce output. It is possible in 
+Java to write methods that have other side effects, but we will avoid doing so until 
+Chapter 3, where we do so in a specific manner supported by Java. Technically, 
+voi d static methods do not implement mathematical functions (and neither does 
+Math. randomO or the methods in Stdln, which take no arguments but do pro- 
+duce return values). 
+
+Implementing mathematical functions Why not just use the static meth- 
+ods that are defined within Java, such as Math . sq rt () ? The answer to this question 
+is that we do use such implementations when they are present. Unfortunately, there 
+are an unlimited number of mathematical functions that we may wish to use and 
+only a small set of basic functions in the library. When you encounter a function 
+that is not in the library, you need to implement a corresponding static method. 
+
+As an example, we consider the kind of code required for a familiar and im- 
+portant application that is of interest to many high school and college students in 
+the United States. In a recent year, over 1 million students took a standard college 
+entrance examination. Scores range from 400 (lowest) to 1600 (highest) on the 
+multiple-choice parts of the test. These scores play a role in making important deci- 
+sions: for example, student athletes are required to have a score of at least 820, and 
+the minimum eligibility requirement for certain academic scholarships is 1500. 
+What percentage of test takers are ineligible for athletics? What percentage are eli- 
+gible for the scholarships? 
+
+Two functions from statistics enable us to compute accurate answers to these 
+questions. The Gaussian (normal) distribution function is characterized by the fa- 
+miliar bell-shaped curve and defined by the formula cj)(x) = e~ x2 ^ 2 lf2/n . The cu- 
+mulative Gaussian distribution function 5>(z) is defined to be the area under the 
+
+
+
+194 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+curve defined by <J>(x) above the x-axis and to the left of the vertical line x=z. These 
+functions play an important role in science, engineering, and finance because they 
+arise as accurate models throughout the natural world and because they are essen- 
+tial in understanding experimental error. 
+
+In particular, these functions are known to accurately describe the distribu- 
+tion of test scores in our example, as a function of the mean (average value of the 
+scores) and the standard deviation (square root of the sum of the squares of the 
+differences between each score and the mean), which are 
+published each year. Given the mean |x and the standard 
+deviation a of the test scores, the percentage of students 
+with scores less than a given value z is closely approximated 
+by the function <I>((z — |x)/cr). Static methods to calculate <J> 
+and $ are not available in Java’s Math library, so we need to 
+develop our own implementations. 
+
+Closed form. In the simplest situation, we have a closed- 
+form mathematical formula defining our function in terms 
+of functions that are implemented in the library. This situ- 
+ation is the case for (j> — the Java Math library includes 
+methods to compute the exponential and the square root 
+functions (and a constant value for it), so a static method 
+phi () corresponding to the mathematical definition is easy 
+to implement (see Program 2.1.2). 
+
+No closed form. Otherwise, we may need a more compli- 
+cated algorithm to compute function values. This situation 
+is the case for 4> — no closed-form expression exists for this 
+function. Such algorithms sometimes follow immediately 
+from Taylor series approximations, but developing reliably 
+accurate implementations of mathematical functions is an art that needs to be ad- 
+dressed carefully, taking advantage of the knowledge built up in mathematics over 
+the past several centuries. Many different approaches have been studied for evalu- 
+ating <l>. For example, a Taylor series approximation to the ratio of <I> and <|> turns 
+out to be an effective basis for evaluating the function: 
+
+«l>(z) = 1/2+ «j>(z) (z + z 3 /3 + z 5 /(3-5) + z 7 /(3-5-7) +...). 
+
+
+distribution cj> 
+
+
+
+Gaussian probability functions 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+195 
+
+
+Program 2.1.2 Gaussian functions 
+
+
+
+public class Gaussian 
+
+{ // Implement Gaussian (normal) distribution functions. 
+
+public static double phi (double x) 
+
+{ 
+
+return Math.exp(-x*x/2) / Math.sqrt(2*Math.PI) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static double Phi (double z) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (z < -8.0) return 0.0; 
+if (z > 8.0) return 1.0; 
+
+double sum = 0.0, term = z; 1 
+
+for (int i = 3; sum != sum + term; i += 2) t 
+
+{ 
+
+sum = sum + term; 
+term = term * z * z / i ; 
+
+} 
+
+return 0.5 + phi(z) * sum; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double z = Double. parseDouble(args[0]) ; 
+double mu = Double.parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+double sigma = Double. parseDouble(args[2]) ; 
+Std0ut.printf("%.3f\n", Phi((z - mu) / sigma)); 
+
+} 
+
+
+This code implements the Gaussian (normal) density (phi ) and cumulative distribution (Phi ) 
+functions, which are not implemented in Java’s Math library. The phi () implementation fol- 
+lows directly from its definition, and the Phi () implementation uses a Taylor series and also 
+calls phi () (see accompanying text at left and Exercise 1.3.36). 
+
+
+cumulated sum 
+current term 
+
+
+
+^ % java Gaussian 820 1019 209 
+0.171 
+
+% java Gaussian 1500 1019 209 
+0.989 
+
+% java Gaussian 1500 1025 231 
+0.980 
+
+
+SIRS 
+
+
+■ 
+
+
+
+196 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+This formula readily translates to the Java code for the static method Phi () in Pro- 
+gram 2.1.2. For small (respectively large) z, the value is extremely close to 0 (respec- 
+tively 1), so the code directly returns 0 (respectively 1); otherwise, it uses the Taylor 
+series to add terms until the sum converges. 
+
+Running Gaussian with the appropriate arguments on the command line 
+tells us that about 17% of the test takers were ineligible for athletics and that only 
+about 1% qualified for the scholarship. In a year when the mean was 1025 and the 
+standard deviation 231, about 2% qualified for the scholarship. 
+
+Computing with mathematical functions of all sorts has always played a central 
+role in science and engineering. In a great many applications, the functions that 
+you need are expressed in terms of the functions in Java’s Math library as we have 
+just seen with phi (), or in terms of Taylor series approximations that are easy to 
+compute, as we have just seen with Phi (). Indeed, support for such computations 
+has played a central role throughout the evolution of computing systems and pro- 
+gramming languages. You will find many examples on the booksite and throughout 
+this book. 
+
+Using static methods to organize code Beyond evaluating mathematical 
+functions, the process of calculating a result value on the basis of an input value is 
+important as a general technique for organizing control flow in any computation. 
+Doing so is a simple example of an extremely important principle that is a prime 
+guiding force for any good programmer: Whenever you can clearly separate tasks 
+within programs, you should do so. 
+
+Functions are natural and universal for expressing computational tasks. In- 
+deed, the “bird’s-eye view” of a Java program that we began with in Section 1.1 was 
+equivalent to a function: we began by thinking of a Java program as a function that 
+transforms command-line arguments into an output string. This view expresses 
+itself at many different levels of computation. In particular, it is generally the case 
+that a long program is more naturally expressed in terms of functions instead of as 
+a sequence of Java assignment, conditional, and loop statements. With the ability to 
+define functions, we can better organize our programs by defining functions within 
+them when appropriate. 
+
+For example, Coupon (Program 2.1.3) is a version of CouponCol 1 ector (Pro- 
+gram 1.4.2) that better separates the individual components of the computation. If 
+you study Program 1.4.2, you will identify three separate tasks: 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+197 
+
+
+M— — 
+
+
+Program 2.1.3 Coupon collector (revisited) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+public class Coupon 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int uniform(int N) 
+
+{ // Generate a random integer between 0 and N-l. 
+
+return (int) (Math. random () * N); 
+
+} 
+
+public static int collect (int N) 
+
+{ // Collect coupons until getting one of each value. 
+
+boolean[] found = new boolean[N]; 
+int cardcnt = 0, valent = 0; 
+
+while (valent < N) found [] 
+
+
+{ 
+
+int val = uniform(N); 
+cardcnt++; 
+
+if (! found [val]) valcnt++; 
+found [val] = true; 
+
+} 
+
+return cardcnt; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print the number of coupons collected 
+
+// to get N different coupons, 
+int N = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+int count = collect(N); 
+
+StdOut.println (count) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+cardcnt 
+val ent 
+val 
+
+■sSSSSsgppB! 
+
+
+This version of Program 1.4.2 illustrates the style of encapsulating computations in static meth- 
+ods. This code has the same effect as CouponCol lector, but better separates the code into its 
+three constituent pieces: generating a random integer between 0 and N-l, running a collection 
+experiment, and managing the I/O. 
+
+
+
+% java Coupon 1000 
+6522 
+
+% java Coupon 1000 
+6481 
+
+
+
+
+
+% java Coupon 1000000 
+12783771 
+
+
+
+198 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+• Given N, compute a random coupon value. 
+
+• Given N, do the coupon collection experiment. 
+
+• Get N from the command line, then compute and print the result. 
+
+Coupon rearranges the code in CouponCol 1 ect to reflect the reality that these three 
+functions underlie the computation. 
+
+With this organization, we could change uni form() (for example, we might 
+want to draw the random numbers from a different distribution) or main() (for 
+example, we might want to take multiple inputs or run multiple experiments) with- 
+out worrying about the effect of any changes on col 1 ect () . 
+
+Using static methods isolates the implementation of each component of the 
+collection experiment from others, or encapsulates them. Typically, programs have 
+many independent components, which magnifies the benefits of separating them 
+into different static methods. We will discuss these benefits in further detail after we 
+have seen several other examples, but you certainly can appreciate that it is better 
+to express a computation in a program by breaking it up into functions, just as it 
+is better to express an idea in an essay by breaking it up into paragraphs. Whenever 
+you can clearly separate tasks within programs, you should do so. 
+
+Implementing static methods for arrays A static method can take an array 
+as an argument or as a return value. This capability is a special case of Java’s object 
+orientation, which is the subject of Chapter 3. We consider it in the present context 
+because the basic mechanisms are easy to understand and to use, leading us to com- 
+pact solutions to a number of problems that naturally arise when we use arrays to 
+help us process large amounts of data. 
+
+Arrays as arguments. When a static method takes an array as an argument, it 
+implements a function that operates on an arbitrary number of values of the same 
+type. For example, the following static method computes the mean (average) value 
+of an array of doubl e values. 
+
+public static double mean (doublet] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+sum = sum + a[i] ; 
+
+return sum / a. length; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+199 
+
+
+We have been using arrays as arguments from the beginning. The code 
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+defines main() as a static method that takes an array of strings as an argument 
+and returns nothing. By convention, the Java system collects the strings that you 
+type after the program name in the java command into an array args [] and calls 
+main() with that array as argument. (Most programmers use the name args for 
+the argument variable, even though any name at all would do.) Within mai n(), we 
+can manipulate that array just like any other array. The mai n () method in Newton 
+(Program 2.1.1) is an example of such code. 
+
+Side effects with arrays. It is often the case that the purpose of a static method 
+that takes an array as argument is to produce a side effect (change values of array 
+elements). A prototypical example of such a method is one that exchanges the val- 
+ues at two given indices in a given array. We can adapt the code that we examined 
+at the beginning of Section 1.4: 
+
+public static void exch(String[] a, int i, int j) 
+
+{ 
+
+String t = a [i ] ; 
+a [i ] = a[j] ; 
+a[j] = t; 
+
+} 
+
+This implementation stems naturally from the Java array representation. The argu- 
+ment variable in exch() is a reference to the array, not to all of the array’s values: 
+when you pass an array as argument to a static method, you are giving it the op- 
+portunity to operate on that array (not a copy of it). A second prototypical example 
+of a static method that takes an array argument and produces side effects is one 
+that randomly shuffles the values in the array, using this version of the algorithm 
+that we examined in Section 1.4 (and the exch() and uniformO methods just 
+defined): 
+
+public static void shuffle (String[] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+exchfa, i, i + uniform(N-i)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+200 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+find the maximum 
+of the array values 
+
+public static double max (doublet] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+double max = Double. NEGATIVE_INFINITY; 
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+if (a[i ] > max) max = afij; 
+return max; 
+
+} 
+
+dot product 
+
+public static double dot(double[] a, doublet] b) 
+
+{ 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+sum += a fi ] * b[i] ; 
+return sum; 
+
+} 
+
+exchange two elements 
+in an array 
+
+public static void exch(String[] a, int i, int j) 
+
+{ 
+
+String t = a[i ] ; 
+a[i] = a[j] ; 
+a[j] = t; 
+
+} 
+
+print a ID array 
+(and its length) 
+
+public static void print (doublet] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (a . 1 ength) ; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < a. length; i++) 
+
+StdOut. pri ntl n (afi ]) ; 
+
+} 
+
+read a 2D array 
+of doubl e values 
+(with dimensions) 
+in row- major order 
+
+public static doubletit] readDouble2D() 
+
+{ 
+
+int M = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+doublet] t] a = new doubl e tM] tN] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+atiltj] = Stdln. readDouble(); 
+return a; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Typical code for implementing functions with arrays 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+201 
+
+
+Similarly, we will consider in Section 4.2 methods that sort an array (rearrange 
+its values so that they are in order). All of these examples highlight the basic fact 
+that the mechanism for passing arrays in Java is a call-by-reference mechanism with 
+respect to the contents of the array. Unlike primitive-type arguments, the changes 
+that a method makes in the contents of an array are reflected in the client program. 
+A method that takes an array as argument cannot change the array itself — the ref- 
+erence is the same memory location assigned when the array was created, and the 
+length is the value set when the array was created — but it can change the contents 
+of the array to any values whatsoever. 
+
+Arrays as return values. A method that sorts, shuffles, or otherwise modifies an 
+array taken as argument does not have to return a reference to that array, because it 
+is changing the contents of a client array, not a copy. But there are many situations 
+where it is useful for a static method to provide an array as a return value. Chief 
+among these are static methods that create arrays for the purpose of returning mul- 
+tiple values of the same type to a client. For example, the following static method 
+produces an array of the kind used by StdAudi o (see Program 1.5.7) that contains 
+values sampled from a sine wave of a given frequency (in hertz) and duration (in 
+seconds), sampled at the standard 44,100 samples per second. 
+
+public static double [] tone (double hz, double t) 
+
+{ 
+
+int sps = 44100; 
+i nt N = (i nt) (sps * t) ; 
+double [] a = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i =0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Math.sin(2 * Math. PI * i * hz / sps); 
+return a; 
+
+} 
+
+In this code, the size of the array returned depends on the duration: if the given 
+duration is t, the size of the array is about 44100*t. With static methods like this 
+one, we can write code that treats a sound wave as a single entity (an array contain- 
+ing sampled values), as we will see next in Program 2.1.4. 
+
+
+
+202 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Example; superposition of sound waves As discussed in Section 1.5, the 
+simple audio model that we studied there needs to be embellished in order to create 
+sound that resembles the sound produced by a musical instrument. Many different 
+embellishments are possible; with static methods we can systematically apply them 
+to produce sound waves that are far more complicated than the simple sine waves 
+that we produced in Section 1.5. As an illustration of the effective use of static 
+methods to solve an interesting computational problem, we consider a program 
+that has essentially the same functionality as PlayThatTune (Program 1.5.7), but 
+adds harmonic tones one octave above and one octave below each note in order to 
+produce a more realistic sound. 
+
+Chords and harmonics. Notes like concert A have a pure sound that is not very 
+musical, because the sounds that you are accustomed to hearing have many other 
+components. The sound from the guitar 
+string echoes off the wooden part of the 
+instrument, the walls of the room that 
+you are in, and so forth. You may think 
+of such effects as modifying the basic 
+sine wave. For example, most musical 
+instruments produce harmonics (the 
+same note in different octaves and not 
+as loud), or you might play chords (mul- 
+tiple notes at the same time). To combine 
+multiple sounds, we use superposition : 
+simply add their waves together and res- 
+cale to make sure that all values stay be- 
+tween — 1 and + 1. As it turns out, when 
+we superpose sine waves of different frequencies in this way, we can get arbitrarily 
+complicated waves. Indeed, one of the triumphs of 19th century mathematics was 
+the development of the idea that any smooth periodic function can be expressed as 
+a sum of sine and cosine waves, known as a Fourier series. This mathematical idea 
+corresponds to the notion that we can create a large range of sounds with musical 
+instruments or our vocal chords and that all sound consists of a composition of 
+various oscillating curves. Any sound corresponds to a curve and any curve cor- 
+responds to a sound, and we can create arbitrarily complex curves with superposi- 
+tion. 
+
+
+A major chord 
+
+
+
+440.00 
+
+554.37 
+
+659.26 
+
+
+440.00 
+
+220.00 
+880.00 
+
+
+concert A with harmonics 
+
+
+Superposing waves to make composite sounds 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+203 
+
+
+Superposition. Since we represent sound waves by arrays of numbers that repre- 
+sent their values at the same sample points, superposition is simple to implement: 
+we add together their sample values at each sample point to produce the combined 
+result and then rescale. For greater control, we specify a relative weight for each of 
+the two waves to be added, with the property that the weights are positive and sum 
+to 1. For example, if we want the first sound to have three times the effect of the 
+second, we would assign the first a weight of .75 and the second a weight of .25. 
+Now, if one wave is in an array a [] with relative weight awt and the other is in an 
+array b[] with relative weight bwt, we compute their weighted sum with the fol- 
+lowing code: 
+
+double[] c = new double [a. length] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < a. length; i++) 
+c[i] = a[i]*awt + b[i]*bwt; 
+
+The conditions that the weights are positive and sum to 1 ensure that this opera- 
+tion preserves our convention of keeping the values of all of our waves between — 1 
+and +1. 
+
+
+
+lo = tone(220, .0041); 
+
+To [44] = .982 
+
+
+hi = tone(880, .0041); 
+
+hi [44] = -.693 
+
+
+h = sum(hi , lo, .5, . 5) ; 
+
+h[44] = . 5*lo[44]+.5*hi [44] ; 
+
+= . 5 *. 982 - .5*. 693 = .144 
+
+
+A = tone (440, .0041); 
+
+A [44] = .374 
+
+
+sum(A, h, .5, .5); 
+
+A[44] + h[44] = .S’*. 144 + .5*. 374 
+= .259 
+
+
+Adding harmonics to concert A (180 samples at 44,100 samples/sec) 
+
+
+
+204 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Program 2.1.4 is an implementation that applies these concepts to produce a more 
+realistic sound than that produced by Program 1.5.7. In order to do so, it makes use 
+of functions to divide the computation into four parts: 
+
+• Given a frequency and dura- 
+
+
+J 
+
+
+public class PlayThatTune 
+
+
+(r 
+
+
+(r 
+
+
+public static doublet] sum(double[] a, doublet] b, 
+double awt, double bwt) 
+
+{ 
+
+doublet] c => new doubleta. length] ; 
+for (int i o 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+c[i] = a[i]*awt + b[i]*bwt; 
+return c; 
+
+
+
+
+public static doublet] tonefdouble hz, double t) 
+
+{ 
+
+int sps « 44100; 
+int N = (int) (sps * t); 
+doublet] a = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+a[i] » Math. sin (2 * Math. PI * i * hz / sps); 
+return a; 
+
+> 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+public static doublet] note(int pitch, double t) 
+
+{ 
+
+double hz » 4 40.0 * Math.po w(2. pitch / 12.0); 
+doublet] a °(tone(hz, 
+
+
+ith.ppwC 
+doublet] hi a (tone(2*hz, t)Q - 
+
+
+tion, create a pure tone. 
+
+• Given two sound waves and 
+relative weight, superpose 
+them. 
+
+• Given a pitch and duration, 
+create a note with harmonics. 
+
+• Read and play a sequence of 
+pitch/duration pairs from 
+standard input. 
+
+These tasks are each amenable 
+to implementation as functions, 
+which depend on one another. 
+
+Each function is well-defined and 
+straightforward to implement. All 
+of them (and StdAudi o) represent 
+sound as a series of discrete values 
+kept in an array, corresponding to 
+sampling a sound wave at 44,100 
+samples per second. 
+
+Up to this point, the use of 
+functions has been somewhat of a 
+notational convenience. For exam- 
+ple, the control flow in Programs 
+2. 1.1-2. 1.3 is simple — each func- 
+tion is called in just one place in 
+the code. By contrast, PlayThat- 
+TuneDeluxe (Program 2.1.4) is a 
+convincing example of the effec- 
+tiveness of defining functions to or- 
+ganize a computation because the functions are each called multiple times. For ex- 
+ample, the function noteO calls the function tone() three times and the function 
+sum() twice. Without static methods, we would need multiple copies of the code in 
+
+
+
+
+Jle[] 
+
+
+lo 
+
+
+dou&le [] 
+
+
+° (tone (hz/2, t);} 
+° (sum (hi 
+
+
+lo, .5, .5) a - 
+
+
+
+
+return (sum(a, h, .5, .5);^) - 
+) 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+int pitch = Stdln.readlntO; 
+
+double durati on ° Stdln.readDoubleQ ; 
+
+double[] a °(note(pitch, duration)^) - 
+
+
+St dAudio.pl ay (a); 
+
+
+Flow of control among several static methods 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+205 
+
+
+
+
+Program 2.1.4 Play that Tune (revisited ) 
+
+
+public class PlayThatTuneDeluxe 
+
+{ 
+
+public static doublet] sum(double[] a, doublet] b, 
+
+double awt, double bwt) 
+{ // Superpose a and b, weighted, 
+
+doublet] c = new double [a. length] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+cti] = ati]*awt + b[i]*bwt; 
+return c; 
+
+} 
+
+public static doublet] tone (double hz, double t) 
+
+// see text 
+
+public static doublet] note (int pitch, double t) 
+
+{ // Play note of given pitch, with harmonics, 
+
+double hz = 440.0 * Math.pow(2, pitch / 12.0); 
+a = 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+doublet] 
+doublet] 
+doublet] 
+doublet] 
+return sum(a, 
+
+
+tone(hz, t); 
+hi = tone(2*hz, t); 
+lo = tone (hz/2, t); 
+h = sum(hi , lo, .5, 
+h, .5, .5); 
+
+
+• 5); 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(Stringt] args) 
+
+{ // Read and play a tune, with harmonics, 
+
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read and play a note, with harmonics 
+
+int pitch = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+double duration = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+doublet] a = note(pitch, duration); 
+StdAudio.pl ay (a) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This code embellishes the sounds produced by Program 1.5.7 by using static methods to create 
+harmonics, which results in a more realistic sound than the pure tone. 
+
+sli , . ® ' 1 jjjj| 
+
+
+% more elise.txt 
+7 .25 
+
+
+% java PlayThatTuneDeluxe < elise.txt 
+
+
+
+
+206 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+tone() and sum(); with static methods, we can deal directly with concepts close 
+to the application. As with loops, methods have a simple but profound effect: we 
+have one sequence of statements (those in the method definition) executed mul- 
+tiple times during the execution of our program — once for each time the method 
+is called in the control flow in mai n () . 
+
+Static methods are important because they give us the ability to extend the Java 
+language within a program. Having implemented and debugged static methods 
+such as sqrt(), phi(), Phi CD, mean(), abs(), exch(), shuffleO, isPrimeO, 
+H(), uniformO, sum(), note(), and tone(), we can use them almost as if they 
+were built into Java. The flexibility to do so opens up a whole new world of pro- 
+gramming. Before, you were safe in thinking about a Java program as a sequence of 
+statements. Now you need to think of a Java program as a set of static methods that 
+can call one another. The statement-to-statement control flow to which you have 
+been accustomed is still present within static methods, but programs have a higher- 
+level control flow defined by static method calls and returns. This ability enables 
+you to think in terms of operations called for by the application, not just the simple 
+arithmetic operations on primitive types that are built in to Java. 
+
+Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within programs, you should do so. The 
+examples in this section (and the programs throughout the rest of the book) clearly 
+illustrate the benefits of adhering to this maxim. With static methods, we can 
+
+• Divide a long sequence of statements into independent parts. 
+
+• Reuse code without having to copy it. 
+
+• Work with higher-level concepts (such as sound waves). 
+
+This produces code that is easier to understand, maintain, and debug than a long 
+program composed solely of Java assignment, conditional, and loop statements. In 
+the next section, we discuss the idea of using static methods defined in other pro- 
+grams, which again takes us to another level of programming. 
+
+
+
+2 . 7 Static methods 
+
+
+207 
+
+
+
+Q. Why do I need to use the return type voi d? Why not just omit the return type? 
+
+A. Java requires it; we have to include it. Second-guessing a decision made by a 
+programming-language designer is the first step on the road to becoming one. 
+
+Q. Can I return from a void function by using return? If so, what return value 
+should I use? 
+
+A. Yes. Use the statement return; with no return value. 
+
+Q. What happens if I leave out the keyword stati c? 
+
+A. As usual, the best way to answer a question like this is to try it yourself and see 
+what happens. Here is the result of omitting stati c for sqrt() in Newton: 
+
+Newton. java: 13: non-static method sqrt(double) 
+cannot be referenced from a static context 
+double x = sqrt(i); 
+
+A 
+
+1 error 
+
+Non-static methods are different from static methods. You will learn about the 
+former in Chapter 3. 
+
+Q. What happens if I write code after a return statement? 
+
+A. Once a return statement is reached, control immediately returns to the caller, 
+so any code after a return statement is useless. The Java compiler identifies this 
+situation as an error, reporting unreachabl e code . 
+
+Q. What happens if I do not include a return statement? 
+
+A. No problem, if the return type is voi d. In this case, control will return to the 
+caller after the last statement. When the return type is not voi d, the compiler will 
+report a mi ssi ng return statement error if there is any path through the code 
+that does not end in a return. 
+
+Q. This issue with side effects and arrays passed as arguments is confusing. Is it re- 
+ally all that important? 
+
+
+
+
+208 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+A. Yes. Properly controlling side effects is one of a programmer’s most important 
+tasks in large systems. Taking the time to be sure that you understand the difference 
+between passing a value (when arguments are of a primitive type) and passing a 
+reference (when arguments are arrays) will certainly be worthwhile. The very same 
+mechanism is used for all other types of data, as you will learn in Chapter 3. 
+
+Q. So why not just eliminate the possibility of side effects by making all arguments 
+pass-by-value, including arrays? 
+
+A. Think of a huge array with, say, millions of elements. Does it make sense to 
+copy all of those values for a static method that is just going to exchange two of 
+them? For this reason, most programming languages support passing an array to a 
+function without creating a copy of the array elements — Matlab is a notable excep- 
+tion. 
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+209 
+
+
+
+2.1.1 Write a static method max3 0 that takes three i nt values as arguments and 
+returns the value of the largest one. Add an overloaded function that does the same 
+thing with three doubl e values. 
+
+2.1.2 Write a static method odd() that takes three bool ean inputs and returns 
+true if an odd number of inputs are true, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+2.1.3 Write a static method majori ty () that takes three bool ean arguments and 
+returns true if at least two of the arguments have the value true, and fal se other- 
+wise. Do not use an i f statement. 
+
+2.1.4 Write a static method eq() that takes two arrays of integers as arguments 
+and returns true if they contain the same number of elements and all correspond- 
+ing pairs of elements are equal. 
+
+2.1.5 Write a static method areT ri angul ar () that takes three doubl e values as 
+arguments and returns true if they could be the sides of a triangle (none of them 
+is greater than or equal to the sum of the other two). See Exercise 1.2.15. 
+
+2.1.6 Write a static method si gmoi d () that takes a doubl e argument x and re- 
+turns the doubl e value obtained from the formula 1/(1 — e~ x ). 
+
+2.1.7 If the argument of sqrt() in Newton (Program 2.1.1) has the value Infi n- 
+ity, then Newton. sqrt() returns the value Infinity, as desired. Explain why. 
+
+2.1.8 Add a method abs() to Newton (Program 2.1.1), change sqrtO to use 
+abs () instead of Math . abs () , and add print statements to produce a function call 
+trace, as described in the text. Hint: You need to add an argument to each function 
+to give the level of indentation. 
+
+2.1.9 Give the function call trace for java Newton 4.0 9.0. 
+
+2.1.10 Write a static method lg() that takes a double value N as argument and 
+returns the base 2 logarithm of N. You may use Java’s Math library. 
+
+2.1.11 Write a static method lg() that takes an i nt value N as argument and re- 
+turns the largest i nt not larger than the base-2 logarithm of N. Do not use Math. 
+
+
+210 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2 . 1.12 Write a static method si gnum() that takes an i nt value N as argument and 
+returns -1 if N is less than 0, 0 if N is equal to 0, and +1 if N is greater than 0. 
+
+2 . 1.13 Consider the static method dupl i cate () below. 
+
+public static String duplicate(String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+String t = s + s; 
+return t; 
+
+} 
+
+What does the following code fragment do? 
+
+String s = "Hello"; 
+s = dupl i cate (s) ; 
+
+String t = "Bye"; 
+
+t = duplicate(duplicate(duplicate(t))) ; 
+
+StdOut.println(s + t) ; 
+
+2 . 1.14 Consider the static method cube() below. 
+
+public static void cubefint i) 
+
+{ 
+
+i = i * i * i ; 
+
+} 
+
+How many times is the following for loop iterated? 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) 
+cube(i) ; 
+
+Answer : Just 1,000 times. A call to cubeO has no effect on client code. It changes 
+the value of its local argument variable i , but that change has no effect on the i in 
+the for loop, which is a different variable. If you replace the call to cube(i) with 
+the statement i = i * i * i ; (maybe that was what you were thinking), then 
+the loop is iterated five times, with i taking on the values 0, 1, 2, 9, and 730 at the 
+beginning of the five iterations. 
+
+2 . 1.15 The following checksum formula is widely used by banks and credit card 
+
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+211 
+
+
+
+companies to validate legal account numbers: 
+
+d 0 + f(d x ) + d 2 + f(d 3 ) + d 4 + f(d 5 ) + . . . =0 (mod 10) 
+
+The dj are the decimal digits of the account number and /(d) is the sum of the 
+decimal digits of 2d (for example, /( 7) = 5 because 2X7 = 14 and 1+ 4 = 5). For 
+example 17327 is valid because 1+5+3+4+7=20, which is a multiple of 10. Imple- 
+ment the function /and write a program to take a 10-digit integer as a command- 
+line argument and print a valid 11 -digit number with the given integer as its first 
+10 digits and the checksum as the last digit. 
+
+2 . 1.16 Given two stars with angles of declination and right ascension ( d x , a x ) and 
+(d 2 , a 2 ), the angle they subtend is given by the formula 
+
+2 arcsin((sin 2 (d/2) + cos (d 1 )cos(d 2 )sin 2 (fl/2)) 1/2 ), 
+
+where a x and a 2 are angles between — 180 and 180 degrees, d x and d 2 are angles be- 
+tween —90 and 90 degrees, a = a 2 — a x , and d = d 2 — d x . Write a program to take the 
+declination and right ascension of two stars as command-line arguments and print 
+the angle they subtend. Hint : Be careful about converting from degrees to radians. 
+
+2 . 1.17 Write a readBoolean2D() method that reads a two-dimensional boolean 
+matrix (with dimensions) into an array. 
+
+Solution : The body of the method is virtually the same as for the corresponding 
+method given in the table in the text for 2D arrays of doubl e values: 
+
+public static boolean[][] readBoolean2D() 
+
+{ 
+
+int M = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+boolean[][] a = new boolean[M] [N] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+a[i][j] = Stdln. readBooleanO; 
+return a; 
+
+> 
+
+Note that Stdln accepts 0 and 1 as boolean values in the input stream. 
+
+2 . 1.18 Write a method that takes an array of doubl e values as argument and re- 
+
+
+
+212 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+scales the array so that each element is between 0 and 1 (by subtracting the mini- 
+mum value from each element and then dividing each element by the difference 
+between the minimum and maximum values). Use the max() method defined in 
+the table in the text, and write and use a matching mi n () method. 
+
+2.1.19 Write a method hi stogramO that takes an array a[] of i nt values and an 
+integer M as argument and returns an array of length M whose i th entry is the num- 
+ber of times the integer i appeared in the argument array. If the values in a[] are 
+all between 0 and M-l, the sum of the values in the returned array should be equal 
+to a. length. 
+
+2.1.20 Assemble code fragments in this section and in Section 1.4 to develop a 
+program that takes N from the command line and prints N five-card hands, sepa- 
+rated by blank lines, drawn from a randomly shuffled card deck, one card per line 
+using card names like Ace of Clubs. 
+
+2.1.21 Write a method mul ti pi y () that takes two square matrices of the same 
+dimension as arguments and produces their product (another square matrix of that 
+same dimension). Extra credit : Make your program work whenever the number of 
+rows in the first matrix is equal to the number of columns in the second matrix. 
+
+2.1.22 Write a method any () that takes an array of bool ean values as argument 
+and returns true if any of the entries in the array is true, and false otherwise. 
+Write a method al 1 () that takes an array of bool ean values as argument and re- 
+turns true if all of the entries in the array are true, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+2.1.23 Develop a version of getCouponO that better models the situation when 
+one of the coupons is rare: choose one value at random, return that value with 
+probability Nil 000, and return all other values with equal probability. Extra credit : 
+How does this change affect the average value of the coupon collector function? 
+
+2.1.24 Modify PI ayThatT une to add harmonics two octaves away from each note, 
+with half the weight of the one-octave harmonics. 
+
+
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+213 
+
+
+
+2.1.25 Birthday problem. Develop a class with appropriate static methods for 
+studying the birthday problem (see Exercise 1.4.35). 
+
+2.1.26 Euler’s totient function. Euler’s totient function is an important function 
+in number theory: <p («) is defined as the number of positive integers less than or 
+equal to n that are relatively prime with n (no factors in common with n other than 
+1). Write a class with a function that takes an integer argument n and returns <p(n), 
+and a mai n () that takes an integer from the command line, calls the function, and 
+prints the result. 
+
+2.1.27 Harmonic numbers. Write a program Harmoni c that contains three static 
+methods H(), HsmallO, and HlargeO for computing the Harmonic numbers. 
+The Hsmall () method should just compute the sum (as in Program 1.3.5), the 
+HlargeO method should use the approximation H N = log e (N) + 7 + 1/(2 N) — 
+1/(12 N 2 ) + 1/(120 N 4 ) (the number 7 = .577215664901532... is known as Euler’s 
+constant ), and the HO method should call Hsmall () for N < 100 and HlargeO 
+otherwise. 
+
+2.1.28 Gaussian random values. Experiment with the following method for gen- 
+erating random variables from the Gaussian distribution, which is based on gener- 
+ating a random point in the unit circle and using a form of the Box-Muller formula 
+(see Exercise 1.2.27 and the discussion of do-whi 1 e at the end of Section 1.3). 
+
+public static double gaussianO 
+
+{ 
+
+double r, x, y; 
+do 
+{ 
+
+x = uniform(-1.0, 1.0); 
+y = uniform(-1.0, 1.0); 
+r = x*x + y*y; 
+
+} while (r >= 1 j | r == 0); 
+
+return x * Math.sqrt(-2 * Math.log(r) / r); 
+
+} 
+
+Take a command-line argument N and generate N random numbers, using an array 
+a [20] to count the numbers generated that fall between i * . 05 and (i +1) * . 05 for 
+
+
+214 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+i from 0 to 19. Then use StdDraw to plot the values and to compare your result 
+with the normal bell curve. 
+
+2 . 1.29 Binary search. A general method that we study in detail in Section 4.2 is 
+effective for computing the inverse of a cumulative probability density function like 
+Phi (). Such functions are continuous and nondecreasing from (0,0) to (1,1). To 
+find the value x 0 for which f(x 0 ) = y Q , check the value of/(.5). If it is greater than y 0 , 
+then x 0 must be between 0 and .5; otherwise, it must be between .5 and 1 . Either way, 
+we halve the length of the interval known to contain x 0 . Iterating, we can compute 
+x 0 to within a given tolerance. Add a method Phi InverseO to Gaussi an that uses 
+binary search to compute the inverse. Change mai n () to take a number p between 
+0 and 100 as a third command-line argument and print the minimum score that a 
+student would need to be in the top p percent of students taking the SAT in a year 
+when the mean and standard deviation were the first two command-line argu- 
+ments. 
+
+2 . 1.30 Black-Scholes option valuation. The Black-Scholes formula supplies the 
+theoretical value of a European call option on a stock that pays no dividends, given 
+the current stock price s, the exercise price x, the continuously compounded risk- 
+free interest rate r, the standard deviation cr of the stock’s return (volatility), and the 
+time (in years) to maturity t. The value is given by the formula s <£(a) - xe ~ rt< i>(b), 
+where <J>(z) is the Gaussian cumulative distribution function, a = (ln(s/x) + 
+(r + a 2 / 2) t ) / (oft), and b = a- oft. Write a program that takes s, x, r, si gma, and 
+t from the command line and prints the Black-Scholes value. 
+
+2 . 1 .3 1 Implied volatility. Typically the volatility is the unknown value in the Black- 
+Scholes formula. Write a program that reads s, x, r, t, and the current price of the 
+European call option from the command line and uses binary search (see Exercise 
+2.1.29) to compute o. 
+
+2 . 1.32 Horner s method. WriteaclassHornerwithamethoddouble eval (double 
+x , doubl e [] p) that evaluates the polynomial p(x) whose coefficients are the en- 
+tries in p[]: 
+
+Po + Pi* 1 + p2* 2 + • • • + Pn— 2* N-2 + Pn- 1* N_1 
+
+
+2. 1 Static methods 
+
+
+215 
+
+
+
+Use Horner’s method, an efficient way to perform the computations that is sug- 
+gested by the following parenthesization: 
+
+Po + X ( Pi X (p2 + 4 • • X (Pn-2 +X Pn-i)) • • • ) 
+
+Write a test client with a static method exp() that uses Horner . eval () to compute 
+an approximation to e x , using the first N terms of the Taylor series expansion e x = l 
++ x + x 2 /2\ + x 3 /3! + .... Take an argument x from the command-line, and compare 
+your result against that computed by Math . exp (x) . 
+
+2 . 1.33 Benford’s law. The American astronomer Simon Newcomb observed a 
+quirk in a book that compiled logarithm tables: the beginning pages were much 
+grubbier than the ending pages. He suspected that scientists performed more com- 
+putations with numbers starting with 1 than with 8 or 9, and postulated the first 
+digit law, which says that under general circumstances, the leading digit is much 
+more likely to be 1 (roughly 30%) than the digit 9 (less than 4%). This phenomenon 
+is known as Benford’s law and is now often used as a statistical test. For example, IRS 
+forensic accountants rely on it to discover tax fraud. Write a program that reads in a 
+sequence of integers from standard input and tabulates the number of times each of 
+the digits 1-9 is the leading digit, breaking the computation into a set of appropri- 
+ate static methods. Use your program to test the law on some tables of information 
+from your computer or from the web. Then, write a program to foil the IRS by 
+generating random amounts from $1.00 to $1,000.00 with the same distribution 
+that you observed. 
+
+2 . 1.34 Binomial distribution. Write a function 
+
+public static double binomial(int N, int k, double p) 
+
+to compute the probability of obtaining exactly k heads in N biased coin flips (heads 
+with probability p) using the formula 
+
+f(N, k,p) = pKl-p) N ~ k M/(k\(N-k)\). 
+
+Hint: To stave off overflow, compute x = In f(N, k, p) and then return e*. In mai n () , 
+take N and p from the command line and check that the sum over all values of k 
+between 0 and N is (approximately) 1. Also, compare every value computed with 
+the normal approximation 
+
+
+216 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+0 II 
+
+1 ii 
+
+2 i 
+
+3 l; 
+
+4 i 
+
+5 i 
+
+6 i 
+
+7 I 
+
+8 I 
+
+9 I 
+
+
+f(N,k,p) ~ <$>(Np,Np(l—p)) 
+
+(see Exercise 2.2.1). 
+
+2.1.35 Coupon collecting from a binomial distribution. Develop a version of get- 
+Coupon () that uses bi nomi al () from the previous exercise to return coupon values 
+according to the binomial distribution with p = 1/2. Hint: Generate a uniformly 
+distributed random number x between 0 and 1, then return the smallest value of 
+k for which the sum oif(N,j,p ) for all j<k exceeds x. Extra credit: Develop a hy- 
+pothesis for describing the behavior of the coupon collector function under this 
+assumption. 
+
+2.1.36 Chords. Develop a version of PlayThatTune that can handle songs with 
+chords (including harmonics). Develop an input format that allows you to specify 
+different durations for each chord and different amplitude weights for each note 
+within a chord. Create test files that exercise your program with various chords and 
+harmonics, and create a version of Fur Elise that uses them. 
+
+
+2.1.37 Postal bar codes. The barcode used by the 08540 llliiiliiliililiiliilllnilmll^ 
+U.S. Postal System to route mail is defined as follows: &u J d 0 8 5 4 0 7 ^ 
+
+Each decimal digit in the zip code is encoded using mil checksum 
+
+a sequence of three half-height and two full-height d,gn 
+
+bars. The barcode starts and ends with a full-height 
+
+bar (the guard rail) and includes a checksum digit (after the five-digit zip code or 
+ZIP+4), computed by summing up the original digits modulo 10. Implement the 
+following functions 
+
+• Draw a half-height or full-height bar on StdDraw. 
+
+• Given a digit, draw its sequence of bars. 
+
+• Compute the checksum digit. 
+
+and a test client that reads in a five- (or nine-) digit zip code as the command-line 
+argument and draws the corresponding postal bar code. 
+
+
+2.1.38 Calendar. Write a program Cal endar that takes two command-line argu- 
+ments M and Y and prints out the monthly calendar for the Mth month of year Y, as 
+in this example: 
+
+
+2.1 Static methods 
+
+
+217 
+
+
+
+% java Calendar 2 2009 
+February 2009 
+S M Tu W Th F S 
+
+1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
+
+8 9 10 11 12 13 14 
+
+15 16 17 18 19 20 21 
+
+22 23 24 25 26 27 28 
+
+Hint. See LeapYear (Program 1.2.4) and Exercise 1.2.29. 
+
+2 . 1.39 Fourier spikes. Write a program that takes a command-line argument N 
+and plots the function 
+
+(cos (f) + cos(2 1 ) + cos(3 1) +... + cos (Nt)) / N 
+
+for 500 equally spaced samples of t from — 10 to 10 (in radians). Run your program 
+for N = 5 and N = 500. Note: You will observe that the sum converges to a spike 
+(0 everywhere except a single value). This property is the basis for a proof that any 
+smooth function can be expressed as a sum of sinusoids. 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+2 . 2.1 
+
+2 . 2.2 
+
+2.2.3 
+
+2.2.4 
+
+2.2.5 
+
+2.2.6 
+
+
+Random number library 226 
+
+Array I/O library. . . . . 230 
+
+Iterated function systems 233 
+
+Data analysis library 237 
+
+Plotting data values in an array. . .239 
+Bernoulli trials 242 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+Each program that you have written consists of Java code that resides in a single 
+.java file. For large programs, keeping all the code in a single file in this way is 
+restrictive and unnecessary. Fortunately, 
+it is very easy in Java to refer to a method 
+in one file that is defined in another. This 
+ability has two important consequences 
+on our style of programming. 
+
+First, it enables code reuse. One pro- 
+gram can make use of code that is already 
+written and debugged, not by copying the 
+code, but just by referring to it. This abil- 
+ity to define code that can be reused is an essential part of modern programming. It 
+amounts to extending Java — you can define and use your own operations on data. 
+
+Second, it enables modular programming. You can not only divide a program 
+up into static methods, as just described in Section 2.1, but also keep them in dif- 
+ferent files, grouped together according to the needs of the application. Modular 
+progr ammin g is important because it allows us to independently develop, compile, 
+and debug parts of big programs one piece at a time, leaving each finished piece in 
+its own file for later use without having to worry about its details again. We develop 
+libraries of static methods for use by any other program, keeping each library in 
+its own file and using its methods in any other program. Java’s Math library and 
+our Std* libraries for input/output are examples that you have already used. More 
+important, you will soon see that it is very easy to define libraries of your own. The 
+ability to define libraries and then to use them in multiple programs is a critical 
+ingredient in our ability to build programs to address complex tasks. 
+
+Having just moved in Section 2.1 from thinking of a Java program as a se- 
+quence of statements to thinking of a Java program as a class comprising a set of 
+methods (one of which is mai n()), you will be ready after this section to think of 
+a Java program as a set of classes, each of which is an independent module consist- 
+ing of a set of methods. Since each method can call a method in another class, all 
+of your code can interact as a network of methods that call one another, grouped 
+together in classes. With this capability, you can start to think about managing 
+complexity when programming by breaking up programming tasks into classes 
+that can be implemented and tested independently. 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+219 
+
+
+Using static methods in other programs To refer to a static method in one 
+class that is defined in another, we use the same mechanism that we have been us- 
+ing to invoke methods such as StdOut . pri ntf () and StdAudi o . pi ay(): 
+
+• Keep both classes in the same directory in your computer. 
+
+• To call a method, prepend its class name and a period separator. 
+
+For example, consider Gaussian (Program 2.1.2). The definition of one of its 
+methods requires the square root function. For purposes of illustration, suppose 
+that we wish to use the sqrt() implementation from Newton (Program 2.1.1). All 
+that we need to do is to keep Gaussi an . j ava in the same directory as Newton . j ava 
+and prepend the class name when calling sqrtQ. If we want to use the standard 
+
+
+SATmy Year. java 
+
+
+
+public class SATmyYear 
+
+
+Gaussian. java 
+public class Gaussian 
+
+
+double z = Doubl e . parseDoubl e (args [0] ) ; 
+double v = (Gaussian. Phi ((z - 1019)/209) 
+
+
+public static double Phi (double z) 
+
+
+StdOut. println(v) 
+
+
+if (z < -8.0) return 0.0; 
+
+if (z > 8.0) return 1.0; 
+
+double sum = 0.0, term = z; 
+
+for (int i = 3; sum != sum + term; i += 2) 
+
+
+Newton . j ava 
+
+public class Newton 
+
+
+sum = sum + term 
+term = term * z * 
+
+
+public static double sqrt (double c) 
+
+
+return 0.5 + 
+
+
+if (c < 0) return Doubl e.NaN; 
+double err = le-15; 
+double t = c; 
+
+while (Math.abs(t - c/t) > err * t) 
+t = (c/t + t) / 2.0; 
+return t; 
+
+
+return Math.exp(-x*x/2! 
+
+
+Newton . sqrt (2*Math . PI) 
+
+
+pub! i c stati c voi d mai n (St ri ng Q args) 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double z = Double. parseDoubl a (args E0]) 
+double mu = Doubl e.parseDoiible (args [1]) 
+doubl e si gma = Doubl e . parseDoubl e (args [2]) 
+StdOut. pri ntln (Phi ((z - mu) / sigma)); 
+
+} ' 
+
+
+doublet] a = new doubl e [args. 1 ength] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < args. 1 ength ;i++) 
+a[i] = Double. parseDouble (args [i]) 
+for (int i =0; i < ai length; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double x = sqrt(a[i]); 
+
+StdOut .pri ntln(x); 
+
+
+A modular program 
+
+
+
+220 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Java implementation, we call Math . sqrt(); if we want to use our own implemen- 
+tation, we call Newton. sqrt(). Moreover, any other class in that directory can 
+make use of the methods defined in Gaussian, by calling Gaussian. phi 0 or 
+Gaussi an . Phi (). For example, we might wish to have a simple client SATmyYear . 
+java that takes a value z from the command line and prints 4>((z— 1019) /209), so 
+that we do not need to type in the mean and standard deviation each time we want 
+to know the percentage scoring less than a given value for a certain year. The files 
+Gaussian, java, Newton, java, and SATmyYear. java implement Java classes that 
+interact with one another: SATmyYear calls a method in Gaussi an, which calls a 
+method that calls a method in Newton. 
+
+The potential effect of programming by defining multiple files, each an inde- 
+pendent class with multiple methods, is another profound change in our program- 
+ming style. Generally, we refer to this approach as modular programming. We inde- 
+pendently develop and debug methods for an application and then utilize them at 
+any later time. In this section, we will consider numerous illustrative examples to 
+help you get used to the idea. However, there are several details about the process 
+that we need to discuss before considering more examples. 
+
+The public keyword. We have been identifying every method as public since 
+Hel 1 oWorl d. This modifier identifies the method as available for use by any other 
+program with access to the file. You can also identify methods as private (and 
+there are a few other categories), but you have no reason to do so at this point. We 
+will discuss various options in Section 3.3. 
+
+Each module is a cl ass. We use the term module to refer to all the code that we 
+keep in a single file. In Java, by convention, each module is a Java cl ass that is kept 
+in a file with the same name of the class but has a .java extension. In this chapter, 
+each class is merely a set of static methods (one of which is mainO). You will 
+learn much more about the general structure of the Java cl ass in Chapter 3. 
+
+The .class file. When you compile the program (by typing javac followed by 
+the class name), the Java compiler makes a file with the class name followed by 
+a . cl ass extension that has the code of your program in a language more suited 
+to your computer. If you have a . cl ass file, you can use the module’s methods in 
+another program even without having the source code in the corresponding . java 
+file (but you are on your own if you discover a bug!). 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+221 
+
+
+Compile when necessary. When you compile a program, the Java compiler will 
+compile everything that needs to be compiled in order to run that program. If you 
+call Newton . sqrtO in Caussi an, then, when you type javac Gaussi an .java, the 
+compiler will also check whether you modified Newton .java since the last time it 
+was compiled (by checking the time it was last changed against the time Newton . 
+cl ass was created). If so, it will also compile Newton! If you think about this policy, 
+you will agree that it is actually quite helpful. If you find a bug in Newton (and fix 
+it), you want all the classes that call Newton . sqrtO to use the new version. 
+
+Multiple main methods. Another subtle point is to note that more than one class 
+might have a mai n() method. In our example, SATmyYear, Newton and Gaussi an 
+each have mai n () methods. If you recall the rule for executing a program, you will 
+see that there is no confusion: when you type java followed by a class name, Java 
+transfers control to the machine code corresponding to the mai n() static method 
+defined in that class. Typically, we put a mai n () static method in every class, to test 
+and debug its methods. When we want to run SATmyYear, we type java SATmy- 
+Year; when we want to debug Newton or Gaussian, we type java Newton or java 
+Gaussian (with appropriate command-line arguments). 
+
+If you think of each program that you write as something that you might want to 
+make use of later, you will soon find yourself with all sorts of useful tools. Modular 
+programming allows us to view every solution to a computational problem that we 
+may develop as adding value to our computational environment. 
+
+For example, suppose that you need to evaluate $ for some future applica- 
+tion. Why not just cut and paste the code that implements Phi () from Gaussi an? 
+That would work, but would leave you with two copies of the code, making it more 
+difficult to maintain. If you later want to fix or improve it, you would need to do so 
+in both copies. Instead, you can just call Gaussi an . Phi (). Our implementations 
+and uses of them are soon going to proliferate, so having just one copy of each is a 
+worthy goal. 
+
+From this point forward, you should write every program by identifying a 
+reasonable way to divide the computation into separate parts of a manageable size 
+and implementing each part as if someone will want to use it later. Most frequently, 
+that someone will be you, and you will have yourself to thank for saving the effort 
+of rewriting and re-debugging code. 
+
+
+
+222 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Libraries We refer to a module whose methods are primarily intended for use 
+by many other programs as a library. One of the most important characteristics of 
+programming in Java is that many, many methods have been predefined for you, in 
+literally thousands of Java libraries that are available for your use. We reveal infor- 
+mation about those that might be of interest to 
+you throughout the book, but we will postpone 
+a detailed discussion of the scope of Java librar- 
+ies until the end of the book, because many of 
+them are designed for use by experienced pro- 
+grammers. Instead, we focus in this chapter 
+on the even more important idea that we can 
+build user-defined libraries, which are nothing 
+more than classes that each contain a set of re- 
+lated methods for use by other programs. No 
+Java library can contain all the methods that 
+we might need for a given computation, so this 
+ability is a crucial step in addressing complex 
+programming applications. 
+
+Clients. We use the term client to refer to 
+the program that calls a given method. When 
+a class contains a method that is a client of a 
+method in another class, we say that the first 
+class is a client of the second class. In our ex- 
+ample, Caussi an is a client of Newton. A given 
+class might have multiple clients. For example, 
+all of the programs that you have written that 
+call Math . sqrt() or Math . randomO are Math clients. When you implement a new 
+static method or a new class, you need to have a very clear of idea of what it is going 
+to do for its clients. 
+
+APIs. Programmers normally think in terms of a contract between the client and 
+the implementation that is a clear specification of what the method is to do. When 
+you are writing both clients and implementations, you are making contracts with 
+yourself, which by itself is helpful because it provides extra help in debugging. More 
+important, this approach enables code reuse. You have been able to write programs 
+
+
+client 
+
+
+
+calls methods 
+
+
+API 
+
+
+public class Gaussian 
+
+
+double phi (double x) <j>(x) 
+double Phi (double z) 
+
+
+defines signatures 
+and describes methods 
+
+
+implementation 
+
+
+
+Java code that 
+implements methods 
+
+
+Library abstraction 
+
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+223 
+
+
+that are clients of Std* and Math and other built-in Java classes because of an in- 
+formal contract (an English-language description of what they are supposed to do) 
+along with a precise specification of the signatures of the methods that are avail- 
+able for use. Collectively, this information is known as an application programming 
+interface (API). This same mechanism is effective for user-defined libraries. The 
+API allows any client to use the library without having to examine the code in the 
+implementation, just as you have been doing for Math and Std*. The guiding prin- 
+ciple in API design is to provide to clients the methods they need and no others. An 
+API with a huge number of methods may be a burden to implement; an API that is 
+lacking important methods may be unnecessarily inconvenient for clients. 
+
+Implementations. We use the term implementation to describe the Java code that 
+implements the methods in an API, kept by convention in a file with the library 
+name and a .java extension. Every Java program is an implementation of some 
+API, and no API is of any use without some implementation. Our goal when de- 
+veloping an implementation is to honor the terms of the contract. Often, there are 
+many ways to do so, and separating client code from implementation code gives us 
+the freedom to substitute new and improved implementations. 
+
+For example, consider the Gaussian distribution functions. These do not appear in 
+Java’s Math library but are important in applications, so it is worthwhile for us to 
+put them in a library for use by future client programs and to articulate this API: 
+
+public class Gaussian 
+
+
+double 
+
+phi (double x) 
+
+
+<!>M 
+
+double 
+
+phi (double x, 
+
+double m, double s) 
+
+<!>(*> |X, a) 
+
+double 
+
+Phi (double z) 
+
+
+®(z) 
+
+double 
+
+Phi (double z, 
+
+double m, double s) 
+
+<E>(z, |x, a) 
+
+
+API for our library of static methods for <b and <I> 
+
+
+Implementing these four static methods is straightforward from the code in Gauss- 
+ian (Program 2.1.2) — see Exercise 2.2.1. Adding the three-argument versions of 
+phi () and Phi () to the Gaussian library saves us from having to worry about 
+those cases later on. 
+
+
+
+224 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+How much information should an API contain? This is a gray area and a hotly 
+debated issue among programmers and computer-science educators. We might try 
+to put as much information as possible in the API, but (as with any contract!) there 
+are limits to the amount of information that we can productively include. In this 
+book, we stick to a principle that parallels our guiding design principle: provide 
+to client programmers the information they need and no more. Doing so gives us 
+vastly more flexibility than the alternative of providing detailed information about 
+implementations. Indeed, any extra information amounts to implicitly extending 
+the contract, which is undesirable. Many programmers fall into the bad habit of 
+checking implementation code to try to understand what it does. Doing so might 
+lead to client code that depends on behavior not specified in the API, which would 
+not work with a new implementation. Implementations change more often than 
+you might think. For example, each new release of Java contains many new imple- 
+mentations of library functions. 
+
+Often, the implementation comes first. You might have a working module 
+that you later decide might be useful for some task, and you can just start using 
+its methods in other programs. In such a situation, it is wise to carefully articulate 
+the API at some point. The methods may not have been designed for reuse, so it is 
+worthwhile to use an API to do such a design (as we did for Caussi an). 
+
+The remainder of this section is devoted to several examples of libraries and 
+clients. Our purpose in considering these libraries is twofold. First, they provide 
+a richer programming environment for your use as you develop increasingly so- 
+phisticated client programs of your own. Second, they serve as examples for you to 
+study as you begin to develop libraries for your own use. 
+
+Random numbers We have written several programs that use Math . random 0 , 
+but our code often uses particular idioms that convert the random doubl e values 
+between 0 and 1 that Math, random () provides to the type of random numbers 
+that we want to use (random bool ean values or random i nt values in a specified 
+range, for example). To effectively reuse our code that implements these idioms, 
+we will, from now on, use the StdRandom library in Program 2.2.1. StdRandom uses 
+overloading to generate random numbers from various distributions. You can use 
+any of them in the same way that you use our standard I/O libraries (download 
+StdRandom . j ava and keep it in a directory with your client programs, or use your 
+operating system’s classpath mechanism). As usual, we summarize the methods in 
+our StdRandom library with an API: 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+225 
+
+
+public class StdRandom 
+int uniform(int N) 
+double uniform(double lo, double hi) 
+bool ean bernoul 1 i (doubl e p) 
+double gaussianO 
+
+double gaussian(double m, double s) 
+int discrete(double[] a) 
+void shuffle(double[] a) 
+
+
+integer between 0 and N-l 
+
+real between 1 o and hi 
+
+true with probability p 
+
+normal mean 0, standard deviation 1 
+
+normal mean m, standard deviation s 
+
+i with probability a [i ] 
+
+randomly shuffle the array a [] 
+
+
+API for our library of static methods for random numbers 
+
+
+These methods are sufficiently familiar that the short descriptions in the API suf- 
+fice to specify what they do. By collecting all of these methods that use Math . ran- 
+dom() to generate random numbers of various types in one file (StdRandom . j ava), 
+we concentrate our attention on generating random numbers to this one file (and 
+reuse the code in that file) instead of spreading them through every program that 
+uses these methods. Moreover, each program that uses one of these methods is 
+more clear than code that calls Math. random () directly, because its purpose for 
+using Math . random () is clearly articulated by the choice of method from Std- 
+Random. 
+
+API design. We make certain assumptions about the values passed to each meth- 
+od in StdRandom. For example, we assume that clients will call uniform(N) only 
+for positive integers N, bernoulli (p) only for p between 0 and 1, and discrete () 
+only for an array whose entries are between 0 and 1 and sum to 1. All of these as- 
+sumptions are part of the contract between the client and the implementation. 
+We strive to design libraries such that the contract is clear and unambiguous and 
+to avoid getting bogged down with details. As with many tasks in programming, 
+a good API design is often the result of several iterations of trying and living with 
+various possibilities. We always take special care in designing APIs, because when 
+we change an API we might have to change all clients and all implementations. Our 
+goal is to articulate what clients are to expect separate from the code in the API. This 
+practice frees us to change the code, and perhaps to use an implementation that 
+achieves the desired effect more efficiently or with more accuracy. 
+
+
+
+226 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+, —JAXX — . - js .... . - ‘ 
+
+
+B| Program 2.2.1 Random number library 
+
+
+
+
+public class StdRandom 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int uniform(int N) 
+
+{ return (int) (Math. random () * N); 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static double uniform(double lo, double hi) 
+{ return lo + Math. random () * (hi - lo); } 
+
+public static boolean bernoulli (double p) 
+
+{ return Math. random () < p; } 
+
+public static double gaussian() 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 2.1.28. */ } 
+
+public static double gaussian(double m, double s) 
+
+{ return m + s * gaussianO; } 
+
+public static int discrete(double[] a) 
+
+{ // See Program 1.6.2. 
+
+double r = uniform(0.0, 1.0); 
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+sum += a[i] ; 
+
+if (sum > r) return i; 
+
+} 
+
+return a. length - 1; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void shuffle(double[] a) 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 2.2.4. */ } 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ /* See text. */ } 
+
+
+This is a library of methods to compute various types of random numbers: random non- 
+negative integer less than a given value, uniformly distributed in a given range, random bit 
+(Bernoulli), Gaussian, Gaussian with given mean and standard deviation, and distributed 
+according to a given discrete distribution. 
+
+
+
+
+
+% java StdRandom 5 
+90 26.36076 false 8.79269 
+18.02210 false 9.03992 
+56.41176 true 
+
+
+8.80501 
+
+
+13 
+58 
+
+29 16.68454 false 8.90827 
+85 86.24712 true 8.95228 
+
+
+• --■/ - | ip , : i i 
+
+•• 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+227 
+
+
+Unit testing. Even though we implement StdRandom without reference to any 
+particular client, it is good programming practice to include a test client mai n () 
+that, although not used when a client class uses the library, is helpful for use when 
+debugging and testing the methods in the library. Whenever you create a library, you 
+should include a mai n() method for unit testing and debugging. Proper unit testing 
+can be a significant programming challenge in itself (for example, the best way of 
+testing whether the methods in StdRandom produce numbers that have the same 
+characteristics as truly random numbers is still debated by experts). At a minimum, 
+you should always include a mai n () method that 
+
+• Exercises all the code 
+
+• Provides some assurance that the code is working 
+
+• Takes an argument from the command line to allow more testing 
+
+Then, you should refine that mai n() method to do more exhaustive testing as you 
+use the library more extensively. For example, we might start with the following 
+code for StdRandom (leaving the testing of shuffleQ for an exercise): 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+doublet] t = { .5, .3, .1, .1 }; 
+
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; 
+
+{ 
+
+StdOut.printf (" %2d 
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%8 . 5f 
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%5b " 
+StdOut. pri ntf ("%7.5f 
+StdOut. pri ntf ("%2d ’’ 
+StdOut. pri ntln() ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+++) 
+
+, uniform(lOO)) ; 
+
+, uniform(10.0, 99.0)); 
+, bernoulli (. 5)) ; 
+
+, gaussian(9.0, .2)); 
+
+, discrete(t)) ; 
+
+
+When we include this code in StdRandom. java and invoke this method as illus- 
+trated in Program 2.2.1, the output carries no surprises: the integers in the first 
+column might be equally likely to be any value from 0 to 99; the numbers in the 
+second column might be uniformly spread between 10 . 0 and 99 . 0; about half of 
+the values in the third column are true; the numbers in the fourth column seem to 
+average about 9 . 0, and seem unlikely to be too far from 9 . 0; and the last column 
+seems to be not far from 50% 0s, 30% Is, 10% 2s, and 10% 3s. If something seems 
+amiss in one of the columns, we can type java StdRandom 10 or 100 to see many 
+
+
+
+228 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+more results. In this particular case, we can (and should) do far more extensive test- 
+ing in a separate client to check that the numbers have many of the same properties 
+as truly random numbers drawn from the cited distributions (see Exercise 2.2.3). 
+One effective approach is to write test clients that use StdDraw, as data visualization 
+can be a quick indication that a program is behaving as intended. For example, a 
+plot of a large number of points whose x and y coordinates are both drawn from 
+
+various distributions often produces 
+a pattern that gives direct insight into 
+the important properties of the dis- 
+tribution. More important, a bug in 
+the random number generation code 
+is likely to show up immediately in 
+such a plot. 
+
+Stress testing. An extensively used li- 
+brary such as Std Random should also 
+be subject to stress testing, where we 
+make sure that it does not crash when 
+the client does not follow the contract 
+or makes some assumption that is not 
+explicitly covered. You can be sure 
+that Java libraries have been subject 
+to such testing, which requires care- 
+fully examining each line of code and 
+questioning whether some condition 
+might cause a problem. What should 
+discrete () do if array entries do 
+not sum to exactly 1? What if the ar- 
+gument is an array of size 0? What 
+should the two-argument uni form() 
+do if one or both of its arguments is NaN? Infi nity? Any question that you can 
+think of is fair game. Such cases are sometimes referred to as corner cases. You are 
+certain to encounter a teacher or a supervisor who is a stickler about corner cases. 
+With experience, most programmers learn to address them early, to avoid an un- 
+pleasant bout of debugging later. Again, a reasonable approach is to implement a 
+stress test as a separate client. 
+
+
+public class RandomPoints 
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselntfargs [0] ) ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double x = StdRandom.gaussian(.5, .2); 
+double y = StdRandotn . gaussi an ( . 5 , .2); 
+StdDraw. point(x, y); 
+
+} 
+
+> 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+A StdRandom test client 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+229 
+
+
+Input and output for arrays We have seen and will see many examples where 
+we wish to keep data in arrays for processing. Accordingly, it is useful to build a 
+library of static methods that complements Stdln and StdOut by providing static 
+methods for reading arrays of primitive types from standard input and printing 
+them to standard output, as expressed in this API: 
+
+public class StdArraylO 
+
+doubl e [] readDoubl elD() read a one-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+doubl e[] [] readDoubl e2D () read a two-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+voi d pri nt (doubl e [] a) print a one-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+VOl d pri nt (doubl e [] [] a) print a two-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+Notes: 
+
+1. ID format is an integer N followed by N values. 
+
+2. 2D format is two integers M and N followed by MxN values in row-major order. 
+
+3. Methods for i nt and bool e an are also included. 
+
+API for our library of static methods for array input and output 
+
+The first two notes at the bottom of the table reflect the idea that we need to settle 
+on a file format. For simplicity and harmony, we adopt the convention that all val- 
+ues appearing in standard input include the dimension(s) and appear in the order 
+indicated. The read*() methods expect this format, the printO methods pro- 
+duce output in this format, and we can easily create files in this format for data 
+from some other source. The third note at the bottom of the table indicates that 
+StdArraylO actually contains twelve methods — four each for int, double, and 
+boolean. The printO methods are overloaded (they all have the same name 
+pri nt() but different types of arguments), but the read*() methods need different 
+names, formed by adding the type name (capitalized, as in Stdln) followed by ID 
+or 2D. 
+
+Implementing these methods is straightforward from the array-processing 
+code that we have considered in Section 1.4 and in Section 2.1, as shown in StdAr- 
+raylO (Program 2.2.2). Packaging up all of these static methods into one file — 
+StdArraylO. java — allows us to easily reuse the code and saves us from having 
+to worry about the details of reading and printing arrays when writing client pro- 
+grams later on. 
+
+
+
+Program 2.2.2 Array I/O library 
+
+public class StdArraylO 
+
+{ 
+
+public static doublet] readDoublelDO 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 2.2.6 */ } 
+
+public static doublet] [] readDouble2D() 
+
+{ 
+
+int M = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+doublet] t] a = new double tM] [N] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) % more tiny.txt 
+
+ati] tj] = Stdln. readDoubleO; 000 2?0 000 
+
+return a; 246 .224 -.036 
+
+} .222 .176 .0893 
+
+public static void print(double(] a) -.032 .739 .270 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 2.2.6 */ } 
+
+% java StdArraylO < ti 
+
+public static void print(doublet] □ a) 4 3 
+{ I 0.00000 0.27000 0. 
+
+int M = a. length; 0.24600 0.22400 -0. 
+
+int N = afO] . length; 0.22200 0.17600 0. 
+
+System. out. printing + " " + N); -0.03200 0.73900 0. 
+
+{ - 1 < • 1++ 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+
+StdOut. print (ati] tj] + " "); 
+
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+// Methods for other types are similar (see booksite). 
+
+public static void main(String(] args) 
+
+{ print(readDouble2D()) ; } 
+
+
+ny.txt 
+
+
+This library of static methods facilitates reading one-dimensional and two-dimensional ar- 
+rays from standard input and printing them to standard output. The file format includes the 
+dimensions (see accompanying text). Numbers in the output in the example are truncated. 
+
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+231 
+
+
+Iterated fomctiom systems Scientists have discovered that complex visual im- 
+ages can arise unexpectedly from simple computational processes. With StdRan- 
+dom, StdDraw, and StdAr raylO, we can easily study the behavior of such systems. 
+
+Sierpinksi triangle. As a first example, consider the following simple process: 
+Start by plotting a point at one of the vertices of a given equilateral triangle. Then 
+pick one of the three vertices at random and plot a new point halfway between the 
+point just plotted and that vertex. Continue performing this same operation. Each 
+time, we are picking a random vertex from the triangle to establish the line whose 
+midpoint will be the next point plotted. Since we are making a random choice, the 
+set of points should have some of the characteristics of random points, and that 
+does seem to be the case after the first few iterations: 
+
+
+
+A random process 
+
+
+But we can study the process for a large number of iterations by writing a program 
+to plot T points according to the rules: 
+
+double [] cx = { 0.000, 1.000, 0.500 }; 
+double [] cy = { 0.000, 0.000, 0.866 }; 
+double x = 0.0, y = 0.0; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int r = StdRandom.uniform(3) ; 
+x = (x + cx[r]) / 2.0; 
+y = Cy + cy[r]) / 2.0; 
+
+StdDraw. point (x, y) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+We keep the x and y coordinates of the triangle vertices in the arrays cx [] and cy [] , 
+respectively. We use StdRandom . uni formQ to choose a random index r into these 
+
+
+
+232 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+arrays — the coordinates of the chosen vertex are (cx[r] , cy[r]). The x-coordi- 
+nate of the midpoint of the line from (x, y) to that vertex is given by the expression 
+(x + cx [ r ] ) /2 . 0, and a similar calculation gives the y coordinate. Adding a call to 
+StdDraw. poi nt() and putting this code in a loop completes the implementation. 
+Remarkably, despite the randomness, the same figure always emerges after a large 
+number of iterations! This figure is known as the Sierpinski triangle (see Exercise 
+2.3.27). Understanding why such a regular figure should arise from such a random 
+process is a fascinating question. 
+
+
+
+A random process? 
+
+
+Barnsley fern. To add to the mystery, we can produce pictures of remarkable diver- 
+sity by playing the same game with different rules. One striking example is known 
+as the Barnsley fern. To generate it, we use the same process, but this time driven 
+by the following table of formulas. At each step, we choose the formulas to use to 
+update x and y with the indicated probability (1% of the time we use the first pair 
+of formulas, 85% of the time we use the second pair of formulas, and so forth). 
+
+
+probability 
+
+x-update 
+
+y- update 
+
+i% 
+
+x= .500 
+
+x= .160 y 
+
+85% 
+
+x = .85* + My + .075 
+
+y= ,04x + ,85y + .180 
+
+7% 
+
+x = .20x - .26 y + .400 
+
+y= .23* + .22y + .045 
+
+7% 
+
+x = .15* + .28y + .575 
+
+y= ,26x + .24y - .086 
+
+
+We could write code just like the code we just wrote for the Sierpinski triangle to 
+iterate these rules, but matrix processing provides a uniform way to generalize that 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+233 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 2.2.3 Iterated function systems 
+
+
+public class IFS 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main (String args[]) 
+
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+// Plot T iterations of IFS on Stdln. 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+
+
+double [] dist 
+double[][] cx 
+double [] [] 
+double x = 
+for (int t 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+// Plot 
+
+int r = 
+
+
+= StdArraylO. readDoublelD() ; 
+= StdArraylO. readDouble2D() ; 
+cy = StdArraylO. readDouble2D() ; 
+0.0, y = 0.0; 
+
+= 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+1 iteration. 
+
+StdRandom . di sc rete (dist); 
+
+
+T 
+
+iterations 1 
+
+dist[] 
+
+probabilities 1 
+
+cx[] [] 
+
+x coefficients 1 
+
+cy[] □ 
+
+y coefficients 1 
+
+x, y 
+
+current point 1 
+
+" P! 
+
+
+double xO = cx[r][0]*x 
+double yO = cy[r][0]*x 
+x = xO; 
+y = y0; 
+
+StdDraw.point(x, y); 
+
+
+cx[r] [l]*y 
+cy[r] [l]*y 
+
+
+cx[r] [2]; 
+cy[r] [2]; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This data-driven client of StdArraylO, StdRandom, and StdDraw iterates the function system 
+defined by a 1-by-M vector (probabilities) and two M-by-3 matrices (coefficients for updat- 
+ing x and y, respectively) on standard input, plotting the result as a set of points on standard 
+draw. Curiously, this code does not need to know the value of M, as it uses separate methods 
+to create and process the matrices. 
+
+
+Illllf 
+
+
+
+
+% more sierpinski.txt 
+3 
+
+.33 .33 .34 
+3 3 
+
+.50 .00 .00 
+.50 .00 .50 
+.50 .00 .25 
+3 3 
+
+.00 .50 .00 
+.00 .50 .00 
+.00 .50 .433 
+
+
+java IFS 10000 < sierpinski.txt 
+
+
+
+mm 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+imp 
+
+
+234 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+% more barnsley.txt 
+4 
+
+
+.01 
+
+.85 
+
+.07 .07 
+
+4 3 
+
+.00 
+
+.00 
+
+.500 
+
+.85 
+
+.04 
+
+.075 
+
+.20 
+
+-.26 
+
+.400 
+
+-.15 
+
+.28 
+
+.575 
+
+4 3 
+
+.00 
+
+.16 
+
+.000 
+
+-.04 
+
+.85 
+
+.180 
+
+.23 
+
+.22 
+
+.045 
+
+.26 
+
+.24 
+
+-.086 
+
+% more 
+
+tree.txt 
+
+6 
+
+.1 . 
+
+1 .2 
+
+.2 .2 .2 
+
+6 3 
+
+.00 
+
+.00 
+
+.550 
+
+-.05 
+
+.00 
+
+.525 
+
+.46 
+
+-.15 
+
+.270 
+
+.47 
+
+-.15 
+
+.265 
+
+.43 
+
+.26 
+
+.290 
+
+.42 
+
+.26 
+
+.290 
+
+6 3 
+
+.00 
+
+.60 
+
+.000 
+
+-.50 
+
+.00 
+
+.750 
+
+.39 
+
+.38 
+
+.105 
+
+.17 
+
+.42 
+
+.465 
+
+-.25 
+
+.45 
+
+.625 
+
+-.35 
+
+.31 
+
+.525 
+
+% more 
+
+coral .txt 
+
+3 
+
+.40 
+
+.15 . 
+
+45 
+
+
+3 3 
+
+
+.3077 
+
+-.5315 
+
+.8863 
+
+.3077 
+
+-.0769 
+
+.2166 
+
+.0000 
+
+3 
+
+-.4615 
+
+.5455 
+
+.0106 
+
+-.2937 
+
+1.0962 
+
+.1538 
+
+-.4476 
+
+.3384 
+
+.6923 
+
+-.1958 
+
+.3808 
+
+
+% java IFS 20000 < barnsley.txt 
+
+
+
+% java IFS 20000 < tree.txt 
+
+
+
+% java IFS 20000 < coral.txt 
+
+
+
+Examples of iterated function systems 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+235 
+
+
+code to handle any set of rules. We have M different transformations, chosen from 
+a 1-by-Af vector with StdRandom.di screteC). For each transformation, we have 
+an equation for updating x and an equation for updating y, so we use two M- by- 3 
+matrices for the equation coefficients, one for x and one for y. IFS (Program 2.2.3) 
+implements this data-driven version of the computation. This program enables 
+limitless exploration: it performs the iteration for any input containing a vector 
+that defines the probability distribution and the two matrices that define the coef- 
+ficients, one for updating x and the other for updating y. For the coefficients just 
+given, again, even though we choose a random equation at each step, the same fig- 
+ure emerges every time that we do this computation: an image that looks remark- 
+ably similar to a fern that you might see in the woods, not something generated by 
+a random process on a computer. 
+
+
+
+Generating a Barnsley fern 
+
+
+That the same short program that takes a few numbers from standard input and 
+plots points on standard draw can (given different data) produce both the Sierpin- 
+ski triangle and the Barnsley fern (and many, many other images) is truly remark- 
+able. Because of its simplicity and the appeal of the results, this sort of calculation 
+is useful in making synthetic images that have a realistic appearance in computer- 
+generated movies and games. Perhaps more significantly, the ability to produce 
+such realistic diagrams so easily suggests intriguing scientific questions: What does 
+computation tell us about nature? What does nature tell us about computation? 
+
+
+
+236 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Standard statistics Next, we consider a library for a set of mathematical cal- 
+culations and basic visualization tools that arise in all sorts of applications in sci- 
+ence and engineering and are not all implemented in standard Java libraries. These 
+calculations relate to the task of understanding the statistical properties of a set of 
+numbers. Such a library is useful, for example, when we perform a series of scien- 
+tific experiments that yield measurements of a quantity. One of the most important 
+challenges facing modern scientists is proper analysis of such data, and computa- 
+tion is playing an increasingly important role in such analysis. These basic data 
+analysis methods that we will consider are summarized in the following API: 
+
+public class StdStats 
+
+
+double 
+
+max(double[] a) 
+
+largest value 
+
+double 
+
+min(double[] a) 
+
+smallest value 
+
+double 
+
+mean (doublet] a) 
+
+average 
+
+double 
+
+var(double[] a) 
+
+sample variance 
+
+double 
+
+stddev(double[] a) 
+
+sample standard deviation 
+
+double 
+
+median (doublet] a) 
+
+median 
+
+void 
+
+pi otPoints (doublet] a) 
+
+plot points at i i, a[i]) 
+
+void 
+
+pi otLines (doublet] a) 
+
+plot lines connecting points at (i, a[i ] ) 
+
+void 
+
+pi otBars (doublet] a) 
+
+plot bars to points at (i , a [i ] ) 
+
+
+Note : overloaded implementations are included for all numeric types 
+
+API for our library of static methods for data analysis 
+
+
+Basic statistics. Suppose that we have N measurements x 0 , x,, .., x N _ x . The average 
+value of those measurements, otherwise known as the mean, is given by the for- 
+mula p. = ( x 0 + x t + . . . + x N _ X )/N and is an estimate of the value of the quantity. 
+The minimum and maximum values are also of interest, as is the median (the value 
+which is smaller than and larger than half the values). Also of interest is the sample 
+variance, which is given by the formula 
+
+a* = ((*<,- p,) 2 + (x 1 -|x)2 + ... + (x N _ 1 -|x)2)}/(N-l) 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+237 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 2.2.4 Data analysis library 
+
+public class StdStats 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double max(double[] a) 
+
+{ // Compute maximum value in a [] . 
+
+double max = Double. NEGATIVE_INFINITY; 
+for (int i =0; i < a. length; i++) 
+if (a[i] > max) max = a [i j ; 
+return max; 
+
+} 
+
+public static double mean (doublet] a) 
+
+{ // Compute the average of the values in a[]. 
+
+double sum =0.0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+sum = sum + a[i] ; 
+return sum / a. length; 
+
+} 
+
+public static double var(double[] a) 
+
+{ // Compute the sample variance of the values in a[] 
+
+double avg = mean (a); 
+double sum =0.0; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+sum += (a[i] - avg) * (a [i ] - avg); 
+return sum / (a. length - 1); 
+
+
+mm 
+
+
+public static double stddev(double[] a) 
+
+{ return Math.sqrt(var(a)) ; } 
+
+// See Program 2.2.5 for plotting methods. 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ /* See text. */ } 
+
+
+This code implements methods to compute the maximum, mean, variance, and standard de- 
+viation of numbers in a client array. The method for computing the minimum is omitted, and 
+plotting methods are in Program 2.2.5 (see Section 4.2 for a discussion of the median). 
+
+
+IlSSrt 
+
+
+% more tiny.txt 
+5 
+
+3.0 1.0 2.0 5.0 4.0 
+
+
+238 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+and the sample standard deviation, the square root of the sample variance. Std- 
+Stats (Program 2.2.3) shows implementations of static methods for computing 
+these basic statistics (the median is more difficult to compute than the others — we 
+will consider the implementation of medi an () in Section 4.2). The mai n () test cli- 
+ent for StdStats reads numbers from standard input into an array and calls each 
+of the methods to print out the minimum, mean, maximum, and standard devia- 
+tion, as follows: 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+
+double[] a = StdArraylO. readDoublelDQ ; 
+
+
+StdOut.printfC" 
+
+StdOut.printfC" 
+
+StdOut.printfC" 
+
+StdOut.printfC" 
+
+
+min %7.3f\n", 
+mean %7.3f\n", 
+max %7.3f\n", 
+std dev %7.3f\n", 
+
+
+minCa)); 
+meanCa)) ; 
+maxCa)) ; 
+stddevCa)) ; 
+
+
+As with StdRandom, a more extensive test of the calculations is called for (see Ex- 
+ercise 2.2.3). Typically, as we debug or test new methods in the library, we adjust 
+the unit testing code accordingly, testing the methods one at a time. A mature and 
+widely used library like StdStats also deserves a stress-testing client for extensively 
+testing everything after any change. If you are interested in seeing what such a client 
+might look like, you can find one for StdStats on the booksite. Most experienced 
+programmers will advise you that any time spent doing unit testing and stress test- 
+ing will more than pay for itself later. 
+
+
+Plotting. One important use of StdDraw is to help us visualize data rather than 
+relying on tables of numbers. In a typical situation, we perform experiments, save 
+the experimental data in an array, and then compare the results against a model, 
+perhaps a mathematical function that describes the data. To expedite this process 
+for the typical case where values of one variable are equally spaced, our StdStats 
+library contains static methods that you can use for plotting data in an array. Pro- 
+gram 2.2.5 is an implementation of the plotPointsO, plotLinesO, and plot- 
+Bars() methods for StdStats. These methods display the values in the argument 
+array at regularly spaced intervals in the drawing window, either connected to- 
+gether by line segments (1 i nes), filled circles at each value (poi nts), or bars from 
+the x-axis to the value (bars). They all plot the points with x coordinate i and y 
+coordinate a[i ] using filled circles, lines through the points, and bars, respectively. 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+239 
+
+
+
+
+Program 2.2.5 Plotting data values in an array 
+
+public static void pi otPoints (doublet] a) 
+
+{ // Plot points at (i , a[i]). 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+
+StdDraw.setXscale(0, N-l); 
+
+StdDraw . set PenRadi us (1/(3 . 0*N) ) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdDraw. poi nt(i , a[i]); 
+
+
+public static void pi otLines (doublet] a) 
+
+{ // Plot lines through points at (i , ati]). 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+
+StdDraw. setXscale(0, N-l); 
+
+StdDraw . setPenRadi us () ; 
+for (int i = 1; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdDraw. line(i-l, afi-1], i, ati]); 
+
+} 
+
+public static void pi otBars (doublet] a) 
+
+{ // Plot bars from (0, ati]) to (i , ati]). 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+
+StdDraw. setXscale(0, N-l); 
+
+StdDraw. setPenRadi us (0. 5 / N); 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdDraw. 1 i ne (i , 0, i, a[i ] ) ; 
+
+
+This code implements three methods in StdStats (Program 2.2.4) for plotting data. They 
+plot the points (i , a [i ] ) with filled circles, connecting line segments, and bars, respectively. 
+
+
+plotPoints(a) ; plotLines(a) ; plotBars(a) ; 
+
+
+int N = 20; 
+
+doublet] a = new double[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+a [i ] = 1.0/(i+l); 
+
+
+lllllllinii 
+
+
+240 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+They all rescale x to fill the drawing window (so that the points are evenly spaced 
+along the x-coordinate) and leave to the client scaling the y-coordinates. 
+
+These methods are not intended to be a general-purpose plotting package, 
+you can certainly think of all sorts of things that you might want to add: different 
+types of spots, labeled axes, color, and many other artifacts are commonly found in 
+modern systems that can plot data. Some situations might call for more compli- 
+cated methods than these. 
+
+Our intent with StdStats is to introduce you to data analysis while showing 
+you how easy it is to define a library to take care of useful tasks. Indeed, this library 
+has already proven useful — we use these plotting methods to produce the figures in 
+this book that depict function graphs, sound waves, and experimental results. Next, 
+we consider several examples of their use. 
+
+Plotting function graphs. You can use 
+
+the StdStats . pi ot* () methods to draw a 
+plot of the function graph for any function 
+at all: choose an x-interval where you want 
+to plot the function, compute function 
+values evenly spaced through that interval 
+and store them in an array, determine and 
+set the y scale, and then call StdStats . 
+plotLinesO or another plot*() meth- 
+od. For example, to plot a sine function, 
+rescale the y-axis to cover values between 
+— 1 and + 1. Scaling the x-axis is automati- 
+cally handled by the StdStats methods. If 
+you do not know the range, you can handle the situation by calling: 
+
+StdDraw.setYscale (StdStats. min (a) , StdStats. max (a)) ; 
+
+The smoothness of the curve is determined by properties of the function and by 
+the number of points plotted. As we discussed when first considering StdDraw, you 
+have to be careful to sample enough points to catch fluctuations in the function. 
+We will consider another approach to plotting functions based on sampling values 
+that are not equally spaced in Section 2.4. 
+
+
+int N = 50; 
+
+doubl e [] a = new doubl e [N+l] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Gaussian, phi (-4.0 + 8.0*i/N); 
+StdStats. pi otPoi nts(a) ; 
+
+StdStats . pi otLi nes (a) ; 
+
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+241 
+
+
+Plotting sound waves. Both the StdAudi o library and the StdStats plot methods 
+work with arrays that contain sampled values at regular intervals. The diagrams of 
+sound waves in Section 1 .5 and at the beginning of this 
+section were each produced by first scaling the y-axis 
+with StdDraw. setYscale(-l, 1), then plotting the 
+points with StdStats. pi otPointsC). As you have 
+seen, such plots give direct insight into processing au- 
+dio. You can also produce interesting effects by plot- 
+ting sound waves as you play them with StdAudi o, al- 
+though this task is a bit challenging because of the 
+huge amount of data involved (see Exercise 1.5.23). 
+
+Plotting experimental results You can put multiple 
+plots on the same drawing. One typical reason to do so is to compare experimental 
+results with a theoretical model. For example, Bernoulli (Program 2.2.6) counts 
+the number of heads found when a fair coin is flipped N times and compares the 
+result with the predicted normal (Gaussian) distribution function. A famous result 
+from probability theory is that the distribution of this quantity is the binomial 
+distribution, which is extremely well-approximated by the normal distribution 
+function <|> with mean N/2 and standard deviation -JN/2. The more often we run 
+the experiment, the more accurate the approximation. The drawing produced by 
+Bernoul 1 i is a succinct summary of the results of the experiment and a convinc- 
+ing validation of the theory. This example is prototypical of a scientific approach 
+to applications programming that we use often throughout this book and that you 
+should use whenever you run an experiment. If a theoretical model that can ex- 
+plain your results is available, a visual plot comparing the experiment to the theory 
+can validate both. 
+
+These few examples are intended to indicate to you what is possible with a well- 
+designed library of static methods for data analysis. Several extensions and other 
+ideas are explored in the exercises. You will find StdStats to be useful for basic 
+plots, and you are encouraged to experiment with these implementations and to 
+modify them or to add methods to make your own library that can draw plots of 
+your own design. As you continue to address an ever- widening circle of program- 
+ming tasks, you will naturally be drawn to the idea of developing tools like these 
+for your own use. 
+
+
+StdDraw. setYscale(-1.0, 1.0); 
+doublet] hi; 
+
+hi = PlayThatTune.tone(880, .01); 
+StdStats . pi otPoi nts (hi ) ; 
+
+/'■, />, /■N. 
+
+
+\y 
+
+Plotting a sound wave 
+
+
+
+242 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+
+m 
+
+MS 
+
+|||| 
+
+li 
+
+
+ms 
+
+
+H 
+
+
+Program 2.2.6 Bernoulli trials 
+
+
+public class Bernoulli 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int binomial(int N) 
+
+{ // Simulate flipping a coin N times, 
+
+int heads = 0; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+if (StdRandom.bernoulli(0.5)) heads++; 
+return heads; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Perform experiments, plot results and model, 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt (args [1] ) ; 
+
+N 
+
+int[] freq = new int[N+l]; 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) T 
+
+freq [bi nomi al (N) ] ++ ; 
+
+double [] norm = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i = 0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+norm[i] = (double) freq[i] / T; 
+
+StdStats.pl otBars(norm) ; 
+
+double stddev = Math.sqrt(N)/2.0; 
+double stddev = Math.sqrt(N)/2.0; 
+doubled phi = new double[N+l]; 
+for (int i =0; i <= N; i++) 
+
+phi [i ] = Gaussian. phi (i , mean, stddev); 
+StdStats . pi otLi nes (phi ) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+freq[] 
+norm[] 
+phi [] 
+
+
+number of flips per trial 
+number of trials 
+experimental results 
+normalized results 
+Gaussian model 
+
+
+This StdStats, StdRandom, and Gaussian client provides convincing visual evidence that 
+the number of heads observed when a fair coin is flipped N times obeys a Gaussian distribu- 
+tion. It uses the overloaded Gaussi an . phi () that takes as arguments the mean and standard 
+deviation (see Exercise 2.2. 1 ). 
+
+
+% java Bernoulli 20 100000 
+
+
+_ .lllllllll.. 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+243 
+
+
+Modular programming The library implementations that we have developed 
+illustrate a programming style known as modular programming. Instead of writing 
+a new program that is self-contained in its own file to address a new problem, we 
+break up each task into smaller, more manageable subtasks, then implement and 
+independently debug code that addresses each subtask. Good libraries facilitate 
+modular programming by allowing us to define and to provide solutions of impor- 
+tant subtasks for future clients. Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within a 
+program, you should do so. Java supports such separation by allowing us to indepen- 
+dently debug and later use classes in separate files. Traditionally, programmers use 
+the term module to refer to code that can be compiled and run independently; in 
+Java each class is a module. 
+
+IFS (Program 2.2.3) exemplifies modular programming because it is a rela- 
+tively sophisticated computation that is 
+implemented with several relatively small 
+modules, developed independently. It uses 
+StdRandom and StdArraylO), as well as the 
+methods from Integer and StdDrawthatwe 
+are accustomed to using. If we were to put 
+all of the code required for IFS in a single 
+file, we would have a large amount of code 
+on our hands to maintain and debug; with 
+modular programming, we can study iter- 
+ated function systems with some confidence 
+that the arrays are read properly and that the 
+random number generator will produce properly distributed values, because we 
+already implemented and tested the code for these tasks in separate modules. 
+
+Similarly, Bernoulli (Program 2.2.6) also exemplifies modular program- 
+ming. It is a client of Caussi an, Integer, Math, StdRandom, and StdStats. Again, 
+we can have some confidence that the methods in these modules produce the ex- 
+pected results because they are system libraries or libraries that we have tested, 
+debugged, and used before. 
+
+To describe the relationships among modules in a modular program, we often 
+draw a dependency graph, where we connect two class names with an arrow labeled 
+with the name of a method if the first class contains a call on the method and the 
+second class contains the definition of the method. Such diagrams play an impor- 
+
+
+API 
+
+description 
+
+Gaussian 
+
+Gaussian distribution functions 
+
+StdRandom 
+
+random numbers 
+
+StdArraylO 
+
+input and output for arrays 
+
+IFS 
+
+client for iterated function systems 
+
+StdStats 
+
+functions for data analysis 
+
+Bernoulli 
+
+client for Bernoulli trials experiments 
+
+
+Summary of classes in this section 
+
+
+
+244 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+readDoublelDO 
+
+readDoub1e2D() 
+
+
+readDoubleO, 
+
+readlntC) 
+
+
+
+^Gaussian^ 
+
+
+r 
+
+^ Stdln ^ 
+
+
+exp() 
+
+sqrtQ 
+
+
+^StdDraw^ 
+
+
+Dependency graph for the modules in this section 
+
+
+tant role because understanding the relationships among modules is necessary for 
+proper development and maintenance. 
+
+We emphasize modular programming throughout this book because it has 
+many important advantages that have come to be accepted as essential in modern 
+programming, including the following: 
+
+• We can have programs of a reasonable size, even in large systems. 
+
+• Debugging is restricted to small pieces of code. 
+
+• We can reuse code without having to reimplement it. 
+
+• Maintaining (and improving) code is much simpler. 
+
+The importance of these advantages is difficult to overstate, so we will expand upon 
+each of them. 
+
+
+Programs of a reasonable size. No large task is so complex that it cannot be di- 
+vided into smaller subtasks. If you find yourself with a program that stretches to 
+more than a few pages of code, you must ask yourself the following questions: Are 
+there subtasks that could be implemented separately? Do some of these subtasks 
+logically group together in a separate library? Could other clients use this code in 
+the future? At the other end of the range, if you find yourself with a huge number 
+of tiny modules, you must ask yourself questions such as: Is there some group of 
+subtasks that logically belong in the same module? Is each module likely to be used 
+by multiple clients? There is no hard-and-fast rule on module size: one implemen- 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+245 
+
+
+tation of a critically important abstraction might properly be a few lines of code, 
+whereas another library with a large number of overloaded methods might prop- 
+erly stretch to hundreds of lines of code. 
+
+Debugging. Tracing a program rapidly becomes more difficult as the number of 
+statements and interacting variables increases. Tracing a program with hundreds 
+of variables requires keeping track of hundreds of values, as any statement might 
+affect or be affected by any variable. To do so for hundreds or thousands of state- 
+ments or more is untenable. With modular programming and our guiding prin- 
+ciple of keeping the scope of variables local to the extent possible, we severely re- 
+strict the number of possibilities that we have to consider when debugging. Equally 
+important is the idea of a contract between client and implementation. Once we 
+are satisfied that an implementation is meeting its end of the bargain, we can debug 
+all its clients under that assumption. 
+
+Code reuse. Once we have implemented libraries such as StdStats and StdRan- 
+dom, we do not have to worry about writing code to compute averages or standard 
+deviations or to generate random numbers again — we can simply reuse the code 
+that we have written. Moreover, we do not need to make copies of the code: any 
+module can just refer to any public method in any other module. 
+
+Maintenance. Like a good piece of writing, a good program can always be im- 
+proved, and modular programming facilitates the process of continually improving 
+your Java programs because improving a module improves all of its clients. For ex- 
+ample, it is normally the case that there are several different approaches to solving 
+a particular problem. With modular programming, you can implement more than 
+one and try them independently. More importantly, suppose that while developing 
+a new client, you find a bug in some module. With modular programming, fixing 
+that bug amounts to fixing bugs in all of the module’s clients. 
+
+If you encounter an old program (or a new program written by an old program- 
+mer!), you are likely to find one huge module — a long sequence of statements, 
+stretching to several pages or more, where any statement can refer to any variable 
+in the program. Variables whose scope extends to a whole program are known as 
+global variables. We avoid global variables in modular programs, but their use is 
+common in lower-level and older programming languages. Huge modules that use 
+
+
+
+246 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+global variables are extremely difficult to understand, maintain, and debug. Old 
+programs of this kind are found in critical parts of our computational infrastruc- 
+ture (for example, some nuclear power plants and some banks) precisely because 
+the programmers charged with maintaining them cannot even understand them 
+well enough to rewrite them in a modern language! With support for modular pro- 
+gramming, modern languages like Java help us avoid such situations by separately 
+developing libraries of methods in independent classes. 
+
+The ability to share static methods among different files fundamentally ex- 
+tends our programming model in two different ways. First, it allows us to reuse 
+code without having to maintain multiple copies of it. Second, by allowing us to 
+organize a program into files of manageable size that can be independently de- 
+bugged and compiled, it strongly supports our basic message: Whenever you can 
+clearly separate tasks within a program, you should do so. We use the term library to 
+capture the idea of developing methods for later reuse and modular programming 
+to capture the idea of independently developing pieces connected by well-defined 
+interfaces instead of a big, monolithic piece of code. 
+
+In this section, we have supplemented the Std* libraries of Section 1.5 with 
+several other libraries that you can use: Gaussian, StdArraylO, StdRandom, and 
+StdStats. Furthermore, we have illustrated their use with several client programs. 
+These tools are centered on basic mathematical concepts that arise in any scientific 
+project or engineering task. Our intent is not just to provide tools, but also to illus- 
+trate to you that it is easy for you to create your own tools. The first question that 
+most modern programmers ask when addressing a complex task is “What tools do 
+I need?” When the needed tools are not conveniently available, the second question 
+is “How difficult would it be to implement them?” To be a good programmer, you 
+need to have the confidence to build a software tool when you need it and the wis- 
+dom to know when it might be better to seek a solution in a library. 
+
+After libraries and modular programming, you have one more step to learn a 
+complete modern programming model: object-oriented programming, the topic of 
+Chapter 3. With object-oriented programming, you can build libraries of functions 
+that use side effects (in a tightly controlled manner) to vastly extend the Java pro- 
+gramming model. Before moving to object-oriented programming, we consider in 
+this chapter the profound ramifications of the idea that any method can call itself 
+(in Section 2.3) and a more extensive case study (in Section 2.4) of modular pro- 
+gramming than the small clients in this section. 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+247 
+
+
+
+Q. I tried to use StdRandom, but got the error message Exception in thread 
+"main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: StdRandom. What’swrong? 
+
+A. You need to download StdRandom . j ava into the directory containing your cli- 
+ent, or use your operating system’s classpath mechanism, as described on the book- 
+site. 
+
+Q. Is there a keyword that identifies a class as a library? 
+
+A. No, any set of public methods will do. There is a bit of a conceptual leap in this 
+viewpoint because it is one thing to sit down to create a . j ava file that you will 
+compile and run, quite another thing to create a . j ava file that you will rely on 
+much later in the future, and still another thing to create a .java file for someone 
+else to use in the future. You need to develop some libraries for your own use before 
+engaging in this sort of activity, which is the province of experienced systems pro- 
+grammers. 
+
+Q. How do I develop a new version of a library that I have been using for a while? 
+
+A. With care. Any change to the API might break any client program, so it is best 
+to work in a separate directory. But then you are working with a copy of the code. If 
+you are changing a library that has a lot of clients, you can appreciate the problems 
+faced by companies putting out new versions of their software. If you just want to 
+add a few methods to a library, go ahead: that is usually not too dangerous, though 
+you should realize that you might find yourself in a situation where you have to 
+support that library for years! 
+
+Q. How do I know that an implementation behaves properly? Why not automati- 
+cally check that it satisfies the API? 
+
+A. We use informal specifications because writing a detailed specification is not 
+much different than writing a program. Moreover, a fundamental tenet of theo- 
+retical computer science says that doing so does not even solve the basic problem, 
+because generally there is no way to check that two different programs perform the 
+same computation. 
+
+
+
+
+248 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2.2.1 AddtoCaussian (Program 2.1.2) the method implementation phi (x, mu, 
+sigma) specified in the API that computes the Gaussian distribution with a given 
+mean |x and standard deviation a, based on the formula 4>(x, (x, cr) = 4>( (x— |x)/cr)/cr. 
+Also include the implementation of the associated cumulative distribution func- 
+tion Phi (z , mu , sigma) , based on the formula <&(z, |x, a) = <I>((z- |x)/a) . 
+
+2.2.2 Write a static method library that implements the hyperbolic trigonomet- 
+ric functions based on the definitions sinh(x) = ( e x - e~ x )/2 and cosh(x) = (e x + 
+e~ x )l2, with tanh(x), coth(x), sech(x), and csch(x) defined in a manner analogous 
+to standard trigonometric functions. 
+
+2.2.3 Write a test client for both StdStats and StdRandom that checks that the 
+methods in both libraries operate as expected. Take a command-line argument N, 
+generate N random numbers using each of the methods in StdRandom, and print 
+out their statistics. Extra credit: Defend the results that you get by comparing them 
+to those that are to be expected from analysis. 
+
+2.2.4 Add to StdRandom a method shufi f 1 e () that takes an array of doubl e val- 
+ues as argument and rearranges them in random order. Implement a test client that 
+checks that each permutation of the array is produced about the same number of 
+times. 
+
+
+2.2.5 Develop a client that does stress testing for StdRandom. Pay particular at- 
+tention to di sc rete(). For example, do the probabilities sum to 1? 
+
+2.2.6 Develop a full implementation of StdArraylO (implement all 12 methods 
+indicated in the API). 
+
+2.2.7 Write a method that takes doubl e values ymi n and ymax (with ymi n strictly 
+less than ymax), and a doubl e array a [] as arguments and uses the StdStats library 
+to linearly scale the values in a [] so that they are all between ymi n and ymax. 
+
+2.2.8 Write a Gaussi an and StdStats client that explores the effects of changing 
+the mean and standard deviation on the Gaussian distribution curve. Create one 
+plot with curves having a fixed mean and various standard deviations and another 
+with curves having a fixed standard deviation and various means. 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+249 
+
+
+
+2 . 2.9 Add to StdRandom a static method maxwell Boltzmann () that returns a 
+random value drawn from a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with parameter o\ 
+To produce such a value, return the square root of the sum of the squares of three 
+Gaussian random variables with mean 0 and standard deviation cr. The speeds of 
+molecules in an ideal gas have a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. 
+
+2 . 2.10 Modify Bernoul 1 i (Program 2.2.6) to animate the bar graph, replotting it 
+after each experiment, so that you can watch it converge to the normal distribution. 
+Then add a command-line argument and an overloaded bi nomi al () implementa- 
+tion to allow you to specify the probability p that a biased coin comes up heads, and 
+run experiments to get a feeling for the distribution corresponding to a biased coin. 
+Be sure to try values of p that are close to 0 and close to 1. 
+
+2 . 2. 1 1 Write a library Mat r i x that implements the following API: 
+
+
+public class Matrix 
+
+double dot(double[] a, doublet] b) 
+doublet] [] multi ply (doublet] [] a, doublet] (] b) 
+doublet] □ transposeCdoublef] t] a) 
+doublet] multiply(doublet] (] a, doublet] x) 
+doublet] multi ply (doublet] x, doublet] □ a) 
+
+
+vector dot product 
+matrix-matrix product 
+transpose 
+
+matrix-vector product 
+vector-matrix product 
+
+
+(See Section 1.4.) As a test client, use the following code, which performs the same 
+calculation as Markov (Program 1.6.3). 
+
+public static void main(Stringt] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int T = Integer .parselnt(argst0]) ; 
+doublet] □ P = StdArraylO. readDouble2D() ; 
+doublet] rank = new doubletp. length] ; 
+ranktO] = 1.0; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+rank = Matrix. multiply(rank, p); 
+
+StdArraylO. print(rank) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+250 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+Mathematicians and scientists use mature libraries or special-purpose matrix-pro- 
+cessing languages for such tasks (see the Context section at the end of this book for 
+some details). See the booksite for information on using such libraries. 
+
+2 . 2.12 Write a Matrix client that implements the version of Markov described 
+in Section 1.6 but is based on squaring the matrix, instead of iterating the vector- 
+matrix multiplication. 
+
+2 . 2.13 Rewrite RandomSurfer (Program 1.6.2) using the StdArraylO and Std- 
+Random libraries. 
+
+Partial solution. 
+
+doubled [] p = StdArraylO. readDouble2D() ; 
+int page = 0; // Start at page 0. 
+int[] freq = new int[N]; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+page = StdRandom.discrete(p[page]) ; 
+freq [page] ++; 
+
+} 
+
+
+2 . 2.14 Add a method exp() to StdRandom that takes an argument \ and returns a 
+random number from the exponential distribution with rate \. Hint: If x is a random 
+number uniformly distributed between 0 and 1, then -In x I \ is a random number 
+from the exponential distribution with rate X. 
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+251 
+
+
+
+2 . 2.15 Sicherman dice. Suppose that you have two six-sided dice, one with faces 
+labeled 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 and the other with faces labeled 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, and 4. Com- 
+pare the probabilities of occurrence of each of the values of the sum of the dice with 
+those for a standard pair of dice. Use StdRandom and StdStats. 
+
+2 . 2.16 Craps. The following are the rules for a pass bet in the game of craps. Roll 
+two six-sided dice, and let x be their sum. 
+
+• If x is 7 or 1 1, you win. 
+
+• If x is 2, 3, or 12, you lose. 
+
+Otherwise, repeatedly roll the two dice until their sum is either x or 7. 
+
+• If their sum is x, you win. 
+
+• If their sum is 7, you lose. 
+
+Write a modular program to estimate the probability of winning a pass bet. Modify 
+your program to handle loaded dice, where the probability of a die landing on 
+1 is taken from the command line, the probability of landing on 6 is 1/6 minus 
+that probability, and 2-5 are assumed equally likely. Hint: Use StdRandom. dis- 
+crete (). 
+
+2 . 2.17 Dynamic histogram. Suppose that the standard input stream is a sequence 
+of doubl e values. Write a program that takes an integer N and two doubl e values 1 
+and r from the command line and uses StdStats to plot a histogram of the count 
+of the numbers in the standard input stream that fall in each of the N intervals 
+defined by dividing (/, r) into N equal-sized intervals. Use your program to add 
+code to your solution to Exercise 2.2.3 to plot a histogram of the distribution of the 
+numbers produced by each method, taking N from the command line. 
+
+2 . 2.18 Tukey plot. A Tukey plot is a data visualization that generalizes a histo- 
+gram, and is appropriate for use when each integer in a given range is associated 
+with a set of y values. For each integer in the range, we compute the mean, standard 
+deviation, 10th percentile, and 90th percentile of all the associated y values; draw 
+a vertical line with x-coordinate i running from the 10th percentile y value to the 
+90th percentile y value; and then draw a thin rectangle centered on the line that runs 
+from one standard deviation below the mean to one standard deviation above the 
+mean. Suppose that the standard input stream is a sequence of pairs of numbers 
+
+
+
+252 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+where the first number in each pair is an i nt and the second a doubl e value. Write a 
+StdStats and StdDraw client that takes an integer N from the command line and, 
+assuming that all the i nt values on the input stream are between 0 and N-l, uses 
+StdDraw to make a Tukey plot of the data. 
+
+2.2.19 IFS. Experiment with various inputs to I FS to create patterns of your own 
+design like the Sierpinski triangle, the Barnsley fern, or the other examples in the 
+table in the text. You might begin by experimenting with minor modifications to 
+the given inputs. 
+
+2.2.20 IFS matrix implementation. Write a version of I FS that uses Mat r i x . mul - 
+ti pi y O (see Exercise 2.2.1 1) instead of the equations that compute the new values 
+of xO and yO. 
+
+2.2.21 Stress test. Develop a client that does stress testing for StdStats. Work 
+with a classmate, with one person writing code and the other testing it. 
+
+2.2.22 Gambler’s ruin. Develop a StdRandom client to study the gambler’s ruin 
+problem (see Program 1.3.8 and Exercises 1.3.21-24. Note: Defining a static meth- 
+od for the experiment is more difficult than for Bernoulli because you cannot 
+return two values. 
+
+2.2.23 Library for properties of integers. Develop a library based on the functions 
+that we have considered in this book for computing properties of integers. Include 
+functions for determining whether a given integer is prime; whether two integers 
+are relatively prime; computing all the factors of a given integer; the greatest com- 
+mon divisor and least common multiple of two integers; Euler’s totient function 
+(Exercise 2.1.26); and any other functions that you think might be useful. Include 
+overloaded implementations for long values. Create an API, a client that performs 
+stress testing, and clients that solve several of the exercises earlier in this book. 
+
+2.2.24 Voting machines. Develop a StdRandom client (with appropriate static 
+methods of its own) to study the following problem: Suppose that in a popula- 
+tion of 100 million voters, 51% vote for candidate A and 49% vote for candidate 
+B. However, the voting machines are prone to make mistakes, and 5% of the time 
+
+
+
+2.2 Libraries and Clients 
+
+
+253 
+
+
+
+they produce the wrong answer. Assuming the errors are made independently and 
+at random, is a 5% error rate enough to invalidate the results of a close election? 
+What error rate can be tolerated? 
+
+2 . 2.25 Poker analysis. Write a StdRandom and StdStats client (with appropriate 
+static methods of its own) to estimate the probabilities of getting one pair, two pair, 
+three of a kind, a full house, and a flush in a five-card poker hand via simulation. 
+Divide your program into appropriate static methods and defend your design deci- 
+sions. Extra credit: Add straight and straight flush to the list of possibilities. 
+
+2 . 2.26 Music library. Develop a library based on the functions in PlayThatTune 
+(Program 2.1.4) that you can use to write client programs to create and manipulate 
+songs. 
+
+2 . 2.27 Animated plots. Write a program that takes a command-line argument M 
+and produces a bar graph of the M most recent doubl e values on standard input. Use 
+the same animation technique that we used for BouncingBall (Program 1.5.6): 
+erase, redraw, show, and wait briefly. Each time your program reads a new number, 
+it should redraw the whole graph. Since most of the picture does not change as it 
+is redrawn slightly to the left, your program will produce the effect of a fixed-size 
+window dynamically sliding over the input values. Use your program to plot a huge 
+time- variant data file, such as stock prices. 
+
+2 . 2.28 Array plot library. Develop your own plot methods that improve upon 
+those in StdStats. Be creative! Try to make a plotting library that you think will be 
+useful for some application in the future. 
+
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+The idea of calling one function from another immediately suggests the possibility 
+of a function calling itself. The function-call mechanism in Java and most modern 
+programming languages supports this possibility, which is known as recursion. In 
+this section, we will study examples of el- 
+egant and efficient recursive solutions to 
+a variety of problems. Once you get used 
+to the idea, you will see that recursion is a 
+powerful general-purpose programming 
+technique with many attractive proper- 
+ties. It is a fundamental tool that we use 
+often in this book. Recursive 
+programs are often more com- 
+pact and easier to understand than their nonrecursive counterparts. Few 
+programmers become sufficiently comfortable with recursion to use it in 
+everyday code, but solving a problem with an elegantly crafted recursive 
+program is a satisfying experience that is certainly accessible to every pro- 
+grammer (even you!). 
+
+Recursion is much more than a programming technique. In many 
+settings, it is a useful way to describe the natural world. For example, the 
+recursive tree (to the left) resembles a real tree, and has a natural recur- 
+sive description. Many, many phenomena are well-explained by recursive 
+models. In particular, recursion plays a central role in computer science. 
+It provides a simple computational model that embraces everything that can be 
+computed with any computer; it helps us to organize and to analyze programs; and 
+it is the key to numerous critically important computational applications, ranging 
+from combinatorial search to tree data structures that support information pro- 
+cessing to the Fast Fourier Transform for signal processing. 
+
+One important reason to embrace recursion is that it provides a straightfor- 
+ward way to build simple mathematical models that we can use to prove important 
+facts about our programs. The proof technique that we use to do so is known as 
+mathematical induction. Generally, we avoid going into the details of mathematical 
+proofs in this book, but you will see in this section that it is worthwhile to make the 
+effort to convince yourself that recursive programs have the intended effect. 
+
+
+
+A recursive model 
+of the natural world 
+
+
+2.3.1 Euclid’s algorithm . . ... .... .259 
+
+2.3.2 Towers of Hanoi . . . . . . . . . • . 262 
+
+2.3.3 Gray code . ... .... . 267 
+
+2.3.4 Recursive graphics . ........ .269 
+
+2.3.5 Brownian bridge . ......... .271 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+255 
+
+
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+The idea ok calling one function from another immediately suggests the possibility 
+of a function calling itself. The function-call mechanism in Java and most modern 
+programming languages supports this possibility, which is known as recursion. In 
+this section, we will study examples of el- 
+egant and efficient recursive solutions to 
+
+a variety of problems. Once you get used 2J1 Eudi<3 ‘ «&***'» 259 
+
+to the idea, you will see that recursion is a Gmco*** 1 ' 50 * 2S7 
+
+powerful general-purpose programming 2.3* RccuniYc paphict ! ........ .269 
+
+
+
+
+technique with many attractive proper- 13.5 Brownian bridge 271 
+
+ties. It is a fundamental tool that we use Programs in Ms section 
+
+often in this book. Recursive 
+programs arc often more com- 
+
+r pact and easier to understand than their nonrecursive counterparts. Few 
+programmers become sufficiently comfortable with recursion to use it in 
+everyday code, but solving a problem with an elegantly crafted recursive 
+program is a satisfying experience that is certainly accessible to every pro- 
+grammer (even you!). 
+
+Recursion is much more than a programming technique. In many 
+settings, it is a useful way to describe the natural world. For example, the 
+'ril wirl I recurs ' vc ,ree the left) resembles a real tree, and has a natural recur- 
+‘ 1 1 sive description. Many, many phenomena are well-explained by recursive 
+
+models. In particular, recursion plays a central role in computer science. 
+
+It provides a simple computational model that embraces everything that can be 
+computed with any computer; it helps us to organize and to analyze programs; and 
+it is the key to numerous critically important computational applications, ranging 
+from combinatorial search to tree data structures that support information pro- 
+cessing to the Fast Fourier Transform for signal processing. 
+
+One important reason to embrace recursion is that it provides a straightfor- 
+ward way to build simple mathematical models that we can use to prove important 
+facts about our programs. The proof technique that we use to do so is known as 
+mathematical induction. Generally, we avoid going into the details of mathematical 
+proofs in this book, but you will see in this section that it is worthwhile to make the 
+effort to convince yourself that recursive programs have the intended effect. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+noteimsfl €.£ 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Sift 
+
+
+ylilidiaaoq ad! alaaggua ylalsibammi rail one moil nomnin hho dhluad io ahoi hhT 
+mabom Jaom bnc aval ni mainsriaam lisa-nobanu) adT .\\aau grills? nobanuf slo 
+nl .noiemaar as nwond ai daidw .ylilidiaaoq aid! alroqqua aagsugnel gnimmsigorq 
+-bio aalqmsxa ybuta Iliw av; .noitaaa aid! 
+o) anobuloa aviaruaai inaiarfta bns insga 
+
+mrilhosb.a'bibua US baau lag uoy aanO .amaldorq lo ylahsv s 
+
+ofl s ai noiaiuaar isd! aaa Iliw uoy ,sabi adl ol 
+
+’. aalrfqing avfnoaaR >.t£ gnimmsrgoiq aaoqruq-lsranag luhawoq 
+
+
+ITS agbhd nsJnwoiB e.tX -raqoiq avilasrlls ynsm dliw aupindaal 
+
+nohaat aith ro ?au 5W loo) Islnamcbnri s ai Jl .aab 
+
+aviaiuaafl jlood aid) ni nafto 
+-mo? atom nafto arc amsrgorq 
+wal .ansqialnuo? aviamaamon tiadl nsdl bnsiarabnu ol laiasa bns )?sq 
+ni ti aau 0! noiaiuaar dliw aldslrolmo? ybnaiarftua amoaad arammsigorq 
+aviaruaai baftsi? yllnsgala ns dliw maldoiq s grivloa lud ,abo? ysbyrava 
+-oiq yrava ol aldiaaaaas yinistraa ai isdl aanahaqxa gnryiailsa s ai msrgorq 
+
+.(!uoy nava) ramming I ** r 
+
+ynsm nl .aupindaal gnimmsigoiq s nsdl arom d?um ai noiaruaafl $ 
+
+adl .alqmsxa ioI .bhow isrulsn ad) adh?aab o) ysw lid aau s ai )i .agnitlaa 
+-ruaai Isrulsn s asd bns ,aail lean s aaldmaaai (ftal adl ol) aarl aviaruaai ^ ^ ' 
+
+aviaruaai yd banislqxa-lbw ars snarnonariq ynsm ,ynsM .nobqhaaab avia ‘ "" m 
+.a?nai?a raluqmoa ni aloi Isiina? s ayslq noiaiuaar .tsluabisq nl .alabom 
+ad ns? led) gnidtyrava aaasidma Isd) bbom Isnoilsluqmo? alqmia s aabivoiq )I 
+bns jamsigoiq asylsns o) bns axinsgio o) a u aqbd li naluqmoa yns dliw baluqmo? 
+gnignsi ,anoi)s?iIqqs Isnoilsluqmo? instioqmi ylisabira auoiamun ol yad adl ai li 
+-orq noilsrmolni noqqua Isd) aaiulaurla slsb aarl ol d?nsaa Isholsnidmo? moil 
+.gniaaaioiq Isngia rol mrdfamnT raiiutfl lasT adl ol gniaaa? 
+-rdfldgisrla s aabivoiq li isdl ai noiaruoar aasrdma o) noasar Inslroqmi anO 
+Inslroqmi avoiq o) aau ns? aw Isdl alabom Isabsmadtsm alqmia blind 0) ysw brsw 
+as nwond ai oa ob ol aau aw led) aupindaal loorq adT .amsigorq ruo luods alas) 
+Isailsmarilsm f 0 alislab aril olni gniog biovs aw .yllsranaD .nohauhtu InriUimathtUH 
+adl adsm ol alidwdlrow ai li isd) nobaaa aid) ni aaa Iliw uoy lud .riood aid) ni afooiq 
+.laaffa babnalni ad) avsd amsrgoiq aviaruaai isdl llaaruoy aanivno? ol iroffa 
+
+pppsii* 
+
+
+mm 
+
+
+
+
+256 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Your first recursive program The Hel 1 oWorl d for recursion (the first recur- 
+sive program that most programmers implement) is the factorial function, defined 
+for positive integers AT by the equation 
+
+N\=NX (N- 1) X (N-2) X ... X 2 X 1 
+
+In other words, N! is the product of the positive integers less than or equal to N. 
+Now, N! is easy to compute with a for loop, but an even easier method is to use the 
+following recursive function: 
+
+public static long factorial (int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 1) return 1; 
+return N * factorial (N-l) ; 
+
+} 
+
+This static method calls itself. The implementation clearly produces the desired ef- 
+fect. You can persuade yourself that it does so by noting that facto ri al () returns 
+1 = 1! when AT is 1 and that if it properly computes the value 
+
+(N-l)! = (N-l) X (N-2) X ... X 2 X 1 
+then it properly computes the value 
+. N!=NX (N-l)! 
+
+= N X (N-l) X (N-2) X ... X 2 X 1 
+
+To compute facto ri al ( 5) , the recursive method mul- 
+tiplies 5 by f actor i al (4) ; to compute f actor i al (4) , 
+it multiplies 4 by factorial (3); and so forth. This 
+process is repeated until facto ri al (1), which direct- 
+ly returns the value 1. We can trace this computation 
+in precisely the same way that we trace any sequence 
+of function calls. Since we treat all of the calls as being 
+independent copies of the code, the fact that they are 
+recursive is immaterial. 
+
+Our factorial () implementation exhibits the 
+two main components that are required for every recursive function. The base case 
+returns a value without making any subsequent recursive calls. It does this for one 
+or more special input values for which the function can be evaluated without re- 
+
+
+factorial (5) 
+factorial (4) 
+factorial (3) 
+factorial (2) 
+factorial (1) 
+return 1 
+return 2*1 = 2 
+return 3*2 = 6 
+return 4*6 = 24 
+return 5*24 = 120 
+
+Function call trace for factorial 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+257 
+
+
+cursion. For factori al C), the base case is N = 1. The reduction step is the central 
+part of a recursive function. It relates the function at one (or more) inputs to the 
+function evaluated at one (or more) other inputs. For factori al O, the reduction 
+step is N * factorial (N-l). All recursive functions must have 
+these two components. Furthermore, the sequence of parameter 
+values must converge to the base case. For factori al (), the value 
+of N decreases by one for each call, so the sequence of argument 
+values converges to the base case N= 1. 
+
+Tiny programs such as facto rialQ are perhaps slightly 
+more clear if we put the reduction step in an el se clause. However, 
+adopting this convention for every recursive program would un- 
+necessarily complicate larger programs because it would involve 
+putting most of the code (for the reduction step) within braces 
+after the el se. Instead, we adopt the convention of always putting 
+the base case as the first statement, ending with a return, and 
+then devoting the rest of the code to the reduction step. 
+
+The factorial () implementation itself is not particularly 
+useful in practice because N\ grows so quickly that the multiplica- 
+tion will overflow and produce incorrect answers for N > 20. But 
+the same technique is effective for computing all sorts of func- 
+tions. For example, the recursive function 
+
+public static double H(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 1) return 1.0; 
+return H(N-l) + 1.0/N; 
+
+} 
+
+is an effective method for computing the Harmonic numbers (see Program 1.3.5) 
+when N is small, based on the following equations: 
+
+H n = 1 + 1/2 + ... + 1 IN 
+
+= (l + 1/2 + ... + 1/(N— 1)) + 1/N = H n _ { + 1/N 
+
+Indeed, this same approach is effective for computing, with only a few lines of code, 
+the value of any discrete sum for which you have a compact formula. Recursive 
+programs like these are just loops in disguise, but recursion can help us better un- 
+derstand this sort of computation. 
+
+
+1 1 
+2 2 
+
+3 6 
+
+4 24 
+
+5 120 
+
+6 720 
+
+7 5040 
+
+8 40320 
+
+9 362880 
+
+10 3628800 
+
+11 39916800 
+
+12 479001600 
+
+13 6227020800 
+
+14 87178291200 
+
+15 1307674368000 
+
+16 20922789888000 
+
+17 355687428096000 
+
+18 6402373705728000 
+
+19 121645100408832000 
+
+20 2432902008176640000 
+
+Values of N\ in long 
+
+
+
+258 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Mathematical induction Recursive programming is directly related to math- 
+ematical induction, a technique for proving facts about discrete functions. 
+
+Proving that a statement involving an integer N is true for infinitely many 
+values of Nby mathematical induction involves the following two steps: 
+
+• The base case: prove the statement true for some specific value or values of 
+N (usually 1). 
+
+• The induction step (the central part of the proof): assume the statement 
+to be true for all positive integers less than N, then use that fact to prove it 
+true for N. 
+
+Such a proof suffices to show that the statement is true for all N: we can start at the 
+base case, and use our proof to establish that the statement is true for each larger 
+value of N, one by one. 
+
+Everyone’s first induction proof is to demonstrate that the sum of the positive 
+integers less than or equal to N is given by the formula N(N+ 1)/2. That is, we wish 
+to prove that the following equation is valid for all N 2: 1: 
+
+1 + 2 + 3 ... +(N-l)+N = N(N+l)/2 
+The equation is certainly true for N = 1 (base case). If we assume it to be true for all 
+integers less than N, then, in particular, it is true for N— 1, so 
+
+1 + 2 + 3 ... +(N— 1) = (N-l)N/2 
+
+and we can add N to both sides of this equation and simplify to get the desired 
+equation (induction step). 
+
+Every time we write a recursive program, we need mathematical induction to 
+be convinced that the program has the desired effect. The correspondence between 
+induction and recursion is self-evident. The difference in nomenclature indicates 
+a difference in outlook: in a recursive program, our outlook is to get a computa- 
+tion done by reducing to a smaller problem, so we use the term reduction step; in 
+an induction proof, our outlook is to establish the truth of the statement for larger 
+problems, so we use the term induction step. 
+
+When we write recursive programs we usually do not write down a full formal 
+proof that they produce the desired result, but we are always dependent upon the 
+existence of such a proof. We do often appeal to an informal induction proof to 
+convince ourselves that a recursive program operates as expected. For example, we 
+just discussed an informal proof to become convinced that f actori al () computes 
+the product of the positive integers less than or equal to N. 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+259 
+
+
+I H iH 
+
+Program 2.3.1 Euclid’s algorithm 
+
+
+
+
+
+public class Euclid 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int gcd(int p, int q) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (q == 0) return p; 
+return gcd(q, p % q) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int p = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int q = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+int d = gcd(p, q) ; 
+
+StdOut.println(d) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Euclid’s algorithm The greatest common divisor (gcd) of two positive integers 
+is the largest integer that divides evenly into both of them. For example, the greatest 
+common divisor of 102 and 68 is 34 since both 102 and 68 are multiples of 34, but 
+no integer larger than 34 divides evenly into 102 and 68. You may recall learning 
+about the greatest common divisor when you learned to reduce fractions. For ex- 
+ample, we can simplify 68/102 to 2/3 by dividing both numerator and denominator 
+by 34, their gcd. Finding the gcd of huge numbers is an important problem that 
+arises in many commercial applications, including the famous RSA cryptosystem. 
+
+We can efficiently compute the gcd using the following property, which holds 
+for positive integers p and q: 
+
+
+
+260 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+If p>q, the gcd of p and q is the same as the gcd of q and p % q. 
+
+To convince yourself of this fact, first note that the gcd of p and q is the same as the 
+gcd of q and p—q, because a number divides both p and q if and only if it divides 
+both q and p—q. By the same argument, q and p— 2q, q and p— 3q, and so forth have 
+the same gcd, and one way to compute p%q is to subtract q from 
+p until getting a number less than q. 
+
+The static method gcd() in Euclid (Program 2.3.1) is a 
+compact recursive function whose reduction step is based on this 
+property. The base case is when q is 0, with gcd (p , 0) = p. To see 
+that the reduction step converges to the base case, observe that 
+the second input strictly decreases in each recursive call since p % 
+q < q. If p < q, the first recursive call switches the arguments. In 
+fact, the second input decreases by at least a factor of two for ev- 
+ery second recursive call, so the sequence of inputs quickly con- 
+verges to the base case (see Exercise 2.3.11). This recursive solu- 
+tion to the problem of computing the greatest common divisor is known as Euclid’s 
+algorithm and is one of the oldest known algorithms — it is over 2,000 years old. 
+
+Towers of Hanoi No discussion of recursion would be complete without the 
+ancient towers of Hanoi problem. In this problem, we have three poles and n discs 
+that fit onto the poles. The discs differ in size and are initially stacked on one of the 
+poles, in order from largest (disc n) at the bottom to smallest (disc 1 ) at the top. The 
+task is to move all n discs to another pole, while obeying the following rules: 
+
+• Move only one disc at a time. 
+
+• Never place a larger disc on a smaller one. 
+
+One legend says that the world will end when a certain group of monks accom- 
+plishes this task in a temple with 64 golden discs on three diamond needles. But 
+how can the monks accomplish the task at all, playing by the rules? 
+
+To solve the problem, our goal is to issue a sequence of instructions for mov- 
+ing the discs. We assume that the poles are arranged in a row, and that each instruc- 
+tion to move a disc specifies its number and whether to move it left or right. If a 
+disc is on the left pole, an instruction to move left means to wrap to the right pole; 
+if a disc is on the right pole, an instruction to move right means to wrap to the left 
+pole. When the discs are all on one pole, there are two possible moves (move the 
+smallest disc left or right); otherwise, there are three possible moves (move the 
+smallest disc left or right, or make the one legal move involving the other two poles). 
+
+
+gcd (1440, 408) 
+gcd (408, 216) 
+gcd (216, 24) 
+gcd (192, 24) 
+gcd(24, 0) 
+return 24 
+return 24 
+return 24 
+return 24 
+return 24 
+
+Function call trace for gcd 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+261 
+
+
+Choosing among these possibilities on each move to achieve the goal is a challenge 
+that requires a plan. Recursion provides just the plan that we need, based on the 
+following idea: first we move the top n — 1 discs to an empty pole, then we move the 
+largest disc to the other empty pole (where it does not inter- 
+fere with the smaller ones), and then we complete the job by 
+moving the n— 1 discs onto the largest disc. 
+
+Tower sOfHanoi (Program 2.3.2) is a direct imple- 
+mentation of this strategy. It reads in a command-line argu- 
+ment n and prints out the solution to the Towers of Hanoi 
+problem on n discs. The recursive static method moves () 
+prints the sequence of moves to move the stack of discs to 
+the left (if the argument left is true) or to the right (if 
+1 eft is f al se). It does so exactly according to the plan just 
+described. 
+
+Function call trees To better understand the behav- 
+ior of modular programs that have multiple recursive calls 
+(such as TowersOfHanoi), we use a visual representation 
+known as a function call tree. Specifically, we represent each 
+method call as a tree node, depicted as a circle labeled with 
+the values of the arguments for that call. Below each tree 
+node, we draw the tree nodes corresponding to each call in 
+that use of the method (in order from left to right) and lines 
+connecting to them. This diagram contains all the information we need to under- 
+stand the behavior of the program. It contains a tree node for each method call. 
+
+We can use function call trees to understand the behavior of any modular 
+program, but they are particularly useful in exposing the behavior of recursive 
+
+programs. For example, the tree 
+corresponding to a call to move() 
+in TowersOfHanoi is easy to con- 
+struct. Start by drawing a tree 
+node labeled with the values of 
+the command-line arguments. 
+The first argument is the number 
+of discs in the pile to be moved 
+Function call tree for moves(4, true) in TowersOfHanoi (and the label of the disc to actu- 
+
+
+
+start position 
+
+
+
+move n-1 discs to the right (recursively) 
+
+
+
+move largest disc left (wrap to rightmost) 
+
+
+
+move n-1 discs to the right (recursively) 
+
+
+
+Recursive plan for towers of Hanoi 
+
+
+
+262 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Program 2.3.2 Towers of Hanoi 
+
+
+
+public class TowersOfHanoi 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void moves (int n, boolean left) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n == 0) return; n 
+
+moves (n-1, !left); left 
+
+if (left) StdOut.println(n + " left"); 
+else StdOut.println(n + " right"); 
+
+moves (n-1, !left) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read n, print moves to move n discs left, 
+
+int n = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+moves (n, true); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+The recursive method moves () prints the moves needed to move n discs to the left (if left is 
+true) or to the right (if left is false). 
+
+
+number of discs 
+direction to move pile 
+
+
+iPgjg 
+
+
+% java TowersOfHanoi 1 
+1 left 
+
+% java TowersOfHanoi 2 
+
+1 right 
+
+2 left 
+1 right 
+
+% java TowersOfHanoi 3 
+
+1 left 
+
+2 right 
+1 left 
+
+3 left 
+
+1 left 
+
+2 right 
+1 left 
+
+
+sf — ^ 
+
+% java TowersOfHanoi 4 
+
+
+1 right 
+
+I 
+
+2 left 
+
+1 
+
+1 right 
+
+
+3 right 
+
+I 
+
+1 right 
+
+1 
+
+2 left 
+
+‘i 
+
+1 right 
+
+I 
+
+4 left 
+
+1 
+
+1 right 
+
+1 
+
+2 left 
+
+1 
+
+1 right 
+
+I 
+
+3 right 
+
+1 
+
+1 right 
+
+1 
+
+2 left 
+
+1 
+
+1 right 
+
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+263 
+
+
+moves(4, true) 
+moves (3, false) 
+moves (2, true) 
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+2 left 
+
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+3 right 
+
+moves (2, true) 
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+2 left 
+
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+ally be moved); the second is the direction to move the pile. For clarity, we depict 
+the direction (a bool ean value) as an arrow that points left or right, since that is 
+our interpretation of the value — the direction to move 
+the piece. Then draw two tree nodes below with the 
+number of discs decremented by 1 and the direction 
+switched, and continue doing so until only nodes with 
+labels corresponding to a first argument value 1 have 
+no nodes below them. These nodes correspond to calls 
+on moves () that do not lead to further recursive calls. 
+
+Take a moment to study the function call tree 
+depicted earlier in this section and to compare it with 
+the corresponding function call trace depicted at right. 
+
+When you do so, you will see that the recursion tree is 
+just a compact representation of the trace. In particu- 
+lar, reading the node labels from left to right gives the 
+moves needed to solve the problem. 
+
+Moreover, when you study the tree, you probably 
+notice several patterns, including the following two: 
+
+• Alternate moves involve the smallest disc. 
+
+• That disc always moves in the same direction. 
+
+These observations are relevant because they give a 
+solution to the problem that does not require recur- 
+sion (or even a computer): every other move involves 
+the smallest disc (including the first and last), and each 
+intervening move is the only legal move at the time 
+not involving the smallest disc. We can prove that this 
+method produces the same outcome as the recursive 
+program, using induction. Having started centuries ago 
+without the benefit of a computer, perhaps our monks 
+are using this method. 
+
+Trees are relevant and important in understand- 
+ing recursion because the tree is the quintessential 
+recursive object. As an abstract mathematical model, 
+trees play an essential role in many applications, and in 
+
+Chapter 4, we will consider the use of trees as a computational model to structure 
+data for efficient processing. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Hi 
+
+JbljJs-jL 
+
+
+4 left 
+
+
+moves (3, false) 
+moves (2, true) 
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+2 left 
+
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+3 right 
+
+moves (2, true) 
+moves (1, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+2 left 
+
+moves Cl, false) 
+1 right 
+
+
+H 
+
+3 discs moved right 
+
+disc 4 moved left 
+
+HI 
+
+liui 
+
+ill 
+
+iH 
+
+i_L4 
+
+1AA 
+
+
+3 discs moved right 
+
+Function call trace for moves (4 , true) 
+
+
+
+264 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Exponential time One advantage of using recursion is that often we can de- 
+velop mathematical models that allow us to prove important facts about the behav- 
+ior of recursive programs. For the towers of Hanoi, we can estimate the amount of 
+time until the end of the world (assuming that the legend is true). This exercise is 
+important not just because it tells us that the end of the world is quite far off (even 
+if the legend is true), but also because it provides insight that can help us avoid 
+writing programs that will not finish until then. 
+
+For the towers of Hanoi, the mathematical model is simple: if we define the 
+function T(n) to be the number of move directives issued by TowersOf- 
+Hanoi to move n discs from one peg to another, then the recursive code 
+immediately implies that T(n) must satisfy the following equation: 
+
+T(n) = 2 T(n— 1) + 1 for n > l,with T(l) = 1 
+Such an equation is known in discrete mathematics as a recurrence rela- 
+tion. Recurrence relations naturally arise in the study of recursive pro- 
+grams. We can often use them to derive a closed-form expression for the 
+quantity of interest. For T(n), you may have already guessed from the ini- 
+tial values T(l) = 1 , T( 2) = 3, T(3), = 7, and T(4) = 15 that T(n) = 2" - 1 . 
+
+The recurrence relation provides a way to prove this to be true, by math- 
+ematical induction: 
+
+• Base case : T(l) = 2" — 1 = 1 
+
+• Induction step: if T(n— 1)= 2"' 1 — 1, T(n) = 2 (2 nA — 1) + 1 = 2" — 1 
+Therefore, by induction, T(n) = 2" — 1 for all n > 0. The minimum pos- 
+sible number of moves also satisfies the same recurrence (see Exercise 
+2.3.9). 
+
+Knowing the value of T(n), we can estimate the amount of time re- 
+quired to perform all the moves. If the monks move discs at the rate of one 
+per second, it would take more than one week for them to finish a 20-disc 
+problem, more than 31 years to finish a 30-disc problem, and more than 
+348 centuries for them to finish a 40-disc problem (assuming that they do not make 
+a mistake). The 64-disc problem would take more than 1.4 million centuries. The 
+end of the world is likely to be even further off than that because those monks pre- 
+sumably never have had the benefit of using Program 2.3.2, and might not be able 
+to move the discs so rapidly or to figure out so quickly which disc to move next. 
+
+Even computers are no match for exponential growth. A computer that can 
+do a billion operations per second will still take centuries to do 2 64 operations, and 
+no computer will ever do 2 1000 operations, say. The lesson is profound: with recur- 
+
+
+( 30 , 2 30 ) 
+
+
+
+Exponential 
+
+growth 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+265 
+
+
+sion, you can easily write simple short programs that take exponential time, but 
+they simply will not run to completion when you try to run them for large n. Nov- 
+ices are often skeptical of this basic fact, so it is worth your while to pause now to 
+think about it. To convince yourself that it is true, take the print statements out of 
+TowersOfHanoi and run it for increasing values of n starting at 20. You can easily 
+verify that each time you increase the value of n by 1, the running time doubles, and 
+you will quickly lose patience waiting for it to finish. If you wait for an hour for 
+some value of n, you will wait more than a day for n+ 5, more than a month for 
+n+10, and more than a century for rc+20 (no one has that much patience). Your 
+computer is just not fast enough to run every short Java program that you write, no 
+matter how simple the program might seem! Beware of programs that might require 
+exponential time. 
+
+We are often interested in predicting the running time of our programs. In 
+Section 4.1, we will discuss the use of the same process that we just used to help 
+estimate the running time of other programs. 
+
+
+Gray codes The towers of Hanoi problem is no toy. It is intimately related to 
+basic algorithms for manipulating numbers and discrete objects. As an example, we 
+consider Gray codes, a mathematical abstraction with numerous applications. 
+
+The playwright Samuel Beckett, perhaps best known for Waiting for Godot, 
+wrote a play called Quad that had the following property: starting with an empty 
+stage, characters enter and exit one at a time so that each subset of characters on 
+
+
+the stage appears exactly once. How did Beckett generate the stage 
+directions for this play? 
+
+One way to represent a subset of n discrete objects is to use a 
+string of n bits. For Beckett’s problem, we use a 4-bit string, with 
+bits numbered from right to left and a bit value of 1 indicating the 
+character onstage. For example, the string 0 10 1 corresponds 
+to the scene with characters 3 and 1 onstage. This representation 
+gives a quick proof of a basic fact: the number different subsets ofn 
+objects is exactly 2 ”. Quad has four characters, so there are 2 4 = 16 
+different scenes. Our task is to generate the stage directions. 
+
+An n-bit Gray code is a list of the 2” different n-bit binary 
+numbers such that each entry in the list differs in precisely one bit 
+from its predecessor. Gray codes directly apply to Beckett’s prob- 
+lem because changing the value of a bit from 0 to 1 corresponds to 
+
+
+code subset move 
+
+0 0 0 0 empty 
+
+0001 1 enter 1 
+
+0011 21 enter 2 
+
+0010 2 exit 1 
+
+0110 32 enter 3 
+
+0111 321 enter 1 
+
+0101 31 exit 2 
+
+0100 3 exit 1 
+
+1100 43 enter 4 
+
+1101 431 enter 1 
+
+1111 4321 enter 2 
+
+1110 432 exit 1 
+
+1010 42 exit 3 
+
+1011 421 enter 1 
+
+1001 41 exit 2 
+
+1000 4 exit 1 
+
+Gray code representations 
+
+
+
+266 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+a character entering the subset onstage; changing a bit from 1 to 0 corresponds to 
+a character exiting the subset. 
+
+How do we generate a Gray code? A recursive plan that is very similar to the 
+one that we used for the towers of Hanoi problem is effective. The n-bit binary- 
+reflected Gray code is defined recursively as follows: 
+
+• The (« — 1) bit code, with 0 prepended to each word, followed by 
+
+• The (n— 1) bit code in reverse order , with 1 prepended to each word 
+
+The 0-bit code is defined to be null, so the 1-bit code is 0 followed by 1. From this 
+recursive definition, we can verify by induction that the n-bit binary reflected Gray 
+
+code has the required property: adjacent codewords dif- 
+fer in one bit position. It is true by the inductive hypoth- 
+esis, except possibly for the last codeword in the first half 
+and the first codeword in the second half: this pair differs 
+only in their first bit. 
+
+The recursive definition leads, after some careful 
+thought, to the implementation in Beckett (Program 
+2.3.3) for printing out Beckett’s stage directions. This 
+program is remarkably similar to TowersOf Hanoi. In- 
+deed, except for nomenclature, the only difference is 
+in the values of the second arguments in the recursive 
+calls! 
+
+As with the directions in TowersOf Hanoi, the en- 
+ter and exit directions are redundant in Beckett, since 
+exi t is issued only when an actor is onstage, and enter 
+is issued only when an actor is not onstage. Indeed, both 
+Beckett and TowersOfHanoi directly involve the ruler 
+function that we considered in one of our first programs 
+(Program 1.2.1). Without the redundant instructions, they both implement a sim- 
+ple recursive function that could allow Ruler to print out the values of the ruler 
+function for any value given as a command-line argument. 
+
+Gray codes have many applications, ranging from analog-to-digital convert- 
+ers to experimental design. They have been used in pulse code communication, the 
+minimization of logic circuits, and hypercube architectures, and were even pro- 
+posed to organize books on library shelves. 
+
+
+1 -bit code 3-bit code 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+
+* 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+
+4-bit 0 
+
+0 0 0 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+
+0 
+
+0 0 1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+
+0 
+
+Oil 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+\ 
+
+0 
+
+0 10 
+
+
+
+1 -bit code 0 
+
+110 
+
+
+
+(reversed) q 
+
+111 
+
+2-bit code 0 
+
+10 1 
+
+
+
+0 
+
+10 0 
+
+0 
+
+0 0 
+
+1 
+
+10 0 
+
+0 
+
+0 1 
+
+1 
+
+10 1 
+
+0 
+
+1 1 
+
+1 
+
+111 
+
+0 
+
+1 0 
+
+1 
+
+110 
+
+1 
+
+1 0 
+
+1 
+
+0 10 
+
+1 
+
+1 1 
+
+1 
+
+Oil 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+i 
+
+1 
+
+0 0 1 
+
+1 
+
+|o o| 
+
+1 
+
+0 0 0 
+
+
+t 
+
+
+t 
+
+2-bit code 
+
+3-bit code 
+
+( reversed) 
+
+(reversed) 
+
+
+2-, 3-, and 4-bit Gray codes 
+
+
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+267 
+
+
+
+
+268 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Recursive graphics Simple recursive drawing schemes can lead to pictures 
+that are remarkably intricate. Recursive drawings not only relate to numerous ap- 
+plications, but they also provide an appealing platform for developing a better un- 
+derstanding of properties of recursive programs, because we can watch the process 
+of a recursive figure taking shape. 
+
+As a first simple example, consider Htree (Program 2.3.4), which, given a 
+command-line argument n, draws an H-tree of order n, defined as follows: The base 
+case is to draw nothing for n = 0. The reduction step is to draw, within the unit 
+square 
+
+• three lines in the shape of the letter H 
+
+• four H-trees of order n— 1, one connected to each tip of the H 
+
+with the additional provisos that the H-trees of order n — 1 are halved in size and 
+centered in the four quadrants of the square. 
+
+Drawings like these have many practical applications. For example, 
+consider a cable company that needs to run cable to all of the homes distrib- 
+uted throughout its region. A reasonable strategy is to use an H-tree to get 
+the signal to a suitable number of centers distributed throughout the region, 
+then run cables connecting each home to the nearest center. The same prob- 
+lem is faced by computer designers who want to distribute power or signal 
+throughout an integrated circuit chip. 
+
+Though every drawing is in a fixed-size window, H-trees certainly ex- 
+hibit exponential growth. An H-tree of order n connects 4" centers, so you 
+would be trying to plot more than a million lines with n = 10, more than a 
+billion with n = 15, and the program will certainly not finish the drawing 
+with n = 30. 
+
+If you take a moment to run Htree on your computer for a drawing 
+that takes a minute or so to complete, you will, just by watching the drawing 
+progress, have the opportunity to gain substantial insight into the nature of 
+recursive programs, because you can see the order in which the H figures 
+appear and how they form into H-trees. An even more instructive exercise, 
+which derives from the fact that the same drawing results no matter in what 
+order the recursive draw() calls and the StdDraw. 1 i ne() calls appear, is to 
+observe the effect of rearranging the order of these calls on the order in which the 
+lines appear in the emerging drawing (see Exercise 2.3.14). 
+
+
+order 1 
+
+
+order 2 
+
+
+hrl hrl 
+
+
+H bH 
+
+
+order 3 
+
+
+HM HH 
+
+Mb Mb 
+
+
+HlhH HIM 
+HH HH 
+
+
+H-trees 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+269 
+
+
+Program 2.3.4 Recursive graphics 
+
+
+public class Htree 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void draw(int n, double sz, double x, double y) 
+
+{ // Draw an H-tree centered at x, y 
+
+// of depth n and size sz. 
+
+if (n == 0) return; 
+
+double xO = x - sz/2, xl = x + sz/2; sz 
+
+double yO = y - sz/2, yl = y + sz/2; x > V 
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, y, xl, y); 
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, yO, xO, yl) ; 
+
+StdDraw.line(xl, yO, xl, yl) ; 
+draw(n-l, sz/2, xO, yO) ; 
+draw(n-l, sz/2, xO, yl); 
+draw(n-l, sz/2, xl, yO) ; 
+draw(n-l, sz/2, xl, yl); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+
+depth 
+line length 
+center 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int n = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+draw(n, .5, .5, .5); 
+
+} 
+
+
+(Wi) 
+
+
+t (*i . y 
+
+
+(x,y) 
+
+
+’(*o-ro) 
+
+
+This recursive program draws three lines in the shape of the letter H that connect the center (x, 
+y) of the square with the centers of the four quadrants, then calls itself for each of the quadrants, 
+using an integer argument to control the depth of the recursion. 
+
+
+
+% java Htree 3 
+
+H hrl M M 
+
+
+
+
+hrl HH 
+
+
+H H H H 
+
+
+J java Htree 4 
+MM MM MM MM 
+
+hIh h[h h[h h[h 
+
+
+r 
+
+
+H[hH 
+
+PP 
+
+PJtf 
+
+
+HUM hHM 
+
+HH HH 
+
+
+hHhH HH 
+
+Pp HP 
+
+
+PiP pH hUirl PM 
+PP HH HH HH 
+
+
+PP 
+
+PP 
+
+PP 
+
+pH 
+
+
+
+
+!••• • 
+
+
+java Htree 5 
+
+
+(tThIHH MM 
+
+PjHjPjP P]P] 
+hJh h|h w|m wJh| 
+HH HH PP PP| 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+270 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Brownian bridge An H-tree is a simple example of a fractal: a geometric shape 
+that can be divided into parts, each of which is (approximately) a reduced-size copy 
+of the original. Fractals are easy to produce with recursive programs, although sci- 
+entists, mathematicians, and programmers study them from many different points 
+of view. We have already encountered fractals several times in this book — for ex- 
+ample, IFS (Program 2.2.3). 
+
+The study of fractals plays an important and lasting role in artistic expression, 
+economic analysis and scientific discovery. Artists and scientists use them to build 
+compact models of complex shapes that arise in nature and resist description using 
+conventional geometry, such as clouds, plants, mountains, riverbeds, human skin, 
+and many others. Economists also use fractals to model function graphs of eco- 
+nomic indicators. 
+
+Fractional Brownian motion is a mathematical model for creating realistic 
+fractal models for many naturally rugged shapes. It is used in computational fi- 
+nance and in the study of many natural phenomena, including ocean flows and 
+nerve membranes. Computing the exact fractals specified by 
+the model can be a difficult challenge, but it is not difficult 
+to compute approximations with recursive programs. We 
+consider one simple example here; you can find much more 
+information about the model on the booksite. 
+
+Brownian (Program 2.3.5) produces a function graph 
+that approximates a simple example of fractional Brownian 
+motion known as a Brownian bridge and closely related func- 
+tions. You can think of this graph as a random walk that con- 
+nects two points, from (x 0 , y 0 ) to (x p y x ), controlled by a few 
+parameters. The implementation is based on the midpoint displacement method, 
+which is a recursive plan for drawing the plot within the interval [x 0 , xj. The base 
+case (when the size of the interval is smaller than a given tolerance) is to draw a 
+straight line connecting the two endpoints. The reduction case is to divide the in- 
+terval into two halves, proceeding as follows: 
+
+• Compute the midpoint (x m , y m ) of the interval. 
+
+• Add to the y-coordinate y m of the midpoint a random value 8, chosen from 
+the Gaussian distribution with mean 0 and a given variance. 
+
+• Recur on the subintervals, dividing the variance by a given scaling factor s. 
+
+The shape of the curve is controlled by two parameters: the volatility (initial value 
+of the variance) controls the distance the graph strays from the straight line con- 
+
+
+(* ra >r m +s) 
+
+
+
+
+
+Brownian bridge calculation 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+271 
+
+
+Program 2.3.5 Brownian bridge 
+
+
+public class Brownian 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void curve (double xO, double yO, x0 y( 
+
+double xl, double yl, 
+
+double var, double s) xl, y: 
+
+if (xl - xO < .01) xm ’ yi 
+
+{ delta 
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, yO, xl, yl) ; 
+
+return; var 
+
+} H 
+
+double xm = (xO + xl) / 2; 
+double ym = (yO + yl) / 2; 
+
+double delta = StdRandom.gaussian(0, Math. sqrt (var) ) ; 
+curve(xO, yO, xm, ym+delta, var/s, s); 
+curve(xm, ym+delta, xl, yl, var/s, s); 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double H = Double.parseDouble(args[0]) ; 
+double s = Math.pow(2, 2*H); 
+curve(0, .5, 1.0, .5, .01, s); 
+
+} 
+
+
+By adding a small, random Gaussian to a recursive program that would otherwise plot a straight 
+line, we get fractal curves. The command-line argument H, known as the Hurst exponent, con- 
+trols the smoothness of the curves. 
+
+
+
+mi 
+
+
+272 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+necting the points, and the Hurst exponent controls the smoothness of the curve. 
+We denote the Hurst exponent by H and divide the variance by 2 2H at each recur- 
+sive level. When H is 1/2 (divide by 2 at each level) the curve is a Brownian bridge: 
+a continuous version of the gambler’s ruin problem (see Program 1.3.8). When 
+0 < H < 1/2, the displacements tend to increase, resulting in a rougher curve; and 
+when 2 > H > 1/2, the displacements tend to decrease, resulting in a smoother 
+curve. The value 2 —His known as the fractal dimension of the curve. 
+
+The volatility and initial endpoints of the interval have to do with scale and 
+positioning. The mai n () test client in Browni an allows you to experiment with the 
+smoothness parameter. With values larger than 1/2, you get plots that look some- 
+thing like the horizon in a mountainous landscape; with values smaller than 1/2, 
+you get plots similar to those you might see for the value of a stock index. 
+
+Extending the midpoint displacement method to two dimensions produces 
+fractals known as plasma clouds. To draw a rectangular plasma cloud, we use a re- 
+cursive plan where the base case is to draw a rectangle of a given color and the re- 
+duction step is to draw a plasma cloud in each quadrant with colors that are per- 
+turbed from the average with a random Gaussian. Using the same volatility and 
+smoothness controls as in Browni an, we can produce synthetic clouds that are re- 
+markably realistic. We can use the same code to produce synthetic terrain, by inter- 
+preting the color value as the altitude. Variants of this scheme are widely used in the 
+entertainment industry to generate background scenery for movies and computer 
+games. 
+
+
+
+A plasma cloud 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+273 
+
+
+Pitfalls of recursion By now, you are perhaps persuaded that recursion can 
+help you to write compact and elegant programs. As you begin to craft your own 
+recursive programs, you need to be aware of several common pitfalls that can arise. 
+We have already discussed one of them in some detail (the running time of your 
+program might grow exponentially). Once identified, these problems are generally 
+not difficult to overcome, but you will learn to be very careful to avoid them when 
+writing recursive programs. 
+
+Missing base case. Consider the following recursive function, which is supposed 
+to compute Harmonic numbers, but is missing a base case: 
+
+public static double H(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+return H(N-l) + 1.0/N; 
+
+} 
+
+If you run a client that calls this function, it will repeatedly call itself and never re- 
+turn, so your program will never terminate. You probably already have encountered 
+infinite loops, where you invoke your program and nothing happens (or perhaps 
+you get an unending sequence of lines of output). With infinite recursion, however, 
+the result is different because the system keeps track of each recursive call (using a 
+mechanism that we will discuss in Section 4.3, based on a data structure known as 
+a stack ) and eventually runs out of memory trying to do so. Eventually, Java reports 
+a StackOverflowError. When you write a recursive program, you should always 
+try to convince yourself that it has the desired effect by an informal argument based 
+on mathematical induction. Doing so might uncover a missing base case. 
+
+No guarantee of convergence. Another common problem is to include within a 
+recursive function a recursive call to solve a subproblem that is not smaller than 
+the original problem. For example, the following method will go into an infinite 
+recursive loop for any value of its argument N except 1: 
+
+public static double H(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 1) return 1.0; 
+
+return H(N) + 1.0/N; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+274 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Bugs like this one are easy to spot, but subtle versions of the same problem can be 
+harder to identify. You may find several examples in the exercises at the end of this 
+section. 
+
+Excessive memory requirements. If a function calls itself recursively an excessive 
+number of times before returning, the memory required by Java to keep track of 
+the recursive calls may be prohibitive, resulting in a StackOverflowError. To get 
+an idea of how much memory is involved, run a small set of experiments using our 
+recursive program for computing the Harmonic numbers for increasing values of 
+N: 
+
+public static double H(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 1) return 1.0; 
+return H(N-l) + 1.0/N; 
+
+} 
+
+The point at which you get StackOve rf 1 owE r ro r will give you some idea of how 
+much memory Java uses to implement recursion. By contrast, you can run Pro- 
+gram 1.3.5 to compute H N for huge N using only a tiny bit of space. 
+
+Excessive recomputation. The temptation to write a simple recursive program to 
+solve a problem must always be tempered by the understanding that a simple pro- 
+gram might take exponential time (unnecessarily) due to excessive recomputation. 
+This effect is possible even in the simplest recursive programs, and you certainly 
+need to learn to avoid it. For example, the Fibonacci sequence 
+
+0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 ... 
+
+is defined by the recurrence F n = F n _ 1 + F n _ 2 for « > 2 with F 0 = 0 and F 1 = 1 . The 
+Fibonacci sequence has many interesting properties and arise in numerous applica- 
+tions. A novice programmer might implement this recursive function to compute 
+numbers in the Fibonacci sequence: 
+
+public static long F(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n == 0) return 0; 
+if (n == 1) return 1; 
+return F(n-l) + F(n-2); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+275 
+
+
+F(7) 
+
+F(6) 
+
+
+However, this program is spectacularly inefficient! Novice programmers often re- 
+fuse to believe this fact, and run code like this expecting that the computer is cer- 
+tainly fast enough to crank out an answer. Go ahead; see if your computer is fast 
+enough to use this program to compute ^50 . To see why it is futile to do so, con- 
+sider what the function does to compute F(S) = 21. 
+
+It first computes F(7) = 13 and F( 6) = 8. To compute 
+F( 7), it recursively computes F(6) = 8 again and F(5) 
+
+= 5. Things rapidly get worse because both times it 
+computes F( 6), it ignores the fact that it already 
+computed F( 5), and so forth. In fact, you can prove 
+by induction that the number of times this program 
+computes F(l) when computing F(n) is precisely 
+F n (see Exercise 2.3.12). The mistake of recomputa- 
+tion is compounded exponentially. As an example, 
+to compute F(200), the number of times this meth- 
+od needs to compute F(l) is F 200 > 10 43 ! No imag- 
+inable computer will ever be able to do this many 
+calculations. Beware of programs that might require 
+exponential time. Many calculations that arise and 
+find natural expression as recursive programs fall 
+into this category. Do not fall into the trap of imple- 
+menting and trying to run them. 
+
+The following is one caveat: a systematic tech- 
+nique known as memoization allows us to avoid this 
+pitfall while still taking advantage of the compact re- 
+cursive description of a computation. In memoiza- 
+tion, we maintain an array that keeps track of the 
+values we have computed so that we can return those 
+values and make recursive calls only for new values. 
+
+This technique is a form of dynamic programming, a 
+well-studied technique for organizing computations 
+that you will learn if you take courses in algorithms 
+or operations research. 
+
+
+F(5) 
+
+F(4) 
+
+F(3) 
+
+F(2) 
+
+F(l) 
+
+return 1 
+
+F(0) 
+
+return 0 
+
+return 1 
+F(l) 
+
+return 1 
+return 2 
+F(2) 
+
+F(l) 
+
+return 1 
+F(0) 
+
+return 0 
+return 1 
+return 3 
+FC3) 
+
+F(2) 
+
+F(l) 
+
+return 1 
+F(0) 
+
+return 0 
+return 1 
+FC1) 
+
+return 1 
+return 2 
+return 5 
+F(4) 
+
+F(3) 
+
+F(2) 
+
+
+Wrong way to compute Fibonacci numbers 
+
+
+
+276 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Perspective Programmers who do not use recursion are missing two oppor- 
+tunities. First recursion leads to compact solutions to complex problems. Second, 
+recursive solutions embody an argument that the program operates as anticipated. 
+In the early days of computing, the overhead associated with recursive programs 
+was prohibitive in some systems, and many people avoided recursion. In modern 
+systems like Java, recursion is often the method of choice. 
+
+If you are intrigued by the mystery of how the Java system manages to imple- 
+ment the illusion of independently operating copies of the same piece of code, be 
+assured that we will consider this issue in Chapter 4. You may be surprised at the 
+simplicity of the solution. It is so easy to implement that programmers were using 
+recursion well before the advent of high-level programming languages like Java. 
+Indeed, you might be surprised to learn that you could write programs equivalent 
+to the ones considered in this chapter with just the basic loops, conditionals, and 
+arrays programming model discussed in Chapter 1. 
+
+Recursion has reinforced for us the idea of proving that a program operates 
+as intended. The natural connection between recursion and mathematical induc- 
+tion is essential. For everyday programming, our interest in correctness is to save 
+time and energy tracking down bugs. In modern applications, security and privacy 
+concerns make correctness an essential part of programming. If the programmer 
+cannot be convinced that an application works as intended, how can a user who 
+wants to keep personal data private and secure be so convinced? 
+
+Recursive functions truly illustrate the power of a carefully articulated ab- 
+straction. While the concept of a function having the ability to call itself seems 
+absurd to many people at first, the many examples that we have considered are 
+certainly evidence that mastering recursion is essential to understanding and ex- 
+ploiting computation and in understanding the role of computational models in 
+studying natural phenomena. 
+
+Recursion is the last piece in a programming model that served to build much 
+of the computational infrastructure that was developed as computers emerged to 
+take a central role in daily life in the latter part of the 20th century. Programs built 
+from libraries of functions consisting of statements that operate on primitive types 
+of data, conditionals, loops, and function calls (including recursive ones) can solve 
+important applications of all sorts. In the next section, we emphasize this point 
+and review these concepts in the context of a large application. In Chapter 3 and 
+in Chapter 4, we will examine extensions to these basic ideas that embrace a more 
+expansive style of programming that now dominates the computing landscape. 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+277 
+
+
+
+Q. Are there situations when iteration is the only option available to address a 
+problem? 
+
+A. No, any loop can be replaced by a recursive function, though the recursive ver- 
+sion might require excessive memory. 
+
+Q. Are there situations when recursion is the only option available to address a 
+problem? 
+
+A. No, any recursive function can be replaced by an iterative counterpart. In Sec- 
+tion 4.3, we will see how compilers produce code for function calls by using a data 
+structure called a stack. 
+
+Q. Which should I prefer, recursion or iteration? 
+
+A. Whichever leads to the simpler, more easily understood, or more efficient 
+code. 
+
+Q. I get the concern about excessive space and excessive recomputation in recur- 
+sive code. Anything else to be concerned about? 
+
+A. Be extremely wary of creating arrays in recursive code. The amount of space 
+used can pile up very quickly, as can the amount of time required for memory 
+management. 
+
+
+
+
+278 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2 . 3.1 What happens if you call facto ri al () with a negative value of n? With a 
+large value, say, 35? 
+
+2 . 3.2 Write a recursive function that computes the value of In (N ! ) 
+
+2 . 3.3 Give the sequence of integers printed by a call to ex2 33(6) : 
+
+public static void ex233(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n <= 0) return; 
+
+StdOut.println(n) ; 
+ex233(n-2) ; 
+ex233(n-3) ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (n) ; 
+
+
+2 . 3.4 Give the value of ex2 34(6): 
+
+public static String ex234(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n <= 0) return 
+
+return ex234(n-3) + n + ex234(n-2) + n; 
+
+
+2 . 3.5 Criticize the following recursive function: 
+
+public static String ex235(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = ex235(n-3) + n + ex235(n-2) + n; 
+if (n <= 0) return 
+return s; 
+
+} 
+
+Answer: The base case will never be reached. A call to ex235(3) will result in calls 
+to ex235(0), ex235(-3), ex235(-6), and so forth until a StackOverflowError. 
+
+2 . 3.6 Given four positive integers a, b, c, and d, explain what value is computed 
+by gcd(gcd(a, b), gcd(c, d)). 
+
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+279 
+
+
+
+2 . 3.7 Explain in terms of integers and divisors the effect of the following Euclid- 
+like function. 
+
+public static boolean gcdlikefint p, int q) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (q == 0) return (p == 1); 
+return gcdlikefq, p % q); 
+
+} 
+
+
+2 . 3.8 Consider the following recursive function. 
+
+public static int mystery (int a, int b) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (b == 0) return 0; 
+
+if (b % 2 == 0) return mystery(a+a, b/2); 
+
+return mystery(a+a, b/2) + a; 
+
+} 
+
+What are the values of mystery(2, 25) and mystery(3, 11)? Given positive 
+integers a and b, describe what value mystery (a , b) computes. Answer the same 
+question, but replace + with *. 
+
+2 . 3.9 Write a recursive program Ruler to plot the subdivisions of a ruler using 
+StdDraw as in Program 1.2.1. 
+
+2 . 3.10 Solve the following recurrence relations, all with T( 1) = 1. Assume N is a 
+power of two. 
+
+• T(M) = T(NI 2) + 1. 
+
+• T(N) = 2T(N/2) + 1. 
+
+• T(N) = 2T(N/2) + N. 
+
+• T(N) = 47XN/2) + 3. 
+
+2 . 3.11 Prove by induction that the minimum possible number of moves needed 
+to solve the towers of Hanoi satisfies the same recurrence as the number of moves 
+used by our recursive solution. 
+
+2 . 3.12 Prove by induction that the recursive program given in the text makes ex- 
+actly F n recursive calls to F(l) when computing F(n). 
+
+
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2.3.13 Prove that the second argument to gcd() decreases by at least a factor of 
+two for every second recursive call, and then prove that gcd(p, q) uses at most 
+log 2 N recursive calls where N is the larger of p and q. 
+
+2.3.14 Modify Htree (Program 2.3.4) to animate the drawing of the H-tree. 
+
+
+20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 % 
+
+
+
+Next, rearrange the order of the recursive calls (and the base case), view the result- 
+ing animation, and explain each outcome. 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+281 
+
+
+
+
+2 . 3.15 Binary representation. Write a program that takes a positive integer N (in 
+decimal) from the command line and prints out its binary representation. Recall, in 
+Program 1.3.7, that we used the method of subtracting out powers of 2. Instead, use 
+the following simpler method: repeatedly divide 2 into N and read the remainders 
+backwards. First, write a while loop to carry out this computation and print the 
+bits in the wrong order. Then, use recursion to print the bits in the correct order. 
+
+2 . 3.16 A4 paper. The width-to-height ratio of paper in the ISO format is the 
+square root of 2 to 1. Format AO has an area of 1 square meter. Format A 1 is AO cut 
+with a vertical line into two equal halves, A2 is A1 cut with a horizontal line into in 
+two halves, and so on. Write a program that takes a command-line integer n and 
+uses StdDraw to show how to cut a sheet of AO paper into 2" pieces. 
+
+2 . 3.17 Permutations. Write a program Pe rmutati ons that takes a command-line 
+argument n and prints out all n ! permutations of the n letters starting at a (assume 
+that n is no greater than 26). A permutation of n elements is one of the n ! possible 
+orderings of the elements. As an example, when n = 3 you should get the following 
+output. Do not worry about the order in which you enumerate them. 
+
+bca cba cab acb bac abc 
+
+2 . 3.18 Permutations of size k. Modify Permutations so that it takes two com- 
+mand-line arguments n and k, and prints out all P(n,k) = n\/ (n—k)\ permutations 
+that contain exactly k of the n elements. Below is the desired output when k = 2 and 
+n = 4. You need not print them out in any particular order. 
+
+ab ac ad ba be bd ca cb cd da db dc 
+
+2 . 3.19 Combinations. Write a program Combi nations that takes one command- 
+line argument n and prints out all 2" combinations of any size. A combination is 
+a subset of the n elements, independent of order. As an example, when n = 3 you 
+should get the following output. 
+
+a ab abc ac b be c 
+
+Note that your program needs to print the empty string (subset of size 0). 
+
+
+
+282 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2.3.20 Combinations of size k. Modify Combinations so that it takes two com- 
+mand-line arguments n and k, and prints out all C(n, k) = nl / (k\{n—k)\) combi- 
+nations of size k. For example, when n = 5 and k = 3, you should get the following 
+output: 
+
+abc abd abe acd ace ade bed bee bde ede 
+
+2.3.21 Hamming distance. The Hamming distance between two bit strings of 
+length n is equal to the number of bits in which the two strings differ. Write a 
+program that reads in an integer k and a bit string s from the command line, and 
+prints out all bit strings that have Hamming distance at most k from s. For example 
+if k is 2 and s is 0000, then your program should print 
+
+0011 0101 0110 1001 1010 1100 
+Hint : Choose k of the n bits in s to flip. 
+
+2.3.22 Recursive squares. Write a program to produce each of the following recur- 
+sive patterns. The ratio of the sizes of the squares is 2.2:1. To draw a shaded square, 
+draw a filled gray square, then an unfilled black square. 
+
+
+
+2.3.23 Pancake flipping. You have a stack of n pancakes of varying sizes on a 
+griddle. Your goal is to rearrange the stack in descending order so that the largest 
+pancake is on the bottom and the smallest one is on top. You are only permitted to 
+flip the top k pancakes, thereby reversing their order. Devise a recursive scheme to 
+arrange the pancakes in the proper order that uses at most 2n — 3 flips. 
+
+2.3.24 Gray code. Modify Beckett (Program 2.3.3) to print out the Gray code 
+(not just the sequence of bit positions that change). 
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+283 
+
+
+
+2 . 3.25 Towers of Hanoi variant. Consider the following variant of the towers of 
+Hanoi problem. There are 2n discs of increasing size stored on three poles. Initially 
+all of the discs with odd size (1, 3, ..., 2n-l) are piled on the left pole from top to 
+bottom in increasing order of size; all of the discs with even size (2, 4, ..., 2n) are 
+piled on the right pole. Write a program to provide instructions for moving the or dcr i 
+odd discs to the right pole and the even discs to the left pole, obeying the same 
+rules as for towers of Hanoi. 
+
+2 . 3.26 Animated towers of Hanoi. Use StdDraw to animate a solution to the 
+towers of Hanoi problem, moving the discs at a rate of approximately 1 per order 2 
+second. 
+
+2 . 3.27 Sierpinski triangles. Write a recursive program to draw Sierpinski tri- 
+
+angles (see Program 2.2.3). As with Htree, use a command-line argument to 
+control the depth of the recursion. order 3 
+
+2 . 3.28 Binomial distribution. Estimate the number of recursive calls that 
+would be used by the code 
+
+public static double binomial (int N, int k) 
+
+if CCN == 0) || (k < 0)) return 1.0; Sierpinski 
+
+return (binomial (N-l, k) + binomial (N-l, k-l))/2.0; nangies 
+
+} 
+
+to compute bi nomi al (100 , 50). Develop a better implementation that is based 
+on memoization. Hint: See Exercise 1.4.37. 
+
+2 . 3.29 Collatz function. Consider the following recursive function, which is relat- 
+ed to a famous unsolved problem in number theory, known as the Collatz problem, 
+or the 3n+l problem: 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+284 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+public static void collatz(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+StdOut.printCn + " 
+if (n == 1) return; 
+if (n % 2 == 0) collatz(n / 2); 
+else collatz(3*n + 1); 
+
+} 
+
+For example, a call to col 1 atz (7) prints the sequence 
+
+7 22 11 34 17 52 26 13 40 20 10 5 16 8 4 2 1 
+
+as a consequence of 17 recursive calls. Write a program that takes a command-line 
+argument N and returns the value of n < N for which the number of recursive calls 
+for col 1 atz (n) is maximized. The unsolved problem is that no one knows whether 
+the function terminates for all positive values of n (mathematical induction is no 
+help, because one of the recursive calls is for a larger value of the argument). 
+
+2 . 3.30 Brownian island. B. Mandelbrot asked the famous question How long is 
+the coast of Britain? Modify Browni an to get a program Browni anlsl and that plots 
+Brownian islands, whose coastlines resemble that of Great Britain. The modifica- 
+tions are simple: first, change curve () to add a Gaussian to the x-coordinate as well 
+as to the /-coordinate; second, change mai n () to draw a curve from the point at the 
+center of the canvas back to itself. Experiment with various values of the parameters 
+to get your program to produce islands with a realistic look. 
+
+
+
+2 . 3.31 Plasma clouds. Write a recursive program to draw plasma clouds, using the 
+method suggested in the text. 
+
+
+
+
+2.3 Recursion 
+
+
+285 
+
+
+
+2.3.32 A strange function. Consider McCarthy’s 91 function: 
+
+public static int mcCarthy(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n > 100) return n - 10; 
+return mcCarthy(mcCarthy(n+ll)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+Determine the value of mcCarthy (50) without using a computer. Give the number 
+of recursive calls used by mcCarthy () to compute this result. Prove that the base 
+case is reached for all positive integers n or give a value of n for which this function 
+goes into a recursive loop. 
+
+2.3.30 Recursive tree. Write a program Tree that takes a command-line argument 
+N and produces the following recursive patterns for N equal to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8. 
+
+
+l 
+
+
+2 
+
+
+3 
+
+
+4 
+
+
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study! Percolation 
+
+The programming tools that we have considered to this point allow us to attack all 
+manner of important problems. We conclude our study of functions and modules 
+by considering a case study of developing a program to solve an interesting scien- 
+tific problem. Our purpose in doing so is 
+to review the basic elements that we have 
+covered, in the context of the various 
+challenges that you might face in solv- 
+ing a specific problem, and to illustrate 
+a programming style that you can apply 
+broadly. 
+
+Our example applies a computing 
+technique to a simple model that has been 
+extremely useful in helping scientists and 
+engineers in numerous contexts. We consider a widely applicable technique known 
+as Monte Carlo simulation to study a natural model known as percolation. This is 
+not just of direct importance in materials science and geology, but also explains 
+many other natural phenomena. 
+
+The term “Monte Carlo simulation” is broadly used to encompass any tech- 
+nique that employs randomness to generate approximate solutions to quantitative 
+problems. We have used it in several other contexts already — for example, in the 
+gambler’s ruin and coupon collector problems. Rather than develop a complete 
+mathematical model or measure all possible outcomes of an experiment, we rely 
+on the laws of probability. 
+
+We will learn quite a bit about percolation in this case study, but our focus is 
+on the process of developing modular programs to address computational tasks. 
+We identify subtasks that can be independently addressed, striving to identify the 
+key underlying abstractions and asking ourselves questions such as the following: 
+Is there some specific subtask that would help solve this problem? What are the es- 
+sential characteristics of this specific subtask? Might a solution that addresses these 
+essential characteristics be useful in solving other problems? Asking such questions 
+pays significant dividend, because they lead us to develop software that is easier to 
+create, debug, and reuse, so that we can more quickly address the main problem of 
+interest. 
+
+
+2.4.1 Percolation scaffolding . . . . . . .290 
+
+2.4.2 Vertical percolation detection. . . .292 
+
+2.4.3 Visualization client ..... ... .295 
+
+2.4.4 Percolation probability estimate . .297 
+
+2.4.5 Percolation detection ........ 299 
+
+2.4.6 Adaptive plot client . . .302 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+287 
+
+
+Percolation It is not unusual for local interactions in a system to imply global 
+properties. For example, an electrical engineer might be interested in composite 
+systems comprised of randomly distributed insulating and metallic materials: what 
+fraction of the materials need to be metallic so that the composite system is an 
+electrical conductor? As another example, a geologist might be interested in a po- 
+rous landscape with water on the surface (or oil below). Under what conditions will 
+the water be able to drain through to the bottom (or the oil to gush through to the 
+surface)? Scientists have defined an abstract process known as percolation to model 
+such situations. It has been studied widely, and shown to be 
+an accurate model in a dizzying variety of applications, be- 
+yond insulating materials and porous substances to the 
+spread of forest fires and disease epidemics to evolution to 
+the study of the internet. 
+
+For simplicity, we begin by working in two dimensions 
+and model the system as an N-by-N grid of sites. Each site 
+is either blocked or open; open sites are initially empty. A full 
+site is an open site that can be connected to an open site in 
+the top row via a chain of neighboring (left, right, up, down) 
+open sites. If there is a full site in the bottom row, then we 
+say that the system percolates. In other words, a system per- 
+colates if we fill all open sites connected to the top row and 
+that process fills some open site on the bottom row. For the 
+insulating/metallic materials example, the open sites corre- 
+spond to metallic materials, so that a system that percolates 
+has a metallic path from top to bottom, with full sites con- 
+ducting. For the porous substance example, the open sites 
+correspond to empty space through which water might 
+flow, so that a system that percolates lets water fill open sites, 
+flowing from top to bottom. 
+
+In a famous scientific problem that has been heavily studied for decades, re- 
+searchers are interested in the following question: if sites are independently set to 
+be open with vacancy probability p (and therefore blocked with probability 1— p), 
+what is the probability that the system percolates? No mathematical solution to 
+this problem has yet been derived. Our task is to write computer programs to help 
+study the problem. 
+
+
+
+
+no open site connected to top 
+Percolation examples 
+
+
+288 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Basic scaffolding To address percolation with a Java program, we face numer- 
+ous decisions and challenges, and we certainly will end up with much more code 
+than in the short programs that we have considered so far in this book. Our goal is 
+
+
+to illustrate an incremental style of programming where we independently develop 
+
+
+percolation system 
+
+
+
+11000111 
+
+01100000 
+
+00011001 
+
+11001000 
+
+10001001 
+
+10111100 
+
+01010000 
+
+00001011 
+
+open sites 
+
+00111000 
+
+10011111 
+
+11100110 
+
+00110111 
+
+01110110 
+
+01000011 
+
+10101111 
+
+11110100 
+
+full sites 
+
+00111000 
+
+00011111 
+
+00000110 
+
+00000111 
+
+00000110 
+
+00000011 
+
+00001111 
+
+00000100 
+
+Percolation representations 
+
+
+modules that address parts of the problem, building confidence 
+with a small computational infrastructure of our own design and 
+construction as we proceed. 
+
+The first step is to pick a representation of the data. This deci- 
+sion can have substantial impact on the kind of code that we write 
+later, so it is not to be taken lightly. Indeed, it is often the case that 
+we learn something while working with a chosen representation 
+that causes us to scrap it and start all over using a new one. 
+
+For percolation, the path to an effective representation is 
+clear: use two-dimensional arrays. What type of data should we use 
+for each entry? One possibility is to use integers, with a code such 
+as 0 to indicate an empty site, 1 to indicate a blocked site, and 2 to 
+indicate a full site. Alternatively, note that we typically describe sites 
+in terms of questions: Is the site open or blocked? Is the site full or 
+empty? This characteristic of the entries suggests that we might use 
+boolean matrices, where all entries are true or fal se. 
+
+Boolean matrices are fundamental mathematical objects 
+with many applications. Java itself does not provide direct support 
+for operations on boolean matrices, but we can use the methods 
+in StdArraylO (see Program 2.2.2) to read and write them. This 
+choice illustrates a basic principle that often comes up in program- 
+ming: the effort required to build a more general tool usually pays 
+dividends. Using a natural abstraction such as boolean matrices is 
+preferable to using a specialized representation. In the present con- 
+text, it turns out that using bool ean instead of i nt matrices also 
+leads to code that is easier to understand. Eventually, we will want 
+to work with random data, but we also want to be able to read and 
+write to files because debugging programs with random inputs can 
+
+
+be counterproductive. With random data, you get different input 
+each time that you run the program; after fixing a bug, what you want to see is the 
+
+
+same input that you just used, to check that the fix was effective. Accordingly, it is 
+best to start with some specific cases that we understand, kept in files formatted to 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+289 
+
+
+be read by StdAr raylO . readBool ean2D() (dimensions followed by 0 and 1 values 
+in row- major order). 
+
+When you start working on a new problem that involves several files, it is usu- 
+ally worthwhile to create a new folder (directory) to isolate those files from others 
+that you may be working on. For example, we might start with stdlib. jar in a 
+folder named per col ati on, so that we have access to the methods in our libraries 
+StdAr ray 10. java, Stdln. java, StdOut. java, StdDraw. java, StdRandom. java, 
+and StdStats . j ava. We can then implement and debug the basic code for reading 
+and writing percolation systems, create test files, check that the files are compat- 
+ible with the code, and so forth, before really worrying about percolation at all. 
+This type of code, sometimes called scaffolding, is straightforward to implement, 
+but making sure that it is solid at the outset will save us from distraction when ap- 
+proaching the main problem. 
+
+Now we can turn to the code for testing whether a boolean matrix represents 
+a system that percolates. Referring to the helpful interpretation in which we can 
+think of the task as simulating what would happen if the top were flooded with wa- 
+ter (does it flow to the bottom or not?), our first design decision is that we will want 
+to have a flow() method that takes as an argument a two-dimensional boolean 
+array open [] [] that specifies which sites are open and returns another two-dimen- 
+sional boolean array f ul 1 [] [] that specifies which sites are full. For the moment, 
+we will not worry at all about how to implement this method; we are just deciding 
+how to organize the computation. It is also clear that we will want client code to 
+be able to use a percol ates() method that checks whether the array returned by 
+flow() has any full sites on the bottom. 
+
+Percolation (Program 2.4.1) summarizes these decisions. It does not per- 
+form any interesting computation, but, after running and debugging this code we 
+can start thinking about actually solving the problem. A method that performs no 
+computation, such as f 1 ow() , is sometimes called a stub. Having this stub allows us 
+to test and debug percol atesO and mai n() in the context in which we will need 
+them. We refer to code like Program 2.4.1 as scaffolding. As with scaffolding that 
+construction workers use when erecting a building, this kind of code provides the 
+support that we need to develop a program. By fully implementing and debugging 
+this code (much, if not all, of which we need, anyway) at the outset, we provide a 
+sound basis for building code to solve the problem at hand. Often, we carry the 
+analogy one step further and remove the scaffolding (or replace it with something 
+better) after the implementation is complete. 
+
+
+
+290 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+J|l 
+
+
+Program 2.4.1 Percolation scaffolding 
+
+
+public class Percolation 
+
+{ 
+
+public static boolean[][] flow(boolean[] [] open) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = open. length; 
+
+boolean[][] full = new boolean[N] [N] ; 
+
+// Percolation flow computation goes here. 
+
+return full ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static boolean percolates (bool ean[] [] open) 
+
+{ 
+
+boolean[][] full = flow(open); 
+int N = full .length; 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+if (full [N-l] [j]) return true; 
+return false; 
+
+} 
+
+
+N 
+
+full [] [] 
+open[] [] 
+
+
+system size (N-by-N) 
+full sites 
+open sites 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+boolean[][] open = StdArraylO. readBoolean2D() ; 
+StdArrayIO.print(flow(open)) ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n(percol ates (open) ) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+To get started with percolation, we implement and debug this code, which handles all the 
+straightforward tasks surrounding the computation. The primary function flow() returns an 
+array giving the full sites (none, in the placeholder code here). The helper function perco- 
+1 ates () checks the bottom row of the returned array to decide whether the system percolates. 
+The test client mai n() reads a boolean matrix from standard input and then prints the result 
+of calling flow () and percol atesQ for that matrix. 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+% more testEZ.txt 
+
+
+% java Percolation < testEZ.txt 
+
+5 5 
+
+1 
+
+5 5 
+
+0 110 1 
+
+1 
+
+0 0 0 0 0 
+
+! 0 0 111 
+
+1 ' 
+
+! 0 0 0 0 0 
+
+! 110 11 
+
+I 
+
+1 0 0 0 0 0 
+
+i ioooi 
+
+1 
+
+I 0 0 0 0 0 
+
+j 0 1111 
+
+1 
+
+| 0 0 0 0 0 
+
+! 
+
+i 
+
+! false 
+
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+291 
+
+
+Mmm m 
+
+■■r 
+
+
+site connected to to. 
+
+
+with a ver 
+
+
+:ted to top 
+tical path 
+
+
+does not vertically percolate 
+
+
+Vertical percolation Given a boolean matrix that represents the open sites, 
+how do we figure out whether it represents a system that percolates? As we will see 
+at the end of this section, this computation turns out to be directly related to a 
+fundamental question in computer science. For the moment, we will consider a 
+much simpler version of the problem that we call vertical per- 
+vertically percolates eolation. 
+
+The simplification is to restrict attention to vertical con- 
+nection paths. If such a path connects top to bottom in a sys- 
+tem, we say that the system vertically percolates along the path 
+(and that the system itself vertically percolates). This restric- 
+f . tion is perhaps intuitive if we are talking about sand traveling 
+
+site connected to top r r a o 
+
+with a vertical path through cement, but not if we are talking about water traveling 
+
+, „ . . through cement or about electrical conductivity. Simple as it is, 
+
+vertical percolation is a problem that is interesting in its own 
+right because it suggests various mathematical questions. Does 
+the restriction make a significant difference? How many verti- 
+cal percolation paths do we expect? 
+
+Determining the sites that are filled by some path that 
+... is connected vertically to the top is a simple calculation. We 
+top with a vertical path initialize the top row of our result array from the top row of 
+the percolation system, with full sites corresponding to open 
+tica perco ation oneS- Then, moving from top to bottom, we fill in each row of 
+
+the array by checking the corresponding row of the percolation 
+system. Proceeding from top to bottom, we fill in the rows of f ul 1 [] [] to mark 
+as true all entries that correspond to sites in open[] [] that are vertically con- 
+nected to a full site on the previous row. Program 2.4.2 is an 
+
+implementation of fl ow() for Per col ati on that returns a connected tc 
+
+bool ean array of full sites (t rue if connected to the top via vertical path c 
+
+a vertical path, fal se otherwise). 
+
+
+no open site connected to 
+top with a vertical path 
+
+Vertical percolation 
+
+
+connected to top via a 
+vertical path of filled sites 
+
+
+Testing After we become convinced that our code is be- 
+having as planned, we want to run it on a broader variety of 
+
+
+
+test cases and address some of our scientific questions. At 
+this point, our initial scaffolding becomes less useful, as rep- 
+resenting large boolean matrices with Os and Is on standard 
+input and standard output and maintaining large numbers 
+
+
+not connected to top \| 
+
+via such a path connected to top 
+via such a path 
+
+Vertical percolation calculation 
+
+
+292 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Program 2.4.2 Vertical percolation detection 
+
+
+public static boolean[][] flow(boolean[] [] 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+// Compute full sites for vertical percolation. 
+
+int N = open. length; 
+boolean[][] full = new boolean[N] [N] ; 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+open[0] [j] ; 
+i < N; i++) 
+
+0; j < N; j++) 
+
+&& full [i 
+
+
+
+full [0] [j] = 
+for (int i = 1; 
+for (int j = 
+
+full [i] [j] = open[i] [j] 
+return full ; 
+
+
+N system size (N-by-N) 
+full [] [] full sites 
+open [] [] open sites 
+
+
+-1] [j] 
+
+
+Substituting this method for the stub in Program 2.4.2 gives a solution to the vertical- only per- 
+colation problem that solves our test case as expected (see text). 
+
+
+
+
+"mm***, 
+
+
+of test cases quickly becomes uninformative and unwieldy. Instead, we want to au- 
+tomatically generate test cases and observe the operation of our code on them, to 
+be sure that it is operating as we expect. Specifically, to gain confidence in our code 
+and to develop a better understanding of percolation, our next goals are to: 
+
+• Test our code for large random inputs. 
+
+• Estimate the probability that a system percolates for a given p. 
+
+To accomplish these goals, we need new clients that are slightly more sophisticated 
+than the scaffolding we used to get the program up and running. Our modular pro- 
+gramming style is to develop such clients in independent classes without modifying 
+our percolation code at all . 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+293 
+
+
+Data visualization. We can work with much bigger problem instances if we use 
+StdDraw for output. The following static method for Percolation allows us to 
+visualize the contents of boolean matrices as a subdivision of the StdDraw canvas 
+into squares, one for each site. 
+
+public static void show(boolean[] [] a, boolean which) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+
+StdDraw. setXscalef-l, N); 
+
+StdDraw. setYscale(-l, N); 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+if (a[i] [j] == which) 
+
+StdDraw. filledSquare(j , N-i-1, .5); 
+
+} 
+
+
+The second argument whi ch specifies whether we want to display the entries cor- 
+responding to true or to fal se. This method is a bit of a diversion from the calcu- 
+lation, but pays dividends in its ability to help us visualize large problem instances. 
+Using show() to draw our arrays representing blocked and full sites in different 
+colors gives a compelling visual representation of percolation. 
+
+Monte Carlo simulation. We want our code to work properly for any boolean 
+matrix. Moreover, the scientific question of interest involves random matrices. To 
+this end, we add another static method to Percol ati on: 
+
+public static boolean[][] random(int N, double p) 
+
+{ 
+
+boolean[][] a = new boolean[N] [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+a[i][j] = StdRandom.bernoulli (p) ; 
+return a; 
+
+} 
+
+This method generates a random N-by-N matrix of any given size, each entry true 
+with probability p. Having debugged our code on a few specific test cases, we are 
+ready to test it on random systems. It is possible that such cases may uncover a few 
+more bugs, so some care is in order to check results. However, having debugged our 
+code for a small system, we can proceed with some confidence. It is easier to focus 
+on new bugs after eliminating the obvious bugs. 
+
+
+
+294 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+With these tools, a client for testing our percolation code on a much larger set 
+of trials is straightforward. Visualize (Program 2.4.3) consists of just a main() 
+method that takes N and p from the command line, generates T trials (taking this 
+number from the command line), and displays the result of the percolation flow 
+calculation for each case, pausing for a brief time between cases. 
+
+This kind of client is typical. Our eventual goal is to compute an accurate 
+estimate of percolation probabilities, perhaps by running a large number of tri- 
+als, but this simple tool gives us the opportunity to gain more familiarity with the 
+problem by studying some large cases (while at the same time gaining confidence 
+that our code is working properly). Before reading further, you are encouraged to 
+download and run this code from the booksite to study the percolation process. 
+When you run Vi sual i ze for moderate size N (50 to 100, say) and various p, you 
+will immediately be drawn into using this program to try to answer some questions 
+about percolation. Clearly, the system never percolates when p is low and always 
+percolates when p is very high. How does it behave for intermediate values of p? 
+How does the behavior change as N increases? 
+
+Estimating probabilities The next step in our program development process 
+is to write code to estimate the probability that a random system (of size N with 
+site vacancy probability p) percolates. We refer to this quantity as the percolation 
+probability. To estimate its value, we simply run a number of experiments. The 
+situation is no different than our study of coin flipping (see Program 2.2.6), but 
+instead of flipping a coin, we generate a random system and check whether or not 
+it percolates. 
+
+Esti mate (Program 2.4.4) encapsulates this computation in a method eval () 
+that returns an estimate of the probability that an N-by-N system with site vacancy 
+probability p percolates, obtained by generating T random systems and calculating 
+the fraction of them that percolate. The method takes three arguments: N, p, and 
+T. 
+
+How many trials do we need to obtain an accurate estimate? This question 
+is addressed by basic methods in probability and statistics, which are beyond the 
+scope of this book, but we can get a feeling for the problem with computational 
+experience. With just a few runs of Esti mate, you can learn that the site vacancy 
+probability is close to 0 or very close to 1, then we do not need many trials, but 
+that there are values for which we need as many as 10,000 trials to be able to esti- 
+mate it within two decimal places. To study the situation in more detail, we might 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+295 
+
+
+Program 2.4.3 Visualization client 
+
+
+public class Visualize 
+
+i N 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ p 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; T 
+
+double p = Doubl e. par seDouble (args [1] ) ; 0 pen| 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; f u n| 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+boolean[][] open = Percolation. random(N, p); 
+
+StdDraw.clearO ; 
+
+StdDraw.setPenCol or (StdDraw. BLACK) ; 
+
+Percolation.show(open, false); 
+
+StdDraw . setPenCol or (StdDraw . BLUE) ; 
+
+bool ean [] [] f ul 1 = Percol ati on . f 1 ow(open) ; 
+
+Percolation.show(full , true); 
+
+StdDraw. show(lOOO) ; 
+
+
+system size (N-by-N) 
+site vacancy probability 
+number of trials 
+
+
+open [] [] open sites 
+full [] [] full sites 
+
+
+This client generates N-by-N random instances with site vacancy probability p, computes the 
+directed percolation flow, and draws the result on StdDraw. Such drawings increase confidence 
+that our code is operating properly and help develop an intuitive understanding of percola- 
+
+
+
+296 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+modify Estimate to produce output like Bernoulli (Program 2.2.6), plotting a 
+histogram of the data points so that we can see the distribution of values (see Ex- 
+ercise 2.4.10). 
+
+Using Esti mate . eval () represents a giant leap in the amount of computa- 
+tion that we are doing. All of a sudden, it makes sense to run thousands of trials. 
+It would be unwise to try to do so without first having thoroughly debugged our 
+percolation methods. Also, we need to begin to take the time required to complete 
+the computation into account. The basic methodology for doing so is the topic of 
+Section 4.1, but the structure of these programs is sufficiently simple that we can 
+do a quick calculation, which we can verify by running the program. We are doing 
+T trials, each of which involve N 2 sites, so the total running time of Estimate, 
+eval () is proportional to N 2 T. If we increase T by a factor of 10 (to gain more 
+precision), the running time increases by about a factor of 10. If we increase N by 
+a factor of 10 (to study percolation for larger systems), the running time increases 
+by about a factor of 100. 
+
+Can we run this program to determine percolation probabilities for a system 
+with billions of sites with several digits of precision? No computer is fast enough 
+to use Esti mate . eval () for this purpose. Moreover, in a scientific experiment on 
+percolation, the value of N is likely to be much higher. We can hope to formulate a 
+hypothesis from our simulation that can be tested experimentally on a much larger 
+system, but not to precisely simulate a system that corresponds atom-for-atom with 
+the real world. Simplification of this sort is essential in science. 
+
+You are encouraged to download Esti mate from the booksite to get a feel for 
+both the percolation probabilities and the amount of time required to compute 
+them. When you do so, you are not just learning more about percolation, but also 
+you are testing the hypothesis that the models we have just described apply to the 
+running times of our simulations of the percolation process. 
+
+What is the probability that a system with site vacancy probability p vertically 
+percolates? Vertical percolation is sufficiently simple that elementary probabilistic 
+models can yield an exact formula for this quantity, which we can validate experi- 
+mentally with Esti mate. Since our only reason for studying vertical percolation 
+was an easy starting point around which we could develop supporting software for 
+studying percolation methods, we leave further study of vertical percolation for an 
+exercise (see Exercise 2.4.1 1) and turn to the main problem. 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+297 
+
+
+
+Percolation probability estimate 
+
+
+
+
+
+public class Estimate 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double eval(int N, double p, int T) 
+
+{ // Generate T random networks, return empirical 
+
+// percolation probability estimate, 
+int cnt = 0; 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ // Generate one random network. 
+
+boolean[][] open = Percolation. random (N, p); 
+if (Percolation. percolates (open)) cnt++; 
+
+} 
+
+return (double) cnt / T; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+double p = Double.parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; 
+double q = eval(N, p, T); 
+
+StdOut.println(q) ; 
+
+
+
+system size (N-by-N) 
+site vacancy probability 
+number of trials 
+open sites 
+
+percolation probability 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+To estimate the probability that a network percolates , we generate random networks and com- 
+pute the fraction of them that percolate. This is a Bernoulli process, no different than coin flip- 
+ping (see Program 2.2.6). Increasing the number of trials increases the accuracy of the estimate. 
+If the site vacancy probability is close to 0 or to I, not many trials are needed. 
+
+
+% java Estimate 20 .5 10 
+
+0.0 
+
+% java Estimate 20 .75 10 
+
+0.0 
+
+% java Estimate 20 .95 10 
+
+1.0 
+
+% java Estimate 20 .85 10 
+0.7 
+
+% java Estimate 20 .85 1000 
+0.564 
+
+% java Estimate 20 .85 1000 
+0.561 
+
+% java Estimate 40 .85 100 
+
+0.1 
+
+
+uww it.', 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+298 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,0,0) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,1,0) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,0,3) 
+
+
+f1ow(. . . ,0,4) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,1,4) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,2,4) 
+
+
+Recursive solution for percolation How do we test whether a system perco- 
+lates in the general case when any path starting at the top and ending at the bottom 
+(not just a vertical one) will do the job? 
+
+Remarkably, we can solve this problem with 
+a compact program, based on a classic recursive 
+scheme known as depth-first search. Program 2.4.5 
+is an implementation of flow() that computes 
+the flow array, based on a recursive four-argument 
+version of f 1 ow() that takes as arguments the site 
+vacancy array open[] [], the flow array full [] 
+
+[] , and a site position specified by a row index i 
+and a column index j . The base case is a recursive 
+call that just returns (we refer to such a call as a 
+null call), for one of the following reasons: 
+
+• Either i or j are outside the array bounds. 
+
+• The site is blocked (open [i ] [ j] is fal se). 
+
+• We have already marked the site as full 
+(full [i] [j] is true). 
+
+The reduction case is to mark the site as filled and 
+issue recursive calls for the site’s four neighbors: 
+open[i+l] [j], open[i] [j+1], open[i] [j-1], 
+and open[i-l] [j]. To implement flow(), we 
+call the recursive method for every site on the 
+top row. The recursion always terminates because 
+each recursive call either is null or marks a new 
+site as full. We can show by an induction-based 
+argument (as usual for recursive programs) that a 
+site is marked as full if and only if it is connected 
+to one of the sites on the top row. 
+
+Tracing the operation of flow() on a tiny 
+test case is an instructive exercise in examining 
+the dynamics of the process. The function calls 
+
+itself for every site that can be reached via a path of open sites from the top. This 
+example illustrates that simple recursive programs can mask computations that 
+otherwise are quite sophisticated. This method is a special case of the classic depth- 
+first search algorithm, which has many important applications. 
+
+
+
+.,3,4) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,3,3) 
+
+
+flow(. ..,4,3) 
+
+
+flow(. ..,3,2) 
+
+
+flow(. . . ,2,2) 
+
+
+Recursive percolation (null calls omitted) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+299 
+
+
+
+• “ ’■ Tv " 
+
+
+Program 2.4.5 Percolation detection 
+
+public static boolean[][] flow(boolean[] [] open) 
+
+{ // Fill every site reachable from the top row. 
+
+int N = open. length; 
+boolean[][] full = new bool ean [N] [N] ; 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) oi 
+
+flow(open, full, 0, j); ft 
+
+return full ; 
+
+
+N system size (N-by-N) 
+
+open [] [] open sites 
+full[][] full sites 
+
+i , j current site row, column 
+
+
+public static void flow(boolean[] [] open, 
+
+bool ean [][] full, in 
+{ // Fill every site reachable from (i , j). 
+
+int N = full .length; 
+if (i <0 || i >= N) return; 
+if (j < 0 j j j >= N) return; 
+if (!open[ij [j]) return; 
+if (full[i][j]) return; 
+full [i] [j] = true; 
+flow(open, full, i+1, j); // Down. 
+
+flow(open, full, i, j+1); // Right. 
+
+flow(open, full, i, j-1); // Left. 
+
+flow(open, full, i-1, j); // Up. 
+
+
+int i, int j) 
+
+
+Substituting these methods for the stub in Program 2.4.1 gives a depth-first-search-based solu- 
+tion to the percolation problem. The recursive f 1 ow() fills sites by setting to true the entry in 
+ful 1 [] [] corresponding to any site that can be reached from open [i ] [ j] via a path of open 
+sites. The one-argument f 1 ow() calls the recursive method for every site on the top row. 
+
+
+% more test8.txt 
+8 8 
+
+
+
+
+300 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+To avoid conflict with our solution for vertical percolation (Program 2.4.2), 
+we might rename that class PercolationEZ, making another copy of Percola- 
+tion (Program 2.4.1) and substituting the two flow() methods in Program 2.4.5 
+for the placeholder f 1 ow() . Then, we can visualize and perform experiments with 
+this algorithm with the Vi sual i ze and Expe ri ment tools that we have developed. 
+If you do so, and try various values for N and p, you will quickly get a feeling for the 
+situation: the systems always percolate whenp is high and never percolate whenp is 
+low, and (particularly as N increases) there is a value of p above which the systems 
+(almost) always percolate and below which they (almost) never percolate. 
+
+
+% java Visualize 20 .65 1 % java Visualize 20 .60 1 % java Visualize 20 .55 1 
+
+
+
+Percolation is less probable as the site vacancy probability decreases 
+
+
+Having debugged Visualize and Experiment on the simple vertical percolation 
+process, we can use them with more confidence to study percolation, and turn 
+quickly to study the scientific problem of interest. Note that if we want to experi- 
+ment with vertical percolation again, we would need to edit Vi sual i ze and Ex- 
+peri ment to refer to PercolationEZ instead of Percolation, or write other cli- 
+ents of both Pe r col ati onEZ and Pe rcol ati on that run methods in both classes to 
+compare them. 
+
+Adaptive plot To gain more insight into percolation, the next step in program 
+development is to write a program that plots the percolation probability as a func- 
+tion of the site vacancy probability p for a given value of N. Perhaps the best way 
+to produce such a plot is to first derive a mathematical equation for the function, 
+and then use that equation to make the plot. For percolation, however, no one has 
+been able to derive such an equation, so the next option is to use the Monte Carlo 
+method: run simulations and plot the results. 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+301 
+
+
+Immediately, we are faced with numerous decisions. For how many values of 
+p should we compute an estimate of the percolation probability? Which values of p 
+should we choose? How much precision should we aim for in these calculations? 
+These decisions constitute an experimental design problem. Much as we might like 
+to instantly produce an accurate rendition of the curve for any given N, the compu- 
+tation cost can be prohibitive. For example, the first thing that comes to mind is to 
+plot, say, 100 to 1,000 equally spaced points, using StdStats (Program 2.2.5). But, 
+as you learned from using Estimate, computing a sufficiently precise value of the 
+percolation probability for each point might take several seconds or longer, so the 
+whole plot might take minutes or hours or even longer. Moreover, it is clear that a 
+lot of this computation time is completely wasted, because we know that values for 
+small p are 0 and values for large p are 1. We might prefer to spend that time on 
+more precise computations for intermediate p. How should we proceed? 
+
+PercPlot (Program 2.4.6) implements a recursive 
+approach with the same structure as Brownian (Program 
+2.3.5) that is widely applicable to similar problems. The ba- 
+sic idea is simple: we choose the minimum distance that we 
+want between values of the x-coordinate (which we refer to 
+as the gap tolerance), the minimum known error that we 
+wish to tolerate in the /-coordinate (which we refer to as the 
+error tolerance), and the number of trials T per point that 
+we wish to perform. The recursive method draws the plot 
+within a given interval [x 0 , x,], from (x 0 , y 0 ) to (x,, y x ). For 
+our problem, the plot is from (0, 0) to (1, 1). The base case (if the distance between 
+x 0 and x l is less than the gap tolerance, or the distance between the line connecting 
+the two endpoints and the value of the function at the midpoint is less than the er- 
+ror tolerance) is to simply draw a line from (x 0 , y 0 ) to (x x ,y x ). The reduction step is 
+to (recursively) plot the two halves of the curve, from (x 0 , y 0 ) to (x m ,y m ) and from 
+( x m ,y m ) to (x p /i). 
+
+The code in Pe rcPl ot is relatively simple and produces a good-looking curve 
+at relatively low cost. We can use it to study the shape of the curve for various values 
+of Nor choose smaller tolerances to be more confident that the curve is close to the 
+actual values. Precise mathematical statements about quality of approximation can, 
+in principle, be derived, but it is perhaps not appropriate to go into too much detail 
+while exploring and experimenting, since our goal is simply to develop a hypoth- 
+esis about percolation that can be tested by scientific experimentation. 
+
+
+C X m > /(*m)) 
+
+
+
+Adaptive plot tolerances 
+
+
+
+302 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Program 2.4.6 Adaptive plot client 
+
+
+public class PercPlot 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void curve (int N, 
+
+double xO, double yO, 
+double xl, double yl) 
+
+{ // Perform experiments and plot results, 
+
+double gap = .005; 
+double err = .05; 
+int T = 10000; 
+double xm = (xO + xl)/2; 
+double ym = (yO + yl)/2; 
+double fxm = Estimate. eval (N, xm, T); 
+if (xl - xO < gap && Math.absCym - fxm) < err) 
+{ 
+
+StdDraw.line(xO, y0, xl, yl); 
+return; 
+
+} 
+
+curve(N, xO, yO, xm, fxm); 
+StdDraw.filledCircle(xm, fxm, .005); 
+curve(N, xm, fxm, xl, yl); 
+
+
+N 
+
+xO, yO 
+
+xl, yl 
+
+xm, ym 
+fxm 
+gap 
+err 
+
+T 
+
+
+system size 
+left endpoint 
+right endpoint 
+midpoint 
+value at midpoint 
+gap tolerance 
+error tolerance 
+number of trials 
+
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Plot experimental curve for N-by-N percolation system. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+curve(N, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0); 
+
+} 
+
+
+This recursive program draws a plot of the percolation probability (experimental observations) 
+against the site vacancy probability (control variable). 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+303 
+
+
+Indeed, the curves produced by PercPlot immediately confirm the hypoth- 
+esis that there is a threshold value (about .593): if p is greater than the threshold, 
+then the system almost certainly percolates; if p is less than 
+the threshold, then the system almost certainly does not per- p e rcPi ot cu rve o 
+
+colate. As N increases, the curve approaches a step function 
+that changes value from 0 to 1 at the threshold. This phenom- 
+enon, known as a phase transition, is found in many physical 
+systems. 
+
+The simple form of the output of Program 2.4.6 masks 
+the huge amount of computation behind it. For example, the 
+
+
+Estimate. eval () 
+
+Pe r col at i on . random 0 
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i () 
+
+• N 2 limes 
+
+StdRandom. bernoul li () 
+return 
+
+Pe rcol ati on . percol ates () 
+flow() 
+return 
+return 
+
+
+curve drawn for N = 100 has 18 points, each the result of 
+10,000 trials, each trial involving N 2 sites. Generating and 
+testing each site involves a few lines of code, so this plot comes 
+at the cost of executing billions of statements. There are two 
+lessons to be learned from this observation: First, we need to 
+have confidence in any line of code that might be executed 
+
+
+• T times 
+
+Percol ati on . random 0 
+
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i O 
+
+■ N 2 times 
+
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i 0 
+return 
+
+Pe rcol ati on . pe rcol ates () 
+flowO 
+return 
+return 
+
+
+billions of times, so our care in developing and debugging 
+code incrementally is justified. Second, although we might be 
+interested in systems that are much larger, we need further 
+study in computer science to be to handle larger cases: to de- 
+velop faster algorithms and a framework for knowing their 
+performance characteristics. 
+
+With this reuse of all of our software, we can study all 
+sorts of variants on the percolation problem, just by imple- 
+
+
+return 
+
+. once for each point 
+
+Estimate. eval 0 
+
+Percol ati on . random () 
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i 0 
+
+• N 2 times 
+
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i () 
+return 
+
+Pe rcol ati on . pe rcol ates 0 
+flowO 
+return 
+return 
+
+• T times 
+
+
+menting different f ' 1 ow() methods. For example, if you leave 
+out the last recursive call in the recursive flowO method in 
+Program 2.4.6, it tests for a type of percolation known as di- 
+rected percolation, where paths that go up are not considered. 
+This model might be important for a situation like a liquid 
+percolating through porous rock, where gravity might play a 
+role, but not for a situation like electrical connectivity. If you 
+
+
+Percol ati on . randomO 
+
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i () 
+
+• M 2 times 
+
+StdRandom . bernoul 1 i () 
+return 
+
+Percol ati on . percol ates () 
+flowO 
+return 
+return 
+return 
+return 
+
+
+run PercPlot for both methods, will you be able to discern 
+the difference (see Exercise 2.4.5)? 
+
+
+Call trace for java PercPlot 
+
+
+To model physical situations such as water flowing 
+through porous substances, we need to use three-dimensional arrays. Is there a 
+similar threshold in the three-dimensional problem? If so, what is its value? Depth- 
+
+
+
+304 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+first search is effective for studying this question, though the addition of another 
+dimension requires that we pay even more attention to the computational cost of 
+determining whether a system percolates (see Exercise 2.4.19). Scien- 
+tists also study more complex lattice structures that are not well- 
+modeled by multidimensional arrays — we will see how to model such 
+structures in Section 4.5. 
+
+Percolation is interesting to study via in silico experimentation 
+because no one has been able to derive the threshold value mathemat- 
+ically for several natural models. The only way that scientists know 
+the value is by using simulations like Per col ati on. A scientist needs 
+to do experiments to see whether the percolation model reflects what 
+is observed in nature, perhaps through refining the model (for ex- 
+ample, using a different lattice structure). Percolation is an example 
+of an increasing number of problems where computer science of the 
+kind described here is an essential part of the scientific process. 
+
+Lessons We might have approached the problem of studying per- 
+colation by sitting down to design and implement a single program, 
+which probably would run to hundreds of lines, to produce the kind of plots that 
+are drawn by Program 2.4.6. In the early days of computing, programmers had 
+little choice but to work with such programs, and would spend enormous amounts 
+of time isolating bugs and correcting design decisions. With modern programming 
+tools like Java, we can do better, using the incremental modular style of program- 
+ming presented in this chapter and keeping in mind some of the lessons that we 
+have learned. 
+
+Expect bugs. Every interesting piece of code that you write is going to have at least 
+one or two bugs, if not many more. By running small pieces of code on small test 
+cases that you understand, you can more easily isolate any bugs and then more 
+easily fix them when you find them. Once debugged, you can depend on using a 
+library as a building block for any client. 
+
+Keep modules small. You can focus attention on at most a few dozen lines of code 
+at a time, so you may as well break your code into small modules as you write it. 
+Some classes that contain libraries of related methods may eventually grow to con- 
+tain hundreds of lines of code; otherwise, we work with small files. 
+
+
+percolates (path never goes up) 
+
+
+
+does not percolate 
+
+
+
+Directed percolation 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+305 
+
+
+Limit interactions. In a well-designed modular program, most modules should 
+depend on just a few others. In particular, a module that calls a large number of 
+other modules needs to be divided into smaller pieces. Modules that are called by a 
+large number of other modules (you should have only a few) need special atten- 
+tion, because if you do need to make changes in a module’s API, you have to reflect 
+those changes in all its clients. 
+
+Develop code incrementally. You should run and debug each small module as you 
+implement it. That way, you are never working with more than a few dozen lines of 
+unreliable code at any given time. If you put 
+all your code in one big module, it is diffi- 
+cult to be confident that any of it is safe from 
+bugs. Running code early also forces you to 
+think sooner rather than later about I/O for- 
+mats, the nature of problem instances, and 
+other issues. Experience gained when think- 
+ing about such issues and debugging related 
+code makes the code that you develop later 
+in the process more effective. 
+
+Solve an easier problem. Some working 
+solution is better than no solution, so it is 
+typical to begin by putting together the sim- 
+plest code that you can craft that solves a 
+given problem, as we did with vertical-only 
+percolation. This implementation is the first 
+step in a process of continual refinements 
+and improvements as we develop a more complete understanding of the problem 
+by examining a broader variety of test cases and developing support software such 
+as our Vi sual i ze and Experiment classes. 
+
+Consider a recursive solution. Recursion is an indispensable tool in modern pro- 
+gramming that you should learn to trust. If you are not already convinced of this 
+fact by the simplicity and elegance of PercPl ot and Percol ati on, you might wish 
+to try to develop a nonrecursive program for testing whether a system percolates 
+and then reconsider the issue. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+306 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+Build tools when appropriate. Our visualization method show() and random 
+boolean matrix generation method random () are certainly useful for many other 
+applications, as is the adaptive plotting method of PercPlot. Incorporating these 
+methods into appropriate libraries would be simple. It is no more difficult (indeed, 
+perhaps easier) to implement general-purpose methods like these than it would be 
+to implement special-purpose methods for percolation. 
+
+Reuse software when possible. Our Stdln, StdRandom, and StdDraw libraries all 
+simplified the process of developing the code in this section, and we were also im- 
+mediately able to reuse programs such as PercPl ot, Esti mate, and Vi sual i ze for 
+percolation after developing them for vertical percolation. After you have written 
+a few programs of this kind, you might find yourself developing versions of these 
+programs that you can reuse for other Monte Carlo simulations or other experi- 
+mental data analysis problems. 
+
+The primary purpose of this case study is to convince you that modular program- 
+ming will take you much further than you could get without it. Although no ap- 
+proach to programming is a panacea, the tools and approach that we have dis- 
+cussed in this section will allow you to attack complex programming tasks that 
+might otherwise be far beyond your reach. 
+
+The success of modular programming is only a start. Modern programming 
+systems have a vastly more flexible programming model than the class-as-a-library- 
+of-fimctions model that we have been considering. In the next two chapters, we 
+develop this model, along with many examples that illustrate its utility. 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+307 
+
+
+
+Q. Editing Vi sual i ze and Estimate to rename Percolation to PercolationEZ 
+or whatever method we want to study seems to be a bother. Is there a way to avoid 
+doing so? 
+
+A. Yes, this is a key issue to be revisited in Chapter 3. In the meantime, you can 
+keep the implementations in separate subdirectories and use the classpath, but that 
+can get confusing. Advanced Java language mechanisms are also helpful, but they 
+also have their own problems. 
+
+Q. That recursive flowO method makes me nervous. How can I better under- 
+stand what it’s doing? 
+
+A. Run it for small examples of your own making, instrumented with instructions 
+to print a function call trace. After a few runs, you will gain confidence that it al- 
+ways fills the sites connected to the start point. 
+
+Q. Is there a simple nonrecursive approach? 
+
+A. There are several methods that perform the same basic computation. We will 
+revisit the problem at the end of the book, in Section 4.5. In the meantime, work- 
+ing on developing a nonrecursive implementation of flow() is certain to be an 
+instructive exercise, if you are interested. 
+
+Q. PrecPl ot (Program 2.4.6) seems to involve a huge amount of calculation to get 
+a simple function graph. Is there some better way? 
+
+A. Well, the best would be a mathematical proof of the threshold value, but that 
+derivation has eluded scientists. 
+
+
+308 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2.4.1 Write a program that takes N from the command line and creates an N- 
+by-N matrix with the entry in row i and column; set to true if i and; are relatively 
+prime, then shows the matrix on the standard drawing (see Exercise 1.4.13). Then, 
+write a similar program to draw the Hadamard matrix of order N (see Exercise 
+1.4.25) and the matrix such with the entry in row N and column; set to true if the 
+coefficient of x* in (l+x) N (binomial coefficient) is odd (see Exercise 1.4.33). You 
+may be surprised at the pattern formed by the latter. 
+
+2.4.2 Implement a pri nt() method for Percol ati on that prints 1 for blocked 
+sites, 0 for open sites, and * for full sites. 
+
+2.4.3 Give the recursive calls for Percol ati on given the following input: 
+
+3 3 
+10 1 
+0 0 0 
+110 
+
+2.4.4 Write a client of Percol ati on like Vi sual i ze that does a series of experi- 
+ments for a value of N taken from the command line where the site vacancy prob- 
+ability p increases from 0 to 1 by a given increment (also taken from the command 
+line). 
+
+2.4.5 Create a program Percol ati onDi rected that tests for directed percolation 
+(by leaving off the last recursive call in the recursive show() method in Program 
+2.4.5, as described in the text), then use PercPlot to draw a plot of the directed 
+percolation probability as a function of the site vacancy probability. 
+
+2.4.5 Write a client of Percol ati on and Percol ati onDi rected that takes a site 
+vacancy probability p from the command line and prints an estimate of the prob- 
+ability that a system percolates but does not percolate down. Use enough experi- 
+ments to get an estimate that is accurate to three decimal places. 
+
+2.4.6 Describe the order in which the sites are marked when Percolation is 
+used on a system with no blocked sites. Which is the last site marked? What is the 
+depth of the recursion? 
+
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+309 
+
+
+
+2.4.7 Experiment with using PercPlot to plot various mathematical functions 
+(just by replacing the call on Esti mate . eval () with an expression that evaluates 
+the function). Try the function sin (x) + cos (10*x) to see how the plot adapts to 
+an oscillating curve, and come up with interesting plots for three or four functions 
+of your own choosing. 
+
+2.4.8 Modify Per col ati on to animate the flow computation, showing the sites 
+filling one by one. Check your answer to the previous exercise. 
+
+2.4.9 Modify Percolation to compute that maximum depth of the recursion 
+used in the flow calculation. Plot the expected value of that quantity as a function 
+of the site vacancy probability p. How does your answer change if the order of the 
+recursive calls is reversed? 
+
+2.4.10 Modify Estimate to produce output like that produced by Bernoulli 
+(Program 2.2.6). Extra credit : Use your program to validate the hypothesis that the 
+data obeys the Gaussian (normal) distribution. 
+
+
+310 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2 . 4. 1 1 Vertical percolation. Show that a system with site vacancy probability p ver- 
+tically percolates with probability 1 - ( 1 - p N ) N , and use Esti mate to validate your 
+analysis for various values of N. 
+
+2 . 4.12 Rectangular percolation systems. Modify the code in this section to allow 
+you to study percolation in rectangular systems. Compare the percolation prob- 
+ability plots of systems whose ratio of width to height is 2 to 1 with those whose 
+ratio is 1 to 2. 
+
+2 . 4.13 Adaptive plotting. Modify PercPlot to take its control parameters (gap 
+tolerance, error tolerance, and number of trials) from the command line. Experi- 
+ment with various values of the parameters to learn their effect on the quality of the 
+curve and the cost of computing it. Briefly describe your findings. 
+
+2 . 4.14 Percolation threshold. Write a Percolation client that uses binary search 
+to estimate the threshold value (see Exercise 2.1.29). 
+
+2 . 4.15 Nonrecursive directed percolation. Write a nonrecursive program that tests 
+for directed percolation by moving from top to bottom as in our vertical percola- 
+tion code. Base your solution on the following computation: if any site in a contigu- 
+ous subrow of open sites in the current row is connected to some full site on the 
+previous row, then all of the sites in the subrow become full. 
+
+
+connected to top via a path of 
+filled sites that never goes up 
+
+
+
+not connected to top connected to top 
+
+(by such a path) 
+
+
+Directed percolation calculation 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+311 
+
+
+
+2.4.16 Fast percolation test. Modify the recursive flow() method in Program 
+2.4.5 so that it returns as soon as it finds a site on the bottom row (and fills no more 
+sites). Hint: Use an argument done that is true if the bottom has been hit, fal se 
+otherwise. Give a rough estimate of the performance improvement factor for this 
+change when running PercPlot. Use values of N for which the programs run at 
+least a few seconds but not more than a few minutes. Note that the improvement is 
+ineffective unless the first recursive call in flow() is for the site below the current 
+site. 
+
+2.4.17 Bond percolation. Write a modular program for studying percolation un- 
+der the assumption that the edges of the grid provide connectivity. That is, an edge 
+can be either empty or full, and a system percolates if there is a path consisting of 
+full edges that goes from top to bottom. Note : This problem has been solved ana- 
+lytically, so your simulations should validate the hypothesis that the percolation 
+threshold approaches 1/2 as N gets large. 
+
+
+percolates 
+
+
+
+2.4.19 Percolation in three dimensions. Implement a class Percolation3D and 
+a class BooleanMatrix3D (for I/O and random generation) to study percolation 
+in three-dimensional cubes, generalizing the two-dimensional case studied in this 
+chapter. A percolation system is an N-by-N-by-N cube of sites that are unit cubes, 
+each open with probability p and blocked with probability 1 —p. Paths can connect 
+an open cube with any open cube that shares a common face (one of six neighbors, 
+except on the boundary). The system percolates if there exists a path connecting 
+any open site on the bottom plane to any open site on the top plane. Use a recursive 
+version of f 1 ow() like Program 2.4.5, but with eight recursive calls instead of four. 
+Plot percolation probability versus site vacancy probability for as large a value of 
+
+
+N as you can. Be sure to develop your solution incrementally, as emphasized 
+throughout this section. 
+
+2.4.18 Bond percolation on a triangular grid. Write a modular program for 
+studying bond percolation on a triangular grid, where the system is composed 
+of 2 N 2 equilateral triangles packed together in an N-by-AT grid of rhombus 
+shapes. Each interior point has six bonds; each point on the edge has four; and 
+each corner point has two. 
+
+
+percolates 
+
+
+
+
+312 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+
+
+2.4.20 Game of life. Implement a class Li fe that simulates Conway’s game of life. 
+Consider a boolean matrix corresponding to a system of cells that we refer to as 
+being either live or dead. The game consists of checking and perhaps updating the 
+value of each cell, depending on the values of its neighbors (the adjacent cells in 
+every direction, including diagonals). Live cells remain live and dead cells remain 
+dead, with the following exceptions: 
+
+• A dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes live. 
+
+• A live cell with exactly one live neighbor becomes dead. 
+
+• A live cell with more than three live neighbors becomes dead. 
+
+Initialize with a random matrix, or use one of the starting patterns on the booksite. 
+T his game has been heavily studied, and relates to foundations of computer science 
+(see the booksite for more information). 
+
+
+MBBB 
+
+
+time t 
+
+
+timet+\ time t+2 time t+3 time t+4 
+
+
+Five generations of a glider 
+
+
+2.4 Case Study: Percolation 
+
+
+
+
+3.1 Data Types 316 
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 370 
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 416 
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-body Simulation . . . 456 
+
+
+Y our next step to programming effectively is conceptually simple. Now that you 
+know how to use primitive types of data, you will learn in this chapter how to 
+use, create, and design higher-level data types. 
+
+An abstraction is a simplified description of something that captures its essen- 
+tial elements while suppressing all other details. In science, engineering, and pro- 
+gramming, we are always striving to understand complex systems through abstrac- 
+tion. In Java programming, we do so with object-oriented programming, where we 
+break a large and potentially complex program into a set of interacting elements, 
+or objects. The idea originates from modeling (in software) real-world entities such 
+as electrons, people, buildings, or solar systems and readily extends to modeling 
+abstract entities such as bits, numbers, colors, images, or programs. 
+
+A data type is a set of values and a set of operations defined on those values. 
+The values and operations for primitive types such as i nt and doubl e are built into 
+the Java language. In object-oriented programming, we write Java code to create 
+new data types. An object is an entity that can take on a data-type value. An object’s 
+value can be returned to a client or changed by one of its data type’s operations. 
+
+This ability to define new data types and to manipulate objects holding data- 
+type values is also known as data abstraction, and leads us to a style of modular 
+programming that naturally extends the function abstraction style for primitive 
+types that was the basis for Chapter 2. A data type allows us to isolate data as well 
+as functions. Our mantra for this chapter is this: Whenever you can clearly separate 
+data and associated tasks within a computation, you should do so. 
+
+
+315 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+3.1 Data Types 
+
+
+Organizing data for processing is an essential step in the development of a com- 
+puter program. Programming in Java is largely based on doing so with data types 
+known as reference types that are designed to support object-oriented program- 
+
+
+ming, a style of programming that facilitates 
+organizing and processing data. 
+
+The eight primitive data types (bool - 
+ean, byte, char, double, float, int, long, 
+and short) that you have been using are 
+supplemented in Java by extensive libraries 
+of reference types that are tailored for a large 
+variety of applications. Stri ng is one exam- 
+ple of such a type that you have used. You 
+will learn more about the Stri ng data type 
+in this section, as well as how to use several 
+other reference types for image processing 
+and input/output. Some of them are built 
+
+
+3.1.1 Charged particles .320 
+
+3.1.2 Albers squares .325 
+
+3.1.3 Luminance library. . . . . ii . . . .328 
+
+3.1.4 Converting color to grayscale . . . .331 
+
+3.1.5 Image scaling ...333 
+
+3.1.6 Fade effect 335 
+
+3.1.7 Visualizing electric potential . . . .337 
+
+3.1.8 Finding genes in a genome . . . . .342 
+
+3.1.9 Concatenating files . . ... . . . .347 
+
+3.1.10 Screen scraping for stock quotes . .349 
+
+3.1.11 Splitting a file ........ . . . .350 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+into Java (String and Color), and some were developed for this book (In, Out, 
+
+
+Draw, and Pi cture) and are useful as general resources, like the Std* static method 
+
+
+libraries that we introduced in Section 1.5. 
+
+
+You certainly noticed in the first two chapters of this book that our programs 
+were largely confined to operations on numbers. Of course, the reason is that Java’s 
+primitive types represent numbers; however, with reference types you can write 
+programs that operate on strings, pictures, sounds, or any of hundreds of other 
+abstractions that are available in Java’s standard libraries or on the booksite. 
+
+Even more significant than this large library of predefined data types is the 
+idea that the range of data types that are available to you in Java programming is 
+open-ended, because you can define your own data types to implement any abstrac- 
+tion whatsoever. This ability is crucial in modern programming. No library can 
+meet the needs of all possible applications, so programmers routinely build data 
+types to meet their own needs. You will learn how to do so in Section 3.2. 
+
+In this section, we focus on client programs that use data types, to give you 
+some concrete reference points for understanding these new concepts and to illus- 
+trate their broad reach. We will consider programs that manipulate colors, images, 
+strings, files, and web pages — quite a leap from the primitive types of Chapter 1. 
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+317 
+
+
+Basic definitions. A data type is a set of values and a set of operations defined 
+on those values. This statement is one of several mantras that we repeat often be- 
+cause of its importance. In Chapter 1, we discussed in detail Java’s primitive data 
+types: for example, the values of the primitive data type i nt are integers between 
+— 2 31 and 2 31 — 1; the operations of i nt are the basic arithmetic and comparison 
+operations, including +, *, %, <, and >. You also have been using a data type that is 
+not primitive — the Stri ng data type. Your experience with using Stri ng demon- 
+strates that you do not need to know how a data type is implemented in order to be 
+able to use it (yet another mantra). You know that values of Stri ng are sequences 
+of characters and that you can perform the operation of concatenating two Stri ng 
+values to produce a Stri ng result. You will learn in this section that there are doz- 
+ens of other operations available for processing strings, such as finding a string’s 
+length or extracting a substring. Every data type is defined by its set of values and 
+the operations defined on them, but when we use the data type, we focus on the 
+operations, not the values. When you write programs that use i nt or Stri ng values, 
+you are not concerning yourself with how they are represented (we never did spell 
+out the details), and the same holds true when you write programs that use refer- 
+ence types such as Col or and Pi ctu re . 
+
+Example. As a running example of how to use a data type, we 
+will consider a data type Charge for charged particles. In par- 
+ticular, we are interested in a two-dimensional model that uses 
+Coulomb’s law, which tells us that the electric potential at a point 
+due to a given charged particle is represented by V=kq lr, where q 
+is the charge value, r is the distance from the point to the charge, 
+and k= 8.99 X 10 9 N m 2 /C 2 is the electrostatic constant. For consis- 
+tency, we use SI (Systeme International d’Unites): in this formula, 
+
+N designates Newtons (force), m designates meters (distance), 
+and C represent coulombs (electric charge). When there are mul- 
+tiple charged particles, the electric potential at any point is the 
+sum of the potentials due to each charge. Our interest is comput- 
+ing the potential at various points in the plane due to a given set 
+of charged particles. To do so, we will write programs that define, 
+create, and manipulate variables of type Charge. In Section 3.2, you will learn how 
+to implement the data type, but you do not need to know how a data type is imple- 
+mented in order to be able to use it. 
+
+
+potential at (x, y) 
+
+
+
+Coulomb’s law for a 
+charged particle in the plane 
+
+
+
+318 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+API. The Java class provides a mechanism for defining data types. In a class, we 
+specify the data-type values and implement the data-type operations. In order to 
+fulfill our promise that you do not need to know how a data type is implemented in 
+order to be able to use it, we specify the behavior of classes for clients by listing their 
+methods in an API ( application programming interface), in the same manner as we 
+have been doing for libraries of static methods. The purpose of an API is to provide 
+the information that you need to write programs using the data type. (In Section 
+3.2, you will see that the same information specifies the operations that you need 
+to implement it.) For example, this API specifies our class Charge for writing pro- 
+grams that process charged particles: 
+
+public class Charge 
+
+Charge(double xO, double yO, double qO) 
+double potentialAt(double x, double y) electric potential at (x,y) due to charge 
+St ri ng toSt ri ng () string representation 
+
+API for charged particles 
+
+The first entry, with the same name as the class and no return type, defines a special 
+method known as a constructor. The other entries define instance methods that can 
+take arguments and return values in the same manner as the static methods that we 
+have been using, but they are not static methods: they implement operations for the 
+data type. Charge has two instance methods: The first is potential At (), which 
+computes and returns the potential due to the charge at the given point (x,y). The 
+second is toStri ng () , which returns a string that represents the charged particle. 
+
+Using a data type. As with libraries of static methods, the code that implements 
+each class resides in a file that has the same name as the class but with a .java 
+extension. To write a client program that uses Charge, you need access to the file 
+Charge, java, either by having a copy in the current directory or by using Java’s 
+classpath mechanism (described in the booksite). With this understood, you will 
+next learn how to use a data type in your own client code. To do so, you need to be 
+able to declare variables, create objects to hold data-type values, and invoke methods 
+to manipulate these values. These processes are different from the corresponding 
+processes for primitive types, though you will notice many similarities. 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+319 
+
+
+Declaring variables. You declare variables of a reference type in precisely the same 
+way that you declare variables of a primitive type, using a statement consisting of 
+the data type name followed by a variable name. For example, the declaration 
+
+Charge c; 
+
+declares a variable c of type Charge. This statement does not create anything; it just 
+says that we will use the name c to refer to a Charge object. 
+
+Creating objects. In Java, each data type value is stored in an object. When a client 
+invokes a constructor, the Java system creates (or instantiates) an individual object. 
+To invoke a constructor, use the keyword new; followed by the class name; followed 
+by the constructor’s arguments, enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas, 
+in the same manner as a static method call. For example, new Charge (xO, yO, 
+qO) creates a new Charge object with position (x 0 , y 0 ) and charge q 0 . Typically, cli- 
+ent code invokes a constructor to create an object and assigns it to a variable in the 
+same line of code as the declaration: 
+
+Charge c = new Charge(0.51, 0.63, 21.3); 
+
+You can create any number of objects from the same class; each object has its own 
+identity and may or may not store the same value as another object of the same 
+type. For example, the code 
+
+Charge cl = new Charge(0.51, 0.63, 21.3); 
+
+Charge c2 = new Charge(0.13, 0.94, 85.9); 
+
+Charge c3 = new Charge(0.51, 0.63, 21.3); 
+
+creates three different Charge objects. In particular, cl and c3 refer to different 
+objects, even though the objects store the same value. 
+
+Invoking methods. The most important difference between a variable of a refer- 
+ence type and a variable of a primitive type is that you can use reference type vari- 
+ables to invoke the methods that implement data type operations (in contrast to 
+the built-in syntax involving operators such as + and * that we used for primitive 
+types). Such methods are known as instance methods. Invoking an instance method 
+is similar to invoking a static method in another class, except that an instance 
+method is associated not just with a class, but also with an individual object. Ac- 
+cordingly, we use an object name (variable of the given type) instead of the class 
+name to identify the method. For example, if c is a variable of type Charge, then 
+
+
+
+320 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+ggpsisi 
+
+
+« ;'¥W.t.;v 
+
+
+
+
+g§ Program 3.1.1 Charged particles 
+
+
+public class Charged ient 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print total potential at (x, y). 
+
+double x = Double. parseDouble(args[0]) ; 
+double y = Double. parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+Charge cl = new Charge(.51, .63, 21.3); 
+Charge c2 = new Charge (.13, .94, 81.9); 
+double vl = cl.potentialAt(x, y); 
+double v2 = c2.potentialAt(x, y); 
+
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%. le\n" , vl+v2) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This object-oriented client takes a query point (x, y) as command-line argument, creates two 
+charges cl and c2 with fixed position and electric charge, and uses the potential At () in- 
+stance method in Charge to compute the potential at (x, y) due to the two charges. 
+
+
+y 
+
+query point 
+
+cl 
+
+first charge 
+
+vl 
+
+potential due to cl 
+
+c2 
+
+second charge 
+
+v2 
+
+potential due to c 2 
+
+
+
+% java Charged ient .2 .5 
+2.2e+12 
+
+% java Charged ient .51 .94 
+2 . 5e+12 
+
+c. potential At (x, y) re- 
+turns a double value that 
+represents the potential at ( x , 
+y) due to the charge q 0 at {x 0 , 
+y 0 ). The values x and y be- 
+long to the client, the values 
+x Q , y 0 , and q 0 belong to the 
+
+
+
+
+charged particle c2 
+with value 81.9 
+
+
+(.13, .94){ 
+
+
+.38 
+
+
+potential at this point is 
+8.99X10 9 ( 21.3/.31 + 81.9/.38) 
+y = 2.5xl0 12 
+
+- -f (.51, .94) 
+
+
+.31 
+
+
+.45 4 
+
+
+(.51, .63) 
+
+
+(•2> .5) ir ” ^ ' 
+
+t 
+
+potential at this point is 
+8.99X10 9 ( 21.3/.34+ 81.9/.45) 
+= 2.2xl0 12 
+IPHH 
+
+
+charged particle cl 
+with value 21.3 
+
+
+object. For example, Charged ient (Program 3.1.1) creates two Charge objects 
+and computes the total potential at a query point taken from the command line 
+due to the two charges. This code clearly exhibits the idea of developing an abstract 
+model and separating the code that implements the abstraction from the code that 
+uses it. This ability characterizes object-oriented programming and is a turning 
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+321 
+
+
+invoke a constructor to create an object 
+
+
+[Charge cl;| / 
+
+cl =| new Charge(.51, .63, 21.3) 
+
+
+double 
+
+
+object name / 
+
+
+potential At (x, y) ; 
+
+\ 
+
+invoke an instance method 
+that operates on the object's value 
+
+
+Using a reference data type 
+
+
+two objects 
+
+
+point in this book: we have not yet seen any code of this nature, but virtually all of 
+the code that we write from this point forward will be based on defining and invok- 
+ing methods that implement data types operations. 
+
+one object 
+
+References. A constructor creates an object and returns to the client a J 
+
+reference to the object, not the object itself (hence the name reference 
+type). What is a reference? Nothing more than a mechanism for access- cl 45! 
+
+ing an object. There are several different ways for Java to implement 
+
+references, but we do not need to know the details in order to use 
+
+them. Still, it is worthwhile to have a mental model of one common ^ 
+
+implementation. One approach is for new to assign memory space to 451 — 21 
+hold the object’s current data type value and return a pointer (machine 
+
+address) to that space. We re- | 
+
+declare a variable (object name) r . .i 
+
+/ rer to the memory space asso- 
+
+J invoke a constructor to create an object dated with the object as the two objects 
+
+arge cl;| J object's identity. Why not just . 
+
+= | new CharqeC. 51, .63, 21.3)1 ; P rocess the ob j eCt itself? For 
+
+. , rj=i — — n small objects, it might make 
+
+uble v = elk potential At (x, y) ; . , , ° r , cl 45! 
+
+r sense to do so, but for large c2 — jrj- 
+
+objectname \ objects, cost becomes an issue: r~“ 
+
+invoke an instance method , , , 
+
+that operates on the object's value data-type values can be com- 
+
+plicated and consume large 459 — 
+Using a reference data type amounts of memory. It does 45 ° — jp 
+
+not make sense to copy or L j == 
+
+move all of its data every time that we pass an object as an argument 1 
+
+to a method. If this reasoning seems familiar to you, it is because we 611 .: 
+
+have used precisely the same reasoning before, when talking about 612 J 
+
+passing arrays as arguments to static methods in Section 2.1. Indeed, 
+
+arrays are objects, as we will see later in this section. By contrast, prim- , 
+
+itive types have values that are natural to represent directly in memory I 
+
+and operations that translate directly to machine operations, so that it . 
+
+does not make sense to use a reference to access each value. We will ■' * 
+
+
+reference 
+
+
+|«< — position 
+
+
+
+
+identity 
+
+y °f cl 
+
+
+identity 
+y 0 / c2 
+
+
+Object representation 
+
+
+discuss references in more detail after you have seen several examples 
+of client code that uses reference types. Your Java system might use something more 
+complicated than machine addresses to implement references, but this model cap- 
+tures the essential difference between primitive and reference types. 
+
+
+
+322 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Using objects. A declaration give us a variable name for an object that we can use 
+in code in much the same way as we use a variable name for an integer or floating- 
+point number: 
+
+• As an argument or return value for a method 
+
+• In an assignment statement 
+
+• In an array 
+
+We have been using Stri ng objects in this way ever since Hel 1 oWorl d: most of our 
+programs call StdOut.printlnO with a String argument, and all of our pro- 
+grams have a main() method that takes an argument that is an array of String 
+objects. As we have already seen, there is one critically important addition to this 
+list for variables that refer to objects: 
+
+• To invoke an instance method defined on it 
+
+This usage is not available for variables of a primitive type, where all operations are 
+built into the language and invoked using operators such as +, -, *, and /. 
+
+Type conversion. If you want to convert an object from one type to another, you 
+have to write code to do it. Often, there is no issue, because values for different data 
+types are so different that no conversion is contemplated. For instance, what would 
+it mean to convert a Charge to a Color? But you have already seen one case where 
+conversion is worthwhile: all Java reference types have a method toStri ng() that 
+returns a String. Moreover, Java automatically calls this method for any object 
+when a Stri ng is expected. One consequence of this convention is that it enables 
+you to write StdOut . pri ntl n (x) for any variable x. For example, adding the call 
+StdOut. println (cl) ; to Charged ient would add charge 21.3 at (0.51, 
+0 . 63) to the output. The nature of the conversion is completely up to the imple- 
+mentation, but usually the string encodes the object’s value. 
+
+Uninitialized variables. When you declare a variable of a reference type but do 
+not assign a value to it, the variable is uninitialized, which leads to the same behav- 
+ior as for primitive types when you try to use the variable. For example, the code 
+
+Charge bad; 
+
+double v = bad. potential At (.5, .5); 
+
+will not compile, because it is trying to use an uninitialized variable, which leads to 
+the error vari abl e bad might not have been initialized. 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+323 
+
+
+Distinction between instance methods and static methods. Finally, you are ready 
+to appreciate the meaning of the keyword stati c that we have been using since 
+Program 1.1, one of the last mysterious details in the Java programs that you have 
+been writing. The primary purpose of static methods is to implement functions; 
+the primary purpose of non-static (instance) methods is to implement data-type 
+operations. You can distinguish between the uses of the two types of methods in 
+our client code, because a static method call always starts with a class name (up- 
+percase, by convention) and a non-static method call always starts with an object 
+name (lowercase, by convention). These differences are summarized in the follow- 
+ing table, but after you have written some client code yourself, you will be able to 
+quickly recognize the difference. 
+
+instance method static method 
+
+
+sample call cl. potential At (x, y) Math.sqrt(2.0) 
+
+invoked with object name class name 
+
+parameters reference to object and argument(s) argument(s) 
+
+primary purpose manipulate object value compute return value 
+
+Instance methods vs. static methods 
+
+The basic concepts that we have just covered are the starting point for object-ori- 
+ented programming, so it is worthwhile to briefly summarize them: A data type is 
+a set of values and a set of operations defined on those values. We implement data 
+types in independent modules and write client programs that use them. An object 
+is an instance of a data type. Objects are characterized by three essential properties: 
+state, behavior, and identity. The state of an object is a value from its data type. The 
+behavior of an object is defined by the data type’s operations. The identity of an 
+object is the place where it is stored in memory. In object-oriented programming, 
+we invoke constructors to create objects and then modify their state by invoking 
+their instance methods. 
+
+To demonstrate the power of object orientation, we next consider several 
+more examples. First, we consider the familiar world of image processing, where we 
+process Color and Picture objects. Then, we consider the operations associated 
+with Stri ng objects and their importance in a scientific application. 
+
+
+
+324 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Color. Color is a sensation in the eye from electromagnetic radiation. Since we 
+want to view and manipulate color images on our computers, color is a widely used 
+abstraction in computer graphics, and Java provides a Color data type. In profes- 
+sional publishing in print and on the web, working with color is a complex task. For 
+example, the appearance of a color image depends in a significant way on the me- 
+dium used to present it. The Color data type separates the creative designer’s prob- 
+lem of specifying a desired color from the system’s problem of faithfully reproduc- 
+ing it. 
+
+Java has hundreds of data types in its libraries, so we need to explicitly list 
+which Java libraries we are using in our program to avoid naming conflicts. Specifi- 
+cally, we include the statement 
+
+import java. awt . Col o r ; 
+
+
+at the beginning of any program that uses Color. (Until now, 
+
+red 
+
+green 
+
+blue 
+
+
+we have been using standard Java libraries or our own, so 
+
+255 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+red 
+
+there has been no need to import them.) 
+
+0 
+
+255 
+
+0 
+
+green 
+
+To represent color values, Color uses the RGB system 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+255 
+
+blue 
+
+where a color is defined by three integers (each between 0 and 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+black 
+
+255) that represent the intensity of the red, green, and blue 
+
+100 
+
+100 
+
+100 
+
+dark gray 
+
+(respectively) components of the color. Other color values 
+
+255 
+
+255 
+
+255 
+
+white 
+
+are obtained by mixing the red, green, and blue components. 
+
+255 
+
+255 
+
+0 
+
+yellow 
+
+That is, the data type values of Color are three 8-bit integers. 
+We do not need to know whether the implementation uses 
+
+255 
+
+9 
+
+0 
+
+90 
+
+255 
+
+166 
+
+magenta 
+
+this color 
+
+i nt, short, or char values to represent these integers. With 
+
+
+Some color values 
+
+
+this convention, Java is using 24 bits to represent each color 
+
+and can represent 256 3 = 2 24 ~ 16.7 million possible colors. Scientists estimate that 
+
+the human eye can distinguish only about 10 million distinct colors. 
+
+Color has a constructor that takes three integer arguments, so that you can 
+write, for example 
+
+Color red = new Color(255, 0, 0); 
+
+Color bookBlue = new Col or ( 9, 90, 166); 
+
+to create objects whose values represent red and the blue used to print this book, 
+respectively. We have been using colors in StdDraw since Section 1.5, but have been 
+limited to a set of predefined colors, such as StdDraw. BLACK, StdDraw. RED, and 
+StdDraw. PINK. Now you have millions of available colors. AlbersSquares (Pro- 
+gram 3.1.2) is a StdDraw client that allows you to experiment with them. 
+
+
+
+3 . 7 Data Types 
+
+
+325 
+
+
+SfU wmm Mgmi 
+
+
+11 ? : 
+
+
+iill 
+
+
+
+Program 3.1.2 Albers squares 
+
+import java. awt. Color ; 
+
+public class AlbersSquares 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Display Albers squares for the two RGB 
+
+// colors entered on the command line, 
+int rl = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int gl = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+int bl = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; 
+
+Color cl = new Color(rl, gl, bl) ; 
+
+int r2 = Integer. parselnt(args[3]) ; 
+int g2 = Integer. parselnt(args [4] ) ; 
+int b2 = Integer. parselnt(args[5]) ; 
+
+Color c2 = new Color(r2, g2, b2) ; 
+
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+StdDraw 
+
+
+
+
+326 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+As usual, when we address a new abstraction, we are introducing you to Col or 
+by describing the essential elements of Java’s color model, not all of the details. The 
+API for Col or contains several constructors and over 20 methods; the ones that we 
+will use are briefly summarized next. 
+
+public class java. awt. Color 
+
+
+Color(int r, int g, int b) 
+int getRedO red intensity 
+
+
+int getGreenO 
+int getBlueO 
+Color brighterO 
+Color darkerO 
+String toStringO 
+boolean equals (Col or c) 
+
+
+green intensity 
+blue intensity 
+
+brighter version of this color 
+darker version of this color 
+string representation of this color 
+is this color’s value the same as c’s? 
+
+
+See online documentation and booksitefor other available methods. 
+
+Excerpts from the API for Java’s Color data type 
+
+
+Our primary purpose is to use Color as an example to illustrate object-oriented 
+programming, while at the same time developing a few useful tools that we can use 
+to write programs that process colors. Accordingly, we choose one color property as 
+an example to convince you that writing object-oriented code to process abstract 
+concepts like color is a convenient and useful approach 
+
+Luminance. The quality of the images on modern displays such as LCD monitors, 
+plasma TVs, and cellphone screens depends on an understanding of a color prop- 
+erty known as monochrome luminance, or effective brightness. A standard formula 
+for luminance is derived from the eye’s sensitivity to red, green, and blue. It is a 
+linear combination of the three intensities: if a color’s red, green, and blue values 
+are r, g, and b, respectively, then its luminance is defined by this equation: 
+
+Y = 0.299 r + 0.587g + 0.1 14b 
+
+Since the coefficients are positive and sum to 1 and the intensities are all integers 
+between 0 and 255, the luminance is a real number between 0 and 255. 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+327 
+
+
+Grayscale. The RGB system has the property that when all three color intensities 
+are the same, the resulting color is on a grayscale that ranges from black (all Os) to 
+white (all 255s). To print a color photograph in a black-and-white newspaper (or a 
+book), we need a static method to convert from color to grayscale. A simple way to 
+convert a color to grayscale is to replace the color with a new one whose red, green, 
+and blue values equal its monochrome luminance. 
+
+
+red 
+
+9 
+
+
+green 
+
+90 
+
+
+blue 
+
+166 
+
+
+this color 
+
+
+74 74 74 grayscale version 
+
+
+black 
+
+
+0 . 299*9 + 0 . 587*90 + 0 . 114 * 166 = 74.445 
+
+
+Color compatibility. The luminance value is also crucial in determining whether 
+two colors are compatible, in the sense that printing text in one of the colors on a 
+background in the other color will be readable. A widely used rule of thumb is that 
+
+the difference between the luminance of the 
+foreground and background colors should be at 
+least 128. For example, black text on a white 
+background has a luminance difference of 255, 
+but black text on a (book) blue background has 
+a luminance difference of only 74. This rule is 
+important in the design of advertising, road 
+signs, websites, and many other applications. 
+Luminance (Program 3.1.3) is a static method 
+library that we can use to convert a color to gray- 
+scale and to test whether two colors are compat- 
+ible, for example, when we use colors in StdDraw 
+applications. The methods in Lumi nance illustrate the utility of using data types to 
+organize information. Using the Color refer- 
+ence type and passing objects as arguments 
+makes these implementations substantially 
+simpler than the alternative of having to pass 
+around the three intensity values. Returning 
+multiple values from a function also would be 
+problematic without reference types. 
+
+
+Grayscale example 
+
+
+luminance 
+
+
+74 
+
+
+compati bl e 
+
+
+232 
+
+
+difference 
+
+
+compatible 232 
+
+
+158 
+
+
+74 
+
+
+Having an abstraction for color is important Compatibility example 
+
+not just for direct use, but also in building 
+
+higher-level data types that have Color values. Next, we illustrate this point by 
+building on the color abstraction to develop a data type that allows us to write 
+programs to process digital images. 
+
+
+
+328 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+fe; 
+
+
+Program 3.1.3 Luminance library 
+
+
+import java. awt. Color; 
+
+public class Luminance 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double lum(Color color) 
+
+{ // Compute luminance of color, 
+
+int r = color .getRedC) ; 
+int g = color .getGreenO ; 
+int b = color. getBlueO ; 
+return .299*r + . 587*g + 
+
+} 
+
+public static Color toGray(Color color) 
+
+{ // Use luminance to convert to grayscale 
+
+int y = (int) Math. roundClum(color)) ; 
+Color gray = new ColorCy, y, y); 
+return gray; 
+
+} 
+
+
+.114*b; 
+
+
+public static boolean compatible (Col or a, Color b) 
+
+{ // Print true if colors are compatible, false otherwise, 
+
+return Math.abs(lum(a) - lum(b)) >= 128; 
+
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Are the two given RGB colors compatible? 
+
+int[] a = new i nt [6] ; 
+for (int i =0; i <6; i++) 
+
+a[i] = Integer. parselnt(args[i]) ; 
+
+Color cl = new Color(a[0], a[l], a[2] ) ; 
+Color c2 = new Color(a[3], a[4] , a [5] ) ; 
+StdOut.println (compatible (cl, c2)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+a [] int values of args 
+cl first color 
+c2 second color 
+
+
+This library comprises three important functions for manipulating color: luminance, conver- 
+sion to gray, and background/foreground compatibility. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+329 
+
+
+Digital image processing You are familiar with the concept of a photograph. 
+Technically, we might define a photograph as a two-dimensional image created by 
+collecting and focusing visible wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that con- 
+stitutes a representation of a scene at a point in time. That technical definition is 
+beyond our scope, except to note that the history of photography is a history of 
+technological development. During the last century, photography was based on 
+chemical processes, but its future is now based in computation. Your camera and 
+your cellphone are computers with lenses and light-sensitive devices capable of 
+capturing images in digital form, and your computer has photo-editing software 
+that allows you to process those images. You can crop them, enlarge and reduce 
+
+
+them, adjust the contrast, brighten or darken them, remove red- 
+eye, or perform scores of other operations. Many such operations 
+are remarkably easy to implement, given a simple basic data type 
+that captures the idea of a digital image, as you will now see. 
+
+Digital images. We have been using StdDraw to plot geometric 
+objects (points, lines, circles, squares) in a window on the com- 
+puter screen. Which set of values do we need to process digital 
+images, and which operations do we need to perform on those 
+values? The basic abstraction for computer displays is the same 
+one that is used for digital photographs and is very simple: A 
+digital image is a rectangular grid of pixels (picture elements), 
+where the color of each pixel is individually defined. Digital im- 
+
+
+
+ages are sometimes referred to as raster or bitmapped images, in 
+
+contrast to the types of images we produce with StdDraw, which Anatomy of a digital image 
+
+
+are referred to as vector images. 
+
+
+Our class Picture is a data type for digital images whose 
+definition follows immediately from the digital image abstraction. The set of values 
+
+
+is nothing more than a two-dimensional matrix of Color values, and the opera- 
+tions are what you might expect: create an image (either a blank one with a given 
+width and height or one initialized from a picture file), set the value of a pixel to a 
+given color, return the color of a given pixel, return the width or the height, show 
+the image in a window on your computer screen, and save the image to a file. In 
+this description, we intentionally use the word matrix instead of array to emphasize 
+that we are referring to an abstraction (a matrix of pixels), not a specific implemen- 
+tation (a Java two-dimensional array of Color objects). You do not need to know 
+
+
+height 
+
+
+
+
+330 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+how a class is implemented in order to be able to use it. Indeed, typical images have so 
+many pixels that implementations are likely to use a more efficient representation 
+than an array of Color values (see Exercise 3.1.29). Such considerations are inter- 
+esting, but can be dealt with independent of client code. To write client programs 
+that manipulate images, you just need to know this API: 
+
+
+public class Picture 
+
+
+
+Pi cture(String 
+
+filename) 
+
+create a picture from a file 
+
+
+Picture (int w, 
+
+int h) 
+
+create a blank w-by-h picture 
+
+int 
+
+wi dth() 
+
+
+return the width of the picture 
+
+int 
+
+height () 
+
+
+return the heigh t of the picture 
+
+Color 
+
+getfint x, int 
+
+y) 
+
+return the color of pixel (x, y) 
+
+void 
+
+setfint x, int 
+
+y, Color c) 
+
+set the color of pixel (x, y) to c 
+
+void 
+
+showQ 
+
+
+display the image in a window 
+
+void 
+
+save(String filename) 
+
+save the image to a file 
+
+
+API for our data type for image processing 
+
+By convention, (0, 0) is the upper leftmost pixel, so the image is laid as in the cus- 
+tomary order for arrays (by contrast, the convention for StdDraw is to have the 
+point (0,0) at the lower left corner, so that drawings are oriented as in the custom- 
+ary manner for Cartesian coordinates). Most image processing programs are filters 
+that scan through the pixels in a source image as they would a two-dimensional 
+array and then perform some computation to determine the color of each pixel in 
+a target image. The supported file formats for the first constructor and the savef) 
+method are the widely used . png and . j pg formats, so that you can write programs 
+to process your own photographs and add the results to an album or a website. The 
+show() window also has an interactive option for saving to a file. These methods, 
+together with Java’s Color data type, open the door to image processing. 
+
+Grayscale. You will find many examples of color images on the booksite, and all of 
+the methods that we describe are effective for full-color images, but all our example 
+images in the text will be grayscale. Accordingly, our first task is to write a program 
+that can convert images from color to grayscale. This task is a prototypical image- 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+331 
+
+
+
+public class Grayscale 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Show image in grayscale. 
+
+Picture pic = new Picture(args[0]) ; 
+for (int x = 0; x < pic.widthO; x++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int y = 0; y < pic.heightO ; y++) 
+
+{ 
+
+Color color = pic.get(x, y); 
+
+Color gray = Luminance. toGray(color) ; 
+pic.set(x, y, gray); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+pic.showQ ; 
+
+
+pic 
+
+image from file ft 
+
+x, y 
+
+pixel coordinates J 
+
+color 
+
+pixel color 1 
+
+gray 
+
+pixel grayscale ft 
+
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program illustrates a simple image processing client. First, it creates a Picture object 
+initialized with an image file named by the command-line argument. Then it converts each 
+pixel in the image to grayscale by creating a grayscale version of each pixel’s color and reset- 
+ting the pixel to that color. Finally, it shows the image. You can perceive individual pixels in 
+the image on the right, which was upscaled from a low-resolution image (see “Scaling” on the 
+next page). 
+
+
+% java Grayscale mandrill.jpg 
+
+
+
+% java Grayscale darwin.jpg 
+
+
+
+
+
+332 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+processing task: for each pixel in the source, we have a pixel in the target with a 
+different color. Grayscal e (Program 3.1.4) is a filter that takes a file name from the 
+command line and produces a grayscale version of that image. It creates a new Pi c- 
+ture object initialized with the color image, then sets the color of 
+downscaling each pixel to a new Color having a grayscale value computed by ap- 
+
+
+source 
+
+
+
+
+plying the toGrayO method in Luminance (Program 3.1.3) to the 
+color of the corresponding pixel in the source. 
+
+Scaling. One of the most common image-processing tasks is to 
+make an image smaller or larger. Examples of this basic operation, 
+known as scaling, include making small thumbnail photos for use in 
+a chat room or a cellphone, changing the size of a high-resolution 
+photo to make it fit into a specific space in a printed publication or 
+on a web page, or zooming in on a satellite photograph or an image 
+produced by a microscope. In optical systems, we can just move a 
+lens to achieve a desired scale, but in digital imagery, we have to do 
+more work. 
+
+
+upscaling 
+
+
+source 
+
+
+
+Scaling a digital image 
+
+
+In some cases, the strategy is clear. For example, if the target im- 
+age is to be half the size (in each dimension) of the source image, we 
+simply choose half the pixels, say, by deleting half the rows and half 
+the columns. This technique is known as sampling. If the target image 
+is to be double the size (in each dimension) of the source image, we 
+can replace each source pixel by four target pixels of the same color. 
+Note that we can lose information when we downscale, so halving 
+an image and then doubling it generally does not give back the same 
+image. 
+
+A single strategy is effective for both downscaling and upscal- 
+ing. Our goal is to produce the target image, so we proceed through 
+the pixels in the target, one by one, scaling each pixel’s coordinates to 
+identify a pixel in the source whose color can be assigned to the tar- 
+get. If the width and height of the source are w s and h s (respectively) 
+and the width and height of the target are w t and h t (respectively), 
+
+
+then we scale the column index by w s /w t and the row index by h s /h t . 
+
+
+That is, we get the color of the pixel in row y and column x of the target from row 
+
+
+yXh s /h t and column xXw s /w t in the source. For example, if we are halving the size 
+of a picture, the scale factors are 2, so the pixel in row 2 and column 3 of the target 
+
+
+
+
+3. / Data Types 
+
+
+333 
+
+
+
+
+Program 3. 1.5 Image scaling 
+
+public class Scale 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int w = Integer .parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+int h = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; 
+
+Picture source = new Picture(args[0]) ; 
+
+Picture target = new Picture(w, h); 
+for (int tx = 0; tx < w; tx++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int ty = 0; ty < h; ty++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int sx = tx * source. widthO / w; 
+int sy = ty * source. heightO / h; 
+target. set(tx, ty, source. get (sx, sy)); 
+
+} 
+
+
+w , h target dimensions 
+
+source source image 
+target target image 
+tx, ty target pixel coords 
+sx, sy source pixel coords 
+
+
+source.showO ; 
+target. showQ ; 
+
+
+This program takes the name of a picture file and two integers (width w and height hj as 
+command-line arguments and scales the image to ui-by-h. 
+
+
+iH i i il li 
+
+
+
+
+java Scale mandrill.jPQ 800 800 
+
+
+mgm mmmh 
+> ’ ! ■ , V 
+
+r : 
+
+
+
+
+334 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+java Fade mandrill.jpg Darwin. jpg 9 
+
+
+gets the color of the pixel in row 4 and column 6 of the source; if we are doubling 
+the size of the picture, the scale factors are 1/2, so the pixel in row 6 and column 4 
+of the target gets the color of the pixel in row 3 and column 2 of the source. Seal e 
+(Program 3.1.5) is an implementation of this strategy. More sophisticated strate- 
+gies can be effective for low-resolution images of the sort 
+that you might find on old web pages or from old cam- 
+eras. For example, we might downscale to half size by 
+averaging the values of four pixels in the source to make 
+one pixel in the target. For the high-resolution images 
+that are common in most applications today, the simple 
+approach used in Seal e is effective. 
+
+The same basic idea of computing the color value 
+of each target pixel as a function of the color values of 
+specific source pixels is effective for all sorts of image- 
+processing tasks. Next, we consider two more examples, 
+and you will find numerous other examples in the exer- 
+cises and on the booksite. 
+
+
+
+Fade effect. Our next image-processing example is an 
+entertaining computation where we transform one im- 
+age to another in a series of discrete steps. Such a trans- 
+formation is sometimes known as a fade effect. Fade 
+(Program 3.1.6) is a Pi cture and Color client that uses 
+a linear interpolation strategy to implement this effect. 
+It computes M— 1 intermediate images, with each pixel 
+in the fth image a weighted average of the correspond- 
+ing pixels in the source and target. The static method 
+blendO implements the interpolation: the source color 
+is weighted by a factor of 1 — t / M and the target color 
+by a factor oft I M (when t is 0, we have the source color, 
+and when t is M, we have the target color). This simple 
+computation can produce striking results. When you run Fade on your computer, 
+the change appears to happen dynamically. Try running it on some images from 
+your photo library. Note that Fade assumes that the images have the same width 
+and height; if you have images for which this is not the case, you can use Seal e to 
+created a scaled version of one or both of them for Fade. 
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+335 
+
+
+
+wmrr 
+
+: 7- '■■■■ ■- -■ ; 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+''ff-iMffi: 
+
+
+
+
+Program 3.1.6 Fade effect 
+
+
+import java. awt. Col or; 
+
+public class Fade 
+
+{ 
+
+public static 
+
+
+Color blend(Color c, Color d, double alpha) 
+
+// Compute blend of c and d, weighted by x. 
+double r = (l-alpha)*c.getRed() + alpha*d.getRed() ; 
+double g = (1-alpha) *c.getCreen() + alpha*d.getCreen() ; 
+double b = (1-alpha) *c.getBlue() + alpha*d.getBlue() ; 
+return new Color((int) r, (int) g, (int) b); 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Show M-image fade sequence from source to target 
+
+Picture source = new Picture(args[0]) ; 
+
+Picture target = new Picture(args[l]) ; 
+int M = Integer. parselnt(args [2]) ; 
+int width = source.widthO ; 
+int height = source. heightO ; 
+
+Picture pic = new Picture (width, height); 
+for (int t = 0; t <= M; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) 
+
+{ 
+
+Color cO = source. get(x, y); 
+
+Color cM = target. get(x, y) ; 
+
+Color c = blend(c0, cM, (double) t / M) ; 
+pic.set(x, y, c); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+M 
+
+number of images 
+
+pic 
+
+current image 
+
+t 
+
+image counter 
+
+cO 
+
+source color 
+
+cl 
+
+target color 
+
+c 
+
+blended color 
+
+
+} 
+
+pic.showQ ; 
+
+
+is 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+To fade from one image into another in M steps, we set each pixel in the tth image to a weighted 
+average of the corresponding pixel in the source and the destination, with the source getting 
+weight 1-t/M and the destination getting weight t/M. An example transformation is shown on 
+the facing page. 
+
+
+■ - ,, f 
+
+. . m '■ r ‘A H * 
+
+
+336 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Potential value visualization. Image processing is also helpful in scientific visual- 
+ization. As an example, we consider a Pi cture client for visualizing properties of 
+the Charge data type that we introduced at the beginning of this chapter. Poten- 
+tial (Program 3.1.7) visualizes the potential values created by a set of charged 
+particles. First, Potential creates an array of particles, with values taken from 
+standard input. Next, it creates a Pi cture object and sets each pixel in the picture 
+to a shade of gray that is proportional to the potential value at the corresponding 
+point. The calculation at the heart of the method is very simple: for each pixel, we 
+compute corresponding (x, y) values in the unit square, then call potential At O 
+to find the potential at that point due to all of the charges, summing the values re- 
+turned. With appropriate assignment of poten- 
+tial values to grayscale values (scaling them to 
+fall between 0 and 255), we get a striking visual 
+representation of the electric potential that is 
+an excellent aid to understanding interactions 
+among such particles. We could produce a sim- 
+ilar image using filledSquareO in StdDraw, 
+but Picture provides us with more accurate 
+control over the color of each pixel on the 
+screen. The same basic method is useful in 
+many other settings — you can find several ex- 
+amples on the booksite. 
+
+It is worthwhile to reflect briefly on the code 
+in Potenti al , because it exemplifies data ab- 
+straction and object-oriented programming. 
+We want to produce an image that shows interactions among charged particles, 
+and our code reflects precisely the process of creating that image, using a Pi cture 
+object for the image (which is manipulated via Col or objects) and Charge objects 
+for the particles. When we want information about a Charge, we invoke the appro- 
+priate method directly for that Charge; when we want to create a Color, we use a 
+Col or constructor; when we want to set a pixel, we directly involve the appropriate 
+method for the Pi cture. These data types are independently developed, but their 
+use together in a single client is easy and natural. We next consider several more 
+examples, to illustrate the broad reach of data abstraction while at the same time 
+adding a number of useful data types to our basic programming model. 
+
+
+% more charges.txt 
+9 
+
+.51 .63 -100 
+.50 .50 40 
+
+.50 .72 10 
+
+.33 .33 5 
+
+.20 .20 -10 
+.70 .70 10 
+
+.82 .72 20 
+.85 .23 30 
+
+.90 .12 -50 
+
+% java Potential < charges.txt 
+
+Potential value visualization for a set of charges 
+
+
+
+
+3. / Data Types 
+
+
+337 
+
+
+is ; i 
+
+
+Program 3.1.7 Visualizing electric potential 
+
+
+}' ■ 1 ; " ■ 
+
+
+
+
+import java.awt.Color; 
+
+public class Potential 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read charges from Stdln into a[] 
+
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+Charge [] a = new Charge [N] ; 
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double xO = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double yO = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double qO = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+a[k] = new Charge (xO, yO, qO); 
+
+// Create and show image depicting potential values 
+int size = 512; 
+
+Picture pic = new Picture (size, size); 
+for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int j =0; j < size; j++) 
+
+{ // Compute pixel color. 
+
+double x = (double) i / size; 
+double y = (double) j / size; 
+double V = 0.0; 
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+
+V += a[k] . potential At (x, y); 
+int g = 128 + (int) (V / 2.0el0) 
+if (9 < 0) g = 0; 
+if (g > 255) g = 255; 
+
+Color c = new Col or (g, g 
+pic.set(i, size-l-j, c); 
+
+
+number of charges 
+array of charges 
+charge position 
+charge value 
+
+
+
+g); 
+
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+pic.showO ; 
+
+
+i, j 
+
+pixel position 
+
+1 
+
+x, y 
+
+point in unit square 1 
+
+g 
+
+scaled potential value 1 
+
+c 
+
+pixel color 
+
+[1 
+
+
+r 
+
+
+This program reads values from standard input to create an array of charged particles, sets each 
+pixel color in an image to a grayscale value proportional to the total of the potentials due to the 
+particles at corresponding points, and shows the resulting image. 
+
+
+
+
+338 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+String processing You have been using strings since your first Java program. 
+Java’s Stri ng data type includes a long list of other operations on strings. It is one 
+of Java’s most important data types because string processing is critical to many 
+computational applications. Strings lie at the heart of our ability to compile and 
+run Java programs and to perform many other core computations; they are the 
+basis of the information-processing systems that are critical to most business sys- 
+tems; people use them every day when typing into email, blog, or chat applications 
+or preparing documents for publication; and they have proven to be critical ingre- 
+dients in scientific progress in several fields, particularly molecular biology. 
+
+A Stri ng value is an indexed sequence of char values. We summarize here 
+the methods from the Java API that we use most often. Several of the methods use 
+integers to refer to a character’s index within a string; as with arrays, these indices 
+start at 0. As indicated in the note at the bottom, this list is a small subset of the 
+Stri ng API; the full API has over 60 methods! 
+
+
+public class String (Java string data type) 
+
+
+
+String (String s) 
+
+create a string with the same value as s 
+
+int 
+
+length () 
+
+string length 
+
+char 
+
+charAt(int i) 
+
+i th character 
+
+String 
+
+substring (int i, int j) 
+
+i th through ( j -l)st characters 
+
+bool ean 
+
+contains(String sub) 
+
+does string contain sub as a substring? 
+
+bool ean 
+
+startsWith(String pre) 
+
+does string start with p re? 
+
+boolean 
+
+endsWith (String post) 
+
+does string end with post? 
+
+int 
+
+indexOf (String p) 
+
+index of first occurrence of p 
+
+int 
+
+indexOf (String p, int i) 
+
+index of first occurrence of p after i 
+
+String 
+
+concat(String t) 
+
+this string with t appended 
+
+int 
+
+compareTo(String t) 
+
+string comparison 
+
+String 
+
+replaceAll (String a, String b) 
+
+result of changing as to bs 
+
+String[] 
+
+split (St ring delim) 
+
+strings between occurrences o/del i m 
+
+bool ean 
+
+equals (String t) 
+
+is this string's value the same as t’s? 
+
+
+See online documentation and booksitefor many other available methods. 
+
+
+Excerpts from the API for Javas Stri ng data type 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+339 
+
+
+Java provides special language support for manipulating strings. Instead of 
+initializing a string with a constructor, we can use a string literal, and instead of 
+invoking the method concatO, we can use the + operator: 
+
+shorthand String s = "abc"; String t = r + s; 
+
+longhand String s = new StringC'abc") ; String t = r.concat(s); 
+
+These notations are shorthand for standard data-type mechanisms. 
+
+Stri ng values are not the same as arrays of characters, but the two are similar, 
+and novice Java programmers sometimes confuse them. For example, the differ- 
+ences are evident in one of the most common code idioms for both strings and 
+arrays: for loops to process each element (for arrays) or character (for strings): 
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+{ ... a [i ] ... } 
+
+array 
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < s.lengthO; i++) 
+{ ... s.charAt(i) ... } 
+
+string 
+
+
+For arrays, we have direct language support: brackets for indexed access and 
+. 1 ength (with no parentheses) for length. For strings, both indexed access and 
+length are just Stri ng methods. 
+
+The splitO method in the String API is powerful because many options, 
+known as regular expressions, are available for delim. For example, ”\\s+" means 
+“one or more whitespace characters.” Using this delimit- 
+er with split () transforms a string of words delimited 
+by whitespace into an array of words. 
+
+Why not just use arrays of characters instead of 
+String values? When we process strings, we want to 
+write client code that operates on strings, not arrays. 
+
+The methods in Java’s String data type implement 
+natural operations on String values and also simplify 
+client code, as you will see. We have been working with 
+programs that use a few short strings for output, but it 
+is not unusual for strings, not numbers, to be the pri- 
+mary data type of interest in an application, and to have 
+programs that process huge strings or huge numbers of 
+strings. Next, we consider in detail such an application. Examples of string operations 
+
+
+String a = "now is " ; 
+
+String b = "the time "; 
+
+String c = "to" 
+
+call 
+
+value 
+
+a. 1 ength 0 
+
+7 
+
+a.charAt(4) 
+
+i 
+
+a. substrings, 5) 
+
+"w i" 
+
+b.startsWith("the") 
+
+true 
+
+a.indexOf("is") 
+
+4 
+
+a.concat(c) 
+
+"now is to 
+
+b. replace('t' , 'T') 
+
+"The Time 
+
+a.split(" ")[0] 
+
+"now" 
+
+a.splitC" ")[1] 
+
+"is" 
+
+b. equal s(c) 
+
+false 
+
+
+
+340 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+is the string 
+a palindrome ? 
+
+public static boolean isPalindrome(String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = s.lengthO ; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N/2; i++) 
+
+if (s.charAt(i) != s.charAt(N-l-i)) 
+return false; 
+return true; 
+
+} 
+
+extract file name 
+and extension from a 
+command-line 
+argument 
+
+String s = args[0]; 
+int dot = s.indexOf 
+
+String base = s.substringCO, dot); 
+
+String extension = s.substring(dot + 1, s.lengthO); 
+
+print all lines on 
+standard input that 
+contain a string 
+specified from a 
+command line 
+argument 
+
+String query = args[0]; 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyQ) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = Stdln. readLineO ; 
+
+if (s. contains (query)) StdOut.println(s) ; 
+
+} 
+
+create an array 
+of the strings on 
+standard input 
+delimited by whitespace 
+
+String input = Stdln . readAll 0 ; 
+
+String [] words = input. split("\\s+") ; 
+
+check whether an array 
+of strings is in 
+alphabetical order 
+
+public boolean isSorted(String[] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int i = 1; i < a. length; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (a[i-l] .compareTo(a[i]) > 0) 
+return false; 
+
+> 
+
+return true; 
+
+} 
+
+print all the hyperlinks 
+( to educational institu- 
+tions) of the strings on 
+standard input 
+
+while (SStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = Stdln. readstring O ; 
+if (s.startsWith("http:// M ) && s.endsWith(" .edu")) 
+StdOut.println(s) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Typical string-processing code 
+
+
+
+3 . 7 Data Types 
+
+
+341 
+
+
+String-processing application: genomics To give you more experience with 
+string processing, we will give a very brief overview of the field of genomics and 
+consider a Java program that solves a basic problem known as gene finding. Genom- 
+ics is a quintessential string-processing application. 
+
+Biologists use a simple model to represent the building blocks of life: The let- 
+ters A, C, T, and G represent the four nucleotides in the DNA of living organisms. In 
+each living organism, these basic building blocks appear in a set of long sequences 
+(one for each chromosome) known as a genome. Scientists know that understand- 
+ing properties of the genome is a key to understanding the processes that manifest 
+themselves in living organisms. The genomic sequences for many living things are 
+known, including a human genome, which is a sequence of about three b illi on 
+characters. You can find these sequences in many places on the web. (We have col- 
+lected several on the booksite: for instance, the file genomeVi rus . txt, which is the 
+6252-character genome of a simple virus.) Knowing the sequences, scientists are 
+now writing computer programs to study the structure of these sequences. String 
+processing is now one of the most important methodologies — experimental or 
+computational — in molecular biology for elucidating biological function. 
+
+Gene finding. A gene is a substring of a genome that represents a functional unit 
+of critical importance in understanding life processes. Genes are substrings of the 
+genome of varying length, and there are varying numbers of them within a genome. 
+A gene is a sequence of codons, each of which is a nucleotide triplet that represents 
+one amino acid. The start codon ATG marks the beginning of a gene, and any of the 
+stop codons TAG, TAA, or TGA mark the end of a gene (and there are no occurrences 
+of any of the codons ATG, TAA, TAG, or TGA within the gene). One of the first steps 
+in analyzing a genome is to identify its genes, which, as you certainly now realize, 
+is a string-processing problem that Java’s Stri ng data type equips us to solve. Gen- 
+eFi nd (Program 3.1.8) is a Java program that can do the job. To understand how it 
+works, we will consider a tiny example that does not represent a real genome. Take 
+a moment to identify the genes marked by the start codon ATG and the end codon 
+TAG in the following string: 
+
+ATAGATGCATAGCGCATAGCTAGATGTGCTAGC 
+
+There are several occurrences of both ATG and TAG, and they overlap in various 
+ways, so you have to do a bit of work to identify the genes. GeneFi nd accomplishes 
+the task in one left-to-right scan through the genome, as shown next. 
+
+
+
+342 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Program 3.1.8 Finding genes in a genome 
+
+public class GeneFind 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Use start and stop to find genes in genome. 
+
+String start = args[0]; 
+
+String stop = args[l]; 
+
+String genome = Stdln. readAll () ; 
+int beg = -1; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < genome. lengthO - 2; i++) 
+
+{ // Check next codon for start or stop. 
+
+String codon = genome. substri ng (i , i+3); 
+if (codon. equals (start)) beg = i; 
+if ((codon. equals (stop)) && beg != -1) 
+
+{ // Check putative gene alignment. 
+
+String gene = genome. substri ng(beg+3, i); 
+if (gene. lengthO % 3 == 0) 
+
+{ // Print and restart. 
+
+StdOut.println(gene) ; 
+beg = -1; 
+
+
+genome 
+
+
+start codon 
+stop codon 
+full genome 
+
+putative gene 
+start position 
+
+character index 
+next codon 
+discovered gene 
+
+
+This program prints all the genes in the genome on standard input defined by the start and stop 
+codes on the command line. To find a gene in a genome, we scan for the start codon, remember 
+its index, and then scan to the next stop codon. If the length of the intervening sequence is a 
+multiple of 3, we have found a gene. 
+
+
+
+% more genomeTiny.txt 
+ATAGATGCAT AGCGCAT AGCT AGATGTCCT AGC 
+
+% java GeneFind ATG TAG < genomeTiny.txt 
+
+CATAGCGCA 
+
+TGC 
+
+% java GeneFind ATG TAG < genomeVirus.txt 
+
+CGCCTGCGTCTGTAC 
+
+TCGAGCGGATCGCTCACAACCAGTCGG 
+
+AGATTATCAAAAAGGATCTTCACC 
+
+
+
+
+
+3 . / Data Types 
+
+
+343 
+
+
+1 
+
+codon 
+
+beg 
+
+gene 
+
+remaining portion of input string 
+
+start 
+
+stop 
+
+0 
+
+
+
+-i 
+
+
+ATAGATGCATAGCGCATAGCTAGATGTGCTAGC 
+
+1 
+
+
+TAG 
+
+-i 
+
+
+ATAGATGCATAGCGCATAGCTAGATGTGCTAGC 
+
+4 
+
+ATG 
+
+
+4 
+
+
+AT AGATGCAT AGCGCAT AGCTAGAT GTGCTAGC 
+
+9 
+
+
+TAG 
+
+4 
+
+
+AT AGAT GCAT AGCGCAT AGCT AGAT GT GCT AGC 
+
+16 
+
+
+TAG 
+
+4 
+
+CATAGCGCA 
+
+ATAG ATGC AT AGCGCAT AGCT AGAT GT GCTAGC 
+
+20 
+
+
+TAG 
+
+-1 
+
+
+AT AGAT GCAT AGCGCAT AGCTAGATGT GCT AGC 
+
+23 
+
+ATG 
+
+
+23 
+
+
+ATAGAT GCAT AGCGCAT AGCT AGATGT GCT AGC 
+
+29 
+
+
+TAG 
+
+23 
+
+TGC 
+
+AT AGAT GCAT AGCGCAT AGCTAGAT GT GCTAGC 
+
+
+The variable beg holds the index of the most recently encountered ATG start codon: 
+the value -1 indicates that the current portion of the genome could not be a gene, 
+either because no ATG has been seen (at the beginning) or because no ATG has been 
+seen since the last gene was found. If we encounter a TAG stop codon when beg is 
+-1, we ignore it; otherwise, we have found a gene. This trace illustrates the cases of 
+interest: we ignore the TAG codons at 1 and 20 because beg is -1, indicating that we 
+have not seen an ATG; we set beg to the current index each time that we encounter 
+an ATG; we ignore the TAG at 9 because it marks the putative gene CA whose length 
+is not a multiple of 3, so it could not be a sequence of codons; and we output genes 
+at 16 and 29 because we have valid start and stop codons with no intervening stop 
+codons and a gene length that is a multiple of 3. 
+
+GeneFi nd is simple but subtle, typical of string processing programs. In prac- 
+tice, the rules that define genes are more complicated than those we have sketched: 
+other codons may be prohibited, there may be bounds on the length, some genes 
+have to be spliced from multiple pieces, and genes satisfying various other criteria 
+may be of interest. GeneFi nd is intended to exemplify how a basic knowledge of 
+Java programming can enable a scientist to make appropriate tools to study these 
+sequences. Actual genomes are similar to our test case, just much longer. You can 
+experiment with GeneFi nd to look for genes in genomeVi rus . txt and several oth- 
+er genomes on the booksite. The quick leap from examining a toy programming 
+example that illustrates the basic Java Stri ng data type to studying scientific ques- 
+tions on actual data is a remarkable characteristic of modern genomics. As we will 
+see, some of the very same algorithms that were developed by computer scientists 
+that underly basic computational mechanisms and have proven important in com- 
+mercial applications are also now playing a critical role in genomic research. 
+
+
+
+344 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+command-line 
+y/ arguments 
+
+
+pictures 
+
+
+Input and output revisited In Section 1.5 you learned how to read and write 
+numbers and text using Stdln and StdOut and to make drawings with StdDraw. 
+You have certainly come to appreciate the utility of these mechanism in getting 
+information into and out of your programs. One reason that they are convenient is 
+that the “standard” conventions make them accessible from anywhere within a pro- 
+gram. One disadvantage of these conventions is that they leave us dependent upon 
+the operating system’s piping and redirection mechanism for access to files, and 
+they restrict us to working with 
+just one input file, one output input streams 
+file, and one drawing for any giv- 
+en program. With object-orient- 
+ed programming, we can define 
+mechanisms that are similar to 
+Stdln, StdOut, and StdDraw but 
+allow us to work with multiple 
+input streams, output streams, 
+and drawings within one pro- 
+gram. 
+
+Specifically, we define in 
+this section the data types In, 
+
+Out, and Draw for input streams, 
+output streams, and drawings 
+(respectively). As usual, you can 
+download the files In . j ava, Out . 
+java, and Draw, java from the 
+booksite to use these data types. 
+
+These data types give us the 
+flexibility that we need to address 
+many common data-processing 
+
+tasks within our Java programs. Rather than being restricted to just one input 
+stream, one output stream, and one drawing, we can easily define multiple objects 
+of each type, connecting the streams to various sources and destinations. We also 
+get the flexibility to assign such objects to variables, pass them as arguments or 
+return values from methods, and to create arrays of them, manipulating them just 
+as we manipulate objects of any type. We will consider several examples of their use 
+after we have presented the APIs. 
+
+
+
+output streams 
+
+
+drawings 
+
+
+IggSliMgSl 
+
+mzmmm 
+
+
+EMIll 
+
+standard output 
+
+
+A bird's-eye view of a Java program (revisited again) 
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+345 
+
+
+Input stream data type. The data type In is a more general version of Stdln that 
+supports reading numbers and text from files and websites as well as the standard 
+input stream. It implements the input stream data type, with the following API: 
+
+public class In 
+
+
+InO 
+
+InfString name) 
+boolean isEmptyO 
+int readlntO 
+double readDoubleQ 
+
+
+create an input stream from standard input 
+create an input stream from a file or website 
+true if no more input, fal se otherwise 
+read a value of type i nt 
+read a value of type doubl e 
+
+
+Note: All operations supported by Stdln are also supported for In objects. 
+
+API for our data type for input streams 
+
+Instead of being restricted to one abstract input stream (standard input), you now 
+also have the ability to directly specify the source of an input stream. Moreover, that 
+source can be either a file or a website. When invoked with a constructor having a 
+St ri ng argument, In will first try to find a file in the current directory of your local 
+computer that has that name. If it cannot do so, it will assume the argument to be 
+a website name and will try to connect to that website. (If no such website exists, it 
+will issue a runtime exception.) In either case, the specified file or website becomes 
+the source of the input for the input stream object thus created, and the read*() 
+methods will provide values from that stream. This arrangement makes it possible 
+to process multiple files within the same program. Moreover, the ability to directly 
+access the web opens up the whole web as potential input for your programs. For 
+example, it allows you to process data that is provided and maintained by someone 
+else. You can find such files all over the web. Scientists now regularly post data files 
+with measurements or results of experiments, ranging from genome and protein 
+sequences to satellite photographs to astronomical observations; financial services 
+companies, such as stock exchanges, regularly publish on the web detailed informa- 
+tion about the performance of stock and other financial instruments; governments 
+publish election results; and so forth. Now you can write Java programs that read 
+these kinds of files directly. In gives you a great deal of flexibility to take advantage 
+of the multitude of data sources that are now available. 
+
+
+
+346 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Output stream data type. Similarly, our data type Out is a more general version 
+of StdOut that supports writing text to a variety of output streams, including stan- 
+dard output and files. Again, the API specifies the same methods as its StdOut 
+counterpart. You specify the file that you want to use for output by using the one- 
+argument constructor with the file’s name as argument. Out interprets this string as 
+the name of a new file on your local computer, and sends its output there. If you use 
+the no-argument constructor, then you obtain standard output. 
+
+
+public class Out 
+
+
+
+Out() 
+
+create an output stream to standard output 
+
+
+Out (St ring name) 
+
+create an output stream to a file 
+
+void 
+
+print(String s) 
+
+print s to the output stream 
+
+void 
+
+println(String s) 
+
+print s and a newline to the output stream 
+
+void 
+
+printlnO 
+
+print a newline to the output stream 
+
+void 
+
+printf (String f, ...) 
+
+formatted print to the output steam 
+
+
+API for our data type for output streams 
+
+
+File concatenation and filtering. Program 3.1.9 is a sample client of In and Out 
+that uses multiple input streams to concatenate several input files into a single out- 
+put file. Some operating systems have a command known as cat that implements 
+this function. However, a Java program that does the same thing is perhaps more 
+useful, because we can tailor it to filter the input files in various ways: we might 
+wish to ignore irrelevant information, change the format, or select only some of the 
+data, to name just a few examples. We now consider one example of such process- 
+ing, and you can find several others in the exercises. 
+
+Screen scraping. The combination of In (which allows us to create an input stream 
+from any page on the web) and St r i ng (which provides powerful tools for process- 
+ing text strings) opens up the entire web to direct access by our Java programs, 
+without any direct dependence on the operating system or the browser. One para- 
+digm is known as screen scraping: the goal is to extract some information from a 
+web page with a program rather than having to browse to find it. To do so, we take 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+347 
+
+
+
+■ w$g • i 
+
+
+Program 3.1.9 Concatenating files 
+
+
+public class Cat 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Copy input files to out (last argument). 
+
+Out out = new Out (args [args. 1 ength-1] ) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < args. length - 1; i++) 
+
+{ // Copy input file named on ith arg to out. 
+
+In in = new In (args [i]); 
+
+String s = in.readAll(); 
+out.println(s) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+out output stream 
+i argument index 
+i n current input stream 
+s contents of i n 
+
+
+This program creates an output file whose name is given by the last argument and whose con- 
+tents are copies of the input files whose names are given as the other arguments. 
+
+
+% more inl.txt 
+This is 
+
+% more in2.txt 
+a tiny 
+test. 
+
+
+% j ava cat inl.txt in2.txt out.txt f 
+
+| % more out.txt I 
+! This is | 
+I a tiny ! 
+I test. i 
+
+
+advantage of the fact that many web pages are defined with text files in a highl y 
+structured format (because they are created by computer programs!). Your browser 
+has a mechanism that allows you to examine the source code that produces the web 
+page that you are viewing, and by examining that source you can often figure out 
+what to do. For example, suppose that we want to take a stock trading symbol as a 
+command-line argument and print out its current trading price. Such information 
+is published on the web by financial service companies and internet service provid- 
+ers. For example, you can find the stock price of a company whose symbol is goog 
+by browsing to http : //f i nance . yahoo . com/ q?s=goog. Like many web pages, the 
+name encodes an argument (goog), and we could substitute any other ticker sym- 
+
+
+
+
+348 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+bol to get a web page with financial information for any other company. Also, like 
+many other files on the web, the referenced file is a text file, written in a formatting 
+language known as HTML. (See the Context section at the end of this book for 
+some details about this language.) From the point of view of a Java program, it is 
+just a St ri ng value accessible through an In input stream. You can use your brows- 
+er to download the source of that file, or you could use 
+
+java Cat "http: //finance. yahoo. com/q?s=goog" mycopy.txt 
+
+
+to put the source into a local file mycopy . txt on your computer (though there is 
+no real need to do so). Now, suppose that goog is trading at $475.11 at the mo- 
+ment. If you search for the string "475 . 11" in the source 
+
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td c1ass= ,, yfnc__tableheadl u 
+width= n 48%"> 
+
+Last Trade: 
+
+</td> 
+
+<td class= H yfnc__tabledatal H > 
+<bi gxb>475 . ll</bx/bi g> 
+</tdx/tr> 
+
+<tr> 
+
+<td class^^fncjtableheadl” 
+width="48% n > 
+
+Trade Time: 
+
+</td> 
+
+<td class=>fnc_tabledatal"> 
+11:13AM ET 
+
+
+of that page, you will find the stock price buried within 
+some HTML code. Without having to know details of 
+HTML, you can figure out something about the context 
+in which the price appears. In this case, you can see that 
+the stock price is enclosed between the tags ,, <b>" and 
+"</b>", a bit after the string " Last T rade : ". With the 
+Stri ng datatype methods i ndexOf () and substri ng() 
+you can easily grab this information, as illustrated in 
+StockQuote (Program 3.1.10). This program depends 
+on the web page format of http: //finance. yahoo, 
+com; if this format changes, StockQuote not work. Still, 
+making appropriate changes is not likely to be difficult. 
+
+
+You can entertain yourself by embellishing StockQuote 
+HTML code from the web j n a jj jQ n( j s 0 f interesting ways. For example, you could 
+
+
+grab the stock price on a periodic basis and plot it, com- 
+pute a moving average, or save the results to a file for later analysis. Of course, the 
+same technique works for sources of data found all over the web. You can find many 
+examples in the exercises at the end of this section and on the booksite. 
+
+
+Extracting data , . The ability to maintain multiple input and output streams gives 
+us a great deal of flexibility in meeting the challenges of processing large amounts 
+of data coming from a variety of sources. We consider one more example: Suppose 
+that a scientist or a financial analyst has a large amount of data within a spreadsheet 
+program. Typically such spreadsheets are tables with a relatively large number of 
+rows and a relatively small number of columns. You are not likely to be interested 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+349 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 3.1.10 Screen scraping for stock quotes 
+
+public class StockQuote 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double priceCString symbol) 
+
+{ // Return current stock price for symbol. 
+
+In page = new In ("http: //finance. yahoo. com/q?s=" + symbol); 
+String in = page. readAll () ; 
+int trade = in.indexOf("Last Trade:", 0); 
+int from = in.indexOf("<b>", trade); 
+int to = in.indexOf("</b>", from); 
+
+String price = in. substring (from + 3, to); 
+return Double. parseDouble(price) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+{ StdOut.println(price(args[0])) ; } 
+
+
+page 
+
+input stream 
+
+in 
+
+contents of page 
+
+trade 
+
+Last . . . index 
+
+from 
+
+<b> index 
+
+to 
+
+</b> index 
+
+price 
+
+current price 
+
+
+
+This program takes the ticker symbol of a stock as a command-line argument, reads a web page 
+containing the stock price, finds the stock price using the Stri ng method i ndexOf (), extracts it 
+using the method substri ng(), and prints the price out to standard output. 
+
+
+java StockQuote goog 
+475.11 
+
+% java StockQuote adbe 
+41.125 
+
+
+
+in all the data in the spreadsheet, but you may be interested in a few of the columns. 
+You can do some calculations within the spreadsheet program (this is its purpose, 
+after all), but you certainly do not have the flexibility that you have with Java pro- 
+gramming. One way to address this situation is to have the spreadsheet export the 
+data to a text file, using some special character to delimit the columns, and then 
+write a Java program that reads that file from an input stream. One standard prac- 
+tice is to use commas as delimiters: print one line per column, with commas sepa- 
+rating row entries. Such files are known as comma-separated-value or . csv files. 
+With the spl i t() method in Java’s Stri ng data type, we can read the file line-by- 
+
+
+
+
+350 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Program 3.1.11 Splitting a file 
+
+
+
+public class Split 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Split file by column into N files. 
+
+String name = args[0]; 
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+
+String delim = 
+
+// Create output streams. 
+
+Out[] out = new Out[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+out[i] = new Out(name + i + ".txt"); 
+
+In in = new In (name + M .csv M ); 
+while (lin.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read a line and write fields to output streams. 
+
+String line = in. readLineO ; 
+
+String[] fields = line.split(delim) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+out[i] .println(fields[i]) ; 
+
+
+name 
+
+base file name 
+
+N 
+
+argument index 
+
+delim 
+
+delimiter (comma) 
+
+in 
+
+input stream 
+
+out[] 
+
+output streams 
+
+line 
+
+current line 
+
+fields[] 
+
+values in current line 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This program uses multiple output streams to split a . cs v file into separate files y one for each 
+comma- delimited field. The name of the output file corresponding to the i th field is formed by 
+concatenating i and then . txt to the end of the original file name. 
+
+
+% more DJIA.csv 
+
+
+31-0ct- 
+
+30-0ct- 
+
+29-0ct- 
+
+28-Oct- 
+
+25-Oct- 
+
+24-0ct- 
+
+23-Oct- 
+
+22-Oct- 
+
+21-0ct- 
+
+
+29.264.97, 
+
+29.230.98, 
+29,252.38, 
+29,295.18, 
+29,299.47, 
+29,305.85, 
+29,326.51, 
+29,322.03, 
+29,323.87, 
+
+
+7150000.273.51 
+
+10730000.258.47 
+16410000,230.07 
+9210000,260.64 
+5920000,301.22 
+
+12900000.299.47 
+6370000,305.85 
+
+4130000.326.51 
+6090000,320.91 
+
+
+
+
+% java Split DJIA 3 
+
+% more DJIA2.txt 
+
+7150000 
+
+10730000 
+
+16410000 
+
+9210000 
+
+5920000 
+
+12900000 
+
+6370000 
+
+4130000 
+
+6090000 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+351 
+
+
+line and isolate the data that we want. We will see several examples of this approach 
+later in the book. Spl i t (Program 3.1.1 1) is an In and Out client that goes one step 
+farther: it creates multiple output streams and makes one file for each column. 
+
+These examples are convincing illustrations of the utility of working with text files, 
+with multiple input and output streams, and with direct access to web pages. Web 
+pages are written in HTML precisely so that they are accessible to any program that 
+can read strings. People use text formats such as . csv files rather than data formats 
+that are beholden to particular applications precisely in order to allow as many 
+people as possible to access the data with simple programs like Spl i t. 
+
+Drawing data type. When using the Pi ctu r e data type that we considered earlier 
+in this section, we could write programs that manipulated multiple pictures, ar- 
+rays of pictures, and so forth, precisely because the data type provides us with the 
+capability for computing with Pi ctu re objects. Naturally, we would like the same 
+capability for computing with the kinds of objects that we create with StdDraw. 
+Accordingly, we have a Draw data type with the following API: 
+
+
+public class Draw 
+Draw() 
+
+void line (double xO, double yO, double xl, double yl) 
+void point (double x, double y) 
+
+Note: All operations supported by StdDraw are also supported for Draw objects. 
+
+As for any data type, you can create a new drawing by using new to create a Draw 
+object, assign it to a variable, and use that variable name to call the methods that 
+create the graphics. For example, the code 
+
+Draw d = new Draw() ; 
+d.circle(.5, .5, .2); 
+
+draws a circle in the center of a window on your screen. As with Picture, each 
+drawing has its own window, so that you can address applications that call for mul- 
+tiple different drawings. 
+
+
+
+352 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Properties of reference types Now that you have seen several examples of 
+reference types (Charge, Color, Picture, String, In, Out, and Draw) and client 
+programs that use them, we discuss in more detail some of their essential prop- 
+erties. To a large extent, Java protects novice programmers from having to know 
+these details. Experienced programmers know that a firm understanding of these 
+properties is helpful in writing correct, effective, and efficient object-oriented pro- 
+grams. 
+
+A reference captures the distinction between a thing and its name. This dis- 
+tinction is a familiar one, as illustrated in these examples: 
+
+
+type 
+
+typical object 
+
+typical name 
+
+website 
+
+our booksite 
+
+www.es . pri nceton . edu/IntroProgrammi ng 
+
+person 
+
+father of computer science 
+
+Alan Turing 
+
+planet 
+
+third rock from the sun 
+
+Earth 
+
+building 
+
+our office 
+
+35 Olden Street 
+
+ship 
+
+superliner that sank in 1912 
+
+RMS Titanic 
+
+number 
+
+circumference/diameter in a circle 
+
+TT 
+
+Picture 
+
+new PictureC'mandrill . jpg") 
+
+pic 
+
+
+A given object may have multiple names, but each object has its own identity. We 
+can create a new name for an object without changing the object’s value (via an as- 
+signment statement), but when we change an object’s value (by invoking an in- 
+stance method), all of the object’s names refer to the changed object. 
+
+The following analogy may help you keep this crucial distinction clear in your 
+mind. Suppose that you want to have your house painted, so you write the street 
+address of your house in pencil on a piece of paper and give it to a few house paint- 
+ers. Now, if you hire one of the painters to paint the house, it becomes a different 
+color. No changes have been made to any of the pieces of paper, but the house that 
+they all refer to has changed. One of the painters might erase what you’ve written 
+and write the address of another house, but changing what is written on one piece 
+of paper does not change what is written on another piece of paper. Java references 
+are like the pieces of paper: they hold names of objects. Changing a reference does 
+not change the object, but changing an object makes the change apparent to every- 
+one having a reference to it. 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+353 
+
+
+The famous Belgian artist Rene Magritte captured this same concept in a 
+painting where he created an image of a pipe along with the caption ceci n’est pas 
+une pipe ( this is not a pipe ) below it. We might interpret the cap- 
+tion as saying that the image is not actually a pipe, just an image 
+of a pipe. Or perhaps Magritte meant that the caption is neither 
+a pipe nor an image of a pipe, just a caption! In the present con- 
+text, this image reinforces the idea that a reference to an object 
+is nothing more than a reference; it is not the object itself. 
+
+
+
+Ceci n-etfpM 
+
+
+This is a picture of a pipe 
+
+
+Color a = 
+
+new Col or (160, 82, 45); 
+Color b = a; 
+
+
+811 
+
+812 
+
+813 
+
+
+811 
+
+
+811 
+
+
+. references to 
+' same object 
+
+
+Aliasing. An assignment statement with a reference type cre- 
+ates a second copy of the reference. The assignment statement 
+does not create a new object, just another reference to an existing 
+object. This situation is known as aliasing: both variables refer to the same object. 
+The effect of aliasing is a bit unexpected, because it is different than for variables 
+
+holding values of a primitive type. Be sure that you un- 
+derstand the difference. If x and y are variables of a primi- 
+tive type, then the assignment statement x = y copies the 
+value of y to x. For reference types, the reference is copied 
+(not the value). Aliasing is a common source of bugs in 
+Java programs, as illustrated by the following example: 
+
+Picture a = new Picture ("mandrill , jpg") ; 
+Picture b = a; 
+
+a. setfi, j, colorl); // a is updated 
+
+b. set(i, j, color2); // a is updated again 
+
+After the assignment statement, the variables a and b both 
+refer to the same Pi ctu re. Changing the state of an ob- 
+ject impacts all code involving aliased variables referenc- 
+ing that object. We are used to thinking of two different 
+variables of primitive types as being independent, but that 
+intuition does not carry over to reference objects. For ex- 
+ample, if the code above is assuming that a and b refer to 
+different Pi ctu re objects, then it will produce the wrong 
+result. Such aliasing bugs are common in programs writ- 
+ten by people without much experience in using reference 
+objects (that’s you, so pay attention here!). 
+
+
+160 
+
+
+82 
+
+
+45 
+
+
+Aliasing 
+
+
+
+354 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Immutable types. For this very reason, it is common to define data types whose 
+values cannot change. A data type that has no methods that can change an object’s 
+value is said to be immutable (as are objects of that type). For example, Java’s Col or 
+and Stri ng objects are immutable (there are no operations available to clients that 
+change a color’s value), but Pi cture objects are mutable (we can change pixel col- 
+ors). We will consider immutability in detail in Section 3.3. 
+
+Comparing objects. When applied to references, the == operator checks whether 
+the two references have the same identity (that is, whether they point to the same 
+object). That is not the same as checking whether the objects have the same value. 
+For example, consider the following code: 
+
+Color a = new Color(142, 213, 87); 
+
+Color b = new Col or (142, 213, 87); 
+
+Color c = b; 
+
+Now (a == b) is fal se and (b == c) is true, but when you are thinking about 
+equality testing for Color, you probably are thinking that you want to test wheth- 
+er their values are the same — you might want all three of these to test as equal. 
+Java does not have an automatic mechanism for testing equality of object values, 
+which leaves programmers with the opportunity (and responsibility) to define it 
+for themselves by defining for any class a customized method named equal s (), as 
+described in Section 3.3. For example, Color has such a method, and a . equal s (c) 
+is true in our example. Stri ng also contains an implementation of equal s() be- 
+cause we often want to test that two Stri ng objects have the same value. 
+
+Pass by value. When we call a method with arguments, the effect in Java is as if 
+each argument value were to appear on the right-hand side of an assignment state- 
+ment with the corresponding argument name on the left. That is, Java passes a copy 
+of the argument value from the calling program to the method. This arrangement 
+is known as pass by value. One important consequence is that the method cannot 
+change the value of a caller’s variable. For primitive types, this policy is what we 
+expect (the two variables are independent), but each time that we use a reference 
+type as a method argument, we create an alias, so we must be cautious. In other 
+words, the convention is to pass the reference by value (make a copy of it) but to 
+pass the object by reference. For example, if we pass a reference to an object of type 
+Pi cture, the method cannot change the original reference (make it point to a dif- 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+355 
+
+
+ferent Pi cture), but it can change the value of the object, for example by invoking 
+the method set() to change a pixel’s color. 
+
+
+Arrays of objects. Array entries can be of any type, as we have already 
+seen on several occasions, from args [] (an array of strings) in our 
+mai n() implementations, to the array of Charge objects in Program 
+3.1.7. When we create an array of objects, we do so in two steps: 
+
+• Create the array, using the bracket syntax for array constructors 
+
+• Create each object in the array, using a standard constructor 
+For example, we would use the following code to create an array of 
+two Charge objects: 
+
+Charge [] a = new Charge [2]; 
+a[0] = new Charge(.51, .63, 21.3); 
+a[l] = new Charge(.13, .94, 85.9); 
+
+
+r 
+
+
+Arrays are objects. In Java, every value of any nonprimitive type is an object. In 
+particular, arrays are objects. As with strings, there is special language support for 
+certain operations on arrays: declarations, initialization, and indexing. As with any 
+other object, when we pass an array to a method or use an array vari- 
+able on the right hand side of an assignment statement, we are mak- 
+ing a copy of the array reference, not a copy of the array. Arrays are 
+mutable objects: This convention is appropriate for the typical case 
+where we expect the method to be able to modify the array by rear- 
+ranging its entries, as in, for example, the exch() and shuffleO 
+methods that we considered in Section 2.1. 
+
+
+123 
+
+124 
+
+
+323 
+
+
+2 
+
+a. length 
+
+
+y 
+
+
+323 
+
+324 
+
+
+459 
+
+460 
+
+461 
+
+
+611 
+
+612 
+
+613 
+
+
+459 
+
+
+611 
+
+
+-a[0] 
+
+-a[l] 
+
+
+.51 
+
+
+.63 
+
+
+21.3 
+
+
+.13 
+
+
+.94 
+
+
+81.9 
+
+
+Naturally, an array of objects in Java is an array of references , not the 
+objects themselves. If the objects are large, then we gain efficiency 
+by not having to move them around, just their references. If they are 
+small, we lose efficiency by having to follow a reference each time we 
+need to get to some information. 
+
+
+An array of objects 
+
+
+Safe pointers . To provide the capability to manipulate memory addresses that re- 
+fer to data, many programming languages include the pointer (which is like the Java 
+reference) as a primitive data type. Programming with pointers is notoriously error 
+
+
+
+356 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+prone, so operations provided for pointers need to be carefully designed to help 
+programmers avoid errors. Java takes this point of view to an extreme (that is fa- 
+vored by many modern programming-language designers). In Java, there is only 
+one way to create a reference (new) and only one way to change a reference (with an 
+assignment statement). That is, the only things that a programmer can do with 
+references is to create them and copy them. In program- 
+ming-language jargon, Java references are known as safe 
+pointers , because Java can guarantee that each reference 
+points to an object of the specified type. Programmers 
+used to writing code that directly manipulates pointers 
+think of Java as having no pointers at all, but people still 
+debate whether it is really desirable to have unsafe point- 
+ers. In short, when you program in Java, you will not be 
+directly accessing pointer values, but if you find yourself 
+doing so in some other language in the future, be careful! 
+
+
+Color a = 
+
+new Col or (160, 
+Color b = 
+
+new Color(255, 
+Color b = a; 
+
+l 1 
+
+
+82, 45); 
+255, 0); 
+
+
+Orphaned objects. The ability to assign a new value to 
+a reference variable creates the possibility that a program 
+may have created an object that it can no longer reference. 
+For example, consider the three assignment statements in 
+the figure at right. After the third assignment statement, 
+not only do a and b refer to the same Color object (the 
+one whose RGB values are 160, 82, and 45), but also there 
+is no longer a reference to the Color object that was cre- 
+ated and used to initialize b. The only reference to that 
+object was in the variable b, and this reference was over- 
+written by the assignment, so there is no way to refer to 
+the object again. Such an object is said to be orphaned. 
+Objects are also orphaned when they go out of scope. Java 
+programmers pay little attention to orphaned objects be- 
+cause the system automatically reuses the memory that 
+they occupy, as we discuss next. 
+
+
+811 
+
+
+811 
+
+
+references to 
+same object 
+
+
+655 
+
+656 
+
+657 
+
+
+811 
+
+812 
+
+813 
+
+
+
+255 
+
+
+
+255 
+
+
+
+0 
+
+
+
+orphaned 
+
+object 
+
+
+
+
+yellow 
+
+
+160 
+
+
+82 
+
+
+45 
+
+
+An orphaned object 
+
+
+Memory management Programs tend to create huge numbers of objects (and 
+primitive-type variables) but only have a need for a small number of them at any 
+given point in time. Accordingly, programming languages and systems need mech- 
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+357 
+
+
+anisms to allocate memory for data type values during the time they are needed 
+and to free the memory when they are no longer needed (for an object, sometime 
+after it is orphaned). Memory management is easier for primitive types because all 
+of the information needed for memory allocation is known at compile time. Java 
+(and most other systems) take care of reserving space for variables when they are 
+declared and freeing that space when they go out of scope. Memory management 
+for objects is more complicated: the compiler knows to allocate memory for an 
+object when it is created, but cannot know precisely when to free the memory as- 
+sociated with an object, because the dynamics of a program in execution determine 
+when an object is orphaned. 
+
+Memory leaks. In many languages (such as C and C++) the programmer 
+is responsible for both allocating and freeing memory. Doing so is tedious and 
+notoriously error-prone. For example, suppose that a program deallocates the 
+memory for an object, but then continues to refer to it (perhaps much later in the 
+program). In the meantime, the system may have allocated the same memory for 
+another use, so all kinds of havoc can result. Another insidious problem occurs 
+when a programmer neglects to ensure that the memory for an orphaned object is 
+deallocated. This bug is known as a memory leak because it can result in a steadily 
+increasing amount of memory devoted to orphaned objects (and therefore not 
+available for use). The effect is that performance degrades, just as if memory were 
+leaking out of your computer. Have you ever had to reboot your computer because 
+it was gradually getting less and less responsive? A common cause of such behavior 
+is a memory leak in one of your applications. 
+
+Garbage collection. One of Java’s most significant features is its ability to auto- 
+matically manage memory. The idea is to free the programmers from the respon- 
+sibility of managing memory by keeping track of orphaned objects and returning 
+the memory they use to a pool of free memory. Reclaiming memory in this way is 
+known as garbage collection , and Java’s safe pointer policy enables it to do this ef- 
+ficiently and automatically. Garbage collection is an old idea, but people still debate 
+whether the overhead of automatic garbage collection justifies the convenience of 
+not having to worry about memory management. The same conclusion that we 
+drew for pointers holds: when you program in Java, you will not be writing code to 
+allocate and free memory, but if you find yourself doing so in some other language 
+in the future, be careful! 
+
+
+
+358 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+For reference, we summarize the examples that we have considered in this section in 
+the table below. These examples are chosen to help you understand the essential 
+properties of data types and object-oriented programming. 
+
+A data type is a set of values and a set of operations defined on those values. With 
+primitive data types, we worked with a small and simple set of values. Colors, pic- 
+tures, strings, and input-output streams are high-level data types that indicate the 
+breadth of applicability of data abstraction. You do not need to know how a data type 
+is implemented in order to be able to use it. Each data type (there are hundreds in the 
+
+Java libraries, and you will soon learn to 
+create your own) is characterized by an 
+API (application programming inter- 
+face) that provides the information that 
+you need in order to use it. A client pro- 
+gram creates objects that hold data type 
+values and invokes instance methods to 
+manipulate those values. We write cli- 
+ent programs with the basic statements 
+and control constructs that you learned 
+in Chapters 1 and 2, but now have the 
+Summary of data types in this section capability to work with a vast variety of 
+
+data types, not just the primitive ones to 
+which you have grown accustomed. With experience, you will find that this ability 
+opens up for you new horizons in programming. 
+
+Our Charge example indicates that you can tailor one or more data types 
+to the needs of your application. The ability to do so is profound, and also is the 
+subject of the next section. When properly designed and implemented, data types 
+lead to client programs that are clearer, easier to develop, and easier to maintain 
+than equivalent programs that do not take advantage of data abstraction. The client 
+programs in this section are testimony to this claim. Moreover, as you will see in 
+the next section, implementing a data type is a straightforward application of the 
+basic programming skills that you have already learned. In particular, addressing a 
+large and complex application becomes a process of understanding its data and the 
+operations to be performed on it, then writing programs that directly reflect this 
+understanding. Once you have learned to do so, you might wonder how program- 
+mers ever developed large programs without using data abstraction. 
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+359 
+
+
+
+Q. Why the distinction between primitive and reference types? 
+
+A. Performance. Java provides the wrapper reference types Integer, Double, and 
+so forth that correspond to primitive types and can be used by programmers who 
+prefer to ignore the distinction. Primitive types are closer to the types of data that 
+are supported by computer hardware, so programs that use them usually run faster 
+than programs that use corresponding reference types. 
+
+Q. What happens if I forget to use new when creating an object? 
+
+A. To Java, it looks as though you want to call a static method with a return value 
+of the object type. Since you have not defined such a method, the error message is 
+the same as when you refer to an undefined symbol. If you compile the code 
+
+Charge c = Charge(.51, .63, 21.3); 
+you get this error message: 
+cannot find symbol 
+
+symbol : method Charge (double, double, double) 
+
+Constructors do not provide return values (their signature has no return value 
+type) — they can only follow new. You get the same kind of error message if you 
+provide the wrong number of arguments to a constructor or method. 
+
+Q. Why don’t we write StdOut . pri ntl n (x . toStri ng () ) to print objects that are 
+not strings? 
+
+A. Good question. That code works fine, but Java saves us the trouble of writing 
+it by automatically invoking toStri ng() for us anytime a Stri ng type is needed. 
+This policy implies that every data type must have a toStri ng() method. We will 
+discuss in Section 3.3. Java’s mechanism for ensuring that this is the case. 
+
+Q. What is the difference between =, ==, and equal s ()? 
+
+A. The single equals sign (=) is the basis of the assignment statement — you cer- 
+tainly are familiar with that. The double equals sign (==) is a binary operator for 
+checking whether its two operands are identical. If the operands are of a primitive 
+
+
+
+
+360 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+type, the result is true if they have the same value, and fal se otherwise. If the op- 
+erands are references, the result is true if they refer to the same object, and fal se 
+otherwise. That is, we use == to test object identity equality. The data-type method 
+equal s () is included in every Java type so that the implementation can provide the 
+capability for clients to test whether two objects have the same value. Note that (a 
+== b) implies a . equal s (b) , but not the other way around. 
+
+Q. How can I arrange to pass an array to a function in such a way that the function 
+cannot change the array? 
+
+A. There is no direct way to do so — arrays are mutable. In Section 3.3, you will see 
+how to achieve the same effect by building a wrapper data type and passing a value 
+of that type instead (Vector, in Program 3.3.3). 
+
+Q. What happens if I forget to use new when creating an array of objects? 
+
+A. You need to use new for each object that you create, so when you create an array 
+of N objects, you need to use new N+l times: once for the array and once for each 
+of the N objects. If you forget to create the array: 
+
+Charge[] a; 
+
+a[0] = new Charge(0.51, 0.63, 21.3); 
+
+you get the same error message that you would get when trying to assign a value to 
+any uninitialized variable: 
+
+variable a might not have been initialized 
+a[0] = new Charge(0.51, 0.63, 21.3); 
+
+A 
+
+but if you forget to use new when creating an object within the array and then try 
+to use it to invoke a method: 
+
+Charge [] a = new Charge [2]; 
+double x = a[0] .potential At (.5, .5); 
+
+you get a Nul 1 Poi nterExcepti on. As usual, the best way to answer such questions 
+is to write and compile such code yourself, then try to interpret Java’s error mes- 
+sage. Doing so might help you more quickly recognize mistakes later. 
+
+
+
+
+3. / Data Types 
+
+
+361 
+
+
+
+Q. Where can I find more details on how Java implements references and garbage 
+collection? 
+
+A. One Java system might differ completely from another. For example, one natu- 
+ral scheme is to use a pointer (machine address); another is to use a handle (a 
+pointer to a pointer). The former gives faster access to data; the latter provides for 
+better garbage collection. 
+
+Q. Why red, green, and blue instead of red, yellow, and blue? 
+
+A. In theory, any three colors that contain some amount of each primary would 
+work, but two different schemes have evolved: one (RGB) that has proven to pro- 
+duce good colors on television screens, computer monitors, and digital cameras, 
+and the other (CMYK) that is typically used for the printed page (see Exercise 
+1.2.21). CMYK does include yellow (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). Two dif- 
+ferent schemes are appropriate because printed inks absorb color, so where there 
+are two different inks there are more colors absorbed and fewer reflected; but video 
+displays emit color, so where there are two different colored pixels there are more 
+colors emitted. 
+
+Q. What exactly does it mean to i mport a name? 
+
+A. Not much: it just saves some typing. You could type java.awt.Color every- 
+where in your code instead of using the import statement. 
+
+Q. Is there anything wrong with allocating and deallocating thousands of Color 
+objects, as in Grays cal e (Program 3.1.4)? 
+
+A. All programming-language constructs come at some cost. In this case the cost 
+is reasonable, since the time for these allocations is tiny compared to the time to 
+actually draw the picture. 
+
+Q. Why does the Stri ng method call s . substri ng(i , j) return the substring of 
+s starting at index i and ending at j-1 (and not j )? 
+
+A. Why do the indices of an array a [] go from 0 to a . 1 ength-1 instead of from 1 
+to 1 ength? Programming-language designers make choices; we live with them. 
+
+
+
+
+362 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3.1.1 Write a program that takes a doubl e value w from the command line, cre- 
+ates four Charge objects with charge value 1.0 that are each distance w in each of 
+the four cardinal directions from (.5, .5), and prints the potential at (.25, .5). 
+
+3.1.2 Write a program that takes from the command line three integers between 
+0 and 255 that represent red, green, and blue values of a color and then creates and 
+shows a 256-by-256 Pi ctu re of that color. 
+
+3.1.3 Modify AT bersSquares (Program 3.1.2) to take nine command-line argu- 
+ments that specify three colors and then draws the six squares showing all the Albers 
+squares with the large square in each color and the small square in each different 
+color. 
+
+
+3.1.4 Write a program that takes the name of a grayscale picture file as a 
+command-line argument and uses StdDraw to plot a histogram of the frequency of 
+occurrence of each of the 256 grayscale intensities. 
+
+3.1.5 Write a program that takes the name of a picture file as a command-line 
+argument and flips the image horizontally. 
+
+3.1.6 Write a program that takes the name of an picture file as a command-line 
+input, and creates three images, one that contains only the red components, one for 
+green, and one for blue. 
+
+3.1.7 Write a program that takes the name of an picture file as a command-line 
+argument and prints the pixel coordinates of the lower left corner and the upper 
+right corner of the smallest bounding box (rectangle parallel to the x- and y-axes) 
+that contains all of the non-white pixels. 
+
+3.1.8 Write a program that takes as command line arguments the name of an 
+image file and the pixel coordinates of a rectangle within the image; reads from 
+standard input a list of Color values (represented as triples of int values); and 
+serves as a filter, printing out those color values for which all pixels in the rectangle 
+are background/foreground compatible. (Such a filter can be used to pick a color 
+for text to label an image.) 
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+363 
+
+
+
+3 . 1.9 Write a function isValidDNAO that takes a string as input and returns 
+true if and only if it is comprised entirely of the characters A, C, T, and G. 
+
+3 . 1.10 Write a function compl ementWC O that takes a DNA string as its inputs and 
+returns its Watson-Crick complement replace A with T, C with G, and vice versa. 
+
+3 . 1.1 1 Write a function pal i nd romeWC () that takes a DNA string as its input and 
+returns true if the string is a Watson-Crick complemented palindrome, and f al se 
+otherwise. A Watson-Crick complemented palindrome is a DNA string that is equal 
+to the reverse of its Watson-Crick complement. 
+
+3 . 1.12 Write a program to check whether an ISBN number is valid (see Exercise 
+1.3.33), taking into account that an ISBN number can have hyphens inserted at 
+arbitrary places. 
+
+3 . 1.13 What does the following code fragment print? 
+
+String stringl = "hello"; 
+
+String string2 = stringl; 
+stringl = "world"; 
+
+StdOut.pri ntln (stringl) ; 
+
+Std0ut.println(string2) ; 
+
+3 . 1.14 What does the following code fragment print? 
+
+String s = "Hello World"; 
+s.tolIpperCaseO ; 
+s. substrings, 11); 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (s) ; 
+
+
+Answer. "Hello World". String objects are immutable — string methods each 
+return a new String object with the appropriate value (but they do not change 
+the value of the object that was used to invoke them). This code ignores the 
+objects returned and just prints the original string. To print "WORLD", use s = 
+s.tolIpperCaseO and s = s. substrings, 11). 
+
+
+
+364 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3 . 1.15 A string s is a circular shift of a string t if it matches when the characters 
+are circularly shifted by any number of positions. For example, ACTGACG is a circular 
+shift of TGACGAC, and vice versa. Detecting this condition is important in the study 
+of genomic sequences. Write a program that checks whether two given strings s 
+and t are circular shifts of one another. Hint : The solution is a one-liner with i n- 
+dexOf () and string concatenation. 
+
+3 . 1.16 Given a string si te that represents a website, write a code fragment to 
+determine its domain type. For example, the domain type for the string http : // 
+www.cs.princeton.edu/IntroProgramming is edu. 
+
+3 . 1.17 Write a static method that takes a domain name as argument and returns 
+the reverse domain (reverse the order of the strings between periods). For example, 
+the reverse domain of cs.princeton.edu is edu.princeton.es. This computa- 
+tion is useful for web log analysis. (See Exercise 4.2.35.) 
+
+3 . 1.18 What does the following recursive function return? 
+
+public static String mystery (String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = s.lengthO; 
+if (N <= 1) return s; 
+
+String a = s.substring(0, N/2); 
+
+String b = s.substring(N/2, N); 
+return mystery(b) + mystery(a); 
+
+} 
+
+3 . 1.19 Modify GeneFi nd to handle all three stop codes (instead of handling them 
+one at a time through the command line). Also add command-line arguments to al- 
+low the user to specify lower and upper bounds on the length of the gene sought. 
+
+3 . 1.20 Write a version of GeneFi nd based on using the indexOfO method in 
+Stri ng to find patterns. 
+
+3 . 1.21 Write a program that takes a start string and a stop string as command- 
+line arguments and prints all substrings of a given string that start with the first, 
+end with the second, and otherwise contain neither. Note: Be especially careful of 
+overlaps! 
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+365 
+
+
+
+3.1.22 Write a filter that reads text from an input stream and prints it to an output 
+stream, removing any lines that consist only of whitespace. 
+
+3.1.23 Modify Potential (Program 3.1.7) to take an integer N from the com- 
+mand line and generate N random Charge objects in the unit square, with potential 
+values drawn randomly from a Gaussian distribution with mean 50 and standard 
+deviation 10. 
+
+3.1.24 Modify StockQuote (Program 3.1.10) to take multiple symbols on the 
+command line. 
+
+3.1.25 The example file data used for Spl i t (Program 3.1.1 1) lists the date, high 
+price, volume, and low price of the Dow Jones stock market average for every day 
+since records have been kept. Download this file from the booksite and write a pro- 
+gram that creates two Draw objects, one for the prices and one for the volumes, and 
+plots them at a rate taken from the command line. 
+
+3.1.26 Write a program Me rge that takes a delimiter string followed by an arbitrary 
+number of file names as command line arguments, concatenates the corresponding 
+lines of each file, separated by the delimiter, and then writes the result to standard 
+output, thus performing the opposite operation from Spl i t (Program 3.1.11). 
+
+3.1.27 Find a website that publishes the current temperature in your area, and 
+write a screen-scraper program Weather so that typing java Weather followed by 
+your zip code will give you a weather forecast. 
+
+3.1.28 Suppose that a[] and b[] are each integer arrays consisting of millions of 
+integers. What does the following code do, and how long does it take? 
+
+int[] t = a; a = b; b = t; 
+
+Answer. It swaps them, but it does so by copying references, so that it is not neces- 
+sary to copy millions of elements. 
+
+
+
+366 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3.1.29 Picture filtering. Write a library RawPicture with read() and write () 
+methods for use with standard input and standard output. The write () method 
+takes a Pi cture as argument and writes the picture to standard output, using the 
+following format: if the picture is w-by-h, write w, then h, then wh triples of integers 
+representing the pixel color values, in row major order. The read () method takes 
+no arguments and returns a Picture, which it creates by reading a picture from 
+standard input, in the format just described. Note: Be aware that this will use up 
+much more disk space than the picture — the standard formats compress this infor- 
+mation so that it will not take up so much space. 
+
+3.1.30 Sound visualization. Write a program that uses StdAudi o and Pi cture to 
+create an interesting two-dimensional color visualization of a sound file while it is 
+playing. Be creative! 
+
+3.1.31 Kama Sutra cipher. Write a filter KamaSutra that takes two strings as com- 
+mand-line argument (the key strings), then reads standard input, substitutes for 
+each letter as specified by the key strings, and writes the result to standard output. 
+This operation is the basis for one of the earliest known cryptographic systems. The 
+condition on the key strings is that they must be of equal length and that any letter 
+in standard input must be in one of them. For example, if input is all capital letters 
+and the keys are THEQUICKBROWN and FXJMPSVRLZYDG, then we make the table. 
+
+THEQUICKBROWN 
+
+FXDMPSVLAZYDG 
+
+which tells us that we should substitute F for T, T for F, H for X, X for H, and so forth 
+when copying the input to the output. The message is encoded by replacing each 
+letter with its pair. For example, the message MEET AT ELEVEN is encoded as QJJ F 
+BF JKJCJG. Someone receiving the message can use the same keys to get the mes- 
+sage back. 
+
+3. 1 .32 Safe password verification. Write a static method that takes a string as argu- 
+ment and returns true if it meets the following conditions, f al se otherwise: 
+
+• At least eight characters long 
+
+• Contains at least one digit (0-9) 
+
+• Contains at least one upper-case letter 
+
+
+
+
+3. 1 Data Types 
+
+
+367 
+
+
+
+• Contains at least one lower-case letter 
+
+• Contains at least one character that is neither a letter nor a number 
+Such checks are commonly used for passwords on the web. 
+
+3.1.33 Color study. Write a program that displays the color study shown at right, 
+which gives Albers squares corresponding to each 
+of the 256 levels of blue and gray that were used to 
+print this book. 
+
+3.1.34 Entropy. The Shannon entropy measures 
+the information content of an input string and plays 
+a cornerstone role in information theory and data 
+compression. Given a string of N characters, let f c 
+be the frequency of occurrence of character c The 
+quantity p c = f c /N is an estimate of the probability 
+that c would be in the string if it were a random 
+string, and the entropy is defined to be the sum of 
+the quantity -p c log 2 p c , over all characters that ap- 
+pear in the string. The entropy is said to measure 
+the information content of a string: if each character 
+appears the same number times, the entropy is at 
+its minimum value. Write a program that computes 
+and prints the entropy of the string on standard input. Run your program on a 
+web page that you read regularly, a recent paper that you wrote, and on the fruit fly 
+genome found on the website. 
+
+3.1.35 Minimize potential. Write a function that takes an array of Charge objects 
+with positive potential as its argument and finds a point such that the potential at 
+that point is within 1% of the minimum potential anywhere in the unit square. Use 
+a Charge object to return this information. Add a call to this function and print 
+out the point coordinates and charge value for the data given in the text and for the 
+random charges described in Exercise 3.1.23. 
+
+3.1.36 Slide show. Write a program that takes the names of several image files as 
+command-line arguments and displays them in a slide show (one every two sec- 
+onds), using a fade effect to black and a fade from black between pictures 
+
+
+
+A color study 
+
+
+
+368 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3 . 1.37 Tile. Write a program that takes the name of an image file and two integers 
+M and N as command-line arguments and creates an M-by-N tiling of the pic- 
+ture. 
+
+
+3 . 1.38 Rotation filter. Write a program that takes two command- 
+line arguments (the name of an image file and a real number theta) 
+and rotates the image 0 degrees counterclockwise. To rotate, copy 
+the color of each pixel (s ; , sj) in the source image to a target pixel 
+(t { , tj) whose coordinates are given by the following formulas: 
+
+tj = (s ; — c ; )cos0 - (Sj — c ; )sin0 + c ; 
+
+tj = (s ; — c ; )sin 0 + ( Sj — cj)c os 0 + Cj 
+where (c ; , cj) is the center of the image. 
+
+3 . 1.39 Swirl filter. Creating a swirl effect is similar to rotation, ex- 
+cept that the angle changes as a function of distance to the center. 
+Use the same formulas as in the previous exercise, but compute 0 
+as a function of (s ( , sj), specifically tt/ 256 times the distance to the 
+center. 
+
+3 . 1.40 Wave filter. Write a filter like those in the previous two ex- 
+ercises that creates a wave effect, by copying the color of each pixel 
+(s ; , sj) in the source image to a target pixel (t f , tj), where f, =s, and 
+tj =Sj +20sin(2TTSj/128). Add code to take the amplitude (20 in the 
+accompanying figure) and the frequency (128 in the accompany- 
+ing figure) as command-line arguments. Experiment with various 
+values of these parameters. 
+
+3 . 1.41 Glass filter. Write a program that takes the name of an im- 
+age file as a command-line argument and applies a glass filter, set 
+each pixel p to the color of a random neighboring pixel (whose 
+pixel coordinates both differ from p’s coordinates by at most 5). 
+
+
+rotate 30 degrees 
+
+
+
+wave filter 
+
+
+
+Exercises in filtering 
+
+
+
+3 . 7 Data Types 
+
+
+369 
+
+
+
+3.1.42 Morph. The example images in the text for Fade do not quite line up in the 
+vertical direction (the mandrill’s mouth is much lower than Darwin’s). Modify 
+Fade to add a transformation in the vertical dimension that makes a smoother 
+transition. 
+
+
+3.1.43 Digital zoom. Write a program Zoom that takes the 
+name of an image file and three numbers s, x, and y as com- 
+mand-line arguments and shows an output image that zooms 
+in on a portion of the input image. The numbers are all be- 
+tween 0 and 1, with s to be interpreted as a scale factor and (x,y) 
+as the relative coordinates of the point that is to be at the center 
+of the output image. Use this program to zoom in on your dog 
+or a friend in some digital image on your computer. (If your 
+image came from a cell phone or an old camera, you may not be 
+able to zoom in too close without having visible artifacts from 
+scaling.) 
+
+3.1.44 Edge detection. An edge is an area of a picture with a 
+strong contrast or discontinuity in intensity from one pixel to 
+the next. Finding the edges of an image is a fundamental prob- 
+lem in image processing and computer vision because edges 
+characterize the object boundaries. Write a program EdgeDe- 
+tect that takes the name of an image file and produces an im- 
+age with the edges highlighted. 
+
+
+java Picture kitten.jpg 
+
+
+
+
+java EdgeDetect kitten.jpg 
+
+
+java Zoom pup. jpg 1 .5 .5 
+
+
+
+
+java Zoom pup. jpg .1 .39 .47 
+
+
+
+Digital zoom 
+
+
+Edge detection 
+
+
+
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+In principle, we could write all of our programs using only the eight built-in prim- 
+itive types, but, as we saw in the last section, it is much more convenient to write 
+programs at a higher level of abstraction. Thus, a variety of data types are built into 
+the Java language and libraries. Still, we certainly cannot expect Java to contain 
+every conceivable data type that we might ever wish to use, so we need to be able to 
+define our own. The purpose of this sec- 
+tion is to explain how to build data types 
+with the familiar Java cl ass. 
+
+Implementing a data type as a Java 
+class is not very different from imple- 
+menting a function library as a set of 
+static methods. The primary difference 
+is that we associate data with the meth- 
+od implementations. The API specifies 
+the methods that we need to implement, 
+but we are free to choose any convenient 
+representation. To cement the basic con- 
+cepts, we begin by considering the implementation of the data type for charged 
+particles that we introduced at the beginning of Section 3.1. Next, we illustrate the 
+process of creating data types by considering a range of examples, from complex 
+numbers to stock accounts, including a number of software tools that we will use 
+later in the book. Useful client code is testimony to the value of any data type, so 
+we also consider a number of clients, including one that depicts the famous and 
+fascinating Mandelbrot set. 
+
+The process of defining a data type is known as data abstraction (as opposed 
+to the function abstraction style that is the basis of Chapter 2). We focus on the data 
+and implement operations on that data. Whenever you can clearly separate data and 
+associated operations within a program, you should do so. Modeling physical objects 
+or familiar mathematical abstractions is straightforward and extremely useful, but 
+the true power of data abstraction is that it allows us to model anything that we 
+can precisely specify. Once you gain experience with this style of programming, 
+you will see that it naturally helps us address programming challenges of arbitrary 
+complexity. 
+
+
+3.2.1 Charged-particle implementation .375 
+
+
+3.2.2 Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . .379 
+
+3.2.3 Histogram . .381 
+
+3.2.4 Turtle graphics . . . 383 
+
+3.2.5 Spira mirabilis 387 
+
+3.2.6 Complex numbers. . . .... . . .393 
+
+3.2.7 Mandelbrot set. .......... .397 
+
+3.2.8 Stock account . ... .... ... .401 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+371 
+
+
+Basic elements of a data type To illustrate the process of implementing a data 
+type in a Java class, we discuss in detail an implementation of the Charge data 
+type of Section 3.1. We have already considered client programs that demonstrate 
+the utility of having such a data type (in Programs 3.1.1 and 3.1.7) — now we focus 
+on the implementation details. Every data-type implementation that you will de- 
+velop has the same basic ingredients as this simple example. 
+
+API. The application programming interface is the contract with all clients and, 
+therefore, the starting point for any implementation. To emphasize that APIs are 
+critical for implementations, we repeat here our example Charge API: 
+
+public class Charge 
+
+ChargeCdouble xO, double yO, double qO) 
+double potential At (double x, double y) electric potential at (x, y) due to charge 
+String toStringO string representation 
+
+API for charged particles ( see Program 3.2.1) 
+
+To implement Charge, we need to define the data type values, implement the con- 
+structor that creates objects having specified values, and implement two methods 
+that manipulate those values. When faced with the problem of creating a com- 
+pletely new class for some application, the first step is to develop an API. This step 
+is a design activity that we will address in Section 3.3. We need to design APIs with 
+care because after we implement classes and write client programs that use them, 
+we do not change the API, because that would imply changing all clients. 
+
+Class. The data-type implementation is a Java cl ass. As with the libraries of static 
+methods that we have been using, we put the code for a data type in a file with the 
+same name as the class, followed by the . j ava extension. We have been implement- 
+ing Java classes, but the classes that we have been implementing do not have the 
+key features of data types: instance variables, constructors, and instance methods. In- 
+stance variables are similar to the variables that we have been using in our program, 
+and constructors and methods are similar to functions, but their effect is quite 
+different. Each of these building blocks is also qualified by an access (or visibility ) 
+modifier. We next consider these four concepts, with examples. 
+
+
+
+372 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Access modifiers. The keywords publ i c, pri vate, and f i nal that sometimes pre- 
+cede class and variable names are known as access modifiers. The publ \c and pri- 
+vate modifiers control access from client code: we designate every instance vari- 
+able and method within a class as either publ i c (this entity is accessible by clients) 
+or private (this entity is not accessible by clients). The fi nal modifier indicates 
+that the value of the variable will not change once it is initialized — its access is read- 
+only. Our convention is to use publ i c for the constructors and methods in the API 
+(since we are promising to provide them to clients) and private for everything 
+else. Typically, our private methods are helper methods used to simplify code in 
+other methods in the class. Java is not so restrictive on its usage of modifiers — we 
+defer to Section 3.3 a discussion of our reasons for these conventions. 
+
+Instance variables. To write code for the methods that manipulate data type val- 
+ues, the first thing that we need is to declare variables that we can use to refer to 
+these values in code. These variables can be any type of data. We declare the types 
+and names of these instance variables in the same way as we declare local variables: 
+for Charge, we use three double values, two to describe the charge’s position in 
+the plane and one to describe the amount of charge. These declarations appear as 
+the first statements in the class, not inside mai n() or any other method. There is a 
+critical distinction between instance variables and the local variables within a static 
+method or a block that you are accustomed to: there is just one value corresponding 
+
+to each local variable at a given time, but there 
+public class Charge are numerous values corresponding to each in- 
+
+{ stance variable (one for each object that is an 
+
+variable — - j HP r "| final double rx, ry ; | instance of the data type) . There is no ambiguity 
+
+declaratio n pri v ^^ /ial double q; | with this arrangement, because each time that 
+
+1 modifiers we invoke an instance method, we do so with an 
+
+■j. ‘ object name — that object is the one whose value 
+
+Instance variables we are manipulating. 
+
+Constructors. A constructor creates an object and provides a reference to that 
+object. Java automatically invokes a constructor when a client program uses the 
+keyword new. Java does most of the work: our code only needs to initialize the 
+instance variables to meaningful values. Constructors always share the same name 
+as the class, but we can overload the name and have multiple constructors with 
+different signatures, just as with static methods. To the client, the combination of 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+373 
+
+
+access return constructor name 
+
+modifier ty p e (same as class name) 
+
+\ \ / 
+
+
+publicl fCharqel ( Idouble xO .[double yO , double qO ) 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+argument 
+' variables 
+
+
+instance 
+variable - 
+names 
+
+
+
+[rxi 
+
+= xO; 
+
+— 
+
+\n\ 
+
+= yO; 
+
+
+aj 
+
+= qO; 
+
+
+- body 
+
+
+signature 
+
+
+Anatomy of a constructor 
+
+
+new followed by a constructor name (with argument values enclosed within paren- 
+theses) is the same as a function call that returns a value of the corresponding type. 
+A constructor signature has no return type, because constructors always return 
+a reference to an object of its data type (the name of the type, the class, and the 
+constructor are all the same). Each time that a client invokes a constructor, Java 
+automatically: 
+
+• Allocates memory space for the object 
+
+• Invokes the constructor code to initialize the instance variables 
+
+• Returns a reference to the object 
+
+The constructor in Charge is typical: it initializes the instance variables with the 
+values provided by the client as arguments. 
+
+
+Instance methods. To implement instance methods, we write code that is pre- 
+cisely like the code that we learned in Chapter 2 to implement static methods (func- 
+tions). Each method has a signature (which specifies its return type and the types 
+and names of its argument variables) and a body (which consists of a sequence of 
+
+
+access return 
+modifier type 
+
+_\ t_ 
+
+
+method 
+
+name 
+
+
+argument 
+
+variables 
+
+
+I publ i c Ifdoubl e 1 [potenti al Atlddoubl e~x| , Idouble vl ) 
+
+
+local 1 
+variables - 
+
+
+< 
+
+double k | 
+
+double dxl 
+
+
+double dvl 
+
+
+8.99e09; 
+
+
+y - In 
+
+
+argument variable name 
+instance variable name 
+
+
+signature 
+
+
+return k * q / Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*[dvl)~n 
+
+call on a static method 1 ocal variable name 
+
+
+Anatomy of an instance method 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+374 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+statements, including a return statement that provides a value of the return type 
+back to the client). When a client invokes a method, the system initializes the argu- 
+ment variables with client values; executes statements until reaching a return 
+statement; and returns the computed value to the client, with the same effect as if 
+the method invocation in the client were replaced with that return value. All of this 
+action is the same as for static methods, but there is one critical distinction for in- 
+stance methods: they can perform operations on instance variables. 
+
+Variables within methods. Accordingly, the Java code that we write to implement 
+instance methods uses three kinds of variables: 
+
+• Argument variables 
+
+• Local variables 
+
+• Instance variables 
+
+The first two are the same as for static methods: argument variables are specified in 
+the method signature and initialized with client values when the method is called, 
+and local variables are declared and initialized within the method body. The scope 
+of argument variables is the entire method; the scope of local variables is the fol- 
+lowing statements in the block where they are defined. Instance variables are com- 
+pletely different: they hold data-type values for objects in a class, and their scope 
+is the entire class. How do we specify which object’s value we want to use? If you 
+think for a moment about this question, you will recall the answer. Each object in 
+the class has a value: the code in a class method refers to the value for the object that 
+was used to invoke the method. When we say cl . potenti al At (x , y) , the code in 
+potential At () is referring to the instance variables for cl. The code in poten- 
+ti al At () uses all three kinds of variable names, as summarized in this table: 
+
+
+variable 
+
+purpose 
+
+example 
+
+scope 
+
+instance 
+
+specify data-type value 
+
+rx, ry 
+
+class 
+
+argument 
+
+pass value from client to method 
+
+x, y 
+
+method 
+
+local 
+
+temporary use within method 
+
+dx, dy 
+
+block 
+
+
+Variables within instance methods 
+
+
+Be sure that you understand the distinctions among these three kinds of variables. 
+These differences are a key to object-oriented programming. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+375 
+
+
+Program 3.2. 1 Charged-particle implementation 
+
+public class Charge 
+
+{ 
+
+private final double rx, ry; 
+private final double q; 
+
+public Charge (double xO, double yO, double qO) 
+{ rx = xO; ry = yO; q = qO; } 
+
+public double potential At (double x, double y) 
+
+{ 
+
+double k = 8.99e09; 
+double dx = x - rx; 
+double dy = y - ry; 
+
+return k * q / Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+rx, ry 
+
+q 
+
+
+query point 
+charge 
+
+
+
+k 
+
+dx, dy 
+
+
+electrostatic constant 
+delta distances to 
+query point 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public String toStringO 
+
+{ 
+
+return q + " at " + "(" + rx + " , " + ry + 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double x = Double. parseDouble (args [0]) ; 
+double y = Doubl e. parseDouble (args [1] ) ; 
+Charge cl = new Charge(.51, .63, 21.3); 
+Charge c2 = new Charge(.13, .94, 81.9); 
+double vl = cl.potentialAt(x, y) ; 
+double v2 = c2.potentialAt(x, y) ; 
+StdOut.printf("%.le\n", (vl + v2)); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+X, y 
+
+query point 
+
+cl 
+
+first charge 
+
+vl 
+
+potential due to cl 
+
+c2 
+
+second charge 
+
+v2 
+
+potential due to c2 
+
+
+This implementation of our data type for charged particles contains the basic elements found 
+in every data type: instance variables rx, ry, and q; a constructor Charge (); instance methods 
+potenti al At() and toStri ng(); and a test client mai n() (see also Program 3.1.1). 
+
+1 w , Bjj ■ 
+
+
+
+% java Charge .2 .5 
+2.2e+12 
+
+% java Charge .51 .94 
+2 . 5e+12 
+
+
+
+376 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+These are the basic components that you need to understand to be able to build 
+data types in Java. Every data-type implementation (Java class) that we will con- 
+sider has instance variables, constructors, instance methods, and a test client. In 
+each data type that we develop, we go through the same steps. Rather than thinking 
+about what action we need to take next to accomplish a computational goal (as we 
+did when first learning to program), we think about the needs of a client, then ac- 
+commodate them in a data type. 
+
+The first step in creating a data type is to specify an API. The purpose of the 
+API is to separate clients from implementations, to enable modular programming. 
+We have two goals when specifying an API. First, we want to enable clear and cor- 
+rect client code. Indeed, it is a good idea to write some client code before finalizing 
+the API to gain confidence that the specified data-type operations are the ones that 
+clients need. Second, we want to be able to implement the operations. There is no 
+point specifying operations that we have no idea how to implement. 
+
+The second step in creating a data type is to implement a Java class that meets 
+the API specifications. First, we choose the instance variables, then we write the 
+code that manipulates the instance variables to implement the specified methods. 
+
+The third step in creating a data type is to write test clients, to validate the 
+design decisions made in the first two steps. 
+
+In this section, we start each example with an API, and then consider imple- 
+mentations, then clients. You will find many exercises at the end of this section 
+intended to give you experience with data-type creation. Section 3.3 is an overview 
+of the design process and related language mechanisms. 
+
+What are the values that define the type, and what operations do clients need 
+to perform on those values? With these basic decisions made, you can create new 
+data types and write clients that use the data types that you have defined in the 
+same way as you have been using built-in types. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+377 
+
+
+
+object invoke 
+
+name method 
+
+
+Anatomy of a class 
+
+
+
+378 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Stopwatch One of the hallmarks of object-oriented programming is the idea 
+of easily modeling real-world objects by creating abstract programming objects. 
+As a simple example, consider Stopwatch (Program 3.3.2), which implements the 
+following API: 
+
+public class Stopwatch 
+
+
+Stopwatch O create a new stopwatch and start it running 
+
+doubl e el apsedTi me() return the elapsed time since creation, in seconds 
+
+API for stopwatches ( see Program 3.2.2) 
+
+In other words, a Stopwatch is a stripped-down version of an old-fashioned stop- 
+watch. When you create one, it starts running, and you can ask it how long it has 
+been running by invoking the method el apsedT i me () . You might imagine adding 
+all sorts of bells and whistles to Stopwatch, limited only by your imagination. Do 
+you want to be able to reset the stopwatch? Start and stop it? Include a lap timer? 
+These sorts of things are easy to add (see Exercise 3.2.1 1). 
+
+The implementation in Program 3.2.2 uses the Java system method System, 
+cu r rentTi meMi 11 i s () , which (as well-described by its name) returns along value 
+giving the current time in milliseconds (the number of milliseconds since mid- 
+night on January 1, 1970 UTC). The data- type implementation could hardly be 
+simpler. A Stopwatch saves its creation time in an instance variable, then returns 
+the difference between that time and the current time whenever a client invokes 
+its el apsedTi me () method. A Stopwatch itself does not actually tick (an internal 
+system clock on your computer does all the ticking for all Stopwatch objects and 
+many other data types); it just creates the illusion that it does for clients. Why not 
+just use System. currentTimeMillisO in clients? We could do so, but using the 
+higher-level Stopwatch abstraction leads to client code that is easier to understand 
+and maintain. 
+
+The test client is typical. It creates two Stopwatch objects, uses them to mea- 
+sure the running time of two different computations, then prints the ratio of the 
+running times. The question of whether one approach to solving a problem is bet- 
+ter than another has been lurking since the first few programs that you have run, 
+and plays an essential role in program development. In Section 4.1, we will develop 
+a scientific approach to understanding the cost of computation. Stopwatch is a 
+useful tool in that approach. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+379 
+
+
+Program 3.2.2 Stopwatch 
+
+
+public class Stopwatch 
+
+{ 
+
+private final long start; 
+public Stopwatch () 
+
+{ start = System. currentTimeMil li sQ ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public double elapsedTimeO 
+
+{ 
+
+long now = System. currentTimeMil li s() ; 
+return (now - start) / 1000.0; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt (args [0] ) ; 
+
+double total Math = 0.0; 
+
+Stopwatch swMath = new Stopwatch () ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+totalMath += Math.sqrt(i) ; 
+double timeMath = swMath. el apsedTi me () ; 
+
+double total Newton = 0.0; 
+
+Stopwatch swNewton = new Stopwatch () ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+total Newton += Newton . sq rt (i ) ; 
+double timeNewton = swNewton. el apsedTi me () ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (total Newton/total Math) ; 
+StdOut . pri ntl n (ti meNewton/ti meMath) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+This class implements a simple data type that we can use to compare running times of perfor- 
+mance-critical methods (see Section 4.1). The test client compares the method for computing 
+square roots in Java’s Math library with our implementation from Program 2.1.1 that uses 
+Newton’s method for the task of computing the sum of the square roots of the numbers from 0 
+toN-1. For this quick test, the Java implementation Math. sqrt() is about 20 times faster than 
+our Newton . sqrt() (as it should be!). 
+
+ss&ni wm&wakmem msm llllill 8 I ‘ » 
+
+
+, __ nn 
+
+% java Stopwatch 1000000 
+1.0 
+
+19.961538461538463 
+
+
+380 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Histogram Data-type instance variables can be arrays. As an illustration, con- 
+sider Histogram (Program 3.2.3), which maintains an array of the frequency of 
+occurrence of integer values in a given interval [0, N ) and uses StdStats . plot- 
+Bars Q to display a histogram of the values, controlled by this API: 
+
+
+public class Histogram 
+
+Hi stogram(i nt N) create a dynamic histogram for the N int values in [0, N) 
+
+double addDataPoint(int i) add an occurrence of the value i 
+
+void draw() draw the histogram using standard draw 
+
+API for histograms (see Program 3.2.3) 
+
+By creating a simple class such as Hi stogram, we reap the benefits of modular pro- 
+gramming (reusable code, independent development of small programs, and so 
+forth) that we discussed in Chapter 2, with the additional benefit that we also sepa- 
+rate the data. A histogram client need not maintain the data (or know anything 
+about its representation); it just creates a histogram and calls addDataPoi nt(). 
+
+When studying this code and the next several examples, it is best to carefully 
+consider the client code. Each class that we implement essentially extends the Java 
+language, allowing us to declare variables of the new data type, instantiate them 
+with values, and perform operations on them. All client programs are conceptually 
+the same as the first programs that you learned that use primitive types and built- 
+in operations. Now you have the ability to define whatever types and operations 
+you need in your client code! In this case, using Hi stogram actually enhances read- 
+ability of the client code, as the addDataPoi nt () call focuses attention on the data 
+being studied. Without Hi stogram, we would have to mix the code for creating the 
+histogram with the code for the computation of interest, resulting in a program 
+much more difficult to understand and maintain than the two separate programs. 
+Whenever you can clearly separate data and associated operations within a program, 
+you should do so. 
+
+Once you understand how a data type will be used in client code, you can 
+consider the implementation. An implementation is characterized by its instance 
+variables (data type values). Hi stogram maintains an array with the frequency of 
+each point and a doubl e value max that stores the height of the tallest bar (for scal- 
+ing). Its private drawQ method scales the drawing and then plots the frequencies. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+381 
+
+
+upping 
+
+
+Program 3.2.3 Histogram 
+
+
+m 
+
+ill 
+
+
+freq[] 
+
+max 
+
+
+public class Histogram 
+
+{ 
+
+private final doublet] freq; 
+private double max; 
+
+public Histogram(int N) 
+
+{ // Create a new histogram, 
+
+freq = new double[N]; 
+
+} 
+
+public void addDataPoint(int i) 
+
+{ // Add one occurrence of the value 
+
+freq[i]++; 
+
+if (freq[i] > max) max = freq [i ] ; 
+
+} 
+
+public void draw() 
+
+{ // Draw (and scale) the histogram. 
+
+StdDraw.setYscaleCO, max); 
+
+StdStats . pi otBars (freq) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // See Program 2.2.6. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+
+Histogram histogram = new Histogram(N+l) ; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+hi stogram.addDataPoint (Bernoulli .binomial (N)) ; 
+StdDraw.setCanvasSize(500, 100) ; 
+histogram.drawO ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+frequency counts 
+maximum frequency 
+
+
+
+% java Histogram 50 1000000 
+
+
+..■ill 
+
+
+
+
+This data type supports simple client code to create dynamic histograms of the frequency of 
+occurrence of values in [0, N). The frequencies are kept in an instance-variable array, and an 
+instance variable max tracks the maximum frequency ( for scaling). To make a dynamically 
+changing histogram, add a call to StdDraw. cl ear () before and a call to StdDraw . show(20) 
+after the call to hi stogram . drawQ in the client code.. 
+
+
+
+|*p 
+
+
+
+382 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Turtle graphics Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within a program, you 
+should do so. In object-oriented programming, we extend that mantra to include 
+state with the tasks. A small amount of state can be immensely valuable in simplify- 
+ing a computation. Next, we consider turtle graphics, which is based on the data 
+type defined by this API: 
+
+
+public class Turtle 
+
+
+i ft i ^ i in create a new turtle at (Xn, y n ) facing a n 
+
+Turtle(double xO, double yO, double aO) , , , . ; °‘ J 7 6 . 
+
+degrees counterclockwise from the x-axis 
+
+voi d turn Left (doubl e del ta) rotate del ta degrees counterclockwise 
+
+void goForward(double step) move distance step, drawing a line 
+
+API for turtle graphics ( see Program 3 . 2 . 4 ) 
+
+
+Imagine a turtle that lives in the unit square and draws lines as it moves. It can 
+move a specified distance in a straight line, or it can rotate left (counterclockwise) 
+
+
+a specified number of degrees. According to 
+the API, when we create a turtle, we place it at 
+a specified point, facing a specified direction. 
+Then, we create drawings by giving the turtle a 
+sequence of goForwardO and turnLeftO 
+commands. 
+
+For example, to draw a triangle we create 
+a Turtl e at (0, .5) facing at an angle of 60 de- 
+grees counterclockwise from the origin, then 
+direct it to take a step forward, then rotate 120 
+degrees counterclockwise, then take another 
+step forward, then rotate another 120 degrees 
+counterclockwise, and then take a third step 
+forward to complete the triangle. Indeed, all of 
+the turtle clients that we will examine simply 
+create a turtle, then give it an alternating series 
+of step and rotate commands, varying the step 
+size and the amount of rotation. As you will 
+see in the next several pages, this simple model 
+
+
+double xO = 0.5; 
+
+double yO = 0.0; 
+
+double aO = 60.0; 
+
+double step = Math.sqrt(3)/2; 
+
+Turtle t = new TurtleCxO, yO, aO); 
+t.goForward(step) ; 
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+383 
+
+
+allows us to create arbitrarily complex drawings, with many im- 
+portant applications. 
+
+Turtle (Program 3.2.4) is an implementation of this API 
+that uses StdDraw. It maintains three instance variables: the co- 
+ordinates of the turtle’s position and the current direction it is 
+facing, measured in degrees counterclockwise from the x-axis. 
+Implementing the two methods requires updating the values 
+
+of these variables, so they are not 
+final. The necessary updates are 
+straightforward: turnLeft(delta) 
+
+adds delta to the current angle, and 
+go Forward (step) adds the step size 
+times the cosine of its argument to the 
+current x-coordinate and the step size 
+times the sine of its argument to the 
+current y-coordinate. 
+
+The test client in Tu rtl e takes an 
+integer N as command-line argument 
+and draws a regular polygon with N sides. If you are interested 
+in elementary analytic geometry, you might enjoy verifying that 
+fact. Whether or not you choose to do so, think about what you 
+would need to do to compute the coordinates of all the points in 
+the polygon. The simplicity of the turtle’s approach is very ap- 
+pealing. In short, turtle graphics serves as a useful abstraction for 
+describing geometric shapes of all sorts. For example, we obtain 
+a good approximation to a circle by taking N to a sufficiently 
+large value. 
+
+You can use a Tu rtl e as you use any other object. Programs 
+can create arrays of Turtle objects, pass them as arguments to 
+functions, and so forth. Our examples will illustrate these capa- 
+bilities and convince you that creating a data type like Tu rtl e is 
+both very easy and very useful. For each of them, as with regu- 
+lar polygons, it is possible to compute the coordinates of all the 
+points and draw straight lines to get the drawings, but it is easier 
+to do so with a Tu rtl e. Turtle graphics exemplifies the value of 
+data abstraction. 
+
+
+(. x g + d cos a ,y 0 +d sin a) 
+
+
+
+Turtle trigonometry 
+
+
+t.goForward(step) ; 
+
+
+
+t.turnLeft(120.0) ; 
+
+
+
+t . goForward (step) ; 
+
+
+
+t.goForward(step) ; 
+
+
+
+Your first turtle 
+graphics drawing 
+
+
+
+384 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+mm 
+
+
+' ■■ f ' 
+
+
+Program 3.2.4 Turtle graphics 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+public class Turtle 
+
+{ 
+
+private double x, y; 
+private double angle; 
+
+public Turtle (double xO, double yO, double aO) 
+
+{ x = xO; y = yO; angle = aO; } 
+
+public void turnLeft (double delta) 
+
+{ angle += delta; } 
+
+public void goForward (double step) 
+
+{ // Compute new position, move and draw line to it. 
+
+double oldx = x, oldy = y; 
+x += step * Math. cos (Math. toRadi ans (angl e) ) ; 
+y += step * Math. sin (Math. toRadi ans (angl e) ) ; 
+StdDraw. line (oldx, oldy, x, y); 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Draw an N-gon. 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+double angle = 360.0 / N; 
+
+double step = Math.sin(Math.toRadians(angle/2)) ; 
+Turtle turtle = new Turtle(.5, .0, angle/2); 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+turtle. goForward (step) ; 
+turtle. turnLeft (angle) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This data type supports turtle graphics, which often simplifies the creation of drawings. 
+
+
+position (in unit square) 
+direction of motion (degrees, 
+counterclockwise from x axis) 
+
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+385 
+
+
+Recursive graphics. A Koch curve of order 0 is a straight line. To form a Koch 
+curve of order n, draw a Koch curve of order n—1, turn left 60 degrees, draw a 
+second Koch curve of order n— 1, turn right 120 degrees (left -120 degrees), draw a 
+third Koch curve of order n- 1, turn left 60 degrees, and draw a fourth Koch curve 
+of order n—1. These recursive instructions lead immediately to turtle client code. 
+With appropriate modifications, recursive schemes like this have proven useful in 
+modeling self-similar patterns found in nature, such as snowflakes. 
+
+The client code below is straightforward, except for the value of the step size 
+sz. If you carefully examine the first few examples, you will see (and be able to 
+prove by induction) that the width of the curve of order n is 3" times the step size, 
+so setting the step size to 1/3" produces a curve of width 1. Similarly, the number of 
+steps in a curve of order n is 4", so Koch will not finish if you invoke it for large n. 
+
+You can find many examples of recursive patterns of this sort that have been 
+studied and developed by mathematicians, scientists, and artists from many cul- 
+tures in many contexts. Here, our interest in them is that the turtle graphics ab- 
+straction greatly simplifies client code that draws them. 
+
+
+public class Koch 
+{ 
+
+public static void koch(int n, double step, Turtle turtle) 
+{ 
+
+if (n == 0) 
+
+{ 
+
+tu rtl e . goForward (step) ; 
+return; 
+
+} 
+
+koch(n-l, step, turtle); 
+turtle. turnLeft(60.0) ; 
+koch(n-l, step, turtle); 
+turtle. turnLeftC-120.0) ; 
+koch(n-l, step, turtle); 
+turtle. turnLeft(60.0) ; 
+koch(n-l, step, turtle); 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int n = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+double step = 1.0 / Math.pow(3.0, n); 
+Turtle turtle = new Turtle(0.0, 0.0, 0.0); 
+koch(n, step, turtle); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+Drawing Koch curves with turtle graphics 
+
+
+
+386 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Spira mirabilis. Perhaps the turtle is a bit tired after taking 4" steps to draw a Koch 
+curve. Accordingly, imagine that the turtle’s step size decays by a tiny constant fac- 
+tor each time that it takes a step. What happens to our drawings? Remarkably, mod- 
+ifying the polygon-drawing test client in Program 3.2.4 to answer this question 
+leads to an image known as a logarithmic spiral, a curve that is found in many con- 
+texts in nature. 
+
+Spi ral (Program 3.2.5) is an implementation of this curve. It takes N and the 
+decay factor as command-line arguments and instructs the turtle to alternately step 
+and turn until it has wound around itself 10 times. As you can see from the four 
+examples given with the program, the path spirals into the center of the drawing. 
+The argument N controls the shape of the spiral. You are encouraged to experiment 
+with Spi ral yourself in order to develop an understanding of the way in which the 
+parameters control the behavior of the spiral. 
+
+The logarithmic spiral was first described by Rene Descartes in 1638. Jacob 
+Bernoulli was so amazed by its mathematical properties that he named it the spira 
+mirabilis (miraculous spiral) and even asked to have it engraved on his tombstone. 
+Many people also consider it to be “miraculous” that this precise curve is clearly 
+present in a broad variety of natural phenomena. Three examples are depicted be- 
+low: the chambers of a nautilus shell, the arms of a spiral galaxy, and the cloud 
+formation in a tropical storm. Scientists have also observed it as the path followed 
+by a hawk approaching its prey and the path followed by a charged particle moving 
+perpendicular to a uniform magnetic field. 
+
+One of the goals of scientific enquiry is to provide simple but accurate models 
+of complex natural phenomena. Our tired turtle certainly passes that test! 
+
+
+nautilus shell galaxy storm 
+
+
+
+Examples of the spira mirabilis in nature 
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+387 
+
+
+
+It 
+
+i 
+
+
+
+Program 3.2.5 Spira mirabilis 
+
+public class Spiral 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+
+double decay = Double. parseDouble(args[lj) ; 
+double angle = 360.0 / N; 
+
+double step = Math. sin (Math. toRadians(angl e/2)) ; 
+Turtle turtle = new Turtle(0.5, 0, angle/2); 
+
+for (int i =0; i < 10 * 360 / angle; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+step /= decay; 
+turtle. goForward(step) ; 
+turtle. turnLeft(angle) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This code is a modification of the test client in Program 3.2.4 that decreases the step size at each 
+step and cycles around 10 times. The angle controls the shape; the decay controls the nature of 
+the spiral. 
+
+
+step size 
+decay factor 
+rotation amount 
+tired turtle 
+
+
+
+
+
+388 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Brownian motion. Or, perhaps the turtle has had one too many. Accordingly, 
+imagine that the disoriented turtle (again following its standard alternating turn 
+and step regimen) turns in a random direction before each step. Again, it is easy to 
+plot the path followed by such a turtle for millions of steps, and again, such paths 
+are found in nature in many contexts. In 1827, the botanist Robert Brown observed 
+through a microscope that pollen grains immersed in water seemed to move about 
+in just such a random fashion, which later became known as Brownian motion and 
+led to Albert Einstein’s insights into the atomic nature of matter. 
+
+Or perhaps our turtle has friends, all of whom have had one too many. After 
+they have wandered around for a sufficiently long time, their paths merge together 
+and become indistinguishable from a single path. Astrophysicists today are using 
+this model to understand observed properties of distant galaxies. 
+
+Turtle graphics was originally developed by Seymour Papert at MIT in the 1960s 
+as part of an educational programming language, Logo, that is still used today in 
+toys. But turtle graphics is no toy, as we have just seen in numerous scientific ex- 
+amples. Turtle graphics also has numerous commercial applications. For example, 
+it is the basis for PostScript, a programming language for creating printed pages 
+that is used for most newspapers, magazines, and books. In the present context, 
+Turtle is a quintessential object-oriented programming example, showing that a 
+small amount of saved state (data abstraction using objects, not just functions) can 
+vastly simplify a computation. 
+
+
+public class DrunkenTurtle 
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+double step = Double. parseDouble(args[l]); 
+Turtle turtle = new Turtle(0.5, 0.5, 0.0); 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+turtle. turnLeft(360.0 * Math. random ()) ; 
+turtle. goForward(step) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+10000 .01 
+
+
+
+Brownian motion of a drunken turtle (moving a fixed distance in a random direction) 
+
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+389 
+
+
+public class DrunkenTurtles 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [0]) ; // number of turtles 
+
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; // number of steps 
+
+double step = Double.parseDouble(args[2]) ; // step size 
+
+Turtle[] turtles = new Turtle[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+turtles[i] = new Turtle(Math. randomO , Math. randomO , 0.0); 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ //All turtles take one step, 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ // Turtle i takes one step in a random direction. 
+
+turtles[i] . turnLeft(360.0 * Math. randomO) ; 
+turtles[i] .goForward(step) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+20 500 .005 
+
+
+
+20 1000 .005 
+
+
+
+20 5000 .005 
+
+
+
+
+
+Brownian motion of a bale of drunken turtles 
+
+
+390 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Complex numbers A complex number is a number of the form x + iy, where x 
+and y are real numbers and i is the square root of - 1. The number x is known as 
+the real part of the complex number, and the number y is known as the imaginary 
+part. This terminology stems from the idea that the square root of - 1 has to be an 
+imaginary number, because no real number can have this value. Complex numbers 
+are a quintessential mathematical abstraction: whether or not one believes that it 
+makes sense physically to take the square root of -1, complex numbers help us 
+understand the natural world. They are used extensively in applied mathematics 
+and play an essential role in many branches of science and engineering. They are 
+used to model physical systems of all sorts, from circuits to sound waves to electro- 
+magnetic fields. These models typically require extensive computations involving 
+manipulating complex numbers according to well-defined arithmetic operations, 
+so we want to write computer programs to do the computations. In short, we need 
+a new data type. 
+
+Developing a data type for complex numbers is a prototypical example of 
+object-oriented programming. No programming language can provide implemen- 
+tations of every mathematical abstraction that we might need, but the ability to 
+implement data types give us not just the ability to write programs to easily manip- 
+ulate abstractions such as complex numbers, polynomials, vectors, matrices, but 
+also the freedom to think in terms of new abstractions. 
+
+The operations on complex numbers that are needed for basic computations 
+are to add and multiply them by applying the commutative, associative, and dis- 
+tributive laws of algebra (along with the identity i 2 = - 1); to compute the magni- 
+tude; and to extract the real and imaginary parts, according to the following equa- 
+tions: 
+
+• Addition: ( x+iy ) + (v+iw) = (x+v) + i(y+w) 
+
+• Multiplication: (x + iy) * (v + i w) = (xv - yw) + i(yv + xw) 
+
+• Magnitude: \x+iy\ = Jx 2 + y 2 
+
+• Real part Re(x + iy) = x 
+
+• Imaginary part Im(x + iy) = y 
+
+For example, if a = 3 + 4z and b=- 2 + 3 i, then a +b = 1 + 7i, a *b = - 18 + i, Re(a) 
+= 3, Im(fl) = 4, and |a| = 5. 
+
+With these basic definitions, the path to implementing a data type for com- 
+plex numbers is clear. As usual, we start with an API that specifies the data-type 
+operations: 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+391 
+
+
+public class Complex 
+
+
+Complex (double real, double imag) 
+
+
+Complex pi us (Complex b) 
+Complex times (Comp! ex b) 
+double abs() 
+double re() 
+double im() 
+
+String toStringQ 
+
+
+sum of this number and b 
+
+product of this number and b 
+
+magnitude 
+
+real part 
+
+imaginary part 
+
+string representation 
+
+
+API for complex numbers (see Program 3.2.6) 
+
+
+For simplicity, we concentrate in the text on just the basic operations in this API, 
+but Exercise 3.2.19 asks you to consider several other useful operations that might 
+be included in such an API. 
+
+Comp! ex (Program 3.2.2) is a class that implements this API. It has all of the 
+same components as did Charge (and every Java data type implementation): in- 
+stance variables (re and im), a constructor, instance methods (plus(), times(), 
+abs () , re () , i m () , and toSt ri ng () ), and a test client. The test client first sets z 0 to 
+1 + i, then sets z to z 0 , and then evaluates: 
+
+z = z 2 + z 0 = (1 + i) 2 + (1 + i) = (1 + 2i - 1) + (1 + i) = 1 + 3 i 
+
+z = z 2 + z 0 = (1 + 3i) 2 + (1 + i) = (1 + 6 i -9) + (1 + i) = -7 + 7 i 
+
+This code is straightforward and similar to code that you have seen earlier in this 
+chapter, with one exception: the code that implements the arithmetic methods 
+makes use of a new mechanism for accessing object values. 
+
+Accessing instance variables in objects of this type . Both plus() and times () 
+need to access values in two objects: the object passed as an argument and the 
+object used to invoke the method. If we call the method with a. pi us(b), we can 
+access the instance variables of a using the names re and i m, as usual, but to access 
+the instance variables of of b we use the code b . re and b . i m. Keeping the instance 
+variables private means that client code cannot access directly instance variables in 
+another class (but code in the same class can access any object’s instance variables 
+directly). 
+
+
+
+392 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Chaining. Observe the manner in which main() chains two method calls into 
+one compact expression: the expression z . ti mes (z) .plus (zO) evaluates to z 2 + 
+z 0 . This usage is convenient because we do not have to invent a variable name for 
+the intermediate value. If you study the expression, you can see that there is no 
+ambiguity: moving from left to right, each method returns a reference to a Comp! ex 
+object, which is used to invoke the next method. If desired, we can use parenthe- 
+ses to override the default precedence order (for example, z . ti mes (z . pi us (zO) ) 
+evaluates to z[z + z 0 )). 
+
+Creating and returning new objects. Observe the manner in which pi us() and 
+times() provide return values to clients: they need to return a Complex value, so 
+they each compute the requisite real and imaginary parts, use them to create a new 
+object, and then return a reference to that object. This arrangement allow clients to 
+manipulate complex numbers by manipulating local variables of type Compl ex. 
+
+Final values. The two instance variables in Compl ex are f i nal , meaning that their 
+values are set for each Compl ex object when it is created and do not change during 
+the lifetime of an object. Again, we discuss the reasons behind this design decision 
+in Section 3.3. 
+
+Complex numbers are the basis for sophisticated calculations from applied math- 
+ematics that have many applications. Some programming languages have complex 
+numbers built in as a primitive type, and provide special language support for use 
+of operators such as * and + to perform addition, multiplication, and other opera- 
+tions, in the same way as for integers or floating-point numbers. Java does not sup- 
+port overloading for built-in operators. Java’s support for data types is much more 
+general, allowing us to compute with abstractions of all description. Compl ex is but 
+one example. 
+
+To give you a feeling for the nature of calculations involving complex num- 
+bers and the utility of the complex number abstraction, we next consider a famous 
+example of a Compl ex client. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+393 
+
+
+
+SI 
+
+
+
+
+®l 
+
+vv 
+
+
+public class Complex 
+
+{ 
+
+private final double re; 
+private final double im; 
+
+public Complex(double real, double imag) 
+
+{ re = real ; im = imag; } 
+
+public Complex pi us (Complex b) 
+
+{ // Return the sum of this number and b. 
+
+double real = re + b.re; 
+double imag = im + b.im; 
+return new Complex(real , imag); 
+
+} 
+
+
+real part 
+imaginary part 
+
+
+* b.im; 
+re; 
+
+
+public Complex times (Complex b) 
+
+{ // Return the product of this number and b. 
+
+double real = re * b.re - im 
+double imag = re * b.im + im * b. 
+return new Complex(real , imag); 
+
+} 
+
+public double abs() 
+
+{ return Math.sqrt(re*re + im*im); 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public double re() 
+public double im() 
+
+
+{ return re; } 
+{ return im; } 
+
+
+public String toStringO 
+{ return re + " + " + im 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+Complex zO = new Complex (1.0, 1.0); 
+Complex z = zO; 
+z = z. times (z) .plus(zO) ; 
+z = z.times(z) .plus(zO) ; 
+StdOut.println(z) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This data type is the basis for writing Java programs that manipulate complex numbers. 
+
+
+
+394 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Mandelbrot set The Mandelbrot set is a specific set of complex numbers dis- 
+covered by Benoit Mandelbrot. It has many fascinating properties. It is a fractal 
+pattern that is related to the Barnsley fern, the Sierpinski triangle, the Brownian 
+bridge, the Koch curve, the drunken turtle, and other recursive (self-similar) pat- 
+terns and programs that we have seen in this book. Patterns of this kind are found 
+in natural phenomena of all sorts, and these models and programs are very impor- 
+tant in modern science. 
+
+The set of points in the Mandelbrot set cannot be described by a single math- 
+ematical equation. Instead, it is defined by an algorithm, and therefore a perfect 
+candidate for a Compl ex client: we study the set by writing programs to plot it. 
+
+The rule for determining whether a complex number z 0 is in the Mandelbrot 
+set is simple: Consider the sequence of complex numbers z 0 ,z I ,z 2 ,...,z t ,..., where 
+z t+i = ( z t ) 2 + z o • F° r example, this table shows the first few entries in the sequence 
+corresponding to z 0 =1 + i : 
+
+t Z, (z ,) 2 (z,) 2 + z 0 
+
+0 1 + i 1+2 i + i 2 = 2 i 2 i + (1 + i) = 1 + 3 i 
+
+1 l + 3i 1+6 i+ 9 i 2 = — 8 + 6i -8 + 6i + (1 + i) = -7 + 7i 
+
+2 —7 + 7i 49 -98I+ 49z' 2 = — 98i —98* + (1 + i) = 1— 97* 
+
+Mandelbrot sequence computation 
+
+Now, if the sequence \z t \ diverges to infinity, then z 0 is not in the Mandelbrot set; if 
+the sequence is bounded, then z 0 is in the Mandelbrot set. For many points, the test 
+is simple; for many other points, the test requires more computation, as indicated 
+by the examples in this table: 
+
+
+t 
+
+0 + Oi 
+
+2 + Oi 
+
+1 + i 
+
+-.5 + Oi 
+
+.10 - ,64i 
+
+0 
+
+0 + Oi 
+
+2 + Oi 
+
+1 + i 
+
+-.5 + Oi 
+
+.10 - .64i 
+
+1 
+
+O + Oi 
+
+6 + Oi 
+
+1 + 3i 
+
+-.25 + Oi 
+
+-.30 - .77 i 
+
+2 
+
+0 + Oi 
+
+36 + Oi 
+
+-7 + 7i 
+
+-.44 + Oi 
+
+1 
+
+O 
+
+1 
+
+Op 
+
+3 
+
+0 + Oi 
+
+1446 + Oi 
+
+K 
+
+0\ 
+
+1 
+
+-.31 + Oi 
+
+.23 - .50 i 
+
+4 
+
+0 + Oi 
+
+2090918 + Oi 
+
+- 9407 - 193i 
+
+-.40 + Oi 
+
+1 
+
+o 
+
+VO 
+
+1 
+
+oo 
+
+in the set? 
+
+yes 
+
+no 
+
+no 
+
+yes 
+
+yes 
+
+
+Mandelbrot sequence for several starting points 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+395 
+
+
+
+o 
+
+Mandelbrot set 
+
+
+For brevity, the numbers in the rightmost 
+two columns of this table are given to just 
+two decimal places. In some cases, we can 
+prove whether numbers are 
+in the set: for example, 0 + .1015 -.633 1.0 
+
+
+Oi is certainly in the set (since 
+the magnitude of all the 
+numbers in its sequence is 
+0), and 2 + Oi is certainly not 
+in the set (since its sequence 
+dominates the powers of 2, 
+
+
+
+which diverges). In some 
+
+
+other cases, the growth is 
+readily apparent: for exam- 
+ple, 1 + i does not seem to be in the set. Other sequences exhibit a 
+periodic behavior: for example, i maps to — 1 + i to — i to — 1 + i to 
+— i ... . And some sequences go on for a very long time before the 
+magnitude of the numbers begins to get large. 
+
+To visualize the Mandelbrot set, we sample complex points, just 
+as we sample real-valued points to plot a real-valued function. Each 
+complex number x+ iy corresponds to a point (x, y) in the plane, 
+so we can plot the results as follows: for a specified resolution N, we 
+define a regularly spaced N-by-N pixel grid within a specified square 
+and draw a black pixel if the corresponding point is in the Mandelbrot 
+set and a white pixel if it is not. This plot is a strange and wondrous 
+pattern, with all the black dots connected and falling roughly within 
+the 2-by-2 square centered on the point —1/2 + Oi. Large values of 
+
+
+
+N will produce higher-resolution images, at the cost of more com- 
+putation. Looking closer reveals self-similarities throughout the plot. 
+For example, the same bulbous pattern with self-similar appendages 
+appears all around the contour of the main black cardioid region, of 
+sizes that resemble the simple ruler function of Program 1.2.1. When 
+we zoom in near the edge of the cardioid, tiny self-similar cardioids 
+appear! 
+
+But how, precisely, do we produce such plots? Actually, no one 
+knows for sure, because there is no simple test that would enable us to 
+
+
+.1015 -.633 .001 
+
+
+
+Zooming in on the set 
+
+
+396 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+conclude that a point is surely in the set. Given a complex point, we can compute 
+the terms at the beginning of its sequence, but may not be able to know for sure 
+that the sequence remains bounded. There is a test that tells us for sure that a point 
+is not in the set: if the magnitude of any number in the sequence ever gets to be 
+greater than 2 (such as 2 + Oi), then the sequence surely will diverge. 
+
+Mandelbrot (Program 3.2.7) uses this test to plot a visual representation of 
+the Mandelbrot set. Since our knowledge of the set is not quite black-and-white, 
+we use grayscale in our visual representation. It is based on the function mand () (a 
+Comp! ex client), which takes a Compl ex argument zO and an i nt argument max and 
+computes the Mandelbrot iteration sequence starting at zO, returning the number 
+of iterations for which the magnitude stays less than 2, up to the limit max . 
+
+For each pixel, the method main() in Mandelbrot computes the point zO 
+corresponding to the pixel and then computes 255 - mand(zO, 255) to create a 
+grayscale color for the pixel. Any pixel that is not black corresponds to a point that 
+we know to be not in the Mandelbrot set because the magnitude of the numbers 
+in its sequence grew past 2 (and therefore will go to infinity). The black pixels 
+(grayscale value 0) correspond to points that we assume to be in the set because 
+the magnitude stayed less than 2 for 255 iterations, but we do not necessarily know 
+for sure. 
+
+The complexity of the images that this simple program produces is remark- 
+able, even when we zoom in on a tiny portion of the plane. For even more dramatic 
+pictures, we can use use color (see Exercise 3.2.34). And the Mandelbrot set is de- 
+rived from iterating just one function (z 2 + z 0 ): we have a great deal to learn from 
+studying the properties of other functions, as well. 
+
+The simplicity of the code masks a substantial amount of computation. There 
+are about one-quarter million pixels in a 512-by-512 image, and all of the black 
+ones require 255 iterations, so producing an image with Mandel brot requires hun- 
+dreds of millions of operations on Compl ex values. 
+
+Fascinating as it is to study, our primary interest in Mandelbrot is as an ex- 
+ample client of Compl ex, to illustrate that computing with a type of data that is not 
+built into Java (complex numbers) is a natural and useful programming activity. 
+Mandel brot is a simple and natural expression of the computation, made so by the 
+design and implementation of Complex. You could implement Mandelbrot with- 
+out using Compl ex, but the code would essentially have to merge together the code 
+in Programs 3.2.6 and 3.2.7 and therefore would be much more difficult to under- 
+stand. Whenever you can clearly separate tasks within a program, you should do so. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+397 
+
+
+
+Program 3.2. 7 Mandelbrot set 
+
+import java. awt. Color; 
+
+public class Mandelbrot 
+
+{ 
+
+private static int mand (Complex zO, int max) 
+
+{ 
+
+Complex z = zO; 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < max; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (z.absO >2.0) return t; 
+z = z. times (z) .plus (zO) ; 
+
+} 
+
+return max; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double xc = Double. parseDouble(args[0]) ; 
+double yc = Double. parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+double size = Double. parseDouble (args [2] ) ; 
+int N = 512; 
+
+Picture pic = new Picture(N, N); 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double xO = xc - size/2 + size*i/N; 
+double yO = yc - size/2 + size*j/N; 
+Complex zO = new Complex(x0, yO) ; 
+int t = 512 - mand(z0, 512); 
+
+Color c = new Color(t, t, t); 
+pic. set (i , N-l-j, c); 
+
+} 
+
+pic.showQ ; 
+
+
+1H o ! ■ 
+
+
+1 
+
+x0, yO 
+
+point in square 
+
+zO 
+
+x 0 + i y 0 
+
+max 
+
+iteration limit 
+
+xc, yc 
+
+center of square 
+
+size 
+
+square is size-by-size 
+
+N 
+
+grid is N-by-N pixels 
+
+pic 
+
+image for output 
+
+c 
+
+pixel color for output 
+
+
+-.5 0 2 
+
+
+^1 I 
+
+■ 
+
+
+-.1015 -.633 .01 
+
+
+t. « $$&&&.* 
+
+
+This program takes three command-line arguments that specify the center and size of a square 
+region of interest, and makes a digital image showing the result of sampling the Mandelbrot set 
+in that region at a 512*512 grid of equally spaced pixels . It colors each pixel with a grayscale 
+value that is determined by counting the number of iterations before the Mandelbrot sequence 
+for the corresponding complex number grows past 2.0, up to 255. 
+
+
+
+398 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Commercial data processing One of the driving forces behind the develop- 
+ment of object-oriented programming has been the need for an extensive amount 
+of reliable software for commercial data processing. As an illustration, we consider 
+next an example of a data type that might be used by a financial institution to keep 
+track of customer information. 
+
+Suppose that a stock broker needs to maintain customer accounts contain- 
+ing shares of various stocks. That is, the set of values the broker needs to process 
+includes the customer’s name, numbers of different stocks held, amount of shares 
+and ticker symbols for each, and perhaps the total value of the stocks in the account. 
+To process an account, the broker needs at least the operations defined in this API: 
+
+
+public class StockAccount 
+
+
+create a new account from 
+information in input stream 
+
+total value in dollars 
+
+
+save account to an output stream 
+print a detailed report of stocks and values 
+API for processing stock accounts ( see Program 3.2.8) 
+
+
+
+StockAccount (In 
+
+in) 
+
+double 
+
+value () 
+
+
+void 
+
+buy(int amount, 
+
+String symbol) 
+
+double 
+
+sell(int amount, 
+
+, String symbol) 
+
+void 
+
+write(Out out) 
+
+
+void 
+
+printReportQ 
+
+
+
+The broker certainly needs to buy, sell, and provide reports to the customer, but the 
+first key to understanding this kind of data processing is to consider the StockAc- 
+count () constructor and the wri te () method in this API. The customer informa- 
+tion has a long lifetime and needs to be saved in a file or database. To process an 
+account, a client program needs to read information from the corresponding file; 
+process the information as appropriate; and, if the information changes, write it 
+back to the file, saving it for later. To enable this kind of processing, we need a file 
+format and an internal representation, or a data structure, for the account informa- 
+tion. The situation is analogous to what we saw for matrix processing in Chapter 1, 
+where we defined a file format (numbers of rows and columns followed by entries 
+in row-major order) and an internal representation (Java two-dimensional arrays) 
+to enable us to write programs for the random surfer and other applications. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+399 
+
+
+As a (whimsical) running example, we imagine that a broker is maintaining a 
+small portfolio of stock in leading software companies for Alan Turing, the father 
+of computing. As an aside : Turing’s life story is a fascinating one that is worth pur- 
+suing. Among many other things, he worked on computational cryptography that 
+helped to bring about the end of the Second World War, he developed the basis for 
+modern theoretical computer science, he designed and built one of the first com- 
+puters, and he was a pioneer in artificial intelligence research. It is perhaps safe to 
+assume that Turing, whatever his financial situation as an academic researcher in 
+the middle of the last century, would be sufficiently optimistic about the potential 
+impact of computing software in today’s world that he would make some small 
+investments. 
+
+
+File format. Modern systems normally use text files, even for data, 
+to minimize dependence on formats defined by any one program. 
+For simplicity, we use a direct representation where we list the ac- 
+count holder’s name (a string), cash balance (a floating-point num- 
+ber), and number of stocks held (an integer), followed by a line for 
+each stock giving the number of shares and the ticker symbol. It is 
+also wise to use tags such as <Name> and <Number of shares>and 
+so forth to label all the information, to further minimize depen- 
+dencies on any one program, but we omit tags here for brevity. 
+
+
+% more Turing.txt 
+Turing, Alan 
+10.24 
+5 
+
+100 ADBE 
+25 G00G 
+97 IBM 
+250 MSFT 
+200 YH00 
+
+File format 
+
+
+Data structure. To represent information for processing by Java programs, we use 
+
+object instance variables. They specify the type of infor- 
+
+mation and provide the structure that we need in order 
+to clearly refer to it in code. For our example, we clearly 
+need the following: 
+
+• A Stri ng value for the account name 
+
+• A doubl e value for the cash balance 
+
+• Ani nt value for the number of stocks 
+
+• An array of Stri ng values for stock symbols 
+
+• An array of i nt values for numbers of shares 
+We directly reflect these choices in the instance variable 
+declarations in StockAccount (Program 3.2.8). The 
+
+
+public class StockAccount 
+{ 
+
+private final String name; 
+private double cash; 
+private int N; 
+private int[] shares; 
+private String[] stocks; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+Data structure blueprint 
+
+
+arrays stocks [] and shares [] are known as parallel arrays. Given an index i, 
+stocks [i ] gives a stock symbol and shares [i ] give the number of shares of that 
+
+
+
+400 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+stock in the account. An alternative design would be to define a separate data type 
+for stocks to manipulate this information for each stock and maintain an array of 
+objects of that type in StockAccount. 
+
+StockAccou nt includes a constructor, which reads a file and builds an account 
+with this internal representation, and the method implementation for valueO, 
+which uses StockQuote (Program 3.1.10) to get each stock’s price from the web. 
+For example, our broker needs to provide a periodic detailed report to customers, 
+perhaps using the following code for pri ntReportO in StockAccount: 
+
+public void pri ntReportO 
+
+{ 
+
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%s\n" , name); 
+
+StdOut.printfC" Cash: $%9.2f\n", cash); 
+
+double total = cash; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int amount = shares [i] ; 
+
+double p = StockQuote. price (stocks [i ]) ; 
+
+StdOut. pri ntf ("%4d %4s ", amount, stocks [i]); 
+StdOut.printfC" $%6.2f $%9.2f\n", p, amount * p) ; 
+
+total += amount * p; 
+
+} 
+
+StdOut.printfC" Total: $%9.2f\n", total); 
+
+} 
+
+On the one hand, this client illustrates the kind of computing that was one of the 
+primary drivers in the evolution of computing in the 1950s. Banks and other com- 
+panies bought early computers precisely because of the need to do such financial 
+reporting. For example, formatted printing was developed precisely for such appli- 
+cations. On the other hand, this client exemplifies modern web-centric computing, 
+as it gets information directly from the web, without using a browser. 
+
+The implementations of buy() and sell () require the use of basic mecha- 
+nisms introduced in Section 4.4, so we defer them to that section. Beyond these 
+basic methods, an actual application of these ideas would likely use a number of 
+other clients. For example, a broker might want to build an array of all accounts, 
+then process a list of transactions that both modify the information in those ac- 
+counts and actually carry out the transactions through the web. Of course, such 
+code needs to be developed with great care! 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+401 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+.■-I 
+
+
+Program 3.2.8 Stock account 
+
+public class StockAccount 
+
+{ 
+
+private final String name; 
+private double cash; 
+private int N; 
+private int[] shares; 
+private String [] stocks; 
+
+public StockAccount (In in) 
+
+{ // Build data structure from input stream, 
+
+name = in. readLineO ; 
+cash = in. readDoubleO ; 
+
+N = in. readlntO ; 
+shares = new int[N]; 
+stocks = new String[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ // Process one stock, 
+
+shares [i] = in. readlntO; 
+stocks [i] = in.readStringO; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+public void printReportO 
+{ /* See text. */ } 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+In in = new ln(args[0]); 
+
+StockAccount acct = new StockAccount(in) ; 
+acct. printReportO ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+name customer name 
+cash cash balance 
+N number of stocks 
+
+shares [] share counts 
+stocks [] stock symbols 
+
+
+in | input stream 
+
+
+This class for processing stock accounts illustrates typical usage of object-oriented program- 
+ming for commercial data processing. 
+
+
+
+% more Turing.txt 
+Turing, Alan 
+10.24 
+
+
+% java StockAccount Turing.txt 
+Turing, Alan 
+
+Cash: $ 10.24 
+
+
+5 
+
+
+1 100 
+
+ADBE 
+
+$ 42.23 
+
+$ 
+
+4222.91 
+
+100 
+
+ADBE 
+
+| 25 
+
+G00G 
+
+$473.25 
+
+$ 
+
+11831.25 
+
+25 
+
+G00G 
+
+1 97 
+
+IBM 
+
+$104.40 
+
+$ 
+
+10126.80 
+
+97 
+
+IBM 
+
+ft 250 
+
+MSFT 
+
+$ 30.25 
+
+$ 
+
+7562.50 
+
+250 
+
+MSFT 
+
+1 200 
+
+YH00 
+
+$ 28.39 
+
+$ 
+
+5678.00 
+
+200 
+
+YH00 
+
+1 
+
+
+Total : 
+
+$ 
+
+39431.70 
+
+
+402 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+When you learned how to define functions that can be used in multiple places in 
+a program (or in other programs) in Chapter 2, you moved from a world where 
+programs are simply lists of statements in a single file to the world of modular pro- 
+gramming, summarized in our mantra: whenever you can clearly separate subtasks 
+within a program, you should do so. The analogous capability for data, introduced in 
+this chapter, moves you from a world where data has to be one of a few elementary 
+types of data to a world where you can define your own types of data. This pro- 
+found new capability vastly extends the scope of your programming. As with the 
+concept of a function, once you have learned to implement and use data types, you 
+will marvel at the primitive nature of programs that do not use them. 
+
+But object-oriented programming is much more than structuring data. It en- 
+ables us to associate the data relevant to a subtask with the operations that manipu- 
+late that data and to keep both separate in an independent module. With object- 
+oriented programming, our mantra is this: whenever you can clearly separate data 
+and associated operations for subtasks within a computation, you should do so. 
+
+The examples that we have considered are persuasive evidence that object- 
+oriented programming can play a useful role in a broad range of activities. Whether 
+we are trying to design and build a physical artifact, develop a software system, 
+understand the natural world, or process information, a key first step is to define 
+an appropriate abstraction, such as a geometric description of the physical arti- 
+fact, a modular design of the software system, a mathematical model of the natural 
+world, or a data structure for the information. When we want to write programs to 
+manipulate instances of a well-defined abstraction, we can just implement it as a 
+data type in a Java class and write Java programs to create and manipulate objects 
+of that type. 
+
+Each time that we develop a class that makes use of other classes by creating 
+and manipulating objects of the type defined by the class, we are programming at a 
+higher layer of abstraction. In the next section, we discuss some of the design chal- 
+lenges inherent in this kind of programming. 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+403 
+
+
+
+Q. Do instance variables have initial values that we can depend upon? 
+
+A Yes. They are automatically set to 0 for numeric types, f al se for the bool ean 
+type, and the special value null for all reference types. These values are consistent 
+with the way array entries are initialized. This automatic initialization ensures that 
+every instance variable always stores a legal (but not necessarily meaningful) value. 
+Writing code that depends on these values is controversial: some experienced pro- 
+grammers embrace the idea because the resulting code can be very compact; others 
+avoid it because the code is opaque to someone who does not know the rules. 
+
+Q. What is null? 
+
+A It is a literal value that refers to no object. Invoking a method using the null 
+reference is meaningless and results in a NullPointerException. If you get this 
+error message, check to make sure that your constructor properly initializes all of 
+its instance variables. 
+
+Q. Can we initialize instance variables to other values when declaring them? 
+
+A. Yes, you can initialize instance variables using the same conventions as you have 
+been using for initializing local variables. Each time a client creates an object with 
+new, Java initializes its instance variables with those values, and then calls the con- 
+structor. 
+
+Q. Must every class have a constructor? 
+
+A. Yes, but if you do not specify a constructor, Java provides a default (no-argu- 
+ment) constructor automatically. When the client invokes that constructor with 
+new, the instance variables are auto-initialized as usual. If you do specify a construc- 
+tor, the default no-argument constructor disappears. 
+
+Q. Suppose I do not include a toSt r i ng () method. What happens if I try to print 
+an object of that type with StdOut . pri ntl n()? 
+
+A. The printed output is an integer that is unlikely to be of much use to you. 
+
+Q. Can I have a static method in a class that implements a data type? 
+
+
+
+
+404 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+A. Of course. For example, all of our classes have mai n O . But it is easy to get 
+confused when static methods and instance methods are mixed up in the same 
+code. For example, it is natural to consider using static methods for operations that 
+involve multiple objects where none of them naturally suggests itself as the one 
+that should invoke the method. For example, we say z . abs() to get \z\, but saying 
+a . pi us (b) to get the sum is perhaps not so natural. Why not b . pi us (a)? An alter- 
+native is to define a static method like the following within Comp! ex: 
+
+public static Complex pi us (Complex a, Complex b) 
+
+{ 
+
+return new Complex(a.re + b.re, a.im + b.im); 
+
+} 
+
+We generally avoid such usage and live with expressions that do not mix static and 
+instance methods to avoid having to write code like this: 
+
+z = Complex. pi us (Compl ex. times (z, z), zO) 
+
+Instead, we would write: 
+
+z = z.times(z) .plus(zO) 
+
+Q. These computations with plus() and times () seem rather clumsy. Is there 
+some way to use symbols like + and * in expressions involving objects where they 
+make sense, like Compl ex and Vector, so that we could write expressions like z = 
+z * z + zO instead? 
+
+A. Some languages (notably C++) support this feature, which is known 
+as operator overloading, but Java does not do so (except that there is lan- 
+guage support for overloading + with string concatenation). As usual, this 
+is a decision of the language designers that we just live with, but many 
+Java programmers do not consider this to be much of a loss. Operator overloading 
+makes sense only for types that represent numeric or algebraic abstractions, a small 
+fraction of the total, and many programs are easier to understand when operations 
+have descriptive names such as plus and times. The APL programming language 
+of the 1970s took this issue to the opposite extreme by insisting that every opera- 
+tion be represented by a single symbol (including Greek letters). 
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+405 
+
+
+
+Q. Are there other kinds of variables besides argument, local, and instance vari- 
+ables in a class? 
+
+A If you include the keyword stati c in a variable declaration (outside of any 
+method), it creates a completely different type of variable, known as a static vari- 
+able or class variable. Like instance variables, static variables are accessible to every 
+method in the class; however, they are not associated with any object — there is one 
+variable per class. In older programming languages, such variables are known as 
+global variables because of their global scope. In modern programming, we focus 
+on limiting scope and therefore rarely use such variables. 
+
+Q. Mandelbrot creates hundreds of millions of Complex objects. Doesn’t all that 
+object-creation overhead slow things down? 
+
+A. Yes, but not so much that we cannot generate our plots. Our goal is to make our 
+programs readable and easy to maintain — limiting scope via the complex number 
+abstraction helps us achieve that goal. You certainly could speed up Mandel brot by 
+bypassing the complex number abstraction or by using a different implementation 
+of Comp! ex. We will revisit this issue in the next section. 
+
+
+
+406 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3.2.1 Consider the following data-type implementation for (axis-aligned) rect- 
+angles, which represents each rectangle with the coordinates of its center point and 
+its width and height: 
+
+public class Rectangle 
+
+{ 
+
+private final double x 
+private final double y; 
+
+private final double width 
+private final double height; 
+
+public Rectangle (double xO, double yO, double w, double h) 
+
+{ 
+
+x = xO; 
+
+y = yO; 
+
+width = w; 
+height = h; 
+
+} 
+
+public double areaO 
+{ return width * height; } 
+
+public double perimeter() 
+
+{ /* Compute perimeter. */ } 
+
+public boolean intersects (Rectangle b) 
+
+{ /* Does this rectangle intersect b? */ 
+
+public boolean contains (Rectangle b) 
+
+{ /* Is b inside this rectangle? */ } 
+
+public void show(Rectangle b) 
+
+{ /* Draw rectangle on StdDraw. */ } 
+
+
+representation 
+
+
+height 
+
+
+intersects 
+
+
+b 
+
+
+contains 
+
+
+CD ' 
+
+
+(x,y) 
+
+
+wi dth 
+
+
+a 
+
+
+} 
+
+Write an API for this class, and fill in the code for peri meter (), i nte r sects (), 
+and contai ns (). Note : Treat coincident lines as intersecting, so that, for example, 
+a. intersects (a) is true and a. contai ns (a) is false. 
+
+3.2.2 Write a test client for Rectangl e that takes three command-line arguments 
+N, mi n, and max; generates N random rectangles whose width and height are uni- 
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+407 
+
+
+
+formly distributed between mi n and max in the unit square; draws them on Std- 
+Draw; and prints their average area and average perimeter to standard output. 
+
+3.2.3 Add code to your test client from the previous exercise code to compute 
+the average number of pairs of rectangles that intersect and are contained in one 
+another. 
+
+
+3.2.4 Develop an implementation of your Rectangle API from Exercise 3.2.1 
+that represents rectangles with the coordinates of their lower left and upper right 
+corners. Do not change the API. 
+
+3.2.5 What is wrong with the following code? 
+
+public class Charge 
+
+{ 
+
+private double rx, ry; // position 
+
+private double q; // charge 
+
+public Chargefdouble xO, double yO, double qO) 
+
+{ 
+
+double rx = xO; 
+double ry = yO; 
+double q = qO; 
+
+} 
+
+}” 
+
+Answer. The assignment statements in the constructor are also declarations that 
+create new local variables rx, ry, and q, which are assigned values from the argu- 
+ments but are never used. The instance variables rx, ry, and q remain at their de- 
+fault value of 0. Note : A local variable with the same name as an instance variable is 
+said to shadow the instance variable — we discuss in the next section a way to refer 
+to shadowed instance variables, which are best avoided by beginners. 
+
+3.2.6 Create a data type Locati on that represents a location on Earth using lati- 
+tudes and longitudes. Include a method distanceToC) that computes distances 
+using the great-circle distance (see Exercise 1.2.33). 
+
+
+
+
+408 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+5 . 2.7 Implement a data type Rati onal for rational numbers that supports addi- 
+tion, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 
+
+
+public class Rational 
+
+
+Rati onal (int numerator, 
+Rational pi us (Rati onal b) 
+Rational minus (Rati onal b) 
+Rational times (Rati onal b) 
+Rational over (Rati onal b) 
+
+String toStringQ 
+
+
+int denominator) 
+
+sum of this number and b 
+difference of this number and b 
+product of this number and b 
+quotient of this number and b 
+string representation 
+
+
+Use Euclid.gcdO (Program 2.3.1) to ensure that the numerator and denomina- 
+tor never have any common factors. Include a test client that exercises all of your 
+methods. Do not worry about testing for overflow (see Exercise 3.3.24). 
+
+3.2.8 Write a data type Inte rval that implements the following API: 
+
+
+public class Interval 
+
+Interval (double left, double right) 
+boolean contains (double x) is x in this interval? 
+
+boolean intersects (Interval b) does this interval and b intersect? 
+
+St ri ng toSt ri ng () string representation 
+
+An interval is defined to be the set of all points on the line greater than or equal to 
+1 eft and less than or equal to ri ght. In particular, an interval with ri ght less than 
+left is empty. Write a client that is a filter that takes a double value x from the 
+command line and prints all of the intervals on standard input (each defined by a 
+pair of doubl e values) that contain x. 
+
+3.2.9 Write a client for your Interval class from the previous exercise that takes 
+an i nt value N as command-line argument, reads N intervals (each defined by a 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+409 
+
+
+
+pair of doubl e values) from standard input, and prints all pairs that intersect. 
+
+3.2.10 Develop an implementation of your Rectangle API from Exercise 3.2.1 
+that takes advantage of Interval to simplify and clarify the code. 
+
+3.2.1 1 Write a data type Poi nt that implements the following API: 
+
+public class Point 
+
+Point (double x, double y) 
+
+double distanceTo (Point q) Euclidean distance between this point and q 
+
+St ri ng toSt ri ng () string representation 
+
+
+3.2.12 Add methods to Stopwatch that allow clients to stop and restart the stop- 
+watch. 
+
+3.2.13 Use a Stopwatch to compare the cost of computing Harmonic numbers 
+with a for loop (see Program 1.3.5) as opposed to using the recursive method given 
+in Section 2.3. 
+
+3.2.14 Develop a version of Hi stogram that uses Draw, so that a client can create 
+multiple histograms. Add to the display a red vertical line showing the sample mean 
+and blue vertical lines at a distance of two standard deviations from the mean. Use a 
+test client that creates histograms for flipping coins (Bernoulli trials) with a biased 
+coin that is heads with probability p, forp = .2, .4, .6. and .8, taking the number of 
+flips and the number of trials from the command line, as in Program 3.2.3. 
+
+3.2.15 Modify the test client in Turtl e to produce stars with N points for odd N. 
+
+3.2.16 Modify the toStringO method in Complex (Program 3.2.2) so that it 
+prints complex numbers in the traditional format. For example, it should print the 
+value3 — zas3 - i instead of 3 . 0 + -l.Oi, the value 3 as 3 instead of 3.0 + O.Oi, 
+and the value 3 i as 3i instead of 0 . 0 + 3 . Oi . 
+
+
+
+410 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3 . 2.17 Write a Complex client that takes three double values a, b , and c as com- 
+mand-line arguments and prints out the complex roots of ax 2 + bx + c. 
+
+3 . 2.18 Write a Compl ex client Roots that takes two doubl e values a and b and an 
+integer N from the command line and prints the Nth roots of a + bi . Note : skip 
+this exercise if you are not familiar with the operation of taking roots of complex 
+numbers. 
+
+3 . 2.19 Implement the following additions to the Compl ex API: 
+
+
+double thetaO 
+Complex minus (Compl ex b) 
+Compl ex con j ugate () 
+
+Complex divides (Compl ex b) 
+Complex power(int b) 
+
+
+phase (angle) of this number 
+
+difference of this number and b 
+
+co njuga te of th is n umber 
+
+result of dividing this number by b 
+
+result of raising this number to the b th power 
+
+
+Write a test client that exercises all of your methods. 
+
+3 . 2.20 Suppose you want to add a constructor to Complex that takes a double 
+value as argument and creates a Compl ex number with that value as the real part 
+(and no imaginary part). You write the following code: 
+
+public void Compl ex (double real) 
+
+{ 
+
+re = real ; 
+
+im = 0.0; 
+
+} 
+
+But then Compl ex c = new Compl ex (1.0) does not compile. Why? 
+
+Answer. Constructors do not have return types, not even voi d. The code above 
+defines a method named Compl ex, not a constructor. Remove the keyword voi d. 
+
+3 . 2.21 Find a Compl ex value for which mand () returns a number greater than 100, 
+and then zoom in on that value, as in the example in the text. 
+
+3 . 2.22 Implement the wri te() method for StockAccount (Program 3.2.8). 
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+411 
+
+
+
+3.2.23 Mutable charges. Modify Charge so that the charge q is not f i nal , and 
+add a method i ncreaseCharge () that takes a doubl e argument and adds the 
+given value to the charge. Then, write a client that initializes an array with: 
+
+Charge [] a = new Charge [3]; 
+a[0] = new Charge(.4, .6, 50); 
+a[l] = new Charge(.5, .5, -5); 
+a[2] = new Charge(.6, .6, 50); 
+
+and then displays the result of slowly decreasing the charge value of a[i ] by 
+wrapping the code that computes the picture in a loop like the following: 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < 100; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+// compute the picture 
+pic.showO ; 
+a[l] .change(-2) ; 
+
+} 
+
+3.2.24 Complex timing. Write a Stopwatch client that compares the cost of 
+using Compl ex to the cost of writing code that directly manipulates two dou- 
+bl e values, for the task of doing the calculations in Mandel brot. Specifically, 
+create a version of Mandel b rot that just does the calculations (remove the code 
+that refers to Pi ctu re), then create a version of that program that does not use 
+Compl ex, and then compute the ratio of the running times. 
+
+3.2.25 Quaternions. In 1843, Sir William Hamilton discovered an extension 
+
+to complex numbers called quaternions. A quaternion is a vector a = ( a 0 , a v a 2 , 
+a 3 ) with the following operations: 
+
+• Magnitude: |a| = Ja Q 2 + a x 2 + a 2 2 + a 3 2 . 
+
+• Conjugate: the conjugate of a is (a 0 , — a v ~a 2 , — a 3 ). 
+
+• Inverse: a A = (a 0 /|a|, — flj/|fl|, -a 2 /|a|, — a 3 /|a|). 
+
+• Sum: a + b = (a 0 + b 0 , a, 4- b v a 2 + b 2 , a 3 + b 3 ). 
+
+• Product. a*b = (a 0 b 0 — a l b l — a 2 b 2 — a 3 b 3 , a 0 b, — a l b 0 + a 2 b 3 — a 3 b 2 , 
+a 0 b 2 — a 1 b 3 + a 2 b 0 + a 3 b v a 0 b 3 + a l b 2 — a 2 b : + a 3 b 0 ). 
+
+• Quotient, alb = air 1 . 
+
+
+
+Mutating a charge 
+
+
+
+
+412 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Create a data type for quaternions and a test client that exercises all of your code. 
+Quaternions extend the concept of rotation in three dimensions to four dimen- 
+sions. They are used in computer graphics, control theory, signal processing, and 
+orbital mechanics. 
+
+
+3.2.26 Dragon curves. Write a recursive Turtl e client Dragon that draws dragon 
+curves (see Exercises 1.2.35 and 1.5.9). 
+
+% java Dragon 15 
+
+
+Answer: These curves, originally discovered by three 
+NASA physicists, were popularized in the 1960s by 
+Martin Gardner and later used by Michael Crichton in 
+the book and movie Jurassic Park. This exercise can be 
+solved with remarkably compact code, based on a pair 
+of mutually interacting recursive functions derived di- 
+rectly from the definition in Exercise 1.2.35. One of 
+them, d r agon O, should draw the curve as you expect; 
+the other, nogardO, should draw the curve in reverse 
+order. See the booksite for details. 
+
+
+
+3.2.27 Hilbert curves. A space-filling curve is a continuous curve in the unit square 
+that passes through every point. Write a recursive Turtle client that produces these 
+recursive patterns, which approach a space-filling curve that was defined by the 
+mathematician David Hilbert at the end of the 19th century. 
+
+
+
+Partial answer See the previous exercise. You need a pair of methods: hi 1 bertO, 
+which traverses a Hilbert curve, and trebl i h(), which traverses a Hilbert curve in 
+reverse order. See the booksite for details. 
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+413 
+
+
+
+3.2.28 Gosper island. Write a recursive Turtle client that produces these recur- 
+sive patterns. 
+
+0 12 3 4 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+3.2.29 Data analysis. Write a data type for use in running experiments where the 
+control variable is an integer in the range [0, N) and the dependent variable is a 
+doubl e value. (For example, studying the running time of a program that takes an 
+integer argument would involve such experiments.) Implement the following API. 
+
+public class Data 
+
+
+Data(int N, int max) 
+
+double addDataPoint(int i, double x) 
+void plot() 
+void TukeyPlotQ 
+
+
+create a new data analysis object 
+for the N int values in [0, N) 
+
+add a data point (i, x) 
+
+plot all the data points 
+
+draw a Tukey plot (see Exercise 2.2. 18) 
+
+
+You can use the static methods in StdStats to do the statistical calculations and 
+draw the plots. Use StdDraw so clients can use different colors for plot() and 
+Tukey PI ot() (for example, light gray for all the points and black for the Tukey 
+plot). Write a test client that plots the results (percolation probability) of running 
+experiments with Percol ati on as the grid size increases. 
+
+3.2.30 Elements. Create a data type El ement for entries in the Periodic Table of 
+Elements. Include data type values for element, atomic number, symbol, and atomic 
+weight and accessor methods for each of these values. Then, create a data type 
+
+
+
+414 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Peri odi cTabl e that reads values from a file to create an array of El ement objects 
+(you can find the file and a description of its format on the booksite) and responds 
+to queries on standard input so that a user can type a molecular equation like 
+H20 and the program responds by printing the molecular weight. Develop APIs and 
+implementations for each data type. 
+
+3.2.31 Stock prices. The file DlIA.txt on the booksite contains all closing stock 
+prices in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in the comma-separated- 
+value format. Create a data type Entry that can hold one entry in the table, with 
+values for date, opening price, daily high, daily low, closing price, and so forth. 
+Then, create a data type Tabl e that reads the file to build an array of Entry objects 
+and supports methods for computing averages over various periods of time. Finally, 
+create interesting Tabl e clients to produce plots of the data. Be creative: this path is 
+well-trodden. 
+
+3.2.32 Chaos with Newton’s method. The polynomial /(z) = z 4 — 1 has four roots: 
+at 1, — 1, t, and —i. We can find the roots using Newton’s method in the complex 
+plane: z k+1 = z k — f(z k )/f(z k ). Her e,/(z) = z 4 — 1 and f(z) = 4 z 3 . The method con- 
+verges to one of the four roots, depending on the starting point z 0 . Write a Compl ex 
+client Newton that takes a command-line argument N and colors pixels in an N- 
+by-N Pi ctu re white, red, green, or blue by mapping the pixels complex points in a 
+regularly spaced grid in the square of size 2 centered at the origin and coloring each 
+pixel according to which of the four roots the corre- . , , , , rp ^ 
+spondmg point converges (black it no convergence 
+after 100 iterations). 
+
+3.2.33 Equipotential surfaces. An equipotential sur- 
+face is the set of all points that have the same electric 
+potential V. Given a group of point charges, it is useful 
+to visualize the electric potential by plotting equipo- 
+tential surfaces (also known as a contour plot). Write 
+a program Equi potenti al that draws a line every 5V 
+by computing the potential at each pixel and check- 
+ing whether the potential at the corresponding point 
+
+
+
+
+3.2 Creating Data Types 
+
+
+415 
+
+
+
+is within 1 pixel of a multiple of 5V. Note : A very easy approximate solution to this 
+exercise is obtained from Program 3.1.7 by scrambling the color values assigned 
+to each pixel, rather than having them be proportional to the grayscale value. For 
+example, the accompanying figure is created by inserting the code above it before 
+creating the Color. Explain why it works, and experiment with your own version. 
+
+3.2.34 Color Mandelbrot plot. Create a file of 256 integer triples that represent in- 
+teresting Col or values, and then use those colors instead of grayscale values to plot 
+each pixel in Mandel brot: Read the values to create an array of 256 Col or values, 
+then index into that array with the return value of mand () . By experimenting with 
+various color choices at various places in the set, you can produce astonishing im- 
+ages. See mandel . txt on the booksite for an example. 
+
+3.2.35 Julia sets. The Julia set for a given complex number c is a set of points 
+related to the Mandelbrot function. Instead of fixing z and varying c, we fix c and 
+vary z. Those points z for which the modified Mandelbrot function stays bounded 
+are in the Julia set , those for which the sequence diverges to infinity are not in the 
+set. All points z of interest lie in the 4-by-4 box centered at the origin. The Julia set 
+for c is connected if and only if c is in the Mandelbrot set! Write a program Col or- 
+D ul i a that takes two command line arguments a and b, and plots a color version of 
+the Julia set for c = a + bi, using the color-table method described in the previous 
+exercise. 
+
+3.2.36 Biggest winner and biggest loser. Write a StockAccount client that builds 
+an array of StockAccount objects, computes the total value of each account, and 
+prints a report for the accounts with the largest value and the account with the 
+smallest value. Assume that the information in the accounts are kept in a single file 
+that contains the information for the accounts, one after the other, in the format 
+given in the text. 
+
+
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+The ability to create data types turns every programmer into a language designer. 
+You do not have to settle for the types of data and associated operations that are 
+built into the language, because you can 
+easily create your own types of data and 
+
+.1 ,• 3.3.1 Complex numbers (alternate) . . .421 
+
+then write client programs that use them. 3 3 2 Coui ^ er 425 
+
+
+V^UlUllCl 
+
+Java does not have complex numbers 333 spatial vectors . .432 
+
+built in, but you can define Compl ex and 3 . 3.4 Document . . . . . 441 
+
+write programs such as Mandel brot. Java 3.3.5 Similarity detection .... . . . . .444 
+
+
+does not have a built-in facility for turtle Programs in this section 
+
+graphics, but you can define Turtle and 
+write client programs that take immedi- 
+ate advantage of this abstraction. Even when Java does have a particular facility, we 
+can use a data type to tailor it to our needs, as we do when we use our Std* libraries 
+instead the more extensive ones provided by Java for software developers. 
+
+Now, the first thing that we strive for when creating a program is an under- 
+standing of the types of data that we will need. Developing this understanding is a 
+design activity. In this section, we focus on developing APIs as a critical step in the 
+development of any program. We need to consider various alternatives, understand 
+their impact on both client programs and implementations, and refine the design 
+to strike an appropriate balance between the needs of clients and the possible im- 
+plementation strategies. 
+
+If you take a course in systems programming, you will learn that this design 
+activity is critical when building large systems, and that Java and similar languages 
+have powerful high-level mechanisms that support code reuse when writing large 
+programs. Many of these mechanisms are intended for use by experts building large 
+systems, but the general approach is worthwhile for every programmer, and some 
+of these mechanisms are useful when writing small programs. 
+
+In this section we discuss encapsulation, immutability, and inheritance, with 
+particular attention to the use of these mechanisms in data-type design to enable 
+modular programming, facilitate debugging, and write clear and correct code. 
+
+At the end of the section, we discuss Java’s mechanisms for use in checking 
+design assumptions against actual conditions at runtime. Such tools are invaluable 
+aids in developing reliable software. 
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+417 
+
+
+Designing APIs. In Section 3. 1 , we wrote client programs that use APIs; in Sec- 
+tion 3.2, we implemented APIs. Now we consider the challenge of designing APIs. 
+Treating these topics in this order and with this focus is appropriate because most 
+of the time that you spend programming will be writing client programs. 
+
+Often the most important and most challenging steps in building software is 
+designing the APIs. This task takes practice, 
+
+
+careful deliberation, and many iterations. 
+However, any time spent designing a good 
+API is certain to be repaid in time saved 
+during debugging or with code reuse. 
+
+Articulating an API might seem to 
+
+
+
+be overkill when writing a small program, 
+
+
+but you should consider writing every pro- 
+gram as though you will need to reuse the 
+code someday — not because you know 
+that you will reuse that code, but because 
+you are quite likely to want to reuse some 
+of your code and you cannot know which 
+code you will need. 
+
+
+creates objects 
+and invokes methods 
+API 
+
+public class Charge 
+
+ChargeCdouble xO, double yO, double qO) 
+double potential At (double x, double y) ^°due to charge^ 
+String toStringO representation 
+
+
+Standards. It is easy to understand why 
+writing to an API is so important by con- 
+sidering other domains. From railroad 
+tracks, to threaded nuts and bolts, to fax 
+machines, to radio frequencies, to DVD 
+standards, we know that using a common 
+standard interface enables the broadest us- 
+age of a technology. Java itself is another 
+example: your Java programs are clients of 
+the Java virtual machine, which is a stan- 
+dard interface that is implemented on a 
+wide variety of hardware and software 
+platforms. By using APIs to separate cli- 
+ents from implementations, we reap the 
+benefits of standard interfaces for every 
+program that we write. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+418 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Specification problem. Our APIs are lists of methods, along with brief English- 
+language descriptions of what the methods are supposed to do. Ideally, an API 
+would clearly articulate behavior for all possible inputs, including side effects, and 
+then we would have software to check that implementations meet the specification. 
+Unfortunately, a fundamental result from theoretical computer science, known as 
+the specification problem, says that this goal is actually impossible to achieve. Briefly, 
+such a specification would have to be written in a formal language like a program- 
+ming language, and the problem of determining whether two programs perform 
+the same computation is known, mathematically, to be unsolvable. (If you are inter- 
+ested in this idea, you can learn much more about the nature of unsolvable prob- 
+lems and their role in our understanding of the nature of computation in a course 
+in theoretical computer science.) Therefore, we resort to informal descriptions with 
+examples, such as those in the text surrounding our APIs. 
+
+Wide interfaces. A wide interface is one that has an excessive number of methods. 
+An important principle to follow in designing an API is to avoid wide interfaces. 
+The size of an API naturally tends to grow over time because it is easy to add meth- 
+ods to an existing API, whereas it is difficult to remove methods without breaking 
+existing clients. In certain situations, wide interfaces are justified — for example, in 
+widely used systems libraries such as Stri ng. Various techniques are helpful in re- 
+ducing the effective width of an interface. For example, we considered in Chapter 2 
+several libraries that use overloading to provide implementations of basic methods 
+for all types of data. Another approach is to include methods that are orthogonal in 
+functionality. For example, Java’s Math library includes methods for si n(), cos(), 
+and tan () , but not sec 0 . 
+
+Start with client code. One of the primary purposes of developing a data type 
+is to simplify client code. Therefore, it makes sense to pay attention to client code 
+form the start when designing an API. Very often, doing so is no problem at all, 
+because a typical reason to develop a data type in the first place is to simplify client 
+code that is becoming cumbersome. When you find yourself with some client code 
+that you are not proud of, one way to proceed is to write a fanciful simplified ver- 
+sion of the code that expresses the computation the way you are thinking about it, 
+at some higher level that does not involve the details of the code. If you have done a 
+good job of writing succinct comments to describe your computation, one possible 
+starting point is to think about opportunities to convert the comments into code. 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+419 
+
+
+Remember the basic mantra for data types: whenever you can clearly separate data 
+and associated operations within a program, you should do so. Whatever the source, 
+it is normally wise to write client code (and develop the API) before working on an 
+implementation. Writing two clients is even better. Starting with client code is one 
+way of ensuring that developing an implementation will be worth the effort. 
+
+Avoid dependence on representation. Usually when developing an API, we have 
+a representation in mind. After all, a data type is a set of values and a set of opera- 
+tions on those values, and it does not make much sense to talk about the operations 
+without knowing the values. But that is different from knowing the representation 
+of the values. One purpose of the data type is to simplify client code by allowing it 
+to avoid details of and dependence on a particular representation. For example, our 
+client programs for Pi ctu re and StdAudi o work with simple abstract representa- 
+tions of pictures and sound, respectively. The primary value of the APIs for these 
+abstraction is that they allow client code to ignore a substantial amount of detail 
+that is found in the standard representations of those abstractions. 
+
+Pitfalls in API design. An API may be too hard to implement, implying imple- 
+mentations that are difficult or impossible to develop; or too hard to use, creating 
+client code that is more complicated than without the API. An API might be too 
+narrow, omitting methods that clients need; or too wide, including a large number 
+of methods not needed by any client. An API may be too general, providing no use- 
+ful abstractions; or too specific, providing abstractions so detailed or so diffuse as to 
+be useless. These considerations are sometimes summarized in yet another motto: 
+provide to clients the methods they need and no others. 
+
+When you first started programming, you typed in Hel 1 oWorl d . j ava without un- 
+derstanding much about it except the effect that it produced. From that starting 
+point, you learned to program by mimicking the code in the book and eventually 
+developing your own code to solve various problems. You are at a similar point 
+with API design. There are many APIs available in the book, on the booksite, and 
+in online Java documentation that you can study and use, to gain confidence in 
+designing and developing APIs of your own. 
+
+
+
+420 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Encapsulation. The process of separating clients from implementations by 
+hiding information is known as encapsulation. Details of the implementation are 
+kept hidden from clients, and implementations have no way of knowing details of 
+client code, which may even be created in the future. 
+
+As you may have surmised, we have been practicing encapsulation in our data 
+type implementations. In Section 3. 1, we started with the mantra you do not need to 
+know how a data type is implemented in order to use it. This statement describes one 
+of the prime benefits of encapsulation. We consider it to be so important that we 
+have not described to you any other way of building a data type. Now, we describe 
+our three primary reasons for doing so in more detail. We use encapsulation: 
+
+• To enable modular programming 
+
+• To facilitate debugging 
+
+• To clarify program code 
+
+These reasons are tied together (well-designed modular code is easier to debug and 
+understand than code based entirely on primitive types in long programs). 
+
+Modular programming. The programming style that we have been developing 
+since learning functions in Chapter 2 has been predicated on the idea of break- 
+ing large programs into small modules that can be developed and debugged inde- 
+pendently. This approach improves the resiliency of our software by limiting and 
+localizing the effects of making changes, and it promotes code reuse by making it 
+possible to substitute new implementations of a data type to improve performance, 
+accuracy, or memory footprint. The same idea works in many settings. We often 
+reap the benefits of encapsulation when we use system libraries. New versions of 
+the Java system often include new implementations of various data types or static 
+method libraries, but the APIs do not change. There is strong and constant motiva- 
+tion to improve data-type implementations because all clients can potentially ben- 
+efit from an improved implementation. The key to success in modular program- 
+ming is to maintain independence among modules. We do so by insisting on the API 
+being the only point of dependence between client and implementation. You do not 
+need to know how a data type is implemented in order to use it. The flip side of this 
+mantra is that a data-type implementation code can assume that the client knows 
+nothing but the API. 
+
+Example. For example, consider Complex (Program 3.3.1). It has the same name 
+and API as Program 3.2.6, but uses a different representation for the complex num- 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+421 
+
+
+
+422 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+bers. Program 3.2.6 uses the Cartesian representation, where instance variables x 
+and y represent a complex number x + iy. Program 3.3. 1 uses the polar representa- 
+tion, where instance variables r and theta represent a complex number in the 
+form r(cos 0 + isin 0). The polar representation is of interest because certain op- 
+erations on complex number are easier to perform in the polar 
+representation. Addition and subtraction are easier in the Carte- 
+sian representation; multiplication and division are easier in the 
+polar representation. As you will learn in Section 4.1, it is often the 
+case that performance differences are dramatic. The idea of encap- 
+sulation is that we can substitute one of these programs for the 
+other (for whatever reason) without changing client code. The 
+choice between the two implementations depends on the client. Indeed, in princi- 
+ple, the only difference to the client should be in different performance properties. 
+This capability is of critical importance for many reasons. One of the most impor- 
+tant is that it allows us to improve software constantly: when we develop a better 
+way to implement a data type, all of its clients can benefit. You take advantage of 
+this property every time you install a new version of a software system, including 
+Java itself. 
+
+Private. Java’s language support for enforcing encapsulation is the private vis- 
+ibility modifier. When you declare a variable to be pri vate, you are making it im- 
+possible for any client (code in another module) to directly access the instance 
+variable (or method) that is the subject of the modifier. Clients can only access the 
+API through the public methods and constructors (the API). Accordingly, you 
+can modify the implementation of private methods (or use different private 
+instance variables) with certain knowledge that no client will be directly affected. 
+Java does not require that all instance variables be private, but we insist on this 
+convention in the programs in this book. For example, if the instance variable re 
+and i m in Compl ex (Program 3.2.6) were publ i c, then a client could write code that 
+directly accesses them. If z refers to a Compl ex object, z . re and z . i m refer to those 
+values. But any client code that does so becomes completely dependent on that 
+implementation, violating a basic precept of encapsulation. A switch to a different 
+implementation, such as the one in Program 3.3.1, would render that code use- 
+less. To protect ourselves against such situations, we always make instance variables 
+private; there is no good reason to make them public. Next, we examine some 
+ramifications of this convention. 
+
+
+
+Polar coordinates 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+423 
+
+
+Planning for the future. There have been numerous examples of important ap- 
+plications where significant expense can be directly traced to programmers not 
+encapsulating their data types. 
+
+• Zip codes. In 1963, The United States Postal Service (USPS) began using a 
+five-digit zip code to improve the sorting and delivery of mail. Program- 
+mers wrote software that assumed that these codes would remain at five 
+digits forever, and represented them in their programs using a single 32-bit 
+integer. In 1983, the USPS introduced an expanded zip code called ZIP+4, 
+which consists of the original five-digit zip code plus four extra digits. 
+
+• IPv4 vs. IPv6. The Internet Protocol (IP) is a standard used by electronic 
+devices to exchange data over the internet. Each device is assigned a unique 
+integer or address. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and supports about 4.3 
+billion addresses. Due to explosive growth of the internet, a new version, 
+
+IPv6, uses 128-bit addresses and supports 2 128 addresses. 
+
+• Vehicle identification numbers. The 17-character naming scheme for ve- 
+hicles known as the Vehicle Identification Number ( VIN) that was estab- 
+lished in 1981 describes the make, model, year, and other attributes of 
+cars, trucks, buses, and other vehicles in the United States. But automakers 
+expect to run out of numbers by 2010. Either the length of the VIN must 
+be increased, or existing VINs must be reused. 
+
+In each of these cases, a necessary change to the internal representation means that 
+a large amount of client code that depends on a current standard (because the data 
+type is not encapsulated) will simply not function as intended. The estimated costs 
+for the changes in each of these cases runs to hundreds of millions of dollars! That 
+is a huge cost for failing to encapsulate a single number. These predicaments might 
+seem distant to you, but you can be sure that every individual programmer (that’s 
+you) who does not take advantage of the protection available through encapsula- 
+tion risks losing significant amounts of time and effort fixing broken code when 
+conventions change. Our convention to define all of our instance variables with the 
+private access modifier provides some protection against such problems. If you 
+adopt this convention when implementing a data type for a zip code, IP address, 
+VIN, or whatever, you can change the representation without affecting clients. The 
+data-type implementation knows the data representation, and the object holds the 
+data; the client holds only a reference to the object and does not know the details. 
+
+
+
+424 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Limiting the potential for error. Encapsulation also helps programmers ensure 
+that their code operates as intended. As an example, we consider yet another hor- 
+ror story: In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore received negative 16,022 votes 
+on an electronic voting machine in Volusia County, Florida. The counter variable 
+was not properly encapsulated in the voting machine software! To understand the 
+problem, consider Counter (Program 3.3.2), which implements a simple counter 
+according to the following API: 
+
+public class Counter 
+
+Counter (St ring id, int max) create a counter, initialized to 0 
+void incrementO increment the counter unless its value is max 
+
+int value O return the value of the counter 
+
+St ri ng toSt ri ng () string representation 
+
+API for a counter ( see Program 3.3.2) 
+
+This abstraction is useful in many contexts, including, for example, an electronic 
+voting machine. It encapsulates a single integer and ensures that the only operation 
+that can be performed on the integer is increment by one. Therefore, it can never go 
+negative. The goal of data abstraction is to restrict the operations on the data. It also 
+isolates operations on the data. For example, we could add a new implementation 
+with a logging capability so that i ncrementO saves a timestamp for each vote or 
+some other information that can be used for consistency checks. But without the 
+private modifier, there could be client code like the following somewhere in the 
+voting machine: 
+
+Counter c = new Counter("Volusia" , VOTERS_IN_VOLUSIA_COUNTY) ; 
+c. count = -16022; 
+
+With private, code like this will not compile; without it, Gore’s vote count was 
+negative. Using encapsulation is far from a complete solution to the voting security 
+problem, but it is a good start. 
+
+Code clarity. Precisely specifying a data type is good design also because it leads 
+to client code that can more clearly express its computation. You have seen many 
+examples of such client code in Sections 3. 1 and 3.2, and we already mentioned this 
+issue in our discussion of Hi stogram (Program 3.2.3). Clients of that program are 
+
+
+
+Program 3.3.2 Counter 
+
+
+public class Counter 
+
+{ 
+
+private final String name; 
+private final int maxCount; 
+private int count; 
+
+
+public Counter (String id, int max) 
+
+{ name = id; maxCount = max; } 
+
+public void increment () 
+
+{ if (count < maxCount) count++; } 
+
+public int value () 
+
+{ return count; } 
+
+public String toStringO 
+{ return name + ": " + count; } 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int T = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+Counter[] hits = new Counter[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+hits[i] = new Counter(i + T); 
+
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+hits[StdRandom.uniform(N)] . increment () ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (hi ts [i ] ) ; 
+
+
+
+
+counter name 
+maximum value 
+value 
+
+
+
+This class encapsulates a simple integer counter, assigning it a string name and initializing 
+it to 0 (Java's default initialization), incrementing it each time the client calls i ncrementO, 
+reporting the value when the client calls value (), and creating a string with its name and 
+value in toStringO. 
+
+
+
+% java Counter 6 600000 
+
+0: 100684 
+
+1: 99258 
+
+2: 100119 
+
+3: 100054 
+
+4: 99844 
+
+5: 100037 
+
+
+426 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+more clear than without it because calls on the instance method addDataPoi nt() 
+clearly identify points of interest in the client. One key to good design is to observe 
+that code written with the proper abstractions can be nearly self-documenting. 
+Some aficionados of object-oriented programming might argue that Histogram 
+itself would be easier to understand if it were to use Counter (see Exercise 3.3.5), 
+but that point is perhaps debatable. 
+
+We have stressed the benefits of encapsulation throughout this book. We summa- 
+rize them again here, in the context of designing data types. Encapsulation enables 
+modular programming, allowing us to: 
+
+• Independently develop of client and implementation code 
+
+• Substitute improved implementations without affecting clients 
+
+• Support programs not yet written (any client can write to the API) 
+Encapsulation also isolates data-type operations, which leads to the possibility of: 
+
+• Adding consistency checks and other debugging tools in implementations 
+
+• Clarifying client code 
+
+A properly implemented data type (encapsulated) extends the Java language, al- 
+lowing any client program to make use of it. 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+427 
+
+
+Immutability. An immutable data type, such as a Java St r i ng, has the property 
+that the value of an object never changes once constructed. By contrast, a mutable 
+data type, such as a Java array, manipulates object values that are intended to 
+change. Of the data types considered in this chapter, Charge, Color, Stopwatch, 
+and Compl ex are all immutable, and Pi cture, Hi stogram, Turtl e, StockAccount, 
+and Counter are all mutable. Whether to make a data type immutable is an impor- 
+tant design decision and depends on the application at hand. 
+
+Immutable types. The purpose of many data types is to encapsulate values that do 
+not change so that they behave in the same way as primitive types. For example, a 
+programmer implementing a Compl ex client might reasonably expect to write the 
+codez = zO for two Compl ex variables, in the same way as for double or int val- 
+ues. But if Compl ex were mutable and the value of z were 
+to change after the assignment z = zO, then the value of 
+zO would also change (they are both references to the same 
+object)! This unexpected result, known as an aliasing bug, 
+comes as a surprise to many newcomers to object-oriented 
+programming. One very important reason to implement 
+immutable types is that we can use immutable objects in 
+assignment statements and as arguments and return values 
+from functions without having to worry about their values 
+changing. 
+
+Mutable types. For many data types, the very purpose of 
+the abstraction is to encapsulate values as they change. Turtle (Program 3.2.4) 
+is a prime example. Our reason for using Turtle is to relieve client programs of 
+the responsibility of tracking the changing values. Similarly, Pi cture, Hi stogram, 
+StockAccount, Counter, and Java arrays are all types where we expect values to 
+change. When we pass a Turtl e as an argument to a method, as in Koch, we expect 
+the values of the instance variables to change. 
+
+Arrays and strings. You have already encountered this distinction as a client pro- 
+grammer, when using Java arrays (mutable) and Java’s String data type (immu- 
+table). When you pass a Stri ng to a method, you do not need to worry about that 
+method changing the sequence of characters in the Stri ng, but when you pass an 
+array to a method, the method is free to change the elements of the array. Stri ng 
+
+
+mutable immutable 
+
+
+Picture 
+Histogram 
+Turtle 
+StockAccount 
+Counter 
+Java arrays 
+
+
+Charge 
+
+Color 
+
+Stopwatch 
+
+Complex 
+
+String 
+
+primitive types 
+
+
+
+428 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+objects are immutable because we generally do not want Stri ng values to change, 
+and Java arrays are mutable because we generally do want array values to change. 
+There are also situations where we want to have mutable strings (that is the pur- 
+pose of Java’s St ri ngBui 1 de r class) and where we want to have immutable arrays 
+(that is the purpose of the Vector class that we consider later in this section). 
+
+
+Advantages of immutability. Generally, immutable types 
+are easier to use and harder to misuse because the scope 
+of code that can change their values is far smaller than for 
+mutable types. It is easier to debug code that uses immu- 
+table types because it is easier to guarantee that variables in 
+the client code that uses them remain in a consistent state. 
+When using mutable types, you must always be concerned 
+about where and when their values change. 
+
+Cost of immutability. The downside of immutability is 
+that a new object must be created for every value. For exam- 
+ple, the expression z = z.times(z) .plus (zO) involves 
+creating a new object (the return value of z.times(z), 
+then using that object to invoke plus(), but never saving 
+a reference to it. A program such as Mandel brot (Program 
+3.2.7) might create a large number of such intermediate 
+orphans. However, this expense is normally manageable 
+because Java garbage collectors are typically optimized for 
+such situations. Also, as in the case of Mandel brot, when 
+the point of the calculation is to create a large number of 
+values, we expect to pay the cost of representing them. 
+Mandelbrot also creates a large number of (immutable) 
+Color objects. 
+
+
+Complex zO; 
+
+zO = new Complex(1.0, 1.0); 
+Complex z = zO; 
+z = z. times (z) .plus(zO) ; 
+
+
+reference 
+to 1 + i 
+
+
+reference 
+to 1 + 3 i 
+
+
+
+An intermediate orphan 
+
+
+Final. Java’s language support for helping to enforce immutability is the f i nal 
+modifier. When you declare a variable to be f i nal , you are promising to assign 
+it a value only once, either in an initializer or in the constructor. Code that could 
+modify the value of a f i nal variable leads to a compile-time error. In our code, we 
+always use the modifier fi nal with instance variables whose values never change. 
+This policy serves as documentation that the value does not change, prevents acci- 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+429 
+
+
+dental changes, and makes programs easier to debug. For example, you do not have 
+to include a f i rial value in a trace, since you know that its value never changes. 
+
+Reference types. Unfortunately, final guarantees immutability only when in- 
+stance variables are primitive types, not reference types. If an instance variable of 
+a reference type has the f i nal modifier, the value of that instance variable (the 
+reference to an object) will never change — it will always refer to the same object. 
+However, the value of the object itself can change. For example, if you have a f i nal 
+instance variable that is an array, you cannot change the array (to change its length, 
+say), but you can change the individual array elements. Thus, aliasing bugs can 
+arise. For example, this code does not implement an immutable type: 
+
+public class Vector 
+
+{ 
+
+private final doubled coords; 
+public Vector(double[] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+coords = a; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+A client program could create a Vector by specifying the entries in an array, and 
+then (bypassing the API) change the elements of the Vector after construction: 
+
+doubled a = { 3.0, 4.0 }; 
+
+Vector vector = new Vector(a); 
+
+a[0] = 17.0; // Bypasses the public API. 
+
+The instance variable coords [] is pri vate and fi nal , but Vector is mutable be- 
+cause the client holds the data, not the implementation. To ensure immutability of 
+a data type that includes an instance variable of a mutable type, we need to make a 
+local copy, known as a defensive copy. Next, we consider such an implementation. 
+
+Immutability needs to be taken into account in any data-type design. Ideally, wheth- 
+er a data type is immutable should be specified in the API, so that clients know that 
+object values will not change. Implementing an immutable type can be a burden 
+in the presence of reference types. For complex types, making the copy is one chal- 
+lenge; ensuring that none of the instance methods change values is another. 
+
+
+
+430 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Example: spatial vectors To illustrate these ideas in the context of a useful 
+mathematical abstraction, we now consider a vector data type. Like complex num- 
+bers, the basic definition of the vector abstraction is familiar because it has played 
+a central role in applied mathematics for over 100 years. The field of mathematics 
+known as linear algebra is concerned with properties of vectors. Linear algebra is a 
+rich and successful theory with numerous applications, and plays an important 
+role in all fields of social and natural science. Full treatment of linear algebra is 
+certainly beyond the scope of this book, but several important applications are 
+based upon elementary and familiar calculations, so we touch upon vectors and 
+linear algebra throughout the book (for example, the random surfer example in 
+Section 1.6 is based on linear algebra). Accordingly, it is worthwhile to encapsulate 
+such an abstraction in a data type. 
+
+A spatial vector is an abstract entity that has a magni- 
+tude and a direction. Spatial vectors provide a natural way 
+to describe properties of the physical world, such as force, 
+velocity, momentum, or acceleration. One standard way to 
+specify a vector is as an arrow from the origin to a point in 
+a Cartesian coordinate system: the direction is the ray from 
+the origin to the point and the magnitude is the length of the 
+arrow (distance from the origin to the point). To specify the 
+vector it suffices to specify the point. 
+
+This concept extends to any number of dimensions: an ordered list of N real 
+numbers (the coordinates of an N-dimensional point) suffices to specify a vector 
+in N-dimensional space. By convention, we use a boldface letter to refer to a vector 
+and numbers or indexed variable names (the same letter in italics) separated by 
+commas within square brackets to denote its value. For example, we might use x to 
+denote (x 0 ,x, x N _J and y to denote ( y 0 , y v . . ., y N _j). 
+
+API. The basic operations on vectors are to add two vectors, multiply a vector by 
+a scalar (real number), compute the dot product of two vectors, and compute the 
+magnitude and direction, as follows: 
+
+• Addition : x + y = ( x 0 + y 0 , x, + y v + y N _ x ) 
+
+• Scalar product: tx = (tx 0 , tx v . . ., tx N _ x ) 
+
+• Dot product: x • y = Xgy 0 + x l y l + . . . + x N _ ] y N _ l 
+
+• Magnitude: |x| = (x 0 2 + x x 2 + . . . + x N _ 1 2 ) 1/2 
+
+• Direction : x/ |x| = ( x 0 / |x|, x x / |x|, . . ., x N _ x / |x| ) 
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+431 
+
+
+The result of addition, scalar product, and the direction are vectors, but the mag- 
+nitude and the dot product are scalar quantities (double values). For example, if 
+x = (0, 3, 4, 0),and y = (0, -3, 1, -4), then x + y = (0, 0, 5, -4), 3x = (0, 9, 12, 0), 
+x • y = — 5, |x| = 5, and x/ |x| = (0, .6, .8, 0). The direction vector is a unit vector: its 
+magnitude is 1. These definitions lead immediately to an API: 
+
+public class Vector 
+
+
+Vector 
+
+Vector(double[] a) 
+
+pi us (Vector b) 
+
+create a vector with the given Cartesian coordinates 
+
+sum of this vector and b 
+
+Vector 
+
+minus (Vector b) 
+
+difference of th is vector and b 
+
+Vector 
+
+times (double t) 
+
+scalar product of this vector and t 
+
+double 
+
+dot(Vector b) 
+
+dot product of this vector and b 
+
+double 
+
+magnitude () 
+
+magnitude of this vector 
+
+Vector 
+
+di recti on O 
+
+unit vector with same direction as this vector 
+
+double 
+
+cartesian(int i) 
+
+i th cartesian coordinate of this vector 
+
+String 
+
+toStringQ 
+
+string representation 
+
+
+API for a spatial vector ( see Program 3.3.3) 
+
+
+As with Compl ex, this API does not explicitly specify that this type is immutable, 
+but we know that client programmers (who are likely to be thinking in terms of the 
+mathematical abstraction) will certainly expect that. 
+
+Representation. As usual, our first choice in developing an implementation is to 
+choose a representation for the data. Using an array to hold the Cartesian coor- 
+dinates provided in the constructor is a clear choice, but not the only reasonable 
+choice. Indeed, one of the basic tenets of linear algebra is that other sets of N vec- 
+tors can be used as the basis for a coordinate system: any vector can be expressed 
+as a linear combination of a set of N vectors, satisfying a certain condition known 
+as linear independence. This ability to change coordinate systems aligns nicely with 
+encapsulation. Most clients do not need to know about the representation at all and 
+can work with Vector objects and operations. If warranted, the implementation 
+can change the coordinate system without affecting client code. 
+
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 3.3.3 Spatial vectors 
+
+public class Vector 
+
+{ 
+
+private final double [] coords; 
+
+
+
+coords [] | Cartesian coordinates 
+
+
+, . _ _ _ 
+
+public Vector(double[] a) 
+
+{ // Make a defensive copy to ensure immutability, 
+
+coords = new double[a. length] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+coords [i] = a[i ] ; 
+
+} 
+
+public Vector pi us (Vector b) 
+
+{ // Sum of this vector and b. 
+
+doublet] c = new doubl e [coords. 1 ength] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < coords. length; i++) 
+c[i] = coords[i] + b.coords[i]; 
+return new Vector(c); 
+
+} 
+
+public Vector times (double t) 
+
+{ // Product of this vector and b. 
+
+doublet] c = new doubl e [coords. 1 ength] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < coords. length; i++) 
+c[i] = t * coords [i] ; 
+return new Vector(c); 
+
+} 
+
+public double dot (Vector b) 
+
+{ // Dot product of this vector and b. 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < coords. length; i++) 
+sum = sum + (coords[i] * b.coords[i]) ; 
+return sum; 
+
+
+public double magnitude O 
+{ return Math.sqrt(this.dot(this)) ; } 
+
+public Vector di recti on () 
+
+{ return this.times(l/this.magnitude()) ; } 
+
+public double cartesian (int i) 
+
+{ return coords[i]; } 
+
+
+This implementation encapsulates the mathematical spatial-vector abstraction, in an immu- 
+table Java data type. Document (Program 3.3.4) and Body (Program 3.4.2) are typical clients. 
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+433 
+
+
+Implementation. Given the representation, the code that im- 
+plements all of these operations (Vector, in Program 3.3.3) is 
+straightforward. Two of the methods (mi nus() and toStri ngO) 
+are left for exercises, as is the test client. The constructor makes 
+a defensive copy of the client array and none of the methods as- 
+sign values to the copy, so that Vector objects are immutable. 
+
+The cartesi an () method is easy to implement in our Cartesian 
+coordinate representation: return the ith coordinate in the array. 
+
+It actually implements a mathematical function that is defined 
+for any Vector representation: the geometric projection onto the 
+ith Cartesian axis. 
+
+The this reference. The magni tude () and di recti on () methods in Vector make 
+use of the name thi s. Java provides the thi s keyword to give us a way to refer 
+within the code of an instance method to the object whose name was used to in- 
+voke this method. You can use this in code in the same way you use any other 
+name. Some Java programmers always use thi s to refer to instance variables. Their 
+scope is the whole class, and this policy is easy to defend because it documents ref- 
+erences to instance variables. However, it does result in a surfeit of thi s keywords, 
+so we take the opposite tack and use this sparingly in our code. 
+
+Why go to the trouble of using a Vector data type when all of the operations are 
+so easily implemented with arrays? By now the answer to this question should be 
+obvious to you: to enable modular programming, facilitate debugging, and clarify 
+code. The array is a low-level Java mechanism that admits all kinds of operations. 
+By restricting ourselves to just the operations in the Vector API (which are the only 
+ones that we need, for many clients), we simplify the process of designing, imple- 
+menting, and maintaining our programs. Because the type is immutable, we can 
+use it as we use primitive types. For example, when we pass a Vector to a method, 
+we are assured its value will not change, but we do not have that assurance with an 
+array. After you have seen several more examples of object-oriented programming, 
+we will discuss some more nuances in support of the assertion that it simplifies 
+design, implementation, and maintenance. In the case of Vector, writing programs 
+that use Vector and well-defined Vector operations is an easy and natural way to 
+take advantage of the extensive amount of mathematical knowledge that has been 
+developed around this abstract concept. 
+
+
+
+
+434 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Inheritance Java provides language support for defining relationships among 
+objects, known as inheritance. Software developers use these mechanisms widely, so 
+you will study them in detail if you take a course in software engineering. Generally, 
+effective use of such mechanisms is beyond the scope of this book, but we briefly 
+describe them here because there are a few situations where you may encounter 
+them. 
+
+Interfaces. Interfaces provide a mechanism for specifying a relationship between 
+otherwise unrelated classes, by specifying a set of common methods that each im- 
+plementing class must contain. We refer to this arrangement as interface inheritance 
+because an implementing class inherits methods that are not otherwise in its API 
+through the interface. This arrangement allows us to write client programs that can 
+manipulate objects of varying types, by invoking methods in the interface. As with 
+most new programming concepts, it is a bit confusing at first, but will make sense 
+to you after you have seen a few examples. 
+
+Comparable. One interface that you are likely to encounter is Java’s Comparabl e 
+interface. The interface associates a natural order for values within a data type, us- 
+ing a method named compareToO, as described in the following API: 
+
+public interface Comparabl e<Key> 
+
+i nt compa reTo (Key b) compare this object with b for order 
+API for Java’s Comparable interface 
+
+The <Key> notation, which we will introduce in Section 4.3, ensures that the two 
+objects being compared have the same type. Assuming a and b are objects of the 
+same type, a. compa reTo (b) must return: 
+
+• A negative integer if a is less than b 
+
+• A positive integer if if a greater than b 
+
+• Zero if a is equal to b 
+
+Additionally, the compareToO method must be consistent: for example, if a is less 
+than b, then b must be greater than a. A class that implements the Comparabl e 
+interface — such as String, Integer, or Double — promises to include a compa- 
+reToO method according to these rules. As expected, the natural order for strings 
+is alphabetical and for integers is ascending. 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+435 
+
+
+To illustrate the utility of having such an interface, we start by considering a sort 
+filter for Stri ng objects. The following code takes an integer N from the command- 
+line, reads in N strings from standard input, sorts them, and prints the strings on 
+standard output in alphabetical order. 
+
+import java. util .Arrays; 
+
+public class SortClient 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main (Stri ng[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+
+String[] names = new String[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+names [i] = Stdln. readstring () ; 
+
+Arrays . sort(names) ; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (names [i ] ) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+We will examine sorting in detail in Section 4.2, so for the moment, we use a static 
+method Arrays, sort () from Java’s java, util library. Now, if we replace the ar- 
+ray input with the three lines 
+
+Integer[] names = new Integer[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+names [i] = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+
+SortClient sorts Integer values from standard input. You might speculate that 
+Arrays . sort() has overloaded implementations, one for Stri ng and one for In- 
+teger. But this is not the case because Arrays.sortO must be able to sort an 
+array of any type that implements the Comparabl e interface (even a data type not 
+contemplated when writing the sorting method). To do so, the code in Arrays. 
+sort() declares variables of type Comparable — such variables may store values 
+of type String, Integer, Double, or of any type that implements the Compara- 
+bl e interface. When you invoke the compareToO method of such a variable, Java 
+knows which compareToO method to call, because it knows the type of the invok- 
+ing object. This powerful programming mechanism is known as polymorphism or 
+dynamic dispatch. 
+
+
+
+436 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+To make a class implement the Comparable interface, include the phrase imple- 
+ments Comparabl e after the class definition, and then add a compareToO method. 
+For example, modify Counter (Program 3.3.2) as follows: 
+
+public class Counter implements Comparabl e<Counter> 
+
+{ 
+
+
+public int compareTo(Counter b) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (count < b. count) return -1 
+else if (count > b. count) return +1 
+else return 0 
+
+} 
+
+
+Since you are implementing compareToO, you have the flexibility to specify any 
+sort order whatever. For example, you might create a version of Counter to allow 
+clients to sort Counter values in decreasing order (perhaps for a voting applica- 
+tion), by changing the compareToO method as follows: 
+
+public int compareTo(Counter b) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (count < b. count) return +1; 
+
+else if (count > b. count) return -1; 
+else return 0; 
+
+} 
+
+For another example, if you were to modify StockAccount as follows: 
+
+public class StockAccount implements Comparabl e<StockAccount> 
+
+{ 
+
+public int compareTo(StockAccount b) 
+
+{ 
+
+return name. compareTo(b. name) ; 
+
+} 
+
+}" 
+
+you could then sort an array of StockAccount values by account name with Ar- 
+rays. sort(). (Note that this compareToO implementation for StockAccount 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+437 
+
+
+uses Java’s compareToO method for Stri ng.) This ability to arrange to write a cli- 
+ent to sort any type of data is a persuasive example of interface inheritance. 
+
+Computing with functions. Often, particularly in scientific computing, we want 
+to compute with functions: we want to compute integrals and derivatives, find roots, 
+and so forth. In some programming languages, known as functional programming 
+languages, this desire aligns with the underlying 
+design of the language, which uses computing 
+with functions to substantially simplify client 
+code. Unfortunately, methods are not first-class 
+objects in Java. As an example, consider the prob- 
+lem of estimating the integral of a positive func- Approximating an integral 
+
+tion (area under the curve) in an interval (a, b). 
+
+This computation is known as quadrature or numerical integration. One simple 
+method for estimating the integral is the rectangle rule: compute the total area of N 
+equally-spaced rectangles under the curve. To implement this rule, we might try to 
+write the following code to approximate the value of an integral by: 
+
+public double integrate (double f (double x), 
+
+double a, double b, int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+double delta = (a - b) / N; 
+
+double sum = 0.0; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+sum += delta * f(a + delta * (i + 0.5)); 
+
+} 
+
+Such a method would enable client code such as this: 
+integrate(Gaussian.phi () , a, b, N) 
+
+Unfortunately, this code is not legal in Java. You cannot pass methods as arguments. 
+We can get around this restriction by defining an interface for functions and using 
+that interface to implement i ntegrate(). You can find that solution on the book- 
+site, along with many examples of methods and classes that involve computing 
+with functions in Java, which will be of interest if you plan to take future courses in 
+scientific computing. 
+
+Event-based programming. Another powerful example of the value of interface 
+inheritance is its use in event-based programming. In a familiar setting, consider 
+
+
+
+
+438 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+the problem of extending Draw to respond to user input such as mouse clicks and 
+keystrokes. One way to do so is to define an interface to specify which methods the 
+draw package should call when user input happens. The descriptive term callback 
+is sometimes used to describe a call from a method in one class to a method in 
+another class through an interface. You can find on the booksite an example in- 
+terface DrawLi stener and information on how to write code to respond to user 
+mouse clicks and keystrokes within Draw . j ava. You will find it easy to write code 
+that creates a Draw object and includes a method that the Draw method can invoke 
+(callback your code) to tell your method the character typed on a user keystroke 
+event or the mouse position on a mouse click. Writing interactive code is fun but 
+challenging because you have to plan for all possible user input actions. 
+
+Subtyping. Another approach to enabling code reuse is known as subtyping. It is 
+a powerful technique that enables a programmer to change the behavior of a class 
+and add functionality without rewriting the entire class from scratch. The idea is to 
+define a new class ( subclass , or derived class) that inherits instance variables and in- 
+stance methods from another class (superclass, or base class). The subclass contains 
+more methods than the superclass. Subtyping is widely used by systems program- 
+mers to build so-called extensible libraries. The idea is that one programmer (even 
+you) can add methods to a library built by another programmer (or, perhaps, a team 
+of systems programmers), effectively reusing the code in a potentially huge library. 
+This approach is widely used, particularly in the development of user interfaces, so 
+that the large amount of code required to provide all the facilities that users expect 
+(drop-down menus, cut-and-paste, access to files, and so forth) can be reused. The 
+use of subtyping is controversial among systems programmers (its advantages over 
+interface inheritance are debatable), and we do not use it in this book, because it 
+generally works against encapsulation. Subtyping makes modular programming 
+more difficult for two reasons. First, any change in the superclass affects all sub- 
+classes. The subclass cannot be developed independently of the superclass; indeed, 
+it is completely dependent on the superclass. This problem is known as the fragile 
+base class problem. Second, the subclass code, having access to instance variables, 
+can subvert the intention of the superclass code. For example, the designer of a 
+class such as Vector may have taken great care to make the Vector immutable, but 
+a subclass, with full access to the instance variables, can just change them. How- 
+ever, certain vestiges of the approach are built into Java and therefore unavoidable. 
+Specifically, every class is a subtype of Java’s Ob j ect class. This structure enables 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+439 
+
+
+implementation of the “convention” that every class includes an implementations 
+of toStri ng(), equal sO, hashCodeO (a method that we will encounter later in 
+this section and in Chapter 4), and several other methods. Every class inherits these 
+methods from Object through subtyping. 
+
+Application; data miming To illustrate some of the concepts discussed in this 
+section in the context of an application, we next consider a software technology 
+that is proving important in addressing the daunting challenges of data mining, a 
+term that is widely used to describe the process of searching through the massive 
+amounts of information now accessible to every user on the web (not to mention 
+our own computers). This technology can serve as the basis for dramatic improve- 
+ments in the quality of web search results, for multimedia information retrieval, for 
+biomedical databases, for plagiarism detection, for research in genomics, for im- 
+proved scholarship in many fields, for innovation in commercial applications, for 
+learning the plans of evildoers, and for many other purposes. Accordingly, there is 
+intense interest and extensive ongoing research on data mining. 
+
+You have direct access to thousands of files on your computer and indirect ac- 
+cess to billions of files on the web. As you know, these files are remarkably diverse: 
+there are commercial web pages, music and video, email, program code, and all 
+sorts of other information. For simplicity, we will restrict attention to text docu- 
+ments (though the method we will consider applies to pictures, music, and all sorts 
+of other files as well). Even with this restriction, there is remarkable diversity in the 
+types of documents. For reference, you can find these documents on the booksite: 
+Our interest is in finding efficient ways to search through the files using their con- 
+tent to characterize documents. One fruitful approach to this problem is to as- 
+
+
+file name description 
+
+Constitution.txt legal document 
+
+
+TomSawyer.txt 
+HuckFinn.txt 
+Prejudice.txt 
+Picture. java 
+DJIA. csv 
+Amazon . html 
+ACTG . txt 
+
+
+American novel 
+American novel 
+English novel 
+Java code 
+financial data 
+web page source 
+virus genome 
+
+
+sample text 
+
+. of both Houses shall be determined by . 
+.’’Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little.” . 
+.was feeling pretty good after breakfast. 
+. dared not even mention that gentleman.. 
+.String suffix = filename. substringCfile. 
+. Ol-Oct-28 ,239.43,242.46, 3500000 , 240 . 01 . 
+.<table width="100%" border="0" cellspac. 
+. GTATGGAGCAGCAGACGCGCTACTTCGAGCGGAGGCATA . 
+
+
+Some text documents 
+
+
+
+440 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+sociate with each document a vector known as a profile, which is a function of its 
+content. The basic idea is that the profile should characterize a document, so that 
+documents that are different have profiles that are different and documents that are 
+similar have profiles that are similar. You probably are not surprised to learn that 
+this approach can enable us to distinguish among a novel, a Java program, and a 
+genome, but you might be surprised to learn that content searches can tell the dif- 
+ference between novels written by different authors and can be effective as the basis 
+for many other subtle search criteria. 
+
+To start, we need an abstraction for documents. What is a document? What 
+operations do we want to perform on documents? The answers to these questions 
+inform our design and therefore, ultimately, the code that we write. For the pur- 
+poses of data mining, it is clear that the answer to the first question is that a docu- 
+ment is defined by an input stream. The answer to the second question is that we 
+need to be able to compute a number (for example, a doubl e value) to measure the 
+similarity between a document and any other document. These considerations lead 
+to the following API. 
+
+public class Document 
+
+Document (St ring name, int k, int d) 
+
+si mTo (Document doc) similarity measure between this document and doc 
+name () name of this document 
+
+API for documents ( see Program 3.3.4) 
+
+The arguments of the constructor are a file or website name (for use by In) and two 
+integers that control the quality of the search. Clients can use si mTo 0 to deter- 
+mine the extent of similarity between this Document and any other Document on a 
+scale of 0 (not similar) to 1 (similar). This simple data type provides a good separa- 
+tion between implementing a similarity measure and implementing clients that use 
+the measure to search among documents. 
+
+Computing profiles Computing the profile is the first challenge. Our first choice 
+is to use Vector to represent a document’s profile. But what information should go 
+into computing the profile and how do we compute the value of the Vector profile 
+of a Document (in the constructor)? Many different approaches have been studied, 
+and researchers are still actively seeking efficient and effective algorithms for this 
+
+
+double 
+Stri ng 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+441 
+
+
+Program 3.3.4 Document 
+
+
+11 
+
+
+name 
+
+document name 
+
+k 
+
+length of gram 
+
+d 
+
+dimension 
+
+s 
+
+entire document 
+
+N 
+
+document length 
+
+freq[] 
+
+hash frequencies 
+
+h 
+
+hash for k-gram 
+
+
+public class Document 
+
+{ 
+
+private final String id; 
+private final Vector profile; 
+
+public Document (String name, int k, int d) 
+
+{ 
+
+id = name; 
+
+String s = (new In(name)) . readAll () ; 
+int N = s.lengthO ; 
+doubled freq = new double [d] ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N-k; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+int h = s.substring(i , i+k) .hashCodeO ; 
+freq [Math. abs(h % d)] += 1; 
+
+} 
+
+profile = (new Vector(freq)) .di rectionO ; 
+
+} 
+
+public double simTo(Document doc) 
+
+{ return profile. dot (doc. profile) ; } 
+
+public String name() 
+
+{ return id; } 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+String name = args[0]; 
+
+int k = Integer. parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+
+int d = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; 
+
+Document doc = new Document (name, k, d); 
+StdOut.println (doc. profile) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This Vector client creates a unit vector from a document’s k-grams that clients can use to 
+measure its similarity with other documents (see text). 
+
+
+file name or URL 
+unit vector 
+
+
+
+
+
+% more genomeA.txt 
+AT AG AT GCAT AGCGC AT AGC 
+% java Document genomeA.txt 2 16 
+
+[ 0 0 0.51 0.39 0.39 0 0 0 .13 0.39 0 0 0.13 0.13 0.51 0 0 ] 
+
+
+
+442 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+CTTTCGGTTT 
+GGMCCGAAG 
+CCGCGCGTCT 
+ATAGATGCAT TGTCTGCTGC 
+AGCGCATAGC AGCATCGTTC 
+
+
+task. Our implementation Document (Program 3.3.4) uses a simple frequency count 
+approach. The constructor has two arguments, an integer k and a vector dimen- 
+sion d. It scans the document and examines all of the k-grams in the document: the 
+substrings of length k starting at each position. In its simplest form, the profile is a 
+vector that gives the relative frequency of occurrence of the /c-grams in the string: 
+an entry for each possible Zc-gram giving the number of /c-grams in the content that 
+have that value. For example, suppose that we use k = 2 in genomic data, with d = 
+16 (there are 4 possible character values and there- 
+fore 16 possible 2-grams). The 2-gram AT occurs 
+4 times in the string ATAGATGCATAGCGCATAGC, so, 
+for example, the vector entry corresponding to AT 
+would be 4. To build the frequency vector, we need 
+to be able to convert each of the fc-grams into an 
+integer between 0 and 15 (this integer function of a 
+string is known as a hash value). For genomic data, 
+this is an easy exercise (see Exercise 3.3.26). Then, 
+we can compute an array to build the frequency 
+vector in one scan through the text, incrementing 
+the array entry corresponding to each fc-gram en- 
+countered. It would seem that we lose information 
+by disregarding the order of the /c-grams, but the 
+remarkable fact is that the information content of 
+that order is lower than that of their frequency. A 
+Markov model paradigm not dissimilar from the 
+one that we studied for the random surfer in Sec- 
+tion 1.6 can be used to take order into account — 
+such models are effective, but much more work 
+
+
+'-gram hash 
+
+count 
+
+unit 
+
+count 
+
+unit 
+
+AA 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+2 
+
+.137 
+
+AC 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+.069 
+
+AG 
+
+2 
+
+4 
+
+.508 
+
+1 
+
+.069 
+
+AT 
+
+3 
+
+3 
+
+.381 
+
+2 
+
+.137 
+
+CA 
+
+4 
+
+3 
+
+.381 
+
+3 
+
+.206 
+
+CC 
+
+5 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+2 
+
+.137 
+
+CG 
+
+6 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+4 
+
+.275 
+
+CT 
+
+7 
+
+1 
+
+.127 
+
+6 
+
+.412 
+
+GA 
+
+8 
+
+3 
+
+.381 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+GC 
+
+9 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+5 
+
+.343 
+
+GG 
+
+10 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+6 
+
+.412 
+
+GT 
+
+11 
+
+1 
+
+.127 
+
+4 
+
+.275 
+
+TA 
+
+12 
+
+1 
+
+.127 
+
+2 
+
+.137 
+
+TC 
+
+13 
+
+4 
+
+.508 
+
+6 
+
+.412 
+
+TG 
+
+14 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+4 
+
+.275 
+
+TT 
+
+15 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+2 
+
+.137 
+
+
+Profiling genomic data 
+
+
+to implement. Encapsulating the computation in 
+
+Document gives us the flexibility to experiment with various designs without need- 
+ing to rewrite Document clients. 
+
+
+Hashing. For ASCII text strings there are 128 different possible char values for 
+each character, so there are 128 fc possible Zc-grams, and the dimension d would have 
+to be 128 fc for the simple scheme just described. This number is prohibitively large 
+even for moderately large k. For Unicode, with 65,536 characters, even 2-grams 
+lead to huge vector profiles. To ameliorate this problem, we use hashing, a fun- 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+443 
+
+
+damental operation related to search algorithms that we consider in Section 4.4. 
+Indeed, the problem of converting a string to an integer index is so important that 
+it is built into Java. As just mentioned in our discussion of inheritance, all objects 
+inherit from Object a method hashCode() that returns an int value. Given any 
+string s, we compute Math . abs (s . hashcode () % d) . This value is an integer be- 
+tween 0 and d— 1 that we can use as an index into an array to compute frequencies. 
+The profile that we use is the direction of the vector defined by frequencies of these 
+values for all fc-grams in the document (the unit vector with the same direction). 
+
+Comparing profiles. The second challenge is to compute a similarity measure be- 
+tween two profiles. Again, there are many different ways to compare two vectors. 
+Perhaps the simplest is to compute the Euclidean distance between them. Given 
+vectors x and y, this distance is defined by: 
+
+I* - y I = ((*. - y «) 2 + (*, - yd 2 + • • • + (**-, - y d ~d 2 ) m 
+
+You are familiar with this formula for d - 2 or d = 3. With Vector, the distance is 
+easy to compute. If x and y are two Vector values, then x . mi nus (y) . magni tude() 
+is the Euclidean distance between them. If documents are similar, we 
+expect their profiles to be similar and the distance between them to be 
+low. Another widely used similarity measure, known as the cosine simi- 
+larity measure, is even simpler: since our profiles are unit vectors with 
+nonnegative coordinates, their dot product 
+
+x -y = x 0 y 0 + x#! + . . . + x d .yy A _ x 
+
+is a number between 0 and 1. Geometrically, this quantity is the cosine 
+of the angle formed by the two vectors (see Exercise 3.3.12). The more 
+similar the documents, the closer we expect this measure to be to 1. 
+
+Comparing all pairs. CompareAl 1 (Program 3.3.5) is a simple and useful Docu- 
+ment client that provides the information needed to solve the following problem: 
+given a set of documents, find the two that are most similar. Since this specification 
+is a bit subjective, CompareAl 1 prints out the cosine similarity measure for all pairs 
+of documents on an input list. For moderate-size k and d, the profiles do a remark- 
+ably good job of characterizing our sample set of documents. The results say not 
+only that genomic data, financial data, Java code, and web source code are quite dif- 
+ferent from legal documents and novels, but also that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry 
+
+
+% more docs.txt 
+Consititution.txt 
+TomSawyer.txt 
+HuckFinn.txt 
+Pre j udi ce . txt 
+Picture. java 
+DJIA. csv 
+Amazon . html 
+ACTG.txt 
+
+
+
+444 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+mmmm 
+
+Program 3.3.5 Similarity detection 
+
+
+. 1 
+
+
+public class CompareAll 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int k = Integer. parselnt(args [0] ) ; 
+int d = Integer „parselnt(args[l]) ; 
+int N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+Document [] a = new Document [N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = new Document (Stdln. readstring () , k, d) ; 
+StdOut.print(" 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+StdOut.printfC %.4s", a[j] .name()) ; 
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+Std0ut.printf("%.4s", a[i] .nameO) ; 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+
+StdOut.printf("%8.2f", a[i] .simTo(a[j])) ; 
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This Document client reads a document list from standard input, computes profiles based on 
+k-gram frequencies for all the documents, and prints a matrix of similarity measures between 
+all pairs of documents. It takes two arguments from the command line: the value of k and the 
+dimension d of the profiles. 
+
+
+length of gram 
+dimension 
+
+number of documents 
+all documents 
+
+
+
+
+
+Cons 
+
+TomS 
+
+Huck 
+
+Prej 
+
+Piet 
+
+DJIA 
+
+Amaz 
+
+ACTG 
+
+Cons 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.66 
+
+0.60 
+
+0.64 
+
+0.17 
+
+0.18 
+
+0.21 
+
+0.11 
+
+TomS 
+
+0.66 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.93 
+
+0.88 
+
+0.10 
+
+0.24 
+
+0.18 
+
+0.14 
+
+Huck 
+
+0.60 
+
+0.93 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.82 
+
+0.07 
+
+0.23 
+
+0.16 
+
+0.12 
+
+Prej 
+
+0.64 
+
+0.88 
+
+0.82 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.10 
+
+0.25 
+
+0.19 
+
+0.15 
+
+Pi ct 
+
+0.17 
+
+0.10 
+
+0.07 
+
+0.10 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.05 
+
+0.37 
+
+0.03 
+
+D3IA 
+
+0.18 
+
+0.24 
+
+0.23 
+
+0.25 
+
+0.05 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.16 
+
+0.11 
+
+Amaz 
+
+0.21 
+
+0.18 
+
+0.16 
+
+0.19 
+
+0.37 
+
+0.16 
+
+1.00 
+
+0.07 
+
+ACTG 
+
+0.11 
+
+0.14 
+
+0.12 
+
+0.15 
+
+0.03 
+
+0.11 
+
+0.07 
+
+1.00 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+445 
+
+
+Finn are much more similar to each other than to Pride and Prejudice. A researcher 
+in comparative literature could use this program to discover relationships between 
+texts; a teacher could also use this program to detect plagiarism in a set of student 
+submissions (indeed, many teachers do use such programs on a regular basis); or 
+a biologist could use this program to discover relationships among genomes. You 
+can find many documents on the booksite (or gather your own collection) to test 
+the effectiveness of CompareAl 1 for various parameter settings. 
+
+Searching for similar documents. Another natural Document client is one that 
+uses profiles to search among a large number of documents to identify those that 
+are similar to a given document. For example, web search engines uses clients of 
+this type to present you with pages that are similar to those you have previously 
+visited, online book merchants use clients of this type to recommend books that 
+are similar to ones you have purchased, and social networking websites use clients 
+of this type to identify people whose personal interests are similar to yours. Since 
+In can take web addresses instead of file names, it is feasible to write a program 
+that can surf the web, compute profiles, and return links to pages that have profiles 
+that are similar to the one sought. We leave this client for a challenging exercise. 
+
+
+This solution is just a sketch. Many sophisticated algorithms for 
+efficiently computing profiles and comparing them are still being 
+invented and studied by computer scientists. Our purpose here is 
+to introduce you to this fundamental problem domain while at 
+the same time illustrating the power of abstraction in addressing 
+a computational challenge. Vectors are an essential mathematical 
+abstraction, and we can build search solutions by developing lay- 
+ers of abstraction: Vector is built with the Java array, Document is 
+built with Vector, and client code uses Document. As usual, we have 
+spared you from a lengthy account of our many attempts to develop these APIs, 
+but you can see that the data types are designed in response to the needs of the 
+problem, with an eye toward the requirements of implementations. Identifying 
+and implementing appropriate abstractions is the key to effective object-oriented 
+programming. The power of abstraction — in mathematics, physical models, and 
+in computer programs — pervades these examples. As you become fluent in devel- 
+oping data types to address your own computational challenges, your apprecia- 
+tion for this power will surely grow. 
+
+
+
+/'primitive type 
+bit 
+
+
+Layers of abstraction 
+
+
+
+446 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Design-by-contract. To conclude, we briefly discuss Java language mecha- 
+nisms that enable you to verify assumptions about your program as it is running. 
+For example, if you have a data type that represents a particle, you might assert 
+that its mass is positive and its speed is less than the speed of light. Or if you have a 
+method to add two vectors of the same length, you might assert that the length of 
+the resulting vector also has the same length. 
+
+Exceptions. An exception is a disruptive event that occurs while a program is run- 
+ning, often to signal an error. The action taken is known as throwing an exception. 
+We have already encountered exceptions thrown by Java system methods in the 
+course of learning to program: StackOverflowException, DivideByZeroExcep- 
+tion, NullPointerException, and ArrayOutOfBoundsException are typical 
+examples. You can also create your own exceptions. The simplest kind is a Run - 
+timeException that terminates execution of the program and prints out an error 
+message. 
+
+throw new RuntimeExceptionC'Error message here."); 
+
+It is good practice to use exceptions when they can be helpful to the user. For ex- 
+ample, in Vector (Program 3.3.3), we should throw an exception in plus() if the 
+two Vectors to be added have different dimensions. To do so, we insert the follow- 
+ing statement at the beginning of pi us 0 : 
+
+if (coords. length != b. coords. length) 
+
+throw new RuntimeException("Vector dimensions disagree.”); 
+
+This leads to a more informative error message than the ArrayOutOfBoundsEx- 
+cepti on than the client would otherwise receive. 
+
+Assertions. An assertion is a boolean expression that you are affirming is true at 
+that point in the program. If the expression is f al se, the program will terminate 
+and report an error message. Assertions are widely used by programmers to detect 
+bugs and gain confidence in the correctness of programs. They also serve to docu- 
+ment the programmer’s intent. For example, in Cou nte r (Program 3.3.2), we might 
+check that the counter is never negative by adding the following assertion as the last 
+statement in i ncrement(): 
+
+
+assert count >= 0; 
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+447 
+
+
+which would identify a negative count. You can also add an optional detail message, 
+such as 
+
+assert count >= 0 : "Negative count detected in incrementO"; 
+
+to help you locate the bug. By default, assertions are disabled, but you can en- 
+able them from the command line by using the -enableassertions flag (-ea for 
+short). Assertions are for debugging only: your program should not rely on asser- 
+tions for normal operation since they may be disabled. When you take a course in 
+systems programming, you will learn to use assertions to ensure that your code 
+never terminates in a system error or goes into an infinite loop. One model, known 
+as the design-by-contract model of programming, expresses the idea. The designer 
+of a data type expresses a precondition (the condition that the client promises to 
+satisfy when calling a method), a postcondition (the condition that the implemen- 
+tation promises to achieve when returning from a method), invariants (any condi- 
+tion that the implementation promises to satisfy while the method is executing), 
+and side effects (any other change in state that the method could cause). During 
+development, these conditions can be tested with assertions. Many programmers 
+use assertions liberally to aid in debugging. 
+
+The language mechanisms discussed throughout this section illustrate that effec- 
+tive data-type design takes us into deep water in programming-language design. 
+Experts are still debating the best ways to support some of the design ideas that we 
+are discussing. Why does Java not allow functions as arguments? Why does Matlab 
+not support mutable data types? As mentioned early in Chapter 1 , it is a slippery 
+slope from complaining about features in a programming language to becoming 
+a programming-language designer. If you do not plan to do so, your best strategy 
+is to use widely available languages. Most systems have extensive libraries that you 
+certainly should use when appropriate, but you often can simplify your client code 
+and protect yourself by building abstractions that can easily transport to other lan- 
+guages. Your main goal is to develop data types so that most of your work is done 
+at a level of abstraction that is appropriate to the problem at hand. 
+
+
+
+448 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. What happens if I try to access a private instance variable or method from 
+another file? 
+
+A. You get a compile-time error that says the given instance variable or method has 
+private access in the given class. 
+
+Q. The instance variables in Complex are private, but when I am executing the 
+method ti mes () for a Compl ex object a , I can access object b’s instance variables. 
+Shouldn’t they be inaccessible? 
+
+A. The granularity of private access is at the class level, not the instance level. De- 
+claring an instance variable as private means that it is not directly accessible from 
+any other class. Methods within the Compl ex class can access (read or write) the 
+instance variables of any instance in that class. It might be nice to have a more re- 
+strictive access modifier, say, superprivate — that would make the granularity at 
+the instance level so that only the invoking object can access its instance variables, 
+but Java does not have such a facility. 
+
+Q I see the problem with the ti mes () method in Compl ex. It needs a constructor 
+that takes polar coordinates as arguments. How can we add such a constructor? 
+
+A. That is a problem since we already have one constructor that takes two real 
+arguments. A better design would be to have two methods createRectfx, y) 
+and createPol ar (r , theta) in the API that create and return new objects. This 
+design is better because it would provide the client with the capability to switch to 
+polar coordinates. This example demonstrates that it is a good idea to think about 
+more than one implementation when developing a data type. 
+
+Q. Is there a relationship between the Vector in this section and the Vector class 
+in the Java library? 
+
+A. No. We use the name because the term vector properly belongs to linear algebra 
+and vector calculus. 
+
+Q. What is a deprecated method? 
+
+A. A method that is no longer fully supported, but kept in an API to maintain 
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+449 
+
+
+
+compatibility. For example, Java once included a method Character . i sSpaceO, 
+and programmers wrote programs that relied on using that method’s behavior. 
+When the designers of Java later wanted to support additional Unicode whitespace 
+characters, they could not change the behavior of i sSpace () without breaking cli- 
+ent programs. So, instead, they added a new method Character . i sWhi teSpaceO 
+and deprecated the old method. As time wears on, this practice certainly compli- 
+cates APIs. 
+
+Q. I am interested in the methods that all objects inherit from Object. We have 
+been using toStri ng() and the use of hashCodeO in Document is interesting, but 
+what about equal s()? Isn’t it important for me to know how about that? 
+
+A. Well, yes, in principle, but you would be very surprised at how difficult it is to 
+properly implement equal s O , even for simple objects. For example, the following 
+is an implementation of equal s () for Counter: 
+
+public boolean equals (Object y) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (y == this) return true; 
+if (y == null) return false; 
+
+if (y.getClassO != this.getClassO) return false; 
+
+Counter b = (Counter) y; 
+return (count == b. count); 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+450 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3 . 3.1 Represent a point in time by using an i nt to store the number of seconds 
+since January 1, 1970. When will programs that use this representation face a time 
+bomb? How should you proceed when that happens? 
+
+3 . 3.2 Create a data type Location for dealing with locations on Earth using 
+spherical coordinates (latitude/longitude). Include methods to generate a random 
+location on the surface of the Earth, parse a location “25.344 N, 63.5532 W”, and 
+compute the great circle distance between two locations. 
+
+3 . 3.3 Create a data type for a three-dimensional particle with position (r x , r y , 
+r z ), mass (m), and velocity (v x , v y , v z ). Include a method to return its kinetic energy, 
+which equals 1/2 m (v x 2 + v y 2 + v z 2 ). Use Vector. 
+
+3 . 3.4 If you know your physics, develop an alternate implementation for you 
+data type of the previous exercise based on using the momentum (p x> p y , p z ) as an 
+instance variable. 
+
+3 . 3.5 Develop an implementation of Hi stog ram (Program 3.2.3) that uses Coun- 
+ter (Program 3.3.2). 
+
+3 . 3.6 Give an implementation of mi nus () for Vector solely in terms of the other 
+Vector methods, such as di recti on 0 and magni tude () . 
+
+Answer: 
+
+public Vector mi nus (Vector b) 
+
+{ 
+
+return this.plus(b.times(-1.0)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+The advantage of such implementations is that they limit the amount of detailed 
+code to check; the disadvantage is that they can be inefficient. In this case, pi us () 
+and ti mes () both create new Vector objects, so copying the code for pi us () and 
+replacing the minus sign with a plus sign is probably a better implementation. 
+
+3.3.7 Implement the method toStri ng () for Vector. 
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+451 
+
+
+
+3.3.8 Add the code necessary to make Vector implement Compa r abl e (using the 
+value of the magnitude to determine the sort order) and write a test client that takes 
+k and N as command-line arguments, reads N ^-dimensional vectors from standard 
+input, sorts them with Arrays.sortO, and prints the sorted result on standard 
+output. 
+
+3.3.10 Implement a data type Vector2D for two-dimensional vectors that has the 
+same API as Vector, except that the constructor takes two doubl e values as argu- 
+ments. Use two doubl e values (instead of an array) for instance variables. 
+
+3.3.1 1 Implement the Vector2D data type of the previous exercise using one Com- 
+pl ex value as the only instance variable. 
+
+3.3.12 Prove that the dot product of two two-dimensional unit- vectors is the co- 
+sine of the angle between them. 
+
+3.3.13 Implement a data type Vector 3D for three-dimensional vectors that has 
+the same API as Vector, except that the constructor takes three double values as 
+arguments. Also, add a cross product method: the cross product of two vectors is 
+another vector, defined by the equation 
+
+a X b = c |a| |b| sin0 
+
+where c is the unit normal vector perpendicular to both a and b, and 0 is the angle 
+between a and b. In Cartesian coordinates, the following equation defines the cross 
+product: 
+
+(# 0 , ^ 2 ) ^ ^ l > ^ 2 ) — (^1 ^2 ^2 ^ l > ^2 ^0 ^0 ^ 2 * «0 ^1 V 
+
+The cross product arises in the definition of torque, angular momentum, and vec- 
+tor operator curl. Also, |a X b| is the area of the parallelogram with sides a and b. 
+
+3.3.14 Use assertions and exceptions to develop an implementation of Rati onal 
+(see Exercise 3.2.7) that is immune to overflow. 
+
+3.3.15 Add code to Counter to throw a RuntimeException if the client tries to 
+construct a Counter object using a negative value for max. 
+
+
+
+
+452 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+PatajfgePesimi Exercises- 
+
+
+This list of exercises is intended to give you experience in developing data types. For 
+each problem, design one or more APIs with API implementations, testing your de- 
+sign decisions by implementing typical client code. Some of the exercises require either 
+knowledge of a particular domain or a search for information about it on the web. 
+
+3 . 3.16 Statistics. Develop a data type for maintaining statistics of a set of doubl e 
+values. Provide a method to add data points and methods that return the number of 
+points, the mean, the standard deviation, and the variance. Develop two implemen- 
+tations: one whose instance values are the number of points, the sum of the values, 
+and the sum of the squares of the values, and another that keeps an array containing 
+all the points. For simplicity, you may take the maximum number of points in the 
+constructor. Your first implementation is likely to be faster and use substantially 
+less space, but is also likely to be susceptible to roundoff error. See the booksite for 
+a well-engineered alternative. 
+
+3 . 3.17 Genome. Develop a data type to store the genome of an organism. Biolo- 
+gists often abstract the genome to a sequence of nucleotides (A, C, G, or T). The data 
+type should support the methods addCodon (char c) and nucl eoti deAt (i nt i), 
+as well as findGeneO (see Program 3.1.8). Develop three implementations. First, 
+use one instance variable of type String, implementing addCodon () with string 
+concatenation. Each method call takes time proportional to the size of the current 
+genome. Second, use an array of characters, doubling the size of the array each time 
+it fills up. Third, use a bool ean array, using two bits to encode each codon. 
+
+3 . 3.18 Time. Develop a data type for the time of day. Provide client methods that 
+return the current hour, minute, and second, as well as toStringO and compa- 
+reTo() methods. Develop two implementations: one that keeps the time as a single 
+i nt value (number of seconds since midnight) and another that keeps three i nt 
+values, one each for seconds, minutes, and hours. 
+
+3 . 3.19 Vector fields. Develop a data type for force vectors in two dimensions. Pro- 
+vide a constructor, a method to add two vectors, and an interesting test client. 
+
+3 . 3.20 VIN number. Develop a data type for VIN numbers that can report back 
+all relevant information. 
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+453 
+
+
+
+3 . 3.21 Generating random numbers. Develop a data type for random numbers. 
+(Convert StdRandom to a data type). Instead of using Math, random (), base your 
+data type on a linear congruential random number generator. This method traces 
+to the earliest days of computing and is also a quintessential example of the value 
+of maintaining state in a computation (implementing a data type). To generate ran- 
+dom i nt values, maintain an i nt value x (the value of the last “random” number 
+returned). Each time the client asks for a new value, return a*x + b for suitably 
+chosen values of a and b (ignoring overflow). Use arithmetic to convert these val- 
+ues to “random” values of other types of data. As suggested by D. E. Knuth, use the 
+values 3141592621 for a and 2718281829 for b, or check the booksite for other sug- 
+gestions. Provide a constructor allowing the client to start with an i nt value known 
+as a seed (the initial value of x). This ability makes it clear that the numbers are 
+not at all random (even though they may have many of the properties of random 
+numbers) but that fact can be used to aid in debugging, since clients can arrange to 
+see the same numbers each time. 
+
+
+
+
+454 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+
+3.3.22 Encapsulation. Is the following class immutable? 
+
+import java. util .Date; 
+public class Appointment 
+{ 
+
+private Date date; 
+private String contact; 
+
+public Appointment (Date date) 
+
+{ 
+
+// Code to check for a conflict, 
+this. date = date; 
+this. contact = contact; 
+
+} 
+
+public Date getDateO 
+{ return date; } 
+
+} 
+
+Answer. No. Java’s Date class is mutable. The method setDate(seconds) changes 
+the value of the invoking date to the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 
+00:00:00 GMT. This has the unfortunate consequence that when a client gets a 
+date with d = getDateO, the client program can then invoke d . setDateO and 
+change the date in an Appoi ntment object type, perhaps creating a conflict. In a 
+data type, we cannot let references to mutable objects escape because the caller can 
+then modify its state. One solution is to create a defensive copy of the Date before 
+returning it using new Date (date . getTi me()) ; and a defensive copy when stor- 
+ing it via thi s . date = new Date (date. getTi me ()). Many programmers regard 
+the mutability of Date as a Java design flaw. (Gregori anCal endar is a more mod- 
+ern Java library for storing dates, but it is mutable, too.) 
+
+3.3.23 Date. Develop an implementation of Java’s Date API that is immutable 
+and therefore corrects the defects of the previous exercise. 
+
+3.3.24 Calendar. Develop Appointment and Calendar APIs that can be used to 
+keep track of appointments (by day) in a calendar year. Your goal is to enable clients 
+to schedule appointments that do not conflict and to report current appointments 
+to clients. 
+
+
+
+
+3.3 Designing Data Types 
+
+
+455 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+3.3.25 Vector field. A vector field associates a vector with every point in a Euclid- 
+ean space. Write a version of Potenti al (Program 3.1.7) that takes as input a grid 
+size N, computes the Vector value of the potential due to the point charges at each 
+point in an N-by-N grid of equally spaced points, and draws the unit vector in the 
+direction of the accumulated field at each point. (Modify Charge to return a Vec- 
+tor.) 
+
+3.3.26 Genome profiling. Write a function hash 0 that takes as argument a fc-gram 
+(string of length k ) whose characters are all A, C, G, or T and returns an i nt value 
+between 0 and 4 k that corresponds to treating the string as base-4 numbers with 
+{A, C, G, T} replaced by {0, 1, 2, 3}, respectively, as suggested by the table in the text. 
+Next, write a function unhash () that reverses the transformation. Use your meth- 
+ods to create a class Genome that is like Document, but is based on exact counting of 
+fc-grams in genomes. Finally, write a version of CompareAl 1 for Genome objects and 
+use it to look for similarities among the set of genome files on the booksite. 
+
+3.3.27 Profiling. Pick an interesting set of documents from the booksite (or use 
+a collection of your own) and run CompareAl 1 with various values of the two pa- 
+rameters, to learn about their effect on the computation. 
+
+3.3.28 Multimedia search. Develop profiling strategies for sound and pictures, 
+and use them to discover interesting similarities among songs in the music library 
+and photos in the photo album on your computer. 
+
+3.3.29 Data mining. Write a recursive program that surfs the web, starting at a 
+page given as the first command-line argument, looking for pages that are similar 
+to the page given as the second command-line argument, as follows: to process a 
+name, open an input stream, do a readAl 1 (), profile it, and print the name if its 
+distance to the target page is greater than the threshold value given as the third com- 
+mand-line argument. Then scan the page for all strings that contain the substring 
+http:// and (recursively) process pages with those names. Note: This program 
+could read a very large number of pages! 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-body Simulation 
+
+
+Several of the examples that we considered in Chapters 1 and 2 are better expressed 
+as object-oriented programs. For example, Bounci ngBal 1 (Program 1.5.6) is natu- 
+rally implemented as a data type whose values are the position and the velocity 
+of the ball and a client that calls instance 
+
+
+3.4.1 Gravitational body .460 
+
+3.4.2 N-body simulation .463 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+methods to move and draw the ball. Such 
+a data type enables, for example, clients 
+that can simulate the motion of several 
+balls at once (see Exercise 3.4.1). Simi- 
+larly, our case study for Percolation in 
+
+Section 2.4 certainly makes an interesting exercise in object-oriented program- 
+ming, as does our random surfer case study in Section 1.6. We leave the former for 
+an exercise (see Exercise 3.4.2) and will revisit the latter in Section 4.5. In this sec- 
+tion, we consider a new example that exemplifies object-oriented programming. 
+
+Our task is to write a program that dynamically simulates the motion of N 
+bodies under the influence of mutual gravitational attraction. This problem was 
+first formulated by Newton over 350 years ago, and it is still studied intensely to- 
+day. 
+
+
+What is the set of values, and what are the operations on those values? One rea- 
+son that this problem is an amusing and compelling example of object-oriented 
+programming is that it presents a direct and natural correspondence between phys- 
+ical objects in the real world and the abstract objects that we use in programming. 
+The shift from solving problems by putting together sequences of statements to be 
+executed to beginning with data type design is a difficult one for many novices. As 
+you gain more experience, you will appreciate the value in this approach to com- 
+putational problem-solving. 
+
+We recall a few basic concepts and equations that you learned in high school 
+physics. Understanding those equations fully is not required to appreciate the 
+code — because of encapsulation, these equations are restricted to a few methods, 
+and because of data abstraction, most of the code is intuitive and will make sense to 
+you. In a sense, this is the ultimate object-oriented program. 
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+457 
+
+
+N-body simulationi The bouncing ball simulation of Section 1.5 is based on 
+Newton's first law of motion: a body in motion remains in motion at the same veloc- 
+ity unless acted on by an outside force. Embellishing that example to include New- 
+ton’s second law of motion (which explains how outside forces affect velocity) leads 
+us to a basic problem that has fascinated scientists for ages. Given a system of N 
+bodies, mutually affected by gravitational forces, the problem is to describe their 
+motion. The same basic model applies to problems ranging in scale from astro- 
+physics to molecular dynamics. 
+
+In 1687, Isaac Newton formulated the principles governing the motion of 
+two bodies under the influence of their mutual gravitational attraction, in his fa- 
+mous Principia. However, Newton was unable to develop a mathematical descrip- 
+tion of the motion of three bodies. It has since been shown that not only is there no 
+such description in terms of elementary functions, but also that chaotic behavior 
+is possible, depending on initial values. To study such problems, scientists have 
+no recourse but to develop an accurate simulation. In this section, we develop an 
+object-oriented program that implements such a simulation. Scientists are inter- 
+ested in studying such problems at a high degree of accuracy for huge numbers of 
+bodies, so our solution is only an introduction to the subject, but you are likely to 
+be surprised at the ease with which we can develop realistic images depicting the 
+complexity of the motion. 
+
+
+Body data type. In BouncingBall (Program 1.5.6), we keep the displacement 
+from the origin in the double values rx and ry and the velocity in the double 
+values vx and vy, and displace the ball the amount it moves in one time unit with 
+the statements: 
+
+
+rx = rx + vx; 
+ry = ry + vy; 
+
+With Vector (Program 3.3.3), we can keep the position in 
+the Vector value r and the velocity in the Vector value v, 
+and then displace the body the amount it moves in dt time 
+units with a single statement: 
+
+r = r.plus(v. times(dt)) ; 
+
+In N-body simulation, we have several operations of this 
+kind, so our first design decision is to work with Vector val- 
+ues instead of individual component values. This decision 
+
+
+
+Adding vectors to move a ball 
+
+
+
+458 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+leads to code that is dearer, more compact, and more flexible than the alternative of 
+working with individual components. Body (Program 3.4.1) is a Java class that uses 
+Vector to implement a data type for moving bodies. The values of the data type 
+are Vector values that carry the body’s position and velocity, as well as a double 
+value that carries the mass. The data-type operations allow clients to move and to 
+draw the body (and to compute the force vector due to gravitational attraction of 
+another body), as defined by the following API: 
+
+public class Body 
+
+BodyCVector r, Vector v, double mass) 
+void move (Vector f, double dt) apply force f, move body for dt seconds 
+void draw() draw the ball 
+
+Vector forceFrom(Body b) force vector between this body and b 
+
+API for bodies moving under Newton’s laws ( see Program 3.4.1) 
+
+Technically, the body’s position (displacement from the origin) is not a vector (it is 
+a point in space, not a direction and a magnitude), but it is convenient to represent 
+it as a Vector because Vector’s operations lead to compact code for the transfor- 
+mation that we need to move the body, as just discussed. When we move a Body, we 
+need to change not just its position, but also its velocity. 
+
+Force and motion. Newton’s second law of motion says that the force on a body (a 
+vector) is equal to the scalar product of its mass and its acceleration (also a vector): 
+f = ma. In other words, to compute the acceleration of a body, we compute the 
+
+
+time t time t+1 
+
+
+
+Motion near a stationary body 
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+459 
+
+
+force, then divide by its mass. In Body, the force is a Vector argument f to moveO, 
+so that we can first compute the acceleration vector just by dividing by the mass (a 
+scalar value that is kept as a doubl e value in an instance variable) and then com- 
+pute the change in velocity by adding to it the amount this vector changes over the 
+time interval (in the same way as we used the velocity to change the position). This 
+law immediately translates to the following code for updating the position and ve- 
+locity of a body due to a given force vector f and amount of time dt: 
+
+Vector a = f .times (1/mass) ; 
+v = v.plus(a.times(dt)) ; 
+r = r.plus(v.times(dt)) ; 
+
+This code appears in the moveO instance method in Body, to adjust its values to 
+reflect the consequences of that force being applied for that amount of time: the 
+body moves and its velocity changes. This calculation assumes that the acceleration 
+is constant during the time interval. 
+
+Forces among bodies. The computation of the force im- 
+posed by one body on another is encapsulated in the instance 
+method forceFromO in Body, which takes a Body object as 
+argument and returns a Vector. Newton’s law of universal 
+gravitation is the basis for the calculation: it says that the mag- 
+nitude of the gravitational force between two bodies is given 
+by the product of their masses divided by the square of the 
+distance between them (scaled by the gravitational constant 
+G, which is 6.67 x 10' 11 N m 2 / kg 2 ) and that the direction of 
+the force is the line between the two particles. This law trans- 
+lates to the following code for computing a. forceFrom(b): 
+
+double C = 6.67e-ll; 
+
+Vector delta = a. r.minus(b. r) ; 
+double dist = delta.magnitudeO ; 
+double F = (G * a. mass * b.mass) / (dist * dist); 
+return delta. di recti on () .times (F) ; 
+
+The magnitude of the force vector is the doubl e value F, and the direction of the 
+force vector is the same as the direction of the difference vector between the two 
+body’s positions. The force vector is the product of magnitude and direction. 
+
+
+
+Force from one body to another 
+
+
+460 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+
+
+public class Body 
+
+{ 
+
+private Vector r; 
+private Vector v; 
+private final double mass; 
+
+public Body (Vector rO, Vector vO, double mO) 
+{ r = rO; v = vO; mass = mO; } 
+
+public void move (Vector f, double dt) 
+
+{ // Update position and velocity. 
+
+Vector a = f. times (1/mass) ; 
+v = v.plus(a.times(dt)) ; 
+r = r . pi us (v . ti mes (dt) ) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public Vector forceFrom(Body b) 
+
+{ // Compute force on this body from b. 
+
+Body a = this; 
+double G = 6.67e-ll; 
+
+Vector delta = a.r.minus(b.r); 
+double dist = delta. magnitudeO ; 
+double F = (G * a. mass * b.mass) 
+
+/ (dist * dist); 
+
+return delta.di recti on () .times (F) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+r 
+
+position | 
+
+V 
+
+velocity 1 
+
+mass 
+
+mass |1 
+
+
+a 
+
+b 
+
+G 
+
+delta 
+
+dist 
+
+F 
+
+
+force on this body 
+time increment 
+acceleration 
+
+this body 
+another body 
+gravitational constant 
+vector from b to a 
+distance from b to a 
+magnitude of force 
+
+
+public void draw() 
+
+{ 
+
+StdDraw.setPenRadius(0.025) ; 
+StdDraw.point(r.cartesian(0) , r.cartesian(l)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This data type provides the operations that we need to simulate the motion of physical bodies 
+such as planets or atomic particles. It is a mutable type whose instance variables are the posi- 
+tion and velocity of the body, which change in the move () method in response to external forces 
+(the body’s mass is not mutable). The force From Q method returns a force vector. 
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+461 
+
+
+Universe data type. Uni verse (Program 3.4.2) is a data type that implements the 
+following API: 
+
+public class Universe 
+Uni verse () 
+
+void increaseTime (double dt) simulate the passing of dt seconds 
+void draw() draw the universe 
+
+API for a universe ( see Program 3.4.2) 
+
+
+Its data-type values define a universe (its size, number of bodies, and an array of 
+bodies) and two data-type operations: increaseTimeO, which adjusts the posi- 
+tions (and velocities) of all of the bodies, and d r aw () , which draws all of the bodies. 
+The key to the N-body simulation is the implementation of increaseTimeO in 
+Universe. The first part of the computation is a double loop that computes the 
+force vector that describes the gravitational force of each body on each other body. 
+It applies the principle of superposition, which says 
+that we can add together the force vectors affecting a 
+body to get a single vector representing all the forces. 
+
+After it has computed all of the forces, it calls the 
+move() operation for each body to apply the com- 
+puted force for a fixed time quantum. 
+
+
+% more 2body.txt 
+2 
+
+5.0el0 
+
+O.OeOO 4. 5el0 1.0e04 O.OeOO 1.5e30 
+O.OeOO -4. 5el0 -1.0e04 O.OeOO 1.5e30 
+
+
+File format. As usual, we use a data-driven design 
+with input taken from standard input. The construc- 
+tor reads the universe parameters and body descrip- 
+tions from a file that contains the following informa- 
+tion: 
+
+• The number of bodies 
+
+• The radius of the universe 
+
+• The position, velocity, and mass of each body 
+As usual, for consistency, all measurements are in 
+standard SI units (recall also that the gravitational 
+constant G appears in our code). With this defined 
+file format, the code for our Uni verse constructor is 
+straightforward. 
+
+
+% more 3body.txt 
+3 
+
+1.25ell 
+
+O.OeOO O.OeOO 0.05e04 O.OeOO 5.97e24 
+O.OeOO 4. 5el0 3.0e04 O.OeOO 1.989e30 
+O.OeOO -4. 5el0 -3.0e04 O.OeOO 1.989e30 
+
+
+% more 4body.txt 
+
+1 £ H ^ velocity 
+
+| 5 . OelO~| - — radius 
+-3. 5el0 O.OeOO O.OeOO 
+
+
+1.4e03 3.0e28 
+
+
+-l.OelO 0 . OeOO [MeOO 1 . 4e04 1 3 . 0e28 
+l.OelO O.OeOO O.OeOO -1.4e04 3.0e28 
+
+
+3.5elO O.OeOO O.OeOO -1.4e03 3.0e28 
+
+
+f 
+
+position 
+
+
+Universe file format examples 
+
+
+
+462 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+public UniverseO 
+
+{ 
+
+N = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+radius = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+
+StdDraw.setXscale(- radius, +radius) ; 
+
+StdDraw.setYscale(- radius, +radius) ; 
+
+orbs = new Body[N]; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+double rx = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double ry = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+doublet] position = { rx, ry }; 
+double vx = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+double vy = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+doublet] velocity = { vx, vy }; 
+double mass = Stdln. readDoubleO ; 
+
+Vector r = new Vector(position) ; 
+
+Vector v = new Vector (vel oci ty) ; 
+orbsti] = new Body(r, v, mass); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+Each Body is described by five doubl e values: the x and y coordinates of its position, 
+the x and y components of its initial velocity, and its mass. 
+
+To summarize, we have in the test client mai n () in Uni verse a data-driven program 
+that simulates the motion of N bodies mutually attracted by gravity. The construc- 
+tor creates an array of N Body objects, reading each body’s initial position, initial 
+velocity, and mass from standard input. The increaseTimeO method calculates 
+the mutual force on the bodies and uses that information to update the accelera- 
+tion, velocity, and position of each body after a time quantum dt. The mai n() test 
+client invokes the constructor, then stays in a loop calling increaseTimeO and 
+draw() to simulate motion. 
+
+You will find on the booksite a variety of files that define “universes” of all 
+sorts, and you are encouraged to run Universe and observe their motion. When 
+you view the motion for even a small number of bodies, you will understand why 
+Newton had trouble deriving the equations that define their paths. The images on 
+the chapter openings for Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of this book show the result of run- 
+ning Uni verse for the 2-body, 3-body, and 4-body examples in the data files shown 
+here. The 2-body example is a mutually orbiting pair, the 3-body example is a cha- 
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+463 
+
+
+Program 3.4.2 N-body simulation 
+
+
+public class Universe 
+
+{ 
+
+private final double radius; 
+private final int N; 
+private final Body[j orbs; 
+
+public UniverseO 
+
+{ /* See text. */ } 
+
+
+radi us radius of universe 
+
+N number of bodies 
+
+orbs[] array of bodies 
+
+
+public void increaseTime(double dt) 
+
+{ 
+
+Vector[] f = new Vector[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+f[i] = new Vector(new double[2]); 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) 
+if (i != j) 
+
+f[i] = f [i] .plus(orbs[i] .forceFrom(orbs[j])) ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+Orbs[i].mOVe(f[i], dt); % java Universe 
+
+> 
+
+J OO/l 
+
+
+java Universe 20000 < 3body.txt |§ 
+
+
+880 steps 
+
+
+public void draw() 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+orbs[i] .draw() ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+Universe newton = new UniverseO; 
+double dt = Double. parseDouble (args [0]) ; 
+while (true) 
+
+{ 
+
+StdDraw.clearO ; 
+newton. increaseTi me (dt) ; 
+newton. draw() ; 
+
+StdDraw. show(10) ; 
+
+
+
+This data-driven program simulates motion in the universe defined by the standard input 
+stream, increasing time at the rate specified on the command line. 
+
+
+
+464 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+otic situation with a moon jumping between two orbiting planets, and the 4-body 
+example is a relatively simple situation where two pairs of mutually orbiting bodies 
+are slowly rotating. The static images on these pages are made by modifying Uni - 
+verse and Body to draw the bodies in white, and then black on a gray background, 
+as in Bounci ngBal 1 (Program 1.5.6): the dynamic images that you get when you 
+run Uni verse as it stands give a realistic feeling of the bodies orbiting one another, 
+which is difficult to discern in the fixed pictures. When you run Universe on an 
+example with a large number of bodies, you 
+can appreciate why simulation is such an 
+important tool for scientists trying to un- 
+derstand a complex problem. The N-body 
+simulation model is remarkably versatile, as 
+you will see if you experiment with some of 
+these files. 
+
+You will certainly be tempted to design 
+your own universe (see Exercise 3.4.7). The 
+biggest challenge in creating a data file is ap- 
+propriately scaling the numbers so that the 
+radius of the universe, time scale, and the 
+mass and velocity of the bodies lead to in- 
+teresting behavior. You can study the motion of planets rotating around a sun or 
+subatomic particles interacting with one another, but you will have no luck study- 
+ing the interaction of a planet with a subatomic particle. When you work with your 
+own data, you are likely to have some bodies that will fly off to infinity and some 
+others that will be sucked into others, but enjoy! 
+
+Our purpose in presenting this example is to illustrate the utility of data types, 
+not present simulation code for production use. There are many issues that scien- 
+tists have to deal with when using this approach to study natural phenomena. The 
+first is accuracy : it is common for inaccuracies in the calculations to accumulate to 
+present dramatic effects in the simulation that would not be observed in nature. 
+For example, our code takes no special action when bodies collide. The second is 
+efficiency: the move() method in Universe takes time proportional to N 2 and is 
+therefore not usable for huge numbers of bodies. As with genomics, addressing 
+scientific problems related to the N-body problem now involves not just knowledge 
+of the original problem domain, but also understanding core issues that computer 
+scientists have been studying since the early days of computation. 
+
+
+planetary scale 
+
+% more 2body.txt 
+2 
+
+5 .OelO 
+
+O.OeOO 4. 5el0 1.0e04 O.OeOO 1.5e30 
+O.OeOO -4. 5el0 -1.0e04 O.OeOO 1.5e30 
+
+subatomic scale 
+
+% more 2bodyTiny.txt 
+2 
+
+5 .0e-10 
+
+O.OeOO 4. 5e-10 1.0e-16 O.OeOO 1.5e-30 
+O.OeOO -4. 5e-10 -1.0e-16 O.OeOO 1.5e-30 
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+465 
+
+
+For simplicity, we are working with a two-dimension- 
+al universe, which is realistic only when we are considering 
+bodies in motion on a plane. But an important implication 
+of basing the implementation of Body on Vector is that a 
+client could use three-dimensional vectors to simulate the 
+motion of moving balls in three dimensions (actually, any 
+number of dimensions) without changing the code at all! 
+The draw() method projects the position onto the plane 
+defined by the first two dimensions. 
+
+The test client in Uni verse is just one possibility: we 
+can use the same basic model in all sorts of other situations 
+(for example, involving different kinds of interactions 
+among the bodies). One such possibility is to observe and 
+measure the current motion of some existing bodies and 
+then run the simulation backwards! That is one method 
+that astrophysicists use to try to understand the origins of 
+the universe. In science, we try to understand the past and 
+to predict the future; with a good simulation, we can do 
+both. 
+
+
+% java Universe 25000 < 4body.txt 
+100 steps 
+
+
+
+Simulating a 4-body universe 
+
+
+
+
+466 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+Q. The Universe API is certainly small. Why not just implement that code in a 
+mai n () test client for Body? 
+
+A. Well, our design is an expression of what most people believe about the uni- 
+verse: it was created, and then time moves on. It clarifies the code and allows for 
+maximum flexibility in simulating what goes on in the universe. 
+
+Q. Why is forceFromO an instance method? Wouldn’t it be better for it to be a 
+static method that takes two Body objects as arguments? 
+
+A. Yes, implementing forceFromO as an instance method is one of several pos- 
+sible alternatives, and having a static method that takes two Body objects as argu- 
+ments is certainly a reasonable choice. Some programmers prefer to completely 
+avoid static methods in data-type implementations; another option is to maintain 
+the force acting on each Body as an instance variable. Our choice is a compromise 
+between these two. 
+
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+467 
+
+
+
+3 . 4.1 Write an object-oriented version of BouncingBall (Program 1.5.6). In- 
+clude a constructor that starts each ball moving a random direction at a random 
+velocity (within reasonable limits) and a test client that takes an integer N from the 
+command line and simulates the motion of N bouncing balls. 
+
+3 . 4.2 Write an object-oriented version of Percol ati on (Program 2.4.5). Think 
+carefully about the design before you begin, and be prepared to defend your design 
+decisions. 
+
+3 . 4.3 What happens in a universe where Newton’s second law does not apply? 
+This situation would correspond to forceToO in Body always returning the zero 
+vector. 
+
+
+3 . 4.4 Create a data type Uni ve r se3D to model three-dimensional universes. De- 
+velop a data file to simulate the motion of the planets in our solar system around 
+the sun. 
+
+
+3 . 4.5 Modify Universe so that its constructor takes an In object and a Draw 
+object as arguments. Write a test client that simulates the motion of two different 
+universes (defined by two different files and appearing in two different Draw win- 
+dows). You also need to modify the draw() method in Body. 
+
+3 . 4.6 Implement a class RandomBody that initializes its instance variables with 
+(carefully chosen) random values instead of using a constructor and a client Ran- 
+domUni verse that takes a single argument N from the command line and simulates 
+motion in a random universe with N bodies. 
+
+
+
+468 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+
+3.4.7 New universe. Design a new universe with interesting properties and simu- 
+late its motion with Universe. This exercise is truly an opportunity to be creative! 
+
+
+
+3.4 Case Study: N-Body Simulation 
+
+
+469 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 472 
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 510 
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 550 
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 608 
+
+4.5 Case Study: Small World 650 
+
+
+I n this chapter, we discuss the fundamental data types that are essential building 
+blocks for a broad variety of applications. This chapter is a guide to using them, 
+whether you choose to use Java library implementations or choose to develop your 
+own variations based on the code given here. 
+
+Objects can contain references to other objects, so we can build structures 
+known as linked structures, which can be arbitrarily complex. With linked struc- 
+tures and arrays, we can build data structures to organize information in such a 
+way that we can efficiently process it with associated algorithms. In a data type, we 
+use the set of values to build data structures and the methods that operate on those 
+values to implement algorithms. 
+
+The algorithms and data structures that we consider in this chapter introduce 
+a body of knowledge developed over the past 50 years that constitutes the basis for 
+the efficient use of computers for a broad variety of applications. From N-body 
+simulation problems in physics to genetic sequencing problems in bioinformatics, 
+the basic methods we describe have become essential in scientific research; from 
+database systems to search engines, these methods are the foundation of commer- 
+cial computing. As the scope of computing applications continues to expand, so 
+grows the impact of these basic methods. 
+
+Algorithms and data structures themselves are valid subjects of scientific 
+study. Accordingly, we begin by describing a scientific approach for analyzing the 
+performance of algorithms, which we use throughout the chapter to study the per- 
+formance characteristics of our implementations. 
+
+
+471 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+In this section, you will learn to respect a principle that is succinctly expressed in 
+yet another mantra that should live with you whenever you program: Pay attention 
+to the cost. If you become an engineer, that 
+
+will be your job; if you become a biologist 4 U 3 . sum problem 475 
+
+or a. physicist, the cost will dictate which 4.1.2 Validating a doubling hypothesis. .477 
+
+scientific problems you can address; if Programs in this section 
+
+you are in business or become an econo- 
+mist, this principle needs no defense; and 
+
+if you become a software developer, the cost will dictate whether the software that 
+you build will be useful to any of your clients. 
+
+To study the cost of running them, we study our programs themselves via the 
+scientific method, the commonly accepted body of techniques universally used by 
+scientists to develop knowledge about the natural world. We also apply mathemati- 
+cal analysis to derive concise models of the cost. 
+
+What features of the natural world are we studying? In most situations, we are 
+interested in one fundamental characteristic: time. On each occasion that we run 
+a program, we are performing an experiment involving the natural world, putting 
+a complex system of electronic circuitry through series of state changes involving 
+a huge number of discrete events that we are confident will eventually stabilize 
+to a state with results that we want to interpret. Although developed in the ab- 
+stract world of Java programming, these events most definitely are happening in 
+the natural world. What will be the elapsed time until we see the result? It makes 
+a great deal of difference to us whether that time is a millisecond, a second, a day, 
+or a week, and therefore we want to learn, through the scientific method, how to 
+properly control the situation, just as when we launch a rocket, build a bridge, or 
+smash an atom. 
+
+On the one hand, modern programs and programming environments are 
+complex; on the other hand, they are developed from a simple (but powerful) set 
+of abstractions. It is a small miracle that a program produces the same result each 
+time we run it. To predict the time required, we take advantage of the relative sim- 
+plicity of the supporting infrastructure that we use to build programs. You may be 
+surprised at the ease with which you can develop cost estimates for many of the 
+programs that you write. 
+
+
+4. 1 Performance 
+
+
+473 
+
+
+Scientific method The following five-step approach briefly summarizes the scien- 
+tific method. 
+
+• Observe some feature of the natural world. 
+
+• Hypothesize a model that is consistent with the observations. 
+
+• Predict events using the hypothesis. 
+
+• Verify the predictions by making further observations. 
+
+• Validate by repeating until the hypothesis and observations agree. 
+
+One of the key tenets of the scientific method is that the experiments we design 
+must be reproducible, so that others can convince themselves of the validity of the 
+hypothesis. In addition, the hypotheses we formulate must be falsifiable, so that we 
+can know for sure when a hypothesis is wrong (and thus needs revision). 
+
+
+java ThreeSum < lKints.txt 
+
+
+
+tick tick tick 
+
+
+java ThreeSum < 2Kints.txt 
+
+
+Observations Our first challenge is to make quantitative measurements of the 
+running time of our programs. Although measuring the exact running time of our 
+program is difficult, usually we are happy with approximate estimates. There are a 
+number of tools available to help us obtain such ap- 
+proximations. Perhaps the simplest is a physical stop- 
+watch or the Stopwatch (see Program 3.2.2) data type. 
+
+We can simply run a program on various inputs, mea- 
+suring the amount of time to process each input. 
+
+Our first qualitative observation about most pro- 
+grams is that there is a problem size that characterizes 
+the difficulty of the computational task. Normally, the 
+problem size is either the size of the input or the value 
+of a command-line argument. Intuitively, the running 
+time should increase with the problem size, but the 
+question of how much it increases naturally arises ev- 
+ery time we develop and run a program. 
+
+Another qualitative observation for many pro- 
+grams is that the running time is relatively insensitive 
+to the input itself; it depends primarily on the problem 
+
+size. If this relationship does not hold, we need to run more experiments to better 
+understand, and perhaps better control, the running time’s sensitivity to the input. 
+Since this relationship does often hold, we focus now on the goal of better quantify- 
+ing the correspondence between problem size and running time. 
+
+
+
+
+tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+
+
+391930676 -763182495 371251819 
+-326747290 802431422 -475684132 
+
+Observing the running time of a program 
+
+
+
+474 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+As a concrete example, we start with Th r eeSum (Program 4.1.1), which counts 
+the number of triples in a set of N numbers that sum to 0. This computation may 
+seem contrived to you, but it is deeply related to numerous fundamental computa- 
+tional tasks, particularly those found in computational geometry, so it is a problem 
+worthy of careful study. What is the relationship between the problem size N and 
+running time for Th reeSum? 
+
+Hypotheses In the early days of computer science, Donald Knuth showed that, 
+despite all of the complicating factors in understanding the running times of our 
+programs, it is possible in principle to create accurate models that can help us pre- 
+dict precisely how long a particular program will take. Proper analysis of this sort 
+involves: 
+
+• detailed understanding of the program 
+
+• detailed understanding of the system and the computer 
+
+• advanced tools of mathematical analysis 
+
+and so is best left for experts. But every programmer needs to know back-of-the- 
+envelope performance estimates. Fortunately, we can often acquire such knowledge 
+by using a combination of empirical observations and a small set of mathematical 
+tools. 
+
+Doubling hypotheses. For a great many programs, we can quickly formulate a 
+hypothesis for the following question: What is the effect on the running time of dou- 
+bling the size of the input? For clarity, we refer to this hypothesis as a doubling hy- 
+pothesis. Perhaps the easiest way to pay attention to the cost is to ask yourself this 
+question about your programs during development and also as you use them in 
+practical applications. Next, we describe how to develop answers via the scientific 
+method. 
+
+Empirical analysis. One simple way to develop a doubling hypothesis is to double 
+the size of the input and observe the effect on the running time. For example, Dou- 
+blingTest (Program 4.1.2) generates a sequence of random input arrays for 
+Th reeSum, doubling the array size at each step, and prints the ratio of running 
+times of ThreeSum.countO for each input over the previous (which was one-half 
+the size). If you run this program, you will find yourself caught in a prediction- 
+verification cycle: It prints several lines very quickly, but then begins to slow down. 
+Each time it prints a line, you find yourself wondering how long it will be until it 
+
+
+
+4. 1 Performance 
+
+
+475 
+
+
+
+number of inputs 
+integer inputs 
+number of triples 
+that sum to 0 
+
+*? " "t lj » W\ 'i" .apt - 
+
+
+cnt 
+
+
+public class ThreeSum 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void printAll (int[] a) 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 4.1.1. */ } 
+
+public static int count (int[] a) 
+
+{ // Count triples that sum to 0. 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+int cnt = 0; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+for (int j = i+1; j < N; j++) 
+for (int k = j+1; k < N; k++) 
+if (a[i ] + a[j] + a[k] == 0) 
+cnt++ ; 
+
+return cnt; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Count triples that sum to 0 in input. 
+
+int[] a = StdArraylO. readlntlDO ; 
+int cnt = count (a); 
+
+StdOut.println(cnt) ; 
+if (cnt < 10) printAll (a); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+The count O method counts the triples of integers in a [] whose sum is 0. The test client in- 
+vokes count O for the integers on standard input and prints the triples if the count is low. The 
+file IKi nts . txt contains 1,024 random values from the int data type. Such a file is not likely 
+to have such a triple (see Exercise 4. 1.28). 
+
+
+
+
+% java ThreeSum < lKints.txt 
+0 
+
+mmmmsmmmmsmsmtmmmmmmt 
+
+
+
+476 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+prints the next line. Checking the stopwatch as the program runs, it is easy to pre- 
+dict that the elapsed time increases by about a factor 
+
+
+
+Standard plot 
+
+
+of eight to print each line. This prediction is verified 
+by the Stopwatch measurements that the program 
+prints, and leads immediately to the hypothesis that 
+the running time increases by a factor of eight when 
+the input size doubles. We might also plot the running 
+times, either on a standard plot (left), which clearly 
+shows that the rate of increase of the running time 
+increases with input size, or on a log-log plot. In the 
+case of ThreeSum, the log-log plot (below) is a straight 
+line with slope 3, which clearly suggests the hypothesis 
+that the running time satisfies a power law of the form 
+
+
+cN 3 (see Exercise 4.1.30). 
+
+
+Mathematical analysis. Knuth’s basic insight on building a mathematical model 
+to describe the running time of a program is simple: the total running time is de- 
+termined by two primary factors: 
+
+• The cost of executing each statement 
+
+• The frequency of execution of each statement \ 
+
+
+The former is a property of the system, and the latter is a 
+property of the algorithm. If we know both for all instruc- 
+tions in the program, we can multiply them together and sum 
+for all instructions in the program to get the running time. 
+
+The primary challenge is to determine the frequency of 
+execution of the statements. Some statements are easy to ana- 
+lyze: for example, the statement that sets cnt to 0 in Three- 
+Sum, count () is executed only once. Others require higher- 
+level reasoning: for example, the i f statement in Th reeSum . 
+countO is executed precisely N(N—l)(N—2)/6 times (that 
+is precisely the number of ways to pick three different num- 
+bers from the input array — see Exercise 4.1.4). 
+
+Frequency analyses of this sort can lead to complicated 
+and lengthy mathematical expressions. To substantially sim- 
+plify matters in the mathematical analysis, we develop sim- 
+
+
+
+pler approximate expressions in two ways. First, we work with Log-log plot 
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+477 
+
+
+
+public class DoublingTest 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double timeTrial (int N) 
+
+{ // Compute time to solve a random instance 
+
+int[] a = new int[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+a[i] = StdRandom.uniform(2000000) - 1000000; 
+Stopwatch s = new Stopwatch (); 
+int cnt = ThreeSum.count(a) ; 
+return s.elapsedTimeO ; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print table of doubling ratios, 
+
+double prev = timeTrial (256) ; 
+for (int N = 512; true; N += N) 
+
+{ // Print doubling ratio for problem size N. 
+
+double curr = timeTrial (N) ; 
+
+Std0ut.printf("%7d %4.2f\n", N, curr / prev); 
+prev = curr; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+N 
+
+problem size 
+
+a[] 
+
+random integers 
+
+s 
+
+stopwatch 
+
+curr 
+
+time for current size 
+
+prev 
+
+time for previous size 
+
+
+This program prints a table showing how doubling the problem size affects the running time 
+of Th reeSum . count () for problem sizes starting at 256 and doubling for each row of the table. 
+These experiments lead immediately to the hypothesis that the running time increases by a 
+factor of eight when the input size doubles. When you run the program, note carefully that the 
+elapsed time between lines printed increases by a factor of eight for each line, at once verifying 
+the hypothesis. 
+
+
+
+% java DoublingTest 
+512 6.48 
+1024 8.30 
+2048 7.75 
+4096 8.00 
+8192 8.05 
+
+
+H 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+478 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+public class ThreeSum 
+{ 
+
+public static int count (int[] a) 
+
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int[] a = StdArraylO. readlntlDO ; 
+int cnt = count (a); 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (cnt) ; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+Anatomy of a program's statement execution frequencies 
+
+
+the leading term of mathematical ex- 
+pressions by using a mathematical 
+device known as the tilde notation. 
+We write ~/(N) to represent any 
+quantity that, when divided by /(IV), 
+approaches 1 as N grows. We also 
+write g(N)~f(N) to indicate that 
+g(N) / f(N) approaches 1 as N grows. 
+With this notation, we can ignore 
+complicated parts of an expression 
+that represent small values. For ex- 
+ample, the i f statement in ThreeSum 
+is executed ~N 3 /6 times because 
+N(N-l)(N-2)/6 = N 3 /6 - N 2 I2 + 
+Nl 3, which certainly, when divided by 
+N 3 / 6 , approaches 1 as N grows. This 
+notation is useful when the terms af- 
+
+
+ter the leading term are relatively in- 
+significant (for example, when N = 1000, this assumption amounts to saying that 
+—N 2 / 2 + Nl 3 ~ —499,667 is relatively insignificant by comparison with N 3 1 6 
+166,666,667, which it is). Second, we focus on the instructions that are executed 
+most frequently, sometimes referred to as the inner loop of the program. In this 
+program it is reasonable to assume that the time devoted to the instructions outside 
+the inner loop is relatively insignificant. 
+
+The key point in analyzing the running time of a program is this: for a great 
+many programs, the running time satisfies the relationship 
+T(N) ~ cfN) 
+
+where c is a constant and f(N) a function known 
+as the order of growth of the running time. For 
+typical programs, /(N) is a function such as log N, 
+
+N, N log N, N 2 , or N 3 , as you will soon see (cus- 
+tomarily, we express order-of-growth functions 
+without any constant coefficient). When f(N) is 
+a power of N, as is often the case, this assump- 
+tion is equivalent to saying that the running time l.ooo 
+
+satisfies a power law. In the case of Th reeSum, it is Leading-term approximation 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+479 
+
+
+a hypothesis already verified by our empirical observations: the order of growth of 
+the running time o/ThreeSum is N 3 . The value of the constant c depends both on 
+the cost of executing instructions and on details of the frequency analysis, but we 
+normally do not need to work out the value, as you will now see. 
+
+The order of growth is a simple but powerful model of running time. For 
+example, knowing the order of growth typically leads immediately to a doubling 
+hypothesis. In the case of Th reeSum, knowing that the order of growth is N 3 tells us 
+to expect the running time to increase by a factor of eight when we double the size 
+of the problem because 
+
+T(2N)/T(N) c(2N) 3 /(cN 6 3 * ) = 8 
+
+
+This matches the value resulting from the empirical analysis, thus validating both 
+the model and the experiments. Study this example carefully, because you can use the 
+same method to better understand the performance of any program that you write. 
+
+Knuth showed that it is possible to develop an accurate mathematical model 
+of the running time of any program, and many experts have devoted much effort to 
+developing such models. But you do not need such a detailed model to understand 
+the performance of your programs: it is typically safe to ignore the cost of the in- 
+structions outside the inner loop (because that cost is negligible by comparison to 
+the cost of the instruction in the inner loop) and not necessary to know the value 
+of the constant in the running-time approximation (because it cancels out when 
+you use a doubling hypothesis). 
+
+
+number of time per instruction 
+instructions in seconds 
+
+
+frequency 
+
+
+total time 
+
+
+6 2 x 10- 9 N 3 /6 - N 2 1 2 + Nl 3 (2N 3 -6N 2 + 4N)x lO" 9 
+
+4 3X10- 9 NV2-NI2 (6 N 2 + 6 N) x 10" 9 
+
+4 3x10-9 N (12 N) x lO -9 
+
+10 lx lO" 9 1 10 x lO" 9 
+
+
+grand total: (2 N 3 + 22 N + 10) X 10 ~ 9 
+tilde notation (2 N 3 ) X 10 “ 9 
+
+order of growth N 3 
+
+
+Analyzing the running time of a program (example) 
+
+
+
+480 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+These approximations are significant because they relate the abstract world of 
+a Java program to the real world of a computer running it. The approximations are 
+such that characteristics of the particular machine that you are using do not play a 
+significant role in the models — we separate the algorithm from the system. The or- 
+der of growth of the running time of ThreeSum is N 3 does not depend on whether 
+it is implemented in Java, or whether it is running on your laptop, someone else’s 
+cellphone, or a supercomputer; it depends primarily on the fact that it examines 
+all the triples. The properties of the computer and the system are all summarized 
+in various assumptions about the relationship between program statements and 
+machine instructions, and in the actual running times that we observe as the basis 
+for the doubling hypothesis. The algorithm that you are using determines the order 
+of growth. This separation is a powerful concept because it allows us to develop 
+knowledge about the performance of algorithms and then apply that knowledge to 
+any computer. In fact, much of the knowledge about the performance of classic al- 
+gorithms was developed decades ago, but that knowledge is still relevant to today’s 
+computers. 
+
+Empirical and mathematical analyses like those we have described constitute a mod- 
+el (an explanation of what is going on) that might be formalized by listing all of 
+the assumptions mentioned (each instruction takes the same amount of time each 
+time it is executed, running time has the given form, and so forth). Not many pro- 
+grams are worthy of a detailed model, but you need to have an idea of the running 
+time that you might expect for every program that you write. Pay attention to the 
+cost. Formulating a doubling hypothesis — through empirical studies, mathemati- 
+cal analysis, or (preferably) both — is a good way to start. This information about 
+performance is extremely useful, and you will soon find yourself formulating and 
+validating hypotheses every time you run a program. Indeed, doing so is a good use 
+of your time while you wait for your program to finish! 
+
+Order of growth classifications We use just a few structural primitives (state- 
+ments, conditionals, loops, and method calls) to build Java programs, so very often 
+the order of growth of our programs is one of just a few functions of the problem 
+size, summarized in the table on the next page. These functions immediately lead to 
+a doubling hypothesis, which we can verify by running the programs. Indeed, you 
+have been running programs that exhibit these orders of growth, as you can see in 
+the following brief discussions. 
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+481 
+
+
+Constant. A program whose running time’s order of growth is constant executes a 
+fixed number of statements to finish its job; consequently its running time does not 
+depend on the problem size. Our first several programs in Chapter 1 — such as Hel - 
+loWorld (Program 1.1.1) and LeapYear (Program 1.2.4) — fall into this classifica- 
+tion. They each execute several statements just once. All of Java’s operations on 
+primitive types take constant time, as do Java’s Math library functions. Note that we 
+do not specify the size of the constant. For example, the constant for Math . tan () is 
+somewhat larger than for Math . abs () . 
+
+Logarithmic. A program whose running time’s 
+order of growth is logarithmic is barely slower than 
+a constant-time program. The classic example of a 
+program whose running time is logarithmic in the 
+problem size is looking up an entry in an ordered 
+table, which we consider in the next section (see 
+BinarySearch, in Program 4.2.3). The base of the 
+logarithm is not relevant with respect to the order of 
+growth (since all logarithms with a constant base are 
+related by a constant factor), so we use log N when 
+referring to order of growth. Occasionally, we write 
+more precise formulas using lg N (base 2, or binary 
+log) or In N (base e, or natural log) because they both 
+arise naturally when studying computer programs. 
+
+For example, lg N, rounded up, is the number of bits 
+in the binary representation of N, and In N arises in 
+the analysis of binary search trees (see Section 4.4). 
+
+Linear. Programs that spend a constant amount of time processing each piece 
+of input data, or that are based on a single for loop, are quite common. The or- 
+der of growth of such a program is said to be linear — its running time is directly 
+proportional to the problem size. Average (Program 1.5.3), which computes the 
+average of the numbers on standard input, is prototypical, as is our code to shuffle 
+the entries in an array in Section 1.4. Filters such as PlotFilter (Program 1.5.5) 
+also fall into this classification, as do the various image-processing filters that we 
+considered in Section 3.2, which perform a constant number of arithmetic opera- 
+tions per input pixel. 
+
+
+order of growth 
+
+description function 
+
+factor for 
+doubling 
+hypothesis 
+
+constant 
+
+i 
+
+1 
+
+logarithmic 
+
+logN 
+
+1 
+
+linear 
+
+N 
+
+2 
+
+linearithmic 
+
+NlogN 
+
+2 
+
+quadratic 
+
+N 2 
+
+4 
+
+cubic 
+
+N 2 
+
+8 
+
+exponential 
+
+2 N 
+
+2 n 
+
+
+Commonly encountered growth functions 
+
+
+
+482 
+
+
+time 
+
+I 
+
+1 024T - 
+512T - 
+
+64T - 
+
+
+8T - 
+4T - 
+2T - 
+T - 
+
+size — 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Linearithmic. We use the term linearithmic to describe programs whose running 
+time for a problem of size N has order of growth N log N. Again, the base of the 
+logarithm is not relevant. For example, CouponCollector (Program 1.4.2) is lin- 
+earithmic. The prototypical example is mergesort (see Program 4.2.6). Several im- 
+portant problems have natural solutions that are quadratic but clever algorithms 
+that are linearithmic. Such algorithms (including mergesort) are critically impor- 
+tant in practice because they enable us to address problem sizes far larger than 
+could be addressed with quadratic solutions. In the next section, we consider a 
+
+general design technique for developing 
+linearithmic algorithms. 
+
+Quadratic. A typical program whose 
+running time has order of growth N 2 
+has two nested for loops, used for some 
+calculation involving all pairs of N ele- 
+ments. The force update double loop in 
+NBody (Program 3.4.2) is a prototype of 
+the programs in this classification, as is 
+the elementary sorting algorithm Inser- 
+tion (Program 4.2.4). 
+
+Cubic. Our example for this section, 
+ThreeSum, is cubic (its running time has 
+order of growth N 3 ) because it has three 
+nested for loops, to process all triples of 
+N elements. The running time of matrix 
+multiplication, as implemented in Sec- 
+tion 1.4 has order of growth M 3 to mul- 
+tiply two M-by-M matrices, so the basic matrix multiplication algorithm is often 
+considered to be cubic. However, the size of the input (the number of entries in the 
+matrices) is proportional to N = M 2 , so the algorithm is best classified as N 312 , not 
+cubic. 
+
+Exponential. As discussed in Section 2.3, both TowersOfHanoi (Program 2.3.2) 
+and GrayCode (Program 2.3.3) have running times proportional to 2 N because they 
+process all subsets of N elements. Generally, we use the term “exponential” to refer 
+
+
+
+IK 2K 4K 8K 1024K 
+
+Orders of growth (log-log plot) 
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+483 
+
+
+to algorithms whose order of growth is b N for any constant b > 1 , even though dif- 
+ferent values of b lead to vastly different running times. Exponential algorithms are 
+extremely slow — you will never run one of them for a large problem. They play a 
+critical role in the theory of algorithms because there exists a large class of prob- 
+lems for which it seems that an exponential algorithm is the best possible choice. 
+
+These classifications are the most common, but certainly not a complete set. Indeed, 
+the detailed analysis of algorithms can require the full gamut of mathematical tools 
+that have been developed over the centuries. Understanding the running time of 
+programs such as Factor (Program 1.3.9), PrimeSieve (Program 1.4.3) and Eu- 
+cl i d (Program 2.3.1), requires fundamental results from number theory. Standard 
+algorithms like BST (Program 4.4.3) require careful mathematical analysis. Newton 
+(Program 2.1.1) and Markov (Program 1.6.3) are prototypes for numerical compu- 
+tation: their running time is dependent on the rate of convergence of a computa- 
+tion to a desired numerical result. Simulations such as Gambler (Program 1.3.8) 
+and its variants are of interest precisely because detailed mathematical models are 
+not always available. 
+
+But a great many of the programs that you will write have straightforward 
+performance characteristics that can be accurately described by one of the orders 
+of growth that we have considered. Accordingly, we can usually work with simple 
+higher-level hypotheses, such as the order of growth of the running time of mergesort 
+is linearithmic. For economy, we abbreviate such a statement to just say mergesort 
+is linearithmic. Most of our hypotheses about cost are of this form, or of the form 
+mergesort is faster than insertion sort. Again, a notable feature of such hypotheses is 
+that they are statements about algorithms, not just about programs. 
+
+Predictions You can always try to learn the running time of a program by sim- 
+ply running it, but that might be a poor way to proceed when the problem size 
+is large. In that case, it is analogous to trying to learn where a rocket will land by 
+launching it, how destructive a bomb will be by igniting it, or whether a bridge will 
+stand by building it. 
+
+Knowing the order of growth of the running time allows us to make decisions 
+about addressing large problems so that we can invest whatever resources we have 
+to deal with the specific problems that we actually need to solve. We typically use 
+the results of verified hypotheses about the order of growth of the running time of 
+programs in one of the following four ways. 
+
+
+
+484 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Estimating the feasibility of solving large problems. To pay attention to the cost, 
+you need to answer this basic question for every program that you write: Will this 
+program be able to process this input data in a reasonable amount of time? For ex- 
+ample, a cubic algorithm that runs in a couple of seconds for a problem of size N 
+will require a few weeks for a problem of size 100N because it will be a million 
+(100 3 ) times slower, and a couple of million 
+seconds is a few weeks. If that is the size of 
+the problem that you need to solve, you have 
+to find a better method. Knowing the order 
+of growth of the running time of an algo- 
+rithm provides precisely the information 
+that you need to understand limitations on 
+the size of the problems that you can solve. 
+
+Developing such understanding is the most 
+important reason to study performance. 
+
+Without it, you are likely have no idea how 
+much time a program will consume; with it, 
+you can make a back-of-the-envelope calcu- 
+lation to estimate costs and proceed accord- 
+ingly. 
+
+Estimating the value of using a faster computer. To pay attention to the cost, you 
+also may be faced with this basic question, periodically: How much faster can I solve 
+the problem if I get a faster computer? Again, knowing the order of growth of the 
+running time provides precisely the information that you need. A famous rule of 
+thumb known as Moore’s Law implies that you can expect to have a computer with 
+about double the speed and double the memory 18 months from now, or a com- 
+puter with about 10 times the speed and 10 times the memory in about 5 years. It 
+is natural to think that if you buy a new computer that is 10 times faster and has 10 
+times more memory than your old one, you can solve a problem 10 times the size, 
+but that is not the case for quadratic or cubic algorithms. Whether it is an invest- 
+ment banker running daily financial models or a scientist running a program to 
+analyze experimental data or an engineer running simulations to test a design, it is 
+not unusual for people to regularly run programs that take several hours to com- 
+plete. Suppose that you are using a program whose running time is cubic, and then 
+buy a new computer that is 10 times faster with 10 times more memory, not just 
+
+
+predicted running time if 
+order of growth problem size is increased by 
+
+a factor of 100 
+
+
+linear 
+
+linearithmic 
+
+quadratic 
+
+cubic 
+
+exponential 
+
+
+a few minutes 
+a few minutes 
+several hours 
+a few weeks 
+forever 
+
+
+Effect of increasing problem size 
+for a program that runs for a few seconds 
+
+
+
+4. 1 Performance 
+
+
+485 
+
+
+because you need a new computer, but because you face problems that are 10 times 
+larger. The rude awakening is that it will take a several weeks to get results, because 
+the larger problems would be a thousand times slower on the old computer and 
+improved by only a factor of 10 on the new computer. This kind of situation is the 
+primary reason that linear and linearithmic algorithms are so valuable because 
+with such an algorithm and a new computer that is 10 times faster with 10 times 
+more memory than an old computer, you can solve a problem that is 10 times 
+larger than could be solved by the old computer in the same amount of time. In 
+other words, you cannot keep pace with Moore’s Law if you are using a quadratic 
+or a cubic algorithm. 
+
+Processing multiple instances. For fast algorithms, 
+we often think in terms of multiple problem instanc- 
+es. For example, consider the effect of Moore’s law on 
+a company that provides web services, say, at the rate 
+of a million problems of size N every few seconds. At 
+what rate can problems that are 10 times larger be han- 
+dled with a computer that is 10 times faster (or with 10 
+times as many computers)? If the algorithm is linear, 
+the rate stays the same; remarkably, if the algorithm is 
+logarithmic, the rate can be increased by a factor of 10, 
+even though problems are 10 times larger. For exam- 
+ple, a company that can handle 10 million requests of 
+size 10N per second (using a logarithmic algorithm) is 
+likely to do much better than one competitor that can 
+handle only 1 million requests of size 10N per second 
+and another competitor that can handle only 10 million 
+requests of size N per second. 
+
+Comparing programs. We are always seeking to improve our programs, and we 
+can often extend or modify our hypotheses to evaluate the effectiveness of various 
+improvements. With the ability to predict performance, we can make design deci- 
+sions during the development of an implementation that can guide us towards bet- 
+ter, more efficient code. As an example, a novice programmer might have written 
+the nested for loops in ThreeSum as 
+
+
+order of growth 
+
+predicted factor 
+of problem size 
+increase if computer 
+speed is increased by 
+a factor of 10 
+
+linear 
+
+10 
+
+linearithmic 
+
+10 
+
+quadratic 
+
+3-4 
+
+cubic 
+
+2-3 
+
+exponential 
+
+1 
+
+
+Effect of increasing computer speed 
+on problem size that can be solved in 
+a fixed amount of time 
+
+
+
+486 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+if (i < j && j < k) 
+
+if (a[i] + a[j] + a[k] == 0) 
+cnt++; 
+
+so that frequency of execution of the instructions in the inner loop would be ex- 
+actly N 3 (instead of approximately N 3 / 6). It is easy to formulate and verify the hy- 
+pothesis that ThreeSum is six times as fast as this variant. Note that improvements 
+like this for code that is not in the inner loop will have little or no effect. More gen- 
+erally, given two algorithms that solve the same problem, we want to know which 
+one will solve our problem using fewer computational resources. In many cases, we 
+can determine the order of growth of the running times and develop accurate hy- 
+potheses about comparative performance. The order of growth is extremely useful 
+in this process because it allows us to compare one particular algorithm with whole 
+classes of algorithms. For example, once we have a linearithmic algorithm to solve 
+a problem, we become less interested in quadratic or cubic algorithms (even if they 
+are highly optimized) to solve the same problem. 
+
+
+Caveats There are many reasons that you might get inconsistent or misleading 
+results when trying to analyze program performance in detail. All of them have 
+to do with the idea that one or more of the basic assumptions underlying our hy- 
+potheses might not be quite correct. We can develop new hypotheses based on new 
+assumptions, but the more details that we need to take into account, the more care 
+is required in the analysis. 
+
+Instruction time. The assumption that each instruction always takes the same 
+amount of time is not always correct. For example, most modern computer systems 
+use a technique known as caching to organize memory, in which case accessing 
+elements in huge arrays can take much longer if they are not close together in the 
+array. You can observe the effect of caching for Th reeSum by letting Doubl i ngT est 
+run for a while. After seeming to converge to 8, the ratio of running times will jump 
+to a larger value for large arrays because of caching. 
+
+Nondominant inner loop. The assumption that the inner loop dominates may 
+not always be correct. The problem size N might not be sufficiently large to make 
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+487 
+
+
+the leading term in the mathematical description of the frequency of execution of 
+instructions in the inner loop so much larger than lower-order terms that we can 
+ignore them. Some programs have a significant amount of code outside the inner 
+loop that needs to be taken into consideration. 
+
+System considerations. Typically, there are many, many things going on in your 
+computer. Java is one application of many competing for resources, and Java itself 
+has many options and controls that significantly affect performance. Such consid- 
+erations can interfere with the bedrock principle of the scientific method that ex- 
+periments should be reproducible, since what is happening at this moment in your 
+computer will never be reproduced again. Whatever else is going on in your system 
+(that is beyond your control) should in principle be negligible. 
+
+Too close to call. Often, when we compare two different programs for the same 
+task, one might be faster in some situations, and slower in others. One or more 
+of the considerations just mentioned could make the difference. Again, there is 
+a natural tendency among some programmers (and some students) to devote an 
+extreme amount of energy running such horseraces to find the “best” implementa- 
+tion, but such work is best left for experts. 
+
+Strong dependence on input values. One of the first assumptions that we made 
+in order to determine the order of growth of the program’s running time of a pro- 
+gram was that the running time should be relatively insensitive to the input values. 
+When that is not the case, we may get inconsistent results or be unable to validate 
+our hypotheses. Our running example ThreeSum does not have this problem, but 
+many of the programs that we write certainly do. We will see several examples of 
+such programs in this chapter. Often, a prime design goal is to eliminate the de- 
+pendence on input values. If we cannot do so, we need to more carefully model the 
+kind of input to be processed in the problems that we need to solve, which may 
+be a significant challenge. For example, if we are writing a program to process a 
+genome, how do we know how it will perform on a different genome? But a good 
+model describing the genomes found in nature is precisely what scientists seek, 
+so estimating the running time of our programs on data found in nature actually 
+amounts to contributing to that model! 
+
+
+
+488 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Multiple problem parameters. We have been focusing on measuring performance 
+as a function of a single parameter, generally the value of a command-line argument 
+or the size of the input. However, it is not unusual to have several parameters. For 
+example, the percolation probability estimation method Esti mate . eval () in Sec- 
+tion 2.4 has two parameters: N (the size of the grid) and T (the number of trials). 
+In such cases, we treat the parameters separately, holding one fixed while analyzing 
+the other. In the case of Esti mate . eval () , the order of growth of the running time 
+is TN 2 , or linear in T and quadratic in N. 
+
+Despite all these caveats, understanding the order of growth of the running time 
+of each program is valuable knowledge for any programmer, and the methods that 
+we have described are powerful and broadly applicable. Knuth’s insight was that 
+we can carry these methods through to the last detail in principle to make detailed, 
+accurate predictions. Typical computer systems are extremely complex and close 
+analysis is best left for experts, but the same methods are effective for developing 
+approximate estimates of the running time of any program. A rocket scientist needs 
+to have some idea of whether a test flight will land in the ocean or in a city; a medi- 
+cal researcher needs to know whether a drug trial will kill or cure all the subjects; 
+and any scientist or engineer using a computer program needs to have some idea of 
+whether it will run for a second or for a year. 
+
+Performance guarantees For some programs, we demand that the running 
+time of a program is less than a certain bound, no matter what the input values. To 
+provide such performance guarantees, theoreticians take an extremely pessimistic 
+view of the performance of algorithms: what would the running time be in the 
+worst case ? 
+
+For example, such a conservative approach might be appropriate for the soft- 
+ware that runs a nuclear reactor or an air traffic control system or the brakes in 
+your car. We want to guarantee that such software completes its job within the 
+bounds that we set because the result could be catastrophic if it does not. 
+
+Scientists normally do not contemplate the worst case when studying the 
+natural world: in biology, the worst case might the extinction of the human race; in 
+physics, the worst case might be the end of the universe. But the worst case can be 
+a very real concern in computer systems, where the input may be generated by an- 
+other (potentially malicious) user, rather than by nature. For example, websites that 
+do not use algorithms with performance guarantees are subject to denial-of-service 
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+489 
+
+
+attacks, where hackers flood them with pathological requests that make them run 
+much more slowly than planned. 
+
+Performance guarantees are difficult to verify with the scientific method, be- 
+cause we cannot test a hypothesis such as Mergesort is guaranteed to be linearith- 
+mic without trying all possible input values, which we cannot do because there are 
+far too many of them. We might falsify such a hypothesis by providing inputs for 
+which mergesort is slow, but how can we prove it to be true? We can do this not 
+with experimentation, but with mathematical models. In fact, it is often no more 
+difficult to develop performance guarantees than it is to predict performance. In- 
+deed, it is often the case that the same mathematical model used to prove that a 
+program computes the expected results can also provide the performance guaran- 
+tees that we need. 
+
+Often, randomness provides performance guarantees. For example, it is pos- 
+sible, though extraordinarily unlikely, that CouponCol 1 ector (Program 1.4.2) will 
+not terminate, but mathematical analysis provides a way for us to guarantee that 
+its running time is linearithmic. The guarantee is probabilistic, but the chance that 
+it is invalid is less than the chance your computer will be simultaneously struck by 
+lightning and hit by a meteor. 
+
+It is the task of the algorithm analyst to discover as much relevant information 
+about an algorithm as possible, and it is the task of the applications programmer 
+to apply that knowledge to develop programs that effectively solve the problems at 
+hand. For example, if you are using a quadratic algorithm to solve a problem but 
+can find an algorithm that is guaranteed to be linearithmic, you certainly are well 
+advised to consider it, because an algorithm that makes the worst case linearithmic 
+makes the running time for every case linearithmic or better. On the other hand, it is 
+sometimes true that an algorithm that provides worst case performance guarantee 
+is overly complex, adding unnecessary overhead to protect against a situation that 
+you will never encounter. For example, an algorithm that provides a linearithmic 
+guarantee might not be the best one to use, because some other algorithm might 
+solve your problem in linear time (your input values might not be the worst case). 
+
+Ideally, we want algorithms that lead to clear and compact code that provides 
+both a good guarantee and good performance on input values of interest. Many of 
+the classic algorithms that we consider in this chapter are of importance for a broad 
+variety of applications precisely because they have all of these properties. Using 
+these algorithms as models, you can develop good solutions yourself for typical 
+problems that you face while programming. 
+
+
+
+490 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Memory As with running time, a program’s memory usage connects directly to 
+the physical world: a substantial amount of your computer’s circuitry enables your 
+program to store values and later retrieve them. The more values you need to have 
+stored at any given instant, the more circuitry you need. To pay attention to the cost, 
+you need to be aware of memory usage. You probably are aware of limits on mem- 
+ory usage on your computer (even more so than for time) because you probably 
+have paid extra money to get more memory. 
+
+Memory usage is well-defined for Java on your computer (every value will 
+require precisely the same amount of memory each time that you run your pro- 
+gram), but Java is implemented on a very wide range of computational devices, 
+and memory consumption is implementation-dependent. For economy, we use the 
+word typical to signal values that are particularly subject to machine dependen- 
+cies. Analyzing memory usage is somewhat different from analyzing time usage, 
+primarily because one of Java’s most significant features is its memory allocation 
+system, which is supposed to relieve you of having to worry about memory. Cer- 
+tainly, you are well advised to take advantage of this feature when appropriate. Still, 
+it is your responsibility to know, at least approximately, when a program’s memory 
+requirements will prevent you from solving a given problem. 
+
+
+type 
+
+
+bytes 
+
+
+boolean 
+byte 
+char 
+int 
+float 
+long 
+double 
+
+Typical memory 
+requirements for 
+primitive types 
+
+
+Primitive types. It is easy to estimate memory usage for simple pro- 
+grams like the ones we considered in Chapter 1: Count up the number 
+of variables and weight them by the number of bytes according to their 
+type. For example, since the Java i nt data type is the set of integer values 
+between —2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647, a grand total of 2 32 differ- 
+ent values, it is reasonable to expect implementations to use 32 bits to 
+represent i nt values, and similar considerations hold for other primitive 
+types. Typical Java implementations use 8-bit bytes, representing each 
+char value with 2 bytes (16 bits), each i nt value with 4 bytes (32 bits), 
+each doubl e value with 8 bytes (64 bits), and each bool ean value with 1 
+byte (since computers typically access memory one byte at a time). For 
+example, if you have 1GB of memory on your computer (about 1 billion 
+bytes), you cannot fit more than about 32 million i nt values or 16 mil- 
+
+
+lion doubl e values in memory at any one time. 
+
+
+Objects. To determine the memory consumption of an object, we add the amount 
+of memory used by each instance variable to the overhead associated with each 
+
+
+
+4. 1 Performance 
+
+
+491 
+
+
+object, typically 8 bytes. For example, a Charge (Program 3.2.1) object uses 32 
+bytes (8 bytes of overhead and 8 bytes for each of its three doubl e instance vari- 
+ables). Similarly, a Compl ex object uses 24 bytes. Since many programs create mil- 
+lions of Color objects, typical Java implementations pack the information needed 
+for them into 32 bits (three bytes for RGB values and one for transparency). A refer- 
+ence to an object typically uses 4 bytes of memory. When a data type contains a 
+reference to an object, we have to account separately for the 4 bytes for the reference 
+and the 8 bytes overhead for each object plus the memory needed for the object’s 
+instance variables. In particular, a Document 
+(Program 3.3.4) object uses 16 bytes (8 bytes of 
+overhead and 4 bytes each for the references to 
+the Stri ng and Vector objects) plus the mem- 
+ory needed for the Stri ng and Vector objects 
+themselves (which we consider next). 
+
+
+irge object (Program 3.2. 1 ) 
+
+public class Charge 
+{ 
+
+private double rx; 
+private double ry; 
+private double q; 
+
+}” 
+
+
+32 bytes 
+
+
+
+String objects. We account for memory in a 
+Stri ng object in the same way as for any other 
+object. Java's implementation of a Stri ng ob- 
+ject consumes 24 bytes: a reference to a char- 
+acter array (4 bytes), three i nt values (4 bytes 
+each), and the object overhead (8 bytes). The 
+first i nt value is an offset into the character ar- 
+ray; the second is a count (the string length). In 
+terms of the instance variable names in the fig- 
+ure at right, the string that is represented con- 
+sists of the characters val [offset] through 
+val [offset + count - 1] . The third i nt value 
+in String objects is a hash code that saves re- 
+computation in certain circumstances that 
+need not concern us now. In addition to the 24 
+bytes for the String object, we must account 
+for the memory needed for the characters 
+themselves, which are in the array. We account 
+for this space next. 
+
+
+Complex object (Program 3.2.6) 
+
+public class Complex 
+{ 
+
+private double re; 
+private double im; 
+
+}" 
+
+
+24 bytes 
+
+
+
+Color object (Java library) 
+
+public class Color 
+{ 
+
+private byte r; 
+private byte g; 
+private byte b; 
+private byte a; 
+
+}” 
+
+
+12 bytes 
+
+
+
+byte 
+
+values 
+
+
+Document object (Program 3.3.4) 
+
+public class Document 
+{ 
+
+private String id; 
+private Vector profile; 
+
+}" 
+
+
+16 bytes + string + vector 
+
+
+references 
+
+
+
+String object (Java library) 
+
+public class String 
+{ 
+
+private chart] val; 
+private int offset; 
+private int count; 
+private int hash; 
+
+}” 
+
+
+24 bytes + char array 
+
+
+
+Typical object memory requirements 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+492 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Arrays. Arrays in Java are implemented as objects, typically with two instance 
+variables (a pointer to the memory location of the first array element and the 
+length). For primitive types, an array of N elements requires 16 bytes of header in- 
+formation plus N times the number of bytes needed to store an element. For ex- 
+ample, the i nt array in Sample (Program 1.4.1) uses 4 N + 16 bytes, whereas the 
+bool ean arrays in Coupon (Program 1.4.2) uses N + 16 bytes. Note than a bool ean 
+array consumes one byte of memory per entry (wasting 7 of the 8 bits) — with some 
+extra work, you could get the job done with Nl 8 bytes (see Exercise 4.1.26). An ar- 
+ray of objects is an array of references to the objects, so we need to add the space for 
+the references to the space required for the objects. For example, the array of Charge 
+objects in Potenti al (Program 3.1.7) uses 16 (array overhead) plus 4 N (referenc- 
+es) plus 32 N (objects) bytes for a total of 36 N +16 bytes. This analysis assumes that 
+all of the objects are different: it is possible that multiple array entries could refer to 
+
+
+Array of i nt values (Program 1.4.1) 
+
+int[] perm = new int[N]; 
+
+
+16 bytes 
+
+
+
+Array of doubl e values (Program 2.1.4) 
+
+doublet] c = new doubl e[N]; 
+
+
+16 bytes 
+
+
+
+Total : 16 + 8N 
+
+
+Array of point charges (Program 3.1.7) 
+
+Charge [] a = new Charge [N] ; 
+for (int k = 0; k < N ; k++) 
+
+{ 
+
+a[k] = new Charge(x0, yO, qO) 
+
+
+32 bytes 
+
+
+
+Total: 16 + 4N + NX32 =16 + 36N 
+
+
+double . 
+
+values 
+
+
+Memory requirements for arrays of primitive-type values (left) and objects (right) 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+493 
+
+
+type 
+
+bytes 
+
+int[] 
+
+4 N+ 16 
+
+double [] 
+
+8 N+ 16 
+
+Charged 
+
+36N+ 16 
+
+int[] [] 
+
+4N 2 + 20N + 16 
+
+doubled d 
+
+8N 2 + 20N+16 
+
+String 
+
+2N + 40 
+
+
+Typical memory requirements 
+for variable-length 
+data structures 
+
+
+String genome 
+String codon 
+
+
+genome 
+
+
+the same object (aliasing). Normally, we do not need 
+to account for such aliasing in our code, with one sig- 
+nificant exception: in conjunction with Java String 
+objects, as discussed next. 
+
+
+String values and substrings. A String of length 
+N typically uses 24 bytes (for the Stri ng object) plus 
+2 N +16 bytes (for the array that contains the charac- 
+ters) for a total of 2 N + 40 bytes. It is typical in string 
+processing to work with substrings, and Java’s string 
+representation enables us to do so without having to 
+make copies of the string’s characters. When you use 
+the substringO method, you create a new String object (24 bytes) but do not 
+make copies of any characters, so a substring of an exist- 
+ing string takes just 24 bytes. The substring stores an alias 
+to the character array in the original string, and uses the 
+offset and count fields to identify the substring. In oth- 
+er words, a substring takes constant extra memory (and 
+forming a substring takes constant time), even when the 
+lengths of the string and the substring are huge. A naive 
+representation that requires copying characters to make 
+substrings would take linear time. The ability to create 
+substrings using a constant extra memory (and constant 
+time) is the key to efficiency in many basic string-process- 
+ing algorithms, as we will see in the next section (Program 
+4.2.8). On the other hand, this representation requires 
+that all of the characters in a string be contiguous in some 
+array, which implies that the string concatenation method 
+concatO (which is called when the built-in + operator 
+is used) has to copy characters from the two strings into 
+
+a new array and thus takes time and extra space proportional to the total number 
+of characters in the two strings. Java’s StringBuilder class is an alternative that 
+
+
+"CCCCTCCCCTCTCTAC" ; 
+genome. substring (6, 3); 
+
+
+
+implements string concatenation more efficiently than does Stri ng. 
+
+
+Two-dimensional arrays. As we saw in Section 1.4, a two-dimensional array in 
+Java is an array of arrays. For example, the two-dimensional array in Markov 
+
+
+
+
+
+494 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+(Program 1.6.3) uses 16 bytes (overhead for the array of arrays) plus 4N bytes (ref- 
+erences to the row arrays) plus N times 16 bytes (overhead from the row arrays) 
+plus N times N times 8 bytes (for the N doubl e values in each of the N rows) for a 
+grand total of SN 2 + 20 N + 16 ~ 8N 2 bytes. If the array entries are objects, then a 
+similar accounting gives 4 N 2 + 20 N + 16 ~ 4N 2 bytes for the array of arrays filled 
+with references to objects, to which we need to add the memory for the objects 
+themselves. 
+
+These basic mechanisms are effective for estimating the memory usage of a great 
+
+
+doublet] [] t = new doubl e [N] [N] ; 
+
+16 bytes 
+
+
+
+Memory requirements for a 2D array 
+
+
+many programs, but there are numerous 
+complicating factors that can make the task 
+significantly more difficult. We have already 
+noted the potential effect of aliasing. More- 
+over, memory consumption is a complicated 
+dynamic process when function calls are in- 
+volved because the system memory alloca- 
+tion mechanism plays a more important role, 
+with more system dependencies. For example, 
+when your program calls a method, the system 
+allocates the memory needed for the method 
+(for its local variables) from a special area of 
+memory called the stack, and when the method 
+returns to the caller, the memory is returned 
+to the stack. For this reason, creating arrays 
+or other large objects in recursive programs 
+is dangerous, since each recursive call implies 
+significant memory usage. When you create an 
+object with new, the system allocates the mem- 
+ory needed for the object from another special 
+area of memory known as the heap, and you 
+must remember that every object lives until no 
+references to it remain, at which point a system 
+process known as garbage collection reclaims 
+its memory for the heap. Such dynamics can 
+make the task of precisely estimating memory 
+usage of a program challenging. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+495 
+
+
+Perspective Good performance is important. An impossibly slow program is 
+almost as useless as an incorrect one, so it is certainly worthwhile to pay attention 
+to the cost at the outset, to have some idea of what sorts of problems you might 
+feasibly address. In particular, it is always wise to have some idea of which code 
+constitutes the inner loop of your programs. 
+
+Perhaps the most common mistake made in programming is to pay too much 
+attention to performance characteristics. Your first priority is to make your code 
+clear and correct. Modifying a program for the sole purpose of speeding it up is 
+best left for experts. Indeed, doing so is often counterproductive, as it tends to cre- 
+ate code that is complicated and difficult to understand. C. A. R. Hoare (the inven- 
+tor of Quicksort and a leading proponent of writing clear and correct code) once 
+summarized this idea by saying that “premature optimization is the root of all evil, ” 
+to which Knuth added the qualifier “(or at least most of it) in programming .” Be- 
+yond that, improving the running time is not worthwhile if the available cost ben- 
+efits are insignificant. For example, improving the running time of a program by 
+a factor of 10 is inconsequential if the running time is only an instant. Even when 
+a program takes a few minutes to run, the total time required to implement and 
+debug an improved algorithm might be substantially more than the time required 
+simply to run a slightly slower one — you may as well let the computer do the work. 
+Worse, you might spend a considerable amount of time and effort implementing 
+ideas that should improve a program but actually do not do so. 
+
+Perhaps the second most common mistake made in developing an algorithm 
+is to ignore performance characteristics. Faster algorithms are often more com- 
+plicated than brute-force solutions, so you might be tempted to accept a slower 
+algorithm to avoid having to deal with more complicated code. However, you can 
+sometimes reap huge savings with just a few lines of good code. Users of a surpris- 
+ing number of computer systems lose substantial time waiting for simple quadratic 
+algorithms to finish solving a problem, even though linear or linearithmic algo- 
+rithms are available that are only slightly more complicated and could therefore 
+solve the problem in a fraction of the time. When we are dealing with huge problem 
+sizes, we often have no choice but to seek better algorithms. 
+
+Improving a program to make it clearer, more efficient, and elegant should 
+be your goal every time that you work on it. If you pay attention to the cost all the 
+way through the development of a program, you will reap the benefits every time 
+you use it. 
+
+
+
+496 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Q. How do I find out how long it takes to add or multiply two doubl e values on my 
+computer? 
+
+A. Run some experiments! The program TimePrimitives on the booksite uses 
+Stopwatch to test the execution time of various arithmetic operations on primitive 
+types. This technique measures the actual elapsed time as would be observed on a 
+wall clock. If your system is not running many other applications, this can produce 
+accurate results. You can find much more information about refining such experi- 
+ments on the booksite. 
+
+Q. How much time do functions such as Math.sqrtO, Math.logO, and Math. 
+sin() take? 
+
+A. Run some experiments! Stopwatch makes it easy to write programs such as 
+Ti mePri mi ti ves to answer questions of this sort for yourself, and you will be able 
+to use your computer much more effectively if you get in the habit of doing so. 
+
+Q. How much time do string operations take? 
+
+A. Run some experiments! (Have you gotten the message yet?) The standard imple- 
+mentation is written to allow the methods length (), charAtO, and substringO 
+to run in constant time. Methods such as toLowerCaseO and repl ace() are lin- 
+ear in the string size. The methods compareToO, and startsWithf) take time 
+proportional to the number of characters needed to resolve the answer (constant in 
+the best case and linear in the worst case), but i ndexOf () can be slow. String con- 
+catenation takes time proportional to the total number of characters in the result. 
+
+Q. Why does allocating an array of size N take time proportional to N? 
+
+A. In Java, all array elements are automatically initialized to default values (0, 
+fal se, or nul 1 ). In principle, this could be a constant time operation if the sys- 
+tem would defer initialization of each element until just before the program ac- 
+cesses that element for the first time, but most Java implementations go through 
+the whole array to initialize each value. 
+
+Q. How do I find out how much memory is available for my Java programs? 
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+497 
+
+
+
+A. Since Java will tell you when it runs out of memory, it is not difficult to run 
+some experiments. For example, if you use Pri meSi eve (Program 1.4.3) by typing 
+
+% java PrimeSieve 100000000 
+and get the result 
+50847534 
+but then type 
+
+% java PrimeSieve 1000000000 
+
+and get the result 
+
+Exception in thread "main" 
+java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space 
+
+then you can figure that you have enough room for an array of 100 million bool - 
+ean values but not for an array of 1 billion bool ean values. You can increase the 
+amount of memory allotted to Java with command-line flags. The following com- 
+mand executes PrimeSieve with the command-line argument 1000000000, re- 
+questing a maximum of 1100 megabytes of memory (if available). 
+
+java -XmxllOOmb PrimeSieve 1000000000 
+Q. What does it mean when someone says that the running time of an algorithm is 
+
+O(A!TogA0? 
+
+A. That is an example of a notation known as big-Oh notation. We write /(N) is 
+0(g(N)) if there exists a constant c such that /(N) < cg(N) for all N. We also say 
+that the running time of an algorithm is 0(g(N)) if the running time is 0(g(N)) for 
+all possible inputs. This notation is widely used by theoretical computer scientists 
+to prove theorems about algorithms, so you are sure to see it if you take a course in 
+algorithms and data structures. It provides a worst-case performance guarantee. 
+
+
+
+
+498 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Q. So can I use the fact that the running time of an algorithm is 0(N log N) or 
+0(N 2 ) to predict performance? 
+
+A. No, because the actual running time might be much less. Perhaps there is some 
+input for which the running time is proportional to the given function, but perhaps 
+the that input is not found among those expected in practice. Mathematically, big- 
+Oh notation is less precise than the tilde notation we use: if f(N) ~g(N), then /(AO 
+is 0(g(N)), but not necessarily vice versa. Consequently, big-Oh notation cannot 
+be used to predict performance. For example, knowledge that the running time of 
+one algorithm is 0(N log N) and the running time of another algorithm is 0(N 2 ) 
+does not tell you which will be faster when you run implementations of them. 
+Generally, hypotheses that use big-Oh notation are not useful in the context of the 
+scientific method because they are not falsifiable. 
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+499 
+
+
+
+4.1.1 Implement the method pri ntAl 1 () for Th reeSum, which prints all of the 
+triples that sum to zero. 
+
+4.1.2 Modify Th reeSum to take a command-line argument x and find a triple of 
+numbers on standard input whose sum is closest to x. 
+
+4.1.3 Write a program Fou r Sum that takes an integer N from standard input, then 
+reads N 1 ong values from standard input, and counts the number of 4-tuples that 
+sum to zero. Use a quadruple loop. What is the order of growth of the running time 
+of your program? Estimate the largest N that your program can handle in an hour. 
+Then, run your program to validate your hypothesis. 
+
+4.1.4 Prove by induction that the number of distinct pairs of integers between 
+0 and N— 1 is N(N— 1)/2, and then prove by induction that the number of distinct 
+triples of integers between 0 and N— 1 is N(N—\)(N—2)/6. 
+
+Answer for pairs: The formula is correct for N= 1 , since there are 0 pairs. For N> 1, 
+count all the pairs that do not include N— 1 , which is N(N— 1)/2 by the inductive 
+hypothesis, and all the pairs that do include N— 1, which is N— 1 , to get the total 
+
+(N— 1)(N— 2)/2 +(N- 1) = N(N- 1)/2. 
+
+Answer for triples : The formula is correct for N = 2. For N> 2, count all the triples 
+that do not include N— 1, which is (N— 1)(N— 2)(N— 3)/6 by the inductive hypoth- 
+esis, and all the triples that do include N— 1, which is (N— 1)(N— 2)12, to get the 
+total 
+
+
+(N-l)(N-2)(N-3)/6 + (N—l)(N—2)/2 = N(N-l)(N-2)/6. 
+
+4.1.5 Show by approximating with integrals that the number of distinct triples 
+of integers between 0 and N is about AT 3 / 6. 
+
+Answer: 2^2^ 1 « fof'ji dkdjdi = fofojdjdi = f^(i 2 /2)di = N 3 / 6. 
+
+
+4.1.6 What is the value of x after running the following code fragment? 
+
+
+
+500 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+int x = 0; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+for (int j = i + 1; j < N; j++) 
+for (int k = j + 1; k < N; k++) 
+x++; 
+
+Answer : N(N— 1 ) (N— 2)/6 . 
+
+4 . 1.7 Use tilde notation to simplify each of the following formulas, and give the 
+order of growth of each: 
+
+a. N(N- l)(N — 2) (N — 3)/24 
+
+b. (N — 2) (lg N — 2) (lg N + 2) 
+
+c. N(N + 1) — N 2 
+
+d. N{N + l)/2 + NlgN 
+
+e. ln((N- 1)(N- 2) (N - 3)) 2 
+
+4 . 1.8 Determine the order of growth of the running time of the input loop of 
+ThreeSum: 
+
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int[] a = new int[N] ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+a[i] = Stdln. readlntO ; 
+
+Answer: Linear. The bottlenecks are the array initialization and the input loop. De- 
+pending on your system and the implementation, the readlntO statement might 
+lead to inconsistent timings for small values of N. The cost of an input loop like 
+this might dominate in a linearithmic or even a quadratic program with N that is 
+not too large. 
+
+4 . 1.9 Determine whether the following code fragment is linear, quadratic, or cu- 
+bic (as a function of N). 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j =0; j < N; j++) 
+if (i == j) c[i][j] = 1.0; 
+else c[i] [j] = 0.0; 
+
+
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+501 
+
+
+
+4 . 1.10 Suppose the running time of an algorithm on inputs of size one thousand, 
+two thousand, three thousand, and four thousand is 5 seconds, 20 seconds, 45 sec- 
+onds, and 80 seconds, respectively. Estimate how long it will take to solve a problem 
+of size 5,000. Is the algorithm linear, linearithmic, quadratic, cubic, or exponen- 
+tial? 
+
+4 . 1.1 1 Which would you prefer: a quadratic, linearithmic, or linear algorithm? 
+
+Answer : While it is tempting to make a quick decision based on the order of growth, 
+it is very easy to be misled by doing so. You need to have some idea of the problem 
+size and of the relative value of the leading coefficients of the running time. For 
+example, suppose that the running times are N 2 seconds, 100Nlog 2 N seconds, and 
+10000N seconds. The quadratic algorithm will be fastest for N up to about 1000, 
+and the linear algorithm will never be faster than the linearithmic one ( N would 
+have to be greater than 2 100 , far too large to bother considering). 
+
+4 . 1.12 Apply the scientific method to develop and validate a hypothesis about 
+order of growth of the running time of the following code fragment, as a function 
+of the input argument n. 
+
+public static int f(int n) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (n == 0) return 1; 
+return f(n-l) + f(n-l); 
+
+} 
+
+4 . 1.13 Apply the scientific method to develop and validate a hypothesis about 
+order of growth of the running time of the collectO method in Coupon (Pro- 
+gram 2.1.3), as a function of the input argument N. Note: Doubling is not effective 
+for distinguishing between the linear and linearithmic hypotheses — you might try 
+squaring the size of the input. 
+
+4 . 1.14 Apply the scientific method to develop and validate a hypothesis about 
+order of growth of the running time of Markov (Program 1.6.3), as a function of 
+the input parameters T and N. 
+
+
+502 Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.1.15 Apply the scientific method to develop and validate a hypothesis about 
+order of growth of the running time of each of the following two code fragments as 
+a function of N. 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+if (StdRandom.bernoulli(0.5)) s += "0"; 
+else s += "1"; 
+
+StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilderO ; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+if (StdRandotn.bernoulli(0.5)) sb.append("0") ; 
+else sb. append ("1"); 
+
+String s = sb.toStringO ; 
+
+Answer : The first is quadratic; the second is linear. 
+
+4.1.16 Each of the four Java functions below returns a string of length N whose 
+characters are all x. Determine the order of growth of the running time of each 
+function. Recall that concatenating two strings in Java takes time proportional to 
+the sum of their lengths. 
+
+public static String methodl(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 0) return 
+
+String temp = methodl(N / 2); 
+
+if (N % 2 == 0) return temp + temp; 
+
+else return temp + temp + "x"; 
+
+} 
+
+public static String method2(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+s = s + "x"; 
+return s; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+503 
+
+
+
+public static String method3(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (N == 0) return 
+
+if (N == 1) return "x"; 
+
+return method3(N/2) + method3(N - N/2); 
+
+
+public static String method4(int N) 
+
+{ 
+
+char[] temp = new char[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+temp[i] = 'x'; 
+return new String(temp) ; 
+
+
+4 . 1.17 The following code fragment (adapted from a Java programming book) 
+creates a random permutation of the integers from 0 to N— 1. Determine the order 
+of growth of its running time as a function of N. Compare its order of growth with 
+the shuffling code in Section 1.4. 
+
+int[] a = new int[N] ; 
+boolean[] taken = new boolean[N]; 
+int count = 0; 
+while (count < N) 
+
+{ 
+
+int r = StdRandom.uniform(N) ; 
+if (! taken [r]) 
+
+{ 
+
+a[r] = count; 
+taken [r] = true; 
+count++; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+4 . 1.18 What is order of growth of the running time of the following function, 
+which reverses a string s of length N? 
+
+
+504 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+public static String reverse (St ring s) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = s.lengthO; 
+
+String reverse = 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+reverse = s.charAt(i) + reverse; 
+return reverse; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . 1.19 What is the order of growth of the running time of the following function, 
+which reverses a string s of length N? 
+
+public static String reverse(String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = s.lengthO; 
+if (N <= 1) return s; 
+
+String left = s.substring(0, N/2); 
+
+String right = s.substring(N/2, N); 
+return reverse (right) + reverse (1 eft) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+4 . 1.20 Give a linear algorithm for reversing a string. 
+
+Answer: 
+
+public static String reverse(String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = s.lengthO; 
+char[] a = new char[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+a[i] = s.charAt(N-i-l) ; 
+return new String(a); 
+
+} 
+
+4 . 1.21 Write a program MooresLaw that takes a command-line argument N and 
+outputs the increase in processor speed over a decade if microprocessors double 
+every N months. How much will processor speed increase over the next decade if 
+speeds double every N- 15 months? 24 months? 
+
+
+4. 1 Performance 
+
+
+505 
+
+
+
+4 . 1.22 Using the model in the text, give the memory requirements for each object 
+of the following data types from Chapter 3: 
+
+a. Stopwatch 
+
+b. Turtle 
+
+c. Vector 
+
+d. Body 
+
+e. Universe 
+
+4 . 1.23 Estimate, as a function of the grid size N , the amount of space used by Vi - 
+sualize (Program 2.4.3) with the vertical percolation detection (Program 2.4.2). 
+Extra credit Answer the same question for the case where the recursive percolation 
+detection method in Program 2.4.5 is used. 
+
+4 . 1.24 Estimate the size of the biggest two-dimensional array of i nt values that 
+your computer can hold, and then try to allocate such an array. 
+
+4 . 1.25 Estimate, as a function of the number of documents N and the dimension 
+d, the amount of space used by CompareAl 1 (Program 3.3.5). 
+
+4 . 1.26 Write a version of PrimeSi eve (Program 1.4.3) that uses a byte array in- 
+stead of a bool ean array and uses all the bits in each byte, to raise the largest value 
+of N that it can handle by a factor of 8. 
+
+4 . 1.27 The following table gives running times for various programs for various 
+values of N. Fill in the blanks with estimates that you think are reasonable on the 
+basis of the information given. 
+
+program WOO 10,000 1 00, OOP 1,000,000 
+
+A .001 seconds .012 seconds .16 seconds ? seconds 
+B 1 minute 10 minutes 1.7 hours ? hours 
+
+C 1 second 1.7 minutes 2.8 hours ? days 
+
+Give hypotheses for the order of growth of the running time of each program. 
+
+
+506 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Creatme^Exe^ciseSi 
+
+
+4 . 1.28 ThreeSum analysis. Calculate the probability that no triple among N ran- 
+dom 32-bit integers sums to 0, and give an approximate estimate for N equal to 
+1000, 2000, and 4000. Extra credit: Give an approximate formula for the expected 
+number of such triples (as a function of N), and run experiments to validate your 
+estimate. 
+
+4 . 1.29 Closest pair. Design a quadratic algorithm that finds the pair of integers 
+that are closest to each other. (In the next section you will be asked to find a lin- 
+earithmic algorithm.) 
+
+4 . 1.30 Power law. Show that a log-log plot of the function cN b has slope b and 
+x-intercept log c. What are the slope and x-intercept for 4 N 3 (log N ) 2 ? 
+
+4 . 1.31 Sum furthest from zero. Design an algorithm that finds the pair of integers 
+whose sum is furthest from zero. Can you discover a linear algorithm? 
+
+4 . 1.32 The “beck” exploit. A popular web server supports a function called 
+no2slash() whose purpose is to collapse multiple / characters. For example, the 
+string /dl///d2////d3/test . html becomes /dl/d2/d3/test . html . The original 
+algorithm was to repeatedly search for a / and copy the remainder of the string: 
+
+void no2sl ash (char [] name) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int x = 0; x < name. length; ) 
+if (x > 0) 
+
+if ((name [x-1] == '/') && (name[x] == '/’)) 
+for (int y = x+1; y < name. length; y++) 
+name[y-l] = name[y]; 
+
+else x++; 
+
+} 
+
+Unfortunately, the running time of this code is quadratic in the number of / char- 
+acters in the input. By sending multiple simultaneous requests with large numbers 
+of / characters, a hacker can deluge a server and starve other processes for CPU 
+time, thereby creating a denial-of-service attack. Develop a version of no2sl ash () 
+that runs in linear time and does not allow for the this type of attack. 
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+507 
+
+
+
+4.1.33 Young tableaux. Suppose you have in memory an N-by-N grid of integers 
+a such that a [i ] [j] < a[i+l] [j] and a[i] [j] < a[i] [j+1] for all i and j, like 
+the table below. 
+
+
+5 
+
+23 
+
+54 
+
+67 
+
+89 
+
+6 
+
+69 
+
+73 
+
+74 
+
+90 
+
+10 
+
+71 
+
+83 
+
+84 
+
+91 
+
+60 
+
+73 
+
+84 
+
+86 
+
+92 
+
+99 
+
+91 
+
+92 
+
+93 
+
+94 
+
+
+Devise an algorithm whose order of growth is linear in N to determine whether a 
+given integer x is in a given Young tableaux. 
+
+Answer: Start at the upper-right corner. If the value is x, return true. Otherwise, go 
+left if the value is greater than x and go down if the value is less than x. If you reach 
+bottom left corner, then x is not in table. The algorithm is linear because you can 
+go left at most N times and down at most N times. 
+
+4.1.34 Subset sum. Write a program AnySum that takes an integer N from standard 
+input, then reads N 1 ong values from standard input, and counts the number of 
+subsets that sum to 0. Give the order of growth of the running time of your pro- 
+gram. 
+
+4.1.35 String rotation. Given an array of N elements, give a linear time algorithm 
+to rotate the string k positions. That is, if the array contains a 0 , a v ..., a N .j, the ro- 
+tated array is a k , a k+v ..., a N _ ,, a 0 , ..., a*,,. Use at most a constant amount of extra 
+space (array indices and array values). Hint: Reverse three subarrays as in Exercise 
+4 . 1 . 20 . 
+
+4.1.36 Finding a duplicated integer, (a) Given an array of N integers from 1 to N 
+with one value repeated twice and one missing, give an algorithm that finds the 
+missing integer, in linear time and constant extra space. Integer overflow is not al- 
+lowed. (b) Given a read-only array of N integers, where each value from 1 to N— 1 
+occurs once and one occurs twice, give an algorithm that finds the duplicated value, 
+in linear time and constant extra space, (c) Given a read-only array of N integers 
+with values between 1 and N— 1, give an algorithm that finds a duplicated value, in 
+linear time and constant extra space. 
+
+
+508 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4 . 1.37 Factorial. Design a fast algorithm to compute Nl for large values of N, us- 
+ing Java’s Bi glnteger class. Use your program to compute the longest run of con- 
+secutive 9s in 1000000!. Develop and validate a hypothesis for the order of growth 
+of the running time of your algorithm. 
+
+4 . 1.38 Maximum sum. Design a linear algorithm that finds a contiguous sub- 
+sequence of at most M in a sequence of Nl ong integers that has the highest sum 
+among all such subsequences. Implement your algorithm, and confirm that the 
+order of growth of its running time is linear. 
+
+4 . 1.39 Pattern matching. Given an N-by-N array of black (1) and white (0) pix- 
+els, design a linear algorithm that finds the largest square subarray that consists of 
+entirely black pixels. In the example below there is a 3-by-3 subarray. 
+
+10111000 
+
+00010100 
+
+00111000 
+
+00111010 
+
+00111111 
+
+01011110 
+
+01011010 
+
+00011110 
+
+Implement your algorithm and confirm that the order of growth of its running 
+time is linear in the number of pixels. Extra credit: Design an algorithm to find the 
+largest rectangular black subarray. 
+
+4 . 1.40 Maximum average. Write a program that finds a contiguous subarray of 
+at most M elements in an array of N 1 ong integers that has the highest average 
+value among all such subarrays, by trying all subarrays. Use the scientific method 
+to confirm that the order of growth of the running time of your program is MN 2 . 
+Next, write a program that solves the problem by first computing pref i x [i ] = 
+a[0] + ... + a[i] for each i, then computing the average in the interval from 
+a[i] to a[j] with the expression Cprefix[j] - prefix[i]) / (j - i + l).Use 
+the scientific method to confirm that this method reduces the order of growth by a 
+factor of N. 
+
+
+4.1 Performance 
+
+
+509 
+
+
+
+4.1.41 Sub-exponential function. Find a function whose order-of-growth is slow- 
+er than any polynomial function, but faster than any exponential function. Extra 
+credit: Find a program whose running time has that order of growth. 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+The sorting problem is to rearrange a set of items in ascending order. It is a famil- 
+iar and critical task in many computational applications: the songs in your mu- 
+sic library are in alphabetical order, your email messages are in order of the time 
+received, and so forth. Keeping things in 
+some kind of order is a natural desire. 
+
+One reason that it is so useful is that it 
+is much easier to search for something in 
+a sorted list than an unsorted one. This 
+need is particularly acute in computing, 
+where the list of things to search can be 
+huge and an efficient search can be an 
+important factor in a problem’s solution. 
+
+Sorting and searching are impor- 
+tant for commercial applications (busi- 
+nesses keep customer files in order) and 
+scientific applications (to organize data and computation), and have all manner 
+of applications in fields that may appear to have little to do with keeping things in 
+order, including data compression, computer graphics, computational biology, nu- 
+merical computing, combinatorial optimization, cryptography, and many others. 
+
+We use these fundamental problems to illustrate the idea that efficient algo- 
+rithms are one key to effective solutions for computational problem. Indeed, many 
+different sorting and searching methods have been proposed. Which should we use 
+to address a given task? This question is important because different programs can 
+have vastly differing performance characteristics, enough to make the difference 
+between success in a practical situation and not coming close to doing so, even on 
+the fastest available computer. 
+
+In this section, we will consider in detail two classical algorithms for sorting 
+and searching, along with several applications in which their efficiency plays a criti- 
+cal role. With these examples, you will be convinced not just of the utility of these 
+methods, but also of the need to pay attention to the cost whenever you address a 
+problem that requires a significant amount of computation. 
+
+
+4.2.1 Binary search (20 questions) . . . .512 
+
+4.2.2 Bisection search 515 
+
+4.2.3 Binary search (sorted array) . . . .517 
+
+4.2.4 Insertion sort 524 
+
+4.2.5 Doubling test for insertion sort. . .526 
+
+4.2.6 Mergesort. . 528 
+
+4.2.7 Frequency counts . . . . . . . ... .533 
+
+4.2.8 Longest repeated substring . . . . .539 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+511 
+
+
+Binary search The game of “twenty questions” (see Program 1.5.2) provides an 
+important and useful lesson in the idea of designing and using efficient algorithms 
+for computational problems. The setup is simple: your task is to guess the value of 
+a hidden number that is one of the N integers between 0 and N— 1. Each time that 
+you make a guess, you are told whether your guess is equal to the hidden number, 
+too high, or too low. As we discussed in Section 1.5, an effective strategy is to guess 
+
+the number in the middle of the in- 
+
+
+< 96 ? true 
+
+
+< 72 ? false 
+
+
+<76? false 
+
+
+<77? false 
+
+
+interval size q a terval, then use the answer to halve 
+
+. i 12 8 < 64 ? false the interval size. For reasons that will 
+
+' 28 become clear later, we begin by slight- 
+
+i 4 "“Ha 64 <96? true ty modifying the game to make the 
+
+questions of the form “is the number 
+-r -t 32 < so ? true i ess than m ?” with true or false an- 
+
+swers, and assume for the moment 
+
+l“”l 16 < 72 ? false 
+
+64 80 that N is a power of two. Now, the ba- 
+
+r—i 8 < 76 ? false sis of an effective method that always 
+
+/2 80 gets to the hidden number in a mini- 
+
+t=t 4 < 78 ? true mal number of questions is to main- 
+
+tain an interval that contains the hid- 
+
+2 < 77 ? false j en num ber and shrinks by half at 
+
+, ! =77 each step. More precisely, we use a 
+
+77 half-open interval, which contains the 
+
+Finding a hidden number with binary search left endpoint but not the right one. 
+
+We use the notation [Z, h) to denote 
+all of the integers greater than or equal to l and less than (but not equal to) h. We 
+start with Z = 0 and h = N and use the following recursive strategy: 
+
+• Base case: If ft —Z is 1, then the number is l. 
+
+• Recursive step : Otherwise, ask whether the number is less than the number 
+m = 1+ (h—l )/2. If so, look for the number in [Z, m ); if not, look for the 
+number in [m, ft). 
+
+This strategy is an example of the general problem-solving method known as bi- 
+nary search, which has many applications. TwentyQuesti ons (Program 4.2.1) is an 
+implementation. 
+
+
+Finding a hidden number with binary search 
+
+
+
+512 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Program 4.2.1 Binary search (20 questions) 
+
+
+public class TwentyQuestions 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int search (int lo, int hi) 
+
+{ // Find number in [lo, hi) 
+
+if ((hi - lo) == 1) return lo; 
+int mid = lo + (hi - lo) / 2; 
+
+StdOut. print ("Less than " + mid + "? "); 
+
+if (Stdln. readBooleanO) 
+
+return search (lo, mid); 
+else return search(mid, hi); 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Play twenty questions. 
+
+int n = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int N = (int) Math.pow(2, n); 
+
+StdOut. print ("Think of a number "); 
+StdOut. print! n ("between 0 and " + (N-l)); 
+int v = search (0, N) ; 
+
+StdOut. println ("Your number is " + v); 
+
+
+lo 
+
+smallest possible value 
+
+hi - 1 
+
+largest possible value 
+
+mid 
+
+midpoint 
+
+n 
+
+number of questions 
+
+N 
+
+number of possible values 
+
+
+
+This code uses binary search to play the same game as Program 1.5.2, but with the roles re- 
+versed: you provide the number and the program guesses its value. It takes a command-line 
+argument n, asks you to think of a number between 0 and N—l, where N — 2", and always 
+guesses the answer with n questions. 
+
+
+% java TwentyQuestions 7 
+
+Think of a number between 0 and 127 
+
+Less than 64? false 
+
+Less than 96? true 
+
+Less than 80? true 
+
+Less than 72? false 
+
+Less than 76? false 
+
+Less than 78? true 
+
+Less than 77? false 
+
+Your number is 77 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+513 
+
+
+Correctness proof. First, we have to convince ourselves that the method is correct : 
+that it always leads us to the hidden number. We do so by establishing the following 
+facts: 
+
+• The interval always contains the hidden number. 
+
+• The interval sizes are the powers of two, decreasing from N. 
+
+The first of these facts is enforced by the code; the second follows by noting that if 
+(h —l) is a power of two, then ( h —l )/2 is the next smaller power of two and also 
+the size of both halved intervals. These facts are the basis of an induction proof that 
+the method operates as intended. Eventually, the interval size becomes 1, so we are 
+guaranteed to find the number. 
+
+Analysis of running time. Since N is a power of 2, we write N = 2", where n = 
+lg N. Now, let T(N) be the number of questions. The recursive strategy immediately 
+implies that T(N) must satisfy the following recurrence relation: 
+
+T(N) = T(N/2) + 1 
+
+with T(l) = 1. Substituting 2" for N, we can telescope the recurrence (apply it to 
+itself) to immediately get a closed-form expression: 
+
+T( 2") = T(2 n_1 ) + 1 = T(2"- 2 ) + 2 = ...= T(l) + n-1 = n. 
+
+Substituting back N for 2" (and IgN for n) gives the result 
+
+T(N) = IgN 
+
+We normally use this equation to justify a hypothesis that the running time of a 
+program that uses binary search is logarithmic. Note: Binary search and Twenty- 
+Questi ons . search () work even when N is not a power of two — we just assumed 
+that N is a power of two to simplify our proof (see Exercise 4.2.14). 
+
+Linear-logarithmic chasm. The alternative to using binary search is to guess 0, 
+then 1, then 2, then 3, and so forth, until hitting the hidden number. We refer to 
+such an algorithm as a brute-force algorithm: it seems to get the job done, but with- 
+out much regard to the cost (which might prevent it from actually getting the job 
+done for large problems). In this case, the running time of the brute-force algo- 
+rithm is sensitive to the input value, but could be as much as N and has expected 
+value N/2 if the input value is chosen at random. Meanwhile, binary search is guar- 
+anteed to use no more than IgN steps. As you will learn to appreciate, the difference 
+
+
+
+514 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+between N and lgjV makes a huge difference in practical applications. Understand- 
+ing the enormousness of this difference is a critical step to understanding the impor- 
+tance of algorithm design and analysis. In the present context, suppose that it takes 
+1 second to process a guess. With binary search, you can guess the value of any 
+number less than 1 million in 20 seconds; with the brute-force algorithm, it might 
+take 1 million seconds, which is more than 1 week. We will see many examples 
+where such a cost difference is the determining factor in whether or not a practical 
+problem can be feasibly solved. 
+
+Binary representation. If you 
+look back to Program 1.3.7, 
+you will immediately recognize 
+that binary search is nearly the 
+same computation as convert- 
+ing a number to binary! Each 
+guess determines one bit of the 
+answer. In our example, the 
+information that the number 
+is between 0 and 127 says that 
+the number of bits in its binary 
+representation is 7, the answer 
+to the first question (is the 
+number less than 64?) tells us 
+the value of the leading bit, the 
+answer to the second question 
+tells us the value of the next bit, 
+and so forth. For example, if 
+the number is 77, the sequence 
+of answers no yes yes no no yes no immediately yields 1001101, the binary 
+representation of 77. Thinking in terms of the binary representation is another way 
+to understand the linear-logarithmic chasm: when we have a program whose run- 
+ning time is linear in a parameter N , its running time is proportional to the value of 
+N, whereas a logarithmic running time is just proportional to the number of digits 
+in N. In a context that is perhaps slightly more familiar to you, think about the fol- 
+lowing question, which illustrates the same point: would you rather earn $6 or a 
+six-figure salary? 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+515 
+
+
+Program 4.2.2 Bisection search (function inversion) 
+
+public static void PhiInverse(double y) 
+
+{ return Philnverse(y, .00000001, -8, 8) } 
+
+private static double PhiInverse(double y, double delta, 
+
+double lo, double hi) 
+
+{ // Compute x with Phi (x) = y. 
+
+double mid = lo + (hi - lo)/2; 
+if (hi - lo < delta) return mid; 
+if (Phi (mid) > y) 
+
+return Philnverse(y, delta, lo, mid); 
+else return Philnverse(y, delta, mid, hi); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+
+argument 
+
+precision 
+
+smallest possible value 
+midpoint 
+
+largest possible value 
+
+
+gjg This implementation o/PhiInverse() for our Gaussian library (Program 2.1.2) uses binary 
+search to compute a value xfor which <S>(x) is equal to a given value y, within a given precision 
+delta. It is a recursive function that halves the interval containing the given value, evaluates 
+the function at the midpoint of the interval, and takes advantage of the fact that <J> is increas- 
+ing to decide whether the desired point is in the left half or the right half, continuing until the 
+.■jj interval size is less than the given precision. 
+
+IsRM IPS i • • • •;--••• - 
+
+
+Inverting a function. As an example of the utility of binary search in scientific 
+computing, we revisit a problem that we first encountered in Section 2.1: inverting 
+an increasing function. To fix ideas, we refer to the Gaussian cumulative distribu- 
+tion function $ when describing the method, but it works for any increasing func- 
+tion. Given a value y, our task is to find a value x such that <I>(x) = y. In this situa- 
+tion, we use real numbers as the endpoints of our interval, not integers, but we use 
+the same essential method as for guessing a hidden integer: we halve the size of the 
+interval at each step, keeping x in the interval, until the interval is sufficiently small 
+that we know the value of x to within a desired precision 8. We start with an interval 
+(/, h) known to contain x and use the following recursive strategy: 
+
+• Compute m = 1+ (h—l )/2. 
+
+• Base case: If h — l is less than 8, then return m as an estimate of x. 
+
+• Recursive step : Otherwise, test whether <b(m) >y. If so, look for x in (/, m); 
+if not, look for x in (m , h). 
+
+
+
+516 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+The key to this method is the idea that the function is increasing — for any values a 
+and b, knowing that <b(a) <<!>(&) tells us that a<b, and vice versa. The recursive 
+step just applies this knowledge: knowing that y = 5>(x) < <1 >(m) tells us that x<m, 
+so that x must be in the interval (l, m), and knowing that y = <J>(x) > <1 >(m) tells us 
+that x> m, so that x must be in the interval ( m,h ). You can think of the problem as 
+determining which of the N = ( h~l)/b tiny intervals of size 8 within (/, h) contains 
+x, with running time logarithmic in N. As with number conversion for integers, we 
+determine one bit of x for each iteration. In this context, binary search is often 
+called bisection search because we bisect the interval at each stage. 
+
+Binary search in a sorted array. One of the most 
+important uses of binary search is to find a piece of 
+information using a key to guide the search. This us- 
+age is ubiquitous in modern computing, to the extent 
+that printed artifacts that depend on the same con- 
+cepts are well on their way to becoming obsolete. For 
+example, during the last few centuries, people would 
+use a publication known as a dictionary to look up 
+the definition of a word, and during much of the last 
+century people would use a publication known as a 
+phone book to look up a person’s phone number. In 
+both cases, the basic mechanism is the same: entries 
+appear in order, sorted by a key that identifies it (the 
+word in the case of the dictionary, and the person’s 
+name in the case of the phone book, sorted in alpha- 
+betical order in both cases). You probably use your 
+computer to reference such information, but think 
+about how you would look up a word in a dictionary. A brute-force solution would 
+be to start at the beginning, examine each entry one at a time, and continue until 
+you find the word. No one uses that method: instead, you open the book to some 
+interior page and look for the word on that page. If it is there, you are done; other- 
+wise, you eliminate either the part of the book before the current page or the part 
+of the book after the current page from consideration, and then repeat. We now 
+recognize this method as binary search. Whether or not you look exactly in the 
+middle is immaterial; as long as you eliminate at least a fraction of the entries each 
+time that you look, your search will be logarithmic (see Exercise 4.2.15). 
+
+
+
+Binary search in a sorted array (one step ) 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+517 
+
+
+
+Program 4.2.3 Binary search (sorted array) 
+
+
+public class BinarySearch 
+
+{ 
+
+public static int search (String key, String [] a) 
+
+{ return search(key, a, 0, a. length); } 
+
+public static int search(String key,String[] a, int lo, int hi) 
+{ // Search for key in a[lo, hi), 
+
+if (hi <= lo) return -1; 
+int mid = lo + (hi - lo) / 2; 
+int cmp = a[mid] .compareTo(key) ; 
+if (cmp > 0) return search(key, a, lo, mid); 
+
+else if (cmp < 0) return search (key, a, mid+1, hi); 
+else return mid; 
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print keys in Stdln that are not found 
+
+// in the whitelist file args[0]. 1 
+
+In in = new In (args [0]); m 
+
+String [] a = in. readAll () .split("\\s+") ; hi 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) muff 
+
+{ 
+
+String key = Stdln. readStringO ; 
+
+if (search (key, a) < 0) StdOut.println(key) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+string sought \ 
+
+sorted list of strings 
+smallest possible index 
+midpoint 
+
+largest possible index 
+
+
+The search () method in this class uses binary search to find the index of a string key in a sorted H 
+array (or returns -1 if the string is not in the array). The test client is an exception filter that Wm 
+reads a (sorted) whitelist from the file given on the command line and prints the words from m 
+standard input that are not in the whitelist. H 
+
+
+more test.txt 
+bob@of f ■ i ce 
+carl ©beach 
+marvin©spam 
+bob@of f i ce 
+bob@of f ■ i ce 
+maTlory@spam 
+daveOboat 
+eve@ai rport 
+al i ce@home 
+
+
+% more whitelist.txt 
+al i ce@home 
+bob©of f i ce 
+carl ©beach 
+dave@boat 
+
+% java BinarySearch whitelist.txt < test.txt 
+marvi n@spam 
+mallory@spam 
+eve©ai rport 
+
+
+
+518 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Exception filter. We will consider in Section 4.3 the details of implementing the 
+kind of computer program that you use in place of a dictionary or a phone book. 
+Program 4.2.3 uses binary search to solve the simpler existence problem: is a given 
+key in a sorted database of keys, or not? For example, when checking the spelling 
+of a word, you need only know whether your word is in the dictionary and are not 
+interested in the definition. In a computer search, we keep the information in an 
+array, sorted in order of the key (for some applications, the information comes in 
+sorted order; for others, we have to sort it first, using one of the methods discussed 
+later in this section). The binary search in Program 4.2.3 differs from our other ap- 
+plications in two details. First, the file size N need not be a power of two. Second, it 
+has to allow the possibility that the item sought is not in the array. Coding binary 
+search to account for these details requires some care, as discussed in this section’s 
+Q&A and exercises. The test client in Program 4.2.3 is known as an exception filter. 
+it reads in a sorted list of strings from a file (which we refer to as the whitelist) and 
+an arbitrary sequence of strings from standard input, and prints those in the se- 
+quence that are not in the whitelist. Exception filters have many direct applications. 
+For example, if the whitelist is the words from a dictionary and standard input 
+is a text document, the exception filter will print the misspelled words. Another 
+example arises in web applications: your email application might use an exception 
+filter to reject any mail messages that are not on a whitelist that contains the mail 
+addresses of your friends, or your operating system might have an exception filter 
+that disallows network connections to your computer from any device having an IP 
+address that is not on a preapproved whitelist. 
+
+Weighing an object. Binary search has been known since antiquity, perhaps partly 
+because of the following application. Suppose that you need to determine the weight 
+of a given object using only a balancing scale. With binary search, you can do so 
+with weights that are powers of two (you need only one weight of each type). Put 
+the object on the left side of the balance and try the weights in decreasing order on 
+the right side. If a weight causes the balance to tilt to the left, remove it; otherwise, 
+leave it. This process is precisely analogous to determining the binary representa- 
+tion of a number by subtracting decreasing powers of two, as in Program 1.3.7. 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+519 
+
+
+twenty questions 
+(converting to binary) 
+
+
+
+less than 64+32 
+
+10????? 
+
+
+weigh ing an object inverting a function 
+
+
+
+
+
+Three applications of binary search 
+
+
+
+
+520 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Fast algorithms are an essential element of the modern world, and binary search 
+is a prototypical example that illustrates the impact of fast algorithms. With a few 
+quick calculations, you can convince yourself that problems like finding all the mis- 
+spelled words in a document or protecting your computer from intruders using an 
+exception filter require a fast algorithm like binary search. Take the time to do so. You 
+can find the exceptions in a million-entry document to a million-entry whitelist 
+in an instant, whereas that task might take days or weeks using the brute force 
+algorithm. Nowadays, web companies routinely provide services that are based on 
+using binary search billions of times in tables with billions of entries — without a fast 
+algorithm like binary search, we could not contemplate such services. 
+
+Whether it be extensive experimental data or detailed representations of 
+some aspect of the physical world, modern scientists are awash in vast amounts of 
+data. Binary search and fast algorithms like it are essential components of scientific 
+progress. Using a brute-force algorithm is precisely analogous to searching for a 
+word in a dictionary by starting at the first page and turning pages one by one. With 
+a fast algorithm, you can literally search among billions of pieces of information in 
+an instant. Taking the time to identify and use a fast algorithm for search certainly 
+can make the difference between being able to solve a problem easily and spending 
+substantial resources trying to do so (and failing). 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+521 
+
+
+Insertion sort Binary search requires that the data be sorted, and sorting has 
+many other direct applications, so we now turn to sorting algorithms. We first con- 
+sider a brute-force method, then a sophisticated method that we can use for huge 
+data sets. 
+
+The brute-force algorithm is known as insertion sort and is based on a simple 
+method that people often use to arrange hands of playing cards. Consider the cards 
+one at a time and insert each into its proper place among those already considered 
+(keeping them sorted). The following code mimics this process in a Java method 
+that sorts strings in an array: 
+
+public static void sort(String[] a) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+for (int i = 1; i < N; i++) 
+for (int j = i; j > 0; j— ) 
+
+if (a[j-l] .compareTo(a[j]) > 0) 
+exch(a, j-1, j); 
+else break; 
+
+} 
+
+The outer for loop sorts the first i entries in the array; the inner for loop com- 
+pletes the sort by putting a [i ] into its proper position in the array, as in the follow- 
+ing example when i is 6: 
+
+
+a 
+
+
+1 
+
+J 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+6 
+
+6 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+6 
+
+5 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+was 
+
+the 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+6 
+
+4 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+
+Inserting a [6] into position by exchanging with larger entries to its left 
+
+
+Entry a[i] is put in its place among the sorted entries to its left by exchanging 
+it (using the exch() method that we first encountered in Section 2.1) with each 
+larger element to its left, moving from right to left, until it reaches its proper posi- 
+tion. The black entries in the three bottom rows in this trace are the ones that are 
+compared (and exchanged, on all but the final iteration). 
+
+The insertion process just described is executed, first with i equal to 1, then 2, 
+then 3, and so forth, as illustrated in the following trace. 
+
+
+
+522 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+a 
+
+
+1 
+
+J 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+
+
+was 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+1 
+
+0 
+
+had 
+
+was 
+
+him 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+h i s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+2 
+
+1 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+3 
+
+0 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+4 
+
+4 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the. 
+
+but 
+
+5 
+
+3 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+6 
+
+4 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+7 
+
+1 
+
+and 
+
+but 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+but 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+
+Inserting a[l] through a[N-l] into position (insertion sort) 
+
+This trace displays the contents of the array each time the outer for loop completes, 
+along with the value of j at that time. The highlighted element is the one that was 
+in a[i ] at the beginning of the loop, and the other elements printed in black are 
+the other ones that were involved in exchanges and moved to the right one posi- 
+tion within the loop. Since the elements a[0] through a[i -1] are in sorted order 
+when the loop completes for each value of i , they are, in particular, in sorted order 
+the final time the loop completes, when the value of i is a . 1 ength. This discussion 
+again illustrates the first thing that you need to do when studying or developing a 
+new algorithm: convince yourself that it is correct. Doing so provides the basic un- 
+derstanding that you need in order to study its performance and use it effectively. 
+
+Analysis of running time. The inner loop of the insertion sort code is within a 
+double for loop, which suggests that the running time is quadratic, but we cannot 
+immediately draw this conclusion, because of the break. For example, in the best 
+case, when the input array is already in sorted order, the inner for loop amounts to 
+nothing more than a comparison (to learn that a [ j -1] is less than a [ j ] for each j 
+from 1 to N-l) and the break, so the total running time is linear. On the other 
+hand, in the reverse-sorted case, the inner loop fully completes without a break, so 
+the frequency of execution of the instructions in the inner loop is 1 + 2 + . . . + 
+N— 1 ~ N 2 and the running time is quadratic. To understand the performance of 
+insertion sort for randomly ordered input, take a careful look at the trace: it is an 
+N-by-N array with one black element corresponding to each exchange. That is, the 
+number of black elements is the frequency of execution of instructions in the inner 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+523 
+
+
+loop. We expect that each new element to be inserted is equally likely to fall into any 
+position, so that element will move halfWay to the left on average. Thus, on the av- 
+erage, we expect only about one-half the elements below the diagonal (about N 2 / 4 
+in total) to be black,. This leads immediately to the hypothesis that the expected 
+running time of insertion sort for a randomly ordered input array is quadratic. 
+
+
+Sorting other types of data. We want to be able to sort all types of data, not just 
+strings. In a scientific application, we may wish to sort experimental results by nu- 
+meric values; in a commercial application, we may wish to use monetary amounts, 
+times, or dates; in systems software, we might wish to use IP addresses or account 
+numbers. The idea of sorting in each of these situations is intuitive, but implement- 
+ing a sort method that works in all of them is 
+a prime example of the need for a functional 
+abstraction mechanism like the one provided 
+by Java. For sorting objects in an array, we 
+need only assume that we can compare two el- 
+ements to see whether the first is bigger than, 
+smaller than, or equal to the second. Java pro- 
+vides the Comparable interface for precisely 
+this purpose. Simply put, a class that imple- 
+ments the Comparable interface promises to 
+implement a method compareToO for objects 
+of its type so that a.compareTo(b) returns a 
+negative integer if a is less than b, a positive 
+integer if a is greater than b, and 0 if a is equal 
+to b. The precise meanings of less than, greater than, and equal to are up to the data 
+type, though implementations that do not respect the natural laws of mathematics 
+surrounding these concepts will yield unpredictable results. With this convention, 
+we can implement our sort method so that it sorts arrays of Comparabl e objects, 
+and use compareToO to compare them, as illustrated in Insertion (Program 
+4.2.4). As discussed in Section 3.3, Java’s Stri ng type implements the Comparabl e 
+interface (we have been using its compareToO method), as does the Date type and 
+wrappers for primitive numeric types such as Integer and Double. Thus, we can 
+use Inserti on. sort () to sort arrays of all of these types of data. It is also easy to 
+implement the interface so that we can sort user-defined types of data, as we saw 
+in Section 3.3. 
+
+
+unshaded 
+entries are 
+the ones "" 
+that moved 
+
+
+N 2 entries 
+in total 
+
+
+-N : /2 entries above the 
+\ 
+
+? diagonal 
+
+\ 
+
+are shaded 
+
+was 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+and 
+
+\ 
+
+you 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+^ had 
+
+was 
+
+h i m 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+and 
+
+has 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+r and 
+
+had 
+
+hi ni 
+
+his 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+and 
+
+but 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+
+~N 2 / 4 (half) of the entries below the 
+diagonal, on the average , are black 
+
+
+Analysis of insertion sort 
+
+
+
+524 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+K 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.2.4 Insertion sort 
+
+
+public class Insertion 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void sort(Comparable[] a) 
+
+{ // Sort a[] into increasing order, 
+
+int N = a. length; 
+for (int i =1; i < N; i++) 
+
+// Insert a [i ] into position by exchanging 
+//it with the larger elements to its left, 
+for (int j = i; j > 0; j— ) 
+
+if (a[j-l] .compareTo(a[j]) > 0) 
+exch(a, j-1, j); 
+else break; 
+
+
+a[] 
+
+N 
+
+
+array to sort 
+number of entries 
+
+
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+public static void exch(Comparable[] a, int i, int j) 
+
+{ Comparable t = a[j] ; a[j] = a[j-l]; a[j-l] = t; > 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read strings from standard input, sort them, and print. 
+
+String [] a = Stdln. readAll () .split ("\\s+") ; 
+sort (a) ; 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < a. length; i++) 
+
+StdOut.print(a[i] + " "); 
+
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+The sortO function is an implementation of insertion sort. It sorts arrays of any type of data 
+that implements the Comparable interface (has a compareToO method). This method is ap- 
+propriate for small files or for large files that are nearly in order, but is too slow to use for large 
+files that are out of order. 
+
+
+m:, 
+
+i 
+
+
+
+% more tiny.txt 
+
+was had him and you his the but 
+
+% java Insertion < tiny.txt 
+and but had him his the was you 
+
+% java Insertion < TomSawyer.txt 
+
+tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IliSPSPi 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+525 
+
+
+Empirical analysis. Inserti onTest (Program 4.2.5) tests our hypothesis that in- 
+sertion sort is quadratic for randomly ordered files by running Inserti on . sort () 
+on N random Doubl e values, computing the ratios of running times as N doubles. 
+This ratio converges to 4, which validates the hypothesis that the running time is 
+quadratic, as discussed in the last section. You are encouraged to run Insertion- 
+Test on your own computer. As usual, you might notice the effect of caching or 
+some other system characteristic for some values of N, but the quadratic running 
+time should be quite evident, and you will be quickly convinced that insertion sort 
+is too slow to be useful for large inputs. 
+
+Sensitivity to input. Note that Inserti onTest takes a command-line argument 
+T and runs T experiments for each array size, not just one. As we have just observed, 
+one reason for doing so is that the running time of insertion sort is sensitive to its 
+input values. This behavior is quite different from (for example) ThreeSum, and 
+means that we have to carefully interpret the results of our analysis. It is not correct 
+to flatly predict that the running time of insertion sort will be quadratic, because 
+your application might involve input for which the running time is linear. When an 
+algorithm’s performance is sensitive to input values, you might not be able to make 
+accurate predictions without taking the input values into account. 
+
+There are many natural applications for which insertion sort is quadratic, so we 
+need to consider faster sorting algorithms. As we know from Section 4.1, a back-of- 
+the-envelope calculation can tell us that having a faster computer is not much help. 
+A dictionary, a scientific database, or a commercial database can contain billions of 
+entries; how can we sort such a large array? 
+
+
+
+526 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+i:l:i:IlIllSISK 
+
+
+Program 4.2.5 Doubling test for insertion sort 
+
+public class Insert! onTest 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double timeTrials(int T, int N) 
+{ // Sort T random arrays of size N. 
+
+double total = 0.0; 
+
+Doublet] a = new Double[N]; 
+for (int t = 0; t < T; t++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+a[i] = Math. random () ; 
+
+Stopwatch watch = new Stopwatch (); 
+
+Inserti on . sort (a) ; 
+
+total += watch.elapsedTimeO; 
+
+} 
+
+return total ; 
+
+
+T 
+
+number of trials 
+
+N 
+
+problem size 
+
+total 
+
+total elapsed time 
+
+watch 
+
+stopwatch 
+
+a [] 
+
+array to sort 
+
+curr 
+
+total for current size 
+
+prev 
+
+total for previous size 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print doubling ratios for T trials of insertion sort, 
+
+int T = Integer .parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+double prev = timeTrials(T, 512); 
+for (int N = 1024; true; N += N) 
+
+{ 
+
+double curr = timeTrials(T, N) ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntf ("%7d %4.2f\n", N, curr / prev); 
+prev = curr; 
+
+} 
+
+
+The method timeTrialsO runs Insertion . sort() for arrays of random double values. The 
+first argument is the length of the array; the second is the number of trials. Multiple trials 
+produce more accurate results because they dampen system effects and because insertion sort’s 
+running time depends on the input. 
+
+
+% java Inserti onTest 1 
+1024 0.71 
+2048 3.00 
+4096 5.20 
+8192 3.32 
+16384 3.91 
+32768 3.89 
+
+
+i java InsertionTest 10 
+1024 1.89 
+2048 5.00 
+4096 3.58 
+8192 4.09 
+16384 4.83 
+32768 3.96 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+527 
+
+
+Mergesort To develop a faster sorting method, we use recursion (as we did for 
+binary search) and a divide-and-conquer approach to algorithm design that every 
+programmer needs to understand. This nomenclature 
+refers to the idea that one way to solve a problem is to 
+divide it into independent parts, conquer them inde- 
+pendently, and then use the solutions for the parts to 
+develop a solution for the full problem. To sort an array 
+with this strategy, we divide it into two halves, sort the 
+two halves independently, and then merge the results to 
+sort the full array. This method is known as mergesort. 
+
+We process contiguous subarrays of a given array, 
+using the notation a [To, hi) to refer to a [To], 
+a [1 o+l] , ..., a [hi -1] (adopting the same convention as we used for binary search 
+to denote a half-open interval that excludes a [hi ] ). To sort a [1 o , hi ) , we use the 
+following recursive strategy: 
+
+• Base case: If the subarray size is 0 or 1, it is already sorted. 
+
+• Recursive step : Otherwise, compute mi d = 1 o + (hi - 1 o)/2, sort (recur- 
+sively) the two subarrays a [1 o , mid) and a [mi d , hi ) , and merge them. 
+
+Merge (Program 4.2.6) is an implementation of this algorithm. The array elements 
+are rearranged by the code that follows the recursive calls, which merges the two 
+halves of the array that were sorted by the recursive calls. As usual, the easiest way 
+to understand the merge process is to study a trace of the contents of the array dur- 
+ing the merge. The code maintains one index i into the first half, another index j 
+
+
+input 
+
+was had him and you his the but 
+
+sort left 
+
+and had him was you his the but 
+
+sort right 
+
+and had him was but his the you 
+
+merge 
+
+and but had him his the was you 
+
+Mergesort overview 
+
+
+
+Trace of the merge of the sorted left half with the sorted right half 
+
+
+
+528 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Program 4.2.6 Mergesort 
+
+public class Merge 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void sort(Comparable[] a) 
+
+{ sort(a, 0, a. length); } 
+
+public static void sort(Comparable[] a, int lo, int hi) 
+
+{ // Sort a[lo, hi) . 
+
+l!*; = h i - lo: a[lo, hi) sul 
+
+if (N <= 1) return; 
+
+int mid = lo + N/2; N stz 
+
+sort(a, lo, mid); mid mi 
+
+sort (a, mid, hi); aux[] ex> 
+
+Comparable [] aux = new Comparable [N] ; 
+
+int i = lo, j = mid; 
+
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+
+if (i == mid) aux[k] = a[j++]; 
+
+else if (j == hi) aux[k] = a[i++]; 
+
+else if (a[j] .compareTo(a[i]) < 0) aux[k] = a[j++]; 
+else aux[k] = a[i++]; 
+
+for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
+a[lo + k] = aux[k]; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ /* See Program 4.2.4 (and text) */ } 
+
+
+subarray to sort 
+size of subarray 
+midpoint 
+
+extra array for merge 
+
+
+The sort() function in this class is a fast method that you can use to sort arrays of any type 
+of data that implements Comparabl e. It is based on a recursive sort () that sorts a [1 o , hi ) 
+by sorting its two halves recursively, then merging together the two halves to create the sorted 
+result. The output below and at right is a trace of the sorted subarray for each call to sort(). In 
+contrast to Inserti on, this implementation is suitable for sorting huge arrays. 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+529 
+
+
+into the second half, and a third index k into an auxiliary array aux [] that holds the 
+result. The merge implementation is a single loop that sets aux[k] to either a[i] 
+or a [ j ] (and then increments k and the index for the value that is used). If either i 
+or j has reached the end of its subarray, aux[k] is set from the other; otherwise, it 
+is set to the smaller of a [i ] or a [ j ] . After all of the elements from the two halves 
+have been copied to aux[], the sorted result is copied back to the original array. 
+Take a moment to study the trace just given to convince yourself that this code al- 
+ways properly combines the two sorted subarrays to sort the full array. 
+
+The recursive method ensures that the two halves of the array are put into 
+sorted order before the merge. Again, the best way to gain an understanding of 
+this process is to study a trace of the contents of the array each time the recursive 
+sort() method returns. Such a trace for our example is shown next. First a[0] and 
+a[l] are merged to make a sorted subarray in a[0, 2), then a[2] and a[3] are 
+merged to make a sorted subarray in a [2 , 4) , then these two subarrays of size 2 are 
+merged to make a sorted subarray in a[0, 4), and so forth. If you are convinced 
+that the merge works properly, you need only convince yourself that the code prop- 
+erly divides the array to be convinced that the sort works properly. Note that when 
+the number of elements is not even, the left half will have one fewer element than 
+the right half. 
+
+
+a 
+
+
+
+
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+
+
+
+was 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+sortCa, 0, 8) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+sort (a, 0, 
+
+4) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+sort (a, 
+
+0 , 
+
+2) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+return 
+
+
+
+had 
+
+was 
+
+him 
+
+and 
+
+you 
+
+hi s 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+sortCa, 
+
+2, 
+
+4) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+return 
+
+
+
+had 
+
+was 
+
+and 
+
+him 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+return 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+sortCa, 4, 
+
+8) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+sortCa, 
+
+4, 
+
+6) 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+return 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+his 
+
+you 
+
+the 
+
+but 
+
+sortCa, 
+
+6, 
+
+oo 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+return 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+hi s 
+
+you 
+
+but 
+
+the 
+
+return 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+was 
+
+but 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+you 
+
+return 
+
+
+
+and 
+
+but 
+
+had 
+
+him 
+
+his 
+
+the 
+
+was 
+
+you 
+
+
+Trace of recursive mergesort calls 
+
+
+
+530 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Analysis of running time. The inner loop of mergesort is centered on the auxil- 
+iary array. The two for loops involve N iterations (and creating the array takes time 
+proportional to N), so the frequency of execution of the instructions in the inner 
+loop is proportional to the sum of the subarray sizes for all calls to the recursive 
+function. The value of this quantity emerges when we arrange the calls on levels 
+according to their size. For simplicity, suppose that N is a power of 2, with N = 2". 
+
+On the first level, we have one call for size N; 
+on the second level, we have two calls for 
+size N/2; on the third level, we have four 
+calls for size N/4; and so forth, down to the 
+last level with N/2 calls of size 2. There are 
+precisely n = IgN levels, giving the grand to- 
+tal N IgN for the frequency of execution of 
+the instructions in the inner loop of merge- 
+sort. This equation justifies a hypothesis 
+that the running time of mergesort is lin- 
+earithmic. Note: When N is not a power of 
+two, the subarrays on each level are not necessarily all the same size, but the num- 
+ber of levels is still logarithmic, so the linearithmic hypothesis is justified for all N 
+(see Exercises 4.2.16-17). 
+
+You are encouraged to run a doubling test such as Program 4.2.5 for Merge . 
+so rt () on your computer. If you do so, you certainly will appreciate that it is much 
+faster for large files than is Insert! on . sortO and that you can sort huge arrays 
+with relative ease. Validating the hypothesis that the running time is linearithmic is 
+a bit more work, but you certainly can see that mergesort makes it possible for us to 
+address sorting problems that we could not contemplate solving with a brute-force 
+algorithm such as insertion sort. 
+
+Quadratic— linearithmic chasm. The difference between N 2 and NlgN makes a 
+huge difference in practical applications, just the same as the linear-logarithmic 
+chasm that is overcome by binary search. Understanding the enormousness of this dif- 
+ference is another critical step to understanding the importance of the design and anal- 
+ysis of algorithms. For a great many important computational problems, a speedup 
+from quadratic to linearithmic — such as we achieve with mergesort — makes the 
+difference between the ability to solve a problem involving a huge amount of data 
+and not being able to effectively address it at all. 
+
+
+1 X 
+
+N/l 
+
+= N 
+
+2 X 
+
+N/2 
+
+= N 
+
+4 X 
+
+N/4 
+
+= N 
+
+8 X 
+
+N/8 
+
+= N 
+
+N/2 
+
+X 2 
+
+= N 
+
+Total: NlgN 
+
+
+□nn 
+
+
+HDD 
+
+
+. IgN 
+
+levels 
+
+
+Mergesort inner loop count (when N is a power of 2) 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+531 
+
+
+Divide-and-conquer algorithms. The same basic approach is effective for many 
+important problems, as you will learn if you take a course on algorithm design. 
+For the moment, you are particularly encouraged to study the exercises at the end 
+of this section, which describe a host of problems for which divide-and-conquer 
+algorithms provide feasible solutions and which could not be addressed without 
+such algorithms. 
+
+Reduction to sorting. A problem A reduces to a problem B if we can use a solu- 
+tion to B to solve A. Designing a new divide-and-conquer algorithm from scratch 
+is sometimes akin to solving a puzzle that requires some experience and ingenuity, 
+so you may not feel confident that you can do so at first. But it is often the case that 
+a simpler approach is effective: given a new problem that lends itself to a quadratic 
+brute- force solution, ask yourself how you would solve it if the data were sorted. It 
+often turns out to be the case that a relatively simple linear pass through the sorted 
+data will do the job. Thus, we get a linearithmic algorithm, with the ingenuity hid- 
+den in the mergesort implementation. For example, consider the problem of de- 
+termining whether the elements in an array are all different. This problem reduces 
+to sorting because we can sort the array, and then pass through the sorted array to 
+check whether any entry is equal to the next — if not, the elements are all different. 
+For another example, an easy way to implement StdStats . sel ect () (see Section 
+2.2) is to reduce selection to sorting. We consider next two more complicated ex- 
+amples, and you can find many others in the exercises at the end of this section. 
+
+Mergesort traces back to john von Neumann, an accomplished physicist, who was 
+among the first to recognize the importance of computation in scientific research. 
+Von Neumann made many contributions to computer science, including a basic 
+conception of the computer architecture that has been used since the 1950s. When 
+it came to applications programming, von Neumann recognized that: 
+
+• Sorting is an essential ingredient in many applications. 
+
+• Quadratic algorithms are too slow for practical purposes. 
+
+• A divide-and-conquer approach is effective. 
+
+• Proving programs correct and knowing their cost is important. 
+
+Computers are many orders of magnitude faster and have many orders of magni- 
+tude more memory, but these basic concepts remain important today. People who 
+use computers effectively and successfully know, as did von Neumann, that brute- 
+force algorithms are often not good enough to do the job. 
+
+
+
+532 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Application: frequency counts FrequencyCount (Program 4.2.7) reads a 
+sequence of strings from standard input and then prints a table of the distinct 
+values found and the number of times each was found, in decreasing order of the 
+frequencies. This computation is useful in numerous applications: a linguist might 
+be studying patterns of word usage in long texts, a scientist might be looking for 
+frequently occurring events in experimental data, a merchant might be looking 
+for the customers who appear most frequently in a long list of transactions, or a 
+network analyst might be looking for the heaviest users. Each of these applications 
+might involve millions of strings or more, so we need a linearithmic algorithm (or 
+better). FrequencyCount is an example of developing such an algorithm by reduc- 
+tion to sorting. It actually does two sorts. 
+
+Computing the frequencies. Our first step is to sort the strings on standard input. 
+In this case, we are not so much interested in the fact that the strings are put into 
+sorted order, but in the fact that sorting brings equal strings together. If the input is 
+
+to be or not to be to 
+
+
+then the result of the sort is 
+
+be be not or to to to 
+
+with equal strings, such as the two occurrences of be and the three occurrences of 
+to, brought together in the array. Now, with equal strings all together in the array, 
+we can make a single pass through the array to compute all of the frequencies. The 
+Counter data type that we considered in Section 3.3 is the perfect tool for the job. 
+Recall that a Counter has a string instance variable (initialized to the construc- 
+tor argument), a count instance variable (initialized to 0), and an incrementO 
+instance method, which increments the counter by one. We maintain an array of 
+Counter objects and do the following for each string: 
+
+• If the string is not equal to the previous one, create a new Counter. 
+
+• Increment the most recently created Counter. 
+
+At the end, the value of M is the number of different string values, and zi pf [i ] 
+contains the i th string value and its frequency. 
+
+Sorting the frequencies. Next, we sort the Counter objects by frequency. We can 
+do so in client code without any special arrangements because Counter imple- 
+ments the Comparable interface (and therefore has a compareToO method). We 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+533 
+
+
+
+Program 4.2.7 Frequency counts 
+
+
+public class FrequencyCount 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Print input strings in decreasing order s 
+
+// of frequency of occurence. . n 
+
+String s = Stdln . readAl 1 () ; words u 
+
+String[] words = s.split("\\s+") ; zipf[] 
+
+Merge. sort(words) ; M 
+
+Counter [] zipf = new Counter [words. 1 ength] ; •wmw 
+int M = 0; 
+
+for (int i =0; i < words. length; i++) 
+
+{ // Create new counter or increment prev counter, 
+
+if (i == 0 || !words[i] . equals (words [i-1])) 
+
+zipf[M++j = new Counter(words[i] , words. 1 ength) ; 
+zi pf [M-l] . i ncrementO ; 
+
+} 
+
+Merge. sort (zipf, 0, M); 
+
+for (int j = M-l; j >= 0; j— ) 
+
+StdOut.println(zipf [j]) ; 
+
+
+input 
+
+strings in input 
+counter array 
+different strings 
+
+
+This program sorts the words on standard input, uses the sorted list to count the frequency of 
+occurrence of each, and then sorts the frequencies. The test file used below has over 20 million 
+words. The plot compares the i th frequency relative to the first (bars) with 1/ i (blue).. 
+
+
+% java FrequencyCount < LeipziglM.txt 
+
+1160105 the 
+
+59B492 of 
+
+560945 to 
+
+472819 a 
+
+435866 and 
+
+430484 in 
+
+205531 for 
+
+192296 The 
+
+188971 that 
+
+172225 is 
+
+148915 said 
+
+147024 on 
+
+141178 was 
+
+118429 by 
+
+
+534 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+
+simply sort the array! Note that FrequencyCount allocates zipf[] to its maxi- 
+mum possible size and sorts a subarray, as opposed to the alternative of making 
+an extra pass through words [] to determine the number of distinct entries before 
+allocating zipf[]. Leaving its recursive sort() function 
+for subarrays public (there is not reason not to) allows 
+MergeSort to support such applications. 
+
+Zipfs law. The application highlighted in Frequency- 
+Count is elementary linguistic analysis: which words ap- 
+pear most frequently in a text? A phenomenon known as 
+Zipfs law says that the frequency of the z'th most frequent 
+word in a text of M distinct words is proportional to Hi, 
+with its constant of proportionality the Harmonic number 
+H m . For example, the second most common word should 
+appear about half as often as the first. This is an empirical 
+hypothesis that holds in a surprising variety of situations 
+ranging from financial data to web usage statistics. The test client run in Program 
+4.2.7 validates Zipf’s law for a database containing 1 million sen- 
+tences drawn from popular publications (see the booksite). 
+
+You are likely to find yourself writing a program sometime in the 
+future for a simple task that could easily be solved by first using 
+a sort. How many distinct values are there? Which value appears 
+most frequently? Are the strings all different? Which is the medi- 
+an element? With a linearithmic sorting algorithm such as merge- 
+sort, you can address these problems and many other problems 
+like them, even for huge data sets. FrequencyCount, which uses 
+two different sorts, is a prime example. If sorting does not apply 
+directly, some other divide-and-conquer algorithm might apply, 
+or some more sophisticated method might be needed. Without a 
+good algorithm (and an understanding of its performance char- 
+acteristics), you might find yourself frustrated by the idea that your fast and ex- 
+pensive computer cannot solve a problem that seems to be a simple one. With an 
+ever-increasing set of problems that you know how to solve efficiently, you will find 
+that your computer can be a much more effective tool than you now imagine. To il- 
+lustrate this idea, we consider next an application to a problem in bioinformatics. 
+
+
+zipf [i] 
+
+
+before 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+
+after 
+
+
+be 
+
+not 
+
+or 
+
+to 
+
+not 
+
+or 
+
+be 
+
+to 
+
+
+Sorting the frequencies 
+
+
+a[i] 
+
+
+zipf[i] .countQ 
+
+
+be 
+
+be 
+
+not 
+
+or 
+
+to 
+
+to 
+
+to 
+
+
+2 113 
+
+Counting the frequencies 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+535 
+
+
+Application: longest repeated substring Another important computational 
+task that reduces to sorting is the problem of finding the longest repeated substring 
+in a given string. For example, the longest repeated substring in the string to be 
+or not to be is the string to be. This problem is simple to state and has many 
+important applications, including data compression, cryptography, and computer- 
+assisted music analysis. Think briefly about how you might solve it. Could you find 
+the longest repeated substring in a string that has millions of characters? 
+
+Another application is refactoring code. Programmers often put together new 
+programs by cutting-and-pasting code from old programs. In a large program built 
+over a long period of time, replacing duplicate code by function calls to a single 
+copy of the code can make the program much easier to understand and maintain. 
+This improvement can easily be accomplished by finding long repeated substrings 
+in the program. Documented success stories of using this approach on large sys- 
+tems have led to its being a standard technique in the repertoire of people who 
+develop large software systems. 
+
+Another application is found in computational biology. Are substantial iden- 
+tical substrings to be found in a genome? Again, the basic computational problem 
+underlying this question is to find the longest repeated substring in a string. Scien- 
+tists are typically interested in more detailed questions (indeed, the nature of the 
+repeated substrings is precisely what scientists seek to understand), but such ques- 
+tions are certainly no easier than the basic question of finding the longest repeated 
+substring. Various modifications of our solution to this problem can solve other 
+problems of interest, as addressed in several of the exercises. 
+
+With such applications in mind, we now focus on the basic computational 
+problem of finding the longest repeated substring in a given string. 
+
+Longest common prefix. As a warm-up, consider the following simple task: given 
+two strings, find their longest common prefix (the longest substring that is a prefix 
+of both strings). For example, the longest common prefix of acctgttaac and ac- 
+cgttaa is acc. The following code for solving this problem is a useful starting point 
+for addressing more complicated tasks: 
+
+
+
+536 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+public static String lcpCString s, String t) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = Math.min(s.length() , t.lengthO); 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+if (s.charAt(i) != t.charAt(i)) 
+return s.substring(0, i); 
+return s.substring(0, N); 
+
+> 
+
+This code is trickier than it looks: you should convince yourself that it works prop- 
+erly when the first characters of the two strings are different, when one or both of 
+the strings are of length 0, and the two cases when each of the strings is a prefix of 
+the other. 
+
+Brute-force solution. Now, how do we find the longest sequence of characters 
+that is repeated in a given string? With lcp(), the following brute-force solution 
+immediately suggests itself: 
+
+public static String lrs (String s) 
+
+{ 
+
+String lrs = 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+{ 
+
+for (int j = i+1; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ 
+
+String x = lcp(s.substring(i , N), s.substring(j , N)); 
+if (x.lengthO > Irs.lengthO) 
+lrs = x; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+return lrs; 
+
+} 
+
+We compare the substring starting at each string position i with the substring 
+starting at each other starting position j , keeping track of the longest match found. 
+This code is not useful for long strings, because its running time is at least quadratic 
+in the length of the string: by examining the nested for loops, it is easy to see that 
+the number of calls on 1 cp() is N— 1 + N—2 + ... + 2 + 1 ~ N 2 . Using this code 
+for a genomic sequence with millions of characters would require trillions of 1 cp () 
+calls, which is infeasible. 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+537 
+
+
+Suffix sort solution. The following clever approach, which again takes advantage 
+of sorting in an unexpected way, is an effective way to find the longest repeated 
+subsequence, even in huge strings: we use subst ri ng () to make an array of strings 
+that consists of the suffixes of s (the substrings starting 
+at each position and going to the end), and then we sort 
+this array. The key to the algorithm is that every sub- 
+string appears somewhere as a prefix of one of the suf- 
+fixes in the array. After sorting, the longest repeated sub- 
+strings will appear in adjacent positions in the array 
+(like the equal keys in FrequencyCount). Thus, we can 
+proceed just as we did for FrequencyCount: make a sin- 
+gle pass through the sorted array, keeping track of the 
+longest matching prefixes between adjacent strings. LRS 
+(Program 4.2.8) is an implementation of this method. 
+
+This program is significantly more efficient than the 
+brute-force method. Analyzing its performance depends 
+upon an understanding of details of Java’s Stri ng im- 
+plementation, which we examine next. The end result is 
+
+
+input string 
+
+012345678 91011121314 
+
+aacaagtttacaagc 
+
+suffixes 
+
+0 aacaagtttacaagc 
+
+1 acaagtttacaagc 
+caagtttacaagc 
+aagtttacaagc 
+agtttacaagc 
+gtttacaagc 
+tttacaagc 
+ttacaagc 
+t a c a a g c 
+a c a a g c 
+c a a g c 
+a a g c 
+age 
+9 c 
+c 
+
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+8 
+
+9 
+
+10 
+11 
+12 
+
+13 
+
+14 
+
+
+sorted suffixes 
+
+
+that the running time is linearithmic (unless the length 
+of the repeat is huge), and so we certainly can handle 
+strings with millions of characters. 
+
+String representation. The running time of LRS is 
+strongly dependent on the way that Java represents 
+Stri ng objects, so we briefly revisit the representation. 
+A value of the Stri ng data type is a sequence of charac- 
+ters. Java represents them using an array of characters, 
+plus the offset to the first character and the length. As 
+with arrays, the implementation can return the length in 
+
+
+0 aacaagtttacaagc 
+n a a g c 
+
+3 aagtttacaagc 
+
+9 a c a a g c 
+
+1 acaagtttacaagc 
+
+12 a g c 
+
+4 agtttacaagc 
+
+14 C 
+
+10 c a a g c 
+
+2 caagtttacaagc 
+
+13 g c 
+
+s gtttacaagc 
+8 tacaagc 
+7 ttacaagc 
+6 tttacaagc 
+
+longest repeated substring 
+1 9 
+
+
+constant time. Also, the string data type is immutable (it aacaagtttacaagc 
+
+has no methods to change any string’s value) , so Java can ^ , r n c ~ 
+
+reuse the array holding the characters. In the present 
+context, the most important consequence of this design 
+
+is that the subst ri ng() method does not take time proportional to the length of 
+the result, but instead requires just a few machine instructions: it simply calculates 
+the necessary offset to the first character and length in a straightforward manner. 
+
+
+
+538 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Therefore, the substring operation in Java takes constant time and space. Java pro- 
+grammers are well-advised to take advantage of this efficient implementation of 
+
+
+
+a[0] = "tttacaagc"; exch(a, 0, 1) 
+a[l] = "Hello, World"; 
+
+
+Exchanging two strings in an array 
+
+
+substringC). 
+
+Sorting strings. Given an array of strings, 
+we can rearrange them so that they appear 
+in lexicographic order in the array (the or- 
+der they would appear in a dictionary) with 
+Merge. sort() because String implements the 
+Comparabl e interface. It is very important to note 
+that this approach is effective for long strings and 
+large objects because of the Java reference repre- 
+sentation for objects: when we exchange two objects, 
+we are exchanging only references, not the whole ob- 
+ject. Now, the cost of comparing two strings may be 
+proportional to the length of the strings in the case 
+when their common prefix is very long, but most 
+comparisons in typical string sort applications in- 
+volve only a few characters. If so, the running time 
+of the string sort is linearithmic. 
+
+Suffix arrays. From the standpoint of the sort, 
+there is no difference between sorting an array of 
+strings and sorting a suffix array: both refer to an 
+array of references to strings. A suffix array is an 
+array of string objects, each consisting of the stan- 
+dard object overhead, a reference to an array of 
+char values, an offset, a length, (and a hash value). 
+Suffix arrays are characterized by the fact that all 
+of the array references are to the same char array, 
+which holds the string of interest, and that each 
+possible offset and length appears once. 
+
+
+LRS analysis. We can now see why the suffix sort- 
+ing approach to solving the longest repeated substring problem in Program 4.2.8 
+is effective, even though the suffixes of a very long string are themselves very long. 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+539 
+
+
+
+
+
+I "1 
+
+
+Program 4.2.8 Longest repeated substring 
+
+public class LRS 
+
+{ 
+
+public static String lcpCString s, String t) 
+
+{ // See text. } 
+
+public static String lrs(String s) 
+
+{ // Find the longest repeated substring in s. 
+
+// Create and sort suffix array. 
+
+int N = s.lengthO ; 
+
+String [] suffixes = new String[N]; 
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+
+suffixes [i] = s.substring(i , N); 
+
+Merge. sort(suffixes) ; 
+
+
+suffixes [] 
+
+
+String Irs = ssmiHiaiHip 
+
+for (int i =0; i < N— 1; i++) 
+
+{ // LRS is longest common prefix in adjacent strings. 
+
+String x = lcp(suffixes[i] , suffixes [i+1]) ; 
+if (x.lengthO > 1 rs.lengthO) Irs = x; 
+
+} 
+
+return Irs; 
+
+
+input string 
+length 
+suffix array 
+longest repeated 
+substring 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Find the longest repeated substring in Stdln. 
+
+String s = Stdln . readAll () ; 
+
+StdOut .print! n(l rs(s)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+To find the longest repeated substring in a string, we form an array of all the string's suffixes, 
+sort the array, and then find the longest common prefix of adjacent strings in the result. 
+
+
+% more example.txt 
+aacaagtttacaagc 
+% java LRS < example.txt 
+acaag 
+
+% java LRS < genome.txt 
+aaactcgacaaacccatttaccccacactttt 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+540 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+String s = "ATAGATGCATAGCGCATAGCTAGATGTGCTAGCAT" 
+int N = s.lengthO; 
+
+String [] suffixes = new String[N]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+
+suffixes [i] - s.substring(i , N); 
+
+
+
+Memory requirements for a suffix array 
+
+
+The total length of the suffixes is quadratic, but the actual space used is only linear, 
+because Java represents each substring with a constant amount of extra space. The 
+substri ng() operations all take constant time, most string comparisons involve 
+only a few character comparisons, and all exchanges are fast because they just in- 
+volve exchanging references. In summary, this discussion supports the hypothesis 
+that the running time of Program 4.2.8 is linearithmic. We expect the sort to be 
+linearithmic, and then we make a single pass through the string to find the longest 
+common prefix among adjacent substrings. 
+
+
+Long repeats. A more precise analysis shows that our suffix sorting approach (and 
+finding the longest repeated substring) is quadratic (or worse) in the length of the 
+repeated substring, because each suffix of the repeated substring appears twice as a 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+541 
+
+
+prefix in the suffix array and requires time proportional to its length for 1 cp() and 
+for comparisons during the sort. Accordingly, computational biologists and com- 
+puter scientists have developed more sophisticated 
+algorithms to look for repeated substrings whose 
+length is substantially longer than the square root of 
+the string length. 
+
+Lessons The vast majority of programs that we 
+write involve managing the complexity of addressing 
+a new practical problem by developing a clear and cor- 
+rect solution, breaking the program into modules of 
+manageable size whenever possible, and making use 
+of the basic available resources. From the very start, 
+our approach in this book has been to develop pro- 
+grams along these lines. But as you become involved 
+in ever more complex applications, you will find that 
+a clear and correct solution is not always sufficient, 
+because the cost of computation can be a limiting fac- 
+tor. The examples in this section are a basic illustra- 
+tion of this fact. 
+
+comparison cost is at least 
+1 +2 + M 2 /2 
+
+Respect the cost of computation. If you can quickly 
+, n ,, . -II -.i r LRS cost is quadratic in repeat length 
+
+solve a small problem with a simple algorithm, fine. n * 6 
+
+But if you need to address a problem that involves a 
+
+large amount of data or a substantial amount of computation, you need to take 
+into account the cost. 
+
+Reduce to a known problem. Our use of sorting for frequency counting and for 
+solving the longest repeated substring problem illustrates the utility of understand- 
+ing fundamental algorithms and using them for problem solving. 
+
+Divide-and-conquer. It is worthwhile for you to reflect a bit on the power of the 
+divide-and-conquer paradigm, as illustrated by developing a logarithmic search 
+algorithm (binary search) and a linearithmic sorting algorithm (mergesort) that 
+serves as the basis for addressing so many computational problems. Divide-and- 
+conquer is but one approach to developing efficient algorithms. 
+
+
+input string 
+
+aacaagtttacaagc 
+
+suffixes of longest repeat (M = 5) 
+
+a c a a g 
+
+
+c a a g 
+a a g 
+ag 
+9 
+
+
+_ all appear at least 
+twice as a prefix of 
+a suffix string 
+
+
+sorted suffixes of input 
+
+aacaagtttacaagc 
+
+0 a a g c 
+
+* aagtttacaagc 
+q a c a a g c 
+
+acaagtttacaagc 
+? age 
+
+c agtttacaagc 
+c 
+
+4 caag c 
+
+caagtttacaagc 
+
+1 gc 
+
+gtttacaagc 
+t a c a a g c 
+ttacaagc 
+tttacaagc 
+
+
+
+
+
+542 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Since the advent of computing, people have been developing algorithms such as 
+binary search and mergesort that can efficiently solve practical problems. The field 
+of study known as design and analysis of algorithms encompasses the study of de- 
+sign paradigms like divide-and-conquer, techniques to develop hypotheses about 
+algorithms performance, and algorithms for solving fundamental problems like 
+sorting and searching that can be put to use for practical applications of all kinds. 
+Implementations of many of these algorithms are found in Java libraries or other 
+specialized libraries, but understanding these basic tools of computation is like 
+understanding the basic tools of mathematics or science. You can use a matrix- 
+processing package to find the eigenvalues of a matrix, but you still need a course 
+in linear algebra. Now that you know that a fast algorithm can make the difference 
+between spinning your wheels and properly addressing a practical problem, you 
+can be on the lookout for situations where algorithm design and analysis can make 
+the difference, and for efficient algorithms like binary search and mergesort that 
+can do the job. 
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+543 
+
+
+
+Q. Why do we need to go to such lengths to prove a program correct? 
+
+A. To spare ourselves considerable pain. Binary search is a notable example. For 
+example, you now understand binary search; a classic programming exercise is to 
+write a version that uses a while loop instead of recursion. Try solving Exercise 
+4.2.1 without looking back at the code in the book. In a famous experiment, Jon 
+Bentley once asked several professional programmers to do so, and most of their 
+solutions were not correct. 
+
+Q. Are there implementations for sorting and searching in the Java library? 
+
+A. Yes. The Java library java, uti 1 .Arrays contains the methods Arrays . sort() 
+and Arrays.binarySearchO that implement mergesort and binary search for 
+Comparable types and a sorting implementation for primitive types based on a 
+version of the quicksort algorithm, which is faster than mergesort and also sorts an 
+array in place (without using any extra space). 
+
+Q. So why not just use them? 
+
+A. Feel free to do so. As with many topics we have studied, you will be able to use 
+such tools more effectively if you understand the background behind them. 
+
+Q. Why do I get a unchecked or unsafe operation warning when compiling In- 
+sertion and Merge? 
+
+A. The argument to sort() is a Comparable array, but nothing, technically, pre- 
+vents its elements from being of different types. To eliminate the warning, change 
+the signature to: 
+
+public static <Key extends Comparable<Key» void sort(Key[] a) 
+
+
+We'll learn about the <Key> notation in the next section. 
+
+
+
+
+544 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.2.1 Develop an implementation of TwentyQuesti ons that takes the maximum 
+number N as command-line argument. Prove that your implementation is cor- 
+rect. 
+
+
+4.2.2 Add code to Inserti on to produce the trace given in the text. 
+
+4.2.3 Add code to Merge to produce the trace given in the text. 
+
+4.2.4 Give traces of insertion sort and mergesort in the style of the traces in the 
+text, for the input i t was the best of times it was. 
+
+4.2.5 Describe why it is desirable to use immutable keys with binary search. 
+
+4.2.6 Explain why we use 1 o + (hi - 1 o) / 2 to compute the index midway be- 
+tween 1 o and hi instead of using (1 o + hi ) / 2. 
+
+Answer: The latter fails when 1 o + hi overflows an i nt. 
+
+4.2.7 Modify Bi narySearch (Program 4.2.3) so that if the search key is in the 
+array, it returns the smallest index i for which a [i ] is equal to key, and otherwise, 
+it returns -i , where i is the smallest index such that a [i ] is greater than key. 
+
+4.2.8 Describe what happens if you apply binary search to an unorderd array. 
+Why shouldn’t you check whether the array is sorted before each call to binary 
+search? Could you check that the elements binary search examines are in ascending 
+order? 
+
+
+4.2.9 Write a program DeDup that reads strings from standard input and prints 
+them on standard output with all duplicates removed (and in the same order they 
+are found in the input). 
+
+4.2.10 Find the frequency distribution of words in your favorite book. Does it 
+obey Zipf ’s law? 
+
+4.2.1 1 Find the longest repeated substring in your favorite book. 
+
+4.2.12 Add code to LRS (Program 4.2.8) to make it print indices in the original 
+string where the long repeated substring occur. 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+545 
+
+
+
+4.2.13 Find a pathological input for which LRS (Program 4.2.8) runs in quadratic 
+time (or worse). 
+
+4.2.14 Show that binary search in a sorted array is logarithmic as long as it elimi- 
+nates at least a constant fraction of the array at each step. 
+
+4.2.15 Modify Bi narySearch (Program 4.2.3) so that if the search key is not in 
+the array, it returns the largest index i for which a[i] is smaller than key (or -1 if 
+no such index exists). 
+
+4.2.16. Analyze mergesort mathematically when N is a power of 2, as we did for 
+binary search. 
+
+Answer: Let M(N) be the frequency of execution of the instructions in the inner 
+loop. Then M(N) must satisfy the following recurrence relation: 
+
+M(N) = 2M(N/2 ) + N 
+
+with M(l) = 0. Substituting 2" for N gives 
+
+M(2")= 2M(2" _1 ) + 2" 
+
+which is similar to but more complicated than the recurrence that we considered 
+for binary search. But if we divide both sides by 2”, we get 
+
+
+Af(2»)/ 2" = M(2" -1 )/ 2” -1 + 1 
+
+
+which is precisely the recurrence that we had for binary search. That, is M( 2")/ 2" 
+= T( 2" ) = n. Substituting back N for 2" (and IgN for n ) gives the result M(N) = 
+NlgN. 
+
+4.2.17 Analyze mergesort for the case when N not a power of two. 
+
+Partial answer: When N is an odd number, one subarray has to have one more 
+entry than the other, so when N is not a power of two, the subarrays on each level 
+are not necessarily all the same size. Still, every element appears in some subarray, 
+and the number of levels is still logarithmic, so the linearithmic hypothesis is justi- 
+fied for all N. 
+
+
+
+
+546 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+The following exercises are intended to give you experience in developing fast solutions 
+to typical problems. Think about using binary search, mergesort, or devising your own 
+divide-and-conquer algorithm. Implement and test your algorithm. 
+
+4 . 2.18 Median. Add to StdStats a method medi an () that computes in linearith- 
+mic time the median of a sequence of N integers. Hint: Reduce to sorting. 
+
+4 . 2.19 Mode. Add to StdStats a method modef) that computes in linearithmic 
+time the mode (value that occurs most frequently) of a sequence of N integers. 
+Hint: Reduce to sorting. 
+
+4 . 2.20 Integer sort. Write a linear- time filter that takes from standard input a se- 
+quence of integers that are between 0 and 99 and prints the same set of integers in 
+sorted order on standard output. For example, presented with the input sequence 
+
+98 2310003 98 98 2220002 
+your program should print the output sequence 
+00000012222233 98 98 98 
+
+4 . 2.21 Floor and ceiling. Given a sorted array of Comparabl e items, write meth- 
+ods f 1 oor O and cei 1 () that returns the index of the largest (or smallest) item not 
+larger (or smaller) than an argument item in logarithmic time. 
+
+4 . 2.22 Closest pair. Given an array of N real numbers, write a static method to 
+find in linearithmic time the pair of integers that are closest in value. 
+
+4 . 2.23 Furthest pair. Given an array of N real numbers, write a static method to 
+find in linear time the pair of integers that are farthest apart in value. 
+
+4 . 2.24 Two sum. Write a static method that takes as argument an array of N i nt 
+values and determines in linearithmic time whether any two of them sum to 0. 
+
+4 . 2.25 Three sum. Write a static method that takes as argument an array of N i nt 
+values and determines whether any three of them sum to 0. Your program should 
+run in time proportional to N 2 log N. Extra credit Develop a program that solves 
+the problem in quadratic time. 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+547 
+
+
+
+4.2.26. Majority. An element is a majority if it appears more than N/2 times. Write 
+a static method that takes an array of N strings as argument and identifies a major- 
+ity (if it exists) in linear time. 
+
+4.2.27 Common element. Write a static method that takes as argument three ar- 
+rays of strings, determines whether there is any string common to all three arrays, 
+and if so, returns one such string. The running time of your method should be 
+linearithmic in the total number of strings. 
+
+4.2.28 Prefix-free codes. In data compression, a set of strings is prefix-free if no 
+string is a prefix of another. For example, the set of strings 01, 10, 0010, and 1111 
+are prefix-free, but the set of strings 01, 10, 0010, 1010 is not prefix-free because 
+10 is a prefix of 1010. Write a program that reads in a set of strings from standard 
+input and determines whether the set is prefix-free. 
+
+4.2.29 Longest common substring. Write a static method that finds the longest 
+common substring of two given strings s and t. 
+
+4.2.30 Longest repeated, non-overlapping string. Modify LRS (Program 4.2.8) to 
+find the longest repeated substring that does not overlap. 
+
+4.2.31 Partitioning. Write a static method that sorts a Comparable array that is 
+known to have at most two different values. Hint : Maintain two pointers, one start- 
+ing at the left end and moving right, the other starting at the right end and moving 
+left. Maintain the invariant that all elements to the left of the left pointer are equal 
+to the smaller of the two values and all elements to the right of the right pointer are 
+equal to the larger of the two values. 
+
+4.2.32 Dutch national flag. Write a static method that sorts a Comparable array 
+that is known to have at most three different values. (Edsgar Dijkstra named this the 
+Dutch-national-flag problem because the result is three “stripes” of values like the 
+three stripes in the flag.) Hint: Reduce to the previous problem, by first partitioning 
+the array into two parts with all elements having the smallest value in the first part 
+and all other elements in the second part, then partition the second part. 
+
+
+
+
+548 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.2.33 Quicksort. Write a recursive program that sorts an array of randomly or- 
+dered distinct Comparabl e elements. Hint : Use a method like the one described in 
+the previous exercise. First, partition the array into a left part with all elements less 
+than v, followed by v, followed by a right part with all elements greater than v. Then, 
+recursively sort the two parts. Extra credit : Modify your method (if necessary) to 
+work properly when the elements are not necessarily distinct. 
+
+4.2.34 Reverse domain. Write a program to read in a list of domain names from 
+standard input and print the reverse domain names in sorted order. For example, 
+the reverse domain of cs . pri nceton . edu is edu . pri nceton . cs . This computa- 
+tion is useful for web log analysis. To do so, create a data type Domai n that imple- 
+ments the Comparabl e interface, using reverse domain name order. 
+
+4.2.35 Local minimum in an array. Given an array of N real numbers, write a 
+static method to find in logarithmic time a local minimum (an index i such that 
+a[i-l] < a[i] < a[i+l]) . 
+
+4.2.36 Discrete distribution. Design a fast algorithm to repeatedly generate num- 
+bers from the discrete distribution: Given an array a [] of nonnegative real numbers 
+that sum to 1, the goal is to return index i with probability a [i ] . Form an array s [] 
+of cumulated sums such that s [i ] is the sum of the first i elements of a [] . Now, 
+generate a random real number r between 0 and 1, and use binary search to return 
+the index i for which s [i ] < r < s[i+l]. 
+
+4.2.37 Rhyming words. Tabulate a list that you can use to find words that rhyme. 
+Use the following approach: 
+
+• Read in a dictionary of words into an array of strings. 
+
+• Reverse the letters in each word (confound becomes dnuofnoc, for example). 
+
+• Sort the resulting array. 
+
+• Reverse the letters in each word back to their original order. 
+
+For example, confound is adjacent to words such as astound and surround in the 
+resulting list. 
+
+
+
+
+4.2 Sorting and Searching 
+
+
+549 
+
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+In this section, we introduce two closely related data types for manipulating arbi- 
+trarily large collections of objects: the stack and the queue. Stacks and queues are 
+special cases of the idea of a collection. A 
+collection of objects is characterized by 
+four operations: create the collection, in- 
+sert an object, remove an object, and test 
+whether the collection is empty. 
+
+When we insert an object, our in- 
+tent is clear. But when we remove an ob- 
+ject, which one do we choose? Each type 
+of collection is characterized by the rule 
+used for remove, and each is amenable 
+to various implementations with differ- 
+ing performance characteristics. You have 
+encountered different ways to answer this question in various real-world situations, 
+perhaps without thinking about it. 
+
+For example, the rule used for a queue is to always remove the item that has 
+been in the collection the most amount of time. This policy is known as first-in first- 
+out, or FIFO. People waiting in line to buy a ticket follow this discipline: the line is 
+arranged in the order of arrival, so the one who leaves the line has been there longer 
+than any other person in the line. 
+
+A policy with quite different behavior is the rule used for a stack: always re- 
+move the item that has been in the collection the least amount of time. This policy 
+is known as last-in first-out, or LIFO. For example, you follow a policy closer to 
+LIFO when you enter and leave the coach cabin in an airplane: people near the 
+front of the cabin board last and exit before those who boarded earlier. 
+
+Stacks and queues are broadly useful, so it is important for you to be familiar 
+with their basic properties and the kind of situation where each might be appro- 
+priate. They are excellent examples of fundamental data types that we can use to 
+address higher-level programming tasks. They are widely used in systems and ap- 
+plications programming, as we will see in several examples in this section and in 
+Section 4 . 5 . 
+
+
+4.3.1 Stack of strings (array) ...... . 554 
+
+4.3.2 Stack of strings (linked list) . . . . . 559 
+
+4.3.3 Stack of strings (array doubling) . . 563 
+
+4.3.4 Generic stack. . . . . . . ..... .568 
+
+4.3.5 Expression evaluation . ...... .572 
+
+4.3.6 Generic FIFO queue (linked list). .578 
+
+4.3.7 M/D/1 queue simulation ...... 583 
+
+4.3.8 Load balancing simulation .... .591 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+551 
+
+
+a stack of 
+documents 
+
+
+
+) 
+
+
+push( 
+
+
+
+Pushdown stacks A pushdown stack (or just a stack) is a collection that is based 
+on the last-in-first-out (LIFO) policy. 
+
+When you keep your mail in a pile on your desk, you are using a stack. You 
+pile pieces of new mail on the top when they ar- 
+rive and take each piece of mail from the top when 
+you are ready to read it. People do not process as 
+many papers as they did in the past, but the same 
+organizing principle underlies several of the appli- 
+cations that you use regularly on your computer. 
+
+For example, many people organize their email as 
+a stack, where messages go on the top when they 
+are received and are taken from the top, with most 
+recently received first (last in, first out). The ad- 
+vantage of this strategy is that we see interesting 
+email as soon as possible; the disadvantage is that 
+some old email might never get read if we never 
+empty the stack. 
+
+You have likely encountered another com- 
+mon example of a stack when surfing the web. 
+
+When you click a hyperlink, your browser displays 
+the new page (and inserts it onto a stack). You can 
+keep clicking on hyperlinks to visit new pages, but 
+you can always revisit the previous page by click- 
+ing the back button (remove it from a stack). The 
+last-in-first-out policy offered by a pushdown 
+stack provides just the behavior that you expect. 
+
+Such uses of stacks are intuitive, but perhaps 
+not persuasive. In fact, the importance of stacks in 
+computing is fundamental and profound, but we 
+defer further discussions of applications to later in 
+this section. For the moment, our goal is to make 
+sure that you understand how stacks work and 
+how to implement them. 
+
+Stacks have been used widely since the earliest days of computing. By tradi- 
+tion, we name the stack insert operation push and the stack remove operation pop, 
+as indicated in the following API: 
+
+
+popQ 
+
+
+= popQ 
+
+
+new (gray) one 
+' goes on top 
+
+
+
+new (black) on> 
+goes on top 
+
+
+
+remove the 
+black one 
+from the top 
+
+
+
+remove the 
+gray one 
+from the top 
+
+
+Operations on a pushdown stack 
+
+
+
+552 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+public class *StackOf St rings 
+
+*StackOfStrings() 
+boolean isEmptyO 
+
+void push (St ring item) 
+String pop() 
+
+
+create an empty stack 
+is the stack empty? 
+push a string onto the stack 
+pop the stack 
+
+
+API for a pushdown stack for strings 
+
+
+The asterisk indicates that we will be considering more than one implementation 
+of this API (we consider three in this section: ArrayStackOfStrings, Linked- 
+StackOfStri ngs, and Doubl i ngStackOfStri ngs). This API also includes a meth- 
+od to test whether the stack is empty, leaving to the client the responsibility of using 
+i sEmptyO to avoid invoking pop() when the stack is empty (an alternative design 
+would be to throw an exception in that case). 
+
+This API has an important restriction that is inconvenient in applications: 
+we would like to have stacks that contain other types of data, not just strings. We 
+examine ways to remove this restriction (and the importance of doing so) later in 
+this section. 
+
+
+Array implementation Representing stacks with arrays is a natural idea, but 
+before reading further, it is worthwhile for you to think for a moment about how 
+you would implement a class Ar rayStackOf Stri ngs. 
+
+The first problem that you might encounter is implementing the constructor 
+Ar rayStackOf Stri ngs(). You clearly need an instance variable a[] with an array 
+of strings to hold the stack items, but how big should the array be? One solution is 
+to start with an array of size 0 and make sure that the array size is always equal to 
+the stack size, but that solution necessitates allocating a new array and copying all 
+of the items into it for each push() and pop() operation, which is unnecessarily in- 
+efficient and cumbersome. We will temporarily finesse this problem by having the 
+client provide an argument for the constructor that gives the maximum stack size. 
+
+Your next problem might stem from the natural decision to keep the items in 
+the array in the order they appear on the stack, with the top element in a[0], the 
+second element in a [1] , and so forth. But then each time you push or pop an item, 
+you would have to move all of the other items to reflect the new state of the stack. 
+A simpler and more efficient way to proceed is to keep the items in reverse order of 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+553 
+
+
+Stdln StdOut N 
+
+
+a[] 
+
+
+their arrival, as illustrated. This policy allows us to add and remove items at the end 
+without moving any of the other items in the stack. 
+
+We could hardly hope for a simpler implementation of the stack API than 
+ArrayStackOfStrings (Program 4.3.1) — all of the methods are one-liners! The 
+instance variables are an array a [] that hold the items in the stack and an integer N 
+that counts the number of items in the stack. To remove an item, we decrement N 
+and then return a[N] ; to insert a new item, we set a[N] equal to the new item and 
+then increment N. These operations preserve the following properties: 
+
+• The items in the array are in 
+their insertion order. 
+
+• The stack is empty when N is 0. 
+
+• The top of the stack (if it is 
+nonempty) is at a[N-l]. 
+
+As usual, thinking in terms of invari- 
+ants of this sort is the easiest way to 
+verify that an implementation op- 
+erates as intended. Be sure that you 
+fully understand this implementation. 
+
+Perhaps the best way to do so is to 
+carefully examine a trace of the stack 
+contents for a sequence of push() 
+and popO operations. The test cli- 
+ent in Stri ngStackArray allows for 
+testing with an arbitrary sequence of 
+operations: it does a push() for each 
+string on standard input except the 
+string consisting of a minus sign, for 
+which it does a pop(). 
+
+The primary characteristic of this implementation is that the push and pop op- 
+erations take constant time. The drawback of this implementation is that it requires 
+the client to estimate the maximum size of the stack ahead of time and always uses 
+space proportional to that maximum, which may be unreasonable in some situa- 
+tions. We omit the code in push 0 to test for a full stack, but later we will examine 
+implementations that address these drawbacks by not allowing the stack to get full 
+(except in an extreme circumstance when there is no memory at all available for 
+use by the Java system). 
+
+
+to 
+
+
+1 
+
+to 
+
+
+
+
+
+be 
+
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+
+
+
+or 
+
+
+3 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+
+
+not 
+
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+
+to 
+
+
+5 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+to 
+
+- 
+
+to 
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+
+5 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+be 
+
+- 
+
+be 
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+be 
+
+- 
+
+not 
+
+3 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+be 
+
+that 
+
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+that 
+
+be 
+
+- 
+
+that 
+
+3 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+that 
+
+be 
+
+- 
+
+or 
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+that 
+
+be 
+
+- 
+
+be 
+
+1 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+that 
+
+be 
+
+is 
+
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+is 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+to 
+
+
+Trace o/ArrayStackOfStri ngs test client 
+
+
+
+554 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Mi 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+Program 4.3. 1 Stack of strings ( array) 
+
+
+
+public class ArrayStackOf Strings 
+
+{ 
+
+private String [] a; 
+private int N = 0; 
+
+public ArrayStackOfStrings(int max) 
+{ a = new St ring [max]; } 
+
+
+N-l 
+
+
+public boolean isEmptyO 
+{ return (N == 0); } 
+
+public void push (String item) 
+
+{ a[N++] = item; } 
+
+public String pop() 
+
+{ return a[ — N] ; } 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Create a stack of capacity max 
+
+// and push or pop strings as directed on Stdln. 
+int max = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+
+ArrayStackOf St rings s = new ArrayStackOfStrings(max) ; 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String item = Stdln. readstring () ; 
+if (litem. equals ("-")) 
+
+s.push(item) ; 
+else 
+
+StdOut . pri nt (s . pop () ) ; 
+
+
+stack values 
+number of items 
+index of value 
+most recently pushed 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+> 
+
+
+Stack methods are simple one-liners y as illustrated in this code. The client pushes or pops strings 
+as directed from standard input (a minus sign indicates pop , and any other string indicates 
+push). Code in pushQ to test whether the stack is full is omitted (see text). 
+
+
+
+% more tobe.txt 
+
+to be or not to-be - - that 
+
+
+is 
+
+
+% java ArrayStackOf St rings 5 < tobe.txt 
+to be not that or be 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+555 
+
+
+Linked lists For classes such as stacks that implement collections of objects, an 
+important objective is to ensure that the amount of space used is always proportional 
+to the number of items in the collection. The use of a fixed-size array to implement 
+stacks in ArrayStackOfStrings works against this objective: when you create a 
+huge stack, you are wasting a potentially huge amount of memory at times when 
+the stack is empty or nearly empty. This property makes the array implementation 
+unusable in applications involving large numbers of items moving among large 
+numbers of stacks, which are typical. For example, a transaction system might in- 
+volve billions of items and thousands of collections of them. We might not be able 
+to afford the memory to allow for the possibility that each of those collections 
+could each hold all of those items. Worse, if all of the items do wind up in one 
+collection, we know that the others would all be empty, so that wasted memory is 
+unnecessary. One of the primary purposes of Java’s memory allocation system is 
+to provide the flexibility to handle such situations. Now we consider the use of a 
+fundamental data structure known as a linked list, which can provide implementa- 
+tions of collections (and, in particular, stacks) that achieve the objective cited at the 
+beginning of this paragraph. 
+
+A linked list is a recursive data structure defined as follows: it is either empty 
+(null) or a reference to a node having a reference to a linked list. The node in this 
+definition is an abstract entity that might hold any kind of data, in addition to the 
+node reference that characterizes its role in building linked lists. As with a recursive 
+program, the concept of a recursive data structure can be a bit mindbending at first, 
+but is of great value because of its simplicity. 
+
+With object-oriented programming, implementing finked fists is not difficult. 
+We start with a class for the node abstraction: 
+
+class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+String item; 
+
+Node next; 
+
+} 
+
+A Node has two instance variables: a String and a Node. The String is a place- 
+holder in this example for any data that we might want to structure with a finked 
+fist (we can use any set of instance variables); the instance variable of type Node 
+characterizes the finked nature of the data structure. To emphasize that we are just 
+using the Node class to structure the data, we define no methods. Now, from the re- 
+cursive definition, we can represent a finked fist with a variable of type Node simply 
+
+
+
+556 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+by ensuring that its value is either nul 1 or a reference to a Node whose next field is 
+a reference to a linked list. 
+
+As with any type of data, we create an object of type Node by invoking the 
+(no-argument) constructor with new Node(). The result is a reference to a Node 
+object whose instance variables are both initialized to the value null. 
+
+For example, to build a linked list that contains the items to, be, and or, we 
+create a Node for each item: 
+
+
+Node first = new Node(); 
+
+Node second = new NodeO; 
+
+Node third = new NodeO; 
+
+and set the i tern field in each of the nodes 
+
+to the desired value: 
+
+first. item = "to"; 
+second. item = "be"; 
+third. item = "or"; 
+
+and set the next fields to build the linked 
+list: 
+
+first. next = second; 
+second. next = third; 
+
+As a result, thi rd is a linked list (it is a ref- 
+erence to a node that contains null, which 
+is the null reference to an empty linked 
+list), and second is a linked list (it is a ref- 
+erence to a node that has a reference to 
+thi rd, which is a linked list), and fi rst is 
+a linked list (it is a reference to a node that 
+has a reference to second, which is a linked 
+
+
+Node first = new NodeO; 
+first. item = "to"; 
+
+fi rst 
+
+
+
+Node second = new NodeO; 
+second. item = "be"; 
+first. next = second; 
+
+fi 
+
+
+
+Node third = new NodeO; 
+third. item = "or"; 
+second. next = third; 
+
+
+
+list). The code that we will examine does these assignment statements in a different 
+order, depicted in the diagram on this page. 
+
+A linked list represents a sequence of items. In the example just considered, 
+f i rst represents the sequence to be or. We can also use an array to represent a 
+sequence of items. For example, we could use 
+
+
+String [] s = { "to", "be", "or" }; 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+557 
+
+
+save a link to the list 
+
+Node oldfirst 
+
+
+fi rst; 
+
+
+oldfirst 
+
+
+
+first 
+
+
+create a new node for the beginning 
+
+first = new NodeQ; 
+
+ol df i rst 
+
+mmwMxxm 
+
+f i rst - 
+
+
+
+to represent the same sequence of 
+strings. The difference is that it is easier 
+to insert items into the sequence and to 
+remove items from the sequence with 
+linked lists. Next, we consider code to 
+accomplish these tasks. 
+
+When tracing code that uses linked 
+lists and other linked structures, we use 
+a visual representation where: 
+
+• We draw a rectangle to represent 
+each object. 
+
+• We put the values of instance vari- 
+ables within the rectangle. 
+
+• We use arrows that point to the ref- 
+erenced objects to depict references. 
+
+This visual representation captures the 
+essential characteristic of linked lists. 
+
+For economy, we use the term links to 
+refer to node references. For simplicity, 
+when item values are strings (as in our 
+examples), we put the string within the 
+
+object rectangle rather than the more accurate rendition depicting the string object 
+and the character array that we discussed in Section 4.1. (If you work Exercise 
+4.3.12, you will better understand the precise representation of linked lists with 
+
+
+l_l 
+
+I ' *ji ’ T ' A- 
+
+1 or | 
+
+i 
+
+null . 
+
+
+set the instance variables in the new node 
+
+first. item = "not"; 
+first, next = oldfirst; 
+
+
+first 
+
+
+
+Inserting a new node at the beginning of a linked list 
+
+
+first = first, next; 
+
+
+string items in Java.) This visual representation 
+allows us to focus on the links. 
+
+Suppose that you want to insert a new node 
+into a linked list. The easiest place to do so is at 
+the beginning of the list. For example, to insert 
+the string not at the beginning of a given linked 
+list whose first node is fi rst, we save fi rst in 
+oldfi rst, assign to fi rst a new Node, and as- 
+sign its item field to not and its next field to 
+oldfi rst. 
+
+Suppose that you want to remove the first node from a list. This operation is 
+even easier: simply assign to fi rst the value fi rst. next. Normally, you would 
+
+
+
+Removing the first node in a linked list 
+
+
+
+558 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+retrieve the value of the item (by assigning it to some St r i ng variable) before doing 
+this assignment, because once you change the value of f i rst, you may not have any 
+access to the node to which it was referring. Typically, the node object becomes an 
+orphan, and the memory it occupies is eventually reclaimed by the Java memory 
+management system. 
+
+This code for inserting and removing a node from the beginning of a linked 
+list involves just a few assignment statements and thus takes constant time (inde- 
+pendent of the length of the list). If you hold a reference to a node at an arbitrary 
+position in a list, you can use similar (but more complicated) code to remove the 
+node after it or to insert a node after it, also in constant time. However, we leave 
+those implementations for an exercise (see Exercise 4.3.25-26) because inserting 
+and removing at the beginning are the only linked-list operations that we need in 
+order to implement stacks. 
+
+Implementing stacks with linked lists. Li nkedStackOf Stri ngs (Program 4.3.2) 
+uses a linked list to implement a stack of strings, using little more code than the 
+elementary solution that uses arrays. 
+
+The implementation is based on a nested class Node like the one we have been 
+using. Java allows us to define and use other classes within class implementations 
+in this natural way. The class is private because clients do not need to know any 
+of the details of the linked lists. One characteristic of a private nested class is that 
+its instance variables can be directly accessed from within the enclosing class but 
+nowhere else, so there is no need to declare the Node instance variables as publ i c 
+or private. 
+
+Li nkedStackOf Stri ngs itself has just one instance variable: a reference to 
+the linked list that represents the stack. That single link suffices to directly access 
+the item at the top of the stack and also provides access to the rest of the items in 
+the stack for pushO and pop(). Again, be sure that you understand this implemen- 
+tation — it is the prototype for several implementations using linked structures that 
+we will be examining later in this chapter. Using the abstract visual list representa- 
+tion to trace the code is the best way to proceed. 
+
+Linked list traversal. One of the most common operations we perform on collec- 
+tions is to iterate through the items in the collection. For example, we might wish to 
+implement the toStri ng() method that is inherent in every Java API to facilitate 
+debugging our stack code with traces. For Ar rayStackOfStri ngs, this implemen- 
+tation is familiar. 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+559 
+
+
+~ .... ... ... 
+
+
+Program 4.3.2 Stack of strings (linked list) 
+
+
+\ 1 
+
+
+
+
+first 
+
+
+
+public class Li nkedStackOf Strings 
+
+{ 
+
+private Node first; 
+
+private class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+String item; 
+
+Node next; 
+
+} 
+
+public boolean isEmptyO 
+{ return (first == null); } 
+
+public void push (St ring item) 
+
+{ // Add item to top of stack. 
+
+Node ol df i rst = f i rst ; 
+first = new Node(); 
+first. item = item; 
+f i rst . next = ol df i rst ; 
+
+} 
+
+public String pop() 
+
+{ // Remove item from top of stack. 
+
+String item = first. item; 
+f i rst = f i rst . next ; 
+return item; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+LinkedStackOfStrings s = new Li nkedStackOf Stri ngs () ; 
+
+// See Program 4.3.1 for the test client. 
+
+} 
+
+
+This stack implementation uses a private nested class Node as the basis for representing the 
+stack as a linked list of Node objects. The instance variable fi rst refers to the first (most re- 
+cently inserted) Node on the list. The next instance variable in each Node refers to the next Node 
+(the value of next in the final node is nul 1 ). No explicit constructors are needed, because Java 
+initializes the instance variables to nul 1 . 
+
+
+list item 
+next node on list 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Trace of 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+561 
+
+
+public String toStringO 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
+s += a[i] + " 
+return s; 
+
+} 
+
+As usual, this solution is intended for use only when N is small — it takes quadratic 
+time because string concatenation takes 
+linear time. Our focus now is just on the 
+process of examining every item. There is a 
+corresponding idiom for visiting the items 
+in a linked list: We initialize a loop index 
+variable x that references the first Node of 
+the linked list. Then, we find the value of 
+the item associated with x by accessing 
+x . i tem, and then update x to refer to the 
+next Node in the linked list, assigning to it 
+the value of x.next and repeating this 
+process until x is null (which indicates 
+that we have reached the end of the linked 
+list). This process is known as traversing 
+the list, and is succinctly expressed in this 
+implementation of toStringO for 
+Li nkedStackOfStri ngs: 
+
+public String toStringO 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (Node x = first; x != null; x = x.next) 
+s += x.item + " "; 
+return s; 
+
+} 
+
+When you program with linked lists, this idiom will become as familiar to you as 
+the standard idiom for iterating through the items in an array. At the end of this 
+section, we consider the concept of an iterator, which allows us to write client code 
+to iterate through the objects of a collection without having to program at this level 
+of detail. 
+
+
+
+x = x.next; 
+
+
+\ 
+
+
+Traversing a linked list 
+
+
+
+562 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+With a unked-list implementation we can write client programs that use large num- 
+bers of stacks without having to worry much about space usage. The same principle 
+applies to collections of data of any sort, so linked lists are widely used in program- 
+ming. Indeed, typical implementations of the Java memory management system 
+are based on maintaining linked lists corresponding to blocks of memory of vari- 
+ous sizes. Before the widespread use of high-level languages like Java, the details of 
+memory management and programming with linked lists was a critical part of any 
+programmer’s arsenal. In modern systems, most of these details are encapsulated 
+in the implementations of a few data types like the pushdown stack, including the 
+queue, the symbol table, and the set, which we will consider later in this chapter. 
+If you take a course in algorithms and data structures, you will learn several oth- 
+ers and gain expertise in creating and debugging programs that manipulate linked 
+lists. Otherwise, you can focus your attention on understanding the role played 
+by linked lists in implementing these fundamental data types. For stacks, they are 
+significant because they allow us to implement the pushf) and pop() methods 
+in constant time while using only a small constant factor of extra space (for the 
+links). 
+
+Array doubling Next, we consider an alternative approach to accommodating 
+arbitrary growth and shrinkage in a data structure that is an attractive alternative 
+to linked lists. As with linked lists, we introduce it now because the approach is not 
+difficult to understand in the context of a stack implementation and because it is 
+important to know when addressing the challenges of implementing data types 
+that are more complicated than stacks. 
+
+The idea is to modify the array implementation to dynamically adjust the size 
+of the array a [] so that it is both sufficiently large to hold all of the items and not so 
+large as to waste an excessive amount of space. Achieving these goals turns out to be 
+remarkably easy, and we do so in Doubl i ngStackOfStri ngs (Program 4.3.3). 
+
+First, in push(), we check whether the array is too small. In particular, we 
+check whether there is room for the new item in the array by checking whether the 
+stack size N is equal to the array size a . 1 ength. If there is room, we simply insert 
+the new item with the code a [N++] = i tem as before; if not, we double the size of the 
+array by creating a new array of twice the size, copying the stack items to the new 
+array, and resetting the a[] instance variable to reference the new array. 
+
+Similarly, in pop () , we begin by checking whether the array is too large, and 
+we halve its size if that is the case. If you think a bit about the situation, you will see 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+563 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.3.3 Stack of strings (array doubling) 
+
+public class DoublingStackOf St rings 
+
+{ 
+
+private String[] a = new String[l]; 
+private int N = 0; 
+
+public boolean is Empty () 
+
+{ return (N == 0); } 
+
+private void resize (int max) 
+
+{ // Move stack to a new array of size max. 
+
+String[] temp = new String[max]; 
+for (int i =0; i < N; i++) 
+temp[i] = a[i] ; 
+a = temp; 
+
+} 
+
+public void push (St ring item) 
+
+{ // Add item to top of stack. 
+
+if (N == a. length) resize(2*a. length) ; 
+a[N++] = item; 
+
+} 
+
+public String pop() 
+
+{ // Remove item from top of stack. 
+
+String item = a[ — N] ; 
+
+a[N] = null; // Avoid loitering (see text), 
+if (N > 0 && N == a. length/4) resize(a. length/2) ; 
+return item; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+DoublingStackOf Strings s = new DoublingStackOfStringsO ; 
+// See Program 4.3.1 for the test client. 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+This implementation achieves the objective of supporting stacks of any size without excessively 
+wasting space by doubling the size of the array when full and halving the size of the array to keep 
+it always at least one-quarter full. On average, all operations are constant-time (see text). 
+
+
+
+
+564 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+a 
+
+
+Stdln 
+
+StdOut 
+
+N 
+
+a. length 
+
+0 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+5 
+
+6 
+
+7 
+
+
+
+0 
+
+l 
+
+null 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+to 
+
+
+1 
+
+l 
+
+to 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+be 
+
+
+2 
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+or 
+
+
+3 
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+null 
+
+
+
+
+
+not 
+
+
+4 
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+
+
+
+
+to 
+
+
+5 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+to 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+- 
+
+to 
+
+4 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not. 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+be 
+
+
+5 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+be 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+- 
+
+be 
+
+4 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be. 
+
+or 
+
+not 
+
+null 
+
+nidi 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+- 
+
+not 
+
+3 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+null 
+
+mdl 
+
+null 
+
+and 
+
+null 
+
+that 
+
+
+4 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+that 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+nail 
+
+- 
+
+that 
+
+3 
+
+8 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+or 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+nidi 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+- 
+
+or 
+
+2 
+
+4 
+
+to 
+
+be 
+
+null 
+
+null 
+
+
+
+
+
+- 
+
+be 
+
+1 
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+null 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+is 
+
+
+2 
+
+2 
+
+to 
+
+is 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Trace of Doubl i ngStackOf Stri ngs test client 
+
+
+that the appropriate test is whether the stack size is less than one-fourth the array 
+size. Then, after the array is halved, it will be about half full and can accommodate 
+a substantial number of pushO and pop() operations before having to change 
+the size of the array again. This characteristic is important: for example, if we were 
+to use to policy of halving the array when the stack size is one-half the array size, 
+then the resulting array would be full, which would mean it would be doubled for a 
+push(), leading to the possibility of an expensive cycle of doubling and halving. 
+
+Amortized analysis. This doubling and halving strategy is a judicious tradeoff 
+between wasting space (by setting the size of the array to be too big and leaving 
+empty slots) and wasting time (by reorganizing the array after each insertion). 
+The specific strategy in Doubl i ngStackOf Stri ngs guarantees that the stack never 
+overflows and never becomes less than one-quarter full (unless the stack is empty, 
+in which case the array size is 1). If you are mathematically inclined, you might en- 
+joy proving this fact with mathematical induction (see Exercise 4.3.20). More im- 
+portant, we can prove that the cost of doubling and halving is always absorbed (to 
+within a constant factor) in the cost of other stack operations. Again, we leave the 
+details to an exercise for the mathematically inclined, but the idea is simple: when 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+565 
+
+
+push() doubles the size of the array to size N, it starts with N/2 items in the stack, 
+so the size of the array cannot double again at until the client has made at least N/2 
+additional calls to push() (more if there are some intervening calls to popO). If 
+we average the cost of the push() operation that causes the doubling with the cost 
+of those N/2 push () operations, we get a constant. In other words, in Doubl i ng- 
+StackOfStri ngs, the total cost of all of the stack operations divided by the number of 
+operations is bounded by a constant. This statement is not quite as strong as saying 
+that each operation is constant-time, but it has the same implications in many ap- 
+plications (for example, when our primary interest is in total running time). This 
+kind of analysis is known as amortized analysis — array doubling is a prototypical 
+example of its value. 
+
+Orphaned items. Java’s garbage collection policy is to reclaim the memory associ- 
+ated with any objects that can no longer be accessed. In the pop() implementation 
+in our initial implementation ArrayStackOfStri ngs, the reference to the popped 
+item remains in the array. The item is an orphan — we will never use it again within 
+the class, either because the stack will shrink or because it will be overwritten with 
+another reference if the stack grows — but the Java garbage collector has no way to 
+know this. Even when the client is done with the item, the reference in the array 
+may keep it alive. This condition (holding a reference to an item which is no longer 
+needed) is known as loitering, which is not the same as a memory leak (where even 
+the memory management system has no reference to the item). In this case, loiter- 
+ing is easy to avoid. The implementation of popO in Doubl ingStackOfSt rings 
+sets the array entry corresponding to the popped item to null, thus overwriting 
+the unused reference and making it possible for the system to reclaim the memory 
+associated with the popped item when the client is finished with it. 
+
+With an array-doubling implementation (as with a linked-list implementation), we 
+can write client programs that use large numbers of stacks without having to worry 
+much about space usage. Again, the same principle applies to collections of data 
+of any sort. For some data types that are more complicated than stacks, array dou- 
+bling is preferred over linked lists because the ability to access any item in the array 
+in constant time (through indexing) is critical for implementing certain operations 
+(see, for example, RandomQueue in Exercise 4.3.36). Again as with linked lists, it is 
+best to keep array-doubling code local to the implementation of fundamental data 
+types and not worry about using it in client code. 
+
+
+
+566 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Parameterized data types We have developed stack implementations that al- 
+low us to build stacks of one particular type (Stri ng). But when developing cli- 
+ent programs, we need implementations for collections of other types of data, not 
+necessarily String objects. A commercial transaction processing system might 
+need to maintain collections of customers, accounts, merchants, and transactions; 
+a university course scheduling system might need to maintain collections of classes, 
+students, and rooms; a portable music player might need to maintain collections 
+of songs, artists, and albums; a scientific program might need to maintain collec- 
+tions of double or i nt values. In any program that you write, you should not be 
+surprised to find yourself maintaining collections for any type of data that you 
+might create. How would you do so? After considering two simple approaches (and 
+their shortcomings) that use the Java language constructs we have discussed so far, 
+we introduce a more advanced construct that can help us properly address this 
+problem. 
+
+Create a new collection data type for each item data type. We could create classes 
+StackOflnts, StackOfCustomers, StackOfStudents, and so forth to supplement 
+StackOfStri ngs. This approach requires that we duplicate the code for each type 
+of data, which violates a basic precept of software engineering that we should reuse 
+(not copy) code whenever possible. You need a different class for every type of data 
+that you want to put on a stack, so maintaining your code becomes a nightmare: 
+whenever you want or need to make a change, you have to do so in each version of 
+the code. Still, this approach is widely used because many programming languages 
+(including early versions of Java) do not provide any better way to solve the prob- 
+lem. Breaking this barrier is the sign of a sophisticated programmer and program- 
+ming environment. Can we implement stacks of Stri ng objects, stacks of integers, 
+and stacks of data of any type whatsoever with just one class? 
+
+Use collections of Objects. We could develop a stack whose elements are all of type 
+Object. Using inheritance, we can legally push an object of any type (if we want to 
+push an object of type Appl e, we can do so because Appl e is a subclass of Object, 
+as are all other classes). When we pop the stack, we must cast it back to the appro- 
+priate type (everything on the stack is an Ob j ect, but our code is processing ob- 
+jects of type Appl e). In summary, if we create a class StackOfOb j ects by changing 
+String to Object everywhere in one of our *StackOfStrings implementations, 
+we can write code like 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+567 
+
+
+StackOf Objects stack = new StackOfObjectsO ; 
+Apple a = new AppleO; 
+stack. push (a) ; 
+
+a = (Apple) (stack. pop()); 
+
+
+thus achieving our goal of having a single class that creates and manipulates stacks 
+of objects of any type. However, this approach is undesirable because it exposes 
+clients to subtle bugs in client programs that cannot be detected until runtime. For 
+example, there is nothing to stop a programmer from putting different types of 
+objects on the same stack, as in the following example: 
+
+ObjectStack stack = new ObjectStackO ; 
+
+Apple a = new AppleO; 
+
+Orange b = new Orange (); 
+stack. push (a) ; 
+stack. push (b) ; 
+
+a = (Apple) (stack. pop()) ; // Throws a ClassCastException. 
+b = (Orange) (stack. popO) ; 
+
+Using type casting in this way amounts to assuming that clients will cast objects 
+popped from the stack to the proper type, avoiding the protection provided by 
+Java’s type system. One reason that programmers use the type system is to protect 
+against errors that arise from such implicit assumptions. The code cannot be type- 
+checked at compile time: there might be an incorrect cast that occurs in a complex 
+piece of code that could escape detection until some particular runtime circum- 
+stance arises. We seek to avoid such errors because they can appear long after an 
+implementation is delivered to a client, who would have no way to fix them. 
+
+Java generics. A specific mechanism in Java known as generic types solves precisely 
+the problem that we are facing. With generics, we can build collections of objects of 
+a type to be specified by client code. The primary benefit of doing so is to discover 
+type mismatch errors at compile time (when the software is being developed) in- 
+stead of at runtime (when the software is being used by a client, perhaps long after 
+development). Conceptually, generics are a bit confusing at first (their impact on 
+the programming language is sufficiently deep that they were not included in early 
+versions of Java), but our use of them in the present context involves just a small 
+bit of extra Java syntax and is easy to understand. We name the generic class Stack 
+and choose the generic name Item for the type of the objects in the stack (you 
+
+
+
+568 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Program 4.3.4 Generic stack 
+
+
+
+
+2:3 
+
+
+public class Stack<Item> 
+
+{ 
+
+private Node first; 
+
+private class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+Item item; 
+
+Node next; 
+
+} 
+
+public boolean isEmptyO 
+{ return (first == null); } 
+
+public void push (Item item) 
+
+{ // Add item to top of stack. 
+
+Node oldfirst = first; 
+first = new Node(); 
+f i rst . i tern = i tern ; 
+first. next = oldfirst; 
+
+} 
+
+public Item pop() 
+
+{ // Remove item from top of stack. 
+
+Item item = first. item; 
+fi rst = fi rst. next; 
+return item; 
+
+} 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+Stack<String> s = new Stack<String>() ; 
+
+// See Program 4.3.1 for the test client. 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+fi rst 
+
+
+item 
+
+list item 1 
+
+next 
+
+next node on list 1 
+
+
+This code is almost identical to Program 4.3.2, but is worth repeating because it demonstrates 
+how easy it is to use generics to allow clients to make collections of any type of data. The key- 
+word Item in this code is a type parameter, a placeholder for an actual type name provided by 
+clients. 
+
+
+
+
+!■- _ 3 
+
+
+
+
+
+% java Stack < tobe.txt 
+to be not that or be 
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+569 
+
+
+can use any name). The code of Stack (Program 4.3.4) is identical to the code of 
+LinkedStackOfStrings (we drop the Linked modifier because we have a good 
+implementation for clients who do not care about the representation), except that 
+we replace every occurrence of Stri ng with Item and declare the class with the fol- 
+lowing first line of code: 
+
+public class Stack<Item> 
+
+The name Item is a type parameter, a symbolic placeholder for some actual type to 
+be used by the client. You can read Stack<Item> as stack of items, which is precisely 
+what we want. When implementing Stack, we do not know the actual type of Item, 
+but a client can use our stack for any type of data, including one defined long after 
+we develop our implementation. The client code provides an actual type when the 
+stack is created: 
+
+Stack<Apple> stack = new Stack<Apple>() ; 
+
+Apple a = new Applet); 
+
+stack. push (a) ; 
+
+If you try to push an object of the wrong type on the stack, like this: 
+
+Stack<Apple> stack = new Stack<Apple>() ; 
+
+Apple a = new Applet); 
+
+Orange b = new OrangeO; 
+stack. pushta) ; 
+
+stack. push (b) ; // Compile-time error, 
+
+you will get a compile-time error: 
+
+pushtApple) in Stack<Apple> cannot be applied to tOrange) 
+
+Furthermore, in our Stack implementation, Java can use the type parameter Item 
+to check for type mismatch errors — even though no actual type is yet known, vari- 
+ables of type Item must be assigned values of type Item, and so forth. 
+
+Auto-boxing. One slight difficulty with generic code like Program 4.3.4 is that the 
+type parameter stands for a reference type. How can we use the code for primitive 
+types such as i nt and doubl e? The Java language feature known as auto-boxing and 
+auto-unboxing enables us to reuse generic code with primitive types as well. Java 
+supplies built-in object types known as wrapper types, one for each of the primitive 
+
+
+
+570 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+types: Boolean, Byte, Character, Double, Float, Integer, Long, and Short cor- 
+respond to bool ean, byte char, doubl e, f 1 oat, i nt, 1 ong, and short, respectively. 
+These classes consist primarily of static methods such as Integer . parselntO and 
+Integer. toBinaryStringO, and they also include non-static methods such as 
+compareToO and equal s(). Java automatically converts between these reference 
+types and the corresponding primitive types — in assignments, method arguments, 
+and arithmetic/logic expressions — so that we can write code like the following: 
+
+Stack<Integer> stack = new Stack<Integer>() ; 
+
+stack. push (17) ; // Auto-boxing (int -> Integer). 
+
+int a = stack. pop(); // Auto-unboxing (Integer -> int). 
+
+In this example, Java automatically casts (auto-boxes) the primitive value 17 to 
+be of type Integer when we pass it to the push() method. The pop() method 
+returns an Integer, which Java casts (auto-unboxes) to an int before assigning 
+it to the variable a. This feature is convenient for writing code, but involves a sig- 
+nificant amount of processing behind the scenes that can affect performance. In 
+some performance-critical applications, a class like StackOflnts might be neces- 
+sary, after all. 
+
+Generics provide the solution that we seek: they enable code reuse and at the same 
+time provide type safety. Studying Stack carefully and being sure that you un- 
+derstand each line of code will pay dividends in the future, as the ability to pa- 
+rameterize data types is an important high-level programming technique that is 
+well-supported in Java. You do not have to be an expert to take advantage of this 
+powerful feature. 
+
+
+Stack applications Pushdown stacks play an essential role in computation. If 
+you study operating systems, programming languages, and other advanced topics 
+in computer science, you will learn that not only are stacks used explicidy in many 
+applications, but they also still serve as the basis for executing programs written in 
+high-level languages such as Java. 
+
+Arithmetic expressions. Some of the first programs that we considered in Chapter 
+1 involved computing the value of arithmetic expressions like this one: 
+
+(l+((2 + 3)*(4*5))) 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+571 
+
+
+If you multiply 4 by 5, add B to 2, multiply the result, and then add 1, you get the 
+value 101. But how does the Java system do this calculation? Without going into 
+the details of how the Java system is built, we can address the essential ideas just 
+by writing a Java program that can take a string as input (the expression) and pro- 
+duce the number represented by the expression as output. For simplicity, we begin 
+with the following explicit recursive definition: an arithmetic expression is either: a 
+number or a left parenthesis followed by an arithmetic expression followed by an 
+operator followed by another arithmetic expression followed by a right parenthe- 
+sis. For simplicity, this definition is for fully parenthesized arithmetic expressions, 
+which specifies precisely which operators apply to which operands — you are a bit 
+more familiar with expressions like 1 + 2 * 3, in which we use precedence rules 
+instead of parentheses. The same basic mechanisms that we consider can handle 
+precedence rules, but we avoid that complication. For specificity, we support the 
+familiar binary operators *, +, -, and /, as well as a square-root operator sqrt that 
+takes only one argument. We could easily allow more operators and more kinds of 
+operators to embrace a large class of familiar mathematical expressions, involving 
+trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions and whatever other opera- 
+tors we might wish to include. Our focus is on understanding how to interpret the 
+string of parentheses, operators, and numbers to enable performing in the proper 
+order the low-level arithmetic operations that are available on any computer. 
+
+Arithmetic expression evaluation. Precisely how can we convert an arithmetic 
+expression — a string of characters — to the value that it represents? A remarkably 
+simple algorithm that was developed by Edsgar Dijkstra in the 1960s uses two push- 
+down stacks (one for operands and one for operators) to do this job. An expression 
+consists of parentheses, operators, and operands (numbers). Proceeding from left 
+to right and taking these entities one at a time, we manipulate the stacks according 
+to four possible cases, as follows: 
+
+• Push operands onto the operand stack. 
+
+• Push operators onto the operator stack. 
+
+• Ignore left parentheses. 
+
+• On encountering a right parenthesis, pop an operator, pop the requisite 
+number of operands, and push onto the operand stack the result of apply- 
+ing that operator to those operands. 
+
+After the final right parenthesis has been processed, there is one value on the stack, 
+which is the value of the expression. This method may seem mysterious at first, but 
+
+
+
+572 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+m 
+
+
+ops.push(s) ; 
+ops.push(s) ; 
+ops.push(s) ; 
+ops.push(s) ; 
+
+
+public static voi( 
+
+{ 
+
+Stack<String> ops = new Stack<String>() ; 
+
+Stack<Double> vals = new Stack<Double>() ; 
+
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read token, push if operator. 
+
+String s = Stdln.readStringO ; 
+
+if Cs.equalsC’C")) 
+else if (s. equal s ("+")) 
+else if (s. equals ("-")) 
+else if (s.equalsC"*")) 
+else if (s.equalsC"/")) 
+else if (s.equals("sqrt")) ops.push(s); 
+else if (s.equalsC")")) 
+
+{ // Pop, evaluate, and push result if 
+
+String op = ops.popO; 
+double v = vals.popO; 
+if (op. equals ("+")) 
+else if (op.equalsC"-")) 
+else if (op.equalsC"*")) 
+else if (op.equalsC"/")) 
+else if (op.equals("sqrt")) 
+vals. push (v) ; 
+
+} // Token not operator or paren: 
+
+else vals.push(Double.parseDouble(s)) ; 
+
+} 
+
+StdOut.println(vals.popO) ; 
+
+
+This Stack client uses two stacks to evaluate arithmetic expressions, illustrating an essential 
+computational process: interpreting a string as a program and executing that program to com- 
+pute the desired result. Executing a Java program is nothing other than a more complicated 
+version of this same process. 
+
+
+
+% java Evaluate 
+
+(l+((2 + 3)*(4*5))) 
+101.0 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+573 
+
+
+it is easy to convince yourself that it computes the proper value: any time the algo- 
+rithm encounters a subexpression consisting of two operands separated by an op- 
+erator, all surrounded by parentheses, it leaves the result of performing that opera- 
+tion on those operands on the operand stack. The result is the same as if that value 
+had appeared in the input instead of the sub- 
+
+
+expression, so we can think of replacing the 
+subexpression by the value to get an expression 
+that would yield the same result. We can apply 
+this argument again and again until we get a 
+single value. For example, the algorithm com- 
+putes the same value of all of these expres- 
+sions: 
+
+(l+((2 + 3)*(4*5))) 
+(l+(5*(4*5))) 
+
+( 1 + ( 5 * 20 ) ) 
+
+( 1 + 100 ) 
+
+101 
+
+Evaluate (Program 4.3.5) is an implemen- 
+tation of this method. This code is a simple 
+example of an interpreter: a program that in- 
+terprets the computation specified by a given 
+string and performs the computation to ar- 
+rive at the result. A compiler is a program that 
+converts the string into code on a lower-level 
+machine that can do the job. This conversion 
+is a more complicated process than the step- 
+by-step conversion used by an interpreter, but 
+it is based on the same underlying mechanism. 
+Initially, Java was based on using an interpret- 
+er. Now, however, the Java system includes a 
+compiler that converts arithmetic expressions 
+(and, more generally, Java programs) into code 
+for the Java virtual machine, an imaginary ma- 
+chine that is easy to simulate on an actual com- 
+
+
+
+puter. 
+
+
+Trace of expression evaluation (Program 4.3.5) 
+
+
+
+574 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Stack-based programming languages. Remarkably, Dijkstra’s 2-stack algorithm 
+also computes the same value as in our example for this expression: 
+
+(1((23 + ) (45*)*) + ) 
+
+In other words, we can put each operator after its two operands instead of between 
+them. In such an expression, each right parenthesis immediately follows an opera- 
+tor so we can ignore both kinds of parentheses, writing the expressions as: 
+
+123 + 45** + 
+
+This notation is known as reverse Polish notation, or postfix. To evaluate a postfix ex- 
+pression, we use one stack (see Exercise 4.3.15). Proceeding from left to right, tak- 
+ing these entities one at a time, we manipulate the stacks 
+according to just two possible cases, as follows: 
+
+• Push operands onto the operand stack. 
+
+• On encountering an operator, pop the requisite 
+number of operands and push onto the operand 
+stack the result of applying the operator to those 
+operands. 
+
+Again, this process leaves one value on the stack, which 
+is the value of the expression. This representation is so 
+simple that some programming languages, such as Forth 
+(a scientific programming language) and PostScript (a 
+page description language that is used on most printers) 
+use explicit stacks. For example, the string 1 2 3 + 4 5 * 
+
+* + is a legal program in both Forth and PostScript that 
+leaves the value 101 on the execution stack. Aficionados 
+of these and similar stack-based programming languages prefer them because they 
+are simpler for many types of computation. Indeed, the Java virtual machine itself 
+is stack-based. 
+
+Function-call abstraction. Most programs use stacks implicitly because they sup- 
+port a natural way to implement function calls, as follows: at any point during the 
+execution of a method, define its state to be the values of all of its variables and a 
+pointer to the next instruction to be executed. One of the fundamental character- 
+istics of computing environments is that every computation is fully determined by 
+its state (and the value of its inputs). In particular, the system can suspend a com- 
+
+
+
+123 + 45 ** + 
+23 + 45 ** + 
+
+3 + 45 ** + 
+
++ 45 ** + 
+
+4 5 ** + 
+
+5 * * + 
+
+
+Trace of postfix evaluation 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+575 
+
+
+public static void sort (a, 0, 4) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = 4 - 0; 
+if (N <= 1) return; 
+
+sort(a, 0, 2) ; -< 
+
+sort(a, 2, 4); 
+
+// merge 
+
+_} 
+
+pu blic static void sort (a, 0, 4) ] 
+
+{ public static void sort (a, 0, 2) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N o 2 - 0; 
+if (N <= 1) return; 
+
+sort(a, 0, 1); •< 
+
+sortCa, 1, 2); 
+
+) // merge 
+
+
+pu blic static void sort (a, 0, 4) ] 
+
+* pu blic static void sort(a, 0, 2) | 
+
+{ public static void sort(a, 0, 1) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N o l - 0; 
+
+if (N <« 1) return; 
+
+•, sort(a, 0, 1); 
+
+sortCa, 1, 2); 
+
+} // merge 
+
+
+public static void sort (a, 0, 4) | 
+
+
+i 
+
+public static void sort (a, 0, 2) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = 2 - 0; 
+if (N <= 1) return; 
+sort(a, 0, 1); 
+
+• pu: 
+
+} 
+
+// merge 
+
+> 
+
+
+pu blic static void sort (a, 0, 4) | 
+
+{ pu blic static void sort (a, 0, 2) | 
+
+* public static void sort (a, 1, 2) 
+
+{ 
+
+int N = 2 - 1; 
+
+if (N <= 1) return; -< 
+
+j. sortCa, 0, 1); 
+
+sort(a f 1, 2); 
+
+2_ H merge 
+
+
+public static void sort (a, 0, 
+
+* public static void sortCa, 
+{ 
+
+int N = 2 - 0; 
+if CN <= 1) return; 
+sortCa, 0, 2); 
+sortCa, 2, 4); 
+
+J_ // merge 
+
+} // return ■< 
+
+
+public static void sortCa, 
+{ 
+
+int N a 4 - 0; 
+if CN <= 1) return; 
+sortCa, 0, 2); 
+
+sortCa, 2, 4); •< 
+
+// merge 
+
+
+Using a stack to support function calls 
+
+
+putation by saving away its state, then restart it 
+by restoring the state. If you take a course about 
+operating systems, you will learn the details of 
+this process, because it is critical to much of the 
+behavior of computers that we take for granted 
+(for example, switching from one application 
+to another is simply a matter of saving and re- 
+storing state). Now, the natural way to imple- 
+ment the function-call abstraction, which is 
+used by virtually all modern programming en- 
+vironments, is to use a stack. To call a function, 
+push the state on a stack. To return from a func- 
+tion call, pop the state from the stack to restore 
+all variables to their values before the function 
+call, substitute the function return value (if 
+there is one) in the expression containing the 
+function call (if there is one), and resume ex- 
+ecution at the next instruction to be executed 
+(whose location was saved as part of the state 
+of the computation). This mechanism works 
+whenever functions call one another, even re- 
+cursively. Indeed, if you think about the process 
+carefully, you will see that it is essentially the 
+same process that we just examined in detail for 
+expression evaluation. A program is a sophisti- 
+cated expression. 
+
+The pushdown stack is a fundamental compu- 
+tational abstraction. Stacks have been used for 
+expression evaluation, implementing the func- 
+tion-call abstraction, and other basic tasks since 
+the earliest days of computing. We will examine 
+another (tree traversal) in Section 4.4. Stacks 
+are used explicitly and extensively in many ar- 
+eas of computer science, including algorithm 
+design, operating systems, compilers, and nu- 
+merous other computational applications. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+576 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+FIFO queues A FIFO queue (or 
+just a queue ) is a collection that is 
+based on the first-in-first-out (FIFO) 
+policy. 
+
+The policy of doing tasks in the 
+same order that they arrive is one that 
+we encounter frequently in everyday 
+life, from people waiting in line at a 
+theater, to cars waiting in line at a toll 
+booth, to tasks waiting to be serviced 
+by an application on your computer. 
+
+One bedrock principle of any 
+service policy is the perception of 
+fairness. The first idea that comes to 
+mind when most people think about 
+fairness is that whomever has been 
+waiting the longest should be served 
+first. That is precisely the FIFO disci- 
+pline, so queues play a central role in 
+numerous applications. Queues are 
+a natural model for so many every- 
+day phenomena, and their properties 
+were studied in detail even before the 
+
+
+
+advent of computers. 
+
+As usual, we begin by articulating an API. Again by tradition, we name the 
+queue insert operation enqueue and the remove operation dequeue, as indicated in 
+the following API: 
+
+
+public class Queue<Item> 
+
+Queue<Item> () create art empty queue 
+
+boolean isEmptyO is the queue empty? 
+
+void enqueue (Item item) enqueue an item 
+Item dequeue O dequeue an item 
+
+i nt lengthO queue length 
+
+API for a generic FIFO queue 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+577 
+
+
+As specified in this API, we will use generics in our implementations, so that we can 
+write client programs that safely build and use queues of any reference type. We 
+include a 1 ength () method, even though we did not have such a method for stacks 
+because queue clients often do need to be aware of the number of items in the 
+queue, whereas most stack clients do not (see Program 4.3.8 and Exercise 4.3.9). 
+
+Applying our knowledge from stacks, we can use linked lists or array doubling 
+to develop implementations where the operations take constant time and the 
+memory associated with the queue grows and shrinks with the number of elements 
+in the queue. As with stacks, each of these implementations represents a classic 
+programming exercise. You may wish to think about how you might achieve these 
+goals in an implementation before reading further. 
+
+Linked-list implementation. To implement a queue with a linked list, we keep 
+the items in order of their arrival (the reverse of the order that we used in Stack). 
+The implementation of dequeue () is the same as the pop() implementation in 
+Stack (save the item in the first list 
+node, remove the first list node from 
+the queue, and return the saved item). 
+
+Implementing enqueue (), however, 
+is a bit more challenging: how do we 
+add a node to the end of a linked list? 
+
+To do so, we need a link to the last 
+node in the list, because that node’s 
+link has to be changed to reference a 
+new node containing the item to be 
+inserted. In Stack, the only instance 
+variable is a reference to the first node 
+in the list; with only that information, 
+our only recourse is to traverse all 
+the nodes in the list to get to the end. 
+
+That solution is unattractive when 
+lists might be lengthy. A reasonable 
+alternative is to maintain a second in- 
+stance variable that always references 
+the last node in the list. Adding an ex- 
+tra instance variable that needs to be 
+
+
+save a link to the last node 
+
+Node oldlast = last; 
+
+oldlast 
+
+
+
+create a new node for the end 
+
+Node last = new Node(); 
+last. item = "not"; 
+
+
+oldlast 
+
+
+
+link the new node to the end of the list 
+
+oldlast. next = last; 
+
+
+
+Inserting a new node at the end of a linked list 
+
+
+
+578 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Program 4.3.6 Generic FIFO queue (linked list) 
+
+
+public class Queue<Item> 
+
+{ 
+
+private Node first; 
+private Node last; 
+
+private class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+Item item; 
+
+Node next; 
+
+} 
+
+public boolean isEmptyO 
+{ return (first == null); } 
+
+public void enqueue (Item item) 
+
+{ // Add item to the end of the list. 
+
+Node oldlast = last; 
+
+last = new NodeO; 
+
+last. item = item; 
+
+last. next = null ; 
+
+if (isEmptyO) first = last; 
+
+else oldlast. next = last; 
+
+} 
+
+public Item dequeueO 
+
+{ // Remove item from the beginning of the list. 
+
+Item item = first. item; 
+first = first. next; 
+if (isEmptyO) last = null; 
+return item; 
+
+
+fi rst first node on list 
+
+1 ast last node on list 
+
+i tern list item 
+
+next next node on list 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Test client is similar to Program 4.3.2. 
+
+Queue<String> q = new Queue<String>() ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This implementation is very similar to our linked-list stack implementation (Program 4.3.2): 
+dequeueO is almost the same as pop() , but enqueue () links the new item onto the end of the 
+list, not the beginning as in push(). To do so , it maintains an instance variable that references 
+the last node on the list. The 1 ength 0 method is left for an exercise (see Exercise 4.3. 11). 
+
+
+% java Queue < tobe.txt 
+to be or not to be 
+
+
+
+
+
+Trace of' 
+
+
+580 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+maintained is not something that should be taken lightly, particularly in linked-list 
+code, because every method that modifies the list needs code to check whether 
+that variable needs to be modified (and to make the necessary modifications). For 
+example, removing the first node in the list might involve changing the reference 
+to the last node in the list, since when there is only one node in the list, it is both 
+the first one and the last one! (Details like this make linked-list code notoriously 
+difficult to debug.) Queue (Program 4.3.6) is a linked-list implementation of our 
+FIFO queue interface that has the same performance properties as Stack: all of the 
+methods are constant-time, and space usage is proportional to the queue size. 
+
+Array implementations. It is also possible to develop FIFO queue implementa- 
+tions that use arrays having the same performance characteristics as those that we 
+developed for stacks in ArrayStackOfStrings (Program 4.3.1) and Doubling- 
+StackOfStrings (Program 4.3.3). These implementations are worthy program- 
+ming exercises that you are encouraged to pursue further (see Exercise 4.3.18). 
+
+Random queues. Even though they are widely applicable, there is nothing sacred 
+about FIFO and LIFO. It makes perfect sense to consider other rules for remov- 
+ing items. One of the most important to consider is a data type where dequeue () 
+removes a random element (sampling without replacement), and we have a meth- 
+od sample () that returns a random element without removing it from the queue 
+(sampling with replacement). Such actions are precisely called for in numerous ap- 
+plications, some of which we have already considered, starting with Sampl e (Pro- 
+gram 1.4.1). With an array representation, implementing sampl e() is straightfor- 
+ward, and we can use the same idea as in Program 1.4.1 to implement dequeueO 
+(exchange a random element with the last element before removing it). We use the 
+name RandomQueue to refer to this data type (see Exercise 4.3.36). Note that this 
+solution depends on using an array representation; getting to a random element 
+from a linked list in constant time is not possible because we have to start from the 
+beginning and traverse links to find it. With a (doubling) array representation, all 
+of the operations are implemented in constant (amortized) time. 
+
+The queue, random queue, and stack APIs are essentially identical — they differ only 
+in the choice of class and method names (which are chosen arbitrarily). Thinking 
+about this situation is a good way to cement understanding of the basic issues sur- 
+rounding data types that we introduced in Section 3.3. The true differences among 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+581 
+
+
+these data types are in the semantics of the remove operation — which item is to be 
+removed? The differences between stacks and queues are in the English-language 
+descriptions of what they do. These differences are akin to the differences between 
+Math .sin (x) and Math . 1 og (y) , but we might want to articulate them with a for- 
+mal description of stacks and queues (in the same way as we have mathematical 
+descriptions of the sine and logarithm functions). But precisely describing what we 
+mean by first-in-first-out or last-in-first-out or random-out is not so simple. For 
+starters, what language would you use for such a description? English? Java? Math- 
+ematical logic? The problem of describing how a program behaves is known as the 
+specification problem, and it leads immediately to deep issues in computer science. 
+One reason for our emphasis on clear and concise code is that the code itself can 
+serve as the specification for simple data types such as stacks and queues. 
+
+Queue applications In the past century, FIFO queues proved to be accurate 
+and useful models in a broad variety of applications, ranging from manufactur- 
+ing processes to telephone networks to traffic simulations. A field of mathematics 
+known as queuing theory has been used with great success to help understand and 
+control complex systems of all kinds. FIFO queues also play an important role in 
+computing. You often encounter queues when you use your computer: a queue 
+might hold songs on a playlist, documents to be printed, or events in a game. 
+
+Perhaps the ultimate queue application is the internet itself, which is based on 
+huge numbers of messages moving through huge numbers of queues that have all 
+sorts of different properties and are interconnected in all sorts of complicated ways. 
+Understanding and controlling such a complex system involves solid implementa- 
+tions of the queue abstraction, application of mathematical results of queueing 
+theory, and simulation studies involving both. We consider next a classic example 
+to give a flavor of this process. 
+
+MIDI 1 queue. One of the simplest queueing models is known as an MIDI 1 queue. 
+The M indicates that arrivals obey a Markov process (in this context, a Poisson pro- 
+cess where arrivals obey a specific probability distribution that has been shown to 
+accurately model many real-world situations), the D indicates that departures are 
+deterministic (happen at a fixed rate), and the 1 indicates that there is one server. It 
+is an appropriate model for a situation like a single line of cars entering a toll booth: 
+they arrive at randomly spaced intervals, but leave at fixed intervals. An Ml Dll 
+queue is parameterized by its arrival rate \ (for example, the number of cars per 
+
+
+
+582 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+minute arriving at the toll booth) and its departure rate p, (for 
+example, the number of cars per minute that can pass through 
+the toll booth) and is characterized by three properties: 
+
+• There is one server (a FIFO queue). 
+
+• Arrivals are described by a Poisson process with rate X, 
+where the arrivals come from an exponential distribution 
+(see Exercise 2.2.14). 
+
+• Departures happen at a fixed rate of p, when the queue is 
+nonempty. 
+
+Note that the queue will grow without bound unless p, > X. 
+Otherwise, customers enter and leave the queue in an interest- 
+ing dynamic process. Also note that the time between arrivals 
+is 1/X minutes, on the average, and the time between depar- 
+tures, when the queue is nonempty, is 1 /jljl minutes. 
+
+Analysis. In practical applications, people are interested in 
+the effect of the values of the parameters on various properties 
+of the queue. If you are a customer, you may want to know the 
+expected amount of time you will have to wait in the queue; 
+if you are designing the system, you might want to know how 
+many customers are likely to be in the queue, or something 
+more complicated, such as the likelihood that the queue size 
+will exceed a given maximum size. For simple models, prob- 
+ability theory yields formulas expressing these quantities as 
+functions of X and |x. For M/D/1 queues, it is known that: 
+
+• The average number of customers in the system L is 
+X 2 / (2 p. (p. — X)) + X/p,. 
+
+• The average wait time Wis X / (2 p, (p, — X)) + 1/p,. 
+
+For example, if the cars arrive at an average rate of 10 per min- 
+ute and the service rate is 15 per minute, then the average num- 
+ber of cars in the system will be 4/3 and the average wait time 
+will be 2/15 minutes or 8 seconds. These formulas confirm 
+that the wait time (and queue length) grow without bound as 
+X approaches p,. They also obey a general rule known as Little’s 
+law: the average number of customers in the system is X times 
+the average wait time ( L = \W) for many types of queues. 
+
+
+Tra 
+
+Tract) 
+
+
+? (seconds) 
+
++ 
+
+r- 0 
+
+
+cd Ten 
+
+
+Ta 
+
+
+t 
+
+CD CD 
+
+
+cdTcd 
+
+
+r io 
+
+
+CD 
+
+
+T 
+
+
+Ti 
+
+Traci 
+
+TracDcb 
+
+
+r 20 
+
+
+c 
+
+CD 
+
+Tcdcd 
+
+
+
+: 
+
+CD 
+
+fra 
+
+
+
+: 
+
+CD 
+
+f 
+
+
+-30 
+
+CD 
+
+arrival departure wait 
+
+0 5 5 
+
+CD 
+
+2 
+
+10 
+
+8 
+
+CD 
+
+7 
+
+15 
+
+8 
+
+CD 
+
+17 
+
+23 
+
+6 
+
+CD 
+
+19 
+
+28 
+
+9 
+
+CD 
+
+21 
+
+30 
+
+9 
+
+
+An M/D/1 queue 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+583 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.3.7 M/D/1 queue simulation 
+
+
+public class MDlQueue 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+double lambda = Double. parseDouble (args [0]) ; 
+double mu = Double. parseDouble(args[l]) ; 
+Histogram hist = new Histogram(60 + 1); 
+Queue<Double> queue = new Queue<Double>() ; 
+double nextAr rival = StdRandom.exp(lambda) ; 
+double nextService = nextAr rival + 1/mu; 
+while (true) 
+
+{ 
+
+while (nextAr rival < nextService) 
+
+{ // Simulate an arrival, 
+
+queue. enqueue(nextArrival) ; 
+nextArrival += StdRandom. exp (lambda) ; 
+
+} // Arrivals done; simulate a service, 
+
+double wait = nextService - queue. dequeueO ; 
+StdDraw.clearO ; 
+
+hist.addDataPoint(Math.min(60, (int) (wait))); 
+hist.drawO ; 
+
+StdDraw.show(20) ; 
+if (queue. isEmptyO) 
+
+nextService = nextArrival + 1/mu; 
+else 
+
+nextService = nextService + 1/mu; 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This simulation of an M/D/1 queue keeps track of time with two variables nextArrival and 
+nextService and a single Queue of double values to calculate wait times. The value of each 
+li item on the queue is the ( simulated ) time it entered the queue. The waiting times are plotted 
+using Hi stogram (Program 3.2.3). 
+
+
+% java MDlQueue .167 .25 
+
+
+llllim 
+
+
+
+
+% java MDlQueue .167 .22 
+
+
+
+
+
+584 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Simulation. MDlQueue (Program 4.3.7) is a Queue client that you can use to vali- 
+date these sorts of mathematical results. It is a simple example of an event-based 
+simulation : we generate events that take place at particular times and adjust our 
+data structures accordingly for the events, simulating what happens at the time 
+they occur. In an MIDI 1 queue, there are two kinds of events: we either have a cus- 
+tomer arrival or a customer service, so we maintain two variables: 
+
+• nextServi ce is the time of the next service. 
+
+• next Arrival is the time of the next arrival. 
+
+To simulate an arrival event, we enqueue a doubl e value (nextAr ri val , the time of 
+arrival); to simulate a service, we dequeue a value, compute the wait time (nextSer- 
+vi ce, which is the time of service, minus the value that came off the queue, which is 
+the time of arrival) and add the wait time data point to the histogram (see Program 
+3.2.3). The shape that results after a large number of trials is characteristic of the 
+M/D/1 queueing system. From a practical point of view, one of the most important 
+characteristics of the process, which you can discover for yourself by running MDl- 
+Queue for various values of A. and |x, is that average wait time (and queue length) 
+can increase dramatically when the service rate approaches the arrival rate. When 
+the service rate is high, the histogram has a visible tail where the frequency of cus- 
+tomers having a given wait time decreases to being negligible as the wait time in- 
+creases. But when the service rate is close to the arrival rate, the tail of the histogram 
+stretches to the point that most values are in the tail, so the frequency of customers 
+having at least the highest wait time displayed dominates. 
+
+As in many other applications that we have studied, the use of simulation to validate 
+a well-understood mathematical model is a starting point for studying more com- 
+plex situations. In practical applications of queues, we may have multiple queues, 
+multiple servers, multi-stage servers, limits on queue size, and many other restric- 
+tions. Moreover, the distributions of arrival and service times may not be possible 
+to characterize mathematically. In such situations, we may have no recourse but to 
+use simulations. It is quite common for a system designer to build a computational 
+model of a queuing system (such as MDlQueue) and to use it to adjust design pa- 
+rameters (such as the service rate) to properly respond to the outside environment 
+(such as the arrival rate). 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+585 
+
+
+Iterable collections As mentioned earlier in this section, one of the fundamen- 
+tal operations on arrays and linked lists is the for loop idiom that we use to process 
+each entry. This common programming paradigm need not be limited to low-level 
+data structures such as arrays and linked lists. For any collection, the ability to 
+process all of its items (perhaps in some specified order) is a valuable capability. 
+The client’s requirement is just to process each of the items in some way, or to iter- 
+ate through the items in the collection. This paradigm is so important that it has 
+achieved first-class status in Java and many other modern languages (the program- 
+ming language itself has specific mechanisms to support it, not just the libraries). 
+With it, we can write clear and compact code that is free from dependence on the 
+details of a collection’s implementation. 
+
+To introduce the concept, we start with a snippet of client code that prints all 
+of the items in a collection of strings, one per line: 
+
+Stack<String> collection = new Stack<String>() ; 
+
+for (String s : collection) 
+
+StdOut.println(s) ; 
+
+
+This construct is known as the foreach statement: you can read the for statement 
+as for each string s in the collection, print s. This client code does not need to know 
+anything about the representation or the implementation of the collection; it just 
+wants to process each of the items in the collection. The same for loop would work 
+with a Queue of strings or any other iterable collection. 
+
+We could hardly imagine code that is more clear and compact. However, im- 
+plementing a collection that supports it requires some extra work, which we now 
+consider in detail. First, the foreach construct is shorthand for a while construct 
+(just like the for statement itself). For example, the foreach statement above is ex- 
+actly equivalent to the following while construct: 
+
+Iterator<String> i = collection. iteratorO ; 
+while (i .hasNextO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = i .next() ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (s) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+586 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+This code exposes the three # necessary elements that we need to implement in any 
+iterable collection: 
+
+• The collection must implement an i terator () method that returns an 
+Iterator object. 
+
+• The Iterator class must include two methods: hasNextO (which returns 
+a boolean value) and next() (which returns an item from the collection). 
+
+In Java, we use the interface mechanism to express the idea that a class imple- 
+ments a specific method (see Section 3.3). For iterable collections, the necessary 
+interfaces are already defined for us in Java. 
+
+To make a class iterable, the first step is to add the phrase implements 
+Iterabl e<Item> to its declaration, matching the interface 
+
+public interface Iterabl e<Item> 
+
+{ 
+
+Iterator<Item> i terator 0; 
+
+} 
+
+(which is in j ava . 1 ang . Iterabl e), and to add a method to the class that returns 
+an Iterator<Item>. Iterators are generic; we can either use them in a generic class 
+or just use them to provide clients with the ability to iterate through a specific type 
+of objects. 
+
+What is an iterator? An object from a class that implements the methods has- 
+Next () and next () , as defined in the following interface (which is in j ava . uti 1 . 
+Iterator): 
+
+public interface Iterator<Item> 
+
+{ 
+
+boolean hasNextO; 
+
+Item next(); 
+void removeO; 
+
+} 
+
+Although the interface requires a remove () method, we always use an empty meth- 
+od for removeO in this book, because interleaving iteration with operations that 
+modify the data structure is best avoided. 
+
+As illustrated in the following two examples, implementing an iterator class is 
+often straightforward for array and linked-list representations of collections. 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+587 
+
+
+Implementing an iterator for a class that uses an internal array. As a first ex- 
+ample, we will consider all of the steps needed to make ArrayStackOfStrings 
+(Program 4.3.1) iterable. First, change the class declaration to: 
+
+public class ArrayStackOfStrings implements Iterable<String> 
+
+In other words, we are promising to provide an i te r ato r () method so that a client 
+can use a foreach statement to iterate through the strings in the stack. The i tera- 
+tor () method itself is simple: 
+
+public Iterator<String> iteratorO 
+{ return new ArraylteratorO ; } 
+
+It just returns an object from a private nested class that implements the Iterator 
+interface (which provides hasNextO, next(), and remove () methods): 
+
+private class Arraylterator implements Iterator<String> 
+
+{ 
+
+private int i = N-l; 
+
+public boolean hasNextO 
+{ return i >= 0; > 
+
+public Item next() 
+
+{ return a [i — ] ; } 
+
+public void remove 0 
+
+{ } 
+
+} 
+
+Note that the nested class can access the instance variables of the enclosing class, in 
+this case a[] and N (this ability is the main reason we use nested classes for itera- 
+tors). One crucial detail remains: we have to include 
+
+import java. util .Iterator; 
+
+at the beginning of the program because (for historical reasons) Iterator is not 
+part of the standard library (even though Iterabl e is part of the standard library). 
+Now a client using the foreach statement for this class will get behavior equivalent 
+to the common for loop for arrays, but does not need to be aware of the array rep- 
+resentation (an implementation detail). This arrangement is of critical importance 
+for implementations of fundamental data types like those included in Java libraries. 
+For example, it frees us to switch to a totally different representation without having 
+to change any client code. More important, taking the client’s point of view, it allows 
+
+
+
+588 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+clients to use iteration without having to know any details of the class implementa- 
+tion. 
+
+Implementing an iterator for a class that uses a linked list. The same specific 
+steps (with different code) are effective to make Queue (Program 4.3.6) iterable, 
+even though it is generic. First, we change the class declaration to: 
+
+public class Queue<Item> implements Iterable<Item> 
+
+In other words, we are promising to provide aniteratorO method so that a client 
+can use a foreach statement to iterate through the items in the stack, whatever their 
+type. Again, the i terator () method itself is simple: 
+
+public Iterator<Item> i terator () 
+
+{ return new ListlteratorO ; } 
+
+As before, we have a private nested class that implements the Iterator interface: 
+
+private class Listlterator implements Iterator<Item> 
+
+{ 
+
+Node current = first; 
+
+public boolean hasNextO 
+{ return current != null; } 
+
+public Item next() 
+
+{ 
+
+Item item = cur rent. item; 
+current = current. next; 
+return item; 
+
+} 
+
+public void remove () 
+
+{ } 
+
+} 
+
+Again, a client can build a queue of objects of any type and then iterate through the 
+objects without any awareness of the linked-list representation: 
+
+Queue<String> queue = new Queue<String>() ; 
+
+for (String s : queue) 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n(s) ; 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+589 
+
+
+This client code is a clearer expres- 
+sion of the computation and there- 
+fore easier to write and maintain than 
+code based on the low-level represen- 
+tation. 
+
+Our stack iterator goes through 
+the items in LIFO order and our 
+queue iterator goes through them in 
+FIFO order, even though there is no 
+requirement to do so: we could re- 
+turn the items in any order whatsoev- 
+er. However, when developing itera- 
+tors, it is wise to follow a simple rule: 
+if a data type specification implies a 
+natural iteration order, use it. 
+
+Ite rato r implementations may 
+seem a bit complicated to you at first, 
+but they are worth the effort. You will 
+not find yourself implementing them 
+very often, but when you do, you will 
+enjoy the benefits of clear and correct 
+client code and code reuse. Moreover, 
+as with any programming construct, 
+once you begin to enjoy these ben- 
+efits, you will find yourself taking ad- 
+vantage of them often. 
+
+Making a class iterable certainly 
+changes its API, but to avoid overly 
+complicated API tables, we simply 
+use the adjective iterable to indicate 
+that we have included the appropri- 
+ate code to a class, as described in this 
+
+
+[import java. util .Iterator; I Iterator 
+
+i 1 not in language 
+
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+Queue<Integer> queue = new Queue<Integer>() ; 
+while ( ! Stdln. is Empty O) 
+
+queue . enqueue(StdIn . readlntO) ; 
+
+foreach 
+statement 
+
+
+for (int s : queue) 
+StdOut.println(s) ; 
+
+
+Anatomy of an iterable class 
+
+
+section, and to indicate that you can 
+
+use the foreach statement in client code. From this point forward we will use in cli- 
+ent programs the iterable (and generic) Stack, Queue, and RandomQueue data types 
+described here. 
+
+
+
+
+
+590 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Resource allocation Next, we examine an application that illustrates the lan- 
+guage features that we have been considering. A resource-sharing system involves 
+a large number of loosely cooperating servers who want to share resources. Each 
+server agrees to maintain a queue of items for sharing, and a central authority 
+distributes the items to the servers (and informs users where they may be found). 
+For example, the items might be songs, photos, or videos to be shared by a large 
+number of users. To fix ideas, we will think in terms of millions of items and thou- 
+sands of servers. 
+
+We will consider the kind of program that the central authority might use 
+to distribute the items, ignoring the dynamics of deleting items from the systems, 
+adding and deleting servers, and so forth. 
+
+If we use a round-robin policy, cycling through the servers to make the assign- 
+ments, we get a balanced allocation, but it is rarely possible for a distributor to have 
+such complete control over the situation: for example, there might be a large num- 
+ber of independent distributors, so none of them could have up-to-date informa- 
+tion about the servers. Accordingly, such systems often use a random policy, where 
+the assignments are based on random choice. An even better policy is to choose a 
+random sample of servers and assign a new item to the one that has smallest num- 
+ber of items. For small queues, differences among these policies is immaterial, but 
+in a system with millions of items on thousands of servers, the differences can be 
+quite significant, since each server has a fixed amount of resources to devote to this 
+process. Indeed, similar systems are used in internet hardware, where some queues 
+might be implemented in special-purpose hardware, so queue length translates di- 
+rectly to extra equipment cost. But how big a sample should we take? 
+
+LoadBalance (Program 4.3.8) is a simulation of the sampling policy, which 
+we can use to study this question. This program makes good use of the high-level 
+constructs (generics and iterators) that we have been considering to provide an eas- 
+ily understood program that we can use for experimentation. We maintain a ran- 
+dom queue of queues of strings and build the computation around an inner loop 
+where we put each new request on the smallest of a sample of queues, using the 
+sampl e() method from RandomQueue to randomly sample queues. The surprising 
+end result is that samples of size two lead to near-perfect balancing, so there is no 
+point in taking larger samples. 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+591 
+
+
+fggfgfll 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.3.8 Load balancing simulation 
+
+public class LoadBalance 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Assign N items to M servers, using 
+
+// shortest-in-a-sample (of size S) policy, 
+int M = Integer. parselnt(args [0]) ; 
+int N = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+int S = Integer. parselnt(args[2]) ; 
+
+// Create server queues. 
+
+RandomQueue<Queue<Integer» servers ; 
+servers = new RandomQueue<Queue<Integer»() ; 
+for (int i = 0; i < M; i++) 
+
+servers. enqueue(new Queue<Integer>()) ; 
+
+for (int j=0; j < N; j++) 
+
+{ // Assign an item to a server. 
+
+Queue<Integer> min = servers. sample(); 
+
+
+for (int k = 1; k < S; k++) 
+
+{ // Pick a random server, update if new min. 
+
+Queue<Integer> q = serve rs.sampleO ; 
+if (q.lengthO < min.lengthO) min = q; 
+
+} // min is the shortest server queue, 
+
+min. enqueue (j) ; 
+
+
+M number of servers 
+
+N number of items 
+
+S sample size 
+
+servers queues 
+
+mi n shortest in sample 
+
+max current value 
+
+
+int i = 0; 
+
+double [] lengths = new double[M]; 
+for (Queue<Integer> q: servers) 
+lengths[i++] = q.lengthO; 
+StdDraw.setYscaleCO, 2.0*N/M); 
+StdStats . pi otBars (1 engths) ; 
+
+
+This generic Queue client simulates the process of assigning N items to a set of M servers. Re- 
+quests are put on the shortest of a sample of S queues chosen at random. 
+
+
+
+
+592 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+We have considered in detail the issues surrounding the space and time usage of ba- 
+sic implementations of the stack and queue APIs not just because these data types 
+are important and useful, but also because you are likely to encounter the very same 
+issues in the context of your own data type implementations. 
+
+Should you use a pushdown stack, a FIFO queue, or a random queue when 
+developing a client that maintains collections of data? The answer to this ques- 
+tion depends on a high-level analysis of the client to determine which of the LIFO, 
+FIFO, or random disciplines is appropriate. 
+
+Should you use an array, a linked list, or a doubling array to structure your 
+data? The answer to this question depends on low-level analysis of performance 
+characteristics. With an array, the advantage is that you can access any element in 
+constant time and the disadvantage that you need to know the maximum size in 
+advance. A linked list has the advantage that you do not need to know the maxi- 
+mum size in advance and the disadvantage that you cannot access an arbitrary 
+element in constant time. A doubling array combines the advantages of arrays and 
+linked lists (you can access any element in constant time but do not need to know 
+the maximum size in advance) but has the (slight) disadvantage that the constant 
+running time is on an amortized basis. Each is appropriate in various different situ- 
+ations; you are likely to encounter all three in most programming environments. 
+For example, the Java class java. util .ArrayList uses a doubling array, and the 
+Java class j ava . uti 1 . Li nkedLi st uses a linked list. 
+
+The powerful high-level constructs and new language features that we have 
+considered in this section (generics and iterators) are not to be taken for granted. 
+They are sophisticated language features that did not come into widespread use in 
+mainstream languages until the turn of the century, and they still are used mostly 
+by professional programmers. But their use is skyrocketing because they are well- 
+supported in Java and C++, because new languages such as Python and Ruby em- 
+brace them, and because many people are learning to appreciate the value of using 
+them in client code. By now, you know that learning to use a new language feature 
+is not so different from learning to ride a bicycle or implement Hell 0W0 rid: it 
+seems completely mysterious until you have done it for the first time, but quickly 
+becomes second nature. Learning to use generics and iterators will be well worth 
+your time. 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+593 
+
+
+
+Q. When do I use new with Node? 
+
+A. Just as with any other class, you should only use new when you want to create a 
+new Node object (a new element in the linked list). You should not use new to create 
+a new reference to an existing Node object. For example, the code 
+
+Node oldfirst = new NodeO; 
+old-first = first; 
+
+creates a new Node object, then immediately loses track of the only reference to it. 
+This code does not result in an error, but it is a bit untidy to create orphans for no 
+reason. 
+
+Q. Why declare Node as a nested class? Why private? 
+
+A. By declaring the nested class Node to be private, we restrict access to methods 
+within the enclosing class. Note for experts : A nested class that is not static is known 
+as an inner class, so technically our Node classes are inner classes, though the ones 
+that are not generic could be static. 
+
+Q. When I type j avac Li nkedStackOf St ri ngs . j ava to run Program 4.3.2 and 
+similar programs, I find a file Li nkedStackOf Stri ngs$Node . cl ass in addition to 
+Li nkedStackOf Stri ngs . cl ass . What is the purpose of that file? 
+
+A. That file is for the nested class Node. Java’s naming convention is to use $ to 
+separate the name of the outer class from the nested class. 
+
+Q. Should a client be allowed to insert null items onto a stack or queue? 
+
+A. This question arises frequently when implementing collections in Java. Our 
+implementation (and Java’s stack and queue libraries) do permit the insertion of 
+null values. 
+
+
+Q. Are there Java libraries for stacks and queues? 
+
+
+
+594 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+A. Yes and no. Java has a built-in library called j ava . uti 1 . Stack, but you should 
+avoid using it when you want a stack. It has several additional operations that are 
+not normally associated with a stack, e.g., getting the ith element. It also allows 
+adding an element to the bottom of the stack (instead of the top), so it can imple- 
+ment a queue! Although having such extra operations may appear to be a bonus, it 
+is actually a curse. We use data types not because they provide every available oper- 
+ation, but rather because they allow us to precisely specify the operations we need. 
+The prime benefit of doing so is that the system can prevent us from performing 
+operations that we do not actually want. The j ava . uti 1 . Stack API is an example 
+of a wide interface, which we generally strive to avoid. 
+
+Q. I want to use an array representation for a generic stack, but code like the fol- 
+lowing will not compile. What is the problem? 
+
+private Item[] a = new Item[max]; 
+
+A. Good try. Unfortunately, creating arrays of generics is not allowed in Java 1.5. 
+Experts still are vigorously debating this decision. As usual, complaining too loudly 
+about a language feature puts you on the slippery slope toward becoming a lan- 
+guage designer. There is a way out, using a cast. You can write: 
+
+private Item[] a = (Item[]) new Object[max]; 
+
+Q. Can I use a foreach loop with arrays? 
+
+A. Yes (even though arrays do not implement the Iterator interface). The follow- 
+ing one-liner prints out the command-line arguments: 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ for (String s : args) StdOut.println(s) ; } 
+
+Q. Why not have a single Col 1 ecti on data type that implements methods to add 
+items, remove the most recently inserted, remove the least recently inserted, re- 
+move random, iterate, return the number of items in the collection, and whatever 
+other operations we might desire? Then we could get them all implemented in a 
+single class that could be used by many clients. 
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+595 
+
+
+
+A. This is an example of a wide interface, which, as we pointed out in Section 3.3, 
+are to be avoided. One reason to avoid wide interfaces is that it is difficult to con- 
+struct implementations that are efficient for all operations. A more important rea- 
+son is that narrow interfaces enforce a certain discipline on your programs, which 
+makes client code much easier to understand. If one client uses Stack<String> 
+and another uses Queue<Customer>, we have a good idea that the LIFO discipline 
+is important to the first and the FIFO discipline is important to the second. Anoth- 
+er approach is to use inheritance to try to encapsulate operations that are common 
+to all collections. However, such implementations are for experts, whereas any pro- 
+grammer can learn to build generic implementations such as Stack and Queue. 
+
+
+
+596 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.3.1 Add a method isFullO to ArrayStackOf St rings (Program 4.3.1) 
+
+4.3.2 Give the output printed by j ava Ar rayStackOf St rings 5 for the input: 
+
+it was - the best - of times - - - it was - the - - 
+
+4.3.3 Suppose that a client performs an intermixed sequence of (stack) push and 
+pop operations. The push operations put the integers 0 through 9 in order on to 
+the stack; the pop operations print out the return value. Which of the following 
+sequence(s) could not occur? 
+
+a. 4321098765 
+
+b. 4687532901 
+
+c. 2567489310 
+
+d. 4321056789 
+
+e. 1234569870 
+f 0465381729 
+* 1 4 7 9 8 6 5 3 0 2 
+h. 2143658790 
+
+4.3.4 Write a stack client Reverse that reads in strings from standard input and 
+prints them in reverse order. 
+
+4.3.5 Assume that standard input has some unknown number N of doubl e val- 
+ues. Write a method that reads all the values and returns an array of length N con- 
+taining them, in the order they appear on standard input. 
+
+4.3.6 Write a stack client Parentheses that reads in a text stream from standard 
+input and uses a stack to determine whether its parentheses are properly balanced. 
+For example, your program should print true for [()]{}{[()()] ()} and false 
+for [ (] ) . Hint : Use a stack. 
+
+4.3.7 What does the following code fragment print when N is 50? Give a high- 
+level description of what the code fragment in the previous exercise does when 
+presented with a positive integer N. 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+597 
+
+
+
+Stack<Integer> stack = new Stack<Integer>() ; 
+while (N > 0) 
+
+{ 
+
+stack. push (N % 2); 
+
+N = N / 2; 
+
+} 
+
+while (! stack. isEmptyO) 
+
+StdOut.print(stack.popO) ; 
+
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+Answer : Prints the binary representation of N (110010 when N is 50). 
+
+4.3.8 What does the following code fragment do to the queue q? 
+
+Stack<String> stack = new Stack<String>() ; 
+while (!q. isEmptyO) 
+
+stack. push(q.dequeueO) ; 
+while (! stack. isEmptyO) 
+q.enqueue(stack.popO) ; 
+
+4.3.9 Add a method peek() to Stack (Program 4.3.4) that returns the most re- 
+cently inserted element on the stack (without popping it). 
+
+4.3.10 Give the contents and size of the array for Doubl i ngStackOf Stri ngs with 
+the input: 
+
+it was - the best - of times - - - it was - the - - 
+
+4.3.11 Add a method length 0 to Queue (Program 4.3.6) that returns the num- 
+ber of elements on the queue. Hint: Make sure that your method takes constant 
+time by maintaining an instance variable N that you initialize to 0, increment in 
+enqueue O, decrement in dequeue 0, and return in length (). 
+
+4.3.12 Draw a memory usage diagram in the style of the diagrams in Section 4.1 
+for the three-node example used to introduce linked lists in this section. 
+
+
+
+598 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4 . 3.13 Write a program that takes from standard input an expression without left 
+parentheses and prints the equivalent infix expression with the parentheses insert- 
+ed. For example, given the input: 
+
+l + 2)*3-4)*5-6))) 
+
+your program should print 
+
+((l + 2)*((3-4)*(5-6)) 
+
+4 . 3.14 Write a filter Inf i xToPostf i x that converts an arithmetic expression from 
+infix to prefix. 
+
+4 . 3.15 Write a program EvaluatePostfix that takes a postfix expression from 
+standard input, evaluates it, and prints the value. (Piping the output of your pro- 
+gram from the previous exercise to this program gives equivalent behavior to Eval - 
+uate, in Program 4.3.5). 
+
+4 . 3.16 Suppose that a client performs an intermixed sequence of (queue) enqueue 
+and dequeue operations. The enqueue operations put the integers 0 through 9 in 
+order on to the queue; the dequeue operations print out the return value. Which of 
+the following sequence(s) could not occur? 
+
+a. 0123456789 
+
+b. 4687532901 
+
+c. 2567489310 
+
+d. 4321056789 
+
+4 . 3.17 Write an iterable Stack client that has a static method copy () that takes a 
+stack of strings as argument and returns a copy of the stack. Note: This ability is a 
+prime example of the value of having an iterator, because it allows development of 
+such functionality without changing the basic API. See Exercise 4.3.47 for a better 
+interface. 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+599 
+
+
+
+4.3.18 Develop a class Doubl i ngQueueOf Stri ngs that implements the queue ab- 
+straction with a fixed-size array, and then extend your implementation to use array 
+doubling to remove the size restriction. 
+
+4.3.19 Write a Queue client that takes a command-line argument k prints the kth 
+from the last string found on standard input. 
+
+4.3.20 (For the mathematically inclined.) Prove that the array in Doubl i ngStack- 
+OfStri ngs is never less than one-quarter full. Then prove that, for any Doubl i ng- 
+StackOfStri ngs client, the total cost of all of the stack operations divided by the 
+number of operations is a constant. 
+
+4.3.21 Modify MDlQueue to make a program MMIQueue that simulates a queue 
+for which both arrival and service are Poisson processes. Verify Little’s law for this 
+model. 
+
+4.3.22 Develop a class StackOf Ints that uses a linked-list representation (but no 
+generics). Write a client that compares the performance of your implementation 
+with Stack<Integer> to determine the performance penalty from autoboxing on 
+your system. 
+
+
+
+600 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+i^inke££i^Ex£i?cises 
+
+
+This list of exercises is intended to give you experience in working with linked lists. The 
+easiest way to work them is to make drawings using the visual representation described 
+in the text. 
+
+4.3.23 Write a method del ete O that takes an i nt argument k and deletes the kth 
+element in a linked list, if it exists. 
+
+4.3.24 Write a method find() that takes a linked list and a string key as argu- 
+ments and returns true if some node in the list has key as its item field, false 
+otherwise. 
+
+4.3.25 Suppose x is a linked-list node. What is the effect of the following code 
+fragment? 
+
+x.next = x. next. next; 
+
+Answer: Deletes from the list the node immediately following x. 
+
+4.3.26 Suppose that x is a linked list node. What does the following code fragment 
+do? 
+
+t.next = x.next; 
+x.next = t; 
+
+Answer: Inserts node t immediately after node x. 
+
+4.3.27 Why does the following code fragment not do the same thing as in the 
+previous question? 
+
+x.next = t; 
+t.next = x.next; 
+
+Answer: When it comes time to update t.next, x.next is no longer the original 
+node following x, but is instead t itself! 
+
+4.3.28 Write a method removeAfterC) that takes a linked-list Node as argument 
+and removes the node following the given one (and does nothing if the argument 
+or the next field in the argument node is null). 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+601 
+
+
+
+4.3.29 Write a method i nsertAfter 0 that takes two linked-list Node arguments 
+and inserts the second after the first on its list (and does nothing if either argument 
+is null). 
+
+4.3.30 Write a method remove () that takes a linked list and a string key as argu- 
+ments and removes all of the nodes in the list that have key as its item field. 
+
+4.3.31 Write a method max () that takes a reference to the first node in a linked list 
+as argument and returns the value of the maximum key in the list. Assume that all 
+keys are positive integers, and return 0 if the list is empty. 
+
+4.3.32 Develop a recursive solution to the previous question. 
+
+4.3.33 Write a recursive method to print the elements of a linked list in reverse 
+order. Do not modify any of the links. Easy: Use quadratic time, constant extra 
+space. Also easy: Use linear time, linear extra space. Not so easy: Develop a divide- 
+and-conquer algorithm that uses linearithmic time and logarithmic extra space. 
+
+4.3.34 Write a recursive method to randomly shuffle the elements of a linked list 
+by modifying the links. Easy: Use quadratic time, constant extra space. Not so easy:: 
+Develop a divide-and-conquer algorithm that uses linearithmic time and logarith- 
+mic extra space. 
+
+
+
+
+602 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.3.35 Deque. A double-ended queue or deque (pronounced deck) is a combina- 
+tion of a stack and and a queue. It stores a collection of items and supports the 
+following API: 
+
+
+public class Deque<Item> 
+
+
+Deque () 
+
+boolean is Empty () 
+
+void enqueue (Item item) 
+void push (Item item) 
+Item pop() 
+
+Item dequeue () 
+
+
+create an empty deque 
+
+is the deque empty? 
+
+add an item to the end 
+
+add an item to the beginning 
+
+remove an item from the beginning 
+
+remove an item from the end 
+
+
+API for a generic double-ended queue 
+
+
+Write a class Deque that uses a linked list to implement this API. 
+
+4.3.36 Random queue. A random queue stores a collection of items and supports 
+the following API: 
+
+
+public class RandomQueue<Item> 
+
+
+RandomQueueO 
+bool ean i s Empty () 
+
+void enqueue (Item item) 
+
+
+create an empty random queue 
+is the queue empty? 
+add an item 
+
+
+Item dequeueO 
+Item sampleQ 
+
+
+remove and return a random item 
+(sample without replacement) 
+
+return a random item, but do not remove 
+(sample with replacement) 
+
+
+API for a generic random queue 
+
+
+Write a class RandomQueue that implements this API. Hint: Use an array representa- 
+tion (with doubling). To remove an item, swap one at a random position (indexed 
+0 through N-l) with the one at the last position (index N-l). Then delete and return 
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+603 
+
+
+
+the last object, as in DoublingStack. Write a client that prints a deck of cards in 
+random order using RandomQueue<Card>. 
+
+4 . 3.37 Random iterator. Write an iterator for RandomQueue<Item> from the pre- 
+vious exercise that returns the items in random order. Note: This exercise is more 
+difficult than it looks. 
+
+4 . 3.38 Josephus problem. In the Josephus problem from antiquity, N people are 
+in dire straits and agree to the following strategy to reduce the population. They 
+arrange themselves in a circle (at positions numbered from 0 to N— 1) and proceed 
+around the circle, eliminating every Mth person until only one person is left. Leg- 
+end has it that Josephus figured out where to sit to avoid being eliminated. Write a 
+Queue client Josephus that takes N and M from the command line and prints out 
+the order in which people are eliminated (and thus would show Josephus where to 
+sit in the circle). 
+
+% java Josephus 7 2 
+1 3 5 0 4 2 6 
+
+4 . 3.39 Delete ith element. Implement a class that supports the following API: 
+
+
+public class General izedQueue<Item> 
+
+
+bool ean 
+void 
+Item 
+
+
+General izedQueue() 
+i s Empty () 
+insert (Item item) 
+deletefint i) 
+
+
+create an empty queue 
+is the queue empty ? 
+add an item 
+
+delete and return the i th least recently 
+inserted item 
+
+
+API for a generic generalized queue 
+
+
+First, develop an implementation that uses an array implementation, and then de- 
+velop one that uses a linked-list implementation. (See Exercise 4.4.48 for a more 
+efficient implementation that uses a BST.) 
+
+
+
+
+604 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.3.40 Ring buffer. A ring buffer, or circular queue, is a FIFO data structure of a 
+fixed size N. It is useful for transferring data between asynchronous processes or for 
+storing log files. When the buffer is empty, the consumer waits until data is depos- 
+ited; when the buffer is full, the producer waits to deposit data. Develop an API for a 
+ring buffer and an implementation that uses an array representation (with circular 
+wrap-around). 
+
+4.3.41 Merging two sorted queues. Given two queues with strings in ascending 
+order, move all of the strings to a third queue so that the third queue ends up with 
+the strings in ascending order. 
+
+4.3.42 Nonrecursive mergesort. Given N strings, create N queues, each containing 
+one of the strings. Create a queue of the N queues. Then, repeatedly apply the sorted 
+merging operation to the first two queues and reinsert the merged queue at the end. 
+Repeat until the queue of queues contains only one queue. 
+
+4.3.43 Queue with two stacks. Show how to implement a queue using two stacks. 
+Hint: If you push elements onto a stack and then pop them all, they appear in re- 
+verse order. Repeating the process puts them back in FIFO order. 
+
+4.3.44 Move-to-front. Read in a sequence of characters from standard input and 
+maintain the characters in a linked list with no duplicates. When you read in a 
+previously unseen character, insert it at the front of the list. When you read in a du- 
+plicate character, delete it from the list and reinsert it at the beginning. Name your 
+program MoveToFront: it implements the well-know move-to-front strategy, which 
+is useful for caching, data compression, and many other applications where items 
+that have been recently accessed are more likely to be reaccessed. 
+
+4.3.45 Topological sort. You have to sequence the order of N jobs that are num- 
+bered from 0 to N-l on a server. Some of the jobs must complete before others 
+can begin. Write a program Topological Sorter that takes N as a command-line 
+argument and a sequence on standard input of ordered pairs of jobs i j , and then 
+prints a sequence of integers such that for each pair i j in the input, job i appears 
+before job j. Use the following algorithm: First, from the input, build, for each job, 
+(i ) a queue of the jobs that must follow it and (ii ) its indegree (the number of jobs 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+605 
+
+
+
+that must come before it). Then, build a queue of all nodes whose indegree is 0 and 
+repeatedly delete some job with zero indegree, maintaining all the data structures. 
+This process has many applications: for example, you can use it to model course 
+prerequisites for your major so that you can find a sequence of courses to take in 
+order to graduate. 
+
+4 . 3.46 Text editor buffer. Develop a data type for a buffer in a text editor that 
+implements the following API: 
+
+public class Buffer 
+
+
+
+Buffer () 
+
+create an empty buffer 
+
+void 
+
+insertfchar c) 
+
+insert c at the cursor position 
+
+char 
+
+deletef) 
+
+delete and return the character at the cursor 
+
+void 
+
+left (int k) 
+
+move the cursor k positions to the left 
+
+void 
+
+rightfint k) 
+
+move the cursor k positions to the right 
+
+int 
+
+sizeQ 
+
+number of characters in the buffer 
+
+
+API for a text buffer 
+
+
+Hint: Use two stacks. 
+
+4 . 3.47 Copy a stack. Create a new constructor for the linked list implementation 
+of Stack so that 
+
+Stack<Item> t = new Stack<Item>(s) ; 
+
+makes t a reference to a new and independent copy of the stack s. You should be 
+able to push and pop from either s or t without influencing the other. 
+
+4 . 3.48 Copy a queue. Create a new constructor so that 
+Queue<Item> r = new Queue<Item>(q) ; 
+
+makes r a reference to a new and independent copy of the queue q. Hint: Delete all 
+of the elements from q and add these elements to both q and r. 
+
+
+
+
+606 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.3.49 Reverse a linked list. Write a function that takes the first Node in a linked 
+list as argument and reverses the list, returning the first Node in the result. 
+
+Iterative solution : To accomplish this task, we maintain references to three con- 
+secutive nodes in the linked list, reverse, fi rst, and second. At each iteration, we 
+extract the node f i rst from the original linked list and insert it at the beginning 
+of the reversed list. We maintain the invariant that f i rst is the first node of what’s 
+left of the original list, second is the second node of what’s left of the original list, 
+and reverse is the first node of the resulting reversed list. 
+
+public Node reverse(Node list) 
+
+{ 
+
+Node first = list; 
+
+Node reverse = null; 
+while (first != null) { 
+
+Node second = first. next; 
+first. next = reverse; 
+reverse = first; 
+first = second; 
+
+> 
+
+return reverse; 
+
+} 
+
+When writing code involving linked lists, we must always be careful to properly 
+handle the exceptional cases (when the linked list is empty, when the list has only 
+one or two nodes) and the boundary cases (dealing with the first or last items). This 
+is usually much trickier than handling the normal cases. 
+
+Recursive solution : Assuming the linked list has N elements, we recursively reverse 
+the last N— 1 elements, and then carefully append the first element to the end. 
+
+
+
+
+4.3 Stacks and Queues 
+
+
+607 
+
+
+
+public Node reverse(Node first) 
+
+{ 
+
+Node second = first. next; 
+
+Node rest = reverse(second) ; 
+second. next = first; 
+first. next = null; 
+return rest; 
+
+} 
+
+4.3.50 Queue simulations. Study what happens when you modify MDlQueue to 
+use a stack instead of a queue. Does Little’s law hold? Answer the same question 
+for a random queue. Plot histograms and compare the standard deviations of the 
+waiting times. 
+
+4.3.51 More queue simulations. Instrument LoadBalance to print the average 
+queue length and the maximum queue length instead of plotting the histogram, 
+and use it to run simulations for 1 million items on 100,000 queues. Print the aver- 
+age value of the maximum queue length for 100 trials each with sample sizes 1, 2, 3, 
+and 4. Do your experiments validate the conclusion drawn in the text about using 
+a sample of size 2? 
+
+4.3.52 Listing files. A folder is a list of files and folders. Write a program that takes 
+the name of a folder as a command-line argument and prints out all of the files con- 
+tained in that folder, with the contents of each folder recursively listed (indented) 
+under that folder’s name. Hint: Use a queue, and see j ava . i o . Fi 1 e. 
+
+
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+4,4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+4.4.1 
+
+4.4.2 
+
+4.4.3 
+
+4.4.4 
+
+
+Dictionary lookup . ........ .614 
+
+Indexing 617 
+
+BST symbol table . , . . . . . ... 625 
+Dedup filter . ... . . .... . . .633 
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+A symbol table is a data type that we use to associate values with keys. Clients can 
+store (put) an entry into the symbol table by specifying a key-value pair and then 
+can retrieve (get) the value correspond- 
+ing to a particular key from the symbol 
+table. For example, a university might 
+associate information such as a student’s 
+name, home address, and grades (the 
+value) with that student’s social security 
+number (the key), so that each student’s 
+record can be accessed by specifying a So- 
+cial Security number. The same approach might be appropriate for a scientist who 
+needs to organize data, a business that needs to keep track of customer transac- 
+tions, an internet search engine that has to associate keywords with web pages, or 
+in countless other ways. 
+
+Because of their fundamental importance, symbol tables have been heavily 
+used and studied since the early days of computing. The development of imple- 
+mentations that guarantee good performance continues to be an active area of re- 
+search interest. Several other operations on symbol tables beyond the characteristic 
+put and get operations naturally arise, and guaranteeing good performance for a 
+given set of operations can be quite challenging. 
+
+In this chapter we consider a basic API for the symbol-table data type and a 
+classic implementation of that API. Our API adds to the put and get operations the 
+abilities to test whether any value has been associated with a given key (contains) 
+and to iterate through the keys in the table in order. 
+
+The implementation that we consider is based on a data structure known as 
+the binary search tree (BST). It is a remarkably simple solution that performs well 
+in many practical situations and also serves as the basis for the industrial-strength 
+symbol-table implementations that are found in modern programming environ- 
+ments. The BST code that we consider for symbol tables is only slightly more com- 
+plicated than the linked-list code that we considered for stacks and queues, but it 
+will introduce you to a new dimension in structuring data that has far-reaching 
+impact. 
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+609 
+
+
+API A symbol table is a collection of key- value pairs. We use a generic type Key 
+for keys and a generic type Val ue for values — every symbol-table entry associates a 
+Val ue with a Key. In most applications, the keys have some natural ordering, so (as 
+we did with sorting) we require the key type Key to implement Java’s Comparabl e 
+interface. These assumptions lead to the following basic API: 
+
+
+public class *ST<Key extends Comparabl e<Key>, Value> 
+
+*ST() create a symbol table 
+
+void put (Key key, Value v) put key-value pair into the table 
+
+Val ue get (Key key) return value paired with key, null if key not in table 
+
+boolean contains (Key key) is there a value paired with key? 
+
+Note: Implementations should also implement the Ite rabl e<Key> interface to enable clients to access 
+keys in sorted order with foreach loops. 
+
+API for a generic symbol table 
+
+
+As usual, the asterisk is a placeholder to indicate that multiple implementations 
+might be considered. In this section, we provide one basic implementation BST (we 
+describe some elementary implementations briefly in the text and some other im- 
+plementations in the exercises). This API reflects several design decisions, which we 
+now enumerate. 
+
+Comparable keys. As you will see, we take advantage of key ordering to develop 
+efficient implementations of put and get. An even more basic symbol-table API, 
+suitable for some applications, might omit extends Comparable. Since keys in 
+most applications are numbers or strings, this requirement is generally not restric- 
+tive. 
+
+Immutable keys. We assume the keys do not change their value while in the sym- 
+bol table. The simplest and most commonly used types of keys, Stri ng and built- 
+in wrapper types such as Integer and Doubl e, are immutable. 
+
+Replace- the- old-value policy. If a key- value pair is inserted into the symbol table 
+that already associates another value with the given key, we adopt the convention 
+
+
+
+610 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+that the new value replaces the old one (just as with an array assignment state- 
+ment). The contai ns () method gives the client the flexibility to avoid doing so, if 
+desired. 
+
+Not found. The method get() returns null if no entry with the given key has 
+previously been put into the table. This choice has two implications, discussed 
+next. 
+
+Null keys and values. Clients are not permitted to use nul 1 as a key or value. This 
+convention enables us to implement contai ns() as follows: 
+
+public boolean contai ns (Key key) 
+
+{ return get(key) != null; } 
+
+Remove. We do not include a method for removing keys from the symbol table. 
+Many applications do require such a method, but we leave implementations as an 
+exercise (see Exercise 4.4.13) or for a more advanced course in data structures in 
+algorithms. 
+
+Iterable. As indicated in the note in the API, we assume that the data type imple- 
+ments the Iterabl e interface to provide an appropriate iterator that allows clients 
+to visit the contents of the table. Since keys are Comparable, the natural order of 
+iteration is in order of the keys. Accordingly, we will implement Iterabl e<Key> 
+and clients can use get to get values associated with keys if desired. 
+
+Variations. Computer scientists have identified numerous other useful operations 
+on symbol tables, and APIs based on various subsets of them have been widely 
+studied. We consider several of these operations at the end of this section. 
+
+Symbol tables are among the most widely studied data structures in computer sci- 
+ence, so the impact of these and many alternative design decisions has been care- 
+fully studied, as you will learn if you take later courses in computer science. In 
+this chapter, our approach is to introduce you to the most important properties of 
+symbol tables by considering two prototypical client programs, developing an effi- 
+cient implementation, and studying the performance characteristics of that imple- 
+mentation, to show you that it can meet the needs of typical clients, even when the 
+tables are huge. 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+611 
+
+
+Symbol table clients Once you gain some experience with the idea, you will 
+find that symbol tables are broadly useful. To convince you of this fact, we start 
+with two prototypical examples, each of which arises in a large number of impor- 
+tant and familiar practical applications. 
+
+Dictionary lookup. The most basic kind of symbol-table client builds a symbol 
+table with successive put operations in order to support get requests. We maintain a 
+collection of data so that we can quickly access the data we need. Most applications 
+also take advantage of the idea that a symbol table is a dynamic dictionary, where it 
+is easy to look up information and to update the information in the table. The fol- 
+lowing list of familiar examples illustrates the utility of this approach. 
+
+• Phone book. When keys are people’s names and values are their phone num- 
+bers, a symbol table models a phone book. A very significant difference 
+from a printed phone book is that we can add new names or change existing 
+phone numbers. We could also use the phone number as the key and the 
+name as the value. If you have never done so, try typing your phone number 
+(with area code) into the search field in your browser. 
+
+• Dictionary. Associating a word with its definition is a familiar concept that 
+gives us the name “dictionary.” For centuries people kept printed dictionar- 
+ies in their homes and offices in order to check the definitions and spellings 
+(values) of words (keys). Now, because of good symbol- table implementa- 
+tions, people expect built-in spell checkers and immediate access to word 
+definitions on their computers. 
+
+• Account information. People who own stock now regularly check the cur- 
+rent price on the web. Several services on the web associate a ticker symbol 
+(key) with the current price (value), usually along with a great deal of other 
+information. Commercial applications of this sort abound, including finan- 
+cial institutions associating account information with a name or account 
+number or educational institutions associating grades with a student name 
+or identification number. 
+
+• Genomics. Symbols play a central role in modern genomics, as we have al- 
+ready seen (see Program 3. 1 .8). The simplest example is the use of the letters 
+A, C, T, and C to represent the nucleotides found in the DNA of living organ- 
+isms. The next simplest is the correspondence between codons (nucleotide 
+triplets) and amino acids (TTA corresponds to leucine, TCT to cycstine, and 
+so forth), then the correspondence between sequences of amino acids and 
+
+
+
+612 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+proteins, and so forth. Researchers in genomics routinely use various types 
+of symbol tables to organize this knowledge. 
+
+• Experimental data. From astrophysics to zoology, modern scientists are 
+awash in experimental data, and organizing and efficiently accessing this 
+data is vital to understanding what it means. Symbol tables are a critical 
+starting point, and advanced data structures and algorithms that are based 
+on symbol tables are now an important part of scientific research. 
+
+• Programming languages. One of the earliest uses of symbol tables was to 
+organize information for programming. At first, programs were simply se- 
+quences of numbers, but programmers very quickly found that using sym- 
+bolic names for operations and memory locations (variable names) was 
+far more convenient. Associating 
+
+
+the names with the numbers re- 
+
+
+key 
+
+value 
+
+quires a symbol table. As the size 
+
+phone hook 
+
+name 
+
+phone number 
+
+of programs grew, the cost of the 
+symbol-table operations became 
+
+dictionary 
+
+word 
+
+definition 
+
+a bottleneck in program develop- 
+
+account 
+
+account number 
+
+balance 
+
+ment time, which led to the de- 
+
+genomics 
+
+codon 
+
+amino acid 
+
+velopment of data structures and 
+
+data 
+
+data/time 
+
+results 
+
+algorithms like the one we con- 
+
+Java compiler 
+
+variable name 
+
+memory location 
+
+sider in this section. 
+
+file share 
+
+song name 
+
+machine 
+
+• Files. We use symbol tables regu- 
+larly to organize data on com- 
+
+internet DNS 
+
+website 
+
+IP address 
+
+puter systems. Perhaps the most 
+prominent example is the file 
+
+Typical dictionary applications 
+
+
+system , where we associate a file name (key) with the location of its con- 
+tents (value). Your music player uses the same system to associate song titles 
+(keys) with the location of the music itself (value). 
+
+
+• Internet DNS. The domain name system (DNS) that is the basis for orga- 
+nizing information on the internet associates URLs (keys) that humans 
+understand (such as www.princeton.edu or www.wikipedia.org) with 
+IP addresses (values) that computer network routers understand (such as 
+208.216. 181 . 15 or 207 . 142 .131.206). This system is the next-generation 
+“phone book.” Thus, humans can use names that are easy to remember and 
+machines can efficiently process the numbers. The number of symbol-table 
+lookups done each second for this purpose on internet routers around the 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+613 
+
+
+world is huge, so performance is of obvious im- 
+portance. Millions of new computers and other 
+devices are put onto the internet each year, so 
+these symbol tables on internet routers need to be 
+dynamic. 
+
+Despite its scope, this list is still just a representative 
+sample, intended to give you a flavor of the scope of 
+applicability of the symbol-table abstraction. When- 
+ever you specify something by name, there is a symbol 
+table at work. Your computer’s file system or the web 
+might do the work for you, but there is still a symbol 
+table there somewhere. 
+
+For example, to build a table associating codons 
+with amino acid names, we can write code like this: 
+
+ST<String, String> amino; 
+amino = new ST<String, String>(); 
+amino.put("TTA" , "leucine"); 
+
+
+The idea of associating information with a key is so 
+fundamental that many high-level languages have a 
+built-in support for associative arrays, where you can 
+use standard array syntax but with keys inside the 
+brackets instead of an integer index. In such a lan- 
+guage, you could write ami no ["TTA"] = "leucine" 
+instead of ami no . put ("TTA" , "1 euci ne") . Although 
+Java does not (yet) support such syntax, thinking in 
+terms of associative arrays is a good way to understand 
+the basic purpose of symbol tables. 
+
+Lookup (Program 4.4.1) builds a set of key-value 
+pairs from a file of comma-separated values (see Sec- 
+tion 3.1) as specified on the command line and then 
+prints out values corresponding to keys read from 
+standard input. The command-line arguments are the 
+file name and two integers, one specifying the field to 
+serve as the key and the other specifying the field to 
+
+
+% more amino.csv 
+TTT , Phe , F , Phenyl al ani ne 
+TTC , Phe , F , Phenyl al ani ne 
+TTA, Leu, L, Leucine 
+TTG,Leu,L, Leucine 
+TCT,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCC,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCA,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCG,Ser,S, Serine 
+TAT, Tyr,Y, Tyrosine 
+TAC,Tyr,Y, Tyrosine 
+TAA , Stop , Stop , Stop 
+
+GCA, Ala, A, Alanine 
+GCG,Ala,A,Al anine 
+GAT, Asp, D, Aspartic Acid 
+GAC, Asp, D, Aspartic Acid 
+GAA,Gly,G, Glutamic Acid 
+GAG, Gly,G, Glutamic Acid 
+GGT,Gly,G, Glycine 
+GGC,Gly,G, Glycine 
+GGA,Gly,G, Glycine 
+GGG,Gly,G, Glycine 
+
+% more DDIA.csv 
+
+20-0ct-87 ,1738.74, 60809996 8 , 1841 . 01 
+19-0ct-87 ,2164.16, 604300032 , 1738 . 74 
+16-0ct-87 ,2355.09, 338500000 , 2246 . 73 
+15-Oct-87 , 2412 . 70 , 263200000 ,2355.09 
+
+30-Oct-29 ,230.98, 10730000 ,258.47 
+29-0ct-29 ,252.38, 16410000 ,230.07 
+28-Oct-29 ,295.18, 9210000 , 260 . 64 
+2 5-Oct-29 , 299 . 47 , 5920000 , 301 . 22 
+
+
+% more ip.csv 
+
+www . ebay . com , 66 . 13 5 . 192 . 87 
+
+www . pri nceton . edu , 128 . 112 .128.15 
+
+www . cs . pri nceton . edu , 128 . 112 . 136 . 35 
+
+www . harvard . edu , 128 . 103 .60.24 
+
+www . yal e . edu , 130 . 132 .51.8 
+
+www . cnn . com ,64.236.16.20 
+
+www. google. com, 216. 239. 41. 99 
+
+www . nyti mes . com , 199 .239.136.200 
+
+www . appl e . com , 17 . 112 .152.32 
+
+www. si ashdot . org ,66.35.250. 151 
+
+www . espn . com , 199 . 181 .135. 201 
+
+www . weather . com , 63 . Ill .66.11 
+
+www . yahoo . com , 216 . 109 . 118 . 65 
+
+
+Typical comma-separated-value (CSV) files 
+
+
+
+614 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+
+
+;vr ' < . W -T * 4 ^ ^ v ■ - '■ . ® ?7sl 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.4.1 Dictionary lookup 
+
+public class Lookup 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Build dictionary, provide values for keys in Stdln. 
+
+In in = new In (args [0]); 
+int keyField = Integer. parselnt(args [1] ) ; 
+int val Field = Integer. parselnt(args [2] ) ; 
+
+String [] database = in. readAll O .split("\n") ; 
+
+StdRandom . shuf f 1 e (database) ; 
+
+BST<String, String> st = new BST<String, String>(); 
+for (int i =0; i < database. length; i++) 
+
+{ // Extract key, value from one line and add to ST. 
+
+String [] tokens = database [i] .split(",") ; 
+
+String key = tokens [keyFi el d] ; 
+
+String val = tokens [val Fi el d] ; in 
+
+st. put (key, val); keyField 
+
+val Field 
+
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) database [] 
+
+{ // Read key and provide value. 
+
+String s = Stdln. readStringO ; st 
+
+if (st.contains(s)) tokens 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (st . get (s) ) ; key 
+
+else StdOut. pri ntl n("Not found"); val 
+
+} 
+
+
+This data-driven symbol table client reads key-value pairs from a comma-separated file, then 
+prints out values corresponding to keys on standard input Both keys and values are strings. 
+
+
+in 
+
+input stream (.csv) 
+
+keyField 
+
+key position 
+
+val Field 
+
+value position 
+
+database [] 
+
+lines in input 
+
+st 
+
+symbol table (BST) 
+
+tokens 
+
+values on a line 
+
+key 
+
+key 
+
+val 
+
+value 
+
+s 
+
+query 
+
+
+
+
+til 
+
+
+% java Lookup ammo.csv 0 3 
+TTA 
+
+Leucine 
+
+ABC 
+
+Not found 
+
+TCT 
+
+Serine 
+
+% java Lookup amino.csv 3 0 
+Glycine 
+
+
+% java Lookup ip.csv 0 1 
+
+www.google.com 
+
+216.239.41.99 
+
+% java Lookup ip.csv 1 0 
+
+216.239.41.99 
+
+www.google.com 
+
+% java Lookup DJIA.csv 0 1 
+
+29-0ct-29 
+
+252.38 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+615 
+
+
+serve as the value. Examples of similar but slightly more sophisticated test clients 
+are described in the exercises. For instance, we could make the dictionary dynamic 
+by also allowing standard-input commands to change the value associated with a 
+key (see Exercise 4.4.1). 
+
+Your first step in understanding symbol tables is to download Lookup, java 
+and BST . j ava (the symbol-table implementation that we consider next) from the 
+booksite to do some symbol-table searches. You can find numerous comma-sep- 
+arated-value ( . csv) files that are related to various applications that we have de- 
+scribed, including ami no . csv (codon-to-amino-acid encodings), D J IA . csv (open- 
+ing price, volume, and closing price of the stock market average, for every day in its 
+history), and i p . csv (a selection of entries from the DNS database). When choos- 
+ing which field to use as the key, remember that each key must uniquely determine 
+a value. If there are multiple put operations to associate values with a key, the table 
+will remember only the most recent one (think about associative arrays). We will 
+consider next the case where we want to associate multiple values with a key. 
+
+Later in this chapter, we will see that the cost of the put operations and the get 
+requests in Lookup is logarithmic in the size of the table. This fact implies that you 
+may experience a small delay getting the answer to your first request (for all the put 
+operations to build the table), but you get immediate response for all the others. 
+
+Indexing. Index (Program 4.4.2) is a prototypical example of a symbol-table cli- 
+ent that uses an intermixed sequence of calls to get() and put(): it reads in a list 
+of strings from standard input and prints a sorted table of all the different strings 
+along with a list of integers specifying the positions where each string appeared in 
+the input. We have a large amount of data and want to know where certain strings 
+of interest occur. In this case, we seem to be associating multiple values with each 
+key, but we actually associating just one: a queue. Again, this approach is familiar: 
+
+• Book index. Every textbook has an index where you look up a word and get 
+the page numbers containing that word. While no reader wants to see every 
+word in the book in an index, a program like Index can provide a starting 
+point for creating a good index. 
+
+• Programming languages. In a large program that uses a large number of sym- 
+bols, it is useful to know where each name is used. A program like Index 
+can be a valuable tool to help programmers keep track of where symbols 
+are used in their programs. Historically, an explicit printed symbol table 
+was one of the most important tools used by programmers to manage large 
+
+
+
+616 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+programs. In modern systems, symbol tables are the basis of software tools 
+that programmers use to manage names of modules in systems. 
+
+• Genomics. In a typical (if oversimplified) scenario in genomics research, a 
+scientist wants to know the positions of a given genetic sequence in an exist- 
+ing genome or set of genomes. Existence or proximity of certain sequences 
+may be of scientific significance. The starting point for such research is an 
+index like the one produced by Index, modified to take into account the fact 
+that genomes are not separated into words. 
+
+• Web search. When you type a keyword and get a list of websites containing 
+that keyword, you are using an index created by your web search engine. 
+There is one value (the list of pages) associated with each key (the query), 
+although the reality is a bit more dynamic and complicated because we often 
+specify multiple keys and the pages are spread through the web, not kept in 
+a table on a single computer. 
+
+• Account information. One way for a company that maintains customer ac- 
+counts to keep track of a day’s transactions is to keep an index of the list of 
+the transactions. The key is the account number; the value is the list of oc- 
+
+. , currences of that account number in the 
+
+key value , . .. 
+
+transaction hst. 
+
+Index (Program 4.4.2) takes three com- 
+mand-line arguments: a file name and two 
+integers. The first integer is the minimum 
+string length to include in the symbol table, 
+and the second is the minimum number of 
+occurrences (among the words that appear 
+in the text) to include in the printed index. Again, several similar clients for vari- 
+ous useful tasks are discussed in the exercises. For example, one common scenario 
+is to build multiple indices on the same data, using different keys. In our account 
+example, one index might use customer account numbers for keys and another 
+might use vendor account numbers. 
+
+As with Lookup, you are certainly encouraged to download Index from the 
+booksite and run it on various input files to gain further appreciation for the utility 
+of symbol tables. If you do so, you will find that it can build large indices for huge 
+files with little delay, because each put operation and get request is taken care of im- 
+mediately. Providing this immediate response for huge dynamic tables is one of the 
+classic contributions of algorithmic technology. 
+
+
+book 
+genomics 
+web search 
+business 
+
+
+term 
+
+DNA substring 
+keyword 
+customer name 
+
+
+page numbers 
+locations 
+websites 
+transactions 
+
+
+Typical indexing applications 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+617 
+
+
+
+
+public class Index 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+int minlen = Integer. parselnt(args[0]) ; 
+int minocc = Integer. parselnt(args [1]) ; 
+
+String[] words = Stdln. readAll O .split("\\s+") ; 
+
+BST<String, Queue<Integer» st; 
+st = new BST<String, Queue<Integer»() ; 
+
+
+
+for (int i = 0; i < words. length; i++) 
+
+{ // Add word position to data structure. 
+
+String s = words [i] ; 
+if (s.lengthO < minlen) continue; 
+if Ost.contains(s)) 
+
+st.put(s, new Queue<Integer>()) ; 
+Queue<Integer> q = st.get(s); 
+q.enqueue(i) ; 
+
+
+for (String s : st) 
+
+{ // Print words whose occurrence count exceeds threshold. 
+
+Queue<Integer> q = st.get(s); 
+if (q. length () >= minocc) 
+
+StdOut.println(s + ": " + q) ; 
+
+
+minimum length 
+occurence threshold 
+words in Stdln 
+symbol table 
+current word 
+queue of positions 
+for current word 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+Ki 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+
+This symbol table client indexes a text file by word position. Keys are words , and values are 
+queues of positions where the word occurs in the file. 
+
+
+% java Index 9 30 < TaleOfTwoCities.txt 
+confidence: 2794 23064 25031 34249 47907 48268 48577 
+
+courtyard: 11885 12062 17303 17451 32404 32522 38663 
+
+evremonde: 86211 90791 90798 90802 90814 90822 90856 
+
+expression: 3777 5575 6574 7116 7195 8509 8928 15015 
+
+gentleman: 2521 5290 5337 5698 6235 6301 6326 6338 .. 
+influence: 27809 36881 43141 43150 48308 54049 54067 
+monseigneur: 85 90 36587 36590 36611 36636 36643 ... 
+prisoners: 1012 20729 20770 21240 22123 22209 22590 . 
+something: 3406 3765 9283 13234 13239 15245 20257 ... 
+sometimes: 4514 4530 4548 6082 20731 33883 34239 ... 
+vengeance: 56041 63943 67705 79351 79941 79945 80225 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+618 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Symbol table implementations All of these examples are certainly persua- 
+sive evidence of the importance of symbol tables. Symbol-table implementations 
+have been heavily studied, many different algorithms and data 
+structures have been invented for this purpose, and modern 
+aac programming environments (including Java) have several dif- 
+
+ferent symbol-table implementations. You are going to learn a 
+ata remarkably simple one that serves as the basis for many others. 
+
+As usual, knowing how a basic implementation works will help 
+Acc you appreciate, choose among, and more effectively use the ad- 
+
+mx pm cat into vanced ones, or help implement your own version for some spe- 
+
+CAG / the array , . , r 
+
+cat x cialized situation that you might encounter. 
+
+One reason for the proliferation of algorithms and imple- 
+
+— CGC mentations is that the needs of symbol-table clients can vary 
+
+"Ip widely. On the one hand, when the symbol table or the number 
+
+—■cxr of operations to be performed is small, any implementation will 
+
+do. On the other hand, symbol tables for some applications are 
+
+— gag so huge that they are organized as databases that reside on ex- 
+
+"pi ternal storage or the web. In this section, we focus on the huge 
+
+cca class of clients like Index and Lookup whose needs fall between 
+
+these extremes, where we need to be able to use put operations 
+-*• ctt to build and maintain large tables dynamically while also re- 
+
+" ~~ sponding immediately to a large number of get requests. 
+
+—tag We already considered the idea of a dictionary when we 
+
+"I~I considered binary search in Section 4.2. It is not difficult to 
+
+— tct build a symbol-table implementation that is based on binary 
+
+"ip search (see Exercise 4.4.5) but such an implementation is not 
+
+— ' ttg feasible for use with a client like Index, because it depends on 
+
+"HI maintaining an array sorted in order of the keys. Each time a 
+
+1 new key is added, larger keys have to be shifted one position 
+
+higher in the array, which implies that the total time required to 
+build the table is quadratic in the size of the table. 
+o a sorted array Alternatively, we might consider basing an implementa- 
+
+s linear time tion on an unorc j ere( i linked list. But such an implementation 
+
+is also not feasible for use with a client like Lookup or Index, 
+because the only way to search for a key in a list is to traverse its links, so the total 
+time required for searches is the product of the number of searches and the size of 
+
+
+larger keys 
+all have to move 
+
+Put into a sorted array 
+takes linear time 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+619 
+
+
+unordered need to go through 
+
+
+
+Get in a linked list takes linear time 
+
+
+the table, which again is prohibitive. Implementing put is also slow because we have 
+to search first to avoid putting duplicate keys in the symbol table. Even keeping the 
+list in sorted order does not help much — for example, traversing all the links is still 
+required to add a new node to the end of the list. 
+
+To implement a symbol-table that is feasible for use with clients such as Look- 
+up and Index, we need the flexibility of linked lists and the efficiency of binary 
+search. Next, we consider a data structure that provides this combination. 
+
+Binary search trees The binary tree is a mathematical abstraction that plays 
+a central role in the efficient organization of information. Like arrays and linked 
+lists, a binary tree is a data type that stores a collection of data. Binary trees play an 
+important role in computer programming because they strike an efficient balance 
+between flexibility and ease of implementation. 
+
+For symbol-table implementations, we use a special type of binary tree to or- 
+ganize the data and to provide a basis for efficient implementations of the symbol- 
+table put operations and get requests. A binary search tree (BST) associates com- 
+parable keys with values, in a structure defined recursively. A BST is one of the 
+following: 
+
+• Empty (null) 
+
+• A node having a key-value pair and two references to BSTs, a left BST with 
+smaller keys and a right BST with larger keys 
+
+The key type must implement Comparable, but the type of the value is not speci- 
+fied, so a BST node can hold any kind of data in addition to the (characteristic) 
+references to BSTs. As with our linked-list definition in Section 4.3, the idea of a 
+recursive data structure can be a bit mind bending, but all we are doing is adding a 
+second link (and imposing an ordering restriction) to our linked-list definition. 
+
+
+
+620 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+To implement BSTs, we start with a class for the node abstraction, which has 
+references to a key, a value, and left and right BST: 
+
+class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+Key key; 
+
+Val ue val ; 
+
+Node 1 eft , ri ght ; 
+
+} 
+
+This definition is like our definition of nodes for linked lists, except that it has two 
+links, not just one. From the recursive definition of BSTs, we can represent a BST 
+with a variable of type Node by ensuring that its value is either nul 1 or a reference 
+to a Node whose 1 eft and ri ght fields are 
+references to BSTs, and by ensuring that the 
+ordering condition is satisfied (keys in the 
+left BST are smaller than key and keys in the 
+right BST are larger than key). To (slightly) 
+simplify the code, we add a constructor to 
+Node that initializes key and val : 
+
+Node (Key key, Value val) 
+
+{ 
+
+this. key = key; 
+this, val = val; Binary search tree 
+
+} 
+
+The result of new Node (key , val ) is a reference to a Node object (which we can 
+assign to any variable of type Node) whose key and val instance variables are set to 
+the given values and whose left and right instance variables are both initialized 
+to null. 
+
+As with linked lists, when tracing code that uses BSTs, we can use a visual 
+representation of the changes: 
+
+• We draw a rectangle to represent each object. 
+
+• We put the values of instance variables within the rectangle. 
+
+• We depict references as arrows that point to the referenced object. 
+
+Most often, we use an even simpler abstract representation where we draw rect- 
+angles containing keys to represent nodes (suppressing the values) and connect the 
+nodes with arrows that represent links. This abstract representation allows us to 
+focus on the structure. 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+621 
+
+
+For example, suppose that Key is String and Value is Integer. To build a 
+one-node BST that associates the key i t with the value 0, we just create a Node: 
+
+Node first = new NodeC'it", 0); 
+
+
+Since the left and right links are both null, both refer to BSTs, so this node is a BST. 
+
+To add a node that associates the key was with the value 1, we create another 
+Node: 
+
+Node first = new NodeC'it", 0); 
+
+Node second = new Node("was", 1); 
+
+(which itself is a BST) and link to it from the right field of 
+
+the first Node Node second = new NodeO'was", 1); 
+
+first. right = second; 
+
+first. right = second; 
+
+The second node has to go to the right of the first because 
+was comes after i t in Comparabl e order (or we could have 
+chosen to set second . 1 eft to fi rst). Now we can add a 
+
+
+
+
+third node that associates the key the with the value 2 with 
+the code: 
+
+
+Node third= new NodeC'the", 2); 
+second. left = third; 
+
+
+Node third = new NodeC'the", 2); 
+second. left = third; 
+
+and a fourth node that associates the key best with the 
+value 3 with the code 
+
+Node fourth = new Node("best", 3); 
+first. left = fourth; 
+
+
+
+Node fourth = new NodeC’best", 2); 
+
+
+first. left = fourth; 
+
+Note that each of our links — fi rst, second, thi rd, and 
+f ou rth — are, by definition, BSTs (they each are either null 
+or refer to BSTs, and the ordering condition is satisfied at 
+each node). 
+
+We often use tree-based terminology when discuss- 
+ing BSTs. We refer to the node at the top as the root of the 
+tree, the node referenced by its left link as the left subtree, 
+and the node referenced by its right link as the right subtree. Linking together a BST 
+
+Traditionally, computer scientists draw trees upside down, 
+
+with the root at the top. Nodes whose links are both null are called leaf nodes. In 
+
+
+
+
+622 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+general, a tree may have multiple links per node, the order of the links may not be 
+significant, and no keys or values in the nodes. General trees have many applica- 
+tions in science, mathematics, and computational applications, so you are certain 
+to encounter the model on many occasions. 
+
+In the present context, we take care to ensure that we always link together 
+nodes such that every Node that we create is the root of a BST (has a key, a value, a 
+link to a left BST with smaller values, and a link to a right BST with a larger value). 
+From the standpoint of the BST data structure, the value is immaterial, so we often 
+ignore it, but we include it in the definition because it plays such a central role in 
+the symbol-table concept. We also intentionally confuse our nomenclature, using 
+ST to signify both “symbol table” and “search tree” because search trees play such a 
+central role in symbol-table implementations. 
+
+A BST represents an ordered sequence of items. In the example just consid- 
+ered, f i rst represents the sequence best i t the was. We can also use an array to 
+represent a sequence of items. For example, we could use: 
+
+StringH a = { "best", "it", "the", "was" }; 
+
+to represent the same ordered sequence of strings. Given a set of distinct keys, there 
+is only one way to represent them in an ordered array, but there are many ways 
+to represent it in a BST (see Exercise 4.4.7). This 
+flexibility allows us to develop efficient symbol- 
+table implementations. For instance, in our ex- 
+ample we were able to insert each new item by 
+creating a new node and changing just one link. 
+
+As it turns out, it is always possible to do so. 
+
+Equally important, we can easily find a given key 
+in the tree and find the place where we need to 
+add a link to a new node with a given key. Next, 
+we consider symbol-table code that accomplish- 
+es these tasks. 
+
+Suppose that you want to search for a node 
+with a given key in a BST (or to get a value with a 
+given key in a symbol table). There are two pos- 
+sible outcomes: the search might be successful 
+(we find the key in the BST; in a symbol-table Tw0 BSTs representing the 
+
+same sequence 
+
+implementation, we return the associated value) 
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+623 
+
+
+or it might be unsuccessful (there is no key in the BST with the given key; in a 
+symbol-table implementation, we return null). 
+
+A recursive searching algorithm is immediate: Given a BST (a reference to 
+a Node), first check whether the tree is empty (the reference is nul 1 ). If so, then 
+terminate the search as unsuccessful (in a symbol-table implementation, return 
+nul 1 ). If the tree is nonempty, check whether the key in the node is equal to the 
+search key. If so, then terminate the search as successful (in a symbol-table imple- 
+mentation, return the value associated with the key). If not, compare the search key 
+with the key in the node. If it is smaller, search (recursively) in the left subtree; if it 
+is greater, search (recursively) in the right subtree. 
+
+Thinking recursively, it is not difficult to become convinced that this method 
+behaves as intended, based upon the invariant that the key is in the BST if and only 
+if it is in the current subtree. The key property of the recursive method is that we 
+always have just one node to examine in order to decide what to do next. Moreover, 
+we typically examine only a small number of the nodes in the tree: whenever we 
+go to one of the subtrees at a node, we never will examine any of the nodes in the 
+other subtree. 
+
+
+successful search 
+for a node with key the 
+
+
+best. I 
+
+the is after it 
+
+
+so go to the right | the j 
+
+
+of 
+
+
+! best i 
+
+
+
+
+of 
+
+
+n^n \ 
+
+■<*(' the is before was 
+•J so go to the left 
+
+
+i best | 
+
+
+was 
+
+
+the 
+
+
+of 
+
+
+unsuccessful search 
+for a node with key ti mes 
+
+
+
+times is after i t 
+so go to the right 
+
+
+times is before was 
+50 go to the left 
+
+
+it 1 
+
+
+best 
+
+
+the | times is after the 
+' but the right link is null 
+
+so the BST has no node 
+having that key 
+
+
+Searching in a BST 
+
+
+
+624 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+times is before was 
+so go to the left 
+
+
+Suppose that you want to insert a new node into a BST (in a symbol-table 
+implementation, put a new key- value pair into the data structure). The logic is 
+similar to searching for a key, but the implementation is trickier. The key to under- 
+standing it is to realize that only one link must be changed to point to the new node, 
+and that link is precisely the link that would be found to be null in an unsuccessful 
+
+search for the key in that node. 
+
+If the BST is empty, we create and return 
+
+it~| ^ j oITto the right a new Node containing the key-value pair; if 
+
+~ — *~[~was~| the search key is less than the key at the root, 
+
+, —jef we set the left link to the result of inserting the 
+
+J ' ' ^ 1 key-value pair into the left subtree; if the search 
+
+L- --- I key is greater, we set the right link to the result 
+
+of inserting the key-value pair into the right 
+
+~ — — »*, 1 subtree; otherwise, if the search key is equal, 
+
+Jtr ‘ . . , , we overwrite the existing value with the new 
+
+so go to the left value. Resetting the link after the recursive call 
+
+l..° f 1 in this way is usually unnecessary, because the 
+
+link changes only if the subtree is empty, but it 
+is as easy to set the link as it is to test to avoid 
+[~was~| setting it. 
+
+I the^i BST (Program 4.4.3) is a symbol-table 
+
+^ times is after the implementation based on these two recursive 
+
+50 <* goes on the right algorithms. If you compare this code with our 
+
+j binary search implementation BinarySearch 
+
+' (Program 4.2.3) and our stack and queue 
+
+I was I . , . _ x 
+
+— implementations Stack (Program 4.3.4) and 
+
+Queue (Program 4.3.6), you will appreciate the 
+I of I | times | elegance and simplicity of this code. Take the 
+
+time to think recursively and convince yourself 
+ci ting ci new node into ci BST that this code behaves as intended . Perhaps the 
+
+simplest way to do so is to trace the construc- 
+tion of an initially empty BST from a sample set 
+of keys. Your ability to do so is a sure test of your understanding of this fundamen- 
+tal data structure. 
+
+Moreover, the put O and get () methods in BST are remarkably efficient: 
+typically, each accesses a small number of the nodes in the BST (those on the path 
+
+
+times is after the 
+so it goes on the right 
+
+
+I the | 
+
+I of I El! 
+
+
+Inserting a new node into a BST 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+625 
+
+
+
+Program 4.4.3 BST symbol table 
+
+
+public class BST<Key extends Comparabl e<Key> , Value> 
+
+{ 
+
+private Node root; 
+
+private class Node 
+
+{ 
+
+Key key; 
+
+Value val ; 
+
+Node left, right; 
+
+Node (Key key, Value val) 
+
+{ this. key = key; this. val = val; } 
+
+
+
+
+
+left subtree 
+right subtree 
+
+
+public Value get (Key key) 
+
+{ return get (root, key); } 
+
+private Value get (Node x, Key key) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x == null) return null; 
+int cmp = key.compareTo(x.key); 
+if (cmp < 0) return get (x. left, key); 
+
+else if (cmp > 0) return get (x. right, key); 
+else return x.val; 
+
+
+public boolean contains (Key key) 
+
+{ return (get (key) != null); } 
+
+public void put (Key key, Value val) 
+
+{ root = put (root, key, val); } 
+
+private Node put (Node x, Key key, Value val) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x == null) return new Node(key, val); 
+int cmp = key.compareTo(x.key) ; 
+
+if (cmp < 0) x.left = put(x.left, key, val); 
+
+else if (cmp > 0) x. right = put(x. right, key, val); 
+else x.val = val; 
+
+return x; 
+
+
+This implementation of the symbol-table data type is centered on the recursive BST data struc- 
+ture and recursive methods for traversing it. 
+
+
+
+626 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+key 
+
+inserted 
+
+it 
+
+
+□D 
+
+
+was | it | 
+
+
+| was 1 
+
+
+the | it | 
+
+
+^wasj 
+
+i the i 
+
+
+best I it I 
+
+_ 
+
+
+best 
+
+
+the 
+
+
+of I it 
+
+
+best 
+
+
+T^D 
+
+| the | 
+
+
+I °L 1 
+
+
+ti mes 1 it 
+
+
+
+
+Constructing a BST 
+
+
+from the root to the node sought or to the null link that 
+is replaced by a link to the new node). Next, we show 
+that put operations and get requests take logarithmic 
+time (under certain assumptions). Also, put() only 
+creates one new Node and adds one new link. If you 
+make a drawing of a BST built by inserting some keys 
+into an initially empty tree, you certainly will be con- 
+vinced of this fact — you can just draw each new node 
+somewhere at the bottom of the tree. 
+
+Performance characteristics of BSTs The run- 
+ning times of BST algorithms are ultimately dependent 
+on the shape of the trees, and the shape of the trees is 
+dependent on the order in which the keys are inserted. 
+Understanding this dependence is a critical factor in be- 
+ing able to use BSTs effectively in practical situations. 
+
+Best case. In the best case, the tree is perfectly bal- 
+anced (each Node has exactly two non-null children), 
+with lg N nodes between the root and each leaf node. In 
+such a tree, it is easy to see that the cost of an unsuccess- 
+ful search is logarithmic, because that cost satisfies the 
+same recurrence relation as the cost of binary search 
+(see Section 4.2) so that the cost of every put opera- 
+tion and get request is proportional to lg N or less. You 
+would have to be quite lucky to get a perfectly balanced 
+tree like this by inserting keys one by one in practice, 
+but it is worthwhile to know the best possible perfor- 
+mance characteristics. 
+
+Average case. If we insert random keys, we might 
+expect the search times to be logarithmic as well, be- 
+cause the first element becomes the root of the tree and 
+should divide the keys roughly in half. Applying the 
+same argument to the subtrees, we expect to get about 
+the same result as for the best case. This intuition is in- 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+627 
+
+
+
+| best | | of | |ti mes| | worst | 
+
+
+
+deed validated by careful analysis: a classic mathematical derivation shows that the 
+time required for put and get in a tree constructed from randomly ordered keys is 
+logarithmic (see the booksite for references). More precisely, the expected number 
+of key comparisons is ~2 In N for a random put or get in a key built from N randomly 
+ordered keys. In a practical application such as Lookup, when we can explicitly ran- 
+domize the order of the keys, this result suffices to (probabilistically) guarantee 
+logarithmic performance. Indeed, since 2 In 1ST is about 1.39 lg N, the average case 
+is only about 39% higher than the best case. In an application like Index, where we 
+have no control of the order of insertion, there is no guarantee, but typical data 
+gives logarithmic performance (see Exercise 4.4. 17). As with binary search, this fact 
+is very significant because of the enormousness of the logarithmic-linear chasm: 
+with a BST-based symbol table implementation, we can perform millions of opera- 
+tions per second (or more), even in a huge table. 
+
+
+□D 
+
+
+HD 
+
+
+times 
+
+
+| best | 
+
+
+
+
+| worst | 
+
+
+
+
+
+628 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+% 
+
+□D 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+times 
+
+
+75 _, 
+
+[worst] 
+
+
+[worst] 
+
+| was | 
+
+£~ 
+
+[times] 
+
+
+the 
+
+
+of 
+
+
+it 
+
+
+best 
+
+
+
+times 
+
+
+the 
+
+
+Worst-case BSTs 
+
+
+Worst case. In the worst case, each node has exactly one null link, 
+so the BST is like a linked list with an extra wasted link, where put 
+operations and get requests take linear time. Unfortunately, this 
+worst case is not rare in practice — it arises, for example, when we 
+insert the keys in order. 
+
+Thus, good performance of the basic BST implementation is 
+dependent on the keys being sufficiently similar to random keys 
+that the tree is not likely to contain many long paths. If you are 
+not sure that assumption is justified, do not use a simple BST. Your 
+only clue that something is amiss will be slow response time as the 
+problem size increases. (Note : It is not unusual to encounter soft- 
+ware of this sort!) Remarkably, there are BST variants that elimi- 
+nate this worst case and guarantee logarithmic performance per 
+operation, by making all trees nearly perfectly balanced. One pop- 
+ular variant is known as a red-black tree. The Java library java, 
+uti 1 . T reeMap implements a symbol table using this approach. 
+
+Traversing a BST Perhaps the most basic tree-processing 
+function is known as tree traversal: given a (reference to) a tree, we 
+want to systematically process every key- value pair in the tree. For 
+linked lists, we accomplish this task by following the single link 
+to move from one node to the next. For trees, however, we have 
+decisions to make, because there are generally two links to follow. 
+Recursion comes immediately to the rescue. To process every key 
+in a BST: 
+
+• Process every key-value pair in the left subtree. 
+
+• Process the key-value pair at the root. 
+
+• Process every key-value pair in the right subtree. 
+
+This approach is known as inorder tree traversal, to distinguish it 
+from preorder (do the root first) and postorder (do the root last), 
+which arise in other applications. Given a BST, it is easy to con- 
+vince yourself with mathematical induction that not only does 
+this approach process every key pair in the BST, but that it pro- 
+cesses them in key-sorted order. For example, the following meth- 
+od prints the keys in the tree rooted at its argument in key-sorted 
+order: 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+629 
+
+
+private static void traverse(Node x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x == null) return; 
+traverse(x.left) ; 
+
+StdOut . pri ntl n (x . key) ; 
+traverse(x. right) ; 
+
+> 
+
+This remarkably simple method is worthy of care- 
+ful study. It can be used as a basis for a toSt r i ng () 
+implementation for BSTs (see Exercise 4.4.11) and 
+also a starting point for developing the iterator 
+that we need to provide clients the ability to use 
+a foreach loop to process the entries in key-sorted 
+order. 
+
+
+
+Recursive inorder traversal of a binary search tree 
+
+
+Implementing an iter able symbol table. AcloselookattherecursivetraverseO 
+method just considered leads to a way to make our BST data type Iterable. For 
+simplicity, we just process the keys because we can get the values when we need 
+them. Our goal is to enable client code like the following: 
+
+BST<String, Double> st = new BST<String, Double>(); 
+
+for (String key: st) 
+
+StdOut. pri ntl n (key + " " + st. get (key)) ; 
+
+
+Index (Program 4.4.2) is another example of such client code. 
+
+As usual, we first promise to provide an iterator() method by adding the 
+phrase implements Iterable<Key> to the class declaration. This addition is a 
+commitment to provide an i terator() method for iterating through the keys in 
+the table, in key-sorted order. As usual, the iterator () method itself is simple: 
+
+public Iterator<Key> iterator () 
+
+{ return new BSTIteratorO ; } 
+
+We need a private nested class that implements the Iterator interface, but im- 
+plementing such a class is a bit of a challenge. We cannot directly use recursive 
+traversal, because we need to be able to pause and restart the process. To this end, 
+we maintain an explicit Stack that contains the sequence of nodes from the root 
+
+
+
+
+630 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+down to the current node. The system call stack during the execution of the recur- 
+sive traverseO has essentially this same information. 
+
+private class BSTIterator implements Iterator<Key> 
+
+{ 
+
+Stack<Node> stack = new Stack<Node>() ; 
+
+BSTIteratorO 
+
+// see below 
+
+public boolean hasNextO 
+{ return ! stack. i sEmptyO ; } 
+
+public Key next() 
+
+// see below 
+
+public void remove () 
+
+{ } 
+
+} 
+
+To complete this implementation, we need a BSTIte rato r () constructor that ini- 
+tializes the stack and a next () method that returns the next key. The recursive t ra- 
+ve rseO method calls itself for the left link of each node until reaching a null link 
+(at the node with the smallest key in the BST). Therefore, to prepare for processing 
+the smallest key, we need to initialize the stack to contain the nodes in the BST 
+reached by following left links from the root. To do so, we use a helper method: 
+
+private void pushLeft(Node x) 
+
+{ 
+
+while (x != null) 
+
+{ 
+
+stack. push(x) ; 
+x = x.left; 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+BSTIteratorO 
+{ pushLeft(root) ; } 
+
+In particular, the node with the smallest key in the BST is on the top of the stack 
+after this initialization. Now, to process a key, we pop the top node from the stack 
+and process its right subtree using the same method: 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+631 
+
+
+public Key next() 
+
+{ 
+
+Node x = stack. pop(); 
+pushLeft(x. right) ; 
+return x.key; 
+
+} 
+
+Convincing yourself that these methods allow clients like Index to iterate through 
+the keys of a BST in key order by tracing their operation on some sample trees will 
+teach you a great deal about BSTs, stacks, and recursion. 
+
+Extended symbol table operations The flexibility of BSTs enables the imple- 
+mentation of many useful additional operations beyond those dictated by the sym- 
+bol table API. We leave implementations of these operations for exercises and leave 
+further study of their performance characteristics and applications for a course in 
+algorithms and data structures. 
+
+Minimum and maximum. To find the smallest key in a BST, follow left links 
+from the root until reaching null. The last key encountered is the smallest in the 
+BST. The same procedure following right links lead to the largest key. 
+
+Size. To keep track of the number of nodes in a BST, keep an extra instance vari- 
+able N in BST that counts the number of nodes in the tree. Initialize it to 0 and 
+increment it whenever creating a new Node. Alternatively, keep an extra instance 
+variable N in Node that counts the number of nodes in the subtree rooted at that 
+node. Initialize it to 1 and increment it for each node on the search path when in- 
+serting a new Node, taking care to handle properly the duplicate-key case, when no 
+new Node is added (see Exercise 4.4.20). 
+
+Remove. Many applications demand the ability to remove a key-value pair with a 
+given key. You can find explicit code for removing a node from a BST on the book- 
+site or in a book on algorithms and data structures. An easy, lazy way to implement 
+remove () relies on the fact that our symbol table API disallows null values: 
+
+public void remove (Key key) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (contains (key)) 
+put(key, null); 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+632 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+This approach necessitates periodically cleaning out nodes in the BST with null 
+values, because performance will degrade unless the size of the data structure stays 
+proportional to the number of key- value pairs in the table. 
+
+Range search. With a recursive method like traverseO, we can count the num- 
+ber of keys that fall between two given values or return an iterator for keys fall- 
+ing between two given values. For example, a financial institution might build a 
+symbol-table whose keys are account balances to be able to process accounts whose 
+balances are above certain limits. 
+
+Order statistics. If we maintain an instance variable in each node having the size 
+of the subtree rooted at each node, we can implement a recursive method that re- 
+turns the fcth largest key in the BST in logarithmic time. 
+
+This list is representative; numerous other important operations have been invent- 
+ed for BSTs that are broadly useful in applications. 
+
+Henceforth, we will use the reference implementation ST that implements our 
+basic interface using the symbol-table implementation in java. util .TreeMap, 
+which is based on advanced type of BST known as the red-black tree. Red-black 
+trees, which you are likely to encounter if you take an advanced course in data 
+structures and algorithms, are of interest because they support a logarithmic-time 
+guarantee for get(), put(), and many of the other operations just described. 
+
+Set data type As a final example, we consider a data type that is simpler than a 
+symbol table, still broadly useful, and easy to implement with BSTs. A set is a collec- 
+tion of distinct keys, like a symbol table with no values. We could use ST and ignore 
+the values, but client code that uses the following API is simpler and clearer: 
+
+public class SET<Key extends Comparable<Key» 
+
+SETO create a set 
+
+bool ean i s Empty () is the set empty? 
+
+void add (Key key) add key to the set 
+
+bool ean contai ns (Key key) is key in the set? 
+
+Note: Implementations should also implement the Iterabl e<Key> interface to enable 
+clients to access keys in sorted order with foreach loops 
+
+
+API for a generic set 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+633 
+
+
+ill M~| - ■ . f . t I ri . J . . ..< . I . ,',. h I H < .1.. -I /' ~',f‘ a - ■f „ . „ Jl ; I I* ■ A t/, . , . 
+
+
+Program 4.4.4 Dedup filter 
+
+
+public class DeDup 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Filter out duplicate strings. 
+
+SET<String> distinct = new SET<String>() ; 
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read a string, ignore if duplicate. 
+
+String key = Stdln. readStringO ; 
+if (! distinct. contains (key)) 
+
+{ // Save and print new string, 
+
+di sti net . add (key) ; 
+
+StdOut . pri nt(key) ; 
+
+> 
+
+StdOut. pri ntln() ; 
+
+
+
+
+set of distinct string 
+values in Stdln 
+
+
+
+This SET client is a filter that removes duplicate strings in the input stream, using a SET con- 
+taining the distinct strings encountered so far. 
+
+
+% java DeDup < TaleOfTwoCities.txt 
+
+it was the best of times worst age wisdom foolishness. 
+
+
+As with symbol tables, there is no intrinsic reason that the key type should imple- 
+ment the Comparable interface. However, processing Comparable items is typical, 
+and we can take advantage of item comparison to develop efficient implementa- 
+tions, so we include Comparable in the interface. Implementing SET by deleting 
+references to val in our BST code is a straightforward exercise (see Exercise 4.4.15). 
+
+DeDup (Program 4.4.4) is a SET client that reads a sequence of strings from 
+standard input and prints out the first occurrence of each string (thereby removing 
+duplicates). You can find many other examples of SET clients in the exercises at the 
+end of this section. In the next section, you will see the importance of identifying 
+such a fundamental abstraction, illustrated in the context of a case study. 
+
+
+634 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Perspective The use of binary search trees to implement symbol tables and 
+sets is a sterling example of exploiting the tree abstraction, which is ubiquitous 
+and familiar. Trees lie at the basis of many scientific topics, and are widely used 
+in computer science. We are accustomed to many tree structures in everyday life, 
+including family trees, sports tournaments, the organization chart of a company, 
+and parse trees in grammar. Trees also arise in numerous computational applica- 
+tions, including function call trees, parse trees for programming languages, and 
+file systems. Many important applications are rooted in science and engineering, 
+including phylogenetic trees in computational biology, multidimensional trees in 
+computer graphics, minimax game trees in economics, and quad trees in molecular 
+dynamics simulations. Other, more complicated, linked structures can be exploited 
+as well, as you will see in Section 4.5. 
+
+Symbol table implementations are a prime topic of further study in algo- 
+rithms and data structures. Examples include balanced BSTs, hashing, and tries. 
+Implementations of many of these algorithms and data structures are found in 
+Java and most other computational environments. Different APIs and different as- 
+sumptions about keys call for different implementations. Researchers in algorithms 
+and data structures still study symbol-table implementations of all sorts. 
+
+People use dictionaries, indexes, and other kinds of symbol tables every day. 
+Within a short amount of time, applications based on symbol tables will complete- 
+ly replace phone books, encyclopedias, and all sorts of physical artifacts that served 
+us well in the last millennium. Without symbol-table implementations based on 
+data structures such as BSTs, such applications would not be feasible; with them, we 
+have the feeling that anything that we need is instantly accessible online. 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+635 
+
+
+
+Q. Why use immutable symbol table keys? 
+
+A. If we changed a key while it was in the BST, it would invalidate the ordering 
+restriction. 
+
+Q. Why not use the Java library methods for symbol tables? 
+
+A. Now that you understand how a symbol table works, you are certainly wel- 
+come to use the industrial-strength versions j ava . uti 1 . T reeMap and java . uti 1 . 
+HashMap. They follow the same basic API as BST, but they allow null keys and use 
+the names contai nsKeyO and keySetO instead of contai ns() and i teratorO, 
+respectively. They also contain additional methods such as remove 0 , but they do 
+not provide any efficient way to add some of the additional methods that we men- 
+tioned, such as order statistics. You can also use java. util .TreeSet and java, 
+uti 1 . HashSet, which implement an API like our SET. 
+
+
+
+636 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4 . 4.1 Modify Lookup to to make a program LookupAndPut that allows put opera- 
+tions to be specified on standard input. Use the convention that a plus sign indicates 
+that the next two strings typed are the key-value pair to be inserted. 
+
+4 . 4.2 Modify Lookup to make a program LookupMul ti pi e that handles multiple 
+values having the same key by putting the values on a queue, as in Index, and then 
+printing them all out on a get request, as follows: 
+
+% java LookupMul ti pie amino.csv 3 0 
+Leuci ne 
+
+TTA TTG CTT CTC CTA CTG 
+
+4 . 4.3 Modify Index to make a program IndexByKeyword that takes a file name 
+from the command line and makes an index from standard input using only the 
+keywords in that file. Note: Using the same file for indexing and keywords should 
+give the same result as Index. 
+
+4 . 4.4 Modify Index to make a program IndexLines that considers only con- 
+secutive sequences of letters as keys (no punctuation or numbers) and uses line 
+numbers instead of word position as the value. This functionality is useful for pro- 
+grams, as follows: 
+
+% java IndexLines 6 0 < Index. java 
+
+continue 12 
+
+enqueue 15 
+
+Integer 4 5 7 8 14 
+
+parselnt 4 5 
+
+print! n 22 
+
+4 . 4.5 Develop an implementation Bi narySearchST of the symbol-table API that 
+maintains parallel arrays of keys and values, keeping them in key-sorted order. Use 
+binary search for get, and move larger elements to the right one position for put 
+(use array doubling to keep the array size proportional to the number of key-value 
+pairs in the table). Test your implementation with Index, and validate the hypoth- 
+esis that using such an implementation for Index takes time proportional to the 
+product of the number of strings and the number of distinct strings in the input. 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+637 
+
+
+
+4.4.6 Develop an implementation Li nkedLi stST of the symbol-table API that 
+maintains a linked list of nodes containing keys and values, keeping them in arbi- 
+trary order. Test your implementation with Index, and validate the hypothesis that 
+using such an implementation for Index takes time proportional to the product of 
+the number of strings and the number of distinct strings in the input. 
+
+4.4.7 Draw all the different BSTs that can represent the key sequence best of i t 
+the time was. 
+
+4.4.8 Draw the BST that results when you insert items with keys 
+
+EASYQUESTION 
+in that order into an initially empty tree. 
+
+4.4.9 Suppose we have integer keys between 1 and 1000 in a BST and search for 
+363. Which of the following cannot be the sequence of keys examined? 
+
+a. 2 252 401 398 330 363 
+
+b. 399 387 219 266 382 381 278 363 
+
+c. 3 923 220 911 244 898 258 362 363 
+
+d. 4 924 278 347 621 299 392 358 363 
+
+e. 5 925 202 910 245 363 
+
+4.4.10 Suppose that the following 31 keys appear (in some order) in a BST of 
+height 5: 
+
+10 15 18 21 23 24 30 30 38 41 42 45 50 55 59 
+
+60 61 63 71 77 78 83 84 85 86 88 91 92 93 94 98 
+
+
+Draw the top three nodes of the tree (the root and its two children). 
+
+4.4.11 Implement toStri ng() for BST, using a recursive helper method like t ra- 
+ve rse(). As usual, you can accept quadratic performance because of the cost of 
+string concatenation. Extra credit : Write a linear-time toStri ng() method for BST 
+that uses StringBuilder. 
+
+
+
+
+638 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.4.12 True or false: Given a BST, let x be a leaf node, and letp be its parent. Then 
+either (i) the key of p is the smallest key in the BST larger than the key of x or (ii) 
+the key of p is the largest key in the BST smaller than the key of x. 
+
+4.4.13 Modify BST to add a method remove () that takes a key argument and 
+removes that key (and the corresponding value) from the symbol table, if it exists. 
+Implement it by setting the value associated with the given key to nul 1 . 
+
+4.4.14 Modify the symbol-table API to handle values with duplicate keys by hav- 
+ing get() return an iterator for the values having a given key. Implement BST and 
+Index as dictated by this API. Discuss the pros and cons of this approach versus the 
+one given in the text. 
+
+4.4.15 Modify BST to implement the SET API given at the end of this section. 
+
+4.4.16 A concordance is an alphabetical list of the words in a text that gives all word 
+positions where each word appears. Thus, java Index 0 0 produces a concor- 
+dance. In a famous incident, one group of researchers tried to establish credibility 
+while keeping details of the Dead Sea Scrolls secret from others by making public 
+a concordance. Write a program InvertConcordance that takes a command-line 
+argument N, reads a concordance from standard input, and prints the first N words 
+of the corresponding text on standard output. 
+
+4.4.17 Run experiments to validate the claims in the text that the put operations 
+and get requests for Lookup and Index are logarithmic in the size of the table when 
+using BST. Develop test clients that generate random keys and also run tests for 
+various data sets, either from the booksite or of your own choosing. 
+
+4.4.18 Modify BST to add a method si zeO that returns the number of elements 
+in the table. Use the approach of storing within each Node the number of nodes in 
+the subtree rooted there. 
+
+4.4.19 Modify BST to add a method rangeCountO that takes two Key arguments 
+and returns the number of keys in a BST between the two given keys. Your method 
+should take time proportional to the height of the tree. Hint: First work the previ- 
+ous exercise. 
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+639 
+
+
+
+4.4.20 Modify BST to add methods min() and max() that return the smallest (or 
+largest) key in the table (or nul 1 if no such key exists). 
+
+4.4.21 Modify BST to implement a symbol-table API where keys are arbitrary ob- 
+jects. Use hashCodeO to convert keys to integers and use integer keys in the BST. 
+Note : This exercise is trickier than it might seem, because of the possibility that 
+hashCodeO can return the same integer for two different objects. 
+
+4.4.22 Modify your SET implementation from Exercise 4.4.15 to add methods 
+floorO and cei 1 () that take as argument a Key and return the largest (smallest) 
+element in the set that is no larger (no smaller) than the given Key. 
+
+4.4.23 Write an ST client that creates a symbol table mapping letter grades to 
+numerical scores, as in the table below, and then reads from standard input a list of 
+letter grades and computes their average (GPA). 
+
+A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D F 
+4.33 4.00 3.67 3.33 3.00 2.67 2.33 2.00 1.67 1.00 0.00 
+
+
+
+
+640 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+
+This list of exercises is intended to give you experience in working with binary trees 
+that are not necessarily BSTs. They all assume a Node class with three instance vari- 
+ables: a positive double value and two Node references. As with linked lists, you will 
+find it helpful to make drawings using the visual representation shown in the text. 
+
+4.4.24 Implement the following methods that each take as argument a Node that 
+is the root of a binary tree. 
+
+i nt si ze () number of nodes in the tree 
+
+i nt 1 eaves () number of nodes whose links are both null 
+
+double total () sum of the key values in all nodes 
+
+Your methods should all run in linear time. 
+
+4.4.25 Implement a linear-time method height () that returns the m axim um 
+number of nodes on any path from the root to a leaf node (the height of the null 
+tree is 0; the height of a one-node tree is 1). 
+
+4.4.26 A binary tree is heap-ordered if the key at the root is larger than the keys 
+in all of its descendants. Implement a linear-time method heapOrderedO that re- 
+turns true if the tree is heap-ordered, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+4.4.27 A binary tree is balanced if both its subtrees are balanced and the height of 
+its two subtrees differ by at most 1. Implement a linear-time method bal ancedO 
+that returns true if the tree is balanced, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+4.4.28 Two binary trees are isomorphic if only their key values differ (they have 
+the same shape). Implement a linear-time static method i somorphi c() that takes 
+two tree references as arguments and returns true if they refer to isomorphic trees, 
+and fal se otherwise. Then, implement a linear-time static method eq () that takes 
+two tree references as arguments and returns true if they refer to identical trees 
+(isomorphic with the same key values), and fal se otherwise. 
+
+4.4.29 Implement a linear-time method i sBST () that returns true if the tree is a 
+BST, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+641 
+
+
+
+Solution : This task is a bit more difficult than it might seem. Use an overloaded 
+recursive method i sBST () that takes two additional arguments mi n and max and 
+returns true if the tree is a BST and all its values are between mi n and max. 
+
+public static boolean isBSTO 
+
+{ return isBST(root, 0, Double. POSITIVE_INFINITY) ; } 
+
+private boolean isBSTCNode x, int min, int max) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x == null) return true; 
+
+if (x.val <= min | | x.val >= max) return false; 
+if (!isBST(x.left, min, x.val)) return false; 
+if (!isBST(x. right, x.val, max)) return false; 
+
+} 
+
+4 . 4.30 Write a method levelOrderO that prints BST keys in level order : first 
+print the root, then the nodes one level below the root, left to right, then the nodes 
+two levels below the root (left to right), and so forth. Hint : Use a Queue<Node>. 
+
+4 . 4.31 Compute the value returned by mystery () on some sample binary trees 
+and then formulate a hypothesis about its behavior and prove it. 
+
+public int mystery (Node x) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (x == null) return 0; 
+
+return mystery(x.left) + mystery (x. right) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+Answer: Returns 0 for any binary tree. 
+
+
+
+
+642 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Creatix&imemiges 
+
+
+4.4.32 Spell checking. Write a SET client Spellchecker that takes as command- 
+line argument the name of a file containing a dictionary of words, and then reads 
+strings from standard input and prints out any string that is not in the dictionary. 
+You can find a dictionary file on the booksite. Extra credit : Augment your program 
+to handle common suffixes such as -ing or -ed. 
+
+4.4.33 Spell correction. Write an ST client Spell Cor rector that serves as a filter 
+that replaces commonly misspelled words on standard input with a suggested re- 
+placement, printing the result to standard output. Take as command-line argument 
+a file that contains common misspellings and corrections. You can find an example 
+on the booksite. 
+
+4.4.34 Web filter. Write a SET client WebBlocker that takes as command-line ar- 
+gument the name of a file containing a list of objectionable websites, and then reads 
+strings from standard input and prints out only those websites not on the list. 
+
+4.4.35 Set operations. Add methods union() and intersectionO to SET that 
+each take two sets as arguments and return the union and intersection, respectively, 
+of those two sets. 
+
+4.4.36 Frequency symbol table. Develop a data type FrequencyTable that sup- 
+ports the following operations: cl i ck() and count (), both of which take Stri ng 
+arguments. The data-type value is an integer that keeps track of the number of 
+times the cl i ck() operation has been called with the given Stri ng as argument. 
+The cl i ck() operation increments the count by one, and the count () operation 
+returns the value, possibly 0. Clients of this data type might include a web traffic 
+analyzer, a music player that counts the number of times each song has been played, 
+phone software for counting calls, and so forth. 
+
+4.4.37 ID range searching. Develop a data type that supports the following op- 
+erations: insert a date, search for a date, and count the number of dates in the data 
+structure that lie in a particular interval. Use Java’s j ava . uti 1 . Date data type. 
+
+4.4.38 Non-overlapping interval search. Given a list of non-overlapping inter- 
+vals of integers, write a function that takes an integer argument and determines in 
+which, if any, interval that value lies. For example, if the intervals are 1643-2033, 
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+643 
+
+
+
+5532-7643, 8999-10332, and 5666653-5669321, then the query point 9122 lies in 
+the third interval and 8122 lies in no interval. 
+
+4.4.39 IP lookup by country. Write a BST client that uses the data file i p-to- 
+country . csv found on the booksite to determine from which country a given IP 
+address is coming . The data file has five fields: beginning of IP address range, end- 
+ing of IP address range, two-character country code, three character country code, 
+and country name. The IP addresses are non-overlapping. Such a database tool can 
+be used for credit card fraud detection, spam filtering, auto-selection of language 
+on a website, and web server log analysis. 
+
+4.4.40 Inverted index of web. Given a list of web pages, create a symbol table of 
+words contained in the web pages. Associate with each word a list of web pages in 
+which that word appears. Write a program that reads in a list of web pages, creates 
+the symbol table, and support single word queries by returning the list of web pages 
+in which that query word appears. 
+
+4.4.41 Inverted index of web. Extend the previous exercise so that it supports 
+multi-word queries. In this case, output the list of web pages that contain at least 
+one occurrence of each of the query words. 
+
+4.4.42 Multiple word search. Write a program that takes k words from the com- 
+mand line, reads in a sequence of words from standard input, and identifies the 
+smallest interval of text that contains all of the k words (not necessarily in the same 
+order). You do not need to consider partial words. 
+
+Hint: For each index i, find the smallest interval [i, j] that contains the k query 
+words. Keep a count of the number of times each of the k query words appear. 
+Given [i,;], compute [i+1,/] by decrementing the counter for word i. Then, gradu- 
+ally increase; until the interval contains at least one copy of each of the k words (or, 
+equivalently, word i). 
+
+4.4.43 Repetition draw in chess. In the game of chess, if a board position is re- 
+peated three times with the same side to move, the side to move can declare a draw. 
+Describe how you could test this condition using a computer program. 
+
+
+
+
+644 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.4.44 Registrar scheduling. The Registrar at a prominent northeastern university 
+recently scheduled an instructor to teach two different classes at the same exact 
+time. Help the Registrar prevent future mistakes by describing a method to check 
+for such conflicts. For simplicity, assume all classes run for 50 minutes and start at 
+9, 10, 11, 1,2, or 3. 
+
+4.4.45 Entropy. We define the relative entropy of a text corpus with N words, k of 
+which are distinct as 
+
+E = 1 / (Nig N) (p 0 lg(fc/p 0 ) + p! lg(fc/p!) +. . . + p k _ x lg(fc/p fc _,)) 
+where p, is the fraction of times that word i appears. Write a program that reads in 
+a text corpus and prints out the relative entropy. Convert all letters to lowercase and 
+treat punctuation marks as whitespace. 
+
+4.4.46 Order statistics. Add to BST a method select () that takes an integer ar- 
+gument k and returns the fcth largest key in the BST. Maintain subtree sizes in each 
+node (see Exercise 4.4.18). The running time should be proportional to the height 
+of the tree. 
+
+4.4.47 Rank query. Add to BST a method rank() that takes a key as argument 
+and returns the integer i such that key is the i th largest element in the BST. Main- 
+tain subtree sizes in each node (see Exercise 4.4.18). The running time should be 
+proportional to the height of the tree. 
+
+4.4.48 Delete ith element. Implement a class that supports the following APT. 
+public class General izedQueue<Item> 
+
+General i zedQueueO create an empty queue 
+
+bool ean 1 S Empty o is the queue empty? 
+
+void insert (Item item) insert an item 
+
+Item del ete (i nt i ) delete and return the i th least recently 
+
+inserted item 
+
+API for a generic generalized queue 
+
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+645 
+
+
+
+Use a BST that associates the fcth element inserted with the key k and maintains in 
+each node the total number of nodes in the subtree rooted at that node. To find the 
+ith least recently added item, search for the ith smallest element in the BST. 
+
+4.4.49 Sparse vectors. An N-dimensional vector is sparse if its number of nonzero 
+values is small. Your goal is to represent a vector with space proportional to its num- 
+ber of nonzeros, and to be able to add two sparse vectors in time proportional to the 
+total number of nonzeros. Implement a class that supports the following API: 
+
+
+public class SparseVector 
+
+
+SparseVectorO 
+void putfint i, double v) 
+double getfint i) 
+double dot (SparseVector b) 
+SparseVector pi us (SparseVector b) 
+
+
+create a vector 
+set a-, to v 
+return a t 
+
+vector dot product 
+vector addition 
+
+
+API for a sparse vector of doubl e values 
+
+
+4.4.50 Sparse matrices. An N-by-N matrix is sparse if its number of nonzeros is 
+proportional to N (or less). Your goal is to represent a matrix with space propor- 
+tional to N, and to be able to add and multiply two sparse matrices in time pro- 
+portional to the total number of nonzeros (perhaps with an extra log N factor). 
+Implement a class that supports the following API: 
+
+
+public class SparseMatrix 
+
+
+SparseMatrixO 
+
+void put(int i, int j, double v) 
+double get(int i, int j) 
+SparseMatrix pi us (SparseMatrix b) 
+SparseMatrix times (SparseMatrix b) 
+
+
+create a matrix 
+set a V] to v 
+return a v 
+matrix addition 
+matrix product 
+
+
+API for a sparse matrix of doubl e values 
+
+
+
+646 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.4.51 Queue with no duplicates. Create a data type that is a queue, except that 
+an element may only appear on the queue at most once at any given time. Ignore 
+requests to insert an item if it is already on the queue. 
+
+4.4.52 Mutable string. Create a data type that supports the following API on a 
+string. Use a BST to implement all operations in logarithmic time. 
+
+public class MutableString 
+
+
+
+MutableStringO 
+
+create an empty string 
+
+void 
+
+get (int i) 
+
+return the i th character in the string 
+
+void 
+
+insert (int i, char c) 
+
+insert c and make it the i th character 
+
+char 
+
+delete(int i) 
+
+delete and return the i th character 
+
+int 
+
+lengthQ 
+
+return the length of the string 
+
+
+API for a mutable string 
+
+
+4.4.53 Assignment statements. Write a program to parse and evaluate programs 
+consisting of assignment and print statements with fully parenthesized arithmetic 
+expressions (see Program 4.3.5). For example, given the input 
+
+A = 5 
+B = 10 
+C = A + B 
+D = C * C 
+print(D) 
+
+your program should print the value 225. Assume that all variables and values are 
+of type doubl e. Use a symbol table to keep track of variable names. 
+
+4.4.54 Random element. Add to your SET implementation from Exercise 4.4.15 a 
+method random () that returns a random key. The running time should be propor- 
+tional to the length of the path from the root to the node returned. Hint Add to 
+Node an i nt instance variable si ze to contain the size of the subtree rooted at each 
+node and update the rest of the code to maintain si ze . 
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+647 
+
+
+
+4.4.55 Dynamic discrete distribution. Create a data type that supports the follow- 
+ing two operations: add() and random (). The add() method should insert a new 
+item into the data structure if it has not been seen before; otherwise, it should in- 
+crease its frequency count by one. The random () method should return an element 
+at random, where the probabilities are weighted by the frequency of each element. 
+Use space proportional to the number of items. 
+
+4.4.56 Random phone numbers. Write a program that takes a command-line ar- 
+gument N and prints N random phone numbers of the form (xxx) xxx-xxxx. Use 
+a SET to avoid choosing the same number more than once. Use only legal area codes 
+(you can find a file of such codes on the booksite). 
+
+4.4.57 Codon usage table. Write a program that uses a symbol table to print out 
+summary statistics for each codon in a genome taken from standard input (fre- 
+quency per thousand), like the following: 
+
+
+uuu 
+
+13. 
+
+,2 
+
+UCU 
+
+19. 
+
+,6 
+
+UAU 
+
+16. 
+
+5 
+
+UGU 
+
+12. 
+
+,4 
+
+uuc 
+
+23. 
+
+,5 
+
+UCC 
+
+10. 
+
+,6 
+
+UAC 
+
+14. 
+
+7 
+
+UGC 
+
+8. 
+
+,0 
+
+UUA 
+
+5. 
+
+8 
+
+UCA 
+
+16. 
+
+,1 
+
+UAA 
+
+0 . 
+
+7 
+
+UGA 
+
+0 . 
+
+,3 
+
+UUG 
+
+17. 
+
+,6 
+
+UCG 
+
+11. 
+
+8 
+
+UAG 
+
+0 . 
+
+2 
+
+UGG 
+
+9. 
+
+.5 
+
+CUU 
+
+21. 
+
+,2 
+
+ecu 
+
+10. 
+
+,4 
+
+CAU 
+
+13. 
+
+3 
+
+CGU 
+
+10. 
+
+,5 
+
+cue 
+
+13. 
+
+,5 
+
+CCC 
+
+4. 
+
+,9 
+
+CAC 
+
+8. 
+
+2 
+
+CGC 
+
+4. 
+
+.2 
+
+CUA 
+
+6. 
+
+.5 
+
+CCA 
+
+41. 
+
+.0 
+
+CAA 
+
+24. 
+
+9 
+
+CGA 
+
+10. 
+
+,7 
+
+cue 
+
+10. 
+
+.7 
+
+CCG 
+
+10. 
+
+.1 
+
+CAG 
+
+11. 
+
+4 
+
+CGG 
+
+3. 
+
+,7 
+
+AUU 
+
+27. 
+
+,1 
+
+ACU 
+
+25. 
+
+.6 
+
+AAU 
+
+27. 
+
+2 
+
+AGU 
+
+11. 
+
+.9 
+
+AUC 
+
+23. 
+
+.3 
+
+ACC 
+
+13. 
+
+.3 
+
+AAC 
+
+21. 
+
+0 
+
+AGC 
+
+6. 
+
+.8 
+
+AUA 
+
+5. 
+
+.9 
+
+ACA 
+
+17. 
+
+.1 
+
+AAA 
+
+32. 
+
+7 
+
+AGA 
+
+14. 
+
+.2 
+
+AUC 
+
+22. 
+
+.3 
+
+ACG 
+
+9. 
+
+.2 
+
+AAG 
+
+23. 
+
+9 
+
+AGG 
+
+2. 
+
+.8 
+
+GUU 
+
+25, 
+
+.7 
+
+GCU 
+
+24. 
+
+.2 
+
+GAU 
+
+49. 
+
+4 
+
+GGU 
+
+11. 
+
+.8 
+
+GUC 
+
+15. 
+
+.3 
+
+GCC 
+
+12. 
+
+.6 
+
+GAC 
+
+22. 
+
+1 
+
+GGC 
+
+7, 
+
+.0 
+
+GUA 
+
+8. 
+
+.7 
+
+GCA 
+
+16. 
+
+.8 
+
+GAA 
+
+39. 
+
+8 
+
+GGA 
+
+47, 
+
+.2 
+
+
+4.4.58 Unique substrings of length L. Write a program that reads in text from 
+standard input and calculates the number of unique substrings of length L that it 
+contains. For example, if the input is cgcgggcgcg, then there are five unique sub- 
+strings of length 3: cgc, egg, geg, ggc, and ggg. This calculation is useful in data 
+compression. Hint : Use the string method substri ng(i , i + L) to extract the 
+
+
+648 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+i th substring and insert into a symbol table. Test your program on a large genome 
+from the booksite and on the first 10 million digits of it. 
+
+4.4.59 Password checker. Write a program that reads in a string from the com- 
+mand line and a dictionary of words from standard input, and checks whether it is 
+a “good” password. Here, assume “good” means that it (i) is at least eight characters 
+long, (ii) is not a word in the dictionary, (tit) is not a word in the dictionary fol- 
+lowed by a digit 0-9 (e.g., hel 1 o5), (tv) is not two words separated by a digit (e.g., 
+hello2world), and (v) none of (it) through (iv) hold for reverses of words in the 
+dictionary. 
+
+
+
+4.4 Symbol Tables 
+
+
+649 
+
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+The mathematical model that we use for studying the nature of pairwise connec- 
+tions among entities is known as the graph. Graphs are important for studying 
+the natural world and for helping us to better understand and refine the networks 
+that we create. From models of the ner- 
+vous system in neurobiology, to the study 
+of the spread of infectious diseases in 
+medical science, to the development of 
+the telephone system, graphs have played 
+a critical role in science and engineering 
+over the past century, including the de- 
+velopment of the internet itself. 
+
+Some graphs exhibit a specific property known as the small-world phenom- 
+enon. You may be familiar with this property, which is sometimes known as six 
+degrees of separation. It is the basic idea that, even though each of us has relatively 
+few acquaintances, there is a relatively short chain of acquaintances (the six de- 
+grees of separation) separating us from one another. This hypothesis was validated 
+experimentally by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s and modelled mathematically by 
+Duncan Watts and Stephen Strogatz in the 1990s. In recent years, the principle has 
+proven important in a remarkable variety of applications. Scientists are interested 
+in small-world graphs because they model natural phenomena, and engineers are 
+interested in building networks that take advantage of the natural properties of 
+small-world graphs. 
+
+In this section, we address basic computational questions surrounding the 
+study of small-world graphs. Indeed, the simple question 
+
+Does a given graph exhibit the small-world phenomenon? 
+
+can present a significant computational burden. To address this question, we will 
+consider a graph-processing data type and several useful graph-processing clients. 
+In particular, we will examine a client for computing shortest paths, a computation 
+which has a vast number of important applications in its own right. 
+
+A persistent theme of this section is that the algorithms and data structures 
+that we have been studying play a central role in graph processing. Indeed, you will 
+see that several of the fundamental data types introduced earlier in this chapter 
+help us to develop elegant and efficient code for studying the properties of graphs. 
+
+
+4.5.1 Graph data type .657 
+
+4.5.2 Using a graph to invert an index . . 661 
+
+4.5.3 Shortest-paths client 665 
+
+4.5.4 Shortest-paths implementation . .670 
+
+4.5.5 Small-world test 677 
+
+
+Programs in this section 
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+6S1 
+
+
+Graphs To nip in the bud any terminological confusion, we start right away 
+with some definitions. A graph is comprised of a set of vertices and a set of edges. 
+Each edge represents a connection between two vertices. Two vertices 
+are neighbors if they are connected by an edge, and the degree of a 
+vertex is its number of neighbors. Note that there is no relationship 
+between a graph and the idea of a function graph (a plot of a function 
+values) or the idea of graphics (drawings). We often visualize graphs 
+by drawing labelled geometric shapes (vertices) connected by lines 
+(edges), but it is always important to remember that it is the connec- 
+tions that are essential, not the way we depict them. 
+
+The following list suggests the diverse range of systems where 
+graphs are appropriate starting points for understanding structure. 
+
+Human biology. Arteries and veins connect organs, synapses connect neurons, 
+and joints connect bones, so an understanding of the human biology depends on 
+understanding appropriate graph models. Perhaps the largest and most important 
+such modelling challenge in this arena is the human brain. How do local connec- 
+tions among neurons translate to consciousness, memory, and intelligence? 
+
+
+
+Graph terminology 
+
+
+Social networks. People have relationships with other people. From the study of 
+infectious diseases to the study of political trends, graph models of these relation- 
+
+
+
+vertices edges 
+
+
+JFK 
+
+JFK 
+
+MCO 
+
+MCO 
+
+ORD 
+
+DEN 
+
+ATL 
+
+ORD 
+
+HOU 
+
+ORD 
+
+DFW 
+
+PHX 
+
+HOU 
+
+JFK 
+
+ATL 
+
+DFW 
+
+ORD 
+
+DFW 
+
+PHX 
+
+ORD 
+
+PHX 
+
+DEN 
+
+ATL 
+
+HOU 
+
+LAX 
+
+DEN 
+
+PHX 
+
+LAS 
+
+PHX 
+
+LAX 
+
+
+JFK 
+
+ORD 
+
+
+DEN 
+
+LAS 
+
+
+DFW 
+
+HOU 
+
+
+ORD 
+
+ATL 
+
+
+LAS 
+
+LAX 
+
+
+ATL 
+
+MCO 
+
+
+HOU 
+
+MCO 
+
+
+LAS 
+
+PHX 
+
+
+Graph model of a transportation system 
+
+
+652 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+system 
+
+vertex 
+
+edge 
+
+natural phenomena 
+
+
+circulatory 
+
+organ 
+
+blood vessel 
+
+skeletal 
+
+joint 
+
+bone 
+
+nervous 
+
+neuron 
+
+synapse 
+
+social 
+
+person 
+
+relationship 
+
+epidemiological 
+
+person 
+
+infection 
+
+chemical 
+
+molecule 
+
+bond 
+
+N-body 
+
+particle 
+
+force 
+
+genetic 
+
+gene 
+
+mutation 
+
+biochemical 
+
+protein 
+
+interaction 
+
+engineered systems 
+
+
+transportation 
+
+airport 
+
+route 
+
+
+intersection 
+
+road 
+
+communication 
+
+telephone 
+
+wire 
+
+
+computer 
+
+cable 
+
+
+web page 
+
+link 
+
+distribution 
+
+power station 
+
+home 
+
+power line 
+
+
+reservoir 
+
+home 
+
+pipe 
+
+
+warehouse 
+
+retail outlet 
+
+truck route 
+
+mechanical 
+
+joint 
+
+beam 
+
+software 
+
+module 
+
+call 
+
+financial 
+
+account 
+
+transaction 
+
+
+ships are critical to our understanding of their 
+implications. Hoes does information propagate in 
+online networks? 
+
+Physical systems. Atoms connect to form mol- 
+ecules, molecules connect to form a material or 
+a crystal, and particles are connected by mutual 
+forces such as gravity or magnetism. Graph mod- 
+els are appropriate for studying the percolation 
+problem that we considered in Section 2.4, the 
+interacting charges that we considered in Section 
+3.1, and the N-body problem that we considered 
+in Section 3.4. How do local interactions propa- 
+gate through such systems as they evolve? 
+
+Transportation systems. Train tracks connect 
+stations, roads connect intersections, and airline 
+routes connect airports, so all of these systems 
+naturally admit a simple graph model. No doubt 
+you have used applications that are based on such 
+models when getting directions from an interac- 
+tive mapping program or a GPS device, or us- 
+ing an online service to make travel reservations. 
+What is the best way to get from here to there? 
+
+Communications systems. From electric circuits, 
+to the telephone system, to the internet, to wireless 
+services, communications systems are all based on 
+the idea of connecting devices. For at least the past 
+century, graph models have played a critical role 
+in the development of such systems. What is the 
+best way to connect the devices? 
+
+
+Resource distribution. Power lines connect 
+Typical graph models power stations and home electrical systems, pipes 
+
+connect reservoirs and home plumbing, and truck 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+653 
+
+
+
+edges 
+
+
+aaa.edu 
+
+www.com 
+
+www.com 
+
+fff.org 
+
+www.com 
+
+mmm.net 
+
+www.com 
+
+ttt . gov 
+
+www.com 
+
+fff.org 
+
+www.com 
+
+mmm.net 
+
+mmm . net 
+
+fff.org 
+
+fff.org 
+
+aaa.edu 
+
+ttt . gov 
+
+aaa.edu 
+
+ttt . gov 
+
+mmm.net 
+
+
+routes connect warehouses and retail outlets. The study of effective and reliable 
+means of distributing resources depends on accurate graph models. Where are the 
+bottlenecks in a distribution system? 
+
+Mechanical systems. Trusses or steel beams connect joints in a bridge or a build- 
+ing. Graph models help us to design these systems and to understand their proper- 
+ties. What forces must a joint or a beam withstand? 
+
+Software systems. Methods in one program module invoke methods in other 
+modules. As we have seen throughout this book, understanding relationships of 
+this sort is a key to success in software design. Which modules will be affected by a 
+change in an API? 
+
+Financial systems. Transactions connect accounts, and accounts connect custom- 
+ers to financial institutions. These are but a few of the graph models that people 
+use to study complex financial transactions, and to profit from better understand- 
+ing them. Which transactions are routine and which are indicative of a significant 
+event that might translate to profits? 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+654 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Some of these are models of natural phenomena, where our goal is to gain a better 
+understanding of the natural world by developing simple models and then using 
+them to formulate hypotheses that we can test. Other graph models are of networks 
+that we engineer, where our goal is to build a better network or to better maintain 
+a network by understanding its basic characteristics. 
+
+Graphs are useful models whether they are small or massive. A graph hav- 
+ing just dozens of vertices and edges (for example, one modeling a chemical com- 
+pound, where vertices are molecules and edges are bonds) is already a complicated 
+combinatorial object because there are a huge number of possible graphs, so un- 
+derstanding the structures of the particular ones at hand is important. A graph 
+having billions or trillions of vertices and edges (for example, a government data- 
+base containing all phone calls or a graph model of the human nervous system) is 
+vasdy more complex, and presents significant computational challenges. 
+
+Processing graphs typically involves building 
+a graph from information in a database and then 
+answering questions about the graph. Beyond the 
+application-specific questions in the examples just 
+cited, we often need to ask basic questions about 
+graphs. How many vertices and edges does the graph 
+have? What are the neighbors of a given vertex? 
+Some questions depend on an understanding of the 
+structure of a graph. For example, a path in a graph 
+is a sequence of vertices connected by edges. Is there 
+a path connecting two given vertices? What is the 
+shortest such path? What is the maximum length of 
+a shortest path in the graph (the graph’s diameter )? 
+We have already seen in this book several examples of questions from scientific 
+applications that are much more complicated than these. What is the probability 
+that a random surfer will land on each vertex? What is the probability that a system 
+represented by a certain graph percolates? 
+
+As you encounter complex systems in later courses, you are certain to en- 
+counter graphs in many different contexts. You may also study their properties in 
+detail in later courses in mathematics, operations research, or computer science. 
+Some graph-processing problems present insurmountable computational chal- 
+lenges; others can be solved with relative ease with data-type implementations of 
+the sort we have been considering. 
+
+
+a path from 
+
+
+
+from LAX to MCO 
+
+Paths in a graph 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+655 
+
+
+Graph data type Graph-processing algorithms generally first build an internal 
+representation of a graph by adding edges, then process it by iterating through the 
+vertices and through the edges that are adjacent to a vertex. The following API sup- 
+ports such processing: 
+
+
+public class Graph 
+
+
+void 
+
+int 
+
+int 
+
+Ite rabl e<St ri ng> 
+Iterable<String> 
+int 
+bool ean 
+bool ean 
+
+
+Graph () 
+
+Graphfln in, String delim) 
+addEdge (String v, String w) 
+VO 
+EO 
+
+vertices O 
+
+ad jacentTo (String v) 
+degree(String v) 
+hasVertex(String v) 
+hasEdge(String v, String w) 
+
+
+create an empty graph 
+
+read graph from input stream 
+
+add edge v-w 
+
+number of vertices 
+
+number of edges 
+
+vertices in the graph 
+
+neighbors of v 
+
+number of neighbors of v 
+
+is v a vertex in the graph? 
+
+is v-w an edge in the graph? 
+
+
+API for a graph with Stri ng vertices 
+
+
+As usual, this API reflects several design choices, each made from among various 
+alternatives, some of which we now briefly discuss. 
+
+Undirected graph. Edges are undirected: an edge that connects v to w is the same 
+as one that connects w to v. Our interest is in the connection, not the direction. Di- 
+rected edges (for example, one-way streets in road maps) require a slightly different 
+data type (see Exercise 4.5.35). 
+
+String vertex type. We might use a generic vertex type, to allow clients to build 
+graphs with objects of any type. We leave this sort of implementation for an ex- 
+ercise, however, because the resulting code becomes a bit unwieldy (see Exercise 
+4.5.9). The Stri ng vertex type suffices for the applications that we consider here. 
+
+Implicit vertex creation. When a String is used as an argument to addEdgeO, 
+we assume that it is a vertex name. If no edge using that Stri ng has yet been added, 
+our implementation creates a vertex with that name. The alternative design of hav- 
+
+
+
+656 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+ing an addVertexO method requires more client code (to create the vertices) and 
+more cumbersome implementation code (to check that edges connect vertices that 
+have previously been created). 
+
+Self-loops and parallel edges. Although the API does not explicitly address the 
+issue, we assume that implementations do allow self-loops (edges connecting a ver- 
+tex to itself) but do not allow parallel edges (two copies of the same edge). Checking 
+for self-loops and parallel edges is easy; our choice is to omit both checks. 
+
+Client query methods. We also include the methods V() and E() in our API to 
+provide to the client the number of vertices and edges in the graph. Such methods 
+should provide the requisite information in constant time. Similarly, the methods 
+degreeO, hasVertexO, and hasEdgeO are useful in client code. We leave as ex- 
+ercises the implementation of these methods, but assume them to be in our Graph 
+API. 
+
+
+None of these design decisions are sacrosanct; they are simply the choices that we 
+have made for the code in this book. Some other choices might be appropriate in 
+various situations, and some decisions are still left to implementations. It is wise to 
+carefully consider the choices that you make for design decisions like this and to be 
+prepared to defend them. 
+
+Graph (Program 4.5.1) implements this API. Its 
+internal representation is a symbol table of sets: the keys 
+are vertices and the values are the sets of neighbors — 
+the vertices adjacent to the key. This representation 
+uses the two data types ST and SET that we introduced 
+in Section 4.4. It has three important properties: 
+
+• Clients can efficiently iterate through the graph 
+vertices. 
+
+• Clients can efficiently iterate through a vertex’s 
+neighbors. 
+
+• Space usage is proportional to the number of 
+edges. 
+
+These properties follow immediately from basic prop- 
+erties of ST and SET. As you will see, the two iterators Symbol-table-of-sets 
+
+are at the heart of graph processing. graph representation 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+6S7 
+
+
+Program 4.5.1 Graph data type 
+
+
+public class Graph 
+
+{ 
+
+private ST<String, SET<String» st; 
+public GraphO 
+
+{ st = new ST<String, SET<String»() ; 
+
+
+st 
+
+
+symbol table of 
+vertex neighbor sets 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+public void addEdge(String v, String w) 
+
+{ // Put v in w’s SET and w in v’s SET. 
+
+if (!st.contains(v)) st.putCv, new SET<String>0) ; 
+if (Ist.contains(w)) st.put(w, new SET<String>()) ; 
+st.get(v) .add(w) ; 
+st.get(w) .add(v) ; 
+
+} 
+
+public Iterable<String> adjacentTo(String v) 
+
+
+{ ' | { return st.get(v); } 
+
+adjacentToO 
+
+neighbor iterator B 
+
+| J public Iterabl e<St ri ng> verticesO 
+
+verticesO 
+
+vertex iterator p 
+
+ll { return st; } 
+
+
+
+
+} 
+
+
+// See exercise 4. 5. 1-4 for V(), E(), degreeO, 
+
+// hasVertex(), and hasEdge(). 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read edges, print Graph (sets of neighbors). 
+
+Graph G = new GraphO; 
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+G.addEdge(StdIn.readString() , Stdln. readStringO) ; 
+StdOut.print(G) ; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This implementation uses ST and SET (see Section 4.4) to implement the graph data type. 
+Clients build graphs by adding edges and process them by iterating the vertex set and the set of 
+vertices adjacent to a given vertex. See the text for toSt ri ng () and a matching const ructor that 
+reads a graph from an input stream. 
+
+
+r 
+
+% more tmy.txt 
+
+j 
+
+-V.. : . ...... , 
+
+; 
+
+% java Graph < tiny.txt 
+
+A B 
+
+
+A B C G H 
+
+A C 
+
+I 
+
+i 
+
+B A 
+
+C A 
+
+
+C A G 
+
+C G 
+
+1 G A C E 
+
+i A G 
+
+1 
+
+HA 1 
+
+j H A 
+
+I 
+
+1 
+
+
+
+
+
+658 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+As a simple example of client code, consider the problem of printing a Graph. 
+A natural way to proceed is to print a list of the vertices, along with a list of im- 
+mediate neighbors of each vertex. We use this approach to implement toStri ng() 
+in Graph, as follows: 
+
+public String toStringO 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = 
+
+for (String v : verticesO) 
+
+{ 
+
+s += v + " 
+
+for (String w : adjacentTo(v)) 
+s += w + " 
+
+s += "\n" ; 
+
+} 
+
+return s; 
+
+} 
+
+This code prints two representations of each edge, once when discovering that w is 
+a neighbor of v and once when discovering that v is a neighbor of w. Many graph 
+algorithms are based on this basic paradigm of processing each edge in the graph 
+in this way, and it is important to remember that they process each edge twice. As 
+usual, this implementation is intended for use only for small graphs, as the running 
+time is quadratic in the string length because string concatenation is linear-time. 
+
+The output format just considered defines a reasonable file format: each line 
+is a vertex name followed by the names of neighbors of that vertex. Accordingly, 
+our basic graph API includes a constructor for building a graph from an input 
+stream in this format (fist of vertices with neighbors). For flexibility, we allow for 
+the use of other delimiters besides spaces for vertex names (so that, for example, 
+vertex names may contain spaces), as in the following implementation: 
+
+public Graph(In in, String delimiter) 
+
+{ 
+
+st = new ST<String, SET<String»() ; 
+
+while (Hn.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String line = in. readLineO ; 
+
+String [] names = 1 i ne. split (del imi ter) ; 
+
+for (int i =1; i < names. length; i++) 
+addEdge(names[0] , namesfi]); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+659 
+
+
+Adding this constructor and toStringO to Graph provides a complete data type 
+suitable for a broad variety of applications, as we will now see. Note that this same 
+constructor (with a space delimiter) works properly when the input is a list of edg- 
+es, one per line, as in the test client for Program 4.5.1. 
+
+Graph client example As a first graph-processing client, we consider an ex- 
+ample of social relationships, one that is certainly familiar to you and for which 
+extensive data is readily available. 
+
+On the booksite you can find the file movi es . txt (and many similar files), 
+which contains a list of movies and the performers who appeared in them. Each 
+line gives the name of a movie followed by the cast (a list of the names of the per- 
+formers who appeared in that movie). Since names have spaces and commas in 
+them, the / character is used as a delimiter. (Now you can see why our file input 
+Graph constructor takes the delimiter as an argument.) 
+
+If you study movies.txt, you will notice a number of characteristics that, 
+though minor, need attention when working with the database: 
+
+• Movies always have the year in parentheses after the title. 
+
+• Special characters are present. 
+
+• Multiple performers with the same name are differentiated by Roman 
+numerals within parentheses. 
+
+• Cast lists are not in alphabetical order. 
+
+Depending on your terminal and operating system settings, special characters may 
+be replaced by blanks or question marks. These types of anomalies are common in 
+working with large amounts of real-world data. We can either choose to live with 
+them or write filters to minimize any annoyances. 
+
+
+% more movies.txt 
+
+Tin Men (1987)/DeBoy, Davi d/Bl umenf el d , Alan/... /Geppi , Cindy/Hershey, Barbara 
+Tirez sur le pianiste (1960)/Heymann, Claude/. . ./Berger, Nicole (I) 
+
+Titanic (1997)/Mazin, Stan/. . .DiCaprio, Leonardo/. . ./Winslet, Kate/... 
+
+Titus (1999)/Weisskopf , Hermann/Rhys, Matthew/ ... /McEwan , Geraldine 
+To Be or Not to Be (1942)/Verebes, Erno (I)/. . ./Lombard, Carole (I) 
+
+To Be or Not to Be (1983)/. . ./Brooks, Mel (I)/. . ./Bancroft, Anne/... 
+
+To Catch a Thief (1955)/Paris, Manuel/. . ./Grant, Cary/. . ./Kelly, Grace/... 
+
+To Die For (1995)/Smith, Kurtwood/. . ./Kidman, Nicole/.../ Tucci , Maria 
+
+
+Movie database example 
+
+
+
+660 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Using Graph, we can write a simple and convenient client for extracting in- 
+formation from movi es . txt. We begin by building a Graph to better structure the 
+information. What should the vertices and edges model? Should the vertices be 
+movies with edges connecting two movies if a performer has appeared in both? 
+Should the vertices be performers with edges connecting two performers if both 
+have appeared in the same movie? These choices are both plausible, but which 
+should we use? This decision affects both client and implementation code. Another 
+way to proceed (which we choose because it leads to simple implementation code) 
+is to have vertices for both the movies and the performers, with an edge connecting 
+each movie to each performer in that movie. As you will see, programs that process 
+this graph can answer a great variety of interesting questions. The Graph client In- 
+dexGraph (Program 4.5.2) is a first example that takes a query, such as the name of 
+a movie, and prints the list of performers that appear in that movie. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+661 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.5.2 Using a graph to invert an index 
+
+public class IndexGraph 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Build a graph and process queries. 
+
+In in = new In (args [0]); 
+
+String delimiter = args[l]; 
+
+Graph G = new Graph(in, delimiter); 
+while (! Stdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Read a vertex and print its neighbors. 
+
+String v = Stdln. readLineO ; 
+for (String w : G.adjacentTo(v)) 
+StdOut.println(" " + w); 
+
+} 
+
+
+v '- 1 r:*™ 
+
+
+m 
+
+
+
+j in 
+
+input stream 
+
+delimiter 
+
+input delimiter 
+
+G 
+
+graph 
+
+V 
+
+query 
+
+w 
+
+neighbor of v 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+
+This Graph client builds a graph, then accepts vertex names from standard input and prints its 
+neighbors. When the file is an index, it creates a bipartite graph and amounts to an interactive 
+inverted index. 
+
+
+
+
+
+% java IndexGraph movies.txt "/" 
+Da Vinci Code, The (2006) 
+
+Aubert, Yves 
+
+
+Herbert, Paul 
+
+Wilson, Serretta 
+Zaza, Shane 
+Bacon, Kevin 
+Animal House (1978) 
+Apollo 13 (1995) 
+
+Wild Things (1998) 
+River Wild, The (1994) 
+Woodsman, The (2004) 
+
+
+.MJi'U/WJ 
+
+
+662 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Typing a movie name and getting its cast is not much more than regurgitating the 
+corresponding line in movies.txt (though the IndexGraph test client does print 
+the cast list sorted by last name, as that is the default iteration order provided by 
+SET). A more interesting feature of IndexGraph is that you can type the name of a 
+performer and get the list of movies in which that performer has appeared. Why 
+does this work? Even though the database seems to connect movies to performers 
+and not the other way around, the edges in the graph are connections that also con- 
+nect performers to movies. 
+
+A graph in which connections all connect one kind of vertex to another kind 
+of vertex is known as a bipartite graph. As this example illustrates, bipartite graphs 
+have many natural properties that we can often exploit in interesting ways. 
+
+As we saw at the beginning of Section 4.4, the 
+indexing paradigm is general and very familiar. It is 
+worth reflecting on the fact that building a bipartite 
+graph provides a simple way to automatically invert 
+any index! The movi es . txt database is indexed by 
+movie, but we can query it by performer. You could 
+use IndexGraph in precisely the same way to print 
+the index words appearing on a given page or the 
+codons corresponding to a given amino acid, or to 
+invert any of the other indices discussed at the be- 
+ginning of Section 4.2. Since IndexGraph takes the 
+delimiter as a command-line argument, you can use 
+it to create an interactive inverted index for a . csv 
+file or a test file with space delimiters. 
+
+This inverted-index functionality is a direct 
+benefit of the graph data structure. Next, we examine 
+some of the added benefits to be derived from algo- 
+rithms that process the data structure. 
+
+
+% more ami no. csv 
+TTT , Phe , F , Phenyl al ani ne 
+TTC , Phe , F , Phenyl al ani ne 
+TTA, Leu ,L, Leucine 
+TTG,Leu f L, Leucine 
+TCT,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCC,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCA,Ser,S, Serine 
+TCG.Ser.S, Serine 
+TAT, Tyr,Y, Tyrosine 
+
+GGA,Gly,G, Glycine 
+GGG,Gly,G, Glycine 
+
+% java IndexGraph amino. csv 
+TTA 
+Lue 
+L 
+
+Leucine 
+
+Serine 
+
+TCT 
+
+TCC 
+
+TCA 
+
+TCG 
+
+Inverting an index 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+663 
+
+
+Shortest paths in graphs Given two vertices in a graph, a path is a sequence 
+of edges connecting them. A shortest path is one with minimal length over all such 
+paths (there typically are multiple shortest paths). Finding a shortest path connect- 
+ing two vertices in a graph is a fundamental problem in computer science. Shortest 
+paths have been famously and successfully applied to solve large-scale problems 
+in a broad variety of applications, from routing the internet to financial arbitrage 
+transactions to studying the dynamics of neurons in the brain. 
+
+As an example, imagine that you are a customer of an imaginary no-frills 
+airline that serves a limited number of cities with a limited number of routes. As- 
+sume that best way to get from one place to another is to minimize your number of 
+flight segments, because delays in transferring from one flight to another are likely 
+to be lengthy (or perhaps the best thing to do is to consider paying more for a direct 
+flight on another airline!). A shortest-path algorithm is just what you need to plan 
+a trip. Such an application appeals to intuition in understanding the basic problem 
+and our approach to solving it. After covering these topics in the context of this 
+example, we will consider an application where the graph model is more abstract. 
+
+Depending upon the application, clients have various needs with regard to 
+shortest paths. Do we want the shortest path connecting two given vertices? Just 
+the length of such a path? Will we have a large number of such queries? Is one par- 
+ticular vertex of interest? In huge graphs or for huge numbers of queries, we have 
+to pay particular attention to such questions because the cost of computing paths 
+might prove to be prohibitive. We start with the following API: 
+
+public class PathFinder 
+
+PathFinder (Graph G, String s) constructor 
+
+int distanceToCString v) length of shortest path 
+
+3 from s to v in G 
+
+Iterable<String> pathTofString v) from^tov^in G 
+
+API for single-source shortest paths in a Graph 
+
+Clients can construct a PathFi nder for a given graph and a given vertex, and then 
+use the Path Fi nder either to find the length of the shortest path or to iterate through 
+the vertices on the shortest path to any other vertex in the graph. An implementa- 
+tion of these methods is known as a single-source shortest-path algorithm. A classic 
+algorithm known as breadth-first search provides a direct and elegant solution. 
+
+
+
+664 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Single-source client. Suppose that you have available to you the graph of vertices 
+and connections for your no-frills airline’s route map. Then, using your home city 
+as a source, you can write a client that prints your route any time you want to go on 
+a trip. Program 4.5.3 is a client for PathFi nder that provides this functionality for 
+any graph. This sort of client is particularly useful in applications where we antici- 
+pate numerous queries from the same source. In this situation, the cost of building 
+a PathFi nder is amortized over the cost of all the queries. You are encouraged to 
+explore the properties of shortest paths by running PathFi nder on our sample 
+input routes . txt or any input model that you choose. The exercises at the end of 
+
+this section describe several mod- 
+els that you might consider. 
+
+Degrees of separation. One of 
+the classic applications of shortest- 
+paths algorithms is to find the de- 
+grees of separation of individuals 
+in social networks. To fix ideas, we 
+discuss this application in terms 
+of a recently popularized pastime 
+known as the Kevin Bacon game, 
+which uses the movie-performer 
+graph that we just considered. 
+Kevin Bacon is a prolific actor who 
+has appeared in many movies. We 
+assign every performer who has 
+appeared in a movie a Kevin Bacon 
+number: Bacon himself is 0, any 
+performer who has been in the same cast as Bacon has a Kevin Bacon number of 1, 
+any other performer (except Bacon) who has been in the same cast as a performer 
+whose number is 1 has a Kevin Bacon number of 2, and so forth. For example, 
+Meryl Streep has a Kevin Bacon number of 1 because she appeared in The River 
+Wild with Kevin Bacon. Nicole Kidman’s number is 2: although she did not appear 
+in any movie with Kevin Bacon, she was in Cold Mountain with Donald Sutherland, 
+and Sutherland appeared in Animal House with Kevin Bacon. Given the name of 
+a performer, the simplest version of the game is to find some alternating sequence 
+of movies and performers that lead back to Kevin Bacon. For example, a movie 
+
+
+
+HOU JFK 2 HOU-ATL-JFK and two others 
+
+Examples of shortest paths in a graph 
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+665 
+
+
+Program 4.5.3 Shortest-paths client 
+
+
+public class PathFinder 
+
+{ 
+
+// See Program 4.5.5 for implementation. 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ // Read a graph and process queries 
+
+// for shortest paths from s. 
+
+In in = new ln(args[0]); 
+
+String delimiter = args[l]; 
+
+Graph G = new Graph(in, delimiter); 
+
+String s = args [2]; 
+
+PathFinder pf = new PathFinder(G, s); 
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ // Print distance and shortest path from 
+
+String t = Stdln. readLineO ; 
+int d = pf .distanceTo(t) ; 
+for (String v : pf . pathTo(t)) 
+StdOut.printlnC" " + v); 
+StdOut.println ("distance " + d); 
+
+
+} 
+
+
+This PathFi nder test client takes a file name, a delimiter, and a source vertex as command-line 
+arguments. It builds a graph from the file, assuming that each line of the file specifies a vertex 
+and a list of vertices connected to that vertex, separated by the delimiter. When you type a des- 
+tination on standard input, you get the shortest path from the source to that destination. 
+
+
+
+
+
+iplipl 
+
+% more routes.txt 
+
+f % java PathFinder routes.txt " " JFK 
+
+JFK MCO 
+
+§ LAX 
+
+ORD DEN 
+
+1 JFK 
+
+ORD HOU 
+
+I ORD 
+
+DFW PHX 
+
+1 PHX 
+
+JFK ATL 
+
+I LAX 
+
+ORD DFW 
+
+distance 3 
+
+ORD PHX 
+
+1 MCO 
+
+ATL HOU 
+
+1 JFK 
+
+DEN PHX 
+
+! MCO 
+
+PHX LAX 
+
+f distance 1 
+
+JFK ORD 
+
+! DFW 
+
+DEN LAS 
+
+p JFK 
+
+DFW HOU 1 
+
+S ORD 
+
+ORD ATL | 
+
+DFW 
+
+LAS LAX i 
+
+| distance 2 
+
+ATL MCO | 
+
+1 
+
+HOU MCO 1 
+
+
+LAS PHX 1 
+
+j 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+666 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+buff might know that Tom Hanks was in Joe Versus the Volcano with Lloyd Bridges, 
+who was in High Noon with Grace Kelly, who was in Dial M for Murder with Pat- 
+rick Allen, who was in The Eagle Has Landed with Donald Sutherland, who we 
+know was in Animal House with Kevin Bacon. But this knowledge does not suffice 
+to establish Tom Hanks’s Bacon number (it is actually 1 because he was in Apollo 
+
+13 with Kevin Bacon). You can see 
+that the Kevin Bacon number has to 
+be defined by counting the movies in 
+the shortest such sequence, so it is hard 
+to be sure whether someone wins the 
+game without using a computer. Re- 
+markably, the PathFinder test client 
+in Program 4.5.3 is just the program 
+you need to find a shortest path that 
+establishes the Kevin Bacon number 
+of any performer in movi es . txt — the 
+number is precisely half the distance. 
+You might enjoy using this program, 
+or extending it to answer some enter- 
+taining questions about the movie business or in one of many other domains. For 
+example, mathematicians play this same game with the graph defined by paper 
+co-authorship and their connection to Paul Erdos, a prolific 20th-century math- 
+ematician. Similarly, everyone in New Jersey seems to have a Bruce Springsteen 
+number of 2, because everyone in the state seems to know someone who claims to 
+know Bruce. 
+
+Other clients. PathFi nder is a versatile data type that can be put to many practi- 
+cal uses. For example, it is easy to develop a client that handles pairwise source- 
+destination requests on standard input, by building a PathFi nder for each vertex 
+(see Exercise 4.5.17). Travel services use precisely this approach to handle requests 
+at a very high service rate. Since this client builds a PathFi nder for each vertex 
+(each of which might consume space proportional to the number of vertices), 
+space usage might be a limiting factor in using it for huge graphs. For an even more 
+performance-critical application that is conceptually the same, consider an internet 
+router that has a graph of connections among machines available and must decide 
+the best next stop for packets heading to a given destination. To do so, it can build 
+
+
+% java PathFinder movies.txt "/" "Bacon, Kevin" 
+Kidman, Nicole 
+Bacon, Kevin 
+Animal House (1978) 
+
+Sutherland, Donald (I) 
+
+Cold Mountain (2003) 
+
+Kidman, Nicole 
+distance 4 
+Hanks, Tom 
+
+Bacon, Kevin 
+Apollo 13 (1995) 
+
+Hanks, Tom 
+distance 2 
+
+Degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+667 
+
+
+a PathFi nder with itself as the source, then send a packet heading to destination 
+w to pf . pathTo(w) . next(), the next stop on the shortest path to w. Or a central 
+authority might build a PathFi nder for each of several dependent routers and use 
+them to issue routing instructions. The ability to handle such requests at a high ser- 
+vice rate is one of the prime responsibilities of internet routers, and shortest-paths 
+algorithms are a critical part of the process. 
+
+
+Shortest-path distances. We define the distance between two vertices to be the 
+length of the shortest path between them. The first step in understanding breadth- 
+first search is to consider the problem of computing distances between the source 
+and each vertex (the implementation of distanceToQ in PathFi nder). Our ap- 
+
+
+v queue contents distances from JFK 
+
+ATL DEN DFW HOU JFK LAS LAX MCO ORD 
+
+
+initialize for distance 0 
+
+
+JFK 
+
+
+0 
+
+
+
+LAX 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+1 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+1 
+
+
+2 
+
+2 2 
+
+2 2 
+
+
+2 2 
+2 2 
+2 2 
+2 2 
+2 2 
+2 2 
+
+
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+
+0 
+
+2 0 
+
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+
+
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+2 0 
+
+
+0 
+
+0 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 1 
+
+
+1 1 
+1 1 
+I 1 
+i 1 
+I l 
+l i 
+i i 
+
+
+l i 
+
+i i 
+
+3 1 1 
+
+.3 .]. 1 
+
+3 1 1 
+
+3 3 1 1 
+
+
+3 3 11 
+3 3 1 1 
+
+
+Using breadth-first search to compute shortest path distances in a graph 
+
+
+668 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+proach is to compute and save away all the distances in the constructor, and then 
+just return the requested value when a client invokes di stanceToO. To associate 
+an integer distance with each vertex name, we use a symbol table: 
+
+ST<String, Integer> dist = new ST<String, Integer>(); 
+
+The purpose of this symbol table is to associate with each vertex an integer: the 
+length of the shortest path (the distance) from that vertex to s. We begin by giving 
+s the distance 0 with di st . put (s , 0) , and we assign to s’s neighbors the distance 
+1 with the following code: 
+
+for (String v : G.adjacentTo(s)) 
+dist.putfv, 1) 
+
+But then what do we do? If we blindly set the distances to all the neighbors of each 
+of those neighbors to 2, then not only would we face the prospect of unnecessar- 
+ily setting many values twice (neighbors may have many common neighbors), but 
+also we would set s’s distance to 2 (it is a neighbor of each of its neighbors), and we 
+clearly do not want that outcome. The solution to these difficulties is simple: 
+
+• Consider the vertices in order of their distance from s. 
+
+• Ignore vertices whose distance to s is already known. 
+
+To organize the computation, we use a FIFO queue. Starting with s on the queue, 
+we perform the following operations until the queue is empty: 
+
+• Dequeue a vertex v. 
+
+• Assign all of v’s unknown neighbors a distance 1 greater than v’s distance. 
+
+• Enqueue all of the unknown neighbors. 
+
+This method dequeues the vertices in nondecreasing order of their distance from 
+the source s. Following a trace of this method on a sample graph will help to per- 
+suade you that it is correct. Showing that this method labels each vertex v with its 
+distance to s is an exercise in mathematical induction (see Exercise 4.5.12). 
+
+Shortest paths tree. We need not only distances from the source, but also paths. To 
+implement pathToO, we use a subgraph known as the shortest-paths tree, defined 
+as follows: 
+
+• Put the source at the root of the tree. 
+
+• Put vertex v’s neighbors in the tree if they are added to the queue, with an 
+edge connecting each to v. 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+669 
+
+
+Since we enqueue each vertex only once, this structure is 
+a proper tree: it consists of a root (the source) connected 
+to one subtree for each neighbor of the source. Studying 
+such a tree, you can see immediately that the distance 
+from each vertex to the root in the tree is the same as the 
+shortest path distance to the source in the graph. More 
+importantly, each path in the tree is a shortest path in the 
+graph. This observation is important because it gives us 
+an easy way to provide clients with the shortest paths 
+themselves (implement pathToO in PathFinder). First, 
+we maintain a symbol table associating each vertex with 
+the vertex one step nearer to the source on the shortest 
+path: 
+
+ST<String, String> prev; 
+
+prev = new ST<String, String>(); 
+
+
+
+
+parent-link representation 
+
+ATL DEN DFW HOU JFK LAS LAX MCO ORD PH 
+JFK ORF ORD ATL DEN PHX JFK JFK OR 
+
+
+To each vertex w, we want to associate the previous stop Shortest-paths tree 
+
+on the shortest path from the source to w. Augmenting the 
+shortest-distances method to also compute this informa- 
+tion is easy: when we enqueue w because we first discover it as a neighbor of v, we 
+do so precisely becauset v is the previous stop on the shortest path from the source 
+to w, so we can call prev. put(w, v). The prev data structure is nothing more 
+than a representation of the shortest path tree: it provides a link from each node 
+
+to its parent in the tree. Then, 
+
+
+
+to respond to a client request 
+for the path from the source 
+to w (a call to pathTo(w) in 
+PathFinder), we follow these 
+links up the tree from w, which 
+traverses the path in reverse 
+order, so we push each vertex 
+encountered onto a stack and 
+then return that stack (an It- 
+erable) to the client. At the 
+top of the stack is s; at the bot- 
+
+
+Recovering a path from the tree with a stack 
+
+
+tom of the stack is v; and the 
+
+
+
+670 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+FTi 
+
+
+• 1 
+
+
+1 
+
+1 1 
+
+
+| p & . . v I 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+lit 
+
+
+MR 
+
+
+Program 4.5.4 Shortest-paths implementation 
+
+
+public class PathFinder 
+
+{ 
+
+private ST<String, String> prev; 
+private ST<String, Integer> dist; 
+
+
+prev 
+
+dist 
+
+
+public PathFinder (Graph G, String s) 
+
+{ // Use BFS to compute distances and previous node 
+
+// on shortest path from s to each vertex, 
+prev = new ST<String, String>(); 
+dist = new ST<String, Integer>(); 
+
+Queue<String> q = new Queue<String>() ; 
+q.enqueue(s) ; 
+dist.put(s, 0); 
+while (Iq.isEmptyO) 
+
+
+previous vertex on 
+shortest path from s 
+
+distance to s 
+
+
+ii 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+// Process next vertex on queue. 
+
+String v = q,dequeue(); 
+
+for (String w : G.adjacentTo(v)) 
+
+
+graph 
+
+source 
+
+queue of vertices 
+current vertex 
+neighbors ofv 
+
+
+i 
+
+
+{ 
+
+
+// Check whether distance is already known, 
+if (Idist.contains(w)) 
+
+{ // Add to queue and save shortest-path information.! 
+
+
+q. enqueue (w) ; 
+dist.put(w, 1 + 
+prev.put(w, v); 
+
+
+dist.get(v)) ; 
+
+
+} 
+
+public int distanceTo(String v) 
+
+{ return dist.get(v); } 
+
+public Iterable<String> pathTo(String v) 
+
+{ // Return iterable object having shortest path from s to v. 
+
+Stack<String> path = new Stack<String>() ; 
+while (dist.contains(v)) 
+
+{ // Push current vertex; move to previous vertex on path, 
+
+path. push (v) ; 
+v = prev.get(v); 
+
+} 
+
+return path; 
+
+} 
+
+
+This class allows clients to find (shortest) paths connecting a specified vertex to other vertices in 
+a graph. See Program 4.5.3 and Exercise 4.5.17 for sample clients. 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+671 
+
+
+vertices on the path from s to v are in between, so the client gets the path from s to 
+v when using the return value from pathToO in a foreach statement. 
+
+Breadth-first search. PathFinder (Program 4.5.4) is an implementation of the 
+single-source shortest paths API that is based on the ideas just discussed. It main- 
+tains two symbol tables, one for the distance from each vertex to the source and 
+the other for the previous stop on the shortest path from the source to each vertex. 
+The constructor uses a queue to keep track of vertices that have been encountered 
+(neighbors of vertices to which the shortest path has been found but whose neigh- 
+bors have not yet been examined). The process is referred to as breadth-first search 
+(BFS) because it searches broadly in the graph. By contrast, another important 
+graph-search method known as depth-first search is based on a recursive method 
+like the one we used for percolation in Program 2.4.5 and searches deeply into the 
+graph. Depth-first search tends to find long paths; breadth-first search is guaran- 
+teed to find shortest paths. 
+
+Performance. The cost of graph-processing algorithms typically depends on two 
+graph parameters: the number of vertices V and the number of edges E. As imple- 
+mented in PathFi nder, the time required by breadth-first search is linearithmic in 
+the size of the input, proportional to E log V. To convince yourself of this fact, first 
+observe that the outer (whi 1 e) loop iterates at most V times, once for each vertex, 
+because we are careful to ensure that each vertex is enqueued at most once. Then 
+observe that the inner (for) loop iterates a total of at most 2 E times over all itera- 
+tions, because we are careful to ensure that each edge is examined at most twice, 
+once for each of the two vertices it connects. Each iteration of the loop requires at 
+least one containsO operation and perhaps two put() operations, on symbol 
+tables of size at most V. This linearithmic-time performance depends upon using a 
+symbol-table implementation like BST (Program 4.4.3) that has a linear-time itera- 
+tor and logarithmic-time search. 
+
+Adjacency matrix representation. Without proper data structures, fast perfor- 
+mance for graph-processing algorithms is sometimes not easy to achieve, and so 
+should not be taken for granted. For example, another graph representation that 
+is often used, known as the adjacency matrix representation, uses a symbol table to 
+map vertex names to integers between 0 and V— 1, then maintains a V- by- V bool - 
+ean array with true in the entry in row i and column j (and the entry in row j 
+
+
+
+672 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+and column i ) if there is an edge connecting the vertex corresponding to i with the 
+vertex corresponding to j, and fal se if there is no such edge. We have already used 
+similar representations in this book, when studying the random surfer model for 
+ranking web pages in Section 1.6. The adjacency matrix representation is simple, 
+but infeasible for use with huge graphs — a graph with a million vertices would re- 
+quire an adjacency matrix with a trillion entries. Understanding this distinction for 
+graph-processing problems makes the difference between solving a problem that 
+arises in a practical situation and not being able to address it at all. 
+
+Breadth-first search is a fundamental algorithm that you could use to find your 
+way around an airline route map or a big city subway (see Exercise 4.5.34) or in 
+numerous similar situations. As indicated by our degrees-of-separation example, 
+it also is used for countless other applications, from crawling the web or routing 
+packets on the internet to studying infectious disease, models of the brain, or re- 
+lationships among genomic sequences. Many of these algorithms involve huge 
+graphs, so an efficient algorithm is absolutely necessary. 
+
+An important generalization of the shortest-paths model is to associate a 
+weight (which may represent distance or time) with each edge and seek to find 
+a path that minimizes the sum of the edge weights. If you take later courses in 
+algorithms or in operations research, you will learn a generalization of breadth- 
+first search known as Dijkstra’s algorithm that solves that problem in linearithmic 
+time. When you get directions from a GPS device or a map application on the web, 
+Dikstra’s algorithm is the basis for solving the associated shortest-path problems. 
+These important and omnipresent applications are just the tip of an iceberg, be- 
+cause graph models are much more general than maps. 
+
+Small-world graphs Scientists have identified a particularly interesting class 
+of graphs that arise in numerous applications in the natural and social sciences. 
+Small-world graphs are characterized by the following three properties: 
+
+• They are sparse. 
+
+• They exhibit local clustering of edges around vertices. 
+
+• They have a short average distance between vertices. 
+
+We refer to graphs having these three properties collectively as exhibiting the small- 
+world phenomenon. The term small world refers to the idea that the preponder- 
+ance of vertices have both local clustering and short paths to other vertices. The 
+modifier phenomenon refers to the somewhat unexpected fact that all distances are 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+673 
+
+
+short in so many sparse graphs with local clustering that arise in practice. Beyond 
+the social-relationships applications just considered, small-world graphs have been 
+used to study the marketing or products or ideas, the formation and spread of fame 
+and fads, the analysis of the internet, the construction of secure peer-to-peer net- 
+works, the development of routing algorithms, and wireless networks, the design 
+of electrical power grids, modeling information processing in the human brain, the 
+study of phase transitions in oscillators, the spread of infectious viruses (in both 
+living organisms and computers), and many other applications too numerous to 
+list. Starting with the seminal work of Watts and Strogatz in the 1990s, an intensive 
+amount of research has gone into quantifying the small- world phenomenon. 
+
+A key question in such research is the following: Given a graph, how can we tell 
+whether it is a small-world graph or not? To answer this question, we begin by im- 
+posing the conditions that the graph is not small (say, 1,000 vertices or more) and 
+that it is connected (there exists some path connecting each pair of vertices). Then, 
+we need to settle on specific thresholds for each of the small-world properties: 
+
+• By sparse , we mean the average vertex degree is less than 10 lg V. 
+
+• By locally clustered, we mean that a certain quantity known as the cluster 
+coefficient should be greater than 10%. 
+
+• By short average distance, we mean the average distance between two verti- 
+ces is less than 10 lg V. 
+
+
+Average vertex degree 
+
+vertex degree 
+
+Average path length 
+
+vertex shortest 
+pair path len $ h 
+
+A 
+
+4 
+
+A B 
+
+A-B 
+
+1 
+
+B 
+
+1 
+
+A C 
+
+A-C 
+
+1 
+
+C 
+
+2 
+
+A G 
+
+A-G 
+
+1 
+
+G 
+
+2 
+
+A H 
+
+A-H 
+
+1 
+
+H 
+
+1 
+
+B C 
+
+B-A-C 
+
+2 
+
+total 
+
+10 
+
+B G 
+
+B-A-G 
+
+2 
+
+average degree = 10/5 = 2 
+
+B H 
+
+B-A-H 
+
+2 
+
+
+
+C G 
+
+C-G 
+
+1 
+
+
+
+C H 
+
+C-A-H 
+
+2 
+
+® — (i> 
+
+—© 
+
+G H 
+
+G-A-H 
+
+2 
+
+r 
+
+v 
+
+
+total 
+
+15 
+
+® 
+
+© 
+
+total length 
+
+- = 15/10= 1. 
+
+
+
+number of pairs 
+
+
+
+Cluster coefficient 
+
+edges in neighborhood 
+vertex degree possible actual 
+
+A 4 10 5~ 
+
+B 1 1 1 
+
+C 2 3 3 
+
+G 2 3 3 
+
+H 1 _1 3_ 
+
+totals 18 
+
+
+13 
+
+
+totalpossiblc = 13/18 . 72 
+total actual 
+
+
+Calculating small-world graph characteristics 
+
+
+
+674 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+The definition of cluster coefficient is a bit more complicated than vertex distance. 
+We use a version of a definition suggested by Watts and Strogatz that is not difficult 
+to compute. If a vertex has t neighbors, the total number of possible edges that con- 
+nect those neighbors (including the vertex itself) is 
+t (t + 1 )/2. We define the cluster coefficient as the percent- complete 
+
+
+age of those edges that are in the graph, using the totals 
+over all the vertices. Thus, if that percentage is greater 
+than 10%, we say that most edges are locally clustered 
+around the vertices. 
+
+To better familiarize you with these definitions, 
+we next define some simple graph models, and consider 
+whether they describe small-world graphs by checking 
+whether they exhibit the three requisite properties. 
+
+
+
+Complete graphs. A complete graph with V vertices has 
+V(V— 1)/2 edges, one connecting each pair of vertices. 
+Complete graphs are not small- world graphs. They have 
+short distances (the distance between all pairs of nodes 
+is 1) and exhibit local clustering (cluster coefficient is 1), 
+but they are not sparse (the average vertex degree is V— 1, 
+which is much greater than 10 lg V for large V). 
+
+
+
+Ring graphs. Suppose that the vertices are the integers 0 
+to V— 1. In a ring graph, edges connect vertex i to vertex 
+i+ 1 and V— 1 to 0. Ring graphs are also not small- world 
+graphs. They are sparse (average vertex degree 2) and ex- 
+hibit local clustering (cluster coefficient .33), but they do 
+not have short distances (the average distance between 
+nodes is linear — see Exercise 4.5.22). 
+
+Star graphs. In a star graph, edges connect one vertex 
+to each of the others, but there are no other edges. Star 
+graphs are also not small-world graphs. They are sparse 
+
+
+star 
+
+
+
+Three graph models 
+
+
+(average vertex degree 2) and have short distances (average distance between nodes 
+
+
+is slightly less than 2), but they do not exhibit local clustering, because the cluster 
+
+
+coefficient is about 4 IN (see Exercise 4.5.22). 
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+675 
+
+
+These examples illustrate that developing a graph model that satisfies all three con- 
+straints simultaneously is a puzzling challenge. Take a moment to try to design a 
+graph model that you think might do so. After you have thought about this prob- 
+lem, you will realize that you are likely to need a program to help with calculations. 
+Also, you may agree that it is quite surprising that they are found so often in prac- 
+tice. Indeed, you might be wondering if any graph is a small-world graph! 
+
+Choosing 10% for the local clustering threshold instead of some other fixed 
+percentage is somewhat arbitrary, as is the choice of 10 lg V for the sparsity and 
+short path length thresholds, but we often do not come close to these borderline 
+values. For example, consider the graph defined by pages on the web connected by 
+links. Analysts have estimated that the average distance between two pages on the 
+web is less than lg V. If there are billions of pages, this estimate says that the num- 
+ber of clicks to get from one document to another is about 30 (and each time the 
+web grows by a factor of 1,000, only about 10 more clicks will be needed). These 
+real-world path lengths are very short, much lower 
+than our 10 lg V" estimate, which would be over 300 
+for billions of vertices (but still much, much less than 
+V). 
+
+Having settled on the definitions, testing wheth- 
+er a graph is a small-world graph can still be a sig- 
+nificant computational burden. As you probably have 
+suspected, the graph-processing data types that we 
+have been considering provide precisely the tools that we need. The Graph and 
+PathFinder client SmallWorld (Program 4.5.5) implements these tests. Without 
+the efficient data structures and algorithms that we have been considering, the cost 
+of this computation would be prohibitive. Even so, for huge graphs, we need to 
+resort to sampling to get estimates of some of the quantities. 
+
+
+model 
+
+
+
+
+locally 
+
+clustered? 
+
+
+complete 
+
+ring 
+
+star 
+
+
+O 
+
+
+o 
+
+
+o 
+
+
+Small-world properties of graph models 
+
+
+A classic small-world graph. Our movie-performer graph is not a small-world 
+graph, because it is bipartite and therefore has a very low cluster coefficient. How- 
+ever, the simpler performer relationship graph defined by connecting two perform- 
+ers by an edge if they appeared in the same movie is a classic example of a small- 
+world graph. Since a performer relationship graph has many more edges than the 
+corresponding movie-performer graph, we will work for the moment with the 
+smaller graph represented by the file moviesG.txt (G-rated movies). Performer 
+graphs are easy to construct from files in the format represented by movi es* . txt. 
+
+
+
+676 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Each line represents a movie and gives a set of actors who are connected because of 
+that movie (each slash-delimited string after the first is an actor’s name); we build 
+a complete subgraph connecting all pairs of actors in that movie by adding a graph 
+
+
+edge connecting each pair. Doing so for 
+each movie in the database gives a graph 
+that connects the performers, as desired. 
+
+Note that the movie names are not 
+relevant in the performer relationship 
+graph — only in the performer relation- 
+ships implied by the movie. One alterna- 
+tive might be to use a Graph implemen- 
+tation that assigns names to edges, not 
+just vertices, but our movie-performer 
+graph is a much better solution if the 
+edge names are also of interest. 
+
+Now, for movi esG . txt, our Sinai 1 - 
+World client tells us that the resulting 
+
+
+movie-performer relationship graph 
+performer 
+
+
+
+vertices 
+
+
+graph has 20,734 vertices and 1,784,567 
+edges (so the average vertex degree is 
+139.0, just less than 10 lg V = 143.4), 
+which means it is sparse; its average path 
+length is 7.3 (much less than 143.4), so 
+it has short paths; and its cluster coeffi- 
+cient is .92, so it has local clustering. We 
+have found a small-world graph! These 
+calculations validate the hypothesis that 
+social relationship graphs of this sort ex- 
+hibit the small-world phenomenon. You 
+
+
+performer relationship graph 
+
+
+performer in 
+
+
+
+
+connections 
+to other performer 
+in complete graph, 
+for other movies 
+
+
+
+are encouraged to find other real-world 
+graphs and to test them with Small- 
+
+
+complete graphs 
+connecting all performers 
+in the same movie 
+
+
+Worl d. You will find many suggestions in Two way$ f£) represmt fhe movk ^ flse 
+the exercises at the end of this section. 
+
+
+One approach to understanding 
+
+something like the small- world phenomenon is to develop a mathematical model 
+that we can use to test hypotheses and to make predictions. We conclude by return- 
+ing to the problem of developing a graph model that can help us to better under- 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+677 
+
+
+
+
+Program 4.5.5 Small-world test 
+
+public class Small World 
+
+{ 
+
+public static double avgDegree (Graph G) 
+
+{ return 2*G.E() / G.V(); } 
+
+public static double avgDi stance (Graph G) 
+
+{ // Compute average vertex distance, 
+
+int total = 0; 
+
+for (String v : G.verticesO) 
+
+{ // Add to total distances from v. 
+
+PathFinder pf = new PathFinder(G, v); 
+for (String w : G.verticesO) 
+total += pf .distanceTo(w) ; 
+
+} 
+
+return (double) total / (G.V() * (G.V() • 
+
+} 
+
+public static double cl usterCoeff (Graph G) 
+
+{ // Compute cluster coefficient, 
+
+int possible = 0; 
+int edges = 2*G.E(); 
+for (String v : G.verticesO) 
+
+{ // Cumulate local edge totals, 
+
+for (String u : G.adjacentTo(v)) 
+for (String w : G.adjacentTo(v)) 
+if (G.hasEdge(u, w)) edges++; 
+int t = G.degree(v) ; 
+possible += (t + l)*t; 
+
+} 
+
+return (double) edges / possible; 
+
+
+cumulative sum of 
+distances between vertices 
+
+vertex iterator variable 
+neighbors of v 
+
+
+D); 
+
+II""""” 
+
+■ 
+
+G 
+
+
+
+graph 
+
+possible 
+
+cumulative sum of 
+possible local edges 
+
+edges 
+
+cumulative sum of 
+actual local edges 
+
+V 
+
+vertex iterator variable 
+
+u, w 
+
+neighbors of v 
+
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ /* See Exercise 4.5.19. */ } 
+
+
+This client reads a graph from standard input and computes the values 
+eters to test whether the graph exhibits the small-world phenomenon. 
+
+
+of various graph param- 
+
+
+% java MoviesToPerformers "/” < moviesG.txt | java SmallWorld 
+
+20734 vertices 
+
+average degree 139.0 
+
+average distance 7.3 
+
+cluster coefficient .92 
+
+
+
+678 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+public class MoviesToPerformers 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+String delimiter = args[0]; 
+while (IStdln.isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String line = Stdln. readLineO ; 
+
+String[] names = line.split(delimiter) ; 
+for (int i = 1; i < names. length; i++) 
+
+for (int j = i+1; j < names. length; j++) 
+
+StdOut.println(names[i] + delim + names[j]); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+
+% java MoviesToPerformers "/” < moviesG.txt > performersG.txt 
+% more performersG.txt 
+
+DeBoy, David/Blumenfeld, Alan 
+
+DeBoy, Davi d/Geppi , Cindy 
+DeBoy, David/Hershey , Barbara 
+
+Blumenfeld, Alan/Geppi, Cindy 
+Blumenfeld, Alan/Hershey, Barbara 
+
+
+Converting the movie-performer graph to a performer-performer graph 
+
+stand the small-world phenomenon. The trick to developing such a model is to 
+introduce random edges. 
+
+Random graphs. One well-studied graph model is the random graph . The sim- 
+plest way to generate a random sparse graph is to add edges connecting random 
+vertices, each chosen from V possibilities, until E different edges have been gener- 
+ated. Sparse random graphs with a sufficient number of edges are known to have 
+short distances but are not small-world graphs, because they do not exhibit local 
+clustering — see Exercise 4.5.41. 
+
+Ring graphs with random shortcuts . One of the most surprising facts to emerge 
+from the work of Watts and Strogatz is that adding a relatively small number of 
+random edges to a graph with local clustering produces small-world graphs. To 
+gain some insight on why this is the case, consider a ring graph, where the distances 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+679 
+
+
+between vertices on opposite sides is ~VI2. Adding ~V72 edges around the ring 
+connecting vertex i to vertex i+2 (mod V) cuts the length of these longest shortest 
+paths to ~V74, but adding just one shortcut across the graph accomplishes about 
+
+
+random 
+
+
+
+the same effect. Adding V/2 random shortcuts just in- 
+creases the average number of neighbors by 1 and does not 
+significantly affect the local clustering, but it is extremely 
+likely to yield a short average path length. Adding random 
+shortcuts to a ring graph does the trick: adding a random 
+edge from each vertex adds only 1 to the average vertex 
+degree and does not lower the cluster coefficient much be- 
+low 1, but it does significantly lower the average distance 
+between vertices, making them logarithmic. 
+
+
+
+Generators that create graphs drawn from such models 
+are simple to develop, and we can use Small World to de- 
+termine whether the graphs exhibit the small-world phe- 
+nomenon. We also can check the analytic results that we 
+derived for simple graphs such as tiny.txt, complete 
+graphs, and ring graphs. As with most scientific research, 
+new questions arise as quickly as we answer old ones. How 
+many random shortcuts do we need to add to get a short 
+average path length? What is the average path length and 
+the cluster coeffi- 
+
+
+cient in a random 
+graph? What other graph models might be 
+appropriate for study? How many samples 
+do we need to accurately estimate the clus- 
+ter coefficient or the average path length 
+in a huge graph? You can find in the exer- 
+cises many suggestions for addressing such 
+questions and for further investigations of 
+the small-world phenomenon. With the 
+basic tools and the approach to program- 
+ming developed in this book, you are well 
+
+
+model 
+
+average 
+
+degree 
+
+average 
+path length 
+
+cluster . 
+coefficient 
+
+
+999 
+
+1 
+
+1.0 
+
+complete 
+
+O 
+
+• 
+
+• 
+
+
+2 
+
+250 
+
+.66 
+
+ring 
+
+• 
+
+O 
+
+• 
+
+
+2 
+
+2 
+
+.004 
+
+star 
+
+• 
+
+• 
+
+O 
+
+
+3 
+
+3 
+
+.02 
+
+3V random edges 
+
+• 
+
+• 
+
+O 
+
+ring with V 
+
+3 
+
+3 
+
+.62 
+
+random shortcuts 
+
+• 
+
+• 
+
+• 
+
+
+equipped to address this and many other Small-world parameters 
+
+scientific questions. f or various 1,000-vertex graphs 
+
+
+680 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+Lessons This case study illustrates the importance of algorithms and data struc- 
+tures in scientific research. It also reinforces several of the lessons that we have 
+learned throughout this book, which are worth repeating. 
+
+Carefully design your data type. One of our most persistent messages through- 
+out this book is that effective programming is based on a precise understanding of 
+the possible set of data-type values and the operations on them. Using a modern 
+object-oriented programming languages such as Java provides a path to this un- 
+derstanding because we design, build, and use our own data types. Our Graph data 
+type is a fundamental one, the product of many iterations and experience with the 
+design choices that we have discussed. The clarity and simplicity of our client code 
+is testimony to the value of taking seriously the design and implementation of basic 
+data types in any program. 
+
+Develop code incrementally. As with all of our other case studies, we build soft- 
+ware one module at a time, testing and learning about each module before moving 
+to the next. 
+
+Solve problems that you understand before addressing the unknown. Our 
+shortest-paths example involving air routes between a few cities is a simple one 
+that is easy to understand. It is just complicated enough to hold our interest while 
+debugging and following through a trace, but not so complicated as to make these 
+tasks unnecessarily laborious. 
+
+Keep testing and check results. When working with complex programs that pro- 
+cess huge amounts of data, you cannot be too careful in checking your results. Use 
+common sense to evaluate every bit of output that your program produces. Novice 
+programmers have an optimistic mindset (“if the program produces an answer, 
+it must be correct”); experienced programmers know that a pessimistic mindset 
+(“there must be something wrong with this result”) is far better. 
+
+Use real-world data. The movi es . txt file from the Internet Movie Database is 
+just one example of the data files that are now omnipresent on the web. In past 
+years, such data was often cloaked behind private or parochial formats, but most 
+people are now realizing that simple text formats are much preferred. The various 
+methods in Java’s Stri ng data type make it easy to work with real data, which is 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+681 
+
+
+the best way to formulate hypotheses about real-world phenomena. Start working 
+with small files in the real-world format, so that you can test and learn about per- 
+formance before attacking huge files. 
+
+Reuse software. Another of our most persistent messages is 
+that effective programming is based on an understanding of the 
+fundamental data types available for our use, so that we do not 
+have to rewrite code for basic functions. Our use of ST and SET 
+in Graph is a prime example — most programmers still use low- 
+er-level representations and implementations that use linked 
+lists or arrays for graphs, which means, inevitably, that they are 
+rewriting code for simple operations such as maintaining and 
+traversing linked lists. Our shortest-paths class Path Finder 
+uses Graph, ST, SET, Stack, and Queue, an all-star lineup of 
+fundamental data structures. 
+
+Maintain flexibility. Reusing software often means using Java library classes. 
+These classes are generally very wide interfaces (many methods), so it is always wise 
+to define and implement your own APIs with narrow interfaces between clients and 
+implementations, even if your implementations are all calls on Java library meth- 
+ods. This approach provides the flexibility that you need to switch to more effective 
+implementations when warranted and avoids dependence on changes to parts of 
+the library that you do not use. For example, using ST in our Graph implementa- 
+tions gives us the flexibility to use Java’s j ava . uti 1 . T reeMap or our BST symbol- 
+table implementation without having to change Graph at all. 
+
+Performance matters. Without good algorithms and data structures, many of the 
+problems that we have addressed in this chapter would go unsolved, because naive 
+methods require an impossible amount of time or space. Maintaining an awareness 
+of the approximate resource needs of our programs is essential. 
+
+This case study is an appropriate place to end the book because the programs that 
+we have considered are a starting point, not a complete study. This book is a start- 
+ing point, too, for your further study in science, mathematics, or engineering. The 
+approach to programming and the tools that you have learned here should prepare 
+you well for addressing any computational problem whatsoever. 
+
+
+
+Code reuse for Pathfi nder 
+
+
+
+682 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Q. How many different graphs are there with V given vertices? 
+
+A. With no self-loops or parallel edges, there are V(V— 1)/2 possible edges, each 
+of which can be present or not present, so the grand total is 2 v(v-\)n^ The number 
+grows to be huge quite quickly, as shown in the following table: 
+
+V 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 
+
+2V(v-m 1 2 8 64 1024 32768 2097152 268435456 68719476736 
+
+These huge numbers provide some insight into the complexities of social relation- 
+ships. For example, if you just consider the next nine people that you see on the 
+street, there are over 68 trillion mutual-acquaintance possibilities! 
+
+Q. Can a graph have a vertex that is not connected to any other vertex by an edge? 
+
+A. Good question. Such vertices are known as isolated vertices. Our implementa- 
+tion disallows them. Another implementation might choose to allow isolated verti- 
+ces by including an explicit addVertexO method for the add a vertex operation. 
+
+Q. Why not just use a linked-list representation for the neighbors of each vertex? 
+
+A. You can do so, but you are likely to wind up re-implementing basic linked-list 
+code as you discover that you need the size, an iterator, and so forth. 
+
+Q. Why do the V () and E () query methods need to have constant-time implemen- 
+tations? 
+
+A. It might seem that most clients would call such methods only once, but an ex- 
+tremely common idiom is to use code like 
+
+for (int i = 0; i < G.E(); i++) { ... } 
+
+which would take quadratic time if you were to use a lazy algorithm that counts the 
+edges instead of maintaining an instance variable with the number of edges. See 
+Exercise 4 . 5 . 1 . 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+683 
+
+
+
+Q. Why are Graph and PathFinder in separate classes? Wouldn’t it make more 
+sense to include the PathFi nder methods in the Graph API? 
+
+A. Finding shortest paths is just one of many graph-processing algorithms. It 
+would be poor software design to include all of them in a single interface. Please 
+reread the discussion of wide interfaces in Section 3.3. 
+
+
+
+684 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4.5.1 Add to Graph the implementations of V() and E() that return the number 
+of vertices and edges in the graph, respectively. Make sure that your implementa- 
+tions are constant-time. Hint : For V(), you may assume that the si ze() method in 
+ST is constant- time; for EO, maintain an instance variable that holds the value. 
+
+4.5.2 Add a method deg ree O to Graph that takes aStringas input and returns 
+the degree of the named vertex. Use this method to find the performer in movi es . 
+txt who has appeared in the most movies. 
+
+Answer: 
+
+public int degree(String v) 
+
+{ 
+
+if (st.contains(v)) return st.get(v) .size() ; 
+else return 0; 
+
+} 
+
+4.5.3 Add to Graph a method hasVertexf) that takes a Stri ng argument and 
+returns true if it names a vertex in the graph, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+4.5.4 Add to Graph a method hasEdgeO that takes two Stri ng arguments and 
+returns true if they specify an edge in the graph, and fal se otherwise. 
+
+4.5.5 Create a copy constructor for Graph that takes as argument a graph G, then 
+creates and initializes a new, independent copy of the graph. Any future changes to 
+G should not affect the newly created graph. 
+
+4.5.6 Write a version of Graph that supports explicit vertex creation and allows 
+self-loops, parallel edges, and isolated vertices. Hint: Use a Queue for the adjacency 
+lists instead of a SET. 
+
+4.5.7 Add to Graph a method remove O that takes two String arguments and 
+deletes the specified edge from the graph, if present. 
+
+4.5.8 Add to Graph a method subgraph () that takes a SET<String> as argu- 
+ment and returns the induced subgraph (the graph comprised of those vertices and 
+all edges from the original graph that connect any two of them). 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+685 
+
+
+
+4.5.9 Write a version of Graph that supports generic vertex types (easy). Then, 
+write a version of PathFi nder that uses your implementation to support finding 
+shortest paths using generic vertex types (more difficult). 
+
+4.5.10 Create a version of Graph from the previous exercise to support bipartite 
+graphs (graphs whose edges all connect a vertex of one generic type to a vertex of 
+another generic type). 
+
+4.5. 1 1 True or false : At some point during breadth-first search the queue can con- 
+tain two vertices, one whose distance from the source is 7 and one whose distance 
+is 9. 
+
+Answer: False. The queue can contain vertices of at most two distinct distances d 
+and d+ 1. Breadth first search examines the vertices in increasing order of distance 
+from the source. When examining a vertex at distance d, only vertices of distance 
+d + 1 can be enqueued. 
+
+4.5.12 Prove by induction on the set of vertices visited that PathFi nder finds the 
+shortest path distances from the source to each vertex. 
+
+4.5.13 Suppose you use a stack instead of a queue for breadth-first search in Path- 
+Fi nder. Does it still find a path? Does it still correctly compute shortest paths? In 
+each case, prove that it does or give a counterexample. 
+
+4.5.14 What would be the effect of using a queue instead of a stack when forming 
+the shortest path in pathToO? 
+
+4.5.15 Add a method i sReachabl e(v) to PathFi nder that returns true if there 
+exists some path from the source to v, and f al se otherwise. 
+
+4.5.16 Write a Graph client that uses the constructor given in the text to read a 
+Graph from a file, then prints the edges in the graph, one per line. 
+
+4.5.17 Implement a PathFi nder client AllShortestPaths that builds a Path- 
+Fi nder for each vertex, with a test client that takes from standard input two-vertex 
+queries and prints the shortest path connecting them. 
+
+
+
+
+686 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+Answer: 
+
+public class AllShortestPaths 
+
+{ 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+In in = new In (args [0]); 
+
+Graph G = new Graph(in, " "); 
+
+ST<String, PathFinder> all paths; 
+allpaths = new ST<String, PathFinder>() ; 
+for (String s : G.verticesO) 
+
+all paths. put (s, new Path Finder (G, s)); 
+
+while (! Stdln. isEmptyO) 
+
+{ 
+
+String s = Stdln. readStringO ; 
+
+String t = Stdln. readStringO ; 
+for (String v : al 1 paths. get (s) .pathTo(t)) 
+StdOut.print(" " + v); 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+} 
+
+Modify this code to use a delimiter, so that you can type the two-string queries on 
+one line (separated by the delimiter) and get as output a shortest chain between 
+them. Note: For movi es . txt, the query strings may both be performers, both be 
+movies, or be a performer and a movie. 
+
+4.5.18 Write a program that plots average distance versus the number of random 
+edges as random shortcuts are added to a ring graph. 
+
+4.5. 19 Implement a test client mai n () for Smal 1 Wo rl d (Program 4.5.5) that pro- 
+duces the output given in the sample runs. Your program should take a delimiter 
+as command-line argument and read the graph from Stdln in our standard edge- 
+list format. You program should be a Graph and PathFi nder client that builds the 
+graph; computes the number of vertices, average degree, average path length, and 
+cluster coefficient for the graph; and indicates whether the values are too large or 
+too small for the graph to exhibit the small-world phenomenon. 
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+687 
+
+
+
+Partial answer: 
+
+public static void main(String[] args) 
+
+{ 
+
+In stdin = new In(); 
+
+String delim = args[0]; 
+
+Graph G = new Graph(stdin, delim); 
+
+StdOut.printf("%d vertices", G.VO); 
+if (G.VO < 1000) 
+
+{ StdOut.printC" (too small) "); 
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+double val = avgDegree(G) ; 
+
+StdOut.printf ("average degree %7.3f", val); 
+if (val > 10.0 * Math.log (G.VO) / Math.log(2)) 
+{ StdOut.printC (too big) ") ; 
+
+StdOut.printlnO ; 
+
+
+> 
+
+
+4 . 5.20 Add to SmallWorld a method isSmallWorldO that takes a graph as ar- 
+gument and returns true if the graph exhibits the small-world phenomenon (as 
+defined by the specific thresholds given in the text) and f al se otherwise. 
+
+4 . 5.21 Add to Smal 1 Worl d a method cl usterCoef f i ci ent () that takes a graph 
+and an integer k as arguments and computes a cluster coefficient for the graph 
+based on total edges present and total edges possible among the set of vertices with- 
+in distance k of each vertex. Your program should produce results identical to the 
+method in Smal 1 Worl d when k is 1.) 
+
+4 . 5.22 Compute the average distance between two vertices in a ring 
+graph with N vertices, and compute the cluster coefficient of a star graph 
+with N vertices. 
+
+4 . 5.23 In a k-circle graph (for any given constant k), edges connect ver- 
+tex i to vertex i+j (mod V) for all postive j less than k. Write a Smal 1 - 
+World and Graph client that generates fc-circle graphs and tests whether 
+they exhibit the small-world phenomenon (first do Exercise 4.5.20). 
+
+
+
+3-circle graph 
+
+
+
+
+688 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4 . 5.24 In a grid graph, vertices are arranged in an N-by-N grid, with edges con- 
+necting each vertex to its neighbors above, below, to the left, and 
+to the right in the grid. Write a Smal IWorl d and Graph client that 
+generates grid graphs and tests whether they exhibit the small- 
+world phenomenon (first do Exercise 4.5.20). 
+
+4 . 5.25 Extend your solutions of the previous two exercises to 
+
+also take a command-line argument M and to add M random edges 
+to the graph. Experiment with your programs for 1,024- vertex 
+graphs to find small- world graphs with as few edges as possible. Grid graph 
+
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+689 
+
+
+
+4 . 5.26 Large Bacon numbers. Find the performers in movi es . txt with the largest, 
+but finite, Kevin Bacon number. 
+
+4 . 5.27 Histogram. Write a program BaconHi stogram that prints a histogram of 
+Kevin Bacon numbers, indicating how many performers from movi es . txt have a 
+Bacon number of 0, 1, 2, 3, ... . Include a category for those who have an infinite 
+number (not connected at all to Kevin Bacon). 
+
+4 . 5.28 Performer graph. As mentioned in the text, an alternate way to compute 
+Kevin Bacon numbers is to build a graph where there is a vertex for each performer 
+(but not for each movie), and where two performers are connected by an edge 
+if they appear in a movie together. Calculate Kevin Bacon numbers by running 
+breadth-first searches on the performer graph. Compare the running time with the 
+running time on movi es . txt. Explain why this approach is so much slower. Also 
+explain what you would need to do to include the movies along the path, as happens 
+automatically with our implementation. 
+
+4 . 5.29 Connected components. A connected component in an undirected graph is a 
+maximal set of vertices that are mutually reachable. Write a Graph client CCFi nder 
+that computes the connected components of a graph. Include a constructor that 
+takes a Graph as an argument and computes all of the connected components us- 
+ing breadth-first search. Include a method areConnected(v, w) that returns true 
+if v and w are in the same connected component and fal se otherwise. Also add a 
+method components () that returns the number of connected components. 
+
+4 . 5.30 Flood fill / image processing. An i mage is a two-dimensional array of Col or 
+values (see Section 3.1) that represent pixels. A blob is a collection of neighboring 
+pixels of the same color. Write a Graph client whose constructor builds a grid graph 
+(see Exercise 4.5.24) from a given image and supports the flood fill operation. Given 
+pixel coordinates i and j and a color c, change the color of that pixel and all the 
+pixels in the same blob to c. 
+
+4 . 5.31 Word ladders. Write a program WordLadder that takes two 5-letter strings 
+from the command line, and reads in a list of 5-letter words from standard input, 
+and prints out a shortest word ladder using the words on standard input connecting 
+
+
+
+
+690 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+the two strings (if it exists). Two words can be connected in a word ladder chain if 
+they differ in exactly one letter. As an example, the following word ladder connects 
+green and brown: 
+
+green greet great groat groan grown brown 
+
+Write a simple filter to get the 5-letter words from a system dictionary for standard 
+input or download a list from the booksite. (This game, originally known as dou- 
+blet, was invented by Lewis Carroll.) 
+
+4.5.32 All paths. Write a Graph client A1 1 Paths whose constructor takes a Graph 
+as argument and supports operations to count or print out all simple paths be- 
+tween two given vertices s and t in the graph. A simple path does not revisit any 
+vertex more than once. In two-dimensional grids, such paths are referred to as self- 
+avoiding walks (see Section 1.4). It is a fundamental problem in statistical physics 
+and theoretical chemistry, e.g., to model the spatial arrangement of linear polymer 
+molecules in a solution. Warning: There might be exponentially many paths. 
+
+4.5.33 Percolation. Develop a graph model for percolation, and write a Graph cli- 
+ent that performs the same computation as Percol ati on (Program 2.4.5). 
+
+4.5.34 Subway graphs. In the Tokyo subway system, routes are labeled by letters 
+and stops by numbers, such as G-8 or A-3. Stations allowing transfers are sets of 
+stops. Find a Tokyo subway map on the web, develop a simple database format, 
+and write a Graph client that reads a file and can answer shortest-path queries for 
+the Tokyo subway system. If you prefer, do the Paris subway system, where routes 
+are sequences of names and transfers are possible when two routes have the same 
+name. 
+
+4.5.35 Directed graphs. Implement a Digraph data type that represents directed 
+graphs, where the direction of edges is significant: addEdge (v , w) means to add an 
+edge from v to w but not from w to v. Replace ad j acentTo () with two methods, one 
+to give the set of vertices having edges directed to them from the argument vertex, 
+the other to give the set of vertices having edges directed from them to the argument 
+vertex. Explain how PathFi nder would need to be modified to find shortest paths 
+in directed graphs. 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+691 
+
+
+
+4.5.36 Random surfer. Modify your Digraph class of the previous exercise to 
+make a Mul ti Digraph class that allows parallel edges. For a test client, run a ran- 
+dom surfer simulation that matches RAndomSurfer (Program 1.6.2). 
+
+4.5.37 Transitive closure. Write a Di g raph client T ransi ti veCl osu re whose con- 
+structor takes a Di g raph as an argument and whose method i sReachabl e (v , w) 
+returns true if w is reachable from v along a directed path in the digraph and fal se 
+otherwise. Hint : Run breadth-first search from each vertex, as in AllShortest- 
+Paths (Exercise 4.5.17). 
+
+4.5.38 Cover time. A random walk in a connected undirected graph moves from 
+a vertex to one of its neighbors, each chosen with equal probability. (This process 
+is the random surfer analog for undirected graphs.) Write programs to run experi- 
+ments so that support the development of hypotheses on the number of steps used 
+to visit every vertex in the graph. What is the cover time for a complete graph with V 
+vertices? A ring graph? Can you find a family of graphs where the cover time grows 
+proportionally to V 3 or 2 v ? 
+
+4.5.39 Center of the Hollywood universe. We can measure how good a center Kevin 
+Bacon is by computing each performer’s Hollywood number or average path length. 
+The Hollywood number of Kevin Bacon is the average Bacon number of all the 
+performers (in its connected component). The Hollywood number of another per- 
+former is computed the same way, making that performer the source instead of 
+Kevin Bacon. Compute Kevin Bacon’s Hollywood number and find a performer 
+with a better Hollywood number than Kevin Bacon. Find the performers (in the 
+same connected component as Kevin Bacon) with the best and worst Hollywood 
+numbers. 
+
+4.5.40 Diameter. The eccentricity of a vertex is the greatest distance between it 
+and any other vertex. The diameter of a graph is the greatest distance between any 
+two vertices (the maximum eccentricity of any vertex). Write a Graph client Di am- 
+eter that can compute the eccentricity of a vertex and the diameter of a graph. Use 
+it to find the diameter of the graph represented by movi es . txt. 
+
+
+
+
+692 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+
+
+4 . 5.41 Erdds-Renyi graph model. In the classical random graph model, we build 
+a random graph on V vertices by including each possible edge with probability p. 
+Write a Graph client to verify the following properties: 
+
+• Connectivity thresholds: If p< l/V and V is large, then most of connected 
+components are small, with the largest logarithmic in size. If p > l/V, then 
+there is almost surely a giant component containing almost all vertices. If p 
+< In V / V, the graph is disconnected with high probability; if p > In V / V, 
+the graph is connected with high probability. 
+
+• Distribution of degrees: The distribution of degrees follows a binomial 
+distribution, centered on the average, so most vertices have similar degrees. 
+The probability that a vertex is connected to k other vertices decreases 
+exponentially in k. 
+
+• No hubs: The maximum vertex degree when p is a constant is at most loga- 
+rithmic in V. 
+
+• Little local clustering: The cluster coefficient is close to 0 if the graph is 
+sparse and connected. Random graphs are not small-world graphs. 
+
+• Small diameter: If p > In VI V, the diameter is logarithmic. 
+
+4 . 5.42 Power law of web links. The indegrees and outdegrees of pages in the web 
+obey a power law that can be modeled by a preferred attachment process. Suppose 
+that each web page has exactly one outgoing link. Each page is created one at a time, 
+starting with a single page that points to itself. With probability p < 1, it links to one 
+of the existing pages, chosen uniformly at random. With probability 1 — p, it links 
+to an existing page with probability proportional to the number of incoming links 
+of that page. This rule reflects the common tendency for new web pages to point to 
+popular pages. Write a program to simulate this process and plot a histogram of the 
+number of incoming links. 
+
+Partial answer: The fraction of pages with indegree k is proportional to k ( _1 1 
+
+4 . 5.43 Watts-Strogatz graph model. (See Exercise 4.5.25.) Watts and Strogatz pro- 
+posed a hybrid model that contains typical links of vertices near each other (people 
+know their geographic neighbors), plus some random long-range connection links. 
+Plot the effect of adding random edges to an N-by-N grid graph on the average path 
+
+
+
+
+4.5 Small World Phenomenon 
+
+
+693 
+
+
+
+length and on the cluster coefficient, for N = 100. Do the same for k-circle graphs, 
+for various values of k up to 10 log V, for V = 10,000 
+
+4.5.44 Kleinberg graph model There is no way for participants in the Watts- 
+Strogatz model to find short paths in a decentralized network. But Milgram’s ex- 
+periment also had a striking algorithmic component — individuals can find short 
+paths! Jon Kleinberg proposed making the distribution of shortcuts obey a power 
+law, with probability proportional to the dth power of the distance (in d dimen- 
+sions) . Each vertex has one long-range neighbor. Write a program to generate graphs 
+according to this model, with a test client that uses Smal 1 Worl d to test whether they 
+exhibit the small-world phenomenon. Plot histograms to show that the graphs are 
+uniform over all distance scales (same number of links at distances 1-10 as 10-100 
+or 100-1000. Write a program to compute the average lengths of paths obtained by 
+taking the edge that brings the path as close to target as possible in terms of lattice 
+distance, and test the hypothesis that this average is proportional to (log VO 2 . 
+
+
+
+
+
+I n this closing section, we place your newly- acquired knowledge of programming 
+in a broader context by briefly describing some of the basic elements of the world 
+of computation that you are likely to encounter. It is our hope that this information 
+will whet your appetite to use your knowledge of programming as a platform for 
+learning more about the role of computation in the world around you. 
+
+You now know how to program. Just as learning to drive an SUV is not dif- 
+ficult when you know how to drive a car, learning to program in a different lan- 
+guage will not be difficult for you. Many scientists regularly use several different 
+languages, for various different purposes. The primitive data types, conditionals, 
+loops, and functional abstraction of Chapters 1 and 2 (that served programmers 
+well for the first couple of decades of computing) and the object-oriented pro- 
+gramming approach of Chapter 3 (that is used by modern programmers) are basic 
+models found in many programming languages. Your skill in using them and the 
+fundamental data types of Chapter 4 will prepare you to cope with libraries, pro- 
+gram development environments, and specialized applications of all sorts. You are 
+also well-positioned to appreciate the power of abstraction in designing complex 
+systems and understanding how they work. 
+
+The study of computer science is much more than learning to program. Now 
+that you are familiar with programming and conversant with computing, you are 
+well-prepared to learn about some of the outstanding intellectual achievements 
+of the past century, some of the most important unsolved problems of our time, 
+and their role in the evolution of the computational infrastructure that surrounds 
+us. Perhaps even more significant, as we have hinted throughout the book, is that 
+computation is playing an ever increasing role in our understanding of nature, 
+from genomics to molecular dynamics to astrophysics. Further study of the basic 
+precepts of computer science is certain to pay dividends for you. 
+
+
+
+696 
+
+
+Context 
+
+
+Java libraries. The Java system provides extensive resources for your use. We have 
+made extensive use of some Java libraries, such as Math and Stri ng, but have ig- 
+nored most of them. One of Java’s unique features is that a great deal of infor- 
+mation about the libraries is readily available online. If you have not yet browsed 
+through the Java libraries, now is the time to do so. You will find that most of this 
+code is for use by professional developers, but there are a number of libraries that 
+you are likely to find to be interesting. Perhaps the most important thing for you to 
+keep in mind when studying libraries is that you do need to use them, but you can 
+use them. When you find an API that seems to meet your needs, take advantage of 
+it, by all means. 
+
+Programming environments. You will certainly find yourself using other pro- 
+gramming environments besides Java in the future. Many programmers, even ex- 
+perienced professionals, are caught between the past, because of huge amounts of 
+legacy code in old languages such as C, C++, and Fortran, and the future, because 
+of the availability of modern tools like Ruby, Python, and JavaScript. Perhaps the 
+most important thing for you to keep in mind when using a programming lan- 
+guage is that you do not need to use it. If some other language might better meet 
+your needs, take advantage of it, by all means. People who insist on staying within a 
+single programming environment, for whatever reason, are missing opportunities. 
+
+Scientific computing. In particular, computing with numbers can be very tricky, 
+because of accuracy and precision, so the use of libraries of mathematical func- 
+tions is certainly justified. Many scientists use Fortran, an old scientific language; 
+many others use Matlab, a language that was developed specifically for computing 
+with matrices. The combination of good libraries and built-in matrix operations 
+makes Matlab an attractive choice for many problems. However, since Matlab lacks 
+support for mutable types and other modern facilities, Java is a better choice for 
+many other problems. You can use both! The same mathematical libraries used by 
+Matlab and Fortran programmers are accessible from Java (and by modern script- 
+ing languages). 
+
+Computer systems. Properties of specific computer systems once completely de- 
+termined the nature and extent of problems that could be solved, but now they 
+hardly intrude. You can still count on having a faster machine with much more 
+memory next year at this time. Strive to keep your code machine-independent, 
+
+
+
+so that you can easily make the switch. More importantly, the web is playing an 
+increasingly critical role in commercial and scientific computing, as you have seen 
+in many examples in this book. You can write programs that process data that is 
+maintained elsewhere, programs that interact with programs executing elsewhere, 
+and take advantage of many other properties of the extensive and evolving compu- 
+tational infrastructure. Do not hesitate to do so. People who invest significant effort 
+in writing programs for specific machines, even high-powered supercomputers, are 
+missing opportunities. 
+
+Theoretical computer science. By contrast, fundamental limits on computation 
+have been apparent from the start and continue to play an important role in deter- 
+mining the kinds of problems that we can address. You might be surprised to learn 
+that there are some problems that no computer program can solve and many other 
+problems, which arise commonly in practice, that are thought to be too difficult 
+to solve on any conceivable computer. Everyone who depends on computation for 
+problem solving, creative work, or research needs to respect these facts. 
+
+You have certainly come a long way since you tentatively created, compiled, and 
+ran HelloWorld, but you certainly still have a great deal to learn. Keep program- 
+ming, and keep learning about programming environments, scientific computing, 
+computer systems, and theoretical computer science, and you will open opportuni- 
+ties for yourself that people who do not program cannot even conceive. 
+
+
+
+
+c|) (Gaussian pdf) 194 
+$ (Gaussian cdf) 194 
+tt (pi) 29 
+
+A 
+
+Abstract data structure 
+See also API; Encapsulation 
+deque 602 
+graph 650 
+queue 576 
+
+random queue 580, 602 
+set 632 
+stack 551 
+symbol table 608 
+Abstract data type 
+See Encapsulation 
+Abstraction 315 
+Access modifier 372 
+Adaptive plot 300-303 
+Albers, Josef 325 
+Algorithm 471-606 
+binary search 511-519 
+breadth-first search 663-671 
+brute-force 513 
+depth-first search 298-299 
+Dijkstra’s 2-stack 571 
+Dijkstra’s shortest path 672 
+Euclid’s gcd 81, 259-260 
+Horner’s method 214 
+insertion sort 521-526 
+Mandelbrot test 394-397 
+mergesort 527 
+Newton’s method 61 
+
+
+quicksort 548 
+shuffling an array 93 
+Sieve of Eratosthenes 99-101 
+Aliasing 
+defined 353 
+with substrings 493 
+Alpha-blending 334 
+Amortized analysis 564 
+Analysis of algorithms 
+amortized analysis 564 
+big-Oh notation 497 
+binary search tree 626-628 
+breadth-first search 671 
+inner loop 478 
+insertion sort 522 
+leading term 478 
+memory 490-494 
+mergesort 530 
+order of growth 478-489 
+running time 473-489 
+space-time tradeoff 95 
+tilde notation 478 
+worst-case 488 
+Anatomy 
+of a class 377 
+of a command 128 
+of a constructor 373 
+of an expression 17 
+of a for loop 57 
+of an i f statement 47 
+of an instance method 373 
+of a pri ntf statement 124 
+of a program 7 
+of a signature 30 
+
+
+of a static method 188 
+of a while loop 50 
+Animation 143-145 
+API 29, 223,318 
+Body 458 
+Charge 318 
+Color 326 
+Complex 391,721 
+Counter 424, 721 
+Deque 602 
+Document 434 
+Draw 351, 716 
+Gaussian 223 
+Graph 655, 721 
+Histogram 718 
+In 345,715 
+Interval 408 
+Math 29,714 
+Out 346, 714 
+PathFi nder 663, 723 
+Picture 330,718 
+Poi nt 409 
+Queue 577, 722 
+RandomQueue 602 
+Rational 408 
+SET 632, 720 
+ST 609, 720 
+Stack 552, 720 
+StdArraylO 229, 719 
+StdAudio 149, 718 
+StdDraw 146, 718 
+Stdln 127,717 
+StdOut 124, 716 
+StdRandom 225,719 
+
+
+699 
+
+
+700 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+StdStats 236,719 
+StockAccount 398 
+Stopwatch 718 
+String 338, 717 
+System. out 28,716 
+Turtle 382, 720 
+Universe 461 
+Vector 431, 721 
+APL language 404 
+Applications programming 
+interface. See API 
+Argument variable 187, 190 
+Arithmetic expression 17, 570 
+Arithmetic overflow. 
+
+See Integer overflow 
+Array 86-1 19 
+as an object 355 
+as an argument 198 
+as a return value 201 
+assignment 96 
+bounds checking 91 
+copy an 89 
+create an 87 
+declare an 87 
+default initialization 87 
+equality test 96 
+exchange two elements 200 
+indexing 86 
+initialization 87, 91 
+input and output 229, 230 
+length 89 
+
+memory allocation 90 
+memory representation 90 
+memory usage 492 
+multidimensional 107 
+of objects 355 
+one-dimensional 86 
+out-of-bounds 91 
+parallel 399 
+plot an 238 
+
+
+print an 200 
+ragged 106 
+reverse an 89, 113 
+two-dimensional 86, 102-110 
+zero-based indexing 112 
+Array doubling 562 
+Assert statement 446-447 
+Assignment statement 
+parse an 646 
+with arrays 96 
+with primitive types 16 
+with reference types 353 
+Associative array 613 
+Associativity 17 
+Audio processing. 
+
+See Digital audio 
+Auto-boxing 569 
+Automatic initialization 
+of array elements 87, 496 
+of instance variables 403 
+Automatic type conversion 
+See Type conversion 
+Auto-unboxing 569 
+Average 
+
+of a stream of numbers 130 
+of elements in an array 89 
+
+B 
+
+Bacon, Kevin 664 
+Balanced search tree 632 
+Barnsley fern 232 
+Base case 256 
+Base class 438 
+Beckett, Samuel 265 
+Benford’s law 215 
+Bentley, Jon 543 
+Bernouilli, Jacob 386 
+Bernoulli distribution 225, 241' 
+Big-Oh notation 497 
+
+
+Binary number 63 
+Binary operator 17 
+Binary representation 
+binary search 514 
+number conversion 63 
+Binary search 511-520 
+binary representation 514 
+exception filter 518 
+in a sorted array 516 
+in a symbol table 636 
+Java library 543 
+to invert a function 214, 515 
+to weigh an object 518 
+twenty questions 512 
+Binary search tree 619-631 
+See also Binary tree 
+ceiling 639 
+
+find the maximum 631 
+find the minimum 631 
+floor 639 
+
+insert into 624-625 
+order statistics 632, 644 
+performance of 626 
+range search 632 
+rank query 644 
+red-black tree 628, 632 
+removal in 631 
+search in 622 
+traversal of 628-631 
+visual representation 620 
+Binary tree 
+balanced 640 
+inorder traversal 628 
+isomorphism between 640 
+leaf in 621 
+
+level-order traversal 641 
+postorder traversal 628 
+preorder traversal 628 
+root of 621 
+
+Binomial coefficient 119 
+
+
+
+701 
+
+
+Binomial distribution 215 
+Birthday problem 119,213 
+Bisection search 214 
+Bit 21 
+
+Bitmapped image 329 
+Black-Scholes formula 214 
+Block statement 46 
+Body 
+
+of an if statement 46 
+of a loop 49 
+Booksite 4 
+
+bool ean data type 25-27 
+Boolean logic 26 
+Bounding box 138 
+Bouncing ball 144-145, 457 
+Box-Muller formula 42, 213 
+Breadth-first search 663-671 
+break statement 70 
+Brownian bridge 270-271 
+Brownian island 284 
+Brownian motion 388 
+Brown, Robert 388 
+BST. See Binary search tree 
+Buffer overflow 91 
+Bug. See Error 
+Built-in type 14-45 
+Byte 490 
+
+byte data type 23 
+
+c 
+
+C language 3 
+array declaration 112 
+compound assignment 56 
+memory leak 357 
+printf 123 
+C++ language 3 
+iterators 592 
+memory leak 357 
+operator overloading 404 
+
+
+Caching 486 
+Calendar 216 
+Call a method 29 
+Callback 438 
+Call by reference 201 
+Calls itself. See Recursion 
+Carroll, Lewis 690 
+Case study 
+
+N-body simulation 456-469 
+percolation 286-313 
+random web surfer 162-181 
+small-world 650-693 
+Cast 31-33 
+Centroid 156 
+Chaos 85 
+
+with Newton’s method 414 
+char data type 19 
+\n (newline) 19 
+\t (tab) 19 
+
+\” (quotation mark) 19 
+\\ (backslash) 19 
+Checksum 82, 210 
+Chord 202,216 
+Chromatic scale 148 
+Circular queue 604 
+Class 
+
+anatomy of 377 
+as a data type 371 
+as a program 6 
+as a set of methods 218 
+inner 558, 593 
+nested 558, 593 
+classpath 153,247, 307 
+Client 222 
+
+CMYK color format 43, 361 
+Code maintenance 245, 681 
+Code reuse 218, 245, 306, 681 
+Coin flip 49 
+Collatz function 283 
+Collection 550 
+
+
+Color 324-328 
+CMYK format 361 
+Color API 326 
+compatibility 327 
+luminance 326 
+RGB representation 324, 361 
+RGB to CMYK conversion 43 
+to grayscale 327 
+with standard draw 324 
+Column-major order 105 
+Combination 281-282 
+Command 128 
+
+Command-line argument 8, 9 
+Command-line input 121 
+Comment 10 
+
+Comparabl e interface 434-436 
+compareToO 436, 523 
+for sorting 523 
+keys in a BST 609 
+Compiler 5, 573 
+Compile-time error 
+See Error 
+
+Complex number 390-397 
+Compound assignment 56 
+Computer science 695 
+Concatenation 19 
+Concert A 147 
+Concordance 638 
+Conditional 
+i f statement 46 
+switch statement 70-71 
+Connected component 689 
+Constant 
+Double. NaN 185 
+Doubl e . N EGATI VE_I N FI N ITY 36 
+Doubl e . POSITIVE JINFINITY 36 
+Integer ,MAX_VALUE 54 
+Integer .MIN_VALUE 54 
+Math. E 29 
+Math . PI 29 
+
+
+
+702 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+Constant running time 481 
+Constructor 
+anatomy of 373 
+default no-argument 403 
+defined 372 
+overloading a 372 
+conti nue statement 70 
+Control flow 185 
+Conversion. See Type conversion 
+Conways game of life 312 
+Corner case 228 
+Cost. See Performance 
+Coulomb’s law 317 
+Coupon collector 97-99, 196 
+Crichton, Michael 412 
+Ctrl -c 72, 153 
+ctrl-d 131 
+ctrl-z 131 
+
+Cubic running time 482 
+
+D 
+
+Dangling el se 75 
+Data abstraction 315, 370 
+Data-driven code 133, 163, 177 
+Data mining 439-445 
+Data structure 471-693 
+See also Abstract data struc- 
+ture 
+array 86 
+
+binary search tree 619-631 
+linked list 555-558 
+parallel arrays 399 
+Data type 
+built-in 14-45 
+creating a 370-469 
+defined 14 
+designing a 416-469 
+generic 566 
+immutable 427-429 
+
+
+mutable 427-429 
+parameterized 566 
+primitive type 36 
+reference type 316 
+using a 316-369 
+wrapper 569 
+Day of the week 42 
+Debugging 
+
+by printing variables 52 
+by tracing code 17 
+compile-time errors 8 
+corner case 228 
+is difficult 177 
+run-time errors 8 
+stress test 228 
+unit test 227 
+Declaration statement 
+array 87 
+
+primitive type variable 16 
+reference type variable 319 
+instance variable 372 
+Defensive copy 429 
+Delimiter 659 
+De Morgan’s laws 26 
+Dependency graph 243 
+Deprecated method 448 
+Depth-first search 298-299 
+Deque data type 602 
+Dequeue (from a queue) 576 
+Derived class 438 
+Descartes, Rene 386 
+Design 
+
+of a data type 416-469 
+of a library 224-225 
+Design-by-contract 446 
+Dictionary lookup 611-615 
+Digital audio 
+chord 202 
+chromatic scale 148 
+concert A 147 
+
+
+Fourier series 217 
+harmonics 202 
+plotting a wave 241 
+sampling 148 
+save to a file 149 
+superposition of 202-203 
+visualization of 159 
+Digital image processing 
+See Image processing 
+Digital signal processing 147 
+Dijkstra, Edsgar 547, 571 
+Dijkstra’s algorithm 672 
+Discrete distribution 164, 226, 
+647 
+
+Divide-and-conquer 
+binary search 511 
+binary search tree 622 
+mergesort 527 
+paradigm 541 
+Dot product 88, 200 
+doubl e data type 23-24 
+do-while loop 71 
+Doubling hypothesis 474 
+Dragon curve 44, 155, 412 
+Drawing. See Standard drawing 
+Dynamic dispatch 435 
+Dynamic programming 275 
+
+E 
+
+Einstein, Albert 388 
+el se clause 47 
+Empirical analysis 474 
+Encapsulation 420-426 
+modular programming 420 
+pri vate modifier 422 
+End-of-file 131 
+Enhanced for loop 
+See Foreach loop 
+Enqueue (onto a queue) 576 
+
+
+
+703 
+
+
+Entropy 367, 644 
+equal sO method 
+with Stri ng data type 338 
+with wrapper types 570 
+inherited from Object 438 
+versus == operator 359-360 
+with Col or data type 354 
+with user-defined types 449 
+Erdos number 666 
+Erdos, Paul 666 
+Error 
+
+ArraylndexOutOfBounds 12, 
+91, 122 
+
+buffer overflow 91 
+bug 8 
+
+ClassCast 567 
+defined 8 
+divide by zero 37 
+FormatConversion 125 
+loss of precision 33 
+missing return statement 207 
+NoClassDef Found 152 
+non-static method cannot be 
+referenced 207 
+Nul 1 Poi nter 360, 403 
+NumberFormat 128 
+off-by-one 89 
+OutOf Memory 497 
+RuntimeException 446 
+shadowing a variable 407 
+StackOverfl ow 273, 274 
+syntax 1 1 
+
+throw an exception 446 
+uninitialized variable 90 
+unreachable code 207 
+variable not initialized 35 
+Escape sequence 19 
+Euclidean distance 113 
+Euclid’s algorithm 81, 259-260 
+Euler, Leonhard 85 
+
+
+Event-based programming 437 
+Exception. See Error 
+Exception filter 518 
+Exchange. See Swap 
+Exponential distribution 250, 
+582 
+
+Exponential running time 
+
+263-264, 274-275, 482 
+Exponentiation 29 
+Expression 17 
+
+
+Factorial function 57, 256-257 
+Factoring 68-69 
+f al se literal 25 
+Fast Fourier transform 254 
+Fibonacci sequence 78, 274-275 
+FIFO 550 
+
+FIFO queue. See Queue 
+File extension 
+.class 5, 9,20 
+.csv 349,613,662 
+.java 5, 9, 371 
+.jpg 146,330 
+.png 146,330 
+.wav 149 
+
+File format 164, 229, 399 
+Filter 134-135, 139-140 
+f i nal modifier 372 
+Find the maximum 
+in a binary search tree 63 1 
+in a linked list 601 
+in an array 89, 200 
+of an arbitrary sequence 154 
+of two numbers 29 
+Find the minimum 
+in a binary search tree 63 1 
+of an arbitrary sequence 154 
+First-in first-out 550 
+
+
+f 1 oat data type 25 
+Floating-point number 23-25 
+infinity 25 
+
+NaN (not a number) 25 
+precision 24 
+with == operator 38 
+Flood fill 689 
+Flowchart 
+i f statement 47 
+nested loops 58 
+whi 1 e loop 54 
+Foreach loop 
+with arrays 594 
+with Iterable collections 585 
+for loop 55 
+
+Formatted printing 124-126 
+Forth language 574 
+Fortran language 696 
+Fourier series 217 
+Fractal 
+
+Barnsley fern 232 
+Brownian bridge 270-272 
+dimension 272 
+dragon curve 44, 412 
+Hilbert curve 412 
+H-tree 268-269 
+iterated function system 231 
+Koch curve 385 
+Mandelbrot set 394-397 
+plasma cloud 272 
+Sierpinski triangle 231 
+Fractional Brownian motion 
+270 
+
+Fragile base class 438 
+Frequency count 532-534 
+Function. See Static method 
+Function abstraction 315 
+Functional programming lan- 
+guage 437 
+Function call 
+
+
+
+704 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+stack implementation of 574 
+trace 187 
+tree 261 
+
+G 
+
+Gambler’s ruin 65-67 
+Game of life 312 
+Garbage collection 357 
+Gardner, Martin 412 
+Gaussian distribution 193, 270 
+binomial distribution 241 
+cdf 515 
+
+random value 42, 213, 226 
+library 223 
+
+Generic array creation 594 
+Generic type 567-569 
+Genomics 341 
+Geometric mean 154 
+Global variable 245, 405 
+Google 176 
+Graph 650-693 
+adjacency matrix 671 
+bipartite 662 
+breadth-first search 671 
+complete 674 
+connected component 689 
+diameter 691 
+directed 690 
+Erdos-Renyi 692 
+Graph API 655, 723 
+parallel edge 656 
+random 678 
+ring 674 
+self-loop 656 
+shortest path in 663-672 
+transitive closure 691 
+vertex degree 684 
+Gray code 265-267, 282 
+Grayscale 327-331 
+
+
+Great circle 44 
+Greatest common divisor 
+259-260 
+Grep 135, 440 
+
+H 
+
+Hamming distance 282 
+Harmonic mean 154 
+Harmonic number 60-61, 95, 
+191,202,213, 257 
+hashCodeO method 
+for profiling 443 
+inherited from Object 438 
+Hashing 442 
+Heap-ordered 640 
+Hello, World 6-7 
+Hertz 147 
+
+Hexadecimal integer 152 
+Hilbert curve 412 
+Hilbert, David 412 
+Histogram 169,380-381 
+Hoare, C. A. R. 495 
+Horner’s method 214 
+H-tree 268-269 
+Hurst exponent 272 
+Hyperlink 551 
+
+i 
+
+Identifier 15 
+i f statement 46-49 
+Image processing 329-337 
+alpha-blending 334 
+convert to grayscale 330 
+digital zoom 369 
+flood fill 689 
+scaling 332 
+
+Immutability 427-429 
+and aliasing 354 
+defensive copy 429 
+
+
+final modifier and 428-429 
+of strings 363, 427-429, 537 
+of symbol table keys 609, 635 
+Implementation 223 
+import directive 361 
+Indentation 58 
+Index 
+
+inverted 643 
+symbol table client 615 
+this 699 
+
+Induction 254, 258 
+Infinite loop 72, 273 
+Infix notation 570, 574 
+Information hiding 
+See Encapsulation 
+Inheritance 434-438 
+Initialization 16 
+of array elements 87 
+primitive types 16 
+Inner class 558, 593 
+Inner loop 478, 486 
+Inorder traversal 628 
+Input and output 120-161 
+for arrays 229 
+In data type 345 
+object-oriented 344-351 
+Out data type 346 
+Stdln library 126 
+StdOut library 123 
+Insertion sort 521-526 
+In silico experiment 304 
+Instance. See Object 
+Instance method 319 
+access modifier 372 
+anatomy of 373 
+calling an 319 
+define an 373 
+versus static method 323 
+Instance variable 
+accessing an 391 
+
+
+
+705 
+
+
+access modifier 372 
+defined 372 
+initialization of 403 
+shadowing an 407 
+i nt data type 21-22 
+Integer overflow 21, 36, 54, 544 
+Interface inheritance 434-436 
+Internet movie database 659 
+Interpolation 158 
+Interpreter 573 
+Invariant 447 
+Inverted index 643 
+Inverting a function 515 
+I/O. See Input and output 
+Iterable collection 585-589, 638 
+with a binary tree 629 
+with a graph 656 
+with a linked list 588 
+with an array 587 
+Iterable interface 586 
+Iterated function system 231 
+
+J 
+
+Java 3 
+installing 4 
+why use? 10 
+j avac command 5 
+java command 5 
+Java program 4 
+anatomy of 7 
+compile a 5 
+create a 5 
+execute a 5 
+
+java. util .ArrayList 592 
+java. util .Arrays 435, 543 
+java. util .Color 326 
+j ava . uti 1 . Date 454 
+j ava . uti 1 . HashMap 635 
+j ava . uti 1 . HashSet 635 
+
+
+java. util .Iterator 586 
+java. util .LinkedList 592 
+j ava . uti 1 . Stack 594 
+java. util .TreeMap 632, 635 
+java. util .TreeSet 635 
+Java Virtual Machine 5, 573, 574 
+Josephus problem 603 
+JVM. See Java Virtual Machine 
+
+K 
+
+Kevin Bacon game 664 
+Keyword 10 
+k-gram 442 
+Kleinberg, Jon 693 
+Knuth, Donald 474, 476, 495 
+Koch curve 385 
+
+L 
+
+Last-in first-out 550 
+Layers of abstraction 445 
+Leading term 478 
+Leap year 27 
+Left-associativity 17 
+lg function 481 
+Library 222 
+LIFO 550 
+
+Linearithmic running time 482 
+Linear running time 481 
+Link 557 
+
+Linked list 555-562 
+defined 555 
+insert into front 556 
+Node data type 555 
+queue 577-580 
+remove from front 557 
+reverse a 606 
+stack 558-562 
+traverse a 558 
+visual representation 557 
+
+
+Linked structure 471 
+binary tree 621 
+linked list 555 
+Lissajous pattern 160 
+Literal 
+boolean 25 
+char 19 
+defined 15 
+double 23 
+int 21 
+null 403 
+String 19 
+Little’s law 582 
+In function 30,481 
+Load balancing 590 
+Local variable 374 
+Logarithmic running time 481 
+Logarithmic spiral 386 
+Logistic map 85 
+Log-log plot 476 
+Logo language 388 
+Loitering 565 
+long datatype 23 
+Longest common prefix 
+535-536 
+
+Longest repeated substring 
+535-541 
+
+Loop 
+
+break statement 70 
+continue statement 70 
+do-whi 1 e statement 71 
+foreach statement 585 
+infinite 72 
+for statement 55 
+while statement 49 
+Luminance 326 
+
+
+
+706 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+M 
+
+Magritte, Rene 353 
+main() method 6, 199 
+command-line arguments 199 
+in each class 221 
+Mandelbrot, Benoit 394 
+Mandelbrot set 394-397 
+Markov, Andrey 168 
+Markov chain 168 
+mixing a 171 
+squaring a 171 
+Markov process 581 
+Mathematical analysis 476 
+Mathematical function 
+closed form 194 
+implementing 193 
+no closed form 194 
+Mathematical induction 
+See Induction 
+Math library 29, 716 
+Matlab 3 
+
+matrix operations 696 
+mutable types 447 
+pass by value 208 
+Matrix 102 
+addition 105 
+Hadamard 117, 308 
+library 249 
+
+multiplication 105-106, 171 
+sparse 645 
+transpose 114 
+
+McCarthy’s 91 function 285 
+M/D/1 queue 581 
+Mean 154, 236 
+Memoization 275 
+Memory address. See Pointer 
+Memory allocation 356-358 
+heap 494 
+
+of a linked list 555, 562 
+
+
+of an array 90 
+stack 494 
+
+Memory leak 357, 565 
+Memory representation 
+aliased variables 353 
+array of objects 355 
+object 321 
+
+orphaned object 356 
+substring 537 
+
+two-dimensional array 103 
+Memory usage 490-494 
+arrays 492 
+objects 490-491 
+primitive types 490 
+strings 491 
+substrings 493 
+two-dimensional arrays 493 
+Mergesort 527-530 
+nonrecursive 604 
+Method 6 
+static 184—217 
+instance 373 
+
+Midpoint displacement method 
+270-272 
+
+Milgram, Stanley 650 
+M/M/1 queue 599 
+Modular programming 183, 
+218-219, 243-245, 420 
+Module 183, 220 
+Monochrome luminance 
+See Luminance 
+Monte Carlo simulation 286 
+See also Simulation 
+Moore’s law 484-485 
+more command 135 
+Multidimensional array 107 
+Mutability 
+defined 427-429 
+of arrays 427-429 
+
+
+N 
+
+NaN (not a number) 185 
+Natural ordering 434 
+N-body simulation 456-469 
+Nested class 558, 593 
+Nesting 58 
+new operator 
+with arrays 87 
+with objects 319 
+Newline character 19 
+Newton, Isaac 61, 84, 457 
+Newton’s method 61, 186 
+N log N running time 
+See Linearithmic running time 
+Node data type 
+in a binary tree 620-621 
+in a linked list 555 
+Normal distribution 
+See Gaussian distribution 
+null literal 
+array elements 87 
+as a default value 403 
+defined 403 
+with linked lists 556 
+with binary trees 619 
+Null pointer exception 403 
+Number conversion 63, 80 
+
+o 
+
+Object 315 
+create an 319 
+identity 354 
+
+memory representation 321 
+orphaned 356 
+type conversion 322 
+Object class 438 
+Object-oriented programming 
+315-469 
+
+
+
+707 
+
+
+Off-by one-error 89 
+Operand 17 
+
+Operating system directive 
+| (piping) 133 
+
+< (redirect stdin) 132 
+
+> (redirect stdout) 132 
+Operator 
+
+See also Separator 
+compound assignment 56 
+defined 17 
++ (addition) 21 
++ (string concatenation) 18 
+++ (increment) 56 
+- (subtraction) 21 
+-- (decrement) 56 
+* (multiplication) 21,23 
+% (remainder) 21 
+/ (division) 21 
+== (equal to) 26 
+== versus = 359 
+! = (not equal to) 26 
+
+> (greater than) 26 
+
+>= (greater than or equal to) 
+26 
+
+< (less than) 26 
+
+<= (less than or equal to) 26 
+& (bitwise and) 38 
+&& (logical and) 25 
+| | (logic or) 25 
+! (logical not) 25 
+a (exclusive or) 39 
+() (cast) 31 
+
+Operator overloading 392, 404 
+Order of growth 478-489 
+Order statistic 632, 644 
+Orphaned object 356, 565, 593 
+Out of memory 497 
+Overflow. See Integer overflow 
+Overloading 
+
+
+of constructors 372 
+of methods 192 
+of operators 392, 404 
+
+P 
+
+Page rank 168 
+Palindrome 340 
+Papert, Seymour 388 
+Parallel arrays 399 
+Parameterized data type 566 
+
+Parse 
+
+an assignment statement 646 
+parseDoubleO method 18 
+parselntO method 18 
+Pass by reference 
+defined 190 
+of arrays 199 
+versus pass by value 208 
+with objects 354 
+Pass by value 
+defined 190 
+of primitive types 354 
+of references 354 
+versus pass by reference 208 
+Percolation 286-313 
+bond 311 
+directed 303, 308 
+using graphs 690 
+three-dimensional 311 
+vertical 291-292, 310 
+Performance 472-509 
+guarantees 488-489 
+Permutation 281 
+inverse 117 
+random 93 
+Phase transition 303 
+Pi cture data type 330 
+Piping 133 
+
+
+Pixel 329 
+Plasma cloud 272 
+Plotting 
+
+experimental results 241 
+function graphs 140, 300-303 
+sound waves 241 
+Pointer 
+defined 321 
+safe 355 
+
+Poisson process 581 
+Poker 253 
+
+Polar coordinates 42, 422 
+Polymorphism 435 
+Pop (from a stack) 551 
+Postcondition 447 
+Postorder traversal 628 
+PostScript language 388, 574 
+Power law 476, 692 
+Power method 172 
+Powers of two 52 
+Precedence order 17 
+Precondition 447 
+Preorder traversal 628 
+Primality test 191 
+Prime number 99 
+Primitive data type 14 
+converting to string 18 
+type conversion 31-33 
+using a 16 
+
+printfO method 124—126, 152 
+private access modifier 
+and encapsulation 422 
+instance method 372 
+instance variable 372 
+Probability 171 
+Problem size 473 
+Program 
+
+AlbersSquares 325 
+ArrayStackOfStrings 554 
+Average 130 
+
+
+
+708 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+Beckett 267 
+Bernoulli 242 
+Binary 64 
+BinarySearch 517 
+Body 460 
+
+BouncingBall 145 
+Brownian 271 
+BST 625 
+Cat 347 
+Charge 375 
+Charged ient 320 
+CompareAll 444 
+Compl ex 393 
+Counter 425 
+Coupon 197 
+CouponCol lector 98 
+DeDup 633 
+Divisor Pattern 59 
+Document 441 
+Doubl i ngStackOfStri ngs 
+563 
+
+Doubl ingTest 477 
+Estimate 297 
+Euclid 259 
+Eval uate 572 
+Factors 69 
+Fade 335 
+FI i p 49 
+
+FrequencyCount 533 
+Gambler 66 
+Gaussian 195,515 
+GeneFind 342 
+Graph 657 
+Grayscale 331 
+Harmonic 61 
+Hell oWo rid 6 
+Histogram 381 
+Htree 269 
+IFS 233 
+Index 617 
+
+
+IndexGraph 661 
+Insertion 524 
+InsertionTest 526 
+IntOps 22 
+LeapYear 27 
+
+LinkedStackOfStrings 559 
+
+LoadBalance 591 
+
+Lookup 614 
+
+LRS 539 
+
+Luminance 328 
+
+Mandelbrot 397 
+
+Markov 174 
+
+MDlQueue 583 
+
+Merge 528 
+
+Newton 186 
+
+PathFi nder 665, 670 
+
+Percolation 290 
+
+PercPlot 302 
+
+PlayThatTune 150 
+
+PI ayThatTuneDel uxe 205 
+
+PlotFilter 139 
+
+Potential 337 
+
+Power sOfTwo 53 
+
+PrimeSieve 100 
+
+Quadratic 24 
+
+Queue 578 
+
+Randomlnt 33 
+
+RandomSeq 122 
+
+RandomSurfer 167 
+
+RangeFilter 134 
+
+Ruler 20 
+
+Sample 94 
+
+Scale 333 
+
+Sel f Avoi di ngWal k 109 
+
+Small Wo rid 677 
+
+Spi ral 387 
+
+Split 350 
+
+Sqrt 62 
+
+Stack 568 
+
+StdArraylO 230 
+
+
+StdRandom 226 
+StdStats 237 
+StockAccount 401 
+StockQuote 349 
+Stopwatch 379 
+ThreeSum 475 
+TowersOf Hanoi 262 
+Transition 165 
+Turtle 384 
+
+TwentyQuestions 129,512 
+Universe 463 
+Vector 432 
+Visualize 475 
+Programming 6 
+Promotion 32 
+private access modifier 
+instance method 372 
+static method 220 
+withmainO 10 
+Push (onto a stack) 551 
+Pushdown stack. See Stack 
+Python language 592 
+
+Q 
+
+Quadratic formula 24-25 
+Quadratic running time 482 
+Quadrature 437 
+Quaternion 411 
+Queue data type 576-584 
+iterator 589 
+Queue API 576, 722 
+random 580 
+with array 580 
+with linked list 577-580 
+Queueing theory 581 
+Quicksort 495, 548 
+
+
+
+709 
+
+
+R 
+
+Ragged array 106 
+Ramanujan, Srinivasa 82 
+Random integer 33 
+Random number generation 
+Bernoulli 225 
+binomial 215 
+discrete 226 
+exponential 582 
+Gaussian 42, 213, 226 
+Maxwell-Boltzmann 249 
+StdRandom 224-228 
+uniform 33, 191,226 
+Random queue 580, 602 
+Random simulation 
+See Simulation 
+Random surfer 162 
+Random walk 
+Brownian motion 388 
+self-avoiding 107-109 
+two-dimensional 82 
+Range search 632, 642 
+Raphson, Joseph 61 
+Raster image 329 
+Rational number 408 
+Recurrence relation 264, 513 
+Recursion 254-283 
+See also Calls itself 
+induction 258 
+base case 258, 273 
+convergence 273 
+depth-first search 298-299 
+excessive memory 274, 277 
+excessive recomputation 274 
+pitfalls of 273-275 
+reduction step 258 
+versus iteration 277 
+Recursive graphics 
+Brownian bridge 270-271 
+
+
+Brownian island 284 
+dragon curve 44, 412 
+Hilbert curve 412 
+H-tree 268-269 
+Koch curve 385 
+plasma cloud 272 
+Red-black tree 628, 632 
+Redirection 131-133 
+of standard input 132 
+of standard output 132 
+Reduction 531 
+Refactoring code 535 
+Reference 
+
+declare a variable 319 
+defined 321 
+
+objects versus name 352 
+this 433 
+
+Reference type 316 
+Regular expression 339 
+Reserved word 15 
+return statement 188 
+Return type 188 
+Return value 29 
+Reverse 
+
+a linked list 601, 606 
+an array 89, 113 
+a stream 596 
+a string 504 
+
+Reverse Polish notation 574 
+RGB color format 43, 324, 361 
+Ring buffer 604 
+Root of all evil 495 
+Row-major order 105 
+RSA cryptosystem 69, 259 
+Ruby language 592 
+Ruler function 19, 20, 57, 266 
+Running time 
+constant 481 
+cubic 482 
+
+doubling hypothesis 474 
+
+
+empirical analysis 474 
+exponential 263, 275, 482-483 
+hypotheses 474 
+linear 481 
+linearithmic 482 
+logarithmic 481 
+mathematical analysis 476 
+observations 473 
+of percolation 296 
+order of growth 478-489 
+predictions 483 
+quadratic 482 
+worst-case 488-489 
+Run-time error. See Error 
+
+s 
+
+Sampling 
+an array 158 
+digital sound 148 
+points in the plane 395 
+to plot a function 140 
+to rescale an image 332 
+without replacement 93 
+Scaffolding 288-289 
+Scientific method 473 
+Scientific notation 23 
+Scope 56, 189 
+Screen scraping 346 
+Search 
+
+breadth-first 663-671 
+depth-first 298-299 
+in a binary search tree 622 
+in a sorted array 516 
+Self-avoiding walk 107-109 
+Semantics 48 
+Separator 
+
+[ ] (array indexing) 86 
+{ } (block delimiter) 46 
+{ } (array initializer) 91, 104 
+
+
+
+710 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+C ) (precedence) 17 
+C ) (method call) 187,319 
+; (statement terminator) 6, 46 
+, (delimiter) 91, 190 
+. (object accessor) 319, 391 
+Sequential search 516 
+Set data type 
+defined 632-633 
+java. util .HashSet 635 
+j ava . uti 1 . T reeSet 635 
+SET API 632, 722 
+Shepherd, Jessy 369 
+short data type 23 
+Shortest path 663-672 
+Shortest-paths tree 668 
+Shuffling 
+a linked list 601 
+an array 93, 199, 226 
+Side effect 
+defined 193 
+
+design-by-contract 447 
+with arrays 199 
+Sierpinksi triangle 231 
+Sieve of Eratosthenes 99-101 
+Signature 
+anatomy of 30 
+of a static method 29, 187 
+Similarity search 445 
+Simulation 
+Bernoulli trials 241 
+birthday problem 1 19, 213 
+coin flip 48 
+
+coupon collector 97-99, 196 
+gambler’s ruin 65 
+IFS 231-235 
+load balancing 590-591 
+M/D/1 queue 584 
+N-body 456-469 
+percolation 286-313 
+point in unit disk 71 
+
+
+random surfer 166-168 
+self-avoiding walk 107-109 
+SI units 317,461 
+Six degrees of separation 650 
+Small-world 650-693 
+Sorting 510-529 
+insertion sort 521-526 
+mergesort 527-530 
+system sort 435, 543 
+Sound processing. 
+
+See Digital audio 
+Space-time tradeoff 95, 101 
+Spatial vector 430-433 
+Specification problem 417, 581 
+Speedy 369 
+Spira mirabilis 386 
+Square root 
+Math library 29 
+Newton’s method 61-63 
+user-defined 185-189 
+Stack data type 551-575 
+and recursion 273 
+for expression evaluation 570 
+for function calls 574-575 
+iterator 589 
+
+for memory allocation 494 
+Stack API 552, 720 
+using a doubling array 562 
+using a linked list 558 
+using an array 552 
+Stack overflow 273, 274 
+Standard deviation 154, 238 
+Standard drawing 136-146 
+animation 143-145 
+color 142 
+filled shapes 141 
+outline shapes 141 
+rescale 138 
+StdDraw API 146,718 
+text 142 
+
+
+Standard input 126-131 
+arbitrary-size input 130 
+end-of-file 131 
+piping from 133 
+redirection from file 132 
+Stdln API 127, 717 
+Standard output 123-126 
+redirection to file 132 
+StdOut API 124,716 
+Standards 417 
+Statement 6, 15 
+assignment 16 
+asssert 446 
+block 46 
+break 70 
+
+compound assignment 56 
+continue 70 
+declaration 16 
+do-while 71 
+empty 76 
+for 55 
+foreach 585 
+if 46 
+
+return 188 
+switch 70 
+while 49 
+
+stati c keyword 10 
+Static method 184-217 
+anatomy of 187-188 
+argument variable 187 
+calling 190 
+call trace 204 
+control flow 185 
+defining 185 
+function call trace 187 
+main() 199 
+
+multiple arguments 190 
+overloading 192 
+return statement 192 
+scope 189 
+
+
+
+711 
+
+
+side effects 193 
+signature 187 
+single return value 192 
+terminology 188 
+to organize code 196 
+use in other programs 219 
+with array as return value 201 
+with array as argument 198 
+Static variable 405 
+Stationary distribution 168 
+Statistics 236-241 
+histogram 380-381 
+mean 154, 236 
+median 238 
+plotting 238-240 
+sampling 93 
+select 632, 644 
+standard deviation 154, 238 
+StdStats API 236, 719 
+Tukeyplot 251 
+variance 236 
+StdArraylO library 
+API 229, 719 
+defined 229-230 
+StdAudi o library 
+API 149,718 
+defined 147-151 
+StdDraw library 
+API 146,718 
+defined 136-146 
+Stdln library 
+API 127,717 
+defined 126-131 
+stdlib. jar 289 
+StdOut 
+API 124, 716 
+defined 123-142 
+StdRandom library 
+API 719 
+
+defined 224-228 
+
+
+StdStats library 
+API 236,719 
+defined 236-242 
+St ri ngBui 1 der class 493, 502 
+String data type 
+API 338,717 
+as immutable type 363 
+compareToO method 338 
+concatenation 502 
+defined 19 
+
+extract a substring 493 
+literal 19 
+
+memory usage 491 
+representation of 537 
+reverse a 504 
+with == operator 37 
+String processing 338-351 
+Strogatz, Stephen 650 
+Strongly- typed language 16 
+Stub 289 
+Substring 
+extract a 493 
+memory usage 493 
+substringQ method 338 
+Subtyping 438 
+Suffix array 538 
+Suffix sorting 537 
+Swap 
+
+array elements 92, 199-200 
+variable values 17 
+switch statement 70-71 
+Symbol table data type 608-649 
+as associative array 613 
+binary search 618 
+binary search tree 619-632 
+dictionary lookup 61 1-615 
+elementary 618 
+indexing 615 
+java. util .HashMap 635 
+java. util .TreeMap 632, 635 
+
+
+sequential search 618 
+ST API 609, 720 
+Syntax error 1 1 
+System library 
+indexing 615 
+
+currentTimeMillisO 378 
+out.printfO 124-126 
+out. print () 28 
+out.printlnO 28 
+
+T 
+
+Tab character 19 
+Taylor series 63, 83, 194 
+Terminal application 4 
+Text editor 4, 5 
+Text processing 
+See String processing 
+thi s reference 433 
+Throw an exception 446 
+Tilde notation 478 
+Timing a program 378-379 
+toStringO method 
+automatically invoked 359 
+inherited from Object 438 
+with binary trees 629 
+with graphs 658 
+with linked lists 561 
+with reference types 322 
+Towers of Hanoi 260-264 
+Trace 
+
+change in variables 17 
+function call 204 
+Transition matrix 164 
+Transitive closure 691 
+Traversal 
+inorder 628 
+level-order 641 
+postorder 628 
+preorder 628 
+
+
+
+712 
+
+
+Index 
+
+
+Tree 
+
+See also Binary search tree 
+See also Binary tree 
+function call 261 
+H-tree 268 
+true literal 25 
+Truth table 25 
+Turing, Alan 399 
+Turing machine 151 
+Turtle graphics 382-389 
+Twenty questions 128-129, 512 
+Two-dimensional array 
+102-110 
+
+column-major order 105 
+initialization 102 
+input and output 229 
+memory representation 103 
+memory usage 493 
+ragged 106 
+row-major order 105 
+Type. See Data type 
+Type conversion 
+auto-boxing 569 
+auto-unboxing 569 
+objects 322 
+
+primitive type to Stri ng 18 
+promotion 32 
+Stri ng to primitive type 30 
+Type parameter 569 
+
+u 
+
+Uniform distribution 43, 226 
+Uninitialized variable 
+primitive type 35, 90 
+reference type 322 
+Unix operating system 123, 134 
+Unreachable code 207 
+
+
+v 
+
+Variable 
+argument 374 
+defined 15 
+global 245, 405 
+instance 372, 374 
+local 374 
+scope of 56, 374 
+static 245, 405 
+visibility of 372 
+Variance 236 
+Vector 88 
+
+dot product 88, 200 
+sparse 645 
+spatial 430-433 
+Vector API 431, 721 
+Vector image 329 
+Visibility modifier 372 
+void literal 10, 30, 207 
+von Neumann, John 531 
+
+w 
+
+Watts, Duncan 650 
+Weighing an object 518 
+whi 1 e loop 49-54 
+Whitespace 10, 126, 339 
+Wide interface 418, 595, 683 
+Worst-case 488-489 
+Wrapper type 569 
+
+x 
+
+Xor function 39 
+
+z 
+
+Zero-based indexing 89, 1 12 
+Zipf s law 534 
+
+
+
+Elements of Programming 
+
+Your First Program 
+
+1.1.1 Hello, World 6 
+
+1.1.2 Using a command-line argument . 8 
+Built-in Types of Data 
+
+1.2.1 String concatenation example. . .20 
+
+1 .2.2 Integer multiplication and division 22 
+
+
+1.2.3 Quadratic formula 24 
+
+1.2.4 Leap year 27 
+
+1.2.5 Casting to get a random integer . . 33 
+Conditionals and Loops 
+
+1.3.1 Flipping a fair coin 49 
+
+1.3.2 Your first while loop 51 
+
+1.3.3 Computing powers of two . . . . 53 
+
+1.3.4 Your first nested loops 59 
+
+1.3.5 Harmonic numbers 61 
+
+1.3.6 Newton’s method 62 
+
+1.3.7 Converting to binary 64 
+
+1.3.8 Gambler’s ruin simulation . . . . 66 
+
+1 .3.9 Factoring integers 69 
+
+Arrays 
+
+1.4.1 Sampling without replacement . .94 
+
+1.4.2 Coupon collector simulation . . .98 
+
+1.4.3 Sieve of Eratosthenes 100 
+
+1.4.4 Self-avoiding random walks . . 109 
+
+Input and Output 
+
+1.5.1 Generating a random sequence . 122 
+
+1.5.2 Interactive user input 129 
+
+1.5.3 Averaging a stream of numbers . 130 
+
+1.5.4 A simple filter 134 
+
+1.5.5 Input-to-drawing filter .... 139 
+
+1.5.6 Bouncing ball 145 
+
+1.5.7 Digital signal processing . ... 150 
+
+Case Study: Random Web Surfer 
+
+1 .6. 1 Computing the transition matrix 165 
+
+1.6.2 Simulating a random surfer . . 167 
+
+1.6.3 Mixing a Markov chain .... 174 
+
+
+Functions and Modules 
+
+Static Methods 
+
+2.1.1 Newton’s method (revisited) . . 186 
+
+2.1.2 Gaussian functions 195 
+
+2.1.3 Coupon collector (revisited) . . 197 
+
+2.1.4 Play that Tune (revisited) . . . 205 
+
+Libraries and Clients 
+
+2.2.1 Random number library . . . . 226 
+
+
+2.2.2 Array I/O library 230 
+
+2.2.3 Iterated function systems. . . . 233 
+
+2.2.4 Data analysis library 237 
+
+2.2.5 Plotting data values in an array . 239 
+
+2.2.6 Bernoulli trials 242 
+
+Recursion 
+
+2.3.1 Euclid’s algorithm 259 
+
+2.3.2 Towers of Hanoi 262 
+
+2.3.3 Gray code 267 
+
+2.3.4 Recursive graphics 269 
+
+2.3.5 Brownian bridge 271 
+
+Case Study: Percolation 
+
+2.4.1 Percolation scaffolding 290 
+
+
+2.4.2 Vertical percolation detection . . 292 
+
+
+2.4.3 Visualization client 295 
+
+2.4.4 Percolation probability estimate . 297 
+
+2.4.5 Percolation detection 299 
+
+2.4.6 Adaptive plot client 302 
+
+
+Object-Oriented Programming 
+
+
+Data Types 
+
+3.1.1 Charged particles 320 
+
+3.1.2 Albers squares 325 
+
+3.1.3 Luminance library 328 
+
+3.1.4 Converting color to grayscale . . 331 
+
+3.1.5 Image scaling 333 
+
+3.1.6 Fade effect 335 
+
+3.1.7 Visualizing electric potential . . 337 
+
+3.1.8 Finding genes in a genome . . . 342 
+
+3.1.9 Concatenating files 347 
+
+3.1.10 Screen scraping for stock quotes 349 
+
+3.1.1 1 Splitting a file 350 
+
+Creating Data Types 
+
+3.2.1 Charged-particle implementation 375 
+
+3.2.2 Stopwatch 379 
+
+3.2.3 Histogram 381 
+
+3.2.4 Turtle graphics 384 
+
+3.2.5 Spira mirabilis 387 
+
+3.2.6 Complex numbers 393 
+
+3.2.7 Mandelbrot set 397 
+
+3.2.8 Stock account 401 
+
+Designing Data Types 
+
+3.3.1 Complex numbers (alternate). . 421 
+
+3.3.2 Counter 425 
+
+3.3.3 Spatial vectors 432 
+
+3.3.4 Document 441 
+
+3.3.5 Similarity detection 444 
+
+Case Study: N-body Simulation 
+
+3.4.1 Gravitational body 460 
+
+3.4.2 N-body simulation 463 
+
+
+Algorithms and Data Structures 
+
+Performance 
+
+4.1.1 3-sum problem 475 
+
+4. 1 .2 Validating a doubling hypothesis 477 
+
+
+Sorting and Searching 
+
+4.2.1 Binary search (20 questions) . . 512 
+
+4.2.2 Bisection search 515 
+
+4.2.3 Binary search (sorted array) . . 517 
+
+4.2.4 Insertion sort 524 
+
+4.2.5 Doubling test for insertion sort . 526 
+
+4.2.6 Mergesort 528 
+
+4.2.7 Frequency counts 533 
+
+4.2.8 Longest repeated substring . . . 539 
+
+Stacks and Queues 
+
+4.3.1 Stack of strings (array) 554 
+
+4.3.2 Stack of strings (linked list). . . 559 
+
+
+4.3.3 Stack of strings (array doubling) 563 
+
+
+4.3.4 Generic stack 568 
+
+4.3.5 Expression evaluation 572 
+
+4.3.6 Generic FIFO queue (linked list) 578 
+
+4.3.7 M/D/ 1 queue simulation. . . . 583 
+
+4.3.8 Load balancing simulation . . . 591 
+
+Symbol Tables 
+
+4.4.1 Dictionary lookup 614 
+
+4.4.2 Indexing 617 
+
+4.4.3 BST symbol table 625 
+
+4.4.4 Dedup filter 633 
+
+Case Study: Small World 
+
+4.5.1 Graph data type 657 
+
+4.5.2 Using a graph to invert an index. 661 
+
+4.5.3 Shortest-paths client 665 
+
+4.5.4 Shortest-paths implementation . 670 
+
+4.5.5 Small-world test 677 
+
+
+715 
+
+
+public class System. out/StdOut/Out 
+
+
+Out (String name) 
+void print (String s) 
+void print! n (String s) 
+void printlnO 
+void printf(String f, , 
+
+
+) 
+
+
+create output stream from name 
+print s 
+
+print s, followed by newline 
+print a new line 
+formatted print 
+
+
+Note : Methods are static and constructor does not apply for System . out/StdOut. 
+
+
+public class Math 
+
+double abs (double a) absolute value of a 
+
+double max (double a, double b) maximum of a and b 
+
+double min (double a, double b) minimum of a and b 
+
+Note 1: abs (), max(), and mi n () are defined also for i nt, 1 ong, and float. 
+
+double sin (double theta) sine function 
+
+double cos (double theta) cosine function 
+
+double tan (double theta) tangent function 
+
+Note 2: Angles are expressed in radians. Use toDeg rees () and toRadi ans () to convert. 
+Note 3: Use asi n (), acos (), and atan () for inverse functions. 
+
+
+double exp(double a) 
+double log (double a) 
+double pow(double a, double b) 
+long round (double a) 
+double randomO 
+double sqrt (double a) 
+double E 
+double PI 
+
+
+exponential (e a ) 
+natural log (log e a, or In a) 
+raise a to the bth power (a b ) 
+round to the nearest integer 
+random number in [0, 1) 
+square root of a 
+value ofe (constant) 
+value of tt ( constant ) 
+
+
+public class Stdln/In 
+
+In (String name) 
+boolean isEmptyO 
+int readlntO 
+double readDoubleO 
+long readLongO 
+boolean readBooleanO 
+char readCharC) 
+String readStringO 
+String readLineO 
+String readAllQ 
+
+
+create input stream from name 
+true if no more values, else fal se 
+read a value of type i nt 
+read a value of type doubl e 
+read a value of type long 
+read a value of type bool ean 
+read a value of type char 
+read a value of type St ri ng 
+read the rest of the line 
+read the rest of the text 
+
+
+Note: Methods are static and constructor does not apply for Stdln. 
+
+
+public class String 
+
+
+
+StringCString s) 
+
+create a string with the same value as s 
+
+int 
+
+length () 
+
+string length 
+
+char 
+
+charAt(int i) 
+
+i th character 
+
+String 
+
+substring(int i, int j) 
+
+i th through (j-l)st characters 
+
+bool ean 
+
+contains (String sub) 
+
+does string contain sub as a substring? 
+
+boolean 
+
+startsWith (String pre) 
+
+does string start with pre? 
+
+bool ean 
+
+endsWith(String post) 
+
+does string end with post? 
+
+int 
+
+indexOf (String p) 
+
+index of first occurrence of p 
+
+int 
+
+indexOf(String p, int i) 
+
+index of first occurrence of p after i 
+
+String 
+
+concat(String t) 
+
+this string with t appended 
+
+int 
+
+compareTo(String t) 
+
+string comparison 
+
+String 
+
+replaceAll (String a, String b) 
+
+result of changing as to bs 
+
+Stri ng[] 
+
+split(String delim) 
+
+strings between occurrences of delim 
+
+bool ean 
+
+equal s(String t) 
+
+is this string's value the same as t s? 
+
+
+718 
+
+
+APIs 
+
+
+public class StdDraw/Draw 
+
+DrawO create a new Draw object 
+
+void line (double xO, double yO, double xl, double yl) 
+void point (double x, double y) 
+void text (double x, double y, String s) 
+void circle (double x, double y, double r) 
+void filledCi rcle (double x, double y, double r) 
+void square (double x, double y, double r) 
+void filledSquare(double x, double y, double r) 
+void polygon (double[] x, doublet] y) 
+void filledPolygon(doublet] x, doublet] y) 
+
+
+void setXscale (double xO, double xl) 
+
+void setYscale (double yO, double yl) 
+
+void setPenRadi us (double r) 
+
+void setPenColor(Color c) 
+
+void setFont(Font f) 
+
+void setCanvasSize(int w, int h) 
+
+void cl ear (Col or c) 
+
+void show(int dt) 
+
+void save (St ring filename) 
+
+Note: Methods are static and constructor does not apply for StdD raw. 
+
+
+reset x range to (x 0 , x,) 
+reset y range to (y 0 ,y,) 
+set pen radius to r 
+set pen color to c 
+set text font to f 
+set canvas to w-by-h window 
+clear the canvas; color it c 
+show all; pause dt milliseconds 
+save to a . j pg or . png file 
+
+
+public class StdAudio 
+
+void pi ay (String file) play the given .wav file 
+
+void pi ay (doublet] a) play the given sound wove 
+
+void pi ay (double x) play sample for 1/44100 second 
+
+void save (String file, doublet] a) save to a .wav file 
+
+doublet] read (String file) read from a .wav file 
+
+
+
+719 
+
+
+public class StdRandom 
+
+int uniform(int N) 
+double uni form (double lo, double hi) 
+boolean bernoulli (double p) 
+double gaussianO 
+
+double gaussi an (double m, double s) 
+int discrete (double [] a) 
+void shuffle(double[] a) 
+
+
+integer between 0 and N-l 
+
+real between 1 o and hi 
+
+true with probability p 
+
+normal, mean 0, standard deviation 1 
+
+normal, mean m, standard deviation s 
+
+i with probability a[i] 
+
+randomly shuffle the array a [] 
+
+
+public class StdArraylO 
+
+doubl e [] readDoubl elDO read a one-dimensional array o/doubl e values 
+
+double[] [] readDoubl e2D() read a two-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+voi d p ri nt (doubl e [] a) print a one-dimensional array o/doubl e values 
+
+voi d p ri nt (doubl e [] [] a) print a two-dimensional array of doubl e values 
+
+Note 1. ID format is an integer N followed by N values. 
+
+Note 2. 2D format is two integers M and N followed by MxN values in row-major order. 
+
+Note 3. Methods for i nt and bool ean are also included. 
+
+
+public class StdStats 
+
+double max(double[] a) 
+double min (doubled a) 
+double mean (doubled a) 
+double var (doubled a) 
+double stddev(double[] a) 
+double median (doubled a) 
+void pi ot Points (doubl e[] a) 
+void pi ot Lines (doubled a) 
+void pi otBars (doubled a) 
+
+
+largest value 
+smallest value 
+average 
+
+sample variance 
+
+sample standard deviation 
+
+median 
+
+plot points at (i , a [i ] ) 
+plot lines connecting (i , a [i ] ) 
+plot bars to points at (i , a [i ] ) 
+
+
+Note: overloaded implementations are included for all numeric types 
+
+
+
+720 
+
+
+APIs 
+
+
+public class Picture 
+
+Picture (St ring name) 
+
+Picture(int w, int h) 
+int width () 
+int height () 
+
+Color get(int i, int j) 
+void set (int i, int j, Color c) 
+void show() 
+void save (String name) 
+
+public class Stopwatch 
+
+Stopwatch () create a new stopwatch and start it running 
+
+doubl e el apsedT i me () return the elapsed time since creation, in seconds 
+
+public class Histogram 
+
+Hi Stogram(i nt N) create a dynamic histogram for the N integer values in [0, N) 
+
+double addDataPoi nt(i nt i) add an occurrence of the value i 
+
+public class Turtle 
+
+Turtle(double xO, double yO, double aO) create new at (x„ y 0 ) facing a 0 
+
+degrees counterclockwise from x-axis 
+
+
+create a picture from a file 
+create a blank vt-by-h picture 
+return the width of the picture 
+return the height of the picture 
+return the color of pixel (i, j) 
+set the color of pixel ft j) toe 
+display the image in a window 
+save the image to a file 
+
+
+void turnLeft (double delta) 
+void goForward (double step) 
+
+
+rotate del ta degrees counterclockwise 
+move distance step, drawing a line 
+
+
+
+721 
+
+
+public class Counter 
+
+
+Counter (String id, int max) 
+void incrementO 
+int value () 
+
+String toStringO 
+
+
+create a counter, initialized to 0 
+increment counter unless its value is max 
+return the value of the counter 
+string representation 
+
+
+public class Complex 
+
+
+Compl ex 
+
+Compl ex (double real, double imag) 
+pi us (Compl ex b) 
+
+sum of this number and b 
+
+Compl ex 
+
+times (Compl ex b) 
+
+product of this number and b 
+
+double 
+
+abs() 
+
+magnitude 
+
+double 
+
+re() 
+
+real part 
+
+double 
+
+im() 
+
+imaginary part 
+
+String 
+
+toStri ng() 
+
+string representation 
+
+
+public class Vector 
+
+Vector(double[] a) 
+Vector pi us (Vector b) 
+Vector minus (Vector b) 
+Vector times (double t) 
+double dot(Vector b) 
+double magnitudeO 
+Vector directionO 
+double cartesian (int i) 
+String toStringO 
+
+
+create a vector with the given Cartesian coordinates 
+
+sum of this vector and b 
+
+difference of this vector and b 
+
+scalar product of this vector and t 
+
+dot product of this vector and b 
+
+magnitude of this vector 
+
+unit vector with same direction as this vector 
+
+i th cartesian coordinate of this vector 
+
+string representation 
+
+
+722 
+
+
+APIs 
+
+
+public class 
+
+Stack<Item> 
+
+
+
+Stack<Item> 
+
+create an empty stack 
+
+bool ean 
+
+isEmptyO 
+
+is the stack empty? 
+
+void 
+
+push (Item item) 
+
+push an item onto the stack 
+
+Item 
+
+popQ 
+
+pop the stack 
+
+public class Queue<Item> 
+
+
+
+Queue<Item>() 
+
+create an empty queue 
+
+bool ean 
+
+isEmptyO 
+
+is the queue empty? 
+
+void 
+
+enqueue(Item item) 
+
+enqueue an item 
+
+Item 
+
+dequeueC) 
+
+dequeue an item 
+
+int 
+
+length () 
+
+queue length 
+
+public class 
+
+ST<Key extends Comparable<Key>, Value> 
+
+
+ST() 
+
+create a symbol table 
+
+void 
+
+put (Key key, Value v) 
+
+put key-value pair into the table 
+
+Value 
+
+get (Key key) 
+
+return value paired with key ; nul 1 if key not in table 
+
+bool ean 
+
+contains (Key key) 
+
+is there a value paired with key? 
+
+
+public class SETcKey extends Comparabl e<Key» 
+
+SET() 
+
+create a set 
+
+
+boolean isEmptyO 
+
+is the set empty? 
+
+
+void add (Key key) 
+
+add key to the set 
+
+
+boolean contains (Key key) 
+
+is key in the set? 
+
+
+
+
+public class Graph 
+
+
+
+Graph 0 
+
+create an empty graph 
+
+
+Graph (In in, String delim) 
+
+read graph from input stream 
+
+void 
+
+addEdge(String v, String w) 
+
+add edge v-w 
+
+int 
+
+VO 
+
+number of vertices 
+
+int 
+
+EO 
+
+number of edges 
+
+Ite rabl e<St ri ng> 
+
+vertices () 
+
+vertices in the graph 
+
+Iterabl e<Stri ng> 
+
+adjacentTo(String v) 
+
+neighbors o/v 
+
+int 
+
+degree(String v) 
+
+number of neighbors ofv 
+
+bool ean 
+
+hasVertex(String v) 
+
+is v a vertex in the graph? 
+
+bool ean 
+
+hasEdge(String v, String w) 
+
+is v-w an edge in the graph? 
+
+
+public class PathFinder 
+
+
+PathFinder (Graph G, String s) 
+
+
+int distanceTo(String v) 
+Iterable<String> pathTo(String v) 
+
+
+create an object that 
+finds paths in Qfrom s 
+
+length of shortest path 
+from s to v in G 
+
+shortest path 
+from stow in G 
+
+
+
+Introductory Programming in Java™ / Programming for Science and Engineering 
+
+
+Engage with Applications 
+
+
+
+"The authors lead with science and applications , and show how the language is the tool 
+This is how introductory programming should be taught. . interesting from the start." 
+
+— Ted Pawlidd, University of Rochester 
+
+
+Introduction to Programming in Java: An Interdisciplinary Approach is a solid introduc- 
+tion to Java programming that emphasizes its application in familiar scenarios, such 
+as physical and biological science, engineering, and commercial computing. These 
+real-world explorations foster a foundation of computer science concepts and pro- 
+gramming skills while illustrating the broad reach of computation. 
+
+
+This book is suitable for any student who has a general interest in science and engi- 
+neering, including computer science students. Computer science majors will find 
+that the book's scientific approach prepares them for advanced concepts later in 
+the curriculum. Science and engineering majors will learn basic programming in a 
+modem programming environment, which they can then apply to later courses in 
+dieir chosen major. Most importantly, students will leam that computation is an 
+integral part of the modem scientific world. 
+
+
+Highlights: 
+
+
+
+Familiar applications from high school mathematics and science help students 
+leam basic computer science concepts and help them appreciate that program- 
+ming is fundamental to scientific research. 
+
+Objects in the middle" approach teaches students basic control structures and 
+functions and then instructs them how to use, create, and design classes. 
+
+Full programming model includes standard libraries for input, graphics, sound, 
+and image processing that students can apply and use from the very beginning 
+of their coursework. 
+
+
+Integrated Companion Website features extensive Java coding examples, 
+additional exercises, and links to associated Web materials, available at 
+www. aw. com/SedgewickWayne. 
+
+
+
+PEARSON 
+
+
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+
+Wesley 
+
+
+Visit www.aw.com/computing for more information about 
+Addison-Wesley computing books. To order any of our products, 
+contact our customer service department at (800) 824-7799 or 
+(201) 767-5021 outside of the U.S., or visit your campus bookstore. 
+
+
+ISBN-13: 978-0-321-49805-2 
+ISBN-10: 0-321-49805-4 
+
+
+Addison-Wesley Computing 
+Leading Authors • Quality Products 
+
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+
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+
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+9 0 0 0 0 
diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/legendofthegodsegyptiantexts b/files/books/unrelated/legendofthegodsegyptiantexts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..944442f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/legendofthegodsegyptiantexts
@@ -0,0 +1,7213 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Legends Of The Gods, by E. A. Wallis Budge
+#3 in our series by E. A. Wallis Budge
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Legends Of The Gods
+       The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations
+
+Author: E. A. Wallis Budge
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9411]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE GODS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John B. Hare and Carrie R. Lorenz
+
+
+
+
+LEGENDS OF THE GODS
+
+The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations
+
+by E. A. Wallis Budge
+
+London, 1912
+
+
+
+
+
+[Editorial note: Throughout the text "####" represents images which
+                 cannot be transcribed.]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The welcome which has been accorded to the volumes of this Series, and
+the fact that some of them have passed into second and third editions,
+suggest that these little books have been found useful by beginners in
+Egyptology and others.  Hitherto the object of them has been to supply
+information about the Religion, Magic, Language, and History of the
+ancient Egyptians, and to provide editions of the original texts from
+which such information was derived.  There are, however, many branches
+of Egyptology which need treatment in a similar manner in this Series,
+and it has been suggested in many quarters that the time has now
+arrived when the publication of a series of groups of texts
+illustrating Egyptian Literature in general might well be begun.
+Seeing that nothing is known about the authors of Egyptian works, not
+even their names, it is impossible to write a History of Egyptian
+Literature in the ordinary sense of the word.  The only thing to be
+done is to print the actual works in the best and most complete form
+possible, with translations, and then to put them in the hands of the
+reader and leave them to his judgment.
+
+With this object in view, it has been decided to publish in the Series
+several volumes which shall be devoted to the reproduction in
+hieroglyphic type of the best and most typical examples of the various
+kinds of Egyptian Literature, with English translations, on a much
+larger scale than was possible in my "First Steps in Egyptian" or in my
+"Egyptian Reading Book."  These volumes are intended to serve a double
+purpose, i.e., to supply the beginner in Egyptian with new material and
+a series of reading books, and to provide the general reader with
+translations of Egyptian works in a handy form.
+
+The Egyptian texts, whether the originals be written in hieroglyphic or
+hieratic characters, are here printed in hieroglyphic type, and are
+arranged with English translations, page for page.  They are printed as
+they are written in the original documents, i.e., the words are not
+divided.  The beginner will find the practice of dividing the words for
+himself most useful in acquiring facility of reading and understanding
+the language.  The translations are as literal as can reasonably be
+expected, and, as a whole, I believe that they mean what the original
+writers intended to say.  In the case of passages where the text is
+corrupt, and readings are mixed, or where very rare words occur, or
+where words are omitted, the renderings given claim to be nothing more
+than suggestions as to their meanings.  It must be remembered that the
+exact meanings of many Egyptian words have still to be ascertained, and
+that the ancient Egyptian scribes were as much puzzled as we are by
+some of the texts which they copied, and that owing to carelessness,
+ignorance, or weariness, or all three, they made blunders which the
+modern student is unable to correct.  In the Introduction will be found
+brief descriptions of the contents of the Egyptian texts, in which
+their general bearing and importance are indicated, and references
+given to authoritative editions of texts and translations.
+
+
+
+
+E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.
+
+
+
+BRITISH MUSEUM,
+November 17,1911.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+   I.  THE LEGEND OF THE CREATION
+
+  II.  THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
+
+ III.  THE LEGEND OF RA AND THE SNAKE-BITE
+
+  IV.  THE LEGEND OF HORUS OF EDFU AND THE WINGED DISK
+
+   V.  THE LEGEND OF THE ORIGIN OF HORUS
+
+  VI.  A LEGEND OF KHENSU NEFER-HETEP AND THE PRINCESS OF BEKHTEN
+
+ VII.  THE LEGEND OF KHNEMU AND A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE
+
+VIII.  THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF HORUS
+
+  IX.  THE LEGEND OF ISIS AND OSIRIS ACCORDING TO CLASSICAL WRITERS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS ON OR FOLLOWING PAGE:
+
+
+The History of Creation
+
+    I.  Horus holding the Hippopotamus-fiend with chain and spear
+
+   II.  Horus spearing the Hippopotamus-fiend
+
+  III.  Horus spearing the Hippopotamus-fiend
+
+   IV.  Horus and Isis capturing the Hippopotamus fiend
+
+    V.  Horus on the back of the Hippopotamus-fiend
+
+   VI.  The slaughter of the Hippopotamus-fiend
+
+  VII.  Horus of Behutet and Ra-Harmakhis in a shrine
+
+ VIII.  Horus of Behutet and Ra-Harmakhis in a shrine
+
+   IX.  Ashthertet in her chariot
+
+    X.  Horus holding captive foes and spearing Typhonic animals
+
+   XI.  Horus spearing human foes
+
+  XII.  Horus spearing the crocodile
+
+ XIII.  Horus in the form of a lion
+
+  XIV.  The Procreation of Horus, son of Isis.
+
+   XV.  The Resurrection of Osiris.
+
+  XVI.  The Bekhten Stele
+
+ XVII.  The Metternich Stele--Obverse
+
+XVIII.  The Metternich Stele--Reverse
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I.
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE GOD NEB-ER-TCHER, AND THE HISTORY OF CREATION.
+
+
+
+
+The text of the remarkable Legend of the Creation which forms the first
+section of this volume is preserved in a well-written papyrus in the
+British Museum, where it bears the number 10,188.  This papyrus was
+acquired by the late Mr. A. H. Rhind in 1861 or 1862, when he was
+excavating some tombs on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.  He did
+not himself find it in a tomb, but he received it from the British
+Consul at Luxor, Mustafa Agha, during an interchange of gifts when Mr.
+Rhind was leaving the country.  Mustafa Agha obtained the papyrus from
+the famous hiding-place of the Royal Mummies at Der-al-Bahari, with the
+situation of which he was well acquainted for many years before it
+became known to the Egyptian Service of Antiquities.  When Mr. Rhind
+came to England, the results of his excavations were examined by Dr.
+Birch, who, recognising the great value of the papyrus, arranged to
+publish it in a companion volume to Facsimiles of Two Papyri, but the
+death of Mr. Rhind in 1865 caused the project to fall through.  Mr.
+Rhind's collection passed into the hands of Mr. David Bremner, and the
+papyrus, together with many other antiquities, was purchased by the
+Trustees of the British Museum. In 1880 Dr. Birch suggested the
+publication of the papyrus to Dr. Pleyte, the Director of the Egyptian
+Museum at Leyden.  This savant transcribed and translated some passages
+from the Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys, which is the first text
+in it, and these he published in Recueil de Travaux, Paris, tom. iii.,
+pp. 57-64.  In 1886 by Dr. Birch's kindness I was allowed to work at
+the papyrus, and I published transcripts of some important passages and
+the account of the Creation in the Proceedings of the Society of
+Biblical Archaeology, 1886-7, pp. 11-26.  The Legend of the Creation
+was considered by Dr. H. Brugsch to be of considerable value for the
+study of the Egyptian Religion, and encouraged by him[FN#1] I made a
+full transcript of the papyrus, which was published in Archaeologia,
+(vol. lii., London, 1891), with transliterations and translations.  In
+1910 I edited for the Trustees of the British Museum the complete
+hieratic text with a revised translation.[FN#2]
+
+
+
+[FN#1]  Ein in moglichst wortgetreuer Uebersetzung vorglegter Papyrus-
+text soll den Schlussstein meines Werkes bilden.  Er wird den Beweis
+fur die Richtigkeit meiner eigenen Untersuchungen vollenden, indem er
+das wichtigste Zeugniss altagyptischen Ursprungs den zahlreichen, von
+mir angezogenen Stellen aus den Inschriften hinzufugt.  Trotz mancher
+Schwierigkeit im Einzelnen ist der Gesammtinhalt des Textes, den zuerst
+ein englischer Gelehrter der Wissenschaft zuganglich gemacht hat, such
+nicht im geringsten misszuverstehen (Brugsch, Religion, p. 740).  He
+gives a German translation of the Creation Legend on pp. 740, 741, and
+a transliteration on p. 756.
+
+[FN#2]  Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, London, 1910,
+folio.
+
+
+
+The papyrus is about 16 ft. 8 in. in length, and is 9 1/4 in. in width.
+It contains 21 columns of hieratic text which are written in short
+lines and are poetical in character, and 12 columns or pages of text
+written in long lines; the total number of lines is between 930 and
+940.  The text is written in a small, very black, but neat hand, and
+may be assigned to a time between the XXVIth Dynasty and the Ptolemaic
+Period.  The titles, catch-words, rubrics, names of Apep and his
+fiends, and a few other words, are written in red ink.  There are two
+colophons; in the one we have a date, namely, the "first day of the
+fourth month of the twelfth year of Pharaoh Alexander, the son of
+Alexander," i.e., B.C. 311, and in the other the name of the priest who
+either had the papyrus written, or appropriated it, namely, Nes-Menu,
+or Nes-Amsu.
+
+The Legend of the Creation is found in the third work which is given in
+the papyrus, and which is called the "Book of overthrowing Apep, the
+Enemy of Ra, the Enemy of Un-Nefer" (i.e., Osiris).  This work
+contained a series of spells which were recited during the performance
+of certain prescribed ceremonies, with the object of preventing storms,
+and dispersing rain-clouds, and removing any obstacle, animate or
+inanimate, which could prevent the rising of the sun in the morning, or
+obscure his light during the day.  The Leader-in Chief of the hosts of
+darkness was a fiend called Apep who appeared in the sky in the form of
+a monster serpent, and, marshalling all the fiends of the Tuat,
+attempted to keep the Sun-god imprisoned in the kingdom of darkness.
+Right in the midst of the spells which were directed against Apep we
+find inserted the legend of the Creation, which occurs in no other
+known Egyptian document (Col. XXVI., l. 21, to Col. XXVII., l. 6).
+Curiously enough a longer version of the legend is given a little
+farther on (Col. XXVIII., l. 20, to Col. XXIX., l. 6).  Whether the
+scribe had two copies to work from, and simply inserted both, or
+whether he copied the short version and added to it as he went along,
+cannot be said.  The legend is entitled: Book of knowing the evolutions
+of Ra [and of] overthrowing Apep.
+
+This curious "Book" describes the origin not only of heaven, and earth,
+and all therein, but also of God Himself.  In it the name of Apep is
+not even mentioned, and it is impossible to explain its appearance in
+the Apep Ritual unless we assume that the whole "Book" was regarded as
+a spell of the most potent character, the mere recital of which was
+fraught with deadly effect for Apep and his friends.
+
+The story of the Creation is supposed to be told by the god Neb-er-
+tcher.  This name means the "Lord to the uttermost limit," and the
+character of the god suggests that the word "limit" refers to time and
+space, and that he was, in fact, the Everlasting God of the Universe.
+This god's name occurs in Coptic texts, and then he appears as one who
+possesses all the attributes which are associated by modern nations
+with God Almighty.  Where and how Neb-er-tcher existed is not said, but
+it seems as if he was believed to have been an almighty and invisible
+power which filled all space.  It seems also that a desire arose in him
+to create the world, and in order to do this he took upon himself the
+form of the god Khepera, who from first to last was regarded as the
+Creator, par excellence, among all the gods known to the Egyptians.
+When this transformation of Neb-er-tcher into Khepera took place the
+heavens and the earth had not been created, but there seems to have
+existed a vast mass of water, or world-ocean, called Nu, and it must
+have been in this that the transformation took place.  In this
+celestial ocean were the germs of all the living things which
+afterwards took form in heaven and on earth, but they existed in a
+state of inertness and helplessness.  Out of this ocean Khepera raised
+himself, and so passed from a state of passiveness and inertness into
+one of activity.  When Khepera raised himself out of the ocean Nu, he
+found himself in vast empty space, wherein was nothing on which he
+could stand.  The second version of the legend says that Khepera gave
+being to himself by uttering his own name, and the first version states
+that he made use of words in providing himself with a place on which to
+stand.  In other words, when Khepera was still a portion of the being
+of Neb-er-tcher, he spake the word "Khepera," and Khepera came into
+being.  Similarly, when he needed a place whereon to stand, he uttered
+the name of the thing, or place, on which he wanted to stand, and that
+thing, or place, came into being.  This spell he seems to have
+addressed to his heart, or as we should say, will, so that Khepera
+willed this standing-place to appear, and it did so forthwith.  The
+first version only mentions a heart, but the second also speaks of a
+heart-soul as assisting Khepera in his first creative acts; and we may
+assume that he thought out in his heart what manner of thing be wished
+to create, and then by uttering its name caused his thought to take
+concrete form.  This process of thinking out the existence of things is
+expressed in Egyptian by words which mean "laying the foundation in the
+heart."
+
+In arranging his thoughts and their visible forms Khepera was assisted
+by the goddess Maat, who is usually regarded as the goddess of law,
+order, and truth, and in late times was held to be the female
+counterpart of Thoth, "the heart of the god Ra."  In this legend,
+however, she seems to play the part of Wisdom, as described in the Book
+of Proverbs,[FN#3] for it was by Maat that he "laid the foundation."
+
+
+
+[FN#3]   "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his
+works of old.  I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
+ever the earth was.  When there were no depths I was brought forth . .
+. . . . . Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I
+brought forth: while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields,
+nor the highest part of the dust of the world.  When he prepared the
+heavens I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
+when he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the
+fountains of the deep: when he gave to the sea his decree, . . . . . .
+when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as
+one brought up with him. . . . . . ."  Proverbs, viii. 22 ff.}
+
+
+
+Having described the coming into being of Khepera and the place on
+which he stood, the legend goes on to tell of the means by which the
+first Egyptian triad, or trinity, came into existence.  Khepera had, in
+some form, union with his own shadow, and so begot offspring, who
+proceeded from his body under the forms of the gods Shu and Tefnut.
+According to a tradition preserved in the Pyramid Texts[FN#4] this
+event took place at On (Heliopolis), and the old form of the legend
+ascribes the production of Shu and Tefnut to an act of masturbation.
+Originally these gods were the personifications of air and dryness, and
+liquids respectively; thus with their creation the materials for the
+construction of the atmosphere and sky came into being.  Shu and Tefnut
+were united, and their offspring were Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the
+Sky-goddess.  We have now five gods in existence; Khepera, the creative
+principle, Shu, the atmosphere, Tefnut, the waters above the heavens,
+Nut, the Sky-goddess, and Keb, the Earth-god.  Presumably about this
+time the sun first rose out of the watery abyss of Nu, and shone upon
+the world and produced day.  In early times the sun, or his light, was
+regarded as a form of Shu.  The gods Keb and Nut were united in an
+embrace, and the effect of the coming of light was to separate them. As
+long as the sun shone, i.e., as long as it was day, Nut, the Sky-
+goddess, remained in her place above the earth, being supported by Shu;
+but as soon as the sun set she left the sky and gradually descended
+until she rested on the body of the Earth-god, Keb.
+
+
+
+[FN#4]   Pepi I., l. 466.
+
+
+
+The embraces of Keb caused Nut to bring forth five gods at a birth,
+namely, Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.  Osiris and Isis
+married before their birth, and Isis brought forth a son called Horus;
+Set and Nephthys also married before their birth, and Nephthys brought
+forth a son named Anpu (Anubis), though he is not mentioned in the
+legend.  Of these gods Osiris is singled out for special mention in the
+legend, in which Khepera, speaking as Neb-er-tcher, says that his name
+is Ausares, who is the essence of the primeval matter of which he
+himself is formed.  Thus Osiris was of the same substance as the Great
+God who created the world according to the Egyptians, and was a
+reincarnation of his great-grandfather.  This portion of the legend
+helps to explain the views held about Osiris as the great ancestral
+spirit, who when on earth was a benefactor of mankind, and who when in
+heaven was the saviour of souls.
+
+The legend speaks of the sun as the Eye of Khepera, or Neb-er-tcher,
+and refers to some calamity which befell it and extinguished its light.
+This calamity may have been simply the coming of night, or eclipses, or
+storms; but in any case the god made a second Eye, i.e., the Moon, to
+which he gave some of the splendour of the other Eye, i.e., the Sun,
+and he gave it a place in his Face, and henceforth it ruled throughout
+the earth, and had special powers in respect of the production of
+trees, plants, vegetables, herbs, etc.  Thus from the earliest times
+the moon was associated with the fertility of the earth, especially in
+connection with the production of abundant crops and successful
+harvests.
+
+According to the legend, men and women sprang not from the earth, but
+directly from the body of the god Khepera, or Neb-er-tcher, who placed
+his members together and then wept tears upon them, and men and women,
+came into being from the tears which had fallen from his eyes.  No
+special mention is made of the creation of beasts in the legend, but
+the god says that he created creeping things of all kinds, and among
+these are probably included the larger quadrupeds.  The men and women,
+and all the other living creatures which were made at that time,
+reproduced their species, each in his own way, and so the earth became
+filled with their descendants which we see at the present time.
+
+Such is the Legend of Creation as it is found in the Papyrus of Nes-
+Menu.  The text of both versions is full of difficult passages, and
+some readings are corrupt; unfortunately variant versions by which they
+might be corrected are lacking.  The general meaning of the legend in
+both versions is quite clear, and it throws considerable light on the
+Egyptian religion.  The Egyptians believed in the existence of God, the
+Creator and Maintainer of all things, but they thought that the
+concerns of this world were committed by Him to the superintendence of
+a series of subordinate spirits or beings called "gods," over whom they
+believed magical spells and ceremonies to have the greatest influence.
+The Deity was a Being so remote, and of such an exalted nature, that it
+was idle to expect Him to interfere in the affairs of mortals, or to
+change any decree or command which He had once uttered.  The spirits or
+"gods," on the other hand, possessing natures not far removed from
+those of men, were thought to be amenable to supplications and
+flattery, and to wheedling and cajolery, especially when accompanied by
+gifts.  It is of great interest to find a legend in which the power of
+God as the Creator of the world and the sun and moon is so clearly set
+forth, embedded in a book of magical spells devoted to the destruction
+of the mythological monster who existed solely to prevent the sun from
+rising and shining.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND.
+
+
+
+The text containing the Legend of the Destruction of Mankind is written
+in hieroglyphs, and is found on the four walls of a small chamber which
+is entered from the "hall of columns" in the tomb of Seti I., which is
+situated on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.  On the wall facing
+the door of this chamber is painted in red the figure of the large "Cow
+of Heaven."  The lower part of her belly is decorated with a series of
+thirteen stars, and immediately beneath it are the two Boats of Ra,
+called Semketet and Mantchet, or Sektet and Matet.  Each of her four
+legs is held in position by two gods, and the god Shu, with
+outstretched uplifted arms, supports her body.  The Cow was published
+by Champollion,[FN#5] without the text.  This most important
+mythological text was first published and translated by Professor E.
+Naville in 1874.[FN#6]  It was republished by Bergmann[FN#7] and
+Brugsch,[FN#8] who gave a transcription of the text, with a German
+translation.  Other German versions by Lauth,[FN#9] Brugsch,[FN#10] and
+Wiedemann[FN#11] have appeared, and a part of the text was translated
+into French by Lefebure.[FN#12]  The latest edition of the text was
+published by Lefebure,[FN#13] and text of a second copy, very much
+mutilated, was published by Professor Naville, with a French
+translation in 1885.[FN#14]  The text printed in this volume is that of
+M. Lefebure.
+
+
+
+[FN#5]  Monuments, tom. iii., p. 245.
+
+[FN#6]  Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. iv., p. 1 ff.
+
+[FN#7]  Hieroglyphische Inschriften, Bl. 85 fl.
+
+[FN#8]  Die neue Weltordnung nach Vernichtung des sundigen
+Menschengeschlechtes, Berlin, 1881.
+
+[FN#9]  Aus Aegyptens Vorzeit, p. 71.
+
+[FN#10]  Religion der alten Aegypter, p. 436.
+
+[FN#11]  Die Religion, p. 32.
+
+[FN#12]  A. Z., 1883, p. 32.
+
+[FN#13]  Tombeau de Seti I., Part IV., plates 15-18.
+
+[FN#14]  Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. viii., p. 412 ft.
+
+
+
+The legend takes us back to the time when the gods of Egypt went about
+in the country, and mingled with men and were thoroughly acquainted
+with their desires and needs.  The king who reigned over Egypt was Ra,
+the Sun-god, who was not, however, the first of the Dynasty of Gods who
+ruled the land.  His predecessor on the throne was Hephaistos, who,
+according to Manetho, reigned 9000 years, whilst Ra reigned only 992
+years; Panodorus makes his reign to have lasted less than 100 years.
+Be this as it may, it seems that the "self-created and self-begotten"
+god Ra had been ruling over mankind for a very long time, for his
+subjects were murmuring against him, and they were complaining that he
+was old, that his bones were like silver, his body like gold, and his
+hair like lapis-lazuli.  When Ra heard these murmurings he ordered his
+bodyguard to summon all the gods who had been with him in the primeval
+World-ocean, and to bid them privately to assemble in the Great House,
+which can be no other than the famous temple of Heliopolis.  This
+statement is interesting, for it proves that the legend is of
+Heliopolitan origin, like the cult of Ra itself, and that it does not
+belong, at least in so far as it applies to Ra, to the Predynastic
+Period.
+
+When Ra entered the Great Temple, the gods made obeisance to him, and
+took up their positions on each side of him, and informed him that they
+awaited his words.  Addressing Nu, the personification of the World-
+ocean, Ra bade them to take notice of the fact that the men and women
+whom his Eye had created were murmuring against him.  He then asked
+them to consider the matter and to devise a plan of action for him, for
+he was unwilling to slay the rebels without hearing what his gods had
+to say.  In reply the gods advised Ra to send forth his Eye to destroy
+the blasphemers, for there was no eye on earth that could resist it,
+especially when it took the form of the goddess Hathor.  Ra accepted
+their advice and sent forth his Eye in the form of Hathor to destroy
+them, and, though the rebels had fled to the mountains in fear, the Eye
+pursued them and overtook them and destroyed them.  Hathor rejoiced in
+her work of destruction, and on her return was praised by Ra, for what
+she had done.  The slaughter of men began at Suten-henen
+(Herakleopolis), and during the night Hathor waded about in the blood
+of men.  Ra asserted his intention of being master of the rebels, and
+this is probably referred to in the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII., in
+which it is said that Ra rose as king for the first time in Suten-
+henen.  Osiris also was crowned at Suten-henen, and in this city lived
+the great Bennu bird, or Phoenix, and the "Crusher of Bones" mentioned
+in the Negative Confession.
+
+The legend now goes on to describe an act of Ra, the significance of
+which it is difficult to explain.  The god ordered messengers to be
+brought to him, and when they arrived, he commanded them to run like
+the wind to Abu, or the city of Elephantine, and to bring him large
+quantities of the fruit called tataat.  What kind of fruit this was is
+not clear, but Brugsch thought they were "mandrakes," the so-called
+"love-apples," and this translation of tataat may be used
+provisionally.  The mandrakes were given to Sekti, a goddess of
+Heliopolis, to crush and grind up, and when this was done they were
+mixed with human blood, and put in a large brewing of beer which the
+women slaves had made from wheat.  In all they made 7,000 vessels of
+beer.  When Ra saw the beer he approved of it, and ordered it to be
+carried up the river to where the goddess Hathor was still, it seems,
+engaged in slaughtering men.  During the night he caused this beer to
+be poured out into the meadows of the Four Heavens, and when Hathor
+came she saw the beer with human blood and mandrakes in it, and drank
+of it and became drunk, and paid no further attention to men and women.
+In welcoming the goddess, Ra, called her "Amit," i.e., "beautiful one,"
+and from this time onward "beautiful women were found in the city of
+Amit," which was situated in the Western Delta, near Lake
+Mareotis.[FN#15]  Ra also ordered that in future at every one of his
+festivals vessels of "sleep-producing beer" should be made, and that
+their number should be the same as the number of the handmaidens of Ra.
+Those who took part in these festivals of Hathor and Ra drank beer in
+very large quantities, and under the influence of the "beautiful
+women," i.e., the priestesses, who were supposed to resemble Hathor in
+their physical attractions, the festal celebrations degenerated into
+drunken and licentious orgies.
+
+
+
+[FN#15]  It was also called the "City of Apis," (Brugsch, Dict. Geog.,
+p. 491), and is the Apis city of classical writers.  It is, perhaps,
+represented by the modern Kom al-Hisn.
+
+
+
+Soon after this Ra complained that he was smitten with pain, and that
+he was weary of the, children of men.  He thought them a worthless
+remnant, and wished that more of them had been slain.  The gods about
+him begged him to endure, and reminded him that his power was in
+proportion to his will.  Ra was, however, unconsoled, and he complained
+that his limbs were weak for the first time in his life.  Thereupon the
+god Nu told Shu to help Ra, and he ordered Nut to take the great god Ra
+on her back.  Nut changed herself into a cow, and with the help of Shu
+Ra got on her back. As soon as men saw that Ra was on the back of the
+Cow of Heaven, and was about to leave them, they became filled with
+fear and repentance, and cried out to Ra to remain with them and to
+slay all those who had blasphemed against him.  But the Cow moved on
+her way, and carried Ra to Het-Ahet, a town of the nome of Mareotis,
+where in later days the right leg of Osiris was said to be preserved.
+Meanwhile darkness covered the land.  When day broke the men who had
+repented of their blasphemies appeared with their bows, and slew the
+enemies of Ra.  At this result Ra was pleased, and he forgave those who
+had repented because of their righteous slaughter of his enemies.  From
+this time onwards human sacrifices were offered up at the festivals of
+Ra celebrated in this place, and at Heliopolis and in other parts of
+Egypt.
+
+After these things Ra declared to Nut that he intended to leave this
+world, and to ascend into heaven, and that all those who would see his
+face must follow him thither.  Then he went up into heaven and prepared
+a place to which all might come.  Then he said, "Hetep sekhet aa,"
+i.e., "Let a great field be produced," and straightway "Sekhet-hetep,"
+or the "Field of peace," came into being.  He next said, "Let there be
+reeds (aaru) in it," and straightway "Sekhet Aaru," or the "Field of
+Reeds," came into being.  Sekhet-hetep was the Elysian Fields of the
+Egyptians, and the Field of Reeds was a well-known section of it.
+Another command of the god Ra resulted in the creation of the stars,
+which the legend compares to flowers.  Then the goddess Nut trembled in
+all her body, and Ra, fearing that she might fall, caused to come into
+being the Four Pillars on which the heavens are supported.  Turning to
+Shu, Ra entreated him to protect these supports, and to place himself
+under Nut, and to hold her up in position with his hands.  Thus Shu
+became the new Sun-god in the place of Ra, and the heavens in which Ra
+lived were supported and placed beyond the risk of falling, and mankind
+would live and rejoice in the light of the new sun.
+
+At this place in the legend a text is inserted called the "Chapter of
+the Cow."  It describes how the Cow of Heaven and the two Boats of the
+Sun shall be painted, and gives the positions of the gods who stand by
+the legs of the Cow, and a number of short magical names, or formulae,
+which are inexplicable.  The general meaning of the picture of the Cow
+is quite clear.  The Cow represents the sky in which the Boats of Ra,
+sail, and her four legs are the four cardinal points which cannot be
+changed.  The region above her back is the heaven in which Ra reigns
+over the beings who pass thereto from this earth when they die, and
+here was situated the home of the gods and the celestial spirits who
+govern this world.
+
+When Ra had made a heaven for himself, and had arranged for a
+continuance of life on the earth, and the welfare of human beings, he
+remembered that at one time when reigning on earth he had been bitten
+by a serpent, and had nearly lost his life through the bite.  Fearing
+that the same calamity might befall his successor, he determined to
+take steps to destroy the power of all noxious reptiles that dwelt on
+the earth.  With this object in view he told Thoth to summon Keb, the
+Earth-god, to his presence, and this god having arrived, Ra told him
+that war must be made against the serpents that dwelt in his dominions.
+He further commanded him to go to the god Nu, and to tell him to set a
+watch over all the reptiles that were in the earth and in water, and to
+draw up a writing for every place in which serpents are known to be,
+containing strict orders that they are to bite, no one.  Though these
+serpents knew that Ra was retiring from the earth, they were never to
+forget that his rays would fall upon them.  In his place their father
+Keb was to keep watch over them, and he was their father for ever.
+
+As a further protection against them Ra promised to impart to magicians
+and snake-charmers the particular word of power, hekau, with which he
+guarded himself against the attacks of serpents, and also to transmit
+it to his son Osiris.  Thus those who are ready to listen to the
+formulae of the snake-charmers shall always be immune from the bites of
+serpents, and their children also.  From this we may gather that the
+profession of the snake-charmer is very ancient, and that this class of
+magicians were supposed to owe the foundation of their craft to a
+decree of Ra himself.
+
+Ra next sent for the god Thoth, and when he came into the presence of
+Ra, he invited him to go with him to a distance, to a place called
+"Tuat," i.e., hell, or the Other World, in which region he had
+determined to make his light to shine.  When they arrived there he told
+Thoth, the Scribe of Truth, to write down on his tablets the names of
+all who were therein, and to punish those among them who had sinned
+against him, and he deputed to Thoth the power to deal absolutely as he
+pleased with all the beings in the Tuat.  Ra loathed the wicked, and
+wished them to be kept at a distance from him.  Thoth was to be his
+vicar, to fill his place, and "Place of Ra," was to be his name.  He
+gave him power to send out a messenger (hab), so the Ibis (habi) came
+into being.  All that Thoth would do would be good (khen), therefore
+the Tekni bird of Thoth came into being.  He gave Thoth power to
+embrace (anh) the heavens, therefore the Moon-god (Aah) came into
+being.  He gave Thoth power to turn back (anan) the Northern peoples,
+therefore the dog-headed ape of Thoth came into being.  Finally Ra told
+Thoth that he would take his place in the sight of all those who were
+wont to worship Ra, and that all should praise him as God.  Thus the
+abdication of Ra was complete.
+
+In the fragmentary texts which follow we are told how a man may benefit
+by the recital of this legend.  He must proclaim that the soul which
+animated Ra was the soul of the Aged One, and that of Shu, Khnemu (?),
+Heh, &c., and then he must proclaim that he is Ra himself, and his word
+of power Heka.  If he recites the Chapter correctly he shall have life
+in the Other World, and he will be held in greater fear there than
+here.  A rubric adds that he must be dressed in new linen garments, and
+be well washed with Nile water; he must wear white sandals, and his
+body must be anointed with holy oil.  He must burn incense in a censer,
+and a figure of Maat (Truth) must be painted on his tongue with green
+paint.  These regulations applied to the laity as well as to the
+clergy.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF RA AND ISIS.
+
+
+
+The original text of this very interesting legend is written in the
+hieratic character on a papyrus preserved at Turin, and was published
+by Pleyte and Rossi in their Corpus of Turin Papyri.[FN#16]  French and
+German translations of it were published by Lefebure,[FN#17] and
+Wiedemann[FN#18] respectively, and summaries of its contents were given
+by Erman[FN#19] and Maspero.[FN#20]  A transcript of the hieratic text
+into hieroglyphics, with transliteration and translation, was published
+by me in 1895.[FN#21]
+
+
+
+[FN#16]  Papyrus de Turin, pll. 31, 77, 131-138.
+
+[FN#17]  A. Z., 1883, p. 27 ff.
+
+[FN#18]  Die Religion, p. 29.
+
+[FN#19]  Aegypten, p. 359 ff.
+
+[FN#20]  Les Origines, V. 162-4.
+
+
+[FN#21]  First Steps in Egyptian, p. 241 ff.
+
+
+
+It has already been seen that the god Ra, when retiring from the
+government of this world, took steps through Thoth to supply mankind
+with words of power and spells with which to protect themselves against
+the bites of serpents and other noxious reptiles.  The legend of the
+Destruction of Mankind affords no explanation of this remarkable fact,
+but when we read the following legend of Ra and Isis we understand why
+Ra, though king of the gods, was afraid of the reptiles which lived in
+the kingdom of Keb.  The legend, or "Chapter of the Divine God," begins
+by enumerating the mighty attributes of Ra as the creator of the
+universe, and describes the god of "many names" as unknowable, even by
+the gods.  At this time Isis lived in the form of a woman who possessed
+the knowledge of spells and incantations, that is to say, she was
+regarded much in the same way as modern African peoples regard their
+"medicine-women," or "witch-women."  She had used her spells on men,
+and was tired of exercising her powers on them, and she craved the
+opportunity of making herself mistress of gods and spirits as well as
+of men.  She meditated how she could make herself mistress both of
+heaven and earth, and finally she decided that she could only obtain
+the power she wanted if she possessed the knowledge of the secret name
+of Ra, in which his very existence was bound up.  Ra guarded this name
+most jealously, for he knew that if he revealed it to any being he
+would henceforth be at that being's mercy.  Isis saw that it was
+impossible to make Ra declare his name to her by ordinary methods, and
+she therefore thought out the following plan.  It was well known in
+Egypt and the Sudan at a very early period that if a magician obtained
+some portion of a person's body, e.g., a hair, a paring of a nail, a
+fragment of skin, or a portion of some efflux from the body, spells
+could be used upon them which would have the effect of causing grievous
+harm to that person.  Isis noted that Ra had become old and feeble, and
+that as he went about he dribbled at the mouth, and that his saliva
+fell upon the ground.  Watching her opportunity she caught some of the
+saliva of the and mixing it with dust, she moulded it into the form of
+a large serpent, with poison-fangs, and having uttered her spells over
+it, she left the serpent lying on the path, by which Ra travelled day
+by day as he went about inspecting Egypt, so that it might strike at
+him as he passed along.  We may note in passing that the Banyoro in the
+Sudan employ serpents in killing buffaloes at the present day.  They
+catch a puff-adder in a noose, and then nail it alive by the tip of its
+tail to the round in the middle of a buffalo track, so that when an
+animal passes the reptile may strike at it.  Presently a buffalo comes
+along, does what it is expected to do, and then the puff-adder strikes
+at it, injects its poison, and the animal dies soon after.  As many as
+ten buffaloes have been killed in a day by one puff-adder.  The body of
+the first buffalo is not eaten, for it is regarded as poisoned meat,
+but all the others are used as food.[FN#22]
+
+
+
+[FN#22]  Johnston, Uganda, vol. ii., p. 584.  The authority for this
+statement is Mr. George Wilson, formerly Collector in Unyoro.
+
+
+
+Soon after Isis had placed the serpent on the Path, Ra passed by, and
+the reptile bit him, thus injecting poison into his body.  Its effect
+was terrible, and Ra cried out in agony.  His jaws chattered, his lips
+trembled, and he became speechless for a time; never before had be
+suffered such pain.  The gods hearing his cry rushed to him, and when
+he could speak he told them that he had been bitten by a deadly
+serpent.  In spite of all the words of power which were known to him,
+and his secret name which had been hidden in his body at his birth, a
+serpent had bitten him, and he was being consumed with a fiery pain.
+He then commanded that all the gods who had any knowledge of magical
+spells should come to him, and when they came, Isis, the great lady of
+spells, the destroyer of diseases, and the revivifier of the dead, came
+with them.  Turning to Ra she said, "What hath happened, O divine
+Father?" and in answer the god told her that a serpent had bitten him,
+that he was hotter than fire and colder than water, that his limbs
+quaked, and that he was losing the power of sight.  Then Isis said to
+him with guile, "Divine Father, tell me thy name, for he who uttereth
+his own name shall live."  Thereupon Ra proceeded to enumerate the
+various things that he had done, and to describe his creative acts, and
+ended his speech to Isis by saying, that he was Khepera in the morning,
+Ra at noon, and Temu in the evening.  Apparently he thought that the
+naming of these three great names would satisfy Isis, and that she
+would immediately pronounce a word of power and stop the pain in his
+body, which, during his speech, had become more acute.  Isis, however,
+was not deceived, and she knew well that Ra had not declared to her his
+hidden name; this she told him, and she begged him once again to tell
+her his name.  For a time the god refused to utter the name, but as the
+pain in his body became more violent, and the poison passed through his
+veins like fire, he said, "Isis shall search in me, and my name shall
+pass from my body into hers."  At that moment Ra removed himself from
+the sight of the gods in his Boat, and the Throne in the Boat of
+Millions of Years had no occupant.  The great name of Ra was, it seems,
+hidden in his heart, and Isis, having some doubt as to whether Ra would
+keep his word or not, agreed with Horus that Ra must be made to take an
+oath to part with his two Eyes, that is, the Sun and the Moon.  At
+length Ra allowed his heart to be taken from his body, and his great
+and secret name, whereby he lived, passed into the possession of Isis.
+Ra thus became to all intents and purposes a dead god.  Then Isis,
+strong in the power of her spells, said: "Flow, poison, come out of Ra.
+Eye of Horus, come out of Ra, and shine outside his mouth.  It is I,
+Isis, who work, and I have made the poison to fall on the ground.
+Verily the name of the great god is taken from him, Ra shall live and
+the poison shall die; if the poison live Ra shall die."
+
+This was the infallible spell which was to be used in cases of
+poisoning, for it rendered the bite or sting of every venomous reptile
+harmless.  It drove the poison out of Ra, and since it was composed by
+Isis after she obtained the knowledge of his secret name it was
+irresistible.  If the words were written on papyrus or linen over a
+figure of Temu or Heru-hekenu, or Isis, or Horus, they became a mighty
+charm.  If the papyrus or linen were steeped in water and the water
+drunk, the words were equally efficacious as a charm against snake-
+bites.  To this day water in which the written words of a text from the
+Kur'an have been dissolved, or water drunk from a bowl on the inside of
+which religious texts have been written, is still regarded as a never-
+failing charm in Egypt and the Sudan.  Thus we see that the modern
+custom of drinking magical water was derived from the ancient
+Egyptians, who believed that it conveyed into their bodies the actual
+power of their gods.
+
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF HERU-BEHUTET AND THE WINGED DISK.
+
+
+
+
+The text of this legend is cut in hieroglyphics on the walls of the
+temple of Edfu in Upper Egypt, and certain portions of it are
+illustrated by large bas-reliefs.  Both text and reliefs were published
+by Professor Naville in his volume entitled Mythe d'Horus, fol., plates
+12-19, Geneva, 1870.  A German translation by Brugsch appeared in the
+Ahandlungen der Gottinger Akademie, Band xiv., pp. 173-236, and another
+by Wiedemann in his Die Religion, p. 38 ff. (see the English
+translation p. 69 ff.).  The legend, in the form in which it is here
+given, dates from the Ptolemaic Period, but the matter which it
+contains is far older, and it is probable that the facts recorded in it
+are fragments of actual history, which the Egyptians of the late period
+tried to piece together in chronological order.  We shall see as we
+read that the writer of the legend as we have it was not well
+acquainted with Egyptian history, and that in his account of the
+conquest of Egypt he has confounded one god with another, and mixed up
+historical facts with mythological legends to such a degree that his
+meaning is frequently uncertain.  The great fact which he wished to
+describe is the conquest of Egypt by an early king, who, having subdued
+the peoples in the South, advanced northwards, and made all the people
+whom he conquered submit to his yoke.  Now the King of Egypt was always
+called Horus, and the priests of Edfu wishing to magnify their local
+god, Horus of Behutet, or Horus of Edfu, attributed to him the
+conquests of this human, and probably predynastic, king.  We must
+remember that the legend assumes that Ra, was still reigning on earth,
+though he was old and feeble, and had probably deputed his power to his
+successor, whom the legend regards as his son.
+
+
+
+PLATE I.
+Horus holding the Hippopotamus-fiend with chain and spear.  Behind
+stand Isis and Heru Khenti-Khatti.
+
+PLATE II.
+Horus driving his spear into the Hippopotamus-fiend; behind him stands
+one of his "Blacksmiths".
+
+PLATE III.
+Horus driving his spear into the belly of the Hippopotamus-fiend as he
+lies on his back; behind stands on of his "Blacksmiths".
+
+PLATE IV.
+Horus and Isis capturing the Hippopotamus-fiend.
+
+
+
+In the 363rd year of his reign Ra-Harmakhis[FN#23] was in Nubia with
+his army with the intention of destroying those who had conspired
+against him; because of their conspiracy (auu) Nubia is called "Uaua"
+to this day.  From Nubia Ra-Harmakhis sailed down the river to Edfu,
+where Heru-Behutet entered his boat, and told him that his foes were
+conspiring against him.  Ra-Harmakhis in answer addressed Heru-Behutet
+as his son, and commanded him to set out without delay and slay the
+wicked rebels.  Then Heru-Behutet took the form of a great winged Disk,
+and at once flew up into the sky, where he took the place of Ra, the
+old Sun-god.  Looking down from the height of heaven he was able to
+discover the whereabouts of the rebels, and he pursued them in the form
+of a winged disk.  Then he attacked them with such violence that they
+became dazed, and could neither see where they were going, nor hear,
+the result of this being that they slew each other, and in a very short
+time they were all dead.  Thoth, seeing this, told Ra that because
+Horus had appeared as a great winged disk he must be called "Heru-
+Behutet," and by this name Horus was known ever after at Edfu.  Ra
+embraced Horus, and referred with pleasure to the blood which he had
+shed, and Horus invited his father to come and look upon the slain.  Ra
+set out with the goddess Ashthertet (`Ashtoreth) to do this, and they
+saw the enemies lying fettered on the ground.  The legend here
+introduces a number of curious derivations of the names of Edfu, &c.,
+which are valueless, and which remind us of the derivations of place-
+names propounded by ancient Semitic scribes.
+
+
+
+[FN#23]  i.e., Ra on the horizon.
+
+
+
+PLATE V.
+Horus standing on the back of the Hippopotamus-fiend, and spearing him
+in the presence of Isis.
+
+PLATE VI.
+The "Butcher-priest" slicing open the Hippopotamus-fiend.
+
+
+
+In gladness of heart Ra proposed a sail on the Nile, but as soon as his
+enemies heard that he was coming, they changed themselves into
+crocodiles and hippopotami, so that they might be able to wreck his
+boat and devour him.  As the boat of the god approached them they
+opened their jaws to crush it, but Horus and his followers came quickly
+on the scene, and defeated their purpose.  The followers of Horus here
+mentioned are called in the text "Mesniu," i.e., "blacksmiths," or
+"workers in metal," and they represent the primitive conquerors of the
+Egyptians, who were armed with metal weapons, and so were able to
+overcome with tolerable ease the indigenous Egyptians, whose weapons
+were made of flint and wood.  Horus and his "blacksmiths" were provided
+with iron lances and chains, and, baying cast the chains over the
+monsters in the river, they drove their lances into their snouts, and
+slew 651 of them.  Because Horus gained his victory by means of metal
+weapons, Ra decreed that a metal statue of Horus should be placed at
+Edfu, and remain there for ever, and a name was given to the town to
+commemorate the great battle that had taken place there.  Ra applauded
+Horus for the mighty deeds which be had been able to perform by means
+of the spells contained in the "Book of Slaying the Hippopotamus."
+Horus then associated with himself the goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet,
+who were in the form of serpents, and, taking his place as the winged
+Disk on the front of the Boat of Ra, destroyed all the enemies of Ra
+wheresoever he found them.  When the remnant of the enemies of Ra, saw
+that they were likely to be slain, they doubled back to the South, but
+Horus pursued them, and drove them down the river before him as far as
+Thebes.  One battle took place at Tchetmet, and another at Denderah,
+and Horus was always victorious; the enemies were caught by chains
+thrown over them, and the deadly spears of the Blacksmiths drank their
+blood.
+
+After this the enemy fled to the North, and took refuge in the swamps
+of the Delta, and in the shallows of the Mediterranean Sea, and Horus
+pursued them thither.  After searching for them for four days and four
+nights he found them, and they were speedily slain.  One hundred and
+forty-two of them and a male hippopotamus were dragged on to the Boat
+of Ra, and there Horus dug out their entrails, and hacked their
+carcases in pieces, which he gave to his Blacksmiths and the gods who
+formed the crew of the Boat of Ra.  Before despatching the
+hippopotamus, Horus leaped on to the back of the monster as a mark of
+his triumph, and to commemorate this event the priest of Heben, the
+town wherein these things happened, was called "He who standeth on the
+back ever after."
+
+The end of the great fight, however, was not yet.  Another army of
+enemies appeared by the North Lake, and they were marching towards the
+sea; but terror of Horus smote their hearts, and they fled and took
+refuge in Mertet-Ament, where they allied themselves with the followers
+of Set, the Arch-fiend and great Enemy of Ra.  Thither Horus and his
+well-armed Blacksmiths pursued them, and came up with them at the town
+called Per-Rerehu, which derived its name from the "Two Combatants," or
+"Two Men," Horus and Set.  A great fight took place, the enemies of Ra
+were defeated with great slaughter, and Horus dragged 381 prisoners on
+to the Boat of Ra, where he slew them, and gave their bodies to his
+followers.
+
+
+
+PLATE VII.
+Horus of Behutet and Ra-Harmakhis in a shrine.
+
+PLATE VIII.
+Horus of Behutet and Harmakhis in a shrine.
+
+PLATE IX.
+
+Ashthertet ('Ashtoreth') driving her chariot over the prostrate foe.
+
+PLATE X.
+Left: Horus of Behutet spearing a Typhonic animal, and holding his
+prisoners with rope.
+
+Right: Horus of Behutet, accompanied by Ra-Harmakhis and Menu, spearing
+the Hippopotamus-fiend.
+
+
+
+Then Set rose up and cursed Horus because he had slain his allies, and
+he used such foul language that Thoth called him "Nehaha-her," i.e.,
+"Stinking Face," and this name clung to him ever after.  After this
+Horus and Set engaged in a fight which lasted a very long time, but at
+length Horus drove his spear into the neck of Set with such violence
+that the Fiend fell headlong to the ground.  Then Horus smote with his
+club the mouth which had uttered such blasphemies, and fettered him
+with his chain.  In this state Horus dragged Set into the presence of
+Ra, who ascribed great praise to Horus, and special names were given to
+the palace of Horus and the high priest of the temple in commemoration
+of the event.  When the question of the disposal of Set was being
+discussed by the gods, Ra ordered that he and his fiends should be
+given over to Isis and her son Horus, who were to do what they pleased
+with them.  Horus promptly cut off the heads of Set and his fiends in
+the presence of Ra and Isis, and be dragged Set by his feet through the
+country with his spear sticking in his head and neck.  After this Isis
+appointed Horus of Behutet to be the protecting deity of her son Horus.
+
+The fight between the Sun-god and Set was a very favourite subject with
+Egyptian writers, and there are many forms of it.  Thus there is the
+fight between Heru-ur and Set, the fight between Ra and Set, the fight
+between Heru-Behutet and Set, the fight between Osiris and Set, and the
+fight between Horus, son of Isis, and Set.  In the oldest times the
+combat was merely the natural opposition of light to darkness, but
+later the Sun-god became the symbol of right and truth as well as of
+light, and Set the symbol of sin and wickedness as well as of darkness,
+and ultimately the nature myth was forgotten, and the fight between the
+two gods became the type of the everlasting war which good men wage
+against sin.  In Coptic literature we have the well-known legend of the
+slaughter of the dragon by St. George, and this is nothing but a
+Christian adaptation of the legend of Horus and Set.
+
+After these things Horus, son of Ra, and Horus, son of Isis, each took
+the form of a mighty man, with the face and body of a hawk, and each
+wore the Red and White Crowns, and each carried a spear and chain.  In
+these forms the two gods slew the remnant of the enemies.  Now by some
+means or other Set came to life again, and he took the form of a mighty
+hissing or "roaring" serpent, and hid himself in the ground, in a place
+which was ever after called the "place of the roarer."  In front of his
+hiding-place Horus, son of Isis, stationed himself in the form of a
+hawk-headed staff to prevent him from coming out.  In spite of this,
+however, Set managed to escape, and he gathered about him the Smai and
+Seba fiends at the Lake of Meh, and waged war once more against Horus;
+the enemies of Ra were again defeated, and Horus slew them in the
+presence of his father.
+
+
+
+PLATE XI.
+Horus of Behutet and Thoth spearing human victims with the assistance
+of Isis.
+
+PLATE XII.
+Horus of Behutet and Thoth spearing Set in the form of a crocodile.
+
+
+
+Horus, it seems, now ceased to fight for some time, and devoted himself
+to keeping guard over the "Great God" who was in An-rut-f, a district
+in or near Herakleopolis.  This Great God was no other than Osiris, and
+the duty of Horus was to prevent the Smai fiends from coming by night
+to the place.  In spite of the power of Horus, it was found necessary
+to summon the aid of Isis to keep away the fiends, and it was only by
+her words of power that the fiend Ba was kept out of the sanctuary.  As
+a reward for what he had already done, Thoth decreed that Horus should
+be called the "Master-Fighter." Passing over the derivations of place-
+names which occur here in the text, we find that Horus and his
+Blacksmiths were again obliged to fight bodies of the enemy who had
+managed to escape, and that on one occasion they killed one hundred and
+six foes.  In every fight the Blacksmiths performed mighty deeds of
+valour, and in reward for their services a special district was
+allotted to them to dwell in.
+
+The last great fight in the North took place at Tanis, in the eastern
+part of the Delta.  When the position of the enemy had been located,
+Horus took the form of a lion with the face of a man, and he put on his
+head the Triple Crown.  His claws were like flints, and with them he
+dragged away one hundred and forty-two of the enemy, and tore them in
+pieces, and dug out their tongues, which he carried off as symbols of
+his victory.
+
+
+
+Meanwhile rebellion had again broken out in Nubia, where about one-
+third of the enemy had taken refuge in the river in the forms of
+crocodiles and hippopotami.  Ra counselled Horus to sail up the Nile
+with his Blacksmiths, and when Thoth had recited the "Chapters of
+protecting the Boat of Ra" over the boats, the expedition set sail for
+the South.  The object of reciting these spells was to prevent the
+monsters which were in the river from making the waves to rise and from
+stirring up storms which might engulf the boats of Ra and Horus and the
+Blacksmiths.  When the rebels and fiends who had been uttering, treason
+against Horus saw the boat of Ra, with the winged Disk of Horus
+accompanied by the goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet in the form of
+serpents, they were smitten with fear, and their hearts quaked, and all
+power of resistance left them, and they died of fright straightway.
+When Horus returned in triumph to Edfu, Ra ordered that an image of the
+winged Disk should be placed in each of his sanctuaries, and that in
+every place wherein a winged Disk was set, that sanctuary should be a
+sanctuary of Horus of Behutet.  The winged disks which are seen above
+the doorways of the temples still standing in Egypt show that the
+command of Ra, was faithfully carried out by the priests.
+
+
+
+PLATE XIII.
+Horus of Behutet in the form of a lion slaying his foes.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+
+
+LEGEND OF THE BIRTH OF HORUS, SON OF ISIS AND OSIRIS.
+
+
+
+PLATE XIV.
+The Procreation of Horus, son of Isis.
+
+
+
+The text which contains this legend is found cut in hieroglyphics upon
+a stele which is now preserved in Paris.  Attention was first called to
+it by Chabas, who in 1857 gave a translation of it in the Revue
+Archeologique, p. 65 ff., and pointed out the importance of its
+contents with his characteristic ability.  The hieroglyphic text was
+first published by Ledrain in his work on the monuments of the
+Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris,[FN#24] and I gave a transcript of the
+text, with transliteration and translation, in 1895.[FN#25]
+
+
+
+[FN#24]  Les Monuments Egyptiens (Cabinet des Medailles et Antiques),
+In the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1879-1882,
+plate xxii. ff.
+
+
+[FN#25]  First Steps in Egyptian, pp. 179-188.
+
+
+
+The greater part of the text consists of a hymn to Osiris, which was
+probably composed under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when an extraordinary
+development of the cult of that god took place, and when he was placed
+by Egyptian theologians at the head of all the gods.  Though unseen in
+the temples, his presence filled all Egypt, and his body formed the
+very substance of the country.  He was the God of all gods and the
+Governor of the Two Companies of the gods, he formed the soul and body
+of Ra, he was the beneficent Spirit of all spirits, he was himself the
+celestial food on which the Doubles in the Other World lived. He was
+the greatest of the gods in On (Heliopolis), Memphis, Herakleopolis,
+Hermopolis, Abydos, and the region of the First Cataract, and so.  He
+embodied in his own person the might of Ra-Tem, Apis and Ptah, the
+Horus-gods, Thoth and Khnemu, and his rule over Busiris and Abydos
+continued to be supreme, as it had been for many, many hundreds of
+years.  He was the source of the Nile, the north wind sprang from him,
+his seats were the stars of heaven which never set, and the
+imperishable stars were his ministers.  All heaven was his dominion,
+and the doors of the sky opened before him of their own accord when he
+appeared.  He inherited the earth from his father Keb, and the
+sovereignty of heaven from his mother Nut.  In his person he united
+endless time in the past and endless time in the future.  Like Ra he
+had fought Seba, or Set, the monster of evil, and had defeated him, and
+his victory assured to him lasting authority over the gods and the
+dead.  He exercised his creative power in making land and water, trees
+and herbs, cattle and other four-footed beasts, birds of all kinds, and
+fish and creeping things; even the waste spaces of the desert owed
+allegiance to him as the creator.  And he rolled out the sky, and set
+the light above the darkness.
+
+The last paragraph of the text contains an allusion to Isis, the sister
+and wife of Osiris, and mentions the legend of the birth of Horus,
+which even under the XVIIIth Dynasty was very ancient, Isis, we are
+told, was the constant protectress of her brother, she drove away the
+fiends that wanted to attack him, and kept them out of his shrine and
+tomb, and she guarded him from all accidents.  All these things she did
+by means of spells and incantations, large numbers of which were known
+to her, and by her power as the "witch-goddess."  Her "mouth was
+trained to perfection, and she made no mistake in pronouncing her
+spells, and her tongue was skilled and halted not."  At length came the
+unlucky day when Set succeeded in killing Osiris during the war which
+the "good god" was waging against him and his fiends.  Details of the
+engagement are wanting, but the Pyramid Texts state that the body of
+Osiris was hurled to the ground by Set at a place called Netat, which
+seems to have been near Abydos.[FN#26]  The news of the death of Osiris
+was brought to Isis, and she at once set out to find his body.  All
+legends agree in saying that she took the form of a bird, and that she
+flew about unceasingly, going hither and thither, and uttering wailing
+cries of grief.  At length she found the body, and with a piercing cry
+she alighted on the ground.  The Pyramid Texts say that Nephthys was
+with her that "Isis came, Nephthys came, the one on the right side, the
+other on the left side, one in the form of a Hat bird, the other in the
+form of a Tchert bird, and they found Osiris thrown on the ground in
+Netat by his brother Set."  The late form of the legend goes on to say
+that Isis fanned the body with her feathers, and produced air, and that
+at length she caused the inert members of Osiris to move, and drew from
+him his essence, wherefrom she produced her child Horus.
+
+
+
+[FN#26]  Pepi I., line 475; Pepi II., line 1263.
+
+
+
+This bare statement of the dogma of the conception of Horus does not
+represent all that is known about it, and it may well be supplemented
+by a passage from the Pyramid Texts,[FN#27] which reads, "Adoration to
+thee, O Osiris.[FN#28]  Rise thou up on thy left side, place thyself on
+thy right side.  This water which I give unto thee is the water of
+youth (or rejuvenation).  Adoration to thee, O Osiris!  Rise thou up on
+thy left side, place thyself on thy right side.  This bread which I
+have made for thee is warmth.  Adoration to thee, O Osiris!  The doors
+of heaven are opened to thee, the doors of the streams are thrown wide
+open to thee.  The gods in the city of Pe come [to thee], Osiris, at
+the sound (or voice) of the supplication of Isis and Nephthys. . . . .
+Thy elder sister took thy body in her arms, she chafed thy hands,
+she clasped thee to her breast [when] she found thee [lying] on thy
+side on the plain of Netat."  And in another place we read:[FN#29] "Thy
+two sisters, Isis and Nephthys, came to thee, Kam-urt, in thy name of
+Kam-ur, Uatchet-urt, in thy name of Uatch-ur . . . . . . . Isis and
+Nephthys weave magical protection for thee in the city of Saut, for
+thee their lord, in thy name of 'Lord of Saut,' for their god, in thy
+name of 'God.'  They praise thee; go not thou far from them in thy name
+of 'Tua.'  They present offerings to thee; be not wroth in thy name of
+'Tchentru.'  Thy sister Isis cometh to thee rejoicing in her love for
+thee.[FN#30]  Thou hast union with her, thy seed entereth her.  She
+conceiveth in the form of the star Septet (Sothis).  Horus-Sept issueth
+from thee in the form of Horus, dweller in the star Septet.  Thou
+makest a spirit to be in him in his name 'Spirit dwelling in the god
+Tchentru.'  He avengeth thee in his name of 'Horus, the son who avenged
+his father.'  Hail, Osiris, Keb hath brought to thee Horus, he hath
+avenged thee, he hath brought to thee the hearts of the gods, Horus
+hath given thee his Eye, thou hast taken possession of the Urert Crown
+thereby at the head of the gods.  Horus hath presented to thee thy
+members, he hath collected them completely, there is no disorder in
+thee.  Thoth hath seized thy enemy and hath slain him and those who
+were with him."  The above words are addressed to dead kings in the
+Pyramid Texts, and what the gods were supposed to do for them was
+believed by the Egyptians to have been actually done for Osiris.  These
+extracts are peculiarly valuable, for they prove that the legend of
+Osiris which was current under the XVIIIth Dynasty was based upon
+traditions which were universally accepted in Egypt under the Vth and
+VIth Dynasties.
+
+
+
+[FN#27]  Mer-en-Ra, line 336; Pepi II., line 862.
+
+[FN#28]  I omit the king's names.
+
+[FN#29]  Teta, line 274; Pepi I., line 27; Mer-en-Ra, line 37; and Pepi
+II., line 67.
+
+[FN#30]  Pyramid Text, Teta, l. 276.
+
+
+
+PLATE XV.
+
+
+PLATE XVI.
+The Stele recording the casting out of a devil from the Princess of
+Bekhten.
+
+
+
+The hymn concludes with a reference to the accession of Horus, son of
+Isis, the flesh and bone of Osiris, to the throne of his grandfather
+Keb, and to the welcome which he received from the Tchatcha, or
+Administrators of heaven, and the Company of the Gods, and the Lords of
+Truth, who assembled in the Great House of Heliopolis to acknowledge
+his sovereignty.  His succession also received the approval of Neb-er-
+tcher, who, as we saw from the first legend in this book, was the
+Creator of the Universe.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF KHENSU NEFER-HETEP[FN#31] AND THE PRINCESS OF BEKHTEN.
+
+
+
+[FN#31]    In the headlines of this section, p. 106 ff., for Ptah
+Nefer-hetep read Khensu Nefer-hetep.
+
+
+
+The text of this legend is cut in hieroglyphics upon a sandstone stele,
+with a rounded top, which was found in the temple of Khensu at Thebes,
+and is now preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris; it was
+discovered by Champollion, and removed to Paris by Prisse d'Avennes in
+1846.  The text was first published by Prisse d'Avennes,[FN#32] and it
+was first translated by Birch[FN#33] in 1853.  The text was republished
+and translated into French by E. de Rouge in 1858,[FN#34] and several
+other renderings have been given in German and in English since that
+date.[FN#35]  When the text was first published, and for some years
+afterwards, it was generally thought that the legend referred to events
+which were said to have taken place under a king who was identified as
+Rameses XIII., but this misconception was corrected by Erman, who
+showed[FN#36] that the king was in reality Rameses II.  By a careful
+examination of the construction of the text he proved that the
+narrative on the stele was drawn up several hundreds of years after the
+events described in it took place, and that its author was but
+imperfectly acquainted with the form of the Egyptian language in use in
+the reign of Rameses II.  In fact, the legend was written in the
+interests of the priests of the temple of Khensu, who wished to magnify
+their god and his power to cast out devils and to exorcise evil
+spirits; it was probably composed between B.C. 650 and B.C. 250.[FN#37]
+
+
+
+[FN#32]  Choix de Monuments Egyptiens, Paris, 1847, plate xxiv.
+
+[FN#33]  Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, New Series,
+vol. iv., p. 217 ff.
+
+[FN#34]  Journal Asiatique (Etude sur une Stele Egyptienne), August,
+1856, August, 1857, and August-Sept., 1858, Paris, 8vo, with plate.
+
+[FN#35]  Brugsch, Geschichte Aegyptens, 1877, p. 627 ff.; Birch,
+Records of the Past, Old Series, vol. iv., p. 53 ff.; Budge, Egyptian
+Reading Book, text and transliteration, p. 40 ff.; translation, p.
+xxviii. ff.
+
+[FN#36]  Aeg. Zeit., 1883, pp. 54-60.
+
+[FN#37]  Maspero, Les Contes Populaires, 3rd edit., p. 166.
+
+
+
+
+The legend, after enumerating the great names of Rameses II., goes on
+to state that the king was in the "country of the two rivers," by which
+we are to understand some portion of Mesopotamia, the rivers being the
+Tigris and Euphrates, and that the local chiefs were bringing to him
+tribute consisting of gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and logs of wood
+from the Land of the God.  It is difficult to understand how gold and
+logs of wood from Southern Arabia and East Africa came to be produced
+as tribute by chiefs who lived so far to the north.  Among those who
+sent gifts was the Prince of Bekhten, and at the head of all his
+tribute he sent his eldest daughter, bearing his message of homage and
+duty.  Now the maiden was beautiful, and the King of Egypt thought her
+so lovely that be took her to wife, and bestowed upon her the name "Ra-
+neferu," which means something like the "beauties of Ra."  He took her
+back with him to Egypt, where she was installed as Queen.
+
+During the summer of the fifteenth year of his reign, whilst Rameses
+II. was celebrating a festival of Amen-Ra in the Temple of Luxor, one
+came to him and reported that an envoy had arrived from the Prince of
+Bekhten, bearing with him many gifts for the Royal Wife Ra-neferu.
+When the envoy had been brought into the presence, he addressed words
+of homage to the king, and, having presented the gifts from his lord,
+he said that he had come to beg His Majesty to send a "learned man,"
+i.e., a magician, to Bekhten to attend Bent-enth-resh, His Majesty's
+sister-in-law, who was stricken with some disease.  Thereupon the king
+summoned the learned men of the House of Life, i.e., the members of the
+great College of Magic at Thebes, and the qenbetu officials, and when
+they had entered his presence, he commanded them to select a man of
+"wise heart and deft fingers" to go to Bekhten.  The choice fell upon
+one Tehuti-em-heb, and His Majesty sent him to Bekhten with the envoy.
+When they arrived in Bekhten, Tehuti-em-heb found that the Princess
+Bent-enth-resh was possessed by an evil spirit which refused to be
+exorcised by him, and he was unable to cast out the devil.  The Prince
+of Bekhten, seeing that the healing of his daughter was beyond the
+power of the Egyptian, sent a second envoy to Rameses II., and besought
+him to send a god to drive out the devil.  This envoy arrived in Egypt
+in the summer of the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Rameses II., and
+found the king celebrating a festival in Thebes.  When he heard the
+petition of the envoy, he went to the Temple of Khensu Nefer-hetep "a
+second time,"[FN#38] and presented himself before the god and besought
+his help on behalf of his sister-in-law.
+
+
+
+[FN#38]  Thus the king must have invoked the help of Khensu on the
+occasion of the visit of the first envoy.
+
+
+
+Then the priests of Khensu Nefer-hetep carried the statue of this god
+to the place where was the statue of Khensu surnamed "Pa-ari-sekher,"
+i.e., the "Worker of destinies," who was able to repel the attacks of
+evil spirits and to drive them out.  When the statues of the two gods
+were facing each other, Rameses II. entreated Khensu Nefer-hetep to
+"turn his face towards," i.e., to look favourably upon Khensu.  Pa-ari-
+sekher, and to let him go to Bekhten to drive the devil out of the
+Princess of Bekhten.  The text affords no explanation of the fact that
+Khensu Nefer-hetep was regarded as a greater god than Khensu Pa-ari-
+sekher, or why his permission had to be obtained before the latter
+could leave the country.  It is probable that the demands made upon
+Khensu Nefer-hetep by the Egyptians who lived in Thebes and its
+neighbourhood were so numerous that it was impossible to let his statue
+go into outlying districts or foreign lands, and that a deputy-god was
+appointed to perform miracles outside Thebes.  This arrangement would
+benefit the people, and would, moreover, bring much money to the
+priests.  The appointment of a deputy-god is not so strange as it may
+seem, and modern African peoples are familiar with the expedient.
+About one hundred years ago the priests of the god Bobowissi of
+Winnebah, in the Tshi region of West Africa, found their business so
+large that it was absolutely necessary for them to appoint a deputy.
+The priests therefore selected Brahfo, i.e., "deputy," and gave out
+that Bobowissi had deputed all minor matters to him, and that his
+utterances were to be regarded as those of Bobowissi.  Delegates were
+ordered to be sent to Winnebah in Ashanti, where they would be shown
+the "deputy" god by the priests, and afterwards he would be taken to
+Mankassim, where he would reside, and do for the people all that
+Bobowissi had done hitherto.[FN#39]
+
+
+
+[FN#39]  Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 55.
+
+
+
+When Rameses II. had made his petition to Khensu Nefer-hetep, the
+statue of the god bowed its head twice, in token of assent.  Here it is
+clear that we have an example of the use of statues with movable limbs,
+which were worked, when occasion required, by the priests.  The king
+then made a second petition to the god to transfer his sa, or magical
+power, to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher so that when he had arrived in Bekhten
+he would be able to heal the Princess.  Again the statue of Khensu
+Nefer-hetep bowed its head twice, and the petition of the king was
+granted.  The text goes on to say that the magical power of the greater
+god was transferred to the lesser god four times, or in a fourfold
+measure, but we are not told how this was effected.  We know from many
+passages in the texts that every god was believed to possess this
+magical power, which is called the "sa of life," or the "sa of the
+god,".[FN#40]  This sa could be transferred by a god or goddess to a
+human being, either by an embrace or through some offering which was
+eaten.  Thus Temu transferred the magical power of his life to Shu and
+Tefnut by embracing them,[FN#41] and in the Ritual of the Divine
+Cult[FN#42] the priest says, The two vessels of milk of Temu are the "sa
+of my limbs."  The man who possessed this sa could transfer it to his
+friend by embracing him and then "making passes" with his hands along
+his back.  The sa could be received by a man from a god and then
+transmitted by him to a statue by taking it in his arms, and this
+ceremony was actually performed by the king in the Ritual of the Divine
+Cult.[FN#43]  The primary source of this sa was Ra, who bestowed it
+without measure on the blessed dead,[FN#44] and caused them to live for
+ever thereby.  These, facts make it tolerably certain that the magical
+power of Khensu Nefer-hetep was transferred to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher in
+one of two ways: either the statue of the latter was brought near to
+that of the former and it received the sa by contact, or the high
+priest first received the sa from the greater god and then transmitted
+it to the lesser god by embraces and "passes" with his hands.  Be this
+as it may, Khensu Pa-ari-sekher received the magical power, and having
+been placed in his boat, he set out for Bekhten, accompanied by five
+smaller boats, and chariots and horses which marched on each side of
+him.
+
+
+
+[FN#40]  Text of Unas, line 562.
+
+[FN#41]  Pyramid Texts, Pepi I., l. 466.
+
+[FN#42]  Ed. Moret, p. 21.
+
+[FN#43]  Ibid., p. 99.
+
+[FN#44]  Pepi I., line 666.
+
+
+
+When after a journey of seventeen months Khensu Pa-ari-sekher arrived
+in Bekhten, he was cordially welcomed by the Prince, and, having gone
+to the place where the Princess who was possessed of a devil lived, he
+exercised his power to such purpose that she was healed immediately.
+Moreover, the devil which had been cast out admitted that Khensu Pa-
+ari-sekher was his master, and promised that he would depart to the
+place whence he came, provided that the Prince of Bekhten would
+celebrate a festival in his honour before his departure. Meanwhile
+the Prince and his soldiers stood by listening to the conversation
+between the god and the devil, and they were very much afraid.
+Following the instructions of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher the Prince made
+a great feast in honour of the supernatural visitors, and then the
+devil departed to the "place which he loved," and there was general
+rejoicing in the land.  The Prince of Bekhten was so pleased with the
+Egyptian god that he determined not to allow him to return to Egypt.
+When the statue of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher had been in Bekhten for three
+years and nine months, the Prince in a vision saw the god, in the form
+of a golden hawk, come forth from his shrine, and fly up into the air
+and direct his course to Egypt.  Realizing that the statue of the god
+was useless without its indwelling spirit, the Prince of Bekhten
+permitted the priests of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher to depart with it to
+Egypt, and dismissed them with gifts of all kinds.  In due course they
+arrived in Egypt and the priests took their statue to the temple of
+Khensu Nefer-hetep, and handed over to that god all the gifts which the
+Prince of Bekhten had given them, keeping back nothing for their own
+god.  After this Khensu Pa-ari-sekher returned to his temple in peace,
+in the thirty-third year of the reign of Rameses II., having been
+absent from it about eight years.
+
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF KHNEMU AND OF A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE.
+
+
+
+The text of this most interesting legend is found in hieroglyphics on
+one side of a large rounded block of granite some eight or nine feet
+high, which stands on the south-east portion of Sahal, a little island
+lying in the First Cataract, two or three miles to the south of
+Elephantine Island and the modern town of Aswan.  The inscription is
+not cut into the rock in the ordinary way, but was "stunned" on it with
+a blunted chisel, and is, in some lights, quite invisible to anyone
+standing near the rock, unless he is aware of its existence.  It is in
+full view of the river-path which leads from Mahallah to Philae, and
+yet it escaped the notice of scores of travellers who have searched the
+rocks and islands in the Cataract for graffiti and inscriptions.  The
+inscription, which covers a space six feet by five feet, was discovered
+accidentally on February 6th, 1889, by the late Mr. C. E. Wilbour, a
+distinguished American gentleman who spent many years in research in
+Egypt.  He first copied the text, discovering in the course of his work
+the remarkable nature of its contents and then his friend Mr. Maudslay
+photographed it.  The following year he sent prints from Mr. Maudslay's
+negatives to Dr. Brugsch, who in the course of 1891 published a
+transcript of the text with a German translation and notes in a work
+entitled Die biblischen sieben Jahre der Hungersnoth, Leipzig, 8vo.
+
+The legend contained in this remarkable text describes a terrible
+famine which took place in the reign of Tcheser, a king of the IIIrd
+Dynasty, and lasted for seven years.  Insufficient Nile-floods were, of
+course, the physical cause of the famine, but the legend shows that the
+"low Niles" were brought about by the neglect of the Egyptians in
+respect of the worship of the god of the First Cataract, the great god
+Khnemu.  When, according to the legend, king Tcheser had been made to
+believe that the famine took place because men had ceased to worship
+Khnemu in a manner appropriate to his greatness, and when he had taken
+steps to remove the ground of complaint, the Nile rose to its
+accustomed height, the crops became abundant once more, and all misery
+caused by scarcity of provisions ceased.  In other words, when Tcheser
+restored the offerings of Khnemu, and re-endowed his sanctuary and his
+priesthood, the god allowed Hapi to pour forth his streams from the
+caverns in the Cataract, and to flood the land with abundance.  The
+general character of the legend, as we have it here, makes it quite
+certain that it belongs to a late period, and the forms of the
+hieroglyphics and the spellings of the words indicate that the text was
+"stunned" on the rock in the reign of one of the Ptolemies, probably at
+a time when it was to the interest of some men to restore the worship
+of Khnemu, god of the First Cataract.  These interested people could
+only have been the priests of Khnemu, and the probability that this was
+so becomes almost a certainty when we read in the latter part of the
+text the list of the tolls and taxes which they were empowered to levy
+on the merchants, farmers, miners, etc., whose goods passed down the
+Cataract into Egypt.  Why, if this be the case, they should have chosen
+to connect the famine with the reign of Tcheser is not clear.  They may
+have wished to prove the great antiquity of the worship of Khnemu, but
+it would have been quite easy to select the name of some king of the
+Ist Dynasty, and had they done this, they would have made the authority
+of Khnemu over the Nile coaeval with Dynastic civilization.  It is
+impossible to assume that no great famine took place in Egypt between
+the reign of Tcheser and the period when the inscription was made, and
+when we consider this fact the choice by the editor of the legend of a
+famine which took place under the IIIrd Dynasty to illustrate the power
+of Khnemu seems inexplicable.
+
+Of the famines which must have taken place in the Dynastic period the
+inscriptions tell us nothing, but the story of the seven years' famine
+mentioned in the Book of Genesis shows that there is nothing improbable
+in a famine lasting so long in Egypt.  Arab historians also mention
+several famines which lasted for seven years.  That which took place in
+the years 1066-1072 nearly ruined the whole country.  A cake of bread
+was sold for 15 dinanir, (the dinar = 10s.), a horse was sold for 20, a
+dog for 5, a cat for 3, and an egg for 1 dinar.  When all the animals
+were eaten men began to eat each other, and human flesh was sold in
+public.  "Passengers were caught in the streets by hooks let down from
+the windows, drawn up, killed, and cooked."[FN#45]  During the famine
+which began in 1201 people ate human flesh habitually. Parents killed
+and cooked their own children, and a wife was found eating her husband
+raw.  Baby fricassee and haggis of children's heads were ordinary
+articles of diet.  The graves even were ransacked for food.  An ox sold
+for 70 dinanir. [FN#46]
+
+
+
+[FN#45]  Lane Poole, Middle Ages, p. 146.
+
+[FN#46]  Ibid., p. 216.
+
+
+
+The legend begins with the statement that in the 18th year of the reign
+of King Tcheser, when Matar, the Erpa Prince and Ha, was the Governor
+of the temple properties of the South and North, and was also the
+Director of the Khenti men at Elephantine (Aswan), a royal despatch was
+delivered to him, in which the king said: "I am in misery on my throne.
+My heart is very sore because of the calamity which hath happened, for
+the Nile hath not come forth[FN#47] for seven years.  There is no
+grain, there are no vegetables, there is no food, and every man is
+robbing his neighbour.  Men wish to walk, but they are unable to move;
+the young man drags along his limbs, the hearts of the aged are crushed
+with despair, their legs fail them, they sink to the ground, and they
+clutch their bodies with their hands in pain.  The councillors are
+dumb, and nothing but wind comes out of the granaries when they are
+opened.  Everything is in a state of ruin."  A more graphic picture of
+the misery caused by the famine could hardly be imagined.  The king
+then goes on to ask Matar where the Nile is born? what god or goddess
+presides over it? and what is his [or her] form?  He says he would like
+to go to the temple of Thoth to enquire of that god, to go to the
+College of the Magicians, and search through the sacred books in order
+to find out these things.
+
+
+
+[FN#47]  i.e., there have been insufficient Nile-floods.
+
+
+
+When Matar had read the despatch, he set out to go to the king, and
+explained to him the things which he wished to know.  He told him that,
+the Nile rose near the city of Elephantine, that it flowed out of two
+caverns, which were the breasts of the Nile-god, that it rose to a
+height of twenty-eight cubits at Elephantine, and to the height of
+seven cubits at Sma-Behutet, or, Diospolis Parva in the Delta.  He who
+controlled the Nile was Khnemu, and when this god drew the bolt of the
+doors which shut in the stream, and smote the earth with his sandals,
+the river rushed forth.  Matar also described to the king the form of
+Khnemu, which was that of Shu, and the work which he did, and the
+wooden house in which he lived, and its exact position, which was near
+the famous granite quarries.  The gods who dwelt with Khnemu were the
+goddess Sept (Sothis, or the Dog-star), the goddess Anqet, Hap (or
+Hep), the Nile-god, Shu, Keb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus.
+Thus we see that the priests of Khnemu made him to be the head of a
+Company of Gods.  Finally Matar gave the king a list of all the stones,
+precious and otherwise, which were found in and about Elephantine.
+
+When the king, who had, it seems, come to Elephantine, heard these
+things he rejoiced greatly, and he went into the temple of Khnemu.
+The priests drew back the curtains and sprinkled him with holy water,
+and then he passed into the shrine and offered up a great sacrifice of
+bread-cakes, beer, geese, oxen, and all kinds of good things, to the
+gods and goddesses who dwelt at Elephantine, in the place called "Couch
+of the heart in life and power."  Suddenly he found himself standing
+face to face with the god Khnemu, whom he placated with a peace-
+offering and with prayer.  Then the god opened his eyes, and bent his
+body towards the king, and spake to him mighty words, saying, "I am
+Khnemu, who made thee.  My hands knitted together thy body and made it
+sound, and I gave thee thy heart."  Khnemu then went on to complain
+that, although the ground under the king's feet was filled with stones
+and metal, men were too inert to work them and to employ them in
+repairing or rebuilding of the shrines of the gods, or in doing what
+they ought to do for him, their Lord and Creator.  These words were, of
+course, meant as a rebuke for the king, who evidently, though it is not
+so stated in the text, was intended by Khnemu to undertake the
+rebuilding of his shrine without delay.  The god then went on to
+proclaim his majesty and power, and declared himself to be Nu, the
+Celestial Ocean, and the Nile-god, "who came into being at the
+beginning, and riseth at his will to give health to him that laboureth
+for Khnemu."  He described himself as the Father of the gods, the
+Governor of the earth and of men, and then he promised the king to make
+the Nile rise yearly, regularly, and unceasingly, to give abundant
+harvests, to give all people their heart's desire, to make misery to
+pass away, to fill the granaries, and to make the whole land of Egypt
+yellow with waving fields of full ripe grain.  When the king, who had
+been in a dream, heard the god mention crops, he woke up, and his
+courage returned to him, and having cast away despair from his heart he
+issued a decree by which he made ample provision for the maintenance of
+the worship of the god in a fitting state.  In this decree, the first
+copy of which was cut upon wood, the king endowed Khnemu with 20
+schoinoi of land on each side of the river, with gardens, etc.  It was
+further enacted that every man who drew water from the Nile for his
+land should contribute a portion of his crops to the god.  Fishermen,
+fowlers, and hunters were to pay an octroi duty of one-tenth of the
+value of their catches when they brought them into the city, and a
+tithe of the cattle was to be set apart for the daily sacrifice.  The
+masters of caravans coming from the Sudan were to pay a tithe also, but
+they were not liable to any further tax in the country northwards.
+Every metal-worker, ore-crusher, miner, mason, and handicraftsman of
+every kind, was to pay to the temple of the god one-tenth of the value
+of the material produced or worked by his labour.  The decree provided
+also for the appointment of an inspector whose duty it would be to
+weigh the gold, silver and copper which came into the town of
+Elephantine, and to assess the value both of these metals and of the
+precious stones, etc., which were to be devoted to the service of
+Khnemu.  All materials employed in making the images of the gods, and
+all handicraftsmen employed in the work were exempted from tithing.  In
+short, the worship of the god and his company was to be maintained
+according to ancient use and wont, and the people were to supply the
+temple with everything necessary in a generous spirit and with a
+liberal hand.  He who failed in any way to comply with the enactments
+was to be beaten with the rope, and the name of Tcheser was to be
+perpetuated in the temple.
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF HORUS, AND OTHER MAGICAL
+TEXTS.
+
+
+
+The magical and religious texts of the Egyptians of all periods contain
+spells intended to be used against serpents, scorpions, and noxious
+reptiles of all kinds, and their number, and the importance which was
+attached to them, suggest that Egypt must always have produced these
+pests in abundance, and that the Egyptians were always horribly afraid
+of them.  The text of Unas, which was written towards the close of the
+Vth Dynasty, contains many such spells, and in the Theban and Saite
+Books of the Dead several Chapters consist of nothing but spells and
+incantations, many of which are based on archaic texts, against
+crocodiles, serpents, and other deadly reptiles, and insects of all
+kinds.  All such creatures were regarded as incarnations of evil
+spirits, which attack the dead as well as the living, and therefore it
+was necessary for the well-being of the former that copies of spells
+against them should be written upon the walls of tombs, coffins,
+funerary amulets, etc.  The gods were just as open to the attacks of
+venomous reptiles as man, and Ra, himself, the king of the gods, nearly
+died from the poison of a snake-bite.  Now the gods were, as a rule,
+able to defend themselves against the attacks of Set and his fiends,
+and the poisonous snakes and insects which were their emissaries, by
+virtue of the fluid of life, which was the peculiar attribute of
+divinity, and the efforts of Egyptians were directed to the acquisition
+of a portion of this magical power, which would protect their souls and
+bodies and their houses and cattle, and other property, each day and
+each night throughout the year.  When a man cared for the protection of
+himself only he wore an amulet of some kind, in which the fluid of life
+was localized. When he wished to protect his house against invasion by
+venomous reptiles he placed statues containing the fluid of life in
+niches in the walls of various chambers, or in some place outside but
+near the house, or buried them in the earth with their faces turned in
+the direction from which he expected the attack to come.
+
+
+
+PLATE XVII.
+The Metternich Stele--Obverse.
+
+
+
+PLATE XVIII.
+The Metternich Stele--Reverse.
+
+
+
+Towards the close of the XXVIth Dynasty, when superstition in its most
+exaggerated form was general in Egypt, it became the custom to make
+house talismans in the form of small stone stelae, with rounded tops,
+which rested on bases having convex fronts.  On the front of such a
+talisman was sculptured in relief a figure of Horus the Child
+(Harpokrates), standing on two crocodiles, holding in his hands figures
+of serpents, scorpions, a lion, and a horned animal, each of these
+being a symbol of an emissary or ally of Set, the god of Evil.  Above
+his head was the head of Bes, and on each side of him were: solar
+symbols, i.e., the lily of Nefer-Tem, figures of Ra and Harmakhis, the
+Eyes of Ra (the Sun and Moon), etc.  The reverse of the stele and the
+whole of the base were covered with magical texts and spells, and when
+a talisman of this kind was placed in a house, it was supposed to be
+directly under the protection of Horus and his companion gods, who had
+vanquished all the hosts of darkness and all the powers of physical and
+moral evil.  Many examples of this talisman are to be seen in the great
+Museums of Europe, and there are several fine specimens in the Third
+Egyptian Room in the British Museum.  They are usually called "Cippi of
+Horus."  The largest and most important of all these "cippi" is that
+which is commonly known as the "Metternich Stele," because it was given
+to Prince Metternich by Muhammad `Ali Pasha; it was dug up in 1828
+during the building of a cistern in a Franciscan Monastery in
+Alexandria, and was first published, with a translation of a large part
+of the text, by Professor Golenischeff.[FN#48]   The importance of the
+stele is enhanced by the fact that it mentions the name of the king in
+whose reign it was made, viz., Nectanebus I., who reigned from B.C. 378
+to B.C. 360.
+
+
+
+[FN#48]  See Metternichstele, Leipzig, 1877.  The Stele was made for
+Ankh-Psemthek, son of the lady Tent-Het-nub, prophet of Nebun, overseer
+of Temt and scribe of Het (see line 87).
+
+
+
+The obverse, reverse, and two sides of the Metternich Stele have cut
+upon them nearly three hundred figures of gods and celestial beings.
+These include figures of the great gods of heaven, earth, and the Other
+World, figures of the gods of the planets and the Dekans, figures of
+the gods of the days of the week, of the weeks, and months, and seasons
+of the year, and of the year.  Besides these there are a number of
+figures of local forms of the gods which it is difficult to identify.
+On the rounded portion of the obverse the place of honour is held by
+the solar disk, in which is seen a figure of Khnemu with four ram's
+heads, which rests between a pair of arms, and is supported on a lake
+of celestial water; on each side of it are four of the spirits of the
+dawn, and on the right stands the symbol of the rising sun, Nefer-Temu,
+and on the left stands Thoth.  Below this are five rows of small
+figures of gods.  Below these is Harpokrates in relief, in the attitude
+already described.  He stands on two crocodiles under a kind of canopy,
+the sides of which are supported by Thoth and Isis, and holds Typhonic
+animals and reptiles.  Above the canopy are the two Eyes of Ra, each
+having a pair of human arms and hands.  On the right of Harpokrates are
+Seker and Horus, and on his left the symbol of Nefer-Temu.  On the left
+and right are the goddesses Nekhebet and Uatchet, who guard the South
+of Egypt and the North respectively.  On the reverse and sides are
+numerous small figures of gods.  This stele represented the power to
+protect man possessed by all the divine beings in the universe, and,
+however it was placed, it formed an impassable barrier to every spirit
+of evil and to every venomous reptile.  The spells, which are cut in
+hieroglyphics on all the parts of the stele not occupied by figures of
+gods, were of the most potent character, for they contained the actual
+words by which the gods vanquished the powers of darkness and evil.
+These spells form the texts which are printed on p. 142 ff., and may be
+thus summarized:--
+
+The first spell is an incantation directed against reptiles and noxious
+creatures in general.  The chief of these was Apep, the great enemy of
+Ra, who took the form of a huge serpent that "resembled the
+intestines," and the spell doomed him to decapitation, and burning and
+backing in pieces.  These things would be effected by Serqet, the
+Scorpion-goddess.  The second part of the spell was directed against
+the poison of Apep, and was to be recited over anyone who was bitten by
+a snake.  When uttered by Horus it made Apep to vomit, and when used by
+a magician properly qualified would make the bitten person to vomit,
+and so free his body from the poison.
+
+The next spell is directed to be said to the Cat, i.e., a symbol of the
+daughter of Ra, or Isis, who had the head of Ra, the eyes of the
+uraeus, the nose of Thoth, the ears of Neb-er-tcher, the mouth of Tem,
+the neck of Neheb-ka, the breast of Thoth, the heart of Ra, the hands
+of the gods, the belly of Osiris, the thighs of Menthu, the legs of
+Khensu, the feet of Amen-Horus, the haunches of Horus, the soles of the
+feet of Ra, and the bowels of Meh-urit.  Every member of the Cat
+contained a god or goddess, and she was able to destroy the poison of
+any serpent, or scorpion, or reptile, which might be injected into her
+body.  The spell opens with an address to Ra, who is entreated to come
+to his daughter, who has been stung by a scorpion on a lonely road, and
+to cause the poison to leave her body.  Thus it seems as if Isis, the
+great magician, was at some time stung by a scorpion.
+
+The next section is very difficult to understand.  Ra-Harmakhis is
+called upon to come to his daughter, and Shu to his wife, and Isis to
+her sister, who has been poisoned.  Then the Aged One, i.e., Ra, is
+asked to let Thoth turn back Neha-her, or Set.  "Osiris is in the
+water, but Horus is with him, and the Great Beetle overshadows him,"
+and every evil spirit which dwells in the water is adjured to allow
+Horus to proceed to Osiris.  Ra, Sekhet, Thoth, and Heka, this last-
+named being the spell personified, are the four great gods who protect
+Osiris, and who will blind and choke his enemies, and cut out their
+tongues.  The cry of the Cat is again referred to, and Ra is asked if
+he does not remember the cry which came from the bank of Netit.  The
+allusion here is to the cries which Isis uttered when she arrived at
+Netit near Abydos, and found lying there the dead body of her husband.
+
+At this point on the Stele the spells are interrupted by a long
+narrative put into the mouth of Isis, which supplies us with some
+account of the troubles that she suffered, and describes the death of
+Horus through the sting of a scorpion.  Isis, it seems, was shut up in
+some dwelling by Set after he murdered Osiris, probably with the
+intention of forcing her to marry him, and so assist him to legalize
+his seizure of the kingdom.  Isis, as we have already seen, had been
+made pregnant by her husband after his death, and Thoth now appeared to
+her, and advised her to hide herself with her unborn child, and to
+bring him forth in secret, and he promised her that her son should
+succeed in due course to his father's throne.  With the help of Thoth
+she escaped from her captivity, and went forth accompanied by the Seven
+Scorpion-goddesses, who brought her to the town of Per-Sui, on the edge
+of the Reed Swamps.  She applied to a woman for a night's shelter, but
+the woman shut her door in her face.  To punish her one of the
+Scorpion-goddesses forced her way into the woman's house, and stung her
+child to death.  The grief of the woman was so bitter and sympathy-
+compelling that Isis laid her hands on the child, and, having uttered
+one of her most potent spells over him, the poison of the scorpion ran
+out of his body, and the child came to life again.  The words of the
+spell are cut on the Stele, and they were treasured by the Egyptians as
+an infallible remedy for scorpion stings.  When the woman saw that her
+son had been brought back to life by Isis, she was filled with joy and
+gratitude, and, as a mark of her repentance, she brought large
+quantities of things from her house as gifts for Isis, and they were so
+many that they filled the house of the kind, but poor, woman who had
+given Isis shelter.
+
+Now soon after Isis had restored to life the son of the woman who had
+shown churlishness to her, a terrible calamity fell upon her, for her
+beloved son Horus was stung by a scorpion and died.  The news of this
+event was conveyed to her by the gods, who cried out to her to come to
+see her son Horus, whom the terrible scorpion Uhat had killed.  Isis,
+stabbed with pain at the news, as if a knife had been driven into her
+body, ran out distraught with grief.  It seems that she had gone to
+perform a religious ceremony in honour of Osiris in a temple near
+Hetep-hemt, leaving her child carefully concealed in Sekhet-An.  During
+her absence the scorpion Uhat, which had been sent by Set, forced its
+way into the biding-place of Horus, and there stung him to death.  When
+Isis came and found the dead body, she burst forth in lamentations, the
+sound of which brought all the people from the neighbouring districts
+to her side.  As she related to them the history of her sufferings they
+endeavoured to console her, and when they found this to be impossible
+they lifted up their voices and wept with her.  Then Isis placed her
+nose in the mouth of Horus so that she might discover if he still
+breathed, but there was no breath in his throat; and when she examined
+the wound in his body made by the fiend Aun-Ab she saw in it traces of
+poison.  No doubt about his death then remained in her mind, and
+clasping him in her arms she lifted him up, and in her transports of
+grief leaped about like fish when they are laid on red-hot coals.  Then
+she uttered a series of heartbreaking laments, each of which begins
+with the words "Horus is bitten."  The heir of heaven, the son of Un-
+Nefer, the child of the gods, he who was wholly fair, is bitten!  He
+for whose wants I provided, he who was to avenge his father, is bitten!
+He for whom I cared and suffered when he was being fashioned in my
+womb, is bitten!  He whom I tended so that I might gaze upon him, is
+bitten!  He whose life I prayed for is bitten!  Calamity hath overtaken
+the child, and he hath perished.
+
+
+Whilst Isis was saying these and many similar words, her sister
+Nephthys, who had been weeping bitterly for her nephew Horus as she
+wandered about among the swamps, came, in company with the Scorpion-
+goddess Serqet, and advised Isis to pray to heaven for help.  Pray that
+the sailors in the Boat of Ra may cease from rowing, for the Boat
+cannot travel onwards whilst Horus lies dead.  Then Isis cried out to
+heaven, and her voice reached the Boat of Millions of Years, and the
+Disk ceased to move onward, and came to a standstill.  From the Boat
+Thoth descended, being equipped with words of power and spells of all
+kinds, and bearing with him the "great command of maa-kheru," i.e., the
+WORD, whose commands were performed, instantly and completely, by every
+god, spirit, fiend, human being and by every thing, animate and
+inanimate, in heaven, earth, and the Other World.  Then he came to Isis
+and told her that no harm could possibly have happened to Horus, for he
+was under the protection of the Boat of Ra; but his words failed to
+comfort Isis, and though she acknowledged the greatness of his designs,
+she complained that they savoured of delay.  "What is the good," she
+asks, "of all thy spells, and incantations, and magical formulae, and
+the great command of maa-kheru, if Horus is to perish by the poison of
+a scorpion, and to lie here in the arms of Death?  Evil, evil is his
+destiny, for it hath entailed the deepest misery for him and death."
+
+In answer to these words Thoth, turning to Isis and Nephthys, bade them
+to fear not, and to have no anxiety about Horus, "For," said he, "I
+have come from heaven to heal the child for his mother."  He then
+pointed out that Horus was under protection as the Dweller in his Disk
+(Aten), the Great Dwarf, the Mighty Ram, the Great Hawk, the Holy
+Beetle, the Hidden Body, the Divine Bennu, etc., and proceeded to utter
+the great spell which restored Horus to life.  By his words of power
+Thoth transferred the fluid of life of Ra, and as soon as this came
+upon the child's body the poison of the scorpion flowed out of him, and
+he once more breathed and lived.  When this was done Thoth returned to
+the Boat of Ra, the gods who formed its crew resumed their rowing, and
+the Disk passed on its way to make its daily journey across the sky.
+The gods in heaven, who were amazed and uttered cries of terror when
+they heard of the death of Horus, were made happy once more, and sang
+songs of joy over his recovery.  The happiness of Isis in her child's
+restoration to life was very great, for she could again hope that he
+would avenge his father's murder, and occupy his throne.  The final
+words of Thoth comforted her greatly, for he told her that he would
+take charge of the case of Horus in the Judgment Hall of Anu, wherein
+Osiris had been judged, and that as his advocate he would make any
+accusations which might be brought against Horus to recoil on him that
+brought them.  Furthermore, he would give Horus power to repulse any
+attacks which might be made upon him by beings in the heights above, or
+fiends in the depths below, and would ensure his succession to the
+Throne of the Two Lands, i.e., Egypt.  Thoth also promised Isis that Ra
+himself should act as the advocate of Horus, even as he had done for
+his father Osiris.  He was also careful to allude to the share which
+Isis had taken in the restoration of Horus to life, saying, "It is the
+words of power of his mother which have lifted up his face, and they
+shall enable him to journey wheresoever he pleaseth, and to put fear
+into the powers above.  I myself hasten [to obey them]."  Thus
+everything turned on the power of the spells of Isis, who made the sun
+to stand still, and caused the dead to be raised.
+
+Such are the contents of the texts on the famous Metternich Stele.
+There appears to be some confusion in their arrangement, and some of
+them clearly are misplaced, and, in places, the text is manifestly
+corrupt.  It is impossible to explain several passages, for we do not
+understand all the details of the system of magic which they represent.
+Still, the general meaning of the texts on the Stele is quite clear,
+and they record a legend of Isis and Horus which is not found so fully
+described on any other monument.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ISIS AND OSIRIS.
+
+
+
+The history of Isis and Osiris given on pp. 248 is taken from the
+famous treatise of Plutarch entitled De Iside et Osiride, and forms a
+fitting conclusion to this volume of Legends of the Gods.  It contains
+all the essential facts given in Plutarch's work, and the only things
+omitted are his derivations and mythological speculations, which are
+really unimportant for the Egyptologist.  Egyptian literature is full
+of allusions to events which took place in the life of Osiris, and to
+his persecution, murder, and resurrection, and numerous texts of all
+periods describe the love and devotion of his sister and wife Isis, and
+the filial piety of Horus.  Nowhere, however, have we in Egyptian a
+connected account of the causes which led to the murder by Set of
+Osiris, or of the subsequent events which resulted in his becoming the
+king of heaven and judge of the dead.  However carefully we piece
+together the fragments of information which we can extract from native
+Egyptian literature, there still remains a series of gaps which can
+only be filled by guesswork.  Plutarch, as a learned man and a student
+of comparative religion and mythology was most anxious to understand
+the history of Isis and Osiris, which Greek and Roman scholars talked
+about freely, and which none of them comprehended, and he made
+enquiries of priests and others, and examined critically such
+information as he could obtain, believing and hoping that he would
+penetrate the mystery in which these gods were wrapped.  As a result of
+his labours he collected a number of facts about the form of the Legend
+of Isis and Osiris as it was known to the learned men of his day, but
+there is no evidence that he had the slightest knowledge of the details
+of the original African Legend of these gods as it was known to the
+Egyptians, say, under the VIth Dynasty.  Moreover, he never realized
+that the characteristics and attributes of both Isis and Osiris changed
+several times during the long history of Egypt, and that a thousand
+years before he lived the Egyptians themselves had forgotten what the
+original form of the legend was.  They preserved a number of
+ceremonies, and performed very carefully all the details of an ancient
+ritual at the annual commemoration festival of Osiris which was held in
+November and December, but the evidence of the texts makes it quite
+clear that the meaning and symbolism of nearly all the details were
+unknown alike to priests and people.
+
+An important modification of the cult of Isis and Osiris took place in
+the third century before Christ, when the Ptolemies began to
+consolidate their rule in Egypt.  A form of religion which would be
+acceptable both to Egyptians and Greeks had to be provided, and this
+was produced by modifying the characteristics of Osiris and calling him
+Sarapis, and identifying him with the Greek Pluto.  To Isis were added
+many of the attributes of the great Greek goddesses, and into her
+worship were introduced "mysteries" derived from non-Egyptian cults,
+which made it acceptable to the people everywhere.  Had a high priest
+of Osiris who lived at Abydos under the XVIIIth Dynasty witnessed the
+celebration of the great festival of Isis and Osiris in any large town
+in the first century before Christ, it is tolerably certain that he
+would have regarded it as a lengthy act of worship of strange gods, in
+which there appeared, here and there, ceremonies and phrases which
+reminded him of the ancient Abydos ritual.  When the form of the cult
+of Isis and Osiris introduced by the Ptolemies into Egypt extended to
+the great cities of Greece and Italy, still further modifications took
+place in it, and the characters of Isis and Osiris were still further
+changed.  By degrees Osiris came to be regarded as the god of death
+pure and simple, or as the personification of Death, and he ceased to
+be regarded as the great protecting ancestral spirit, and the all-
+powerful protecting Father of his people.  As the importance of Osiris
+declined that of Isis grew, and men came to regard her as the great
+Mother-goddess of the world.  The priests described from tradition the
+great facts of her life according to the Egyptian legends, how she had
+been a loving and devoted wife, how she had gone forth after her
+husband's murder by Set to seek for his body, how she had found it and
+brought it home, how she revivified it by her spells and had union with
+Osiris and conceived by him, and how in due course she brought forth
+her son, in pain and sorrow and loneliness in the Swamps of the Delta,
+and how she reared him and watched over him until he was old enough to
+fight and vanquish his father's murderer, and how at length she seated
+him in triumph on his father's throne.  These things endeared Isis to
+the people everywhere, and as she herself had not suffered death like
+Osiris, she came to be regarded as the eternal mother of life and of
+all living things.  She was the creatress of crops, she produced fruit,
+vegetables, plants of all kinds and trees, she made cattle prolific,
+she brought men and women together and gave them offspring, she was the
+authoress of all love, virtue, goodness and happiness.  She made the
+light to shine, she was the spirit of the Dog-star which heralded the
+Nile-flood, she was the source of the power in the beneficent light of
+the moon; and finally she took the dead to her bosom and gave them
+peace, and introduced them to a life of immortality and happiness
+similar to that which she had bestowed upon Osiris.
+
+The message of the cult of Isis as preached by her priests was one of
+hope and happiness, and coming to the Greeks and Romans, as it did, at
+a time when men were weary of their national cults, and when the
+speculations of the philosophers carried no weight with the general
+public, the people everywhere welcomed it with the greatest enthusiasm.
+From Egypt it was carried to the Islands of Greece and to the mainland,
+to Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, and then crossing the
+western end of the Mediterranean it entered North Africa, and with
+Carthage as a centre spread east and west along the coast.  Wherever
+the cult of Isis came men accepted it as something which supplied what
+they thought to be lacking in their native cults; rich and poor, gentle
+and simple, all welcomed it, and the philosopher as well as the
+ignorant man rejoiced in the hope of a future life which it gave to
+them.  Its Egyptian origin caused it to be regarded with the
+profoundest interest, and its priests were most careful to make the
+temples of Isis quite different from those of the national gods, and to
+decorate them with obelisks, sphinxes, shrines, altars, etc., which
+were either imported from temples in Egypt, or were copied from
+Egyptian originals.  In the temples of Isis services were held at
+daybreak and in the early afternoon daily, and everywhere these were
+attended by crowds of people.  The holy water used in the libations and
+for sprinkling the people was Nile water, specially imported from
+Egypt, and to the votaries of the goddess it symbolized the seed of the
+god Osiris, which germinated and brought forth fruit through the spells
+of the goddess Isis.  The festivals and processions of Isis were
+everywhere most popular, and were enjoyed by learned and unlearned
+alike.  In fact, the Isis-play which was acted annually in November,
+and the festival of the blessing of the ship, which took place in the
+spring, were the most important festivals of the year.  Curiously
+enough, all the oldest gods and goddesses of Egypt passed into absolute
+oblivion, with the exception of Osiris (Sarapis), Isis, Anubis the
+physician, and Harpokrates, the child of Osiris and Isis, and these,
+from being the ancestral spirits of a comparatively obscure African
+tribe in early dynastic times, became for several hundreds of years the
+principal objects of worship of some of the most cultured and
+intellectual nations.  The treatise of Plutarch De Iside helps to
+explain how this came about, and for those who study the Egyptian
+Legend of Isis and Osiris the work has considerable importance.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF CREATION--A.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF KNOWING THE EVOLUTIONS[FN#49] OF RA, AND OF OVERTHROWING
+APEP.
+
+
+
+[FN#49]  Kheperu.  The verb Kheper means "to make, to form, to produce,
+to become, and to roll;" kheperu here means "the things which come into
+being through the rollings of the ball of the god Kheper (the roller),"
+i.e., the Sun.
+
+
+
+[These are] the words which the god Neb-er-tcher spake after he had
+come into being:--"I am he who came into being in the form of the god
+Khepera, and I am the creator of that which came into being, that is to
+say, I am the creator of everything which came into being: now the
+things which I created, and which came forth out of my month after that
+I had come into being myself were exceedingly many.  The sky (or
+heaven) had not come into being, the earth did not exist, and the
+children of the earth[FN#50], and the creeping, things, had not been
+made at that time.  I myself raised them up from out of Nu[FN#51], from
+a state of helpless inertness.  I found no place whereon I could stand.
+I worked a charm[FN#52] upon my own heart (or, will), I laid the
+foundation [of things] by Maat,[FN#53] and I made everything which had
+form.  I was [then] one by myself, for I had not emitted from myself
+the god Shu, and I had not spit out from myself the goddess Tefnut; and
+there existed no other who could work with me.  I laid the foundations
+[of things] in my own heart, and there came into being multitudes of
+created things, which came into being from the created things which
+were born from the created things which arose from what they brought
+forth.  I had union with my closed hand, and I embraced my shadow as a
+wife, and I poured seed into my own mouth, and I sent forth from myself
+issue in the form of the gods Shu and Tefnut. Saith my father Nu:--My
+Eye was covered up behind them (i.e., Shu. and Tefnut), but after two
+hen periods had passed from the time when they departed from me, from
+being one god I became three gods, and I came into being in the earth.
+Then Shu and Tefnut rejoiced from out of the inert watery mass wherein
+they I were, and they brought to me my Eye (i.e., the Sun). Now after
+these things I gathered together my members, and I wept over them, and
+men and women sprang into being from the tears which came forth from my
+Eye.  And when my Eye came to me, and found that I had made another
+[Eye] in place where it was (i.e., the Moon), it was wroth with (or,
+raged at) me, whereupon I endowed it (i.e., the second Eye) with [some
+of] the splendour which I had made for the first [Eye], and I made it
+to occupy its place in my Face, and henceforth it ruled throughout all
+this earth."
+
+
+
+[FN#50]  i.e., serpents and snakes, or perhaps plants.
+
+[FN#51]  The primeval watery mass which was the source and origin of
+all beings and things.
+
+[FN#52]  i.e., he uttered a magical formula.
+
+[FN#53]  i.e., by exact and definite rules.
+
+
+
+"When there fell on them their moment[FN#54] through plant-like clouds,
+I restored what had been taken away from them, and I appeared from out
+of the plant-like clouds.  I created creeping things of every kind, and
+everything which came into being from them.  Shu and Tefnut brought
+forth [Seb and] Nut; and Seb and Nut brought forth Osiris, and Heru-
+khent-an-maati,[FN#55] and Set, and Isis, and Nephthys[FN#56] at one
+birth, one after the other, and they produced their multitudinous
+offspring in this earth."
+
+
+
+[FN#54]  i.e., the period of calamity wherein their light was veiled
+through plant-like clouds.
+
+[FN#55]  i.e., the Blind Horus.
+
+[FN#56]  i.e., these five gods were all born at one time.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF CREATION--B.
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF KNOWING THE EVOLUTIONS OF RA, AND OF OVERTHROWING APEP.
+
+
+
+[These are] the words of the god Neb-er-tcher, who said: "I am the
+creator of what hath come into being, and I myself came into being
+under the form of the god Khepera, and I came into being in primeval
+time.  I came into being in the form of Khepera, and I am the creator
+of what did come into being, that is to say, I formed myself out of the
+primeval matter, and I made and formed myself out of the substance
+which existed in primeval time.  My name is AUSARES (i.e., Osiris), who
+is the primeval matter of primeval matter.  I have done my will in
+everything in this earth.  I have spread myself abroad therein, and I
+have made strong my hand.  I was ONE by myself, for they (i.e., the
+gods) had not been brought forth, and I had emitted from myself neither
+Shu nor Tefnut.  I brought my own name[FN#57] into my mouth as a word
+of power, and I forthwith came into being under the form of things
+which are and under the form of Khepera.  I came into being from out of
+primeval matter, and from the beginning I appeared under the form of
+the multitudinous things which exist; nothing whatsoever existed at
+that time in this earth, and it was I who made whatsoever was made.  I
+was ONE: by myself, and there was no other being who worked with me in
+that place.  I made all the things under the forms of which I appeared
+then by means of the Soul-God which I raised into firmness at that time
+from out of Nu, from a state of inactivity.  I found no place
+whatsoever there whereon I could stand, I worked by the power of a
+spell by means of my heart, I laid a foundation [for things] before me,
+and whatsoever was made, I made.  I was ONE by myself, and I laid the
+foundation of things [by means of] my heart, and I made the other
+things which came into being, and the things of Khepera which were made
+were manifold, and their offspring came into existence from the things
+to which they gave birth.  I it was who emitted Shu, and I it was who
+emitted Tefnut, and from being the ONE, god (or, the only god) I became
+three gods; the two other gods who came into being on this earth sprang
+from me, and Shu and Tefnut rejoiced (or, were raised up) from out of
+Nu in which they were. Now behold, they brought my Eye to me after two
+hen periods since the time when they went forth from me. I gathered
+together my members which had appeared in my own body, and afterwards
+I had union with my hand, and my heart (or, will) came unto me from out
+of my hand, and the seed fell into my mouth, and I emitted from myself
+the gods Shu and Tefnut, and so from being the ONE god (or, the only,
+god) I became three gods; thus the two other gods who came into being
+on this earth sprang from me, and Shu and Tefnut rejoiced (or, were
+raised up) from out of Nu in which they were.  My father Nu saith:--
+They covered up (or, concealed) my Eye with the plant-like clouds which
+were behind them (i.e., Shu and Tefnut) for very many hen periods.
+Plants and creeping things [sprang up] from the god REM, through the
+tears which I let fall.  I cried out to my Eye, and men and women came
+into existence.  Then I bestowed upon my Eye the uraeus of fire, and it
+was wroth with me when another Eye (i.e., the Moon) came and grew up in
+its place; its vigorous power fell on the plants, on the plants which I
+had placed there, and it set order among them, and it took up its place
+in my face, and it doth rule the whole earth.  Then Shu and Tefnut
+brought forth Osiris, and Heru-khenti-an-maa, and Set, and Isis, and
+Nephthys and behold, they have produced offspring, and have created
+multitudinous children in this earth, by means of the beings which came
+into existence from the creatures which they produced.  They invoke my
+name, and they overthrow their enemies, and they make words of power
+for the overthrowing of Apep, over whose hands and arms AKER keepeth
+ward.  His hands and arms shall not exist, his feet and leas shall not
+exist, and he is chained in one place whilst Ra inflicts upon him the
+blows which are decreed for him.  He is thrown upon his accursed back,
+his face is slit open by reason of the evil which he hath done, and he
+shall remain upon his accursed back."
+
+
+
+[FN#57]  i.e., I uttered my own name from my own mouth as a word of
+power.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+[Here is the story of Ra,] the god who was self-begotten and self-
+created, after he had assumed the sovereignty over men and women, and
+gods, and things, the ONE god.  Now men and women were speaking words
+of complaint, saying:--"Behold, his Majesty (Life, Strength, and Health
+to him!) hath grown old, and his bones have become like silver, and
+his members have turned into gold and his hair is like unto real lapis-
+lazuli."  His Majesty heard the words of complaint which men and women
+were uttering, and his Majesty (Life, Strength, and Health to him!)
+said unto those who were in his train:--"Cry out, and bring to me my
+Eye, and Shu, and Tefnut, and Seb, and Nut, and the father-gods, and
+the mother-gods who were with me, even when I was in Nu side by side
+with my god Nu.  Let there be brought along with my Eye his ministers,
+and let them be led to me hither secretly, so that men and women may
+not perceive them [coming] hither, and may not therefore take to flight
+with their hearts.  Come thou[FN#58] with them to the Great House, and
+let them declare their plans (or, arrangements) fully, for I will go
+from Nu into the place wherein I brought about my own existence, and
+let those gods be brought unto me there."  Now the gods were drawn up
+on each side of Ra, and they bowed down before his Majesty until their
+heads touched the ground, and the maker of men and women, the king of
+those who have knowledge, spake his words in the presence of the Father
+of the first-born gods. And the gods spake in the presence of his
+Majesty, saying:--"Speak unto us, for we are listening to them" (i.e.,
+thy words).  Then Ra spake unto Nu, saying:--"O thou first-born god
+from whom I came into being, O ye gods of ancient time, my ancestors,
+take ye heed to what men and women [are doing]; for behold, those who
+were created by my Eye are uttering words of complaint against me.
+Tell me what ye would do in the matter, and consider this thing for me,
+and seek out [a plan] for me, for I will not slay them until I have
+heard what ye shall say to me concerning it."
+
+
+
+[FN#58]  The god here addressed appears to have been Nu.
+
+
+
+Then the Majesty of Nu, to son Ra, spake, saying:--"Thou art the god
+who art greater than he who made thee, thou art the sovereign of those
+who were created with thee, thy throne is set, and the fear of thee is
+great; let thine Eye go against those who have uttered blasphemies
+against thee."  And the Majesty of Ra, said:--"Behold, they have
+betaken themselves to flight into the mountain lands, for their hearts
+are afraid because of the words which they have uttered."  Then the
+gods spake in the presence of his Majesty, saying:--"Let thine Eye go
+forth and let it destroy for thee those who revile thee with words of
+evil, for there is no eye whatsoever that can go before it and resist
+thee and it when it journeyeth in the form of Hathor."  Thereupon this
+goddess went forth and slew the men and the women who were on the
+mountain (or, desert land).  And the Majesty of this god said, "Come,
+come in peace, O Hathor, for the work is accomplished."  Then this
+goddess said, "Thou hast made me to live, for when I gained the mastery
+over men and women it was sweet to my heart;" and the Majesty of Ra
+said, "I myself will be master over them as [their] king, and I will
+destroy them."  And it came to pass that Sekhet of the offerings waded
+about in the night season in their blood, beginning at Suten-
+henen.[FN#59]  Then the Majesty of Ra, spake [saying], "Cry out, and
+let there come to me swift and speedy messengers who shall be able to
+run like the wind . . . .;" and straightway messengers of this kind
+were brought unto him.  And the Majesty of this god spake [saying],
+"Let these messengers go to Abu,[FN#60] and bring unto me mandrakes in
+great numbers;" and [when] these mandrakes were brought unto him the
+Majesty of this god gave them to Sekhet, the goddess who dwelleth in
+Annu (Heliopolis) to crush.  And behold, when the maidservants were
+bruising the grain for [making] beer, these mandrakes were placed in
+the vessels which were to hold the beer, and some of the blood of the
+men and women [who had been slain].  Now they made seven thousand
+vessels of beer.  Now when the Majesty of Re, the King of the South and
+North, had come with the gods to look at the vessels of beer, and
+behold, the daylight had appeared after the slaughter of men and women
+by the goddess in their season as she sailed up the river, the Majesty
+of Ra said, "It is good, it is good, nevertheless I must protect men
+and women against her."  And Ra, said, "Let them take up the vases and
+carry them to the place where the men and women were slaughtered by
+her."  Then the Majesty of the King of the South and North in the
+three-fold beauty of the night caused to be poured out these vases of
+beer which make [men] to lie down (or, sleep), and the meadows of the
+Four Heavens[FN#61] were filled with beer (or, water) by reason of the
+Souls of the Majesty of this god.  And it came to pass that when this
+goddess arrived at the dawn of day, she found these [Heavens] flooded
+[with beer], and she was pleased thereat; and she drank [of the beer
+and blood], and her heart rejoiced, and she became drunk, and she gave
+no further attention to men and women.  Then said the Majesty of Ra to
+this goddess, "Come in peace, come in peace, O Amit,"[FN#62] and
+thereupon beautiful women came into being in the city of Amit (or,
+Amem).  And the Majesty of Ra spake [concerning] this goddess,
+[saying], "Let there be made for her vessels of the beer which
+produceth sleep at every holy time and season of the year, and they
+shall be in number according to the number of my hand-maidens;" and
+from that early time until now men have been wont to make on the
+occasions of the festival of Hathor vessels of the beer which make them
+to sleep in number according to the number of the handmaidens of Ra.
+And the Majesty of Ra spake unto this goddess, [saying], "I am smitten
+with the pain of the fire of sickness; whence cometh to me [this]
+pain?"  And the Majesty of Ra said, "I live, but my heart hath become
+exceedingly weary[FN#63] with existence with them (i.e., with men); I
+have slain [some of] them, but there is a remnant of worthless ones,
+for the destruction which I wrought among them was not as great as my
+power."  Then the gods who were in his following said unto him, "Be not
+overcome by thy inactivity, for thy might is in proportion to thy
+will."  And the Majesty of this god said unto the Majesty of Nu, "My
+members are weak for (or, as at) the first time; I will not permit this
+to come upon me a second time."  And the Majesty of the god Nu said, "O
+son Shu, be thou the Eye 'for thy father . . . . . and avenue (?) him,
+and 'thou goddess Nut, place him . . . . . ...  And the goddess Nut
+said, "How can this be then, O my father Nu? Hail," said Nut . . . . .
+to the god Nu, and the goddess straightway became [a cow], and she set
+the Majesty of Ra upon [her] back . . . . .  And when these things had
+been done, men and women saw the god Ra, upon the back [of the cow].
+Then these men and women said, "Remain with us, and we will overthrow
+thine enemies who speak words of blasphemy [against thee.], and
+[destroy them]."  Then his Majesty [Ra] set out for the Great House,
+and [the gods who were in the train of Ra remained] with them (i.e.,
+the men); during that time the earth was in darkness.  And when the
+earth became light [again] and the morning had dawned, the men came
+forth with their bows and their [weapons], and they set their arms in
+motion to shoot the enemies [of Ra].  Then said the Majesty of this
+god, "Your "transgressions of violence are placed behind you, for the
+slaughtering of the enemies is above the slaughter [of sacrifice];"
+thus came into being the slaughter [of sacrifice].  And the Majesty of
+this god said unto Nut, "I have placed myself upon my back in order to
+stretch myself out."  What then is the meaning of this?  It meaneth
+that he united (?) himself with Nut.  [Thus came into being] . . . . .
+Then said the Majesty of this god, "I am departing from them (i.e.,
+from men), and he must come after me who would see me;" thus came into
+being . . . . .  Then the Majesty of this god looked forth from its
+interior, saying, "Gather together [men for me], and make ready for me
+an abode for multitudes;" thus came into being . . . . . . .  And his
+Majesty (life, health, and strength be to him!) said, "Let a great
+field (sekhet) be produced (hetep);" thereupon Sekhet-hetep came into
+being.  [And the god said], "I will gather herbs (aarat) therein;"
+thereupon Sekhet-aaru came into being.  [And the god said], "I will
+make it to contain as dwellers things (khet) like stars of all sorts;"
+thereupon the stars (akhekha) came into being.  Then the goddess Nut
+trembled because of the height.
+
+
+
+[FN#59]  Or, Henen-su, {hbw XaNeS}, i.e., Herakleopolis, Magna.
+
+[FN#60]  i.e., Elephantine, or Syene, a place better known by the
+Arabic name ASWAN.
+
+[FN#61]  i.e., the South, North, West, and East of the sky.
+
+[FN#62]  i.e., "the fair and gracious goddess."
+
+[FN#63]  Literally, "My heart hath stopped greatly."
+
+
+
+And the Majesty of Ra said, "I decree that supports be to bear [the
+goddess up];" thereupon the props of heaven (heh) came into being.  And
+the Majesty of Ra said, "O my son Shu, I pray thee to set thyself under
+[my] daughter Nut, and guard thou for me the supports (heh) of the
+millions (heh) which are there, and which live in darkness.  Take thou
+the goddess upon thy head, and act thou as nurse for her;" thereupon
+came into being [the custom] of a son nursing a daughter, and [the
+custom] of a father carrying a son upon his head.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+II.  This Chapter shall be said over [a figure of] the cow.--The
+supporters [called] Heh-enti shall be by her shoulder.  The supporters
+[called] Heh-enti shall be at her side, and one cubit and four spans of
+hers shall be in colours, and nine stars shall be on her belly, and Set
+shall be by her two thighs and shall keep watch before her two legs,
+and before her two legs shall be Shu, under her belly, and he shall be
+made (i.e., painted) in green qenat colour. His two arms shall be under
+the stars, and his name shall be made (i.e., written) in the middle of
+them, namely, Shu himself. "A boat with a rudder and a double shrine
+shall be therein, and Aten (i.e., the Disk) shall be above it, and Ra
+shall be in it, in front of Shu, near his hand, or, as another reading
+hath, behind him, near his hand.  And the udders of the Cow shall be
+made to be between her legs, towards the left side.  And on the two
+flanks, towards the middle of the legs, shall be done in writing [the
+words], "The exterior heaven," and "I am what is in me," and "I will
+not permit them to make her to turn."  That which is [written] under
+the boat which is in front shall read, "Thou shalt not be motionless,
+my son;" and the words which are written in an opposite direction shall
+read, "Thy support is like life," and "The word is as the word there,"
+and "Thy son is with me," and "Life, strength, and health be to thy
+nostrils!"  And that which is behind Shu, near his shoulder, shall
+read, "They keep ward," and that which is behind him, written close to
+his feet in an opposite direction, shall read, "Maat," and "They come
+in," and "I protect daily."  And that which is under the shoulder of
+the divine figure which is under the left leg, and is behind it shall
+read, "He who sealeth all things."  That which is over his head, under
+the thighs of the Cow, and that which is by her legs shall read,
+"Guardian of his exit."  That which is behind the two figures which are
+by her two legs, that is to say, over their heads, shall read, "The
+Aged One who is adored as he goeth forth," and The Aged One to whom
+praise is given when he goeth in."  That which is over the head of the
+two figures, and is between the two thighs of the Cow, shall read,
+"Listener," "Hearer," "Sceptre of the Upper Heaven," and "Star" (?).
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+III.  Then the majesty of this god spake unto Thoth, [saying] "Let a
+call go forth for me to the Majesty of the god Seb, saying, 'Come, with
+the utmost speed, at once."'  And when the Majesty of Seb had come, the
+Majesty of this god said unto him, "Let war be made against thy worms
+(or, serpents) which are in thee; verily, they shall have fear of me as
+long as I have being; but thou knowest their magical powers.  Do thou
+go to the place where my father Nu is, and say thou unto him, 'Keep
+ward over the worms (or, serpents) which are in the earth and water.'
+And moreover, thou shalt make a writing for each of the nests of thy
+serpents which are there, saying, 'Keep ye guard [lest ye] cause injury
+to anything.'  They shall know that I am removing myself [from them],
+but indeed I shall shine upon them. Since, however, they indeed wish
+for a father, thou shalt be a father unto them in this land for ever.
+Moreover, let good heed be taken to the men who have my words of power,
+and to those whose mouths have knowledge of such things; verily my own
+words of power are there, verily it shall not happen that any shall
+participate with me in my protection, by reason of the majesty which
+hath come into being before me.  I will decree them to thy son Osiris,
+and their children shall be watched over, the hearts of their princes
+shall be obedient (or, ready) by reason of the magical powers of those
+who act according to their desire in all the earth through their words
+of power which are in their bodies."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+IV.  And the majesty of this god said, "Call to me the god Thoth," and
+one brought the god to him forthwith.  And the Majesty of this god said
+unto Thoth, "Let us depart to a distance from heaven, from my place,
+because I would make light and the god of light (Khu) in the Tuat and
+[in] the Land of Caves.  Thou shalt write down [the things which are]
+in it, and thou shalt punish those who are in it, that is to say, the
+workers who have worked iniquity (or, rebellion).  Through thee I will
+keep away from the servants whom this heart [of mine] loatheth. Thou
+shalt be in my place (ast) ASTI, and thou shalt therefore be called, O
+Thoth, the 'Asti of Ra.'  Moreover, I give thee power to send (hab)
+forth . . . . .; thereupon shall come into being the Ibis (habi) bird
+of Thoth.  I moreover give thee [power] to lift up thine hand before
+the two Companies of the gods who are greater than thou, and what thou
+doest shall be fairer than [the work of] the god Khen; therefore shall
+the divine bird tekni of Thoth come into being.  Moreover, I give thee
+[Power] to embrace (anh) the two heavens with thy beauties, and with
+thy rays of light; therefore shall come into being the Moon-god (Aah)
+of Thoth.  Moreover, I give thee [power] to drive back (anan) the Ha-
+nebu;[FN#64] therefore shall come into being the dog-headed Ape (anan)
+of Thoth, and he shall act as governor for me.  Moreover, thou art now
+in my place in the sight of all those who see thee and who present
+offerings to thee, and every being shall ascribe praise unto thee, O
+thou who art God."
+
+
+
+[FN#64]  i.e., the "North-lords," that is to say, the peoples who lived
+in the extreme north of the Delta, and on its sea-coasts, and perhaps
+in the Islands of the Mediterranean.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+V.  Whosoever shall recite the words of this composition over himself
+shall anoint himself with olive oil and with thick unguent, and he
+shall have propitiatory offerings on both his hands of incense, and
+behind his two ears shall be pure natron, and sweet-smelling salve
+shall be on his lips.  He shall be arrayed in a new double tunic, and
+his body shall be purified with the water of the nile-flood, and he
+shall have upon his feet a pair of sandals made of white [leather], and
+a figure of the goddess Maat shall be drawn upon his tongue with green-
+coloured ochre.  Whensoever Thoth shall wish to recite this composition
+on behalf of Ra, he must perform a sevenfold (?) purification for three
+days, and priests and [ordinary] men shall do likewise.  Whosoever
+shall recite the above words shall perform the ceremonies which are to
+be performed when this book is being read.  And he shall make his place
+of standing (?) in a circle (or, at an angle) . . . . . which is beyond
+[him], and his two eyes shall be fixed upon himself, all his members
+shall be [composed], and his steps shall not carry him away [from the
+place].  Whosoever among men shall recite [these] words shall be like
+Ra on the day of his birth; and his possessions shall not become fewer,
+and his house shall never fall into decay, but shall endure for a
+million eternities.
+
+Then the Aged One himself (i.e., Ra) embraced (?) the god Nu, and spake
+unto the gods who came forth in the east of the sky, "Ascribe ye praise
+to the god, the Aged One, from whom I have come into being.  I am he
+who made the heavens, and I (set in order [the earth, and created the
+gods, and] I was with them for an exceedingly long period; then was
+born the year and . . . . . . but my soul is older than it (i.e.,
+time).  It is the Soul of Shu, it is the Soul of Khnemu (?),[FN#65] it
+is the Soul of Heh, it is the Soul of Kek and Kerh (i.e., Night and
+Darkness), it is the Soul of Nu and of Ra, it is the Soul of Osiris,
+the lord of Tettu, it is the Soul of the Sebak Crocodile-gods and of
+the Crocodiles, it is the Soul of every god [who dwelleth] in the
+divine Snakes, it is the Soul of Apep in Mount Bakhau (i.e., the Mount
+of Sunrise), and it is the Soul of Ra which pervadeth the whole world."
+
+
+
+[FN#65]  There are mistakes in the text here.
+
+
+
+Whosoever sayeth [these words] worketh his own protection by means of
+the words of power, "I am the god Hekau (i.e., the divine Word of
+power), and [I am] pure in my mouth, and [in] my belly; [I am] Ra from
+whom the gods proceeded.  I am Ra, the Light-god (Khu)."  When thou
+sayest [this], stop forth in the evening and in the morning on thine
+own behalf if thou wouldst make to fall the enemies of Ra.  I am his
+Soul, and I am Heka.
+
+Hail, thou lord of eternity, thou creator of everlastingness, who
+bringest to nought the gods who came forth from Ra, thou lord of thy
+god, thou prince who didst make what made thee, who art beloved by the
+fathers of the gods, on whose head are the pure words of power, who
+didst create the woman (erpit) that standeth on the south side of thee,
+who didst create the goddess who hath her face on her breast, and the
+serpent which standeth on his tail, with her eye on his belly, and with
+his tail on the earth, to whom Thoth giveth praises, and upon whom the
+heavens rest, and to whom Shu stretcheth out his two hands, deliver
+thou me from those two great gods who sit in the east of the sky, who
+act as wardens of heaven and as wardens of earth, and who make firm the
+secret places, and who are called "Aaiu-su," and "Per-f-er-maa-Nu."
+Moreover [there shall be) a purifying on the . . . . . day of the month
+. . . . . . .. even according to the performance of the ceremonies in
+the oldest time.
+
+Whosoever shall recite this Chapter shall have life in Neter-kher
+(i.e., Underworld), and the fear of him shall be much greater than it
+was formerly [upon earth] . . . . . . . and they shall say, "Thy names
+are 'Eternity' and 'Everlastingness.'"  They are called, they are
+called, "Au-peh-nef-n-aa-em-ta-uat-apu," and "Rekh-kua-[tut]-en-neter-
+pui-. . . . . . en en-hra-f-Her-shefu."  I am he who hath strengthened
+the boat with the company of the gods, and his Shenit, and his Gods, by
+means of words of power.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF RA AND ISIS.
+
+
+
+The Chapter of the divine (or, mighty) god, who created himself, who
+made the heavens and the earth, and the breath of life, and fire, and
+the gods, and men, and beasts, and cattle, and reptiles, and the fowl
+of the air, and the fish, who is the king of men and gods, [who
+existeth] in one Form, [to whom] periods of one hundred and twenty
+years axe as single years, whose names by reason of their multitude are
+unknowable, for [even] the gods know them not.  Behold, the goddess
+Isis lived in the form, of a woman, who had the knowledge of words [of
+power].  Her heart turned away in disgust from the millions of men, and
+she chose for herself the millions of the gods, but esteemed more
+highly the millions of the spirits.  Was it not possible to become even
+as was Ra in heaven and upon earth, and to make [herself] mistress of
+the earth, and a [mighty] goddess--thus she meditated in her heart--by
+the knowledge of the Name of the holy god?  Behold, Ra entered [heaven]
+each day at the head of his mariners, establishing himself upon the
+double throne of the two horizons. Now the divine one had become old,
+he dribbled at the mouth, and he let his emissions go forth from him
+upon the earth, and his spittle fell upon the ground.  This Isis
+kneaded in her hand,[FN#66] with [some] dust, and she fashioned it in
+the form of a sacred serpent, and made it to have the form of a dart,
+so that none might be able to escape alive from it, and she left it
+lying upon the road whereon the great god travelled, according to his
+desire, about the two lands.  Then the holy god rose up in the
+tabernacle of the gods in the great double house (life, strength,
+health!) among those who were in his train, and [as] he journeyed on
+his way according to his daily wont, the holy serpent shot its fang
+into him, and the living fire was departing from the god's own body,
+and the reptile destroyed the dweller among the cedars. And the mighty
+god opened his mouth, and the cry of His Majesty (life, strength,
+health!) reached unto the heavens, and the company of the gods said,
+"What is it?" and his gods said, "What is the matter?"  And the god
+found [no words] wherewith to answer concerning himself.  His jaws
+shook, his lips trembled, and the poison took possession of all his
+flesh just as Hapi (i.e., the Nile) taketh possession of the land
+through which he floweth.  Then the great god made firm his heart
+(i.e., took courage) and he cried out to those who were in his
+following:--"Come ye unto me, O ye who have come into being from my
+members,[FN#67] ye gods who have proceeded from me, for I would make
+you to know what hath happened.  I have been smitten by some deadly
+thing, of which my heart hath no knowledge, and which I have neither
+seen with my eyes nor made with my hand; and I have no knowledge at all
+who hath done this to me.  I have never before felt any pain like unto
+it, and no pain can be worse than this [is].  I am a Prince, the son of
+a Prince, and the divine emanation which was produced from a god.  I am
+a Great One, the son of a Great One, and my father hath determined for
+me my name.  I have multitudes of names, and I have multitudes of
+forms, and my being existeth in every god.  I have been invoked (or,
+proclaimed?) by Temu and Heru-Hekennu.  My father and my mother uttered
+my name, and [they] hid it in my body at my birth so that none of those
+who would use against me words of power might succeed in making their
+enchantments have dominion over me.[FN#68] I had come forth from my
+tabernacle to look upon that which I had made, and was making my way
+through the two lands which I had made, when a blow was aimed at me,
+but I know not of what kind.  Behold, is it fire?  Behold, is it water?
+My heart is full of burning fire, my limbs are shivering, and my
+members have darting pains in them.  Let there be brought unto me my
+children the gods, who possess words of magic, whose mouths are cunning
+[in uttering them], and whose powers reach up to heaven."  Then his
+children came unto him, and every god was there with his cry of
+lamentation; and Isis[FN#69] came with her words of magic, and the
+place of her mouth [was filled with] the breath of life, for the words
+which she putteth together destroy diseases, and her words make to live
+those whose throats are choked (i.e., the dead).  And she said, "What
+is this, O divine father?  What is it?  Hath a serpent shot his venom
+into thee?  Hath a thing which thou hast fashioned lifted up its head
+against thee?  Verily it shall be overthrown by beneficent words of
+power, and I will make it to retreat in the sight of thy rays."  The
+holy god opened his mouth, [saying], I was going along the road and
+passing through the two lands of my country, for my heart wished to
+look upon what I had made, when I was bitten by a serpent which I did
+not see; behold, is it fire?  Behold, is it water?  I am colder than
+water, I am hotter than fire, all my members sweat, I myself quake,
+mine eye is unsteady.  I cannot look at the heavens, and water forceth
+itself on my face as in the time of the Inundation."[FN#70]  And Isis
+said unto Ra, "O my divine father, tell me thy name, for he who is able
+to pronounce his name liveth."  [And Ra said], "I am the maker of the
+heavens and the earth, I have knit together the mountains, and I have
+created everything which existeth upon them.  I am the maker of the
+Waters, and I have made Meht-ur to come into being; I have made the
+Bull of his Mother, and I have made the joys of love to exist.  I am
+the maker of heaven, and I have made to be hidden the two gods of the
+horizon, and I have placed the souls of the gods within them.  I am the
+Being who openeth his eyes and the light cometh; I am the Being who
+shutteth his eyes and there is darkness.  I am the Being who giveth the
+command, and the waters of Hapi (the Nile) burst forth, I am the Being
+whose name the gods know not.  I am the maker of the hours and the
+creator of the days.  I am the opener (i.e., inaugurator) of the
+festivals, and the maker of the floods of water.  I am the creator of
+the fire of life whereby the works of the houses are caused to come
+into being. I am Khepera in the morning, and Ra (at the time of his
+culmination (i.e., noon), and Temu in the evening."[FN#71]
+Nevertheless the poison was not driven from its course, and the great
+god felt no better.  Then Isis said unto Ra, "Among the things which
+thou hast said unto me thy name hath not been mentioned.  O declare
+thou it unto me, and the poison shall come forth; for the person who
+hath declared his name shall live."  Meanwhile the poison burned with
+blazing fire and the heat thereof was stronger than that of a blazing
+flame.  Then the Majesty of Ra, said, "I will allow myself to be
+searched through by Isis, and my name shall come forth from my body and
+go into hers."  Then the divine one hid himself from the gods, and the
+throne in the Boat of Millions of Years[FN#72] was empty.  And it came
+to pass that when it was the time for the heart to come forth [from the
+god], she said unto her son Horus, "The great god shall bind himself by
+an oath to give his two eyes."[FN#73]  Thus was the great god made to
+yield up his name, and Isis, the great lady of enchantments, said,
+"Flow on, poison, and come forth from Ra; let the Eye of Horus come
+forth from the god and shine(?) outside his mouth.  I have worked, and
+I make the poison to fall on the ground, for the venom hath been
+mastered.  Verily the name hath been taken away from the great god.
+Let Ra live, and let the poison die; and if the poison live then Ra
+shall die.  And similarly, a certain man, the son of a certain man,
+shall live and the poison shall die."  These were the words which spake
+Isis, the great lady, the mistress of the gods, and she had knowledge
+of Ra in his own name.  The above words shall be said over an image of
+Temu and an image of Heru-Hekennu,[FN#74] and over an image of Isis and
+an image of Horus.
+
+
+
+[FN#66]  Here we have another instance of the important part which the
+spittle played in magical ceremonies that were intended to produce evil
+effects.  The act of spitting, however, was intended sometimes to carry
+a curse with it, and sometimes a blessing, for a man spat in the face
+of his enemy in order to lay the curse of impurity upon him, and at the
+present time, men spit upon money to keep the devils away from it.
+
+[FN#67]  The gods were, according to one belief, nothing more than the
+various names of Ra, who had taken the forms of the various members of
+his body.
+
+[FN#68]  Thus the god's own name became his most important talisman.
+
+[FN#69]  The position of Isis as the "great enchantress" is well
+defined, and several instances of her magical powers are recorded.  By
+the utterance of her words of power she succeeded in raising her dead
+husband Osiris to life, and she enabled him by their means to beget
+Horus of her.  Nothing could withstand them, because they were of
+divine origin, and she had learned them from Thoth, the intelligence of
+the greatest of the gods.
+
+[FN#70]  Or, "the period of the summer."  The season Shemmu, began soon
+after the beginning of April and lasted until nearly the end of July.
+
+[FN#71]  Khepera, Rd, and Temu were the three principal forms of the
+Sun-god according to the theological system of the priests of
+Heliopolis.
+
+[FN#72]  The name by which the Boat of Ra is generally known in
+Egyptian texts.  It was this boat which was stopped in its course when
+Thoth descended from the sky to impart to Isis the words of power that
+were to raise her dead child Horus to life.
+
+[FN#73]  i.e., the fluid of life of the sun, and the fluid of life of
+the moon. The sun and the moon were the visible, material symbols of
+the Sun god.
+
+[FN#74]  The attributes of this god are not well defined.  He was a god
+of the Eastern Delta, and was associated with the cities where Temu was
+worshipped.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF HORUS OF BEHUTET AND THE WINGED DISK.
+
+
+
+XII.  In the three hundred and sixty-third year of Ra-Heru-Khuti, who
+liveth for ever and forever, His Majesty was in Ta-Kens,[FN#75] and his
+soldiers were with him; [the enemy] did not conspire (auu) against
+their lord, and the land [is called] Uauatet unto this day.  And Ra set
+out on an expedition in his boat, and his followers were with him, and
+he arrived at Uthes-Heru,[FN#76] [which lay to] the west of this nome,
+and to the east of the canal Pakhennu, which is called [ . . . . . . .
+to this day].  And Heru-Behutet was in the boat of Ra, and he said
+unto his father Ra-Heru-Khuti (i.e., Ra-Harmachis), "I see that the
+enemies are conspiring against their lord; let thy fiery serpent gain
+the mastery . . . . . over them."
+
+
+
+[FN#75]  i.e., in Nubia, probably the portion of it which lies round
+about the modern Kalabsha.  In ancient days Ta-kens appears to have
+included a portion of the Nile Valley to the north of Aswan.
+
+
+
+XIII.  Then the Majesty of Ra Harmachis said unto thy divine KA, "O
+Heru-Behutet, O son of Ra, thou exalted one, who didst proceed from me,
+overthrow thou the enemies who are before thee straightway."  And Heru-
+Behutet flew up into the horizon in the form of the great Winged Disk,
+for which reason he is called "Great god, lord of heaven," unto this
+day.  And when he saw the enemies in the heights of heaven he set out
+to follow after them in the form of the great Winged Disk, and he
+attacked with such terrific force those who opposed him, that they
+could neither see with their eyes nor hear with their ears, and each of
+them slew his fellow.  In a moment of time there was not a single
+creature left alive.  Then Heru Behutet, shining with very many
+colours, came in the form of the great Winged Disk to the Boat of Ra-
+Harmachis, and Thoth said unto Ra, "O Lord of the gods, Behutet hath
+returned in the form of the great Winged Disk, shining [with many
+colours] . . . . . . children;" for this reason he is called Heru-
+Behutet unto this day.  And Thoth said, "The city Teb shall be called
+the city of Heru-Behutet," and thus is it called unto this day.  And Ra
+embraced the . . . . . of Ra, and said unto Heru-Behutet, "Thou didst
+put grapes[FN#77] into the water which cometh forth from it,[FN#78] and
+thy heart rejoiced thereat;" and for this reason the water (or, canal)
+of Heru-Behutet is called "[Grape-Water]" unto this day, and the . . .
+. . . . . . . . unto this day.  And Heru-Behutet said, "Advance, O Ra,
+and look thou upon thine enemies who are lying under thee on this
+land;" thereupon the Majesty of Ra set out on the way, and the goddess
+Asthertet ('Ashtoreth?) was with him, and he saw the enemies overthrown
+on the ground, each one of them being fettered.  Then said Ra to Heru-
+Behutet, "There is sweet life in this place," and for this reason the
+abode of the palace of Heru-Behutet is called "Sweet Life" unto this
+day.  And Ra, said unto Thoth, "[Here was the slaughter] of mine
+enemies; "and the place is called Teb[FN#79] unto this day.  And Thoth
+said unto Heru-Behutet, "Thou art a great protector (makaa);" and the
+Boat of Heru-Behutet is called Makaa[FN#80] unto this day.  Then said
+Ra unto the gods who were in his following, "Behold now, let us sail in
+our boat upon the water, for our hearts are glad because our enemies
+have been overthrown on the earth;" and the water where the great god
+sailed is called P-Khen-Ur[FN#81] unto this day.  And behold the
+enemies [of Ra] rushed into the water, and they took the forms of
+[crocodiles and] hippopotami, but nevertheless Ra-Heru-Khuti sailed
+over the waters in his boat, and when the crocodiles and the
+hippopotami had come nigh unto him, they opened wide their jaws in
+order to destroy Ra-Heru-Khuti.  And when Heru-Behutet arrived and his
+followers who were behind him in the forms of workers in metal, each
+having in his hands an iron spear and a chain, according to his name,
+they smote the crocodiles and the hippopotami; and there were brought
+in there straightway six hundred and fifty-one crocodiles, which had
+been slain before the city of Edfu.  Then spake Ra-Harmachis unto Heru-
+Behutet, "My Image shall be [here] in the land of the South, (which is
+a house of victory (or, strength); "and the House of Heru-Behutet is
+called Nekht-Het unto this day.
+
+
+
+[FN#76]  i.e., Apollinopolis, the modern Edfu.
+
+[FN#77]  i.e. drops of blood.
+
+[FN#78]  i.e., from the city.
+
+[FN#79]  i.e., Edfu.
+
+[FN#80]  i.e., Great Protector.
+
+[FN#81]  i.e., "Great Canal."
+
+
+
+XIV.  Then the god Thoth spake, after he had looked upon the enemies
+lying upon the ground, saying, "Let your hearts rejoice, O ye gods of
+heaven!  Let your hearts rejoice, O ye gods who are in the earth!
+Horus, the Youthful One, cometh in peace, and he hath made manifest on
+his journey deeds of very great might, which he hath performed
+according to 'the Book of Slaying the Hippopotamus.'"  And from that day
+figures of Heru-Behutet in metal have existed.
+
+Then Heru-Behutet took upon himself the form of the Winged Disk, and he
+placed himself upon the front of the Boat of Ea.  And he placed by his
+side the goddess Nekhebet[FN#82] and the goddess Uatchet,[FN#83] in the
+form of two serpents, that they might make the enemies to quake in
+[all] their limbs when they were in the forms of crocodiles and
+hippopotami in every place wherein be came in the Land of the South and
+in the Land of the North.  Then those enemies rose up to make their
+escape from before him, and their face was towards the Land of the
+South.  And their hearts were stricken down through fear of him.  And
+Heru-Behutet was at the back (or, side) of them in the Boat of Ra, and
+there were in his hands a metal lance and a metal chain; and the metal
+workers who were with their lord were equipped for fighting with lances
+and chains.  And Heru-Behutet saw them[FN#84] to the south-east of the
+city of Uast (Thebes) some distance away.  Then Ra said to Thoth,
+"Those enemies shall be smitten with blows that kill;" and Thoth said
+to Ra, "[That place] is called the city Tchet-Met unto this day."  And
+Heru-Behutet made a great overthrow among them, and Ra said, "Stand
+still, O Heru-Behutet," and [that place] is called "Het-Ra" to this
+day, and the god who dwelleth therein is Heru-Behutet-Ra-Amsu (or,
+Min).  Then those enemies rose up to make their escape from before him,
+and the face of the god was towards the Land of the North, and their
+hearts were stricken through fear of him.  And Heru-Behutet was at the
+back (or, side) of them in the Boat of Ra, and those who were following
+him had spears of metal and chains of metal in their hands; and the god
+himself was equipped for battle with the weapons of the metal workers
+which they had with them.  And he passed a whole day before he saw them
+to the north-east of the nome of Tentyra (Dendera).  Then Ra said unto
+Thoth, "The enemies are resting . . . . . . . their lord."  And the
+Majesty of Ra-Harmachis said to Heru-Behutet, "Thou art my exalted son
+who didst proceed from Nut.  The courage of the (enemies hath failed in
+a moment."  And Heru-Behutet made great slaughter among them.  And
+Thoth said "The Winged Disk shall be called. . . . . in the name of
+this Aat;" and is called Heru-Behutet . . . . . its mistress.  His name
+is to the South in the name of this god, and the acacia and the
+sycamore shall be the trees of the sanctuary.  Then the enemies turned
+aside to flee from before him, and their faces were [towards the North,
+and they went] to the swamps of Uatch-ur (i.e., the Mediterranean), and
+[their courage failed through fear of him].  And Heru-Behutet was at
+the back (or, side) of them in the Boat of Ra, and the metal spear was
+in his hands, and those who were in his following were equipped with
+the weapons for battle of the metal workers.  And the god spent four
+days and four nights in the water in pursuit of them, but he did not
+see one of the enemies, who fled from before him in the water in the
+forms of crocodiles and hippopotami.  At length he found them and saw
+them.  And Ra said unto Horus of Heben, "O Winged Disk, thou great god
+and lord of heaven, seize thou them . . . . . .;" and he hurled his
+lance after them, and he slew them, and worked a great overthrow of
+them.  And he brought one hundred and forty-two enemies to the forepart
+of the Boat [of Ra], and with them was a male hippopotamus which had
+been among those enemies.  And he hacked them in pieces with his knife,
+and he gave their entrails to those who were in his following, and he
+gave their carcases to the gods and goddesses who were in the Boat of
+Ra on the river-bank of the city of Heben.  Then Ra said unto Thoth,
+"See what mighty things Heru-Behutet hath performed in his deeds
+against the enemies: verily he hath smitten them!  And of the male
+hippopotamus he hath opened the mouth, and he hath speared it, and he
+hath mounted upon its back."  Then said Thoth to Ra, "Horus shall be
+called 'Winged Disk, Great God, Smiter of the enemies in the town of
+Heben' from this day forward, and he shall be called 'He who standeth
+on the back' and 'prophet of this god,' from this day forward."  These
+are the things which happened in the lands of the city of Heben, in a
+region which measured three hundred and forty-two measures on the
+south, and on the north, on the west, and on the east.
+
+
+
+[FN#82]  The goddess Nekhebet was incarnate in a special kind of
+serpent, and the centre of her worship was in the city of Nekheb, which
+the Greeks called Eileithyiaspolis, and the Arabs Al-Kab.
+
+[FN#83]  The centre of the worship of Uatchet, or Uatchit, was at Per-
+Uatchet, a city in the Delta.
+
+[FN#84]  i.e., the enemies.
+
+
+
+XV.  Then the enemies rose up before him by the Lake of the North, and
+their faces were set towards Uatch-ur[FN#85] which they desired to
+reach by sailing; but the god smote their hearts and they turned and
+fled in the water, and they directed their course to the water of the
+nome of Mertet-Ament, and they gathered themselves together in the
+water of Mertet in order to join themselves with the enemies [who
+serve] Set and who are in this region.  And Heru-Behutet followed them,
+being equipped with all his weapons of war to fight against them.  And
+Heru-Behutet made a journey in the Boat of Ra, together with the great
+god who was in his boat with those who were his followers, and he
+pursued them on the Lake of the North twice, and passed one day and one
+night sailing down the river in pursuit of them before he perceived and
+overtook them, for he knew not the place where they were.  Then he
+arrived at the city of Per-Rehu.  And the Majesty of Ra said unto Heru-
+Behutet, "What hath happened to the enemies?  They have gathered
+together themselves in the water to the west (?) of the nome of Mertet
+in order to unite themselves with the enemies [who serve] Set, and who
+are in this region, at the place where are our staff and sceptre."  And
+Thoth said unto Ra, "Uast in the nome of Mertet is called Uaseb because
+of this unto this day, and the Lake which is in it is called Tempt."
+Then Heru-Behutet spake in the presence of his father Ra, saying, "I
+beseech thee to set thy boat against them, so that I may be able to
+perform against them that which Ra willeth;" and this was done.  Then
+he made an attack upon them on the Lake which was at the west of this
+district, and he perceived them on the bank of the city . . . . . .
+which belongeth to the Lake of Mertet.  Then Heru-Behutet made an
+expedition against them, and his followers were with him, and they were
+provided with weapons of all kinds for battle, and he wrought a great
+overthrow among them, and he brought in three hundred and eighty-one
+enemies, and he slaughtered them in the forepart of the Boat of Ra, and
+he gave one of them to each of those who were in his train.  Then Set
+rose up and came forth, and raged loudly with words of cursing and
+abuse because of the things which Heru-behutet had done in respect of
+the slaughter of the enemies.  And Ra said unto Thoth, "This fiend
+Nehaha-hra uttereth words at the top of his voice because of the things
+which Heru-Behutet hath done unto him;" and Thoth said unto Ra, "Cries
+of this kind shall be called Nehaha-hra unto this day."  And Heru-
+Behutet did battle with the Enemy for a period of time, and he hurled
+his iron lance at him, and he throw him down on the ground in this
+region, which is called Pa-Rerehtu unto this day.  Then Heru-Behutet
+came and brought the Enemy with him, and his spear was in his neck, and
+his chain was round his hands and arms, and the weapon of Horus had
+fallen on his mouth and had closed it; and he went with him before his
+father Ra, who said, "O Horus, thou Winged Disk, twice great (Urui-
+Tenten) is the deed of valour which thou hast done, and thou hast
+cleansed the district."  And Ra, said unto Thoth, "The palace of Heru-
+Behutet shall be called, 'Lord of the district which is cleansed'
+because of this;" and [thus is it called] unto this day.  And the name
+of the priest thereof is called Ur-Tenten unto this day.  And Ra said
+unto Thoth, "Let the enemies and Set be given over to Isis and her son
+Horus, and let them work all their heart's desire upon them."  And she
+and her son Horus set themselves in position with their spears in him
+at the time when there was storm (or, disaster) in the district, and
+the Lake of the god was called She-En-Aha from that day to this.  Then
+Horus the son of Isis cut off the head of the Enemy [Set], and the
+heads of his fiends in the presence of father Ra and of the great
+company of the gods, and he dragged him by his feet through his
+district with his spear driven through his head and back.  And Ra said
+unto Thoth, "Let the son of Osiris drag the being of disaster through
+his territory;" and Thoth said, "It shall be called Ateh," and this
+hath been the name of the region from that day to this.  And Isis, the
+divine lady, spake before Ra, saying, "Let the exalted Winged Disk
+become the amulet of my son Horus, who hath cut off the head of the
+Enemy and the heads of his fiends."
+
+
+
+[FN#85]  i.e., the Mediterranean.
+
+
+
+XVI.  Thus Heru-Behutet and Horus, the son of Isis, slaughtered that
+evil Enemy, and his fiends, and the inert foes, and came forth with
+them to the water on the west side of this district.  And Heru-Behutet
+was in the form of a man of mighty strength, and he had the face of a
+hawk, and his head was crowned with the White Crown and the Red Crown,
+and with two plumes and two uraei, and he had the back of a hawk, and
+his spear and his chain were in his hands.  And Horus, the son of Isis,
+transformed himself into a similar shape, even as Heru-Behutet had done
+before him.  And they slew the enemies all together on the west of Per-
+Rehu, on the edge of the stream, and this god hath sailed over the
+water wherein the enemies had banded themselves to-ether against him
+from that day to this.  Now these things took place on the 7th day of
+the first mouth of the season Pert.  And Thoth said, "This region shall
+be called AAT-SHATET," and this hath been the name of the region from
+that day unto this; and the Lake which is close by it hath been called
+Temt from that day to this, and the 7th day of the first month of the
+season Pert hath been called the Festival of Sailing from that day to
+this.
+
+
+Then Set took upon himself the form of a hissing serpent, and he
+entered into the earth in this district without being seen.  And Ra
+said, "Set hath taken upon himself the form of a hissing serpent.  Let
+Horus, the son of Isis, in the form of a hawk-headed staff, set himself
+over the place where he is, so that the serpent may never more appear."
+And Thoth said, "Let this district be called Hemhemet[FN#86] by name;"
+and thus hath it been called from that day to this.  And Horus, the son
+of Isis, in the form of a hawk-headed staff, took up his abode there
+with his mother Isis; in this manner did these things happen.
+
+
+
+[FN#86]  This name means "the place of the Roarer," Hemhemti, being a
+well-known name of the Evil One.  Some texts seem to indicate that
+peals of thunder were caused by the fiend Set.
+
+
+
+
+Then the Boat of Ra arrived at the town of Het-Aha; its forepart was
+made of palm wood, and the hind part was made of acacia wood; thus the
+palm tree and the acacia tree have been sacred trees from that day to
+this.  Then Heru-Behutet embarked in the Boat of Ra, after he had made
+an end of fighting, and sailed; and Ra said unto Thoth, "Let this Boat
+be called . . . . . . .;" and thus hath it been called from that day to
+this, and these things have been done in commemoration in this place
+from that day to this.
+
+
+And Ra said unto Heru-Behutet, "Behold the fighting of the Smait fiend
+and his two-fold strength, and the Smai fiend Set, are upon the water
+of the North, and they will sail down stream upon . . . . . ." [And]
+Heru-Behutet said, "Whatsoever thou commandest shall take place, O Ra,
+Lord of the gods.  Grant thou, however, that this thy Boat may pursue
+them into every place whithersoever they shall go, and I will do to
+them whatsoever pleaseth Ra."  And everything was done according to
+what he had said.  Then this Boat of Ra was brought by the winged Sun-
+disk upon the waters of the Lake of Meh,[FN#87] [and] Heru-Behutet took
+in his hands his weapons, his darts, and his harpoon, and all the
+chains [which he required] for the fight.
+
+
+
+[FN#87]  It is probable that the Lake of Meh, i.e., the Lake of the
+North, was situated in the north-east of the Delta, not far from Lake
+Manzalah.
+
+
+
+
+And Heru-Behutet looked and saw one [only] of these Sebau[FN#88] fiends
+there on the spot, and he was by himself.  And he threw one metal dart,
+and brought (or, dragged) them along straightway, and he slaughtered
+them in the presence of Ra.  And he made an end [of them, and there
+were no more of the fiends] of Set in this place at [that] moment.
+
+
+
+[FN#88]  "Sebiu" is a common name for the associates of Seti, and this
+fiend is himself called "Seba," a word which means something like
+"rebel."
+
+
+
+
+XVII.  And Thoth said, "This place shall be called Ast-Ab-Heru"[FN#89]
+because Heru-Behutet wrought his desire upon them (i.e., the enemy);
+and he passed six days and six nights coming into port on the waters
+thereof and did not see one of them.  And he saw them fall down in the
+watery depths, and he made ready the place of Ast-ab-Heru there.  It
+was situated on the bank of the water, and the face (i.e., direction)
+thereof was full-front towards the South.  And all the rites and
+ceremonies of Heru-Behutet were performed on the first day of the first
+month[FN#90] of the season Akhet, and on the first day of the first
+month[FN#91] of the season Pert, and on the twenty-first and twenty-
+fourth days of the second month[FN#92] of the season Pert.  These are
+the festivals in the town of Ast-ab, by the side of the South, in An-
+rut-f.[FN#93]  And he came into port and went against them, keeping
+watch as for a king over the Great God in An-rut-f, in this place, in
+order to drive away the Enemy and his Smaiu fiends at his coming by
+night from the region of Mertet, to the west of this place.
+
+
+
+[FN#89]  i.e., place of the desire of Horus.
+
+
+[FN#90]  The month Thoth.
+
+[FN#91]  The month Tybi.
+
+[FN#92]  The month Mekhir.
+
+[FN#93]  A mythological locality originally placed near Herakleopolis.
+The name means "the place where nothing grows."  Several forms of the
+name occur in the older literature, e.g. in the Theban Recension of the
+Book of the Dead.
+
+
+
+And Heru-Behutet was in the form of a man who possessed great strength,
+with the face of a hawk; and he was crowned with the White
+Crown,[FN#94] and the Red Crown,[FN#95] and the two plumes, and the
+Urerit Crown, and there were two uraei upon his head.  His hand grasped
+firmly his harpoon to slay the hippopotamus, which was [as hard] as the
+khenem[FN#96] stone in its mountain bed.
+
+
+
+[FN#94]  The Crown of the South.
+
+[FN#95]  The Crown of the North.
+
+[FN#96]  A kind of jasper (?).
+
+
+
+
+And Ra said unto Thoth, "Indeed [Heru-]Behutet is like a Master-fighter
+in the slaughter of his enemies . . . . . ."
+
+
+And Thoth said unto Ra, "He shall be called 'Neb-Ahau'" (i.e., Master-
+fighter); and for this reason he hath been thus called by the priest of
+this god unto this day.
+
+
+And Isis made incantations of every kind in order to drive away the
+fiend Ra from An-rut-f, and from the Great God in this place.  And
+Thoth said [unto Ra], "The priestess of this god shall be called by the
+name of 'Nebt-Heka' for this reason."
+
+And Thoth said unto Ra, "Beautiful, beautiful is this place wherein
+thou hast taken up thy seat, keeping watch, as for a king, over the
+Great God who is in An-rut-f[FN#97] in peace."
+
+
+
+[FN#97]  i.e., Osiris.
+
+
+
+
+
+And Thoth said, "This Great House in this place shall therefore be
+called 'Ast-Nefert'[FN#98] from this day. It is situated to the
+south-west of the city of Nart, and [covereth] a space of four
+schoinoi."  And Ra Heru-Behutet said unto Thoth, "Hast thou not
+searched through this water for the enemy?"  And Thoth said, "The water
+of the God-house in this place shall be called by the name of 'Heh'
+(i.e., sought out)."  And Ra said, "Thy ship, O Heru-Behutet, is great
+(?) upon Ant-mer (?) . . . . . .  And Thoth said, "The name of [thy
+ship] shall be called 'Ur', and this stream shall be called 'Ant-mer
+(?).'"  As concerning (or, now) the place Ab-Bat (?) is situated on the
+shore of the water.  "Ast-nefert" is the name of the Great house, "Neb-
+Aha" [is the name of] the priest . . . . . . . . is the name of the
+priestess, "Heh" is the name of the lake . . . . . . . [is the name] of
+the water, "Am-her-net" is the name of the holy (?) acacia tree, "Neter
+het" is the name of the domain of the god, "Uru" is the name of the
+sacred boat, the gods therein are Heru-Behutet, the smiter of the
+lands, Horus, the son of Isis [and] Osiris . . . . . . . . his
+blacksmiths[FN#99] are to him, and those who are in his following are
+to him in his territory, with his metal lance, with his [mace], with
+his dagger, and with all his chains (or, fetters) which are in the city
+of Heru-Behutet.
+
+
+
+[FN#98]  i.e., "Beautiful Place."
+
+[FN#99]  Or perhaps fighting men who were armed with metal weapons.
+
+
+
+
+[And when he had reached the land of the North with his followers, he
+found the enemy.]  Now as for the blacksmiths who were over the middle
+regions, they made a great slaughter of the enemy, and there were
+brought back one hundred and six of them.  Now as for the blacksmiths
+of the West, they brought back one hundred and six of the enemy.  Now
+as for the blacksmiths of the East, among whom was Heru-Behutet, he
+slew them (i.e., the enemy) in the presence of Ra in the Middle
+Domains.[FN#100]
+
+
+
+[FN#100]  In the sculptures (Naville, Mythe, pl. 17) Heru-Behutet is
+seen standing in a boat spearing a crocodile, and immediately behind d
+him in the boat is Ra-Harmachis in his shrine.  The Mesentiu of the
+West are represented by an armed warrior in a boat, who is spearing a
+crocodile, and leads the way for Heru-Behutet.  In a boat behind the
+great god is a representative of the Mesentiu of the East spearing a
+crocodile.
+
+
+
+
+And Ra, said unto Thoth, "My heart [is satisfied] with the works of
+these blacksmiths of Heru-Behutet who are in his bodyguard.  They shall
+dwell in sanctuaries, and libations and purifications and offerings
+shall be made to their images, and [there shall be appointed for them]
+priests who shall minister by the month, and priests who shall minister
+by the hour, in all their God-houses whatsoever, as their reward
+because they have slain the enemies of the god."
+
+
+And Thoth said, "The [Middle] Domains shall be called after the names
+of these blacksmiths from this day onwards, and the god who dwelleth
+among them, Heru-Behutet, shall be called the 'Lord of Mesent' from
+this day onwards, and the domain shall be called 'Mesent of the West'
+from this day onwards."
+
+
+As concerning Mesent of the West, the face (or, front) thereof shall be
+towards [the East], towards the place where Ra riseth, and this Mesent
+shall be called "Mesent of the East" from this day onwards.  As
+concerning the double town of Mesent, the work of these blacksmiths of
+the East, the face (or, front) thereof shall be towards the South,
+towards the city of Behutet, the hiding-place of Heru-Behutet.  And
+there shall be performed therein all the rites and ceremonies of Heru-
+Behutet on the second day of the first month[FN#101] of the season of
+Akhet, and on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month[FN#102] of the
+season of Akhet, and on the seventh day of the first month[FN#103] of
+the season Pert, and on the twenty-first day of the second
+month[FN#104] of the season Pert, from this day onwards.  Their stream
+shall be called "Asti," the name of their Great House shall be called
+"Abet," the [priest (?)] shall be called "Qen-aha," and their domain
+shall be called "Kau-Mesent" from this day onwards.
+
+
+
+[FN#101]  The month Thoth.
+
+[FN#102]  The month Choiak.
+
+[FN#103]  The month Tybi.
+
+[FN#104]  The mouth Mechir.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.  And Ra said unto Heru-Behutet, "These enemies have sailed up
+the river, to the country of Setet, to the end of the pillar-house of
+Hat, and they have sailed up the river to the east, to the country or
+Tchalt (or, Tchart),[FN#105] which is their region of swamps."  And
+Heru-Behutet said, "Everything which thou hast commanded hath come to
+pass, Ra, Lord of the Gods; thou art the lord of commands."  And they
+untied the Boat of Ra, and they sailed up the river to the east.  Then
+he looked upon those enemies whereof some of them had fallen into the
+sea (or, river), and the others had fallen headlong on the mountains.
+
+
+
+[FN#105]  Zoan-Tanis.
+
+
+
+
+And Heru-Behutet transformed himself into a lion which had the face of
+a man, and which was crowned with the triple crown.[FN#106]  His paw
+was like unto a flint knife, and he went round and round by the side of
+them, and brought back one hundred and forty-two [of the enemy], and be
+rent them in pieces with his claws.  He tore out their tongues, and
+their blood flowed on the ridges of the land in this place; and he made
+them the property of those who were in his following [whilst] he was
+upon the mountains.
+
+
+
+[FN#106]  In the sculpture (Naville, Mythe, pl. 18), we see a
+representation of this lion, which is standing over the bodies of slain
+enemies upon a rectangular pedestal, or block.
+
+
+
+
+And Ra said unto Thoth, "Behold, Heru-Behutet is like unto a lion in
+his lair [when] he is on the back of the enemy who have given unto him
+their tongues."
+
+
+And Thoth said, "This domain shall be called 'Khent-abt,' and it shall
+[also] be called 'Tchalt' (or, Tchart) from this day onwards.  And the
+bringing of the tongues from the remote places of Tchalt (or, Tchart)
+[shall be commemorated] from this day onwards.  And this god shall be
+called 'Heru-Behutet, Lord of Mesent,' from this day onwards."
+
+
+
+And Ra said unto Heru-Behutet, "Let us sail to the south up the river,
+and let us smite the enemies [who are] in the forms of crocodiles and
+hippopotami in the face of Egypt."
+
+
+
+And Heru-Behutet said, "Thy divine Ka, O Ra, Lord of the gods!  Let us
+sail up the river against the remainder--one third--of the enemies who
+are in the water (or, river)."  Then Thoth recited the Chapters of
+protecting the Boat [of Ra] and the boats of the blacksmiths, [which he
+used] for making tranquil the sea at the moment when a storm was raging
+on it.
+
+And Ra said unto Thoth, "Have we not journeyed throughout the whole
+land?  Shall we not journey cover the whole sea in like manner?"  And
+Thoth said, "This water shall be called the 'Sea of journeying,' from
+this day onward."
+
+And they sailed about over the water during the night, and they did not
+see any of those enemies at all.
+
+Then they made a journey forth and arrived in the country of Ta-
+sti,[FN#107] at the town of Shas-hertet, and he perceived the most able
+of their enemies in the country of Uaua,[FN#108] and they were uttering
+treason against Horus their Lord.
+
+
+
+[FN#107]  Northern Nubia; the name means "Land of the Bow."
+
+[FN#108]  A portion of Northern Nubia.
+
+
+
+And Heru-Behut changed his form into that of the Winged Disk, [and took
+his place] above the bow of the Boat of Ra. And he made the goddess
+Nekhebit[FN#109] and the goddess Uatchit[FN#110] to be with him in the
+form of serpents, so that they might make the Sebau fiends to quake in
+[all] their limbs (or, bodies).  Their boldness (i.e., that of the
+fiends) subsided through the fear of him, they made no resistance
+whatsoever, and they died straightway.
+
+
+
+[FN#109]  The goddess of the South.
+
+[FN#110]  The goddess of the North.
+
+
+
+Then the gods who were in the following of the Boat of Heru-khuti said,
+"Great, great is that which he hath done among them by means of the two
+Serpent Goddesses,[FN#111] for he hath overthrown the enemy by means of
+their fear of him."
+
+
+
+[FN#111]  i.e., Nekhebit and Uatchit.
+
+
+
+And Ra Heru-khuti said, "The great one of the two Serpent Goddesses of
+Heru-Behutet shall be called 'Ur-Uatchti'[FN#112] from this day
+onwards."
+
+
+
+[FN#112]  "Great one of the Two Uraei-goddesses;" these goddesses had
+their places above the brow of the god, or at the right and left of the
+solar disk.
+
+
+
+XIX.  And Heru-khuti travelled on in his boat, and landed at the city
+of Thes-Heru (Apollinopolis Magna).  And Thoth said, "The being of
+light who hath come forth from the horizon hath smitten the enemy in
+the form which he hath made, and he shall be called Being of light who
+hath come forth from the horizon from this day onwards."[FN#113]
+
+
+
+[FN#113]  In the sculpture (Naville, Mythe, pl. 19) we see the god, who
+is hawk-headed, and wears the crowns of the South and North, seated in
+a shrine set upon a pedestal.  In the right hand he holds the sceptre
+and in the left the ankh.
+
+
+
+And Ra Heru-khuti (Ra Harmachis) said to Thoth, "Thou shalt make this
+Winged Disk to be in every place wherein I seat myself (or, dwell), and
+in [all] the seats of the gods in the South, and in [all] the seats of
+the gods in the Land of the North . . . . . . . in the Country of
+Horus, that it may drive away the evil ones from their domains."
+
+Then Thoth made the image of the Winged Disk to be in every sanctuary
+and in every temple, where they now are, wherein are all the gods and
+all the goddesses from this day onwards.  Now through the Winged Disk
+which is on the temple-buildings of all the gods and all the goddesses
+of the Land of the Lily,[FN#114] and the Land of the Papyrus,[FN#115]
+[these buildings] become shrines of Heru-Behutet.
+
+
+
+[FN#114]  i.e., the North, especially the Delta.
+
+[FN#115]  i.e., the South.
+
+
+
+As concerning Heru-Behutet, the great god, the lord of heaven, the
+president of the Ater of the South,[FN#116] he it is who is made to be
+on the right hand.  This is Heru-Behutet on whom the goddess Nekhebit
+is placed in the form of a serpent (or, uraeus).  As concerning Heru-
+Behutet, the great god, the lord of heaven, the lord of Mesent, the
+president of the Ater of the North,[FN#117] he it is who is made to be
+on the left hand.  This Heru-Behutet on whom the goddess Uatchit is
+placed is in the form of a serpent.
+
+
+
+[FN#116]  i.e., the southern half of heaven.
+
+[FN#117]  i.e., the northern half of heaven.
+
+
+
+As concerning Heru-Behutet, the great god, the lord of heaven, the lord
+of Mesent, the president of the two Aterti of the South and North, Ra
+Heru-khuti set it (i.e., the Winged Disk) in his every place, to
+overthrow the enemies in every place wherein they are.  And he shall be
+called President of the two Aterti of the South and North because of
+this from this day onwards.[FN#118]
+
+
+
+[FN#118]  In the sculpture which illustrates this portion of the text
+at Edfu, two Winged Disks are represented.  The first has #### on each
+side of it.  The disk has an uraeus on each side.  The second winged
+symbol of the god consists of a beetle with outstretched wings, which
+holds between his forelegs the solar disk, and between his hind legs
+the symbol of the orbit of the sun.
+
+
+
+
+
+A HYMN TO OSIRIS AND A LEGEND OF THE ORIGIN OF HORUS.
+
+
+
+Homage to thee, Osiris, Lord of eternity, King of the gods, whose names
+are manifold, whose transformations are sublime, whose form is hidden
+in the temples whose Ka is holy, the Governor of Tetut,[FN#119] the
+mighty one of possessions (?)in the shrine,[FN#120] the Lord of
+praises[FN#121] in the nome of Anetch,[FN#122] President of the tchefa
+food in Anu,[FN#123] Lord who art commemorated in [the town of]
+Maati,[FN#124] the mysterious (or, hidden) Soul, the Lord of
+Qerret,[FN#125] the sublime one in White Wall,[FN#126] the Soul of Ra
+[and] his very body, who hast thy dwelling in Henensu,[FN#127] the
+beneficent one, who art praised in Nart,[FN#128] who makest to rise up
+thy Soul, Lord of the Great House in the city[FN#129] of the Eight
+Gods,[FN#130] [who inspirest] great terror in Shas-hetep,[FN#131] Lord
+of eternity, Governor of Abtu (Abydos).
+
+
+
+[FN#119]  More fully Pa-Asar-neb-Tetut, the Busiris of the Greeks;
+Busiris = Pa-Asar, "House of Osiris," par excellence.  The variant
+Tataut also occurs.
+
+[FN#120]  An allusion, perhaps, to the town Sekhem, the capital of the
+second nome (Letopolites) of Lower Egypt.
+
+[FN#121]  i.e., lord whose praises are sung.
+
+[FN#122]  Letopolites.
+
+[FN#123]  Heliopolis.
+
+[FN#124]  i.e., a famous sanctuary in the Letopolite nome where Ptah
+was worshipped.
+
+[FN#125]  The region of the First Cataract, where the Nile was believed
+to rise.
+
+[FN#126]  Memphis.
+
+[FN#127]  Herakleopolis, the {hbw XaNeS} of Isaiah.
+
+[FN#128]  A name of Herakleopolis.
+
+[FN#129]  Khemenu or Hermopolis, the city of Thoth.
+
+[FN#130]  These gods were: Nu and Nut; Hehu and Hehut; Kekui and
+Kekuit; Kerh and Kerhet.
+
+[FN#131]  The capital of Set, the eleventh nome of Upper Egypt; the
+chief local deity was Khnemu.
+
+
+
+Thy seat (or, domain) reacheth far into Ta-tchesert,[FN#132] and thy
+name is firmly stablished in the mouth[s] of men.  Thou art the two-
+fold substance of the Two Lands[FN#133] everywhere (?), and the divine
+food (tchef) of the Kau,[FN#134] the Governor of the Companies[FN#135]
+of the Gods, and the beneficent (or, perfect) Spirit-soul[FN#136] among
+Spirit-souls.  The god Nu draweth his waters from thee,[FN#137] and
+thou bringest forth the north wind at eventide, and wind from thy
+nostrils to the satisfaction of thy heart.  Thy heart flourisheth, and
+thou bringest forth the splendour of tchef food.
+
+
+
+[FN#132]  A name of the Other World.
+
+[FN#133]  i.e., the two Egypts, Upper and Lower.
+
+[FN#134]  The Doubles of the beatified who are fed by Osiris in the
+Other World.
+
+[FN#135]  Three Companies are distinguished: the gods of Heaven, the
+gods of Earth, and the gods of the Other World.
+
+[FN#136]  The indestructible, immortal Spirit-soul as opposed to the
+Ba-soul or animal-soul.
+
+
+[FN#137]  Here and in other places I have changed the pronoun of the
+third person into that of the second to avoid the abrupt changes of the
+original.
+
+
+
+The height of heaven and the stars [thereof] are obedient unto thee,
+and thou makest to be opened the great gates [of the sky].  Thou art
+the lord to whom praises are sung in the southern heaven, thou art he
+to whom thanks are given in the northern heaven.  The stars which never
+diminish are under the place of thy face,[FN#138] and thy seats are the
+stars which never rest.[FN#139]  Offerings appear before thee by the
+command of Keb.  The Companies of the Gods ascribe praise unto thee,
+the Star-gods of the Tuat smell the earth before thee,[FN#140] the
+domains [make] bowings [before thee], and the ends of the earth make
+supplication to thee [when] they see thee.
+
+
+
+[FN#138]  i.e., they are under thy inspection and care.
+
+[FN#139]  i.e., the stars which never set.  The allusion is probably to
+certain circumpolar stars.
+
+[FN#140]  i.e., do homage.
+
+
+
+Those who are among the holy ones are in terror of him, and the Two
+Lands, all of them, make acclamations to him when they meet His
+Majesty.  Thou art a shining Noble at the head of the nobles, permanent
+in [thy] high rank, stablished in [thy] sovereignty, the beneficent
+Power of the Company of the Gods.  Well-pleasing [is thy] face, and
+thou art beloved by him that seeth thee.  Thou settest the fear of thee
+in all lands, and because of their love for thee [men] hold thy name to
+be pre-eminent.  Every man maketh offerings unto thee, and thou art the
+Lord who is commemorated in heaven and upon earth.  Manifold are the
+cries of acclamation to thee in the Uak[FN#141] festival, and the Two
+Lands shout joyously to thee with one accord.  Thou art the eldest, the
+first of thy brethren, the Prince of the Company of the Gods, and the
+stablisher of Truth throughout the Two Lands.  Thou settest [thy] son
+upon the great throne of his father Keb.  Thou art the beloved one of
+thy mother Nut, whose valour is most mighty [when] thou overthrowest
+the Seba Fiend.  Thou hast slaughtered thy enemy, and hast put the fear
+of thee into thy Adversary.
+
+
+
+[FN#141]  One of the chief festivals of Osiris, during which the god
+made a periplus.
+
+
+
+Thou art the bringer in of the remotest boundaries, and art stable of
+heart, and thy two feet are lifted up (?); thou art the heir of Keb and
+of the sovereignty of the Two Lands, and he (i.e., Keb) hath seen thy
+splendid qualities, and hath commanded thee to guide the lands (i.e.,
+the world) by thy hand so long as times [and seasons] endure.
+
+Thou hast made this earth with thy hand, the waters thereof, the winds
+thereof, the trees and herbs thereof, the cattle thereof of every kind,
+the birds thereof of every kind, the fish thereof of every kind, the
+creeping things thereof, and the four-footed beasts thereof. The land
+of the desert[FN#142] belongeth by right to the son of Nut, and the Two
+Lands have contentment in making him to rise[FN#143] upon the throne of
+his father like Ra.
+
+
+
+[FN#142]  This may also represent the mountainous districts of Egypt,
+or even foreign countries in general.
+
+[FN#143]  To make him rise like the sun, or to enthrone him.
+
+
+
+Thou rollest up into the horizon, thou settest the light above the
+darkness, thou illuminest [the Two Lands] with the light from thy two
+plumes, thou floodest the Two Lands like the Disk at the beginning of
+the dawn.  Thy White Crown pierceth the height of heaven saluting the
+stars,[FN#144] thou art the guide of every god.  Thou art
+perfect[FN#145] in command and word.  Thou art the favoured one of the
+Great Company of the Gods, and thou art the beloved one of the Little
+Company of the Gods.
+
+
+
+[FN#144]  Or, "becoming a brother to the stars," or the Star-gods.
+
+[FN#145]  Or, beneficent.
+
+
+
+Thy sister [Isis] acted as a protectress to thee. She drove [thy]
+enemies away, she averted seasons [of calamity from thee], she recited
+the word (or, formula) with the magical power of her mouth, [being]
+skilled of tongue and never halting for a word, being perfect in
+command and word.  Isis the magician avenged her brother.  She went
+about seeking for him untiringly.
+
+She flew round and round over this earth uttering wailing cries of
+grief, and she did not alight on the ground until she had found him.
+She made light [to come forth] from her feathers, she made air to come
+into being by means of her two wings, and she cried out the death cries
+for her brother.  She made to rise up the helpless members of him whose
+heart was at rest, she drew from him his essence, and she made
+therefrom an heir.  She suckled the child in solitariness and none knew
+where his place was, and he grew in strength.  His hand is mighty (or,
+victorious) within the house of Keb, and the Company of the Gods
+rejoice greatly at the coming of Horus, the son of Osiris, whose heart
+is firmly stablished, the triumphant one, the son of Isis, the flesh
+and bone of Osiris.  The Tchatcha[FN#146] of Truth, and the Company of
+the Gods, and Neb-er-tcher[FN#147] himself, and the Lords of Truth,
+gather together to him, and assemble therein.[FN#148]  Verily those who
+defeat iniquity rejoice[FN#149] in the House of Keb to bestow the
+divine rank and dignity upon him to whom it belongeth, and the
+sovereignty upon him whose it is by right.
+
+
+
+[FN#146]  Literally, the "Heads," I.e., the divine sovereign Chiefs at
+the court of Osiris, who acted as administrators of the god, and even
+as task-masters.
+
+[FN#147]  "He who is the lord to the end (or, limit) of the world," a
+name of Osiris.
+
+[FN#148]  i.e., in the House of Keb.
+
+[FN#149]  Or perhaps "take their seats in the House of Keb."
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF PTAH NEFER-HETEP AND THE PRINCESS OF BEKHTEN.
+
+
+
+The Horus: "Mighty Bull, the form(?) of risings[FN#150], stablished in
+sovereignty like Tem." The Golden Horus: "Mighty one of
+strength[FN#151], destroyer of the Nine Nations of the Bow."[FN#152]
+King of the South and North: "The Lord of the Two Lands, User-Maat-Ra-
+setep-en-Ra Son of Ra: Of his body, Ra-meses-meri-Amen, of Amen-
+Ra;[FN#153] the Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands, and of the
+Company of the Gods, the Lords of Thebes, the beloved one.  The
+beneficent god, the son of Amen, born of Mut, begotten of Heru-khuti,
+the glorious offspring of Neb-tchert,[FN#154] begetting [as] the Bull
+of his Mother, [FN#155] king of Egypt, Governor of the deserts, the
+Sovereign who hath taken possession of the Nine Nations of the Bow;
+[who] on coming forth from the womb ordained mighty things, who gave
+commands whilst he was in the egg, the Bull, stable of heart, who hath
+sent forth his seed; the king who is a bull, [and] a god who cometh
+forth on the day of battle like Menthu,[FN#156] the mighty one of
+strength like the son of Nut."[FN#157]
+
+
+
+[FN#150]  i.e., the image who rises like the sun day by day, or the
+image of [many] crowns.
+
+[FN#151]  Or, mighty one of the thigh, i.e., he of the mighty thigh.
+
+[FN#152]  The nations of Nubia who fought with bows and arrows.
+
+[FN#153]  In this version of the protocol of Rameses II. the second
+"strong name" of the king is omitted.
+
+[FN#154]  i.e., Neb-er-tcher.
+
+[FN#155]  Ka-mut-f, the {greek kamh^fic} of the Greeks.
+
+[FN#156]  The War-god of Thebes.
+
+[FN#157]  i.e., Osiris.
+
+
+
+Behold, His Majesty was in the country of Neheru[FN#158] according to
+his custom every year, and the chiefs of every land, even as far as the
+swamps, came [to pay] homage, bearing offerings to the Souls of His
+Majesty; and they brought their gifts, gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise,
+bars of wood of every kind of the Land of the God,[FN#159] on their
+backs, and each one surpassed his neighbour.
+
+
+
+
+[FN#158]  The "country of the rivers," the {hbw AaRam NaHaRaYim} of
+Gen. xxiv. 10, the #### of Syrian writers.
+
+[FN#159]  A name including Western Asia and a portion of the East Coast
+of Africa.
+
+
+
+And the Prince of Bekhten [also] caused his gifts to be brought, and he
+set his eldest daughter at the head of them all, and he addressed words
+of praise to His Majesty, and prayed to him for his life.  And the
+maiden was beautiful, and His Majesty considered her to be the most
+lovely [woman] in the world, and he wrote down as her title, "Great
+Royal Wife, Ra-neferu"; and when His Majesty arrived in Egypt, he did
+for her whatsoever was done for the Royal Wife.
+
+On the twenty-second day of the second month of the season of
+Shemu,[FN#160] in the fifteenth year [of his reign], behold, His
+Majesty was in Thebes, the Mighty [city], the Mistress of cities,
+performing the praises of Father Amen, the Lord of the thrones of the
+Two Lands, in his beautiful Festival of the Southern Apt,[FN#161] which
+was the seat of his heart (i.e., the chosen spot) from primaeval time,
+[when] one came to say to His Majesty, "An ambassador of the Prince of
+Bekhten hath arrived bearing many gifts for the Royal Wife."
+
+
+
+[FN#160]  The summer.  The Copts called the second month of this season
+Paoni.
+
+
+[FN#161]  The modern Temple of Luxor.
+
+
+
+And having been brought into the presence of His Majesty with his
+gifts, he spake words of adoration to His Majesty, saying, "Praise be
+unto thee, O thou Sun (Ra) of the Nine Nations of the Bow, permit us to
+live before thee!"  And when he had spoken, and had smelt the earth
+before His Majesty, he continued his speech before His Majesty, saying,
+"I have come unto thee, my King and Lord, on behalf of Bent-Resht, the
+younger sister of the Royal Wife Ra-neferu.  [Some] disease hath
+penetrated into her members, and I beseech Thy Majesty to send a man of
+learning to see her."
+
+
+And His Majesty said, "Bring to me the magicians (or, scribes) of the
+House of Life, and the nobles of the palace."  And having been brought
+into his presence straightway, His Majesty said unto them, "Behold, I
+have caused you to be summoned [hither] in order that ye may hear this
+matter.  Now bring to me [one] of your company whose heart is
+wise[FN#162], and whose fingers are deft."  And the royal scribe
+Tehuti-em-heb came into the presence of His Majesty, and His Majesty
+commanded him to depart to Bekhten with that ambassador.
+
+
+
+[FN#162]  Or, a skilled craftsman.
+
+
+
+
+And when the man of learning had arrived in Bekhten, he found Bent-
+Resht in the condition of a woman who is possessed by a spirit, and he
+found 12 this spirit to be an evil one, and to be hostile in his
+disposition towards him.
+
+And the Prince of Bekhten sent a messenger a second time into the
+presence of His Majesty, saying, "O King, my Lord, I pray His (i.e.,
+Thy) Majesty to command that a god be brought hither to contend
+against the spirit."
+
+
+Now when the messenger came to His Majesty in the first month[FN#163]
+of the season of Shemu, in the twenty-sixth year [of his reign], on the
+day which coincided with that of the Festival of Amen, His Majesty was
+in the palace (or, temple?) of Thebes.  And His Majesty spake a second
+time[FN#164] in the presence of Khensu in Thebes, [called] "Nefer-
+Hetep," saying, "O my fair Lord, I present myself before thee a second
+time on behalf of the daughter of the Prince of Bekhten."  Then Khensu,
+in Thebes, [called] "Nefer-Hetep", was carried to Khensu, [called] "Pa-
+ari-sekher," the great god who driveth away the spirits which attack.
+And His Majesty spake before Khensu in Thebes, [called] "Nefer-Hetep,"
+saying, "O my fair Lord, if thou wilt give (i.e., turn) thy face to
+Khensu, [called] 'Pa-ari-sekher,' the great god who driveth away the
+spirits which attack, permit thou that he may depart to Bekhten;" [and
+the god] inclined his head with a deep inclination twice.  And His
+Majesty said, "Let, I pray, thy protective (or, magical) power [go]
+with him, so that I may make His Majesty to go to Bekhten to deliver
+the daughter of the Prince of Bekhten [from the spirit]."
+
+
+
+[FN#163]  The month Pakhon of the Copts.
+
+[FN#164]  The text makes no mention of the first application to Khensu.
+
+
+
+
+And Khensu in Thebes, [called] "Nefer-Hetep," inclined his head with a
+deep inclination twice.  And he made [his] protective power to pass
+into Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," in a fourfold measure.
+Then His Majesty commanded that Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-
+Uast," should set out on his journey in a great boat, [accompanied by]
+five smaller boats, and chariots, and a large number of horses [which
+marched] on the right side and on the left.
+
+
+And when this god arrived in Bekhten at the end of a period of one year
+and five months, the Prince of Bekhten came forth with his soldiers and
+his chief[s] before Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher," and he cast
+himself down upon his belly, saying, "Thou hast come to us, and thou
+art welcomed by us, by the commands of the King of the South and North,
+User-Maat-Ra-setep-en-Ra!"
+
+
+And when this god had passed over to the place where Bent-Resht was, he
+worked upon the daughter of the Prince of Bekhten with his magical
+power, and she became better (i.e., was healed) straightway.  And this
+spirit which had been with her said, in the presence of Khensu,
+[called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," "Come in peace (i.e., Welcome!), O
+great god, who dost drive away the spirits which attack!  Bekhten is
+thy city, the people thereof, both men and women, are thy (servants,
+and I myself am thy servant.  I will [now] depart unto the place whence
+I came, so that I may cause thy heart to be content about the matter
+concerning which thou hast come.  I pray that Thy Majesty will command
+that a happy day (i.e., a festival, or day of rejoicing) be made with
+me, and with the Prince of Bekhten."  And this god inclined his head
+[in approval] to his priest, saying, "Let the Prince of Bekhten make a
+great offering in the (presence of this spirit."
+
+Now whilst Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," was arranging
+these [things] with the spirit, the Prince of Bekhten and his soldiers
+were standing there, and they feared with an exceedingly great fear.
+And the Prince of Bekhten made a great offering in the presence of
+Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," and the spirit of the Prince
+of Bekhten, and he made a happy day (i.e., festival) on their behalf,
+and [then] the spirit departed in peace unto the place which he loved,
+by the command of Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast."  And the
+Prince of Bekhten, and every person who was in the country of Bekhten,
+rejoiced very greatly, and he took counsel with his heart, saying, "It
+hath happened that this god hath been given as a gift to Bekhten, and I
+will not permit him to depart to Egypt."
+
+
+And [when] this god had tarried for three years and nine months in
+Bekhten, the Prince of Bekhten, who was lying down asleep on his bed,
+saw this god come forth outside his shrine (now he was in the form of a
+golden hawk), and he flew up into the heavens and departed to Egypt;
+and when the Prince woke up he was trembling.  And he said unto the
+prophet of Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," "This god who
+tarried with us hath departed to Egypt; let his chariot also depart to
+Egypt."
+
+
+And the Prince of Bekhten permitted [the image of] the god to set out
+for Egypt, and he gave him many great gifts of beautiful things of all
+kinds, and a large number of soldiers and horses [went with him].  And
+when they had arrived in peace in Thebes, Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-
+sekher-em-Uast," went into the Temple of Khensu in Thebes, [called]
+"Nefer-Hetep," and he placed the offerings which the Prince of Bekhten
+had given unto him, beautiful things of all kinds, before Khensu in
+Thebes, [called] "Nefer-Hetep," and he gave nothing thereof whatsoever
+to his [own] temple.
+
+
+Thus Khensu, [called] "Pa-ari-sekher-em-Uast," arrived in his temple in
+peace, on the nineteenth day of the second month[FN#165] of the season
+Pert, in the thirty-third year of the [reign of the] King of the South
+and North, User-Maat-en-Ra-setep-en-Ra, the giver of life, like Ra, for
+ever.
+
+
+
+
+[FN#165]  The month Mekhir of the Copts; the season Pert is the
+Egyptian spring.
+
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF THE GOD KHNEMU AND OF A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE.
+
+
+
+
+In the eighteenth year of the Horus, Neter-Khat, of the King of the
+South and North, Neter-Khat, of the Lord of the Shrines of Uatchit and
+Nekhebit, Neter-Khat, of the Golden Horus Tcheser,[FN#166] when Matar
+was Ha Prince, and Erpa, and Governor of the temple-cities in the Land
+of the South, and director of the Khenti[FN#167] folk in Abtu,[FN#168]
+there was brought unto him the following royal despatch: "This is to
+inform thee that misery hath laid hold upon me [as I sit] upon the
+great throne by reason of those who dwell in the Great House.[FN#169]
+My heart is grievously afflicted by reason of the exceedingly great evil
+[which hath happened] because Hapi (i.e., the Nile) hath not come
+forth[FN#170] in my time to the [proper] height for seven years.  Grain
+is very scarce, vegetables are lacking altogether, every kind of thing
+which men eat for their food hath ceased, and every man [now] plundereth
+"his neighbour.  Men wish to walk, but are unable to move, the child
+waileth, the young man draggeth his limbs along, and the hearts of the
+aged folk are crushed with despair; their legs give way under them, and
+they sink down to the ground, and their hands are laid upon their bodies
+[in pain].  The shennu[FN#171] nobles are destitute of counsel, and
+[when] the storehouses which should contain supplies are opened, there
+cometh forth therefrom nothing but wind.  Everything is in a state of
+ruin.  My mind hath remembered, going back to former time, when I had an
+advocate, to the time of the gods, and of the Ibis-god, and of the chief
+Kher-heb priest I-em-hetep,[FN#172] the son of Ptah of his Southern
+Wall."
+
+
+
+[FN#166]  Tcheser was a king of the IIIrd Dynasty, and is famous as the
+builder of the Step Pyramid at Sakkarah.  His tomb was discovered by
+Mr. J. Garstang at Bet Khallaf in Upper Egypt in 1901.
+
+
+[FN#167]  i.e., the people who were in front of, that is, to the South
+of Egypt, or the population of the country which lies between Dakkah
+and Aswan.
+
+
+[FN#168]  The ancient Egyptian name for Elephantine Island, which
+appears to have gained this name because it resembled an elephant in
+shape.
+
+
+[FN#169]  i.e., the palace.
+
+
+[FN#170]  i.e., risen.
+
+[FN#171]  i.e., the high court officials and administrators.
+
+[FN#172]  The famous priest and magician, who was subsequently deified
+and became one of the chief gods of Memphis.
+
+
+
+"Where is the place of birth of Hapi (the Nile)? What god, or what
+goddess, presideth (?) over it?  What manner of form hath he?  It is he
+who stablisheth revenue for me, and a full store of grain.  I would go
+to the Chief of Het-Sekhet[FN#173] whose beneficence strengtheneth all
+men in their works.  I would enter into the House of Life,[FN#174] I
+would unfold the written rolls [therein], and I would lay my hand upon
+them."
+
+
+
+[FN#173]  Hermopolis.
+
+
+[FN#174]  Per-ankh, or Pa-ankh, was a name given to one of the temple-
+colleges of priests and scribes.
+
+
+
+
+Then [Matar] set out on his journey, and he returned to me straightway.
+He gave me instruction concerning the increase of Hapi,[FN#175] and
+told me all things which men had written concerning it, and he revealed
+to me the secret doors (?) whereto my ancestors had betaken themselves
+quickly, the like of which has never been, to [any] king since the time
+of Ra, (?).  And he said unto me: "There is a city in the middle of the
+stream wherefrom Hapi maketh his appearance; "'Abu'[FN#176] was its
+name in the beginning; it is the City of the Beginning, and it is the
+Nome of the City of the Beginning.  [It reacheth] to Uaua,[FN#177]
+which is the beginning of the land.  There is too a flight of
+steps,[FN#178] which reareth itself to a great height, and is the
+support of Ra, when he maketh his calculation to prolong life to
+everyone; 'Netchemtchem Ankh'[FN#179] is the name of its abode.  'The
+two Qerti'[FN#180] is the name of the water, and they are the two
+breasts from which every good thing cometh forth (?).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[FN#175]  i.e., the Inundation, or Nile Flood.
+
+[FN#176]  The Elephant City, i.e., Elephantine.
+
+[FN#177]  A portion of Northern Nubia.
+
+[FN#178]  This is probably an allusion to the famous Nilometer on the
+Island of Philae.
+
+[FN#179]  i.e., "Sweet, sweet life."
+
+[FN#180]  The Qerti were the two openings through which the Nile
+entered this world from the great celestial ocean.
+
+
+
+"Here is the bed of Hapi (the Nile), wherein he reneweth his youth [in
+his season], wherein he causeth the flooding of the land.  He cometh
+and hath union as he journeyeth, as a man hath union with a woman.  And
+again he playeth the part of a husband and satisfieth his desire.  He
+riseth to the height of twenty-eight cubits [at Abu], and he droppeth
+at Sma-Behutet[FN#181] to seven cubits.  The union(?) there is that of
+the god Khnemu in [Abu. He smiteth the ground] with his sandals, and
+[its] fulness becometh abundant; he openeth the bolt of the door with
+his hand, and he throweth open the double door of the opening through
+which the water cometh."
+
+
+
+[FN#181]  Diospolis of Lower Egypt, or "Thebes of the North."
+
+
+
+"Moreover, he dwelleth there in the form of the god Shu,[FN#182] as one
+who is lord over his own territory, and his homestead, the name of
+which is 'Aa' (i.e., the 'Island').  There he keepeth an account of the
+products of the Land of the South and of the Land of the North, "in
+order to give unto every god his proper share, and he leadeth to each
+[the metals], and the [precious stones, and the four-footed beasts],
+and the feathered fowl, and the fish, and every thing whereon they
+live.  And the cord [for the measuring of the land] and the tablet
+whereon the register is kept are there.
+
+
+
+[FN#182]  The god who separated the Sky-goddess Nut from the embrace of
+her husband, the Earth-god Keb, and who holds her above him each day.
+
+
+
+
+"And there is an edifice of wood there, with the portals thereof formed
+of reeds, wherein he dwelleth as one who is over his own territory, and
+he maketh the foliage of the trees (?) to serve as a roof.
+
+
+"His God-house hath an opening towards the south-east, and Ra (or, the
+Sun) standeth immediately opposite thereto every day.  The stream which
+floweth along the south side thereof hath danger [for him that
+attacketh it], and it hath as a defence a wall which entereth into the
+region of the men of Kens[FN#183] on the South.  Huge mountains [filled
+with] masses of stone are round about its domain on the east side, and
+shut it in.  Thither come the quarrymen with things (tools?) of every
+kind, [when] they "seek to build a House for any god in the Land of the
+South, or in the Land of the North, or [shrines] as abodes for sacred
+animals, or royal pyramids, and statues of all kinds.  They stand up in
+front of the House of the God and in the sanctuary chamber, and their
+sweet smelling offerings are presented before the face of the god
+Khnemu during his circuit, even as [when they bring] "garden herbs and
+flowers of every kind.  The fore parts thereof are in Abu
+(Elephantine), and the hind parts are in the city of Sunt (?).[FN#184]
+One portion thereof is on the east side[FN#185] of the river, and
+another portion is on the west side[FN#186] of the river, and another
+portion is in the middle[FN#187] of the river.  The stream decketh the
+region with its waters during a certain season of the year, and it is a
+place of delight for every man.  And works are carried on among these
+quarries [which are] on the edges [of the river?], "for the stream
+immediately faceth this city of Abu itself, and there existeth the
+granite, the substance whereof is hard (?); 'Stone of Abu' it is
+called.
+
+
+
+[FN#183]  Kens extended south from Philae as far as Korosko.
+
+[FN#184]  Perhaps Sunut, = the Syene of the Greeks, and the {hbw
+SuWeNeH} of the Hebrews.
+
+[FN#185]  i.e., Syene.
+
+[FN#186]  i.e., Contra Syene.
+
+[FN#187]  i.e., the Island of Elephantine.
+
+
+
+
+"[Here is] a list of the names of the gods who dwell in the Divine
+House of Khnemu.  The goddess of the star Sept (Sothis), the goddess
+Anqet, Hap (the Nile-god), Shu, Keb, Nut, Osiris, Horus, Isis, and
+Nephthys.
+
+
+"[Here are] "the names of the stones which lie in the heart of the
+mountains, some on the east side, some on the west side, and some in
+[the midst of] the stream of Abu.  They exist in the heart of Abu, they
+exist in the country on the east bank, and in the country on the west
+bank, and in the midst of the stream, namely, "Bekhen-stone, Meri (or
+Meli)-stone, Atbekhab (?)-stone, Rakes-stone, and white Utshi-stone;
+these are found on the east bank.  Per-tchani-stone is found on the
+west bank, and the Teshi-stone in the river.
+
+
+"[Here are] the names of the hard (or, hidden) precious stones, which
+are found in the upper side, among them being the . . . . . stone, the
+name[FN#188] of which hath spread abroad through [a space of] four atru
+measures: Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Lapis-lazuli, Emerald, Thehen
+(Crystal?), Khenem (Ruby), Kai, Mennu, Betka (?), Temi, Na (?).  The
+following come forth from the fore part[FN#189] of the land: Mehi-
+stone, [He]maki-stone, Abheti-stone, iron ore, alabaster for statues,
+mother-of-emerald, antimony, seeds (or, gum) of the sehi plant, seeds
+(or, gum) of the amem plant, and seeds (or, gum) of the incense plant;
+these are found in the fore parts of its double city."  These were the
+things which I learned therefrom (i.e., from Matar).
+
+
+
+[FN#188]  i.e., the stone was very famous.
+
+[FN#189]  The "fore part," or "front," of the land means the country
+lying to the south of Nubia, and probably some part of the modern
+Egyptian Sudan.
+
+
+
+
+Now my heart was very happy when I heard these things, and I entered
+into [the temple of Khnemu].  The overseers unrolled the documents
+which were fastened up, the water of purification was sprinkled [upon
+me], a progress was made [through] the secret places, and a great
+offering [consisting] of bread-cakes, beer, geese, oxen (or, bulls),
+and beautiful things of all kinds were offered to the gods and
+goddesses who dwell in Abu, whose names are proclaimed at the place
+[which is called], "Couch of the heart in life and power."
+
+
+And I found the God standing in front of me, and I made him to be at
+peace with me by means of the thank-offering which I offered unto him,
+and I made prayer and supplication before him.  Then he opened his
+eyes, and his heart was inclined [to hear] me, and his words were
+strong [when he said], "I am Khnemu,[FN#190] who fashioned thee.  My
+two hands were about thee and knitted together thy body, and "made
+healthy thy members; and it is I who gave thee thy heart.  Yet the
+minerals (or, precious stones) [lie] under each other, [and they have
+done so] from olden time, and no man hath worked them in order to build
+the houses of the god, or to restore those which have fallen into ruin,
+or to hew out shrines for the gods of the South and of the North, or to
+do what he ought to do for his lord, notwithstanding that I am the Lord
+and the Creator.
+
+
+
+[FN#190]  He was the "builder of men, maker of the gods, the Father who
+was from the beginning, the maker of things which are, the creator of
+things which shall be, the source of things which exist, Father of
+fathers, Mother of mothers, Father of the fathers of the gods and
+goddesses, lord of created things, maker of heaven, earth, Tuat, water
+and mountains" (Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 957).
+
+
+
+
+"I am [he] who created himself, Nu, the Great [God], who came into being
+at the beginning, [and] Hapi, who riseth according to his will, in
+order to give health to him that laboureth for me.  I am the Director
+and Guide of all men at their seasons, the Most Great, the Father of the
+Gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the Earth.  The two halves of the
+sky (i.e., the East and the West) are as a habitation below me.  A lake
+of water hath been poured out for me, [namely,] Hap (i.e., the Nile),
+which embraceth the field-land, and his embrace provideth the [means of]
+life for "21 every nose (i.e., every one), according to the extent of
+his embrace of the field-land.  With old age [cometh] the condition of
+weakness.  I will make Hap (i.e., the Nile) rise for thee, and [in] no
+year shall [he] fail, and he shall spread himself out in rest upon every
+land. Green plants and herbs and trees shall bow beneath [the weight of]
+their produce.  The goddess Renenet[FN#191] shall be at the head of
+everything, and every product shall increase by hundreds of thousands,
+according to the cubit of the year.  The people shall be filled, verily
+to their hearts' desire, "and everyone.  Misery shall pass away, and the
+emptiness of their store-houses of grain shall come to an end.  The land
+of Ta-Mert (i.e., Egypt) shall come to be a region of cultivated land,
+the districts [thereof] shall be yellow with grain crops, and the grain
+[thereof] shall be goodly.  And fertility shall come according to the
+desire [of the people], more than there hath ever been before."
+
+
+
+[FN#191]  The goddess of the harvest.
+
+
+
+
+
+Then I woke up at [the mention of] crops, my heart (or, courage) came
+[back], and was equal to my [former] despair, and I made the following
+decree in the temple of my father Khnemu:--
+
+
+The king giveth an offering to Khnemu[FN#192] the Lord of the city of
+Qebhet,[FN#193] the Governor of Ta-Sti,[FN#194] in return for those
+things which thou hast done for me. There shall be given unto thee on
+thy right hand [the river bank] of Manu,[FN#195] and on thy left hand
+the river bank of Abu, together with the land about the city, for a
+space of twenty measures,[FN#196] on the east side and on the west
+side, with the gardens, and the river front "everywhere throughout the
+region included in these measures.  From every husbandman who tilleth
+the ground, and maketh to live again the slain, and placeth water upon
+the river banks and all the islands which are in front of the region of
+these measures, shall be demanded a further contribution from the
+growing crops and from every storehouse, as "thy share.
+
+
+
+[FN#192]  Or perhaps, Khnemu-Ra.
+
+
+[FN#193]  Qebhet is the name given to the whole region of the First
+Cataract.
+
+
+[FN#194]  The "Land of the Bow," i.e., the Northern Sudan.
+
+
+[FN#195]  The Land of the setting sun, the West.
+
+[FN#196]  Schoinos.
+
+
+
+
+"Whatsoever is caught in the nets by every fisherman and by every
+fowler, and whatsoever is taken by the catchers of fish, and by the
+snarers of birds, and by every hunter of wild animals, and by every man
+who snareth lions in the mountains, when these things enter [the city]
+one tenth of them shall be demanded.
+
+
+"And of all the calves which are cast throughout the regions which are
+included in these measures, one tenth of their number "shall be set
+apart as animals which are sealed for all the burnt offerings which are
+offered up daily.
+
+"And, moreover, the gift of one tenth shall be levied upon the gold,
+ivory, ebony, spices, carnelians (?), sa wood, seshes spice, dum palm
+fruit (?), nef wood, and upon woods and products of every kind
+whatsoever, which the Khentiu, [FN#197] and the Khentiu of Hen-
+Resu,[FN#198] and the Egyptians, and every person whatsoever [shall
+bring in].
+
+
+
+
+[FN#197]  The inhabitants of the Northern Sudan, probably as far to the
+south as Napata.
+
+[FN#198]  The people of the Island of Meroë, and probably those living
+on the Blue and White Niles.
+
+
+
+
+"And [every] hand shall pass them by, and no officer of the revenue
+whatsoever shall utter a word beyond these places to demand (or, levy
+on) things from them, or to take things over and above [those which are
+intended for] thy capital city.
+
+
+"And I will give unto thee the land belonging to the city, which
+beareth stones, and good land for cultivation. Nothing thereof shall be
+[diminished] or withheld, "of all these things in order to deceive the
+scribes, and the revenue officers, and the inspectors of the king, on
+whom it shall be incumbent to certify everything.
+
+
+"And further, I will cause the masons, and the hewers of ore (?), and
+the workers in metal, and the smelters (?) of gold, and the sculptors
+in stone, "and the ore-crushers, and the furnace-men (?), and
+handicraftsmen of every kind whatsoever, who work in hewing, and
+cutting, and polishing these stones, and in gold, and silver, and
+copper, and lead, and every worker in wood who shall cut down any tree,
+or carry on a trade of any kind, or work which is connected with the
+wood trade, to "pay tithe upon all the natural products (?), and also
+upon the hard stones which are brought from their beds above, and
+quarried stones of all kinds.
+
+
+"And there shall be an inspector over the weighing of the gold, and
+silver, and copper, and real (i.e., precious) stones, and the [other]
+things, which the metal-workers require for the House of Gold, "and the
+sculptors of the images of the gods need in the making and repairing of
+them, and [these things] shall be exempted from tithing, and the
+workmen also.  And everything shall be delivered (or, given) in front
+of the storehouse to their children, a second time, for the protection
+of everything.  And whatsoever is before thy God-house shall be in
+abundance, just as it hath ever been from the earliest time.
+
+
+"And a copy of this decree shall be inscribed upon a stele, [which
+shall be set up] in the holy place, according to the writing of the
+[original] document which is cut upon wood, and [figures of] this god
+and the overseers of the temple shall be [cut] thereon.  Whosoever
+shall spit upon that which is on it shall be admonished by the rope.
+And the overseers of the priests, and every overseer of the people of
+the House of the God, shall ensure the perpetuation of my name in the
+House of the god Khnemu-Ra, the lord of Abu (Elephantine), for ever."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH OF HORUS THROUGH THE STING OF A SCORPION AND OF
+HIS RESURRECTION THROUGH THOTH, AND OTHER MAGICAL TEXTS.
+
+
+
+
+I.--INCANTATIONS AGAINST REPTILES AND NOXIOUS CREATURES IN GENERAL.
+
+
+
+
+
+Get thee back, Apep, thou enemy of Ra, thou winding serpent in the form
+of an intestine, without arms [and] without legs.  Thy body cannot
+stand upright so that thou mayest have therein being, long is
+thy[FN#199] tail in front of thy den, thou enemy; retreat before Ra.
+Thy head shall be cut off, and the slaughter of thee shall be carried
+out.  Thou shalt not lift up thy face, for his (i.e., Ra's) flame is in
+thy accursed soul.  The odour which is in his chamber of slaughter is
+in thy members, and thy form shall be overthrown by the slaughtering
+knife of the great god.  The spell of the Scorpion-goddess Serq driveth
+back thy might.  Stand still, stand still, and retreat through her
+spell.
+
+
+
+[FN#199]  Literally, "his."
+
+
+
+
+
+Be vomited, O poison, I adjure thee to come forth on the earth.  Horus
+uttereth a spell over thee, Horus hacketh thee in pieces, he spitteth
+upon thee; thou shalt not rise up towards heaven, but shalt totter
+downwards, O feeble one, without strength, cowardly, unable to fight,
+blind, without eyes, and with thine head turned upside down.  Lift not
+up thy face.  Get thee back quickly, and find not the way.  Lie down in
+despair, rejoice not, retreat speedily, and show not thy face because
+of the speech of Horus, who is perfect in words of power.  The poison
+rejoiced, [but] the heart[s] of many were very sad thereat.  Horus hath
+smitten it with his magical spells, and he who was in sorrow is [now]
+in joy.  Stand still then, O thou who art in sorrow, [for] Horus hath
+been endowed with life.  He coineth charged, appearing himself to
+overthrow the Sebiu fiends which bite.  All men when they see Ra praise
+the son of Osiris.  Get thee back, Worm, and draw out thy poison which
+is in all the members of him that is under the knife.  Verily the might
+of the word of power of Horus is against thee. Vomit thou, O Enemy, get
+thee back, O poison.
+
+
+
+
+
+9. THE CHAPTER OF CASTING A SPELL ON THE CAT.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Recite [the following formula]:--
+
+"Hail, Ra, come to thy daughter!  A scorpion hath stung her on a
+lonely road.  Her cry hath penetrated the heights of heaven, and is
+heard along the paths.  The poison hath entered into her body, and
+circulateth through her flesh.  She hath set her mouth against
+it;[FN#200] verily the poison is in her members.
+
+
+
+[FN#200]  i.e., she hath directed her words against it.
+
+
+
+
+"Come then with thy strength, with thy fierce attack, and with thy red
+powers, and force it to be hidden before thee.  Behold, the poison hath
+entered into all the members of this Cat which is under my fingers.  Be
+not afraid, be not afraid, my daughter, my splendour, [for] I have set
+myself near (or, behind) thee.  I have overthrown the poison which is
+in all the limbs of this Cat.  O thou Cat, thy head is the head of Ra,
+the Lord of the Two Lands, the smiter of the rebellious peoples.
+Thy[FN#201] fear is in all lands, O Lord of the living, Lord of
+eternity.  O thou Cat, thy two eyes are the Eye of the Lord of the Khut
+uraeus, who illumineth the Two Lands with his Eye, and illumineth the
+face on the path of darkness.  O thou Cat, thy nose is the nose of
+Thoth, the Twice Great, Lord of Khemenu (Hermopolis), the Chief of the
+Two Lands of Ra, who putteth breath into the nostrils of every person.
+O thou Cat, thine ears are the ears of Nebertcher, who hearkeneth unto
+the voice of all persons when they appeal to him, and weigheth words
+(i.e., judgeth) in all the earth.  O thou Cat, thy mouth is the mouth
+of Tem, the Lord of life, the uniter (?) of creation, who hath caused
+the union (?) of creation; he shall deliver thee from every poison.  O
+thou Cat, thy neck (nehebt) is the neck of Neheb-ka, President of the
+Great House, vivifier of men and women by means of the mouth of his two
+arms.  O thou Cat, thy breast is the breast of Thoth, the Lord of
+Truth, who hath given to thee breath to refresh (?) thy throat, and
+hath given breath to that which is therein.  O thou Cat, thy heart is
+the heart of the god Ptah, who healeth thy heart of the evil poison
+which is in all thy limbs.  O thou Cat, thy hands 25 are the hands of
+the Great Company of the gods and the Little Company of the gods, and
+they shall deliver thy hand from the poison from the mouth of every
+serpent.  O thou Cat, thy belly is the belly of Osiris, Lord of
+Busiris, the poison shall not work any of its wishes in thy belly.  O
+thou Cat, thy thighs are the thighs of the god Menthu, who shall make
+thy thighs to stand up, and shall bring the poison to the ground.  O
+thou Cat, thy leg-bones are the leg-bones of Khensu,[FN#202] who
+travelleth over all the Two Lands by day and by night, and shall lead
+the poison to the ground.  O thou Cat, thy legs (or, feet) are the legs
+of Amen the Great, Horus, Lord of Thebes, who shall stablish thy feet
+on the earth, and shall overthrow the poison.  O thou Cat, thy haunches
+are the haunches of Horus, the avenger (or, advocate) of his father
+Osiris, and they shall place Set in the evil which he hath wrought.  O
+thou Cat, thy soles are the soles of Ra, who shall make the poison to
+return to the earth.  O thou Cat, thy bowels are the bowels of the Cow-
+goddess Meh-urt, who shall overthrow and cut in pieces the poison which
+is in thy belly and in all the members in thee, and in [all] the
+members of the gods in heaven, and in [all] the members of the gods on
+earth, and shall overthrow every poison in thee.  There is no member in
+thee without the goddess who shall overthrow and cut in pieces the
+poison of every male serpent, and every female serpent, and every
+scorpion, and every reptile, which may be in any member of this Cat
+which is under the knife.  Verily Isis weaveth and Nephthys spinneth
+against the poison.  This woven garment strengtheneth this [being,
+i.e., Horus], who is perfect in words of power, through the speech of
+Ra Heru-khuti, the great god, President of the South and North: 'O evil
+poison which is in any member of this Cat which is under the knife,
+come, issue forth upon the earth.'"
+
+
+
+[FN#201]  Literally "his."
+
+
+[FN#202]  He was the messenger of the gods, and travelled across the
+sky under the form of the Moon; he sometimes appears as a form of
+Thoth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER CHAPTER.
+
+
+
+
+Say the [following] words:--
+
+"O Ra-[Khuti], come to thy daughter.  O Shu, come to thy wife.  O Isis,
+come to thy sister, and deliver her from the evil poison which is in
+all her members.  Hail, O ye gods, come ye and overthrow ye the evil
+poison which is in all the members of the Cat which is under the knife.
+
+
+"Hail, O aged one, who renewest thy youth in thy season, thou old man
+who makest thyself to be a boy, grant thou that Thoth may come to me at
+[the sound of] my voice, and behold, let him turn back from me Netater.
+Osiris is on the water, the Eye of Horus is with him.  A great
+Beetle spreadeth himself over him, great by reason of his grasp,
+produced by the gods from a child.  He who is over the water appeareth
+in a healthy form.  If he who is over the water shall be approached
+(or, attacked), the Eye of Horus, which weepeth, shall be approached.
+
+
+"Get ye back, O ye who dwell in the water, crocodiles, fish, that
+Enemy, male dead person and female dead person, male fiend and female
+fiend, of every kind whatsoever, lift not up your faces, O ye who dwell
+in the waters, ye crocodiles and fish.  When Osiris journeyeth over
+you, permit ye him to go to Busiris.  Let your nostrils [be closed],
+your throats stopped up.
+
+
+"Get ye back, Seba fiends!  Lift ye not up your faces against him that
+is on the water . . . . . Osiris-Ra, riseth up in his Boat to look at
+the gods of Kher-ahat, and the Lords of the Tuat stand up to slay thee
+when [thou] comest, O Neha-her, against Osiris.  [When] he is on the
+water the Eye of Horus is over him to turn your faces upside down and
+to set you on your backs.
+
+
+"Hail, ye who dwell in the water, crocodiles and fish, Ra shutteth up
+your mouths, Sekhet stoppeth up your throats, Thoth cutteth out your
+tongues, and {cont} Heka blindeth your eyes.  These are the four great
+gods who protect Osiris by their magical power, and they effect the
+protection of him that is on the water, of men and women of every kind,
+and of beasts and animals of every kind which are on the water by day.
+Protected are those who dwell in the waters, protected is the sky
+wherein is Ra, protected is the great god who is in the sarcophagus,
+protected is he who is on the water.
+
+"A voice [which] crieth loudly is in the House of Net (Neith), a loud
+voice is in the Great House, a great outcry from the mouth of the Cat.
+The gods and the goddesses say, 'What is it?  What is it?'  [It]
+concerneth the Abtu Fish which is born.  Make to retreat from me thy
+footsteps, O Sebau fiend.  I am Khnemu, the Lord of Her-urt.  Guard
+thyself again from the attack which is repeated, besides this which
+thou hast done in the presence of the Great Company of the gods.  Get
+thee back, retreat thou from me.  I am the god.  Oh, Oh, O [Ra], hast
+thou not heard the voice which cried out loudly until the evening on
+the bank of Netit, the voice of all the gods and goddesses which cried
+out loudly, the outcry concerning the wickedness which thou hast done,
+O wicked Sebau fiend?  Verily the lord Ra thundered and growled
+thereat, and he ordered thy slaughter to be carried out.  Get thee
+back, Seba fiend!  Hail!  Hail!"
+
+
+
+
+
+II.--THE NARRATIVE OF ISIS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I am Isis, [and] I have come forth from the dwelling (or, prison)
+wherein my brother Set placed me.  Behold the god Thoth, the great god,
+the Chief of Maat[FN#203] [both] in heaven and on the earth, said unto
+me, "Come now, O Isis, thou goddess, moreover it is a good thing to
+hearken,[FN#204] [for there is] life to one who shall be guided [by the
+advice] of another.  Hide thou thyself with [thy] son the child, and
+there shall come unto him these things.  His members shall
+grow,[FN#205] and two-fold strength of every kind shall spring up [in
+him].  [And he] shall be made to take his seat upon the throne of his
+father, [whom] he shall avenge,[FN#206] [and he shall take possession
+of] the exalted position of Heq[FN#207] of the Two Lands."[FN#208]
+
+
+
+[FN#203]  i.e., Law, or Truth.
+
+[FN#204]  Or, obey.
+
+[FN#205]  i.e., flourish.
+
+
+[FN#206]  He avenged his father Osiris by vanquishing Set.
+
+
+[FN#207]  i.e., tribal chief.
+
+
+[FN#208]  i.e., Upper and Lower Egypt.
+
+
+
+
+I came forth [from the dwelling] at the time of evening, and there came
+forth the Seven Scorpions which were to accompany me and to strike(?)
+for me with [their] stings.  Two scorpions, Tefen and Befen, were
+behind me, two scorpions, Mestet and Mestetef, were by my side, and
+three scorpions, Petet, Thetet, and Maatet (or, Martet), were for
+preparing the road for me.  I charged them very strictly (or, in a loud
+voice), and my words penetrated into their ears: "Have no knowledge of
+[any], make no cry to the Tesheru beings, and pay no attention to the
+'son of a man' (i.e., anyone) who belongeth to a man of no account,"
+[and I said,] "Let your faces be turned towards the ground [that ye may
+show me] the way."  So the guardian of the company brought me to the
+boundaries of the city of Pa-Sui,[FN#209] the city of the goddesses of
+the Divine Sandals, [which was situated] in front of the Papyrus
+Swamps.[FN#210]
+
+
+
+[FN#209]  "The House of the Crocodile," perhaps the same town as Pa-
+Sebekt, a district in the VIIth nome of Lower Egypt (Metelites).
+
+[FN#210]  Perhaps a district in the Metelite nome.
+
+
+
+When I had arrived at the place where the people lived[FN#211] I came
+to the houses wherein dwelt the wives [and] husbands.  And a certain
+woman of quality spied me as I was journeying along the road, and she
+shut her doors on me.  Now she was sick at heart by reason of those
+[scorpions] which were with me.  Then [the Seven Scorpions] took
+counsel concerning her, and they all at one time shot out their venom
+on the tail of the scorpion Tefen; as for me, the woman Taha[FN#212]
+opened her door, and I entered into the house of the miserable lady.
+
+
+
+[FN#211]  In Egyptian Teb, which may be the Tebut in the Metelite nome.
+
+
+[FN#212]  Taha may be the name of a woman, or goddess, or the word may
+mean a "dweller in the swamps," as Golenischeff thinks.
+
+
+
+
+Then the scorpion Tefen entered in under the leaves of the door and
+smote (i.e., stung) the son of Usert, and a fire broke out in the house
+of Usert, and there was no water there to extinguish it; [but] the sky
+rained upon the house of Usert, though it was not the season for
+rain.[FN#213]
+
+
+
+[FN#213]  i.e., it was not the season of the inundation.
+
+
+
+
+Behold, the heart of her who had not opened her door to me was
+grievously sad, for she knew not whether he (i.e., her son) would live
+[or not], and although she went round about through her town uttering
+cries [for help], there was none who came at [the sound of] her voice.
+Now mine own heart was grievously sad for the sake of the child, and [I
+wished] to make to live [again] him that was free from fault.
+[Thereupon] I cried out to the noble lady, "Come to me.  Come to me.
+Verily my mouth (?) possesseth life.  I am a daughter [well] known in
+her town, [and I] can destroy the demon of death by the spell (or,
+utterance) which my father taught me to know. I am his daughter, the
+beloved [offspring] of his body."
+
+
+Then Isis placed her two hands on the child in order to make to live him
+whose throat was stopped, [and she said], "O poison of the scorpion
+Tefent, come forth and appear on the ground! Thou shalt neither enter
+nor penetrate [further into the body of the child].  O poison of the
+scorpion Befent, come forth and appear on the ground!  I am Isis, the
+goddess, the lady (or, mistress) of words of power, and I am the maker
+of words of power (i.e., spells), and I know how to utter words with
+magical effect.[FN#214]  Hearken ye unto me, O every reptile which
+possesseth the power to bite (i.e., to sting), and fall headlong to the
+ground! O poison of the scorpion Mestet, make no advance [into his
+body].  O poison of the scorpion Mestetef, rise not up [in his body].  O
+poison of the scorpions Petet and Thetet, penetrate not [into his body].
+[O poison of] the scorpion Maatet (or, Martet), fall down on the
+ground."
+
+
+
+[FN#214]  By uttering spells Isis restored life to her husband Osiris
+for a season, and so became with child by him.  She made a magical
+figure of a reptile, and having endowed it with life, it stung Ra as he
+passed through the sky, and the great god almost died.  In Greek times
+it was believed that she discovered a medicine which would raise the
+dead, and she was reputed to be a great expert in the art of healing
+men's sicknesses.  As a goddess she appeared to the sick, and cured
+them.
+
+
+
+
+[Here follows the] "Chapter of the stinging [of scorpions]."
+
+And Isis, the goddess, the great mistress of spells (or, words of
+power), she who is at the head of the gods, unto whom the god Keb gave
+his own magical spells for the driving away of poison at noon-day (?),
+and for making poison to go back, and retreat, and withdraw, and go
+backward, spake, saying, "Ascend not into heaven, through the command
+of the beloved one of Ra, the egg of the Smen goose which cometh forth
+from the sycamore.  Verily my words are made to command the uttermost
+limit of the night.  I speak unto you, [O scorpions] I am alone and in
+sorrow because our names will suffer disgrace throughout the nomes.  Do
+not make love, do not cry out to the Tesheru fiends, and cast no
+glances upon the noble ladies in their houses.  Turn your faces towards
+the earth and [find out] the road, so that we may arrive at the hidden
+places in the town of Khebt.[FN#215]  Oh the child shall live and the
+poison die!  Ra liveth and the poison dieth!  Verily Horus shall be in
+good case (or, healthy) for his mother Isis.  Verily he who is stricken
+shall be in good case likewise."
+
+
+
+[FN#215]  The island of Chemmis of classical writers.
+
+
+
+
+And the fire [which was in the house of Usert] was extinguished, and
+heaven was satisfied with the utterance of Isis, the goddess.
+
+
+Then the lady Usert came, and she brought unto me her possessions, and
+she filled the house of the woman Tah (?), for the Ka of Tah
+(?) because [she] had opened to me her door.  Now the lady Usert
+suffered pain and anguish the whole night, and her mouth tasted (i.e.,
+felt) the sting [which] her son [had suffered].  And she brought her
+possessions as the penalty for not having opened the door to me.  Oh
+the child shall live and the poison die!  Verily Horus shall be in good
+case for his mother Isis.  Verily everyone who is stricken shall be in
+good case likewise.
+
+
+Lo, a bread-cake [made] of barley meal shall drive out (or, destroy)
+the poison, and natron shall make it to withdraw, and the fire [made]
+of hetchet-plant shall drive out (or, destroy) fever-heat from the
+limbs.
+
+
+"O Isis, O Isis, come thou to thy Horus, O thou woman of the wise
+mouth!  Come to thy son"--thus cried the gods who dwelt in her quarter
+of the town--"for he is as one whom a scorpion hath stung, and like
+one whom the scorpion Uhat, which the animal Antesh drove away, hath
+wounded."
+
+
+[Then] Isis ran out like one who had a knife [stuck] in her body, and
+she opened her arms wide, [saying] "Behold me, behold me, my son Horus,
+have no fear, have no fear, O son my glory!  No evil thing of any kind
+whatsoever shall happen unto thee, [for] there is in thee the essence
+(or, fluid) which made the things which exist.  Thou art the son from
+the country of Mesqet,[FN#216] [thou hast] come forth from the
+celestial waters Nu, and thou shalt not die by the heat of the poison.
+Thou wast the Great Bennu,[FN#217] who art born (or, produced) or; the
+top of the balsam-trees[FN#218] which are in the House of the Aged One
+in Anu (Heliopolis).  Thou art the brother of the Abtu Fish,[FN#219]
+who orderest what is to be, and art the nursling of the Cat[FN#220] who
+dwelleth in the House of Neith.  The goddess Reret,[FN#221] the goddess
+Hat, and the god Bes protect thy members.  Thy head shall not fall to
+the Tchat fiend that attacketh thee.  Thy members shall not receive the
+fire of that which is thy poison.  Thou shalt not go backwards on the
+land, and thou shalt not be brought low on the water.  No reptile which
+biteth (or, stingeth) shall gain the mastery over thee, and no lion
+shall subdue thee or have dominion over thee.  Thou art the son of the
+sublime god 82 who proceeded from Keb.  Thou art Horus, and the poison
+shall not gain the mastery over thy members.  Thou art the son of the
+sublime god who proceeded from Keb, and thus likewise shall it be with
+those who are under the knife.  And the four august goddesses shall
+protect thy members."
+
+
+
+[FN#216]  Mesqet was originally the name of the bull's skin in which
+the deceased was wrapped in order to secure for him the now life; later
+the name was applied to the Other World generally.  {See Book of the
+Dead, Chap. xvii. 121.}
+
+[FN#217]  The Bennu who kept the book of destiny. See Book of the Dead,
+Chap. xvii. 25.
+
+[FN#218]  These are the balsam-trees for which Heliopolis has been
+always famous.  They are described by Wansleben, L'Histoire de
+l'Eglise, pp. 88-93, and by 'Abd al-Latif (ed. de Sacy), p. 88.
+
+[FN#219]  The Abtu and Ant Fishes swam before the Boat of Ra and guided
+it.
+
+[FN#220]  This is the Cat who lived by the Persea tree in Heliopolis.
+See Book of the Dead, Chap. xvii. 18.
+
+[FN#221]  A hippopotamus goddess.
+
+
+
+[Here the narrative is interrupted by the following texts:]
+
+[I am] he who rolleth up into the sky, and who goeth down (i.e.,
+setteth) in the Tuat, whose form is in the House of height, through
+whom when he openeth his Eye the light cometh into being, and when he
+closeth his Eye it becometh night.  [I am] the Water-god Het when he
+giveth commands, whose name is unknown to the gods.  I illumine the Two
+Lands, night betaketh itself to flight, and I shine by day and by
+night.[FN#222]  I am the Bull of Bakha[FN#223], and the Lion of
+Manu[FN#224].  I am he who traverseth the heavens by day and by night
+without being repulsed.  I have come 85 by reason of the voice (or,
+cry) of the son of Isis.  Verily the blind serpent Na hath bitten the
+Bull.  O thou poison which floweth through every member of him that is
+under the knife, come forth, I charge thee, upon the ground.  Behold,
+he that is under the knife shall not be bitten.  Thou art Menu, the
+Lord of Coptos, the child of the White Shat[FN#225] which is in Anu
+(Heliopolis), which was bitten [by a reptile].  O Menu, Lord of Coptos,
+give thou air unto him that is under the knife; and air shall be given
+to thee.  Hail, divine father and minister of the god Nebun, [called]
+Mer-Tem, son of the divine father and minister of the god Nebun, scribe
+of the Water-god Het, [called] Ankh-Semptek (sic), son of the lady of
+the house Tent-Het-nub!  He restored this inscription after he had
+found it in a ruined state in the Temple of Osiris-Mnevis, because he
+wished to make to live her name . . . . . . . . . . and to give air
+unto him that is under [the knife], and to give life unto the ancestors
+of all the gods.  And his Lord Osiris-Mnevis shall make long his life
+with happiness of heart, [and shall give him] a beautiful burial after
+[attaining to] an old age, because of what he hath done for the Temple
+of Osiris-Mnevis.
+
+
+
+[FN#222]  i.e., always.
+
+[FN#223]  The land of the sunrise, the East.
+
+
+[FN#224]  The land of the sunset, the West.
+
+
+[FN#225] Perhaps an animal of the Lynx class.
+
+
+
+
+89. Horus was bitten (i.e., stung) in Sekhet-An, to the north of Hetep-
+hemt, whilst his mother Isis was in the celestial houses making a
+libation for her brother Osiris.  And Horus sent forth his cry into the
+horizon, and it was heard by those who were in . . . . . .  Thereupon
+the keepers of the doors who were in the [temple of] the holy Acacia
+Tree started up at the voice of Horus.  And one sent forth a cry of
+lamentation, and Heaven gave the order that Horus was to be healed.
+And [the gods] took counsel [together] concerning the life [of Horus,
+saying,] "O goddess Pai(?), O god Asten, who dwellest in Aat-Khus(?)
+. . . . .[FN#226] thy . . . . . . enter in . . . . . lord of sleep . .
+. . . . the child Horus.  Oh, Oh, bring thou the things which are thine
+to cut off the poison which is in every member of Horus, the son of
+Isis, and which is in every member of him that is under the knife
+likewise."
+
+
+
+[FN#226]  The text appears to be corrupt in this passage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+101. A HYMN OF PRAISE TO HORUS TO GLORIFY HIM, WHICH IS TO BE SAID 102
+OVER THE WATERS AND OVER THE LAND.
+
+
+
+Thoth speaketh and this god reciteth [the following]:--
+
+
+"Homage to thee, god, son of a god.  Homage to thee, heir, son of an
+heir.  Homage to thee, bull, son of a bull, who wast brought forth by a
+holy goddess.  Homage to thee, Horus, who comest forth from Osiris, and
+wast brought forth by the goddess Isis.  I recite thy words of power, I
+speak with thy magical utterance.  I pronounce a spell in thine own
+words, which thy heart hath created, and all the spells and
+incantations which have come forth from thy mouth, which thy father Keb
+commanded thee [to recite], and thy mother Nut gave to thee, and the
+majesty of the Governor of Sekhem taught thee to make use of for thy
+protection, in order to double (or, repeat) thy protective formulae, to
+shut the mouth of every reptile which is in heaven, and on the earth,
+and in the waters, to make men and women to live, to make the gods to
+be at peace [with thee], and to make Ra to employ his magical spells
+through thy chants of praise.  Come to me this day, quickly, quickly,
+as thou workest the paddle of the Boat of the god.  Drive thou away
+from me every lion on the plain, and every crocodile in the waters, and
+all mouths which bite (or, sting) in their holes.  Make thou them
+before me like the stone of the mountain, like a broken pot lying about
+in a quarter of the town.  Dig thou out from me the poison which riseth
+and is in every member of him that is under the knife.  Keep thou watch
+over him . . . . . . by means of thy words.  Verily let thy name be
+invoked this day.  Let thy power (qefau) come into being in him.  Exalt
+thou thy magical powers.  Make me to live and him whose throat is
+closed up.  Then shall mankind give thee praise, and the righteous (?)
+shall give thanks unto thy forms.  And all the gods likewise shall
+invoke thee, and in truth thy name shall be invoked this day.  I am
+Horus [of] Shet[enu] (?).
+
+
+"O thou who art in the cavern,[FN#227] O thou who art in the cavern. O
+thou who art at the mouth of the cavern.  O thou who art on the way, O
+thou who art on the way.  O thou who art at the mouth of the way.  He
+is Urmer (Mnevis) who approacheth every man and every beast.  He is
+like the god Sep who is in Anu (Heliopolis).  He is the Scorpion-[god]
+who is in the Great House (Het-ur).  Bite him not, for he is Ra.  Sting
+him not, for he is Thoth.  Shoot ye not your poison over him, for he is
+Nefer-Tem.  O every male serpent, O every female serpent, O every
+antesh (scorpion?) which bite with your mouths, and sting with your
+tails, bite ye him not with your mouths, and sting ye him not with your
+tails.  Get ye afar off from him, make ye not your fire to be against
+him, for he is the son of Osiris.  Vomit ye. [Say] four times:--
+
+"I am Thoth, I have come from heaven to make protection of Horus, and
+to drive away the poison of the scorpion which is in every member of
+Horus.  Thy head is to thee, Horus; it shall be stable under the Urert
+Crown.  Thine eye is to thee, Horus, [for] thou art Horus, the son of
+Keb, the Lord of the Two Eyes, in the midst of the Company [of the
+gods].  Thy nose is to thee, Horus, [for] thou art Horus the Elder, the
+son of Ra, and thou shalt not inhale the fiery wind.  Thine arm is to
+thee, Horus, great is thy strength to slaughter the enemies of thy
+father.  Thy two thighs[FN#228] are to thee, Horus.  Receive thou the
+rank and dignity of thy father Osiris.  Ptah hath balanced for thee thy
+mouth on the day of thy birth.  Thy heart (or, breast) is to thee,
+Horus, and the Disk maketh thy protection.  Thine eye is to thee,
+Horus; thy right eye is like Shu, and thy left eye like Tefnut, who are
+the children of Ra.  Thy belly is to thee, Horus, and the Children are
+the gods who are therein, and they shall not receive the essence (or,
+fluid) of the scorpion.  Thy strength is to thee, Horus, and the
+strength of Set shall not exist against thee.  Thy phallus is to thee,
+Horus, and thou art Kamutef, the protector of his father, who maketh an
+answer for his children in the course of every day.  Thy thighs are to
+thee, Horus, and thy strength shall slaughter the enemies of thy
+father.  Thy calves are to thee, Horus; the god Khnemu hath builded
+[them], and the goddess Isis hath covered them with flesh.  The soles
+of thy feet are to thee, Horus, and the nations who fight with the bow
+(Peti) fall under thy feet.  Thou rulest the South, North, West, and
+East, and thou seest like Ra. [Say] four times.  And likewise him that
+is under the knife."
+
+
+
+[FN#227]  Or, den or hole.
+
+[FN#228]  We ought, perhaps, to translate this as "forearms."
+
+
+
+Beautiful god, Senetchem-ab-Ra-setep-[en]-Amen, son of Ra, Nekht-Heru-
+Hebit, thou art protected, and the gods and goddesses are protected,
+and conversely.  Beautiful god, Senetchem-ab-Ra-setep-[en]-Ra, son of
+Ra, Nekht-Heru-Hebit, thou art protected, and Heru-Shet[enu], the great
+god, is protected, and conversely.
+
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER CHAPTER LIKE UNTO IT.  "Fear not, fear not, O Bast, the strong
+of heart, at the head of the holy field, the mighty one among all the
+gods, nothing shall gain the mastery over thee.  Come thou outside,
+following my speech (or, mouth), O evil poison which is in all the
+members of the lion (or, cat) which is under the knife."
+
+
+[The narrative of the stinging of Horus by a scorpion is continued
+thus]:
+
+
+"I am Isis, who conceived a child by her husband, and she became heavy
+with Horus, the divine [child].  I gave birth to Horus, the son of
+Osiris, in a nest of papyrus plants.[FN#229]  I rejoiced exceedingly
+over this, because I saw [in him one] who would make answer for his
+father.  I hid him, and I concealed him through fear of that [fiend
+(?)].[FN#230]  I went away to the city of Am, [where] the people gave
+thanks [for me] through [their] fear of my making trouble [for them].
+I passed the day in seeking to provide food for the child, [and] on
+returning to take Horus into my arms I found him, Horus, the beautiful
+one of gold, the boy, the child, without [life].  He had bedewed the
+ground with the water of his eye, and with foam from his lips.  His
+body was motionless, his heart was powerless to move, and the sinews
+(or, muscles) of his members were [helpless].  I sent forth a cry,
+[saying]:
+
+
+
+[FN#229]  Or, Ateh, the papyrus swamp.
+
+
+[FN#230]  i.e., Set.
+
+
+
+
+"'I, even I, lack a son to make answer [for me].[FN#231]  [My] two
+breasts are full to overflowing, [but] my body is empty.  [My] mouth
+wished for that which concerned him.[FN#232]  A cistern of water and a
+stream of the inundation was I. The child was the desire of my heart,
+and I longed to protect him (?). I carried him in my womb, I gave birth
+to him, I endured the agony of the birth pangs, I was all alone, and
+the great ones were afraid of disaster and to come out at the sound of
+my voice.  My father is in the Tuat,[FN#233] my mother is in
+Aqert,[FN#234] and my elder brother is in the sarcophagus.  Think of
+the enemy and of how prolonged was the wrath of his heart against me,
+[when] I, the great lady, was in his house.'
+
+
+
+[FN#231]  i.e., to be my advocate.
+
+
+[FN#232]  Literally "his thing."
+
+
+[FN#233]  Tuat is a very ancient name of the Other World, which was
+situated either parallel with Egypt or across the celestial ocean which
+surrounded the world.
+
+
+[FN#234]  The "perfect place," i.e., the Other World.
+
+
+
+
+
+"I cried then, [saying,] 'Who among the people will indeed let their
+hearts come round to me?'  I cried then to those who dwelt in the
+papyrus swamps (or, Ateh), and they inclined to me straightway.  And
+the people came forth to me from their houses, and they thronged about
+me at [the sound of] my voice, and they loudly bewailed with me the
+greatness of my affliction.  There was no man there who set restraint
+(?) on his mouth, every person among them lamented with great
+lamentation.  There was none there who knew how to make [my child] to
+live.
+
+
+"And there came forth unto me a woman who was [well] known in her city,
+a lady who was mistress of her [own] estate.[FN#235]  She came forth to
+me.  Her mouth possessed life, and her heart was filled with the matter
+which was therein, [and she said,] 'Fear not, fear not, O son Horus!
+Be not cast down, be not cast down, O mother of the god.  The child of
+the Olive-tree is by the mountain of his brother, the bush is hidden,
+and no enemy shall enter therein.  The word of power of Tem, the Father
+of the gods, who is in heaven, maketh to live.  Set shall not enter
+into this region, he shall not go round about it.  The marsh of Horus
+of the Olive-tree is by the mountain of his brother; those who are in
+his following shall not at any time . . . . . . it.  This shall happen
+to him: Horus shall live for his mother, and shall salute (?) [her]
+with his mouth. A scorpion hath smitten (i.e., stung) him, and the
+reptile Aun-ab hath wounded him.'"
+
+
+
+[FN#235]  Or perhaps, "a lady who was at the head of her district."
+
+
+
+
+Then Isis placed her nose in his mouth[FN#236] so that she might know
+whether he who was in his coffin breathed, and she examined the
+wound[FN#237] of the heir of the god, and she found that there was
+poison in it.  She threw her arms round him, and then quickly she
+leaped about with him like fish when they are laid upon the hot coals,
+[saying]:
+
+
+
+
+[FN#236]  i.e., the mouth of Horus.
+
+
+[FN#237]  Literally, "pain" or "disease."
+
+
+
+
+"Horus is bitten, O Ra.  Thy son is bitten, [O Osiris].  Horus is
+bitten, the flesh and blood of the Heir, the Lord of the diadems (?) of
+the kingdoms of Shu.  Horus is bitten, the Boy of the marsh city of
+Ateh, the Child in the House of the Prince.  The beautiful Child of
+gold is bitten, the Babe hath suffered pain and is not.[FN#238]  Horus
+is bitten, he the son of Un-Nefer, who was born of Auh-mu (?).  Horus
+is bitten, he in whom there was nothing abominable, the son, the youth
+among the gods.  Horus is bitten, he for whose wants I prepared in
+abundance, for I saw that he would make answer[FN#239] for his father.
+Horus is bitten, he for whom [I] had care [when he was] in the hidden
+woman [and for whom I was afraid when he was] in the womb of his
+mother.  Horus is bitten, he whom I guarded to look upon.  I have
+wished for the life of his heart.  Calamity hath befallen the child on
+the water, and the child hath perished."
+
+
+
+[FN#238]  He is nothing, i.e., he is dead.
+
+[FN#239]  i.e., become an advocate for.
+
+
+
+
+Then came Nephthys shedding tears and uttering cries of lamentation, and
+going round about through the papyrus swamps.  And Serq [came also and
+they said]: "Behold, behold, what hath happened to Horus, son of Isis,
+and who [hath done it]? Pray then to heaven, and let the mariners of Ra
+cease their labours for a space, for the Boat of Ra cannot travel
+onwards [whilst] son Horus [lieth dead] on his place."
+
+And Isis sent forth her voice into heaven, and made supplication to the
+Boat of Millions of Years, and the Disk stopped[FN#240] in its
+journeying, and moved not from the place whereon it rested.  Then came
+forth Thoth, who is equipped with his spells (or, words of power), and
+possesseth the great word of command of maa-kheru,[FN#241] [and said:]
+"What [aileth thee], what [aileth thee], O Isis, thou goddess who hast
+magical spells, whose mouth hath understanding?  Assuredly no evil
+thing hath befallen [thy] son Horus, [for] the Boat of Ra hath him
+under its protection.  I have come this day in the Divine Boat of the
+Disk from the place where it was yesterday,--now darkness came and the
+light was destroyed--in order to heal Horus for his mother Isis and
+every person who is under the knife likewise."
+
+
+
+[FN#240]  Literally, "alighted."
+
+
+[FN#241]  When a god or a man was declared to be maa-kheru, "true of
+voice," or "true of word," his power became illimitable.  It gave him
+rule and authority, and every command uttered by him was immediately
+followed by the effect required.
+
+
+
+And Isis, the goddess, said: "O Thoth, great things [are in] thy heart,
+[but] delay belongeth to thy plan.  Hast thou come equipped with thy
+spells and incantations, and having the great formula of maa-kheru, and
+one [spell] after the other, the numbers whereof are not known?  Verily
+Horus is in the cradle(?) of the poison.  Evil, evil is his case,
+death, [and] misery to the fullest [extent].  The cry of his mouth is
+towards his mother(?).  I cannot [bear] to see these things in his
+train.  My heart [hath not] rested because of them since the
+beginning(?) [when] I made haste to make answer [for] Horus-Ra (?),
+placing [myself] on the earth, [and] since the day [when] I was taken
+possession of by him. I desired Neheb-ka . . . . . . ."
+
+[And Thoth said:] "Fear not, fear not, O goddess Isis, fear not, fear
+not, O Nephthys, and let not anxiety [be to you].  I have come from
+heaven having life to heal(?) the child for his mother, Horus is . . .
+Let thy heart be firm;[FN#242] he shall not sink under the flame.
+Horus is protected as the Dweller in his Disk,[FN#243] who lighteth up
+the Two Lands by the splendour of his two Eyes;[FN#244] and he who is
+under the knife is likewise protected.  Horus is protected as the
+First-born son in heaven,[FN#245] who is ordained to be the guide of
+the things which exist and of the things which are not yet created; and
+he who under the knife is protected likewise.  Horus is protected as
+that great Dwarf (nemu)[FN#246] who goeth round about the Two Lands in
+the darkness; and he who is under the knife is protected likewise.
+Horus is protected as the Lord (?) in the night, who revolveth at the
+head of the Land of the Sunset (Manu); and he who is under the knife is
+protected likewise.  Horus is protected as the Mighty Ram[FN#247] who
+is hidden, and who goeth round about in front of his Eyes; and he who
+is under the knife is protected likewise.  Horus is protected as the
+Great Hawk[FN#248] which flieth through heaven, earth, and the Other
+World (Tuat); and he who is under the knife is protected likewise.
+Horus is protected as the Holy Beetle, the mighty (?) wings of which
+are at the head of the sky;[FN#249] and he who is under the knife is
+protected likewise.  Horus is protected as the Hidden Body,[FN#250] and
+as he whose mummy is in his sarcophagus; and he who is under the knife
+is protected likewise.  Horus is protected [as the Dweller] in the
+Other World [and in the] Two Lands, who goeth round about 'Those who
+are over Hidden Things'; and he who is under the knife is protected
+likewise.  Horus is protected as the Divine Bennu[FN#251] who alighteth
+in front of his two Eyes; and he who is under the knife is protected
+likewise.  Horus is protected 230 in his own body, and the spells which
+his mother Isis hath woven protect him.  Horus is protected by the
+names of his father [Osiris] in his forms in the nomes;[FN#252] and he
+who is under the knife is protected likewise.  Horus is protected by
+the weeping of his mother, and by the cries of grief of his brethren;
+and he who is under the knife is protected likewise.  Horus is
+protected by his own name and heart, and the gods go round about him to
+make his funeral bed; and he who is under the knife is protected
+likewise."
+
+
+
+[FN#242]  i.e., "Be of good courage."
+
+[FN#243]  The Sun-god.
+
+[FN#244]  The Sun and Moon.
+
+[FN#245]  Osiris (?).
+
+[FN#246]  Bes (?).
+
+[FN#247]  Probably the Ram, Lord of Tattu, or the Ram of Mendes.
+
+[FN#248]  Heru-Behutet.
+
+[FN#249]  The beetle of Khepera, a form of the Sun-god when he is about
+to rise on this earth.
+
+[FN#250]  The Hidden Body is Osiris, who lay in his sarcophagus, with
+Isis and Nephthys weeping over it.
+
+[FN#251]  The Bennu was the soul of Ra and the incarnation of Osiris.
+
+[FN#252]  See the names of Osiris and his sanctuaries in Chapter CXLII.
+of the Book of the Dead.
+
+
+
+[And Thoth said:]
+
+"Wake up, Horus!  Thy protection is established.  Make thou happy the
+heart of thy mother Isis.  The words of Horus shall bind up hearts, he
+shall cause to be at peace him who is in affliction.  Let your hearts
+be happy, O ye who dwell in the heavens (Nut).  Horus, he who hath
+avenged (or, protected) his father shall cause the poison to retreat.
+Verily that which is in the mouth of Ra shall go round about (i.e.,
+circulate), and the tongue of the Great God shall repulse
+[opposition].  The Boat [of Ra] standeth still, and travelleth not
+onwards.  The Disk is in the [same] place where it was yesterday to
+heal Horus for his mother Isis, and to heal him that is under the knife
+of his mother[FN#253] likewise.  Come to the earth, draw nigh, O Boat
+of Ra, make the boat to travel, O mariners of heaven, transport
+provisions (?) of . . . . . . Sekhem[FN#254] to heal Horus for his
+mother Isis, and to heal him that is under the knife of his mother
+likewise.  Hasten away, O pain which is in the region round about, and
+let it (i.e., the Boat) descend upon the place where it was yesterday
+to heal Horus for his mother Isis, and to heal him that is under the
+knife of his mother likewise.  Get thee round and round, O bald (?)
+fiend, without horns at the seasons (?), not seeing the forms through
+the shadow of the two Eyes, to heal Horus for his mother Isis, and to
+heal him that is under the knife likewise.  Be filled, O two halves of
+heaven, be empty, O papyrus roll, return, O life, into the living to
+heal Horus for his it mother Isis, and to heal him that is under the
+knife likewise.  Come thou to earth, O poison.  Let hearts be glad, and
+let radiance (or, light) go round about.
+
+
+
+[FN#253]  We should probably strike out the words "of his mother."
+
+[FN#254]  The city in the Delta called by the Greeks Letopolis.
+
+
+
+"I am Thoth,[FN#255] the firstborn son, the son of Ra, and Tem and the
+Company of the gods have commanded me to heal Horus for his mother
+Isis, and to heal him that is under the knife likewise.  O Horus, O
+Horus, thy Ka protecteth thee, and thy Image worketh protection for
+thee.  The poison is as the daughter of its [own] flame; [it is]
+destroyed [because] it smote the strong son.  Your temples are in good
+condition for you, [for] Horus liveth for his mother, and he who is
+under the knife likewise."
+
+
+
+[FN#255]  Thoth stood by during the fight between Horus and Set, and
+healed the wounds which they inflicted on each other.
+
+
+
+And the goddess Isis said:
+
+
+"Set thou his face towards those who dwell in the North Land (Ateh),
+the nurses who dwell in the city Pe-Tept (Buto), for they have offered
+very large offerings in order to cause the child to be made strong for
+his mother, and to make strong him that is under the knife likewise.
+Do not allow them to recognize the divine Ka in the Swamp Land, in the
+city (?) of Nemhettu (?) [and] in her city."
+
+
+Then spake Thoth unto the great gods who dwell in the Swamp-Land
+[saying]: "O ye nurses who dwell in the city of Pe, who smite [fiends]
+with your hands, and overthrow [them] with your arms on behalf of that
+Great One who appeareth in front of you [in] the Sektet Boat,[FN#256]
+let the Matet[FN#257] (Mantchet) Boat travel on.  Horus is to you, he
+is counted up for life, and he is declared for the life of his father
+[Osiris].  I have given gladness unto those who are in the Sektet Boat,
+and the mariners [of Ra] make it to journey on.  Horus liveth for his
+mother Isis and he who is under the knife liveth for his mother
+likewise.  As for the poison, the strength thereof has been made
+powerless.  Verily I am a favoured one, and I will join myself to his
+hour[FN#258] to hurl back the report of evil to him that sent it forth.
+The heart of Ra-Heru-Khuti rejoiceth.  Thy son Horus is counted up for
+life [which is] on this child to make him to smite, and to retreat (?)
+from those who are above, and to turn back the paths of the Sebiu
+fiends from him, so that he may take possession of the throne of the
+Two Lands.  Ra is in heaven to make answer on 251 behalf of him and his
+father.  The words of power of his mother have lifted up his face, and
+they protect him and enable him to go round about wheresoever he
+pleaseth, and to set the terror of him in celestial beings.  I have
+made haste . . . . . ."
+
+
+[FN#256]  The boat in which Ra travelled from noon to sunset, or
+perhaps until midnight.
+
+
+[FN#257]  The boat in which Ra travelled from dawn, or perhaps from
+midnight, to noon.
+
+[FN#258]  i.e., I will be with him at the moment of his need.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ISIS AND OSIRIS,
+
+
+WITH EXPLANATIONS OF THE SAME, COLLECTED BY PLUTARCH, AND SUPPLEMENTED
+BY HIS OWN VIEWS.
+
+
+
+
+I.  Though it be the wise man's duty, O Clea,[FN#259] to apply to the
+gods for every good thing which he hopes to enjoy, yet ought he more
+especially to pray to them for their assistance in his search after
+that knowledge which more immediately regards themselves, as far as
+such knowledge may be attained, inasmuch as there is nothing which they
+can bestow more truly beneficial to mankind, or more worthy themselves,
+than truth.  For whatever other good things are indulged to the wants
+of men, they have all, properly speaking, no relation to, and are of a
+nature quite different from, that of their divine donors.  For 'tis not
+the abundance of their gold and silver, nor the command of the thunder,
+but wisdom and knowledge which constitute the power and happiness of
+those heavenly beings.  It is therefore well observed by Homer (Iliad,
+xiii. 354), and indeed with more propriety than be usually talks of the
+gods, when, speaking of Zeus and Poseidon, he tells us that both were
+descended from the same parents, and born in the same region, but that
+Zeus was the elder and knew most; plainly intimating thereby that the
+empire of the former was more august and honourable than that of his
+brother, as by means of his age he was his superior, and more advanced
+in wisdom and science.  Nay, 'tis my opinion, I own, that even the
+blessedness of that eternity which is the portion of the Deity himself
+consists in that universal knowledge of all nature which accompanies
+it; for setting this aside, eternity might be more properly styled an
+endless duration than an enjoyment of existence.
+
+
+
+[FN#259]  She is said to have been a priestess of Isis and of Apollo
+Delphicus.
+
+
+
+II.  To desire, therefore, and covet after truth, those truths more
+especially which concern the divine nature, is to aspire to be
+partakers of that nature itself, and to profess that all our studies
+and inquiries are devoted to the acquisition of holiness.  This
+occupation is surely more truly religious than any external
+purifications or mere service of the temple can be.  But more
+especially must such a disposition of mind be highly acceptable to that
+goddess to whose service you are dedicated, for her especial
+characteristics are wisdom and foresight, and her very name seems to
+express the peculiar relation which she bears to knowledge.  For
+"Isis"[FN#260] is a Greek word, and means "knowledge," and
+"Typhon,"[FN#261] the name of her professed adversary, is also a Greek
+word, and means "pride and insolence."  This latter name is well
+adapted to one who, full of ignorance and error, tears in pieces and
+conceals that holy doctrine which the goddess collects, compiles, and
+delivers to those who aspire after the most perfect participation in
+the divine nature.  This doctrine inculcates a steady perseverance in
+one uniform and temperate course of life, and an abstinence from
+particular kinds of foods, as well as from all indulgence of the carnal
+appetite, and it restrains the intemperate and voluptuous part within
+due bounds, and at the same time habituates her votaries to undergo
+those austere and rigid ceremonies which their religion obliges them to
+observe.  The end and aim of all these toils and labours is the
+attainment of the knowledge of the First and Chief Being, who alone is
+the object of the understanding of the mind; and this knowledge the
+goddess invites us to seek after, as being near and dwelling
+continually with her.  And this also is what the very name of her
+temple promiseth to us, that is to say, the knowledge and understanding
+of the eternal and self-existent Being (tou ontas)-now, it is called
+"Iseion," which suggests that if we approach the temple of the goddess
+rightly, and with purity, we shall obtain the knowledge of that eternal
+and self-existent Being (to on).
+
+
+
+[FN#260]  The Egyptian form of the name is As-T, ####, ####, or ####.
+Plutarch wishes to derive the name from some form of {greek oida}.
+
+[FN#261]  In Egyptian, Tebh.
+
+
+
+III.  The goddess Isis is said by some authors to be the
+daughter[FN#262] of Hermes, [FN#263] and by others of Prometheus, both
+of them famous for their philosophic turn of mind.  The latter is
+supposed to have first taught mankind wisdom and foresight, as the
+former is reputed to have invented letters and music.
+
+
+
+[FN#262]  According to the Egyptian Heliopolitan doctrine, Isis was the
+daughter of Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess; she was the
+wife of Osiris, mother of Horus, and sister of Set and Nephthys.
+
+[FN#263]  The Egyptian. Tehuti, or Thoth, who invented letters,
+mathematics, &c.  He was the "heart of Ra," the scribe of the gods, and
+he uttered the words which created the world; he composed the "words of
+power," or magical formulae which were beneficial for the dead, and the
+religious works which were used by souls in their journey from this
+world to the next.
+
+
+
+
+They likewise call the former of the two Muses at Hermopolis[FN#264]
+Isis as well as Dikaiosune,[FN#265] she being none other, it is said,
+than Wisdom pointing out the knowledge of divine truths to her
+votaries, the true Hierophori and Hierostoli.  Now, by the former of
+these are meant such who carry about them looked up in their souls, as
+in a chest, the sacred doctrine concerning the gods, purified from all
+such superfluities as superstition may have added thereto.  And the
+holy apparel with which the Hierostoli adorn the statues of these
+deities, which is partly of a dark and gloomy and partly of a more
+bright and shining colour, seems aptly enough to represent the notions
+which this doctrine teaches us to entertain of the divine nature
+itself, partly clear and partly obscure.  And inasmuch as the devotees
+of Isis after their decease are wrapped up in these sacred vestments,
+is not this intended to signify that this holy doctrine still abides
+with them, and that this alone accompanies them in another life?  For
+as 'tis not the length of the beard or the coarseness of the habit
+which makes a philosopher, so neither will these frequent shavings, or
+the mere wearing of a linen vestment, constitute a votary of Isis.  He
+alone is a true servant or follower of this goddess who, after he has
+heard, and has been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history
+of the actions of these gods, searches into the hidden truths which lie
+concealed under them, and examines the whole by the dictates of reason
+and philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+
+[FN#264]  The Hermopolis here referred to is the city of Khemenu in
+Upper Egypt, wherein was the great sanctuary of Thoth.
+
+[FN#265]  i.e., Righteousness, or Justice.  The goddess referred to is
+probably Maat.
+
+
+
+IV.  Nor, indeed, ought such an examination to be looked on as
+unnecessary whilst there are so many ignorant of the true reason even
+of the most ordinary rites observed by the Egyptian priests, such as
+their shavings[FN#266] and wearing linen garments.  Some, indeed, there
+are who never trouble themselves to think at all about these matters,
+whilst others rest satisfied with the most superficial accounts of
+them: "They pay a peculiar veneration to the sheep,[FN#267] therefore
+they think it their duty not only to abstain from eating its flesh, but
+likewise from wearing its wool.  They are continually mourning for
+their gods, therefore they shave themselves.  The light azure blossom
+of the flax resembles the clear and bloomy colour of the ethereal sky,
+therefore they wear linen"; whereas the true reason of the institution
+and observation of these rites is but one, and that common to all of
+them, namely, the extraordinary notions which they entertain of
+cleanliness, persuaded as they are, according to the saying of Plato,
+"none but the pure ought to approach the pure."  Now, no superfluity of
+our food, and no excrementitious substance, is looked upon by them as
+pure and clean; such, however, are all kinds of wool and down, our hair
+and our nails.  It would be the highest absurdity, therefore, for those
+who, whilst; they are in a course of purification, are at so much pains
+to take off the hair from every part of their own bodies, at the same
+time to clothe themselves with that of other animals.  So when we are
+told by Hesiod "not to pare our nails whilst we are present at the
+festivals of the gods,"[FN#268] we ought to understand that he intended
+hereby to inculcate that purity wherewith we ought to come prepared
+before we enter upon any religious duty, that we have not to make
+ourselves clean whilst we ought to be occupied in attending to the
+solemnity itself.  Now, with regard to flax, this springs out of the
+immortal earth itself; and not only produces a fruit fit for food, but
+moreover furnishes a light and neat sort of clothing, extremely
+agreeable to the wearer, adapted to all the seasons of the year, and
+not in the least subject, as is said, to produce or nourish vermin; but
+more of this in another place.
+
+
+
+
+
+[FN#266]  A rubric in the papyrus of Nes-Menu in the British Museum
+orders the priestesses of Isis and Nephthys to have "the hair of their
+bodies shaved off" (No. 10,188, col. 1), but they are also ordered to
+wear fillets of rams' wool on their heads.
+
+[FN#267]  Probably the ram of Amen. Animal sacrifices were invariably
+bulls and cows.
+
+
+[FN#268]  This saying is by Pythagoras--{greek Para dusian
+mh`onuxizou}.  The saying of Hesiod (Works and Days, 740) is rendered
+by Goodwin:--
+
+
+"Not at a feast of Gods from five-branched tree,
+With sharp-edged steel to part the green from dry."
+
+
+
+V.  Now, the priests are so scrupulous in endeavouring to avoid
+everything which may tend to the increase of the above-mentioned
+excrementitious substances, that, on this account, they abstain not
+only from most sorts of pulse, and from the flesh of sheep and swine,
+but likewise, in their more solemn purifications, they even exclude
+salt from their meals.  This they do for many reasons, but chiefly
+because it whets their appetites, and incites them to eat more than
+they otherwise would.  Now, as to salt being accounted impure because,
+as Aristagoras tells us, many little insects are caught in it whilst it
+is hardening, and are thereby killed therein-this view is wholly
+trifling and absurd.  From these same motives also they give the Apis
+Bull his water from a well specially set apart for the purpose,[FN#269]
+and they prevent him altogether from drinking of the Nile, not indeed
+that they regard the river as impure, and polluted because of the
+crocodiles which are in it, as some pretend, for there is nothing which
+the Egyptians hold in greater veneration than the Nile, but because its
+waters are observed to be particularly nourishing[FN#270] and
+fattening.  And they strive to prevent fatness in Apis as well as in
+themselves, for they are anxious that their bodies should sit as light
+and easy about their souls as possible, and that their mortal part
+should not oppress and weigh down the divine and immortal.
+
+
+
+
+
+[FN#269]  It is quite possible that Apis drank from a special well, but
+the water in it certainly came from the Nile by infiltration.  In all
+the old wells at Memphis the water sinks as the Nile sinks, and rises
+as it rises.
+
+[FN#270]  On account of the large amount of animal matter contained in
+it.
+
+
+
+VI. The priests of the Sun at Heliopolis[FN#271] never carry wine into
+their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted
+to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst
+they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King.[FN#272]
+The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect,
+for they use it, though sparingly.  During their more solemn
+purifications they abstain from wine wholly, and they give themselves
+up entirely to study and meditation, and to the hearing and teaching of
+those divine truths which treat of the divine nature.  Even the kings,
+who are likewise priests, only partake of wine in the measure which is
+prescribed for them in the sacred books, as we are told by Hecataeus.
+This custom was only introduced during the reign of Psammetichus, and
+before that time they drank no wine at all.  If they used it at any
+time in pouring out libations to the gods, it was not because they
+looked upon it as being acceptable to them for its own sake, but they
+poured it out over their altars as the blood of their enemies who had
+in times past fought against them.  For they believe the vine to have
+first sprung out of the earth after it was fattened by the bodies of
+those who fell in the wars against the gods.  And this, they say, is
+the reason why drinking its juice in great quantities makes men mad and
+beside themselves, filling them, as it were, with the blood of their
+own ancestors.  These things are thus related by Eudoxus in the second
+book of his Travels, as he had them from the priests themselves.
+
+
+
+
+[FN#271]  Called ANU in the Egyptian texts; it was the centre of the
+great solar cult of Egypt.  It is the "On" of the Bible.
+
+[FN#272]  The Sun-god was called Ra.
+
+
+
+VII.  As to sea-fish, the Egyptians in general do not abstain from all
+kinds of them, but some from one sort and some from another.  Thus, for
+example, the inhabitants of Oxyrhynchus[FN#273] will not touch any that
+have been taken with an angle; for as they pay especial reverence to
+the Oxyrhynchus Fish,[FN#274] from whence they derive their name, they
+are afraid lest perhaps the hook may be defiled by having been at some
+time or other employed in catching their favourite fish.  The people of
+Syene[FN#275] in like manner abstain from the Phagrus Fish[FN#276]; for
+as this fish is observed by them to make his first appearance upon
+their coasts just as the Nile begins to overflow, they pay special
+regard to these voluntary messengers as it were of that most joyful
+news.  The priests, indeed, entirely abstain from all sorts in
+general.[FN#277]  Therefore, upon the ninth day of the first month,
+when all the rest of the Egyptians are obliged by their religion to eat
+a fried fish before the door of their houses, they only burn them, not
+tasting them at all.  For this custom they give two reasons: the first
+and most curious, as falling in with the sacred philosophy of Osiris
+and Typhon, will be more properly explained in another place.  The
+second, that which is most obvious and manifest, is that fish is
+neither a dainty nor even a necessary kind of food, a fact which seems
+to be abundantly confirmed by the writings of Homer, who never makes
+either the delicate Pheacians or the Ithacans (though both peoples were
+islanders) to feed upon fish, nor even the companions of Ulysses during
+their long and most tedious voyage, till they were reduced thereto by
+extreme necessity.  In short, they consider the sea to have been forced
+out of the earth by the power of fire, and therefore to lie out of
+nature's confines; and they regard it not as a part of the world, or
+one of the elements, but as a preternatural and corrupt and morbid
+excrement.
+
+
+
+[FN#273]  The Per-Matchet.
+
+[FN#274]  Probably the pike, or "fighting fish."
+
+[FN#275]  In Egyptian, SUNU, the Seweneh of the Bible, and the modern
+Aswan.
+
+
+[FN#276]  A kind of bream, the an of the Egyptian texts.
+
+[FN#277]  Compare Chap. CXXXVIIA of the Book of the Dead.  "And behold,
+these things shall be performed by a man who is clean, and is
+ceremonially pure, one who hath eaten neither meat nor fish, and who
+hath not had intercourse with women" (ll. 52, 53).
+
+
+
+VIII.  This much may be depended upon: the, religious rites and
+ceremonies of the Egyptians were never instituted upon irrational
+grounds, never built upon mere fable and superstition, but founded with
+a view to promote the morality and happiness of those who were to
+observe them, or at least to preserve the memory of some valuable piece
+of history, or to represent to us some of the phenomena of nature.  As
+concerning the abhorrence which is expressed for onions, it is wholly
+improbable that this detestation is owing to the loss of Diktys, who,
+whilst he was under the guardianship of Isis, is supposed to have
+fallen into the river and to have been drowned as he was reaching after
+a bunch of them.  No, the true reason of their abstinence from onions
+is because they are observed to flourish most and to be in the greatest
+vigour at the wane of the moon, and also because they are entirely
+useless to them either in their feasts[FN#278] or in their times of
+abstinence and purification, for in the former case they make tears
+come from those who use them, and in the latter they create thirst.
+For much the same reason they likewise look upon the pig as an impure
+animal, and to be avoided, observing it to be most apt to engender upon
+the decrease of the moon, and they think that those who drink its milk
+are more subject to leprosy and such-like cutaneous diseases than
+others.  The custom of abstaining from the flesh of the pig[FN#279] is
+not always observed, for those who sacrifice a sow to Typhon once a
+year, at the full moon, afterwards eat its flesh. The reason they give
+for this practice is this: Typhon being in pursuit of this animal at
+that season of the moon, accidentally found the wooden chest wherein
+was deposited the body of Osiris, which he immediately pulled to
+pieces. This story, however, is not generally admitted, there being
+some who look upon it, as they do many other relations of the same
+kind, as founded upon some mistake or misrepresentation. All agree,
+however, in saying that so great was the abhorrence which the ancient
+Egyptians expressed for whatever tended to promote luxury, expense, and
+voluptuousness, that in order to expose it as much as possible they
+erected a column in one of the temples of Thebes, full of curses
+against their king Meinis, who first drew them off from their former
+frugal and parsimonious course of life.  The immediate cause for the
+erection of the pillar is thus given: Technatis,[FN#280] the father of
+Bocchoris, leading an army against the Arabians, and his baggage and
+provisions not coming up to him as soon as he expected, was therefore
+obliged to eat some of the very poor food which was obtainable, and
+having eaten, he lay down on the bare ground and slept very soundly.
+This gave him a great affection for a mean and frugal diet, and induced
+him to curse the memory of Meinis, and with the permission of the
+priests he made these curses public by cutting them upon a
+pillar.[FN#281]
+
+
+
+[FN#278]  Bunches of onions were offered to the dead at all periods of
+Egyptian history, and they were regarded as typical of the "white
+teeth" of Horus.  The onion was largely used in medicine.
+
+[FN#279]  The pig was associated with Set, or Typhon, and the black
+variety was specially abominated because it was a black pig which
+struck Horus in the eye, and damaged it severely.  See Book of the
+Dead, Chap. CXII.
+
+[FN#280]  In Egyptian, TAFNEKHT, the first king of the XXIVth Dynasty.
+
+[FN#281]  An unlikely story, for Tafnekht had no authority at Thebes.
+
+
+
+IX.  Now, the kings of Egypt were always chosen either out of the
+soldiery or priesthood, the former order being honoured and respected
+for its valour, and the latter for its wisdom.  If the choice fell upon
+a soldier, he was immediately initiated into the order of priests, and
+by them instructed in their abstruse and hidden philosophy, a
+philosophy for the most part involved in fable and allegory, and
+exhibiting only dark hints and obscure resemblances of the truth.  This
+the priesthood hints to us in many instances, particularly by the
+sphinxes, which they seem to have placed designedly before their
+temples as types of the enigmatical nature of their theology.  To this
+purpose, likewise, is that inscription which they have engraved upon
+the base of the statue of Athene[FN#282] at Sais, whom they identify
+with Isis: "I am everything that has been, that is, and that shall be:
+and my veil no man hath raised."  In like manner the word "Amoun," or
+as it is expressed in the Greek language, "Ammon," which is generally
+looked upon as the proper name of the Egyptian Zeus, is interpreted by
+Manetho[FN#283] the Sebennite[FN#284] to signify "concealment" or
+"something which is hidden."[FN#285]  Hecataeus of Abdera indeed tells
+us that the Egyptians make use of this term when they call out to one
+another.  If this be so, then their invoking Amoun is the same thing as
+calling upon the supreme being, whom they believe to be "hidden" and
+"concealed" in the universal nature, to appear and manifest itself to
+them.  So cautious and reserved was the Egyptian wisdom in those things
+which appertained to religion.
+
+
+
+[FN#282]  The Egyptian goddess Net, in Greek {greek Nhid}, the great
+goddess of Sais, in the Western Delta.  She was self-existent, and
+produced her son, the Sun-god, without union with a god.  In an address
+to her, quoted by Mallet (Culte de Neit, p. 140), are found the words,
+"thy garment hath not been unloosed," thus Plutarch's quotation is
+correct.
+
+[FN#283]  He compiled a History of Egypt for Ptolemy II., and
+flourished about B.C. 270; only the King-List from this work is
+preserved.
+
+[FN#284]  He was a native of the town of Sebennytus.
+
+[FN#285]  Amen means "hidden," and AMEN is the "hidden god."
+
+
+
+X.  And this is still farther evinced from those voyages which have
+been made into Egypt by the wisest men among the Greeks, namely, by
+Solo, Thales Plato, Eudoxus, Pythagoras, and, as some say, even by
+Lycurgus himself, on purpose to converse with the priests.  And we are
+also told that Eudoxus was a disciple of Chnouphis the Memphite, Solo
+of Sonchis the Saite, and Pythagoras of Oinuphis the Heliopolite.  But
+none of these philosophers seems either to have been more admired and
+in greater favour with the priests, or to have paid a more especial
+regard to their method of philosophising, than this last named, who has
+particularly imitated their mysterious and symbolical manner in his own
+writings, and like them conveyed his doctrines to the world in a kind
+of riddle.  For many of the precepts of Pythagoras come nothing short
+of the hieroglyphical representations themselves, such as, "eat not in
+a chariot," "sit not on a measure (choenix)," "plant not a palm-tree,"
+and "stir not the fire with a sword in the house."  And I myself am of
+the opinion that, when the Pythagoreans appropriated the names of
+several of the gods to particular numbers, as that of Apollo to the
+unit, of Artemis to the duad, of Athene to the seven, and of Poseidon
+to the first cube, in this they allude to something which the founder
+of their sect saw in the Egyptian temples, or to some ceremonies
+performed in them, or to some symbols there exhibited.  Thus, their
+great king and lord Osiris is represented by the hieroglyphics for an
+eye and a sceptre,[FN#286] the name itself signifying "many-eyed," as
+we are told by some[FN#287] who would derive it from the words
+os,[FN#288] "many," and iri,[FN#289] an "eye," which have this meaning
+in the Egyptian language.  Similarly, because the heavens are eternal
+and are never consumed or wax old, they represent them by a heart with
+a censer placed under it.  Much in the same way are those statues of
+the Judges at Thebes without hands, and their chief, or president, is
+represented with his eyes turned downwards, which signifies that
+justice ought not to be obtainable by bribes, nor guided by favour or
+affection.  Of a like nature is the Beetle which we see engraven upon
+the seals of the soldiers, for there is no such thing as a female
+beetle of this species; for they are all males, and they propagate
+their kind by casting their seed into round balls of dirt, which afford
+not only a proper place wherein the young may be hatched, but also
+nourishment for them as soon as they are born.
+
+
+
+
+[FN#286]  The oldest form of the name is As-Ar, ####; the first sign,
+####, is a throne, and the second, ####, is an eye, but the exact
+meaning represented by the two signs is not known.  In late times a
+sceptre, #### took the place of the throne, but only because of its
+phonetic value as or us.  Thus we have the forms #### and ####.
+
+[FN#287]  This is a mistake.
+
+
+[FN#288]  In Egyptian, #### ash, "many."
+
+[FN#289]  In Egyptian, #### art, Coptic ####, "eye."
+
+
+
+
+XI.  When you hear, therefore, the mythological tales which the
+Egyptians tell of their gods, their wanderings, their mutilations, and
+many other disasters which befell them, remember what has just been
+said, and be assured that nothing of what is thus told you is really
+true, or ever happened in fact.  For can it be imagined that it is the
+dog[FN#290] itself which is reverenced by them under the name of
+Hermes[FN#291]?  It is the qualities of this animal, his constant
+vigilance, and his acumen in distinguishing his friends from his foes,
+which have rendered him, as Plato says, a meet emblem of that god who
+is the chief patron of intelligence.  Nor can we imagine that they
+think that the sun, like a newly born babe, springs up every day out of
+a lily.  It is quite true that they represent the rising sun in this
+manner,[FN#292] but the reason is because they wish to indicate thereby
+that it is moisture to which we owe the first kindling of this
+luminary.  In like manner, the cruel and bloody king of Persia, Ochus,
+who not only put to death great numbers of the people, but even slew
+the Apis Bull himself, and afterwards served him up in a banquet to his
+friends, is represented by them by a sword, and by this name he is
+still to be found in the catalogue of their kings.  This name,
+therefore, does not represent his person, but indicates his base and
+cruel qualities, which were best suggested by the picture of an
+instrument of destruction.  If, therefore, O Clea, you will hear and
+entertain the story of these gods from those who know how to explain it
+consistently with religion and philosophy, if you will steadily persist
+in the observance of all these holy rites which the laws require of
+you, and are moreover fully persuaded that to form true notions of the
+divine nature is more acceptable to them than any sacrifice or mere
+external act of worship can be, you will by this means be entirely
+exempt from any danger of falling into superstition, an evil no less to
+be avoided than atheism itself.
+
+
+
+[FN#290]  The animal here referred to must be the dog-headed ape, ####,
+which we see in pictures of the Judgment assisting Thoth to weigh the
+heart of the dead.  This dog-headed ape is a wonderfully intelligent
+creature, and its weird cleverness is astonishing.
+
+[FN#291]  The Egyptian Tehuti, or Thoth.
+
+[FN#292]  ####.
+
+
+
+XII.  Now, the story of Isis and Osiris, its most insignificant and
+superfluous parts being omitted, runs thus:--
+
+The goddess Rhea,[FN#293] they say, having accompanied with
+Kronos[FN#294] by stealth, was discovered by Helios[FN#295] who
+straightway cursed her, and declared that she should not be delivered
+in any month or year.  Hermes, however, 'being also in love with the
+same goddess, in return for the favours which he had received from her,
+went and played at dice with Selene,[FN#296] and won from her the
+seventieth part of each day.  These parts he joined together and made
+from them five complete days, and he added them to the three hundred
+and sixty days of which the year formerly consisted.  These five days
+are to this day called the "Epagomenae,"[FN#297] that is, the
+superadded, and they are observed by them as the birthdays of their
+gods.[FN#298]  On the first of these, they say, Osiris was born, and as
+he came into the world a voice was heard saying, "The Lord of
+All[FN#299] is born."  Some relate the matter in a different way, and
+say that a certain person named Pamyles, as he was fetching water from
+the temple of Dios at Thebes, heard a voice commanding him to proclaim
+aloud that the good and great king Osiris was then born, and that for
+this reason Kronos committed the education of the child to him, and
+that in memory of this event the Pamylia were afterwards instituted,
+which closely resemble the Phallephoria or Priapeia of the Greeks.
+Upon the second of these days was born Aroueris,[FN#300] whom some call
+Apollo, and others the Elder Horus.  Upon the third day Typhon was
+born, who came into the world neither at the proper time nor by the
+right way, but he forced a passage through a wound which he made in his
+mother's side.  Upon the fourth day Isis was born, in the marshes of
+Egypt,[FN#301] and upon the fifth day Nephthys, whom some call Teleute,
+or Aphrodite, or Nike, was born.  As regards the fathers of these
+children, the first two are said to have been begotten by Helios, Isis
+by Hermes, and Typhon and Nephthys by Kronos.  Therefore, since the
+third of the superadded days was the birthday of Typhon, the kings
+considered it to be unlucky,[FN#302] and in consequence they neither
+transacted any business in it, nor even suffered themselves to take any
+refreshment until the evening.  They further add that Typhon married
+Nephthys,[FN#303] and that Isis and Osiris, having a mutual affection,
+enjoyed each other in their mother's womb before they were born, and
+that from this commerce sprang Aroueris, whom the Egyptians likewise
+call Horus the Elder, and the Greeks Apollo.
+
+
+
+[FN#293]  i.e., Nut, the Sky-goddess.
+
+[FN#294]  i.e., Keb, the Earth-god.
+
+[FN#295]  i.e., Ra.
+
+[FN#296]  i.e., Aah.
+
+[FN#297]  In Egyptian, "the five days over the year,"
+
+[FN#298]  In Egyptian thus:--
+I. Birthday of Osiris,
+II. Birthday of Horus,
+III. Birthday of Set,
+IV. Birthday of Isis,
+V. Birthday of Nephthys
+
+[FN#299]  One of the chief titles of Osiris was Neb er tcher, i.e.,
+"lord to the uttermost limit of everything."
+
+[FN#300]  i.e., Heru-ur, "Horus the Elder."
+
+[FN#301]  It was Horus, son of Isis, who was born in the marshes of
+Egypt.
+
+[FN#302]  This day is described as unlucky in the hieroglyphic texts.
+
+[FN#303]  Set and Nephthys are regarded as husband and wife in the
+texts; their offspring was Anubis, Anpu.
+
+
+
+XIII.  Osiris having become king of Egypt, applied himself to
+civilizing his countrymen by turning them from their former indigent
+and barbarous course of life.  He taught them how to cultivate and
+improve the fruits of the earth, and he gave them a body of laws
+whereby to regulate their conduct, and instructed them in the reverence
+and worship which they were to pay to the gods.  With the same good
+disposition he afterwards travelled over the rest of the world,
+inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline, not indeed
+compelling them by force of arms, but persuading them to yield to the
+strength of his reasons, which were conveyed to them in the most
+agreeable manner, in hymns and songs, accompanied with instruments of
+music.  From this last circumstance the Greeks identified him with
+their Dionysos, or Bacchus.  During the absence of Osiris from his
+kingdom, Typhon had no opportunity of making any innovations in the
+state, Isis being extremely vigilant in the government, and always upon
+her guard.  After his return, however, having first persuaded seventy-
+two other people to join with him in the conspiracy, together with a
+certain queen of Ethiopia called Aso, who chanced to be in Egypt at
+that time, he formed a crafty plot against him.  For having privily
+taken the measure of the body of Osiris, he caused a chest to be made
+of exactly the same size, and it was very beautiful and highly
+decorated.  This chest he brought into a certain banqueting room, where
+it was greatly admired by all who were present, and Typhon, as if in
+jest, promised to give it to that man whose body when tried would be
+found to fit it.  Thereupon the whole company, one after the other,
+went into it, but it did not fit any of them; last of all Osiris
+himself lay down in it.  Thereupon all the conspirators ran to the
+chest, and clapped the cover upon it, and then they fastened it down
+with nails on the outside, and poured melted lead over it.  They next
+took the chest to the river, which carried it to the sea through the
+Tanaitic mouth of the Nile; and for this reason this mouth of the Nile
+is still held in the utmost abomination by the Egyptians, and is never
+mentioned by them except with marks of detestation.  These things, some
+say, took place on the seventeenth day of the month of Hathor, when the
+sun was in Scorpio, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Osiris,
+though others tell us that this was the year of his life and not of his
+reign.
+
+
+
+XIV.  The first who had knowledge of the accident which had befallen
+their king were the Pans and Satyrs, who inhabited the country round
+about Chemmis,[FN#304] and they having informed the people about it,
+gave the first occasion to the name of Panic Terrors, which has ever
+since been made use of to signify any sudden fright or amazement of a
+multitude.  As soon as the report reached Isis, she immediately cut off
+one of the locks of her hair, and put on mourning apparel in that very
+place where she happened to be; for this reason the place has ever
+since been called "Koptos," or the "city of mourning," though some are
+of opinion that this word rather signifies "deprivation."  After this
+she wandered round about through the country, being full of disquietude
+and perplexity, searching for the chest, and she inquired of every
+person she met, including some children whom she saw, whether they knew
+what was become of it.  Now, it so happened that these children had
+seen what Typhon's accomplices had done with the body, and they
+accordingly told her by what mouth of the Nile it had been conveyed to
+the sea.  For this reason the Egyptians look upon children as endued
+with a kind of faculty of divining, and in consequence of this notion
+are very curious in observing the accidental prattle which they have
+with one another whilst they are at play, especially if it be in a
+sacred place, forming omens and presages from it.  Isis meanwhile
+having been informed that Osiris, deceived by her sister Nephthys, who
+was in love with him, had unwittingly enjoyed her instead of herself,
+as she concluded from the melilot-garland which he had left with her,
+made it her business likewise to search out the child, the fruit of
+this unlawful commerce (for her sister, dreading the anger of her
+husband Typhon, had exposed it as soon as it was born).  Accordingly,
+after much pains and difficulty, by means of some dogs that conducted
+her to the place where it was, she found it and bred it up; and in
+process of time it became her constant guard and attendant, and
+obtained the name of Anubis, and it is thought that it watches and
+guards the gods as dogs do men.
+
+
+
+[FN#304]  In Egyptian, Khebt, in the VIIIth nome of Lower Egypt.
+
+
+
+XV.  At length Isis received more particular news that the chest had
+been carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos, and there
+gently lodged in the branches of a bush of tamarisk, which in a short
+time had grown up into a large and beautiful tree, and had grown round
+the chest and enclosed it on every side so completely that it was not
+to be seen.  Moreover, the king of the country, amazed at its unusual
+size, had cut the tree down, and made that part of the trunk wherein
+the chest was concealed into a pillar to support the roof of his house.
+These things, they say, having been made known to Isis in an
+extraordinary manner by the report of demons, she immediately went to
+Byblos, where, setting herself down by the side of a fountain, she
+refused to speak to anybody except the queen's women who chanced to be
+there.  These, however, she saluted and caressed in the kindest manner
+possible, plaiting their hair for them, and transmitting into them part
+of that wonderful odour which issued from her own body.  This raised a
+great desire in the queen their mistress to see the stranger who had
+this admirable faculty of transfusing so fragrant a smell from herself
+into the hair and skin of other people.  She therefore sent for her to
+court, and, after a further acquaintance with her, made her nurse to
+one of her sons.  Now, the name of the king who reigned at this time at
+Byblos was Melkander (Melkarth?), and that of his wife was Astarte, or,
+according to others, Saôsis, though some call her Nemanoun, which
+answers to the Greek name Athenais.
+
+
+
+XVI.  Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of
+the breast.  She likewise put him each night into the fire in order to
+consume his mortal part, whilst, having transformed herself into a
+swallow, she circled round the pillar and bemoaned her sad fate.  This
+she continued to do for some time, till the queen, who stood watching
+her, observing the child to be all of a flame, cried out, and thereby
+deprived him of some of that immortality which would otherwise have
+been conferred upon him.  The goddess then made herself known, and
+asked that the pillar which supported the roof might be given to her.
+Having taken the pillar down, she cut it open easily, and having taken
+out what she wanted, she wrapped up the remainder of the trunk in fine
+linen, and having poured perfumed oil over it, she delivered it again
+into the hands of the king and queen.  Now, this piece of wood is to
+this day preserved in the temple, and worshipped by the people of
+Byblos.  When this was done, Isis threw herself upon the chest, and
+made at the same time such loud and terrible cries of lamentation over
+it, that the younger of the king's sons who heard her was frightened
+out of his life.  But the elder of them she took with her, and set sail
+with the chest for Egypt.  Now, it being morning the river Phaedrus
+sent forth a keen and chill air, and becoming angry she dried up its
+current.
+
+
+
+XVII.  At the first place where she stopped, and when she believed that
+she was alone, she opened the chest, and laying her face upon that of
+her dead husband, she embraced him and wept bitterly.  Then, seeing
+that the little boy had silently stolen up behind her, and had found
+out the reason of her grief, she turned upon him suddenly, and, in her
+anger, gave him so fierce and terrible a look that he died of fright
+immediately.  Others say that his death did not happen in this manner,
+but, as already hinted, that he fell into the sea.  Afterwards he
+received the greatest honour on account of the goddess, for this
+Maneros, whom the Egyptians so frequently call upon at their banquets,
+is none other than he.  This story is contradicted by those who tell us
+that the true name of this child was Palaestinus, or Pelusius, and that
+the city of this name was built by the goddess in memory of him.  And
+they further add that this Maneros is thus honoured by the Egyptians at
+their feasts because he was the first who invented music.  Others again
+state that Maneros is not the name of any particular person, but a were
+customary form of complimentary greeting which the Egyptians use
+towards each other at their more solemn feasts and banquets, meaning no
+more by it than to wish "that what they were then about might prove
+fortunate and happy to them."  This is the true import of the word.  In
+like manner they say that the human skeleton which is carried about in
+a box on festal occasions, and shown to the guests, is not designed, as
+some imagine, to represent the particular misfortunes of Osiris, but
+rather to remind them of their mortality, and thereby to excite them
+freely to make use of and to enjoy the good things which are set before
+them, seeing that they must quickly become such as they there saw.
+This is the true reason for introducing the skeleton at their banquets.
+But to proceed with the narrative.
+
+
+
+XVIII.   When Isis had come to her son Horus, who was being reared at
+Buto,[FN#305] she deposited the chest in a remote and unfrequented
+place.  One night, however, when Typhon was hunting by the light of the
+moon, he came upon it by chance, and recognizing the body which was
+enclosed in it, he tore it into several pieces, fourteen[FN#306] in
+all, and scattered them in different places up and down the country.
+When Isis knew what had been done, she set out in search of the
+scattered portions of her husband's body; and in order to pass more
+easily through the lower, marshy parts of the country, she made use of
+a boat made of the papyrus plant.  For this reason, they say, either
+fearing the anger of the goddess, or else venerating the papyrus, the
+crocodile never injures anyone who travels in this sort of
+vessel.[FN#307]  And this, they say, hath given rise to the report that
+there are very many different sepulchres of Osiris in Egypt, for
+wherever Isis found one of the scattered portions of her husband's
+body, there she buried it.  Others, however, contradict this story, and
+tell us that the variety of sepulchres of Osiris was due rather to the
+policy of the queen, who, instead of the real body, as she pretended,
+presented to these cities only an image of her husband.  This she did
+in order to increase the honours which would by these means be paid to
+his memory, and also to defeat Typhon, who, if he were victorious in
+his fight against Horus in which he was about to engage, would search
+for the body of Osiris, and being distracted by the number of
+sepulchres would despair of ever being able to find the true one.  We
+are told, moreover, that notwithstanding all her efforts, Isis was
+never able to discover the phallus of Osiris, which, having been thrown
+into the Nile immediately upon its separation from the rest of the
+body,[FN#308] had been devoured by the Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and the
+Oxyrhynchus, fish which above all others, for this reason, the
+Egyptians have in more especial avoidance.  In order, however, to make
+some amends for the loss, Isis consecrated the phallus made in
+imitation of it, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory, which
+is even to this day observed by the Egyptians.
+
+
+
+[FN#305]  In Egyptian, the double city Pe-Tep.  See the texts from the
+Metternich Stele printed in this volume.
+
+[FN#306]  The fourteen members are: head, feet, bones, arms, heart,
+interior, tongue, eyes, fists, fingers, back, ears, loins, and body.
+Some of the lists in Egyptian add the face of a ram and the hair.  The
+cities in which Isis buried the portions of his body are: Koptos,
+Philae in Elephantine, Herakleopolis Magna, Kusae, Heliopolis,
+Diospolis of Lower Egypt, Letopolis, Sais, Hermopolis of Lower Egypt,
+Athribis, Aq (Schedia), Ab in the Libyan nome, Netert, Apis.
+
+[FN#307]  Moses was laid in an ark of bulrushes, i.e., papyrus, and was
+found uninjured.
+
+[FN#308]  We meet with a similar statement in the Tale of the Two
+Brothers, where we are told that the younger brother, having declared
+his innocence to the elder brother, out off his phallus and threw it
+into the river, where it was devoured by the naru fish.
+
+
+
+XIX.  After these things Osiris returned from the other world, and
+appeared to his son Horus, and encouraged him to fight, and at the same
+time instructed him in the exercise of arms.  He then asked him what he
+thought was the most glorious action a man could perform, to which
+Horus replied, "To revenge the injuries offered to his father[FN#309]
+and mother."  Osiris then asked him what animal he thought most
+serviceable to a soldier, and Horus replied, "A horse."  On this Osiris
+wondered, and he questioned him further, asking him why he preferred a
+horse to a lion, and Horus replied, "Though the lion is the more
+serviceable creature to one who stands in need of help, yet is the
+horse more useful in overtaking and cutting off a flying
+enemy."[FN#310]  These replies caused Osiris to rejoice greatly, for
+they showed him that his son was sufficiently prepared for his enemy.
+We are, moreover, told that amongst the great numbers who were
+continually deserting from Typhon's party was his concubine
+Thoueris,[FN#311] and that a serpent which pursued her as she was
+coming over to Horus was slain by his soldiers.  The memory of this
+action is, they say, still preserved in that cord which is thrown into
+the midst of their assemblies, and then chopped in pieces.  Afterwards
+a battle took place between Horus and Typhon, which lasted many days,
+but Horus was at length victorious, and Typhon was taken prisoner.  He
+was delivered over into the custody of Isis, who, instead of putting
+him to death, loosed his fetters and set him free.  This action of his
+mother incensed Horus to such a degree that he seized her, and pulled
+the royal crown off her head; but Hermes came forward, and set upon her
+head the head of an ox instead of a helmet.[FN#312]  After this Typhon
+accused Horus of illegitimacy, but, by the assistance of Hermes, his
+legitimacy was fully established by a decree of the gods
+themselves.[FN#313]  After this two other battles were fought between
+Horus and Typhon, and in both Typhon was defeated.  Moreover, Isis is
+said to have had union with Osiris after his death,[FN#314] and she
+brought forth Harpokrates,[FN#315] who came into the world before his
+time, and was lame in his lower limbs.
+
+
+
+[FN#309]  The texts give as a very common title of Horus, "Horus, the
+avenger of his father."
+
+[FN#310]  There is no evidence that the Egyptians employed the horse in
+war before the XVIIIth Dynasty, a fact which proves that the dialogue
+here given is an invention of a much later date than the original
+legend of Osiris.
+
+[FN#311]  In Egyptian, TA-URT, the hippopotamus goddess.
+
+[FN#312]  According to the legend given in the Fourth Sallier Papyrus,
+the fight between Horus and Set began on the 26th day of the month of
+Thoth, and lasted three days and three nights.  It was fought in or
+near the hall of the lords of Kher-aha, i.e., near Heliopolis, and in
+the presence of Isis, who seems to have tried to spare both her brother
+Set and her son Horus.  For some reason Horus became enraged with his
+mother, and attacking her like a "leopard of the south," he cut off the
+head of Isis.  Thereupon Thoth came forward, and using words of power,
+created a substitute in the form of a cow's head, and placed it on her
+body (Sallier, iv., p. 2; see Select Papyri, pl. cxlv.).
+
+[FN#313]  Horus inherited the throne by his father's will, a fact which
+is so often emphasized in the texts that it seems there may be some
+ground for Plutarch's view.
+
+[FN#314]  This view is confirmed by the words in the hymn to Osiris,
+"she moved the inactivity of the Still-Heart (Osiris), she drew from
+him his essence, she made an heir."
+
+[FN#315]  In Egyptian, HERU-PA-KHART, "Horus the Child."
+
+
+
+XX.  Such then are the principal circumstances of this famous story,
+the more harsh and shocking parts of it, such as the cutting up of
+Horus and the beheading of Isis, being omitted.  Now, if such could be
+supposed to be the real sentiments of the Egyptians concerning those
+divine Beings whose most distinguishing characteristics are happiness
+and immortality, or could it be imagined that they actually believed
+what they thus tell us ever to have actually taken place, I should not
+need to warn you, O Clea, you who are already sufficiently averse to
+such impious and absurd notions of the God, I should not, I say, have
+need to caution you, to testify your abhorrence of them, and, as
+Aeschylus expresses it, "to spit and wash your mouth" after the recital
+of them.  In the present case, however, it is not so.  And I doubt not
+that you yourself are conscious of the difference between this history
+and those light and idle fictions which the poets and other writers of
+fables, like spiders, weave and spin out of their own imaginations,
+without having any substantial ground or firm foundation to work upon.
+There must have been some real distress, some actual calamity, at the
+bottom as the ground-work of the narration; for, as mathematicians
+assure us, the rainbow is nothing else but a variegated image of the
+sun, thrown upon the sight by the reflection of his beams from the
+clouds; and thus ought we to look upon the present story as the
+representation, or rather reflection, of something real as its true
+cause.  And this notion is still farther suggested to us as well by
+that solemn air of grief and sadness which appears in their sacrifices,
+as by the very form and arrangement of their temples, which extend into
+long avenues and open aisles in some portions,[FN#316] and in others
+retreating into dark and gloomy chapels which resembled the underground
+vaults which are allotted to the dead.  That the history has a
+substantial foundation is proved by the opinion which obtains generally
+concerning the sepulchres of Osiris.  There are many places wherein his
+body is said to have been deposited, and among these are Abydos and
+Memphis, both of which are said to contain his body.  It is for this
+reason, they say, that the richer and more prosperous citizens wish to
+be buried in the former of these cities, being ambitious of lying, as
+it were, in the grave with Osiris.[FN#317]  The title of Memphis to be
+regarded as the grave of Osiris seems to rest upon the fact that the
+Apis Bull, who is considered to be the image of the soul of Osiris, is
+kept in that city for the express purpose that it may be as near his
+body as possible.[FN#318]  Others again tell us that the interpretation
+of the name Memphis[FN#319] is "the haven of good men," and that the
+true sepulchre of Osiris lies in that little island which the Nile
+makes at Philae.[FN#320]  This island is, they say, inaccessible, and
+neither bird can alight on it, nor fish swim near it, except at the
+times when the priests go over to it from the mainland to solemnize
+their customary rites to the dead, and to crown his tomb with flowers,
+which, they say, is overshadowed by the branches of a tamarisk-tree,
+the size of which exceeds that of an olive-tree.
+
+
+
+[FN#316]  Plutarch refers to the long colonnaded courts which extend in
+a straight line to the sanctuary, which often contains more than one
+shrine, and to the chambers wherein temple properties, vestments, &c.,
+were kept.
+
+[FN#317]  In what city the cult of Osiris originated is not known, but
+it is quite certain that before the end of the VIth Dynasty Abydos
+became the centre of his worship, and that he dispossessed the local
+god An-Her in the affections of the people.  Tradition affirmed that
+the head of Osiris was preserved at Abydos in a box, and a picture of
+it, #### became the symbol of the city.  At Abydos a sort of miracle
+play, in which all the sufferings and resurrection of Osiris were
+commemorated, was performed annually, and the raising up of a model of
+his body, and the placing of his head upon it, were the culminating
+ceremonies.  At Abydos was the famous shaft into which offerings were
+cast for transmission to the dead in the Other World, and through the
+Gap in the hills close by souls were believed to set out on their
+journey thither.  One tradition places the Elysian Fields in the
+neighbourhood of Abydos.  A fine stone bier, a restoration probably of
+the XXVIth Dynasty, which represented the original bier of Osiris, was
+discovered there by M. Amelineau.  It is now in the Egyptian Museum at
+Cairo.
+
+[FN#318]  Apis is called the "life of Osiris," ####, and on the death
+of the Bull, its soul went to heaven and joined itself to that of
+Osiris, and it formed with him the dual-god Asar-Hep, i.e., Osiris-
+Apis, or Sarapis.  The famous Serapeum at Memphis was called ####.
+
+[FN#319]  In Egyptian, Men-Nefer, i.e., "fair haven."
+
+[FN#320]  Osiris and Isis were worshipped at Philae until the reign of
+Justinian, when his general, Narses, closed the temple and carried off
+the statues of the gods to Constantinople, where they were probably
+melted down.
+
+
+
+XXI.  Eudoxus indeed asserts that, although there are many pretended
+sepulchres of Osiris in Egypt, the, place where his body actually lies
+is Busiris,[FN#321] where likewise he was born.[FN#322]  As to
+Taphosiris, there is no need to mention it particularly, for its very
+name indicates its claim to be the tomb of Osiris.  There are likewise
+other circumstances in the Egyptian ritual which hint to us the reality
+upon which this history is grounded, such as their cleaving the trunk
+of a tree, their wrapping it up in linen which they tear in pieces for
+that purpose, and the libations of oil which they afterwards pour upon
+it; but these I do not insist on, because they are intermixed with such
+of their mysteries as may not be revealed.
+
+
+
+[FN#321] In Egyptian, Pa-Asar-neb-Tetu, "the house of Osiris, the lord
+of Tetu."  In the temple of Neb-Sekert, the backbone of the god was
+preserved, according to one text, but another says it was his jaws(?)
+and interior.
+
+[FN#322]  This view represents a late tradition, or at all events one
+which sprang up after the decay of Abydos.
+
+
+
+[FIRST EXPLANATION OF THE STORY.]
+
+
+
+XXII.  Now as to those who, from many things of this kind, some of
+which are proclaimed openly, and others are darkly hinted at in their
+religious institutions, would conclude that the whole story is no other
+than a mere commemoration of the various actions of their kings and
+other great men, who, by reason of their excellent virtue and the
+mightiness of their power, added to their other titles the honour of
+divinity, though they afterwards fell into many and grievous
+calamities, those, I say, who would in this manner account for the
+various scenes above-mentioned, must be owned indeed to make use of a
+very plausible method of eluding such difficulties as may arise about
+this subject, and ingeniously enough to transfer the most shocking
+parts of it from the divine to the human nature.  Moreover, it must be
+admitted that such a solution is not entirely destitute of any
+appearance of historical evidence for its support.  For when the
+Egyptians themselves tell us that Hermes had one hand shorter than
+another, that Typhon was of red complexion, Horus fair, and Osiris
+black, does not this show that they were of the human species, and
+subject to the same accidents as all other men?[FN#323]  Nay, they go
+farther, and even declare the particular work in which each was engaged
+whilst alive.  Thus they say that Osiris was a general, that Canopus,
+from whom the star took its name, was a pilot, and that the ship which
+the Greeks call Argo, being made in imitation of the ship of Osiris,
+was, in honour of him, turned into a constellation and placed near
+Orion and the Dog-star, the former being sacred to Horus and the latter
+to Isis.
+
+
+
+[FN#323]  Red is the colour attributed to all fiends in the Egyptian
+texts.  One of the forms of Horus is described as being "blue-eyed,"
+and the colour of the face of Osiris is often green, and sometimes
+black.
+
+
+
+XXIII.  But I am much afraid that to give in to this explanation of the
+story will be to move things which ought not to be moved; and not only,
+as Simonides says, "to declare war against all antiquity," but likewise
+against whole families and nations who are fully possessed with the
+belief in the divinity of these beings.  And it would be no less than
+dispossessing those great names of their heaven, and bringing them down
+to the earth.  It would be to shake and loosen a worship and faith
+which have been firmly settled in nearly all mankind from their
+infancy.  It would be to open a wide door for atheism to enter in at,
+and to encourage the attempts of those who would humanize the divine
+nature.  More particularly it would give a clear sanction and authority
+to the impostures of Euhemerus the Messenian, who from mere
+imagination, and without the least appearance of truth to support it,
+has invented a new mythology of his own, asserting that "all those in
+general who are called and declared to be gods are none other than so
+many ancient generals and sea-captains and kings."  Now, he says that
+he found this statement written in the Panchaean dialect in letters of
+gold, though in what part of the globe his Panchaeans dwell, any more
+than the Tryphillians, whom he mentions at the same time with them, he
+does not inform us.  Nor can I learn that any other person, whether
+Greek or Barbarian, except himself, has ever yet been so fortunate as
+to meet with these imaginary countries.
+
+
+
+
+[In Sec. XXIV.  Plutarch goes on to say that the Assyrians commemorate
+Semiramis, the Egyptians Sesostris, the Phrygians Manis or Masdis, the
+Persians Cyrus, and the Macedonians Alexander, yet these heroes are not
+regarded as gods by their peoples.  The kings who have accepted the
+title of gods have afterwards had to suffer the reproach of vanity and
+presumption, and impiety and injustice.]
+
+
+
+[SECOND EXPLANATION OF THE STORY.]
+
+
+
+XXV.  There is another and a better method which some employ in
+explaining this story.  They assert that what is related of Typhon,
+Osiris, and Isis is not to be regarded as the afflictions of gods, or
+of mere mortals, but rather as the adventures of certain great Daemons.
+These beings, they say, are supposed by some of the wisest of the Greek
+philosophers, that is to say, Plato, Pythagoras, Xenocrates, and
+Chrysippus, in accordance with what they had learned from ancient
+theologians, to be stronger and more powerful than men, and of a nature
+superior to them.  They are, at the same time, inferior to the pure and
+unmixed nature of the gods, as partaking of the sensations of the body,
+as well as of the perceptions of the soul, and consequently liable to
+pain as well as pleasure, and to such other appetites and affections,
+as flow from their various combinations.  Such affections, however,
+have a greater power and influence over some of them than over others,
+just as there are different degrees of virtue and vice found in these
+Daemons as well as in mankind.  In like manner, the wars of the Giants
+and the Titans which are so much spoken of by the Greeks, the
+detestable actions of Kronos, the combats between Apollo and the
+Python, the flights of Dionysos, and the wanderings of Demeter, are
+exactly of the same nature as the adventures of Osiris and Typhon.
+Therefore, they all are to be accounted for in the same manner, and
+every treatise of mythology will readily furnish us with an abundance
+of other similar instances.  The same thing may also be affirmed of
+those other things which are so carefully concealed under the cover of
+mysteries and imitations.
+
+
+
+[In Sec. XXVI.  Plutarch points out that Homer calls great and good men
+"god-like" and "God's compeers," but the word Daemon is applied to the
+good and bad indifferently (see Odyssey, vi. 12; Iliad, xiii. 810, v.
+438, iv. 31, &c.).  Plato assigns to the Olympian Gods good things and
+the odd numbers, and the opposite to the Daemons.  Xenocrates believed
+in the existence of a series of strong and powerful beings which take
+pleasure in scourgings and fastings, &c.  Hesiod speaks of "holy
+daemons" (Works and Days, 126) and "guardians of mankind," and
+"bestowers of wealth," and these are regarded by Plato as a "middle
+order of beings between the gods and men, interpreters of the wills of
+the gods to men, and ministering to their wants, carrying the prayers
+and supplications of mortals to heaven, and bringing down thence in
+return oracles and all other blessings of life."  Empedocles thought
+that the Daemons underwent punishment, and that when chastened and
+purified they were restored to their original state.]
+
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXVII.  To this class belonged Typhon, who was punished by Isis.  In
+memory of all she had done and suffered, she established certain rites
+and mysteries which were to be types and images of her deeds, and
+intended these to incite people to piety, and, to afford them
+consolation.  Isis and Osiris were translated from good Daemons into
+gods, and the honours due to them are rightly of a mixed kind, being
+those due to gods and Daemons.  Osiris is none other than Pluto, and
+Isis is not different from Proserpine.]
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXX.  Typhon is held by the Egyptians in the greatest contempt, and
+they do all they can to vilify him.  The colour red being associated
+with him, they treat with contumely all those who have a ruddy
+complexion; the ass[FN#324] being usually of a reddish colour, the men
+of Koptos are in the habit of sacrificing asses by casting them down
+precipices. The inhabitants of Busiris and Lycopolis never use
+trumpets, because their sounds resemble the braying of an ass.  The
+cakes which are offered at the festivals during Paoni and Paopi are
+stamped with the figure of a fettered ass.  The Pythagoreans regarded
+Typhon as a daemon, and according to them he was produced in the even
+number fifty-six; and Eudoxus says that a figure of fifty-six angles
+typifies the nature of Typhon.]
+
+
+
+[FN#324]  The ass is associated with Set, or Typhon, in the texts, but
+on account of his virility he also typifies a form of the Sun-god.  In
+a hymn the deceased prays, "May I smite the Ass, may I crush the
+serpent-fiend Sebau," but the XLth Chapter of the Book of the Dead is
+entitled, "Chapter of driving back the Eater of the Ass."  The vignette
+shows us the deceased in the act of spearing a monster serpent which
+has fastened its jaws in the back of an ass.  In Chapter CXXV. there is
+a dialogue between the Cat and the Ass.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXXI.  The Egyptians only sacrifice red-coloured bulls, and a single
+black or white hair in the animal's head disqualifies it for sacrifice.
+They sacrifice creatures wherein the souls of the wicked have been
+confined, and through this view arose the custom of cursing the animal
+to be sacrificed, and cutting off its bead and throwing it into the
+Nile.  No bullock is sacrificed which has not on it the seal of the
+priests who were called "Sealers."  The impression from this seal
+represents a man upon his knees, with his hands tied behind him, and a
+sword pointed at his throat.  The ass is identified with Typhon not
+only because of his colour, but also because of his stupidity and the
+sensuality of his disposition.  The Persian king Ochus was nicknamed
+the "Ass," which made him to say, "This ass shall dine upon your ox,"
+and accordingly he slew Apis.  Typhon is said to have escaped from
+Horus by a flight of seven days on an ass.]
+
+
+
+[THIRD EXPLANATION OF THE STORY.]
+
+
+
+XXXII.  Such then are the arguments of those who endeavour to account
+for the above-mentioned history of Isis and Osiris upon a supposition
+that they were of the order of Daemons; but there are others who
+pretend to explain it upon other principles, and in more philosophical
+manner.  To begin, then, with those whose reasoning is the most simple
+and obvious.  As the Greeks allegorize their Kronos into Time, and
+their Hera into Air, and tell us that the birth of Hephaistos is no
+other but the change of air into fire, so these philosophers say that
+by Osiris the Egyptians mean the Nile, by Isis that part of the country
+which Osiris, or the Nile, overflows, and by Typhon the sea, which, by
+receiving the Nile as it runs into it, does, as it were, tear it into
+many pieces, and indeed entirely destroys it, excepting only so much of
+it as is admitted into the bosom of the earth in its passage over it,
+which is thereby rendered fertile.  The truth of this explanation is
+confirmed, they say, by that sacred dirge which they make over Osiris
+when they bewail "him who was born on the right side of the world and
+who perished on the left."[FN#325]  For it must be observed that the
+Egyptians look upon the east as the front or face of the world,[FN#326]
+upon the north as its right side,[FN#327] and upon the south as its
+left.[FN#328]  As, therefore, the Nile rises in the south, and running
+directly northwards is at last swallowed up by the sea, it may rightly
+enough be said to be born on the right and to perish on the left side.
+This conclusion, they say, is still farther strengthened from that
+abhorrence which the priests express towards the sea, as well as salt,
+which they call "Typhon's foam."  And amongst their prohibitions is one
+which forbids salt being laid on their tables.  And do they not also
+carefully avoid speaking to pilots, because this class of men have much
+to do with the sea and get their living by it?  And this is not the
+least of their reasons for the great dislike which they have for fish,
+and they even make the fish a symbol of "hatred," as is proved by the
+pictures which are to be seen on the porch of the temple of Neith at
+Sais.  The first of these is a child, the second is an old man, the
+third is a hawk, and then follow a fish and a hippopotamus.  The
+meaning of all these is evidently, "O you who are coming into the
+world, and you who are going out of it (i.e., both young and old), God
+hateth impudence."  For by the child is indicated "all those who are
+coming into life"; by the old man, "those who are going out of it"; by
+the hawk, "God"; by the fish, "hatred," on account of the sea, as has
+been before stated; and by the hippopotamus, "impudence," this creature
+being said first to slay his sire, and afterwards to force his
+dam.[FN#329]  The Pythagoreans likewise may be thought perhaps by some
+to have looked upon the sea as impure, and quite different from all the
+rest of nature, and that thus much is intended by them when they call
+it the "tears of Kronos."
+
+
+
+[FN#325]  Plutarch here refers to Osiris as the Moon, which rises in
+the West.
+
+[FN#326]  According to the texts the front of the world was the south,
+khent, #### and from this word is formed the verb #### #### "to sail to
+the south."
+
+[FN#327]  In the texts the west is the right side, unemi, #### in
+Coptic, ####.
+
+[FN#328]  In the texts the east is the left side, abti.
+
+[FN#329]  Each of these signs, ####, except the last, does mean what
+Plutarch says it means, but his method of reading them together is
+wrong, and it proves that he did not understand that hieroglyphics were
+used alphabetically as well as ideographically.
+
+
+
+[Secs. XXXIII., XXXIV.  Some of the more philosophical priests assert that
+Osiris does not symbolize the Nile only, nor Typhon the sea only, but
+that Osiris represents the principle and power of moisture in general,
+and that Typhon represents everything which is scorching, burning, and
+fiery, and whatever destroys moisture.  Osiris they believe to have
+been of a black[FN#330] colour, because water gives a black tinge to
+everything with which it is mixed.  The Mnevis Bull[FN#331] kept at
+Heliopolis is, like Osiris, black in colour, "and even Egypt[FN#332]
+itself, by reason of the extreme blackness of the soil, is called by
+them 'Chemia,' the very name which is given to the black part or pupil
+of the eye.[FN#333]  It is, moreover, represented by them under the
+figure of a human heart."  The Sun and Moon are not represented as
+being drawn about in chariots, but as sailing round the world in ships,
+which shows that they owe their motion, support, and nourishment to the
+power of humidity.[FN#334]  Homer and Thales both learned from Egypt
+that "water was the first principle of all things, and the cause of
+generation."[FN#335]]
+
+
+
+[FN#330]  Experiments recently conducted by Lord Rayleigh indicate that
+the true colour of water is blue.
+
+[FN#331]  In Egyptian, Nem-ur, or Men-ur, and he was "called the life
+of Ra."
+
+[FN#332]  The commonest name of Egypt is Kemt, "black land," as opposed
+to the reddish-yellow sandy deserts on each side of the "valley of
+black mud."  The word for "black" is kam.
+
+[FN#333]  Plutarch seems to have erred here.  The early texts call the
+pupil of the eye "the child in the eye," as did the Semitic peoples
+(see my Liturgy of Funerary Offerings, p. 136).  The Copts spoke of the
+"black of the eye," derived from the hieroglyphic "darkness,"
+"blackness."
+
+[FN#334]  There is no support for this view in the texts.
+
+[FN#335]  It was a very common belief in Egypt that all things arose
+from the great celestial ocean called Nu, whence came the Nile.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXXVI.  The Nile and all kinds of moisture are called the "efflux of
+Osiris."  Therefore a water-pitcher[FN#336] is always carried first in
+his processions, and the leaf of a fir-tree represents both Osiris and
+Egypt.[FN#337]  Osiris is the great principle of fecundity, which is
+proved by the Pamylia festivals, in which a statue of the god with a
+triple phallus is carried about.[FN#338]  The three-fold phallus merely
+signifies any great and indefinite number.]
+
+
+
+[FN#336]  Plutarch refers to the vessel of water, with which the priest
+sprinkles the ground to purify it.
+
+[FN#337]  He seems to refer here to the olive-tree: Beqet, "olive
+land," was one of the names of Egypt.
+
+[FN#338]  Plutarch seems to be confounding Osiris with Menu, the god of
+generation, who is generally represented in an ithyphallic form.  The
+festival of the phallus survived in Egypt until quite recently.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXXVIII.  The Sun is consecrated to Osiris, and the lion is
+worshipped, and temples are ornamented with figures of this animal,
+because the Nile rises when the sun is in the constellation of the
+Lion.  Horus, the offspring of Osiris, the Nile, and Isis, the Earth,
+was born in the marshes of Buto, because the vapour of damp land
+destroys drought.  Nephthys, or Teleute, represents the extreme limits
+of the country and the sea-shore, that is, barren land.  Osiris (i.e.,
+the Nile) overflowed this barren land, and Anubis[FN#339] was the
+result.[FN#340]]
+
+
+
+[FN#339]  The Egyptian Anpu.  The texts make one form of him to be the
+son of Set and Nephthys.
+
+[FN#340]  Plutarch's explanations in this chapter are unsupported by
+the texts.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XXXIX.  In the first part of this chapter Plutarch continues his
+identification of Typhon with drought, and his ally Aso, Queen of
+Ethiopia, he considers to be the Etesian or north winds, which blow for
+a long period when the Nile is falling. He goes on to say:--]
+
+As to what they relate of the shutting up of Osiris in a box, this
+appears to mean the withdrawal of the Nile to its own bed.  This is the
+more probable as this misfortune is said to have happened to Osiris in
+the month of Hathor, precisely at that season of the year when, upon
+the cessation of the Etesian or north winds the Nile returns to its own
+bed, and leaves the country everywhere bare and naked.  At this time
+also the length of the nights increases, darkness prevails, whilst
+light is diminished and overcome.  At this time the priests celebrate
+doleful rites, and they exhibit as a suitable representation of the
+grief of Isis a gilded ox covered with a fine black linen cloth.  Now,
+the ox is regarded as the living image of Osiris.  This ceremony is
+performed on the seventeenth and three following days,[FN#341] and they
+mourn: 1.  The falling of the Nile; 2.  The cessation of the north
+winds; 3.  The decrease in the length of the days; 4.  The desolate
+condition of the land.  On the nineteenth of the month Pachons they
+march in procession to the sea, whither the priests and other officials
+carry the sacred chest, wherein is enclosed a small boat of gold; into
+this they first pour some water, and then all present cry out with a
+loud voice, "Osiris is found."  This done, they throw some earth,
+scent, and spices into the water, and mix it well together, and work it
+up into the image of a crescent, which they afterwards dress in
+clothes.  This shows that they regard the gods as the essence and power
+of water and earth.
+
+
+
+[FN#341]  The 17th day is very unlucky; the 18th is very lucky; the
+19th and 20th are very unlucky.  On the 17th day Isis and Nephthys made
+great lamentation for their brother Un-nefer at Sais; on the 19th no
+man should leave the house; and the man born on the 20th would die of
+the plague.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XL.  Though Typhon was conquered by Horus, Isis would not allow him
+to be destroyed. Typhon was once master of all Egypt, i.e., Egypt was
+once covered by the sea, which is proved by the sea-shells which are
+dug out of the mines, and are found on the tops of the hills.  The Nile
+year by year creates new land, and thus drives away the sea further and
+further, i.e., Osiris triumphs over Typhon.]
+
+
+
+[FOURTH EXPLANATION OF THE STORY.]
+
+
+
+[Sec. XLI.  Osiris is the Moon, and Typhon is the Sun; Typhon is therefore
+called Seth,[FN#342] a word meaning "violence," "force," &c.  Herakles
+accompanies the Sun, and Hermes the Moon.  In Sec. XLII. Plutarch connects
+the death-day of Osiris, the seventeenth of Hathor, with the
+seventeenth day of the Moon's revolution, when she begins to wane.  The
+age of Osiris, twenty-eight years, suggests the comparison with the
+twenty-eight days of the Moon's revolution.  The tree-trunk which is
+made into the shape of a crescent at the funeral of Osiris refers to
+the crescent moon when she wanes.  The fourteen pieces into which
+Osiris was broken refer to the fourteen days in which the moon wanes.]
+
+
+
+[FN#342]  In Egyptian, ####, or #### which Plutarch seems to connect
+with set, ####.
+
+
+
+[Sec. XLIII.  The height of the Nile in flood at Elephantine is twenty-
+eight cubits, at Mendes and Xois low Nile is seven cubits, and at
+Memphis middle Nile is fourteen cubits; these figures are to be
+compared with the twenty-eight days of the Moon's revolution, the
+seven-day phase of the Moon, and the fourteen days' Moon, or full moon.
+Apis was begotten by a ray of light from the Moon, and on the
+fourteenth day of the month Phamenoth[FN#343] Osiris entered the Moon.
+Osiris is the power of the Moon, Isis the productive faculty in it.]
+
+
+
+[FN#343]  Marked in the papyrus Sallier IV. as a particularly unlucky
+day.
+
+
+
+[FIFTH EXPLANATION OF THE STORY.]
+
+
+
+[Sec. XLIV.  The philosophers say that the story is nothing but an
+enigmatical description of the phenomena of Eclipses.  In Sec. XLV.
+Plutarch discusses the five explanations which he has described, and
+begins to state his own views about them.  It must be concluded, he
+says, that none of these explanations taken by itself contains the true
+explanation of the foregoing history, though all of them together do.
+Typhon means every phase of Nature which is hurtful and destructive,
+not only drought, darkness, the sea, &c.  It is impossible that any one
+cause, be it bad or even good, should be the common principle of all
+things.  There must be two opposite and quite different and distinct
+Principles.  In Sec. XLVI., Plutarch compares this view with the Magian
+belief in Ormazd and Ahriman, the former springing from light (Sec.
+XLVII.), and the latter from darkness.  Ormazd made six good gods, and
+Ahriman six of a quite contrary nature.  Ormazd increased his own bulk
+three times, and adorned the heaven with stars, making the Sun to be
+the guard of the other stars.  He then created twenty-four other gods,
+and placed them in an egg, and Ahriman also created twenty-four gods;
+the latter bored a hole in the shell of the egg and effected an
+entrance into it, and thus good and evil became mixed together.  In Sec.
+XLVIII. Plutarch quotes Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, and Plato in
+support of his hypothesis of the Two Principles, and refers to Plato's
+Third Principle.  Sec. XLIX.  Osiris represents the good qualities of the
+universal Soul, and Typhon the bad; Bebo[FN#344] is a malignant being
+like Typhon, with whom Manetho identifies him.  Sec. L.  The ass,
+crocodile, and hippopotamus are all associated with Typhon; in the form
+of a crocodile Typhon escaped from Horus.[FN#345]
+
+
+
+[FN#344]  In Egyptian, Bebi, or Baba, or Babai, he was the first-born
+Son of Osiris.
+
+[FN#345]  See the Legend of Heru-Behutet, {pr. 67}.
+
+
+
+The cakes offered on the seventh day of the month Tybi have a
+hippopotamus stamped on them.  Sec. LI.  Osiris symbolizes wisdom and
+power, and Typhon all that is malignant and bad.]
+
+The remaining sections contain a long series of fanciful statements by
+Plutarch concerning the religion and manners and customs of the
+Egyptians, of which the Egyptian texts now available give no proofs.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Legends Of The Gods, by E. A. Wallis Budge
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE GODS ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/livesofthemostremarkablecriminals b/files/books/unrelated/livesofthemostremarkablecriminals
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41272c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/livesofthemostremarkablecriminals
@@ -0,0 +1,28989 @@
+Produced by Eloise Mason and Cally Soukup, and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HIGHWAY MURDER ON HOUNSLOW HEATH
+
+The assailant is strangling his victim with a whip-thong; nearby is a
+typical roadside gallows with two highwaymen dangling from the
+cross-tree
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF THE
+
+MOST REMARKABLE
+
+CRIMINALS
+
+Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway,
+Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
+
+_Collected from Original Papers and Authentic Memoirs, and
+Published in 1735_
+
+EDITED BY
+
+ARTHUR L. HAYWARD
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Introduction
+
+Volume One
+
+Preface--Jane Griffin--John Trippuck, Richard Cane and Richard
+Shepherd--William Barton--Robert Perkins--Barbara Spencer--Walter
+Kennedy--Matthew Clark--John Winship--John Meff--John Wigley--William
+Casey--John Dykes--Richard James--James Wright--Nathaniel Hawes--John
+Jones--John Smith--James Shaw, _alias_ Smith--William Colthouse--William
+Burridge--John Thomson--Thomas Reeves--Richard Whittingham--James
+Booty--Thomas Butlock--Nathaniel Jackson--James Carrick--John
+Molony--Thomas Wilson--Robert Wilkinson and James Lincoln--Mathias
+Brinsden--Edmund Neal--Charles Weaver--John Levee--Richard Oakey and
+Matthew Flood--William Burk--Luke Nunney--Richard Trantham--John Tyrrell
+and William Hawksworth--William Duce--James Butler--Captain John
+Massey--Philip Roche--Humphrey Angier--Captain Stanley--Stephen
+Gardiner--Samuel Ogden, John Pugh, William Frost, Richard Woodman and
+William Elisha--Thomas Burden--Frederick Schmidt--Peter Curtis--Lumley
+Davis--James Harman--John Lewis--The Waltham Blacks--Julian, a Black
+Boy--Abraham Deval--Joseph Blake, _alias_ Blueskin--John Shepherd--Lewis
+Houssart--Charles Towers--Thomas Anderson--Joseph Picken--Thomas
+Packer--Thomas Bradely--William Lipsat--John Hewlet--James Cammell and
+William Marshal--John Guy--Vincent Davis--Mary Hanson--Bryan
+Smith--Joseph Ward--James White--Joseph Middleton
+
+
+Volume Two
+
+Preface--William Sperry--Robert Harpham--Jonathan Wild--John
+Little--John Price--Foster Snow--John Whalebone--James Little--John
+Hamp--John Austin, John Foster and Richard Scurrier--Francis
+Bailey--John Barton--William Swift--Edward Burnworth, etc.--John
+Gillingham--John Cotterel--Catherine Hayes--Thomas Billings--Thomas
+Wood--Captain Jaen--William Bourn--John Murrel--William Hollis--Thomas
+Smith--Edward Reynolds--John Claxton--Mary Standford--John
+Cartwright--Frances Blacket--Jane Holmes--Katherine Fitzpatrick--Mary
+Robinson--Jane Martin--Timothy Benson--Joseph Shrewsberry--Anthony
+Drury--William Miller--Robert Haynes--Thomas Timms, Thomas Perry and
+Edward Brown--Alice Green--An Account of the Murder of Mr. Widdington
+Darby--Joshua Cornwall
+
+
+Volume Three
+
+John Turner, _alias_ Civil John--John Johnson--James Sherwood, George
+Weldon and John Hughs--Martin Bellamy--William Russell, Robert Crough and
+William Holden--Christopher Rawlins, etc.--Richard Hughes and Bryan
+MacGuire--James How--Griffith Owen, Samuel Harris and Thomas
+Medline--Peter Levee, etc.--Thomas Neeves--Henry Gahogan and Robert
+Blake--Peter Kelley--William Marple and Timothy Cotton--John
+Upton--Jephthah Bigg--Thomas James Grundy--Joseph Kemp--Benjamin
+Wileman--James Cluff--John Dyer--William Rogers, William Simpson and
+Robert Oliver--James Drummond--William Caustin and Geoffrey
+Younger--Henry Knowland and Thomas Westwood--John Everett--Robert
+Drummond and Ferdinando Shrimpton--William Newcomb--Stephen
+Dowdale--Abraham Israel--Ebenezer Ellison--James Dalton--Hugh
+Houghton--John Doyle--John Young--Thomas Polson--Samuel
+Armstrong--Nicholas Gilburn--James O'Bryan, Hugh Morris and Robert
+Johnson--Captain John Gow
+
+Appendix
+
+Index
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Murder on Hounslow Heath
+Matthew Clark cutting the throat of Sarah Goldington
+A Prisoner Under Pressure in Newgate
+The Hangman arrested when attending John Meff to Tyburn
+Stephen Gardiner making his dying speech at Tyburn
+Jack Sheppard in the Stone Room in Newgate
+Trial of a Highwayman at the Old Bailey
+Jonathan Wild pelted by the mob on his way to Tyburn
+A Condemned Man drawn on a Sledge to Tyburn
+The Murder of John Hayes:
+  Catherine Hayes, Wood and Billings cutting off the head
+  John Hayes's Head exhibited at St. Margaret's, Westminster
+  Catherine Hayes burnt for the murder of her husband
+Joseph Blake attempting the life of Jonathan Wild
+An Execution in Smithfield Market
+Highway Robbery of His Majesty's Mail
+A Gang of Men and Women Transports being marched from
+  Newgate to Blackfriars
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+    _To close the scene of all his actions he
+    Was brought from Newgate to the fatal tree;
+    And there his life resigned, his race is run,
+    And Tyburn ends what wickedness begun._
+
+If there be a haunted spot in London it must surely be a few square
+yards that lie a little west of the Marble Arch, for in the long course
+of some six centuries over fifty thousand felons, traitors and martyrs
+took there a last farewell of a world they were too bad or too good to
+live in. From remote antiquity, when the seditious were taken _ad furcas
+Tyburnam_, until that November day in 1783 when John Austin closed the
+long list, the gallows were kept ever busy, and during the first half of
+the eighteenth century, with which this book deals, every Newgate
+sessions sent thither its thieves, highwaymen and coiners by the score.
+
+There has been some discussion as to the exact site of Tyburn gallows,
+but there can be little doubt that the great permanent three-beamed
+erection--the Triple Tree--stood where now the Edgware Road joins Oxford
+Street and Bayswater Road. A triangular stone let into the roadway
+indicates the site of one of its uprights. In 1759 the sinister beams
+were pulled down, a moveable gibbet being brought in a cart when there
+was occasion to use it. The moveable gallows was in use until 1783, when
+the place of execution was transferred to Newgate; the beams of the old
+structure being sawn up and converted to a more genial use as stands for
+beer-butts in a neighbouring public-house.
+
+The original gallows probably consisted of two uprights with a
+cross-piece, but when Elizabeth's government felt that more adequate
+means must be provided to strengthen its subjects' faith and enforce the
+penal laws against Catholics, a new type of gibbet was sought. So in
+1571 the triangular one was erected, with accommodation for eight such
+miscreants on each beam, or a grand total of twenty-four at a
+stringing. It was first used for the learned Dr. John Story, who, upon
+June 1st, "was drawn upon a hurdle from the Tower of London unto Tyburn,
+where was prepared for him a new pair of gallows made in triangular
+manner". There is rather a gruesome tale of how, when in pursuance of
+the sentence the executioner had cut him down and was "rifling among his
+bowels", the doctor arose and dealt him a shrewd blow on the head.
+Doctor Story was followed by a long line of priests, monks, laymen and
+others who died for their faith to the number of some three thousand.
+And the Triple Tree, the Three-Legged Mare, or Deadly Never-green, as
+the gallows were called with grim familiarity, flourished for another
+two hundred years.
+
+In the early eighteenth century it appears to have been the usual custom
+to reserving sentencing until the end of the sessions, but as soon as
+the jury's verdict of guilty was known steps were taken to procure a
+pardon by the condemned man's friends. They had, indeed, much more
+likelihood of success in those times when the Law was so severe than in
+later days when capital punishment was reserved for the most heinous
+crimes. On several occasions in the following pages mention is made of
+felons urging their friends to bribe or make interest in the right
+quarters for obtaining a pardon, or commutation of the sentence to one
+of transportation. It was not until the arrival of the death warrant
+that the condemned man felt that the "Tyburn tippet" was really being
+drawn about his neck.
+
+No better description can be given of the ride to Tyburn tree, from
+Newgate and along Holborn, than that furnished by one of the _Familiar
+Letters_ written by Samuel Richardson in 1741:
+
+    I mounted my horse and accompanied the melancholy cavalcade from
+    Newgate to the fatal Tree. The criminals were five in number. I was
+    much disappointed at the unconcern and carelessness that appeared in
+    the faces of three of the unhappy wretches; the countenance of the
+    other two were spread with that horror and despair which is not to
+    be wondered at in men whose period of life is so near, with the
+    terrible aggravation of its being hastened by their own voluntary
+    indiscretion and misdeeds. The exhortation spoken by the Bell-man,
+    from the wall of St. Sepulchre's churchyard is well intended; but
+    the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly
+    curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the
+    criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear the
+    words of the exhortation when spoken, though they are as follows:
+
+      All good people pray heartily to God for these poor sinners, who are
+    now going to their deaths; for whom this great bell doth toll.
+
+      You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears. Ask
+    mercy of the Lord for the salvation of your own souls through the
+    merits, death and passion of Jesus Christ, Who now sits at the right
+    hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently
+    return unto Him.
+
+      Lord, have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!
+
+    Which last words the Bell-man repeats three times.
+
+    All the way up to Holborn the crowd was so great as at every twenty
+    or thirty yards to obstruct the passage; and wine, notwithstanding a
+    late good order against this practice, was brought to the
+    malefactors, who drank greedily of it, which I thought did not suit
+    well with their deplorable circumstances. After this the three
+    thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough concerned,
+    grew most shamefully wanton and daring, behaving, themselves in a
+    manner that would have been ridiculous in men in any circumstances
+    whatever. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely, and wished
+    their wicked companions good luck with as much assurance as if their
+    employment had been the most lawful.
+
+    At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking, and
+    the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of
+    their serious attention. The Psalm was sung amidst the curses and
+    quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of
+    mankind, upon them (so stupid are they to any sense of decency) all
+    the preparation of the unhappy wretches seems to serve only for
+    subject of a barbarous kind of mirth, altogether inconsistent with
+    humanity. And as soon as the poor creatures were half dead, I was
+    much surprised to see the populace fall to hauling and pulling the
+    carcasses with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm
+    rencounters and broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of
+    the persons executed, or such as, for the sake of to-night, chose to
+    appear so: as well as some persons sent by private surgeons to
+    obtain bodies for dissection. The contests between these were fierce
+    and bloody, and frightful to look at; so I made the best of my way
+    out of the crowd, and with some difficulty rode back among the large
+    number of people who had been upon the same errand as myself. The
+    face of every one spoke a kind of mirth, as if the spectacle they
+    had beheld had afforded pleasure instead of pain, which I am wholly
+    unable to account for....
+
+    One of the bodies was carried to the lodging of his wife, who not
+    being in the way to receive it, they immediately hawked it about to
+    every surgeon they could think of; and when none would buy it they
+    rubbed tar all over it, and left it in a field scarcely covered with
+    earth.
+
+In a few words, too, Swift draws a vivid picture of a rogue on his last
+journey through the London streets:
+
+    His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches were white;
+    His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie't.
+    The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
+    And said, "Lack-a-day, he's a proper young man!"
+    But as from the windows the ladies he spied,
+    Like a beau in a box, he bow'd low on each side.
+
+    Execution day, or Tyburn Fair, as it was jocularly called, was not
+    only a holiday for the ragamuffins and idlers of London; folk of all
+    classes made their way thither to indulge a morbid desire of seeing
+    the dying agonies of a fellow being, criminal or not. There were
+    grand stands and scaffoldings from which the more favoured could
+    view the proceedings in comfort, and every inch of window space and
+    room on the neighbouring roofs was worth a pretty penny to the
+    owners. In his last scene of the career of the Idle Apprentice
+    Hogarth drew a picture of Tyburn Tree which no description can
+    amplify.
+
+    As the procession drew near the hangman clambered to the cross-piece
+    of the gallows and lolled there, pipe in mouth, until the first cart
+    drew up beneath him. Then he would reach down, or one of his
+    assistants would pass up, one after the other, the loose ends of the
+    halters which the condemned men had had placed round their necks
+    before leaving Newgate. When all were made fast Jack Ketch climbed
+    down and kicked his heels until the sheriff, or maybe the felons
+    themselves, gave him the sign to drive away the cart and leave its
+    occupants dangling in mid-air. The dead men's clothes were his
+    perquisite, and now was his time to claim them. There is a graphic
+    description of how, on one occasion, when the murderer "flung down
+    his handkerchief for the signal for the cart to move on, Jack Ketch,
+    instead of instantly whipping on the horse, jumped on the other side
+    of him to snatch up the handkerchief, lest he should lose his
+    rights. He then returned to the head of the cart and jehu'd him out
+    of the world".
+
+    As the cart drew away a few carrier pigeons, which were released
+    from the galleries, flew off City-ward to bear the tidings to
+    Newgate.
+
+Perhaps as good a description of the actual event as can be obtained is
+contained in a letter from Anthony Storer to his friend George Selwyn, a
+morbid cynic whose cruel and tasteless bon-mots were hailed as wit by
+Horace Walpole and his cronies. The execution was that of Dr. Dodd, the
+"macaroni parson", whose unfortunate vanity led him to forgery and
+Tyburn. The date--June 27, 1777--is considerably after the period of our
+book, but the description applies as well as if it had been written
+expressly for it.
+
+    Upon the whole, the piece was not very full of events. The doctor,
+    to all appearances, was rendered perfectly stupid from despair. His
+    hat was flapped all round, and pulled over his eyes, which were
+    never directed to any object around, nor even raised, except now and
+    then lifted up in the course of his prayers. He came in a coach, and
+    a very heavy shower of rain fell just upon his entering the
+    executioner's cart, and another just at his putting on his nightcap.
+    During the shower an umbrella was held over his head, which Gilly
+    Williams, who was present, observed was quite unnecessary, as the
+    doctor was going to a place where he might be dried.
+
+    He was a considerable time in praying, which some people standing
+    about seemed rather tired with; they rather wished for a more
+    interesting part of the tragedy. The wind, which was high, blew off
+    his hat, which rather embarrassed him, and discovered to us his
+    countenance, which we could scarcely see before. His hat, however,
+    was soon restored to him, and he went on with his prayers. There
+    were two clergymen attending on him, one of whom seemed very much
+    affected. The other, I suppose, was the Ordinary of Newgate, as he
+    was perfectly indifferent and unfeeling in everything he did and
+    said.
+
+    The executioner took both the hat and wig off at the same time. Why
+    he put on his wig again I do not know, but he did; and the doctor
+    took off his wig a second time, and then tied on the nightcap which
+    did not fit him; but whether he stretched that or took another, I
+    did not perceive. He then put on his nightcap himself, and upon his
+    taking it he certainly had a smile on his countenance, and very soon
+    afterwards there was an end of all his hopes and fears on this side
+    of the grave. He never moved from the place he first took in the
+    cart; seemed absorbed in despair and utterly dejected; without any
+    other sign of animation but in praying. I stayed until he was cut
+    down and put in the hearse.
+
+But the hangman's work was not always done when he had turned off his
+man. The full sentence for high treason, for example, provided him with
+much more occupation. In the first place, the criminal was drawn to the
+gallows and not carried or allowed to walk. Common humanity had
+mitigated this sentence to being drawn upon a hurdle or sledge, which
+preserved him from the horrors of being dragged over the stones. Having
+been hanged, the traitor was then cut down alive, and Jack Ketch set
+about disembowelling him and burning his entrails before he died. The
+head was then completely severed, the body quartered and the dismembered
+pieces taken away for exhibition at Temple Bar and other prominent
+places.
+
+Here is the account of one such execution. "After the traitor had hung
+six minutes he was cut down, and having life in him, as he lay upon the
+block to be quartered, the executioner gave him several blows on his
+breast, which not having the effect designed, he immediately cut his
+throat; after which he took his head off; then ripped him open and took
+out his bowels and heart, and then threw them into a fire which consumed
+them. Then he slashed his four quarters and put them with the head into
+a coffin.... His head was put on Temple Bar and his body and limbs
+suffered to be buried."
+
+Such proceedings were exceptional, however. In the majority of
+executions the body was taken down when life was considered to be
+extinct, and carried away to Surgeon's Hall for dissection. Sometimes
+the relatives used their influence to have the corpse handed over to
+them (often not even in a coffin) and they then carried it away in a
+coach for decent burial, or to try resuscitation. Occasionally, indeed,
+hanged men came to life again. In 1740 one Duel, or Dewell, was hanged
+for a rape, and his body taken to Surgeons' Hall in the ordinary
+routine. As one of the attendants was washing it he perceived signs of
+life. Steps were taken immediately and Duel was brought to, and
+eventually taken away in triumph by the mob, who had got wind of the
+affair and refused to allow the Law to re-hang their man. A little
+earlier something of the same sort had happened to John Smith, who had
+been hanging for five minutes and a quarter, during which time the
+hangman "pulled him by the legs and used other means to put a speedy
+period to his life", when a reprieve arrived and he was cut down. He was
+hurried away to a neighbouring tavern where restoratives were given,
+blood was let, and after a time he came to himself, "to the great
+admiration of the spectators". According to his own account of the
+affair, he felt a terrible pain when first the cart drew away and left
+him dangling, but that ceased almost at once, his last sensation being
+that of a light glimmering fitfully before his eyes. Yet all his
+previous agony was surpassed when he was being brought to, and the blood
+began to circulate freely again. A last ignominy, and one strangely
+dreaded by some of the most hardened criminals, was hanging in irons.
+When life was extinct the corpse was placed in a sort of iron cage and
+thus suspended from a gibbet, usually by the highway or near the place
+where the crime had been committed. There it hung until it fell to
+pieces from the effects of Time and the weather, and only a few hideous
+bones and scraps of dried flesh remained as evidence of the strong hand
+of the Law.
+
+
+
+
+With the exception of minor alterations in punctuation and spellings
+this book is a complete reprint of three volumes printed and sold by
+John Osborn, at the Golden Ball, in Paternoster Row, 1735.
+
+A. L. H.
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF THE CRIMINALS
+
+VOLUME ONE
+
+
+
+
+THE PREFACE
+
+
+_The clemency of the Law of England is so great that it does not take
+away the life of any subject whatever, but in order to the preservation
+of the rest both by removing the offender from a possibility of
+multiplying his offences, and by the example of his punishment intending
+to deter others from such crimes as the welfare of society requires
+should be punished with the utmost severity of the Law. My intention in
+communicating to the public the lives of those who, for about a dozen
+years past have been victims to their own crimes, is to continue to
+posterity the good effects of such examples, and by a recital of their
+vices to warn those who become my readers from ever engaging in those
+paths which necessarily have so fatal an end. In the work itself I have,
+as well as I am able, painted in a proper light those vices which induce
+men to fall into those courses which are so justly punished by the
+Legislature._
+
+_I flatter myself that however contemptible the_ Lives of the Criminals,
+_etc., may seem in the eyes of those who affect great wisdom and put on
+the appearance of much learning, yet it will not be without its uses
+amongst the middling sort of people, who are glad to take up with books
+within the circle of their own comprehension. It ought to be the care of
+all authors to treat their several subjects so that while they are read
+for the sake of amusement they may, as it were imperceptibly, convey
+notions both profitable and just. The adventures of those who, for the
+sake of supplying themselves with money for their debaucheries, have
+betaken themselves to the desperate trade of knights of the road, often
+have in them circumstances diverting enough and such as serve to show us
+what sort of amusements they are by which vice betrays us to ruin, and
+how the fatal inclination to gratify our passions hurries us finally to
+destruction._
+
+_I would not have my readers imagine however, because I talk of
+rendering books of this kind useful, that I have thrown out any part of
+what may be styled interesting. On the contrary, I have carefully
+preserved this and as far as the subject would give me leave, improved
+it, but with this caution always, that I have set forth the
+entertainments of vice in their proper colours, lest young people might
+be led to take them for innocent diversions, and from figures not
+uncommon in modern authors, learn to call lewdness gallantry, and the
+effects of unbridled lust the starts of too warm an imagination. These
+are notions which serve to cheat the mind and represent as the road of
+pleasure that which is indeed the highway to the gallows. This, I
+conceived, was the use proper to be made of the lives, or rather the
+deaths of malefactors, and if I have done no other good in writing them,
+I shall have at least this satisfaction, that I have preserved them from
+being presented to the world in such a dress as might render the_
+Academy of Thieving _their proper title, a thing once practised before,
+and if one may guess from the general practice of mankind, might
+probably have been attempted again, with success. How a different method
+will fare in the world, time only can determine, and to that I leave it.
+Yet considering the method in which I treat this subject, I readily
+forsaw one objection which occasioned my writing so long a preface as
+this, in order that it might be fully obviated._
+
+_Though in the body of the work itself I have carefully traced the rise
+of those corrupt inclinations which bring men to the committing of facts
+within the cognizance of the Law, it still remains necessary that my
+readers also become acquainted, at least in general, with what those
+facts are which are so severely punished. In doing this I shall not
+speak of matters in the style of a lawyer, but preserve the same
+plainness of language which, as I thought it the most proper, I have
+endeavoured throughout the whole piece._
+
+_The order of things requires that I should first of all take notice how
+the Law comes to have a right of punishing those who live under it with
+Death or other grievous penalties, and this in a few words arises thus.
+We enter into society for the sake of protection, and as this renders
+certain laws necessary, we are justly concluded by them in other cases
+for the protection of others; but of all the criminal institutions which
+have been settled in any nation, never was any more just, more
+reasonable, or fuller of clemency, than that which is called the Crown
+Law in England. In speaking of this it may not be improper to explain
+the meaning of that term, which seems to take its rise from the
+conclusion of indictments, which run always_ contra pacem dicti domini
+regis, coronam et dignitatem suam _(against the peace of our Sovereign
+Lord the King, his Crown and Dignity) and therefore, as the Crown is
+always the prosecutor against such offenders, the Law which creates the
+offence is with propriety enough styled the Crown Law._
+
+_The first head of Crown Law is that which concerns offences committed
+against God, and anciently there were three which were capital, viz.,
+heresy, witchcraft and sodomy; but the law passed in the reign of King
+Charles the Second for taking away the writ_ de Hæretica comburendo,
+_leaves the first not now punishable with death, even in its highest
+degree. However, by a statute made in the reign of King William, persons
+educated in the Christian religion who are convicted of denying the
+Trinity, the Christian religion, or the authority of the Scriptures, are
+for the first offence to be adjudged incapable of office, for the second
+to be disabled from suing in any action, and over and above other
+incapacities to suffer three years' imprisonment. As to witchcraft, it
+was formerly punished in the same manner as heresy. In the time of
+Edward the Third, one taken with the head and face of a dead man and a
+book of sorcery about him, was brought into the King's Bench, and only
+sworn that he would not thenceforth be a sorcerer, and so dismissed, the
+head, however, being burnt at his charge. There was a law made against
+conjurations, enchantments and witchcraft, in the days of Queen
+Elizabeth, but it stands repealed by a statute of King James's time,
+which is the law whereon all proceedings at this day are founded. By
+this law, any person invoking or conjuring any evil spirit, covenanting
+with, employing, feeding, or rewarding them, or taking up any dead
+person out of their grave, or any part of them, and making use of it in
+any witchcraft, sorcery, etc., shall suffer death as a felon, without
+benefit of clergy, and this whether the spirits appear, or whether the
+charm take effect or no. By the same statute those who take upon them by
+witchcraft, etc., to tell where treasure is hid, or things lost or
+stolen should be found, or to engage unlawful love, shall suffer for the
+first offence a year's imprisonment, and stand in the pillory once every
+quarter in that year six hours, and if guilty a second time, shall
+suffer death; even though such discoveries should prove false, or
+charms, etc., should have no effect. Executions upon this Act were
+heretofore frequent, but of late years, prosecutions on these heads in
+which vulgar opinion often goes a great way have been much discouraged
+and discontinued. As for the last head it remains yet capital, by virtue
+of a statute made in the reign of Henry VIII, which had been repealed in
+the first of Queen Mary, and was revived in the fifth of Queen
+Elizabeth, by which statute, after reciting that the laws then in being
+in this realm were not sufficient for punishing that detestable vice, it
+is enacted that such crimes for the future, whether committed with
+mankind or beasts, should be punished as felonies without benefit of
+clergy._
+
+_It is wide of my purpose to dwell any longer on those crimes which are
+by the laws styled properly against God, seeing none of the persons
+mentioned in the following work were executed for doing anything against
+them. Let us therefore pass on to the second great branch of the Crown
+Law, viz., offences immediately against the King, and these are either
+treasons or felonies. Of treasons there are four kinds, all settled by
+the Statute of the 25th of Edward the Third. The two latter only, viz.,
+offences against the King's great or privy seal, and offences in
+counterfeiting money, have anything to do with our present design, and
+therefore we shall speak particularly of them. Not only the persons who
+actually counterfeit those seals, but even the aiders and consenters to
+such counterfeiting, are within the Act, and by a statute made in the
+reign of Queen Mary, counterfeiting the sign manual or privy signet, is
+also made high treason. By the same statute of Edward the Third, the
+making of false money, or the bringing it into this realm, in deceit of
+our Lord the King and his people, was also declared to be high treason,
+but this Act being found insufficient, clippers being not made guilty
+either of treason or of misprison of treason, it was helped in that
+respect by several other Acts; but the fullest of all was the Act made
+in the reign of the late King William, and rendered perpetual by a
+subsequent Law made in the reign of her late Majesty [Anne], whereby it
+is enacted, that whoever shall make, mend, buy, sell, or have in his
+possession, any mould or press for coining, or shall convey such
+instruments out of the King's Mint, or mark on the edges of any coin
+current or counterfeit, or any round blanks of base metal, or colour or
+gild any coin resembling the coin of this kingdom, shall suffer death as
+in case of high treason. At the time when these laws were made coining
+and clipping were at a prodigious height, and practised not only by mean
+and indigent persons but also by some of tolerable character and rank,
+insomuch that these executions were numerous for some years after
+passing the said Act, which as it created some new species of high
+treason, so it also made felony some other offences against the coin
+which were not so, or at least were not clearly so before, viz., to
+blanch copper for sale; or to mix blanch copper with silver, or
+knowingly or fraudulently to buy any mixture which shall be heavier than
+silver, and look, touch, and wear like gold, but be manifestly worse; or
+receive, or pay any counterfeit money at a lower rate than its
+denomination doth import, shall be guilty of felony._
+
+_A third head under which, in this cursory account of Crown Law, I shall
+range other offences that are punished capitally, are those against our
+fellow subjects, and they are either committed against their lives,
+their goods or their habitations. With respect to those against life, if
+one person kill another without any malice aforethought, then that
+natural tenderness of which the Law of England is full, interposes for
+the first fact, which in such a case is denominated manslaughter. Yet
+there is a particular kind of manslaughter which, by the first of King
+James, is made felony without benefit of clergy, and that is, where a
+person shall stab or thrust any person or persons that have not any
+weapon drawn (or that have not first struck the party which shall so
+stab or thrust), so that the person or persons so stabbed or thrust
+shall die within six months next following, though it cannot be proved
+that the same was done of malice aforethought. This Act it is which is
+commonly called the Statute of Stabbing._
+
+_As to murder properly so called, and taking it as a term in the English
+Law, it signifies the killing of any person whatsoever from malice
+aforethought, whether the person slain be an Englishman or not, and this
+may not only be done directly by a wound or blow, but also by
+deliberately doing a thing which apparently endangers another's life, so
+that if death follow thereon he shall be adjudged to have killed him.
+Such was the case of him who carried his sick father from one town to
+another against his will in a frosty season. It would be too long for
+this Preface, should I endeavour to distinguish the several cases which
+in the eye of the Law come under this denomination; having, therefore, a
+view to the work itself, I shall distinguish two points only from which
+malice prepense is presumed in Law._
+
+_(1) Where an express purpose appears in him who kills, to do some
+personal injury to him who is slain; in which case malice is properly to
+be expressed._
+
+_(2) Where a person in the execution of an unlawful action kills
+another, though his principal intent was not to do any personal injury
+to the person slain; in which case the malice is said to be implied._
+
+_As to duels where the blood has once cooled, there is no doubt but he
+who kills another is guilty of wilful murder; or even in case of a
+sudden quarrel, if the person killing appear by any circumstance to be
+master of his temper at the time he slew the other, then it will be
+murder. Not that the English Law allows nothing to the frailties of
+human nature, but that it always exerts itself where there appears to
+have been a person killed in cool blood. Far this reason the seconds at
+a premeditated duel have been held guilty of murder, nor will the
+justice of the English Law be defeated where a person appears to have
+intended a less hurt than death, if that hurt arose from a desire of
+revenge in cool blood; for if the person dies of the injury it will be
+murder. So, also, where the revenge of a sudden provocation is executed
+in a cruel manner, though without intention of death, yet if it happen,
+it is murder._
+
+_We come now to those kinds of killing in which the Law, from the second
+method of reasoning we have spoken of, implies malice, and into which
+slaying of others, those unfortunate persons of whom we speak in the
+following sheets were mostly led either through the violence of their
+passions, or through the necessity into which they are often drawn by
+the commission of thefts and other crimes. Thus, were a person to kill
+another in doing a felony, though it be by accident, or where a person
+fires at one who resists his robbing him and by such firing kills
+another against whom he had no design, yet from the evil intention of
+the first act, he becomes liable for all its consequences, and the fact,
+by an implication of malice, will be adjudged murder. Nay, though there
+be no design of committing felony, but only of breaking the peace, yet
+if a man be slain in the tumult they will all be guilty of murder,
+because their first act was a deliberate breach of the Law. There is yet
+another manner of killing which the Law punishes with the utmost
+severity, which is resisting an officer, civil or criminal, in the
+execution of his office (arresting a person) so that he be slain, yet
+though he did not produce his warrant, the offence will be adjudged
+murder. And if persons who design no mischief at all, do unadvisedly
+commit any idle wanton act which cannot but be attended with manifest
+danger, such as riding with a horse known to kick amongst a crowd of
+people, merely to divert oneself by putting them in a fright, and by
+such riding a death ensues, there such a person will be judged guilty of
+murder. Yet some offences there are of so transcendent a cruelty that
+the Law hath thought fit to difference them from the other murders, and
+these are of three sorts, viz., where a servant kills his master; where
+a wife kills her husband; where an ecclesiastical man kills his prelate
+to whom he owes obedience. In all these cases the Law makes the crimes
+Petit Treason._
+
+_From crimes committed against the lives of men we descend next to
+offences against their goods, in which, that we may be the more clearly
+understood, we shall begin with the lowest kind of thefts. The Law calls
+it larceny where there is felonious and fraudulent taking and carrying
+away the mere personal goods of another, so long as it be neither from
+his person nor out of his house. If the value of such goods be under
+twelvepence, then it is called petty larceny, and is punishable only by
+whipping or other corporal punishments; but if they exceed that value,
+then it is grand larceny, and is punishable with death, where benefit of
+clergy is not allowed._
+
+_There are a multitude of offences contained under the general title of
+grand larceny, and, therefore, as I intend only to give my readers such
+a general idea of Crown Law as may serve to render the following pages
+more intelligible, so I shall dwell on such particulars as are more
+especially useful in that respect, and leave the perfect knowledge of
+the pleas of the Crown to be attained by the study of the several books
+which treat of them directly and fully. There was until the reign of
+King William, a doubt whether a lodger who stole the furniture of his
+lodgings were indictable as a felon, inasmuch as he had a special
+property in the goods, and was to pay the greater rent in consideration
+of them. To clear this, a Statute was made in the afore-mentioned reign,
+by which it is declared larceny and felony for any person to steal,
+embezzle, or purloin any chattel or furniture which by contract he was
+to have the use of in lodging; and by a Statute made in the reign of
+Henry VIII, it is enacted that all servants being of the age of eighteen
+years, and not apprentices, to whom goods and chattels shall be
+delivered by their masters or mistresses for them to keep, if they shall
+go away with, or shall defraud or embezzle any part of such goods or
+chattels, to the value of forty shillings or upwards, then such false
+and fraudulent act be deemed and adjudged felony._
+
+_But besides simple larceny, which is divided into grand and petty,
+there is a mixed larceny which has a greater degree of guilt in it, as
+being a taking from the person of a man or from his house. Larceny from
+the person of a man either puts him in fear, and then it is a robbery,
+or does not put him in fear, and then it is a larceny from the person,
+and of this we shall speak first. It is either committed without a man's
+knowledge, and in such a case it is excluded from benefit of clergy, or
+it is openly done before the person's face, and then it is within the
+benefit of clergy, unless it be in a dwelling-house and to the value of
+forty shillings, in which case benefit is taken away by an Act made in
+the reign of the late Queen. Larceny from the house is at this day in
+several cases excluded from benefit of clergy, but in others it is
+allowed._
+
+_Robbery is the taking away violently and feloniously the goods or money
+from the person of a man, putting him in fear; and this taking is not
+only with the robber's own hands, but if he compel, by the terror of his
+assault, the person whom he robs to give it himself, or bind him by such
+terrible oaths, that afterwards in conscience he thinks himself obliged
+to give it, is a taking within the Law, and cannot be purged from any
+delivery afterwards. Yea, where there is a gang of several persons, only
+one of which robs, they are all guilty as to the circumstance of putting
+in fear, wherever a person attacks another with circumstances of terror,
+as though fear oblige him to part with his money though it be without
+weapons drawn, and the person taking it pretend to receive it as an
+alms. And in respect of punishment, though judgment of death cannot be
+given in any larceny whatsoever, unless the goods taken exceed twelve
+pence in value, yet in robbery such judgment is given, let the value of
+the goods be ever so small._
+
+_As to crimes committed against the habitations of men, there are two
+kinds, viz., burglary and arson._
+
+_Burglary is a felony at Common Law, and consists in breaking and
+entering the mansion house of another in the night time with an intent
+of committing a felony therein, whether that intention be executed or
+not. Here, from the best opinions, is to be understood such a degree of
+darkness as hinders a man's countenance from being discerned. The
+breaking and entering are points essential to be proved in order to make
+any fact burglary; the place in which it is committed must be a dwelling
+house, and the breaking and entering such a dwelling house must be an
+intent of committing felony, and not a trespass; and this much I think
+is sufficient to define the nature of this crime, which notwithstanding
+the many examples which have been made of it, is still too much
+practised. As to arson, by which the Law understand maliciously and
+voluntarily burning the house of another by night or by day; to make a
+man guilty of this it must appear that he did it voluntarily and of
+malice aforethought._
+
+_Besides these, there are several other felonies which are made so by
+Statute, such as rapes committed on women by force, and against their
+will. This offence was anciently punished by putting out the eyes and
+cutting off the testicles of the offenders; it was afterwards made a
+felony, and by a statute in Queen Elizabeth's reign, excluded from
+benefit of clergy. By an Act made in the reign of King Henry the
+Seventh, taking any woman (whether maid, wife or widow) having any
+substance, or being heir apparent to her ancestors, for the lucre of
+such substance, and either to marry or defile the said woman against her
+will, then such persons and all those procuring or abetting them in the
+said violence, shall be guilty of felony, from which, by another Act in
+Queen Elizabeth's reign, benefit of clergy is taken. Also by an Act in
+the reign of King James the First, any person marrying, their former
+husband or wife being then alive, such persons shall be deemed guilty of
+felony, but benefit of clergy is yet allowed for this offence._
+
+_As it often happens that boisterous and unruly people, either in frays
+or out of revenge, do very great injuries unto others, yet without
+taking away their lives, in such a case the Law adjudges the offender
+who commits a mayhem to the severest penalties. The true definition of a
+mayhem is such a hurt whereby a man is rendered less able in fighting,
+so that cutting off or disabling a man's hand, striking out his eye, or
+foretooth, were mayhems at Common Law. But by the Statute of King
+Charles the Second, if any person or persons, with malice aforethought,
+by lying in wait, unlawfully cut out or disable the tongue, put out an
+eye, slit the nose, or cut off the nose or lip of any subject of his
+Majesty, with an intention of maiming or disfiguring, then the person
+so offending, their counsellors, aiders and abetters, privy to the
+offence, shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of
+clergy; which Act is commonly called the Coventry Act, because it was
+occasioned by the slitting of the nose of a gentleman of that name, for
+a speech made by him in Parliament.[1]_
+
+_As nothing is of greater consequence to the commonwealth than public
+credit, so the Legislature hath thought fit, by the highest punishments,
+to deter persons from committing such facts for the lucre of gain, as
+might injure the credit of the nation. For this purpose, an Act was made
+in the reign of the late King William, by which forging or
+counterfeiting the common seal of the Governor and Company of the Bank
+of England, or of any sealed bank-bill given out in the name of the said
+Governor and Company for the payment of any sum of money, or of any
+bank-note whatsoever, signed by the said Governor and Company of the
+Bank of England, or altering or raising any bank-bill, or note of any
+sort, is declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy. Upon this
+Statute there have been several convictions, and it is hoped men are
+pretty well cured of committing this crime, by that care those in the
+direction of the Bank have always taken to bring offenders of this kind
+to justice._
+
+_By an Act also passed in the reign of King William, persons who
+counterfeit any stamp which by its mark relates to the Revenue, shall be
+guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and upon this also there
+have been some executions._
+
+_But as the public companies established in this kingdom have often
+occasion to borrow money under their common seal, which bonds, so
+sealed, are transferable and pass currently from hand to hand as ready
+money, so for the greater security of the subject the counterfeiting the
+common seal of the South Sea Company, or altering any bond or obligation
+of the said company, is rendered felony without benefit of clergy. Some
+other statutes of the same nature in respect to lottery tickets, etc.,
+have been made to create felonies of the counterfeiting thereof, but of
+these and some other later Statutes, I forbear mentioning here, because
+I have spoken particularly of them in the cases where persons have been
+punished for transgressing them._
+
+_As I have already exceeded the bounds which I at first intended should
+have restrained my Preface, so I forbear lengthening it in speaking of
+lesser crimes, few of which concern the persons whose lives are to be
+found in the following volume. Therefore I shall conclude here, only
+putting my readers once more in mind that by this work the intent of the
+Law, in punishing malefactors, is more perfectly fulfilled, since the
+example of their deaths is transmitted in a proper light to posterity._
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [1] Sir John Coventry, M. P. for Weymouth, in the course of a
+        debate on a proposed levy on playhouses, asked "whether did the
+        king's pleasure lie among the men or the women that acted?" This
+        open allusion to Charles's relations with Nell Gwynn and Moll
+        Davies enraged the Court party, and on Dec. 21, 1670, as Sir
+        John was going to his house in Suffolk Street, he was waylaid by
+        a brutal gang under Sir Thomas Sandys, dragged from his
+        carriage, and his nose slit to the bone. This outrage caused
+        great indignation, and the Coventry Act mentioned in the text
+        was passed, 22 & 23 Car. II. The perpetrators of the deed
+        escaped.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JANE GRIFFIN, who was Executed for the Murder of her Maid,
+January 29, 1719-20
+
+
+Passion, when it once gains an ascendant over our minds, is often more
+fatal to us than the most deliberate course of vice could be. On every
+little start it throws us from the paths of reason, and hurries us in
+one moment into acts more wicked and more dangerous than we could at any
+other time suffer to enter our imagination. As anger is justly said to
+be a short madness, so, while the frenzy is upon us, blood is shed as
+easily as water, and the mind is so filled with fury that there is no
+room left for compassion. There cannot be a stronger proof of what I
+have been observing than in the unhappy end of the poor woman who is the
+subject of this chapter.
+
+Jane Griffin was the daughter of honest and substantial parents, who
+educated her with very great tenderness and care, particularly with
+respect to religion, in which she was well and rationally instructed. As
+she grew up her person grew agreeable, and she had a lively wit and a
+very tolerable share of understanding. She lived with a very good
+reputation, and to general satisfaction, in several places, till she
+married Mr. Griffin, who kept the Three Pigeons in Smithfield[2].
+
+She behaved herself so well and was so obliging in her house that she
+drew to it a very great trade, in which she managed so as to leave
+everyone well satisfied. Yet she allowed her temper to fly out into
+sudden gusts of passion, and that folly alone sullied her character to
+those who were witnesses of it, and at last caused a shameful end to an
+honest and industrious life.
+
+One Elizabeth Osborn, coming to live with her as a servant, she proved
+of a disposition as Mrs. Griffin could by no means agree with. They were
+continually differing and having high words, in which, as is usual on
+such occasions, Mrs. Griffin made use of wild expressions, which though
+she might mean nothing by them when she spoke them, yet proved of the
+utmost ill consequence, after the fatal accident of the maid's death.
+For being then given in evidence, they were esteemed proofs of malice
+prepense, which ought to be a warning to all hasty people to endeavour
+at some restraint upon their tongues when in fits of anger, since we are
+not only sure of answering hereafter for every idle word we speak, but
+even here they may, as in this case, become fatal in the last degree.
+
+It was said at the time those things were transacted that jealousy was
+in some degree the source of their debates, but of that I can affirm
+nothing. It no way appeared as to the accident which immediately drew on
+her death, and which happened after this manner.
+
+One evening, having cut some cold fowl for the children's supper, it
+happened the key of the cellar was missing on a sudden, and on Mrs.
+Griffin's first speaking of it they began to look for it. But it not
+being found, Mrs. Griffin went into the room where the maid was, and
+using some very harsh expression, taxed her with having seen it, or laid
+it out of the way. Instead of excusing herself modestly, the maid flew
+out also into ill language at her mistress, and in the midst of the
+fray, the knife with which she had been cutting lying unluckily by her,
+she snatched it up, and stuck it into the maid's bosom; her stays
+happening to be unluckily open, it entered so deep as to give her a
+mortal wound.
+
+After she had struck her Mrs. Griffin went upstairs, not imagining that
+she had killed her, but the alarm was soon raised on her falling down,
+and Mrs. Griffin was carried before a magistrate, and committed to
+Newgate. When she was first confined, she seemed hopeful of getting off
+at her trial, yet though she did not make any confession, she was very
+sorrowful and concerned. As her trial drew nearer, her apprehensions
+grew stronger, till notwithstanding all she could urge in her defence,
+the jury found her guilty, and sentence was pronounced as the Law
+directs.
+
+Hitherto she had hopes of life, and though she did not totally
+relinquish them even upon her conviction, yet she prepared with all due
+care for her departure. She sent for the minister of her own parish, who
+attended her with great charity, and she seemed exceedingly penitent
+and heartily sorry for her crime, praying with great favour and emotion.
+
+And as the struggling of an afflicted heart seeks every means to vent
+its sorrow, in order to gain ease, or at least an alleviation of pain,
+so this unhappy woman, to soothe the gloomy sorrows that oppressed her,
+used to sit down on the dirty floor, saying it was fit she should humble
+herself in dust and ashes, and professing that if she had an hundred
+hearts she would freely yield them all to bleed, so they might blot out
+the stain of her offence. By such expression did she testify those
+inward sufferings which far exceed the punishment human laws inflict,
+even on the greatest crimes.
+
+When the death warrant came down and she utterly despaired of life, her
+sorrow and contrition became greater than before, and here the use and
+comfort of religion manifestly appeared; for had not her faith in Christ
+moderated her afflictions, perhaps grief might have forestalled the
+executioner, but she still comforted herself with thinking on a future
+state, and what in so short an interval she must do to deserve an happy
+immortality.
+
+The time of her death drawing very near, she desired a last interview
+with her husband and daughter, which was accompanied with so much
+tenderness that nobody could have beheld it without the greatest
+emotion. She exhorted her husband with great earnestness to the practice
+of a regular and Christian life, begged him to take due care of his
+temporal concerns, and not omit anything necessary in the education of
+the unhappy child she left behind her. When he had promised a due regard
+should be had to all her requests she seemed more composed and better
+satisfied than she had been. Continuing her discourse, she reminded him
+of what occurred to her with regard to his affairs, adding that it was
+the last advice she should give, and begging therefore it might be
+remembered. She finished what she had to say with the most fervent
+prayers and wishes for his prosperity.
+
+Turning next to her daughter, and pouring over her a flood of tears, _My
+dearest child_, she said, _let the afflictions of thy mother be a
+warning and an example unto thee; and since I am denied life to educate
+and bring thee up, let this dreadful monument of my death suffice to
+warn you against yielding in any degree to your passion, or suffering a
+vehemence of temper to transport you so far even as indecent words,
+which bring on a custom of flying out in a rage on trivial occasions,
+till they fatally terminate in such acts of wrath and cruelty as that
+for which I die. Let your heart, then, be set to obey your Maker and
+yield a ready submission to all His laws. Learn that Charity, Love and
+Meekness which our blessed religion teaches, and let your mother's
+unhappy death excite you to a sober and godly life. The hopes of thus
+are all I have to comfort me in this miserable state, this deplorable
+condition to which my own rash folly has reduced me._
+
+The sorrow expressed both by her husband and by her child was very great
+and lively and scarce inferior to her own, but the ministers who
+attended her fearing their lamentations might make too strong an
+impression on her spirits, they took their last farewell, leaving her to
+take care of her more important concern, the eternal welfare of her
+soul.
+
+Some malicious people (as is too often the custom) spread stories of
+this unfortunate woman, as if she had been privy to the murder of one
+Mr. Hanson, who was killed in the Farthing-Pie House fields[3]; and
+attended this with so many odd circumstances and particulars, which
+tales of this kind acquire by often being repeated, that the then
+Ordinary of Newgate thought it became him to mention it to the prisoner.
+Mrs. Griffin appeared to be much affected at her character being thus
+stained by the fictions of idle suspicions of silly mischievous persons.
+She declared her innocence in the most solemn manner, averred she had
+never lived near the place, nor had heard so much as the common reports
+as to that gentleman's death.
+
+Yet, as if folks were desirous to heap sorrow on sorrow, and to embitter
+even the heavy sentence on this poor woman, they now gave out a new
+fable to calumniate her in respect to her chastity, averring on report
+of which the first author is never to be found, that she had lived with
+Mr. Griffin in a criminal intimacy before their marriage. The Ordinary
+also (though with great reluctance) told her this story. The unhappy
+woman answered it was false, and confirmed what she said by undeniable
+evidence, adding she freely forgave the forgers of so base an
+insinuation.
+
+When the fatal day came on which she was to die, Mrs. Griffin
+endeavoured, as far as she was able, to compose herself easily to submit
+to what was not now to be avoided. She had all along manifested a true
+sense of religion, knowing that nothing could support her under the
+calamities she went through but the hopes of earthly sufferings atoning
+for her faults, and becoming thereby a means of eternal salvation. Yet
+though these thoughts reconciled this ignominious death to her reason,
+her apprehensions were, notwithstanding, strong and terrible when it
+came so near.
+
+At the place of execution she was in terrible agonies, conjuring the
+minister who attended her and the Ordinary of Newgate, to tell her
+whither there was any hopes of her salvation, which she repeated with
+great earnestness, and seeming to part with them reluctantly. The
+Ordinary entreated her to submit cheerfully to this, her last stage of
+sorrow, and in certain assurance of meeting again (if it so pleased God)
+in a better slate.
+
+The following paper having been left in the hands of a friend, and being
+designed for the people, I thought proper to publish it.
+
+    I declare, then, with respect to the deed for which I die, that I
+    did it without any malice or anger aforethought, for the unlucky
+    instrument of my passion lying at hand, when first words arose on
+    the loss of the key, I snatched it up suddenly, and executed that
+    rash act which hath brought her and me to death, without thinking.
+
+    I trust, however, that my most sincere and hearty repentance of this
+    bloody act of cruelty, the sufferings which I have endured since,
+    the ignominious death I am now to die, and above all the merits of
+    my Saviour, who shed His blood for me on the Cross, will atone for
+    this my deep and heavy offence, and procure for me eternal rest.
+
+    But as I am sensible that there is no just hope of forgiveness from
+    the Almighty without a perfect forgiveness of those who have any way
+    injured us, so I do freely and from the bottom of my soul, forgive
+    all who have ever done me any wrong, and particularly those who,
+    since my sorrowful imprisonment, have cruelly aspersed me, earnestly
+    entreating all who in my life-time I may have offended, that they
+    would also in pity to my deplorable state, remit those offences to
+    me with a like freedom.
+
+    And now as the Law hath adjudged, and I freely offer my body to
+    suffer for what I have committed, I hope nobody will be so unjust
+    and so uncharitable as to reflect on those I leave behind me on my
+    account, and for this, I most humbly make my last dying request, as
+    also that ye would pray for my departed soul.
+
+She died with all exterior marks of true penitence, being about forty
+years of age, the 29th of January, 1719-20.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [2] This tavern was in Butcher Hall Lane (now King Edward
+        Street, Newgate Street), and was a favourite resort of the
+        Paternoster Row booksellers.
+
+    [3] The Farthing-Pie House was a tavern in Marylebone. It was
+        subsequently re-christened The Green Man.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JOHN TRIPPUCK, the Golden Tinman, a Highwayman; RICHARD
+CANE, a Footpad; THOMAS CHARNOCK, a thief; and RICHARD SHEPHERD, a
+Housebreaker, who were all executed at Tyburn, the 29th of January,
+1719-20
+
+
+The first of these offenders had been an old sinner, and I suppose had
+acquired the nickname of the Golden Tinman as a former practitioner in
+the same wretched calling did that of the Golden Farmer.[4] Trippuck had
+robbed alone and in company for a considerable space, till his character
+was grown so notorious that some short time before his being taken for
+the last offence, he had, by dint of money and interest, procured a
+pardon. However, venturing on the deed which brought him to his death,
+the person injured soon seized him, and being inexorable in his
+prosecution, Trippuck was cast and received sentence. However, having
+still some money, he did not lose all hope of a reprieve, but kept up
+his spirits by flattering himself with his life being preserved, till
+within a very few days of the execution. If the Ordinary spoke to him of
+the affairs of the soul, Trippuck immediately cut him short with, _D'ye
+believe I can obtain a pardon? I don't know that, indeed_, says the
+doctor. _But you know one Counsellor Such-a-one_, says Trippuck,
+_prithee make use of your interest with him, and see whether you can get
+him to serve me. I'll not be ungrateful, doctor._
+
+The Ordinary was almost at his wits' end with this sort of cross
+purposes; however, he went on to exhort him to think of the great work
+he had to do, and entreated him to consider the nature of that
+repentance which must atone for all his numerous offences. Upon this,
+Trippuck opened his breast and showed him a great number of scars
+amongst which were two very large ones, out of which he said two musket
+bullets had been extracted. _And will not these, good doctor_, quoth he,
+_and the vast pains I have endured in their cure, in some sort lessen
+the heinousness of the facts I may have committed? No_, said the
+Ordinary, _what evils have fallen upon you in such expeditions, you have
+drawn upon yourself, and do not imagine that these will in any degree
+make amends for the multitude of your offences. You had much better
+clear your conscience by a full and ingenious confession of your crimes,
+and prepare in earnest for another world, since I dare assure you, you
+need entertain no hopes of staying in this._
+
+As soon as be found the Ordinary was in the right, and that all
+expectation of a reprieve or pardon were totally in vain, Trippuck
+began, as most of those sort of people do, to lose much of that
+stubbornness they mistake for courage. He now felt all the terrors of an
+awakened conscience, and persisted no longer in denying the crime for
+which he died, though at first he declared it altogether a falsehood,
+and Constable, his companion, had denied it even to death. As is
+customary when persons are under their misfortune, it had been reported
+that this Trippuck was the man who killed Mr. Hall towards the end of
+the summer before on Blackheath, but when the story reached the Golden
+Tinman's ears he declared it was an utter falsity; repeating this
+assertion to the Ordinary a few moments before his being turned off, and
+pointing to the rope about him, he said, _As you see this instrument of
+death about me, what I say is the real truth._ He died with all outward
+signs of penitence.
+
+Richard Cane was a young man of about twenty-two years of age, at the
+time he suffered. Having a tolerable genius when a youth, his friends
+put him apprentice twice, but to no purpose, for having got rambling
+notions in his head, he would needs go to sea. There, but for his
+unhappy temper, he might have done well, for the ship of war in which he
+sailed was so fortunate as to take, after eight hours sharp engagement,
+a Spanish vessel of immense value; but the share he got did him little
+service. As soon as he came home Richard made a quick hand of it, and
+when the usual train of sensual delights which pass for pleasures in low
+life had exhausted him to the last farthing, necessity and the desire of
+still indulging his vices, made him fall into the worst and most
+unlawful methods to obtain the means which they might procure them.
+
+Sometime after this, the unhappy man of whom we are speaking fell in
+love (as the vulgar call it) with an honest, virtuous, young woman, who
+lived with her mother, a poor, well-meaning creature, utterly ignorant
+of Cane's behaviour, or that he had ever committed any crimes punishable
+by Law. The girl, as such silly people are wont, yielded quickly to a
+marriage which was to be consummated privately, because Cane's relations
+were not to be disobliged, who it seems did not think him totally ruined
+so long as he escaped matrimony. But the unhappy youth not having enough
+money to procure a licence, and being ashamed to put the expense on the
+woman and her mother, in a fit of amorous distraction went out from
+them one evening, and meeting a man somewhat fuddled in the street,
+threw him down, and took away his hat and coat. The fellow was not so
+drunk but that he cried out, and people coming to his assistance, Cane
+was immediately apprehended, and so this fact, instead of raising him
+money enough to be married, brought him to death in this ignominious
+way.
+
+While he lay in Newgate, the miserable young creature who was to have
+been his wife came constantly to cry with him and deplore their mutual
+misfortunes, which were increased by the girl's mother falling sick, and
+being confined to her bed through grief for her designed son-in-law's
+fate. When the day of his suffering drew on, this unhappy man composed
+himself to submit to it with great serenity. He professed abundance of
+contrition for the wickedness of his former life and lamented with much
+tenderness those evils he had brought upon the girl and her mother. The
+softness of his temper, and the steady affection he had for the maid,
+contributed to make his exit much pitied; which happened at Tyburn in
+the twenty-second year of his age. He left this paper behind him, which
+he spoke at the tree.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    The Law having justly condemned me for my offence to suffer in this
+    shameful manner, I thought it might be expected that I should say
+    something here of the crime for which I die, the commission of which
+    I do readily acknowledge, though it was attended with that
+    circumstance of knocking down, which was sworn against me. I own I
+    have been guilty of much wickedness, and am exceedingly troubled at
+    the reflection it may bring upon my relations, who are all honest
+    and reputable people. As I die for the offences I have done, and die
+    in charity forgiving all the world, so I hope none will be so cruel
+    as to pursue my memory with disgrace or insult an unhappy young
+    woman on my account, whose character I must vindicate with my last
+    breath, as all the justice I am able to do her, I die in the
+    communion of the Church of England and humbly request your prayers
+    for my departing soul.
+
+Richard Shepherd was born of very honest and reputable parents in the
+city of Oxford, who were careful in giving him a suitable education,
+which he, through the wickedness of his future life, utterly forgot,
+insomuch that he knew scarce the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, at the
+time he had most need of them. When he grew a tolerable big lad his
+friends put him out as apprentice to a butcher, where having served a
+great part of his time, he fell in love, as they call it, with a young
+country lass hard by, and Dick's passion growing outrageous, he attacked
+the poor maid with all the amorous strains of gallantry he was able. The
+hearts of young uneducated wenches, like unfortified towns, make little
+resistance when once beseiged, and therefore Shepherd had no great
+difficulty in making a conquest. However the girl insisted on honourable
+terms, and unfortunately for the poor fellow they were married before
+his time was out; an error in conduct, which in low life is seldom
+retrieved.
+
+It happened so here. Shepherd's master was not long before he discovered
+this wedding. He thereupon gave the poor fellow so much trouble that he
+was at last forced to give him forty shillings down, and a bond for
+twenty-eight pounds more. This having totally ruined him, Dick unhappily
+fell into the way of dishonest company, who soon drew him into their
+ways of gaining money and supplying his necessities at the hazard both
+of his conscience and his neck; in which, though he became an expert
+proficient, yet could he never acquire anything considerable thereby,
+but was continually embroiled in debt. His wife bringing every year a
+child, contributed not a little thereto. However, Dick rubbed on mostly
+by thieving and as little by working as it was possible to avoid.
+
+When he first began his robberies, he went housebreaking, and actually
+committed several facts in the city of Oxford itself. But those things
+not being so easily to be concealed there as at London, report quickly
+began to grow very loud about him, and Dick was forced to make shift
+with pilfering in other places; in which he was (to use the manner of
+speaking of those people) so unlucky that the second or third fact he
+committed in Hertfordshire, he was detected, seized, and at the next
+assizes capitally convicted. Yet out of compassion to his youth, and in
+hopes he might be sufficiently checked by so narrow an escape from the
+gallows, his friends procured him first a reprieve and then a pardon.
+
+But this proximity to death made little impression on his heart, which
+is too often the fault in persons who, like him, receive mercy, and have
+notwithstanding too little grace to make use of it. Partly driven by
+necessity, for few people cared after his release to employ him, partly
+through the instigations of his own wicked heart, Dick went again upon
+the old trade for which he had so lately been like to have suffered,
+but thieving was still an unfortunate profession to him. He soon after
+fell again into the hands of Justice, from whence he escaped by
+impeaching Allen and Chambers, two of his accomplices, and so evaded
+Tyburn a second time. Yet all this signified nothing to him, for as soon
+as he was at home, so soon to work he went in his old way, till
+apprehended and executed for his wickedness.
+
+No unhappy criminal had more warning than Shepherd of his approaching
+miserable fate, if he would have suffered anything to have deterred him;
+but alas! what are advices, terrors, what even the sight of death
+itself, to souls hardened in sin and consciences so seared as his. He
+had, when taken up and carried before Col. Ellis, been committed to New
+Prison for a capital offence. He had not remained there long before he
+wrote the Colonel a letter in which (provided he were admitted an
+evidence) he offered to make large discoveries. His offers were
+accepted, and several convicted capitally at the Old Bailey by him were
+executed at Tyburn, whither for his trade of housebreaking, Shepherd
+quickly followed them.
+
+While in Newgate Shepherd had picked up a thoughtless resolution as to
+dying, not uncommon to those malefactors who, having been often
+condemned, go at last hardened to the gallows. When he was exhorted to
+think seriously of making his peace with God, he replied 'twas done and
+he was sure of going to Heaven.
+
+With these were executed Thomas Charnock, a young man well and
+religiously educated. By his friends he had been placed in the house of
+a very eminent trader, and being seduced by ill-company yielded to the
+desire of making a show in the world. In order to do so, he robbed his
+master's counting-house, which fact made him indeed conspicuous, but in
+a very different manner from what he had flattered himself with. They
+died tolerably submissive and penitent, this last malefactor,
+especially, having rational ideas of religion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [4] William Davis, the Golden Farmer, was a notorious
+        highwayman, who obtained his sobriquet from a habit of always
+        paying in gold. He was hanged in Fleet Street, December 20,
+        1689. His adventures are told at length in Smith's _History of
+        the Highwaymen_, edited by me and published in the same series
+        as this volume.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM BARTON, a Highwayman
+
+
+This William Barton was born in Thames Street, London, and seemed to
+have inherited a sort of hereditary wildness and inconstancy, his father
+having been always of a restless temper and addicted to every species of
+wickedness, except such as are punished by temporal laws. While this son
+William was a child, he left him, without any provision, to the care of
+his mother, and accompanied by a concubine whom he had long convened
+with, shipped himself for the island of Jamaica, carrying with him a
+good quantity of goods proper for that climate, intending to live there
+as pleasantly as the place would give him leave. His head being well
+turned, both for trading and planting, it was, indeed, probable enough
+he should succeed.
+
+Now, no sooner was his father gone on this unaccountable voyage, but
+William was taken home and into favour by his grandfather, who kept a
+great eating-house in Covent Garden. Here Will, if he would, might
+certainly have done well. His grandfather bound him to himself, treated
+him with the utmost tenderness and indulgence, and the gentlemen who
+frequented the house were continually making him little presents, which
+by their number were considerable, and might have contented a youth like
+him.
+
+But William, whose imagination was full of roving as his father's, far
+from sitting down pleased and satisfied with that easy condition into
+which Fortune had thrown him, began to dream of nothing but travels and
+adventures. In short, in spite of all the poor old man, his grandfather,
+could say to prevent it, to sea he went, and to Jamaica in quest of his
+father, who he fancied must have grown extravagantly rich by this time,
+the common sentiments of fools, who think none poor who have the good
+luck to dwell in the West Indies.
+
+On Barton's arrival at Jamaica he found all things in a very different
+condition from what he had flattered himself with. His father was dead
+and the woman who went over with him settled in a good plantation, 'tis
+true, but so settled that Will was unable to remove her; so he betook
+himself to sea again, and rubbed on the best way he was able. But as if
+the vengeance of Heaven had pursued him, or rather as if Providence, by
+punishments, designed to make him lay aside his vices, Barton had no
+sooner scraped a little money together, but the vessel in which he
+sailed was (under the usual pretence of contraband goods) seized by the
+Spaniards, who not long after they were taken, sent the men they made
+prisoners into Spain. The natural moroseness of those people's temper,
+makes them harsh masters. Poor Barton found it so, and with the rest of
+his unfortunate companions, suffered all the inconveniences of hard
+usage and low diet, though as they drew nearer the coast of Spain that
+severity was a little softened.
+
+When they were safely landed, they were hurried to a prison where it was
+difficult to determine which was worst, their treatment or their food.
+Above all the rest Barton was uneasy, and his head ever turned towards
+contriving an escape. When he and some other intriguing heads had
+meditated long in vain, an accident put it in their power to do that
+with ease which all their prudence could not render probable in the
+attempt, a thing common with men under misfortune, who have reason,
+therefore, never to part with hope.
+
+Finding an old wall in the outer court of the prison weak, and ready to
+fall down, the keeper caused the English prisoners, amongst others, to
+be sent to repair it. The work was exceedingly laborious, but Barton and
+one of his companions soon thought of a way to ease it. They had no
+sooner broke up a small part of the foundation which was to be new laid,
+but stealing the Spanish soldiers' pouches, they crowded the powder into
+a small bag, placing it underneath as far as they could reach, and then
+gave it fire. This threw up two yards of the wall, and while the
+Spaniards stood amazed at the report, Barton and his associates marched
+off through the breach, without finding the slightest resistance from
+any of the keeper's people, though he had another party in the street.
+
+But this would have signified very little, if Providence had not also
+directed them to a place of safety by bringing them as soon as they
+broke out of the door to a monastery. Thither they fled for shelter, and
+the religious of the place treated them with much humanity. They
+succoured them with all necessary provision, protected them when
+reclaimed by the gaoler, and taking them into their service, showed them
+in all respects the same care and favour they did to the rest of their
+domestics.
+
+Yet honest labour, however recompensed, was grating to these restless
+people, who longed for nothing but debauchery, and struggled for liberty
+only as a preparative to the indulging of their vices; and so they began
+to contrive how they should free themselves from hence. Barton and his
+fellow engineer were not long before they fell on a method to effect it,
+by wrenching open the outer doors in the night, and getting to an
+English vessel that lay in the harbour ready to sail.
+
+They had not been aboard long ere they found that the charitable friars
+had agreed with the captain for their passage, and so all they gained by
+breaking out was the danger of being reclaimed, or at least going naked
+and without any assistance, which to be sure they would have met with
+from their masters, if they could but have had a little patience. But
+the passion of returning home, or rather a vehement lust after the
+basest pleasures, hurried them to whatever appeared conducive to that
+end, however fatal in its consequence it might be.
+
+When they were got safe into their native country again, each took such
+a course for a livelihood as he liked best. Whether Barton then fell
+into thievery, or whether he learned not that mystery before he had
+served an apprenticeship thereto in the Army I cannot say, but in some
+short space after his being at home 'tis certain that he listed himself
+a soldier, and served several campaigns in Flanders, during the last
+War. Being a very gallant fellow, he gained the love of his officers,
+and there was great probability of his doing well there, having gained
+at least some principle of honour in the service, which would have
+prevented him doing such base things as those for which he afterwards
+died. But, unhappily for him, the War ended just as he was on the point
+of becoming paymaster-sergeant, and his regiment being disbanded, poor
+Will became broke in every acceptation of the word. He retained always a
+strong tincture of his military education, and was peculiarly fond of
+telling such adventures as he gained the knowledge of, while in the
+Army.
+
+Amongst other stories that he told were one or two which may appear
+perhaps not unentertaining to my readers. When Brussels came towards the
+latter end of the War to be pretty well settled under the Imperialists,
+abundance of persons of distinction came to reside there and in the
+neighborhood from the advantage natural to so fine a situation. Amongst
+these was the Baron De Casteja, a nobleman of a Spanish family, who
+except for his being addicted excessively to gaming, was in every way a
+fine gentlemen. He had married a lady of one of the best families in
+Flanders, by whom he had a son of the greatest hopes. The baron's
+passion for play had so far lessened their fortune that they lived but
+obscurely at a village three leagues from Brussels, where having now
+nothing to support his gaming expenses, he grew reformed, and his
+behaviour gained so high and general esteem that the most potent lord in
+the country met not with higher reverence on any occasion. The great
+prudence and economy of the baroness made her the theme of general
+praise, while the young Chevalier de Casteja did not a little add to the
+honours of the family.
+
+It happened the baron had a younger brother in the Emperor's service,
+whose merit having raised him to a considerable rank in his armies, he
+had acquired a very considerable estate, to the amount of upwards of one
+hundred thousand crowns, which on his death he bequeathed him. Upon this
+accession of fortune, the Baron Casteja, as is but too frequent, fell to
+his old habit, and became as fond of gaming as ever. The poor lady saw
+this with the utmost concern, and dreaded the confounding this legacy,
+as all the baron's former fortune had been consumed by his being the
+dupe of gamesters. In deep affliction at the consideration of what
+might in future times become the Chevalier's fortune, she therefore
+entreated the baron to lay out part of the sum in somewhat which might
+be a provision for his son. The baron promised both readily and
+faithfully that he would out of the first remittance. A few weeks later
+he received forty thousand crowns and the baroness and he set out for
+Brussels, under pretence of enquiring for something proper for his
+purpose, carrying with him twenty thousand crowns for the purchase. But
+he forgot the errand upon the road, and no sooner arrived at Brussels,
+but going to a famous marquis's entertainment, in a very few hours lost
+the last penny of his money. Returning home after this misfortune, he
+was a little out of humour for a week, but at the end of that space,
+making up the other twenty thousand privately he intended to set out
+next day.
+
+The poor lady, at her wit's end for fear this large sum should go the
+same way as the other, bethought herself of a method of securing both
+the cash and her son's place. She communicated her design to her major
+domo, who readily came into it, and having taken three of the servants
+and the baroness's page into the secret, he sent for Barton and another
+Englishman quartered near them, and easily prevailed on them for a very
+small sum, to become accomplices in the undertaking. In a word, the lady
+having provided disguises for them, and a man's suit for herself, caused
+the touch-holes of the arms which the baron and two servants carried
+with him to be nailed up, and then towards evening sallying at the head
+of her little troop from a wood, as he passed on the road, the baron
+being rendered incapable of resistance, was robbed of the whole twenty
+thousand crowns. With this she settled her son, and the baron was so far
+touched at the loss of such a provision for his family, that he made a
+real and thorough reformation, and Barton from this exploit fell in love
+with robbing ever after.
+
+Another adventure he related was this. Being taken prisoner by the
+French, and carried to one of their frontier garrisons, a treaty shortly
+being expected to be settled, to relieve the miseries he endured, Barton
+got into the service of a Gascon officer who proved at bottom almost as
+poor as himself. However, after Barton's coming he quickly found a way
+to live as well as anybody in the garrison, which he accomplished thus.
+All play at games of chance was, in the score of some unlucky accidents
+proceeding from quarrels which it had occasioned, absolutely forbidden,
+and the provosts were enjoined to visit all quarters, in order to bring
+the offenders to shameful punishments. The Gascon captain took advantage
+of the severity of this order, and having concerted the matter with a
+countryman and comrade of his, a known gamester, plundered all the rest
+who were addicted to that destructive passion; for gaining intelligence
+of the private places where they met, from his friend, he putting
+himself, Barton and another person into proper habits, attacked these
+houses suddenly almost every night with a crowd of the populace at his
+heels, and raised swinging contributions on those who being less wicked
+than himself never had any suspicion of his actions, but took him and
+his comrades for the proper officer and his attendants.
+
+Barton's greatest unhappiness was his marriage. He was too uxorious, and
+too solicitous for what concerned his wife, how well so ever she
+deserved of him; for not enduring to see her work honestly for her bread
+he would needs support her in an easy state of life, though at the
+hazard of the gallows. There is, however, little question to be made but
+that he had learned much in his travels to enable him to carry on his
+wicked designs with more ease and dexterity, for no thief, perhaps, in
+any age, managed his undertakings with greater prudence and economy. And
+having somewhere picked up the story of the Pirate and Alexander the
+Great, it became one of Will's standing maxims that the only difference
+between a robber and a conqueror was the value of the prize.
+
+Being one day on the road with a comrade of his, who had served also
+with him abroad in the Army, and observing a stage coach at a distance,
+in right of the seniority of his commission as a Knight of the Pad,
+Barton commanded the other to ride forward in order to reconnoitre. The
+young fellow obeyed him as submissively as if he had been an aide de
+camp, and returning, brought him word that the force of the enemy
+consisted of four beau laden with blunderbusses, two ladies and a
+footman. _Then_, quoth Will, _we may e'en venture to attack them. Let us
+make our necessary disposition. I will ride slowly up to them, while you
+gallop round that hill, and as soon as you come behind the coach, be
+sure to fire a pistol over it, and leave the rest to me._
+
+Things thus adjusted, each advanced on his attack. Barton no sooner
+stopped the coach and presented his pistol at one window, than his
+companion, after firing a brace of balls over the coachman's head, did
+the like at the other, which so surprised the fine gentlemen within,
+that without the least resistance they surrendered all they had about
+them, which amounted to about one hundred pounds, which Barton put up.
+_Come, gentlemen_, says he, _let us make bold with your fire-arms too,
+for you see we make more use of them than you._ So, seizing a brace of
+pistols inlaid with silver, and two fine brass blunderbusses, Will and
+his subaltern rode off.
+
+But alas, Will's luck would not last (as his rogueship used to express
+it). For, attempting a robbery in Covent Garden, where he was too well
+known, he was surprised, committed to Newgate and on his conviction
+ordered to be transported for seven years to his Majesty's Plantations,
+whither he was accordingly carried.
+
+When he was landed, a planter bought him after the manner of that
+country, and paid eighteen pounds for him. Barton wanting neither
+understanding nor address, he soon became the darling of his master, who
+far from employing him in those laborious works which are usually talked
+of here, put upon him nothing more than merely supervising his slaves
+and taking care of them, when business obliged him to be absent.
+
+One would have thought that so easy a state of life, after the toil and
+miseries such a man as him of whom we are speaking must have run
+through, would have been pleasing, and that it might have become a means
+of reclaiming him from those vices so heinous in the sight of God, and
+for which he had barely escaped the greatest punishment that can be
+inflicted by man. At first, it indeed made some impressions not very
+different from these; Barton owning that his master's treatment was such
+that if a man had not absolutely bent his mind on such courses as
+necessarily must make him unhappy, he might have enjoyed all he could
+have hoped for there. Of which he became so sensible that for some time
+he remained fully satisfied with his condition.
+
+But alas! Content, when its basis rests not upon virtue, like a house
+founded on a sandy soil is incapable of continuing long. No sooner had
+Barton leisure and opportunity to recollect home, his friends, and above
+all his wife, but it soon shocked his repose, and having awhile
+disturbed and troubled him, it pushed him at last on the unhappy
+resolution or returning to England, before the expiration of his time
+for which he was banished. This project rolled for a very considerable
+space in the fellow's head. Sometimes the desire of seeing his
+companions, and above all things his wife, made him eager to undertake
+it; at others, the fear of running upon inevitable death in case of a
+discovery, and the consideration of the felicity he now had in his power
+made him timorous, at least, if not unwilling to return.
+
+At last, as is ordinary amongst these unhappy people, the worst opinion
+prevailed, and finding a method to free himself from his master, and to
+get aboard a ship, he came back to his dearly beloved London, and to
+those measures which had already occasioned so great a misfortune, and
+at last brought him to an ignominious death. On his return, his first
+care was to seek out his wife, for whom he had a warm and never ceasing
+affection, and having found her, he went to live with her, taking his
+old methods of supporting them, though he constantly denied that she was
+either a partner in the commission, or even so much as in the knowledge
+of his guilt. But this quickly brought him to Newgate again, and to that
+fatal end to which he, like some other flagitious creatures of this
+stamp, seem impatient to arrive; since no warning, no admonition, no
+escape is sufficient to deter them from those crimes, which they are
+sensible the laws of their country with Justice have rendered capital.
+
+Barton's return from transportation was sufficient to have brought him
+to death had he committed nothing besides; but he, whether through
+necessity, as having no way left of living honestly, or from his own
+evil inclinations, ventured upon his old trade, and robbing amongst
+others the Lord Viscount Lisbourn, of the Kingdom of Ireland, and a lady
+who was with him in the coach, of a silver hilted sword, a snuff-box and
+about twelve shillings in money, he was for this fact taken, tried and
+convicted at the Old Bailey.
+
+He immediately laid by all hopes of life as soon as he had received
+sentence, and with great earnestness set himself to secure that peace in
+the world to come, which his own vices had hindered him from in this. He
+got some good books which he read with continual devotion and attention,
+submitted with the utmost patience to the miseries of his sad condition,
+and finding his relations would take care of his daughter and that his
+wife, for whom he never lost the most tender concern, would be in no
+danger of want, he laid aside the thoughts of temporal matters
+altogether expressing a readiness to die, and never showing any weakness
+or impatience of the nearest approach of death.
+
+Much of that firmness with which he behaved in these last moments of his
+life might probably be owing to natural courage, of which certainly
+Barton had a very large share. But the remains of virtue and religion,
+to which the man had always a propensity, notwithstanding that he gave
+way to passions which brought him to all the sorrows he knew, yet the
+return he made, when in the shadow of death, to piety and devotion,
+enabled him to suffer with great calmness, on Friday the 12th of May,
+1721, aged about thirty-one years.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT PERKINS, Thief
+
+
+I should never have undertaken this work without believing it might in
+some degree be advantageous to the public. Young persons, and especially
+those in a meaner state, are, I presume, those who will make up the
+bulk of my readers, and these, too, are they who are more commonly
+seduced into practices of this ignominious nature. I should therefore
+think myself unpardonable if I did not take care to furnish them with
+such cautions as the examples I am giving of the fatal consequences of
+vice will allow, at the same time that I exhibit those adventures and
+entertaining scenes which disguise the dismal path, and make the road to
+ruin pleasing. They meet here with a true prospect of things, the tinsel
+splendour of sensual pleasure, and that dreadful price men pay for
+it--shameful death. I hope it may be of use in correcting the errors of
+juvenile tempers devoted to their passions, with whom sometimes danger
+passes for a certain road to honour, and the highway seems as tempting
+to them as chivalry did to Don Quixote. Such and some other such like,
+are very unlucky notions in young heads, and too often inspire them with
+courage enough to dare the gallows, which seldom fails meeting with them
+in the end.
+
+As to the particulars of the person's life we are now speaking of, they
+will be sufficient to warn those who are so unhappy as to suffer from
+the ill-usage of their parents not to fall into courses of so base a
+nature, but rather to try every honest method to submit rather than
+commit dishonest acts, thereby justifying all the ill-treatment they
+have received, and by their own follies blot out the remembrance of
+their cruel parents' crimes. For though it sometimes happens that they
+are reduced to necessities which force them, in a manner, on what brings
+them to disgrace, yet the ill-natured world will charge all upon
+themselves, or at most will spare their pity till it comes too late; and
+when the poor wretch is dead will add to their reflections on him, as
+harsh ones as on those from whom he is descended.
+
+Robert Perkins was the son of a very considerable innkeeper, in or near
+Hempsted, in Hertfordshire, who during the life-time of his wife treated
+him with great tenderness and seeming affection, sending him to school
+to a person in a neighbouring village, who was very considerable for his
+art of teaching, and professing his settled resolution to give his son
+Bob a very good education.
+
+But no sooner had death snatched away the poor woman by whom Mr. Perkins
+had our unhappy Robin, then his father began to change his measures.
+First of all the unfortunate lad experienced the miseries that flow from
+the careless management of a widower, who forgetting all obligations to
+his deceased wife, thought of nothing but diverting himself, and getting
+a new helpmate. But Robin continued not long in this state; his
+hardships were quickly increased by the second marriage of his father,
+upon which he was fetched home and treated with some kindness at first.
+But in a little time perceiving how things were going, and perhaps
+expressing his suspicions too freely, his mother-in-law soon prevailed
+to have him turned out, and absolutely forbidden his father's house, the
+ready way to force a naked uninstructed youth on the most sinful
+courses. Whether Robin at that time did anything dishonest is not
+certain, but being grievously pinched with cold one night, and troubled
+also with dismal apprehensions of what might come to his sister, he got
+a ladder and by the help of it climbed in at his mother's window. This
+was immediately exaggerated into a design of cutting her throat, and
+poor Bob was thereupon utterly discarded.
+
+A short time after this, old Mr. Perkins died and left a fortune of
+several thousand pounds behind him, for which the poor young man was
+never a groat the better, being bound out 'prentice to a baker, and
+left, as to everything else, to the wide world. His inclination, joined
+to the rambling life which he had hitherto led, induced him to mind the
+vulgar pleasures of drinking, gaming, and idling about much more than
+his business, which to him appeared very laborious. There are everywhere
+companions enough to be met with who are ready to teach ignorant youths
+the practice of all sorts of debauchery. Perkins fell quickly among such
+a set, and often rambled abroad with them on the usual errands of
+whoring, shuffle-board, or skittle-playing, etc. The thoughts of that
+estate which in justice he ought to have possessed, did not a little
+contribute to make him thus heedless of his business, for as is usual
+with weak minds, he affected living at the rate his father's fortune
+would have afforded him, rather than in the frugal manner which his
+narrow circumstance actually required; methods which necessarily pushed
+him on such expeditions for supply as drew on those misfortunes which
+rendered his life miserable and his death shameful.
+
+One day, having agreed with some young lads in the neighbourhood to go
+out upon the rake, they steered their course to Whitechapel, and going
+into a little alehouse, began to drink stoutly, sing bawdy songs, and
+indulge themselves in the rest of those brutal delights into which such
+wretches are used to plunge under the name of pleasure. In the height,
+however, of all their mirth, the people of the house missing out of the
+till a crown piece with some particular marks, they sent for a constable
+and some persons to assist him, who caused all the young fellows
+instantly to be separated and searched one by one; on which the marked
+crown was found in Robert Perkin's pocket, and he was thereupon
+immediately carried before a Justice, who committed him to Newgate. The
+sessions coming on soon after, and the case being plain, he was cast
+and ordered for transportation, having time enough, however, before he
+was shipped, to consider the melancholy circumstances into which his
+ill-conduct had reduced him, and to think of what was fitting for him to
+do in the present sad state he was in. At first nothing ran in his head
+but the cruelties which he had met with from his family, but as the time
+of his departure drew nearer he meditated how to gain the captain's
+favour, and to escape some hardships in the voyage.
+
+Robin had the good luck to make himself tolerably easy in the ship. His
+natural good nature and obliging temper prevailing so far on the captain
+of the vessel that he gave him all the liberty and afforded him whatever
+indulgence it was in his power to permit with safety. But our young
+traveller had much worse luck when he came on shore at Jamaica, where he
+was immediately sold to a planter for ten pounds, and his trade of baker
+being of little use there, his master put him upon much the same labour
+as he did his negroes, Robin's constitution was really incapable of
+great fatigue; his master, therefore, finding in the end that nothing
+would make him work, sold him to another, who put him upon his own
+employment of baking, building an oven on purpose. But whether this
+master really used him cruelly or whether his idle inclinations made him
+think all labour cruel usage, is hard to say, but however it was, Bob
+ran away from this master and got on board a ship which carried him to
+Carolina, from whence he said he travelled to Maryland and shipped
+himself there, in a vessel for England. After being taken by the
+Spaniards, and enduring many other great hardships, he at last with much
+difficulty got home, as is too frequently the practice of these unhappy
+wretches who are ready to return from tolerable plenty to the gallows.
+
+After his arrival in England, he wrought for near two years together at
+his own business, and had the settled intention to live honestly and
+forsake that disorderly state of life which had involved him in such
+calamities; but the fear he was continually in of being discovered,
+rendered him so uneasy and so unable to do anything, that at last he
+resolved to go over into the East Indies. For this purpose he was come
+down to Gravesend, in order to embark, when he was apprehended; and
+being tried on an indictment for returning from transportation, he was
+convicted thereon, and received sentence of death. During the time he
+lay under conviction, the principles of a good education began again to
+exert themselves, and by leading him to a thorough confidence in the
+mercies of Christ weaned him from that affection which hitherto he had
+for this sinful and miserable world, in which, as he had felt nothing
+but misery and affliction, the change seemed the easier, so that he at
+last began not only to shake off the fear of death, bur even to desire
+it. Nor was this calmness short and transitory, but he continued in it
+till the time he suffered, which was on the 5th of July, 1721, at
+Tyburn. He said he died with less reluctance because his ruin involved
+nobody but himself, he leaving no children behind him, and his wife
+being young enough to get a living honestly.
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA SPENCER, Coiner, etc.
+
+
+Before we proceed to mention the particulars that have come to our hands
+concerning this unhappy criminal, it may not be amiss to take notice of
+the rigour with which all civilised nations have treated offenders in
+this kind, by considering the crime itself as a species of treason. The
+reason of which arises thus. As money is the universal standard or
+measure of the value of any commodity, so the value of money is always
+regulated, in respect of its weight, fineness, etc., by the public
+authority of the State. To counterfeit, therefore, is in some degree to
+assume the supreme authority, inasmuch as it is giving a currency to
+another less valuable piece of metal than that made current by the
+State. The old laws of England were very severe on this head, and
+carried their care of preventing it so far as to damage the public in
+other respects, as by forbidding the importation of bullion, and
+punishing with death attempts made to discover the Philosopher's Stone
+which forced whimsical persons who were enamoured of that experiment to
+go abroad and spend their money in pursuit of that project there. These
+causes, therefore, upon a review of the laws on this head, were
+abrogated; but the edge in other respects was rather sharpened than
+abated. For as the trade of the nation increased, frauds in the coin
+became of worse consequence and not only so, but were more practised.
+
+In the reign of King William and Queen Mary, clipping and coining grew
+so notorious and had so great and fatal influences on the public trade
+of the nation, that Parliament found it necessary to enter upon that
+great work of a recoinage[5] and in order to prevent all future
+inconveniences of a like nature, they at the same time enacted that not
+only counterfeiting, chipping, scaling, lightening, or otherwise
+debasing the current specie of this realm, should be deemed and punished
+as high treason, but they included also under the same charge and
+punishment the having any press, engine, tool, or implement proper for
+coining, the mending, buying, selling, etc., of them; and upon this Act,
+which was rendered perpetual by another made in the seventh year of the
+reign of Queen Anne, all our proceedings on this head are at this day
+grounded. Many executions and many more trials happened on these laws
+being first made, dipping, especially, being an ordinary thing, and some
+persons of tolerable reputation in the world engaged in it; but the
+strict proceedings (in the days of King William, especially) against
+all, without distinction, who offended in that way, so effectually
+crushed them that a coiner nowadays is looked upon as an extraordinary
+criminal, though the Law still continues to take its course, whenever
+they are convicted, the Crown being seldom or never induced to grant a
+pardon.
+
+As to this poor woman, Barbara Spencer, she was the daughter of mean
+parents and was left very young to the care of her mother, who lived in
+the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate. This old creature, as is common
+enough with ordinary people, indulged her daughter so much in all her
+humours, and suffered her to take so uncontrolled a liberty that all her
+life-time after, she was incapable of bearing restraint, but, on every
+slight contradiction flew out into the wildest excesses of passion and
+fury. When but a child, on a very slight difference at home, she must
+needs go out 'prentice, and was accordingly put to a mantua-maker, who
+having known her throughout her infancy, fatally treated her with the
+same indulgence and tenderness. She continued with her about two years,
+and then, on a few warm words happening, went away from so good a
+mistress, and came home again to her mother, who by that time had set up
+a brandy shop.
+
+On Miss Barbara's return, a maid had to be taken, for she was much too
+good to do the work of the house. The servant had not been there long
+before they quarrelled, the mother taking the wench's part. Away went
+the young woman, but matters being made up and the old mother keeping an
+alehouse in Cripplegate parish, she once more went to live with her.
+This reconciliation lasted longer, but was more fatal to Barbara than
+her late falling out.
+
+One day, it seems, she took into her head to go and see the prisoners
+die at Tyburn, but her mother meeting her at the door, told her that
+there was too much business for her to do at home, and that she should
+not go. Harsh words ensuing on this, her mother at last struck her, and
+said she should be her death. However, Barbara went, and the man who
+attended her to Tyburn, brought her afterwards to a house by St. Giles's
+Pound[6] where after relating the difference between herself and her
+mother, she vowed she would never return any more home. In this
+resolution she was encouraged, and soon after was acquainted with the
+secrets of the house, and appointed to go out with their false money, in
+order to vend, or utter it; which trade, as it freed her from all
+restraint, she was at first mightily pleased with. But being soon
+discovered she was committed to Newgate, convicted and fined.
+
+About this time she first became acquainted with Mrs. Miles, who
+afterwards betrayed her, and upon this occasion was, it seems, so kind
+as to advance some money for her. On the affair for which she died, the
+evidence could have hardly done without Miles's assistance, which so
+enraged poor Barbara that even to the instant of death, she could hardly
+prevail with herself to forgive her, and never spoke of her without a
+kind of heat, very improper and unbecoming in a person in her
+distressful state.
+
+The punishment ordained by our laws for treasons committed by women,
+whether high or petty, is burning alive.[7] This, though pronounced upon
+her by the judge, she could never be brought to believe would be
+executed, but while she lay under sentence, she endeavoured to put off
+the thoughts of the fatal day as much as she could, always asserting
+that she thought the crime no sin, for which she was condemned. It seems
+her mother died at Tyburn before midsummer, and this poor wretch would
+often say that she little thought she should so soon follow her, when
+she attended her to death, averring also that she suffered unjustly. As
+for this poor woman, her temper was exceedingly unhappy, and as it had
+made her uneasy and miserable all her life, so at her death it
+occasioned her to be impatient, and to behave inconsistently. For which,
+sometimes, she would apologise, by saying that though it was not in her
+power to put on grave looks, yet her heart was as truly affected as
+theirs who gave greater outward signs of contrition; a manner of
+speaking usually taken up by those who would be thought to think
+seriously in the midst of outward gaiety, and of whose sincerity in
+cases like these. He only can judge who is acquainted with the secrets
+of all hearts and who, as He is not to be deceived, so His penetration
+is utterly unknown to us, who are confined to appearances and the
+exterior marks of things.
+
+She lost all her boldness at the near approach of death and seemed
+excessively surprised and concerned at the apprehension of the flames.
+When she went out to die, she owned her crime more fully than she had
+ever done. She said she had learnt to coin of a man and woman who had
+now left off and lived very honestly, wherefore she said she would not
+discover them. At the very slake she complained how hard she found it to
+forgive Miles, who had been her accomplice and then betrayed her, adding
+that though she saw faggots and brushes ready to be lighted and to
+consume her, yet she would not receive life at the expense of another's
+blood. She averred there were great numbers of London who followed the
+same trade of coining, and earnestly wished they might take warning by
+her death. At the instant of suffering, she appeared to have reassumed
+all her resolution, for which she had, indeed, sufficient occasion, when
+to the lamentable death by burning was added the usual noise and clamour
+of the mob, who also threw stones and dirt, which beat her down and
+wounded her. However, she forgave them cheerfully, prayed with much
+earnestness and ended her life the same day as the last mentioned
+malefactor, Perkins, aged about twenty-four years.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [5] A commission was appointed to consider the debased state of
+        the currency and, not without considerable opposition, a bill
+        was passed in 1696, withdrawing all debased coin from
+        circulation. This incurred an expense of some £1,200,000, which
+        the Government met by imposing a window tax.
+
+    [6] This was at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford
+        Street. It was an old London landmark, from which distances were
+        measured as from the Standard in Cornhill. It was demolished in
+        1765.
+
+    [7] In practice, criminals were strangled before being burned.
+        The last case in which this penalty was inflicted was in 1789;
+        it was abolished the following year.
+
+
+
+
+WALTER KENNEDY, a Pirate
+
+
+Piracy was anciently in this kingdom considered as a petty treason at
+Common Law; but the multitude of treasons, or to speak more properly of
+offences construed into treason, becoming a very great grievance to the
+subject, this with many others was left out in the famous Statute of the
+25th Edward the Third, for limiting what thenceforth should be deemed
+treason. From that time piracy was regarded in England only as a crime
+against the Civil Law, by which it was always capital; but there being
+some circumstances very troublesome, as to the proofs therein required
+for conviction, by a statute in the latter end of the reign of Henry the
+Eighth it was provided that this offence should be tried by
+commissioners appointed by the king, consisting of the admiral and
+certain of his officers, with such other persons as the reigning prince
+should think fit, after the common course of the laws of this realm for
+felonies and robberies committed on land, in which state it hath
+continued with very small alterations to this day.
+
+Offenders of this kind are now tried at the Sessions-house in the Old
+Bailey, before the judge of the Court of Admiralty, assisted by certain
+other judges of the Common Law by virtue of such a commission as ts
+before mentioned, the silver oar (a peculiar ensign of authority
+belonging to the Court of Admiralty) lying on the table. As pirates are
+not very often apprehended in Britain, so particular notice is always
+given when a Court like this, called an Admiralty Sessions, is to be
+held, the prisoners until that time remaining in the Marshalsea, the
+proper prison of this Court.
+
+On the 26th of Jury, 1721, at such a sessions, Walter Kennedy and John
+Bradshaw were tried for piracies committed on the high seas, and both of
+them convicted. This Walter Kennedy was born at a place called Pelican
+Stairs in Wapping. His father was an anchor-smith, a man of good
+reputation, who gave his son Walter the best education he was able; and
+while a lad he was very tractable, and had no other apparent ill quality
+than that of a too aspiring temper. When he was grown up big enough to
+have gone out to a trade, his father bound him apprentice to himself,
+but died before his son was out of his time. Leaving his father's
+effects in the possession of his mother and brothers, Walter then
+followed his own roving inclinations and went to sea. He served for a
+considerable time on board a man-of-war, in the reign of her late
+Majesty Queen Anne, in the war then carried on against France; during
+which time he often had occasion to hear of the exploits of the pirates,
+both in the East and West Indies, and of their having got several
+islands into their possession, wherein they were settled, and in which
+they exercised a sovereign power.
+
+These tales had wonderful effect on Walter's disposition, and created in
+him a secret ambition of making a figure in the same way. He became more
+than ordinarily attentive whenever stories of that sort were told, and
+sought every opportunity of putting his fellow sailors upon such
+relations. Men of that profession have usually good memories with
+respect, at least, to such matters, and Kennedy, therefore, without much
+difficulty became acquainted with the principal expeditions of these
+maritime desperadoes, from the time of Sir Henry Morgan's commanding the
+Buccaneers in America, to Captain Avery's more modern exploits at
+Madagascar[8]; his fancy insinuating to him continually that he might be
+able to make as great a figure as any of these thievish heroes, whenever
+a proper opportunity offered.
+
+It happened that he was sent with Captain Woodes Rogers,[9] Governor of
+Providence [Bahama Islands], when that gentleman first sent to recover
+that island by reducing the pirates, who then had it in possession. At
+the time of the captain's arrival these people had fortified themselves
+in several places, and with all the care they were able, had provided
+both for their safety and subsistence.
+
+It happened that some time before, they had taken a ship, on board of
+which they found a considerable quantity of the richest brocades, for
+which having no other occasion, they tore them up, and tying them
+between the horns of their goats, made use of them to distinguish herds
+that belonged to one settlement and those that belonged to another, and
+sight of this, notwithstanding the miserable condition which in other
+respects these wretches were in, mightily excited the inclination
+Kennedy had to following their occupation.
+
+Captain Rogers having signified to the chiefs of them the offers he had
+to make of free grace and pardon, the greater number of them came in and
+submitted very readily. Those who were determined to continue the same
+dissolute kind of life, provided with all the secrecy imaginable for
+their safety, and when practicable took their flight out of the island.
+The captain being made Governor, fitted out two sloops for trade, and
+having given proper directions to their commanders, manned them out of
+his own sailors with some of these reformed pirates intermixed. Kennedy
+went out on one of these vessels, in which he had not long been at sea
+before he joined in a conspiracy some of the rest had formed of seizing
+the vessel, putting those to death who refused to come into their
+measures, and then to go, as the sailors phrase it, "upon the account",
+that is in plain English, commence pirates.
+
+This villainous design succeeded according to their wish. They emptied
+the other vessel of whatever they thought might be of use, and then
+turned her adrift, as being a heavy sailer, and consequently unfit for
+their purpose. A few days after their entering on this new course of
+life, they made themselves masters of two pretty large ships, having
+fitted which for their purpose, they now grew strong enough to execute
+any project that in their present circumstances they were capable of
+forming. Thus Kennedy was now got in to that unhappy state of living
+which from a false notion of things he had framed so fair an idea of and
+was so desirous to engage in.
+
+Kennedy took a particular delight in relating what happened to him in
+these expeditions, even after they had brought him to misery and
+confinement. The account he gave of that form of rule which these
+wretches set up, in imitation of the legal government, and of those
+regulations there made to supply the place of moral honesty was in
+substance this.
+
+They chose a captain from amongst themselves, who in effect held little
+more than that title, excepting in an engagement, when he commanded
+absolutely and without control. Most of them having suffered formerly
+from the ill-treatment of their officers, provided carefully against any
+such evil, now they had the choice in themselves. By their orders they
+provided especially against any quarrels which might happen among
+themselves, and appointed certain punishments for anything that tended
+that way; for the due execution thereof they constituted other officers
+besides the captain, so very industrious were they to avoid putting too
+much power into the hands of one man. The rest of their agreement
+consisted chiefly in relation to the manner of dividing the cargo of
+such prizes as they should happen to take, and though they had broken
+through all laws divine and human, yet they imposed an oath to be taken
+for the due observance of these, so inconsistent a thing is vice, and so
+strong the principles imbibed from education.
+
+The life they led at sea was rendered equally unhappy from fear and
+hardship, they never seeing any vessel which reduced them not to the
+necessity of fighting, and often filled them with apprehensions of being
+overcome. Whatever they took in their several prizes could afford them
+no other pleasure but downright drunkenness on board, and except for two
+or three islands there were no other places where they were permitted to
+come on shore, for nowadays it was become exceedingly dangerous to land,
+either at Jamaica, Barbadoes, or on the islands of the Bermudas. In this
+condition they were when they came to a resolution of choosing one
+Davis[10] as captain, and going under his command to the coast of
+Brazil.
+
+This design they put in execution, being chiefly tempted with the hopes
+of surprising some vessel of the homeward bound Portuguese fleet, by
+which they hoped to be made rich at once, and no longer be obliged to
+lead a life so full of danger. Accordingly they fell in with twenty sail
+of those ships and were in the utmost danger of being taken and treated
+as they deserved. However, on this occasion their captain behaved very
+prudently, and taking the advantage of one of those vessels being
+separated from the rest, they boarded her in the night without firing a
+gun. They forced the captain, when they had him in one of their own
+ships, to discover which of the fleet was the most richly laden, which
+he having done through fear, they impudently attacked her, and were very
+near becoming masters of her, though they were surrounded by the
+Portuguese ships, from whence they at last escaped, not so much by the
+swiftness of their own sailing, as by the cowardice of the enemy. In
+this attempt, though they miscarried as to the prize they had proposed,
+yet they accounted themselves very fortunate in having thus escaped from
+so dangerous an adventure.
+
+Being some time after this in great want of water, Davis at the head of
+about fifty of his men, very well armed, made a descent in order to fill
+their casks, though the Portuguese governor of the port near which they
+landed easily discovered them to be pirates; but not thinking himself in
+a condition strong enough to attack them, he thought fit to dissemble
+that knowledge.
+
+Davis and his men were no sooner returned on board than they received a
+message by a boat from shore, that the Governor would think himself
+highly honoured if the captain and as many as he pleased of his ship's
+company would accept of an entertainment the next day at the castle
+where he resided. Their commander, who had hitherto behaved himself like
+a man of conduct, suffered his vanity to overcome him so far as to
+accept of the proposal, and the next morning with ten of his sailors,
+all dressed in their best clothes, went on shore to this collation. But
+before they had reached half way, they were set upon by a party of
+Indians who lay in ambuscade, and with one flight of their poisoned
+arrows laid them all upon the ground, except Kennedy and another, who
+escaped to the top of a mountain, from whence they leaped into the sea,
+and were with much difficulty taken up by a boat which their companions
+sent to relieve them.
+
+After this they grew tired of the coast of Brazil. However, in their
+return to the West Indies they took some very considerable prizes, upon
+which they resolved unanimously to return home, in order, as they
+flattered themselves, to enjoy their riches. The captain who then
+commanded them was an Irishman, who endeavoured to bring the ship into
+Ireland, on the north coast of which a storm arising, the vessel was
+carried into Scotland and there wrecked. At that time Kennedy had a
+considerable quantity of gold, which he either squandered away, or had
+stolen from him in the Highlands. He afterwards went over into Ireland,
+where being in a low and poor condition he shipped himself at length for
+England, and came up to London. He had not been long in town before he
+was observed by some whose vessel had been taken by the crew with whom
+he sailed. They caused him to be apprehended, and after lying a
+considerable time in prison, he was, as I have said before, tried and
+convicted.
+
+After sentence, he showed much less concern for life than is usual for
+persons in that condition. He was so much tired with the miseries and
+misfortune which for some years before he had endured, that death
+appeared to him a thing rather desirable than frightful. When the
+reprieve came for Bradshaw, who was condemned with him, he expressed
+great satisfaction, at the same time saying that he was better pleased
+than if he himself had received mercy. _For_, continued he, _should I be
+banished into America as he is, 'tis highly probable I might be tempted
+to my old way of life, and so instead of reforming, add to the number of
+my sins._
+
+He continued in these sentiments till the time of his death, when, as he
+went through Cheapside to his execution, the silver oar being carried
+before him as is usual, he turned about to a person who sat by him in
+the cart, and said, _Though it is a common thing for us when at sea to
+acquire vast quantities both of that metal which goes before me, and of
+gold, yet such is the justice of Providence that few or none of us
+preserve enough to maintain us; but as you see in me, when we go to
+death, we have not wherewith to purchase a coffin to bury us._ He died
+at Execution Dock, the 21st[11] of July, 1721, being then about
+twenty-six years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [8] Avery was one of the best known pirates of his time and
+        told of his wonderful wealth, his capturing and marrying the
+        daughter of the Great Mogul, and his setting up a kingdom in
+        Madagascar. He was even the hero of a popular play--_The
+        Successful Pirate_, produced at Dray Lane in 1712. The true
+        story of his life and how he died in want, is related at length
+        in Captain Charles Johnson's _History of the Pirates_ edited by
+        me, and published in the same edition as the present volume.
+
+    [9] Woodes Rogers (d. 1732) sailed on Dampier's voyages and
+        made a large sum of money which he devoted to buying the Bahama
+        Islands from the proprietors on a twenty-one years' lease. He
+        was made governor, but found himself unable to cope with the
+        pirates and Spaniards who infested the islands, and went back to
+        England in 1721. He returned as governor in 1728, and remained
+        there until his death.
+
+   [10] This was Howel Davis, whose adventures are related at
+        length in Johnson's _History of the Pirates_, chap. ix.
+
+   [11] _The History of the Pirates_ gives the date as 19th of July.
+        This book gives an interesting account of Kennedy, pp. 178-81.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MATTHEW CLARK, a Footpad and Murderer
+
+
+Perhaps there is nothing to which we may more justly attribute those
+numerous executions which so disgrace our country, than the false
+notions which the meaner sort, especially, imbibe in their youth as to
+love and women. This unhappy person, Matthew Clark, of whom we are now
+to speak, was a most remarkable instance of the truth of this
+observation. He was born at St. Albans, of parents in but mean
+circumstances, who thought they had provided very well for their son
+when they had procured his admission into the family of a neighbouring
+gentleman, equally distinguished by the greatness of his merit and
+fortune.
+
+In this place, certainly, had Matthew been inclined in any degree to
+good, he might have acquired from the favour of his master all the
+advantages, even of a liberal education; but proving an incorrigible,
+lazy and undutiful servant, the gentleman in whose service he was, after
+bearing with him a long time, turned him out of his family. He then went
+to plough and cart, and such other country work, but though he had been
+bred to this and was never in any state from which he could reasonably
+hope better, yet was he so restless and uneasy at those hardships which
+he fancied were put upon him, that he chose rather to rob than to
+labour; and leaving the farmer in whose service he was, used to skulk
+about Bushey Heath, and watch all opportunities to rob passengers.
+
+Matthew was a perfect composition of all the vices that enter into low
+life. He was idle, inclined to drunkenness, cruel and a coward; nor
+would he have had spirit enough to attack anybody on the road had it not
+been to supply him with money for merry meetings and dancing bouts, to
+which he was carried by his prevailing passion for loose women. And
+these expeditions keeping him continually bare, robbing and junketting,
+desire of pleasure and fear of the gallows were the whole round of both
+his actions and his thoughts.
+
+At last the matrimonial maggot bit his brain, and alter a short
+courtship, he prevailed on a young girl in the neighbourhood to go up
+with him to London, in order to their marriage. When they were there,
+finding his stock reduced so low that he had not even money to purchase
+the wedding ring, he pretended that a legacy of fifteen pounds was just
+left him in the country, and with a thousand promises of a quick return,
+set out from London to fetch it. When he left the town, full of uneasy
+thoughts, he travelled towards Neasden and Willesden Green, where
+formerly he had lived. He intended to have lurked there till he had an
+opportunity of robbing as many persons as to make up fifteen pounds from
+their effects. In pursuance of this resolution, he designed in himself
+to attack every passenger he saw, but whenever it came to the push, the
+natural cowardice of his temper prevailed and his heart failed him.
+
+[Illustration: MATTHEW CLARK CUTTING THE THROAT OF SARAH GOLDINGTON
+
+(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
+
+While he loitered about there, the master of an alehouse hard by took
+notice of him and asked him how he came to idle about in haytime, when
+there was so much work, offering at the same time to hire him for a
+servant. Upon this discourse Clark immediately recollected that all the
+persons belonging to this man's house must be out haymaking, except the
+maid, who served his liquors and waited upon guests. As soon, therefore,
+as he had parted from the master and saw he was gone into the fields, he
+turned back and went into his house, where renewing his former
+acquaintance with the maid, who as he had guessed, was there alone, and
+to whom he formerly had been a sweetheart, he sat near an hour drinking
+and talking in that jocose manner which is usual between people of their
+condition in the country. But in the midst of all his expressions of
+affection, he mediated how to rob the house, his timorous disposition
+supposing a thousand dangers from the knowledge the maid had of him.
+
+He resolved, in order absolutely to secure himself, to murder her out of
+the way; upon which, having secretly drawn his knife out of his sheath,
+and hiding it under his coat, he kissed her, designing at the same time
+to dispatch her; but his heart failed him the first time. However,
+getting up and kissing her a second time, he darted it into her
+windpipe; but its edge being very dull, the poor creature made a shift
+to mutter his name, and endeavoured to scramble after him. Upon which he
+returned, and with the utmost inhumanity cut her neck to the bone quite
+round; after which he robbed the house of some silver, but being
+confounded and astonished did not carry off much.
+
+He went directly into the London Road, and came as far as Tyburn, the
+sight of which filled him with so much terror that he was not able to
+pick up courage enough to go by it. Returning back into the road again,
+he met a waggon, which, in hopes of preventing all suspicion, he
+undertook to drive up to town (the man who drove it having hurt his
+leg). But he had not gone far before the persons who were in pursuit of
+the murderer of Sarah Goldington (the maid before mentioned) came up
+with him, and enquired whether he had seen anybody pass by his waggon
+who looked suspicious, or was likely to have committed the fact. This
+enquiry put him into so much confusion that he was scarce able to make
+an answer, which occasioned their looking at him more narrowly and
+thereby discovering the sleeve of his shirt to be all bloody. At first
+he affirmed with great confidence that a soldier meeting him upon the
+road had insulted him, and that in fighting with him he had made the
+soldier's mouth bleed, which had so stained his shirt. But in a little
+time perceiving this excuse would not prevail, but that they were
+resolved to carry him back, he fell into a violent agony and confessed
+the fact.
+
+At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was convicted, and after
+receiving sentence of death, endeavoured all he could to comfort and
+compose himself during the time he lay under condemnation. His father,
+who was a very honest industrious man came to see him, and after he was
+gone Matthew spoke with great concern of an expression which his father
+had made use of, viz., That if he had been to die for any other offence,
+he would have made all the interest and friends he could to have served
+for his life, but that the murder he had committed was so cruel, that he
+thought that nothing could atone for it but his blood. The inhumanity
+and cruel circumstances of it did indeed in some degree affect this
+malefactor himself, but he seemed much more disturbed with the
+apprehension of being hanged in chains, a thing which from the weakness
+of vulgar minds terrifies more than death itself, and the use of which I
+confess I do not see, since it serves only to render the poor wretches
+uneasy in their last moments, and instead of making suitable impressions
+on the minds of the spectators, affords a pretence for servants and
+other young persons to idle away their time in going to see the body so
+exposed on a gibbet.
+
+At the place of execution, Clark was extremely careful to inform the
+people that he was so far from having any malice against the woman whom
+he murdered that he really had a love for her. A report, too, of his
+having designed to sell the young girl he had brought out of the country
+into Virginia had weight enough with him to occasion his solemn denying
+of it at the tree, though he acknowledged at the same time that he had
+resolved to leave her. He declared also, to prevent any aspersions on
+some young men who had been his companions, that no person was ever
+present with, or privy to any of the robberies he had committed; and
+having thus far discharged his conscience, he suffered on the 28th of
+July, 1721, in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN WINSHIP, Highwayman and Footpad
+
+
+That idleness in which youths are suffered to live in this kingdom till
+they are grown to that size at which they are usually put apprentice (a
+space of time in which they are much better employed, in many other
+countries of Europe) too often creates an inaptitude to work and allows
+them opportunity of entering into paths which have a fatal termination.
+
+John Winship, of whom we are now to treat, was born of parents in
+tolerable circumstances in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. They
+gave him an education rather superior to his condition, and treated him
+with an indulgence by which his future life became unhappy. At about
+fourteen, they placed him as an apprentice with a carpenter, to which
+trade he himself had a liking. His master used him as well as he could
+have expected or wished, yet that inclination to idleness and loitering
+which he had contracted while a boy, made him incapable of pursuing his
+business with tolerable application. The particular accident by which he
+was determined to leave it shall be the next point in our relation.
+
+It happened that returning one day from work, he took notice of a young
+woman standing at a door in a street not far distant from that in which
+his master lived. He was then about seventeen, and imagining love to be
+a very fine thing, thought fit, without further enquiry, to make this
+young woman the object of his affection. The next evening he took
+occasion to speak to her, and this acquaintance soon improving into
+frequent appointments, naturally led Winship into much greater expenses
+than he was able to support. This had two consequences equally fatal to
+this unhappy young man, for in the first place he left his master and
+his trade, and took to driving of coaches and like methods, to get his
+bread; but all the ways he could think of, proving unable to supply his
+expenses, he went next upon the road, and raised daily contributions in
+as illegal a manner as they were spent at night, in all the excesses of
+vice.
+
+It is impossible to give either a particular or exact account of the
+robberies he committed, because he was always very reserved, even after
+conviction, in speaking as to these points.
+
+However, he is said to have been concerned in robbing a Frenchman of
+quality in the road to Hampstead, who in a two-horsed chaise, with the
+coachman on his box, was attacked in the dusk of the evening by three
+highwaymen. They exchanged several pistols and continued the fight,
+till, the ammunition on both sides being exhausted, the foreigner
+prepared to defend himself with his sword. The rogues were almost out of
+all hopes of obtaining their booty, when one of them getting behind the
+chaise secretly cut a square hole in its back, and putting in both his
+arms, seized the gentleman so strongly about the shoulders that his
+companions had an opportunity of closing in with him, disarming him of
+his sword, rifling and taking a hundred and twenty pistoles. Not
+content with this they ripped the lace off his clothes, and took from
+the coachmen all the money he had about him.
+
+Winship had been concerned in divers gangs, and being a fellow of
+uncommon agility of body, was mighty well received and much caressed by
+them, as was also another companion of his, whom they called
+Clean-Limbed Tom, whose true name was never known, being killed in a
+duel at Kilkenny in Ireland. This last mentioned person had been bred
+with an apothecary, and sometimes travelled the country in the high
+capacity of a quack doctor, at others, in the more humble station of a
+merry-andrew. Travelling once down into the west, with a little chest of
+medicines which he intended to dispose of in this matter at West
+Chester, at an inn about twenty miles short of that city he overtook a
+London wholesale dealer, who had been that way collecting debts. Tom
+made a shift to get into his company overnight, and diverted him so much
+with his facetious conversation that he invited him to breakfast with
+him the next morning. Tom took occasion to put a strong purge into the
+ale and toast which the Londoner was drinking, he himself pretending
+never to take anything in the morning but a glass of wine and bitters.
+When the stranger got on horseback, Tom offered to accompany him, _For_,
+says he, _I can easily walk as fast as your horse will trot._ They had
+not got above two miles before, at the entrance of a common, the physic
+began to work. The tradesman alighting to untruss a point, Tom leaped at
+once into his saddle, and galloped off both with his horse and
+portmanteau. He baited an hour at a small village three miles beyond
+Chester, having avoided passing through that city, then continued his
+journey to Port Patrick, from whence he crossed to Dublin with about
+four score pounds in ready money, a gold watch, which was put up in a
+corner of a cloak bag, linen, and other things to a considerable value
+besides.
+
+But to return to Winship. His robberies were so numerous that he began
+to be very well known and much sought after by those who make it their
+business to bring men to justice for rewards. There is some reason to
+believe that he had been once condemned and received mercy. However, on
+the 25th of May, 1721, he stopped one Mr. Lowther in his chariot,
+between Pancras Church and the Halfway House, and robbed him of his
+silver watch and a purse of ten guineas; for which robbery being quickly
+after apprehended, he was convicted at the Old Bailey, on the evidence
+of the prosecutor and the voluntary information of one of his
+companions.
+
+While he lay under sentence, he could not help expressing a great
+impatience at the miserable condition to which his follies had reduced
+him, and at the same time to show the most earnest desire of life,
+though it were upon the terms of transportation for the whole
+continuance of it; though he frequently declared it did not arise so
+much from a willingness in himself to continue in this world, as at the
+grief he felt for the misfortunes of his aged mother, who was ready to
+run distracted at her son's unhappy fate.
+
+As he was a very personable young man strangers, especially at chapel,
+took particular notice of him, and were continually inquiring of his
+adventures; but Winship not only constantly refused to give them any
+satisfaction, but declared also to the Ordinary that he did not think
+himself obliged to make any discoveries which might affect the lives of
+others, showing also an extraordinary uneasiness whenever such questions
+were put to him. When he was asked, by the direction of a person of some
+rank, whether he did not rob a person dressed in such a manner in a
+chaise as he was watering his horse before the church door, during the
+time of Divine service, Winship replied, he supposed the crime did not
+consist in the time or place, and as to whether he was guilty of it or
+no, he would tell nothing.
+
+In other respects he appeared penitent and devout, suffering at Tyburn
+at the same time with the afore-mentioned Matthew Clark, in the
+twenty-second year of his age, leaving behind him a wife, who died
+afterwards with grief for his execution.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN MEFF, _alias_ MERTH, a Housebreaker and a Highwayman
+
+
+The rigid execution of felons who return from transportation has been
+found so necessary that few or none who have been tried for such illegal
+returning have escaped, though 'tis very hard to convince those who
+suffer for that offence that there is any real crime in their evading
+their sentence. It was this which brought John Meff, _alias_ Merth, of
+whom we are now to speak, to an ignominious death, after he had once
+before escaped it in a very extraordinary manner, as in the process of
+his story shall be related.
+
+This unhappy man was born in London of French parents, who retired into
+England for the sake of their religion, when Louis XIV began his furious
+persecution against the Protestants in his dominions. This John Meff
+was educated with great care, especially as to the principles of
+religion, by a father who had very just notions of that faith for which
+in banishment he suffered. When his son John grew up, he put him out
+apprentice to a weaver, whom he served with great fidelity, and after he
+came out of his time, married; but finding himself incapable to maintain
+his family by his labour, he unfortunately addicted himself to
+ill-courses. In this he was yet more unlucky, for having almost at his
+first setting out broke open a house, he was discovered, apprehended,
+tried, convicted, and put in the cart, in order to go to execution
+within the fortnight; but the hangman being arrested as he was going to
+Tyburn, he and the rest who were to have suffered with him were
+transported through the clemency of the Government.
+
+On this narrow escape from death, Meff was full of many penitent
+resolutions, and determined with himself to follow for the future an
+honest course of life, however hard and laborious, as persons are
+generally inclined to believe all works in the plantations are. Yet no
+sooner was he at liberty (that is, on board the transport vessel, where
+he found means to make the master his friend) than much of these honest
+intentions were dissolved and laid aside, to which perhaps the behaviour
+of his companions and of the seamen on board the ship, did not a little
+contribute. At first their passage was easy, the wind fair and
+prosperous. They began to comfort one another with the hopes of living
+easily in the Plantations, greedily enquiring of the seamen how persons
+in their unhappy condition were treated by their masters, and whether
+all the terrible relations they had had in England were really facts, or
+invented only to terrify those who were to undergo that punishment.
+
+But while these unhappy persons were thus amusing themselves a new and
+unlooked for misfortune fell upon them, for in the height of Bermuda
+they were surprised by two pirate sloops, who though they found no
+considerable booty on board, were very well satisfied by the great
+addition they made to their force, from most of those felons joining
+with them in their piratical undertakings. Meff, however, and eight
+others, absolutely refused to sign the paper which contained the
+pirate's engagement and articles for better pursuing their designs.
+These nine were, according to the barbarous practice of those kind of
+people, marooned, that is, set on shore on an uninhabited island.
+According to the custom of the people in such distress, they were
+obliged to rub two dry sticks together till they took fire, and with
+great difficulty gathered as many other sticks as made a fire large
+enough to yield them some relief from the inclemency of the weather.
+They caught some fowls with springes made of an old horsehair wig,
+which were very tough and of a fishy taste, but after three or four
+days, they became acquainted with the springes and were never afterwards
+to be taken by that means. Their next resource for food was an animal
+which burrowed in the ground like our rabbits, but the flesh of these
+proving unwholesome, threw them into such dangerous fluxes that five out
+of the nine were scarce able to go. They were then forced to take up
+with such fish as they were able to catch, and even these were not only
+very rank and unpleasant, but very small also, and no great plenty of
+them either.
+
+At last, when they almost despaired of ever getting off that
+inhospitable island, they espied early one morning an Indian canoe come
+on shore with seven persons. They hid themselves behind the rocks as
+carefully as they could, and the Indians being gone up into the heart of
+the island, they went down and finding much salt provisions in the boat,
+they trusted themselves to the mercy of the waves.
+
+By the providence of God they were driven in two days into an English
+settlement, where Meff, instead of betaking himself to any settled
+course, resolved to turn sailor, and in that capacity made several
+voyages, not only to Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the rest of the British
+Islands, but also to New England, Virginia, South Carolina, and other
+plantations. On the main, there is no doubt but he led a life of no
+great satisfaction in this occupation, which probably was the reason he
+resolved to return home to England at all hazards. He did so, and had
+hardly been a month in this kingdom before he fell to his old practices,
+in which he was attended with the same ill-fortune as formerly; that is
+to say, he was apprehended for one of his first acts, and committed to
+Newgate. Out of this prison he escaped by the assistance of a certain
+bricklayer, and went down to Hatfield in Hertfordshire to remain in
+hiding, but as he affirmed and was generally believed, being betrayed by
+the same bricklayer he was retaken, conveyed again to Newgate and
+confined the utmost severity.
+
+At his trial there arose a doubt whether the fact he had committed was
+not pardoned by the Act of Indemnity then lately granted. However, the
+record of his former conviction being produced, the Court ordered he
+should be indicted for returning without lawful cause, on which
+indictment he was convicted upon full proof, condemned and shortly after
+ordered for execution.
+
+During the space he lay under sentence he expressed much penitence for
+his former ill-spent life, and together with James Reading, who was in
+the same unhappy state with himself, read and prayed with the rest of
+the prisoners. This Reading had been concerned in abundance of
+robberies, and, as he himself owned, in some which were attended with
+murder; he acknowledged he knew of the killing of Mr. Philpot, the
+surveyor of the window-lights, at the perpetration of which fact Reading
+said there were three persons present, two of which he knew, but as to
+the third he could say nothing. This malefactor, though but thirty-five
+years of age, was a very old offender, and had in his life-time been
+concerned with most of the notorious gangs that at that time were in
+England, some of whom he had impeached and hanged for his own
+preservation; but he was at last convicted for robbing (in company with
+two others) George Brownsworth of a watch and other things of a
+considerable value, between Islington and the turnpike, and for it was
+executed at Tyburn, the 11th of September, 1721, together with John Meff
+aforesaid, then in the fortieth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN WIGLEY, a Highwayman
+
+
+It is an observation which must be obvious to all my readers, that few
+who addict themselves to robbing and stealing ever continue long in the
+practice of those crimes before they are overtaken by Justice, not
+seldom as soon as they set out.
+
+This man had been bred a plasterer, but seems to have fallen very early
+into ill courses and felonious methods of getting money, in which horrid
+practice he spent his years, till taking up with an old woman who sold
+brandy upon Finchley Common, she sometimes persuaded him, of late years,
+to work at his trade.
+
+There has been great suspicions that he murdered the old husband to this
+woman, who was found dead in a barn or outhouse not far from Hornsey;
+but Wigley, though he confessed an unlawful correspondence with the
+woman, yet constantly averred his innocency of that fact, and always
+asserted that though the old man's death was sudden, yet it was natural.
+He used to account for it by saying that the deceased was a great
+brandy-drinker, by which he had worn out his constitution, and that
+being one evening benighted in his return home from London, he crawled
+into that barn where he was found dead next morning, and was currently
+reported to have been murdered.
+
+Though this malefactor had committed a multitude of robberies, yet he
+generally chose to go on such expeditions alone, having always great
+aversion for those confederacies in villainy which we call gangs, in
+which he always affirmed there was little safety, notwithstanding any
+oaths, by which they might bind themselves to secrecy. For
+notwithstanding some instances of their neglecting rewards when they
+were to be obtained by betraying their companions, yet when life came to
+be touched, they hardly ever failed of betraying all they knew. Yet he
+once receded from the resolution he had made of never robbing in
+company, and went out one night with two others of the same occupation
+towards Islington, there they met with one Symbol Conyers, whom they
+robbed of a watch, a pair of silver spurs, and four shillings in money,
+at the same time treating him very ill, and terrifying him with their
+pistols.
+
+For this fact, soon after it was done, Wigley was apprehended, and
+convicted at the ensuing sessions. When all hopes of life were lost, he
+seemed disposed to suffer with cheerfulness and resignation that death
+to which the Law had doomed him. He said, in the midst of his
+afflictions it was some comfort to him that he had no children who might
+be exposed by his death to the wide world, not only in a helpless and
+desolate condition, but also liable to the reflections incident from his
+crimes. He also observed that the immediate hand of Providence seemed to
+dissipate whatever wicked persons got by rapine and plunder, so as not
+only to prevent their acquiring a subsistence which might set them above
+the necessity of continuing in such courses, but that they even wanted
+bread to support them, when overtaken by Justice. He was near forty
+years of age at the time of his death, which happened on the same day as
+the malefactors last mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM CASEY, a Robber
+
+
+William Casey, whose life is the subject of our present discourse, was a
+son of one of the same name, a soldier who had served his Majesty long,
+and with good reputation. As is usual amongst that sort of people, the
+education he gave his son was such as might fit him for the same course
+of life, though at the same time he took care to provide him with a
+tolerable competency of learning, that is, as to writing and reading
+English. When he was about fifteen years of age, his father caused him
+to be enlisted in the same company in which he served for some small
+time before my Lord Cobham's expedition into Spain,[12] in which he
+accompanied him. That expedition being over, Casey returned into
+England, and did duty as usual in the Guards.
+
+One night he, with some others, crossing the park a fray happened
+between them and one John Stone, which as Casey affirmed at his death,
+was occasioned by the prosecutor Stone offering very great indecencies
+to him, upon which they in a fury beat and abused him, from the
+abhorrence they pretended to have for that beastly and unnatural sin of
+sodomy. Whether this was really the case or no is hard to determine; all
+who were concerned in it with Casey being indicted (though not
+apprehended) with him, and their evidence consequently taken. However
+that matter was, Stone the prosecutor told a dreadful story on Casey's
+trial. He said the four men attacked him crossing the Park, who
+attacked, beat and cruelly trod upon and wounded him, taking from him at
+the same time his hat, wig, neck-cloth and five shillings in money; and
+that upon his arising and endeavouring to follow them, they turned back,
+stamped upon him, broke one of his ribs, and told him that if he
+attempted to stir, they would seize him and swear sodomy upon him. On
+this indictment Casey was convicted and ordered for execution,
+notwithstanding all the intercession his friends could make.
+
+While under sentence he complained heavily of the pains a certain
+corporal had taken in preparing and pressing the evidence against him.
+He said his diligence proceeded not from any desire of doing justice, or
+for his guilt, but from an old grudge he owed their family, from Casey's
+father threatening to prosecute him for a rape committed on his
+daughter, then very young, and attended with very cruel circumstances;
+and which even the corporal himself had in part owned in a letter which
+he had written to the said Casey's father. However, while he lay in
+Newgate, he seemed heartily affected with sorrow for his misspent life,
+which he said was consumed as is too frequent among soldiers, either in
+idleness or vice. He added, that in Spain he had made serious
+resolutions of amendment with himself, but was hindered from performing
+them by his companions, who were continually seducing him into his old
+courses. When he found that all hopes of life were lost, he disposed
+himself to submit with decency to his fate, which disposition he
+preserved to the last.
+
+At the place of execution he behaved with great composure and said that
+as he had heard he was accused in the world of having robbed and
+murdered a woman in Hyde Park, he judged it proper to discharge his
+conscience by declaring that he knew nothing of the murder, but said
+nothing as to the robbery. At the time of his death, which was on the
+11th of September, 1721, he was about twenty years of age, and according
+to the character his officers gave him, a very quiet and orderly young
+man. He left behind him a paper to be published to the world, which as
+he was a dying man he averred to be the truth.
+
+    A copy of a paper left by William Casey.
+
+    Good People, I am now brought to this place to suffer a shameful and
+    ignominious death, and of all such unhappy persons, 'tis expected by
+    the world that they should either say something at their death, or
+    leave some account behind them. And having that which more nearly
+    concerns me, viz., the care of my immortal soul, I choose rather to
+    leave these lines behind me than to waste my few precious moments in
+    talking to the multitude. First, I declare, I die like a member,
+    though a very unworthy one, of the Church of England as by Law
+    established, the principles of which my now unhappy father took an
+    early care to instruct me in. And next for the robbery of Mr. Stone,
+    for which I am now brought to this fatal place. I solemnly do
+    declare to God and the world, that I never had the value of one
+    halfpenny from him, and that the occasion of his being so ill-used
+    was that he offered to me that detestable and crying sin of sodomy.
+
+    I take this opportunity, with almost my last breath, to give my
+    hearty thanks to the honourable Col. Pitts, and Col. Pagitt, for
+    their endeavours to save my life, and indeed I had some small hopes
+    that his Majesty, in consideration of the services of my whole
+    family, having all been faithful soldiers and servants to the Crown
+    of England, would have extended one branch of his mercy to me, and
+    have sent me to have served him in another country. But welcome be
+    the Grace of God, I am resigned to His will, and die in charity with
+    all men, forgiving, hoping to be forgiven myself, through the merits
+    of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. I hope, and make it my earnest
+    request that nobody will be so little Christian as to reflect on my
+    aged parents, wife, brother, or sisters, for my untimely end. And I
+    pray God, into whose hands I commend my spirit, that the great
+    number of sodomites in and about this City and suburbs, may not
+    bring down the same judgement from Heaven as fell on Sodom and
+    Gomorrah.
+
+    William Casey.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [12] Sir Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, was a distinguished
+        general who had served under Marlborough. In 1719 he led an
+        expedition to the north coast of Spain and seized Vigo and the
+        neighbouring towns and harbours.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN DYKES, a Thief and Highwayman
+
+
+It is a reflection almost too common to be repeated that of all the
+vices to which young people are addicted, nothing is so dangerous as a
+habit and inclination to gaming. To explain this would be to swell a
+volume. Instances which are so numerous do it much better. Perhaps this
+unhappy person John Dykes is as strong a one as is anywhere to be met
+with. His parents were persons in middling circumstances, but he being
+their eldest child, they treated him with great indulgence, and to the
+detriment of their own fortune afforded him a necessary education. When
+he grew up and his friends thought of placing him out apprentice, he
+always found some excuse or other to avoid it, which arose only from his
+great indolence of temper, and his continual itching after gaming. When
+he had money, he went to the gaming tables about town, and when reduced
+by losses sustained there, would put on an old ragged coat and get out
+to play at chuck, and span-farthing, amongst the boys in the street, by
+which, sometimes he got money enough to go to his old companions again.
+But this being a very uncertain recourse, he made use more frequently of
+picking pockets; for which being several times apprehended and committed
+to Bridewell, his friends, especially his poor father, would often
+demonstrate to him the ignominious end which such practices would
+necessarily bring on, entreating him while there was yet time, to
+reflect and to leave them off, promising to do their utmost for him,
+notwithstanding all that was past. In the course of this unhappy life
+the youth had acquired an extraordinary share of cunning, and an unusual
+capacity of dissembling; he employed it more than once to deceive his
+family into a belief of his having made a thorough resolution of
+amendment.
+
+Once, after having suffered the usual discipline of the horsepond, Dykes
+was carried before a Justice of Peace, and committed to Tothill Fields
+Bridewell[13]. Here he became acquainted with one Jeddediah West, a
+Quaker's son, who had fallen into the like practices, and for them
+shared the same punishment with himself. They were pretty much of a
+temper, but Jeddediah was the elder and much the more subtle of the two,
+and in this unhappy place they contracted a strict and intimate
+friendship. Out of shame Jeddediah forbore for two or three days to
+acquaint his relations, and during that time for the most part subsisted
+out of what Dykes got from home. But at last West picked up courage
+enough to send to his brother, a very eminent man in business, and by
+telling him a plausible story, procured not only pity and relief, but
+even prevailed on him to believe that he was innocent of the fact for
+which he was committed. He so well tutored his friend Dykes that though
+he could not persuade his parents into the same degree of credulity, yet
+his outward appearance of penitence induced them not only to pardon him
+but to take him home, give him a new suit of clothes, and to promise
+him, if he continued to do well, whatever was in their power to do for
+him.
+
+Dykes and his companion being in favour with their friends, and having
+money in their pockets, continued their correspondence and went often to
+the gaming tables together. At first they had a considerable run of luck
+for about three weeks, but Fortune then forsaking them, they were
+reduced to be downright penniless, without any hopes of relief or
+assistance from their friends sufficient to carry on their expenses.
+West at last proposed an expedient for raising money, which lay
+altogether upon himself, and which he the next day executed in the
+following manner.
+
+About the time that he knew his brother was to come home from the
+Exchange to dinner, he went to his house equipped in a sailor's
+pea-jacket, his hair cropped short to his ears, his eyebrows coloured
+black, and a handkerchief about his neck. As soon as he saw him in the
+counting-house, his brother started back, and cried, _Bless me!
+Jeddediah, how came you in this pickle?_ With all signs of grief and
+confusion, he threw himself at his brother's feet, and told him with a
+flood of tears that two coiners who had accidentally seen him in
+Bridewell had sworn against him and three others on their apprehension,
+in order on the merit thereof to be admitted evidences to get off
+themselves. _So that, dear brother_, he continued, _I have been obliged
+to take a passage in a vessel that does down next tide to Gravesend, for
+I have ran the hazard of my life to come and beg your charitable
+assistance._
+
+The poor honest man was so much amazed and concerned at this melancholy
+tale, that bursting out into tears, and hanging about his brother's
+neck, he begged him to take a coach and begone to Billingsgate, giving
+him ten guineas in hand and telling him that his bills should not be
+protested if he drew within the compass of a hundred pounds from Dieppe,
+whither he said the ship was bound. West was no sooner out of the street
+where his brother lived, but he ordered the coach to drive to a certain
+place where he had appointed Dykes to meet him, and there they expressed
+a great deal of mutual satisfaction at the trick West had played his
+brother. However, the latter was no great gainer in the end, for Mr.
+West, senior, soon finding out the contrivance, forever renounced him,
+and Jeddediah being soon after arrested for twelve pounds due to his
+tailor, was carried to prison and remained there without the least
+assistance from his brother, till after his friend Dykes was hanged.
+
+The last mentioned malefactor, unmoved by all the tender entreaties of
+his friends, and the glaring prospect before him of his own ruin, went
+still on at the old rate, and whenever gaming had brought him low in
+cash, took up with the road, or some such like dishonest method to
+recruit it. At last he had the ill-luck to commit a robbery in Stepney
+parish, in the road between Mile End and Bow, upon one Charles Wright,
+to whose bosom clapping a pistol, he commanded him to deliver
+peacefully, or he would shoot him through the body. The booty he took
+was very inconsiderable, being only a penknife, an ordinary seal, and
+five shillings and eightpence in money. A poor price for life, since two
+days after he was apprehended for this robbery, committed to Newgate and
+condemned the next sessions.
+
+His behaviour under these unhappy circumstances was very mean, and such
+as fully showed what difference there is between courage and that
+resolution which is necessary to support the spirits and calm our
+apprehensions at the certain approach of a violent death. I forbear
+attempting any description of those unutterable torments which the
+exterior marks of a distracted behaviour fully showed that this poor
+wretch endured. And as I have nothing more to add of him, but that he
+confessed his having been guilty of a multitude of ill acts, he
+submitted at last with greater cheerfulness than he had ever shown
+during his confinement to that shameful death which the Law had ordained
+for his crimes, on the 23rd of October, 1721, when he was about
+twenty-three years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [13] This Bridewell occupied the site adjoining the north side
+        of the Green Coat School, on the west: side of Artillery Place.
+        Although originally intended for vagrants, early in the 18th
+        century it was turned into a house of detention for criminals.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of RICHARD JAMES, a Highwayman
+
+
+The misfortune of not having early a virtuous education is often so
+great a one as never to be retrieved, and it happens frequently (as far
+as human capacity will give us leave to judge) that those prove
+remarkably wicked and profligate for want of it who if they had been so
+happy as to have received it, would probably have led an honest and
+industrious life. I am led to this observation at present by the
+materials which lay before me for the composition of this life.
+
+Richard James was the son of a nobleman's cook, but he knew little more
+of his father than that he left him to the wide world while very young;
+and so at about twelve years of age he was sent to sea. There he had the
+misfortune to be taken prisoner by the Spaniards, who he acknowledged
+treated him with great humanity, and a house-painter taking a great
+liking to him, received him into his house, taught him his profession,
+and used him with the same tenderness as if he had been his nearest
+relation.
+
+But fondness for his country exciting in him a continual desire of
+seeing England again, at last he found a means to return before he was
+seventeen; and after this, being in England but a very small time, he
+totally disobliged what few friends he had left, by his silly marriage
+to a poor girl younger than himself. As is common enough in such mad
+adventures, the woman's friends were as much disobliged as his, and so
+not knowing how to subsist together, Richard was obliged to betake him
+to his old profession of the sea.
+
+The first voyage he made was to the West Indies, where he had the
+misfortune to be taken by pirates, and by them being set on shore, he
+was reduced almost to downright starving. However, begging his way to
+Boston in New England, he from thence found a method of returning home
+once again. The first thing he did was to enquire for his wife. But she,
+under a pretence of having received advice of his death from America,
+had gotten another husband; and though poor James was willing to pass
+that by, yet the woman, it seems, knew better when she was well, and
+under pretence of affection for two children which she had by this last
+husband, absolutely refused to leave him and return back to Dick, her
+first spouse. However, he did not seem to have taken this much to heart,
+for in a short time he followed her example and married another wife;
+but finding no method of procuring an honest livelihood, he took a short
+method of living, viz., to thieving after every manner that came in his
+way.
+
+He committed a vast number of robberies in a very short space, chiefly
+upon the waggoners in the Oxford Road, and sometimes, as if there were
+not crime enough in barely robbing them, he added to it by the cruel
+manner in which he treated them. At this rate he went on for a
+considerable space, till being apprehended for a robbery of a man on
+Hanwell Green, from whom he took but ten shillings, he was shortly after
+convicted; and having no friends, from that time he laid aside all hope
+of life.
+
+During the space he had to prepare himself for death, he appeared so
+far from being either terrified, or even unwilling to die, that he
+looked upon it as a very happy relief from a very troublesome and uneasy
+life, and declared, with all outward appearance of sincerity, that he
+would not, even if it were in his power, procure a reprieve, or avoid
+that death which could alone prove a remedy for those evils which had so
+long rendered life a burden. He was very earnest to be instructed in the
+duties of religion, and seemed to desire nothing else than to prepare
+himself, as well as time and his melancholy circumstances would allow
+him, and never from the time of his conviction showed any change in his
+disposition but continued still rather to wish for his death than to
+fear it. He made a very ample confession of all the robberies he had
+ever done, and seemed sorrowful enough, above all, for the inhumanity
+and incivility with which he had sometimes treated people.
+
+Amongst other particulars he said that once, with his companions, having
+robbed a lady in some other company of a whip, and a tortoiseshell
+snuff-box with a silver rim, she earnestly desired to have them
+returned, saying that as to the money they had taken they were heartily
+welcome; the other thieves seemed inclinable to grant her request, but
+James absolutely declared that she should not have them. However, as a
+very extraordinary mark of his generosity, he took the snuff out of the
+box, and putting it into a paper, gave it her back again.
+
+At the place of execution he repeated what he had formerly said as to
+his readiness of dying, adding, that if the people pitied the misfortune
+he fell under of dying so ignominious a death, he no less pitied them in
+the dangers and misfortunes they were sure to run through in this
+miserable world. At the time of his death he was about thirty years of
+age, and suffered on the same day with the criminal last mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES WRIGHT, a Highwayman
+
+
+James Wright, the malefactor whose life we are going to relate at
+present, was born at Enfield, of very honest and industrious parents,
+who, that he might get a living honestly, put him apprentice to a
+peruke-maker. At this trade, after having served his time, he set up in
+the Old Bailey, and lived there for some time in very good credit. But
+being much given up to women, and an idle habit of life, his expenses
+quickly outwent his profits, and thus in the space of some months
+reduced him to downright want. This put him upon the illegal ways he
+afterwards took to support himself in the enjoyment of those pleasures
+which even the evils he had already felt could not make him wise enough
+to shun.
+
+He was very far from being a hardened criminal, hardly ever robbing a
+passenger without tears in his eyes, and always framing resolutions to
+himself of quitting that infamous manner of life, as soon as ever it
+should be in his power. He fancied that as the rich could better spare
+it than the poor, there was less crime in taking it from them, and
+valued himself not a little that he had never injured any poor man, but
+always singled out those who from their equipage were likeliest to yield
+him a good booty, and at the same time not be much the worse for it
+themselves. He had gone on for a considerable space in the commission of
+villainies with impunity, but at last being apprehended for a robbery
+committed by him in the county of Surrey, he was thereupon indicted and
+tried at the ensuing assizes at Kingston, and by some means or other,
+was so lucky as to be acquitted, no doubt to his very great joy; and on
+this deliverance he again renewed his vows of amendment.
+
+After this acquittal a friend of his was so kind as to take him down to
+his house in the country, in hopes of keeping him out of harm's way; and
+indeed 'tis highly probable that he had totally given over all evil
+intention of that sort, when he was unfortunately impeached by Hawkins,
+one of his old companions, and on his evidence and that of the
+prosecutor whom he found out, Wright was taken up, tried and convicted
+at the Old Bailey. When he perceived there was no hope of life he
+applied himself to the great business of his soul, and behaved with the
+greatest composure imaginable. He declared himself a Roman Catholic, yet
+frequented the chapel all the time he was in Newgate, and seemed only
+studious how to make peace with God.
+
+When the fatal day of execution approached, he was far from seeming
+amazed, notwithstanding that after mature deliberation he refused to
+declare his associates, or how they might be found, saying that perhaps
+they might repent, and he hoped some of them had done so, and he would
+not bring them to the same ignominious death with himself. The fact he
+died for, viz., robbing Mr. Towers, with some ladies in a coach in
+Marlborough Street, he confessed, also that his companion called out to
+him, _What, do they resist? Shoot 'em._ He suffered with all the outward
+signs of penitence, on the 22nd of December, 1721, being about
+thirty-four years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of NATHANIEL HAWES, a Thief and a Robber
+
+
+Amongst many odd notions which are picked up by the common people, there
+is none more dangerous, both to themselves and unto others, than the
+idea they get of courage, which with them consists either in a furious
+madness, or an obstinate perseverence, even in the worst cause.
+
+Nathaniel Hawes was a very extraordinary instance of this, as the
+following part of his life will show. He was, as he said himself, the
+son of a very rich grazier in Norfolk, who dying when he was but a year
+old, he afterwards pretended that he was defrauded of a greater part of
+his father's effects which should have belonged to him. However, those
+who took care of his education put him out apprentice to an upholsterer,
+with whom having served about four years, he then fell into very
+expensive company, which reduced him to such straits as obliged him to
+make bold with his master's cash, by which he injured him for some time
+with impunity. But proceeding, at last, to the commission of a downright
+robbery, he was therein detected, tried and convicted, but being then a
+very young man, the Court had pity on him, and he had the good luck to
+procure a pardon.
+
+Natt made the old use of mercy, when extended to such sort of people,
+that is, when he returned to liberty he returned to his old practices.
+His companions were several young men of the same stamp with himself,
+who placed all their delight in the sensual and brutal pleasures of
+drinking, gaming, whoring and idling about, without betaking themselves
+to any business. Natt, who was a young fellow naturally sprightly and of
+good parts, from thence became very acceptable to these sort of people,
+and committed abundance of robberies in a very small space of time. The
+natural fire of his temper made him behave with great boldness on such
+occasions, and gave him no small reputation amongst the gang. Seeing
+himself extravagantly commended on such occasions, Hawes began to form
+to himself high notions of heroism in that way, and from the warmth of a
+lively imagination, became a downright Don Quixote in all their
+adventures. He particularly affected the company of Richard James, and
+with him robbed very much on the Oxford Road, whereon it was common for
+both these persons not only to take away the money from passengers, but
+also to treat them with great inhumanity, which for all I might know
+might arise in a great measure from Hawes's whimsical notions.
+
+This fellow was so puffed up with the reputation he had got amongst his
+companions in the same miserable occupation, that he fancied no
+expedition impracticable which he thought fit to engage, and indeed the
+boldness of his attempts had so often given him success that there is no
+wonder a fellow of his small parts and education should conceive so
+highly of himself. It was nothing for Hawes singly to rob a coach full
+of gentlemen, to stop two or three persons on the highway at a time, or
+to rob the waggons in a line as they came on the Oxford Road to London,
+nor was there any of the little prisons or Bridewells that could hold
+him.
+
+There was, however, an adventure of Natt's of this kind that deserves a
+particular relation. He had, it seems, been so unlucky as to be taken
+and committed to New Prison,[14] on suspicion of robbing two gentlemen
+in a chaise coming from Hampstead. Hawes viewed well the place of his
+confinement, but found it much too strong for any attempts like those he
+was wont to make. In the same place with himself and another man mere
+was a woman very genteelly dressed, who had been committed for
+shoplifting. This woman seemed even more ready to attempt something
+which might get her out of that confinement than either Hawes or her
+other companion. The latter said it was impracticable, and Natt that
+though he had broken open many a prison, yet he saw no probability of
+putting this in the number.
+
+_Well_, said the woman _have you courage enough to try, if I put you in
+the way? Yes_, quoth Hawes, _there's nothing I won't undertake for
+liberty;_ and said the other fellow, _If I once saw a likelihood of
+performing it, there's nobody has better hands at such work than myself.
+In the first place_, said this politician in petticoats, _we must raise
+as much money amongst us as will keep a very good fire. Why truly_,
+replied Hawes, _a fire would be convenient in this cold weather, but I
+can't, for my heart, see how we should be nearer our liberty for it,
+unless you intend to set the gaol in flames. Tush! Tush!_ answered the
+woman, _follow but my directions, and let's have some faggots and coals,
+and I warrant you by to-morrow morning we shall be safe oat of these
+regions._ The woman spoke this with so much assurance that Hawes and the
+other man complied, and reserving but one shilling, laid out all their
+money in combustibles and liquor. While the runners of the prison were
+going to and fro upon this occasion, the woman seemed so dejected that
+she could scarce speak, and the two men by her directions sat with the
+same air as if the rope already had been about them at Tyburn. At last,
+as they were going to be locked up; _Pray_, says the woman, with a
+faint voice, _Can't you give me something like a poker? Why, yes_, says
+one of the fellows belonging to the gaol, _if you'll give me twopence,
+I'll bring you one of the old bars that was taken out of the window when
+these new ones were put in._ The woman gave him the halfpence, he
+delivered the bar, and the keepers having locked them up, barred and
+bolted the doors, and left them until next morning.
+
+As soon as ever the people of the gaol were gone, up starts madam. _Now,
+my lads_, says she, _to work_; and putting her hands into her pockets
+and shaking her petticoats, down drops two little bags of tools. She
+pointed out to them a large stone at the corner of the roof which was
+morticed into two others, one above and the other below. After they had
+picked all the mortar from between them, she heated the bar red hot in
+the fire, and putting it to the sockets into which the irons that held
+the stones were fastened with lead, it quickly loosened them, and then
+making use of the bars as of a crow, by two o'clock in the morning they
+had got them all three out, and opened a fair passage into the streets,
+only that it was a little too high. Upon this the woman made them fasten
+the iron bar strongly at the angle where the three stones met, and then
+pulling off her stays, she unrolled from the top of her petticoats four
+yards of strong cord, the noose of which being fastened on the iron, the
+other end was thrown out over the wall, and so the descent was rendered
+easy. The men were equally pleased and surprised at their good fortune,
+and in gratitude to the female author of it, helped her to the top of
+the wall, and let her get safe over before they attempted to go out
+themselves.
+
+It was not long after this that Hawes committed a robbery on Finchley
+Common, upon one Richard Hall, from whom he took about four shillings in
+money; and to make up the badness of the booty, he took from him his
+horse, in order to be the better equipped to go in quest of another
+which might make up the deficiency. For this robbery, being shortly
+after detected and apprehended, he was convicted and received sentence
+of death. When first confined, he behaved himself with very great
+levity, and declared he would merit a greater reputation by the boldness
+of his behaviour than any highwayman that had died these seven years.
+Indeed, this was the style he always made use of, and the great
+affectation of intrepidity and resolution which he always put on would
+have moved anybody (had it not been for his melancholy condition) to
+smile at the vanity of the man.
+
+At the time he was taken up, he had, it seems, a good suit of clothes
+taken from him, which put him so much out of humour, because he could
+not appear, as he said, like a gentleman at the sessions-house, that
+when he was arraigned and should have put himself upon his trial, he
+refused to plead unless they were delivered to him again. But to this
+the Court answered that it was not in their power, and on his persisting
+to remain mute, after all the exhortations which were made to him, the
+Court at last ordered that the sentence of the press should be read to
+him, as is customary on such occasions; after which the Judge from the
+Bench spoke to him to this effect
+
+    Nathaniel Hawes,
+
+    The equity of the Law of England, more tender of the lives of its
+    subjects than any other in the world, allows no person to be put to
+    death, either unheard or without the positive proof against him of
+    the fact whereon he stands charged; and that proof, too, must be
+    such as shall satisfy twelve men who are his equals, and by whose
+    verdict he is to be tried. And surely no method can be devised
+    fuller than this is, as well of compassion, as of Justice. But then
+    it is required that the person to be tried shall aver his innocence
+    by pleading Not Guilty to his indictment, which contains the charge.
+    You have heard that which the grand jury have found against you. You
+    see here twelve honest men ready to enquire impartially into the
+    evidence that shall be given against you. The Court, such is the
+    humanity of our constitution, is counsel for you as you are a
+    prisoner. What hinders then, that you should submit to so fair, so
+    equal a trial; and wherefore will you, by a brutish obstinacy, draw
+    upon you that heavy judgement which the Law has appointed for those
+    who seem to have lost the rational faculties of men?
+
+To this Hawes impudently made answer, that the Court was formerly a
+place of Justice, but now it was become a place of injustice; that he
+doubted not but that they would receive a severer sentence than that
+which they had pronounced upon him; and that for his part, he made no
+question of dying with the same resolution with which he had often
+beheld death, and would leave the world with the same courage with which
+he had lived in it.
+
+Natt thought this a most glorious instance of his courage, and when some
+of his companions said jestingly, that he chose pressing because the
+Court would not let him have a good suit of clothes to be hanged in, he
+replied, with a great deal of warmth, that it was no such thing, but
+that as he had lived with the character of the boldest fellow of his
+profession he was resolved to die with it, and leave his memory to be
+admired by all the gentlemen of the road in succeeding ages. This was
+the rant which took up the poor fellow's head, and induced him to bear
+250 pound weight upon his breast for upwards of seven minutes, and was
+much the same kind of bravery as that which induced the French lacquey
+to dance a minuet immediately before he danced his last upon the wheel,
+an action which made so much noise in France as engaged the Duke de
+Rochefoucauld to compare it with the death of Cato.
+
+Hawes, indeed, did not persist quite so long, but submitted to that
+justice which he saw was unavoidable, after he had endured, as I have
+said before, so great a weight in the press. The bruises he received on
+the chest pained him so exceedingly during the short remainder of his
+life that he was hardly able to perform those devotions which the near
+approach of death made him desirous to offer up for so profligate a
+life. He laid aside, then, those wild notions which had been so fatal to
+him through the whole course of his days, and so remarkably unfortunate
+to him in this last age of life. He confessed frankly what crimes he
+could remember and seemed very desirous of acquitting some innocent
+persons who were at that time imprisoned, or suspected, for certain
+villainies which were committed by Hawes and his gang; particularly a
+footman, then in the Poultry Compter, and a man's son at an alehouse,
+who, though Hawes declared he knew no harm of him, yet at the place of
+execution he said that as he desired his death might be a warning to all
+in general, so he wished it might be particularly considered by him.
+Though, as I have said, he was fully convinced of the folly of those
+notions which he had formerly entertained, yet he did not, as most of
+those braves do, go from one degree of extravagance to the other, that
+is, from daring everything to sinking into the meanest cowardice, for
+Hawes went to his death very composedly, as he had received the
+Sacrament the day before, with all the outward marks of devotion. He
+suffered on the 22nd day of September, 1721, at which time he was scarce
+twenty years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [14] This was the Clerkenwell House of Detention, where
+        prisoners were sent after being sentenced, pending their
+        disposal at a House of Correction. It was originally intended
+        for the overflow from Newgate. The prison stood in Clerkenwell
+        Close.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN JONES, a Pickpocket
+
+
+There is not, perhaps, a greater misfortune to young people than that
+too great tenderness and compassion with which they are treated in their
+youth, and those hopes of amendment which their relations flatter
+themselves with as they grow up. If they could suffer themselves to be
+guided by experience, they would quickly find that sagacious minds do
+but increase in wickedness as they increase in years. Timely services,
+therefore, and proper restraints are the only methods with which such
+persons are to be treated, for minds disposed to such gross impurities
+as those which lead to such wickednesses or are rendered capital by Law,
+are seldom to be prevailed on by gentleness, or admonitions unseconded
+by harsher means. I am very far from being an advocate for great
+severities towards young people, but I confess in cases like these, I
+think they are as necessary as amputations, where the distemper has
+spread so far that no cure is to be hoped for by any other means. If the
+relations of John Jones had known and practised these methods, it is
+highly probable he had escaped the suffering and the shame of that
+ignominious death to which, after a long persisting in his crimes, he at
+last came.
+
+[Illustration: A PRISONER UNDER PRESSURE IN NEWGATE
+
+Accused men who refused to plead to their indictment might be pressed to
+death. Edward Burnworth carried 424 lb. on his chest for an hour and
+three minutes before he consented to plead
+
+_(From the Newgate Calendar)_]
+
+This malefactor was born in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, of
+parents in tolerable circumstances, who, while a boy, indulged him in
+all his little humours from a wise expectation of their dropping from
+him all at once when he grew up. But this expectation not succeeding, as
+it must be owned there was no great probability it should, they were
+then for persuading him to settle in business. That he might do this
+with less reluctancy they were so kind as to put him out upon liking to
+three or four trades; but it happening unluckily that there was work to
+be done in all of them, Jones could not be brought to go apprentice to
+any, but idled on amongst his companions, without ever thinking of
+applying himself to any business whatever. His relations sent him to
+sea, another odd academy to learn honesty at, and on his return from
+thence, and refusing to go any more, his relations refused to support
+him any longer.
+
+Jack was very melancholy on this score, and having but eighteenpence in
+the world when he received the comfortable message of his never being to
+expect a farthing more from his friends, he went out to take a walk in
+Hyde Park to divert his melancholy, when he ruminated on what he was to
+do next for a livelihood. In the midst of these reflections he espied an
+old schoolfellow of his, who used to have the same inclinations with
+himself. There had been a great intimacy between them; it was quickly
+renewed, and Jack Jones unburdened to him the whole budget of his
+sorrows. _And is this all?_ says the young fellow. _Why, I will put you
+in a way to ease this in a minute, if you will step along with me to a
+house hard by, where I am to meet with some of my acquaintance._ Jones
+readily consented, and to a little blind alehouse in a dark lane they
+went. The woman of the house received them very kindly, and as soon as
+Jack's companion had informed her that he was a newcomer, she conducted
+him into a little room, where she entertained him with a good dinner and
+a bowl of punch after it. Jack was mightily taken with the courtesy of
+his landlady, who promised him he should never want such usage and his
+friend would teach him in the evening how to earn it.
+
+Evening came, and out walked the two young men. Jack was put upon
+nothing at that time, but to observe how his companion managed. He was a
+very dexterous youth, and at seven o'clock prayers picked up, in half an
+hour's time, three good handkerchiefs, and a silver snuff-box. Having
+this readily shown him the practice, he was no less courteous in
+acquainting Jones with the theory of his profession, and two or three
+night's work made Jones a very complete workman in their way.
+
+He lived at this rate for some months, until going with his instructor
+through King Street, Westminster, and passing by a woman pretty well
+dressed, says the other fellow to Jones, _Now mind, Jack, and while
+jostle her against the wall, do you whip off her pocket._ Jones
+performed tolerably well, though the woman screamed out and people were
+thick in the street. He gave the pocket, as soon as he had plucked it
+off, to his comrade, but having felt it rather weighty, would trust him
+no farther than the first by-alley before they stopped to examine its
+contents.
+
+They had scarce found their prize consisted of no more than a small
+prayer-book, a needle case, and a silver thimble, when the woman with a
+mob at her heels bolted upon them and seized them. Jones had the pocket
+in his hand when they laid hold of him, and his associate no sooner
+perceived the danger, but he clapped hold of him by the collar and cried
+out as loud as any of the mob, _Ay, ay, this is he, good woman, is not
+this your pocket?_ By this strategem he escaped, and Jones was left to
+feel the whole weight of the punishment which was ready to fall upon
+them. He was immediately committed to prison, and the offence being
+capital in its nature, he was condemned at the next sessions, and though
+he always buoyed himself up with hopes to the contrary, was ordered for
+execution. He was dreadfully amazed at death, as being, indeed, very
+unfit to die. However, when he found it was inevitable, he began to
+prepare for it as well as he was able. His relations now afforded him
+some little relief, and after having made as ample a confession as he
+was able, he suffered at Tyburn with the two above-mentioned
+malefactors, Hawes and Wright, being then but a little above nineteen
+years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN SMITH, a Murderer
+
+
+As idleness is fatal to youth, so it and ill-company become not seldom
+so even to persons in years. John Smith, of whose extraction we can say
+nothing, had served with a very good character in a regiment of foot,
+during Queen Anne's wars in Flanders. His captain took a particular
+liking to him, and from his boldness and fierce courage, to which he
+himself was also greatly inclined, they did abundance of odd actions
+during the War, some of which may not be unentertaining to the reader,
+if I mention.
+
+The army lying encamped almost over against that of the French king,
+foraging was become very dangerous, and hardly a party went out without
+a skirmish. John's master, the captain, having been out with a party,
+and being over powered by the French, were obliged to leave their
+trusses behind them. When they returned to the camp, Smith was ordered
+to lead his master's horse out into the field between the two camps,
+that the poor creature might be able to pick up a little pasture. John
+had not attended his horse long before, at the distance of about half a
+mile, he saw a boy leading two others, at the foot of a hill which
+joined to the French fortification. As John's livery was yellow, and he
+spoke Walloon bad enough to be taken for a Frenchman, he ventured to
+stake the Captain's horse down where it was feeding, and without the
+least apprehension of the risk he ran, went across to the fellow who was
+feeding his horses under the French lines. He proceeded with so much
+caution that he was within a stone's throw of the boy, before he
+perceived him. From the colour of his clothes, and the place where they
+were, immediately under the French camp, the lad took him for one of
+their own people, and therefore answered him very civilly when he asked
+what o'clock it was, and whom he belonged to. But John no sooner
+observed from the boy's turning his horses, that the hill lay again
+between them and the French soldiers, than clapping his hand suddenly
+upon the boy's throat and tripping up his heels, he clapped a gag in his
+mouth, which he had cut for that purpose; and leaving him with his hands
+tied behind him upon the ground, he rode clear off with the best of the
+horses, notwithstanding that the boy had alarmed the French camp, and he
+had some hundred shot sent after him.
+
+The captain and Smith were out one day a-foraging, and one of the
+officers of their party who was known to have a hundred pistoles about
+him, was killed in a skirmish, and neither party dared to bring off the
+body for fear of the other, it being just dark, each expected a
+reinforcement from the camp. Smith told his captain that if he'd give
+him one half of the gold for fetching, he would venture; and his offer
+being gladly accepted, he accordingly crept two hundred yards upon his
+belly, and after he had picked the purse out of the dead man's pockets,
+returned without being either seen or suspected.
+
+When the army was disbanded, Smith betook himself to the sea, and served
+under Admiral Byng,[15] in the fight at Messina; but on the return of
+that fleet from the Mediterranean, being discharged he came up to
+London, where having squandered his money, he did some petty thefts to
+get more. To this he was induced chiefly by the company of one Woolford,
+who was executed, and at whose execution Smith was present, and soon
+after cohabited with his wife. But not long after this, Smith meeting
+with one Sarah Thompson, an old acquaintance of his, who had it seems
+left him to live with another fellow, he took it into his head thereupon
+to use her very roughly, and clapping a pistol to her breast, threatened
+with abundance of ill-language to shoot her. This occasioned a great
+fray in the place where it happened, which was near the Hermitage
+towards Wapping, and several persons running to take the woman away, and
+to seize him, in order to prevent murder, Smith fired his pistol, and
+unhappily killed one Matthew Walden, who was amongst the number. The mob
+immediately crowded upon him and seized him, and the fact appearing very
+clear on his trial, he was convicted at the next sessions at the Old
+Bailey.
+
+He behaved himself with great resolution, professed himself extremely
+sorry, as well for the many vices he had been guilty of as for that last
+bloody act which brought him to his shameful end. He especially
+recommended to all who spoke to him, to avoid the snares and delusions
+of lewd women; and at the place of execution delivered the following
+paper. He was about forty years of age when he died, being the 8th day
+of February, 1722, at Tyburn.
+
+    The paper delivered by John Smith at the place of execution
+
+    I was born of honest parents, bred to the sea, and lived honest,
+    'till I was led aside by lewd women. I then robbed on ships, and
+    never robbed on shore. I had no design to kill the woman who jilted
+    me, and left me for another man, but only to terrify her, for I
+    could have shot her when the loaded pistol was at her breast, but I
+    curbed my passion, and only threw a candle-stick at her. I confess
+    my cruelty towards my wife, who is a woman too good for me, but I
+    was at first forced to forsake her for debt, and go to sea. I hope
+    in God none will reflect on her, or my poor innocent children, who
+    could not help my sad passion, and more sad death. Written by me,
+
+    John Smith
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [15] George Byng, later created Viscount Torrington, was sent
+        with a fleet for the protection of Sicily against the Spaniards.
+        He found them besieging Messina, whereupon he gave their fleet
+        battle and gained a smashing victory at Cape Passaro, 31 July,
+        1718.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES SHAW, _alias_ SMITH, a Highwayman and Murderer
+
+
+James Shaw, otherwise Smith (for by both these names he went, nor am I
+able to say which was his true one) was the son of parents both of
+circumstances and inclination to have given him a very good education if
+he would have received it. The unsettledness of his temper was
+heightened by that indulgence with which he was treated by his
+relations, who permitted him to make trial of several trades, though he
+could not be brought to like any. Indeed, he stayed so long with a
+forger of gun-locks, as to learn something of his art, which sometimes
+he practised and thereby got money; but generally speaking he chose
+rather to acquire it by easier means.
+
+I cannot take upon me to say at what time he began to rob upon the road,
+or take to any other villainy of that sort, but 'tis certain that if he
+himself were to be believed, it was in a great measure owing to a bad
+wife; for when he, by his labour, got nine shillings a week, and used to
+return home very weary in the evening, he generally found nobody there
+to receive him, or to get ready his supper, but everything in the
+greatest confusion, without any person to take care of what little he
+had. This, as he would have had it believed, was the source of his
+misfortunes and necessities, as it was also the occasion of his taking
+such fatal methods to relieve them.
+
+The Hampstead Road was that in which he chiefly robbed, and he could not
+be persuaded that there was any great crime in taking away the
+superfluous cash of those who lavish it in vanity and luxury, or from
+those who procure it by cheating and gaming; and under these two classes
+Shaw pretended to rank all who frequented the Wells or Belsize, and it
+is to be much feared that in this respect he was not very far out.
+Amongst the many adventures which befell him in his expeditions on the
+road, there are one or two which it may not be improper to take notice
+of.
+
+One evening, as he was patrolling thereabouts, he came up to a chariot
+in which there was a certain famous justice, who happened to have won
+about four hundred pounds at play, and Count Ui----n, a famous foreign
+gamester, that has made many different figures about this town. No
+sooner was the coach stopped by Shaw and another person on horseback,
+but the Squire slipped the money he had won behind the seat of the
+coach, and the Count having little to lose, seemed not very uneasy at
+the accident. The highwaymen no sooner had demanded their money, but the
+Count gave two or three pieces of foreign gold, and the gentleman, in
+hopes by this means of getting rid of them, presented them with twenty
+guineas.
+
+_Why, really, sir_, said Shaw, on the receipt of the gold, _this were a
+handsome compliment from another person, but methinks you might have
+spared a little more out of the long bag you brought from the gaming
+table. Come, gentlemen, get out, get out, we must examine the nest a
+little, I fancy the goldfinches are not yet flown._ Upon this, they both
+got out of the chariot, and Shaw shaking the cushion that covered the
+seat hastily, the long bag fell out with its mouth open, and all its
+bright contents were scattered on the ground. The two knights of the
+road began to pick them up as fast as they could, and while the justice
+cursed this unlucky accident which had nicked him, after he had nicked
+all the gamesters at the Wells, the Count, who thought swearing an
+unprofitable exercise, began to gather as fast as they. A good deal of
+company coming in sight just as they had finished, and while they were
+calling upon the Count to refund, they were glad to gallop away. But
+returning to London they were taken, and about three hours after
+committing the fact, they, together with the witnesses against them,
+were brought before a Middlesex magistrate, who committed them.
+
+_But, pray, Sir_, says Shaw, before he was taken out of the room; _Why
+should not that French fellow suffer as well as we? He shared the booty,
+and please your Worship, 'tis but reasonable he should share the
+punishment. Well, what say you, Sir?_ quoth the Justice to his brother
+magistrate. _What is this outlandish man they talk of? He is a count,
+Sir_, replied he, _returned from Naples, whither he went on some affairs
+of importance. He makes a very good figure here sometimes, though I do
+not know what his income is. I do not apprehend your Worship has
+anything to do with that, since I do not complain. However_, replied
+this dispenser of justice, _I have had but a very sorry account of you,
+yet as you are in company with my brother here, I shall take no further
+notice of what these men say._[16]
+
+Shaw being after this got out of prison and having no money to purchase
+a horse, he endeavoured to carry on his old profession of a footpad. In
+this shape he robbed also several coaches and single passengers, and
+that with very great inhumanity, which was natural, he said, from that
+method of attacking, for it was impossible for a footpad to get off,
+unless he either maimed the man, or wounded his horse.
+
+Meeting by chance, as he was walking across Hampstead Road, an old
+grave-looking man, he thought there was no danger in making up to him,
+and seizing him, since he himself was well armed. The old gentleman
+immediately begged that he would be civil and told him that if he would
+be so, he would give him an old pair of breeches which were filled with
+money and effects worth money, and, as he said, lay buried by such a
+tree, pointing at the same time to it with his hand. Shaw went thither
+directly, in hopes of gaining the miser's great prize, for the old
+fellow made him believe he had buried it out of covetousness, and came
+there to brood over it. But no sooner were they come to the place, and
+Shaw looping down, began to look for three pieces of tobacco pipe, which
+the old man pretended to have stack where they were buried, but the
+gentleman whipped out his sword, and made two or three passes at Shaw,
+wounding him in the neck, side and breast.
+
+As the number of his robberies were very great, so it is not to be
+expected that we should have a very exact account of them, yet as Shaw
+was not shy in revealing any circumstance that related to them, we may
+not perhaps have been as particular in the relation of his crimes as our
+readers would desire, and therefore it will be necessary to mention some
+other of his expeditions.
+
+At his usual time and place, viz., Hampstead Road, in the evening, he
+overtook a dapper fellow, who was formerly a peruke-maker but now a
+gamester. This man taking Shaw for a bubble, began to talk of play, and
+mentioned All Fours and Cribbage, and asked him whether he would play a
+game for a bottle or so at the Flask. Shaw pretended to be very willing,
+but said he had made a terrible oath against playing for anything in any
+house; but if to avoid it, the gentleman would tie his horse to a tree
+and had any cards in his pocket, he'd sit down on the green bank in
+yonder close, and hazard a shilling or two. The gamester, who always
+carried his implements in his pocket, readily accepted of the offer, and
+tying their horses to a post of a little alehouse on the road, over they
+whipped into the fields. But no sooner were they set down, and the
+sharper began to shuffle the cards, but Shaw starting up, caught him by
+the throat, and after shaking out three guineas and a half from his
+breeches' pocket, broke to pieces two peep boxes, split as many pair of
+false dice, and kicked the cards all about the ground. He left him tied
+hand and foot to consider ways and means to recruit his stock by methods
+just as honest as those by which he lost it.
+
+The soldiers that at that time were placed on the road, passed for a
+great security amongst people in town, but those who had occasion to
+pass that way found no great benefit from their protection, for
+robberies were as frequent as ever, and the ill-usage of persons when
+robbed more so, because the rogues thought themselves in greater danger
+of being taken, and therefore bound or disabled those they plundered,
+for fear of their pursuing them.
+
+For a fact of this kind it was that Shaw came to his death, for one
+Philip Pots, being robbed on horseback by several footpads and knocked
+off his horse near the tile kilns by Pancras, and wounded in several
+places of his body with his own sword, which one of the villains had
+taken from him, some persons who passed by soon after took him up, and
+carried him to the Pinder of Wakefield.[17] There, on the Monday
+following (this accident happening on Saturday night) he in great
+agonies expired. For this murder and another robbery between Highgate
+and Kentish Town, Shaw was taken up and soon after convicted. At first
+he denied all knowledge of the murder, but when his death grew near, he
+did acknowledge being privy to it, though he persisted in saying he had
+no hand in its commission.
+
+At the time he was under condemnation, the afore-mentioned John Smith,
+William Colthouse, and Jonah Burgess were in the same condition. They
+formed a conspiracy for breaking out of the place where they were
+confined and to force an escape against all those who should oppose
+them. For this purpose they had procured pistols, but their plot being
+discovered, Burgess in great rage, cut his own throat and pretended that
+Shaw designed to have dispatched himself with one of the pistols. But
+Shaw, himself, absolutely denied this, and affirmed on the contrary that
+when Burgess said his enemies should never have the satisfaction (as
+they had bragged they would have) of placing themselves upon Holborn
+Bridge, to see him go by Tyburn, he (Shaw) exhorted him never to think
+of self-murder, and by that means give his enemies a double revenge in
+destroying both body and soul.
+
+As Shaw had formerly declared his wife's ill-conduct had been the first
+occasion of his falling into those courses which had proved so fatal to
+him, he still retained so great an antipathy to her on that account, as
+not to be able to pardon her, even in the last moments of his life, in
+which he would neither confess, nor positively deny the murder for which
+he died. He was then about twenty-eight years of age, and died the same
+day with the last-mentioned malefactor, Smith.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [16] This discourse between the magistrates is obscure. I have
+        been unable to clear it.
+
+   [17] This was the public-house at the Battle Bridge (King's
+        Cross) end of Gray's Inn Road.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM COLTHOUSE, a Thief and Highwayman
+
+
+William Colthouse was born in Yorkshire, had a very good education for a
+person of his rank and especially with regard to religious principles,
+of which he retained a knowledge seldom to be met with among the lower
+class of people; but he was so unhappy as to imbibe in his youth strange
+notions in regard to civil government, hereditary rights having been
+much magnified in the latter end of the late Queen's reign. William
+amongst others was violent attached thereto, and fancied it was a very
+meritorious thing to profess his sentiments, notwithstanding they were
+directly opposite to those of persons then in power. Some declarations
+of this sort occasioned his being confined in Newgate, and prosecuted
+for speaking seditious words in the beginning of King George the First's
+reign. His Newgate acquaintances taught him quickly their arts of
+living, and he was no sooner at liberty than he put them into execution,
+he and his brother living like gentlemen on their expeditions on the
+road; till unfortunately committing a robbery on Hounslow Heath
+together, they were both closely pursued, the other taken, and William
+narrowly escaped by creeping into a hollow tree.
+
+After the execution of his brother, Colthouse being terribly affected
+therewith, retired to Oxford, and there worked as a journeyman joiner,
+determining with himself to live honestly for the future, and not by a
+habit of ill-actions go the same way as one so nearly related to him had
+done before. But as his brother's death in time grew out of his
+remembrance, so his evil inclinations again took place, and he came up
+to London with a full purpose of getting money at an easier rate than
+working.
+
+Soon after his arrival his Jacobite principles brought him into a great
+fray at an alehouse in Tothill Fields, Westminster, where some soldiers
+were drinking, and who on some disrespectful words said of the Prince,
+caught up Colthouse and threw him upon a red-hot gridiron, thereby
+making a scar on his cheek and under his left eye. By this he came to be
+taken for a person who murdered a farmer's son in Philpot Lane, in
+Hampshire, when he was charged with which he not only denied, but by
+abundance of circumstances rendered it highly probable that he did not
+commit it, there being, indeed, no other circumstance which occasioned
+that suspicion but the likeness of the scar in his face, which happened
+in the manner I told you.
+
+While he lay under condemnation, a report reached his ear that his two
+brothers in the country were also said to be highwaymen; he complained
+grievously of the common practice that was made by idle people raising
+stories to increase the sorrows of families which were so unhappy as to
+have any who belonged to them come to such a death as his was to be. As
+to his brothers, he declared himself well satisfied that the younger was
+a sober and religious lad, and as for the elder, though he might have
+been guilty of some extravagance, yet he hoped and believed they were
+not of the same kind with those which had brought him to ruin. However,
+that he might do all the good which his present sad circumstance would
+allow, he wrote the following letter to his brethren in the country.
+
+    Dear Brothers,
+
+    Though the nearness of my approaching death ought to shut out from
+    my thoughts all temporal concerns, yet I could not compose my mind
+    into that quietness with which I hope to pass from this sinful world
+    into the presence of the Almighty, before I had thus exorted you to
+    take particular warning from my death, which the intent of the Law
+    to deter others from wickedness hath decreed to be in a public and
+    ignominious manner. Amidst the terrors which the frailty of human
+    nature (shocked with the prospect of so terrible an end) makes my
+    afflicted heart to feel, even these sorrows are increased, and all
+    my woes doubled by a story which is spread, I hope without the least
+    grounds of truth, that ye, as well as I, have lived by taking away
+    by force the property of others.
+
+    Let the said examples of my poor brother, who died by the hand of
+    Justice, and of me, who now follow him in the same unhappy course,
+    deter you not only from those flagrant offences which have been so
+    fatal unto us, but also from those foolish and sinful pleasures in
+    which it is but too frequent for young persons to indulge
+    themselves. Remember that I tell you from a sad experience, that the
+    wages of sin, though in appearance they be sometimes large and what
+    may promise outward pleasure, yet are they attended with such inward
+    disquiet as renders it impossible for those to have received them
+    to enjoy either quiet or ease. Work, then, hard at your employments,
+    and be assured that sixpence got thereby will afford you more solid
+    satisfaction than the largest acquisitions at the expense of your
+    conscience. That God may, by His grace, enable you to follow this my
+    last advice, and that He may bless your honest labour with plenty
+    and prosperity is the earnest prayer of your dying brother
+
+    William Colthouse
+
+Till the day of his execution he had denied his being accessory to the
+intended escape by forcing the prison, but when he came to Tyburn, he
+acknowledged that assertion to be false, and owned that he caused the
+two pistols to be provided for that purpose. He was about thirty-four
+years of age at the time he suffered, which was on the 8th of February,
+1722, with Burgess, Shaw and Smith.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM BURRIDGE, a Highwayman
+
+
+In the course of these lives I have more than once observed that the
+vulgar have false notions of courage, and that applause is given to it
+by those who have as false notions of it as themselves, and this it was
+in a great measure which made William Burridge take to those fatal
+practices which had the usual termination in an ignominious death. He
+was the son of reputable people, who lived at West Haden in
+Northamptonshire, who after affording him a competent education, thought
+proper to bind him to his father's trade of a carpenter. But he, having
+been pretty much indulged before that time, could not by any means be
+brought to relish labour, or working for his bread.
+
+Burridge was a well-made fellow, and of a handsome person, as well as
+great strength and dexterity, which he had often exercised in wrestling
+and cudgel-playing which gained him great praise amongst the country
+fellows at wakes and fairs, where such prizes are usually given.
+Therefore giving himself up almost wholly to such exercises, he used
+frequently to run away from his parents, and lie about the country,
+stealing poultry, and what else he could lay his hands on to support
+himself. His father trying all methods possible to reclaim him and
+finding them fruitless, as his last refuge turned him over to another
+master, in hopes that having there no mother to plead for him, a course
+of continued severities might perhaps reclaim him. But his hopes were
+all disappointed, for instead of mending under his new master, William
+gave himself over to all sorts of vices, and more especially became
+addicted to junketting with servant-wenches in the neighbourhood, who
+especially on Sundays when their masters were out, were but too ready to
+receive and entertain him at their expense.
+
+But these adventures made him very obnoxious to others, as well as his
+master, who no longer able to bear his lying out of night, and other
+disorderly practices, turned him off, and left him to shift for himself.
+He went home to his friends, but going on still in the same way, they
+frankly advised him to ship himself on board a man-of-war in order to
+avoid that ill-fate which they then foresaw, and which afterwards
+overtook him. William, though not very apt to follow good counsel, yet
+approved of this at last when he saw some of his companions had already
+suffered for those profligate courses to which they were addicted.
+
+He shipped himself, therefore, in a squadron then sailing for Spain
+under the command of Commodore Cavendish, on board whose ship he was
+when an engagement happened with the Spaniards in Cadiz Bay. The dispute
+was long and very sharp, and Burridge behaved therein so as to meet with
+extraordinary commendations. These had the worst effect upon him
+imaginable, for they so far puffed him up, that he thought himself
+worthier of command than most of the officers on the ship, and therefore
+was not a little uneasy at being obliged to obey them. This hindered
+them from doing him any kindness, which they would otherwise perhaps
+have done in consideration of his gallant behaviour against the enemy.
+At his return into England he was extremely ambitious of living without
+the toil of business, and therefore went upon the highway with great
+diligence, in order to acquire a fortune by it, which when he had done,
+he designed to have left it off, and to have lived easily and honestly
+upon the fruits of it. But, alas! these were vain hopes and idle
+expectations, for instead of acquiring anything which might keep him
+hereafter, he could scarce procure a present livelihood at the hazard
+both of his neck and his soul, for he was continually obliged to hide
+himself, through apprehension, and not seldom got into Bridewell or some
+such place, for brawls and riots.
+
+This William Burridge was the person who with Nat Hawes made their
+escape out of New Prison, by the assistance of a woman, as the life of
+that malefactor is before related.[18] And as he saved himself then from
+the same ignominious death which afterwards befell him, so he escaped it
+another time by becoming evidence against one Reading, who died for the
+life offences. As to Burridge, he still continued the same trade, till
+being taken for stealing a bay gelding belonging to one Mr. Wragg, he
+was for that offence finally condemned at the Old Bailey. While under
+sentence, as he had been much the greatest and oldest offender of any
+that were under the same fate, so he seemed to be by much the most
+affected and the most penitent of them all; and with great signs and
+sorrow for the many crimes he had committed, he suffered on the 14th of
+March, 1722, with five other persons at Tyburn, being then about
+thirty-four years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [18] See page 59.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN THOMSON, a thief, Highwayman, etc.
+
+
+John Thomson was born at Carlisle, but was brought with his friends to
+London. They, it seems, were persons of no substance, and took little
+care of their son's education, suffering him, while a lad, to go often
+to such houses as were frequented by ill-people, and such as took
+dishonest methods to get money. Such are seldom very dose in their
+discourse when they meet and junket together, and Thomson, then a boy,
+was so much pleased with their jovial manner of life, eating well and
+drinking hard, that he had ever a bias that way, even when he was
+otherways employed, till he was fifteen years old, leading such an idle
+and debauched life that, as he himself expressed it, he had never heard
+of or read a Bible or other good book throughout all that space.
+
+A friend of his was then so kind as to put him out apprentice to a
+weaver, and he might have had some chance of coming into the world in an
+honest and reputable way, but he had not continued with his master any
+long time before he listed himself in the sea service, during the Wars
+in the late Queen's time, and served on board a squadron which was sent
+up the Baltic to join the Danes. This cold country, with other hardships
+he endured, made him so out of humour with a sailor's life that though
+he behaved himself tolerably well when on board, yet he resolved never
+to engage in the same state, if once discharged and safe on shore.
+
+Upon his coming back to England, he went to work at his trade of a
+weaver, and being for a while very sensible of the miseries he had run
+through on board the man-of-war, he became highly pleased with the quiet
+and easy way in which he got his bread by his business, thinking,
+however, that there was no way so proper to settle him as by marrying,
+which accordingly he did. But he was so unfortunate that though his wife
+was a very honest woman, yet the money he got not being sufficient to
+maintain them, he was even obliged to take to the sea again for a
+subsistence, and continued on board several ships in the Straits and
+Mediterranean for a very considerable space, during which he was so
+fortunate as to serve once on board an enterprising captain, who in less
+than a year's space, took nineteen prizes to a very considerable value.
+And as they were returning from their cruise, they took a French East
+India ship on the coast of that kingdom, whose cargo was computed at no
+less than a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Thomson might certainly,
+if he would, have saved money enough to have put himself into a
+creditable method of life as many of his shipmates had done, and so well
+did the captain improve his own good fortune that on his return he
+retired into the country, where he purchased an estate of fifteen
+hundred pounds _per annum._
+
+But Thomson being much altered from the usual bent of his temper by his
+being long accustomed at sea to blood and plunder, so when he returned
+home, instead of returning to an honest way of living, he endeavoured to
+procure money at the same rate by land which he had done at sea, and for
+that purpose associated himself with persons of a like disposition, and
+in their company did abundance of mischief. At last he and one of his
+associates passing over Smithfield between twelve and one in the
+morning, on the second of March, they perceived one George Currey going
+across that place very much in drink. Him they attacked, though at first
+they pretended to lead him safe home, drawing him to a proper place out
+of hearing of the houses, where they took from him a shirt, a wig and a
+hat, in doing which they knocked him down, stamped upon his breast, and
+in other respects used him very cruelly. Being apprehended soon after
+this fact, he was for it tried and convicted.
+
+In the space between that and his death, he behaved himself very
+penitently, and desired with great earnestness that his wife would
+retire into the country to her friends, and learn by his unhappy example
+that nothing but an honest industry could procure the blessing of God.
+This he assiduously begged for her in his prayers, imploring her at the
+same time that he gave her this advice, to be careful of her young son
+she had then at her breast, not only as to his education, but also that
+he might never know his father's unhappy end, for that would but damp
+his spirits, and perhaps force him upon ill-courses when he grew up,
+from an apprehension that people might distrust his honesty and not
+employ him. He professed himself much afflicted at the past follies of
+his life, and with an outward appearance of true penitence, died on the
+fourth of May, 1722, in the thirty-third year of his age, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS REEVES, a Notorious Highwayman and Footpad
+
+
+As it is not to be denied that it is a singular blessing to a nation
+where no persecution is ever raised against persons for their religion,
+so I am confident that the late Free Thinking principles (as they have
+been called) have by their being spread amongst the vulgar, contributed
+greatly to the many frauds and villainies which have been so much
+complained of within these thirty years, and not a little to encouraging
+men in obtaining a subsistence and the gratification of their pleasures
+by rapines committed upon others rather than live in a laborious state
+of life, in which, perhaps, both their birth and circumstances concurred
+to fix them.
+
+Thomas Reeves was a very remarkable as well as very unfortunate instance
+of that depravity in moral principles of which I have been speaking. By
+his friends he was bred a tinman, his father, who was of that
+profession, taking him as an apprentice but using him with the most
+indulgent fondness and never suffering him to want anything which was in
+his power to procure for him, flattered himself with the hopes of his
+becoming a good and happy man. It happened very unfortunately for Reeves
+that he fell, when young, into the acquaintance of some sceptical
+persons who made a jest of all religion and treated both its precepts
+and its mysteries as inventions subservient to priestcraft. Such notions
+are too easily imbibed by those who are desirous to indulge their
+vicious inclinations, and Reeves being of this stamp, greedily listened
+to all discourses of such a nature.
+
+Amongst some of these companions who had cheated him out of his
+religion, he found some also inclined to practise the same freedom they
+taught, encouraged both by precept and example. Tom soon became the most
+conspicuous of the gang. His boldness and activity preferred him
+generally to be a leader in their adventures, and he had such good luck,
+in several of his first attempts, that he picked up as much as
+maintained him in that extravagant and superfluous manner of life in
+which he most of all delighted. One John Hartly was his constant
+companion in his debauches, and generally speaking an assistant in his
+crimes. Both of them in the evening of the ninth of March, 1722,
+attacked one Roger Worebington, near Shoreditch, as he was going across
+the fields on some business. Hartly gave him a blow on the head with his
+pistol, after which Reeves bid him stand, and whistling, four more of
+the gang came up, seized him, and knocked him down. They stripped him
+stark naked and carried away all his clothes, tying him hand and foot in
+a cruel manner and leaving him in a ditch hard by. However he was
+relieved, and Reeves and Hartly being soon after taken, they were both
+tried and convicted for this fact.
+
+After the passing sentence, Reeves behaved himself with much
+indifference, his own principles stuck by him, and he had so far
+satisfied himself by considering the necessity of dying, and coined a
+new religion of his own, that he never believed the soul in any danger,
+but had very extensive notions of the mercy of God, which he thought was
+too great to punish with eternal misery those souls which He had
+created. This criminal was, indeed, of a very odd temper, for sometimes
+he would both pray and read to the rest of the prisoners, and at other
+times he would talk loosely and divert them from their duty, often
+making enquiries as to curious points, and to be informed whether the
+soul went immediately into bliss or torment, or whether, as some
+Christians taught, they went through an intermediate state? All which he
+spoke of with an unconcernedness scarce to be conceived, and as it were
+rather out of curiosity than that he thought himself in any danger of
+eternal punishment hereafter.
+
+Hartly, on the other hand, was a fellow of a much softer disposition,
+showed very great fear, and looked in great confusion at the approach of
+death. He got six persons dressed in white to go to the Royal Chapel and
+petition for a pardon, he being to marry one of them in case it had been
+procured, but they failed in the attempt, and he appeared less sensible
+than ever when he found that death was not to be evaded.
+
+At the place of execution, Reeves not only preserved that resolution
+with which he had hitherto borne up against his misfortunes, but when
+the mob pushed down one of the horses that drew the cart, and it leaning
+sideways so that Reeves was thereby half hanged, to ease himself of his
+misery he sprung over at once and finished the execution.
+
+Hartly wept and lamented exceedingly his miserable condition, and the
+populace much pitied him, for he was not twenty years of age at the time
+he died; but Reeves was about twenty-eight years of age, when he
+suffered, which was at the same time with John Thomson, before
+mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, a Footpad and Street robber
+
+
+Though there have been some instances of felons adhering so closely
+together as not to give up one another to Justice, even for the sake of
+saving life, yet are such instances very rare, and examples of the
+contrary very common.
+
+Richard Whittingham was a young man of very good natural inclinations,
+had he not been of too easy a temper, and ready to yield to the
+inducements of bad women. His friends had placed him as an apprentice to
+a hot-presser, with whom he lived very honestly for some time; but at
+last, the idle women with whom he conversed continually pressing him for
+money in return for their lewd favours, he was by that means drawn in to
+run away from his master, and subsist by picking pockets. In the
+prosecution of this trade, he contracted an infamous friendship with
+Jones, Applebee and Lee, three notorious villains of the same stamp,
+with whom he committed abundance of robberies in the streets, especially
+by cutting off women's pockets, and such other exploits. This, he
+pretended, was performed with great address and regularity, for he said
+that after many consultations, 'twas resolved to attack persons only in
+broad streets for the future, from whence they found it much less
+troublesome to escape than when they committed them in alleys and such
+like close places, whereupon a pursuit once begun, they seldom or never
+missed being taken. He added, that when they had determined to go out to
+plunder, each had his different post assigned him, and that while one
+laid his leg before a passenger, another gave him a jolt on the
+shoulders, and as soon as he was down a third came to their assistance,
+whereupon they immediately went to stripping and binding those who were
+so unlucky as thus to fall into their hands. Upon Applebee's being
+apprehended, and himself impeached, Whittingham withdrew to Rochester,
+with an intent to have gone out of the kingdom, but after all he could
+not prevail with himself to quit his native country.
+
+On his return to London, he fled for sanctuary to the house of his
+former master, who treated him with great kindness, supplied him with
+work, sent up his victuals privately, and did all in his power to
+conceal him. But Jones and Lee, his former companions, found means to
+discover him as they had already impeached him, and so, on their
+evidence and that of the prosecutor, he was convicted of robbing William
+Garnet, in the area of Red Lion Square, when Applebee knocked him down,
+and Jones and Lee held their hands upon his eyes, and crammed his own
+neck-cloth down his throat.
+
+When he found he was to die, he was far from behaving himself
+obstinately, but as far as his capacity would give him leave,
+endeavoured to pray, and to fit himself for his approaching dissolution.
+He had married a young wife, for whom he expressed a very tender
+affection, and seemed more cast down with the thoughts of those miseries
+to which she would be exposed by his death, than he was at what he
+himself was to suffer.
+
+During the time he lay in the condemned hold, he complained often of the
+great interruptions those under sentence of death met with from some
+prisoners who were confined underneath, and who, through the crevice,
+endeavoured as usual, by talking to them lewdly and profanely, to
+disturb them even in their last moments. At the place of execution he
+wept bitterly, and seemed to be much affrighted at death and very sorry
+for his having committed those crimes which brought him thither. He was
+but nineteen years old when he suffered, which was on the 21st of May,
+1722.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES BOOTY, a Ravisher
+
+
+Such is the present depravity of human nature that we have sometimes
+instances of infant criminals and children meriting death by their
+crimes, before they know or can be expected to know how to do anything
+to live. Perhaps there was never a stronger instance of this than in
+James Booty, of whom we are now speaking. He was a boy rather without
+capacity than obstinate, whose inclinations, one would have expected,
+could hardly have attained to that pitch of wickedness in thought, which
+it appeared both by evidence and his own confessions, he had actually
+practised. His father was a peruke-maker in Holborn, and not in so bad
+circumstances but that he could have afforded him a tolerable education,
+if he had not been snatched away by death. Thus his son was left to the
+care of his mother, who put him to a cabinet-maker, where he might have
+been bound apprentice if the unhappy accident (for so indeed I think it
+may be called) had not intervened. It seemed his master had taken a
+cousin of his, a girl of about fifteen or somewhat more, for a servant.
+This girl went into the workshop where the boy lay, under pretence of
+mending his coat, which he had torn by falling upon a hook as he
+stumbled over the well of the stairs; but instead of darning the hole,
+she went to bed to the boy, put out the candle, and gave him the foul
+distemper.
+
+Not knowing what was the matter with him, but finding continual pains in
+his body, he made a shift at last to learn the cause from some of the
+workmen. Not daring to trust even his mother with what was the matter
+with him, instead of applying to a proper person to be cured, he
+listened as attentively as he could to all discourses about that
+distemper, which happened frequently enough amongst his master's
+journeymen. There he heard some of the foolish fellows say that lying
+with any person who was sound would cure those who were in such a
+condition. The extreme anguish of body he was in excited him to try the
+experiment, and he injured no less than four or five children, between
+four years old and six, before he committed that act for which he was
+executed.
+
+He one day carried his master's daughter, Anne Milton, a girl of but
+five years and two months old, to the top of the house, and there with
+great violence abused her and gave her the foul disease. The parents
+were not long before they made the discovery of it, and the child
+telling them what Booty had done to her, they sent for a surgeon who
+examined him, and found him in a very sad condition with venereal
+disease. Upon this he was taken up and committed to Newgate, and upon
+very full evidence was convicted at the next sessions, and received
+sentence of death; from which time to the day before he was executed, he
+was afflicted with so violent a fever as to have little or no sense. But
+then coming to himself, he expressed a confused sense of religion and
+penitence, desired to be instructed how to go to Heaven, and showed
+evident marks of his inclination to do anything which might be for the
+good of his soul.
+
+At the place of execution he wept and looked dejected, said his mother
+had sought diligently for the wench who did him the injury, and was the
+cause of his doing it to so many others; but that although the girl was
+known to live in Westminster after she left his master, yet his mother
+was never able to find her. Thus was this young creature removed from
+the world by an ignominious death at Tyburn, on the 21st May, 1722,
+being then somewhat above fifteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS BUTLOCK, _alias_ BUTLOGE, a Thief
+
+
+The foolish pride of wearing fine clothes and making a figure has
+certainly undone many ordinary people, both by making them live beyond
+what their labour or trade would allow, and by inducing them to take
+illegal methods to procure money for that purpose.
+
+Thomas Butlock, otherwise Butloge, which last was his true name, was
+born in the kingdom of Ireland, about thirty miles east of Dublin,
+whither his parents had gone from Cheshire (which was their native
+country) with a gentleman on whom they had a great dependence, and who
+was settled in Ireland. Though their circumstances were but indifferent,
+yet they found means to raise as much as put their son apprentice to a
+vintner in Dublin, and probably, had he ever set up in that business
+they would have done more. But he had not been long ere what little
+education he had was lost, and his morals corrupted by the sight of such
+lewd scenes as passed often in his master's house. However the man was
+very kind to him, and in return Thomas had so great esteem and affection
+for his master that when he broke and come over to hide himself at
+Chester, Butloge frequently stole over to him with small supplies of
+money and acquainted him with the condition of his family, which he had
+left behind.
+
+In this precarious manner of life, he spent some time, until finding it
+impossible for him to subsist any longer by following his master's
+broken fortunes, he began to lay out for some new employment to get his
+bread. But after various projects had proved unsuccessful when they came
+to be executed, he was forced to return into Ireland again, where not
+long after, he had the good fortune to marry a substantial man's
+daughter which retrieved his circumstances once more.
+
+But Butloge had always, as he expressed it, an aspiring temper, which
+put him upon crossing the seas again upon the invitation of a gentleman
+who, he pretended was a relation, and belonged to the Law, by whose
+interest he was in hopes of getting into a place. Accordingly, when he
+came to London, he took lodgings and lived as if he was already in
+possession of his expectation, which bringing his pocket low, he
+accepted the service of Mr. Claude Langley, a foreign gentleman, who had
+lodged in the same house. It cannot be exactly determined how long he
+had been in his service before he had committed the fact for which he
+died, but as to the manner it happened thus.
+
+Mr. Langley, as well as all the rest of the family, being out at church,
+Butloge was sitting by himself in his master's room, looking at the
+drawers, and knowing that there was a good sum of ready money therein.
+It then came into his head what a figure he might cut if he had all that
+money. It occurred to him, at the same time, that his master was scarce
+able to speak any English, and was obliged to go over to France again in
+a month's time; so that he persuaded himself that if he could keep out
+of the way for that month, all would be well, and he should be able to
+live upon the spoil, without any apprehension of danger. These
+considerations took up his mind for half an hour; then he put his scheme
+into execution, broke open the drawers and took from thence twenty-seven
+guineas, four _louis d'ors_, and some other French pieces. As soon as he
+completed the robbery, and was got safe out of town, he went directly to
+Chester, that he might appear fine (as he himself said) at a place where
+he was known. His precaution being so little, there is no wonder that he
+was taken, or that the fact appearing plain, he should be convicted
+thereon.
+
+After sentence was passed, he laid aside all hopes of life, and without
+flattering himself as too many do, he prepared for his approaching end.
+Whatever follies he might have committed in his life, yet he suffered
+very composedly on the 22nd day of July, 1722, being then about
+twenty-three years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of NATHANIEL JACKSON, a Highwayman
+
+
+The various dispositions of men make frequent differences in their
+progress, either in virtue or vice; some being disposed to cultivate
+this or that branch of their duty with peculiar diligence, and others,
+again, plunging themselves in some immoralities they have no taste for.
+
+But as for this unfortunate criminal, Nathaniel Jackson, he seemed to
+have swept all impurities with a drag net, and to have habituated
+himself to nothing but wickedness from his cradle. He was the son of a
+person of some fortune at Doncaster, in Yorkshire, who died when his son
+Nat was very young, but not, however, till he had given him some
+education. He was bound by a friend, in whose hands his father left his
+fortune, to a silk-weaver at Norwich, with whom he lived about three
+years; but his master restraining his extravagancies, and taking great
+pains to keep him within the bounds of moderation, Jackson at last grew
+so uneasy that he ran away from his master, and absconded for some time.
+But his guardian at last hearing where he was, wrote to him, and advised
+him to purchase some small place with his fortune, whereon he might live
+with economy, since he perceived he would do no good in trade. Jackson
+despised this advice, and instead of thinking of settling, got into the
+Army, and with a regiment of dragoons went over into Ireland.
+
+There he indulged himself in all the vices and lusts to which he was
+prone, living in all those debaucheries to which the meanest and most
+licentious of the common soldiers are addicted; but he more especially
+gave himself up to lewdness and the conversation of women. This, as it
+led him into abundance of inconveniences, so at last it engaged him in a
+quarrel with one of his comrades which ended in a duel. Jackson had the
+advantage of his antagonist and hacked and wounded him in a most cruel
+manner. For this, his officers broke him, and he thereby lost the
+fifteen guineas which he had given to be admitted into the troop; and as
+men are always apt to be angry with punishment, however justly they
+receive it, so Jackson imputed his being cashiered to the officers'
+covetousness, the crime he had committed passing in his own imagination
+for a very trivial action.
+
+Having from this accident a new employment to seek, he came over to his
+guardian and stayed with him a while. But growing very soon weary of
+those restraints which were put upon him there, as he had done at those
+under his Norwich master, he soon fell into his old courses, got into an
+acquaintance with lewd women and drunken fellows, with whom he often
+stayed out all night at the most notorious bawdy houses. This making a
+great noise, his friends remonstrated in the strongest terms, pointing
+out to him the wrong he did himself; but finding all their persuasions
+ineffectual, they told him plainly he must remove. Upon this he came up
+to London, not without receiving considerable presents from his so much
+abused friends.
+
+The town was an ill place to amend a man who came into it with
+dispositions like his. On the contrary, he found still more
+opportunities for gratifying his lustful inclinations than at any time
+before, and these lewd debaucheries having reduced him quickly to the
+last extremity, he was in a fair way to be prevailed on to take any
+method to gain money. He was in these said circumstances when he met
+accidentally with John Morphew, an old companion of his in Ireland, and
+soon after, as they were talking together, they fell upon one O'Brian in
+a footman's garb, also their acquaintance in Ireland.
+
+He invited them both to go with him to the camp in Hyde Park, and at a
+sutler's tent there, treated them with as much as they would drink. When
+he had paid the reckoning, turning about, _d'ye see, boys_, says he,
+_how full my pockets are of money? Come, I'll teach you to fill yours,
+if you are but men of courage._ Upon this out they walked towards
+Hampstead, between which place and St. Pancras they met one Dennet, whom
+they robbed and stripped, taking from him a coat and a waistcoat, two
+shirts, some hair, thirteen pence in money, and other things. This did
+not make O'Brian's promise good, all they got being but of
+inconsiderable value, but it cost poor Jackson his life, though he and
+Morphew had saved Dennet's when O'Brian would have killed him to prevent
+discoveries; for Jackson being not long after apprehended, was convicted
+of the fact, but O'Brian, having timely notice of his commitment, made
+his escape into Ireland.
+
+As soon as sentence was passed, Jackson thought of nothing but how to
+prepare himself for another world, there being no probability that
+interest his friends could make to save him. He made a very ingenious
+confession of all he knew, and seemed perfectly easy and resigned to
+that end which the Law had appointed for those who, like him, had
+injured society. He was about thirty years old at the time of his death,
+which was on the 18th of July, 1722, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES, _alias_ VALENTINE CARRICK, a Notorious Highwayman and
+Street Robber
+
+
+Though it has become a very common and fashionable opinion that honour
+may supply the place of piety, and thereby preserve a morality more
+beneficial to society than religion, yet if we would allow experience to
+decide, it will be no very difficult matter to prove that when persons
+have once given way to certain vices (which in the polite style pass
+under the denomination of pleasures) rather than forego them they will
+quickly acquire that may put it in their power to enjoy them, though
+obtained at the rate of perpetrating the most ignominious offences. If
+there had not been too much truth in this observation we should hardly
+find in the list of criminals persons who, like James Carrick, have had
+a liberal education, and were not meanly descended, bringing themselves
+to the most miserable of all states and reflecting dishonour upon those
+from whom they were descended.
+
+This unfortunate person was the son of an Irish gentleman, who lived not
+far from Dublin, and whom we must believe to have been a man of
+tolerable fortune, since he provided as well for all his children as to
+make even this, who was his youngest, an ensign. James was a perfect boy
+at the time when his commission required him to quit Ireland to repair
+to Spain, whither, a little before, the regiment wherein he was to serve
+had been commanded. As he had performed his duty towards the rest of his
+children, the father was more than ordinarily fond of this his youngest,
+whom therefore he equipped in a manner rather beyond that capacity in
+which he was to appear upon his arrival at the army. In his person James
+was a very beautiful well-shaped young man, of a middle size, and
+something more than ordinarily genteel in his appearance, as his father
+had taken care to supply him abundantly for his expenses; so when he
+came into Spain he spent his money as freely as any officer of twice his
+pay. His tent was the constant rendezvous of all the beaux who were at
+that time in the camp, and whenever the army were in quarters, nobody
+was handsomer, or made a better figure than Mr. Carrick.
+
+Though we are very often disposed to laugh at those stories for fictions
+which carry in them anything very different from what we see in daily
+experience, yet as the materials I have for this unfortunate man's life
+happen both to be full and very exact, I shall not scruple mentioning
+some of his adventures, which I am persuaded will neither be unpleasant,
+nor incapable of improving my readers.
+
+The regiment in which Carrick served was quartered at Barcelona, after
+the taking of that place by the English troops[19] who supported the
+title of the present Emperor to the crown of Spain. The inhabitants were
+not only civil, but to the last degree courteous to the English, for
+whom they always preserved a greater esteem than for any other nation.
+Carrick, therefore, had frequent opportunities for making himself known
+and getting into an acquaintance with some of the Spanish cavaliers, who
+were in the interest of King Charles. Amongst these was Don Raphael de
+Ponto, a man of fortune and family amongst the Catalans, but, as is
+usual with the Spaniards, very amorous and continually employed in some
+intrigue or other. He was mightily pleased with Carrick's humour, and
+conceived for him a friendship, in which the Spaniards are perhaps more
+constant and at the same time more zealous, than any other nation in
+Europe. As Carrick had been bred a Roman Catholic and always continued
+so, notwithstanding his professing the contrary to those in the Army, so
+he made no scruple of going to Mass with his Spanish friend, which
+passed with the English officers only as a piece of complaisance.
+
+Vespers was generally the time when Don Raphael and his English
+companion used to make their appointments with the ladies, and therefore
+they were very punctual at those devotions, from a spirit which too
+often takes up young minds. It happened one evening, when after the
+Spanish custom they were thus gone forth in quest of adventures, a
+duenna slipped into Don Raphael's hand a note, by which he was appointed
+to come under such a window near the convent, in the street of St.
+Thomas, when the bell of the convent rang in the evening, and was
+desired to bring his friend, if he were not afraid of a Spanish lady.
+Don Raphael immediately acquainted his friend, who you may be sure was
+ready to obey the summons.
+
+When the hour came, and the convent bell rang, our sparks, wrapped up in
+their cloaks, slipped to their posts under a balcony. They did not wait
+long there, before the same woman who delivered the note to Don Raphael
+made her appearance at the window, and throwing down another little
+billet, exhorted them to be patient a little, and they should not lose
+their labour. The lovers waited quiet enough for about a quarter of an
+hour, when the old woman slipped down, and opened a door behind them, at
+which our sparks entered with great alacrity. The old woman conduced
+them into a very handsome apartment above stairs, where they were
+received by two young ladies, as beautiful as they could have wished
+them. Compliments are not much used on such occasions in Spain, and
+these gentlemen, therefore, did not make many before they were for
+coming to the point with the ladies, when of a sudden they heard a great
+noise upon the stairs, and as such adventures make all men cautious in
+Spain, they immediately left the ladies, and retiring towards the
+window, drew their swords. They had hardly clapped their backs against
+it, before the noise on the stairs ceasing, they felt the floor tremble
+under their feet, and at last giving way, they both fell into a dark
+room underneath, where without any other noise than their fall had made,
+they were disarmed, gagged and bound by some persons placed there for
+that purpose. When the rogues had finished their search, and taken away
+everything that was valuable about them, even to ripping the gold lace
+off Carrick's clothes, they let them lie there for a considerable time,
+and at last removed them in two open chests to the middle of the great
+marketplace, where they left them to wait for better fortune. They had
+not remained there above a quarter of an hour, before Carrick's sergeant
+went the rounds with a file of musketeers. Carrick hearing his voice,
+made as much noise as he was able, and that bringing the sergeant and
+his men to the place where they were set, their limbs and mouths were
+immediately released from bondage.
+
+The morning following, as soon as Carrick was up, the Spanish
+gentleman's major domo came to wait upon him, and told him that his
+master being extremely ill, had desired him to make his compliments to
+his English friend in order to supply the defects of the letter he sent
+him, which by reason of his indisposition was very short. Having said
+this, the Spaniard presented him with a letter, and a little parcel,
+and then withdrew. Carrick did not know what to make of all this, but as
+soon as the stranger was withdrawn, opened his packet in order to
+discover what it contained. He found in it a watch, a diamond ring, and
+a note on a merchant for two hundred pieces-of-eight, which was the sum
+Carrick (to make himself look great) said he had lost by the accident.
+The note at the same time informing him that Don Raphael de Ponto
+thought it but just to restore to him what he had lost by accompanying
+him in the former night's adventures.
+
+After Carrick returned into England, though he had no longer his
+commission, or indeed any other way of living, yet he could not lay
+aside those vices in which hitherto he had indulged himself. When he had
+any money he entertained a numerous train of the most abandoned women of
+the town, and had also intrigues at the same time with some of the
+highest rank of those prostitutes. To the latter he applied himself when
+his pocket first began to grow low, and they supplied him as long, and
+as far as they were able. But, alas! their contributions went but a
+little way towards supporting his expenses. Happening about that time to
+fall into an acquaintance with Smith, his countryman, after a serious
+consultation on ways and means to support their manner of living, they
+came at last to a resolution of taking a purse on the road, and joined
+company soon afterwards with Butler, another Irish robber, who was
+executed some time before them on the evidence of this very Carrick.
+When Carrick's elder brother heard of this in Ireland, he wrote to him
+in the most moving terms, beseeching him to consider the sad end to
+which he was running headlong, and the shame and ignominy with which he
+covered his family and friends, exhorting him at the same time not to
+cast away all hopes of doing well, but to think of returning to Dublin,
+where he assured him he would meet him, and provide handsomely for him,
+notwithstanding all that was past.
+
+But Carrick little regarded this good advice, or the kind overtures made
+him by his brother. No sooner had he procured his liberty but he
+returned to his old profession, and committed a multitude of robberies
+on Finchley Common, Hounslow and Bagshot Heaths, spending all the money
+he got on women of the town, at the gaming table, and in fine clothes,
+which last was the thing in which he seemed most to delight. But money
+not coming in very quick by these methods, he with Molony, Carrol and
+some others of his countrymen, began to rob in the streets, and by that
+means got great sums of money. They continued this practice for a long
+space of time with safety, but being one night out in Little Queen
+Street, by Lincoln's Inn Fields, between one and two in the morning they
+stopped a chair in which was the Hon. William Young, Esq., from whom
+they took a gold watch, valued at £50, a sword, and forty guineas in
+money. Carrick thrust his pistol into the chair, Carrol watched at a
+distance, while Molony, perceiving the gentleman hesitate a little in
+delivering, said with a stern voice, _Your money, sir! Do you trifle?_
+It was a very short time after the commission of this robbery that both
+he and his companion Molony were taken, Carrol making a timely escape to
+his native kingdom. While James Carrick remained in Newgate, his
+behaviour was equally singular and indecent, for he affected to pass his
+time with the same gaiety in his last moments as he had spent it in the
+former part of his days.
+
+Throngs of people, as it is but too much the custom, came to see him in
+Newgate, to whom, as if he had intended that they should not lose their
+curiosity, he told all the adventures of his life, with the same air and
+gaiety as if he had been relating them at some gaming ordinaries. This
+being told about town, drew still greater heaps of company upon him,
+which he received with the same pleasantness; by which means he daily
+increased them, and by that means the gain of the keepers at Newgate,
+who took money to show him. Upon this he said to them merrily one day:
+_You pay, good folks, for seeing me now, but if you had suspended your
+curiosity 'till I went to Tyburn, you might have seen me for nothing._
+This was the manner in which he talked and lived even to the last,
+conversing until the time of his death with certain loose women who had
+been his former favourites, and whom no persuasions could engage him to
+banish from his presence while he yet had eyes, and could behold them in
+his sight.
+
+At the place of execution, where it often happens that the most daring
+offenders drop that resolution on which they foolishly value themselves,
+Carrick failed not in the least. He gave himself genteel airs (as Mr.
+Purney, the then Ordinary, phrases it) in placing the rope about his
+neck, smiled and bowed to everybody he knew round him, and continued
+playing a hundred little tricks of the same odd nature, until the very
+instant the cart drove away, declaring himself to be a Roman Catholic,
+and that he was persuaded he had made his peace with God in his own way.
+In this temper he finished his life at Tyburn, on the 18th of July,
+1722, being then about twenty-seven years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [19] This was in 1705, by an expedition commanded by the Earl
+        of Peterborough.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of John MOLONY, a Highwayman and Street Robber
+
+
+John Molony was an Irishman likewise, born at Dublin and sent to sea
+when very young. He served in the fleets which during the late Queen's
+reign sailed into the Mediterranean, and happening to be on board a ship
+which was lost, he with some other sailors, was called to a very strict
+account for that misfortune, upon some presumption that they were
+accessory thereto. Afterwards he sailed in a vessel of war which was
+fitted out against the pirates, and had therein so good luck that if his
+inclinations had been honest, he might certainly have settled very
+handsomely in the world. But that was far from his intention; he liked a
+seaman's pleasures, drinking and gaming, and when on shore, lewd women,
+the certain methods of being brought to such ways of getting money as
+end in a shameful death.
+
+When abroad, his adventures were not many, because he had little
+opportunity of going on shore, yet one happened in Sicily which made a
+very great impression upon him, and which it may not therefore be
+improper to relate. There were two merchants at Palermo, both young men,
+and perfectly skilled in the arts of traffic; they had had a very
+liberal education, and had been constant friends and companions
+together. The intimacy they had so long continued was cemented by their
+marriage with two sisters. They lived very happily for the space of
+about two years, and in all probability might have continued to do so
+much longer, had not the duenna who attended one of their wives, died,
+and a new one been put in her place. Not knowing the young ladies'
+brothers, upon their speaking to them at Church, she gave notice of it
+to the husband of her whom she attended, and he immediately posting to
+his neighbour, the woman told them both that their wives,
+notwithstanding all she could say, were talking to two well-dressed
+cavaliers, which the duenna who waited on the other, notwithstanding the
+duties of her post, saw without taking any notice. This so exasperated
+the jealousy of the Sicilians that without more ado they ran to the
+church, and meeting with their spouses coming out from thence with an
+air of gaiety, seized them, and stabbed them dead with a little dagger,
+which for that purpose each had concealed under his coat. Then flying
+into the church for sanctuary, they discovered their mistake, when one
+of them, seized with fury at the loss of a wife of whom he was so
+extravagantly fond, stabbed the other, though not mortally, and with
+many repeated wounds murdered the duenna, whose rash error had been the
+occasion of spilling so much blood.
+
+Upon Molony's return to England, he was totally out of all business,
+and minded nothing but haunting the gaming tables, living on the
+charity of his fortunate countrymen when his luck was bad, and relieving
+them, in turn, when he had a favourable run at dice. It was at one of
+these houses that he became acquainted with Carrick, and the likeness of
+their tempers creating a great intimacy, after a short knowledge of one
+another they joined with Carrol, a fellow as wicked as themselves, but
+much more cruel, and were all concerned in that robbery for which
+Carrick and Molony died.
+
+When these two criminals came to be tried at the Old Bailey, their
+behaviour was equally ludicrous, silly and indecent; affecting to rally
+the evidence that was produced against them, and to make the people
+smile at their premeditated bulls. Carrick, was a lean, fair man, and
+stood at the left hand corner of the bar; Molony was a larger built man,
+who wore a browner wig. Carrick took occasion to ask Mr. Young, when he
+stood up to give his evidence, which side of the chair it was he stood
+on, when he robbed him. Mr. Young answered him, that he stood on the
+right side. _Why now, what a lie that is_, returned Carrick, _you know
+Molony, I stood on the left._ Before the people recovered themselves
+from laughing at this, Molony asked him what coloured wig he took him to
+have on at the time the robbery was committed; being answered it was
+much the same colour with that he had on then, _There's another story_,
+quoth Molony, _you know, Carrick, I changed wigs with you that morning,
+and wore it all day._
+
+Yet after sentence was passed, Molony laid aside all airs of gaiety, and
+seemed to be thoroughly convinced he had mistaken the true path of
+happiness. He did not care to see company, treated the Ordinary civilly
+when he spoke to him, though he professed himself a Papist, and was
+visited by a clergymen of that Church.
+
+As he was going to the place of execution, he still looked graver and
+mote concerned; though he did not fall into those agonies of sighing and
+tears as some do, but seemed to bear his miserable state with great
+composedness and resignation, saying he had repented as well as he could
+in the short time allowed him, suffering the same day with the two last
+mentioned malefactors.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS WILSON, a Notorious Footpad
+
+
+It happens so commonly in the world, that I am persuaded that none of my
+readers but must have remarked that there is a certain settled and
+stupid obstinacy in some tempers which renders them capable of
+persevering in any act, how wicked and villainous soever, without
+either reluctancy at the time of its commission, or a capacity of
+humbling themselves so far as to acknowledge and ask pardon for their
+offences when detected or discovered. Of this rugged disposition was the
+criminal we are now to speak of.
+
+Thomas Wilson was born of parents not in the worst of circumstances, in
+the neighbourhood of London. They educated him both in respect of
+learning and other things as well as their capacity would give them
+leave; but Thomas, far from making that use of it that they desired,
+addicted himself wholly to ill practices, that is to idleness, and those
+little crimes of spoiling others, and depriving them of their property,
+which an evil custom has made pass for trivial offences in England. But
+it seems the parents of Wilson did not think so, but both reprimanded
+him and corrected him severely whenever he robbed orchards, or any other
+such like feats as passed for instances of a quick spirit and ingenuity
+in children with less honest and religious parents.
+
+But these restraints grew quickly so grievous to Thomas's temper, that
+he, observing that his parents, notwithstanding their correction, were
+really fond of him, bethought himself of a method of conquering their
+dislike to his recreations. Therefore stealing away from his home, he
+rambled for a considerable space in the world, subsisting wholly upon
+such methods as he had before used for his recreation. But this project
+was so far from taking effect, that his parents, finding him
+incorrigible, looked very coldly upon him, and instead of fondling him
+the more for this act of disobedience, treated him as one whom they
+foresaw would be a disgrace to their family and of whom they had now
+very little or no hope.
+
+Wilson perceiving this, out of the natural sourness of his temper
+resolved to abandon them totally, which he did, and went to sea without
+their consent or notice. But men of his cast being very ill-suited to
+that employment, where the strictest obedience is required towards those
+who are in command, Wilson soon brought himself into very unhappy
+circumstances by his moroseness and ill-behaviour; for though he was but
+thirteen when he went to sea, and never made but one voyage to the
+Baltic, yet in that space he was fourteen times whipped and pickled and
+six times hung by the heels and lashed for the villainies he committed
+on the ship.
+
+Upon this return into England, he was so thoroughly mortified by this
+treatment that he went home to his friends, and as far as his surly
+humour would give him leave, made his submission and promised more
+obedience and better behaviour for the future. They then took him in,
+and were in some hopes that they should now reclaim him. Accordingly
+they placed him with a sawyer, by Fleet Ditch, which at his first coming
+to the business seemed to him to be a much lighter work than that he had
+endured in the space of his being at sea. He served four years honestly,
+indeed, and with as much content as a person of his unsettled mind could
+enjoy in any state; but at the end of that space, good usage had so far
+spoiled him that he longed to be at liberty again, though at the expense
+of another sea voyage. Accordingly, leaving his master, he went away
+again on board of a merchantman bound for the Straits. During the time
+which the ship lay in port for her loading, he contracted some distemper
+from the heat of the country, and his immoderate love of its wine and
+the fruits that grow there. These brought him very low, and he falling
+at the same time into company of some bad women, made an addition to his
+former ails by adding one of the worst and most painful of all
+distempers to the miseries he before endured.
+
+In this miserable condition, more like a ghost than a man, he shipped
+himself at last for England in a vessel, the captain of which out of
+charity gave him his passage home. The air of that climate in which he
+was born, recovered him to a miracle. Soon after which being, I suppose,
+cured also of those maladies which had attended the Spanish women's
+favours, he fell in love with a very honest industrious young woman, and
+quickly prevailed with her to marry him. But her friends discovering
+what a profligate life he led, resolved she should not share in the
+misfortunes such a measure would be sure to draw upon him, wherefore
+they took her away from him. How crabbed soever this malefactor might be
+towards others, yet so affectionately fond was he of his wife that the
+taking of her away made him not only uneasy and melancholy, but drove
+him also into distraction. To relieve his grief, at first he betook
+himself to those companies that afterwards led him to the courses which
+brought on his death, and in almost all the villainies he committed
+afterwards he was hardly ever sober, so much did the loss of his wife,
+and the remorse of his course of the life he led affect him, whenever he
+allowed himself coolly to reflect thereon.
+
+The crew he had engaged himself in were the most notorious and the most
+cruel footpads which for many years had infested the road. The robberies
+they committed were numerous and continual, and the manner in which they
+perpetrated them base and inhuman. For, seldom going out with pistols
+(the sight of which serves often to terrify passengers out of their
+money, without offering them any other injury than what arises from
+their own apprehensions) these villains provided themselves with large
+sticks, loaded at the end with lead; with these, from behind a hedge,
+they were able to knock down passengers as they walked along the road,
+and then starting from their covert, easily plunder and bind them if
+they thought proper. They had carried on this detestable practice for a
+long space in almost all those roads which lead to the little villages
+whither people go for pleasure from the hurry and noise of London.
+
+Amongst many other robberies which they committed, it happened that in
+the road to Bow they met a footman, whom without speaking to, they
+knocked down as soon as they had passed him. The fellow was so stunned
+with the fall, and so frighted with their approach, that be made not the
+least resistance while they took away his money and his watch, stripped
+him of his hat and wig, his waistcoat and a pair of silver buckles; but
+when one of them perceiving a ring of some value upon his finger, went
+to tear it off, he begged him in the most moving terms to leave it,
+because it had been given to him by his lady, who would never forgive
+the loss of it. However it happened, he who first went to take it off,
+seemed to relent at the fellow's repeated entreaties, but Wilson
+catching hold of the fellow's hand, dragged it off at once, saying at
+the same time, _Sirrah, I suppose you are your lady's stallion, and the
+ring comes as honestly to us as it did to you._
+
+A few days after this adventure, Wilson being got very drunk, thought he
+would go out on the road himself, in hopes of acquiring a considerable
+booty without being obliged to share it with his companions. He had not
+walked above half an hour, before he overtook a man laden with several
+little glazed pots and other things, which being tied up in a cloth, he
+had hung upon the end of a stick and carried on his shoulder. Wilson
+coming behind him with one of those loaded sticks that I have mentioned,
+knocked him down by the side of the ditch, and immediately secured his
+bundle. But attempting to rifle him farther, his foot slipped, he being
+very full of liquor, and he tumbled backwards into the ditch. The poor
+man took that opportunity to get up and run away, and so soon as he
+could recover himself, Wilson retreated to one of those evil houses that
+entertain such people, in order to see what great purchase he had got;
+but upon opening the cloth, he was not a little out of humour at finding
+four pots, each filled with a pound of rappee snuff, and as many galley
+pots of scented pomatum.
+
+Some nights after this expedition, he and one of his companions went out
+on the like errand, and had not been long in the fields before they
+perceived one Mr. Cowell, near Islington. Wilson's companion immediately
+resolved to attack him, but Wilson himself was struck with such a
+terror that he begged him to desist, from an apprehension that the man
+knew him; but that not prevailing with his associate, they robbed him of
+a hat and wig, and about a shilling in money. Wilson was quickly
+apprehended, but his companion having notice thereof, saved himself by a
+flight into Holland. At the ensuing sessions Wilson was indicted, not
+only for this fact, but for many others of a like nature, to all of
+which he immediately pleaded guilty, declaring that as he had done few
+favours to mankind, so he would never expect any.
+
+After sentence of death was pronounced upon him, he laid aside much of
+his stubbornness, and not only applied himself to the duties of religion
+which are recommended to persons in his unhappy condition to practice,
+but also offered to make any discoveries he was able which might tend to
+satisfying the Justice of his country or the benefit of society. In
+pursuance of which he wrote a paper, which he delivered with much
+ceremony at the place of execution, and which though penned in none of
+the best styles, I have yet thought convenient to annex in his own
+words.
+
+Being questioned with respect of several of his companions who are very
+well known, but whom, notwithstanding all the search had been made after
+them, no discovery could be made so as they might be apprehended and
+brought to justice, Wilson declared that as for three of the most
+notorious, they had made their escape into Holland some time before he
+was apprehended; two others were in Newgate for trivial offences, and
+another (whom he would not name) was retired into Warwickshire, had
+married there, and led a very honest and industrious life.
+
+At the place of execution he seemed less daunted than any of the
+malefactors who suffered with him, showed himself several times by
+standing up to the spectators, before the rope was fastened about his
+neck, and told them that he hoped they would give no credit to any
+spurious accounts which might be published of him; because whatever he
+thought might be necessary for them to know, he had digested in a paper
+which he had delivered the Sunday before he died, in order to be
+communicated to the public. He added, that since he had been in the
+cart, he had been informed that one Phelps had been committed to Newgate
+for a robbery mentioned by him in his paper. He said, as he was a dying
+man, he knew nothing of Phelps, and that he was not in any manner
+whatsoever concerned in that robbery for which he had been apprehended.
+He then put the rope about his neck, and submitted to his death with
+great resolution, being then about twenty years of age, and the day he
+suffered the 26th of July, 1722.
+
+The Paper delivered by the above mentioned criminal the day before his
+execution.
+
+    I, Thomas Wilson, desire it may be known that I was in a horse-way
+    that lies between Highgate and Hornsey, where meeting a man and a
+    woman, they enquired the way to Upper Holloway. We directed them
+    across the fields; meantime we drank two pints of ale to hearten us,
+    then followed them, and robbed them of two shillings and some half
+    pence, the woman's apron, her hat and coloured handkerchief. We left
+    them without misusing them, though there were thoughts of doing it.
+    My companion that robbed with me is gone to Holland upon hearing I
+    was taken up, though I should not have impeached him, but his
+    friends lived in Holland. Another robbery we committed was by a barn
+    in the footpath near Pancras Church of a hat and tie-wig, and cane,
+    and some goods he was carrying, but we heard he had a considerable
+    sum of money about him; but he ran away and I ran after him, but I
+    being drunk he escaped, and I was glad to get off safe. We robbed
+    two other men near Copenhagen House of a coat and waistcoat. I
+    committed many street robberies about Lincoln's Inn. For these and
+    for all other sins, I pray God and Man to pardon me, especially for
+    shooting the pistol off before Justice Perry, at my friend's
+    adversary, and am very glad I did not kill him.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of ROBERT WILKINSON and JAMES LINCOLN, Murderers and Footpads
+
+
+Robert Wilkinson, like abundance of other unhappy young men, contracted
+in his youth a liking to idleness, and an aversion to all sorts of work
+and labour, and applied himself for a livelihood hardly to anything that
+was honest. The only employment he ever pretended to was that of a prize
+fighter or boxer at Hockley-in-the-Hole,[20] where, as a fellow of
+prodigious dexterity, though low in stature, and very small limbed, he
+was much taken notice of. And as is usual for persons who have long
+addicted themselves to such a way of living, he had contracted an
+inhumanity of temper which made him little concerned at the greatest
+miseries be saw others suffer, and even regardless of what might happen
+to himself. The set of villains into whose society he had joined
+himself, viz., Carrick who was executed, Carrol who made his escape into
+Ireland, Lincoln of whom we shall speak afterwards, Shaw and Burridge
+before mentioned, and William Lock, perpetrated together a prodigious
+number of villainies often attended with cruel and bloody acts.
+
+Some of these fellows, it seems, valued themselves much on the ferocity
+they exerted in the war they carried on against the rest of mankind,
+amongst which Wilkinson might be justly reckoned, being ever ready to
+second any bloody proposal, and as unwilling to comply with any
+good-natured one. An instance of this happened in the case of two
+gentlemen whom Shaw, he and Burridge attacked near Highgate. Not
+contented with robbing them of about forty shillings, their watches and
+whatever else about 'em was valuable, Wilkinson, after they were
+dismounted, knocked one of them into a ditch, where he would have
+strangled him with his hand if one of his comrades had not hindered him.
+The man pleaded all the while the other held him, that he was without
+arms, incapable of making any resistance, and that it was equally base
+and barbarous to injure him, who neither could, nor would attempt to
+pursue him. Though this fact was very fully proved, yet Wilkinson
+strongly denied it, as indeed he did almost everything, though nothing
+was more notorious than that he had lived by these wicked courses for a
+very considerable time.
+
+Having had occasion to mention this gang with whom Wilkinson was
+concerned, it may not be improper to acquaint my readers with an
+adventure of one Calhagan and Disney, two Irish robbers of the same
+crew. One of them had persuaded a gentleman's housekeeper, of about
+thirty-five, that he was extremely in love with her, passing at the same
+time for a gentleman of fortune in the kingdom of Ireland, the brogue
+being too strong upon his tongue for him to deny his country. He met her
+frequently, and made her not a few visits, even at her master's house,
+taking care all the while to keep up the greatest form of ceremony, as
+though to a person whom he designed to make his wife. His companion
+attended on him with great respect as his tutor or gentleman, appearing
+at first very much dissatisfied with his making his addresses to a woman
+so much beneath him, but as the affair went on pretending to be so much
+taken with her wit, prudence and genteel behaviour, that he said his
+master had made an excellent choice, and advised him to delay his
+marriage no longer than till he had settled his affairs with his
+guardian, naming as such a certain noble lord of unquestioned character
+and honour. These pretences prevailing on the credulity of an old maid,
+who like most of her species was fond of the company of young fellows,
+and in raptures at the thoughts of a lover, she thought it a prodigious
+long while till these accounts were made up, enquiring wherever she
+went, when such a lord would come to town. She heard, at last, with
+great satisfaction, that he would certainly come over from Ireland that
+summer.
+
+The family in which she lived, going out of town as usual, left her in
+charge of the house; as there was nobody but herself and an under maid,
+her lover often visited her, and at last told her that on such a day my
+Lord had appointed to settle his affairs and to deliver up all his
+trust. The evening of this day, the gentleman and his tutor came and
+brought with them a bundle of papers and parchments, which they
+pretended were the instruments which had been signed on this occasion.
+After making merry with the housekeeper and the maid on a supper which
+they had sent from the tavern, the elder of them at last pulls out his
+watch, and said, _Come, 'tis time to do business, 'tis almost one
+o'clock._ Upon which the other arose, seized the housekeeper, to whom he
+had so long paid his addresses, and clapped an ivory gag into her mouth,
+while his companion did the same thing by the other. Then putting out
+all the candles, having first put one into a dark lanthorn they had
+brought on purpose, they next led the poor creatures up and down the
+house, till they had shown them the several places where the plate,
+linen, jewels and other valuable things belonging to the family were
+laid. After having bundled up these they threw them down upon the floor,
+tied their ankles to one another, and left them hanging, one on one
+side, and the other on the other side of the parlour door; in which
+posture they were found the next day at noon, at the very point of
+expiring, their blood having stagnated about their necks, which put them
+into the greatest danger.
+
+But to return to Wilkinson. One night, he with his companions Lincoln
+and William Lock came up with one Peter Martin, a poor pensioner of
+Chelsea College, whom they stopped. Wilkinson held him down and Lincoln
+knocked him down on his crying out for help; afterwards taking him up,
+he would have led him along, and Wilkinson pricked him with his sword in
+the shoulders and buttocks for some time, to make him advance, till
+William Lock cried out to them, _How should ye expect the man to go
+forward when he is dead._
+
+For this murder and for a robbery committed by them with Carrick and
+Carrol they were both capitally convicted. Wilkinson behaved himself to
+the time of his execution very morosely, and when pressed, at the place
+of execution, to unburden his conscience as to the crime for which he
+died, he answered peremptorily that he knew nothing of the murder, nor
+of Lincoln who died with him, until they were apprehended; adding, that
+as to hanging in chains he did not value it, but he had no business to
+tell lies, to make himself guilty of things he never did. Three days and
+three nights before the time of his death, he abstained totally from
+meat and drink, which rendered him so faint that he had scarce strength
+enough to speak at the tree.
+
+James Lincoln, who died with him for the aforesaid cruel murder, was a
+fellow of a more docile and gentle temper than Wilkinson, owned
+abundance of the offences he had been guilty of, and had designed, as he
+himself owned, to have robbed the Duke of Newcastle of his gaiter
+ornaments, as he returned from the instalment. Notwithstanding these
+confessions, he persisted, as well as Wilkinson, in utterly denying that
+he knew anything of the murder of the pensioner, and saying that he
+forgave William Lock who had sworn himself and them into it. Wilkinson
+was at the time of his execution about thirty-five years old, and James
+Lincoln somewhat under. They died at the same time with the
+afore-mentioned malefactor, Wilson, at Tyburn.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [20] This was near Clerkenwell Green. It was a famous Bear
+        Garden and the scene of various prize-fights to which public
+        challenges were issued. Cunningham quotes a curious one for the
+        year 1722:--"I, Elizabeth Wilkinson, of Clerkenwell, having had
+        some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do
+        invite her to meet me on the stage and box with me for three
+        guineas, each woman holding half-a-crown in each hand, and the
+        first woman that drops her money to lose the battle" (this was
+        to prevent scratching). The acceptance ran, "I, Hannah Hyfield,
+        of Newgate Market, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth
+        Wilkinson, will not fail, God willing, to give her more blows
+        than words, desiring home blows and from her no favour."
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MATTHIAS BRINSDEN, a Murderer
+
+
+Though all offences against the laws of God and the land are highly
+criminal in themselves, as well as fatal in their consequences, yet
+there is certainly some degree in guilt; and petty thieveries and crimes
+of a like nature seem to fall very short in comparison of the atrocious
+guilt of murder and the imbrueing one's hands in blood, more especially
+when a crime of so deep a dye in itself is heightened by aggravating
+circumstances.
+
+Matthias Brinsden, who is to be the subject of our present narration,
+was a man in tolerable circumstances at the time the misfortune happened
+to him for which he died. He had several children by his wife whom he
+murdered, and with whom he had lived in great uneasiness for a long
+time. The deceased Mrs. Brinsden was a woman of a great spirit, much
+addicted to company and not a little to drinking. This had occasioned
+many quarrels between her and her husband on the score of those
+extravagancies she was guilty of, Mr. Brinsden thinking it hard that she
+should squander away his money when he had a large family, and scarce
+knew how to maintain it.
+
+Their quarrels frequently rose to such a height as to alarm the
+neighbourhood, the man being of a cruel, and the woman of an obstinate
+temper, and it seemed rather a wonder that the murder had not ensued
+before than that it happened when it did, they seldom falling out and
+fighting without drawing blood, or having some grievous accident or
+other happening therefrom. Once he burnt her arms with a red-hot iron,
+and but a week before her death he ran a great pair of scissors into her
+skull, which covered her with blood, and made him and all who saw her
+think he had murdered her then. But after bleeding prodigiously she came
+a little to herself, and on the application of proper remedies
+recovered. Brinsden, in the meanwhile fled, and was hardly prevailed
+with to return, upon repeated assurances that she was in no danger,
+promising himself that if she escaped with life then, he would never
+suffer himself to be so far transported with passion as to do her an
+injury again.
+
+The fatal occasion of that quarrel which produced the immediate death of
+the woman, warm with liquor, and in the midst of passion, and which soon
+after brought on a shameful and ignominious end to the man himself,
+happened by Mrs. Brinsden's drinking cheerfully with some company at
+home, and after their going away, demanding of her husband what she
+should have for supper? He answered, bread and cheese; to which the
+deceased replied that she thought bread and cheese once a day was
+enough, and as she had eaten it for dinner, she would not eat it for
+supper. Brinsden said, she should have no better than the rest of his
+family, who were like to be contented with the same, except his eldest
+daughter for whom he had provided a pie, and towards whom on all
+occasions he showed a peculiar affection, occasioned as he said, from
+the care she took of his other children and of his affairs, though
+malicious and ill-natured people gave out that it sprang from a much
+worse and, indeed, the basest of reasons.
+
+On the discourse I have mentioned between him and his wife, Mrs.
+Brinsden in a violent passion declared she would go to the general shop
+and sup with her friends, who were gone from her but a little before.
+He, therefore, having got between her and the door, having the knife in
+his hand with which he cut the bread and cheese, and she still
+persisting with great violence in endeavouring to go out, he threw her
+down with one hand and stabbed her with the other. This is the account
+of this bloody action as it was sworn against him at his trial by his
+own daughter, though he persisted in it that what she called throwing
+down was only gently laying her on the bed after she received the blow,
+which as he averred happened only by chance, and her own pressing
+against him as the knife was in his hand. However that was, he sent for
+basilicon and sugar to dress the wound, in hopes she might at least
+recover so far as to declare there was no malice between them, but those
+endeavours were in vain, for she never spoke after.
+
+In the meanwhile, Brinsden took occasion during the bustle that this sad
+accident occasioned, and fled to one Mr. Kegg's at Shadwell Dock, where,
+though for some small space he continued safe, yet the terrors and
+apprehensions he was under were more choking and uneasy than all the
+miseries he experienced after his being taken up. Such is the weight of
+blood, and such the dreadful condition of the wicked.
+
+At his trial he put on an air of boldness and intrepidity, saying that
+though the clamour of the town was very strong against him, yet he hoped
+it would not make an impression to his disadvantage on the jury, since
+the death of his wife happened with no premeditated design. The surgeon
+who examined the wound, having deposed that it was six inches deep, he
+objected to his evidence by observing that the knife, when produced in
+Court, was not quite so long. He pleaded also, very strongly, the
+insupportable temper of his wife, and said she was of such a disposition
+that nothing would do with her but blows. But all this signifying
+little, the evidence of this daughter appearing also full and direct
+against him, the jury showed very small regard to his excuses, and after
+a short reflection on the evidence, they found him guilty.
+
+Under sentence he behaved himself indolently and sottishly, doing
+nothing but eat his victuals and doze in his bed; thinking it at the
+same time a very great indignity that he should be obliged to take up
+with those thieves and robbers who were in the same state of
+condemnation with himself, always behaving himself towards then very
+distantly, and as if it would have been a great debasement to him if he
+had joined with them in devotion.
+
+His daughter who had borne witness against him at his trial, came to him
+at chapel and begged his forgiveness, even for having testified the
+truth. At first he turned away from her with much indignation; the
+second day she came, after great entreaty and persuasion of his friends,
+he at last muttered out, _I forgive you._ But the girl coming the third
+day and earnestly desiring he would kiss her, which at first he refused,
+and at last turning to her and weeping lamentably, he took her in his
+arms, and said: _For Christ's sake, my child, forgive me. I have robbed
+you of your own mother. Be a good child, rather die than steal, never be
+in a passion, but curb your anger. Honour your mistress, for she will be
+both a father and a mother to you. Pray for your father and think of him
+as well as you can._
+
+At the place of execution he composed himself to suffer with as much
+patience as he could, and while the rest threw books and handkerchiefs
+to their friends, he seemed wrapped up in a profound meditation, out of
+which he drew himself as soon as prayers began and assisted with much
+cheerfulness and attention. When they were ended he stood up and
+desiring the Ordinary to repeat after him the following speech, which he
+dictated word for word as I have transcribed it, seeming most
+passionately affected with the reflection the world had cast on himself
+and daughter, as my readers will perceive from the speech itself. After
+the making of which, he was immediately turned off, on the sixteenth of
+July, 1722.
+
+    The last speech of Matthias Brinsden
+
+    I was born of kind parents, who gave me learning, and went
+    apprentice to a fine-drawer. I had often jars which might increase a
+    natural waspishness in my temper. I fell in love with Hannah, my
+    late wife, and after much difficulty won her, she having five
+    sisters at the same time. We had ten children (half of them dead)
+    and I believe we loved each other dearly, but often quarrelled and
+    fought. Pray good people mind, I had no malice against her, nor
+    thought to kill her, two minutes before the deed, but I designed
+    only to make her obey me thoroughly, which the Scripture says all
+    wives should do. This I thought I had done, when I cut her skull on
+    Monday, but she was the same again by Tuesday.
+
+    Good people, I request you to observe that though the world has
+    spitefully given out that I carnally and incestuously lay with my
+    eldest daughter, I here solemnly declare, as I am entering into the
+    presence of God, I never knew whether she was man or woman, since
+    she was a babe. I have often taken her in my arms, often kissed her,
+    sometimes given her a cake or a pie, when she did any particular
+    service beyond what came to her share, but never lay with her, or
+    carnally knew her, much less had a child by her. But when a man is
+    in calamities and is hated like me, the women will make surmises
+    into certainties. Good Christians pray for me, I deserve death, I am
+    willing to die, for though my sins are great, God's mercies are
+    greater.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of EDMUND NEAL, a Footpad
+
+
+Of all the unhappy wretches whose ends I have recorded that their
+examples may be of the more use to mankind, there is none perhaps which
+be more useful, if well considered, than this of Edmund Neal Though
+there be nothing in it very extraordinary, yet it contains a perfect
+picture of low pleasures for which men sacrifice reputation and
+happiness, and go on in a voluptuous dream till they awake to temporal
+and, but for the mercy of God, to eternal death.
+
+This Edmund Neal was the son of a father of the same name, a blacksmith
+in a market town in Warwickshire. He was one of those mechanics who,
+from a particular observance of the foibles of human nature, insinuate
+themselves into the good graces of those who employ them, and from being
+created as something even beneath a servant, grow up at last into a
+confidence to which it would not be improper to affix the name of a
+friend. This Edmund Neal senior had by this method climbed (by a little
+skill he had in horses) from paring off their hoofs, to directing of
+their riders, until in short there was scarce a sporting squire in the
+neighbourhood but old Edmund was of his privy council. Yet though he got
+a vast deal of money, he took very little care of the education of his
+son, whom he scarce allowed as much learning as would enable him to read
+a chapter; but notwithstanding this, he carried him about with him
+wherever he went, as if the company of gentlemen, though he was unable
+to converse with them, would have been sufficient to improve him.
+
+The scenes young Neal saw at the houses whither his father carried him,
+filled him with such a liking to debauchery and such an irreclaimable
+passion for sensual pleasures, as was the source from whence his
+following misfortunes flowed. For what, as he himself complained, first
+gave him occasion to repine at his condition, and filled him with
+wandering inclinations of pursuing an idle and extravagant life, was the
+forcing of him to go apprentice to a tailor, a trade for which he had
+always the greatest aversion, and contempt. No sooner, therefore, was he
+placed out apprentice, but the young fellows of that occupation whom he
+had before derided and despised, now ridiculed him in their turns, and
+laughed at the uneasiness which they saw his new employment caused him.
+However, he lived about four years with his master, being especially
+induced thereto by the company of a young man who worked there, and who
+used to amuse him with stories of intrigues in London, to which Neal
+listened with a very attentive ear.
+
+This London companion more and more inclined him to vice, and the
+history he gave of his living with a woman--who cheated her other
+cullies to maintain him, and at last for the sake of a new sweetheart,
+stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so
+much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country--the relation,
+I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he
+was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them. And as
+ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his
+first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful
+and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he
+wanted. This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his
+goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding
+a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was
+awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.
+
+These practices quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his
+breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally destitute of money,
+friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two
+shillings in his pocket. He took a solitary walk to that end of the town
+which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman
+who asked him to go with her to London. He not knowing what to do with
+himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain
+they set out together. The woman was very kind to him on the road, and
+poor Edmund flattered himself that money was so plentiful in London as
+to render it impossible for him to remain without it. But he was
+miserably mistaken when he arrived there. He went to certain
+public-houses of persons whom he had known in the country, who instead
+of using him civilly, in a day or two's time were thrusting him out of
+doors. Some common whores, also, finding him to be a poor country
+fellow, easily seduced him and kept him amongst them for a stallion,
+until, between their lust and their diseases, they had put him in a fair
+road to the grave.
+
+Tired out with their vices, which were even too gross for a mind so
+corrupted as his was, he chose rather to go and live with a brewer and
+carry out drink. But after living for some time with two masters of that
+occupation, his mind still roving after an easier and pleasanter life,
+he endeavoured to get it at some public-house; which at last he with
+much ado effected at Sadlers Wells.[21] This appeared so great a
+happiness that he thought he should never be tired of a life where there
+was so much music and dancing, to which he had been always addicted;
+and, as he phrased it himself, he thought he was in another world when
+he got with a set of men and maids in a barn with a fiddle among them.
+
+However, he at last grew tired of that also; and resolving to betake
+himself to some more settled and honest employment, he hired himself to
+a man who kept swine, and there behaved himself both with honesty and
+diligence. But his master breaking a little time after he had been with
+him, though as he affirmed without his wronging him in the least, he was
+reduced to look for some new way of maintaining himself. This being
+about the time of the late Rebellion,[22] and great encouragement being
+then offered for those who would enter themselves in the late king's
+service at sea, Neal accepted thereof, and shipped himself on board the
+_Gosport_ man-of-war, which sailed to the Western Islands of Scotland.
+What between the cold and the hard fare he suffered deeply, and never,
+as be said, tasted any degree of comfort till he returned to the West of
+England The Rebellion being then over, Neal with very great joy accepted
+his discharge from the service, and once more in search of business came
+up to London.
+
+The reputation of an honest servant he had acquired from the hog
+merchant he had formerly lived with, quickly procured him a place with
+another of the same trade, with him he lived too (as was said) very
+honestly; and having been trusted with twenty or thirty pounds at a
+time, was always found very trusty and faithful. But happening,
+unluckily, to work here with one Pincher, who in the course of his life
+had been as unhappy as himself, they thereupon grew very intimate
+together, and being a couple of fellows of very odd tempers, after
+having got half drunk at the Hampshire Hog, they took it into their
+heads that there was not in the world two fellows so unhappy as
+themselves. The subject began when they were maudlin, and as they grew
+quite drunk, they came to a resolution to go out and beat everybody they
+met, for being happier than themselves.
+
+The first persons they met in this expedition were a poor old man whose
+name was Dormer and his wife. The woman they abused grossly, and Pincher
+knocked the man down, though very much in years, Neal afterwards
+rolling him about, and either took or shook out of his pocket all the
+money he had, which was but three pence farthing. For this unaccountable
+action they were both apprehended, tried and convicted, with three other
+persons, in the November sessions, 1722. But their inhuman behaviour to
+the old man made such an impression on the Court to their disadvantage,
+that when the death warrant came down, they two only were appointed for
+execution.
+
+At the near approach of death, Neal appeared excessively astonished, and
+what between fear and concern, his senses grew disordered. However, at
+the place of execution he seemed more composed than he had been before,
+and said that it was very fit he should die, but added he suffered
+rather for being drunk than any design he had either to rob or use the
+man cruelly. As for William Pincher, his companion both in the robbery
+and its punishment, he seemed to be the counterpart of Neal, a downright
+Norfolk clown, born within six miles of Lynn and by the kindness of a
+master of good fortune, taken into his house with an intent to breed him
+up, on his father's going for a soldier. At first he behaved himself
+diligently and thereby got much into the favour of his master, but
+falling into loose company and addicting himself to sotting in
+alehouses, his once kind and indulgent master, finding him incorrigible,
+dismissed him from his service, and having given him some small matter
+by way of encouragement, he set out for London. Here he got into the
+business before mentioned, and said himself, that he might have lived
+very comfortably thereon, if he had been industrious and frugal; but
+that addicting himself to his old custom of sitting continually in an
+alehouse had drawn him into very great inconveniences. In order to draw
+himself out of these he thought of following certain courses, by which,
+as he had heard some company where he used say, a young man might get as
+much money as he could spend, let him live as extravagantly as he would.
+This occasioned his persuading Neal into that fatal undertaking which
+cost them their lives. His behaviour under sentence was irreproachable,
+being always taken up either in reading, praying or singing of Psalms,
+performing all things that so short a space would give him leave to do,
+and showing as evident marks of true repentance as perhaps any unhappy
+person ever did in his condition.
+
+Thus these two companions in misfortune suffered together on die last
+day of the year 1722, Edmund Neal being then about thirty years of age,
+and Pincher about twenty-six.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [21] This was opened, about 1680, by a certain Sadler, as a
+        public music-room and house of entertainment. The discovery of a
+        spring of mineral water in the garden attracted general
+        attention and the place soon became a place of popular resort.
+
+   [22] The Jacobite rising of 1715.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CHARLES WEAVER, a Murderer
+
+
+Hastiness of temper and yielding to all the rash dictates of anger, as
+it is an offence the most unworthy a rational creature, so it is
+attended also with consequences as fatal as any other crime whatever. A
+wild expression thrown out in the heat of passion has often cost men
+dearer than even a real injury would have done, had it been offered to
+the same person. A blow intended for the slightest has often taken away
+life, and the sudden anger of a moment produced the sorrow of years, and
+has been, after all, irreparable in its effect.
+
+Charles Weaver, of whom we are now speaking, was the son of parents in
+very good circumstances in the city of Gloucester, who put him
+apprentice to a goldsmith. He served about four years of his time with
+his master, and having in that space run out into so much lewdness and
+extravagance that his friends refused any longer to supply or to support
+him, he then thought fit to go into the service of the Queen, as a
+soldier, and in that capacity went over with those who were sent into
+America to quell the Indians. These people were at that time instigated
+by the French to attack our plantations on the main near which they lay.
+The greater part of these poor creatures were without European arms, yet
+several amongst them had fusees, powder and ball from the French, with
+which, being very good marksmen, they did abundance of mischief from
+their ambuscades in the woods.
+
+At the time Weaver served against them, they were commanded by one
+Ouranaquoy, a man of a bloody disposition, great courage and greater
+cunning. He had commanded his nation in war against another Indian
+nation, from whom he took about forty prisoners, who according to the
+Indian custom were immediately destined to death; but being prevailed
+upon, by the presence of the French, to turn his arms against the
+English, on the confines of whose plantations he had gained his last
+victory, Ouranaquoy having sent for the prisoners he had taken before
+him, told them that if they would fall upon a village about three miles
+distant, he would not only give them their liberty, but also such a
+reward for the scalp of every Englishman, woman or child, they brought.
+They readily agreed on these terms and immediately went and plundered
+the village.
+
+The English army lay about seven miles off, and no sooner heard of such
+an outrage committed by such a nation, but they immediately attacked the
+people to whom the prisoners belonged, marching their whole army for
+that purpose against the village, which if we may call it so, was the
+capital of their country. By this policy Ouranaquoy gained two
+advantages, for first he involved the English in a war with the people
+with whom they had entertained a friendship for twenty years, and in the
+next place gained time, while the English army were so employed, to
+enter twenty-five miles within their country, destroying fourscore
+whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not
+remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving
+immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any
+considerable mischief to the people against whom they marched, had
+learnt the stratagem by which they had been deceived by Ouranaquoy)
+returned suddenly into his country, and exercised such severities upon
+the people thereof that to appease and make peace with the English the
+chiefs sent them the scalps of Ouranaquoy, his three brothers and nine
+sons.
+
+On Weaver's return into England from this expedition, he shipped himself
+again as a recruit for that army which was then commanded by the Earl of
+Peterborough in Spain. He served also under the Duke of Ormond when his
+grace took Vigo, and Weaver had the good luck to get some hundred pounds
+for his share in the booty, but that money which he, in his thoughts,
+had designed for setting himself up in England, being insensibly
+squandered and decayed, he was obliged to list himself again, and so
+became a second time spectator of the taking of Vigo under the Lord
+Cobham.[23]
+
+While he served in the second regiment of Foot-guards, he behaved
+himself so well as to engage his officer to take him into his own house,
+where he lived for a considerable space; and he had been twice actually
+reviewed in order to his going into the Life-guards, when he committed
+the act for which he died, which according to the evidence given at his
+trial happened thus. He was going into a boat in company with Eleanor
+Clark, widow, and Edward Morris. After they were in the boat, some words
+arising, the woman bid Weaver pay Morris what he owed him, upon which
+Weaver in a great passion got up, and endeavoured to overturn the boat
+with them all. But Thomas Watkins, the waterman, preventing that, Weaver
+immediately drew his sword, and swore he would murder them all, making
+several passes at them as if he had firmly intended to be as good as his
+word. The men defended themselves so well as to escape hurt, and
+endeavoured all they could to have preserved the woman, but Weaver
+making a pass, the sword entered underneath her left shoulder, and
+thereby gave her a wound seven inches deep, after which she gave but one
+groan and immediately expired. For this bloody fact Weaver was tried and
+convicted, and thereupon received sentence of death.
+
+During the space between the passing of sentence and its execution an
+accident happened which added grievously to all his misfortunes. His
+wife, big with child, coming about a fortnight before his death to see
+him in Newgate, was run over by a dray and killed upon the spot. Weaver
+himself, though in the course of the life he had led he had totally
+forgot both reading and writing, yet came duly to prayers, and gave all
+possible marks of sorrow and repentance for his misspent life, though he
+all along pretended that the woman's death happened by accident, and
+that he had had no intent to murder her. He suffered the 8th day of
+February, 1722-3, being at that time about thirty years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [23] See page 49.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN LEVEE, a Highwayman, Footpad, etc.
+
+
+There is a certain busy sprightliness in some young people which from I
+know not what views, parents are apt to encourage in hopes of its one
+day producing great effects. I will not say that they are always
+disappointed in their expectations, but I will venture to pronounce that
+where one bold spirit has succeeded in the world, five have been ruined,
+by a busy turbulent temper.
+
+This was the case with this criminal, John Levee, who, to cover the
+disgrace his family suffered in him, called himself Junks. His father
+was a French gentleman, who came over with King Charles II at the
+Restoration, taught French to persons of distinction in court, and
+particularly to some of that prince's natural children. For the
+convenience of his scholars, he kept a large boarding-school in Pall
+Mall, whereby he acquired such a fortune as enabled him to set up for a
+wine merchant. In this capacity he dealt with France for many years to
+the amount of thousands _per annum._ His children received the best
+education that could be given them and never stirred out of doors but
+with a footman to attend them.
+
+But Mr. Levee, the merchant, falling into misfortunes by some of his
+correspondents' failures, withdrew from his family into Holland; and
+this son John being taken by the French Society, in order to be put out
+apprentice and provided for, being induced thereto by the boy's natural
+vivacity and warmth of temper in which he had been foolishly encouraged,
+they sent him to sea with a captain of a man-of-war. He was on board the
+_Essex_ when Sir George Byng, now Viscount Torrington, engaged the
+Spaniards at Messina.[24] He served afterwards on board the squadron
+commanded by Sir John Norris in the Baltic, and when he returned home,
+public affairs being in a more quiet state, his friends thought it
+better for him to learn merchants' accounts than to go any more voyages,
+where there was now little prospect of advantage.
+
+But book-keeping was too quiet an employment for one of Levee's warm
+disposition, who far from being discouraged at the hardships of sea,
+only complained of his ill-luck in not being in an engagement. And so,
+to amuse this martial disposition, he with some companions went upon the
+road, which they practised for a very considerable time, robbing in a
+very genteel manner, by putting a hat into the coach and desiring the
+passengers to contribute as they thought proper, being always contented
+with what they gave them, though sometimes part of it was farthings.
+Nay, they were so civil that Blueskin and this Levee, once robbing a
+single gentlewoman in a coach, she happening to have a basket full of
+buns and cakes, Levee took some of them, but Blueskin proceeded to
+search her for money, but found none. The woman in the meanwhile
+scratched him and called him a thousand hard names, giving him two or
+three sound slaps in the face, at which they only laughed, as it was a
+woman, and went away without further ill-usage, a civility she would
+hardly have met with from any other gentlemen of their profession.
+
+In October, he and his great companion Blueskin,[25] met a coach with
+two ladies and a little miss riding between their knees, coming from the
+Gravel Pits at Kensington.[26] Levee stopped the coach and without more
+ado, ordered both the coachmen and footman to jump the ditch, or he'd
+shoot them. They then stripped the ladies of their necklaces, cut a gold
+girdle buckle from the side of the child, and took away about ten
+shillings in money, with a little white metal image of a man, which they
+thought had been solid silver, but proved a mere trifle.
+
+At a grand consultation of the whole gang, and a report of great booties
+that were to be made (and that, too, with much safety) on Blackheath,
+they agreed to make some attempts there. Accordingly they set out,
+being six horsemen well armed and mounted; but after having continued
+about six hours upon the Heath, and not meeting so much as one person,
+and the same ill luck being three or four times repeated, they left off
+going on that road for the future. In December following, he and another
+person robbed a butcher on horseback, on the road coming from Hampstead.
+He told them he had sold two lambs there. Levee's companion said
+immediately, _Then you have eight-and-twenty shillings about you, for
+lambs sold to-day at fourteen shillings apiece._ After some grumbling
+and hard words they made him deliver and by way of punishment for his
+sauciness, as they phrased it, they took away his great coat into the
+bargain, and had probably used him worse had not Levee seen a Jew's
+coach coming that way, and been conscious to himself that those within
+it knew him; whereupon he persuaded his associates to go off without
+robbing it.
+
+Levee never used anybody cruelly in any of his adventures, excepting
+only one Betts, who foolishly struck him three or four blows on the
+head, whereupon Levee with one blow of his pistol struck his eye out.
+One night, upon the same road, Blake and Matthew Flood being in company
+with this unhappy youth, they stopped the chariot of Mr. Young, the same
+person who hanged Molony and Carrick.[27] Blake calling out to lay hold,
+and Flood stopping the horses, Levee went into the coach and took from
+Mr. Young a gold watch and chain, one Richard Oakey also assisting, who
+died likewise for this fact. They robbed also Col. Cope, who was in the
+same chariot, of his gold watch, chain and ring, and twenty-two
+shillings in money. Levee said it would have been a very easy matter for
+the gentleman to have taken him, he going into the coach without arms,
+and his companions being on the other side of the hedge; but they gave
+him the things very readily, and it was hard to say who behaved
+themselves most civilly one towards the other, the gentlemen or he. One
+of them desired to have a cornelian ring returned, which Levee inclined
+to do, but that his companions would not permit him.
+
+As they were going home after taking this booty, they met a poor man on
+horseback. Notwithstanding the considerable sum they had taken just
+before, they turned out of the road, carried him behind two haycocks
+because the moon shone light, and there finding that he had but two
+shillings in the world, the rest of his companions were for binding and
+beating him, but upon the man's saying that he was very sick and
+begging earnestly that they would not abuse him, Levee prevailed with
+them not only to set him on his horse again, but to restore him his two
+shillings, and lead him into the road where they left him.
+
+Levee, Flood and Oakey were soon apprehended and Blake turning evidence,
+they were convicted the next sessions at the Old Bailey, and ordered for
+execution. Levee behaved himself while under condemnation very seriously
+and modestly, though before that time, he had acted too much the bravo,
+from the mistaken opinion that people are apt to entertain of courage
+and resolution. But when death approached near, he laid aside all this,
+and applied himself with great seriousness and attention to prayers and
+other duties becoming a person in his condition.
+
+At the place of execution he fell into a strange passion at his hands
+being to be tied, and his cap pulled over his face. Passion signifying
+nothing there, he was obliged to submit as the others did, being at the
+time of his execution, aged about twenty-seven.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [24] See page 66.
+
+   [25] His real name was Joseph Blake, see page 177.
+
+   [26] This was a portion of what is now the Bayswater Road,
+        roughly between Petersburgh Place and the Notting Hill Tube
+        Station. Swift had lodgings there and it was a fairly
+        fashionable residential spot.
+
+   [27] See page 89.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of RICHARD OAKEY and MATTHEW FLOOD, Street-Robbers and
+Footpads
+
+
+The first of these criminals, Richard Oakey, had been by his friends put
+apprentice to a tailor. In about two years his master failed, and from
+thence to the day of his unhappy death, Oakey continually followed
+thieving in one way or other. At first he wholly practised picking of
+women's pockets, which he said he did in a manner peculiar to himself;
+for being dressed pretty genteelly, he passed by the person he intended
+to rob, took up their upper petticoat and cut off the pocket at once,
+tripping them down at the same time. Then he stepped softly on the other
+side of the way, walked on and was never suspected. He said that while a
+lad, he had committed several hundred robberies in this way. As he grew
+older he made use of a woman to assist him, by pushing the people
+against the wall, while he took the opportunity of cutting their
+pockets; or at other times this woman came behind folks as they were
+crossing the way, and catching them by the arm, cried out, _There's a
+coach will run over ye_; while Oakey, in the moment of their surprise,
+whipped off their pocket.
+
+This woman, who had followed the trade for a considerable time, happened
+one night at a bawdy-house to incense her bully so far as to make him
+beat her; she thereupon gave him still more provoking language, till
+at last he used her so cruelly, that she roared out _Murder_; and not
+without occasion, for she died of the bruises, though the people of the
+house concealed it for fear of trouble, and buried her privately. Upon
+this Oakey was obliged to go on his old way by himself.
+
+[Illustration: THE HANGMAN ARRESTED WHEN ATTENDING JOHN MEFF TO TYBURN
+
+(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
+
+The robberies he committed being numerous and successful, he bethought
+himself of doing something, as he called it, in a higher way; upon
+which, scraping acquaintance with two as abandoned fellows as himself,
+they took to housebreaking. In this they were so unlucky as to be
+detected in their second adventure, which was upon a house in Southwark
+near the Mint, where they stole calicoes to the value of twenty pounds
+and upwards. For this his two associates were convicted at Kingston
+assizes, he himself being the witness against them, by which method he
+at that time escaped. And being cured of any desire to go
+a-housebreaking again, he fell upon his old trade of picking pockets,
+till he got into the acquaintance of another as bad as himself, whom
+they called Will the Sailor. This fellow's practice was to wear a long
+sword, and then by jostling the gentleman whom they designed to rob,
+first created a quarrel, and while the fray lasted, gave his companion
+the opportunity of rubbing off with the booty. But whether Will grew
+tired of his companion, or of the dangerous trade which he was engaged
+in, certain it is that he left it off, and got again out of England on
+ship-board.
+
+Oakey then got acquainted with Hawes, Milksop, Lincoln, Reading,
+Wilkinson, and half a dozen others, with whom one way or other he was
+continually concerned while they reigned in their villainies. And as
+they were in a short space all executed, he became acquainted with
+Levee, Flood, Blake and the rest of that gang, in whose association he
+continued until his crimes and theirs brought them together to the
+gallows. After condemnation his behaviour was such as became his
+condition, getting up in the night to pray so often and manifesting all
+the signs of a sincere repentance.
+
+Matthew Flood was the son of a man who kept the Clink Prison[28] in the
+parish of St. Mary Overys, who had given him as good an education as was
+in his power, and bound him apprentice to one Mr. Williams, a
+lighterman. In this occupation he might certainly have done well, if he
+had not fallen into the company of those lewd persons who brought him to
+his fate. He had been about three months concerned with Blake, Levee,
+etc., and had committed many facts.
+
+His behaviour under sentence was very penitent and modest, nor did he
+suffer the continual hopes his friends gave him of a reprieve ever to
+make him neglect his devotions. At the place of execution he said he was
+more particularly concerned for a robbery he had committed on a woman in
+Cornhill, not only because he took from her a good many guineas which
+were in her pocket, but that at the same time also he had taken a will
+which he burnt, and which he feared would be more to her prejudice than
+the loss of her money.
+
+Oakey was about twenty-five years old at the time of his death, and
+Matthew Flood somewhat younger. They suffered on the same day with
+Weaver and the last-mentioned malefactor Levee, at Tyburn.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [28] The Clink Prison was, until 1745, at the corner of Maid
+        Lane, Southwark. It was originally used as a house of detention
+        for heretics and offenders against the bishop of Winchester,
+        whose palace stood nearby.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM BURK, a Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+As indulgence is a very common parent of wickedness and disobedience, so
+immoderate correction and treating children as if they were Stocks is as
+likely a method as the other to make them stubborn and obstinate, and
+perhaps even force upon them taking ill methods to avoid usage which
+they cannot bear.
+
+William Burk, the unfortunate criminal whose enterprises are to be the
+subject of our present narration, was born towards Wapping of parents
+honest and willing to give him education, though their condition in the
+world rendered them not able. He was thereupon put to the charity
+school, the master of which being of a morose temper and he a boy of
+very indifferent disposition, the discipline with which he was treated
+was so severe that it created in him an aversion towards all learning;
+and one day, after a more severe whipping than ordinary, he determined
+(though but eleven years of age) to run away.
+
+He sought out, therefore, for a captain who might want a boy, and that
+being no difficult matter to find in their neighbourhood, he went on
+board the _Salisbury_, Captain Hosier, then lying at the Buoy in the
+Nore, bound for Jamaica. His poor mother followed him in great
+affliction, and endeavoured all she could to persuade him to return, but
+her arguments were all in vain, for he had contracted so great an
+antipathy to school, from his master's treatment, that instead of being
+glad to go back, he earnestly intreated the captain to interpose his
+authority and keep him on board. His request was complied with, and the
+poor woman was forced to depart without her son.
+
+It was the latter end of Queen Anne's War when they sailed to Jamaica,
+and during the time they were out, took two Spanish galleons very richly
+laden. Their first engagement was obstinate and bloody, and he, though a
+boy, was dangerously hurt as he bustled about one way or another as the
+captain commanded him. The second prize carried 74 guns and 650 men, yet
+the _Salisbury_ (but a 60-gun ship) took her without the loss of a
+single man; only a woman, who was the only one on board, going to peep
+at the engagement, had her head and shoulders shot off. Burk said the
+prize money of each sailor came but to £15, but some of the officers
+shared so handsomely as never to be obliged to go to sea again, being
+enabled to live easily on shore.
+
+Three years he continued in the West Indies, and there (especially in
+Jamaica) he learned so much wickedness that when he came home, hardly
+any of the gangs into which he entered were half so bad, though inured
+to plunder, as he when he came amongst them a fresh man. From this
+voyage he went another in the slave trade to the coast of Guinea. Here
+he endured very great hardships, especially when he had the misfortune
+to be on board where the negroes rose upon the English, and had like to
+have overcome them; but at last having been vanquished, and tied down in
+a convenient place, they were used with severity enough. Upon his return
+into England from this voyage, he went into the Baltic in the
+_Worcester_ man-of-war, in which he suffered prodigious hardships from
+the coldness of the climate and other difficulties he went through.
+
+The many miseries he had experienced in a life at sea might possibly
+have induced him to the resolution he made of never going on ship-board
+any more. How he came to take to robbing does not very clearly appear,
+further than that he was induced thereto by bad women; but he behaved
+himself with very great cruelty, for going over the first field from
+Stepney, armed with a hedging-bill, he attacked one William Fitzer, and
+robbed him of his jacket, tobacco-box, a knife and fork, etc. He robbed,
+also, one James Westwood, of a coat and ten shillings in money; last of
+all, attacking John Andrews and Robert his son, coming over the fields,
+he dove the old man down. His son taking up the stick boldly attacked
+Burk, and a neighbour, one Perkinson, coming in at the noise, he was
+overpowered and apprehended. As the fact was very plainly proved, he was
+on a short trial convicted, and the barbarity of the fact being so
+great, left no room for his being omitted in the warrant for execution.
+
+As he lay a long time under condemnation, and had no hopes of life, from
+the moment of his confinement he applied himself to make his peace with
+that Being whom he had so much offended by his profligate course of
+life. On all occasions he expressed his readiness to confess anything
+which might be for the promoting of justice or public good, in all
+respects manifesting a thorough sorrow and penitence for that cruelty
+with which he had treated poor old Andrews. At the tree he stood up in
+the car, beckoned for silence, and then spoke to the multitude in these
+terms.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I never was concerned but in four robberies in my life. I desire all
+    men who see my fatal end to let my death teach them to lead a sober
+    and regular life, and above all to shun the company of ill-women,
+    which has brought me to this shameful end and place. I desire that
+    nobody may reflect upon my wife after my decease, since she was so
+    far from having any knowledge of the ills I committed, that she was
+    continually exciting me to live a sober and honest life. Wherefore I
+    hope God will bless her, as I also pray He may do all of you.
+
+This malefactor, William Burk, was in the twenty-second year of his age
+when executed at Tyburn, April the 8th, 1723.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of LUKE NUNNEY, a murderer
+
+
+Though drunkenness in itself is a shocking and beastly crime, yet in its
+consequences it is also often so bloody and inhuman that one would
+wonder persons of understanding should indulge themselves in a sin at
+once so odious and so fatal both to body and soul. The instances of
+persons who have committed murders when drunk, and those accompanied
+with circumstances of such barbarity as even those persons themselves
+could not have heard without trembling, are so many and so well known to
+all of any reading, or who have made any reflection, that I need not
+dwell longer than the bare narration of this malefactor's misfortunes
+will detain me, to warn against a vice which makes them always monsters
+and often murderers.
+
+Luke Nunney, of whom we are to speak, was a young fellow of some parts,
+and of a tolerable education, his father, at the time of his death,
+being a shoemaker in tolerable circumstances, and very careful in the
+bringing up of his children. He was more particularly zealous in
+affording them due notions of religion, and took abundance of pains
+himself to inculcate them in their tender years, which at first had so
+good an effect upon this Luke that his whole thoughts ran upon finding
+out that method of worship in which he was most likely to please God.
+Sometimes, though his parents were at the Church of England, he slipped
+to a Presbyterian Meeting-house, where he was so much affected with the
+preacher's vehemency in prayer and his plain and pious method of
+preaching that he often regretted not being bred up in that way, and the
+loss his parents sustained by their not having a relish for religion
+ungraced with exterior ornaments. These were his thoughts, and his
+practice was suitable to them, until the misfortunes of his father
+obliged him to break up the house, and put Luke out to work at another
+place.
+
+The men where Nunney went to work were lewd and profligate fellows,
+always talking idly or lewdly, relating stories of what had passed in
+the country before they came up to work in London, the intrigues they
+had had with vicious women, and such loose and unprofitable discourses.
+This quickly destroyed the former good inclinations of Luke, who first
+began to waver in religion, and as he had quitted the Church of England
+to turn to the Dissenters, so now he had some thoughts of leaving them
+for the Quakers; but after going often to their meetings he professed he
+thought their behaviour so ridiculous and absurd as not to deserve the
+name either of religion or Divine worship.
+
+His instability of mind pressed him also to go out into the world, for
+it appeared to him a great evil that while all the rest of his
+companions were continually discoursing of their adventures, he should
+have none to mention of his own. Some of them, also, having slightingly
+called him Cockney and reproaching him with never having been seven
+miles from London, he remembered that his father had some near relations
+in the west of England, so he took a sudden resolution of going down
+thither to work at his trade. Full of these notions he went over one
+evening pretty late with his brother to Southwark, and meeting there
+with an acquaintance who would needs make him drink, they stayed pretty
+long at the house, insomuch that Luke got very drunk, and being always
+quarrelsome when he had liquor, insulted and abused everybody in the
+room. As he was quarrelling particularly with one James Young, William
+Bramston who stood by, came up and desired him to be quiet, advised him
+to go home with his company, and not stay and make a disturbance where
+nobody had a mind to quarrel but himself. Without making any reply Luke
+struck him a blow on the face. Bramston thereupon held up his fist as if
+he would have struck him, but did not. However Nunney struck him again
+and pushed him forwards, upon which Bramston reeled, cried out he was
+stabbed and a dead man, that Nunney was the person who gave him the
+wound, and Luke thereupon (drunk as he was) attempted to run away.
+
+Upon this he was apprehended, committed prisoner to Newgate, and the
+next sessions, on the evidence of such of his companions as were
+present, he was convicted and received sentence of death. He behaved
+himself from that time as a person who had as little desire as hopes of
+continuing in the world, enquired diligently both of the Ordinary and of
+the man who was under sentence with him, how he should prepare himself
+for his latter end, coming constantly to chapel, and praying regularly
+at all times. Yet at the place of execution he declared himself a
+Papist. He added, that at the time the murder was committed he had no
+knife nor could he imagine how it was done, being so drunk that he knew
+nothing that had happened until the morning, when he found himself in
+custody. He was about twenty years of age at the time of his suffering
+on the 25th of May, 1723.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of RICHARD TRANTHAM, a Housebreaker
+
+
+Though vices and extravagancies are the common causes which induce men
+to fall into those illegal practices which lead to a shameful death, yet
+now and then it happens we find men of outward gravity and serious
+deportment as wicked as those whose open licenciousness renders their
+committing crimes of this sort the less amazing.
+
+Of the number of these was Richard Trantham, a married man, having a
+wife and child living at the time of his death, keeping also a tolerable
+house at Mitcham in Surrey. He had been apprehended on the sale of some
+stolen silk, and the next sessions following was convicted of having
+broken the house of John Follwell, in the night-time, two years before,
+and taking thence a silver tankard, a silver salver, and fifty-four
+pounds of Bologna silk, valued at £74 and upwards. During the time which
+passed between the sentence and execution he behaved in a manner the
+most penitent and devout, not only making use of a considerable number
+of books which the charity of his friends had furnished him with, but
+also reading to all those who were in the condemned hold with them.
+
+The morning he was to die, after having received the Sacrament, he was
+exhorted to make a confession of those crimes which he had committed,
+particularly as to housebreaking, in which he was thought to have been
+long concerned; thereupon he recollected himself a little, and told of
+six or seven houses which he had broken open, particularly General
+Groves's near St. James's; a stone-cutter in Chiswell Street; and Mr.
+Follwell's in Spitalfields, for which he died. At the place of
+execution, whither he was conveyed in a mourning coach, he appeared
+perfectly composed and submissive to that sentence which his own
+misdeeds and the justice of the Law had brought upon him. Before the
+halter was put about his neck, he spoke to those who were assembled at
+the gallows to see his death, in the following terms:
+
+    Good People,
+
+    Those wicked and unlawful methods by which, for a considerable time,
+    I have supported myself, have justly drawn upon me the anger of God,
+    and the sentence of the Law. As I have injured many and the
+    substance I have is very small, I fear a restitution would be hard
+    to make, even if it should be divided. I therefore leave it all to
+    my wife for the maintenance of her and my child. I entreat you
+    neither to reflect on her nor on my parents, and pray the blessing
+    of God upon you all.
+
+He was thirty years old when he died and was executed the same day with
+the malefactor afore-mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JOHN TYRRELL, a Horse-dealer, and WILLIAM HAWKSWORTH, a
+Murderer
+
+
+John Tyrrell, the first of these malefactors, was convicted for stealing
+two horses in Yorkshire, but selling them in Smithfield he was tried at
+the Old Bailey. It seem she had been an old horse-stealer as most people
+conjecture, though he himself denied it, and as he pretended at his
+trial to have bought those two for which he died at Northampton Fair, so
+he continually endeavoured to infuse the same notions into all persons
+who spoke to him at the time of his death. He had practised carrying
+horses over into Flanders and Germany, and there selling them to persons
+of the highest rank, with whom he always dealt so justly and honourably
+that, as it was said, his word would have gone there for any sum
+whatsoever that was to be laid out in horse-flesh.
+
+He had been bred up a Dissenter, and above all things affected the
+character of a religious and sober man, which excepting the instances
+for which he died, he never seemed to have forfeited; for whatever else
+was said against him after he was condemned, arose merely from
+conjectures occasioned by the number of horses he had sold in foreign
+parts. He himself professed that he had always led a most regular and
+devout life, and in the frequent voyages he made by sea, exhorted the
+sailors to leave that dissolute manner of life which too generally they
+led. During the whole time he lay under sentence, he talked of nothing
+else but his own great piety and devotion, which though, as he
+confessed, it had often been rewarded by many singular deliverances
+through the hand of Providence, yet since he was suffered to die this
+ignominious death and thereby disgrace his family and altogether
+overturn that reputation of sanctity with which so much pains himself
+had been setting up, he inclined to atheistic notions, and a wavering
+belief as to the being of a God at all.
+
+As for the other malefactor, William Hawksworth, he was a Yorkshireman
+by birth. His parents, reputable people who took a great care in his
+reputation, intended to breed him to some good trade, but a regiment of
+soldiers happening to come into the town, Hawksworth imagining great
+things might be attained to in the army, would needs go with them, and
+accordingly listed himself. But having run through many difficulties and
+much hardships, finding also that he was like to meet with little else
+while he wore a red coat, he took a great deal of pains and made much
+interest to be discharged. At last he effected it, and a gentleman
+kindly taking him to live with him as a footman, he there recovered part
+of that education which he had lost while in the army. There, also, he
+addicted himself for some time to a sober and quiet life, but soon after
+giving way to his old roving disposition, he went away from his master,
+and listed himself again in the army in one of the regiments of Guards.
+
+His behaviour the last time of his being in the service was honest and
+regular, his officers giving him a very good character, and nobody else
+a bad one; but happening to be one day commanded on a party to mount
+guard at the Admiralty Office, by Charing Cross, they met a man and
+woman. The man's name was John Ransom, and this Hawksworth stepping up
+to the woman and going to kiss her, Ransom interposed and pushed him
+off, upon which Hawksworth knocked him down with the butt end of his
+piece, by which blow about nine o'clock that evening he died.
+
+The prisoner insisted continually that as he had no design to kill the
+man it was not wilful murder. He and Tyrrell died with less confusion
+and seeming concern than most malefactors do. Tyrrell was about thirty
+and Hawksworth in the twenty-eighth year of his age, on the 17th of
+June, 1723.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM DUCE, a Notorious Highwayman and Footpad
+
+
+However hardened some men may appear during the time they are acting
+their crimes and while hopes of safety of life remains, yet when these
+are totally lost and death, attended with ignominy and reproach, stares
+them in the face, they seldom fail to lay aside their obstinacy; or, if
+they do not, it is through a stupid want of consideration, either of
+themselves or of their condition.
+
+William Duce, of whom we are now to speak, was one of the most cruel and
+abandoned wretches that ever went on the road. He was born at
+Wolverhampton, but of what parents, or in what manner he lived until his
+coming up to London, I am not able to say. He had not been long here
+before he got in debt with one Allom, who arrested him and threw him
+into Newgate, where he remained a prisoner upwards of fifteen months;
+here it was that he learnt those principles of villainy which he
+afterwards put in practice.
+
+His companions were Dyer, Butler, Rice and some others whom I shall have
+occasion to mention. The first of December, 1722, he and one of his
+associates crossing Chelsea Fields, overtook a well-dressed gentleman, a
+tall strong-limbed man, who having a sword by his side and a good cane
+in his hand they were at first in some doubt whether they should attack
+him. At last one went on one side and the other on the other, and
+clapping at once fast hold of each arm, they thereby totally disabled
+him from making a resistance. They took from him four guineas, and tying
+his wrists and ankles together, left him bound behind the hedge.
+
+Not long after he, with two others, planned to rob in St. James's Park.
+Accordingly they seized a woman who was walking on the grass near the
+wall towards Petty France, and after they had robbed her got over the
+wall and made their escape. About this time his first acquaintance began
+with Dyer, who was the great occasion of this poor fellow's ruin, whom
+he continually plagued to go out a-robbing, and sometimes threatened him
+if he did not. In Tottenham Court Road, they attacked a gentleman, who
+being intoxicated with wine, either fell from his horse, or was thrown
+off by them, from whom they took only a gold watch. Then Butler and Dyer
+being in his company, they robbed Mr. Holmes of Chelsea, of a guinea and
+twopence, the fact for which he and Butler died.
+
+Thinking the town dangerous after all these robberies, and finding the
+country round about too hot to hold them, they went into Hampshire and
+there committed several robberies, attended with such cruelties as have
+not for many years been heard of in England; and though these actions
+made a great noise, yet it was some weeks before any of them were
+apprehended.
+
+On the Portsmouth Road it happened they fell upon one Mr. Bunch, near a
+wood side, where they robbed and stripped him naked; yet not thinking
+themselves secure, Duce turned and fired at his head. He took his aim so
+true that the bullet entered the man's cheek, upon which he fell with
+the agony of pain, turning his head downwards that the bullet might drop
+out of his mouth. Seeing that, Butler turned back and began to charge
+his pistol. The man fell down on his knees and humbly besought his life.
+Perceiving the villain was implacable, he took the advantage before the
+pistol was charged to take to his heels, and being better acquainted
+with the way than they, escaped to a neighbouring village which he
+raised, and soon after it the whole country; upon which they were
+apprehended. Mead, Wade and Barking, were condemned at Winchester
+assizes, but this malefactor and Butler were removed by an _Habeas
+Corpus_ to Newgate.
+
+While under sentence of death, Duce laid aside all that barbarity and
+stubbornness with which he had formerly behaved, with great frankness
+confessed all the villainies he had been guilty of, and at the place of
+execution delivered the following letter for the evidence Dyer, who as
+he said, had often cheated them of their shares of the money they took
+from passengers, and had now sworn away their lives.
+
+    The Letter of William Duce to John Dyer
+
+    It is unnecessary for me to remind you of the many wicked and
+    barbarous actions which in your company and mostly by your advice,
+    have been practised upon innocent persons. Before you receive this,
+    I shall have suffered all that the law of man can inflict for my
+    offences. You will do well to reflect thereon, and make use of that
+    mercy which you have purchased at the expense of our blood, to
+    procure by a sincere repentance the pardon also of God; without
+    which, the lengthening of your days will be but a misfortune, and
+    however late, your crimes if you pursue them, will certainly bring
+    you after us to this ignominious place.
+
+    You ought especially to think of the death of poor Rice, who fell in
+    the midst of his sins, without having so much as time to say, _Lord
+    have mercy on me._ God who has been so gracious as to permit it to
+    you, will expect a severe account of it, and even this warning, if
+    neglected, shall be remembered against you. Do not however think
+    that I die in any wrath or anger with you, for what you swore at my
+    trial. I own myself guilty of that for which I suffer, and I as
+    heartily and freely forgive you, as I hope forgiveness for myself,
+    from that infinitely merciful Being, to whose goodness and
+    providence I recommend you.
+
+    WILLIAM DUCE
+
+He also wrote another letter to one Mr. R. W., who had been guilty of
+some offences of the like nature in his company, but who for some time
+had retired and lived honestly and privately, was no longer addicted to
+such courses, nor as he hoped would relapse into them again. At the time
+of his execution he was about twenty-five years of age, and suffered at
+Tyburn on the 5th of August, 1723.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES BUTLER, a Most notorious Highwayman, Footpad, etc.
+
+
+James Butler was the son of a very honest man in the parish of St.
+Ann's, Soho, who gave him what education it was in his power to bestow,
+and strained his circumstances to the utmost to put him apprentice to a
+silversmith. James had hardly lived with him six months when his roving
+inclination pushed him upon running away and going to sea, which he did,
+with one Captain Douglass in a man-of-war.
+
+Here he was better used than most young people are at the first setting
+out in a sailor's life. The captain being a person of great humanity and
+consideration, treated James with much tenderness, taking him to wait on
+himself, and never omitting any opportunity to either encourage or
+reward him. But even then Butler could not avoid doing some little
+thieving tricks, which very much grieved and provoked his kind
+benefactor, who tried by all means, fair and foul, to make him leave
+them off. One day, particularly, when he had been caught opening one of
+the men's chests and a complaint was thereupon made to the captain, he
+was called into the great cabin, and everybody being withdrawn except
+the captain, calling him to him, he spoke in these terms.
+
+_Butler, I have always treated you with more kindness and indulgence
+than perhaps anybody in your station has been used with on board any
+ship. You do, therefore, very wrong by playing such tricks as make the
+men uneasy, to put it out of my power to do you any good. We are now
+going home, where I must discharge you, for as I had never any
+difference with the crew since I commanded the_ Arundel, _I am
+determined not to let you become the occasion of it now. There is two
+guineas for you, I will take care to have you sent safe to your mother._
+
+The captain performed all his promises, but Butler continued still in
+the same disposition, and though he made several voyages in other ships,
+yet still continued light-fingered, and made many quarrels and
+disturbances on board, until at last he could find nobody who knew him
+that would hire him. The last ship he served in was the _Mary_, Capt.
+Vernon commander, from which ship he was discharged and paid off at
+Portsmouth, in August, 1721.
+
+Having got, after this, into the gang with Dyer, Duce, Rice and others,
+they robbed almost always on the King's Road, between Buckingham House
+and Chelsea. On the 27th of April, 1723, after having plundered two or
+three persons on the aforesaid road, they observed a coach coming
+towards them, and a footman on horseback riding behind it. As soon as
+they came in sight Dyer determined with himself to attack them, and
+forced his companions into the same measures by calling out to the
+coachman to stop, and presenting his pistols. The fellow persisted a
+little, and Dyer was cocking his pistol to discharge it at him, when the
+ladies' footman from behind the coach, fired amongst them, and killed
+Joseph Rice upon the spot.
+
+This accident made such an impression upon Butler that though he
+continued to rob with them a day or two longer, yet as soon as he had an
+opportunity he withdrew and went to hard labour with one Cladins, a very
+honest man, at the village called Wandsworth, in Surrey. He had not
+wrought there long, before some of his gang had been discovered. His
+wife was seized and sent to Bridewell in order to make her discover
+where her husband was, who had been impeached with the rest. This
+obliged him to leave his place, and betake himself again to robbing.
+
+Going with his companions, Wade, Meads, Garns and Spigget, they went
+into the Gravesend Road, and there attacking four gentlemen, Meads
+thought it would contribute to their safety to disable the servant who
+rode behind, upon which he fired at him directly, and shot him through
+the breast. Not long after, they set upon another man, whom Meads
+wounded likewise in the same place, and then setting him on his horse,
+bid him ride to Gravesend. But the man turning the beast's head the
+other way, Meads went back again, and shot him in the face, of which
+wound he died.
+
+When Butler lay under sentence of death he readily confessed whatever
+crimes he had committed, but he, as well as the before-mentioned
+criminal, charged much of his guilt upon the persuasions of the evidence
+Dyer. He particularly owned the fact of shooting the man at Farnham.
+Having always professed himself a Papist, he died in that religion, at
+the same time with the afore-mentioned criminal, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CAPTAIN JOHN MASSEY, who died for Piracy
+
+
+The gentleman of whom we are now to speak, though he suffered for
+piracy, was a man of another turn of mind than any of whom we have
+hitherto had occasion to mention. Captain John Massey was of a family I
+need not dwell on, since he hath at present two brothers living who make
+a considerable figure in their respective professions.
+
+This unhappy person had a natural vivacity in his temper, which
+sometimes rose to such a height that his relations took it for a degree
+of madness. They, therefore, hoping by a compliance with his humours to
+bring him to a better sense of things, sent him into the army then in
+Flanders, under the command of the Duke of Marlborough; and there he
+assisted at the several sieges which were undertaken by the Confederate
+army after his arrival, viz., Mons, Douai, Bouchain, and several others.
+Yet though he was bold there, even to temerity, he never received so
+much as one wound through the whole course of the war, in which, after
+the siege of Lille, he commanded as a lieutenant, and that with great
+reputation.
+
+On his return into England he at first wholly addicted himself to a
+religious sober life, the several accidents of the war having disposed
+him to a more serious temper by making him plainly perceive the hand of
+Providence in protecting and destroying, according as its wisdom seeth
+fit. But after a short stay in London, he unhappily fell into the
+acquaintance of a lewd woman, who so besotted him that he really
+intended to marry her, if the regiment's going to Ireland had not
+prevented it. But there the case was not much mended, since Captain
+Massey gave too much way to the debaucheries generally practised in that
+nation.
+
+On his coming back from thence, by the recommendation of the Duke of
+Chandois, he was made by the Royal African Company a lieutenant colonel
+in their service, and an engineer for erecting a fort on the Coast of
+Africa. He promised himself great advantage and a very honourable
+support from this employment, but he and the soldiers under his command
+being very ill used by the person who commanded the ship in which he
+went over (being denied their proportion of provisions and in all other
+respects treated with much indignity) it made a great impression on
+Captain Massey's mind, who could not bear to see numbers of those poor
+creatures perish, not only without temporal necessities, but wanting
+also the assistance of a divine in their last moments. For the chaplain
+of the ship remained behind in the Maderas, on a foresight perhaps, of
+the miseries he should have suffered in the voyage.
+
+In this miserable condition were things when the Captain and his
+soldiers came into the River Gambia, where the designed fort was to be
+built. Here the water was so bad that the poor wretches, already in the
+most dreadful condition, were many of them deprived of life a few days
+after they were on shore. The Captain was excessively troubled at the
+sight of their misfortunes and too easily in hopes of relieving them
+gave way to the persuasion of a captain[29] of a lighter vessel than his
+own, who arrived in that port, and persuaded him to turn pirate rather
+than let his men starve.
+
+After repeated solicitations, Captain Massey and his men went on board
+this ship, and having there tolerable good provisions, soon picked up
+their strength and took some very considerable prizes. At the plundering
+of these Massey was confused and amazed, not knowing well what to do,
+for though he was glad to see his men have meat, yet it gave him great
+trouble when he reflected on the methods by which they acquired it. In
+this disconsolate state his night was often so troublesome to him as his
+days, for, as he himself said, he seldom shut his eyes but he dreamt
+that he was sailing in a ship to the gallows, with several others round
+him.
+
+After a considerable space, the ship putting into the island of Jamaica
+for necessary supply of water and provision, he made his escape to the
+Governor, and gave him such information that he took several vessels
+thereby; but not being easy there, he desired leave of Sir Nicholas Laws
+to return home. Sir Nicholas gave him letters of recommendation, but
+notwithstanding those, he no sooner returned in England but he was
+apprehended and committed for piracy. Soon after which he was bailed;
+but the persons who became security growing uneasy, he surrendered in
+their discharge, soon after which he was tried, convicted and
+condemned.
+
+During the space he remained in prison under condemnation he behaved
+with so much gravity, piety and composedness, as surprised all who saw
+him, many of whom were inclined to think his case hard. No mercy was to
+be had and as he did not expect it, so false hopes never troubled his
+repose; but as death was to cut him off from the world, so he beforehand
+retired all his affections from thence and thought of nothing but that
+state whither he was going.
+
+In his passage to execution he pointed to the African House,[30] said,
+_They have used me severely, but I pray God prosper and bless them in
+all their undertakings._
+
+Mr. Nicholson, of St. Sepulchre's, attended him in his last moments.
+Just before he died he read the following speech to the people.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I beg of you to pray for my departing soul. I likewise pray God to
+    forgive all the evidences that swore against me, as I do from my
+    heart. I challenge all the world to say I ever did a dishonourable
+    act or anything unlike a gentleman, but what might be common to all
+    young fellows in this age. This was surely a rash action, but I did
+    not designedly turn pirate. I am sorry for it, and I wish it were in
+    my power to make amends to the Honourable African Company for what
+    they have lost by my means. I likewise declare upon the word of a
+    dying man that I never once thought of molesting his Grace the Duke
+    of Chandois, although it has been maliciously reported that I always
+    went with two loaded pistols to dispatch his Grace. As for the Duke,
+    I was always, while living, devoted to his service, for his good
+    offices done unto me, and I humbly beg Almighty God, that He would
+    be pleased to pour down His blessings upon his good family. Good
+    people, once more I beg of you to pray for my departing soul. I
+    desire my dying words to be printed, as for the truth and sincerity
+    of it, I sign them as a man departing this world.
+
+    John Massey
+
+After he had pronounced these words, he signified it as his last request
+that neither his wife, nor any of his relations might see his body after
+it was in the coffin. Then praying a few moments to himself he submitted
+to his fate, being at the time of his death twenty-eight years old. He
+suffered at high-water mark, Execution Dock, on the 26th of July, 1723,
+his unhappy death being universally pitied.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [29] This was Captain George Lowther, a redoubtable pirate. A
+        more complete Story of Massey's adventures is given in Johnson's
+        _History of the Pirates._
+
+   [30] In Leadenhall Street, along which he would pass on the way
+        to Wapping.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of PHILIP ROCHE, a Pirate, etc.
+
+
+As in the life of Captain Massey, my readers cannot but take notice of
+those great evils into which men are brought by over-forwardness and
+inconsideration, so in the life of the malefactor we are now to speak
+of, they will discern what a prodigious pitch of wickedness, rapine and
+cruelty, human nature is capable of reaching unto, when people abandon
+themselves to a desire of living after their own wicked inclinations,
+without considering the injuries they do others while they gratify their
+own lusts and sensual pleasures.
+
+Philip Roche[31] was the son of a person of the same name in Ireland.
+His father gave him all the education his narrow circumstances would
+permit which extended however to reading and writing a tolerable good
+hand, after which he sent him to sea. Philip was a lad of ingenious
+parts, and instead of forgetting, as many do, all they have learnt, he
+on the contrary took all imaginable care to perfect himself in
+whatsoever he had but a slight notion of before he went to sea. He made
+abundance of coasting voyages about his native island, went once or
+twice to Barbadoes, and being a saving and industrious young fellow,
+picked up money enough to become first mate in a trading vessel to
+Nantes in France, by which being suffered to buy goods himself, he got
+considerably, and was in a fair way to attaining as great a fortune as
+he could reasonably expect. But this slow method of getting money did by
+no means satisfy Roche; he was resolved to grow rich at once, and not
+wait till much labour and many voyages had made him so.
+
+When men once form to themselves such designs, it is not long before
+they find companions fit for their purpose. Roche soon met with one
+Neal, a fisherman of no education, barbarous but very daring, a fellow
+who had all the qualities that could conspire to make a dangerous
+villain, and who had already inured himself to the commission of
+whatever was black or bloody, not only without remorse but without
+reluctance. Neal recommended him to one Pierce Cullen, as a proper
+associate in those designs they were contriving; for this Cullen, as
+Neal informed him, was a fellow of principles and qualifications much
+like himself, but had somewhat a better capacity for executing them, and
+with Neal had been concerned in sinking a ship, after insuring her both
+in London and Amsterdam. But Providence had disappointed them in the
+success of their wicked design for Cullen having been known, or at
+least suspected of doing such a thing before, those with whom they had
+insured at London, instead of their paying the money, caused him to be
+seized and brought to a trial, which demolished all their schemes for
+cheating insurance offices.
+
+Cullen brought in his brother to their confederacy, and after abundance
+of solicitation induced Wise to come in likewise. The project they had
+formed was to seize some light ship, and turn pirates in her, conceiving
+it no difficult matter afterwards to obtain a stronger vessel, and one
+better fitted for their purpose.
+
+The ship they pitched on to execute this their villainous purpose was
+that of Peter Tartoue, a Frenchman of a very generous disposition, who
+on Roche and his companions telling him a melancholy story, readily
+entertained them; and perceiving Roche was an experienced sailor, he
+entrusted him upon any occasion with the care and command of the ship.
+Having done so one night, himself and the chief mate with the rest of
+the French who were on board went to rest, except a man and a boy, whom
+Roche commanded to go up and furl the sails. He then called the rest of
+his Irish associates to him upon the quarter-deck. There Roche,
+perceiving that Francis Wise began to relent, and fearing he should
+persuade others in the same measures, he told them that if every
+Irishman on board did not assist in destroying the French, and put him
+and Cullen in a capacity of retrieving the losses they had had at sea,
+they would treat whoever hesitated in obeying them with as little mercy
+as they did the Frenchmen; but if they would all assist, they should all
+fare alike, and have a share in the booty.
+
+Upon this the action began, and two of them running up after the
+Frenchman and boy, one tossed the lad by the arm into the water, and the
+other driving the man down upon the deck he there had his brains dashed
+out by Roche and his companions. They fell next upon those who were
+retired to their rest, some of whom, upon the shrieks of the man and boy
+who were murdered, rising hastily out of their beds and running up upon
+deck to see what occasioned those dismal noises, were murdered
+themselves before they well knew where they were. The mate and the
+captain were next brought up, and Roche went immediately to binding them
+together, in order to toss them overboard, as had been consulted. 'Twas
+in vain for poor Tartoue to plead the kindness he had done them all and
+particularly Roche. They were deaf to all sentiments, either of
+gratitude or pity, and though the poor men entreated only so much time
+as to say their prayers, and recommend themselves to God, yet the
+villains (though they could be under no apprehensions, having already
+murdered all the rest of the men) would not even yield to this, but
+Cullen hastened Roche in binding them back to back, to toss them at once
+into the sea. Then hurrying down into the cabin, they tapped a little
+barrel of rum to make themselves good cheer, and laughed at the cries of
+the two poor drowned men, whom they distinctly heard calling upon God,
+until their voices and their breaths were lost in the waves.
+
+After having drunk and eaten their fill, with as much mirth and jollity
+as if they had been at a feast, they began to plunder the vessel,
+breaking open the chests, and taking out of them what they thought
+proper. Then to drinking they went again, pleasing themselves with the
+barbarous expedition which they resolved to undertake as soon as they
+could get a ship proper to carry them into the West Indies, intending
+there to follow the example the buccaneers had set them, and rob and
+plunder all who fell into their hands. From these villainies in
+intention, the present state of their affairs called upon them to make
+some provision for their immediate safety. They turned therefore into
+the Channel, and putting the ship into Portsmouth, there got her new
+painted and then sailed for Amsterdam, Roche being unanimously
+recognised their captain, and all of them promising faithfully to submit
+to him through the course of their future expeditions.
+
+On their arrival in Holland, they had the ship a second time new
+painted, and thinking themselves now safe from all discovery began to
+sell off Captain Tartoue's cargo as fast as they could. No sooner had
+they completed this, but getting one Mr. Annesley to freight them with
+goods to England (himself also going as a passenger) they resolved with
+themselves to make prise of him and his effects, as they had also done
+with the French captain. Mr. Annesley, poor man, little dreaming of
+their design, came on board as soon as the wind served; and the next
+night a brisk gale blowing, they tore him suddenly out of his bed and
+tossed him over. Roche and Cullen being with others in the great cabin,
+he swam round and round the ship, called out to them, and told them they
+should freely have all his goods if they would take him in and save his
+life, for he had friends and fortunes enough in England to make up that
+loss. But his entreaties were all vain to a set of wretches who had long
+ago abandoned all sentiments of humour and mercy. They therefore
+caroused as usual, and after sharing the booty, steered the vessel for
+England.
+
+Some information of their villainies had by that time reached thither,
+so that upon a letter being stopped at the post office, which Roche, as
+soon as they had landed, had written to his wife, a messenger was
+immediately sent down, who brought Philip up in custody. Being brought
+to the Council table, and there examined, he absolutely denied either
+that himself was Philip Roche, or that he knew of any one of that name.
+But his letters under his own hand to his wife being produced, he was
+not able any longer to stand in that falsehood.
+
+Yet those in authority knowing that there was not legal proof sufficient
+to bring these abominable men to justice, offered Roche his life,
+provided he gave such information that they might be able to apprehend
+and convict any three of his companions more wicked than himself; but he
+was so far from complying therewith that he suffered those of his crew
+who were taken to perish in custody rather than become an evidence
+against them. This was the fate of Neal, who perished of want in the
+Marshalsea, having in vain petitioned for a trunk in which was a large
+quantity of money, clothes and other things to a considerable value,
+which had been seized in Ireland by virtue of a warrant from the Lord
+Justice of that Kingdom, on the account of the detention of which, while
+he perished for want of necessaries and clothes, Neal most heavily
+complained, forgetting that these very things were the plunder of those
+unhappy persons whom they had so barbarously murdered, after having
+received so much kindness and civility from them.
+
+In the meanwhile Roche, being confined in Newgate, went constantly to
+the chapel and appeared of so obliging a temper that many persuaded
+themselves he could not be guilty of the bloody crimes laid to his
+charge; and taking advantage of these kind thoughts of theirs, he framed
+a new story in defence of himself. He said that there happened a quarrel
+on board the ship between an Irishman and a Frenchman, and that Tartoue
+taking part with his own nation, threatened to lash the Irishman
+severely, though he was not in any way in the wrong. This, he pretended,
+begat a general quarrel between the two nations, and the Irish being the
+stronger, they overpowered and threw the French overboard in the heat of
+their anger, without considering what they did.
+
+Throughout the whole time he lay in Newgate, he very much delighted
+himself with the exercise of his pen, continually writing upon one
+subject or other, and often assisting his fellow prisoners in writing
+letters or whatever else they wanted in that kind. When he was told that
+Neal, who died in the Marshalsea, gushed out at all parts of his body
+with Wood, so that before he expired he was as if he had been dipped in
+gore, Roche replied, it was a just judgment that he who had always
+lived in blood, should die covered with it.
+
+Sometime afterwards, being told that one of his companions had poisoned
+himself he said, Alas! that so evil an end should follow so evil a life;
+for his part he would suffer Providence to take its course with him, and
+rather die the most ignominious death than to his other crimes add that
+of self-murder. The rest who had been apprehended dying one by one in
+the same dreadful condition with Neal, that is, with the blood gushing
+from every part of their body, which looked so much like a judgment that
+all who saw it were amazed, he (Roche) began to think himself perfectly
+safe after the death of his companions, supposing that now there was
+nobody to bear any testimony against him; and therefore, instead of
+appearing in any way dismayed, he most earnestly desired the speedy
+approach of an Admiralty sessions. It was not long before it happened
+and when he found what evidence would be produced against him, he
+appeared much less solicitous about his trial than anybody in his
+condition would have been expected to be, for he very well knew it was
+impossible for them to prove him guilty of the murders and as impossible
+for him to be acquitted of the piracy.
+
+After receiving sentence of death, he declared himself a Papist, and
+said that he could no longer comply with the service of the Church of
+England, and come to the chapel. He did not, however, think that he was
+in any danger of death, but supposed that the promises which had been
+made him on this first examination would now take place and prevent the
+execution of his sentence. When, therefore, the messenger returned from
+Hanover[32], and brought an express order that he should die, he
+appeared exceedingly moved thereat, and without reflecting at all on the
+horrid and barbarous treatment with Which he had used others, he could
+not forbear complaining of the great hardship he suffered in being put
+into the death warrant, after a promise had been made him of life,
+though nothing is more certain than that he never performed any part of
+those conditions upon which it was to have taken place.
+
+At the place of execution he was so faint, confused, and in such a
+consternation that he could not speak either to the people, or to those
+who were nearer at hand, dying with the greatest marks of dejection and
+confusion that could possibly be seen in any criminal whatever. He was
+about thirty years old at the time of his execution, which was at
+high-water mark, Execution Dock, on the 14th of August, 1723.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [31] A detailed account of this villain is given in Johnson's
+        _History of the Pirates._
+
+   [32] Where the warrant had evidently been taken for the
+        signature of the king or a minister.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of HUMPHRY ANGIER, a Highwayman and Footpad
+
+
+From the life of Roche, the course of those papers from which I extract
+these accounts leads me to mention this criminal, that the deaths of
+malefactors may not only terrify those who behold them dying, but also
+posterity, who, by hearing their crimes and the event which they brought
+on, may avoid falling into the one, for fear of feeling the other.
+
+Humphry Angier was by birth of the Kingdom of Ireland, his father being
+a man in very ordinary circumstances in a little town a few miles
+distant from Dublin. As soon as this son was able to do anything, he
+sent him to the city of Cork, and there bound him apprentice to a
+cooper. His behaviour while an apprentice was so bad that his master
+utterly despaired to do any good with him, and therefore was not sorry
+that he ran away from him. However, he found a way to vex him
+sufficiently, for he got into a crew of loose fellows, which so far
+frightened the old cooper that he was at a considerable expense to hire
+persons to watch his house for the four years that Angier loitered about
+that city. At last his father even took him from thence, and brought him
+over into England where he left him at full liberty to do what he
+thought fit; resolving with himself that if his son would take to
+ill-courses, it should be where the fame of his villainies might not
+reflect upon him and his family.
+
+He was now near eighteen years of age and being in some fear that some
+persons whom he had wronged might bring him into danger, he listed
+himself in the king's service, and went down with a new raised regiment
+into Scotland, where he hoped to make something by plundering the
+inhabitants, it being in the time of the Rebellion[33]. But he did not
+succeed very well there, and on his return fell into the company of
+William Duce, whom we have mentioned before. His conversation soon
+seduced him to follow the same course of life, and that their intimacy
+might be the more strongly knit, he married Duce's sister. Then engaging
+himself with all that gang, he committed abundance of robberies in their
+company, but was far from falling into that barbarous manner of beating
+the passengers which was grown customary and habitual to Mead, Butler,
+and some others of his and Duce's companions.
+
+Angier told a particular story of them, which made a very great
+impression upon him, and cannot but give my readers of an idea of that
+horrible spirit which inspired those wretches. Mead and Butler came one
+evening to him very full of their exploits, and the good luck they had
+had. Mead particularly, having related every circumstance which had
+happened since their last parting, said that amongst others whom they
+had robbed they met a smooth-faced shoemaker, who said he was just
+married and going home to his friends. They persuaded him to turn out of
+the road to look in the hedge for a bird's nest, whither he was no
+sooner got, but they bound, gagged and robbed him, and afterwards
+turning back, barbarously clapped a pistol to his head and shot out his
+brains. After this Angier declared he would never drink in the company
+of Mead, and when Butler sometimes talked after the same manner, he used
+to reprove him by telling him that cruelty was no courage, at which
+Butler and some of his companions sometimes laughed, and told him he had
+singular notions of courage.
+
+After this, he and his wife (Duce's sister) set up a little alehouse by
+Charing Cross, which soon against his will, though not without his
+consent, became a bawdy-house, a receptacle for thieves, etc. This sort
+of company rendered his house so suspicious and so obnoxious to the
+magistrates for the City of Westminster, that he quickly found the
+necessity of moving from thence. He then went and set up a brandy-shop,
+where the same people came, though as he pretended much to his
+dissatisfaction. While he kept the alehouse, there were two odd
+accidents befell him, which brought him for the first time to Newgate.
+It happened that while he was out one day, a Dutch woman picked up a
+gentleman and brought him to Angier's house, where, while he was asleep,
+she picked his pocket and left him. For this Angier and his maid were
+taken up, and tried at the Old Bailey. He was also at the same time
+tried for another offence, viz., an Irishwoman coming to his house and
+drinking pretty hard there, he at last carried her upstairs, and
+throwing her upon a bed pretended a great affection for her person; but
+his wife coming in and pretending to be jealous of the woman, pulled her
+off the bed and in so doing picked her pocket of four guineas. But of
+this there being no direct evidence against him, he was also acquitted.
+However, it ruined his house and credit, and drove him upon what was too
+much his inclination, the taking money by force upon the road.
+
+He now got into an acquaintance with Carrick, Carrol, Lock, Kelly, and
+many others of that stamp, with whom he committed several villainies,
+but always pretending to be above picking pockets, which he said was
+practised by none of their crew but Hugh Kelly, who was a very dextrous
+fellow in his way. However, when Angier was in custody, abundance of
+people applied to him to help them to their gold watches, snuff-boxes,
+etc.; but as he told them, so he persisted in it always, that he knew
+nothing of the matter; and Kelly being gone over into America and there
+settled, there was no hopes of getting any of them again.
+
+One evening he and Milksop, one of his companions, being upon the road
+to St. Albans, a little on this side of it, met a gentleman's coach, and
+in it a young man and two ladies. They immediately called to the
+coachman to stop, but he neglecting to obey their summons, they knocked
+him off from the box, having first prevented him from whipping off, by
+shooting one of his horses. They then dragged him under the coach, which
+running over him hurt him exceedingly and even endangered his life. Then
+they robbed the young gentleman and the ladies of whatever they had
+about them valuable, using them very rudely and stripping things off
+them in a very harsh and cruel way. Angier excused this by saying at the
+time he did it he was much in liquor.
+
+In the beginning of the year '20, Angier, who had so long escaped
+punishment for the offences which he had committed, was very near
+suffering for one in which he had not the least hand; for a person of
+quality's coachman being robbed of a watch and some money, a woman of
+the town, whom Angier and one of his companions had much abused, was
+thereupon taken up, having attempted to pawn the fellow's watch after he
+had advertised it. She played the hypocrite very dexterously upon her
+apprehension, and said that the robbery was not committed by her, but
+that Angier, Armstrong and another young man were the persons who took
+it, and by her help they were seized and committed to Newgate. At the
+ensuing sessions the woman swore roundly against them, but the fellow
+being more tender, and some circumstances of their innocence plainly
+appearing, they were acquitted by the jury and that very justly in this
+case in which they had no hand.
+
+During the time he lay under sentence, he behaved himself with much
+penitence for another offence, always calling earnestly to God for His
+assistance and grace to comfort him under those heavy sorrows which his
+follies and crimes had so justly brought upon him.
+
+At the place of execution he did not appear at all terrified at death,
+but submitted to it with the same resignation which for a long space he
+had professed since his being under confinement. Immediately before he
+suffered he recollected his spirits and spoke in the following terms to
+that crowd which always attends on such melancholy occasions.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I see many of you here assembled to behold my wretched end. I hope
+    it will induce you to avoid those evils which have brought me
+    hither. Sometime before my being last taken up, I had formed within
+    myself most steady purposes of amendment, which it is a great
+    comfort to me, even here that I never broke them, having lived at
+    Henley upon Thames, both with a good reputation, and in a manner
+    which deserved it. I heartily forgive and I hope God would do the
+    same to Dyer, whose evidence hath taken away my life. I hope he will
+    make a good use of that time which the price of my blood and that of
+    others has procured him. I heartily desire pardon of all whom I have
+    injured and declare that in the several robberies I have committed,
+    I have been always careful to avoid committing any murder.
+
+After this he adjusted the rope about his own neck, and submitted to
+that sentence which the Law directed, being at that time about
+twenty-nine years of age. He suffered on the 9th of September, 1723.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [33] The Jacobite rising of 1715.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CAPTAIN STANLEY, a Murderer
+
+
+There cannot be a greater misfortune than to want education, except it
+be the having a bad one. The minds of young persons are generally
+compared to paper on which we may write whatever we think fit, but if it
+be once blurred and blotted with improper characters, it becomes much
+harder to impress proper sentiments thereon, because those which were
+first there must be totally erased. This seems to have been too much the
+case with the unhappy person of whom the thread of these narrations
+requires that I should speak, viz., Captain Stanley.
+
+This unhappy young gentleman was the son of an officer in the army who
+married the sister of Mr. Palmer, of Duce Hill, in Essex, where she was
+brought to bed of this unfortunate son John, in the year 1698. The first
+rudiments he received were those of cruelty and blood, his father at
+five years old often parrying and thrusting him with a sword, pricking
+him himself and encouraging other officers to play with him in the same
+manner, so that his boy, as old Stanley phrased it, might never be
+afraid of a point--a wretched method of bringing up a child and which
+was highly likely to produce the sad end he came to.
+
+He served afterwards in the army with his father in Spain and Portugal,
+where he suffered hardships enough, but they did not very much affect
+him, who acquired by his hopeful education so savage a temper as to
+delight in nothing so much as trampling on the dead carcasses in the
+fields after an engagement.
+
+Returning into England with his father, old Stanley had the misfortune
+to slab a near relation of my Lord Newbury's, in the Tilt Yard,[34] for
+which he was committed prisoner to Newgate. Afterwards being released
+and commanded into Ireland, he carried over with him this son John and
+procured for him an ensign's commission in a regiment there. Poor young
+Stanley's sprightly temper gained him abundance of acquaintance and (if
+it be not to profane the name) of friends amongst the young rakes in
+Ireland, some of whom were persons of very great quality, and had such
+an affection for him as to continue their visits and relieve his
+necessities when under his last misfortunes in Newgate. But such company
+involving him at that time in expenses he was no way able to support, he
+was obliged shortly to part for ready money with his ensign's
+commission, which gave his father great pain and uneasiness.
+
+Not long after, he came again into England and to London, where he
+pursued the same methods, though his father importuned him to apply to
+General Stanhope, as a person he was sure would assist him, having been
+always a friend to their family, and particularly to old Stanley
+himself. But Jack was become a favourite with the ladies, and had taken
+an easier road to what he accounted happiness, living either upon the
+benevolence of friends, the fortune of the dice, or the favours of the
+sex. A continual round of sensual delights employed his time, and he was
+so far from endeavouring to attain any other commission or employment in
+order to support him, that there was nothing he so much feared as his
+being obliged to quit that life he loved; for old Stanley was
+continually soliciting for him, and as he had very good interest,
+nothing but his son's notorious misbehaviour made him not prevail. In
+the current of his extravagancies Jack fixed himself often upon young
+men coming into the world, and under pretence of being their tutor in
+the fashionable vices of the town, shared in their pleasures and helped
+them squander their estates.
+
+Of this stamp was a gay young Yorkshire squire, who by the death of an
+uncle and by the loss of his father while a boy, had had so little
+education as not to know how to use it. Him Stanley got hold of, and
+persuaded him that nothing was so advantageous to a young gentleman as
+travel, and drew him to make a tour of Flanders and Holland in his
+company. Though a very wild young fellow, Stanley gave a very tolerable
+account of the places, especially the fortifications which he had seen,
+and sufficiently demonstrated how capable he might have been of making
+an exalted figure in the world, if due care had been taken to furnish
+him with any principles in his youth. But the neglect of that undid him,
+and every opportunity which he afterwards had of acquiring anything,
+instead of making him an accomplished gentleman, did him mischief. Thus
+his journey to Paris in company with the afore-mentioned gentleman
+helped him to an opportunity of learning to fence to the greatest
+perfection, so that the skill he was sensible he had in the sword made
+him ever ready to quarrel and seek occasions to use it.
+
+Amongst the multitude of his amours he became acquainted and
+passionately fond of one Mrs. Maycock, whose husband was once an eminent
+tradesman upon Ludgate Hill. By her he had a child of which also he was
+very fond. This woman was the source of the far greater part of his
+misfortunes, for when his father had procured him a handsome commission
+in the service of the African Company, and he had received a
+considerable sum of money for his voyage, appearing perfectly satisfied
+himself, and behaving in so grave and decent a manner as filled his
+family and relations with very agreeable hopes, they were all blasted by
+Mrs. Maycock's coming with her child to Portsmouth, where he was to
+embark. She so far prevailed upon his inclinations as to get him to give
+her one half of the Company's money and to return to town with the other
+half himself. On his coming up to London he avoided going to his
+father's, who no sooner heard how dishonourably his son had behaved, but
+laying it more to heart than all the rest of his misfortunes, grief in a
+short time put an end to them all by his death.
+
+When the news of it came to young Stanley, he fell into transports of
+grief and passion, which as many of his intimate companions said, so
+disturbed his brain that he never afterwards was in a right temper.
+This, indeed, appeared by several accidents, some of which were sworn at
+his trial, particularly that while he lodged in the house of Mr.
+Underhill, somebody having quoted a sentence of Latin in his company, he
+was so disturbed at the thoughts of his having had such opportunities of
+acquiring the knowledge of that language and yet continuing ignorant
+thereof, through his negligence and debauchery, that it made at that
+time so strong an impression on his spirits, that starting up, he drew
+a penknife and attempted to stab himself, without any other cause of
+passion. At other times he would fall into sudden and grievous rages,
+either at trifles, or at nothing at all, abuse his best friends, and
+endeavour to injure himself, and then coming to a better temper, begged
+them to forgive him, for he did not know what he did.
+
+During the latter part of his life, his circumstances were so bad that
+he was reduced to doing many dirty actions which I am persuaded
+otherwise would not have happened, such as going into gentlemen's select
+companies at taverns, without any other ceremony than telling them that
+his impudence must make him welcome to a dinner with them, after which,
+instead of thanking them for their kindness, he would often pick a
+quarrel with them, though strangers, drawing his sword and fighting
+before he left the room. Such behaviour made him obnoxious to all who
+were not downright debauchees like himself, and hindered persons of rank
+conversing with him as they were wont.
+
+In the meantime his favourite Mrs. Maycock, whom he had some time lived
+with as a wife and even prevailed with his mother to visit her as such,
+being no longer able to live at his rate, or bear with his temper,
+frequented a house in the Old Bailey, where it was supposed, and perhaps
+with truth, that she received other company. This made Stanley very
+uneasy, who like most young rakes thought himself at liberty to pursue
+as many women as he pleased, but could not forgive any liberties taken
+by a woman whom he, forsooth, had honoured with his affections.
+
+One night therefore, seeing her in Fleet Street with a man and a woman,
+he came up to her and gently tapped her on the shoulder. She turning,
+cried, _What! My dear Captain!_ And so on they went walking to his house
+in the Old Bailey. There some words happened about the mutual
+misfortunes they had brought upon one another. Mrs. Maycock reproached
+him with seducing her, and bringing on all the miseries she had ever
+felt; Stanley reflected on her hindering his voyage to Cape Coast, the
+extravagant sums he had spent upon her, and her now conversing with
+other men, though she had had three or four children by him. At last
+they grew very high, and Mrs. Maycock, who was naturally a very
+sweet-tempered woman, was so far provoked, as Stanley said, that she
+threw a cup of beer at him; upon which some ill-names passing between
+them, Stanley drew his sword and stabbed her between the breasts eight
+inches deep; immediately upon which he stopped his handkerchief into the
+wound.
+
+He was quickly secured and committed to Wood Street Compter,[35] where
+he expressed very little concern at what had happened, laughing and
+giving himself abundance of airs, such as by no means became a man in
+his condition. On his commitment to Newgate, he seemed not to abate the
+least of that vivacity which was natural to his temper, and as he had
+too much mistaken vice for the characteristic of a fine gentleman, so
+nothing appeared to him so great a testimony of gallantry and courage as
+behaving intrepidly while death was so near its approach. He therefore
+entertained all who conversed with him in the prison, and all who
+visited him from without, with the history of his amours and the favours
+that had been bestowed on him by a multitude of fine ladies. Nay, his
+vanity and impudence was so great as to mention some of their names, and
+especially to asperse two ladies who lived near Cheapside Conduit.[36]
+But there is great reason to believe that part of this was put on to
+make his madness more probable at his trial, where he behaved very
+oddly, and when he received sentence of death, took snuff at the bar,
+and put on abundance of airs that were even ridiculous anywhere, and
+shocking and scandalous upon so melancholy an occasion.
+
+After sentence, his carriage under his confinement altered not so much
+as one would have expected; he offering to lay wagers that he should
+never be hanged, notwithstanding his sentence, for he was resolved not
+to die like a dog on a string, when he had it in his power always to go
+out of the world a nobler way, by which he meant either a knife or
+opium, which were the two methods by one of which he resolved to prevent
+his fate. But when he found that all his pretences of madness were like
+to produce nothing, and that he was in danger of dying in every respect
+like a brute, he laid aside much of his ill-timed gaiety, and began to
+think of preparing for death after another manner.
+
+These gentlemen who assisted him while in Newgate, were so kind as to
+offer to make up a considerable sum of money, if it could have been of
+any use; but finding that neither that nor their interest could do
+anything to save him, they frankly acquainted him therewith and begged
+him not to delude himself with false hopes. All the while he was in
+Newgate, a little boy whom he had by Mrs. Maycock, continued with him,
+and lay constantly in his bosom. He manifested the utmost tenderness
+and concern for that poor child, who by his rashness had been deprived
+of his mother, and whom the Law would, by its just sentence, now
+likewise deprive of its father. Being told that Mr. Bryan, Mrs.
+Maycock's brother on Tower Hill was dead, merely through concern at his
+sister's misfortunes and the deplorable end that followed them, Stanley
+clapped his hands together and cried, _What, more death still? Sure I am
+the most unfortunate wretch that was ever born._
+
+Some few days before his execution, talking to one of his friends, he
+said, _I am perfectly convinced that it is false courage to avoid the
+just sentence of the Law, by executing the rash dictates of one's rage
+by one's own head. I am heartily sorry for the rash expression I have
+been guilty of, of that sort, and am determined to let the world see my
+courage fails me no more in my death than it has done in my life; and,
+my dear friend_, added he, _I never felt so much ease, quiet and
+satisfaction in all my life, as I have experienced, since my coming to
+this resolution._
+
+But though he sometimes expressed himself in a serious and religious
+manner yet passion would sometimes break in upon him to the last and
+make him burst out into frightful and horrid speeches. Then again he
+would grow calm and cool, and speak with great seeming sense of God's
+providence in his afflictions.
+
+He was particularly affected with two accidents which happened to him
+not long before his death, and which struck him with great concern at
+the time they happened. The first of these was a fall from his horse
+under Tyburn, in which he was stunned so that he could not recover
+strength enough to remount, but was helped on his horse again by the
+assistance of two friends. Not long after which, he had as bad an
+accident of the same kind under Newgate, which he said, made such an
+impression on him, that he did not go abroad for many mornings
+afterwards, without recommending himself in the most serious manner to
+the Divine protection.
+
+Another story he also told, with many marks of real thankfulness for the
+narrow escape he then made from death, which happened thus. At a
+cider-cellar in Covent Garden he fell out with one Captain Chickley, and
+challenging him to fight in a dark room, they were then shut up together
+for some space. But a constable being sent for by the people of the
+house, and breaking the door open, delivered him from being sent
+altogether unprepared out of the world, Chickley being much too hard for
+him, and having given him a wound quite through the body, himself
+escaping with only a slight cut or two.
+
+As the day of execution drew near, Mr. Stanley appeared more serious
+and much more attentive to his devotions than hitherto he had been. Yet
+could he not wholly contain himself even then, for the Sunday before he
+died, after sermon, at which he had behaved himself decently and
+modestly, he broke out into this wild expression, that he was only sorry
+he had not fired the whole house where he killed Mrs. Maycock. When he
+was reproved for these things he would look ashamed, and say, 'twas
+true, they were very unbecoming, but they were what he could not help,
+arising from certain starts in his imagination that hurried him into a
+short madness, for which he was very sorry as soon as he came to
+himself.
+
+At the place of execution, to which he was conveyed in a mourning coach,
+he turned pale, seemed uneasy, and complained that he was very sick,
+entreating a gentleman by him to support him with his hand. He desired
+to be unbound that he might be at liberty to pray kneeling, which with
+some difficulty was granted. He then applied himself to his devotions
+with much fervency, and then submitted to his fate, but when the cap was
+drawn over his eyes he seemed to shed tears abundantly. Immediately
+before he was turned off he said his friends had provided a hearse to
+carry away his body and he hoped nobody would be so cruel as to deny his
+relations his dead limbs to be interred, adding, that unless he were
+assured of this, he could not die in peace.
+
+Such was the end of a young man in person and capacity every way fitted
+to have made a reputable figure in the world, if either his natural
+principles, or his education had laid any restraint upon his vices; but
+as his passions hurried him beyond all bounds, so they brought a just
+end upon themselves, by finishing a life spent in sensual pleasures with
+an ignominious death, which happened at Tyburn in the twenty-fifth year
+of his age, on the 23rd of December, 1722.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [34] This was an open space, facing the banquetting-house of
+        old Whitehall, and included part of what is now Horse Guards'
+        Parade.
+
+   [35] This was one of the sheriff's compters--the other was in
+        the Poultry--and served for debtors as well as criminals. It
+        stood about half-way up Wood Street, on the east side.
+
+   [36] There were two conduits in Cheapside; the Great, which
+        stood in the middle of the street, near its junction with the
+        Poultry, and the Little, which was at the other end, facing
+        Foster Lane and Old Change.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of STEPHEN GARDINER, a Highwayman and Housebreaker
+
+
+Stephen Gardiner was the son of parents of middling circumstances,
+living at the time of his birth in Moorfields. This, perhaps, was the
+immediate cause of his ruin, since he learnt there, while a boy, to idle
+away his time, and to look on nothing as so great a pleasure as gaming
+and cudgel playing. This took up equally his time and his thoughts, till
+he grew up to about fourteen years old, when his friends placed him out
+as an apprentice to a weaver.
+
+While he was with his master he did so many unlucky tricks as
+occasioned not only severe usage at home, but incurred also the dislike
+and hatred of all the neighbours; so that instead of interposing to
+preserve him from his master's correction, they were continually
+complaining and getting him beaten; nay, sometimes when his master was
+not ready enough to do it, would beat him themselves. Stephen was so
+wearied out with this kind of treatment, notwithstanding it arose solely
+from his own fault, that he determined to run away for good and all,
+thinking it would be no difficult matter for him to maintain himself,
+considering that dexterity with which he played at ninepins, skittles,
+etc. But experience quickly convinced him of the contrary, so in one
+month being much reduced after betaking himself to this life, by those
+misfortunes which were evident enough (though his passion for liberty
+and idleness hindered him from foreseeing them) that he had not so much
+as bread to eat.
+
+In this distressed condition he was glad to return home again to his
+friends, imploring their charity, and that, forgetting what was passed,
+they would be so kind as to relieve him and put him in some method of
+providing for himself. Natural affection pleading for him,
+notwithstanding all his failings they took him home again, and soon
+after put him as a boy on board a corn vessel which traded to Holland
+and France; but the swearing, quarrelling and fighting of the sailors so
+frightened him, being then very young and unable to cope with them, that
+on his return he again implored the tenderness of his relations to
+permit his staying in England upon any terms, promising to live in a
+most sober and regular manner, provided that he might get his bread by
+hard labour at home, and not be exposed to the injuries of wind and
+weather and the abuses of seamen more boisterous than both. They again
+complied and put him to another trade, but work, it seems, was a thing
+no shape could reconcile to him, and so he ran away from thence, too,
+and once more put himself for a livelihood upon the contrivance of his
+own brain.
+
+He went immediately to his old employment and old haunt, Moorfields,
+where as long as he had any money he played at cards, skittles, etc.,
+with the chiefs of those villainous gangs that haunt the place; and when
+reduced to the want both of money and clothes, he attempted to pick
+pockets, or by playing with the lads for farthings to recruit himself.
+But pocket-picking was a trade in which he had very ill-luck, for taking
+a wig out of a gentleman's pocket at the drawing of the state
+lottery,[37] the man suffered him totally to take it out, then seized
+him and cried out _Pickpocket._ The boy immediately dropped it, and
+giving it a little kick with his foot protected his innocence which
+induced a good-natured person there present to stand so far his friend
+that he suffered no deeper that bout. But a month after, being taken in
+the same manner, and delivered over to the mob, they handled him with
+such cruelty as scarce to leave him life, though he often upon his knees
+begged them to carry him before a Justice and let him be committed to
+Newgate. But the mob were not so to be prevailed on, and this severity,
+as he said, cured him effectually of that method of thieving.
+
+But in the course of his rambling life, becoming acquainted with two
+young fellows, whose names were Garraway and Sly, they invited him to go
+with them upon some of their expeditions in the night. He absolutely
+refused to do anything of that kind for a long time, but one evening,
+having been so unlucky as to lose not only his money but all his clothes
+off his back, he went in search of Sly and Garraway, who received him
+with open arms, and immediately carried him with them upon those
+exploits by which they got their living. Garraway proposed robbing of
+his brother for their first attempt, which succeeded so far as to their
+getting into the house; but they found nothing there but a few clothes
+of his brother and sister, which they took away. But Garraway bid them
+not be discouraged at the smallness of the booty, for his father's house
+was as well furnished as most men's, and their next attack should be
+upon that. To this they agreed, and plundered it also, taking away some
+spoons, tankards, salts and several other pieces of plate of
+considerable value; but a quick search being made, they were all three
+apprehended, and Gardiner being the youngest was admitted an evidence
+against the other two, who were convicted.
+
+Some weeks after, Gardiner got his liberty, but being unwarned, he went
+on still at the same rate. The first robbery he committed afterwards was
+in the house of the father of one of his acquaintances on Addle Hill,
+where Gardiner stole softly upstairs into the garret, and stole from
+thence some men's apparel to a very considerable value. A while after
+this, he became acquainted with Mr. Richard Jones, and with him went
+(mounted upon a strong horse) into Wales upon what in the canting
+dialect is called "the Passing Lay," which in plain English is thus:
+They get countrymen into an alehouse, under pretence of talking about
+the sale of cattle, then a pack of cards is found as if by accident, and
+the two sharpers fall to playing with one another until one offering to
+lay a great wager on the game, staking the money down, the other shows
+his hand to the countryman, and convinces him that it is impossible but
+he must win, offering to let him go halves in the wager. As soon as the
+countryman lays down the money, these sharpers manage so as to pass off
+with it, which is the meaning of their cant, and this practice he was
+very successful in; the country people in Wales, where they travelled,
+having not had opportunity to become acquainted with such bites as those
+who live in the counties nearer London have, where the country fellows
+are often as adroit as any of the sharpers themselves.
+
+It happened that the person with whom Stephen travelled had parted with
+his wife and at Bristol had received a gold watch and chain, laced
+clothes and several other things of value. This immediately put it into
+Gardiner's head that he might make his fortune at once, by murdering him
+and possessing himself of his goods; knowing also that besides these
+valuable things, he had near a hundred guineas about him. In order to
+effect this, he stole a large brass pestle out of a mortar, at the next
+inn, and carried it unperceived in his boots, intending as he and his
+companion rode through the woods to dash his brains out with it. Twice
+for this purpose he drew it, but his heart relenting just when he was
+going to give the stroke he put it up again. At last it fell out of his
+boot and he had much ado to get it pulled up unperceived by his
+companion. The next day it dropped again, and Gardiner was so much
+afraid of Jones's perceiving it, and himself being thereupon killed from
+a suspicion of his design, that he laid aside all further thoughts of
+that matter.
+
+But he took occasion a day or two after to part with him, whereupon the
+other as Stephen was going away, called out to him, _Hark ye, you
+Gardiner! I'll tell you somewhat._ Gardiner therefore turning back. _You
+are going up to London?_ said Jones. _Yes_, replied Gardiner. _Then
+trust me_, said the other, _you're going up to be hanged._
+
+Between Abergavenny and Monmouth, Gardiner took notice of a little
+house, the windows of which were shut up, but the hens and cocks in the
+back yard showed that it was inhabited. Gardiner thereupon knocked at
+the door several times, to see if anybody was at home, but perceiving
+none, he ventured to break open some wooden bars that lay across the
+window, and getting in thereat found two boxes full of clothes, and
+writings relating to an estate. He took only one gown, as not daring to
+load himself with clothes, for fear of being discovered on the road,
+being then coming up to London.
+
+A very short space after his return he committed that fact for which he
+died, which was by breaking open the house of Dorcas Roberts, widow, and
+stealing thence a great quantity of linen; and he was soon after
+apprehended in bed with one of the fine shirts upon his back and the
+rest of the linen stowed under the bed. When carried before the Justice,
+he said that one Martin brought the linen to him, and gave him two fine
+shirts to conceal it in his brandy-shop; but this pretence being thought
+impossible both by the magistrate who committed him, and by the jury who
+tried him, he was convicted for that offence, and being an old offender
+he had no hopes of mercy.
+
+He applied himself, therefore, with all the earnestness he was able, to
+prepare himself sufficiently for that change he was about to make. He
+said that an accident which happened about a year before gave him great
+apprehension, and for some time prevented his continuing in that wicked
+course of life. The accident he mentioned was this: being taken up for
+some trivial thing or other, and carried to St. Sepulchre's Watch-House,
+the constable was so kind as to dismiss him, but the bellman[38] of the
+parish happening to come in before he went out, the constable said,
+_Young man, be careful, I am much afraid this bellman will say his
+verses over you_; at which Gardiner was so much struck, he could scarce
+speak.
+
+Stephen had a very great notion of mortifying his body, as some
+atonement for the crimes he had committed. He therefore fasted some time
+while under sentence, and though the weather was very cold, yet he went
+to execution with no other covering on him but his shroud. At Tyburn he
+addressed himself to the people and begged they would not reflect upon
+his parents, who knew nothing of his crimes. Seeing several of his old
+companions in the crowd, he called out to them and desired them to take
+notice of his death and by amending their lives avoid following him
+thither. He died the 3rd of February, 1723-4.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [37] In 1720 a State Lottery was launched, with 100,000 tickets
+        of £10 each. The prizes were converted into 3 per cent. stock.
+        The issue was a failure and a loss of some £7,000 was incurred.
+
+   [38] A parishioner of St. Sepulchre's bequeathed a sum of money
+        for paying a bellman to visit condemned criminals in Newgate, on
+        the night before their execution, and having rung his bell, to
+        recite an admonitory verse and prayer. He was likewise to accost
+        the cart on its way to the gallows, the following day, and give
+        its inmates a similar admonition. The bell is still to be seen
+        in the church.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of SAMUEL OGDEN, JOHN PUGH, WILLIAM FROST, RICHARD WOODMAN,
+and WILLIAM ELISHA, Highwaymen, Footpads, Housebreakers, etc.
+
+
+Samuel Ogden was the son of a sailor in Southwark, who bred him to his
+own employment, in which he wrought honestly for many years until he
+fell very ill of dropsy, for the cure of which, being carried to St.
+Thomas's Hospital, he after his recovery applied himself to selling
+fish, instead of going again to sea. How he came to be engaged in the
+crimes he afterwards perpetrated we cannot well learn, and therefore
+shall not pretend to relate. However, he associated himself with a very
+numerous gang, such as Mills, Pugh, Blunt, Bishop, Gutteridge, and
+Matthews, who became the evidence against him. He positively averred
+that one of the robberies for which he was convicted, was the first he
+ever committed. He expressed the greatest horror and detestation for
+murder imaginable, protesting he was no ways guilty of that committed on
+Brixton Causeway.
+
+[Illustration: STEPHEN GARDINER MAKING HIS DYING SPEECH AT TYBURN
+
+This plate gives an excellent representation of an execution. The
+condemned man is in his shroud; the hangman is adjusting the knot, and
+at a signal the cart will drive away; nearby is the sheriff in his state
+carriage; and gazing on is a curious, morbid crowd of spectators.
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+At the time of his trial at Kingston he behaved himself very insolently
+and audaciously; but when sentence had been passed upon him, most of
+that unruly temper was lost, and he began to think seriously of
+preparing for another world. He confessed that his sins were many, and
+that judgment against him was just, meekly accepting his death as the
+due rewards of his deeds. He was the example of seriousness and
+penitence to the other twelve malefactors who suffered with him, being
+about thirty-seven years of age at the time of his decease.
+
+John Pugh, otherwise Blueskin, was born at Morpeth near
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father was a carrier in tolerable business and
+circumstance, who put him to be a servant in a silver-spinner's in
+Moorfields, where he soon learnt all sorts of wickedness, beginning with
+defrauding his master and doing any other little tricks of that kind, as
+opportunity would give him leave. We are told of him what perhaps can be
+hardly said of any other criminal who hath died in the same way for many
+years past, that though he was but twenty-two years of age, he had spent
+twelve of them in cheating, pilfering, and robbing. At last he fell into
+the gang that brought him to his death, for a robbery committed by
+several of them in the county of Surrey. Pugh, though so young a fellow,
+was so unaccountably stupid and wicked that though he made a large and
+particular confession of his guilt, yet it was done in such a manner as
+plainly showed his crimes made no just impression upon his heart; all he
+said, being in the language of the Kingston Ordinary, the sleepy
+apprehensions of unawakened ignorance, in which condition he continued
+to the last.
+
+William Frost, a cripple, was the son of a pin-maker in Christ Church
+parish, Southwark, and as to his education, my account says it was in
+hereditary ignorance. He had wrought, it seems, while a boy at his
+father's trade of pin-making, but since he was thirteen or fourteen had
+addicted himself to that preparative trade to the gallows,
+shoeblacking. While he continued in this most honourable profession,
+abundance of opportunities offered for robbing in the night season, and
+we must do him the justice to say that they were not offered in vain.
+Thus by degrees he came on to robbing on the road and in the streets
+until he was apprehended, and upon the evidence of his companion was
+convicted.
+
+The Sunday after this, he with the rest of the malefactors was brought
+to the parish church, which was the first time, as he declared, he had
+ever entered one, at least with an intention to hear and observe what
+was said. There he made a blundering sort of confession, and would
+perhaps have been more penitent if he had known well what penitence was;
+but he was a poor stupid, doltish wretch, scarce sensible even of the
+misfortune of being hanged. He was, however, very attentive in the cart
+to the prayer of those who were a little better instructed than himself,
+and finished a wretched life with an ignominious death at twenty-one
+years of age.
+
+Richard Woodman was born at Newington, in Surrey. He got his bread some
+years by selling milk about, but thinking labour too great a price for
+victuals, he addicted himself to getting an easier livelihood by
+thieving. In this course he soon got in with a gang who let him want no
+instructions that were necessary to bring him to the gallows. Amongst
+them the above-mentioned lame man was his principal tutor. The last
+robbery but one that they ever committed was upon a poor man who had
+laid out his money in the purchase of a shoulder of mutton to feast his
+family, but they disappointed him by taking it away, and with it a
+bundle of clothes and other necessaries, by which the unfortunate person
+who lost them, though their value was not much in themselves, lost all
+he had.
+
+His behaviour was pretty much of a piece with the rest of his
+companions, that is, he was so unaffected either with the shamefulness
+of his death or the danger of his soul that perhaps never any creatures
+went to death in a more odd manner than these did, whose behaviour
+cannot for all that be charged with any rudeness or want of decency. But
+religion and repentance were things so wholly new to them, and so
+unsuited to their comprehension, that there needed a much greater length
+of time than they had to have given them any true sense of their duty,
+to which it cannot be said they were so averse, as they were ignorant
+and incapable.
+
+William Elisha was another of these wretches, but he seemed to have had
+a better education than most of them, though he made as ill use of it as
+any. He was once an evidence at Croydon assizes, where he convicted two
+of his companions, but the sight of their execution, and the
+consciousness of having preserved his own life merely by taking theirs,
+did not in the least contribute to his amendment, for he was no sooner
+at liberty but he was engaged in new crimes, until at last with those
+malefactors before mentioned, and with eight others, he was executed at
+Kingston, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, April 4th, 1724.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS BURDEN, a Robber
+
+
+Thomas Burden was born in Dorsetshire, of parents in tolerable
+circumstances, who being persons getting their living by seamen, they
+bred up their son to that profession, and sent him very young to sea. It
+does not appear that he ever liked that employment, but rather that he
+was hurried into it when he was very young by the choice of his parents,
+and therefore in no condition to choose better for himself. He was up in
+the Straits several years, and while there in abundance of fights, at
+which time he had so much religion as to apply himself diligently to God
+in prayer for his protection, and made abundance of vows and resolutions
+of amendment, if it pleased the providence of God to preserve his life.
+But no sooner was the danger over, but all these promises were forgotten
+until the next time he was in jeopardy.
+
+At this rate he went on until the war was over, and notwithstanding the
+aversion he always had to a military kind of life, yet such was his
+unconquerable aversion to labour, that he rather enlisted himself in the
+land service than submit thereto. Going, however, one day to Hounslow to
+the house of one of the staff officers of his regiment, and not finding
+him at home, but only a corporal who had been left at the house to give
+answers, with this corporal he sat chatting and talking until night; so
+that being obliged to stay there until the next morning, a discourse
+somehow or other happened between him and the person who entertained
+him, about William Zouch, an old man who lived alone on the common. And
+Burden having been drinking, it came into his head, how easily he might
+rob such an old man. Upon which, he immediately went to his house, and
+finding him sitting on the bench at his door, he began to talk with and
+ask him questions. The old man answered him with great mildness, until
+at last Burden drew an iron instrument out of his cane, threatening him
+with death if he did not reveal where his money was. Zouch thereupon
+brought it him in a pint pot, being but one-and-thirty shillings. Then
+tying the old man in his chair, Burden left him. But it seems he did not
+tie him so fast but that he easily got loose, and alarming the town,
+Burden was quickly taken, having fled along the Common, which was open
+to the eye for a long way, instead of taking into the town or the woods,
+which if he had, in all probability he might have escaped. When
+Whittington and Greenbury apprehended him, he did not deny the fact, but
+on the contrary offered them money to let him go.
+
+After his conviction he manifested vast uneasiness at the thoughts of
+death, appearing wonderfully moved that he who had lived so long in the
+world with the reputation of an honest man, should now die with that of
+a thief, and in the manner of a dog. But as death grew nearer, and he
+saw there was no remedy, he began to be a little more penitent and
+resigned, especially when he was comforting himself with the hopes that
+his temporal punishment here might preserve him from feeling everlasting
+misery. With these thoughts having somewhat composed himself, he
+approached the place where he was to suffer, with tolerable temper and
+constancy, entreating the people who were there in very great numbers to
+pray for him, and begging that all by his example would learn to stifle
+the first motions of wickedness and sin, since such was the depravity of
+human nature that no man knew how soon he might fall. At the same place
+he delivered a paper in which he much extenuated the crime for which he
+suffered, and from whence he would feign have insinuated that it was a
+rash action committed when in drink, and which he should certainly have
+set right again when he was sober. In this frame of mind he suffered, on
+the 29th of April, 1724, being then about fifty years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of FREDERICK SCHMIDT, Alterer of Bank-Notes
+
+
+When persons sin out of ignorance there is great room for pity, and when
+persons suddenly become guilty of evil through a precipitate yielding to
+the violence of their passions there is still room for extenuation. But
+when people sin, not only against knowledge but deliberately, and
+without the incitement of any violent passion such as anger or lust,
+even as nothing can be said in alleviation, so there is little or no
+room left for compassion.
+
+Frederick Schmidt was a person born of a very honourable and wealthy
+family at Breslau, the capital of the Duchy of Silesia in the north-east
+of Germany. They educated this their son not only in such a manner as
+might qualify him for the occupation they designed him, of a merchant,
+but also gave him a most learned and liberal knowledge, such as suited a
+person of the highest rank. He lived, however, at Breslau as a merchant
+for many years, and at the request of his friends, when very young, he
+married a lady of considerable fortune, but upon some disgust at her
+behaviour they parted, and had not lived together for many years before
+his death.
+
+He carried on a very considerable correspondence to Hamburg, Amsterdam
+and other places, and above a year before had been over in England to
+transact some affairs, and thought it, it seems, so easy a matter to
+live here by his wits, that he returned hither with the Baron Vanloden
+and the Countess Vanloden. It is very hard to say what these people
+really were, some people taking Schmidt for the baron's servant, but he
+himself affirmed, and indeed it seems most likely, that they were
+companions, and that both of them exerted their utmost skill in
+defrauding others to maintain her.
+
+The method they took here for that purpose was by altering bank-notes,
+which they did so dexterously as absolutely to prevent all suspicion.
+They succeeded in paying away two of them, but the fraud being
+discovered by the cheque-book at the bank, Schmidt was apprehended and
+brought to a trial. There it was sworn that being in possession of a
+bank-note of £25 he had turned it into one of £85, and with the Baron
+Vanloden tendered it to one Monsieur Mallorey, who gave him goods for
+it, and another note of £20. It was deposed by the Baron Vanloden and
+Eleanora Sophia, Countess Vanloden, that Schmidt took the last mentioned
+note of £20 upstairs, and soon after brought it down again, the word
+"twenty" being taken out; upon which they drew it through a plate of
+gummed water, and then smoothing it between several papers with a box
+iron, the words "one hundred" were written in its place. Then he gave it
+to the Baron and the interpreter to go out with it and buy plate, which
+they did to the amount of £40. It appeared also, by the same witnesses,
+that Schmidt had owned to the Baron that he could write twenty hands,
+and that if he had but three or four hundred pounds, he could swell them
+to fifty thousand. It was proved also by his own confession that he had
+written over to his correspondent in Holland, to know whether English
+bank-notes went currently there or not. Upon which he was found guilty
+by a party-jury, that singular favour permitted to foreigners by the
+equitable leniency of the Law of England. Yet after this he could hardly
+be persuaded that his life was in any danger; nay, when he came into the
+condemned hold, he told the unhappy persons there, in as good English as
+he could speak, that he should not be hanged with them.
+
+For the first two or three days, therefore, that he was under sentence,
+he refused to look so much as on a book, or to say a prayer, employing
+that time with unwearied diligence in writing a multitude of letters to
+merchants, foreign ministers, and German men of quality and such like,
+still holding fast his old opinion that his life was not in the least
+danger; and when a Lutheran minister was so kind as to visit him, he
+would hardly condescend to speak with him. But when he had received a
+letter from him who had all along buoyed him up with hopes of safety, in
+which he informed him that all those hopes were vain, he then began to
+apply himself with a real concern to the Lutheran minister whom he had
+before almost rejected, but did not appear terrified or much affrighted
+thereat. However, quickly after, he fell into a fit of sickness and
+became so very weak as not to be able to stand. He confessed, however,
+to the foreign divine who attended him that he was really guilty of that
+crime for which he was to die, though it did not appear that he
+conceived it to be capital at the time he did it, nor, indeed, was he
+easily convinced it was so, until within a few days of his execution.
+
+There had prevailed a report about the town that he had done something
+of the like nature at Paris, for which he had been obliged to fly, but
+he absolutely denied that, and seemed to think the story derived its
+birth from the Baron, who, he said, was an apothecary's son, and from
+his acquaintance with his father's trade, knew the secret of expunging
+waters. He added, that his airs of innocence were very unjust, he having
+been guilty of abundance of such tricks, and the Countess of many more
+than he. Thus, as is very common in such cases, these unhappy people
+blackened one another. But the Baron and the Countess had the advantage,
+since by their testimony poor Schmidt was despatched out of the way, and
+'tis probable their credit at the time of his execution, was not in any
+great danger of being hurt by his character of them.
+
+When he came to Tyburn, being attended in the cart by the Lutheran
+minister whom I have so often mentioned, he was forced to be held up,
+being so weak as not to be able to stand alone. He joined with the
+prayers at first, but could not carry on his attention to the end,
+looking about him, and staring at the other prisoners, with a curiosity
+that perhaps was never observed in any other prisoner in his condition
+what-so ever; neither his looks not his behaviour seemed to express so
+much terror as was struck into others by the sight of his condition. So
+after recommending to the minister by letter, to inform his aged mother
+in Germany of his unhappy fate, he requested the executioner to put him
+to death as easily as he could. He then submitted to his fate on the 4th
+of April, 1724, being in the forty-fifth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of PETER CURTIS, a Housebreaker, etc.
+
+
+Peter Curtis, _alias_ Friend, was born of honest but industrious parents
+in the country, at a very great distance from London. Finding a method
+to get him put apprentice to a ship's carpenter, they were very much
+pleased therewith, hoping that they had settled him in a trade in which
+he might live well, and much beyond anything they could have expected to
+have done for him.
+
+But Peter himself was of a very different opinion, for from the hour he
+came to it he greatly disliked his profession, and though he went to sea
+with his master once or twice, yet he failed not to take hold of the
+first opportunity to set himself at liberty by running away from him.
+From that time he devoted himself to live a life of pleasure, having
+contracted an obstinate aversion to business and to everything which
+looked like labour; though, as be acknowledged, the hand of Providence
+hindered him from accomplishing his wish, making this life that he chose
+a greater burden and hardship to him than that which he had
+relinquished.
+
+He found means to get into gentlemen's service, and lived in them with
+tolerable reputation and credit for the space of several years. At last
+he was resolved to go to sea again, but he had so unconquerable an
+aversion to his own trade that he chose rather going in the capacity of
+a trumpeter, having learnt how to play on that instrument at one of his
+services. He sailed on board the _Salisbury_, in that expedition Sir
+George Byng made to the Straits of Messina, when he attacked and
+destroyed the Spanish Fleet.[39] There Peter had the good luck to escape
+without any hurt, though there were many killed and wounded on board
+that ship. He afterwards served in a regiment of dragoons, where by
+prudent management he saved no less than fourscore pounds. With this he
+certainly had it in his power to have put himself in some way of doing
+well, but he omitted it, and falling into the company of a lewd woman,
+she persuaded him to take lodgings with her, and they lived together for
+some space as man and wife.
+
+During this time he made a shift to be bound for one of his companions,
+for a very considerable sum, which the other had the honesty to leave
+him to pay. The creditor, upon information that Curtis was packing up
+his awls[40] to go to sea, resolved to secure him for his debt. But not
+being able to catch him upon a writ, he made up a felonious charge
+against him, and having thereupon got him committed to the Poultry
+Compter, as soon as the Justice had discharged him, he got him taken for
+the debt, and recommitted to the same place. Here he was soon reduced to
+a very melancholy condition, having neither necessaries of life not any
+prospect of a release. The wretched company with which such prisons are
+always full, corrupted him as to his honesty, and taught him first to
+think of making himself rich by taking away the properties of others.
+
+When he came out of prison, upon an agreement with his creditor, he soon
+got into service with Mr. Fluellen Aspley, a very eminent chinaman by
+Stocks Market.[41] When he was there, the bad woman with whom he still
+conversed, was continually dunning his ears with how easy a matter it
+was for him to make himself and her rich and easy by pilfering from his
+master, telling him that she and her friends in the country would help
+him off with a thousand pounds worth of china, if need were, and baiting
+him continually, not to lose such an opportunity of enriching them. The
+fellow himself was averse to such practices, and nothing but her
+continual teasing could have induced him ever to have entertained a
+design of so base a nature.
+
+At last he condescended so far as to enquire how it might be done with
+safety. _For that_, replied the woman, _trust to my management. I'll put
+you in a way to bring off the most valuable things in the house, and yet
+get a good character, and be trusted and valued by the family for having
+robbed them._ At that Curtis stared, and said, if she'd but put him to
+such a road he did not know but he might comply with her request. She
+thereupon opened her scheme to him this: _Here's my son, you shall lift
+him into the house, and after you have given him plate and what you
+think proper and my boy, who is a very dexterous lad, is got off with
+them, you have nothing to do but to put an end of a candle under the
+Indian cabinet in the counting-house, and leave things to themselves.
+The neighbourhood will soon be alarmed by the fire, and if you are
+apparently honest in what you take away publicly, there will be no
+suspicion upon you for what went before, which will be either thought to
+be destroyed in the fire, or to be taken away by some other means._
+
+This appeared so shocking a project to Curtis that he absolutely refused
+to comply with the burning, though with much ado he was brought to
+stealing a large quantity of plate, which he brought to this woman, but
+in attempting to sell it she was stopped, and the robbery discovered.
+However, there being no direct evidence at first against Curtis, he was
+released from his confinement on suspicion, even by the intercession of
+Mr. Aspley himself. But a little time discovering the mistake, and that
+he was really the principal in the robbery, he was thereupon again
+apprehended, and at the next sessions tried and convicted.
+
+While he lay under sentence of death, he behaved himself as if he had
+totally resigned all thoughts of the world, or of continuing in it,
+praying with great fervency and devotion, making full and large
+confession, and doing every other act which might induce men to believe
+that he was a real penitent, and sincerely sorry and affected for the
+crime he had committed.
+
+But it seems that this was all put on, for the true source of his
+easiness and resignation was the assurance he had in himself of escaping
+death either by pardon, or by an escape; for which purpose, he and those
+who were under sentence with him had provided all necessaries, loosened
+their irons and intended to have effected it at the expense of the lives
+of their keepers. But their design being discovered the Saturday before
+their deaths, and Curtis perceiving that his hopes of pardon were
+ill-founded, began to apply himself to repenting in earnest. Yet there
+was very little time left for so great a work, especially considering
+that nothing but the necessity of the thing inclined him thereto, and
+that he had spent that respite allowed him by the clemency of the Law to
+prepare for death in contriving to fly from justice at the expense of
+the blood of others. How he performed this it is impossible for us to
+know, and must be left to be decided by the Great Judge to whom the
+secrets of all hearts are open. However, at his death he appeared
+tolerably composed and cheerful, and turning to the people said, _You
+see, they who contrived to burn the house and the people in it escaped,
+but I, who never consented to any such thing, die as you see._ Some
+discourse there was of his having buried a portmanteau and about
+fourteen hundred pounds; he was spoke to about it, and did not deny he
+had it. He said he hid it upon Finchley Common and that by the arms,
+which was the Spread Eagle, he took to be an ambassador's. As to the
+diamond ring he had been seen to wear, he did not affirm he came very
+honestly by it, but would not give any direct answer concerning it, and
+seemed uneasy that he should have such questions put to him at the very
+point of death. He suffered the 15th of June, 1724, about thirty years
+of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [39] See note, page 49.
+
+   [40] An old-fashioned play on the words "awl" and "all," and
+        means, of course, packing up all his possessions.
+
+   [41] A busy market for fish and vegetables, which occupied the
+        site on which the present Mansion House stands. The market was
+        moved, in 1737, to Farringdon Street.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of LUMLEY DAVIS, a Highwayman
+
+
+Such is the frailty of human nature that neither the best examples nor
+the most liberal education can warrant an honest life, or secure to the
+most careful parents the certainty of their children not becoming a
+disgrace to them, either in their lives or by their deaths.
+
+This malefactor, of whom the course of our memoirs now obliges us to
+make mention, was the son of a man of the same name, viz., Lumley Davis,
+who was, it seems, in circumstances good enough to procure his sons
+being brought up in one of the greatest and best schools in England.
+There his proficiency procured him an election upon the establishment,
+and he became respected as a person whose parts would do honour even to
+that remarkable seminary of learning where he had been bred. But
+unaccountably growing fond, all on a sudden, of going to some trade or
+employment and absolutely refusing to continue any longer at his
+studies, his friends were obliged to comply with the ardency of his
+request and accordingly put him apprentice to an eminent vintner at the
+One Tun Tavern, in the Strand.
+
+He continued there but a little while before he was as much dissatisfied
+with that as he had been with learning, so that leaving his master, and
+leading an unsettled kind of life, he fell into great debts, being
+unable to satisfy which, when demanded, he was arrested and thrown into
+the Marshalsea. There for some time he continued in a very deplorable
+condition, till by the charitable assistance of a friend, his debt was
+paid and the fees of the prison discharged. After this he went into the
+Mint,[42] where drinking accidentally at one of the tap-houses in that
+infamous place, and being very much out of humour with the low and
+profligate company he was obliged to converse with there, he took notice
+of a very genteel man, who sat at the table by himself. He inquired of
+some persons with whom he was drinking, who that man was. They answered
+that they could not tell themselves; he was lately come over for shelter
+amongst them; he was a gentleman, as folks said, of much learning, and
+though he never conversed with anybody, yet was kind enough to afford
+them his assistance, either with his pen, or by his advice when they
+asked it. On this character Davis was very industrious to become his
+acquaintance, and Harman, which was the other man's name, not having
+been able to meet with anybody there with whom he could converse, he
+very readily embraced the society of Davis; with whom comparing notes,
+and finding their case to be pretty much the same, they often condoled
+one another's misfortunes and as often projected between themselves how
+to gain some supply without depending continually upon the charity of
+their friends.
+
+In the meantime, Davis was so unfortunate as to fall ill of a
+languishing distemper, which brought him so low as to oblige him to
+apply for relief to that friend who had discharged him out of the
+Marshalsea. He was so good as to get him into St. Thomas's Hospital, and
+to supply him while there with whatever was necessary for his support.
+When he was so far recovered as to be able to go abroad, this kind and
+good friend provided for him a country habitation, where he might be
+able to live in privacy and comfort and indulge himself in those
+inclinations which he began again to show towards learning.
+
+Some time after he had been there, not being able to support longer that
+quiet kind of life which before he did so earnestly desire,
+notwithstanding the entreaties of his friends, he came up to London
+again, where falling into idle company, he became addicted to the vices
+of drinking and following bad women, things which before he had both
+detested and avoided. Not long after this, he again found out Mr.
+Harman, and renewed his acquaintance with him. He enquired into his past
+adventures and how he had supported himself since they last had been
+together, and on perceiving that they were far from being on the mending
+hand with him, the fatal proposal was at last made of going upon the
+road, and there robbing such persons as might seem best able to spare
+it, and at the same time furnish them with the largest booty.
+
+The first person they attacked was one John Nichols, Esq., from whom
+they took a guinea and seventeen shillings, with which they determined
+to make themselves easy a little, and not go that week again upon any
+such hazardous exploits. But alas, their resolutions had little success,
+for that very evening they were both apprehended and on full evidence at
+the next sessions were convicted and received sentence of death, within
+a very short time after they had committed the crime.
+
+Davis all along flattered himself with the hopes of a pardon or a
+reprieve and therefore was not perhaps so serious as he ought, and as he
+otherwise would have been. Not that those hopes made him either
+licentious or turbulent, but rather disturbed his meditations and
+hindered his getting over the terrors which death always brings to the
+unprepared. But when, on his name being in the death warrant, he found
+there was no longer any hopes, he then, indeed, applied himself without
+losing a moment to the great concern of saving his soul, now there was
+no hopes of preserving his body.
+
+However, neither his education nor all the assistance he could receive
+from those divines that visited him, could bring him to bear the
+approach of death with any tolerable patience. Even at the place of
+execution, he endeavoured as much as he could to linger away the time,
+spoke to the Ordinary to spin out the prayers, and to the executioner to
+forbear doing his office as long as it was possible. However, he spoke
+with great kindness and affection to his companion, Mr. Harman, shook
+hands with those who were his companions in death, and at last submitted
+to his fate, being then about twenty-three years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [42] The Southwark Mint was a sanctuary for insolvent debtors
+        and a nest of infamy in general. It stood over against St.
+        George's church.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES HARMAN, Highwayman
+
+
+James Harman was the son of a merchant in the City of London, who took
+care to furnish his son with such an education as enabled him, when
+about fourteen years of age, to be removed to the University. His
+behaviour there was like that of too many others, spent in diversities
+instead of study, and in a progression of vice, instead of improving in
+learning. After having been there about three years, and having run into
+such debts as he saw no probability of discharging, he was forced to
+leave it abruptly; and his father, much grieved at this behaviour,
+bought him an ensign's commission in the army, where he continued in
+Jones's Regiment till it was disbanded. Then, indeed, being forced to
+live as he could, and the assistance of friends, though large, yet no
+ways suited to his expenses, he became so plunged in debt and other
+misfortunes that he was in necessity of going over to the Mint, where
+reflecting on his own follies, he became very reserved and melancholy.
+He would probably have quite altered his course of life if opportunity
+had offered, or if he had not fallen in that company which by a
+similarity of manner induced him to fall into the commission of such
+crimes as would not probably have otherwise entered his head.
+
+The fact which he and the before-mentioned Davis committed, was their
+first and last attempt, but Mr. Harman, all the time he lay under
+sentence (without suffering himself to be amused by expectations of
+success from those endeavours which he knew his friends used to save his
+life,) accustomed himself to the thoughts of death, performing all the
+duties requisite from a person of his condition for atoning the evils
+of a misspent life, and making his peace with that Being from whom he
+had received so great a capacity of doing well, and which he had so much
+abused.
+
+Having spent the whole time of his confinement after this manner, he did
+not appear in any degree shocked or confounded when his name being to
+the death warrant left him no room to doubt of what must be his fate. At
+the place of execution he appeared not only perfectly easy and serene,
+but with an air of satisfaction that could arise only from the peace he
+enjoyed within. Being asked if he had anything to say to the people, he
+rose up, and turning towards them said, _I hope you will all make that
+use of my being exposed to you as a spectacle which the Law intends, and
+by the sight of my death avoid such acts as may bring you hither, with
+the same Justice that they do me._
+
+He suffered about the twenty-fifth year of his age, the 28th of August,
+1724, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN LEWIS, _alias_ LAURENCE, a Thief, Highwayman, etc.
+
+
+One great cause of that degeneracy we observe amongst the lower part of
+the human species arises from a mistake which has generally prevailed in
+the education of young people throughout all ages. Parents are sometimes
+exceedingly assiduous that their children should read well and write a
+good hand, but they are seldom solicitous about their making a due use
+of their reason, and hardly ever enquire into the opinions which, while
+children, they entertain of happiness or misery, and the paths which
+lead to either of them. This is the true and natural intent of all
+education whatsoever, which can never tend to anything but teaching
+persons how to live easily and seducing their affections to the bounds
+prescribed them by the law of God and their country.
+
+John Lewis, _alias_ Laurence, had doubtless parents who bred him
+somewhere, though the papers I have do not afford me light enough to say
+where. This indeed, I find, that he was bred apprentice to a butcher,
+took up his freedom in the City, and worked for a considerable space as
+a journeyman. For his honesty we have no vouchers for any part of that
+time, for in his apprenticeship he fell into the use of profligate
+company, who taught him all those vices which were destructive to his
+future life. He grew fond of everything which looked like lewdness and
+debauchery, drank hard, was continually idling about; above all,
+strumpets the most abandoned, both in their manner and discourse, were
+the very ultimate end of his wishes, insomuch that he would often say he
+had nothing to answer for in debauching modest women, for they were a
+set of creatures he could never so much as endure to converse with.
+
+His usual method of living with his mistresses was this: as soon as the
+impudence and lewdness of a woman had made her infamous, even amongst
+the hackney coachmen, pickpockets, footpads and such others of his
+polite acquaintance, then Lewis thought her a fit person for his turn,
+and used to live with her for the space of perhaps a month; then growing
+tired of her, he went to look for another.
+
+This practice of his grew at last so well known that he found it a
+little difficult to get women who would take up with him upon his terms;
+but there was one Moll Davis, who for her dexterity in picking of
+pockets amongst those of her own tribe went by the name of Diver, who
+was so great a scandal to her sex that the most abandoned of that low
+crew with whom he conversed, hated and despised her. With her Lewis went
+to live after his usual manner, and was very fond of her after his way,
+for about a fortnight; at the end of which he grew fractious, and in
+about nine weeks' time more he beat her. Moll wept and took on at a sad
+rate for his unkindness and told him that if would but promise
+faithfully never to live with any other woman, she should fairly present
+him with a brace of hundred pounds, which she had lodged in the hands of
+an uncle who knew nothing of her way of life, but lived reputably at
+such a place.
+
+This was the right way of touching Lewis's temper. He began to put on as
+many good looks as his face was capable of wearing, and made use of as
+many kind expressions as he could remember out of the _Academy of
+Compliments_, until the day came that she was to meet her uncle at
+Smithfield Market. They then went very lovingly together to an inn upon
+the paven stones, where Moll asked very readily at the bar if Mr.
+Tompkins (which was the name of her uncle) was there. The woman of the
+house made her a low curtsy and said he was only stepped over the way to
+be shaved, and she would call him. She went accordingly and brought the
+grave old man, who as soon as he came into the room said, _Well, Mary,
+is this thy husband? Yes, sir_, answered she, _this is the person I have
+promised to bring you._ Upon which the old man thrust out his hand and
+said, _Come, friend, as you have married my niece, you and I must be
+better acquainted._ Lewis scraped him a good bow as he could, and giving
+his hand in return, the old fellow laid hold on him somewhat above the
+wrist, stamped with his right foot, and then closing with him got him
+down.
+
+In the meanwhile, half a dozen fellows broke into the room and one of
+them seizing him by the arms another pulled out a small twine, and bound
+him; then shoving him downstairs, they had no sooner got into
+Smithfield, then the mob cried out, _Here's the rogue! Here's the dog
+that held a penknife to the old grazier's throat, while a woman and
+another man robbed him._ It seems the story was true of Moll, who by
+thus taking and then swearing it upon Lewis, who had never so much as
+heard of it, escaped with impunity, and besides that got five guineas
+for her pains from the brother of the old man, who upon this occasion
+played the part of her uncle. If the grazier had been a hasty, rash man,
+Lewis had certainly hanged for the fact, but looking hard upon him at
+his trial, he told the Court he was sure that Lewis was not the man, for
+though his eyes were not very good, he could easily distinguish his
+voice, and added that the man who robbed him was taller than himself,
+whereas Lewis was much shorter. By which means he had the good luck to
+come off, though not without lying two sessions in Newgate.
+
+As soon as be came abroad be threatened Moll Davis hard for what she had
+done, and swore as soon as he could find her to cut her ears off; but
+she made light of that, and dared him to come and look for her at the
+brandy-shop where she frequented. Lewis hearing that resolved to go
+thither and beat her, and knowing the usual time of her coming thither
+to be about eleven o'clock at night, he chose that time to come also.
+But Moll, the day before, had made one of her crew who had turned
+evidence, put him into his information, and the constables and their
+assistants being ready planted, they seized him directly and carried him
+to his old lodgings in Newgate.
+
+He was acquitted upon this next sessions, there being no evidence
+against him but the informer, but the Court ordered him to find security
+for his good behaviour. That proved two months' work, so that in all it
+was a quarter of a year before he got out of Newgate for the second
+time. Then, hearing Davis had picked a gentleman's pockets of a
+considerable sum, and kept out of the way upon it, he resolved to be
+even with her for the trouble she had cost him, and for that purpose
+hunted through all her old places of resort, in order to find out how to
+have her apprehended. Moll hearing of it, got her sister, who followed
+the same trade with herself, to waylay him at the brandy-shop in Fleet
+Street. There Susan was very sweet upon him, and being as impudent as
+her sister, Lewis resolved to take up with her, at least for a night;
+but she pretended reasons why he could not go home with her, and he
+complaining that he did not know where to get a lodging, she gave him
+half a crown and a large silver medal, which she said would pawn for
+five shillings, and appointed to meet him the next night at the same
+place. In the morning Lewis goes with the silver piece to a pawnbroker
+at Houndsditch; the broker said he would take it into the next room and
+weigh it, and about ten minutes after returned with a constable and two
+assistants, the medal having been advertised in the papers as taken with
+eleven guineas in a green purse out of a gentleman's pocket, and was the
+very robbery for which Moll Davis kept out of the way.
+
+When he got over this, he went down into the country, and having been so
+often in prison for naught, he resolved to merit it now for something.
+So on the Gravesend Road he went upon the highway, and having been, as I
+told you, bred up a butcher, the weapon he made use of to rob with was
+his knife. The first robbery he attempted was upon an old officer who
+was retired into that part of the country to live quiet. Lewis bolted
+out upon him from behind the corner of a hedge, and clapping a sharp
+pointed knife to his breast, with a volley of oaths commanded him to
+deliver. This was new language to the gentleman to whom it was offered,
+yet seeing how great an advantage the villain had of him, he thought it
+the most prudent method to comply, and gave him therefore a few
+shillings which were in his coat-pocket. Lewis very highly resented
+this, and told him he did not use him like a gentleman; that he would
+search him himself. In order to do this, clapping his knife into his
+mouth as he used to do when preparing a sheep for the shambles, he fell
+to ransacking the gentleman's pockets. He had hardly got his hand into
+one of them, but the gentleman snatched the knife out of his mouth and
+in the wrench almost broke his jaw. Lewis hereupon took to his heels,
+but the country being raised upon him, he was apprehended just as he was
+going to take water at Gravesend. But his pride in refusing the
+gentleman's silver happened very luckily for him here, for on his trial
+at the next assizes, the indictment being laid for a robbery, the jury
+acquitted him and he was once more put into a road of doing well, which
+according to his usual method he made lead towards the gallows.
+
+The first week he was out, he broke open a house in Ratcliff Highway,
+from whence he took but a small quantity of things, and those of small
+value, because there happened to be nothing better in the way. In a few
+days after this, he snatched off a woman's pocket in the open street,
+for which fact being immediately apprehended, he was at the next
+sessions at the Old Bailey, tried and convicted, but by the favour of
+the Court ordered for transportation.
+
+A woman whom at this time he called his wife, happened to be under the
+like sentence at the same time. They went therefore together, and were
+each of them such turbulent dispositions that the captain of the
+transport thought fit to promise them their liberty in a most solemn
+manner, as soon as they came on shore in Carolina, provided they would
+be but quiet. To this they agreed, and they kept their words so well,
+that the captain performed his promise and released them at their
+arrival in South Carolina, upon which they made no long stay there, but
+found a method to come back in the same ship. Upon arrival in England
+they were actually married, but they did not live long together, Lewis
+finding that she conversed with other men, and being in fear, lest in
+hopes of favour, she should discover his return from transportation, and
+by convicting him save herself.
+
+Upon these apprehensions, he thought fit to go again to sea, in a ship
+bound for the Straits; but falling violently sick at Genoa, they left
+him there. And though he might afterwards have gone to his vessel, his
+old thought and wishes returned and he took the advantage of the first
+ship to return to England. Here he found many of his old acquaintances,
+carrying on the business of plunder in every shape. He joined with them,
+and in their company broke open with much difficulty an alehouse in Fore
+Street, at the sign of the King of Hearts, where they took a dozen of
+tankards, which they apprehended to be of silver; but finding upon
+examination they were no better than pewter well scoured, they judged
+there would be more danger in selling them than they were worth.
+Therefore having first melted them, they threw them away; but being a
+little fearful of robbing in company, he took to his old method of
+robbing by himself in the streets. But the first attempt he made to do
+this was in the old Artillery Ground,[43] where he snatched a woman's
+pocket; and she crying out raised the neighbourhood. They pursued him,
+and after wounding two or three persons desperately, he was taken and
+committed to his old mansions in Newgate, and being tried at the next
+sessions was found guilty and from that time could not enjoy the least
+hopes of life. But he continued still very obdurate, being so hardened
+by a continual series of villainous actions that he seemed to have no
+idea whatsoever of religion, penitence or atoning by prayers, for the
+numerous villainies he had committed.
+
+At the place of execution he said nothing to the people, only that he
+was sorry he had not stayed in Carolina, because if he had, he should
+never have come to be hanged, and so finished his life in the same
+stupid manner in which he had lived. He was near forty years of age at
+the time he suffered, which was on the 27th of June, 1720.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [43] This was the exercising ground of the Train Bands and the
+        Honourable Artillery Company. It was on the west side of
+        Finsbury Square.
+
+
+
+
+The History of the WALTHAM BLACKS and their transactions to the death of
+RICHARD PARVIN, EDWARD ELLIOT, ROBERT KINGSHELL, HENRY MARSHALL, JOHN
+PINK and EDWARD PINK, and JAMES ANSELL _alias_ PHILLIPS, at Tyburn,
+whose lives are also included
+
+
+Such is the unaccountable folly which reigns in too great a part of the
+human species, that by their own ill-deeds, they make such laws
+necessary for the security of men's persons and properties, as by their
+severity, unless necessity compelled them, would appear cruel and
+inhuman, and doubtless those laws which we esteem barbarous in other
+nations, and even some which appear so though anciently practised in our
+own, had their rise from the same cause.
+
+I am led to this observation from the folly which certain persons were
+guilty of in making small insurrections for the sake only of getting a
+few deer, and going on, because they found the leniency of the laws
+could not punish them at present, until they grew to that height as to
+ride in armed troops, blacked and disguised, in order the more to
+terrify those whom they assaulted, and wherever they were denied what
+they thought proper to demand, whether venison, wine, money, or other
+necessaries for their debauched feasts, would by letter threaten plunder
+and destroying with fire and sword, whomever they thought proper.
+
+These villainies being carried on with a high hand for some time in the
+years 1722 and 1723, their insolence grew at last so intolerable as to
+oblige the Legislature to make a new law against all who thus went armed
+and disguised, and associated themselves together by the name of Blacks,
+or entered into any other confederacies to support and assist one
+another in doing injuries and violences to the persons and properties of
+the king's subjects.
+
+By this law it was enacted that after the first day of June, 1723,
+whatever persons armed with offensive weapons, and having their faces
+blacked, or otherwise disguised, should appear in any forest, park or
+grounds enclosed with any wall or fence, wherein deer were kept, or any
+warren where hares or conies are kept, or in any highway, heath or down,
+or unlawfully hunt, kill or steal any red or fallow deer, or rob any
+warren, or steal fish of any pond, or kill or wound cattle, or set fire
+to any house or outhouses, stack, etc., or cut down or any otherway
+destroy trees planted for shelter or profit, or shall maliciously shoot
+at any person, or send a letter demanding money or other valuable
+things, shall rescue any person in custody of any officer for any such
+offences, or by gifts or promise, procure any one to join with them,
+shall be deemed guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and shall
+suffer pains of death as felons so convicted.
+
+Nor was even this thought sufficient to remedy those evils, which the
+idle follies of some rash persons had brought about, but a retrospect
+was also by the same Act had to offences heretofore committed, and all
+persons who had committed any crimes punishable by this Act, after the
+second of February, 1722, were commanded to render themselves before the
+24th of July, 1723, to some Justice of his Majesty's Court of King's
+Bench, or to some Justice of the Peace for the county where they lived,
+and there make a full and exact confession of the crimes of such a
+nature which they had committed, the times when, and the places where,
+and persons with whom, together with an account of such persons' places
+of abode as had with them been guilty as aforesaid, in order to their
+being thereupon apprehended, and brought to judgment according to Law,
+on pain of being deemed felons, without benefit of clergy, and suffering
+accordingly; but were entitled to a free pardon and forgiveness in case
+that before the 24th of July they surrendered and made such discovery.
+
+Justices of Peace by the said Act were required on any information being
+made before them by one or more credible persons, against any person
+charged with any of the offences aforesaid, to transmit it under their
+hands and seals to one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State,
+who by the same Act is required to lay such information and return
+before his Majesty in Council; whereupon an order is to issue for the
+person so charged to surrender within forty days. And in case he refuse
+or neglect to surrender within that time, then from the day in which the
+forty days elapsed, he is to be deemed as a felon convict, and execution
+may be awarded as attainted of felony by a verdict.
+
+Every person who, after the time appointed for the surrender of the
+person, shall conceal, aid or succour him, knowing the circumstances in
+which he then stands, shall suffer death as a felon, without benefit of
+clergy, and that people might the more readily hazard their persons for
+the apprehending such offenders, it is likewise enacted that if any
+person shall be wounded so as to lose an eye, or the use of any limb in
+endeavouring to take persons charged with the commission of crimes
+within this law, then on a certificate from the Justices of the Peace
+of his being so wounded, the sheriff of the county, if commanded within
+thirty days after the sight of such certificate, to pay the said wounded
+persons £50 under pain of forfeiting £10 on failure thereof, and in case
+any person should be killed in seizing such persons as aforesaid, then
+the said £50 is to be paid to the executors of the person to be killed.
+
+It cannot seem strange that in consequence of so extraordinary an act of
+legislature, many of these presumptious and silly people should be
+apprehended, and a considerable number of them having upon their
+apprehension been committed to Winchester gaol, seven of them were by
+_Habeas Corpus_, removed for the greater solemnity of their trial to
+Newgate, and for their offence brought up and arraigned at the King's
+Bench Bar, Westminster. There being convicted on full evidence, all of
+them of felony, and three of murder, I shall inform ye, one by one, of
+what has come to my hand in relation to their crimes, and the manner and
+circumstances with which they were committed.
+
+Richard Parvin was master of a public-house at Portsmouth, a man of dull
+and dogmatic disposition, who continually denied his having been in any
+manner concerned with these people, though the evidence against him at
+his trial was as full and as direct as possibly could have been
+expected, and he himself evidently proved to have been on the spot where
+the violences committed by the other prisoners were transacted. In
+answer to this, he said that he was not with them, though indeed he was
+upon the forest, for which he gave this reason. He had, he said, a very
+handsome young wench who lived with him, and for that reason being
+admired by many of his customers, she took it in her head one day to run
+away. He hearing that she had fled across the forest, pursued her, and
+in that pursuit calling at the house of Mr. Parford, who keeps an
+alehouse in the forest, this man being an evidence against the other
+Blacks, took him it seems into the number, though as he said, he could
+fully have cleared himself if he had had any money to have sent for some
+witnesses out of Berkshire. But the mayor of Portsmouth seizing, as soon
+as he was apprehended, all his goods, put his family into great distress
+and whether he could have found them or not, hindered his being able to
+produce any witnesses at his trial.
+
+He persevered in these professions of his innocency to the very last,
+still hoping for a reprieve, and not only feeding himself with such
+expectations while in prison, but also gazed earnestly when at the tree,
+in hopes that pardon would be brought him, until the cart drew away and
+extinguished life and the desire of life together.
+
+Edward Elliot, a boy of about seventeen years of age, whose father was a
+tailor at a village between Petworth and Guildford, was the next who
+received sentence of death with Parvin. The account he gave of his
+coming into this society has something very odd in it, and which gives a
+fuller idea of the strange whims which possessed these people. The boy
+said that about a year before his being apprehended, thirty or forty men
+met him in the county of Surrey and hurried him away. He who appeared to
+be the chief of them told him that he enlisted him in the service of the
+King of the Blacks, in pursuance of which he was to disguise his face,
+obey orders of whatsoever kind they were, such as breaking down fish
+ponds, burning woods, shooting deer, taking also an oath to be true to
+them, or they by their art magic would turn him into a beast, and as
+such make him carry their burdens, and live like a horse upon grass and
+water.
+
+He said, also, that in the space of time he continued with them, he saw
+several experiments of their witchcraft, for that once when two men had
+offended them by refusing to comply in taking their oath and obeying
+their orders, they caused them immediately to be blindfolded and
+stopping them in holes of the earth up to their chin, ran at them as if
+they had been dogs, bellowing and barking as it were in their ears; and
+when they had plagued them awhile in this ridiculous manner they took
+them out, and bid them remember how they offended any of the Black
+Nation again, for if they did, they should not escape so well as they
+had at present. He had seen them also, he said, oblige carters to drive
+a good way out of the road, and carry whatsoever venison or other thing
+they had plundered to the places where they would have them; that the
+men were generally so frightened with their usage and so terrified with
+the oaths they were obliged to swear, that they seldom complained, or
+even spoke of their bondage.
+
+As to the fact for which they died, Elliot gave this account: that in
+the morning when that fact was committed for which he died, Marshall,
+Kingshell and four others came to him and persuaded him to go to Farnham
+Holt, and that he need not fear disobliging any gentlemen in the
+country, some of whom were very kind to this Elliot. They persuaded him
+that certain persons of fortune were concerned with them and would bear
+him harmless if he would go. He owned that at last he consented to go
+with them, but trembled all the way, insomuch that he could hardly reach
+the Holt. While they were engaged in the business for which they came,
+viz., killing the deer, the keepers came upon them. Elliot was wandered
+a considerable way from his companions after a fawn which he intended
+to send as a present to a young woman at Guildford; him therefore they
+quickly seized and bound, and leaving him in that condition, went in
+search of the rest of his associates. It was not long before they came
+up with them. The keepers were six, the Blacks were seven in number, so
+they fell to it warmly with quarter-staffs. The keepers unwilling to
+have lives taken, advised them to retire, but upon their refusing, and
+Marshall's firing a gun, by which one of the keepers belonging to the
+Lady How was slain, they discharged a blunderbuss and shattered the
+thigh of one Barber, amongst the Blacks. Upon this three of his
+associates ran away, and the two others, Marshall and Kingshell were
+likewise taken, and so the fray for the present ended.
+
+Elliot lay bound all the while within hearing, and in the greatest
+agonies imaginable, at the consideration that whatever blood was spilt
+he should be as much answerable for it as these who shed it; in which he
+was not mistaken, for the keepers returning after the fight was over,
+carried him away bound and he never had his fetters off after, till the
+morning of his execution. He behaved himself very soberly, quietly and
+with much seeming penitence and contrition. He owned the justice of the
+Law in punishing him, and said he more especially deserved to suffer,
+since at the time of the committing this fact, he was servant to a widow
+lady, where he wanted nothing to make him happy or easy.
+
+Robert Kingshell was twenty-six years old, and lived in the same house
+with his parents, being apprentice to his brother a shoemaker. His
+parents were very watchful over his behaviour and sought by every method
+to prevent his taking to ill courses, or being guilty of any debauchery
+whatever. The night before this unhappy accident fell out, as he and the
+rest of the family were sleeping in their beds, Barber made a signal at
+his chamber window, it being then about eleven o'clock. Upon this
+Kingshell arose and got softly out of the window; Barber took him upon
+his horse, and away they went to the Holt, twelve miles distant, calling
+in their way upon Henry Marshall, Elliot and the rest of their
+accomplices. He said it was eight o'clock in the morning before the
+keepers attacked them, he owned they bid them retire, and that he
+himself told them they would, provided the bound man (Elliot) was
+released and delivered into their hands, but that proposition being
+refused, the fight at once grew warm. Barber's thigh was broken, and
+Marshall killed the keeper with a shot; being thereupon very hard
+pressed, three of their companions ran away, leaving him and Marshall to
+fight it out. Elliot being already taken, and Barber disabled, it was
+not long before they were in the same unhappy condition with their
+companions. From the time of their being apprehended, Kingshell laid
+aside all hopes of life, and applied himself with great fervency and
+devotion to enable him in what alone remained for him to do, viz., dying
+decently.
+
+Henry Marshall, about thirty-six years of age, the unfortunate person by
+whose hand the murder was committed, seemed to be the least sensible of
+any of the evils he had done, although such was the pleasure of Almighty
+God that till the day before his execution, he neither had his senses,
+nor the use of his speech. When he recovered it, and a clergyman
+represented to him the horrid crime of which he had been guilty, he was
+so far from showing any deep sense of that crime of shedding innocent
+blood, that he made light of it, said he might stand upon his own
+defence, and was not bound to run away and leave his companions in
+danger. This was the language he talked for the space of twenty-four
+hours before his death, in which he enjoyed the use of speech; and so
+far was he from thanking those who charitably offered him their
+admonitions, that he said he had not forgot himself, but had already
+taken care of what he thought necessary for his soul. However, he did
+not attempt in the least to prevaricate, but fairly acknowledged that he
+committed the fact for which he died, though nothing could oblige him to
+speak of it in any manner as if he was sorry for or repented of it,
+farther than for having occasioned his own misfortunes; so strong is the
+prejudice which vulgar minds acquire by often repeating to themselves
+and in company certain positions, however ridiculous and false. And
+sure, nothing could be more so than for a man to fancy he had a right to
+imbrue his hands in the blood of another, who was in the execution of
+his office, and endeavouring to hinder the commission of an illegal act.
+
+These of whom I have last spoken were all concerned together in the
+before-mentioned fact, which was attended with murder; but we are now to
+speak of the rest who were concerned in the felony only, for which they
+with the above-mentioned Parvin suffered. Of these were two brothers,
+whose names were John and Edward Pink, carters in Portsmouth, and always
+accounted honest and industrious fellows before this accident happened.
+They did not, however, deny their being guilty, but on the contrary
+ingenuously confessed the truth of what was sworn, and mentioned some
+other circumstances that had been produced at the trial which attended
+their committing it. They said they met Parvin's housekeeper upon that
+road, that they forced her to cut the throat of a deer which they had
+just taken upon Bear Forest, gave her a dagger which they forced her to
+wear, and to ride cross-legged with pistols before her.
+
+In this dress they brought her to Parvin's house upon the forest, where
+they dined upon a haunch of venison, feasted merrily and after dinner
+sent out two of their companions to kill more deer, not in the King's
+Forest, but in Waltham Chase, belonging to the Bishop of Winchester. One
+of these two persons they called their king, and the other they called
+Lyon. Neither of these brothers objected anything, either to the truth
+of the evidence given against them, or the justice of that sentence
+which had passed upon them, only one insinuating that the evidence would
+not have been so strong against him and Ansell, if it had not been for
+running away with the witness's wife, which so provoked him that they
+were sure they should not escape when he was admitted a witness.
+
+These like the rest were hard to be persuaded that the things they had
+committed were any crimes in the eyes of God. They said deer were wild
+beasts, and they did not see why the poor had not as good a right to
+them as the rich. However, as the Law condemned them to suffer, they
+were bound to submit, and in consequence of that notion, behaved
+themselves very orderly, decently and quietly, while under sentence.
+
+James Ansell, _alias_ Stephen Philips, the seventh and last of these
+unhappy persons, was a man addicted to a worse and more profligate life
+than any of the rest had ever been; for he had held no settled
+employment, but had been a loose disorderly person, concerned in all
+sorts of wickedness for many years, both at Portsmouth, Guildford, and
+other country towns, as well as at London. Deer were not the only things
+that he had dealt in; stealing and robbing on the highway had been
+formerly his employment, and in becoming a Black, he did not as the
+others ascend in wickedness, but came down on the contrary, a step
+lower. Yet this criminal as his offences were greater, so his sense of
+them was much stronger than in any of the rest, excepting Kingshell, for
+he gave over all manner of hopes of life and all concerns about it as
+soon as he was taken.
+
+Yet even he had no notion of making discoveries, unless they might be
+beneficial to himself, and though he owned the knowledge of twenty
+persons who were notorious offenders in the same kind, he absolutely
+refused to name them, since such naming would not procure himself a
+pardon; talking to him of the duty of doing justice was beating the air.
+He said, he thought there was no justice in taking away other people's
+lives, unless it was to save his own, yet no sooner was he taxed about
+his own going on the highway than he confessed it, said he knew very
+well bills would have been preferred against him at Guildford assizes,
+in case he had got off at the King's Bench, but that he did not greatly
+value them. Though formerly he had been guilty of some facts in that
+way, yet they could not all now be proved, and he should have found it
+no difficult matter to have demonstrated his innocence of those then
+charged upon him, of which he was not really guilty, but owed his being
+thought so to the profligate course of life he had for some time led,
+and his aversion to all honest employments.
+
+Bold as the whole gang of these fellows appeared, yet with what
+sickness, what with the apprehension of death, they were so terrified
+that not one of them but Ansell, _alias_ Philips, was able to stand up,
+or speak at the place of execution, many who saw them affirming that
+some of them were dead even before they were turned off.
+
+As an appendix to the melancholy history of these seven miserable and
+unhappy persons, I will add a letter written at that time by a gentleman
+of the county of Essex, to his friend in London, containing a more
+particular account of the transactions of these people, than I have seen
+anywhere else. Wherefore, without any further preface, I shall leave it
+to speak for itself.
+
+    A letter to Mr. C. D. in London.
+
+    Dear Sir,
+
+    Amongst the odd accidents which you know have happened to me in the
+    course of a very unsettled life, I don't know any which hath been
+    more extraordinary or surprising than one I met with in going down
+    to my own house when I left you last in town. You cannot but have
+    heard of the Waltham Blacks, as they are called, a set of whimsical
+    merry fellows, that are so mad to run the greatest hazards for the
+    sake of a haunch of venison, and passing a jolly evening together.
+
+    For my part, though the stories told of these people had reached my
+    ears, yet I confess I took most of them for fables, and I thought
+    that if there was truth in any of them it was much exaggerated. But
+    experience (the mistress of fools) has taught me the contrary, by
+    the adventure I am going to relate to you, which though it ended
+    well enough at last, I confess at first put me a good deal out of
+    humour. To begin, then; my horse got a stone in his foot, and
+    therewith went so lame just as I entered the forest, that I really
+    thought his shoulder slipped. Finding it however impossible to get
+    him along, I was even glad to take up at a little blind alehouse
+    which I perceived had a yard and a stable behind it.
+
+    The man of the house received me very civilly, but when he
+    perceived my horse was so lame as scarce to be able to stir a step,
+    I observed he grew uneasy. I asked him whether I could lodge there
+    that night, he told me no, he had no room, I desired him, then, to
+    put something to my horse's foot, and let me sit up all night; for I
+    was resolved not to spoil a horse which cost me twenty guineas by
+    riding him in such a condition in which he was at present. The man
+    made me no answer, and I proposed the same questions to the wife.
+    She dealt more roughly and freely with me, and told me that truly I
+    neither could, nor should stay there, and was for hurrying her
+    husband to get my horse out. However, on putting a crown into her
+    hand and promising another for my lodging, she began to consider a
+    little; and at last told me that there was indeed a little bed above
+    stairs, on which she should order a clean pair of sheets to be put,
+    for she was persuaded I was more of a gentleman than to take any
+    notice of what I saw passed there.
+
+    This made me more uneasy than I was before. I concluded now I was
+    got amongst a den of highwaymen, and expected nothing less than to
+    be robbed and my throat cut. However, finding there was no remedy, I
+    even set myself down and endeavoured to be as easy as I could. By
+    this time it was very dark, and I heard three or four horsemen
+    alight and lead their horses into the yard. As the men returned and
+    were coming into the room where I was, I overheard my landlord say,
+    _Indeed, brother, you need not be uneasy, I am positive the
+    gentleman's a man of honour_, to which I heard another voice reply,
+    _What could our death do to any stranger? Faith, I don't apprehend
+    half the danger you do. I dare say the gentleman would be glad of
+    our company, and we should be pleased with his. Come, hang fear,
+    I'll lead the way._ So said, so done, in they came, five of them,
+    all disguised so effectually that I declare, unless it were in the
+    same disguise, I should not be able to distinguish any one of them.
+
+    Down they sat, and he who I suppose was constituted their captain
+    _pro hac vice_, accosted me with great civility, and asked me if I
+    would honour them with my company to supper. I acknowledge I did not
+    yet guess the profession of my new acquaintances, but supposing my
+    landlord would be cautious of suffering either a robbery or a murder
+    in his own house, I know not how, but by degrees my mind grew
+    perfectly easy. About ten o'clock I heard a very great noise of
+    horses, and soon after men's feet tramping in a room over my head.
+    Then my landlord came down and informed us supper was just ready to
+    go upon the table.
+
+    Upon this we were all desired to walk up, and he whom I before
+    called the captain, presented me, with a humorous kind of ceremony,
+    to a man more dignified than the rest who sat at the end of the
+    table, telling me at the same time, he hoped I would not refuse to
+    pay my respects to Prince Oroonoko, King of the Blacks. It then
+    immediately struck into my head who those worthy persons were, into
+    whose company I was thus accidentally fallen. I called myself a
+    thousand blockheads for not finding out before, but the hurry of
+    things, or to speak the truth, the fear I was in, prevented my
+    judging even from the most evident signs.
+
+    As soon as our awkward ceremony was over, supper was brought in; it
+    consisted of eighteen dishes of venison in every shape, roasted,
+    boiled with broth, hashed collops, pasties, umble pies, and a large
+    haunch in the middle, larded. I easily saw that of three ordinary
+    rooms of which the first floor of the house consisted, ours (by
+    taking down the partitions) was very large, and the company in all
+    twenty-one persons. At each of our elbows there was set a bottle of
+    claret, and the man and woman of the house sat down at the lower
+    end. Two or three of the fellows had good natural voices, and so the
+    evening was spent as merrily as the rakes pass theirs in the King's
+    Arms, or the City apprentices with their master's maids at Sadler's
+    Wells. About two the company seemed inclined to break up, having
+    first assured me that they should take my company as a favour any
+    Thursday evening, if I came that way.
+
+    I confess I did not sleep all night with reflecting on what had
+    passed, and could not resolve with myself whether these humorous
+    gentlemen in masquerade were to be ranked under the denomination of
+    knight-errants, or plain robbers. This I must tell you, by the by,
+    that with respect both to honesty and hardship, their life resembles
+    much that of the hussars, since drinking is all their delight, and
+    plundering their employment.
+
+    Before I conclude my epistle, it is fit I should inform you that
+    they did me the honour (with a design perhaps to have received me
+    into their order) of acquainting me with those rules by which their
+    society was governed.
+
+    In the first place their Black Prince assured me that their
+    government was perfectly monarchial, and that when upon expeditions
+    he had an absolute command; _but in the time of peace_, continued
+    he, _and at the table, government being no longer necessary, I
+    condescend to eat and drink familiarly with my subjects as friends.
+    We admit no man_, continued he, _into our society until he has been
+    twice drunk with us, that we may be perfectly acquainted with his
+    temper, in compliance with the old proverb--women, children and
+    drunken folks speak truth. But if the person who sues to be
+    admitted, declares solemnly he was never drunk in his life, and it
+    plainly appears to the society in such case, this rule is dispensed
+    with, and the person before admission is only bound to converse with
+    us a month. As soon as we have determined to admit him, he is then
+    to equip himself with a good mare or gelding, a brace of pistols,
+    and a gun of the size of this, to lie on the saddle bow. Then he is
+    sworn upon the horns over the chimney, and having a new name
+    conferred by the society, is thereby entered upon the roll, and from
+    that day forward, considered as a lawful member._
+
+    He went on with abundance more of their wise institutions, which I
+    think are not of consequence enough to tell you, and shall only
+    remark one thing more, which is the phrase they make use of in
+    speaking of one another, viz., _He is a very honest fellow and one
+    of us._ For you must know it is the first article in their creed
+    that there's no sin in deer-stealing.
+
+    In the morning, having given my landlady the other crown piece, I
+    found her temper so much altered for the better, that in my
+    conscience I believe she was not in the humour to have refused me
+    anything, no, not even the last favour; and so walking down the yard
+    and finding my horse in pretty tolerable order, I speeded directly
+    home, much in amaze at the new people I had discovered. You see I
+    have taken a great deal of pains in my letter; pray, in return, let
+    me have as long a one from you, and let me see if all your London
+    rambles can produce such another adventure.
+
+    I am, yours, etc.
+
+Before I leave these people, I think it proper to acquaint my readers
+that their folly was not to be extinguished by a single execution. There
+were a great many young fellows of the same stamp, who were fools enough
+to forfeit their lives upon the same occasion. However, the humour did
+not run very long, though some of them were impudent enough to murder a
+keeper or two afterwards. Yet in the space of a twelvemonth, the whole
+nation of Blacks was extinguished, and these country rakes were
+contented to play the fool upon easier terms. The last blood that was
+shed on either side was that of a keeper's son at Old Windsor, whom some
+of these wise people fired at as he looked out of the window, by which
+means they drew on their own ruin and that of several numerous families
+by which the country was put in such terror that we have heard nothing
+of them since, though this Act of Parliament[44] as I shall tell you,
+has been by construction extended to some other criminals, who were not
+strictly speaking of the same kind as the Waltham Blacks.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [44] The Black Act (9 Geo. I, cap. 2) was repealed so late as 1827.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JULIAN, a Black Boy and Incendiary
+
+
+From speaking of artificial blacks, I come now to relate the unhappy
+death of one who was naturally of that colour. This poor creature's
+Julian. At the time of his execution he seemed to be about sixteen years
+of age, he had been stolen while young from his parents at Madras. He
+still retained his pagan ignorance both in respect to religion and our
+language.
+
+He was brought over by one Captain Dawes, who presented him to Mrs.
+Elizabeth Turner, where he was used with the greatest tenderness and
+kindness, she often calling him to dance and sing after his manner
+before company; and he himself acknowledged that he had never been so
+happy in his life as he was there. Yet, on a sudden, he stole about
+twenty or thirty guineas, and then placing a candle under the sheets
+left it burning to fire the house, and consume the inhabitants in it. Of
+this, upon proof and his own confession made before Sir Francis Forbes
+and Mr. Turner, he was convicted.
+
+While he remained under sentence, he was often heard to mumble in
+reproach and revengeful terms to himself. However, before his death he
+learned the Lord's Prayer, and when it was demanded whether he would be
+a Christian, he assented with great joy, which arose, it seems, from his
+having heard the common foolish opinion that when christened Blacks are
+to be set free. However, christened he was, and received at his baptism
+the name of John.
+
+The place in which he was confined being very damp, the boy having
+nothing to lie on but a coat, caught so great a cold in his limbs that
+he almost lost the use of them before his death, and continued in a
+state of great pain and weakness; insomuch that when he was told he
+must prepare for his execution, he determined with himself to forestall
+it, and for that purpose desired one of the prisoners to lend him a
+penknife, but the man, it seems, had more grace than to grant his
+request, and he ended his life at Tyburn, according to his sentence.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ABRAHAM DEVAL, a Lottery Ticket Forger
+
+
+Abraham Deval, who had been a clerk to the Lottery Office, at last took
+it into his head to coin tickets for himself, and had such good luck
+therein that he at one time counterfeited a certificate for £52 12s.
+0d., for seven blank lottery tickets, in the year 1723. Two or three
+other facts of the same nature he perpetrated with the like success, but
+happening to counterfeit two blank tickets of the lottery in the year in
+which he died, they were discovered, and he thereupon apprehended and
+tried at the Old Bailey. On the first indictment, for want of evidence
+he was acquitted, upon which he behaved himself with great insolence,
+lolled out his tongue at the Court, and told them he did not value the
+second indictment. But herein he happened to be mistaken, for the jury
+found him guilty of that indictment and thereupon he received sentence
+of death accordingly.
+
+Notwithstanding that impudence with which he had treated the Court at
+his trial, he complained very loudly of their not showing him favour;
+nay, he even pretended that he had not justice done him. This he
+grounded upon the score that the ticket he was indicted for was No. 39,
+in the 651st course of payment. Now it seems that in searching of his
+brother-in-law Parson's room, the original ticket was found, though very
+much torn, from whence Deval would have had it taken to be no more than
+a duplicate, and much blamed his counsel for not insisting long enough
+upon this point, which if he had done, Deval entertained a strong
+opinion that he could not have been convicted.
+
+The apprehension of this and the uneasiness he was under with his irons
+made him pass his last moments with great unquietness and discontent. He
+said it was against the law to put men in irons, that fettering English
+subjects (except they attempted to break prisons) was altogether
+illegal. But after having raved at this rate for a small space, when he
+found it did him no good, and that there were no hopes of a reprieve, he
+even began to settle himself to the performance of those duties which
+became a man in his sad condition and when he did apply himself
+thereto, nobody could appear to have a juster sense than he of that
+miserable and sad condition into which the folly and wickedness of his
+life had brought him.
+
+It is certain the man did not want parts, though sometimes he applied
+them to the worst of purposes, and was cursed with an insolent and
+overbearing temper which hindered him from being loved or respected
+anywhere, and which never did him any service but in the last moments of
+his life, where if it had not been for the severity of his behaviour,
+Julian, the black boy, would have been very troublesome, both to him and
+to the other person who was under sentence at the same time.
+
+At the place of execution Deval owned the fact, but wished the
+spectators to consider whether for all that he was legally convicted,
+and so suffered in the thirtieth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH BLAKE, _alias_ BLUESKIN, a Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+As there is impudence and wickedness enough in the lives of most
+malefactors to make persons of a sober education and behaviour wonder at
+the depravity of human nature, so there are sometimes superlative rogues
+who, in the infamous boldness of their behaviour, as far exceed the
+ordinary class of rogues as they do honest people; and whenever such a
+monster as this appears in the world, there are enough fools to gape at
+him, and to make such a noise and outcry about his conduct as is sure to
+invite others of the gang to imitate the obstinacy of his deportment,
+through that false love of fame, which seems inherent to human nature.
+Amongst the number of these, Joseph Blake, better known by his nickname
+of Blueskin, always deserves to be remembered as one who thought
+wickedness the greatest achievement, and studiously took the paths of
+infamy in order to become famous.
+
+By birth he was a native of this City of London. His parents being
+persons in tolerable circumstances kept him six years at school, where
+he did not learn half as much good from his master as he did evil from
+his schoolfellow, William Blewitt, from whose lessons he copied so well
+that all his education signified nothing. When he came from school he
+absolutely refused to go to any employment, but on the contrary set up
+for a robber when he was scarce seventeen, but from that time to the day
+of his death was unsuccessful in all his undertakings, hardly ever
+committing the most trivial fact but he experienced for it, either the
+humanity of the mob, or of the keepers of Bridewell, out of which or
+some other prison, he could hardly keep his feet for a month together.
+
+He fell into the gang of Lock, Wilkinson, Carrick[45] Lincoln and Daniel
+Carroll, which last having so often been mentioned, perhaps my readers
+may be desirous to know what became of him. I shall therefore inform
+them that after Carrick and Molony were executed for robbing Mr. Young,
+as has been before related, he fled home to his own native country of
+Ireland, where for a while making a great figure till he had exhausted
+what little wealth he had brought over with him from England, he was
+obliged to go again upon the old method to supply him. But
+street-robbing being a very new thing at Dublin, it so alarmed that city
+that they never ceased pursuing him, and one or two more who joined with
+him, till catching them one night at their employment, they pursued
+Carrol so closely that he was obliged to come to a close engagement with
+a thief-taker, so he was killed upon the spot.
+
+But to return to Blake, _alias_ Blueskin. Being one night out with his
+gang, they robbed one Mr. Clark of eight shillings and a silver hilted
+sword, just as candles were going to be lighted, and a woman looking
+accidentally out of a window, perceived it, and cried out, _Thieves._
+Wilkinson fired a pistol at her which, very luckily, upon her drawing in
+her head, grazed upon the stone of the window, and did no other
+mischief. Blake was also in the company of the same gang when they
+attacked Captain Langley, at the corner of Hyde Park Road, as he was
+going to the Camp[46]; but the Captain behaved himself so well that
+notwithstanding they shot several times through and through his coat,
+yet they were not able to rob him.
+
+Not long after this Wilkinson being apprehended impeached a large number
+of persons, and with them Joseph Blake and William Lock. Blake hereupon
+made a fuller discovery than the other before Justice Blackerby; in
+which information there was contained no less than seventy robberies,
+upon which he also was admitted a witness. And having named Wilkinson,
+Lincoln, Carrick, Carrol, and himself to have been the five persons who
+murdered Peter Martin the Chelsea pensioner, by the Park wall, Wilkinson
+was apprehended, tried and convicted, notwithstanding the information he
+had before given (which was thereby totally set aside); so that Blake
+himself became now an evidence against the rest of his companions, and
+discovered about a dozen robberies which they had committed.
+
+Amongst these there was one very remarkable one. Two gentlemen in
+hunting caps were together in a chariot on the Hampstead Road, and they
+took from them two gold watches, rings, seals and other things to a
+considerable value. Junks, _alias_ Levee, laid his pistol down by the
+gentleman all the while he searched him, yet he wanted either the
+courage or the presence of mind to seize and prevent their losing things
+of so great value. Not long after this, Oakey, Junks and this Blake,
+stopped a single man with a link before him in Fig Lane; and he not
+surrendering so easily as they expected, Junks and Oakey beat him over
+the head with their pistols, and then left him wounded in a terrible
+condition, taking from him one guinea and one penny. A very short time
+after this, Junks, Oakey and Flood were apprehended and executed for
+robbing Colonel Cope and Mr. Young of that very watch for which Carrick
+and Molony had been before executed, Joseph Blake being the evidence
+against them.
+
+After this hanging work of his companions, he thought himself not only
+entitled to liberty but reward. Herein, however, he was mightily
+mistaken, for not having surrendered willingly and quietly, but being
+taken after long resistance and when he was much wounded, there did not
+seem to be the least foundation for this confident demand, he still
+remaining a prisoner in the Wood Street Compter, obstinately refusing to
+be transported for seven years, but insisting that as he had given
+evidence he ought to have his liberty. However, the magistrates were of
+another opinion, until at last by procuring two men to be bound for his
+good behaviour, he was carried before a wealthy alderman of the City and
+there discharged. At which time, somebody there present asking how long
+time might be given him before they should see him again at the Old
+Bailey, a gentleman made answer in about three sessions, in which time
+it seems he guessed very right, for the third session from thence, Blake
+was indeed brought to the Bar.
+
+For no sooner were his feet at liberty but his hands were employed in
+robbing, and having picked up Jack Shepherd for a companion, they went
+out together to search for prey in the fields. Near the half-way house
+to Hampstead they met with one Pargiter, a man pretty much in liquor,
+whom immediately Blake knocked down into the ditch, where he must have
+inevitably perished if John Shepherd had not kept his head above the mud
+with great difficulty. For this fact, the next sessions after it
+happened the two brothers Brightwell in the Guards were tried, and if a
+number of men had not sworn them to have been upon duty at the time the
+robbery was committed, they had certainly been convicted, the evidence
+of the prosecutor being direct and full. Through the grief of this the
+elder Brightwell died a week after he was released from his confinement,
+and so did not live to see his innocence fully cleared by the confession
+of Blake.
+
+A very short space after this, Blake and his companion Shepherd
+committed the burglary together in the house of Mr. Kneebone, where
+Shepherd getting into the house, let in Blake at the back door and
+stripped the house of a considerable value. For this, both Shepherd and
+he were apprehended, and the sessions before Blake was convicted his
+companion received sentence of death; but at the time Blake was taken
+up, he had made his escape out of the condemned hold.
+
+He behaved with great impudence at his trial, and when he found nothing
+would save him, he took the advantage of Jonathan Wild coming to speak
+with him, to cut the said Wild's throat, making a large gash from the
+ear beyond the windpipe.[47] Of this wound Wild languished a long time,
+and happy had it been for him if Blake's wound had proved fatal, for
+then Jonathan had escaped death by a more dishonourable wound in the
+throat than that of a penknife; but the number of his crimes and the
+spleen of his enemies procured him a worse fate. Whatever Wild might
+deserve of others, he seems to have merited better usage from this
+Blake, for while he continued a prisoner in the Compter, Jonathan was at
+the expense of curing his wound, allowing him three shillings and
+sixpence a week, and after his last misfortune promised him a good
+coffin, actually furnishing him with money to support him in Newgate,
+and several good books, if he would have made any use of them; but
+because he freely declared to Blueskin that there was no hopes of
+getting him transported, the bloody villain determined to take away his
+life, and was so far from showing any signs of remorse when he was
+brought up again to Newgate, that he declared if he had thought of it
+before, he would have provided such a knife as should have cut his head
+off.
+
+At the time that he received sentence there was a woman also condemned,
+and they being placed as usual in what is called the Bail Dock at the
+Old Bailey, Blake offered such rudeness to the woman that she cried out
+and alarmed the whole Bench. All the time he lay under condemnation he
+appeared utterly thoughtless and insensible of his approaching fate.
+Though from the cutting of Wild's throat, and some other barbarities of
+the same nature, he acquired amongst the mob the character of a brave
+fellow, yet he was in himself but a mean-spirited timorous wretch, and
+never exerted himself but either through fury and despair. His cowardice
+appealed manifestly in his behaviour at his death; he wept much at the
+chapel in the morning he was to die, and though he drank deeply to drive
+away fear, yet at the place of execution he wept again, trembled and
+showed all the signs of a timorous confusion, as well he might, who had
+lived wickedly and trifled with his repentance to the grave.
+
+There was nothing in his person extraordinary. A dapper, well-set fellow
+of great strength, and great cruelty, equally detested by the sober part
+of the world for his audacious wickedness of his behaviour, and despised
+by his companions for the villainies he committed even against them. He
+was executed in the twenty-eighth year of his age, on the 11th of
+November, 1724.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [45] See page 85.
+
+   [46] An encampment was formed in Hyde Park, about 1714. Writing
+        to Martha Blount, Pope says "The tents are carried there this
+        morning, new regiments with new clothes and furniture, far
+        exceeding the late cloth and linen designed by his Grace (the
+        Duke of Marlborough) for the soldiery."
+
+   [47] See also the Life of Jonathan Wild, subsequently related.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of the Famous JOHN SHEPHERD, Footpad, Housebreaker and
+Prison-breaker
+
+
+Amongst the prodigies of ingenious wickedness and artful mischief which
+have surprised the world in our time, perhaps none has made so great a
+noise as John Shepherd, the malefactor of whom we are now to speak. His
+father's name was Thomas Shepherd, who was by trade a carpenter, and
+lived in Spitalfields, a man of an extraordinary good character, and who
+took all the care his narrow circumstances would allow, that his family
+might be brought up in the fear of God, and in just notions of their
+duty towards their neighbour. Yet he was so unhappy in his children that
+both his son John and another took to evil courses, and both in their
+turns have been convicted at the bar at the Old Bailey.
+
+After the father's death, his widow did all she could to get this
+unfortunate son of hers admitted into Christ's Hospital, but failing of
+that, she got him bred up at a school in Bishopsgate Street, where he
+learned to read. He might in all probability have got a good education
+if he had not been too soon removed, being put out to a trade, viz.,
+that of a cane-chair-maker, who used him very well, and with whom
+probably he might have lived honestly. But his mother dying a short time
+afterwards, he was put to another, a much younger man, who used him so
+harshly that in a little time he ran away from him, and was put to
+another master, one Mr. Wood in Wych Street. From his kindness and that
+of Mr. Kneebone (whom he robbed) he was taught to write and had many
+other favours done by that gentleman whom he so ungratefully treated.
+But good usage or bad, it was grown all alike to him now; he had given
+himself up to all the sensual pleasures of low life. Drinking all day,
+and getting to some impudent and notorious strumpet at night, was the
+whole course of his life for a considerable space, without the least
+reflection on what a miserable fate it might bring upon him here, much
+less the judgment that might be passed upon him hereafter.
+
+Amongst the chief of his mistresses there was one Elizabeth Lion,
+commonly called Edgeworth Bess, the impudence of whose behaviour was
+shocking even to the greatest part of Shepherd's companions, but it
+charmed him so much that he suffered her for a while to direct him in
+every thing, and she was the first who engaged him in taking base
+methods to obtain money wherewith to purchase baser pleasures. This Lion
+was a large masculine woman, and Shepherd a very little slight-limbed
+lad, so that whenever he had been drinking and came to her quarrelsome,
+Bess often beat him into better temper, though Shepherd upon other
+occasions manifested his wanting neither courage nor strength. Repeated
+quarrels, however, between Shepherd and his mistress, as it does often
+with people of better rank, created such coldness that they spoke not
+together sometimes for a month. But our robber could not be so long
+without some fair one to take up his time, and drive his thoughts from
+the consideration of his crimes and the punishment which might one day
+befall them.
+
+The creature he picked out to supply the place of Betty Lion was one
+Mrs. Maggott, a woman somewhat less boisterous in her temper, but full
+as wicked. She had a very great contempt for Shepherd, and only made use
+of him to go and steal money, or what might yield money, for her to
+spend in company that she liked better. One night when Shepherd came to
+her and told her he had pawned the last thing he had for half a crown,
+_Prithee_, says she, _don't tell me such melancholy stories but think
+how you may get more money. I have been in Whitehorse Yard this
+afternoon. There's a piece-broker there worth a great deal of money; he
+keeps his cash in a drawer under the counter, and there's abundance of
+good things in his shop that would be fit for me to wear. A word, you
+know, to the wise is enough, let me see now how soon you'll put me in
+possession of them._ This had the effect she desired; Shepherd left her
+about one o'clock in the morning, went to the house she talked of, took
+up the cellar window bars, and from thence entered the shop, which he
+plundered of money and goods, to the amount of £22. He brought it to his
+doxy the same day before she was stirring, who thereupon appeared very
+satisfied with his diligence, and helped him in a short time to squander
+what he had so dearly earned.
+
+However, he still retained some affection for his old favourite, Bess
+Lion, who being taken up for some of her tricks, was committed to St.
+Giles's Round-house. Shepherd going to see her there, broke the doors
+open, beat the keeper, and like a true knight-errant, set his distressed
+paramour at liberty. This heroic act got him so much reputation amongst
+the fair ladies in Drury Lane that there was nobody of his profession so
+much esteemed by them as John Shepherd, with his brother Thomas, who had
+taken to the same trade. Observing and being in himself in tolerable
+estimation with that debauched part of the sex, he importuned some of
+them to speak to his brother John to lend him a little money, and for
+the future to allow him to go out robbing with him. To both these
+propositions Jack (being a kind brother as he himself said) consented at
+the first word, and from thence forward the two brothers were always of
+one party: Jack having, as he impudently phrased it, lent him forty
+shillings to put himself in a proper plight, and soon after their being
+together having broke open an alehouse, where they got a tolerable
+booty, in a high fit of generosity, John presented it all to his
+brother, as, soon after, he did clothes to a very considerable extent,
+so that the young man might not appear among the damsels of Drury
+unbecoming Mr. Shepherd's brother.
+
+About three weeks after their coming together, they broke open a
+linen-draper's shop, near Clare Market, where the brothers made good use
+of their time; for they were not in the house above a quarter of an hour
+before they made a shift to strip it of £50. But the younger brother
+acting imprudently in disposing of some of the goods, he was detected
+and apprehended, upon which the first thing he did was to make a full
+discovery to impeach his brother and as many of his confederates as he
+could. Jack was very quickly apprehended upon his brother's information,
+and was committed by Justice Parry to the Round-house, for further
+examination. But instead of waiting for that, Jack began to examine as
+well as he could the strength of the place of his confinement, which
+being much too weak for a fellow of his capacity, he marched off before
+night, and committed a robbery into the bargain, but vowed to be
+revenged on Tom who had so basely behaved himself (as Jack phrased it)
+towards so good a brother. However, that information going off, Jack
+went on in his old way as usual.
+
+One day in May he and F. Benson being in Leicester Fields, Benson
+attempted to get a gentleman's watch, but missing his pull, the
+gentleman perceived it and raised a mob. Shepherd passing briskly to
+save his companion, was apprehended in his stead, and being carried
+before Justice Walters, was committed to New Prison, where the first
+sight he saw was his old companion, Bess Lion, who had found her way
+thither upon a like errand. Jack, who now saw himself beset with danger,
+began to exert all his little cunning, which was indeed his masterpiece.
+For this purpose he applied first to Benson's friends, who were in good
+circumstances, hoping by their mediation to make the matter up, but in
+this he miscarried. Then he attempted a slight information, but the
+Justice to whom he sent it, perceiving how trivial a thing it was, and
+guessing well at the drift thereof, refused it. Whereupon Shepherd, when
+driven to his last shift, communicated his resolution to Bess Lion. They
+laid their heads together the fore part of the night, and then went to
+work to break out, which they effected by force, and got safe off to one
+of Bess Lion's old lodgings, where she kept him secret for some time,
+frightening him with stories of great searches being made after him, in
+order to detain him from conversing with any other woman.
+
+But Jack being not naturally timorous, and having a strong inclination
+to be out again in his old way with his companions, it was not long
+before he gave her the slip, and lodged himself with another of his
+female acquaintances, in a little by-court near the Strand. Here one
+Charles Grace desired to become an associate with him. Jack was very
+ready to take any young fellow in as a partner of his villainies, and
+Grace told him that his reason for doing such things was to keep a
+beautiful woman without the knowledge of his relations. Shepherd and he
+therefore getting into the acquaintance of one Anthony Lamb, an
+apprentice of Mr. Carter, near St. Clement's Church, they inveigled the
+young man to consent to let them in to rob his master's house. He
+accordingly performed it, and they took from Mr. Barton, who lodged
+there, to a very considerable value. But Grace and Shepherd quarrelling
+about the division, Shepherd wounded Grace in a violent manner, and on
+this quarrel betraying one another, they were all taken, Shepherd only
+escaping. But the misfortune of poor Lamb who had been drawn in, being
+so very young, so far prevailed upon several gentlemen who knew him,
+that they not only prevailed to have his sentence mitigated to
+transportation, but also furnished him with all necessaries, and
+procured an order that on his arrival there he should not be sold as the
+other felons were, but that he should be left at liberty to provide for
+himself as well as he could.
+
+It seems that Shepherd's gang (which consisted of himself, his brother
+Tom, Joseph Blake, _alias_ Blueskin, Charles Grace, James Sikes, to
+whose name his companions tacked their two favourite syllables, Hell and
+Fury) not knowing how to dispose of the goods they had taken, made use
+of one William Field for that purpose, who Shepherd in his ludicrous
+style, used to characterise thus: that he was a fellow wicked enough to
+do anything, but his want of courage permitted him to do nothing but
+carry on the trade he did, which was that of selling stolen goods when
+put into his hands.
+
+But Blake and Shepherd finding Field somewhat dilatory, not thinking it
+always safe to trust him, they resolved to hire a warehouse and lodge
+their goods there, which accordingly they did, near the Horseferry in
+Westminster. There they placed what they had taken out of Mr. Kneebones'
+house, and the goods made a great show there, whence the people in the
+neighbourhood really took them for honest persons, who had so great a
+wholesale business on their hands as occasioned their taking a place
+where they by convenient for the water.
+
+Field, however, importuned them (having got scent they had such a
+warehouse) that he might go and see the goods, pretending that he had it
+just now in his power to sell them at a very great price. They
+accordingly carried him thither and showed him the things. Two or three
+days afterwards, though he had not courage enough to rob anybody else,
+Field ventured to break open the warehouse, and took every rag that had
+been lodged there; and not long after, Shepherd was apprehended for the
+fact and tried at the next sessions of the Old Bailey.
+
+His appearance there was very mean, and all the defence he offered to
+make was that Jonathan Wild had helped to dispose of part of the goods
+and he thought it was very hard that he should not share in the
+punishment. The Court took little notice of so insignificant a plea and
+sentence being passed upon him, he hardly made a sensible petition for
+the favour of the Court in the report, but behaved throughout as a
+person either stupid or foolish, so far was he from appearing in any
+degree likely to make the noise he afterwards did.
+
+When put into the condemned hold, he prevailed upon one Fowls, who was
+also under sentence, to lift him up to the iron spikes placed over the
+door which looks into the lodge. A woman of large make attending
+without, and two others standing behind her in riding hoods, Jack no
+sooner got his head and shoulders through between the iron spikes, than
+by a sudden spring his body followed with ease, and the women taking him
+down gently, he was without suspicion of the keepers (although some of
+them were drinking at the upper end of the lodge) conveyed safely out of
+the lodge door, and getting a hackney coach went clear off before there
+was the least notice of his escape, which, when it was known, very much
+surprised the keepers, who never dreamt of an attempt of that kind
+before.
+
+As soon as John breathed the fresh air, he went again briskly to his old
+employment, and the first thing he did was to find out one Page, a
+butcher of his acquaintance in Clare Market, who dressed him up in one
+of his frocks, and then went with him upon the business of raising
+money. No sooner had they set out, but Shepherd remembering one Mr.
+Martin, a watchmaker near the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street, he
+prevailed upon his companion to go thither, and screwing a gimlet fast
+into the post of the door, they then tied the knocker thereto with a
+spring, and then boldly breaking the windows, they snatched three
+watches before a boy that was in the shop could open the door, and so
+marched clear off, Shepherd having the impudence, upon this occasion, to
+pass underneath Newgate.
+
+However, he did not long enjoy his liberty, for strolling about Finchley
+Common, he was apprehended and committed to Newgate, and was put
+immediately in the Stone Room, where they put him on a heavy pair of
+irons, and then stapled him fast down to the floor. Being left there
+alone in the sessions time (most of the people in the gaol then
+attending at the Old Bailey) with a crooked nail he opened the lock, and
+by that means got rid of his chain, and went directly to the chimney in
+the room, where with incessant working he got out a couple of stones and
+by that means climbed up into a room called the Red Room, where nobody
+had been lodged for a considerable time. Here he threw down a door,
+which one would have thought impossible to have been done by the
+strength of man (though with ever so much noise); from hence with a
+great deal to do, he forced his passage into the chapel. There he broke
+a spike off the door, forcing open by its help four other doors. Getting
+at last upon the leads, he from thence descended gently (by the help of
+the blanket on which he lay, for which he went back through the whole
+prison) upon the leads of Mr. Bird, a turner who lives next door to
+Newgate; and looking in at the garret window, he saw the maid going to
+bed. As soon as he thought she was asleep, he stepped downstairs, went
+through the shop, opened the door, then into the street, leaving the
+door open behind him.
+
+In the morning, when the keepers were in search after him, hearing of
+this circumstance by the watchman, they were then perfectly satisfied of
+the method by which he went off. However, they were obliged to publish
+a reward and make the strictest enquiry after him, some foolish people
+having propagated a report that he had not got out without connivance.
+In the meanwhile, Shepherd found it a very difficult thing to get rid of
+his irons, being obliged to lurk about and lie hid near a village not
+far from town, until with much ado he fell upon a method of procuring a
+hammer and taking his irons off.
+
+[Illustration: JACK SHEPPARD IN THE STONE ROOM IN NEWGATE
+
+_(From the Annals of Newgate)_]
+
+He was no sooner freed from the encumbrance that remained upon him, than
+he came secretly into the town that night, and robbed Mr. Rawlin's
+house, a pawnbroker in Drury Lane. Here he got a very large booty, and
+amongst other things a very handsome black suit of clothes and a gold
+watch. Being dressed in this manner he carried the rest of the goods and
+valuable effects to two women, one of whom was a poor young creature
+whom Shepherd had seduced, and who was imprisoned on this account. No
+sooner had she taken care of the booty but he went among his old
+companions, pickpockets and whores in Drury Lane and Clare Market. There
+being accidentally espied fuddling at a little brandy-shop, by a boy
+belonging to an alehouse, who knew him very well, the lad immediately
+gave information upon which he was apprehended, and reconducted, with a
+vast mob, to his old mansion house of Newgate, being so much intoxicated
+with liquor that he was hardly sensible of his miserable fate. However,
+they took effectual care to prevent a third escape, never suffering him
+to be alone a moment, which, as it put the keepers to a great expense,
+they took care to pay themselves with the money they took of all who
+came to see him.
+
+In this last confinement it was that Mr. Shepherd and his adventures
+became the sole topic of conversation about town. Numbers flocked daily
+to behold him, and far from being displeased at being made a spectacle
+of, he entertained all who came with the greatest gaiety that could be.
+He acquainted them with all his adventures, related each of his
+robberies in the most ludicrous manner, and endeavoured to set off every
+circumstance of his flagitious life as well as his capacity would give
+him leave, which, to say truth, was excellent at cunning, and
+buffoonery, and nothing else.
+
+Nor were the crowds that thronged to Newgate on this occasion made up of
+the dregs of the people only, for then there would have been no wonder;
+but instead of that they were persons of the first distinction, and not
+a few even dignified with titles.[48] 'Tis certain that the noise made
+about him, and this curiosity of persons of so high a rank, was a very
+great misfortune to the poor wretch himself, who from these
+circumstances began to conceive grand ideas of himself, as well as
+strong hopes of pardon, which encouraged him to play over all his airs
+and divert as many as thought it worth their while by their presence to
+prevent a dying man from considering his latter end, who instead of
+repenting of his crimes, gloried in rehearsing them.
+
+Yet when Shepherd came up to chapel, it was observed that all his gaiety
+was laid aside, and he both heard and assisted with great attention at
+Divine Service, though upon other occasions he avoided religious
+discourse as much as he could; and depending upon the petitions he had
+made to several noblemen to intercede with the king for mercy, he seemed
+rather to aim at diverting his time until he received a pardon, than to
+improve the few days he had to prepare himself for his last.
+
+On the 10th of November, 1724, he was by _Certiorari_ removed to the bar
+of the Court of King's Bench, at Westminster. An affidavit being made
+that he was the same John Shepherd mentioned in the record of conviction
+before him, Mr. Justice Powis awarded judgment against him, and a rule
+was made for his execution on the 16th.
+
+Such was the unaccountable fondness this criminal had for life, and so
+unwilling was he to lose all hopes of preserving it, that he framed in
+his mind resolutions of cutting the rope when he should be bound in the
+cart, thinking thereby to get amongst the crowd, and so into Lincoln's
+Inn Fields, and from thence to the Thames. For this purpose he had
+provided a knife, which was with great difficulty taken from him by Mr.
+Watson, who was to attend him to death. Nay, his hopes were carried even
+beyond hanging, for when he spoke to a person to whom he gave what money
+he had remaining out of the large presents he had received from those
+who came to divert themselves at Shepherd's Show, or Newgate Fair, he
+most earnestly entreated him that as soon as possible his body might be
+taken out of the hearse which was provided for him, put into a warm bed,
+and if it were possible, some blood taken from him, for he was in great
+hopes that he might be brought to life again; but if he was not, he
+desired him to defray the expenses of his funeral, and return the
+overplus to his poor mother. Then he resumed his usual discourse about
+his robberies and in the last moments of his life endeavoured to divert
+himself from the thoughts of death. Yet so uncertain and various was he
+in his behaviour that he told one whom he had a great desire to see on
+the morning that he died, that he had then a satisfaction at his heart,
+as if he were going to enjoy two hundred pounds _per annum_.
+
+At the place of execution, to which he was conveyed in a cart, with iron
+handcuffs on, he behaved himself very gravely, confessing his robbery of
+Mr. Philips and Mrs. Cook, but denied that he and Joseph Blake had
+William Field in their company when they broke open the house of Mr.
+Kneebone. After this he submitted to his fate on the 16th of November,
+1724, much pitied by the mob.[49]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [48] While in Newgate he sat for his portrait to Sir James Thornhill.
+
+   [49] Over 200,000 persons witnessed his execution at Tyburn,
+        and a riot which broke out concerning the disposal of his corpse
+        was quelled by soldiers with fixed bayonets.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of LEWIS HOUSSART, the French Barber, a Murderer
+
+
+As there is not any crime more shocking to human nature or more contrary
+to all laws human and divine than murder, so perhaps there has been few
+committed in these last years accompanied with more odd circumstances
+than that for which this criminal suffered.
+
+Lewis Houssart was born at Sedan, a town in Champaigne in the kingdom of
+France. His own paper says that he was bred a surgeon and qualified for
+that business. However that were, he was here no better than a penny
+barber, only that he let blood, and thereby got a little and not much
+money. As to the other circumstances of his life, my memoirs are not
+full enough to assist me in speaking thereto. All I can say of him is
+that while his wife, Anne Rondeau, was living, he married another woman,
+and the night of the marriage before sitting down to supper, he went out
+a little space. During the interval between that and his coming in, it
+was judged from the circumstances that I shall mention hereafter, that
+he cut the throat of the poor woman who was his first wife, with a
+razor. For this being apprehended he was tried at the Old Bailey, but
+for want of proof sufficient was acquitted.
+
+Not long after he was indicted for bigamy, i.e., for marrying his second
+wife, his first having been yet alive. Scarce making any defence upon
+this indictment he was found guilty. He said thereupon, it was no more
+than he expected, and that he did not trouble himself to preserve so
+much as his reputation in this respect; for in the first place he knew
+they were resolved to convict him, and in the next, he said, where there
+was no fault, there was no shame; that his first wife was a Socinian, an
+irrational creature, and was entitled to the advantages of no nation nor
+people because she was no Christian, and accordingly the Scripture says,
+with such a one have no conversation, no, not so much as to eat with
+them. But an appeal was lodged against him by Solomon Rondeau, brother
+and heir to Anne his wife, yet that appearing to be defective, it was
+quashed, and he charged upon another, whereunto joining issue upon six
+points they came to be tried at the Old Bailey, where the following
+circumstances appeared upon the trial.
+
+First, that at the time he was at supper at his new wife's house, he
+started on a sudden, looked aghast and seemed to be very much
+frightened. A little boy deposed that the prisoner gave him money to go
+to his own house in a little court, and fetch the mother of the deceased
+Anne Rondeau to a gentleman who would be at such a place and wait for
+her. When the mother returned from that place and found nobody wanting
+her, or that had wanted her, she was very much out of humour at the
+boy's calling her; but that quickly gave way to the surprise of finding
+her daughter murdered as soon as she entered the room. This boy who
+called her was very young, yet out of the number of persons who were in
+Newgate he singled out Lewis Houssart, and declared that he was the only
+man among them who gave him money to go on the errant for old Mistress
+Rondeau.
+
+Upon this and several other corroborating proofs, the jury found him
+guilty, upon which he arraigned the justice of a Court which hitherto
+had been preserved without a taint, declaring that he was innocent, and
+that they might punish if they would, but they could not make him
+guilty, and much more to the like effect; but the Court were not
+troubled with that, so he scarce endeavoured to make any other defence.
+
+While in the condemned hold amongst the rest of the criminals, he
+behaved himself in a very odd manner, insisted upon it that he was
+innocent of the fact laid to his charge, threw out most opprobious
+language against the Court that condemned him, and when he was advised
+to lay aside such heats of passionate expressions, he said he was sorry
+he did not more fully expose British justice upon the spot at the Old
+Bailey, and that now since they had tied up his hands from acting, he
+would at least have satisfaction in saying what he pleased.
+
+When this Houssart was first apprehended he appeared to be very much
+affected with his condition, was continually reading good books, praying
+and meditating, and showing the utmost signs of a heart full of concern,
+and under the greatest emotions, but after he had once been convicted,
+it made a thorough change in his temper. He quite laid aside all the
+former gravity of his temper and gave way, in the contrary, to a very
+extraordinary spirit of obstinacy and unbelief. He puzzled himself
+continually, and if Mr. Deval, who was then under sentence, would have
+given leave, attempted to puzzle him too, as to the doctrines of a
+future state, and an identical resurrection of the body. He said he
+could not be persuaded of the truth thereof in a literal sense; that
+when the individual frame of flesh which he bore about him was once
+dead, and from being flesh became again clay, he did not either conceive
+or believe that it, after lying in the earth, or disposed of otherwise
+perhaps for the space of a thousand years, should at the last day be
+reanimated by the soul which possessed it now, and become answerable
+even to eternal punishment for crimes committed so long ago. It was, he
+said, also little agreeable to the notions he entertained of the
+infinite mercy of God, and therefore he chose rather to look upon such
+doctrines as errors received from education, than torment and afflict
+himself with the terrors which must arise from such a belief. But after
+he had once answered as well as he could these objections, Mr. Deval
+refused to harken a second time to any such discourses and was obliged
+to have recourse to harsh language to oblige him to desist.
+
+In the meanwhile his brother came over from Holland, on the news of this
+dreadful misfortune, and went to make him a visit in the place of his
+confinement while under condemnation, going to condole with him on the
+heavy weight of his misfortunes. Upon which, instead of receiving the
+kindness of his brother in the manner it deserved, Houssart began to
+make light of the affair, and treated the death of his wife and his own
+confinement in such a manner that his brother leaving him abruptly, went
+back to Holland more shocked at the brutality of his behaviour than
+grieved for the misfortune which had befallen him.
+
+It being a considerable space of time that Houssart lay in confinement
+in Newgate and even in the condemned hold, he had there, of course,
+abundance of companions. But of them all he affected none so much as
+John Shepherd, with whom he had abundance of merry and even loose
+discourse. Once particularly, when the sparks flew very quickly out of
+the charcoal fire, he said to Shepherd, _See, see! I wish these were so
+many bullets that might beat the prison down about our ears, and then I
+might die like Sampson._
+
+It was near a month before he was called up to receive sentence, after
+which he made no scruple of saying that since they had found him guilty
+of throat-cutting, they should not lie, he would verify their judgment
+by cutting his own throat. Upon which, when some who were in the same
+sad state with himself, pointed out to him how great a crime self-murder
+was, he immediately made answer that he was satisfied it was no crime at
+all; and upon this he fell to arguing in favour of the mortality of the
+soul, as if certain that it died with the body, endeavouring to cover
+his opinions with false glosses on that text in Genesis where it is
+said, that God breathed into man a living soul. From hence he would have
+inferred that when a man ceased to live, he totally lost that soul, and
+when it was asked of him where then it went, he said, he did not know,
+nor did it concern him much.
+
+The standers-by, who notwithstanding their profligate course of life had
+a natural abhorrence of this theoretical impiety, reproved him in very
+sharp terms for making use of such expression, upon which he replied,
+_Ay! would you have me believe all the strange notions that are taught
+by the parsons? That the devil is a real thing? That our good God
+punishes souls for ever and ever? That Hell is full of flames from
+material fire, and that this body of mine shall feel it? Well, you may
+believe it if you please, but it is so with me that I cannot._
+
+Sometimes, however, he would lay aside these sceptical opinions for a
+time, talk in another strain, and appear mightily concerned at the
+misfortunes he had drawn upon his second wife and child. He would then
+speak of Providence, and the decrees of God with much seeming
+submission, would own that he had been guilty of many and grievous
+offences, say that the punishment of God was just, and desire the
+prayers of the minister of the place, and those that were about him.
+
+When he reflected on the grief it would give his father, near ninety
+years old, to hear of his misfortunes and that his son should be
+shamefully executed for the murder of his wife, he was seen to shed
+tears and to appear very much affected; but as soon as these thoughts
+were a little out of his head, he resumed his former temper and was
+continually asking questions in relation to the truth of the Gospel
+dispensation, and the doctrines therein taught of rewards and
+punishments after this life.
+
+Being a Frenchman and not perfectly versed in our language, a minister
+of the Reformed Church of that nation was prevailed upon to attend him.
+Houssart received him with tolerable civility, seemed pleased that he
+should pray by him, but industriously waved aside all discourses of his
+guilt, and even fell out into violent passions if confession was pressed
+upon him as a duty. In this strange way he consumed the time allowed him
+to prepare for another world.
+
+The day before his execution he appeared more than ordinarily attentive
+at the public devotions in the chapel. A sermon was then made with
+particular regard to that fact for which he was to die; he heard that
+also seemingly with much care, but when he was asked immediately after
+to unburden his conscience in respect of the death of his wife, he not
+only refused it, but also expressed a great indignation that he should
+be tormented as he called it, to confess a thing of which he was not
+guilty.
+
+In the evening of that day the foreign minister and he whose duty it was
+to attend him, both waited upon him at night in order to discourse with
+him on those strange notions he had of the mortality of the soul, and a
+total cessation of being after this life. But when they came to speak to
+him to this purpose, he said they might spare themselves any arguments
+upon that head, for he believed a God and a resurrection as firmly as
+they did. They then discoursed to him of the nature of a sufficient
+repentance, and of the duty incumbent upon him to confess that great
+crime for which he was condemned, and thereby give glory unto God. He
+fell at this into his old temper, and said with some passion, _If you
+will pray with me, I'll thank you, and pray with you as long as you
+please; but if you come only to torture me with my guilt, I desire you
+would let me alone altogether._
+
+His lawyers having pretty well instructed him in the nature of an
+appeal, and he coming thereby to know that he was now under sentence of
+death, at the suit of the subject and not of the King, he was very
+assiduous to learn where it was he was to apply for a reprieve; but
+finding it was the relations of his deceased wife from whom he was to
+expect it, he laid aside all those hopes, as conceiving it rightly a
+thing impossible to prevail upon people to spare his life, who had
+almost undone themselves in prosecuting him.
+
+In the morning of the day of execution he was very much disturbed at
+being refused the Sacrament, which as the minister told him, could not
+be given him by the canon without his confession. Yet this did not
+prevail; he said he would die without receiving it, as he had before
+answered a French minister, who said, _Lewis Houssart, since you are
+condemned on full evidence, and I see no reason but to believe you
+guilty, I must, as a just pastor, inform you that if you persist in this
+denial, and die without confession, you can look for nothing but to be
+d----;_ to which Houssart replied, _You must look for damnation to
+yourself for judging me guilty, when you know nothing of the matter._
+
+This confused frame of mind he continued in until he entered the cart
+for his execution, persisting in a like declaration of innocence all the
+way he went, though sometimes intermixed with short prayers to God to
+forgive his manifold sins and offences.
+
+At the place of execution he turned very pale and grew very sick. The
+ministers told him they would not pray by him unless he would confess
+the murder for which he died. He said he was very sorry for that, but
+if they would not pray by him he could not help it, he would not confess
+what he was totally ignorant of. Even at the moment of being tied up he
+persisted and when such exhortations were again repeated, he said: _Pray
+do not torment me, pray cease troubling me. I tell you I will not make
+myself worse than I am._ And so saying, he gave up the ghost without any
+private prayer when left alone or calling upon God or Christ to receive
+his spirit. He delivered to the minister of Newgate, however, a paper,
+the copy which follows, from whence my readers will receive a more exact
+idea of the man from this, his draught of himself, than from any picture
+I can draw.
+
+    The Paper delivered by Lewis Houssart at his death.
+
+    I, Lewis Houssart, am forty years old, and was born in Sedan, a town
+    in Champaigne, near Boullonois. I have left France above fourteen
+    years. I was apprentice to a surgeon at Amsterdam, and after
+    examination was allowed by the college to be qualified for that
+    business, so that I intended to go on board a ship as surgeon, but I
+    could never have my health at sea. I dwelt sometime at Mæstricht, in
+    the Dutch Brabant, where my aged father and brother now dwell. I
+    travelled through Holland and was in almost every town. My two
+    sisters are in France and also many of my relations, for the earth
+    has scarce any family more numerous than ours. Seven or eight years
+    have I been in London, and here I met with Anne Rondeau, who was
+    born at the same village with me, and therefore I loved her. After I
+    had left her, she wrote to me, and said she would reveal a secret. I
+    promised her to be secret, and she told me she had not been chaste,
+    and the consequence of it was upon her, upon which I gave her my
+    best help and assistance. Since she is dead I hope her soul is
+    happy.
+
+    Lewis Houssart
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CHARLES TOWERS, a Minter in Wapping
+
+
+Notwithstanding it must be apparent, even to a very ordinary
+understanding, that the Law must be executed both in civil and criminal
+cases, and that without such execution those who live under its
+protection would be very unsafe, yet it happens so that those who feel
+the smart of its judgment (though drawn upon them by their own misdeeds,
+follies or misfortunes which the Law of man cannot remedy or prevent)
+are always clamouring against its supposed severity, and making dreadful
+complaints of the hardships they from thence sustain. This disposition
+hath engaged numbers under these unhappy circumstances to attempt
+screening themselves from the rigour of the laws by sheltering in
+certain places, where by virtue of their own authority, or rather
+necessities, they set up a right of exemption and endeavour to establish
+a power of preserving those who live within certain limits from being
+prosecuted according to the usual course of the Law.
+
+Anciently, indeed, there were several sanctuaries which depended on the
+Roman Catholic religion, and which were, of course, destroyed when
+popery was done away by Law. However, those who had sheltered themselves
+in them kept up such exemption, and by force withstood whatever civil
+officers attempted to execute process for debt, and that so vigorously
+that at length they seemed to have established by prescription what was
+directly against Law. These pretended privileged places increased at
+last to such an extent that in the ninth year of King William, the
+legislature was obliged to make provision by a clause in an Act of
+Parliament, requiring the sheriffs of London, Middlesex, and Surrey, the
+head bailiff of the Dutchy Liberty, or the bailiff of Surrey, under the
+penalty of one hundred pounds, to execute with the assistance of the
+_posse comitatus_ any writ or warrant directed to them for seizing any
+person within any pretended privilege place such as Whitefriars, the
+Savoy, Salisbury Court, Ram Alley, Mitre Court, Fuller's Rents,
+Baldwin's Gardens, Montague Close or the Minories, Mint, Clink, or Dead
+Man's Place.[50] At the same time they ordered the assistance for
+executing the Law, of any who obey the sheriff or other person or
+persons in such places as aforesaid, with very great penalties upon
+persons who attempt to rescue persons from the hands of justice in such
+place.
+
+This law had a very good effect with respect to all places excepting
+those within the jurisdiction of the Mint, though not without some
+struggle. There, however, they still continued to keep up those
+privileges they had assumed, and accordingly did maintain them by so far
+misusing persons who attempted to execute processes amongst them, by
+ducking them in ditches, dragging them through privies or "lay stalls,"
+accompanied by a number of people dressed up in frightful habits, who
+were summoned upon blowing a horn. All which at last became so very
+great a grievance that the legislature was again forced to interpose,
+and by an act of the 9th of the late King, the Mint, as it was commonly
+called, situated in the parish of St. George's, Southwark, in the county
+of Surrey, was taken away, and the punishment of transportation, and
+even death, inflicted upon such who should persist in maintaining there
+pretended privileges.
+
+Yet so far did the Government extend its mercy, as to suffer all those
+who at the time of passing the Act were actually shelterers in the Mint
+(provided that they made a just discovery of their effects) to be
+discharged from any imprisonment of their persons for any debts
+contracted before that time. By this Act of Parliament, the privilege of
+the Mint was totally taken away and destroyed.
+
+The persons who had so many years supported themselves therein were
+dissipated and dispersed. But many of them got again into debt, and
+associating themselves with other persons in the same condition, with
+unparalleled impudence they attempted to set up (towards Wapping) a new
+privileged jurisdiction under the title of the Seven Cities of Refuge.
+In this attempt they were much furthered and directed by one Major
+Santloe, formerly a Justice of Peace, but being turned out of
+commission, he came first a shelterer here, and afterwards a prisoner in
+the Fleet. These people made an addition to these laws which had
+formerly been established in such illegal sanctuaries, for they provided
+large books in which they entered the names of persons who entered into
+their association, swearing to defend one another against all bailiffs
+and such like. In consequence of which, they very often rescued
+prisoners out of custody, or even entered the houses of officers for
+that purposes. Amongst the number of these unhappy people, who by
+protecting themselves against the lesser judgments of the Law involved
+themselves in greater difficulties, and at last drew on the greatest and
+most heavy sentence which it could pronounce, was him we now speak of.
+
+Charles Towers was a person whose circumstances had been bad for many
+years, and in order to retrieve them he had turned gamester. For a
+guinea or two, it seems, he engaged for the payment of a very
+considerable debt for a friend, who not paying it at his time, Towers
+was obliged to fly for shelter into the Old Mint, then in being. He went
+into the New, which was just then setting up, and where the Shelterers
+took upon them to act more licentiously and with greater outrages
+towards officers of Justice than the people in any other places had
+done. Particularly they erected a tribunal on which a person chosen for
+that purpose sat as a judge with great state and solemnity. When any
+bailiff had attempted to arrest persons within the limits which they
+assumed for their jurisdiction, he was seized immediately by a mob of
+their own people, and hurried before the judge of their own choosing.
+There a sort of charge or indictment was preferred against him, for
+attempting to disturb the peace of the Shelterers within the
+jurisdiction of the Seven Cities of Refuge. Then they examined certain
+witnesses to prove this, and thereupon pretending to convict such
+bailiff as a criminal, he was sentenced by their judge aforesaid to be
+whipped or otherwise punished as he thought fit, which was executed
+frequently in the most cruel and barbarous manner, by dragging him
+through ditches and other nasty places, tearing his clothes off his
+back, and even endangering his life.
+
+One West, who had got amongst them, being arrested by John Errington,
+who carried him to his house by Wapping Wall, the Shelterers in the New
+Mint no sooner heard thereof, but assembling on a Sunday morning in a
+great number, with guns, swords, staves, and other offensive weapons,
+they went to the house of the said John Errington, and there terrifying
+and affrighting the persons in the house rescued John West, pursuant, as
+they said, to their oaths, he being registered as a protected person in
+their books of the Seven Cities of Refuge. In this expedition Charles
+Towers was very forward, being dressed with only a blue pea-jacket,
+without hat, wig or shirt, with a large stick like a quarter-staff in
+his hand, his face and breast being so blackened that it appeared to be
+done with soot and grease, contrary to the Statute made against those
+called The Waltham Blacks, and done after the first day of June, 1723,
+when that Statute took place.
+
+Upon an indictment for this, the fact being very fully and dearly
+proved, notwithstanding his defence, which was that he was no more
+disguised than his necessity obliged him to be, not having wherewith to
+provide himself clothes, and his face perhaps dirty and daubed with mud,
+the jury found him guilty, and he thereupon received sentence of death.
+
+Before the execution of that sentence, he insisted strenuously on his
+innocence as to the point on which he was found guilty and condemned,
+viz., having his face blacked and disguised within the intent and
+meaning of the Statute, but he readily acknowledged that he had been
+often present and assisted at such mock courts of justice as were held
+in the New Mint, though he absolutely denied sitting as judge when one
+Mr. Westwood, a bailiff, was most abominably abused by an order of that
+pretended court. He seemed fully sensible of the ills and injuries he
+had committed by being concerned amongst such people, but often said
+that he thought the bailiffs had sufficiently revenged themselves by the
+cruel treatment they had used the riotous persons with, when they fell
+within their power, particularly since they hacked and chopped a
+carpenter's right arm in such a manner that it was obliged to be cut
+off; had abused others in so terrible a degree that they were not able
+to work, or do anything for their living. He himself had received
+several large cuts over the head, which though received six weeks
+before, yet were in a very bad condition at the time of his death.
+
+As to disguises, he constantly averred they were never practised in the
+New Mint. He owned they had had some masquerades amongst them, to which
+himself amongst others had gone in the dress of a miller, and his face
+all covered with white, but as to any blacking or other means to prevent
+his face being known when he rescued West he had none, but on the
+contrary was in his usual habit as all the rest were that accompanied
+him. He framed as well as he could a petition for mercy, setting forth
+the circumstances of the thing, and the hardship he conceived it to be
+to suffer upon the bare construction of an Act of Parliament. He set
+forth likewise, the miserable condition of his wife and two children
+already, she being also big of a third. This petition she presented to
+his Majesty at the Council Chamber door, but the necessity there was of
+preventing such combinations for obstructing justice, rendered it of no
+effect. Upon her return, and Towers being acquainted with the result, he
+said he was contented, that he went willingly into a land of quiet from
+a world so troublesome and so tormenting as this had been to him. Then
+he kneeled down and prayed with great fervency and devotion, after which
+he appeared very composed and showed no rage against the prosecutor and
+witnesses who had brought on his death, as is too often the case with
+men in his miserable condition.
+
+On the day appointed for his execution, he was carried in a cart to a
+gallows whereon he was to suffer in Wapping, the crowd, as is not common
+on such occasions, lamenting him, and pouring down showers of tears, he
+himself behaving with great calmness and intrepidity. After prayers had
+been said, he stood up in the cart, and turning towards the people,
+professed his innocence in being in a disguise at the time of rescuing
+Mr. West, and with the strongest asserverations said that it was Captain
+Buckland and not himself who sat as judge upon Mr. Jones the bailiff,
+though, as he complained, he had been ill-used while he remained a
+prisoner upon that score. To this he added that for the robberies and
+thefts with which he was charged, they were falsities, as he was a dying
+man. Money indeed, be said, might be shaken out of the breeches pocket
+of the bailiff when he was ditched, but that whether it was or was not
+so, he was no judge, for he never saw any of it. That as to any design
+of breaking open Sir Isaac Tilliard's house, he was innocent of that
+also. In fine, he owned that the judgment of God was exceeding just for
+the many offences he committed, but that the sentence of the Law was too
+severe, because, as he understood it, he had done nothing culpable
+within the intent of the Statute on which he died. After this, he
+inveighed for some time against bailiffs, and then crying with vehemency
+to God to receive his spirit, he gave up the ghost on the 4th of
+January, 1724-5.
+
+However the death of Towers might prevent people committing such acts as
+breaking open the houses of bailiffs, and setting prisoners at liberty,
+yet it did not quite stifle or destroy those attempts which necessitous
+people made for screening themselves from public justice, insomuch that
+the Government were obliged at last to cause a Bill to be brought into
+Parliament for the preventing such attempts for the future, whereupon in
+the 11th year of the late King, it passed into a law to this effect:
+
+That if any number of persons not less than three, associate themselves
+together in the hamlet of Wapping, Stepney, or in any other place within
+the bills of mortality, in order to shelter themselves from their debts,
+after complaint made thereof by presentment of a grand jury, and should
+obstruct any officer legally empowered and authorised in the execution
+of any writ or warrant against any person whatsoever, and in such
+obstructing or hindering should hurt, wound or injure any person; then
+any offender convicted of such offence, should suffer as a felon and be
+transported for seven years in like manner as other persons are so
+convicted. And it is further enacted by the same law that upon
+application made to the judge of any Court, out of which the writs
+therein mentioned are issued, the aforesaid judge, if he see proper, may
+grant a warrant directly to the sheriff, or other person proper to raise
+the _posse comitatus_, where there is any probability of resistance. And
+if in the execution of such warrant any disturbance should happen, and a
+rescue be made, then the persons assisting in such rescue, or who
+harbour or conceal the persons so rescued, shall be transported for
+seven years in like manner as if convicted of felony, but all
+indictments upon this statute are to be commenced within six months
+after the fact committed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [50] Ram Alley was on the south side of Fleet Street, between
+        Sergeants' Inn and Mitre Court; Fuller's Rents is now Fulwood
+        Place, Holborn; Baldwin's Gardens runs from Gray's Inn Road to
+        Leather Lane; Montague Close was on the Southwark side, near
+        London Bridge; Dead Man's Place was a crooked street at the east
+        end of Bankside.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS ANDERSON, a Scotch Thief
+
+
+Amongst a multitude of tragical adventures it is with some satisfaction
+that I mention the life of a person who was of the number of those few
+which take warning in time, and having once felt the rod of affliction,
+fear it ever afterwards.
+
+Thomas Anderson was the son of reputable parents in the city of
+Aberdeen, in Scotland. His father was of the number of those unhappy
+people who went over to Darien when the Scots made their settlement
+there in the reign of the late King William, his son Thomas being left
+under the care of his mother then a widow. By this his education
+suffered, and he was put apprentice to a glazier, although his father
+had been a man of some fashion, and the boy always educated with hopes
+of living genteelly. However, he is not the first that has been so
+deceived, though he took it so to heart that at first going to his
+master his grief was so great as had very nigh killed him. He continued,
+however, with his master two years, and then making bold with about nine
+guineas of his, and thirteen of his mother's, he procured a horse and
+made the greatest speed he could to Edinburgh.
+
+Tom was sensible enough that he should be pursued, and hearing of a ship
+ready to sail from Leith for London, he went on board it, and in five
+days' time having a fair wind they arrived in the river of Thames. As
+soon as he got on shore Tom had the precaution to take lodging in a
+little street near Bur Street in Wapping, there he put his things; and
+his stock now being dwindled to twelve guineas, he put two of them in
+his fob, with his mother's old gold watch, which he had likewise brought
+along with him, and then went out to see the town. He had not walked far
+in Fleet Street, whither he had conveyed himself by boat, but he was
+saluted by a well-dressed woman, in a tone almost as broad as his own.
+Conscious of what he had committed he thought it was somebody that knew
+him and would have taken him up. He turned thereupon pale, and started.
+The woman observing his surprise, said, _Sir, I beg your pardon I took
+you for one Mr. Johnson, of Hull, my near relation; but I see you are
+not the same gentleman, though you are very like him._
+
+Anderson thereupon taking heart, walked a little way with her, and the
+woman inviting him to drink tea at her lodgings, he accepted it readily,
+and away they went together to the bottom of Salisbury Court, where the
+woman lived. After tea was over, so many overtures were made that our
+new-come spark was easily drawn into an amour, and after a considerable
+time spent in parley, it was at last agreed that he should pass for her
+husband newly come from sea; and this being agreed upon, the landlady
+was called up, and the story told in form. The name the woman assumed
+was that of Johnson, and Tom consequently was obliged to go by the same.
+So after compliments expressed on all sides for his safe return, a
+supper was provided, and about ten o'clock they went to bed together.
+
+Whether anything had been put in the drink, or whether it was only owing
+to the quantity he had drunk, he slept very soundly until 11 o'clock in
+the morning, when he was awakened by a knocking at the door; upon
+getting up to open it, he was a little surprised at finding the woman
+gone and more so at seeing the key thrown under the door. However, he
+took it up and opened it: his landlady then delivered him a letter,
+which as soon as she was gone he opened, and found it to run in these
+terms:
+
+    Dear Sir,
+
+    You must know that for about three years I have been an unfortunate
+    woman, that is, have conversed with many of your sex, as I have done
+    with you. I need not tell you that you made me a present of what
+    money you had about you last night, after the reckoning over the way
+    at The George was paid. I told my landlady when I went out this
+    morning that I was going to bring home some linen for shirts; you
+    had best say so too, and so you may go away without noise, for as I
+    owe her above three pound for lodging, 'tis odds but that as you
+    said last night you were my husband, she will put you in trouble,
+    and that I think would be hard, for to be sure you have paid dear
+    enough for your frolic. I hope you will forgive this presumption,
+    and I am yours next time you meet me.
+
+    Jane Johnson
+
+Tom was not a little chagrined at this accident, especially when he
+found that not only the remainder of the two guineas, but also his
+mother's gold watch, and a gold chain and ring was gone into the
+bargain. However, he thought it best to take the woman's word, and so
+coming down and putting on the best air he could, he told his landlady
+he hoped his wife would bring the linen home time enough to go to
+breakfast, and that in the meanwhile he would go to the coffee-house,
+and read the news. The woman said it was very well, and Tom getting to
+the waterside, directed them to row to the stairs nearest to his lodging
+by Bur Street, ruminating all the way he went on the accident which had
+befallen him.
+
+The rumours of Jonathan Wild, then in the zenith of his glory, had
+somehow or other reached the ears of our North Briton. He thereupon
+mentioned him to the watermen, who perceiving that he was a stranger,
+and hoping to get a pot of drink for the relation, obliged him with the
+best account they were able of Mr. Wild and his proceedings. As soon,
+therefore, as Anderson came home, he put the other two guineas in his
+pocket, and over he came in a coach to the Old Bailey, where Mr. Wild
+had just then set up in his office, Mr. Anderson being introduced in
+form, acquainted him in good blunt Scotch how he had lost his money and
+his watch. Jonathan used him very civilly, and promised his utmost
+diligence in recovering it. Tom being willing to save money, enquired of
+him his way home by land on foot, and having received instructions he
+set out accordingly. About the middle of Cheapside a well-dressed
+gentleman came up to him. _Friend_, says he, _I have heard you ask five
+or six people, as I followed you, your way to Bur Street. I am going
+thither and so if you'll walk along with me, 'twill save you the labour
+of asking further questions._
+
+Tom readily accepted the gentleman's civility, and so on they trudged,
+until they came within twenty yards of the place, and into Tom's
+knowledge. _Young man_, then says the stranger, _since I have shown you
+the way home you must not refuse drinking a pint with me at a tavern
+hard by, of my acquaintance._ No sooner were they entered and sat down,
+but a third person was introduced into their company, as an acquaintance
+of the former. A good supper was provided, and when they had drunk about
+a pint of wine apiece, says the gentleman who brought him thither to
+Anderson, _You seem an understanding young fellow. I fancy your
+circumstances are not of the best. Come, if you have a tolerable head
+and any courage, I'll put you in a way to live as easy as you can wish._
+
+Tom pricked up his ears upon this motion, and told him that truly, as to
+his circumstances, he had guessed very right, but that he wished he
+would be so good as to put him into any road of living like a gentleman.
+_For to say the truth, sir_, says he, _it was with that view I left my
+own country to come up to London._
+
+_Well spoken, my lad_, says the other, _and like a gentleman thou shalt
+live. But hark ye, are you well acquainted with the men of quality's
+families about Aberdeen? Yes, sir_, says he. _Well then_, replied the
+stranger, _do you know none of them who has a son about your age? Yes,
+yes_, replied Tom, _My Lord J---- sent his eldest son to our college at
+Aberdeen to be bred, and he and I an much alike, and not above ten days
+difference in our ages. Why then_, replied the spark, _it will do, and
+here's to your honour's health. Come, from this time forward, you are
+the Honourable Mr. ----, son and heir apparent to the Right Honourable,
+the Lord ----._
+
+To make the story short, these sharpers equipped him like the person
+they put him upon the town to be, and lodging him at the house of a
+Scotch merchant who was in the secret, with no less than three footmen
+all in proper livery to attend him. In the space of ten days' time, they
+took up effect upon his credit to the amount of a thousand pounds. Tom
+was cunning enough to lay his hands on a good diamond ring, two suits of
+clothes, and a handsome watch, and improved mightily from a fortnight's
+conversation with these gentlemen. He foresaw the storm would quickly
+begin, the news of his arrival under the name he had assumed, having
+been in the papers a week; so to prevent what might happen to himself,
+he sends his three footmen on different errands, and making up his
+clothes and some holland shirts into a bundle, called a coach and drove
+off to Bur Street, where having taken the remainder of his things that
+had been there ever since his coming to town, he bid the fellow drive
+him to the house of a person near St. Catherine's, to whom he had known
+his mother direct letters when in Scotland.
+
+Yet recollecting in the coach that by this means he might be discovered
+by his relations, he called to the coachman before he reached there, and
+remembering an inn in Holborn, which he had heard spoken of by the
+Scotch merchant, where he had lodged in his last adventure, bid the
+fellow drive thither, saying he was afraid to be out late, and if he
+made haste he would give him a shilling. When he came thither and had
+had his two portmanteaus carried into the inn, pretending to be very
+sick he went immediately upstairs to bed, having first ordered a pint of
+wine to be burnt and brought upstairs.
+
+Reflecting in the night on the condition he was in and the consequence
+of the measures he was taking, he resolved with himself to abandon his
+ill-courses at once and try to live honestly in some plantation of the
+West Indies. These meditations kept him pretty much awake, so that it
+was late in the morning before he arose. Having ordered coffee for his
+breakfast, he gave the chamberlain a shilling to go and fetch the
+newspapers, where the first thing he saw was an account of his own cheat
+in the body of the paper, and at the end of it an advertisement with a
+reward for apprehending him. This made him very uneasy, and the rather
+because he had no clothes but those which he had taken up as aforesaid;
+so he ordered the chamberlain to send for a tailor, and pretended to be
+so much indisposed that he could not get out. When the tailor came, he
+directed him to make him a riding suit with all the expedition he could.
+The tailor promised it in two days' time. The next day, pretending to be
+still worse, he sent the chamberlain to take a place for him in the
+Bristol coach, which being done, he removed himself and his things early
+in the morning to the inn where it lay, and set out the next day
+undiscovered for Bristol.
+
+Three days after his arrival he met with a captain bound for the West
+Indies, with whom having agreed for a passage, he set sail for Jamaica.
+But a fresh gale at sea accidentally damaging their rudder, they were
+obliged to come to an anchor in Cork, where the captain himself and
+several other passengers went on shore. Anderson accompanied him to the
+coffee-house, where calling for the papers that last came in, he had
+like to have swooned at the table on finding himself to have been
+discovered at Bristol, and to have sailed in such a ship the day before
+the persons came down to apprehend him in order to his being carried
+back to London.
+
+As soon as he came a little to himself, he stepped up to the man of the
+house and asked him for the vault [privy], which being shown him, he
+immediately threw the paper down; and as soon as he came out, finding
+the captain ready to go, he accompanied him with great satisfaction on
+board again, where things being set to rights, by the next day at ten
+o'clock they sailed with a fair wind, and without any further cross
+accident arrived safe at Jamaica. There Tom had the good luck to pick up
+a woman with a tolerable fortune, and about three years later remitted
+£300 home to the jeweller who had been defrauded of the watch and the
+ring, and directed him to pay what was over, after deducting his own
+debt, to the people who had trusted him with other things, and who upon
+his going off had recovered most of them, and were by this means made a
+tolerable satisfaction.
+
+He resided in the West Indies for about five years in all, and in that
+time, by his own industry acquired a very handsome fortune of his own,
+and therewith returned to Scotland.
+
+I should be very glad if this story would incline some people who have
+got money in not such honest ways (though perhaps less dangerous) to
+endeavour at extenuating the crimes they have been guilty of, by making
+such reparation as in their power, by which at once they atone for their
+fault, and regain their lost reputation; but I am afraid this advice may
+prove both unsuccessful and unseasonable and therefore shall proceed in
+my narrations as the course of these memoirs directs me.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH PICKEN, a Highwayman
+
+
+There cannot, perhaps, be a greater misfortune to a man than his having
+a woman of ill-principles about him, whether as a wife or otherwise.
+When they once lay aside principles either of modesty or honesty, women
+become commonly the most abandoned; and as their sex renders them
+capable of seducing, so their vices tempt them not often to persuade men
+to such crimes as otherwise, perhaps, they would never have thought of.
+This was the case of the malefactor, the story of whose misfortunes we
+are now to relate.
+
+Joseph Picken was the son of a tailor in Clerkenwell, who worked hard at
+his employment and took pleasure in nothing but providing for, and
+bringing up his family. This unhappy son, Joseph, was his darling, and
+nothing grieved him so much upon his death-bed, as the fears of what
+might befall the boy, being then an infant of five years old. However,
+his mother, though a widow, took so much care of his education, that he
+was well enough instructed for the business she designed him, viz., that
+of a vintner, to which profession he was bound at a noted tavern near
+Billingsgate.
+
+He served his time very faithfully and with great approbation, but
+falling in love, or to speak more properly, taking a whim of marriage in
+his head, he accepted of a young woman in the neighbourhood as his
+partner for life. Soon after this, he removed to Windsor, where he took
+the tap at a well-accustomed inn, and began the world in a very probable
+way of doing well. However, partly through his own misfortunes, and
+partly through the extravagance of his wife, in a little more than a
+twelve months' time he found himself thirty pound in debt, and in no
+likelihood from his trade of getting money to pay it. This made him very
+melancholy, and nothing added so great a weight to his load of
+affliction as the uneasiness he was under at the misfortunes which might
+befall his wife, to whom as yet this fall in his circumstances was not
+known.
+
+However, fearing it would be soon discovered in another way, at last he
+mentioned it to her, at the same time telling her that she must retrench
+her expenses, for he was now so far from being able to support them that
+he could hardly get him family bread. Her mother and she thereupon
+removed to a lodging, where by the side of the bed, poor Picken used to
+slumber upon the boards, heavily disconsolate with the weight of his
+misfortunes. One day after talking of them to his wife, he said: _I am
+now quite at my wits' end. I have no way left to get anything to support
+us; what shall I do? Do_, answered she, _why, what should a man do that
+wants money and has any courage, but go upon the highway._
+
+The poor man, not knowing how else to gain anything, even took her
+advice, and recollecting a certain companion of his who had once upon a
+time offered the same expedient for relieving their joint misfortunes,
+Picken thereupon found him out, and without saying it was his wife's
+proposal, pretended that his sorrows had at last so prevailed upon him
+that he was resolved to repair the injuries of Fortune by taking away
+something from those she had used better than him. His comrade unhappily
+addicted himself still to his old way of thinking, and instead of
+dissuading him from his purpose, seemed pleased that he had taken such a
+resolution. He told him that for his part he always thought danger
+rather to be chosen than want, and that while soldiers hazarded their
+lives in war for sixpence a day, he thought it was cowardice to make a
+man starve, where he had a chance of getting so much more than those who
+hazarded as much as they did.
+
+Accordingly Picken and his companion provided themselves that week with
+all necessaries for their expedition, and going upon it in the beginning
+of the next, set out and had success, as they called it, in two or three
+enterprises. But returning to London in the end of the week, they were
+apprehended for a robbery committed on one Charles Cooper, on Finchley
+Common, for which they were tried the next sessions, and both capitally
+convicted.
+
+Through fear of death and want of necessaries, Joseph Picken fell into a
+low and languishing state of health, under which, however, he gave all
+the signs of penitence and sorrow that could be expected for the crimes
+he had committed. Yet though he loaded his wife with the weight of all
+his crimes, he forebore any harsh or shocking reproaches against her,
+saying only that as she had brought him into all the miseries he now
+felt, so she had left him to bear the weight of them alone, without
+either ever coming near him, or affording him any assistance. However,
+he said he was so well satisfied of the multitude of his own sins, and
+the need he had of forgiveness from God, that he thought it a small
+condition to forgive her, which he did freely from his heart.
+
+In these sentiments he took the Holy Sacrament, and continued with great
+calmness to wait the execution of his sentence. In the passage to
+execution and even at the fatal tree, he behaved himself with amazing
+circumstances of quietness and resignation, and though he appeared much
+less fearful than any of those who died with him, yet he parted with
+life almost as soon as the cart was drawn away. He was about twenty-two
+years of age, or somewhat more, at the time he suffered, which was on
+the 24th of February, 1724-5, much pitied by the spectators, and much
+lamented by those that knew him.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS PACKER, a Highwayman
+
+
+Thomas Packer, the companion of the last-named criminal both in his
+crimes and in his punishment, was the son of very honest and reputable
+parents, not far from Newgate Street. His father gave him a competent
+education, designing always to put him in a trade, and as soon as he was
+fit for it placed him accordingly with a vintner at Greenwich. There he
+served for some years, but growing out of humour with the place, be made
+continual instances to his friends to be removed. They, willing and
+desirous to comply with the young man's honours, at length after
+repeated solicitation prevailed with his master to consent, and then he
+was removed to another tavern in town. There he completed his time, but
+ever after being of a rambling disposition, was continually changing
+places and never settled.
+
+Amongst those in which he had lived, there was a tavern where he resided
+as a drawer for about six weeks. Here he got into acquaintance of a
+woman, handsome, indeed, but of no fortune, and little reputation. His
+affection for this woman and the money he spent on her, was the chief
+occasion of those wants which prevailed upon him to join with Picken in
+those attempts which were fatal to them both. It cannot, indeed, be said
+that the woman in any degree excited him to such practices. On the
+contrary, the poor creature really endeavoured by every method she could
+to procure money for their support, and did all that in her lay (while
+Packer was under his misfortunes) to prevent the necessities of life
+from hindering him in that just care which was necessary to secure his
+interest in that which was to come.
+
+Packer was in himself a lad of very great good nature, and not without
+just principles if he had been well improved, but the rambling life he
+had led, and his too tender affection for the before-mentioned woman,
+led him into great crimes rather than he would see her sustain great
+wants. The reflection which he conceived his death would bring upon his
+parents, and the miseries which he dreaded it would draw upon his wife
+and child, seemed to press him heavier than any apprehension for
+himself to his own sufferings, which from the time of his commitment he
+bore with the greatest patience, and improved to the utmost of his
+power. As he was sensible there was no hopes of remaining in this world,
+so he immediately removed his thought, his wishes and his hopes from
+thence, applied himself seriously to his devotions, and never suffered
+even the woman whom he so much loved to interfere or hinder them in any
+degree.
+
+As it had been his first week of robbing, and his last too, he had
+little confession to make in that respect. He acknowledged, however, the
+fact which they had done in that space, and seemed to be heartily
+penitent, ashamed and sorry for his offences. At the place of execution
+he behaved with the same decency which accompanied him through all the
+sorrowful stations of his sad condition. He was asked whether he would
+say anything to the people, but he declined it, though he had a paper in
+his hand which he had designed to read, which for the satisfaction of
+the public, I have thought fit to annex.
+
+    The paper left by Thomas Packer.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I see a large number of you assembled here, to behold a miserable
+    end of us whom the Law condemns to death for our offence, and for
+    the sake of giving you warning, makes us in our last moments, public
+    spectacles. I submit with the utmost resignation to the stroke of
+    the Law, and I heartily pray Almighty God that the sight of my
+    shameful death, may inspire every one of you with lasting
+    resolutions of leading an honest life. The facts for which both
+    Picken and I die were really committed by us, and consequently the
+    sentence under which we suffer, is very just. Let me then press ye
+    again that the warnings of our deaths may not be in vain, but that
+    you will remember our fate, and by urging that against your depraved
+    wishes, prevent following our steps; which is all I have to say.
+
+    Thomas Packer
+
+He was about twenty years of age at the time he suffered, which was with
+the afore-mentioned malefactor at Tyburn, much pitied by all the
+spectators.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS BRADLEY, a Street-Robber
+
+
+One must want humanity and be totally void of that tenderness which
+denominates both a man and a Christian if we feel not some pity for
+those who are brought to a violent and shameful death from a sudden and
+rash act, excited either by necessity or through the frailty of human
+nature sinking under misfortune or hurried into mischief by a sudden
+transport of passion. I am persuaded, therefore, that the greater part,
+if not all of my readers will feel the same emotions of tenderness and
+compassion for the miserable youth of whom I am now going to speak.
+
+Thomas Bradley was the son of an officer in the Custom-House at
+Liverpool. The father took care of his education, and having qualified
+him for a seafaring business in reading and writing, placed him therein.
+He came up accordingly with the master of a vessel to London, where some
+misfortunes befalling the said master, Thomas was turned out of his
+employment and left to shift for himself. Want pinched him. He had no
+friends, nor anybody to whom be might apply for relief, and in the
+anguish with which his sufferings oppressed him, he unfortunately
+resolved to steal rather than submit to starving or to begging. One fact
+he committed, but could never be prevailed on to mention the time, the
+person or the place.
+
+The robbery for which he was condemned was upon a woman carrying home
+another woman's riding-hood which she had borrowed; and he assaulting
+her on the highway took it from her, which was valued at 25s. Upon this
+he was capitally convicted at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, nor
+could never be prevailed on by a person to apply for a pardon. On the
+contrary, he said it was his greatest grief that notwithstanding all he
+could do to stifle it, the news would reach his father, and break his
+heart. He was told that such thoughts were better omitted than suffered
+to disturb him, when he was on the point of going to another (and if he
+repented thoroughly) to a better life; at which he sighed and said their
+reasoning was very right, and he would comply with it if he could. From
+that time he appeared more composed and cheerful, and resigned to his
+fate. This temper he preserved to the time of his execution, and died
+with as much courage and penitence as is ever seen in any of those
+unhappy persons who suffer at the same place.
+
+At the time of his death he was not quite nineteen years of age. He died
+between the last mentioned malefactor and him whose life we are next to
+relate.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM LIPSAT, a Thief
+
+
+William Lipsat was the son of a person at Dublin, in very tolerable
+circumstances, which he strained to the utmost to give this lad a
+tolerable education. When he had acquired this he sent him over to an
+uncle of his at Stockden, in Worcestershire, where he lived with more
+indulgence than even when at home, his uncle having no children, and
+behaving to him with all the tenderness of a parent. However, on some
+little difference (the boy having long had an inclination to see this
+great City of London) he took that occasion to go away from his uncle,
+and accordingly came up to town, and was employed in the service of one
+Mr. Kelway. He had not been long there before he received a letter from
+his father, entreating him to return to Dublin with all the speed he was
+able. This letter was soon followed by another, which not only desired,
+but commanded him to come back to Ireland. He was not troubled at
+thinking of the voyage and going home to his friends, but he was very
+desirous of carrying money over with him to make a figure amongst his
+relations, which not knowing how to get, he at last bethought himself of
+stealing it from a place in which he knew it lay. After several
+struggles with himself, vanity prevailed, and he accordingly went and
+took away the things, viz., 57 guineas and a half, 25 Caroluses,[51] 5
+Jacobuses, 3 Moidores, six piece of silver, two purses valued at twelve
+pence. These, as he said, would have made his journey pleasant and his
+reception welcome, which was the reason he took them. The evidence was
+very dear and direct against him, so that the jury found him guilty
+without hesitation.
+
+From the time of his condemnation to the day he died, he neither
+affected to extenuate his crime, nor reflect, as some are apt to do, on
+the cruelty of the prosecutors, witnesses, or the Court that condemned
+him. So far from it, that he always acknowledged the justice of his
+sentence, seemed grieved only for the greatness of his sin and the
+affliction of the punishment of it would bring upon his relations, who
+had hitherto always born the best of characters, though by his failing
+they were now like to be stigmatised with the most infamous crimes.
+However, since his grief came now too late, he resolved as much as he
+was able to keep such thoughts out of his head, and apply himself to
+what more nearly concerned him, and for which all the little time he had
+was rather too short. In a word, in his condition, none behaved with
+more gravity, or to outward appearance with more penitence than this
+criminal did.
+
+He suffered with the same resignation which had appeared in everything
+he did from the time of his condemnation, on the 1st of February,
+1724-5, with the before-mentioned malefactors, being then scarce
+eighteen years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [51] Carolus was a gold coin of Charles I, worth 20s.-23s.; a
+        Jacobus, coined by James I, was of the same value; the moidore
+        was worth about 27s.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN HEWLET, a Murderer
+
+
+There are several facts which have happened in the world, the
+circumstances attending which, if we compare them as they are related by
+one or other, we can hardly fix in our own mind any certainty of belief
+concerning them, such an equality is there in the weight of evidence of
+one side and of the other. Such, at the time it happened, was the case
+of the malefactor before us.
+
+John Hewlet was born in Warwickshire, the son of Richard Hewlet, a
+butcher, and though not bred up with his father, he was yet bred to the
+same employment at Leicester, from which, malicious people said he
+acquired a bloody and barbarous disposition. However, he did not serve
+his time out with his master, but being a strong, sturdy young fellow,
+and hoping some extraordinary preferment in the army, with that view he
+engaged himself in the First Regiment of the Guards, during the reign of
+the late King William.
+
+In the war he gained the reputation of a very brave, but a very cruel
+and very rough fellow, and therefore was relied on by his officers, yet
+never liked by them. Persons of a similar disposition generally live on
+good terms with one another. Hewlet found out a corporal, one Blunt,
+much of the same humour with himself, never pleased when in safety, nor
+afraid though in the midst of danger.
+
+At the siege of Namur, in Flanders, these fellows happened to be both in
+the trenches when the French made a desperate sally and were beaten off
+at last with much loss and in such confusion that their pursuers lodged
+themselves in one of the outworks, and had like to have gained another,
+in the attack on which a young cadet of the regiment in which Blunt
+served was killed. Blunt observing it, went to the commanding officer
+and told him that the cadet had nineteen pistoles in his pocket, and it
+was a shame the French should have them. _Why, that's true, corporal_,
+said the Colonel, _but I don't see at present how we can help it. No_,
+replied Blunt, _give me but leave to go and search his pockets, and I'll
+answer for bringing the money back. Why, fool_, said the Colonel, _dost
+thou not see the place covered with French? Should a man stir from hence
+they would pour a whole shower of small shot upon him. I'll venture
+that_, says Blunt. _But how will you know the body?_ added the Colonel.
+_I am afraid we have left a score besides him behind us. Why, look ye,
+sir_, said the Corporal, _let me have no more objections, and I'll
+answer that, he was clapped, good Colonel, do you see, and that to some
+purpose; so that if I can't know him by his face, I may know him by
+somewhat else. Well_, said the Colonel, _if you have a mind to be
+knocked on the head, and take it ill to be denied, you must go, I
+think._
+
+On which Blunt, waiting for no further orders, marched directly in the
+midst of the enemy's fire to the dead bodies, which law within ten yards
+of the muzzle of their pieces, and turning over several of the dead
+bodies, he distinguished that of the cadet, and brought away the prize
+for which he had so fairly ventured.
+
+This action put Hewlet on his mettle. He resolved to do something that
+might equal it, and an opportunity offered some time after, of
+performing such a service as no man in the army would have undertaken.
+It happened thus: the engineer who was to set fire to the train of a
+mine which had been made under a bastion of the enemy's, happened to
+have drank very hard over night, and mistaking the hour, laid the match
+an hour sooner than he ought. A sentinel immediately came out, called
+out aloud, _What, have you clapped fire to the train? There's twenty
+people in the mine who will be all blown up; it should not have been
+fired till 12 o'clock._
+
+On hearing this Hewlet ran in with his sword drawn, and therewith cut
+off the train the moment before it would have given fire to all the
+barrels of powder that were within, by which he saved the lives of all
+the pioneers who were carrying the mines still forward at the time the
+wild fire was unseasonably lighted by the engineer.
+
+At the battle of Landau he had his skull broken open by a blow from the
+butt end of a musket. This occasioned his going through the operation
+called trepanning, which is performed by an engine like a coffee-mill,
+which being fixed on the bruised part of the bone, is turned round, and
+cuts out all the black till the edges appear white and sound. After this
+cure had been performed upon him, he never had his senses in the same
+manner as he had before, but upon the least drinking fell into a passion
+which was but very little removed from madness.
+
+He returned into England after the Peace of Ryswick, and being taken
+into a gentleman's service, he there married a wife, by whom he had nine
+children. Happy was it for them that they were all dead before his
+disastrous end.
+
+How Hewlet came to be employed as a watchman a little before his death,
+the papers I have give me no account of, only that he was in that
+station at the time of the death of Joseph Candy, for whose murder he
+was indicted for giving him a mortal bruise on the head with his staff.
+
+On the 26th of December, 1724, upon full evidences of eye-witnesses, the
+jury found him guilty, he making no other defence than great
+asservations of his innocence, and an obstinate denial of the fact.
+After his conviction, being visited in the condemned hold, instead of
+showing any marks of penitence or contrition, he raved against the
+witnesses who had been produced to destroy him, called them all
+perjured, and prayed God to inflict some dreadful judgment on them. Nay,
+he went so far as to desire that he ought himself have the executing
+thereof, wishing that after his death his apparition might come and
+terrify them to their graves. When it was represented to him how odd
+this behaviour was, and how far distant from that calmness and
+tranquillity of mind with which it became him to clothe himself before
+he went into the presence of his Maker, these representations had no
+effect; he still continued to rave against his accusers, and against the
+witnesses who had sworn at his trial. As death grew nearer he appeared
+not a bit terrified, nor seemed uneasy at all at leaving this life, only
+at leaving his wife, and as he phrased it, some old acquaintance in
+Warwickshire. However, he desired to receive the Sacrament, and said he
+would prepare himself for it as well as he could.
+
+He went to the place of execution in the same manner in which he had
+passed the days of his confinement till that time. At Tyburn he was not
+satisfied with protesting his innocence to the people, but designing to
+have one of the Prayer Books which was made use of in the cart, he
+kissed it as people do when they take oath, and then again turning to
+the mob, declared as he was a dying man, he never gave Candy a blow in
+his life. Thus with many ejaculations he gave way to fate in an advanced
+age at Tyburn, at the same time with the malefactors last mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JAMES CAMMEL and WILLIAM MARSHAL, Thieves and Footpads
+
+
+James Cammel was born of parents in very low circumstances, and the
+misfortunes arising therefrom were much increased by his father dying
+while he was an infant, and leaving him to the care of a widow in the
+lowest circumstances of life. The consequence was what might be easily
+foreseen, for he forgot what little he had learned in his youngest days,
+loitering away his time about Islington, Hoxton, Moorfield, and such
+places, being continually drinking there, and playing at cudgels,
+skittles, and such like. He never applied himself to labour or honest
+working for his bread, but either got it from his mother or a few other
+friends, or by methods of a more scandalous nature--I mean pilfering and
+stealing from others, for which after he had long practised it, he came
+at last to an untimely death.
+
+He was a fellow of a froward disposition, hasty and yet revengeful, and
+made up of almost all the vices that go to forming a debauchee in low
+life. He had had a long acquaintance with the person that suffered with
+him for their offences, but what made him appear in the worst light was
+that he had endeavoured to commit acts of cruelty at the time he did the
+robbery. Notwithstanding he insisted not only that he was innocent of
+the latter part of the offence but that he never committed the robbery
+at all, though Marshal his associate did not deny it.
+
+They had been together in these exploits for some time, and once
+particularly coming from Sadlers Wells, they took from a gentlewoman a
+basket full of bed-child linen to a very great value, which offering to
+sell to a woman in Monmouth Street, she privately sent for a constable
+to apprehend them. One of their companions who went with them observing
+this, he tipped them the wink to be gone, which the old woman of the
+house perceiving, caught hold of Marshal by the coat; and while they
+struggled, the third man whipped off a gold watch, a silver collar and
+bells, and a silver plate for holding snuffers, and pretending to
+interpose in the quarrel slipped through them, and out at the door, as
+Cammel and Marshal did immediately after him.
+
+Once upon a time it happened that Marshal had no money, and his credit
+being at a par, and a warrant out to take him for a great debt, and
+another to take him for picking of pockets, he was in a great quandary
+how to escape both. He strolled into St. James's Park, and walking there
+pretty late behind the trees, a woman came up to the seat directly
+before him, when she fell to roaring and crying. Marshal being unseen,
+clapped himself down behind the seat, and listened with great attention.
+He perceived the woman had her pocket in her hand, and heard her
+distinctly say that a rogue not to be contented with cutting one pocket
+and taking it away, but he must cut the other and let it drop at her
+foot. Then she wiped her eyes and laying down her pocket by her, began
+to shake her petticoats to see if the other pocket had not lodged
+between them as the former had done. So Marshal took the opportunity and
+secretly conveyed that away, thinking one lamentation might serve for
+both. Upon turning the pocket out, he found only a thread paper, a
+housewife and a crown piece. Upon this crown piece he lived a fortnight
+at a milk-house, coming twice a day for milk, and hiding himself at
+nights in some of the grass plots, it being summer.
+
+But his creditor dying, and the person whose pocket he had picked going
+to Denmark, he came abroad again, and soon after engaged with Cammel in
+the fact for which they were both hanged. It was committed upon a man
+and a woman coming through the fields from Islington, and the things
+they took did not amount to above 30 shillings. After they were
+convicted and had received sentence of death, Cammel sent for _The
+Practice of Piety, The Whole Duty of Man_, and such other good books as
+he thought might assist him in the performance of their duty. Yet
+notwithstanding all the outward appearance of resignation to the Divine
+Will, the Sunday before his execution, upon the coming in to the chapel
+of a person whom he took to be his prosecutor, he flew into a very great
+passion, and expressed his uneasiness that he had no instrument there to
+murder him with; and notwithstanding all that could be said to him to
+abate his passion, he continued restless and uneasy until the person was
+obliged to withdraw, and then with great attention applied himself to
+hear the prayers, and discourse that was made proper for that occasion.
+
+Marshal in the meanwhile continued very sick, but though he could not
+attend the chapel, did all that could be expected from a true penitent.
+In this condition they both continued until the time of their death,
+when Marshal truly acknowledged the fact, but Cammel prevaricated about
+it, and at last peremptorily denied it. They suffered on the 30th of
+April, 1725, Cammel appearing with an extraordinary carelessness and
+unconcern, desired them to put him out of the world quickly, and was
+very angry that they did not do it in less time.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN GUY, a Deer-stealer
+
+
+One would have thought that the numerous executions which had happened
+upon the appearance of those called the Waltham Blacks,[52] and the
+severity of that Act of Parliament which their folly had occasioned,
+would effectually have prevented any outrages for the future upon either
+the forests belonging to the Crown, or the parks of private gentlemen;
+but it seems there were still fools capable of undertaking such mad
+exploits.
+
+It is said that Guy being at a public house with a young woman whom, as
+the country people phrase it, was his sweetheart, a discourse arose at
+supper concerning the expeditions of the deer-stealers, which Guy's
+mistress took occasion to express great admiration of, and to regard
+them as so many heroes, who had behaved with courage enough to win the
+most obdurate heart, adding that she was very fond of venison, and she
+wished she had known some of them. This silly accident proved fatal to
+the poor fellow, who engaging with one Biddisford, an old deer-stealer,
+they broke into such forests and parks and carried off abundance of deer
+with impunity. But the keepers at last getting a number of stout young
+fellows to their assistance, waylaid them one night, when they were
+informed by the keeper of an alehouse that Guy and Biddisford intended
+to come for deer.
+
+I must inform my reader that the method these young men took in
+deer-stealing was this. They went into the park on foot, sometimes with
+a crossbow, and sometimes with a couple of dogs, being armed always,
+however, with pistols for their own defence. When they had killed a
+buck, they trussed him up and put him upon their backs and so walked
+off, neither of them being able to procure horses for such service.
+
+On the night that the keepers were acquainted with their coming, they
+sent to a neighbouring gentleman for the assistance of two of his
+grooms; the fellows came about 11 o'clock at night, and tying their
+horses in a little copse went to the place where the keepers had
+appointed to keep guard. This was on a little rising ground, planted
+with a star grove, through the avenues of which they could see all round
+them without being discerned themselves. No sooner, therefore, had Guy
+and his companion passed into the forest, but suffering them to pass by
+one of the entries of the grove where they were, they immediately issued
+out upon them, and pursued them so closely that they were within a few
+yards of them when they entered the coppice, where the two grooms had
+left their horses. They did not stay so much as to untie them, but
+cutting the bridles, mounted them and rode off as hard as they could,
+turning them loose as soon as they were in safety, and got home secure,
+because the keepers could not say they had done anything but walk across
+the forest.
+
+This escape of theirs and some others of the same nature, made them so
+bold that not contented with the deer in chases and such places, they
+broke into the paddock of Anthony Duncombe, Esq., and there killed
+certain fallow deer. One Charles George who was the keeper, and some of
+his assistants hearing the noise they made, issued out, and a sharp
+fight beginning, the deer-stealers at last began to fly. But a
+blunderbuss being fired after them, two of the balls ripped the belly of
+Biddisford, who died on the spot; and soon after the keepers coming up,
+John Guy was taken. And being tried for this offence at the ensuing
+sessions of the Old Bailey, he was convicted and received sentence of
+death, though it was some days after before he could be persuaded that
+he should really suffer.
+
+When he found himself included in the death warrant, he applied himself
+heartily to prayer and other religious duties, seeming to be thoroughly
+penitent for the crimes he had committed, and with great earnestness
+endeavoured to make amends for his follies, by sending the most tender
+letters to his companions who had been guilty of the same faults, to
+induce them to forsake such undertakings, which would surely bring them
+to the same fate which he suffered, for so inconsiderable a thing
+perhaps as a haunch of venison. Whether these epistles had the effect
+for which they were designed, I am not able to say, but the papers I
+have by me inform me that the prisoner Guy died with very cheerful
+resolution, not above twenty-five years of age, the same day with the
+malefactors before mentioned.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [52] See page 164.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of VINCENT DAVIS, a Murderer
+
+
+It is an observation made by some foreigners (and I am sorry to say
+there's too much truth in it) that though the English are perhaps less
+jealous than any nation under the heavens, yet more men murder their
+wives amongst us than in any other nation in Europe.
+
+Vincent Davis was a man of no substance and who for several years
+together had lived in a very ill correspondence with his wife, often
+beating and abusing her, until the neighbours cried out shame. But
+instead of amending he addicted himself still more and more to such
+villainous acts, conversing also with other women. And at last buying a
+knife, he had the impudence to say that that knife should end her, in
+which he was as good as his word; for on a sudden quarrel he slabbed her
+to the heart. For this murder he was indicted, and also on the Statute
+of Stabbing,[53] of both of which on the fullest proof he was found
+guilty.
+
+When Davis was first committed, he thought fit to appear very melancholy
+and dejected. But when he found there was no hopes of life, he threw off
+all decency in his behaviour and, to pass for a man of courage, showed
+as much vehemence of temper as a madman would have done, rattling and
+raving to everyone that came in, saying it was no crime to kill a wife;
+and in all other expressions he made use of, behaved himself more like a
+fool or a man who had lost his wits than a man who had lived so long and
+creditably in a neighbourhood as he had done, excepting in relation to
+his wife. But he was induced, with the hopes of passing for a bold and
+daring fellow, to carry on this scene as long as he could, but when the
+death warrant arrived, all this intrepidity left him, he trembled and
+shook, and never afterwards recovered his spirits to the time of his
+death.
+
+The account he gave of the reason of his killing his wife in so
+barbarous a manner was this; that a tailor's servant having kept him out
+pretty late one night, and he coming home elevated with liquor abused
+her, upon which she got a warrant for him and sent him to New Prison.
+After this, the prisoner said, he could never endure her; she was poison
+to his sight, and the abhorrence he had for her was so great and so
+strong that he could not treat her with the civility which is due to
+every indifferent person, much less with that regard which Christianity
+requires of us towards all who are of the same religion. So that upon
+every occasion he was ready to fly out into the greatest passions, which
+he vented by throwing everything at her that came in his way, by which
+means the knife was darted into her bosom with which she was slain.
+
+Notwithstanding the barbarity which seemed natural to this unhappy man,
+the cruelty with which he treated his wife in her last moments, the
+spleen and malice with which he always spoke of her, and the little
+regret he showed for having imbrued his hands in her blood, he yet had
+an unaccountable tenderness for his own person, and employed the last
+days of his confinement in writing many letters to his friends,
+entreating them to be present at his execution in order to preserve his
+body from the hands of the surgeons, which of all things he dreaded. And
+in order to avoid being anatomised, he affronted the court at the Old
+Bailey, at the time he received sentence of death, intending as he said
+to provoke them to hang him in chains, by which means he should escape
+the mangling of the surgeon's knives, which to him seemed ten thousand
+times worse than death itself. Thus confused he passed the last moments
+of his life, and with much ado recollected himself so as to suffer with
+some kind of decency, which he did on the 30th of April, at the same
+time with the last-mentioned malefactor.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [53] 1 Jac. I, cap. 8, "When one thrusts or stabs another, not
+        then having a weapon drawn, or who hath not then first stricken
+        the party stabbing, so that he dies thereof within six months
+        after, the offender shall not have the benefit of clergy, though
+        he did it not of malice aforethought." Blackstone.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MARY HANSON, a Murderer
+
+
+Amongst the many frailties to which our nature is subject, there is not
+perhaps a more dangerous one than the indulging ourselves in ridiculous
+and provoking discourses, merely to try the tempers of other people. I
+speak not this with regard to the criminal of whom we are next to treat,
+but of the person who in the midst of his sins drew upon himself a
+sudden and violent death by using such silly kind of speeches towards a
+woman weak in her nature, and deprived of what little reason she had by
+drink.
+
+This poor creature, flying into an excess of passion with Francis
+Peters, who was some distant relation to her by marriage, she wounded
+him suddenly under the right pap with a knife, before she could be
+prevented by any of the company; of which wound he died. The warm
+expressions she had been guilty of before the blow, prevailed with the
+jury to think she had a premeditated malice, and thereupon they found
+her guilty.
+
+Fear of death, want of necessaries, and a natural tenderness of body,
+brought on her soon after conviction so great a sickness that she could
+not attend the duties of public devotion, and reduced her to the
+necessity of catching the little intervals of ease which her distemper
+allowed her, to beg pardon of God for that terrible crime for which she
+had been guilty.
+
+There was at the same time, one Mary Stevens in the condemned hold
+(though she afterwards received a reprieve) who was very instrumental in
+bringing this poor creature to a true sense of herself and of her sins;
+she then confessed the murder with all its circumstances, reproached
+herself with having been guilty of such a crime as to murder the person
+who had so carefully took her under his roof, allowed her a subsistence
+and been so peculiarly civil to her, for which he expected no return but
+what was easily in her power to make. This Mary Stevens was a
+weak-brained woman, full of scruples and difficulties, and almost
+distracted at the thoughts of having committed several robberies. After
+receiving the Sacrament, she not only persuaded this Mary Hanson to
+behave herself as became a woman under her unhappy condition, but also
+persuaded two or three other female criminals in that place to make the
+best use of that mercy which the leniency of the Government has extended
+them.
+
+There was a man suffered to go twice a day to read to them, and probably
+it was he who drew up the paper for Mary Hanson which she left behind
+her, for though it be very agreeable to the nature of her case, yet it
+is penned in the manner not likely to come from the hands of a poor
+ignorant woman. Certain it is, however, that she behaved herself with
+great calmness and resolution at the time of her death, and did not
+appear at all disturbed at that hurry which, as I shall mention in the
+next life, happened at the place of execution. The paper she left ran in
+these words, viz.:
+
+    Though the poverty of my parents hindered me from having any great
+    education, yet I resolve to do as I know others in my unhappy
+    circumstances have done, and by informing the world of the causes
+    which led me to that crime for which I so justly suffer, that by
+    shunning it they may avoid such a shameful end; and I particularly
+    desire all women to take heed how they give way to drunkenness,
+    which is a vice but too common in this age. It was that disorder in
+    which my spirits were, occasioned by the liquor I had drunk, which
+    hurried me to the committing a crime, at the thoughts of which on
+    any other time my blood would have curdled. I hope you will afford
+    me your prayers for my departing soul, as I offer up mine to God
+    that none of you may follow me to this fatal place.
+
+Having delivered this paper, she suffered at about thirty years old.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of BRYAN SMITH, a Threatening Letter Writer
+
+
+I have already observed how the Black Act was extended for punishing
+Charles Towers,[54] concerned in setting up the New Mint, who as he
+affirmed died only for having his face accidentally dirty at the time he
+assaulted the bailiff's house. I must now put you in mind of another
+clause in the same act, viz., that for punishing with death those who
+sent any threatening letters in order to affright persons into a
+compliance with their demands, for fear of being murdered themselves, or
+having their houses fired about their ears. This clause of the Act is
+general, and therefore did not extend only to offences of this kind when
+committed by deer-stealers and those gangs against whom it was
+particularly levelled at that time, but included also whoever should be
+guilty of writing such letters to any person or persons whatsoever;
+which was a just and necessary construction of the Act, and not only
+made use of in the case of this criminal, but of many more since,
+becoming particularly useful of late years, when this practice became
+frequent.
+
+Bryan Smith, who occasions this observation, was an Irishman, of parts
+so very mean as perhaps were never met with in one who passed for a
+rational creature; yet this fellow, forsooth, took it into his head that
+he might be able to frighten Baron Swaffo, a very rich Jew in the City,
+out of a considerable sum of money, by terrifying him with a letter. For
+this purpose he wrote one indeed in a style I daresay was never seen
+before, or since. Its spelling was _à la mode de brogue_, and the whole
+substance of the thing was filled with oaths, curses, execrations and
+threatenings of murder and burning if such a sum of money was not sent
+as he, in his great wisdom, thought it fit to demand.
+
+The man's management in sending this and directing how he would have an
+answer was of a piece with his style, and altogether made the discovery
+no difficult matter. So that Bryan being apprehended, was at the next
+sessions at the Old Bailey tried and convicted on the evidence of some
+of his countrymen, and when, after receiving sentence, there remained no
+hopes for him of favour, to make up a consistent character he declared
+himself a Papist, and as is usual with persons of that profession, was
+forbidden by his priest to go any more to the public chapel.
+
+However, to do him justice as far as outward circumstances will give us
+leave to judge, he appeared very sorry for the crime he had committed,
+and having had the priest with him a considerable time the day before
+his death, he would needs go to the place of execution in a shroud.
+
+As he went along he repeated the Hail Mary and Paternoster.
+
+But there being many persons to suffer, and the executioner thereby
+being put into a confusion, Smith observing the hurry slipped the rope
+over his head, and jumped at once over the corpses in the cart amongst
+the mob. Had he been wise enough to have come in his clothes, and not in
+a shroud, it is highly probable he had made his escape; but his white
+dress rendering him conspicuous even at a distance, the sheriffs
+officers were not long before they retook him and placed him in his
+former situation again.
+
+Hope and fear, desire of life, and dread of immediate execution, had
+occasioned so great an emotion of his spirits that he appeared in his
+last moments in a confusion not to be described, and departed the world
+in such an agony that he was a long time before he died, which was at
+the same time with the malefactor before-mentioned, viz., on the 30th of
+April, 1725.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [54] See page 198.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH WARD, a Footpad
+
+
+There are some persons who are unhappy, even from their cradles, and
+though every man is said to be born to a mixture of good and evil
+fortune, yet these seem to reap nothing from their birth but an entry
+into woe, and a passage to misery.
+
+This unhappy man we are now speaking of, Joseph Ward, is a strong
+instance of this, for being the son of travelling people, he scarce knew
+either the persons to whom he owed his birth, or the place where he was
+born. However, they found a way to instruct him well enough to read, and
+that so well that it was afterwards of great use to him, in the most
+miserable state of his life.
+
+He rambled about with his father and mother until the age of fourteen,
+when they dying, he was left to the wide world, with nothing to provide
+for himself but his wits; so that he was almost under necessity of going
+into a gang of gipsies that passed by that part of the country where he
+was. These gipsies taught him all their arts of living, and it happened
+that the crew he got into were not of the worst sort either, for they
+maintained themselves rather by the credulity of the country folks, than
+by the ordinary practices of those sort of people, stealing of poultry
+and robbing hedges of what linen people are careless enough to leave
+there. I shall have another and more proper occasion to give my readers
+the history of this sort of people, who were anciently formidable enough
+to deserve an especial Act of Parliament[55] altered and amended in
+several reigns for banishing them from the Kingdom.
+
+But to go on with the story of Ward; disliking this employment, he took
+occasion, when they came into Buckinghamshire, to leave them at a common
+by Gerrard's Cross, and come up to London. When he came here, he was
+still in the same state, not knowing what to do to get bread. At last he
+bethought himself of the sea, and prevailed on a captain to take with
+him a pretty long voyage. He behaved himself so well in his passage,
+that his master took him with him again, and used him very kindly; but
+he dying, Ward was again put to his shifts, though on his arrival in
+England he brought with him near 30 guineas to London.
+
+He look up lodgings near the Iron Gate at St. Catherine's, and taking a
+walk one evening on Tower Wharf, he there met with a young woman, who
+after much shyness suffered him to talk to her. They met there a second
+and a third time. She said she was niece to a pewterer of considerable
+circumstances, not far from Tower Hill, who had promised, and was able
+to give her five hundred pounds; but the fear of disobliging him by
+marriage, hindered her from thinking of becoming a wife without his
+approbation of her spouse.
+
+These difficulties made poor Ward imagine that if he could once persuade
+the woman to marriage, he should soon mollify the heart of her relation,
+and so become happy at once. With a great deal to do, Madam was
+prevailed upon to consent, and going to the Fleet they were there
+married, and soon returned to St. Catherine's, to new lodgings which
+Ward had taken, where he had proposed to continue a day or two and then
+wait upon the uncle.
+
+Never man was in his own opinion more happy than Joseph Ward in his new
+wife, but alas! all human happiness is fleeting and uncertain,
+especially when it depends in any degree upon a woman. The very next
+morning after their wedding, Madam prevailed on him to slip on an old
+coat and take a walk by the house which she had shown him for her
+uncle's. He was no sooner out of doors, but she gave the sign to some of
+her accomplices, who in a quarter of an hour's time helped her to strip
+the lodging not only of all which belonged to Ward, but of some things
+of value that belonged to the people of the house. They were scarce out
+of doors before Ward returned, who finding his wife gone and the room
+stripped, set up such an outcry as alarmed all the people in the house.
+
+Instead of being concerned at Joseph's loss they clamoured at their own,
+and told him in so many words that if he did not find the woman, or make
+them reparation for their goods, they would send him to Newgate. But
+alas! it was neither in Ward's power to do one, nor the other. Upon
+which the people were as good as their word, for they sent for a
+constable and had him before a Justice. There the whole act appearing,
+the justice discharged him and told them they must take their remedy
+against him at the Common Law. Upon this Ward took the advantage and
+made off, but taking to drinking to drive away the sorrows that
+encompassed him, he at last fell into ill-company, and by them was
+prevailed on to join in doing evil actions to get money. He had been but
+a short time at this trade, before he committed the fact for which he
+died.
+
+Islington was the road where he generally took a purse, and therefore
+endeavoured to make himself perfectly acquainted with many ways that
+lead to that little town, which he effected so well, that he escaped
+several times from the strictest pursuits. At last it came into his head
+that the safest way would be to rob women, which accordingly he put into
+practice, and committed abundance of thefts that way for the space of
+six weeks, particularly on one Mrs. Jane Vickary, of a gold ring value
+twenty shillings, and soon after of Mrs. Elizabeth Barker, of a gold
+ring set with garnets. Being apprehended for these two facts, he was
+committed to New Prison, where either refusing or not being able to make
+discoveries, he remained in custody till the sessions at the Old Bailey.
+There the persons swearing positively to his face, he was after a
+trivial defence convicted, and received sentence of death accordingly.
+
+As he had no relations that he knew of, nor so much as one friend in the
+world, the thoughts of a pardon never distracted his mind a moment. He
+applied himself from the day of his sentence to a new preparation for
+death, and having in the midst of all his troubles accustomed himself to
+reading, he was of great use to his unhappy companions in reading the
+Scripture, and assisting them in their private devotions. He made a just
+use of that space which the mercy of the English Law allows to persons
+who are to suffer death for their crimes to make their peace with their
+Creator.
+
+[Illustration: TRIAL OF A HIGHWAYMAN AT THE OLD BAILEY
+
+The manacled rogue is seen in the foreground, his head bowed in despair,
+as the witness by his side unfolds his damning evidence. Through one
+window is shown the robbery for which he is being tried; the other
+affords a prophetical glimpse of the villain's end at Tyburn Tree.
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+There was but one person who visited this offender while under the
+sentence of the Law, and he, thinking that the only method by which he
+could do him service was to save his life, proposed to him a very
+probable method of escaping, which for reasons not hard to be guessed
+at, I shall forbear describing. He pressed him so often and made the
+practicability of the thing so plain that the criminal at last
+condescended to make the experiment, and his friend promised the next
+day to bring him the materials for his escape.
+
+That night Ward, who began then to be weak in his limbs with the
+sickness which had lain upon him ever since he had been in the prison,
+fell into a deep sleep, a comfort he had not felt since the coming on of
+his misfortunes. In this space he dreamed that he was in a very barren,
+sandy place, which was bounded before him by a large deep river, which
+in the middle of the plain parted itself into two streams that, after
+having run a considerable space, united again, having formed an island
+within the branches. On the other side of the main river, there appeared
+one of the most beautiful countries that could be thought of, covered
+with trees, full of ripe fruit, and adorned with flowers. On the other
+side, in the island which was enclosed, having a large arm of water
+running behind it and another smaller before, the soil appeared sandy
+and barren, like that whereon he stood.
+
+While he was musing at this sight, he beheld a person of a grave and
+venerable aspect, in garb and appearance like a shepherd, who asked him
+twice or thrice, if he knew the meaning of what he there saw, to which
+he answered, _No. Well, then_, says the stranger, _I will inform you.
+This sight which you see is just your present case. You have nothing to
+resolve with yourself but whether you will prepare by swimming across
+this river immediately, forever to possess that beautiful country that
+lies before you; or by attempting the passage over the narrow board
+which crosses the first arm of the river and leads into the island,
+where you will be again amidst briars and thorns, and must at last pass
+that deep water, before you can enter the pleasant country you behold on
+the other side._
+
+This vision made so strong an impression on the poor man's spirits that
+when his friend came he refused absolutely to make his escape, but
+suffered with great marks of calmness and true repentance, at Tyburn, in
+the twenty-seventh year of his age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [55] This was the statute of 1530 (22 Hen. VIII, c, 10)
+        directed against "outlandish people calling themselves
+        Egyptians." It was amended 1 & 2 Ph. & Mary, c. 4 and 5 Eliz.,
+        c. 10 and sundry other legislation was of a similar tenour.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES WHITE, a Thief
+
+
+Stupidity, however it may arise, whether from a natural imperfection of
+the rational faculties, or from want of education, or from drowning it
+wholly in bestial and sensual pleasures, is doubtless one of the highest
+misfortunes which can befall any man whatsoever; for it not only leaves
+him little better than the beasts which perish, exposed to a thousand
+inconveniences against which there is no guard but that of a clear and
+unbiased reason, but it renders him also base and abject when under
+misfortunes, the sport and contempt of that wicked and debauched part of
+the human species who are apt to scoff at despairing misery, and to add
+by their insults to the miseries of those who sink under their load
+already.
+
+James White, who is to be the subject of the following narration, was
+the son of very honest and reputable parents, though their circumstances
+were so mean as not to afford wherewith to put their son to school, and
+they themselves were so careless as not to procure his admission into
+the Charity School. By all which it happened that the poor fellow knew
+hardly anything better than the beasts of the field, and addicted
+himself like them, to filling his belly and satisfying his lust.
+Whenever, therefore, either of those brutish appetites called, he never
+scrupled plundering to obtain what might supply the first, or using
+force that might oblige women to submit against their wills unto the
+other.
+
+While he was a mere boy, and worked about as he could with anybody who
+would employ him, he found a way to steal and carry off thirty pounds
+weight of tobacco, the property of Mr. Perry, an eminent Virginian
+merchant; for which he was at the ensuing assizes at the Old Bailey,
+tried and convicted, and thereupon ordered for transportation, and in
+pursuance of that sentence sent on board the transport vessel
+accordingly. Their allowance there was very poor, such as the miserable
+wretches could hardly subsist on, viz., a pint and a half of fresh
+water, and a very small piece of salt meat _per diem_ each; but that
+wherein their greatest misery consisted was the hole in which they were
+locked underneath the deck, where they were tied two and two, in order
+to prevent those dangers which the ship's crew often runs by the
+attempts made by felons to escape. In this disconsolate condition he
+passed his time until the arrival of the ship in America, where he met
+with a piece of good luck (if attaining liberty may be called good luck)
+without acquiring at the same time a means to preserve life in any
+comfort. It happened thus.
+
+The super-cargo falling sick, under the usual distemper which visits
+strangers at first coming if they keep not to the exact rules of
+temperance and forbearance of strong liquors, ran quickly so much in
+debt with his physician that he was obliged immediately to go off, by
+doing which six felons became their own masters, of whom James White was
+one. He retired into the woods and lived there in a very wretched manner
+for some time, till he met with some Indian families in that retreat,
+who according to the natural uncultivated humanity of that people
+cherished and relieved him to the utmost of their power.
+
+Soon after this, he went to work amongst some English servants, in order
+to ease them, telling them how things stood with him, viz., that he had
+been transported, and that for fear of being seized he fled into the
+woods, where he had endured the greatest hardships. The servants pitying
+his desperate condition relieved him often, without the knowledge of
+their mistress until they got him into a planter's service, where though
+he worked hard he was sure to fare tolerably well. But at length being
+ordered to carry water in large vessels over the rocks to the ship that
+rode in the bay underneath it, his feet were thereby so intolerably cut
+that he was soon rendered lame and incapable of doing it any longer. The
+family thereupon grew weary of keeping him in that decrepit state he was
+in, and so for what servile scullion-like labour he was able to do, a
+master of a ship took him on board and carried him to England.
+
+On his return hither, he went directly to his friends in Cripplegate
+parish and told them what had befallen him, and how he was driven home
+again almost as much by force as he was hurried abroad. They were too
+poor to be able to conceal him, and he was therefore obliged to go and
+cry fruit about the streets publicly, that he might not want bread. He
+went on in this mean but honest way, without committing any new acts
+that I am able to learn, for the space of some months. Then being seen
+and known by some who were at that employed (or at least employed
+themselves) in detecting and taking up all such persons as returned from
+transportation, White amongst the rest was seized, and the ensuing
+sessions at the Old Bailey convicted on the Statute. He pleaded that he
+was only a very young man, and if the Court would have so much pity on
+him as to send him over again, he would be satisfied to stay all his
+life-time in America; but the resolution which had been taken to spare
+none who returned back into England, because such persons were more
+bloody and dangerous rogues than any other, and when prompted by
+despair, apt to resist the officers of justice, took place, and he was
+put into the death warrant.
+
+Both before and after receiving sentence, he not only abandoned himself
+to stupid, heedless indolence, but behaved in so rude and troublesome a
+manner as occasioned his being complained of by those miserable wretches
+who were under the same condemnation, as a greater grievance to them
+than all their other misfortunes put together. He would sometimes
+threaten women who came into the hold to visit modestly, tease them with
+obscene discourse, and after his being prisoner there committed acts of
+lewdness to the amazement and horror of the most wicked and abandoned
+wretches in that dreadful place. Being however severely reprimanded for
+continuing so beastly a course of life, when life itself was so near
+being extinguished, he laid the crime to his own ignorance, and said
+that if he were better instructed he would behave better, but he could
+not bear being abused, threatened and even maltreated by those who were
+in the same state with himself. From this time he addicted himself to
+attend more carefully to religious discourses than most of the rest, and
+as far as the amazing dullness of his intellects would give him leave,
+applied to the duties of his sad state.
+
+Before his death he gave many testimonies of a sincere and unaffected
+sorrow for his crimes, but as he had not the least notion of the nature,
+efficacy or preparation necessary for the Sacrament, it was not given
+him as is usually done to malefactors the day of their death. At the
+place of execution he seemed surprised and astonished, looked wildly
+round upon the people, and then asking the minister who attended him
+what he must do now, the person spoke to instructed him; so shutting his
+hands close, he cried out with great vehemence, _Lord receive my soul._
+
+His age was about twenty-five at the time he suffered, which was on the
+6th day of November, 1723.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH MIDDLETON, Housebreaker and Thief
+
+
+Amongst the numbers of unhappy wretches who perish at the gallows, most
+pity seems due to those who, pressed by want and necessity, commit in
+the bitter exigence of starving, some illegal act purely to support
+life. But this is a very scarce case, and such a one as I cannot in
+strictness presume to say that I have hitherto met with in all the loads
+of papers I have turned over to this purpose, though as the best motive
+to excite compassion, and consequently to obtain mercy, it is made very
+often a pretence.
+
+Joseph Middleton was the son of a very poor, though honest, labouring
+man in the county of Kent, near Deptford, who did all that was in his
+power to bring up his children. This unfortunate son was taken off his
+hand by an uncle, a gardener, who brought up the boy to his own
+business, and consequently to labour hard enough, which would, to an
+understanding person, appear no such very great hardship where a man had
+continually been inured to it even from his cradle, and had neither
+capacity nor the least probability of attaining anything better. Yet
+such an intolerable thing did it seem to Middleton that he resolved at
+any cost to be rid of it, and to purchase an easier way of spending his
+days.
+
+In order to this, he very wisely chose to go aboard a man-of-war then
+bound for the Baltic. He was in himself a stupid, clumsy fellow, and the
+officers and seamen in the ship treated him so harshly, the fatigue he
+went through was so great, and the coldness of the climate so pinching
+to him, that he who so impatiently wished to be rid of the country work,
+now wished as earnestly to return thereto. Therefore, when on the return
+of Sir John Norris, the ship he was in was paid off and discharged, he
+was in an ecstacy of joy thereat, and immediately went down again to
+settle hard to labour as he had done before, experience having convinced
+him that there were many more hardships sustained in one short ramble
+than in a staid though laborious life.
+
+In order, as is the common phrase, to settle in the world, he married a
+poor woman, by whom he had two children, and thereby made her as unhappy
+as himself; what he was able to earn by his hands falling much short of
+what was necessary to keep house in the way he lived, this reduced him
+to such narrowness of circumstances that he was obliged (as he would
+have it believed) to take illegal methods for support.
+
+His own blockish and dastardly temper, as it had prevented his ever
+doing good in any honest way, so it as effectually put it out of his
+power to acquire anything considerable by the rapine he committed; for
+as he wanted spirit to go into a place where there was immediate danger,
+so his companions, who did the act while he scouted about to see if
+anybody was coming, and to give them notice, when they divided the booty
+gave him just what they thought fit, and keep the rest to themselves. He
+had gone on in this miserable way for a considerable space, and yet was
+able to acquire very little, his wants being very near as great while he
+robbed every night, as they were when he laboured every day, so that in
+the exchange he got nothing but danger into the bargain.
+
+At last, he was apprehended for breaking into the house of John de Pais
+and Joseph Gomeroon, and taking there jewels and other things to a
+great value, though his innocence in not entering the place would
+sufficiently excuse him, for he pleaded at his trial that he was so far
+from breaking the house that he was not so much as on the ground of the
+prosecutor when it was broke, but on the contrary, as appeared by their
+own evidence, on the other side of the way. But it being very fully
+proved by the evidence that Joseph Middleton belonged to the gang, that
+he waited there only to give them an intelligence, and shared in the
+money they took, the jury found him guilty.
+
+While he lay under conviction, he did his utmost to understand what was
+necessary for him to do in order to salvation. He applied himself with
+the utmost diligence to praying God to instruct him and enlighten his
+understanding, that he might be able to improve by his sufferings and
+reap a benefit from the chastisements of his Maker. In this frame of
+mind he continued with great steadiness and calmness till the time of
+his execution, at which he showed some fear and confusion, as the sight
+of such a death is apt to create even in the stoutest and best prepared
+breast. This Joseph Middleton, at the time of his exit, was in about the
+fortieth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN PRICE,[56] a Housebreaker
+
+
+A profligate life naturally terminates in misery, and according unto the
+vices which it has most pursued, so are its punishments suited unto it.
+Drunkenness besots the understanding, ruins the constitution, and leaves
+those addicted to it in the last stages of life, in want and misery,
+equally destitute of all necessaries, and incapable to procure them.
+Lewdness and lust after loose women enervate both the vigour of the
+brain and strength of the body, induce weaknesses that anticipate old
+age, and afflict the declining sinner with so many evils, as makes him a
+burden to himself and a spectacle to others. But if, for the support of
+all these, men fall into rapacious and wicked courses, plundering others
+who have frugally provided for the supply of life, in order to indulge
+their own wicked inclinations, then indeed the Law of society interposes
+generally before the Law of Nature, and cuts off with a sudden and
+ignominious death those who would otherwise probably have fallen by the
+fruits of their own sins.
+
+This malefactor, John Price, was one of these wretched people who act as
+if they thought life was given them only to commit wickedness and
+satiate their several appetites with gross impurities, without
+considering how far they offend either against the institutions of God
+or the laws of the land. It does not appear that this fellow ever
+followed any employment that looked like honesty, except when he was at
+sea. The terrors of a sick-bed alarmed even a conscience so hardened as
+Price's, and the effects of an ill-spent life appeared so plainly in the
+weak condition he found himself in, that he made, as he afterwards
+owned, the most solemn vows of amendment, if through the favour of
+Providence he recovered his former health. To this he was by the
+goodness of God restored, but the resolutions he made on that condition
+were totally forgotten. As soon as he returned home, he sought afresh
+the company of those loose women and those abandoned wretches who by the
+inconveniences into which they had formerly led him, had obliged him to
+seek for shelter by a long voyage at sea.
+
+What little money he had received when the ship was paid off, was
+quickly lavished away, so that on the 11th of August, 1725, he with two
+others named Cliffe and Sparks, undertook, after having well weighed the
+attempt, to enter the house of the Duke of Leeds by moving the sash, and
+so plunder it of what was to be got. By their assistance Cliffe got in
+at the window, and afterwards handed out a cloak, hat, and other things
+to his companions Sparks and Price, but they were all immediately
+apprehended. Cliffe made an information by which he discovered the whole
+fact, and it was fully proved by Mr. Bealin that Price, when first
+apprehended, owned that he had been with Cliffe and Sparks. Upon the
+whole the jury found him guilty, upon which he freely acknowledged the
+justice of their verdict at the bar.
+
+All the time he lay under conviction he behaved himself as a person
+convinced of his own unworthiness of life, and therefore repined not at
+the justice of that sentence which condemned him to death, though in his
+behaviour before his trial there had appeared much of that rough and
+boisterous disposition usual in fellows of no education, who have long
+practised such ways of living. Yet long before his death he laid aside
+all that ferocity of mind, appearing calm and easy under the weight of
+his sufferings, and so much dissatisfied with the trouble he had met
+with in the world that he appeared scarce desirous of remaining in it.
+He was not able himself to give any account of his age, but as far as
+could be guessed from his looks, he might be about thirty when executed,
+which was at the same time with the malefactor last mentioned; Cliffe,
+whose information had hanged him, being reprieved.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [56] A fuller account of this rogue will be found on page 276.
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF THE CRIMINALS
+
+VOLUME TWO
+
+
+
+
+THE PREFACE
+
+
+_In the Preface to my former volume I endeavoured to give my readers
+some idea of the English Crown Law, in order to shew how consistent it
+was with right reason, how perfectly just, and at the same time how full
+of mercy. In this, I intend to pursue the thread of that discourse, and
+explain the methods by which Justice in criminal cases is to be sought,
+and the means afforded by our Law to accuse the guilty and to prevent
+punishment from falling on the innocent. In order to do this the more
+regularly, it is fit we begin with the apprehension of offenders, and
+shew the care of the Legislature in that respect._
+
+_In sudden injuries, such as assaults on the highway, attempts to murder
+or to commit any felony whatsoever, there is no necessity for any legal
+officer to secure the person who is guilty, for every private man hath
+sufficient authority to seize and bring such criminal, either to a
+constable or to a Justice of the Peace, in order to have the fact
+clearly examined and such course taken therein as may conduce to the
+impartial distribution of Justice. And because men are apt to be
+scrupulous of interesting themselves in matters which do not immediately
+concern either their persons or their properties, so the Law hath
+provided punishments for those who, for fear of risking their private
+safety or advantage, suffer those who offend against the public to
+escape unpunished; hence hundreds are liable to be sued for suffering a
+robber to escape, and that method of pursuit which is called hue and cry
+is permitted, if no probable way may be left for felons to escape. Now a
+hue and cry is raised thus: the person robbed, for example, goes to the
+constable of the next town, tells him the case, described the felon, and
+the way he went. Whereupon the constable, be it day or night, is to take
+the assistance of those in his own town, and pursue him according to
+those directions immediately, at the same time sending with the utmost
+expedition to the neighbouring towns, who are to make like pursuit, and
+to send like notice until the felon be found._
+
+_So desirous is our Law of bringing offenders to Justice, and of
+preserving the roads free from being infested with these vermin. For the
+better effecting of this, besides those means prescribed by the customs
+of our ancestors, of later times rewards have been given to such as
+hazarded their own persons in bringing offenders to justice, and of
+these, as far as they are settled by Acts of Parliament and thereby
+rendered certain and perpetual, I shall speak here; though not of those
+given by proclamation, because they being only for a stated time, people
+must hereafter have been misled by our account, when that time is
+expired._
+
+_Highwaymen becoming, some time after the Revolution, exceedingly bold
+and troublesome, by an Act made in the reign of William and Mary, a
+reward of forty pounds is given for apprehending any one in England or
+Wales, and prosecuting him so as he be convicted; which forty pounds is
+to be paid by the sheriff on a certificate of the judge or justices
+before whom such a felon was convicted. And in case a person shall be
+killed in endeavouring to apprehend or making pursuit after such
+robbers, the said forty pounds shall be paid to the executors or
+administrators of such persons upon the like certificate. Moreover,
+every person who shall take, apprehend, or convict such a person, shall
+have as a reward the horse, furniture, arms, money or other goods of
+such robber as shall be taken with him, the right or title of his
+Majesty's bodies politic or corporate, lords of manors, or persons
+lending or letting the same to such robber notwithstanding; excepting
+only the right of those from whom such horses, furniture, arms, money,
+or goods were before feloniously taken._
+
+_A like reward of forty pounds was, by another Act in the same reign,
+given to such as shall apprehend any person convicted of any capital
+crime relating to the coin of this land._
+
+_By an Act also made in the reign of the late King William, persons who
+apprehend and prosecute to conviction any who feloniously steal goods to
+the value of five shillings, out of any house, shop, warehouse,
+coach-house or stable, or shall assist, hire or command any person to
+commit such offence; then such person so taking as aforesaid, shall have
+a certificate gratis from the Judge or Justices, expressing the parish
+or place where such felony was committed; which certificate shall be
+capable of being once assigned over, and shall exempt its proprietor or
+assignee from all parish and ward offices, in the parish or ward wherein
+the felony was committed._
+
+_By an Act made in the fifth year of the late Queen, persons
+apprehending one guilty of burglary, or of feloniously breaking into a
+house in the day-time, and prosecuting to conviction, shall receive over
+and above the certificate before mentioned, the sum of forty pounds, as
+in the case of apprehending an Highwayman._
+
+_By an Act passed in the sixth year of the late King, whoever shall
+discover, apprehend, or prosecute to conviction without benefit of
+clergy, any person for taking money or other reward, directly or
+indirectly, to help persons to their stolen goods (such persons not
+having apprehended the felon who stole the same, and brought him to
+trial, and given evidence against him) shall be entitled to a reward of
+forty pounds for every offender so convicted, and shall have the like
+certificate, and like payment without fee, as persons may be entitled to
+for apprehending highwaymen._
+
+_The next point after offenders are once apprehended, is to carry them
+before a proper magistrate, viz., a Justice of the Peace, and this leads
+us to say something of the nature and authority of that office. My Lord
+Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, the Lord High Steward of
+England, the Lord Marshal, and the Lord High Constable, each of the
+Justices of the King's Bench, and as some say, the Lord High Treasurer
+of England, have, as incidental to their offices, a general authority to
+keep the peace throughout the realm, and to award process for their
+surety thereof, and to take recognizances for it. The Master of the
+Rolls has also a like power, either incident to his office, or at least
+by prescription. As to the ordinary constructors or Justices of the
+Peace, they are constituted by the King's Commission, which is at
+present granted on the same form as was settled by the Judges in the
+33rd Year of Queen Elizabeth, by which they are appointed and assigned
+every one of then jointly and separately to keep the King's peace in
+such a county, and cause to be kept all statutes made for the good of
+the peace and the quiet government of the Kingdom, as well within
+liberties, as without, and to punish all those who shall offend against
+the said statutes, and to cause all those to come before them, or any of
+them, who threaten any people as to the burning their houses, in order
+to compel them to be kept in prison until they shall find it. As to the
+other powers committed to these justices, it would be too long for me to
+explain them, and therefore after this general Act, I shall go on to
+take notice of the manner in which the person accused is treated, when
+brought before them._
+
+_First the Justice of Peace examines as carefully as he can into the
+nature of the offence, and the weight there is of evidence to persuade
+him of the just ground there is for accusing the person before him; and
+after he has thoroughly considered this, if the thing appear frivolous
+or ill-grounded, he may discharge the person, or if he think the
+circumstances strong enough to require it, he may take the bail of the
+party accused, or if the nature of the crime be more heinous, and the
+proof direct and clear, he is bound by an instrument under his hand and
+seal called a_ Mittimus, _to commit the offender to safe custody until
+he is discharged according to Law. In carrying to prison for any crime
+whatsoever, if the party so carried escape himself, or if he be rescued
+by others, he and they are guilty of a very high misdemeanor, and in
+some cases, those who assist in making the rescue may be guilty of
+felony or high treason. But if a prisoner be once committed to gaol for
+felony, and afterwards break that prison and escape, such breach of
+prison is felony, by the Statute_ De Frangentibus Prisonam, _and shall
+be tried for the same as in other cases of felony, and suffer on
+conviction. My readers will find mention made of a case of this nature
+in respect to one Roger Johnson, who some years ago was tried for
+breaking the prison of Newgate, while he remained a prisoner there under
+a charge of felony, and making his escape; but so tender is the English
+law that when there appeared a probability that one Fisher (not then
+taken) broke down the wall of the prison and that Johnson took advantage
+of that hole and made his escape, he was found not guilty, for want of
+due proof that he actually did break that hole through which he
+escaped._
+
+_The prisoner being in safe custody, a bill is next to be preferred to
+the grand jury of the county, in which the nature of the crime is
+properly set forth, and after hearing the evidence brought by the
+prosecutor to support the charge, they return the bill to the Court,
+marked_ Billa Vera _or_ Ignoramus. _In the first case the prisoner is
+required to be tried by the petit jury of twelve, and to abide their
+verdict; in case of the latter, he is to be discharged and freed from
+that prosecution. But the grand jury must find or not find the bill
+entire, for a_ Billa Vera _to one part and an_ Ignoramus _to another
+renders the whole proceeding void and is of the same use to the prisoner
+as if they had returned an_ Ignoramus _upon the whole._
+
+_Many without knowing the Law have taken occasion to be very free with
+its precedents, and to treat them as things written in barbarous Latin,
+in which an unreasonable, if not ridiculous nicety is sometimes
+required. But when this comes to be thoroughly examined, we shall find
+that their proceedings are exactly conformable to reason, for if care
+and circumspection be necessary in deeds and writings relating to civil
+affairs, ought it not a fortiori to be more so where the life, liberty,
+reputation and everything that is dear and valuable to the subject is at
+stake? Therefore, since there are technical words in all sciences,
+surely the Law is not to be blamed for preserving certain words to which
+they have affixed particular and determined meanings for the expressing
+of such crimes as are made more or less culpable by the Legislature.
+Thus_ Murdravit _is absolutely necessary in an indictment charging the
+prisoner with a murder;_ Caepit _is the term made use of in indictments
+of larceny._ Mayhemaivit _expresses the fact charged in an indictment of
+maim;_ Felonice _is absolutely necessary in all indictments of felony of
+what kind soever;_ Burglariter _is the Latin word made use of to express
+that breaking which from particular circumstances our Law has called
+burglary, and appointed certain punishment for those who are guilty
+thereof._ Proditorie _expresses the Act in indictments of treason, and
+even if these are not Latin words, justified by the usage of Roman
+authors, the certainty which they give to those charges in which they
+are used, and which could not be so well expressed by circumlocutions,
+is a full answer to that objection, since the proceedings before a Court
+aim not at elegancy, but at Justice. But let us now go on to the next
+step taken to bring the offenders to Judgment._
+
+_The bill having been found by the grand jury, the prisoner is brought
+into the Court where he is to be tried, and set to the bar in the
+presence of the judges who are to try him. Then he is usually commanded
+to hold up his hand, but this being only a ceremony to make the person
+known to the court it may be omitted, or the person indicted saying_ I
+am here, _will answer the same end. Then the proper officer reads the
+indictment which has been found against him, in English, and when he
+hath so done, he demands of the prisoner whether he be guilty or not
+guilty of the fact alleged against him, to which the prisoner answers as
+he thinks fit, and this answer is styled his plea. That tenderness which
+the English Law on all occasions expresses towards those who are to be
+brought to answer for crimes alleged against them, requires that at his
+arraignment, the prisoner be totally free from any pain or duress which
+may disturb his thought and hinder his liberty of pleading as he thinks
+fit, and for this reason, even in cases of high treason, irons are taken
+off during the time the prisoner is at the bar, where he stands without
+any marks of contumely whatsoever._
+
+_But in case the prisoner absolutely refuses to answer, or in an
+impertinent manner delay or trifle with the court, then he is deemed a
+mute; but if he speaks not at all, nor gives any sign by which the Court
+shall be satisfied that he is able to speak, then an inquest of
+officers, that is of twelve persons who happen to be by, are to enquire
+whether his standing mute arises from his contempt of the Court, or be
+really an infirmity under which he labours from the hands of God. If it
+be found the latter, then the Court, as counsel for the prisoner, shall
+hear the evidence with relation to the fact, and proceed therein as if
+the prisoner had pleaded not guilty; but if, on the contrary, the Court
+or the inquest shall be satisfied that the prisoner remains a mute only
+from obstinacy, then in some cases judgment shall be awarded against him
+as if he had pleaded or were found guilty, and in others he shall be
+remitted to his penance, that is to suffer what the Law calls_ Peine
+forte et dure, _which is pressing, of which the readers will find an
+account in the subsequent life of Burnworth_, alias _Frazier; and
+therefore I shall not treat further of it here._
+
+_If, from conviction of his own guilt and a consciousness that it may be
+fully proved against him, the prisoner plead guilty to the indictment,
+it is considered as the highest species of conviction, and as soon as it
+is entered on record the Court proceeds to judgment without further
+proceedings on the indictments. But if the prisoner plead not guilty,
+and put himself for trial upon his country, then a jury of twelve men
+are to pass upon the defendant, and upon their verdict he is either to
+be acquitted or convicted._
+
+_And with respect to this jury, the English Law appears again more
+equitable than perhaps any other in the world, for in this case as the
+jury comes severally to the Book to be sworn, to try impartially between
+the King and the prisoner of the bar, according to the evidence that is
+given upon the indictment, the prisoner is even then at liberty to
+except against, or as the law term it, to challenge, twenty of the jury
+peremptorily, and as many more as he thinks fit on showing just cause.
+So also, if the prisoner be an alien, the jury are to be half aliens and
+half English. So tender is our constitution, not only of the lives of
+its natural born subjects, but, also of those who put themselves under
+its protection, that it has taken every precaution which the wit of man
+could devise to prevent prejudice, partiality, or corruption from
+mingling in any degree with the sentences pronounced upon offenders, or
+in the proceedings upon which they are founded._
+
+_Last of all we are to speak of the evidence or testimony which is to be
+given for or against the prisoner at the time of his trial. And first
+with respect to the evidence offered for the Crown; if it shall appear
+that the person swearing shall gain any great and evident advantage by
+the event of the trial in which he swears, he shall not be admitted as a
+good witness against the prisoner. Thus in the case of Rhodes, tried
+some years ago for forging letters of attorney for transferring South
+Sea Stock belonging to one Mr. Heysham, the prosecutor, Mr. Heysham, was
+not admitted to swear himself against the prisoner because in case of
+conviction six thousand pounds stock must have replaced to his account.
+But to this, though a general rule, there are some exceptions on which
+the compass of this discourse will not permit us to dwell. It is also a
+rule that a husband or wife cannot be admitted to testify against the
+prisoner, but to this also there are some exceptions, as in the Lord
+Audley's case,[57] where he was charged with holding his lady until his
+servant committed a rape upon her by his command. Also in marriages
+contracted by force against the form of the Statute; in that case it is
+provided that the woman, though a wife, may be admitted as evidence, as
+also in some other cases which we have not room to mention._
+
+_Persons convicted of perjury, forgery, etc., are not to be admitted as
+legal witnesses, but that the record of their contrition must be
+produced at the time the objection is made, for the Court mil take no
+notice of hearsay and common fame in such respect. An infidel, also,
+that is one who believes neither the Old nor New Testament, cannot be a
+witness, and some other disabilities there are which being uncommon, we
+shall not dwell upon here Yet it is necessary to take notice that
+whatever is offered as proof against the defendant, shall be heard
+openly before him, that he may have an opportunity of falsifying it, if
+he be able; and as in all cases, except high treason, no council is
+permitted to the prisoner except in matters of law, because every man is
+supposed to be capable of defending himself as to matters of fact, yet
+the Court is always council for the prisoner and never fails of
+instructing and informing him of whatever may conduce to his benefit or
+advantage; and if any difficult points of Law arise, council are
+assigned him, and are permitted to argue in his behalf with the same
+freedom that those do who are appointed by the Crown._
+
+_From this succinct account of the method in use in England, of doing
+justice in criminal cases, I flatter myself my readers will very clearly
+see how valuable those privileges are which we enjoy as Englishmen; how
+equitable the proceedings of our Courts of Justice; and how well
+constructed every part of our constitution is for the preservation of
+the lives and liberties of its subjects. If there remained room for us
+to compare the judicious proceedings in use here with those slight,
+rigorous and summary methods which are practised in other countries, the
+value of these blessings which we enjoy would be considerably enhanced.
+But as this Preface already exceeds its intended length, we must refer
+this to a more proper opportunity, and conclude with putting our readers
+in mind that by the careful perusal of this and the Preface to the First
+Volume, they will have competent notion of the Crown Law, the reasons on
+which it is founded, the method in which it is prosecuted, and the
+judgments on criminals which are inflicted thereby; matters highly
+useful in themselves, as well as absolutely necessary to be known, in
+order to a proper understanding of the following pages._
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [57] This was Mervyn, Lord Audley, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven, a
+        man of loathsome profligacy, who was tried by his peers on
+        charges of unnatural offences, and executed, in 1631.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM SPERRY, Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+There is not anything more extraordinary in the circumstances of those
+who from a life of rapine and plunder come to its natural catastrophe, a
+violent and ignominious death, than that some of them from a life of
+piety and religion, have on a sudden fallen into so opposite a
+behaviour, and without any stumbles in the road of virtue take, as it
+were, a leap from the precipice at once.
+
+This malefactor, William Sperry, was born of parents in very low
+circumstances, who afforded him and his brother scarce any education,
+until having reached the age of fourteen years, he and his younger
+brother before mentioned, were both decoyed by one of the agents for the
+plantations, to consent to their being transported to America, where
+they were sold for about seven years.[58] After the expiration of the
+term, William Sperry went to live at Philadelphia, the capital of
+Pennsylvania, one of the best plantations the English have in America,
+which receives its name from William Penn, the famous Quaker who first
+planted it. Here, being chiefly instigated thereto by the great piety
+and unaffected purity of morals in which the inhabitants of that colony
+excel the greater part of the world, Sperry began with the utmost
+industry to endeavour at retrieving his reading; and the master with
+whom he lived favouring his inclinations, was at great pains and some
+expense to have him taught writing. Yet he did not swerve in his
+religion, nor fall into Quakerism, the predominant sect here, but went
+constantly to the Church belonging to the religion by Law established in
+England, read several good books, and addicted himself with much zeal to
+the service of God. Removing from the house of his kind master to that
+of another planter, he abated nothing in his zeal for devotion, but went
+constantly from his master's house to church at West Chester, which was
+near five miles from his home.
+
+Happening, not long after, to have the advantage of going in a trading
+vessel to several ports in America, he addicted himself with great
+pleasure to this new life. But his happiness therein, like all other
+species of human bliss, very shortly faded, for one morning just as the
+day began to dawn, the vessel in which he sailed was clapped on board,
+and after a very short struggle taken by Low, the famous pirate.[59]
+Sperry, being a brisk young lad, Low would very fain have taken him into
+his crew, but the lad having still virtuous principles remaining,
+earnestly entreated that he might be excused. On the score of his having
+discovered to Low a mutinous conspiracy of his crew, the generosity of
+that pirate was so great that, finding no offer he could make made any
+impression, he caused him to be set safe on shore in the night, on one
+of the Leeward Islands.
+
+Notwithstanding that Sperry did not at that time comply with the
+instigations of the pirate, yet his mind was so much poisoned by the
+sight of what passed on board, that from that time he had an itching
+towards plunder and the desire of getting money at an easier rate than
+by the sweat of his brow. While these thoughts were floating in his
+head, he was entertained on board one of his Majesty's men-of-war, and
+while he continued in the Service, saw a pirate vessel taken; and the
+men being tried before a Court of Admiralty in New England, every one of
+them was executed except five, who manifestly appeared to have been
+forced into the pirates' service. One would have thought this would have
+totally eradicated all liking for that sort of practice, but it seems it
+did not. For as soon as Sperry came home into England and had married a
+wife, by which his inclinations were chained, though he had no ability
+to support her, and falling into very great necessities, he either
+tempted others or associated himself with certain loose and abandoned
+young men, for as he himself constantly declared, he was not led into
+evil practices by the persuasions of any. However it were, the deeds he
+committed were many, and he became the pest of most of the roads out to
+the little villages about London, particularly towards Hampstead,
+Islington and Marylebone, of some of which as our papers serve we shall
+inform you.
+
+Sperry and four more of his associates hearing that gaming was very
+public at Hampstead,[60] and that considerable sums were won and lost
+there every night, resolved to share part of the winnings, let them
+light where they would. In order to this, they planted themselves in a
+dry ditch on one side of the foot-road just as evening came on,
+intending when it was darker to venture into the coach road. They had
+hardly been at their posts a quarter of an hour before two officers came
+by. Some were for attacking them, but Sperry was of a contrary opinion.
+In the meanwhile they heard one of the gentlemen say to the other,
+_There's D---- M----, the Gamester, behind us, he has won at least sixty
+guineas to-night._ Sperry and his crew had no further dispute whether
+they should rob the gentlemen in red or no, but resolved to wait the
+coming of so rich a prize.
+
+It was but a few minutes before M---- appeared in sight. They
+immediately stepped into the path, two before him, and two behind, and
+watching him to the corner of a hedge, the two who were behind him
+caught him by the shoulders, turned him round, and hurrying him about
+ten yards, pushed him into a dry ditch. This they had no sooner done,
+but they all four leaped down upon him and began to examine his pockets,
+M---- thought to have talked them out of a stricter search by pretending
+he had lost a great deal of money at play, and had but fifty shillings
+about him, which with a silver watch and a crystal ring he deemed very
+ready to deliver; and it very probably would have been accepted if they
+had not had better intelligence, but one of the oldest of the gang,
+perceiving after turning out all his pockets that they could discover
+nothing of value, began to exert the style of a highwayman upon an
+examination, and addressed the gamester in these terms.
+
+_Nobody but such a rogue as you would have given gentlemen of our
+faculty so much trouble. Sir, we have received advice by good hands from
+Belsize that you won sixty guineas to-day at play. Produce them
+immediately, or we shall take it for granted you have swallowed them;
+and in such a case, Sir, I have an instrument ready to give us an
+immediate account of the contents of your stomach._
+
+M----, in a dreadful fright, put his hand under his arm, and from thence
+produced a green purse with a fifty pound bank-note and eighteen
+guineas. This they had no sooner taken than, tying him fast to a hedge
+stake, they ran across the fields in search of another booty. They spun
+out the time, being a moonlight night, until past eleven, there being so
+much company on the road that they found it impossible to attack without
+danger.
+
+As they were returning home, they heard the noise of a coach driving
+very hard, and upon turning about saw it was that of Sir W---- B----,
+himself on the box, two ladies of pleasure in the coach, and his
+servants a great way behind. One of them seized the horse on one side,
+and another on the other, but Sir W---- drove so very hard that the pull
+of the horses brought them both to the ground, and he at the same time
+encouraging them with his voice and the smack of his whip. So he drove
+safe off without any hurt, though they fired two pistols after him.
+
+About three weeks after this they were passing down Drury Lane, and
+observing a gentleman going with one of the fine ladies of the Hundreds
+into a tavern thereabouts, one of the gang who knew him, and that he had
+married a lady with a great fortune to whom his father was guardian, and
+that they lived altogether in a great house near Lincoln's Inn Fields,
+immediately thought on a project. They slipped into an alehouse, where
+he wrote an epistle to the old gentleman, informing him that they had a
+warrant to apprehend a lewd woman who was with child by his son, but
+that she had made her escape, and was now actually with him at a certain
+tavern in Drury Lane, wherefore being apprehensive of disturbance, and
+being unwilling to disgrace his family, rather than take rougher
+methods, they had informed him, in order that by his interposition the
+affair might be made up.
+
+As soon as they had written this letter, they dispatched one of their
+number to carry it and deliver it, as if by mistake, to the young
+gentleman's wife. This had the desired effect, for in less than half an
+hour came the father, the wife, and another of her trustees, who
+happened to be paying a visit there when the letter came. They no sooner
+entered the tavern but hearing the voice of the gentleman they asked
+for, without ceremony they opened the door, and finding a woman there,
+all was believed, and there followed a mighty uproar. Two of the rogues
+who were best dressed, had slipped into the next room and called for
+half a pint. As if by accident they came out at the noise, and under
+pretence of enquiring the occasion, took the opportunity of picking the
+gentleman's pockets of twenty-five guineas, one gold watch, and two
+silver snuff-boxes, which it is to be presumed were never missed until
+the hurry of the affair was over.
+
+The last robbery Sperry committed was upon one Thomas Golding, not far
+from Bromley, who not having any money about him, Sperry endeavoured to
+make it up by taking all his clothes. Being apprehended for this, at the
+next sessions at the Old Bailey he was convicted for this offence, and
+having no friends, could not entertain the least hopes of pardon. From
+the time that he was convicted, and, indeed, from that of his
+commitment, he behaved like a person on the brink of another world,
+ingenuously confessing all his guilt, and acknowledging readily the
+justice of that sentence by which he was doomed to death. His behaviour
+was perfectly uniform, and as he never put on an air of contempt towards
+death, so, at its nearest approach he did not seem exceedingly terrified
+therewith, but with great calmness of mind prepared for his dissolution.
+
+On the day of his execution his countenance seemed rather more cheerful
+than ordinarily, and he left this world with all exterior signs of true
+penitence and contrition, on Monday, the 24th of May, 1725, at Tyburn,
+being then about twenty-three years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [58] There was great competition to secure white labour in the
+        American plantations. Infamous touts circulated amongst the
+        poor, and any who were starving or wished for personal reasons
+        to emigrate engaged themselves with a ship-master or an
+        office-keeper to allow themselves to be sold for a term of years
+        in return for their passage money. On arrival at their
+        destination these poor wretches were sent to the plantations and
+        lived as slaves until the term for which they had contracted had
+        expired. In Virginia and Maryland, where most of them went, they
+        were driven to work on the tobacco fields with the negroes, and
+        were worse treated than the blacks, as being only leasehold
+        property whereas the negroes were freehold.
+
+   [59] Captain Edward Low was one of the bloodied of the pirates.
+        He served under Lowther until 1722, when he smarted on his own
+        account. After many atrocities he was taken by the French and
+        hanged, some time in 1724. A full account of him is given in my
+        edition of Johnson's _History of the Pirates_, issued in the
+        same series as the present volume.
+
+   [60] Belsize House was opened as a place of amusement, about
+        1720, by a certain Howell, who called himself the Welsh
+        Ambassador. At first it was a fashionable resort, but it soon
+        became the haunt of gamblers and harpies of both sexes.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ROBERT HARPHAM, a Coiner
+
+
+In my former volume I have taken occasion, in the life of Barbara
+Spencer, to mention the laws against coining as they stand at present in
+this kingdom. I shall not, therefore, detain my readers here with the
+unnecessary introduction, but proceed to inform them that a multitude of
+false guineas being talked of--the natural consequence of a few being
+detected--great pains were taken by the officers belonging to the Mint
+for detecting those by whom such frauds had been committed.
+
+It was not long before information was had of one Robert Harpham and
+Thomas Broom, who were suspected of being the persons by whom such false
+guineas had been made. Upon these suspicions search warrants were
+granted, and a large engine of iron was discovered at Harpham's house,
+with other tools supposed to be made use of for that purpose. On this,
+the mob immediately gave out that a cart-load of guineas had been
+carried from thence, because those instruments were so cumberous as to
+be fetched in that manner; though the truth, indeed, was that no great
+number of false guineas had been coined, though the instruments
+undoubtedly were fitted and made use of for that purpose. Harpham, who
+well knew what evidence might be produced against him, never flattered
+himself with hopes after he came to Newgate, but as he believed he
+should die, so he prepared himself for it as well as he could.
+
+At his trial the evidence against him was very full and direct. Mr.
+Pinket deposed flatly that the instruments produced in Court, and which
+were sworn to be taken from the prisoner's house, could not serve for
+any other purpose than that of coining. These instruments were an iron
+press of very great weight, a cutting instrument for forming blanks, an
+edging tool for indenting, with two dies for guineas and two dies for
+half-guineas. To strengthen this, William Fornham deposed in relation to
+the prisoners' possession, and Mr. Gornbey swore directly to his
+striking a half-guinea in his presence. Mr. Oakley and Mr. Tardley
+deposing further, that they flatted very considerable quantities of a
+mixed metal for the prisoner, made up of brass, copper, etc., sometimes
+to the quantity of 30 or 40 pound weight at a time.
+
+The defence he made was very weak and trifling, and after a very short
+consideration the jury brought him in guilty of the indictment, and he,
+never entertaining any hopes of pardon, bent all his endeavours in
+making his peace with God. Some persons in the prison had been very
+civil to him, and one of them presuming thereon, asked him wherein the
+great secret of his art of coining lay? Mr. Harpham thanked him for the
+kindnesses he had received of him, but said that he should make a very
+bad return for the time afforded him by the law of repentance, if he
+should leave behind him anything of that kind which might farther
+detriment his country. Some instances were also made to him that he
+should discover certain persons of that same profession with himself,
+who were likely to carry on the same frauds long after his decease. Mr.
+Harpham, notwithstanding the answer he had made to the other gentleman,
+refused to comply with this request; for he said that the instruments
+seized would effectually prevent that, and he would not take away their
+lives and ruin their families, when he was sure they were incapacitated
+from coining anything for the future. However, that he might discharge
+his conscience as far as he could, he wrote several pathetic letters to
+the persons concerned; earnestly exhorting them for the sake of
+themselves and their families to leave off this wicked employment, and
+not hazard their lives and their salvation in any further attempt of
+that sort.
+
+Having thus disengaged himself from all worldly concerns, he dedicated
+the last moments of his life entirely to the service of God; and having,
+received the Sacrament the day before his execution, he was conveyed
+the next noon to Tyburn in a sledge, where he was not a little
+disturbed, even in the agonies of death, by the tumult and insults the
+mob offered to Jonathan Wild, which he complained much of and seemed
+very uneasy at. He suffered on the same day with the last mentioned
+malefactor, appealing to be about two- or three-and-forty years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of the famous JONATHAN WILD, Thief-Taker
+
+
+As no person in this collection ever made so much noise as the person we
+are now speaking of, so never any man, perhaps, in any condition of life
+whatever had so many romantic stories fathered upon him in his life, or
+so many fictitious legendary accounts published of him after his death.
+It may seem a low kind of affectation to say that the memoirs we are now
+giving of Jonathan Wild are founded on certainty and fact; and that
+though they are so founded, they are yet more extraordinary than any of
+those fabulous relations pushed into the world to get a penny, at the
+time of his death, when it was a proper season for vending such
+forgeries, the public looking with so much attention on his catastrophe,
+and greedily catching up whatever pretended to the giving an account of
+his actions. But to go on with the history in its proper order.
+
+Jonathan Wild[61] was the son of persons in a mean and low state of
+life, yet for all that I have ever heard of them, both honest and
+industrious. Their family consisted of three sons and two daughters,
+whom their father and mother maintained and educated in the best manner
+they could from their joint labours, he as carpenter, and she by selling
+fruit in Wolverhampton market, in Staffordshire, which in future ages
+may perhaps become famous as the birth place of the celebrated Mr.
+Jonathan Wild. He was the eldest of the sons, and received as good an
+education as his father's circumstances would allow him, being bred at
+the free-school to read and write, to both of which having attained to a
+tolerable degree, he was put out an apprentice to a buckle-maker in
+Birmingham.
+
+He served his time with much fidelity, and came up to town in the
+service of a gentleman of the long robe, about the year 1704, or perhaps
+a little later. But not liking his service, or his master being not
+altogether so well pleased with him, he quitted it and retired to his
+old employment in the country, where he continued to work diligently for
+some time. But at last growing sick of labour, and still entertaining a
+desire to taste the pleasures of London, up hither he came a second
+time, and worked journey-work at the trade to which he was bred. But
+this not producing money enough to support those expenses Jonathan's
+love of pleasure threw him into, he got pretty deeply in debt; and some
+of his creditors not being endued with altogether as much patience as
+his circumstances required, he was suddenly arrested, and thrown into
+Wood-street Compter.
+
+Having no friends to do anything for him, and having very little money
+in his pocket when this misfortune happened, he lived very hardly there,
+scarce getting bread enough to support him from the charity allowed to
+prisoners, and from what little services he could render to prisoners of
+the better sort in the gaol. However, as no man wanted address less than
+Jonathan, so nobody could have employed it more properly than he did
+upon this occasion; he thereby got so much into the favour of the
+keepers, that they quickly permitted him the liberty of the gate, as
+they call it, and he thereby got some little matter for going on
+errands. This set him above the very pinch of want, and that was all;
+but his fidelity and industry in these mean employments procured him
+such esteem amongst those in power there, that they soon took him into
+their ministry, and appointed him an under-keeper to those disorderly
+persons who were brought in every night and are called, in their cant,
+"rats."
+
+Jonathan now came into a comfortable subsistence, having learnt how to
+get money of such people by putting them into the road of getting
+liberty for themselves. But there, says my author, he met with a lady
+who was confined on the score of such practices very often, and who went
+by the name of Mary Milliner; and who soon taught him how to gain much
+greater sums than in this way of life, by methods which he until then
+never heard of, and will I am confident, to this day carry the charms of
+novelty to most of my readers. Of these the first she put upon him was
+going on what they call the "twang," which is thus managed: the man who
+is the confederate goes out with some noted woman of the town, and if
+she fall into any broil, he is to be at a proper distance, ready to come
+into her assistance, and by making a sham quarrel, give her an
+opportunity of getting off, perhaps after she has dived for a watch or a
+purse of guineas, and was in danger of being caught in the very act.
+This proved a very successful employment to Mr. Wild for a time. Moll
+and he, therefore, resolved to set up together, and for that purpose
+took lodgings and lived as man and wife, notwithstanding Jonathan then
+had a wife and a son at Wolverhampton and the fair lady was married to a
+waterman in town.
+
+By the help of this woman Jonathan grew acquainted with all the
+notorious gangs of loose persons within the bills of mortality, and was
+also perfectly versed in the manner by which they carried on their
+schemes. He knew where and how their enterprises were to be gone upon,
+and after what manner they disposed of their ill-got goods, when they
+came into their possession. Having always an intriguing head Wild set up
+for a director amongst them, and soon became so useful to them that
+though he never went out upon any of their lays, yet he got as much or
+more by their crimes as if he had been a partner with them, which upon
+one pretence or other he always declined.
+
+He had long ago got rid of that debt for which he had been imprisoned in
+the Compter, and having by his own thought projected a new manner of
+life, he began in a very little time to grow weary of Mrs. Milliner, who
+had been his first instructor. What probably contributed thereto was the
+danger to which he saw himself exposed by continuing a bully in her
+service; however, they parted without falling out, and as he had
+occasion to make use of her pretty often in his new way of business, so
+she proved very faithful and industrious to him in it, though she still
+went on in her old way.
+
+'Tis now time, that both this and the remaining part of the discourse
+may be intelligible, to explain the methods by which thieves became the
+better for thieving where they did not steal ready money; and of this we
+will speak in the clearest and most concise manner that we can.
+
+It must be observed that anciently when a thief had got his booty he had
+done all that a man in his profession could do, and there were
+multitudes of people ready to help them off with whatever effects he had
+got, without any more to do. But this method being totally destroyed by
+an Act passed in the reign of King William, by which it was made felony
+for any person to buy goods stolen, knowing them to be so, and some
+examples having been made on this Act, there were few or no receivers to
+be met with. Those that still carried on the trade took exorbitant sums
+for their own profit, leaving those who had run the hazard of their
+necks in obtaining them, the least share of the plunder. This (as an
+ingenious author says) had like to have brought the thieving trade to
+naught; but Jonathan quickly thought of a method to put things again in
+order, and give new life to the practices of the several branches of the
+ancient art and mystery called stealing. The method he took was this.
+
+As soon as any considerable robbery was committed, and Jonathan received
+intelligence by whom, he immediately went to the thieves, and instead of
+offering to buy the whole or any part of the plunder, he only enquired
+how the thing was done, where the persons lived who were injured, and
+what the booty consisted in that was taken away. Then pretending to
+chide them for their wickedness in doing such actions, and exhorting
+them to live honestly for the future, he gave it them as his advice to
+lodge what they had taken in a proper place which he appointed them, and
+then promised he would take some measures for their security by getting
+the people to give them somewhat to have them restored them again.
+Having thus wheedled those who had committed a robbery into a compliance
+with his measures, his next business was to divide the goods into
+several parcels, and cause them to be sent to different places, always
+avoiding taking them into his own hands.
+
+Things being in this position, Jonathan, or Mrs. Milliner went to the
+persons who were robbed, and after condoling the misfortune, observed
+that they had an acquaintance with a broker to whom certain goods were
+brought, some of which they suspected to be stolen, and hearing that the
+person to whom they thus applied had been robbed they said they thought
+it the duty of one honest body to another to inform them thereof, and to
+enquire what goods they were they lost, in order to discover whether
+those they spoke of were the same or no. People who had such losses are
+always ready, after the first fit of passion is over, to hearken to
+anything that has a tendency towards recovering their goods. Jonathan or
+his mistress therefore, who could either of them play the hypocrite
+nicely, had no great difficulty in making people listen to such terms;
+in a day or two, therefore, they were sure to come again with
+intelligence that having called upon their friend and looked over the
+goods, they had found part of the goods there; and provided nobody was
+brought into trouble, and the broker had something in consideration of
+his care, they might be had again. He generally told the people, when
+they came on this errand, that he had heard of another parcel at such a
+place, and that if they would stay a little, he would go and see
+whether they were such as they described theirs to be which they had
+lost.
+
+This practice of Jonathan's, if well considered, carries in it a great
+deal of policy; for first it seemed to be an honest and good-natured act
+to prevail on evil persons to restore the goods which they had stole;
+and it must be acknowledged to be a great benefit to those who were
+robbed thus to have their goods again upon a reasonable premium,
+Jonathan or his mistress all the while taking apparently nothing, their
+advantages arising from what they took out of the gratuity left with the
+broker, and out of what they had bargained with the thief to be allowed
+of the money which they had procured him. Such people finding this
+advantage in it, the rewards were very near as large as the price now
+given by receivers (since receiving became too dangerous), and they
+reaped a certain security also by the bargain.
+
+With respect to Jonathan, the contrivance placed him in safety, not only
+from all the laws then in being, but perhaps would have secured him as
+securely from those that are made now, if covetousness had not prevailed
+with him to take bolder steps than these; for in a short time he began
+to give himself out for a person who made it his business to procure
+stolen goods to their right owners. When he first did this he acted with
+so much art and cunning that he acquired a very great reputation as an
+honest man, not only from those who dealt with him to procure what they
+had lost, but even from those people of higher station, who observing
+the industry with which he prosecuted certain malefactors, took him for
+a friend of Justice, and as such afforded him countenance and
+encouragement.
+
+Certain it is that he brought more villains to the gallows than perhaps
+any man ever did, and consequently by diminishing their number, made it
+much more safe for persons to travel or even to reside with security in
+their own houses. And so sensible was Jonathan of the necessity there
+was for him to act in this manner, that he constantly hung up two or
+three of his clients at least in a twelvemonth, that he might keep up
+that character to which he had attained; and so indefatigable was he in
+the pursuit of those he endeavoured to apprehend, that it never happened
+in all his course of acting, that so much as one single person escaped
+him. Nor need this appear so great a wonder, if we consider that the
+exact acquaintance he had with their gangs and the haunts they used put
+it out of their power almost to hide themselves so as to avoid his
+searches.
+
+When this practice of Jonathan's became noted, and the people resorted
+continually to his house in order to hear of the goods which they had
+lost, it produced not only much discourse, but some enquiries into his
+behaviour. Jonathan foresaw this, and in order to evade any ill
+consequence that might follow upon it, upon such occasions put on an air
+of gravity, and complained of the evil disposition of the times, which
+would not permit a man to serve his neighbours and his country without
+censure. _For do I not_, quoth Jonathan, _do the greatest good, when I
+persuade these wicked people who have deprived them of their properties,
+to restore them again for a reasonable consideration. And are not the
+villains whom I have so industriously brought to suffer that punishment
+which the Law, for the sake of its honest subjects, thinks fit to
+inflict upon them--in this respect, I say, does not their death show how
+much use I am to the country? Why, then_, added Jonathan, _should people
+asperse me, or endeavour to take away my bread?_
+
+This kind of discourse served, as my readers must know, to keep Wild
+safe in his employment for many years, while not a step he took, but
+trod on felony, nor a farthing did he obtain but what deserved the
+gallows. Two great things there were which contributed to his
+preservation, and they were these. The great readiness the Government
+always shows in detecting persons guilty of capital offences; in which
+case we know 'tis common to offer not only pardon, but rewards to
+persons guilty, provided they make discoveries; and this Jonathan was so
+sensible of that he did not only screen himself behind the lenity of the
+Supreme Power, but made use of it also as a sort of authority, and
+behaved himself with a very presuming air. And taking upon him the
+character of a sort of minister of Justice, this assumed character of
+his, however ill-founded, proved of great advantage to him in the course
+of his life. The other point, which, as I have said, contributed to keep
+him from any prosecutions on the score of these illegal and
+unwarrantable actions, was the great willingness of people who had been
+robbed to recover their goods, and who, provided for a small matter they
+could regain things for a considerable worth, were so far from taking
+pains to bring the offenders to justice that they thought the premium a
+cheap price to get off.
+
+Thus by the rigour of the magistrate, and the lenity of the subject,
+Jonathan claimed constant employment, and according as wicked persons
+behaved, they were either trussed up to satisfy the just vengeance of
+the one, or protected and encouraged, that by bringing the goods they
+stole he might be enabled to satisfy the demands of the other. And thus
+we see the policy of a mean and scandalous thief-taker, conducted with
+as much prudence, caution, and necessary courage, as the measures taken
+by even the greatest persons upon earth; nor perhaps is there, in all
+history, an instance of a man who thus openly dallied with the laws, and
+played with capital punishment.
+
+As I am persuaded my readers will take a pleasure in the relation of
+Jonathan's maxims of policy, I shall be a little more particular in
+relation to them than otherwise I should have been, considering that in
+this work I do not propose to treat of the actions of a single person,
+but to consider the villainies committed throughout the space of a dozen
+years, such especially as have reached to public notice by bringing the
+authors of them to the gallows. But Mr. Wild being a man of such
+eminence as to value himself in his life-time on his superiority to
+meaner rogues; so I am willing to distinguish him now he is dead, by
+showing a greater complaisance in recording his history than that of any
+other hero in this way whatsoever.
+
+Nor, to speak properly, was Jonathan ever an operator, as they call it,
+that is a practicer in any one branch of thieving. No, his method was to
+acquire money at an easier rate, and if any title can be devised
+suitable to his great performance, it must be that of Director General
+of the united forces of highwaymen, housebreakers, footpads,
+pickpockets, and private thieves. Now, according to my promise, for the
+maxims by which he supported himself in this dangerous capacity.
+
+In the first place, he continually exhorted the plunderers that belonged
+to his several gangs, to let him know punctually what goods they at any
+time took, by which means he had it in his power to give, for the most
+part, a direct answer to those who came to make their enquiries after
+they had lost their effects, either by their own carelessness, or the
+dexterity of the thief. If they complied faithfully with his
+instructions, he was a certain protector on all occasions, and sometimes
+had interest enough to procure them liberty when apprehended, either in
+the committing a robbery, or upon the information of one of the gang. In
+such a case Jonathan's usual pretence was that such a person (who was
+the man he intended to save) was capable of making a larger and more
+effectual information, for which purpose Jonathan would sometimes supply
+him with memorandums of his own, and thereby establish so well the
+credit of his discovery, as scarce to fail of producing its effect.
+
+But if his thieves threatened to become independent, and despise his
+rules, or endeavour for the sake of profit to vend the goods they got
+some other way without making application to Jonathan; or if they threw
+out any threatening speeches against their companions; or grumbled at
+the compositions he made for them, in such cases as these Wild took the
+first opportunity of talking to them in a new style, telling them that
+he was well assured they did very ill acts and plundered poor honest
+people, to indulge themselves in their debaucheries; that they would do
+well to think of amending before the Justice of their country fell upon
+them; and that after such warning they must not expect any assistance
+from him, in case they should fall under any misfortune. The next thing
+that followed after this fine harangue was that they were put into the
+information of some of Jonathan's creatures; or the first fresh fact
+they committed and Jonathan was applied to for the recovery of the
+goods, he immediately set out to apprehend them, and laboured so
+indefatigably therein that they never escaped him. Thus he not only
+procured the reward for himself, but also gained an opportunity of
+pretending that he not only restored goods to the right owners, but also
+apprehended the thief as often as it was in his power. As to instances,
+I shall mention them in a proper place.
+
+I shall now go on to another observation, viz., that in those steps of
+his business which was most hazardous, Jonathan made the people
+themselves take the first steps by publishing advertisements of things
+lost, directing them to be brought to Mr. Wild, who was empowered to
+receive them and pay such a reward as the person that lost them thought
+fit to offer; and in this capacity Jonathan appeared no otherwise than
+as a person on whose honour these sort of people could rely; by which,
+his assistance became necessary for retrieving whatever had been
+pilfered.
+
+After he had gone on in this trade for about ten years with success, he
+began to lay aside much of his former caution, and gave way to the
+natural vanity of his temper; taking a larger house in Old Bailey than
+that in which he formerly lived; giving the woman who he called his
+wife, abundance of fine things; keeping open office for restoring stolen
+goods; appointing abundance of under-officers to receive goods, carry
+messages to those who stole them, bring him exact intelligence of the
+several gangs and the places of their resort, and in fine, for such
+other purposes as this, their supreme governor, directed. His fame at
+last came to that height that persons of the highest quality would
+condescend to make use of his abilities, when at an installation, public
+entry, or some other great solemnity they had the misfortune of losing
+watches, jewels, or other things, whether of great real or imaginary
+value.
+
+But as his methods of treating those who applied to him for his
+assistance has been much misrepresented, I shall next give an exact and
+impartial account thereof, that the fabulous history of Jonathan Wild
+may not be imposed upon posterity.
+
+In the first place, then, when a person was introduced to Mr. Wild's
+office, it was first hinted to him that a crown must be deposited by
+way of fee for his advice; when this was complied with a large book was
+brought out; then the loser was examined with much formality, as to the
+time, place, and manner that the goods became missing; and then the
+person was dismissed with a promise of careful enquiries being made, and
+of hearing more concerning them in a day or two. When this was adjusted,
+the person took his leave, with great hopes of being acquainted shortly
+with the fruits of Mr. Wild's industry, and highly satisfied with the
+methodical treatment he had met with.
+
+But at the bottom this was all grimace. Wild had not the least occasion
+for these queries, except to amuse the persons he asked, for he knew
+beforehand all the circumstances of the robbery much better than they
+did. Nay, perhaps, he had the very goods in the house when the folks
+came first to enquire for them; though for reasons not hard to guess he
+made use of all this formality before he proceeded to return them. When,
+therefore, according to his appointment, the enquirer came the second
+time, Jonathan took care to amuse him by a new scene. He was told that
+Mr. Wild had indeed made enquiries, but was very sorry to communicate
+the result of them; the thief, truly, who was a bold impudent fellow,
+rejected with scorn the offer which pursuant to the loser's instructions
+had been made him, insisted that he could sell the goods at a double
+price, and in short would not hear a word of restitution unless upon
+better terms. _But notwithstanding all this_, says Jonathan, _if I can
+but come to the speech of him, I don't doubt bringing him to reason._
+
+At length, after one or two more attendances, Mr. Wild gave the definite
+answer, that provided no questions were asked and so much money was
+given to the porter who brought them, the loser might have his things
+returned at such an hour precisely. This was transacted with all outward
+appearances of friendship and honest intention on his side, and with
+great seeming frankness and generosity; but when the client came to the
+last article, viz., what Mr. Wild expected for his trouble, then an air
+of coldness was put on, and he answered with equal pride and
+indifference, that what he did was purely from a principle of doing
+good. As to a gratuity for the trouble he had taken, he left it totally
+to yourself; you might do it in what you thought fit. Even when money
+was presented to him he received it with the same negligent grace,
+always putting you in mind that it was your own act, that you did it
+merely out of your generosity, and that it was no way the result of his
+request, that he took it as a favour, not as a reward.
+
+By this dexterity in his management he fenced himself against the rigour
+of the law, in the midst of these notorious transgressions of it, for
+what could be imputed to Mr. Wild? He neither saw the thief who took
+away your goods, nor received them after they were taken; the method he
+pursued in order to procure you your things again was neither dishonest
+or illegal, if you will believe his account on it, and no other than his
+account could be gotten. According to him it was performed after this
+manner: after having enquired amongst such loose people as he
+acknowledged he had acquaintance with, and hearing that such a robbery
+was committed at such a time, and such and such goods were taken, he
+thereupon had caused it to be intimated to the thief that if he had any
+regard for his own safety he would cause such and such goods to be
+carried to such a place; in consideration of which, he might reasonably
+hope such a reward, naming a certain sum. If it excited the thief to
+return the goods, it did not thereby fix any guilt or blame upon
+Jonathan; and by this description, I fancy my readers will have a pretty
+clear idea of the man's capacity, as well as of his villainy.
+
+Had Mr. Wild continued satisfied with this way of dealing in all human
+probability he might have gone to his grave in peace, without any
+apprehensions of punishment but what he was to meet within a world to
+come. But he was greedy, and instead of keeping constant to this safe
+method, came at last to take the goods into his own custody, giving
+those that stole them what he thought proper, and then making such a
+bargain with the loser as he was able to bring him up to, sending the
+porter himself, and taking without ceremony whatever money had been
+given him. But as this happened only in the two last years of his life,
+it is fit I should give you some instances of his behaviour before, and
+these not from the hearsay of the town, but within the compass of my own
+knowledge.
+
+A gentleman near Covent Garden who dealt in silks had bespoke a piece of
+extraordinary rich damask, on purpose for the birthday suit of a certain
+duke; and the lace-man having brought such trimming as was proper for
+it, the mercer had made the whole up in a parcel, tied it at each end
+with blue ribbon, sealed with great exactness, and placed on one end of
+the counter, in expectation of his Grace's servant, who he knew was
+directed to call for it in the afternoon. Accordingly the fellow came,
+but when the mercer went to deliver him the goods, the piece had gone,
+and no account could possibly he had of it. As the master had been all
+day in the shop, so there was no possibility of charging anything either
+upon the carelessness or dishonesty of servants. After an hour's
+fretting, therefore, seeing no other remedy, he even determined to go
+and communicate his loss to Mr. Wild, in hopes of receiving some benefit
+by his assistance, the loss consisting not so much in the value of the
+things as in the disappointment it would be to the nobleman not to have
+them on the birthday.
+
+Upon this consideration a hackney-coach was immediately called, and away
+he was ordered to drive directly to Jonathan's house in the Old Bailey.
+As soon as he came into the room, and had acquainted Mr. Wild with his
+business, the usual deposit of a crown being made, and the common
+questions of the how, when, and where, having been asked, the mercer
+being very impatient, said with some kind of heat, _Mr. Wild, the loss I
+have sustained, though the intrinsic value of the goods be very little,
+lies more in disobliging my customer. Tell me, therefore, in a few
+words, if it be in your power to serve me. If it is, I have thirty
+guineas here ready to lay down, but if you expect that I should dance
+attendance for a week or two, I assure you I shall not be willing to
+part with above half the money. Good sir_, replied Mr. Wild, _have a
+little more consideration. I am no thief, sir, nor no receiver of stolen
+goods, so that if you don't think fit to give me time to enquire, you
+must e'en take what measures you please._
+
+When the mercer found he was like to be left without any hopes, he began
+to talk in a milder strain, and with abundance of intreaties fell to
+persuading Jonathan to think of some method to serve him, and that
+immediately. Wild stepped out a minute or two, as if to the necessary
+house; as soon as he came back he told the gentleman, it was not in his
+power to serve him in such a hurry, if at all; however, in a day or two
+he might be able to give him some answer. The mercer insisted that a day
+or two would lessen the value of the goods one half to him, and Jonathan
+insisted, as peremptorily, that it was not in his power to do anything
+sooner.
+
+At last a servant came in a hurry, and told Mr. Wild there was a
+gentleman below desired to speak with him. Jonathan bowed and begged the
+gentleman's pardon, told him he would wait on him in one minute, and
+without staying for a reply withdrew, and clapped the door after him. In
+about five minutes he returned with a very smiling countenance, and
+turning to the gentleman, said, _I protest sir, you are the luckiest man
+I ever knew. I spoke to one of my people just now, to go to a house
+where I know some lifters resort, and directed him to talk of the
+robbery that had been committed in your house, and to say that the
+gentleman had been with me and offered thirty guineas, provided the
+things might be had again, but declared, if he did not receive them in a
+very short space, he would give as great a reward for the discovery of
+the thief, whom he would prosecute with the utmost severity. This story
+has had its effect, and if you go directly home, I fancy you'll hear
+more news of it yourself than I am able to tell you. But pray, sir,
+remember one thing; that the thirty guineas was your own offer. You are
+at free liberty to give them, or let them alone; do which you please,
+'tis nothing to me; but take notice, sir, that I have done all for you
+in my power, without the least expectation of gratuity._
+
+Away went the mercer, confounded in his mind, and wondering where this
+affair would end. But as he walked up Southampton Street a fellow
+overtook him, patted him on the shoulder, and delivered him the bundle
+unopened, telling him the price was twenty guineas. The mercer paid it
+him directly, and returning to Jonathan in half an hour's time, readily
+expressed abundance of thanks to Mr. Wild for his assistance, and begged
+him to accept of the ten guineas he had saved him, for his pains.
+Jonathan told him that he had saved him nothing, but supposed that the
+people thought twenty demand enough, considering that they were now
+pretty safe from prosecution. The mercer still pressed the ten guineas
+upon Jonathan, who after taking them out of his hand returned him five
+of them, and assured him that was more than enough, adding: _'Tis
+satisfaction enough, sir, to an honest man that he is able to procure
+people their goods again._
+
+This, you will say, was a remarkable instance of his moderation. I will
+join to it as extraordinary an account of his justice, equity, or what
+else you will please to call it. It happened thus.
+
+A lady whose husband was out of the kingdom, and had sent over to her
+draughts for her assistance to the amount of between fifteen hundred and
+two thousand pounds, lost the pocket-book in which they were contained,
+between Bucklersbury and Magpie alehouse in Leadenhall Street, where the
+merchant lived upon whom they were drawn. She however, went to the
+gentleman, and he advised her to go directly to Mr. Jonathan Wild.
+Accordingly to Jonathan she came, deposited the crown, and answered the
+questions she asked him. Jonathan then told her that in an hour or two's
+time, possibly, some of his people might hear who it was that had picked
+her pocket. The lady was vehement in her desires to have it again, and
+for that purpose went so far at last as to offer an hundred guineas.
+Upon that Wild made answer, _Though they are of much greater value to
+you, madam, yet they cannot be worth anything like it to them; therefore
+keep your own counsel, say nothing in the hearing of my people, and I'll
+give you the best, directions I am able for the recovery of your notes.
+In the meanwhile, if you will go to any tavern near, and endeavour to
+eat a bit of dinner, I will bring you an answer before the cloth is
+taken away._ She said she was unacquainted with any house thereabouts,
+upon which Mr. Wild named the Baptist Head.[62] The lady would not be
+satisfied unless Mr. Wild promised to eat with her; he at last complied,
+and she ordered a fowl and sausages at the house he had appointed.
+
+She waited there about three quarters of an hour, when Mr. Wild came
+over and told her he had heard news of her book, desiring her to tell
+out ten guineas upon the table in case she should have an occasion for
+them. As the cook came up to acquaint her that the fowl was ready,
+Jonathan begged she would see whether there was any woman waiting at his
+door.
+
+The lady, without minding the mystery, did as he desired her, and
+perceiving a woman in a scarlet riding-hood walk twice or thrice by Mr.
+Wild's house, her curiosity prompted her to go near her. But
+recollecting she had left the gold upon the table upstairs, she went and
+snatched it up without saying a word to Jonathan, and then running down
+again went towards the woman in the red hood, who was still walking
+before his door. It seems she had guessed right, for no sooner did she
+approach towards her but the woman came directly up to her, and
+presenting her pocket book, desired she would open it and see that all
+was safe. The lady did so, and answering it was alright, the woman in
+the red riding-hood said, _Here's another little note for you, madam_;
+upon which she gave her a little billet, on the outside of which was
+written ten guineas. The lady delivered her the money immediately,
+adding also a piece for herself, and returning with a great deal of joy
+to Mr. Wild, told him she had got her book, and would now eat her dinner
+heartily. When the things were taken away, she thought it was time to go
+to the merchant.
+
+Thinking it would be necessary to make Mr. Wild a handsome present, she
+put her hand in her pocket, and with great surprise found her green
+purse gone, in which was the remainder of fifty guineas she had borrowed
+of the merchant in the morning. Upon this she looked very much confused,
+but did not speak a word. Jonathan perceived it, asked if she was not
+well. _I am tolerably in health, sir_, answered she, _but I am amazed
+that the woman took but ten guineas for the book, and at the same time
+picked my pocket of thirty-nine._
+
+Mr. Wild hereupon appeared in as great a confusion as the lady, and said
+he hoped she was not in earnest, but if it were so, begged her not to
+disturb herself, she should not lose one farthing. Upon which Jonathan
+begging her to sit still, stepped over to his own house and gave, as
+may be supposed, necessary directions, for in less than half an hour a
+little Jew (called Abraham) that Wild kept, bolted into the room, and
+told him the woman was taken, and on the point of going to the Compter.
+_You shall see, Madam_, said Jonathan, turning to the lady, _what
+exemplary punishment I'll make of this infamous woman._ Then turning
+himself to the Jew, _Abraham_, says he, _was the green purse of money
+taken on her? Yes sir_, replied his agent. _O la!_ then said the lady,
+_I'll take the purse with all my heart; I would not prosecute the poor
+wretch for the world. Would not you so, Madam_, replied Wild. _Well,
+then, we'll see what's to be done._ Upon which he first whispered his
+emissary, and then dispatched him.
+
+He was no sooner gone than Jonathan told the lady that she would be too
+late at the merchant's unless they took coach; which thereupon they did,
+and stopped over against the Compter gate by the Stocks Market.[63] She
+wondered at all this, but by the time they have been in a tavern a very
+little space, back comes Jonathan's emissary with the green purse and
+the gold in it. _She says, sir_, said the fellow to Wild _she has only
+broke a guinea of the money for garnish and wine, and here's all the
+rest of it. Very well_, says Jonathan, _give it to the lady. Will you
+please to tell it, madam?_ The lady accordingly did, and found there
+were forty-nine. _Bless me!_ says she. _I think the woman's bewitched,
+she has sent me ten guineas more than I should have had. No, Madam_,
+replied Wild, _she has sent you back again the ten guineas which she
+received for the book; I never suffer any such practices in my way. I
+obliged her, therefore, to give up the money she had taken as well as
+that she had stole. And therefore I hope, whatever you may think of her,
+that you will not have a worse opinion of your humble servant for this
+accident._
+
+The lady was so much confounded and confuted at these unaccountable
+incidents, that she scarce knew what she did; at last recollecting
+herself, _Well, Mr. Wild_, says she; _I think the least I can do is to
+oblige you to accept of these ten guineas. No_, replied he, _nor of ten
+farthings. I scorn all actions of such a sort as much as any man of
+quality in the kingdom. All the reward I desire, Madam, is that you will
+acknowledge I have acted like an honest man, and a man of honour._ He
+had scarce pronounced these words, before he rose up, made her a bow,
+and went immediately down stairs.
+
+The reader may be assured there is not the least mixture of fiction in
+this story, and yet perhaps there was not a more remarkable one which
+happened in the whole course of Jonathan's life. I shall add but one
+more relation of this sort, and then go on with the series of my
+history. This which I am now going to relate happened within a few doors
+of the place where I lived, and was transacted in this manner.
+
+There came a little boy with vials in a basket to sell to a surgeon who
+was my very intimate acquaintance. It was in the winter, and the weather
+cold, when one day after he had sold the bottles that were wanted, the
+boy complained he was almost chilled to death with cold, and almost
+starved for want of victuals. The surgeon's maid, in compassion to the
+child, who was not above nine or ten years old, took him into the
+kitchen, and gave him a porringer of milk and bread, with a lump or two
+of sugar in it. The boy ate a little of it, then said he had enough,
+gave her a thousand blessings and thanks, and marched off with a silver
+spoon, and a pair of forceps of the same mettle, which lay in the shop
+as he passed through. The instrument was first missed, and the search
+after it occasioned their missing the spoon; and yet nobody suspected
+anything of the boy, though they had all seen him in the kitchen.
+
+The gentleman of the house, however, having some knowledge of Jonathan
+Wild, and not living far from the Old Bailey, went immediately to him
+for his advice. Jonathan called for a bottle of white wine and ordered
+it to be mulled; the gentleman knowing the custom of his house, laid
+down the crown, and was going on to tell him the manner in which the
+things were missed, but Mr. Wild soon cut him short by saying, _Sir,
+step into the next room a moment; here's a lady coming hither. You may
+depend upon my doing anything that is in my power, and presently we'll
+talk the thing over at leisure._ The gentleman went into the room where
+he was directed, and saw, with no little wonder, his forceps and silver
+spoon lying upon the table. He had hardly taken them up to look at them
+before Jonathan entered. _So, sir_, said he, _I suppose you have no
+further occasion for my assistance. Yes, indeed, I have_, said the
+surgeon, _there are a great many servants in our family, and some of
+them will certainly be blamed for this transaction; so that I am under a
+necessity of begging another favour, which is, that you will let me know
+how they were stolen? I believe the thief is not far off_, quoth
+Jonathan, _and if you'll give me your word he shall come to no harm,
+I'll produce him immediately._
+
+The gentleman readily condescended to this proposition, and Mr. Wild
+stepping out for a minute or two, brought in the young vial merchant in
+his hand. _Here, sir_, says Wild, _do you know this hopeful youth? Yes_,
+answered the surgeon, _but I could never have dreamt that a creature so
+little as he, could have had so much wickedness in him. However, as I
+have given you my word, and as I have my things again, I will not only
+pass by his robbing me, but if he will bring me bottles again, shall
+make use of him as I used to do. I believe you may_, added Jonathan,
+_when he ventures into your house again._
+
+But it seems he was therein mistaken, for in less than a week afterwards
+the boy had the impudence to come and offer his vials again, upon which
+the gentleman not only bought of him as usual, but ordered two quarts of
+milk to be set on the fire, put into it two ounces of glister sugar,
+crumbled it with a couple of penny loaves, and obliged this
+nimble-fingered youth to eat it every drop up before he went out of the
+kitchen door, and then without farther correction hurried him about his
+business.
+
+This was the channel in which Jonathan's business usually ran, but to
+support his credit with the magistrates, he was forced to add
+thief-catching to it, and every sessions or two, strung up some of the
+youths of his own bringing-up to the gallows. But this, however, did not
+serve his turn; an honourable person on the Bench took notice of his
+manner of acting, which being become at last very notorious, an Act of
+Parliament was passed, levelled directly against such practices, whereby
+persons who took money for the recovery of stolen goods, and did
+actually recover such goods without apprehending the felon, should be
+deemed guilty in the same degree of felony with those who committed the
+fact in taking such goods as were returned. And after this became law,
+the same honourable person sent to him to warn him of going on any
+longer at his old rate, for that it was now become a capital crime, and
+if he was apprehended for it, he could expect no mercy.
+
+Jonathan received the reproof with abundance of thankfulness and
+submission, but what was strange, never altered the manner of his
+behaviour in the least; but on the contrary, did it more openly and
+publicly than ever. Indeed, to compensate for this, he seemed to double
+his diligence in apprehending thieves, and brought a vast number of the
+most notorious amongst them to the gallows, even though he himself had
+bred them up in the art of thieving, and given them both instructions
+and encouragement to take that road which was ruinous enough in itself,
+and by him made fatal.
+
+Of these none were so open and apparent a case as that of Blake, _alias_
+Blueskin. This fellow had from a child been under the tuition of
+Jonathan, who paid for the curing his wounds, whilst he was in the
+Compter, allowed him three and sixpence a week for his subsistence, and
+afforded his help to get him out of there at last. Yet as soon after
+this he abandoned him to his own conduct in such matters, and in a short
+space caused him to be apprehended for breaking open the house of Mr.
+Kneebone, which brought him to the gallows. When the fellow came to be
+tried Jonathan, indeed, vouchsafed to speak to him, and assured him that
+his body should be handsomely interred in a good coffin at his own
+expense. This was strange comfort, and such as by no means suited
+Blueskin: he insisted peremptorily upon a transportation pardon, which
+be said he was sure Jonathan had interest enough to procure him. But
+Wild assured him that he had not, and that it was in vain for him to
+flatter himself with such hopes, but that he had better dispose himself
+to thinking of another life; in order to which, good books and such like
+helps should not be wanting.
+
+All this put Blueskin at last into such a passion that though this
+discourse happened upon the leads at the Old Bailey; in the presence of
+the Court then sitting, Blake could not forbear taking a revenge for
+what he took to be an insult on him. And therefore, without ado, he
+clapped one hand under Jonathan's chin, and with the other, taking a
+sharp knife out of his pocket, cut him a large gash across the throat,
+which everybody at the time it was done judged mortal. Jonathan was
+carried off, all covered with blood, and though at that time he
+professed the greatest resentment for such usage, affirming that he had
+done all that lay in his power for the man who had so cruelly designed
+against his life; yet when he afterwards came to be under sentence of
+death, he regretted prodigiously the escape he had made then from death,
+often wishing that the knife of Blake had put an end to his life, rather
+than left him to linger out his days till so ignominious a fate befell
+him.
+
+But it was not only Blake who had entertained notions of putting him to
+death. He had disobliged almost the whole group of villains with whom he
+had concern, and there were numbers of them who had taken it into their
+heads to deprive him of life. His escapes in the apprehending such
+persons were sometimes very narrow; he received wounds in almost every
+part of his body, his skull was twice fractured, and his whole
+constitution so broken by these accidents and the great fatigue he went
+through, that when he fell under the misfortunes which brought him to
+his death, he was scarce able to stand upright, and was never in a
+condition to go to chapel.
+
+But we have broke a little into the thread of our history, and must
+therefore go back in order to trace the causes which brought on
+Jonathan's last adventures, and finally his violent death. This we shall
+now relate in the clearest and concisest manner that the thing will
+allow; being well furnished for that purpose, having to personal
+experience added the best intelligence that could be procured, and
+that, too, from persons the most deserving of credit.
+
+The practices of this criminal in the manner we have before mentioned
+continued long after the Act of Parliament; and in so notorious a
+manner, at last, that the magistrates in London and Middlesex thought
+themselves obliged by the duty of their office to take notice of him.
+This occasioned a warrant to be granted against him by a worshipful
+alderman of the City, upon which Mr. Wild being apprehended somewhere
+near Wood Street, he was carried into the Rose Sponging-house. There I
+myself saw him sitting in the kitchen at the fire, waiting the leisure
+of the magistrate who was to examine him.
+
+In the meantime the crowd was very great, and, with his usual hypocrisy,
+Jonathan harangued them to this purpose. _I wonder, good people, what it
+is you would see? I am a poor honest man, who have done all I could do
+to serve people when they have had the misfortune to lose their goods by
+the villainy of thieves. I have contributed more than any man living to
+bringing the most daring and notorious malefactors to justice. Yet now
+by the malice of my enemies, you see I am in custody, and am going
+before a magistrate who I hope will do me justice. Why should you insult
+me, therefore? I don't know that I ever injured any of you? Let me
+intreat you, therefore, as you see me lame in body, and afflicted in
+mind, not to make me more uneasy than I can bear. If I have offended
+against the law it will punish me, but it gives you no right to use me
+ill, unheard, and unconvicted._
+
+By this time the people of the house and the Compter officers had pretty
+well cleared the place, upon which he began to compose himself, and
+desired them to get a coach to the door, for he was unable to walk.
+About an hour after, he was carried before a Justice and examined, and I
+think was thereupon immediately committed to Newgate. He lay there a
+considerable time before he was tried; at last he was convicted
+capitally upon the following fact, which appeared on the evidence,
+exactly in the same light in which I shall state it.
+
+He was indicted on the afore-mentioned Statute, for receiving money for
+the restoring stolen goods, without apprehending the persons by whom
+they were stolen. In order to support this charge, the prosecutrix,
+Catherine Stephens,[64] deposed as follows:
+
+    On the 22nd of January, I had two persons come in to my shop under
+    pretence of buying some lace. They were so difficult that I had
+    none below would please them, so leaving my daughter in the shop, I
+    stepped upstairs and brought down another box. We could not agree
+    about the price, and so they went away together. In about half an
+    hour I missed a tin box of lace that I valued at £50. The same night
+    and the next I went to Jonathan Wild's house; but meeting with him
+    at home, I advertised the lace that I had lost with a reward of
+    fifteen guineas, and no questions asked. But hearing nothing of it,
+    I went to Jonathan's house again, and then met with him at home. He
+    desired me to give him a description of the persons that I
+    suspected, which I did, as near as I could; and then he told me,
+    that he would make enquiry, and bid me call again in two or three
+    days. I did so, and then he said that he had heard something of my
+    lace, and expected to know more of the matter in a very little time.
+
+    I came to him again on that day he was apprehended (I think it was
+    the 15th of February). I told him that though I had advertised but
+    fifteen guineas reward, yet I would give twenty or twenty-five
+    guineas, rather than not have my goods. _Don't be in such a hurry_,
+    says Jonathan, _I don't know but I may help you to it for less, and
+    if I can I will; the persons that have it are gone out of town. I
+    shall set them to quarrelling about it, and then I shall get it the
+    cheaper._ On the 10th of March he sent me word that if I could come
+    to him in Newgate, and bring ten guineas in my pocket, he would help
+    me to the lace. I went, he desired me to call a porter, but I not
+    knowing where to find one, he sent a person who brought one that
+    appeared to be a ticket-porter. The prisoner gave me a letter which
+    he said was sent him as a direction where to go for the lace; but I
+    could not read, and so I delivered it to the porter. Then he desired
+    me to give the porter the ten guineas, or else (he said) the persons
+    who had the lace would not deliver it. I gave the porter the money;
+    he returned, and brought me a box that was sealed up, but not the
+    same that was lost. I opened it and found all my lace but one piece.
+
+    _Now, Mr. Wild_, says I, _what must you have for your trouble? Not a
+    farthing_, says he, _not a farthing for me. I don't do these things
+    for worldly interest, but only for the good of poor people that have
+    met with misfortunes. As for the piece of lace that is missing, I
+    hope to get it for you ere long, and I don't know but that I may
+    help you not only to your money again, but to the thief too. And if
+    I can, much good may it do you; and as you are a good woman and a
+    widow, and a Christian, I desire nothing of you but your prayers,
+    and for these I shall be thankful. I have a great many enemies, and
+    God knows what may be the consequence of this imprisonment._
+
+The fact suggested in the indictment was undoubtedly fully proved by
+this disposition, and though that fact happened in Newgate, and after
+his confinement, yet it still continued as much and as great a crime as
+if it had been done before; the Law therefore condemned him upon it. But
+even if he had escaped this, there were other facts of a like nature,
+which inevitably would have destroyed him; for the last years of his
+life, instead of growing more prudent, he undoubtedly became less so,
+for the blunders committed in this fact, were very little like the
+behaviour of Jonathan in the first years in which he carried on this
+practice, when nobody behaved with greater caution, as nobody ever had
+so much reason to be cautious. And though he had all along great
+enemies, yet he had conducted his affairs so that the Law could not
+possibly lay hold of him, nor his excuses be easily detected, even in
+respect of honesty.
+
+When he was brought up to the bar to receive sentence, he appeared to be
+very much dejected, and when the usual question was proposed to him:
+_What have you to say why judgment of death should not pass upon you?_
+he spoke with a very feeble voice in the following terms.
+
+_My Lord, I hope even in the sad condition in which I stand, I may
+pretend to some little merit in respect to the service I have done my
+country, in delivering it from some of the greatest pests with which it
+was ever troubled. My Lord, I have brought many bold and daring
+malefactors to just punishment, even at the hazard of my own life, my
+body being covered with scars I received in these undertakings. I
+presume, my Lord, to say I have done merit, because at the time the
+things were done, they were esteemed meritorious by the government; and
+therefore I hope, my Lord, some compassion may be shown on the score of
+those services. I submit myself wholly to his Majesty's mercy, and
+humbly beg a favourable report of my case._
+
+When Sir William Thomson[65] (now one of the barons of his Majesty's
+Court of Exchequer), as Recorder of London, pronounced sentence of
+death, he spoke particularly to Wild, put him in mind of those cautions
+he had had against going on in those practices rendered capital by Law,
+made on purpose for preventing that infamous trade of becoming broker
+for felony, and standing in the middle between the felon and the person
+injured, in order to receive a premium for redress. And when he had
+properly stated the nature and aggravations of his crime, he exhorted
+him to make a better use of that small portion of time, which the
+tenderness of the law of England allowed sinners for repentance, and
+desired he would remember this admonition though he had slighted others.
+As to the report he told him, he might depend on Justice, and ought not
+to hope for any more.
+
+Under conviction, no man who appeared upon other occasions to have so
+much courage, ever showed so little. He had constantly declined ever
+coming to chapel, under pretence of lameness and indisposition; when
+clergymen took the pains to visit him and instruct him in those duties
+which it became a dying man to practice, though he heard them without
+interruption, yet he heard them coldly. Instead of desiring to be
+instructed on that head, he was continually suggesting scruples and
+doubts about a future state, asking impertinent questions as to the
+state of souls departed, and putting frequent cases of the
+reasonableness and lawfulness of suicide, where an ignominious death was
+inevitable, and the thing was perpetrated only to avoid shame. He was
+more especially swayed to such notions he pretended, from the examples
+of the famous heroes of antiquity, who to avoid dishonourable treatment,
+had given themselves a speedy death. As such discourses were what took
+up most of the time between his sentence and death, so that occasioned
+some very useful lectures upon this head from the charitable divines who
+visited him; but though they would have been of great use in all such
+cases for the future, yet being pronounced by word of mouth only, they
+are now totally lost. One letter indeed was written to him by a learned
+person on this head, of which a copy has been preserved, and it is with
+great pleasure that I give it to my readers, it runs thus:
+
+    A letter from the Reverend Dr. ---- to Mr. Wild in Newgate.
+
+    I am very sorry that after a life so spent as yours is notoriously
+    known to have been, you should yet, instead of repenting of your
+    former offences, continue to swell their number even with greater. I
+    pray God that it be not the greatest of all sins, affecting doubts
+    as to a future state, and whether you shall ever be brought to
+    answer for your actions in this life, before a tribunal in that
+    which is to come.
+
+    The heathens, it must be owned, could have no certainty as to the
+    immortality of the soul, because they had no immediate revelation;
+    for though the reasons which incline us to the belief of those two
+    points of future existence and future tribulation be as strong as
+    any of the motives are to other points in natural religion, yet as
+    none return from that land of darkness, or escape from the shadow of
+    death to bring news of what passeth in those regions whither all men
+    go, so without a direct revelation from the Almighty no positive
+    knowledge could be had of life in the world to come, which is
+    therefore properly said to be derived to us through Christ Jesus,
+    who in plain terms, and with that authority which confounded his
+    enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees, taught the doctrine of a final
+    judgment, and by affording us the means of grace, raised in us at
+    the same time the hopes of glory.
+
+    The arguments, therefore, which might appear sufficient unto the
+    heathens, to justify killing themselves to avoid what they thought
+    greater evils, if they had any force then must have totally lost it
+    now. Indeed, the far greater number of instances which history has
+    transmitted us, show that self-murder, even then, proceeded from the
+    same causes as at present, viz., rage, despair, and disappointment.
+    Wise men in all ages despised it as a mean and despicable flight
+    from evils the soul wanted courage and strength to bear. This has
+    not only been said by philosophers, but even by poets, too; which
+    shows that it appeared a notion, not only rational, but heroic.
+    There are none so timorous, says Martial, but extremity of want may
+    force upon a voluntary death; those few alone are to be accounted
+    brave who can support a life of evil and the pressing load of
+    misery, without having recount to a dagger.
+
+    But if there were no more in it than the dispute of which was the
+    most gallant act of the two, to suffer, or die, it would not deserve
+    so much consideration. The matter with you is of far greater
+    importance, it is not how, or in what manner you ought to die in
+    this world, but how you are to expect mercy and happiness in that
+    which is to come. This is your last stake, and all that now can
+    deserve your regard. Even hope is lost as to present life, and if
+    you make use of your reason, it must direct you to turn all your
+    wishes and endeavours towards attaining happiness in a future state.
+    What, then, remains to be examined in respect of this question is
+    whether persons who slay themselves can hope for pardon or happiness
+    in the sentence of that Judge from whom there is no appeal, and
+    whose sentence, as it surpasses all understanding, so is it executed
+    immediately.
+
+    If we judge only from reason, it seems that we have no right over a
+    life which we receive not from ourselves, or from our parents, but
+    from the immediate gift of Him who is the Lord thereof, and the
+    Fountain of Being.
+
+    To take away our own life, then, is contradicting as far as we are
+    able the Laws of Providence, and that disposition which His wisdom
+    has been pleased to direct. It is as though we pretended to have
+    more knowledge or more power than he; and as to that pretence which
+    is usually made use of, that Life is meant as a blessing, and that
+    therefore when it becomes an evil, we may if we think fit resign it,
+    it is indeed but a mere sophistry. We acknowledge God to be infinite
+    in all perfections, and consequently in wisdom and power; from the
+    latter we receive our existence in this Life, and as to the measure
+    it depends wholly on the former; so that if we from the shallow
+    dictates of our reason contemptuously shorten that term which is
+    appointed us by the Almighty, we thereby contradict all His laws,
+    throw up all right to His promises, and by the very last act we are
+    capable of, put ourselves out of His protection.
+
+    This I say is the prospect of the fruits of suicide, looked on with
+    the eye only of natural religion; and the opinion of Christians is
+    unanimous in this respect, that persons who wilfully deprive
+    themselves of life here, involve themselves also in death
+    everlasting. As to your particular case, in which you say 'tis only
+    making choice of one death rather than another, there are also the
+    strongest reasons against it, The Law intends your death, not only
+    for the punishment of your crimes, but as an example to deter
+    others. The Law of God which hath commanded that the magistrates
+    should not bear the sword in vain, hath given power to denounce this
+    sentence against you; but that authority which you would assume,
+    defeats both the law of the land in its intention, and is opposite
+    also unto the Law of God. Add unto all this, the example of our
+    blessed Saviour, who submitted to be hung upon a tree, tho' He had
+    only need of praying to His Father to have sent Him thousands of
+    Angels; yet chose He the death of a thief, that the Will of God, and
+    the sentence even of an unrighteous judge might be satisfied.
+
+    Let, then, the testimony of your own reason, your reverence towards
+    God, and the hopes which you ought to have in Jesus Christ,
+    determine you to await with patience the hour of your dissolution,
+    dispose you to fill up the short interval which yet remains with
+    sincere repentance, and enable you to support your sufferings with
+    such a Christian spirit of resignation, as may purchase for you an
+    eternal weight of glory. In the which you shall always be assisted
+    with my Prayers to God.
+
+    Who am, etc.
+
+Jonathan at last pretended to be overcome with the reasons which had
+been offered to him on the subject of self-murder. But it plainly
+appeared that in this he was a hypocrite; for the day before his
+execution, notwithstanding the keepers had the strictest eye on him
+imaginable, somebody conveyed to him a bottle of liquid laudanum, of
+which having taken a very large quantity, he hoped it would forestall
+his dying at the gallows. But as he had not been sparing in the dose, so
+the largeness of it made a speedy effect, which was perceived by his
+fellow-prisoners seeing he could not open his eyes at the time that
+prayers were said to them as usual in the condemned hold. Whereupon they
+walked him about, which first made him sweat exceedingly, and he was
+then very sick. At last he vomited, and they continuing still to lead
+him, he threw the greatest part of the laudanum off from his stomach.
+Notwithstanding that, he continued very drowsy, stupid and unable to do
+anything but gasp out his breath until it was stopped by the halter.
+
+He went to execution in a cart, and instead of expressing any kind of
+pity or compassion for him, the people continued to throw stones and
+dirt all the way along, reviling and cursing him to die last, and
+plainly showed by their behaviour how much the blackness and notoriety
+of his crimes had made him abhorred, and how little tenderness the
+enemies of mankind meet with, when overtaken by the hand of Justice.
+
+When he arrived at Tyburn, having by that gathered a little strength
+(nature recovering from the convulsions in which the laudanum had thrown
+him), the executioner told him he might take what time he pleased to
+prepare his death. He therefore sat down in the cart for some small
+time, during which the people were so uneasy that they called out
+incessantly to the executioner to dispatch him, and at last threatened
+to tear him to pieces if he did not tie him up immediately. Such a
+furious spirit was hardly ever discovered in the populace upon such an
+occasion. They generally look on blood with tenderness, and behold even
+the stroke of Justice with tears; but so far were they from it in this
+case that had a reprieve really come, 'tis highly questionable whether
+the prisoner could ever have been brought back with safety, it being far
+more likely that as they wounded him dangerously in the head in his
+passage to Tyburn, they would have knocked him on the head outright, if
+any had attempted to have brought mm back.
+
+Before I part with Mr. Wild, 'tis requisite that I inform you in regard
+to his wives, or those who were called his wives, concerning whom so
+much noise has been made. His first was a poor honest woman who
+contented herself to live at Wolverhampton, with the son she had by him,
+without ever putting him to any trouble, or endeavouring to come up to
+Town to take upon her the style and title of Madam Wild, which the last
+wife he lived with did with the greatest affection. The next whom he
+thought fit to dignify with the name of his consort, was the
+afore-mentioned Mrs. Milliner, with whom he continued in very great
+intimacy after they lived separately, and by her means carried on the
+first of his trade in detecting stolen goods. The third one was Betty
+Man, a woman of the town in her younger days, but so suddenly struck
+with horror by a Romish priest that she turned Papist; and as she
+appeared in her heart exceedingly devout and thoroughly penitent for all
+her sins, it is to be hoped such penitence might merit forgiveness,
+however erroneous the principle might be of that Church in the communion
+of which she died. Wild ever retained such an impression of the sanctity
+of this woman after her decease, and so great veneration for her, that
+he ordered his body to be buried next hers in Pancras Churchyard, which
+his friends saw accordingly performed, about two o'clock in the morning
+after his execution.[66]
+
+The next of Mr. Wild's sultana's was Sarah Perrin, _alias_ Graystone,
+who survived him; then there was Judith Nunn, by whom he had a daughter,
+who at the time of his decease might be about ten years old, both mother
+and daughter being then living. The sixth and last was no less
+celebrated as Mrs. or Madam Wild, than he was remarkable by the style of
+Wild the Thief-catcher, or, by way of irony, of Benefit Jonathan. Before
+her first marriage this remarkable damsel was known by the name of Mary
+Brown, afterwards by that of Mrs. Dean, being wife to Skull Dean who was
+executed about the year 1716 or 1717 for housebreaking. Some malicious
+people have reported that Jonathan was accessory to hanging him merely
+for the sake of the reward, and the opportunity of taking his relict,
+who, whatever regard she might have for her first husband, is currently
+reported to have been so much affected with the misfortunes that
+happened to the latter, that she twice attempted to make away with
+herself, after she had the news of his being under sentence of death.
+However, by this his last lady, he left no children, and but two by his
+three other wives were living at the time of his decease.
+
+As to the person of the man, it was homely to the greatest degree. There
+was something remarkably villainous in his face, which nature had
+imprinted in stronger terms than perhaps she ever did upon any other;
+however, he was strong and active, a fellow of prodigious boldness and
+resolution, which made the pusillanimity shown at his death more
+remarkable. In his life-time he was not at all shy in owning his
+profession, but on the contrary bragged of it upon all occasions; into
+which perhaps he was led by that ridiculous respect which was paid him,
+and the meanness of spirit some persons of distinction were guilty of in
+talking to him freely.
+
+Common report has swelled the number of malefactors executed through his
+means to no less than one hundred and twenty; certain it is that they
+were very numerous in reality as in his own reckoning. The most
+remarkable of them were these: White, Thurland, and Dunn, executed for
+the murder of Mrs. Knap, and robbing Thomas Mickletwait, Esq.; James
+Lincoln and Robert Wilkinson, for robbing and murdering Peter Martin,
+the Chelsea Pensioner (but it must be noted that they denied the murder
+even with their last breath); James Shaw, convicted by Jonathan, for the
+murder of Mr. Pots, though he had been apprehended by others; Humphrey
+Angier, who died for robbing Mr. Lewin, the City Marshal; John Levee and
+Matthew Flood, for robbing the Honourable Mr. Young and Colonel Cope, of
+a watch and other things of value; Richard Oakey, for robbing of Mr.
+Betts, in Fig Lane; John Shepherd and Joseph Blake, for breaking the
+house of Mr. Kneebone; with many others, some of which, such as John
+Malony and Val Carrick, were of an older date.
+
+It has been said that there was a considerable sum of money due to him
+for his share in the apprehension of several felonies at the very time
+of his death, which happened, as I have told you, at Tyburn, on Monday,
+the 24th day of May, 1725; he being then about forty-two years of age.
+
+[Illustration: JONATHAN WILD PELTED BY THE MOB ON HIS WAY TO TYBURN
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [61] A few additional particulars concerning Wild may be of
+        interest. Soon after he came to London he opened a brothel in
+        the infamous Lewkenor's Lane, in partnership with Mary Milliner;
+        after a time they quitted it to take an alehouse in Cock Alley,
+        Cripplegate. He then drifted into business as a receiver and
+        instigator of thefts, organizing regular gangs which operated in
+        every branch of the thieving trade. On account of the number of
+        criminals he brought to justice (as a result of their disloyalty
+        to himself) the authorities winked at and tolerated his
+        proceedings; and in January, 1724, he had the impudence to
+        petition for the freedom of the City, as some recognition for
+        the good services he had rendered in this direction. A few
+        months later, however, his reputation became sadly blown upon,
+        and in January, 1725, he was implicated in an affair with one of
+        his minions, a sailor named Johnson, who had been arrested and
+        had appealed to Wild for help. A riot was engineered, in which
+        Johnson made his escape, but information was laid against the
+        thief-taker, himself, who, after lying in hiding for three
+        weeks, was arrested and committed to Newgate, which he only left
+        to attend his trial and to take his last ride to Tyburn.
+
+   [62] A well-known tavern in Old Bailey.
+
+   [63] This was the Poultry Compter.
+
+   [64] Her name was really Statham.
+
+   [65] See page 418.
+
+   [66] Soon after burial his body was disinterred and the head
+        and body separated. Wild's skull and the skeleton of his trunk
+        were exhibited publicly as late as 1860.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN LITTLE, a Housebreaker and Thief
+
+
+The papers which I have in relation to this malefactor speak nothing
+with regard to his parents and education. The first thing that I with
+concerning him is his being at sea, where he was at the time my Lord
+Torrington, then Sir George Byng, went up the Mediterranean, as also in
+my Lord Cobham's expedition to Vigo; and in these expeditions he got
+such a knack of plundering that he could never bring himself afterwards
+to thinking it was a sin to plunder anybody. This wicked principle he
+did not fail to put in practice by stealing everything he could lay his
+hands on, when he afterwards went into Sweden in a merchant-ship.
+Indeed, there is too common a case for men who have been inured to
+robbing and maltreating an enemy, now and then to receive the same
+talents at home, and make free with the subjects of their own Sovereign
+as they did with those of the enemy. Weak minds sometimes do not really
+so well apprehend the difference, but thieve under little apprehension
+of sin, provided they can escape the gallows; others of better
+understanding acquire such an appetite to rapine that they are not
+afterwards able to lay it aside; so that I cannot help observing that it
+would be more prudent for officers to encourage their men to do their
+duty against the enemy from generous motives of serving their country
+and vindicating its rights, rather than proposing the hopes of gain, and
+the reward arising from destroying those unhappy wretches who fall under
+their power. But enough of this, and perhaps too much here; let us
+return again to him of whom we are now speaking.
+
+When he came home into England, he fell into bad company, particularly
+of John Bewle, _alias_ Hanley, and one Belcher, who it is to be supposed
+inclined him by idle discourse first to look upon robbing as a very
+entertaining employment, in which they met with abundance of pleasure,
+and might, with a little care, avoid all the danger. This was language
+very likely to work upon Little's disposition, who had a great
+inclination to all sorts of debauchery, and no sort of religious
+principles to check him. Over above all this he was unhappily married to
+a woman of the same ways of living, one who got her bread by walking the
+streets and picking of pockets. Therefore, instead of persuading her
+husband to quit such company as she saw him inclined to follow, on the
+contrary she encouraged, prompted and offered her assistance in the
+expedition she knew they were going about.
+
+Thus Little's road to destruction lay open for him to rush into without
+any let or the least check upon his vicious inclinations.
+
+He and his wicked companions became very busy in the practice of their
+employment. They disturbed most of the roads near London, and were
+particularly good customers to Sadler's Wells, Belsize,[67] and the rest
+of the little places of junketting and entertainment which are most
+frequented in the neighbourhood of this Metropolis. Their method upon
+such occasions was to observe who was drunkest, and to watch such
+persons when they came out, suffering them to walk a little before them
+till they came to a proper place; then jostling them and picking a
+quarrel with them, they fell to fighting, and in conclusion picked their
+pockets, snatched their hats and wigs, or took any other methods that
+were the most likely to obtain something wherewith to support their
+riots in which they spent every night.
+
+At last, finding their incomings not so large as they expected, they
+took next to housebreaking, in which they had found somewhat better
+luck. But their expenses continuing still too large for even their
+numerous booties to supply them, they were continually pushed upon
+hazarding their lives, and hardly had any respite from the crimes they
+committed, which, as they grew numerous, made them the more known and
+consequently increased their danger, those who make it their business to
+apprehend such people having had intelligence of most of them, which is
+generally the first step in the road to Hyde Park Corner.[68]
+
+It is remarkable that the observation which most of all shocks thieves,
+and convinces them at once both of the certainty and justice of a
+Providence is this, that the money which they amass by such unrighteous
+dealings never thrives with them; that though they thieve continually,
+they are, notwithstanding that, always in want, pressed on every side
+with fears and dangers, and never at liberty from the uneasy
+apprehensions of having incurred the displeasure of God, as well as run
+themselves into the punishments inflicted by the law. To these general
+terrors there was added, to Little, the distracting fears of a discovery
+from the rash and impetuous tempers of his associates, who were
+continually defrauding one another in their shares of the booty, and
+then quarrelling, fighting, threatening, and what not, till Little
+sometimes at the expense of his own allotment, reconciled and put them
+in humour.
+
+Nor were his fatal conjectures on this head without cause; for Bewle,
+though as Little always declared he had drawn him into such practices,
+put him into an information he made for the sake of procuring a pardon.
+A few days after, Little was taken into custody, and at the next
+sessions indicted for breaking open the house of one Mr. Deer, and
+taking from thence several parcels of goods expressed in the indictment.
+Upon this trial the prosecutor swore to the loss of his goods and Bewle,
+who had been a confederate in the robbery, gave testimony as to the
+manner in which they were taken. As he was conscious of his guilt,
+Little made a very poor defence, pretending that he was utterly
+unacquainted with this Bewle, hoping that if he could persuade the jury
+to that, the prosecutor's evidence (as it did not affect him personally)
+might not convict him. But his hope was vain, for Bewle confirmed what
+he said by so many circumstances that the jury gave credit to his
+testimony, and thereupon found the prisoners guilty. Little, though he
+entertained scarce any hopes of success, moved the Court earnestly to
+grant transportation; but as they gave him no encouragement upon the
+motion, so it must be acknowledged that he did not amuse himself with
+any vain expectations.
+
+During the time he remained under conviction, he behaved with great
+marks of penitence, assisted constantly at the public devotions in the
+chapel, and often prayed fervently in the place where he was confined;
+he made no scruple of owning the falsehood of what he had asserted upon
+his trial, and acknowledging the justice of that sentence which doomed
+him to death. He seemed to be under a very great concern lest his wife,
+who was addicted to such practices, should follow him to the same place;
+in order to prevent which, as far as it lay in his power, he wrote to
+her in the most pressing terms he was able, intreating her to take
+notice of that melancholy condition in which he then lay, miserable
+through the wants under which he suffered, and still more miserable from
+the apprehensions of a shameful death, and the fear of being plunged
+also into everlasting torment. Having finished this letter, he began to
+withdraw his thoughts as much as possible from this world, and to fix
+them wholly where they ought to have been placed throughout his life;
+praying to God for His assistance, and endeavouring to render himself
+worthy of it by a sincere repentance. In fine, as he had been enormously
+wicked through the course of his life, so he was extraordinarily
+penitent throughout the course of his misfortunes, deeply affected from
+the apprehensions of temporal punishment, but apparently more afflicted
+with the sense of his sins, and the fear of that punishment which the
+justice of Almighty God might inflict upon him. Therefore, to the day of
+his execution, he employed every moment in crying for mercy, and with
+wonderful piety and resignation submitted to that death which the law
+had appointed for his offences; on the 13th of September, 1725, at
+Tyburn. As to his own age, that I am not able to say anything of, it not
+being mentioned in the papers before me.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [67] See note, page 243.
+
+   [68] That is, Tyburn tree.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN PRICE, a Housebreaker and Thief[69]
+
+
+Amongst the ordinary kind of people in England, debauchery is so common,
+and the true principles of honesty and a just life so little understood,
+that we need not be surprised at the numerous sessions we see so often
+held in a year at the Old Bailey, and the multitudes which in
+consequence of them are yearly executed at Tyburn. Fraud, which is only
+robbery within the limits of the Law, is at this time of day (especially
+amongst the common people) thought a sign of wit, and esteemed as fair a
+branch of their calling as their labours. Mechanics of all sorts
+practise it without showing any great concern to hide it, especially
+from their own family, in which, on the contrary, they encourage and
+admire it. Instead of being reproved for their first essays in
+dishonesty, their children are called smart boys, and their tricks
+related to neighbours and visitors as proofs of their genius and spirit.
+Yet when the lads proceed in the same way, after being grown up a
+little, nothing too harsh, or too severe can be inflicted upon them in
+the opinion of these parents, as if cheating at chuck, and filching of
+marbles were not as real crimes in children of eight years old, as
+stealing of handkerchiefs and picking of pockets, in boys of thirteen or
+fourteen. But with the vulgar, 'tis the punishment annexed to it, and
+not the crime, that is dreaded; and the commandments against stealing
+and murder would be as readily broke as those against swearing and
+Sabbath-breaking, if the civil power had not set up a gallows at the end
+of them.
+
+John Price, of whom we are now to speak, has very little preserved
+concerning him in the memoirs that lie before me; all that I am able to
+say of him is that by employment he was a sailor. In the course of his
+voyages he had addicted himself to gratifying such inclinations as he
+had towards drink or women, without the least concern as to the
+consequences, here or hereafter; he said, indeed, that falling sick at
+Oporto, in Portugal, and becoming very weak and almost incapable of
+moving himself, the fear of death gave him apprehensions of what the
+Justice of God might inflict on him through the number and heinousness
+of his sins. This at last made so great an impression on his mind that
+he put up a solemn vow to God of thorough repentance and amendment, if
+it should please Him to raise him once more from the bed of sickness,
+and restore him again to his former health. But when he had recovered,
+his late good intentions were forgotten, and the evil examples he had
+before his eyes of his companions, who, according to the custom of
+Portugal, addicted themselves to all sorts of lewdness and debauchery,
+prevailed. He returned like the dog to the vomit, and his last state was
+worse than his first.
+
+On his return into England he had still a desire towards the same
+sensual enjoyments, was ever coveting debauches of drink, accompanied
+with the conversation of lewd women; but caring little for labour, and
+finding no honest employment to support these expenses into which his
+lusts obliged him to run, he therefore abandoned all thoughts of
+honesty, and took to thieving as the proper method of supporting him in
+his pleasures. When this resolution was once taken, it was no difficult
+thing to find companions to engage with him, houses to receive him, and
+women to caress him. On the contrary, it seemed difficult for him to
+choose out of the number offered, and as soon as he had made the choice,
+he and his associates fell immediately into the practice of that
+miserable trade they had chosen.
+
+How long they continued to practice it before they fell into the hands
+of Justice, I am not able to say, but from several circumstances it
+seems probable that there was no long time intervening; for Price, in
+company with Sparks and James Cliff, attempted the house of the Duke of
+Leeds, and thrusting up the sash-window James Cliff was put into the
+parlour and handed out some things to Price and Sparks. But it seems
+they were seen by Mr. Best, and upon their being apprehended, Cliff
+confessed the whole affair, owned that it was concerted between them,
+and that himself handed out the things to his companions, Price and
+Sparks.
+
+At the ensuing sessions, Price was tried for that offence, and upon the
+evidence of Mr. Best, the confession of James Cliff, and Benjamin Bealin
+deposing that he himself, at the time of his being apprehended,
+acknowledged that he had been in company with Cliff and Sparks, the jury
+found him guilty, as they did Cliff also, upon his own confession. Under
+sentence he seemed to have a just sense of his preceding wicked life,
+and was under no small apprehensions concerning his repentance, since it
+was forced and not voluntary. However, the Ordinary having satisfied his
+scruples of this sort, as far as he was able, recommended it to him
+without oppressing his conscience with curious fears and unnecessary
+scruples, to apply himself to prayer and other duties of a dying man. To
+this he seemed inclinable enough, but complained that James Cliff, who
+was in the condemned hold, prevented both him and the rest of the
+criminals from their duty, by extravagant speeches, wild and profane
+expressions, raving after the woman he had conversed with, and abusing
+everybody who came near him, which partly arose from the temper of that
+unhappy person, and was also owing to indisposition of body, as all the
+while he lay in the hole he was labouring under a high fever. Another
+great misfortune to Price, in the condition in which he was, consisted
+in his incapacity to supply the want of ministers through his incapacity
+of reading; however, he endeavoured to make up for it as well as he
+could by attending constantly at chapel, and not only behaving gravely
+at prayers, but listening attentively at sermon, by which means he
+constantly brought away a great part, and sometimes lost very little out
+of his memory of what he heard there.
+
+In a word, all the criminals who were at this time under sentence
+(excepting Cliff) seemed perfectly disposed to make a just use of that
+time which the peculiar clemency of the English Law affords to
+malefactors, that they may make their peace with God, and by their
+sufferings under the hands of men, prevent eternal condemnation. They
+expressed, also, a great satisfaction that their crimes were of an
+ordinary kind and occasioned no staring and whispering when they came to
+chapel, a thing they were very much afraid of, inasmuch as it would have
+hindered their devotions, and discomposed the frame of their minds.
+
+At the same time with Price, there lay under condemnation one Woolridge,
+who was convicted for entering the house of Elizabeth Fell, in the night
+time, with a felonious intent to take away the goods of Daniel Brooks;
+but it seems he was apprehended before he could so much as open the
+chest he had designed to rob. The thieves in Newgate usually take upon
+them to be very learned in the Law, especially in respect to what
+relates to evidence, and they had persuaded this unhappy man that no
+evidence which could be produced against him would affect his life.
+There is no doubt, but his conviction came therefore upon him with
+greater surprise, and certain it is that such practices are of the
+utmost ill consequence to those unhappy malefactors. However, when he
+found that death was inevitable, by degrees he began to reconcile
+himself thereto; and as he happened to be the only one amongst the
+criminals who could read, so with great diligence he applied himself to
+supply that deficiency in his fellow-prisoners. Even after he was seized
+with sickness, which brought him exceedingly low, he ceased not to
+strive against the weakness of the body, that he might do good to his
+fellow-convicts.
+
+In a word, no temptation to drink, nor the desire of pleasing those who
+vend it[70], circumstances which too often induce others in that
+condition to be guilty of strange enormities, ever had force enough to
+obtrude on them more than was necessary to support life, and to keep up
+such a supply of spirits as enabled them to perform their duties; from
+whence it happened that the approach of death did not affect them with
+any extraordinary fear, but both suffered with resignation on the same
+day with the former criminals at Tyburn.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [69] See page 230.
+
+   [70] The gaolers and others in prisons had an interest in
+        furnishing prisoners with liquor and not only looked askance at
+        those who refused but made it highly uncomfortable for all who
+        avoided debauchery.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of FOSTER SNOW, a Murderer
+
+
+There cannot be anything more dangerous in our conduct through human
+life, than a too ready compliance with any inclination of the mind,
+whether it be lustful or of an irascible nature. Either transports us on
+the least check into wicked extravagancies, which are fatal in their
+consequences, and suddenly overwhelm us with both shame and ruin. There
+is hardly a page in any of these volumes, but carries in it examples
+which are so many strong proofs of the veracity of this observation. But
+with respect to the criminal we are now speaking of, he is a yet more
+extraordinary case than any of the rest; and therefore I shall in the
+course of my relation, make such remarks as to me seem more likely to
+render his misfortunes, and my account of them, useful to my readers.
+
+Foster Snow was the son of very honest and reputable parents, who gave
+him an education suitable to their station in life, and which was also
+the same they intended to breed him up to, viz., that of a gardener, in
+which capacity, or as a butler, he served abundance of persons of
+quality, with an untainted reputation. About fourteen years before the
+time of his death, he married and set up an alehouse, wherein his
+conduct was such that he gained the esteem and respect of his
+neighbours, being a man who was without any great vices, except only
+passions, in which he too much indulged himself. Whenever he was in
+drink, he would launch out into unaccountable extravagancies both in
+words and actions. However, it is likely that this proceeded in a great
+measure from family uneasiness, which undoubtedly had for a long time
+discomposed him before committing that murder for which he died. Though,
+when sober, he might have wisdom enough to conceal his resentment, yet
+when the fumes of wine had clouded his reason, he (as it is no uncommon
+case) gave vent to his passion, and treated with undistinguished
+surliness all who came in his way.
+
+Now, as to the source of these domestic discontents, it is apparent from
+the papers I have that they were partly occasioned by family
+mismanagement, and partly from the haughty and impudent carriage of the
+unfortunate person who fell by his hands; for it seems the woman who
+Snow married had a daughter by a former husband This daughter she
+brought home to live with the deceased Mr. Snow, who was so far from
+being angry therewith, or treating her with the coldness which is usual
+to fathers-in-law, that, on the contrary, he gave her the sole direction
+of his house, put everything into her hands, and was so fond of the
+young daughter she had, that greater tenderness could not have been
+shown to the child if she had been his own.
+
+It seems the deceased Mr. Rawlins had found a way to ingratiate himself
+with both the mother and the daughter, but especially the latter, so
+that although his circumstances were not extraordinary, they gave him
+very extensive credit; and as he had a family of children, they
+sometimes suffered them to get little matters about their house; and
+thereby so effectually entailed them upon them, that at last they were
+never out of it.
+
+Mr. Snow, it seems, took umbrage at this, and spared not to tell Mr.
+Rawlins flatly, that he did not desire he should come thither, which was
+frequently answered by the other in opprobrious and under-valuing terms,
+which gave Mr. Snow uneasiness enough, considering that the man at the
+same time owed him money; and this carriage on both sides having
+continued for a pretty while, and broken out in several instances, it at
+last made Mr. Snow so uneasy that he could not forbear expressing his
+resentment to his wife and family. But it had little effect, they went
+on still at the same rate; Mr. Rawlins was frequently at the house, his
+children received no less assistance there than before, and in short,
+everything went on in such a manner that poor Mr. Snow had enough to
+aggravate the suspicions which he entertained.
+
+At last it unfortunately happened that he, having got a little more
+liquor in his head than ordinary, when Mr. Rawlins came into the house,
+he asked him for money, and upbraided him with his treatment in very
+harsh terms, to which the other making no less gross replies, it kindled
+such a resentment in this unfortunate man that, after several threats
+which sufficiently expressed the rancour of his disposition, he snatched
+up a case knife, and pursuing the unfortunate Mr. Rawlins, gave him
+therewith a mortal wound, of which he instantly died. For this fact he
+was apprehended and committed to Newgate.
+
+At the next sessions he was indicted, first for the murder of Thomas
+Rawlins, by giving him with a knife a mortal wound of the breadth of an
+inch, and of the depth of seven inches, whereby he immediately expired;
+he was a second time indicted on the Statute of Stabbing[71]; and a
+third time also on the coroner's inquest, for the same offence. Upon
+each of the which indictments the evidence was so dear that the jury,
+notwithstanding some witnesses which he called to his reputation, and
+which indeed deposed that he was a very civil and honest, and peaceable
+neighbour, found him guilty on them all, and he thereupon received
+sentence of death.
+
+In passing this sentence, the then deputy-recorder, Mr. Faby, took
+particular notice of the heinousness of the crime of murder, and
+expatiated on the equity of the Divine Law, whereby it was required that
+he who had shed man's blood, by man should his blood be shed; and from
+thence took occasion to warn the prisoner from being misled into any
+delusive hopes of pardon, since the nature of his offence was such as he
+could not reasonably expect it from the Royal breast, which had ever
+been cautious of extending mercy to those who had denied it unto their
+fellow-subjects.
+
+Under sentence of death this unhappy man behaved himself very devoutly,
+and with many signs of true penitence. He was, from the first, very
+desirous to acquaint himself with the true nature of that crime which he
+had committed, and finding it at once repugnant to religion, and
+contrary to even the dictates of human nature, he began to loath himself
+and his own cruelty, crying out frequently when alone. _Oh! Murder!
+Murder! it is the guilt of that great sin which distracts my soul._ When
+at chapel he attended with great devotion to the duties of prayer and
+service there; but whenever the Commandments came to be repeated, at the
+words, _Thou shalt do no murder_, he would tremble, turn pale, shed
+tears, and with a violent agitation of spirit pray to God to pardon him
+that great offence.
+
+To say truth never any man seemed to have a truer sense or a more quick
+feeling of his crimes, than this unhappy man testified during his
+confinement. His heart was so far from being hardened, as is too
+commonly the case with those wretches who fall into the same condition,
+that he, on the contrary, afflicted himself continually and without
+ceasing, as fearing that all his penitence would be but too little in
+the sight of God, for destroying His creature and taking away a life
+which he could not restore. Amidst these apprehensions, covered with
+terrors and sinking under the weight of his afflictions, he received
+spiritual assistance of the Ordinary and other ministers, with much
+meekness, and it is to be hoped with great benefit; since they
+encouraged him to rely on the Mercy of God, and not by an unseasonable
+diffidence to add the throwing away his own soul by despair, to the
+taking away the life of another in his wrath.
+
+What added to the heavy load of his sorrows, was the unkindness of his
+wife, who neither visited him in his misfortunes, and administered but
+indifferently to his wants. It seems the quarrels they had, had so
+embittered them towards one another that very little of that friendship
+was to be seen in either, which makes the marriage bond easy and the
+yoke of matrimony light. His complaints with respect to her occasioned
+some enquiries as to whether he were not jealous of her person; such
+suspicions being generally the cause of married people's greatest
+dislikes. What he spoke on this head was exceedingly modest, far from
+that rancour which might have been expected from a man whom the world
+insinuated had brought himself to death by a too violent resentment of
+what related to her conduit; though no such thing appeared from what he
+declared to those who attended him. He said he was indeed uneasy at the
+too large credit she gave to the deceased, but that it was her purse
+only that he entertained suspicions of, and that as he was a dying man,
+he had no ill thought of her in any other way. But with regard to his
+daughter, he expressed a very great dislike to her behaviour, and said
+her conduct had been such as forced her husband to leave her; and that
+though he had treated her with the greatest kindness and affection, yet
+such was the untowardness of her disposition that he had received but
+very sorry returns. However, to the last he expressed great uneasiness
+lest after his decease his little grand-daughter-in-law might suffer in
+her education, of which he had intended to take the greatest care; his
+dislike to the mother being far enough from giving him any aversion to
+the child. It seems from the time he had taken it home he had placed his
+affections strongly upon it, and did not withdraw them even to the hour
+of his departure.
+
+As death grew near, he was afflicted with a violent disease, which
+reduced him so low that he was incapable of coming to the chapel; and
+when it abated a little it yet left his head so weak that he seemed to
+be somewhat distracted, crying out in chapel the Sunday before he died,
+like one grievously disturbed in mind, and expressing the greatest
+agonies under the apprehension of his own guilt, and the strict justice
+of Him to whom he was shortly to answer. However, he forgave with all
+outward appearance of sincerity, all who had been in any degree
+accessory to his death.
+
+Being carried in a mourning coach to the place of execution, he appeared
+somewhat more composed than he had been for some time before. He told
+the people that, except the crime for which he died, he had never been
+guilty of anything which might bring him within the fear of meeting with
+such a death. And in this disposition of mind he suffered at Tyburn, on
+the 3rd day of November, 1725, being about fifty-five years of age.
+Immediately after his death a paper was published under the title of his
+case, full of circumstances tending to extenuate his guilt but such as
+in no way appeared upon his trial.
+
+The Court of Old Bailey at the next sessions taking this paper into
+their consideration, were of opinion that it reflected highly on the
+justice of those who tried him, and therefore ordered the printer to
+attend them to answer for this offence. Accordingly he attended the next
+day, and being told that the Court was highly displeased with his
+publishing a thing of that nature, in order to misrepresent the justice
+of their proceedings, and that they were ready to punish him for his
+contempt in the aforesaid publication of such a libel; Mr. Leech thought
+fit to prevent it by making his most humble submission, and asking
+pardon of the Court for his offence, assuring them that it proceeded
+only from inadvertency, and promising never to print anything of the
+like sort again. Whereupon the Court were graciously pleased to dismiss
+him only with a reprimand, and to admonish others of the same
+profession, that they should be cautious for the future of doing
+anything which might reflect in any degree upon the proceedings had
+before them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [71] See note, page 218.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN WHALEBONE, _alias_ WELBONE, a Thief, etc.
+
+
+This malefactor was born in the midst of the City of London, in the
+Parish of St. Dionis Back Church. His parents were persons in but mean
+circumstances, who however strained them to the uttermost to give this
+their son a tolerable education. They were especially careful to
+instruct him in the principles of religion, and were therefore under an
+excessive concern when they found that neglecting all other business, he
+endeavoured only to qualify himself for the sea. However, finding this
+inclinations so strong that way, they got him on board a man-of-war, and
+procured such a recommendation to the captain that he was treated with
+great civility during the voyage, and if he had had any inclinations to
+have done well, he might in all probability have been much encouraged.
+But after several voyages to sea, he took it as strongly in his head to
+go no more as he had before to go, whether his parents would or no.
+
+He then cried old clothes about the streets; but not finding any great
+encouragement in that employment, he was easily drawn in by some wicked
+people of his acquaintance, to take what they called the shortest method
+of getting money, which was in plain English to go a-thieving. He had
+very ill-luck in his new occupation, for in six weeks' time, after his
+first setting out on the information of one of his companions, he was
+apprehended, tried, convicted, and ordered for transportation.
+
+It was his fortune to be delivered to a planter in South Carolina, who
+employed him to labour in his plantations, afforded him good meat and
+drink, and treated him rather better than our farmers treat their
+servants here. Which leads me to say something concerning the usage such
+people met with, when carried as the Law directs to our plantations, in
+order to rectify certain gross mistakes; as if Englishmen abroad had
+totally lost all humanity, and treated their fellow-creatures and
+fellow-countrymen as slaves, or as brutes.
+
+The Colonies on the Continent of America are those which now take off
+the greatest part of those who are transported for felony from Britain,
+most of the Island Colonies having long ago refused to receive them. The
+countries into which they now go, trading chiefly in such kind of
+commodities as are produced in England (unless it be tobacco), the
+employment, therefore, of persons thus sent over, is either in attending
+husbandry, or in the culture of the plant which we have before
+mentioned. They are thereby exposed to no more hardships than they would
+have been obliged to have undergone at home, in order to have got an
+honest livelihood, so that unless their being obliged to work for their
+living is to pass for great hardship, I do not conceive where else it
+can lie, since the Law, rather than shed the blood of persons for small
+offences, or where they appear not to have gone on for a length of time
+in them, by its lenity changes the punishment of death into sending them
+amongst their own countrymen at a distance from their ill-disposed
+companions, who might probably seduce them to commit the same offences
+again. It directs also, that this banishment shall be for such a length
+of time as may be suitable to the guilt of the crime, and render it
+impracticable for them on their return to meet with their old gangs and
+acquaintance, making by this means a happy mixture both of justice and
+clemency, dealing mildly with them for the offence already committed and
+endeavouring to put it ever out of their own power by fresh offences, to
+draw a heavier judgment upon themselves.
+
+But to return to this Whalebone. The kind usage of his master, the
+easiness of the life which he lived, and the certainty of death if he
+attempted to return home, could not all of them prevail upon him to lay
+aside the thoughts of coming back again to London, and there giving
+himself up to those sensual delights which he had formerly enjoyed.
+Opportunities are seldom wanting where men incline to make use of diem;
+especially to one who had been bred as he was to the sea. So that in a
+year and a half after ms being settled there, he took such ways of
+recommending himself to a certain captain as induced him to bring him
+home, and set him safe on shore near Harwich. He travelled on foot up to
+London, and was in town but a very few days before being accidentally
+taken notice of by a person who knew him, he caused him to be
+apprehended, and at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, he was
+convicted of such illegal return, and ordered for execution.
+
+At first he pretended that he thought it no crime for a man to return to
+his own country, and therefore did not think himself bound to repent of
+that. Whatever arguments the Ordinary made use of to persuade him to
+sense of his guilt I know not. But because this is an error into which
+such people are very apt to fall; and as there want not some of the
+vulgar who take it for a great hardship, also making it one of those
+topics upon which they take occasion to harangue against the severity of
+a Law that they do not understand, I think it will not, therefore, be
+improper to explain it.
+
+Transportation is a punishment whereby the British law commutes for
+offences which would otherways be capital, and therefore a contract is
+plainly presumed between every felon transported and the Court by whose
+authority he is ordered for transportation, that the said felon shall
+remain for such term of years as the Law directs, without returning into
+any of the King's European dominions; and the Court plainly acquaints
+the felon that if, in breach of his agreement, he shall so return, that
+in such case the contract shall be deemed void, and the capital
+punishment shall again take place. To say, then, that a person who
+enters into an agreement like this, and is perfectly acquainted with its
+conditions, knowing that no less than his life must be forfeited by the
+breach of them, and yet wilfully breaks them, to say that such a person
+as this is guilty of no offence, must in the opinion of every person of
+common understanding be the greatest absurdity that can be asserted; and
+to call that severity which only is the Law's taking its forfeit, is a
+very great impropriety, and proceeds from a foolish and unreasonable
+compassion. This I think so plain that nothing but prepossession or
+stupidity can hinder people from comprehending it.
+
+As to Whalebone, when death approached, he laid aside all these excuses
+and applied himself to what was much more material, the making a proper
+use of that little time which yet remained for repentance. He
+acknowledged all the crimes which he had committed in the former part of
+his life, and the justice of his sentence by which he had been condemned
+to transportation; and having warned the people at his execution to
+avoid of all things being led into ill company, he suffered with much
+seeming penitence, together with the afore-mentioned malefactors, at
+Tyburn, being then about thirty-eight years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES LITTLE, a Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+James Little was a person descended from parents very honest and
+industrious, though of small fortune. They bred him up with all the care
+they were able, and when he came to a fit age put him out to an honest
+employment. But in his youth having taken peculiar fancy to his father's
+profession of a painter, he thereto attained in so great a degree as to
+be able to earn twelve or fifteen shillings in a week, when he thought
+fit to work hard. But that was very seldom, and he soon contracted such
+a hatred to working at all that associating with some wild young
+fellows, he kept himself continually drunk and mad, not caring what he
+did for money, so long as he supplied himself with enough to procure
+himself liquor.
+
+Amongst the rest of those debauched persons with whom he conversed there
+was especially one Sandford, with whom he was peculiarly intimate. This
+fellow was a soldier, of a rude, loose disposition, who took a
+particular delight in making persons whom he conversed with as bad as
+himself. Having one Sunday, therefore, got Little into his company and
+drank him to such a pitch that he had scarce any sense, he next began to
+open to him a new method of living, as he called it, which was neither
+more than less than going on the highway. Little was so far gone in his
+cups that be did not so much as know what he was saying; at last
+Sandford rose up, and told him it was a good time now to go out upon
+their attempts. Upon this Little got up, too, and went out with him.
+They had not gone far before the soldier drew out a pair of pistols, and
+robbed two or three persons, while Little stood by, so very drunk that
+he was both unable to have hurt the persons, or to have defended
+himself, he said.
+
+He robbed no more with the soldier, who was soon after taken up and
+hanged at the same time with Jonathan Wild, yet the sad fate of his
+companion had very little effect upon this unhappy lad. He fell
+afterwards into an acquaintance with some of John Shepherd's mistresses,
+and they continually dinning in his ears what great exploits that famous
+robber had committed, they unfortunately prevailed upon him to go again
+into the same way. But it was just as fatal to him as it had been to his
+companion; for Little having robbed one Lionel Mills in the open fields,
+put him in fear, and taken from him a handkerchief, three keys and
+sixteen shillings in money, not contented with this he pulled the
+turnover off from his neck hastily, and thereby nearly strangled him.
+For this offence the man pursued him with unwearied diligence, and he
+being taken up thereupon was quickly after charged with another robbery
+committed on one Mr. Evans, in the same month, who lost a cane, three
+keys, and twenty pounds in money. On these two offences he was severally
+convicted at the next sessions at the Old Bailey; and having no friends,
+could therefore entertain little expectation of pardon; especially
+considering how short a time it was since he received mercy before;
+being under sentence at the same time with the soldier before-mentioned
+and Jonathan Wild, and discharged then upon his making certain
+discoveries.
+
+He pretended to much penitence and sorrow, but it did not appear in his
+behaviour, having been guilty of many levities when brought up to
+chapel, to which perhaps the crowds of strangers, who from an
+unaccountable humour desire to be present on these melancholy occasions,
+did not a little contribute; for at other times, it must be owned, he
+did not behave himself in any such manner, but seemed rather grave and
+willing to be instructed, of which he had indeed sufficient want,
+knowing very little, but of debauchery and vice. How ever, he reconciled
+himself by degrees to the thoughts of death, and behaved with
+tranquility enough during that small space that was left him to prepare
+for it. At the place of execution, he looked less astonished though he
+spoke much less to the people than the rest, and died seemingly
+composed, at the same time with the other malefactors Snow, and
+Whalebone, being at the time of his execution in his seventeenth year.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN HAMP, Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+This unhappy person, John Hamp, was born of both honest and reputable
+parents in the parish of St. Giles-without-Cripplegate. They took
+abundance of pains in his education, and the lad seemed in his juvenile
+years to deserve it; he was a boy of abundance of spirit, and his
+friends at his own request put him out apprentice to a man whose trade
+it was to lath houses. He did not stay out his time with him, but being
+one evening with some drunken companions at an alehouse near the Iron
+Gate by the Tower, three of them sailors on board a man-of-war (there
+being at that time a great want of men, a squadron being fitted out for
+the Baltic), these sailors, therefore, observing all the company very
+drunk, put into their heard to make an agreement for their going
+altogether this voyage to the North. Drink wrought powerfully in their
+favour, and in less than two hours time, Hamp and two other of his
+companions fell in with the sailors' motion, and talked of nothing but
+braving the Czar, and seeing the rarities of Copenhagen. The fourth man
+of Hamp's company stood out a little, but half an hour's rhodomantade
+and another bowl of punch brought him to a sailor, upon which one of the
+seamen stepped out, and gave notice to his lieutenant, who was drinking
+not far off, of the great service he had performed, the lieutenant was
+mightily pleased with Jack Tar's diligence, promised to pay the
+reckoning, and give each of them a guinea besides. A quarter of an hour
+after, the Lieutenant came in. The fellows were all so very drunk that
+he was forced to send for more hands belonging to the ship, who carried
+them to the long-boat, and there laying them down and covering them with
+men's coats, carried them on board that night.
+
+There is no doubt that Hamp was very surprised when he found the
+situation he was in next morning, but as there was no remedy, he
+acquiesced without making any words, and so began the voyage cheerfully.
+Everybody knows that there was no fighting in these Baltic expeditions,
+so that all the hardships they had to combat with were those of the sea
+and the weather, which was indeed bad enough to people of an English
+constitution, who were very unfit to bear the extremity of cold.
+
+While they by before Copenhagen, an accident happened to one of Hamp's
+great acquaintance, which much affected him at that time, and it would
+have certainly have been happy for him if he had retained a just sense
+of it always. There was one Scrimgeour, a very merry debonair fellow,
+who used to make not only the men, but sometimes the officers merry on
+board the ship. He was particularly remarkable for being always full of
+money, of which he was no niggard, but ready to do anybody a service,
+and consequently was very far from being ill-beloved. This man being one
+day on shore and going to purchase some fresh provisions to make merry
+with amongst his companions, somebody took notice of a dollar that was
+in his hand, and Scrimgeour wanting change, the man readily offered to
+give smaller money. Scrimgeour thereupon gave him the dollar, and having
+afterwards bargained for what he wanted, was just going on board when a
+Danish officer with a file of men, came to apprehend him for a coiner.
+The fellow, conscious of his guilt, and suspicious of their intent,
+seeing the man amongst them who had changed the dollar, took to his
+heels, and springing into the boat, the men rowed him on board
+immediately, where as soon as he was got, Scrimgeour fancied himself out
+of all danger.
+
+But in this he was terribly mistaken, for early the next morning three
+Danish commissaries came on board the admiral, and acquainted him that a
+seaman on board his fleet had counterfeited their coin to a very
+considerable value, and was yesterday detected in putting off a dollar;
+that thereupon an officer had been ordered to seize him, but that he had
+made his escape by jumping into the long-boat of such a ship, on board
+of which they were informed he was; they therefore desired he might be
+given up in order to be punished. The admiral declined that, but assured
+them that, upon due proof, he would punish him with the greatest
+severity on board; and having in the meanwhile dispatched a lieutenant
+and twenty men on board Scrimgeour's ship, with the Dane who detected
+him in putting off false money, he was secured immediately. Upon
+searching his trunk they found there near a hundred false dollars, so
+excellently made that none of the ship's crew could have distinguished
+them from the true.
+
+He was immediately carried on board the admiral, who ordered him to be
+confined. Soon after a court-martial condemned him to be whipped from
+ship to ship, which was performed in the view of the Danish
+commissaries, with so much rigour that instead of expressing any notion
+of the Englishmen showing favour to their countryman upon any such
+occasion, they interposed to mitigate the fellow's sufferings, and
+humbly besought the admiral to omit lashing him on board three of the
+last ships. But in this request they were civilly refused, and the
+sentence which had been pronounced against him was executed upon him
+with the utmost severity; and it happening that Hamp was one of the
+persons who rowed him from ship to ship, it filled him with so much
+terror that he was scarce able to perform his duty; the wretch, himself,
+being made such a terrible spectacle of misery that not only Hamp, but
+all the rest who saw him after his last lashing, were shocked at the
+sight. And though it was shrewdly suspected that some others had been
+concerned with him, yet this example had such an effect that there were
+no more instances of any false money uttered from that time.
+
+It was near five years after Hamp went first to sea that he began to
+think of returning home and working at his trade again; and after this
+thought had once got into his head, as is usual with such fellows, he
+was never easy until he had accomplished it. An opportunity offered soon
+after, the ship he belonged to being recalled and paid off. John had,
+however, very little to receive, the great delight he took in drinking
+made him so constant a customer to a certain officer in the ship that
+all was near spent by the time he came home. That, however, would have
+been no great misfortune had he stuck close to his employment and
+avoided those excesses of which he been formerly guilty. But alas! this
+was by no means in his power; he drank rather harder after his return
+than he had done before, and if he might be credited at that time when
+the Law allows what is said to pass for evidence, viz., in the agony of
+death, it was this love of drink that brought him, without any other
+crime, to his shameful end. The manner of which, I shall next fully
+relate.
+
+Hamp, passing one night very drunk through the street, a woman, as is
+usual enough for common street-walkers to do, took him by the sleeve,
+and after some immodest discourse, asked him if he would not go into her
+mother's and take a pot with her. To this motion Hamp readily agreed,
+and had not been long in the house before he fell fast asleep in the
+company of James Bird (who was hanged with him), the woman who brought
+him into the house, and an old woman, whom she called her mother. By and
+by certain persons came who apprehended him and James Bird for being in
+a disorderly house; and having carried them to the watch house, they
+were there both charged with robbing and beating, in a most cruel and
+barbarous manner, a poor old woman near Rag Fair.[72]
+
+At the next Old Bailey sessions they were both tried for the fact, and
+the woman's evidence being positive against them, they were likewise
+convicted. Hamp behaved himself with great serenity while under
+sentence, declaring always that he had not the least knowledge of Bird
+until the time they were taken up; that in all his life time he had
+never acquired a halfpenny in a dishonest manner, and that although he
+had so much abandoned himself to drinking and other debaucheries, yet he
+constantly worked hard at his employment, in order to get money to
+support them. As to the robbery, he knew no more of it than the child
+unborn, that he readily believed all that the woman swore to be true,
+except her mistake in the persons; and that as to Bird, he could not
+take upon himself to say that he was concerned in it.
+
+A divine of eminency in the Church, being so charitable as to visit him,
+spoke to him very particularly on this head; he told him that a jury of
+his countrymen on their oaths had unanimously found him guilty; that the
+Law upon such a conviction had appointed him to death, and that there
+appeared not the least hopes of his being anyways able to prevent it;
+that the denying of his guilt therefore, could not possibly be of any
+use to him here, but might probably ruin him for ever hereafter; that he
+would act wisely in this unfortunate situation into which his vices had
+brought him, if he would make an ample acknowledgment of the crime he
+had committed, and own the justice of Providence in bringing him to
+condemnation, instead of leaving the world in the assertion of a
+falsehood, and rushing into the presence of Almighty God with a lie in
+his mouth.
+
+This exhortation was made publicly, and Hamp after having heard it with
+great attention, answered it in the following terms. _I am very
+sensible, sir, of your goodness in affording me this visit and am no
+less obliged to you for your pressing instances to induce me confession.
+But as I know the matter of fact, so I am sure, you would not press me
+to own it if it be not true; I aver that the charge against me is
+utterly false in every particular. I freely acknowledge that I have led
+a most dissolute life, and abandoned myself in working all kind of
+wickedness; but should I so satisfy some persons' importunities as to
+own also the justice of my present sentence, as arising from the truth
+of the fact, I should thereby become guilty of the very crime you warn
+me of, and go out of the world, indeed, in the very act of telling an
+untruth. Besides, of what use would it be to me, who have not the least
+hopes of pardon, to persist in a lie, merely for the sake of deceiving
+others, who may take my miserable death as a piece of news, and at the
+same time cheat myself in what is my last and greatest concern? I beg,
+therefore, to be troubled no more on this head, but to be left to make
+my peace with God for those sins which I have really committed, without
+being pressed to offend Him yet more, by taking upon me that which I
+really know nothing of._
+
+The Ordinary of Newgate hereupon went into the hold to examine Bird, who
+lay there in a sick and lamentable condition. He confirmed all that Hamp
+had said, declared he never saw him in his life before the night in
+which they were taken up, acknowledged himself to be a great sinner, and
+an old offender, that he had been often taken up before for thefts; but
+as to the present case, he peremptorily insisted on his innocence, and
+that he knew nothing of it.
+
+At the place of execution, Hamp appeared very composed and with a
+cheerfulness that is seldom seen in the countenances of persons when
+they come to the tree, and are on the very verge of death. He spoke for
+a few moments to the people saying that he been a grievous sinner, much
+addicted to women, and much more to drinking; that for these crimes, he
+thought the Justice of God righteous in bringing him to a shameful
+death; but as to assaulting the woman in Rag Fair, he again protested
+his innocence, and declared he never committed any robbery whatsoever,
+desired the prayers of the people in his last moments, and then applied
+himself to some short private devotions. He resigned himself with much
+calmness to his fate, on Wednesday, the 22nd of December, 1725, at
+Tyburn, being then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Bird confirmed,
+as well as the craziness of his distempered head would give him leave,
+the truth of what Hamp had said.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [72] This was in Rosemary Lane, Wellclose Square,
+        Whitechapel--"a place near the Tower of London where old clothes
+        and frippery are sold"--according to Pope.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JOHN AUSTIN, a Footpad, JOHN FOSTER, a Housebreaker, and
+RICHARD SCURRIER, a Shoplifter
+
+
+Amongst the number of those extraordinary events which may be remarked
+in the course of these melancholy memoirs of those who have fallen
+martyrs to sin, and victims to justice, there is scarce anything more
+remarkable than the finding a man who hath led an honest and reputable
+life, till he hath attained the summit of life, and then, without
+abandoning himself to any notorious vices that may be supposed to lead
+him into rapine and stealth in order to support him, to take himself on
+a sudden to robbing on the highway, and to finish a painful and
+industrious life by a violent and shameful death. Yet this is exactly
+the case before us.
+
+The criminal of whom we are first to speak, viz., John Austin, was the
+son of very honest people, having not only been bred up in good
+principles, but seeming also to retain them. He was put out young to a
+gardener, in which employment being brought up, he became afterwards a
+master for himself, and lived, as all his neighbours report it, with as
+fair character as any man thereabout. On a sudden he was taken up for
+assaulting and knocking down a man in Stepney Fields, with a short,
+round, heavy club, and taking from him his coat, in the beginning of
+November, 1725, about seven o'clock in the morning. The evidence being
+very clear and direct, the jury, notwithstanding the persons he called
+to his character, found him guilty. He received sentence of death
+accordingly, and after a report had been made to his Majesty he was
+ordered for execution.
+
+During the space he lay under conviction, he at first denied, then
+endeavoured to extenuate his crime, by saying he did indeed knock the
+man down, but that the man struck him first with an iron rod he had in
+his hand; and in this story for some time he firmly persisted. But when
+death made a nearer approach he acknowledged the falsity of these
+pretences, and owned the robbery in the manner in which he had been
+charged therewith. Being asked how a man in his circumstances, being
+under no necessities, but on the contrary, in a way very likely to do
+well, came to be guilty of so unaccountable an act as the knocking down
+a poor man and taking away his coat, he said that though he was in a
+fair way of living, and had a very careful and industrious wife, yet for
+some time past, he had been disturbed in his mind, and that the morning
+he committed the robbery he took the club out of his own house, being an
+instrument made use of by his wife in the trade of a silk-throwster, and
+from a sudden impulse of mind attacked the man in the manner which had
+been sworn against him.
+
+He appeared to be a person of no vicious principles, had been guilty of
+very few enormous crimes, except drinking to excess sometimes, and that
+but seldom. The sin which most troubled him was (his ordinary practice)
+as a gardener, in spending the Lord's day mostly in hard work, viz., in
+packing up things for Monday's market. He was very penitent for the
+offence which he had committed; he attended the service of chapel daily,
+prayed constantly and fervently in the place of his confinement, and
+suffered death with much serenity and resolution; averring with his last
+breath, that it was the first and last act which he had ever committed,
+being at the time of death about thirty-seven years old.
+
+The second of these malefactors, John Foster, was the son of a very poor
+man, who yet did his utmost to give his son all the education that was
+in his power; and finding he was resolved to do nothing else, sent him
+with a very honest gentleman to sea. He continued there about seven
+years, and as he met with no remarkable accidents in the voyages he made
+himself, my readers may perhaps not be displeased if I mention a very
+singular one which befell his master. His ship having the misfortune to
+fall into the hands of the French, they plundered it of everything that
+was in the least degree valuable, and then left him, with thirty-five
+men, to the mercy of the waves. In this distressed condition, he with
+much difficulty made the shore of Newfoundland, and had nothing to
+subsist on but biscuit and a little water. Knowing it was no purpose to
+ask those who were settled there for provisions without money or
+effects, he landed himself and eighteen men, and carried off a dozen
+sheep and eight pigs. They were scarce returned on board, before it
+sprung up a brisk gale, which driving them from their anchors, obliged
+them to be put to sea. It blew hard all that day and the next night; the
+morning following the wind abated and they discovered a little vessel
+before them which, by crowding all the sails she was able, endeavoured
+to bear away. The captain thereupon gave her chase, and coming at last
+up with her, perceived she was French, upon which he gave her a
+broadside, and the master knowing it was impossible to defend her,
+immediately struck. They found in her a large quantity of provisions and
+in the master's cabin a bag with seven hundred pistoles. No sooner had
+the English taken out the booty, but they gave the captain and his crew
+liberty to sail where they pleased, leaving them sufficient provisions
+for a subsistance, themselves standing in again for Newfoundland, where
+the captain paid the person who was owner of the sheep and hogs he had
+taken as much as he demanded, making him also a handsome present
+besides; thereby giving Foster a remarkable example of integrity and
+justice, if he had had grace enough to have followed it.
+
+When the ship came home, and its crew were paid off, Foster betook
+himself to loose company, loved drinking and idling about, especially
+with ill women. At last he was drawn in by some of his companions to
+assist in breaking open the house of Captain Tolson, and stealing thence
+linen and other things to a very great value. For this offence being
+apprehended, some promises were made him in case of discoveries, which,
+as he said, he made accordingly, and therefore thought it a great
+hardship that they were not performed. But the gentleman, whoever he
+was, that made him those promises, took no further notice of him, so
+that Foster being tried thereupon, the evidence was very dear against
+him, and the jury, after a very short consideration, found him guilty.
+
+Under sentence he behaved with very great sorrow for his offence; he
+wept whenever any exhortations were made to him, confessed himself one
+of the greatest of sinners, and with many heavy expressions of grief,
+seemed to doubt whether even from the mercy of God he could expect
+forgiveness. Those whose duty it was to instruct him how to prepare
+himself for death, did all they could to convince him that the greatest
+danger of not being forgiven arose from such doubtings, and persuaded
+him to allay the fears of death by a settled faith and hope in Jesus
+Christ. When he had a while reflected on the promises made in Scripture
+on the nature of repentance itself, and the relation there is between
+creatures and their Creator, he became at last better satisfied, and
+bore the approach of death with tolerable cheerfulness.
+
+When the day of execution came, he received the Sacrament, as is usual
+for persons in his condition. He declared, then, that he heartily
+forgave him who had injured him, and particularly the person who, by
+giving him hopes of life, had endangered his eternal safety. He
+submitted cheerfully to the decrees of Providence and the Law of the
+land; being at the time he suffered about thirty-seven years of age.
+
+Richard Scurrier was the son of a blacksmith of the same name, at
+Kingston-upon-Thames. He followed for a time his father's business, but
+growing totally weary of working honestly for his bread, he left his
+relations, and without any just motive or expectation came up to London.
+He here betook himself to driving a hackney-coach, which, as he himself
+acknowledged, was the first inlet into all his misfortunes, for thereby
+he got into loose and extravagant company, living in a continued series
+of vice, unenlightened by the grace of God, or any intervals of a
+virtuous practice.
+
+Such a road of wickedness soon induced him to take illegal methods for
+money to support it. The papers which I have in my hands concerning him,
+do not say whether the fact he committed was done at the persuasion of
+others, or merely out of his own wicked inclinations; nay, I cannot be
+so much as positive whether he had any associates or no; but in the
+beginning of his thievish practices, he committed _petit_ larceny, which
+was immediately discovered. He thereupon was apprehended and committed
+to Newgate. At the next sessions he was tried, and the fact being plain,
+he was convicted; but being very young, the Court, through its usual
+tenderness, determined to soften his punishment into a private
+whipping. But before that was done, he joined with some other desperate
+fellows, forced the outward door of the prison as the keeper was going
+in and escaped.
+
+He was no sooner at liberty but he fell to his old trade, and was just
+as unlucky as he was before; for taking it into his head to rub off with
+a firkin of butter, which he saw standing in a cheesemonger's shop, he
+was again taken in the fact, and in the space of a few weeks recommitted
+to his old lodging. At first he apprehended the crime to be so trivial
+that he was not in the least afraid of death, and therefore his
+amazement was the greater when he was capitally convicted. During the
+first day after sentence had been pronounced, the extremity of grief and
+fear made him behave like one distracted; as he came a little to
+himself, and was instructed by those who charitably visited him, he
+owned the justice of his sentence, which had been passed upon him, and
+the notorious wickedness of his misspent life. He behaved with great
+decency at chapel, and as well as a mean capacity and a small education
+would give him leave, prayed in the place of his confinement.
+
+As there is little remarkable in this malefactor's life, permit me to
+add an observation or two concerning the nature of crimes punished with
+death in England, and the reasonableness of any project which would
+answer the same end as death, viz., securing the public from any of
+their future rapines, without sending the poor wretches to the gallows,
+and pushing them headlong into the other world for every little offence.
+The galleys in other nations serve for this purpose and the punishment
+seems very well suited to the crime; for his life is preserved, and he,
+notwithstanding, effectually deprived of all means of doing further
+mischief. We have no galleys, it is true, in the service of the crown of
+Britain, but there are many other laborious works to which they might be
+put so as to be useful to their country. As to transportation, though it
+may at first sight seem intended for their purpose, yet if we look into
+it with ever so little attention, we shall see that it does not at all
+answer the end; for we find by experience that in a year's time, many of
+them are here again, and are ten times more dangerous rogues than they
+were before; and in the plantations they generally behave themselves so
+ill that many of them have refused to receive them, and have even laid
+penalties on the captains who shall land them within the bounds of their
+jurisdiction. It were certainly therefore, more advantageous to the
+public that they worked hard here, than either forced upon the planters
+abroad, or left in a capacity to return to their villainies at home,
+where the punishment being capital, serves only to make them less
+merciful and more resolute. This I propose only, and pretend not to
+dictate.
+
+But it is now time we return to the last mentioned criminal, Richard
+Scurrier, and inform ye that at the time he suffered, he was scarce
+eighteen years of age, dying with the malefactors Hamp, Bird, Austin and
+Foster, before-mentioned, on the 22nd of December, 1725, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of FRANCIS BAILEY, a notorious Highwayman
+
+
+That bad company and an habitual course of indulging vicious
+inclinations, though of a nature not punishable by human laws, should at
+last lead men to the commission of such crimes as from the injury done
+to society require capital sufferings to be inflicted, is a thing we so
+often meet with, that its frequency alone is sufficient to instruct men
+of the danger there is in becoming acquainted, much more of conversing
+familiarly, with wicked and debauched persons.
+
+This criminal, Francis Bailey, was one of the number of those examples
+from whence this observation arises. He was born of parents of the
+lowest degree, in Worcestershire, who were either incapable of giving
+him any education, or took so little care about it that at the time he
+went out into the world he could neither read or write. However, they
+bound him apprentice to a baker, and his master took so much care of him
+that he was in a fair way of doing well if he would have been
+industrious; but instead of that he quitted his employment to fall into
+that sink of vice and laziness, the entering into a regiment as a common
+soldier. However, it were, he behaved himself in this state so well that
+he became a corporal and serjeant, which last, though a preferment of
+small value, is seldom given to persons of no education. But it seems
+Bailey had address enough to get that passed by, and lived with a good
+reputation in the army near twenty years. During this space, with
+whatever cover of honesty he appeared abroad, yet he failed not to make
+up whatever deficiencies the irregular course of life might occasion, by
+robbing upon the highway, though he had the good luck never to be
+apprehended, or indeed suspected till the fact which brought him to his
+end.
+
+His first attempt in this kind happened thus. The regiment in which he
+served was quartered at a great road town; Bailey having no employment
+for the greatest part of his time, and being incapable of diverting
+himself by reading or innocent conversation, knew not therefore how to
+employ his hours. It happened one evening, that among his idle
+companions there was one who had been formerly intimate with a famous
+highwayman. This fellow entertained the company with the relation of
+abundance of adventures which had befallen the robber on the road, till
+he had saved about seven hundred pounds, wherewith he retired (as this
+man said) to Jamaica, and lived there in great splendour, having set up
+a tavern, and by his facetious conversation, acquired more custom
+thereto than any other public house had in the Island.
+
+As Bailey listened with great attention to this story, so it ran in his
+head that night that this was the easiest method of obtaining money, and
+that with prudence there was no great danger of being detected. Money at
+that time ran low, and he resolved the next day to make the experiment.
+Accordingly he procured a horse and arms in the evening and at dusk
+sallied out, with an intent of stopping the first passenger he should
+meet. A country clergyman happened to be the man. No sooner had Bailey
+approached him with the usual salutation of _Stand and Deliver_, but
+putting his hand in his pocket, and taking out some silver, he, in a
+great fright, and as it were trembling, put it into Bailey's hat, who
+thereupon carelessly let go the reins of his horse, and went to put the
+money up in his own pocket. The parson upon seeing that, clapped spurs
+to his horse, and thrust his right elbow with all his force under
+Bailey's left breast, and gave him such a blow as made him tumble
+backwards off his horse, the parson riding off as hard as he could with
+a good watch and near forty pounds in gold in his purse.
+
+So ill a setting out might have marred a highwayman of less courage than
+him of whom we are speaking; but Frank was not to be frightened either
+from danger or wickedness, when he once got it into his head. So that as
+soon as he came a little to himself, and had caught his horse, he
+resolved, by looking more carefully after the next prize, to make up
+what he fancied he had lost by the parson. With this intent he rode on
+about a mile, when he met with a waggon, in which were three or four
+young wenches, who had been at service in London and were going to
+several places in the country to see their relations. Bailey,
+notwithstanding there were three men belonging to the waggon, stopped
+it, and rifled it of seven pounds, and then very contentedly retired to
+his quarters.
+
+Flushed with this success, he never wanted money but he took this method
+of supplying himself, managing, after the affair of the parson, with so
+much caution that though he robbed on the greatest road, he was never
+so much as once in danger of a pursuit. Perhaps he owed his security to
+the newer taking any partner in the commission of his villainies to
+which he was once inclined, though diverted from it by an accident which
+to a less obstinate person might have proved a sufficient warning to
+have quitted such exploits for good and all.
+
+Bailey being one day at an alehouse, not far from Moorfields, fell into
+the conversation of an Irishman, of a very gay alert temper perfectly
+suited to the humour of our knight of the road. They talked together
+with mutual satisfaction for about two hours, and then the Stranger
+whispered Bailey that if he would step to such a tavern, he would give
+part of a bottle and fowl. Thither, accordingly, he walked; his
+companion came in soon after; to supper they went and parted about
+twelve in high good humour, appointing to meet the next evening but one.
+Bailey, the day after, was upon the Barnet Road, following his usual
+occupation, when looking by chance over the hedge, he perceived the
+person he parted with the night before, slop a chariot with two ladies
+in it, and as soon as he had robbed them, ride down a cross lane.
+Bailey, hereupon, after taking nine guineas from a nobleman's steward,
+whom he met about a quarter of an hour after, returned to his lodgings
+at a little blind brandy-shop in Piccadilly, resolving the next day to
+make a proposal to his new acquaintance of joining their forces. With
+this view he staid at home all day, and went very punctually in the
+evening to the place of their appointment; but to his great
+mortification the other never came, and Bailey, after waiting some
+hours, went away.
+
+As he was going home, he happened to step into an alehouse in Fore
+Street, where recollecting that the house in which he had first seen
+this person, was not far off, it came into his head that if he went
+thither, he might possibly hear some news of him. Accordingly he goes to
+the place, where he had hardly called for a mug of drink and a pipe of
+tobacco, but the woman saluted him with, _O lack, sir! Don't you
+remember a gentleman in red you spoke to here the other day? Yes_,
+replied Bailey, _does he live hereabouts? I don't know, says the woman,
+where he lives, but he was brought to a surgeon's hard by, about three
+hours ago, terribly wounded. My husband is just going to see him._
+
+Though Bailey could not but perceive that there might be danger in his
+going thither, yet his curiosity was so strong that he could not
+forbear. As soon as he entered the room the wounded man, who was just
+dressed, beckoned to him, and desired to speak with him. He went near
+enough not to have anything overheard, when the man in a low voice, told
+him that he was mortally wounded in riding off after robbing a
+gentleman's coach, and advised him to be cautious of himself, _For_,
+says the dying man, _I knew you to be a brother of the road as soon as I
+saw you; and if ever you trust any man with that secret, you may even
+prepare yourself for the hands of justice._ In half an hour he fell into
+fainting fits, and then became speechless, and died in the evening, to
+the no little concern of his new acquaintance Bailey.
+
+Some months after this, Frank was apprehended for breaking open a house
+in Piccadilly and stealing pewter, table-linen, and other household
+stuff to a very considerable value. He was convicted at the ensuing
+sessions at the Old Bailey for this crime, upon the oath of a woman who
+had no very good character; though he acknowledged abundance of crimes
+of which there was no proof against him, yet he absolutely denied that
+for which he was condemned, and persisted in that denial to his death,
+notwithstanding that the Ordinary and other ministers represented to him
+how great a folly, as well as sin, it was for him to go out of the world
+with a lie in his mouth. He said, indeed, he had been guilty of a
+multitude of heinous sins and offences for which God did with great
+justice bring him unto that ignominious end. Yet he persisted in his
+declaration of innocence as to housebreaking, in which he affirmed he
+had never been at all concerned; and with the strongest asservations to
+this purpose, he suffered death at Tyburn, the fourteenth of March,
+1725, being then about thirty-nine years old, in company with Jones,
+Barton, Gates and Swift, of whose behaviour under sentence we shall have
+occasion to speak by and by.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN BARTON, a Robber, Highwayman and Housebreaker
+
+
+Education is often thought a trouble by persons in their junior years,
+who heartily repent of their neglect of it in the more advanced seasons
+of their lives. This person, John Barton, who is to be the subject of
+our discourse, was born at London, of parents capable enough of
+affording him tolerable education, which they were also willing to
+bestow upon him, if he had been just enough to have applied himself
+while at school. But he, instead of that, raked about with boys of his
+own age, without the least consideration of the expense his parents were
+at, idled away his time, and forgot what little he learned almost as
+soon as he had acquired it.
+
+It is a long time before parents perceive that in their children which
+is evident to everyone else; however, Barton's father soon saw no good
+was to be done with him at school; upon which he took him away, and
+placed him apprentice with a butcher. There he continued for some time,
+behaving to the well-liking of his master; yet even then he was so much
+out of humour with work that he associated himself with some idle young
+fellows who afterwards drew him into those illegal acts which proved
+fatal to his reputation and his life. However, he did make a shift to
+pass through the time of his apprenticeship with a tolerable character,
+and was afterwards, through the kindness of his friends, set up as a
+butcher; in which business he succeeded so well as to acquire money
+enough thereby to have kept his family very well, if he could have been
+contented with the fruits of his honest labour. But his old companions,
+who by this time were become perfectly versed in those felonious arts by
+which money is seemingly so easy to be attained, were continually
+soliciting him to take their method of life, assuring him that there was
+not half so much danger as was generally apprehended, and that if he had
+but resolution enough to behave gallantly, he need not fear any
+adventure whatsoever.
+
+Barton was a fellow rather of too much than too little courage. He
+wanted no encouragements of this sort to egg him to such proceedings;
+the hopes of living idly and in the enjoyment of such lewd pleasures as
+he had addicted himself to, were sufficient to carry him into an affair
+of this sort. He therefore soon yielded to their suggestions, and went
+into such measures as they had before followed, especially
+housebreaking, which was the particular branch of villainy to which he
+had addicted himself. At this he became a very dextrous fellow, and
+thereby much in favour with his wicked associates, amongst whom to be
+impious argues a great spirit, and to be ingenious in mischief is the
+highest character to which persons in their miserable state can ever
+attain.
+
+Amongst the rest of Barton's acquaintance there was one Yorkshire Bob,
+who was reckoned the most adroit housebreaker in town. This fellow one
+day invited Barton to his house, which at that time was not far from Red
+Lion Fields, and proposed to him two or three schemes by which some
+houses in the neighbourhood might be broke open. Barton thought all the
+attempts too hazardous to be made, but Bob, to convince him of the
+possibility with which such things might be done, undertook to rob
+without assistance a widow lady's house of some plate, which stood in
+the butler's room at noon-day.
+
+Accordingly thither he went dressed in the habit of a footman belonging
+to a family which were well acquainted there; the servants conversed
+with him very freely, as my Lady Such-a-one's new man, while he
+entertained them with abundance of merry stories, until dinner was upon
+the table. Then taking advantage of that clutter in which they were, he
+slily lighted a fire-ball at the fire-side, clapped it into a closet on
+the side of the stairs in which the foul clothes were kept, and then
+perceiving the smoke, cried out with the utmost vehemence, _Fire, fire._
+This naturally drew everybody downstairs, and created such a confusion
+that he found little or no difficulty in laying hold of the silver plate
+which he aimed at. He carried it away publicly, while the smoke
+confounded all the spectators, and until the next morning nobody had the
+least suspicion of him; but upon sending to the lady for the plate which
+her new servant carried away the night before, and she denying that she
+had any servant in the house that had not lived with her a twelvemonth,
+they then discovered the cheat, though at a time too late to mend it.
+
+Barton, however, did not like his master's method entirely, choosing
+rather to strike out a new one of his own, which he fancied might as
+little mischief him as that audacious impudence of the other did in his
+several adventures. For which reason, he was very cautious of
+associating with this fellow who was very dextrous in his art, but was
+more ready in undertaking dangerous exploits than any of the crew at
+that time about town. John's way was by a certain nack of shifting the
+shutters, whereby he opened a speedy entrance for himself; and as he
+knew in how great danger his life was from each of these attempts, so he
+never made them but upon shops or houses where so large a booty might be
+expected as might prevent his being under necessity of thieving again in
+a week or two's time. Yet when he had in this manner got money, he was
+so ready to throw it away on women and at play, that in a short space
+his pocket was at as low an ebb as ever. When his cash was quite gone,
+he associated himself sometimes with a crew of footpads, and in that
+method got sufficient plunder to subsist until something offered in his
+own way, to which he would willingly have kept.
+
+At last, hearing of a goldsmith's not far from where he lodged, who had
+a very considerable stock of fine snuff-boxes, gold chains, rings, etc.,
+he fancied he had now an opportunity of getting provision for his
+extravagancies for at least a twelvemonth. The thoughts of this
+encouraged him so far that he immediately went about it, and succeeded
+to his wish, obtaining two gold chains, five gold necklaces, seventy-two
+silver spoons, and a numberless cargo of little things of value.
+
+Yet this did not satisfy him. He ventured a few days afterwards having a
+proper opportunity, on the house and shop of one Mrs. Higgs, from whence
+he took an hundred pair of stockings, and other things to a large value.
+But as is common with such persons, his imprudence betrayed him in the
+disposing of them, and by the diligence of a constable employed for that
+purpose, he was caught and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he
+was convicted for these facts, and as he had no friends, so it was not
+in any degree probable that he should escape execution; and therefore it
+is highly possible he might be the projector of that resistance which he
+and the rest under sentence with him made in the condemned hold, and
+which we shall give an exact account under the next life.
+
+The peculiar humour of Barton was to appear equally gay and cheerful,
+though in these sad circumstances, as he had ever done in the most
+dissolute part of his foregoing life. In consequence of which foolish
+notion he smiled on a person's telling him his name was included in the
+death-warrant, and at chapel behaved in a manner very unbecoming one who
+was so soon to answer at the Bar of the Almighty for a life led in open
+defiance both of the laws of God and man. Yet that surprise which people
+naturally express at behaviour of such a kind on such an occasion seemed
+in the eyes of this poor wretch so high a testimony in favour of his
+gallantry, that he could not be prevailed on, either by the advice of
+the ministers, or the entreaties of his relations, to abate anything of
+that levity which he put on when he attended at Divine Service. Though
+he saw it disturbed some of his fellow sufferers at first, who were
+inclined to apply themselves strictly to their duties, so fatal is evil
+communication, even in the latest moments of our life, that his
+ludicrous carriage corrupted the rest, and instead of reproving him as
+they had formerly done, they now seemed careful only of imitating his
+example; and in this disposition he continued, even to the last minute
+of his life, which ended at Tyburn, on the 14th of March, 1725, he being
+then hardly twenty-three years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM SWIFT, a Thief, etc.
+
+
+Amongst the multitude of other reasons which ought to incline men to an
+honest life, there is one very strong motive which hitherto has not, I
+think, been touched upon at all, and that is the danger a man runs from
+being known to be of ill-life and fame, of having himself accused from
+his character, only of crimes which he, though guiltless of, in such a
+case might find it difficult to get his innocence either proved or
+credited if any unlucky circumstance should give the least weight to the
+accusation.
+
+The criminal whose life exercises our present care was a fellow of this
+case. He was born of but mean parents, had little or no education, and
+when he grew strong enough to labour, would apply himself to no way of
+getting his bread but by driving a wheelbarrow with fruit about the
+streets. This led him to the knowledge of abundance of wicked,
+disorderly people, whose manners agreeing best with his own, he spent
+most of his time in sotting with them at their haunts, when by bawling
+about the streets, he had got just as much as would suffice to sot with.
+There is no doubt, but that he now and then shared with them in what
+amongst such folks, at least, pass for trivial offences, but that he
+engaged in the great exploits of the road did not appear to any other
+case than that for which he died, viz., taking four table cloths, eight
+napkins, two shirts and other things, from Mary Cassell. The woman swore
+positively to him upon his trial, and his course of life being such as I
+have represented it, nobody appeared to his reputation so as to bring
+the thing in to the least suspense with the jury; whereupon he was
+convicted and received sentence of death.
+
+The concern Swift was under when he found not the least hopes of life
+remaining, he having no friends who were capable (had they been willing)
+to have solicited a pardon or reprieve, shocked him so much that he
+scarce appeared to have his senses; however, he persisted obstinately in
+denying that he had the least hand in the robbery which was sworn
+against him. And as he made no scruple of acknowledging a multitude of
+other crimes, his denial of this gained some belief, more especially
+when Barton confessed that himself with two or three others were the
+persons who committed the robbery on the woman who swore against this
+criminal. It must be acknowledged that there was no appearance of any
+sinister motive, at least in Barton, to take upon himself a crime of
+which otherwise he would never have been accused; and the behaviour of
+Swift was at first of such a nature that it is not easy to conceive why,
+when all hopes of safety were lost, and he was full of acknowledgment as
+to the justice of his sentence for the many other evil deeds he had
+done, he should yet obdurately persist in denying this, if there had
+been no truth at all in his allegations.
+
+As this fellow had neither natural courage, nor had acquired any
+religious principles from his education, there is no wonder to be made
+that he behaved himself so poorly in the last moments of his life; in
+which terror, confusion, and self-condemnation wrought so strongly as to
+make the ignominy of the halter the least dreadful part of his
+execution.
+
+[Illustration: A CONDEMNED MAN DRAWN ON A SLEDGE TO TYBURN
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+The day on which the three last-mentioned persons, together with Yates
+or Gates, _alias_ Vulcan, a deer-stealer, and Benjamin Jones (for house
+breaking) were to have been executed, these miserable persons framed to
+themselves the most absurd project of preserving their lives that could
+possibly have entered into the heads of men; for getting, by some means
+or other, an iron crow into the hold, they therewith dug out a
+prodigious quantity of rubbish and some stones, which it is hardly
+credible could have been removed with so small assistance as they had.
+With these they blocked up the door of the condemned hold so effectually
+that there was no possibility of getting it open by any force whatsoever
+on the outside. The keepers endeavoured to make them sensible of the
+folly of their undertaking, in hopes they would thereby be induced to
+prevent any firing upon them; which was all that those who had the
+custody of them were now capable of doing, to bring them to submission.
+The Ordinary also joined in dissuading them from thus misspending the
+last moments of their lives, which were through the mercy of the Law
+extended to them for a better purpose. But they were inexorable, and as
+they knew their surrender would bring them immediately to a shameful
+death, so they declared positively they were determined to kill or to be
+killed in the position in which they were.
+
+Sir Jeremiah Murden, one of the sheriffs for the time being, was so good
+as to go down upon this occasion to Newgate. The keepers had opened a
+sort of trap-door in the room over the hold, and from thence discharged
+several pistols loaded with small shot, but to no purpose, the criminals
+retiring to the farther end of the room, continuing there safe and out
+of reach; though Barton and Yates received each of them a slight wound
+in crowding backwards. Sir Jeremy went himself to this place, and talked
+to them for a considerable space, and one of the fellows insisting to
+see his gold chain, that they might be sure they were treating with the
+sheriffs themselves, his condescension was so great as to put down part
+of it through the hole, upon which they consulted together, and at last
+agreed to surrender. Whereupon they began immediately to remove the
+stones, and as soon as the door was at liberty, one of the keepers
+entered. Just as he was within it, Barton snapped a steel tobacco-box in
+his face, the noise of which resembling a pistol, made him start back,
+upon which Barton said, _D----n you, you was afraid._
+
+When they were brought out, Sir Jeremy ordered the Ordinary to be sent
+for, and prayers to be said in the chapel, where he attended himself.
+But whether the hurry of this affair, or that stench which is natural to
+so filthy a place as the condemned hold, affected the sheriff's
+constitution, is hard to say, but upon his return home, he was seized
+with a violent fever, which in a very short space took away his life.
+
+But to return to Swift. When they came to Tyburn, and the minister had
+performed his last office towards them, this criminal made a shift in a
+faint tone to cry out, _Good People, I die as innocent of the crime for
+which I suffer, as the child unborn_; which Barton, with a loud voice,
+confirmed saying, _I am the man who robbed the person for which this man
+dies; he was not concerned with me, but one Capell and another were
+companions with me therein._ Swift, at the time of his execution, was
+about twenty-seven years of age, or a little over.
+
+
+
+
+The lives of EDWARD BURNWORTH, _alias_ FRAZIER, WILLIAM BLEWIT, THOMAS
+BERRY, EMANUEL DICKENSON, WILLIAM MARJORAM, JOHN HIGGS, etc., Robbers,
+Footpads, Housebreakers and Murderers
+
+
+As society intends the preservation of every man's person and property
+from the injuries which might be offered unto him from others, so those
+who in contempt of its laws go on to injure the one, and either by force
+or fraud to take away the other are, in the greatest proprieties of
+speech, enemies of mankind; and as such are reasonably rooted out, and
+destroyed by every government under heaven. In some parts of Europe,
+certain outlaws, _Banditti_, or whatever other appellation you'll please
+to bestow on them, have endeavoured to preserve themselves by force from
+the punishments which should have been executed upon them by justice,
+and finding mankind, from a spirit of self preservation, were become
+their enemies, they exerted themselves the utmost they were capable of
+in order to render their bodies so formidable as still to carry on their
+ravages with impunity, and in open defiance of the laws made against
+them. But an attempt of this sort was scarce ever heard of in Britain,
+even in the most early times, when, as in all other governments the
+hands of the Law wanted strength most; so that from the days of Robin
+Hood and Little John to those of the criminals of whom we are now
+writing, there was never any scheme formed for an open resistance of
+Justice, and carrying on a direct war against the lives and properties
+of mankind.
+
+Edward Burnworth, _alias_ Frazier, was the extraordinary person who
+framed this project for bringing rapine into method, and bounding even
+the practice of licentiousness with some kind of order. It may seem
+reasonable therefore, to begin his life preferable to the rest, and in
+so doing we must inform our readers that his father was by trade a
+painter, though so low in his circumstances as to be able to afford his
+son but a very mean education. However, he gave him as much as would
+have been sufficient for him in that trade to which he bound him
+apprentice, viz., to a buckle-maker in Grub Street, where for some time
+Edward lived honestly and much in favour with his master. But his father
+dying and his unhappy mother being reduced thereby into very narrow
+circumstances, restraint grew uneasy to him, and the weight of a
+parent's authority being now lost with him, he began to associate
+himself with those loose incorrigible vagrants, who frequent the ring at
+Moorfields, and from idleness and debauchery, go on in a very swift
+progression to robbery and picking of pockets.
+
+Edward was a young fellow, active in his person and enterprising in his
+genius; he soon distinguished himself in cudgel playing, and such other
+Moorfields exercises as qualify a man first for the road and then for
+the gallows. The mob who frequented this place, where one Frazier kept
+the ring, were so highly pleased with Burnworth's performances that they
+thought nothing could express their applause so much as conferring on
+him the title of Young Frazier. This agreeing with the ferocity of his
+disposition, made him so vain thereof, that, quitting his own name, he
+chose to go by this, and accordingly was so called by all his
+companions.
+
+Burnworth's grand associates were these, William Blewit, Emanuel
+Dickenson, Thomas Berry, John Levee, William Marjoram, John Higgs, John
+Wilson, John Mason, Thomas Mekins, William Gillingham, John Barton,
+William Swift, and some others that it is not material here to mention.
+At first he and his associates contented themselves with picking
+pockets, and such other exercises in the lowest class of thieving, in
+which however they went on very assiduously for a considerable space,
+and did more mischief that way than any gang which had been before them
+for twenty years. They rose afterwards to exploits of a more hazardous
+nature, viz., snatching women's pockets, swords, hats, etc.
+
+The usual places for their carrying on such infamous practices were
+about the Royal Exchange, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Fleet
+Street, the Strand and Charing Cross. Here they stuck a good while, nor
+is it probable they would ever have risen higher if Burnworth, their
+captain, had not been detected in an affair of this kind, and committed
+thereupon to Bridewell, from whence, on some apprehension of the
+keepers, he was removed to New Prison, where he had not continued long
+before he projected an escape, which he afterwards put into execution.
+
+During this imprisonment, instead of reflecting on the sorrows which his
+evil course of life had brought upon him, he meditated only how to
+engage his companions in attempts of a higher nature than they had
+hitherto been concerned in; and remembering how large a circle he had of
+wicked associates, he began to entertain notions of putting them in such
+a posture as might prevent their falling easily into the hands of
+justice, which many of them within a month or two last past had
+done--though as they were sent thither on trivial offences, they quickly
+got discharged again.
+
+Full of such projects, and having once more regained his freedom, he
+took much pains to find out Barton, Marjoram, Berry, Blewit and
+Dickenson, in whose company he remained continually, never venturing
+abroad in the day-time unless with his associates in the fields, where
+they walked with strange boldness, considering warrants were out against
+the greatest part of the gang. In the night time Burnworth strolled
+about in such little bawdy-houses as he had formerly frequented, and
+where he yet fancied he might be safe.
+
+One evening having wandered from the rest, he was so bold as to go to a
+house in the Old Bailey, where he heard the servants and successors of
+the famous Jonathan Wild were in close pursuit of him, and that one of
+them was in the inner room by himself. Burnworth loaded his pistol under
+the table, and having primed it, goes with it ready cocked into the room
+where Jonathan's foreman was, with a quartern of brandy and a glass
+before him. _Hark ye_, says Edward, _you fellow, who have served your
+time to a thief-taker; what business might you have with me or my
+company? Do you think to gain a hundred or two by swearing our lives
+away? If you do you are much mistaken; but that I may be some judge of
+your talent that way, I must hear you curse a little, on a very
+particular occasion._ Upon which, filling a large glass of brandy, and
+putting a little gunpowder into it, he clapped it into the fellow's
+hands, and then presenting his pistol to his breast, obliged him to wish
+most horrid mischiefs upon himself, if ever he attempted to follow him
+or his companions any more. No sooner had he done this, but Frazier
+knocking him down, quitted the room, and went to acquaint his companions
+with his notable adventure, which, as it undoubtedly frightened the new
+thief-taker, so it highly exalted his reputation for undaunted bravery
+amongst the rest of the gang, a thing not only agreeable to Burnworth's
+vanity, but useful also to his design, which was to advance himself to a
+sort of absolute authority amongst them from whence he might be capable
+of making them subservient to him in such enterprises as he designed.
+His associates were not cunning enough to penetrate his views, but
+without knowing it suffered them to take effect; so that instead of
+robbing as they used to do (as accident directed them, or they received
+intelligence of any booty) they now submitted themselves to his
+guidance, and did nothing but as he directed or commanded them.
+
+The morning before the murder of Thomas Ball, Burnworth, and Barton,
+whom we have before mentioned, pitched upon the house of an old Justice
+of the Peace of Clerkenwell, to whom they had a particular pique for
+having formerly committed Burnworth, and proposed it to their companions
+to break it open that night, or rather the next morning (for it was
+about one of the clock). They put their design in execution and executed
+it successfully, carrying off some things of real value, and a
+considerable parcel of what they took to be silver plate. With this they
+went into the fields above Islington, and from thence to Copenhagen
+House, where they spent the greatest part of the day. On parting the
+booty Burnworth perceived what they had taken for silver was nothing
+more than a gilt metal, at which he in a rage would have thrown it away;
+Barton opposed it, and said they should be able to sell it for
+something, to which Burnworth replied that it was good for nothing but
+to discover them, and therefore it should not be preserved at any rate.
+Upon this they differed, and while they were debating, came Blewit,
+Berry, Dickenson, Higgs, Wilson, Levee, and Marjoram, who joined the
+company. Burnworth and Barton agreed to toss up at whose disposal the
+silver ware should be, they did so, and it fell to Burnworth to dispose
+of it as he thought fit, upon which he carried it immediately to the New
+River side, and threw it in there, adding that he was sorry he had not
+the old Justice himself there, to share the same fate, being really as
+much out of humour at the thing as if the Justice had imposed upon them
+in a fair sale of the commodity, so easy a thing is it for men to impose
+upon themselves.
+
+As it happened they were all present pretty full of money, and so under
+no necessity of going upon any enterprise directly, wherefore they
+loitered up and down the fields until towards evening, when they thought
+they might venture unto town, and pass the time in their usual pleasures
+of drinking, gaming, and whoring. While they were thus (as the French
+say) murdering of time, a comrade of theirs came up puffing and blowing
+as if ready to break his heart. As soon as he reached them, _Lads_,
+says he, _beware of one thing; the constables have been all about Chick
+Lane in search of folk of our profession, and if ye venture to the house
+where we were to have met to-night, 'tis ten to one but we are all
+taken._
+
+This intelligence occasioned a deep consultation amongst them, what
+method they had best take, in order to avoid the danger which threatened
+them so nearly. Burnworth took this occasion to exhort them to keep
+together, telling them that as they were armed with three or four
+pistols apiece, and short daggers under their clothes, a small force
+would not venture to attack them. This was approved by all the rest, and
+when they had passed the afternoon in this manner, and had made a solemn
+oath to stand by one another in case of danger, they resolved, as night
+grew on, to draw towards town, Barton having at the beginning of these
+consultations, quitted them and gone home.
+
+As they came through Turnmill Street, they accidentally met the keeper
+of New Prison, from whom Burnworth had escaped about six weeks before.
+He desired Edward to step across the way with him, adding that he saw he
+had no arms, and that he did not intend to do him any prejudice.
+Burnworth replied that he was no way in fear of him, nor apprehensive of
+any injury he was able to do him, and so concealing a pistol in his
+hand, he stepped over to him, his companions waiting for him in the
+street. But the neighbours having some suspicion of them, and of the
+methods they followed to get money, began to gather about them; upon
+which they called to their companion to come away, which he, after
+making a low bow to the captain of New Prison, did. Finding the people
+increase they thought it their most advisable method to retire back in a
+body into the fields. This they did keeping very close together; and in
+order to deter the people from making any attempts, turned several times
+and presented their pistols in their faces, swearing they would murder
+the first man who came near enough for them to touch him. And the people
+being terrified to see such a gang of obdurate villains, dispersed as
+they drew near the fields, and left them at liberty to go whither they
+would.
+
+As soon as they had dispersed their pursuers, they entered into a fresh
+consultation as to what manner they would dispose of themselves.
+Burnworth heard what every one proposed, and said at last, that he
+thought the best thing they could do was to enter with as much privacy
+as they could, the other quarter of the town, and so go directly to the
+waterside. They approved his proposal, and accordingly getting down to
+Blackfriars, crossed directly into Southwark; and retired at last into
+St. George's Fields, where their last counsel was held to settle the
+operation of the night. There Burnworth exerted himself in his proper
+colours, informing them that there was no less danger of their being
+apprehended there, than about Chick Lane; for that one Thomas Ball (who
+kept a gin-shop in the Mint, and who was very well acquainted with most
+of their persons) had taken it into his head to venture upon Jonathan
+Wild's employment, and was for all that purpose indefatigable in
+searching out all their haunts, that he might get a good penny to
+himself apprehending them. He added that but a few nights ago, he
+narrowly missed being caught by him, being obliged to clap a pistol to
+his face, and threatened to shoot him dead if he offered to lay his
+hands on him. _Therefore_, continued Burnworth, _the surest way for us
+to procure safety, is to go to this rogue's house, and shoot him dead
+upon the spot. His death will not only secure us from all fears of his
+treachery, but it will likewise so terrify others that nobody will take
+up the trade of thief-catching in haste; and if it were not for such
+people who are acquainted with us and our houses of resort there would
+hardly one of our profession in a hundred see the inside of Newgate._
+
+Burnworth had scarce made an end of his bloody proposal, before they all
+testified their assent to it with great alacrity, Higgs only excepted;
+who seeming to disapprove thereof, it put the rest into such a passion
+that they upbraided him in the most opprobious terms with being a coward
+and a scoundrel, unworthy of being any longer the companion of such
+brave fellows as themselves. When Frazier had sworn them all to stick
+fast by one another, he put himself at their head, and away they went
+directly to put their designed assassination into execution. Higgs
+retreated under favour of the night, being apprehensive of himself when
+their hands were in, since he, not being quite so wicked as the rest,
+might share the fate of Ball upon the first dislike to him that took
+them.
+
+As for Burnworth and his party, when they came to Ball's house and
+enquired of his wife for him, they were informed that he was gone to the
+next door, a public house, and that she would step and call him, and
+went accordingly. Burnworth immediately followed her and meeting Ball at
+the door, took him fast by the collar, and dragged him into his own
+house, and began to expostulate with him as to the reason why he had
+attempted to take him, and how ungenerous it was for him to seek to
+betray his old friends and acquaintances. Ball, apprehending their
+mischievous intentions, addressed himself to Blewit, and begged of him
+to be an intercessor for him, and that they would not murder him; but
+Burnworth with an oath replied, he would put it out of the power of Ball
+ever to do him any further injury, that he should never get a penny by
+betraying him, and thereupon immediately shot him.
+
+Having thus done, they all went out of doors again, and that the
+neighbourhood might suppose the firing of the pistol to have been done
+without any ill-intention, and only to discharge the same, Blewitt fired
+another in the street over the tops of the houses, saying aloud, they
+were got safe into town and there was no danger of meeting any rogues
+there. Ball attempted to get as far as the door, but in vain, for he
+dropped immediately, and died in a few minutes afterwards.
+
+Having this executed their barbarous design, they went down from Ball's
+house directly towards the Falcon,[73] intending to cross the water back
+again. By the way they accidentally met with Higgs, who was making to
+the waterside likewise. Him they fell upon and rated for a pusilanimous
+cowardly dog (as Burnworth called him) that would desert them in an
+affair of such consequence, and then questioned whether Higgs himself
+would not betray them. Burnworth proposed it to the company to shoot
+their old comrade Higgs, because he had deserted them in their late
+expedition; which it is believed, in the humour Burnworth was then in,
+he would have done, had not Marjoram interposed and pleaded for sparing
+his life. From the Falcon stairs they crossed the water to Trig
+Stairs[74]; and then consulting how to spend the evening, they resolved
+to go to the Boar's Head Tavern, in Smithfield, as not being at a
+distance from the waterside, in case any pursuit should be made after
+them, on account of the murder by them committed. At which place they
+continued until near ten of the clock, when they separated themselves
+into parties for that night, viz., one party towards the Royal Exchange,
+the second to St. Paul's Churchyard, the third to Temple Bar, in pursuit
+of their old trade of diving.
+
+This murder made them more cautious of appearing in public, and Blewit,
+Berry and Dickenson soon after set out for Harwich, and went over in a
+packet boat from thence for Helveot-Sluys. Higgs also being daily in
+fear of a discovery, shipped himself on board the _Monmouth_ man-of-war,
+at Spithead, where he thought himself safe, and began to be a little at
+ease; but Justice quickly overtook him, when he thought himself safest
+from its blow; for his brother who lived in town, having wrote a letter
+to him, and given it to a ship's mate of his to carry to him at
+Spithead, this man accidentally fell into company with one Arthur, a
+watchman belonging to St. Sepulchre's Parish, and pulling the letters by
+chance out of his pocket, the watchman saw the direction, and
+recollected that Higgs was a companion of Frazier's. Upon this he sent
+word to Mr. Delasay, Under-Secretary of State, and being examined as to
+the circumstances of the thing, proper persons were immediately
+dispatched to Spithead, who seized and brought him up in custody.
+Wilson, another of the confederates, withdrew about the same time, and
+had so much cunning as to preserve himself from being heard of for a
+considerable time.
+
+Burnworth, in the meanwhile, with some companions of his, continued to
+carry on their rapacious plunderings in almost all parts of the town;
+and as they kept pretty well united, and were resolute fellows, they did
+a vast deal of mischief, and yet were too strong to be apprehended.
+Amongst the rest of their pranks they were so audacious as to stop the
+Earl of Scarborough, in Piccadilly, but the chairmen having courage
+enough to draw their poles and knock one of the robbers down, the earl
+at the same time coming out of the chair, and putting himself upon his
+defence, after a smart dispute in which Burnworth shot one of the
+chairmen in the shoulder and thereby prevented any pursuit, they raised
+their wounded companion and withdrew in great confusion.
+
+About this time their robberies and villainies having made so much noise
+as to deserve the notice of the Government, a proclamation was published
+for the apprehending Burnworth, Blewit, etc., it being justly supposed
+that none but those who were guilty of these outrages could be the
+persons concerned in the cruel murder of Ball. A gentleman who by
+accident had brought one of these papers, came into the alehouse at
+Whitecross Street, and read it publicly. The discourse of the company
+turning thereupon, and the impossibility of the persons concerned making
+their escape, and the likelihood there was that they would immediately
+impeach one another. Marjoram, one of the gang, was there, though known
+to nobody in the room; weighing the thing with himself, he retired
+immediately from the house into the fields, where loitering about till
+evening came on, he then stole with the utmost caution into Smithfield,
+and going to a constable there, surrendered himself in a way of
+obtaining a pardon, and the reward promised by the proclamation.
+
+That night he was confined in the Wood Street Compter, his Lordship not
+being at leisure to examine him. The next day, as he was going to his
+examination, the noise of his surrender being already spread all over
+the town, many of his companions changed their lodgings and provided for
+their safety; but Barton thought of another method of securing himself
+from Marjoram's impeachment, and therefore planting himself in the way
+as Marjoram was carrying to Goldsmiths' Hall, he popped out upon him at
+once, though the constable had him by the arm, and presenting a pistol
+to him, said, _D----n ye, I'll kill you._ Marjoram, at the sound of his
+voice, ducked his head, and he immediately firing, the ball grazed only
+on his back, without doing him any hurt. The surprise with which all who
+were assisting the constable in the execution of his office were all
+struck upon this occasion gave an opportunity for Barton to retire,
+after his committing such an insult on public justice, as perhaps was
+never heard of. However, Marjoram proceeded to his examination, and made
+a very full discovery of all the transactions in which he had been
+concerned. Levee being taken that night by his directions in White Cross
+Street, and after examination committed to Newgate.
+
+Burnworth was now perfectly deprived of his old associates, yet he went
+on at his old rate, even by himself; for a few nights after, he broke
+open the shop and house of Mr. Beezely, a great distiller near Clare
+Market, and took away from thence notes to a great value, with a
+quantity of plate, which mistaking for white metal he threw away. One
+Benjamin Jones picked it up and was thereupon hanged, being one of the
+number under sentence when the Condemned Hold was shut up, and the
+criminals refused to submit to the keepers. Burnworth was particularly
+described in the proclamation, and three hundred pounds offered to any
+who would apprehend him; yet so audacious was he as to come directly to
+a house in Holborn, where he was known, and laying a loaded pistol down
+on the table, called for a pint of beer, which he drank and paid for,
+defying anybody to touch him, though they knew him to be the person
+mentioned in the proclamation. It would be needless to particularise any
+other bravadoes of his, which were so numerous that it gave no little
+uneasiness to the magistrates, who perceived the evil consequences that
+would show if such things should become frequent; they therefore doubled
+their diligence in endeavouring to apprehend him, yet all their attempts
+were to little purpose, and it is possible he might have gone on much
+longer if he had not betrayed the natural consequence of one rogue's
+trusting another.
+
+It happened at this time, that one Christopher Leonard was in prison for
+some such feats as Burnworth had been guilty of, who lodged at the same
+time with the wife and sister of the fellow. Kit Leonard, knowing in
+what state he himself was, and supposing nothing could so effectually
+recommend to him the mercy and favour of the Government as the procuring
+Frazier to be apprehended, who had so long defied all the measures they
+had taken for that purpose, he accordingly made the proposal by his
+wife to persons in authority. And the project being approved they
+appointed a sufficient force to assist in seizing him, who were placed
+at an adjoining alehouse, where Kate, the wife of Kit Leonard, was to
+give them the signal.
+
+About six of the clock in the evening of Shrove Tuesday, Kate Leonard
+and her sister and Burnworth being all together (it not being late
+enough for him to go out upon his nightly enterprises) Kate Leonard
+proposed they should fry some pancakes for supper, which the other two
+approved of, accordingly her sister set about them. Burnworth took off
+his surtout coat, in the pocket of the lining whereof he had several
+pistols. There was a little back door to the house, which Burnworth
+usually kept upon the latch, in order to make his escape if he should be
+surprised or discovered to be in that house. Unperceived by Burnworth,
+and whilst her sister was frying the pancakes, Kate went to the alehouse
+for a pot of drink, when having given the men who were there waiting for
+him the signal, she returned, and closed the door after her, but
+designedly missed the staple. The door being thus upon the jar only, as
+she gave the drink to Burnworth, the six persons rushed into the room.
+Burnworth hearing the noise and fearing the surprise, jumped up,
+thinking to have made his escape at the back door, not knowing it to be
+bolted; but they were upon him before he could get it open, and holding
+his hands behind him, one of them tied them, whilst another, to
+intimidate him, fired a pistol over his head. Having thus secured him,
+they immediately carried him before a Justice of the Peace, who after a
+long examination committed him to Newgate.
+
+Notwithstanding his confinement in that place, he was still director of
+such of his companions as remained at liberty, and communicating to them
+the suspicions he had of Kate Leonard's betraying him, and the dangers
+there were of her detecting some of the rest, they were easily induced
+to treat her as they had done Ball. One of them fired a pistol at her,
+just as she was entering her own house, but that missing, they made two
+or three other attempts of the same nature, until the Justice of the
+Peace placed a guard thereabouts, in order to secure her from being
+killed, and if possible to seize those who should attempt it, after
+which they heard no more of these sorts of attacks. In Newgate they
+confined Burnworth to the Condemned Hold, and took what other necessary
+precautions they thought proper in order to secure so dangerous a
+person, and who they were well enough aware meditated nothing but how to
+escape.
+
+He was in this condition when the malefactors before-mentioned, viz.,
+Barton, Swift, etc., were under sentence, and it was shrewdly suspected
+that he put them upon that attempt of breaking out, of which we have
+given an account before. There were two things which more immediately
+contributed to the defeating their design; the one was, that though five
+of them were to die the next day, yet four of them were so drunk that
+they were not able to work; the other was that they were so negligent in
+providing candles that two hours after they were locked up they were
+forced to lie-by for want of light.
+
+As we have already related the particulars of this story, we shall not
+take up our reader's time in mentioning them again, but go on with the
+story of Burnworth. Upon suspicion of his being the projector of that
+enterprise the keepers removed him into the Bilbow Room, and there
+loaded him with irons, leaving him by himself to lament the miseries of
+his misspent life in the solitude of his wretched confinement; yet
+nothing could break the wicked stubbornness of his temper, which, as it
+had led him to those practices justly punished with so strait a
+confinement, so it now urged him continually to force his way through
+all opposition, and thereby regain his liberty, in order to practice
+more villainies of the same sort, with those in which he had hitherto
+spent his time.
+
+It is impossible to say how, but by some method or other he had procured
+saws, files, and other instruments for this purpose; with these he first
+released himself from his irons, then broke through the wall of the room
+in which he was lodged, and thereby got into the women's apartment, the
+window of which was fortified with three tier of iron bars. Upon these
+he went immediately to work, and in a little time forced one of them;
+while he was filing the next, one of the women, to ingratiate herself
+with the keepers, gave notice, whereupon they came immediately and
+dragged him back to the Condemned Hold and there stapled him down to the
+ground.
+
+The course of our memoirs leads us now to say something of the rest of
+his companions, who in a very short space came most of them to be
+collected to share that punishment which the Law had so justly appointed
+for their crimes. We will begin, then, with William Blewit, who, next to
+Frazier, was the chief person in the gang. He was one of St. Giles's
+breed, his father a porter, and his mother, at the time of his execution
+selling greens in the same parish. They were both of them unable to give
+their son education or otherwise provide for him, which occasioned his
+being put out by the parish to a perfumer of gloves; but his temper from
+his childhood inclining him to wicked practices, he soon got himself
+into a gang of young pickpockets, with whom he practised several years
+with impunity. But being at last apprehended in the very act, he was
+committed to Newgate, and on plain proof convicted the next sessions,
+and ordered for transportation. Being shipped on board the vessel with
+other wretches in the same condition, he was quickly let into the secret
+of their having provided for an escape by procuring saws, files, and
+other implements, put up in a little barrel, which they pretended
+contained gingerbread, and such other little presents which were given
+them by relations. Blewitt immediately foresaw abundance of difficulties
+in their design, and therefore resolved to make a sure use of it for his
+own advantage. This he did by communicating all he knew to the captain,
+who thereupon immediately seized their tools, and thereby prevented the
+loss of his ship, which otherwise in all probability would have been
+effected by the conspirators.
+
+In return for this service, Blewit obtained his freedom, which did not
+serve him for any better purpose than his return to London as soon as be
+was able. Whether he went again upon his old practices before he was
+apprehended, we cannot determine, but before he had continued two months
+in town, somebody seized him, and committed him to Newgate. At the next
+sessions he was tried and convicted for returning from transportation,
+but pleading, when he received sentence of death, the service he had
+done in preventing the attempt of the other malefactors, execution was
+respited until the return of the captain, and on his report the sentence
+was changed into a new transportation, and leave given him also to go to
+what foreign port he would. But he no sooner regained his liberty than
+he put it to the same use as before, and took up the trade of snatching
+hats, wigs, etc., until he got into acquaintance with Burnworth and his
+gang, who taught him other methods of robbing than he had hitherto
+practised. Like most of the unhappy people of his sort, he had to his
+other crimes added the marriage of several wives, of which the first was
+reputed a very honest and modest woman, and it seems had so great a love
+for him, notwithstanding the wickedness of his behaviour, that upon her
+visiting him at Newgate, the day before they set out for Kingston, she
+was oppressed with so violent a grief as to fall down dead in the lodge.
+Another of his wives married Emanuel Dickenson and survived them both.
+
+His meeting Burnworth that afternoon before Ball's murder was
+accidental, but the savageness of his temper led him to a quick
+compliance with that wicked proposition; but after the commission of
+that fact, he with his companions before mentioned went over in the
+packet boat to Holland. Guilt is a companion which never suffers rest
+to enter any bosom where it inhabits; they were so uneasy after their
+arrival there, lest an application should be made from the Government at
+home, that they were constantly perusing the English newspapers as they
+came over to the coffee houses in Rotterdam, that they might gain
+intelligence of what advertisements, rewards, or other methods had been
+taken to apprehend the persons concerned in Ball's murder; resolving on
+the first news of a proclamation, or other interposition of the State on
+that occasion, immediately to quit the Dominions of the Republic. But as
+Burnworth had been betrayed by the only persons from whom he could
+reasonably hope assistance; Higgs seized on board a ship where he
+fancied himself secure from all searches; so Blewit and his associates,
+though they daily endeavoured to acquaint themselves with the
+transactions at London relating to them, fell also into the hands of
+Justice, when they least expected it. So equal are the decrees of
+providence, and so inevitable the strokes of Divine vengeance.
+
+The proclamation for apprehending them came no sooner to the hands of
+Mr. Finch, the British resident at the Hague, but he immediately caused
+an enquiry to be made, whether any such persons as were therein
+described had been seen at Rotterdam. Being assured that there had, and
+that they were lodged at the Hamburgh's Arms on the Boom Keys in that
+City, he sent away a special messenger to enquire the truth thereof; of
+which he was no sooner satisfied, than he procured an order from the
+States General for apprehending them anywhere within the Province. By
+virtue of this order the messenger, with the assistance of the proper
+officers for that purpose in Holland, apprehended Blewit at the house
+whither they had been directed; his two companions Dickenson and Berry,
+had left him and were gone aboard a ship, not caring to remain any
+longer in Holland. They conducted their prisoner to the Stadt House
+Prison in Rotterdam, and then went to the Brill, where the ship on board
+which his companions were, not being cleared out, they surprised them
+also, and having handcuffed them, sent them under a strong guard to
+Rotterdam, where they put them in the same place with their old
+associate Blewit. We shall now therefore take an opportunity of speaking
+of each of them, and acquainting the reader with those steps by which
+they arose to that unparalleled pitch of wickedness which rendered them
+alike the wonder and detestation of all the sober part of mankind.
+
+Emanuel Dickenson was the son of a very worthy person, whose memory I
+shall be very careful not to stain upon this occasion. The lad was ever
+wild and ungovernable in his temper, and being left a child at his
+father's death, himself, his brother, and several sisters were thrown
+all upon the hands of their mother, who was utterly unable to support
+them in those extravagancies to which they were inclined. Whereupon they
+unfortunately addicted themselves to such evil courses as to them seemed
+likely to provide such a supply of money as might enable them to take
+such licentious pleasures as were suitable to their vicious
+inclinations. The natural consequence of which was that they all fell
+under misfortunes, especially Emanuel of whom we are speaking, who
+addicted himself to picking of pockets, and such kind of facts for a
+considerable space. At last, attempting to snatch a gentleman's hat off
+in the Strand, he was seized with it in his hand, and committed to
+Newgate, and at the next sessions convicted and ordered for
+transportation. But his mother applying at Court for a pardon, and
+setting forth the merit of his father, procured his discharge. The only
+use he made of this was to associate himself with his old companions,
+who by degrees led him into greater villainies than any he had till that
+time been concerned in; and at last falling under the direction of
+Burnworth, he was with the rest drawn into the murder of Ball. After
+this he followed Blewit's advice, and not thinking himself safe even in
+Holland, he and Berry (as has been said) were actually on ship board, in
+order to their departure.
+
+Thomas Berry was a beggar, if not a thief, from his cradle, descended
+from parents in the most wretched circumstances, who being incapable of
+giving him an honest education suffered him on the contrary to idle
+about the streets, and to get into such gangs of thieves and pickpockets
+as taught him from his infancy the arts of _diving_ (as they in their
+cant call it). And as he grew in years they still brought him on to a
+greater proficiency in such evil practices, in which however he did not
+always meet with impunity; for besides getting into the little prisons
+about town, and being whipped several times at the houses of correction,
+he had also been thrice in Newgate, and for the last fact convicted and
+ordered for transportation. However, by some means or other, he got away
+from the ship, and returned quickly to his old employment; in which he
+had not continued long, before falling into the acquaintance of
+Burnworth, it brought him first to the commission of a cruel murder, and
+after that with great justice to suffer an ignominious death. Having
+been thus particular on the circumstances of each malefactor distinctly,
+let us return to the thread of our story, and observe to what period
+their wicked designs and lawless courses brought them at the last.
+
+After they were all three secured, and safe confined in Rotterdam, the
+resident dispatched an account thereof to England; whereupon he received
+directions for applying to the States-General for leave to send them
+back. This was readily granted, and six soldiers were ordered to attend
+them on board, besides the messengers who were sent to fetch them.
+Captain Samuel Taylor, in the _Delight_ sloop, brought them safe to the
+Nore, where they were met by two other messengers, who assisted in
+taking charge of them up the river. In the midst of all the miseries
+they suffered, and the certainty they had of being doomed to suffer much
+more as soon as they came on shore, yet they behaved themselves with the
+greatest gaiety imaginable, were full of their jests and showed as much
+pleasantness as if their circumstances had been the most happy.
+Observing a press-gang very busy on the water, and that the people in
+the boat shunned them with great care, they treated them with the most
+opprobrious language, and impudently dared the lieutenant to come and
+press them for the service. On their arrival at the Tower, they were put
+into a boat with the messengers, with three other boats to guard them,
+each of which was filled with a corporal and a file of musqueteers; and
+in this order they were brought to Westminster. After being examined
+before Justice Chalk and Justice Blackerby they were all three put into
+a coach, and conducted by a party of Foot-guards to Newgate through a
+continued line of spectators, who by their loud huzzas proclaimed their
+joy at seeing these egregious villains in the hands of justice; for
+they, like Jonathan Wild, were so wicked as to lose the compassion of
+the mob.
+
+On their arrival at Newgate, the keepers expressed a very great
+satisfaction, and having put on each a pair of the heaviest irons in the
+gaol, and taken such other precautions as they thought necessary for
+securing them, they next did them the honour of conducting them upstairs
+to their old friend Edward Burnworth. Having congratulated them on their
+safe arrival and they condoled with him on his confinement, they took
+their places near him, and had the convenience of the same apartment and
+were shackled in the like manner. They did not appear to show the least
+sign of contrition or remorse for what they had done; on the contrary
+they spent their time with all the indifference imaginable. Great
+numbers of people had the curiosity to come to Newgate to see them, and
+Blewit upon all occasions made use of every opportunity to excite their
+charity, alleging they had been robbed of everything when they were
+seized. Burnworth, with an air of indifference replied, _D----n this
+Blewit, because he had got a long wig and ruffled shirt he takes the
+liberty to talk more than any of us._ Being exhorted to apply the little
+time they had to live in preparing themselves for another world,
+Burnworth replied that if they had any inclination to think of a future
+state, it was impossible in their condition, so many persons as were
+admitted to come to view them in their present circumstances must needs
+divert any good thoughts. But their minds were totally taken up with
+consulting the most likely means to make their escape and extricate
+themselves from the bolts and shackles with which they were clogged and
+encumbered; and indeed all their actions showed their thoughts were bent
+only on enlargement, and that they were altogether unmindful of death,
+or at least careless of the future consequence thereof.
+
+On Wednesday, the 30th of March, 1726, Burnworth, Blewit, Berry
+Dickenson, Levee, and Higgs, were all put into a waggon, handcuffed and
+chained, and carried to Kingston under a guard of the Duke of Bolton's
+horse. At their coming out of Newgate they were very merry, charging the
+guard to take care that no misfortune happened to them, and called upon
+the numerous crowd of spectators, both at their getting into the waggon,
+and afterwards as they passed along the road, to show their respect they
+bore them by halloaing, and to pay them the compliments due to gentlemen
+of their profession, and called for several bottles of wine that they
+might drink to their good journey. As they passed along the road they
+endeavoured to show themselves very merry and pleasant by their
+facetious discourse to the spectators, and frequently threw money
+amongst the people who followed them, diverting themselves with seeing
+the others strive for it. And particularly Blewit, having thrown out
+some halfpence amongst the mob, a little boy who was present picked up
+one of them, and calling out to Blewit, told him, that as sure as he
+(the said Blewit) would be condemned at Kingston, so sure would he have
+his name engraved thereon; whereupon Blewit took a shilling out of his
+pocket and gave it to the boy, telling him there was something towards
+defraying the charge of engraving and bid him be as good as his word,
+which he promised he would.
+
+On the 31st of March, the assizes were opened, together with the
+commission of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the county of
+Surrey, before the Right Hon. the Lord Chief Justice Raymond, and Mr.
+Justice Denton; and the grand jury having found indictments against the
+prisoners, they were severally arraigned thereupon, when five of them
+pleaded not guilty. Burnworth absolutely refused to plead at all; upon
+which, after being advised by the judge not to force the Court upon that
+rigour which they were unwilling at any time to practice, and he still
+continuing obstinate, his thumbs (as is usual in such cases) were tied
+and strained with pack thread. This having no effect upon him, the
+sentence of the press, or as it is sailed in Law, of the _Peine Fort et
+Dure_, was read to him in these words: _You shall go to the place from
+whence you came, and there being stripped naked and laid flat upon your
+back on the floor, with a napkin about your middle to hide your privy
+members, and a cloth on your face, then the press is to be laid upon
+you, with as much weight as, or rather more than you can bear. You are
+to have three morsels of barley-bread in twenty-four hours; a draught of
+water from the next puddle near the gaol, but not running water. The
+second day two morsels and the same water, with an increase of weight,
+and so to the third day until you expire._
+
+This sentence thus passed upon him, and he still continuing
+contumacious, he was carried down to the stock-house, and the press laid
+upon him, which he bore for the space of one hour and three minutes,
+under the weight of three hundred, three quarters, and two pounds [424
+lb.]. Whilst he continued under the press, he endeavoured to beat out
+his brains against the floor, during which time the High Sheriff himself
+was present, and frequently exhorted him to plead to the indictment.
+This at last he consented to do; and being brought up to the Court,
+after a trial which lasted from eight in the morning until one in the
+afternoon, on the first day of April, they were all six found guilty of
+the indictment, and being remanded back to the stock-house, were all
+chained and stapled down to the floor.
+
+Whilst they were under conviction, the terrors of death did not make any
+impression upon them; they diverted themselves with repeating jests and
+stories of various natures, particularly of the manner of their escapes
+before out of the hands of justice, and the robberies and offences they
+had committed. And it being proposed, for the satisfaction of the world,
+for them to leave the particulars of the several robberies by them
+committed, Burnworth replied that were he to write all the robberies by
+him committed, a hundred sheets of paper, write as close as could be,
+would not contain them. Notwithstanding what had been alleged by Higgs
+of his forsaking his companions in the field, it appeared by other
+evidence that he followed his companions to Ball's house, and was seen
+hovering about the house during the time the murder was committed, with
+a pistol in his hand.
+
+As for Burnworth, after conviction, his behaviour was as ludicrous as
+ever; and being as I said, a painter's son, he had some little notion of
+designing, and therewith diverted himself in sketching his own picture
+in several forms; particularly as he lay under the press. This being
+engraved in copper, was placed in the frontispiece of a sixpenny book
+which was published of his life, and the rest seemed to fall no way
+short of him in that silly contempt of death, which with the vulgar
+passes for resolution.
+
+On Monday, the 4th day of April, they were brought up again from the
+stock-house to receive sentence of death. Before he passed it upon them
+Mr. Justice Denton made a very pathetic speech, in which he represented
+to them the necessity there was of punishing crimes like theirs with
+death, and exhorted them not to be more cruel to themselves than they
+had obliged the law to be severe towards them, by squandering away the
+small remainder of their time, and thereby adding to an ignominious end,
+an eternal punishment hereafter. When sentence was passed, they
+entreated leave for their friends to visit them in the prison, which was
+granted them by the Court, but with a strict injunction to the keeper to
+be careful over them. After they returned to the prison, they bent their
+thought wholly on making their escape, and to that purpose sent to their
+friends, and procured proper implements for the execution of it:
+Burnworth's mother being surprised with several files, etc., about her,
+and the whole plot discovered by Blewit's mother who was heard to say
+that she had forgot the opium.
+
+It seems the scheme was to murder the two persons who attended them in
+the gaol, together with Mr. Eliot, the turnkey; after they had got out
+they intended to have fired a slack of bavins [firewood] adjoining to
+the prison, and thereby amused the inhabitants while they got clear off.
+Burnworth's mother was confined for this attempt in his favour, and some
+lesser implements that were sewed up in the waistband of their breeches
+being ripped out, all hopes whatsoever of escape were now taken away.
+Yet Burnworth affected to keep up the same spirit with which he had
+hitherto behaved, and talked in a rhodomantade to one of his guard, of
+coming in the night in a dark entry, and pulling him by the nose, if he
+did not see him decently buried.
+
+About ten of the clock, on Wednesday morning, together with one
+Blackburn, who was condemned for robbing on the highway, a fellow
+grossly ignorant and stupid, they were carried out in a cart to their
+execution, being attended by a company of foot to the gallows. In their
+passage thither, that audacious carriage in which they had so long
+persisted totally forsook them, and they all appeared with all that
+seriousness and devotion which might be looked for from persons in their
+condition. Blewit perceiving one Mr. Warwick among the spectators
+desired that he might stop to speak to him; which being granted, he
+threw himself upon his knees, and earnestly intreated his pardon for
+having once attempted his life by presenting a pistol at him, upon
+suspicion that Mr. Warwick knowing what his profession was had given
+information against him.
+
+When at the place of execution and tied up, Blewit and Dickenson,
+especially, prayed with great fervour and with a becoming earnestness,
+exhorted all the young persons they saw near them to take warning by
+them, and not follow such courses as might in time bring them to so
+terrible an end. Blewit acknowledged that for sixteen years last past he
+had lived by stealing and pilfering only. He had given all the clothes
+he had to his mother, but being informed that he was to be hung in
+chains, he desired his mother might return them to prevent his being put
+up in his shirt. He then desired the executioner to tie him up so that
+he might be as soon out of his pain as possible; then he said the
+Penitential Psalm, and repeated the words of it to the other criminals.
+Then they all kissed one another, and after some private devotions the
+cart drew away and they were turned off. Dickenson died very hard,
+kicking off one of his shoes, and loosing the other.
+
+Their bodies were carried back under the same guard which attended them
+to their execution. Burnworth and Blewit were afterwards hung in chains
+over against the sign of the Fighting Cocks, in St. George's Fields,
+Dickenson and Berry were hung up on Kennington Common, but the sheriff
+of Surrey had orders at the same time to suffer his relations to take
+down the body of Dickenson in order to be interred, after its hanging up
+one day, which favour was granted on account of his father's service in
+the army, who was killed at his post in the late war. Levee and Higgs
+were hung up on Putney Common, beyond Wandsworth, which is all we have
+to add concerning these hardened malefactors who so long defied the
+justice of their country, and are now, to the joy of all honest people,
+placed as spectacles for the warning of their companions who frequent
+the places where they are hung in chains.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [73] Falcon Stairs were just east of where Blackfriars Bridge
+        now stands.
+
+   [74] Trig Lane ran from Thames Street to the water's edge, near
+        Lambeth Hill.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN GILLINGHAM, an Highwayman and Footpad, etc.
+
+
+As want of education hath brought many who might otherwise have done
+very well in the world to a miserable end, so the best education and
+instructions are often of no effect to stubborn and corrupt minds. This
+was the case of John Gillingham, of whom we are now to give an account.
+He had been brought up at Westminster School, but all he acquired there
+was only a smattering of learning and a great deal of self-conceit,
+fancying labour was below him, and that he ought to live the life of a
+gentleman. He associated himself with such companions as pretended to
+teach him this art of easily attaining money. He was a person very
+inclinable to follow such advices, and therefore readily came into these
+proposals as soon as they were made. Amongst the rest of his
+acquaintance, he became very intimate with Burnworth, and made one of
+the number in attacking the chair of the Earl of Scarborough, near St.
+James's Church, and was the person who shot the chairman in the
+shoulder.
+
+As he was a young man of a good deal of spirit, so he committed
+abundance of facts in a very short space; but the indefatigable industry
+which the officers of Justice exerted, in apprehending Frazier's
+desperate gang, soon brought him to the miserable end consequent from
+such wicked courses. He was indicted for assaulting Robert Sherly, Esq.,
+upon the highway, and taking from him a watch value £20. He was a second
+time indicted for assaulting John du Cummins, a footman, and taking from
+him a silver watch, a snuff-box, and five guineas in money. Both of
+which facts he steadily denied after his conviction, but there was a
+third crime of which he was convicted, viz., sending a letter to extort
+money from Simon Smith, Esq., and which follows in these words:
+
+    Mr. Smith.
+
+    I desire you to send me twenty guineas by the bearer, without
+    letting him know what it is for, he is innocent of the contents if
+    your offer to speak of this to anybody---- My blood and soul, if you
+    are not dead man before monday morning; and if you don't send the
+    money, the devil dash my brains out, if I don't shoot you the first
+    time you stir out of doors, or if I should be taken there are others
+    that will do your business for you by the first opportunity,
+    therefore pray fail not ----. Strike me to instant D---- if I am not
+    as good as my word.
+
+    To Mr. Smith in Great George Street over against the Church near
+    Hanover Square.
+
+He confessed that he knew of the writing and sending this epistle, but
+denied that he did it himself, and indeed the indictment set forth that
+it was in company with one John Mason, then deceased, that the said
+conspiracy was formed. Under sentence of death, he behaved himself very
+sillily, laughing and scoffing at his approaching end, and saying to one
+of his companions, as the keeper went downstairs before them, _Let us
+knock him down and take his keys from him. If one leads to heaven, and
+the other to hell, we shall at least have a chance to get the right!_
+Yet when death with all its horror stared him in the face, he began to
+relent in his behaviour, and to acknowledge the justness of that
+sentence which had doomed him to death. At the place of execution he
+prayed with great earnestness, confessed he had been a grievous sinner,
+and seemed in great confusion in his last moments. He was about twenty
+years of age when he died, which was on the 9th of May, 1726, at Tyburn.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN COTTERELL, a Thief, etc.
+
+
+The miseries of life are so many, so deep, so sudden, and so
+irretrievable, that when we consider them attentively, they ought to
+inspire us with the greatest submission towards that Providence which
+directs us and fills us with humble sentiments of our own capacities,
+which are so weak and incapable to protect us from any of those evils to
+which from the vicissitudes of life we are continually exposed.
+
+John Cotterell, the subject of this part of our work, was a person
+descended of honest and industrious parents, who were exceedingly
+careful in bringing him up as far as they were able, in such a manner as
+might enable him to get his bread honestly and with some reputation.
+When he was grown big enough to be put out apprentice, they agreed with
+a friend of theirs, a master of a vessel, to take him with him two or
+three voyages for a trial. John behaved himself so well that he gained
+the esteem of his master and the love of all his fellow-sailors. When he
+had been five years at sea, his credit was so good, both as to his being
+an able sailor and an honest man, that his friends found it no great
+difficulty to get him a ship, and after that another. The last he
+commanded was of the burthen of 200 tons, but he sustained great losses
+himself, and greater still, in supporting his eldest son, who dealt in
+the same way, and with a vessel of his own carried on a trade between
+England and Holland. Through these misfortunes he fell into
+circumstances so narrow that he lay two years and a half in Newgate, for
+debt. Being discharged by the Act of Insolvency, and having not
+wherewith to sustain himself, he broke one night into a little
+chandler's shop, where he used now and then to get a halfpenny-worth of
+that destructive liquor gin; and there took a tub with two pounds of
+butter, and a pound of pepper in it. But before he got out of the shop
+he was apprehended, and at the next sessions was found guilty of the
+fact.
+
+While under sentence of death he behaved with the greatest gravity,
+averred that it was the first thing of that kind he had ever done;
+indeed, his character appeared to be very good, for though his
+acquaintance in town had done little for him hitherto, yet when they saw
+that they should not be long troubled with him, they sent him good
+books, and provided everything that was necessary for him; so that with
+much resignation he finished his days, with the other malefactors, at
+Tyburn, in the fifty-second year of his age, on the 9th day of May,
+1726.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CATHERINE HAYES, a bloody and inhuman Murderess, etc.
+
+
+Though all crimes are in this nature foul, yet some are apparently more
+heinous, and of a blacker die than others. Murder has in all ages and in
+all climates been amongst the number of those offences held to be most
+enormous and the most shocking to human nature of any other; yet even
+this admits sometimes of aggravation, and the laws of England have made
+a distinction between the murder of a stranger, and of him or her to
+whom we owe a civil, or natural obedience. Hence it is that killing a
+husband, or a master is distinguished under the name of _petit_ treason.
+Yet even this, in the story we are about to relate, had several
+heightening circumstances, the poor man having both a son and a wife
+imbrueing their hands in his blood.
+
+Catherine Hall, afterwards by her marriage, Catherine Hayes, was born in
+the year 1690, at a village in the borders of Warwickshire, within four
+miles of Birmingham. Her parents were so poor as to receive the
+assistance of the parish and so careless of their daughter that they
+never gave her the least education. While a girl she discovered marks of
+so violent and turbulent a temper that she totally threw off all respect
+and obedience to her parents, giving a loose to her passions and
+gratifying herself in all her vicious inclinations.
+
+About the year 1705, some officers coming into the neighbourhood to
+recruit, Kate was so much taken with the fellows in red that she
+strolled away with them, until they came to a village called Great
+Ombersley in Warwickshire, where they very ungenerously left her behind
+them. This elopement of her sparks drove her almost mad, so that she
+went like a distracted creature about the country, until coming to Mr.
+Hayes's door, his wife in compassion took her in out of charity. The
+eldest child of the family was John Hayes, the deceased; who being then
+about twenty-one years of age, found so many charms in this Catherine
+Hall that soon after he coming into the house he made proposals to her
+of marriage. There is no doubt of their being readily enough received,
+and as they both were sensible how disagreeable a thing it would be to
+his parents, they agreed to keep it secret. They quickly adjusted the
+measures that were to be taken in order to their being married at
+Worcester; for which purpose Mr. John Hayes pretended to his mother that
+he wanted some tools in the way of his trade, viz., that of a carpenter,
+for which it was necessary he should go to Worcester; and under this
+colour he procured also as much money as, with what he had already had,
+was sufficient to defray the expense of the intended wedding.
+
+Catherine having quitted the house without the formality of bidding them
+adieu, and meeting at the appointed place, they accompanied each other
+to Worcester, where the wedding was soon celebrated. The same day Mrs.
+Catherine Hayes had the fortune to meet with some of her quondam
+acquaintance at Worcester. They understanding that she was that day
+married, and where the nuptials were to be solemnized, consulted among
+themselves how to make a penny of the bridegroom. Accordingly deferring
+the execution of their intentions until the evening, just as Mr. Hayes
+was got into bed to his wife, coming to the house where he lodged, they
+forcibly entered the room, and dragged the bridegroom away, pretending
+to impress him for her Majesty's service.
+
+This proceeding broke the measures Mr. John Hayes had concerted with his
+bride, to keep their wedding secret; for finding no redemption from
+their hands, without the expense of a larger sum of money than he was
+master of, he was necessitated to let his father know of his misfortune.
+Mr. Hayes hearing of his son's adventures, as well of his marriage and
+his being pressed at the same time, his resentment for the one did not
+extinguish his affection for him as a father, but that he resolved to
+deliver him from his troubles; and accordingly, taking a gentleman in
+the neighbourhood along with him, he went for Worcester. At their
+arrival there, they found Mr. John Hayes in the hands of the officers,
+who insisted upon detaining him for her Majesty's service; but his
+father and the gentleman he brought with him by his authority, soon made
+them sensible of their errors, and instead of making a benefit of him,
+as they proposed, they were glad to discharge him, which they did
+immediately. Mr. Hayes having acted thus far in favour of his son, then
+expressed his resentment for his having married without his consent; but
+it being too late to prevent it, there was no other remedy but to bear
+with the same. For sometime afterwards Mr. Hayes and his bride lived in
+the neighbourhood, and as he followed his business as a carpenter, his
+father and mother grew more reconciled. But Mrs. Catherine Hayes, who
+better approved of a travelling than a settled life, persuaded her
+husband to enter himself a volunteer in a regiment then at Worcester,
+which he did, and went away with them, where he continued for some time.
+
+Mr. John Hayes being in garrison in the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Hayes took
+an opportunity of going over thither and continued with him for some
+time; until Mr. Hayes, not content with such a lazy indolent life
+(wherein he could find no advantage, unless it were the gratifying his
+wife) solicited his father to procure his discharge, which at length he
+was prevailed upon to consent to. But he found much difficulty in
+perfecting the same, for the several journeys he was necessitated to
+undertake before it could be done, and the expenses of procuring such
+discharge, amounted to sixty pound. But having at last, at this great
+expense and trouble, procured his son's release, Mr. John Hayes and his
+wife returned to Worcestershire; and his father the better to induce him
+to settle himself in business in the country, put him into an estate of
+ten pound _per annum_, hoping that, with the benefit of his trade, would
+enable them to live handsomely and creditably, and change her roving
+inclinations, he being sensible that his son's ramble had been
+occasioned through his wife's persuasions. But Mr. John Hayes
+representing to his father that it was not possible for him and his wife
+to live on that estate only, persuaded his father to let him have
+another also, a leasehold of sixteen pound _per annum;_ upon which he
+lived during the continuance of the lease, his father paying the annual
+rent thereof until it expired.
+
+The characters of Mr. John Hayes and his wife were vastly different. He
+had the repute of a sober, sedate, honest, quiet, peaceable man, and a
+very good husband, the only objection his friends would admit of against
+him was that he was of too parsimonious and frugal temper, and that he
+was rather too indulgent of his wife, who repaid his kindness with ill
+usage, and frequently very opprobious language. As to his wife, she was
+on all hands allowed to be a very turbulent, vexatious person, always
+setting people together by the ears, and never free from quarrels and
+controversies in the neighbourhood, giving ill advice, and fomenting
+disputes to the disturbance of all her friends and acquaintance.
+
+This unhappiness in her temper induced Mr. John Hayes's relations to
+persuade him to settle in some remote place, at a distance from and
+unknown to her for some time, to see if that would have any effect upon
+her turbulent disposition; but Mr. Hayes would not approve of that
+advice, nor consent to a separation. In this manner they lived for the
+space of about six years, until the lease of the last-mentioned farm
+expired; about which time Mrs. Hayes persuaded Mr. John Hayes to leave
+the country and come to London, which about twelve months afterwards,
+through her persuasions he did, in the year 1719. Upon their arrival in
+town they took a house, part of which they let out in lodging, and sold
+sea coal, chandlery-ware, etc., whereby they lived in a creditable
+manner. And though Mr. Hayes was of a very indulgent temper, yet she was
+so unhappy as to be frequently jarring, and a change of climate having
+made no alteration in her temper, she continued her same passionate
+nature, and frequent bickerings and disputes with her neighbours, as
+well as before in the country.
+
+In this business they picked up money, and Mr. Hayes received the yearly
+rent of the first-mentioned estate, though in town; and by lending out
+money in small sums, amongst his country people improved the same
+considerably. In speaking of Mr. Hayes to his friends and acquaintance
+she would frequently give him the best of characters, and commend him
+for an indulgent husband; notwithstanding which, to some of her
+particular cronies who knew not Mr. Hayes's temper, she would exclaim
+against him, and told them particularly (above a year before the murder
+was committed) that it was no more sin to kill him (meaning her husband)
+than to kill a mad dog, and that one time or other she might give him a
+jolt.
+
+Afterwards they removed into Tottenham Court Road, where they lived for
+some time, following the same business as formerly; from whence about
+two years afterwards, they removed into Tyburn Road,[75] a few doors
+above where the murder was committed. There they lived about twelve
+months, Mr. Hayes supporting himself chiefly in lending out money upon
+pledges, and sometimes working at his profession, and in husbandry, till
+it was computed he had picked up a pretty handsome sum of money. About
+ten months before the murder they removed a little lower to the house of
+Mr. Whinyard, where the murder was committed, taking lodgings up two
+pairs of stairs. There it was that Thomas Billings, by trade a tailor,
+who wrought journey-work in and about Monmouth Street; under pretence
+of being Mrs. Hayes's countryman came to see them. He did so, and
+continued in the house about six weeks before the death of Mr. Hayes.
+
+He (Mr. Hayes) had occasion to go a little way out of town, of which his
+wife gave her associates immediate notice, and they thereupon flocked
+thither to junket with her until the time they expected his return. Some
+of the neighbours out of ill-will which they bore the woman, gave him
+intelligence of it as soon as he came back, upon which they had
+abundance of high words, and at last Mr. Hayes gave her a blow or two.
+Maybe this difference was in some degree the source of that malice which
+she afterwards vented upon him.
+
+About this time Thomas Wood, who was a neighbour's son in the country,
+and an intimate acquaintance both of Mr. Hayes and his wife, came to
+town, and pressing being at that time very hot he was obliged to quit
+his lodgings; and thereupon Mr. Hayes very kindly invited him to accept
+of the convenience of theirs, promising him moreover, that as he was out
+of business, he would recommend him to his friends, and acquaintances.
+Wood accepted the offer, and lay with Billings. In three or four days'
+time, Mrs. Hayes having taken every opportunity to caress him, opened to
+him a desire of being rid of her husband, at which Wood, as he very well
+might, was exceedingly surprised, and demonstrated the business as well
+as cruelty there would be in such an action, if committed by him, who
+besides the general ties of humanity, stood particularly obliged to him
+as his neighbour and his friend. Mrs. Hayes did not desist upon this,
+but in order to hush his scruples would fain have persuaded him that
+there was no more sin in killing Hayes than in killing a brute-beast for
+that he was void of all religion and goodness, an enemy to God, and
+therefore unworthy of his protection; that he had killed a man in the
+country, and destroyed two of his and her children, one of which was
+buried under an apple tree, the other under a pear tree, in the country.
+To these fictitious tales she added another, which perhaps had the
+greatest weight, viz., that if he were dead, she should be the mistress
+of fifteen hundred pounds. _And then_, says she, _you may be master
+thereof, if you will help to get him out of the way. Billings has agreed
+too, if you'll make a third, and so all may be finished without danger._
+
+A few days after this, Wood's occasions called him out of town. On his
+return, which was the first day of March, he found Mr. Hayes and his
+wife and Billings very merry together. Amongst other things which passed
+in conversation, Mr. Hayes happened to say that he and another person
+once drank as much wine between them as came to a guinea, without
+either of them being fuddled. Upon this Billings proposed a wager on
+these terms, that half a dozen bottles of the best mountain wine should
+be fetched, which if Mr. Hayes could drink without being disordered,
+then Billings should pay for it; but if not, then it should be at the
+cost of Mr. Hayes. He accepting of this proposal, Mrs. Hayes and the two
+men went together to the Brawn's Head, in New Bond Street, to fetch the
+wine. As they were going thither, she put them in mind of the
+proposition she had made them to murder Mr. Hayes, and said they could
+not have a better opportunity than at present, when he should be
+intoxicated with liquor. Whereupon Wood made answer that it would be the
+most inhuman act in the world to murder a man in cool blood, and that,
+too, when he was in liquor. Mrs. Hayes had recourse to her old
+arguments, and Billings joining with her, Wood suffered himself to be
+overpowered.
+
+When they came to the tavern they called for a pint of the best
+mountain, and after they had drank it ordered a gallon and a half to be
+sent home to their lodgings, and Mrs. Hayes paid ten shillings and
+sixpence for it, which was what it came to. Then they all came back and
+sat down together to see Mr. Hayes drink the wager, and while he
+swallowed the wine, they called for two or three full pots of beer, in
+order to entertain themselves. Mr. Hayes, when he had almost finished
+the wine, began to grow very merry, singing and dancing about the room
+with all the gaiety which is natural to having taken a little too much
+wine. But Mrs. Hayes was so fearful of his not having his dose, that she
+sent away privately for another bottle, of which having drunk some also,
+it quite finished the work, by depriving him totally of his
+understanding; however, reeling into the other room, he there threw
+himself across the bed and fell fast asleep. No sooner did his wife
+perceive it than she came and excited the two men to go in and do the
+work; whereupon Billings taking a coal-hatchet in his hand, going into
+the other room, struck Mr. Hayes therewith on the back of the head. This
+blow fractured the skull, and made him, through the agony of the pain,
+stamp violently upon the ground, in so much that it alarmed the people
+who lay in the garret; and Wood fearing the consequence, went in and
+repeated the blows, though that was needless since the first was mortal
+in itself, and he already lay still and quiet. By this time Mrs.
+Springate, whose husband lodged over Mr. Hayes's head, on hearing the
+noise came down to enquire the reason of it, complaining at the same
+time that it so disturbed her family that they could not rest. Mrs.
+Hayes thereupon told her that her husband had had some company with him,
+who growing merry with their liquor were a little noisy, but that they
+were going immediately, and desired she would be easy. Upon this she
+went up again for the present, and the three murderers began immediately
+to consult how to get rid of the body.
+
+The men were in so much terror and confusion that they knew not what to
+do; but Mrs. Hayes quickly thought of an expedient in which they all
+agreed. She said that if the head was cut off, there would not be near
+so much difficulty in carrying off the body, which could not be known.
+In order to put this design in execution, they got a pail and she
+herself carrying the candle, they all entered the room where the
+deceased lay. Then the woman holding the pail, Billings drew the body by
+the head over the bedside, that the blood might bleed the more freely
+into it; and Wood with his pocket penknife cut it off. As soon as it was
+severed from the body, and the bleeding was over, they poured the blood
+down a wooden sink at the window, and after it several pails of water,
+in order to wash it quite away that it might not be perceived in the
+morning. However, their precautions were not altogether effectual, for
+the next morning Springate found several clots of blood, but not
+suspecting anything of the matter, threw them away. Neither had they
+escaped letting some tokens of their cruelty fall upon the floor, stain
+the wall of the room, and even spin up against the ceiling, which it may
+be supposed happened at the giving the first blow.
+
+When they had finished the decollation, they again consulted what was
+next to be done. Mrs. Hayes was for boiling it in a pot till nothing but
+the skull remained, which would effectually prevent anybody's knowing to
+whom it belonged; but the two men thinking this too dilatory a method,
+they resolved to put it in a pail, and go together and throw it in the
+Thames. Springate, hearing a bustling in Mr. Hayes's room for some time,
+and then somebody going down stairs, called again to know who it was and
+what was the occasion of it (it being then about eleven o'clock). Mrs.
+Hayes answered that it was her husband, who was going a journey into the
+country, and pretended to take a formal leave of him, expressing her
+sorrow that he was obliged to go out of town at that time of night, and
+her fear least any accident should attend him in his journey.
+
+Billings and Wood being thus gone to dispose of the head, went towards
+Whitehall, intending to have thrown the same into the river there, but
+the gates being shut, they were obliged to go forward as far as Mr.
+Macreth's wharf, near the Horseferry at Westminster, where Billings
+setting down the pail from under his great coat, Wood took up the same
+with the head therein, and threw it into the dock before the Wharf. It
+was expected the same would have been carried away by the tide, but the
+water being then ebbing, it was left behind. There were also some
+lighters lying over against the dock, and one of the lightermen walking
+then on board, saw them throw the pail into the dark; but by the
+obscurity of the night, the distance, and having no suspicion, they did
+not apprehend anything of the matter. Having thus done, they returned
+home again to Mrs. Hayes's where they arrived about twelve o'clock and
+being let in, found Mrs. Hayes had been very busily employed in washing
+the floor, and scraping the blood off from it, and from the walls, etc.
+After which, they all three went into the fore room, Billings and Wood
+went to bed there, and Mrs. Hayes sat by them till morning.
+
+On the morning of the second of March, about the dawning of the day, one
+Robinson a watchman saw a man's head lying in the dock, and the pail
+near it. His surprise occasioned his calling some persons to assist in
+taking up the head, and finding the pail bloody, they conjectured the
+head had been brought thither in it. Their suspicions were fully
+confirmed therein by the lighterman who saw Billings and Wood throw the
+same into the dock, as before mentioned.
+
+It was now time for Mrs. Hayes, Billings, and Wood to consider how they
+should dispose of the body. Mrs. Hayes and Wood proposed to put it in a
+box, where it might lie concealed till a convenient opportunity offered
+for removing it. This being approved of, Mrs. Hayes brought a box; but
+upon their endeavouring to put it in, the box was not big enough to hold
+it. They had before wrapped it up in a blanket, out of which they took
+it; Mrs. Hayes proposed to cut off the arms and legs, and they again
+attempted to put it in, but the box would not hold it. Then they cut off
+the thighs, and laying it piecemeal in the box, concealed them until
+night.
+
+In the meantime Mr. Hayes's head, which had been found as before, had
+sufficiently alarmed the town, and information was given to the
+neighbouring justices of the peace. The parish officers did all that was
+possible towards the discovery of the persons guilty of perpetrating so
+horrid an action. They caused the head to be cleaned, the face to be
+washed from the dirt and blood, and the hair to be combed, and then the
+head to be set upon a post in public view in St. Margaret's churchyard,
+Westminster, so that everybody might have free access to see the same,
+with some of the parish officers to attend, hoping by that means a
+discovery of the same might be attained. The high constable of
+Westminster liberty also issued private orders to all the petty
+constables, watchmen, and other officers of that district, to keep a
+strict eye on all coaches, carts, etc., passing in the night through
+their liberty, imagining that the perpetrators of such a horrid fact
+would endeavour to free themselves of the body in the same manner as
+they had done the head.
+
+These orders were executed for some time, with all the secrecy
+imaginable, under various pretences, but unsuccessfully; the head also
+continued to be exposed for some days in the manner described, which
+drew a prodigious number of people to see it, but without attaining any
+discovery of the murderers. It would be impertinent to mention the
+various opinions of the town upon this occasion, for they being founded
+upon conjecture only, were far wide of the truth. Many people either
+remembered or fancied they had seen that face before, but none could
+tell where or who it belonged to.
+
+On the second of March, in the evening, Catherine Hayes, Thomas Wood,
+and Thomas Billings took the body and disjointed members out of the box,
+and wrapped them up in two blankets, viz., the body in one, and the
+limbs in the other. Then Billings and Wood first took up the body, and
+about nine o'clock in the evening carried it by turns into Marylebone
+Fields, and threw the same into a pond (which Wood in the day time had
+been hunting for) and returning back again about eleven o'clock the same
+night, took up the limbs in the other old blanket, and carried them by
+turns to the same place, throwing them in also. About twelve o'clock the
+same night, they returned back again, and knocking at the door were let
+in by Mary Springate. They went up to bed in Mrs. Hayes's fore-room, and
+Mrs. Hayes stayed with them all night, sometimes sitting up, and
+sometimes lay down upon the bed by them.
+
+The same day one Bennet, the king's organ-maker's apprentice, going to
+Westminster to see the head, believed it to be Mr. Hayes's, he being
+intimately acquainted with him; and thereupon went and informed Mrs.
+Hayes, that the head exposed to view in St. Margaret's churchyard, was
+so very like Mr. Hayes's that he believed it to be his. Upon which Mrs.
+Hayes assured him that Mr. Hayes was very well and reproved him very
+sharply for forming such an opinion, telling him he must be very
+cautious how he raised such false and scandalous reports, for that he
+might thereby bring himself into a great deal of trouble. This reprimand
+put a stop to the youth's saying anything about it, and having no other
+reason than the similitude of faces, he said no more about it. The same
+day also Mr. Samuel Patrick, having been at Westminster to see the head,
+went from thence to Mr. Grainger's at the Dog and Dial in Monmouth
+Street, where Mr. Hayes and his wife were intimately acquainted, they
+and most of their journeymen servants being Worcestershire people. Mr.
+Patrick told them that he had been to see the head, and that in his
+opinion it was the most like to their countryman Hayes of any he ever
+saw.
+
+Billings being there then at work, some of the servants replied it could
+not be his, because there being one of Mrs. Hayes's lodgers (meaning
+Billings) then at work, they should have heard of it by him if Mr. Hayes
+had been missing, or any accident had happened to him; to which Billings
+made answer, that Mr. Hayes was then alive and well, and that he left him
+in bed, when he came to work in the morning. The third day of March, Mrs.
+Hayes gave Wood a white coat and a pair of leathern breeches of Mr.
+Hayes's, which he carried with him to Greenford, near Harrow-on-the-Hill.
+Mrs. Springate observed Wood carrying these things downstairs, bundled up
+in a white cloth, whereupon she told Mrs. Hayes that Wood was gone down
+with a bundle. Mrs. Hayes replied it was a suit of clothes he had
+borrowed of a neighbour, and was going to carry them home again.
+
+On the fourth of March, one Mrs. Longmore coming to visit Mrs. Hayes,
+enquired how Mr. Hayes did, and where he was. Mrs. Hayes answered, that
+he was gone to take a walk, and then enquired what news there was about
+town. Her visitor told her that most people's discourse run upon the
+man's head that had been found at Westminster; Mrs. Hayes seemed to
+wonder very much at the wickedness of the age, and exclaimed vehemently
+against such barbarous murderers, adding, _Here is a discourse, too, in
+our neighbourhood, of a woman who has been found in the fields, mangled
+and cut to pieces. It may be so_, replied Mrs. Longmore, _but I have
+heard nothing of it._
+
+The next day Wood came again to town, and applied himself to his
+landlady, Mrs. Hayes, who gave him a pair of shoes, a pair of stockings
+and a waistcoat of the deceased, and five shillings in money, telling
+him she would continue to supply him whenever he wanted. She informed
+him also of her husband's head being found, and though it had been for
+some time exposed, yet nobody had owned it.
+
+On the sixth of March, the parish officers considering that it might
+putrify if it continued longer in the air, agreed with one Mr.
+Westbrook, a surgeon, to have it preserved in spirits. He having
+accordingly provided a proper glass, put it therein, and showed it to
+all persons who were desirous of seeing it. Yet the murder remained
+still undiscovered; and notwithstanding the multitude which had seen it,
+yet none pretended to be directly positive of the face, though many
+agreed in their having seen it before.
+
+[Illustration: THE MURDER OF JOHN HAYES
+
+Catherine Hayes assisting Wood and Billings to cut off the head from her
+husband's corpse
+
+(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
+
+In the meantime Mrs. Hayes quitted her lodgings, and removed from
+where the murder was committed to Mr. Jones's, a distiller in the
+neighbourhood, with Billings, Wood, and Springate, for whom she paid one
+quarter's rent at her old lodgings. During this time she employed
+herself in getting as much of her husband's effects as possibly she
+could, and amongst other papers and securities, finding a bond due to
+Mr. Hayes from John Davis, who had married Mr. Hayes's sister, she
+consulted how to get the money. To which purpose she sent for one Mr.
+Leonard Myring, a barber, and told him that she, knowing him to be her
+husband's particular friend and acquaintance, and he then being under
+some misfortunes, through which she feared he would not presently
+return, she knew not how to recover several sums of money that were due
+to her husband, unless by sending fictitious letters in his name, to the
+several persons from whom the same were due. Mr. Myring considering the
+consequences of such a proceeding declined it. But she prevailed upon
+some other person to write letters in Mr. Hayes's name, particularly one
+to his mother, on the 14th of March, to demand ten pounds of the
+above-mentioned Mr. Davis, threatening if he refused, to sue him for it.
+This letter Mr. Hayes's mother received, and acquainting her son-in-law
+Davis with the contents thereof, he offered to pay the money on sending
+down the bond, of which she by a letter acquainted Mrs. Hayes on the
+twenty-second of the same month.
+
+During these transactions, several persons came daily to Mr. Westbrook's
+to see the head. A poor woman at Kingsland, whose husband had been
+missing the day before it was found, was one amongst them. At first
+sight she fancied it bore some resemblance to that of her husband, but
+was not positive enough to swear to it; yet her suspicion at first was
+sufficient to ground a report, which flew about the town, in the
+evening, and some enquiries were made after the body of the person to
+whom it was supposed to belong but to no purpose.
+
+Mrs. Hayes, in the meanwhile, took all the pains imaginable to propagate
+a story of Mr. Hayes's withdrawing on account of an unlucky blow he had
+given to a person in a quarrel, and which made him apprehensive of a
+prosecution, though he was then in treaty with the widow in order to
+make it up. This story she at first told with many injunctions of
+secrecy, to persons who she had good reason to believe would,
+notwithstanding her injunctions, tell it again. It happened, in the
+interim, that one Mr. Joseph Ashby, who had been an intimate
+acquaintance of Mr. Hayes, came to see her. She, with a great deal of
+pretended concern, communicated the tale she had framed to him. Mr.
+Ashby asked whether the person he had killed was him to whom the head
+belonged; she said, No, the man who died by Mr. Hayes's blow was buried
+entire, and Mr. Hayes had given or was about to give, a security to pay
+the widow fifteen pounds _per annum_ to hush it up. Mr. Ashby next
+enquired where Mr. Hayes was gone; she said to Portugal, with three or
+four foreign gentlemen.
+
+He thereupon took his leave; but going from thence to Mr. Henry
+Longmore's, cousin of Mr. Hayes, he related to him the story Mrs. Hayes
+had told him and expressed a good deal of dissatisfaction thereat,
+desiring Mr. Longmore to go to her and make the same enquiry as he had
+done, but without saying they had seen one another. Mr. Longmore went
+thereupon directly to Mrs. Hayes's, and enquired in a peremptory tone
+for her husband. In answer she said that she had supposed Mr. Ashby had
+acquainted him with the misfortune which had befallen him. Mr. Longmore
+replied he had not seen Mr. Ashby for a considerable time and knew
+nothing of his cousin's misfortune, not judging of any that could attend
+him, for he believed he was not indebted to anybody. He then asked if he
+was in prison for debt. She answered him, No, 'twas worse than that. Mr.
+Longmore demanded what worse could befall him. As to any debts, he
+believed he had not contracted any. At which she blessed God and said
+that neither Mr. Hayes nor herself owed a farthing to any person in the
+world. Mr. Longmore again importuning her to know what he had done to
+occasion his absconding so, said _I suppose he has not murdered
+anybody?_ To this she replied, he had, and beckoning him to come
+upstairs, related to him the story as before mentioned.
+
+Mr. Longmore being inquisitive which way he was gone, she told him into
+Herefordshire, that Mr. Hayes had taken four pocket pistols with him for
+his security, viz., one under each arm, and two in his pockets. Mr.
+Longmore answered, 'twould be dangerous for him to travel in that
+manner; that any person seeing him so armed with pistols, would cause
+him to be apprehended on suspicion of being a highwayman. To which she
+assured him that it was his usual manner; the reason of it was that he
+had like to have been robbed coming out of the country, and that once he
+was apprehended on suspicion of being an highwayman, but that a
+gentleman who knew him, accidentally came in, and seeing him in custody,
+passed his word for his appearance, by which he was discharged. To that
+Mr. Longmore made answer that it was very improbable of his ever being
+stopped on suspicion of being an highwayman, and discharged upon a man's
+only passing his word for his appearance; he farther persisted which way
+he was supplied with money for his journey. She told him she had sewn
+twenty-six guineas into his clothes, and that he had about him seventeen
+shillings in new silver. She added that Springate, who lodged there, was
+privy to the whole transaction, for which reason she paid a quarter's
+rent for her at her old lodgings, and the better to maintain what she
+had averred, called Springate to justify the truth of it. In concluding
+the discourse, she reflected on the unkind usage of Mr. Hayes towards
+her, which surprised Mr. Longmore more than anything else she had said
+yet, and strengthened his suspicion, because he had often been a witness
+to her giving Mr. Hayes the best of characters, viz., of a most
+indulgent, tender husband.
+
+Mr. Longmore then took leave of her and returned back to his friend Mr.
+Ashby; when, after comparing their several notes together, they judged
+by very apparent reasons that Mr. Hayes must have had very ill play
+shown him. Upon which they agreed to go to Mr. Eaton, a Life Guardman
+who was also an acquaintance of Mr. Hayes's, which accordingly they did,
+intending him to have gone to Mrs. Hayes also, to have heard what
+relation she would give him concerning her husband. They went and
+enquired at several places for him, but he was not then to be found;
+upon which Mr. Longmore and Mr. Ashby went down to Westminster to see
+the head at Mr. Westbrook's. When they came there, Mr. Westbrook told
+them that the head had been owned by a woman from Kingsland, who thought
+it to be her husband, but was not certain enough to swear it, though the
+circumstances were strong, because he had been missing from the day
+before the head was found. They desired to see it and Mr. Ashby first
+went upstairs to look on it, and coming down, told Mr. Longmore he
+really thought it to be Mr. Hayes's head, upon which Mr. Longmore went
+up to see it, and after examining it more particularly than Mr. Ashby,
+confirmed him in his suspicion. Then they returned to seek out Mr.
+Eaton, and finding him at home, informed him of their proceedings, with
+the sufficient reasons upon which their suspicions were founded, and
+compelled him to go with them to enquire into the affair.
+
+Mr. Eaton pressed them to stay to dinner with him, which at first they
+agreed to, but afterwards altering their minds, went all down to Mr.
+Longmore's house and there renewed the reasons of their suspicions, not
+only of Mr. Hayes's being murdered (being satisfied with seeing the
+head) but also that his wife was privy to the same. But in order to be
+more fully satisfied they agreed that Mr. Eaton should in a day or two's
+time go and enquire for Mr. Hayes, but withal taking no notice of his
+having seen Mr. Longmore and Mr. Ashby. In the meantime Mr. Longmore's
+brother interfered, saying, that it seemed apparent to him that his
+cousin (Mr. Hayes) had been murdered, and that Mrs. Hayes appeared very
+suspicious to him of being guilty with some other persons, viz., Wood
+and Billings (who she told him, had drunk with him the night before his
+journey). He added, moreover, that he thought time was not to be
+delayed, because they might remove from their lodgings upon the least
+apprehensions of a discovery.
+
+His opinion prevailed as the most reasonable, and Mr. Longmore said they
+would go about it immediately. Accordingly he immediately applied to Mr.
+Justice Lambert and acquainted him with the grounds of their suspicions
+and their desire of his granting a warrant for the apprehension of the
+parties. On hearing the story the justice not only readily agreed with
+them in their suspicions, and complied with their demand, but said also
+he would get proper officers to execute it in the evening, about nine
+o'clock, putting Mrs. Hayes, Thomas Wood, Thomas Billings, and Mary
+Springate into a special warrant for that purpose.
+
+At the hour appointed they met, and Mr. Eaton bringing two officers of
+the Guards along with them, they went altogether to the house where Mrs.
+Hayes lodged. They went directly in and upstairs, at which Mr. Jones,
+who kept the house, demanded who and what they were. He was answered
+that they were sufficiently authorised in all they did, desiring him at
+the same time to bring candles and he should see on what occasion they
+came. Light being thereupon brought they went all upstairs together.
+Justice Lambert rapped at Mrs. Hayes's door with his cane; she demanded
+who was there, for that she was in bed, on which she was bid to get up
+and open it, or they would break it open.
+
+After some time taken to put on her clothes, she came and opened it. As
+soon as they were in the room they seized her and Billings, who was
+sitting upon her bedside, without either shoes or stockings on. The
+justice asked whether he had been in bed with her. She said no, but that
+he sat there to mend his stockings. _Why, then_, replied Mr. Lambert,
+_he has very good eyes to see to do it without fire or candle_,
+whereupon they seized him too. And leaving persons below to guard them,
+they went up and apprehended Springate. After an examination in which
+they would confess nothing, they committed Billings to New Prison,
+Springate to the Gate House, and Mrs. Hayes to Tothill Fields Bridewell.
+
+The consciousness of her own guilt made Mrs. Hayes very assiduous in
+contriving such a method of behaviour as might carry the greatest
+appearance of innocence. In the first place, therefore, she entreated
+Mr. Longmore that she might be admitted to see the head, in which
+request she was indulged by Mr. Lambert, who ordered her to have a sight
+of it as she came from Tothill Fields Bridewell to her examination.
+Accordingly Mr. Longmore attending the officers to bring Mrs. Hayes from
+thence the next day to Mr. Lambert's, ordered the coach to stop at Mr.
+Westbrook's door. And as soon as he entered the house, being admitted
+into the room, she threw herself down upon her knees, crying out in
+great agonies, _Oh, it is my dear husband's head! It is my dear
+husband's head!_ and embracing the glass in her arms kissed the outside
+of it several times. In the meantime Mr. Westbrook coming in, told her
+that if it was his head she should have a plainer view of it, that he
+would take it out of the glass for her to have a full sight of it, which
+he did, by lifting it up by the hair and brought it to her. Taking it in
+her arms, she kissed it, and seemed in great confusion, withal begging
+to have a lock of his hair; but Mr. Westbrook replied that he was afraid
+she had had too much of his blood already. At which she fainted away,
+and after recovering, was carried to Mr. Lambert's, to be examined
+before him and some other Justices of the Peace. While these things were
+in agitation, one Mr. Huddle and his servant walking in Marylebone
+Fields in the evening, espied something lying in one of the ponds in the
+fields, which after they had examined it they found to be the legs,
+thighs, and arms of a man. They, being very much surprised at this,
+determined to search farther, and the next morning getting assistance
+drained the pond, where to their great astonishment they pulled out the
+body of a man wrapped up in a blanket; with the news of which, while
+Mrs. Hayes was under examination, Mr. Crosby, a constable, came down to
+the justices, not doubting but this was the body of Mr. Hayes which he
+had found thus mangled and dismembered.
+
+Yet, though she was somewhat confounded at the new discovery made hereby
+of the cruelty with which her late husband had been treated, she could
+not, however, be prevailed on to make any discovery or acknowledgment of
+her knowing anything of the fact; whereupon the justices who examined
+her, committed her that afternoon to Newgate, the mob attending her
+thither with loud acclamations of joy at her commitment, and ardent
+wishes of her coming to a just punishment, as if they were already
+convinced of her guilt.
+
+Sunday morning following, Thomas Wood came to town from Greenford, near
+Harrow, having heard nothing further of the affair, or of the taking up
+of Mrs. Hayes, Billings, or Springate. The first place he went to was
+Mrs. Hayes's old lodging; there he was answered that she had moved to
+Mr. Jones's, a distiller, a little farther in the street. Thither he
+went, where the people suspected of the murder said Mrs. Hayes was gone
+to the Green Dragon in King Street, which is Mrs. Longmore's house; and
+a man who was there told him, moreover, that he was going thither and
+would show him the way; Wood being on horseback followed him, and he led
+him the way to Mr. Longmore's house. At this time Mr. Longmore's brother
+coming to the door, and seeing Wood, immediately seized him, and
+unhorseing him, dragged him indoors, sent for officers and charged them
+with him on suspicion of the murder. From thence he was carried before
+Mr. Justice Lambert, who asked him many questions in relation to the
+murder; but he would confess nothing, whereupon he was committed to
+Tothill Fields Bridewell. While he was there he heard the various
+reports of persons concerning the murder, and from those, judging it
+impossible to prevent a full discovery or evade the proofs that were
+against him, he resolved to name an ample confession of the whole
+affair. Mr. Lambert being acquainted with this, he with John Madun and
+Thomas Salt, Esqs., two other justices of the peace, went to Tothill
+Fields Bridewell, to take his examination, in which he seemed very
+ingenuous and ample declaring all the particulars before mentioned, with
+this addition that Catherine Hayes was the first promoter of, and a
+great assistance in several parts of this horrid affair; that he had
+been drawn into the commission thereof partly through poverty, and
+partly through her crafty insinuations, who by feeding them with
+liquors, had spirited them up to the commission of such a piece of
+barbarity. He farther acknowledged that ever since the commission of the
+fact he had had no peace, but a continual torment of mind; that the very
+day before he came from Greenford he was fully persuaded within himself
+that he should be seized for the murder when he came to town, and should
+never see Greenford more; notwithstanding which he could not refrain
+coming, though under an unexpected certainty of being taken, and dying
+for the fact. Having thus made a full and ample confession, and signed
+the same on the 27th March, his _mittimus_ was made by Justice Lambert,
+and he was committed to Newgate, whither he was carried under a guard of
+a serjeant and eight soldiers with muskets and bayonets to keep off the
+mob, who were so exasperated against the actors of such a piece of
+barbarity that without that caution it would have been very difficult to
+have carried him thither alive.
+
+On Monday, the 28th of March, after Mrs. Hayes was committed to Newgate,
+being the day after Wood's apprehension, Joseph Mercer going to see
+Mrs. Hayes, she told him that as he was Thomas Billings's friend as well
+as hers; she desired he would go to him and tell him 'twas in vain to
+deny any longer the murder of her husband, for they were equally guilty,
+and both must die for it. Billings hearing this and that Wood was
+apprehended and had fully confessed the whole affair, thought it
+needless to persist any longer in a denial, and therefore the next day,
+being the 29th of March, he made a full and plain discovery of the whole
+fact, agreeing with Wood in all the particulars; which confession was
+made and signed in the presence of Gideon Harvey and Oliver Lambert,
+Esqs., two of his Majesty's justices of peace, whereupon he was removed
+to Newgate the same day that Wood was.
+
+Wood and Billings, by their several confessions, acquitting Springate of
+having any concern in the aforesaid murder, she was soon discharged from
+her confinement.
+
+This discovery making a great noise in the town, divers of Mrs. Hayes's
+went to visit her in Newgate and examine her as to the and motives that
+induced her to commit the said fact. Her acknowledgment in general was:
+that Mr. Hayes had proved but an indifferent husband to her; that one
+night he came home drunk and struck her; that upon complaining to
+Billings and Wood they, or one of them, said such a fellow (meaning Mr.
+Hayes) ought not to live, and that they would murder him for a
+halfpenny. She took that opportunity to propose her bloody intentions to
+them, and her willingness that they should do so; she was acquainted
+with their design, heard the blow given to Mr. Hayes by Billings, and
+then went with Wood into the room; she held the candle while the head
+was cut off, and in excuse for this bloody fact, said the devil was got
+into them all that made them do it. When she was made sensible that her
+crime in law was not only murder, but petty treason, she began to show
+great concern indeed, making very strict enquiries into the nature of
+the proof which was necessary to convict, and having possessed herself
+with a notion that it appeared she murdered him with her own hands, she
+was very angry that either Billings or Wood should, by their confession,
+acknowledge her guilty of the murder, and thereby subject her to that
+punishment which of all others she most feared, often repeating that it
+was hard they would not suffer her to be hanged with them! When she was
+told of the common report that Billings was her son, she affected, at
+first, to make a great mystery of it; said he was her own flesh and
+blood, indeed, but that he did not know how nearly he was related to her
+himself; at other times she said she would never disown him while she
+lived, and showed a greater tenderness for him than for herself, and
+sent every day to the condemned hold where he lay, to enquire after his
+health. But two or three days before her death, she became as the
+ordinary tells us a little more sincere in this respect, affirming that
+he was not only her child, but Mr. Hayes's also, though put out to
+another person, with whom he was bred up in the country and called him
+father.
+
+There are generally a set of people about most prisons, and especially
+about Newgate, who get their living by imposing on unhappy criminals,
+and persuading them that guilt may be covered, and Justice evaded by
+certain artful contrivances in which they profess themselves masters.
+Some of these had got access to this unhappy woman, and had instilled
+into her a notion that the confession of Wood and Billings could no way
+affect her life. This made her vainly imagine that there was no positive
+proof against her, and that circumstantials only would not convict her.
+For this reason she resolved to put herself upon her trial (contrary to
+her first intentions; for having been asked what she would do, she had
+replied she would hold up her hand at the bar and plead guilty, for the
+whole world could not save her). Accordingly, being arraigned, she
+pleaded not guilty, and put herself upon her trial. Wood and Billings
+both pleaded guilty, and desired to make atonement for the same by the
+loss of their blood, only praying the Court would be graciously pleased
+to favour them so much (as they had made an ingenuous confession) as to
+dispense with their being hanged in chains. Mrs. Hayes having thus put
+herself upon her trial, the King's Counsel opened the indictment,
+setting forth the heinousness of the fact, the premeditated intentions,
+and inhuman method of acting it; that his Majesty for the more effectual
+prosecution of such vile offenders, and out of a tender regard to the
+peace and welfare of all his subjects, and that the actors and
+perpetrators of such unheard of barbarities might be brought to condign
+punishment, had given them directions to prosecute the prisoners. Then
+Richard Bromage, Robert Wilkins, Leonard Myring, Joseph Mercer, John
+Blakesby, Mary Springate, and Richard Bows, were called into Court; the
+substance of whose evidence against the prisoner was that the prisoner
+being interrogated about the murder, when in Newgate, said, the devil
+put it into her head, but, however, John Hayes was none of the best of
+husbands, for she had been half starved ever since she was married to
+him; that she did not in the least repent of anything she had done, but
+only in drawing those two poor men into this misfortune; that she was
+six weeks importuning them to do it; that they denied it two or three
+times, but at last agreed; her husband was so drunk that he fell out of
+his chair, then Billings and Wood, carried him into the next room, and
+laid him upon the bed; that she was not in that room but in the fore
+room on the same floor when he was killed, but they told her that
+Billings struck him twice on the head with a pole-axe, and that then
+Wood cut his throat; that when he was quite dead she went in and held
+the candle whilst Wood cut his head quite off, and afterwards they
+chopped off his legs and arms; that they wanted to get him into an old
+chest, but were forced to cut off his thighs and arms, and then the
+chest would not hold them all; the body and limbs were put into blankets
+at several times the next night, and thrown into a pond, that the devil
+was in them all, and they were all drunk; that it would signify nothing
+to make a long preamble, she could hold up her hand and say she was
+guilty, for nothing could save her, nobody could forgive her; that the
+men who did the murder were taken and confessed it; that she was not
+with them when they did it; that she was sitting by the fire in the shop
+upon a stool; that she heard the blow given and somebody stamp; that she
+did not cry out, for fear they should kill her; that after the head was
+cut off, it was put into a pail, and Wood carried it out; that Billings
+sat down by her and cried, and would lie all the rest of the night in
+the room with the dead body; that the first occasion of this design to
+murder him was because he came home one night and beat her, upon which
+Billings said this fellow deserved to be killed, and Wood said he would
+be his butcher for a penny; that she told them they might do as they
+would do it that night it was done; that she did not tell her husband of
+the design to murder him, for fear he should beat her; that she sent to
+Billings to let him know it was in vain to deny the murder of her
+husband any longer, for they were both guilty, and must both die for it.
+
+Many other circumstances equally strong with those before mentioned
+appeared, and a cloud of witnesses, many of whom (the thing appearing so
+plain) were sent away unexamined. She herself confessed at the bar her
+previous knowledge of their intent several days before the fact was
+committed; yet foolishly insisted on her innocence, because the fact was
+not committed by her own hands. The jury, without staying long to
+consider of it, found her guilty, and she was taken from the bar in a
+very weak and faint condition. On her return to Newgate, she was visited
+by several persons of her acquaintance, who yet were so far from doing
+her any good that they rather interrupted her in those preparations
+which it became a woman in her sad condition to make.
+
+When they were brought up to receive sentence, Wood and Billings renewed
+their former requests to the Court, that they might not be hung in
+chains. Mrs. Hayes also made use of her former assertion, that she was
+not guilty of actually committing the fact, and therefore begged of the
+Court that she might at least have so much mercy shown her as not to be
+burnt alive. The judges then proceeded in the manner prescribed by Law,
+that is, they sentenced the two men, with the other malefactors, to be
+hanged, and Mrs. Hayes, as in all cases of petty treason, to die by fire
+at a stake; at which she screamed, and being carried back to Newgate,
+fell into violent agonies. When the other criminals were brought thither
+after sentence passed, the men were confined in the same place with the
+rest in their condition, but Mrs. Hayes was put into a place by herself,
+which was at that time the apartment allotted to women under
+condemnation.
+
+Perhaps nobody ever kept their thoughts so long and so closely united to
+the world, as appeared by the frequent messages she sent to Wood and
+Billings in the place where they were confined, and that tenderness
+which she expressed for both of them seemed preferable to any concern
+she showed for her own misfortunes, lamenting in the softest terms of
+having involved those two poor men in the commission of a fact for which
+they were now to lose their lives. In which, indeed, they deserved pity,
+since, as I shall show hereafter, they were persons of unblemished
+characters, and of virtuous inclinations, until misled by her.
+
+As to the sense she had of her own circumstances, there has been scarce
+any in her state known to behave with so much indifference. She said
+often that death was neither grievous nor terrible to her in itself, but
+was in some degree shocking from the manner in which she was to die. Her
+fondness for Billings hurried her into indecencies of a very
+extraordinary nature, such as sitting with her hand in his at chapel,
+leaning upon his shoulder, and refusing upon being reprimanded (for
+giving offence to the congregation) to make any amendment in respect of
+these shocking passages between her and the murderers of her husband,
+but on the contrary, she persisted in them to the very minute of her
+death. One of her last expressions was to enquire of the executioner
+whether he had hanged her dear child, and this, as she was going from
+the sledge to the stake, so strong and lasting were the passions of this
+woman.
+
+[Illustration: THE MURDER OF JOHN HAYES
+
+The murdered man's head is exhibited in the churchyard of St.
+Margaret's, Westminster]
+
+The Friday night before her execution (being assured she should die on
+the Monday following) she attempted to make away with herself; to which
+purpose she had procured a bottle of strong poison, designing to have
+taken the same. But a woman who was in the place with her, touching it
+with her lips, found that it burnt them to an extraordinary degree, and
+spilling a little on her handkerchief, perceived it burnt that also;
+upon which suspecting her intentions, she broke the phial, whereby her
+design was frustrated.
+
+On the day of her execution she was at prayers, and received the
+Sacrament in the chapel, where she still showed her tenderness to
+Billings. About twelve, the prisoners were severally carried away for
+execution; Billings with eight others for various crimes were put into
+three carts, and Catherine Hayes was drawn upon a sledge to the place of
+execution; where being arrived, Billings with eight others, after having
+had some time for their private devotions, were turned off.
+
+After which Catherine Hayes being brought to the stake, was chained
+thereto with an iron chain running round her waist and under her arms
+and a rope about her neck, which was drawn through a hole in the post;
+then the faggots, intermixed with light brush wood and straw, being
+piled all round her, the executioner put fire thereto in several places,
+which immediately blazing out, as soon as the same reached her, with her
+arms she pushed down those which were before her. When she appeared in
+the middle of the flames as low as her waist, the executioner got hold
+of the end of the cord which was round her neck, and pulled tight, in
+order to strangle her, but the fire soon reached his hand and burnt it,
+so that he was obliged to let it go again. More faggots were immediately
+thrown upon her, and in about three or four hours she was reduced to
+ashes.
+
+In the meantime, Billings's irons were put upon him as he was hanging on
+the gallows; after which being cut down, he was carried to the gibbet,
+about one hundred yards distance, and there hung up in chains.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [75] The old name for Oxford Street.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS BILLINGS, a Murderer.
+
+
+We have said so much of this malefactor in the foregoing life, yet it
+was necessary, in order to preserve the connection of that barbarous
+story, to leave the particular consideration of these two assistants in
+the murder of Mr. Hayes to particular chapters, and therefore we will
+begin with Billings. Mrs. Hayes, some time before her execution,
+confidently averred that he was the son both of Mr. Hayes and of
+herself, that his father not liking him, he was put out to relations of
+hers and took the name of Billings from his godfather. But Mr. Hayes's
+relations confidently denying all this, and he himself saying he knew
+nothing more than that he called his father a shoemaker in the country,
+who some time since was dead. He was put apprentice to a tailor with
+whom he served his time, and then came up to London to work
+journey-work, which he did in Monmouth Street, lodging at Mr. Hayes's
+and believed himself nearly related to his wife, who from the influence
+she always maintained over him, drew him to the commission of that
+horrid fact.
+
+But the most certain opinion is that he was found in a basket upon the
+common, near the place where Mrs. Hayes lived before she married Mr.
+Hayes, that he was at that time of his death about twenty-two or
+twenty-three years old; whereas it evidently appeared by her own
+confession, that she had been married to Mr. Hayes but twenty years and
+eight months. He was put out to nurse by the charge of the parish, to
+people whose names were Billings, and when he was big enough to go
+apprentice, was bound to one Mr. Wetherland, a tailor, to whom the
+parish gave forty shillings with him. It is very probable he might be a
+natural son of Mrs. Hayes's, born in her rambles (of which we have
+hinted) before her marriage, and dropped by her in the place where he
+was found.
+
+As to the character of Billings in the country he was always reputed a
+sober, honest, industrious young man. During the time he had worked in
+town, he had done nothing to impeach that reputation which he brought up
+with him, and might possibly have lived very happily, if he had not
+fallen into the temptation of this unfortunate woman, who seems to have
+been born for her own undoing and for the destruction of others.
+Whatever knowledge he might have of that relation in which he stood to
+Mrs. Hayes, certain it is that she always preserved such an authority
+over him that in her presence he would never answer any questions but
+constantly referred himself to her, or kept an obstinate silence; he
+affected, also, a strange fondness for her, kissing her cheek when she
+fainted in the chapel at Newgate, and behaving himself when near her, in
+such a manner as gave great offence to the spectators. As to the remorse
+he had for the horrid crime he had committed, those who had occasion to
+know him while under confinement thought him sincere therein; but the
+Ordinary, whose place it is to be supreme judge in these matters, told
+the world in his account of the behaviour and confession of the
+malefactors, that he was a confused, hard-hearted fellow, and had few
+external signs of penitence; and a little farther, when possibly he was
+in a better humour, he says that in all appearance he was very penitent
+for his sins, and died in the Communion of the Church of England, of
+which he owned himself an unworthy member.
+
+
+
+
+Life of THOMAS WOOD, a Murderer
+
+
+This malefactor, Thomas Wood, was born at a place called Ombersley,
+between Ludlow and Worcester, of parents in very indifferent
+circumstances, who were therefore able to give him but little education.
+He was bred up to no settled business, but laboured in all such country
+employments as require only a robust body for their performance. When
+the summer's work was over, he used to assist as a tapster at inns and
+alehouses in the neighbourhood of the village where he was born, and by
+the industry, care, and regularity which he observed in all things,
+gained a very great reputation as an honest and faithful servant with
+all that knew him.
+
+His mother having been left in a needy condition, with several small
+children, she set up a little alehouse in order to get bread for them.
+Thomas was very dutiful, and as his diligence enabled him to save a
+little money, so he was by no means backwards in giving her all the
+assistance that was in his power. Some few months before his death, he
+grew desirous of coming to London, which he did accordingly, and worked
+at whatsoever employment he could get both with fidelity and diligence;
+but a fleet being then setting out for the Mediterranean, press-warrants
+were granted for the manning thereof, and the diligence that was used in
+putting them in execution gave great uneasiness to Wood, who, having no
+settled business, was afraid of falling into their hands. Whereupon he
+bethought himself of his countryman, Mr. Hayes, to whom he applied for
+his advice and assistance. Mr. Hayes kindly invited him to live with
+them in order to avoid that danger, and he accordingly lay with Mr.
+Billings, as has been before related. Mr. Hayes was moreover so desirous
+of doing him service that he applied himself to finding out such persons
+as wanted labourers in order to get him into business, while Mrs. Hayes,
+in the meantime, made use of every blandishment to seduce the fellow
+into following her wicked inclinations. Perceiving that both Billings
+and he had religious principles then in common with ordinary persons,
+she artfully made even those persons' dispositions subservient to her
+brutal and inhuman purpose.
+
+It seems that Mr. Hayes had fallen, within a few years of his death,
+into the company of some who called themselves Free-thinkers and fancy
+an excellency in their own understandings because they are able to
+ridicule those things which the rest of the world think sacred. Though
+it is no great conquest to obtrude the belief of anything whatsoever on
+persons of small parts and little education, yet they triumph greatly
+therein and communicate the same honour of boasting in their pupils. Mr.
+Hayes now and then let fall some rather rash expression, as to his
+disbelief of the immortality of the soul, and talked in such a manner on
+religious topics that Mrs. Hayes persuaded Billings and Wood that he was
+an Atheist, and as he believed his own soul of no greater value than
+that of a brute beast, there could be no difference between killing him
+and them. It must be indeed acknowledged that there was no less oddity
+in such propositions than in those of her husband; however, it
+prevailed, it seems, with these unfortunate men; and as she had already
+persuaded them it was no sin, so when they were intoxicated with liquor
+she found it less difficult than at any other time, to deprive them also
+of the humanity, and engage them in perpetrating a fact so opposite not
+only to religion but to the natural tenderness of the human species.
+Wood, as he yielded to her persuasions with reluctance, so he was the
+first who showed any true remorse of conscience for that cruel act of
+which he had been guilty; his confession of it being free and voluntary,
+and at the same time full and ingenious. Two days after receiving
+sentence, his constitution began to give way to the violence of a
+feverish distemper, which by a natural death prevented his execution, he
+dying in Newgate, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, much more pitied
+than either Billings or Mrs. Hayes who suffered at Tyburn. And thus with
+Wood we put a period to the relation of a tragedy which surprised the
+world exceedingly at the same time it happened, and will doubtless be
+read with horror in succeeding generations.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of CAPTAIN JAEN, a Murderer
+
+
+Though there is not perhaps any sin so opposite to our nature as cruelty
+towards our fellow creatures, yet we see it so thoroughly established in
+some tempers, that neither education nor a sense of religion are strong
+enough to abate it, much less to wear it out. The person of whom we are
+speaking, John Jaen, was the son of parents in very good circumstances
+at Bristol, who they bred him up to the knowledge of everything
+requisite to a person who was to be bred up in trade, and he grew a very
+tolerable proficient as well in the knowledge of the Latin tongue, as in
+writing and accounts, for his improvement in all which he was put under
+the best masters. When he had finished that course of learning which
+his friends thought would qualify him for what they designed him, he was
+immediately put apprentice to a cooper in Bristol, where he served his
+time with both fidelity and industry. When it was expired, he applied
+himself to trade with the same diligence, and sometimes went to sea,
+till in the year '24 he became master of a ship called the _Burnett_,
+fitted out by some merchants at Bristol, for South Carolina. In his
+return from this voyage he committed the murder for which he died.
+
+On the 25th April, 1726, an Admiralty Sessions was held at the Old
+Bailey, before the Hon. Sir Henry Penrice, Judge of the High Court of
+Admiralty, assisted by the Honourable Mr. Baron Hale, at which Captain
+Greagh was indicated for feloniously sinking the good ship called the
+_Friendship_, of which he was commander; but as there appeared no
+grounds for such a charge, he was acquitted. Afterwards Captain John
+Jaen, of Bristol, was set to the bar, and arraigned on an indictment for
+wilfully and inhumanly murdering one Richard Pye, who had been
+cabin-boy, in the month of March, in the year 1724. It appeared by the
+evidence produced against him that he either whipped the boy himself or
+caused him to be whipped every day during the voyage; that he caused him
+to be tied to the mainmast with ropes for nine days together, extending
+his arms and legs to the utmost, whipping him with a cat (as it is
+called) of five small cords till he was all bloody, then causing his
+wounds to be several times washed with brine and pickle. Under this
+terrible usage the poor wretch grew soon after speechless. The Captain,
+notwithstanding, continued his cruel usage, stamping, beating and
+abusing him, and even obliging him to eat his own excrements, which
+forcing its way upwards again, the boy in his agony of pain made signs
+for a dram, whereupon the captain in derision took a glass, carried it
+into the cabin, and made water therein, and then brought it to the boy
+to drink, who rejected the same. The lamentable condition in which he
+was made no impression on the captain, who continued to treat him with
+the same severity, by whipping, pickling, kicking, beating, and bruising
+him while he lingered out his miserable life. On the last day of this he
+gave him eighteen lashes with the aforesaid cat of five tails, in a
+little time after which the boy died. The evidence farther deposed that
+when the boy's body was sewn up in a hammock to be thrown overboard it
+had in it as many colours as there are in a rainbow, that his flesh in
+many places was as soft as jelly, and his head swelled as big as two.
+Upon the whole it very fully appeared that a more bloody premeditated
+and wilful murder was never committed, and Sir Henry Penrice declared,
+that in all the time he had had the honour of sitting on the Bench he
+never heard anything like it, and hoped that no person who should sit
+there after him should hear of such an offence.
+
+Under sentence of death he behaved with a great deal of piety and
+resignation though he did not frequent the public chapel for two
+reasons, the first because the number of strangers who were admitted
+thither to stare at such unhappy persons as are to die are always
+numerous and sometimes very indiscreet; the second was, that he had many
+enemies who took a pleasure in coming to insult him, and as he was sure
+either of these would totally interrupt his devotions, he thought it
+excusable to receive the assistance of the minister in his own chamber.
+As to the general offences of his life, he was very open in his
+confession, but as to the particular fact for which he suffered, he
+endeavoured to excuse it by saying he never intended to murder the boy,
+but only to correct him as he deserved, he being exceedingly wicked and
+unruly; he charged him with thieving in their voyage out, being yet
+worse as they came home, and that particularly one evening when he was
+asleep in the cabin, the lad broke open his lockers, and took out a
+bottle of rum, of which he drank near a pint, making himself therefor so
+drunk that his excrements fell involuntarily from him, which stunk so
+abominably that it awakened him (the Captain), whereupon he called in
+several of his men, who found the boy in a sad condition, and were
+obliged to sit down and smoke tobacco in order to overcome the stench he
+had raised. This produced the terrible punishment of tying him to the
+mast for several days and the offering him his excrements which he
+rejected.
+
+Notwithstanding the captain owned all this, yet he could not forbear
+reflections on those who gave testimony against him at his trial,
+charging them with perjury and conspiracy to ruin him, though nothing
+like it appeared from the manner in which they delivered their
+testimony. As the time of his death approached nearer, the fear thereof,
+and remorse of conscience, brought the captain into so weak and low a
+state that he could scarce speak or attend to any discourses of others,
+but lay in a languishing condition, often fainting, and in fine
+appearing not unlike a person who had taken something to produce a
+sudden death, in order to prevent an ignominious one. Yet when such
+suspicions were mentioned to him, he declared that they were without
+ground, that he had never suffered such a thought once to enter into his
+head. His wife, who attended him constantly while in prison, said she
+loved him too well to become his executioner, and that she was positive
+since his commitment, he had had nothing unwholesome administered to
+him.
+
+[Illustration: CATHERINE HAYES BURNT FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND
+
+(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
+
+As he was carried to execution, he was so very much spent, that it was
+thought he would hardly have lived to have reached it. There he had the
+assistance of a minister of distinction, who prayed with him till the
+instant he was thrown off, which was on the 13th day of May, 1726, being
+then about twenty-nine years of age. As soon as he was cut down, he was
+put in chains, in order to be hung up.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM BOURN, a Notorious Thief
+
+
+As the want of education, from a multitude of instances, seems to be the
+chief cause of many of those misfortunes which befall persons in the
+ordinary course of life, so there are some born with such a natural
+inaptitude thereto, that no care, no pains, is able to conquer the
+stubborn stupidity of their nature, but like a knotty piece of wood,
+they defy the ingenuity of others to frame anything useful out of such
+cross-grained materials. This, as he acknowledged himself upon all
+occasions, was the case of the malefactor we are now speaking of, who
+was descended of honest and reputable parents, who were willing in his
+younger years to have furnished him with a tolerable share of learning;
+but he was utterly incorrigible, and though put to a good school, would
+never be brought to read or write at all, which was no small
+dissatisfaction to his parents, with whom in other respects he agreed
+tolerably well.
+
+When of age to be put out apprentice, he was placed with a hatter in the
+city of Dublin, to whom he served his time honestly and faithfully; as
+soon as he was out of his time, he came up to London in order to become
+acquainted with his business. He had the good luck, though a stranger,
+to get into good business here, but was so unfortunate as to fall into
+the acquaintance of two lewd women, who fatally persuaded him that
+thieving was an easier way of getting money to supply their extravagant
+expenses than working. He being a raw young lad, unacquainted with the
+world, was so mad as to follow their advice, and in consequence thereof
+snatched a show-glass out of the shop of Mr. Lovell, a goldsmith in
+Bishopsgate Street, in which there was four snuff-boxes, eight silver
+medals, six pairs of gold buttons, five diamond rings, twenty pairs of
+ear-rings, sixty-four gold rings, several gold chains, and other rich
+goods, to the amount of near £300, with all of which he got safe off,
+though discovered soon afterwards by his folly in endeavouring to
+dispose of them.
+
+He threw aside all hopes of life as soon as he was apprehended, as
+having no friends to make intercession likely to procure a pardon. He
+was, indeed, a poor young creature, rather stupid than wicked and his
+vices more owing to his folly than to the malignity of his inclinations.
+He seemed to have a just notion both of the heinousness of that crime
+which he had committed and of the shame and ignominy he had brought upon
+himself and his relations. He was particularly affected with the
+miseries which were likely to fall upon his poor wife for his folly, and
+when the day of his death came, he seemed very easy and contented under
+it, declaring, however, at last that he died in the communion of the
+Church of Rome. This was on the 27th of June, 1726, being then not much
+above eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN MURREL, a Horse-Stealer
+
+
+This malefactor was descended of very honest and reputable parents in
+the county of York, who took care not only that he should read and write
+tolerably well, but also that he should be instructed in the principles
+of religion. They brought him up in their own way of business, which was
+grazing of cattle (both black cattle and horses), and afterwards selling
+them at market. As he grew up a man, he settled in the same occupation,
+farming what is called in Yorkshire a grazing room, for which he paid
+near a hundred pounds a year rent, and dealt very considerably himself
+in the same way which had been followed by his parents. He married also
+a young woman with a tolerable fortune, who bore him several children,
+five of which were alive at the time of his execution, and lived with
+their mother upon some little estate she had of her own.
+
+For some years after his marriage he lived with tolerable reputation in
+the country, but being lavish in his expenses, he quickly consumed both
+his own little fortune and what he had with his wife, and then failing
+in his business, a whim took him in the head to come to London, whither
+also he brought his son. Here he soon fell into bad company, and getting
+acquaintance with a woman whom he thought was capable of maintaining
+him, he married her, or at least lived with her as if they had been
+married, for a considerable space; the news of which reaching his wife
+in the country, affected her so much that she had very nigh fallen into
+a fit of sickness. Thereupon her friends demonstrated to her, in vain,
+how unreasonable a thing it was for her to give herself so much pain
+about a man who treated her at once with unkindness and injustice; in
+spite of their remonstrances she came up to London, in hopes that her
+presence might reclaim him. But herein she was utterly mistaken, for he
+absolutely denied her to be his wife, and even persuaded his son to deny
+her also for his mother, which the boy with much fear and confusion did;
+and the poor woman was forced to go down into the country again,
+overwhelmed with sorrow at the ingratitude of the one and the
+undutifulness of the other. However, Murrel still went on in the same
+way with the woman he had chosen for his companion.
+
+There is all the reason imaginable to suppose that he did not take the
+most honest ways of supporting himself and his mistress. However, he
+fell into no trouble nor is there any direct evidence of his having been
+guilty of any dishonesty within the reach of the Law, until he ran away
+with a mare from a man in town, as to which he excused himself by saying
+that she had formerly been his own, and that there having nothing more
+than a verbal contract between them, he thought fit to carry her off and
+sell her again. Sometime afterwards, going down to Newcastle Fair (for
+he still continued to carry on some dealing in horse-flesh) he fell
+there into the company of some merchants in the same way, who found
+means to get gains and sell very cheap, by paying nothing at the first
+hand. Among these, there was a country man of his who went by the name
+of Brown, with whom Murrel had formerly had an acquaintance. This fellow
+knowing the company in general to be persons of the same profession,
+began to talk very freely of his practices in that way (viz., of horse
+stealing), and amongst other stories related this. He said he once rode
+away with an officer's horse, who had just bought it with an intent to
+ride him up to London; he carried the creature into the West, and having
+made such alterations in his mane and tail as he thought proper, sold
+him there to a parson for thirteen guineas, which was about seven less
+than the horse was worth. But knowing the doctor had another church
+about eight miles from the parish in which he lived, and that there was
+a little stable at one angle of the churchyard, where the horse was put
+up during service, he resolved to make bold with it again. Accordingly,
+when the people were all at church, having provided himself with a red
+coat and a horse-soldier's accoutrements, he picked the stable door,
+clapped them on the priest's beast, and rode him without the least
+suspicion as hard as conveniently he could to Worcester. There he laid
+aside the habit of a cavalier, and transforming himself into the natural
+appearance of a horse-courser, he sold the horse to a physician,
+telling him at the time he bought it, that it would be greatly the
+better for being suffered to run at grass a fortnight or so. _No doubt
+on it_, said he; _but I had some design of so doing._
+
+Yet they were much sooner executed than at first they were intended to
+have been, by an accident which happened the very day after the beast
+came into the hands of the physician; for one evening as Brown was
+taking a walk in the skirts of the city, who should he perceive but his
+old Cornish parson and his footman, jogging into town. Guilt struck him
+immediately with apprehensions at their errand relating to him, so that
+walking up and down, nor daring to go into the town for fear of being
+taken up and at last supposing it the only way to rid him of danger, he
+caught the horse once more in the doctor's close, and having stolen a
+saddle and bridle out of the inn where he lodged, he rode on him as far
+as Essex.
+
+There he remained until Northampton Fair, where he sold the horse for
+the third time, for twenty-seven guineas, to an officer in the same
+regiment with him from whom it had been first stolen, on whose return
+from Flanders it was owned and the captain who bought it (though he
+refused to lose his money) yet gave as good description as he could of
+the person who sold it. Upon this the other officer put out an
+advertisement, describing both the man and the horse, and offering a
+reward of five guineas for whoever should apprehend him. This
+advertisement roused both the parson and the doctor, and the former took
+so much pains to discover him that he was at length apprehended in
+Cornwall, where at the assizes he was tried and convicted for the fact.
+But the captain who was the original possessor of the horse was so much
+pleased with his ingenuity that he procured a reprieve for him, and
+carried him abroad with him where he continued until the peace of
+Utrecht, when he returned home and fell to his old way of living, by
+which he had submitted himself unto the time in which he fell into
+company with Murrel, and had then bought five or six horses which had
+been stolen from the South, to be disposed of at the fair.
+
+Murrel liked the precedent, and put it in practice immediately by
+stealing a brown mare which belonged to Jonathan Wood, for which he was
+shortly after apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions
+at the Old Bailey he was tried and convicted on very clear evidence, and
+during the space in which he lay under condemnation, testified a true
+sorrow for his sins, though not so just a sense of that for which he
+died as he ought to have had, and which might have been reasonably
+expected. For as horse-stealing did not appear any very great sin to
+him at the time of his committing it, so now, when he was to die for it,
+such an obstinate partiality towards ourselves is there naturally
+grafted in human nature that he could not forbear complaining of the
+severity of the Law, and find fault with its rigour which might have
+been avoided. What seemed most of all to afflict him under his
+misfortune was that be saw his son and nearest relations forsake him,
+and as much as they could shun having anything to do with his affairs.
+Of this he complained heavily to the minister of the place, during his
+confinement in Newgate, who represented to him how justly this had
+befallen him for first slighting his family, and leaving them without
+the least tenderness of respect, either to the ties of a husband, or the
+duty of a parent; so he began to read his sin in his punishment, and to
+frame himself to a due submission to what he had so much merited by his
+follies and his crimes.
+
+When he was first brought up to receive sentence, he counterfeited being
+dead so exactly that he was brought back again to Newgate, but this
+cheat served only to gain a little time; for at the next sessions he was
+condemned and ordered for execution, which he suffered on the 27th of
+June, 1726, being then between forty and fifty years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM HOLLIS, a Thief and an Housebreaker
+
+
+This unhappy lad was born in Portugal, while the English army served
+there in the late war. His father was drum-major of a regiment, but had
+not wherewith to give his child anything but food, for intending to
+bring him up a soldier, he perhaps thought learning an unnecessary thing
+to one of that profession. During the first years of his life the poor
+boy was a constant campaigner, being transported wherever the regiment
+removed, with the same care and conveniency as the kettle [drum] and
+knapsack, the only thing besides himself which make up the drum-major's
+equipage. When he grew big, he got, it seems, on board a man-of-war in
+the squadron that sailed up the Mediterranean. This was a proper
+university for one who had been bred in such a school; so that there is
+no wonder he became so great a proficient in all sorts of wickedness,
+gaming, drinking, and whoring, which appear not to such poor creatures
+as sins, but as the pleasures of life, about which they ought to spend
+their whole care; and, indeed, how should it be otherwise, where they
+know nothing that better deserves it.
+
+When he came home to England his father dying, he was totally
+destitute, except what care his mother-in-law was pleased to take of
+him, which was, indeed, a great deal, if he would have been in any
+degree obedient to her instructions. But instead of that he looked upon
+all restraints on his liberty as the greatest evil that could befall
+him. Wherefore, leaving his mother's house, he abandoned himself to
+procuring money at any rate to support those lewd pleasures to which he
+had addicted himself.
+
+It happened that he lodged near one John Mattison, a working
+silversmith, into whose house he got, and stole from thence no less than
+one hundred and forty silver buckles, the goods of one Samuel Ashmelly.
+For this offence he was apprehended, and committed to Newgate; at the
+next sessions he was tried, and on the evidence of the prosecutor, which
+was very full and direct, he was convicted, and having no friends, he
+laid aside all hopes of life, and endeavoured as far as poor capacity
+would give him leave to improve himself in the knowledge of the
+Christian Faith, and in preparing for that death to which his follies
+and his crimes had brought him. The Ordinary, in the account he gives of
+his death, says that he was extremely stupid, a thing no ways improbable
+considering the wretched manner in which he had spent the years of his
+childhood and his youth. However, at last either his insensibility or
+having satisfied himself with the little evil there is in death compared
+with living in misery and want, furnished him with so much calmness that
+he suffered with greater appearance of courage than could have been
+expected from him. Just before he died he stood up in the cart, and
+turning himself to the spectators, said, _Good people, I am very young,
+but have been very wicked. It is true I have had no education, but I
+might have laboured hard and lived well for all that; but gaming and
+ill-company were my ruin. The Law hath justly brought me where I am, and
+I hope such young men as see my untimely fate will avoid the paths which
+lead unto it. Good people, pray for our departing souls, as we do, that
+God may give you all more grace than to follow us thither._ He suffered
+with the malefactors before-mentioned, being at the time of his
+execution between seventeen and eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS SMITH, a Highwayman
+
+
+There is a certain commendable tenderness in human nature towards all
+who are under misfortunes, and this tenderness is in proportion to the
+magnitude of those evils which we suppose the pitied person to labour
+under. If we extend our compassion to relieving their necessities, and
+feeling a regret for those miseries which they undergo, we undoubtedly
+discharge the duties of humanity according to the scheme both of natural
+religion and the laws laid down in the Gospel. Perhaps no object ever
+merited it from juster motives than this poor man, who is the subject of
+the following pages. His parents were people in tolerable circumstances
+in Southwark; his father was snatched from him by death, while he was
+yet a child, but his mother, as far as she was able, was very careful
+that he should not pass his younger days without instruction, and an
+uncle he then had, being pleased with the docile temper of the youth,
+was at some expense also about his education. By this means he came to
+read and write tolerably well, and gained some little knowledge of the
+Latin tongue; and having a peculiar sweetness in his behaviour, it won
+very much upon his relations, and encouraged them to treat him with
+great indulgence.
+
+But unfortunately for him, by the time he grew big enough to go out
+apprentice, or to enter upon any other method of living, his friends
+suddenly dropped off, and, by their death becoming in great want of
+money, he was forced to resign all the golden hopes he had formed and
+for the sake of present subsistance submit to becoming footman to a
+gentleman, who was, however, a very good and kind master to him, till in
+about a year's time he died also, and poor Smith was again left at his
+wits' end. However, out of this trouble he was relieved by an Irish
+gentleman, who took him into his service, and carried him over with him
+to Dublin. There he met with abundance of temptations to fall into that
+loose and lascivious course of life which prevails more in that city,
+perhaps, than in any other in Europe. But he had so much grace at that
+time as to resist it, and after a stay there of twenty months, returned
+into England again, where he came into the service of a third master, no
+less indulgent to him than the two former had been. In this last service
+an odd accident befell him, in which, though I neither believe myself,
+nor incline to impose on my readers that there was anything supernatural
+in the case of it, yet I fancy the oddness of the thing may, under the
+story I am going to tell, prove not disagreeable.
+
+In a journey which Thomas had made into Herefordshire, with his first
+master, he had contracted there an acquaintance with a young woman,
+daughter to a farmer, in tolerable circumstances. This girl without
+saying anything to the man, fell it seems desperately in love with him,
+and about three months after he left the country, died. One night after
+his coming to live with this last master, he fancied he saw her in a
+dream, that she stood for some time by his bedside, and at last said,
+_Thomas, a month or two hence you will be in danger of a fever, and when
+that is over of a greater misfortune. Have a care, you have hitherto
+always behaved as an honest man; do not let either poverty or
+misfortunes tempt you to become otherwise;_ and having so said, she
+withdrew. In the morning the fellow was prodigiously confounded, yet
+made no discovery of what had happened to any but the person who lay
+with him, though the thing made a very strong impression on his spirits,
+and might perhaps contribute not a little to his falling ill about the
+time predicted by the phantom he had seen.
+
+This fever soon brought him very low, and obliged him to make away with
+most of his things in order to support himself. Upon recovery he found
+himself in lamentable circumstances, being without friends, without
+money, and out of business. Unfortunately for him, coming along the
+Haymarket one evening, he happened to follow a gentleman somewhat in
+liquor, who knowing him, desired that he would carry him home to his
+house in St. Martin's Lane, to which Thomas readily agreed. But as they
+were going along thither, a crowd gathered about the gentleman, who
+became as quarrelsome as they, and took it into his head to box one of
+the mob, in order to do which more conveniently, he gave Smith his hat
+and cane, and his wig. Smith held them for some time, the mob forcing
+them along like a torrent, till the gentleman, whose name was Brown,
+made up a court near Northumberland House, and Smith thereupon marched
+off with the things, the necessity he was under so far blinding him that
+he made no scruple of attempting to sell them the next day; by which
+means Mr. Brown hearing of them, he caused Smith to be apprehended as a
+street-robber, and to be committed to Newgate, though he had the good
+luck, notwithstanding, to get all his things again. It seems he visited
+the poor man in prison, and if he did not prevaricate at his death, made
+him some promises of softening at least, if not of dropping the
+prosecution, which, as Smith asserted, prevented his making such a
+preparation for his defence as otherwise he might have done; which
+proved of very fatal consequence to him, since on the evidence of the
+prosecutor he was convicted of the robbery and condemned.
+
+Never poor creature suffered more or severer hardships in the road of
+death than this poor man did, for by the time sentence was passed, all
+that he had was gone, and he had scarce a blanket to cover him from
+downright nakedness, during the space he lay in the hold under sentence.
+As he was better principled in religion than any of the other
+malefactors, he had retained his reading so well as to assist them in
+their devotions, and to supply in some measure the want of somebody
+constantly to attend them in their preparation for another world. So he
+picked up thereby such little assistances from amongst them as prevented
+his being starved before the time appointed for their execution came.
+
+As this man did not want good sense, and was far from having lost what
+learning he had acquired in his youth, so the terrors of an ignominious
+death were quickly over with him, and instead of being affrighted with
+his approaching fate, he considered it only as a relief from miseries
+the most piercing that a man could feel, under which he had laboured so
+long that life was become a burden, and the prospect of death the only
+comfort that was left. He died with the greatest appearance of
+resolution and tranquillity on the 3rd August, 1726, being then about
+twenty-three years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of EDWARD REYNOLDS, a Thief, etc.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the present age is so much celebrated for its excellency
+in knowledge and politeness, yet I am persuaded both these qualities, if
+they are really greater, are yet more restrained than they have been any
+time herefore whatsoever. The common people are totally ignorant, almost
+even of the first principles of religion. They give themselves up to
+debauchery without restraint, and what is yet more extraordinary, they
+fancy their vices are great qualifications, and look on all sorts of
+wickedness as merit.
+
+This poor wretch who is the subject of our present page was put to
+school by his parents, who were in circumstances mean enough; but from a
+natural aversion to all goodness he absolutely declined making any
+proficiency therein. Whether he was educated to any business I cannot
+take upon me to say, but he worked at mop-making and carried them about
+to the country fairs for sale, by which he got a competency at least,
+and therefore had not by any means that ordinary excuse to plead that
+necessity had forced him upon thieving. On the contrary, he was drawn to
+the greatest part of those evils which he committed, and which
+consequently brought of those which he suffered, by frequenting the ring
+at Moorfields--a place which since it occurs so often in these memoirs,
+put me under a kind of necessity to describe it, and the customs of
+those who frequent it.
+
+It lies between Upper and Middle Moorfields, and as people of rank, when
+they turn vicious, frequent some places where, under pretence of seeing
+one diversion in which perhaps there is no moral evil, they either make
+assignations for lewdness, or parties for gaming or drinking, and so by
+degrees ruin their estates, and leave the character of debauchees behind
+them, so those of meaner rank come thither to partake of the diversions
+of cudgel-playing, wrestlings, quoits, and other robust exercises which
+are now softened by a game of toss-up, hustle-cap, or nine-holes, which
+quickly brings on want; and the desire continuing, naturally inclines
+them to look for some means to recruit. And so, when the evening is
+spent in gaming, the night induces them to thieve under its cover, that
+they may have wherewith to supply the expenses of the ensuing day. Hence
+it comes to pass that this place and these practices hath ruined more
+young people, such as apprentices, journeymen, errand-boys, etc., than
+any other seminary of vice in town. But it is time that we should now
+return to the affairs of him who hath occasioned this digression.
+
+In the neighbourhood of this place Reynolds found out a little alehouse
+to which he every night resorted. There were abundance of wicked persons
+who used to meet there, in order to go upon their several villainous
+ways of getting money; Reynolds (whose head was always full of
+discovering a method by which he might live more at ease than he did by
+working) listened very attentively to what passed amongst them. One
+Barnham, who had formerly been a waterman, was highly distinguished at
+these meetings for his consummate knowledge in every branch of the art
+and mystery of cheating. He had followed such practices for near twenty
+years, and commonly when they came there at night they formed a ring
+about the place where he sat and listened with the greatest delight to
+those relations of evil deeds, which his memory recorded.
+
+It happened one evening, when these worthy persons were assembled
+together, that their orator took it in his head to harangue them on the
+several alterations which the science of stealing had gone through from
+the time of his becoming acquainted with its professors. In former days,
+said he, knights of the road were a kind of military order into which
+none but decayed gentlemen presumed to intrude themselves. If a younger
+brother ran out of his allowance, or if a young heir spent his estate
+before he had bought a tolerable understanding, if an under-courtier
+lived above his income, or a subaltern officer laid out twice his pay in
+rich suits and fine laces, this was the way they took to recruit; and if
+they had but money enough left to procure a good horse and a case of
+pistols, there was no fear of their keeping up their figure a year or
+two, till their faces were known. And then, upon a discovery, they
+generally had friends good enough to prevent their swinging, and who,
+ten to one, provided handsomely for them afterwards, for fear of their
+meeting with a second mischance, and thereby bringing a stain upon their
+family. But nowadays a petty alehouse-keeper, if he gives too much
+credit, a cheesemonger whose credit grows rotten, or a mechanic that is
+weary of living by his fingers-ends, makes no more ado, when he finds
+his circumstances uneasy, but whips into a saddle and thinks to get all
+things retrieved by the magic of those two formidable words, _Stand and
+Deliver._ Hence the profession is grown scandalous, since all the world
+knows that the same methods now makes an highwayman, that some years ago
+would have got a commission.
+
+_But hark ye_, says one of the company, _in the days of those gentlemen
+highwaymen, was there no way left for a poor man to get his living out
+of the road of honesty? Puh! Ay_, replied Barnham, _a hundred men were
+more ingenious then than they are now, and the fellows were so dexterous
+that it was dangerous for a man to laugh who had a good set of teeth,
+for fear of having them stole. They made nothing of whipping hats and
+wigs off at noon-day; whipping swords from folks' sides when it grew
+dusk; or making a midnight visit, in spite of locks, bolts, bars, and
+such like other little impediments to old misers, who kept their gold
+molding in chests till such honest fellows, at the hazard of their
+lives, came to set at liberty. For my part_, continued he, _I believe
+Queen Anne's war swept away the last remains of these brave spirits; for
+since the Peace of Utrac (as I think they call it) we have had a
+wondrous growth of blockheads, even in our business. And if it were not
+for Shephard and Frazier, a hundred years hence, they would not think
+that in our times there were fellows bold enough to get sixpence out of
+a legal road, or dare to do anything without a quirk of the law to
+screen them._
+
+All his auditors were wonderfully pleased with such discourses as these,
+and when the liquor had a little warmed them, would each in their turn
+tell a multitude of stories they had heard of the boldness, cunning, and
+dexterity of the thieves who lived before them. In all cases whatever,
+evil is much sooner learnt than good, and a night debauch makes a ten
+times greater impression on the spirits than the most eloquent sermon.
+Between the liquor and the tales people begin to form new ideas to
+themselves of things, and instead of looking on robbery as rapine and
+stealing as a villainous method of defrauding another, they, on the
+contrary, take the first for a gallant action, and the latter for a
+dexterous piece of cunning; by either of which they acquire the means of
+indulging themselves in what best suits their inclinations, without the
+fatigue of business or the drudgery of hard labour.
+
+Reynolds, though a very stupid fellow, soon became a convert to these
+notions, and lost no time in putting them in execution, for the next
+night he took from a person (who it seems knew him and his haunts well
+enough) a coat and a shilling, which when he came to be indicted for the
+fact, he pretended they were given him to prevent his charging the
+prosecutor with an attempt to commit sodomy--an excuse which of late
+years is grown as common with the men, as it has long been with the
+women to pretend money was given them for flogging folks, when they have
+been brought to the bar for picking it out of their pockets; hoping by
+this reverberation of ignominy to blacken each other so that the jury
+may believe neither. However, in this case, it must be acknowledged that
+Reynolds went to death with the assertion that he received the coat and
+the shilling on the before-mentioned account, and that he did not take
+it by violence, which was the crime whereof he was convicted.
+
+He had married a poor woman, who lived in very good reputation both
+before and after; by her he had three children, and though he had long
+associated himself with other women, and left her to provide for the
+poor infants, yet he was extremely offended because she did not send him
+as much money as he wanted under his confinement, and he could not
+forbear treating her with very ill language when she came to see him
+under his misfortunes. As he was a fellow of little parts and no
+education, so his behaviour under condemnation was confused and unequal,
+as it is reasonable to suppose it should be, since he had nothing to
+support his hopes or to comfort him against those fears of death which
+are inseparable from human nature. However, he sometimes showed an
+inclination to learn somewhat of religion, would listen attentively
+while Smith was reading, and as well as his gross capacity would give
+him leave, would pray for mercy and forgiveness. At chapel he behaved
+himself decently, if not devoutly, and being by his misfortunes removed
+from the company of those who first seduced him into his vices, he began
+to have some ideas of the use of life when he was going to leave it; and
+his thoughts had received certain ideas (though very imperfect ones) of
+death and a future state, when the punishment appointed by Law sent him
+to experience them. He died on the 23rd of August, 1726, being then
+upwards of twenty-six years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN CLAXTON, _alias_ JOHNSTON, a Thief, etc.
+
+
+This unhappy malefactor was amongst the number of those who, through
+want of education, was the more easily drawn into the prosecution of
+such practices as became fatal to him. His father was a common sailor
+belonging to the town of Sunderland, who had it not in his power to
+breed him in a very extraordinary manner; and what little he was able to
+do was frustrated by the evil inclinations of his son, who instead of
+applying himself closely while he remained at school, loitered away his
+time, and made little or no proficiency there. His head, as those of
+most seamen's children do, ran continually on voyages and seeing foreign
+countries, with which roving temper the father too readily complied, and
+while yet a boy, unacquainted with any kind of learning and unsettled in
+the principles of religion, he was sent forth into the world to pick up
+either as he could.
+
+The first voyage he made was up the Straits, where he touched at
+Gibraltar, and went soon after to Leghorn, the port to which they were
+bound. Being a young sprightly lad the mate carried him on shore with
+him, and being a man of intrigue, made use of him to go between him and
+an Irish woman, who was married to an Italian captain of a ship. The
+lady's husband was in Sicily, and they therefore apprehended themselves
+to be secure; she proposed to the mate the carrying off of jewels and
+other things, to the amount of some thousand crowns, and then flying
+with him from Italy. The project had certainly succeeded if it had not
+been for their imprudence; for the mate, who passed for her cousin,
+being continually in the house for three days before the ship went away,
+a suspicion entered into some of the neighbours (as they often do
+amongst Italians) that there was something more than ordinary concealed
+under the frequency of his visits. They therefore dispatched a messenger
+to Signor Stefano di Calvo, the captain's brother, with the account of
+their surmises. He came immediately to Leghorn, and going directly to
+his brother's house, found his sister had packed up all his valuable
+effects, and having loaded the boy with as much as he could carry, was
+on the point of setting out with him for the vessel. Stefano dragged her
+back into an inner apartment, where he locked her in, and afterwards
+fastened the doors of the outward apartment, through which they passed
+thither. But Jack, seeing how things went, laid down his burden and fled
+as hard as he could drive to the port, where he gave notice to the
+master of their disappointment, and caused the vessel immediately to
+weigh anchor and stand to sea, as fearing the consequences of the
+affair, which he knew would make a great noise, and might possibly turn
+to the detriment of his owners.
+
+Claxton had hitherto done nothing that was criminal within the eye of
+the Law, though while at sea he was continually employed in some
+mischievous trick or other. When he came into England the ship happened
+to go to Yarmouth, and as all places were alike to him, so short a stay
+there engaged him to marry a young woman who had some little matter of
+money, with which he proposed to do for himself some little matter at
+sea, and taking the greatest part of it with him, came up to London in
+order to see after a good voyage.
+
+But this was the most fatal journey he ever made, for falling
+unfortunately into the hands of bad women and their companions, they
+quickly drew him to be as bad as themselves; so that forgetting the poor
+woman he had married, and regardless of the business which brought him
+up to town, he gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of such
+villainies as they taught him, and in a short space became as expert a
+proficient as any in the gang.
+
+Some of them had consulted together to rob a woodmonger's house of a
+considerable quantity of plate, but there was one difficulty to be
+encountered, without overcoming which there was no hopes of success. The
+woodmonger's maid carried up the keys every night to her master (the
+outer court having a gate to it), and unless they could call upon some
+stratagem either to prevent the gate being shut, or to gain the means of
+unlocking it, their attempt was certainly in vain. In order to bring
+this to pass, they put Jack, who was a neat little fellow, into a very
+good habit, and found means to introduce him to the acquaintance of the
+wench at a neighbouring chandler's shop, where he took lodgings. In a
+fortnight's time he prevailed upon Mrs. Anne to come out at twelve of
+the clock to meet him, which she could not do without leaving the great
+gate ajar, having first carried up the key to her master, though for her
+own conveniency she had thus left it upon a single lock. While she and
+her sweetheart were drinking punch and making merry together, the rest
+of the confederates got into the house and carried away silver plate to
+the value of £80, leaving everything behind them in so good order that
+the maid, who was a little tipsy into the bargain, discovered nothing
+that night. Going to acquaint her lover with the accident as soon as it
+was found out, to her great surprise she was informed that he was
+removed, having carried away all the things before his landlord and
+landlady were up. The girl carefully concealed the passage, knowing how
+fatal it would be to her if it should reach her master's ears; but for
+her spark, she heard no more of him until his commitment to Newgate for
+another fact, for which he was ordered for transportation.
+
+Being on board the vessel with the rest of the convicts, he soon
+procured the favour of the master to be let to go out upon deck, and
+being a strong able sailor, he ingratiated himself so far as to meet no
+worse usage than any other sailor in the ship. On their arrival at the
+Canaries, where by stress of weather they were obliged to put in, a
+quarrel happened between the master of their vessel and the captain of a
+Jamaicaman homeward bound. It ended in a duel with sword and pistol, and
+the captain of the transport having carried John with him, he behaved so
+well upon this occasion that he promised him his liberty as soon as they
+arrived in America, which he honorably performed; and Jack was so
+indefatigable in his endeavours to get home that he arrived at London
+six weeks before the captain came back.
+
+He herded again with his old crew, though before he was able to do much
+mischief amongst them he was apprehended for returning from
+transportation, and was at the next sessions tried and convicted. By
+this time the captain who had carried him was arrived, and hearing of
+John's misfortune, he made such interest as procured the sentence of
+death to be changed into a second transportation.
+
+Such narrow escapes, one would have imagined, might have taught him how
+dangerous a thing it was to dally with the laws of the nation in any
+respect whatsoever; and yet, when he was on shore in New England, where
+the master took care to provide him with as easy a service as a man
+could have wished, as soon as the captain's back was turned, he found
+means to give the planter the slip, and in nine months' time revisited
+London a second time. Whether he intended to have gone on in the old
+trade or no is impossible for us to determine, but this we are certain,
+that he had not been in England many weeks ere a person who made it his
+business to detect such as returned from transportation clapped him up
+in his old lodging at Newgate, brought him to his trial, and convicted
+him the third time. As soon as he had received sentence, he relinquished
+all hopes of life, and as in all this time he had never made any enquiry
+after his wife at Yarmouth, so he would not now bring an odium upon her
+and her family by sending to them, and making his misfortune public in
+the place where they lived.
+
+The man seemed to be of an easy, tractable disposition, readily yielding
+to whatever those who conversed with them desired to bring him to,
+whether it were good or evil. He attended with great seeming piety and
+devotion to the books which Thomas Smith read to his fellow prisoners,
+and gained thereby a tolerable notion of the duty of repentance, and
+that faith which men ought to have in Jesus Christ. Thus by degrees he
+brought himself to a perfect indifference as to life or death, and at
+the place of execution showed neither by change of colour, or any other
+symptom any extraordinary fear of his approaching dissolution; and
+having conformed very devoutly to the prayers said by the Ordinary,
+after a short private devotion, he submitted to his fate with the
+afore-mentioned malefactors Smith and Reynolds, being then about
+twenty-eight years old or thereabouts.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MARY STANDFORD, a Pickpocket and Thief
+
+
+This unfortunate woman was born of very good parents, who sent her to
+school, and caused her to be bred up in every other respect so as to be
+capable of performing well in her station of the world, and doing her
+duty towards God, from a just notion of religion. But it happening,
+unluckily, that she set her mind on nothing so much as the company of
+young men and running about with them to fairs and such other country
+diversions, her friends were put under the necessity of sending her to
+London, a thing which they saw could not be avoided.
+
+When she came to town, she got in one or two good places, which she soon
+lost from her forward behaviour; and having been seduced by a footman,
+she soon became a common street walker, and practised all the vile arts
+of those women who were a scandal to their sex. When she was young, she
+was tolerably handsome, and associated herself with one Black Mary,
+whose true name was Mary Rawlins, a woman of notorious ill-fame, and
+who, from being kept by a man of substance in the City, by her own
+ill-management was turned upon the town, and reduced to getting her
+bread after the infamous manner of the inmates of Drury. These two Marys
+used to walk together between Temple Bar and Ludgate Hill, where
+sometimes they met with foolish young fellows out of whom they got
+considerable sums, though at other times their adventures produced so
+little that they were obliged to part with almost every rag of clothes
+they had; nay, they were now and then reduced so low that one was
+obliged to stay at home while the other went out.
+
+Mary Rawlins, contrary to the rules established amongst the sisterhood,
+married a man who had been a Life-Guardsman, and so was obliged to
+remove her lodgings to go with him into a little court near King
+Street, Westminster. Some of my readers may perhaps imagine that either
+her love for her husband, or the fear of his authority, might work a
+reformation, but therein they would be highly mistaken for he proposed
+no other end to himself than plundering her of those presents she
+received from gallants, so that whenever evening drew on, he was very
+assiduous for her to turn out (as they phrase it), that is to go upon
+the street-walking account picking pockets. She had not followed this
+trade long before she became so uneasy under it that one night meeting
+with her old companion Standford, she persuaded her to remove into a new
+quarter of the town, whither she fled to her from her husband. They
+there carried on their intrigues together, and lived much more at their
+ease then they had done before; for being now got towards Wapping, they
+drew in the sailors when they had any money to part with for their
+favours, and getting into acquaintance with some navy solicitors, they
+found means to raise them cash, at the rate of 60 per cent. to the
+broker, and as much to the whore.
+
+Thus they lived till Standford took it in her head to serve her partner
+as she had done her before, for finding a man mad enough to marry her,
+she was fool enough to consent to the marriage. But after living with
+the man for about a year, she repented her bargain, and left him, as
+Rawlins had done hers. Some time after this she contracted an
+acquaintance with another man, at that time servant to a person in the
+City. By him she had a child, which as it increased her necessary
+expense, so it plunged her into the greater difficulty of knowing how to
+supply it. However, fancying her gains would be larger if she plied by
+herself, she totally left the company of her former associates, and
+applied herself with an infamous industry to her shameful trade of
+prostitution.
+
+Not long after she had entered upon this single method of
+street-walking, she fell into the company of a gentleman who was more
+than ordinary amorous of her, and who after treating her with a supper,
+lay with her, and (as she said) gave her four guineas; but he on the
+contrary charged her with picking his pocket of a shagreen book, a silk
+handkerchief, and the money before mentioned. For this fact she was
+committed to Newgate, and soon after tried and convicted,
+notwithstanding her excuse of the man bestowing it on her as a present.
+
+After she had received sentence, some of her friends gave her hopes of
+having it changed into a transportation pardon, but this she rejected
+utterly, declaring that she had rather die not only the most
+ignominious, but the most cruel death that could be invented at home,
+rather than be sent abroad to slave for her living. Such strange
+apprehensions enter into the head of these unhappy creatures, and
+hinder them from taking the advantage of the only possibility they have
+left of tasting happiness on this side of the grave; and as this
+aversion to the plantations has so bad effects, especially in making the
+convicts desirous of escaping from the vessel, or of flying out of the
+country whither they were sent, almost before they have seen it, I am
+surprised that no care has been taken to print a particular and
+authentic account of the manner in which they are treated in those
+places. I know it may be suggested that the terror of such usage as they
+are represented to meet with there has often a good effect in diverting
+them from such acts as they know must bring them to transportation; yet
+though I confess I have heard this more than once repeated, yet I am far
+from being convinced, and I am thoroughly satisfied that instead of
+magnifying the miseries of their pretended slavery, or rather of
+inventing stories that make a very easy service pass on these unhappy
+creatures for the severest bondage, the convicts should be told the true
+state of the case, and be put in mind that instead of suffering death,
+the lenity of our Constitution permitted them to be removed into another
+climate no way inferior to that in which they were born, where they were
+to perform no harder tasks than those who work honestly for their bread
+in England do. And this, not under persons of another nation, who might
+treat them with less humanity, but with those who are no less English
+for their living in the New, than if they dwelt in Old England, people
+famous for their humanity, justice, and, piety,[76] and amongst whom
+they are sure of meeting with no variation of manners, customs, etc.,
+unless in respect of the progress of their vices which are at present
+more numerous there than in their motherland. I say if pains were taken
+to instil into these unhappy persons such notions, at the same time
+demonstrating to them that from being exposed either to want and
+necessity from the loss they had sustained of this reputation, and being
+thereby under a kind of force in following their old courses, and as
+soon as discharged from the fears of death (supposing a free pardon
+could be procured) obliged to run a like hazard immediately after, they
+might probably conceive justly of that clemency which is extended
+towards them, and instead of shunning transportation, flying from the
+country where they are landed as soon as they have set their foot in
+them, or neglecting opportunities they might have on their first coming
+there, and be brought to serve their masters faithfully, to endure the
+time of their service cheerfully, and settle afterwards in the best
+manner they are able, so as to pass the close of their life in an
+honest, easy and reputable manner. Now it too often happens that their
+last end is worse than their first, because those who return from
+transportation being sure of death if apprehended, are led thereby to
+behave themselves worse and more cruelly than any malefactors,
+whatsoever.
+
+But to return to Mary Standford, who led us into this digression. She
+showed little or no regard for anything; no, not even for her own child,
+who, she said, she hoped would be well taken care of by the parish, and
+added that she had been a great sinner, for which she hoped God would
+forgive her, praying as well as she could, both while under sentence and
+at the place of execution. She declared that she bore no malice either
+against her prosecutor, or any other person, and in this disposition she
+finished her life at Tyburn, the same day with the afore-mentioned
+malefactors, being at that time near thirty-six years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [76] A New Hampshire law regulating the behaviour of masters
+        towards their white servants enacts, "if any man smite out the
+        eye or tooth of his manservant or maid-servant or otherwise maim
+        or disfigure them much, unless it be mere casualty, he shall let
+        him or her go free from his service and shall allow such further
+        recompense as the Court of Quarter Sessions shall adjudge them."
+        A good example of New England humanity and justice.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN CARTWRIGHT, a Thief
+
+
+This unhappy young man was born in Yorkshire, of a tolerable family, who
+had been sufficiently careful in having him instructed in whatever was
+necessary for a person of his condition, breeding him up to all works of
+husbandry in general, and also qualifying him in every respect for a
+gentleman's service; in one of which capacities they were in hopes he
+would not find it difficult to get his bread. He lived with several
+persons in the country with unspotted reputation, until at last a whim
+came into his head of coming up to London. An uncle of his procured him
+a very good service with one Mr. Charvin, a mercer in Paternoster Row,
+with whom he Stayed for some time with great satisfaction on both sides;
+for his master was highly pleased with the careful industry of the young
+man's temper, and Cartwright on the other side had not the least reason
+to complain, considering the great kindness and indulgence with which he
+was used. But some young fellows of loose principles taking notice of
+Cartwright's easy and tractable temper, quickly drew him into becoming
+fond of their company and conversation.
+
+Every other Sunday he was permitted to go out where he would, until nine
+o'clock at night, and these young fellows meeting at a fine alehouse
+not far from his master's house, whither they began to bring Yorkshire
+John (as they called him), there they usually ran over the description
+of the diversions of the town, and of those places round it which are
+most remarkable for the resort of company. These were new scenes to poor
+John, who was unacquainted with any representation better than a puppet
+show, or recreation of a superior nature to bullbaitings at a country
+fair; and therefore his thoughts were extremely taken up with all he
+heard, and his companions were so obliging that they took abundance of
+pains to satisfy such questions as he asked them, and were often
+soliciting him to go and partake with them at plays, dancing-bouts, and
+all the various divertisements to which young unthinking youths are
+addicted. He wanted not many intreaties to comply with their request,
+but money, the main ingredient in such delights, was wanting, and of
+this he at last acknowledged the deficiency to one of the young men his
+companions. This fellow took no notice of it at that time, farther than
+to wish he had more, and to tell him that a young man of his spirit
+ought never to be without and that there were ways and means enough to
+get it, if a man had not as much cash as courage.
+
+He repeated these insinuations often, without explaining them at all,
+until frequent stories of the fine sights at the theatres and elsewhere
+had so far raised poor John's curiosity that one evening he entreated
+his companion to let him into the bottom of what he meant. The cunning
+villain turned it at first into a jest and continued to banter him about
+his being a country put, and so forth, until he perceived it was past
+twelve o'clock, and knew that it was too late for him to get in at home;
+then he told him that if he promised never to reveal it, he would tell
+him what he meant. John being full of liquor swore he would not, and the
+other replied, _Why, here you stand complaining of the want of money,
+while I warrant you, there's a hundred or two pounds in your master's
+drawer under the counter. Maybe there may_, said Cartwright, _but what's
+that to me? Nay_, replied the other, _nothing, if you have not the
+courage to go and fetch it; why now, you can get in I'm sure. Come, I'll
+put you in a way of never being taken._
+
+Cartwright, who was half drunk, remembered that there was a parcel of
+gold in the drawer, and that it was in his power to get at a silver
+watch and some plate, so that he fatally yielded to the temptations of
+his companion, and thereupon the next morning, conveyed to him the
+watch, fourscore pounds in money, and three silver spoons. They shared
+the greatest part of the booty, of which Cartwright was quickly cheated,
+and though he fled with the remainder as far as Monmouthshire, in Wales,
+yet some way or other he was there detected, committed prisoner to the
+county gaol and then sent up to London, where a few days after his
+arrival he was tried and convicted.
+
+Never poor wretch suffered deeper affliction than he did, in the
+reflection of his follies, for giving up all hopes of life, he spent the
+whole interval of time between sentence and execution in grieving for
+the sorrows he had brought upon himself and the stain his ignominious
+death would leave upon his family. His companion, in the meantime, was
+fled far enough out of the reach of Justice, so that Cartwright had
+nothing to expect but death to which he patiently submitted,
+acknowledging upon all occasions the justice of that sentence which had
+befallen him, and wishing that his death might be sufficient to warn
+other young men in such circumstances, as his once were, from falling
+into faults of that kind, which had brought him to ruin and shame. Yet
+though he laid aside all desires relating to worldly things, he yet
+expressed a little peevishness from the neglect shown towards him by his
+friends in the country, who though they knew well enough of his
+misfortunes, yet they absolutely declined doing anything for him, from a
+notion perhaps that it might reflect upon themselves. Above all things
+Cartwright manifested a due sense of the ingratitude he had been guilty
+of towards so good a master as the gentleman whom he robbed had been to
+him, he therefore prayed for his prosperity, even with his last breath,
+and declared he died without malice or ill-will against any person
+whatsoever.
+
+At the place of his execution he attended very devoutly to the prayers,
+but did not say anything to the people more than to beg of them to take
+warning by him, after the rope was fixed about his neck. He was executed
+at Tyburn, on Monday, the 21st of September, 1726, being then about
+twenty-three years of age, a remarkable instance of how far youth, even
+of the best principles, is liable to be corrupted, if they are not
+carefully watched over and may justify those restraints which parents
+and masters, from a just apprehension of things, put upon their children
+or servants.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of FRANCES, _alias_ MARY BLACKET, a Highwaywoman
+
+
+Nothing deserves observation more than the resolution, or rather
+obstinacy, with which some criminals deny the facts they have committed,
+though ever so evidently proved against them. There are two evils which
+follow from a hasty judgment formed from this consideration; the first
+is, that people either instigated through malice, or rashly and by
+mistake, swear against innocent persons from a presumption that nobody
+would be so wicked as to die with a lie in their mouths; the other fault
+consists in imagining that the prosecutor is never in the wrong, but
+believing that covetousness or revenge can never bring people to such a
+pitch as to take away the life of another to gain money, or glut their
+passions. Our experience convinces us that either of these notions taken
+generally is wrong in itself, and that even as many have died in the
+profession of falsehoods, so some have suffered though innocent of the
+crime for which they died. The true use, therefore, of this reflection
+is that where life is concerned, too much care cannot be taken to sift
+the truth, since appearances often deceive us and circumstances are
+sometimes strong where the evidence, if the whole affair were known,
+would be but weak.
+
+Mary Blacket, which was the real name of this unfortunate woman, was the
+daughter of very mean parents, who yet were so careful of her education
+that they brought her up to read and write tolerably well, and to do
+everything which could be expected from a household servant, which was
+the best station they ever expected she would arrive at. When she grew
+big enough to go out, they procured for her a service in which as well
+as in several others, while a single woman, she lived with very good
+reputation. After this she married a sailor, and for all her neighbours
+knew, lived by hard working while he was abroad. Then on a sudden she
+was taken up and committed to Newgate, for assaulting William Whittle,
+in the highway, and taking from him a watch value £4, and sixpence in
+money, on the 6th of August, 1726.
+
+When sessions came on, the prosecutor appeared and swore the fact
+positively upon her, whereupon the jury found her guilty, though at the
+bar she declared with abundance of asseverations that she never was
+guilty of anything of that sort in her life, and insisted on it that the
+man was mistaken in her face. While under sentence of death, she behaved
+herself with great devotion, and seemed to express no concern at leaving
+the world, excepting her only apprehensions that her child would neither
+be taken care of nor educated so well after her decease, at the charge
+of the parish, as hitherto it had been. Yet with respect to the crime
+for which she was to die, she still continued to profess her innocency
+thereof, averring that she had never been concerned in injuring anybody
+by theft, and charging the oath of the prosecutor wholly upon his
+mistake, and not upon wilful design to do her prejudice. At chapel, as
+well as in the place of her confinement, she declared she absolutely
+forgave him who had brought her to that ignominious end, as freely as
+she hoped forgiveness from her Creator; and with these professions she
+left the world at Tyburn, on the same day with the before-mentioned
+malefactor, being then about thirty-four years of age, persisting even
+at the place of execution in the denial of the fact.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JANE HOLMES, _alias_ BARRET, _alias_ FRAZER, a Shoplifter
+
+
+In the summer of the year 1726, shoplifting became so common a practice,
+and so detrimental to the shopkeepers, that they made an application to
+the Government for assistance in apprehending the offenders; and in
+order thereto, offered a reward and a pardon for any who would discover
+their associates in such practices. It was not long before by their
+vigilance and warmth in carrying on the prosecution, they seized and
+committed several of the most notorious shoplifters about town, and at
+the next several ensuing sessions convicted six or seven of them, which
+seems to have pretty well broke the neck of this branch of thieving ever
+since.
+
+The malefactor of whom we are now speaking pretended to have been the
+daughter of a gentleman of some rank in a northern county. Certain it is
+that the woman had had a tolerable education, and neither in her person,
+nor in her behaviour betrayed anything of vulgar birth. Yet those whom
+she called her nearest relations absolutely disowned her on her
+application to them, and would not be prevailed on to take any steps
+whatsoever in order to procure her a reprieve.
+
+When between fifteen and sixteen years old, she came up to London to her
+aunt, as she asserted, much against the will of her relations. At that
+time she was not ugly, and therefore a young man in the neighbourhood
+began to be very assiduous in his courtship to her, hoping also that the
+persons she talked of, as her father and brothers in the country, would
+give him a sum of money to set up his trade. Miss Jenny was a forward
+lass, and the fellow being a spruce young spark, soon prevailed over her
+affections, and they were accordingly privately married, though it
+proved not much to her advantage. For her husband finding no money come,
+began to use her indifferently, upon which she fell into that sort of
+business which goes under the name of a Holland's Trader, and gave the
+best opportunities of vending goods that are ill come by, at a
+tolerable price, and with little danger.
+
+Whether in the life-time of this husband or afterwards, I cannot say,
+but she fell into the acquaintance of the famous Jonathan Wild, and
+possibly received some of his instructions in managing her affairs in
+the disposal of stolen goods; but as Jonathan's friendships were mostly
+fatal, so in about a year's time afterwards she was apprehended upon
+that score, and shortly after was tried and convicted, and thereupon
+ordered for transportation. She continued abroad for two years or
+somewhat more; and then, under pretence of love to her children,
+ventured over to England again, where it was not long before she got
+acquainted with her old crew, who, if they were to be believed upon
+their oaths, were inferior to her in the art or mystery of shoplifting.
+However it were, whether by selling stolen goods, or by stealing them,
+certain it is that she ran into so much money that an Irish sharper
+thought fit, about Christmas before her death, to marry her in order to
+possess himself of her effects; which without ceremony he did upon her
+being last apprehended, disposing of every thing she had, and taking
+away particularly a large purse of old gold, which by her industry she
+had collected against a rainy day.
+
+The woman who became an evidence against her swore so positively on the
+several indictments, and what she said was corroborated with so many
+circumstances, that the jury found her guilty on the four following
+indictments, viz.: for stealing 20 yards of straw-ground brocaded silk,
+value £10, the goods of John Moon and Richard Stone, on the 1st of June,
+1726; of stealing, in the shop of Mr. Mathew Herbert, 40 yards of
+pink-coloured mantua silk, value £10, on the 1st of May, in the same
+year; of stealing, in company with Mary Robinson, a silver cup of the
+value of £5, the goods of Elizabeth Dobbinson, on the 7th January; of
+stealing, in the company of Mary Robinson aforesaid, 80 yards of
+cherry-coloured mantua silk value £5, the goods of Joseph Bourn and Mary
+Harper, on the 24th December.
+
+Notwithstanding the clearness of the evidence given against her, while
+under sentence of death she absolutely denied not only the several facts
+of which she was convicted, but of her having been ever guilty of any
+theft during the whole life. Yet she confessed her acquaintance with
+Jonathan Wild, nay, she went so far as to own having bought stolen
+goods, and disposing of them, by which she had got great sums of money.
+She was exceedingly uneasy at the thoughts of dying, and left no method
+untried to procure a reprieve, venting herself in most opprobrious terms
+against some whom she would have put upon procuring it for her, by
+pretending to be their near relation, though the people knew very well
+that she had nothing to do with them or their family; and she herself
+had been reproved for nuking such pretensions by the ministers who
+assist condemned persons; yet she still persisted therein, and on the
+Ordinary of Newgate's acquainting her that the gentleman she called her
+father died the week before, suddenly, she fell into a great agony of
+crying, and as soon as she came a little to herself, reproached, though
+in very modest terms, the unnatural conduct of those she still averred
+to be so nearly related to her.
+
+Nothing could be more fond than she was of her children, who were
+brought to Newgate to see her, and over whom she wept bitterly, and
+expressed great concern at her not having saved wherewith to support
+them in their tender years. At last, when she lost all hopes of life,
+instead of growing calmer and better reconciled to death, as is frequent
+enough with persons in that sad condition, on the contrary, she became
+more impatient than ever, flew out into excessive passions and behaved
+herself with such vehemency and flights of railing, that she did not a
+little disturb those who lay under sentence in the same place with her.
+For this she was reprimanded by the keepers, and exhorted to alter her
+behaviour by the minister of the place, which had at last so good an
+effect upon her that she became more quiet for the two or three last
+days of her life; in which she professed herself exceedingly grieved for
+the many offences of her misspent life, declaring she heartily forgave
+the woman who was an evidence against her, and who she believed was much
+wickeder than herself, because as this criminal pretended, she had
+varied not a little from the truth. At the place of execution she was
+more composed than could have been expected, and with many prayers that
+her life might prove a warning to others, she yielded up her last
+breath, at Tyburn, on the same day with the before-mentioned
+malefactors, being then about thirty-four years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of KATHERINE FITZPATRICK, _alias_ GREEN, _alias_ BOSWELL, a
+notorious Shoplift
+
+
+After once the mercers had got Burton, who was the evidence, into their
+hands, she quickly detected numbers of her confederates, several of whom
+were apprehended, and chiefly on her evidence, convicted. Amongst the
+rest was this Katherine Fitzpatrick, who was born in Lincolnshire, of
+parents far from being in low circumstances, and who were careful in
+bestowing on her a very tolerable education. In the country she
+discovered a little too much forwardness, and though London was a very
+improper place in which to hope for her amendment, yet hither her
+friends sent her, where she quickly fell into such company as deprived
+her of all sentiments, either of virtue or honesty. What practices she
+might pursue before she fell into shoplifting I have not been able to
+learn, and will not therefore impose upon my readers at the expense of a
+poor creature, who is so long ago gone to answer for her offences,
+which, as they were doubtless many of themselves, so they shall never be
+increased by me.
+
+Being a woman of a tolerable person, notwithstanding her not having the
+best of characters, she got a man in the mind to marry her, to whom she
+made an indifferent good wife; and though he was not altogether clear
+from knowing of her being concerned with shoplifters, yet he was so far
+from giving her the least encouragement therein that they were on the
+contrary continually quarrelling upon this subject; and whenever, from
+any circumstances, he guessed she had been thieving, he beat her
+severely. Yet all this was to no purpose, she still continued to treat
+in the old path and associated herself with a large number of women, who
+were at this time busy in stealing silks out of the shops, either in the
+absence of the master, or under the pretence of seeing others. It is
+observable not only of Katherine Fitzpatrick, of whom we are now
+speaking, but also of all the persons who died for this offence, that
+they were extremely shy of making detailed confessions, though ready
+enough to confess in general that they had been grievous sinners, and
+that the punishment they were to undergo was very just from the hand of
+God. Fitzpatrick, as well as the former criminal Holmes, charged Burton
+the evidence with disingenuity in what she delivered on her oath against
+them, and yet Fitzpatrick could not absolutely deny having been guilty
+of a multitude of offences as to shoplifting, so that it is highly
+probable, even if the evidence erred a little in immaterial
+circumstances, that in the main she swore truth.
+
+The particular facts on which Fitzpatrick was convicted, were: (1)
+stealing 19 yards of green damask valued at £9, the goods of Joseph
+Giffard and John Ravenal, on July the 29th, 1724; (2) Taking 10 yards of
+green satin out of the shop of John Moon and Richard Stone, value £3, on
+the 10th February, 1724/25; (3) Stealing, in company with another
+person, 50 yards of green mantua, value £10, the goods of John Autt, May
+the 5th, 1725; (4) Stealing 63 yards of modena and pink italian mantua,
+the goods of Joshua Fairy, February 24, 1724/25. These dates were all of
+them somewhat more than a twelvemonth before the time of her
+apprehension, and she insisted on it that she had left off committing
+any such thing for a considerable space, which made the evidence envy
+her, and so brought on the prosecution.
+
+As she was a woman of good natural parts, and had not utterly lost that
+education which had been bestowed upon her, she was not near so much
+confuted at the apprehensions of death as people in her circumstances
+usually are. She said she was glad she had some reformation in her life
+before this great evil came upon her, because she hoped her repentance
+was the more sincere as it had not proceeded from force; yet she was
+very desirous of life when first condemned, and, like Mrs. Holmes,
+pleaded her belly, in hopes her pregnancy might have prevented her
+execution. But a jury of matrons found neither of them to be quick with
+child; yet both to the time of their death averred they were so, and
+seemed exceedingly uneasy that their children should die violent deaths
+within them.
+
+When the time of her execution drew very near, she called her thoughts
+totally off from worldly affairs, and seemed to apply herself to the
+great business which lay before her, with an earnestness and assiduity
+seldom to be seen in such people. The assistance she had from her
+friends abroad were not large, but she contented herself with a very
+spare diet, being unwilling that anything should call her off from
+penitence and religious duties. She seemed to have entirely weaned her
+affections from the desire of life, and never showed any extraordinary
+emotions, except on the visit of her youngest child, in the nurse's
+arms, at the first sight of which she fell into strong convulsion fits,
+from which she was not brought to herself without great difficulty. She
+sometimes expressed a little uneasiness at the misfortunes which had
+befallen her after she had left off that way of living, but upon her
+being spoken to by several reverend persons, who explained and
+vindicated the wisdom and justice of Providence, she acquiesced under
+its decrees, and without murmuring submitted to her fate.
+
+A little before she died, she, with the rest of the shoplifters, was
+asked some questions concerning one Mrs. Susanna, who was suspected of
+having been in some degree concerned with her. Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Mrs.
+Holmes each of them declared that they knew nothing evil about her. Mrs.
+Fitzpatrick did indeed say that she had some little acquaintance with
+the woman, and knew that she got her living by selling coffee, tea, and
+some other little things, yet never was concerned in any ill practices
+in relation to them, or anybody else she knew of. After having done
+this public justice, she, with great meekness, yielded up her breath at
+Tyburn, the 6th of September, 1726, being then about thirty-eight years
+of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MARY ROBINSON, a Shoplift
+
+
+The indiscretions of youth are always pitied, and often excused even by
+those who suffer most by them; but when persons grown up to years of
+discretion continue to pursue with eagerness the most flagitious
+courses, and grow in wickedness as they grow in age, pity naturally
+forsakes us, and they appear in so execrable a light that instead of
+having compassion for their misfortunes we congratulate our country on
+being rid of such monsters, whom nothing could tame, nor the approach
+even of death in a natural way hinder them from anticipating it by
+drawing on a violent one through their crimes.
+
+I am drawn to this observation from the fate of the miserable woman of
+whom we are now speaking. What her parents were, or what her education
+it is impossible to say, since she was shy of relating them herself; and
+being seventy years old at the time of her execution, there was nobody
+then living who could give an account about her. She was indicted for
+stealing a silver cup, in company with Jane Holmes, and also stealing
+eighty yards of cherry-coloured mantua silk, value five pounds, in
+company with the aforesaid Jane Holmes, the property of Joseph Brown and
+Mary Harper, on the 24th of December. On these facts she was convicted
+as the rest were, in the evidence of Burton, whom, as is usual in such
+cases, they represented as a woman worse than themselves, and who had
+drawn many of them into the commission of what she now deposed against
+them.
+
+As to this old woman Mary Robinson, she said she had been a widow
+fourteen years, and had both children and grandchildren living at the
+time of her execution; she said she had worked as hard for her living as
+any woman in London. Yet when pressed thereupon to speak the truth and
+not wrong her conscience in her last moments, she did then declare she
+had been guilty of thieving tricks; but persisted in it that the
+evidence Burton had not been exactly right in what she had sworn against
+her. It was a melancholy thing to see a woman of her years, and who
+really wanted not capacity, brought into those lamentable circumstances,
+and going to a violent and ignominious death, when at a time when she
+could not expect it would be any long term before she submitted to a
+natural one.
+
+Possibly my readers may wonder how such large quantities of silk were
+conveyed away. I thought, therefore, proper to inform them that the
+evidence Burton said they had a contrivance under their petticoats, not
+unlike two large hooks, upon which they laid a whole roll of silk, and
+so conveyed it away at once, while one of their confederates amused the
+people of the shop in some manner or other until they got out of reach;
+and by this means they had for many years together carried on their
+trade with great success and as much safety, until the losses of the
+tradesmen ran so high as to induce them to take the method
+before-mentioned, which quickly produced a discovery, not only of the
+persons of the offenders, but of the place also where they had deposited
+the goods. By this means a good part of them were recovered, and those
+who had so long lived by this infamous practice were either detected or
+destroyed; so that shoplifting has been thereby kept under ever since,
+or at least the offenders have not ventured in so large a way as before.
+
+But to return to the criminal of whom we are to treat. She said she was
+not afraid of death at all, though she confessed herself troubled as to
+the manner in which she was to die, and reflected severely upon Burton,
+who had given evidence against her. By degrees she grew calmer, and on
+the day of her execution appeared more composed and cheerful than she
+had done during all her troubles. She suffered at the same time with the
+malefactors before mentioned, and in her years looked as if she had been
+the mother of those with whom she died.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JANE MARTIN, _alias_ LLOYD, a Cheat and a Thief, etc.
+
+
+This woman was the daughter of parents in very good reputation, about an
+hundred miles off in the country. While they lived they took care to
+breed her to understand everything as became a gentlewoman of a small
+fortune, and in her younger years she was tractable enough; but her
+parents dying while Jane was but a girl, she came into the hand of
+guardians who were not altogether so careful as they ought. Before she
+was of age she married a young gentleman who had a pretty little
+fortune, which he and she quickly confounded; insomuch that he became a
+prisoner in the King's Bench for debt. Being thus destitute, and in
+great want of money, she set her wits to work to consider ways and
+means of cheating people for her support, in which she became as
+dexterous as any who ever followed that infamous trade. Yet her husband
+(as she herself owned) was a man of strict honour, and so much offended
+at these villainies that he used her with great severity thereupon, but
+that had no effect, for she still continued the old trade, putting on
+the saint until people trusted her, and pulling off the mask as soon as
+she found there was no more to be got by keeping it on.
+
+Amongst the rest of her adventures in this way she once took it in her
+head that it was possible for her to set up a great shop, entirely upon
+credit, for except some good clothes she had nothing else to go to
+market with. Accordingly she first took a shop not far from Somerset
+House, and having caused some bales of brick-bats to be made up, sent
+them thither in a cart with one of her confederates, which was safely
+deposited in that which was to pass for the warehouse. A carpenter was
+sent for, who was employed in making shelves, drawers, and other
+utensils for a haberdasher's shop. Then going to the wholesale people in
+that way, she found means to draw them in to six or seven hundred pounds
+worth of goods to the house which she had taken. All of this stuff the
+Saturday night following, she caused to be carried over into the Mint, a
+practice very common with the infamous shelterers there who preserve
+their pretended privileges.
+
+Mrs. Martin having got some acquaintance in a tolerable family, and
+having a very fair tongue, she quickly wheedled them into a belief of
+her being able to do great matters by her interest with some person of
+distinction, whose name she made use of on this occasion, and thereby
+got several presents and small sums of money, and (if she herself were
+to be believed) among the rest a silver cup. Whether her failing in her
+promises really provoked the people to swearing a theft upon her, or
+whether (which is more probable) she took an opportunity of conveying it
+secretly away, certain it is that for this she was prosecuted, and the
+fact appearing clear enough to the jury, was thereupon convicted and
+ordered for transportation. This afflicted her at least as much as if
+she had been condemned to instant death, and therefore she applied
+herself continually to thinking which way it might be eluded, and she
+might escape. Soon after her going abroad, she effected what she so
+earnestly desired, and unhappily for her returned again into England.
+
+The numerous frauds she had committed had exasperated many people
+against her, who as soon as it was rumoured that she was come back
+again, never left searching for her until they found her out, and got
+her committed to Newgate; and on the record of her conviction being
+produced the next sessions, and the prosecutor swearing positively that
+she was the same person, the jury, after a short consultation, brought
+her in guilty, and she received sentence of death, from which, as she
+had no friends, she could not hope to escape. When she found death was
+inevitable, she fell into excessive agonies and well-nigh into despair.
+The reflection on the many people she had injured gave her so great
+grief and anxiety of mind that she could scarce be persuaded to get down
+a sufficient quantity of food to preserve her life until the time of her
+execution. But the minister at Newgate having demonstrated to her the
+wickedness and the folly of such a course, she by degrees came to have a
+better sense of things; her mind grew calmer, and though her repentance
+was accompanied with sighs and tears, yet she did not burst out into
+those lamentable outcries by which she before disturbed both herself and
+those poor creatures who were under sentence with her. In this
+disposition of mind she continued until the day of her death, which was
+on the 12th of September, 1726, being between twenty-seven-and-eight
+years of age, in the company of the before-mentioned malefactors,
+Cartwright, Blacket, Holmes, Fitzpatrick, Robinson, and William Allison,
+a poor country lad of about twenty-five, apparently of an easy gentle
+temper who had been induced into the fact, partly through covetousness,
+and partly through want.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of TIMOTHY BENSON, a Highwayman
+
+
+Amongst the number of those unfortunate persons whose memory we have
+preserved to the world in order that their punishments may become
+lasting warnings unto all who are in any danger of following their
+footsteps, none is more capable of affording useful reflections than the
+incidents that are to be found in the life of this robber are likely to
+create. He was the son of a serjeant's wife, in the regiment of the Earl
+of Derby, but who his father was it would be hard to say. His mother
+having had a long intrigue with one Captain Benson and the serjeant
+dying soon after this child was born, she thought fit to give him the
+captain's name, declaring publicly enough, that if it was in her power
+to distinguish, the captain must be his father. Certain it is that the
+woman acted cunningly, at least, for Benson, who had never had a child,
+was so pleased with the boy's ingenuity that he sent him to a grammar
+school in Yorkshire, where he caused him to be educated as well as if
+he had been his legitimate son.
+
+Nothing could be more dutiful than Tim was, while a child. The captain
+was continually vexed with long letters from the gentlewoman where he
+was boarded, concerning master's fine person, great parts and wonderful
+improvements, which Benson, being a man of sense, took to be such gross
+flattery that he came down to Bellerby, the village where the child was,
+on purpose to take it away. But Mr. Tim, upon his arrival, appeared such
+a prodigy both in beauty and understanding that the old gentleman was
+perfectly ravished with him, and whatever he might believe before,
+vanity now engaged him to think the youth his son. For this reason he
+doubled his care in providing for him, and when he had made a sufficient
+progress at the Grammar School, he caused him to be sent over to Leyden,
+a university of which he had a great opinion.
+
+Timothy lost not any of his reputation in this change of climate, but
+returned in three years time from Holland as accomplished a young fellow
+as had been bred there for a long time. He had but just made his
+compliments to his supposed father, and received thirty guineas from him
+as a welcome to England, before the old gentleman fell ill of a
+pleurisy, which in four days' time deprived him of his life; and as he
+had no will, his estate of £300 a year, and about £700 in money (which
+he had lent out on securities), descended to his sister's son, as arrant
+a booby as ever breathed, and deprived Tim both of his present
+subsistance and future hopes.
+
+In this distressed condition he took lodgings in a little court at the
+farther end of Westminster. He had a great number of good clothes, and
+as he then addicted himself to nothing so much as reading, he lived so
+frugally as to make a very tolerable appearance, and to pay everybody
+justly for about half a year, which so well established his credit in
+the neighbourhood that he was invited to the houses of the best families
+thereabouts, and might undoubtedly, if he had had his wits about him,
+have married some young gentlewoman thereabouts of a tolerable fortune.
+But happening to lodge over against a great mantua-maker's, he took
+notice of a young girl who was her apprentice, and happened to be a
+chandler's daughter, at Hammersmith. The wench, whose name was Jenny,
+was really handsome and agreeable, but as things were circumstanced with
+him, nothing could be more ridiculous than that passion which he
+suffered himself to entertain for her.
+
+It is very probable that he might have had some transient amours before
+this, but Jenny was certainly the mistress to whom he made his first
+addresses, and the real passion of his heart. The girl was quickly
+tempted by the person and appearance of her lover, and without enquiring
+too narrowly into his circumstances, would certainly have yielded to his
+passion, if marriage had been the thing at which he aimed; but he was an
+obstacle hard to get over. Tim looked upon himself to be irretrievably
+undone from the hour he entered into that state. At last he conquered
+that virtue which his mistress had hitherto preserved, and after they
+had fooled away a month or two together, at the expense of all he had,
+Tim found himself at last obliged to confess the truth of his
+circumstances, and by that confession brought a flood of grief upon his
+fair one, who had hitherto been unaccustomed to misfortunes.
+
+When they first came together it was agreed between them to quit that
+part of the town where they were both known, and they afterwards lodged
+in a very pretty little house on the edge of Red Lion Fields. On the
+morning Tim made this discovery, his cash was reduced to a single crown.
+It is true he had abundance of things of value, but when once they began
+to go, he was conscious to himself that starving would be quickly their
+lot, and what added more to his misfortunes was that his mistress,
+amidst all her sighs and afflictions, declared she would rather continue
+with him than go home to her relations, though from the indulgence of a
+mother she did not doubt of meeting with a good reception.
+
+However, they came to this resolution, that Jenny should go and raise
+five guineas upon a diamond ring of his, and while she was gone on this
+errand, poor Benson sat leaning with his head upon his arm in a window
+that looked towards the fields. Casting up his eyes by chance, he saw a
+gentleman walking up and down as if for his diversion, whereupon a
+thought immediately struck him, that it would be an easy matter to rob
+him, and by his appearance it was not unlikely but that he might prove a
+good prize. Without reflecting, he resolved upon the thing, and putting
+on over his nightgown an old great coat which he had in his closet and
+with a case of pistols in his breast, he slipped out at the garden gate
+without being perceived, and was up with him in an instant. Then, taking
+the button of his hat in his teeth, he mumbled out, _Deliver or you're a
+dead man._ The gentleman in great confusion gave him a green purse of
+gold, and was going to pull his ring off from his finger, and his watch
+out of his pocket, but Tim stopped him and said he had enough, only
+commanded him to turn his back towards him, and not to alter his
+position for fifteen minutes by his own watch. This the gentleman
+religiously observed, and Tim made all the haste he could through the
+garden into his own chamber, where having hid the cloak at the back of
+the bed, he began to examine the value of the plunder, and found that
+the purse contained seventy guineas and two diamond rings, one a single
+stone and a very fine one, the other consisting of seven, but small and
+of no great value. These he went down and buried in the garden, having
+first burnt the purse in the fire.
+
+The hurry of the fact being over, he sat down once again in his own
+room, and had leisure to reflect a little on what he had done, which
+threw him into such an agony that he was scarce able to sit upon the
+chair. Shame at the villainy he had committed, the fear of being
+apprehended, and the apprehensions of Tyburn, gave so many wounds to his
+imagination that he thought his former uneasiness a state of quiet to
+the pangs which he now felt, which were much more bitter, as well as of
+a very different nature from anything he had known before.
+
+In the midst of these terrors, he heard the voices of a great deal of
+company in his landlady's parlour. The hopes of being a little easy
+where he had not so much opportunity of affrighting himself with his own
+thoughts, occasioned his going downstairs, and without well knowing what
+he did, he knocked at the parlour door, which when opened, the first
+thing which struck his eyes was the gentleman whom he had robbed,
+drinking a glass of water. This gave him such a shock that he had much
+ado to collect spirits enough to tell the gentlewoman of the house that
+he perceived she had company, and therefore would not intrude. But she,
+laying her hand upon his arm, said, _Pray, Mr. Benson, walk in; here's
+nobody but a gentleman who has had the misfortune to be robbed in the
+field, the fright of which has put him into such a disorder that he
+desired to step in here that he might have leisure to come a little to
+himself._ Tim saw it was impossible for him to retreat, and so putting
+on the best face he was able, he came in and sat down.
+
+The landlady began then to enquire the circumstances of the robbery.
+_Why, madam_, replied he, _I was walking there, as I generally do of a
+fine afternoon, in order to get a little fresh air, when a man came up
+all of a sudden to me, close muffled up in a green or blue great-coat,
+in truth I cannot say which. He clapped a pistol to my breast, and I
+gave him my purse, and my niece's two rings, one of which cost me
+fourscore guineas, but three weeks ago. And as I was afraid he would
+murder me, I was going to give him this off my finger, and my watch out
+of my pocket, but that the fellow said he had enough, and his leaving
+these, surprised me almost as much as taking the rest. But what sort of
+a man was he?_ said she. _Why, I think he was about that gentleman's
+height_, added he; _but I am so short-sighted that I question whether I
+should have known his face, even had it not been covered with his hat.
+Besides I am so much taken with the rogue's generosity that I would not
+prosecute him if I had him in the room._
+
+This set Tim's heart so much at rest that he began to come to himself a
+little, and asked the strange gentleman if he would not be so good as to
+drink a glass of wine. A bottle was sent for, and during the time they
+were drinking it, Jenny came in, and it being quite dark before they had
+finished it, a coach was called, and Mr. Benson offered to see the
+gentleman home, in order to which he was going upstairs to put on his
+clothes. But this the stranger would not permit, begging him to go as he
+was, upon which Jenny said, _Then, my dear, I'll fetch your great-coat._
+He had much ado to desire the gentleman to walk to the coach and he'd go
+as he was, which he did accordingly, and after drinking a glass of
+citron water with the lady whose rings he had stolen, he came home again
+as fast as the coach could carry him.
+
+Jenny was very melancholy at his return, and giving him three guineas,
+told him that it was all the pawnbroker would lend, and she had much ado
+to get that, as she was not known. Tim bid her be of good cheer, and
+said he hoped things would mend, and so they went to bed. Two or three
+days after, he took an opportunity of going out pretty early, and
+returning about dinner time, told her, with much seeming joy, that he
+had met with a gentleman whom he had been acquainted with at Leyden, and
+who hearing of his father's death, had begged him to accept of twenty
+guineas as a mark to his esteem. Jenny was in raptures at their good
+fortune, and went that afternoon and fetched the ring home, returning,
+poor creature, with as much satisfaction as if she had received ever so
+much money; for the hopes of living quietly a month or two with the man
+she loved, dispelled all the apprehensions of poverty which she was
+before under.
+
+Tim considering that this supply would not last always, and resolving
+with himself never to run such a hazard again, he began to beat his
+brains about the best method to be taken of getting money in an honest
+way. As he had been bred to no profession, notwithstanding the excellent
+education he had had, never was a man more at his wits' end. After a
+thousand schemes had offered themselves to his mind, and were rejected,
+it came at last into his head that as he was tolerably versed in physic,
+it might not be impossible for him to get his bread by that. But how to
+get into practice, there was the difficulty. A little recollection
+helped him here. He had seen a quack doctor exhibit his medicines, with
+a panegyric on their good qualities, on his journey to London; he
+resolved, scandalous as the profession was, to venture upon it, rather
+than run the risk he had done before.
+
+This scheme doubtless cost him some trouble before he brought it to bear
+so as to give him any hopes of his putting it into execution, but having
+at last settled it as well as he could, he determined with himself to go
+down into some distant county and undertake it. In order to have his
+thoughts at greater liberty to resolve about it, he took a walk into the
+fields, and being very dry after his perambulation, he stepped into a
+little alehouse, and called for a mug of drink. While he sat there he
+heard two men discoursing upon the vast sums of money that was got by
+one Smith, a practitioner in the very art which he was going to set up,
+and he found by them that the chief scene of Smith's adventures had lain
+in Lincolnshire and thereabouts; so without more ado, as all places were
+alike to him, he settled his intentions to go down to the same place,
+where he understood by the man that his _quondam_ doctor had done some
+great cures and got a tolerable reputation.
+
+When he came home, he could not avoid appearing very thoughtful, and
+Jenny fearful of some new disaster, would not let him rest until he had
+acquainted her fully with his design, which he would not consent to do
+until she promised to comply with a proposal he was to make her, after
+he had revealed the secret she was so desirous to know. When he had told
+her his project, she next demanded what the condition was to which she
+had bound herself to yield. Benson replied that it was to remain at some
+place thirty or forty miles distant from where he intended to go, that
+she might not be exposed to any inconveniences from that unhappy figure
+he saw himself obliged to make. It was with great reluctance that she
+ratified the consent he had given, but at length, after much persuasion,
+she again acknowledged he was in the right, and promised to do as he
+would have her. Things being thus adjusted, nothing remained for him to
+do but to get ready for his journey, and that his mate might be the less
+timorous of the event, he told her he had procured another supply of
+twenty-five guineas.
+
+His cloak-bag was soon stored with such medicines as he thought proper,
+and having packed up a few practical books he thought he might have
+occasion for, he took a place for himself and Jenny, who passed for his
+wife, in the stage coach for Huntingdon, at a village near which, paying
+the people for a month's board, he left his consort, and having hired
+horses to Boston, he took a young fellow from Huntingdon with him
+thither.
+
+As Benson had a very smooth tongue, so he set off the wonderful
+properties of his drugs in so artful a manner that in the space of a
+fortnight he had cleared £10 besides his expenses. As he had left Jenny
+five guineas in her pocket, he wrote to her to pay the people another
+month's board, and assured her that he would return within that space.
+Hiring accordingly visited Sleaford, and some other great towns
+thereabouts, in seven weeks' time he set out for his return into
+Huntingdonshire, with fifty guineas, all clear gain, in his pockets.
+This good luck encouraged him to run through the greatest part of the
+North of England in the same manner, and within the compass of three
+years he cleared upwards of £500. At the time of his making this
+calculation he was set down at Bristol, in order to exercise his talent
+in that great city; but an unexpected accident broke all his measures.
+Just as his stage was set up, and he mounted, and opening his harangue
+which was now become familiar to him, a constable stepped up upon the
+stage, and told him that a gentleman had sworn a robbery directly
+against him, and he must go immediately before the mayor. This put him
+into a lamentable confusion. He knew himself innocent, but the character
+of a mountebank was sufficient to make the thing believed at first, and
+therefore he could not be blamed for his apprehensions, especially
+considering he took it as a just return for that robbery which he had
+committed in town, and for which he made no satisfaction when it was so
+fully in his power.
+
+Upon his prosecutor's appearing before the mayor, and swearing flatly to
+his face as to his robbing him of seven guineas, a silver watch, and a
+snuff box, Tim had his _Mittimus_ made for Newgate; but upon his
+desiring the mayor that his effects might be searched, but not
+plundered, he had leave given him to return with the officer and see
+them looked over at the inn. As many of them were valuable of
+themselves, as the drugs were of the best sorts, and as he had several
+letters from persons of good character, in the several counties through
+which he had passed, and bank notes and bills to the value of £400, they
+thought fit to report all this to the mayor, before they did anything.
+The mayor thereupon resolved to act very cautiously, and having first
+looked over everything himself, he then ordered the effects to be
+delivered up to Mr. Benson, himself, who, however, was obliged to
+undergo a confinement of eight weeks, till the assizes. The prosecutor
+not appearing, and Mr. Benson, by permission of the Court, examining two
+gentlemen of undoubted credit, who proved to his being at the time when
+the robbery was sworn in another place, he was acquitted, and a copy of
+his indictment ordered him. It seems a person under condemnation at
+Hertford acknowledged the fact for which Tim had been committed, and
+produced both the snuff-box and watch; which though the gentleman who
+lost them got again, yet it proved an affair of very ill-consequence to
+him, for he was obliged to give Benson one hundred guineas to obtain a
+general release, and Tim fearing the noise of the thing had undone his
+reputation, resolved to go over to America and settle there.
+
+A gentleman at Bristol who traded largely to the plantations offered him
+his assistance in the affair, and matters being quickly adjusted between
+them, Tim, to show himself grateful, and a man of honour, was married
+privately to Jenny, whom he resolved should be the companion of his
+future fortunes, as she had hitherto been the constant solace of all his
+sorrows. But before they set out, he thought it proper to make a journey
+to London, as well as to provide some necessary articles in the
+profession he intended to follow, as to make an end of a little affair
+which we have before related, and which lay very hard upon his
+conscience. To town then came Jenny and he, and took a lodging near
+Tower Street, where in about a fortnight's time, Mr. Benson had put
+everything in order for his voyage. The day before he sat out on his
+return for Bristol, he wrote the following letter to the old gentleman
+he had robbed, and who as he informed himself, was still living at the
+same place.
+
+    Sir,
+
+    Under the pressure of severe necessity my misfortunes tempted me to
+    commit so great a piece of villainy as the robbing you in Red Lion
+    Fields. You may remember, sir, that I took from you a green purse,
+    in which was seventy guineas, and two diamond rings, the one of a
+    large, the other of a less value. The first comes to you enclosed in
+    this, the latter, the same necessity which urged me so far as to
+    take them, obliged me some months after to dispose of, which I did
+    for fourteen pounds. As a satisfaction for the injury I did you, be
+    so good, sir, as to accept of the enclosed note of one hundred
+    pounds, which I hope will amount to the whole value of those things
+    I took from you, and may I flatter myself, procure your pardon, the
+    only thing wanting to making him easy, who is,
+
+      Sir,
+    Your most obedient
+                 Humble Servant.
+
+This he took care to convey by a ticket-porter of whose fidelity he was
+well assured, and having despatched this affair, he let slip nothing to
+make his intended voyage successful. His skill in his profession was
+such that he soon had as much business in the plantation where he
+settled, as he knew what to do with, and in seven or eight years'
+practice, acquired such an estate as was sufficient to furnish him with
+all the necessaries of life, upon which he lived when he gave this
+account to the gentleman who communicated it to me. And as it is an
+instance of a return of virtue not often to be met with, I thought it
+might be as useful as any other relation which hitherto had a place in
+this confession.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH SHREWSBERRY, _alias_ SMITH, a Robber, etc.
+
+
+This unhappy criminal of whom we are now to speak was the son of parents
+in so mean circumstances that they were not able to give him any
+education at all; yet they were careful in carrying him constantly to
+church with them, and instructing him as far as they were able in the
+principles of the Christian faith, and did everything that narrow
+capacity would give them leave, in order to enable him to get his bread
+in some honest employment. Then they put him out apprentice to a tanner
+in the neighbourhood, a very honest, considerate man, who treated him
+with all the indulgence and kindness he could have wished throughout the
+time of his apprenticeship. But he was so unfortunate as to fall into
+the company of a set of giddy young people who were totally addicted to
+merry-making and dancing, which when he had once got into the road of,
+he so neglected his business that his master, after abundance of
+reproofs, was obliged to part with him.
+
+He had not at that time any designs of doing anything like the fact for
+which he afterwards suffered, but continuing still to frequent his
+dancing-mates' company, they promised to put him into a road to supply
+him with money enough to live without working, provided he had courage
+to do as they would have him; and he, without considering what he did,
+giving consent to their motions, went out one evening with David
+Anderson, Country Will and Jenny Austin, and after a while they stripped
+one Thomas Collier, and robbed him of his coat and waistcoat, hat, and a
+pair of silver buckles and other things, with a half guinea in gold, and
+twenty-five shillings in silver. For this offence he was quickly after
+committed, apprehended, and sent to Newgate, where, upon a plain proof
+of the fact, he was convicted and ordered for execution.
+
+When the poor man was under sentence of death, he sufficiently repented
+those idle hours he had consumed in dancing, and in the other merriments
+into which he had been led by his companions. He was now sensible how
+easily he might have lived if he had taken the advice of his kind
+master, who with so much pains endeavoured not only to instruct him in
+his profession, but also to reclaim him from those follies in which he
+saw him engaged. The thoughts of death threw him into violent agonies
+from whence his natural sense (of which he had a great deal) at last in
+some measure recovered him; and when upon the coming down of the death
+warrant, he saw there were no hopes left for him in this life, he
+applied himself with very great ardency to secure happiness in the next.
+
+He declared that the fact for which he died was the first he ever
+committed, and that the depositions against him were not exactly
+conformable to truth. A day or two before his death, he appeared to be
+very calm and very cheerful, submitted with a perfect resignation to the
+lot which had befallen him, and at the place of execution exhorted the
+people not to let their curiosity only be satisfied in the sight of his
+wretched death, but he warned them also from the commission of such
+crimes as might bring them to a like fate. He suffered on the 3rd of
+November, 1726, at Tyburn, being then about twenty-two years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ANTHONY DRURY, a Highwayman
+
+
+This unfortunate man, whose fate made a great noise in the town at the
+time it happened, was born of parents neither mean in family nor
+fortune, in the county of Norfolk, where he received his education, on
+which no little pains and expense were bestowed. As to the particular
+circumstances of his life in his most early years, as no exact accounts
+have come to my hands, so I do not think myself obliged to frame any
+adventures for the entertainment of my readers, a practice very common,
+yet I think unjustifiable in itself. All that I can is that it appears
+he lived at Oxford and Bicester before he came to Wendover, at which
+place he had a house and family at the time of his death.
+
+He was not, as far as I am able to learn, bred up to any particular
+profession whatever, his parents leaving him in circumstances capable of
+supporting himself. However, whether he arrived at it after some
+misfortunes, or had it discovered to him before, certain it is that he
+gained some knowledge in the act of curing smoking chimneys, by which
+he got very considerably, and from whence be derived the name of the
+Smoky Chimney Doctor, by which he was commonly known in the county of
+Bucks.
+
+Some few years before his death, he married a widow gentlewoman at
+Oxford, of a considerable fortune. The world (though something too
+largely) reported that she had fifteen hundred pounds. However it were,
+he still addicted himself to women, and in all probability made her but
+an indifferent husband, since she took so little care about him, when in
+the midst of so great calamities. However it were, he maintained a
+tolerable character in the neighbourhood, and his credit had not been
+impeached in any degree when he committed the fact I am going to relate.
+
+On the twenty-fifth of September, 1726, he attacked the Bicester wagon
+as it was coming from London, and committed the following robberies
+therein, viz., he took from Thomas Eldridge, fifteen moidores, two
+hundred and ten guineas, eighty half-guineas, and the goods and money of
+Mr. Burrows. He was likewise indicted and found guilty for assaulting
+Sarah, the wife of Robert King, on the highway, and robbing her of two
+shillings and sixpence. As likewise on a third indictment, for
+assaulting the aforesaid Thomas Eldridge, and taking from him a calico
+gown and petticoat, value twenty shillings, the goods of Giles Betts.
+There was a fourth indictment against him for assaulting Mary, the wife
+of Joseph Page, and taking from her two shillings and sixpence, but the
+three former being all capital, the court did not think proper to try
+him upon this.
+
+While he lay under sentence of death he did not discover any signs of
+excessive fear, but appeared rather perplexed and confused than
+dispirited or dejected. He entertained at first great hopes of a
+reprieve, at least in order to be transported, and for obtaining it he
+spent a great deal of time writing to several friends who he thought
+might be instrumental in procuring it. However, he was far from
+neglecting the concerns of his soul, but read daily with much seeming
+diligence several little books proper for a man in his condition, and
+whenever he attended at chapel behaved with the utmost gravity, praying,
+if we may guess from exterior signs, with much fervour and devotion. He
+was a man very well acquainted with the principles of the Christian
+religion, and was in all appearance better persuaded of the merit and
+efficacy of his Saviour's passion than people often are in his
+condition.
+
+As to his capacity, it appeared to have been very tolerable in itself,
+and to have received many advantages from education. How he acquired
+the art of curing smoky chimneys is not very well known, he having been
+bred up to no trade whatsoever, but coming into the world with a little
+fortune left him by his parents, he lived thereupon with a tolerable
+reputation, until the time of his marriage.
+
+When he was first under sentence he was very desirous of having his wife
+come to town, and for that purpose wrote her several pressing letters,
+to which he received no answer. This gave him great disturbance. He
+thereupon wrote to a friend in the country, who lived near her, on whom
+also he had a strong dependance, entreating him to go to his wife and
+solicit her not absolutely to desert him in his extreme calamity, but to
+come up to town with him, in order to make their last efforts for his
+preservation. This epistle, however, proved in the main as unsuccessful
+as the rest, though it procured him an answer, wherein the person he
+wrote to informed him that his wife was extremely lame, insomuch that
+she could not put on her own clothes; that her servant was gone; that
+she had no money wherewith to defray the expenses of a journey to town,
+much less to assist him in his distress. As for himself, his friend
+excused his coming by reason of a great cold which he had caught in
+London when he came up before to attend Mr. Drury's affairs.
+
+Hereupon the unfortunate criminal bethought himself of another
+expedient, which he imagined would not fail of engaging Mrs. Drury to
+come to London. He informed her by letter, that in the beginning of his
+troubles he had pawned some silver plate in town for four-and-twenty
+pounds, that it was more than double the value, and might probably be
+lost on his death. To this his friend wrote him back that if anybody
+would take the plate out, and give advice thereof to Mrs. Drury, she
+would repay them, and gratify them also for their trouble. When this
+letter came to the poor man's hand he said he was satisfied that his
+wife did not desire he should live, however he heartily forgave her.
+
+He constantly denied that he had ever been concerned in any act of a
+like kind with that for which he died. He acknowledged that with what
+his wife had, and the business he followed, he might have lived very
+genteelly in the country; that he had not indeed, been very prudent in
+the management of his affairs; however, it was no necessity that forced
+him on the base and wicked act for which he died, the sole cause of his
+committing which was, as he solemnly protested, the repeated
+solicitations of King, the wagoner, who for a considerable time before
+represented the attempt to him as a thing no way dangerous in itself,
+and which would bring him a very large sum of ready money. As soon as
+King perceived that his insinuations begun to make some impression, he
+opened himself more fully as to the facility of robbing the Bicester
+wagon, _Wherein_, says he, _you will find generally a pretty handsome
+sum of money; and as to opposition, depend on it you shall meet with
+none._ At last these speeches prevailed on him, and it was agreed that
+the wagoner should have half the booty for his advice and assistance;
+and the better to conceal it, Drury, was directed to rob King's wife of
+about four pounds, which was all she had about her.
+
+A minister of the Church of England, who was either acquainted with Mr.
+Drury, or out of charitable intention, attended him at the request of
+his friends, took abundance of pains to give him just notions of his
+duty in that unfortunate slate into which his folly had brought him; he
+repeated to him the reasons which render a public confession necessary
+from those who die by judgment of the Law; he exhorted him not to
+equivocate, or even extenuate in his declarations concerning his
+offence. Mr. Drury heard him with great patience, seemed to be much
+affected with the remonstrances which were made to him, and finally
+promised that he would act sincerely in the confessions he made to the
+public; adding that he had none in whom to trust but God alone, and
+therefore he would not offend him. The reverend divine to whom he spoke
+approved his resolution, and promised to afford him all the assistance
+in his power till death.
+
+As soon as the criminal was satisfied that all applications that had
+been made for mercy were ineffectual, and that there was not the least
+probability of a pardon, he immediately sent for the clergyman
+before-mentioned, and desired to receive the Sacrament at his hands, to
+which the gentleman readily assented, uttering only a short previous
+exhortation unto a true repentance, open and genuine confession, and
+full and free forgiveness unto all who had ever injured him, or unto
+whom he bore any ill will. Mr. Drury, therefore, before he received the
+Elements, owned in express terms his being guilty of the fact for which
+he died, affirmed the truth of what he had formerly said concerning the
+wagoner, declared that he forgave both him and his own wife sincerely,
+and that having now in some measure eased his mind, he was no longer
+afraid of death.
+
+Mr. Drury, even after receiving sentence, was indulged by the keepers of
+Newgate in having a room to himself in the Press Yard, which afforded
+him leisure and privacy for his devotions; and he seemed, especially for
+the last days of his life, to make proper use of those conveniences by
+excluding himself from all company and applying earnestly to God in
+prayer for the forgiveness of his sins. During the two or three days
+succeeding that whereon he received sentence, a gentlewoman attended
+pretty constantly upon him. Who she was we can neither say, nor is it
+very material; but Mr. Drury appealing to her in the presence of some
+persons, as to the truth of what he alleged concerning King, the
+wagoner, she desired to relate what she knew as to that point. The
+account she gave was to this purpose. _Mr. Drury carried me out of town
+with him in a chaise to Wendover. On the road we were met by the wagoner
+he speaks on, who desired Mr. Drury to step out, for he wanted to speak
+with him. Thereupon he complying with the wagoner's request, they walked
+together to a considerable distance, and there stopping talked to each
+other very earnestly for some time._ As to the subject of their
+discourse she declared she could say nothing, but as they came back to
+the chaise, the wagoner said, _You need not be afraid, you will be sure
+to get what you want._ To say truth, it was very odd for a single man to
+rob a wagon to which so many people belonged, in company with several
+other wagons, without any opposition, though it be likewise true that he
+did not attempt any of the rest.
+
+Some persons of quality were prevailed on by his earnest solicitations
+and the circumstances we have before mentioned to endeavour the
+procuring him a pardon, but it was in vain; and it would have certainly
+have been much better for the man if he never had any hopes given him,
+for though he did not depend as much on promises as men in his miserable
+condition frequently do, yet the desire of life, sometimes excited the
+hopes of it, and thereby took off his thoughts from more weighty
+concerns, or at least made him more languid and confused than otherways
+he would have been, for the very day before his death he still
+entertained some expectations of mercy.
+
+The evening before he suffered a woman knocked at his chamber door, and
+earnestly desired to speak a few words to him. He accordingly came
+towards the door and asked her what it was she would have to say to him.
+The woman, after expressing much sorrow for his misfortunes, told him
+she was desired by a person to whom she had been servant, if the thing
+were possible, to learn from his own mouth what he had to say against
+the wagoner. Mr. Drury replied that he had never had any thought of
+robbing wagons, or any such thing, if the wagoner had not advised and
+pressed him to it; so that his blood, the loss of his life, and all he
+had in the world lay upon that man. Then shutting the door he returned
+to his devotions, and continued to them all the evening and until the
+night was considerably spent.
+
+As death drew near it seemed not to affect him so much as might be
+expected. On the morning of his execution he appeared not only easy, but
+cheerful, attended at the prayers at chapel with much composure, and
+went out of Newgate without any sign of fright or disturbance of mind.
+On the road to Tyburn he appeared serious but melancholy, spoke a good
+deal concerning the errors of his former life, said he had never bees
+addicted to drinking, but had conversed too much with bad women, which
+had made his wife jealous, and caused home to be very uneasy. He seemed
+truly penitent for these offences, as he confessed them without any
+questions being asked by those about him.
+
+At the place of execution his courage did not forsake him. He still
+preserved a great deal of serenity in his countenance, and when he was
+desired to acquaint the people with anything he had to say concerning
+the crime for which he died, he spoke with a strong voice, and repeated
+what he had formerly alleged about King, the wagoner, adding that he
+advised him also to rob the Banbury wagon; and that notwithstanding he
+talked of his wife's having four pounds about her, yet he took but three
+shillings, whereon the third indictment was founded, on which he was
+convicted. He then complained of his wife's unkindness, and both prayed
+for the spectators, and desired their prayers for him. As he was leaning
+on the side of the cart, the Ordinary told him that a man had charged
+him the day before with having married a man's daughter at Norwich, who
+is still living. Mr. Drury answered, he was reproached by many people,
+and he forgave them all, he then called to a gentleman who was near the
+gallows and spoke to him about his estate, which he had before settled.
+Afterwards he exhorted the people to live virtuously, and be warned by
+his example, and then submitted patiently to his fate, on Thursday, the
+third of November, 1726, being at that time of his decease about
+twenty-eight years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM MILLER, a Highwayman, etc.
+
+
+As necessary correction is often a method by which, when young people
+begin to stray into the paths of vice, they are deterred and brought
+back again into the road of virtue; yet when this is incautiously
+inflicted or done in a violent manner, it frequently excites worse
+thoughts than would otherwise probably have entered the breasts of young
+people thus punished; and instead of hindering them from committing
+trivial offences, puts them on doing the worst things imaginable in
+order to deliver them from a state more hateful to them than death
+itself.
+
+This criminal William Miller, was the son of very honest parents who
+lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who took care to give him a good
+education, and what was much more commendable, a good example. They put
+him out apprentice to a tradesman at Alnwick, with whom he might have
+lived tolerably well had it not been for the churlishness of his
+master's temper, who was continually picking quarrels with him, and
+thereupon beating him inhumanly. At last an accident happened which
+supplied a continual fund of anger and resentment and this was on
+account of William's losing a horse, which, though his friends paid for,
+yet every time it came into his masters head there was a battle between
+them; for Miller being now grown pretty big made resistance when he
+struck him, and not seldom got the better of him, and beat him in his
+turn. This occasioned such disturbances and falling out between them
+that at last Miller took a resolution for leaving him for good and all,
+and determined to live as he could, up and down the country.
+
+At first he was so lucky as to meet with a man who employed him readily,
+treated him with kindness, and gave him good advice, without
+accompanying his reproofs with blows; but upon discovering that his man
+William had not served out his time, but had only five years and a half
+with his master, he absolutely refused to suffer him to work any longer.
+It was with great reluctancy that Miller parted with this master, and he
+became every day after more and more uneasy, because he found no other
+master would let him work with them, upon the same account; so that by
+degrees he was reduced to the great necessity in the country, and though
+he was willing to work, yet could not tell which way to turn his hand.
+
+In the midst of these perplexities, he bethought himself of coming up to
+London, which he put in execution. On his arrival there he listed
+himself as a soldier in one of the regiments of Guards, and as it is no
+very hard matter in this town, got abundance of amorous affairs upon his
+hands. With one woman he lived a short time after his coming up to
+London, but her he soon turned off for the sake of another, who was a
+blacksmith's wife, and whom he married, notwithstanding her first
+husband was then to his acknowledge alive. This was, indeed, the source
+of a great part of his misfortunes, since what between the woman's
+drinking and the money which the husband got out of him for permitting
+him to live quietly with her, he was (notwithstanding he had learnt a
+new employment, viz., that of a basket maker) miserably poor; and the
+woman having brought him a child to increase his expenses, he was at
+last forced, whether he would or no, to leave her and it both. After
+this he associated with another woman, and at length married her also,
+with whom he lived quietly enough until the time of his death. These
+numerous intrigues drew him in consequence into a multitude of other
+vices, which both lost him his reputation, and damaged his
+understanding, especially when he came to drink hard, which he at last
+did to such a degree that he was seldom or never sober, or if he were,
+the reflecting on his misfortunes pushed him on getting drunk as fast as
+he could--a case but too common amongst the meaner sort of people, who
+as they have no philosophy of learning to support them, endeavour to
+drown all care by sotting.
+
+Whether Miller really intended to go a-robbing at the time he committed
+the fact for which he died, or whether drunkenness and the sense, even
+in that condition which he retained of his misfortune, on a sudden
+suggested to him the stripping of the old man Nicholas Bourn under the
+favour of the night, certain it is (though from motives we cannot
+determine) that he attacked the man and took from him his coat and hat.
+On the injured person's crying out a watchman ran immediately to his
+assistance, and with his pole, notwithstanding Miller drew his bayonet,
+knocked him down, and so seized him and delivered him up to Justice. At
+the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted for this fact, and
+the same was very fully and clearly proved against him; yet though he
+had no friends capable of procuring him either a reprieve or pardon, he
+had the good luck to remain a considerable space under condemnation,
+viz., from one sessions to another, before the report was made, and so
+had the greater leisure left him for repentance.
+
+During the space he lay in the condemned hold he expressed a very hearty
+sorrow for all his offences and particularly regretted his having
+addicted himself so much to the company of women, which, as it at first
+led him into expenses, naturally brought him into narrow circumstances;
+and his necessities unfortunately put him upon taking the fatal method
+of supplying himself. Yet in the midst of these tokens of penitence and
+contrition several women came still about him, so he resolved to send
+the child he had by the second down to his friends in the country, not
+doubting, as he said, but that they would take care of it. And for the
+last of those who went for his wife, he really looked upon her as such,
+and therefore treated her with more kindness and affection than he did
+any of the rest. However, doubtless they were no great help to him in
+his preparations for death. And amongst the other miseries produced, to
+our view, this is not a small one, that they continue to pursue us even
+to the last, and fasten so strongly about our thoughts and inclinations
+that as at first, they defeated all consideration, so in the end they
+are in danger of preventing a hearty and sincere repentance.
+
+As to the particular fact for which he was to die, he acknowledged
+himself guilty thereof, but for all that objected to the several
+circumstances that were sworn against him at his trial; nor could all
+the arguments that were used towards him persuade him that those
+trifling variations (for as he himself represented them they were no
+more) were not now at all material to him, but that as he justly
+deserved to die according to his own confession, it signified little to
+him whether the particular steps taken in his apprehension were exactly
+stated by the Court or not. As the day of his execution drew near, he
+receded a little from these objections, and began to set himself in
+earnest to acquire that calmness with which every reasonable man would
+desire to meet death. The women he forbid visiting him, refused to eat
+or drink anything but what was absolutely necessary to support Nature,
+plied himself regularly and constantly to his devotions, and seemed to
+have nothing at heart but to reconcile himself to that Divine Being, who
+by the multitude of his crimes he had so much offended. To say truth, it
+was not a little wonderful that a person after continuing for such a
+length of time in the practice of wickedness and debauchery, should at
+last be capable of applying himself with such zeal and attention to the
+duties of a dying man. He yielded up his life the 13th of February,
+1727, at Tyburn, being then twenty-six years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ROBERT HAYNES, a Murderer, etc.
+
+
+As from a multitude of instances in the course of these memoirs it has
+been shown how great a misfortune it is to be destitute of education, so
+from the following life it will appear that an improper education is as
+dangerous as none at all.
+
+Robert Haynes, the criminal whose history we are to give at present, was
+the son of persons in Ireland, of none of the best circumstances, who
+yet afforded him a very good education, causing him to be instructed not
+only in the Latin, but also in the Greek tongue, in both of which to the
+day of his death he attained a tolerable knowledge. His father, it
+seems, though he had done everything for his son in breeding him a
+scholar, though when he grew up to man's estate he had nothing to give
+him, and was forced to let him come over to England to list himself in
+the Foot Guards. His officers gave him always the character of a quiet,
+inoffensive lad, who injured nobody, nor was himself addicted to those
+vices which are common to the men of his profession. On the contrary, he
+retained yet strong notions of those religious principles in which he
+had been educated. He addicted himself much to reading, and though his
+spirit was not a little broken by the consideration of that low life by
+which he was obliged to stoop, yet he preserved a becoming spirit and a
+very gentleman-like behaviour upon all occasions; so that the officers
+of his regiment very much regretted that misfortune which brought him to
+an untimely end. Of the occasion of this we come next to speak, since
+his youth and the regularity of his life prevented any other of his
+adventures coming to our notice.
+
+It happened one Sunday evening, as he was walking along St. James's
+Park, with two other soldiers, they met two men and two women. Haynes
+unluckily kissed one of the women, upon which one of the men turned and
+broke his head. As was insisted even to the time of the death of this
+unfortunate person, the swords of both were drawn; however that were, he
+gave his antagonist a wound in the breast of which he died. For this he
+was apprehended and committed prisoner to Newgate. At the ensuing
+sessions of the Old Bailey he was indicted for wilfully murdering Edward
+Perry, by giving him a wound on the left part of the right breast near
+the short ribs, of the depth of twelve inches, and of the length of one.
+He was also indicted a second time on the Statute of Stabbing, and a
+third time upon the coroner's inquest for wilful murder. On all three of
+which, notwithstanding his defence, and the witnesses he called, he was
+found guilty; and although some honourable persons took a great deal of
+pains to procure a pardon or reprieve for him, yet it proved of no
+purpose, but he and the afore-mentioned malefactor were put into the
+death warrant and ordered for execution.
+
+For himself he had little hopes from the endeavours of his friends and
+therefore behaved himself as if he had had none, being not only constant
+and devout at the public exercises in the chapel, but also ardent in his
+devotions in private and by himself. As the youth wanted not good sense,
+and had not forgot the education he had received in Ireland, so in every
+respect while under sentence of death he performed what could be
+expected from a man of courage, and a Christian, under his
+circumstances. A minister, out of charity, visited him several times and
+prayed with him, exhorting him always to make a dear and candid
+confession of the fact, and, since there were no hopes, not to go to
+death with a lie between his lips. Yet he persisted still in what he
+had at first declared, and continued to assert the truth of that
+declaration, until the gaol sickness brought him so low, that he was
+scarce able to speak at all. In this low slate of health he continued
+until within two or three days of his death, when he began to pick up
+strength a little; and as soon as he was able to go up the stairs, he
+attended as usual the devotions of the chapel. In this frame and
+disposition of heart he remained until the day of his execution came,
+upon which he appeared not only calm but cheerful, received the
+Sacrament as is usual with malefactors at the day of their death, and
+behaved at it in a very pious and religious manner.
+
+When he came to Tyburn he stood up, and intended to have spoken to the
+people, but finding himself too weak, he referred to a paper which he
+delivered to Mr. Applebee, a printer, and which contained the substance
+of what (if he had been able) he would have there spoken; and then,
+after a few private ejaculations, he easily resigned up his breath at
+the same time with the other malefactor, being then in the
+one-and-twentieth year of his age. I thought proper to insert the copy
+of that letter I have before spoken of, and it follows verbatim.
+
+    Good people,
+
+    I am to suffer by Law an ignominious death (God's will be done)
+    which untimely end I never expected. I am a youth and it's above
+    twelve months since I enlisted into his Majesty's Service. The
+    character of my behaviour in that time I will leave to my
+    acquaintance to declare; my character was sufficiently testified at
+    my trial, by gentlemen of worth and honour. I pray God bless them
+    for their Christian charity. I praise God my resolution to live
+    uprightly was no constraint; as for the cause I suffer, and the
+    horrid imputation I am charged with which is rendered murder (from
+    my soul I abhor) I now declare as I expect salvation, I am unjustly
+    accused, but I freely forgive my persecutors, as I hope to be
+    forgiven; for what I did was accidental, and in my own vindication.
+    The real truth is as follows:
+
+    The two soldiers that were my evidence desired my company to drink
+    with them. As we were returning home through the Park, passing by
+    two women, and being warm with liquor, I presumed to give one of
+    them a kiss; the other was a married woman, and resenting my
+    freedom, called out to her husband, Edward Perry deceased, and to
+    Toms that walked before, both entire strangers to me. They returned,
+    Toms advanced towards me speaking abruptly, and struck me over the
+    head and shoulders with a stick, which stunned me; likewise he urged
+    the deceased to quarrel with me. The deceitful Perry enraged, swore
+    he would see me out, and struck me with his sword in his scabbard
+    over the head. He drew his sword and made several passes at me, I
+    still retreated till provoked to draw my sword to preserve myself.
+    This affair was in the night. I received a wound in my right hand
+    thumb, and a thrust through my coat. This I declare to be the whole
+    truth, as I shall answer before my great God; though my persecutors,
+    Toms and the deceased man's wife, swore quite the reverse, which
+    took place to my ruin. I pray God forgive them their trespasses, as
+    I hope forgiveness for my own. I pray God bless my good colonel for
+    his care and endeavours for my safety; I pray God bless him with
+    length of days and prosperity in all his undertakings. I thank God,
+    I never wronged man, woman, or child, to my knowledge, nor was I
+    ever inclined to quarrel. I heartily beg of God pardon and
+    forgiveness for my sins, and I confide in the merits of my dear
+    Saviour, who died for the World. I was baptized and bred a member of
+    the Church of England (though an unworthy and unfortunate one) in
+    which Communion I hope for salvation through my blessed Redeemer.
+
+    Sunday, February the 12th, 1726.
+
+    Robert Haynes
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of THOMAS TIMMS, THOMAS PERRY, and EDWARD BROWN, Footpads
+
+
+This poor unhappy man, Thomas Timms, was the son of mean parents in the
+country and as indifferently educated as he was born, so that his future
+ill-deeds were capable of some little extenuation. With much to-do his
+friends and parents raised money enough to put him out apprentice to a
+chair-carver, with whom he lived easily and honestly during the space of
+his apprenticeship, coming out of it with the character of an honest
+religious young lad, which he maintained after he was set up and
+married. He had probably continued to maintain it to the end of his life
+if he had not fallen into unhappy circumstances, by being out of work.
+This obliged him to come up to Town, where for a while he lived pretty
+well upon his business; but at last it so far fell off that he was
+obliged to list himself a soldier in the first regiment of Guards.
+Notwithstanding this he worked still at his trade, as much as it was
+possible for him to do, and to perform his duty; but misfortunes still
+crowding upon him, he grew at first melancholy, and at last took to
+drinking in the company of bad women, who soon drew him into thinking of
+taking dishonest methods to obtain money for the support of their
+debaucheries.
+
+Amongst other of his acquaintance there was a woman who had formerly
+lived with a very eminent lawyer in the City. It was said she had a
+greater familiarity with her master than she ought to have had, from
+whence she took the liberty to cheat him most egregiously, especially by
+counterfeiting receipts from most of the tradesmen with whom her master
+had any dealing, by which means she retained in her own hands the money
+which she should have paid him. Some months after, however, the roguery
+was discovered, and her master being newly married, he took this
+opportunity to discharge her suddenly. However, he promised her, if she
+went into any lodgings, and gave him notice, he would take care she
+should not want, until she could get herself into some way of business
+or other.
+
+This gentleman had three clerks, all of good families and good fortunes.
+The wench, after she was out of the house, first went into a
+neighbourhood where the eldest of these clerks and his relations were
+very well known. Here she took upon her to be his wife, and said that
+they were privately married for fear of disobliging his relations. By
+the help of this she got so far into credit that she took up near a
+hundred and twenty pounds worth of things before the least apprehension
+was had of her being a cheat; and then removing her lodgings, she fixed
+herself in a first floor within a few doors of the guardian of her
+master's second clerk. She gave it out there as she had done before,
+that she was secretly married to this young gentleman; and on the credit
+thereof she took up near a hundred pounds in silks and shifts. But just
+as she was on the point of moving off and playing the same game with the
+third, she was detected and committed to Bridewell. From thence she
+found means of escape by wheedling one of the keeper's servants, and
+afterwards took lodgings in the house where this Timms worked.
+
+Whether she had any hand in persuading him to go out robbing or no, I
+cannot take upon me to say, but soon after, he, with his companions,
+Perry and Brown, on the 3rd of May, went out with a design to rob upon
+Hounslow Heath. All that night they lay in the fields; the next morning
+they met a poor old man, who telling them he had no money, they let him
+go without misusing him. Not long after they stopped Samuel Sells
+coming from Windsor, in his chair. He, it seems, kept a public-house
+there. Him they commanded to deliver, whereupon he gave them three
+half-crowns, but they toasting upon it that it was too little, he
+thereupon gave them ten shillings more, which both he and his companions
+averred was all that they took from him, though Sells at their trial,
+swore to a much larger sum, and that one of them held a truncheon over
+him, and threatened him with abundance of oaths in case he made any
+resistance. All of them denied this part of the charge, even to death,
+and said that though they had truncheons, yet they made no use of them,
+but kept them either in their breasts or under their coats.
+
+Thomas Perry, the second of these malefactors, was born of parents in
+such wretched circumstances that when he was grown a good big lad, and
+death suddenly snatched them away, he found himself destitute of money,
+of business and even of clothes to cover him. He thereupon traveled up
+to London, and put himself apprentice to a glass-grinder, with whom he
+served his time very honestly and faithfully. Then he married and lived
+by working very hard in a reputable manner for about a twelve month,
+after which he listed in the first regiment of Foot Guards, in which he
+served till the Peace of Utrecht and Flanders, after the conclusion of
+which he returned to London in the same regiment, in which he continued
+to serve till this misfortune overtook him. For the last year of his
+life, he had, it seems, led a more loose and extravagant course than in
+all his days before, contracting an acquaintance with several women of
+the town, creatures who are the utter ruin of all such unhappy men,
+especially of all unlettered unexperienced persons as fall into their
+snares.
+
+Some little time before he joined with Timms and his other companion in
+this robbery, he had the misfortune of having his leg bit by a dog at
+Windsor, where he was quartered. Having no friends, and but a small
+allowance to subsist on, he fell under great miseries there, and on his
+return to Town, those who had formerly employed him in glass-grinding,
+taking distaste at his rude and wicked behaviour, refused to have
+anything more to do with him. He readily gave way to the solicitations
+of Timms, who, as he declared, first proposed their going upon the
+highway, a crime which hitherto had not entered into Perry's head.
+However, he yielded too readily thereto, and with the persons who had
+shared in his crimes, came to share an ignominious and untimely death.
+
+While under sentence, he applied himself with great seriousness and
+attention both to the public devotions of the chapel and to what was
+privately read to them in the place of their confinement, so that
+though he was very illiterate, he was far from being obstinate, and
+though he wanted the advantages of education, he was not deficient in
+grace, so we may therefore hope he might obtain mercy.
+
+Edward Brown, the last of these unfortunate criminals, drew his first
+breath in the city of Oxford, and by the care of his parents, attained
+to a tolerable degree of knowledge in the Christian faith, as also in
+writing, reading and whatsoever was necessary in that station of life
+which his parents designed for him. Being arrived at an age proper to be
+put out an apprentice, they placed him with a glass-grinder, to whom he
+served an apprenticeship faithfully, and to his good liking when out of
+time. He worked hard as a journeyman, married a wife, and lived in
+reputation and credit for some small space; but falling unluckily into
+loose company, he gave himself up entirely to drinking, and running
+after bad women, which soon ruined him in the country and obliged him to
+come up to London for the sake of subsistance. How long he had been
+there, or of what standing his acquaintance was with the other two
+criminals, I cannot take upon me to say, only he in general was a fellow
+of greater openness in his behaviour than any of the criminals before
+mentioned. He said that they had all taken their cups pretty freely
+together, and had spent every farthing that they had amongst them; it
+was then resolved to go upon the highway for a supply, but he could not
+say who was the proposer of the scheme; that he himself had a sword and
+cane, and the rest truncheons, when they attacked Mr. Sells. He [Sells]
+gave them at two several times, seventeen shillings, and when they
+pressed for still more, said he had but eighteen pence about him, and
+begged they would let him have that to come to town with, which he said
+they agreed to, and did not offer him any ill-usage whatsoever.
+
+At the same time these unhappy men were under sentence of death,
+Alexander Jones, John Platt, Mary Reynolds, Silvia Sherlock and Anne
+Senior were also condemned for several offences, and as is but too
+common with persons in their condition, all of them entertained strong
+notions of reprieves or pardons, so that when the death warrant came
+down, and these three found themselves ordered for execution, they were
+not a little surprised. But as they had much natural courage they made
+even that surprise turn to their advantage, and applied themselves with
+greater earnestness than ever to the duties necessary to be practised by
+people in their sad state.
+
+When the day of their execution came, they were carried in one cart to
+Tyburn, and as they had been companions in that single action which had
+brought all of them to death, so there was nobody to share in that
+unhappy fate with them, nor were they disturbed with the sorrows of
+other criminals, which often distract one another's devotions at Tyburn.
+On the contrary, their behaviour was grave and decent, their public
+devotions were closed with a Psalm, and with many demonstrations of
+repentance they resigned their lives, on the 11th of August, 1727; Timms
+being about twenty-eight years of age, Perry near forty, and Brown
+somewhat less than twenty-four years old, at the time of their
+execution.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ALICE GREEN, a Cheat, Thief and Housebreaker
+
+
+Amongst these melancholy relations of misery and death, I fancy it is
+some ease to my readers, as well as to myself, when the course of my
+memoirs leads me to mention a story as full of incidents, and followed
+by a less tragic end than the rest. This woman, whose life I am about to
+relate, was the daughter of an under-officer to one of the colleges at
+Oxford. As the doctrine of making up small salaries by taking up large
+perquisites prevails there as well as elsewhere, Alice's father made a
+shift to keep himself, his wife and five children in a handsome manner
+out of £60 a year, and what he made besides of his place.
+
+An affectation of gentility had infected the whole family, the old man
+had a good voice and played tolerably well on the fiddle. This drew
+abundance of the young smart fellows of the university to his house, and
+that of course engaged his three daughters to take all the pains they
+were able to make themselves agreeable. The mother had great hopes that
+fine clothes and a jaunty air might marry her daughters to some
+gentlemen of tolerable fortunes, and that one of them, at least, might
+have a chance of catching a fellow commoner with a thousand or two _per
+annum_, for which reason Miss Molly, Miss Jenny, and Miss Alice were all
+bred to the dancing school, taught to sing prettily, and to touch the
+spinet with an agreeable air. In short, the house was a mansion of
+politeness, and except the two brothers, one of which was put out
+apprentice to a carpenter, and the other to a shoemaker, there was not a
+person to be seen in it who looked, spoke or acted as became them in
+their proper station of life. But it is necessary that we should come to
+a more particular description.
+
+Old Peter, their father, was a man of mean birth, and of a sort of
+accidental education. From his youth up he had lived in Oxford, and from
+the time he was able to know anything, within the purlieus of a college,
+from whence he had gleaned up a few Latin sentences, scraps of poetry,
+and as the masterpiece of his improvements, had acquired a good knack of
+punning. All these mighty qualifications were bent to keep a good house,
+and drinking two or three quarts of strong ale, accompanied with a song,
+and two or three hours' scraping at night. The mother, again, was the
+last remnant of a decayed family, who charged its ruin on the Civil
+Wars. She was exceedingly puffed up with the notions of her birth, and
+the respect that was due to a person not sprung from the vulgar. Her
+education had extended no farther than the knowledge of preserving,
+pickling and making fricasees, a pretty exact knowledge in the several
+kinds of points and a judgment not to be despised in the choice of lace,
+silks and ribbons. She affected extravagance that she might not appear
+mean, and troublesomely ceremonious that she might not seem to want good
+manners. Clothes for herself and her daughters, a good quantity of china
+and some other exuberances of a fancy almost turned mad with the love of
+finery, made up the circle of what took up her thoughts, the daughters
+participating in their parents' tempers. But what was wonderful indeed,
+the sons were honest, sober, industrious young men.
+
+In the midst of all this mirth and splendour, the father died, and left
+them all totally without support other than their own industry could
+procure for them, slender provision indeed! Miss Molly, the eldest, was
+about twenty-two at the time of her father's death, and her sisters were
+each of them younger than her, and Alice a year younger than Jenny, and
+about eighteen. The mother was at her wits' end to know how to procure a
+living for herself and them, but an old gentleman in one of the
+colleges, to whom Peter had been very useful, and who therefore retained
+a grateful sense of his service, was so kind as to give fifty pounds
+towards putting out the daughters, and took care to see the youngest
+Alice placed with a mantua-maker in London. Molly fell into a
+consumption, as was generally said, for the love of a young gentleman
+who used to spend his evenings at her father's, and who marrying a young
+lady of suitable birth and fortune to himself, was retired into
+Shropshire. Jenny ran away with a servitor, and was lost to her mother
+and her friends; so that Alice had it in her power to be tolerably
+provided for, if she had inclined to have lived virtuously, and not to
+have frustrated the offers of a good fortune. But she was wild and silly
+from her cradle, born without capacity to do good to herself, and
+indued only with such cunning as served her to ruin others.
+
+The first intrigue she had after her coming up to London was with a
+young fellow who was clerk to a Justice of the Peace in the
+neighbourhood. Before be saw Alice he had been a careful, industrious
+young man, and through his master's kindness had picked up some money;
+but from the time that his master had a suit of clothes made up with
+Alice's mistress, and which occasioned her first coming about the house,
+poor Mr. Philip became the victim of her charms, and moped up and down
+like a hen that had lost her chickens. It was not long before the
+Justice's daughters found out his passion, and having communicated their
+discovery to the maids, exposed him to be the laughing stock of the
+whole house. Never was a poor young fellow so pestered! One asked him
+whether he liked the wife with three trades? Another was enquiring
+whether he had cast up the amount of remnants of silk, shreds of lace,
+and the savings that might be made out of linings, facings, and robings?
+The Justice took notice that Philip had left off reading the news, and
+the old lady wondered whether he had forgotten playing upon the organ in
+her husband's study. But all this served rather to increase than to
+abate his passion, so that he neglected no opportunity of meeting and
+paying his addresses to his mistress.
+
+Alice was no less careful on her side, and in a short space it was
+agreed that she should run away from her mistress, of whom she was grown
+heartily weary, and that Philip should counterfeit most excessive grief
+at his loss, in order to prevent the least suspicion of his being privy
+thereto. Having adjusted this, it was not long before they put their
+design into execution, and Philip first having provided a lodging for
+her in Brewer Street, she, on a Sunday in the evening, when all the rest
+of the family were out, removed from her mistress's house in a court
+near the Strand, taking all that belonged to her in a hackney-coach,
+leaving the key at an alehouse. Philip had so good a character that the
+grief he affected on this occasion passed for reality upon all the
+house, and the flight of Alice had no other effect than to excite a new
+spring of railery on the loss of his mistress. He laid out the greatest
+part of what he had saved during five years' service in furnishing out
+two rooms for her very neatly, passing himself, where she lodged, for
+the son of a gentleman of fortune in the country, who had married
+against his friends' consent, and was therefore obliged to keep his wife
+in a place of privacy until things at home could be made easy.
+
+For some time the lovers lived mighty happily together, and nothing was
+wanting to complete Philip's wishes than that they were married, for
+Alice never making such a proposal, now and then disturbed his thoughts,
+and put him a little out of humour. Things remained in this state with a
+little alteration for about five months, until an Irish captain coming
+to lodge pretty near where Philip had placed Alice, he found a way to
+see her twice or thrice, and being a fellow of a smooth tongue, a
+handsome person and an immoderate assurance, it was not long before he
+became master of her affections. The temper of Philip having been always
+too grave for her, in about three weeks' time she let the captain into
+the truth of the whole story, and at his persuasion, during the time
+Philip was at Surrey assizes, sold off the furniture of her lodgings,
+and directing a letter to be left for him at his master's house by the
+Penny Post, moved off with her new gallant.
+
+It would be impossible, should I attempt to describe it, to describe the
+agony the poor young fellow was in at the receipt of Alice's epistle, in
+which she told him flatly she was weary of him and had got another
+gallant; and saying that if he tried to look after her or give her any
+other uneasiness, she would send a full account of all things to his
+master. The jilt was sensible this would keep him quiet, for as he
+depended solely upon his favour, so a story of this sort would have
+inevitably deprived him of it for ever. It answered her intent, and the
+force he put upon his passions cost him a severe fit of sickness.
+
+Alice, in the meanwhile, indulged for about a week with her Irish
+captain, at the end of which he beat her and turned her out of doors. It
+was in vain for her to talk of her goods and her clothes; the captain
+had carried her amongst a set of his acquaintance, who on the first
+quarrel called her a thousand foolish English whores, and bid her go
+back to her Justice's clerk again. In the midst of her affliction, with
+nothing on but a linen gown, and about three shillings in her pocket,
+the watchman coming his rounds, found her sitting on the steps at the
+door where the captain lodged. He asked her what she did there, she said
+her husband and she had quarrelled and he had shut her out. The watchman
+was going away, satisfied with the answer, when the captain called out
+at the window, told him she was a street-walker, and bid him take her
+away. The landlady confirmed this, and the fellow laying fast hold of
+her shoulder, compelled her to go with him to the watch-house. However,
+a shilling procured her liberty and a favourable report to the constable
+that she was an honest young woman, who had the misfortune to be married
+to a bad husband, who turned her into the street, and she was afraid
+would not suffer her to come in again that night. Upon hearing this, the
+constable bid her sit down by the fire, gave her a glass of brandy and
+promised her she should be as safe and as easy as the place would allow
+her for that night.
+
+But unluckily for Alice, as she went to take the glass out of the
+constable's hand, he knew her face, and happening to be the baker who
+served the mantua-maker with bread, where she lived, the next morning he
+conducted Mrs. Alice, much against her will, home to her mistress. One
+of her fellow-apprentices ran with the news to the Justice's, and one of
+the daughters whispered it in Philip's ears, as he was writing a
+recognizance in the Justice's book. Philip no sooner heard it but he
+fell down in a swoon, and about half an hour was spent before they could
+bring him again to himself. The young lady who had played him the trick,
+immediately quitted the room, and he opening his eyes, and perceiving
+her gone, pretended it was a sudden fit, and that he had been used to
+them when a child.
+
+Much as he had suffered by this ungrateful woman, he took the first
+opportunity to go to a coffee-house within a door or two of her
+mistress, in order to learn what had become of her. There was but one
+person who had been trusted with his ever having visited her at all, and
+they too, were ignorant that she had ever run away with him. Philip
+therefore sent for his confidant, from whom he received information,
+that after snivelling and crying for a hour or two, she took advantage
+of being left alone in a parlour (although the door was locked), and
+getting out at the window into the backyard, made a shift to scramble
+over the top of the house of office into the court, and so made her
+escape to the waterside, where her mistress found she had taken a pair
+of oars. But though they followed her to Falcon Stairs, yet they were
+not able to retrieve her. Philip at this news was exceedingly grieved,
+and returned home again very disconsolate on this occasion.
+
+Alice, in the meantime, lurked about in St. George's Fields till
+evening, and then crossing the bridge, walked on towards St. James's.
+However dirty and despicable her dress, yet as she had a very pretty
+face and a very engaging manner of speaking at first sight, she drew in
+a merchant's book-keeper, as she walked down Cornhill, to carry her to a
+certain tavern at the corner of Bishopsgate Street; where, after a good
+supper and a bottle or two of wine, she engaged him to take her to a
+lodging, and by degrees to give her a great deal of fine clothes, in
+return for which she flattered him so greatly that he grew as fond of
+her and as much a fool as ever Philip had been.
+
+In the meantime her sister, who was much of her disposition, had been
+turned off by a young fellow she had run away with from Oxford, and in
+a miserable condition had trotted up to town, in order to see whether
+she could have better luck with another gallant. One night, as she was
+strolling through Leadenhall Street in her vocation, she saw her sister
+Alice and the book-keeper who kept her, walking home with a servant, and
+a candle and lanthorn before them. Jenny did not think fit to speak to
+them, but dogging them privately home, called upon her sister the next
+day and was mighty well received. The couple now took every opportunity
+(notwithstanding the allowance of the book-keeper) to enable Alice to
+stroll out with her together, and wandered about nightly in quest of
+adventures, till it began to grow towards ten o'clock, and the fear of a
+visit from her keeper drove Alice to her lodgings.
+
+This trade, without any remarkable accident, was practised for about
+three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three
+weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters
+into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept
+it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice
+lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by
+sparks they picked up to live pretty easily together, and that no
+misfortune might go too near their hearts, they fell to drinking a quart
+of brandy a day. It seems the woman at whose house they lodged was
+herself given to drinking, and so by treating her they fell into the
+same vice. The landlady in return was mighty civil to them, and every
+now and then invited them downstairs to drink with her.
+
+One evening when they were below stairs, there happened to be some
+discourse about a trial at the Sessions House, whereupon Alice expressed
+her desire of seeing the trials, and her sister agreeing in the request,
+their landlady agreed to carry them the next morning. Accordingly they
+were at Sessions House by the time the Court was set, and the two young
+sluts were exceedingly merry at the wretched appearances the poor
+creatures made at the bar. In the midst of their mirth, a man was
+brought up to plead to his indictment, who had only a blanket wrapped
+over his shirt to keep him from the weather; they were laughing and
+talking to some of the people behind them, when Jenny patted her sister
+to take notice of what the man was charged with. Alice listened and
+heard the indictment read, which was for breaking open an escritoire and
+taking out of it ninety guineas, two diamond rings and a good tweezer.
+When the clerk had done reading, the criminal answered with a low voice,
+_Not Guilty_, and the keeper thereupon took him from the bar. As he
+turned, his face being towards them, Alice saw that it was the
+book-keeper who had lived with her, and in a low voice whispered her
+sister, _As I hope to live, it is our Tom._ They did not stay much
+longer, but began to consider as soon as they got home what was to be
+done. Alice was sensible that the tweezer-case mentioned in the
+indictment had been given her, and was under a thousand frights and
+fears that it should be discovered and was above all wondrous careful of
+her landlady, that she did not go any more to the trials that Sessions.
+
+The day they heard that sentence was passed, Jenny went to one of the
+runners at Newgate, and giving him a shilling, asked what had become of
+such a person. The fellow answered that he was to be transported. Jenny
+came immediately home with the news to her sister. She shed a few tears
+and said, what if he should want in Newgate? _Nay_, says Jenny, _let him
+want what he will, I'm sure you shall not be fool enough to pawn your
+things to relieve him_; and as her fit of compassion was soon over, so
+they determined to remove their lodgings for fear that if he were under
+necessity, as they could not well doubt he was, considering the figure
+he made at his trial, he might send to her. But they needed not to have
+been under any apprehensions of that sort, for shame and grief had
+brought him so low that the gaol distemper seizing on him, he died the
+same week he had been tried, and the runner to whom Jenny had given the
+shilling, remembering her face, stopped her in the street, and told her
+the news. When Alice heard it, she pretended to fall into fits, and
+express abundance of sorrow and concern. The sorrows were not, however,
+so deep but that brandy and two days' time effaced them so well that she
+dressed in the best manner she was able, in order to go out and look for
+a spark.
+
+Unfortunately for her, her amours produced the usual consequence, a
+loathsome distemper, which seizing about the same both her sister and
+herself, through want of proper care, ruined both their constitutions;
+and the ill consequence being increased by the use of improper food,
+they were soon after in such a condition that their infamous trade of
+prostitution fell off, and they were in danger of starving and rotting.
+In this distress they knew not what to do, till at last advising with an
+old woman whom they had scraped acquaintance with, she readily offered
+them the use of her house, and to engage for them a surgeon, who should
+complete their cure. The sisters were overjoyed at this, and in a hurry
+accepted her offer, removing themselves and what little valuable
+movables they had the next week.
+
+They were received with great courtesy and kindness, and the old woman,
+from an acquaintance of three weeks, assured them that they were no less
+dear to her than if they had been her own daughters. This treatment
+continued until they were in the height of a salivation, and then they
+were acquainted with usage of another sort. This distemper was very
+expensive, their course of physic very troublesome, it required much
+attendance, they were strangers to her, and so by degrees the old woman
+got from them most of the trinkets they brought with them. So that when
+they were come a little to themselves, and nourishing food was proper to
+restore them to perfect soundness, they had no way left to procure it
+but by pawning or selling their clothes, which being quickly done and
+the money spent, nakedness and poverty became their companions.
+
+Thus plunged in misery, they were exposed to the daily insults of the
+bawd, who treated them with great cruelty now she had them absolutely in
+her power. Alice was so very uneasy under it, that having one night got
+a few clean things about her, she resolved to venture out in a thin
+linen gown, to see what might be done to free them from these
+difficulties. She had not got lower than Southampton Street, in the
+Strand, before a gentleman well dressed, though much in liquor, invited
+her to go with him to his chambers. He carried her as far as Essex
+Street, and then turning down to the Temple, brought her into rooms up
+two pair of stairs, richly furnished. She saw nobody that he had to
+attend him, but everything seemed in very exact order, and so without
+further ceremony to bed they went. His weight of liquor soon forced him
+to sleep, but Alice, whose head was full of the miseries she had so long
+gone through, arose, put on her clothes and searching his pockets, found
+a gold watch, nineteen guineas and a large gold medal. She was so much
+surprised with the richness of this booty, and yet this being her first
+fact, so confounded within herself, that she knew not well what to do.
+At last, with great difficulty she forced open the chamber door, which
+he had locked (and laid the key where she could not find it). Next she
+came to the outer doors of the chambers, in which the key was, and so
+there was no difficulty in getting out; but then finding it impossible
+to shut the door after her without locking it, she even did so, and
+carried away the key.
+
+She made all the haste she could home to her landlady, and without
+considering the consequence, paid her six pounds which she demanded, and
+got some clothes out of her hands, which she had retained as a security
+for the money. Then she removed with her sister, as secretly as she
+could, to an inn in Smithfield, and from thence, the next day, they
+removed to a little lodging in narrow lane by St. John's, where
+downright fear made them keep so much within doors that they had almost
+spent all their money in six weeks' time, without thinking of any method
+to get more.
+
+At last, Jenny, as being least in danger, equipped herself as well as
+she could, and ventured about nine o'clock one evening into the streets.
+She walked about half an hour without meeting with any adventure, but at
+last picked up an innocent country lad. They had not gone far towards a
+tavern before the constable and his body-guard of watchmen surprised and
+hurried them away to the Wood Street Compter. There she remained until
+the next day, when it was intimated to her that if she could produce a
+couple of guineas they would be looked upon as good bail. She sent for
+her sister Alice, who not having so much money, foolishly offered the
+gold medal as a security. Some of the limbs of the Law thereabouts, were
+acquainted with the gentleman of the Temple who lost it, and it being
+shown up and down to know its value, they declared it was stolen, and
+Alice, instead of procuring her sister's liberty, was forced into the
+same prison, and confined with her. As it was about three weeks to
+sessions, they were permitted to remain at the Compter during that time.
+
+This was a deeper plunge into misfortune than they had ever yet known,
+and the fear of hanging was so strong that Alice, in order to avoid it,
+resolved upon making an application to a person to whom otherwise she
+would never have made herself known. Who should this be but Philip, who
+was lately married, but still did the business of his old master the
+Justice, and therefore was always to be met with at his house, though he
+had now got a little place upon which he was capable of living pretty
+handsomely. Alice's letter reached him just as he was sitting down to
+dinner. The surprise he was in was so great that it could not be hid
+from the company. However, to cover the cause of it, he pretended that
+it brought him news of a person being gone off for whom he was bail, and
+which obliged him not to lose a minute in going to see what might be
+done. So putting on his hat, and entreating some gentlemen who were at
+the table with him not to disturb themselves, for he should be back in
+half an hour, away he went directly to the Compter. And having influence
+over the people in power there, he prevailed to have her let out to an
+adjacent tavern.
+
+The affliction she had gone through had altered but not impaired her
+beauty. Philip, ill-used as he had been by her, could not forbear
+bursting into tears at the sight of the miserable condition in which she
+was. As soon as his surprise was a little over, she acquainted him with
+the true state of the case, and begged his assistance in prevailing on
+the injured gentleman to soften the prosecution. He promised her all
+that was in his power, but desired to know after what manner she
+intended to live, in case her liberty could ever be regained. She cried
+and promised to work hard for her living rather than fall into that
+miserable plight again, and then told him how unfortunately it happened
+that her sister also was involved in the same calamity. At parting,
+Philip presented her with a guinea, and told her she should have the
+same every week while she remained there, assuring her also that he
+would not fail coming to her the next day at noon, and informing her of
+the temper in which he found her antagonist.
+
+It happened that the Templar was Philip's intimate acquaintance, and had
+a seat near his father's house in the country. Philip told him the truth
+of the story, and how he came to interest himself so far in the affair.
+The gentleman was not hard to be prevailed on, and said he did not
+conceive it would be of any service to the women to let them be set at
+liberty, considering the course of life they would be obliged
+immediately to fall into for bread; that for his part, he inclined
+rather to procure them liberty to transport themselves, and that they
+might not be destitute in a strange country, he was not averse,
+notwithstanding his loss, to give them something towards putting them in
+a condition of getting their livelihood when they got over. Philip
+readily agreed to this, though he was fearful of its proving an
+expedient little agreeable to the women. However, the next day, when he
+went, he sent for them both to the tavern, and proposed it. Alice said
+it was the most agreeable thing that could have befallen her. She was
+sensible of the manner in which she had lived in her native country, and
+of the difficulty there would be of her amending here, and though her
+sister Jenny was at first very averse, yet she quickly brought her to be
+as complying as herself and to wish nothing more than the possibility of
+living honest in any of the plantations.
+
+Philip carried this news at night to the Temple and the gentleman there,
+who was a great humorist, was so much taken with the temper and spirit
+of Alice, that he would needs see her again, and thereupon accompanied
+Philip the next day to the place of her confinement. There everything
+was soon settled, the Templar procured their discharge, put them to
+board at a house which he could command, and bargained with a captain of
+a New England vessel for their passage thither; not as for persons who
+had been guilty of any misdeeds here, but as of young women of good
+families, who were unwilling to go to service here, and had therefore
+got their friends to raise as much money as would send them over there,
+where perhaps they might meet with better fortune.
+
+[Illustration: JOSEPH BLAKE ATTEMPTING THE LIFE OF JONATHAN WILD
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+In short, their two benefactors furnished then with things to the amount
+of two hundred pounds, accompanied them themselves on board the
+vessel, and recommended them to the captain with as much earnestness as
+if they had been near relations. Coming in this light into the abroad,
+they were received with great hospitality, and treated with much
+kindness and respect; and in fine, after remaining here about a year,
+Jenny married a gentleman of as good fortune as any in the country, and
+her sister, not long after, had the same luck. Jenny did not indeed
+survive it long, but Alice outlived her first husband, and marrying a
+second, returned into England where she is still living in as much
+respect and esteem as any gentlewoman in the county where she inhabits.
+
+
+
+
+An Account of the horrid murder of MR. WIDDINGTON DARBY, committed in
+his chambers in the Temple, on the 11th of April, 1727, for which one
+HENRY FISHER was apprehended and committed to Newgate, from whence he
+escaped.
+
+
+The deceased Mr. Darby was a young gentleman who made an extraordinary
+good appearance in the world. He generally wore fine rings, rich snuff
+boxes, and an extraordinary gold watch about him. These things possibly
+tempted a needy person of his acquaintance to be guilty of that
+barbarous murder which was committed upon him. He lived in the chambers
+belonging to Sir George Cook's office in the Temple. His servant lived
+in another place, and went home every night. It happened the night
+before, or rather in that wherein he was murdered, that Mr. Darby had a
+good deal of company with him, who supping late, they did not go away
+until eleven o'clock, when Mr. Darby's servant also retired to his
+lodgings. The next morning, being Tuesday, about nine o'clock, Mr. Darby
+was found dead in the said office, his skull penetrated with a pistol
+ball, his ear and hand cut, his rings, watch and other valuables taken
+away, besides his escritoire broken open, and his money and linen taken
+from thence.
+
+The next day the coroner's inquest sat thereon, but being able to make
+no discovery of the murder, they thought fit to adjourn _sine die_, as
+soon as the coroner had made an order for the interment of his corpse
+which was done accordingly in a vault in the church of St. Andrew's,
+Holborn.
+
+Some time passed before any light was got into this affair. At length,
+Mr. Moody, who had been upon the coroner's inquest who had sat on the
+body of Mr. Darby, received information that one Fisher, who had been
+in very bad circumstances, and as an acquaintance had been relieved
+under him by the deceased Mr. Darby, was all on a sudden, since the
+committing of that murder, observed to have a great deal of money. He
+had paid some debts which had been troublesome to him and was observed
+to have some valuable things about him which had never been seen before.
+These circumstances appearing altogether very suspicious, Mr. Moody
+acquainted Mr. York with it, who had been very assiduous in taking all
+measures possible for the discover of this horrid assassination. He
+falling readily into Mr. Moody's opinion, they agreed together that the
+likeliest method to find out the truth was to go to Mr. Willoughby, who
+was Fisher's landlord, and known to be a very honest man. Accordingly
+they went to him in a tavern in Southampton Street, where they
+understood he was, and falling into discourse about Mr. Darby's murder,
+they insinuated to him the suspicions they had of his lodger.
+
+Returning to his house, Fisher being away, Mr. Willoughby went to his
+room and broke open a box, and found in it the top and bottom of a
+snuff-box, a vizard mask, and a pair of laced ruffles. The remains of
+the snuff-box Mr. York knew to have belonged to the deceased, and had
+reason to suspect the ruffles also to have been his, so that it was
+immediately agreed to go before the Honourable Sir William Thompson,[77]
+in order to procure a warrant. There they made an affidavit of the
+several circumstances attending their discovery, and Sir William upon
+the examination also of a lady (who produced a piece of lace before she
+had seen the ruffle, and declared that if it were Mr. Darby's it must
+tally therewith, which on a comparison it did exactly) granted a
+warrant. It appeared also at the same time, upon the oath of Mr.
+Willoughby, that the day Mr. Darby was murdered, Fisher borrowed
+half-a-crown of him to pay his washerwoman, and was in the utmost
+necessity for money.
+
+A woman swore that a person very like Fisher was hovering about Mr.
+Darby's chambers the night the murder was committed, and it was proved
+by the oath of another person that Fisher came not to his lodgings till
+two o'clock on Tuesday morning, on which Mr. Darby was murdered. About
+eight o'clock a porter came and informed Fisher of Mr. Darby's being
+murdered, at which he shewed little concern and locked himself up for
+some hours.
+
+Things being thus over at Sir William Thompson's, Mr. Willoughby, Mr.
+York, and Mr. Moody, returned to Fisher's lodgings. About two o'clock
+in the morning he came in, and they seized him, having a constable and
+proper assistance for that purpose. On Sunday noon, he was carried
+before Sir William Thompson in order to be examined, where he said:
+
+That about the latter end of the week in which Mr. Darby was murdered,
+as he was passing through Lincoln's Inn Fields, about four in the
+afternoon, be took up under the wall of Lincoln's Inn Gardens, a white
+paper parcel in which were contained several things of great value
+belonging to the deceased; some of the diamonds he acknowledged he sold
+to a jeweller in Paternoster Row for ten guineas, the watch he pawned
+for nine guineas to a person at a brazier's in Bond Street, and sold the
+gold chain and swivels to a person in Lombard Street. He absolutely
+denied all knowledge of the murder, and said that at the time it
+happened he was at a billiard table in Duke Street, by St. James's. When
+taken there was found upon him two of Mr. Darby's rings with the stones
+taken out, wrapped up in a paper, with his seal the arms of which were
+taken out, and in these circumstances he was committed to Newgate.
+
+Soon after this the coroner granted his warrant, and an order being
+thereupon obtained from the Commons, Mr. Darby's body was taken up and
+in the presence of several persons, his head opened by an eminent
+surgeon, who found a large lacerated wound near the left ear, the
+temporal bone on that side being very much fractured, several pieces of
+which stuck in the brain on the same side. He found, likewise, the
+temporal bone on the other side, exactly opposite, broken; the pieces
+thereof were not removed from their places, but easily removed upon his
+attempting to take them away. He took out the brain and the bullet
+dropped upon the pillow which lay upon the ground under his head. It
+appeared, upon comparing the said bullet taken out of the head, with
+some other bullets found in custody of Henry Fisher (at that time in
+Newgate on suspicion of the murder) that it seemed to have been cast in
+the same mould; and when weighing it with one of these bullets, it was
+very little lighter, and it fitted the bore of one of the pistols which
+was found in Fisher's custody, even that pistol which by some signs were
+looked on to have been discharged, though afterwards loaded again.
+
+This Fisher was the son of a very eminent clothier in the West of
+England, who had sent him to London, and put him out clerk to an
+attorney, and had done everything in his power which he was able, and
+which was reasonable for him to do. But he being extravagant, lived far
+beyond the rate which was consistent with the supplies he received from
+his father; so that when pressed by his necessities, he had often
+applied to Mr. Darby for relief. When in Newgate he affected a most
+unreasonable gaiety and unconcernedness in his behaviour, although the
+circumstances were so strong against him as occasioned it to prevail as
+the general opinion that he would be convicted. However, he and the
+famous Roger Johnson took the advantage of the workmen labouring on the
+cells which were then building, and by breaking a hole through a place
+done up only with lath and plaster, they got down one of the workmen's
+ladders, and so made their escape. Johnson was afterwards retaken and
+tried for breaking prison, but alleging it was done by Fisher, he was
+acquitted, and this Henry Fisher, the supposed murderer of Mr. Darby,
+was never heard of since.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [77] Sir William Thompson (1678-1739) was Recorder of London in
+        1715, Solicitor General two years later, and in 1729 became
+        baron of the Exchequer.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSHUA CORNWALL, a Thief and Housebreaker
+
+
+Though vices are undoubtedly the chief instruments that bring unhappy
+persons to that ignominious death which the Law hath appointed for
+enormous offences, yet it very often happens that folly rather than
+wickedness brings them first into the road of ruin; in which, led on by
+delusive hopes, they continue to run until a disastrous fate overtakes
+them, and puts an end at once to their vicious race, and to their lives.
+The criminal whose memoirs at present employ our pen is such an example
+as I hope, while it entertains, may also instruct my readers to avoid
+his errors.
+
+This unfortunate man was the son of reputable and honest parents in the
+town of Brigg in the county of Lincoln. Their circumstances were such as
+enabled them to give him an education; and the desire they had of doing
+everything that was possible for their son inclined them not to be
+wanting in this particular. His mother, was fond of him to a fault, and
+being permitted by her indulgence to run up and down amongst young
+people of his own age, riding across the country to friends and other
+diversions of a like nature, he lost all liking to things of a serious
+nature, and without thinking how to procure the necessaries of life, was
+altogether taken up in enjoying those pleasures to which he had the
+greatest inclination. In the midst of this pleasant situation of things
+(at least as it appeared to him at that time) the prospect was darkened
+by the death of his mother. His friends retained for him a due paternal
+affection, but had no notion of permitting him to go on the life he
+led, and therefore to break him of that as well as to make him
+acquainted with an honest method of getting his living, his father put
+him out apprentice to a baker in Hull.
+
+But as kindness seemed of all things the most fatal to this unhappy man,
+so the acquaintance and friendship which his master had for Cornwall's
+family became a new means of leading him into misfortune, for treating
+the young man rather with a tenderness due to a son than that severity
+which is usually practised towards apprentices and servants, it gave him
+an opportunity of renewing his old course of life. Instead of inclining
+him to behave in a manner which might deserve such lenity, it gave him,
+on the contrary, occasion frequently to abuse it by running from one
+dancing bout and merry-making to another, without the least care of his
+master's business, who out of downright affection forbore to restrain
+his follies with that harshness which they deserved, and which any other
+person would have used.
+
+At length, having acquired so great a habit of laziness and so strong an
+aversion to business that he found it impossible for him to live longer
+in the country, he came up to London, that great receptacle of those who
+are either unable or unwilling to live anywhere else. Here he got into
+service as a footman with several persons of worth, and discharged his
+duty well (as indeed it was a kind of life which of all others suited
+him best), so that he obtained a tolerable reputation whereby he got
+into the service of one Mr. Fenwick, a gentleman of affluent fortune.
+Here it was that through desire of abounding in money he either drew in
+others, or was drawn in himself to commit that crime which cost him his
+life.
+
+It seems that in Mr. Fenwick's family there was a great deal of plate
+used, which stood on a buffet. This tempted Cornwall, and it is highly
+likely gave him the first notion of attempting to rob the house. When he
+had once formed this project he resolved to take in one Rivers, a
+debauched companion of his, as a partner in the designed theft.
+
+This Rivers was certainly easy enough prevailed on to join in the
+commission of this fact, and after several meetings to consult upon
+proper measures, Rivers at last proposed that their scheme should be put
+in execution as soon as possible; and that he might the more perfectly
+conceive how it was to be managed, he went home with Cornwall, and
+looked upon the house. Soon after this they held their last
+consultation, and Cornwall saying to Rivers that he must bring some
+other persons to assist him, Rivers made choice of one Girst, and coming
+with him at the appointed hour, Cornwall in his shirt opened the door
+and let them in. In the buffet there stood a lighted candle in a silver
+candle-stick, by which they were directed to the rest of the plate,
+which as soon as they had taken out, they placed all together upon the
+carpet, and fell next to rifling Mr. Fenwick's bureau, and took out a
+great quantity of linen, a lady's lace, the tea equipage, and two silver
+canisters. Then making it up in a bundle, it was carried to River's
+lodgings in Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane.
+
+All this could not be performed with so little noise as not to disturb
+the family. Mr. Fenwick himself heard the noise, being awakened by his
+wife, who had heard it for some time, but it ceasing they fell asleep
+again until one of the servants came up in the morning, and told his
+master that the house had been robbed, the plate taken away, and a
+window in the back parlour left open, about which, as he could observe
+no marks of violence, he was led to suspect it was opened by somebody in
+the family; upon which Cornwall and a maid in the house were immediately
+thought to have a hand in. However, as there was no sort of proof, Mr.
+Fenwick forbore seizing them at that time, and contented himself with
+advertizing his plate; which advertisement coming into the hands of a
+pawnbroker, to whom a part of it had been pledged, he immediately gave
+notice that it was pawned to him by Rivers. A warrant being upon this
+obtained for the searching of River's lodging, a note was there found,
+directed to Thomas Rivers, Glover, in Guy's Court, Vinegar Yard, Drury
+Lane, in which were these words:
+
+    Dear Tom,
+
+    Let me see you at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, at the Postern
+    Spring, Tower Hill, be sure.
+
+    Joshua Cornwall.
+
+Upon this Cornwall was immediately taken up and Girst readily offered
+himself an evidence. In a few days after, sessions coming on, Joshua
+Cornwall and Thomas Rivers were indicted for burglariously breaking the
+house of Nicholas Fenwick, Esq., and taking thence divers pieces of
+plate, to the value of eighty-five pounds nineteen shillings, holland
+shirts to the value of twenty pounds, and other goods of the said Mr.
+Fenwick, on the 8th day of September, 1730. This indictment being fully
+proved, the jury found Thomas Rivers guilty thereof. But being dubious
+whether Joshua Cornwall, as a servant within the house of Mr. Fenwick,
+could be properly convicted of burglariously breaking into his said
+master's house, they found their verdict as to him special; which the
+judges having considered, they were unanimously of opinion that the
+crime was in its nature a burglary. Whereupon, at the following
+sessions at the Old Bailey, the criminal was brought to the bar, and
+being acquainted with their lordships' opinion, received sentence of
+death.
+
+Under conviction, he behaved himself with great penitence, said he had
+not been guilty of many of those atrocious crimes commonly practised by
+such as come to that fatal end whither his folly had led him. At the
+place of execution he, with great fervency, justified the character of a
+young woman who had lived fellow-servant with him at Mr. Fenwick's. He
+declared, as he was a dying man, that she was not in the least privy to
+the injury done her master, and that he had no other than an
+acquaintance with her, without either having, or attempting any criminal
+conversation with her. Having done this justice, he seemed to die with
+much composure, in the twenty-second year of his age, on the 23rd of
+December, 1730.
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF THE CRIMINALS
+
+VOLUME THREE
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN TURNER, _alias_ CIVIL JOHN, a Highwayman
+
+
+One of the most dangerous passions which can enter the breasts of young
+people, though at the same time it be one of the most common, is the
+love of finery and a mean and foolish ambition to appear better dressed
+than becomes their station, in hopes of imposing upon the world as
+persons of much higher rank than they really are. This inconsiderate,
+ridiculous pride brings along with it such a numerous train of bad
+consequences that of necessity it makes the person inflamed by it
+unhappy and often miserable for life. In the case now before us a was
+still more fatal by adding a violent and ignominious death.
+
+John Turner was the son of a person in tolerable circumstances, in the
+county of Cornwall, where he received an education proper for that
+condition of life in which he was likely to pass through the world. His
+father was a man of good sense, and of a behaviour much more courteous
+and genteel than is usual among persons of ordinary condition in a
+county so remote from London. He was extremely desirous that his son
+should be like him in this respect, and therefore he continually
+cautioned him against falling into that rough boorish manner of behaving
+which is natural to uneducated clowns, and makes them shocking to
+everybody but themselves. In this respect John was very compliant with
+his father's temper, and being put out apprentice to a peruke-maker, his
+obliging carriage endeared him so much, not only to his master and the
+family but also to the gentlemen on whom, as customers to the shop, he
+sometimes waited, that they took a peculiar liking to the boy and were
+continually giving him money as a reward for his diligence and
+assiduity.
+
+But John's obliging temper took a turn very fatal to himself, as well as
+very little suspected by his friends and relations. For having been made
+use of by some young sparks at Exeter (the place where he served his
+time) to carry messages to their mistresses, he from thence conceived so
+strong an inclination to become a beau and a gallant that, in order to
+it, he broke open his master's escritoire and took away a considerable
+sum of money. With this he came up to London and went to live as a
+journeyman with an eminent peruke-maker at the Court end of the town.
+There his easy and obsequious temper made him very agreeable to
+everybody, and his behaviour was so just and open that nobody in the
+neighbourhood had a better character than himself. Yet he was far from
+giving over those extravagancies the earnest desire of committing which
+had brought him to town; for nobody in his station made so handsome a
+figure as Mr. Turner.
+
+His amours with the wenches in the neighbourhood were very numerous,
+though out of a point of honour he was careful enough in endeavouring to
+conceal them. But as they naturally led him into an expensive way of
+living, which what he got by his trade could in no degree support, he
+quickly found himself obliged to take to new methods, and thought none
+so concise and convenient as going upon the road. This he did for some
+time without arousing the least suspicion, behaving himself towards
+those whom he robbed with such gentleness and good manners, putting his
+hat into the coach and taking what money they thought fit to give him,
+nay, sometimes returning a part of that, if the dress or aspect of the
+person gave him room to suspect that their wants were as great as his.
+From this extraordinary conduct he obtained the name of Civil John, by
+which he was very well known to the stage coachmen, wagoners, and other
+such persons who travelled the Western road.
+
+Common fame, which ordinarily multiplies the adventures of men of his
+profession, circulated a multitude of stories about him which had not
+the least foundation in fact, and served only to make the poor man more
+remarkable, and consequently the more easy to be taken; which was,
+accordingly, the effect of those foolish encomiums which the vulgar
+bestowed upon so genteel a robber. About six weeks after he had taken to
+this unfortunate course of life; and while he yet preserved an unstained
+reputation in the neighbourhood in which he lived, he was apprehended
+for a robbery committed on Mr. Air, from whom he took but an
+inconsiderable sum; yet the fact being clearly proved against him at the
+next session at the Old Bailey, he was convicted, and having no
+relations capable of making interest sufficient to obtain a reprieve, he
+lost all hopes of life. Under sentence he conducted himself with much
+calmness, penitence, and resignation, confessing the truth of that
+charge which had been laid against him, acknowledging the justice of the
+Law in this sentence, and disposing himself to submit to it with much
+cheerfulness and alacrity.
+
+This great change in his circumstance and manner of living, added to
+his own uneasy reflections upon those misfortunes into which vanity and
+ostentation had brought him, soon reduced him by sickness to so weak a
+state that he was incapable, almost, of coming to chapel alone.
+Notwithstanding this, he continued to frequent it, some of the people
+about the prison being so kind as to help him upstairs. As his vices
+arose rather from the imitation of those fine gentlemen on whom he had
+waited while a lad, so he did not carry them to that height which most
+of these unhappy persons are wont to do; on the contrary he was very
+sober, little addicted to gambling, and never followed the common women
+of the town. But dress, dancing bouts, and the necessary entertainments
+for carrying on his amours were the follies which involved him in these
+expenses, for the supply of which he thus hazarded his soul and
+forfeited his life.
+
+When the death warrant came down his sickness had brought him so low
+that Nature seemed inclined to supersede the severity of the Law; but
+too short a time which intervened between it and its execution, and so
+he came to suffer a violent death at Tyburn a day or two before,
+perhaps, he would otherwise have yielded up his breath in his bed.
+Little could be expected of a person in his weak condition, at the place
+of execution, where, when he arrived he was utterly unable to stand up.
+However, with a faint voice he desired the prayers both of the minister
+who attended them and of the spectators of his execution, which happened
+on the 20th of November, 1727, in the twenty-sixth year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN JOHNSON, a Coiner
+
+
+In excuse of taking base measures to procure money there is no plea so
+often urged as necessity, and the desire of providing for a family
+otherwise in danger of want. The reason of this is pretty evident, since
+nothing could be a greater alleviation of such a crime. But the word
+necessity is so equivocal that it is hard to fix its true meaning, and
+unless that can be done, it will be as hard to judge of the
+reasonableness of such an excuse.
+
+John Johnson, the criminal on whose life we are next to cast an eye, was
+born of a very honest and reputable family in the county of Nottingham,
+and received in his youth the best education they were capable of giving
+him. By this he became able to read tolerably and write well enough for
+that business to which he was bred, viz., a tailor. Throughout his
+apprenticeship he behaved himself virtuously and industriously, and left
+his master with the character of a faithful and deserving young man.
+When his time was out, and he had wrought for some time as a journeyman
+in the country, the common whim of coming up to London seized him; and
+after he had spent some time in town in working hard at his trade, he
+married a wife with whom he lived in good correspondence for many years,
+with the esteem and respect of all who knew him. But his family
+increasing and he consequently finding the charge of maintaining them
+rise higher than formerly, and, what was worse, that all he was capable
+of doing could not maintain them, he grew very melancholy.
+
+After considering several projects for making his circumstances more
+easy, he at last pitched upon going into Lincolnshire, as a place where
+the cheapness of provisions might balance the number of mouths he had to
+feed. But he had not been long there before he discovered his mistake,
+for the smallness of wages made everything rather dearer than cheaper,
+which plunged him into new difficulties, and rendered him incapable of
+ease or satisfaction. While his wits were thus on the rack, and his
+invention stretched to the uttermost in order to find out some means or
+other to recoup his pockets, he unfortunately fell into the company of a
+man who, under the pretence of being his most zealous friend, became,
+though perhaps unwittingly, the instrument of his utter ruin. For his
+appearing ever disconsolate and melancholy gave the countryman an
+opportunity of prying into the cause of his concern, which he soon
+discovered to be the narrowness of his circumstances. As we naturally
+find ease in communicating our afflictions to others, so Johnson was
+ready enough to inform him of the truth of his affairs, and the man no
+less assiduous in endeavouring to help him out of these straits into
+which he had fallen.
+
+At last, his Lincolnshire acquaintance told him there was but one way of
+recovering his misfortunes and living like a man without labour, to
+which Johnson began now to have a great aversion, and therefore he
+eagerly desired to be acquainted with this delightful way of getting on.
+With a grave face his associate told him that what he was about to
+propose could not be effected without some risk, but that a man could
+not expect to live without trouble or without hazard. Johnson said it
+was true, and desired only to be informed wherein the hazard consisted,
+as he would make no scruple of running it, for he lacked courage as
+little as any man.
+
+Upon this his companion opened to him his whole scheme, which consisted
+in a method of counterfeiting the silver coin to a tolerable degree of
+likeness. Johnson was easily drawn in, for he thought there could be no
+speedier way of getting money than making it. His country friend helped
+him to the necessary implements, and Johnson applied himself with such
+earnestness to his new occupation that in a very short time he greatly
+outdid his master, giving the false money he had made so perfect a
+similitude to the specie for which he made it that it was impossible to
+distinguish it by the eye. But thinking it much more hazardous to
+attempt putting off in the country than it would be in London, and his
+fellow labourer being of the same opinion, they first went to work and
+coined a considerable sum according to their method, and they came up to
+dispose of it, as Johnson had proposed.
+
+By this time misfortune and remorse had taught the poor man whose life
+we are writing to addict himself too much to drinking, especially to
+strong liquors, so that the first experiment he made of the
+practicability of getting rid of his false money was in putting off two
+sixpences to a distiller for gin, in which he succeeded without being
+suspected. But going to a shoemaker's and buying there a ready-made pair
+of shoes, he was seized for attempting to pay the man with two bad
+half-crowns, which though they looked pretty well to the eye, were
+nevertheless much too light when they came to be weighed against the
+metal that it was intended they should pass for.
+
+When carried before a Justice his heart soon failed him and almost as
+soon as he was asked he revealed the whole truth of the matter,
+impeaching both the countryman who had taught him and a person with whom
+they had trusted the secret here in town. However, his confession was of
+little benefit to him, for at the next sessions he was capitally
+convicted and from thenceforward cast off all hopes of life. As he was a
+man who did not lack good natural parts, during the short time he had to
+live he endeavoured to make his prayer to God for the forgiveness of the
+many errors of his life, attending also constantly at the time of public
+devotion. Yet for all this he could not be persuaded that there was any
+great degree of guilt in what he had done, but imagined on the contrary
+that he was much more innocent than his fellow malefactors, regretting,
+however, the heavy misfortune he had brought upon himself and family,
+two of his children dying during the time of his imprisonment, and his
+wife and third child coming upon the parish. In which sentiments he
+continued until the day of his execution, which was on the same with the
+before-mentioned John Turner, this criminal being then about fifty years
+of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JAMES SHERWOOD, GEORGE WEEDON and JOHN HUGHS, Street
+Robbers and Footpads
+
+
+Amongst the many artifices by which vice covers itself from our
+apprehension, there is no method which it more commonly takes, and yet
+better succeeds in, than by putting on a mask of virtue and thereby
+imposing the most flagitious actions upon us as things indifferent,
+sometimes as things which may gain applause.
+
+This was exactly the case with the persons whose lives we are now about
+to write, who were all of them young men of tolerable education, but
+giving way to their vicious inclinations, they associated themselves
+together for the better carrying on those evil practices by which they
+supported their extravagances, into which lewd women especially had
+betrayed them.
+
+James Sherwood, who was the eldest of them, and also went by the name of
+Hobbs, was the son of but mean parents, who, however, took all the pains
+that were in their power to educate him in the best manner they were
+able. When he grew up they put him out apprentice to a waterman, with
+whom he served his time, and was afterwards a seaman in a man-of-war.
+When at home he spent his time in the worst company imaginable, viz.,
+idle young men and lewd, infamous women. As he had naturally a good
+understanding and quick apprehension, he quickly became adroit in every
+mystery of wickedness to which he addicted himself. However, Justice
+soon overtook him and his first companions in wickedness; upon which he
+turned evidence and saved his own life by sacrificing theirs. He was
+transported soon afterwards, but upon his finding it difficult to live
+abroad without working (a thing, for which he had an intolerable
+aversion) he took the first opportunity that offered of returning home
+again.
+
+When he returned he fell to his old practices, taking up his lodgings at
+the house of one Sarah Payne, a most infamous woman who was capable of
+seducing unwary youths for the commission of the greatest villainies,
+and then ready to betray them to death, either to benefit or secure
+herself. By hers and Sherwood's means George Weedon was drawn in, a
+young man of very reputable parents, who had been brought up with the
+greatest care in the principles of virtue and true religion. It seems,
+however, that having contracted an acquaintance with a lewd and artful
+woman, who drew him into an excessive fondness for her, he yielded to
+the solicitations of Sherwood and his landlady, and took to such courses
+as they suggested, in order to supply himself with money for the
+entertainment of that strumpet who was his ruin. It was but a few days
+before his apprehension that he had been induced to quit the house of
+his mother, who had ever treated him with the greatest tenderness and
+affection, and instead thereof had taken lodging with the
+before-mentioned Payne, who continually solicited him to commit
+robberies and thefts.
+
+At length John Hughs, _alias_ Hews, another young man, joined them.
+Though bred up carefully to the trade of a shoemaker by his father, who
+was of the same profession, yet for many years he had addicted himself
+to picking pockets and such other low kinds of theft, but had never done
+any great robbery until he fell into the hands of Sherwood and Weedon;
+with whom he readily agreed to associate himself, and to go with them
+out into Moorfields and such other places near Town as they thought most
+convenient in order to waylay and rob passengers, and at other times,
+when such opportunities did not offer, to break open houses, and to
+divide their profits equally amongst them. These designs were hardly
+made before they were put into execution and a very short space elapsed
+before they had committed many robberies and burglaries, always bringing
+the booty home and spending it lewdly and extravagantly in the house of
+that abandoned monster, Sarah Payne.
+
+It may not be amiss to take notice here how common a thing it is for
+such wicked old sinners as this woman was, to set up houses of resort
+for lewd and abandoned women of the town, who, first getting young men
+into their company on amorous pretences, by degrees bring them on from
+one wickedness to another, till at last they end their lives at the
+gallows, and thereby leave these wretches at liberty to bring others to
+the same miserable fate. These agents to the Prince of Darkness are
+usually women who have an artful way of flattering and a pleasing
+deceitfulness in their address. By this means they, without much
+difficulty, draw in young lads at their first giving way to the current
+of their lewd inclinations, and before they are aware, involve them in
+such expenses as necessarily lead to housebreaking or the highway for a
+supply. When once they have made a step of this kind, by which their
+lives are placed in the power of those old practitioners in every kind
+of wickedness, they are from thenceforward treated as slaves and forced
+to continue, whether they will or no, in a repeated course of the like
+villainies until they are arrested by the hand of Justice. Then, none so
+ready to become evidences against them as those abominable wretches by
+whom they were at first seduced.
+
+Such was the fate that befell these three unhappy young men, of whose
+courses information being given, they were all apprehended and committed
+close prisoners to Newgate, and at the next ensuing sessions not a few
+indictments were found against them. The first indictment they were all
+three arraigned upon was for felony and burglary in breaking open the
+house of one William Meak, in the night-time, and taking from thence
+twelve Gloster cheeses. But the evidence appearing clear only against
+Sherwood, _alias_ Hobbs, he alone was convicted and the other two
+acquitted. They were then indicted a second time for breaking open the
+house of Daniel Elvingham, in the night-time, and taking out of it
+several quantities of brandy and tobacco; upon which both Sherwood and
+Weedon were, from very full evidence, convicted. On a third indictment
+for breaking into the house of Elizabeth Cogdal, and taking thence eight
+pewter dishes and twenty pewter plates, they were all found guilty;
+Sherwood and Weedon also being a fourth time convicted for a robbery on
+the highway, which was proved upon them by the testimony of their
+landlady, Sarah Payne.
+
+Under sentence of death they all testified great sorrow for the offences
+of their misspent lives. Weedon was of a better temper than the two
+other, retained a greater sense of the principles of religion upon which
+he had been brought up in his youth and exceeded his companions in
+seriousness and steadiness in his devotions. Sherwood had been a much
+longer proficient in all kinds of wickedness than the other two, having
+practised several kinds of thefts for nearly eighteen years together,
+and this had habituated him so much to sin that he showed much less
+penitence than either of his companions. Hughs had been a thief in a low
+degree for some years before he fell into the confederacy of Sherwood
+and Weedon, to which, as he frankly owned, he was drawn by his own
+previous inclination rather than the persuasions of any of his
+companions.
+
+As the time of their death approached they seemed much more affected
+than formerly they had been; in which frame of mind they continued till
+they suffered, which was on the 12th of February, 1728, Sherwood being
+in his twenty-sixth year, Hughs in the twenty-third, and Weedon in the
+twenty-second year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of MARTIN BELLAMY, a Notorious Thief, Highwayman and
+Housebreaker
+
+
+This criminal was amongst the number of those whom long practice had so
+hardened in his offences that he took up the humour of glorying in them,
+even under his confinement, and persisted in it to the hour of his
+death, drawing up, when under sentence (or at least giving instructions
+by which it was drawn up) an account of the several street-robberies,
+burglaries, and other crimes which he had committed, in a style which
+too plainly showed that nothing in his miserable condition afflicted him
+but the thought of his ignominious death he was to suffer, not even the
+reflection of those crimes which had so deservedly brought him to his
+fate. By trade he was a tailor and a good workman in his business, by
+which he lived in good credit for some time. It seems he married a woman
+whose friends, at least, were very honest people, and highly displeased
+with the villainous course of life he led. Insomuch that upon his being
+apprehended and sent to Bridewell on suspicion, his wife's brother came
+to him there in order to know where the prosecutor lived, that, as he
+said, he might go and make some proposals for making up the affair.
+Bellamy gave him the best account he could, and the man finding out the
+person, advised him to prosecute Martin with the utmost severity, in
+hopes, no doubt, that he should in this way rid his sister of a very bad
+husband. However, Bellamy was so irritated by the attempt that he would
+never cohabit with her afterwards, but with implacable hatred pursued
+her and her family with all the mischiefs he was able.
+
+The methods which he and his gang mostly took in robbing, according to
+the account which, as I have before said, he has left us of himself,
+were chiefly these: the gang having met together in the evening used to
+go, three or four in a company, to visit the shops of those tradesmen
+who deal in the richest sort of toys[78] and other goods that are
+portable and easily conveyed away. Then one of the company cheapens
+something or other, making many words with the shopkeeper about the
+price, thereby giving an opportunity to some of his companions to hand
+things of value from one to another till they were insensibly vanished,
+the honest shopkeeper being left to deplore the misfortune of having
+such light-fingered customers find the way to his shop. Another practice
+of theirs, to the same laudable purpose, was carried on after this
+manner: three or four of them walked up and down several streets, which
+by observation they had found fitted for their purpose, and on
+perceiving things of any value lying in a parlour, they, with an engine
+contrived for that purpose, suddenly threw up the sash; and
+notwithstanding there being persons in the room, they would venture to
+snatch it out and often get clear off before the people who saw them
+could recover themselves from the surprise. But if there was nobody in
+the way, then one of their associates, slipping off his shoes, stole
+softly into the room and handed out whatever was of most value to his
+companions without doors.
+
+But Bellamy was not only adroit in these ordinary practices, but was
+also perfectly acquainted with the art and mystery of counterfeiting
+hands; and as an instance thereof, upon which he much valued himself, he
+used to relate a trick of that sort which he put upon the late Jonathan
+Wild, after this manner: having accustomed himself for some time to
+frequent the levee of that infamous agent of thieves, he became so well
+acquainted with Jonathan's manner of writing and also with the persons
+who gave him credit on particular occasions when money was low.
+Whereupon he took occasion to forge a note from the said Wild to one
+Wildgoose, servant at an inn, who used to be Jonathan's banker upon
+emergencies, who, on receipt of the note, paid Bellamy the contents
+thereof without hesitation. A few days after, Mr. Wild and his
+correspondent met. The forgery was soon detected and Jonathan
+immediately gave directions to that infamous band of villains who were
+always in his pay and under his direction, to leave no means untried for
+the apprehending Bellamy, who from Wildgoose's description he knew to be
+the man who had been guilty of the forgery.
+
+In the search after him they were so assiduous that in a very short
+space they surprised him at a house in Whitefriars, where he was forced
+to fly up to a garret in order to conceal himself. His pursuers thinking
+they had now lodged him pretty securely, sent notice of it to their
+master. But Martin perceiving a long rope lying upon a bed in the room
+where he hid himself, resolved for once to venture his neck; and having
+fastened it as well as he could, he slipped down by it into the street,
+with so great agility that none of his attendants perceived it till he
+was in the street, by which time he got so much the start of them that
+they found it but in vain to pursue him, and therefore laid by all
+thoughts of catching him until another opportunity.
+
+However, the trick he had played them made them so diligent in pursuing
+him that it was but a very short time before they surrounded him in a
+brandy-shop in Chancery Lane, seized him and brought him in a coach to
+the Elephant and Castle alehouse, Fleet Street, from whence they
+dispatched advice to Jonathan of his apprehension. It happened that that
+great man was gone to bed when the message arrived with this news;
+however it was carried up and Jonathan with an air of generosity bid the
+fellow return and inform his people that he would take Mr. Bellamy's
+word, and that he might meet him with safety the next morning at his
+levee. Bellamy, who well knew the temper of the man, failed not to pay
+his court at the time appointed and adjourning to the Baptist Head
+tavern in the Old Bailey, after drinking a refreshing bottle, he
+presented Mr. Wild with five guineas, by way of atonement for the
+offence which he had committed against him. Jonathan was so well
+appeased by the intervention of the golden advocates that he promised
+not only to forgive him, himself, but also to prevail with Mr. Wildgoose
+to do the same, provided he entered into a bond for the repayment of the
+ten guineas. This was a condition easily submitted to by Martin in his
+present circumstances. This danger thus got over, he returned to his old
+profession without running any further hazard of Jonathan's
+interruption.
+
+About this time the gang to which he belonged entered upon a new method
+of housebreaking, which they effected by stealing the keys which
+fastened the pins in shopkeepers' window-shutters and thereby removing
+the greatest difficulty they had of getting in. This trade they carried
+on successfully for a good space; though now and then they miscarried in
+their attempts, particularly at a goldsmith's shop in Russell Court,
+where, having got into the shop and being about to remove a show-glass,
+a man who lay in the shop suddenly started up and presenting a
+blunderbuss with a great presence of mind told the thieves that he was
+tender of shedding their blood and therefore advised them to get off as
+soon as they could. They took his advice and withdrew accordingly, with
+great confusion. But the same night they had, as Mr. Bellamy expresses
+it, much better luck at a toy-shop not far from the same place, where,
+entering the house, they found the maid sitting by the fire. She at
+first screamed, but they soon made her silent, and then proceeded to
+carry off the show-glass, with all the boxes that were contained in it.
+
+Not long after this they broke off the padlock from a toy-shop in
+Swithin's Alley, in Cornhill. Not being able afterwards to enter the
+house they fell to work next upon the thick timber that supports the
+shutters, and after labouring at it about an hour, forced it off,
+whereupon all the shutters dropping down at once into the court, made so
+great a clatter that they doubted not that all the neighbourhood was
+alarmed, and thought it would be no ill night's work if, after such an
+accident, they had the good luck to escape. Upon which they endeavoured
+to shift, everyone for himself. However, seeing nobody alarmed at the
+noise of the falling of the shutters and that during two hours' time the
+watch had never passed that way, they took courage at last: and
+returned, entered the house, and putting up the most valuable goods,
+went off without any molestation.
+
+A multitude of robberies of the same kind he confessed, but as they are
+narrated in the account we have so often mentioned, it would be a kind
+of imposition on our readers to transcribe those accounts there.
+Wherefore, in the following articles concerning him, we shall make no
+use at all of any that is to be found there.
+
+During the space he led this life he cohabited with one Amy Fowles, who
+passed for his wife and bore him several children. At last, though he
+had so often escaped, he was apprehended for a burglary committed on the
+house of Mr. Holliday, in Bishopsgate Street, and upon very full
+evidence was convicted at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey. After
+his commitment to Newgate he entered, it seems, into a treaty with a
+certain Justice of the Peace for making a full discovery of all his
+accomplices, which might at that time have contributed very much to the
+public advantage; but in the interim some person had talked thereof too
+openly, it came to the ears of one who collected news for a daily paper.
+This man thereupon went to Bellamy, making the poor fellow believe that
+he came to him by the direction of some persons in power (a thing not at
+all unlikely, considering that a proclamation had been issued but very
+little before for the better encouraging the discovery of and bringing
+first offenders to justice). And having by this means drawn the poor
+fellow into a confession of several robberies and burglaries, he
+digested it, or got somebody to do it for him, into proper paragraphs
+which were inserted the next day in a newspaper and gave thereby an
+opportunity to the persons impeached, of making their escape. This
+rogue, therefore defeated Bellamy of all hopes of pardon and hindered
+the public from receiving any benefit from his confession. All which
+enormous villainies were perhaps perpetrated for the sake of a poor
+crown, the utmost that could be expected by the collector for procuring
+this extraordinary passage big with so much mischief, and which in its
+consequences produced little better than a murder, since it is possible
+that Bellamy's life might have been saved if a right use had been made
+of his confession.
+
+At his trial he behaved with great impudence and during the time he lay
+under sentence continued to affect that gaiety which amongst persons of
+his profession is too often mistaken for bravery and true courage. But
+when the fatal day approached he, as is common with most of them, sank
+much in his spirits and had a great deal to do to recover himself so as
+to be able to read the following paper, which he had written for that
+purpose and brought with him to the tree, which, as the words of a dying
+man, I publish verbatim:
+
+    A Copy of the paper read by Martin Bellamy at the Place of Execution
+
+    Gentlemen, I am brought here to suffer an ignominious death for my
+    having wilfully transgressed against the known laws of God and my
+    country. I fear there are too many here present who come to be
+    witnesses of my untimely end rather out of curiosity than from a
+    sincere intention to take warning by my unhappy fate. You see me
+    here in the very prime of my youth, cut off like an untimely flower
+    in the rigorous season, through my having been too much addicted to
+    a voluptuous and irregular course of life, which has been the
+    occasion of my committing those crimes for which I am now to suffer.
+    As the laws of God as well as of men call upon me to Lay down my
+    life as justly forfeited by my manifold transgressions, I
+    acknowledge the justice of my sentence, patiently submit to the same
+    without any rancour, ill-will or malice to any person whatsoever;
+    hoping through the merits of Christ Jesus (who laid down His life
+    for sinners, and who upon the cross pronounced a pardon for the
+    repenting thief under the agonies of death) to be with Him permitted
+    to partake of that glorious resurrection and immortality He has been
+    so graciously pleased to promise to the sincere penitent. I
+    earnestly exhort and beg of all here present to think seriously of
+    eternity--a long and endless eternity!--in which we are to be
+    rewarded or punished according to our good or evil actions in this
+    world; that you will all take warning by me and refrain from all
+    wilful transgressions and offences. Let a religious disposition
+    prevail upon you, and use your utmost endeavours to forsake and fly
+    from sin. The mercies of God are great, and He can save even at the
+    last moment of life. Yet do not therefore presume too much, lest you
+    provoke Him to cast you off in His anger, and become fearful
+    examples of His wrath and indignation. Let me prevail upon you to
+    forget and forgive me all the offences and injuries I have committed
+    or promoted in action, advice or example; and entreat your prayers
+    for me that the Lord would in mercy look down upon me in the last
+    moment of my life.
+
+    His Prayer
+
+    Look down in mercy, O God, I beseech Thee, upon me a miserable,
+    lost, and undone sinner. Number not my transgressions nor let my
+    iniquities rise up in judgment against me. Wash me and I shall be
+    clean; purge me and I shall be free from offence. Though my sins be
+    as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow if Thou pleasest but to
+    receive me amongst those whom Thou hast redeemed, that I may sing
+    praises to the Most High and extol Thy Holy Name in the courts of
+    Heaven for ever and ever more. Amen.
+
+He suffered on the 27th of March, 1728, being then about
+eight-and-twenty years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [78] Trinkets and such trifles, not children's playthings.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of WILLIAM RUSSELL, ROBERT CROUCH and WILLIAM HOLDEN,
+Street-Robbers, Footpads
+
+
+Although the insolency of those street-robbers to whose gang the
+malefactors we are now speaking of belong be at present too recent a
+fact to be questioned, yet possibly in future times 'twill be thought an
+exaggeration of truth to say that even at noon-day, and in the most open
+places in London, persons were stopped and robbed. The offenders for
+many months escaped with impunity, until those crimes became so frequent
+and the terrors of passengers so great that the Government interposed in
+an extraordinary manner, a royal proclamation being issued offering one
+hundred pounds reward for apprehending any offender, and also promising
+pardon to any who submitted and revealed their accomplices. This brought
+numbers of young rash youths who had engaged in this wicked course of
+life to a violent and ignominious death.
+
+William Russell was descended from persons of honourable family and
+unblemished reputation. In his youth he had received a tolerable
+education, which even in his misfortunes rendered him more civilized
+than any of his companions. He was a young fellow of tolerable good
+sense, ready wit, and great courage; he always spoke frankly of the
+wickedness of his own life and acknowledged that sensual pleasures were
+only what he aimed at in the course of life he led; yet he had never
+been able to reap any satisfaction in them, but had been always
+miserable in his own mind, from the time he pursued those base methods
+of gaining money. His father being gone over to Ireland, and he left at
+liberty to pursue what methods he thought best, evil women and bad
+company soon prevailed with him to fall into those methods which
+afterwards led him to the gallows.
+
+Robert Crouch, the second of these criminals, was born at Dunstable, of
+very honest parents who afforded him as good an education as it was in
+their power to give; and then, upon his own inclination to follow the
+business of a butcher, bound him to one in Newgate Market, with whom he
+served his time. But as soon as he was out of it he addicted himself to
+gaming, drinking and whoring, and all the other vices which are so
+natural to abandoned young fellows in low life. Dalton, who was an
+evidence against him, was one of the chief persons of his gang, and
+specially persuaded Crouch to join with him, though he had very little
+occasion to fall into such ways of getting money, since his father was a
+man in very good circumstances, who designed to set his son in his trade
+in a short time, having not the least suspicion that this melancholy
+accident would intervene.
+
+William Holden, the third of these unhappy persons, was born of very
+mean parents, had little education, and had followed no particular
+trade, but had sometimes gone to sea, and at other times driven a
+hackney coach; so that throughout the whole course of his life he had
+been continually plunged in the grossest debaucheries, whereby he became
+ripe for such practices as he and his associates afterwards went upon.
+
+It does not appear, from the papers that I have, that any of these
+criminals had followed that infamous course of life for above a year,
+when Dalton, to save his own life, surrendered and made a confession by
+which these and the rest of ms associates were quickly apprehended and
+committed dose prisoners to Newgate. At the ensuing sessions at the Old
+Bailey they were all indicted for assaulting one Martha Hide on the
+highway, and taking from her a broad-cloth coat, value forty shillings;
+a looking-glass, value thirty shillings; a woman's nightgown; and other
+goods, to the value of thirty shillings more. To prove this charge James
+Dalton was produced, who swore that about nine o'clock at night himself
+and the prisoners overtook the prosecutor, Martha Hide, in Fleet Street;
+and observing that she had a bundle they resolved to take it from her.
+In order to accomplish their design they followed her into Lincoln's Inn
+Fields, where Robert Crouch, _alias_ Bob the Butcher, knocked her down
+and Russell took up the bundle and ran away with it. Upon their opening
+thereof the looking-glass fell out and was broke all to pieces. The rest
+of the things they sold to one Sarah Watts, who made it her business to
+buy stolen goods and kept what in their cant is called a 'lock', that is
+a place for the receipt of such things. Dalton swore, moreover, that not
+having carefully examined the things, they were extremely mortified to
+hear afterwards that there was forty shillings in specie wrapped up in a
+rag, which the woman that bought them got into the bargain.
+
+Martha Hide, herself, deposed that crossing Lincoln's Inn Fields she was
+knocked down and the bundle taken from her as Dalton had before related.
+One Solomon Nicholas deposed that not long after, Russell and Crouch
+quarrelling between themselves at a brandy-shop, Russell said to his
+companion, _If you offer to meddle with Nicholas I'll cut the coat off
+your back, for it's the woman's coat that we knocked down in Lincoln's
+Inn Fields, and I have as much right to it as you have._ It appeared,
+also, by another witness, that Crouch pawned an old coat to pay for the
+altering of this, and after taking off a cloth cape which it had at the
+time of its being stolen, he caused a velvet one to be sewn on in its
+room. Mr. Willis, the constable, was the last witness called for by the
+prosecutor. He swore that at the time that he apprehended the prisoner
+Russell, he acknowledged that the goods before-mentioned were stolen and
+sold for one pound two shillings, but said he did not value it, since he
+should die in the company of such brave fellows.
+
+The jury withdrawing after hearing this evidence, returned soon after
+and found them guilty, and sentence of death was passed upon them, at
+one of the fullest sessions which had happened for many years at the Old
+Bailey, there being twenty-two men and seven women capitally convicted.
+
+As these unhappy men could have little hope of life, considering the
+nature and notoriety of their offences; they ought certainly to have
+laid aside all other thoughts and have applied themselves strictly,
+beseeching pardon of God for their numberless offences against Him.
+Instead of this, there appeared too much affectation of unconcernedness
+in all of them, especially in Russell, who, being confined in the same
+cell with Holden, said to his companion a day or two before his death,
+with an air of indifference, _I'll undertake, Will, to procure a coach
+to carry off our bodies from the place of execution; but I must leave it
+to the care of your fraternity_ (meaning the hackney coachmen) _to
+prevent their being seized on by the surgeons._ Holden heard all this
+very gravely, assented to the proposition without altering his
+countenance or giving any other mark of his concern for that infamous
+death which shortly they were both to suffer.
+
+Russell also took a certain pleasure in speaking of the state of
+street-robbing at the time they left the world. He averred that the town
+was much mistaken in imagining that the king's proclamation had
+effectually crushed their fraternity, into which opinion they perhaps
+might be drawn by seeing so many of them perish in so short a time;
+which, he said, did not lessen their society, but would, notwithstanding
+that, put all that remained of them upon bolder exploits than ever, to
+show that they were yet unhanged. In which conjecture he was not very
+much out. However, he said, gentlemen might now safely walk the streets
+without fear of having their pockets picked, for that Benjamin Branch,
+who died the last sessions, and Isaac Ashley, who was to suffer with
+him, were the two neat masters in that way, and were capable of earning
+fifteen or sixteen shillings by it in two or three hours' time; sorting
+the fruits of their industry into several parcels, from the value of
+sixpence to half a crown apiece as dexterously as any milliner in
+London.
+
+After the coming out of the death warrant Russell laid aside much of his
+boldness, appeared with more gravity at prayers and expressed greater
+sorrow for his misspent life than he had done before. Crouch carried
+himself very quietly all along, but could not forbear being unseasonably
+merry and jocose upon several occasions, smiling at chapel and affecting
+to talk with greater gaiety than became his condition. He himself owned
+that this was very unbecoming in a person so near an ignominious death,
+but he said it was in his temper, and he could not help it. He frankly
+acknowledged the enormity of that course of life which for some years
+past he had led, acknowledged that on the coming out of the king's
+proclamation he had resolved on a four years' voyage to sea, but was
+prevented from putting it in execution by Dalton's information. As the
+time of their death drew near he became more and more sensible of his
+miserable condition and the danger there was of losing his soul as well
+as his body.
+
+William Holden at first denied very strongly his being in any degree
+guilty of the fact for which he died; but when he heard that Russell had
+owned it and at the same time confessed that he was concerned in it,
+thinking it no further use to adhere to that denial he retracted it and
+acknowledged that he had been a great sinner, and had committed several
+thefts before that for which he died. In a word, these three, as they
+had been companions together in wickedness and fellow-sufferers in the
+punishment which their crimes had drawn upon them, so they appeared to
+be all of them sensibly touched with sorrow and remorse for that
+multitude of crimes which they had committed, endeavouring to merit the
+pardon of God by hearty prayers and a sincere repentance. Russell,
+however, declared but a day or two before his execution that Dalton, the
+evidence, had proposed to him to join in that information he gave
+against their companions, but that he scorned to save his life by so
+mean a practice as betraying those who had received him into their
+friendship.
+
+Their deportment at the place of execution was resolute without
+obstinacy or impenitence, and the last moments of their lives were full
+of seriousness, without any marks of timorousness or confusion. Russell
+was about twenty-five, Crouch about twenty, and Holden somewhat more
+than twenty-eight years of age at the time they suffered, which was on
+Monday, 20th of May, 1728.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of CHRISTOPHER, _alias_ THOMAS RAWLINS; ISAAC ASHLEY, _alias_
+ALSEBY; JOHN ROUDEN, _alias_ HULKS; EDWARD BENSON, _alias_ BROWN,
+_alias_ BOYSTON; GEORGE GALE, _alias_ KIDDY GEORGE; THOMAS CROWDER;
+JAMES TOON; JOHN HORNBY; WILLIAM SEFTON; and RICHARD NICHOLS, Thieves,
+Street-Robbers, Housebreakers, etc.
+
+
+Although the several criminals whose lives we are now going to relate do
+not so well tally with one another, they having been of different gangs
+and dying for various offences, yet as they were all apprehended in
+consequence of the before-mentioned proclamation, were street-robbers
+and most of them not unknown to each other, I thought it would be better
+to speak of them here all at once rather than divide them into several
+lives. I have very little to say of any of them worthy the attention of
+the reader.
+
+To begin, then, with Christopher, _alias_ Thomas Rawlins. He was the son
+of very honest parents here in town, who brought him up as well as their
+circumstances would permit, and when he grew big enough to go out to a
+trade put him apprentice to a silversmith with whom he served out his
+time with tolerable reputation. But being a lad of great gaiety and
+spirit, having much addicted himself to the company of young fellows of
+a like disposition, frequented dancing meetings, and taken delight in
+everything but his business, such inclinations as these easily betrayed
+him to the commission of the greatest crimes and a certain alertness in
+his temper made him very acceptable to those debauched young fellows who
+were his usual companions to such places. Whether he was at first
+seduced by the persuasions of others to the committing thefts and
+robberies, or whether those necessities to which their extravagancies
+had reduced them put him and his associates on taking such measures for
+filling their purses, is hard to be determined. But certain it is that
+for some time before his being apprehended he had been very busy in
+committing such exploits and for his courage and dexterity was looked
+upon as one of the chief of the gang.
+
+Isaac Ashley, who was Rawlins's companion, and who went commonly amongst
+them by the nickname of Black Isaac, was a fellow of a very different
+cast. His parents were poor people, who had, indeed, taken as much care
+as was in their power of his education and afterwards provided for him
+as well as they were able, putting him out to a weaver in Spitalfields.
+But he made them a very ill return for all their care and tenderness,
+proving an obstinate, idle and illiterate fellow, willing to do nothing
+that was either just or reputable, and who, except for his dexterity in
+pocket-picking was one of the most stupid, incorrigible wretches that
+ever lived. He followed the practice of petty thieving for a
+considerable space, but though he got considerably thereby, he lost his
+money continually at gaming, and so remained always in one state, viz.,
+very poor and very wicked; which is no very uncommon case amongst such
+sort of miserable people, who lavishly waste what they hazard their
+souls and throw away their lives to obtain.
+
+John Rouden, _alias_ Hulks, the latter being his true name, had the
+advantage of a very tolerable education, the effects of which were not
+obliterated by his having been many years addicted to the vilest and
+most flagitious course of life that can possibly be imagined. The
+principles with which he had been seasoned in his youth served to render
+him more tractable and civilized when under his last misfortunes, unto
+which he fell with the two afore-mentioned malefactors; they being all
+indicted for assaulting one Mr. Francis Williams on the highway, and
+taking from him a silver watch value three pounds, two guineas and a
+moidore,[79] on the 28th of February, 1728. The prosecutor deposed that
+going in a hackney coach, between Wading Street and St. Paul's School he
+heard the coachman called on to stop; immediately after which a man came
+up to the side of the coach, presented a pistol and demanded his money.
+Four more presented themselves at the coach windows, offering their
+pistols and saying they had no time to lose. One of them thereupon
+thrust his hand into his fob and took out his money and his watch. Jones
+next produced the watch to the Court and said he had it from Dalton, who
+was the third witness called to support the indictment. He deposed that
+himself, the three prisoners at the bar, and another person not yet
+taken, were those that attacked the coach; that himself came up first
+and Rouden afterwards, who took the watch, as himself did the money,
+Rawlins and he secreting one guinea from their companions and afterwards
+pawning the watch for two guineas more.
+
+Mr. Willis, the constable, swore that having received information of
+certain disorderly persons, he thereupon went and apprehended Dalton,
+the evidence, who, making an ingenious confession, told him of the
+robbery committed on Mr. Williams and where the prisoners then were;
+whereupon he went immediately to apprehend them also. Dalton produced a
+pistol after he was apprehended, and declared that Rawlins had the
+fellow to it which was loaded with a slug. When they came to the place
+where the prisoners were, Rawlins and Rouden made an obstinate defence,
+sword in hand, and were with great difficulty taken, while Ashley hid
+himself under the bed, in hopes of making his escape in the confusion.
+Mr. Willis's brother swore to taking a pistol from Rawlins, such as
+Dalton had described, and which was loaded with a slug.
+
+The prisoners had nothing to say in their defence except flatly denying
+everything, and averring that they did not so much as know Dalton. But
+Mr. Wyatt being produced, swore to the contrary of that, affirming that
+they were very intimate and that they all lodged together at his house.
+The jury having received their charge from the judge, took but a small
+time to consider, and then returning, brought in their verdict that they
+were all guilty; whereupon at the close of the sessions they received
+sentence with the rest.
+
+Edward Benson was the son of very reputable persons in the City of
+London, who had taken all due care in providing him a suitable education
+with respect both to the principles of learning and of religion; and
+when he was at years of discretion, they put him out apprentice to a
+silver-wire-drawer. In himself he was a young man of good understanding,
+of a sweet temper and but too tractable in his disposition, which seems
+to have been the cause of most of his misfortunes. For during the time
+of his apprenticeship, being so unlucky as to fall into bad company, he
+was easily seduced to following their measures; although he was far
+enough from being naturally debauched, and seemed to have no great vice
+but his inclination to women, which occasioned his marrying two wives,
+who notwithstanding lived peaceably and quietly together. The papers I
+have do not give any distinct account of the manner in which he first
+came to join in the execrable employment of plundering and robbing in
+the streets, and therefore it may be presumed he was drawn into it by
+his companions whom we are next to mention.
+
+George Gale, _alias_ Kiddy George, was a perfect boy at the time of his
+suffering death, and though descended of very honest parents, who no
+doubt had given him some education in his youth, yet the uninterrupted
+course of wickedness in which he lived from the time of his being able
+to distinguish between wrong and right had so perfectly expunged all
+notions of justice or piety, that never a more stupid or incorrigible
+creature came into this miserable state. Thomas Neeves[80], who had been
+their associate in all their villainies, was the person who gave
+information against him, Benson, and several other malefactors we shall
+hereafter speak of. Gale, as is common with such people, complained
+vehemently against the evidence who had undone him. As death approached
+he shed tears abundantly, but was so very ignorant that he expressed no
+other marks of penitence for his offences.
+
+Thomas Crowder was a young man of an honest family and of a very good
+education. His friends had put him out apprentice to a cabinet-maker.
+Before he was out of his time he thought fit to go to sea, where, for
+aught appears by our papers, he behaved himself very honestly and
+industriously. Coming home from a voyage, a little before his death, he
+was so unfortunate as to fall into the company of Neeves, the evidence,
+who, pretending to have money and an inclination to employ it in the
+Holland trade, prevailed on poor Crowder to attend him three or four
+days, in which space Neeves was married and had great junkettings with
+his new wife and her friends. In the midst of this they were all
+apprehended, and Neeves, with how much truth must be determined at the
+Last Day, put this unhappy man into his information and gave evidence
+against him at his trial, when Benson, Gale and this Crowder were
+indicted for assaulting James Colver on the highway, and taking from him
+a watch value forty shillings, and five shillings in money. For this
+offence, chiefly on the oath of Neeves, they were all capitally
+convicted.
+
+James Toon was another of those unhappy persons who suffered on the oath
+of Neeves. He had spent his time mostly upon the water, having been a
+seaman for several years, and after that a bargeman. He was a young man
+of tolerable good sense, very civil in his behaviour and in nothing
+resembling those who are ordinarily addicted to robbing and thieving.
+His parents were persons in tolerable circumstances, and had taken a due
+care of his education. The particular crime for which he died was
+assaulting James Flemming, in the company of George Gale and Edward
+Brown, _alias_ Benson, and taking from him, the said Flemming, a silver
+watch value forty shillings, and two guineas in money, the third of
+April.
+
+John Hornby had been bred for some time at school, being descended of
+honest parents, who put him apprentice to a joiner. But being naturally
+inclined to idleness and vice, in a short time he had occasion to take
+base and illegal methods to acquire money. His necessities were also
+increased through foolishly marrying a woman, while he was yet a perfect
+boy and knew not how to maintain her. Picking pockets was his first
+resource, and the method of thieving which he always liked best and got
+most money at; but being of a very easy temper, his companions found it
+no hard thing to persuade him into taking such other methods of robbing
+as they persuaded him would be more beneficial, and in this Benson seems
+to have been one of his chief advisers. In himself, Hornby was
+good-natured and much less rude and boisterous than some of his
+companions. He had been but a very short time engaged in the
+street-robbing practice and did not seem to have courage or boldness
+sufficient to make himself considerable amongst his companions in those
+enterprises, which in all probability was the reason that while under
+confinement they treated him but very indifferently, and sometimes went
+so far as to give him ill names and blows, which he endured without
+saying much, and seemed perfectly resigned to the several punishments
+which his own iniquities had brought upon him. The crime for which he
+died was a robbery committed on the highway, upon the person of one
+Edward Ellis, from whom was taken a silver watch, value four pounds, and
+two guineas in money.
+
+William Sefton was born in Lancashire, and during the life-time of his
+father received a tolerable education. But on his mother's marrying
+another husband, Sefton, who had been bred a barber and peruke-maker,
+finding things not to go to his mind, came up to London. But changing
+place did not seem to make him much easier, so that after having led an
+unsettled life for a considerable space, he became at length a common
+soldier. 'Twill be easily imagined that this choice of his did not much
+better his fortunes and possibly the company which his military life
+obliged him to keep served only to increase his courage so far as to
+enable him to take a purse on the highway; a practice he had pursued
+with pretty good success a considerable time before he was taken. But
+being a naming, close fellow, he robbed with so much precaution that he
+was little suspected until taken up for the offence for which he died,
+which was for assaulting Henry Bunn on the highway, and taking from him
+a silver watch, two pieces of foreign gold, and two pounds eleven
+shillings in money.
+
+Richard Nichols was a man in the middle age of life, of a grave and
+civil deportment, of good character, and who was a barber and
+peruke-maker. He had lived by his profession without the least suspicion
+of his being guilty of any such crime as that for which he died. He was
+convicted, chiefly on the evidence of Neeves, for feloniously stealing
+nine silver watches and a gold watch, the property of Andrew Moran and
+others in the dwelling-house of the said Moran. As there was nothing
+remarkable in this man's life, and as it did appear that he was not
+flagrantly guilty of any other vice except drinking and wasting his own
+money, so it would be needless to dwell longer upon his adventures prior
+to his condemnation; therefore we shall go on to speak of the behaviour
+of these criminals while they remained under sentence of death.
+
+Christopher Rawlins seemed to retain much of his old boisterous temper,
+and though he would bring himself to speak with more decency concerning
+the great duty of repentance which now alone remained for them to
+practise, yet in a little time he would fly out into strange and
+blasphemous expressions, for which being reproved by William Russell,
+whom we have before mentioned as being under sentence at the same time,
+he answered, _What does it signify to prepare ourselves, since we have
+passed through so wicked a life in this world and have now so short a
+time to remain in it?_ He frequently expressed a despair of God's mercy
+though after the death warrant came down he appeared somewhat more easy,
+and in a better disposition to offer up his prayers to the Almighty. As
+to the crimes for which he suffered, he readily and ingenuously
+confessed them, owning the justice of the sentence which had been passed
+upon him and expressed this sense of the multitude of offences which he
+had committed, such as he acknowledged deserved no mercy here, nor,
+without the interposition of the mercy of God hereafter. Yet in the
+midst of these expressions of penitence he could not forbear doing
+something in his old way, and a few days before his execution actually
+cut the tassels from the pulpit cushion in the chapel.
+
+Ashley was very frank in his confessions of numberless thefts which he
+had committed in the course of his wicked and licentious life; but he
+peremptorily denied that he had any concern whatsoever in the robbery
+for which he was to die, and this was confirmed by Rawlins and Benson,
+who said that they, indeed, committed it, but that Ashley was no ways
+concerned therein. However, as far as his stupid disposition would give
+him leave, he sometimes expressed great penitence for the deeds which he
+had committed. Yet the Sunday before his death he stole five or six
+handkerchiefs at chapel, of which when the Ordinary spoke to him at the
+place of execution, he only said that it was true, but that he must have
+something to subsist on.
+
+Rouden acknowledged the justice of his sentence, that he was guilty of
+the crimes laid to his charge, and behaved in every respect like a true
+and sincere penitent. Benson showed the same easiness and sweetness of
+temper which he had always been remarkable for, even to the last moment
+of his life. He expressed, indeed, much sorrow for his having lived
+deliberately in a continued course of adultery with two women who both
+of them averred that they had been lawfully married to him. He frankly
+confessed his own guilt, and that the sentence of the Law was just,
+dying, as far as we are able to judge, in a composed and penitent
+disposition of mind.
+
+George Gale, though he owned he had for some time been a thief, yet he
+absolutely denied his having any concern in the robberies before
+mentioned; but he averred that Neeves, knowing his character, took the
+advantage of putting him in the information, as knowing that he had
+neither friends nor interest to make his innocence appear. Indeed,
+Benson did so far confirm what Gale had said that he owned he alone
+committed the robbery for which he was convicted, and to this they both
+adhered to their last moments at the place of execution, where Gale wept
+bitterly, and with all outward tokens of sorrow confessed the multitude
+of sins he had committed throughout the whole course of his life.
+
+Thomas Crowder persevered even to death in denying any concern with
+Neeves, further than his being deluded with the hopes of joining with
+him in a trade to Holland and France; yet the Ordinary tells us in his
+account of these criminals that he had reason to believe that Crowder,
+notwithstanding this, was guilty, because a gentleman averred that he
+had owned as much to him in the chapel the very day he died.
+
+James Toon continued to behave with a uniform submission to the decrees
+of Providence, absolutely denied his being guilty of the fact for which
+he was convicted, yet acknowledged that he had led a very sinful life,
+and therefore looked on it as a great mercy of the Providence of God
+that he had so much time to reflect and repent in. Hornby wept and
+lamented grievously for the miseries which he had brought on himself and
+those who were related to him, said he had for a long time been guilty
+of illegal practices, but would not acknowledge that he had been guilty
+of that for which he was condemned.
+
+Sefton appeared under condemnation to have a very just idea of the
+wretched state he was in, the necessity there was of preventing, by a
+thorough repentance, a yet more severe judgment than that under which he
+then lay. He acknowledged the crime for which he died, said he had been
+drawn to the commission of it by the persuasion of a person whom he
+named, and at the place of execution declared he died sorry for all his
+sins and in charity with mankind. He had hardly been turned off a minute
+before the rope broke and he fell to the ground, but the sheriff's men
+laying hold on him, he was soon tied up again and so executed in
+pursuance of his sentence.
+
+Richard Nichols, as he always behaved with great decency and was of a
+sober, serious and religious disposition, so he constantly affirmed
+(though without vehemence or any signs of passion) that he knew nothing
+of the robbery whereof he stood convicted, but that his life was basely
+sworn away by Neeves the evidence, without the least grounds whatsoever,
+he having never associated himself with street-robbers or been concerned
+in any sort of thieving whatever. In this he persisted to the time of
+his death, repeating it and averring it at the place of execution; and,
+indeed, there is the greatest reason to believe that he spoke nothing
+but the truth, because Thomas Neeves, the witness, when he came
+afterwards to die at Tyburn, did acknowledge that he knew nothing of
+Nichols, nor had ever seen him before his being committed at the
+Justice's, and begged that God would pardon his crying sin of perjury
+and murder in taking the life of an innocent man.
+
+These malefactors suffered on the 20th of May, 1728; Rawlins being
+twenty-two, Ashley, twenty-six; Rouden, twenty-four; Benson,
+twenty-four; Gale, seventeen; Crowder, twenty-two; Toon, twenty-five;
+Hornby, twenty-one; Sefton, twenty-six; and Nichols, forty years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [79] A Portuguese gold coin current in England, worth about 23s.
+
+   [80] See page 463.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of RICHARD HUGHS and BRYAN MACGUIRE, Highwaymen and Footpads
+
+
+Idleness, lewd women and bad company are the sum total of those excuses
+urged by criminals when they come to be punished, even for the most
+flagrant offences. With just reason Richard Hughs exclaimed on them all,
+for from youth upwards he had ever addicted himself to laziness and a
+dislike to that business to which he was bred, viz., that of a
+bricklayer. Following loose women was the thing in which he took most
+delight, and was probably the occasion of his subsequent misfortunes.
+The immediate cause of them was his acquaintance with William Sefton
+before-mentioned, with whom he joined in a confederacy to rob on the
+highway, a thing to which his necessities in some measure drove him,
+since he had squandered all he had in the world on those abandoned women
+with whom he conversed, and had contracted so bad a reputation that he
+found it hard to be employed in his business.
+
+Into this wretched confederacy entered also the other offender, Bryan
+Macguire, an Irishman born in the county of Wicklow. He had been bred a
+sawyer, but was never very well pleased with the trade which required so
+much hard labour. However, he worked at it some time after he came to
+England, but some of his countrymen persuading him that it was much
+easier to live by sharping, a practice they very well understood, he
+readily fell into their sentiments and soon struck out a new method of
+cheating, which brought them in more and with less hazard than any of
+the ways pursued by his associates. The artifice was this: by repeated
+practice he found a way to pull his tongue so far back into his throat
+that he really appeared to have none at all, and by going to
+coffee-houses and other places of public resort for the better sort of
+people, he, by pretending to be dumb and then opening his mouth and
+showing them what looked only like the root of a tongue, obtained large
+charities. He had great success in this cheat for a long time, but at
+last was discovered by a gentleman's blowing some snuff into his throat,
+which, by setting him a-coughing, detected the imposture.
+
+Then, being very straitened, he fell in with Sefton and Hughs with whom
+having cheated and tricked for a little space, they at last came all to
+an agreement of going together upon the highway and sharing their booty
+equally amongst them. However, their partnership was of no very long
+continuance, for in nine or ten days they were all apprehended and
+brought to condign punishment. Hughs had been a soldier as well as
+Sefton, and had quitted the Army to go upon the highway, which was a
+very luckless occasion for him. Being quickly apprehended he was charged
+with five several capital indictments, to all of which, when he came to
+be arraigned, he resolutely pleaded guilty; and when admonished by the
+Court that the crimes with which he was charged were felonies without
+benefit of clergy, he persisted therein, saying that he would not give
+the judge nor the gentlemen of the jury unnecessary trouble.
+
+Macguire was indicted on four of the indictments which had been
+preferred against Hughs, and capitally convicted upon them all. He was
+no sooner under sentence than he declared himself to be of the communion
+of the Church of Rome. However, he attended constantly at the chapel,
+seemed to listen earnestly to what was said there, and made responses
+very regularly to the several prayers, a thing which Papists very seldom
+comply with. However, Bryan appeared to be a very reasonable man in this
+respect, saying that he hoped God would be satisfied with that imperfect
+atonement which he was able to make for his offences, and would not
+impute it to him as a sin that he had taken all occasions which offered
+of presenting his petitions for remission. In this disposition he
+continued until the day of his execution, when both he and Hughs
+appeared very composed and penitent, desiring the prayers of those who
+were witnesses of their death, submitting thereto with all exterior
+marks of proper resignation, on the 26th day of June, 1728; Hughs being
+twenty-four and Macguire twenty-eight years of age or thereabouts.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES HOW, _alias_ HARRIS, a notorious Highwayman and Thief
+
+
+Though, generally speaking, the old saying holds true that nobody
+becomes superlatively wicked at once, yet it may be also averred that a
+long and habitual course of vice at last so hardens the soul that no
+warnings are sufficient, no dangers so frightful, nor reflections so
+strong as to overcome lewd inclinations, when their strength has become
+increased by a long unrestrained indulgence.
+
+The criminal of whom we are now to speak was a native of the town of
+Windsor, in the county of Berks. His parents were honest people in
+middling circumstances, who yet took such care of his education that he
+was fit for any business to which he would have applied himself. But
+he, on the contrary, continuing to lead a lazy and indolent course of
+life, sauntering from one place to another, and preferring want and
+idleness to industry and labour, at last became so burdensome to his
+relations that with much ado they sent him to sea. There being of a
+robust constitution and of a bold, daring spirit, he quickly gained some
+preferment in the ship on board of which he sailed and might possibly
+have done very well if he had continued at sea for any time, having the
+good luck to serve on board the admiral's vessel, and to be taken notice
+of as a sprightly young fellow, capable of coming to good.
+
+But alas! James soon blasted this prospect of good fortune, for no
+sooner was he on shore than laying aside all the views he had formed of
+rising in the Navy, he associated himself with some of his old
+companions. They persuaded him to take a purse, as the shortest and
+easiest method of supporting those expenses into which his inclinations
+for sensual pleasures naturally plunged him. He too easily listened to
+their persuasions and from that time forward he left nothing unstolen
+upon which he could lay his fingers.
+
+Punishment did not pursue his crimes with a leaden pace; on the
+contrary, he had scarce offended ere she made him sensible of the
+offences. Bridewells, prisons, duckings, lashings, and beatings of hemp
+were made familiar to him by his running through them several times in
+the space of a few years. At length, as he increased the guilt of his
+crimes, so he added to the weight of his sufferings; for after having
+been at Newgate several times for lesser offences, he was at last
+committed for a felony, and being convicted thereof, was ordered for
+transportation. Rightly conceiving that if he was carried into the
+Plantations he would be obliged to work very hard, which he most
+dreaded, in order to escape he forged a letter as from a certain man of
+quality directing that he should be set at liberty in order to serve as
+a good hand on board of one of his Majesty's ships. His old ill luck
+pursuing him, the forgery was detected and he was thereupon ordered to
+remain two years at hard labour in Bridewell; but when he was brought
+thither, the keeper absolutely refused to have anything to do with him.
+They knew him of old and said that he was a fellow only fit to make the
+other criminals who were there unruly, by projecting and putting them
+into way of making their escape. Upon this he was carried back to
+Newgate and remained a prisoner for that space of time.
+
+How he came by his liberty again I cannot take upon me to say; all that
+appears from my papers is that he made a very ill use of it as soon as
+he obtained it, returning immediately to the commission of those crimes
+for which he had before forfeited it. At length turning housebreaker he
+was committed for feloniously stealing five pounds out of the house of
+John Spence, for which fact, at the sessions following, a bill of
+indictment was found against him, and he was thereupon arraigned.
+
+At first he insisted that overtures had been made in order to procure
+discoveries from him, and therefore he desired that he might be admitted
+an evidence. The Court informed him that they would enter into no
+altercations with a prisoner at the bar; that he had heard the nature of
+the charge preferred against him; and that now they could hear nothing
+from him unless he pleaded guilty or not guilty. He persisted
+obstinately in his first demand, and in consequence thereof obstinately
+refused to plead. Whereupon he was told from the Bench that such
+behaviour was not a proper method to excite the mercy of the Court, that
+it was not in their power to comply in any degree with what he desired,
+but that on the contrary they should proceed to pass sentence upon him
+as a mute, by which be would be subjected to a much greater and more
+grievous punishment than if he were found guilty of the crime of which
+he was accused. All this made no impression upon the criminal; he said
+he could but die, and the manner in which he died was indifferent to
+him. And so sentence, as is usual in such cases, was pronounced upon
+him, and he was ordered to be carried back and put into the press. But
+when he had carried it so far, and found there was no avoiding that
+cruel fortune which was appointed for such obstinate persons as himself,
+he desired time till the next morning to consider his plea, which being
+permitted him, he that time pleaded guilty.
+
+While under sentence of death something very extraordinary occurred in
+relation to this malefactor. It seems that one Mrs. Dawson had a parcel
+of plate, consisting of two silver tankards, two silver mugs, a silver
+cup and a punch ladle, seven pounds sixteen shillings in money, and a
+great quantity of papers of considerable value, stolen out of her house.
+She suspected one Eleanor Reddey, and caused her to be apprehended, who
+thereupon confessed that she opened the door of her mistress's house in
+the night-time and let in one William Read; that she saw him take away
+the plate and watched, in the meantime, to observe if anyone came. Upon
+this confession she herself was convicted, but no evidence appearing
+against William Read, who was tried with her, he was acquitted.
+
+After she received sentence of death she declared herself absolutely
+innocent of the fact for which she was to die, affirming that as soon as
+she was taken up some neighbours persuaded her to make such a
+confession, and to charge William Read with stealing the things,
+assuring her that if she did so, she would preserve herself by coming a
+witness against him. Being a silly timorous creature in herself, and
+terrified by their suggesting that if she did not take the method they
+proposed, somebody would infallibly swear against her, she with much ado
+assented; and being carried before Justice Jackson, made and signed such
+a confession as is before mentioned.
+
+But How, _alias_ Harris, whose life we are now writing, declared that
+he, himself, robbed Mrs. Dawson, and that he had a considerable quantity
+of the plate and most of the papers in his power, offering to restore
+them if the said Mrs. Dawson had interest enough to procure a pardon
+either for himself or Eleanor Reddey. But the Ordinary assured him that
+Mrs. Dawson could do no such thing, and at the same time exhorted him to
+make what restitution was in his power, since otherwise his repentance
+would remain imperfect and small hope could be given him of his meeting
+with forgiveness from an offended God. At first this seemed to have
+little or no weight with the criminal; he expressed himself very civilly
+when spoken to on that head, but peremptorily refused to do anything
+towards making satisfaction to Mrs. Dawson, unless she could do
+something for him or the woman.
+
+But when death approached nearer he began to relent, sent for the
+Ordinary and told him that, as for the plate, it was indeed out of his
+power, but for that the papers, he had caused them to be brought in a
+box which he delivered and desired they might be kept carefully, because
+he was sensible that they were of great value to their owner.
+
+At the place of execution he seemed desirous only of clearing his wife
+from any imputation of being concerned with him in any of his villainies
+and then suffered with much resignation, on the 11th of September, 1728,
+being near thirty-eight years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of GRIFFITH OWEN, SAMUEL HARRIS, and THOMAS MEDLINE,
+Highwaymen and Footpads
+
+
+Griffith Owen, the first of these unhappy criminals, was the son of very
+honest parents who had given him a very good education in respect both
+of letters and religion. When he was grown up they put him out
+apprentice to a butcher in Newgate Market, with whom he served his time,
+though not without committing many faults and neglecting his business
+in a very marked degree, addicting himself too much to idle company, the
+usual incitements to those crimes for the commission of which he
+afterwards suffered.
+
+His companion Harris, if Owen were to be believed, first proposed
+robbing as an expedient to the supply of their pockets, to which he too
+readily gave way; and having once ventured to attack he never suffered
+himself nor his companions to cool. For the space of about six weeks,
+keeping themselves still warm with liquor, they committed five or six
+robberies, for which at last they were all apprehended. And as they had
+been companions together in wickedness, so they shared also in
+imprisonment and death as the consequences of those offences they had
+committed.
+
+Samuel Harris, though he had received a very tolerable education as to
+reading and writing, yet he never applied himself to any business, but
+served bricklayers as a labourer, in company with his fellow-sufferer
+Medline. But having been all his life addicted to lust and wickedness,
+he proposed robbing to his companions as the most feasible method of
+getting money wherewith to support their debauches and the strumpets who
+used to partake with them at their houses of resort. He confirmed what
+Owen had said, and acknowledged that during the time they continued
+their robberies, never any people in the world led more profligate and
+more uneasy lives than they did; being always engaged in a continual
+circle of drunkenness, violence and whoredom; while their minds were
+continually agitated with the fear of being apprehended, so that they
+never enjoyed peace or quiet from the time of their betaking themselves
+to this course of life unto the day of their apprehension and coming to
+the gallows.
+
+Thomas Medline was born more meanly than either of his companions, and
+had so little care taken of him in his youth, that he could neither read
+nor write. However, he applied himself to working hard as a labourer to
+the bricklayers, and got thereby for some time sufficient wherewith to
+maintain himself and his family. At last, giving himself over to drink,
+he minded little of what became of his wife and children, and falling
+unhappily about the same time into the acquaintance of the
+before-mentioned malefactor Harris, he was easily seduced by him to
+become a partner in his crimes and addicted himself to the highway.
+
+It was but a very short space that they continued to exercise this their
+illegal and infamous calling, for venturing to attack one Mr. Barker, on
+the Ware Road, and not long after Dr. Edward Hulse,[81] they were
+quickly apprehended for those facts, and after remaining some time in
+Newgate, were brought to their trials at the Old Bailey.
+
+There it was sworn by Mr. Barker, that he observed them drinking at an
+alehouse at Tottenham, the very evening in which he was robbed; and that
+apprehending them to be loose and disorderly persons he took more than
+ordinary notice of their faces; that about a mile from Edmonton church
+they came up with him, and notwithstanding he told them he knew them,
+they pulled him off his horse and robbed him of five pounds and
+sixpence; that returning the next day to the place where he was robbed,
+he found sevenpence, which he supposed they had dropped in their hurry.
+
+On the second indictment it was desposed by one Mr. Hyatt that he
+suspected the prisoners, from the description given by Mr. Barker and
+Doctor Hulse, to be the persons who had robbed them; he thereupon
+apprehended them upon suspicion, and that Mr. Barker, as soon as he saw
+them, swore to their faces.
+
+Doctor Hulse deposed that they were the persons who robbed him of his
+watch and money, and that he had particularly remarked Owen as having a
+scar on his face. Thomas Bennett, the doctor's coachman, swore that Owen
+was the man who got upon the coach-box and beat him, and afterwards
+robbed his master; that not contented therewith, they beat the witness
+again, knocked out one of his teeth, and broke his own whip about him.
+Henry Greenwood confirmed this account in general, but could not be
+positive to any of the faces except that of Owen. The jury, in this
+proof, without any long stay found them all guilty.
+
+While under sentence of death they all behaved themselves with as much
+penitence and seeming sorrow for their offences as was ever seen amongst
+persons in their condition. They attended as often as Divine Worship was
+celebrated in the chapel, and appeared very desirous of instruction as
+to those private prayers which they thought necessary to put up to God,
+when carried back to their several places of confinement.
+
+Harris seemed a little uneasy at the Ordinary's remonstrating with him
+that he was more guilty than the rest, inasmuch as he first incited them
+to the falling into those wretched methods by which they brought shame
+and ruin upon themselves. He answered that there was little difference
+in their dispositions, having been all of them addicted for many years
+to the greatest wickedness which men could practise; that his companions
+were no less ready than he to fall upon such means of supporting
+themselves in sensual delights. As he averred this to their faces they
+did not contradict it, but seemed to take shame to themselves and to
+sorrow alike for the evils they had committed.
+
+They ended their lives at Tyburn, on the 11th of September, 1728, with
+all outward signs of true repentance; Owen being twenty, Harris
+twenty-nine, and Medline thirty-nine years of age at the time of their
+execution.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [81] An eminent Whig doctor who was later appointed physician
+        to George II. He was created a baronet in 1739.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of PETER LEVEE, JOHN FEATHERBY, STEPHEN BURNET, _alias_
+BARNET, _alias_ BARNHAM, and THOMAS VAUX, Street-Robbers, Footpads,
+Thieves, etc.
+
+
+In the course of these memoirs I have more than once remarked that a
+ridiculous spirit of vainglory is often the source of those prodigious
+mischiefs which are committed by those abandoned persons, who addict
+themselves to open robberies, and the carrying on, as it were, a
+declared war against mankind. Theft and rapine may to some appear odd
+subjects for acquiring glory, and yet it is certain that many,
+especially of the younger criminals, have been chiefly instigated in
+their most daring attempts from a vain inclination to be much talked of,
+in order to which this seemed to them the shortest course. But these
+observations that I have made will be better illustrated from the
+following lives, than they could have been any other way.
+
+Peter Levee was descended from honest and reputable parents, who gave
+him a very good education, and afterwards bound him out apprentice to a
+silk weaver; but such as the perverse disposition of this unfortunate
+Lad, such his love of gaming, and such his continual inclination to
+debauched company, that nothing better could be expected from him than
+what afterwards befell him. Yet his understanding was very tolerable, he
+did not want a sufficient share of wit, and in a word his capacity
+altogether might have enabled him to have lived very well, if his
+prodigious vices had not prevented it by hurrying him into misfortunes.
+It was remarkable in this criminal that his long habit of carrying in
+the detestable trade of stealing, to which he had incurred himself in
+every shape as much as possible, had given so odd a cast to his visage
+that it was impossible for a man to look him in the face without
+immediately guessing him to be a rogue.
+
+While yet a boy, he had been so accustomed to confinement in the
+Compter, especially in Wood Street, that he had contracted a friendship
+with all the under-officers in that prison, who treated him with great
+leniency as often as he came there. Picking pockets, sneaking goods out
+of shops, snatching them through windows, and such other petty facts,
+were the employments of his junior years. As he grew bigger, he grew
+riper in all sorts of villainy, though never a fellow had worse luck in
+dishonest attempts, for he was always detected, and very frequently had
+gone through the lesser punishments of the Law, such as whipping and
+hard labour. At one time he lay four years in Newgate for a fine, and
+this finished the course of his villainous education, for from the time
+he got out, he never ceased to practice robbing in the streets, and on
+the roads to the villages near London, until he and his companions fell
+into the hands of Justice, and went altogether to their last adventure
+at Tyburn.
+
+John Featherby, the second of these criminals, had received a greater
+share of education than any of the rest. His father had been a man of
+tolerable circumstances, and with great care provided that this young
+fellow should not be ignorant of anything that might be necessary or
+convenient for him to know in that business for which he designed him,
+viz., a coach-painter. But he did not live to see him put apprentice to
+it, which his mother afterwards took care to do, and consequently he had
+not the misfortune of seeing him live so scandalous a life, and die so
+shameful a death.
+
+His understanding was tolerable, but his behaviour so rude, boisterous
+and shocking that he left no room even for that compassion to which all
+men are naturally prone when they see persons under sentence of death.
+The desire of appearing brave and making the figure of a hero in low
+life was in all probability the occasion of his acting so odd a part,
+and as he was generally looked upon as their chief by those unfortunate
+creatures who were of his gang, possibly he put on this ferocity in his
+manner in order to support his authority, and preserve that respect and
+superiority of which these wretches are observed to be inexpressibly
+fond.
+
+Stephen Burnet, _alias_ Barnet, _alias_ Barnham, which was his true
+name, was a child when he died, and a thief almost from his cradle. His
+parents, who were people of worth, sent him to school with a design,
+doubtless, that he should have acquired some good there; but Stephen
+made use of that time to visit a master of his own choosing, the
+celebrated Mr. Jonathan Wild, at whose levy he was a pretty constant
+attendant and while an infant he was a most assiduous companion and
+assistant to the famous Blueskin.
+
+My readers may be perhaps inquisitive how an infant of eight years old
+could in any way assist a person of Blueskin's profession. For their
+information, then, perhaps for their security, I must inform them that
+while Blueskin and one of his companions bought a pair of stockings, or
+two or three pairs of gloves in a large Shop, Stephen used to creep on
+all fours under the counter, and march off with goods perhaps to the
+value of ten, twelve, or twenty pounds. But, alas, he was not the
+youngest of Mr. Wild's scholars. I myself have seen a boy of six years
+old tried at the Old Bailey for stealing the rings of an oyster women's
+fingers as she sat asleep by her tub, and after his being acquitted by
+the compassion of the jury, Jonathan took him from the bar, and carrying
+him back upon the leads, lifted him up in his arms, and turning to the
+spectators, said, _Here's a cock of the game for you, of my own breeding
+up._
+
+But to return to Barnham. His friends no sooner found out the villainy
+of his inclinations, but they took all methods imaginable to wean him
+from his vices. They corrected him severely; they offered him any
+encouragements on his showing the least visible sign of amendment, they
+put him to seven several trades upon liking. But all this was to no
+purpose, nothing could persuade him to forsake his old trade, which
+following with indefatigable industry, he made a shift to reach the
+gallows of an old offender, at almost nineteen years of age.
+
+After he, Featherby, Vaux and Levee became acquainted, they suffered no
+time to be lost in perpetrating such facts as were most likely to supply
+them with money, roving abroad almost every night, in quest of
+adventures and returning very seldom without some considerable prey.
+Perhaps my readers may be inquisitive as to what became of all this
+money. Why, really, it was spent in drink, gaming and in whores, three
+articles which ran so high amongst these knight-errants in low life that
+Barnham and two more found a way to lavish an hundred and twenty pounds
+on them in three weeks.
+
+On one of his nocturnal expeditions, in company with Levee and
+Featherby, they robbed one Mr. Brown, in Dean's Court by St. Paul's
+Churchyard, of a gold watch and thirteen guineas; upon which the
+gentleman thought fit, it seems, to offer in the newspapers a reward of
+five guineas for restoring the watch. Not many days after, he received a
+penny-post epistle from Mr. Barnham, in which he was told that if he
+came to a field near Sadler's Wells, and brought the promised reward of
+five guineas along with him, he should there meet a single person at
+half an hour after six precisely, who would restore him his watch
+without doing him any injury whatsoever. At the time appointed the
+gentleman went thither, found Barnham walking alone, well dressed with a
+laced hat on, who immediately came up to him, and receiving the five
+guineas presented him with his watch.
+
+Mr. Brown having no more to do with him, immediately turned round about
+to go back, upon which Barnham produced a pistol ready cocked from under
+his coat. _You see_, says he, _it is in my power to rob you again; but I
+scorn to break my word of honour._ Levee and Featherby, it seems, were
+posted pretty near and, as they all declared, intended to have shot the
+gentleman if he had brought anybody with him, or had made the least
+opposition or noise.
+
+At Kingston assizes he was tried for a robbery committed in Surrey, but
+for want of sufficient evidence was acquitted, upon which he returned
+immediately to his old trade. About three months before he was
+apprehended for the last time, he came into Little Britain (the place
+where he was born), produced a silver spoon and fifteen shillings in
+money, declared it to be the effects of that day's exploits, and then
+climbing up a lamp-post, thrust his head through the iron circle in
+which in winter time the lamp is placed, declaring to the neighbours who
+called him and advised him to reform, that within three months he would
+do something that should bring him to be hanged in the same place. As to
+the time he was not mistaken, though he was a little out as to the
+manner and place of his execution, and we mention this fact only to show
+the amazing wickedness of so young a man, of which we shall hereafter
+have occasion to say a great deal more.
+
+Thomas Vaux was a fellow of no education at all. Whether he had been
+bred to any employment or not I am not able to say, but that which he
+followed was sweeping of chimneys, the profits of which he eked out with
+thefts, in which he continued undiscovered for a long space of time. In
+himself he was a fellow void of almost every good quality, disliked even
+by his own companions for his brutal behaviour which he still kept up
+even under his misfortunes, and ceased not to behave with an obstinate
+perverseness even to the last moment of his life.
+
+The fact for which all this gang suffered was for robbing one Mr. Clark,
+at the corner of Water Lane, in Fleet Street,[82] which at their trial,
+was proved upon them by witnesses in the following manner:
+
+Mr. Clark, the prosecutor, deposed that going in a coach from St. Paul's
+to the Inner Temple, he saw three or four persons dogging it from a
+toy-shop at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard; that he scarce lost
+sight of them until he came to the end of Water Lane, where Barnham and
+Vaux stopped the coach; he then looked out and saw them very plainly.
+Levee stepped into the coach, put his hand into his pocket, and tore
+his breeches down in taking out the things; Featherby all the while
+holding a pistol to his breast The things they took from him were a
+silver watch, value four pounds, a diamond ring, three pounds eleven
+shillings in silver and fourteen guineas.
+
+Then the confessions of Levee and Barnham before Sir William Billers,
+Knight and Alderman, were read, in which they owned that they committed
+the robbery on Mr. Clark, and that Featherby and Vaux assisted therein.
+Sir William also attested that they made the said confession freely and
+without any promises made, or being threatened in case of refusal.
+Thomas Wood swore that going to apprehend Featherby and one Cable, in a
+house in Blue Boar's Head Alley, in Barbican, they both snapped their
+pistols at him, but that neither of them went off.
+
+Mary Vaux, wife of the prisoner Thomas Vaux, having first excused
+herself from giving any testimony against her husband, deposed that she
+saw the rest of the prisoners commit the robbery at the end of Water
+Lane, and that Levee got into the coach. Upon which evidence taken
+altogether the jury found them guilty without going out of the Court.
+
+When they received sentence of death, they all behaved themselves very
+audaciously, except Levee who appeared penitent, and excused himself of
+the misbehaviour he had been guilty of at his trial. During the time
+they remained under sentence of death in Newgate, this last mentioned
+criminal, Levee, appeared truly sensible of that miserable state in
+which he was. He attended the public devotion at Chapel with great
+seriousness, except when his audacious companions pulled him and
+disturbed him, when he would sometimes smile. As he had passed through
+the former part of his life without thought or reflection, so he seemed
+now awakened all at once to a just sense of his sins. In a word, he did
+every thing which so short a space could admit of, to convince those who
+saw him that he minded only the great business he had to do, viz., the
+making of his peace with that God who he had so much offended.
+
+Featherby, as has been said, persisted in that brutal behaviour for
+which he had been remarkable amongst his gang. At chapel he disturbed
+the congregation by throwing sticks at a gentleman, laughing and talking
+to his companions, sometimes insulting and beating those who were near
+him, and in fine encouraged the rest of his companions to behave in such
+a manner that the keepers were reduced to the necessity of causing them
+all four to be chained and nailed down in the old condemned hold, for
+fear of their committing some murder or other before they died, which
+they often threatened they would do. There they continued for three or
+four days, until upon the promise of amendment and behaving better for
+the future, they were released, brought back again to their respective
+cells, and at times of public devotion up to chapel.
+
+When the death warrant came down, Featherby pretended to be much more
+moved than could be expected, seemed in dreadful agonies at the
+remembrance of his former wicked and impudent behaviour, prayed with
+great fervency, and said he hoped that God would yet have mercy on him.
+Barnham continued unmoved to the last. He did, indeed, abstain from
+ill-language and disturbing people at chapel, but employed his time in
+his cell, in composing a song to celebrate the glorious actions of
+himself and his companions. This was work he very much valued himself
+upon, and sending for the person who usually prints the dying speeches,
+he desired it might be inserted, but it containing incitements to their
+companions to go on in the same trade, in the strongest terms he was
+capable of framing them in, his design was frustrated, and they were not
+published.
+
+Vaux behaved a little more civilly after their being stapled down in the
+condemned hold, but throughout the time of his confinement appeared to
+be a very obstinate and incorrigible fellow. Levee was twenty-four years
+old; Featherby about the same age; Barnham near nineteen; and Vaux
+twenty-three, at the time they suffered, being on the 11th of November,
+1728, in company with nine other malefactors.
+
+    A Paper written by Featherby's own hand, which he delivered to the
+    Ordinary of Newgate in the Chapel immediately before they went to be
+    executed.
+
+    As it is my sad misfortune to come to this untimely end, I think it
+    my duty to acknowledge the justice of Almighty God, and that of my
+    country, and I humbly implore pardon of the Divine Goodness, and
+    forgiveness of all that I have injured, or any ways offended. It is
+    a sad reflection upon my spirit that I have had the blessing and
+    advantage of honest and pious parents, whose tender care provided
+    for my education, so that I might have lived to God's glory, their
+    comfort and my own lasting felicity. But I take shame to myself, and
+    humbly acknowledge that by the evil ways I of late followed I
+    neglected my duty to my great Creator, and brought grief to my dear
+    and tender mother. And having thus far, and much more, effended
+    against God and man, I hope and earnestly desire, that no prudent
+    nor charitable person will reflect upon my good mother, or any other
+    friend or relation for my shameful end.
+
+    John Featherby
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [82] Now called Whitefriars Street.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS NEEVES, Street-Robber and Thief
+
+
+There are some persons so amazingly destitute of reason, so exceedingly
+stupid, and of so sleepy a disposition of mind, that neither advice, nor
+danger, nor punishment are capable of awaking them; they pass through
+life in a continual lethargy of wickedness, nor can they be obliged to
+open their eyes even when at the point of death.
+
+How shocking, how horrid soever such a character may be, certain it is
+that the criminal Neeves, of whom we are now speaking, deserved no
+better. His parents, though mean, had not omitted the care of his
+education so far but that he had learned to read and write, which they
+thought qualification sufficient for the business in which they intended
+to breed him, viz., a cane chair-maker, to which employment they put him
+apprentice. He did not serve out his time with his master, for having
+got into an acquaintance with some lewd, debauched persons, he, whose
+inclination from his youth turned that way, went totally into all their
+measures, and quitting all thoughts of an honest livelihood, thought of
+nothing but picking and stealing.
+
+He associated himself with a woman of the same calling, who probably
+furthered him in all his attempts, in consideration of which he married
+her, and they were both together in Newgate for their several offences.
+In the former part of this volume[83] we have mentioned his becoming a
+witness against several street-robbers, who were executed upon his
+evidence; of whom George Gale, _alias_ Kiddy George, Thomas Crowder,
+James Toon, and John Hornby, denied the commission of those particular
+facts which he swore upon them, and Richard Nichols (who was a grave
+sober man) went to death and took it upon his salvation, that he was
+never concerned either in that act for which he died, or in any other of
+the same kind during the course of his life.
+
+As the town naturally abhors perjuries which affect men's lives, and are
+not very well affected towards evidences even when they do not exceed
+the truth, so the misfortune of Neeves being a second time apprehended,
+instead of creating pity, gave the public a general satisfaction. At the
+sessions following his confinement he was indicted for privately
+stealing out of the shop of Charles Lawrence a corduroy coat value
+thirteen shillings. In respect of this robbery, the prosecutor deposed
+that Thomas Neeves, about seven in the evening, came into his shop, he
+being a salesman, and enquired for a dimity waistcoat; one accordingly
+was shown him, but they not at all agreeing in the price, Neeves on a
+sudden turned towards the door, and having with some earnestness cursed
+the prosecutor, snatched up a coat and ran away. Upon which Mr. Lawrence
+followed him, crying out, _Stop Thief!_ which Neeves himself also bawled
+out as loud as he could until he was taken. Upon this evidence the jury
+found him guilty.
+
+Under sentence of death his behaviour was much of a piece with what it
+was before. As to his confession, he would make none, saying he would
+give no occasion for books or ballads to be made about him. Even in
+chapel he behaved himself so rudely that he occasioned great
+disturbance, and put the keepers under a necessity of treating him with
+more severity than was usual to persons under his miserable condition.
+When alone in his cell he expressed great diffidence of the mercy of
+God, seemed to be in a slate of despair, and though he was often pressed
+to declare whether depositions he had given against the afore-mentioned
+street robbers were true or not, he either waived making an answer, or
+used so much evasion or equivocation that it still remained doubtful
+whether he swore truth or no.
+
+As his end drew yet nearer, he appeared more and more confused and
+uneasy, but not a bit more penitent or ready to confess, notwithstanding
+that several persons, and some of them of distinction had applied to him
+in the cells and earnestly exhorted him to that purpose. He also drank
+excessively, though so near his end, and his conscience so loaded with
+such a weight of horrible offences.
+
+Yet it is very probable that he would have been much more tractable in
+his temper and ingenuous in his confessions, if he had not been
+continually visited and kept warm by a certain bad woman he at that time
+owned for his wife. This wretched creature was employed by some persons
+who thought themselves in danger if Neeves should once become truly
+penitent, to keep him full of idle thoughts and delusive promises to the
+very hour of his death, in which (from the temper of the fellow), they
+flattered themselves his cowardice would make them safe. In which wicked
+design both they and she succeeded but too well, for he continued
+careless, obstinate and impenitent to the last moment of his life, and
+at the place of execution staggered and was scarce able to stand,
+bawling out to a man in a coach who was to carry away his body, until
+the Ordinary reprimanded him and told him he believed he had drunk too
+much that morning; to which Neeves answered, _No indeed, Sir, I only
+took a dram._ He then besought him that a Psalm might be sung, which
+request of his being complied with, he yet could not forbear smiling
+while they were singing.
+
+[Illustration: AN EXECUTION IN SMITHFIELD MARKET
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+The father and wife of Mr. Nichols, the barber so often mentioned, got
+into the cart and earnestly enquired whether the deposition he had given
+against him was the truth or not. Neeves, thereupon, with tears in his
+eyes owned that it was not, and thence fell into a greater agony than he
+had ever been perceived in before, beseeching God to have mercy on him
+for shedding innocent blood, into which he had been induced by the
+persuasion of others, who represented it to him as a means for getting
+money both for them and him, owning that he never saw Nichols in his
+life before they were at the justices together. After this he cried two
+or three times unto God to forgive him, and so was turned off with the
+rest on the 27th of February, 1729, being then about twenty-eight years
+of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [83] See page 445.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of HENRY GAHOGAN and ROBERT BLAKE, Coiners
+
+
+Notwithstanding the number of those who have been executed for this
+offence, yet of late years we have had frequent instances of persons who
+rather than groan under the burden of poverty or labour hard to get an
+honest livelihood, have chosen this method of supplying their
+extravagances and consequently have run their heads into a halter.
+
+Henry Gahogan, an Irishman of mean parents (who had however bestowed so
+much education upon him that he attained writing a very fair hand), in
+order to get his bread set up the business of a writing-master in that
+part of Ireland, where there were few masters to strive against him.
+Here he behaved for some time so well, that he got the reputation of
+being an honest industrious young man; but whether business fell off, or
+that his roving temper could no longer be kept within bounds, the papers
+I have do not authorise me to determine.
+
+He went upon his travels, and passed through a great part of Europe in
+the quality, as may be conjectured, of a gentleman's servant, until two
+or three years before his death, about which time he brought over the
+art of coining into England, which he had been taught by a countryman of
+his, as an easy and certain resource whenever his difficulties should
+straiten him so far as to make its assistance necessary. This happened
+no very long time after his coming over thence, for in a short time his
+extravagancies reduced him so much that one of his countrymen thought he
+did him a great service in recommending him to one Blake, for an usher,
+which Blake at that time set up to teach young gentlemen to fence,
+having a school for that purpose near the Temple.
+
+Thither Gahogan came accordingly, and after staying for two days
+successively, and finding no scholars came, he opened the case to his
+master that was to have been and told him how easy it was to get money
+and live well, provided they had but utensils for coining, and soon
+after he showed him a specimen of his art, which he performed so
+dexterously that at first sight they promised themselves prodigious
+matters therefrom. They engaged one Ferris, who formerly had wrote as a
+clerk to a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn and the Temple, but adventuring to
+trust another person with that secret, he soon after made a confession
+and impeached them all. Upon which this Gahogan, Blake and the
+before-mentioned Ferris, together with two women, came to be tried for
+this offence on an indictment of high treason.
+
+The evidence was very clear, and notwithstanding the assurance with
+which Blake and Gahogan behaved at the bar, and the perplexed defence
+which was made by Ferris (who fancied himself so sure of being acquitted
+that he directed horses to be hired in order to his going down to a
+country assizes, there to assist as solicitor for a notorious offender),
+the jury, after a short stay, brought them in guilty, but acquitted the
+women, of whom the one was the mother of this Gahogan and the other the
+mistress or wife of the said Robert Blake, of whom we are next to speak.
+
+He was by birth also of the Kingdom of Ireland, his parents being people
+of some condition, who gave him a very good education and afterwards put
+him out apprentice to a linendraper. After he was out of his time he
+married a woman with some little fortune, by whom he had three children,
+and after misusing her greatly, went away from her into England. Here he
+led a loose, debauched life, and subsisted himself, to give it the best
+phrase, rather upon the ingenuity of his head than the industry of his
+hands. Here he found means to draw aside a farmer's daughter, to whom he
+was married, and whom he involved so far in his misfortunes, as to bring
+her to the bar with himself for high treason, where her marriage was so
+far of service to her that it excused her from bearing a share in his
+conviction.
+
+After they were found guilty, Gahogan expressed much penitence and
+sorrow, acknowledged the heinous offences of which he had been guilty,
+and expressed particular concern for the ill-usage he had given his poor
+mother, whom he had often beaten and abused, for whom he was once
+committed to Bridewell on that score, which effectually ruined what
+little reputation be had left. Before the day of execution came he was
+exceedingly poor and destitute, so that he had scarce clothes wherewith
+to cover him, or food sufficient to preserve that life which was so
+suddenly to be finished at the gallows. As far as we are able to judge
+from the man's outward behaviour, he was a sincere and hearty penitent,
+only it was with great difficulty he forgave the persons concerned in
+his prosecution, which however at last he declared he did, and passed
+with great resignation and piety, though by a violent death from this
+world to another, and we may charitably hope, a better.
+
+As to Blake, his behaviour was not so much of a piece at first, but when
+he perceived death inevitable, notwithstanding his having procured a
+reprieve for a week, and thereby escaped dying with his companion
+Gahogan, the prospect of his approaching dissolution wrought so far upon
+him that with much seeming penitence he made a frank confession of all
+his offences, reflecting chiefly on himself for having deserted his
+wife, and living for so many years with other women. When the week for
+which he had procured a reprieve was expired, he was carried alone on a
+hurdle, which is usual in cases of high treason, and being come to the
+place of execution he stood up and spoke to those who were present in
+the following terms:
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I am brought here justly to suffer death for an offence the nature
+    of which I did not so well comprehend at the time I committed it. I
+    have been the greatest of all sinners, addicted to every kind of
+    lust, and guilty of every manner of crime, excepting that of murder
+    only. You that are assembled here to see the unfortunate exit of an
+    unhappy man, take warning from my fate, and avoid falling into those
+    extravagancies which necessarily bring persons to those straits
+    which have forced me upon taking undue courses for a supply. This is
+    the end proposed by the Law for making me a spectacle, and I pray
+    God with my last breath that you may make that use of it.
+
+After this he betook himself to some private devotions, and then
+suffered with great constancy and resignation of mind. He was executed
+on the 31st of March, 1729, being then about thirty-eight years of age.
+Gahogan died on the 24th of the same month, being then thirty years of
+age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of PETER KELLEY, _alias_ OWEN, _alias_ NISBET, a Murderer
+
+
+Whether there be really any gradation in crimes, or whether we do not
+mistake in supposing the transgression of one Law of God more heinous
+than that of another, would be a point too difficult and too abstract
+for us to enter into, but as human nature is more shocked at the
+shedding of blood than at any other offence, we may be allowed to treat
+those who are guilty of it as bloody and unnatural men, who besides
+their losing all respect towards the laws of God, show also a want of
+that compassion and tenderness which seems incident to the human
+species.
+
+The unhappy person of whom we are now to speak, was by birth an
+Irishman, and his true name Mackhuen, but upon his coming over into
+England he thought fit to change it for Owen, thereby inclining to avoid
+being taken for any other person than an Englishman. His parents were,
+it seems, persons so low in the world that they could not afford him any
+education, so that he was unable either to write or read at the time of
+his death. However, they put him out apprentice to a weaver, with whom
+having served his time, he came over to England, and worked for a little
+time at his trade. But growing idle, and being always inclined to
+sotting, he chose rather to go errands, or to do anything rather than
+work any longer.
+
+It seems he played with great dexterity upon two jews' harps at a time,
+and this serving to entertain people of as loose and idle a disposition
+as himself, he thereby got a good deal of money, or least drink (which
+was to him all one, for without it he could not live), and his delight
+in an alehouse was so great that he seldom cared to be out of it. People
+in such houses finding they got money by his playing upon the jews'
+harp, and thereby keeping people longer at the pot than otherwise they
+were inclined to stay, used to encourage Peter by helping him to
+errands; but amongst all the persons who were so kind as to supply his
+necessities, there was one Nisbet, an old joiner in the neighbourhood,
+who was never weary of doing him kindnesses. Having repeated these often
+and for a long time together, Kelley at last began to call the old man
+father, and there seemed to be an inviolable friendship between them,
+Peter always preserving some respect towards him, though he seemed to
+have lost it towards everybody else.
+
+One night, however, or rather morning, for it was near two o'clock,
+Kelley came with many signs of terror and confusion to the watch-house,
+and there told the constable and attendants that old Nisbet was
+murdered and lay weltering in his bed and a razor by him. The watch,
+knowing Peter to be a wild, half-witted drunken fellow, gave little heed
+to his discourse, and so far they were from crediting it that they
+turned him out of the watch-house, and bid him get about his business.
+In the morning old Nisbet's lodgers not hearing him stir at his usual
+hour, went to the door, and there made a noise in order to awake him.
+Having no answer upon that, they sent for a proper officer and broke the
+door open, where they found the old man with his throat cut in a most
+barbarous fashion, overflowed with the torrent of his own blood, which
+was yet warm. No sooner did the particulars of this horrid murder begin
+to make a noise, but the watch calling to mind what Kelley had told
+them, immediately suspected him for the murder, and caused him quickly
+to be apprehended and committed to Newgate.
+
+On the trial the strongest circumstances imaginable appeared against
+him, so much that the jury, without much hesitation, found him guilty,
+and he, after a pathetic speech from the Bench, of the nature and
+circumstances of his bloody crime, received sentence of death with the
+rest. Under conviction he appeared a very stupid creature, though as far
+as his capacity would give him leave he showed all imaginable signs of
+penitence and sorrow, and attended with great gravity and devotion at
+the public service in the chapel, notwithstanding he professed himself
+to be in the communion of the Church of Rome. He acknowledged the
+deceased Mr. Nisbet to have been extraordinarily kind and charitable to
+him, even to as great a degree as if he had been his own child, but as
+to the murder, he flatly denied his committing it, or his having any
+knowledge of its being committed; and though he was strongly pressed as
+to the nature of those circumstances on which the jury had found him
+guilty, and which were so strong as to persuade all mankind that their
+verdict was just, yet he continued still in the same mind, protesting
+his own clearness from that bloody and detestable crime. In this
+disposition of mind he suffered at Tyburn, being at that time about
+forty years of age or somewhat under.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of WILLIAM MARPLE and TIMOTHY COTTON, Highwaymen
+
+
+That violence with which, in this age, young people pursue the
+gratification of their passions without considering how far they therein
+violate the laws of God and their country, is the common and natural
+source of those many and great afflictions which fall upon them; and
+though they do now always bring them to such exemplary punishment as
+befel the criminal whose memoirs we have undertaken to transmit to
+posterity, yet they fail not of making them exceedingly uneasy and
+grievously unhappy, consequences unavoidably entailed on these
+destructive pleasures, so contrary to the nature of man's soul, and so
+derogatory from that excellence to the attainment of which he was
+created. Although one would imagine these observations must naturally
+occur at some time or other to the minds of persons who ever think at
+all concerning the design of their own being yet experience convinces us
+that they very seldom do, and if they do, they make but very little
+impression.
+
+William Marple, the first of these criminals, was descended from parents
+of very tolerable fortune, as well as unblemished reputation. Their care
+had not only gone so far in providing him with useful and common
+learning, but had also been careful in bestowing on him an excellent
+education in schools both in town and country. The use he made of them
+you will quickly hear, which cannot however be mentioned as a reflection
+on his unhappy parents, who were as industrious to have him taught good,
+as he was in pursuing evil.
+
+When he grew to years capable of being put out to business, the
+unsettled giddiness of his temper sufficiently appeared, for being put
+out to three several trades at his own request, he could not bring
+himself to any of them, but went at last to a fourth which was that of a
+joiner, with whom he stayed a considerable space. But before the
+expiration of his time he fell in love with a young woman and married
+her, which coming with other stories to his master's ears, occasioned
+such difference that they parted.
+
+Marple was prodigiously fond of his new married wife, and what is a
+pretty rare circumstance in this age, his fondness proved the greatest
+advantage possible to him, for the young woman being in herself both
+virtuous and industrious, her temper (as it is natural for us to imitate
+what we love) made so great an impression upon Marple that from a wild,
+loose and extravagant young man, he became a sober, diligent and honest
+workman, labouring hard to get his bread, and living at home with his
+wife in the greatest tranquility and with the utmost satisfaction. But
+the agreeable beauty of this scene was soon darkened, or rather totally
+destroyed, by the death of his wife; for no sooner were the transports
+of his melancholy over than he returned to his old course of life. And
+in order to efface effectually that grief which still hung over him, he
+removed out of town to an adjacent village, where he quickly contracted
+an intimate acquaintance with a young woman, and thereby almost at once
+put all thoughts of sorrow and honesty quite out of his head. This
+creature was of a very different disposition from Marple's late wife.
+She had no regard for the man, farther than she was able to get money
+out of him; and provided she had wherewith to buy her fine clothes and
+keep her in handsome lodgings, she gave herself no trouble how he came
+by it, and this carriage of hers in a short time put him upon illegal
+methods of obtaining money.
+
+Who were his first companions in his robberies is not in my power to
+say; it was generally looked upon that one Rouden seduced him, but
+Marple declared this to be false, and perhaps the best account that can
+be given is that he was led to it by his own evil inclinations, and his
+necessities in which they had brought him. However it were, during the
+time he practised going upon the road nobody committed more robberies
+than he himself did, preying alike upon all sorts of people, and taking
+from the poor what little they had, as well as plundering the rich of
+what they could much better spare.
+
+In Marylebone Fields he and his companion Cotton met with a poor woman
+with a basket on her head, who gained her livelihood by selling joints
+of meat to gentlemen's families. The first thing they did was to search
+her basket, in which there was a fine leg of mutton, which these
+gentlemen thought fit to dress and eat next day for dinner. They then
+commanded her to deliver her money, which she declared was a thing out
+of her power, because she had none about her; upon which they took her
+pocket and turned it out, where finding seven shillings, Marple struck
+and abused the woman for daring to tell him a lie.
+
+Amongst the rest of the acquaintance that Marple picked up, was a young
+man who had a very rich uncle who, though he was very willing to do
+anything which might be for the real good of his nephew, did not think
+it at all reasonable to waste his fortune in the supply of the young
+man's extravagances. This spark, with another, acquainted Marple how
+easy a thing it would be to rob the old man of a considerable sum of
+money. They readily came into the project, and accordingly it was put
+into execution; Marple and the nephew actually committing the robbery,
+and the other man standing at the door till they came out. The booty
+they got was about thirty-six guineas, which they divided into three
+parts. In a very short time, Marple was apprehended and committed to
+Newgate for this very fact. However, the old man would not prosecute
+him, because he would not expose his relation.
+
+Yet this was no warning to Marple who continued his old trade, and
+committed thirty or forty robberies in a very short space. Drinking was
+a vice he abhorred, and the chief cause for which he addicted himself to
+this life of rapine was his associating himself with all sorts of lewd
+women, amongst whom he became acquainted with the infamous Elizabeth
+Lion,[84] mistress to Jack Shepherd, who grew quickly too impudent and
+abusive for Marple's conversation, for when he fell under his
+misfortunes he declared that she was the vilest and most abominable
+wretch that ever lived. However, to the immodest, lascivious carriage of
+this woman, he owed the sudden dislike he took to that sort of cattle;
+which became so strong that he no longer frequented their company, but
+married a second wife, a young woman of a handsome person, of a good
+character, and who, as he said, was totally ignorant of the measures he
+took for getting money.
+
+Timothy Cotton, the second of these malefactors, was descended of mean,
+yet honest parents, who in his infancy had not spared to give him a very
+good education, and bred him to get an honest livelihood to the trade of
+a poulterer. In this, when he grew up, he was for a time very
+industrious, and got thereby sufficient to have maintained himself and
+his family, as well as he could reasonably expect; but happening
+unluckily to call into the acquaintance and conversation of lewd women,
+they soon took up so much of his thoughts, his time and his money, that
+he was obliged to think of easier methods of getting it than those to
+which hitherto he had applied himself. For it is a truth deducible from
+uninterrupted experience that a whore is not to be maintained at the
+same easy expense with a wife. Cotton found this to his cost, for he had
+not committed above five robberies, of which three were with his
+companion Marple, who had been his schoolfellow, before he was
+apprehended.
+
+The first of their exploits, I have already told you, was plundering the
+poor woman's basket. The second was upon the Hampstead Road, where they
+stopped the coach and robbed the passengers. Three gentlemen coming by
+on horseback, Marple presented his pistol, and commanded them to ride
+off as hard as they could; but the fear with which they were seized made
+them so far mistake his words as to apprehend he bid them deliver, and
+so they went very readily to work, putting their hands into their
+pockets to satisfy his demands. But Marple having no guess of their
+intention, and perceiving them to stand still, repeated his order to
+them to ride off, with greater vehemency than before, which as soon as
+they apprehended they very readily complied with, and rode off as hard
+as their horses would carry them. A little while after this they robbed
+one Stout, who was servant to Captain Trevor, of his hat, two pounds of
+butter, his buckles, five and sixpence in money, and some other trivial
+things. For this fact they were both apprehended, and at the next
+sessions at the Old Bailey tried and convicted upon very full evidence.
+
+Under sentence of death Marple appeared with less concern than is
+usually seen in persons under such unfortunate circumstances. He however
+confessed a multitude of offences with which he was not charged, as well
+as that particular crime for which he was convicted. He said he had
+never any strong inclination to drunkenness or gaming, but that
+addicting himself to the company and conversation of bad women had been
+the sole occasion of all his misfortunes. He particularly regretted his
+want of respect towards his parents, and especially towards his mother,
+who had given him the best of advice, though he had trifled with and
+abused it. He said that he often struck and abused those whom he robbed,
+but not so as to endanger their lives, and therefore he hoped they would
+forgive him, and join their prayers with his for his forgiveness at the
+hand of God.
+
+Cotton was more tender and more penitent, expressed great sorrow for his
+numerous offences, and besought Almighty God to accept of a sincere,
+though late repentance. They both of them protested that their wives had
+not anything to do with their affairs, that they never advised them, nor
+were so much as privy to the offences they had committed. Then both of
+them suffered with much penitence and resignation, on the 24th of March,
+1729, Marple being about thirty, and Cotton near twenty-five years of
+age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [84] See page 182.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN UPTON, a Pirate; including also the history of that
+sort of people, particularly the crew under Captain Cooper, in the
+_Night Rambler_
+
+
+No laws in any civilized nations are more severe than those against
+piracy, nor are they less severely executed, and the criminals who
+suffer by them are usually the least pitied, or rather the most detested
+of all who come to die an ignominious death by the sentence of the Law.
+Of old they were styled _hostes humani generis_, and the oldest systems
+we have of particular institutions have treated them with a rigor
+suitable to their offence. With respect to those who fall into the hands
+of British justice, it must be remarked that they usually plead as an
+excuse for what they have done their being forced into pirates' service,
+and as it is well known that numbers are really forced into crimes they
+detest, so the lenience of our judicators generally admit whatever
+proofs are probable in such a case. But where the contrary appears, and
+the acts of piracy plainly arise from the wicked dispositions of the
+offenders, the Royal Mercy is less frequently extended to them than to
+any other sort of criminal whatever.
+
+As to the prisoner of whom we are to speak, John Upton was born at
+Deptford, of very honest parents who gave him such an education as
+fitted their station, and that in which they intended to breed him. When
+grown up to be a sturdy youth, they put him out apprentice to a
+waterman, with whom he served out his time faithfully, and with a good
+character. Afterwards he went to sea and served for twenty-eight years
+together on board a man-of-war, in the posts of either boatswain or
+quartermaster. Near the place of his birth he married a woman, took a
+house and lived very respectably with her during the whole course of her
+life, but she dying while he was at sea, and finding at his return that
+his deceased wife had run him greatly in debt, clamours coming from
+every quarter, and several writs being issued out against him, he
+quitted the service in the man-of-war, and went immediately in a
+merchantman to Newfoundland. There by agreement he was discharged from
+the ship and entered himself for eighteen pounds _per annum_ into the
+service of a planter in that country in order to serve him in fishing
+and furring, the chief trade of that place; for Newfoundland abounding
+with excellent harbours, there is no country in the world which affords
+so large and so plentiful a fishery as this does. However its climate
+renders it less desirable, it being extremely hot in the summer and as
+intensely cold in the winter, when the wild beasts roam about in great
+numbers, and furnish thereby an opportunity to the inhabitants of
+gaining considerably by falling them, and selling their furs.
+
+Upton having served his year out was discharged from his master, and
+going to New England, he there, in the month of July, 1725, shipped
+himself on board the _Perry_ merchantman bound for Barbadoes. The ship
+was livred and loaded again, the captain designing them to sail for
+England, whereupon Upton desired leave to go on board his Majesty's ship
+_Lynn_, Captain Cooper. But Captain King absolutely refusing to
+discharge him in order thereto, on the ninth of November, 1725, he
+sailed in the aforesaid vessel for England.
+
+On the twelfth of the same month, off Dominica, they were attacked by a
+pirate sloop called the _Night Rambler_, under the command of one
+Cooper. The pirate immediately ordered the captain of the _Perry_ galley
+to come on board his ship, which he and four of his men did, and the
+pirate immediately sent some of his crew on board the _Perry_ galley,
+who effectually made themselves masters thereof, and as Upton said, used
+him and the rest of the persons they found on board with great
+inhumanity and baseness, a thing very common amongst those wretches.
+Upton also insisted that as to himself, one of the pirate's crew ran up
+to him as soon as they came on board and with a cutlass in his hand,
+said with an oath, _You old son of a bitch, I know you and you shall go
+along with us or I'll cut out your liver_, and thereupon fell to beating
+him fore and aft the deck with his cutlass.
+
+The same evening he was carried on board the pirate sloop, where,
+according to his journal, three of the pirates attacked him; one with a
+pistol levelled at his forehead demanded whether he would sign their
+articles, another with a pistol at his right ear, swore that if he did
+not they would blow out his brains, while a third held a couple of forks
+at his breast, and terrified him with the continual apprehensions of
+having them stabbed into him. Whereupon he told them that he had four
+young infants in England, to whom he thought it his duty to return, and
+therefore begged to be excused as having reason to decline their
+service, as well as a natural dislike to their proceedings. Upon which,
+he said, he called his captain to take notice that he did not enter
+voluntarily amongst them. Upon this the pirate said they found out a way
+to satisfy themselves by signing for him, and this, he constantly
+averred, was the method of his being taken into the crew of the _Night
+Rambler_, where he insisted he did nothing but as he was commanded,
+received no share in the plunder, but lived wholly on the ship's
+allowance, being treated in all respect as one whom force and not choice
+had brought amongst them.
+
+But to return to the _Perry_ galley, which the pirates carried to the
+Island of Aruba, a maroon or uninhabited island, or rather sand bank,
+where they sat the crew ashore and left them for seventeen days without
+any provision, except that the surgeon of the pirate now and then
+brought them something in his pocket by stealth. On the tenth of
+December the pirates saw a sail which proved to be a Dutch sloop, which
+they took, and on board this Upton and two others who had been forced as
+well as himself were put, from whence as he said, they made their
+escape. After abundance of misfortunes and many extraordinary
+adventures, he got on board his Majesty's ship _Nottingham_, commanded
+by Captain Charles Cotterel, where he served for two years in the
+quality of quartermaster. He was then taken up and charged with piracy,
+upon which he was indicted at an Admiralty sessions held in the month of
+May, 1729, when the evidence at his trial appeared so strong that after
+a short stay the jury found him guilty.
+
+But his case having been very differently represented, I fancy my
+readers will not be displeased if I give them an exact account of the
+proofs produced against him.
+
+The first witness who was called on the part of the Crown was Mr.
+Dimmock, who had been chief mate on board the _Perry_ galley, and he
+deposed in the following terms:
+
+    On the twelfth of November, 1725, we sailed from Barbadoes on the
+    _Perry_ galley bound for England. On the 14th, about noon, we were
+    taken by the _Night Rambler_, pirate sloop, one Cooper commander.
+    Our captain and four men were ordered on board the pirate sloop,
+    part of the pirate's crew coming also on board the _Perry._ Wherein
+    they no sooner entered, but the prisoner at the bar said, _Lads, are
+    ye come? I'm glad to see ye; I have been looking out for ye for a
+    great while._ Whereupon the pirates saluted him very particularly,
+    calling him by his name, and the prisoner was as busy as any of the
+    rest in plundering and stripping the ship on board of which he had
+    served, and the rest who belonged to it, the very next day after
+    being made boatswain of the pirate. The same day I was carried on
+    board the pirate sloop, tied to the gears and received two hundred
+    lashes with a cat o' nine tails which the prisoner Upton had made
+    for that purpose; after which they pickled me, and the prisoner
+    Upton stabbed me in the head near my ear with a knife, insomuch that
+    I could not lay my head upon a pillow for fourteen days, but was
+    forced to support it upon my hand against the table; and when some
+    of the pirate's crew asked me how I did, upon my answering that I
+    was as bad as a man could be and live, the prisoner, Upton, said
+    _D----n him, give him a second reward._
+
+It was also further deposed by the same gentleman that at the island of
+Aruba, the prisoner was very busy in stripping the _Perry_ galley of the
+most useful and valuable parts of her rigging, carrying them on board
+the pirate, and making use of them there. He had also in his custody
+several things of value, and particularly wearing apparel, belonging to
+one Mr. Furnell, a passenger belonging to the said _Perry_ galley; and
+when it was debated amongst the pirates, and afterwards put to the vote,
+whether the crew of the said galley should have their vessel again or
+no, John Upton was not only against them, but also proposed burning the
+said vessel, and tying the captain and mate to one of the masts in order
+to their being burnt too.
+
+Mr. Eaton, the second mate of the ship, was the next witness called. He
+confirmed all that had been sworn by Mr. Dimmock, adding that the day
+they were taken the pirates asked if he would consent to sign their
+articles, which he refused. Whereupon they put a rope about his neck,
+and hoisted him up to the yard's arm, so that he totally lost his
+senses. He recovered them by some of the pirate's crew pricking him in
+the fleshy parts of his body, while others beat him with the flat of
+their swords. As soon as they perceived he was a little come to himself
+they put the former question to him, whether he would sign their
+articles. He answered, _No_, a second time. One of the crew thereupon
+snatched up a pistol, and swore he would shoot him through the head; but
+another of them said, _No, d----n him, that's too honourable a death; he
+shall be hanged._ Upon this they pulled him up by the rope again, and
+treated him with many other indignities, and at last in the captain's
+cabin, pulled a cap over his eyes and clapped a pistol to his head; then
+he expected nothing but immediate death, a person having almost jabbed
+his eye out with the muzzle of the pistol, but at last they did let him
+go. He swore, also, that when the pirates' articles were presented to
+him to sign, he saw there the name of John Upton, he being well
+acquainted with his hand.
+
+Mr. Furnell, a passenger in the ship, was the third evidence against the
+prisoner. He deposed to the same effect with the other two, adding that
+John Upton was more cruel and barbarous to them than any of the other
+pirates, insomuch that when they were marooned, and under the greatest
+necessities for food, Upton said, _D----n them, let them be starved_,
+and was the most active of all the rest in taking the goods, and
+whatever he could lay his hands on out of the _Perry_ galley.
+
+In his defence the prisoner would fain have suggested that what the
+witnesses had sworn against him was chiefly occasioned by a malicious
+spleen they had against him. He asserted that he was forced by the
+pirates to become one of their number and was so far from concerned with
+them voluntarily that he proposed to the mate, after they were taken, to
+regain the ship, urging that there were but thirteen of the pirates on
+board, and they all drunk, and no less than nine of their own men left
+there who were all sober; that the mate's heart failed him, and instead
+of complying with his motion, said, _This is a dangerous thing to speak
+of; if it should come to the pirates' ears we shall be all murdered_,
+and therefore entreated the prisoner not to speak of it any more. The
+mate denied every syllable of this, and so the prisoner's assertions did
+not weigh at all with the jury. After they had brought in their verdict,
+Mr. Upton said to those who swore against him, _Lord! What have you
+three done?_
+
+Under sentence of death he behaved himself with much courage, and yet
+with great penitence. He denied part of the charge, viz., that he was
+willingly one of the pirates, but as to the other facts, he confessed
+them with very little alteration. He averred that the course of his life
+had been very wicked and debauched, for which he expressed much sorrow,
+and to the day of his death behaved himself with all outward mark of
+true repentance. At the place of execution, he was asked whether he had
+not advised the burning of the _Perry_ galley, with Captain King and the
+chief mate on board. He averred that he did not in any shape whatsoever
+either propose or agree to an act of such a sort. Then, after some
+private devotions, he submitted to his sentence, and was turned off on
+the 16th day of May, 1729, being then about fifty years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JEPTHAH BIGG, an Incendiary, and Writer of Threatening
+Letters
+
+
+I have already taken notice in the life of Bryan Smith[85] of the Act of
+Parliament on which the proceedings against these letter-writers are
+grounded. One would be surprised that after more examples than one of
+that kind, people should yet be found so foolish as well as wicked as to
+carry on so desperate an enterprise, in which there is scarce any
+probability of meeting with success; yet this unfortunate person of whom
+we are now to speak, who was descended of mean parents, careful however
+of giving him a very good education, fell upon this project, put into
+his head by being a little out of business, and so in one moment
+cancelled all his former honesty and industry, and hazarded a life which
+soon after became forfeited.
+
+His friends had put him out apprentice to a gunstock maker, to which he
+served out his time honestly and with a good character. Afterwards he
+continued to work at his business with several masters and tolerable
+reputation, until about a year before the time of his death, when he was
+out of work, by reason he had disobliged two or three persons for whom
+he had wrought, and had also been guilty of some extravagancies which
+had brought him into narrow circumstances. These straits it is to be
+supposed put him upon the fatal project of writing a letter to Mr.
+Nathaniel Newman, senior, a man of a very good fortune, threatening him
+that unless he sent the sum of eighty-five guineas to such a place, he
+would murder him and his wife, with other bloody and barbarous
+expressions. This not having its effect, he wrote him a second letter by
+the penny post, demanding one hundred guineas, with grievous
+threatenings in case they were not sent. This soon made a very great
+noise about town, and put Mr. Newman upon all methods possible for
+detecting the author of these villainous epistles, and as everybody
+almost looked upon it as a common case, to which any gentleman who is
+supposed to be rich might be liable, such indefatigable pains were taken
+that in a short time the whole mystery of iniquity was discovered and
+Bigg apprehended.
+
+At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted capitally for
+this offence, and after the counsel for the prosecutor had fully opened
+the heinous nature of the crime, Peter Salter was the first witness
+called to prove it upon the prisoner. He deposed that Jepthah Bigg came
+to him where he was at work in the Minories, and desired him to go with
+him, having something to say to him of consequence; whereupon the
+witness would have gone to the sign of the Ship where he used, but the
+prisoner would needs go to the Sieve in the Little Minories. There he
+communicated to him his design, and then prevailed on Salter to go to
+the Shoulder of Mutton alehouse at Billingsgate, where Bigg directed him
+to call for drink, and to wait until a porter came to him with a parcel
+directed to John Harrison, when if he suspected anything, he should come
+to the prisoner at the King's Head alehouse, on Fish Street Hill. This
+the evidence performed punctually, whereupon Bigg sent him a second
+time to the Blackboy, in Goodman's Fields, where a second parcel was
+left, though of no value. Whereupon Bigg would have had the evidence
+Salter concerned in a third letter to the same purpose, but Salter
+declined it and dissuaded him as much as lay in his power, from
+continuing to venture on such hazardous things. Upon which the prisoner
+replied, _You need not fear. Nothing can hurt you; my life is in your
+hands; but if ever you reveal the matter, you shall share the same
+fate._
+
+John Long, servant to Mr. Newman, deposed that he delivered two penny
+post letters to his master on the 20th and 27th of March. Other
+witnesses swore as to the sending of the parcels, and the jury on the
+whole, seeing the fact to be well proved against the prisoner, found him
+guilty.
+
+Under sentence of death at first the poor man behaved himself like one
+stupid. He pretended that he did not know the offence that he had
+committed was capital, and afterwards exclaimed against the hardness of
+the Law which made it so; but some little pains being taken with him in
+those points, he was soon brought over to acknowledge the justice of his
+sentence, and the reasonableness of that Statute which enacted it into a
+capital offence.
+
+As the day of his death drew nigh he was still more and more drowned in
+stupidity and lost to all thought or concern for this world or that to
+come, at least as to outward appearance. Some said he was a Roman
+Catholic, but while the poor wretch retained his senses, he said nothing
+that could give any ground for a suspicion of that sort. He heard the
+discourses which the Ordinary made to him, with as much patience as the
+rest did, and when he visited him in the cell, did not express any
+uneasiness thereat. Indeed, in the passage to execution, there were two
+fellows in the cart who would fain have had the minister desist from his
+duty, urging the same reason, that the criminal was in communion with
+another Church. The man, himself, seemed stupid and speechless all the
+way, yet when he was turned off, the reverend Ordinary tells us, he went
+off the stage crying out aloud, _O Lord! etc._ This seems to me a very
+indecent way of concluding a dying speech, but as it is that which is
+generally used, I shall not stay to bestow any further reflections upon
+it. He died on the 19th of May, 1729, being about twenty-five years of
+age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [85] See page 221.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS JAMES GRUNDY, a Housebreaker
+
+
+When we meet with accounts of persons doubly remarkable for the
+multitude of their offences and the tenderness of their age, it is
+almost impossible for us to determine whether we should most pity or
+detest a mind so preternaturally abandoned to wickedness as to transcend
+its usual course, and make itself remarkable as a sinner, before taken
+notice of as a man.
+
+This was exactly the case with the unfortunate criminal whom we are now
+to mention. He was the son of parents in the lowest circumstances, who
+yet had strained those circumstances to give him a tolerable education,
+which he, instead of improving, forgot as fast as it was possible, and
+seemed solicitous about nothing but out-doing in villainy all his
+contemporaries of the same unhappy cast. During his junior years he
+addicted himself continually to picking and stealing whatever he could
+lay his hands on, and although his father had been exceedingly careful
+in causing him to be taught his own trade of a weaver, yet he seldom or
+never worked at it, but went on at this rate, from one crime to another,
+until he at last arrived at those which brought him to the ignominious
+end, and thereby rendered him a subject for our memoirs.
+
+At twelve years old, he took up the trade of housebreaking, to which he
+applied himself very closely, for the last six years of his life.
+Hampstead, Highgate, Hackney, and other villages round the town were the
+places which he generally made choice of to play his tricks in, and as
+people are much more ingenious in wickedness than ever they are in the
+pursuit of honest employments, so by degrees he became (even while a
+boy) the most dexterous housebreaker of his time; insomuch that as is
+usual amongst those unhappy people, the gang commended him so much, that
+believing himself some great person, he went on with an air of
+confidence, in the commission of a multitude of burglaries, in and about
+the streets of this metropolis.
+
+Young as he was at that time, he plunged himself, as it were with
+industry, into all manner of lusts, wickedness and illegal pleasures,
+which, as it wasted all he acquired by the thefts he committed, so it
+injured his health and damaged his understanding to such a degree that
+when he came to die, he could scarce be looked on as a rational
+creature.
+
+The offence which proved fatal to him was the breaking into the house of
+Mr. Samuel Smith, in the night-time, on the 31st of May, 1729, with an
+intent to steal. At his trial the prosecutor swore that between the
+hours of eleven and one of the dock of the night laid in the indictment
+he was called up by his neighbours, and found that his window was broken
+open; whereupon, searching about very narrowly, he at last found the
+prisoner got up the chimney, and landing on the pole whereon the
+pothooks hung. In his defence the prisoner told the Court that meeting
+with a person who said he lodged in the prosecutor's house, and it being
+late, he accepted the man's proposition to lie with him; thereupon his
+new acquaintance carried him to Mr. Smith's, let him in, and then ran
+away, so that he had never seen or heard of him since. This relation
+being every way improbable and ridiculous, the jury very readily found
+him guilty of the fact, and he with the rest, on the last day of the
+sessions received sentence of death accordingly.
+
+While he lay in the cells, his behaviour was as stupid in all outward
+appearance as ever had appeared in any who came to that miserable place.
+However, he persuaded his companions, of whom we shall speak hereafter,
+to attempt breaking out and to encourage them told them that there was
+no brick or free stone wall in the world could keep him in, if he had
+but a few tools proper for loosening the stones. These were quickly
+procured, and Grundy put his companions into so proper a method of
+working, that if a discovery had not been made on the Sunday morning in
+a very few hours space they would have broken their way into Phoenix
+Court, and so have undoubtedly got off. But as soon as the keepers came
+to the knowledge of their design, they removed the three persons
+concerned in it, into the old condemned hold, and there stapled them
+down to the ground.
+
+Then this lad began to repent. He wept bitterly, but said it was not so
+much for the fear of death as the apprehension of his soul being thrown
+into the pit of destruction and eternal misery. However, by degrees, he
+recovered a little spirit, confessed all the enormities of his past
+life, and begged pardon of God, and of the persons whom he had injured.
+If we were to attempt an account of them, it would not only seem
+improbable but incredible; and therefore, as there was nothing in them
+otherwise extraordinary than as they were committed by a lad of his age,
+we shall not dwell any longer upon them than to inform our readers that
+with much sorrow, and grievous agonies, he expired at Tyburn, on the
+22nd of August, 1729, being about eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOSEPH KEMP, a Housebreaker
+
+
+We have often, in the course of these lives, observed to our readers
+that loose women are generally the causes of those misfortunes which
+first bring men to the commission of felonious crimes, and, as a just
+consequence thereof, to an ignominious death. It may yet seem strange,
+how, after so many instances, there are still to be found people so weak
+as for the sake of the caresses of these strumpets to lavish away their
+lives, at the same time that they are putting their souls into the
+greatest hazard. If I may be allowed to offer my conjecture in this
+case, I should be apt to account for it thus: that in the present age,
+the depravity of men's morals being greater than ever, they addict
+themselves so entirely to their lusts and sensual pleasures that having
+no relish left for more innocent entertainments, they think no price too
+great to purchase those lewd enjoyments, to which, by a continued series
+of such actions, they have habituated themselves beyond their own power
+to retire.
+
+This unfortunate person, Joseph Kemp, was son to people in very mean
+circumstances, in Holborn, who yet procured him a very good education in
+a public charity-school. When of age to be put out to employment, his
+friends made him apply himself to the heads of the parish, who put him
+out to a glazier, with whom he served out his time with the character of
+a very honest young man. By that time his parents had thriven pretty
+well in the world through their own industry, and so, on his setting up
+a shop, they gave him sixty pounds to begin with. But unfortunately for
+him, he had ere now seen a woman of the town, on whom he had
+irretrievably fixed his affections, and was absolutely resolved on
+living with her, though ever so great ruin should prove the consequence
+of the purchase.
+
+In pursuance of this unfortunate resolution, he no sooner had received
+the aforesaid sum, but proposals of marriage were immediately offered to
+this object of his affections, notwithstanding that he well knew she at
+that time conversed with two men, styling each of them her husband.
+However, as Kemp was the most likely to maintain her in idleness and
+plenty, she, without much trouble, suffered herself to be prevailed on
+to let him, by a legal matrimony, increase the number of her husbands.
+This, as it was but probable, was speedily followed by his breaking in
+his business, and being totally undone, which, though it was a great
+misfortune, and an evil new to poor Kemp, only reduced the lady to her
+former manner of living, which was by thieving whatever she could come
+at. A little while after, she was ruined even in this business, for
+being detected, she was committed to Newgate, and was in great danger of
+lying there for life. Poor Kemp was still as fond of her as ever. He
+carried her all the money he could get, and lamenting to her that it was
+not in his power to raise more, she immediately flew into a passion,
+stormed and swore at him, bid him go and break houses, rob people in the
+streets, or do anything which would get money, for money she wanted and
+money she would have. He foolishly complied with her request and having
+provided himself with the necessary implements for housebreaking, he
+soon put her in possession of a large quantity of plate, which being
+converted into money, easily procured her liberty, the consequence of
+which was that she lavished whatever he brought her upon other men.
+
+Yet even her perfidy could not cure him; he was still as much her slave
+as ever, and failed not venturing body and soul to procure whatever
+might give her pleasure. In this unhappy state a considerable space of
+time was spent, until, for some other thievish exploits of her own,
+Kemp's wife was apprehended, convicted and transported. One would have
+thought this might have put an end to his crimes of the same sort, but
+it seems he was too far plunged into the mire of rapine and debauchery
+ever to struggle out, so that no sooner was she safely on board the
+transport vessel but he found out a new mistress to supply her place; as
+if he had been industrious in destroying his fortune and careful about
+nothing but arriving as soon as possible at the gallows.
+
+By the time he made his second marriage, which in itself was illegal
+while the first wife was living, his credit was totally exhausted, his
+character totally ruined, and no manner of subsistence left but what was
+purchased at the hazard of his soul and the price of his life; and as
+housebreaking was now become his sole business, so he pursued it with
+great eagerness, and for a while with as great success. But it was not
+long before he was apprehended, and committed close to Newgate for a
+multitude of charges of this kind against him.
+
+At the following sessions at the Old Bailey, he was indicted for
+burglariously breaking open the house of Sarah Pickard, and feloniously
+taking thence thirty-six gold rings and stone rings, three silver
+watches, several pieces of silver plate, and divers other goods of
+considerable value. The prosecutrix, Mrs. Pickard, deposed that her
+house was fast shut between then and eleven o'clock at night, and found
+broken open at five of the clock the next morning, and that one Kemp, a
+person related to the prisoner, found a short strong knife left in the
+yard, together with an auger, which he knew to belong to the prisoner.
+
+In confirmation of this Mr. Kemp deposed that the prisoner had shown him
+the knife; Joanna Kemp and Jonathan Auskins deposed likewise to the same
+thing, and Samuel Gerrard, the constable, swore that when with the two
+preceding witnesses he went to search the house of the aforesaid
+prisoner, and found therein several things belonging to Mrs. Pickard,
+the prisoner then confessed that he committed burglary alone and not by
+the persuasion or with the assistance of any other person whatsoever.
+
+The prisoner said very little in his own defence, and the jury
+thereupon, without hesitation, found him guilty; as they did also upon
+two other indictments, the one for breaking the house of James Wood, and
+the other for breaking the house of Mrs. Mary Paget, and stealing thence
+plate to a considerable value; the facts being dearly proved by John
+Knap, who had been an accomplice, and turned evidence to save himself.
+His last wife was indicted and tried with him, but acquitted.
+
+Under sentence of death he was seized with a disease which held him for
+the greater part of the time permitted by Law for him to repent, and by
+reason of that distemper he was so deaf that he was scarce capable of
+instruction. However, he appeared to be fully sensible of the great
+danger he was in, of suffering much more from the just anger of God than
+that sentence of the Law which his crimes had drawn upon him. He
+bewailed with much passion and concern that wicked course of life which
+for many years past he had led, seemed exceedingly grieved at the horror
+of those reflections, and to mourn with unfeigned penitence his
+forgetfulness of the duties he owed towards God, and to his neighbours.
+As the hour of death approached, he resumed somewhat of courage, and at
+the place of execution died with all outward marks of a repenting
+sinner.
+
+His wife came up into the cart and took her last adieu of him, in the
+most tender manner that can be imagined. He died on the 24th of August,
+1729, being then in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and left behind
+him the following paper, which seems to have been what he intended to
+have said to the people at the time of his death, and therefore we,
+according to custom, thought it not proper to be omitted in this
+account.
+
+    THE PAPER
+
+    Good People,
+
+    My father and mother brought me up tenderly and honestly, and always
+    gave me good advice, whilst I was under their care. They put me
+    apprentice to a glazier. My master not being so careful of me as he
+    ought to have been, I took to ill courses, and before my time was
+    expired, married a woman that brought me to this untimely end; for
+    she could not live upon what I got at my trade, and out of my
+    over-fondess for her, I did whatever she required, or requested of
+    me. At length she was taken up for some fact, and transported. Then
+    I married a second wife, and she was as good as the other was bad.
+    She would do anything to help to support me that I might not commit
+    any wickedness, but I could not take her advice, but still ran on in
+    my wicked course of life, till I was overtaken by my folly. For if
+    we think ourselves safe in committing sin, God will certainly find
+    such out, because He is just, and will punish accordingly. This my
+    miserable end, I would have all take warning by, and that they
+    follow not the devices of the world, the snares whereof are apt to
+    lead men into evil courses, unless they endeavour to shun them, and
+    seek the grace of God to assist and enable them for the good of all
+    men, and ask pardon of God for my evil doings, and forgiveness of
+    all whom I have wronged, and particularly the forgiveness of God to
+    those who have sworn away my life. I beg reflections pass not upon
+    my wife, for I declare, whatever wrongs she may have committed, was
+    through my persuasion, of herself being inclinable to good. I would
+    lastly request that the follies and vices which have brought me to
+    this untimely end may not by any means be a cause to afflict my
+    grievous parents, both father and mother, but would have all to
+    consider when ever they are persuaded to any manner of ways, tending
+    to their ruin, they would likewise remember to call upon God to help
+    and assist them, in shunning such, and all other wicked courses.
+    Good people, pray for me, that God may receive me through his
+    mercies, which I trust he will.
+
+    Newgate, August 22nd, 1729.
+
+    Joseph Kemp
+
+
+
+
+The Life of BENJAMIN WILEMAN, a Highwayman
+
+
+Amongst the many other ill consequences of a debauched life and wicked
+conversation, it may be reckoned, perhaps, no small one that they render
+men liable to suspicions, imprisonments and even capital punishment,
+when at the same time, they may be innocent of the particular fact with
+which they are charged; nor in such a case is the conviction of an
+innocent person so great a reflection on any, as on themselves having
+rendered such an accusation probable.
+
+Benjamin Wileman, of whom we are now to speak, was the son of honest
+parents in the city of Dublin. They gave him a very good education at
+school, and when he was fit to go out apprentice, his father bred him to
+his own trade, which was that of a tailor. When he grew weary of that
+business, he listed himself as a soldier, and in that state of life
+passed twelve years, a sufficient space of time to acquire those
+numerous vices which are so ordinary amongst the common sort of men, who
+betake themselves to a military employment. Then he came over into
+England and lived here, as he himself said, by working at his own trade;
+though certain it is, that he led a most debauched and dissolute life,
+associating himself with those of his countrymen who of all others were
+the most abandoned in their characters. In fine, in all the associations
+of his life he seemed to proceed without any other design than that of
+gratifying his vicious inclinations.
+
+In the midst of this terrible course of folly and wickedness he was
+apprehended for a highwayman, committed to Newgate, and at the ensuing
+sessions capitally indicted for two robberies, the one committed on
+William Hucks, Esq., and the other on William Bridges, Esq. On the first
+indictment it was deposed by the prosecutor that he believed Wileman to
+be the person who attacked him. John Doyle, who owned himself to have
+been an accomplice in the robbery, swore that Wileman and he committed
+it together, and that he paid Wileman five guineas and a half for his
+share of the gold watch and other things which were taken from the
+gentleman. As to the second fact, Mr. Bridges gave evidence that he was
+robbed on the highway and lost a sword, a hat, a pocket-book and a
+bank-note for twenty pounds. Doyle gave evidence in this, as in the
+former case, declaring that Wileman and he committed the fact together.
+
+Then Elizabeth Jones being produced, swore that the same day she met
+Doyle and Wileman booted and spurred and very dirty in Bedford Row, and
+that they showed her the bank note, which when shown to her, she deposed
+to be the same. Arabelle Manning deposed that on the night of the day
+the robbery was committed, the prisoner Wileman and Doyle gave her a
+dram at a gin-shop in Drury Lane, and that one of them let fall a paper,
+and taking it up again, said that the loss of it would have been the
+loss of twenty pounds.
+
+The prisoner objected to the character of Doyle, Jones and Manning, and
+called some persons as to his own, but the jury thinking the fact
+sufficiently proved, found him guilty on both indictments. Under
+sentence of death, his behaviour was very regular, professing a deep
+sorrow and repentance for a very loose life which he had led, and at the
+same time peremptorily denying that he had any hand in, or knew anything
+of either of those facts which had been sworn against him, and for which
+he was to die.
+
+Notwithstanding that the most earnest entreaties were made use of to
+induce him to a plain and sincere confession, yet he continued always to
+assert his innocence as to thieving, letting fall sharp and invidious
+expressions against the evidence of Doyle whom he charged with swearing
+against him only to preserve another guilty person from punishment, whom
+Wileman intended to prosecute and had it is his power to convict. The
+effects of his former good education were very serviceable to him in
+this his great and last misfortune, for he seemed to have very just
+notions of those duties which were incumbent upon him in his miserable
+state; therefore, especially towards the latter part of his time, he
+appeared gravely at chapel and prayed fervently in his cell until the
+boy James Grundy, whom we have mentioned before, put it in to his head
+to make his escape; for the attempting which they were all carried (as
+we have said before) into the old condemned hold and there stapled down
+to the ground.
+
+As there is no courage so reasonable as that which is founded on
+Christian principles, so neither constitutional bravery nor that
+resolution which arises either from custom, from vanity, or from other
+false maxims preserves that steady firmness at the approach of death
+which gives true quiet and peace of mind in the last moments of life,
+taking away through the certainty of belief, those terrors which are
+otherwise too strong for the mind, and which human nature is unable to
+resist. Wileman's conduct under his misfortunes, fully verified this
+observation in its strongest sense; he only retained just notions of
+religion and this enabled him to support his affliction after a very
+different manner from that in which it affected his two companions; or
+as it had done himself before, from a just contemplation of the mercy of
+God, and the merits of his Saviour, he had brought himself to a right
+idea of the importance of his soul, and thereby took himself off from
+the superfluous consideration of this world and stifled those uneasy
+sensations with which men are naturally startled at the approach of
+death. Yet he did not in all this time alter a jot in his confession,
+but asserted calmly that he was innocent, and that Doyle had perjured
+himself in order to take away his life.
+
+At the place of execution his wife came to him, embraced him with great
+tenderness, and all he said there in relation to the world was that he
+hoped nobody would reflect upon her for the misfortune which had
+befallen him, and then, with great piety and resignation in the midst of
+fervent ejaculations, yielded up his last breath at Tyburn, at the same
+time with the malefactor before mentioned, being at the time of his
+decease about forty-three years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES CLUFF, a Murderer, in which is contained a concise
+account of the nature of Appeals
+
+
+To curb our vicious inclinations and to restrain those passions from the
+sudden transports of which cruel and irreparable mischiefs are done, is
+without doubt the best end of all instructions; and for my own part, I
+cannot help thinking that this very book may contribute as much to this
+purpose as any other that has been published for a long time. That vices
+are foul in their nature is certainly true, and that they are fatal in
+their consequences, those who, without consideration pursue them, feel.
+There are few who will take time to convince themselves of the first,
+but no man can be so blind as to mistake the latter after the perusal of
+these memoirs, in which I have been particularly careful to describe the
+several roads by which our lusts lead us to destruction; and have fixed
+up Tyburn as a beacon to warn several men from indulging themselves in
+sensual pleasures.
+
+This unfortunate person we are now going to give the public an account
+of was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare
+Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught
+him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for
+business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower.
+There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did
+his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian
+religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just
+knowledge, and preserved a tolerable remembrance unto the time of his
+unhappy death.
+
+After he was out of his time, he served as a drawer at several public
+houses, and behaved himself civilly and honestly without any reflections
+either on his temper or his honesty until he came to Mr. Payne's, who
+kept the Green Lettuce, a public house in High Holborn, where the
+accident fell out which cost him his life.
+
+It seems there lived with him as a fellow servant, one Mary Green, whom
+some suggested he had an affection for; but whether that were so or not,
+did not very clearly appear, but on the contrary it was proved that they
+had many janglings and quarrels together, in which Cluff had sometimes
+struck her. However it was, on the 11th of April, 1729, Mary Green being
+at dinner in a box by herself, Cluff came in and went into the box to
+her, where he had not continued above four or five minutes before he
+called to his mistress, who was walking up and down, _Madam, pray come
+here._ By this time the maid was dead of a wound in her thigh, which
+pierced the femoral artery. There was a noise heard before the man
+himself came out, and the wench was dead before her mistress came in.
+
+However, Cluff was immediately apprehended, and at the ensuing sessions
+at the Old Bailey he was indicted for the murder of Mary Green, by
+giving her a mortal wound in the right thigh, of the breadth of one
+inch, and of the depth of five inches, of which she instantly died. He
+was a second time indicted upon the coroner's inquest for the said
+offence, and also a third time upon the Statute of Stabbing. However the
+evidence not being clear enough to satisfy the jury, on his trial he was
+acquitted by them all. But this not at all satisfying the relations of
+the deceased Mary Green, her brother William Green brought an appeal
+against him, which is a kind of proceeding which has occasioned several
+popular errors to take rise. Therefore it may not be improper to say
+something concerning it for the better information of our readers.
+
+Appeals are of two sorts, viz., such as are brought by an innocent
+person, and such as are brought by an offender confessing himself
+guilty, who is commonly called an approver. An innocent person's appeal
+is the party's private action, prosecuting also for the Crown, in
+respect of the offence against the public, and such a prosecution may be
+either by writ or by bill. As to the writ of appeal, it is an original
+issuing out of Chancery and remarkable in the Court of King's Bench
+only. Bills of Appeal are more common and contain in them the nature
+both of a writ and a declaration, and they may be received by
+commissioners of gaol delivery or justices of assize.
+
+Those which are in use at present in capital cases are four, viz.,
+Appeals of Death, of Larceny, of Rape and of Arson. The first is both
+the most common and that of which we are particularly to speak. It is to
+be brought by the wife or heir of the person deceased, unless they be
+guilty of the murder, and then the heir may have an appeal against the
+wife, or if he be accused the next heir may have it against him. The
+appellant must be heir general to the deceased, and his heir male (for
+by _Magna Charta_ a woman cannot have an appeal of death for any but her
+husband) and in the appeal also it must be set forth how the appellant
+is heir unto the deceased. As to the time in which an appeal may be
+brought, it is by the Statute of Gloucester[86] restrained within a year
+and a day from the time of the deed done. There is great nicety in all
+the proceedings on appeals of death and everything must be set forth
+with the greatest exactness imaginable. The appellant hath also the
+liberty of pleading as many pleas, or to speak more properly, to take
+issue on as many points as he thinks fit. He is tried by a jury, and on
+his being found guilty, the appellant hath an order for his execution
+settled by the Court; but when the appellee is acquitted, the appellant
+is chargeable with damages on such a prosecution, provided there appear
+to have been no just cause for the commencement thereof.
+
+But to return to the case of Cluff, which led us into this discourse.
+The evidence at his trial upon the appeal was, as to its substance thus.
+Mrs. Diana Payne, at the Green Lettuce in Holborn, deposed that the
+prisoner James Cluff and the deceased Mary Green were both of them her
+servants; that about a quarter of an hour before Mary Green died, she
+saw the prisoner carry out a pot of drink; that while she was walking in
+the tap-house with her child in her arms, she saw Mary Green go down
+into the cellar and bring up two pints of drink, one for a customer and
+another for herself, which she carried into a box where she was at
+dinner; that about four or five minutes before the accident happened,
+Cluff came in, and went to the box to the deceased, and in about four
+minutes cried out, _Madam, pray come hither_; that the witness thereupon
+went to the door of the box and saw the deceased on her backside on the
+floor, and the prisoner held her up by the shoulders, while the blood
+ran from her in a stream; that on seeing her, she said to the prisoner,
+_James, what have you done?_ To which he answered, _Nothing, Madam._
+Whereupon this evidence enquired whether he had seen her do anything to
+herself, he replied. _No_, the deceased at that time neither speaking
+not stirring, but looking as if she were dead. However, the prisoner at
+that time said he saw her have a knife in her hand in the cellar, and
+the witness being prodigiously affrighted called her husband and ran for
+an apothecary.
+
+Mr. John Payne, husband of the first witness, deposed to the same
+purpose as his wife, adding that no struggling was heard when the blows
+were given and that she had no knife in her hand when she came out of
+the cellar; that in the morning between nine and ten o'clock, a young
+man came in, who, as he was informed, had been formerly a sweetheart of
+the deceased; that this person drank a pint of drink and smoked a pipe,
+the deceased sitting by him some little time, during which as he
+believed the stranger kissed her; at which, as they stood before the
+bar, he observed the prisoner's countenance alter, as if he were out of
+humour at somewhat, although he could not say that he had ever heard of
+courtship between them; adding, that when the prisoner went into the box
+where the deceased was at dinner, he did take notice of his throwing the
+door after him with an unusual violence.
+
+Mr. Saunders, who happened that day to dine at Mr. Payne's house,
+confirmed all the former evidence, deposing moreover, than when Mr.
+Payne gave the prisoner some harsh language, the prisoner replied, _Sir,
+I am as innocent as the child is at my mistress's breast_; that the
+prisoner also pretended the deceased took a knife in her hand when she
+went into the cellar, upon which this evidence and Mr. Payne went down,
+and found not a drop of blood all the way. Mr. Saunders also deposed
+that the prisoner was out of the way when the deceased went to draw
+drink, and that they saw no knife in her hand.
+
+Mr. Cox, the surgeon, deposed that he saw the deceased lying upon her
+back, amid a vast stream of blood which had issued from her; that upon
+the table among other knives he had found one amongst them which was a
+little bloody and answered exactly to the cut, it going through her
+apron, a stuff petticoat and a strong coarse shift. The wound was in her
+thigh, going obliquely upwards, and therefore, as he thought, could not
+have been given by the deceased herself. The knife, too, was as he said,
+laid farther than the deceased could have carried it after the receipt
+of the wound, which being in the femoral artery must be mortal in a
+minute, or a minute and a half at most. He observed, also, that under
+her chin and about her left ear there seemed to have been some violence
+used, so as to have caused a stagnation of the blood. This deposition
+was confirmed by another surgeon and apothecary, and also in most of its
+material circumstances by a surgeon who looked on her on behalf of the
+prisoner.
+
+Cluff asked very few questions, and Mr. Daldwin being called for the
+appellant, swore that at nine o'clock in the morning he was at Mr.
+Payne's and saw the prisoner and the deceased quarrelling, that he
+looked maliciously and was an ill-natured fellow. Here the counsel of
+the appeal rested their proof, and the prisoner made no other defence
+than absolutely denying the fact. After his counsel had said what they
+thought proper on the nature and circumstances that had been sworn
+against him, the jury withdrew, and after a short stay brought in the
+prisoner guilty.
+
+During the space he was confined, between their verdict and his death,
+he behaved with a calmness very rare to be met with. He attended the
+public devotion of the chapel very gravely and devoutly, behaved quietly
+and patiently in his cell, never expressed either fear or uneasiness at
+his approaching death, nor ever let fall a warm expression against his
+prosecutors, but on the contrary always spoke well of them, and prayed
+heartily for them. When pressed, by the ministers who attended him, not
+to pass into the other world with a lie in his mouth, but to declare
+sincerely and candidly how Mary Green came by her death, he at first
+looked a little confused, but at last seeming to recollect himself, he
+said, _Gentlemen, I know it is my duty to give glory unto God, and to
+take shame unto myself for those sins I have committed in my passage
+through this life. I therefore readily acknowledge that my offences have
+been black in their nature, and many in number; but for the particular
+crime I am to suffer death as the punishment of it, I know no more of it
+than the child that is unborn, nor am I able to say in what manner she
+came by her death._ And in this he continued to persist unto the time of
+his death, appearing to be very easy under his sufferings and did not
+change countenance when he was told the day was fixed for his execution,
+as it is ordinarily observed the other malefactors do.
+
+As he passed through Holborn to the place of execution, he desired the
+cart might stop at his master's house, which accordingly it did. Cluff
+thereupon called for a pint of wine and desired to speak with Mr. Payne.
+Accordingly he came out, and then he addressed himself to him in these
+words. _Sir, you are not insensible that I am going to suffer an
+ignominious death for what I declare I am not guilty of, as I am to
+appear before my Great Judge in a few moments, to answer for all my past
+sins. I hope you and my good mistress will pray for my poor soul. I pray
+God bless you and all your family._ Then he spoke to somebody to bid the
+carman go on. It was remarkable that he spoke this with great
+composedness and seeming cheerfulness.
+
+At the place of execution he did not lose anything of that cheerful
+sedateness which he had preserved under the course of his misfortunes,
+but made the responses regular to the prayers in the cart and standing
+up, addressed himself in these words to the multitude. _Good People, I
+die for a fact I did not commit. I have never ceased to pray for my
+prosecutors most heartily, ever since I have been under sentence. I wish
+all men well. My sins have been great, but I hope for God's mercy
+through the merits of Jesus Christ._ Then a Psalm was sung at his own
+request. Afterwards, overhearing somebody say that his mistress was in a
+coach hard by his execution, he could not be satisfied until somebody
+went to search and coming back assured him she was not there. As the
+cart was going away he spoke again to the people saying, _I beg of you
+to pray for my departing soul. I wish I was as free from all other sins
+as I am of this for which I am now going to suffer._
+
+He desired of his friends that his body might be carried to Hand Alley
+in Holborn, and from thence to St. Andrew's Church, to lie in the grave
+with his brother. He suffered on the 25th of July, 1719, being then
+about thirty-two years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [86] Passed by a Parliament held at Gloucester in 1278 and
+        dealing with actions at law.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN DYER, a most notorious thief, highwayman and
+housebreaker
+
+
+My readers cannot but remember the mention often made of this criminal,
+in the former volumes. He was, at the time of his death, one of the
+oldest offenders in England, and as he was at some pains to digest his
+own story that is, the series of his villainies into writing, so what we
+take from thence, will at once be authentic and entertaining to our
+readers.
+
+He was born of honest and mean parents at Salisbury, who took care,
+however, to bestow on him a very tolerable education, and when he grew
+up, put him out apprentice to a shoemaker, where he soon made a
+beginning in those pernicious practices to which he so assiduously
+afterwards addicted himself. The first thing he did, was robbing a
+chandler's chop at Collinburn, in the county of Wilts, of the money box,
+in which was thirty shillings, and got clear off. Some time after, his
+master sending him on a Sunday to a village just by, to get twelve
+pennyworth of halfpence at a chandler's shop, Dyer finding nobody at
+home, cut the bar of the window, got in thereat, and rifled the house.
+The booty he found did not amount to above three half-crowns, but he
+added to that the taking away what currants and raisins there were in
+the shop, which piece of covetousness had well-nigh cost him his life,
+for being suspected and charged with the fact, he had only time to hide
+the money. Having searched him in vain, they turned some of the plums
+out of his coat pocket, but he readily averring that he bought them at
+Andover Market, there being nobody who could falsify it, he escaped for
+that time.
+
+His matter shortly after sending him with five pounds to buy leather,
+Dyer picking up a companion, as wicked as himself, he persuaded him to
+join in a story of his being robbed of the aforesaid sum of money,
+which, upon his return, he told his master, and the boy vouching it
+firmly, they were believed. Some small space from this, being sent
+amongst his master's customers to receive some money, he picked up about
+three pounds, and then went off immediately for Salisbury, where he
+became acquainted with an idle young woman; which bringing him once more
+into necessity, he went one day into the market to see what he might be
+able to lay hands on. There he observed a young woman to receive money,
+and watching her out of town, he took an opportunity to knock her down,
+robbing her, and dragging her into a wood, where he lay with her, and
+then bound her fast to a tree.
+
+From thence he went to a village in Hampshire, where he wrought
+journey-work at his trade; and getting acquainted with a young woman, he
+lodged at her mother's house, where he soon got the daughter with child,
+and persuaded her to rob the old woman, and go with him to Bristol.
+There they lived together profusely until all the money was spent, and
+then she and her child went back to her mother, who received them very
+gladly. Dyer did not think fit to return, but went to make his mother a
+visit at Salisbury, where he continued not long before he took an
+opportunity of robbing her of fifty pounds, and thence marched off to
+Bristol, where he gamed most of the money away. Then he retired to a
+town in Wiltshire, where cohabiting with a widow women, they found means
+to get so good credit as to take the town in (as Mr. Dyer expressed it)
+for thirty pounds. Then packing up they marched off to a place at a
+considerable distance, where Dyer entered into partnership with a
+collier, being to advance fifty pounds, thirty of which he paid down and
+the rest was to pay monthly; but before the first payment became due the
+collier broke, and his partner, Dyer, thereupon thought it convenient to
+remove to some other place.
+
+He pitched, therefore, upon the city of Hereford, where he worked
+honestly for a space, until being in company one night with a higgler,
+he heard the man say he should go to a place called Ross to buy fowls.
+Dyer answered that he did not care if he went with him, and in their
+journey, taking the advantage of a proper place he stopped his companion
+and robbed him. The man gave him two shillings out of his pocket, but
+Dyer suspecting he must have some more money to buy fowls with,
+searched the hampers and took out twelve pounds. Taking the man's horse
+also, he rode it forty miles outright, after which he went to
+Marlborough in Wiltshire, and stayed there a fortnight. But venturing to
+steal a silver mug, he was for that fact apprehended and committed close
+prisoner there, in order to be tried for it next assizes, but before
+that time, he found a weak place in the prison, and breaking it made his
+escape.
+
+From thence he went to an aunt's house, about seven or eight miles from
+Salisbury, where he stayed until her husband grew so uneasy that he was
+obliged to take his leave. He travelled then to a sister of his, and
+meeting there with an old schoolfellow and relation, he quickly
+persuaded the lad to become as bad as himself, drawing him in to rob his
+mother of fifty shillings, with which small stock they two were set up
+for their old trade of gaming. But the robbery they had committed was
+quickly detected. However, Dyer so well tutored his associate that the
+boy could neither by threats nor promises be brought to own it, yet
+their denials had not the least weight with their relations. They were
+thoroughly convinced of their being guilty, and therefore were
+determined that they should be punished, for which purpose they carried
+them before a neighbouring Justice of Peace, who committed them to
+Bridewell to hard labour.
+
+As Dyer could not endure imprisonment, especially when hard labour was
+added to it, so he very speedily contrived a method to free himself and
+his companion from their fetters, which was by leaping down the house of
+office,[87] which a few days afterwards they did and got clear off.
+
+These various difficulties and narrow escapes seemed to make no other
+impression upon Dyer than to give him a greater liking than ever to such
+sort of villainous enterprises. He stole as many horses out of New
+Forest as came to three-score pounds, and afterwards setting up for a
+highwayman, committed a multitude of facts in that neighbourhood, which
+he has with great care related in the account he published of his life.
+Amongst the rest he stripped a poor maid-servant, who was just come out
+of a place, of all the money she had, viz., a gold ring, and a box of
+clothes, and so left her without either necessaries or money. At
+Winchester he disposed of the clothes and linen which he took from the
+poor woman. At an alehouse in High Street he fell into company with a
+lace-man, from whom he learned, by some little conversation, that he was
+going to Amesbury Fair in Wiltshire. Dyer told him he was going thither
+too, and so along they journeyed together. When they arrived there, they
+put up their horses at the sign of the Chopping Knife, and while the
+lace-man went out to take a stand to sell his goods in, Dyer demanded
+the box of lace of the landlord, as if he had been the man's partner;
+then calling for his horse, while the landlord's back was turned, he
+rode clear off from them all.
+
+On the Plain, going towards Devizes, he overtook a Scotch pedlar. Dyer
+it seems knew him, and called him by his name, asking him if he had any
+good handkerchiefs, upon which the poor man let down the pack off his
+back and showed him several. Dyer told him, after looking over the
+goods, that he did not want to buy anything, but must have what he
+pleased for nothing. The Scotchman, upon that, put himself in a posture
+of defence, but Dyer drawing his pistols on him soon obliged him to
+yield, and tied him with some of his own cloth fast to the post of a
+wall. He then went and rifled the pack, taking thence nine pounds odd in
+money, a great parcel of hair, which he sold afterwards for eight
+pounds, six dozen handkerchiefs, and a quantity of muslin. Then he
+released the pedlar again, and bid him go and take care of the rest of
+his pack, Mr. Dyer being then in some hurry to look out for another
+booty.
+
+A very small time after our plunderer met with an old shepherd, who had
+sold a good parcel of sheep. Dyer attacked him with his hanger and the
+old man, though he had nothing but his stick, made a very good defence.
+However, at last he was overcome and lost seventy-two pounds which he
+had taken at the market. Dyer being by this time full of money, he
+thought fit to go to Dorchester in Wilts, where by the usual course of
+his extravagances, he lessened it in a very short time; and then
+persuading a poor butcher of the town, who had broke, to become his
+companion, he soon taught him from being unfortunate to become wicked.
+They agreed very well together (as Mr. Dyer says) until he caught his
+new partner endeavouring to cheat him as well as he had taught him to
+rob other people. But after some hard words the butcher confessed the
+fact, and and promised to be honest to him for the future; which being
+all that Dyer wanted, a new agreement was made, and they went to work
+again in their old occupation.
+
+The first exploit they went upon afterwards was at Woodbury Hill Fair,
+in Dorsetshire, where as soon as the fair was over, Mr. Dyer, in his
+merry style, tells us their fair began, for observing a cheeseman who
+received about fourscore pounds, they watched him so narrowly that about
+a mile from the fair they attacked him and bid him deliver. With a heavy
+heart the old man suffered himself to be rifled, though he had paid away
+a far greater part of the money, and had not above twelve pounds about
+him, yet he sighed as if he would have broken his heart at the loss,
+while Dyer and his companion were as much out of humour at the
+disappointment and gave him several smart lashes with their whips,
+telling him that he should never pay money when gentlemen waited to
+receive it.
+
+A small time after this robbery they committed another upon a
+hop-merchant, who was riding with his wife. They searched him very
+carefully for money, but could find none, until Dyer beginning to curse
+and swear and threatening to kill him, his wife cried out, _For Heaven's
+sake, do not murder my husband and I'll tell you where his money is._
+Accordingly, she declared it was in his boots, upon which Dyer cut them
+off his legs and found fifty guineas therein, then taking their leave of
+the merchant and his wife, Dyer very gratefully thanked her for her good
+office. From thence they went down to Sherbourne, and each of them
+having got a mistress, they lived there very merrily for a considerable
+space, living in full enjoyment of those gross sensualities in which
+they alone reaped satisfaction at the expense of such honest people as
+they had before plundered.
+
+Here they had intelligence of a certain grazier who was going down into
+the country to buy lean beasts, upon which they followed him and robbed
+him of all the money he had, which was about fourscore-and-ten pounds.
+So large a sum proved only a fund for extravagance, a use to which these
+men put all the money they laid their hands on. Hampshire being so lucky
+a place, Dyer and his comrade went next to Ringwood, where the butcher
+fell sick, and lay for some time, until their money was almost consumed.
+But then growing well again, Dyer took him down to Bath, where they
+robbed the stage-coaches from Bath to London, and as they returned from
+London to Bath again, until the road became so dangerous that they hired
+persons to guard them for the future; and notwithstanding they so often
+practised this villainy, they never were in danger but once, when a
+gentleman fired a blunderbuss at them but missed them both, whereupon
+they robbed the coach, and afterwards whipped him severely with their
+horse whips.
+
+Their next expedition was to Hungerford, where they stayed about two
+months, in which time Dyer made a match for the butcher with a widow
+woman of his own trade; but just as they were going to be married,
+somebody discovered both his and the butcher's occupation, and thereupon
+obliged them to quit Hungerford, and to take their road to Newbury, with
+more precipitation than they were wont to do. In the road to Reading
+they robbed a tallow-chandler, and then galloped to Reading, where they
+had like to have been taken by the information of the Bath coachman;
+but they being pretty well mounted and riding hard night and day got
+safe down to Exeter in Devonshire, where, as the securest method, they
+agreed to part by consent. The butcher went back to Devonshire again,
+and Dyer must needs go to visit his friends at Salisbury, and then after
+a short stay with them set out for London.
+
+The fear he was under of being discovered if he came into the direct
+road made him take a roundabout way in his journey, and thereby put it
+in his power to rob four Oxford scholars; from two of them he took their
+watches and their money, but though he searched the other two very
+diligently could find nothing, upon which he rode away with the booty he
+had taken. But the two whom he had robbed quickly called him back again,
+and told him their companions had money, if he had but wit enough to
+find it. Whereupon Dyer began to examine the first very strictly, and
+found his money put under his buttons, and his watch thrust into his
+breeches. On search of the second, he discovered his money put up in the
+cape of his coat, but his watch he had hustled to one of his companions,
+who held it out, which as soon as Dyer saw he took it away. It is
+surprising that men should be possessed with so odd a spirit that
+because they have lost all themselves, they must needs have others
+plundered into the bargain. However, Dyer thought it a good job, and
+with the help of this money he came up to London.
+
+When he arrived here, he worked honestly for some time at his trade,
+with a very noted shoemaker upon Ludgate Hill. Soon after, he removed to
+a lodging in Leather Lane, and worked there for twelve months. At last
+he got into the company of a common woman of the town, and she very
+quickly brought him into his old condition, for being much in debt and
+often arrested, Dyer, who was at present very fond of her, was obliged
+to bail her or get her bailed. Hearing that he had a legacy of ten
+pounds a year in an Exchequer Annuity, she would never let him alone
+until he had disposed of it, which at last he did, for about fourscore
+pounds. The first thing that was done after the receipt of the sum of
+money was to clothe madam in Monmouth Street, in an handsome suit of
+blue flowered satin, with everything agreeable thereto. On their return
+home the man of the house where they lodged flew into a great passion,
+said he'd never suffer her to wear such fine clothes unless he was paid
+what was due to him. Mr. Dyer in his memoirs gives us this story,
+dressed out with abundance of oaths and such like decoration, which we
+will venture to leave out, and relate the adventure, as it gives a very
+good idea of such sort of houses, otherwise in his own language.
+
+The bawd, while her husband was swearing, took Mr. Dyer upstairs, and
+there with a wheedling tone asked him if Moll should not bring them a
+quartern of brandy to drink his and his spouse's health, but before Dyer
+could give her an answer, she issued a positive command herself,
+whereupon up comes Moll and the quartern. The mistress poured out half
+of it into one glass which she drank off to the health of Mr. and Mrs.
+Dyer, adding with great complaisance. _Well, indeed your Alice is a fine
+woman when she's dressed. I love to see a handsome woman with all my
+heart. Come, Moll, fill t'other quartern, and bid Mrs. Dyer come to her
+spouse; and d'ye hear, tell my husband that Mrs. Dyer desires to drink a
+glass of brandy with him._
+
+On this message up comes the husband, and clapping down by him took him
+by the hand, with an abundance of seeming courtesy, said, _Pray, Mr.
+Dyer, don't let you and I fall out. I may, in my passion, have let fall
+some provoking words to your wife, but I can't help it, 'tis my way, and
+I really want money so that it almost makes me mad. I'll tell you what;
+your spouse, Mr. Dyer, owes me almost nine pounds, now if you'll give me
+five guineas, I'll give you a receipt in full._ Upon which our cully of
+a robber, thinking to save so much money, paid it him down, and madam
+seemed to be highly pleased.
+
+As soon as this was over and the receipt given, his lady said to Dyer,
+_Come my dear, we'll go and take a walk and see Mrs. Sheldon._ Thither
+they went. No sooner were they in the house, but after the first
+compliments were passed, Mrs. Sheldon said, _We were just talking of you
+when you came in, Mr. Dyer, and of that small matter your spouse owes
+us._ Says Dyer, _How much is it?_ But two-and-forty shillings, says Mrs.
+Sheldon. Upon which the fool took the money out of his pocket and paid
+it. A little while after this, Dyer's mistress thought fit to quarrel
+with one of her female acquaintances whom she had made her confidante,
+by which means the story came out that she was not a penny in debt
+either to her landlord or Mrs. Sheldon, but that she wanted money and
+was resolved to make hay while the sun shone.
+
+One would have thought that a fellow so versed in villainy, and so given
+up to all sorts of debauchery, would have immediately discarded a woman
+who showed him such tricks, but on the contrary he grew fonder of her,
+removed her to another lodging, and lavished all he had on her. But as a
+new misfortune, one morning early a man knocked at the door, which he
+taking to be one of her gallants, went in his shirt to the window. The
+man enquired whether one Mrs. Davis was there, upon which Dyer's
+mistress in a great agony, said. _O, la, John, it's my husband come from
+sea, what shall I do?_ Upon this, Dyer hustled on his clothes and went
+downstairs to another harlot, and by there until his first lady and her
+husband came downstairs.
+
+However, it was not long before the seaman had an account of Dyer's
+familiarity with his wife, and thereupon thinking to get money out of
+him brought his action against him; but Dyer got himself bailed, and
+soon after arrested him for meat, drink and lodging for his wife for
+several months, for which he lay in the Compter for a considerable time,
+and at last was obliged to give Dyer ten pounds to make it up.
+
+At last, when money ran low, Dyer's love on a sudden went all out. He
+dismissed his mistress and not finding another quickly to his mind, took
+up a sudden resolution to marry and live honest. It was not long before
+he prevailed on an honest woman, and accordingly they were joined
+together in wedlock. Dyer thereupon provided himself with a cobbler's
+stall in Leather Lane, worked hard and lived well. But as his
+inclinations were always dishonest, he could not long confine himself to
+honesty and labour, but in a short space meeting with a young man in the
+neighbourhood, who was very uneasy in his circumstances, and on ill
+terms with ms friends, and very much disordered in his mind on account
+of the misfortunes under which he laboured, Dyer began immediately to
+cast eyes upon him as one who would make him a fit companion.
+
+It seems the other had exactly the same thoughts, and one day as they
+were walking together in the fields, says the stranger to him, _I'll
+tell you what; if you knew how affairs stand with me, you would advise
+me. I must either go upon the highway, or into gaol. That's a hard
+choice_, replied Dyer; _but did you ever do anything of that kind? No_,
+said the other, _indeed, not hitherto. Well, then_, says his tutor
+again, _have you any pistols? No_, replied he, _but I intend to pawn my
+watch and buy some._ The bargain was soon made between them. One night
+they robbed a man by the Old Spa,[88] the same night they robbed another
+by Sadler's Wells. Two or three days after, they robbed a chariot, and
+took from persons in it thirty pounds. The young practitioner in
+thieving thought this a rare quick way of getting money and therefore
+followed it very industriously in the company of his assistant. In
+Lincoln's Inn Fields they were hard put to it, for after they had
+committed a robbery, abundance of watchmen gathered about them, whom
+they suffered to advance very near them, but then firing two or three
+pistols over their heads they all ran, and suffered the robbers to go
+which way they would. A multitude of other facts they committed, until
+Dyer got into that gang who robbed on Blackheath, of whom we have given
+some account.
+
+It is observable that Dyer, in his own narrative, gives not the least
+account of his turning evidence and hanging a great number of his
+associates, many of whom, as has been said in the former volume,[89]
+charged him with having first drawn them into the commission of crimes
+and then betrayed them. It seems this was among the circumstances of his
+life which did not afford him any mirth, a thing to which throughout the
+course of his memoirs he is egregiously addicted. However it was, I must
+inform my reader that he remained for near seven years a prisoner in
+Newgate after his being an evidence, until at last he found means to get
+discharged at the same time with one Abraham Dumbleton, who was his
+companion in his future exploits, and suffered with him at the same
+time. When they were at the bar, in order to their being discharged out
+of Newgate, the Recorder, with his usual humanity, represented to them
+the danger there was of their coming to a bad end, in case they should
+be set at liberty and get again into the company of their old comrades
+who might seduce them to their former practices, and thereby become the
+means of their suffering a violent and ignominious death; advising them
+at the same time rather to submit to a voluntary transportation, whereby
+they would gain a passage into a new country, inhabited by Englishmen,
+where they might live honestly without dread of those reproaches to
+which they would be ever liable here. But they insisting upon their
+discharge and promising to live very honestly for the future, their
+request was complied with, and they were set at liberty.
+
+One of the first crimes committed by Dyer afterwards was robbing a
+victualler coming over Bloomsbury Market,[90] between one and two
+o'clock in the morning, and from whom, having thrown him down and
+stopped his mouth, they took his silver watch, seventeen shillings in
+money, two plain rings, and the buckles out of his shoes. They robbed
+another man in the Tottenham Court Road coming to town, tied him and
+then took from him two-and-forty shillings. Dyer also happening to be
+one day a little cleaner and better dressed than ordinary, was taken
+notice of in Lincoln's Inn Fields by one of those abominable, unnatural
+wretches who addict themselves to sodomy. He pretended to know him at
+first, and desired him to step to the tavern with him and drink a glass
+of wine, which the other readily complied with. In the tavern, Dyer took
+notice that the gentleman had a good diamond ring upon his finger, and
+then suddenly taking notice of a hackney-coach which drove by with a
+single gentleman in it, he pretended it was a friend of his and that he
+needs must go down and speak a word with him. Under pretence of doing
+which, he went clear off with the diamond ring. Two or three days after,
+he met the same person with a man in years, and of some consideration.
+Upon his asking Dyer how he came to go off in that manner from the
+tavern, he, who was accustomed to such salutations, gave him a rough
+answer, and the spark fearing a worse accusation might be alleged
+against himself, thought fit to go off without making any more words
+about it.
+
+I am not able to say how long after, but certainly it could be no very
+considerable space before he and Dumbleton robbed Mr. Bradley, in Kirby
+Street, by Hatton Garden, of his hat and wig, at the same time trampling
+on him, beating him, and using him in the most cruel manner imaginable,
+as was sworn by Mr. Bradley upon their trial. However, by affrighting
+the watch with their pistols, they got off safe and a night or two after
+broke open a linen-draper's shop, and took out a large parcel of linen.
+For these two facts they were shortly after apprehended, and on very
+full evidence convicted at the Old Bailey.
+
+Under sentence of death, Dyer said he was sorry for his offences, but
+spoke of them in a manner that showed he had but a slight sense of those
+heinous crimes in which he had continued so long. His narrative that he
+left behind him, and which was published the day before his execution,
+is a manifest proof of the ludicrous terms which those unhappy creatures
+affect in the relation of their own adventures. However, it becomes us
+not to judge concerning the sentiments of a person who in his last
+moments professed himself a penitent. Instead of doing which, we shall
+produce the speech he made at the place of execution.
+
+    Good People,
+
+    I desire all young men to take warning by my ignominious death, and
+    to forsake evil company, especially lewd women, who have been the
+    chief cause of my unhappy fate. I hope, and make it my earnest
+    request that nobody will be so ill a Christian as to reflect on my
+    aged parents, who took an early care to instruct me, and brought me
+    up a member, though a very unworthy one, of the Church of England. I
+    hope my misfortunes will be a warning to all youth, especially some
+    whom I wish well; I will not name them, but hope, if they see this,
+    they will take it to themselves. I die in charity with all men,
+    forgiving and hoping to be forgiven myself, through the merits of my
+    blessed Saviour Jesus Christ.
+
+He died on the 21st of November, 1729, being thirty-one years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [87] This may mean that they dropped themselves into the
+        cess-pit and made their way out through another opening.
+
+   [88] Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, was a notorious spot for footpads.
+
+   [89] See pages 121, 122.
+
+   [90] This was at the south-west corner of Bloomsbury Square.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of WILLIAM ROGERS, a Thief; WILLIAM SIMPSON, a Horse-dealer;
+and ROBERT OLIVER, _alias_ WILLIAM JOHNSON, a Thief
+
+
+The first of these persons was descended from very mean parents, who
+had, however, given him a tolerable education, so far as to qualify him
+by reading and writing for any ordinary kind of business, to which they
+intended to breed him on his coming to a fit age. They put him out
+apprentice to a shoemaker, with whom he lived out his time, with the
+approbation of his master and all who knew him. Afterwards he married a
+wife and worked for some time honestly as a journeyman at his trade,
+being exceedingly fond of his new wife. But she being a woman who liked
+living in a better state than he could afford by what he gained at his
+work, and he being desirous to live more at home, and yet maintain her
+plentifully too, at last came to picking and thieving; and being
+detected in stealing some shoes out of a shop, he was for that crime
+transported.
+
+In Maryland and Virginia he continued some time working at his trade
+with masters there, who gave him great encouragement, so that he might
+have lived very happily there, if he had not been desirous of coming to
+England. His mind ran continually on his wife. It was for her sake that
+he at first had fallen into these practices, and to enjoy her
+conversation was almost the only thing which tempted him to return home.
+
+On his arrival here, it was no doubt with the greatest uneasiness that
+he heard his wife, as soon as ever he went abroad, cohabited with
+another man and could never afterwards be brought to see him, or give
+him any assistance, no not when he was under his last and great
+misfortunes. Her unkindness afflicted the unhappy man so much that he
+grew careless of his safety, and thereby became speedily apprehended,
+and was tried for his offence in returning before the time was expired;
+and the fact being clear he was at once convicted.
+
+Under sentence of death, he seemed to deplore nothing so much as the
+unkindness of his wife, who would not so much as afford him one visit,
+when he had hazarded, and even sacrificed his life to visit her. He
+confessed that he had been guilty of that crime for which he had
+formerly been transported, but denied that he lived in such a course of
+wickedness and debauchery as most malefactors do. On the contrary, he
+said he was heartily sorry for his sins, and hoped that God would accept
+his imperfect repentance.
+
+William Simpson was a young man of very good parents in Gloucestershire,
+who had taken care to educate him carefully, both in the knowledge of
+letters and of true religion, and they then put him out apprentice to a
+tailor; but not liking that employment, he did not follow it, but lived
+with a relation of his who was a great farmer in the country. There, it
+seems, he stole a black gelding to the value of ten pounds, for which he
+was quickly apprehended and committed to prison, and upon very full
+evidence convicted. The unhappy youth said that nothing but idleness and
+an aversion to any employment were the causes of his committing an act
+of such a nature, so contrary to the principles in which he had been
+instructed, and to which he was not tempted by ill-company, or driven to
+by any straits. Under sentence of death he behaved with great modesty,
+penitence and civility, was desirous of being instructed and did
+everything that could be expected from a man in his miserable condition.
+
+Robert Oliver, _alias_ William Johnson, was born of parents of tolerable
+circumstances in Yorkshire, they bred him at school, and afterwards
+bound him apprentice to a tallow-chandler. After he was out of his time,
+he got somehow or other into the service of Mrs. North, where he robbed
+one Joseph Heppworth of seven-and-forty guineas. As soon as he had done
+it, he went to Moorgate and gave two-and-twenty of them for a horse,
+upon which he rode down into his own country, where he exchanged it for
+another horse, getting four guineas to boot. But the person who had lost
+the money being indefatigable, and imagining that he might have gone
+down into his own country, followed him thither, and after some time
+seized him and got him confined in Beverley gaol. But it seems he found
+a way to make his escape from thence, and so getting to London, skulked
+up and down here for some time, until at last he was discovered and
+committed to Newgate and at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey was
+tried and convicted for the aforesaid offence.
+
+Under sentence he behaved himself stupidly, not seeming to have a just
+concern for the offence which he had committed. He was sullen, would say
+very little, did not deny the crime for which he died, but yet did not
+seem to have that compunction which might have been expected from a man
+in his sad condition.
+
+At the place of execution Rogers said little; Simpson acknowledged lewd
+women had been his ruin; Robert Oliver acknowledged that he had been a
+vicious, unruly, young man, who had hearkened to no advice, but addicted
+to nothing but the accomplishment of his vices. They were all desirous
+of prayers, and after they were celebrated they submitted to their
+deaths very patiently; and with pious ejaculations, they were executed
+on the 21st of November, 1739, Rogers being forty years of age, Simpson
+nineteen, and Oliver twenty-two.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES DRUMMOND
+
+
+Folly and wickedness, as it were, naturally lead men to poverty, shame
+and misfortunes, but when such miseries overtake persons who lived
+soberly and in all outward appearance honestly, it is apt to create
+wonder at first, and afterwards to excite compassion.
+
+The unhappy man of whom we are now speaking was the son of a sailor, who
+brought him when but a boy of three years of age up to London, and then
+dying, left him to the care of his mother, who was too poor to give him
+any education. However, he went to sea, and being a young man ingenious
+enough in himself, and very tractable in his temper, he soon became a
+tolerable proficient in the practical part of navigation. This
+recommended him to pretty constant business, whereby he got enough to
+maintain himself and his family handsomely enough, if he had thought fit
+to have employed it that way; which for a considerable space of time he
+did, keeping up a very good reputation in the neighbourhood where he
+lived, and serving with a fair character on board several men-of-war,
+going up the Baltic with squadrons sent thither to preserve the Swedish
+coast from being insulted by the Moscovites.
+
+After his return, he served on board the fleet which destroyed that of
+the Spaniards in Sicily. He was afterwards coxswain in the Admiral, when
+they served in the Mediterranean, and on the coast of Spain, but coming
+home at last and being weary of going to sea, he took up the trade of
+selling china and some small goods about the country; in which he got so
+established a character that the gentlemen with whom he chiefly dealt
+would have trusted him a hundred pounds on his word, and never anything
+gave a greater shock to his neighbours and acquaintances than the news
+of his being apprehended for a highwayman. However, it seems he had been
+engaged to that course by his brother, notwithstanding that till then he
+had lived not only honestly, but with tolerable sentiments of religion.
+
+The method in which he was drawn to turn robber on a sudden was thus. On
+the 19th of October, 1729, his brother came to him as he was working on
+the outside of a ship on the other side of the water, and invited him to
+go out with him to a public house, to which at first he was very
+unwilling; but at last suffering himself to be prevailed upon, he and
+his brother went together to a house not far distant, where they drank
+to a higher pitch than James Drummond had ever done before. His brother
+all along insinuated how advantageous a trade the highway was, owning he
+had followed nothing else for some years past, and saying there was not
+the least hazard run in it, at the same time advising his brother to
+quit labouring hard, and to take to it, too. James was now grown so
+drunk that he hardly knew what he did, so that after much persuasion he
+got up behind his brother upon the same horse, but was afterwards set
+down, it being judged by both of them to be better to rob on foot, while
+he who was well armed and well mounted might be able to defend them
+both. Having come to this fatal agreement, they immediately set about
+those enterprises which they had consulted together.
+
+The first robbery they committed was upon Mr. William Isgrig, from whom
+they took sixteen guineas, seven half-guineas, three broad pieces, one
+moidore, twenty shillings in silver, and a watch value two pounds. Not
+satisfied with this the same night they attacked one Mr. Wakeling, on
+the same road, and took from him a silver watch, and three or four
+shillings in money, though not without much resistance, Mr. Wakeling
+having drawn his sword and defended himself for a considerable time; but
+perceiving one of the rogues to be a footpad, he followed him so
+closely, and made such an outcry to the watch, that after a long pursuit
+and a sharp struggle with him, they took James Drummond prisoner. His
+brother after firing a pistol or two, rode off as fast as he could. At
+the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey he was indicted for both offences
+and upon very full and dear evidence convicted.
+
+It was impossible to describe the agonies which this unhappy man
+suffered while under sentence of death, the sense of his own condition,
+the reflection on his former character, unsullied and untainted amongst
+his whole neighbourhood, the consideration of leaving a wife and five
+small children behind him, with small provision for their support, and
+what was worse exposed to the reflection of the world on the score of an
+unhappy father, scandalous in the last actions of his life, and
+ignominious in his death. However, returning to his former principles of
+piety and religion, he comforted himself under the weight of all his
+misfortunes, by leaning on the mercy of God, praying fervently to Him to
+grant him patience and protection under those dreadful evils which he
+suffered. He acknowledged all to be exactly true which was deposed
+against him at his trial, confessed the justice of his sentence, and
+prepared to undergo it with as much submission and resignation as was
+possible, and indeed perhaps no criminal ever behaved with more
+penitence than he did. He died on Monday, the 22nd of December, 1729,
+being then forty years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of WILLIAM CAUSTIN and GEOFFREY YOUNGER, Footpads
+
+
+The first of these unhappy men, William Caustin, was born somewhere in
+the country, but the particular place is not mentioned in any papers I
+have before me. Neither am I able to say of what condition his parents
+were, yet whether poor or rich they afforded him a very tolerable
+education, and when he was grown big enough to be put out apprentice,
+bound him to a barber, to whom he served out his time with remarkable
+fidelity. When out of his time he married a wife and set up for himself;
+yet whether through inevitable misfortunes, or for want of good
+management, I cannot say, but he failed in a very short time after, and
+so was reduced to be a journeyman again. However, his character remained
+so unblemished that he was never out of business, nor ill-treated by any
+masters where he worked. On the contrary, he was caressed wherever he
+came, and treated with as much civility as if he had been a relation to
+those whom he had served.
+
+His wife unfortunately falling sick upon his hand, he became thereby
+thrown out of business, and in that time falling into ill company, their
+repeated solicitations prevailed with him to go for once upon the
+highway, which accordingly he did, and committed, in company with
+Geoffrey Younger and the evidence, a robbery on William Bowman, taking
+from him a guinea and thirteen shillings, for which he was very quickly
+after apprehended, and the fact being plainly and fully proved, he was
+convicted, it being the only fact he ever committed.
+
+Geoffrey Younger, his companion, was descended of very honest creditable
+parents in Northamptonshire. There he was put apprentice to a baker, to
+whom he served his time out very honestly and faithfully. Afterwards he
+came up to London, and lived here for seven years as a journeyman, in as
+good a reputation as it was possible for a young man to have. But having
+by that time got a good quantity of clothes, and about ten pounds in his
+pockets, he began to think himself too good to work, and unfortunately
+falling into the company of some idle debauched persons of both sexes,
+they soon led him into a road of ruin. Amongst these was one Bradley, a
+fellow of his own business, whose company of all others, he most
+affected. This fellow having addicted himself to the pursuit of the most
+scandalous vices, easily drew in Younger to go with him to a house where
+gamesters resorted and advising him to venture his money, Younger was
+good enough to take his advice, and so was bubbled out of every farthing
+of his money.
+
+Surprised and confounded at this extraordinary turn, which had reduced
+him to indigence in a moment, he did nothing but lament his own hard
+fortune, and curse his indiscretion for coming to such a place. Bradley
+endeavoured to cheer him, telling him he would yet put him in a way to
+get money, and thereupon proposed going with him upon the highway; in
+order to encourage him to which, he told him that at such a place they
+should meet with a man who had fourscore pounds about him. So after
+abundance of arguments, Younger yielded, and out they went. From that
+time forwards he gave a loose to all his brutal inclinations, associated
+himself with nobody but common whores and thieves, spent his time in
+gaming, when not engaged in a worse employment, and never, after his
+acquaintance with Bradley, thought of doing anything either just or
+honest. But his course was of no very long continuance, for having
+committed four or five robberies, the last of which was in the company
+of William Caustin, they were both apprehended, and as has been said,
+upon very full evidence convicted.
+
+Under sentence of death they both of them blamed Bradley the evidence,
+as the person who had drawn then first to the commission of those crimes
+for which they were now to answer with their lives. Caustin's wife died
+while he was under sentence, and he thereby lost what little comfort he
+had under his afflictions. However, he endeavoured to compose himself
+the best he could, to suffer that judgment which the Law had pronounced
+upon him, and which he himself acknowledged to be just. Younger, on the
+other hand, was exceedingly timorous and so terribly affrighted at the
+approach of death that he scarce retained his senses. He confessed very
+freely the enormities of his former life; said that a more dissolute
+person than himself never lived; cried out against the evidence Bradley,
+as the author of his misfortunes; charged him with having painfully
+endeavoured to seduce him. But in the midst of this he wept bitterly,
+and showed a great terror at the approach of his execution than was seen
+amongst any of the rest who suffered with him, his countenance being so
+much altered, that it was hardly possible for anybody to know him, who
+had been acquainted with him before, insomuch that he looked for many
+weeks before his execution like a person who had been already dead and
+buried.
+
+As the day of dissolution approached, it was hoped that he would recover
+more courage, but instead of that he became so terribly frighted that he
+could scarce speak, or show any signs of life when he was brought to
+Tyburn. However, there he did gather spirits a little, and spoke to the
+crowd to take warning by him, and avoid coming to that fatal place. He
+said that he had been guilty of but five robberies in all his life; said
+he forgave his prosecutors and the evidence who swore against him; and
+in this disposition they both died at the same time with the malefactors
+before mentioned, Caustin being thirty-six years of age, and Younger
+about thirty-four.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of HENRY KNOWLAND and THOMAS WESTWOOD, Footpads
+
+
+Henry Knowland was the son of a father of the same name who was a
+butcher. He received tolerably good education at school, and was brought
+up by his father to his own business; but he was of a lewd disposition,
+continually running after whores, keeping lewd company, gaming and
+drinking until he was able neither to stand nor go. He married his first
+cousin, who had formerly been the wife of Neeves, the evidence. It seems
+this very Knowland had been put into Whitechapel gaol upon her swearing
+a robbery against him for taking a gold chain off her neck, but that
+affair being accommodated, he a little after married her, which was
+perhaps no small cause of his future ruin.
+
+He was always dishonest in his principles, and ready to lay hold of any
+money without ever thinking of paying it again. At Smithfield he used to
+be very dextrous in cheating country graziers of their cattle. The
+method by which he did it was generally thus. Taking advantage of a
+countryman whom he saw looked unacquainted with things, he struck a
+bargain as soon as possible, and for any price he pleased, for his
+goods; then stepping in to drink a mug and receive the money, Knowland
+had an accomplice already planted, who coming hastily into the room told
+him with a submissive air that a gentleman at such a place desired to
+speak with him. Upon this he, arising in a hurry, tells the countryman
+he would return immediately and pay him his money, while the attendant
+in the meanwhile drove off with the beast; and so the poor man was left
+without hopes of seeing either the money or bullock and perhaps ruined
+into the bargain for being obliged to pay his master for the beast that
+was lost.
+
+Thomas Westwood, the second of these offenders, was a man descended of
+very mean parents, who either had it not in their power, or were so
+careless as to afford him little or no education. He himself, also, was
+a stupid, obstinate fellow, who never took any pains to attain the least
+degree of knowledge, but contented himself with living like a beast, in
+a continual round of eating and drinking and sleeping. By trade he was a
+sawyer, and when he wanted business in his trade, which, as the Ordinary
+tells us, he often did bring a poor purblind creature, he either sold
+sawdust about town, or else practised as a bailiffs follower, a
+profession which led him into yet greater debaucheries and
+extravagancies than otherwise possible he might have ever fallen into.
+
+Knowland and he were apprehended on suspicion for being robbers, and
+were tried at the Old Bailey on four indictments, all said to have been
+committed on the same day, viz., on the 23rd of November, 1729. The
+first was for assaulting John Molton in an open field, putting him in
+fear, and taking from him four shillings; the second was for assaulting
+Mary Butler and taking from her sixpence in money; the third was for
+assaulting Nicholas Butler, and taking from him half a guinea and one
+shilling; the fourth was for assaulting Anne Nailor, and taking from her
+three and sixpence in money.
+
+The prosecutors on all these indictments swore positively to the
+prisoners' faces. Mr. Butler was desperately wounded (the Ordinary says
+he was mortally wounded) but through God's grace recovered. In their
+defence they called a great number of people to prove them in other
+places at the time those robberies were committed, which they positively
+swore, but the jury giving credit to the prosecutors' evidence, they
+were both found guilty. However, they absolutely denied the crimes to
+the last suffering at Tyburn with great marks of sorrow and loud
+exclamations to God to have mercy on their souls, the 28th of February,
+1730. Knowland being twenty-four years of age, and Westwood
+twenty-seven, at the time of their deaths.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN EVERETT, a Highwayman
+
+
+This unfortunate man, who, in the course of his life, made some noise in
+the world, was the son of honest and reputable parents at Hitchen, in
+Hertfordshire. They gave their son all the education necessary to
+qualify him for such business as he thought proper to put him to, which
+was that of a salesman; but before his time was expired he went over to
+Flanders, and served in the late War there, in several sieges and
+battles; where he behaved so well as to be preferred to the post of a
+serjeant in the Honourable General How's regiment of foot. But returning
+to England upon the peace, and being quartered at Worcester he there
+purchased his discharge.
+
+Coming up to London he betook himself, for bread, to the office of a
+bailiff in Whitechapel Court, in which station he continued for about
+seven years until he fell into misfortunes, chiefly through the means of
+one C----th. To shelter himself from a gaol, which threatened him at
+that time, he was forced to go into the Foot Guards, where he served in
+the company commanded by the right Honourable the Earl of Albemarle; but
+unluckily for him, having commenced an acquaintance with Richard Bird at
+the aforesaid Mr. C----th's, Bird told him he perceived they were much
+in a case, that is, they both wanted money, and that therefore looking
+upon him (Everett) to be a man who could be trusted, he would propose to
+him an easy method for supply. This method was neither better nor worse
+than robbing on the highway.
+
+To this proposition Everett readily agreeing, they immediately joined,
+provided proper utensils for their co-partnership, and soon after
+practised their trade with great success in the counties of Middlesex,
+Essex, Surrey and Kent, particularly robbing the Dartford coach, from
+the passengers of which they took a portmanteau, wherein was contained
+jewels, money and valuable goods to a very great amount. But spending as
+fast as they got it, they were never the better for the multitude of
+facts they committed, but were in a continual necessity of hazarding
+body and soul for a very precarious subsistance.
+
+A short time after, they robbed the Woodford stage-coach and found in it
+only one passenger worth plundering. From him they took a gold watch and
+some silver, but the gentleman expressing a great concern at the loss of
+his watch, they told him if he would promise faithfully to send such a
+sum of money to such a place, they would let him have it again. On
+Hounslow Heath they attacked two officers of the army, who were well
+mounted and guarded with servants armed with blunderbusses. They took
+their gold watches and money from them, though the officers endeavoured
+to resist, but they forced them to submit to the well-known doctrine of
+passive obedience before they acquitted them. The watches (pursuant to a
+treaty they made with them on the spot) were afterwards left at Young
+Man's Coffee House, Charing Cross, where the owners had them again on
+payment of twenty guineas, as stipulated in the said treaty between the
+parties.
+
+Another robbery they committed was on Squire Amlow (of Bream's
+Buildings, Chancery Lane), in Epsom Lane, turning up to Epsom. When he
+was attacked he drew a sword and made several passes at them as he sat
+in an open chaise; but notwithstanding his resolution in opposing them,
+they by force took two guineas, a silver watch, and his silver-hilted
+sword, and some parchment writings of a considerable value. On his
+submission and request for his writings, they accordingly delivered them
+up, let him pass and helped him to his watch again, being in the hands
+of Mr. Corket, a pawnbroker in Houndsditch. They also took opportunities
+to rob all the butchers and higlers from Epping Forest to Woodford,
+particularly one old woman, who wore a high crowned hat of her mother's
+as she said, which hat they took and searched, and out of the lining of
+it found three pounds and delivered her the hat again. On Acton Common
+they also met two chariots with gentlemen and ladies in them and robbed
+them in money, watches and other things to the value of forty pounds.
+
+My readers, from these instances, must have a tolerable notion of
+Everett's humour, it may prove entertaining, therefore, to give them a
+specimen of his own manner of relating his adventures, and therefore I
+insert the following ones in his own words.
+
+    Soon after our last achievement, my old comrade Dick Bird, and I,
+    stopped a coach in the evening on Hounslow Heath, in which (amongst
+    other passengers) were two precise, but courageous Quakers, who had
+    the assurance to call us Sons of Violence; and refusing to comply
+    with our reasonable demands jumped out of the coach to give us
+    battle. Whereupon we began a sharp engagement, and showed them the
+    arm of flesh was too strong for the Spirit, which seemed to move
+    very powerful within them. After a short contest (though we never
+    offered to fire, for I ever abhorred barbarity, or the more heinous
+    sin of murder) through the cowardly persuasions of their
+    fellow-travellers they submitted, though sore against their
+    inclinations. As they were stout fellows and men every inch of them,
+    we scorned to abuse them, and contented ourselves with rifling them
+    of the little Mammon of unrighteousness which they had about them,
+    which amounted to about thirty or forty shillings and their watches.
+    The rest in the coach, whose hearts were sunk into their breeches,
+    Dick fleeced without the least resistance.
+
+    There was one circumstance of this affair which created a little
+    diversion, and therefore with my readers leave, I will relate it.
+    The Precisions for the most part, though they are plain in their
+    dress, wear the best of commodities, and though a smart toupee[91]
+    is an abomination, yet a bob-wig, or a natural of six or seven
+    guineas' price, is a modest covering allowed by the saints. One of
+    the prigs was well furnished in this particular, and flattering
+    myself it would become me, I resolved to make it lawful plunder.
+    Without any further ceremony, therefore, than alleging exchange was
+    no robbery, I napped his poll, and dressed him immediately in
+    masquerade with an old tie-wig, which I had the day before purchased
+    of an antiquated Chelsea pensioner for half-a-crown. The other
+    company, though in doleful dumps for the loss of the coriander seed,
+    could not forbear grinning at the merry metamorphis, for our Quaker
+    now looked more like a devil than saint. As companions in distress
+    ever alleviate its weight, they invited him with a general laugh
+    into their leathern convenience again, wished us a goodnight, and
+    hoped they should have no farther molestation on the road. We gave
+    then the watch-word, and assured them they should not, then tipped
+    the honest coachman a shilling to drink our healths, and brushed off
+    the ground.
+
+    About a week or ten days later, my brother Dick and I projected a
+    new scheme more nimble than the former, to take a purse without the
+    charge of horse hire. Millington Common was determined to be the
+    scene of action. We sauntered for some time upon the green and
+    suffered several to pass by without the least molestation, but at
+    last we espied two gentlemen well-mounted coming towards us, who we
+    imagined might be able to replenish our empty purses, so we prepared
+    for an attack. After the usual salutation, I stopped the foremost
+    and demanded his cash, his watch and other appurtenances thereunto
+    belonging, and assured him I was a brother of an honourable but
+    numerous family; that to work I had no inclination and to beg I was
+    ashamed, and that I had at present no other way for a livelihood, if
+    such a demand at first view ought appear a little immodest or
+    unreasonable, I hoped he would excuse it, as necessity and not
+    choice was the fatal inducement.
+
+    My brother Dick was as rhetorical in his apologies with the
+    hindermost, whom he dismounted. We used them with more good manners
+    and humanity than the common pads, who act for the most part rather
+    like Turks and Jews than Christians, in such enterprises, to the
+    eternal scandal of the profession. We contented ourselves with what
+    silver and little gold they had about them, which to about three or
+    four pounds, and their gold watches, one of which, as well I
+    remember, was of Tompion's make, and which I afterwards pawned for
+    five guineas to a fellow that the week after broke, and ran away
+    with it, so that I had not the opportunity of restoring it again to
+    the proper owner, for which I heartily beg his pardon. As we must
+    own the gentlemen behaved well and came unto our measures without
+    the least resistance, so they must do us the justice to acknowledge
+    that we treated them as such and neither disrobed nor abused them.
+    We thought it, however, common prudence to cut the girths of their
+    horses' saddles, and secure their bridles for fear of a pursuit.
+
+    Thus flushed again with success, we made the best of our way to
+    Brentford, and there took the ferry; but Fortune, though she is
+    fair, yet she is a fickle mistress, her smiles are often false and
+    very precarious. Before we had got ashore, we heard the persons had
+    got scent of us, and our triumph had like to have ended in
+    captivity. When we were three parts over, and out of danger of
+    drowning, we told the ferrymen our distress, gave them ten
+    shillings, and obliged them to throw their oars into the Thames. The
+    agreeable reward and the fears of being thrown in themselves in case
+    of a denial, made them readily consent. In we plunged after them,
+    and soon made the shore. Though we looked like Hob just drawn out of
+    the well, those that saw us only imagined it was a drunken frolic.
+    Our expeditious flight soon dried our clothes, and without catching
+    the least cold, we both arrived safe that night at London.
+
+    We congratulated each other, you may imagine on our happy and
+    narrow escape, and solaced ourselves after the fatigue of the day,
+    with a mistress and a bottle.
+
+I have copied these pages from Mr. Everett's book that my readers might
+have a clear and just idea of those notions which these unhappy men
+entertain of the life they lead, and hope they may be of some use in
+giving such youths as are too apt to be taken with their low kind of
+jests, a just abhorrence of committing villainy, merely to divert the
+mob, and make themselves the sole topic of discourse in alehouses and
+cellars.
+
+But to return to Everett. He was taken up on suspicion and committed to
+New Prison, where he continued three years, behaving himself so well in
+the prison that the justices ordered him his liberty, and he was
+thereupon made turnkey of that place. In this post he continued to act
+so honestly that he got a tolerable reputation, taking the Red Lion
+alehouse, in Turnmill Street, Cow Cross, in order to live the better;
+resigning his place as turnkey as soon as he was settled in it.
+
+He who succeeded him was a footman to the Duchess of Newcastle's and not
+being very well acquainted with the nature of his new office, he was
+very industrious to prevail with Everett to return to his former
+condition, and accept the key from him. Promises and entreaties were not
+long made in vain. Everett was sensible there was money to be got,[92]
+and therefore, upon the fair promises of the new keeper, became turnkey
+again. But when he had shown his master the art of governing such a
+territory as his was; when he had instructed him in the secrets of
+raising money, and shown him the methods of managing the several sorts
+of prisoners that were committed to its care, his superior quickly gave
+him to understand that he had now done all he wanted, and the next kind
+office would be to quit this place; for it is with those sort of people
+as with some in a higher station, though they at first caress men who
+are better acquainted with affairs than themselves, in order to improve
+their own knowledge, yet no sooner do they think themselves qualified to
+go on without their assistance, but they grow uneasy at such services,
+and are never quiet until they are rid of men whose abilities are their
+greatest faults.
+
+A little after Everett was turned out to make room for the keeper's
+brother, he had the additional misfortune to keep an account with a
+person who too hastily demanded his money, and John, not being able to
+pay it, therefore upon arrested him, and threw him into gaol. He
+quickly turned himself over to the Fleet, where he first took the
+rules, and then got into the Thistle and Crown Alehouse, in the Old
+Bailey. There he lived for a while and afterwards took the Cock in the
+same place, where he lived for three years with an indifferent
+reputation, until he was prevailed on to take the Fleet Cellar[93], and
+became very busy in the execution of the then Warden's project, until
+the committee of the House of Commons thought fit to commit both of them
+to Newgate.
+
+This effectually undid him, for while he was a prisoner there, the
+brewer made a seizure of his whole stock of beer, to the value of three
+hundred pounds, and this it was, as he himself said, which posted him
+out upon the highway again. Whether we may depend upon those
+protestations he had made that he should never otherwise have gone upon
+the road again, but have lived and died free, at least from that sort of
+wickedness which indeed he had reason to dislike, since he had saved his
+life by impeaching Bird his companion, who was hanged at Chelmsford at
+the assizes held there for the County of Essex. When he had once taken
+this resolution in his head, it was not long before he equipped himself
+with necessaries for his employment.
+
+The first robbery he committed was upon a lady in a chariot, and the
+lady desiring that he would put up his pistol for fear of frightening a
+child of six years old in the coach with her, he did so, and took from
+her a guinea and some silver, without touching her gold watch, or any
+other valuable things that she had about her. He had scarce committed
+the robbery, before the lady's husband and another gentleman and his
+company came up, and the accident being related to them, they
+immediately pursued him as hard as their horses could gallop; and came
+so close up with him, that he was hardly got into the Globe Tavern, in
+Hatton Garden, and sent away his horse, before they passed by the door.
+As soon as he thought they were out of sight, he slipped away with all
+the precaution he was able, and got into a little blind alehouse in
+Holborn, where he had scarce lit a pipe, and called for a tankard of
+drink, before he perceived both the gentlemen looking very earnesty
+about, though he now looked upon himself as out of all danger.
+
+It was a very short time after, that he committed the last fact, which
+was the robbing of Mrs. Manley[94], and a lady, who was in a chariot
+with her, a black boy being behind in the coach. He got safe enough off
+and into town, after this robbery; but how it was I cannot tell, his
+neighbours suspected him, and talked of him as a highwayman, and
+reported very confidently that he was taken up, as it seems he was, but
+was discharged again for want of evidence. He was speedily seized again,
+and being committed to Newgate, was brought to his trial at the Old
+Bailey for the said fact.
+
+Mrs. Ellis deposed that the prisoner was the person who robbed the
+coach, and that she observed him follow it when they came out of town.
+Mrs. Manley deposed also to his being the person who robbed them, and
+William Coffee, a negro boy, who was behind the coach, swore positively
+to his face. Several men who were present at his being apprehended,
+swore that he had a pistol, dagger, six bullets, a flint and powder horn
+about him, under a red rug coat.
+
+His defence was very trivial, and the jury upon a short consultation,
+found him guilty. Under sentence of death, he behaved very
+indifferently, sometimes appearing tolerably cool, at others in a
+grievous passion, especially at the keepers, if they refused him such
+liberties as he thought fit to ask. When he was first condemned, he
+flattered himself with hopes of life, if it were possible for him to
+prevail on the ladies whom he had robbed to petition in his favour; in
+order to induce them to which, he wrote the following letter, though to
+no purpose, for the death warrant came down suddenly and he was included
+with the before-mentioned prisoners.
+
+    THE LETTER
+
+    Madam,
+
+    I crave leave, with all humility and respect, to address you and
+    Madam Ellis, and with the utmost submission and concern, do humbly
+    beg your pardons for the fears and surprise my misfortunes reduced
+    me to put you and the children into, whose cries moved so much
+    compassion in me that I had not power to pursue with any rigour my
+    desperate designs, which your ladyship must have perceived by the
+    consternation I was struck into on a sudden. My sole intention was,
+    if I could have got £50 to settle myself in a public house, and to
+    take up an honest course of life, and do own at best it is a very
+    heinous crime. Yet, madam, you will recollect after what manner I
+    treated you, and at the same time consider the methods taken by
+    others on the like occasion. This necessity I was drove to, by
+    adhering to a certain master I lately served, and to obey his wicked
+    and pernicious commands, in following his wicked and pernicious
+    counsels, brought me to poverty, and consequently to this unhappy
+    state I now labour under, and was become almost as much as himself,
+    the scorn and hatred of mankind. I say, madam, if you will be so
+    good as to consider all these unhappy circumstances, and that
+    necessity admits of no contradiction, they will, I am persuaded,
+    inspire compassion in generous souls (a character you both
+    deservedly bear); and as a fellow-creature, I beg mercy at your
+    ladyship's hands, by signing a petition to the Recorder for me, to
+    the end, he may be induced to make a favourable report, and thereby
+    move his most sacred Majesty to clemency, by the sentence to some
+    other corporal punishment, and shall dedicate the rest of my days in
+    praying for both your happiness and prosperity in this world, and
+    eternal felicity and bliss in that to come, and crave leave, with
+    due deference, madam, to subscribe myself,
+
+    Your ladyship's most devoted,
+                  Afflicted humble servant,
+                                      John Everett
+
+The Ordinary of Newgate, in the account he has given of this prisoner,
+has drawn as bad a character as he is able, and in order to it, has
+gathered together all the ill-terms he could think of, even though some
+of them are contrary to one another. The truth is, that the fellow in
+himself had abundance of ill-qualities, with some good ones, and
+especially good nature of which he had a very large share. Lewd women
+were what brought him to his ruin, for to their company he continually
+addicted himself, and with his low intrigues amongst them is the book I
+have mentioned stuffed from one end to the other.
+
+As to religion, it is certain he had very little of it before he was
+confined, so it is not very likely that he should make any great
+proficiency while he remained there. He was careless, indeed, under his
+misfortunes, but did not give himself up to any loose or profane
+expressions, but on the contrary attended at Chapel with decency at
+least, if not with devotion.
+
+Some attempts were made to save his life, by engaging him to make
+discoveries in an affair of high concern, but all was ineffectual, and
+he suffered on the 20th of February, 1729-30, with less apprehension
+than might have been expected from a man under his unhappy
+circumstances. The executioner, to put the prisoner sooner out of his
+pain, jumped upon his shoulders, and thereby broke the rope, but he was
+soon tied up again, and there remained until the rest were cut down.
+
+At the time of his execution, he was forty-four years of age or
+thereabouts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [91] This was a small wig covering only the top of the head; a
+        bob-wig was short and tied at the back with a large bow; a
+        natural was a large, full wig, in which the hair was made to
+        look like natural locks.
+
+   [92] The scandalous system of bleeding prisoners for every little
+        necessity and comfort made gaoloring a very profitable trade.
+
+   [93] That is, managed the sale of liquor in the Fleet.
+
+   [94] Author of _The New Atlantis_ and sundry political pamphlets
+        and libels, plays and novels.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of ROBERT DRUMMOND, a Highwayman and FERDINANDO SHRIMPTON, a
+Highwayman and Murderer
+
+
+Robert Drummond was the brother of James Drummond, whom we have before
+mentioned. He had formerly dealt in hardwares, and thereby lived with
+some reputation in the town of Sunderland, nobody ever dreaming that he
+went upon the highway for money. But it was not long that he continued
+even to put this mask upon his villainy, but on the contrary gave way to
+his wild and debauched temper, and committed a thousand extravagancies,
+which soon created suspicions, and occasioned his being apprehended on
+suspicion of a robbery. This clearly being made out at the ensuing
+assizes, he was thereupon convicted, pardoned, and transported. But he
+soon found a way to return into England, and grew one of the most daring
+and mischievous robbers that ever infested the road.
+
+The multitude of his robberies made his person so well known that it is
+wonderful he should so long escape, especially considering the roughness
+and cruelty of his temper, he never using anybody well, firing upon any
+who attempted to ride away from him, and beating and abusing those who
+submitted to him. He drew in, as has been said before, his brother
+James, and deserting him when pursued and in danger, he was the occasion
+of his death. It was also suspected that Shrimpton and he were the
+persons who committed those robberies for which Knowland and Westwood
+were executed. However it were, he continued for a considerable space
+after the two Shrimptons and he robbed together, committing sometimes
+nine or ten robberies in one night, until they were all three
+apprehended, and William Shrimpton became an evidence against them.
+
+Ferdinando Shrimpton, the other malefactor, was a person well educated,
+though his father was one of the greatest highwaymen in England. He [the
+father] lived at Bristol, and behaved in outward appearance so well that
+he was never suspected, but unluckily one evening some constables coming
+into an inn hastily to apprehend another person, his guilty heart making
+him afraid that they were come in search of nobody but himself, he
+thereupon immediately drew a pistol and shot one of them dead, for which
+murder being convicted, he readily confessed his former offences, and
+after his execution for the aforesaid crime, was hung in chains.
+
+As for this unhappy man, his son, he had been bred to no trade, but
+after his father's death served as a foot-soldier in the Guards and
+eked out his pay by taking the same steps which his father had done
+before him. Never any fellow was of a bolder and of a more audacious
+spirit than he, and after he had once associated himself with Drummond,
+they quickly forced William Shrimpton, who was Ferdinando's cousin, to
+commit one or two facts with him, and afterwards he would never suffer
+him to be quiet.
+
+On Hounslow Heath, it seems, Shrimpton robbed a man of a horse, a silver
+watch and some money. The man applied himself to Shrimpton when he was
+apprehended, begging that he would find a way to help him to his horse
+again. Shrimpton promised he would, and for a guinea was as good as his
+word, though the gelding was worth fifteen pounds; but for his watch,
+nothing either was, or as they pretended could be, told about it. But
+that was only for fear of disobliging the pawnbroker where they had sent
+it, for Shrimpton afterwards, upon the owner's thirty-four shillings by
+his wife, had it again, though Ferdinando was very much disobliged that
+he received but half a crown for his trouble.
+
+Drummond, he and his cousin being seized, William turned evidence
+against them, and at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey, Shrimpton
+being indicted for the murder of Simon Prebent, Mr. Tyson's coachman,
+and Robert Drummond for aiding and abetting, and assisting him, they
+were both upon full evidence convicted, as they were also convicted for
+a robbery on the highway, on Mr. Tyson, after the death of the coachman.
+They were a third time indicted together for assaulting Robert Furnel on
+the highway, taking from him a watch of great value, a guinea and a
+half, some silver and a whip, together with some other things of value.
+They were also indicted afresh for assaulting Jonathan Cockhoofs on the
+highway, taking from him a bay gelding, value nine pounds, several
+roasting pigs and pieces of pork, etc.; of all which they were found
+guilty, the fact being as clear and as strong against them as possible.
+
+Under sentence of death, they behaved themselves with great obstinacy
+and resolution, refused to give any account of their crimes, but in
+general would say that they were great and notorious offenders. As to
+the fact committed by Knowland and Westwood, they would not positively
+say it was done by them, though they could not deny it. Only when
+pressed upon it, Drummond would say in a passion, _What, would you have
+us take upon us all the robberies that were committed in the country?_
+This was all that could be got from him, even when he was at the point
+to die and the wife of Knowland earnestly begged that he would tell the
+truth, as he was now entering into another world, and the owning or not
+owning of those facts could no ways prejudice them.
+
+As to the barbarous murder committed upon Mr. Tyson's coachman, it did
+not seem to make the least impression upon their spirits. Shrimpton, by
+whose hands the man was killed, never appeared one whit more uneasy when
+the sermon on murder was peculiarly preached on his account, but on the
+contrary talked and jested with his companions as he was wont to do. In
+a word more hardened, obstinate and impenitent wretches were never seen;
+for as they were wanting in all principles of religion, so they were
+void even of humanity and good nature. They valued blood no more than
+they did water, but were ready to shed the first with as little concern
+as they spilt the latter. Inured in wickedness and rapine, old in years
+and covered in offences, they yielded their last breaths at Tyburn, with
+very little sign of contrition or repentance, on the 17th of February,
+1730, Drummond being about fifty, and Shrimpton about thirty years of
+age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of WILLIAM NEWCOMB, a housebreaker
+
+
+Though the many instances we have, of late years, had of amazing
+wickednesses committed by lads one would scarce believe were capable of
+executing, much less of contriving schemes so full of ginning and of
+guilt, ought in a great measure to prevent our being surprised at
+anything of the same kind, let it be committed by ever such a stripling,
+yet I confess it was not without wonder that I perused the papers
+relating to this unfortunate young man--so strong an instance of a great
+capacity for mischief at the same time that he never once evidenced
+either care or ability in succeeding in an honest way. On the contrary,
+he was assidious only to attain as much money as might put him on the
+road of debauchery, and then stupidly gave himself up to squandering it
+in the gratification of his lusts, until indigence brought to rack his
+inventions again, and his second attempt proving abortive, brought him
+to the gallows.
+
+He was born of honest parents, who took care enough in his education to
+qualify him for the business of a shoemaker, for which they designed
+him, and to which they put him apprentice. He had not served above three
+years of his time, before he robbed his master of a very considerable
+sum of money. The man having a respect for his family, put him away
+without prosecuting him. His father took him home, but, however,
+reproaching him very often for the villainous facts he had committed, he
+went away from him and lay about the town, intending to take the first
+opportunity that offered of stealing a good booty, and march off into
+the country.
+
+At last, after consulting with himself for some time, he fixed upon a
+banker's shop in Lombard Street, within two doors of the church of St.
+Edmund the King, thinking with himself that if once he could get into
+that shop, be should make himself at a blow. In order to it he got into
+the church overnight and stayed there until morning, when, just as it
+began to grow light, he steered downstairs into the shop, having got
+over the top of Mr. Jenkin's house, and watching his opportunity, laid
+hold of a single bag and slipped out of doors with it. The booty was
+indeed a large one, for it happened that what he took was all gold,
+which was upwards of eight hundred guineas. This put it in his power to
+show himself in that state of life which he most admired, for sending
+for a tailor be had two or three suits of fine clothes made, bought a
+couple of geldings, hired a footman in livery to attend him, and thus
+equipped set out for the horse races at Newmarket.
+
+Women and gaming very soon reduced the bulk of his gold and in six or
+seven months, finding his pockets very low, he returned to London to
+replenish himself. The good success he before had in robbing a banker,
+and his knowing nobody was so likely to furnish him with ready money,
+put him upon making the like attempt at Mr. Hoare's, into whose house he
+got and endeavoured to conceal himself as conveniently as he could for
+that purpose. But being detected and apprehended on the roof of the
+house, whither he had fled to avoid pursuit, he was committed to
+Newgate, and at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, was tried for
+burglary, and convicted.
+
+Under sentence of death he behaved with great mildness and civility. He
+confessed his having been as great a sinner as his years would give him
+leave, addicted to whoring, drunkenness, gaming and having quite
+obliterated all the religious principles which his former education had
+instilled into him. However, he endeavoured to retrieve as much as
+possible the knowledge of his duty, and to fulfil it by praying to
+Almighty God for the forgiveness of his many offences; and in this
+disposition of mind he departed this life, on the 17th of February,
+1730, being about nineteen years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of STEPHEN DOWDALE, a Thief
+
+
+This unfortunate man was the son of parents in good circumstances in the
+Kingdom of Ireland, who were very careful of giving him the best
+education they were capable of, both as to letters and as to the
+principles of the Christian religion. Yet from some hope they had of his
+succeeding in a military way, they chose rather to let him serve in the
+army than breed him to any particular trade. It seems he behaved so well
+in the regiment of dragoons in which he served, that his officers
+advanced him to the post of sergeant, and just as the Peace was
+concluded, he had hopes of being made a quartermaster. But the regiment
+then being broke, his hopes were all dissipated, and he thrown into the
+world to shift for himself as well as he could.
+
+In Ireland he remained with his friends some years, but finding by
+degrees that their kindness cooled, and that it would be impossible for
+him to subsist much longer upon the bounty of his relations, he
+thereupon resolved to come over at once to England and endeavour to live
+here by his wits. The gaming tables were the places where he chiefly
+resorted, but finding that fortune was a mistress not to be depended
+upon he resolved to take some more certain method of living, and for
+that purpose associated himself with ten or a dozen knights of the road.
+He continued his practices without the least suspicion for a very
+considerable time, in all which he appeared one of the greatest beaux at
+the other end of the town.
+
+But growing uneasy in the midst of that seeming gaiety in which he
+lived, and being under some apprehensions that one or more of his
+companions was meditating means of making peace with the government at
+the expense of his life, he resolved to prevent them; and thereupon
+surrendered himself of his own accord into the hands of a constable, and
+gave the best information he was able against all his confederates. But
+however it was, most of them had previous knowledge of the warrants
+issued against them, and thereby made their escapes. Others who were
+apprehended were acquitted by the jury, notwithstanding this evidence
+against them, so that the public not being likely to reap any benefit by
+his discovery, some people thought proper to turn his own confession
+upon himself. Accordingly, at the next Sessions at the Old Bailey, he
+was indicted for feloniously stealing a gold watch value twenty pounds,
+out of the house of Thomas Martin, on the 30th of August preceding the
+indictment. He was also indicted a second time for feloniously stealing
+a diamond ring out of the shop of John Trible, on the 25th of August.
+Both these facts were in the information he had made, and therefore the
+proof was dear and direct against him, and beyond his power to avoid by
+any defence.
+
+Under sentence of death be behaved himself with great resignation,
+seemed to be very penitent for those numerous offences he had committed,
+though now and then he let fell expressions which showed that he thought
+himself hardly dealt with by those who had received his confession.
+However, what with fear and concern, and what with the moistness of the
+place wherein he was confined, he fell into a grievous distemper, which
+quickly increased into a high fever, which affected his senses, and
+shortly after took away his life, just as a very worthy gentleman in the
+commission for the peace for Middlesex had procured his life, which was
+thus ended by the course of Nature though in the cells of Newgate, he
+being then in the forty-fourth year of his age. He died on the 5th of
+April, 1730.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of ABRAHAM ISRAEL, a Jew
+
+
+As it is a very ordinary case for fiction to be imposed on the world for
+truth, so it sometimes happens that truth hath such extraordinary
+circumstances attending it, as well nigh bring it to pass for fiction.
+The adventures of this unhappy man, who was a Hebrew by nation, have
+something in them strange, and which excite pity; for a man must be
+wanting in humanity who can look upon a young person endowed with the
+natural advantage of a good genius, lightened by the acquired
+accomplishments of learning, fall of a sudden from an honest and
+reputable behaviour into debauchery, wickedness and rapine, methods that
+lead to certain destruction, and as it were to drag men to violent and
+shameful deaths.
+
+This unfortunate person, Abraham Israel, was born of parents of the
+Hebrew nation, of good character and in good circumstances, at Presburg,
+in the kingdom of Hungary. They were exceedingly desirous of giving
+their son a good education, and therefore sent him to study in the
+Jewish College at Prague, in Bohemia, where they allowed him about two
+hundred pounds Stirling a year. He improved under the tuition of the
+rabbis there to a great degree, insomuch that he was admired by them as
+a prodigy of learning. His behaviour in every other way being
+unblamable, and therefore not spending above half what his father sent
+him, he distributed the rest among the indigent scholars there, of all
+nations and religions. As a mark of his early and polite genius, we have
+thought proper to entertain our readers with a short description of the
+city of Prague, which he wrote in the German tongue, and which on this
+occasion we have ventured to translate into English.
+
+    Prague is the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which, as if
+    protected by nature, is encompassed round with high mountains.
+    Throughout all Europe there is no soil in general more fertile or
+    better adapted to the plough. The fruits there are excellent and
+    great quantities of fowl are plentiful almost to excess, the cattle
+    are large and excellent. In fine nothing is poor, wretched or
+    miserable there except the people, who are slaves to their lords,
+    and never enjoy even the fruits of their own hard labour. But to
+    return to Prague, it is a city situated on a hill, part of it
+    stretching down the plain, having the river Muldau running through
+    it. The buildings are of so large extent that this city is divided
+    into three, and by some into four cities. The old city lies on the
+    east of the river, is exceedingly populous, and houses in that
+    quarter fair, but old-fashioned. Here is the quarter assigned unto
+    our nation (i.e., the Jews) where we enjoy greater privileges and
+    are treated with more lenity than in any other part of Germany. The
+    heads of our people deal to very great advantage in jewels and
+    precious stones dug out of the Bohemian mines. The lesser town on
+    the other side of the river is more beautiful in its building than
+    the old town, has fine gardens and stately palaces, among which
+    there is the famous one of Count Wallenstein, the magnificence of
+    which, may be the better guessed from our knowing that a hundred
+    houses were pulled down to make room for it. Its hall is thought one
+    of the finest in all Europe, its gardens are wonderfully stately,
+    and the stables which he built here for his horses are almost beyond
+    description, marble pillars parted the standing of each horse from
+    another. The racks were of polished steel, and their mangers of the
+    finest marble, and over the head of each stand was placed the figure
+    of each horse, as large as the life. This famous man who was the
+    greatest captain of his time, after having built this sumptuous
+    palace, re-established the Emperor's power, almost utterly broken by
+    the Swedes, growing at last too powerful for a subject, or as the
+    Germans say, endeavouring to make himself master of the Kingdom of
+    Bohemia, he was, if not by the command, at least by the connivance
+    of the Emperor Ferdinand, privately assassinated in the city of
+    Egra, in the year 1634, by certain Irish officers, in whom he
+    reposed the greatest confidence. Since his time Prague has seen no
+    greater powerful persons among her countrymen; on the contrary, the
+    inhabitants now in general are poor, their habits mean, the Hebrew
+    nation being obliged, both men and women, to wear a particular garb.
+    Its streets are dirty, and nothing but the Imperial Palace preserves
+    anything of its ancient grandeur; the same fate hath befallen the
+    other Bohemian cities, and thus in a land of Paradise the people
+    live like slaves.
+
+When at the age of thirteen, the unfortunate Abraham was recalled by his
+father from college, at his return home, every one was surprised at that
+prodigious knowledge which he had acquired while at Prague. Those of
+their nation who resided at Presburg desired Abraham's father that his
+son might, according to the custom of the Hebrews, read in the
+synagogue, which accordingly he did with great and deserved applause.
+His relations, and the rich Jews of the town, loaded him the next day
+with valuable presents, in order to show their veneration for the
+religion and learning of their ancestors; but these encouragements being
+heaped on a vain and ambitious temper, were the ruin of a youth hitherto
+virtuous in his conduct and passionately fond of learning. For growing
+on a sudden conceited with his own abilities, puffed up with the vanity
+of having excelled his equals, he began to addict himself to acquire
+higher accomplishments, grew fond of music, delighted in
+dancing-schools, would needs be taught fencing and riding, and from the
+studies preparative to making a grave rabbi, jumped all of a sudden to
+the qualities necessary to finish a Jewish fop.
+
+His relations soon showed by the alteration of their conduct how little
+they approved of his new state of life, but that signified nothing to
+him, he still went on at his old rate; until at last perceiving his
+parents would do nothing for him, he went with an idle woman to
+Amsterdam. There he was uneasy, not knowing what course of life to take,
+but at last submitted to wearing a livery, and got into service. He
+behaved himself amongst the Spanish Jews so well that they gave him a
+recommendation to Baron Swaffo in England, upon which he came over
+thither, and entered into his service. He recommended him to Mr. Jacob
+Mendez da Costa, where he Stayed for some time, with a good character as
+a diligent servant. From him he went to Mr. Villareal on College Hill.
+It seems that while he continued at the Hague, he fell in love with a
+young woman there, who continually ran in his head after his coming over
+hither. As soon, therefore, as he got money enough, he went over to the
+Hague, on purpose to make her a visit. When he came there, he found she
+was gone, which made him very uneasy, yet he resolved not to go to
+Amsterdam, whither he heard she went from the Hague.
+
+However, it was not long before she was thrown in his way, for upon his
+coming over again to London, where he got into the service of Mr. Jacob
+Mendez da Costa, he heard at a barber's shop of a young maid just
+brought over from Holland who was then at her uncle's in St. Mary Axe,
+not knowing where to get a place. Upon enquiring her name, he found it
+to be his old acquaintance and mistress at the Hague. It was not long
+before he turned out the cook at the place where he lived, and brought
+her home in her place.
+
+For a while she behaved like an honest and industrious servant, but one
+night as Abraham went to bed, he saw her opening an escrutoire with a
+knife, which she said she could at any time do. Abraham at first forbid
+her, but she by her endearments, quickly brought him over to her party,
+insomuch that after having lain with her, he consented to rummage the
+escrutoire. In it they found diamond rings and other jewels to a very
+great value. The wench said to him, holding up a fine diamond ring,
+_Abraham, you might take this, and it would prove the making of us
+both._ But the fellow would not listen to her. However, they agreed to
+take five guineas, which when they had done, they went to bed together
+according to custom.
+
+Sometime after they begged a holiday and going out borrowed some more
+money from the same bank, but staying out all night she lost her place,
+whereupon she went back to her uncle's, and afterwards got a place in
+Winchester Street. There Abraham visited her, and suspecting that she
+was with child, asked her very gravely and kindly whether it were so or
+not? She said, _No_, and pretended to want money, upon which he turned
+back and gave her a guinea. Some time after he came to see her again,
+asked her the same question, and had the same answer, yet in a few hours
+after she caused him to be apprehended by the parish officers, the
+expenses whereof cost him five guineas immediately, and he was obliged
+to deposit fourteen guineas more as a security that he would indemnify
+the parish.
+
+This threw him out of his place, and though he got into another, and
+behaved well in it, yet going into the service of Mr. John Mendez da
+Costa, he became there so uneasy on account of his child, and some other
+troublesome affairs, that he ventured on stealing eight silver spoons,
+five silver forks, two pair of silver canisters, a diamond ring value
+two hundred and fifty pounds, a pair of diamond ear-rings worth ninety
+pounds, three diamond buckles, and other goods of a great value. For
+this fact he was prosecuted, and on very full evidence convicted.
+
+Under sentence of death, the Ordinary informs us that he appeared to be
+better acquainted with Hebrew than is common amongst Jews. He came up to
+the chapel rather for the air than for devotion. However, he one day
+sung part of a Psalm. His hatred against his prosecutor was strong and
+unconquerable, for when the minister told him it was his duty to forgive
+him, he said he did not know whether it was or no according to their
+law, and sometimes said that Heaven might deal with the same justice by
+him hereafter, as he had been dealt with here.
+
+As the time of his death approached, he grew graver, and read more
+constantly in those books he had in Hebrew characters of his own
+religion. However, he wrote a letter to the gentleman he robbed in very
+harsh terms, and applied to him some of the imprecations of the hundred
+and ninth Psalm. At the place of execution he had two men with him, who
+were muttering something or other in his ear. He had a little Hebrew
+prayer-book in his hand, and read in it. When being again persuaded to
+forgive his prosecutor, he at last, in a faint voice, answered that he
+did, and then submitted to his fate at Tyburn, on the 12th of May, 1730,
+being then about twenty-two years of age. He had several relations who
+had a great deal of money in England, and they took care of his body.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of EBENEZER ELLISON, a Notorious Irish Thief
+
+
+With respect to this malefactor I have nothing to acquaint the world
+with but what is taken from his own speech which was printed at Dublin,
+and said to be published there by his own desire for the common good. It
+made a great noise there then, and may perhaps serve to entertain you
+now, wherefore I proceed to give it you in his own words.
+
+    I am now going to suffer the just punishment of my crimes,
+    prescribed by the Law of God and my country. I know it is the
+    constant custom that those who come to this place should have
+    speeches made for them, and cried about in their own hearing as they
+    are carried to execution; and truly they are such speeches that
+    although our fraternity be an ignorant illiterate people, they would
+    make a man ashamed to have such nonsense and false English charged
+    upon him, even when he is going to the gallows. They contain a
+    pretended account of our birth and family, of the facts for which we
+    are to die, of our sincere repentance, and a declaration of our
+    religion. I cannot expect to avoid the same treatment with my
+    predecessors. However, having an education one or two degrees better
+    than those of my rank and profession, ever since my commitment I
+    have been considering what might be proper for me to deliver upon
+    this occasion.
+
+    And first, I cannot say from the bottom of my heart that I am truly
+    sorry for the offence I have given to God and the world; but I am
+    very much so for the bad success of my villainies, in bringing me to
+    this untimely end; for it is plainly evident, that after having some
+    time ago obtained a pardon from the Crown, I again took up my old
+    trade. My evil habits were so rooted in me, and I was grown unfit
+    for any other kind of employment; and therefore, although in
+    compliance with my friends I resolved to go to the gallows after the
+    usual manner, kneeling with a book in my hand and my eyes lift up,
+    yet I shall feel no more devotion in my heart than I observed in
+    some of my comrades, who have been drunk among common whores the
+    very night before their execution. I can say further from my own
+    knowledge, that two of my own fraternity, after they had been hanged
+    and wonderfully came to life, and made their escapes, as it
+    sometimes happens, proved afterwards the wickedest rogues I ever
+    knew, and so continued until they were hanged again for good and
+    all; and yet they had the impudence at both times they went up to
+    the gallows to smite their breasts and lift up their eyes to Heaven
+    all the way.
+
+    Secondly, from the knowledge I have of my own wicked dispositon, and
+    that of my comrades, I give it as my opinion that nothing can be
+    more unfortunate to the public than the mercy of Government in even
+    pardoning and transporting us, unless we betray one another, as we
+    never fail to do if we are sure to be well paid, and then a pardon
+    may do good. By the same rule, it is better to have but one fox in a
+    farm than three or four, but we generally make a shift to return
+    after being transported, and are ten times greater rogues than
+    before, and much more cunning. Besides, I know it by experience,
+    that some hopes we have of finding mercy when we are tried, or after
+    we are condemned, is always a great encouragement to us.
+
+    Thirdly, nothing is more dangerous to idle young fellows than the
+    company of those odious common whores we frequent, and of which this
+    town is full. These wretches put us upon all mischief to feed their
+    lust and extravagance. They are ten times more bloody and cruel than
+    men. Their advice is always not to spare us if we are pursued, they
+    get drunk with us, and are common to us all, and yet if they can get
+    anything by it, are sore to be our betrayers.
+
+    Now, as I am a dying man, something I have done which may be of good
+    use to the public, I have left with an honest man and indeed the
+    only honed man I ever was acquainted with--the names of all my
+    wicked brethren, the present places of abode, with a short account
+    of the chief crimes they have committed in many of which I have been
+    their accomplice, and heard the rest from their own mouths. I have
+    likewise set down the names of those we call our setters, of the
+    wicked houses we frequent, and of those who receive and buy our
+    stolen goods. I have solemnly charged this honest man, and have
+    received his promise upon oath, that whenever he hears of any to be
+    tried for robbing or housebreaking, he will look into his list, and
+    he if finds the name there of the thief concerned, to send the whole
+    paper to the Government. Of this I here give my companions fair and
+    public warning, and I hope they will take it.
+
+    In the paper above-mentioned, which I left with my friend, I have
+    also set down the names of the several gentlemen whom we have robbed
+    in Dublin streets for three years past. I have told the
+    circumstances of those robberies, and shown plainly that nothing but
+    the want of common courage was the cause of their misfortunes. I
+    have therefore desired my friends that whenever any gentleman
+    happens to be robbed in the streets, he will get the relation
+    printed and published with the first letters of those gentlemen's
+    names, who by their want of bravery are likely to be the cause of
+    all the mischief of that kind, which may happen for the future. I
+    cannot leave the world without a short description of that kind of
+    life which I have led for some years past and is exactly the same
+    with the rest of our wicked brethren.
+
+    Although we are generally so corrupted from our childhood as to have
+    no sense of goodness, yet something heavy always hangs about us. I
+    know not what it is, that we are never easy until we are half drunk
+    among our whores and companions, nor sleep sound, unless we drink
+    longer than we can stand. If we go abroad in the day, a wise man
+    would easily find us to be rogues by our faces, we have such
+    suspicious, fearful and constrained countenances, often turning back
+    and sneaking through narrow lanes and alleys. I have never failed of
+    knowing a brother thief by his looks, though I never saw him before.
+    Every man amongst us keeps his particular whore, who is however
+    common to us all when we have a mind to change. When we have got a
+    booty, if it be money, we divide it equally among our companions,
+    and soon squander it on our vices in those houses that receive us,
+    for the master and mistress and very tapster go snacks, and besides
+    make us pay treble reckonings. If our plunder be plate, watches,
+    rings, snuff-boxes and the like, we have customers in all quarters
+    of the town to take them off. I have seen a tankard sold, worth
+    fifteen pounds to a fellow in ---- Street, for twenty shillings, and
+    a gold watch for thirty. I have set down his name, and that of
+    several others in the paper already mentioned. We have setters
+    watching in corners, and by dead walls, to give us notice when a
+    gentleman goes by, especially if he be anything in drink. I believe
+    in my conscience, that if an account were made of a thousand pounds
+    in stolen goods, considering the low rates we sell them at, the
+    bribes we must give for concealment, the extortions of alehouse
+    reckonings, and other necessary charges there would not remain fifty
+    pounds clear to be divided among the robbers, and out of this we
+    must find clothes for whores, besides treating them from morning
+    until night, who in requital award us with nothing but treachery and
+    the pox, for when our money is gone, they are every moment
+    threatening to inform against us, if we will not get out to look for
+    more. If anything in this world be like Hell, as I have heard it
+    described by our clergy, the truest picture of it must be in the
+    back room of one of our alehouses at midnight, where a crew of
+    robbers and their whores are met together after a booty, and are
+    beginning to grow drunk, from that time until they are past their
+    senses, in such a continued horrible noise of cursing, blasphemy,
+    lewdness, scurrility, and brutish behaviour, such roaring and
+    confusion, such a clatter of mugs and pots at each other's heads,
+    that Bedlam in comparison is a sober and orderly place. At last they
+    all tumble from their stools and benches, and sleep away the rest of
+    the night, and generally the landlord or his wife, or some other
+    whore, who has a stronger head than the rest, picks their pockets
+    before they awake. The misfortune is, that we can never be easy
+    until we are drunk, and our drunkenness constantly exposes us to be
+    more easily betrayed and taken.
+
+    This is a short picture of the life I have led, which is more
+    miserable than that of the poorest labourer who works for fourpence
+    a day; and yet custom is so strong that I am confident, if I could
+    make escape at the foot of the gallows, I should be following the
+    same course this very evening. Upon the whole, we ought to be looked
+    upon as the common enemies of mankind, whose interest it is to root
+    us out like worms, and other mischievous vermin, against which no
+    fair play is required. If I have done service to men in what I have
+    said, I shall hope to have done service to God, and that will be
+    better than a silly speech made by me full of whining and canting,
+    which I utterly despise, and have never been used to yet such a one
+    I expect to have my ears tormented with as I am passing along the
+    streets.
+
+    Good people, fare ye well; bad as I am, I leave many worse behind
+    me, and I hope you shall see me die like a man, though a death
+    contrary.
+
+    E. E.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JAMES DALTON, a Thief
+
+
+The character of this criminal is already so infamous, and his crimes so
+notorious that I may spare myself any introductory observation which I
+have made use of as to most of the rest with respect to his birth. He
+was so unfortunate as to have the gallows hereditary to his family, his
+father, who was by birth an Irishman, and in the late Wars in Flanders a
+sergeant, coming over here was indicted and hanged for a street robbery.
+After his death, Dalton's mother married a butcher, who, not long before
+Dalton's death, was transported, and she herself for a like crime shared
+in the same punishment.
+
+This unhappy young man himself went between his father's legs in the
+cart when he made his fatal exit at Tyburn. It has, indeed, remained a
+doubt whether Dalton the father were a downright thief or not; his own
+friends say that he was only a cheat, and one of the most dexterous
+sharpers at cards in England. It seems he fell in with some people of
+his own profession, who thought he got their money too much easily, and
+therefore made bold to fix him with a downright robbery.
+
+As for James Dalton the younger, from his infancy he was a thief and
+deserved the gallows almost as soon as he wore breeches. He began his
+pranks with robbing the maid where he went to school. By eleven years
+old he got himself into the company of Fulsom and Field, who were
+evidences against Jonathan Wild and Blueskin, and in their company
+committed villainies of every denomination, such as picking pockets,
+snatching hats and wigs, breaking open shops, filching bundles at dusk
+of the evening. All the money they got by these practices was spent
+among the common women of the town, whose company they frequented. Then
+the Old Bailey and Smithfield Cloisters became the place of their
+resort, from whence they carried away goods to a considerable quantity,
+sold them at under-rates, and squandered away the money upon strumpets.
+
+Towards Smithfield and the narrow lanes and allies about it, are the
+chief houses of entertainment for such people, where they are
+promiscuously admitted, men or women, and have places every way fitted
+for both concealing and entertainment. The man and woman of the house
+frequently take their commodities off their hand at low prices, and the
+women who frequent these sort of places help them off with what trifling
+sums of money they receive; for though they are utterly devoid of
+education, yet dinning and flattery are so perfectly practised by them,
+that these bewitched young robbers make no scruple of venturing soul and
+body to acquire wherewith to purchase their favours, which are
+frequently attended with circumstances that would send them rotten to
+their graves, if the gallows did not intercept and take them before they
+are got half way. But it happened that Field was apprehended, and to
+save himself immediately made an information against his companions,
+named Dalton and Fulsom, whereupon they were obliged to be very cautious
+and durst venture out only in the night. It happened that in Broad
+Street, St. Giles's they met about twelve o'clock at night a captain in
+the Foot-Guards. Dalton commanded the gentleman to surrender, but
+persons of his cloth seldom parting with their money so peaceably, there
+happened a skirmish, in which Fulsom knocked him down, and afterwards
+they rifled him, taking some silver and a leaden shilling out of his
+pocket, together with a pocket book, which had some bank notes in it,
+and therefore was burnt by them for fear it should betray them. But in
+this fact, Dalton, who had not even honesty enough for a thief, cheated
+his companion of seven guineas and a watch.
+
+The woman to whom they sold their stolen goods was one Hannah Britton,
+who, upon Lambert's being committed to New Prison, was named in his
+information, taken up and committed to Newgate. At the sessions after
+she was convicted for that offence, and thereupon whipped from Holborn
+Bars to St. Giles's Pound; which proceeding so affrighted Dalton that he
+resolved for a time to retire out of London.
+
+Thereupon he and one of his companions went down to Bristol, to see what
+they could make at the Fair. But they were not over-lucky in their
+country expedition, for they were apprehended for breaking a shop open,
+and tried at the assizes; but the witness not being able to swear
+directly to their persons, they were acquitted through the defect of
+evidence. As soon as they were out of prison, Dalton returned to London
+as speedily as he was able, where joining himself with the remainder of
+the old gang, shortly after his arrival they broke open a toy-shop near
+Holborn Bars, and carried off eight hundred pounds worth of goods, with
+a pretty large sum in ready money. Of the goods they did not make above
+two hundred and fifty pounds, and for the ready money, which was about
+twenty pounds, they shared it amongst them.
+
+Dalton about that time frequenting a house near Golden Lane, found
+doxies there to help him off with it, and reduced him to the necessity
+of making t'other large stride in the way to Tyburn. Not long after,
+therefore, he committed a robbery in the road to Islington, for which
+being taken up he brought three who personated a doctor, apothecary and
+surgeon at his trial, who swore that the time the robbery was said to
+have been committed he was sick and even at the point of death, upon
+which he was acquitted.
+
+But as this was a narrow escape, so his liberty was of no long
+continuance, for his companion Fulsom, being apprehended for a felony,
+to save himself, made an information against his comrades, and amongst
+the rest named Dalton, and gave so exact an account of his haunts that h
+e was quickly after apprehended, and at the ensuing sessions convicted
+and ordered for transportation.
+
+At sea a great storm arising, they were glad to call up such of the
+criminals as they thought might be of use towards managing the ship,
+amongst whom was James Dalton, who no sooner was upon deck but he was
+contriving to make the crew mutiny and seize the ship. In a very little
+time he brought enough of them to be of his mind in order to execute
+their intent, and accordingly got the fire-arms and made themselves
+masters of the ship, and obliged the men to navigate her to a little
+port near Cape Finisterre, in Spain, where they robbed the ship of about
+a hundred pounds, and then went on shore and travelled by land to Vigo.
+They were scarce got thither before the ship arrived, and the captain
+charged them with the piracy they had committed; but from the lenity of
+the Spanish Government, they quickly got released, without giving the
+captain any satisfaction. The Governor, when they were discharged from
+their confinement, gave them a pass in which, after reciting their
+names, he styled them all English thieves, which putting them in no
+small fright, they resolved to prevent its doing them a mischief,
+committed it to the flames, and then ran the hazard of travelling the
+country without one. This, accordingly, they did, until they met with a
+Dutch ship, the master of which readily gave them a passage to
+Amsterdam, from whence Dalton and two or three more, found means to get
+over again to England, and came up to London.
+
+On their arrival here they fell to robbing with such fury that the
+streets were hardly safe when the sun was set; but Dalton apprehending
+that this trade would not lost long, resolved to make a country
+expedition, in order to get out of the way. Thereupon down he went again
+to his old city of refuge, Bristol. There he did not continue long
+before he was apprehended for breaking open a linen-draper's shop but
+the burglary not being clearly proved, the jury found him guilty of the
+felony only, whereupon he was once more transported to Virginia.
+
+He did not continue long in that plantation before growing weary of
+labour, he thought fit to threaten his master, so that the man was glad
+to discharge him, and thought himself happy of getting rid of such a
+servant. Upon which Dalton soon found out one Whalebone, a fellow of a
+like disposition with himself; and they went about stealing boats and
+negroes, running away with them and selling them in other colonies. At
+last Dalton met with a ship which carried him for England. By the way he
+was pressed on board the _Hampshire_ man-of-war, in which he was a
+spectator of the last siege of Gibraltar.[95]
+
+On his return he received his wages and lived on it for a little time.
+Then he with Benjamin Branch and William Field, took to snatching of
+pockets. At last they took Christopher Rawlins into their society and in
+a few months' time they three snatched five hundred pockets. Amongst the
+rest Dalton cut off one from a woman's side at St. Andrew's, Holborn,
+for which Branch being in company was taken and executed, although
+Dalton and Rawlins did all they could to have made up the affair with
+the prosecutor but in vain. This trade therefore being at an end, he and
+his companion Rawlins fell next to robbing coaches in the streets, and
+being once more apprehended, he found himself under a necessity of
+making an information against his companions, six or seven of whom were
+executed upon his evidence. He also received ten guineas to swear
+against Nichols the peruke-maker, but after he received the money, his
+conscience checked him, and though he did not return it, yet he
+absolutely refused to give any evidence against him. But Neeves, who had
+been taken into the same plot, went through with it, and as has been
+said before, hanged him for a fact which he never committed.[96]
+
+A multitude of wives Dalton married during his life, and many of them
+were alive at the time of his decease, four of them coming at once to
+see him in Newgate when under his last misfortune, and appearing at
+that time to be very friendly together. He had not been long out of
+Newgate before be fell to his old practices, and a few sessions after
+was apprehended, and tried for stopping the coach of an eminent
+physician with an intent to rob it. For this he was sentenced to a fine
+and imprisonment, which upon insulting the court was ordered to be in
+one of the condemned cells in Newgate. But he did not remain long there,
+being the very next sessions brought to his trial on an indictment for
+robbing John Waller in a certain field or open place near the highway,
+putting him in fear of his life, and taking from him twenty-five
+handkerchiefs, value four pounds, five ducats value forty-eight
+shillings, two guineas, a three guilder piece, a French pistol, and five
+shillings in silver, on the 22nd of November, 1729. The prosecutor
+deposed, that being a Holland trader, the prisoner met with him as he
+was drinking at the Adam and Eve at Pancras, in his return from
+Hampstead, where he had sold some goods, and received a little money;
+that Dalton perceiving it grow dark, desired to walk to town with him,
+and that they had a link with them, which Dalton put out in the fields,
+and then knocked him down, beat him and abused him, and then robbed him
+of the things mentioned in the indictment; and that he threatened to
+blow his brains out if he made any noise or called for help. He swore
+also to a pistol which had been produced against Dalton on a former
+trial.
+
+In his defence the prisoner insisted peremptorily upon his innocence,
+charged the prosecutor with being a common affidavit man, and a fellow
+of as bad if not worse character than himself. However, in order to
+falsify some circumstances which he had deposed against him, Dalton
+called three witnesses, Charles North, Edward Brumfield, and John
+Mitchell, who were all prisoners in Newgate, but were permitted by the
+Court to come down. Some of them contradicted the prosecutor as to a
+gingham waistcoat which he had swore Dalton wore in Newgate. They swore
+also to the prosecutor's visiting Dalton there, and owing that he never
+damaged him a farthing in his life. But the jury on the whole found him
+guilty, and he received sentence of death.
+
+As he had little reason to hope for pardon, so he never deluded himself
+with false expectations about it, but applied himself, as diligently as
+he was able, to repent of those manifold sins and offences which he had
+committed. He confessed very frankly the manifold crimes and horrid
+enormities in which he had involved himself. He seemed to be very
+sensible of that dreadful state into which his own wickedness had
+plunged him. He behaved himself gravely when at public prayers at the
+chapel, and applied himself with great diligence to praying and singing
+of Psalms when in his cell; but as to the particular crime of which he
+was convicted, that he absolutely denied from first to last, with the
+strongest asseverations that not one word of all the prosecutor's
+evidence was true, and indeed there has since appeared great likelihood
+that he spoke nothing but the truth.
+
+For this Waller going on in the same fact after the death of Dalton,
+became an evidence against many others, sometimes in one country by one
+name, by and by in another country by another name. In Cambridgeshire,
+particularly, he convicted two men for a robbery whose lives were saved
+by means of the Clerk of the Peace entertaining some suspicion of this
+Mr. Waller's veracity. But as practices of this sort, though they may
+continue undiscovered for some time, rarely escape for good and all, so
+Waller's fate came home to him at last; for a worthy magistrate
+suspecting the truth of an information which he gave before him by
+another name, and he coming afterwards and owning his true name to be
+Waller, he was apprehended for the perjury contained in the said
+examination, and committed to Newgate, and at the next sessions at the
+Old Bailey received sentence for this offence to stand in the pillory
+near the Seven Dials. He had scarce been exalted above five minutes,
+before the mob knocked him on the head, for which fact Andrew Dalton,
+who did it to revenge the death of his brother, the criminal of whom we
+are now speaking, together with one Richard Griffith, at the time I am
+now writing, are under sentence of death.
+
+But to return to James Dalton, he continued to behave uniformly and
+penitently all the time he lay under conviction, and as the friends and
+relations of Nichols applied themselves to him about clearing the
+innocence of their deceased friend, he said that Neeves himself actually
+committed the fact, which he swore upon the person they mentioned, and
+that he was entirely innocent of whatever was laid to his charge.
+
+When the bellman came to repeat the verses, which he always does the
+night before the malefactors are to die, Dalton illuminated his cell
+with six candles. In his passage to the place of execution he appeared
+very cheerful. When he arrived there, having once more denied in the
+most solemn manner the fact for which he was to suffer, he yielded up
+his breath at Tyburn, the 13th of May, 1730, being then somewhat above
+thirty years of age.
+
+[Illustration: HIGHWAY ROBBERY OF HIS MAJESTY'S MAIL
+
+Two waylaid postboys are being bound back to back, while one of the
+highwaymen carries off the mail-bag
+
+(_From the Annals of Newgate_)]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [95] On Feb. 22, 1727, when the Spaniards attacked with 20,000
+        men and were repulsed with a loss of 5,000. The English lost 300.
+
+   [96] See page 463.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of HUGH HOUGHTON, _alias_ AWTON, _alias_ NORTON, who robbed
+the Bristol Mail
+
+
+This unfortunate person was the son of honest and reputable people of
+Lancaster, who took care to give him a very good education, sufficient
+to have fitted him for any trade whatever. Afterwards they bound him out
+apprentice to a wine-cooper, to whom he served out his time very
+carefully and honestly, and appeared in his temper and disposition to be
+a civil, good-natured young man. For some time after his coming out of
+his time, he followed his trade of a wine-cooper, but being pressed on
+board a man-of-war, during the French War in the late Queen's time, he
+behaved himself so well on board that he acquired the goodwill of all
+his officers, attained to the degree of a midshipman, and was afterwards
+gunner's mate, receiving also a title to five pound _per annum_, out of
+the Pension Chest at Chatham.
+
+After this he came to London, married a wife and was a housekeeper in
+town; and for his better support got himself into the Horse Guards,
+where he served with reputation, until some small time before his death,
+when some clothes of value being taken away, and he being strongly
+suspected on that score was dismissed the service, whereby he fell into
+great difficulties for want of money.
+
+It seems that for many months before his death he had frequented the
+house of one Mr. Marlow, and was indebted to him for a considerable sum
+of money, but one day he came and discharged it, having for that purpose
+changed a twenty pound bank-note at a brewer's not far distant. But the
+Bristol mail happening about that time to be robbed, and the bank-note,
+after various circulations, being discovered to be one of those taken
+out of it, Houghton was thereupon seized and committed, being at the
+next sessions brought to his trial at the Old Bailey for the fact, when
+the course of the evidence appeared against him as follows. He was
+arraigned on an indictment for dealing from Stephen Crouches, on the
+King's highway, after putting him in fear, a sorrel gelding value five
+pounds, the property of Thomas Ostwich, a mail value four pounds, and
+fifty leather bags, value five pounds, the property of our Sovereign
+Lord the King, on the first of March, 1730.
+
+Stephen Crouches deposed that on the day laid in the indictment, he was
+going with the Bristol and Gloucester mail, being near Knightsbridge, a
+man of the prisoner's size, who spoke like him, came out of the gateway
+and bid him stand; that he laid the horse to the farther side of a
+field, commanded him to show him the Bristol bag, which he took and went
+off with the horse, leaving this evidence bound with his hands behind
+him, threatening to murder him in case he made the least noise.
+
+Daniel Burton deposed that the prisoner Houghton had more than once
+proposed to him the robbing of the Bristol mail, and upon his refusing
+to be concerned in it, would then have had him rob their landlady, Mrs.
+Marlow, which when her husband came to know, he turned him out of doors.
+
+The next witness that was called was Mr. Marlow, who deposed that on the
+2nd of March, the prisoner Houghton paid him five pounds which was owing
+to him, having changed for that purpose a bank-note of twenty pounds at
+Mr. Broadhead's the brewer. Then the note itself was produced, which had
+been paid by Mr. Broadhead to Mr. King, a factor, and by him to Mr.
+Dictorine's man, in Thames Street, and by him again to the servant of
+Messrs. Knight and Jackson, by whom it was brought into Court, an
+endorsement being upon it not to be paid till the fifth of May. But Mr.
+Marlow being asked as to his being acquainted by Burton with the
+prisoner's attempts to persuade him to robbing the Bristol mail, and
+afterwards robbing his house, Mr. Marlow answered that he did not
+remember he had ever been told such a thing, but that he did indeed know
+the prisoner together with one Masa, was for scandalous practices turned
+out of the Guards.
+
+William Burligh deposed that he took out of the prisoner's pocket a
+pocket-book in which was several notes, which pocket-book the prisoner
+said he took up in Covent Garden. Mr. Langley, the Turnkey of Newgate,
+deposed that after he was committed to his custody, he searched his
+pocket and found therein three bank-notes of Mr. Hoare, which he gave to
+Mr. Archer. Mr. Archer deposed that he did receive such notes, which
+were so taken as had been before sworn by Mr. Langley.
+
+There were some other persons produced who swore to some slips of
+leather which were found in Houghton's lodgings, and which were believed
+to be cut out of the bag which were taken from the Bristol Mail. The
+prisoner in his defence said he believed there was a trap laid for him
+and exclaimed against Burton. Two women positively deposed that Houghton
+all that night was not out of his lodgings. But the jury notwithstanding
+that, gave so much credit to the evidence offered for the King, that
+they found him guilty.
+
+Under sentence of death, he said that he had hitherto lived free from
+most of those enormous vices into which criminals are usually plunged,
+who came to his unhappy fate. He said that through the course of his
+life he had always been a good husband, a loving parent, and had
+provided carefully for his family; that he had served the Government
+twelve years by land, and twelve years by sea, and in all that time
+never had any reflection upon him until the unhappy accident in the
+Guards, which he said he was not guilty of, and had been since confessed
+by another man.
+
+As to the fact for which he was to die, he said that the same day the
+mail was robbed (which was on a Sunday morning) at six or seven o'clock
+he found a bundle of papers which he took up, and perceived them to be a
+parcel taken out of the Bristol mail, and therefore having perused them
+carefully, and taken out of them such as he judged proper, he being at
+that time out of business and in great want, put up the rest of them in
+a sheet of paper, directed to the Post Master General, and laid them
+down in the box-house at Lincoln's Inn Fields, being afraid to go with
+them to the office, because a great reward was offered for the robber.
+And that he, having changed a twenty-pound bank-note, paid five pounds
+of it away to his landlord, Mr. Marlow. He reflected also very severely
+on the evidence given against him by Mr. Burton, which he said was the
+very reverse of the truth. Burton having often solicited him to go upon
+the highway as the shortest method of easing his misfortunes and
+bringing them both money.
+
+As he persisted in averring the confession he made to be the truth, it
+was objected to him that it was a story, the most improbable in the
+world, that when a man had hazarded his life to rob the Bristol mail, he
+should then throw away all the booty, and leave it in such a place as
+Covent Garden, for any stranger to take up as he came by; yet neither
+this nor anything else that could be said to him had so much weight as
+to move him to a free confession of his guilt, but on the contrary, he
+gave greater and more evident signs of a sullen, morose and reserved
+disposition, spoke little, desired not to be interrupted, made general
+confessions of his sins, pleased himself with high conceits of the
+Divine Mercy, and endeavoured as much as possible to avoid conferences
+with anybody, and especially declined speaking of that offence for which
+he was to die.
+
+When he first came to Newgate, the keepers had, it seems, a strong
+apprehension that he would attempt something against his own life, and
+upon this suspicion they were very careful of him, and enjoined a barber
+who shaved him in prison to be so, lest he should take that occasion to
+cut his throat. Yet nothing of this happened until the day of his
+execution, when the keepers coming to him in the morning, found him
+praying very devoutly in his cell; but about twenty minutes after, going
+thither again, they perceived he had fastened his sword belt which he
+wore always about him to the grate of the window which looked out of
+his cell, to the end of which he tied his handkerchief, and having then
+adjusted that about his neck, he strangled himself with it, and was dead
+when the keepers opened the doors to look in.
+
+The Ordinary makes this remark upon his exit, that it is to be feared he
+was a hypocrite and that little of what he said can be believed. For my
+part, I am far from taking upon me either to enter into the breasts of
+men or pretend to set bounds to the mercy of God, and therefore without
+any further remarks, shall conclude his life with informing my readers
+that at the time he put an end to his own being, he was about
+forty-eight years of age, and a man in his person and behaviour very
+unlikely to have been such a one as it is to be feared (notwithstanding
+all his denials) he really was.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN DOYLE, a Highwayman
+
+
+When once men have plunged themselves so far into sensual pleasures as
+to lose all sense of any other delight than that arises from the
+gratification of the senses, there is no great cause of wonder if they
+addict themselves to illegal methods of gaining wherewith to purchase
+such enjoyments; since the want of virtue easily draws on the loss of
+all other principles, nor can it be hoped from a man who has delivered
+himself over to the dominion of these vices that he should stop short at
+the lawful means of obtaining money by which alone he can be enabled to
+possess them.
+
+Common women are usually the first bane of those unhappy persons who
+forfeit their lives to the Law as the just punishment of their offences;
+these women, I say, are so far from having the least concern whether
+their paramours run any unhappy courses to obtain the sums necessary to
+supply their mutual extravagance, that on the contrary they are ever
+ready, by oblique hints and insinuations, to put them upon such
+dangerous exploits which as they are sure to reap the fruits of, so
+sometimes when they grow weary of them, they find it an easy method to
+get rid of them and at the same time put money in their own pockets. Yet
+so blind are these unhappy wretches, that although such things fall out
+yearly, yet they are never to be warned, but run into the snare with as
+much readiness as if they were going unto the possession of certain and
+lasting happiness.
+
+But to come to the adventures of the unhappy person whose life we are
+going to relate. John Doyle was born in the town of Carrough, in
+Ireland, and of very honest parents who gave him as good education as
+could be expected in that country, instructing him in writing and
+accounts, and made some progress in Latin. When he was fit for a trade,
+his friends agreed to put him out, and not thinking they should find a
+master good enough for him in a country place, they sent him to Dublin,
+and bound him to a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler in St. Thomas's
+Street, whom he faithfully served seven years, and his master gave him a
+good character. Being out of his time, his master prevailed with him to
+work journey-work for him, which he did for nine months; but having got
+acquainted by that time with some of the town ladies and pretending to
+his friends that he was in hopes of better business, his friends
+remitted him fifty pounds to help him forward.
+
+He lived well while that money lasted, but when it was almost spent, he
+knew not what to turn himself to, for working did not agree with him. He
+took a resolution to come to England, and on the 19th of April, 1715, he
+came over in a packet-boat. Having no more money left than three pounds
+ten shillings, and not seeing which way he could get a further supply
+unless he went to work, which he could not endure, he resolved to rob on
+the highway; and to fit him for it, he bought a pair of pistols at West
+Chester which cost him forty shillings. He continued in that city till
+the Chester coach was to go for London. At four miles distant from the
+town he attacked it, and robbed four passengers that were in it of
+fourteen pounds, six shillings and ninepence, two silver watches and a
+mourning ring, which was the first attempt of that kind that ever he
+made in his life; then he went off a by-way undiscovered.
+
+Having got a pretty good booty, he travelled across the country to
+Shrewsbury, and having stayed there about two days, he happened to meet
+a man that had been formerly a collector on the road, who had a horse to
+sell. He bought the horse for seven guineas, though indeed it was worth
+twenty, as it proved afterwards; no man soever was master of a better
+bred horse for the highway. He was not willing to stay long at
+Shrewsbury, so he went from thence and going along the country, met two
+ladies in a small chaise, with only one servant and a pair of horses. He
+robbed them of a purse with twenty-nine half guineas, nine shillings in
+silver and twopence brass, and two gold watches. The servant who rode by
+had a case of pistols which he took from him, and then made off
+undiscovered. His horse at that time was much better acquainted with
+coming up to a coach door than he was. Sometime afterwards he passed
+across the country, and came to Newbury, in Berkshire, where he
+remained for about fourteen days, during which time he was very reserved
+and kept no company. But growing weary, he departed from that place the
+same morning that the Newbury coach was to set out for London: and when
+it was about five miles distant from the town of Newbury, he came up to
+the coach door, and making a ceremony, as became a man of business,
+demanded their all, which they very readily consented to deliver, which
+proved to be about twenty-nine pounds in money, a silver watch, a plain
+wedding ring, a tortoiseshell snuff box, and a very good whip.
+
+There was also a family ring which a gentleman begged very hard for,
+whereupon by his earnest application he gave it back, and the man
+assured him he would never appear against him. He was a man of honour,
+for he happened to meet him some time after at the Rummer and Horseshoe
+in Drury Lane, where he treated Doyle handsomely, and showed him the
+ring, and withal declared that he would not be his enemy on any account
+whatsoever.
+
+Doyle being at this time a young beginner, thought what he got for the
+preceding time to be very well, and in a few days after this arrived at
+Windsor, where he stayed one night, and there being a gentleman's family
+bound for London, that lay that night at the Mermaid Inn in the town, he
+changed his lodging and removed to the inn; and having stayed there that
+night, he minded where they put their valuable baggage up. The next
+morning he paid his reckoning and came away, and got about four miles
+out of the town before them; then coming up and making the usual
+ceremony, he demanded their money, watches and rings. The gentleman in
+the coach pulled out a blunderbuss, but Doyle soon quelled him by
+clapping a pistol to his nose, telling him that if he stirred hand or
+foot he was a dead man. Then he made him give his blunderbuss first,
+then his money which was fifty guineas, fifteen shillings in silver, and
+five-pence in brass, a woman's gold watch and a pocket book in which
+were seven bank-notes, which the gentleman said he took that day in
+order to pay his servants' wages. After this he made the best of his way
+to London and got into James's Street, Westminster, where he drank a
+pint of wine, and then crossed over to Lambeth, and put up his horse at
+the Red Lion Inn, and stayed there that night.
+
+The next morning he came to the Coach and Horses in Old Palace Yard,
+Westminster, where he dined, and about seven at night departed from
+thence and went to the Phoenix gaming-house in the Haymarket, to which
+place, he said, he believed a great many owe their ruin. He remained
+some time at the Phoenix, and seeing them gaming hard, he had a mind to
+have a touch at it; when coming into the ring he took the box in his
+turn, and in about thirty minutes lost thirty-seven pounds, which broke
+him. But having some watches about him, he went immediately to the Three
+Bowls in Market Lane, St. James, and pawned a gold watch for sixteen
+guineas; and returning back to the Phoenix went to gaming a second time,
+and in less than an hour recovered his money and forty-three pounds
+more. And seeing an acquaintance there he took him to the Cardigan's
+Head tavern, Charing Cross, and made merry. That night he lay at the
+White Bear in Piccadilly, and stayed there until the next evening, after
+which, having paid his reckoning, he went to Lambeth to his landlord who
+had his horse in his care, and remained there that night. The next
+morning he went away having discharged the house.
+
+Having then a pretty sum of money about him, he had an inclination to
+see the country of Kent, and accordingly went that day to Greenwich, and
+put up his horse while he went to see the Hospital; and having baited
+the horse he parted from thence, and going over Blackheath, he happened
+to meet a gentleman, who proved to be Sir Gregory Page. Doyle took what
+money he had about him, which was about seventy guineas in a green
+purse, a watch, two gold seals and eighteen pence in silver. That night
+he rode away to Maidstone, and from thence to Canterbury.
+
+In a few days he returned to London, and was for a long time silent,
+even for about six months, and never robbed or made an attempt to rob
+any man, but kept his horse in a very good order, and commonly went in
+an afternoon to Hampstead, sometimes to Richmond, or to Hackney. In
+short, he knew all the roads about London in less than six months as
+well as any man in England. His money beginning now to grow short, not
+having turned out so long, and the keeping his horse on the other hand
+being costly, he resolved that his horse should pay for his own keeping,
+and turned out one evening and robbed a Jew of seventy-five pounds, and
+of his and his lady's watches, a gold box and some silver, and returned
+to town undiscovered. The next day Doyle went Brentford way, and coming
+to Turnham Green stayed some time at the Pack Horse, where he saw two
+Quakers on horseback. He rode gently after them till they got to
+Hounslow Heath, where he secured what money they had, which was
+something above a hundred pounds. They begged hard for some money back,
+when he gave them a guinea, taking from them their spurs and whips, and
+at some distance threw them away. Those two men, as he found some days
+after by the papers, were two meal factors that were going to High
+Wycombe market in Buckinghamshire, to buy either wheat or flour.
+
+This last being a pretty good booty, he had a mind afterwards to go for
+Ireland and accordingly set out for his journey thither. He took
+shipping at King's Road near Bristol, on board a small vessel bound to
+Waterford, where he arrived and stayed at the Eagle in Waterford three
+days, and from thence went directly to Dublin. Doyle was not long in
+Dublin before he became acquainted with his wife, whom he courted for
+some time and was extravagant in spending his money on her. He also soon
+got acquainted with one N. B., a man now alive, and they turned out
+together. None was able to stand against them, for they had everything
+that came in their way, and in plain terms, there was not a man that
+carried money about him, within eight miles of Dublin, but if they met
+him they were sure to get what he had.
+
+Being grown so wicked Doyle was at length taken for a robber and
+committed to Newgate, then kept by one Mr. Hawkins, who used him so
+barbarously that he wished himself out of his hands. Accordingly he got
+his irons off and broke out of the gaol. Hawkins knowing all the
+bums[97] in Dublin, sent them up and down the city to take him, but to
+no purpose. However, they rooted him fairly out of that neighbourhood.
+
+Then he returned to Waterford, where he appointed his wife and friend
+should meet him, which they did; and in about four hours after he came
+there he found them out, and there being a ship bound for Bristol, he
+sent them on board, agreed with the captain and went himself on board
+the same night. They hoisted their sails and got down to the Passage
+near Waterford, but the wind proving contrary, they were obliged to
+return back, and then concluded it was determined for Doyle to be taken;
+which he had been had he kept on board, but he luckily got on shore,
+when it was agreed to go to Cork. There they met with an honest cock of
+a landlord, and he kept himself very private, making the poor man
+believe that his companion and he were two that were raising men for the
+Chevalier's[98] service, and that their keeping so private proceeded
+from a fear of being discovered. The poor man had then a double regard
+for them, he being a lover in his heart of ----. Doyle then sent his
+wife to seek for a ship; but Hawkins having pursued him from Dublin,
+happened to see her, and dogged her to the ship where she went on board,
+sending officers to search, for he was sure he should find him there. He
+was mistaken, but they took his poor wife up to see if they could make
+her discover where he was, and ordered a strong guard to bring her to
+Cork gaol. A boat was provided to bring her on shore, but she telling
+the men some plausible stories that her husband was not the man they
+represented him to be, one of the watermen having stripped off his
+clothes in order to row, and there being a great many honest fellows in
+the boat, they assisted her in putting on waterman's clothes, which as
+soon as done, she fairly got away from them, and came and acquainted
+Doyle that Hawkins was in town, and how she had been in danger. They
+then concluded on leaving Cork, hired horses that night, and came to a
+place called Mallow, within ten miles of Cork. The next day they
+travelled to Limerick, where Doyle bought a horse, bridle, etc., and
+went towards Galloway, and in all his journey round about got but two
+prizes, which did not amount to above fifteen pounds.
+
+Sometime after, his wife was transported, which gave him a great deal of
+concern, and he could not be in any way content without her. So getting
+some money together he went to Virginia, and having arrived there soon
+met with her, having had intelligence where to enquire for her. The
+first house be came into was one William Dalton's, who had some days
+before bought the late noted James Dalton,[99] who was then his servant,
+whom he very often used to send along with Doyle in his boat to put him
+on board a ship. Then he thought it his best way to buy his wife's
+liberty, which he did, paying fifteen pounds for it.
+
+He had then a considerable deal of money about him, and removed from
+that part of the country where she was known and went to New York. Being
+arrived there he soon got acquainted with some of his countrymen, with
+whom be had used to go a-hunting and to the horse races; so be spent
+some time in seeing the country. By chance he came to hear of a namesake
+of his, that lived in an island a little distant from New York, and
+being willing to see any of his name, he sent for him, and according to
+Doyle's request, he wrote to him that he would come the next day, which
+he did, and proved to be his uncle. The old man was overjoyed to see
+Doyle, and carried him home with him, where he stayed a long time, and
+spent a great deal of money.
+
+His uncle was very much affronted at Doyle's ill-treatment of the
+natives, whom he severely beat, insomuch that the whole place was afraid
+of him, and all intended to join and take the Law of him. Soon after he
+departed from New York and went to Boston, where he remained some time,
+and at length he resolved within himself to settle and work at his
+trade, thinking it better to do so than to spend all his money, and be
+obliged to return to England or Ireland without a penny in his pocket.
+He did so, and having agreed with a master he went to work, and was very
+saving and frugal.
+
+He remained with that man till by his wife's industry he had got,
+including what was his own, about two hundred pounds English money. Then
+he advised his wife to go for Ireland in the first ship that was bound
+that way, laying all her money out to twenty pounds, and shipped the
+goods which he had brought on board for her account. She then went to
+Ireland and Doyle for England, promising to go over to her as soon as he
+could get some money, for he had then an inclination to leave off his
+old trade of collecting.
+
+Being arrived at London, he met with a certain person with whom he
+joined, and as he himself terms it, never had man a braver companion,
+for let him push at what he would, his new companion never flinched one
+inch. They turned out about London for some time, and got a great deal
+of money, for nothing hardly missed them. They used a long time the
+roads about Hounslow, Hampstead, and places adjacent, until the papers
+began to describe them, on which they went into Essex, and robbed
+several graziers, farmers and others. Then they went to Bishop's
+Stortford, in Hertfordshire, where they robbed one man in particular who
+had his money tied up under his arm in a great purse. Doyle says that he
+had some intelligence from a friend that the man had money about him, he
+made him strip in buff, and then found out where he lodged it, and took
+it, but he did not use him in any way ill, for he says it was the man's
+business to conceal it, as much as his to discover it.
+
+Doyle and his partner hearing of a certain fair which was to be held a
+few days after, they resolved to go to it, and coming there took notice
+who took most money. In the evening they took their horses, and about
+three miles distant from the town there was a green, over which the
+people were obliged to come from the fair. There came a great many
+graziers and farmers, whom they robbed of upwards of eight hundred
+pounds. At this time Doyle had in money and valuable things, such as
+diamonds, rings, watches, to the amount of about sixteen hundred pounds.
+His partner had also a great deal of money, but not so much as Doyle, by
+reason that he (D) had got some very often which he had no right to have
+a share of.
+
+Doyle went again for Ireland, and carried all his money with him, and
+having a great many poor relations, distributed part of it amongst them;
+some he lent, which he could never get again, and in a little his money
+grew short, having frequented horse races and all public places.
+However, before all was spent he returned to England. Following his old
+course of life, he happened into several broils, with which a little
+money and a few friends he got over. In a short space of time he became
+acquainted with Benjamin Wileman. They two, with another person
+concerned with them, committed several robberies. At length they were
+discovered, apprehended and committed to Newgate. Wileman, it seems, had
+an itching to become an evidence against Doyle and W. G. But Doyle made
+himself an evidence, being really, as he said, for his own preservation
+and not for the sake of any reward.
+
+Doyle's wife being for a second time transported, he went with her in
+the same ship, and having arrived in Virginia, slaved there some time,
+until he began to grow weary of the place. But as he was always too
+indulgent to her, he bought her her liberty, and shipped her and himself
+on board the first ship that came to England, when in seven weeks time
+they arrived in the Downs. Soon after they came up to England, but were
+not long in town before his wife was taken up for returning from
+transportation, and committed to Newgate, where she remained until the
+sessions following, and being brought upon her trial, pleaded guilty.
+
+When they came to pass sentence upon her, she produced his Majesty's
+most gracious pardon, and was admitted to bail to plead the same, and
+thereupon discharged. Doyle, a short time after, went to the West of
+England, where he slaved some time, following his old way of life; and
+associating himself with a certain companion, got a considerable sum of
+money, and came to Marlborough. And having continued some time in that
+neighbourhood, they usually kept the markets, where they commonly
+cleared five pounds a day. Going from Marlborough they came to
+Hungerford, and put up their horses at the George Inn; and having
+ordered something for dinner, saw some graziers on the road, but one of
+them being an old sportsman, and a brother tradesman of Doyle's
+formerly, he knew the said Doyle immediately, by the description given
+of him, and very honestly came to him, and told him that he had a charge
+of money about him, and withal begged that he would not hurt him, since
+he had made so ingenuous a confession, desiring Doyle to make the best
+of his way to another part of the country, telling him at the same time
+where he lived in London, and that if he should act honourably by him,
+he would put a thousand pounds in his pocket in a month's time.
+According to the grazier's directions, Doyle and his companions
+departed, but having met, as Doyle phrases it, with a running chase in
+their cross way, which they had taken for safety, they were obliged to
+return back into the main road again, and by accident put up at the same
+inn where the grazier and his companions were that evening. The grazier,
+as soon as he saw Doyle, came in and drank a bottle with him, and then
+retired to his companions, without taking any manner of notice of him.
+
+As they came for London, they took everything that came into their net,
+and in three days time Doyle paid his brother sportsman, the grazier, a
+visit, who received him handsomely, and appointed him to meet him the
+next market day at the Greyhound in Smithfield, in order to make good
+part of his promise to him. Doyle and his companion went to him, put up
+their horses at the same inn and passed for country farmers. This
+grazier, who formerly had been one of the same profession being now
+grown honest and bred a butcher, was then turned salesman in Smithfield,
+and sold cattle for country graziers, and sent them their money back by
+their servants who had brought the cattle to town. Having drunk a glass
+of wine together, they began to talk about business, and the grazier
+being obliged to go into the market to sell some beasts, desired Doyle
+and his companion to stay there until he returned. When he came he gave
+them some little instructions how they should proceed in an affair he
+had then in view to serve then in, and having taken his advice, they
+rode out of town; and it being a West Country fair they rode Turnham
+Green way.
+
+They had not time to drink a pint of wine before the West Country
+chapman came ajogging along. They took two hundred and forty pounds from
+him, making (as D. terms it) a much quicker bargain with him than he had
+done with the butcher at Smithfield. The chapman begged hard for some
+money to carry him home to his family, and after they had given him two
+guineas, he said to them that he had often travelled that road with five
+hundred pounds about him, and never had been stopped. To which Doyle
+replied, that half the highwaymen who frequented the road were but mere
+old women, otherwise he would never have had that to brag of, and then
+parted. Doyle says that the honest man at Smithfield had poundage of him
+as well as from the grazier, so that he acted in a double capacity.
+
+That night they came to London, and having put up their horses, put on
+other clothes and went to Smithfield, where not finding the butcher at
+home, they write a note and left it for an appointment to meet him at
+the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street, where they had not stayed long before
+he came. After taking a cheerful glass they talked the story over, and
+out of the booty Doyle gave turn fifty guineas, after which the butcher
+promised to be his friend upon a better affair. After paying the
+reckoning they parted and appointed to meet the next market day at
+Smithfield.
+
+They went at the time appointed, and having drank a morning glass,
+stepped into the market and stayed some time. Their brother sportsman
+being very busy, he made excuse to Doyle and his companion, telling them
+there was nothing to be done in their way till the evening, desiring
+them to be patient. They remained in and about Smithfield till then, and
+market being entirely over, their friend came up to the place appointed,
+and showed them a man on horseback to whom he had just paid fifty
+pounds. Doyle and his companion immediately called for their horses,
+took leave of their friend, and kept in sight of the countryman until he
+was out of town. And when he was got near the Adam and Eve, at
+Kensington, they came up to him, and made a ceremony, as became men of
+their profession. He was very unwilling to part from his money, making
+an attempt to ride away, but they soon overtook him, and after some
+dispute took every penny that he received in Smithfield, and for his
+residing gave him back only a crown to bear his charges home. In his
+memoirs Doyle makes this observation, that they always robbed between
+sun and sun, so that the persons robbed might make the county pay them
+that money back if they thought fit to sue them for it.[100] Next
+morning Doyle and his companion came to the place appointed, and not
+meeting with their brother sportsman sent for him, where they drank
+together, and talked as usual about business, paying him poundage out of
+what money they had collected on his information (for they usually dealt
+with him as a custom-house officer does by an informer); after which
+they parted for that time, and did not meet for a month after.
+
+Afterwards they went up and down Hertfordshire, but got scarce money
+enough to bear their expenses; but where there were small gettings they
+lived the more frugally, for Doyle observed that if the country did not
+bear their expenses wherever he travelled, he thought it very hard, and
+that if he failed of gaming one day, he commonly got as much the next as
+he could well destroy.
+
+Hitherto we have kept very close to those memoirs which Mr. Doyle left
+behind him, which I did with this view, that my readers might have some
+idea of what these people think of themselves. I shall now bring you to
+the conclusion of his story, by informing you that finding himself beset
+at the several lodgings which he kept by way of precaution, he for some
+days behaved himself with much circumspection; but happening to forget
+his pistols, he was seized, coming out of an inn in Drury Lane, and
+though he made as much resistance as he was able, yet they forced him
+unto a coach and conveyed him to Newgate. It is hard to say what
+expectations he entertained after he was once apprehended, but it is
+reasonable to believe that he had strong hopes of life, notwithstanding
+his pleading guilty at his trial, for he dissembled until the time of
+the coming down of a death warrant, and then declared he was a Roman
+Catholic, and not a member of the Church of England, as he had hitherto
+pretended.
+
+He seemed to be a tolerably good-natured man, but excessively vicious at
+the same time that he was extravagantly fond of the woman he called his
+wife. He took no little pleasure in the relations of those adventures
+which happened to him in his exploits on the highway, and expressed
+himself with much seeming satisfaction, because as he said, he had never
+been guilty of beating or using passengers ill, much less of wounding or
+attempting to murder them. In general terms, he pretended to much
+penitence, but whether it was that he could not get over the natural
+vivacity of his own temper, or that the principles of the Church of
+Rome, as is too common a case, proved a strong opiate in his conscience,
+however it was, I say, Doyle did not seem to have any true contrition
+for his great and manifold offences. On the contrary, he appeared with
+some levity, even when on the very point of death.
+
+He went to execution in a mourning coach; all the way he read with much
+seeming attention in a little Popish manual, which had been given him by
+one of his friends. At the tree he spoke a little to the people, told
+them that his wife had been a very good wife to him, let her character
+in other respects be what it would. Then he declared he had left behind
+him memoirs of his life and conduct, to which he had nothing to add
+there, and from which I have taken verbatim a great part of what I have
+related. And then, having nothing more to offer to the world, he
+submitted to death on the first of June, 1730, but in what year of his
+age I cannot say.
+
+However, before I make an end of what relates to Mr. Doyle, it would be
+proper to acquaint the public that the vanity of his wife extended so
+far as to make a pompous funeral for him at St. Sepulchre's church,
+whereat she, as chief mourner assisted, and was led by a gentleman whom
+the world suspected to be of her husband's employment.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [97] i.e., bailiffs, informers and spies.
+
+   [98] The Pretender, whose name was only to be mentioned with
+        baited breath.
+
+   [99] See page 533.
+
+  [100] Passengers robbed on the highway between sunrise and
+        sunset, could sue the county for the amount of their loss, it
+        being the duty of the officials to keep the roads safe.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JOHN YOUNG, a Highwayman
+
+
+I have more than once remarked in the course of these memoirs that of
+all crimes, cruelty makes men the most generally hated, and that from
+this reasonable cause, that they seem to have taken up an aversion to
+their own kind. This was remarkably the case of the unhappy man of whom
+we are now speaking.
+
+He was, it seems, the son of very honest and industrious parents, his
+father being a gardener at Kensington. From him he received as good an
+education as it was in his power to give him, and was treated with all
+the indulgence that could be expected from a tender parent; and it seems
+that after five years' stay at school, he was qualified for any business
+whatsoever. So after consulting his own inclinations he was put out
+apprentice to a coach-maker in Long Acre, where he stayed not long; but
+finding all work disagreeable to him, he therefore resolved to be gone,
+let the consequence be what it would. When this resolve was once taken,
+it was but a very short time before it was put into execution. Living
+now at large, and not knowing how to gain money enough to support
+himself, and therefore being in very great straits, he complied with the
+solicitations of some hackney-coachmen, who advised him to learn their
+trade. They took some pains to instruct him, employed him often, and in
+about six months time he became perfect master of his business, and
+drove for Mr. Blunt, in Piccadilly. His behaviour here was so honest
+that Mr. Blunt gave him a good character, and he thereby obtained the
+place of a gentleman's coachmen. In a short time he saved money and
+began to have some relish for an honest life; and continuing
+industriously to hoard up what he received either in wages or vales
+[tips] at last by these methods he drew together a very considerable sum
+of money.
+
+And then it came into his head to settle himself in an honest way of
+life, in which design his father gave him all the encouragement that was
+in his power, telling him in order to do it, he should marry an honest,
+virtuous woman. Whereupon, with the advice and consent of his parents,
+he married a young woman of a reputable family from Kentish Town, who,
+as to fortune, brought him a pretty little addition to his own savings,
+so that altogether he had, according to his own account, a very pretty
+competency wherewith to begin the world.
+
+For some time after his marriage he indulged himself in living without
+employment, but finding such a course wasted his little stock very fast,
+he began to apply his thoughts to the consideration of what course was
+the most likely to get his bread in. After beating his brains for some
+little time on this subject he at last resolved on keeping a
+public-house; which agreeing very well with his father's and relations'
+notions, he thereupon immediately took the King's Arms, in Red Lion
+Street, where for some time he continued to have very good business. In
+all, he remained there about five years, and might in that time have got
+a very pretty sum of money if he had not been so unhappy as to grow
+proud, as soon as he had anything in his pocket. It was not long,
+therefore, before he gave way to his own roving disposition, going over
+to Ireland, where he remained for a considerable space, living by his
+wits as he expresses it, or, in the language of honest people, by
+defrauding others.
+
+But Ireland is a country where such sort of people are not likely to
+support themselves long; money is far from being plentiful, and though
+the common people are credulous in their nature, yet tradesmen and the
+folks of middling ranks are as suspicious as any nation in the world.
+The county of West Meath was the place where he had fixed his residence
+for the greatest part of the time he continued in the island, but at
+last it grew too hot for him. The inhabitants became sensible of his way
+of living, and gave him such disturbance that he found himself under an
+indispensable necessity of quitting that place as soon as possibly he
+could; and so having picked up as much money as would pay for his
+passage, he came over again into England, out of humour with rambling
+while he felt the uneasiness it had brought upon him, but ready to take
+it up again as soon as ever his circumstances were made a little easy,
+which in his present condition was not likely to happen in haste.
+
+His friends received him very coldly, his parents had it not in their
+power to do more for him. In a word, the countenance of the world
+frowned upon him, and everybody treated him with that disdain and
+contempt which his foolish behaviour deserved. However, instead of
+reclaiming him, this forced him upon worse courses. His wife, it seems,
+either died in his absence, or was dead before he went abroad, and soon
+after his return he contracted an acquaintance with a woman, who was at
+that time cook in the family of a certain bishop; her he courted and a
+short time after, married. She brought him not only some ready money,
+but also goods to a pretty large value. Young being not a bit mended by
+his misfortunes, squandered away the first in a very short time, and
+turned the last into ready money. However, these supplies were of not
+very long continuance, and with much importunity his friends, in order,
+if it were possible, to keep him honest, got him in a small place in
+the Revenue, and he was put in as one of the officers to survey
+candles. In this post he continued for about a twelvemonth, and then
+relapsing into his former idle and profligate courses, he was quickly
+suspected and thereby put to his shifts again, though his wife at that
+time was in place, and helped him very frequently with money.
+
+This, it seems, was too servile a course for a man of Mr. Young's spirit
+to take, so that he picked up as much as bought him a pair of pistols,
+and then went upon the highway, to which it seems the foolish pride of
+not being dependant upon his wife did at that time not a little
+contribute. In his first adventure in this new employment, he got
+fifteen guineas, but being in a very great apprehension of a pursuit,
+his fears engaged him to fly down to Bristol, in order, if it were
+possible, to avoid them. After staying there some considerable time, he
+began at last to take heart, and to fancy he might be forgotten. Upon
+these hopes he resolved with himself to come up towards London again;
+and taking advantage of a person travelling with him to Uxbridge, he
+made use of every method in his power to insinuate himself into his
+fellow traveller's good graces. This he effected, insomuch that at High
+Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, as Young himself told the story, he
+prevailed on him to lend him three half-crowns to defray his expenses,
+pretending that he had some friend or relation hard by who would repay
+him. But unfortunately for the man, he had talked too freely of a sum of
+money which he pretended to have about him. It thereupon raised an
+inclination in Young to strip him and rob him of this supposed great
+prize; for which purpose he attacked him in a lone place, and not only
+threatened him with shooting him, but as he pretended, by his hand
+shaking, was as good as his word, and actually wounded him in such a
+manner as he in all probability at that time took to be mortal; but
+taking advantage of the condition in which the poor man was, he made the
+best of his way off, and was so lucky as to escape for the present,
+although that crime brought him afterwards to his execution.
+
+When he had considered a little the nature of the fact which he had
+committed, it appeared even to himself of so black and barbarous a
+nature that he resolved to fly to the West of England, in order to
+remain there for some time. But from this he was deterred by looking
+into a newspaper and finding himself advertised there; the man whom he
+had shot being also said to be dead, this put him into such a
+consternation that he returned directly to London, and going to a place
+hard by where his wife lived, he sent for her, and told her that he was
+threatened with an unfortunate affair which might be of the greatest
+ill-consequence to him if he should be discovered. She seemed to be
+extremely moved at his misfortunes, and gave him what money she could
+spare, which was not a little, insomuch that Young at last began to
+suspect she made bold now and then to borrow of her mistress; but if she
+did, that was a practice he could forgive her. At last he proposed
+taking a lodging for himself at Horsely Down,[101] as a place the
+likeliest for him to be concealed in. There his wife continued to supply
+him, until one Sunday morning she came in a great hurry and brought with
+her a pretty handsome parcel of guineas. Young could not help suspecting
+she did not come very honestly by them. However, if he had the money he
+troubled not his head much which way he came by it, and he had so good a
+knack of wheedling her that he got twenty pounds out of her that Sunday.
+
+A very few days after, intelligence was got of his retreat, and the man
+whom he had robbed and shot made so indefatigable a search after him,
+that he was taken up and committed to the New Gaol, and his wife, a very
+little time after, was committed to Newgate for breaking open her lady's
+escrutoire, and robbing her of a hundred guineas. This was what Young
+said himself and I repeat it because I have his memoirs before me. Yet
+in respect to truth, I shall be obliged to say something of another
+nature in its due place; but to go on with our narration according to
+the time in which facts happened.
+
+A _Habeas Corpus_ was directed to the sheriff of Surrey, whereupon Young
+was brought to Newgate, and at the next sessions of the Old Bailey was
+indicted for the aforesaid robbery, which was committed in the county of
+Middlesex. The charge against him was for assaulting Thomas Stinton, in
+a field or open place near the Highway, and taking from him a mare of
+the value of seven pounds, a bridle value one shilling and sixpence, a
+saddle value twelve shillings, three broad-pieces of gold and nine
+shillings in silver, at the same time putting the said Thomas Stinton in
+fear of his life.
+
+Upon this indictment the prosecutor deposed that meeting with the
+prisoner about seven miles on this side of Bristol, and being glad of
+each other's company, they continued and lodged together till they came
+to Oxford; where the prisoner complaining that he was short of money,
+the prosecutor lent him a crown out of his pocket, and at Loudwater, the
+place where they lodged next night, he lent him half a crown more. The
+next morning they came for London, and being a little on this side of
+Uxbridge, Young said he had a friend in Hounslow who would advance him
+the money which he had borrowed from the prosecutor, and thereupon
+desired Mr. Stinton to go with him thither, to which he agreed; and
+Young thereupon persuaded him to go by a nearer way, and under that
+pretence after making him leap hedges and ditches, at last brought him
+to a place by the river side, where on a sudden he knocked him off his
+horse, and that with such force that he made the blood gush out of his
+nose and mouth.
+
+As soon as Young perceived that the prosecutor had recovered his senses
+a little, he demanded his money, to which Mr. Stinton replied, _Is this
+the manner in which you treat your friend? You see, I have not strength
+to give you anything._ Whereupon Young took from him his pocket-book and
+money. And Mr. Stinton earnestly entreating that he would give him
+somewhat to bear his expenses home, in answer thereto Young said, _Ay,
+I'll give you what shall carry you home straight_, and then shot him in
+the neck, and pushing him down into the ditch, said, _Lie there._ Some
+time after with much ado, Mr. Stinton crawled out and got to a house,
+but saw no more of the prisoner, or of either of their mares.
+
+George Hartwell deposed that he helped both the prisoner and the
+prosecutor to the inn where they lay at Oxford. Sarah Howard deposed
+that she kept the inn or house where they lodged at Loudwater the night
+before the robbery was committed. And all the witnesses, as well as the
+prosecutor being positive to the person of the prisoner, the charge
+seemed to be as fully proved as it was possible for a thing of that
+nature to admit.
+
+The prisoner in his defence did not pretend to deny the fact, but as
+much as he was able endeavoured to extenuate it. He said, that for his
+part he did not know anything of the mare; that the going off the pistol
+was merely accidental; that he did, indeed, take the money, and
+therefore, did not expect any other than to suffer death, but that it
+would be a great satisfaction to him, even in his last moments, that he
+neither had or ever intended to commit any murder. But those words in
+the prosecutor's evidence, _I'll give you something to carry you home_,
+and _Lie there_ (that is in the ditch) being mentioned in summing up the
+evidence to the jury, Young, with great warmth and many asseverations,
+denied that he made use of them. The jury, after a very short
+consideration, being full satisfied with the evidence which had been
+offered, found him guilty.
+
+The very same day his wife was indicted for the robbery of her mistress,
+when the fact was charged upon her thus: that she on a Sunday, conveyed
+Young secretly upstairs in her mistress's house, where she passed for a
+single woman; that he took an opportunity to break open a closet and to
+steal from thence ninety guineas, and ten pounds in silver; a satin
+petticoat value thirty shillings, and an orange crepe petticoat were
+also carried off; and she asking leave of her lady to go out in the
+afternoon, took that opportunity to go quite away, not being heard of
+for a long time. Upon her husband being apprehended for the fact for
+which he died, somebody remembered her and the story of her robbing her
+mistress, caused her thereupon to be apprehended. Not being able to
+prove her marriage at the time of her trial, she was convicted, and
+ordered for transportation. This was a very different story from that
+which Young told in his relations of his wife's adventure, but when it
+came to be mentioned to that unhappy man and pressed upon him, though he
+could not be brought to acknowledge it, yet he never denied it; which
+the Ordinary says, was a method of proceeding he took up, because
+unwilling to confess the truth, and afraid when so near death to tell a
+lie.
+
+When under sentence of death, this unfortunate person began to have a
+true sense of his own miserable condition; he was very far from denying
+the crime for which he suffered, although he still continued to deny
+some of the circumstances of it. The judgment which had been pronounced
+upon him, he acknowledged to be very just and reasonable, and was so far
+from being either angry or affrighted at the death he was to die that on
+the contrary he said it was the only thing that gave his thoughts ease.
+To say truth, the force of religion was never more visible in any man
+than it was in this unfortunate malefactor. He was sensible of his
+repentance being both forced and late, which made him attend to the
+duties thereof with an extraordinary fervour and application. He said
+that the thoughts of his dissolution had no other effect upon him than
+to quicken his diligence in imploring God for pardon. To all those who
+visited him either from their knowledge of him in former circumstances,
+or, as too many do, from the curiosity of observing how he would behave
+under those melancholy circumstances in which he then was, he discoursed
+of nothing but death, eternity, and future judgment. The gravity of his
+temper and the serious turn of his thoughts was never interrupted in any
+respect throughout the whole space of time in which he lay under
+condemnation; on the contrary, he every day appeared to have more and
+more improved from his meditations and almost continual devotions,
+appearing frequently when at chapel wrapped up as it were in ecstasy at
+the thoughts of heaven and future felicity, humbling himself, however,
+for the numberless sins he had committed, and omitting nothing which
+could serve to show the greatness of his sorrow and the sincerity of his
+contrition.
+
+The day he was to die, the unfortunate old man his father, then upwards
+of seventy years of age, came to visit him, and saw him haltered as he
+went out to execution. Words are too feeble to express that impetuosity
+of grief which overwhelmed both the miserable father and the dying son.
+However, the old man, bedewing him with a flood of tears, exhorted him
+not to let go on his hopes in Christ, even in that miserable
+conjuncture; but that he should remember the mercy of God was over all
+his works, and in an especial manner was promised to those who were
+penitent for their sins, which Christ had especially confirmed in
+sealing the pardon of the repenting thief, even upon the cross.
+
+At the place of execution he appeared scarce without any appearance of
+terror, much less of obstinacy or contempt of death. Being asked what he
+did with the pocket-book which he took from Mr. Stinton, and which
+contained in it things of very great use to him, Young replied
+ingeniously that he had burnt it, for which he was heartily sorry, but
+that he did not look into or make himself acquainted with its contents.
+Just before the cart drew away, he arose and spoke to the people, and
+said, _The love of idleness, being too much addicted to company, and a
+too greedy love of strong liquors has brought me to this unhappy end.
+The Law intends my death for an example unto others; let it be so, let
+my follies prevent others from falling into the like, and let the shame
+which you see me suffer, deter all of you from the commission of such
+sins as may bring you to the like fatal end. My sentence is just, but
+pray, ye good people, for my soul, that though I die ignominiously here,
+I may not perish everlastingly._
+
+He was executed the first of June, 1730, being at the time about
+thirty-nine years of age.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [101] This district, at the Dockhead end of Tooley Street, was
+        at that time a sort of No Man's Land, where horses were grazed
+        and a few poverty-stricken wretches lived in sheds and holes in
+        the ground.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of THOMAS POLSON, _alias_ HITCHIN, a Footpad and Highwayman
+
+
+Habit is the most dangerous of all evils. The transports of passion are
+sometimes prevented from having fatal effects, either by the precautions
+of those with whom we quarrel, or because a sudden reflection of our own
+minds checks our hand. But where men have abandoned themselves to
+wickedness, and given themselves up to the commission of every kind of
+evil without restraint, there is little hope to be entertained of their
+ever mending; and if the fear of a sudden death work a true repentance,
+it is all that can be hoped.
+
+As for this unfortunate man of whose actions the course of our memoirs
+obliges us to treat, he was descended from parents who lived at Marlow,
+in the county of Salop, who were equally honest in their reputations,
+and easy in their circumstances. They spared nothing in the education of
+their son, and it is hard to say whether their care of him was more or
+his application was less. Even while a child and at school he gave too
+evident symptoms of that lazy, indolent disposition which attended him
+so flagrantly and was justly the occasion of all the misfortunes of his
+succeeding life. Learning was of all things his aversion. It was with
+difficulty that he was taught to read and write. As to employment, his
+father brought him up to husbandry and the business of a rural life.
+
+When he was of age his father gave him an estate of twenty pounds _per
+annum_, freehold, and got him into a very good farm. He procured for him
+also a wife, who had ten pounds a year more of her own, and settled him
+in such a manner that no young man in the country had a better prospect
+of doing well than himself. But, alas! to what purpose are the
+endeavours of others, where a man studies nothing so much as to compass
+his own ruin? On a sudden he took a love to card-playing, and addicted
+himself to it with such earnestness that he neglected his business and
+squandered his money. Want was what of all things he hated, except work,
+and therefore rather than labour to retrieve, he bethought himself of an
+easier way of getting money, and that was to steal.
+
+His first attempt was upon his father, whom he robbed of a considerable
+sum of money. He not being in the least suspected, a poor maid who lived
+in the house bore the blame for about six months, and nobody in all that
+time being charged with it but her, there was at last a design in the
+old man's head to prosecute her. This reaching young Polson's ear, he
+resolved not to let an innocent person suffer, which was indeed a very
+just and honourable act, whereupon he wrote an humble letter to his
+father, acknowledging his fault, begging pardon for his offences, and
+desiring that he would not prosecute the poor woman, or suffer her to be
+any longer under the odium of a fact of which she had not the least
+knowledge. This, to be sure, had its effect on his father, who was a
+very honest and considerate man. He took care to restore the wench to
+her good character and his favour, though for a while he with just
+reason continued to frown upon his son. At last paternal tenderness
+prevailed, and after giving him several cautions and much good advice,
+he promised, on his good behaviour, to forgive him what had past. The
+young man promised fairly, but falling quickly into necessities, want of
+money had its old effect upon him again, that is, impatient to be at his
+old practices, tired with work, and yet not knowing how to get money,
+he at length resolved to go into Wales and steal horses.
+
+This project he executed, and took one from one Mr. Lewis of a
+considerable value. He sold it to a London butcher for about sixteen
+pounds, at a village not far from Shrewsbury. That money did him a
+little good, and therefore the next time he was in a strait he readily
+bethought himself of Wales. Accordingly he equipped himself with a
+little pad, and out he set in quest of purchase. At a little inn in
+Wales be met with a gentleman whom he had reason to suppose had money
+about him, whereupon our highwayman was very industrious first to make
+him drink, and then to get him for a bed-fellow, both of which designs
+he in the end brought to pass, and by that means robbed him of six
+pounds odd money, taking care to go in the morning a different road from
+what he had talked of, and by that means easily escaped what pursuit was
+made after him.
+
+When he had committed this fact he retired towards Canterbury, giving
+himself over entirely to thieving or cheating, on which design he
+traversed the whole county of Kent, but found the people so cautious
+that he did it with very little advantage; until at last coming near
+Maidstone, he observed a parcel of fine linen hanging upon a hedge. He
+immediately bethought himself that though the people were wise, yet
+their hedges might be otherwise, upon which stepping up to it, he fairly
+stripped it of ten fine shirts, and so left the people who had washed
+them to account for it. After this exploit, he made the best of his way
+to London, where he speedily sold the stolen linen for five pounds to a
+Life Guardsman; and when he had spent a good part of it, down he went
+into Norfolk. And being afraid that the inhabitants would take notice of
+a stranger setting up his abode there for any considerable time, he
+thought fit to pretend to be very lame. Having continued as long as he
+thought proper in this place, he took his opportunity to carry off a
+fine mare out of the grounds of Sir John Habbard, Baronet, now the Right
+Honourable the Lord Blickling. This was one of the most dangerous feats
+he ever committed in his life, for the scent was so strong upon him, and
+so quickly followed, that he was forced to take a multitude of byways to
+get to London, where he set her up in the Haymarket. However he quickly
+found there was no possibility of disposing of her here, information
+having been given of her to all the great jockeys; so that for present
+money he was obliged to borrow four guineas of the man at the inn, and
+to leave her in his hands by way of security, which was making but a
+poor hand of what he had hazarded his life for.
+
+By this time his father had received some intelligence of his way of
+living, and out of tenderness of its consequences, wrote to him assuring
+him of forgiveness for all that was past, if he would come down into the
+country and live honestly. Such undeserved tenderness had some weight
+even with our criminal himself, and he at last began to frame his mind
+to comply with the request of so good a father. Accordingly, down he
+came, and for a little space, behaved himself honestly and as he should
+do; but his old distemper, laziness quickly came in his way, and finding
+money not to come in so fast as he would have it, he began to think of
+his old practice again, and prepared himself once more to sally out upon
+his illegal adventures. For this purpose taking with him a little mare
+of his brothers, for at that time he had no horse proper for the designs
+he went on, forth he rode in search of prey.
+
+Wales was the place he first visited, and after riding up and down for a
+good while without meeting with any purchase worth taking, he at last
+unluckily stumbled upon a poor old man in Flintshire, who had one foot
+already in the grave. From him he took a silver watch, worth about five
+pounds, and five shillings in money, which was all the poor man had, and
+making thereupon the greatest haste he could out of the country, he got
+clear away before it was discovered. After this he came again to London,
+where what little money he had he lavished away upon women of the town.
+
+It was not long before want overtook him again, upon which he determined
+to visit Yorkshire, in hopes of raising some considerable booty there.
+All the way down, according to his common practice, he bilked the
+public-houses, and at last arriving at Doncaster, began to set heartily
+about the work for which he came down. On a market day, he robbed an old
+farmer of forty shillings and a pair of silver buckles, taking his horse
+also from him, which, when he had ridden about fifteen miles across
+country, he turned loose. He rambled from thence on foot, as well as he
+could, in order to get into his native country of Shropshire, where
+after the commission of a multitude of such actions, none of which
+afforded him any great booty, he arrived.
+
+His father took him home again, and he lived for eleven months tolerably
+honest. However, to keep his hand in use, he now and then stole a
+shoulder of mutton, a joint which he particularly loved; but sometimes
+to please his father he would work a little, though it always went much
+against the grain. At last he quarrelled with his wife, and thereupon
+threatened to go away again, which very quickly after he did, turning
+his course, notwithstanding his former ill-success into Yorkshire once
+more. He was at several of the races in that county, and having no
+particular business at any place, did nothing but course the country
+round, pilfering and stealing whatever came in his way; insomuch that at
+one inn, finding nothing else to lay his hands on, he stole the people's
+sheets off the bed he lay in, and marched off in the morning so early,
+that he was out of danger before they perceived the theft.
+
+But finding that he could not do any considerable matter amongst the
+people, who are cunning to a proverb, he bethought himself of returning
+to London, and the society of those strumpets in which he took a
+delight. However, all the way on the road he made a shift to pick up as
+much as kept him pretty well all the way. On his arrival in town he set
+up his place of residence in an inn near Leather Lane, Holborn, where he
+remained one whole day to rest himself after the fatigue of his northern
+journey. There he reflected on the sad state in which his affairs were,
+being without money and without friends, justly disregarded by his
+friends in the country, and hated and despised by all his neighbours.
+His debts, too, amounted there to near a hundred and forty pounds, so
+that there was no hopes in going back. The result of these cogitations
+was that the next day he would go out on the road towards Hampstead, and
+see what might be made there. He accordingly did so, but with very ill
+success. However, he returned a second time and had no better; the third
+day, towards evening, he observed an old gentleman in a chaise by
+himself, whom he robbed of six guineas, a watch, a mourning-ring, and
+nine and sixpence in silver, and then making over the fields got home
+very safe.
+
+For three days he thought fit to remain within doors, under pretence of
+sickness, fearing lest he should be advertised and described in the
+public prints; but finding nothing of that happened, he grew bold, and
+for about fourteen nights continued the same trade constantly, getting,
+sometimes, two or three pieces, and sometimes losing his labour and
+getting nothing at all. At length, waiting pretty late for an old man,
+who, as he was informed, was to come that night with eight hundred
+pounds about him, although he was so feeble that a child might be able
+to take it from him, he at length grew impatient, and resolved to rob
+the first man he met. This proved to be one Mr. Andrews, who raised so
+quick a pursuit upon him that he never lost sight of him until the time
+of his being apprehended, when he was carried to Newgate and prosecuted
+the next sessions for the aforesaid robbery.
+
+He was then indicted for taking from the said Thomas Andrews, after
+putting him in fear, six or seven shillings in money, a bay mare, bridle
+and saddle, and a cane, on the 23rd of July, 1730. The evidence was
+exceedingly clear, he having, as I have said, never gone out of sight,
+from the time of the robbery to the time he was taken. Under sentence of
+death the prisoner behaved with great piety and resignation. He showed
+great concern for the offences of his former life, and testified the
+utmost sorrow for having blemished an honest family by the shame of his
+vices and their just punishment. The night before his execution he wrote
+a letter to his parents in the country, which though it be written in a
+very uncouth style, yet I have thought fit to insert it _verbatim_,
+because there is a strain in it of unusual confusion and concern,
+expressing the agony of a dying man with more truth and tenderness than
+the best penned epistle could have done.
+
+    Honoured Parents,
+
+    My duty to both, my love to my brother-in-law. I wish to God I had
+    been ruled by you, for now I see the evil of my sin, but I freely
+    die, only the disgrace I have brought on you, my wife and children.
+    I wrote to my wife last Saturday was seven night but had no answer,
+    for I should have been glad to have heard from you before I die,
+    which will be on Wednesday the seventh of this instant October,
+    hoping I have made my peace with God Almighty. I freely forgive all
+    the world, and die in charity with all people. Had it not been for
+    Joyce Hite's sister and Mr. Howel, I might have starved, he told me
+    it has cost him fifteen shillings on my account, and he gave me four
+    more. I desire Thomas Mason will give my wife that locket for my
+    son.
+
+    I have nothing more to say, but my prayers to God for you all day
+    and night, and for God's sake, be as kind to my poor wife and
+    children as in your power lies. I desire there might be some care
+    taken of that Estate at Minton for my son. Mr. Botfield hath the old
+    writings, and I beg you will get them and give them to my wife, and
+    pray show her this letter and my love to her, and my blessing to my
+    children, begging of her as I am a dying man to be good to them, and
+    not make any difference in them, but be as kind to one as the other,
+    and if she is able to put the boy to some trade. Mr. Waring and
+    Thomas Tomlings have each of them a book of mine, pray ask for them,
+    which is all I have to say, but my prayers to God for you all, which
+    is all from your
+
+                                       Dying Son,
+                                                Richard Polson.
+    In my Cell.
+    October the 6th.
+
+    P.S. My love to all my friends. Pray show this letter to my wife as
+    soon as you can, and desire of her to bring up my children in the
+    fear of the Lord, and to make my son a scholar if she is able. There
+    is five of us to die.
+
+In this disposition of mind, and without adding anything to his former
+confessions he suffered on the seventh of October, 1730, being then in
+the thirty-third year of his age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of SAMUEL ARMSTRONG, a Housebreaker
+
+
+I have heretofore remarked the great danger there is in having a bad
+character, and keeping ill-company, from the probability of truth which
+it gives to every accusation that either malice or interest may induce
+men to bring against one.
+
+This malefactor was the son of parents in tolerable circumstances, who
+were careful of his education, and when he grew up bound him apprentice
+to Captain Matthews, commander of a vessel which traded to Guinea and
+the West Indies. He behaved at sea very well, and had not the least
+objection made to his character when he came home. Happy had it been for
+him if he had gone to sea again, without suffering himself to be tainted
+with the vices of this great city.
+
+Unfortunately for him, he fell in love with a young woman, and lived
+with her for some time as his wife. His fondness for this creature drew
+him to be guilty of those base actions which first brought him to
+Newgate and the bar at the Old Bailey, and so far blasted his character
+and unfortunately betrayed him to his death. In the company of this
+female he quickly lavished what little money he had, and not knowing how
+to get more, he fell into the persuasions of some wicked young fellows
+who advised him to take to robbing in the streets. Certain it is that he
+had not made many attempts (he himself said none) before he was
+apprehended, and that the first fact he was ever concerned in was
+stealing a man's hat and tobacco box in Thames Street. This was
+committed by his companion, who gave them to him, and then running away,
+left him to be answerable for the fact, for which being indicted at the
+next sessions at the Old Bailey, he was found guilty, but it being a
+single felony only it did not affect his life.
+
+However, having been seen there by one Holland, who turned evidence, he
+thought fit to save his own life by swearing him into the commission of
+a burglary which himself and one Thomas Griffith actually committed.
+However, his oath being positive, and the character of this unhappy lad
+so bad, the people who were robbed were induced to prosecute him with
+great vehemence, and the jury, on the same presumptions, found him
+guilty. Griffith, who received sentence with him but afterwards had a
+pardon, acknowledged that he himself was guilty, but declared at the
+same time that this unhappy young man was absolutely clear of what was
+laid to his charge, Holland and himself being the only persons who
+committed that burglary, and took away the kitchen things which were
+sworn against him. Moreover, that Armstrong coming to Newgate, and
+seeing Holland and speaking to him about something, Holland took that
+opportunity of asking who Armstrong was, and what he came there for,
+being told the story of his conviction for the hat and wig, he thought
+fit to add him to his former information against Griffith, and so by
+swearing against two, effectually secured himself. In this story both
+the unhappy person of whom we are speaking and Thomas Griffith, who was
+condemned for and confessed the fact agreed, and Armstrong went to death
+absolutely denying the fact for which he was to suffer.
+
+At the place of execution his colour changed, and though at other times
+he appeared to be a bold young man, yet now his courage failed him, he
+trembled and turned pale, besought the people to pray for his soul, and
+in great agony and confusion, submitted to death on the seventh day of
+October, 1730, being at the time of his death about twenty-two years of
+age.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of NICHOLAS GILBURN, a Most Notorious Highwayman
+
+
+This unfortunate person was born at Ballingary, near Limerick, in the
+west of Ireland, of parents in very tolerable circumstances, who gave
+him a very good education; but perceiving that he had a martial
+disposition, they resolved not to cross it, and therefore, though he was
+not above fourteen years of age, got him recommended to an officer, who
+received him as a dragoon. He served about four years with a very good
+reputation in the army; but he had a brother who then rode in a regiment
+of horse, who wrote to him from London, and encouraged him to come over
+into England, which occasioned his writing to his officer to desire his
+discharge. To this his officer readily agreed.
+
+He went thereupon from the north of Ireland to the west, to his friend,
+where having equipped himself with clothing, linen and other
+necessaries, he then came to London, expecting to meet his brother. But
+on his arrival here he was disappointed, and that disappointment,
+together with his want of money, made him very uneasy. At last, in order
+to procure bread, he resolved to list himself in the Foot Guards. He did
+so, and continued in them for about two years, during which time, he
+says in his dying declaration, that he did duty as well, and appeared as
+clean as any man in the company; nay, in all that time, he avers that he
+never neglected his guard but once, which was very fatal to him, for it
+brought him into the acquaintance of those who betrayed him to measures
+which cost him his life. For being taken up and carried to the Savoy for
+the afore-mentioned offence, he had not been long in prison before
+Wilson, who had been concerned with Burnworth, _alias_ Frazier, and the
+rest in the murder of Mr. Ball in the Mint; and one Mr. G----, an old
+highwayman, though he had never conversed with him before, came to pay
+him a visit.
+
+They treated him both with meat and drink, seemed to commiserate his
+condition very much, and promised him that he should not want
+twelvepence a day, during the time in confinement. This promise was very
+well kept, and Gilburn in a few days obtained his liberty. The next day
+he met Wilson in St. James's Park, who after complimenting him upon his
+happy deliverance, invited him to a house in Spring Gardens to drink and
+make merry together. Gilburn readily consented, and after discoursing of
+courage, want of money, the miseries of poverty, and some other
+preparatory articles, Wilson parted with him for that time, appointing
+another meeting with him at eleven o'clock the next morning. There
+Wilson pursued his former topic, and at last told him plainly that the
+best and shortest method to relieve their wants was to go on the
+highway; and when he had once made this step, he scrupled not to make a
+further, telling Gilburn that there was no such danger in those
+practices as was generally apprehended, for that with a little care and
+circumspection the gallows might be well enough avoided, which he said
+was plain enough from his own adventures, since he had lived several
+years in the profession, and by being cautious enough to look about him,
+had escaped any confinement.
+
+Gilburn heard this account with terror. He had never committed anything
+of this kind hitherto, and knew very well that if he once engaged he
+could never afterwards go back. Wilson seemed not at all uneasy at his
+pause, but artfully introducing discourse on other subjects, plied him
+in the meanwhile with liquor, until he saw him pretty warm, and then
+resumed the story of his own adventures and of the facility of acquiring
+money when a man is but well stored with courage and has ever so little
+conduct. This artifice unfortunately had its effect, Wilson's
+conversation and the fumes of liquor prevailing so far upon Gilburn
+that, as he himself phrased it, he resolved at last upon business.
+
+The day following, Gilburn provided himself with pistols, and removed
+his quarters to go and live with Wilson, who encouraged him with all the
+arguments he was able to stick to his new profession, and Gilburn in
+return swore he would live and die with him. So at night they went out
+together in quest of adventures. The road they took was towards
+Paddington. A little after they were come into the fields, they attacked
+a gentleman and took from him eight shillings, with which Gilburn was
+very much pleased, though they had little luck after, so that they
+returned at last to their lodgings, weary and fatigued, and were obliged
+to mount guard the next morning. When their guard was over, they were,
+as Mr. Gilburn expresses it in his last speech, as bare as a bird's
+arse, so no time was to be lost, and accordingly that very night they
+made their second expedition. Nobody coming in their way, Gilburn began
+to fret, and at last falling into a downright passion, swore he would
+rob the first man he met. He was as good as his word, and the booty he
+got proved a tolerable provision for some days.
+
+But guard-day drawing nigh again, Wilson told him there was no mounting
+without money, and the same methods were taken as formerly; but as the
+leagues by which men are united in villainy are liable to a thousand
+inconveniencies which are uneasily born, and yet hard to be remedied, so
+Wilson's humours being very different from that of Gilburn, they soon
+began to differ about the money they acquired by plunder. At last,
+coming one night very much tired and fatigued to a public-house where
+Wilson was acquainted, they called for some drink to refresh themselves,
+which when they had done, Gilburn was for dividing the money, himself
+standing in need of linen and other necessaries. Wilson, on the other
+hand, was for having a bowl of punch, and words thereupon arose to such
+a height that at last they fell to fighting. This quarrel was
+irreconcilable, and they absolutely parted company, though Gilburn
+unfortunately pursued the same road; and having robbed a gentleman on
+horseback of several yards of fine padusoy, he was shortly after
+apprehended and committed to Newgate.
+
+At first he absolutely denied the fact, but when he was convicted, and
+saw no hopes of pardon, he acknowledged what had been sworn against him
+by the prosecutor to be true, attended with much gravity at chapel, and
+seemed to be greatly afflicted through a due sense of those many sins
+which he had committed. Wilson, his companion, had a little before been
+executed at Kingston, and Gilburn with all outward signs of contrition,
+suffered the same death at Tyburn, at the same time with the
+before-mentioned malefactor, being at the time of his death about
+twenty-two years of age.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of JAMES O'BRYAN, HUGH MORRIS and ROBERT JOHNSON, Highwaymen
+and Street-Robbers
+
+
+Amongst the many flagrant vices of the present age, there is none more
+remarkable than the strange property we see in young people to commit
+the most notorious crimes, provided they may thereby furnish themselves
+with money enough to support their lavish expenses in vices which in
+former times were scarce heard of by lads of that age, at which our
+boldest highwaymen begin to exert themselves now.
+
+The first of these unfortunate lads, James O'Bryan, was born at Dublin,
+was brought over hither young, and had a good education given him which
+he had very little inclination to make a proper use of. Nothing could
+persuade him to go out to a trade; on the contrary, he pretended he
+would apply himself to his father's employment, which was that of a
+plasterer. But as working was required, he soon grew out of humour with
+it, and addicted himself wholly to strolling about the streets with such
+wicked lads as himself, and so was easily drawn in to think of supplying
+himself with money by the plunder of honest people, in order to carry on
+those debaucheries in which, though a lad, he was already deeply
+immersed.
+
+Women, forsooth, drew this spark away from the paths of virtue and
+goodness at about sixteen years old, after which time he lost all sense
+of duty to his parents, respect of laws divine or human, and even care
+of himself. It seems he found certain houses in Chick Lane, where they
+met abundance of loose young men and women, accustomed themselves to
+every kind of debauchery which it was possible for wicked people to
+commit or the most fruitful genius to invent. Here he fell into the
+company of his two companions, Morris and Johnson.
+
+The first of these was the son of an unfortunate tradesman who had once
+kept a great shop, and lived in good reputation in the Strand, but
+through the common calamities of life, he was so unfortunate as to
+break, and laying it too much to heart, died soon after it, happy,
+however, in one thing, that he did not live to see the deplorable end of
+his son by the hand of justice.
+
+Robert Johnson was the son of honest parents, and had a very good
+education, but put it to a very ill use; for having all his life time
+been addicted to pilfering and thieving, at last he fell into the
+company of these unfortunate young men who led him a directer way to the
+gallows than perhaps he might have found himself. One of his chief
+inducements to forfeit reputation and hazard life by engaging in street
+robberies, was his commencing an amour with his father's servant-maid,
+and not long after falling into a multitude of such like adventures, the
+ready road to inevitable ruin.
+
+These three sparks, together with Bernard Fink, and another person who
+turned evidence against them, came all at the same time to a resolution
+of attacking people in the streets; and having provided themselves with
+pistols and whatever else they thought necessary for putting their
+design in execution, they immediately set about it, and though but boys,
+committed bolder and more numerous robberies than had ever hitherto been
+heard of. It may, indeed, seem surprising that lads of their age should
+be able to intimidate passengers, but when it is considered that having
+less precaution than older rogues, they were more ready at firing
+pistols or otherwise injuring those whom they attacked, than any set of
+fellows who had hitherto disturbed the crown, this wonder will wear off.
+
+It was not above two months that they continued their depredations, but
+in that time they had been exceedingly busy, and had committed a
+multitude of facts. One gentleman whom they attacked in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields, refused to surrender, and drew his sword upon Morris. That young
+robber immediately fired his pistol, and the rest coming to his
+assistance, the gentleman thought it but prudent to retire, the noise
+they made having alarmed the watch and so prevented his losing anything.
+
+After this it became a very common practice with them, as soon as they
+stopped anybody, to clap a pistol under their nose, and bid them smell
+at it, while one of their companions, with a thousand execrations,
+threatened to blow their brains out if they made the least resistance.
+As soon as the business of the night was over, they immediately
+adjourned to their places of rendezvous at Chick Lane, or to other
+houses of the same stamp elsewhere, and without the least consideration
+of the hazards they had run, squandered the wages of their villainies
+upon such impudent strumpets as for the lucre of a few shillings
+prostituted themselves to them in these debaucheries.
+
+Mr. O'Bryan was the hero of this troop of infant robbers; he valued
+himself much on never meddling with small matters or committing any
+meaner crime than that of the highway. It happened he had a mistress
+coming out of the country and he would needs have his companions take
+each of them a doxy and go with him as far as Windsor to receive her.
+They readily complied, and at Windsor they were all seized and from
+thence brought to town, two of their own gang turning evidence, so that
+on the clearest proof, they were all three convicted.
+
+Under sentence of death they behaved with great audacity, seemed to
+value themselves on the crimes they had committed, caused several
+disturbances at chapel and discovered little or no sense of that
+miserable condition in which they were. O'Bryan died a Papist, and in
+the cart read with great earnestness a book of devotions in that way. He
+wrote a letter to his father the day before he died, and also something
+which he called verses to his sister, both of which I have subjoined
+_verbatim_ that my readers may have the better idea of the capacity of
+those poor creatures.
+
+    To Mr. Terrance O'Bryan, living in Burleigh Street in the Strand.
+    Honoured Father and Mother,
+
+    The uneasiness I give you is more terror to me than the thoughts of
+    death, but pray make yourselves as easy as you can, for I hope I am
+    going to a better place; for God is my refuge and my strength, and
+    my helper in time of tribulation, and pray take care of my brother
+    now whilst he is young, and make him serve God, and keep him out of
+    bad company. If I had served God as I ought to have done, and kept
+    out of bad company, I had not come to this unhappy misfortune, but I
+    hope it is for the good of my soul, it is good I hope what God has
+    at present ordained for me, for there is mercy in the foresight of
+    death, and in the time God has given me to prepare for it. A natural
+    death might have had less terror, for in that I might have wanted
+    many advantages which are now granted me. My trust is in God, and I
+    hope he won't reward me according to my deserts. All that I can
+    suffer here must have an end, for this life is short, so are all the
+    sufferings of it, but the next life is Eternal. Pray give my love to
+    my sister, and desire her not to neglect her duty to God. I hope
+    you are all well, as I am at present, I thank God. So no more at
+    present.
+
+    From your unhappy and undutiful son,
+                                  James O'Bryan.
+
+The verses sent by James O'Bryan to his sister two days before his
+execution:
+
+    My loving tender sister dear,
+    From you I soon must part I fear.
+    Think not on my wretched state,
+    Nor grieve for my unhappy fate,
+    But serve the Lord with all your heart,
+    And from you He'll never part.
+    When I am dead and in my tomb,
+    For my poor soul I hope there's room,
+    In Heaven with God above on high,
+    I hope to live eternally.
+
+At the time of their execution James O'Bryan was about twenty, Hugh
+Morris seventeen, and Robert Johnson not full twenty years of age, which
+was on the 16th of November, 1730.
+
+
+
+
+The History of the Life and surprising adventures of JOHN GOW, _alias_
+SMITH, a most notorious Pirate and Murderer
+
+
+The principal use to which a work of this nature can be applied is to
+engage persons to refuse the first stirrings of their passions, and the
+slighted emotions of vice in their breasts, since they see before their
+eyes so many sad examples of the fatal consequences which follow upon
+rash and wicked enterprises, of which the following history exhibits as
+extraordinary an instance as perhaps is anythere to be found.
+
+In giving an account of this malefactor, we are obliged to begin with
+his embarking on board the vessel which he afterwards seized and went
+a-pirating in. It was called the _George_ galley, and was of about two
+hundred tons burden, commanded by Oliver Ferneau, a Frenchman, but a
+subject of the Crown of England, who entertained this Gow as a private
+seaman only, but afterwards, to his great misfortune, preferred him to
+be the second mate in the voyage of which we are next to speak.
+
+Captain Ferneau being a man of reputation among the merchants of
+Amsterdam, got a voyage for his ship from thence to Santa Cruz on the
+coast of Barbary, to load beeswax, and to carry it to Genoa, which was
+his delivering port; and as the Dutch, having war with the Turks of
+Algiers, were willing to employ him as an English ship, so he was as
+willing to be manned with English seamen, and accordingly among the
+rest, he unhappily took on board this Gow with his wretched gang, such
+as MacCauly, Melvin, Williams and others. But not being able to man
+themselves wholly with English or Scots, he was obliged to take some
+Swedes, and other seamen to make his complement, which was twenty-three
+in all. Among the latter sort, one was named Winter, and another
+Peterson, both of them Swedes by nation, but wicked as Gow and his other
+fellows were. They sailed from the Texel in the month of August, 1724,
+and arrived at Santa Cruz on the second of September following, where
+having a super-cargo on board, who took charge of the loading, and four
+chests of money to purchase it, they soon got the beeswax, on board, and
+on the third of November they appointed to set sail to pursue the
+voyage.
+
+That day the ship having lain two months in the road at Santa Cruz,
+taking in her lading, the captain made preparations to put to sea, and
+the usual signals for sailing having been given, some of the merchants
+from on shore, who had been concerned in furnishing the cargo, came on
+board in the forenoon to take their leave of the captain, and wish him a
+good voyage, as is usual on such occasions. Whether it was concerted by
+the whole gang beforehand, we know not, but while the captain was
+treating and entertaining the merchants under the awning upon the
+quarter deck, as is the custom in those hot countries, three of the
+seamen, viz., Winter and Peterson, two Swedes, and MacCauly a Scotchman,
+came rudely upon the quarter deck as if they took the opportunity
+because the merchants were present, believing the captain would not use
+any violence with them in the presence of the merchants.
+
+They made a long complaint of all their ill-usage, and particularly of
+their provisions and allowance, as they said, being not sufficient nor
+such as was ordinarily made in other merchant ships, seeming to load the
+captain, Monsieur Ferneau, with being the occasion of it, and that he
+did it for his private gain, which however had not been true. If the
+fact had been true, the overplus of provisions (if the stores had been
+more than sufficient) belonged to the owners, not to the captain, at the
+end of the voyage, there being also a steward on board to take the
+account. In making this complaint they seemed to direct their speech to
+the merchants as well as to the captain, as if they had been concerned
+in the ship, or as if desiring them to intercede for them with the
+captain, that they might have redress and a better allowance.
+
+The captain was highly provoked at this rudeness, as indeed he had
+reason, it being a double affront to him as it was done in the view of
+the merchants who were come on board to him, to do him an honour at
+parting. However, he restrained his passion, and gave them not the least
+angry word, only that if they were aggrieved they had no more to do but
+to let him have know of it; that if they were ill-used it was not by his
+order that he would enquire into it and if anything was amiss it should
+be rectified, with which the seamen withdrew, seemingly well satisfied
+with his answer.
+
+About five the same evening they unmoored the ship and hove short upon
+their best bower anchor, awaiting the land breeze (as is usual on that
+coast) to carry them out to sea; but instead of that, it fell stark
+calm, and the captain fearing the ship would fall foul of her own
+anchor, ordered the mizen top-sail to be furled. Peterson, one of the
+malcontent seamen, being the nearest man at hand seemed to go about it,
+but moved so carelessly and heavily that it appeared plainly he did not
+care whether it was done or no, and particularly as if he had a mind the
+captain should see it and take notice of it. Which the captain did, for
+perceiving how awkwardly he went about it, he spoke a little tartly to
+him, and asked him what was the reason he did not stir a little and furl
+the sail. Peterson, as if he had waited for the question, answered in a
+surly tone, and with a kind of disdain, _So as we eat, so shall we
+work._ This he spoke aloud, so that he might be sure the captain heard
+him and the rest of the men also, and it was evident that as he spoke in
+plural numbers, _We_, so he spoke their minds as well as his own, and
+words which they all agreed to before.
+
+The captain, however, though he heard plain enough what he said, took
+not the least notice of it, or gave him the least reason to believe he
+had heard him, being not willing to begin a quarrel with the men and
+knowing that if he took any notice at all of it, he must resent it and
+punish it too.
+
+Soon after this, the calm went off, and the land breeze sprang up, and
+they immediately weighed and stood out to sea; but the captain having
+had these two bustles with his men just at their putting to sea, was
+very uneasy in his mind, as indeed he had reason to be; and the same
+evening, soon after they were under sail, the mate being walking on the
+quarter deck, he went, and taking two or three turns with him, told him
+how he had been used by the men, particularly how they affronted him
+before the merchants, and what an answer Peterson had given him on the
+quarter deck, when he ordered him to furl the mizen top sail. The mate
+was as surprised at these things as the captain, and after some other
+discourse about it, in which it was their unhappiness not to be so
+private as they ought to have been in a case of such importance, the
+captain told him he thought it was absolutely necessary to have a
+quantity of small arms brought immediately into the great cabin, not
+only to defend themselves if there should be occasion, but also that he
+might be in a posture to correct those fellows for their insolence,
+especially should he meet with any more of it. The mate agreed that it
+was necessary to be done, and had they said no more, or said this more
+privately, all had been well, and the wicked design had been much more
+difficult, if not the execution of it effectually prevented.
+
+But two mistakes in this part was the ruin of them all. First, that the
+captain spoke it without due caution, so that Winter and Peterson, the
+two principal malcontents, who were expressly mentioned by the captain
+to be corrected, overheard it, and knew by that means what they had to
+expect if they did not immediately bestir themselves to prevent it. The
+other mistake was that when the captain and mate agreed that it was
+necessary to have arms got ready, and brought into the great cabin, the
+captain unhappily bid him go immediately to Gow, the second mate and
+gunner, and give him orders to get the arms cleared and loaded for him,
+and to bring them up to the great cabin; which was in short to tell the
+conspirators that the captain was preparing to be too strong for them,
+if they did not fall to work with him immediately.
+
+Winter and Peterson went immediately forward, where they knew the rest
+of the mutineers were, and to whom they communicated what they had
+heard, telling them that it was time to provide for their own safety,
+for otherwise their destruction was resolved on, and the captain would
+soon be in such a posture that there would be no muddling with him.
+While they were thus consulting, as they said, only for their own
+safety, Gow and Williams came into them with some others to the number
+of eight, and no sooner were they joined by these two, but they fell
+downright to the point which Gow had so long formed in his own mind,
+viz., to seize upon the captain and mate, and all those that they could
+not bring to join with them; in short, to throw them into the sea, and
+to go upon the account. All those who are acquainted with the sea
+language know the meaning of that expression, and that it is, in few
+words, to run away with the ship and turn pirates.
+
+Villainous designs are soonest concluded; as they had but little time
+to consult upon what measures they should take, so very little
+consultation served for what was before them, and they came to this
+short but hellish resolution, viz., that they would immediately, that
+very night, murder the captain and such others as they named, and
+afterwards proceed with the ship as they should see cause. And here it
+is to be observed that though Winter and Peterson were in the first
+proposal, namely to prevent their being brought to correction by the
+captain, yet Gow and Williams were the principal advisers in the bloody
+part, which however the rest came into soon; for, as I said before, as
+they had but little time to resolve in, so they had but very little
+debate about it but what was first proposed was forthwith engaged in and
+consented to.
+
+It must not be omitted that Gow had always had the wicked game of
+pirating in his head, and that he had attempted it, or rather tried to
+attempt it before, but was not able to bring it to pass; so he and
+Williams had also several times, even in this very voyage, dropped some
+hints of this vile design, as they thought there was room for it, and
+touched two or three times at what a noble opportunity they had of
+enriching themselves, and making their fortunes, as they wickedly called
+it. This was when they had the four chests of money on board and
+Williams made it a kind of jest in his discourse, how easily they might
+carry it off, ship and all. But as they did not find themselves
+seconded, or that any of the men showed themselves in favour of such a
+thing, but rather spoke of it with abhorrence they passed it over as a
+kind of discourse that had nothing at all in it, except that one of the
+men, viz., the surgeon, once took them up short for so much as
+mentioning such a thing, told them the thought was criminal and it ought
+not to be spoken of among them, which reproof was supposed cost him his
+life afterwards.
+
+As Gow and his comrade had thus started the thing at a distance before,
+though it was then without success, yet they had the less to do now,
+when other discontents had raised a secret fire in the breasts of the
+men; for now, being as it were mad and desperate with apprehensions of
+their being severely punished by the captain, they wanted no persuasions
+to come into the most wicked undertaking that the devil or any of his
+angels could propose to them. Nor do we find that upon any of their
+examinations they pretended to have made any scruples or objections to
+the cruelty of the bloody attempt that was to be made, but came to it at
+once, and resolved to put it in execution immediately, that is to say,
+the very same evening.
+
+It was the captain's constant custom to call all the ship's company into
+the great cabin every night at eight o'clock to prayers, and then the
+watch being set, one went upon deck, and the other turned in, or, as
+the seamen phrase it, went to their hammocks to sleep; and here they
+concerted their devilish plot. It was the turn of five of the
+conspirators to go to sleep, and of these Gow and Williams were two. The
+three who were to be upon the deck were Winter, Rowlinson, and Melvin, a
+Scotchman. The persons they immediately designed for destruction were
+four, viz., the captain, the mate, the super-cargo, and the surgeon,
+whereof all but the captain were gone to sleep, the captain himself
+being upon the quarter deck.
+
+Between nine and ten at night, all being quiet and secure, and the poor
+gentlemen that were to be murdered fast asleep, the villains that were
+below gave the watch-word, which was, _Who fires next?_ At which they
+all got out of their hammocks with as little noise as they could, and
+going in the dark to the hammocks of the chief mate, super-cargo and
+surgeon, they cut all their throats. The surgeon's throat was cut so
+effectually that he could struggle very little with them, but leaping
+out of his hammock, ran up to get upon the deck, holding his hand upon
+his throat. But be stumbled at the tiller, and falling down had no
+breath, and consequently no strength to raise himself, but died where he
+lay.
+
+The mate, whose throat was cut but not his windpipe, struggled so
+vigorously with the villain who attacked him that he got away from him
+and into the hold; and the super-cargo, in the same condition, got
+forwards between decks under some deals and both of them begged with the
+most moving cries and entreaties for their lives. And when nothing could
+prevail, they begged with the same earnestness for but a few moments to
+pray to God, and recommend their souls to mercy. But alike in vain, for
+the wretched murderers, heated with blood, were past pity, and not being
+able to come at them with their knives, with which they had begun the
+execution, they shot them with their pistols, firing several times upon
+each of them until they found they were quite dead.
+
+As all this, even before the firing, could not be done without some
+noise, the captain, who was walking alone upon the quarter-deck, called
+out and asked what was the matter. The boatswain, who sat on the after
+bits, and was not of the party, answered he could not tell, but he was
+afraid there was somebody overboard; upon which the captain stepped
+towards the ship's side to look over. Then Winter, Rowlinson and Melvin,
+coming that moment behind him, laid hands on him, and lifting him up,
+attempted to throw him overboard into the sea; but he being a nimble
+strong man, got hold of the shrouds and struggled so hard with them that
+they could not break his hold. Turning his head to look behind him to
+see who he had to deal with, one of them cut his throat with a broad
+Dutch knife; but neither was that wound mortal, for the captain still
+struggled with them, and seeing he should undoubtedly be murdered, he
+constantly cried up to God for mercy, for he found there was none to be
+expected from them. During this struggle, another of the murderers
+stabbed him with a knife in the back, and that with such a force that
+the villain could not draw the knife out again to repeat his blow, which
+he would otherwise have done.
+
+At this moment Gow came up from the butchery he had been at between
+decks, and seeing the captain still alive, he went close up to him and
+shot him, as he confessed, with a brace of bullets. What part he shot
+him in could not be known, though they said he had shot him in the head;
+however, he had yet life enough (though they threw him overboard) to
+take hold of a rope, and would still have saved himself but they cut
+that rope and then he fell into the sea, and was seen no more.
+
+Thus they finished the tragedy, having murdered four of the principal
+men in command in the ship, so that there was nobody now to oppose them;
+for Gow being second mate and gunner, the command fell to him, of
+course, and the rest of the men having no arms ready, not knowing how to
+get at any, were in utmost consternation, expecting they would go on
+with the work and cut their throats. In this fright everyone shifted for
+himself. As for those who were upon deck, some got up in the round tops,
+others got into the ship's head, resolving to throw themselves into the
+sea rather than be mangled with knives and murdered as the captain and
+mate, etc., had been. Those who were below, not knowing what to do, or
+whose turn it should be next, lay still in their hammocks expecting
+death every moment, and not daring to stir lest the villains should
+think they did it in order to make resistance, which however they were
+in no way capable of doing, having no concert one with another, not
+knowing anything in particular of one another, as who was alive or who
+was dead. Had the captain, who was himself a bold and stout man, been in
+his great cabin with three or four men with him, and his fire-arms, as
+he intended to have had, those eight fellows had never been able to have
+done their work. But every man was taken unprovided, and in the utmost
+surprise, so that the murderers met with no resistance; and as for those
+what were left, they were less able to make resistance than the other,
+so that, as has been said, they were in the utmost terror and amazement,
+expecting every minute to be murdered as the rest had been.
+
+But the villains had done. The persons who had any command were
+dispatched, so they cooled a little as to blood. The first thing they
+did afterwards, was to call up all the eight upon the quarter deck,
+where they congratulated one another, and shook hands together, engaging
+to proceed by joint consent in their resolved design, that is, of
+turning pirates. In older to which, they unanimously chose Gow to
+command the ship, promising all subjection and obedience to his orders,
+so that we must now call him Captain Gow, and he, by the same consent of
+the rest, named Williams his lieutenant. Other officers they appointed
+afterwards.
+
+The first orders they issued was to let all the rest of the men know
+that if they continued quiet and offered not to meddle with any of their
+affairs, they should receive no hurt, but chiefly forbade any man to set
+a foot abaft the main mast, except they were called to the helm, upon
+pain of being immediately cut to pieces, keeping for that purpose one
+man at the steerage door, and one upon the quarter deck with drawn
+cutlasses in their hands. But there was no need for it, for the men were
+so terrified with the bloody doings they had seen, that they never
+offered to come in sight until they were called.
+
+Their next work was to throw overboard the three dead bodies of the
+mate, the surgeon, and the super-cargo, which they said lay in their
+way; that was soon done, their pockets being first searched and rifled.
+From thence they went to work with the great cabin and with all the
+lockers, chests, boxes and trunks. These they broke open and rifled,
+that is, such of them as belonged to the murdered persons, and whatever
+they found there they shared among themselves. When they had done this,
+they called for liquor, and sat down to drinking until morning, leaving
+the men, as above, to keep guard, and particularly to guard the arms,
+but relieved them from time to time as they saw occasion.
+
+By this time they had drawn in four more of the men to approve of what
+they had done, and promised to join with them, so that now there were
+twelve in number, and being but twenty-four at first, whereof four were
+murdered, they had but eight men to be apprehensive of, and those they
+could easily look after. So the next day, they sent for them all to
+appear before their new captain, where they were told by Gow what his
+resolution was, viz., to go a-cruising or to go upon the account. If
+they were willing to join with them and go into their measures, they
+should be well used, and there should be no distinction among them but
+they should all fare alike; he said that they had been forced to do what
+they had done by the barbarous usage of Ferneau, but that there was now
+no looking back; and therefore, as they had not been concerned in what
+was past, they had nothing to do but to act in concert, do their duty as
+sailors, and obey orders for the good of the ship, and no harm should
+come to any of them.
+
+As they all looked like condemned prisoners brought up to the bar to
+receive sentence of death, so they all answered by a profound silence,
+which Gow took as they meant it, viz, as a consent because they durst
+not refuse. So they were then permitted to go up and down everywhere as
+they used to do, though such of them as sometimes afterwards showed any
+reluctance to act as principals, were never trusted, always suspected
+and very often severely beaten. Some of them were in many ways inhumanly
+treated and that particularly by Williams, the lieutenant, who was in
+his nature a merciless, cruel, and inexorable wretch, as we shall have
+occasion to take notice of again in its place.
+
+They were now in a new circumstance of life, and acting upon a different
+stage of business, though upon the same stage as to the element, the
+water. Before they were a merchant ship, laden upon a good account, with
+merchants' goods from the coast of Barbary, and bound to the coast of
+Italy; but they were now a crew of pirates, or as they call them in the
+Levant, Corsairs, bound nowhere but to look out for purchase and spoil
+wherever they could find it. In pursuit of this wicked trade they first
+changed the name of the ship, which was before called the _George_
+galley, and which they called now the _Revenge_, a name, indeed,
+suitable to the bloody steps they had taken. In the next place they made
+the best of the ship's forces. The ship had but twelve guns mounted when
+they came out of Holland, but as they had six more good guns in the hold
+with cartridges and everything proper for service (which they had in
+store through being freighted for the Dutch merchants, and the Algerians
+being at war with the Dutch), they supposed they might want them for
+defence. Now they took care to mount them for a much worse design, so
+that now they had eighteen guns, though too many for the number of hands
+they had on board. In the third place, instead of pursuing their voyage
+to Genoa with the ship's cargo, they took a clear contrary course, and
+resolved to station themselves upon the coasts of Spain and Portugal,
+and to cruise upon all nations; but what they chiefly aimed at was a
+ship with wine, if possible, for that they wanted extremely.
+
+The first prize they took was an English sloop, belonging to Pool,
+Thomas Wise commander, bound from Newfoundland with fish for Cadiz. This
+was a prize of no value to them, so they took out the master, Mr. Wise
+and his men, who were but five in number, with their anchors, cables and
+sails, and what else they found worth taking, and sunk the vessel. The
+next prize they took was a Scotch vessel, bound from Glasgow with
+herrings and salmon from thence to Genoa, and commanded by one Mr. John
+Somerville, of Port Patrick. This vessel was likewise of little value to
+them, except that they took as they had done from the other, their arms,
+ammunition, clothes, provisions, sails, anchors, cables, etc., and
+everything of value, and sunk her too as they had done the sloop. The
+reason they gave for sinking these two vessels was to prevent their
+being discovered, for as they were now cruising on the coast of
+Portugal, had they let their ships have gone with several of their men
+on board, they would presently have stood in for shore, and have given
+the alarm, and the men-of-war, of which there were several, as well
+Dutch as English, in the river of Lisbon, would immediately have put out
+to sea in quest of them, and they were very unwilling to leave the coast
+of Portugal until they had got a ship with wine, which they very much
+wanted.
+
+After this they cruised eight or ten days without seeing so much as one
+vessel upon the seas, and were just resolving to stand more to the to
+the coast of Galicia, when they descried a sail to the southward, being
+a ship about as big as their own, though they could not perceive what
+force she had. However they gave chase, and the vessel perceiving it,
+crowded from them with all the sail they could make, hoisting up French
+colours, and standing away to the southward. They continued the chase
+three days and nights, and though they did not gain much upon her, the
+Frenchman sailing very well, yet they kept her in sight all the while
+and for the most part within gunshot. But the third night, the weather
+proving a little hazy, the Frenchman changed her course in the night,
+and so got clear of them, and good reason they had to bless themselves
+in the escape they had made, if they had but known what a dreadful crew
+of rogues they had fallen among if they had been taken.
+
+They were now gotten a long way to the southward and being greatly
+disappointed, and in want of water as well as wine, they resolved to
+stand away for the Madeiras, which they knew were not far off; so they
+accordingly made the island in two days more, and keeping a large
+offing, they cruised for three or four days more, expecting to meet with
+some Portuguese vessel going in or coming out. But it was in vain, for
+nothing stirred. So, tired with waiting, they stood in for the road, and
+came to anchor, though at a great distance. Then they sent their boat
+towards the shore with seven men, all well armed, to see whether it
+might not be practicable to board one of the ships in the road, and
+cutting her away from her anchors, bring her off; or if they found that
+could not be done, then their orders were to intercept some of the
+boats belonging to the place, which carry wines on board the ships in
+the road, or from one place to another on the coast. But they came back
+again disappointed in both, everybody being alarmed and aware of them,
+knowing by their posture what they were.
+
+Having thus spent several days to no purpose, and finding themselves
+discovered, at last (being apparently under a necessity to make an
+attempt somewhere) they stood away for Porto Santo,[102] about ten
+leagues to the windward of Madeiras, and belonging also to the
+Portuguese. Here putting up British colours, they sent their boat ashore
+with Captain Somerville's bill of health, and a present to the governor
+of three barrels of salmon, and six barrels of herrings, and a very
+civil message, desiring leave to water, and to buy some refreshments,
+pretending to be bound to ----.
+
+The Governor very courteously granted their desire, but with more
+courtesy than discretion went off himself, with about nine or ten of his
+principal people, to pay the English captain a visit, little thinking
+what kind of a captain it was they were going to compliment, and what
+price it might have cost them. However, Gow, handsomely dressed,
+received then with some ceremony, and entertained them tolerably well
+for a while. But the Governor having been kept as long by civility as
+they could, and the refreshments from the shore not appearing, he was
+forced to unmask; and when the Governor and his company rose up to take
+their leave, to their great surprise they were suddenly surrounded with
+a gang of fellows with muskets, and an officer at the head of them.
+These told them, in so many words, they were the captain's prisoners,
+and must not think of going on shore any more until the water and
+provisions which were promised should come on board.
+
+It is impossible to conceive the consternation and surprise the
+Portuguese gentry were in, nor is it very decently to be expressed. The
+poor Governor was so much more than half dead with fright that he really
+befouled himself in a piteous manner, and the rest were in not much
+better condition. They trembled, cried, begged, crossed themselves, and
+said their prayers as men going to execution, but it was all one, they
+were told flatly that the captain was not to be trifled with, that the
+ship was in want of provisions, and they would have them, or they should
+carry them all away. They were, however, well enough treated, except for
+the restraint of their persons, and were often asked to refresh
+themselves; but they would neither eat not drink any more all the while
+they stayed on board, which was until the next day in the evening, when
+to their great satisfaction they saw a great boat come off from the
+fort, and which came directly on board with seven butts of water, a cow
+and a calf, and a good number of fowls.
+
+When the boat came alongside and delivered the stores, Captain Gow
+complimented the Governor and his gentlemen, and discharged them to
+their great joy, and besides that gave them in return for their
+provisions two cerons of beeswax, and fired them three guns at their
+going away. It is to be supposed they would have a care how they went on
+board any ship again, in compliment to their captain, unless they were
+very sure who they were. Having had no better success in this out of the
+way run to the Madeiras, they resolved to make the best of their way
+back again to the coast of Spain and Portugal. They accordingly left
+Porto Santo die next morning with a fair wind, standing directly for
+Cape St. Vincent or the Southward Cape.
+
+They had not been upon the coast of Spain above two or three days,
+before they met with a New England ship, one Cross commander, laden with
+slaves, and bound for Lisbon, being to load there with wine for London.
+This was also a prize of no value to them, and they began to be very
+much discouraged with their bad fortune. However, they took out Captain
+Cross and his men, which were seven or eight in number, with most of the
+provisions and some of the sails, and gave the ship to Captain Wise, the
+poor man whom they took at first in a sloop from Newfoundland; and in
+order to pay Wise and his men for what they took from them, and make
+them satisfaction, as they called it, they gave to Captain Wise and his
+mate twenty-four cerons of wax, and to his men who were four in number,
+two cerons of wax each. Thus they pretended honesty, and to make
+reparation of damages by giving them the goods which they had robbed the
+Dutch merchants of, whose super-cargo they had murdered.
+
+The day before the division of the spoil they saw a large ship to
+windward, which at first put them into some surprise, for she came
+bearing down directly upon them, and they thought she had been a
+Portuguese man-of-war, but they found soon after that it was a merchant
+ship, had French colours and bound home, as they supposed from the West
+Indies; and so it was, for they afterwards learned that she was laden at
+Martinico and bound for Rochelle.
+
+The Frenchmen not fearing them came on large to the wind, being a ship
+of much greater force than Gow's ship, carrying thirty-two guns and
+eighty men, besides a great many passengers. However, Gow at first made
+as if he would lie by for them, but seeing plainly what a ship it was,
+and that they should have their hands full of her, he began to consider;
+and calling his men together upon the deck, told them what was in his
+mind, viz., that the Frenchman was apparently superior in force in every
+way; that they were but ill-manned, and had a great many prisoners on
+board, and that some of their own people were not very well to be
+trusted; that six of their best hands were on board the prize; and that
+all they had left were not sufficient to ply their guns and stand by the
+sails, and that therefore as they were under no necessity to engage, so
+he thought it would be next to madness to think of it.
+
+The generality of the men were of Gow's mind, and agreed to decline the
+fight, but Williams, his lieutenant, strenuously opposed it; and being
+not to be appeased by all that Gow could say to him, or any one else,
+flew out into a rage at Gow, upbraiding him with being a coward, and not
+fit to command a ship of force. The truth is, Gow's reasoning was good,
+and the thing was just, considering their own condition; but Williams
+was a fellow incapable of any solid thinking, had a kind of savage,
+brutal courage, but nothing of true bravery in him, and this made him
+the most desperate and outrageous villain in the world, and the most
+cruel and inhuman to those whose disaster it was to fall into his hands,
+as had frequently appeared in his usage of the prisoners under his power
+in this very voyage. Gow was a man of temper, and notwithstanding all
+the ill-language Williams gave him, said little or nothing but by way of
+argument against attacking the French ship, which would certainly have
+been too strong for them; but this provoked Williams the more, and he
+grew so extraordinary an height, that he demanded boldly of Gow to give
+his orders for fighting, which Gow declining still Williams presented
+his pistol at him, and snapped it, but it did not go off, which enraged
+him the more.
+
+Winter and Peterson standing nearest to Williams, and seeing him so
+furious, flew at him immediately, and each of them fired a pistol at
+him. One shot him through the arm, and the other into his belly, at
+which he fell, and the men about him laid hold of him to throw him
+overboard, believing he was dead; but as they lifted him up, he started
+violently out of their hands, and leaped directly into the hold, and
+from thence ran desperately into the powder-room with his pistol cocked
+in his hand, swearing he would blow them all up. He had certainly done
+it, if they had not seized him just as he had gotten the scuttle open,
+and was that moment going to put his hellish resolution into practice.
+
+Having thus secured the distracted, raving creature, they carried him
+forward to the place which they had made on purpose between decks to
+secure their prisoners, and put him amongst them, having first loaded
+him with irons, and particularly handcuffed him with his hands behind
+him, to the great satisfaction of the other prisoners, who knowing what
+a butcherly furious fellow he was, were terrified to the last degree to
+see him come in among them, until they beheld the condition he came in.
+He was, indeed, the terror of all the prisoners, for he usually treated
+them in a barbarous manner, without the least provocation, and merely
+for his humour, presenting pistols to their breasts, swearing he would
+shoot them that moment, and then would beat them unmercifully, and all
+for his diversion as he called it. Having thus laid him fast, they
+presently resolved to stand away to the westward, by which they quitted
+the Martinico ship, who by that time was come nearer to them, and
+farther convinced them they were in no condition to have engaged her,
+for she was a stout ship and full of men.
+
+All this happened just the day before they shared their last prize among
+the prisoners, in which they put on such a mock face of doing justice to
+the several captains and mates and other men, their prisoners, whose
+ships they had taken away, and to whom now they made reparation, by
+giving them what they had taken violently from another, so that it was a
+strange medley of mock justice made up of rapine and generosity blended
+together.
+
+Two days after this they took a Bristol ship bound from Newfoundland to
+Oporto with fish. They let her cargo alone, for they had no occasion for
+fish, but they took out almost all their provisions, all the ammunition,
+arms, etc., and her good sails, also her best cables, and forced two of
+her men to go away with them, and then got ten of the Frenchman on board
+and let her go. But just as they were parting with her, they consulted
+together what to do with Williams the lieutenant, who was then among the
+prisoners and in irons. And after a short debate, they resolved to put
+him on board the Bristol-man and send him away too, which accordingly
+was done, with directions to the master to deliver him on board the
+first English man-of-war they should meet with, in order to get his
+being hanged for a pirate, as they jeeringly called him, as soon as he
+came to England, giving the master an account of some of his villainies.
+
+The truth is, this Williams was a monster rather than a man. He was the
+most inhuman, bloody and desperate creature that the world could
+produce, and was even too wicked for Gow and all his crew, though they
+pirates and murderers, as has been shown. His temper was so savage, so
+villainous, so merciless, that even the pirates themselves told him it
+was time he was hanged out of the way.
+
+One instance of the barbarity of Williams cannot be omitted, and will be
+sufficient to justify all that can be said of him. When Gow gave it as a
+reason against engaging with the Martinico ship, that he had a great
+many prisoners on board, and some of their own men that they could not
+depend on, Williams proposed to have them all called up one by one, and
+to cut their throats and throw them overboard--a proposal so horrid that
+the worst of the crew shook their heads at it. Gow answered him very
+handsomely, that there had been too much blood spilled already; yet the
+refusing this, heightened the quarrel, and was the chief occasion of his
+offering to pistol Gow himself. After which his behaviour was such as
+made all the ship's crew resolved to be rid of him, and it was thought
+if they had not had an opportunity to send him away, as they did by the
+Bristol ship, they would have been obliged to have hanged him
+themselves. This cruel and butchery temper of Williams being carried to
+such a height, and so near to the ruin of them all, shocked some of
+them, and as they acknowledged gave some check in the heat of their
+wicked progress, and had they had an opportunity to have gone on shore
+at that time, without falling into the hands of Justice, it is believed
+the greatest part of them would have abandoned the ship, and perhaps the
+very trade of a pirate too. But they had dipped their hands in blood,
+and Heaven had no doubt determined to bring them, that is, the chief of
+them, to the gallows for it, as indeed they all deserved, so they went
+on.
+
+When they put Williams on board the Bristol-man, and he was told what
+directions they gave with him, he began to relent, and made all the
+intercession he could to Captain Gow for pardon, or at least not to be
+put on board the ship, knowing that if he was carried to Lisbon, he
+should meet with his due from the Portuguese, if not from the English;
+for it seems he had been concerned in some villainies among the
+Portuguese before he came on board the _George_ galley. What they were
+he did not confess, nor indeed did his own ship's crew trouble
+themselves to examine him about it. He had been wicked enough among
+them, and it was sufficient to make them use him as they did. It was
+more to be wondered, indeed, that they did not cut him to pieces upon
+the spot and throw him into the sea, half on one side of the ship, and
+half on the other, for there was scarce a man in the ship but on one
+occasion or other had some apprehensions of him, and might be said to go
+in danger of his life from him. But they chose to shift their hands of
+him this bloodless way, so they double fettered him and brought him up.
+When they brought him among the men, he begged they would throw him
+into the sea and drown him; then entreated for his life with a meanness
+which made them despise him, and with tears, so that one time they began
+to relent. But then the devilish temper of the fellow over-ruled it
+again, so at last they resolved to let him go, and did accordingly put
+him on board, and gave him many a hearty curse at parting, wishing him a
+good voyage to the gallows, which was made good afterwards, though in
+such company as they little thought of at that time. The Bristol captain
+was very just to him, for according to their orders, as soon as they
+came to Lisbon, they put him on board the _Argyle_, one of His Majesty's
+ships, Captain Bowles commander, then lying in the Tagus, and bound home
+for England, who accordingly brought him home. Though, as it happened,
+Heaven brought the captain and the rest of the crew so quickly to an end
+of their villainies that they all came home time enough to be hanged
+with their lieutenant.
+
+But to return to Gow and his crew. Having thus dismissed the
+Bristol-man, and cleared his hands of most of his prisoners, with the
+same wicked generosity he gave the Bristol captain thirteen cerons of
+beeswax, as a gratuity for his trouble and charge with the prisoners,
+and in recompense, as he called it, for the goods he had taken from him,
+and so they parted.
+
+This was the last prize they took, not only on the coast of Portugal,
+but anywhere else, for Gow, who, to give him his due, was a fellow of
+council and had a great presence of mind in cases of exigence,
+considered that as soon as the Bristol ship came into the river of
+Lisbon, they would certainly give an account of them, as well of their
+strength, and of their station in which they cruised, and that
+consequently the English men-of-war (of which there are generally some
+in that river) would immediately come abroad to look for then. So he
+began to reason with his officers that the coast of Portugal would be no
+proper place at all for them, unless they resolved to fall into the
+hands of the said men-of-war, and they ought to consider immediately
+what to do. In these debates some advised one thing, some another, as is
+usual in like cases. Some were for going to the coast of Guinea, where,
+as they said, was purchase[103] enough, and very rich ships to be taken;
+others were for going to the West Indies, and to cruise among the
+Islands, and take up their station at Tobago; others, and not those of
+the most ignorant, proposed standing in to the Bay of Mexico, and
+joining in with some of a new sort of pirates at St. Jago de la Cuba,
+who are all Spaniards, and call themselves _Guarda del Costa_, that is
+Guard ships for the coast (though under that pretence they make prize of
+ships of all nations, and sometimes even of their own countrymen too,
+but especially of the English), but when this was proposed, it was
+answered they durst not trust the Spaniards. Others said they should go
+first to the islands of New Providence [Bahama Islands], or to the mouth
+of the Gulf of Florida, and then cruising on the coast of North America,
+and making their retreat at New Providence, cruise from the Gulf of
+Florida, north upon the coast of Carolina, and as high as the Capes of
+Virginia.
+
+But nothing could be resolved on, until at last Gow let them into the
+secret of a project, which, as he told them, he had long had in his
+thoughts, and this was to go away to the North of Scotland, near the
+coast of which, as he said, he was born and bred, and where he said, if
+they met with no purchase upon the sea, he could tell them how they
+should enrich themselves by going on shore. To bring them to concur with
+this design, he represented the danger they were in where they were, the
+want they were in of fresh water, and of several kinds of provisions,
+but above all, the necessity they were in of careening and cleaning
+their ship; that it was too long a run for them to go to southward, and
+that they had not provisions to serve them till they could reach to any
+place proper for that purpose, and might be driven to the utmost
+distress, if they should be put by from watering, either by weather or
+enemies.
+
+Also, he told them, if any of the men-of-war came out in search of them,
+they would never imagine they were gone away to the northward, so that
+their run that way was perfectly secure, and he could assure them of his
+own knowledge that if they landed in such places as he should direct,
+they could not fail of considerable booty in plundering some gentlemen's
+houses, who lived secured and unguarded very near the shore; and that
+though the country should be alarmed, yet before the Government could
+send any men-of-war to attack them, they might clean their ship, lay in
+a store of fresh provisions, and be gone. Beside that, they would get a
+good many stout fellows to go along with them upon his encouragement, so
+that they should be better manned than they were yet, and should be
+ready against all events.
+
+These arguments and their approaching fate concurring, had a sufficient
+influence on the ship's company to prevail on them to consent, so they
+made the best of their way to the northward; and about the middle of
+January they arrived at Carristoun,[104] in the Isles of Orkney, and
+came to an anchor in a place which Gow told them was safe riding under
+the lee of a small island at some distance from the port. But now their
+misfortunes began to come on, and things looked but with an indifferent
+aspect upon them, for several of their men, especially such of them as
+had been forced or decoyed into their service, began to think of making
+their escape from them, and to cast about for means to bring it to pass.
+
+The first to take an opportunity to go away was a young man who was
+originally one of the ship's company, but was forced by fear of being
+murdered (as has been observed) to give a silent assent to go with them.
+It was one evening when the boat went on shore, for they kept a civil
+correspondence with the people of the town, that this young fellow,
+being one of the ship's crew and having been several times on shore
+before, and therefore not suspected, gave them the slip and got away to
+a farm-house which lay under a hill out of sight. There, for two or
+three pieces-of-eight, he got a horse, and soon by that means escaped to
+Kirkwall, a market town and chief of the Orkneys, about twelve miles
+from the place where the ship lay. As soon as he came there he
+surrendered himself to the Government, desiring protection, and informed
+them who Gow was, and what the ship's crew were, and upon what business
+they were abroad, with what else he knew of their designs, as to
+plundering the gentlemen's houses, etc. Upon this they immediately
+raised the country, and got a strength together to defend themselves.
+
+But the next disaster that attended the pirates (for misfortunes seldom
+come alone) was more fatal than this, for ten of Gow's men, most of them
+likewise forced into their service, went away with the long-boat, making
+the best of their way for the mainland of Scotland. These men, however
+they did it, or what shift soever they made to get so far, were taken in
+the Firth of Edinburgh, and made prisoners there.
+
+Hardened for his own destruction and Justice evidently pursuing him, Gow
+grew the bolder for the disaster, and notwithstanding that the country
+was alarmed, and that he was fully discovered, instead of making a
+timely escape, he resolved to land, and so put his intended project of
+plundering the gentlemen's houses into execution, whatever it cost him.
+
+In order to this he sent the boatswain and ten men on shore the very
+same night, very well armed, directing them to go to the house of Mr.
+Honeyman of Grahamsey, sheriff of the county, and who was himself at
+that time, to his great good fortune, from home. The people of the house
+had not the least notice of their coming, so that when they knocked at
+the door, it was immediately opened. Upon which they all entered the
+house at once, except one Panton, who they set sentinel and ordered him
+to stand at the door to secure their retreat, and to hinder any from
+coming in after them Mrs. Honeyman and her daughter were extremely
+frightened at the sight of so many armed men coming into the house, and
+ran screaming about like people distracted, while the pirates, not
+regarding them, were looking about for chests and trunks, where they
+might expect to find some plunder; and Mrs. Honeyman in her fright
+coming to the door asked Panton, the man who stood sentinel there, what
+the meaning of it all was. He told her freely they were pirates, and
+that they came to plunder her house. At this she recovered some courage,
+and ran back into the house immediately, and knowing where her money
+lay, which was very considerable and all in gold, she put the bag in her
+lap and boldly rushing by Panton, who thought she was only running from
+them in a fright, carried it all off, and so made her escape with the
+treasure.
+
+The boatswain being informed that the money was carried off, resolved to
+revenge himself by burning the writings and papers, which they call
+there the charters of their estates, and are always of great value in
+gentlemen's houses of estates but the young lady, Mr. Honeyman's
+daughter hearing them threaten to burn the writings, watched her
+opportunity, and running to the charter-room where they lay, tied the
+most considerable of them up in a napkin and threw them out of the
+window, jumped out after them herself, and escaped without damage,
+though the window was one storey high at least.
+
+However, the pirates had the plundering of all the rest of the house
+besides, and carried off a great deal of plate, and things of value, and
+forced one of the servants, who played very well on the bagpipes, to
+march along, piping before them, when they carried it off to the ship.
+The next day they weighed anchor, intending though they had cleaned but
+one side of the ship, to put out to sea and quit the coast. But sailing
+eastward, they came to anchor again at a little island called Calf
+Sound. And having some further mischief in their view here the boatswain
+went on shore again with some armed men; but meeting with no other
+plunder they carried off three women, whom they kept on board some time
+and used so inhumanly that when they set them on shore again they were
+not able to go or stand, and it is said one of them died on the beach
+where they left them.
+
+The next day they weighed again, holding the same course eastward,
+through the openings between the islands, till they came off Ross Ness;
+and now Gow resolved to make the best of his way for the Island of Eday,
+to plunder the house of Mr. Fea, a gentleman of a considerable estate,
+and with whom Gow had some acquaintance, having been at school together,
+when they were youths. On the 13th of February in the morning, Gow
+appearing with his ship off Calf Sound, Mr. Fea and his family were very
+much alarmed, not being able to get together above six or seven men for
+his defence. He therefore wrote a letter to Gow intending to send it on
+board as soon as he should get into the harbour, to desire him to
+forbear the usual salutes, with his great guns, because Mrs. Fea his
+wife was so very much indisposed, and this as he would oblige his old
+school fellow; telling him at the same time that the inhabitants were
+all fled to the mountains, on the report of his being a pirate, which he
+hoped would not prove true. In which case, he should be very ready to
+supply him with all such necessities as the island would afford,
+desiring him to send the messengers safe back, at whose return the
+alarms of the people would immediately be at an end.
+
+The tide it seems runs extremely rapid among those islands, and the
+navigation is thereby rendered very dangerous and uncertain. Gow was an
+able seaman, but was no pilot for that place, and which was worse, he
+had no boat to assist in case of extremity, to ware the ship, and in
+turning into Calf Sound, he stood a little too near the point of a
+little island called the Calf, and which lay in the middle of the
+passage. Here his ship missing stays, was in great danger of going on
+shore; to avoid which, he dropped an anchor under his foot, which taking
+good hold, brought him up, and he thought the danger was over. Gow was
+yet in distress and had no remedy but to send his small boat on shore to
+Mr. Fea to desire his assistance, that is to say, to desire him to lend
+him a boat to carry out an anchor and heave off the ship. Mr. Fea sent
+back the boat, and one James Laing in it, with the letter already
+mentioned. Gow sent him back immediately with an answer, by word of
+mouth, viz., that he would write to nobody, but if Mr. Fea would order
+his people to assist him with a boat to carry out an anchor, he would
+reward them handsomely.
+
+In the meantime Mr. Fea ordered his great boat, for he had such a one as
+Gow wanted, to be staved and launched into the water and sunk, and the
+masts, sails and oars to be carried out of sight. While this was doing
+Mr. Fea perceived Gow's boat coming on shore, with five persons in her.
+These men having landed on the main island, left their boat on the
+beach, and altogether marched directly up to the mansion house. This put
+him into some surprise at first, however, he resolved to meet them in a
+peaceable manner, though he perceived they were all double-armed. When
+he came up to them, he entreated them not to go up to the house,
+because of the languishing condition of his wife, who was already
+frighted with the rumours which had been raised of their being pirates,
+and that she would certainly die with the fear she was in for herself
+and family, if they came to the door.
+
+The boatswain answered they did not desire to fright his wife, or
+anybody else, but they came to desire the assistance of his boat, and if
+he would not grant them so small a favour, he had nothing to expect from
+them but the utmost extremity. Mr. Fea returned that they knew well
+enough he could not venture to give them or lend them his boat or any
+help, as they appeared to be such people as were reported, but that if
+they would take them by force, he could not help himself. But in the
+meantime, talking still in a friendly manner to them, he asked them to
+go to a neighbouring house, which he said was a change-house, that is a
+public-house, and take a cup of ale with him. This they consented to,
+seeing Mr. Fea was alone; so they went all with him. In the meantime Mr.
+Fea found means to give secret orders that the oars, masts and sails of
+the pirates' boat should be all carried away, and that a quarter of an
+hour after they had sat together, he should be called hastily out of the
+room, on some pretence or other of somebody to speak with him; all which
+was performed to a tittle. When he was got from them, he gave orders
+that his six men, who before he had got together, and who were now come
+to him well armed, should place themselves at a certain stile behind a
+thick hedge, and which was about half way between the alehouse and his
+own house, saying that if he came that way with the boatswain alone,
+they should suddenly start out upon them both, and throwing him down,
+should seize upon the other, but that if all the five came with him, he
+would take an occasion to be either before or behind them, so that they
+might all fire upon them, without danger of hurting him.
+
+Having given these orders, and depending upon their being well executed,
+he returned to the company and having given them more ale, told them he
+would gladly do them any service that he could lawfully do, and that if
+they would take the trouble of walking up to his house in a peaceable
+manner so that his family might not be frighted with seeing him among
+them, they should have all the assistance that was in his power. The
+fellows (whether they had taken too much ale, or whether the condition
+of their ship and the hopes of getting a boat to help them, blinded
+their eyes, is not certain) fell with ease into this snare, and agreed
+readily to go along with Mr. Fea; but after a while resolved not to go
+all of them, only deputed the boatswain to go, which was what Mr. Fea
+most desired.
+
+[Illustration: A GANG OF MEN AND WOMEN TRANSPORTS BEING MARCHED FROM
+NEWGATE TO BLACKFRIARS
+
+Chained neck to neck and hand to hand these wretches were led through
+the streets to Blackfriars Stairs, where they were taken aboard a barge
+and carried down the river to the vessel which was to transport them to
+America.
+
+(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]
+
+The boatswain was very willing to accept of the trust, but it was
+observed he took a great deal of care of his arms, which were no less
+than four pistols, all loaded with a brace of bullets each, nor would he
+be persuaded to leave any of them behind him, no not with his own men.
+In this posture, Mr. Fea and the boatswain walked along together very
+quietly, until they came to the stile, having got over which Mr. Fea,
+seeing his men all ready, turned short about upon the boatswain, and
+taking him by the collar, told him he was his prisoner and the same
+moment, the rest of his men rushing in upon them, threw both down, and
+so secured the boatswain, without giving him time so much as to fire one
+pistol. He cried out, indeed, with all his might to alarm his men, but
+they soon stopped his mouth by first forcing a pistol into it, and then
+a handkerchief; and having disarmed him, bound his hands behind him and
+his feet together. Then Mr. Fea left him there under a guard, and with
+his other five men, but without arms, at least such that could be seen,
+returned to the alehouse to the rest. The house having two doors, they
+divided themselves and rushing in at both doors at the same time, they
+seized the four men before they were aware, or had time to lay hold of
+their arms. They did indeed what men could do, and one of them snapped a
+pistol at Mr. Fea, but it did not go off, and Mr. Fea at the same time
+snatching at the pistol to divert the shot if it had fired, struck his
+hand with such force against the cock, as very much bruised it.
+
+They were all five now in his power, and he sent them away under a good
+guard to a village in the middle of the island, where they were kept
+separate from one another, and sufficiently secured. Mr. Fea then
+despatched expresses to the gentlemen in the neighbouring island to
+acquaint them with what he had done, and to desire their speedy
+assistance, also desiring earnestly that they would take care that no
+boat should go within reach of the pirates' guns. And at night Mr. Fea
+caused fires to be made upon the hills round him, to alarm the country,
+and ordered all the boats round the Island to be hauled up upon the
+beach, as far as it was possible, and disabled also, lest the pirates
+should swim from the ship, and get any of them into their possession.
+
+Next day, the 4th, it blew very hard all day, and in the evening about
+high water, it shifted to W.N.W., upon which the pirates set their
+sails, expecting to get off and so to lay it round the island, and put
+out to sea. But the fellow who was ordered to cut the cable, missing
+several strokes, the cable checked the ship's way, and consequently on a
+sudden she took all aback. Then the cable being parted when it should
+have been held, the ship ran directly on shore on the Calf Island, nor
+could all their speed prevent it. With an air of desperation Gow told
+them they were all dead men, nor could it indeed be otherwise, for
+having lost the only boat they had, and five of their best hands, they
+were able to do little or nothing towards getting their ship off;
+besides, as she went on shore at the top of high water, and a spring
+tide, there was no hope of getting her off afterward. Wherefore the next
+morning, being Monday, the 15th, they hung out a white flag, as a signal
+for a parley, and sent a man on shore upon Calf Island, for now they
+could go on shore out of the ship at half flood.
+
+Now Mr. Fea thought he might talk with Gow, in a different style from
+what he did before; so he wrote a letter to him, wherein he complained
+of the rude behaviour of his five men, for which he told him, he had
+been obliged to seize on them, and make them prisoners, letting him know
+that the country being all alarmed would soon be too many for him, and
+therefore advised him to surrender himself peaceably, and be the author
+of a quiet surrender of the rest, as the only means to obtain any
+favour; and then he might become an evidence against the rest, and so
+might save his own life. This letter Mr. Fea sent by a boat with four
+armed men to the island, to be given to the fellow that Gow had sent on
+shore, and who waited there; at the same time, he gave them a letter
+from Gow to Mr. Fea, for now he was humbled enough to write, which
+before he refused. Gow's letter to Mr. Fea was to let him have some men
+and boats, to take out the best of the cargo, in order to lighten the
+ship, and set her afloat; offering himself to come on shore and be
+hostage for the security of men and boats and to give Mr. Fea a thousand
+pounds in goods for the service. He declared at the same time, that if
+this small succour was refused him, he would take care nobody should
+better himself by his misfortunes, for rather than they would suffer
+themselves to be taken, they would set fire to the ship, and would all
+perish together.
+
+Mr. Fea replied to this letter that he had a boat indeed, that would
+have been fit for his service, but that she was staved and sunk; but if
+he would come on shore quietly without arms, and bring his carpenter
+with him to repair the boat, he might have her. Mr. Fea did this to give
+Gow an opportunity to embrace his first offer of surrendering. But Gow
+was neither humble enough to come in nor sincere enough to treat with
+him fairly, if he had intended to let him have the boat; and if he had,
+it is probable that the former letter had made the men suspicious of
+him, so that now he could do nothing without communicating it to the
+rest of the crew. About four in the afternoon Mr. Fea received an answer
+to his last letter, the copy of which is exactly as follows:
+
+    From on board our Ship the
+         _Revenge_, Feb. 16th, 1725.
+
+    Honoured Sir,
+
+    I am sorry to hear of the irregular proceedings of my men; I gave no
+    orders to that effect, and what hath been wrongfully done to the
+    country, was contrary to my inclinations. It is my misfortune to be
+    in this condition at present; it was in your power to have done
+    otherwise in making my fortune better. Since my being in the
+    country, I have wronged no man, nor taken anything but what I have
+    paid for. My design in coming was to make the country better, which
+    I am still capable to do, providing you are just to me. I thank you
+    for the concern you have for my bad fortune, and am sorry I cannot
+    embrace your proposal as to being evidence, my people have already
+    made use of that advantage. I have by my last signified my design of
+    proceeding, provided I can procure no better terms. Please to send
+    James Laing on board to continue till my return. I should be glad to
+    have the good fortune to commune with you upon that subject. I beg
+    that you would assist me with a boat, and be assured I do no man
+    harm, were it in my power, as I am now at your mercy. I cannot
+    surrender myself prisoner, I'd rather commit myself to the mercy of
+    the seas; so that if you will incline to contribute to my escape, I
+    shall leave my ship and cargo at your disposal.
+
+    I continue,
+             Honoured Sir etc.,
+                          John Smith
+
+Upon this letter, and especially that part wherein Gow desired to
+commune with him, Mr. Fea, believing he might do some service in
+persuading him to submit, went over to Calf Island and went on shore
+alone, ordering his boat to lie in readiness to take him in again, but
+not one man to stir out of her, and calling to Gow with a speaking
+trumpet desired him to come on shore. This the other readily did, but
+Mr. Fea, before he ventured, wisely foresaw that whilst he was alone
+upon the Island, the pirates might unknown from him, get the ship by
+different ways, and under cover of shore might get behind and surround
+him. To prevent which, he set a man upon the top of his own house, which
+was on the opposite shore and overlooked the whole island, and ordered
+him to make signals with his flag, waving his flag once for every man
+that he saw come on shore, but if four or more came on shore, then to
+keep the flag waving continually, till he (Mr. Fea) should retire. This
+precaution was very needful, for no sooner was Mr. Fea advanced upon the
+island, expecting Gow to come on shore to meet him, but he saw a fellow
+come from the ship, with a white flag, a bottle, a glass and a bundle,
+then turning to his own house, he saw his man make the signals
+appointed, and that the man kept the flag continually waving. Upon which
+he immediately retired to his boat, and he was no sooner got into it,
+but he saw five fellows running under shore, with lighted matches and
+grenadoes in their hands to have intercepted him, but seeing him out of
+their reach, they retired to the ship.
+
+After this the fellow with the white flag came up and gave Mr. Fea two
+letters; he would have left the bundle, which he said was a present to
+Mr. Fea, and the bottle which he said was a bottle of brandy, but Mr.
+Fea would not take them, but told the fellow his captain was a
+treacherous villain, and he did not doubt that he should see him hanged,
+and as to him (the fellow) he had a great mind to shoot him; upon which
+the fellow took to his heels, and Mr. Fea being in his boat did not
+think it worth while to land again to pursue him. This put an end to all
+parley for the present, but had the pirates succeeded in this attempt,
+they would have so far gained their point, either that they must have
+been assisted, or Mr. Fea must have been sacrificed.
+
+The two letters from Gow were one for Mr. Fea, and the other for his
+wife. The first was much to the same purpose as the former, only that in
+this Gow requested the great boat with her masts, sails and oars, with
+some provisions to transport themselves whither they thought fit to go
+for their own safety, offering to leave the ship and cargo to Mr. Fea,
+and threatening that if the men-of-war arrived (for Mr. Fea had given
+him notice that he expected two men-of-war) before he was thus assisted,
+they would set fire to the ship, and blow themselves up, so that as they
+had lived so they would die together. The letter to Mrs. Fea was to
+desire her to intercede with her husband, and plead that he was their
+countryman and had been her husband's schoolfellow, etc. But no answer
+was returned to either of these letters.
+
+On the 17th, in the morning, contrary to expectation, Gow himself came
+on shore upon the Calf Island[105], unarmed except for his sword, and
+alone, only one man at a distance, carrying a white flag, making signals
+for a parley. Mr. Fea, who by this time had gotten more people about
+him, immediately sent one Mr. Fea, of Whitehall, a gentleman of his own
+family, with five other persons well-armed over the island, with orders
+to secure Gow if it were possible by any means, either dead or alive.
+When they came on shore, Gow proposed that one of them, whose name was
+Schottary, a master of a vessel, should go on board the ship as hostage
+for this Gow's safety, and Schottary consenting, Gow himself conducted
+him to the ship's side.
+
+Mr. Fea perceiving this from his own house, immediately took another
+boat and went over to the island himself, and while he was expostulating
+with his men for letting Schottary go for hostage, Gow returned, and Mr.
+Fea made no hesitation, but told him that he was his prisoner. At this
+Gow started and said that it ought not to be so, since there was a
+hostage delivered for him. Mr. Fea said he gave no order for it, and it
+was what they could not justify, and since Schottary had ventured
+without orders, he must take his fate, he would run the venture of it;
+but he advised Gow, as he expected good usage himself, that he would
+send the fellow who carried his white flag back to the ship with orders
+for them to return Schottary in safety, and to desire Winter and
+Peterson to come with him. Gow declined giving any such orders, but the
+fellow said he would readily go and fetch them, and did so, and they
+came along with him. When Gow saw them, he reproached them for being so
+easily imposed on, and ordered them to go back to the ship immediately,
+but Mr. Fea's men, who were too strong for them, surrounded them and
+took them all. When this was done, they demanded Gow to deliver his
+sword, but he said he would rather die with it in his hand, and begged
+them to shoot him, but was denied; and Mr. Fea's men disarming him of
+his sword, carried him with the other two into their boat, and after
+that to the main island, where Mr. Fea lived.
+
+Having thus secured the captain, Mr. Fea prevailed with him to go to the
+shore over against the ship, and to call the gunner and another man to
+come on shore on Calf Island, which they did. But they were no sooner
+there, but they also were surrounded by some men which Mr. Fea had
+placed out of sight upon the island for that purpose. Then they made Gow
+call to the carpenter to come on shore, still making them believe they
+would have a boat; and Mr. Fea went over and met him alone, and talking
+with him, told him they could not repair the boat without help and
+without tools. So persuading him to go back and bring a hand or two with
+him, and some tools, some oakum, nails, etc., the carpenter being thus
+deluded, went back and brought a Frenchman and another with him, with
+all things proper for their work. All of whom, as soon as they came on
+shore, were likewise seized and secured by Mr. Fea and his men.
+
+But there were still a great many men in the ship, whom it was necessary
+to bring if possible to a quiet surrender; so Mr. Fea ordered his men to
+make a feint as if they would go to work upon the great boat which lay
+on the shore upon the island but in sight of the ship. There they
+hammered and knocked and made a noise as if they were really caulking
+and repairing her, in order to her being launched off and put into their
+possession; but towards night he obliged Gow to write to the men that
+Mr. Fea would not deliver the boat until he was in possession of the
+ship, and therefore he ordered them all to come on shore, without arms,
+and in a peaceable manner. This occasioned many debates in the ship, but
+as they had no officers to guide them and were all in confusion, they
+knew not what to do. So after some time bewailing their hard fate, and
+dividing what money was left in the ship among them, they yielded and
+went on shore, and were all made prisoners, to the number of
+eight-and-twenty, including those who were secured before.
+
+Being now all secured and in custody in the most proper places in the
+island, Mr. Fea took care to give notice to the proper officers in the
+country, and by them to the Government of Edinburgh, in order to get
+help for the carrying them to England. The distance being so great, it
+took up some time; for the Government at Edinburgh not being immediately
+concerned in it, but rather the Court of Admiralty of Great Britain,
+expresses were dispatched from thence to London, that his Majesty's
+pleasure might be known; in return to which, orders were despatched into
+Scotland to have them immediately sent up into England with as much
+expedition as the case would admit. Accordingly they were brought up by
+land to Edinburgh first, and from thence being put on board the
+_Greyhound_ frigate, they were brought by sea to England. This
+necessarily took up a great deal of time, so that had they been wise
+enough to improve the hours that were left, they had almost half a
+year's time to prepare themselves for death, though they cruelly denied
+the poor mate of a few moments to commend his soul to God's mercy, even
+after he was half murdered before. They were most of them in custody the
+latter end of January, and were not executed till the 11th of June.
+
+The _Greyhound_ arrived in the river the 25th of March, and the next day
+came to an anchor at Woolwich; and the pirates being put into boats
+appointed to receive them, with a strong guard to attend them, were
+brought on shore on the 30th, and conveyed to the Marshalsea prison in
+Southwark, where they were delivered to the keepers of the said prison,
+and were laid in irons. There they had the mortification to meet
+Lieutenant Williams, who was brought home by the _Argyle_ man-of-war,
+from Lisbon, and had been committed to the same prison but a very few
+days before.
+
+Indeed, as it was a mortification to them, so it was more to him, for
+though he might be secretly pleased that those who had so cruelly, as he
+called it, put him into the hands of Justice by sending him to Lisbon,
+were brought into the same circumstances with himself, yet on the other
+hand, it could not but be a terrible mortification to him that here were
+now sufficient witnesses found to prove his crimes against him, which
+were not so easy to be had before.
+
+Being thus laid fast, it remained to proceed against them in due form,
+and this took up some long time still. On Friday, the 2nd of April, they
+were all carried to Doctors' Commons, where the proper judges being
+present, they were examined; by which examination the measures were
+taken for the farther proceedings. For as they were not equally guilty,
+so it was needful to determine who it was proper to bring to an
+immediate trial, and who, being less guilty, were more proper objects of
+the Government's clemency, as being under force and fear and
+consequently necessitated to act as they did; and also who it might be
+proper to single out as an evidence against the rest. After being thus
+examined they were remanded to the Marshalsea. On Saturday, the 8th of
+May, the five who were appointed for evidence against the rest, and
+whose names are particularly set down in its place, were sent from the
+Marshalsea prison to Newgate, in order to give their information.
+
+Being thus brought up to London, and committed to the Marshalsea prison,
+and the Government being fully informed, what black uncommon offenders
+they were, it was thought proper to bring them to speedy justice. In
+order to this, some of them, as has been said, who were less criminal
+than the rest, and who apparently had been forced into their service,
+were sorted out, and being examined (giving first an account of
+themselves, and then of the whole fraternity) it was thought fit to make
+use of their evidence for the more clear detecting and convincing of the
+rest. These were George Dobson, John Phinnes, Timothy Murphy, and
+William Booth.
+
+These were the principal evidences, and were indeed more than
+sufficient, for they so exactly agreed in their evidence, and the
+prisoners (pirates) said so little in their defence, that there was no
+room for the jury to question their guilt, or to doubt the truth of any
+part of the account given in. Robert Read was a young man, mentioned
+before, who escaped from the boat in the Orkneys, where he surrendered
+himself, after getting a horse at a farmer's house, and conveying
+himself to Kirkwall, the chief town of the said Orkneys. Nevertheless,
+he was brought up as a prisoner with the rest, nor was he made use of as
+an evidence but was tried upon most, if not all the indictments with the
+rest. But Dobson, one of the witnesses, did him the justice to testify
+that he was forced into their service, as others were, for fear of
+having their throats cut, as many had been served before their faces,
+and that in particular he was not present at, or concerned in any of the
+murders for which the rest were indicted. Upon which evidence, he was
+acquitted by the jury. Also he brought one Archibald Sutor, the man of
+the house said before to be a farm-house, as to whether the said Read
+made his escape in the Orkneys, who testified that he did so escape to
+him, and that he begged him to procure him a horse, to ride off to
+Kirkwall, which he did, and there he surrendered himself; also he
+testified that Read gave him (Sutor) a full account of the ship and the
+pirates that were in her, and what they were; and that he (Sutor)
+revealed it all to the collector of the Customs, by which means the
+country was alarmed, and he added, that it was by this man's means that
+all the prisoners were apprehended (though that was going too far, for
+'tis plain, that it was by the vigilance and courage of Mr. Fea,
+chiefly, that they were reduced to such distresses as obliged them to
+surrender). However, it was true that Read's escape did alarm the
+country, and that he merited very well of the public for the timely
+discovery he made, so he came off clear as indeed it was but just, for
+he was not only forced to serve them, but as Dobson testified for him,
+he had often expressed his uneasiness at being obliged to act with them,
+and that he wished he could get away, and he was sincere in those
+wishes, as appeared by his taking the first opportunity he could get to
+put it in practice. This Dobson was one of the ten men who ran away with
+the pirates' long-boat from the Orkneys, and who were afterwards made
+prisoners in the Firth of Leith, and carried up to Edinburgh.
+
+Gow was now a prisoner among the rest in the Marshalsea. His behaviour
+there was sullen and reserved, rather than penitent. It had been hinted
+to him by Mr. Fea, as by others, that by his behaviour he should
+endeavour to make himself an evidence against others, and to merit his
+life by a ready submission, and obliging others to do the like. But Gow
+was no fool, and he easily saw there were too many gone before who had
+provided for their own safety at his expense, and besides that he knew
+himself too deeply guilty of cruelty and murder to be accepted by public
+justice as an evidence, especially where so many other less criminals
+were to be had. This made him, with good reason, too, give over any
+thoughts of escaping by such means as that; and perhaps seeing so
+plainly that there was no room for it might be the reason why he seemed
+to reject the offer, otherwise he was not a person of such nice honour
+as that we should suppose he would not have secured his own life at the
+expense of his comrades. Gow appeared to have given over all thoughts of
+life, from the first time he came to England. Not that he showed any
+tokens of his repentance, or any sense of his condition suitable to that
+which was before him, but continuing sullen and reserved, even to the
+very time he was brought to the bar, when he came there, he could not be
+tried with the rest, for the arraignment being made in the usual form,
+he refused to plead. The Court used all the arguments which humanity
+dictates in such cases,[106] to prevail on him to come into ordinary
+course of other people in like government, laying before him the
+sentence of the law in such cases, namely that he must be pressed to
+death, the only torturing execution which however they were obliged to
+inflict.
+
+But he continued inflexible, carried on his obstinacy to such a height
+as to receive the sentence in form, as usual in such cases. The
+execution being appointed to be done the next morning, he was carried
+back to Newgate in order to it. But whether he was prevailed with by
+argument and the reasons of those about him, or whether the apparatus
+for the execution and the manner of the death he was to die terrified
+him, we cannot say, but the next morning he yielded, and petitioned to
+be allowed to plead, and he admitted to be tried in the ordinary way.
+Which being granted, he was brought to the bar by himself and pleaded,
+being arraigned again upon the same indictment upon which he had been
+sentenced as a mute, and was found guilty.
+
+Williams the lieutenant, who was put on board the Bristol ship (as hath
+been said) with orders to deliver him on board the first English
+man-of-war they should meet with, comes, of course, to have the rest of
+his history made up in this place. The captain of the Bristol ship,
+though he received his orders from the crew of pirates and rogues, whose
+instructions he was not obliged to follow, and whose accusation of
+Williams they were not obliged to give credit to, yet punctually obeyed
+the order, and put him on board the _Argyle_, Captain Bowler, then lying
+in the port of Lisbon and bound for England; who, as they took him in
+irons, kept him so, and brought him to England, in the same conditions.
+But as the pirates did not send any of their company, nor indeed could
+they do it, along with him to be evidence against him, and the men who
+went out of the pirate ship on board the Bristol ship, being till then
+kept as prisoners on board the pirate ship (and perhaps could not have
+said enough, or given particular evidence, sufficient to convict him in
+a course of justice), Providence supplied the want by bringing the whole
+crew to the same place; for Williams was in the Marshalsea prison before
+them, and by that means they furnished sufficient evidence against
+Williams also, so that they were all tried together.
+
+In Williams's case the evidence was as particular as in Gow's, and
+Dobson and the other swore positively that Williams boasted that after
+MacCauly had cut the super-cargo's throat imperfectly, he (Williams)
+murdered him, and added that he would not give him time to say his
+prayers, but shot him through the head. Phinnes and Timothy Murphy
+testified the same, and to show the bloody disposition of this wretch,
+William Booth testified that Williams proposed afterwards to the company
+that if they took any more ships they should not encumber themselves
+with the men, having already so many prisoners that in case of a fight
+they should not be safe with them; but that they should take them and
+tie them, back to back, and throw them all overboard into the sea.
+
+It should not be omitted here also in the case of Gow himself (as I have
+observed in the introduction) that Gow had long meditated the kind of
+villainy which he now put in practice, and that it was his resolution to
+turn pirate the first opportunity he should get, whatever voyage he
+undertook, and that I observed he had intended it on board a ship in
+which he came home from Lisbon, and failed only for want of a sufficient
+party. So this resolution of his is confirmed by the testimony and
+confession of James Belvin, one of his fellow-criminals, who upon trial
+declared that he knew that Gow and the crew of the _George_ galley had a
+design to turn pirates from the beginning, and added that he discovered
+it to George Dobson, in Amsterdam, before the ship went out to sea. For
+the confirmation of this, George Dobson was called up again, after he
+had given his evidence upon the trials, and being confronted by Belvin,
+he did acknowledge that Belvin had said so, and that in particular he
+had said that the boatswain had a design to murder the master and some
+others and run away with the ship. Being asked why he did not
+immediately reveal it to the master, Captain Ferneau, he answered that
+he heard Belvin tell the mate of it, and that the mate told the captain;
+but the captain made light of it. But the boatswain finding himself
+discovered, refused to go, upon which Gow was made second mate, and
+Belvin was made boatswain; an he had been as honest afterwards as
+before (whereas on the contrary, he was as forward and active as any of
+them, except that he was not in the first secret nor in the murders), he
+might have escaped what afterwards became so justly his due. But as they
+acted together, Justice required that they should suffer together, and
+accordingly, Gow and Williams, Belvin, Melvin, Winter, Peterson,
+Rowlinson and MacCauly, received the reward of their cruelty and blood
+at the gallows, being all executed together on the eleventh of June.
+
+It happened that Gow being a very strong man, and giving a kind of
+spring, it so strained the rope that, on some people pulling him by the
+legs, it broke and he fell down, after he had remained about four
+minutes suspended. His fall stunned him a little, but as soon as he was
+taken up, he recovered himself so far as to be able to ascend the ladder
+a second time, which he did with very little concern, dying with the
+same brutal ferocity which animated all his actions while alive. His
+body hangs in chains over against Greenwich, as that of Williams does
+over against Blackwall.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [102] The most northerly of the islands.
+
+  [103] The word is here used in its original sense, indicating
+        something acquired by seeking--or hunting--_pour chasser._
+
+  [104] The island of Carrick.
+
+  [105] According to Johnson's _History of the Pirates_ (Chap.
+        XVIII) Gow's real motive for returning to the Orkneys was to wed
+        a girl whose parents had repulsed him on account of his poverty.
+        She was the daughter of one Mr. G----, a well-to-do man.
+
+  [106] One of these humane arguments, according to Johnson, _op.
+        cit._, consisted in tying his thumbs together with whipcord,
+        "which was done several times by the executioner and another
+        officer; they drawing the cord until it broke."
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+_Although the several histories which are related within the compass of
+this Appendix do not so properly fall under the general title of this
+work (most of them having fallen out in a period of time long before
+that to which I have fixed the beginning of these memoirs of the
+unfortunate victims to public justice) yet there are two reasons which
+determined me to give these narratives a place in this collection. The
+first is that the wonders of Providence signalized in these transactions
+might hereby be recorded and preserved to posterity; and the other, that
+from the perusal the wicked might be deterred from pursuing their
+vicious courses, from the prospect of those sudden, dreadful, and
+unexpected strokes which the best hid criminal practices have met with
+from the unsearchable conduct of Divine Justice. And as these arguments
+had weight enough with me to engage me to the performance of this work,
+so I hope they will also incline my readers to peruse them with that
+improvement and delight which I have ever aimed to excite in the course
+of my labours._
+
+
+
+
+A true and perfect account of the examination, confession, trial,
+condemnation and execution, of JOHN PERRY, his mother and brother, for
+the supposed murder of WILLIAM HARRISON, Gent.
+
+
+Upon Thursday, the 6th of August, 1660, William Harrison, steward to the
+Lady Viscount Campden, at Campden in Gloucester, being about seventy
+years of age, walked from Campden aforesaid to Charringworth, about two
+miles from thence, to receive his lady's rent; and not returning so
+early as formerly, his wife, Mrs. Harrison, between eight and nine
+o'clock in the evening, sent her servant John Perry, to meet his master
+on the way from Charringworth. But neither Mr. Harrison nor his servant
+John Perry returning that night, early the next morning Edward Harrison,
+William's son, went towards Charringworth to enquire after his father.
+On the way he met Perry coming thence, and being informed by him that he
+was not there, they went together to Ebrington, a village between
+Charringworth and Campden, where they were told by one Daniel, that Mr.
+Harrison called at his house the evening before, in his return from
+Charringworth, but stayed not. Then they went to Paxford, about half a
+mile from thence, where hearing nothing of Mr. Harrison, they returned
+towards Campden. And on the way hearing of a hat, band and a comb, taken
+up on the highway between Ebrington and Campden, by a poor woman then
+leasing [gleaning] in the field, they sought her out. With her they
+found the hat, band and comb, which they knew to be Mr. Harrison's; and
+being brought by the woman to the place where she found the same, in the
+highway between Ebrington and Campden, near unto a great furze-brake,
+they there searched for Mr. Harrison, supposing he had been murdered,
+the hat and the comb being hacked and cut, and the band bloody, but
+nothing more could there be found. The news hereof coming to Campden, so
+alarmed the town that the men, women and children hasted thence in
+multitudes to search for Mr. Harrison's supposed dead body, but all in
+vain.
+
+Mrs. Harrison's fears for her husband were now much increased, and
+having sent her servant Perry the evening before to meet his master, and
+he not returning that night, caused a suspicion that he had robbed and
+murdered him. Thereupon the said Perry was the next day brought before a
+Justice of the Peace; by whom being examined concerning his master's
+absence, and his own staying out the night he went to meet him, gave
+this account of himself. That his mistress sending him to meet his
+master, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, he went down
+Campden Field towards Charringworth about a land's length,[107] where
+meeting one William Read of Campden, he acquainted him with his errand,
+and farther told him that as it was growing dark he was afraid to go
+forwards, and would therefore return and fetch his young master's horse
+and return with him; he went to Mr. Harrison's court gate, where they
+parted. He stayed till one Pierce coming by, he went again with him
+about a bow's shot into the fields, and returned with him likewise to
+his master's gate, where they also parted; and the said John Perry
+averred that he went into his master's hen-roost, where he lay about an
+hour, but slept not, but when the clock struck twelve, arose and went
+towards Charringworth, until a great mist arising, he lost his way, and
+so lay the rest of the night under a hedge. At break of day on Friday
+morning he went to Charringworth, where he enquired for his master of
+one Edward Plaisterer, who told him he had been with him the afternoon
+before, and received three-and-twenty pounds of him, but stayed not long
+with him. He went to William Curtis of the same town, who told him he
+heard his master was at his house the day before, but being not at home,
+did not see him. After which he said he returned homewards, it being
+about five o'clock in the morning, when on the way he met his master's
+son, with whom he went to Ebrington and Paxford, etc. Curtis being
+examined, affirmed what Perry had said concerning them to be true.
+
+Perry then being asked by the Justice of Peace how he, who was afraid to
+go to Charringworth at nine o'clock, became so bold as to go thither at
+twelve, answered that at nine o'clock it was dark, but at twelve the
+moon shone. Being further asked why returning twice home after his
+mistress had sent him to meet his master, and staying until twelve of
+the clock, he went not into the house to know whether his master was
+come, before he went a third time, at that time of night to look after
+him, he answered that he knew his master was not at home, because he saw
+a light in his chamber window, which never used to be there so late when
+he was at home.
+
+Yet notwithstanding this that Perry had said about staying forth that
+night, it was not thought fit to discharge him until further enquiry was
+made after Mr. Harrison, and accordingly he continued in custody at
+Campden, sometimes in an inn there, and sometimes in the common prison,
+from Saturday, August the 18th, to the Friday following; during which
+time he was again examined at Campden, by the aforesaid Justice of
+Peace, but confessed nothing more than before, nor at that time could
+any further discovery be made as to what was become of Mr. Harrison. But
+it hath been said that during his restraint at Campden he told some (who
+pressed him to confess what he knew concerning his master) that a tinker
+had killed him; and to others he said that a gentleman's servant of the
+neighbourhood had robbed and murdered him; and others, again, he told
+that he was murdered and hid in a bean-rick in Campden, where search was
+in vain made for him. At length he gave out that if he was again carried
+before the Justice, he would discover that to him which he would not do
+to anybody else; and thereupon he was, on Friday, August the 24th, again
+brought before the Justice of Peace, who first examined him. And asking
+him whether he would confess what had become of his master, he answered
+he was murdered but not by him. The Justice of Peace then telling him
+that if he knew him to be murdered, he knew likewise by whom he was, so
+he acknowledged he did, and being urged to confess what he knew
+concerning it, affirmed that it was his mother and brother that had
+murdered his master. The Justice of Peace then advised him to consider
+what he said, telling him that he feared he might be guilty of his
+master's death, and that he should not draw more innocent blood upon his
+head, for what he now charged his mother and brother with might cost
+them their lives. But he affirming he spoke nothing but the truth, and
+that if he were immediately to die he would justify it, the Justice
+desired him to declare how, and when they did it.
+
+He then told him that ever since he came into his master's service his
+mother and brother had lain at him to help them to money, telling him
+how poor they were, and that it was in his power to relieve them by
+giving them notice when his master went to receive his lady's rents, for
+they would then waylay him and rob him. And further, he said that upon
+the Thursday morning, when his master went to Charringworth, going on an
+errand into the town, he met his brother in the street, whom he then
+told whither his master was going, and if he waylaid him he might have
+his money; and further said, that in the evening when his mistress sent
+him to meet his master, he met his brother in the street before his
+master's gate, going as he said to meet his master, and so they went
+together to the churchyard, about a stone's throw from Mr. Harrison's
+gate, where they parted. He going the footway beyond the church, they
+met again, and so went together the way leading to Charringworth, until
+they came to a gate about a bow's shot from Campden church that goes
+into a ground of the Lady Campden's, called the Conygree, which to
+those who have a key to go through the garden, is the nearest from that
+place to Mrs. Harrison's house. When they came near unto that gate, he
+(the said John Perry) said he told his brother that he believed his
+master was just gone into the Conygree (for it was then so dark they
+could not discern any man, so as to know him). But perceiving there was
+no way but for those who had a key through the gardens, he concluded it
+was his master who had gone through, and so told his brother if he
+followed him, he might have his money, and he in the meantime, would
+walk a turn in the fields. Which accordingly he did, and then followed
+his brother. About the middle of the Conygree, he found his master on
+the ground, his brother upon him, and his mother standing by. Being
+asked whether his master was dead, he answered, No, for that after he
+came to them, his master cried, _Ah, rogues! Will you kill me?_ At which
+he told his brother he hoped he would not kill his master; his brother
+replied, _Peace, peace, you're a fool_; and so strangled him. Which
+having done, he took a bag of money out of his pocket, and threw it into
+his mother's lap; and then he and his brother carried his master's dead
+body into the garden, adjoining to the Conygree, where they consulted
+what to do with it, and at length agreed to throw it into the great pool
+by Wallington's Mill, behind the garden.
+
+His mother and brother bid him go up to the court next the house, to
+hearken whether anyone was stirring, and they would throw the body into
+the pool; and being asked whether it was there, he said, he knew not,
+for that he left it in the garden, but his mother and brother said they
+would throw it there, and if it was not there, he knew not where it was,
+for that he returned no more to them, but went into the court gate,
+which goes into the town. He met with John Pierce with whom he went into
+the field, and again returned with him to his master's gate. After which
+he went into the hen-roost, where he lay until twelve o'clock at night,
+but slept not, and having, when he came from his mother and brother,
+brought with him his master's hat, band and comb, which he laid in the
+hen-roost, he carried the said hat, band and comb, and threw them after
+he had given them three or four cuts with his knife, in the highway,
+where they were after found. And being asked what he intended by so
+doing, he said he did it that it might be believed his master had been
+there robbed and murdered. And having thus disposed of his hat, band and
+comb, he went towards Charringworth, as hath been related.
+
+Upon this confession and accusation, the Justice of Peace gave order for
+the apprehending of Joan and Richard Perry, the mother and brother of
+John Perry, and for searching the pool where Mr. Harrison's body was
+said to be thrown, which was accordingly done, but nothing of him could
+be found there. The Fish Pools, likewise, in Campden, were drawn and
+searched, but nothing could be found there either; so that some were of
+opinion that the body might be laid in the ruins of Campden House, burnt
+in the late wars, and not unfit for such a concealment, where was
+likewise search made, but all in vain.
+
+On Saturday, August 25th, Joan and Richard Perry, together with John
+Perry, were brought before the Justice of Peace, who acquainted the said
+Joan and Richard with what John had lain to their charge. They denied
+all, with many imprecations on themselves if they were in the least
+guilty of anything of which they were accused, but John on the other
+side affirmed to their faces that he had spoken nothing but the truth
+and that they had murdered his master, further telling them that he
+could never be at quiet for them since he came into his master's
+service, being continually followed by them to help them to money (which
+they told him he might do by giving them notice when his master went to
+receive his lady's rents), and that meeting his brother Richard in
+Campden Town, the Thursday morning his master went to Charringworth, he
+told him whither he was going, and upon what errand; Richard confessed
+he met his brother that morning and spoke with him, but nothing passed
+between them to that purpose. Both he and his mother told John he was a
+villain to accuse them wrongfully, as he had done, but John on the other
+side affirmed that he had spoken nothing but the truth and would justify
+it to his death.
+
+One remarkable circumstance happened in these prisoners' return from the
+Justice's house to Campden, viz., Richard Perry following a good
+distance behind his brother John, pulling a clout out of his pocket,
+dropped a ball of inkle,[108] which one of his guard taking up, he
+desired him to restore it, saying it was only his wife's hair lace; but
+the party opening it, and finding a slip knot at the end, went and
+showed it unto John, who was then a good distance before and knew
+nothing of the dropping and taking up of this inkle. Being showed it,
+and asked whether he knew it, he shook his head and said, yes to his
+sorrow, for that was the string his brother strangled his master with.
+This was sworn upon the evidence at their trial.
+
+The morrow being the Lord's day, they remained at Campden, where the
+minister of the place designing to speak to them, if possible to
+persuade them to repentance and a farther confession, they were brought
+to church; and in their way thither passing by Richard's house, two of
+his children meeting him, he took the lesser in his arm, and was leading
+the other in his hand, when on a sudden both their noses fell
+a-bleeding, which was looked upon as ominous.
+
+Here it will be no impertinent digression to tell how the year before,
+Mr. Harrison had his house broken open between eleven and twelve o'clock
+at noon, upon Campden market-day, whilst himself and his whole family
+were away, a ladder being set up to a window of the second story, and an
+iron bar wrenched thence with a ploughshare, which was left in the room,
+and seven score pounds in money carried away, the authors of which
+robbery could never be found. After this, and not many weeks before Mr.
+Harrison's absence, one evening in Campden garden his servant Perry made
+a hideous outcry, whereas some who heard it coming in, met him running
+and seemingly affrighted, with a sheep-pick in his hand, to whom he told
+a story how he had been set upon by two men in white, with naked swords,
+and how he defended himself with his sheep-pick, the handle whereof was
+cut in two or three places, as was likewise a key in his pocket, which
+he said was done with one of their swords.
+
+The passages the Justice of the Peace having before heard, and calling
+to mind upon Perry's confession, asked him first concerning the robbery,
+when his master lost seven score pounds out of his house at noon-day,
+whether he knew who did it? He answered, Yes, it was his brother, and
+being further asked, whether he was with him, he answered, No, he was at
+church, but that he gave him notice of the money, and told him in which
+room it was, and where he might have a ladder, that would reach the
+window; and that his brother after told him he had the money, and had
+buried it in his garden, and that they were at Michaelmas next to have
+divided it, whereupon search was made in the garden, but no money could
+be there found. And being further asked concerning the other passage, of
+his being assaulted in the garden, he confessed it was all a fiction,
+and that he did it having a design to rob his master, so that rogues
+being believed to haunt the place, when his master was robbed they might
+be thought to have done it.
+
+At the next assizes, which were held in September following, John, Joan
+and Richard Perry had two indictments found against them, one for
+breaking into William Harrison's house, and robbing him of one hundred
+and forty pounds, in the year, 1659; the other for robbing and murdering
+the said William Harrison on the 16th day of August, 1660. Upon the last
+indictment, the judge of the assizes, Sir C. T., would not try them,
+because the body was not found; but they were then tried upon the other
+indictment for robbery, to which they pleaded not guilty. But someone
+whispering behind them, they soon pleaded guilty, humbly begging the
+benefit of his Majesty's gracious pardon and Act of Oblivion,[109] which
+was granted them. But though they pleaded guilty to their indictment,
+being thereunto promised (as probable) by some who are unwilling to lose
+time and trouble the Court with their trial as the Act of Oblivion
+pardoned them; yet they all afterwards and at their death, denied that
+they were guilty of that robbery, or that they knew who did it. Yet at
+his assize, as several credible persons have affirmed, John Perry still
+persisted in his story that his mother and brother had murdered his
+master, and further added that they had attempted to poison him in gaol,
+so that he durst neither eat nor drink with them.
+
+At the next assizes, which was held the Spring following, John, Joan and
+Richard Perry were by the then judge of assize, Sir B. H., tried upon
+the indictment of murder, and pleaded thereunto severally not guilty.
+And when John's confession before the Justice was proved, _viva voce_,
+by several witnesses who heard the same, he told them he was then mad
+and knew not what he said. The other two, Richard and Joan Perry, said
+they were wholly innocent of what they were accused, and that they knew
+nothing of Mr. Harrison's death, nor what was become of him; and Richard
+said that his brother had accused others as well as him of having
+murdered his master, which the judge bidding him prove, he said that
+most of those who had given evidence against him knew it, but naming
+none, nor did any speak to it. And so the jury found them all three
+guilty.
+
+Some few days after being brought to the place of their execution, which
+was on Broadway Hill, in sight of Campden, the mother, who was reputed a
+witch and to have bewitched her sons, so that they would confess nothing
+while she lived, was executed first. After which, Richard being upon the
+ladder, professed as he had done all along that he was wholly innocent
+of the fact for which he was then to die, and that he knew nothing of
+Mr. Harrison's death, nor what was become of him, and did with great
+earnestness beg and beseech his brother, for the satisfaction of the
+whole world and for his own conscience, to declare what he knew
+concerning him. But he, with a dogged and surly carriage, told the
+people he was not obliged to confess to them; yet immediately before his
+death, he said he knew nothing of his master's death, nor what had
+become of him but they might hereafter possibly hear.
+
+Mr. Harrison's account of his being absent two years, and of his return
+home, addressed to Sir Thomas Overbery, Knight
+
+    Honoured Sir,
+
+    In obedience to your commands, I give you this true account of my
+    being carried away beyond the seas, my continuance there and return
+    home.
+
+    On Thursday, in the afternoon, in the time of harvest, I went to
+    Charringworth to demand rents due to my Lady Campden, at which the
+    tenants were busy in the fields, and were late ere they came home,
+    which occasioned my stay there till the close of the evening. I
+    expected a considerable sum, but received only twenty-three pounds
+    and no more. In my return home, in the narrow passages amongst
+    Ebrington Furzes, there met me one horseman, and said, _Art thou
+    there?_ and I, fearing that he would have rode over me, struck his
+    horse over the nose, whereupon he struck me with his sword several
+    blows, and ran it into my side, while I with my little cane made my
+    defence as well as I could. At last another came behind me, ran me
+    in the thigh, laid hold on the collar of my doublet, and drew me to
+    a hedge near to the place. Then came in another. They did not take
+    away my money, but mounted me behind one of them, drew my arms about
+    his middle, and fastened my wrists together with something that had
+    a spring lock to it, as I conceived, by hearing it give a snap as
+    they put it on; then they threw a great cloak over me and carried me
+    away.
+
+    In the night, they alighted at a hayrick, which stood near unto a
+    stone pit, by a wall side, where they took away my money. This was
+    about two hours before day, as I heard one of them tell the other he
+    thought it to be then. They tumbled me into the stone pit. They
+    stayed, as I thought, about an hour at the hayrick. When they took
+    horse again, one of them bade me come out of the pit. I answered
+    they had my money already, and asked what they would do with me,
+    whereupon he struck me again, drew me out, and put a great quantity
+    of money into my pockets, and mounted me again, after the same
+    manner. And on Friday, about sunset, they brought me to a lone house
+    upon a heath, by a thicket of bushes, where they took me down,
+    almost dead, being sorely bruised with the carriage of the money.
+    When the woman of the house saw that I could neither stand nor
+    speak, she asked them whether or no they had brought a dead man?
+    They answered, no, but a friend that was hurt, and they were
+    carrying me to a surgeon. She answered, if they did not make haste
+    their friend would be dead before they could bring him to one.
+    There they laid me on the cushions and suffered none to come into
+    the room but a little girl. There we stayed all night, they giving
+    me some broth and strong waters.
+
+    In the morning, very early, they mounted me as before, and on
+    Saturday night, they brought me to a place where were two or three
+    houses, in one of which I lay all night on cushions by their
+    bedside. On Sunday morning they carried me from thence, and about
+    three or four of the clock, they brought me to a place by the
+    seaside, called Deal, where they laid me down in the ground. One of
+    them staying by me, the other two walked a little off to meet a man,
+    with whom they talked; and in their discourse I heard them mention
+    seven pounds, after which they went away together, and about half an
+    hour after returned. The man (whose name, as I after heard, was
+    Wrenshaw) said he feared I would die before they could put me on
+    board; then they put me into a boat, and carried me on ship-board,
+    where my wounds were dressed.
+
+    I remained in the ship, as near as I could reckon, about six weeks,
+    in which time I was indifferently recovered of my wounds and
+    weaknesses. Then the master of the ship came in and told me and the
+    rest who were in the same condition, that he discovered three
+    Turkish ships. We all offered to fight in defence of the ship and
+    ourselves, but he commanded us to keep close, and said he would deal
+    with them well enough. A little while after, he called us up, and
+    when we came on deck we saw two Turkish ships close by us; into one
+    of them we were put, and placed in a dark hold, where how long we
+    continued before we were landed, I know not.
+
+    When we were landed they led us two days' journey, and put us into a
+    great house or prison, where we remained four days and a half, and
+    then came to us eight men to view us, who seemed to be officers.
+    They called us and examined us of our trades and callings, which
+    everyone answered. One said he was a surgeon, another that he was a
+    broad-cloth weaver, and I, after two or three demands, said I had
+    some skill in physic. We three were set by, and taken by three of
+    these eight men who came to view us. It was my chance to be chosen
+    by a grave physician of eighty-seven years of age, who lived near to
+    Smyrna, who had formerly been in England, and knew Crowland in
+    Lincolnshire, which he preferred before all others in England. He
+    employed me to keep his still-house, and gave me a silver bowl,
+    double gilt, to drink in. My business was most in that place, but
+    once he set me to gather cotton wool, which I not doing he struck me
+    to the ground, and after drew his stiletto to stab me; but I holding
+    up my hands to him, he gave me a stamp and turned from me, for
+    which I render thanks to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who
+    stayed his hand and preserved me.
+
+    I was there about a year and three quarters, and then my master fell
+    sick on a Thursday, and sent for me, and calling me, as he used, by
+    the name of Bell, told me he should die and bid me shift for myself.
+    He died on the Saturday following, and I instantly hastened with my
+    bowl[110] to a port almost a day's journey distant, the way to which
+    place I knew, having been twice there employed by my master about
+    the carriage of the cotton wool. When I came thither I addressed
+    myself to two men who came out of a ship of Hamburg, which, as they
+    said, was bound for Portugal within three or four days. I enquired
+    of them for an English ship, they answered there was none. I
+    entreated them to take me into their ship, but they answered they
+    durst not, for fear of being discovered by the searchers, which
+    might occasion the forfeiture, not only of their goods, but also of
+    their lives. I was very importunate with them, but could not
+    prevail. They left me to wait on Providence, which at length brought
+    me another out of the same ship, to whom I made known my condition,
+    craving his assistance for my transportation. He made me the like
+    answer as the former, and was as stiff in his denial, until the
+    sight of my bowl put him to pause. He returned to the ship, and
+    after an hour's space came back again accompanied with another
+    seaman, and for my bowl, undertook to transport me; but he told me I
+    must be contented to lie down in the keel and endure much hardship,
+    which I was content to do to gain my liberty.
+
+    So they took me on board, and placed me below in the vessel, in a
+    very uneasy place, and obscured me with boards and other things,
+    where I lay undiscovered, notwithstanding the strict search that was
+    made in the vessel. My two chapmen who had my bowl, honestly
+    furnished me with victuals daily, until we arrived at Lisbon in
+    Portugal, where, as soon as the master had left the ship and was
+    gone into the city, they set me on shore moneyless, to shift for
+    myself. I knew not what course to take, but as Providence led me, I
+    went up into the city, and came into a fair street, and being weary
+    I turned my back to a wall, and leaned upon my staff. Over against
+    me were four gentlemen discoursing together; after a while one of
+    them came to me, and spake to me in a language that I understood
+    not. I told him I was an Englishman and understood not what he
+    spoke. He answered me in plain English, that he understood me, and
+    was himself born in Wisbech, in Lincolnshire. Then I related to him
+    my sad condition, and he taking compassion on me, took me with him,
+    provided me with lodging and diet, and by his interest with a master
+    of a ship bound for England, procured my passage; and bringing me on
+    ship board, he bestowed wine and strong waters on me, and at his
+    return gave me eight stivers and commended me to the care of the
+    master of the ship, who landed me safe at Dover. From thence I made
+    a shift to get to London, where being furnished with necessaries I
+    came into the country.
+
+    Thus, honoured Sir, I have given you a true account of my great
+    sufferings and happy deliverance by the mercy and goodness of God,
+    my most gracious Father in Jesus Christ, my Saviour and Redeemer, to
+    whose name be ascribed all honour, praise and glory. I conclude and
+    rest,
+
+    Your Worship's,
+              In all dutiful respect,
+                               William Harrison
+
+Before I part with this story, it is proper for me to remark that though
+it does not contain any extraordinary mark of the wisdom of Providence,
+yet being in its nature strange and hitherto having escaped any other
+collection, I thought it not improper to be preserved here, since some
+of the circumstances are of such a nature as not to be paralleled in any
+English story.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [107] A local term for a strip of furrowed land.
+
+  [108] A kind of broad linen tape.
+
+  [109] Passed at the Restoration, in 1660, granting "free
+        general pardon, indemnity, and oblivion for all treasons and
+        state offences" committed between 1 Jan., 1637, and 24 June,
+        1660. The regicides and certain Irish priests were excepted.
+
+  [110] That is, the silver-gilt one his master had given him.
+
+
+
+
+A Relation of the Surprising Discovery of the Murder of MARY BARWICK,
+committed by WILLIAM BARWICK, her husband, on the 14th of April, 1690,
+upon which he was convicted, at the Lent Assizes at York, before the
+Honourable Sir John Powell, Knight, then one of the Judges of Assize
+
+
+In the following relation, I have kept strictly up to the motives which
+I have mentioned in the beginning of this Appendix, and I hope that will
+atone for the inserting of this story, which I confess can be of no
+other use than to gratify the curiosity of the reader.
+
+As murder is one of the greatest crimes that man can be guilty of, so it
+is no less strangely and providentially discovered when secretly
+committed. The foul criminal believes himself secure, because there was
+no witness of the fact. Not considering that the all-seeing eye of
+Heaven beholds his iniquity, and by some means or other bringing it to
+light, never permits it to go unpunished. Indeed, so certainly does the
+revenge of God pursue the abominated murderer, that when witnesses are
+wanting of the fact, the very ghosts of the murdered parties cannot rest
+quiet in their graves until they have made the detection themselves. Of
+this we are now to give the reader two remarkable examples that lately
+happened in Yorkshire, and no less signal for the truth of both
+tragedies, as being confirmed by the trial of the offenders at the last
+assizes held for that county.
+
+The first of these murders was committed by William Barwick, upon the
+body of Mary Barwick his wife, at the same time big with child. What
+were the motives that induced the man to do this horrid fact does not
+appear by the examination of the evidence, or the confession of the
+party; only it appeared upon his trial that he had got her with child
+before he married her, that being then constrained to marry her, he grew
+weary of her, which was the reason he was so willing to be rid of her,
+though he ventured body and soul to accomplish his design.
+
+The murder was committed on Palm Monday, being then the fourteenth of
+April, about two o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the said
+Barwick drilled his wife along until he came to a certain close, within
+sight of Cawood Castle, where he found the conveniency of a pond. He
+threw her by force into the water, and when she was drowned and drawn
+forth again by himself upon the bank of the pond, he had the cruelty to
+behold the motion of the infant, yet warm in her womb. This done, he
+concealed the body, as it may readily be supposed, among the bushes that
+usually encompass a pond, and the next night when it grew dusk, fetching
+a hay spade from a rick that stood in the close, he made a hole by the
+side of the pond, and there slightly buried the woman in her clothes.
+Having thus despatched two at once, and thinking himself secure, because
+unseen, he went the same day to his brother-in-law, one Thomas Lofthouse
+of Rusforth, within three miles of York, who had married his drowned
+wife's sister, and told him he had carried his wife to one Richard
+Harrison's house in Selby, who was his uncle, and would take care of
+her.
+
+But Heaven would not be so deluded, but raised up the ghost of the
+murdered woman to make the discovery. It was Easter Tuesday following,
+about two-o'clock in the afternoon, that the afore-mentioned Lofthouse,
+having occasion to water a quickset hedge not far from his house, as he
+was going for the second pailful, an apparition went before him in the
+shape of a woman, and soon after set down against a rising green grass
+plot, right over against the pond. He walked by her as he went to the
+pond, and as he returned with the pail from the pond, looking sideways
+to see whether she continued in the same place, he found she did, and
+that she seemed to dandle something in her lap that looked like a white
+bag, as he thought, which he did not observe before. So soon as he had
+emptied his pail, he went into his yard and stood still to turn whether
+he could see her again, but she was vanished. In this information he
+says that the woman seemed to be habited in a brown-coloured petticoat,
+waistcoat and a white hood, such a one as his wife's sister usually
+wore, and that her countenance looked extremely pale and wan, with her
+teeth in sight, but no gums appearing, and that her physiognomy was like
+that of his wife's sister, who was wife to William Barwick.
+
+But notwithstanding the ghastliness of the apparition, it seems it made
+so little impression on Lofthouse's mind that he thought no more of it,
+neither did he speak to anybody concerning it until the same night, as
+he was at family duty of prayers, when that apparition returned again to
+his thoughts, and discomposed his devotion; so that after he had made an
+end of his prayers, he told the whole story of what he had seen to his
+wife, who laying circumstances together, immediately inferred that her
+sister was either drowned or otherwise murdered, and desired her husband
+to look after her the next day, which was the Wednesday in Easter week.
+Upon this, Lofthouse, recollecting what Barwick had told him of his
+carrying his wife to his uncle at Selby, repaired to Harrison
+before-mentioned, but found all that Barwick had said to be false, for
+Harrison had neither heard of Barwick nor his wife, neither did he know
+anything of them. Which notable circumstance, together with that other
+of the apparition, increased his suspicion to that degree that now
+concluding his wife's sister was murdered, he went to the Lord Mayor of
+York. And having obtained his warrant, he got Barwick apprehended; who
+was no sooner brought before the Lord Mayor, but his own conscience then
+accusing him, he acknowledged the whole matter, as it has been already
+related, and as it appears by the examination and confession herewith
+printed.
+
+On Wednesday, the 16th of September, 1690, the criminal, William
+Barwick, was brought to his trial before the Honourable Sir John Powel,
+Knight, one of the judges of the Northern Circuit, at the assizes held
+at York, where the prisoner pleaded not guilty to his indictment. But
+upon the evidence of Thomas Lofthouse and his wife, and a third person,
+that the woman was found buried in her clothes, close by the pond side,
+agreeable to the prisoner's confession, and that she had several
+bruises on her head, occasioned by the blows the murderer had given her
+to keep her under water, and upon reading the prisoner's confession
+before the Lord Mayor of York, attested by the clerk who wrote the
+confession, and who swore the prisoner's owning and signing it for
+truth, he was found guilty and sentenced to death, and afterwards
+ordered to be hanged in chains.
+
+All the defence that the prisoner made was only this, that he was
+threatened into the confession that he had made, and was in such a
+consternation that he did not know what he said or did; but then it was
+sworn to by two witnesses that there was no such thing as any
+threatening made use of, but that he made a free and voluntary
+confession, only with this addition at first, that he told the Lord
+Mayor he had sold his wife for five shillings, but not being able to
+name either the person or the place, where she might be produced, that
+was looked upon as too frivolous to outweigh circumstances that were too
+apparent.
+
+    The Examination of William Barwick, taken the 25th of April, 1690
+
+    Who sayeth and confesseth that he carried his wife over a certain
+    wainbridge, called Bishop Dyke Bridge, between Cawood and Sherburn;
+    and within a lane about one hundred yards from the said bridge, and
+    on the left hand of the said bridge, he and his wife went over a
+    stile, on the left hand of a certain gate, entering into a certain
+    close, on the left hand of the said lane; and in a pond in the said
+    close, adjoining to a quick-wood hedge, he did drown his wife and
+    upon a bank of the said pond did bury her, and further, that he was
+    within sight of Cawood Castle, on the left hand, and there was but
+    one hedge betwixt the said close where he drowned his wife, and the
+    Bishops Slates, belonging to the said castle.
+
+                                                     William Barwick
+    _Exam, capt. did etc.
+    anno super dict.
+    coram me._
+
+                      _S. Dawson, Mayor_
+
+
+
+
+An Account of the Conviction and Execution of Mr. WALKER, and MARK
+SHARP, for the Murder of ANN WALKER
+
+
+I am conscious that my collecting these relations may expose me to the
+railery and ridicule of a very numerous tribe of wits in this age, who
+value themselves extremely on their contempt of supernatural stories,
+and their disbelief of all things which relate to apparitions or returns
+from that state in which souls go when they depart from the body. Yet
+the following story is so remarkable, the proofs so exceedingly cogent,
+and the mistakes made in the relation of it by various authors so
+likely, notwithstanding, to bring it in the course of time into
+discredit, that I thought I could not do a greater service to the public
+than to preserve it in its genuine purity, which I have had occasion to
+retrieve from the sight of some papers which related thereto, and from
+which the following account is written verbatim, without any alteration
+so much as in a letter.
+
+About the year 1631, there lived in a place called
+Chester-in-the-Street, in the County Palatine of Durham, one Mr. Walker,
+a yeoman of good fortune and credit. He was a widower and kept a young
+woman, one Ann Walker, a relation of his, in his house as housekeeper.
+It was suspected, it seems, by some of the neighbours, that she was with
+child, immediately upon which she was removed to one Dame Cair's an aunt
+of hers in the town of Lumley, hard by. The old woman treated her with
+much kindness and civility, but was exceedingly earnest to know of her
+who was the father of the child with which she went, but the young woman
+constantly avoided answering that question. But at last, perceiving how
+uneasy the old woman was because she could get no knowledge how the poor
+babe was to be provided for, this Ann Walker at last said that he who
+got her with child would take care of both her and it, with which answer
+her aunt was tolerably satisfied.
+
+Some time after, of an evening, her old master Walker, and one Mark
+Sharp, with whom he was extraordinarily intimate, came to her aunt's
+house and took the said Anne Walker away. About a fortnight passed
+without her being seen or heard of, and without much talk of the
+neighbourhood concerning her, supposing she had been carried somewhere
+to be privately brought to bed, in order to escape her shame. But one
+James Graham, a miller, who lived two miles from the place where
+Walker's house was, being one night between the hours of twelve and one,
+grinding corn in his mill, and the mill door shut, as he came downstairs
+from putting corn into the hopper, he saw a woman standing in the
+middle of the floor, with her hair all bloody, hanging about her ears,
+and five large wounds in her head. Graham, though he was a bold man, was
+exceedingly shocked at this spectacle. At last after calling upon God to
+protect him, he, in a low voice, demanded who she was, and what she
+wanted of him. To which the woman made answer, _I am the spirit of Anne
+Walker, who lived with Walker at Chester-in-the-Street, and being got
+with child by him, he promised to send me to a private place, where I
+should be well looked to until I was brought to bed, and well again, and
+then I should come to him again and keep his house. And I was
+accordingly, late one night, sent away with Mark Sharp, who upon the
+moor, just by the Yellow Bank Head, slew me with a pick, an instrument
+wherewith they dig coals, and gave me these five wounds, and afterwards
+threw me into a coalpit hard by, and hid the pick under the bank. His
+shoes and stockings also being bloody he endeavoured to wash them, but
+seeing the blood would not go forth, he hid them there too. And now
+James Grime_ (so the country people pronounce Graham) _I am come to you,
+that by revealing this bloody act my murderers may be brought to
+justice; which unless you do, I will continually pursue and haunt you._
+
+The miller returned home to his house very melancholy, and much
+astonished at this sight, yet he held his peace, hoping that if he did
+not reveal it she would go to somebody else. He was fearful of blasting
+the character of Mr. Walker, who was a man of substance, by telling such
+a tale concerning him to a Justice of Peace. However, he avoided as much
+as he was able being in the mill alone, especially at nights, but
+notwithstanding all his care, and though other persons were not far off,
+she appeared to him there again, and in a harsh tone demanded why he had
+not made known what she had spoken of to him. He made her no answer, but
+fled to the other end of the place where the people were. Yet some
+little time after, just after sunset, she met him in his own garden, and
+spoke to him with such a cruel aspect and with such fearful threats that
+he promised to go the next morning to a magistrate, which he accordingly
+did.
+
+On the morrow, being St. Thomas's Day, he applied to a justice of the
+peace and told him the story. The justice having tendered him his oath,
+and taking his information in writing, forthwith issued his warrant, and
+apprehended Mr. Walker and Mark Sharp, who by trade was a collier, i.e.,
+dug coals out of a mine. They made light of the thing before the
+justice, although he in the meanwhile had caused a place which Graham
+said the apparition had spoken of, to be searched, and there found the
+dead body, wounded in place and manner as before described, with the
+pick, the shoes and the stockings. However, Walker and Sharp were
+admitted to bail, and at the next assizes appeared upon their trial.
+
+Judge Davenport heard the several circumstances of the woman's being
+carried out by Sharp, her being suspected to be with child by her
+master, Walker, and the story which Graham repeated exactly upon oath,
+as he had done before the justice. The foreman of the jury did depose
+that he saw a child standing upon the shoulders of the prisoner Walker,
+at the Bar, and the judge himself was under such a concern and
+uneasiness that as soon as the jury had found the prisoners guilty, he
+immediately rose up and passed sentence of death upon them, a thing
+never known before nor since in Durham, the custom being not to pass
+sentence until the close of the assizes.
+
+
+
+
+The Life of JACQUES PERRIER, a French Robber and Murderer
+
+
+As I have stepped in the former stories a little back in time, so in
+this I shall make bold to go out of our own nation, to relate a very
+extraordinary passage which happened at Paris in the beginning of the
+last century, because it will serve as a notable instance of that
+confusion and fear which guilt brings over the souls of the most
+hardened villains and thereby renders them often instruments of justice
+upon themselves; so that it seems not virtue only is its own reward, but
+vice also brings upon itself those torments which it ought to feel. Thus
+Providence ordereth, with inscrutable wisdom, that every man should feel
+happiness or misery according as his own demeanour serves. But it is now
+time that we hearken to the story.
+
+It happened that a certain architect, who was in high esteem with the
+greatest nobles in France for his excellent skill in building after the
+Italian model, and had thereby obtained both a great reputation and a
+large estate, being a generous and charitable man, took into his house
+one Jacques Perrier, in the nature of an accountant, for the better
+ordering of his affairs. For the six years that this Jacques lived in
+his master's house, never any man was known to behave better or more
+commendably than he did. At length he married and had children, so that
+the master looking upon him as a staid discreet person, of whose
+fidelity he had indubitable proofs; he therefore gave him the charge of
+everything, when he went to a country house of his, a small distance
+from Paris, where he sometimes stayed for a week or so to unbend his
+mind and enjoy the benefit of the summer season.
+
+At last, Jacques observing what great wealth he had acquired, began to
+be covetous and desirous of obtaining it; and after having cast it long
+in his head how he might obtain it, he at length resolved with himself
+to join with certain villains who at that time robbed in the streets and
+committed murders on the roads about Paris. Gaining notice of a house
+where such people frequented, he found ways and means to be admitted
+into the room where they had their consultations. And the person who
+introduced him having promised for his fidelity, they listened very
+attentively to the proposal which he promised to make them, and which
+after a little pause, he performed in these words. _My good friends, it
+is now upwards of six years since I have lived in the service of a rich
+and eminent person. I thought that before this time I might have made my
+fortune under him, and therefore have hitherto served him faithfully and
+honestly; but finding my expectations herein deceived, I come to make
+you an offer which may enrich you all. He has a house in the country,
+whither he retires with his daughter and maid-servant only. These may
+easily be dispatched and then all his effects will be our own. I will
+venture to assure you, they will be worth ten thousand crowns._
+
+The thieves were not a little rejoiced at the thoughts of so
+extraordinary a booty, and therefore, after returning Perrier thanks,
+they readily embraced his motion and promised him whatever assistance he
+should require. It was not long before the unfortunate, gentleman went,
+as usual, with his daughter and her maid, to enjoy the pleasures of his
+rural habitation, leaving the direction of his affairs to Jacques, who
+no sooner saw him safe out of Paris, but he went to give notice to his
+associates that the time was now come to execute his bloody proposal.
+They quickly got all things in readiness, and as soon as it was evening,
+set out under the command of this desperate varlet to commit that
+horrible murder which he had contrived. Arriving at the house, Perrier
+knocked at the door; the maid knowing him, supposed some extraordinary
+business had brought him thither, and readily opened the door. But she
+was exceedingly surprised to find him followed by five ruffians oddly
+dressed, masked and with large staves in their hands. However, they did
+not give her much time to consider, but followed her immediately into
+the kitchen, where, by the direction of their abominable leader, they
+immediately, with many cruel blows, put her to death. From thence they
+went upstairs into the old gentleman's apartment, and found him sitting
+upon his bed. As soon as they entered, _Perrier_, said his master, _is
+it thus that you return that kindness with which I have always treated
+you. Did I not take you from misery and want. Have I not maintained you,
+and put it in your power to maintain your family? Will you repay this my
+charity with robbing me of all I have? Must the tenderness I have shown
+towards you draw upon me death from your hands, and do you not think
+that the same God who hath seen me cherish and relieve you, will not
+bring upon you condign punishment for this execrable villainy thou art
+going to commit?_
+
+Perrier was sensible of the truth of what he said, but knowing it was
+impossible for him to go back, he gave a sign to the murderers to fall
+about the execution of their work; but the old man, who was too wise to
+expect mercy from their hands, endeavoured to lay hold of a halbert
+which stood in his room, designing therewith, as well as he could, to
+defend himself. But before he could get it into his hands the villains
+struck him down, and with thirty or forty wounds gave a passage for his
+soul into a better life.
+
+The unfortunate young lady lay in the next room to her father's, and
+being already got to bed, heard with astonishment the execrable fact.
+However, full of fear and astonishment, she covered herself with the bed
+clothes, and endeavoured all she was able, to hide herself in the bed.
+But alas, her caution was to small purpose. Perrier knew too well the
+situation of all things to be deceived by so trivial an artifice, and
+therefore after pulling the bedclothes into the middle of the floor, he
+exposed, naked, to his fellow ruffians, the most beautiful young lady in
+France. In vain she fell upon her knees, and with all that tender
+elocution so natural to their sex when in distress, besought them that
+they would spare her life, which, as she said, could be of no benefit to
+them, and could only serve to increase the number of their sins; but
+they were too much flushed in cruelty and blood to give any attention to
+her entreaties, and so without respect either to the softness of her
+sex, or to her tender age, with a shower of blows from their clubs they
+laid her dead upon the floor. Being thus become master of the house,
+Perrier took the keys, and opening the several apartments, disclosed to
+them all the riches of his deceased master. They immediately brought
+away all the ready money they found in the house, which amounted to
+little less than ten thousand crowns. All the rich movables they
+conveyed away to a boat which they had prepared for that purpose, and
+had fastened in a creek of the river on a bank of which the house stood.
+They loaded and unloaded this vessel five or six times, for there was no
+hurry in carrying away the goods, seeing it was the dead time of the
+night, and when they had thoroughly plundered it of everything that
+would yield money, they then came away and went to the place where they
+laid up their spoils. There it was resolved to divide the booty, and
+Perrier claimed the largest share, as well in right of his having put
+them upon that project, as that he had assisted more strenuously in the
+execution of it than any of them; for when men associate themselves to
+commit wickedness, he who surpasses the rest in villainy claims the same
+reward, and from the same reasons, as he who in another society
+surpasses all his neighbours in virtue. When this execrable fact was
+over, and he had secured his share in the plunder, he returned home to
+the house of his master, and remained in carrying on the ordinary course
+of business of his master.
+
+About two days after, it happened that a man who had business with the
+old gentleman called at his country house, and after knocking a good
+while at the door, finding that nobody answered, he went to town, and
+meeting with Jacques Perrier at his master's house, he told him of his
+calling upon him in the country, and that he found nobody there. Jacques
+counterfeited the greatest surprise at the news, and calling many
+assistants, went down immediately to his master's seat, and with all the
+seeming horror imaginable, became a second time a witness of those
+barbarities which he and his villainous associates had committed. At the
+sight of the murdered maid in the kitchen, he cried out with the
+greatest vehemence, and seemed in an agony of sorrow; but when he saw
+the body of his master, he roared and stamped, he cried out, tore his
+hair and threw himself upon the body as if he had never more intended to
+have drawn breath. All the persons he had carried with him were
+effectually deceived by his behaviour, and were under apprehensions lest
+his too violent grief should throw him into a fever or prompt him to lay
+hands upon himself. He was not contented with acting thus upon the spot,
+but resolved to play it over again when he came back to Paris. There
+abundance of people pitied him, and looked on him as one whom the
+sincere love he had for his master had drawn to the utmost despair by
+reason of his unfortunate death.
+
+But one of the old gentleman's relations, who was a man of more
+penetration than the rest, began to suspect his excessive affliction,
+and by his arguments drew another gentleman, who was also interested in
+the family affairs, to be of his opinion; whereupon Jacques was
+apprehended on suspicion and sent to prison. Solitude and confinement
+are often the roads to repentance and confession, for the vanities of
+the world being no longer before them, in such cases people are apt to
+retire into the recesses of their own breasts, and having no avocations
+from considering how they have spent their former years, the reflection
+often extorts truth which would never be by any other method
+discovered. But it was not so with Perrier. His dissimulation was of a
+stronger contexture, and not to be broken even by sorrow and
+confinement. He not only continued to deny the knowledge of the murder,
+but also to lament the loss of so indulgent a master, with such floods
+of tears, and so many strong appearances of real sorrow and affection
+that, no proof appearing against him, the magistrates were afraid of
+having themselves reproached with injustice if they had not given him
+his liberty, to which, after six months imprisonment, he was restored.
+
+The rest of the assassins seeing a long space of time elapsed, and that
+still not the least discovery was made of the murder, laid aside all
+fears of being taken, and began to appear more openly than hitherto they
+had done since the perpetration of that fact. But in the midst of their
+security the Providence of God forced them to betray themselves; for as
+the father, son and cousin, who were all concerned in the murder, were
+sitting with one Masson, another of the confederates, making merry at a
+public-house, on a sudden they turned their heads and saw ten or twelve
+archers or marshal's men (who have the same authority as constables in
+our country) who by chance met together and came into the house to
+drink. Guilt on a sudden struck the whole company with apprehensions
+that they were come in search of them, the fear of which made them throw
+down their knives and forks, leave what they had upon the table and fly
+with the utmost precipitation, as supposing they ran for their lives.
+
+This extravagant behaviour struck the archers with amazement, and
+immediately calling for the landlord, they enquired of him what should
+be the sudden cause of this terror in his guests. He replied that it was
+impossible for him to tell certainly, but from discourse which he had
+heard, he took them to be persons of no very honest character, and from
+the great sums of money he had heard them count out, he was apprehensive
+that they had committed some robbery or other. There wanted not any
+farther account to stir up the archers to a pursuit, from whence they
+already assured themselves they should be considerable gainers, the
+thing speaking for itself, since honest people are not used to fall into
+such panics; but only guilt creates apprehensions in men at the sight of
+the ministers of justice. Immediately, therefore, the officers pursued
+them in the road they had taken, and the old man being less able to
+travel than the rest, in about two hours time they came up with him at
+the side of a rivulet, where, for very weariness he had stopped as not
+being able to cross it.
+
+No sooner did they come up to him but he surrendered, and fear having
+brought a sudden repentance, he, without any equivocation, began to
+confess all the crimes of his life. He said that it was true they all of
+them deserved death, and he was content to suffer; he said, moreover,
+that in the course of his life he had murdered upwards of three-score
+with his own hands. He also carried the officers to an island in the
+river, which was the usual place of the execution of those innocents who
+fell into the hands of their gang, and acknowledged that of all the
+offences he had committed, nothing gave him so much pain as the having
+murdered a hopeful young gentleman (for the sake of a trifle of money
+which he had about him) by putting a stone about his neck and sinking
+him in the water.
+
+Of the other three, two were apprehended, but the third made his escape
+and was running hastily with the news to Jacques Perrier and their other
+companions, but he was soon after seized, and carried to prison with the
+rest, none escaping from the hands of Justice but Masson and the cruel
+Perrier, the author of all this mischief. The three who were in prison
+endured the torture with the greatest constancy, absolutely denying that
+they knew anything of the murders and robberies which had been
+committed, yet when they were confronted by the old man, their courage
+deserted them, they acknowledged the fact, and judgment was pronounced
+upon them that they should be broke alive upon the wheel, before the
+house of the unfortunate architect whom they had murdered.
+
+When they were brought there, with a strong guard, to suffer that
+punishment to which the Law had so justly doomed them, they appeared to
+be very penitent and sorrowful for their crimes, and one of them in
+particular did, with greatest vehemency, beseech the pardon of Almighty
+God, of the king his sovereign, and of his people whom he had so much
+injured, declaring that he could not die in peace without informing the
+multitude who were assembled to behold their execution, of a certain
+kind of villainy in which he was particularly concerned. He said it was
+his custom to watch about the sides of the road which lay near the
+woods, and that having a cord with him, he suddenly threw it about the
+neck of any passenger who was coming by, and therewith immediately
+strangled him before he was aware, or capable of resisting them, and if
+at any time there came by several passengers together who demanded what
+he did there, he replied that he was sent thither by his master to catch
+a cow; and his going in the habit of a peasant gave such an aspect of
+truth to the story that he was never suspected.
+
+Though the concourse of people be generally very great, yet the
+assembly on this occasion was much larger than ordinary, and those who
+were spectators, contrary to the ordinary custom, showed but very little
+compassion at the miserable tortures which those wretches endured. On
+the contrary, they continually cried out that they should discover what
+was become of Perrier and their other accomplice, Masson. These
+unfortunate men continued to assert in their last moments that they knew
+nothing of either of them, but supposed that, hearing of their
+apprehension, they had immediately made their escape, and were retired
+as far as they were able from the danger. The people were infinitely
+satisfied with the death of these assassins, and nothing was wanting to
+complete the triumph of Justice but the apprehension of Perrier and his
+associate, to whose adventures it is now time that we return, in order
+to display the severe justice of Providence, and the admirable methods
+by which it disappoints all the courses that human wit can invent in
+order to frustrate its intent.
+
+Masson had hid himself in a village not far from the city of Tours,
+where he concealed himself so effectually that the inhabitants had not
+the least suspicion of his being a dishonest man. On the contrary, he
+applied himself to an honest way of getting his livelihood, and after
+sojourning there for a considerable space, he married a young woman,
+with the consent of her parents, and seemed to be now established in a
+state of peace and security, if it were possible for a guilty soul to
+know either security or peace. A trivial accident, in which no man but
+Masson would have had a hand, proved the instrument by which he was
+drawn to suffering that cruel death which his companions had before
+undergone, and he so justly deserved.
+
+There was, it seems, a young country fellow in the neighbourhood where
+Masson lived, who was just married, and according to a silly notion
+which prevails not only among the peasants of France but also among the
+clowns of all other nations in Europe, fancied himself bewitched by some
+charm or other, which rendered him incapable of performing the rites of
+his marriage bed. Masson thereupon offered, if he would give him a
+reasonable gratuity, to free him from this insupportable malady, and a
+bargain was accordingly struck for four crowns, two of which the fellow
+gave him in his hand, and two more were to be paid on the accomplishment
+of the cure, when there were no more complaints of insufficiency. Upon
+this he immediately demanded the other two crowns, which the other
+refused, and our infatuated thief brought the cause before the
+magistrates, where, when it came to be examined, it appeared plainly
+that Masson had bragged to his companions that he had wrought the
+charm, for the undoing of which he now claimed a reward. And as the
+Justice of the Court required, he was sentenced to be banished as a
+sorcerer, after being first whipped at all the cross-streets in town.
+
+But behold the marvellous conduct of Divine Justice. He appealed from
+this sentence to the parliament at Paris, whither he was no sooner
+conducted under a strong guard, but he was immediately known to be one
+of that gang of assassins which had been executed for the murder of
+Perrier's master and family. Immediately he was charged with this fact,
+and the heirs of that unfortunate gentleman prosecuted their charge with
+such vigour that he received the like judgment, to be broken alive upon
+the wheel at the same place where his associates had suffered death;
+which sentence was rigorously executed five years after the perpetration
+of that execrable fact.
+
+There remained nobody but Jacques Perrier, the author and contriver of
+this horrid villainy, who had not suffered according to their deserts.
+He, after hiding himself for a while, until he saw what became of his
+companions, hastily betook himself to flight, and endeavoured to fly
+into England, where, if he once arrived, he knew he should remain in
+safety. But in this attempt he was disappointed (although nobody pursued
+him), for being arrived at Calais, the same covetous and wicked
+disposition which had prompted him to murder so kind a master and all
+his family, egged him on to rob a certain rich merchant there, which
+villainous design he effected whilst the gentleman was at church. But he
+gained not much by that, for the booty being too large to be concealed,
+he was very quickly apprehended and for this fact condemned to be
+hanged. He had more wit, however, than his companion, Masson, and
+therefore never dreamt of appealing to the parliament of Paris, where he
+knew he should meet with the same fate which had befallen the rest of
+the gang. However, when he came to suffer that death which was appointed
+him by Law, he did not stick to acknowledge that execrable parricide
+which he had projected, as well as carried into execution; so that when
+the news reached Paris, it occasioned universal joy that not one of
+these bloody villains had escaped, but were so wonderfully cut off, when
+they themselves fancied the danger to be over.
+
+The French author from whom I have transcribed this account hath swelled
+the relation with much of that false eloquence which was so common in
+the last age, not only in France, but throughout all Europe. Except that
+I have rejected this, I have been very faithful in this translation, the
+story appearing to me to be very extraordinary in its kind, and worthy
+therefore of being known to the public, since it will sufficiently
+declare that as vice prevails generally throughout all countries and
+climates, stirring up men to cruel and atrocious deeds, so the eye of
+Providence is continually watchful, and suffers not the blood of
+innocents to cry out for revenge in vain. It remains that I inform my
+readers that this villainy was transacted about the year 1611, and that
+Masson and Jacques Perrier suffered in the year 1616.
+
+
+
+
+The Lives of ABRAHAM WHITE, FRANCIS SANDERS, JOHN MINES, _alias_
+MINSHAM, _alias_ MITCHELL, and CONSTANCE BUCKLE, Thieves and
+Housebreakers
+
+
+Of these unfortunate lads, Abraham White was born of mean parents who
+had it not in their power to give him much education, but taught him,
+however, the business of a bricklayer, which was his father's trade, and
+by which, doubtless, if he had been careful, he might have got his
+bread. But he unfortunately addicting himself from childhood to drinking
+and lewd company, soon plunged himself into all manner of wickedness,
+and quickly brought on a fatal necessity of stepping into the road of
+the gallows; and associating himself with Sanders and Minsham, they had
+all gone together upon the road for about six weeks before they were
+taken.
+
+Francis Sanders was a young fellow of very tolerable arts and education.
+He had been put out apprentice to a stay-maker, attained to a great
+proficiency in his trade; and by the help of his friends, who were very
+willing to lend him their assistance, he might have done very well in
+the world if it had not been for that unfortunate inclination to roving,
+which continually possessed him. His acquaintance with a certain bad
+woman was in all probability the first cause of his addicting himself to
+ill-courses, and as in the papers I have before me relating to him, her
+history is also contained, I thought it would not be unentertaining to
+my readers if I ventured to insert it. This woman's true name was Mary
+Smith. She was brought up, while young, from her native country of
+Yorkshire to London, where getting into the service of an eminent
+shopkeeper, she might, had she been honest and industrious, have lived
+easily and with credit; but unfortunately both for herself and her
+master's apprentice, the young man took a liking to her, and one night,
+having first taken care to make himself master of the key of her door,
+he came out of his chamber into hers, where after a faint resistance,
+he got to bed to her. Their correspondence was carried on for a good
+while without suspicion, but the young man having one night stole a
+bottle of rum with a design that it should make his mistress and he
+merry together before they went to bed, they inconsiderately drank so
+heartily of it that the next morning they slept so sound that their
+master and mistress came upstairs at ten o'clock, and found them in bed
+together. Upon this, the wench, without more ado, was turned out of
+doors, and was forced to live at an alehouse of ill-repute, where
+Sanders used to come of an evening, and so got acquainted with her.
+
+John Minsham was an unfortunate wretch, born of mean parents, and
+equally destitute of capacity or education. From the time he had been
+able to crawl alone, he had known scarce any other home than the street.
+Shoe-blacks and such like vagabonds were his constant companions, and
+the only honest employment he ever pretended to was that of a
+hackney-coachman, which the brethren of the whip had taught him out of
+charity.
+
+Thus furnished with bad principles, and every way fitted for those
+detestable practices into which they precipitated themselves, they first
+got into one another's company at a dram-shop near St. Giles in the
+Fields, much frequented by Constance Buckle, a most lewd and abandoned
+strumpet, and one Rowland Jones, a fellow of as bad principles as
+themselves. One night, having intoxicated themselves with the vile
+manufacture of the house, they went out, after they had spent their
+money, and in Bloomsbury Square attacked one John Ross, from whom they
+took away a hat value five shillings, and fourpence halfpenny in money.
+This man, it seems, lived the very next door to the gin-shop where they
+frequented. Going there the next day, to make complaint, he was
+immediately told that the people who had robbed him had sold his hat,
+and were coming thither by and by to drink the money out in gin. Upon
+this information Ross procured proper assistance, and the people keeping
+their appointment pretty exactly, were all surprised and taken.
+
+In the confusion they were under when first apprehended, Minsham and
+Sanders in part owned the fact, but Rowland Jones making a full and
+frank discovery, was accepted as an evidence, and produced against them
+at their trial at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey, where, upon
+full evidence, they were all convicted of this fact, and Francis
+Sanders, Constance Buckle, and Robert Tyler, were indicted for
+assaulting Richard Smith on the highway, putting him in fear, and taking
+from him a hat value five shillings.
+
+Rowland Jones, the evidence, deposed that the night the robbery was
+committed he was in company with the prisoners at a brandy shop, where
+having drunk until they were all pretty much elevated, they went out in
+order to see what they could pick up. And not far from the place they
+went from, overtaking a man whom they saw had a pretty good hat on,
+Sanders hit him a blow in the face, and that not doing the business, he
+repeated it, and at the second blow, the hat fell off from his head,
+whereupon Constance Buckle caught it and clapped it under her coat. The
+constable deposed that by the information of Rowland Jones, he
+apprehended the prisoners. Constance Buckle acknowledged that she was in
+their company when the man was knocked down and the hat taken, whereupon
+the jury, without withdrawing, found them guilty, and they received
+sentence of death.
+
+The woman Constance Buckle pleaded her being with child, and a jury of
+matrons being impannelled, they found she was quick, and thereby
+procured her a respite of execution, and soon after her sentence was
+changed to transportation. The rest, under conviction, behaved
+themselves very indifferently, and manifested sufficiently that though
+custom and an evil disposition might make them bold in the commission of
+robberies, yet when death looked them steadily and unavoidably in the
+face, all that resolution forsook them, and in their last moments they
+behaved with all the appearances of terror which are usually seen in
+souls just awakened to a due sense of their guilt. They died on the 23rd
+of December, 1730; White being eighteen, Sanders near eighteen, and
+Minsham sixteen years of age.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Abergavenny
+Acton Common
+African Company, the Royal
+Allen, a felon
+Alnwick
+Amesbury
+Amlow, Squire
+Amsterdam
+Anderson, Thomas, a thief
+Andover
+Angier, Humphrey, a highwayman
+Annesley, Mr., his Murder
+Ansell, James, a deer-stealer
+Apparition, of a murdered woman
+Appeals, nature of
+Applebee, a footpad
+Apprehension, of offenders
+Armstrong, Samuel, a housebreaker
+Artillery Ground
+Aruba Island
+Ashby, Joseph
+Ashley, Isaac
+Aspley, Mr. Fluellen
+Audley, Lord
+Austin, John, a footpad
+Avery, Captain, a pirate
+
+Bagshot Heath
+Bailey, Francis, a highwayman
+Ball, Thomas
+Baltic, expedition to
+Barcelona
+Barnham, a cheat
+Barton, John, a robber
+    William, a highwayman
+Barwick, William, a murderer
+Bath
+Beezely, Mr., a distiller
+Bellamy, Martin, a thief
+Belsize
+Bennett, an apprentice
+Benson, Edward, a thief
+    F., a thief
+    Timothy, a highwayman
+Berry, Thomas
+Bess, Edgeworth, _see_ Lion, Elizabeth
+Belts
+Beverley
+Bewle, John
+Bicester
+Biddisford, a deer-stealer
+Bigg, Jepthah, an incendiary
+Billers, Sir William
+Billings, Thomas, a murderer
+Bird, Dick
+    James
+Bishopsgate Street
+Bishop Stortford
+Black Act, the
+Blacket, Frances, _alias_ Mary, a highwaywoman
+Blackheath
+Black Mary, _see_ Rawlins, Mary.
+Blake, Joseph, _alias_ Blueskin, a highwayman
+    Robert, a coiner
+Blewit, William
+Bloomsbury Market
+Blueskin (_see_ Blake)
+Blunt, a corporal
+Bohemia
+Bond Street
+Booty, James, a ravisher
+Boston, New England
+Bourn, William, a thief
+Bow
+Bradley, a baker
+    Thomas, a street-robber
+Bradshaw, John, a pirate
+Bramston, William
+Branch, Benjamin
+Brentford
+Bridewell
+Bridges, William
+Brightwell, the brothers
+Brinsden, Matthias, a murderer
+Bristol
+    Mail, robbery of
+Britton, Hannah
+Brixton
+Broom, Thomas
+Brown, a thief
+    Edward, a footpad
+Brownsworth, George
+Buckle, Constance, a strumpet
+Burden, Thomas, a robber
+Burgess, Jonah
+Burglary, laws concerning
+Burk, William, a footpad
+Burnet, Stephen, a street-robber
+Burning alive, a capital punishment
+Burnworth, Edward, _alias_ Frazier
+Burridge, William, a highwayman
+Burton, a shoplift
+Bushey Heath
+Butler, James, a highwayman
+Butlock, Thomas, a thief
+Byng, Admiral
+
+Calhagan
+Calvo, Stefano di
+Cammel, James, a thief
+Campden, Gloucester
+Candy, Joseph
+Cane, Richard, a footpad
+Carolina, America
+Carrick (Carristoun), Orkney
+Carrick, James, a highwayman
+Carrol, a thief
+Cartwright, John
+Casey, William, a robber
+Caustin, William, a footpad
+Cawood Castle
+Chambers, a felon
+Chancery Lane
+Charnock, Thomas
+Charringworth, Glos.
+Cheapside
+Chelsea
+Chester
+Chester-in-the-Street
+Chickley, Captain
+Civil John, _see_ Turner, John
+Clare Market
+Clark, Eleanor
+Clark, Matthew, a footpad
+Claxton, John, a thief
+Clean-Limbed Tom, a footpad
+Cliffe, James
+Clink Prison
+Cluff, James, a murderer
+Cobham, Lord
+Coffee, William, a negro
+Coining
+Colthouse, William
+Conyers, Symbol
+Cope, Colonel
+Copenhagen
+    House, Islington
+Cork
+Cornwall, Joshua, a thief
+Cotterell, John, a thief
+Cotton, Timothy, a highwayman
+Covent Garden
+Coventry Act
+Cox, Mr., a surgeon
+Crouch, Robert, a footpad
+Crouches, Stephen
+Crowder, Thomas, a thief
+Croydon
+Cullen Pierce
+Currey, George
+Curtis, Peter
+
+Da Costa, Mr. Jacob Mendez
+Dalton, James, a thief
+Darby, Widdington
+Darien, colonials at
+Davis, Captain Howel, a pirate
+    John
+    Lumley, a highwayman
+    Moll, a diver
+    Vincent, a murderer
+Dawson, Mrs.
+Deal
+Dean, Mrs., wife of J. Wild
+De Casteja, Baron
+Delasay, Mr., Under-Secretary of State
+Denton, Justice
+Deval, Abraham, a forger
+Dickenson, Emanuel
+Dimmock, Mr., a sailor
+Disney
+Doncaster
+Dorchester
+Dormer
+Dowdale, Stephen, a thief
+Doyle, John, a highwayman
+Drummond, James
+    Robert, a highwayman
+Drury, Anthony
+    Lane
+Dublin
+Duce, William, a highwayman
+Dumbleton, Abraham, a thief
+Dyer, John
+Dykes, John, a thief 52-54
+
+Eaton, Mr., a Lifeguardsman
+Ebrington, Glos.
+Edgeworth, Bess, _see_ Lion, Elizabeth
+Elisha, William, a highwayman
+Elliot, Edward, a deer-stealer
+Ellis, Colonel
+Ellison, Ebenezer, an Irish thief
+Epsom
+Everett, John, a highwayman
+Execution Dock
+Exeter
+
+Falcon Stairs
+Farnham Holt
+Fea, Mr., of Eday, Orkneys
+Featherby, John, a Street-Robber
+Fenwick, Nicholas
+Ferneau, Oliver
+Ferris, a coiner
+Field, William
+Finch, Mr., resident at the Hague
+Finchley, Common
+Fink, Bernard
+Fisher, Henry, a murderer
+Fitzer, William
+Fitzpatrick, Katherine, a shoplift
+Flanders
+Fleet Prison
+    Street
+Flood, Matthew, footpad
+Follwell, John
+Foster, John, a housebreaker
+Fowles, Amy
+Fowls
+Frazier, ring-keeper at Moorfields
+Frost, William, a highwayman
+Fulsom, a thief
+
+Gahogan, Henry, a coiner
+Gale, George, a thief
+Gambia River
+Gardiner, Stephen, a highwayman
+Garnet, William
+Garraway
+_George_ galley
+Gerrard, Samuel, a constable
+Gilburn, Nicholas, a highwayman
+Gillingham, John, a highwayman
+Gloucester
+    Statute of
+Golden Tinman, the, _see_ Trippuck, John
+Golding, Thomas
+Goldington, Sarah
+Gomeroon, Joseph
+Gow, John, a pirate
+Grace, Charles
+Grahamsey, Orkneys
+Gravesend
+Great Ombersley
+Green, Alice, a cheat
+    Jenny
+    Mary
+    Peter
+Greenford
+Greenwich
+Griffin, Jane, a murderess
+Griffith, Thomas
+Grundy, Thomas James, a housebreaker
+Guy, John, a deer-stealer
+
+Hall, Richard
+Hammersmith
+Hamp, John, footpad
+Hampstead
+    Road
+Hanson, Mr.
+    Mary, a murderer
+Hanwell Green
+Harman, James, a highwayman
+Harpham, Robert, a coiner
+Harris, Samuel, a highwayman
+Harrison, William
+Hartly, John
+Harwich
+Hatfield, Herts.
+Hawes, Nathaniel, a thief
+Hawksworth, William, a murderer
+Hayes, Catherine, a murderess
+Haymarket
+Haynes, Robert, a murderer
+Hereford
+Hewlett, John, a murderer
+Hide, Martha
+Higgs, John
+Highgate
+Highwaymen, laws against
+High Wycombe
+Hoare, Mr., the banker
+Hockley-in-the-Hole
+Holborn
+Holden, William, a footpad
+Hollis, William, a thief
+Holmes, Jane, a shoplifter
+Honeyman, Mr., of Grahamsey
+Hornby, John, a thief
+Horseferry, Westminster
+Horsely Down, Southwark
+Houghton, Hugh, a robber
+Hounslow Heath
+Houssart, Lewis, a murderer
+How, James, a highwayman
+Hue and cry
+Hughs, John, a footpad
+    Richard, a highwayman
+Hulse, Dr. Edward
+Hungerford
+Huntingdon
+Hyde Park
+
+_Ignoramus_, in law
+Inns and Taverns:
+    Adam and Eve, St. Pancras
+    Baptist Head, Old Bailey
+    Black Boy, Goodman's Fields
+    Boar's Head, Smithfield
+    Brawn's Head, New Bond Street
+    Cardigan's Head, Charing Cross
+    Castle, Fleet Street
+    Coach and Horses, Old Palace Yard
+    Cock, Old Bailey
+    Dog and Dial, Monmouth Street
+    Elephant and Castle, Fleet Street
+    Farthing Pie House
+    Fighting Cocks, St. George's Fields
+    Globe, Hatton Garden
+    Green Lettuce, Holborn
+    Hampshire Hog
+    Horn, Fleet Street
+    King of Hearts, Fore Street
+    King's Arms, Red Lion Street
+    King's Head, Fish Street
+    One Tun, Strand
+    Pinder of Wakefield
+    Red Lion, Cow Cross
+    Red Lion, Lambeth
+    Rummer and Horseshoe, Drury Lane
+    Shoulder of Mutton, Billingsgate
+    Sieve, Little Minories
+    Thistle and Crown, Old Bailey
+    Three Bowls, St. James's
+    Three Pigeons
+    White Bear, Piccadilly
+Insurance Offices, cheated
+Islington
+Israel, Abraham, a Jew
+
+Jackson, Nathaniel, a highwayman
+Jaen, Captain, a murderer
+Jamaica
+James, Richard, a highwayman
+Jenny, wife of T. Benson
+Johnson, Jane
+    John, a coiner
+    Robert, a highwayman
+    Roger
+Jones, Benjamin
+    Elizabeth
+    John, a pickpocket
+    Mr. Richard
+    Rowland
+Julian, an incendiary
+Justices of the Peace, remarks upon
+
+Kelley, Peter, a murderer
+Kelly, Hugh
+Kemp, Joseph, a housebreaker
+Kennedy, Walter, a pirate
+Kennington Common
+Kensington
+King, Robert
+Kingshell, Robert, a deer-stealer
+King's Road, Chelsea
+    Street, Westminster
+Kingston
+Kirkwall
+Knap, John
+Kneebone, Mr.
+Knightsbridge
+Knowland, Henry, a footpad
+
+Lamb, Anthony
+Lambert, Justice
+Langley, Captain
+    Claude
+Larceny, laws concerning
+Laws, Sir Nicholas
+Law terms
+Leadenhall Street
+Leather Lane
+Leeds, the Duke of
+Leghorn, Italy
+Leonard, Christopher, and Kate
+Levee, John, a highwayman
+    Peter, a street-robber
+Lewis, John, a thief
+Lincoln, James, a murderer
+Lincoln's Inn Fields
+Lion, Elizabeth, or Edgeworth Bess
+Lipsat, William, a thief
+Little, James, a footpad
+    John, a housebreaker
+    Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn
+Lock, William
+Lofthouse, Thomas
+Longmore, Henry
+Lotteries
+Low, Captain Edward
+Lowther, Mr.
+    Captain, George
+
+MacCauly, a pirate
+MacGuire, Bryan, a highwayman
+Maggott, Mrs.
+Maidstone
+Man, Betty
+Manley, Mrs., the author
+Marjoram, William
+Marlborough, Wilts.
+Marple, William, a highwayman
+Marshall, Henry, a deer-stealer
+Marshal, William, a thief
+Marshalsea Prison
+Martin, Jane, a cheat
+    Peter, a Chelsea pensioner
+Maryland, plantations in
+Marylebone
+Massey, Captain John
+Maycock, Mrs.
+Medline, Thomas, a highwayman
+Meff, John, a housebreaker
+Malvin, a pirate
+Middleton, Joseph, a housebreaker
+Miles, Mrs.
+Miller, William, a highwayman
+Milliner, Mary
+Millington Common
+Minsham, John, a thief
+Mint, in Southwark
+Mitcham
+Molony, John, a thief
+_Monmouth_, man-of-war
+Moody
+Moorfields
+Morphew, John
+Morris, Edward
+    Hugh, a highwayman
+Murden, Sir Jeremiah
+Murrel, John, a horse-stealer
+Myring, Leonard, a barber
+
+Neal, Edmund, a footpad
+Neasden
+Neeves, Thomas, a thief
+Newbury, Berks.
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne
+Newcomb, William, a housebreaker
+Newfoundland
+Newgate
+Newman, Mr. Nathaniel
+Newmarket
+New Mint
+New Prison
+New York
+Nichols, John
+    Richard, a thief
+    Robert
+_Night Rambler_, a pirate sloop
+Nisbet, a joiner
+Northampton
+Norwich
+Nottingham
+Nunney, Luke, a murderer
+
+Oakey, Richard, a footpad
+Oblivion, Act of (1660)
+O'Brian, a thief
+O'Bryan, James, a highwayman
+Ogden, Samuel, highwayman
+Old Bailey
+Old Spa, Clerkenwell
+Oliver, Robert, a thief
+Oporto
+Osborn, Elizabeth
+Ouranaquoy, an Indian chief
+Overbery, Sir Thomas
+Owen, Griffith, a highwayman
+Oxford
+    Road
+
+Packer, Thomas, a highwayman
+Palermo
+Pall Mall
+Parford, Mr.
+Paris
+Parvin, Richard, a deer-stealer
+Paternoster Row
+Patrick, Samuel
+Payne, Mrs. Diana
+    John
+    Sarah, an infamous woman
+_Peine fort et Dure_
+Pennsylvania
+Penrice, Sir Henry
+Perkins, Robert, a thief
+Perrier, Jacques, a French robber
+_Perry_ galley
+Perry, Edward
+    John, and his family, murderers
+    Thomas, a footpad
+Peterson, a pirate
+Phelps
+Philadelphia
+Philip, a justice's clerk
+Philpot, Mr., a surveyor
+Piccadilly
+Picken, Joseph, a highwayman
+Pincher, William
+Pink, Edward and John, deer-stealers
+Pitts, Colonel
+Plantations of America
+Poison, Thomas, a footpad
+Porto Santo, Madeira
+Portsmouth
+    Road
+Pots, Philip
+Poultry Compter
+Powell, Sir John
+Prague, description of
+Pressing, as a punishment
+Price, John, a housebreaker
+Pugh, John, highwayman
+Purney, Ordinary of Newgate
+Putney Common
+Pye, Richard
+
+Quakers, robbed
+
+Rag Fair
+Ransom, John
+Ratcliff Highway
+Rawlins, Christopher, a thief
+    Mary (Black Mary)
+    Thomas
+Raymond, Lord Chief Justice
+Read, Robert
+    William
+    William, of Campden
+Reading, James
+Receiving, practised by Wild
+Reddey, Eleanor
+Red Lion Fields
+    Square
+Reeves, Thomas, a highwayman
+_Revenge_, a pirate galley
+Rewards, for apprehending criminals
+Reynolds, Edward, a thief
+Rice
+Rivers, Thomas, a thief
+Roberts, Dorcas
+Robinson, Mary, a shoplift
+Roche, Philip, a pirate
+Rogers, William, a thief
+    Captain Woodes
+Rondeau, Anne
+Rose Sponging-house
+Rotterdam
+Rouden, John, _alias_ Hulks, a thief
+Russell, William, a footpad
+
+Sadler's Wells
+St. Albans
+St. Andrew's, Holborn
+St. George's Fields
+St. Giles's Pound
+    Round-house
+St. James's Park
+St. Margaret's, Westminster
+St. Pancras
+St. Paul's, Covent Garden
+St. Sepulchre's Bell-man
+St. Swithin's Alley, Cornhill
+St. Thomas's Hospital
+Salisbury
+Salter, Peter
+Sanctuaries in London
+Sanders, Francis, a thief
+Sandford
+Santa Cruz
+Scarborough, Earl of
+Schmidt, Frederick, alterer of bank-notes
+Scrimgeour
+Scurrier, Richard, a shoplift
+Sefton, William, a thief
+Sells, Samuel
+Sharp, Mark, a murderer
+Shaw, James, a highwayman
+Sheldon, Mrs.
+Shelterers, the
+Shepherd, Jack, highwayman, and prisonbreaker
+    Richard, a housebreaker
+    Thomas, a thief
+Sherbourne
+Sherwood, James, a footpad
+Shoreditch
+Shrewsberry, _alias_ Smith, Joseph, a robber
+Shrewsbury
+Shrimpton, Ferdinand, a highwayman
+Sikes, James
+Simpson, William, a horse-stealer
+Sleaford
+Smith, Bryan, a blackmailer
+    John, a murderer
+    Mary, a whore
+    Simon
+    Thomas, a highwayman
+Smithfield
+Smoky Chimney Doctor, _see_ Drury, A.
+Smyrna
+Snow, Foster
+Southampton Street
+Spain, expedition to
+Spencer, Barbara, a coiner
+Sperry, William, a footpad
+Springate, Mrs.
+Spring Gardens
+Stabbing, Statute of
+Standford, Mary, a pickpocket
+Stanley, Captain John, a murderer
+Stephens, Catherine
+Stepney
+Stevens, Mary
+Stinton, Thomas
+Stockden, Worcestershire
+Stocks, Market
+Stone, John
+Sunderland
+Swaffo, Baron
+Swift, William, a thief
+
+Tartoue, Peter
+Taverns, _see_ Inns
+Temple, The
+Thompson, Sarah
+Thompson, Sir William, recorder
+Thomson, John, a highwayman
+Tilt Yard, Westminster
+Timms, Thomas, a footpad
+Tompkins, Mr.
+Toon, James, a thief
+Tothill Fields, Bridewell
+Tottenham
+    Court Road
+Tower Hill
+Towers, Mr.
+    Charles, a minter
+Transportation
+Trantham, Richard, a housebreaker
+Trig Stairs
+Trippuck, John, a highwayman
+Turner, Mrs. Elizabeth
+    John, _alias_ Civil John, a highwayman
+Turnham Green
+Tyburn
+Tyrrell, John, a horse-stealer
+
+Upton, John, a pirate
+
+Vanloden, Baron and Countess
+Vaux, Thomas, a street-robber
+Vigo
+Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane
+
+Wakeling, Mr.
+Walden, Matthew
+Walker, Ann
+Waller, John
+Waltham Blacks, the
+Wandsworth
+Wapping
+Ward Joseph, a footpad
+Waterford
+Watts, Sarah, a fence
+Weaver, Charles, a murderer
+Weedon, George, a footpad
+Wendover
+West, Jeddediah
+    John
+Westbrook, a surgeon
+West Chester
+    Chester, Pennsylvania
+    Haden, Northants
+Westwood, James
+    Thomas, a footpad
+Whalebone, _alias_ Welbone, John, a thief
+Whinyard, Mr.
+White, Abraham, a thief
+    James, a thief
+Whitechapel
+Whitefriars
+Whittingham, Richard, a footpad
+Wight, Isle of
+Wigley, John, a highwayman
+Wild, Jonathan, thief-taker
+Wildgoose, a servant
+Wileman, Benjamin, a highwayman
+Wilkinson, Robert, a murderer
+Willesden Green
+Will the Sailor
+Williams, a pirate
+Willis, a constable
+Willoughby, Mr.
+Wilson, Thomas, a footpad
+Windsor
+Winship, John, a highwayman
+Wise, Captain
+Wood, Thomas
+Woodbury Hill, Dorset
+Woodman, Richard, a highwayman
+Wood Street Compter
+Worcester
+Worebington, Roger
+Wright, James, a highwayman
+
+Yarmouth
+Yates, _alias_ Gates, _alias_ Vulcan
+York, Mr.
+Yorkshire Bob, a housebreaker
+Young, John, a highwayman
+    Hon. William
+Younger, Geoffrey, a footpad
+
+Zouch, William
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals
+Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences, by Arthur L. Hayward
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKABLE CRIMINALS ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/macbeth b/files/books/unrelated/macbeth
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dad0e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/macbeth
@@ -0,0 +1,3662 @@
+***The Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's First Folio***
+********************The Tragedie of Macbeth*********************
+
+This is our 3rd edition of most of these plays.  See the index.
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+The Tragedie of Macbeth
+
+by William Shakespeare
+
+July, 2000  [Etext #2264]
+
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+***The Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's First Folio***
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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's The Tragedie of Macbeth
+
+
+
+
+
+Executive Director's Notes:
+
+In addition to the notes below, and so you will *NOT* think all
+the spelling errors introduced by the printers of the time have
+been corrected, here are the first few lines of Hamlet, as they
+are presented herein:
+
+  Barnardo. Who's there?
+  Fran. Nay answer me: Stand & vnfold
+your selfe
+
+   Bar. Long liue the King
+
+***
+
+As I understand it, the printers often ran out of certain words
+or letters they had often packed into a "cliche". . .this is the
+original meaning of the term cliche. . .and thus, being unwilling
+to unpack the cliches, and thus you will see some substitutions
+that look very odd. . .such as the exchanges of u for v, v for u,
+above. . .and you may wonder why they did it this way, presuming
+Shakespeare did not actually write the play in this manner. . . .
+
+The answer is that they MAY have packed "liue" into a cliche at a
+time when they were out of "v"'s. . .possibly having used "vv" in
+place of some "w"'s, etc.  This was a common practice of the day,
+as print was still quite expensive, and they didn't want to spend
+more on a wider selection of characters than they had to.
+
+You will find a lot of these kinds of "errors" in this text, as I
+have mentioned in other times and places, many "scholars" have an
+extreme attachment to these errors, and many have accorded them a
+very high place in the "canon" of Shakespeare.  My father read an
+assortment of these made available to him by Cambridge University
+in England for several months in a glass room constructed for the
+purpose.  To the best of my knowledge he read ALL those available
+. . .in great detail. . .and determined from the various changes,
+that Shakespeare most likely did not write in nearly as many of a
+variety of errors we credit him for, even though he was in/famous
+for signing his name with several different spellings.
+
+So, please take this into account when reading the comments below
+made by our volunteer who prepared this file:  you may see errors
+that are "not" errors. . . .
+
+So. . .with this caveat. . .we have NOT changed the canon errors,
+here is the Project Gutenberg Etext of Shakespeare's The Tragedie
+of Macbeth.
+
+Michael S. Hart
+Project Gutenberg
+Executive Director
+
+
+***
+
+
+Scanner's Notes: What this is and isn't.  This was taken from
+a copy of Shakespeare's first folio and it is as close as I can
+come in ASCII to the printed text.
+
+The elongated S's have been changed to small s's and the
+conjoined ae have been changed to ae.  I have left the spelling,
+punctuation, capitalization as close as possible to the
+printed text.  I have corrected some spelling mistakes (I have put
+together a spelling dictionary devised from the spellings of the
+Geneva Bible and Shakespeare's First Folio and have unified
+spellings according to this template), typo's and expanded
+abbreviations as I have come across them.  Everything within
+brackets [] is what I have added.  So if you don't like that
+you can delete everything within the brackets if you want a
+purer Shakespeare.
+
+Another thing that you should be aware of is that there are textual
+differences between various copies of the first folio.  So there may
+be differences (other than what I have mentioned above) between
+this and other first folio editions.  This is due to the printer's
+habit of setting the type and running off a number of copies and
+then proofing the printed copy and correcting the type and then
+continuing the printing run.  The proof run wasn't thrown away but
+incorporated into the printed copies.  This is just the way it is.
+The text I have used was a composite of more than 30 different
+First Folio editions' best pages.
+
+If you find any scanning errors, out and out typos, punctuation
+errors, or if you disagree with my spelling choices please feel
+free to email me those errors.  I wish to make this the best
+etext possible.  My email address for right now are haradda@aol.com
+and davidr@inconnect.com.  I hope that you enjoy this.
+
+David Reed
+
+The Tragedie of Macbeth
+
+Actus Primus. Scoena Prima.
+
+Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.
+
+  1. When shall we three meet againe?
+In Thunder, Lightning, or in Raine?
+  2. When the Hurley-burley's done,
+When the Battaile's lost, and wonne
+
+   3. That will be ere the set of Sunne
+
+   1. Where the place?
+  2. Vpon the Heath
+
+   3. There to meet with Macbeth
+
+   1. I come, Gray-Malkin
+
+   All. Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire,
+Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Secunda.
+
+Alarum within. Enter King, Malcome, Donalbaine, Lenox, with
+attendants, meeting a bleeding Captaine.
+
+  King. What bloody man is that? he can report,
+As seemeth by his plight, of the Reuolt
+The newest state
+
+   Mal. This is the Serieant,
+Who like a good and hardie Souldier fought
+'Gainst my Captiuitie: Haile braue friend;
+Say to the King, the knowledge of the Broyle,
+As thou didst leaue it
+
+   Cap. Doubtfull it stood,
+As two spent Swimmers, that doe cling together,
+And choake their Art: The mercilesse Macdonwald
+(Worthie to be a Rebell, for to that
+The multiplying Villanies of Nature
+Doe swarme vpon him) from the Westerne Isles
+Of Kernes and Gallowgrosses is supply'd,
+And Fortune on his damned Quarry smiling,
+Shew'd like a Rebells Whore: but all's too weake:
+For braue Macbeth (well hee deserues that Name)
+Disdayning Fortune, with his brandisht Steele,
+Which smoak'd with bloody execution
+(Like Valours Minion) caru'd out his passage,
+Till hee fac'd the Slaue:
+Which neu'r shooke hands, nor bad farwell to him,
+Till he vnseam'd him from the Naue toth' Chops,
+And fix'd his Head vpon our Battlements
+
+   King. O valiant Cousin, worthy Gentleman
+
+   Cap. As whence the Sunne 'gins his reflection,
+Shipwracking Stormes, and direfull Thunders:
+So from that Spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,
+Discomfort swells: Marke King of Scotland, marke,
+No sooner Iustice had, with Valour arm'd,
+Compell'd these skipping Kernes to trust their heeles,
+But the Norweyan Lord, surueying vantage,
+With furbusht Armes, and new supplyes of men,
+Began a fresh assault
+
+   King. Dismay'd not this our Captaines, Macbeth and
+Banquoh?
+  Cap. Yes, as Sparrowes, Eagles;
+Or the Hare, the Lyon:
+If I say sooth, I must report they were
+As Cannons ouer-charg'd with double Cracks,
+So they doubly redoubled stroakes vpon the Foe:
+Except they meant to bathe in reeking Wounds,
+Or memorize another Golgotha,
+I cannot tell: but I am faint,
+My Gashes cry for helpe
+
+   King. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds,
+They smack of Honor both: Goe get him Surgeons.
+Enter Rosse and Angus.
+
+Who comes here?
+  Mal. The worthy Thane of Rosse
+
+   Lenox. What a haste lookes through his eyes?
+So should he looke, that seemes to speake things strange
+
+   Rosse. God saue the King
+
+   King. Whence cam'st thou, worthy Thane?
+  Rosse. From Fiffe, great King,
+Where the Norweyan Banners flowt the Skie,
+And fanne our people cold.
+Norway himselfe, with terrible numbers,
+Assisted by that most disloyall Traytor,
+The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismall Conflict,
+Till that Bellona's Bridegroome, lapt in proofe,
+Confronted him with selfe-comparisons,
+Point against Point, rebellious Arme 'gainst Arme,
+Curbing his lauish spirit: and to conclude,
+The Victorie fell on vs
+
+   King. Great happinesse
+
+   Rosse. That now Sweno, the Norwayes King,
+Craues composition:
+Nor would we deigne him buriall of his men,
+Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch,
+Ten thousand Dollars, to our generall vse
+
+   King. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceiue
+Our Bosome interest: Goe pronounce his present death,
+And with his former Title greet Macbeth
+
+   Rosse. Ile see it done
+
+   King. What he hath lost, Noble Macbeth hath wonne.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Tertia.
+
+Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
+
+  1. Where hast thou beene, Sister?
+  2. Killing Swine
+
+   3. Sister, where thou?
+  1. A Saylors Wife had Chestnuts in her Lappe,
+And mouncht, & mouncht, and mouncht:
+Giue me, quoth I.
+Aroynt thee, Witch, the rumpe-fed Ronyon cryes.
+Her Husband's to Aleppo gone, Master o'th' Tiger:
+But in a Syue Ile thither sayle,
+And like a Rat without a tayle,
+Ile doe, Ile doe, and Ile doe
+
+   2. Ile giue thee a Winde
+
+   1. Th'art kinde
+
+   3. And I another
+
+   1. I my selfe haue all the other,
+And the very Ports they blow,
+All the Quarters that they know,
+I'th' Ship-mans Card.
+Ile dreyne him drie as Hay:
+Sleepe shall neyther Night nor Day
+Hang vpon his Pent-house Lid:
+He shall liue a man forbid:
+Wearie Seu'nights, nine times nine,
+Shall he dwindle, peake, and pine:
+Though his Barke cannot be lost,
+Yet it shall be Tempest-tost.
+Looke what I haue
+
+   2. Shew me, shew me
+
+   1. Here I haue a Pilots Thumbe,
+Wrackt, as homeward he did come.
+
+Drum within.
+
+  3. A Drumme, a Drumme:
+Macbeth doth come
+
+   All. The weyward Sisters, hand in hand,
+Posters of the Sea and Land,
+Thus doe goe, about, about,
+Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
+And thrice againe, to make vp nine.
+Peace, the Charme's wound vp.
+Enter Macbeth and Banquo.
+
+  Macb. So foule and faire a day I haue not seene
+
+   Banquo. How farre is't call'd to Soris? What are these,
+So wither'd, and so wilde in their attyre,
+That looke not like th' Inhabitants o'th' Earth,
+And yet are on't? Liue you, or are you aught
+That man may question? you seeme to vnderstand me,
+By each at once her choppie finger laying
+Vpon her skinnie Lips: you should be Women,
+And yet your Beards forbid me to interprete
+That you are so
+
+   Mac. Speake if you can: what are you?
+  1. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Glamis
+
+   2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor
+
+   3. All haile Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter
+
+   Banq. Good Sir, why doe you start, and seeme to feare
+Things that doe sound so faire? i'th' name of truth
+Are ye fantasticall, or that indeed
+Which outwardly ye shew? My Noble Partner
+You greet with present Grace, and great prediction
+Of Noble hauing, and of Royall hope,
+That he seemes wrapt withall: to me you speake not.
+If you can looke into the Seedes of Time,
+And say, which Graine will grow, and which will not,
+Speake then to me, who neyther begge, nor feare
+Your fauors, nor your hate
+
+   1. Hayle
+
+   2. Hayle
+
+   3. Hayle
+
+   1. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater
+
+   2. Not so happy, yet much happyer
+
+   3. Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none:
+So all haile Macbeth, and Banquo
+
+   1. Banquo, and Macbeth, all haile
+
+   Macb. Stay you imperfect Speakers, tell me more:
+By Sinells death, I know I am Thane of Glamis,
+But how, of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor liues
+A prosperous Gentleman: And to be King,
+Stands not within the prospect of beleefe,
+No more then to be Cawdor. Say from whence
+You owe this strange Intelligence, or why
+Vpon this blasted Heath you stop our way
+With such Prophetique greeting?
+Speake, I charge you.
+
+Witches vanish.
+
+  Banq. The Earth hath bubbles, as the Water ha's,
+And these are of them: whither are they vanish'd?
+  Macb. Into the Ayre: and what seem'd corporall,
+Melted, as breath into the Winde.
+Would they had stay'd
+
+   Banq. Were such things here, as we doe speake about?
+Or haue we eaten on the insane Root,
+That takes the Reason Prisoner?
+  Macb. Your Children shall be Kings
+
+   Banq. You shall be King
+
+   Macb. And Thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
+  Banq. Toth' selfe-same tune and words: who's here?
+Enter Rosse and Angus.
+
+  Rosse. The King hath happily receiu'd, Macbeth,
+The newes of thy successe: and when he reades
+Thy personall Venture in the Rebels sight,
+His Wonders and his Prayses doe contend,
+Which should be thine, or his: silenc'd with that,
+In viewing o're the rest o'th' selfe-same day,
+He findes thee in the stout Norweyan Rankes,
+Nothing afeard of what thy selfe didst make
+Strange Images of death, as thick as Tale
+Can post with post, and euery one did beare
+Thy prayses in his Kingdomes great defence,
+And powr'd them downe before him
+
+   Ang. Wee are sent,
+To giue thee from our Royall Master thanks,
+Onely to harrold thee into his sight,
+Not pay thee
+
+   Rosse. And for an earnest of a greater Honor,
+He bad me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
+In which addition, haile most worthy Thane,
+For it is thine
+
+   Banq. What, can the Deuill speake true?
+  Macb. The Thane of Cawdor liues:
+Why doe you dresse me in borrowed Robes?
+  Ang. Who was the Thane, liues yet,
+But vnder heauie Iudgement beares that Life,
+Which he deserues to loose.
+Whether he was combin'd with those of Norway,
+Or did lyne the Rebell with hidden helpe,
+And vantage; or that with both he labour'd
+In his Countreyes wracke, I know not:
+But Treasons Capitall, confess'd, and prou'd,
+Haue ouerthrowne him
+
+   Macb. Glamys, and Thane of Cawdor:
+The greatest is behinde. Thankes for your paines.
+Doe you not hope your Children shall be Kings,
+When those that gaue the Thane of Cawdor to me,
+Promis'd no lesse to them
+
+   Banq. That trusted home,
+Might yet enkindle you vnto the Crowne,
+Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
+And oftentimes, to winne vs to our harme,
+The Instruments of Darknesse tell vs Truths,
+Winne vs with honest Trifles, to betray's
+In deepest consequence.
+Cousins, a word, I pray you
+
+   Macb. Two Truths are told,
+As happy Prologues to the swelling Act
+Of the Imperiall Theame. I thanke you Gentlemen:
+This supernaturall solliciting
+Cannot be ill; cannot be good.
+If ill? why hath it giuen me earnest of successe,
+Commencing in a Truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
+If good? why doe I yeeld to that suggestion,
+Whose horrid Image doth vnfixe my Heire,
+And make my seated Heart knock at my Ribbes,
+Against the vse of Nature? Present Feares
+Are lesse then horrible Imaginings:
+My Thought, whose Murther yet is but fantasticall,
+Shakes so my single state of Man,
+That Function is smother'd in surmise,
+And nothing is, but what is not
+
+   Banq. Looke how our Partner's rapt
+
+   Macb. If Chance will haue me King,
+Why Chance may Crowne me,
+Without my stirre
+
+   Banq. New Honors come vpon him
+Like our strange Garments, cleaue not to their mould,
+But with the aid of vse
+
+   Macb. Come what come may,
+Time, and the Houre, runs through the roughest Day
+
+   Banq. Worthy Macbeth, wee stay vpon your leysure
+
+   Macb. Giue me your fauour:
+My dull Braine was wrought with things forgotten.
+Kinde Gentlemen, your paines are registred,
+Where euery day I turne the Leafe,
+To reade them.
+Let vs toward the King: thinke vpon
+What hath chanc'd: and at more time,
+The Interim hauing weigh'd it, let vs speake
+Our free Hearts each to other
+
+   Banq. Very gladly
+
+   Macb. Till then enough:
+Come friends.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Quarta.
+
+Flourish. Enter King, Lenox, Malcolme, Donalbaine, and
+Attendants.
+
+  King. Is execution done on Cawdor?
+Or not those in Commission yet return'd?
+  Mal. My Liege, they are not yet come back.
+But I haue spoke with one that saw him die:
+Who did report, that very frankly hee
+Confess'd his Treasons, implor'd your Highnesse Pardon,
+And set forth a deepe Repentance:
+Nothing in his Life became him,
+Like the leauing it. Hee dy'de,
+As one that had beene studied in his death,
+To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
+As 'twere a carelesse Trifle
+
+   King. There's no Art,
+To finde the Mindes construction in the Face.
+He was a Gentleman, on whom I built
+An absolute Trust.
+Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Rosse, and Angus.
+
+O worthyest Cousin,
+The sinne of my Ingratitude euen now
+Was heauie on me. Thou art so farre before,
+That swiftest Wing of Recompence is slow,
+To ouertake thee. Would thou hadst lesse deseru'd,
+That the proportion both of thanks, and payment,
+Might haue beene mine: onely I haue left to say,
+More is thy due, then more then all can pay
+
+   Macb. The seruice, and the loyaltie I owe,
+In doing it, payes it selfe.
+Your Highnesse part, is to receiue our Duties:
+And our Duties are to your Throne, and State,
+Children, and Seruants; which doe but what they should,
+By doing euery thing safe toward your Loue
+And Honor
+
+   King. Welcome hither:
+I haue begun to plant thee, and will labour
+To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
+That hast no lesse deseru'd, nor must be knowne
+No lesse to haue done so: Let me enfold thee,
+And hold thee to my Heart
+
+   Banq. There if I grow,
+The Haruest is your owne
+
+   King. My plenteous Ioyes,
+Wanton in fulnesse, seeke to hide themselues
+In drops of sorrow. Sonnes, Kinsmen, Thanes,
+And you whose places are the nearest, know,
+We will establish our Estate vpon
+Our eldest, Malcolme, whom we name hereafter,
+The Prince of Cumberland: which Honor must
+Not vnaccompanied, inuest him onely,
+But signes of Noblenesse, like Starres, shall shine
+On all deseruers. From hence to Envernes,
+And binde vs further to you
+
+   Macb. The Rest is Labor, which is not vs'd for you:
+Ile be my selfe the Herbenger, and make ioyfull
+The hearing of my Wife, with your approach:
+So humbly take my leaue
+
+   King. My worthy Cawdor
+
+   Macb. The Prince of Cumberland: that is a step,
+On which I must fall downe, or else o're-leape,
+For in my way it lyes. Starres hide your fires,
+Let not Light see my black and deepe desires:
+The Eye winke at the Hand: yet let that bee,
+Which the Eye feares, when it is done to see.
+Enter.
+
+  King. True worthy Banquo: he is full so valiant,
+And in his commendations, I am fed:
+It is a Banquet to me. Let's after him,
+Whose care is gone before, to bid vs welcome:
+It is a peerelesse Kinsman.
+
+Flourish. Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Quinta.
+
+Enter Macbeths Wife alone with a Letter.
+
+  Lady. They met me in the day of successe: and I haue
+learn'd by the perfect'st report, they haue more in them, then
+mortall knowledge. When I burnt in desire to question them
+further, they made themselues Ayre, into which they vanish'd.
+Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came Missiues from
+the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor, by which Title
+before, these weyward Sisters saluted me, and referr'd me to
+the comming on of time, with haile King that shalt be. This
+haue I thought good to deliuer thee (my dearest Partner of
+Greatnesse) that thou might'st not loose the dues of reioycing
+by being ignorant of what Greatnesse is promis'd thee. Lay
+it to thy heart and farewell.
+Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
+What thou art promis'd: yet doe I feare thy Nature,
+It is too full o'th' Milke of humane kindnesse,
+To catch the neerest way. Thou would'st be great,
+Art not without Ambition, but without
+The illnesse should attend it. What thou would'st highly,
+That would'st thou holily: would'st not play false,
+And yet would'st wrongly winne.
+Thould'st haue, great Glamys, that which cryes,
+Thus thou must doe, if thou haue it;
+And that which rather thou do'st feare to doe,
+Then wishest should be vndone. High thee hither,
+That I may powre my Spirits in thine Eare,
+And chastise with the valour of my Tongue
+All that impeides thee from the Golden Round,
+Which Fate and Metaphysicall ayde doth seeme
+To haue thee crown'd withall.
+Enter Messenger.
+
+What is your tidings?
+  Mess. The King comes here to Night
+
+   Lady. Thou'rt mad to say it.
+Is not thy Master with him? who, wer't so,
+Would haue inform'd for preparation
+
+   Mess. So please you, it is true: our Thane is comming:
+One of my fellowes had the speed of him;
+Who almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
+Then would make vp his Message
+
+   Lady. Giue him tending,
+He brings great newes,
+
+Exit Messenger.
+
+The Rauen himselfe is hoarse,
+That croakes the fatall entrance of Duncan
+Vnder my Battlements. Come you Spirits,
+That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here,
+And fill me from the Crowne to the Toe, top-full
+Of direst Crueltie: make thick my blood,
+Stop vp th' accesse, and passage to Remorse,
+That no compunctious visitings of Nature
+Shake my fell purpose, nor keepe peace betweene
+Th' effect, and hit. Come to my Womans Brests,
+And take my Milke for Gall, you murth'ring Ministers,
+Where-euer, in your sightlesse substances,
+You wait on Natures Mischiefe. Come thick Night,
+And pall thee in the dunnest smoake of Hell,
+
+That my keene Knife see not the Wound it makes,
+Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke,
+To cry, hold, hold.
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+Great Glamys, worthy Cawdor,
+Greater then both, by the all-haile hereafter,
+Thy Letters haue transported me beyond
+This ignorant present, and I feele now
+The future in the instant
+
+   Macb. My dearest Loue,
+Duncan comes here to Night
+
+   Lady. And when goes hence?
+  Macb. To morrow, as he purposes
+
+   Lady. O neuer,
+Shall Sunne that Morrow see.
+Your Face, my Thane, is as a Booke, where men
+May reade strange matters, to beguile the time.
+Looke like the time, beare welcome in your Eye,
+Your Hand, your Tongue: looke like th' innocent flower,
+But be the Serpent vnder't. He that's comming,
+Must be prouided for: and you shall put
+This Nights great Businesse into my dispatch,
+Which shall to all our Nights, and Dayes to come,
+Giue solely soueraigne sway, and Masterdome
+
+   Macb. We will speake further,
+  Lady. Onely looke vp cleare:
+To alter fauor, euer is to feare:
+Leaue all the rest to me.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Sexta.
+
+Hoboyes, and Torches. Enter King, Malcolme, Donalbaine,
+Banquo, Lenox,
+Macduff, Rosse, Angus, and Attendants.
+
+  King. This Castle hath a pleasant seat,
+The ayre nimbly and sweetly recommends it selfe
+Vnto our gentle sences
+
+   Banq. This Guest of Summer,
+The Temple-haunting Barlet does approue,
+By his loued Mansonry, that the Heauens breath
+Smells wooingly here: no Iutty frieze,
+Buttrice, nor Coigne of Vantage, but this Bird
+Hath made his pendant Bed, and procreant Cradle,
+Where they must breed, and haunt: I haue obseru'd
+The ayre is delicate.
+Enter Lady.
+
+  King. See, see our honor'd Hostesse:
+The Loue that followes vs, sometime is our trouble,
+Which still we thanke as Loue. Herein I teach you,
+How you shall bid God-eyld vs for your paines,
+And thanke vs for your trouble
+
+   Lady. All our seruice,
+In euery point twice done, and then done double,
+Were poore, and single Businesse, to contend
+Against those Honors deepe, and broad,
+Wherewith your Maiestie loades our House:
+For those of old, and the late Dignities,
+Heap'd vp to them, we rest your Ermites
+
+   King. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
+We courst him at the heeles, and had a purpose
+To be his Purueyor: But he rides well,
+And his great Loue (sharpe as his Spurre) hath holp him
+To his home before vs: Faire and Noble Hostesse
+We are your guest to night
+
+   La. Your Seruants euer,
+Haue theirs, themselues, and what is theirs in compt,
+To make their Audit at your Highnesse pleasure,
+Still to returne your owne
+
+   King. Giue me your hand:
+Conduct me to mine Host we loue him highly,
+And shall continue, our Graces towards him.
+By your leaue Hostesse.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Scena Septima.
+
+Hoboyes. Torches. Enter a Sewer, and diuers Seruants with Dishes
+and
+Seruice ouer the Stage. Then enter Macbeth
+
+   Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twer well,
+It were done quickly: If th' Assassination
+Could trammell vp the Consequence, and catch
+With his surcease, Successe: that but this blow
+Might be the be all, and the end all. Heere,
+But heere, vpon this Banke and Schoole of time,
+Wee'ld iumpe the life to come. But in these Cases,
+We still haue iudgement heere, that we but teach
+Bloody Instructions, which being taught, returne
+To plague th' Inuenter, this euen-handed Iustice
+Commends th' Ingredience of our poyson'd Challice
+To our owne lips. Hee's heere in double trust;
+First, as I am his Kinsman, and his Subiect,
+Strong both against the Deed: Then, as his Host,
+Who should against his Murtherer shut the doore,
+Not beare the knife my selfe. Besides, this Duncane
+Hath borne his Faculties so meeke; hath bin
+So cleere in his great Office, that his Vertues
+Will pleade like Angels, Trumpet-tongu'd against
+The deepe damnation of his taking off:
+And Pitty, like a naked New-borne-Babe,
+Striding the blast, or Heauens Cherubin, hors'd
+Vpon the sightlesse Curriors of the Ayre,
+Shall blow the horrid deed in euery eye,
+That teares shall drowne the winde. I haue no Spurre
+To pricke the sides of my intent, but onely
+Vaulting Ambition, which ore-leapes it selfe,
+And falles on th' other.
+Enter Lady.
+
+How now? What Newes?
+  La. He has almost supt: why haue you left the chamber?
+  Mac. Hath he ask'd for me?
+  La. Know you not, he ha's?
+  Mac. We will proceed no further in this Businesse:
+He hath Honour'd me of late, and I haue bought
+Golden Opinions from all sorts of people,
+Which would be worne now in their newest glosse,
+Not cast aside so soone
+
+   La. Was the hope drunke,
+Wherein you drest your selfe? Hath it slept since?
+And wakes it now to looke so greene, and pale,
+At what it did so freely? From this time,
+Such I account thy loue. Art thou affear'd
+To be the same in thine owne Act, and Valour,
+As thou art in desire? Would'st thou haue that
+Which thou esteem'st the Ornament of Life,
+And liue a Coward in thine owne Esteeme?
+Letting I dare not, wait vpon I would,
+Like the poore Cat i'th' Addage
+
+   Macb. Prythee peace:
+I dare do all that may become a man,
+Who dares do more, is none
+
+   La. What Beast was't then
+That made you breake this enterprize to me?
+When you durst do it, then you were a man:
+And to be more then what you were, you would
+Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
+Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
+They haue made themselues, and that their fitnesse now
+Do's vnmake you. I haue giuen Sucke, and know
+How tender 'tis to loue the Babe that milkes me,
+I would, while it was smyling in my Face,
+Haue pluckt my Nipple from his Bonelesse Gummes,
+And dasht the Braines out, had I so sworne
+As you haue done to this
+
+   Macb. If we should faile?
+  Lady. We faile?
+But screw your courage to the sticking place,
+And wee'le not fayle: when Duncan is asleepe,
+(Whereto the rather shall his dayes hard Iourney
+Soundly inuite him) his two Chamberlaines
+Will I with Wine, and Wassell, so conuince,
+That Memorie, the Warder of the Braine,
+Shall be a Fume, and the Receit of Reason
+A Lymbeck onely: when in Swinish sleepe,
+Their drenched Natures lyes as in a Death,
+What cannot you and I performe vpon
+Th' vnguarded Duncan? What not put vpon
+His spungie Officers? who shall beare the guilt
+Of our great quell
+
+   Macb. Bring forth Men-Children onely:
+For thy vndaunted Mettle should compose
+Nothing but Males. Will it not be receiu'd,
+When we haue mark'd with blood those sleepie two
+Of his owne Chamber, and vs'd their very Daggers,
+That they haue don't?
+  Lady. Who dares receiue it other,
+As we shall make our Griefes and Clamor rore,
+Vpon his Death?
+  Macb. I am settled, and bend vp
+Each corporall Agent to this terrible Feat.
+Away, and mock the time with fairest show,
+False Face must hide what the false Heart doth know.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Actus Secundus. Scena Prima.
+
+Enter Banquo, and Fleance, with a Torch before him.
+
+  Banq. How goes the Night, Boy?
+  Fleance. The Moone is downe: I haue not heard the
+Clock
+
+   Banq. And she goes downe at Twelue
+
+   Fleance. I take't, 'tis later, Sir
+
+   Banq. Hold, take my Sword:
+There's Husbandry in Heauen,
+Their Candles are all out: take thee that too.
+A heauie Summons lyes like Lead vpon me,
+And yet I would not sleepe:
+Mercifull Powers, restraine in me the cursed thoughts
+That Nature giues way to in repose.
+Enter Macbeth, and a Seruant with a Torch.
+
+Giue me my Sword: who's there?
+  Macb. A Friend
+
+   Banq. What Sir, not yet at rest? the King's a bed.
+He hath beene in vnusuall Pleasure,
+And sent forth great Largesse to your Offices.
+This Diamond he greetes your Wife withall,
+By the name of most kind Hostesse,
+And shut vp in measurelesse content
+
+   Mac. Being vnprepar'd,
+Our will became the seruant to defect,
+Which else should free haue wrought
+
+   Banq. All's well.
+I dreamt last Night of the three weyward Sisters:
+To you they haue shew'd some truth
+
+   Macb. I thinke not of them:
+Yet when we can entreat an houre to serue,
+We would spend it in some words vpon that Businesse,
+If you would graunt the time
+
+   Banq. At your kind'st leysure
+
+   Macb. If you shall cleaue to my consent,
+When 'tis, it shall make Honor for you
+
+   Banq. So I lose none,
+In seeking to augment it, but still keepe
+My Bosome franchis'd, and Allegeance cleare,
+I shall be counsail'd
+
+   Macb. Good repose the while
+
+   Banq. Thankes Sir: the like to you.
+
+Exit Banquo.
+
+  Macb. Goe bid thy Mistresse, when my drinke is ready,
+She strike vpon the Bell. Get thee to bed.
+Enter.
+
+Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,
+The Handle toward my Hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
+I haue thee not, and yet I see thee still.
+Art thou not fatall Vision, sensible
+To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
+A Dagger of the Minde, a false Creation,
+Proceeding from the heat-oppressed Braine?
+I see thee yet, in forme as palpable,
+As this which now I draw.
+Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
+And such an Instrument I was to vse.
+Mine Eyes are made the fooles o'th' other Sences,
+Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
+And on thy Blade, and Dudgeon, Gouts of Blood,
+Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
+It is the bloody Businesse, which informes
+Thus to mine Eyes. Now o're the one halfe World
+Nature seemes dead, and wicked Dreames abuse
+The Curtain'd sleepe: Witchcraft celebrates
+Pale Heccats Offrings: and wither'd Murther,
+Alarum'd by his Centinell, the Wolfe,
+Whose howle's his Watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
+With Tarquins rauishing sides, towards his designe
+Moues like a Ghost. Thou sowre and firme-set Earth
+Heare not my steps, which they may walke, for feare
+Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
+And take the present horror from the time,
+Which now sutes with it. Whiles I threat, he liues:
+Words to the heat of deedes too cold breath giues.
+
+A Bell rings.
+
+I goe, and it is done: the Bell inuites me.
+Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell,
+That summons thee to Heauen, or to Hell.
+Enter.
+
+
+Scena Secunda.
+
+Enter Lady.
+
+  La. That which hath made the[m] drunk, hath made me bold:
+What hath quench'd them, hath giuen me fire.
+Hearke, peace: it was the Owle that shriek'd,
+The fatall Bell-man, which giues the stern'st good-night.
+He is about it, the Doores are open:
+And the surfeted Groomes doe mock their charge
+With Snores. I haue drugg'd their Possets,
+That Death and Nature doe contend about them,
+Whether they liue, or dye.
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+  Macb. Who's there? what hoa?
+  Lady. Alack, I am afraid they haue awak'd,
+And 'tis not done: th' attempt, and not the deed,
+Confounds vs: hearke: I lay'd their Daggers ready,
+He could not misse 'em. Had he not resembled
+My Father as he slept, I had don't.
+My Husband?
+  Macb. I haue done the deed:
+Didst thou not heare a noyse?
+  Lady. I heard the Owle schreame, and the Crickets cry.
+Did not you speake?
+  Macb. When?
+  Lady. Now
+
+   Macb. As I descended?
+  Lady. I
+
+   Macb. Hearke, who lyes i'th' second Chamber?
+  Lady. Donalbaine
+
+   Mac. This is a sorry sight
+
+   Lady. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight
+
+   Macb. There's one did laugh in's sleepe,
+And one cry'd Murther, that they did wake each other:
+I stood, and heard them: But they did say their Prayers,
+And addrest them againe to sleepe
+
+   Lady. There are two lodg'd together
+
+   Macb. One cry'd God blesse vs, and Amen the other,
+As they had seene me with these Hangmans hands:
+Listning their feare, I could not say Amen,
+When they did say God blesse vs
+
+   Lady. Consider it not so deepely
+
+   Mac. But wherefore could not I pronounce Amen?
+I had most need of Blessing, and Amen stuck in my throat
+
+   Lady. These deeds must not be thought
+After these wayes: so, it will make vs mad
+
+   Macb. Me thought I heard a voyce cry, Sleep no more:
+Macbeth does murther Sleepe, the innocent Sleepe,
+Sleepe that knits vp the rauel'd Sleeue of Care,
+The death of each dayes Life, sore Labors Bath,
+Balme of hurt Mindes, great Natures second Course,
+Chiefe nourisher in Life's Feast
+
+   Lady. What doe you meane?
+  Macb. Still it cry'd, Sleepe no more to all the House:
+Glamis hath murther'd Sleepe, and therefore Cawdor
+Shall sleepe no more: Macbeth shall sleepe no more
+
+   Lady. Who was it, that thus cry'd? why worthy Thane,
+You doe vnbend your Noble strength, to thinke
+So braine-sickly of things: Goe get some Water,
+And wash this filthie Witnesse from your Hand.
+Why did you bring these Daggers from the place?
+They must lye there: goe carry them, and smeare
+The sleepie Groomes with blood
+
+   Macb. Ile goe no more:
+I am afraid, to thinke what I haue done:
+Looke on't againe, I dare not
+
+   Lady. Infirme of purpose:
+Giue me the Daggers: the sleeping, and the dead,
+Are but as Pictures: 'tis the Eye of Childhood,
+That feares a painted Deuill. If he doe bleed,
+Ile guild the Faces of the Groomes withall,
+For it must seeme their Guilt.
+Enter.
+
+Knocke within.
+
+  Macb. Whence is that knocking?
+How is't with me, when euery noyse appalls me?
+What Hands are here? hah: they pluck out mine Eyes.
+Will all great Neptunes Ocean wash this blood
+Cleane from my Hand? no: this my Hand will rather
+The multitudinous Seas incarnardine,
+Making the Greene one, Red.
+Enter Lady.
+
+  Lady. My Hands are of your colour: but I shame
+To weare a Heart so white.
+
+Knocke.
+
+I heare a knocking at the South entry:
+Retyre we to our Chamber:
+A little Water cleares vs of this deed.
+How easie is it then? your Constancie
+Hath left you vnattended.
+
+Knocke.
+
+Hearke, more knocking.
+Get on your Night-Gowne, least occasion call vs,
+And shew vs to be Watchers: be not lost
+So poorely in your thoughts
+
+   Macb. To know my deed,
+
+Knocke.
+
+'Twere best not know my selfe.
+Wake Duncan with thy knocking:
+I would thou could'st.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Tertia.
+
+Enter a Porter. Knocking within.
+
+  Porter. Here's a knocking indeede: if a man were
+Porter of Hell Gate, hee should haue old turning the
+Key.
+
+Knock.
+
+Knock, Knock, Knock. Who's there
+i'th' name of Belzebub? Here's a Farmer, that hang'd
+himselfe on th' expectation of Plentie: Come in time, haue
+Napkins enow about you, here you'le sweat for't.
+
+Knock.
+
+Knock, knock. Who's there in th' other Deuils Name?
+Faith here's an Equiuocator, that could sweare in both
+the Scales against eyther Scale, who committed Treason
+enough for Gods sake, yet could not equiuocate to Heauen:
+oh come in, Equiuocator.
+
+Knock.
+
+Knock, Knock, Knock. Who's there? 'Faith here's an English
+Taylor come hither, for stealing out of a French Hose:
+Come in Taylor, here you may rost your Goose.
+Knock.
+
+Knock, Knock. Neuer at quiet: What are you? but this
+place is too cold for Hell. Ile Deuill-Porter it no further:
+I had thought to haue let in some of all Professions, that
+goe the Primrose way to th' euerlasting Bonfire.
+
+Knock.
+
+Anon, anon, I pray you remember the Porter.
+Enter Macduff, and Lenox.
+
+  Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to Bed,
+That you doe lye so late?
+  Port. Faith Sir, we were carowsing till the second Cock:
+And Drinke, Sir, is a great prouoker of three things
+
+   Macd. What three things does Drinke especially
+prouoke?
+  Port. Marry, Sir, Nose-painting, Sleepe, and Vrine.
+Lecherie, Sir, it prouokes, and vnprouokes: it prouokes
+the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore
+much Drinke may be said to be an Equiuocator with Lecherie:
+it makes him, and it marres him; it sets him on,
+and it takes him off; it perswades him, and dis-heartens
+him; makes him stand too, and not stand too: in conclusion,
+equiuocates him in a sleepe, and giuing him the Lye,
+leaues him
+
+   Macd. I beleeue, Drinke gaue thee the Lye last Night
+
+   Port. That it did, Sir, i'the very Throat on me: but I
+requited him for his Lye, and (I thinke) being too strong
+for him, though he tooke vp my Legges sometime, yet I
+made a Shift to cast him.
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+  Macd. Is thy Master stirring?
+Our knocking ha's awak'd him: here he comes
+
+   Lenox. Good morrow, Noble Sir
+
+   Macb. Good morrow both
+
+   Macd. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?
+  Macb. Not yet
+
+   Macd. He did command me to call timely on him,
+I haue almost slipt the houre
+
+   Macb. Ile bring you to him
+
+   Macd. I know this is a ioyfull trouble to you:
+But yet 'tis one
+
+   Macb. The labour we delight in, Physicks paine:
+This is the Doore
+
+   Macd. Ile make so bold to call, for 'tis my limitted
+seruice.
+
+Exit Macduffe.
+
+  Lenox. Goes the King hence to day?
+  Macb. He does: he did appoint so
+
+   Lenox. The Night ha's been vnruly:
+Where we lay, our Chimneys were blowne downe,
+And (as they say) lamentings heard i'th' Ayre;
+Strange Schreemes of Death,
+And Prophecying, with Accents terrible,
+Of dyre Combustion, and confus'd Euents,
+New hatch'd toth' wofull time.
+The obscure Bird clamor'd the liue-long Night.
+Some say, the Earth was Feuorous,
+And did shake
+
+   Macb. 'Twas a rough Night
+
+   Lenox. My young remembrance cannot paralell
+A fellow to it.
+Enter Macduff.
+
+  Macd. O horror, horror, horror,
+Tongue nor Heart cannot conceiue, nor name thee
+
+   Macb. and Lenox. What's the matter?
+  Macd. Confusion now hath made his Master-peece:
+Most sacrilegious Murther hath broke ope
+The Lords anoynted Temple, and stole thence
+The Life o'th' Building
+
+   Macb. What is't you say, the Life?
+  Lenox. Meane you his Maiestie?
+  Macd. Approch the Chamber, and destroy your sight
+With a new Gorgon. Doe not bid me speake:
+See, and then speake your selues: awake, awake,
+
+Exeunt. Macbeth and Lenox.
+
+Ring the Alarum Bell: Murther, and Treason,
+Banquo, and Donalbaine: Malcolme awake,
+Shake off this Downey sleepe, Deaths counterfeit,
+And looke on Death it selfe: vp, vp, and see
+The great Doomes Image: Malcolme, Banquo,
+As from your Graues rise vp, and walke like Sprights,
+To countenance this horror. Ring the Bell.
+
+Bell rings. Enter Lady.
+
+  Lady. What's the Businesse?
+That such a hideous Trumpet calls to parley
+The sleepers of the House? speake, speake
+
+   Macd. O gentle Lady,
+'Tis not for you to heare what I can speake:
+The repetition in a Womans eare,
+Would murther as it fell.
+Enter Banquo.
+
+O Banquo, Banquo, Our Royall Master's murther'd
+
+   Lady. Woe, alas:
+What, in our House?
+  Ban. Too cruell, any where.
+Deare Duff, I prythee contradict thy selfe,
+And say, it is not so.
+Enter Macbeth, Lenox, and Rosse.
+
+  Macb. Had I but dy'd an houre before this chance,
+I had liu'd a blessed time: for from this instant,
+There's nothing serious in Mortalitie:
+All is but Toyes: Renowne and Grace is dead,
+The Wine of Life is drawne, and the meere Lees
+Is left this Vault, to brag of.
+Enter Malcolme and Donalbaine.
+
+  Donal. What is amisse?
+  Macb. You are, and doe not know't:
+The Spring, the Head, the Fountaine of your Blood
+Is stopt, the very Source of it is stopt
+
+   Macd. Your Royall Father's murther'd
+
+   Mal. Oh, by whom?
+  Lenox. Those of his Chamber, as it seem'd, had don't:
+Their Hands and Faces were all badg'd with blood,
+So were their Daggers, which vnwip'd, we found
+Vpon their Pillowes: they star'd, and were distracted,
+No mans Life was to be trusted with them
+
+   Macb. O, yet I doe repent me of my furie,
+That I did kill them
+
+   Macd. Wherefore did you so?
+  Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temp'rate, & furious,
+Loyall, and Neutrall, in a moment? No man:
+Th' expedition of my violent Loue
+Out-run the pawser, Reason. Here lay Duncan,
+His Siluer skinne, lac'd with His Golden Blood,
+And his gash'd Stabs, look'd like a Breach in Nature,
+For Ruines wastfull entrance: there the Murtherers,
+Steep'd in the Colours of their Trade; their Daggers
+Vnmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refraine,
+That had a heart to loue; and in that heart,
+Courage, to make's loue knowne?
+  Lady. Helpe me hence, hoa
+
+   Macd. Looke to the Lady
+
+   Mal. Why doe we hold our tongues,
+That most may clayme this argument for ours?
+  Donal. What should be spoken here,
+Where our Fate hid in an augure hole,
+May rush, and seize vs? Let's away,
+Our Teares are not yet brew'd
+
+   Mal. Nor our strong Sorrow
+Vpon the foot of Motion
+
+   Banq. Looke to the Lady:
+And when we haue our naked Frailties hid,
+That suffer in exposure; let vs meet,
+And question this most bloody piece of worke,
+To know it further. Feares and scruples shake vs:
+In the great Hand of God I stand, and thence,
+Against the vndivulg'd pretence, I fight
+Of Treasonous Mallice
+
+   Macd. And so doe I
+
+   All. So all
+
+   Macb. Let's briefely put on manly readinesse,
+And meet i'th' Hall together
+
+   All. Well contented.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+  Malc. What will you doe?
+Let's not consort with them:
+To shew an vnfelt Sorrow, is an Office
+Which the false man do's easie.
+Ile to England
+
+   Don. To Ireland, I:
+Our seperated fortune shall keepe vs both the safer:
+Where we are, there's Daggers in mens smiles;
+The neere in blood, the neerer bloody
+
+   Malc. This murtherous Shaft that's shot,
+Hath not yet lighted: and our safest way,
+Is to auoid the ayme. Therefore to Horse,
+And let vs not be daintie of leaue-taking,
+But shift away: there's warrant in that Theft,
+Which steales it selfe, when there's no mercie left.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+
+Scena Quarta.
+
+Enter Rosse, with an Old man.
+
+  Old man. Threescore and ten I can remember well,
+Within the Volume of which Time, I haue seene
+Houres dreadfull, and things strange: but this sore Night
+Hath trifled former knowings
+
+   Rosse. Ha, good Father,
+Thou seest the Heauens, as troubled with mans Act,
+Threatens his bloody Stage: byth' Clock 'tis Day,
+And yet darke Night strangles the trauailing Lampe:
+Is't Nights predominance, or the Dayes shame,
+That Darknesse does the face of Earth intombe,
+When liuing Light should kisse it?
+  Old man. 'Tis vnnaturall,
+Euen like the deed that's done: On Tuesday last,
+A Faulcon towring in her pride of place,
+Was by a Mowsing Owle hawkt at, and kill'd
+
+   Rosse. And Duncans Horses,
+(A thing most strange, and certaine)
+Beauteous, and swift, the Minions of their Race,
+Turn'd wilde in nature, broke their stalls, flong out,
+Contending 'gainst Obedience, as they would
+Make Warre with Mankinde
+
+   Old man. 'Tis said, they eate each other
+
+   Rosse. They did so:
+To th' amazement of mine eyes that look'd vpon't.
+Enter Macduffe.
+
+Heere comes the good Macduffe.
+How goes the world Sir, now?
+  Macd. Why see you not?
+  Ross. Is't known who did this more then bloody deed?
+  Macd. Those that Macbeth hath slaine
+
+   Ross. Alas the day,
+What good could they pretend?
+  Macd. They were subborned,
+Malcolme, and Donalbaine the Kings two Sonnes
+Are stolne away and fled, which puts vpon them
+Suspition of the deed
+
+   Rosse. 'Gainst Nature still,
+Thriftlesse Ambition, that will rauen vp
+Thine owne liues meanes: Then 'tis most like,
+The Soueraignty will fall vpon Macbeth
+
+   Macd. He is already nam'd, and gone to Scone
+To be inuested
+
+   Rosse. Where is Duncans body?
+  Macd. Carried to Colmekill,
+The Sacred Store-house of his Predecessors,
+And Guardian of their Bones
+
+   Rosse. Will you to Scone?
+  Macd. No Cosin, Ile to Fife
+
+   Rosse. Well, I will thither
+
+   Macd. Well may you see things wel done there: Adieu
+Least our old Robes sit easier then our new
+
+   Rosse. Farewell, Father
+
+   Old M. Gods benyson go with you, and with those
+That would make good of bad, and Friends of Foes.
+
+Exeunt. omnes
+
+Actus Tertius. Scena Prima.
+
+Enter Banquo.
+
+  Banq. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
+As the weyard Women promis'd, and I feare
+Thou playd'st most fowly for't: yet it was saide
+It should not stand in thy Posterity,
+But that my selfe should be the Roote, and Father
+Of many Kings. If there come truth from them,
+As vpon thee Macbeth, their Speeches shine,
+Why by the verities on thee made good,
+May they not be my Oracles as well,
+And set me vp in hope. But hush, no more.
+
+Senit sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Lenox, Rosse, Lords,
+and
+Attendants.
+
+  Macb. Heere's our chiefe Guest
+
+   La. If he had beene forgotten,
+It had bene as a gap in our great Feast,
+And all-thing vnbecomming
+
+   Macb. To night we hold a solemne Supper sir,
+And Ile request your presence
+
+   Banq. Let your Highnesse
+Command vpon me, to the which my duties
+Are with a most indissoluble tye
+For euer knit
+
+   Macb. Ride you this afternoone?
+  Ban. I, my good Lord
+
+   Macb. We should haue else desir'd your good aduice
+(Which still hath been both graue, and prosperous)
+In this dayes Councell: but wee'le take to morrow.
+Is't farre you ride?
+  Ban. As farre, my Lord, as will fill vp the time
+'Twixt this, and Supper. Goe not my Horse the better,
+I must become a borrower of the Night,
+For a darke houre, or twaine
+
+   Macb. Faile not our Feast
+
+   Ban. My Lord, I will not
+
+   Macb. We heare our bloody Cozens are bestow'd
+In England, and in Ireland, not confessing
+Their cruell Parricide, filling their hearers
+With strange inuention. But of that to morrow,
+When therewithall, we shall haue cause of State,
+Crauing vs ioyntly. Hye you to Horse:
+Adieu, till you returne at Night.
+Goes Fleance with you?
+  Ban. I, my good Lord: our time does call vpon's
+
+   Macb. I wish your Horses swift, and sure of foot:
+And so I doe commend you to their backs.
+Farwell.
+
+Exit Banquo.
+
+Let euery man be master of his time,
+Till seuen at Night, to make societie
+The sweeter welcome:
+We will keepe our selfe till Supper time alone:
+While then, God be with you.
+
+Exeunt. Lords.
+
+Sirrha, a word with you: Attend those men
+Our pleasure?
+  Seruant. They are, my Lord, without the Pallace
+Gate
+
+   Macb. Bring them before vs.
+
+Exit Seruant.
+
+To be thus, is nothing, but to be safely thus
+Our feares in Banquo sticke deepe,
+And in his Royaltie of Nature reignes that
+Which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
+And to that dauntlesse temper of his Minde,
+He hath a Wisdome, that doth guide his Valour,
+To act in safetie. There is none but he,
+Whose being I doe feare: and vnder him,
+My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said
+Mark Anthonies was by Caesar. He chid the Sisters,
+When first they put the Name of King vpon me,
+And bad them speake to him. Then Prophet-like,
+They hayl'd him Father to a Line of Kings.
+Vpon my Head they plac'd a fruitlesse Crowne,
+And put a barren Scepter in my Gripe,
+Thence to be wrencht with an vnlineall Hand,
+No Sonne of mine succeeding: if't be so,
+For Banquo's Issue haue I fil'd my Minde,
+For them, the gracious Duncan haue I murther'd,
+Put Rancours in the Vessell of my Peace
+Onely for them, and mine eternall Iewell
+Giuen to the common Enemie of Man,
+To make them Kings, the Seedes of Banquo Kings.
+Rather then so, come Fate into the Lyst,
+And champion me to th' vtterance.
+Who's there?
+Enter Seruant, and two Murtherers.
+
+Now goe to the Doore, and stay there till we call.
+
+Exit Seruant.
+
+Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
+  Murth. It was, so please your Highnesse
+
+   Macb. Well then,
+Now haue you consider'd of my speeches:
+Know, that it was he, in the times past,
+Which held you so vnder fortune,
+Which you thought had been our innocent selfe.
+This I made good to you, in our last conference,
+Past in probation with you:
+How you were borne in hand, how crost:
+The Instruments: who wrought with them:
+And all things else, that might
+To halfe a Soule, and to a Notion craz'd,
+Say, Thus did Banquo
+
+   1.Murth. You made it knowne to vs
+
+   Macb. I did so:
+And went further, which is now
+Our point of second meeting.
+Doe you finde your patience so predominant,
+In your nature, that you can let this goe?
+Are you so Gospell'd, to pray for this good man,
+And for his Issue, whose heauie hand
+Hath bow'd you to the Graue, and begger'd
+Yours for euer?
+  1.Murth. We are men, my Liege
+
+   Macb. I, in the Catalogue ye goe for men,
+As Hounds, and Greyhounds, Mungrels, Spaniels, Curres,
+Showghes, Water-Rugs, and Demy-Wolues are clipt
+All by the Name of Dogges: the valued file
+Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
+The House-keeper, the Hunter, euery one
+According to the gift, which bounteous Nature
+Hath in him clos'd: whereby he does receiue
+Particular addition, from the Bill,
+That writes them all alike: and so of men.
+Now, if you haue a station in the file,
+Not i'th' worst ranke of Manhood, say't,
+And I will put that Businesse in your Bosomes,
+Whose execution takes your Enemie off,
+Grapples you to the heart; and loue of vs,
+Who weare our Health but sickly in his Life,
+Which in his Death were perfect
+
+   2.Murth. I am one, my Liege,
+Whom the vile Blowes and Buffets of the World
+Hath so incens'd, that I am recklesse what I doe,
+To spight the World
+
+   1.Murth. And I another,
+So wearie with Disasters, tugg'd with Fortune,
+That I would set my Life on any Chance,
+To mend it, or be rid on't
+
+   Macb. Both of you know Banquo was your Enemie
+
+   Murth. True, my Lord
+
+   Macb. So is he mine: and in such bloody distance,
+That euery minute of his being, thrusts
+Against my neer'st of Life: and though I could
+With bare-fac'd power sweepe him from my sight,
+And bid my will auouch it; yet I must not,
+For certaine friends that are both his, and mine,
+Whose loues I may not drop, but wayle his fall,
+Who I my selfe struck downe: and thence it is,
+That I to your assistance doe make loue,
+Masking the Businesse from the common Eye,
+For sundry weightie Reasons
+
+   2.Murth. We shall, my Lord,
+Performe what you command vs
+
+   1.Murth. Though our Liues-
+  Macb. Your Spirits shine through you.
+Within this houre, at most,
+I will aduise you where to plant your selues,
+Acquaint you with the perfect Spy o'th' time,
+The moment on't, for't must be done to Night,
+And something from the Pallace: alwayes thought,
+That I require a clearenesse; and with him,
+To leaue no Rubs nor Botches in the Worke:
+  Fleans , his Sonne, that keepes him companie,
+Whose absence is no lesse materiall to me,
+Then is his Fathers, must embrace the fate
+Of that darke houre: resolue your selues apart,
+Ile come to you anon
+
+   Murth. We are resolu'd, my Lord
+
+   Macb. Ile call vpon you straight: abide within,
+It is concluded: Banquo, thy Soules flight,
+If it finde Heauen, must finde it out to Night.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Secunda.
+
+Enter Macbeths Lady, and a Seruant.
+
+  Lady. Is Banquo gone from Court?
+  Seruant. I, Madame, but returnes againe to Night
+
+   Lady. Say to the King, I would attend his leysure,
+For a few words
+
+   Seruant. Madame, I will.
+Enter.
+
+  Lady. Nought's had, all's spent.
+Where our desire is got without content:
+'Tis safer, to be that which we destroy,
+Then by destruction dwell in doubtfull ioy.
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+How now, my Lord, why doe you keepe alone?
+Of sorryest Fancies your Companions making,
+Vsing those Thoughts, which should indeed haue dy'd
+With them they thinke on: things without all remedie
+Should be without regard: what's done, is done
+
+   Macb. We haue scorch'd the Snake, not kill'd it:
+Shee'le close, and be her selfe, whilest our poore Mallice
+Remaines in danger of her former Tooth.
+But let the frame of things dis-ioynt,
+Both the Worlds suffer,
+Ere we will eate our Meale in feare, and sleepe
+In the affliction of these terrible Dreames,
+That shake vs Nightly: Better be with the dead,
+Whom we, to gayne our peace, haue sent to peace,
+Then on the torture of the Minde to lye
+In restlesse extasie.
+Duncane is in his Graue:
+After Lifes fitfull Feuer, he sleepes well,
+Treason ha's done his worst: nor Steele, nor Poyson,
+Mallice domestique, forraine Leuie, nothing,
+Can touch him further
+
+   Lady. Come on:
+Gentle my Lord, sleeke o're your rugged Lookes,
+Be bright and Iouiall among your Guests to Night
+
+   Macb. So shall I Loue, and so I pray be you:
+Let your remembrance apply to Banquo,
+Present him Eminence, both with Eye and Tongue:
+Vnsafe the while, that wee must laue
+Our Honors in these flattering streames,
+And make our Faces Vizards to our Hearts,
+Disguising what they are
+
+   Lady. You must leaue this
+
+   Macb. O, full of Scorpions is my Minde, deare Wife:
+Thou know'st, that Banquo and his Fleans liues
+
+   Lady. But in them, Natures Coppie's not eterne
+
+   Macb. There's comfort yet, they are assaileable,
+Then be thou iocund: ere the Bat hath flowne
+His Cloyster'd flight, ere to black Heccats summons
+The shard-borne Beetle, with his drowsie hums,
+Hath rung Nights yawning Peale,
+There shall be done a deed of dreadfull note
+
+   Lady. What's to be done?
+  Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest Chuck,
+Till thou applaud the deed: Come, seeling Night,
+Skarfe vp the tender Eye of pittifull Day,
+And with thy bloodie and inuisible Hand
+Cancell and teare to pieces that great Bond,
+Which keepes me pale. Light thickens,
+And the Crow makes Wing toth' Rookie Wood:
+Good things of Day begin to droope, and drowse,
+Whiles Nights black Agents to their Prey's doe rowse.
+Thou maruell'st at my words: but hold thee still,
+Things bad begun, make strong themselues by ill:
+So prythee goe with me.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Tertia.
+
+Enter three Murtherers.
+
+  1. But who did bid thee ioyne with vs?
+  3. Macbeth
+
+   2. He needes not our mistrust, since he deliuers
+Our Offices, and what we haue to doe,
+To the direction iust
+
+   1. Then stand with vs:
+The West yet glimmers with some streakes of Day.
+Now spurres the lated Traueller apace,
+To gayne the timely Inne, and neere approches
+The subiect of our Watch
+
+   3. Hearke, I heare Horses
+
+   Banquo within. Giue vs a Light there, hoa
+
+   2. Then 'tis hee:
+The rest, that are within the note of expectation,
+Alreadie are i'th' Court
+
+   1. His Horses goe about
+
+   3. Almost a mile: but he does vsually,
+So all men doe, from hence toth' Pallace Gate
+Make it their Walke.
+Enter Banquo and Fleans, with a Torch.
+
+  2. A Light, a Light
+
+   3. 'Tis hee
+
+   1. Stand too't
+
+   Ban. It will be Rayne to Night
+
+   1. Let it come downe
+
+   Ban. O, Trecherie!
+Flye good Fleans, flye, flye, flye,
+Thou may'st reuenge. O Slaue!
+  3. Who did strike out the Light?
+  1. Was't not the way?
+  3. There's but one downe: the Sonne is fled
+
+   2. We haue lost
+Best halfe of our Affaire
+
+   1. Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scaena Quarta.
+
+Banquet prepar'd. Enter Macbeth, Lady, Rosse, Lenox, Lords, and
+Attendants.
+
+  Macb. You know your owne degrees, sit downe:
+At first and last, the hearty welcome
+
+   Lords. Thankes to your Maiesty
+
+   Macb. Our selfe will mingle with Society,
+And play the humble Host:
+Our Hostesse keepes her State, but in best time
+We will require her welcome
+
+   La. Pronounce it for me Sir, to all our Friends,
+For my heart speakes, they are welcome.
+Enter first Murtherer.
+
+  Macb. See they encounter thee with their harts thanks
+Both sides are euen: heere Ile sit i'th' mid'st,
+Be large in mirth, anon wee'l drinke a Measure
+The Table round. There's blood vpon thy face
+
+   Mur. 'Tis Banquo's then
+
+   Macb. 'Tis better thee without, then he within.
+Is he dispatch'd?
+  Mur. My Lord his throat is cut, that I did for him
+
+   Mac. Thou art the best o'th' Cut-throats,
+Yet hee's good that did the like for Fleans:
+If thou did'st it, thou art the Non-pareill
+
+   Mur. Most Royall Sir
+Fleans is scap'd
+
+   Macb. Then comes my Fit againe:
+I had else beene perfect;
+Whole as the Marble, founded as the Rocke,
+As broad, and generall, as the casing Ayre:
+But now I am cabin'd, crib'd, confin'd, bound in
+To sawcy doubts, and feares. But Banquo's safe?
+  Mur. I, my good Lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
+With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
+The least a Death to Nature
+
+   Macb. Thankes for that:
+There the growne Serpent lyes, the worme that's fled
+Hath Nature that in time will Venom breed,
+No teeth for th' present. Get thee gone, to morrow
+Wee'l heare our selues againe.
+
+Exit Murderer.
+
+  Lady. My Royall Lord,
+You do not giue the Cheere, the Feast is sold
+That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a making:
+'Tis giuen, with welcome: to feede were best at home:
+From thence, the sawce to meate is Ceremony,
+Meeting were bare without it.
+Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeths place.
+
+  Macb. Sweet Remembrancer:
+Now good digestion waite on Appetite,
+And health on both
+
+   Lenox. May't please your Highnesse sit
+
+   Macb. Here had we now our Countries Honor, roof'd,
+Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present:
+Who, may I rather challenge for vnkindnesse,
+Then pitty for Mischance
+
+   Rosse. His absence (Sir)
+Layes blame vpon his promise. Pleas't your Highnesse
+To grace vs with your Royall Company?
+  Macb. The Table's full
+
+   Lenox. Heere is a place reseru'd Sir
+
+   Macb. Where?
+  Lenox. Heere my good Lord.
+What is't that moues your Highnesse?
+  Macb. Which of you haue done this?
+  Lords. What, my good Lord?
+  Macb. Thou canst not say I did it: neuer shake
+Thy goary lockes at me
+
+   Rosse. Gentlemen rise, his Highnesse is not well
+
+   Lady. Sit worthy Friends: my Lord is often thus,
+And hath beene from his youth. Pray you keepe Seat,
+The fit is momentary, vpon a thought
+He will againe be well. If much you note him
+You shall offend him, and extend his Passion,
+Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
+  Macb. I, and a bold one, that dare looke on that
+Which might appall the Diuell
+
+   La. O proper stuffe:
+This is the very painting of your feare:
+This is the Ayre-drawne-Dagger which you said
+Led you to Duncan. O, these flawes and starts
+(Impostors to true feare) would well become
+A womans story, at a Winters fire
+Authoriz'd by her Grandam: shame it selfe,
+Why do you make such faces? When all's done
+You looke but on a stoole
+
+   Macb. Prythee see there:
+Behold, looke, loe, how say you:
+Why what care I, if thou canst nod, speake too.
+If Charnell houses, and our Graues must send
+Those that we bury, backe; our Monuments
+Shall be the Mawes of Kytes
+
+   La. What? quite vnmann'd in folly
+
+   Macb. If I stand heere, I saw him
+
+   La. Fie for shame
+
+   Macb. Blood hath bene shed ere now, i'th' olden time
+Ere humane Statute purg'd the gentle Weale:
+I, and since too, Murthers haue bene perform'd
+Too terrible for the eare. The times has bene,
+That when the Braines were out, the man would dye,
+And there an end: But now they rise againe
+With twenty mortall murthers on their crownes,
+And push vs from our stooles. This is more strange
+Then such a murther is
+
+   La. My worthy Lord
+Your Noble Friends do lacke you
+
+   Macb. I do forget:
+Do not muse at me my most worthy Friends,
+I haue a strange infirmity, which is nothing
+To those that know me. Come, loue and health to all,
+Then Ile sit downe: Giue me some Wine, fill full:
+Enter Ghost.
+
+I drinke to th' generall ioy o'th' whole Table,
+And to our deere Friend Banquo, whom we misse:
+Would he were heere: to all, and him we thirst,
+And all to all
+
+   Lords. Our duties, and the pledge
+
+   Mac. Auant, & quit my sight, let the earth hide thee:
+Thy bones are marrowlesse, thy blood is cold:
+Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
+Which thou dost glare with
+
+   La. Thinke of this good Peeres
+But as a thing of Custome: 'Tis no other,
+Onely it spoyles the pleasure of the time
+
+   Macb. What man dare, I dare:
+Approach thou like the rugged Russian Beare,
+The arm'd Rhinoceros, or th' Hircan Tiger,
+Take any shape but that, and my firme Nerues
+Shall neuer tremble. Or be aliue againe,
+And dare me to the Desart with thy Sword:
+If trembling I inhabit then, protest mee
+The Baby of a Girle. Hence horrible shadow,
+Vnreall mock'ry hence. Why so, being gone
+I am a man againe: pray you sit still
+
+   La. You haue displac'd the mirth,
+Broke the good meeting, with most admir'd disorder
+
+   Macb. Can such things be,
+And ouercome vs like a Summers Clowd,
+Without our speciall wonder? You make me strange
+Euen to the disposition that I owe,
+When now I thinke you can behold such sights,
+And keepe the naturall Rubie of your Cheekes,
+When mine is blanch'd with feare
+
+   Rosse. What sights, my Lord?
+  La. I pray you speake not: he growes worse & worse
+Question enrages him: at once, goodnight.
+Stand not vpon the order of your going,
+But go at once
+
+   Len. Good night, and better health
+Attend his Maiesty
+
+   La. A kinde goodnight to all.
+
+Exit Lords.
+
+  Macb. It will haue blood they say:
+Blood will haue Blood:
+Stones haue beene knowne to moue, & Trees to speake:
+Augures, and vnderstood Relations, haue
+By Maggot Pyes, & Choughes, & Rookes brought forth
+The secret'st man of Blood. What is the night?
+  La. Almost at oddes with morning, which is which
+
+   Macb. How say'st thou that Macduff denies his person
+At our great bidding
+
+   La. Did you send to him Sir?
+  Macb. I heare it by the way: But I will send:
+There's not a one of them but in his house
+I keepe a Seruant Feed. I will to morrow
+(And betimes I will) to the weyard Sisters.
+More shall they speake: for now I am bent to know
+By the worst meanes, the worst, for mine owne good,
+All causes shall giue way. I am in blood
+Stept in so farre, that should I wade no more,
+Returning were as tedious as go ore:
+Strange things I haue in head, that will to hand,
+Which must be acted, ere they may be scand
+
+   La. You lacke the season of all Natures, sleepe
+
+   Macb. Come, wee'l to sleepe: My strange & self-abuse
+Is the initiate feare, that wants hard vse:
+We are yet but yong indeed.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Quinta.
+
+Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecat.
+
+  1. Why how now Hecat, you looke angerly?
+  Hec. Haue I not reason (Beldams) as you are?
+Sawcy, and ouer-bold, how did you dare
+To Trade, and Trafficke with Macbeth,
+In Riddles, and Affaires of death;
+And I the Mistris of your Charmes,
+The close contriuer of all harmes,
+Was neuer call'd to beare my part,
+Or shew the glory of our Art?
+And which is worse, all you haue done
+Hath bene but for a wayward Sonne,
+Spightfull, and wrathfull, who (as others do)
+Loues for his owne ends, not for you.
+But make amends now: Get you gon,
+And at the pit of Acheron
+Meete me i'th' Morning: thither he
+Will come, to know his Destinie.
+Your Vessels, and your Spels prouide,
+Your Charmes, and euery thing beside;
+I am for th' Ayre: This night Ile spend
+Vnto a dismall, and a Fatall end.
+Great businesse must be wrought ere Noone.
+Vpon the Corner of the Moone
+There hangs a vap'rous drop, profound,
+Ile catch it ere it come to ground;
+And that distill'd by Magicke slights,
+Shall raise such Artificiall Sprights,
+As by the strength of their illusion,
+Shall draw him on to his Confusion.
+He shall spurne Fate, scorne Death, and beare
+His hopes 'boue Wisedome, Grace, and Feare:
+And you all know, Security
+Is Mortals cheefest Enemie.
+
+Musicke, and a Song.
+
+Hearke, I am call'd: my little Spirit see
+Sits in Foggy cloud, and stayes for me.
+
+Sing within. Come away, come away, &c.
+
+  1 Come, let's make hast, shee'l soone be
+Backe againe.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scaena Sexta.
+
+Enter Lenox, and another Lord.
+
+  Lenox. My former Speeches,
+Haue but hit your Thoughts
+Which can interpret farther: Onely I say
+Things haue bin strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
+Was pittied of Macbeth: marry he was dead:
+And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,
+Whom you may say (if't please you) Fleans kill'd,
+For Fleans fled: Men must not walke too late.
+Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
+It was for Malcolme, and for Donalbane
+To kill their gracious Father? Damned Fact,
+How it did greeue Macbeth? Did he not straight
+In pious rage, the two delinquents teare,
+That were the Slaues of drinke, and thralles of sleepe?
+Was not that Nobly done? I, and wisely too:
+For 'twould haue anger'd any heart aliue
+To heare the men deny't. So that I say,
+He ha's borne all things well, and I do thinke,
+That had he Duncans Sonnes vnder his Key,
+(As, and't please Heauen he shall not) they should finde
+What 'twere to kill a Father: So should Fleans.
+But peace; for from broad words, and cause he fayl'd
+His presence at the Tyrants Feast, I heare
+Macduffe liues in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
+Where he bestowes himselfe?
+  Lord. The Sonnes of Duncane
+(From whom this Tyrant holds the due of Birth)
+Liues in the English Court, and is receyu'd
+Of the most Pious Edward, with such grace,
+That the maleuolence of Fortune, nothing
+Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduffe
+Is gone, to pray the Holy King, vpon his ayd
+To wake Northumberland, and warlike Seyward,
+That by the helpe of these (with him aboue)
+To ratifie the Worke) we may againe
+Giue to our Tables meate, sleepe to our Nights:
+Free from our Feasts, and Banquets bloody kniues;
+Do faithfull Homage, and receiue free Honors,
+All which we pine for now. And this report
+Hath so exasperate their King, that hee
+Prepares for some attempt of Warre
+
+   Len. Sent he to Macduffe?
+  Lord. He did: and with an absolute Sir, not I
+The clowdy Messenger turnes me his backe,
+And hums; as who should say, you'l rue the time
+That clogges me with this Answer
+
+   Lenox. And that well might
+Aduise him to a Caution, t' hold what distance
+His wisedome can prouide. Some holy Angell
+Flye to the Court of England, and vnfold
+His Message ere he come, that a swift blessing
+May soone returne to this our suffering Country,
+Vnder a hand accurs'd
+
+   Lord. Ile send my Prayers with him.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Actus Quartus. Scena Prima.
+
+Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
+
+  1 Thrice the brinded Cat hath mew'd
+
+   2 Thrice, and once the Hedge-Pigge whin'd
+
+   3 Harpier cries, 'tis time, 'tis time
+
+   1 Round about the Caldron go:
+In the poysond Entrailes throw
+Toad, that vnder cold stone,
+Dayes and Nights, ha's thirty one:
+Sweltred Venom sleeping got,
+Boyle thou first i'th' charmed pot
+
+   All. Double, double, toile and trouble;
+Fire burne, and Cauldron bubble
+
+   2 Fillet of a Fenny Snake,
+In the Cauldron boyle and bake:
+Eye of Newt, and Toe of Frogge,
+Wooll of Bat, and Tongue of Dogge:
+Adders Forke, and Blinde-wormes Sting,
+Lizards legge, and Howlets wing:
+For a Charme of powrefull trouble,
+Like a Hell-broth, boyle and bubble
+
+   All. Double, double, toyle and trouble,
+Fire burne, and Cauldron bubble
+
+   3 Scale of Dragon, Tooth of Wolfe,
+Witches Mummey, Maw, and Gulfe
+Of the rauin'd salt Sea sharke:
+Roote of Hemlocke, digg'd i'th' darke:
+Liuer of Blaspheming Iew,
+Gall of Goate, and Slippes of Yew,
+Sliuer'd in the Moones Ecclipse:
+Nose of Turke, and Tartars lips:
+Finger of Birth-strangled Babe,
+Ditch-deliuer'd by a Drab,
+Make the Grewell thicke, and slab.
+Adde thereto a Tigers Chawdron,
+For th' Ingredience of our Cawdron
+
+   All. Double, double, toyle and trouble,
+Fire burne, and Cauldron bubble
+
+   2 Coole it with a Baboones blood,
+Then the Charme is firme and good.
+Enter Hecat, and the other three Witches.
+
+  Hec. O well done: I commend your paines,
+And euery one shall share i'th' gaines:
+And now about the Cauldron sing
+Like Elues and Fairies in a Ring,
+Inchanting all that you put in.
+
+Musicke and a Song. Blacke Spirits, &c.
+
+  2 By the pricking of my Thumbes,
+Something wicked this way comes:
+Open Lockes, who euer knockes.
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+  Macb. How now you secret, black, & midnight Hags?
+What is't you do?
+  All. A deed without a name
+
+   Macb. I coniure you, by that which you Professe,
+(How ere you come to know it) answer me:
+Though you vntye the Windes, and let them fight
+Against the Churches: Though the yesty Waues
+Confound and swallow Nauigation vp:
+Though bladed Corne be lodg'd, & Trees blown downe,
+Though Castles topple on their Warders heads:
+Though Pallaces, and Pyramids do slope
+Their heads to their Foundations: Though the treasure
+Of Natures Germaine, tumble altogether,
+Euen till destruction sicken: Answer me
+To what I aske you
+
+   1 Speake
+
+   2 Demand
+
+   3 Wee'l answer
+
+   1 Say, if th'hadst rather heare it from our mouthes,
+Or from our Masters
+
+   Macb. Call 'em: let me see 'em
+
+   1 Powre in Sowes blood, that hath eaten
+Her nine Farrow: Greaze that's sweaten
+From the Murderers Gibbet, throw
+Into the Flame
+
+   All. Come high or low:
+Thy Selfe and Office deaftly show.
+Thunder. 1. Apparation, an Armed Head.
+
+  Macb. Tell me, thou vnknowne power
+
+   1 He knowes thy thought:
+Heare his speech, but say thou nought
+
+   1 Appar. Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth:
+Beware Macduffe,
+Beware the Thane of Fife: dismisse me. Enough.
+
+He Descends.
+
+  Macb. What ere thou art, for thy good caution, thanks
+Thou hast harp'd my feare aright. But one word more
+
+   1 He will not be commanded: heere's another
+More potent then the first.
+
+Thunder. 2 Apparition, a Bloody Childe.
+
+  2 Appar. Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth
+
+   Macb. Had I three eares, Il'd heare thee
+
+   Appar. Be bloody, bold, & resolute:
+Laugh to scorne
+The powre of man: For none of woman borne
+Shall harme Macbeth.
+
+Descends.
+
+  Mac. Then liue Macduffe: what need I feare of thee?
+But yet Ile make assurance: double sure,
+And take a Bond of Fate: thou shalt not liue,
+That I may tell pale-hearted Feare, it lies;
+And sleepe in spight of Thunder.
+
+Thunder 3 Apparation, a Childe Crowned, with a Tree in his hand.
+
+What is this, that rises like the issue of a King,
+And weares vpon his Baby-brow, the round
+And top of Soueraignty?
+  All. Listen, but speake not too't
+
+   3 Appar. Be Lyon metled, proud, and take no care:
+Who chafes, who frets, or where Conspirers are:
+Macbeth shall neuer vanquish'd be, vntill
+Great Byrnam Wood, to high Dunsmane Hill
+Shall come against him.
+
+Descend.
+
+  Macb. That will neuer bee:
+Who can impresse the Forrest, bid the Tree
+Vnfixe his earth-bound Root? Sweet boadments, good:
+Rebellious dead, rise neuer till the Wood
+Of Byrnan rise, and our high plac'd Macbeth
+Shall liue the Lease of Nature, pay his breath
+To time, and mortall Custome. Yet my Hart
+Throbs to know one thing: Tell me, if your Art
+Can tell so much: Shall Banquo's issue euer
+Reigne in this Kingdome?
+  All. Seeke to know no more
+
+   Macb. I will be satisfied. Deny me this,
+And an eternall Curse fall on you: Let me know.
+Why sinkes that Caldron? & what noise is this?
+
+Hoboyes
+
+  1 Shew
+
+   2 Shew
+
+   3 Shew
+
+   All. Shew his Eyes, and greeue his Hart,
+Come like shadowes, so depart.
+
+A shew of eight Kings, and Banquo last, with a glasse in his hand.
+
+  Macb. Thou art too like the Spirit of Banquo: Down:
+Thy Crowne do's seare mine Eye-bals. And thy haire
+Thou other Gold-bound-brow, is like the first:
+A third, is like the former. Filthy Hagges,
+Why do you shew me this? - A fourth? Start eyes!
+What will the Line stretch out to'th' cracke of Doome?
+Another yet? A seauenth? Ile see no more:
+And yet the eighth appeares, who beares a glasse,
+Which shewes me many more: and some I see,
+That two-fold Balles, and trebble Scepters carry.
+Horrible sight: Now I see 'tis true,
+For the Blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles vpon me,
+And points at them for his. What? is this so?
+  1 I Sir, all this is so. But why
+Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
+Come Sisters, cheere we vp his sprights,
+And shew the best of our delights.
+Ile Charme the Ayre to giue a sound,
+While you performe your Antique round:
+That this great King may kindly say,
+Our duties, did his welcome pay.
+
+Musicke. The Witches Dance, and vanish.
+
+  Macb. Where are they? Gone?
+Let this pernitious houre,
+Stand aye accursed in the Kalender.
+Come in, without there.
+Enter Lenox.
+
+  Lenox. What's your Graces will
+
+   Macb. Saw you the Weyard Sisters?
+  Lenox. No my Lord
+
+   Macb. Came they not by you?
+  Lenox. No indeed my Lord
+
+   Macb. Infected be the Ayre whereon they ride,
+And damn'd all those that trust them. I did heare
+The gallopping of Horse. Who was't came by?
+  Len. 'Tis two or three my Lord, that bring you word:
+Macduff is fled to England
+
+   Macb. Fled to England?
+  Len. I, my good Lord
+
+   Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:
+The flighty purpose neuer is o're-tooke
+Vnlesse the deed go with it. From this moment,
+The very firstlings of my heart shall be
+The firstlings of my hand. And euen now
+To Crown my thoughts with Acts: be it thoght & done:
+The Castle of Macduff, I will surprize.
+Seize vpon Fife; giue to th' edge o'th' Sword
+His Wife, his Babes, and all vnfortunate Soules
+That trace him in his Line. No boasting like a Foole,
+This deed Ile do, before this purpose coole,
+But no more sights. Where are these Gentlemen?
+Come bring me where they are.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Scena Secunda.
+
+Enter Macduffes Wife, her Son, and Rosse.
+
+  Wife. What had he done, to make him fly the Land?
+  Rosse. You must haue patience Madam
+
+   Wife. He had none:
+His flight was madnesse: when our Actions do not,
+Our feares do make vs Traitors
+
+   Rosse. You know not
+Whether it was his wisedome, or his feare
+
+   Wife. Wisedom? to leaue his wife, to leaue his Babes,
+His Mansion, and his Titles, in a place
+From whence himselfe do's flye? He loues vs not,
+He wants the naturall touch. For the poore Wren
+(The most diminitiue of Birds) will fight,
+Her yong ones in her Nest, against the Owle:
+All is the Feare, and nothing is the Loue;
+As little is the Wisedome, where the flight
+So runnes against all reason
+
+   Rosse. My deerest Cooz,
+I pray you schoole your selfe. But for your Husband,
+He is Noble, Wise, Iudicious, and best knowes
+The fits o'th' Season. I dare not speake much further,
+But cruell are the times, when we are Traitors
+And do not know our selues: when we hold Rumor
+From what we feare, yet know not what we feare,
+But floate vpon a wilde and violent Sea
+Each way, and moue. I take my leaue of you:
+Shall not be long but Ile be heere againe:
+Things at the worst will cease, or else climbe vpward,
+To what they were before. My pretty Cosine,
+Blessing vpon you
+
+   Wife. Father'd he is,
+And yet hee's Father-lesse
+
+   Rosse. I am so much a Foole, should I stay longer
+It would be my disgrace, and your discomfort.
+I take my leaue at once.
+
+Exit Rosse.
+
+  Wife. Sirra, your Fathers dead,
+And what will you do now? How will you liue?
+  Son. As Birds do Mother
+
+   Wife. What with Wormes, and Flyes?
+  Son. With what I get I meane, and so do they
+
+   Wife. Poore Bird,
+Thou'dst neuer Feare the Net, nor Lime,
+The Pitfall, nor the Gin
+
+   Son. Why should I Mother?
+Poore Birds they are not set for:
+My Father is not dead for all your saying
+
+   Wife. Yes, he is dead:
+How wilt thou do for a Father?
+  Son. Nay how will you do for a Husband?
+  Wife. Why I can buy me twenty at any Market
+
+   Son. Then you'l by 'em to sell againe
+
+   Wife. Thou speak'st withall thy wit,
+And yet I'faith with wit enough for thee
+
+   Son. Was my Father a Traitor, Mother?
+  Wife. I, that he was
+
+   Son. What is a Traitor?
+  Wife. Why one that sweares, and lyes
+
+   Son. And be all Traitors, that do so
+
+   Wife. Euery one that do's so, is a Traitor,
+And must be hang'd
+
+   Son. And must they all be hang'd, that swear and lye?
+  Wife. Euery one
+
+   Son. Who must hang them?
+  Wife. Why, the honest men
+
+   Son. Then the Liars and Swearers are Fools: for there
+are Lyars and Swearers enow, to beate the honest men,
+and hang vp them
+
+   Wife. Now God helpe thee, poore Monkie:
+But how wilt thou do for a Father?
+  Son. If he were dead, youl'd weepe for him: if you
+would not, it were a good signe, that I should quickely
+haue a new Father
+
+   Wife. Poore pratler, how thou talk'st?
+Enter a Messenger.
+
+  Mes. Blesse you faire Dame: I am not to you known,
+Though in your state of Honor I am perfect;
+I doubt some danger do's approach you neerely.
+If you will take a homely mans aduice,
+Be not found heere: Hence with your little ones
+To fright you thus. Me thinkes I am too sauage:
+To do worse to you, were fell Cruelty,
+Which is too nie your person. Heauen preserue you,
+I dare abide no longer.
+
+Exit Messenger
+
+  Wife. Whether should I flye?
+I haue done no harme. But I remember now
+I am in this earthly world: where to do harme
+Is often laudable, to do good sometime
+Accounted dangerous folly. Why then (alas)
+Do I put vp that womanly defence,
+To say I haue done no harme?
+What are these faces?
+Enter Murtherers.
+
+  Mur. Where is your Husband?
+  Wife. I hope in no place so vnsanctified,
+Where such as thou may'st finde him
+
+   Mur. He's a Traitor
+
+   Son. Thou ly'st thou shagge-ear'd Villaine
+
+   Mur. What you Egge?
+Yong fry of Treachery?
+  Son. He ha's kill'd me Mother,
+Run away I pray you.
+
+Exit crying Murther.
+
+
+Scaena Tertia.
+
+Enter Malcolme and Macduffe.
+
+  Mal. Let vs seeke out some desolate shade, & there
+Weepe our sad bosomes empty
+
+   Macd. Let vs rather
+Hold fast the mortall Sword: and like good men,
+Bestride our downfall Birthdome: each new Morne,
+New Widdowes howle, new Orphans cry, new sorowes
+Strike heauen on the face, that it resounds
+As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
+Like Syllable of Dolour
+
+   Mal. What I beleeue, Ile waile;
+What know, beleeue; and what I can redresse,
+As I shall finde the time to friend: I wil.
+What you haue spoke, it may be so perchance.
+This Tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
+Was once thought honest: you haue lou'd him well,
+He hath not touch'd you yet. I am yong, but something
+You may discerne of him through me, and wisedome
+To offer vp a weake, poore innocent Lambe
+T' appease an angry God
+
+   Macd. I am not treacherous
+
+   Malc. But Macbeth is.
+A good and vertuous Nature may recoyle
+In an Imperiall charge. But I shall craue your pardon:
+That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose;
+Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
+Though all things foule, would wear the brows of grace
+Yet Grace must still looke so
+
+   Macd. I haue lost my Hopes
+
+   Malc. Perchance euen there
+Where I did finde my doubts.
+Why in that rawnesse left you Wife, and Childe?
+Those precious Motiues, those strong knots of Loue,
+Without leaue-taking. I pray you,
+Let not my Iealousies, be your Dishonors,
+But mine owne Safeties: you may be rightly iust,
+What euer I shall thinke
+
+   Macd. Bleed, bleed poore Country,
+Great Tyrrany, lay thou thy basis sure,
+For goodnesse dare not check thee: wear y thy wrongs,
+The Title, is affear'd. Far thee well Lord,
+I would not be the Villaine that thou think'st,
+For the whole Space that's in the Tyrants Graspe,
+And the rich East to boot
+
+   Mal. Be not offended:
+I speake not as in absolute feare of you:
+I thinke our Country sinkes beneath the yoake,
+It weepes, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
+Is added to her wounds. I thinke withall,
+There would be hands vplifted in my right:
+And heere from gracious England haue I offer
+Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
+When I shall treade vpon the Tyrants head,
+Or weare it on my Sword; yet my poore Country
+Shall haue more vices then it had before,
+More suffer, and more sundry wayes then euer,
+By him that shall succeede
+
+   Macd. What should he be?
+  Mal. It is my selfe I meane: in whom I know
+All the particulars of Vice so grafted,
+That when they shall be open'd, blacke Macbeth
+Will seeme as pure as Snow, and the poore State
+Esteeme him as a Lambe, being compar'd
+With my confinelesse harmes
+
+   Macd. Not in the Legions
+Of horrid Hell, can come a Diuell more damn'd
+In euils, to top Macbeth
+
+   Mal. I grant him Bloody,
+Luxurious, Auaricious, False, Deceitfull,
+Sodaine, Malicious, smacking of euery sinne
+That ha's a name. But there's no bottome, none
+In my Voluptuousnesse: Your Wiues, your Daughters,
+Your Matrons, and your Maides, could not fill vp
+The Cesterne of my Lust, and my Desire
+All continent Impediments would ore-beare
+That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth,
+Then such an one to reigne
+
+   Macd. Boundlesse intemperance
+In Nature is a Tyranny: It hath beene
+Th' vntimely emptying of the happy Throne,
+And fall of many Kings. But feare not yet
+To take vpon you what is yours: you may
+Conuey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
+And yet seeme cold. The time you may so hoodwinke:
+We haue willing Dames enough: there cannot be
+That Vulture in you, to deuoure so many
+As will to Greatnesse dedicate themselues,
+Finding it so inclinde
+
+   Mal. With this, there growes
+In my most ill-composd Affection, such
+A stanchlesse Auarice, that were I King,
+I should cut off the Nobles for their Lands,
+Desire his Iewels, and this others House,
+And my more-hauing, would be as a Sawce
+To make me hunger more, that I should forge
+Quarrels vniust against the Good and Loyall,
+Destroying them for wealth
+
+   Macd. This Auarice
+stickes deeper: growes with more pernicious roote
+Then Summer-seeming Lust: and it hath bin
+The Sword of our slaine Kings: yet do not feare,
+Scotland hath Foysons, to fill vp your will
+Of your meere Owne. All these are portable,
+With other Graces weigh'd
+
+   Mal. But I haue none. The King-becoming Graces,
+As Iustice, Verity, Temp'rance, Stablenesse,
+Bounty, Perseuerance, Mercy, Lowlinesse,
+Deuotion, Patience, Courage, Fortitude,
+I haue no rellish of them, but abound
+In the diuision of each seuerall Crime,
+Acting it many wayes. Nay, had I powre, I should
+Poure the sweet Milke of Concord, into Hell,
+Vprore the vniuersall peace, confound
+All vnity on earth
+
+   Macd. O Scotland, Scotland
+
+   Mal. If such a one be fit to gouerne, speake:
+I am as I haue spoken
+
+   Mac. Fit to gouern? No not to liue. O Natio[n] miserable!
+With an vntitled Tyrant, bloody Sceptred,
+When shalt thou see thy wholsome dayes againe?
+Since that the truest Issue of thy Throne
+By his owne Interdiction stands accust,
+And do's blaspheme his breed? Thy Royall Father
+Was a most Sainted-King: the Queene that bore thee,
+Oftner vpon her knees, then on her feet,
+Dy'de euery day she liu'd. Fare thee well,
+These Euils thou repeat'st vpon thy selfe,
+Hath banish'd me from Scotland. O my Brest,
+Thy hope ends heere
+
+   Mal. Macduff, this Noble passion
+Childe of integrity, hath from my soule
+Wip'd the blacke Scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts
+To thy good Truth, and Honor. Diuellish Macbeth,
+By many of these traines, hath sought to win me
+Into his power: and modest Wisedome pluckes me
+From ouer-credulous hast: but God aboue
+Deale betweene thee and me; For euen now
+I put my selfe to thy Direction, and
+Vnspeake mine owne detraction. Heere abiure
+The taints, and blames I laide vpon my selfe,
+For strangers to my Nature. I am yet
+Vnknowne to Woman, neuer was forsworne,
+Scarsely haue coueted what was mine owne.
+At no time broke my Faith, would not betray
+The Deuill to his Fellow, and delight
+No lesse in truth then life. My first false speaking
+Was this vpon my selfe. What I am truly
+Is thine, and my poore Countries to command:
+Whither indeed, before they heere approach
+Old Seyward with ten thousand warlike men
+Already at a point, was setting foorth:
+Now wee'l together, and the chance of goodnesse
+Be like our warranted Quarrell. Why are you silent?
+  Macd. Such welcome, and vnwelcom things at once
+'Tis hard to reconcile.
+Enter a Doctor.
+
+  Mal. Well, more anon. Comes the King forth
+I pray you?
+  Doct. I Sir: there are a crew of wretched Soules
+That stay his Cure: their malady conuinces
+The great assay of Art. But at his touch,
+Such sanctity hath Heauen giuen his hand,
+They presently amend.
+Enter.
+
+  Mal. I thanke you Doctor
+
+   Macd. What's the Disease he meanes?
+  Mal. Tis call'd the Euill.
+A most myraculous worke in this good King,
+Which often since my heere remaine in England,
+I haue seene him do: How he solicites heauen
+Himselfe best knowes: but strangely visited people
+All swolne and Vlcerous, pittifull to the eye,
+The meere dispaire of Surgery, he cures,
+Hanging a golden stampe about their neckes,
+Put on with holy Prayers, and 'tis spoken
+To the succeeding Royalty he leaues
+The healing Benediction. With this strange vertue,
+He hath a heauenly guift of Prophesie,
+And sundry Blessings hang about his Throne,
+That speake him full of Grace.
+Enter Rosse.
+
+  Macd. See who comes heere
+
+   Malc. My Countryman: but yet I know him not
+
+   Macd. My euer gentle Cozen, welcome hither
+
+   Malc. I know him now. Good God betimes remoue
+The meanes that makes vs Strangers
+
+   Rosse. Sir, Amen
+
+   Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?
+  Rosse. Alas poore Countrey,
+Almost affraid to know it selfe. It cannot
+Be call'd our Mother, but our Graue; where nothing
+But who knowes nothing, is once seene to smile:
+Where sighes, and groanes, and shrieks that rent the ayre
+Are made, not mark'd: Where violent sorrow seemes
+A Moderne extasie: The Deadmans knell,
+Is there scarse ask'd for who, and good mens liues
+Expire before the Flowers in their Caps,
+Dying, or ere they sicken
+
+   Macd. Oh Relation; too nice, and yet too true
+
+   Malc. What's the newest griefe?
+  Rosse. That of an houres age, doth hisse the speaker,
+Each minute teemes a new one
+
+   Macd. How do's my Wife?
+  Rosse. Why well
+
+   Macd. And all my Children?
+  Rosse. Well too
+
+   Macd. The Tyrant ha's not batter'd at their peace?
+  Rosse. No, they were wel at peace, when I did leaue 'em
+  Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: How gos't?
+  Rosse. When I came hither to transport the Tydings
+Which I haue heauily borne, there ran a Rumour
+Of many worthy Fellowes, that were out,
+Which was to my beleefe witnest the rather,
+For that I saw the Tyrants Power a-foot.
+Now is the time of helpe: your eye in Scotland
+Would create Soldiours, make our women fight,
+To doffe their dire distresses
+
+   Malc. Bee't their comfort
+We are comming thither: Gracious England hath
+Lent vs good Seyward, and ten thousand men,
+An older, and a better Souldier, none
+That Christendome giues out
+
+   Rosse. Would I could answer
+This comfort with the like. But I haue words
+That would be howl'd out in the desert ayre,
+Where hearing should not latch them
+
+   Macd. What concerne they,
+The generall cause, or is it a Fee-griefe
+Due to some single brest?
+  Rosse. No minde that's honest
+But in it shares some woe, though the maine part
+Pertaines to you alone
+
+   Macd. If it be mine
+Keepe it not from me, quickly let me haue it
+
+   Rosse. Let not your eares dispise my tongue for euer,
+Which shall possesse them with the heauiest sound
+that euer yet they heard
+
+   Macd. Humh: I guesse at it
+
+   Rosse. Your Castle is surpriz'd: your Wife, and Babes
+Sauagely slaughter'd: To relate the manner
+Were on the Quarry of these murther'd Deere
+To adde the death of you
+
+   Malc. Mercifull Heauen:
+What man, ne're pull your hat vpon your browes:
+Giue sorrow words; the griefe that do's not speake,
+Whispers the o're-fraught heart, and bids it breake
+
+   Macd. My Children too?
+  Ro. Wife, Children, Seruants, all that could be found
+
+   Macd. And I must be from thence? My wife kil'd too?
+  Rosse. I haue said
+
+   Malc. Be comforted.
+Let's make vs Med'cines of our great Reuenge,
+To cure this deadly greefe
+
+   Macd. He ha's no Children. All my pretty ones?
+Did you say All? Oh Hell-Kite! All?
+What, All my pretty Chickens, and their Damme
+At one fell swoope?
+  Malc. Dispute it like a man
+
+   Macd. I shall do so:
+But I must also feele it as a man;
+I cannot but remember such things were
+That were most precious to me: Did heauen looke on,
+And would not take their part? Sinfull Macduff,
+They were all strooke for thee: Naught that I am,
+Not for their owne demerits, but for mine
+Fell slaughter on their soules: Heauen rest them now
+
+   Mal. Be this the Whetstone of your sword, let griefe
+Conuert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it
+
+   Macd. O I could play the woman with mine eyes,
+And Braggart with my tongue. But gentle Heauens,
+Cut short all intermission: Front to Front,
+Bring thou this Fiend of Scotland, and my selfe
+Within my Swords length set him, if he scape
+Heauen forgiue him too
+
+   Mal. This time goes manly:
+Come go we to the King, our Power is ready,
+Our lacke is nothing but our leaue. Macbeth
+Is ripe for shaking, and the Powres aboue
+Put on their Instruments: Receiue what cheere you may,
+The Night is long, that neuer findes the Day.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Actus Quintus. Scena Prima.
+
+Enter a Doctor of Physicke, and a Wayting Gentlewoman.
+
+  Doct. I haue too Nights watch'd with you, but can
+perceiue no truth in your report. When was it shee last
+walk'd?
+  Gent. Since his Maiesty went into the Field, I haue
+seene her rise from her bed, throw her Night-Gown vppon
+her, vnlocke her Closset, take foorth paper, folde it,
+write vpon't, read it, afterwards Seale it, and againe returne
+to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleepe
+
+   Doct. A great perturbation in Nature, to receyue at
+once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching.
+In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other
+actuall performances, what (at any time) haue you heard
+her say?
+  Gent. That Sir, which I will not report after her
+
+   Doct. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should
+
+   Gent. Neither to you, nor any one, hauing no witnesse
+to confirme my speech.
+Enter Lady, with a Taper.
+
+Lo you, heere she comes: This is her very guise, and vpon
+my life fast asleepe: obserue her, stand close
+
+   Doct. How came she by that light?
+  Gent. Why it stood by her: she ha's light by her continually,
+'tis her command
+
+   Doct. You see her eyes are open
+
+   Gent. I, but their sense are shut
+
+   Doct. What is it she do's now?
+Looke how she rubbes her hands
+
+   Gent. It is an accustom'd action with her, to seeme
+thus washing her hands: I haue knowne her continue in
+this a quarter of an houre
+
+   Lad. Yet heere's a spot
+
+   Doct. Heark, she speaks, I will set downe what comes
+from her, to satisfie my remembrance the more strongly
+
+   La. Out damned spot: out I say. One: Two: Why
+then 'tis time to doo't: Hell is murky. Fye, my Lord, fie,
+a Souldier, and affear'd? what need we feare? who knowes
+it, when none can call our powre to accompt: yet who
+would haue thought the olde man to haue had so much
+blood in him
+
+   Doct. Do you marke that?
+  Lad. The Thane of Fife, had a wife: where is she now?
+What will these hands ne're be cleane? No more o'that
+my Lord, no more o'that: you marre all with this starting
+
+   Doct. Go too, go too:
+You haue knowne what you should not
+
+   Gent. She ha's spoke what shee should not, I am sure
+of that: Heauen knowes what she ha's knowne
+
+   La. Heere's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes
+of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
+Oh, oh, oh
+
+   Doct. What a sigh is there? The hart is sorely charg'd
+
+   Gent. I would not haue such a heart in my bosome,
+for the dignity of the whole body
+
+   Doct. Well, well, well
+
+   Gent. Pray God it be sir
+
+   Doct. This disease is beyond my practise: yet I haue
+knowne those which haue walkt in their sleep, who haue
+dyed holily in their beds
+
+   Lad. Wash your hands, put on your Night-Gowne,
+looke not so pale: I tell you yet againe Banquo's buried;
+he cannot come out on's graue
+
+   Doct. Euen so?
+  Lady. To bed, to bed: there's knocking at the gate:
+Come, come, come, come, giue me your hand: What's
+done, cannot be vndone. To bed, to bed, to bed.
+
+Exit Lady.
+
+  Doct. Will she go now to bed?
+  Gent. Directly
+
+   Doct. Foule whisp'rings are abroad: vnnaturall deeds
+Do breed vnnaturall troubles: infected mindes
+To their deafe pillowes will discharge their Secrets:
+More needs she the Diuine, then the Physitian:
+God, God forgiue vs all. Looke after her,
+Remoue from her the meanes of all annoyance,
+And still keepe eyes vpon her: So goodnight,
+My minde she ha's mated, and amaz'd my sight.
+I thinke, but dare not speake
+
+   Gent. Good night good Doctor.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+
+Scena Secunda.
+
+Drum and Colours. Enter Menteth, Cathnes, Angus, Lenox,
+Soldiers.
+
+  Ment. The English powre is neere, led on by Malcolm,
+His Vnkle Seyward, and the good Macduff.
+Reuenges burne in them: for their deere causes
+Would to the bleeding, and the grim Alarme
+Excite the mortified man
+
+   Ang. Neere Byrnan wood
+Shall we well meet them, that way are they comming
+
+   Cath. Who knowes if Donalbane be with his brother?
+  Len. For certaine Sir, he is not: I haue a File
+Of all the Gentry; there is Seywards Sonne,
+And many vnruffe youths, that euen now
+Protest their first of Manhood
+
+   Ment. What do's the Tyrant
+
+   Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly Fortifies:
+Some say hee's mad: Others, that lesser hate him,
+Do call it valiant Fury, but for certaine
+He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
+Within the belt of Rule
+
+   Ang. Now do's he feele
+His secret Murthers sticking on his hands,
+Now minutely Reuolts vpbraid his Faith-breach:
+Those he commands, moue onely in command,
+Nothing in loue: Now do's he feele his Title
+Hang loose about him, like a Giants Robe
+Vpon a dwarfish Theefe
+
+   Ment. Who then shall blame
+His pester'd Senses to recoyle, and start,
+When all that is within him, do's condemne
+It selfe, for being there
+
+   Cath. Well, march we on,
+To giue Obedience, where 'tis truly ow'd:
+Meet we the Med'cine of the sickly Weale,
+And with him poure we in our Countries purge,
+Each drop of vs
+
+   Lenox. Or so much as it needes,
+To dew the Soueraigne Flower, and drowne the Weeds:
+Make we our March towards Birnan.
+
+Exeunt. marching.
+
+
+Scaena Tertia.
+
+Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.
+
+  Macb. Bring me no more Reports, let them flye all:
+Till Byrnane wood remoue to Dunsinane,
+I cannot taint with Feare. What's the Boy Malcolme?
+Was he not borne of woman? The Spirits that know
+All mortall Consequences, haue pronounc'd me thus:
+Feare not Macbeth, no man that's borne of woman
+Shall ere haue power vpon thee. Then fly false Thanes,
+And mingle with the English Epicures,
+The minde I sway by, and the heart I beare,
+Shall neuer sagge with doubt, nor shake with feare.
+Enter Seruant.
+
+The diuell damne thee blacke, thou cream-fac'd Loone:
+Where got'st thou that Goose-looke
+
+   Ser. There is ten thousand
+
+   Macb. Geese Villaine?
+  Ser. Souldiers Sir
+
+   Macb. Go pricke thy face, and ouer-red thy feare
+Thou Lilly-liuer'd Boy. What Soldiers, Patch?
+Death of thy Soule, those Linnen cheekes of thine
+Are Counsailers to feare. What Soldiers Whay-face?
+  Ser. The English Force, so please you
+
+   Macb. Take thy face hence. Seyton, I am sick at hart,
+When I behold: Seyton, I say, this push
+Will cheere me euer, or dis-eate me now.
+I haue liu'd long enough: my way of life
+Is falne into the Seare, the yellow Leafe,
+And that which should accompany Old-Age,
+As Honor, Loue, Obedience, Troopes of Friends,
+I must not looke to haue: but in their steed,
+Curses, not lowd but deepe, Mouth-honor, breath
+Which the poore heart would faine deny, and dare not.
+Seyton?
+Enter Seyton.
+
+  Sey. What's your gracious pleasure?
+  Macb. What Newes more?
+  Sey. All is confirm'd my Lord, which was reported
+
+   Macb. Ile fight, till from my bones, my flesh be hackt.
+Giue me my Armor
+
+   Seyt. 'Tis not needed yet
+
+   Macb. Ile put it on:
+Send out moe Horses, skirre the Country round,
+Hang those that talke of Feare. Giue me mine Armor:
+How do's your Patient, Doctor?
+  Doct. Not so sicke my Lord,
+As she is troubled with thicke-comming Fancies
+That keepe her from her rest
+
+   Macb. Cure of that:
+Can'st thou not Minister to a minde diseas'd,
+Plucke from the Memory a rooted Sorrow,
+Raze out the written troubles of the Braine,
+And with some sweet Obliuious Antidote
+Cleanse the stufft bosome, of that perillous stuffe
+Which weighes vpon the heart?
+  Doct. Therein the Patient
+Must minister to himselfe
+
+   Macb. Throw Physicke to the Dogs, Ile none of it.
+Come, put mine Armour on: giue me my Staffe:
+Seyton, send out: Doctor, the Thanes flye from me:
+Come sir, dispatch. If thou could'st Doctor, cast
+The Water of my Land, finde her Disease,
+And purge it to a sound and pristine Health,
+I would applaud thee to the very Eccho,
+That should applaud againe. Pull't off I say,
+What Rubarb, Cyme, or what Purgatiue drugge
+Would scowre these English hence: hear'st y of them?
+  Doct. I my good Lord: your Royall Preparation
+Makes vs heare something
+
+   Macb. Bring it after me:
+I will not be affraid of Death and Bane,
+Till Birnane Forrest come to Dunsinane
+
+   Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away, and cleere,
+Profit againe should hardly draw me heere.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Scena Quarta.
+
+Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolme, Seyward, Macduffe,
+Seywards Sonne,
+Menteth, Cathnes, Angus, and Soldiers Marching.
+
+  Malc. Cosins, I hope the dayes are neere at hand
+That Chambers will be safe
+
+   Ment. We doubt it nothing
+
+   Seyw. What wood is this before vs?
+  Ment. The wood of Birnane
+
+   Malc. Let euery Souldier hew him downe a Bough,
+And bear't before him, thereby shall we shadow
+The numbers of our Hoast, and make discouery
+Erre in report of vs
+
+   Sold. It shall be done
+
+   Syw. We learne no other, but the confident Tyrant
+Keepes still in Dunsinane, and will indure
+Our setting downe befor't
+
+   Malc. 'Tis his maine hope:
+For where there is aduantage to be giuen,
+Both more and lesse haue giuen him the Reuolt,
+And none serue with him, but constrained things,
+Whose hearts are absent too
+
+   Macd. Let our iust Censures
+Attend the true euent, and put we on
+Industrious Souldiership
+
+   Sey. The time approaches,
+That will with due decision make vs know
+What we shall say we haue, and what we owe:
+Thoughts speculatiue, their vnsure hopes relate,
+But certaine issue, stroakes must arbitrate,
+Towards which, aduance the warre.
+
+Exeunt. marching
+
+Scena Quinta.
+
+Enter Macbeth, Seyton, & Souldiers, with Drum and Colours.
+
+  Macb. Hang out our Banners on the outward walls,
+The Cry is still, they come: our Castles strength
+Will laugh a Siedge to scorne: Heere let them lye,
+Till Famine and the Ague eate them vp:
+Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
+We might haue met them darefull, beard to beard,
+And beate them backward home. What is that noyse?
+
+A Cry within of Women.
+
+  Sey. It is the cry of women, my good Lord
+
+   Macb. I haue almost forgot the taste of Feares:
+The time ha's beene, my sences would haue cool'd
+To heare a Night-shrieke, and my Fell of haire
+Would at a dismall Treatise rowze, and stirre
+As life were in't. I haue supt full with horrors,
+Direnesse familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
+Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?
+  Sey. The Queene (my Lord) is dead
+
+   Macb. She should haue dy'de heereafter;
+There would haue beene a time for such a word:
+To morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow,
+Creepes in this petty pace from day to day,
+To the last Syllable of Recorded time:
+And all our yesterdayes, haue lighted Fooles
+The way to dusty death. Out, out, breefe Candle,
+Life's but a walking Shadow, a poore Player,
+That struts and frets his houre vpon the Stage,
+And then is heard no more. It is a Tale
+Told by an Ideot, full of sound and fury
+Signifying nothing.
+Enter a Messenger.
+
+Thou com'st to vse thy Tongue: thy Story quickly
+
+   Mes. Gracious my Lord,
+I should report that which I say I saw,
+But know not how to doo't
+
+   Macb. Well, say sir
+
+   Mes. As I did stand my watch vpon the Hill
+I look'd toward Byrnane, and anon me thought
+The Wood began to moue
+
+   Macb. Lyar, and Slaue
+
+   Mes. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
+Within this three Mile may you see it comming.
+I say, a mouing Groue
+
+   Macb. If thou speak'st false,
+Vpon the next Tree shall thou hang aliue
+Till Famine cling thee: If thy speech be sooth,
+I care not if thou dost for me as much.
+I pull in Resolution, and begin
+To doubt th' Equiuocation of the Fiend,
+That lies like truth. Feare not, till Byrnane Wood
+Do come to Dunsinane, and now a Wood
+Comes toward Dunsinane. Arme, Arme, and out,
+If this which he auouches, do's appeare,
+There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
+I 'ginne to be a-weary of the Sun,
+And wish th' estate o'th' world were now vndon.
+Ring the Alarum Bell, blow Winde, come wracke,
+At least wee'l dye with Harnesse on our backe.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Scena Sexta.
+
+Drumme and Colours. Enter Malcolme, Seyward, Macduffe, and
+their Army,
+with Boughes.
+
+  Mal. Now neere enough:
+Your leauy Skreenes throw downe,
+And shew like those you are: You (worthy Vnkle)
+Shall with my Cosin your right Noble Sonne
+Leade our first Battell. Worthy Macduffe, and wee
+Shall take vpon's what else remaines to do,
+According to our order
+
+   Sey. Fare you well:
+Do we but finde the Tyrants power to night,
+Let vs be beaten, if we cannot fight
+
+   Macd. Make all our Trumpets speak, giue the[m] all breath
+Those clamorous Harbingers of Blood, & Death.
+
+Exeunt.
+
+Alarums continued.
+
+
+Scena Septima.
+
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+  Macb. They haue tied me to a stake, I cannot flye,
+But Beare-like I must fight the course. What's he
+That was not borne of Woman? Such a one
+Am I to feare, or none.
+Enter young Seyward.
+
+  Y.Sey. What is thy name?
+  Macb. Thou'lt be affraid to heare it
+
+   Y.Sey. No: though thou call'st thy selfe a hoter name
+Then any is in hell
+
+   Macb. My name's Macbeth
+
+   Y.Sey. The diuell himselfe could not pronounce a Title
+More hatefull to mine eare
+
+   Macb. No: nor more fearefull
+
+   Y.Sey. Thou lyest abhorred Tyrant, with my Sword
+Ile proue the lye thou speak'st.
+
+Fight, and young Seyward slaine.
+
+  Macb. Thou was't borne of woman;
+But Swords I smile at, Weapons laugh to scorne,
+Brandish'd by man that's of a Woman borne.
+Enter.
+
+Alarums. Enter Macduffe.
+
+  Macd. That way the noise is: Tyrant shew thy face,
+If thou beest slaine, and with no stroake of mine,
+My Wife and Childrens Ghosts will haunt me still:
+I cannot strike at wretched Kernes, whose armes
+Are hyr'd to beare their Staues; either thou Macbeth,
+Or else my Sword with an vnbattered edge
+I sheath againe vndeeded. There thou should'st be,
+By this great clatter, one of greatest note
+Seemes bruited. Let me finde him Fortune,
+And more I begge not.
+
+Exit. Alarums.
+
+Enter Malcolme and Seyward.
+
+  Sey. This way my Lord, the Castles gently rendred:
+The Tyrants people, on both sides do fight,
+The Noble Thanes do brauely in the Warre,
+The day almost it selfe professes yours,
+And little is to do
+
+   Malc. We haue met with Foes
+That strike beside vs
+
+   Sey. Enter Sir, the Castle.
+
+Exeunt. Alarum
+
+Enter Macbeth.
+
+  Macb. Why should I play the Roman Foole, and dye
+On mine owne sword? whiles I see liues, the gashes
+Do better vpon them.
+Enter Macduffe.
+
+  Macd. Turne Hell-hound, turne
+
+   Macb. Of all men else I haue auoyded thee:
+But get thee backe, my soule is too much charg'd
+With blood of thine already
+
+   Macd. I haue no words,
+My voice is in my Sword, thou bloodier Villaine
+Then tearmes can giue thee out.
+
+Fight: Alarum
+
+  Macb. Thou loosest labour
+As easie may'st thou the intrenchant Ayre
+With thy keene Sword impresse, as make me bleed:
+Let fall thy blade on vulnerable Crests,
+I beare a charmed Life, which must not yeeld
+To one of woman borne
+
+   Macd. Dispaire thy Charme,
+And let the Angell whom thou still hast seru'd
+Tell thee, Macduffe was from his Mothers womb
+Vntimely ript
+
+   Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tels mee so;
+For it hath Cow'd my better part of man:
+And be these Iugling Fiends no more beleeu'd,
+That palter with vs in a double sence,
+That keepe the word of promise to our eare,
+And breake it to our hope. Ile not fight with thee
+
+   Macd. Then yeeld thee Coward,
+And liue to be the shew, and gaze o'th' time.
+Wee'l haue thee, as our rarer Monsters are
+Painted vpon a pole, and vnder-writ,
+Heere may you see the Tyrant
+
+   Macb. I will not yeeld
+To kisse the ground before young Malcolmes feet,
+And to be baited with the Rabbles curse.
+Though Byrnane wood be come to Dunsinane,
+And thou oppos'd, being of no woman borne,
+Yet I will try the last. Before my body,
+I throw my warlike Shield: Lay on Macduffe,
+And damn'd be him, that first cries hold, enough.
+
+Exeunt. fighting. Alarums.
+
+Enter Fighting, and Macbeth slaine.
+
+Retreat, and Flourish. Enter with Drumme and Colours, Malcolm,
+Seyward,
+Rosse, Thanes, & Soldiers.
+
+  Mal. I would the Friends we misse, were safe arriu'd
+
+   Sey. Some must go off: and yet by these I see,
+So great a day as this is cheapely bought
+
+   Mal. Macduffe is missing, and your Noble Sonne
+
+   Rosse. Your son my Lord, ha's paid a souldiers debt,
+He onely liu'd but till he was a man,
+The which no sooner had his Prowesse confirm'd
+In the vnshrinking station where he fought,
+But like a man he dy'de
+
+   Sey. Then he is dead?
+  Rosse. I, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
+Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
+It hath no end
+
+   Sey. Had he his hurts before?
+  Rosse. I, on the Front
+
+   Sey. Why then, Gods Soldier be he:
+Had I as many Sonnes, as I haue haires,
+I would not wish them to a fairer death:
+And so his Knell is knoll'd
+
+   Mal. Hee's worth more sorrow,
+and that Ile spend for him
+
+   Sey. He's worth no more,
+They say he parted well, and paid his score,
+And so God be with him. Here comes newer comfort.
+Enter Macduffe, with Macbeths head.
+
+  Macd. Haile King, for so thou art.
+Behold where stands
+Th' Vsurpers cursed head: the time is free:
+I see thee compast with thy Kingdomes Pearle,
+That speake my salutation in their minds:
+Whose voyces I desire alowd with mine.
+Haile King of Scotland
+
+   All. Haile King of Scotland.
+
+Flourish.
+
+  Mal. We shall not spend a large expence of time,
+Before we reckon with your seuerall loues,
+And make vs euen with you. My Thanes and Kinsmen
+Henceforth be Earles, the first that euer Scotland
+In such an Honor nam'd: What's more to do,
+Which would be planted newly with the time,
+As calling home our exil'd Friends abroad,
+That fled the Snares of watchfull Tyranny,
+Producing forth the cruell Ministers
+Of this dead Butcher, and his Fiend-like Queene;
+Who (as 'tis thought) by selfe and violent hands,
+Tooke off her life. This, and what need full else
+That call's vpon vs, by the Grace of Grace,
+We will performe in measure, time, and place:
+So thankes to all at once, and to each one,
+Whom we inuite, to see vs Crown'd at Scone.
+
+Flourish. Exeunt Omnes.
+
+
+FINIS. THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Monsieur Lecoq, v.1, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Monsieur Lecoq, v.1
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4071]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONSIEUR LECOQ, V.1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Moynihan, Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+MONSIEUR LECOQ
+
+by Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+At about eleven o’clock in the evening of the 20th of February, 186--,
+which chanced to be Shrove Sunday, a party of detectives left the police
+station near the old Barriere d’Italie to the direct south of Paris.
+Their mission was to explore the district extending on the one hand
+between the highroad to Fontainebleau and the Seine, and on the other
+between the outer boulevards and the fortifications.
+
+This quarter of the city had at that time anything but an enviable
+reputation. To venture there at night was considered so dangerous
+that the soldiers from the outlying forts who came in to Paris with
+permission to go to the theatre, were ordered to halt at the barriere,
+and not to pass through the perilous district excepting in parties of
+three or four.
+
+After midnight, these gloomy, narrow streets became the haunt of
+numerous homeless vagabonds, and escaped criminals and malefactors,
+moreover, made the quarter their rendezvous. If the day had been a lucky
+one, they made merry over their spoils, and when sleep overtook them,
+hid in doorways or among the rubbish in deserted houses. Every effort
+had been made to dislodge these dangerous guests, but the most energetic
+measures had failed to prove successful. Watched, hunted, and in
+imminent danger of arrest though they were, they always returned with
+idiotic obstinacy, obeying, as one might suppose, some mysterious law
+of attraction. Hence, the district was for the police an immense trap,
+constantly baited, and to which the game came of their own accord to be
+caught.
+
+The result of a tour of inspection of this locality was so certain, that
+the officer in charge of the police post called to the squad as they
+departed: “I will prepare lodgings for our guests. Good luck to you and
+much pleasure!”
+
+This last wish was pure irony, for the weather was the most disagreeable
+that could be imagined. A very heavy snow storm had prevailed for
+several days. It was now beginning to thaw, and on all the frequented
+thoroughfares the slush was ankle-deep. It was still cold, however; a
+damp chill filled the air, and penetrated to the very marrow of one’s
+bones. Besides, there was a dense fog, so dense that one could not see
+one’s hands before one’s face.
+
+“What a beastly job!” growled one of the agents.
+
+“Yes,” replied the inspector who commanded the squad; “if you had an
+income of thirty thousand francs, I don’t suppose you’d be here.” The
+laugh that greeted this common-place joke was not so much flattery as
+homage to a recognized and established superiority.
+
+The inspector was, in fact, one of the most esteemed members of the
+force, a man who had proved his worth. His powers of penetration were
+not, perhaps, very great; but he thoroughly understood his profession,
+its resources, its labyrinths, and its artifices. Long practise had
+given him imperturbable coolness, a great confidence in himself, and a
+sort of coarse diplomacy that supplied the place of shrewdness. To his
+failings and his virtues he added incontestable courage, and he
+would lay his hand upon the collar of the most dangerous criminal as
+tranquilly as a devotee dips his fingers in a basin of holy water.
+
+He was a man about forty-six years of age, strongly built, with rugged
+features, a heavy mustache, and rather small, gray eyes, hidden by bushy
+eyebrows. His name was Gevrol, but he was universally known as “the
+General.” This sobriquet was pleasing to his vanity, which was not
+slight, as his subordinates well knew; and, doubtless, he felt that he
+ought to receive from them the same consideration as was due to a person
+of that exalted rank.
+
+“If you begin to complain already,” he added, gruffly, “what will you do
+by and by?”
+
+In fact, it was too soon to complain. The little party were then passing
+along the Rue de Choisy. The people on the footways were orderly; and
+the lights of the wine-shops illuminated the street. All these places
+were open. There is no fog or thaw that is potent enough to dismay
+lovers of pleasure. And a boisterous crowd of maskers filled each
+tavern, and public ballroom. Through the open windows came alternately
+the sounds of loud voices and bursts of noisy music. Occasionally, a
+drunken man staggered along the pavement, or a masked figure crept by in
+the shadow cast by the houses.
+
+Before certain establishments Gevrol commanded a halt. He gave a
+peculiar whistle, and almost immediately a man came out. This was
+another member of the force. His report was listened to, and then the
+squad passed on.
+
+“To the left, boys!” ordered Gevrol; “we will take the Rue d’Ivry, and
+then cut through the shortest way to the Rue de Chevaleret.”
+
+From this point the expedition became really disagreeable. The way led
+through an unfinished, unnamed street, full of puddles and deep holes,
+and obstructed with all sorts of rubbish. There were no longer any
+lights or crowded wine-shops. No footsteps, no voices were heard;
+solitude, gloom, and an almost perfect silence prevailed; and one might
+have supposed oneself a hundred leagues from Paris, had it not been for
+the deep and continuous murmur that always arises from a large city,
+resembling the hollow roar of a torrent in some cavern depth.
+
+All the men had turned up their trousers and were advancing slowly,
+picking their way as carefully as an Indian when he is stealing upon his
+prey. They had just passed the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers when suddenly
+a wild shriek rent the air. At this place, and at this hour, such a cry
+was so frightfully significant, that all the men paused as if by common
+impulse.
+
+“Did you hear that, General?” asked one of the detectives, in a low
+voice.
+
+“Yes, there is murder going on not far from here--but where? Silence!
+let us listen.”
+
+They all stood motionless, holding their breath, and anxiously
+listening. Soon a second cry, or rather a wild howl, resounded.
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the inspector, “it is at the Poivriere.”
+
+This peculiar appellation “Poivriere” or “pepper-box” was derived from
+the term “peppered” which in French slang is applied to a man who
+has left his good sense at the bottom of his glass. Hence, also, the
+sobriquet of “pepper thieves” given to the rascals whose specialty it is
+to plunder helpless, inoffensive drunkards.
+
+“What!” added Gevrol to his companions, “don’t you know Mother Chupin’s
+drinking-shop there on the right. Run.”
+
+And, setting the example, he dashed off in the direction indicated. His
+men followed, and in less than a minute they reached a hovel of sinister
+aspect, standing alone, in a tract of waste ground. It was indeed from
+this den that the cries had proceeded. They were now repeated, and were
+immediately followed by two pistol shots. The house was hermetically
+closed, but through the cracks in the window-shutters, gleamed a reddish
+light like that of a fire. One of the police agents darted to one of
+these windows, and raising himself up by clinging to the shutters with
+his hands, endeavored to peer through the cracks, and to see what was
+passing within.
+
+Gevrol himself ran to the door. “Open!” he commanded, striking it
+heavily. No response came. But they could hear plainly enough the sound
+of a terrible struggle--of fierce imprecations, hollow groans, and
+occasionally the sobs of a woman.
+
+“Horrible!” cried the police agent, who was peering through the
+shutters; “it is horrible!”
+
+This exclamation decided Gevrol. “Open, in the name of the law!” he
+cried a third time.
+
+And no one responding, with a blow of the shoulder that was as violent
+as a blow from a battering-ram, he dashed open the door. Then the
+horror-stricken accent of the man who had been peering through the
+shutters was explained. The room presented such a spectacle that all
+the agents, and even Gevrol himself, remained for a moment rooted to the
+threshold, shuddering with unspeakable horror.
+
+Everything denoted that the house had been the scene of a terrible
+struggle, of one of those savage conflicts which only too often stain
+the barriere drinking dens with blood. The lights had been extinguished
+at the beginning of the strife, but a blazing fire of pine logs
+illuminated even the furthest corners of the room. Tables, glasses,
+decanters, household utensils, and stools had been overturned, thrown
+in every direction, trodden upon, shivered into fragments. Near
+the fireplace two men lay stretched upon the floor. They were lying
+motionless upon their backs, with their arms crossed. A third was
+extended in the middle of the room. A woman crouched upon the lower
+steps of a staircase leading to the floor above. She had thrown her
+apron over her head, and was uttering inarticulate moans. Finally,
+facing the police, and with his back turned to an open door leading into
+an adjoining room, stood a young man, in front of whom a heavy oaken
+table formed, as it were, a rampart.
+
+He was of medium stature, and wore a full beard. His clothes, not unlike
+those of a railway porter, were torn to fragments, and soiled with dust
+and wine and blood. This certainly was the murderer. The expression on
+his face was terrible. A mad fury blazed in his eyes, and a convulsive
+sneer distorted his features. On his neck and cheek were two wounds
+which bled profusely. In his right hand, covered with a handkerchief, he
+held a pistol, which he aimed at the intruders.
+
+“Surrender!” cried Gevrol.
+
+The man’s lips moved, but in spite of a visible effort he could not
+articulate a syllable.
+
+“Don’t do any mischief,” continued the inspector, “we are in force, you
+can not escape; so lay down your arms.”
+
+“I am innocent,” exclaimed the man, in a hoarse, strained voice.
+
+“Naturally, but we do not see it.”
+
+“I have been attacked; ask that old woman. I defended myself; I have
+killed--I had a right to do so; it was in self-defense!”
+
+The gesture with which he enforced these words was so menacing that one
+of the agents drew Gevrol violently aside, saying, as he did so; “Take
+care, General, take care! The revolver has five barrels, and we have
+heard but two shots.”
+
+But the inspector was inaccessible to fear; he freed himself from the
+grasp of his subordinate and again stepped forward, speaking in a still
+calmer tone. “No foolishness, my lad; if your case is a good one, which
+is possible, after all, don’t spoil it.”
+
+A frightful indecision betrayed itself on the young man’s features. He
+held Gevrol’s life at the end of his finger, was he about to press the
+trigger? No, he suddenly threw his weapon to the floor, exclaiming:
+“Come and take me!” And turning as he spoke he darted into the adjoining
+room, hoping doubtless to escape by some means of egress which he knew
+of.
+
+Gevrol had expected this movement. He sprang after him with outstretched
+arms, but the table retarded his pursuit. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “the
+wretch escapes us!”
+
+But the fate of the fugitive was already decided. While Gevrol parleyed,
+one of the agents--he who had peered through the shutters--had gone to
+the rear of the house and effected an entrance through the back door. As
+the murderer darted out, this man sprang upon him, seized him, and with
+surprising strength and agility dragged him back. The murderer tried to
+resist; but in vain. He had lost his strength: he tottered and fell upon
+the table that had momentarily protected him, murmuring loud enough for
+every one to hear: “Lost! It is the Prussians who are coming!”
+
+This simple and decisive maneuvre on the part of the subordinate had won
+the victory, and at first it greatly delighted the inspector. “Good, my
+boy,” said he, “very good! Ah! you have a talent for your business, and
+you will do well if ever an opportunity--”
+
+But he checked himself; all his followers so evidently shared his
+enthusiasm that a feeling of jealousy overcame him. He felt his prestige
+diminishing, and hastened to add: “The idea had occurred to me; but I
+could not give the order without warning the scoundrel himself.”
+
+This remark was superfluous. All the police agents had now gathered
+around the murderer. They began by binding his feet and hands, and then
+fastened him securely to a chair. He offered no resistance. His wild
+excitement had given place to that gloomy prostration that follows all
+unnatural efforts, either of mind or body. Evidently he had abandoned
+himself to his fate.
+
+When Gevrol saw that the men had finished their task, he called on them
+to attend to the other inmates of the den, and in addition ordered the
+lamps to be lit for the fire was going out. The inspector began his
+examination with the two men lying near the fireplace. He laid his hand
+on their hearts, but no pulsations were to be detected. He then held
+the face of his watch close to their lips, but the glass remained quite
+clear. “Useless,” he murmured, after several trials, “useless; they are
+dead! They will never see morning again. Leave them in the same position
+until the arrival of the public prosecutor, and let us look at the other
+one.”
+
+The third man still breathed. He was a young fellow, wearing the uniform
+of a common soldier of the line. He was unarmed, and his large bluish
+gray cloak was partly open, revealing his bare chest. The agents
+lifted him very carefully--for he groaned piteously at the slightest
+movement--and placed him in an upright position, with his back leaning
+against the wall. He soon opened his eyes, and in a faint voice asked
+for something to drink. They brought him a glass of water, which he
+drank with evident satisfaction. He then drew a long breath, and seemed
+to regain some little strength.
+
+“Where are you wounded?” asked Gevrol.
+
+“In the head, there,” he responded, trying to raise one of his arms.
+“Oh! how I suffer.”
+
+The police agent, who had cut off the murderer’s retreat now approached,
+and with a dexterity that an old surgeon might have envied, made an
+examination of the gaping wound which the young man had received in the
+back of the neck. “It is nothing,” declared the police agent, but as
+he spoke there was no mistaking the movement of his lower lip. It was
+evident that he considered the wound very dangerous, probably mortal.
+
+“It will be nothing,” affirmed Gevrol in his turn; “wounds in the head,
+when they do not kill at once, are cured in a month.”
+
+The wounded man smiled sadly. “I have received my death blow,” he
+murmured.
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“Oh! it is useless to say anything; I feel it, but I do not complain. I
+have only received my just deserts.”
+
+All the police agents turned toward the murderer on hearing these words,
+presuming that he would take advantage of this opportunity to repeat his
+protestations of innocence. But their expectations were disappointed; he
+did not speak, although he must certainly have heard the words.
+
+“It was that brigand, Lacheneur, who enticed me here,” continued the
+wounded man, in a voice that was growing fainter.
+
+“Lacheneur?”
+
+“Yes, Jean Lacheneur, a former actor, who knew me when I was rich--for I
+had a fortune, but I spent it all; I wished to amuse myself. He, knowing
+I was without a single sou in the world, came and promised me money
+enough to begin life over again. Fool that I was to believe him, for he
+brought me to die here like a dog! Oh! I will have my revenge on him!”
+ At this thought the wounded man clenched his hands threateningly. “I
+will have my revenge,” he resumed. “I know much more than he believes. I
+will reveal everything.”
+
+But he had presumed too much upon his strength. Anger had given him a
+moment’s energy, but at the cost of his life which was ebbing away. When
+he again tried to speak, he could not. Twice did he open his lips, but
+only a choking cry of impotent rage escaped them. This was his last
+manifestation of intelligence. A bloody foam gathered upon his lips, his
+eyes rolled back in their sockets, his body stiffened, and he fell face
+downward in a terrible convulsion.
+
+“It is over,” murmured Gevrol.
+
+“Not yet,” replied the young police agent, who had shown himself so
+proficient; “but he can not live more than two minutes. Poor devil! he
+will say nothing.”
+
+The inspector of police had risen from the floor as if he had just
+witnessed the commonest incident in the world, and was carefully dusting
+the knees of his trousers. “Oh, well,” he responded, “we shall know
+all we need to know. This fellow is a soldier, and the number of his
+regiment will be given on the buttons of his cloak.”
+
+A slight smile curved the lips of the subordinate. “I think you are
+mistaken, General,” said he.
+
+“How--”
+
+“Yes, I understand. Seeing him attired in a military coat, you
+supposed--But no; this poor wretch was no soldier. Do you wish for an
+immediate proof? Is his hair the regulation cut? Where did you ever see
+soldiers with their hair falling over their shoulders?”
+
+This objection silenced the General for a moment; but he replied
+bruskly: “Do you think that I keep my eyes in my pocket? What you have
+remarked did not escape my notice; only I said to myself, here is a
+young man who has profited by leave of absence to visit the wig maker.”
+
+“At least--”
+
+But Gevrol would permit no more interruptions. “Enough talk,” he
+declared. “We will now hear what has happened. Mother Chupin, the old
+hussy, is not dead!”
+
+As he spoke, he advanced toward the old woman, who was still crouching
+upon the stairs. She had not moved nor ventured so much as a look since
+the entrance of the police, but her moans had not been discontinued.
+With a sudden movement, Gevrol tore off the apron which she had thrown
+over her head, and there she stood, such as years, vice, poverty, and
+drink had made her; wrinkled, shriveled, toothless, and haggard, her
+skin as yellow and as dry as parchment and drawn tightly over her bones.
+
+“Come, stand up!” ordered the inspector. “Your lamentations don’t affect
+me. You ought to be sent to prison for putting such vile drugs into your
+liquors, thus breeding madness in the brains of your customers.”
+
+The old woman’s little red eyes traveled slowly round the room, and then
+in tearful tones she exclaimed: “What a misfortune! what will become of
+me? Everything is broken--I am ruined!” She only seemed impressed by the
+loss of her table utensils.
+
+“Now tell us how this trouble began,” said Gevrol.
+
+“Alas! I know nothing about it. I was upstairs mending my son’s clothes,
+when I heard a dispute.”
+
+“And after that?”
+
+“Of course I came down, and I saw those three men that are lying
+there picking a quarrel with the young man you have arrested; the poor
+innocent! For he is innocent, as truly as I am an honest woman. If my
+son Polyte had been here he would have separated them; but I, a poor
+widow, what could I do! I cried ‘Police!’ with all my might.”
+
+After giving this testimony she resumed her seat, thinking she had said
+enough. But Gevrol rudely ordered her to stand up again. “Oh! we have
+not done,” said he. “I wish for other particulars.”
+
+“What particulars, dear Monsieur Gevrol, since I saw nothing?”
+
+Anger crimsoned the inspector’s ears. “What would you say, old woman, if
+I arrested you?”
+
+“It would be a great piece of injustice.”
+
+“Nevertheless, it is what will happen if you persist in remaining
+silent. I have an idea that a fortnight in Saint Lazare would untie your
+tongue.”
+
+These words produced the effect of an electric shock on the Widow
+Chupin. She suddenly ceased her hypocritical lamentations, rose, placed
+her hands defiantly on her hips, and poured forth a torrent of invective
+upon Gevrol and his agents, accusing them of persecuting her family ever
+since they had previously arrested her son, a good-for-nothing fellow.
+Finally, she swore that she was not afraid of prison, and would be only
+too glad to end her days in jail beyond the reach of want.
+
+At first the General tried to impose silence upon the terrible
+termagant: but he soon discovered that he was powerless; besides, all
+his subordinates were laughing. Accordingly he turned his back upon her,
+and, advancing toward the murderer, he said: “You, at least, will not
+refuse an explanation.”
+
+The man hesitated for a moment. “I have already said all that I have to
+say,” he replied, at last. “I have told you that I am innocent; and this
+woman and a man on the point of death who was struck down by my hand,
+have both confirmed my declaration. What more do you desire? When the
+judge questions me, I will, perhaps, reply; until then do not expect
+another word from me.”
+
+It was easy to see that the fellow’s resolution was irrevocable; and
+that he was not to be daunted by any inspector of police. Criminals
+frequently preserve an absolute silence, from the very moment they are
+captured. These men are experienced and shrewd, and lawyers and judges
+pass many sleepless nights on their account. They have learned that
+a system of defense can not be improvised at once; that it is, on the
+contrary, a work of patience and meditation; and knowing what a terrible
+effect an apparently insignificant response drawn from them at the
+moment of detection may produce on a court of justice, they remain
+obstinately silent. So as to see whether the present culprit was an old
+hand or not, Gevrol was about to insist on a full explanation when some
+one announced that the soldier had just breathed his last.
+
+“As that is so, my boys,” the inspector remarked, “two of you will
+remain here, and I will leave with the others. I shall go and arouse
+the commissary of police, and inform him of the affair; he will take
+the matter in hand: and we can then do whatever he commands. My
+responsibility will be over, in any case. So untie our prisoner’s
+legs and bind Mother Chupin’s hands, and we will drop them both at the
+station-house as we pass.”
+
+The men hastened to obey, with the exception of the youngest among them,
+the same who had won the General’s passing praise. He approached his
+chief, and motioning that he desired to speak with him, drew him outside
+the door. When they were a few steps from the house, Gevrol asked him
+what he wanted.
+
+“I wish to know, General, what you think of this affair.”
+
+“I think, my boy, that four scoundrels encountered each other in this
+vile den. They began to quarrel; and from words they came to blows.
+One of them had a revolver, and he killed the others. It is as clear as
+daylight. According to his antecedents, and according to the antecedents
+of the victims, the assassin will be judged. Perhaps society owes him
+some thanks.”
+
+“And you think that any investigation--any further search is
+unnecessary.”
+
+“Entirely unnecessary.”
+
+The younger man appeared to deliberate for a moment. “It seems to me,
+General,” he at length replied, “that this affair is not perfectly
+clear. Have you noticed the murderer, remarked his demeanor, and
+observed his look? Have you been surprised as I have been--?”
+
+“By what?”
+
+“Ah, well! it seems to me--I may, of course, be mistaken--but I fancy
+that appearances are deceitful, and--Yes, I suspect something.”
+
+“Bah!--explain yourself, please.”
+
+“How can you explain the dog’s faculty of scent?”
+
+Gevrol shrugged his shoulders. “In short,” he replied, “you scent a
+melodrama here--a rendezvous of gentlemen in disguise, here at the
+Poivriere, at Mother Chupin’s house. Well, hunt after the mystery, my
+boy; search all you like, you have my permission.”
+
+“What! you will allow me?”
+
+“I not only allow you, I order you to do it. You are going to remain
+here with any one of your comrades you may select. And if you find
+anything that I have not seen, I will allow you to buy me a pair of
+spectacles.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The young police agent to whom Gevrol abandoned what he thought an
+unnecessary investigation was a debutant in his profession. His name
+was Lecoq. He was some twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, almost
+beardless, very pale, with red lips, and an abundance of wavy black
+hair. He was rather short but well proportioned; and each of his
+movements betrayed unusual energy. There was nothing remarkable about
+his appearance, if we except his eyes, which sparkled brilliantly or
+grew extremely dull, according to his mood; and his nose, the large full
+nostrils of which had a surprising mobility.
+
+The son of a respectable, well-to-do Norman family, Lecoq had received
+a good and solid education. He was prosecuting his law studies in Paris,
+when in the same week, blow following blow, he learned that his father
+had died, financially ruined, and that his mother had survived him only
+a few hours. He was left alone in the world, destitute of resources,
+obliged to earn his living. But how? He had an opportunity of learning
+his true value, and found that it amounted to nothing; for the
+university, on bestowing its diploma of bachelor, does not give an
+annuity with it. Hence of what use is a college education to a poor
+orphan boy? He envied the lot of those who, with a trade at the ends of
+their fingers, could boldly enter the office of any manufacturer, and
+say: “I would like to work.” Such men were working and eating. Lecoq
+sought bread by all the methods employed by people who are in reduced
+circumstances! Fruitless labor! There are a hundred thousand people in
+Paris who have seen better days. No matter! He gave proofs of undaunted
+energy. He gave lessons, and copied documents for a lawyer. He made
+his appearance in a new character almost every day, and left no means
+untried to earn an honest livelihood. At last he obtained employment
+from a well-known astronomer, the Baron Moser, and spent his days in
+solving bewildering and intricate problems, at the rate of a hundred
+francs a month.
+
+But a season of discouragement came. After five years of constant toil,
+he found himself at the same point from which he had started. He was
+nearly crazed with rage and disappointment when he recapitulated his
+blighted hopes, his fruitless efforts, and the insults he had endured.
+The past had been sad, the present was intolerable, the future
+threatened to be terrible. Condemned to constant privations, he tried to
+escape from the horrors of his real life by taking refuge in dreams.
+
+Alone in his garret, after a day of unremitting toil, assailed by the
+thousand longings of youth, Lecoq endeavored to devise some means of
+suddenly making himself rich. All reasonable methods being beyond his
+reach, it was not long before he was engaged in devising the worst
+expedients. In short, this naturally moral and honest young man spent
+much of his time in perpetrating--in fancy--the most abominable crimes.
+Sometimes he himself was frightened by the work of his imagination: for
+an hour of recklessness might suffice to make him pass from the idea
+to the fact, from theory to practise. This is the case with all
+monomaniacs; an hour comes in which the strange conceptions that have
+filled their brains can be no longer held in check.
+
+One day he could not refrain from exposing to his patron a little plan
+he had conceived, which would enable him to obtain five or six hundred
+francs from London. Two letters and a telegram were all that was
+necessary, and the game was won. It was impossible to fail, and there
+was no danger of arousing suspicion.
+
+The astronomer, amazed at the simplicity of the plan, could but admire
+it. On reflection, however, he concluded that it would not be prudent
+for him to retain so ingenious a secretary in his service. This was
+why, on the following day, he gave him a month’s pay in advance, and
+dismissed him, saying: “When one has your disposition, and is poor, one
+may either become a famous thief or a great detective. Choose.”
+
+Lecoq retired in confusion; but the astronomer’s words bore fruit in his
+mind. “Why should I not follow good advice?” he asked himself. Police
+service did not inspire him with repugnance--far from it. He had often
+admired that mysterious power whose hand is everywhere, and which,
+although unseen and unheard, still manages to hear and see everything.
+He was delighted with the prospect of being the instrument of such a
+power. He considered that the profession of detective would enable him
+to employ the talents with which he had been endowed in a useful and
+honorable fashion; besides opening out a life of thrilling adventure
+with fame as its goal.
+
+In short, this profession had a wonderful charm for him. So much so,
+that on the following week, thanks to a letter from Baron Moser, he was
+admitted into the service. A cruel disenchantment awaited him. He had
+seen the results, but not the means. His surprise was like that of a
+simple-minded frequenter of the theatre, when he is admitted for the
+first time behind the scenes, and is able to pry into the decorations
+and tinsel that are so dazzling at a distance.
+
+However, the opportunity for which he had so ardently longed, for which
+he had been waiting during many weary months, had come, he thought,
+at last, as he reached the Poivriere with Gevrol and the other police
+agents. While he was clinging to the window shutters he saw by the
+light of his ambition a pathway to success. It was at first only a
+presentiment, but it soon became a supposition, and then a conviction
+based upon actual facts, which had escaped his companions, but which
+he had observed and carefully noted. He recognized that fortune had, at
+last, turned in his favor when he saw Gevrol neglect all but the merest
+formalities of examination, and when he heard him declare peremptorily
+that this triple murder was merely the result of one of those ferocious
+quarrels so frequent among vagrants in the outskirts of the city.
+
+“Ah, well!” he thought; “have it your own way--trust in appearances,
+since you will see nothing beneath them! But I will prove to you that my
+youthful theory is better than all your experience.”
+
+The inspector’s carelessness gave Lecoq a perfect right to secretly seek
+information on his own account; but by warning his superior officers
+before attempting anything on his own responsibility, he would protect
+himself against any accusation of ambition or of unduly taking advantage
+of his comrade. Such charges might prove most dangerous for his future
+prospects in a profession where so much rivalry is seen, and where
+wounded vanity has so many opportunities to avenge itself by resorting
+to all sorts of petty treason. Accordingly, he spoke to his superior
+officer--saying just enough to be able to remark, in case of success:
+“Ah! I warned you!”--just enough so as not to dispel any of Gevrol’s
+doubts.
+
+The permission which Lecoq obtained to remain in charge of the bodies
+was his first triumph of the best possible augury; but he knew how to
+dissimulate, and it was in a tone of the utmost indifference that he
+requested one of his comrades to remain with him. Then, while the others
+were making ready to depart, he seated himself upon the corner of the
+table, apparently oblivious of all that was passing around. He did not
+dare to lift his head, for fear of betraying his joy, so much did
+he fear that his companions might read his hopes and plans in the
+expression of his face.
+
+Inwardly he was wild with impatience. Though the murderer submitted with
+good grace to the precautions that were taken to prevent his escape, it
+required some time to bind the hands of the Widow Chupin, who fought and
+howled as if they were burning her alive. “They will never go!” Lecoq
+murmured to himself.
+
+They did so at last, however. Gevrol gave the order to start, and left
+the house, addressing a laughing good-by to his subordinate. The latter
+made no reply. He followed his comrades as far as the threshold to make
+sure that they were really going, for he trembled at the thought that
+Gevrol might reflect, change his mind, and return to solve the mystery,
+as was his right.
+
+His anxiety was needless, however. The squad gradually faded away in the
+distance, and the cries of Widow Chupin died away in the stillness of
+the night. It was only then that Lecoq reentered the room. He could
+no longer conceal his delight; his eyes sparkled as might those of a
+conqueror taking possession of some vast empire: he stamped his foot
+upon the floor and exclaimed with exultation: “Now the mystery belongs
+to us two alone!”
+
+Authorized by Gevrol to choose one of his comrades to remain with him at
+the Poivriere, Lecoq had requested the least intelligent of the party
+to keep him company. He was not influenced by a fear of being obliged to
+share the fruits of success with his companion, but by the necessity of
+having an assistant from whom he could, in case of need, exact implicit
+obedience.
+
+The comrade Lecoq selected was a man of about fifty, who, after a term
+of cavalry service, had become an agent of the prefecture. In the humble
+office that he occupied he had seen prefect succeed prefect, and might
+probably have filled an entire prison with the culprits he had arrested
+with his own hands. Experience had not, however, made him any the
+shrewder or any the more zealous. Still he had this merit, when he
+received an order he executed it with military exactitude, so far as he
+understood it. Of course if he had failed to understand it, so much the
+worse. It might, indeed, be said of him, that he discharged his duties
+like a blind man, like an old horse trained for a riding school.
+
+When he had a moment’s leisure, and a little money in his pocket, he
+invariably got drunk. Indeed, he spent his life between two fits of
+intoxication, without ever rising above a condition of semi-lucidity.
+His comrades had known, but had forgotten, his name, and his partiality
+for a certain beverage had accordingly induced them to call him “Father
+Absinthe.”
+
+With his limited powers of observation, he naturally did not observe
+the tone of triumph in his young companion’s voice. “Upon my word,” he
+remarked, when they were alone, “your idea of keeping me here was a good
+one, and I thank you for it. While the others spend the night paddling
+about in the slush, I shall get a good sleep.”
+
+Here he stood, in a room that was splashed with blood, that was
+shuddering, so to speak, with crime, and yet face to face with the still
+warm bodies of three murdered men he could talk of sleep!
+
+But, after all, what did it matter to him? He had seen so many similar
+scenes in his time. And does not habit infallibly lead to professional
+indifference, making the soldier cool and composed in the midst of
+conflict, and rendering the surgeon impassible when the patient shrieks
+and writhes beneath his operating knife.
+
+“I have been upstairs, looking about,” pursued Father Absinthe; “I saw a
+bed up there, and we can mount guard here, by turns.”
+
+With an imperious gesture, Lecoq interrupted him. “You must give up
+that idea, Father Absinthe,” he said, “we are not here to sleep, but to
+collect information--to make the most careful researches, and to note
+all the probabilities. In a few hours the commissary of police, the
+legal physician, and the public prosecutor will be here. I wish to have
+a report ready for them.”
+
+This proposition seemed anything but pleasing to the old police agent.
+“Eh! what is the use of that?” he exclaimed. “I know the General. When
+he goes in search of the commissary, as he has gone this evening, there
+is nothing more to be done. Do you think you can see anything that he
+didn’t see?”
+
+“I think that Gevrol, like every one else, is liable to be mistaken. I
+think that he believes too implicitly in what seems to him evidence. I
+could swear that this affair is not what it seems to be; and I am sure
+that if we like we can discover the mystery which is concealed beneath
+present appearances.”
+
+Although Lecoq’s vehemence was intense, he did not succeed in making
+any impression upon his companion, who with a yawn that threatened to
+dislocate his jaws replied: “Perhaps you are right; but I am going to
+bed. This need not prevent you from searching around, however; and if
+you find anything you can wake me.”
+
+Lecoq made no sign of impatience: nor in reality was he impatient. These
+words afforded him the opportunity for which he was longing. “You will
+give me a moment first,” he remarked. “In five minutes, by your watch, I
+promise to let you put your finger on the mystery that I suspect here.”
+
+“Well, go on for five minutes.”
+
+“After that you shall be free, Father Absinthe. Only it is clear that if
+I unravel the mystery alone, I alone ought to pocket the reward that a
+solution will certainly bring.”
+
+At the word “reward” the old police agent pricked up his ears. He was
+dazzled by the vision of an infinite number of bottles of the greenish
+liquor whose name he bore. “Convince me, then,” said he, taking a seat
+upon a stool, which he had lifted from the floor.
+
+Lecoq remained standing in front of him. “To begin with,” he remarked,
+“whom do you suppose the person we have just arrested to be?”
+
+“A porter, probably, or a vagabond.”
+
+“That is to say, a man belonging to the lowest class of society:
+consequently, a fellow without education.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+Lecoq spoke with his eyes fixed upon those of his companion. He
+distrusted his own powers, as is usual with persons of real merit, but
+he felt that if he could succeed in making his convictions penetrate his
+comrade’s obtuse mind, their exactitude would be virtually proved.
+
+“And now,” he continued, “what would you say if I showed you that this
+young man had received an excellent, even refined, education?”
+
+“I should reply that it was very extraordinary. I should reply that--but
+what a fool I am! You have not proved it to me yet.”
+
+“But I can do so very easily. Do you remember the words that he uttered
+as he fell?”
+
+“Yes, I remember them perfectly. He said: ‘It is the Prussians who are
+coming.’”
+
+“What do you suppose he meant by that?”
+
+“What a question! I should suppose that he did not like the Prussians,
+and that he supposed he was offering us a terrible insult.”
+
+Lecoq was waiting anxiously for this response. “Ah, well; Father
+Absinthe,” he said gravely, “you are wrong, quite wrong. And that this
+man has an education superior to his apparent position is proved by the
+fact that you did not understand his meaning, nor his intention. It was
+this single phrase that enlightened me.”
+
+Father Absinthe’s physiognomy expressed the strange and comical
+perplexity of a man who is so thoroughly mystified that he knows not
+whether to laugh, or to be angry. After reflecting a little, he decided
+to adopt the latter course. “You are rather too young to impose upon an
+old fellow like me,” he remarked. “I don’t like boasters--”
+
+“One moment!” interrupted Lecoq; “allow me to explain. You have
+certainly heard of a terrible battle which resulted in one of the
+greatest defeats that ever happened to France--the battle of Waterloo?”
+
+“I don’t see the connection--”
+
+“Answer, if you please.”
+
+“Yes--then! I have heard of it!”
+
+“Very well; you must know then that for some time victory seemed likely
+to rest with the banners of France. The English began to fall back, and
+the emperor had already exclaimed: ‘We have them!’ when suddenly on the
+right, a little in the rear, a large body of troops was seen advancing.
+It was the Prussian army. The battle of Waterloo was lost.”
+
+In all his life, worthy Father Absinthe had never made such a strenuous
+effort to understand anything. In this case his perseverance was not
+wholly useless, for, springing from his stool, and probably in much the
+same tone that Archimedes cried “Eureka!” he exclaimed, “I understand.
+The man’s words were only an allusion.”
+
+“It is as you have said,” remarked Lecoq, approvingly. “But I had
+not finished. If the emperor was thrown into consternation by the
+appearance of the Prussians, it was because he was momentarily
+expecting the arrival of one of his own generals from the same
+direction--Grouchy--with thirty-five thousand men. So if this man’s
+allusion was exact and complete, he was not expecting an enemy, but a
+friend. Now draw your own conclusions.”
+
+Father Absinthe was amazed but convinced: and his eyes, heavy with sleep
+a few moments before, now opened to their widest extent. “Good heavens!”
+ he murmured, “if you put it in that way! But I forget; you must have
+seen something as you were looking through the shutters.”
+
+The young man shook his head. “Upon my honor,” he declared, “I saw
+nothing save the struggle between the murderer and the poor devil
+dressed as a soldier. It was that sentence alone that aroused my
+attention.”
+
+“Wonderful! prodigious!” exclaimed the astonished old man.
+
+“I will add that reflection has confirmed my suspicions. I ask myself
+why this man, instead of flying at once, should have waited and remained
+there, at that door, to parley with us.”
+
+With a bound, Father Absinthe sprang again to his feet. “Why?” he
+interrupted; “because he had accomplices, and he wished to give them
+time to escape. Ah! I understand it all now.”
+
+A triumphant smile parted Lecoq’s lips. “That is what I said to myself,”
+ he replied, “and now it is easy to verify my suspicions. There is snow
+outside, isn’t there?”
+
+It was not necessary to say any more. The elder officer seized the
+light, and followed by his companion, he hastened to the back door of
+the house, which opened into a small garden. In this sheltered enclosure
+the snow had not melted, and upon its white surface the dark stains
+of numerous footprints presented themselves. Without hesitation,
+Lecoq threw himself upon his knees in the snow; he rose again almost
+immediately. “These indentations were not made by the men’s feet,” said
+he. “There have been women here.”
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Obstinate men of Father Absinthe’s stamp, who are at first always
+inclined to differ from other people’s opinions, are the very
+individuals who end in madly adopting them. When an idea has at last
+penetrated their empty brains, they twist and turn it, dwell upon it,
+and develop it until it exceeds the bounds of reason.
+
+Hence, the police veteran was now much more strongly convinced than
+his companion that the usually clever Gevrol had been mistaken, and
+accordingly he laughed the inspector to scorn. On hearing Lecoq affirm
+that women had taken part in the horrible scene at the Poivriere, his
+joy was extreme--“A fine affair!” he exclaimed; “an excellent case!” And
+suddenly recollecting a maxim that has been handed down from the time
+of Cicero, he added in sententious tones: “Who holds the woman holds the
+cause!”
+
+Lecoq did not deign to reply. He was standing upon the threshold,
+leaning against the framework of the door, his hand pressed to his
+forehead, as motionless as a statue. The discovery he had just made, and
+which so delighted Father Absinthe, filled him with consternation. It
+was the death of his hopes, the annihilation of the ingenious structure
+which his imagination had built upon the foundation of a single
+sentence.
+
+There was no longer any mystery--, so celebrity was not to be gained by
+a brilliant stroke!
+
+For the presence of two women in this vile den explained everything in
+the most natural and commonplace fashion. Their presence explained the
+quarrel, the testimony of Widow Chupin, the dying declaration of the
+pretended soldier. The behavior of the murderer was also explained. He
+had remained to cover the retreat of the two women; he had sacrificed
+himself in order to save them, an act of gallantry so common in the
+French character, that any scoundrel of the barrieres might have
+performed it.
+
+Still, the strange allusion to the battle of Waterloo remained
+unexplained. But what did that prove now? Nothing, simply nothing.
+However, who could say how low an unworthy passion might cause a man
+even of birth and breeding to descend? And the carnival afforded an
+opportunity for the parties to disguise themselves.
+
+But while Lecoq was turning and twisting all these probabilities in his
+mind, Father Absinthe became impatient. “Are we going to remain here
+until doomsday?” he asked. “Are we to pause just at the moment when our
+search has been productive of such brilliant results?”
+
+“Brilliant results!” These words stung the young man as deeply as the
+keenest irony could have done. “Leave me alone,” he replied gruffly;
+“and, above all, don’t walk about the garden, as by doing so, you’ll
+damage any footprints.”
+
+His companion swore a little; but soon became silent in his turn. He was
+constrained to submit to the irresistible ascendency of superior will
+and intelligence.
+
+Lecoq was engaged in following out his course of reasoning. “The
+murderer, leaving the ball at the Rainbow, a dancing-house not far from
+here, near the fortifications, came to this wine-shop, accompanied by
+two women. He found three men drinking here, who either began teasing
+him, or who displayed too much gallantry toward his companions. He
+became angry. The others threatened him; he was one against three; he
+was armed; he became wild with rage, and fired--”
+
+He checked himself, and an instant after added, aloud: “But was it the
+murderer who brought these women here? If he is tried, this will be the
+important point. It is necessary to obtain information regarding it.”
+
+He immediately went back into the house, closely followed by his
+colleague, and began an examination of the footprints round about the
+door that Gevrol had forced open. Labor lost. There was but little snow
+on the ground near the entrance of the hovel, and so many persons
+had passed in and out that Lecoq could discover nothing. What a
+disappointment after his patient hopes! Lecoq could have cried
+with rage. He saw the opportunity for which he had sighed so long
+indefinitely postponed. He fancied he could hear Gevrol’s coarse
+sarcasms. “Enough of this,” he murmured, under his breath. “The General
+was right, and I am a fool!”
+
+He was so positively convinced that one could do no more than discover
+the circumstances of some commonplace, vulgar broil, that he began to
+wonder if it would not be wise to renounce his search and take a nap,
+while awaiting the coming of the commissary of police.
+
+But Father Absinthe was no longer of this opinion. This worthy man, who
+was far from suspecting the nature of his companion’s reflections could
+not explain his inaction. “Come! my boy,” said he, “have you lost your
+wits? This is losing time, it seems to me. The authorities will arrive
+in a few hours, and what report shall we be able to give them! As for
+me, if you desire to go to sleep, I shall pursue the investigation
+alone.”
+
+Disappointed as he was, the young police officer could not repress a
+smile. He recognized his own exhortation of a few moments before. It
+was the old man who had suddenly become intrepid. “To work, then!” he
+sighed, like a man who, while foreseeing defeat, wishes, at least, to
+have no cause for self-reproach.
+
+He found it, however, extremely difficult to follow the footprints in
+the open air by the uncertain light of a candle, which was extinguished
+by the least breath of wind. “I wonder if there is a lantern in the
+house,” he said. “If we could only lay our hands upon one!”
+
+They searched everywhere, and, at last, upstairs in the Widow Chupin’s
+own room, they found a well-trimmed lantern, so small and compact that
+it certainly had never been intended for honest purposes.
+
+“A regular burglar’s implement,” said Father Absinthe, with a coarse
+laugh.
+
+The implement was useful in any case; as both men agreed when
+they returned to the garden and recommenced their investigations
+systematically. They advanced very slowly and with extreme caution. The
+old man carefully held the lantern in the best position, while Lecoq,
+on his knees, studied each footprint with the attention of a chiromancer
+professing to read the future in the hand of a rich client. This
+new examination assured Lecoq that he had been correct in his first
+supposition. It was plain that two women had left the Poivriere by the
+back door. They had started off running, as was proved by the length of
+the steps and the shape of the footprints.
+
+The difference in the tracks left by the two fugitives was so remarkable
+that it did not escape Father Absinthe’s eyes. “Sapristi!” he muttered;
+“one of these jades can boast of having a pretty foot at the end of her
+leg!”
+
+He was right. One of the tracks betrayed a small, coquettish, slender
+foot, clad in an elegant high-heeled boot with a narrow sole and an
+arched instep. The other denoted a broad, short foot growing wider
+toward the end. It had evidently been incased in a strong, low shoe.
+
+This was indeed a clue. Lecoq’s hopes at once revived; so eagerly does
+a man welcome any supposition that is in accordance with his desires.
+Trembling with anxiety, he went to examine some other footprints a short
+distance from these; and an excited exclamation at once escaped his
+lips.
+
+“What is it?” eagerly inquired the other agent: “what do you see?”
+
+“Come and look for yourself, see there!” cried Lecoq.
+
+The old man bent down, and his surprise was so great that he almost
+dropped the lantern. “Oh!” said he in a stifled voice, “a man’s
+footprint!”
+
+“Exactly. And this fellow wore the finest of boots. See that imprint,
+how clear, how neat it is!”
+
+Worthy Father Absinthe was scratching his ear furiously, his usual
+method of quickening his rather slow wits. “But it seems to me,” he
+ventured to say at last, “that this individual was not coming from this
+ill-fated hovel.”
+
+“Of course not; the direction of the foot tells you that. No, he was
+not going away, he was coming here. But he did not pass beyond the spot
+where we are now standing. He was standing on tiptoe with outstretched
+neck and listening ears, when, on reaching this spot, he heard some
+noise, fear seized him, and he fled.”
+
+“Or rather, the women were going out as he was coming, and--”
+
+“No, the women were outside the garden when he entered it.”
+
+This assertion seemed far too audacious to suit Lecoq’s companion, who
+remarked: “One can not be sure of that.”
+
+“I am sure of it, however; and can prove it conclusively. If you doubt
+it, it is because your eyes are growing old. Bring your lantern a little
+nearer--yes, here it is--our man placed his large foot upon one of the
+marks made by the woman with the small foot and almost effaced it.”
+ This unexceptionable piece of circumstantial evidence stupefied the old
+police agent.
+
+“Now,” continued Lecoq, “could this man have been the accomplice whom
+the murderer was expecting? Might it not have been some strolling
+vagrant whose attention was attracted by the two pistol shots? This is
+what we must ascertain. And we will ascertain it. Come!”
+
+A wooden fence of lattice-work, rather more than three feet high,
+was all that separated the Widow Chupin’s garden from the waste land
+surrounding it. When Lecoq made the circuit of the house to cut off the
+murderer’s escape he had encountered this obstacle, and, fearing lest he
+should arrive too late, he had leaped the fence to the great detriment
+of his pantaloons, without even asking himself if there was a gate or
+not. There was one, however--a light gate of lattice-work similar to the
+fence, turning upon iron hinges, and closed by a wooden button. Now it
+was straight toward this gate that these footprints in the snow led the
+two police agents. Some new thought must have struck the younger man,
+for he suddenly paused. “Ah!” he murmured, “these two women did not come
+to the Poivriere this evening for the first time.”
+
+“Why do you think that, my boy?” inquired Father Absinthe.
+
+“I could almost swear it. How, unless they were in the habit of coming
+to this den, could they have been aware of the existence of this gate?
+Could they have discovered it on such a dark, foggy night? No; for I,
+who can, without boasting, say that I have good eyes--I did not see it.”
+
+“Ah! yes, that is true!”
+
+“These two women, however, came here without hesitating, in a straight
+line; and note that to do this, it was necessary for them to cross the
+garden diagonally.”
+
+The veteran would have given something if he could have found some
+objection to offer; but unfortunately he could find none. “Upon my
+word!” he exclaimed, “yours is a droll way of proceeding. You are only
+a conscript; I am a veteran in the service, and have assisted in more
+affairs of this sort than you are years old, but never have I seen--”
+
+“Nonsense!” interrupted Lecoq, “you will see much more. For example, I
+can prove to you that although the women knew the exact position of the
+gate, the man knew it only by hearsay.”
+
+“The proof!”
+
+“The fact is easily demonstrated. Study the man’s footprints, and you,
+who are very sharp, will see at once that he deviated greatly from the
+straight course. He was in such doubt that he was obliged to search for
+the gate with his hand stretched out before him--and his fingers have
+left their imprint on the thin covering of snow that lies upon the upper
+railing of the fence.”
+
+The old man would have been glad to verify this statement for himself,
+as he said, but Lecoq was in a hurry. “Let us go on, let us go on!” said
+he. “You can verify my assertions some other time.”
+
+They left the garden and followed the footprints which led them toward
+the outer boulevards, inclining somewhat in the direction of the Rue de
+Patay. There was now no longer any need of close attention. No one save
+the fugitives had crossed this lonely waste since the last fall of snow.
+A child could have followed the track, so clear and distinct it was.
+Four series of footprints, very unlike in character, formed the track;
+two of these had evidently been left by the women; the other two, one
+going and one returning, had been made by the man. On several occasions
+the latter had placed his foot exactly on the footprints left by the two
+women, half effacing them, thus dispelling all doubt as to the precise
+moment of his approach.
+
+About a hundred yards from the Poivriere, Lecoq suddenly seized his
+colleague’s arm. “Halt!” he exclaimed, “we have reached a good place; I
+can see unmistakable proofs.”
+
+The spot, all unenclosed as it was, was evidently utilized by some
+builder for the storage of various kinds of lumber. The ground was
+strewn with large blocks of granite, some chiseled, some in the rough,
+with numerous long planks and logs of wood in their midst. In front of
+one of these logs, the surface of which had been evidently wiped, all
+the various footprints came together, mingling confusedly.
+
+“Here,” declared the young detective, “our fugitives met the man and
+took counsel with him. One of the women, the one with the little feet,
+sat down upon this log.”
+
+“We ought to make quite sure of that,” said Father Absinthe, in an
+oracular tone.
+
+But his companion cut short his desire for verification. “You, my old
+friend,” said he, “are going to do me the kindness to keep perfectly
+still: pass me the lantern and do not move.”
+
+Lecoq’s modest tone had suddenly become so imperious that his colleague
+dared offer no resistance. Like a soldier at the command to halt,
+he remained erect, motionless, and mute, following his colleague’s
+movements with an inquisitive, wondering eye.
+
+Quick in his motions, and understanding how to maneuvre the lantern
+in accordance with his wishes, the young police agent explored the
+surroundings in a very short space of time. A bloodhound in pursuit of
+his prey would have been less alert, less discerning, less agile. He
+came and went, now turning, now pausing, now retreating, now hurrying on
+again without any apparent reason; he scrutinized, he questioned every
+surrounding object: the ground, the logs of wood, the blocks of stone,
+in a word, nothing escaped his glance. For a moment he would remain
+standing, then fall upon his knees, and at times lie flat upon his
+stomach with his face so near the ground that his breath must have
+melted the snow. He had drawn a tape-line from his pocket, and using it
+with a carpenter’s dexterity, he measured, measured, and measured.
+
+And all his movements were accompanied with the wild gestures of a
+madman, interspersed with oaths or short laughs, with exclamations of
+disappointment or delight. After a quarter of an hour of this strange
+exercise, he turned to Father Absinthe, placed the lantern on a stone,
+wiped his hands with his pocket-handkerchief, and said: “Now I know
+everything!”
+
+“Well, that is saying a great deal!”
+
+“When I say everything, I mean all that is connected with the episode of
+the drama which ended in that bloody bout in the hovel. This expanse of
+earth covered with snow is a white page upon which the people we are
+in search of have written, not only their movements, their goings,
+and comings, but also their secret thoughts, their alternate hopes and
+anxieties. What do these footprints say to you, Papa Absinthe? To me
+they are alive like the persons who made them; they breathe, speak,
+accuse!”
+
+The old agent was saying to himself: “Certainly, this fellow is
+intelligent, undeniably shrewd; but he is very disagreeable.”
+
+“These are the facts as I have read them,” pursued Lecoq. “When the
+murderer repaired to the Poivriere with the two women, his companion--I
+should say his accomplice--came here to wait. He was a tall man of
+middle age; he wore a soft hat and a shaggy brown overcoat; he was,
+moreover, probably married, or had been so, as he had a wedding-ring on
+the little finger of his right hand--”
+
+His companion’s despairing gestures obliged the speaker to pause.
+This description of a person whose existence had but just now been
+demonstrated, these precise details given in a tone of absolute
+certainty, completely upset all Father Absinthe’s ideas, increasing his
+perplexity beyond all bounds.
+
+“This is not right,” he growled, “this is not kind. You are poking
+fun at me. I take the thing seriously; I listen to you, I obey you
+in everything, and then you mock me in this way. We find a clue,
+and instead of following it up, you stop to relate all these absurd
+stories.”
+
+“No,” replied his companion, “I am not jesting, and I have told you
+nothing of which I am not absolutely sure, nothing that is not strictly
+and indisputably true.”
+
+“And you would have me believe--”
+
+“Fear nothing, papa; I would not have you do violence to your
+convictions. When I have told you my reasons, and my means of
+information, you will laugh at the simplicity of the theory that seems
+so incomprehensible to you now.”
+
+“Go on, then,” said the good man, in a tone of resignation.
+
+“We had decided,” rejoined Lecoq, “that the accomplice mounted guard
+here. The time seemed long, and, growing impatient, he paced to and
+fro--the length of this log of wood--occasionally pausing to listen.
+Hearing nothing, he stamped his foot, doubtless exclaiming: ‘What the
+deuce has happened to him down there!’ He had made about thirty turns (I
+have counted them), when a sound broke the stillness--the two women were
+coming.”
+
+On hearing Lecoq’s recital, all the conflicting sentiments that are
+awakened in a child’s mind by a fairy tale--doubt, faith, anxiety,
+and hope--filled Father Absinthe’s heart. What should he believe? what
+should he refuse to believe? He did not know. How was he to separate the
+true from the false among all these equally surprising assertions? On
+the other hand, the gravity of his companion, which certainly was not
+feigned, dismissed all idea of pleasantry.
+
+Finally, curiosity began to torture him. “We had reached the point where
+the women made their appearance,” said he.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” responded Lecoq, “but here all certainty ceases; no more
+proofs, only suppositions. Still, I have every reason to believe that
+our fugitives left the drinking den before the beginning of the fight,
+before the cries that attracted our attention. Who were they? I can only
+conjecture. I suspect, however, that they were not equals in rank. I am
+inclined to think that one was the mistress, the other her servant.”
+
+“That is proved,” ventured the old man, “by the great difference in
+their feet and in their shoes.”
+
+This shrewd observation elicited a smile from Lecoq. “That difference,”
+ he replied, seriously, “is something, of course; but it was not that
+which decided me in my opinion. If greater or less perfection of the
+extremities regulated social distinctions, many mistresses would be
+servants. What struck me was this: when the two women rushed wildly from
+Mother Chupin’s house, the woman with the small feet sprang across the
+garden with one bound, she darted on some distance in advance of the
+other. The terror of the situation, the vileness of the den, the horror
+of the scandal, the thought of safety, inspired her with marvelous
+energy. But her strength, as often happens with delicate and nervous
+women, lasted only a few seconds. She was not half-way from the
+Poivriere when her speed relaxed, her limbs trembled. Ten steps farther
+on she tottered and almost fell. Some steps farther, and she became so
+exhausted that she let go her hold upon her skirts; they trailed upon
+the snow, tracing a faint circle there. Then the woman with the broad
+feet came to aid her. She seized her companion round the waist; she
+dragged her along; their footprints here are mingled confusedly; then,
+seeing that her friend was about to fall, she caught her up in her
+strong arms and carried her--for you will see that the footprints made
+by the woman with the small feet suddenly cease at this point.”
+
+Was Lecoq merely amusing himself by inventing this story? Was this scene
+anything but a work of imagination? Was the accent of deep and sincere
+conviction which he imparted to his words only feigned?
+
+Father Absinthe was still in doubt, but he thought of a way in which he
+might satisfy his uncertainty. He caught up the lantern and hurried off
+to examine these footprints which he had not known how to read, which
+had been speechless to him, but which yielded their secret to another.
+He was obliged to agree with his companion. All that Lecoq had described
+was written there; he saw the confused footprints, the circle made by
+the sweeping skirts, the cessation of the tiny imprints.
+
+On his return, his countenance betrayed a respectful and astonished
+admiration, and it was with a shade of embarrassment that he said: “You
+can scarcely blame an old man for being a little like St. Thomas. ‘I
+have touched it with my fingers,’ and now I am content to follow you.”
+
+The young police agent could not, indeed, blame his colleague for his
+incredulity. Resuming his recital, he continued: “Then the accomplice,
+who had heard the fugitives coming, ran to meet them, and he aided the
+woman with large feet in carrying her companion. The latter must have
+been really ill, for the accomplice took off his hat and used it in
+brushing the snow off this log. Then, thinking the surface was not
+yet dry enough, he wiped it with the skirt of his overcoat. Were these
+civilities pure gallantry, or the usual attentions of an inferior? I
+have asked myself that question. This much, however, is certain,
+while the woman with the small feet was recovering her strength, half
+reclining upon this board, the other took the accomplice a little on
+one side, five or six steps away to the left, just beside that enormous
+block of granite. There she talked with him, and, as he listened, the
+man leaned upon the snow-covered stone. His hand left a very distinct
+imprint there. Then, as the conversation continued, he rested his elbow
+upon the snowy surface.”
+
+Like all men of limited intelligence, Father Absinthe had suddenly
+passed from unreasoning distrust to unquestioning confidence.
+Henceforth, he could believe anything for the very same reason that
+had, at first, made him believe nothing. Having no idea of the bounds
+of human reasoning and penetration, he saw no limits to the conjectural
+genius of his companion. With perfect faith, therefore, he inquired:
+“And what was the accomplice saying to the woman with the broad shoes?”
+
+Lecoq smiled at this simplicity, but the other did not see him do so.
+“It is rather difficult for me to answer that question,” replied the
+young detective, “I think, however, that the woman was explaining to
+the man the immensity and imminence of the danger that threatened his
+companion, and that they were trying to devise some means to rescue him
+from it. Perhaps she brought him orders given by the murderer. It
+is certain that she ended by beseeching the accomplice to run to the
+Poivriere and see what was passing there. And he did so, for his tracks
+start from this block of granite.”
+
+“And only to think,” exclaimed Father Absinthe, “that we were in the
+hovel at that very moment. A word from Gevrol, and we might have had
+handcuffs on the whole gang! How unfortunate!”
+
+Lecoq was not sufficiently disinterested to share his companion’s
+regret. On the contrary, he was very thankful for Gevrol’s blunder. Had
+it not been for that, how would he ever have found an opportunity of
+investigating an affair that grew more and more mysterious as his search
+proceeded, but which he hoped to fathom finally.
+
+“To conclude,” he resumed, “the accomplice soon returned, he had
+witnessed the scene, and was evidently afraid. He feared that the
+thought of exploring the premises might enter the minds of the police.
+It was to the lady with small feet that he addressed himself. He
+explained the necessity of flight, and told her that even a moment’s
+delay might be fatal. At his words, she summoned all her energy; she
+rose and hastened away, clinging to the arm of her companion. Did
+the man indicate the route they were to take, or did they know it
+themselves? This much is certain, he accompanied them some distance, in
+order to watch over them. But besides protecting these women, he had a
+still more sacred duty to perform--that of succoring his accomplice, if
+possible. He retraced his steps, passed by here once more, and the
+last footprint that I can discover leads in the direction of the Rue
+du Chateau des Rentiers. He wished to know what would become of the
+murderer, and went to place himself where he might see him pass by with
+his captors.”
+
+Like a dilettante who can scarcely restrain his applause until the close
+of the aria that delights him, Father Absinthe had been unable during
+the recital to entirely suppress his admiration. But it was not until
+Lecoq ceased speaking that he gave full vent to his enthusiasm: “Here is
+a detective if you like!” he exclaimed. “And they pretend that Gevrol is
+shrewd! What has he ever done to compare with this? Ah! shall I tell you
+what I think? Why, in comparison with you, the General is a mere John
+the Baptist.”
+
+Certainly the flattery was gross, but it was impossible to doubt its
+sincerity. This was the first time that the balmy dew of praise had
+fallen upon Lecoq’s vanity, and it greatly delighted him, although he
+modestly replied: “Nonsense, you are too kind, papa. After all, what
+have I done that is so very clever? I told you that the man was of
+middle age. It was not difficult to see that after one had examined his
+heavy, dragging step. I told you that he was tall--an easy matter. When
+I saw that he had been leaning upon that block of granite there to the
+left, I measured the block in question. It is almost five feet five
+inches in height, consequently a man who could rest his elbow upon it
+must be at least six feet high. The mark of his hand proves that I am
+not mistaken. On seeing that he had brushed away the snow which covered
+the plank, I asked myself what he had used; I thought that it might be
+his cap, and the mark left by the peak proves that I was right. Finally,
+if I have discovered the color and the material of his overcoat, it is
+only because when he wiped the wet board, some splinters of the wood
+tore off a few tiny flakes of brown wool, which I have found, and which
+will figure in the trial. But what does this amount to, after all?
+Nothing. We have only discovered the first clues of the affair. Still,
+we are on the right scent--so, forward then!”
+
+The old officer was electrified, and, like an echo, he repeated:
+“Forward!”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+That night the vagabonds, who had taken refuge in the neighborhood of
+the Poivriere, had a very bad time of it; for while those who managed
+to sleep were disturbed by frightful dreams of a police raid, those who
+remained awake witnessed some strange incidents, well calculated to
+fill their minds with terror. On hearing the shots fired inside Mother
+Chupin’s drinking den, most of the vagrants concluded that there had
+been a collision between the police and some of their comrades, and they
+immediately began prowling about, eagerly listening and watching, and
+ready to take flight at the least sign of danger. At first they could
+discover no particular reasons for alarm. But later on, at about two
+o’clock in the morning, just as they were beginning to feel secure
+again, the fog lifted a little, and they witnessed a phenomenon well
+calculated to arouse anxiety.
+
+Upon the unoccupied tract of land, which the people of the neighborhood
+called the “plain,” a small but very bright light was seen describing
+the most capricious evolutions. It moved here and there without any
+apparent aim, tracing the most inexplicable zigzags, sometimes sinking
+to the earth, sometimes rising to a height of four or five feet, at
+others remaining quite motionless, and the next second flying off like
+a ball. In spite of the place and the season of the year, the less
+ignorant among vagabonds believed the light to be some ignis fatuus, one
+of those luminous meteors that raise from the marshes and float about
+in the atmosphere at the bidding of the wind. In point of fact, however,
+this ignis fatuus was the lantern by the light of which the two police
+agents were pursuing their investigations.
+
+After thus suddenly revealing his capacity to his first disciple, Lecoq
+found himself involved in a cruel perplexity. He had not the boldness
+and promptness of decision which is the gift of a prosperous past, and
+was hesitating between two courses, both equally reasonable, and both
+offering strong probabilities of success. He stood between two paths,
+that made by the two women on the one side, and that made by the
+accomplice on the other. Which should he take? For he could not hope
+to follow both. Seated upon the log where the women had rested a few
+moments before, with his hand pressed upon his forehead, he reflected
+and weighed the chances.
+
+“If I follow the man I shall learn nothing that I do not know already.
+He has gone to hover round the party; he has followed them at a
+distance, he has seen them lock up his accomplice, and he is undoubtedly
+prowling round about the station house. If I hurried in pursuit, could I
+hope to overtake and capture him? No; too long a time has elapsed.”
+
+Father Absinthe listened to this monologue with intense curiosity,
+as anxious as an unsophisticated person who, having questioned a
+clairvoyant in regard to some lost articles, is waiting the oracle’s
+response.
+
+“To follow the women,” continued the young man, “to what would that
+lead? Perhaps to an important discovery, perhaps to nothing.”
+
+However, he preferred the unknown, which, with all its chances of
+failure, had chances of success as well. He rose, his course was
+decided.
+
+“Father Absinthe,” said he, “we are going to follow the footprints of
+these two women, and wherever they lead us we will go.”
+
+Inspired with equal ardor they began their walk. At the end of the path
+upon which they had entered they fancied they observed, as in some magic
+glass, the one the fruits, the other the glory of success. They hurried
+forward. At first it was only play to follow the distinct footprints
+that led toward the Seine. But it was not long before they were obliged
+to proceed more slowly.
+
+On leaving the waste ground they arrived at the outer limits of
+civilization, so to speak; and strange footprints mingled constantly
+with the footprints of the fugitives, at times even effacing them. In
+many spots, either on account of exposure or the nature of the soil,
+the thaw had completed its work, and there were large patches of ground
+entirely free from snow. In such cases they lost the trail, and it
+required all Lecoq’s sagacity and all his companion’s good-will to find
+it again.
+
+On such occasions Father Absinthe planted his cane in the earth, near
+the last footprint that had been discovered, and Lecoq and himself
+hunted all over the ground around this point, much after the fashion
+of a couple of bloodhounds thrown off the scent. Then it was that the
+lantern moved about so strangely. More than a dozen times, in spite of
+all their efforts, they would have lost the clue entirely had it not
+been for the elegant shoes worn by the lady with the little feet. These
+had such small and extremely high heels that the impression they left
+could not be mistaken. They sank down three or four inches in the snow,
+or the mud, and their tell-tale impress remained as clear and distinct
+as that of a seal.
+
+Thanks to these heels, the pursuers were able to discover that the two
+fugitives had not gone up the Rue de Patay, as might have been supposed.
+Probably they had considered this street too frequented, and too well
+lighted. They had only crossed it, just below the Rue de la Croix-Rouge,
+and had profited by an empty space between two houses to regain the open
+ground.
+
+“Certainly these women were well acquainted with the locality,” murmured
+Lecoq.
+
+Indeed, the topography of the district evidently had no secrets for
+them, for, on quitting the Rue de Patay, they had immediately turned
+to the right, so as to avoid several large excavations, from which a
+quantity of brick clay had been dug.
+
+But at last the trail was recovered, and the detectives followed it as
+far as the Rue du Chevaleret. Here the footprints abruptly ceased. Lecoq
+discovered eight or ten footmarks left by the woman who wore the broad
+shoes, but that was all. Hereabout, moreover, the condition of the
+ground was not calculated to facilitate an exploration of this nature.
+There had been a great deal of passing to and fro in the Rue du
+Chevaleret, and not merely was there scarcely any snow left on the
+footpaths, but the middle of the street was transformed into a river of
+slush.
+
+“Did these people recollect at last that the snow might betray them? Did
+they take the middle of the road?” grumbled the young police agent.
+
+Certainly they could not have crossed to a vacant space as they had done
+just before, for on the other side of the street extended a long factory
+wall.
+
+“Ah!” sighed Father Absinthe, “we have our labor for our pains.”
+
+But Lecoq possessed a temperament that refused to acknowledge defeat.
+Animated by the cold anger of a man who sees the object which he was
+about to seize disappear from before his eyes, he recommenced his
+search, and was well repaid for his efforts.
+
+“I understand!” he cried suddenly, “I comprehend--I see!”
+
+Father Absinthe drew near. He did not see nor divine anything! but he no
+longer doubted his companion’s powers.
+
+“Look there,” said Lecoq; “what are those marks?”
+
+“Marks left by the wheels of some carriage that plainly turned here.”
+
+“Very well, papa, these tracks explain everything. When they reached
+this spot, our fugitives saw the light of an approaching cab, which
+was returning from the centre of Paris. It was empty, and proved their
+salvation. They waited, and when it came nearer they hailed the driver.
+No doubt they promised him a handsome fare; this is indeed evident,
+since he consented to go back again. He turned round here; they got into
+the vehicle, and that is why the footprints go no further.”
+
+This explanation did not please Lecoq’s companion. “Have we made any
+great progress now that we know that?” he asked.
+
+Lecoq could not restrain an impulse to shrug his shoulders. “Did you
+expect that the tracks made by the fugitives would lead us through Paris
+and up to their very doors?” he asked.
+
+“No; but--”
+
+“Then what would you ask more? Do you think that I shall not know how to
+find this driver to-morrow? He was returning with his empty vehicle, his
+day’s work was ended; hence, his stable is in the neighborhood. Do you
+suppose that he will have forgotten that he took up two persons in the
+Rue du Chevaleret? He will tell us where he drove them; but that will
+not do us any good, for, of course, they will not have given him their
+real address. But at all events he can probably give us a description
+of them, tell us how they were dressed, describe their appearance, their
+manner, and their age. And with that, and what we already know--”
+
+An eloquent gesture expressed the remainder of his thought, then he
+added: “We must now go back to the Poivriere, and go quickly. And you,
+my friend, may now extinguish your lantern.”
+
+While doing his best to keep pace with his companion, who was in such
+haste to get back to the Poivriere that he almost ran, Father Absinthe’s
+thoughts were as busy as his legs, and an entirely new train of ideas
+was awakened in his mind.
+
+During the twenty-five years that he had been connected with the police
+force, the good man--to use his own expression--had seen many of his
+colleagues walk over him and win, after only a few months’ work, a
+promotion that his long years of service had not gained for him. In
+these cases he had not failed to accuse his superiors of injustice, and
+his fortunate rivals of gross flattery. In his opinion, seniority was
+the only claim to advancement--the only, the best, the most respectable
+claim; and he was wont to sum up all his opinions, all his grief and
+bitterness of mind in one phrase: “It is infamous to pass over an old
+member of the service.”
+
+To-night, however, Father Absinthe discovered that there is something
+else in the world besides seniority, and sufficient reasons for what
+he had formerly regarded as favoritism. He secretly confessed that this
+newcomer whom he had treated so carelessly had just followed up a clue
+as he, veteran though he was, would never have succeeded in doing.
+
+But communing with himself was not this good man’s forte; he soon grew
+weary of reflection; and on reaching a place where they were obliged to
+proceed more slowly on account of the badness of the road, he deemed
+it a favorable opportunity to resume the conversation. “You are silent,
+comrade,” he ventured to remark, “and one might swear that you were not
+exactly pleased.”
+
+This surprising result of the old man’s reflections would have amazed
+Lecoq, if his mind had not been a hundred leagues away. “No, I am not
+pleased,” he responded.
+
+“And why, pray? Only ten minutes ago you were as gay as a lark.”
+
+“Then I did not see the misfortune that threatens us.”
+
+“A misfortune!”
+
+“A very great misfortune. Do you not perceive that the weather has
+undesirably changed. It is evident that the wind is now coming from the
+south. The fog has disappeared, but the sky is cloudy and threatening.
+It will rain in less than an hour.”
+
+“A few drops are falling now; I just felt one.”
+
+These words produced on Lecoq much the same effect as a whip-up on a
+spirited horse. He sprang forward, and, adopting a still more hurried
+pace, exclaimed: “Let us make haste! let us make haste!”
+
+The old police agent followed him as in duty bound; but his mind was, if
+possible, still more troubled by the replies of his young companion. A
+great misfortune! The wind from the south! Rain! He did not, he could
+not see the connection.
+
+Greatly puzzled, and not a little anxious, Father Absinthe asked for an
+explanation, although he had but little more breath than was absolutely
+necessary to enable him to continue the forced march he was making.
+“Upon my word,” said he, “I have racked my brains--”
+
+His companion took pity on his anxiety. “What!” he exclaimed, as he
+still hastened forward, “you do not understand that our investigation,
+my success, and your reward, are dependent upon those black clouds which
+the wind is driving toward us!”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Twenty minutes of merely gentle rain, and our time and labor will be
+lost. If it rains, the snow will melt, and then farewell to our proofs.
+Let us get on--let us get on more quickly! You know very well that in
+such cases words don’t suffice. If we declare to the public prosecutor
+that we have seen these footprints, he will ask, where? And what can we
+say? If we swear by all the gods that we have seen the footprints of a
+man and of two women, the investigating magistrate will say, ‘Let me
+see them.’ And who will feel sheepish then? Father Absinthe and Lecoq.
+Besides, Gevrol would not fail to declare that we were saying what was
+not true, in order to enhance our own value, and humiliate him.”
+
+“What an idea!”
+
+“Faster, papa, faster; you will have all day to-morrow to be indignant.
+Perhaps it will not rain. In that case, these perfect, clear, and
+easily recognizable footprints will prove the culprits’ ruin. How can
+we preserve them? By what process could we solidify them? I would deluge
+them with my blood if that could only cause them to congeal.”
+
+Father Absinthe was just then thinking that his share of the labor had
+hitherto been the least important; for he had merely held the lantern.
+But here was a chance for him to acquire a real and substantial right to
+the prospective reward. “I know a method,” said he, “by which one could
+preserve these marks in the snow.”
+
+At these words the younger man stopped short. “You know--you?” he
+interrupted.
+
+“Yes, I know,” replied the old detective, with the evident satisfaction
+of a man who has gained his revenge. “They invented a way at the time of
+that affair at the Maison Blanche, last December.”
+
+“I recollect.”
+
+“Ah! well, on the snow in the courtyard there was a footprint that
+attracted a detective’s attention. He said that the whole evidence
+depended on that mark alone, that it was worth more than ten years’ hard
+work in following up the case. Naturally, he desired to preserve it.
+They sent for a great chemist--”
+
+“Go on, go on.”
+
+“I have never seen the method put into practise, but an expert told me
+all about it, and showed me the mold they obtained. He explained it to
+me precisely, on account of my profession.”
+
+Lecoq was trembling with impatience. “And how did they obtain the mold?”
+ he asked abruptly.
+
+“Wait: I was just going to explain. They take some of the best gelatine,
+and allow it to soak in cold water. When it becomes thoroughly softened,
+they heat it until it forms a liquid, of moderate consistency. Then when
+it is just cool enough, they pour a nice little covering of it upon the
+footprint.”
+
+Lecoq felt the irritation that is natural to a person who has just heard
+a bad joke, or who has lost his time in listening to a fool.
+
+“Enough!” he interrupted, angrily. “That method can be found in all the
+manuals. It is excellent, no doubt, but how can it serve us? Have you
+any gelatine about you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor have I. You might as well have counseled me to pour melted lead
+upon the footprints to fix them.”
+
+They continued their way, and five minutes later, without having
+exchanged another word, they reentered the Widow Chupin’s hovel. The
+first impulse of the older man would have been to rest to breathe, but
+Lecoq did not give him time to do so.
+
+“Make haste: get me a dish--a plate--anything!” cried the young
+detective, “and bring me some water; gather together all the boards and
+old boxes you can find lying about.”
+
+While his companion was obeying him, Lecoq armed himself with a fragment
+of one of the broken bottles, and began scraping away furiously at the
+plastered wall that separated the two rooms.
+
+His mind, disconcerted at first by the imminence of this unexpected
+catastrophe, a fall of rain, had now regained its equilibrium. He had
+reflected, he had thought of a way by which failure might possibly be
+averted--and he hoped for ultimate success. When he had accumulated some
+seven or eight handfuls of fine plaster dust, he mixed one-half with a
+little water so as to form a thin paste, leaving the rest untouched on
+the side of the plate.
+
+“Now, papa,” said he, “come and hold the light for me.”
+
+When in the garden, the young man sought for the deepest and most
+distinct of the footprints, knelt beside it, and began his experiment,
+trembling with anxiety. He first sprinkled upon the impression a fine
+coating of dry plaster, and then upon this coating, with infinite care,
+he poured his liquid solution drop by drop.
+
+What luck! the experiment was successful! The plaster united in a
+homogeneous mass, forming a perfect model of the impression. Thus, after
+an hour’s labor, Lecoq possessed half a dozen of these casts, which
+might, perhaps, be a little wanting in clearness of outline, but which
+were quite perfect enough to be used as evidence.
+
+The young detective’s alarm had been well founded, for it was already
+beginning to rain. Still, he had plenty of time to cover a number of the
+footprints with the boxes and pieces of board which Father Absinthe had
+collected, thus placing them, as it were, beyond the reach of a thaw.
+Now he could breathe. The authorities might come, for the most important
+part of his task was completed.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+It was some distance from the Poivriere to the Rue de Chevaleret, even
+by way of the plain, and fully four hours had been occupied by Lecoq and
+his colleague in collecting their elements of information.
+
+All this while, the Widow Chupin’s abode had remained open, accessible
+to any chance visitor. Still, when, on his return, the young police
+agent remembered this neglect of elementary precautions, he did not feel
+alarmed. Considering all the circumstances, it was very difficult
+to believe that any serious harm could have resulted from this
+carelessness.
+
+For who would have been likely to visit this drinking-den after
+midnight? Its bad name served the purpose of a bulwark. The most daring
+vagrants did not drink there without some disquietude, fearing that if
+the liquor caused them to lose consciousness, they might be robbed or
+perhaps even murdered. Hence, if any one had been attracted to this
+notoriously dangerous drinking-shop by the light that streamed through
+the open door, it could only have been some very reckless person
+returning late at night from the ball at the Rainbow, with a few sous
+left in his pocket. But, even then, a single glance inside would have
+sufficed to put the bravest to flight.
+
+In less than a second the young police agent had weighed all these
+possibilities, concerning which he did not breathe a word to Father
+Absinthe. When, little by little, the excitement caused by his
+successive hopes and disappointments, and by the accomplishment of the
+experiment with the footprints had died away, and he had regained his
+usual calm of mind, he made a careful inspection of the abode, and was
+by no means satisfied with himself. He had experimented upon Father
+Absinthe with his new system of investigation, just as an aspiring
+orator tries his powers before his least gifted friends, not before
+the cleverest. He had certainly overwhelmed the old veteran by his
+superiority; he had literally crushed him. But what great merit, what
+wonderful victory was this? Why should he boast of having outwitted
+Father Absinthe, one of the least sagacious men in the service?
+
+If he could only have given some startling proofs of his energy or
+of his penetration! But, after all, what had he accomplished? Was the
+mystery solved? Was his success more than problematical? When one thread
+is drawn out, the skein is not untangled. This night would undoubtedly
+decide his future as a detective, so he swore that if he could not
+conquer his vanity, he would, at least, compel himself to conceal it.
+Hence, it was in a very modest tone that he said to his companion: “We
+have done all that we can do outside, now, would it not be wise to busy
+ourselves with the inside of the house?”
+
+Everything looked exactly in the same state as when the two men left the
+room. A candle, with a charred smoking wick, cast its flickering light
+upon the same scene of disorder, revealing to view the rigid features of
+the three victims. Without losing a moment, Lecoq began to pick up and
+study the various objects scattered over the floor. Some of these still
+remained intact. The Widow Chupin had recoiled from the expense of a
+tiled floor, judging the bare ground upon which the cabin was built
+quite good enough for the feet of her customers. This ground, which must
+originally have been well beaten down, had, by constant use and damp,
+become well-nigh as muddy as the soil outside.
+
+The first fruits of Lecoq’s search were a large salad-bowl and a big
+iron spoon, the latter so twisted and bent that it had evidently been
+used as a weapon during the conflict. On inspecting the bowl, it became
+evident that when the quarrel began the victims were regaling themselves
+with the familiar mixture of water, wine, and sugar, known round about
+the barrieres as vin a la Frangaise. After the salad-bowl, the two men
+picked up five of the weighty glasses ordinarily used in wine-shops, and
+which, while looking as though they would contain half a bottle, are
+in point of fact so thick at the bottom that they hold next to nothing.
+Three of these glasses were broken, two were whole. All of them had
+contained wine--the same vin a la Frangaise. This was plain, but for
+greater surety, Lecoq applied his tongue to the bluish mixture
+remaining in the bottom of each glass. “The deuce!” he muttered, with an
+astonished air.
+
+Then he examined successively the surfaces of the three overturned
+tables. Upon one of these, the one nearest the fireplace and the window,
+the still wet marks of the five glasses, of the salad-bowl, and even
+of the spoons could be distinguished. Lecoq very properly regarded
+this circumstance as a matter of the greatest importance, for it proved
+clearly enough that five persons had emptied the salad-bowl in company.
+Who were these five persons?
+
+“Oh! oh!” suddenly exclaimed Lecoq in two entirely different tones.
+“Then the two women could not have been with the murderer!”
+
+A very simple mode of discovery had presented itself to his mind. It
+was to ascertain if there were any other glasses, and what they had
+contained. After a fresh search on the floor, a sixth glass was found,
+similar in form to the others, but much smaller. Its smell showed that
+it had contained brandy. Then these two women had not been with the
+murderer, and therefore he could not have fought because the other
+men had insulted them. This discovery proved the inaccuracy of Lecoq’s
+original suppositions. It was an unexpected check, and he was mourning
+over it in silence, when Father Absinthe, who had not ceased ferreting
+about, uttered a cry of surprise.
+
+The young man turned; he saw that his companion had become very pale.
+“What is it?” he asked.
+
+“Some one has been here in our absence.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+It was not impossible--it was true. When Gevrol had torn the apron
+off Widow Chupin’s head he had thrown it upon the steps of the stairs;
+neither of the police agents had since touched it. And yet the pockets
+of this apron were now turned inside out; this was a proof, this was
+evidence. At this discovery Lecoq was overcome with consternation, and
+the contraction of his features revealed the struggle going on in
+his mind. “Who could have been here?” he murmured. “Robbers? That is
+improbable.”
+
+Then, after a long silence which his companion took good care not to
+interrupt, he added: “The person who came here, who dared to penetrate
+into this abode and face the corpses of these murdered men--this person
+could have been none other than the accomplice. But it is not enough to
+suspect this, it is necessary to know it. I must--I will know it!”
+
+They searched for a long time, and it was not until after an hour of
+earnest work that, in front of the door forced open by the police, they
+discovered in the mud, just inside the marks made by Gevrol’s tread, a
+footprint that bore a close resemblance to those left by the man who
+had entered the garden. They compared the impressions and recognized the
+same designs formed by the nails upon the sole of the boot.
+
+“It must have been the accomplice!” exclaimed Lecoq. “He watched us,
+he saw us go away, and then he entered. But why? What pressing,
+irresistible necessity made him decide to brave such imminent danger?”
+ He seized his companion’s hand, nearly crushing it in his excitement:
+“Ah! I know why!” continued he, violently. “I understand only too well.
+Some article that would have served to throw light on this horrible
+affair had been left or forgotten, or lost here, and to obtain it, to
+find it, he decided to run this terrible risk. And to think that it was
+my fault, my fault alone, that this convincing proof escaped us! And
+I thought myself so shrewd! What a lesson! The door should have been
+locked; any fool would have thought of it--” Here he checked himself,
+and remained with open mouth and distended eyes, pointing with his
+finger to one of the corners of the room.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked his frightened companion.
+
+Lecoq made no reply, but slowly, and with the stiff movements of a
+somnambulist, he approached the spot to which he had pointed, stooped,
+picked up something, and said: “My folly is not deserving of such luck.”
+
+The object he had found was an earring composed of a single large
+diamond. The setting was of marvelous workmanship. “This diamond,”
+ declared Lecoq, after a moment’s examination, “must be worth at least
+five or six thousand francs.”
+
+“Are you in earnest?”
+
+“I think I could swear to it.”
+
+He would not have troubled about such a preamble as “I think” a few
+hours before, but the blunder he had made was a lesson that would not be
+forgotten so long as he lived.
+
+“Perhaps it was that same diamond earring that the accomplice came to
+seek,” ventured Father Absinthe.
+
+“The supposition is scarcely admissible. In that case, he would not have
+sought for it in Mother Chupin’s apron. No, he must have been seeking
+for something else--a letter, for example.”
+
+The older man was not listening; he had taken the earring, and was
+examining it in his turn. “And to think,” he murmured, astonished by
+the brilliancy of the stone, “to think that a woman who had ten thousand
+francs’ worth of jewels in her ears would have come to the Poivriere.
+Who would have believed it?”
+
+Lecoq shook his head thoughtfully. “Yes, it is very strange, very
+improbable, very absurd. And yet we shall see many things quite as
+strange if we ever arrive--which I very much doubt--at a solution of
+this mysterious affair.”
+
+Day was breaking, cold, cheerless, and gloomy, when Lecoq and his
+colleague concluded their investigation. There was not an inch of space
+that had not been explored, carefully examined and studied, one might
+almost say, with a magnifying glass. There now only remained to draw up
+the report.
+
+The younger man seated himself at the table, and, with the view of
+making his recital as intelligible as possible, he began by sketching a
+plan of the scene of the murder.
+
+[[Graphic Omitted]]
+
+It will be seen that in the memoranda appended to this explanatory
+diagram, Lecoq had not once written his own name. In noting the things
+that he had imagined or discovered, he referred to himself simply as one
+of the police. This was not so much modesty as calculation. By hiding
+one’s self on well-chosen occasions, one gains greater notoriety when
+one emerges from the shade. It was also through cunning that he gave
+Gevrol such a prominent position. These tactics, rather subtle, perhaps,
+but after all perfectly fair, could not fail to call attention to the
+man who had shown himself so efficient when the efforts of his chief had
+been merely confined to breaking open the door.
+
+The document Lecoq drew up was not a _proces-verbal_, a formal act
+reserved for the officers of judiciary police; it was a simple report,
+that would be admitted under the title of an inquiry, and yet the young
+detective composed it with quite as much care as a general would have
+displayed in drawing up the bulletin of his first victory.
+
+While Lecoq was drawing and writing, Father Absinthe leaned over his
+shoulder to watch him. The plan amazed that worthy man. He had seen a
+great deal; but he had always supposed that it was necessary to be an
+engineer, an architect, or, at least, a carpenter, to execute such work.
+Not at all. With a tape-line with which to take some measurements, and
+a bit of board in place of a rule, his inexperienced colleague had
+soon accomplished the miracle. Father Absinthe’s respect for Lecoq was
+thereby greatly augmented. It is true that the worthy veteran had not
+noticed the explosion of the young police agent’s vanity, nor his return
+to his former modest demeanor. He had not observed his alarm, nor his
+perplexity, nor his lack of penetration.
+
+After a few moments, Father Absinthe ceased watching his companion. He
+felt weary after the labors of the night, his head was burning, and
+he shivered and his knees trembled. Perhaps, though he was by no means
+sensitive, he felt the influence of the horrors that surrounded him, and
+which seemed more sinister than ever in the bleak light of morning.
+He began to ferret in the cupboards, and at last succeeded in
+discovering--oh, marvelous fortune!--a bottle of brandy, three parts
+full. He hesitated for an instant, then he poured out a glass, and
+drained it at a single draft.
+
+“Will you have some?” he inquired of his companion. “It is not a very
+famous brand, to be sure; but it is just as good, it makes one’s blood
+circulate and enlivens one.”
+
+Lecoq refused; he did not need to be enlivened. All his faculties were
+hard at work. He intended that, after a single perusal of his report,
+the investigating magistrate should say: “Let the officer who drew up
+this document be sent for.” It must be remembered that Lecoq’s future
+depended upon such an order. Accordingly, he took particular care to be
+brief, clear, and concise, to plainly indicate how his suspicions on the
+subject of the murder had been aroused, how they had increased, and how
+they had been confirmed. He explained by what series of deductions he
+had succeeded in establishing a theory which, if it was not the
+truth, was at least plausible enough to serve as the basis for further
+investigation.
+
+Then he enumerated the articles of conviction ranged on the table before
+him. There were the flakes of brown wool collected upon the plank, the
+valuable earring, the models of the different footprints in the garden,
+and the Widow Chupin’s apron with its pockets turned inside out. There
+was also the murderer’s revolver, with two barrels discharged and three
+still loaded. This weapon, although not of an ornamental character, was
+still a specimen of highly finished workmanship. It bore the name of one
+Stephens, 14 Skinner Street, a well-known London gunsmith.
+
+Lecoq felt convinced that by examining the bodies of the victims he
+would obtain other and perhaps very valuable information; but he did not
+dare venture upon such a course. Besides his own inexperience in such a
+matter, there was Gevrol to be thought of, and the inspector, furious
+at his own mistake, would not fail to declare that, by changing the
+attitude of the bodies, Lecoq had rendered a satisfactory examination by
+the physicians impossible.
+
+The young detective accordingly tried to console himself for his forced
+inaction in this respect, and he was rereading his report, modifying
+a few expressions, when Father Absinthe, who was standing upon the
+threshold of the outer door, called to him.
+
+“Is there anything new?” asked Lecoq.
+
+“Yes,” was the reply. “Here come Gevrol and two of our comrades with the
+commissary of police and two other gentlemen.”
+
+It was, indeed, the commissary who was approaching, interested but
+not disturbed by this triple murder which was sure to make his
+arrondissement the subject of Parisian conversation during the next few
+days. Why, indeed, should he be troubled about it? For Gevrol, whose
+opinion in such matters might be regarded as an authority, had taken
+care to reassure him when he went to arouse him from his slumbers.
+
+“It was only a fight between some old offenders; former jail birds,
+habitues of the Poivriere,” he had said, adding sententiously: “If all
+these ruffians would kill one another, we might have some little peace.”
+
+He added that as the murderer had been arrested and placed in
+confinement, there was nothing urgent about the case. Accordingly, the
+commissary thought there was no harm in taking another nap and waiting
+until morning before beginning the inquiry. He had seen the murderer,
+reported the case to the prefecture, and now he was coming--leisurely
+enough--accompanied by two physicians, appointed by the authorities
+to draw up a _medico-legal_ report in all such cases. The party also
+comprised a sergeant-major of the 53d regiment of infantry of the line,
+who had been summoned by the commissary to identify, if possible, the
+murdered man who wore a uniform, for if one might believe the number
+engraved upon the buttons of his overcoat, he belonged to the 53d
+regiment, now stationed at the neighboring fort.
+
+As the party approached it was evident that Inspector Gevrol was even
+less disturbed than the commissary. He whistled as he walked along,
+flourishing his cane, which never left his hand, and already laughing
+in his sleeve over the discomfiture of the presumptuous fool who had
+desired to remain to glean, where he, the experienced and skilful
+officer, had perceived nothing. As soon as he was within speaking
+distance, the inspector called to Father Absinthe, who, after warning
+Lecoq, remained on the threshold, leaning against the door-post, puffing
+his pipe, as immovable as a sphinx.
+
+“Ah, well, old man!” cried Gevrol, “have you any great melodrama, very
+dark and very mysterious, to relate to us?”
+
+“I have nothing to relate myself,” replied the old detective, without
+even drawing his pipe from his lips, “I am too stupid, that is perfectly
+understood. But Monsieur Lecoq will tell you something that will
+astonish you.”
+
+The prefix, “monsieur,” which the old police agent used in speaking
+of his colleague, displeased Gevrol so much that he pretended not to
+understand. “Who are you speaking of?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“Of my colleague, of course, who is now busy finishing his report--of
+Monsieur Lecoq.” Quite unintentionally, the worthy fellow had certainly
+become the young police agent’s godfather. From that day forward,
+for his enemies as well as for his friends, he was and he remained
+“Monsieur” Lecoq.
+
+“Ah! ah!” said the inspector, whose hearing was evidently impaired. “Ah,
+he has discovered--”
+
+“The pot of roses which others did not scent, General.” By this remark,
+Father Absinthe made an enemy of his superior officer. But he cared
+little for that: Lecoq had become his deity, and no matter what the
+future might reserve, the old veteran had resolved to follow his young
+colleague’s fortunes.
+
+“We’ll see about that,” murmured the inspector, mentally resolving to
+have an eye on this youth whom success might transform into a rival. He
+said no more, for the little party which he preceded had now overtaken
+him, and he stood aside to make way for the commissary of police.
+
+This commissary was far from being a novice. He had served for many
+years, and yet he could not repress a gesture of horror as he entered
+the Poivriere. The sergeant-major of the 53d, who followed him, an old
+soldier, decorated and medaled--who had smelt powder many scores of
+times--was still more overcome. He grew as pale as the corpses lying on
+the ground, and was obliged to lean against the wall for support. The
+two physicians alone retained their stoical indifference.
+
+Lecoq had risen, his report in his hand; he bowed, and assuming a
+respectful attitude, was waiting to be questioned.
+
+“You must have passed a frightful night,” said the commissary, kindly;
+“and quite unnecessarily, since any investigation was superfluous.”
+
+“I think, however,” replied the young police agent, having recourse
+to all his diplomacy, “that my time has not been entirely lost. I have
+acted according to the instructions of my superior officer; I have
+searched the premises thoroughly, and I have ascertained many things.
+I have, for example, acquired the certainty that the murderer had
+a friend, possibly an accomplice, of whom I can give quite a close
+description. He must have been of middle age, and wore, if I am not
+mistaken, a soft cap and a brown woolen overcoat: as for his boots--”
+
+“Zounds!” exclaimed Gevrol, “and I--” He stopped short, like a man whose
+impulse had exceeded his discretion, and who would have gladly recalled
+his words.
+
+“And you?” inquired the commissary, “pray, what do you mean?”
+
+The inspector had gone too far to draw back, and, unwittingly, was now
+obliged to act as his own executioner. “I was about to mention,” he
+said, “that this morning, an hour or so ago, while I was waiting for
+you, sir, before the station-house, at the Barriere d’Italie, where the
+murderer is confined, I noticed close by an individual whose appearance
+was not unlike that of the man described by Lecoq. This man seemed to
+be very intoxicated, for he reeled and staggered against the walls. He
+tried to cross the street, but fell down in the middle of it, in such a
+position that he would inevitably have been crushed by the first passing
+vehicle.”
+
+Lecoq turned away his head; he did not wish them to read in his eyes how
+perfectly he understood the whole game.
+
+“Seeing this,” pursued Gevrol, “I called two men and asked them to
+aid me in raising the poor devil. We went up to him; he had apparently
+fallen asleep: we shook him--we made him sit up; we told him that he
+could not remain there, but he immediately flew into a furious rage. He
+swore at us, threatened us, and began fighting us. And, on my word, we
+had to take him to the station-house, and leave him there to recover
+from the effects of his drunken debauch.”
+
+“Did you shut him up in the same cell with the murderer?” inquired
+Lecoq.
+
+“Naturally. You know very well that there are only two cages in the
+station-house at the barriere--one for men and the other for women;
+consequently--”
+
+The commissary seemed thoughtful. “Ah! that’s very unfortunate,” he
+stammered; “and there is no remedy.”
+
+“Excuse me, there is one,” observed Gevrol, “I can send one of my men to
+the station-house with an order to detain the drunken man--”
+
+Lecoq interposed with a gesture: “Trouble lost,” he said coldly. “If
+this individual is an accomplice, he has got sober by now--rest assured
+of that, and is already far away.”
+
+“Then what is to be done?” asked the inspector, with an ironical air.
+“May one be permitted to ask the advice of Monsieur Lecoq.”
+
+“I think chance offered us a splendid opportunity, and we did not know
+how to seize it; and that the best thing we can do now is to give over
+mourning, and prepare to profit by the next opportunity that presents
+itself.”
+
+Gevrol was, however, determined to send one of his men to the
+station-house; and it was not until the messenger had started that Lecoq
+commenced the reading of his report. He read it rapidly, refraining
+as much as possible from placing the decisive proofs in strong relief,
+reserving these for his own benefit; but so strong was the logic of his
+deductions that he was frequently interrupted by approving remarks from
+the commissary and the two physicians.
+
+Gevrol, who alone represented the opposition, shrugged his shoulders
+till they were well-nigh dislocated, and grew literally green with
+jealousy.
+
+“I think that you alone, young man, have judged correctly in this
+affair,” said the commissary when Lecoq had finished reading. “I may be
+mistaken; but your explanations have made me alter my opinion concerning
+the murderer’s attitude while I was questioning him (which was only for
+a moment). He refused, obstinately refused, to answer my questions, and
+wouldn’t even give me his name.”
+
+The commissary was silent for a moment, reviewing the past circumstances
+in his mind, and it was in a serious tone that he eventually added: “We
+are, I feel convinced, in presence of one of those mysterious crimes the
+causes of which are beyond the reach of human sagacity--this strikes me
+as being one of those enigmatical cases which human justice never can
+reach.” Lecoq made no audible rejoinder; but he smiled to himself and
+thought: “We will see about that.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+No consultation held at the bedside of a dying man ever took place in
+the presence of two physicians so utterly unlike each other as those who
+accompanied the commissary of police to the Poivriere.
+
+One of them, a tall old man with a bald head, wearing a broad-brimmed
+hat, and an overcoat of antique cut, was evidently one of those modest
+savants encountered occasionally in the byways of Paris--one of those
+healers devoted to their art, who too often die in obscurity, after
+rendering immense services to mankind. He had the gracious calmness of a
+man who, having seen so much of human misery, has nothing left to learn,
+and no troubled conscience could have possibly sustained his searching
+glance, which was as keen as his lancet.
+
+His colleague--young, fresh-looking, light-haired, and jovial--was
+somewhat foppishly attired; and his white hands were encased in handsome
+fur gloves. There was a soft self-satisfied smile on his face, and
+he had the manners of those practitioners who, for profit’s sake,
+invariably recommend the infallible panaceas invented each month in
+chemical laboratories and advertised ad nauseam in the back pages of
+newspapers. He had probably written more than one article upon “Medicine
+for the use of the people”; puffing various mixtures, pills, ointments,
+and plasters for the benefit of their respective inventors.
+
+“I will request you, gentlemen,” said the commissary of police, “to
+begin your duties by examining the victim who wears a military costume.
+Here is a sergeant-major summoned to answer a question of identity, whom
+I must send back to his quarters as soon as possible.”
+
+The two physicians responded with a gesture of assent, and aided by
+Father Absinthe and another agent of police, they lifted the body and
+laid it upon two tables, which had previously been placed end to end.
+They were not obliged to make any note of the attitude in which they
+found the body, since the unfortunate man, who was still alive when the
+police entered the cabin, had been moved before he expired.
+
+“Approach, sergeant,” ordered the commissary, “and look carefully at
+this man.”
+
+It was with very evident repugnance that the old soldier obeyed.
+
+“What is the uniform that he wears?”
+
+“It is the uniform of the 2d battalion of the 53d regiment of the line.”
+
+“Do you recognize him?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“Are you sure that he does not belong to your regiment?”
+
+“I can not say for certain: there are some conscripts at the Depot whom
+I have never seen. But I am ready to swear that he had never formed
+part of the 2d battalion--which, by the way, is mine, and in which I am
+sergeant-major.”
+
+Lecoq, who had hitherto remained in the background, now stepped forward.
+“It might be as well,” he suggested, “to note the numbers marked on the
+other articles of clothing.”
+
+“That is a very good idea,” said the commissary, approvingly.
+
+“Here is his shako,” added the young police agent. “It bears the number
+3,129.”
+
+The officials followed Lecoq’s advice, and soon discovered that each
+article of clothing worn by the unfortunate man bore a different number.
+
+“The deuce!” murmured the sergeant; “there is every indication--But it
+is very singular.”
+
+Invited to consider what he was going to say, the brave trooper
+evidently made an effort to collect his intellectual faculties. “I would
+stake my epaulets that this fellow never was a soldier,” he said at
+last. “He must have disguised himself to take part in the Shrove Sunday
+carnival.”
+
+“Why do you think that?”
+
+“Oh, I know it better than I can explain it. I know it by his hair, by
+his nails, by his whole appearance, by a certain _je ne sais quoi_; in
+short, I know it by everything and by nothing. Why look, the poor devil
+did not even know how to put on his shoes; he has laced his gaiters
+wrong side outwards.” Evidently further doubt was impossible after this
+evidence, which confirmed the truth of Lecoq’s first remark to Inspector
+Gevrol.
+
+“Still, if this person was a civilian, how could he have procured this
+clothing?” insisted the commissary. “Could he have borrowed it from the
+men in your company?”
+
+“Yes, that is possible; but it is difficult to believe.”
+
+“Is there no way by which you could ascertain?”
+
+“Oh! very easily. I have only to run over to the fort and order an
+inspection of clothing.”
+
+“Do so,” approved the commissary; “it would be an excellent way of
+getting at the truth.”
+
+But Lecoq had just thought of a method quite as convincing, and much
+more prompt. “One word, sergeant,” said he, “isn’t cast off military
+clothing sold by public auction?”
+
+“Yes; at least once a year, after the inspection.”
+
+“And are not the articles thus sold marked in some way?”
+
+“Assuredly.”
+
+“Then see if there isn’t some mark of the kind on this poor wretch’s
+uniform.”
+
+The sergeant turned up the collar of the coat and examined the
+waist-band of the pantaloons. “You are right,” he said, “these are
+condemned garments.”
+
+The eyes of the young police agent sparkled. “We must then believe that
+the poor devil purchased this costume,” he observed. “Where? Necessarily
+at the Temple, from one of the dealers in military clothing. There are
+only five or six of these establishments. I will go from one to another
+of them, and the person who sold these clothes will certainly recognize
+them by some trade mark.”
+
+“And that will assist us very much,” growled Gevrol. The sergeant-major,
+to his great relief, now received permission to retire, but not without
+having been warned that very probably the commissary would require his
+deposition. The moment had come to search the garments of the pretended
+soldier, and the commissary, who performed this duty himself, hoped that
+some clue as to the man’s identity would be forthcoming. He proceeded
+with his task, at the same time dictating to one of the men a
+_proces-verbal_ of the search; that is to say, a minute description of
+all the articles he found upon the dead man’s person. In the right hand
+trousers pocket some tobacco, a pipe, and a few matches were found; in
+the left hand one, a linen handkerchief of good quality, but unmarked,
+and a soiled leather pocket-book, containing seven francs and sixty
+centimes.
+
+There appeared to be nothing more, and the commissary was expressing
+his regret, when, on carefully examining the pocket-book he found a
+compartment which had at first escaped his notice, being hidden by a
+leather flap. This compartment contained a carefully folded paper. The
+commissary unfolded it and read the contents aloud:
+
+
+“My dear Gustave,--To-morrow, Sunday evening, do not fail to come to the
+ball at the Rainbow, according to our agreement. If you have no money
+pass by my house, and I will leave some with the concierge, who will
+give it to you.
+
+“Be at the ball by eight o’clock. If I am not already there, it will
+not be long before I make my appearance. Everything is going on
+satisfactorily.
+
+“Lacheneur.”
+
+
+Alas! what did this letter reveal? Only that the dead man’s name was
+Gustave; that he had some connection with a man named Lacheneur, who had
+advanced him money for a certain object; and that they had met at the
+Rainbow some hours before the murder.
+
+It was little--very little--but still it was something. It was a clue;
+and in this absolute darkness even the faintest gleam of light was
+eagerly welcomed.
+
+“Lacheneur!” growled Gevrol; “the poor devil uttered that name in his
+last agony.”
+
+“Precisely,” insisted Father Absinthe, “and he declared that he wished
+to revenge himself upon him. He accused him of having drawn him into a
+trap. Unfortunately, death cut his story short.”
+
+Lecoq was silent. The commissary of police had handed him the letter,
+and he was studying it with the closest attention. The paper on which
+it was written was of the ordinary kind; the ink was blue. In one of the
+corners was a half-effaced stamp, of which one could just distinguish
+the word--Beaumarchais.
+
+This was enough for Lecoq. “This letter,” he thought, “was certainly
+written in a cafe on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. In which one? I must
+ascertain that point, for this Lacheneur must be found.”
+
+While the agents of the prefecture were gathered around the commissary,
+holding council and deliberating, the physicians began their delicate
+and disagreeable task. With the assistance of Father Absinthe, they
+removed the clothing of the pretended soldier, and then, with sleeves
+rolled up, they bent over their “subject” like surgeons in the schools
+of anatomy, and examined, inspected, and appraised him physically.
+Very willingly would the younger doctor have dispensed with these
+formalities, which he considered very ridiculous, and entirely
+unnecessary; but the old physician had too high a regard for his
+profession, and for the duty he had been called upon to fulfil, to
+neglect the slightest detail. Minutely, and with the most scrupulous
+exactitude, he noted the height of the dead man, his supposed age, the
+nature of his temperament, the color and length of his hair, and the
+degree of development of his muscular system.
+
+Then the doctors passed to an examination of the wound. Lecoq had judged
+correctly. The medical men declared it to be a fracture of the base
+of the skull. It could, they stated, only have been caused by some
+instrument with a very broad surface, or by a violent knock of the head
+against some hard substance of considerable magnitude.
+
+But no weapon, other than the revolver, had been found; and it was
+evidently not heavy enough to produce such a wound. There must, then,
+necessarily, have been a hand-to-hand struggle between the pretended
+soldier and the murderer; and the latter, seizing his adversary by the
+throat, had dashed him violently against the wall. The presence of some
+very tiny but very numerous spots of extravasated blood about the neck
+made this theory extremely plausible.
+
+No other wound, not even a bruise or a scratch, was to be found. Hence,
+it became evident that this terrible struggle must have been exceedingly
+short. The murder of the pretended soldier must have been consummated
+between the moment when the squad of police heard the shrieks of despair
+and the moment when Lecoq peered through the shutter and saw the victim
+fall.
+
+The examination of the other murdered man required different but
+even greater precautions than those adopted by the doctors in their
+inspection of the pseudo soldier. The position of these two victims
+had been respected; they were still lying across the hearth as they had
+fallen, and their attitude was a matter of great importance, since it
+might have decisive bearing on the case. Now, this attitude was such
+that one could not fail to be impressed with the idea that with both
+these men death had been instantaneous. They were both stretched out
+upon their backs, their limbs extended, and their hands wide open.
+
+No contraction or extension of the muscles, no trace of conflict could
+be perceived; it seemed evident that they had been taken unawares, the
+more so as their faces expressed the most intense terror.
+
+“Thus,” said the old doctor, “we may reasonably suppose that they were
+stupefied by some entirely unexpected, strange, and frightful spectacle.
+I have come across this terrified expression depicted upon the faces of
+dead people more than once. I recollect noticing it upon the features of
+a woman who died suddenly from the shock she experienced when one of
+her neighbors, with the view of playing her a trick, entered her house
+disguised as a ghost.”
+
+Lecoq followed the physician’s explanations, and tried to make them
+agree with the vague hypotheses that were revolving in his own brain.
+But who could these individuals be? Would they, in death, guard the
+secret of their identity, as the other victim had done?
+
+The first subject examined by the physicians was over fifty years of
+age. His hair was very thin and quite gray and his face was closely
+shaven, excepting a thick tuft of hair on his rather prominent chin.
+He was very poorly clad, wearing a soiled woolen blouse and a pair of
+dilapidated trousers hanging in rags over his boots, which were very
+much trodden down at the heels. The old doctor declared that this man
+must have been instantly killed by a bullet. The size of the circular
+wound, the absence of blood around its edge, and the blackened and
+burnt state of the flesh demonstrated this fact with almost mathematical
+precision.
+
+The great difference that exists in wounds made by firearms, according
+to the distance from which the death-dealing missile comes, was seen
+when the physicians began to examine the last of the murdered men. The
+ball that had caused the latter’s death had scarcely crossed a yard of
+space before reaching him, and his wound was not nearly so hideous in
+aspect as the other’s. This individual, who was at least fifteen years
+younger than his companion, was short and remarkably ugly; his face,
+which was quite beardless, being pitted all over by the smallpox. His
+garb was such as is worn by the worst frequenters of the barriere. His
+trousers were of a gray checked material, and his blouse, turned back at
+the throat, was blue. It was noticed that his boots had been blackened
+quite recently. The smart glazed cap that lay on the floor beside him
+was in harmony with his carefully curled hair and gaudy necktie.
+
+These were the only facts that the physicians’ report set forth in
+technical terms, this was the only information obtained by the most
+careful investigation. The two men’s pockets were explored and turned
+inside out; but they contained nothing that gave the slightest clue to
+their identity, either as regards name, social position, or profession.
+There was not even the slightest indication on any of these points, not
+a letter, nor an address, not a fragment of paper, nothing--not even
+such common articles of personal use, as a tobacco pouch, a knife, or a
+pipe which might be recognized, and thus establish the owner’s identity.
+A little tobacco in a paper bag, a couple of pocket handkerchiefs that
+were unmarked, a packet of cigarettes--these were the only articles
+discovered beyond the money which the victims carried loose in their
+pockets. On this point, it should be mentioned that the elder man had
+sixty-seven francs about him, and the younger one, two louis.
+
+Rarely had the police found themselves in the presence of so strange an
+affair, without the slightest clue to guide them. Of course, there was
+the fact itself, as evidenced by the bodies of the three victims;
+but the authorities were quite ignorant of the circumstances that had
+attended and of the motive that had inspired the crime. Certainly, they
+might hope with the powerful means of investigation at their disposal
+to finally arrive at the truth in the course of time, and after repeated
+efforts. But, in the mean while, all was mystery, and so strangely did
+the case present itself that it could not safely be said who was really
+responsible for the horrible tragedy at the Poivriere.
+
+The murderer had certainly been arrested; but if he persisted in his
+obstinacy, how were they to ascertain his name? He protested that he had
+merely killed in self-defense. How could it be shown that such was not
+the case? Nothing was known concerning the victims; one of whom had with
+his dying breath accused himself. Then again, an inexplicable influence
+tied the Widow Chupin’s tongue. Two women, one of whom had lost an
+earring valued at 5,000 francs, had witnessed the struggle--then
+disappeared. An accomplice, after two acts of unheard-of audacity, had
+also made his escape. And all these people--the women, the murderer,
+the keeper of the saloon, the accomplice, and the victims--were equally
+strange and mysterious, equally liable not to be what they seemed.
+
+Perhaps the commissary of police thought he would spend a very
+unpleasant quarter of an hour at the prefecture when he reported the
+case. Certainly, he spoke of the crime in a very despondent tone.
+
+“It will now be best,” he said at last, “to transport these three bodies
+to the Morgue. There they will doubtless be identified.” He reflected
+for a moment, and then added: “And to think that one of these dead men
+is perhaps Lacheneur himself!”
+
+“That is scarcely possible,” said Lecoq. “The spurious soldier, being
+the last to die, had seen his companions fall. If he had supposed
+Lacheneur to be dead, he would not have spoken of vengeance.”
+
+Gevrol, who for the past two hours had pretended to pay no attention to
+the proceedings, now approached. He was not the man to yield even to the
+strongest evidence. “If Monsieur, the Commissary, will listen to me, he
+shall hear my opinion, which is a trifle more definite than M. Lecoq’s
+fancies.”
+
+Before he could say any more, the sound of a vehicle stopping before
+the door of the cabin interrupted him, and an instant afterward the
+investigating magistrate entered the room.
+
+All the officials assembled at the Poivriere knew at least by sight the
+magistrate who now made his appearance, and Gevrol, an old habitue
+of the Palais de Justice, mechanically murmured his name: “M. Maurice
+d’Escorval.”
+
+He was the son of that famous Baron d’Escorval, who, in 1815, sealed his
+devotion to the empire with his blood, and upon whom Napoleon, in the
+Memorial of St. Helena, pronounced this magnificent eulogium: “Men
+as honest as he may, I believe, exist; but more honest, no, it is not
+possible.”
+
+Having entered upon his duties as magistrate early in life, and being
+endowed with remarkable talents, it was at first supposed that
+the younger D’Escorval would rise to the most exalted rank in his
+profession. But he had disappointed all such prognostications by
+resolutely refusing the more elevated positions that were offered to
+him, in order to retain his modest but useful functions in the public
+prosecutor’s offices at Paris. To explain his repeated refusals, he said
+that life in the capital had more charms for him than the most enviable
+advancement in provincial centres. But it was hard to understand
+this declaration, for in spite of his brilliant connections and large
+fortune, he had, ever since the death of his eldest brother, led a most
+retired life, his existence merely being revealed by his untiring labors
+and the good he did to those around him.
+
+He was now about forty-two years of age, but appeared much younger,
+although a few furrows already crossed his brow. One would have admired
+his face, had it not been for the puzzling immobility that marred its
+beauty, the sarcastic curl of his thin lips, and the gloomy expression
+of his pale-blue eyes. To say that he was cold and grave, did not
+express the truth, it was saying too little. He was gravity and coldness
+personified, with a shade of hauteur added.
+
+Impressed by the horror of the scene the instant he placed his foot upon
+the threshold, M. d’Escorval acknowledged the presence of the physicians
+and the commissary by a slight nod of the head. The others in the room
+had no existence so far as he was concerned. At once his faculties went
+to work. He studied the ground, and carefully noted all the surroundings
+with the attentive sagacity of a magistrate who realizes the immense
+weight of even the slightest detail, and who fully appreciates the
+eloquence of circumstantial evidence.
+
+“This is a serious affair,” he said gravely; “very serious.”
+
+The commissary’s only response was to lift his eyes to heaven. A gesture
+that plainly implied, “I quite agree with you!” The fact is, that for
+the past two hours the worthy commissary’s responsibility had weighed
+heavily upon him, and he secretly blessed the investigating magistrate
+for relieving him of it.
+
+“The public prosecutor was unable to accompany me,” resumed M.
+d’Escorval, “he has not the gift of omnipresence, and I doubt if it will
+be possible for him to join me here. Let us, therefore, begin operations
+at once.”
+
+The curiosity of those present had become intense; and the commissary
+only expressed the general feeling when he said: “You have undoubtedly
+questioned the murderer, sir, and have learnt--”
+
+“I have learnt nothing,” interrupted M. d’Escorval, apparently much
+astonished at the interruption.
+
+He took a chair and sat himself down, and while his clerk was busy in
+authenticating the commissary’s _proces-verbal_, he began to read the
+report prepared by Lecoq.
+
+Pale, agitated, and nervous, the young police agent tried to read upon
+the magistrate’s impassive face the impression produced by the document.
+His future depended upon the magistrate’s approval or disapproval; and
+it was not with a fuddled mind like that of Father Absinthe that he had
+now to deal, but with a superior intelligence.
+
+“If I could only plead my own cause,” he thought. “What are cold written
+phrases in comparison with spoken, living words, palpitating with
+emotion and imbued with the convictions of the speaker.”
+
+However, he was soon reassured. The magistrate’s face retained its
+immobility, but again and again did M. d’Escorval nod his head in token
+of approval, and occasionally some point more ingenious than the others
+extorted from his lips the exclamations: “Not bad--very good!”
+
+When he had finished the perusal he turned to the commissary and
+remarked: “All this is very unlike your report of this morning, which
+represented the affair as a low broil between a party of miserable
+vagabonds.”
+
+The observation was only too just and fair; and the commissary deeply
+regretted that he had trusted to Gevrol’s representations, and remained
+in bed. “This morning,” he responded evasively, “I only gave you my
+first impressions. These have been modified by subsequent researches, so
+that--”
+
+“Oh!” interrupted the magistrate, “I did not intend to reproach you; on
+the contrary, I must congratulate you. One could not have done better
+nor acted more promptly. The investigation that has been carried out
+shows great penetration and research, and the results are given with
+unusual clearness, and wonderful precision.”
+
+Lecoq’s head whirled.
+
+The commissary hesitated for an instant. At first he was sorely tempted
+to confiscate this praise to his own profit. If he drove away the
+unworthy thought, it was because he was an honest man, and more than
+that, because he was not displeased to have the opportunity to do Gevrol
+a bad turn and punish him for his presumptuous folly.
+
+“I must confess,” he said with some embarrassment, “that the merit of
+this investigation does not belong to me.”
+
+“To whom, then, shall I attribute it--to the inspector?” thought M.
+d’Escorval, not without surprise, for having occasionally employed
+Gevrol, he did not expect from him such ingenuity and sagacity as was
+displayed in this report. “Is it you, then, who have conducted this
+investigation so ably?” he asked.
+
+“Upon my word, no!” responded Inspector Gevrol. “I, myself, am not
+so clever as all that. I content myself with telling what I actually
+discover; and I only give proofs when I have them in hand. May I be hung
+if the grounds of this report have any existence save in the brains of
+the man who imagined them.” Perhaps the inspector really believed what
+he said, being one of those persons who are blinded by vanity to such a
+degree that, with the most convincing evidence before their eyes, they
+obstinately deny it.
+
+“And yet,” insisted the magistrate, “these women whose footprints have
+been detected must have existed. The accomplice who left the flakes of
+wool adhering to the plank is a real being. This earring is a positive,
+palpable proof.”
+
+Gevrol had hard work to refrain from shrugging his shoulders. “All this
+can be satisfactorily explained,” he said, “without a search of twelve
+or fourteen hours. That the murderer had an accomplice is possible. The
+presence of the women is very natural. Wherever there are male thieves,
+you will find female thieves as well. As for the diamond--what does that
+prove? That the scoundrels had just met with a stroke of good luck, that
+they had come here to divide their booty, and that the quarrel arose
+from the division.”
+
+This was an explanation, and such a plausable one, that M. d’Escorval
+was silent, reflecting before he announced his decision. “Decidedly,”
+ he declared at last, “decidedly, I adopt the hypothesis set forth in the
+report. Who prepared it?”
+
+Gevrol’s face turned red with anger. “One of my men,” he replied, “a
+clever, adroit fellow, Monsieur Lecoq. Come forward, Lecoq, that the
+magistrate may see you.”
+
+The young man advanced, his lips tightly compressed so as to conceal a
+smile of satisfaction which almost betrayed itself.
+
+“My report, sir, is only a summary,” he began, “but I have certain
+ideas--”
+
+“Which you will acquaint me with, when I ask for them,” interrupted the
+magistrate. And oblivious of Lecoq’s chagrin, he drew from his clerk’s
+portfolio two forms, which he filled up and handed to Gevrol, saying:
+“Here are two orders; take them to the station, where the murderer and
+the landlady of this cabin are confined, and have them conducted to the
+prefecture, where they will be privately examined.”
+
+Having given these directions, M. d’Escorval was turning toward the
+physicians, when Lecoq, at the risk of a second rebuff, interposed. “May
+I venture, sir, to beg of you to confide this message to me?” he asked
+of the investigating magistrate.
+
+“Impossible, I may have need of you here.”
+
+“I desired, sir, to collect certain evidence and an opportunity to do so
+may not present itself again.”
+
+The magistrate perhaps fathomed the young man’s motive. “Then, let it be
+so,” he replied, “but after your task is completed you must wait for
+me at the prefecture, where I shall proceed as soon as I have finished
+here. You may go.”
+
+Lecoq did not wait for the order to be repeated. He snatched up the
+papers, and hastened away.
+
+He literally flew over the ground, and strange to say he no longer
+experienced any fatigue from the labors of the preceding night. Never
+had he felt so strong and alert, either in body or mind. He was
+very hopeful of success. He had every confidence in himself, and his
+happiness would indeed have been complete if he had had another judge
+to deal with. But M. d’Escorval overawed him to such a degree that he
+became almost paralyzed in his presence. With what a disdainful glance
+the magistrate had surveyed him! With what an imperious tone he had
+imposed silence upon him--and that, too, when he had found his work
+deserving of commendation.
+
+“Still, never mind,” the young detective mentally exclaimed, “no one
+ever tastes perfect happiness here below.”
+
+And concentrating all his thoughts on the task before him, he hurried on
+his way.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+When, after a rapid walk of twenty minutes, Lecoq reached the police
+station near the Barriere d’Italie, the doorkeeper, with his pipe in
+his mouth, was pacing slowly to and fro before the guard-house. His
+thoughtful air, and the anxious glances he cast every now and then
+toward one of the little grated windows of the building sufficed to
+indicate that some very rare bird indeed had been entrusted to his
+keeping. As soon as he recognized Lecoq, his brow cleared, and he paused
+in his promenade.
+
+“Ah, well!” he inquired, “what news do you bring?”
+
+“I have an order to conduct the prisoners to the prefecture.”
+
+The keeper rubbed his hands, and his smile of satisfaction plainly
+implied that he felt a load the less on his shoulders.
+
+“Capital! capital!” he exclaimed. “The Black Maria, the prison van, will
+pass here in less than an hour; we will throw them in, and hurry the
+driver off--”
+
+Lecoq was obliged to interrupt the keeper’s transports of satisfaction.
+“Are the prisoners alone?” he inquired.
+
+“Quite alone: the woman in one cell, and the man in the other. This
+has been a remarkably quiet night, for Shrove Sunday! Quite surprising
+indeed! It is true your hunt was interrupted.”
+
+“You had a drunken man here, however.”
+
+“No--yes--that’s true--this morning just at daybreak. A poor devil, who
+is under a great obligation to Gevrol.”
+
+The involuntary irony of this remark did not escape Lecoq. “Yes, under a
+great obligation, indeed!” he said with a derisive laugh.
+
+“You may laugh as much as you like,” retorted the keeper, “but such is
+really the case; if it hadn’t been for Gevrol the man would certainly
+have been run over.”
+
+“And what has become of him?”
+
+The keeper shrugged his shoulders. “You ask me too much,” he responded.
+He was a worthy fellow who had been spending the night at a friend’s
+house, and on coming out into the open air, the wine flew into his head.
+He told us all about it when he got sober, half an hour afterward. I
+never saw a man so vexed as he was. He wept, and stammered: “The father
+of a family, and at my age too! Oh! it is shameful! What shall I say to
+my wife? What will the children think?”
+
+“Did he talk much about his wife?”
+
+“He talked about nothing else. He mentioned her name--Eudosia Leocadie,
+or some name of that sort. He declared that he should be ruined if we
+kept him here. He begged us to send for the commissary, to go to his
+house, and when we set him free, I thought he would go mad with joy; he
+kissed our hands, and thanked us again and again!”
+
+“And did you place him in the same cage as the murderer?” inquired
+Lecoq.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Then they talked with each other.”
+
+“Talked? Why, the drunkard was so ‘gone’ I tell you, that he couldn’t
+have said ‘bread’ distinctly. When he was placed in a cell, bang! He
+fell down like a log of wood. As soon as he recovered, we let him out.
+I’m sure, they didn’t talk to each other.”
+
+The young police agent had grown very thoughtful. “I was evidently
+right,” he murmured.
+
+“What did you say?” inquired the keeper.
+
+“Nothing,” replied Lecoq, who was not inclined to communicate his
+reflections to the custodian of the guard-house. These reflections of
+his were by no means pleasant ones. “I was right,” he thought; “this
+pretended drunkard was none other than the accomplice. He is evidently
+an adroit, audacious, cool-headed fellow. While we were tracking his
+footprints he was watching us. When we had got to some distance, he was
+bold enough to enter the hovel. Then he came here and compelled them
+to arrest him; and thanks to an assumption of childish simplicity,
+he succeeded in finding an opportunity to speak with the murderer. He
+played his part perfectly. Still, I know that he did play a part, and
+that is something. I know that one must believe exactly the opposite of
+what he said. He talked of his family, his wife and children--hence, he
+has neither children, wife, nor family.”
+
+Lecoq suddenly checked himself, remembering that he had no time to waste
+in conjectures. “What kind of fellow was this drunkard?” he inquired.
+
+“He was tall and stout, with full ruddy cheeks, a pair of white
+whiskers, small eyes, a broad flat nose, and a good-natured, jovial
+manner.”
+
+“How old would you suppose him to be?”
+
+“Between forty and fifty.”
+
+“Did you form any idea of his profession?”
+
+“It’s my opinion, that what with his soft cap and his heavy brown
+overcoat, he must be either a clerk or the keeper of some little shop.”
+
+Having obtained this description, which agreed with the result of his
+investigations, Lecoq was about to enter the station house when a
+sudden thought brought him to a standstill. “I hope this man has had no
+communication with this Widow Chupin!” he exclaimed.
+
+The keeper laughed heartily. “How could he have had any?” he responded.
+“Isn’t the old woman alone in her cell? Ah, the old wretch! She has been
+cursing and threatening ever since she arrived. Never in my whole life
+have I heard such language as she has used. It has been enough to make
+the very stones blush; even the drunken man was so shocked that he went
+to the grating in the door, and told her to be quiet.”
+
+Lecoq’s glance and gesture were so expressive of impatience and wrath
+that the keeper paused in his recital much perturbed. “What is the
+matter?” he stammered. “Why are you angry?”
+
+“Because,” replied Lecoq, furiously, “because--” Not wishing to disclose
+the real cause of his anger, he entered the station house, saying that
+he wanted to see the prisoner.
+
+Left alone, the keeper began to swear in his turn. “These police agents
+are all alike,” he grumbled. “They question you, you tell them all they
+desire to know; and afterward, if you venture to ask them anything, they
+reply: ‘nothing,’ or ‘because.’ They have too much authority; it makes
+them proud.”
+
+Looking through the little latticed window in the door, by which the men
+on guard watch the prisoners, Lecoq eagerly examined the appearance of
+the assumed murderer. He was obliged to ask himself if this was really
+the same man he had seen some hours previously at the Poivriere,
+standing on the threshold of the inner door, and holding the whole squad
+of police agents in check by the intense fury of his attitude. Now, on
+the contrary, he seemed, as it were, the personification of weakness and
+despondency. He was seated on a bench opposite the grating in the door,
+his elbows resting on his knees, his chin upon his hand, his under lip
+hanging low and his eyes fixed upon vacancy.
+
+“No,” murmured Lecoq, “no, this man is not what he seems to be.”
+
+So saying he entered the cell, the culprit raised his head, gave the
+detective an indifferent glance, but did not utter a word.
+
+“Well, how goes it?” asked Lecoq.
+
+“I am innocent!” responded the prisoner, in a hoarse, discordant voice.
+
+“I hope so, I am sure--but that is for the magistrate to decide. I came
+to see if you wanted anything.”
+
+“No,” replied the murderer, but a second later he changed his mind. “All
+the same,” he said, “I shouldn’t mind a crust and a drink of wine.”
+
+“You shall have them,” replied Lecoq, who at once went out to forage
+in the neighborhood for eatables of some sort. In his opinion, if the
+murderer had asked for a drink after at first refusing to partake of
+anything, it was solely with the view of conveying the idea that he was
+really the kind of man he pretended to be.
+
+At all events, whoever he might be, the prisoner ate with an excellent
+appetite. He then took up the large glass of wine that had been brought
+him, drained it slowly, and remarked: “That’s capital! There can be
+nothing to beat that!”
+
+This seeming satisfaction greatly disappointed Lecoq, who had selected,
+as a test, one of those horribly thick, bluish, nauseous mixtures in
+vogue around the barrieres--hoping, nay, almost expecting, that the
+murderer would not drink it without some sign of repugnance. And yet the
+contrary proved the case. However, the young detective had no time to
+ponder over the circumstance, for a rumble of wheels now announced the
+approach of that lugubrious vehicle, the Black Maria.
+
+When the Widow Chupin was removed from her cell she fought and scratched
+and cried “Murder!” at the top of her voice; and it was only by sheer
+force that she was at length got into the van. Then it was that the
+officials turned to the assassin. Lecoq certainly expected some sign of
+repugnance now, and he watched the prisoner closely. But he was again
+doomed to disappointment. The culprit entered the vehicle in the most
+unconcerned manner, and took possession of his compartment like one
+accustomed to it, knowing the most comfortable position to assume in
+such close quarters.
+
+“Ah! what an unfortunate morning,” murmured Lecoq, disconsolately.
+“Still I will lie in wait for him at the prefecture.”
+
+When the door of the prison-van had been securely closed, the driver
+cracked his whip, and the sturdy horses started off at a brisk trot.
+Lecoq had taken his seat in front, between the driver and the guard; but
+his mind was so engrossed with his own thoughts that he heard nothing
+of their conversation, which was very jovial, although frequently
+interrupted by the shrill voice of the Widow Chupin, who sang and yelled
+her imprecations alternately.
+
+It is needless, however, to recapitulate her oaths; let us rather follow
+the train of Lecoq’s meditation. By what means could he secure some clue
+to the murderer’s identity? He was still convinced that the prisoner
+must belong to the higher ranks of society. After all, it was not so
+extraordinary that he should have succeeded in feigning an appetite,
+that he should have concealed his distaste for a nauseous beverage, and
+that he should have entered the Black Maria without hesitation. Such
+conduct was quite possible, indeed almost probable on the part of a man,
+endowed with considerable strength of will, and realizing the imminence
+of his peril. But granting this, would he be equally able to hide his
+feelings when he was obliged to submit to the humiliating formalities
+that awaited him--formalities which in certain cases can, and must, be
+pushed even to the verge of insult and outrage?
+
+No; Lecoq could not believe that this would be possible. He felt sure
+that the disgraceful position in which the prisoner would find himself
+would cause him to revolt, to lose his self-control, to utter some word
+that might give the desired clue.
+
+It was not until the gloomy vehicle had turned off the Pont Neuf on to
+the Quai de l’Horloge that the young detective became conscious of what
+was transpiring around him. Soon the van passed through an open gateway,
+and drew up in a small, damp courtyard.
+
+Lecoq immediately alighted, and opened the door of the compartment in
+which the supposed murderer was confined, exclaiming as he did so: “Here
+we are, get out.” There was no fear of the prisoner escaping. The iron
+gate had been closed, and at least a dozen agents were standing near at
+hand, waiting to have a look at the new arrivals.
+
+The prisoner slowly stepped to the ground. His expression of face
+remained unchanged, and each gesture evinced the perfect indifference of
+a man accustomed to such ordeals.
+
+Lecoq scrutinized his demeanor as attentively as an anatomist might have
+watched the action of a muscle. He noted that the prisoner seemed to
+experience a sensation of satisfaction directly his foot touched
+the pavement of the courtyard, that he drew a long breath, and then
+stretched and shook himself, as if to regain the elasticity of his
+limbs, cramped by confinement in the narrow compartment from which he
+had just emerged. Then he glanced around him, and a scarcely perceptible
+smile played upon his lips. One might have sworn that the place was
+familiar to him, that he was well acquainted with these high grim walls,
+these grated windows, these heavy doors--in short, with all the sinister
+belongings of a prison.
+
+“Good Lord!” murmured Lecoq, greatly chagrined, “does he indeed
+recognize the place?”
+
+And his sense of disappointment and disquietude increased when, without
+waiting for a word, a motion, or a sign, the prisoner turned toward
+one of the five or six doors that opened into the courtyard. Without an
+instant’s hesitation he walked straight toward the very doorway he was
+expected to enter--Lecoq asked himself was it chance? But his amazement
+and disappointment increased tenfold when, after entering the gloomy
+corridor, he saw the culprit proceed some little distance, resolutely
+turn to the left, pass by the keeper’s room, and finally enter the
+registrar’s office. An old offender could not have done better.
+
+Big drops of perspiration stood on Lecoq’s forehead. “This man,” thought
+he, “has certainly been here before; he knows the ropes.”
+
+The registrar’s office was a large room heated almost to suffocation by
+an immense stove, and badly lighted by three small windows, the panes
+of which were covered with a thick coating of dust. There sat the clerk
+reading a newspaper, spread out over the open register--that fatal book
+in which are inscribed the names of all those whom misconduct, crime,
+misfortune, madness, or error have brought to these grim portals.
+
+Three or four attendants, who were awaiting the hour for entering upon
+their duties, reclined half asleep upon the wooden benches that lined
+three sides of the room. These benches, with a couple of tables, and
+some dilapidated chairs, constituted the entire furniture of the office,
+in one corner of which stood a measuring machine, under which each
+culprit was obliged to pass, the exact height of the prisoners being
+recorded in order that the description of their persons might be
+complete in every respect.
+
+At the entrance of the culprit accompanied by Lecoq, the clerk raised
+his head. “Ah!” said he, “has the van arrived?”
+
+“Yes,” responded Lecoq. And showing the orders signed by M. d’Escorval,
+he added: “Here are this man’s papers.”
+
+The registrar took the documents and read them. “Oh!” he exclaimed,
+“a triple assassination! Oh! oh!” The glance he gave the prisoner
+was positively deferential. This was no common culprit, no ordinary
+vagabond, no vulgar thief.
+
+“The investigating magistrate orders a private examination,” continued
+the clerk, “and I must get the prisoner other clothing, as the things
+he is wearing now will be used as evidence. Let some one go at once and
+tell the superintendent that the other occupants of the van must wait.”
+
+At this moment, the governor of the Depot entered the office. The clerk
+at once dipped his pen in the ink, and turning to the prisoner he asked:
+“What is your name?”
+
+“May.”
+
+“Your Christian name?”
+
+“I have none.”
+
+“What, have you no Christian name?”
+
+The prisoner seemed to reflect for a moment, and then answered, sulkily:
+“I may as well tell you that you need not tire yourself by questioning
+me. I shan’t answer any one else but the magistrate. You would like to
+make me cut my own throat, wouldn’t you? A very clever trick, of course,
+but one that won’t do for me.”
+
+“You must see that you only aggravate your situation,” observed the
+governor.
+
+“Not in the least. I am innocent; you wish to ruin me. I only defend
+myself. Get anything more out of me now, if you can. But you had better
+give me back what they took from me at the station-house. My hundred and
+thirty-six francs and eight sous. I shall need them when I get out of
+this place. I want you to make a note of them on the register. Where are
+they?”
+
+The money had been given to Lecoq by the keeper of the station-house,
+who had found it upon the prisoner when he was placed in his custody.
+Lecoq now laid it upon the table.
+
+“Here are your hundred and thirty-six francs and eight sous,” said he,
+“and also your knife, your handkerchief, and four cigars.”
+
+An expression of lively contentment was discernible on the prisoner’s
+features.
+
+“Now,” resumed the clerk, “will you answer?”
+
+But the governor perceived the futility of further questioning; and
+silencing the clerk by a gesture, he told the prisoner to take off his
+boots.
+
+Lecoq thought the assassin’s glance wavered as he heard this order. Was
+it only a fancy?
+
+“Why must I do that?” asked the culprit.
+
+“To pass under the beam,” replied the clerk. “We must make a note of
+your exact height.”
+
+The prisoner made no reply, but sat down and drew off his heavy boots.
+The heel of the right one was worn down on the inside. It was, moreover,
+noticed that the prisoner wore no socks, and that his feet were coated
+with mud.
+
+“You only wear boots on Sundays, then?” remarked Lecoq.
+
+“Why do you think that?”
+
+“By the mud with which your feet are covered, as high as the
+ankle-bone.”
+
+“What of that?” exclaimed the prisoner, in an insolent tone. “Is it a
+crime not to have a marchioness’s feet?”
+
+“It is a crime you are not guilty of, at all events,” said the young
+detective slowly. “Do you think I can’t see that if the mud were picked
+off your feet would be white and neat? The nails have been carefully cut
+and polished--”
+
+He paused. A new idea inspired by his genius for investigation had just
+crossed Lecoq’s mind. Pushing a chair in front of the prisoner, and
+spreading a newspaper over it, he said: “Will you place your foot
+there?”
+
+The man did not comply with the request.
+
+“It is useless to resist,” exclaimed the governor, “we are in force.”
+
+The prisoner delayed no longer. He placed his foot on the chair, as
+he had been ordered, and Lecoq, with the aid of a knife, proceeded to
+remove the fragments of mud that adhered to the skin.
+
+Anywhere else so strange and grotesque a proceeding would have excited
+laughter, but here, in this gloomy chamber, the anteroom of the assize
+court, an otherwise trivial act is fraught with serious import. Nothing
+astonishes; and should a smile threaten to curve one’s lips, it is
+instantly repressed.
+
+All the spectators, from the governor of the prison to the keepers, had
+witnessed many other incidents equally absurd; and no one thought of
+inquiring the detective’s motive. This much was known already; that the
+prisoner was trying to conceal his identity. Now it was necessary to
+establish it, at any cost, and Lecoq had probably discovered some means
+of attaining this end.
+
+The operation was soon concluded; and Lecoq swept the dust off the paper
+into the palm of his hand. He divided it into two parts, enclosing one
+portion in a scrap of paper, and slipping it into his own pocket. With
+the remainder he formed a package which he handed to the governor,
+saying: “I beg you, sir, to take charge of this, and to seal it up here,
+in presence of the prisoner. This formality is necessary, so that by and
+by he may not pretend that the dust has been changed.”
+
+The governor complied with the request, and as he placed this “bit
+of proof” (as he styled it) in a small satchel for safe keeping, the
+prisoner shrugged his shoulders with a sneering laugh. Still, beneath
+this cynical gaiety Lecoq thought he could detect poignant anxiety.
+Chance owed him the compensation of this slight triumph; for previous
+events had deceived all his calculations.
+
+The prisoner did not offer the slightest objection when he was ordered
+to undress, and to exchange his soiled and bloodstained garments for
+the clothing furnished by the Government. Not a muscle of his face moved
+while he submitted his person to one of those ignominous examinations
+which make the blood rush to the forehead of the lowest criminal. It was
+with perfect indifference that he allowed an inspector to comb his hair
+and beard, and to examine the inside of his mouth, so as to make sure
+that he had not concealed either some fragment of glass, by the aid
+of which captives can sever the strongest bars, or one of those
+microscopical bits of lead with which prisoners write the notes they
+exchange, rolled up in a morsel of bread, and called “postilions.”
+
+These formalities having been concluded, the superintendent rang for
+one of the keepers. “Conduct this man to No. 3 of the secret cells,” he
+ordered.
+
+There was no need to drag the prisoner away. He walked out, as he had
+entered, preceding the guard, like some old habitue, who knows where he
+is going.
+
+“What a rascal!” exclaimed the clerk.
+
+“Then you think--” began Lecoq, baffled but not convinced.
+
+“Ah! there can be no doubt of it,” declared the governor. “This man is
+certainly a dangerous criminal--an old offender--I think I have seen him
+before--I could almost swear to it.”
+
+Thus it was evident these people, with their long, varied experience,
+shared Gevrol’s opinion; Lecoq stood alone. He did not discuss the
+matter--what good would it have done? Besides, the Widow Chupin was just
+being brought in.
+
+The journey must have calmed her nerves, for she had become as gentle
+as a lamb. It was in a wheedling voice, and with tearful eyes, that she
+called upon these “good gentlemen” to witness the shameful injustice
+with which she was treated--she, an honest woman. Was she not the
+mainstay of her family (since her son Polyte was in custody, charged
+with pocket-picking), hence what would become of her daughter-in-law,
+and of her grandson Toto, who had no one to look after them but her?
+
+Still, when her name had been taken, and a keeper was ordered to remove
+her, nature reasserted itself, and scarcely had she entered the corridor
+than she was heard quarreling with the guard.
+
+“You are wrong not to be polite,” she said; “you are losing a good fee,
+without counting many a good drink I would stand you when I get out of
+here.”
+
+Lecoq was now free until M. d’Escorval’s arrival. He wandered through
+the gloomy corridors, from office to office, but finding himself
+assailed with questions by every one he came across, he eventually left
+the Depot, and went and sat down on one of the benches beside the quay.
+Here he tried to collect his thoughts. His convictions were unchanged.
+He was more than ever convinced that the prisoner was concealing his
+real social standing, but, on the other hand, it was evident that he was
+well acquainted with the prison and its usages.
+
+He had also proved himself to be endowed with far more cleverness than
+Lecoq had supposed. What self-control! What powers of dissimulation
+he had displayed! He had not so much as frowned while undergoing the
+severest ordeals, and he had managed to deceive the most experienced
+eyes in Paris.
+
+The young detective had waited during nearly three hours, as motionless
+as the bench on which he was seated, and so absorbed in studying his
+case that he had thought neither of the cold nor of the flight of
+time, when a carriage drew up before the entrance of the prison, and M.
+d’Escorval alighted, followed by his clerk.
+
+Lecoq rose and hastened, well-nigh breathless with anxiety, toward the
+magistrate.
+
+“My researches on the spot,” said this functionary, “confirm me in the
+belief that you are right. Is there anything fresh?”
+
+“Yes, sir; a fact that is apparently very trivial, though, in truth, it
+is of importance that--”
+
+“Very well!” interrupted the magistrate. “You will explain it to me by
+and by. First of all, I must summarily examine the prisoners. A mere
+matter of form for to-day. Wait for me here.”
+
+Although the magistrate promised to make haste, Lecoq expected that
+at least an hour would elapse before he reappeared. In this he was
+mistaken. Twenty minutes later, M. d’Escorval emerged from the prison
+without his clerk.
+
+He was walking very fast, and instead of approaching the young
+detective, he called to him at some little distance. “I must return home
+at once,” he said, “instantly; I can not listen to you.”
+
+“But, sir--”
+
+“Enough! the bodies of the victims have been taken to the Morgue. Keep
+a sharp lookout there. Then, this evening make--well--do whatever you
+think best.”
+
+“But, sir, I must--”
+
+“To-morrow!--to-morrow, at nine o’clock, in my office in the Palais de
+Justice.”
+
+Lecoq wished to insist upon a hearing, but M. d’Escorval had entered, or
+rather thrown himself into, his carriage, and the coachman was already
+whipping up the horse.
+
+“And to think that he’s an investigating magistrate,” panted Lecoq, left
+spellbound on the quay. “Has he gone mad?” As he spoke, an uncharitable
+thought took possession of his mind. “Can it be,” he murmured, “that M.
+d’Escorval holds the key to the mystery? Perhaps he wishes to get rid of
+me.”
+
+This suspicion was so terrible that Lecoq hastened back to the prison,
+hoping that the prisoner’s bearing might help to solve his doubts.
+On peering through the grated aperture in the door of the cell, he
+perceived the prisoner lying on the pallet that stood opposite the
+door. His face was turned toward the wall, and he was enveloped in the
+coverlid up to his eyes. He was not asleep, for Lecoq could detect a
+strange movement of the body, which puzzled and annoyed him. On applying
+his ear instead of his eye to the aperture, he distinguished a stifled
+moan. There could no longer be any doubt. The death rattle was sounding
+in the prisoner’s throat.
+
+“Help! help!” cried Lecoq, greatly excited. “The prisoner is killing
+himself!”
+
+A dozen keepers hastened to the spot. The door was quickly opened,
+and it was then ascertained that the prisoner, having torn a strip of
+binding from his clothes, had fastened it round his neck and tried to
+strangle himself with the assistance of a spoon that had been left him
+with his food. He was already unconscious, and the prison doctor, who
+immediately bled him, declared that had another ten minutes elapsed,
+help would have arrived too late.
+
+When the prisoner regained his senses, he gazed around him with a
+wild, puzzled stare. One might have supposed that he was amazed to find
+himself still alive. Suddenly a couple of big tears welled from his
+swollen eyelids, and rolled down his cheeks. He was pressed with
+questions, but did not vouchsafe so much as a single word in response.
+As he was in such a desperate frame of mind, and as the orders to
+keep him in solitary confinement prevented the governor giving him a
+companion, it was decided to put a straight waistcoat on him. Lecoq
+assisted at this operation, and then walked away, puzzled, thoughtful,
+and agitated. Intuition told him that these mysterious occurrences
+concealed some terrible drama.
+
+“Still, what can have occurred since the prisoner’s arrival here?” he
+murmured. “Has he confessed his guilt to the magistrate, or what is his
+reason for attempting so desperate an act?”
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Lecoq did not sleep that night, although he had been on his feet for
+more than forty hours, and had scarcely paused either to eat or drink.
+Anxiety, hope, and even fatigue itself, had imparted to his body
+the fictitious strength of fever, and to his intellect the unhealthy
+acuteness which is so often the result of intense mental effort.
+
+He no longer had to occupy himself with imaginary deductions, as in
+former times when in the employ of his patron, the astronomer. Once
+again did the fact prove stranger than fiction. Here was reality--a
+terrible reality personified by the corpses of three victims lying on
+the marble slabs at the Morgue. Still, if the catastrophe itself was a
+patent fact, its motive, its surroundings, could only be conjectured.
+Who could tell what circumstances had preceded and paved the way for
+this tragical denouement?
+
+It is true that all doubt might be dispelled by one discovery--the
+identity of the murderer. Who was he? Who was right, Gevrol or Lecoq?
+The former’s views were shared by the officials at the prison;
+the latter stood alone. Again, the former’s opinion was based upon
+formidable proof, the evidence of sight; while Lecoq’s hypothesis rested
+only on a series of subtle observations and deductions, starting from a
+single sentence that had fallen from the prisoner’s lips.
+
+And yet Lecoq resolutely persisted in his theory, guided by the
+following reasons. He learnt from M. d’Escorval’s clerk that when the
+magistrate had examined the prisoner, the latter not only refused to
+confess, but answered all the questions put to him in the most evasive
+fashion. In several instances, moreover, he had not replied at all. If
+the magistrate had not insisted, it was because this first examination
+was a mere formality, solely intended to justify the somewhat premature
+delivery of the order to imprison the accused.
+
+Now, under these circumstances, how was one to explain the prisoner’s
+attempt at self-destruction? Prison statistics show that habitual
+offenders do not commit suicide. When apprehended for a criminal act,
+they are sometimes seized with a wild frenzy and suffer repeated nervous
+attacks; at others they fall into a dull stupor, just as some glutted
+beast succumbs to sleep with the blood of his prey still dripping from
+his lips. However, such men never think of putting an end to their days.
+They hold fast to life, no matter how seriously they may be compromised.
+In truth, they are cowards.
+
+On the other hand, the unfortunate fellow who, in a moment of frenzy,
+commits a crime, not unfrequently seeks to avoid the consequences of his
+act by self-destruction.
+
+Hence, the prisoner’s frustrated attempt at suicide was a strong
+argument in favor of Lecoq’s theory. This wretched man’s secret must be
+a terrible one since he held it dearer than life, since he had tried to
+destroy himself that he might take it unrevealed to the grave.
+
+Four o’clock was striking when Lecoq sprang from his bed on which he had
+thrown himself without undressing; and five minutes later he was walking
+down the Rue Montmartre. The weather was still cold and muggy; and a
+thick fog hung over the city. But the young detective was too
+engrossed with his own thoughts to pay attention to any atmospherical
+unpleasantness. Walking with a brisk stride, he had just reached the
+church of Saint Eustache, when a coarse, mocking voice accosted him with
+the exclamation: “Ah, ha! my fine fellow!”
+
+He looked up and perceived Gevrol, who, with three of his men, had come
+to cast his nets round about the markets, whence the police generally
+return with a good haul of thieves and vagabonds.
+
+“You are up very early this morning, Monsieur Lecoq,” continued the
+inspector; “you are still trying to discover our man’s identity, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Still trying.”
+
+“Is he a prince in disguise, or only a marquis?”
+
+“One or the other, I am quite certain.”
+
+“All right then. In that case you will not refuse us the opportunity to
+drink to your success.”
+
+Lecoq consented, and the party entered a wine-shop close by. When the
+glasses were filled, Lecoq turned to Gevrol and exclaimed: “Upon my
+word, General, our meeting will save me a long walk. I was going to the
+prefecture to request you, on M. d’Escorval’s behalf, to send one of
+our comrades to the Morgue this morning. The affair at the Poivriere has
+been noised about, and all the world will be there, so he desires some
+officer to be present to watch the crowd and listen to the remarks of
+the visitors.”
+
+“All right; Father Absinthe shall be there when the doors open.”
+
+To send Father Absinthe where a shrewd and subtle agent was required was
+a mockery. Still Lecoq did not protest, for it was better to be badly
+served than to be betrayed; and he could at least trust Father Absinthe.
+
+“It doesn’t much matter,” continued Gevrol; “but you should have
+informed me of this last evening. However, when I reached the prefecture
+you had gone.”
+
+“I had some work to do.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“At the station-house near the Barriere d’Italie. I wanted to know
+whether the floor of the cell was paved or tiled.” So saying, Lecoq paid
+the score, saluted his superior officer, and went out.
+
+“Thunder!” exclaimed Gevrol, striking his glass violently upon the
+counter. “Thunder! how that fellow provokes me! He does not know the A
+B C of his profession. When he can’t discover anything, he invents
+wonderful stories, and then misleads the magistrates with his
+high-sounding phrases, in the hope of gaining promotion. I’ll give him
+advancement with a vengeance! I’ll teach him to set himself above me!”
+
+Lecoq had not been deceived. The evening before, he had visited the
+station-house where the prisoner had first been confined, and had
+compared the soil of the cell floor with the dust he had placed in
+his pocket; and he carried away with him, as he believed, one of those
+crushing proofs that often suffice to extort from the most obstinate
+criminal a complete confession. If Lecoq was in haste to part company
+with Gevrol, it was because he was anxious to pursue his investigations
+still further, before appearing in M. d’Escorval’s presence. He was
+determined to find the cab-driver who had been stopped by the two women
+in the Rue du Chevaleret; and with this object in view, he had obtained
+at the prefecture the names and addresses of all the cab-owners hiring
+between the road to Fontainebleau and the Seine.
+
+His earlier efforts at investigation proved unsuccessful. At the first
+establishment he visited, the stable boys, who were not yet up, swore at
+him roundly. In the second, he found the grooms at work, but none of the
+drivers had as yet put in an appearance. Moreover, the owner refused to
+show him the books upon which are recorded--or should be recorded--each
+driver’s daily engagements. Lecoq was beginning to despair, when at
+about half-past seven o’clock he reached an establishment just beyond
+the fortifications belonging to a man named Trigault. Here he learned
+that on Sunday night, or rather, early on Monday morning, one of the
+drivers had been accosted on his way home by some persons who succeeded
+in persuading him to drive them back into Paris.
+
+This driver, who was then in the courtyard harnessing his horse, proved
+to be a little old man, with a ruddy complexion, and a pair of small
+eyes full of cunning. Lecoq walked up to him at once.
+
+“Was it you,” he asked, “who, on Sunday night or rather on Monday,
+between one and two in the morning, drove a couple of women from the Rue
+du Chevaleret into Paris?”
+
+The driver looked up, and surveying Lecoq attentively, cautiously
+replied: “Perhaps.”
+
+“It is a positive answer that I want.”
+
+“Aha!” said the old man sneeringly, “you know two ladies who have lost
+something in a cab, and so--”
+
+The young detective trembled with satisfaction. This man was certainly
+the one he was looking for. “Have you heard anything about a crime that
+has been committed in the neighborhood?” he interrupted.
+
+“Yes; a murder in a low wine-shop.”
+
+“Well, then, I will tell you that these two women are mixed up in it;
+they fled when we entered the place. I am trying to find them. I am a
+detective; here is my card. Now, can you give me any information?”
+
+The driver had grown very pale. “Ah! the wretches!” he exclaimed. “I
+am no longer surprised at the luck-money they gave me--a louis and two
+five-franc pieces for the fare--thirty francs in all. Cursed money! If I
+hadn’t spent it, I’d throw it away!”
+
+“And where did you drive them?”
+
+“To the Rue de Bourgogne. I have forgotten the number, but I should
+recognize the house.”
+
+“Unfortunately, they would not have let you drive them to their own
+door.”
+
+“Who knows? I saw them ring the bell, and I think they went in just as I
+drove away. Shall I take you there?”
+
+Lecoq’s sole response was to spring on to the box, exclaiming: “Let us
+be off.”
+
+It was not to be supposed that the women who had escaped from the Widow
+Chupin’s drinking-den at the moment of the murder were utterly devoid
+of intelligence. Nor was it at all likely that these two fugitives,
+conscious as they were of their perilous situation, had gone straight
+to their real home in a vehicle hired on the public highway. Hence,
+the driver’s hope of finding them in the Rue de Bourgogne was purely
+chimerical. Lecoq was fully aware of this, and yet he did not hesitate
+to jump on to the box and give the signal for starting. In so doing, he
+obeyed a maxim which he had framed in his early days of meditation--a
+maxim intended to assure his after-fame, and which ran as follows:
+“Always suspect that which seems probable; and begin by believing what
+appears incredible.”
+
+As soon as the vehicle was well under way, the young detective proceeded
+to ingratiate himself into the driver’s good graces, being anxious to
+obtain all the information that this worthy was able to impart.
+
+In a tone that implied that all trifling would be useless the cabman
+cried: “Hey up, hey up, Cocotte!” and his mare pricked up her ears and
+quickened her pace, so that the Rue de Choisy was speedily reached. Then
+it was that Lecoq resumed his inquiries.
+
+“Well, my good fellow,” he began, “you have told me the principal facts,
+now I should like the details. How did these two women attract your
+attention?”
+
+“Oh, it was very simple. I had been having a most unfortunate day--six
+hours on a stand on the Boulevards, with the rain pouring all the time.
+It was simply awful. At midnight I had not made more than a franc and a
+half for myself, but I was so wet and miserable and the horse seemed so
+done up that I decided to go home. I did grumble, I can tell you.
+Well, I had just passed the corner of the Rue Picard, in the Rue du
+Chevaleret, when I saw two women standing under a lamp, some little
+distance off. I did not pay any attention to them; for when a man is as
+old as I am, women--”
+
+“Go on!” said Lecoq, who could not restrain his impatience.
+
+“I had already passed them, when they began to call after me. I
+pretended I did not hear them; but one of them ran after the cab,
+crying: ‘A louis! a louis for yourself!’ I hesitated for a moment, when
+the woman added: ‘And ten francs for the fare!’ I then drew up.”
+
+Lecoq was boiling over with impatience; but he felt that the wisest
+course was not to interrupt the driver with questions, but to listen to
+all he had to say.
+
+“As you may suppose,” continued the coachman, “I wasn’t inclined to
+trust two such suspicious characters, alone at that hour and in that
+part of the city. So, just as they were about to get into the cab, I
+called to them: ‘Wait a bit, my little friends, you have promised papa
+some sous; where are they?’ The one who had called after the cab at once
+handed me thirty francs, saying: ‘Above all, make haste!’”
+
+“Your recital could not be more minute,” exclaimed Lecoq, approvingly.
+“Now, how about these two women?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean what kind of women did they seem to be; what did you take them
+for?”
+
+“Oh, for nothing very good!” replied the driver, with a knowing smile.
+
+“Ah! and how were they dressed?”
+
+“Like most of the girls who go to dance at the Rainbow. One of them,
+however, was very neat and prim, while the other--well! she was a
+terrible dowdy.”
+
+“Which ran after you?”
+
+“The girl who was neatly dressed, the one who--” The driver suddenly
+paused: some vivid remembrance passed through his brain, and, abruptly
+jerking the rains, he brought his horse to a standstill.
+
+“Thunder!” he exclaimed. “Now I think of it, I did notice something
+strange. One of the two women called the other ‘Madame’ as large as
+life, while the other said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’ and spoke as if she were
+somebody.”
+
+“Oh! oh! oh!” exclaimed the young detective, in three different keys.
+“And which was it that said ‘thee’ and ‘thou’?”
+
+“Why, the dowdy one. She with shabby dress and shoes as big as a gouty
+man’s. You should have seen her shake the prim-looking girl, as if she
+had been a plum tree. ‘You little fool!’ said she, ‘do you want to ruin
+us? You will have time to faint when we get home; now come along. And
+then she began to sob: ‘Indeed, madame, indeed I can’t!’ she said, and
+really she seemed quite unable to move: in fact, she appeared to be so
+ill that I said to myself: ‘Here is a young woman who has drunk more
+than is good for her!’”
+
+These facts confirmed even if they corrected Lecoq’s first suppositions.
+As he had suspected, the social position of the two women was not the
+same. He had been mistaken, however, in attributing the higher standing
+to the woman wearing the shoes with the high heels, the marks of which
+he had so particularly noticed in the snow, with all the attendant signs
+of precipitation, terror, and weakness. In reality, social preeminence
+belonged to the woman who had left the large, broad footprints behind
+her. And not merely was she of a superior rank, but she had also shown
+superior energy. Contrary to Lecoq’s original idea, it now seemed
+evident that she was the mistress, and her companion the servant.
+
+“Is that all, my good fellow?” he asked the driver, who during the last
+few minutes had been busy with his horses.
+
+“Yes,” replied the cabman, “except that I noticed that the shabbily
+dressed woman who paid me had a hand as small as a child’s, and in spite
+of her anger, her voice was as sweet as music.”
+
+“Did you see her face?”
+
+“I just caught a glimpse of it.”
+
+“Could you tell if she were pretty, or whether she was a blonde or
+brunette?”
+
+So many questions at a time confused the driver. “Stop a minute!” he
+replied. “In my opinion she wasn’t pretty, and I don’t believe she was
+young, but she certainly was a blonde, and with plenty of hair too.”
+
+“Was she tall or short, stout or slender?”
+
+“Between the two.”
+
+This was very vague. “And the other,” asked Lecoq, “the neatly dressed
+one?”
+
+“The deuce! As for her, I did not notice her at all; all I know about
+her is that she was very small.”
+
+“Would you recognize her if you met her again?”
+
+“Good heavens! no.”
+
+The vehicle was now rolling along the Rue de Bourgogne. Half-way down
+the street the driver pulled up, and, turning to Lecoq, exclaimed: “Here
+we are. That’s the house the hussies went into.”
+
+To draw off the silk handkerchief that served him as a muffler, to fold
+it and slip it into his pocket, to spring to the ground and enter
+the house indicated, was only the work of an instant for the young
+detective.
+
+In the concierge’s little room he found an old woman knitting. Lecoq
+bowed to her politely, and, displaying the silk handkerchief, exclaimed:
+“Madame, I have come to return this article to one of your lodgers.”
+
+“To which one?”
+
+“Really, I don’t exactly know.”
+
+In a moment the worthy dame imagined that this polite young man was
+making fun of her. “You scamp--!” she began.
+
+“Excuse me,” interrupted Lecoq; “allow me to finish. I must tell you
+that at about three o’clock in the morning, of the day before yesterday,
+I was quietly returning home, when two ladies, who were seemingly in
+a great hurry, overtook me and passed on. One of them dropped this
+handkerchief, which I picked up. I hastened after her to restore it,
+but before I could overtake them they had rung the bell at your door and
+were already in the house. I did not like to ring at such an unearthly
+hour for fear of disturbing you. Yesterday I was so busy I couldn’t
+come; however, here I am at last, and here’s the handkerchief.” So
+saying, Lecoq laid the handkerchief on the table, and turned as if to
+go, when the concierge detained him.
+
+“Many thanks for your kindness,” said she, “but you can keep it. We have
+no ladies in this house who are in the habit of coming home alone after
+midnight.”
+
+“Still I have eyes,” insisted Lecoq, “and I certainly saw--”
+
+“Ah! I had forgotten,” exclaimed the old woman. “The night you speak
+of some one certainly did ring the bell here. I pulled the string that
+opens the door and listened, but not hearing any one close the door
+or come upstairs, I said to myself: ‘Some mischievous fellow has been
+playing a trick on me.’ I slipped on my dress and went out into the
+hall, where I saw two women hastening toward the door. Before I could
+reach them they slammed the door in my face. I opened it again as
+quickly as I could and looked out into the street. But they were
+hurrying away as fast as they could.”
+
+“In what direction?”
+
+“Oh! they were running toward the Rue de Varennes.”
+
+Lecoq was baffled again; however, he bowed civilly to the concierge,
+whom he might possibly have need of at another time, and then went back
+to the cab. “As I had supposed, they do not live here,” he remarked to
+the driver.
+
+The latter shrugged his shoulders in evident vexation, which would
+inevitably have vent in a torrent of words, if Lecoq, who had consulted
+his watch, had not forestalled the outburst by saying: “Nine o’clock--I
+am an hour behind time already: still I shall have some news to tell.
+Now take me to the Morgue as quickly as possible.”
+
+When a mysterious crime has been perpetrated, or a great catastrophe has
+happened, and the identity of the victims has not been established,
+“a great day” invariably follows at the Morgue. The attendants are so
+accustomed to the horrors of the place that the most sickly sight fails
+to impress them; and even under the most distressing circumstances, they
+hasten gaily to and fro, exchanging jests well calculated to make an
+ordinary mortal’s flesh creep. As a rule, they are far less interested
+in the corpses laid out for public view on the marble slabs in the
+principal hall than in the people of every age and station in life who
+congregate here all day long; at times coming in search of some lost
+relative or friend, but far more frequently impelled by idle curiosity.
+
+As the vehicle conveying Lecoq reached the quay, the young detective
+perceived that a large, excited crowd was gathered outside the
+building. The newspapers had reported the tragedy at the Widow Chupin’s
+drinking-den, of course, more or less correctly, and everybody wished to
+see the victims.
+
+On drawing near the Pont Notre Dame, Lecoq told the driver to pull up.
+“I prefer to alight here, rather than in front of the Morgue,” he said,
+springing to the ground. Then, producing first his watch, and next
+his purse, he added: “We have been an hour and forty minutes, my good
+fellow, consequently I owe you--”
+
+“Nothing at all,” replied the driver, decidedly.
+
+“But--”
+
+“No--not a sou. I am too worried already to think that I took the money
+these hussies offered me. It would only have served me right if the
+liquor I bought with it had given me the gripes. Don’t be uneasy about
+the score, and if you need a trap use mine for nothing, till you have
+caught the jades.” As Lecoq’s purse was low, he did not insist. “You
+will, at least, take my name and address?” continued the driver.
+
+“Certainly. The magistrate will want your evidence, and a summons will
+be sent you.”
+
+“All right, then. Address it to Papillon (Eugene), driver, care of M.
+Trigault. I lodge at his place, because I have some small interest in
+the business, you see.”
+
+The young detective was hastening away, when Papillon called him back.
+“When you leave the Morgue you will want to go somewhere else,” he said,
+“you told me that you had another appointment, and that you were already
+late.”
+
+“Yes, I ought to be at the Palais de Justice; but it is only a few steps
+from here.”
+
+“No matter. I will wait for you at the corner of the bridge. It’s
+useless to say ‘no’; I’ve made up my mind, and I’m a Breton, you know. I
+want you to ride out the thirty francs that those jades paid me.”
+
+It would have been cruel to refuse such a request. Accordingly, Lecoq
+made a gesture of assent, and then hurried toward the Morgue.
+
+If there was a crowd on the roadway outside, it was because the gloomy
+building itself was crammed full of people. Indeed, the sightseers, most
+of whom could see nothing at all, were packed as closely as sardines,
+and it was only by dint of well-nigh superhuman efforts that Lecoq
+managed to effect an entrance. As usual, he found among the mob a large
+number of girls and women; for, strange to say, the Parisian fair sex is
+rather partial to the disgusting sights and horrible emotions that repay
+a visit to the Morgue.
+
+The shop and work girls who reside in the neighborhood readily go out of
+their way to catch a glimpse of the corpses which crime, accident, and
+suicide bring to this horrible place. A few, the more sensitive among
+them, may come no further than the door, but the others enter, and
+after a long stare return and recount their impressions to their less
+courageous companions.
+
+If there should be no corpse exhibited; if all the marble slabs are
+unoccupied, strange as it may seem, the visitors turn hastily away with
+an expression of disappointment or discontent. There was no fear of
+their doing so, however, on the morrow of the tragedy at Poivriere, for
+the mysterious murderer whose identity Lecoq was trying to establish had
+furnished three victims for their delectation. Panting with curiosity,
+they paid but little attention to the unhealthy atmosphere: and yet
+a damp chill came from beyond the iron railings, while from the crowd
+itself rose an infectious vapor, impregnated with the stench of the
+chloride of lime used as a disinfectant.
+
+As a continuous accompaniment to the exclamations, sighs, and whispered
+comments of the bystanders came the murmur of the water trickling from a
+spigot at the head of each slab; a tiny stream that flowed forth only to
+fall in fine spray upon the marble. Through the small arched windows
+a gray light stole in on the exposed bodies, bringing each muscle into
+bold relief, revealing the ghastly tints of the lifeless flesh, and
+imparting a sinister aspect to the tattered clothing hung around the
+room to aid in the identification of the corpses. This clothing, after a
+certain time, is sold--for nothing is wasted at the Morgue.
+
+However, Lecoq was too occupied with his own thoughts to remark the
+horrors of the scene. He scarcely bestowed a glance on the three
+victims. He was looking for Father Absinthe, whom he could not perceive.
+Had Gevrol intentionally or unintentionally failed to fulfil his
+promise, or had Father Absinthe forgotten his duty in his morning dram?
+
+Unable to explain the cause of his comrade’s absence, Lecoq addressed
+himself to the head keeper: “It would seem that no one has recognized
+the victims,” he remarked.
+
+“No one. And yet, ever since opening, we have had an immense crowd. If I
+were master here, on days like this, I would charge an admission fee of
+two sous a head, with half-price for children. It would bring in a round
+sum, more than enough to cover the expenses.”
+
+The keeper’s reply seemed to offer an inducement to conversation, but
+Lecoq did not seize it. “Excuse me,” he interrupted, “didn’t a detective
+come here this morning?”
+
+“Yes, there was one here.”
+
+“Has he gone away then? I don’t see him anywhere?”
+
+The keeper glanced suspiciously at his eager questioner, but after a
+moment’s hesitation, he ventured to inquire: “Are you one of them?”
+
+“Yes, I am,” replied Lecoq, exhibiting his card in support of his
+assertion.
+
+“And your name?”
+
+“Is Lecoq.”
+
+The keeper’s face brightened up. “In that case,” said he, “I have a
+letter for you, written by your comrade, who was obliged to go away.
+Here it is.”
+
+The young detective at once tore open the envelope and read: “Monsieur
+Lecoq--”
+
+“Monsieur?” This simple formula of politeness brought a faint smile to
+his lips. Was it not, on Father Absinthe’s part, an evident recognition
+of his colleague’s superiority. Indeed, our hero accepted it as a token
+of unquestioning devotion which it would be his duty to repay with a
+master’s kind protection toward his first disciple. However, he had no
+time to waste in thought, and accordingly at once proceeded to peruse
+the note, which ran as follows:
+
+
+“Monsieur Lecoq--I had been standing on duty since the opening of the
+Morgue, when at about nine o’clock three young men entered, arm-in-arm.
+From their manner and appearance, I judged them to be clerks in some
+store or warehouse. Suddenly I noticed that one of them turned as white
+as his shirt; and calling the attention of his companions to one of the
+unknown victims, he whispered: ‘Gustave!’
+
+“His comrades put their hands over his mouth, and one of them exclaimed:
+‘What are you about, you fool, to mix yourself up with this affair! Do
+you want to get us into trouble?’
+
+“Thereupon they went out, and I followed them. But the person who had
+first spoken was so overcome that he could scarcely drag himself along;
+and his companions were obliged to take him to a little restaurant close
+by. I entered it myself, and it is there I write this letter, in the
+mean time watching them out of the corner of my eye. I send this note,
+explaining my absence, to the head keeper, who will give it you. You
+will understand that I am going to follow these men. A. B. S.”
+
+
+The handwriting of this letter was almost illegible; and there were
+mistakes in spelling in well-nigh every line; still, its meaning was
+clear and exact, and could not fail to excite the most flattering hopes.
+
+Lecoq’s face was so radiant when he returned to the cab that, as the old
+coachman urged on his horse, he could not refrain from saying: “Things
+are going on to suit you.”
+
+A friendly “hush!” was the only response. It required all Lecoq’s
+attention to classify this new information. When he alighted from the
+cab in front of the Palais de Justice, he experienced considerable
+difficulty in dismissing the old cabman, who insisted upon remaining at
+his orders. He succeeded at last, however, but even when he had reached
+the portico on the left side of the building, the worthy fellow,
+standing up, still shouted at the top of his voice: “At M. Trigault’s
+house--don’t forget--Father Papillon--No. 998--1,000 less 2--”
+
+Lecoq had entered the left wing of the Palais. He climbed the stairs
+till he had reached the third floor, and was about to enter the long,
+narrow, badly-lighted corridor known as the Galerie de l’Instruction,
+when, finding a doorkeeper installed behind a heavy oaken desk, he
+remarked: “M. d’Escorval is, of course, in his office?”
+
+The man shook his head. “No,” said he, “M. d’Escorval is not here this
+morning, and he won’t be here for several weeks.”
+
+“Why not! What do you mean?”
+
+“Last night, as he was alighting from his carriage, at his own door, he
+had a most unfortunate fall, and broke his leg.”
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Some men are wealthy. They own a carriage drawn by a pair of
+high-stepping horses, and driven by a coachman in stylish livery; and
+as they pass by, leaning back on comfortable cushions, they become the
+object of many an envious glance. Sometimes, however, the coachman has
+taken a drop too much, and upsets the carriage; perhaps the horses
+run away and a general smash ensues; or, maybe, the hitherto fortunate
+owner, in a moment of absent-mindedness, misses the step, and fractures
+his leg on the curbstone. Such accidents occur every day; and their
+long list should make humble foot-passengers bless the lowly lot which
+preserves them from such peril.
+
+On learning the misfortune that had befallen M. d’Escorval, Lecoq’s face
+wore such an expression of consternation that the doorkeeper could not
+help laughing. “What is there so very extraordinary about that I’ve told
+you?” he asked.
+
+“I--oh! nothing--”
+
+The detective did not speak the truth. The fact is, he had just been
+struck by the strange coincidence of two events--the supposed murderer’s
+attempted suicide, and the magistrate’s fall. Still, he did not allow
+the vague presentiment that flitted through his mind to assume any
+definite form. For after all, what possible connection could there be
+between the two occurrences? Then again, he never allowed himself to be
+governed by prejudice, nor had he as yet enriched his formulary with an
+axiom he afterward professed: “Distrust all circumstances that seem to
+favor your secret wishes.”
+
+Of course, Lecoq did not rejoice at M. d’Escorval’s accident; could he
+have prevented it, he would have gladly done so. Still, he could not
+help saying to himself that this stroke of misfortune would free him
+from all further connection with a man whose superciliousness and
+disdain had been painfully disagreeable to his feelings.
+
+This thought caused a sensation of relief--almost one of
+light-heartedness. “In that case,” said the young detective to the
+doorkeeper, “I shall have nothing to do here this morning.”
+
+“You must be joking,” was the reply. “Does the world stop moving because
+one man is disabled? The news only arrived an hour ago; but all the
+urgent business that M. d’Escorval had in charge has already been
+divided among the other magistrates.”
+
+“I came here about that terrible affair that occurred the other night
+just beyond the Barriere de Fontainebleau.”
+
+“Eh! Why didn’t you say so at once? A messenger has been sent to the
+prefecture after you already. M. Segmuller has charge of the case, and
+he’s waiting for you.”
+
+Doubt and perplexity were plainly written on Lecoq’s forehead. He was
+trying to remember the magistrate that bore this name, and wondered
+whether he was a likely man to espouse his views.
+
+“Yes,” resumed the doorkeeper, who seemed to be in a talkative mood, “M.
+Segmuller--you don’t seem to know him. He is a worthy man, not quite so
+grim as most of our gentlemen. A prisoner he had examined said one day:
+‘That devil there has pumped me so well that I shall certainly have my
+head chopped off; but, nevertheless, he’s a good fellow!”
+
+His heart somewhat lightened by these favorable reports, Lecoq went
+and tapped at a door that was indicated to him, and which bore the
+number--22.
+
+“Come in!” called out a pleasant voice.
+
+The young detective entered, and found himself face to face with a
+man of some forty years of age, tall and rather corpulent, who at once
+exclaimed: “Ah! you are Lecoq. Very well--take a seat. I am busy just
+now looking over the papers of the case, but I will attend to you in
+five minutes.”
+
+Lecoq obeyed, at the same time glancing furtively at the magistrate
+with whom he was about to work. M. Segmuller’s appearance corresponded
+perfectly with the description given by the doorkeeper. His plump face
+wore an air of frankness and benevolence, and his blue eyes had a most
+pleasant expression. Nevertheless, Lecoq distrusted these appearances,
+and in so doing he was right.
+
+Born near Strasbourg, M. Segmuller possessed that candid physiognomy
+common to most of the natives of blonde Alsace--a deceitful mask, which,
+behind seeming simplicity, not unfrequently conceals a Gascon cunning,
+rendered all the more dangerous since it is allied with extreme caution.
+He had a wonderfully alert, penetrating mind; but his system--every
+magistrate has his own--was mainly good-humor. Unlike most of his
+colleagues, who were as stiff and cutting in manner as the sword which
+the statue of Justice usually holds in her hand, he made simplicity and
+kindness of demeanor his leading trait, though, of course, without ever
+losing sight of his magisterial duties.
+
+Still, the tone of his voice was so paternal, and the subtle purport
+of his questions so veiled by his seeming frankness, that most of those
+whom he examined forgot the necessity of protecting themselves, and
+unawares confessed their guilt. Thus, it frequently happened that while
+some unsuspecting culprit was complacently congratulating himself upon
+getting the best of the judge, the poor wretch was really being turned
+inside out like a glove.
+
+By the side of such a man as M. Segmuller a grave and slender clerk
+would have excited distrust; so he had chosen one who was a caricature
+of himself. This clerk’s name was Goguet. He was short but corpulent,
+and his broad, beardless face habitually wore a silly smile, not out of
+keeping with his intellect, which was none of the brightest.
+
+As stated above, when Lecoq entered M. Segmuller’s room the latter was
+busy studying the case which had so unexpectedly fallen into his hands.
+All the articles which the young detective had collected, from the
+flakes of wool to the diamond earring, were spread out upon the
+magistrate’s desk. With the greatest attention, he perused the report
+prepared by Lecoq, and according to the different phases of the affair,
+he examined one or another of the objects before him, or else consulted
+the plan of the ground.
+
+“A good half-hour elapsed before he had completed his inspection, when
+he threw himself back in his armchair. Monsieur Lecoq,” he said, slowly,
+“Monsieur d’Escorval has informed me by a note on the margin of this
+file of papers that you are an intelligent man, and that we can trust
+you.”
+
+“I am willing, at all events.”
+
+“You speak too slightingly of yourself; this is the first time that an
+agent has brought me a report as complete as yours. You are young, and
+if you persevere, I think you will be able to accomplish great things in
+your profession.”
+
+Nervous with delight, Lecoq bowed and stammered his thanks.
+
+“Your opinion in this matter coincides with mine,” continued M.
+Segmuller, “and the public prosecutor informs me that M. d’Escorval
+shares the same views. An enigma is before us; and it ought to be
+solved.”
+
+“Oh!--we’ll solve it, I am certain, sir,” exclaimed Lecoq, who at this
+moment felt capable of the most extraordinary achievements. Indeed,
+he would have gone through fire and water for the magistrate who had
+received him so kindly, and his enthusiasm sparkled so plainly in his
+eyes that M. Segmuller could not restrain a smile.
+
+“I have strong hopes of it myself,” he responded; “but we are far
+from the end. Now, what have you been doing since yesterday? Did
+M. d’Escorval give you any orders? Have you obtained any fresh
+information?”
+
+“I don’t think I have wasted my time,” replied Lecoq, who at once
+proceeded to relate the various facts that had come to his knowledge
+since his departure from the Poivriere.
+
+With rare precision and that happiness of expression which seldom fails
+a man well acquainted with his subject, he recounted the daring feats
+of the presumed accomplice, the points he had noted in the
+supposed murderer’s conduct, the latter’s unsuccessful attempt at
+self-destruction. He repeated the testimony given by the cab-driver, and
+by the concierge in the Rue de Bourgogne, and then read the letter he
+had received from Father Absinthe.
+
+In conclusion, he placed on the magistrate’s desk some of the dirt he
+had scraped from the prisoner’s feet; at the same time depositing beside
+it a similar parcel of dust collected on the floor of the cell in which
+the murderer was confined at the Barriere d’Italie.
+
+When Lecoq had explained the reasons that had led him to collect this
+soil, and the conclusions that might be drawn from a comparison of the
+two parcels, M. Segmuller, who had been listening attentively, at once
+exclaimed: “You are right. It may be that you have discovered a means to
+confound all the prisoner’s denials. At all events, this is certainly a
+proof of surprising sagacity on your part.”
+
+So it must have been, for Goguet, the clerk, nodded approvingly.
+“Capital!” he murmured. “I should never have thought of that.”
+
+While he was talking, M. Segmuller had carefully placed all the
+so-called “articles of conviction” in a large drawer, from which they
+would not emerge until the trial. “Now,” said he, “I understand the case
+well enough to examine the Widow Chupin. We may gain some information
+from her.”
+
+He was laying his hand upon the bell, when Lecoq stopped him with an
+almost supplicating gesture. “I have one great favor to ask you, sir,”
+ he observed.
+
+“What is it?--speak.”
+
+“I should very much like to be present at this examination. It takes so
+little, sometimes, to awaken a happy inspiration.”
+
+Although the law says that the accused shall first of all be privately
+examined by the investigating magistrate assisted by his clerk, it also
+allows the presence of police agents. Accordingly, M. Segmuller told
+Lecoq that he might remain. At the same time he rang his bell; which was
+speedily answered by a messenger.
+
+“Has the Widow Chupin been brought here, in compliance with my orders?”
+ asked M. Segmuller.
+
+“Yes, sir; she is in the gallery outside.”
+
+“Let her come in then.”
+
+An instant later the hostess of the Poivriere entered the room, bowing
+to the right and to the left. This was not her first appearance before
+a magistrate, and she was not ignorant of the respect that is due to
+justice. Accordingly, she had arrayed herself for her examination with
+the utmost care. She had arranged her rebellious gray locks in smooth
+bandeaux, and her garments, although of common material, looked
+positively neat. She had even persuaded one of the prison warders to buy
+her--with the money she had about her at the time of her arrest--a black
+crape cap, and a couple of white pocket-handkerchiefs, intending to
+deluge the latter with her tears, should the situation call for a
+pathetic display.
+
+She was indeed far too knowing to rely solely on the mere artifices of
+dress; hence, she had also drawn upon her repertoire of grimaces for an
+innocent, sad, and yet resigned expression, well fitted, in her opinion,
+to win the sympathy and indulgence of the magistrate upon whom her fate
+would depend.
+
+Thus disguised, with downcast eyes and honeyed voice, she looked so
+unlike the terrible termagant of the Poivriere, that her customers would
+scarcely have recognized her. Indeed, an honest old bachelor might have
+offered her twenty francs a month to take charge of his chambers--solely
+on the strength of her good looks. But M. Segmuller had unmasked so many
+hypocrites that he was not deceived for a moment. “What an old actress!”
+ he muttered to himself, and, glancing at Lecoq, he perceived the same
+thought sparkling in the young detective’s eyes. It is true that the
+magistrate’s penetration may have been due to some notes he had just
+perused--notes containing an abstract of the woman’s former life, and
+furnished by the chief of police at the magistrate’s request.
+
+With a gesture of authority M. Segmuller warned Goguet, the clerk with
+the silly smile, to get his writing materials ready. He then turned
+toward the Widow Chupin. “Your name?” he asked in a sharp tone.
+
+“Aspasie Claperdty, my maiden name,” replied the old woman, “and to-day,
+the Widow Chupin, at your service, sir;” so saying, she made a low
+courtesy, and then added: “A lawful widow, you understand, sir; I have
+my marriage papers safe in my chest at home; and if you wish to send any
+one--”
+
+“Your age?” interrupted the magistrate.
+
+“Fifty-four.”
+
+“Your profession?”
+
+“Dealer in wines and spirits outside of Paris, near the Rue du
+Chateau-des-Rentiers, just beyond the fortifications.”
+
+A prisoner’s examination always begins with these questions as to
+individuality, which gives both the magistrate and the culprit time
+to study each other, to try, as it were, each other’s strength, before
+joining in a serious struggle; just as two duelists, about to engage in
+mortal combat, first try a few passes with the foils.
+
+“Now,” resumed M. Segmuller, “we will note your antecedents. Have you
+not already been found guilty of several offenses?”
+
+The Widow Chupin was too well versed in criminal procedure to be
+ignorant of those famous records which render the denial of identity
+such a difficult matter in France. “I have been unfortunate, my good
+judge,” she whined.
+
+“Yes, several times. First of all, you were arrested on a charge of
+receiving stolen goods.”
+
+“But it was proved that I was innocent, that my character was whiter
+than snow. My poor, dear husband had been deceived by his comrades; that
+was all.”
+
+“Possibly. But while your husband was undergoing his sentence, you were
+condemned, first to one month’s and then to three months’ imprisonment
+for stealing.”
+
+“Oh, I had some enemies who did their best to ruin me.”
+
+“Next you were imprisoned for having led some young girls astray.”
+
+“They were good-for-nothing hussies, my kind sir, heartless,
+unprincipled creatures. I did them many favors, and then they went and
+related a batch of falsehoods to ruin me. I have always been too kind
+and considerate toward others.”
+
+The list of the woman’s offenses was not exhausted, but M. Segmuller
+thought it useless to continue. “Such is your past,” he resumed. “At the
+present time your wine-shop is the resort of rogues and criminals.
+Your son is undergoing his fourth term of imprisonment; and it has been
+clearly proved that you abetted and assisted him in his evil deeds. Your
+daughter-in-law, by some miracle, has remained honest and industrious,
+hence you have tormented and abused her to such an extent that the
+authorities have been obliged to interfere. When she left your house you
+tried to keep her child--no doubt meaning to bring it up after the same
+fashion as its father.”
+
+“This,” thought the Widow Chupin, “is the right moment to try and
+soften the magistrate’s heart.” Accordingly, she drew one of her
+new handkerchiefs from her pocket, and, by dint of rubbing her eyes,
+endeavored to extract a tear. “Oh, unhappy me,” she groaned. “How can
+any one imagine that I would harm my grandson, my poor little Toto! Why,
+I should be worse than a wild beast to try and bring my own flesh and
+blood to perdition.”
+
+She soon perceived, however, that her lamentations did not much affect
+M. Segmuller, hence, suddenly changing both her tone and manner, she
+began her justification. She did not positively deny her past; but she
+threw all the blame on the injustice of destiny, which, while favoring a
+few, generally the less deserving, showed no mercy to others. Alas!
+she was one of those who had had no luck in life, having always been
+persecuted, despite her innocence. In this last affair, for instance,
+how was she to blame? A triple murder had stained her shop with blood;
+but the most respectable establishments are not exempt from similar
+catastrophes. During her solitary confinement, she had, said she, dived
+down into the deepest recesses of her conscience, and she was still
+unable to discover what blame could justly be laid at her door.
+
+“I can tell you,” interrupted the magistrate. “You are accused of
+impeding the action of the law.”
+
+“Good heavens! Is it possible?”
+
+“And of seeking to defeat justice. This is equivalent to complicity,
+Widow Chupin; take care. When the police entered your cabin, after this
+crime had been committed, you refused to answer their questions.”
+
+“I told them all that I knew.”
+
+“Very well, then, you must repeat what you told them to me.”
+
+M. Segmuller had reason to feel satisfied. He had conducted the
+examination in such a way that the Widow Chupin would now have to
+initiate a narrative of the tragedy. This excellent point gained; for
+this shrewd old woman, possessed of all her coolness, would naturally
+have been on her guard against any direct questions. Now, it was
+essential that she should not suspect either what the magistrate knew
+of the affair, or what he was ignorant of. By leaving her to her own
+devices she might, in the course of the version which she proposed to
+substitute for the truth, not merely strengthen Lecoq’s theories, but
+also let fall some remark calculated to facilitate the task of future
+investigation. Both M. Segmuller and Lecoq were of opinion that the
+version of the crime which they were about to hear had been concocted
+at the station-house of the Place d’Italie while the murderer and the
+spurious drunkard were left together, and that it had been transmitted
+by the accomplice to the widow during the brief conversation they were
+allowed to have through the wicket of the latter’s cell.
+
+Invited by the magistrate to recount the circumstances of the tragedy,
+Mother Chupin did not hesitate for a moment. “Oh, it was a very simple
+affair, my good sir,” she began. “I was sitting by my fireside on Sunday
+evening, when suddenly the door opened, and three men and two women came
+in.”
+
+M. Segmuller and the young detective exchanged glances. The accomplice
+had evidently seen Lecoq and his comrade examining the footprints, and
+accordingly the presence of the two women was not to be denied.
+
+“What time was this?” asked the magistrate.
+
+“About eleven o’clock.”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“As soon as they sat down they ordered a bowl of wine, a la Frangaise.
+Without boasting, I may say that I haven’t an equal in preparing that
+drink. Of course, I waited on them, and afterward, having a blouse to
+mend for my boy, I went upstairs to my room, which is just over the
+shop.”
+
+“Leaving the people alone?”
+
+“Yes, my judge.”
+
+“That showed a great deal of confidence on your part.”
+
+The widow sadly shook her head. “People as poor as I am don’t fear the
+thieves,” she sighed.
+
+“Go on--go on.”
+
+“Well, I had been upstairs about half an hour, when I heard some one
+below call out: ‘Eh! old woman!’ So I went down, and found a tall,
+big-bearded man, who had just come in. He asked for a glass of brandy,
+which I brought to a table where he had sat down by himself.”
+
+“And then did you go upstairs again?” interrupted the magistrate.
+
+The exclamation was ironical, of course, but no one could have told from
+the Widow Chupin’s placid countenance whether she was aware that such
+was the case.
+
+“Precisely, my good sir,” she replied in the most composed manner. “Only
+this time I had scarcely taken up my needle when I heard a terrible
+uproar in the shop. I hurried downstairs to put a stop to it--but heaven
+knows my interference would have been of little use. The three men who
+had come in first of all had fallen upon the newcomer, and they were
+beating him, my good sir, they were killing him. I screamed. Just then
+the man who had come in alone drew a revolver from his pocket; he fired
+and killed one of his assailants, who fell to the ground. I was so
+frightened that I crouched on the staircase and threw my apron over
+my head that I might not see the blood run. An instant later Monsieur
+Gevrol arrived with his men; they forced open the door, and behold--”
+
+The Widow Chupin here stopped short. These wretched old women, who have
+trafficked in every sort of vice, and who have tasted every disgrace,
+at times attain a perfection of hypocrisy calculated to deceive the most
+subtle penetration. Any one unacquainted with the antecedents of the
+landlady of the Poivriere would certainly have been impressed by her
+apparent candor, so skillfully did she affect a display of frankness,
+surprise, and fear. Her expression would have been simply perfect, had
+it not been for her eyes, her small gray eyes, as restless as those of a
+caged animal, and gleaming at intervals with craftiness and cunning.
+
+There she stood, mentally rejoicing at the success of her narrative, for
+she was convinced that the magistrate placed implicit confidence in her
+revelations, although during her recital, delivered, by the way, with
+conjurer-like volubility, not a muscle of M. Segmuller’s face had
+betrayed what was passing in his mind. When she paused, out of breath,
+he rose from his seat, and without a word approached his clerk to
+inspect the notes taken during the earlier part of the examination.
+
+From the corner where he was quietly seated, Lecoq did not cease
+watching the prisoner. “She thinks that it’s all over,” he muttered to
+himself; “she fancies that her deposition is accepted without question.”
+
+If such were, indeed, the widow’s opinion, she was soon to be
+undeceived; for, after addressing a few low-spoken words to the smiling
+Goguet, M. Segmuller took a seat near the fireplace, convinced that the
+moment had now come to abandon defensive tactics, and open fire on the
+enemy’s position.
+
+“So, Widow Chupin,” he began, “you tell us that you didn’t remain for a
+single moment with the people who came into your shop that evening!”
+
+“Not a moment.”
+
+“They came in and ordered what they wanted; you waited on them, and then
+left them to themselves?”
+
+“Yes, my good sir.”
+
+“It seems to me impossible that you didn’t overhear some words of their
+conversation. What were they talking about?”
+
+“I am not in the habit of playing spy over my customers.”
+
+“Didn’t you hear anything?”
+
+“Nothing at all.”
+
+The magistrate shrugged his shoulders with an air of commiseration. “In
+other words,” he remarked, “you refuse to inform justice--”
+
+“Oh, my good sir!”
+
+“Allow me to finish. All these improbable stories about leaving the shop
+and mending your son’s clothes in your bedroom are so many inventions.
+You have concocted them so as to be able to say to me: ‘I didn’t see
+anything; I didn’t hear anything.’ If such is your system of defense,
+I warn you that it will be impossible for you to maintain it, and I may
+add that it would not be admitted by any tribunal.”
+
+“It is not a system of defense; it is the truth.”
+
+M. Segmuller seemed to reflect for a moment; then, suddenly, he
+exclaimed: “Then you have nothing to tell me about this miserable
+assassin?”
+
+“But he is not an assassin, my good sir.”
+
+“What do you mean by such an assertion?”
+
+“I mean that he only killed the others in protecting himself. They
+picked a quarrel with him; he was alone against three, and saw very
+plainly that he could expect no mercy from brigands who--”
+
+The color rose to the Widow Chupin’s cheeks, and she suddenly checked
+herself, greatly embarrassed, and evidently regretting that she had
+not bridled her tongue. It is true she might reasonably hope, that the
+magistrate had imperfectly heard her words, and had failed to seize
+their full purport, for two or three red-hot coals having fallen from
+the grate on the hearth, he had taken up the tongs, and seemed to be
+engrossed in the task of artistically arranging the fire.
+
+“Who can tell me--who can prove to me that, on the contrary, it was not
+this man who first attacked the others?” he murmured, thoughtfully.
+
+“I can,” stoutly declared the widow, already forgetful of her prudent
+hesitation, “I can swear it.”
+
+M. Segmuller looked up, intense astonishment written upon his face. “How
+can you know that?” he said slowly. “How can you swear it? You were in
+your bedroom when the quarrel began.”
+
+Silent and motionless in his corner, Lecoq was inwardly jubilant. This
+was a most happy result, he thought, but a few questions more, and the
+old woman would be obliged to contradict herself. What she had already
+said sufficed to show that she must have a secret interest in the
+matter, or else she would never have been so imprudently earnest in
+defending the prisoner.
+
+“However, you have probably been led to this conclusion by your
+knowledge of the murderer’s character,” remarked M. Segmuller, “you are
+apparently well acquainted with him.”
+
+“Oh, I had never set eyes on him before that evening.”
+
+“But he must have been in your establishment before?”
+
+“Never in his life.”
+
+“Oh, oh! Then how do you explain that on entering the shop while you
+were upstairs, this unknown person--this stranger--should have called
+out: ‘Here, old woman!’ Did he merely guess that the establishment was
+kept by a woman; and that this woman was no longer young?”
+
+“He did not say that.”
+
+“Reflect a moment; you, yourself just told me so.”
+
+“Oh, I didn’t say that, I’m sure, my good sir.”
+
+“Yes, you did, and I will prove it by having your evidence read. Goguet,
+read the passage, if you please.”
+
+The smiling clerk looked back through his minutes and then, in his
+clearest voice, he read these words, taken down as they fell from the
+Widow Chupin’s lips: “I had been upstairs about half an hour, when I
+heard some one below call out ‘Eh! old woman.’ So I went down,” etc.,
+etc.
+
+“Are you convinced?” asked M. Segmuller.
+
+The old offender’s assurance was sensibly diminished by this proof
+of her prevarication. However, instead of discussing the subject any
+further, the magistrate glided over it as if he did not attach much
+importance to the incident.
+
+“And the other men,” he resumed, “those who were killed: did you know
+them?”
+
+“No, good sir, no more than I knew Adam and Eve.”
+
+“And were you not surprised to see three men utterly unknown to you, and
+accompanied by two women, enter your establishment?”
+
+“Sometimes chance--”
+
+“Come! you do not think of what you are saying. It was not chance that
+brought these customers, in the middle of the night, to a wine-shop
+with a reputation like yours--an establishment situated far from any
+frequented route in the midst of a desolate waste.”
+
+“I’m not a sorceress; I say what I think.”
+
+“Then you did not even know the youngest of the victims, the man who was
+attired as a soldier, he who was named Gustave?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+M. Segmuller noted the intonation of this response, and then slowly
+added: “But you must have heard of one of Gustave’s friends, a man
+called Lacheneur?”
+
+On hearing this name, the landlady of the Poivriere became visibly
+embarrassed, and it was in an altered voice that she stammered:
+“Lacheneur! Lacheneur! no, I have never heard that name mentioned.”
+
+Still despite her denial, the effect of M. Segmuller’s remark was
+evident, and Lecoq secretly vowed that he would find this Lacheneur, at
+any cost. Did not the “articles of conviction” comprise a letter sent by
+this man to Gustave, and written, so Lecoq had reason to believe, in
+a cafe on the Boulevard Beaumarchais? With such a clue and a little
+patience, the mysterious Lacheneur might yet be discovered.
+
+“Now,” continued M. Segmuller, “let us speak of the women who
+accompanied these unfortunate men. What sort of women were they?”
+
+“Oh! women of no account whatever!”
+
+“Were they well dressed?”
+
+“On the contrary, very miserably.”
+
+“Well, give me a description of them.”
+
+“They were tall and powerfully built, and indeed, as it was Shrove
+Sunday, I first of all took them for men in disguise. They had hands
+like shoulders of mutton, gruff voices, and very black hair. They were
+as dark as mulattoes--”
+
+“Enough!” interrupted the magistrate, “I require no further proof of
+your mendacity. These women were short, and one of them was remarkably
+fair.”
+
+“I swear to you, my good sir--”
+
+“Do not declare it upon oath. I shall be forced to confront you with an
+honest man, who will tell you to your face that you are a liar!”
+
+The widow did not reply, and there was a moment’s silence. M. Segmuller
+determined to deal a decisive blow. “Do you also affirm that you had
+nothing of a compromising character in the pocket of your apron?” he
+asked.
+
+“Nothing--you may have it examined; it was left in the house.”
+
+“Then you still persist in your system,” resumed M. Segmuller. “Believe
+me, you are wrong. Reflect--it rests with you to go to the Assize Court
+as a witness, or an accomplice.”
+
+Although the widow seemed crushed by this unexpected blow, the
+magistrate did not add another word. Her deposition was read over to
+her, she signed it, and was then led away.
+
+M. Segmuller immediately seated himself at his desk, filled up a blank
+form and handed it to his clerk, saying: “This is an order for the
+governor of the Depot. Tell him to send the supposed murderer here at
+once.”
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+If it is difficult to extort a confession from a man interested in
+preserving silence and persuaded that no proofs can be produced against
+him, it is a yet more arduous task to make a woman, similarly situated,
+speak the truth. As they say at the Palais de Justice, one might as well
+try to make the devil confess.
+
+The examination of the Widow Chupin had been conducted with the greatest
+possible care by M. Segmuller, who was as skilful in managing his
+questions as a tried general in maneuvering his troops.
+
+However, all that he had discovered was that the landlady of the
+Poivriere was conniving with the murderer. The motive of her connivance
+was yet unknown, and the murderer’s identity still a mystery. Both M.
+Segmuller and Lecoq were nevertheless of the opinion that the old hag
+knew everything. “It is almost certain,” remarked the magistrate, “that
+she was acquainted with the people who came to her house--with the
+women, the victims, the murderer--with all of them, in fact. I am
+positive as regards that fellow Gustave--I read it in her eyes. I am
+also convinced that she knows Lacheneur--the man upon whom the dying
+soldier breathed vengeance--the mysterious personage who evidently
+possesses the key to the enigma. That man must be found.”
+
+“Ah!” replied Lecoq, “and I will find him even if I have to question
+every one of the eleven hundred thousand men who constantly walk the
+streets of Paris!”
+
+This was promising so much that the magistrate, despite his
+preoccupation, could not repress a smile.
+
+“If this old woman would only decide to make a clean breast of it at her
+next examination!” remarked Lecoq.
+
+“Yes. But she won’t.”
+
+The young detective shook his head despondently. Such was his own
+opinion. He did not delude himself with false hopes, and he had noticed
+between the Widow Chupin’s eyebrows those furrows which, according to
+physiognomists, indicate a senseless, brutish obstinacy.
+
+“Women never confess,” resumed the magistrate; “and even when they
+seemingly resign themselves to such a course they are not sincere. They
+fancy they have discovered some means of misleading their examiner. On
+the contrary, evidence will crush the most obstinate man; he gives up
+the struggle, and confesses. Now, a woman scoffs at evidence. Show her
+the sun; tell her it’s daytime; at once she will close her eyes and
+say to you, ‘No, it’s night.’ Male prisoners plan and combine different
+systems of defense according to their social positions; the women, on
+the contrary, have but one system, no matter what may be their condition
+in life. They deny everything, persist in their denials even when the
+proof against them is overwhelming, and then they cry. When I worry the
+Chupin with disagreeable questions, at her next examination, you may be
+sure she will turn her eyes into a fountain of tears.”
+
+In his impatience, M. Segmuller angrily stamped his foot. He had many
+weapons in his arsenal; but none strong enough to break a woman’s dogged
+resistance.
+
+“If I only understood the motive that guides this old hag!” he
+continued. “But not a clue! Who can tell me what powerful interest
+induces her to remain silent? Is it her own cause that she is defending?
+Is she an accomplice? Is it certain that she did not aid the murderer in
+planning an ambuscade?”
+
+“Yes,” responded Lecoq, slowly, “yes; this supposition very naturally
+presents itself to the mind. But think a moment, sir, such a theory
+would prove that the idea we entertained a short time since is
+altogether false. If the Widow Chupin is an accomplice, the murderer is
+not the person we have supposed him to be; he is simply the man he seems
+to be.”
+
+This argument apparently convinced M. Segmuller. “What is your opinion?”
+ he asked.
+
+The young detective had formed his opinion a long while ago. But how
+could he, a humble police agent, venture to express any decided views
+when the magistrate hesitated? He understood well enough that his
+position necessitated extreme reserve; hence, it was in the most modest
+tone that he replied: “Might not the pretended drunkard have dazzled
+Mother Chupin’s eyes with the prospect of a brilliant reward? Might he
+not have promised her a considerable sum of money?”
+
+He paused; Goguet, the smiling clerk, had just returned.
+
+Behind him stood a private of the Garde de Paris who remained
+respectfully on the threshold, his heels in a straight line, his right
+hand raised to the peak of his shako, and his elbow on a level with his
+eyes, in accordance with the regulations.
+
+“The governor of the Depot,” said the soldier, “sends me to inquire if
+he is to keep the Widow Chupin in solitary confinement; she complains
+bitterly about it.”
+
+M. Segmuller reflected for a moment. “Certainly,” he murmured, as if
+replying to an objection made by his own conscience; “certainly, it
+is an undoubted aggravation of suffering; but if I allow this woman
+to associate with the other prisoners, she will certainly find some
+opportunity to communicate with parties outside. This must not be; the
+interests of justice and truth must be considered first.” The thought
+embodied in these last words decided him. “Despite her complaints the
+prisoner must be kept in solitary confinement until further orders,” he
+said.
+
+The soldier allowed his right hand to fall to his side, he carried
+his right foot three inches behind his left heel, and wheeled around.
+Goguet, the smiling clerk, then closed the door, and, drawing a large
+envelope from his pocket, handed it to the magistrate. “Here is a
+communication from the governor of the Depot,” said he.
+
+The magistrate broke the seal, and read aloud, as follows:
+
+“I feel compelled to advise M. Segmuller to take every precaution
+with the view of assuring his own safety before proceeding with the
+examination of the prisoner, May. Since his unsuccessful attempt at
+suicide, this prisoner has been in such a state of excitement that we
+have been obliged to keep him in a strait-waistcoat. He did not close
+his eyes all last night, and the guards who watched him expected every
+moment that he would become delirious. However, he did not utter a word.
+When food was offered him this morning, he resolutely rejected it, and
+I should not be surprised if it were his intention to starve himself
+to death. I have rarely seen a more determined criminal. I think him
+capable of any desperate act.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the clerk, whose smile had disappeared, “If I were
+in your place, sir, I would only let him in here with an escort of
+soldiers.”
+
+“What! you--Goguet, you, an old clerk--make such a proposition! Can it
+be that you’re frightened?”
+
+“Frightened! No, certainly not; but--”
+
+“Nonsense!” interrupted Lecoq, in a tone that betrayed superlative
+confidence in his own muscles; “Am I not here?”
+
+If M. Segmuller had seated himself at his desk, that article of
+furniture would naturally have served as a rampart between the prisoner
+and himself. For purposes of convenience he usually did place himself
+behind it; but after Goguet’s display of fear, he would have blushed
+to have taken the slightest measure of self-protection. Accordingly,
+he went and sat down by the fireplace--as he had done a few moments
+previously while questioning the Widow Chupin--and then ordered his
+door-keeper to admit the prisoner alone. He emphasized this word
+“alone.”
+
+A moment later the door was flung open with a violent jerk, and the
+prisoner entered, or rather precipitated himself into the room. Goguet
+turned pale behind his table, and Lecoq advanced a step forward, ready
+to spring upon the prisoner and pinion him should it be requisite. But
+when the latter reached the centre of the room, he paused and looked
+around him. “Where is the magistrate?” he inquired, in a hoarse voice.
+
+“I am the magistrate,” replied M. Segmuller.
+
+“No, the other one.”
+
+“What other one?”
+
+“The one who came to question me last evening.”
+
+“He has met with an accident. Yesterday, after leaving you, he fell down
+and broke his leg.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“And I am to take his place.”
+
+The prisoner was apparently deaf to the explanation. Excitement had
+seemingly given way to stupor. His features, hitherto contracted with
+anger, now relaxed. He grew pale and tottered, as if about to fall.
+
+“Compose yourself,” said the magistrate in a benevolent tone; “if you
+are too weak to remain standing, take a seat.”
+
+Already, with a powerful effort, the man had recovered his
+self-possession. A momentary gleam flashed from his eyes. “Many thanks
+for your kindness,” he replied, “but this is nothing. I felt a slight
+sensation of dizziness, but it is over now.”
+
+“Is it long since you have eaten anything?”
+
+“I have eaten nothing since that man”--and so saying he pointed to
+Lecoq--“brought me some bread and wine at the station house.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you like to take something?”
+
+“No--and yet--if you would be so kind--I should like a glass of water.”
+
+“Will you not have some wine with it?”
+
+“I should prefer pure water.”
+
+His request was at once complied with. He drained a first glassful at
+a single draft; the glass was then replenished and he drank again, this
+time, however, more slowly. One might have supposed that he was drinking
+in life itself. Certainly, when he laid down the empty glass, he seemed
+quite another man.
+
+Eighteen out of every twenty criminals who appear before our
+investigating magistrates come prepared with a more or less complete
+plan of defense, which they have conceived during their preliminary
+confinement. Innocent or guilty, they have resolved, on playing some
+part or other, which they begin to act as soon as they cross the
+threshold of the room where the magistrate awaits them.
+
+The moment they enter his presence, the magistrate needs to bring all
+his powers of penetration into play; for such a culprit’s first attitude
+as surely betrays his plan of defense as an index reveals a book’s
+contents. In this case, however, M. Segmuller did not think that
+appearances were deceitful. It seemed evident to him that the prisoner
+was not feigning, but that the excited frenzy which marked his entrance
+was as real as his after stupor.
+
+At all events, there seemed no fear of the danger the governor of the
+Depot had spoken of, and accordingly M. Segmuller seated himself at his
+desk. Here he felt stronger and more at ease for his back being turned
+to the window, his face was half hidden in shadow; and in case of need,
+he could, by bending over his papers, conceal any sign of surprise or
+discomfiture.
+
+The prisoner, on the contrary, stood in the full light, and not a
+movement of his features, not the fluttering of an eyelid could escape
+the magistrate’s attention. He seemed to have completely recovered
+from his indisposition; and his features assumed an expression which
+indicated either careless indifference, or complete resignation.
+
+“Do you feel better?” asked M. Segmuller.
+
+“I feel very well.”
+
+“I hope,” continued the magistrate, paternally, “that in future you will
+know how to moderate your excitement. Yesterday you tried to destroy
+yourself. It would have been another great crime added to many others--a
+crime which--”
+
+With a hasty movement of the hand, the prisoner interrupted him. “I
+have committed no crime,” said he, in a rough, but no longer threatening
+voice. “I was attacked, and I defended myself. Any one has a right to do
+that. There were three men against me. It was a great misfortune; and
+I would give my right hand to repair it; but my conscience does not
+reproach me--that much!”
+
+The prisoner’s “that much,” was a contemptuous snap of his finger and
+thumb.
+
+“And yet I’ve been arrested and treated like an assassin,” he continued.
+“When I saw myself interred in that living tomb which you call a secret
+cell, I grew afraid; I lost my senses. I said to myself: ‘My boy,
+they’ve buried you alive; and it is better to die--to die quickly,
+if you don’t wish to suffer.’ So I tried to strangle myself. My death
+wouldn’t have caused the slightest sorrow to any one. I have neither
+wife nor child depending upon me for support. However, my attempt was
+frustrated. I was bled; and then placed in a strait-waistcoat, as if I
+were a madman. Mad! I really believed I should become so. All night
+long the jailors sat around me, like children amusing themselves by
+tormenting a chained animal. They watched me, talked about me, and
+passed the candle to and fro before my eyes.”
+
+The prisoner talked forcibly, but without any attempt at oratorical
+display; there was bitterness but not anger in his tone; in short, he
+spoke with all the seeming sincerity of a man giving expression to some
+deep emotion or conviction. As the magistrate and the detective heard
+him speak, they were seized with the same idea. “This man,” they
+thought, “is very clever; it won’t be easy to get the better of him.”
+
+Then, after a moment’s reflection, M. Segmuller added aloud: “This
+explains your first act of despair; but later on, for instance, even
+this morning, you refused to eat the food that was offered you.”
+
+As the prisoner heard this remark, his lowering face suddenly
+brightened, he gave a comical wink, and finally burst into a hearty
+laugh, gay, frank, and sonorous.
+
+“That,” said he, “is quite another matter. Certainly, I refused all they
+offered me, and now I will tell you why. As I had my hands confined in
+the strait-waistcoat, the jailor tried to feed me just as a nurse tries
+to feed a baby with pap. Now I wasn’t going to submit to that, so I
+closed my lips as tightly as I could. Then he tried to force my mouth
+open and push the spoon in, just as one might force a sick dog’s
+jaws apart and pour some medicine down its throat. The deuce take
+his impertinence! I tried to bite him: that’s the truth, and if I had
+succeeded in getting his finger between my teeth, it would have stayed
+there. However, because I wouldn’t be fed like a baby, all the prison
+officials raised their hands to heaven in holy horror, and pointed at
+me, saying: ‘What a terrible man! What an awful rascal!’”
+
+The prisoner seemed to thoroughly enjoy the recollection of the scene he
+had described, for he now burst into another hearty laugh, to the great
+amazement of Lecoq, and the scandal of Goguet, the smiling clerk.
+
+M. Segmuller also found it difficult to conceal his surprise. “You are
+too reasonable, I hope,” he said, at last, “to attach any blame to these
+men, who, in confining you in a strait-waistcoat, were merely obeying
+the orders of their superior officers with the view of protecting you
+from your own violent passions.”
+
+“Hum!” responded the prisoner, suddenly growing serious. “I do blame
+them, however, and if I had one of them in a corner--But, never mind, I
+shall get over it. If I know myself aright, I have no more spite in my
+composition than a chicken.”
+
+“Your treatment depends on your own conduct,” rejoined M. Segmuller,
+“If you will only remain calm, you shan’t be put in a strait-waistcoat
+again. But you must promise me that you will be quiet and conduct
+yourself properly.”
+
+The murderer sadly shook his head. “I shall be very prudent hereafter,”
+ said he, “but it is terribly hard to stay in prison with nothing to do.
+If I had some comrades with me, we could laugh and chat, and the time
+would slip by; but it is positively horrible to have to remain alone,
+entirely alone, in that cold, damp cell, where not a sound can be
+heard.”
+
+The magistrate bent over his desk to make a note. The word “comrades”
+ had attracted his attention, and he proposed to ask the prisoner to
+explain it at a later stage of the inquiry.
+
+“If you are innocent,” he remarked, “you will soon be released: but it
+is necessary to prove your innocence.”
+
+“What must I do to prove it?”
+
+“Tell the truth, the whole truth: answer my questions honestly without
+reserve.”
+
+“As for that, you may depend upon me.” As he spoke the prisoner lifted
+his hand, as if to call upon God to witness his sincerity.
+
+But M. Segmuller immediately intervened: “Prisoners do not take the
+oath,” said he.
+
+“Indeed!” ejaculated the man with an astonished air, “that’s strange!”
+
+Although the magistrate had apparently paid but little attention to the
+prisoner, he had in point of fact carefully noted his attitude, his tone
+of voice, his looks and gestures. M. Segmuller had, moreover, done
+his utmost to set the culprit’s mind at ease, to quiet all possible
+suspicion of a trap, and his inspection of the prisoner’s person led him
+to believe that this result had been attained.
+
+“Now,” said he, “you will give me your attention; and do not forget that
+your liberty depends upon your frankness. What is your name?”
+
+“May.”
+
+“What is your Christian name?”
+
+“I have none.”
+
+“That is impossible.”
+
+“I have been told that already three times since yesterday,” rejoined
+the prisoner impatiently. “And yet it’s the truth. If I were a liar, I
+could easily tell you that my name was Peter, James, or John. But
+lying is not in my line. Really, I have no Christian name. If it were a
+question of surnames, it would be quite another thing. I have had plenty
+of them.”
+
+“What were they?”
+
+“Let me see--to commence with, when I was with Father Fougasse, I was
+called Affiloir, because you see--”
+
+“Who was this Father Fougasse?”
+
+“The great wild beast tamer, sir. Ah! he could boast of a menagerie
+and no mistake! Lions, tigers, and bears, serpents as big round as your
+thigh, parrakeets of every color under the sun. Ah! it was a wonderful
+collection. But unfortunately--”
+
+Was the man jesting, or was he in earnest? It was so hard to decide,
+that M. Segmuller and Lecoq were equally in doubt. As for Goguet, the
+smiling clerk, he chuckled to himself as his pen ran over the paper.
+
+“Enough,” interrupted the magistrate. “How old are you?”
+
+“Forty-four or forty-five years of age.”
+
+“Where were you born?”
+
+“In Brittany, probably.”
+
+M. Segmuller thought he could detect a hidden vein of irony in this
+reply.
+
+“I warn you,” said he, severely, “that if you go on in this way your
+chances of recovering your liberty will be greatly compromised. Each of
+your answers is a breach of propriety.”
+
+As the supposed murderer heard these words, an expression of mingled
+distress and anxiety was apparent in his face. “Ah! I meant no offense,
+sir,” he sighed. “You questioned me, and I replied. You will see that
+I have spoken the truth, if you will allow me to recount the history of
+the whole affair.”
+
+“When the prisoner speaks, the prosecution is enlightened,” so runs an
+old proverb frequently quoted at the Palais de Justice. It does, indeed,
+seem almost impossible for a culprit to say more than a few words in an
+investigating magistrate’s presence, without betraying his intentions or
+his thoughts; without, in short, revealing more or less of the secret he
+is endeavoring to conceal. All criminals, even the most simple-minded,
+understand this, and those who are shrewd prove remarkably reticent.
+Confining themselves to the few facts upon which they have founded their
+defense, they are careful not to travel any further unless absolutely
+compelled to do so, and even then they only speak with the utmost
+caution. When questioned, they reply, of course, but always briefly; and
+they are very sparing of details.
+
+In the present instance, however, the prisoner was prodigal of words. He
+did not seem to think that there was any danger of his being the medium
+of accomplishing his own decapitation. He did not hesitate like those
+who are afraid of misplacing a word of the romance they are substituting
+for the truth. Under other circumstances, this fact would have been a
+strong argument in his favor.
+
+“You may tell your own story, then,” said M. Segmuller in answer to the
+prisoner’s indirect request.
+
+The presumed murderer did not try to hide the satisfaction he
+experienced at thus being allowed to plead his own cause, in his own
+way. His eyes sparkled and his nostrils dilated as if with pleasure. He
+sat himself dawn, threw his head back, passed his tongue over his lips
+as if to moisten them, and said: “Am I to understand that you wish to
+hear my history?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you must know that one day about forty-five years ago, Father
+Tringlot, the manager of a traveling acrobatic company, was going
+from Guingamp to Saint Brieuc, in Brittany. He had with him two large
+vehicles containing his wife, the necessary theatrical paraphernalia,
+and the members of the company. Well, soon after passing Chatelaudren,
+he perceived something white lying by the roadside, near the edge of a
+ditch. ‘I must go and see what that is,’ he said to his wife. He stopped
+the horses, alighted from the vehicle he was in, went to the ditch,
+picked up the object he had noticed, and uttered a cry of surprise. You
+will ask me what he had found? Ah! good heavens! A mere trifle. He had
+found your humble servant, then about six months old.”
+
+With these last words, the prisoner made a low bow to his audience.
+
+“Naturally, Father Tringlot carried me to his wife. She was a
+kind-hearted woman. She took me, examined me, fed me, and said: ‘He’s a
+strong, healthy child; and we’ll keep him since his mother has been so
+wicked as to abandon him by the roadside. I will teach him; and in five
+or six years he will be a credit to us.’ They then asked each other what
+name they should give me, and as it happened to be the first day of May,
+they decided to call me after the month, and so it happens that May has
+been my name from that day to this.”
+
+The prisoner paused again and looked from one to another of his
+listeners, as if seeking some sign of approval. None being forthcoming,
+he proceeded with his story.
+
+“Father Tringlot was an uneducated man, entirely ignorant of the law. He
+did not inform the authorities that he had found a child, and, for this
+reason, although I was living, I did not legally exist, for, to have
+a legal existence it is necessary that one’s name, parentage, and
+birthplace should figure upon a municipal register.
+
+“When I grew older, I rather congratulated myself on Father Tringlot’s
+neglect. ‘May, my boy,’ said I, ‘you are not put down on any government
+register, consequently there’s no fear of your ever being drawn as a
+soldier.’ I had a horror of military service, and a positive dread of
+bullets and cannon balls. Later on, when I had passed the proper age for
+the conscription, a lawyer told me that I should get into all kinds of
+trouble if I sought a place on the civil register so late in the day;
+and so I decided to exist surreptitiously. And this is why I have no
+Christian name, and why I can’t exactly say where I was born.”
+
+If truth has any particular accent of its own, as moralists have
+asserted, the murderer had found that accent. Voice, gesture, glance,
+expression, all were in accord; not a word of his long story had rung
+false.
+
+“Now,” said M. Segmuller, coldly, “what are your means of subsistence?”
+
+By the prisoner’s discomfited mien one might have supposed that he
+had expected to see the prison doors fly open at the conclusion of his
+narrative. “I have a profession,” he replied plaintively. “The one that
+Mother Tringlot taught me. I subsist by its practise; and I have lived
+by it in France and other countries.”
+
+The magistrate thought he had found a flaw in the prisoner’s armor. “You
+say you have lived in foreign countries?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes; during the seventeen years that I was with M. Simpson’s company, I
+traveled most of the time in England and Germany.”
+
+“Then you are a gymnast and an athlete. How is it that your hands are so
+white and soft?”
+
+Far from being embarrassed, the prisoner raised his hands from his
+lap and examined them with evident complacency. “It is true they are
+pretty,” said he, “but this is because I take good care of them and
+scarcely use them.”
+
+“Do they pay you, then, for doing nothing?”
+
+“Ah, no, indeed! But, sir, my duty consists in speaking to the public,
+in turning a compliment, in making things pass off pleasantly, as the
+saying is; and, without boasting, I flatter myself that I have a certain
+knack--”
+
+M. Segmuller stroked his chin, according to his habit whenever he
+considered that a prisoner had committed some grave blunder. “In that
+case,” said he, “will you give me a specimen of your talent?”
+
+“Ah, ha!” laughed the prisoner, evidently supposing this to be a jest on
+the part of the magistrate. “Ah, ha!”
+
+“Obey me, if you please,” insisted M. Segmuller.
+
+The supposed murderer made no objection. His face at once assumed a
+different expression, his features wearing a mingled air of impudence,
+conceit, and irony. He caught up a ruler that was lying on the
+magistrate’s desk, and, flourishing it wildly, began as follows, in a
+shrill falsetto voice: “Silence, music! And you, big drum, hold your
+peace! Now is the hour, now is the moment, ladies and gentlemen, to
+witness the grand, unique performance of these great artists, unequaled
+in the world for their feats upon the trapeze and the tight-rope, and in
+innumerable other exercises of grace, suppleness, and strength!”
+
+“That is sufficient,” interrupted the magistrate. “You can speak like
+that in France; but what do you say in Germany?”
+
+“Of course, I use the language of that country.”
+
+“Let me hear, then!” retorted M. Segmuller, whose mother-tongue was
+German.
+
+The prisoner ceased his mocking manner, assumed an air of comical
+importance, and without the slightest hesitation began to speak as
+follows, in very emphatic tones: “Mit Be-willigung der hochloeblichen
+Obrigkeit, wird heute, vor hiesiger ehrenwerthen Burgerschaft, zum
+erstenmal aufgefuhrt--Genovesa, oder--”
+
+This opening of the prisoner’s German harangue may be thus rendered:
+“With the permission of the local authorities there will now be
+presented before the honorable citizens, for the first time--Genevieve,
+or the--”
+
+“Enough,” said the magistrate, harshly. He rose, perhaps to conceal his
+chagrin, and added: “We will send for an interpreter to tell us whether
+you speak English as fluently.”
+
+On hearing these words, Lecoq modestly stepped forward. “I understand
+English,” said he.
+
+“Very well. You hear, prisoner?”
+
+But the man was already transformed. British gravity and apathy were
+written upon his features; his gestures were stiff and constrained,
+and in the most ponderous tones he exclaimed: “Walk up! ladies and
+gentlemen, walk up! Long life to the queen and to the honorable mayor
+of this town! No country, England excepted--our glorious England!--could
+produce such a marvel, such a paragon--” For a minute or two longer he
+continued in the same strain.
+
+M. Segmuller was leaning upon his desk, his face hidden by his hands.
+Lecoq, standing in front of the prisoner, could not conceal his
+astonishment. Goguet, the smiling clerk, alone found the scene amusing.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The governor of the Depot, a functionary who had gained the reputation
+of an oracle by twenty years’ experience in prisons and with
+prisoners--a man whom it was most difficult to deceive--had advised the
+magistrate to surround himself with every precaution before examining
+the prisoner, May.
+
+And yet this man, characterized as a most dangerous criminal, and the
+very announcement of whose coming had made the clerk turn pale, had
+proved to be a practical, harmless, and jovial philosopher, vain of his
+eloquence, a bohemian whose existence depended upon his ability to turn
+a compliment; in short, a somewhat erratic genius.
+
+This was certainly strange, but the seeming contradiction did not cause
+M. Segmuller to abandon the theory propounded by Lecoq. On the contrary,
+he was more than ever convinced of its truth. If he remained silent,
+with his elbows leaning on the desk, and his hands clasped over his
+eyes, it was only that he might gain time for reflection.
+
+The prisoner’s attitude and manner were remarkable. When his English
+harangue was finished, he remained standing in the centre of the room, a
+half-pleased, half-anxious expression on his face. Still, he was as much
+at ease as if he had been on the platform outside some stroller’s booth,
+where, if one could believe his story, he had passed the greater part of
+his life. It was in vain that the magistrate sought for some indication
+of weakness on his features, which in their mobility were more
+enigmatical than the lineaments of the Sphinx.
+
+Thus far, M. Segmuller had been worsted in the encounter. It is true,
+however, that he had not as yet ventured on any direct attack, nor had
+he made use of any of the weapons which Lecoq had forged for his use.
+Still he was none the less annoyed at his defeat, as it was easy to see
+by the sharp manner in which he raised his head after a few moments’
+silence. “I see that you speak three European languages correctly,” said
+he. “It is a rare talent.”
+
+The prisoner bowed, and smiled complacently. “Still that does not
+establish your identity,” continued the magistrate. “Have you any
+acquaintances in Paris? Can you indicate any respectable person who will
+vouch for the truth of this story?”
+
+“Ah! sir, it is seventeen years since I left France.”
+
+“That is unfortunate, but the prosecution can not content itself with
+such an explanation. What about your last employer, M. Simpson? Who is
+he?”
+
+“M. Simpson is a rich man,” replied the prisoner, rather coldly, “worth
+more than two hundred thousand francs, and honest besides. In Germany he
+traveled with a show of marionettes, and in England with a collection of
+phenomena to suit the tastes of that country.”
+
+“Very well! Then this millionaire could testify in your favor; it would
+be easy to find him, I suppose?”
+
+“Certainly,” responded May, emphatically. “M. Simpson would willingly
+do me this favor. It would not be difficult for me to find him, only it
+would require considerable time.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because at the present moment he must be on his way to America. It was
+on account of this journey that I left his company--I detest the ocean.”
+
+A moment previously Lecoq’s anxiety had been so intense that his
+heart almost stopped beating; on hearing these last words, however,
+he regained all his self-possession. As for the magistrate, he merely
+greeted the murderer’s reply with a brief but significant ejaculation.
+
+“When I say that he is on his way,” resumed the prisoner, “I may be
+mistaken. He may not have started yet, though he had certainly made all
+his arrangements before we separated.”
+
+“What ship was he to sail by?”
+
+“He did not tell me.”
+
+“Where was he when you left him?”
+
+“At Leipsic.”
+
+“When was this?”
+
+“Last Wednesday.”
+
+M. Segmuller shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. “So you say you were
+in Leipsic on Wednesday? How long have you been in Paris?”
+
+“Since Sunday afternoon, at four o’clock.”
+
+“It will be necessary to prove that.”
+
+Judging by the murderer’s contracted brow it might be conjectured
+that he was making a strenuous effort to remember something. He cast
+questioning glances first toward the ceiling and then toward the floor,
+scratching his head and tapping his foot in evident perplexity. “How can
+I prove it--how?” he murmured.
+
+The magistrate did not appear disposed to wait. “Let me assist you,”
+ said he. “The people at the inn where you boarded while in Leipsic must
+remember you.”
+
+“We did not stop at an inn.”
+
+“Where did you eat and sleep, then?”
+
+“In M. Simpson’s large traveling-carriage; it had been sold, but he was
+not to give it up until he reached the port he was to sail from.”
+
+“What port was that?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+At this reply Lecoq, who had less experience than the magistrate in the
+art of concealing one’s impressions, could not help rubbing his hands
+with satisfaction. The prisoner was plainly convicted of falsehood,
+indeed driven into a corner.
+
+“So you have only your own word to offer in support of this story?”
+ inquired M. Segmuller.
+
+“Wait a moment,” said the prisoner, extending his arm as if to clutch at
+a still vague inspiration--“wait a moment. When I arrived in Paris I had
+with me a trunk containing my clothes. The linen is all marked with the
+first letter of my name, and besides some ordinary coats and trousers,
+there were a couple of costumes I used to wear when I appeared in
+public.”
+
+“Well, what have you done with all these things?”
+
+“When I arrived in Paris, I took the trunk to a hotel, close by the
+Northern Railway Station--”
+
+“Go on. Tell us the name of this hotel,” said M. Segmuller, perceiving
+that the prisoner had stopped short, evidently embarrassed.
+
+“That’s just what I’m trying to recollect. I’ve forgotten it. But I
+haven’t forgotten the house. I fancy I can see it now; and, if some one
+would only take me to the neighborhood, I should certainly recognize
+it. The people at the hotel would know me, and, besides, my trunk would
+prove the truth of what I’ve told you.”
+
+On hearing this statement, Lecoq mentally resolved to make a tour of
+investigation through the various hotels surrounding the Gare du Nord.
+
+“Very well,” retorted the magistrate. “Perhaps we will do as you
+request. Now, there are two questions I desire to ask. If you arrived
+in Paris at four o’clock in the afternoon, how did it happen that by
+midnight of the same day you had discovered the Poivriere, which is
+merely frequented by suspicious characters, and is situated in such a
+lonely spot that it would be impossible to find it at night-time, if one
+were not familiar with the surrounding localities? In the second place,
+how does it happen, if you possess such clothing as you describe, that
+you are so poorly dressed?”
+
+The prisoner smiled at these questions. “I can easily explain that,” he
+replied. “One’s clothes are soon spoiled when one travels third-class,
+so on leaving Leipsic I put on the worst things I had. When I arrived
+here, and felt my feet on the pavements of Paris, I went literally wild
+with delight. I acted like a fool. I had some money in my pocket--it was
+Shrove Sunday--and my only thought was to make a night of it. I did not
+think of changing my clothes. As I had formerly been in the habit of
+amusing myself round about the Barriere d’Italie, I hastened there and
+entered a wine-shop. While I was eating a morsel, two men came in and
+began talking about spending the night at a ball at the Rainbow. I
+asked them to take me with them; they agreed, I paid their bills, and
+we started. But soon after our arrival there these young men left me
+and joined the dancers. It was not long before I grew weary of merely
+looking on. Rather disappointed, I left the inn, and being foolish
+enough not to ask my way, I wandered on till I lost myself, while
+traversing a tract of unoccupied land. I was about to go back, when I
+saw a light in the distance. I walked straight toward it, and reached
+that cursed hovel.”
+
+“What happened then?”
+
+“Oh! I went in; called for some one. A woman came downstairs, and I
+asked her for a glass of brandy. When she brought it, I sat down and
+lighted a cigar. Then I looked about me. The interior was almost enough
+to frighten one. Three men and two women were drinking and chatting in
+low tones at another table. My face did not seem to suit them. One of
+them got up, came toward me, and said: ‘You are a police agent; you’ve
+come here to play the spy; that’s very plain.’ I answered that I wasn’t
+a police agent. He replied that I was. I again declared that I wasn’t.
+In short, he swore that he was sure of it, and that my beard was false.
+So saying, he caught hold of my beard and pulled it. This made me mad. I
+jumped up, and with a blow of my fist I felled him to the ground. In
+an instant all the others were upon me! I had my revolver--you know the
+rest.”
+
+“And while all this was going on what were the two women doing?”
+
+“Ah! I was too busy to pay any attention to them. They disappeared!”
+
+“But you saw them when you entered the place--what were they like?”
+
+“Oh! they were big, ugly creatures, as tall as grenadiers, and as dark
+as moles!”
+
+Between plausible falsehood, and improbable truth, justice--human
+justice, and therefore liable to error--is compelled to decide as best
+it can. For the past hour M. Segmuller had not been free from mental
+disquietude. But all his doubts vanished when he heard the prisoner
+declare that the two women were tall and dark. If he had said: “The
+women were fair,” M. Segmuller would not have known what to believe, but
+in the magistrate’s opinion the audacious falsehood he had just heard
+proved that there was a perfect understanding between the supposed
+murderer and Widow Chupin.
+
+Certainly, M. Segmuller’s satisfaction was great; but his face did not
+betray it. It was of the utmost importance that the prisoner should
+believe that he had succeeded in deceiving his examiner. “You must
+understand how necessary it is to find these women,” said the magistrate
+kindly.
+
+“If their testimony corresponds with your allegations, your innocence
+will be proved conclusively.”
+
+“Yes, I understand that; but how can I put my hand upon them?”
+
+“The police can assist you--our agents are always at the service
+of prisoners who desire to make use of them in establishing their
+innocence. Did you make any observations which might aid in the
+discovery of these women?”
+
+Lecoq, whose eyes never wandered from the prisoner’s face, fancied that
+he saw the faint shadow of a smile on the man’s lips.
+
+“I remarked nothing,” said the prisoner coldly.
+
+M. Segmuller had opened the drawer of his desk a moment before. He
+now drew from it the earring which had been found on the scene of the
+tragedy, and handing it abruptly to the prisoner, he asked: “So you
+didn’t notice this in the ear of one of the women?”
+
+The prisoner’s imperturbable coolness of demeanor did not forsake him.
+He took the jewel in his hand, examined it attentively, held it up to
+the light, admired its brilliant scintillations, and said: “It is a very
+handsome stone, but I didn’t notice it.”
+
+“This stone,” remarked the magistrate, “is a diamond.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes; and worth several thousand francs.”
+
+“So much as that!”
+
+This exclamation may have been in accordance with the spirit of the part
+assumed by the prisoner; though, at the same time, its simplicity
+was undoubtedly far-fetched. It was strange that a nomad, such as the
+murderer pretended to have been, acquainted with most of the countries
+and capitals of Europe, should have displayed this astonishment on
+learning the value of a diamond. Still, M. Segmuller did not seem to
+notice the discrepancy.
+
+“Another thing,” said he. “When you threw down your pistol, crying,
+‘Come and take me,’ what did you intend to do?”
+
+“I intended to make my escape.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“Why, of course, by the door, sir--by--”
+
+“Yes, by the back door,” retorted the magistrate, with freezing irony.
+“It remains for you to explain how you--you who had just entered that
+hovel for the first time--could have known of this door’s existence.”
+
+For once, in the course of the examination, the prisoner seemed
+troubled. For an instant all his assurance forsook him. He evidently
+perceived the danger of his position, and after a considerable effort he
+contrived to burst out in a laugh. His laugh was a poor one, however; it
+rang false, and failed to conceal a sensation of deep anxiety. Growing
+gradually bolder, he at length exclaimed: “That’s nonsense, I had just
+seen these two women go out by that very door.”
+
+“Excuse me, you declared a minute ago that you did not see these women
+leave: that you were too busy to watch their movements.”
+
+“Did I say that?”
+
+“Word for word; the passage shall be shown you. Goguet, find it.”
+
+The clerk at once read the passage referred to, whereupon the prisoner
+undertook to show that the remark had been misunderstood. He had
+not said--at least, he did not intend to say--that; they had quite
+misinterpreted his words. With such remarks did he try to palliate the
+effect of his apparent blunders.
+
+In the mean while, Lecoq was jubilant. “Ah, my fine fellow,” thought he,
+“you are contradicting yourself--you are in deep water already--you are
+lost. There’s no hope for you.”
+
+The prisoner’s situation was indeed not unlike that of a bather, who,
+unable to swim, imprudently advances into the sea until the water rises
+above his chin. He may for a while have preserved his equilibrium,
+despite the buffeting of the waves, but now he totters, loses his
+footing--another second, and he will sink!
+
+“Enough--enough!” said the magistrate, cutting the prisoner’s
+embarrassed explanation short. “Now, if you started out merely with
+the intention of amusing yourself, how did it happen that you took your
+revolver with you?”
+
+“I had it with me while I was traveling, and did not think of leaving it
+at the hotel any more than I thought of changing my clothes.”
+
+“Where did you purchase it?”
+
+“It was given me by M. Simpson as a souvenir.”
+
+“Confess that this M. Simpson is a very convenient personage,” said the
+magistrate coldly. “Still, go on with your story. Only two chambers of
+this murderous weapon were discharged, but three men were killed. You
+have not told me the end of the affair.”
+
+“What’s the use?” exclaimed the prisoner, in saddened tones. “Two of my
+assailants had fallen; the struggle became an equal one. I seized the
+remaining man, the soldier, round the body, and threw him down. He fell
+against a corner of the table, and did not rise again.”
+
+M. Segmuller had unfolded upon his desk the plan of the Poivriere drawn
+by Lecoq. “Come here,” he said, addressing the prisoner, “and show me on
+this paper the precise spot you and your adversaries occupied.”
+
+May obeyed, and with an assurance of manner a little surprising in a man
+in his position, he proceeded to explain the drama. “I entered,” said
+he, “by this door, marked C; I seated myself at the table, H, to the
+left of the entrance: my assailants occupied the table between the
+fireplace, F, and the window, B.”
+
+“I must admit,” said the magistrate, “that your assertions fully agree
+with the statements of the physicians, who say that one of the shots
+must have been fired about a yard off, and the other about two yards
+off.”
+
+This was a victory for the prisoner, but he only shrugged his shoulders
+and murmured: “That proves that the physicians knew their business.”
+
+Lecoq was delighted. This part of the prisoner’s narrative not merely
+agreed with the doctor’s statements, but also confirmed his own
+researches. The young detective felt that, had he been the examiner,
+he would have conducted the investigation in precisely the same way.
+Accordingly, he thanked heaven that M. Segmuller had supplied the place
+of M. d’Escorval.
+
+“This admitted,” resumed the magistrate, “it remains for you to explain
+a sentence you uttered when the agent you see here arrested you.”
+
+“What sentence?”
+
+“You exclaimed: ‘Ah, it’s the Prussians who are coming; I’m lost!’ What
+did you mean by that?”
+
+A fleeting crimson tinge suffused the prisoner’s cheek. It was evident
+that if he had anticipated the other questions, and had been prepared
+for them, this one, at least, was unexpected. “It’s very strange,” said
+he, with ill-disguised embarrassment, “that I should have said such a
+thing!”
+
+“Five persons heard you,” insisted the magistrate.
+
+The prisoner did not immediately reply. He was evidently trying to gain
+time, ransacking in his mind for a plausible explanation. “After all,”
+ he ultimately said, “the thing’s quite possible. When I was with M.
+Simpson, we had with us an old soldier who had belonged to Napoleon’s
+body-guard and had fought at Waterloo. I recollect he was always
+repeating that phrase. I must have caught the habit from him.”
+
+This explanation, though rather slow in coming, was none the less
+ingenious. At least, M. Segmuller appeared to be perfectly satisfied.
+“That’s very plausible,” said he; “but there is one circumstance that
+passes my comprehension. Were you freed from your assailants before the
+police entered the place? Answer me, yes or no.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then why, instead of making your escape by the back door, the existence
+of which you had divined, did you remain on the threshold of the door
+leading into the back room, with a table before you to serve as a
+barricade, and your revolver leveled at the police, as if to keep them
+at bay?”
+
+The prisoner hung his head, and the magistrate had to wait for his
+answer. “I was a fool,” he stammered at last. “I didn’t know whether
+these men were police agents or friends of the fellows I had killed.”
+
+“In either case your own interest should have induced you to fly.”
+
+The prisoner remained silent.
+
+“Ah, well!” resumed M. Segmuller, “let me tell you my opinion. I believe
+you designedly and voluntarily exposed yourself to the danger of being
+arrested in order to protect the retreat of the two women who had just
+left.”
+
+“Why should I have risked my own safety for two hussies I did not even
+know?”
+
+“Excuse me. The prosecution is strongly inclined to believe that you
+know these two women very well.”
+
+“I should like to see any one prove that!” So saying, the prisoner
+smiled sneeringly, but at once changed countenance when the magistrate
+retorted in a tone of assurance: “I will prove it.”
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+M. Segmuller certainly wished that a number had been branded upon
+the enigmatical prisoner before him. And yet he did not by any means
+despair, and his confidence, exaggerated though it might be, was not at
+all feigned. He was of opinion that the weakest point of the prisoner’s
+defense so far was his pretended ignorance concerning the two women. He
+proposed to return to this subject later on. In the mean while, however,
+there were other matters to be dealt with.
+
+When he felt that his threat as regards the women had had time to
+produce its full effect, the magistrate continued: “So, prisoner, you
+assert that you were acquainted with none of the persons you met at the
+Poivriere.”
+
+“I swear it.”
+
+“Have you never had occasion to meet a person called Lacheneur, an
+individual whose name is connected with this unfortunate affair?”
+
+“I heard the name for the first time when it was pronounced by the dying
+soldier. Poor fellow! I had just dealt him his death blow; and yet his
+last words testified to my innocence.”
+
+This sentimental outburst produced no impression whatever upon the
+magistrate. “In that case,” said he, “I suppose you are willing to
+accept this soldier’s statement.”
+
+The man hesitated, as if conscious that he had fallen into a snare, and
+that he would be obliged to weigh each answer carefully. “I accept it,”
+ said he at last. “Of course I accept it.”
+
+“Very well, then. This soldier, as you must recollect, wished to
+revenge himself on Lacheneur, who, by promising him a sum of money, had
+inveigled him into a conspiracy. A conspiracy against whom? Evidently
+against you; and yet you pretend that you had only arrived in Paris
+that evening, and that mere chance brought you to the Poivriere. Can you
+reconcile such conflicting statements?”
+
+The prisoner had the hardihood to shrug his shoulders disdainfully. “I
+see the matter in an entirely different light,” said he. “These people
+were plotting mischief against I don’t know whom--and it was because I
+was in their way that they sought a quarrel with me, without any cause
+whatever.”
+
+Skilfully as the magistrate had delivered this thrust, it had been as
+skilfully parried; so skilfully, indeed, that Goguet, the smiling clerk,
+could not conceal an approving grimace. Besides, on principle, he always
+took the prisoner’s part, in a mild, Platonic way, of course.
+
+“Let us consider the circumstances that followed your arrest,” resumed
+M. Segmuller. “Why did you refuse to answer all the questions put to
+you?”
+
+A gleam of real or assumed resentment shone in the prisoner’s eyes.
+
+“This examination,” he growled, “will alone suffice to make a culprit
+out of an innocent man!”
+
+“I advise you, in your own interest, to behave properly. Those who
+arrested you observed that you were conversant with all the prison
+formalities and rules.”
+
+“Ah! sir, haven’t I told you that I have been arrested and put in prison
+several times--always on account of my papers? I told you the truth, and
+you shouldn’t taunt me for having done so.”
+
+The prisoner had dropped his mask of careless gaiety, and had assumed
+a surly, discontented tone. But his troubles were by no means ended;
+in fact, the battle had only just begun. Laying a tiny linen bag on his
+desk, M. Segmuller asked him if he recognized it.
+
+“Perfectly! It is the package that the governor of the Depot placed in
+his safe.”
+
+The magistrate opened the bag, and poured the dust that it contained on
+to a sheet of paper. “You are aware, prisoner,” said he, “that this dust
+comes from the mud that was sticking to your feet. The police agent who
+collected it has been to the station-house where you spent the night
+of the murder, and has discovered that the composition of this dust is
+identical with that of the floor of the cell you occupied.”
+
+The prisoner listened with gaping mouth.
+
+“Hence,” continued the magistrate, “it was certainly at the
+station-house, and designedly, that you soiled your feet with that mud.
+In doing so you had an object.”
+
+“I wished--”
+
+“Let me finish. Being determined to keep your identity secret, and to
+assume the character of a member of the lower classes--of a mountebank,
+if you please--you reflected that the care you bestow upon your person
+might betray you. You foresaw the impression that would be caused when
+the coarse, ill-fitting boots you wore were removed, and the officials
+perceived your trim, clean feet, which are as well kept as your hands.
+Accordingly, what did you do? You poured some of the water that was in
+the pitcher in your cell on to the ground and then dabbled your feet in
+the mud that had thus been formed.”
+
+During these remarks the prisoner’s face wore, by turns, an expression
+of anxiety, astonishment, irony, and mirth. When the magistrate had
+finished, he burst into a hearty laugh.
+
+“So that’s the result of twelve or fourteen hours’ research,” he at
+length exclaimed, turning toward Lecoq. “Ah! Mr. Agent, it’s good to be
+sharp, but not so sharp as that. The truth is, that when I was taken
+to the station-house, forty-eight hours--thirty-six of them spent in a
+railway carriage--had elapsed since I had taken off my boots. My feet
+were red and swollen, and they burned like fire. What did I do? I poured
+some water over them. As for your other suspicions, if I have a soft
+white skin, it is only because I take care of myself. Besides, as
+is usual with most men of my profession, I rarely wear anything but
+slippers on my feet. This is so true that, on leaving Leipsic, I only
+owned a single pair of boots, and that was an old cast-off pair given me
+by M. Simpson.”
+
+Lecoq struck his chest. “Fool, imbecile, idiot, that I am!” he thought.
+“He was waiting to be questioned about this circumstance. He is so
+wonderfully shrewd that, when he saw me take the dust, he divined my
+intentions; and since then he has managed to concoct this story--a
+plausible story enough--and one that any jury would believe.”
+
+M. Segmuller was saying the same thing to himself. But he was not so
+surprised nor so overcome by the skill the prisoner had displayed in
+fencing with this point. “Let us continue,” said he. “Do you still
+persist in your statements, prisoner?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Very well; then I shall be forced to tell you that what you are saying
+is untrue.”
+
+The prisoner’s lips trembled visibly, and it was with difficulty that he
+faltered: “May my first mouthful of bread strangle me, if I have uttered
+a single falsehood!”
+
+“A single falsehood! Wait.”
+
+The magistrate drew from the drawer of his desk the molds of the
+footprints prepared by Lecoq, and showing them to the murderer, he
+said: “You told me a few minutes ago that the two women were as tall
+as grenadiers; now, just look at the footprints made by these female
+giants. They were as ‘dark as moles,’ you said; a witness will tell
+you that one of them was a small, delicate-featured blonde, with an
+exceedingly sweet voice.” He sought the prisoner’s eyes, gazed steadily
+into them, and added slowly: “And this witness is the driver whose cab
+was hired in the Rue de Chevaleret by the two fugitives, both short,
+fair-haired women.”
+
+This sentence fell like a thunderbolt upon the prisoner; he grew pale,
+tottered, and leaned against the wall for support.
+
+“Ah! you have told me the truth!” scornfully continued the pitiless
+magistrate. “Then, who is this man who was waiting for you while you
+were at the Poivriere? Who is this accomplice who, after your arrest,
+dared to enter the Widow Chupin’s den to regain possession of some
+compromising object--no doubt a letter--which he knew he would find in
+the pocket of the Widow Chupin’s apron? Who is this devoted, courageous
+friend who feigned drunkenness so effectually that even the police were
+deceived, and thoughtlessly placed him in confinement with you? Dare you
+deny that you have not arranged your system of defense in concert with
+him? Can you affirm that he did not give the Widow Chupin counsel as to
+the course she should pursue?”
+
+But already, thanks to his power of self-control, the prisoner had
+mastered his agitation. “All this,” said he, in a harsh voice, “is a
+mere invention of the police!”
+
+However faithfully one may describe an examination of this kind, a
+narrative can convey no more idea of the real scene than a heap of cold
+ashes can give the effect of a glowing fire. One can note down each
+word, each ejaculation, but phraseology is powerless to portray the
+repressed animation, the impassioned movements, the studied reticence,
+the varied tones of voice, the now bold, now faltering glances, full
+of hatred and suspicion, which follow each other in rapid succession,
+mostly on the prisoner’s side, but not entirely so, for although the
+magistrate may be an adept in the art of concealing his feelings, at
+times nature can not be controlled.
+
+When the prisoner reeled beneath the magistrate’s last words, the
+latter could not control his feelings. “He yields,” he thought, “he
+succumbs--he is mine!”
+
+But all hope of immediate success vanished when M. Segmuller saw his
+redoubtable adversary struggle against his momentary weakness, and
+arm himself for the fight with renewed, and, if possible, even greater
+energy. The magistrate perceived that it would require more than one
+assault to over-come such a stubborn nature. So, in a voice rendered
+still more harsh by disappointment, he resumed: “It is plain that you
+are determined to deny evidence itself.”
+
+The prisoner had recovered all his self-possession. He must have
+bitterly regretted his weakness, for a fiendish spite glittered in his
+eyes. “What evidence!” he asked, frowning. “This romance invented by the
+police is very plausible, I don’t deny it; but it seems to me that the
+truth is quite as probable. You talk to me about a cabman whose vehicle
+was hired by two short, fair-haired women: but who can prove that these
+women were the same that fled from the Poivriere?”
+
+“The police agent you see here followed the tracks they left across the
+snow.”
+
+“Ah! at night-time--across fields intersected by ditches, and up a long
+street--a fine rain falling all the while, and a thaw already beginning!
+Oh, your story is very probable!”
+
+As he spoke, the murderer extended his arm toward Lecoq, and then, in a
+tone of crushing scorn, he added: “A man must have great confidence
+in himself, or a wild longing for advancement, to try and get a man
+guillotined on such evidence as that!”
+
+At these words, Goguet, the smiling clerk, whose pen was rapidly flying
+across the paper, could not help remarking to himself: “The arrow has
+entered the bull’s-eye this time!”
+
+The comment was not without foundation: for Lecoq was evidently cut to
+the quick. Indeed, he was so incensed that, forgetful of his subordinate
+position, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming: “This circumstance would be
+of slight importance if it were not one of a long chain--”
+
+“Be good enough to keep silent,” interrupted the magistrate, who,
+turning to the prisoner, added: “The court does not utilize the proofs
+and testimony collected by the police until it has examined and weighed
+them.”
+
+“No matter,” murmured the prisoner. “I should like to see this
+cab-driver.”
+
+“Have no fear about that; he shall repeat his evidence in your
+presence.”
+
+“Very well. I am satisfied then. I will ask him how he can distinguish
+people’s faces when it is as dark as--”
+
+He checked himself, apparently enlightened by a sudden inspiration.
+
+“How stupid I am!” he exclaimed. “I’m losing my temper about these
+people when you know all the while who they are. For of course the
+cabmen drove them home.”
+
+M. Segmuller saw that the prisoner understood him. He perceived,
+moreover, that the latter was doing all he could to increase the mystery
+that enshrouded this essential point of the case--a point upon which the
+prosecution was particularly anxious to obtain information.
+
+The prisoner was truly an incomparable comedian, for his last
+observation was made in a tone of remarkable candor, just tinged with
+sufficient irony to show that he felt he had nothing to fear in this
+direction.
+
+“If you are consistent with yourself,” remarked the magistrate, “you
+will also deny the existence of an accomplice, of a--comrade.”
+
+“What would be the use denying it, since you believe nothing that I
+say? Only a moment ago you insinuated that my former employer was an
+imaginary personage; so what need I say about my pretended accomplice?
+According to your agents, he’s at all events a most faithful friend.
+Indeed, this wonderful being--invented by Monsieur” (with these words
+the prisoner pointed to Lecoq)--“was seemingly not satisfied at having
+once escaped the police, for, according to your account, he voluntarily
+placed himself in their clutches a second time. You gentlemen pretend
+that he conferred first of all with me, and next with the Widow Chupin.
+How did that happen? Perhaps after removing him from my cell, some of
+your agents obligingly shut him up with the old woman.”
+
+Goguet, the clerk, wrote all this down admiringly. “Here,” thought he,
+“is a man of brain, who understands his case. He won’t need any lawyer’s
+eloquence to put his defense favorably before a jury.”
+
+“And after all,” continued the prisoner, “what are the proofs against
+me? The name of Lacheneur faltered by a dying man; a few footprints on
+some melting snow; a sleepy cab-driver’s declaration; and a vague doubt
+about a drunkard’s identity. If that is all you have against me, it
+certainly doesn’t amount to much--”
+
+“Enough!” interrupted M. Segmuller. “Your assurance is perfect now;
+though a moment ago your embarrassment was most remarkable. What was the
+cause of it?”
+
+“The cause!” indignantly exclaimed the prisoner, whom this query
+had seemingly enraged; “the cause! Can’t you see, sir, that you are
+torturing me frightfully, pitilessly! I am an innocent man, and you are
+trying to deprive me of my life. You have been turning me this way and
+that way for so many hours that I begin to feel as if I were standing on
+the guillotine. Each time I open my mouth to speak I ask myself, is it
+this answer that will send me to the scaffold? My anxiety and dismay
+surprise you, do they? Why, since this examination began, I’ve felt the
+cold knife graze my neck at least twenty times. I wouldn’t like my worst
+enemy to be subjected to such torture as this.”
+
+The prisoner’s description of his sufferings did not seem at all
+exaggerated. His hair was saturated with perspiration, and big drops of
+sweat rested on his pallid brow, or coursed down his cheeks on to his
+beard.
+
+“I am not your enemy,” said the magistrate more gently. “A magistrate is
+neither a prisoner’s friend nor enemy, he is simply the friend of truth
+and the executor of the law. I am not seeking either for an innocent man
+or for a culprit; I merely wish to arrive at the truth. I must know who
+you are--and I do know--”
+
+“Ah!--if the assertion costs me my life--I’m May and none other.”
+
+“No, you are not.”
+
+“Who am I then? Some great man in disguise? Ah! I wish I were! In that
+case, I should have satisfactory papers to show you; and then you would
+set me free, for you know very well, my good sir, that I am as innocent
+as you are.”
+
+The magistrate had left his desk, and taken a seat by the fireplace
+within a yard of the prisoner. “Do not insist,” said he. Then, suddenly
+changing both manner and tone, he added with the urbanity that a man of
+the world displays when addressing an equal:
+
+“Do me the honor, sir, to believe me gifted with sufficient perspicuity
+to recognize, under the difficult part you play to such perfection, a
+very superior gentleman--a man endowed with remarkable talents.”
+
+Lecoq perceived that this sudden change of manner had unnerved the
+prisoner. He tried to laugh, but his merriment partook somewhat of the
+nature of a sob, and big tears glistened in his eyes.
+
+“I will not torture you any longer,” continued the magistrate. “In
+subtle reasoning I confess that you have conquered me. However, when
+I return to the charge I shall have proofs enough in my possession to
+crush you.”
+
+He reflected for a moment, then lingering over each word, he added:
+“Only do not then expect from me the consideration I have shown you
+to-day. Justice is human; that is, she is indulgent toward certain
+crimes. She has fathomed the depth of the abyss into which blind passion
+may hurl even an honest man. To-day I freely offer you any assistance
+that will not conflict with my duty. Speak, shall I send this officer of
+police away? Would you like me to send my clerk out of the room, on
+an errand?” He said no more, but waited to see the effect of this last
+effort.
+
+The prisoner darted upon him one of those searching glances that seem
+to pierce an adversary through. His lips moved; one might have supposed
+that he was about to make a revelation. But no; suddenly he crossed
+his arms over his chest, and murmured: “You are very frank, sir.
+Unfortunately for me, I’m only a poor devil, as I’ve already told you.
+My name is May, and I earn my living by speaking to the public and
+turning a compliment.”
+
+“I am forced to yield to your decision,” said the magistrate sadly. “The
+clerk will now read the minutes of your examination--listen.”
+
+While Goguet read the evidence aloud, the prisoner listened without
+making any remark, but when asked to sign the document, he obstinately
+refused to do so, fearing, he said, “some hidden treachery.”
+
+A moment afterward the soldiers who had escorted him to the magistrate’s
+room conducted him back to the Depot.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+When the prisoner had gone, M. Segmuller sank back in his armchair,
+literally exhausted. He was in that state of nervous prostration which
+so often follows protracted but fruitless efforts. He had scarcely
+strength enough to bathe his burning forehead and gleaming eyes with
+cool, refreshing water.
+
+This frightful examination had lasted no less than seven consecutive
+hours.
+
+The smiling clerk, who had kept his place at his desk busily writing the
+whole while, now rose to his feet, glad of an opportunity to stretch his
+limbs and snap his fingers, cramped by holding the pen. Still, he was
+not in the least degree bored. He invariably took a semi-theatrical
+interest in the dramas that were daily enacted in his presence; his
+excitement being all the greater owing to the uncertainty that shrouded
+the finish of the final act--a finish that only too often belied the
+ordinary rules and deductions of writers for the stage.
+
+“What a knave!” he exclaimed after vainly waiting for the magistrate or
+the detective to express an opinion, “what a rascal!”
+
+M. Segmuller ordinarily put considerable confidence in his clerk’s long
+experience. He sometimes even went so far as to consult him, doubtless
+somewhat in the same style that Moliere consulted his servant. But, on
+this occasion he did not accept his opinion.
+
+“No,” said he in a thoughtful tone, “that man is not a knave. When I
+spoke to him kindly he was really touched; he wept, he hesitated. I
+could have sworn that he was about to tell me everything.”
+
+“Ah, he’s a man of wonderful power!” observed Lecoq.
+
+The detective was sincere in his praise. Although the prisoner had
+disappointed his plans, and had even insulted him, he could not help
+admiring his shrewdness and courage. He--Lecoq--had prepared himself for
+a strenuous struggle with this man, and he hoped to conquer in the end.
+Nevertheless in his secret soul he felt for his adversary, admiring that
+sympathy which a “foeman worthy of one’s steel” always inspires.
+
+“What coolness, what courage!” continued the young detective. “Ah!
+there’s no denying it, his system of defense--of absolute denial--is a
+masterpiece. It is perfect. How well he played that difficult part of
+buffoon! At times I could scarcely restrain my admiration. What is a
+famous comedian beside that fellow? The greatest actors need the adjunct
+of stage scenery to support the illusion, whereas this man, entirely
+unaided, almost convinced me even against my reason.”
+
+“Do you know what your very appropriate criticism proves?” inquired the
+magistrate.
+
+“I am listening, sir.”
+
+“Ah, well! I have arrived at this conclusion--either this man is really
+May, the stroller, earning his living by paying compliments, as he
+says--or else he belongs to the highest rank of society, and not to the
+middle classes. It is only in the lowest or in the highest ranks that
+you encounter such grim energy as he has displayed, such scorn of life,
+as well as such remarkable presence of mind and resolution. A vulgar
+tradesman attracted to the Poivriere by some shameful passion would have
+confessed it long ago.”
+
+“But, sir, this man is surely not the buffoon, May,” replied the young
+detective.
+
+“No, certainly not,” responded M. Segmuller; “we must, therefore, decide
+upon some plan of action.” He smiled kindly, and added, in a friendly
+voice: “It was unnecessary to tell you that, Monsieur Lecoq. Quite
+unnecessary, since to you belongs the honor of having detected this
+fraud. As for myself, I confess, that if I had not been warned in
+advance, I should have been the dupe of this clever artist’s talent.”
+
+The young detective bowed; a blush of modesty tinged his cheeks, but a
+gleam of pleased vanity sparkled in his eyes. What a difference between
+this friendly, benevolent magistrate and M. d’Escorval, so taciturn and
+haughty. This man, at least, understood, appreciated, and encouraged
+him; and it was with a common theory and an equal ardor that they were
+about to devote themselves to a search for the truth. Scarcely had Lecoq
+allowed these thoughts to flit across his mind than he reflected that
+his satisfaction was, after all, a trifle premature, and that success
+was still extremely doubtful. With this chilling conclusion, presence
+of mind returned. Turning toward the magistrate, he exclaimed: “You will
+recollect, sir, that the Widow Chupin mentioned a son of hers, a certain
+Polyte--”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why not question him? He must know all the frequenters of the
+Poivriere, and might perhaps give us valuable information regarding
+Gustave, Lacheneur, and the murderer himself. As he is not in solitary
+confinement, he has probably heard of his mother’s arrest; but it seems
+to me impossible that he should suspect our present perplexity.”
+
+“Ah! you are a hundred times right!” exclaimed the magistrate. “I ought
+to have thought of that myself. In his position he can scarcely have
+been tampered with as yet, and I’ll have him up here to-morrow morning;
+I will also question his wife.”
+
+Turning to his clerk, M. Segmuller added: “Quick, Goguet, prepare a
+summons in the name of the wife of Hippolyte Chupin, and address an
+order to the governor of the Depot to produce her husband!”
+
+But night was coming on. It was already too dark to see to write, and
+accordingly the clerk rang the bell for lights. Just as the messenger
+who brought the lamps turned to leave the room, a rap was heard at the
+door. Immediately afterward the governor of the Depot entered.
+
+During the past twenty-four hours this worthy functionary had been
+greatly perplexed concerning the mysterious prisoner he had placed
+in secret cell No. 3, and he now came to the magistrate for advice
+regarding him. “I come to ask,” said he, “if I am still to retain the
+prisoner May in solitary confinement?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Although I fear fresh attacks of frenzy, I dislike to confine him in
+the strait-jacket again.”
+
+“Leave him free in his cell,” replied M. Segmuller; “and tell the
+keepers to watch him well, but to treat him kindly.”
+
+By the provisions of Article 613 of the Code, accused parties are placed
+in the custody of the government, but the investigating magistrate is
+allowed to adopt such measures concerning them as he may deem necessary
+for the interest of the prosecution.
+
+The governor bowed assent to M. Segmuller’s instructions, and then
+added: “You have doubtless succeeded in establishing the prisoner’s
+identity.”
+
+“Unfortunately, I have not.”
+
+The governor shook his head with a knowing air. “In that case,” said he,
+“my conjectures were correct. It seems to me evident that this man is
+a criminal of the worst description--an old offender certainly, and one
+who has the strongest interest in concealing his identity. You will find
+that you have to deal with a man who has been sentenced to the galleys
+for life, and who has managed to escape from Cayenne.”
+
+“Perhaps you are mistaken.”
+
+“Hum! I shall be greatly surprised if such should prove the case. I
+must admit that my opinion in this matter is identical with that of M.
+Gevrol, the most experienced and the most skilful of our inspectors. I
+agree with him in thinking that young detectives are often overzealous,
+and run after fantoms originated in their own brains.”
+
+Lecoq, crimson with wrath, was about to make an angry response when M.
+Segmuller motioned to him to remain silent. Then with a smile on his
+face the magistrate replied to the governor. “Upon my word, my dear
+friend,” he said, “the more I study this affair, the more convinced I
+am of the correctness of the theory advanced by the ‘overzealous’
+detective. But, after all, I am not infallible, and I shall depend upon
+your counsel and assistance.”
+
+“Oh! I have means of verifying my assertion,” interrupted the governor;
+“and I hope before the end of the next twenty-four hours that our
+man will have been identified, either by the police or by one of his
+fellow-prisoners.”
+
+With these words he took his leave. Scarcely had he done so than Lecoq
+sprang to his feet. The young detective was furious. “You see that
+Gevrol already speaks ill of me; he is jealous.”
+
+“Ah, well! what does that matter to you? If you succeed, you will have
+your revenge. If you are mistaken--then I am mistaken, too.”
+
+Then, as it was already late, M. Segmuller confided to Lecoq’s keeping
+the various articles the latter had accumulated in support of his
+theory. He also placed in his hands the diamond earring, the owner of
+which must be discovered; and the letter signed “Lacheneur,” which had
+been found in the pocket of the spurious soldier. Having given him
+full instructions, he asked him to make his appearance promptly on
+the morrow, and then dismissed him, saying: “Now go; and may good luck
+attend you!”
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+Long, narrow, and low of ceiling, having on the one side a row of
+windows looking on to a small courtyard, and on the other a range of
+doors, each with a number on its central panel, thus reminding one of
+some corridor in a second-rate hotel, such is the Galerie d’Instruction
+at the Palais de Justice whereby admittance is gained into the various
+rooms occupied by the investigating magistrates. Even in the daytime,
+when it is thronged with prisoners, witnesses, and guards, it is a sad
+and gloomy place. But it is absolutely sinister of aspect at night-time,
+when deserted, and only dimly lighted by the smoky lamp of a solitary
+attendant, waiting for the departure of some magistrate whom business
+has detained later than usual.
+
+Although Lecoq was not sensitive to such influences, he made haste to
+reach the staircase and thus escape the echo of his footsteps, which
+sounded most drearily in the silence and darkness pervading the gallery.
+
+Finding an open window on the floor below, he looked out to ascertain
+the state of the weather. The temperature was much milder; the snow had
+altogether disappeared, and the pavement was almost dry. A slight haze,
+illumined by the ruddy glare of the street lamps, hung like a purple
+mantle over the city. The streets below were full of animation; vehicles
+were rolling rapidly to and fro, and the footways were too narrow for
+the bustling crowd, which, now that the labors of the day were ended,
+was hastening homeward or in search of pleasure.
+
+The sight drew a sigh from the young detective. “And it is in this great
+city,” he murmured, “in the midst of this world of people that I must
+discover the traces of a person I don’t even know! Is it possible to
+accomplish such a feat?”
+
+The feeling of despondency that had momentarily surprised him was not,
+however, of long duration. “Yes, it is possible,” cried an inward voice.
+“Besides, it must be done; your future depends upon it. Where there’s a
+will, there’s a way.” Ten seconds later he was in the street, more than
+ever inflamed with hope and courage.
+
+Unfortunately, however, man can only place organs of limited power at
+the disposal of his boundless desires; and Lecoq had not taken twenty
+steps along the streets before he became aware that if the spirit was
+willing, the flesh was weak. His limbs trembled, and his head whirled.
+Nature was asserting her rights; during the last forty-eight hours,
+the young detective had taken scarcely a moment’s rest, and he had,
+moreover, now passed an entire day without food.
+
+“Am I going to be ill?” he thought, sinking on to a bench. And he
+groaned inwardly on recapitulating all that he wished to do that
+evening.
+
+If he dealt only with the more important matters, must he not at once
+ascertain the result of Father Absinthe’s search after the man who
+had recognized one of the victims at the Morgue; test the prisoner’s
+assertions regarding the box of clothes left at one of the hotels
+surrounding the Northern Railway Station; and last, but not the least,
+must he not procure the address of Polyte Chupin’s wife, in order to
+serve her with the summons to appear before M. Segmuller?
+
+Under the power of urgent necessity, he succeeded in triumphing over
+his attack of weakness, and rose, murmuring: “I will go first to the
+Prefecture and to the Morgue; then I will see.”
+
+But he did not find Father Absinthe at the Prefecture, and no one could
+give any tidings of him. He had not been there at all during the
+day. Nor could any one indicate, even vaguely, the abode of the Widow
+Chupin’s daughter-in-law.
+
+On the other hand, however, Lecoq met a number of his colleagues, who
+laughed and jeered at him unmercifully. “Ah! you are a shrewd fellow!”
+ they said, “it seems that you have just made a wonderful discovery, and
+it’s said you are going to be decorated with the Legion of Honor.”
+
+Gevrol’s influence betrayed itself everywhere. The jealous inspector
+had taken pains to inform all his colleagues and subordinates that poor
+Lecoq, crazed by ambition, persisted in declaring that a low, vulgar
+murderer trying to escape justice was some great personage in disguise.
+However, the jeers and taunts of which Lecoq was the object had but
+little effect upon him, and he consoled himself with the reflection
+that, “He laughs best who laughs last.”
+
+If he were restless and anxious as he walked along the Quai des
+Orfevres, it was because he could not explain Father Absinthe’s
+prolonged absence, and because he feared that Gevrol, mad with jealousy,
+might attempt, in some underhand way, to frustrate his, Lecoq’s, efforts
+to arrive at a solution of the mystery.
+
+At the Morgue the young detective met with no better success than at the
+Prefecture. After ringing three or four times, one of the keepers opened
+the door and informed him that the bodies had not been identified, and
+that the old police agent had not been seen since he went away early in
+the morning.
+
+“This is a bad beginning,” thought Lecoq. “I will go and get some
+dinner--that, perhaps, will change the luck; at all events, I have
+certainly earned the bottle of good wine to which I intend to treat
+myself.”
+
+It was a happy thought. A hearty meal washed down with a couple of
+glasses of Bordeaux sent new courage and energy coursing through his
+veins. If he still felt a trifle weary, the sensation of fatigue was at
+all events greatly diminished when he left the restaurant with a cigar
+between his lips.
+
+Just at that moment he longed for Father Papillon’s trap and sturdy
+steed. Fortunately, a cab was passing: he hired it, and as eight o’clock
+was striking, alighted at the corner of the square in front of the
+Northern Railway Station. After a brief glance round, he began his
+search for the hotel where the murderer pretended to have left a box of
+clothes.
+
+It must be understood that he did not present himself in his official
+capacity. Hotel proprietors fight shy of detectives, and Lecoq was aware
+that if he proclaimed his calling he would probably learn nothing at
+all. By brushing back his hair and turning up his coat collar, he made,
+however, a very considerable alteration in his appearance; and it was
+with a marked English accent that he asked the landlords and servants of
+various hostelries surrounding the station for information concerning a
+“foreign workman named May.”
+
+He conducted his search with considerable address, but everywhere he
+received the same reply.
+
+“We don’t know such a person; we haven’t seen any one answering the
+description you give of him.”
+
+Any other answer would have astonished Lecoq, so strongly persuaded was
+he that the prisoner had only mentioned the circumstances of a trunk
+left at one of these hotels in order to give a semblance of truth to his
+narrative. Nevertheless he continued his investigation. If he noted down
+in his memorandum book the names of all the hotels which he visited, it
+was with a view of making sure of the prisoner’s discomfiture when he
+was conducted to the neighborhood and asked to prove the truth of his
+story.
+
+Eventually, Lecoq reached the Hotel de Mariembourg, at the corner of
+the Rue St. Quentin. The house was of modest proportions; but seemed
+respectable and well kept. Lecoq pushed open the glass door leading into
+the vestibule, and entered the office--a neat, brightly lighted room,
+where he found a woman standing upon a chair, her face on a level with
+a large bird cage, covered with a piece of black silk. She was repeating
+three or four German words with great earnestness to the inmate of the
+cage, and was so engrossed in this occupation that Lecoq had to make
+considerable noise before he could attract her attention.
+
+At length she turned her head, and the young detective exclaimed: “Ah!
+good evening, madame; you are much interested, I see, in teaching your
+parrot to talk.”
+
+“It isn’t a parrot,” replied the woman, who had not yet descended from
+her perch; “but a starling, and I am trying to teach it to say ‘Have you
+breakfasted?’ in German.”
+
+“What! can starlings talk?”
+
+“Yes, sir, as well as you or I,” rejoined the woman, jumping down from
+the chair.
+
+Just then the bird, as if it had understood the question, cried very
+distinctly: “Camille! Where is Camille?”
+
+But Lecoq was too preoccupied to pay any further attention to the
+incident. “Madame,” he began, “I wish to speak to the proprietor of this
+hotel.”
+
+“I am the proprietor.”
+
+“Oh! very well. I was expecting a mechanic--from Leipsic--to meet me
+here in Paris. To my great surprise, he has not made his appearance; and
+I came to inquire if he was stopping here. His name is May.”
+
+“May!” repeated the hostess, thoughtfully. “May!”
+
+“He ought to have arrived last Sunday evening.”
+
+The woman’s face brightened. “Wait a moment,” said she. “Was this
+friend of yours a middle-aged man, of medium size, of very dark
+complexion--wearing a full beard, and having very bright eyes?”
+
+Lecoq could scarcely conceal his agitation. This was an exact
+description of the supposed murderer. “Yes,” he stammered, “that is a
+very good portrait of the man.”
+
+“Ah, well! he came here on Shrove Sunday, in the afternoon. He asked for
+a cheap room, and I showed him one on the fifth floor. The office-boy
+was not here at the time, and he insisted upon taking his trunk upstairs
+himself. I offered him some refreshments; but he declined to take
+anything, saying that he was in a great hurry; and he went away after
+giving me ten francs as security for the rent.”
+
+“Where is he now?” inquired the young detective.
+
+“Dear me! that reminds me,” replied the woman. “He has never returned,
+and I have been rather anxious about him. Paris is such a dangerous
+place for strangers! It is true he spoke French as well as you or I;
+but what of that? Yesterday evening I gave orders that the commissary of
+police should be informed of the matter.”
+
+“Yesterday--the commissary?”
+
+“Yes. Still, I don’t know whether the boy obeyed me. I had forgotten all
+about it. Allow me to ring for the boy, and ask him.”
+
+A bucket of iced water falling upon Lecoq’s head could not have
+astonished him more than did this announcement from the proprietress of
+the Hotel de Mariembourg. Had the prisoner indeed told the truth? Was it
+possible? Gevrol and the governor of the prison were right, then, and M.
+Segmuller and he, Lecoq, were senseless fools, pursuing a fantom. These
+ideas flashed rapidly through the young detective’s brain. But he had
+no time for reflection. The boy who had been summoned now made his
+appearance, and proved to be a big overgrown lad with frank, chubby
+face.
+
+“Fritz,” asked his mistress, “did you go to the commissary’s office?”
+
+“Yes, madame.”
+
+“What did he say?”
+
+“He was not in; but I spoke to his secretary, M. Casimir, who said you
+were not to worry yourself, as the man would no doubt return.”
+
+“But he has not returned.”
+
+The boy rejoined, with a movement of the shoulders that plainly implied:
+“How can I help that?”
+
+“You hear, sir,” said the hostess, apparently thinking the importunate
+questioner would now withdraw.
+
+Such, however, was not Lecoq’s intention, and he did not even move,
+though he had need of all his self-possession to retain his English
+accent. “This is very annoying,” said he, “very! I am even more anxious
+and undecided than I was before, since I am not certain that this is the
+man I am seeking for.”
+
+“Unfortunately, sir, I can tell you nothing more,” calmly replied the
+landlady.
+
+Lecoq reflected for a moment, knitting his brows and biting his lips,
+as if he were trying to discover some means of solving the mystery. In
+point of fact, he was seeking for some adroit phrase which might lead
+this woman to show him the register in which all travelers are compelled
+to inscribe their full names, profession, and usual residence. At the
+same time, however, it was necessary that he should not arouse her
+suspicions.
+
+“But, madame,” said he at last, “can’t you remember the name this man
+gave you? Was it May? Try to recollect if that was the name--May--May!”
+
+“Ah! I have so many things to remember. But now I think of it, and the
+name must be entered in my book, which, if it would oblige you, I can
+show you. It is in the drawer of my writing-table. Whatever can I have
+done with my keys?”
+
+And while the hostess, who seemed to possess about as much intelligence
+as her starling, was turning the whole office upside down looking for
+her keys, Lecoq scrutinized her closely. She was about forty years of
+age, with an abundance of light hair, and a very fair complexion.
+She was well preserved--that is to say, she was plump and healthy in
+appearance; her glance was frank and unembarrassed; her voice was clear
+and musical, and her manners were pleasing, and entirely free from
+affectation.
+
+“Ah!” she eventually exclaimed, “I have found those wretched keys at
+last.” So saying, she opened her desk, took out the register, laid it
+on the table, and began turning over the leaves. At last she found the
+desired page.
+
+“Sunday, February 20th,” said she. “Look, sir: here on the
+seventh line--May--no Christian name--foreign artist--coming from
+Leipsic--without papers.”
+
+While Lecoq was examining this record with a dazed air, the woman
+exclaimed: “Ah! now I can explain how it happened that I forgot the
+man’s name and strange profession--‘foreign artist.’ I did not make the
+entry myself.”
+
+“Who made it, then?”
+
+“The man himself, while I was finding ten francs to give him as change
+for the louis he handed me. You can see that the writing is not at all
+like that of other entries.”
+
+Lecoq had already noted this circumstance, which seemed to furnish an
+irrefutable argument in favor of the assertions made by the landlady
+and the prisoner. “Are you sure,” he asked, “that this is the man’s
+handwriting?”
+
+In his anxiety he had forgotten his English accent. The woman noticed
+this at once, for she drew back, and cast a suspicious glance at the
+pretended foreigner. “I know what I am saying,” she said, indignantly.
+“And now this is enough, isn’t it?”
+
+Knowing that he had betrayed himself, and thoroughly ashamed of his lack
+of coolness, Lecoq renounced his English accent altogether. “Excuse me,”
+ he said, “if I ask one more question. Have you this man’s trunk in your
+possession?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“You would do me an immense service by showing it to me.”
+
+“Show it to you!” exclaimed the landlady, angrily. “What do you take me
+for? What do you want? and who are you?”
+
+“You shall know in half an hour,” replied the young detective, realizing
+that further persuasion would be useless.
+
+He hastily left the room, ran to the Place de Roubaix, jumped into a
+cab, and giving the driver the address of the district commissary of
+police, promised him a hundred sous over and above the regular fare
+if he would only make haste. As might have been expected under such
+circumstances, the poor horse fairly flew over the ground.
+
+Lecoq was fortunate enough to find the commissary at his office.
+Having given his name, he was immediately ushered into the magistrate’s
+presence and told his story in a few words.
+
+“It is really true that they came to inform me of this man’s
+disappearance,” said the commissary. “Casimir told me about it this
+morning.”
+
+“They--came--to inform--you--” faltered Lecoq.
+
+“Yes, yesterday; but I have had so much to occupy my time. Now, my man,
+how can I serve you?”
+
+“Come with me, sir; compel them to show us the trunk, and send for a
+locksmith to open it. Here is the authority--a search warrant given me
+by the investigating magistrate to use in case of necessity. Let us lose
+no time. I have a cab at the door.”
+
+“We will start at once,” said the commissary.
+
+The driver whipped up his horse once more, and they were soon rapidly
+rolling in the direction of the Rue St. Quentin.
+
+“Now, sir,” said the young detective, “permit me to ask if you know this
+woman who keeps the Hotel de Mariembourg?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, I know her very well. When I was first appointed to this
+district, six years ago, I was a bachelor, and for a long while I took
+my meals at her table d’hote. Casimir, my secretary, boards there even
+now.”
+
+“And what kind of woman is she?”
+
+“Why, upon my word, my young friend, Madame Milner--for such is her
+name--is a very respectable widow (highly esteemed by her neighbors) and
+having a very prosperous business. If she remains a widow, it is only
+from choice, for she is very prepossessing and has plenty of suitors.”
+
+“Then you don’t think her capable of serving, for the sake of a good
+round sum, the interests of some wealthy culprit?”
+
+“Have you gone mad?” interrupted the commissary. “What, Madame Milner
+perjure herself for the sake of money! Haven’t I just told you that she
+is an honest woman, and that she is very well off! Besides, she informed
+me yesterday that this man was missing, so--”
+
+Lecoq made no reply; the driver was pulling up; they had reached their
+destination.
+
+On seeing her obstinate questioner reappear, accompanied by the
+commissary, Madame Milner seemed to understand everything.
+
+“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, “a detective! I might have guessed it!
+Some crime has been committed; and now my hotel has lost its reputation
+forever!”
+
+While a messenger was despatched for a locksmith, the commissary
+endeavored to reassure and console her, a task of no little difficulty,
+and which he was some time in accomplishing.
+
+At last they all went up to the missing man’s room, and Lecoq sprang
+toward the trunk. Ah! there was no denying it. It had, indeed, come
+from Leipsic; as the labels pasted upon it by the different railroad
+companies only too plainly proved. On being opened, it was, moreover,
+found to contain the various articles mentioned by the prisoner.
+
+Lecoq was thunderstruck. When he had seen the commissary lock the trunk
+and its contents up in a cupboard and take possession of the key, he
+felt he could endure nothing more. He left the room with downcast head;
+and stumbled like a drunken man as he went down the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, was very gay that year; that is to say,
+all places of public resort were crowded. When Lecoq left the Hotel de
+Mariembourg about midnight, the streets were as full as if it had been
+noonday, and the cafes were thronged with customers.
+
+But the young detective had no heart for pleasure. He mingled with the
+crowd without seemingly seeing it, and jostled against groups of people
+chatting at the corners, without hearing the imprecations occasioned
+by his awkwardness. Where was he going? He had no idea. He walked
+aimlessly, more disconsolate and desperate than the gambler who had
+staked his last hope with his last louis, and lost.
+
+“I must yield,” he murmured; “this evidence is conclusive. My
+presumptions were only chimeras; my deductions the playthings of chance!
+All I can now do is to withdraw, with the least possible damage and
+ridicule, from the false position I have assumed.”
+
+Just as he reached the boulevard, however, a new idea entered his brain,
+an idea of so startling a kind that he could scarcely restrain a loud
+exclamation of surprise. “What a fool I am!” cried he, striking his
+hand violently against his forehead. “Is it possible to be so strong in
+theory, and yet so ridiculously weak in practise? Ah! I am only a child,
+a mere novice, disheartened by the slightest obstacle. I meet with
+a difficulty, and at once I lose all my courage. Now, let me reflect
+calmly. What did I tell the judge about this murderer, whose plan of
+defense so puzzles us? Did I not tell him that we had to deal with a
+man of superior talent--with a man of consummate penetration and
+experience--a bold, courageous fellow of imperturbable coolness, who
+will do anything to insure the success of his plans? Yes; I told him
+all that, and yet I give up the game in despair as soon as I meet with a
+single circumstance that I can not instantly explain. It is evident
+that such a prisoner would not resort to old, hackneyed, commonplace
+expedients. Time, patience, and research are requisite to find a flaw in
+his defense. With such a man as he is, the more appearances are against
+my presumptions, and in favor of his narrative, the more certain it is
+that I am right--or else logic is no longer logic.”
+
+At this thought, Lecoq burst into a hearty laugh. “Still,” continued he,
+“it would perhaps be premature to expose this theory at headquarters in
+Gevrol’s presence. He would at once present me with a certificate for
+admission into some lunatic asylum.”
+
+The young detective paused. While absorbed in thought, his legs, obeying
+an instinctive impulse, had brought him to his lodgings. He rang the
+bell; the door opened, and he groped his way slowly up to the fourth
+floor. He had reached his room, and was about to enter, when some one,
+whom he could not distinguish in the dark, called out: “Is that you,
+Monsieur Lecoq?”
+
+“Yes, it’s I!” replied the young man, somewhat surprised; “but who are
+you?”
+
+“I’m Father Absinthe.”
+
+“Oh! indeed! Well, you are welcome! I didn’t recognize your voice--will
+you come in?”
+
+They entered the room, and Lecoq lit a candle. Then the young man could
+see his colleague, and, good heavens! he found him in a most pitiable
+condition.
+
+He was as dirty and as bespattered with mud as a lost dog that has been
+wandering about in the rain and the mire for a week at the very least.
+His overcoat bore the traces of frequent contact with damp walls; his
+hat had lost its form entirely. His eyes wore an anxious look, and his
+mustache drooped despondently. He spoke, moreover, so strangely that one
+might have supposed his mouth was full of sand.
+
+“Do you bring me bad news?” inquired Lecoq, after a short examination of
+his companion.
+
+“Yes, bad.”
+
+“The people you were following escaped you, then?”
+
+The old man nodded his head affirmatively.
+
+“It is unfortunate--very unfortunate!” said Lecoq. “But it is useless
+to distress ourselves about it. Don’t be so cast down, Father Absinthe.
+To-morrow, between us, we will repair the damage.”
+
+This friendly encouragement only increased the old man’s evident
+embarrassment. He blushed, this veteran, as if he had been a schoolgirl,
+and raising his hands toward heaven, he exclaimed: “Ah, you wretch!
+didn’t I tell you so?”
+
+“Why! what is the matter with you?” inquired Lecoq.
+
+Father Absinthe made no reply. Approaching a looking-glass that hung
+against the wall, he surveyed himself reproachfully and began to heap
+cruel insults upon the reflection of his features.
+
+“You old good-for-nothing!” he exclaimed. “You vile deserter! have you
+no shame left? You were entrusted with a mission, were you not? And how
+have you fulfilled it? You have got drunk, you old wretch, so drunk as
+to have lost your wits. Ah, you shan’t escape punishment this time, for
+even if M. Lecoq is indulgent, you shan’t taste another drop for a week.
+Yes, you old sot, you shall suffer for this escapade.”
+
+“Come, come,” said Lecoq, “you can sermonize by and by. Now tell me your
+story.”
+
+“Ah! I am not proud of it, believe me. However, never mind. No doubt you
+received the letter in which I told you I was going to follow the young
+men who seemed to recognize Gustave?”
+
+“Yes, yes--go on!”
+
+“Well, as soon as they entered the cafe, into which I had followed them,
+they began drinking, probably to drive away their emotion. After that
+they apparently felt hungry. At all events they ordered breakfast. I
+followed their example. The meal, with coffee and beer afterward, took
+up no little time, and indeed a couple of hours had elapsed before they
+were ready to pay their bill and go. Good! I supposed they would now
+return home. Not at all. They walked down the Rue Dauphin; and I saw
+them enter another cafe. Five minutes later I glided in after them; and
+found them already engaged in a game of billiards.”
+
+At this point Father Absinthe hesitated; it is no easy task to recount
+one’s blunders to the very person who has suffered by them.
+
+“I seated myself at a little table,” he eventually resumed, “and asked
+for a newspaper. I was reading with one eye and watching with the other,
+when a respectable-looking man entered, and took a seat beside me. As
+soon as he had seated himself he asked me to let him have the paper when
+I had finished with it. I handed it to him, and then we began talking
+about the weather. At last he proposed a game of bezique. I declined,
+but we afterward compromised the matter by having a game of piquet. The
+young men, you understand, were still knocking the balls about. We began
+by playing for a glass of brandy each. I won. My adversary asked for
+his revenge, and we played two games more. I still kept on winning.
+He insisted upon another game, and again I won, and still I drank--and
+drank again--”
+
+“Go on, go on.”
+
+“Ah! here’s the rub. After that I remember nothing--nothing either
+about the man I had been playing with or the young men. It seems to me,
+however, that I recollect falling asleep in the cafe, and that a long
+while afterward a waiter came and woke me and told me to go. Then I
+must have wandered about along the quays until I came to my senses,
+and decided to go to your lodgings and wait on the stairs until you
+returned.”
+
+To Father Absinthe’s great surprise, Lecoq seemed rather thoughtful
+than angry. “What do you think about this chance acquaintance of yours,
+papa?” asked the young detective.
+
+“I think he was following me while I was following the others, and that
+he entered the cafe with the view of making me drunk.”
+
+“What was he like?”
+
+“Oh, he was a tall, stoutish man, with a broad, red face, and a flat
+nose; and he was very unpretending and affable in manner.
+
+“It was he!” exclaimed Lecoq.
+
+“He! Who?”
+
+“Why, the accomplice--the man whose footprints we discovered--the
+pretended drunkard--a devil incarnate, who will get the best of us yet,
+if we don’t keep our eyes open. Don’t you forget him, papa; and if you
+ever meet him again--”
+
+But Father Absinthe’s confession was not ended. Like most devotees, he
+had reserved the worst sin for the last.
+
+“But that’s not all,” he resumed; “and as it’s best to make a clean
+breast of it, I will tell you that it seems to me this traitor talked
+about the affair at the Poivriere, and that I told him all we had
+discovered, and all we intended to do.”
+
+Lecoq made such a threatening gesture that the old tippler drew back in
+consternation. “You wretched man!” exclaimed the young detective, “to
+betray our plans to the enemy!”
+
+But his calmness soon returned. If at first sight the evil seemed to
+be beyond remedy, on further thought it had a good side after all. It
+sufficed to dispel all the doubts that had assailed Lecoq’s mind after
+his visit to the Hotel de Mariembourg.
+
+“However,” quoth our hero, “this is not the time for deliberation. I
+am overcome with fatigue; take a mattress from the bed for yourself, my
+friend, and let us get a little sleep.”
+
+Lecoq was a man of considerable forethought. Hence, before going to bed
+he took good care to wind up his alarm so that it might wake him at six
+o’clock. “With that to warn us,” he remarked to his companion, as he
+blew out the candle, “there need be no fear of our missing the coach.”
+
+He had not, however, made allowance for his own extreme weariness or
+for the soporific effect of the alcoholic fumes with which his comrade’s
+breath was redolent. When six o’clock struck at the church of St.
+Eustache, the young detective’s alarm resounded faithfully enough, with
+a loud and protracted whir. Shrill and sonorous as was the sound, it
+failed, however, to break the heavy sleep of the two detectives. They
+would indeed, in all probability, have continued slumbering for several
+hours longer, if at half-past seven a sturdy fist had not begun to
+rap loudly at the door. With one bound Lecoq was out of bed, amazed
+at seeing the bright sunlight, and furious at the futility of his
+precautions.
+
+“Come in!” he cried to his early visitor. He had no enemies to fear, and
+could, without danger, sleep with his door unlocked.
+
+In response to his call, Father Papillon’s shrewd face peered into the
+room.
+
+“Ah! it is my worthy coachman!” exclaimed Lecoq. “Is there anything
+new?”
+
+“Excuse me, but it’s the old affair that brings me here,” replied our
+eccentric friend the cabman. “You know--the thirty francs those wretched
+women paid me. Really, I shan’t sleep in peace till you have worked off
+the amount by using my vehicle. Our drive yesterday lasted two hours and
+a half, which, according to the regular fare, would be worth a hundred
+sous; so you see I’ve still more than twelve hours at your disposal.”
+
+“That is all nonsense, my friend!”
+
+“Possibly, but I am responsible for it, and if you won’t use my cab,
+I’ve sworn to spend those twelve hours waiting outside your door. So now
+make up your mind.” He gazed at Lecoq beseechingly, and it was evident
+that a refusal would wound him keenly.
+
+“Very well,” replied Lecoq, “I will take you for the morning, only I
+ought to warn you that we are starting on a long journey.”
+
+“Oh, Cocotte’s legs may be relied upon.”
+
+“My companion and myself have business in your own neighborhood. It is
+absolutely necessary for us to find the Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law;
+and I hope we shall be able to obtain her address from the police
+commissary of the district where the Poivriere is situated.”
+
+“Very well, we will go wherever you wish; I am at your orders.”
+
+A few moments later they were on their way.
+
+Papillon’s features wore an air of self-satisfied pride as, sitting
+erect on his box, he cracked his whip, and encouraged the nimble
+Cocotte. The vehicle could not have got over the ground more rapidly if
+its driver had been promised a hundred sous’ gratuity.
+
+Father Absinthe alone was sad. He had been forgiven by Lecoq, but he
+could not forget that he, an old police agent, had been duped as easily
+as if he had been some ignorant provincial. The thought was humiliating,
+and then in addition he had been fool enough to reveal the secret plans
+of the prosecution! He knew but too well that this act of folly had
+doubled the difficulties of Lecoq’s task.
+
+The long drive in Father Papillon’s cab was not a fruitless one. The
+secretary of the commissary of police for the thirteenth arrondissement
+informed Lecoq that Polyte Chupin’s wife lived with her child, in the
+suburbs, in the Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles. He could not indicate
+the precise number, but he described the house and gave them some
+information concerning its occupants.
+
+The Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law, a native of Auvergne, had been
+bitterly punished for preferring a rakish Parisian ragamuffin to one of
+the grimy charcoal-burners of the Puy de Dome. She was hardly more than
+twelve years of age when she first came to Paris and obtained employment
+in a large factory. After ten years’ privation and constant toil, she
+had managed to amass, sou by sou, the sum of three thousand francs. Then
+her evil genius threw Polyte Chupin across her path. She fell in love
+with this dissipated, selfish rascal; and he married her for the sake of
+her little hoard.
+
+As long as the money lasted, that is, for some three or four months,
+matters went on pleasantly enough. But as soon as the last franc had
+been spent, Polyte left his wife, and complacently resumed his former
+life of idleness, thieving, and debauchery. When at times he returned
+home, it was merely with the view of robbing his wife of what little
+money she might have saved in the mean while; and periodically she
+uncomplainingly allowed him to despoil her of the last penny of her
+earnings.
+
+Horrible to relate, this unworthy rascal even tried to trade on her good
+looks. Here, however, he met with a strenuous resistance--a resistance
+which excited not merely his own ire, but also the hatred of the
+villain’s mother--that old hag, the Widow Chupin. The result was that
+Polyte’s wife was subjected to such incessant cruelty and persecution
+that one night she was forced to fly with only the rags that covered
+her. The Chupins--mother and son--believed, perhaps, that starvation
+would effect what their horrible threats and insidious counsel had
+failed to accomplish. Their shameful expectations were not, however,
+gratified.
+
+In mentioning these facts to Lecoq, the commissary’s secretary added
+that they had become widely known, and that the unfortunate creature’s
+force of character had won for her general respect. Among those she
+frequented, moreover, she was known by the nickname of “Toinon the
+Virtuous”--a rather vulgar but, at all events, sincere tribute to her
+worth.
+
+Grateful for this information, Lecoq returned to the cab. The Rue de la
+Butte-aux-Cailles, whither Papillon was now directed to drive, proved to
+be very unlike the Boulevard Malesherbes, and one brief glance sufficed
+to show that opulence had not here fixed its abode. Luck seemed for
+the moment to have turned in Lecoq’s favor. At all events, when he and
+Father Absinthe alighted at the corner of the street, it so happened
+that the very first person the young detective questioned concerning the
+virtuous Toinon was well acquainted with her whereabouts. The house
+in which she resided was pointed out, and Lecoq was instructed to go
+upstairs to the top floor, and knock at the door in front of him. With
+such precise directions the two detectives speedily reached Madame
+Polyte Chupin’s abode.
+
+This proved to be a cold and gloomy attic of medium size, windowless,
+but provided with a small skylight. A straw pallet, a broken table,
+two chairs, and a few plain kitchen utensils constituted the sole
+appointments of this miserable garret. But in spite of the occupant’s
+evident poverty, everything was neat and clean, and to use a forcible
+expression that fell from Father Absinthe, one could have eaten off the
+floor.
+
+The two detectives entered, and found a woman busily engaged in making
+a heavy linen sack. She was seated in the centre of the room, directly
+under the skylight, so that the sun’s rays might fall upon her work. At
+the sight of two strangers, she half rose from her chair, surprised,
+and perhaps a little frightened; but when Lecoq had explained that they
+desired a few moments’ conversation with her, she gave up her own seat,
+and drawing the second chair from a corner, invited both detectives to
+sit down. Lecoq complied, but Father Absinthe declared that he preferred
+to remain standing.
+
+With a single glance Lecoq took an inventory of the humble abode,
+and, so to speak, appraised the woman. She was short, stout, and of
+commonplace appearance. Her forehead was extremely low, being crowned by
+a forest of coarse, black hair; while the expression of her large, black
+eyes, set very close together, recalled the look of patient resignation
+one so often detects in ill-treated and neglected animals. Possibly, in
+former days, she might have possessed that fleeting attraction called
+the _beaute du diable_; but now she looked almost as old as her wretched
+mother-in-law. Sorrow and privation, excessive toil and ill-treatment,
+had imparted to her face a livid hue, reddening her eyes and stamping
+deep furrows round about her temples. Still, there was an attribute of
+native honesty about her which even the foul atmosphere in which she had
+been compelled to live had not sufficed to taint.
+
+Her little boy furnished a striking contrast. He was pale and puny; his
+eyes gleamed with a phosphorescent brilliancy; and his hair was of a
+faded flaxen tint. One little circumstance attracted both detectives’
+attention. If the mother was attired in an old, thin, faded calico
+dress, the child was warmly clad in stout woolen material.
+
+“Madame, you have doubtless heard of a dreadful crime, committed in your
+mother-in-law’s establishment,” began Lecoq in a soft voice.
+
+“Alas! yes, sir,” replied Toinon the Virtuous, quickly adding: “But my
+husband could not have been implicated in it, since he is in prison.”
+
+Did not this objection, forestalling, as it were, suspicion, betray the
+most horrible apprehensions?
+
+“Yes, I am aware of that,” replied Lecoq. “Polyte was arrested a
+fortnight ago--”
+
+“Yes, and very unjustly, sir,” replied the neglected wife. “He was led
+astray by his companions, wicked, desperate men. He is so weak when he
+has taken a glass of wine that they can do whatever they like with him.
+If he were only left to himself he would not harm a child. You have only
+to look at him--”
+
+As she spoke, the virtuous Toinon turned her red and swollen eyes to
+a miserable photograph hanging against the wall. This blotchy smudge
+portrayed an exceedingly ugly, dissipated-looking young man, afflicted
+with a terrible squint, and whose repulsive mouth was partially
+concealed by a faint mustache. This rake of the barrieres was Polyte
+Chupin. And yet despite his unprepossessing aspect there was no
+mistaking the fact that this unfortunate woman loved him--had always
+loved him; besides, he was her husband.
+
+A moment’s silence followed her indication of the portrait--an act which
+clearly revealed how deeply she worshiped her persecutor; and during
+this pause the attic door slowly and softly opened. Not of itself,
+however, for suddenly a man’s head peered in. The intruder, whoever he
+was, instantly withdrew, uttering as he did so a low exclamation. The
+door was swiftly closed again; the key--which had been left on the
+outside--grated in the lock, and the occupants of the garret could hear
+hurried steps descending the stairs.
+
+Lecoq was sitting with his back to the door, and could not, therefore,
+see the intruder’s face. Quickly as he had turned, he had failed to see
+who it was: and yet he was far from being surprised at the incident.
+Intuition explained its meaning.
+
+“That must have been the accomplice!” he cried.
+
+Thanks to his position, Father Absinthe had seen the man’s face.
+“Yes,” said he, “yes, it was the same man who made me drink with him
+yesterday.”
+
+With a bound, both detectives threw themselves against the door,
+exhausting their strength in vain attempts to open it. It resisted all
+their efforts, for it was of solid oak, having been purchased by the
+landlord from some public building in process of demolition, and it was,
+moreover, furnished with a strong and massive fastening.
+
+“Help us!” cried Father Absinthe to the woman, who stood petrified with
+astonishment; “give us a bar, a piece of iron, a nail--anything!”
+
+The younger man was making frantic efforts to push back the bolt, or
+to force the lock from the wood. He was wild with rage. At last, having
+succeeded in forcing the door open, they dashed out in pursuit of their
+mysterious adversary. On reaching the street, they eagerly questioned
+the bystanders. Having described the man as best they could, they found
+two persons who had seen him enter the house of Toinon the Virtuous, and
+a third who had seen him as he left. Some children who were playing in
+the middle of the street added that he had run off in the direction of
+the Rue du Moulin-des-Pres as fast as his legs could carry him. It was
+in this street, near the corner of the Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles, that
+Lecoq had left old Papillon waiting with the cab.
+
+“Let us hasten there!” proposed Father Absinthe; “perhaps Papillon can
+give us some information.”
+
+But Lecoq shook his head despondently. He would go no further. “It would
+be of no use,” he said. “He had sufficient presence of mind to turn
+the key in the lock, and that saved him. He is at least ten minutes in
+advance of us, and we should never overtake him.”
+
+Father Absinthe could not restrain his anger. He looked upon this
+mysterious accomplice who had so cruelly duped him as a personal enemy,
+and he would willingly have given a month’s pay to be able to lay his
+hand on his shoulder. Lecoq was quite as angry as his subordinate, and
+his vanity was likewise wounded; he felt, however, that coolness and
+deliberation were necessary.
+
+“Yes,” said he thoughtfully, “he’s a shrewd and daring fellow--a perfect
+demon. He doesn’t remain idle. If we are working, he’s at work too. No
+matter what side I turn, I find him on the defensive. He foiled you,
+papa, in your effort to obtain a clue concerning Gustave’s identity; and
+he made me appear a fool in arranging that little comedy at the Hotel de
+Mariembourg. His diligence has been wonderful. He has hitherto been in
+advance of us everywhere, and this fact explains the failures that have
+attended all my efforts. Here we arrive before him. But if he came here,
+it was because he scented danger. Hence, we may hope. Now let us get
+back and question Polyte’s wife.”
+
+Alas! poor Toinon the Virtuous did not understand the affair at all. She
+had remained upstairs, holding her child by the hand, and leaning over
+the baluster; her mind in great perplexity and her eyes and ears on the
+alert. As soon as she perceived the two detectives coming up the stairs
+again, she hastened down to meet them. “In the name of heaven, what does
+this all mean?” she asked. “Whatever has happened?”
+
+But Lecoq was not the man to tell his business on a landing, with
+inquisitive ears all around him, and before he answered Toinon he made
+her go up into her own garret, and securely close the door.
+
+“We started in pursuit of a man who is implicated in the murders at the
+Poivriere,” he said; “one who came here hoping to find you alone, who
+was frightened at seeing us.”
+
+“A murderer!” faltered Toinon, with clasped hands. “What could he want
+of me?”
+
+“Who knows? It is very probable that he is one of your husband’s
+friends.”
+
+“Oh! sir.”
+
+“Why, did you not tell me just now that Polyte had some very undesirable
+acquaintances? But don’t be alarmed; this does not compromise him in the
+least. Besides, you can very easily clear him of all suspicion.”
+
+“How? In what way? Oh, tell me at once.”
+
+“Merely by answering me frankly, and by assisting me to find the guilty
+party. Now, among your husband’s friends, don’t you know any who might
+be capable of such a deed? Give me the names of his acquaintances.”
+
+The poor woman’s hesitation was evident; undoubtedly she had been
+present at many sinister cabals, and had been threatened with terrible
+punishment if she dared to disclose the plans formed by Polyte or his
+associates.
+
+“You have nothing to fear,” said Lecoq, encouragingly, “and I promise
+you no one shall ever know that you have told me a word. Very probably
+you can tell me nothing more than I know already. I have heard a great
+deal about your former life, and the brutality with which Polyte and his
+mother have treated you.”
+
+“My husband has never treated me brutally,” said the young woman,
+indignantly; “besides, that matter would only concern myself.”
+
+“And your mother-in-law?”
+
+“She is, perhaps, a trifle quick-tempered; but in reality she has a good
+heart.”
+
+“Then, if you were so happy at the Widow Chupin’s house, why did you fly
+from it?”
+
+Toinon the Virtuous turned scarlet to the very roots of her hair. “I
+left for other reasons,” she replied. “There were always a great many
+drunken men about the house; and, sometimes, when I was alone, some of
+them tried to carry their pleasantry too far. You may say that I have a
+solid fist of my own, and that I am quite capable of protecting myself.
+That’s true. But while I was away one day some fellows were wicked
+enough to make this child drink to such an excess that when I came home
+I found him as stiff and cold as if he were dead. It was necessary to
+fetch a doctor or else--”
+
+She suddenly paused; her eyes dilated. From red she turned livid, and in
+a hoarse, unnatural voice, she cried: “Toto! wretched child!”
+
+Lecoq looked behind him, and shuddered. He understood everything. This
+child--not yet five years old--had stolen up behind him, and, ferreting
+in the pockets of his overcoat, had rifled them of their contents.
+
+“Ah, well--yes!” exclaimed the unfortunate mother, bursting into tears.
+“That’s how it was. Directly the child was out of my sight, they used to
+take him into town. They took him into the crowded streets, and taught
+him to pick people’s pockets, and bring them everything he could lay his
+hands on. If the child was detected they were angry with him and beat
+him; and if he succeeded they gave him a sou to buy some sweets, and
+kept what he had taken.”
+
+The luckless Toinon hid her face in her hands, and sobbed in an almost
+unintelligible voice: “Ah, I did not wish my little one to be a thief.”
+
+But what this poor creature did not tell was that the man who had led
+the child out into the streets, to teach him to steal, was his own
+father, and her husband--the ruffian, Polyte Chupin. The two detectives
+plainly understood, however, that such was the case, and the father’s
+crime was so horrible, and the woman’s grief so great, that, familiar as
+they were with all the phases of crime, their very hearts were touched.
+Lecoq’s main thought, however, was to shorten this painful scene. The
+poor mother’s emotion was a sufficient guarantee of her sincerity.
+
+“Listen,” said he, with affected harshness. “Two questions only,
+and then I will leave you. Was there a man named Gustave among the
+frequenters of the Poivriere?”
+
+“No, sir, I’m quite sure there wasn’t.”
+
+“Very well. But Lacheneur--you must know Lacheneur!”
+
+“Yes, sir; I know him.”
+
+The young police agent could not repress an exclamation of delight. “At
+last,” thought he, “I have a clue that may lead me to the truth. What
+kind of man is he?” he asked with intense anxiety.
+
+“Oh! he is not at all like the other men who come to drink at my
+mother-in-law’s shop. I have only seen him once; but I remember him
+perfectly. It was on a Sunday. He was in a cab. He stopped at the corner
+of the waste ground and spoke to Polyte. When he went away, my husband
+said to me: ‘Do you see that old man there? He will make all our
+fortunes.’ I thought him a very respectable-looking gentleman--”
+
+“That’s enough,” interrupted Lecoq. “Now it is necessary for you to
+tell the investigating magistrate all you know about him. I have a cab
+downstairs. Take your child with you, if you like; but make haste; come,
+come quickly!”
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The extreme uncertainty of the result was another attraction for M.
+Segmuller’s investigating mind. Given the magnitude of the difficulties
+that were to be overcome, he rightly considered that if his efforts
+proved successful, he would have achieved a really wonderful victory.
+And, assisted by such a man as Lecoq, who had a positive genius for his
+calling, and in whom he recognized a most valuable auxiliary, he really
+felt confident of ultimate success.
+
+Even on returning home after the fatiguing labors of the day he did not
+think of freeing himself from the burden of responsibility in relation
+to the business he had on hand, or of driving away care until the
+morrow. He dined in haste, and as soon as he had swallowed his coffee
+began to study the case with renewed ardor. He had brought from his
+office a copy of the prisoner’s narrative, which he attentively perused,
+not once or twice, but several times, seeking for some weak point that
+might be attacked with a probability of success. He analyzed every
+answer, and weighed one expression after another, striving, as he did
+so, to find some flaw through which he might slip a question calculated
+to shatter the structure of defense. He worked thus, far into the night,
+and yet he was on his legs again at an early hour in the morning. By
+eight o’clock he was not merely dressed and shaved, he had not merely
+taken his matutinal chocolate and arranged his papers, but he was
+actually on his way to the Palais de Justice. He had quite forgotten
+that his own impatience was not shared by others.
+
+In point of fact, the Palais de Justice was scarcely awake when he
+arrived there. The doors had barely opened. The attendants were busy
+sweeping and dusting; or changing their ordinary garments for their
+official costumes. Some of them standing in the windows of the long
+dressing room were shaking and brushing the judges’ and advocates’
+gowns; while in the great hall several clerks stood in a group, chaffing
+each other while waiting for the arrival of the head registrar and the
+opening of the investigation offices.
+
+M. Segmuller thought that he had better begin by consulting the public
+prosecutor, but he discovered that this functionary had not yet arrived.
+Angry and impatient, he proceeded to his own office; and with his eyes
+fixed on the clock, growled at the slowness of the minute hand. Just
+after nine o’clock, Goguet, the smiling clerk, put in an appearance and
+speedily learned the kind of humor his master was in.
+
+“Ah, you’ve come at last,” gruffly ejaculated M. Segmuller, momentarily
+oblivious of the fact that he himself scarcely ever arrived before ten,
+and that a quarter-past nine was certainly early for his clerk.
+
+Goguet’s curiosity had indeed prompted him to hurry to the Palais;
+still, although well aware that he did not deserve a reprimand, he
+endeavored to mumble an excuse--an excuse cut short by M. Segmuller
+in such unusually harsh tones that for once in a way Goguet’s habitual
+smile faded from his face. “It’s evident,” thought he, “that the wind’s
+blowing from a bad quarter this morning,” with which reflection
+he philosophically put on his black sleeves and going to his table
+pretended to be absorbed in the task of mending his pens and preparing
+his paper.
+
+In the mean while, M. Segmuller who was usually calmness personified,
+and dignity par excellence, paced restlessly to and fro. At times he
+would sit down and then suddenly spring to his feet again, gesticulating
+impatiently as he did so. Indeed, he seemed unable to remain quiet for a
+moment.
+
+“The prosecution is evidently making no headway,” thought the clerk.
+“May’s prospects are encouraging.” Owing to the magistrate’s harsh
+reception the idea delighted him; and, indeed, letting his rancor have
+the upper hand, Goguet actually offered up a prayer that the prisoner
+might get the better of the fight.
+
+From half-past nine till ten o’clock M. Segmuller rang for his messenger
+at least five times, and each time he asked him the same questions: “Are
+you sure that M. Lecoq has not been here this morning? Inquire! If he
+has not been here he must certainly have sent some one, or else have
+written to me.”
+
+Each time the astonished doorkeeper replied: “No one has been here, and
+there is no letter for you.”
+
+Five identical negative answers to the same inquiries only increased the
+magistrate’s wrath and impatience. “It is inconceivable!” he exclaimed.
+“Here I am upon coals of fire, and that man dares to keep me waiting.
+Where can he be?”
+
+At last he ordered a messenger to go and see if he could not find Lecoq
+somewhere in the neighborhood; perhaps in some restaurant or cafe. “At
+all events, he must be found and brought back immediately,” said he.
+
+When the man had started, M. Segmuller began to recover his composure.
+“We must not lose valuable time,” he said to his clerk. “I was to
+examine the widow Chupin’s son. I had better do so now. Go and tell them
+to bring him to me. Lecoq left the order at the prison.”
+
+In less than a quarter of an hour Polyte entered the room. From head to
+foot, from his lofty silk cap to his gaudy colored carpet slippers,
+he was indeed the original of the portrait upon which poor Toinon the
+Virtuous had lavished such loving glances. And yet the photograph was
+flattering. The lens had failed to convey the expression of low cunning
+that distinguished the man’s features, the impudence of his leering
+smile, and the mingled cowardice and ferocity of his eyes, which never
+looked another person in the face. Nor could the portrait depict the
+unwholesome, livid pallor of his skin, the restless blinking of his
+eyelids, and the constant movement of his thin lips as he drew them
+tightly over his short, sharp teeth. There was no mistaking his nature;
+one glance and he was estimated at his worth.
+
+When he had answered the preliminary questions, telling the magistrate
+that he was thirty years of age, and that he had been born in Paris, he
+assumed a pretentious attitude and waited to see what else was coming.
+
+But before proceeding with the real matter in hand, M. Segmuller wished
+to relieve the complacent scoundrel of some of his insulting assurance.
+Accordingly, he reminded Polyte, in forcible terms, that his sentence
+in the affair in which he was now implicated would depend very much upon
+his behavior and answers during the present examination.
+
+Polyte listened with a nonchalant and even ironical air. In fact, this
+indirect threat scarcely touched him. Having previously made inquiries
+he had ascertained that he could not be condemned to more than six
+months’ imprisonment for the offense for which he had been arrested; and
+what did a month more or less matter to him?
+
+The magistrate, who read this thought in Polyte’s eyes, cut his preamble
+short. “Justice,” said he, “now requires some information from you
+concerning the frequenters of your mother’s establishment.”
+
+“There are a great many of them, sir,” answered Polyte in a harsh voice.
+
+“Do you know one of them named Gustave?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+To insist would probably awaken suspicion in Polyte’s mind; accordingly,
+M. Segmuller continued: “You must, however, remember Lacheneur?”
+
+“Lacheneur? No, this is the first time I’ve heard that name.”
+
+“Take care. The police have means of finding out a great many things.”
+
+The scapegrace did not flinch. “I am telling the truth, sir,” he
+retorted. “What interest could I possibly have in deceiving you?”
+
+Scarcely had he finished speaking than the door suddenly opened and
+Toinon the Virtuous entered the room, carrying her child in her arms.
+On perceiving her husband, she uttered a joyful exclamation, and sprang
+toward him. But Polyte, stepping back, gave her such a threatening
+glance that she remained rooted to the spot.
+
+“It must be an enemy who pretends that I know any one named Lacheneur!”
+ cried the barriere bully. “I should like to kill the person who uttered
+such a falsehood. Yes, kill him; I will never forgive it.”
+
+The messenger whom M. Segmuller had instructed to go in search of Lecoq
+was not at all displeased with the errand; for it enabled him to leave
+his post and take a pleasant little stroll through the neighborhood. He
+first of all proceeded to the Prefecture of Police, going the longest
+way round as a matter of course, but, on reaching his destination, he
+could find no one who had seen the young detective.
+
+Accordingly, M. Segmuller’s envoy retraced his steps, and leisurely
+sauntered through the restaurants, cafes, and wine shops installed in
+the vicinity of the Palais de Justice, and dependent on the customers
+it brought them. Being of a conscientious turn of mind, he entered
+each establishment in succession and meeting now and again various
+acquaintances, he felt compelled to proffer and accept numerous glasses
+of the favorite morning beverage--white wine. Turn which way he would,
+however, loiter as long as he might, there were still no signs of Lecoq.
+He was returning in haste, a trifle uneasy on account of the length
+of his absence, when he perceived a cab pull up in front of the Palais
+gateway. A second glance, and oh, great good fortune, he saw Lecoq,
+Father Absinthe, and the virtuous Toinon alight from this very vehicle.
+His peace of mind at once returned; and it was in a very important and
+somewhat husky tone that he delivered the order for Lecoq to follow him
+without a minute’s delay. “M. Segmuller has asked for you a number of
+times,” said he, “He has been extremely impatient, and he is in a very
+bad humor, so you may expect to have your head snapped off in the most
+expeditious manner.”
+
+Lecoq smiled as he went up the stairs. Was he not bringing with him the
+most potent of justifications? He thought of the agreeable surprise he
+had in store for the magistrate, and fancied he could picture the sudden
+brightening of that functionary’s gloomy face.
+
+And yet, fate so willed it that the doorkeeper’s message and his urgent
+appeal that Lecoq should not loiter on the way, produced the most
+unfortunate results. Believing that M. Segmuller was anxiously waiting
+for him, Lecoq saw nothing wrong in opening the door of the magistrate’s
+room without previously knocking; and being anxious to justify his
+absence, he yielded, moreover, to the impulse that led him to push
+forward the poor woman whose testimony might prove so decisive. When he
+saw, however, that the magistrate was not alone, and when he recognized
+Polyte Chupin--the original of the photograph--in the man M. Segmuller
+was examining, his stupefaction became intense. He instantly perceived
+his mistake and understood its consequences.
+
+There was only one thing to be done. He must prevent any exchange of
+words between the two. Accordingly, springing toward Toinon and seizing
+her roughly by the arm, he ordered her to leave the room at once. But
+the poor creature was quite overcome, and trembled like a leaf. Her
+eyes were fixed upon her unworthy husband, and the happiness she felt at
+seeing him again shone plainly in her anxious gaze. Just for one second;
+and then she caught his withering glance and heard his words of menace.
+Terror-stricken, she staggered back, and then Lecoq seized her around
+the waist, and, lifting her with his strong arms, carried her out into
+the passage. The whole scene had been so brief that M. Segmuller was
+still forming the order for Toinon to be removed from the room, when he
+found the door closed again, and himself and Goguet alone with Polyte.
+
+“Ah, ah!” thought the smiling clerk, in a flutter of delight, “this is
+something new.” But as these little diversions never made him forget his
+duties, he leaned toward the magistrate and asked: “Shall I take down
+the last words the witness uttered?”
+
+“Certainly,” replied M. Segmuller, “and word for word, if you please.”
+
+He paused; the door opened again, this time to admit the magistrate’s
+messenger, who timidly, and with a rather guilty air, handed his master
+a note, and then withdrew. This note, scribbled in pencil by Lecoq on a
+leaf torn from his memorandum book, gave the magistrate the name of
+the woman who had just entered his room, and recapitulated briefly but
+clearly the information obtained in the Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles.
+
+“That young fellow thinks of everything!” murmured M. Segmuller. The
+meaning of the scene that had just occurred was now explained to him. He
+understood everything.
+
+He bitterly regretted this unfortunate meeting; at the same time casting
+the blame on his own impatience and lack of caution, which, as soon as
+the messenger had started in search of Lecoq, had induced him to summon
+Polyte Chupin. Although he could not conceal from himself the enormous
+influence this seemingly trivial incident might have, still he would not
+allow himself to be cast down, but prepared to resume his examination of
+Polyte Chupin in hopes of yet obtaining the information he desired.
+
+“Let us proceed,” he said to Polyte, who had not moved since his
+wife had been taken from the room, being to all appearances sublimely
+indifferent to everything passing around him. To the magistrate’s
+proposal he carelessly nodded assent.
+
+“Was that your wife who came in just now?” asked M. Segmuller.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“She wished to embrace you, and you repulsed her.”
+
+“I didn’t repulse her.”
+
+“You kept her at a distance at all events. If you had a spark of
+affection in your nature, you would at least have looked at your child,
+which she held out to you. Why did you behave in that manner?”
+
+“It wasn’t the time for sentiment.”
+
+“You are not telling the truth. You simply desired to attract her
+attention, to influence her evidence.”
+
+“I--I influence her evidence! I don’t understand you.”
+
+“But for that supposition, your words would have been meaningless?”
+
+“What words?”
+
+The magistrate turned to his clerk: “Goguet,” said he, “read the last
+remark you took down.”
+
+In a monotonous voice, the smiling clerk repeated: “I should like to
+kill the person who dared to say that I knew Lacheneur.”
+
+“Well, then!” insisted M. Segmuller, “what did you mean by that?”
+
+“It’s very easy to understand, sir.”
+
+M. Segmuller rose. “Don’t prevaricate any longer,” he said. “You
+certainly ordered your wife not to say anything about Lacheneur. That’s
+evident. Why did you do so? What are you afraid of her telling us?
+Do you suppose the police are ignorant of your acquaintance with
+Lacheneur--of your conversation with him when he came in a cab to the
+corner of the waste ground near your mother’s wine-shop; and of the
+hopes of fortune you based upon his promises? Be guided by me; confess
+everything, while there is yet time; and abandon the present course
+which may lead you into serious danger. One may be an accomplice in more
+ways than one.”
+
+As these words fell on Polyte’s ears, it was evident his impudence and
+indifference had received a severe shock. He seemed confounded, and
+hung his head as if thoroughly abashed. Still, he preserved an obstinate
+silence; and the magistrate finding that this last thrust had failed to
+produce any effect, gave up the fight in despair. He rang the bell, and
+ordered the guard to conduct the witness back to prison, and to take
+every precaution to prevent him seeing his wife again.
+
+When Polyte had departed, Lecoq reentered the room. “Ah, sir,” said he,
+despondently, “to think that I didn’t draw out of this woman everything
+she knew, when I might have done so easily. But I thought you would be
+waiting for me, and made haste to bring her here. I thought I was acting
+for the best--”
+
+“Never mind, the misfortune can be repaired.”
+
+“No, sir, no. Since she has seen her husband, it is quite impossible
+to get her to speak. She loves that rascal intensely, and he has a
+wonderful influence over her. You heard what he said. He threatened
+her with death if she breathed a word about Lacheneur, and she is so
+terrified that there is no hope of making her speak.”
+
+Lecoq’s apprehension was based on fact, as M, Segmuller himself
+perceived the instant Toinon the Virtuous again set foot in his office.
+The poor creature seemed nearly heartbroken, and it was evident she
+would have given her life to retract the words that had escaped her when
+first questioned by Lecoq. Polyte’s threat had aroused the most sinister
+apprehensions in her mind. Not understanding his connection with
+the affair, she asked herself if her testimony might not prove his
+death-warrant. Accordingly, she answered all M. Segmuller’s questions
+with “no” or “I don’t know”; and retracted everything she had previously
+stated to Lecoq. She swore that she had been misunderstood, that her
+words had been misconstrued; and vowed on her mother’s memory, that she
+had never heard the name of Lacheneur before. At last, she burst into
+wild, despairing sobs, and pressed her frightened child against her
+breast.
+
+What could be done to overcome this foolish obstinacy, as blind and
+unreasoning as a brute’s? M. Segmuller hesitated. “You may retire, my
+good woman,” said he kindly, after a moment’s pause, “but remember that
+your strange silence injures your husband far more than anything you
+could say.”
+
+She left the room--or rather she rushed wildly from it as though only
+too eager to escape--and the magistrate and the detective exchanged
+glances of dismay and consternation.
+
+“I said so before,” thought Goguet, “the prisoner knows what he’s about.
+I would be willing to bet a hundred to one in his favor.”
+
+A French investigating magistrate is possessed of almost unlimited
+powers. No one can hamper him, no one can give him orders. The entire
+police force is at his disposal. One word from him and twenty agents, or
+a hundred if need be, search Paris, ransack France, or explore Europe.
+If there be any one whom he believes able to throw light upon an obscure
+point, he simply sends an order to that person to appear before him, and
+the man must come even if he lives a hundred leagues away.
+
+Such is the magistrate, such are his powers. On the other hand, the
+prisoner charged with a crime, but as yet un-convicted, is confined,
+unless his offense be of a trivial description, in what is called a
+“secret cell.” He is, so to say, cut off from the number of the living.
+He knows nothing of what may be going on in the world outside. He can
+not tell what witnesses may have been called, or what they may have
+said, and in his uncertainty he asks himself again and again how far the
+prosecution has been able to establish the charges against him.
+
+Such is the prisoner’s position, and yet despite the fact that the
+two adversaries are so unequally armed, the man in the secret cell not
+unfrequently wins the victory. If he is sure that he has left behind
+him no proof of his having committed the crime; if he has no guilty
+antecedents to be afraid of, he can--impregnable in a defense of
+absolute denial--brave all the attacks of justice.
+
+Such was, at this moment, the situation of May, the mysterious murderer;
+as both M. Segmuller and Lecoq were forced to admit, with mingled grief
+and anger. They had hoped to arrive at a solution of the problem by
+examining Polyte Chupin and his wife, and they had been disappointed;
+for the prisoner’s identity remained as problematical as ever.
+
+“And yet,” exclaimed the magistrate impatiently, “these people know
+something about this matter, and if they would only speak--”
+
+“But they won’t.”
+
+“What motive is it that keeps them silent? This is what we must
+discover. Who will tell us the price that has been promised Polyte
+Chupin for his silence? What recompense can he count upon? It must be a
+great one, for he is braving real danger!”
+
+Lecoq did not immediately reply to the magistrate’s successive queries,
+but it was easy to see from his knit brows that his mind was hard at
+work. “You ask me, sir,” he eventually remarked, “what reward has
+been promised Chupin? I ask on my part who can have promised him this
+reward?”
+
+“Who has promised it? Why, plainly the accomplice who has beaten us on
+every point.”
+
+“Yes,” rejoined Lecoq, “I suppose it must have been he. It certainly
+looks like his handiwork--now, what artifice can he have used? We know
+how he managed to have an interview with the Widow Chupin, but how has
+he succeeded in getting at Polyte, who is in prison, closely watched?”
+
+The young detective’s insinuation, vague as it was, did not escape M.
+Segmuller. “What do you mean?” asked the latter, with an air of mingled
+surprise and indignation. “You can’t suppose that one of the keepers has
+been bribed?”
+
+Lecoq shook his head, in a somewhat equivocal manner. “I mean nothing,”
+ he replied, “I don’t suspect any one. All I want is information. Has
+Chupin been forewarned or not?”
+
+“Yes, of course he has.”
+
+“Then if that point is admitted it can only be explained in two ways.
+Either there are informers in the prison, or else Chupin has been
+allowed to see some visitor.”
+
+These suppositions evidently worried M. Segmuller, who for a moment
+seemed to hesitate between the two opinions; then, suddenly making
+up his mind, he rose from his chair, took up his hat, and said: “This
+matter must be cleared up. Come with me, Monsieur Lecoq.”
+
+A couple of minutes later, the magistrate and the detective had reached
+the Depot, which is connected with the Palais de Justice by a narrow
+passage, especially reserved for official use. The prisoners’ morning
+rations had just been served to them, and the governor was walking up
+and down the courtyard, in the company of Inspector Gevrol. As soon as
+he perceived M. Segmuller he hastened toward him and asked if he had not
+come about the prisoner May.
+
+As the magistrate nodded assent, the governor at once added: “Well I was
+only just now telling Inspector Gevrol that I was very well satisfied
+with May’s behavior. It has not only been quite unnecessary to place
+him in the strait-waistcoat again, but his mood seems to have changed
+entirely. He eats with a good appetite; he is as gay as a lark, and he
+constantly laughs and jests with his keeper.”
+
+Gevrol had pricked up his ears when he heard himself named by the
+governor, and considering this mention to be a sufficient introduction,
+he thought there would be no impropriety in his listening to the
+conversation. Accordingly, he approached the others, and noted with
+some satisfaction the troubled glances which Lecoq and the magistrate
+exchanged.
+
+M. Segmuller was plainly perplexed. May’s gay manner to which the
+governor of the Depot alluded might perhaps have been assumed for the
+purpose of sustaining his character as a jester and buffoon, it might be
+due to a certainty of defeating the judicial inquiry, or, who knows? the
+prisoner had perhaps received some favorable news from outside.
+
+With Lecoq’s last words still ringing in his ears, it is no wonder that
+the magistrate should have dwelt on this last supposition. “Are you
+quite sure,” he asked, “that no communication from outside can reach the
+inmates of the secret cells?”
+
+The governor of the Depot was cut to the quick by M. Segmuller’s implied
+doubt. What! were his subordinates suspected? Was his own professional
+honesty impugned? He could not help lifting his hands to heaven in mute
+protest against such an unjust charge.
+
+“Am I sure?” he exclaimed. “Then you can never have visited the secret
+cells. You have no idea, then, of their situation; you are unacquainted
+with the triple bolts that secure the doors; the grating that shuts out
+the sunlight, to say nothing of the guard who walks beneath the windows
+day and night. Why, a bird couldn’t even reach the prisoners in those
+cells.”
+
+Such a description was bound to reassure the most skeptical mind, and M.
+Segmuller breathed again: “Now that I am easy on that score,” said he,
+“I should like some information about another prisoner--a fellow named
+Chupin, who isn’t in the secret cells. I want to know if any visitor
+came for him yesterday.”
+
+“I must speak to the registrar,” replied the governor, “before I can
+answer you with certainty. Wait a moment though, here comes a man who
+can perhaps tell us. He is usually on guard at the entrance. Here,
+Ferraud, this way!”
+
+The man to whom the governor called hastened to obey the summons.
+
+“Do you know whether any one asked to see the prisoner Chupin
+yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I went to fetch Chupin to the parlor myself.”
+
+“And who was his visitor?” eagerly asked Lecoq, “wasn’t he a tall man;
+very red in the face--”
+
+“Excuse me, sir, the visitor was a lady--his aunt, at least so Chupin
+told me.”
+
+Neither M. Segmuller nor Lecoq could restrain an exclamation of
+surprise. “What was she like?” they both asked at the same time.
+
+“She was short,” replied the attendant, “with a very fair complexion and
+light hair; she seemed to be a very respectable woman.”
+
+“It must have been one of the female fugitives who escaped from the
+Widow Chupin’s hovel,” exclaimed Lecoq.
+
+Gevrol, hitherto an attentive listener, burst into a loud laugh. “Still
+that Russian princess,” said he.
+
+Neither the magistrate nor the young detective relished this
+unseasonable jest. “You forget yourself, sir,” said M. Segmuller
+severely. “You forget that the sneers you address to your comrade also
+apply to me!”
+
+The General saw that he had gone too far; and while glancing hatefully
+at Lecoq, he mumbled an apology to the magistrate. The latter did not
+apparently hear him, for, bowing to the governor, he motioned Lecoq to
+follow him away.
+
+“Run to the Prefecture of Police,” he said as soon as they were out of
+hearing, “and ascertain how and under what pretext this woman obtained
+permission to see Polyte Chupin.”
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+On his way back to his office, M. Segmuller mentally reviewed the
+position of affairs; and came to the conclusion that as he had failed
+to take the citadel of defense by storm, he must resign himself to a
+regular protracted siege. He was exceedingly annoyed at the constant
+failures that had attended all Lecoq’s efforts; for time was on the
+wing, and he knew that in a criminal investigation delay only increased
+the uncertainty of success. The more promptly a crime is followed by
+judicial action the easier it is to find the culprit, and prove his
+guilt. The longer investigation is delayed the more difficult it becomes
+to adduce conclusive evidence.
+
+In the present instance there were various matters that M. Segmuller
+might at once attend to. With which should he begin? Ought he not to
+confront May, the Widow Chupin, and Polyte with the bodies of their
+victims? Such horrible meetings have at times the most momentous
+results, and more than one murderer when unsuspectedly brought into the
+presence of his victim’s lifeless corpse has changed color and lost his
+assurance.
+
+Then there were other witnesses whom M. Segmuller might examine.
+Papillon, the cab-driver; the concierge of the house in the Rue de
+Bourgogne--where the two women flying from the Poivriere had momentarily
+taken refuge; as well as a certain Madame Milner, landlady of the Hotel
+de Mariembourg. In addition, it would also be advisable to summon, with
+the least possible delay, some of the people residing in the vicinity of
+the Poivriere; together with some of Polyte’s habitual companions, and
+the landlord of the Rainbow, where the victims and the murderer had
+apparently passed the evening of the crime. Of course, there was no
+reason to expect any great revelations from any of these witnesses,
+still they might know something, they might have an opinion to express,
+and in the present darkness one single ray of light, however faint,
+might mean salvation.
+
+Obeying the magistrate’s orders, Goguet, the smiling clerk, had just
+finished drawing up at least a dozen summonses, when Lecoq returned from
+the Prefecture. M. Segmuller at once asked him the result of his errand.
+
+“Ah, sir,” replied the young detective, “I have a fresh proof of that
+mysterious accomplice’s skill. The permit that was used yesterday to see
+young Chupin was in the name of his mother’s sister, a woman named
+Rose Pitard. A visiting card was given her more than a week ago, in
+compliance with a request indorsed by the commissary of police of her
+district.”
+
+The magistrate’s surprise was so intense that it imparted to his face
+an almost ludicrous expression. “Is this aunt also in the plot?” he
+murmured.
+
+“I don’t think so,” replied Lecoq, shaking his head. “At all events, it
+wasn’t she who went to the prison parlor yesterday. The clerks at the
+Prefecture remember the widow’s sister very well, and gave me a full
+description of her. She’s a woman over five feet high, with a very dark
+complexion; and very wrinkled and weatherbeaten about the face. She’s
+quite sixty years old; whereas, yesterday’s visitor was short and fair,
+and not more than forty-five.”
+
+“If that’s the case,” interrupted M. Segmuller, “this visitor must be
+one of our fugitives.”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+“Who do you suppose she was, then?”
+
+“Why, the landlady of the Hotel de Mariembourg--that clever woman who
+succeeded so well in deceiving me. But she had better take care! There
+are means of verifying my suspicions.”
+
+The magistrate scarcely heard Lecoq’s last words, so enraged was he at
+the inconceivable audacity and devotion displayed by so many people:
+all of whom were apparently willing to run the greatest risks so long as
+they could only assure the murderer’s incognito.
+
+“But how could the accomplice have known of the existence of this
+permit?” he asked after a pause.
+
+“Oh, nothing could be easier, sir,” replied Lecoq. “When the Widow
+Chupin and the accomplice had that interview at the station-house near
+the Barriere d’Italie, they both realized the necessity of warning
+Polyte. While trying to devise some means of getting to him, the old
+woman remembered her sister’s visiting card, and the man made some
+excuse to borrow it.”
+
+“Yes, such must be the case,” said M. Segmuller, approvingly. “It will
+be necessary to ascertain, however--”
+
+“And I will ascertain,” interrupted Lecoq, with a resolute air, “if you
+will only intrust the matter to me, sir. If you will authorize me I
+will have two spies on the watch before to-night, one in the Rue de
+la Butte-aux-Cailles, and the other at the door of the Hotel de
+Mariembourg. If the accomplice ventured to visit Toinon or Madame Milner
+he would be arrested; and then we should have our turn!”
+
+However, there was no time to waste in vain words and idle boasting.
+Lecoq therefore checked himself, and took up his hat preparatory to
+departure. “Now,” said he, “I must ask you, sir, for my liberty; if
+you have any orders, you will find a trusty messenger in the corridor,
+Father Absinthe, one of my colleagues. I want to find out something
+about Lacheneur’s letter and the diamond earring.”
+
+“Go, then,” replied M. Segmuller, “and good luck to you!”
+
+Good luck! Yes, indeed, Lecoq looked for it. If up to the present moment
+he had taken his successive defeats good-humoredly, it was because he
+believed that he had a talisman in his pocket which was bound to insure
+ultimate victory.
+
+“I shall be very stupid if I can’t discover the owner of such a valuable
+jewel,” he soliloquized, referring to the diamond earring. “And when
+I find the owner I shall at the same time discover our mysterious
+prisoner’s identity.”
+
+The first step to be taken was to ascertain whom the earring had been
+bought from. It would naturally be a tedious process to go from jeweler
+to jeweler and ask: “Do you know this jewel, was it set by you, and if
+so whom did you sell it to?” But fortunately Lecoq was acquainted with
+a man whose knowledge of the trade might at once throw light on the
+matter. This individual was an old Hollander, named Van Numen, who as a
+connoisseur in precious stones, was probably without his rival in Paris.
+He was employed by the Prefecture of Police as an expert in all such
+matters. He was considered rich. Despite his shabby appearance, he was
+rightly considered rich, and, in point of fact, he was indeed far more
+wealthy than people generally supposed. Diamonds were his especial
+passion, and he always had several in his pocket, in a little box which
+he would pull out and open at least a dozen times an hour, just as a
+snuff-taker continually produces his snuffbox.
+
+This worthy man greeted Lecoq very affably. He put on his glasses,
+examined the jewel with a grimace of satisfaction, and, in the tone of
+an oracle, remarked: “That stone is worth eight thousand francs, and it
+was set by Doisty, in the Rue de la Paix.”
+
+Twenty minutes later Lecoq entered this well-known jeweler’s
+establishment. Van Numen had not been mistaken. Doisty immediately
+recognized the earring, which had, indeed, come from his shop. But whom
+had he sold it to? He could not recollect, for it had passed out of his
+hands three or four years before.
+
+“Wait a moment though,” said he, “I will just ask my wife, who has a
+wonderful memory.”
+
+Madame Doisty truly deserved this eulogium. A single glance at the jewel
+enabled her to say that she had seen this earring before, and that the
+pair had been purchased from them by the Marchioness d’Arlange.
+
+“You must recollect,” she added, turning to her husband, “that the
+Marchioness only gave us nine thousand francs on account, and that we
+had all the trouble in the world to make her pay the balance.”
+
+Her husband did remember this circumstance; and in recording his
+recollection, he exchanged a significant glance with his wife.
+
+“Now,” said the detective, “I should like to have this marchioness’s
+address.”
+
+“She lives in the Faubourg St. Germain,” replied Madame Doisty, “near
+the Esplanade des Invalides.”
+
+Lecoq had refrained from any sign of satisfaction while he was in the
+jeweler’s presence. But directly he had left the shop he evinced such
+delirious joy that the passers-by asked themselves in amazement if
+he were not mad. He did not walk, but fairly danced over the stones,
+gesticulating in the most ridiculous fashion as he addressed this
+triumphant monologue to the empty air: “At last,” said he, “this affair
+emerges from the mystery that has enshrouded it. At last I reach the
+veritable actors in the drama, the exalted personages whose existence
+I had suspected. Ah! Gevrol, my illustrious General! you talked about
+a Russian princess, but you will be obliged to content yourself with a
+simple marchioness.”
+
+But the vertigo that had seized the young detective gradually
+disappeared. His good sense reasserted itself, and, looking calmly at
+the situation, he felt that he should need all his presence of mind,
+penetration, and sagacity to bring the expedition to a successful
+finish. What course should he pursue, on entering the marchioness’s
+presence, in order to draw from her a full confession and to obtain full
+particulars of the murder, as well as the murderer’s name!
+
+“It will be best to threaten her, to frighten her into confession,”
+ he soliloquized. “If I give her time for reflection, I shall learn
+nothing.”
+
+He paused in his cogitations, for he had reached the residence of the
+Marchioness d’Arlange--a charming mansion with a courtyard in front and
+garden in the rear. Before entering, he deemed it advisable to obtain
+some information concerning the inmates.
+
+“It is here, then,” he murmured, “that I am to find the solution of the
+enigma! Here, behind these embroidered curtains, dwells the frightened
+fugitive of the other night. What agony of fear must torture her since
+she has discovered the loss of her earring!”
+
+For more than an hour, standing under a neighbor’s _porte cochere_,
+Lecoq remained watching the house. He would have liked to see the
+face of any one; but the time passed by and not even a shadow could
+be detected behind the curtain; not even a servant passed across the
+courtyard. At last, losing patience, the young detective determined to
+make inquiries in the neighborhood, for he could not take a decisive
+step without obtaining some knowledge of the people he was to encounter.
+While wondering where he could obtain the information he required, he
+perceived, on the opposite side of the street, the keeper of a wine-shop
+smoking on his doorstep.
+
+At once approaching and pretending that he had forgotten an address,
+Lecoq politely asked for the house where Marchioness d’Arlange resided.
+Without a word, and without condescending to take his pipe from his
+mouth, the man pointed to the mansion which Lecoq had previously
+watched.
+
+There was a way, however, to make him more communicative, namely, to
+enter the shop, call for something to drink, and invite the landlord to
+drink as well. This was what Lecoq did, and the sight of two well-filled
+glasses unbound, as by enchantment, the man’s hitherto silent tongue.
+The young detective could not have found a better person to question,
+for this same individual had been established in the neighborhood for
+ten years, and enjoyed among the servants of the aristocratic families
+here residing a certain amount of confidence.
+
+“I pity you if you are going to the marchioness’s house to collect a
+bill,” he remarked to Lecoq. “You will have plenty of time to learn the
+way here before you see your money. You will only be another of the many
+creditors who never let her bell alone.”
+
+“The deuce! Is she as poor as that?”
+
+“Poor! Why, every one knows that she has a comfortable income, without
+counting this house. But when one spends double one’s income every year,
+you know--”
+
+The landlord stopped short, to call Lecoq’s attention to two ladies who
+were passing along the street, one of them, a woman of forty, dressed in
+black; the other, a girl half-way through her teens. “There,” quoth the
+wine-seller, “goes the marchioness’s granddaughter, Mademoiselle Claire,
+with her governess, Mademoiselle Smith.”
+
+Lecoq’s head whirled. “Her granddaughter!” he stammered.
+
+“Yes--the daughter of her deceased son, if you prefer it.”
+
+“How old is the marchioness, then?”
+
+“At least sixty: but one would never suspect it. She is one of those
+persons who live a hundred years. And what an old wretch she is too.
+She would think no more of knocking me over the head than I would of
+emptying this glass of wine--”
+
+“Excuse me,” interrupted Lecoq, “but does she live alone in that great
+house?”
+
+“Yes--that is--with her granddaughter, the governess, and two servants.
+But what is the matter with you?”
+
+This last question was not uncalled for; for Lecoq had turned deadly
+white. The magic edifice of his hopes had crumbled beneath the weight of
+this man’s words as completely as if it were some frail house of
+cards erected by a child. He had only sufficient strength to murmur:
+“Nothing--nothing at all.”
+
+Then, as he could endure this torture of uncertainty no longer, he went
+toward the marchioness’s house and rang the bell. The servant who came
+to open the door examined him attentively, and then announced that
+Madame d’Arlange was in the country. He evidently fancied that Lecoq was
+a creditor.
+
+But the young detective insisted so adroitly, giving the lackey to
+understand so explicitly that he did not come to collect money, and
+speaking so earnestly of urgent business, that the servant finally
+admitted him to the hall, saying that he would go and see if madame had
+really gone out.
+
+Fortunately for Lecoq, she happened to be at home, and an instant
+afterward the valet returned requesting the young detective to
+follow him. After passing through a large and magnificently furnished
+drawing-room, they reached a charming boudoir, hung with rose-colored
+curtains, where, sitting by the fireside, in a large easy-chair, Lecoq
+found an old woman, tall, bony, and terrible of aspect, her face loaded
+with paint, and her person covered with ornaments. The aged coquette
+was Madame, the Marchioness, who, for the time being, was engaged in
+knitting a strip of green wool. She turned toward her visitor just
+enough to show him the rouge on one cheek, and then, as he seemed rather
+frightened--a fact flattering to her vanity--she spoke in an affable
+tone. “Ah, well young man,” said she, “what brings you here?”
+
+In point of fact, Lecoq was not frightened, but he was intensely
+disappointed to find that Madame d’Arlange could not possibly be one of
+the women who had escaped from the Widow Chupin’s hovel on the night of
+the murder. There was nothing about her appearance that corresponded in
+the least degree with the descriptions given by Papillon.
+
+Remembering the small footprints left in the snow by the two fugitives,
+the young detective glanced, moreover, at the marchioness’s feet, just
+perceivable beneath her skirt, and his disappointment reached its climax
+when he found that they were truly colossal in size.
+
+“Well, are you dumb?” inquired the old lady, raising her voice.
+
+Without making a direct reply, Lecoq produced the precious earring, and,
+placing it upon the table beside the marchioness, remarked: “I bring you
+this jewel, madame, which I have found, and which, I am told, belongs to
+you.”
+
+Madame d’Arlange laid down her knitting and proceeded to examine the
+earring. “It is true,” she said, after a moment, “that this ornament
+formerly belonged to me. It was a fancy I had, about four years ago, and
+it cost me dear--at least twenty thousand francs. Ah! Doisty, the man
+who sold me those diamonds, must make a handsome income. But I had a
+granddaughter to educate and pressing need of money compelled me to sell
+them.”
+
+“To whom?” asked Lecoq, eagerly.
+
+“Eh?” exclaimed the old lady, evidently shocked at his audacity, “you
+are very inquisitive upon my word!”
+
+“Excuse me, madame, but I am anxious to find the owner of this valuable
+ornament.”
+
+Madame d’Arlange regarded her visitor with an air of mingled curiosity
+and surprise. “Such honesty!” said she. “Oh, oh! And of course you don’t
+hope for a sou by way of reward--”
+
+“Madame!”
+
+“Good, good! There is not the least need for you to turn as red as a
+poppy, young man. I sold these diamonds to a great Austrian lady--the
+Baroness de Watchau.”
+
+“And where does this lady reside?”
+
+“At the Pere la Chaise, probably, since she died about a year ago. Ah!
+these women of the present day--an extra waltz, or the merest draft, and
+it’s all over with them! In my time, after each gallop, we girls used
+to swallow a tumbler of sweetened wine, and sit down between two open
+doors. And we did very well, as you see.”
+
+“But, madame,” insisted Lecoq, “the Baroness de Watchau must have left
+some one behind her--a husband, or children--”
+
+“No one but a brother, who holds a court position at Vienna: and who
+could not leave even to attend the funeral. He sent orders that all
+his sister’s personal property should be sold--not even excepting her
+wardrobe--and the money sent to him.”
+
+Lecoq could not repress an exclamation of disappointment. “How
+unfortunate!” he murmured.
+
+“Why?” asked the old lady. “Under these circumstances, the diamond will
+probably remain in your hands, and I am rejoiced that it should be so.
+It will be a fitting reward for your honesty.”
+
+Madame d’Arlange was naturally not aware that her remark implied the
+most exquisite torture for Lecoq. Ah! if it should be as she said, if
+he should never find the lady who had lost this costly jewel! Smarting
+under the marchioness’s unintended irony, he would have liked to
+apostrophize her in angry terms; but it could not be, for it was
+advisable if not absolutely necessary that he should conceal his true
+identity. Accordingly, he contrived to smile, and even stammered an
+acknowledgment of Madame d’Arlange’s good wishes. Then, as if he had no
+more to expect, he made her a low bow and withdrew.
+
+This new misfortune well-nigh overwhelmed him. One by one all the
+threads upon which he had relied to guide him out of this intricate
+labyrinth were breaking in his hands. In the present instance he
+could scarcely be the dupe of some fresh comedy, for if the murderer’s
+accomplice had taken Doisty, the jeweler, into his confidence he would
+have instructed him to say that the earring had never come from his
+establishment, and that he could not consequently tell whom it had been
+sold to. On the contrary, however, Doisty and his wife had readily given
+Madame d’Arlange’s name, and all the circumstances pointed in favor of
+their sincerity. Then, again, there was good reason to believe in
+the veracity of the marchioness’s assertions. They were sufficiently
+authenticated by a significant glance which Lecoq had detected between
+the jeweler and his wife. The meaning of this glance could not be
+doubted. It implied plainly that both husband and wife were of opinion
+that in buying these earrings the marchioness engaged in one of those
+little speculations which are more common than many people might suppose
+among ladies moving in high-class society. Being in urgent want of ready
+money, she had bought on credit at a high price to sell for cash at a
+loss.
+
+As Lecoq was anxious to investigate the matter as far as possible,
+he returned to Doisty’s establishment, and, by a plausible pretext,
+succeeded in gaining a sight of the books in which the jeweler
+recorded his transactions. He soon found the sale of the earrings duly
+recorded--specified by Madame Doisty at the date--both in the day-book
+and the ledger. Madame d’Arlange first paid 9,000 francs on account and
+the balance of the purchase money (an equivalent sum) had been received
+in instalments at long intervals subsequently. Now, if it had been easy
+for Madame Milner to make a false entry in her traveler’s registry at
+the Hotel de Mariembourg, it was absurd to suppose that the jeweler
+had falsified all his accounts for four years. Hence, the facts were
+indisputable; and yet, the young detective was not satisfied.
+
+He hurried to the Faubourg Saint Honore, to the house formerly occupied
+by the Baroness de Watchau, and there found a good-natured concierge,
+who at once informed him that after the Baroness’s death her furniture
+and personal effects had been taken to the great auction mart in the Rue
+Drouot; the sale being conducted by M. Petit, the eminent auctioneer.
+
+Without losing a minute, Lecoq hastened to this individual’s office.
+M. Petit remembered the Watchau sale very well; it had made quite a
+sensation at the time, and on searching among his papers he soon found
+a long catalogue of the various articles sold. Several lots of jewelry
+were mentioned, with the sums paid, and the names of the purchasers; but
+there was not the slightest allusion to these particular earrings. When
+Lecoq produced the diamond he had in his pocket, the auctioneer could
+not remember that he had ever seen it; though of course this was no
+evidence to the contrary, for, as he himself remarked,--so many articles
+passed through his hands! However, this much he could declare upon oath;
+the baroness’s brother, her only heir, had preserved nothing--not so
+much as a pin’s worth of his sister’s effects: although he had been in a
+great hurry to receive the proceeds, which amounted to the pleasant sum
+of one hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and thirty francs,
+all expenses deducted.
+
+“Everything this lady possessed was sold?” inquired Lecoq.
+
+“Everything.”
+
+“And what is the name of this brother of hers?”
+
+“Watchau, also. The baroness had probably married one of her relatives.
+Until last year her brother occupied a very prominent diplomatic
+position. I think he now resides at Berlin.”
+
+Certainly this information would not seem to indicate that the
+auctioneer had been tampered with; and yet Lecoq was not satisfied. “It
+is very strange,” he thought, as he walked toward his lodgings, “that
+whichever side I turn, in this affair, I find mention of Germany. The
+murderer comes from Leipsic, Madame Milner must be a Bavarian, and now
+here is an Austrian baroness.”
+
+It was too late to make any further inquiries that evening, and Lecoq
+went to bed; but the next morning, at an early hour, he resumed his
+investigations with fresh ardor. There now seemed only one remaining
+clue to success: the letter signed “Lacheneur,” which had been found
+in the pocket of the murdered soldier. This letter, judging from the
+half-effaced heading at the top of the note-paper, must have been
+written in some cafe on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. To discover which
+precise cafe would be mere child’s play; and indeed the fourth landlord
+to whom Lecoq exhibited the letter recognized the paper as his. But
+neither he, nor his wife, nor the young lady at the counter, nor the
+waiters, nor any of the customers present at the time, had ever once
+heard mention made of this singular name--Lacheneur.
+
+And now what was Lecoq to do? Was the case utterly hopeless? Not yet.
+Had not the spurious soldier declared that this Lacheneur was an old
+comedian? Seizing upon this frail clue, as a drowning man clutches at
+the merest fragment of the floating wreck, Lecoq turned his steps in
+another direction, and hurried from theatre to theatre, asking every
+one, from doorkeeper to manager: “Don’t you know an actor named
+Lacheneur?”
+
+Alas! one and all gave a negative reply, at times indulging in some
+rough joke at the oddity of the name. And when any one asked the young
+detective what the man he was seeking was like, what could he reply?
+His answer was necessarily limited to the virtuous Toinon’s phrase: “I
+thought him a very respectable-looking gentleman.” This was not a very
+graphic description, however, and, besides, it was rather doubtful what
+a woman like Polyte Chupin’s wife might mean by the word “respectable.”
+ Did she apply it to the man’s age, to his personal aspect, or to his
+apparent fortune.
+
+Sometimes those whom Lecoq questioned would ask what parts this comedian
+of his was in the habit of playing; and then the young detective could
+make no reply whatever. He kept for himself the harassing thought
+that the role now being performed by the unknown Lacheneur was driving
+him--Lecoq--wild with despair.
+
+Eventually our hero had recourse to a method of investigation which,
+strange to say, the police seldom employ, save in extreme cases,
+although it is at once sensible and simple, and generally fraught
+with success. It consists in examining all the hotel and lodging-house
+registers, in which the landlords are compelled to record the names of
+their tenants, even should the latter merely sojourn under their roofs
+for a single night.
+
+Rising long before daybreak and going to bed late at night, Lecoq spent
+all his time in visiting the countless hotels and furnished lodgings in
+Paris. But still and ever his search was vain. He never once came across
+the name of Lacheneur; and at last he began to ask himself if such
+a name really existed, or if it were not some pseudonym invented
+for convenience. He had not found it even in Didot’s directory, the
+so-called “Almanach Boitin,” where one finds all the most singular and
+absurd names in France--those which are formed of the most fantastic
+mingling of syllables.
+
+Still, nothing could daunt him or turn him from the almost impossible
+task he had undertaken, and his obstinate perseverance well-nigh
+developed into monomania. He was no longer subject to occasional
+outbursts of anger, quickly repressed; but lived in a state of constant
+exasperation, which soon impaired the clearness of his mind. No more
+theories, or ingenious deductions, no more subtle reasoning. He pursued
+his search without method and without order--much as Father Absinthe
+might have done when under the influence of alcohol. Perhaps he had come
+to rely less upon his own shrewdness than upon chance to reveal to him
+the substance of the mystery, of which he had as yet only detected the
+shadow.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+When a heavy stone is thrown into a lake a considerable commotion
+ensues, the water spouts and seethes and bubbles and frequently a tall
+jet leaps into the air. But all this agitation only lasts for a moment;
+the bubbling subsides as the circles of the passing whirlpool grow
+larger and larger; the surface regains at last its customary smoothness;
+and soon no trace remains of the passage of the stone, now buried in the
+depths below.
+
+So it is with the events of our daily life, however momentous they may
+appear at the hour of their occurrence. It seems as if their impressions
+would last for years; but no, they speedily sink into the depths of the
+past, and time obliterates their passage--just as the water of the
+lake closes over and hides the stone, for an instant the cause of such
+commotion. Thus it was that at the end of a fortnight the frightful
+crime committed in the Widow Chupin’s drinking-den, the triple murder
+which had made all Paris shudder, which had furnished the material for
+so many newspaper articles, and the topic for such indignant comments,
+was completely forgotten. Indeed, had the tragedy at the Poivriere
+occurred in the times of Charlemagne, it could not have passed more
+thoroughly out of people’s minds. It was remembered only in three
+places, at the Depot, at the Prefecture de Police, and at the Palais de
+Justice.
+
+M. Segmuller’s repeated efforts had proved as unsuccessful as Lecoq’s.
+Skilful questioning, ingenious insinuations, forcible threats, and
+seductive promises had proved powerless to overcome the dogged spirit
+of absolute denial which persistently animated, not merely the prisoner
+May, but also the Widow Chupin, her son Polyte, Toinon the Virtuous, and
+Madame Milner. The evidence of these various witnesses showed plainly
+enough that they were all in league with the mysterious accomplice; but
+what did this knowledge avail? Their attitude never varied! And, even
+if at times their looks gave the lie to their denials, one could always
+read in their eyes an unshaken determination to conceal the truth.
+
+There were moments when the magistrate, overpowered by a sense of
+the insufficiency of the purely moral weapons at his disposal, almost
+regretted that the Inquisition was suppressed. Yes, in presence of the
+lies that were told him, lies so impudent that they were almost insults,
+he no longer wondered at the judicial cruelties of the Middle Ages,
+or at the use of the muscle-breaking rack, the flesh-burning, red-hot
+pincers, and other horrible instruments, which, by the physical torture
+they inflicted, forced the most obstinate culprit to confess. The
+prisoner May’s manner was virtually unaltered; and far from showing any
+signs of weakness, his assurance had, if anything, increased, as though
+he were confident of ultimate victory and as though he had in some way
+learned that the prosecution had failed to make the slightest progress.
+
+On one occasion, when summoned before M. Segmuller, he ventured to
+remark in a tone of covert irony: “Why do you keep me confined so
+long in a secret cell? Am I never to be set at liberty or sent to the
+assizes. Am I to suffer much longer on account of your fantastic idea
+that I am some great personage in disguise?”
+
+“I shall keep you until you have confessed,” was M. Segmuller’s answer.
+
+“Confessed what?”
+
+“Oh! you know very well.”
+
+The prisoner shrugged his shoulders at these last words, and then in a
+tone of mingled despondency and mockery retorted: “In that case there is
+no hope of my ever leaving this cursed prison!”
+
+It was probably this conviction that induced him to make all seeming
+preparations for an indefinite stay. He applied for and obtained a
+portion of the contents of the trunk found at the Hotel de Mariembourg,
+and evinced great joy when the various knickknacks and articles of
+clothing were handed over to him. Thanks to the money found upon his
+person when arrested, and deposited with the prison registrar, he was,
+moreover, able to procure many little luxuries, which are never denied
+to unconvicted prisoners, no matter what may be the charges against
+them, for they have a right to be considered as innocent until a jury
+has decided to the contrary. To while away the time, May next asked for
+a volume of Beranger’s songs, and his request being granted, he spent
+most of the day in learning several of the ditties by heart, singing
+them in a loud voice and with considerable taste. This fancy having
+excited some comment, he pretended that he was cultivating a talent
+which might be useful to him when he was set at liberty. For he had no
+doubt of his acquittal; at least, so he declared; and if he were anxious
+about the date of his trial, he did not show the slightest apprehension
+concerning its result.
+
+He was never despondent save when he spoke of his profession. To all
+appearance he pined for the stage, and, in fact, he almost wept when he
+recalled the fantastic, many-colored costumes, clad in which he had once
+appeared before crowded audiences--audiences that had been convulsed
+with laughter by his sallies of wit, delivered between bursts of noisy
+music. He seemed to have become altogether a better fellow; more frank,
+communicative, and submissive. He eagerly embraced every opportunity
+to babble about his past, and over and over again did he recount the
+adventures of the roving life he had led while in the employ of M.
+Simpson, the showman. He had, of course, traveled a great deal; and
+he remembered everything he had seen; possessing, moreover, an
+inexhaustible fund of amusing stories, with which he entertained his
+custodians. His manner and his words were so natural that head keepers
+and subordinate turnkeys alike were quite willing to give credit to his
+assertions.
+
+The governor of the Depot alone remained unconvinced. He had declared
+that this pretended buffoon must be some dangerous criminal who had
+escaped from Cayenne, and who for this reason was determined to conceal
+his antecedents. Such being this functionary’s opinion, he tried every
+means to substantiate it. Accordingly, during an entire fortnight,
+May was submitted to the scrutiny of innumerable members of the police
+force, to whom were added all the more notable private detectives of the
+capital. No one recognized him, however, and although his photograph was
+sent to all the prisons and police stations of the empire, not one of
+the officials could recognize his features.
+
+Other circumstances occurred, each of which had its influence, and one
+and all of them speaking in the prisoner’s favor. For instance, the
+second bureau of the Prefecture de Police found positive traces of the
+existence of a strolling artist, named Tringlot, who was probably the
+man referred to in May’s story. This Tringlot had been dead several
+years. Then again, inquiries made in Germany revealed the fact that a
+certain M. Simpson was very well known in that country, where he had
+achieved great celebrity as a circus manager.
+
+In presence of this information and the negative result of the scrutiny
+to which May had been subjected, the governor of the Depot abandoned
+his views and openly confessed that he had been mistaken. “The prisoner,
+May,” he wrote to the magistrate, “is really and truly what he pretends
+to be. There can be no further doubt on the subject.” This message, it
+may be added, was sent at Gevrol’s instigation.
+
+So thus it was that M. Segmuller and Lecoq alone remained of their
+opinion. This opinion was at least worthy of consideration, as they
+alone knew all the details of the investigation which had been conducted
+with such strict secrecy; and yet this fact was of little import. It
+is not merely unpleasant, but often extremely dangerous to struggle on
+against all the world, and unfortunately for truth and logic one man’s
+opinion, correct though it may be, is nothing in the balance of daily
+life against the faulty views of a thousand adversaries.
+
+The “May affair” had soon become notorious among the members of the
+police force; and whenever Lecoq appeared at the Prefecture he had to
+brave his colleagues’ sarcastic pleasantry. Nor did M. Segmuller escape
+scot free; for more than one fellow magistrate, meeting him on the
+stairs or in the corridor, inquired, with a smile, what he was doing
+with his Casper Hauser, his man in the Iron Mask, in a word, with his
+mysterious mountebank. When thus assailed, both M. Segmuller and Lecoq
+could scarcely restrain those movements of angry impatience which come
+naturally to a person who feels certain he is in the right and yet can
+not prove it.
+
+“Ah, me!” sometimes exclaimed the magistrate, “why did D’Escorval break
+his leg? Had it not been for that cursed mishap, he would have been
+obliged to endure all these perplexities, and I--I should be enjoying
+myself like other people.”
+
+“And I thought myself so shrewd!” murmured the young detective by his
+side.
+
+Little by little anxiety did its work. Magistrate and detective both
+lost their appetites and looked haggard; and yet the idea of yielding
+never once occurred to them. Although of very different natures,
+they were both determined to persevere in the task they had set
+themselves--that of solving this tantalizing enigma. Lecoq, indeed,
+had resolved to renounce all other claims upon his time, and to devote
+himself entirely to the study of the case. “Henceforth,” he said to M.
+Segmuller, “I also will constitute myself a prisoner; and although the
+suspected murderer will be unable to see me, I shall not lose sight of
+him!”
+
+It so happened that there was a loft between the cell occupied by May
+and the roof of the prison, a loft of such diminutive proportions that
+a man of average height could not stand upright in it. This loft had
+neither window nor skylight, and the gloom would have been intense,
+had not a few faint sun-rays struggled through the interstices of
+some ill-adjusted tiles. In this unattractive garret Lecoq established
+himself one fine morning, just at the hour when May was taking his daily
+walk in the courtyard of the prison accompanied by a couple of keepers.
+Under these circumstances there was no fear of Lecoq’s movements
+attracting the prisoner’s notice or suspicion. The garret had a paved
+floor, and first of all the young detective removed one of the stones
+with a pickax he had brought for the purpose. Beneath this stone he
+found a timber beam, through which he next proceeded to bore a hole of
+funnel shape, large at the top and gradually dwindling until on piercing
+the ceiling of the cell it was no more than two-thirds of an inch in
+diameter. Prior to commencing his operations, Lecoq had visited the
+prisoner’s quarters and had skilfully chosen the place of the projected
+aperture, so that the stains and graining of the beam would hide it from
+the view of any one below. He was yet at work when the governor of the
+Depot and his rival Gevrol appeared upon the threshold of the loft.
+
+“So this is to be your observatory, Monsieur Lecoq!” remarked Gevrol,
+with a sneering laugh.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You will not be very comfortable here.”
+
+“I shall be less uncomfortable than you suppose; I have brought a large
+blanket with me, and I shall stretch myself out on the floor and manage
+to sleep here.”
+
+“So that, night and day, you will have your eye on the prisoner?”
+
+“Yes, night and day.”
+
+“Without giving yourself time to eat or drink?” inquired Gevrol.
+
+“Excuse me! Father Absinthe will bring me my meals, execute any errand I
+may have, and relieve me at times if necessary.”
+
+The jealous General laughed; but his laugh, loud as it was, was yet a
+trifle constrained. “Well, I pity you,” he said.
+
+“Very possibly.”
+
+“Do you know what you will look like, with your eye glued to that hole?”
+
+“Like what? Tell me, we needn’t stand on ceremony.”
+
+“Ah, well! You will look just like one of those silly naturalists who
+put all sorts of little insects under a magnifying glass, and spend
+their lives in watching them.”
+
+Lecoq had finished his work; and rose from his kneeling position. “You
+couldn’t have found a better comparison, General,” said he. “I owe my
+idea to those very naturalists you speak about so slightingly. By dint
+of studying those little creatures--as you say--under a microscope,
+these patient, gifted men discover the habits and instincts of the
+insect world. Very well, then. What they can do with an insect, I will
+do with a man!”
+
+“Oh, ho!” said the governor of the prison, considerably astonished.
+
+“Yes; that’s my plan,” continued Lecoq. “I want to learn this prisoner’s
+secret; and I will do so. That I’ve sworn; and success must be mine,
+for, however strong his courage may be, he will have his moments of
+weakness, and then I shall be present at them. I shall be present if
+ever his will fails him, if, believing himself alone, he lets his mask
+fall, or forgets his part for an instant, if an indiscreet word escapes
+him in his sleep, if his despair elicits a groan, a gesture, or a
+look--I shall be there to take note of it.” The tone of resolution
+with which the young detective spoke made a deep impression upon the
+governor’s mind. For an instant he was a believer in Lecoq’s theory; and
+he was impressed by the strangeness of this conflict between a prisoner,
+determined to preserve the secret of his identity, and the agent for the
+prosecution, equally determined to wrest it from him. “Upon my word, my
+boy, you are not wanting in courage and energy,” said he.
+
+“Misdirected as it may be,” growled Gevrol, who, although he spoke very
+slowly and deliberately, was in his secret soul by no means convinced
+of what he said. Faith is contagious, and he was troubled in spite of
+himself by Lecoq’s imperturbable assurance. What if this debutant in
+the profession should be right, and he, Gevrol, the oracle of the
+Prefecture, wrong! What shame and ridicule would be his portion, then!
+But once again he inwardly swore that this inexperienced youngster could
+be no match for an old veteran like himself, and then added aloud: “The
+prefect of police must have more money than he knows what to do with, to
+pay two men for such a nonsensical job as this.”
+
+Lecoq disdained to reply to this slighting remark. For more than a
+fortnight the General had profited of every opportunity to make himself
+as disagreeable as possible, and the young detective feared he would be
+unable to control his temper if the discussion continued. It would be
+better to remain silent, and to work and wait for success. To succeed
+would be revenge enough! Moreover, he was impatient to see these
+unwelcome visitors depart; believing, perhaps, that Gevrol was quite
+capable of attracting the prisoner’s attention by some unusual sound.
+
+As soon as they went away, Lecoq hastily spread his blanket over the
+stones and stretched himself out upon it in such a position that he
+could alternately apply his eye and his ear to the aperture. In this
+position he had an admirable view of the cell below. He could see the
+door, the bed, the table, and the chair; only the small space near the
+window and the window itself were beyond his range of observation. He
+had scarcely completed his survey, when he heard the bolts rattle: the
+prisoner was returning from his walk. He seemed in excellent spirits,
+and was just completing what was, undoubtedly, a very interesting story,
+since the keeper who accompanied him lingered for a moment to hear the
+finish. Lecoq was delighted with the success of his experiment. He
+could hear as easily as he could see. Each syllable reached his ear
+distinctly, and he had not lost a single word of the recital, which was
+amusing, though rather coarse.
+
+The turnkey soon left the cell; the bolts rattled once more, and the
+key grated in the lock. After walking once or twice across his cell, May
+took up his volume of Beranger and for an hour or more seemed completely
+engrossed in its contents. Finally, he threw himself down upon his bed.
+Here he remained until meal-time in the evening, when he rose and ate
+with an excellent appetite. He next resumed the study of his book, and
+did not go to bed until the lights were extinguished.
+
+Lecoq knew well enough that during the night his eyes would not serve
+him, but he trusted that his ears might prove of use, hoping that some
+telltale word might escape the prisoner’s lips during his restless
+slumber. In this expectation he was disappointed. May tossed to and fro
+upon his pallet; he sighed, and one might have thought he was sobbing,
+but not a syllable escaped his lips. He remained in bed until very late
+the next morning; but on hearing the bell sound the hour of breakfast,
+eleven o’clock, he sprang from his couch with a bound, and after
+capering about his cell for a few moments, began to sing, in a loud and
+cheerful voice, the old ditty:
+
+     “Diogene!
+     Sous ton manteau, libre et content,
+     Je ris, je bois, sans gene--”
+
+The prisoner did not stop singing until a keeper entered his cell
+carrying his breakfast. The day now beginning differed in no respect
+from the one that had preceded it, neither did the night. The same might
+be said of the next day, and of those which followed. To sing, to eat,
+to sleep, to attend to his hands and nails--such was the life led by
+this so-called buffoon. His manner, which never varied, was that of a
+naturally cheerful man terribly bored.
+
+Such was the perfection of his acting that, after six days and nights
+of constant surveillance, Lecoq had detected nothing decisive, nor
+even surprising. And yet he did not despair. He had noticed that every
+morning, while the employees of the prison were busy distributing the
+prisoner’s food, May invariably began to sing the same ditty.
+
+“Evidently this song is a signal,” thought Lecoq. “What can be going on
+there by the window I can’t see? I must know to-morrow.”
+
+Accordingly on the following morning he arranged that May should be
+taken on his walk at half-past ten o’clock, and he then insisted that
+the governor should accompany him to the prisoner’s cell. That worthy
+functionary was not very well pleased with the change in the usual order
+of things. “What do you wish to show me?” he asked. “What is there so
+very curious to see?”
+
+“Perhaps nothing,” replied Lecoq, “but perhaps something of great
+importance.”
+
+Eleven o’clock sounding soon after, he began singing the prisoner’s
+song, and he had scarcely finished the second line, when a bit of bread,
+no larger than a bullet, adroitly thrown through the window, dropped at
+his feet.
+
+A thunderbolt falling in May’s cell would not have terrified the
+governor as much as did this inoffensive projectile. He stood in silent
+dismay; his mouth wide open, his eyes starting from their sockets, as
+if he distrusted the evidence of his own senses. What a disgrace! An
+instant before he would have staked his life upon the inviolability of
+the secret cells; and now he beheld his prison dishonored.
+
+“A communication! a communication!” he repeated, with a horrified air.
+
+Quick as lightning, Lecoq picked up the missile. “Ah,” murmured he, “I
+guessed that this man was in communication with his friends.”
+
+The young detective’s evident delight changed the governor’s stupor into
+fury. “Ah! my prisoners are writing!” he exclaimed, wild with passion.
+“My warders are acting as postmen! By my faith, this matter shall be
+looked into.”
+
+So saying, he was about to rush to the door when Lecoq stopped him.
+“What are you going to do, sir?” he asked.
+
+“I am going to call all the employees of this prison together, and
+inform them that there is a traitor among them, and that I must know who
+he is, as I wish to make an example of him. And if, in twenty-four hours
+from now, the culprit has not been discovered, every man connected with
+this prison shall be removed.”
+
+Again he started to leave the room, and Lecoq, this time, had almost to
+use force to detain him. “Be calm, sir; be calm,” he entreated.
+
+“I will punish--”
+
+“Yes, yes--I understand that--but wait until you have regained your
+self-possession. It is quite possible that the guilty party may be one
+of the prisoners who assist in the distribution of food every morning.”
+
+“What does that matter?”
+
+“Excuse me, but it matters a great deal. If you noise this discovery
+abroad, we shall never discover the truth. The traitor will not be fool
+enough to confess his guilt. We must be silent and wait. We will keep a
+close watch and detect the culprit in the very act.”
+
+These objections were so sensible that the governor yielded. “So be it,”
+ he sighed, “I will try and be patient. But let me see the missive that
+was enclosed in this bit of bread.”
+
+Lecoq could not consent to this proposal. “I warned M. Segmuller,” said
+he, “that there would probably be something new this morning; and he
+will be waiting for me in his office. We must only examine the letter in
+his presence.”
+
+This remark was so correct that the governor assented; and they at once
+started for the Palais de Justice. On their way, Lecoq endeavored to
+convince his companion that it was wrong to deplore a circumstance
+which might be of incalculable benefit to the prosecution. “It was an
+illusion,” said he, “to imagine that the governor of a prison could be
+more cunning than the prisoners entrusted to him. A prisoner is almost
+always a match in ingenuity for his custodians.”
+
+The young detective had not finished speaking when they reached
+the magistrate’s office. Scarcely had Lecoq opened the door than M.
+Segmuller and his clerk rose from their seats. They both read important
+intelligence in our hero’s troubled face. “What is it?” eagerly asked
+the magistrate. Lecoq’s sole response was to lay the pellet of bread
+upon M. Segmuller’s desk. In an instant the magistrate had opened it,
+extracting from the centre a tiny slip of the thinnest tissue paper.
+This he unfolded, and smoothed upon the palm of his hand. As soon as
+he glanced at it, his brow contracted. “Ah! this note is written in
+cipher,” he exclaimed, with a disappointed air.
+
+“We must not lose patience,” said Lecoq quietly. He took the slip of
+paper from the magistrate and read the numbers inscribed upon it. They
+ran as follows: “235, 15, 3, 8, 25, 2, 16, 208, 5, 360, 4, 36, 19, 7,
+14, 118, 84, 23, 9, 40, 11, 99.”
+
+“And so we shall learn nothing from this note,” murmured the governor.
+
+“Why not?” the smiling clerk ventured to remark. “There is no system of
+cipher which can not be read with a little skill and patience; there are
+some people who make it their business.”
+
+“You are right,” said Lecoq, approvingly. “And I, myself, once had the
+knack of it.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed the magistrate; “do you hope to find the key to this
+cipher?”
+
+“With time, yes.”
+
+Lecoq was about to place the paper in his breast-pocket, when the
+magistrate begged him to examine it a little further. He did so; and
+after a while his face suddenly brightened. Striking his forehead with
+his open palm, he cried: “I’ve found it!”
+
+An exclamation of incredulous surprise simultaneously escaped the
+magistrate, the governor, and the clerk.
+
+“At least I think so,” added Lecoq, more cautiously. “If I am not
+mistaken, the prisoner and his accomplice have adopted a very simple
+system called the double book-cipher. The correspondents first agree
+upon some particular book; and both obtain a copy of the same edition.
+When one desires to communicate with the other, he opens the book
+haphazard, and begins by writing the number of the page. Then he must
+find on the same page the words that will express his thoughts. If the
+first word he wishes to write is the twentieth on the page, he places
+number 20 after the number of the page; then he begins to count one,
+two, three, and so on, until he finds the next word he wishes to use.
+If this word happens to be the sixth, he writes the figure 6, and he
+continues so on till he has finished his letter. You see, now, how
+the correspondent who receives the note must begin. He finds the page
+indicated, and then each figure represents a word.”
+
+“Nothing could be clearer,” said the magistrate, approvingly.
+
+“If this note,” pursued Lecoq, “had been exchanged between two persons
+at liberty, it would be folly to attempt its translation. This simple
+system is the only one which has completely baffled inquisitive efforts,
+simply because there is no way of ascertaining the book agreed upon.
+But in this instance such is not the case; May is a prisoner, and he has
+only one book in his possession, ‘The Songs of Beranger.’ Let this book
+be sent for--”
+
+The governor of the Depot was actually enthusiastic. “I will run and
+fetch it myself,” he interrupted.
+
+But Lecoq, with a gesture, detained him. “Above all, sir,” said he,
+“take care that May doesn’t discover his book has been tampered with.
+If he has returned from his promenade, make some excuse to have him sent
+out of his cell again; and don’t allow him to return there while we are
+using his book.”
+
+“Oh, trust me!” replied the governor, hastily leaving the room.
+
+Less than a quarter of an hour afterward he returned, carrying in
+triumph a little volume in 32mo. With a trembling hand Lecoq turned to
+page 235, and began to count. The fifteenth word on the page was
+‘I’; the third afterward, ‘have’; the eighth following, ‘told’; the
+twenty-fifth, ‘her’; the second, ‘your’; the sixteenth, ‘wishes.’ Hence,
+the meaning of those six numbers was: “I have told her your wishes.”
+
+The three persons who had witnessed this display of shrewdness could not
+restrain their admiration. “Bravo! Lecoq,” exclaimed the magistrate. “I
+will no longer bet a hundred to one on May,” thought the smiling clerk.
+
+But Lecoq was still busily engaged in deciphering the missive, and soon,
+in a voice trembling with gratified vanity, he read the entire note
+aloud. It ran as follows: “I have told her your wishes; she submits. Our
+safety is assured; we are waiting your orders to act. Hope! Courage!”
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+Yet what a disappointment it produced after the fever of anxiety and
+expectation that had seized hold of everybody present. This strange
+epistle furnished no clue whatever to the mystery; and the ray of hope
+that had sparkled for an instant in M. Segmuller’s eyes speedily faded
+away. As for the versatile Goguet he returned with increased conviction
+to his former opinion, that the prisoner had the advantage over his
+accusers.
+
+“How unfortunate,” remarked the governor of the Depot, with a shade
+of sarcasm in his voice, “that so much trouble, and such marvelous
+penetration, should be wasted!”
+
+“So you think, sir, that I have wasted my time!” rejoined Lecoq in a
+tone of angry banter, a scarlet flush mantling at the same time over his
+features. “Such is not my opinion. This scrap of paper undeniably proves
+that if any one has been mistaken as regards the prisoner’s identity, it
+is certainly not I.”
+
+“Very well,” was the reply. “M. Gevrol and myself may have been
+mistaken: no one is infallible. But have you learned anything more than
+you knew before? Have you made any progress?”
+
+“Why, yes. Now that people know the prisoner is not what he pretends to
+be, instead of annoying and hampering me, perhaps they will assist us to
+discover who he really is.”
+
+Lecoq’s tone, and his allusion to the difficulties he had encountered,
+cut the governor to the quick. The knowledge that the reproof was not
+altogether undeserved increased his resentment and determined him to
+bring this discussion with an inferior to an abrupt close. “You are
+right,” said he, sarcastically. “This May must be a very great and
+illustrious personage. Only, my dear Monsieur Lecoq (for there is an
+only), do me the favor to explain how such an important personage could
+disappear, and the police not be advised of it? A man of rank, such
+as you suppose this prisoner to be, usually has a family, friends,
+relatives, proteges, and numerous connections; and yet not a single
+person has made any inquiry during the three weeks that this fellow May
+has been under my charge! Come, admit you never thought of that.”
+
+The governor had just advanced the only serious objection that could be
+found to the theory adopted by the prosecution. He was wrong, however,
+in supposing that Lecoq had failed to foresee it; for it had never once
+been out of the young detective’s mind; and he had racked his brain
+again and again to find some satisfactory explanation. At the present
+moment he would undoubtedly have made some angry retort to the
+governor’s sneering criticism, as people are wont to do when their
+antagonists discover the weak spot in their armor, had not M. Segmuller
+opportunely intervened.
+
+“All these recriminations do no good,” he remarked, calmly; “we can make
+no progress while they continue. It would be much wiser to decide upon
+the course that is now to be pursued.”
+
+Thus reminded of the present situation of affairs, the young detective
+smiled; all his rancor was forgotten. “There is, I think, but one course
+to pursue,” he replied in a modest tone; “and I believe it will
+be successful by reason of its simplicity. We must substitute a
+communication of our own composition for this one. That will not be
+at all difficult, since I have the key to the cipher. I shall only
+be obliged to purchase a similar volume of Beranger’s songs; and May,
+believing that he is addressing his accomplice, will reply in all
+sincerity--will reveal everything perhaps--”
+
+“Excuse me!” interrupted the governor, “but how will you obtain
+possession of his reply?”
+
+“Ah! you ask me too much. I know the way in which his letters have
+reached him. For the rest, I will watch and find a way--never fear!”
+
+Goguet, the smiling clerk, could not conceal an approving grin. If he
+had happened to have ten francs in his pocket just then he would have
+risked them all on Lecoq without a moment’s hesitation.
+
+“First,” resumed the young detective, “I will replace this missive by
+one of my own composition. To-morrow, at breakfast time, if the prisoner
+gives the signal, Father Absinthe shall throw the morsel of bread
+enclosing my note through the window while I watch the effect through
+the hole in the ceiling of the cell.”
+
+Lecoq was so delighted with this plan of his that he at once rang the
+bell, and when the magistrate’s messenger appeared, he gave him half a
+franc and requested him to go at once and purchase some of the thinnest
+tissue paper. When this had been procured, Lecoq took his seat at the
+clerk’s desk, and, provided with the volume of Beranger’s songs, began
+to compose a fresh note, copying as closely as possible the forms of the
+figures used by the unknown correspondent. The task did not occupy him
+more than ten minutes, for, fearing lest he might commit some blunder,
+he reproduced most of the words of the original letter, giving them,
+however, an entirely different meaning.
+
+When completed, his note read as follows: “I have told her your wishes;
+she does not submit. Our safety is threatened. We are awaiting your
+orders. I tremble.”
+
+Having acquainted the magistrate with the purport of the note, Lecoq
+next rolled up the paper, and enclosing it in the fragment of bread,
+remarked: “To-morrow we shall learn something new.”
+
+To-morrow! The twenty-four hours that separated the young man from the
+decisive moment he looked forward to seemed as it were a century; and he
+resorted to every possible expedient to hasten the passing of the time.
+At length, after giving precise instructions to Father Absinthe, he
+retired to his loft for the night. The hours seemed interminable, and
+such was his nervous excitement that he found it quite impossible to
+sleep. On rising at daybreak he discovered that the prisoner was already
+awake. May was sitting on the foot of his bed, apparently plunged in
+thought. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and paced restlessly to and
+fro. He was evidently in an unusually agitated frame of mind: for he
+gesticulated wildly, and at intervals repeated: “What misery! My God!
+what misery!”
+
+“Ah! my fine fellow,” thought Lecoq, “you are anxious about the daily
+letter you failed to receive yesterday. Patience, patience! One of my
+writing will soon arrive.”
+
+At last the young detective heard the stir usually preceding the
+distribution of the food. People were running to and fro, sabots clicked
+noisily in the corridors, and the keepers could be heard engaged in loud
+conversation. By and by the prison bell began to toll. It was eleven
+o’clock, and soon afterward the prisoner commenced to sing his favorite
+song:
+
+“Diogene! Sous ton manteau, libre et content--”
+
+Before he commenced the third line the slight sound caused by the
+fragment of bread as it fell upon the stone floor caused him to pause
+abruptly.
+
+Lecoq, at the opening in the ceiling above, was holding his breath
+and watching with both eyes. He did not miss one of the prisoner’s
+movements--not so much as the quiver of an eyelid. May looked first at
+the window, and then all round the cell, as if it were impossible for
+him to explain the arrival of this projectile. It was not until some
+little time had elapsed that he decided to pick it up. He held it in
+the hollow of his hand, and examined it with apparent curiosity. His
+features expressed intense surprise, and any one would have sworn that
+he was innocent of all complicity. Soon a smile gathered round his lips,
+and after a slight shrug of the shoulders, which might be interpreted,
+“Am I a fool?” he hastily broke the pellet in half. The sight of the
+paper which it contained seemed to amaze him.
+
+“What does all this mean?” wondered Lecoq.
+
+The prisoner had opened the note, and was examining with knitted brows
+the figures which were apparently destitute of all meaning to him. Then,
+suddenly rushing to the door of his cell, and hammering upon it with
+clenched fists, he cried at the top of his voice: “Here! keeper! here!”
+
+“What do you want?” shouted a turnkey, whose footsteps Lecoq could hear
+hastening along the adjoining passage.
+
+“I wish to speak to the magistrate.”
+
+“Very well. He shall be informed.”
+
+“Immediately, if you please. I have a revelation to make.”
+
+“He shall be sent for immediately.”
+
+Lecoq waited to hear no more. He tore down the narrow staircase leading
+from the loft, and rushed to the Palais de Justice to acquaint M.
+Segmuller with what had happened.
+
+“What can all this mean?” he wondered as he darted over the pavement.
+“Are we indeed approaching a denouement? This much is certain, the
+prisoner was not deceived by my note. He could only decipher it with
+the aid of his volume of Beranger, and he did not even touch the book;
+plainly, then, he hasn’t read the letter.”
+
+M. Segmuller was no less amazed than the young detective. They both
+hastened to the prison, followed by the smiling clerk, who was the
+magistrate’s inevitable shadow. On their way they encountered the
+governor of the Depot, arriving all in a flutter, having been greatly
+excited by that important word “revelation.” The worthy official
+undoubtedly wished to express an opinion, but the magistrate checked him
+by the abrupt remark, “I know all about it, and I am coming.”
+
+When they had reached the narrow corridor leading to the secret cells,
+Lecoq passed on in advance of the rest of the party. He said to himself
+that by stealing upon the prisoner unawares he might possibly find him
+engaged in surreptitiously reading the note. In any case, he would have
+an opportunity to glance at the interior of the cell. May was seated
+beside the table, his head resting on his hands. At the grating of the
+bolt, drawn by the governor himself, the prisoner rose to his feet,
+smoothed his hair, and remained standing in a respectful attitude,
+apparently waiting for the visitors to address him.
+
+“Did you send for me?” inquired the magistrate.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You have, I understand, some revelation to make to me.”
+
+“I have something of importance to tell you.”
+
+“Very well! these gentlemen will retire.”
+
+M. Segmuller had already turned to Lecoq and the governor to request
+them to withdraw, when the prisoner motioned him not to do so.
+
+“It is not necessary,” said May, “I am, on the contrary, very well
+pleased to speak before these gentlemen.”
+
+“Speak, then.”
+
+May did not wait for the injunction to be repeated. Throwing his
+chest forward, and his head back as had been his wont throughout his
+examinations, whenever he wished to make an oratorical display, he
+began as follows: “It shall be for you to say, gentlemen, whether I’m an
+honest man or not. The profession matters little. One may, perhaps, act
+as the clown of a traveling show, and yet be an honest man--a man of
+honor.”
+
+“Oh, spare us your reflections!”
+
+“Very well, sir, that suits me exactly. To be brief, then here is a
+little paper which was thrown into my cell a few minutes ago. There are
+some numbers on it which may mean something; but I have examined them,
+and they are quite Greek to me.”
+
+He paused, and then handing Lecoq’s missive to the magistrate, quietly
+added: “It was rolled up in a bit of bread.”
+
+This declaration was so unexpected, that it struck all the officials
+dumb with surprise, but the prisoner, without seeming to notice the
+effect he had produced, placidly continued: “I suppose the person who
+threw it, made a mistake in the window. I know very well that it’s
+a mean piece of business to denounce a companion in prison. It’s a
+cowardly act and one may get into trouble by doing so; still, a
+fellow must be prudent when he’s charged with murder as I am, and with
+something very unpleasant, perhaps, in store for him.”
+
+A terribly significant gesture of severing the head from the body
+left no doubt whatever as to what May meant by the “something very
+unpleasant.”
+
+“And yet I am innocent,” continued May, in a sorrowful, reproachful
+tone.
+
+The magistrate had by this time recovered the full possession of his
+faculties. Fixing his eyes upon the prisoner and concentrating in one
+magnetic glance all his power of will, he slowly exclaimed: “You speak
+falsely! It was for you that this note was intended.”
+
+“For me! Then I must be the greatest of fools, or why should I have sent
+for you to show it you? For me? In that case, why didn’t I keep it? Who
+knew, who could know that I had received it?”
+
+These words were uttered with such a marvelous semblance of honesty,
+May’s gaze was frank and open, his voice rang so true, and his reasoning
+was so specious, that all the governor’s doubts returned.
+
+“And what if I could prove that you are uttering a falsehood?” insisted
+M. Segmuller. “What if I could prove it--here and now?”
+
+“You would have to lie to do so! Oh! pardon! Excuse me; I mean--”
+
+But the magistrate was not in a frame of mind to stickle for nicety
+of expression. He motioned May to be silent; and, turning to Lecoq,
+exclaimed: “Show the prisoner that you have discovered the key to his
+secret correspondence.”
+
+A sudden change passed over May’s features. “Ah! it is this agent of
+police who says the letter was for me,” he remarked in an altered tone.
+“The same agent who asserts that I am a grand seigneur.” Then, looking
+disdainfully at Lecoq, he added: “Under these circumstances there’s no
+hope for me. When the police are absolutely determined that a man shall
+be found guilty, they contrive to prove his guilt; everybody knows that.
+And when a prisoner receives no letters, an agent, who wishes to show
+that he is corresponding knows well enough how to write to him.”
+
+May’s features wore such an expression of marked contempt that Lecoq
+could scarcely refrain from making an angry reply. He restrained his
+impulse, however, in obedience to a warning gesture from the magistrate,
+and taking from the table the volume of Beranger’s songs, he endeavored
+to prove to the prisoner that each number in the note which he had shown
+M. Segmuller corresponded with a word on the page indicated, and
+that these various words formed several intelligible phrases. This
+overpowering evidence did not seem to trouble May in the least. After
+expressing the same admiration for this novel system of correspondence
+that a child would show for a new toy, he declared his belief that no
+one could equal the police in such machinations.
+
+What could have been done in the face of such obstinacy? M. Segmuller
+did not even attempt to argue the point, but quietly retired, followed
+by his companions. Until they reached the governor’s office, he did not
+utter a word; then, sinking down into an armchair, he exclaimed: “We
+must confess ourselves beaten. This man will always remain what he
+is--an inexplicable enigma.”
+
+“But what is the meaning of the comedy he has just played? I do not
+understand it at all,” remarked the governor.
+
+“Why,” replied Lecoq, “don’t you see that he wished to persuade the
+magistrate that the first note, the one that fell into the cell while
+you and I were there yesterday, had been written by me in a mad desire
+to prove the truth of my theory at any cost? It was a hazardous project;
+but the importance of the result to be gained must have emboldened him
+to attempt it. Had he succeeded, I should have been disgraced; and he
+would have remained May--the stroller, without any further doubt as to
+his identity. But how could he know that I had discovered his secret
+correspondence, and that I was watching him from the loft overhead? That
+will probably never be explained.”
+
+The governor and the young detective exchanged glances of mutual
+distrust. “Eh! eh!” thought the former, “yes, indeed, that note which
+fell into the cell while I was there the other day might after all have
+been this crafty fellow’s work. His Father Absinthe may have served him
+in the first instance just as he did subsequently.”
+
+While these reflections were flitting through the governor’s mind, Lecoq
+suspiciously remarked to himself: “Who knows but what this fool of
+a governor confided everything to Gevrol? If he did so, the General,
+jealous as he is, would not have scrupled to play one such a damaging
+trick.”
+
+His thoughts had gone no further when Goguet, the smiling clerk, boldly
+broke the silence with the trite remark: “What a pity such a clever
+comedy didn’t succeed.”
+
+These words startled the magistrate from his reverie. “Yes, a shameful
+farce,” said he, “and one I would never have authorized, had I not been
+blinded by a mad longing to arrive at the truth. Such tricks only bring
+the sacred majesty of justice into contempt!”
+
+At these bitter words, Lecoq turned white with anger. This was the
+second affront within an hour. The prisoner had first insulted him, and
+now it was the magistrate’s turn. “I am defeated,” thought he. “I must
+confess it. Fate is against me! Ah! if I had only succeeded!”
+
+Disappointment alone had impelled M. Segmuller to utter these harsh
+words; they were both cruel and unjust, and the magistrate soon
+regretted them, and did everything in his power to drive them from
+Lecoq’s recollection. They met every day after this unfortunate
+incident; and every morning, when the young detective came to give an
+account of his investigations, they had a long conference together. For
+Lecoq still continued his efforts; still labored on with an obstinacy
+intensified by constant sneers; still pursued his investigations with
+that cold and determined zeal which keeps one’s faculties on the alert
+for years.
+
+The magistrate, however, was utterly discouraged. “We must abandon this
+attempt,” said he. “All the means of detection have been exhausted.
+I give it up. The prisoner will go to the Assizes, to be acquitted or
+condemned under the name of May. I will trouble myself no more about the
+matter.”
+
+He said this, but the anxiety and disappointment caused by defeat,
+sneering criticism, and perplexity, as to the best course to be pursued,
+so affected his health that he became really ill--so ill that he had to
+take to his bed.
+
+He had been confined to his room for a week or so, when one morning
+Lecoq called to inquire after him.
+
+“You see, my good fellow,” quoth M. Segmuller, despondently, “that this
+mysterious murderer is fatal to us magistrates. Ah! he is too much for
+us; he will preserve the secret of his identity.”
+
+“Possibly,” replied Lecoq. “At all events, there is now but one way left
+to discover his secret; we must allow him to escape--and then track him
+to his lair.”
+
+This expedient, although at first sight a very startling one, was not of
+Lecoq’s own invention, nor was it by any means novel. At all times, in
+cases of necessity, have the police closed their eyes and opened the
+prison doors for the release of suspected criminals. And not a few,
+dazzled by liberty and ignorant of being watched, have foolishly
+betrayed themselves. All prisoners are not like the Marquis de
+Lavalette, protected by royal connivance; and one might enumerate
+many individuals who have been released, only to be rearrested after
+confessing their guilt to police spies or auxiliaries who have won their
+confidence.
+
+Naturally, however, it is but seldom, and only in special cases, and as
+a last resort, that such a plan is adopted. Moreover, the authorities
+only consent to it when they hope to derive some important advantage,
+such as the capture of a whole band of criminals. For instance,
+the police perhaps arrest one of a band. Now, despite his criminal
+propensities the captured culprit often has a certain sense of honor--we
+all know that there is honor among thieves--which prompts him to refuse
+all information concerning his accomplices. In such a case what is to be
+done? Is he to be sent to the Assizes by himself, tried and convicted,
+while his comrades escape scot free? No; it is best to set him at
+liberty. The prison doors are opened, and he is told that he is free.
+But each after step he takes in the streets outside is dogged by skilful
+detectives; and soon, at the very moment when he is boasting of his good
+luck and audacity to the comrades he has rejoined, the whole gang find
+themselves caught in the snare.
+
+M. Segmuller knew all this, and much more, and yet, on hearing Lecoq’s
+proposition, he made an angry gesture and exclaimed: “Are you mad?”
+
+“I think not, sir.”
+
+“At all events your scheme is a most foolish one!”
+
+“Why so, sir? You will recollect the famous murder of the Chaboiseaus.
+The police soon succeeded in capturing the guilty parties; but a robbery
+of a hundred and sixty thousand francs in bank-notes and coin had been
+committed at the same time, and this large sum of money couldn’t be
+found. The murderers obstinately refused to say where they had concealed
+it; for, of course, it would prove a fortune for them, if they ever
+escaped the gallows. In the mean while, however, the children of the
+victims were ruined. Now, M. Patrigent, the magistrate who investigated
+the affair, was the first to convince the authorities that it would be
+best to set one of the murderers at liberty. His advice was followed;
+and three days later the culprit was surprised unearthing the money from
+among a bed of mushrooms. Now, I believe that our prisoner--”
+
+“Enough!” interrupted M. Segmuller. “I wish to hear no more on the
+matter. I have, it seems to me, forbidden you to broach the subject.”
+
+The young detective hung his head with a hypocritical air of submission.
+But all the while he watched the magistrate out of the corner of his eye
+and noted his agitation. “I can afford to be silent,” he thought; “he
+will return to the subject of his own accord.”
+
+And in fact M. Segmuller did return to it only a moment afterward.
+“Suppose this man were released from prison,” said he, “what would you
+do?”
+
+“What would I do, sir! I would follow him like grim death; I would not
+once let him out of my sight; I would be his shadow.”
+
+“And do you suppose he wouldn’t discover this surveillance?”
+
+“I should take my precautions.”
+
+“But he would recognize you at a single glance.”
+
+“No, sir, he wouldn’t, for I should disguise myself. A detective who
+can’t equal the most skilful actor in the matter of make-up is no
+better than an ordinary policeman. I have only practised at it for a
+twelvemonth, but I can easily make myself look old or young, dark or
+light, or assume the manner of a man of the world, or of some frightful
+ruffian of the barrieres.”
+
+“I wasn’t aware that you possessed this talent, Monsieur Lecoq.”
+
+“Oh! I’m very far from the perfection I hope to arrive at; though I may
+venture to say that in three days from now I could call on you and talk
+with you for half an hour without being recognized.”
+
+M. Segmuller made no rejoinder; and it was evident to Lecoq that the
+magistrate had offered this objection rather in the hope of its being
+overruled, than with the wish to see it prevail.
+
+“I think, my poor fellow,” he at length observed, “that you are
+strangely deceived. We have both been equally anxious to penetrate
+the mystery that enshrouds this strange man. We have both admired
+his wonderful acuteness--for his sagacity is wonderful; so marvelous,
+indeed, that it exceeds the limits of imagination. Do you believe that
+a man of his penetration would betray himself like an ordinary prisoner?
+He will understand at once, if he is set at liberty, that his freedom is
+only given him so that we may surprise his secret.”
+
+“I don’t deceive myself, sir. May will guess the truth of course. I’m
+quite aware of that.”
+
+“Very well. Then, what would be the use of attempting what you propose?”
+
+“I have come to this conclusion,” replied Lecoq, “May will find himself
+strangely embarrassed, even when he’s set free. He won’t have a sou
+in his pocket; we know he has no trade, so what will he do to earn a
+living? He may struggle along for a while; but he won’t be willing to
+suffer long. Man must have food and shelter, and when he finds himself
+without a roof over his head, without even a crust of bread to break, he
+will remember that he is rich. Won’t he then try to recover possession
+of his property? Yes, certainly he will. He will try to obtain money,
+endeavor to communicate with his friends, and I shall wait till that
+moment arrives. Months may elapse, before, seeing no signs of my
+surveillance, he may venture on some decisive step; and then I will
+spring forward with a warrant for his arrest in my hand.”
+
+“And what if he should leave Paris? What if he should go abroad?”
+
+“Oh, I will follow him. One of my aunts has left me a little land in the
+provinces worth about twelve thousand francs. I will sell it, and spend
+the last sou, if necessary, so long as I only have my revenge. This man
+has outwitted me as if I were a child, and I must have my turn.”
+
+“And what if he should slip through your fingers?”
+
+Lecoq laughed like a man that was sure of himself. “Let him try,” he
+exclaimed; “I will answer for him with my life.”
+
+“Your idea is not a bad one,” said M. Segmuller, eventually. “But
+you must understand that law and justice will take no part in such
+intrigues. All I can promise you is my tacit approval. Go, therefore, to
+the Prefecture; see your superiors--”
+
+With a really despairing gesture, the young man interrupted M.
+Segmuller. “What good would it do for me to make such a proposition?”
+ he exclaimed. “They would not only refuse my request, but they would
+dismiss me on the spot, if my name is not already erased from the roll.”
+
+“What, dismissed, after conducting this case so well?”
+
+“Ah, sir, unfortunately every one is not of that opinion. Tongues have
+been wagging busily during your illness. Somehow or other, my enemies
+have heard of the last scene we had with May; and impudently declare
+that it was I who imagined all the romantic details of this affair,
+being eager for advancement. They pretend that the only reasons to doubt
+the prisoner’s identity are those I have invented myself. To hear them
+talk at the Depot, one might suppose that I invented the scene in the
+Widow Chupin’s cabin; imagined the accomplices; suborned the witnesses;
+manufactured the articles of conviction; wrote the first note in
+cipher as well as the second; duped Father Absinthe, and mystified the
+governor.”
+
+“The deuce!” exclaimed M. Segmuller; “in that case, what do they think
+of me?”
+
+The wily detective’s face assumed an expression of intense
+embarrassment.
+
+“Ah! sir,” he replied with a great show of reluctance, “they pretend
+that you have allowed yourself to be deceived by me, and that you
+haven’t weighed at their proper worth the proofs I’ve furnished.”
+
+A fleeting flush mantled over M. Segmuller’s forehead. “In a word,” said
+he, “they think I’m your dupe--and a fool besides.”
+
+The recollection of certain sarcastic smiles he had often detected on
+the faces of colleagues and subordinates alike, the memory of
+numerous covert allusions to Casper Hauser, and the Man with the
+Iron Mask--allusions which had stung him to the quick--induced him to
+hesitate no longer.
+
+“Very well! I will aid you, Monsieur Lecoq,” he exclaimed. “I should
+like you to triumph over your enemies. I will get up at once and
+accompany you to the Palais de Justice. I will see the public prosecutor
+myself; I will speak to him, and plead your case for you.”
+
+Lecoq’s joy was intense. Never, no never, had he dared to hope for such
+assistance. Ah! after this he would willingly go through fire on M.
+Segmuller’s behalf. And yet, despite his inward exultation, he had
+sufficient control over his feelings to preserve a sober face. This
+victory must be concealed under penalty of forfeiting the benefits that
+might accrue from it. Certainly, the young detective had said nothing
+that was untrue; but there are different ways of presenting the truth,
+and he had, perhaps, exaggerated a trifle in order to excite the
+magistrate’s rancor, and win his needful assistance.
+
+“I suppose,” remarked M. Segmuller, who was now quite calm again--no
+outward sign of wounded vanity being perceptible--“I suppose you
+have decided what stratagem must be employed to lull the prisoner’s
+suspicions if he is permitted to escape.”
+
+“I must confess I haven’t given it a thought,” replied Lecoq. “Besides,
+what good would any such stratagem do? He knows too well that he is
+the object of suspicion not to remain on the alert. Still, there is one
+precaution which I believe absolutely necessary, indispensable indeed,
+if we wish to be successful.”
+
+“What precaution do you mean?” inquired the magistrate.
+
+“Well, sir, I think an order should be given to have May transferred to
+another prison. It doesn’t in the least matter which; you can select the
+one you please.”
+
+“Why should we do that?”
+
+“Because, during the few days preceding his release, it is absolutely
+necessary he should hold no communication with his friends outside, and
+that he should be unable to warn his accomplice.”
+
+“Then you think he’s badly guarded where he is?” inquired M. Segmuller
+with seeming amazement.
+
+“No, sir, I did not say that. I am satisfied that since the affair
+of the cipher note the governor’s vigilance has been unimpeachable.
+However, news from outside certainly reaches the suspected murderer
+at the Depot; we have had material evidence--full proof of that--and
+besides--”
+
+The young detective paused in evident embarrassment. He plainly had some
+idea in his head to which he feared to give expression.
+
+“And besides?” repeated the magistrate.
+
+“Ah, well, sir! I will be perfectly frank with you. I find that Gevrol
+enjoys too much liberty at the Depot; he is perfectly at home there, he
+comes and goes as he likes, and no one ever thinks of asking what he is
+doing, where he is going, or what he wants. No pass is necessary for his
+admission, and he can influence the governor just as he likes. Now, to
+tell the truth, I distrust Gevrol.”
+
+“Oh! Monsieur Lecoq!”
+
+“Yes, I know very well that it’s a bold accusation, but a man is not
+master of his presentiments: so there it is, I distrust Gevrol. Did
+the prisoner know that I was watching him from the loft, and that I had
+discovered his secret correspondence, was he ignorant of it? To my mind
+he evidently knew everything, as the last scene we had with him proves.”
+
+“I must say that’s my own opinion,” interrupted M. Segmuller.
+
+“But how could he have known it?” resumed Lecoq. “He could not have
+discovered it by himself. I endured tortures for a while in the hope of
+solving the problem. But all my trouble was wasted. Now the supposition
+of Gevrol’s intervention would explain everything.”
+
+M. Segmuller had turned pale with anger. “Ah! if I could really believe
+that!” he exclaimed; “if I were sure of it! Have you any proofs?”
+
+The young man shook his head. “No,” said he, “I haven’t; but even if my
+hands were full of proofs I should not dare to show them. I should
+ruin my future. Ah, if ever I succeed, I must expect many such acts of
+treachery. There is hatred and rivalry in every profession. And, mark
+this, sir--I don’t doubt Gevrol’s honesty. If a hundred thousand francs
+were counted out upon the table and offered to him, he wouldn’t even try
+to release a prisoner. But he would rob justice of a dozen criminals in
+the mere hope of injuring me, jealous as he is, and fearing lest I might
+obtain advancement.”
+
+How many things these simple words explained. Did they not give the key
+to many and many an enigma which justice has failed to solve, simply on
+account of the jealousy and rivalry that animate the detective force?
+Thus thought M. Segmuller, but he had no time for further reflection.
+
+“That will do,” said he, “go into the drawing-room for a moment. I will
+dress and join you there. I will send for a cab: for we must make haste
+if I am to see the public prosecutor to-day.”
+
+Less than a quarter of an hour afterward M. Segmuller, who usually spent
+considerable time over his toilet, was dressed and ready to start. He
+and Lecoq were just getting into the cab that had been summoned when a
+footman in a stylish livery was seen approaching.
+
+“Ah! Jean,” exclaimed the magistrate, “how’s your master?”
+
+“Improving, sir,” was the reply. “He sent me to ask how you were, and to
+inquire how that affair was progressing?”
+
+“There has been no change since I last wrote to him. Give him my
+compliments, and tell him that I am out again.”
+
+The servant bowed. Lecoq took a seat beside the magistrate and the cab
+started off.
+
+“That fellow is one of D’Escorval’s servants,” remarked M. Segmuller.
+“He’s richer than I, and can well afford to keep a footman.”
+
+“D’Escorval’s,” ejaculated Lecoq, “the magistrate who--”
+
+“Precisely. He sent his man to me two or three days ago to ascertain
+what we were doing with our mysterious May.”
+
+“Then M. d’Escorval is interested in the case?”
+
+“Prodigiously! I conclude it is because he opened the prosecution, and
+because the case rightfully belongs to him. Perhaps he regrets that
+it passed out of his hands, and thinks that he could have managed the
+investigation better himself. We would have done better with it if we
+could. I would give a good deal to see him in my place.”
+
+But this change would not have been at all to Lecoq’s taste. “Ah,”
+ thought he, “such a fellow as D’Escorval would never have shown me such
+confidence as M. Segmuller.” He had, indeed, good reason to congratulate
+himself: for that very day M. Segmuller, who was a man of his word,
+a man who never rested until he had carried his plan into execution,
+actually induced the authorities to allow May to be set at liberty; and
+the details of this measure only remained to be decided upon. As regards
+the proposed transfer of the suspected murderer to another prison, this
+was immediately carried into effect, and May was removed to Mazas, where
+Lecoq had no fear of Gevrol’s interference.
+
+That same afternoon, moreover, the Widow Chupin received her conditional
+release. There was no difficulty as regards her son, Polyte. He had, in
+the mean time, been brought before the correctional court on a charge
+of theft; and, to his great astonishment, had heard himself sentenced to
+thirteen months’ imprisonment. After this, M. Segmuller had nothing
+to do but to wait, and this was the easier as the advent of the Easter
+holidays gave him an opportunity to seek a little rest and recreation
+with his family in the provinces.
+
+On the day he returned to Paris--the last of the recess, and by chance
+a Sunday--he was sitting alone in his library when his cook came to
+tell him that there was a man in the vestibule who had been sent from
+a neighboring register office to take the place of a servant he had
+recently dismissed. The newcomer was ushered into the magistrate’s
+presence and proved to be a man of forty or thereabouts, very red in
+the face and with carroty hair and whiskers. He was, moreover, strongly
+inclined to corpulence, and was clad in clumsy, ill-fitting garments.
+In a complacent tone, and with a strong Norman accent, he informed
+the magistrate that during the past twenty years he had been in the
+employment of various literary men, as well as of a physician, and
+notary; that he was familiar with the duties that would be required
+of him at the Palais de Justice, and that he knew how to dust papers
+without disarranging them. In short, he produced such a favorable
+impression that, although M. Segmuller reserved twenty-four hours in
+which to make further inquiries, he drew a twenty-franc piece from his
+pocket on the spot and tendered it to the Norman valet as the first
+instalment of his wages.
+
+But instead of pocketing the proffered coin, the man, with a sudden
+change of voice and attitude, burst into a hearty laugh, exclaiming: “Do
+you think, sir, that May will recognize me?”
+
+“Monsieur Lecoq!” cried the astonished magistrate.
+
+“The same, sir; and I have come to tell you that if you are ready to
+release May, all my arrangements are now completed.”
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+When one of the investigating magistrates of the Tribunal of the Seine
+wishes to examine a person confined in one of the Paris prisons,
+he sends by his messenger to the governor of that particular jail a
+so-called “order of extraction,” a concise, imperative formula, which
+reads as follows: “The keeper of ---- prison will give into the custody
+of the bearer of this order the prisoner known as ----, in order that
+he may be brought before us in our cabinet at the Palais de Justice.” No
+more, no less, a signature, a seal, and everybody is bound to obey.
+
+But from the moment of receiving this order until the prisoner is
+again incarcerated, the governor of the prison is relieved of all
+responsibility. Whatever may happen, his hands are clear. Minute
+precautions are taken, however, so that a prisoner may not escape during
+his journey from the prison to the Palais. He is carefully locked up in
+a compartment of one of the lugubrious vehicles that may be often
+seen waiting on the Quai de l’Horloge, or in the courtyard of the
+Sainte-Chapelle. This van conveys him to the Palais, and while he is
+awaiting examination, he is immured in one of the cells of the gloomy
+jail, familiarly known as “la Souriciere” or the “mouse-trap.” On
+entering and leaving the van the prisoner is surrounded by guards; and
+on the road, in addition to the mounted troopers who always accompany
+these vehicles, there are prison warders or linesmen of the Garde de
+Paris installed in the passage between the compartments of the van
+and seated on the box with the driver. Hence, the boldest criminals
+ordinarily realize the impossibility of escaping from this ambulatory
+prison.
+
+Indeed, statistics record only thirty attempts at escape in a period
+of ten years. Of these thirty attempts, twenty-five were ridiculous
+failures; four were discovered before their authors had conceived
+any serious hope of success: and only one man actually succeeded in
+alighting from the vehicle, and even he had not taken fifty steps before
+he was recaptured.
+
+Lecoq was well acquainted with all these facts, and in preparing
+everything for May’s escape, his only fear was lest the murderer might
+decline to profit of the opportunity. Hence, it was necessary to offer
+every possible inducement for flight. The plan the young detective had
+eventually decided on consisted in sending an order to Mazas for May to
+be despatched to the Palais de Justice. He could be placed in one of the
+prison vans, and at the moment of starting the door of his compartment
+would not be perfectly secured. When the van reached the Palais
+de Justice and discharged its load of criminals at the door of the
+“mouse-trap” May would purposely be forgotten and left in the vehicle,
+while the latter waited on the Quai de l’Horloge until the hour of
+returning to Mazas. It was scarcely possible that the prisoner would
+fail to embrace this apparently favorable opportunity to make his
+escape.
+
+Everything was, therefore, prepared and arranged according to Lecoq’s
+directions on the Monday following the close of the Easter holidays; the
+requisite “order of extraction” being entrusted to an intelligent man
+with the most minute instructions.
+
+Now, although the van in which May would journey was not to be expected
+at the Palais de Justice before noon, it so happened that at nine
+o’clock that same morning a queer-looking “loafer” having the aspect
+of an overgrown, overaged “gamin de Paris” might have been seen hanging
+about the Prefecture de Police. He wore a tattered black woolen blouse
+and a pair of wide, ill-fitting trousers, fastened about his waist by
+a leather strap. His boots betrayed a familiar acquaintance with the
+puddles of the barrieres, and his cap was shabby and dirty, though, on
+the other hand, his necktie, a pretentious silk scarf of flaming hue,
+was evidently quite fresh from some haberdasher’s shop. No doubt it was
+a present from his sweetheart.
+
+This uncomely being had the unhealthy complexion, hollow eyes, slouching
+mien, and straggling beard common to his tribe. His yellow hair, cut
+closely at the back of the head, as if to save the trouble of brushing,
+was long in front and at the sides; being plastered down over his
+forehead and advancing above his ears in extravagant corkscrew ringlets.
+
+What with his attire, his affected jaunty step, his alternate raising of
+either shoulder, and his way of holding his cigarette and of ejecting a
+stream of saliva from between his teeth, Polyte Chupin, had he been
+at liberty, would undoubtedly have proffered a paw, and greeted this
+barriere beauty as a “pal.”
+
+It was the 14th of April; the weather was lovely, and, on the horizon,
+the youthful foliage of the chestnut trees in the Tuileries gardens
+stood out against a bright blue sky. The “ethereal mildness” of “gentle
+spring” seemed to have a positive charm for the tattered “loafer” who
+lazily loitered in the sunlight, dividing his attention between the
+passers-by and some men who were hauling sand from the banks of the
+Seine. Occasionally, however, he crossed the roadway, and, strange
+to say, exchanged a few remarks with a neatly dressed, long-bearded
+gentleman, who wore gold-rimmed spectacles over his nose and drab
+silk gloves on his hands. This individual exhibited all the outward
+characteristics of eminent respectability, and seemed to take a
+remarkable interest in the contents of an optician’s shop window.
+
+Every now and then a policeman or an agent of the detective corps
+passed by on his way to the Prefecture, and the elderly gentleman or
+the “loafer” would at times run after these officials to ask for some
+trifling information. The person addressed replied and passed on; and
+then the “loafer” and the gentleman would join each other and laughingly
+exclaim: “Good!--there’s another who doesn’t recognize us.”
+
+And in truth the pair had just cause for exultation, good reason to be
+proud, for of some twelve or fifteen comrades they accosted, not one
+recognized the two detectives, Lecoq and Father Absinthe. For the
+“loafer” was none other than our hero, and the gentleman of such eminent
+respectability his faithful lieutenant.
+
+“Ah!” quoth the latter with admiration, “I am not surprised they don’t
+recognize me, since I can’t recognize myself. No one but you, Monsieur
+Lecoq, could have so transformed me.”
+
+Unfortunately for Lecoq’s vanity, the good fellow spoke at a moment
+when the time for idle conversation had passed. The prison van was just
+crossing the bridge at a brisk trot.
+
+“Attention!” exclaimed the young detective, “there comes our friend!
+Quick!--to your post; remember my directions, and keep your eyes open!”
+
+Near them, on the quay, was a large pile of timber, behind which Father
+Absinthe immediately concealed himself, while Lecoq, seizing a spade
+that was lying idle, hurried to a little distance and began digging in
+the sand. They did well to make haste. The van came onward and turned
+the corner. It passed the two detectives, and with a noisy clang rolled
+under the heavy arch leading to “la Souriciere.” May was inside, as
+Lecoq assured himself on recognizing the keeper sitting beside the
+driver.
+
+The van remained in the courtyard for more than a quarter of an hour.
+When it reappeared, the driver had left his perch and the quay opposite
+the Palais de Justice, threw a covering over his horses, lighted his
+pipe, and quietly walked away. The moment for action was now swiftly
+approaching.
+
+For a few minutes the anxiety of the two watchers amounted to actual
+agony; nothing stirred--nothing moved. But at last the door of the van
+was opened with infinite caution, and a pale, frightened face became
+visible. It was the face of May. The prisoner cast a rapid glance around
+him. No one was in sight. Then as swiftly and as stealthily as a cat he
+sprang to the ground, noiselessly closed the door of the vehicle, and
+walked quietly toward the bridge.
+
+Lecoq breathed again. He had been asking himself if some trifling
+circumstance could have been forgotten or neglected, thus disarranging
+all his plans. He had been wondering if this strange man would refuse
+the dangerous liberty which had been offered him. But he had been
+anxious without cause. May had fled; not thoughtlessly, but with
+premeditation.
+
+From the moment when he was left alone, apparently forgotten, in the
+insecurely locked compartment, until he opened the door and glanced
+around him, sufficient time had elapsed for a man of his intellect and
+discernment to analyze and calculate all the chances of so grave a step.
+Hence, if he had stepped into the snare laid for him, it must be with
+a full knowledge of the risks he had to run. He and Lecoq were alone
+together, free in the streets of Paris, armed with mutual distrust,
+equally obliged to resort to strategy, and forced to hide from each
+other. Lecoq, it is true, had an auxiliary--Father Absinthe. But who
+could say that May would not be aided by his redoubtable accomplice?
+Hence, it was a veritable duel, the result of which depended entirely
+upon the courage, skill, and coolness of the antagonists.
+
+All these thoughts flashed through the young detective’s brain with the
+quickness of lightning. Throwing down his spade, and running toward a
+sergeant de ville, who was just coming out of the Palais de Justice,
+he gave him a letter which was ready in his pocket. “Take this to M.
+Segmuller at once; it is a matter of importance,” said he.
+
+The policeman attempted to question this “loafer” who was in
+correspondence with the magistrates; but Lecoq had already darted off on
+the prisoner’s trail.
+
+May had covered but a short distance. He was sauntering along with his
+hands in his pockets; his head high in the air, his manner composed and
+full of assurance. Had he reflected that it would be dangerous to run
+while so near the prison from which he had just escaped? Or was he of
+opinion that as an opportunity of flight had been willingly furnished
+him, there was no danger of immediate rearrest? This was a point Lecoq
+could not decide. At all events, May showed no signs of quickening his
+pace even after crossing the bridge; and it was with the same tranquil
+manner that he next crossed the Quai aux Fleurs and turned into the Rue
+de la Cite.
+
+Nothing in his bearing or appearance proclaimed him to be an escaped
+prisoner. Since his trunk--that famous trunk which he pretended to have
+left at the Hotel de Mariembourg--had been returned to him, he had been
+well supplied with clothing: and he never failed, when summoned before
+the magistrate, to array himself in his best apparel. The garments he
+wore that day were black cloth, and their cut, combined with his manner,
+gave him the appearance of a working man of the better class taking a
+holiday.
+
+His tread, hitherto firm and decided, suddenly became uncertain when,
+after crossing the Seine, he reached the Rue St. Jacques. He walked more
+slowly, frequently hesitated, and glanced continually at the shops on
+either side of the way.
+
+“Evidently he is seeking something,” thought Lecoq: “but what?”
+
+It was not long before he ascertained. Seeing a second-hand-clothes shop
+close by, May entered in evident haste. Lecoq at once stationed himself
+under a gateway on the opposite side of the street, and pretended to be
+busily engaged lighting a cigarette. The criminal being momentarily out
+of sight, Father Absinthe thought he could approach without danger.
+
+“Ah, well,” said he, “there’s our man changing his fine clothes for
+coarser garments. He will ask for the difference in money; and they will
+give it him. You told me this morning: ‘May without a sou’--that’s the
+trump card in our game!”
+
+“Nonsense! Before we begin to lament, let us wait and see what happens.
+It is not likely that shopkeeper will give him any money. He won’t buy
+clothing of the first passer-by.”
+
+Father Absinthe withdrew to a little distance. He distrusted these
+reasons, but not Lecoq who gave them.
+
+In the mean while, in his secret soul, Lecoq was cursing himself.
+Another blunder, thought he, another weapon left in the hands of the
+enemy. How was it that he, who fancied himself so shrewd, had not
+foreseen this emergency? Calmness of mind returned, however, a moment
+afterward when he saw May emerge from the shop attired as when he
+entered it. Luck had for once been in the young detective’s favor.
+
+May actually staggered when he stepped out on the pavement. His bitter
+disappointment could be read in his countenance, which disclosed the
+anguish of a drowning man who sees the frail plank which was his only
+hope of salvation snatched from his grasp by the ruthless waves.
+
+What could have taken place? This Lecoq must know without a moment’s
+delay. He gave a peculiar whistle, to warn his companion that he
+momentarily abandoned the pursuit of him; and having received a similar
+signal in response, he entered the shop. The owner was still standing
+behind the counter. Lecoq wasted no time in parleying. He merely showed
+his card to acquaint the man with his profession, and curtly asked:
+“What did the fellow want who was just in here?”
+
+The shopkeeper seemed embarrassed. “It’s a long story,” he stammered.
+
+“Then tell it!” said Lecoq, surprised at the man’s hesitation.
+
+“Oh, it’s very simple. About twelve days ago a man entered my shop with
+a bundle under his arm. He claimed to be a countryman of mine.”
+
+“Are you an Alsatian?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Well, I went with this man to the wine-shop at the corner,
+where he ordered a bottle of good wine; and while we drank together, he
+asked me if I would consent to keep the package he had with him until
+one of his cousins came to claim it. To prevent any mistake, this cousin
+was to say certain words--a countersign, as it were. I refused, shortly
+and decidedly, for the very month before I had got into trouble and had
+been charged with receiving stolen goods, all by obliging a person in
+this way. Well, you never saw a man so vexed and so surprised. What made
+me all the more determined in my refusal was that he offered me a good
+round sum in payment for my trouble. This only increased my suspicion,
+and I persisted in my refusal.”
+
+The shopkeeper paused to take breath; but Lecoq was on fire with
+impatience. “And what then?” he insisted.
+
+“Well, he paid for the wine and went away. I had forgotten all about the
+matter until that man came in here just now, and after asking me if I
+hadn’t a package for him, which had been left by one of his cousins,
+began to say some peculiar words--the countersign, no doubt. When I
+replied that I had nothing at all he turned as white as his shirt; and
+I thought he was going to faint. All my suspicions came back to me. So
+when he afterward proposed that I should buy his clothes, I told him I
+couldn’t think of it.”
+
+All this was plain enough to Lecoq. “And this cousin who was here a
+fortnight ago, what was he like?” asked he.
+
+“He was a tall, rather corpulent man, with a ruddy complexion, and white
+whiskers. Ah! I should recognize him in an instant!”
+
+“The accomplice!” exclaimed Lecoq.
+
+“What did you say?”
+
+“Nothing that would interest you. Thank you. I am in a hurry. You will
+see me again; good morning.”
+
+Lecoq had not remained five minutes in the shop: and yet, when he
+emerged, May and Father Absinthe were nowhere in sight. Still, the young
+detective was not at all uneasy on that score. In making arrangements
+with his old colleague for this pursuit Lecoq had foreseen such a
+situation, and it had been agreed that if one of them were obliged to
+remain behind, the other, who was closely following May, should from
+time to time make chalk marks on the walls, shutters, and facings of the
+shops, so as to indicate the route, and enable his companion to rejoin
+him. Hence, in order to know which way to go, Lecoq had only to glance
+at the buildings around him. The task was neither long nor
+difficult, for on the front of the third shop beyond that of the
+second-hand-clothes dealer a superb dash of the crayon instructed him to
+turn into the Rue Saint-Jacques.
+
+On he rushed in that direction, his mind busy at work with the incident
+that had just occurred. What a terrible warning that old-clothes
+dealer’s declaration had been! Ah! that mysterious accomplice was a
+man of foresight. He had even done his utmost to insure his comrade’s
+salvation in the event of his being allowed to escape. What did the
+package the shopkeeper had spoken of contain? Clothes, no doubt.
+Everything necessary for a complete disguise--money, papers, a forged
+passport most likely.
+
+While these thoughts were rushing through Lecoq’s mind, he had reached
+the Rue Soufflot, where he paused for an instant to learn his way
+from the walls. This was the work of a second. A long chalk mark on a
+watchmaker’s shop pointed to the Boulevard Saint-Michel, whither the
+young detective at once directed his steps. “The accomplice,” said he to
+himself, resuming his meditation, “didn’t succeed with that old-clothes
+dealer; but he isn’t a man to be disheartened by one rebuff. He has
+certainly taken other measures. How shall I divine what they are in
+order to defeat them?”
+
+The supposed murderer had crossed the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and had
+then taken to the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, as Father Absinthe’s dashes of
+the crayon proclaimed with many eloquent flourishes.
+
+“One circumstance reassures me,” the young detective murmured, “May’s
+going to this shop, and his consternation on finding that there was
+nothing for him there. The accomplice had informed him of his plans, but
+had not been able to inform him of their failure. Hence, from this hour,
+the prisoner is left to his own resources. The chain that bound him to
+his accomplice is broken; there is no longer an understanding between
+them. Everything depends now upon keeping them apart. Yes, everything
+lies in that!”
+
+Ah! how Lecoq rejoiced that he had succeeded in having May transferred
+to another prison; for he was convinced that the accomplice had warned
+May of the attempt he was going to make with the old-clothes dealer on
+the very evening before May’s removal to Mazas. Hence, it had not
+been possible to acquaint him with the failure of this scheme or the
+substitution of another.
+
+Still following the chalk marks, Lecoq now reached the Odeon theatre.
+Here were fresh signs, and what was more, Father Absinthe could
+be perceived under the colonnade, standing in front of one of the
+book-stalls, and apparently engrossed in the contemplation of a print.
+
+Assuming the nonchalant manner of the loafer whose garb he wore, Lecoq
+took his stand beside his colleague. “Where is he?” asked the young
+detective.
+
+“There,” replied his companion, with a slight movement of his head in
+the direction of the steps.
+
+The fugitive was, indeed, seated on one of the steps at the side of
+the theatre, his elbows resting on his knees and his face hidden in his
+hands, as if he felt the necessity of concealing the expression of his
+face from the passers-by. Undoubtedly, at that moment, he gave himself
+up for lost. Alone in the midst of Paris, without a penny, what was to
+become of him? He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was being
+watched; that his steps were being dogged, that the first attempt he
+made to inform his accomplice of his whereabouts would cost him his
+secret--the secret which he plainly held as more precious than life
+itself, and which, by immense sacrifices, he had so far been able to
+preserve.
+
+Having for some short time contemplated in silence this unfortunate man
+whom after all he could but esteem and admire, Lecoq turned to his old
+companion: “What did he do on the way?” he asked.
+
+“He went into the shops of five dealers in second-hand clothing without
+success. Then he addressed a man who was passing with a lot of old
+rubbish on his shoulder: but the man wouldn’t even answer him.”
+
+Lecoq nodded his head thoughtfully. “The moral of this is, that there’s
+a vast difference between theory and practise,” he remarked. “Here’s a
+fellow who has made some most discerning men believe that he’s only
+a poor devil, a low buffoon. Well, now he’s free; and this so-called
+Bohemian doesn’t even know how to go to work to sell the clothes on
+his back. The comedian who could play his part so well on the stage has
+disappeared; while the man remains--the man who has always been rich,
+and knows nothing of the vicissitudes of life.”
+
+The young detective suddenly ceased moralizing, for May had risen from
+his seat. Lecoq was only ten yards distant, and could see that his face
+was pallid. His attitude expressed profound dejection and one could read
+his indecision in his eyes. Perhaps he was wondering if it would not
+be best to return and place himself again in the hands of his jailers,
+since he was without the resources upon which he had depended.
+
+After a little, however, he shook off the torpor that had for a time
+overpowered him; his eyes brightened, and, with a gesture of defiance,
+he left the steps, crossed the open square and walked down the Rue de
+l’Ancienne-Comedie. He strode onward now with the brisk, determined step
+of a man who has a definite aim in view.
+
+“Who knows where he is going now?” murmured Father Absinthe, as he
+trotted along by Lecoq’s side.
+
+“I do,” replied the young detective. “And the proof is, that I am going
+to leave you, and run on in advance, to prepare for his reception. I
+may be mistaken, however, and as we must be prepared for any emergency,
+leave me the chalk-marks as you go along. If our man doesn’t come to
+the Hotel de Mariembourg, as I think he will, I shall come back here to
+start in pursuit of you again.”
+
+Just then an empty cab chanced to be passing, and Lecoq hastily got into
+it, telling the driver to take him to the Northern Railway Station by
+the shortest route and as quickly as possible. As time was precious, he
+handed the cabman his fare while on the road, and then began to search
+his pocket-book, among the various documents confided to him by M.
+Segmuller, for a particular paper he would now require.
+
+Scarcely had the cab stopped at the Place de Roubaix than the young
+detective alighted and ran toward the Hotel de Mariembourg, where, as
+on the occasion of his first visit, he found Madame Milner standing on a
+chair in front of her birdcage, obstinately trying to teach her starling
+German, while the bird with equal obstinacy repeated: “Camille! where is
+Camille?”
+
+On perceiving the individual of questionable mien who had presumed
+to cross her threshold, the pretty widow did not deign to change her
+position.
+
+“What do you want?” she asked in a curt, sharp voice.
+
+“I am the nephew of a messenger at the Palais de Justice,” replied Lecoq
+with an awkward bow, in perfect keeping with his attire. “On going to
+see my uncle this morning, I found him laid up with rheumatism; and he
+asked me to bring you this paper in his stead. It is a summons for you
+to appear at once before the investigating magistrate.”
+
+This reply induced Madame Milner to abandon her perch. “Very well,” she
+replied after glancing at the summons; “give me time to throw a shawl
+over my shoulder, and I’ll start.”
+
+Lecoq withdrew with another awkward bow; but he had not reached the
+street before a significant grimace betrayed his inward satisfaction.
+She had duped him once, and now he had repaid her. On looking round him
+he perceived a half-built house at the corner of the Rue St. Quentin,
+and being momentarily in want of a hiding-place he concluded that he
+had best conceal himself there. The pretty widow had only asked for
+sufficient time to slip on a shawl before starting; but then it
+so happened that she was rather particular as to her personal
+appearance--and such a plump, attractive little body as herself, having
+an eye perhaps to renewed wedlock, could not possibly be expected to
+tie her bonnet strings in less than a quarter of an hour. Hence, Lecoq’s
+sojourn behind the scaffolding of the half-built house proved rather
+longer than he had expected, and at the thought that May might arrive at
+any moment he fairly trembled with anxiety. How much was he in advance
+of the fugitive? Half an hour, perhaps! And he had accomplished only
+half his task.
+
+At last, however, the coquettish landlady made her appearance as radiant
+as a spring morning. She probably wished to make up for the time she had
+spent over her toilet, for as she turned the corner she began to run.
+Lecoq waited till she was out of sight, and then bounding from his place
+of concealment, he burst into the Hotel de Mariembourg like a bombshell.
+
+Fritz, the Bavarian lad, must have been warned that the house was to be
+left in his sole charge for some hours; for having comfortably installed
+himself in his mistress’s own particular armchair, with his legs resting
+on another one, he had already commenced to fall asleep.
+
+“Wake up!” shouted Lecoq; “wake up!”
+
+At the sound of this voice, which rang like a trumpet blast, Fritz
+sprang to his feet, frightened half out of his wits.
+
+“You see that I am an agent of the Prefecture of Police,” said the
+visitor, showing his card. “Now, if you wish to avoid all sorts of
+disagreeable things, the least of which will be a sojourn in prison, you
+must obey me.”
+
+The boy trembled in every limb. “Yes, mein Herr--Monsieur, I mean--I
+will obey you,” he stammered. “But what am I to do?”
+
+“Oh, very little. A man is coming here in a moment: you will know him by
+his black clothes and his long beard. You must answer him word for word
+as I tell you. And remember, if you make any mistake, you will suffer
+for it.”
+
+“You may rely upon me, sir,” replied Fritz. “I have an excellent
+memory.”
+
+The prospect of imprisonment had terrified him into abject submission.
+He spoke the truth; he would have been willing to say or do anything
+just then. Lecoq profited by this disposition; and then clearly and
+concisely gave the lad his instructions. “And now,” added he, “I must
+see and hear you. Where can I hide myself?”
+
+Fritz pointed to a glass door. “In the dark room there, sir. By leaving
+the door ajar you can hear and you can see everything through the
+glass.”
+
+Without another word Lecoq darted into the room in question. Not a
+moment too soon, however, for the bell of the outer door announced the
+arrival of a visitor. It was May. “I wish to speak to the landlady,” he
+said.
+
+“What landlady?” replied the lad.
+
+“The person who received me when I came here six weeks ago--”
+
+“Oh, I understand,” interrupted Fritz; “it’s Madame Milner you want to
+see; but you have come too late; she sold the house about a month ago,
+and has gone back to Alsace.”
+
+May stamped his foot and uttered a terrible oath. “I have come to claim
+something from her,” he insisted.
+
+“Do you want me to call her successor?”
+
+Concealed behind the glass door, Lecoq could not help admiring Fritz,
+who was uttering these glaring falsehoods with that air of perfect
+candor which gives the Germans such a vast advantage over the Latin
+races, who seem to be lying even when they are telling the truth.
+
+“Her successor would order me off,” exclaimed May. “I came to reclaim
+the money I paid for a room I never occupied.”
+
+“Such money is never refunded.”
+
+May uttered some incoherent threat, in which such words as “downright
+robbery” and “justice” could be distinguished, and then abruptly walked
+back into the street, slamming the door behind him.
+
+“Well! did I answer properly?” asked Fritz triumphantly as Lecoq emerged
+from his hiding-place.
+
+“Yes, perfectly,” replied the detective. And then pushing aside the boy,
+who was standing in his way, he dashed after May.
+
+A vague fear almost suffocated him. It had struck him that the fugitive
+had not been either surprised or deeply affected by the news he
+had heard. He had come to the hotel depending upon Madame Milner’s
+assistance, and the news of this woman’s departure would naturally have
+alarmed him, for was she not the mysterious accomplice’s confidential
+friend? Had May, then, guessed the trick that had been played upon him?
+And if so, how?
+
+Lecoq’s good sense told him plainly that the fugitive must have been
+put on his guard, and on rejoining Father Absinthe, he immediately
+exclaimed: “May spoke to some one on his way to the hotel.”
+
+“Why, how could you know that?” exclaimed the worthy man, greatly
+astonished.
+
+“Ah! I was sure of it! Who did he speak to?”
+
+“To a very pretty woman, upon my word!--fair and plump as a partridge!”
+
+“Ah! fate is against us!” exclaimed Lecoq with an oath. “I run on in
+advance to Madame Milner’s house, so that May shan’t see her. I invent
+an excuse to send her out of the hotel, and yet they meet each other.”
+
+Father Absinthe gave a despairing gesture. “Ah! if I had known!” he
+murmured; “but you did not tell me to prevent May from speaking to the
+passers-by.”
+
+“Never mind, my old friend,” said Lecoq, consolingly; “it couldn’t have
+been helped.”
+
+While this conversation was going on, the fugitive had reached the
+Faubourg Montmartre, and his pursuers were obliged to hasten forward and
+get closer to their man, so that they might not lose him in the crowd.
+
+“Now,” resumed Lecoq when they had overtaken him, “give me the
+particulars. Where did they meet?”
+
+“In the Rue Saint-Quentin.”
+
+“Which saw the other first?”
+
+“May.”
+
+“What did the woman say? Did you hear any cry of surprise?”
+
+“I heard nothing, for I was quite fifty yards off; but by the woman’s
+manner I could see she was stupefied.”
+
+Ah! if Lecoq could have witnessed the scene, what valuable deductions he
+might have drawn from it. “Did they talk for a long time?” he asked.
+
+“For less than a quarter of an hour.”
+
+“Do you know whether Madame Milner gave May money or not?”
+
+“I can’t say. They gesticulated like mad--so violently, indeed, that I
+thought they were quarreling.”
+
+“They knew they were being watched, and were endeavoring to divert
+suspicion.”
+
+“If they would only arrest this woman and question her,” suggested
+Father Absinthe.
+
+“What good would it do? Hasn’t M. Segmuller examined and cross-examined
+her a dozen times without drawing anything from her! Ah! she’s a cunning
+one. She would declare that May met her and insisted that she should
+refund the ten francs he paid her for his room. We must do our best,
+however. If the accomplice has not been warned already, he will soon
+be told; so we must try to keep the two men apart. What ruse they will
+employ, I can’t divine. But I know that it will be nothing hackneyed.”
+
+Lecoq’s presumptions made Father Absinthe nervous. “The surest way,
+perhaps,” ventured the latter, “would be to lock him up again!”
+
+“No!” replied the young detective. “I want his secret, and I’ll have it.
+What will be said of us if we two allow this man to escape us? He can’t
+be visible and invisible by turns, like the devil. We’ll see what he is
+going to do now that he’s got some money and a plan--for he has both at
+the present moment. I would stake my right hand upon it.”
+
+At that same instant, as if May intended to convince Lecoq of the truth
+of his suspicion, he entered a tobacconist’s shop and emerged an instant
+afterward with a cigar in his mouth.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+So the landlady of the Hotel de Mariembourg had given May money. There
+could be no further doubt on that point after the purchase of this
+cigar. But had they agreed upon any plan? Had they had sufficient time
+to decide on the method that May was to employ with the view of baffling
+his pursuit?
+
+It would seem so, since the fugitive’s manner had now changed in more
+respects than one. If hitherto he had seemed to care little for the
+danger of pursuit and capture, at present he was evidently uneasy and
+agitated. After walking so long in the full sunlight, with his head
+high in the air, he now slunk along in the shadow of the houses, hiding
+himself as much as possible.
+
+“It is evident that his fears have increased in proportion with his
+hopes,” said Lecoq to his companion. “He was quite unnerved when we
+saw him at the Odeon, and the merest trifle would have decided him to
+surrender; now, however, he thinks he has a chance to escape with his
+secret.”
+
+The fugitive was following the boulevards, but suddenly he turned into
+a side street and made his way toward the Temple, where, soon afterward,
+Father Absinthe and Lecoq found him conversing with one of those
+importunate dealers in cast-off garments who consider every passer-by
+their lawful prey. The vender and May were evidently debating a question
+of price; but the latter was plainly no skilful bargainer, for with a
+somewhat disappointed air he soon gave up the discussion and entered the
+shop.
+
+“Ah, so now he has some coin he has determined on a costume,” remarked
+Lecoq. “Isn’t that always an escaped prisoner’s first impulse?”
+
+Soon afterward May emerged into the street. His appearance was decidedly
+changed, for he wore a pair of dark blue linen trousers, of the type
+French “navvies” habitually affect, and a loosely fitting coat of rough
+woolen material. A gay silk ‘kerchief was knotted about his throat, and
+a black silk cap was set on one side of his head. Thus attired, he was
+scarcely more prepossessing in appearance than Lecoq, and one would have
+hesitated before deciding which of the two it would be preferable to
+meet at night on a deserted highway.
+
+May seemed very well pleased with his transformation, and was evidently
+more at ease in his new attire. On leaving the shop, however, he glanced
+suspiciously around him, as if to ascertain which of the passers-by were
+watching his movements. He had not parted with his broadcloth suit, but
+was carrying it under his arm, wrapped up in a handkerchief. The only
+thing he had left behind him was his tall chimney-pot hat.
+
+Lecoq would have liked to enter the shop and make some inquiries, but he
+felt that it would be imprudent to do so, for May had settled his cap
+on his head with a gesture that left no doubt as to his intentions. A
+second later he turned into the Rue du Temple, and now the chase began
+in earnest; for the fugitive proved as swift and agile as a stag, and
+it was no small task to keep him well in sight. He had no doubt lived in
+England and Germany, since he spoke the language of these countries like
+a native; but one thing was certain--he knew Paris as thoroughly as the
+most expert Parisian.
+
+This was shown by the way in which he dashed into the Rue des
+Gravelliers, and by the precision of his course through the many winding
+streets that lie between the Rue du Temple and the Rue Beaubourg. He
+seemed to know this quarter of the capital by heart; as well, indeed,
+as if he had spent half his life there. He knew all the wine-shops
+communicating with two streets--all the byways, passages, and tortuous
+alleys. Twice he almost escaped his pursuers, and once his salvation
+hung upon a thread. If he had remained in an obscure corner, where he
+was completely hidden, only an instant longer, the two detectives would
+have passed him by and his safety would have been assured.
+
+The pursuit presented immense difficulties. Night was coming on, and
+with it that light fog which almost invariably accompanies a spring
+sunset. Soon the street-lamps glimmered luridly in the mist, and then
+it required a keen eyesight indeed to see even for a moderate distance.
+And, to add to this drawback, the streets were now thronged with workmen
+returning home after their daily toil, and with housewives intent on
+purchasing provisions for the evening meal, while round about each
+dwelling there congregated its numerous denizens swarming like bees
+around a hive. May, however, took advantage of every opportunity to
+mislead the persons who might be following him. Groups collected
+around some cheap-jack’s stall, street accidents, a block of
+vehicles--everything was utilized by him with such marvelous presence of
+mind that he often glided through the crowd without leaving any sign of
+his passage.
+
+At last he left the neighborhood of the Rue des Gravelliers and made for
+a broader street. Reaching the Boulevard de Sebastopol, he turned to the
+left, and took a fresh start. He darted on with marvelous rapidity, with
+his elbows pressed close to his body--husbanding his breath and timing
+his steps with the precision of a dancing-master. Never pausing, and
+without once turning his head, he ever hurried on. And it was at the
+same regular but rapid pace that he covered the Boulevard de Sebastopol,
+crossed the Place du Chatelet, and proceeded to mount the Boulevard
+Saint-Michel.
+
+Here he suddenly halted before a cab-stand. He spoke to one of the
+drivers, opened the door of his vehicle, and jumped in. The cab started
+off at a rapid pace. But May was not inside. He had merely passed
+through the vehicle, getting out at the other door, and just as the
+driver was departing for an imaginary destination May slipped into an
+adjacent cab which left the stand at a gallop. Perhaps, after so many
+ruses, after such formidable efforts, after this last stratagem--perhaps
+May believed that he was free.
+
+He was mistaken. Behind the cab which bore him onward, and while he
+leaned back against the cushions to rest, a man was running; and this
+man was Lecoq. Poor Father Absinthe had fallen by the way. In front of
+the Palais de Justice he paused, exhausted and breathless, and Lecoq had
+little hope of seeing him again, since he had all he could do to keep
+his man in sight without stopping to make the chalk-marks agreed upon.
+
+May had instructed his driver to take him to the Place d’Italie:
+requesting him, moreover, to stop exactly in the middle of the square.
+This was about a hundred paces from the police station in which he
+had been temporarily confined with the Widow Chupin. When the vehicle
+halted, he sprang to the ground and cast a rapid glance around him, as
+if looking for some dreaded shadow. He could see nothing, however, for
+although surprised by the sudden stoppage, Lecoq had yet had time to
+fling himself flat on his stomach under the body of the cab, regardless
+of all danger of being crushed by the wheels. May was apparently
+reassured. He paid the cabman and then retraced his course toward the
+Rue Mouffetard.
+
+With a bound, Lecoq was on his feet again, and started after the
+fugitive as eagerly as a ravenous dog might follow a bone. He had
+reached the shadow cast by the large trees in the outer boulevards when
+a faint whistle resounded in his ears. “Father Absinthe!” he exclaimed
+in a tone of delighted surprise.
+
+“The same,” replied the old detective, “and quite rested, thanks to a
+passing cabman who picked me up and brought me here--”
+
+“Oh, enough!” interrupted Lecoq. “Let us keep our eyes open.”
+
+May was now walking quite leisurely. He stopped first before one and
+then before another of the numerous wine-shops and eating-houses that
+abound in this neighborhood. He was apparently looking for some one or
+something, which of the two Lecoq could not, of course, divine. However,
+after peering through the glass doors of three of these establishments
+and then turning away, the fugitive at last entered the fourth. The two
+detectives, who were enabled to obtain a good view of the shop inside,
+saw the supposed murderer cross the room and seat himself at a table
+where a man of unusually stalwart build, ruddy-faced and gray-whiskered,
+was already seated.
+
+“The accomplice!” murmured Father Absinthe.
+
+Was this really the redoubtable accomplice? Under other circumstances
+Lecoq would have hesitated to place dependence on a vague similarity in
+personal appearance; but here probabilities were so strongly in favor
+of Father Absinthe’s assertion that the young detective at once admitted
+its truth. Was not this meeting the logical sequence of May and Madame
+Milner’s chance interview a few hours before?
+
+“May,” thought Lecoq, “began by taking all the money Madame Milner had
+about her, and then instructed her to tell his accomplice to come and
+wait for him in some cheap restaurant near here. If he hesitated and
+looked inside the different establishments, it was only because he
+hadn’t been able to specify any particular one. Now, if they don’t throw
+aside the mask, it will be because May is not sure he has eluded pursuit
+and because the accomplice fears that Madame Milner may have been
+followed.”
+
+The accomplice, if this new personage was really the accomplice, had
+resorted to a disguise not unlike that which May and Lecoq had both
+adopted. He wore a dirty blue blouse and a hideous old slouch hat,
+which was well-nigh in tatters. He had, in fact, rather exaggerated his
+make-up, for his sinister physiognomy attracted especial attention even
+beside the depraved and ferocious faces of the other customers in
+the shop. For this low eating-house was a regular den of thieves and
+cut-throats. Among those present there were not four workmen really
+worthy of that name. The others occupied in eating and drinking there
+were all more or less familiar with prison life. The least to be dreaded
+were the barriere loafers, easily recognized by their glazed caps and
+their loosely-knotted neckerchiefs. The majority of the company appeared
+to consist of this class.
+
+And yet May, that man who was so strongly suspected of belonging to the
+highest social sphere, seemed to be perfectly at home. He called for the
+regular “ordinary” and a “chopine” of wine, and then, after gulping down
+his soup, bolted great pieces of beef, pausing every now and then to
+wipe his mouth on the back of his sleeve. But was he conversing with his
+neighbor? This it was impossible to discern through the glass door, all
+obscured by smoke and steam.
+
+“I must go in,” said Lecoq, resolutely. “I must get a place near them,
+and listen.”
+
+“Don’t think of such a thing,” said Father Absinthe. “What if they
+recognized you?”
+
+“They won’t recognize me.”
+
+“If they do, they’ll kill you.”
+
+Lecoq made a careless gesture.
+
+“I certainly think that they wouldn’t hesitate to rid themselves of me
+at any cost. But, nonsense! A detective who is afraid to risk his life
+is no better than a low spy. Why! you never saw even Gevrol flinch.”
+
+Perhaps Father Absinthe had wished to ascertain if his companion’s
+courage was equal to his shrewdness and sagacity. If such were the case
+he was satisfied on this score now.
+
+“You, my friend, will remain here to follow them if they leave
+hurriedly,” resumed Lecoq, who in the mean while had already turned the
+handle of the door. Entering with a careless air and taking a seat at a
+table near that occupied by the fugitive and the man in the slouch hat,
+he called for a plate of meat and a “chopine” of wine in a guttural
+voice.
+
+The fugitive and the ruffian opposite him were talking, but like
+strangers who had met by chance, and not at all after the fashion of
+friends who have met at a rendezvous. They spoke in the jargon of their
+pretended rank in life, not that puerile slang met with in romances
+descriptive of low life, but that obscene, vulgar dialect which it is
+impossible to render, so changeable and diverse is the signification of
+its words.
+
+“What wonderful actors!” thought Lecoq; “what perfection! what method!
+How I should be deceived if I were not absolutely certain!”
+
+For the moment the man in the slouch hat was giving a detailed account
+of the different prisons in France. He described the governors of the
+principal houses of detention; explained the divergencies of discipline
+in different establishments; and recounted that the food at Poissy was
+ten times better than that at Fontevrault.
+
+Lecoq, having finished his repast, ordered a small glass of brandy, and,
+leaning his back against the wall and closing his eyes, pretended to
+fall asleep. His ears were wide open, however, and he carefully listened
+to the conversation.
+
+Soon May began talking in his turn; and he narrated his story exactly as
+he had related it to the magistrate, from the murder up to his
+escape, without forgetting to mention the suspicions attached to his
+identity--suspicions which afforded him great amusement, he said. He
+added that he would be perfectly happy if he had money enough to take
+him back to Germany; but unfortunately he only had a few sous and didn’t
+know where or how to procure any more. He had not even succeeded in
+selling some clothing which belonged to him, and which he had with him
+in a bundle.
+
+At these words the man in the tattered felt hat declared that he had too
+good a heart to leave a comrade in such embarrassment. He knew, in the
+very same street, an obliging dealer in such articles, and he offered to
+take May to his place at once. May’s only response was to rise, saying:
+“Let us start.” And they did start, with Lecoq at their heels.
+
+They walked rapidly on until passing the Rue Fer-a-Moulin, when they
+turned into a narrow, dimly lighted alley, and entered a dingy dwelling.
+
+“Run and ask the concierge if there are not two doors by which any one
+can leave this house,” said Lecoq, addressing Father Absinthe.
+
+The latter instantly obeyed. He learned, however, that the house had
+only one street door, and accordingly the two detectives waited. “We are
+discovered!” murmured Lecoq. “I am sure of it. May must have recognized
+me, or the boy at the Hotel de Mariembourg has described me to the
+accomplice.”
+
+Father Absinthe made no response, for just then the two men came out of
+the house. May was jingling some coins in his hand, and seemed to be
+in a very bad temper. “What infernal rascals these receivers are!” he
+grumbled.
+
+However, although he had only received a small sum for his clothing, he
+probably felt that his companion’s kindness deserved some reward; for
+immediately afterward he proposed they should take a drink together,
+and with that object in view they entered a wine-shop close by. They
+remained here for more than an hour, drinking together; and only left
+this establishment to enter one a hundred paces distant. Turned out
+by the landlord, who was anxious to shut up, the two friends now took
+refuge in the next one they found open. Here again they were soon turned
+out and then they hurried to another boozing-den--and yet again to
+a fifth. And so, after drinking innumerable bottles of wine, they
+contrived to reach the Place Saint-Michel at about one o’clock in
+the morning. Here, however, they found nothing to drink; for all the
+wine-shops were closed.
+
+The two men then held a consultation together, and, after a short
+discussion, they walked arm-in-arm toward the Faubourg Saint-Germain,
+like a pair of friends. The liquor they had imbibed was seemingly
+producing its effect, for they often staggered in their walk, and talked
+not merely loudly but both at the same time. In spite of the
+danger, Lecoq advanced near enough to catch some fragments of their
+conversation; and the words “a good stroke,” and “money enough to
+satisfy one,” reached his ears.
+
+Father Absinthe’s confidence wavered. “All this will end badly,” he
+murmured.
+
+“Don’t be alarmed,” replied his friend. “I frankly confess that I don’t
+understand the maneuvres of these wily confederates, but what does
+that matter after all; now the two men are together, I feel sure of
+success--sure. If one runs away, the other will remain, and Gevrol shall
+soon see which is right, he or I.”
+
+Meanwhile the two drunkards had slackened their pace. By the manner
+in which they examined the magnificent mansions of the Faubourg
+Saint-German, one might have suspected them of the very worst
+intentions. In the Rue de Varrennes, at only a few steps from the Rue
+de la Chaise, they suddenly paused before a wall of moderate height
+surrounding an immense garden. The man in the slouch hat now did the
+talking, and explained to May--as the detectives could tell by his
+gestures--that the mansion to which the garden belonged had its front
+entrance in the Rue de Grenelle.
+
+“Bah!” growled Lecoq, “how much further will they carry this nonsense?”
+
+They carried it farther than the young detective had ever imagined. May
+suddenly sprang on to his companion’s shoulders, and raised himself to
+a level with the summit of the wall. An instant afterward a heavy thud
+might have been heard. He had let himself drop into the garden. The man
+in the slouch hat remained in the street to watch.
+
+The enigmatical fugitive had accomplished this strange, inconceivable
+design so swiftly that Lecoq had neither the time nor the desire to
+oppose him. His amazement at this unexpected misfortune was so great
+that for, an instant he could neither think nor move. But he quickly
+regained his self-possession, and at once decided what was to be done.
+With a sure eye he measured the distance separating him from May’s
+accomplice, and with three bounds he was upon him. The man in the
+slouched hat attempted to shout, but an iron hand stifled the cry in
+his throat. He tried to escape, and to beat off his assailant, but a
+vigorous kick stretched him on the ground as if he had been a child.
+Before he had time to think of further resistance he was bound, gagged,
+and carried, half-suffocated, to the corner of the Rue de la Chaise. No
+sound had been heard; not a word, not an ejaculation, not even a noise
+of shuffling--nothing. Any suspicious sound might have reached May, on
+the other side of the wall, and warned him of what was going on.
+
+“How strange,” murmured Father Absinthe, too much amazed to lend a
+helping hand to his younger colleague. “How strange! Who would have
+supposed--”
+
+“Enough! enough!” interrupted Lecoq, in that harsh, imperious voice,
+which imminent peril always gives to energetic men. “Enough!--we will
+talk to-morrow. I must run away for a minute, and you will remain here.
+If May shows himself, capture him; don’t allow him to escape.”
+
+“I understand; but what is to be done with the man who is lying there?”
+
+“Leave him where he is. I have bound him securely, so there is nothing
+to fear. When the night-police pass, we will give him into charge--”
+
+He paused and listened. A short way down the street, heavy, measured
+footsteps could be heard approaching.
+
+“There they come,” said Father Absinthe.
+
+“Ah! I dared not hope it! I shall have a good chance now.”
+
+At the same moment, two sergeants de ville, whose attention had been
+attracted by this group at the street corner, hastened toward them. In a
+few words, Lecoq explained the situation, and it was decided that one of
+the sergeants should take the accomplice to the station-house, while the
+other remained with Father Absinthe to cut off May’s retreat.
+
+“And now,” said Lecoq, “I will run round to the Rue de Grenelle and give
+the alarm. To whose house does this garden belong?”
+
+“What!” replied one of the sergeants in surprise, “don’t you know the
+gardens of the Duke de Sairmeuse, the famous duke who is a millionaire
+ten times over, and who was formerly the friend--”
+
+“Ah, yes, I know, I know!” said Lecoq.
+
+“The thief,” resumed the sergeant, “walked into a pretty trap when he
+got over that wall. There was a reception at the mansion this evening,
+as there is every Monday, and every one in the house is still up. The
+guests are only just leaving, for there were five or six carriages still
+at the door as we passed by.”
+
+Lecoq darted off extremely troubled by what he had just heard. It now
+seemed to him that if May had got into this garden, it was not for
+the purpose of committing a robbery, but in the hope of throwing his
+pursuers off the track, and making his escape by way of the Rue de
+Grenelle, which he hoped to do unnoticed, in the bustle and confusion
+attending the departure of the guests.
+
+On reaching the Hotel de Sairmeuse, a princely dwelling, the long facade
+of which was brilliantly illuminated, Lecoq found a last carriage just
+coming from the courtyard, while several footmen were extinguishing the
+lights, and an imposing “Suisse,” dazzling to behold in his gorgeous
+livery, prepared to close the heavy double doors of the grand entrance.
+
+The young detective advanced toward this important personage: “Is this
+the Hotel de Sairmeuse?” he inquired.
+
+The Suisse suspended his work to survey the audacious vagabond who
+ventured to question him, and then in a harsh voice replied: “I advise
+you to pass on. I want none of your jesting.”
+
+Lecoq had forgotten that he was clad as a barriere loafer. “Ah,”
+ he rejoined, “I’m not what I seem to be. I’m an agent of the secret
+service; by name Lecoq. Here is my card, and I came to tell you that
+an escaped criminal has just scaled the garden wall in the rear of the
+Hotel de Sairmeuse.”
+
+“A crim-in-al?”
+
+The young detective thought a little exaggeration could do no harm, and
+might perhaps insure him more ready aid. “Yes,” he replied; “and one
+of the most dangerous kind--a man who has the blood of three victims
+already on his hands. We have just arrested his accomplice, who helped
+him over the wall.”
+
+The flunky’s ruby nose paled perceptibly. “I will summon the servants,”
+ he faltered, and suiting the action to the word, he was raising his hand
+to the bell-chain, employed to announce the arrival of visitors, when
+Lecoq hastily stopped him.
+
+“A word first!” said he. “Might not the fugitive have passed through
+the house and escaped by this door, without being seen? In that case he
+would be far away by this time.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Excuse me, but I know what I am saying. First, the door opening into
+the garden is closed; it is only open during grand receptions, not for
+our ordinary Monday drawing-rooms. Secondly, Monseigneur requires me to
+stand on the threshold of the street door when he is receiving. To-day
+he repeated this order, and you may be sure that I haven’t disobeyed
+him.”
+
+“Since that’s the case,” said Lecoq, slightly reassured, “we shall
+perhaps succeed in finding our man. Warn the servants, but without
+ringing the bell. The less noise we make, the greater will be our chance
+of success.”
+
+In a moment the fifty servants who peopled the ante-rooms, stables, and
+kitchens of the Hotel de Sairmeuse were gathered together. The great
+lanterns in the coach houses and stables were lighted, and the entire
+garden was illuminated as by enchantment.
+
+“If May is concealed here,” thought Lecoq, delighted to see so many
+auxiliaries, “it will be impossible for him to escape.”
+
+But it was in vain that the gardens were thoroughly explored over and
+over again; no one could be found. The sheds where gardening tools were
+kept, the conservatories, the summer houses, the two rustic pavilions at
+the foot of the garden, even the dog kennels, were scrupulously visited,
+but all in vain. The trees, with the exception of some horse-chestnuts
+at the rear of the garden, were almost destitute of leaves, but they
+were not neglected on that account. An agile boy, armed with a lantern,
+climbed each tree, and explored even the topmost branches.
+
+“The murderer must have left by the way he came,” obstinately repeated
+the Suisse who had armed himself with a huge pistol, and who would not
+let go his hold on Lecoq, fearing an accident perhaps.
+
+To convince the Suisse of his error it was necessary for the young
+detective to place himself in communication with Father Absinthe and the
+sergeant de ville on the other side of the wall. As Lecoq had expected,
+the latter both replied that they had not once taken their eyes off the
+wall, and that not even a mouse had crossed into the street.
+
+The exploration had hitherto been conducted after a somewhat haphazard
+fashion, each of the servants obeying his own inspiration; but the
+necessity of a methodically conducted search was now recognized.
+Accordingly, Lecoq took such measures that not a corner, not a recess,
+could possibly escape scrutiny; and he was dividing the task between his
+willing assistants, when a new-comer appeared upon the scene. This was a
+grave, smooth-faced individual in the attire of a notary.
+
+“Monsieur Otto, Monseigneur’s first valet de chambre,” the Suisse
+murmured in Lecoq’s ear.
+
+This important personage came on behalf of Monsieur le Duc (he did not
+say “Monseigneur”) to inquire the meaning of all this uproar. When he
+had received an explanation, M. Otto condescended to compliment Lecoq on
+his efficiency, and to recommend that the house should be searched
+from garret to cellar. These precautions alone would allay the fears of
+Madame la Duchesse.
+
+He then departed, and the search began again with renewed ardor. A
+mouse concealed in the gardens of the Hotel de Sairmeuse could not
+have escaped discovery, so minute were the investigations. Not a single
+object of any size was left undisturbed. The trees were examined leaf
+by leaf, one might almost say. Occasionally the discouraged servants
+proposed to abandon the search; but Lecoq urged them on. He ran from
+one to the other, entreating and threatening by turns, swearing that
+he asked only one more effort, and that this effort would assuredly be
+crowned with success. Vain promises! The fugitive could not be found.
+
+The evidence was now conclusive. To persist in searching the garden
+any longer would be worse than folly. Accordingly, the young detective
+decided to recall his auxiliaries. “That’s enough,” he said, in a
+despondent voice. “It is now certain that the criminal is no longer in
+the garden.”
+
+Was he cowering in some corner of the great house, white with fear,
+and trembling at the noise made by his pursuers? One might reasonably
+suppose this to be the case; and such was the opinion of the servants.
+Above all, such was the opinion of the Suisse who renewed with growing
+assurance his affirmations of a few moments before.
+
+“I have not moved from the threshold of the house to-night,” he said,
+“and I should certainly have seen any person who passed out.”
+
+“Let us go into the house, then,” said Lecoq. “But first let me ask
+my companion, who is waiting for me in the street, to join me. It is
+unnecessary for him to remain any longer where he is.”
+
+When Father Absinthe had responded to the summons all the lower doors
+were carefully closed and guarded, and the search recommenced inside
+the house, one of the largest and most magnificent residences of the
+Faubourg Saint-Germain. But at this moment all the treasures of the
+universe could not have won a single glance or a second’s attention
+from Lecoq. All his thoughts were occupied with the fugitive. He
+passed through several superb drawing-rooms, along an unrivaled picture
+gallery, across a magnificent dining-room, with sideboards groaning
+beneath their load of massive plate, without paying the slightest
+attention to the marvels of art and upholstery that were offered to his
+view. He hurried on, accompanied by the servants who were guiding and
+lighting him. He lifted heavy articles of furniture as easily as he
+would have lifted a feather; he moved each chair and sofa from its
+place, he explored each cupboard and wardrobe, and drew back in turns
+all the wall-hangings, window-curtains, and portieres. A more complete
+search would have been impossible. In each of the rooms and passages
+that Lecoq entered not a nook was left unexplored, not a corner was
+forgotten. At length, after two hours’ continuous work, Lecoq returned
+to the first floor. Only five or six servants had accompanied him on his
+tour of inspection. The others had dropped off one by one, weary of this
+adventure, which had at first possessed the attractions of a pleasure
+party.
+
+“You have seen everything, gentlemen,” declared an old footman.
+
+“Everything!” interrupted the Suisse, “everything! Certainly not.
+There are the private apartments of Monseigneur and those of Madame la
+Duchesse still to be explored.”
+
+“Alas!” murmured Lecoq, “What good would it be?”
+
+But the Suisse had already gone to rap gently at one of the doors
+opening into the hall. His interest equaled that of the detectives. They
+had seen the murderer enter; he had not seen him go out; therefore the
+man was in the house and he wished him to be found.
+
+The door at which he had knocked soon opened, and the grave,
+clean-shaven face of Otto, the duke’s first valet de chambre, showed
+itself. “What the deuce do you want?” he asked in surly tones.
+
+“To enter Monseigneur’s room,” replied the Suisse, “in order to see if
+the fugitive has not taken refuge there.”
+
+“Are you crazy?” exclaimed the head valet de chambre. “How could any
+one have entered here? Besides, I can’t suffer Monsieur le Duc to be
+disturbed. He has been at work all night, and he is just going to take a
+bath before going to bed.”
+
+The Suisse seemed very vexed at this rebuff; and Lecoq was presenting
+his excuses, when another voice was heard exclaiming. “Let these worthy
+men do their duty, Otto.”
+
+“Ah! do you hear that!” exclaimed the Suisse triumphantly.
+
+“Very well, since Monsieur le Duc permits it. Come in, I will light you
+through the apartments.”
+
+Lecoq entered, but it was only for form’s sake that he walked through
+the different apartments; a library, an admirable study, and a charming
+smoking-room. As he was passing through the bed-chamber, he had the
+honor of seeing the Duc de Sairmeuse through the half-open door of a
+small, white, marble bath-room.
+
+“Ah, well!” cried the duke, affably, “is the fugitive still invisible?”
+
+“Still invisible, monsieur,” Lecoq respectfully replied.
+
+The valet de chambre did not share his master’s good humor. “I think,
+gentlemen,” said he, “that you may spare yourselves the trouble of
+visiting the apartments of the duchess. It is a duty we have taken
+upon ourselves--the women and I--and we have looked even in the bureau
+drawers.”
+
+Upon the landing the old footman, who had not ventured to enter his
+master’s apartments, was awaiting the detectives. He had doubtless
+received his orders, for he politely inquired if they desired anything,
+and if, after such a fatiguing night, they would not find some cold
+meat and a glass of wine acceptable. Father Absinthe’s eyes sparkled.
+He probably thought that in this royal abode they must have delicious
+things to eat and drink--such viands, indeed, as he had never tasted in
+his life. But Lecoq civilly refused, and left the Hotel de Sairmeuse,
+reluctantly followed by his old companion.
+
+He was eager to be alone. For several hours he had been making immense
+efforts to conceal his rage and despair. May escaped! vanished!
+evaporated! The thought drove him almost mad. What he had declared to
+be impossible had nevertheless occurred. In his confidence and pride, he
+had sworn to answer for the prisoner’s head with his own life; and yet
+he had allowed him to slip between his fingers.
+
+When he was once more in the street, he paused in front of Father
+Absinthe, and crossing his arms, inquired: “Well, my friend, what do you
+think of all this?”
+
+The old detective shook his head, and in serene unconsciousness of
+his want of tact, responded: “I think that Gevrol will chuckle with
+delight.”
+
+At this mention of his most cruel enemy, Lecoq bounded from the ground
+like a wounded bull. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Gevrol has not won the battle
+yet. We have lost May; it is a great misfortune; but his accomplice
+remains in our hands. We hold the crafty man who has hitherto defeated
+all our plans, no matter how carefully arranged. He is certainly
+shrewd and devoted to his friend; but we will see if his devotion will
+withstand the prospect of hard labor in the penitentiary. And that
+is what awaits him, if he is silent, and if he thus accepts the
+responsibility of aiding and abetting the fugitive’s escape. Oh! I’ve no
+fears--M. Segmuller will know how to draw the truth out of him.”
+
+So speaking, Lecoq brandished his clinched fist with a threatening
+air and then, in calmer tones, he added: “But we must go to the
+station-house where the accomplice was removed. I wish to question him a
+little.”
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+It was six o’clock, and the dawn was just breaking when Father Absinthe
+and his companion reached the station-house, where they found the
+superintendent seated at a small table, making out his report. He
+did not move when they entered, failing to recognize them under their
+disguises. But when they mentioned their names, he rose with evident
+cordiality, and held out his hand.
+
+“Upon my word!” said he, “I congratulate you on your capture last
+night.”
+
+Father Absinthe and Lecoq exchanged an anxious look. “What capture?”
+ they both asked in a breath.
+
+“Why, that individual you sent me last night so carefully bound.”
+
+“Well, what about him?”
+
+The superintendent burst into a hearty laugh. “So you are ignorant of
+your good fortune,” said he. “Ah! luck has favored you, and you will
+receive a handsome reward.”
+
+“Pray tell us what we’ve captured?” asked Father Absinthe, impatiently.
+
+“A scoundrel of the deepest dye, an escaped convict, who has been
+missing for three months. You must have a description of him in your
+pocket--Joseph Couturier, in short.”
+
+On hearing these words, Lecoq became so frightfully pale that Father
+Absinthe, fearing he was going to faint, raised his arms to prevent
+his falling. A chair stood close by, however, and on this Lecoq allowed
+himself to drop. “Joseph Couturier,” he faltered, evidently unconscious
+of what he was saying. “Joseph Couturier! an escaped convict!”
+
+The superintendent certainly did not understand Lecoq’s agitation any
+better than Father Absinthe’s discomfited air.
+
+“You have reason to be proud of your work; your success will make a
+sensation this morning,” he repeated. “You have captured a famous prize.
+I can see Gevrol’s nose now when he hears the news. Only yesterday
+he was boasting that he alone was capable of securing this dangerous
+rascal.”
+
+After such an irreparable failure as that which had overtaken Lecoq,
+the unintended irony of these compliments was bitter in the extreme.
+The superintendent’s words of praise fell on his ears like so many blows
+from a sledge hammer.
+
+“You must be mistaken,” he eventually remarked, rising from his seat and
+summoning all his energy to his assistance. “That man is not Couturier.”
+
+“Oh, I’m not mistaken; you may be quite sure of that. He fully answers
+the description appended to the circular ordering his capture, and even
+the little finger of his left hand is lacking, as is mentioned.”
+
+“Ah! that’s a proof indeed!” groaned Father Absinthe.
+
+“It is indeed. And I know another one more conclusive still. Couturier
+is an old acquaintance of mine. I have had him in custody before; and he
+recognized me last night just as I recognized him.”
+
+After this further argument was impossible; hence it was in an entirely
+different tone that Lecoq remarked: “At least, my friend, you will allow
+me to address a few questions to your prisoner.”
+
+“Oh! as many as you like. But first of all, let us bar the door and
+place two of my men before it. This Couturier has a fondness for the
+open air, and he wouldn’t hesitate to dash out our brains if he only saw
+a chance of escape.”
+
+After taking these precautions, the man was removed from the cage in
+which he had been confined. He stepped forward with a smile on his face,
+having already recovered that nonchalant manner common to old offenders
+who, when in custody, seem to lose all feeling of anger against the
+police. They are not unlike those gamblers who, after losing their last
+halfpenny, nevertheless willingly shake hands with their adversary.
+
+Couturier at once recognized Lecoq. “Ah!” said he, “It was you who did
+that business last night. You can boast of having a solid fist! You fell
+upon me very unexpectedly; and the back of my neck is still the worse
+for your clutch.”
+
+“Then, if I were to ask a favor of you, you wouldn’t be disposed to
+grant it?”
+
+“Oh, yes! all the same. I have no more malice in my composition than a
+chicken; and I rather like your face. What do you want of me?”
+
+“I should like to have some information about the man who accompanied
+you last night.”
+
+Couturier’s face darkened. “I am really unable to give you any,” he
+replied.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because I don’t know him. I never saw him before last night.”
+
+“It’s hard to believe that. A fellow doesn’t enlist the first-comer for
+an expedition like yours last evening. Before undertaking such a job
+with a man, one finds out something about him.”
+
+“I don’t say I haven’t been guilty of a stupid blunder,” replied
+Couturier. “Indeed I could murder myself for it, but there was nothing
+about the man to make me suspect that he belonged to the secret-service.
+He spread a net for me, and I jumped into it. It was made for me, of
+course; but it wasn’t necessary for me to put my foot into it.”
+
+“You are mistaken, my man,” said Lecoq. “The individual in question
+didn’t belong to the police force. I pledge you my word of honor, he
+didn’t.”
+
+For a moment Couturier surveyed Lecoq with a knowing air, as if he hoped
+to discover whether he were speaking the truth or attempting to deceive
+him. “I believe you,” he said at last. “And to prove it I’ll tell you
+how it happened. I was dining alone last evening in a restaurant in
+the Rue Mouffetard, when that man came in and took a seat beside me.
+Naturally we began to talk; and I thought him a very good sort of a
+fellow. I forget how it began, but somehow or other he mentioned that he
+had some clothes he wanted to sell; and being glad to oblige him, I took
+him to a friend, who bought them from him. It was doing him a good turn,
+wasn’t it? Well, he offered me something to drink, and I returned the
+compliment. We had a number of glasses together, and by midnight I began
+to see double. He then began to propose a plan, which, he swore, would
+make us both rich. It was to steal the plate from a superb mansion.
+There would be no risk for me; he would take charge of the whole affair.
+
+“I had only to help him over the wall, and keep watch. The proposal was
+tempting--was it not? You would have thought so, if you had been in my
+place, and yet I hesitated. But the fellow insisted. He swore that he
+was acquainted with the habits of the house; that Monday evening was a
+grand gala night there, and that on these occasions the servants didn’t
+lock up the plate. After a little while I consented.”
+
+A fleeting flush tinged Lecoq’s pale cheeks. “Are you sure he told you
+that the Duc de Sairmeuse received every Monday evening?” he asked,
+eagerly.
+
+“Certainly; how else could I have known it! He even mentioned the name
+you uttered just now, a name ending in ‘euse.’”
+
+A strange thought had just flitted through Lecoq’s mind.
+
+“What if May and the Duc de Sairmeuse should be one and the same
+person?” But the notion seemed so thoroughly absurd, so utterly
+inadmissible that he quickly dismissed it, despising himself even for
+having entertained it for a single instant. He cursed his inveterate
+inclination always to look at events from a romantic impossible side,
+instead of considering them as natural commonplace incidents. After all
+there was nothing surprising in the fact that a man of the world, such
+as he supposed May to be, should know the day set aside by the Duc de
+Sairmeuse for the reception of his friends.
+
+The young detective had nothing more to expect from Couturier. He
+thanked him, and after shaking hands with the superintendent, walked
+away, leaning on Father Absinthe’s arm. For he really had need of
+support. His legs trembled, his head whirled, and he felt sick both
+in body and in mind. He had failed miserably, disgracefully. He had
+flattered himself that he possessed a genius for his calling, and yet he
+had been easily outwitted.
+
+To rid himself of pursuit, May had only had to invent a pretended
+accomplice, and this simple stratagem had sufficed to nonplus those who
+were on his trail.
+
+Father Absinthe was rendered uneasy by his colleague’s evident
+dejection. “Where are we going?” he inquired; “to the Palais de Justice,
+or to the Prefecture de Police?”
+
+Lecoq shuddered on hearing this question, which brought him face to
+face with the horrible reality of his situation. “To the Prefecture!” he
+responded. “Why should I go there? To expose myself to Gevrol’s insults,
+perhaps? I haven’t courage enough for that. Nor do I feel that I have
+strength to go to M. Segmuller and say: ‘Forgive me: you have judged me
+too favorably. I am a fool!’”
+
+“What are we to do?”
+
+“Ah! I don’t know. Perhaps I shall embark for America--perhaps I shall
+throw myself into the river.”
+
+He had walked about a hundred yards when suddenly he stopped short.
+“No!” he exclaimed, with a furious stamp of his foot. “No, this
+affair shan’t end like this. I have sworn to have the solution of the
+enigma--and I will have it!” For a moment he reflected; then, in a
+calmer voice, he added: “There is one man who can save us, a man who
+will see what I haven’t been able to discern, who will understand things
+that I couldn’t. Let us go and ask his advice, my course will depend on
+his reply--come!”
+
+After such a day and such a night, it might have been expected that
+these two men would have felt an irresistible desire to sleep and rest.
+But Lecoq was sustained by wounded vanity, intense disappointment, and
+yet unextinguished hope of revenge: while poor Father Absinthe was not
+unlike some luckless cab-horse, which, having forgotten there is such a
+thing as repose, is no longer conscious of fatigue, but travels on until
+he falls down dead. The old detective felt that his limbs were failing
+him; but Lecoq said: “It is necessary,” and so he walked on.
+
+They both went to Lecoq’s lodgings, where they laid aside their
+disguises and made themselves trim. Then after breakfasting they hastily
+betook themselves to the Rue St. Lazare, where, entering one of the most
+stylish houses in the street, Lecoq inquired of the concierge: “Is M.
+Tabaret at home?”
+
+“Yes, but he’s ill,” was the reply.
+
+“Very ill?” asked Lecoq anxiously.
+
+“It is hard to tell,” replied the man: “it is his old complaint--gout.”
+ And with an air of hypocritical commiseration, he added: “M. Tabaret is
+not wise to lead the life he does. Women are very well in a way, but at
+his age--”
+
+The two detectives exchanged a meaning glance, and as soon as they were
+out of hearing burst out laughing. Their hilarity had scarcely ceased
+when they reached the first floor, and rang the bell at the door of one
+of the apartments. The buxom-looking woman who appeared in answer to his
+summons, informed them that her master would receive them, although
+he was confined to his bed. “However, the doctor is with him now,” she
+added. “But perhaps the gentlemen would not mind waiting until he has
+gone?” The gentlemen replying in the affirmative, she then conducted
+them into a handsome library, and invited them to sit down.
+
+The person whom Lecoq had come to consult was a man celebrated for
+wonderful shrewdness and penetration, well-nigh exceeding the bounds of
+possibility. For five-and-forty years he had held a petty post in one of
+the offices of the Mont de Piete, just managing to exist upon the meagre
+stipend he received. Suddenly enriched by the death of a relative, of
+whom he had scarcely ever heard, he immediately resigned his functions,
+and the very next day began to long for the same employment he had so
+often anathematized. In his endeavors to divert his mind, he began
+to collect old books, and heaped up mountains of tattered, worm-eaten
+volumes in immense oak bookcases. But despite this pastime to many
+so attractive, he could not shake off his weariness. He grew thin and
+yellow, and his income of forty thousand francs was literally killing
+him, when a sudden inspiration came to his relief. It came to him one
+evening after reading the memoirs of a celebrated detective, one of
+those men of subtle penetration, soft as silk, and supple as steel, whom
+justice sometimes sets upon the trail of crime.
+
+“And I also am a detective!” he exclaimed.
+
+This, however, he must prove. From that day forward he perused with
+feverish interest every book he could find that had any connection with
+the organization of the police service and the investigation of crime.
+Reports and pamphlets, letters and memoirs, he eagerly turned from one
+to the other, in his desire to master his subject. Such learning as he
+might find in books did not suffice, however, to perfect his education.
+Hence, whenever a crime came to his knowledge he started out in quest of
+the particulars and worked up the case by himself.
+
+Soon these platonic investigations did not suffice, and one evening,
+at dusk, he summoned all his resolution, and, going on foot to the
+Prefecture de Police, humbly begged employment from the officials there.
+He was not very favorably received, for applicants were numerous. But
+he pleaded his cause so adroitly that at last he was charged with some
+trifling commissions. He performed them admirably. The great difficulty
+was then overcome. Other matters were entrusted to him, and he soon
+displayed a wonderful aptitude for his chosen work.
+
+The case of Madame B----, the rich banker’s wife, made him virtually
+famous. Consulted at a moment when the police had abandoned all hope of
+solving the mystery, he proved by A plus B--by a mathematical deduction,
+so to speak--that the dear lady must have stolen her own property; and
+events soon proved that he had told the truth. After this success he was
+always called upon to advise in obscure and difficult cases.
+
+It would be difficult to tell his exact status at the Prefecture. When
+a person is employed, salary or compensation of some kind is understood,
+but this strange man had never consented to receive a penny. What he did
+he did for his own pleasure--for the gratification of a passion which
+had become his very life. When the funds allowed him for expenses seemed
+insufficient, he at once opened his private purse; and the men who
+worked with him never went away without some substantial token of his
+liberality. Of course, such a man had many enemies. He did as much
+work--and far better work than any two inspectors of police; and he
+didn’t receive a sou of salary. Hence, in calling him “spoil-trade,” his
+rivals were not far from right.
+
+Whenever any one ventured to mention his name favorably in Gevrol’s
+presence, the jealous inspector could scarcely control himself, and
+retorted by denouncing an unfortunate mistake which this remarkable
+man once made. Inclined to obstinacy, like all enthusiastic men, he
+had indeed once effected the conviction of an innocent prisoner--a poor
+little tailor, who was accused of killing his wife. This single error (a
+grievous one no doubt), in a career of some duration, had the effect of
+cooling his ardor perceptibly; and subsequently he seldom visited the
+Prefecture. But yet he remained “the oracle,” after the fashion of those
+great advocates who, tired of practise at the bar, still win great
+and glorious triumphs in their consulting rooms, lending to others the
+weapons they no longer care to wield themselves.
+
+When the authorities were undecided what course to pursue in some great
+case, they invariably said: “Let us go and consult Tirauclair.” For this
+was the name by which he was most generally known: a sobriquet derived
+from a phrase which was always on his lips. He was constantly saying:
+“_Il faut que cela se tire au clair_: That must be brought to
+light.” Hence, the not altogether inappropriate appellation of “Pere
+Tirauclair,” or “Father Bring-to-Light.”
+
+Perhaps this sobriquet assisted him in keeping his occupation secret
+from his friends among the general public. At all events they never
+suspected them. His disturbed life when he was working up a case, the
+strange visitors he received, his frequent and prolonged absences from
+home, were all imputed to a very unreasonable inclination to gallantry.
+His concierge was deceived as well as his friends, and laughing at his
+supposed infatuation, disrespectfully called him an old libertine. It
+was only the officials of the detective force who knew that Tirauclair
+and Tabaret were one and the same person.
+
+Lecoq was trying to gain hope and courage by reflecting on the career of
+this eccentric man, when the buxom housekeeper reentered the library
+and announced that the physician had left. At the same time she opened a
+door and exclaimed: “This is the room; you gentlemen can enter now.”
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+On a large canopied bed, sweating and panting beneath the weight
+of numerous blankets, lay the two-faced oracle--Tirauclair, of the
+Prefecture--Tabaret, of the Rue Saint Lazare. It was impossible to
+believe that the owner of such a face, in which a look of stupidity
+was mingled with one of perpetual astonishment, could possess superior
+talent, or even an average amount of intelligence. With his retreating
+forehead, and his immense ears, his odious turned-up nose, tiny eyes,
+and coarse, thick lips, M. Tabaret seemed an excellent type of the
+ignorant, pennywise, petty rentier class. Whenever he took his walks
+abroad, the juvenile street Arabs would impudently shout after him or
+try to mimic his favorite grimace. And yet his ungainliness did not seem
+to worry him in the least, while he appeared to take real pleasure
+in increasing his appearance of stupidity, solacing himself with the
+reflection that “he is not really a genius who seems to be one.”
+
+At the sight of the two detectives, whom he knew very well, his eyes
+sparkled with pleasure. “Good morning, Lecoq, my boy,” said he. “Good
+morning, my old Absinthe. So you think enough down there of poor Papa
+Tirauclair to come and see him?”
+
+“We need your advice, Monsieur Tabaret.”
+
+“Ah, ah!”
+
+“We have just been as completely outwitted as if we were babies in long
+clothes.”
+
+“What! was your man such a very cunning fellow?”
+
+Lecoq heaved a sigh. “So cunning,” he replied, “that, if I were
+superstitious, I should say he was the devil himself.”
+
+The sick man’s face wore a comical expression of envy. “What! you have
+found a treasure like that,” said he, “and you complain! Why, it is
+a magnificent opportunity--a chance to be proud of! You see, my boys,
+everything has degenerated in these days. The race of great criminals
+is dying out--those who’ve succeeded the old stock are like counterfeit
+coins. There’s scarcely anything left outside a crowd of low offenders
+who are not worth the shoe leather expended in pursuing them. It is
+enough to disgust a detective, upon my word. No more trouble, emotion,
+anxiety, or excitement. When a crime is committed nowadays, the criminal
+is in jail the next morning, you’ve only to take the omnibus, and go
+to the culprit’s house and arrest him. He’s always found, the more the
+pity. But what has your fellow been up to?”
+
+“He has killed three men.”
+
+“Oh! oh! oh!” said old Tabaret, in three different tones, plainly
+implying that this criminal was evidently superior to others of his
+species. “And where did this happen?”
+
+“In a wine-shop near the barriere.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I recollect: a man named May. The murders were committed in
+the Widow Chupin’s cabin. I saw the case mentioned in the ‘Gazette des
+Tribunaux,’ and your comrade, Fanferlot l’Ecureuil, who comes to see me,
+told me you were strangely puzzled about the prisoner’s identity. So you
+are charged with investigating the affair? So much the better. Tell me
+all about it, and I will assist you as well as I can.”
+
+Suddenly checking himself, and lowering his voice, Tirauclair added:
+“But first of all, just do me the favor to get up. Now, wait a moment,
+and when I motion you, open that door there, on the left, very suddenly.
+Mariette, my housekeeper, who is curiosity incarnate, is standing there
+listening. I hear her hair rubbing against the lock. Now!”
+
+The young detective immediately obeyed, and Mariette, caught in the act,
+hastened away, pursued by her master’s sarcasms. “You might have known
+that you couldn’t succeed at that!” he shouted after her.
+
+Although Lecoq and Father Absinthe were much nearer the door than old
+Tirauclair, neither of them had heard the slightest sound; and they
+looked at each other in astonishment, wondering whether their host had
+been playing a little farce for their benefit, or whether his sense of
+hearing was really so acute as this incident would seem to indicate.
+
+“Now,” said Tabaret, settling himself more comfortably upon his
+pillows--“now I will listen to you, my boy. Mariette will not come back
+again.”
+
+On his way to Tabaret’s, Lecoq had busied himself in preparing his
+story; and it was in the clearest possible manner that he related all
+the particulars, from the moment when Gevrol opened the door of the
+Poivriere to the instant when May leaped over the garden wall in the
+rear of the Hotel de Sairmeuse.
+
+While the young detective was telling his story, old Tabaret seemed
+completely transformed. His gout was entirely forgotten. According to
+the different phases of the recital, he either turned and twisted on
+his bed, uttering little cries of delight or disappointment, or else
+lay motionless, plunged in the same kind of ecstatic reverie which
+enthusiastic admirers of classical music yield themselves up to while
+listening to one of the great Beethoven’s divine sonatas.
+
+“If I had been there! If only I had been there!” he murmured regretfully
+every now and then through his set teeth, though when Lecoq’s story was
+finished, enthusiasm seemed decidedly to have gained the upper hand.
+“It is beautiful! it is grand!” he exclaimed. “And with just that one
+phrase: ‘It is the Prussians who are coming,’ for a starting point!
+Lecoq, my boy, I must say that you have conducted this affair like an
+angel!”
+
+“Don’t you mean to say like a fool?” asked the discouraged detective.
+
+“No, my friend, certainly not. You have rejoiced my old heart. I can
+die; I shall have a successor. Ah! that Gevrol who betrayed you--for
+he did betray you, there’s no doubt about it--that obtuse, obstinate
+‘General’ is not worthy to blacken your shoes!”
+
+“You overpower me, Monsieur Tabaret!” interrupted Lecoq, as yet
+uncertain whether his host was poking fun at him or not. “But it is none
+the less true that May has disappeared, and I have lost my reputation
+before I had begun to make it.”
+
+“Don’t be in such a hurry to reject my compliments,” replied old
+Tabaret, with a horrible grimace. “I say that you have conducted this
+investigation very well; but it could have been done much better, very
+much better. You have a talent for your work, that’s evident; but
+you lack experience; you become elated by a trifling advantage, or
+discouraged by a mere nothing; you fail, and yet persist in holding fast
+to a fixed idea, as a moth flutters about a candle. Then, you are young.
+But never mind that, it’s a fault you will outgrow only too soon. And
+now, to speak frankly, I must tell you that you have made a great many
+blunders.”
+
+Lecoq hung his head like a schoolboy receiving a reprimand from his
+teacher. After all was he not a scholar, and was not this old man his
+master?
+
+“I will now enumerate your mistakes,” continued old Tabaret, “and I will
+show you how, on at least three occasions, you allowed an opportunity
+for solving this mystery to escape you.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“Pooh! pooh! my boy, let me talk a little while now. What axiom did you
+start with? You said: ‘Always distrust appearances; believe precisely
+the contrary of what appears true, or even probable.’”
+
+“Yes, that is exactly what I said to myself.”
+
+“And it was a very wise conclusion. With that idea in your lantern to
+light your path, you ought to have gone straight to the truth. But you
+are young, as I said before; and the very first circumstance you find
+that seems at all probable you quite forget the rule which, as you
+yourself admit, should have governed your conduct. As soon as you meet a
+fact that seems even more than probable, you swallow it as eagerly as a
+gudgeon swallows an angler’s bait.”
+
+This comparison could but pique the young detective. “I don’t think I’ve
+been so simple as that,” protested he.
+
+“Bah! What did you think, then, when you heard that M. d’Escorval had
+broken his leg in getting out of his carriage?”
+
+“Believe! I believed what they told me, because--” He paused, and
+Tirauclair burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
+
+“You believed it,” he said, “because it was a very plausible story.”
+
+“What would you have believed had you been in my place?”
+
+“Exactly the opposite of what they told me. I might have been mistaken;
+but it would be the logical conclusion as my first course of reasoning.”
+
+This conclusion was so bold that Lecoq was disconcerted. “What!” he
+exclaimed; “do you suppose that M. d’Escorval’s fall was only a fiction?
+that he didn’t break his leg?”
+
+Old Tabaret’s face suddenly assumed a serious expression. “I don’t
+suppose it,” he replied; “I’m sure of it.”
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Lecoq’s confidence in the oracle he was consulting was very great; but
+even old Tirauclair might be mistaken, and what he had just said seemed
+such an enormity, so completely beyond the bounds of possibility, that
+the young man could not conceal a gesture of incredulous surprise.
+
+“So, Monsieur Tabaret, you are ready to affirm that M. d’Escorval is
+in quite as good health as Father Absinthe or myself; and that he has
+confined himself to his room for a couple of months to give a semblance
+of truth to a falsehood?”
+
+“I would be willing to swear it.”
+
+“But what could possibly have been his object?”
+
+Tabaret lifted his hands to heaven, as if imploring forgiveness for the
+young man’s stupidity. “And it was in you,” he exclaimed, “in you that
+I saw a successor, a disciple to whom I might transmit my method of
+induction; and now, you ask me such a question as that! Reflect a
+moment. Must I give you an example to assist you? Very well. Let it be
+so. Suppose yourself a magistrate. A crime is committed; you are
+charged with the duty of investigating it, and you visit the prisoner
+to question him. Very well. This prisoner has, hitherto, succeeded in
+concealing his identity--this was the case in the present instance, was
+it not? Very well. Now, what would you do if, at the very first glance,
+you recognized under the prisoner’s disguise your best friend, or your
+worst enemy? What would you do, I ask?”
+
+“I should say to myself that a magistrate who is obliged to hesitate
+between his duty and his inclinations, is placed in a very trying
+position, and I should endeavor to avoid the responsibility.”
+
+“I understand that; but would you reveal this prisoner’s
+identity--remember, he might be your friend or your enemy?”
+
+The question was so delicate that Lecoq remained silent for a moment,
+reflecting before he replied.
+
+The pause was interrupted by Father Absinthe. “I should reveal nothing
+whatever!” he exclaimed. “I should remain absolutely neutral. I should
+say to myself others are trying to discover this man’s identity. Let
+them do so if they can; but let my conscience be clear.”
+
+This was the cry of honesty; not the counsel of a casuist.
+
+“I also should be silent,” Lecoq at last replied; “and it seems to
+me that, in holding my tongue, I should not fail in my duty as a
+magistrate.”
+
+On hearing these words, Tabaret rubbed his hands together, as he always
+did when he was about to present some overwhelming argument. “Such being
+the case,” said he, “do me the favor to tell me what pretext you would
+invent in order to withdraw from the case without exciting suspicion?”
+
+“I don’t know; I can’t say now. But if I were placed in such a position
+I should find some excuse--invent something--”
+
+“And if you could find nothing better,” interrupted Tabaret, “you would
+adopt M. d’Escorval’s expedient; you would pretend you had broken a
+limb. Only, as you are a clever fellow, you would sacrifice your arm; it
+would be less inconvenient than your leg; and you wouldn’t be condemned
+to seclusion for several months.”
+
+“So, Monsieur Tabaret, you are convinced that M. d’Escorval knows who
+May really is.”
+
+Old Tirauclair turned so suddenly in his bed that his forgotten gout
+drew from him a terrible groan. “Can you doubt?” he exclaimed. “Can you
+possibly doubt it? What proofs do you want then? What connection do you
+see between the magistrate’s fall and the prisoner’s attempt at suicide?
+I wasn’t there as you were; I only know the story as you have told it
+to me. I can’t look at the facts with my own eyes, but according to your
+statements, which are I suppose correct, this is what I understand. When
+M. d’Escorval has completed his task at the Widow Chupin’s house,
+he comes to the prison to examine the supposed murderer. The two men
+recognize each other. Had they been alone, mutual explanations might
+have ensued, and affairs taken quite a different turn. But they were not
+alone; a third party was present--M. d’Escorval’s clerk. So they could
+say nothing. The magistrate asked a few common-place questions, in a
+troubled voice, and the prisoner, terribly agitated, replied as best
+he could. Now, after leaving the cell, M. d’Escorval no doubt said to
+himself: ‘I can’t investigate the offenses of a man I hate!’ He was
+certainly terribly perplexed. When you tried to speak to him, as he was
+leaving the prison, he harshly told you to wait till the next day; and a
+quarter of an hour later he pretended to fall down and break his leg.”
+
+“Then you think that M. d’Escorval and May are enemies?” inquired Lecoq.
+
+“Don’t the facts prove that beyond a doubt?” retorted Tabaret. “If they
+had been friends, the magistrate might have acted in the same manner;
+but then the prisoner wouldn’t have attempted to strangle himself. But
+thanks to you; his life was saved; for he owes his life to you. During
+the night, confined in a straight-waistcoat, he was powerless to injure
+himself. Ah! how he must have suffered that night! What agony! So,
+in the morning, when he was conducted to the magistrate’s room for
+examination, it was with a sort of frenzy that he dashed into the
+dreaded presence of his enemy. He expected to find M. d’Escorval there,
+ready to triumph over his misfortunes; and he intended to say: ‘Yes,
+it’s I. There is a fatality in it. I have killed three men, and I am
+in your power. But there is a mortal feud between us, and for that
+very reason you haven’t the right to prolong my tortures! It would be
+infamous cowardice if you did so.’ However, instead of M. d’Escorval,
+he sees M. Segmuller. Then what happens? He is surprised, and his eyes
+betray the astonishment he feels when he realizes the generosity of his
+enemy--an enemy from whom he had expected no indulgence. Then a smile
+comes to his lips--a smile of hope; for he thinks, since M. d’Escorval
+has not betrayed his secret, that he may be able to keep it, and emerge,
+perhaps, from this shadow of shame and crime with his name and honor
+still untarnished.”
+
+Old Tabaret paused, and then, with a sudden change of tone and an
+ironical gesture, he added: “And that--is my explanation.”
+
+Father Absinthe had risen, frantic with delight. “Cristi!” he exclaimed,
+“that’s it! that’s it!”
+
+Lecoq’s approbation was none the less evident although unspoken. He
+could appreciate this rapid and wonderful work of induction far better
+than his companion.
+
+For a moment or two old Tabaret reclined upon his pillows enjoying
+the sweets of admiration; then he continued: “Do you wish for further
+proofs, my boy? Recollect the perseverance M. d’Escorval displayed in
+sending to M. Segmuller for information. I admit that a man may have
+a passion for his profession; but not to such an extent as that. You
+believed that his leg was broken. Then were you not surprised to find
+a magistrate, with a broken limb, suffering mortal anguish, taking such
+wonderful interest in a miserable murderer? I haven’t any broken bones,
+I’ve only got the gout; but I know very well that when I’m suffering,
+half the world might be judging the other half, and yet the idea of
+sending Mariette for information would never occur to me. Ah! a moment’s
+reflection would have enabled you to understand the reason of his
+solicitude, and would probably have given you the key to the whole
+mystery.”
+
+Lecoq, who was such a brilliant casuist in the Widow Chupin’s hovel, who
+was so full of confidence in himself, and so earnest in expounding his
+theories to simple Father Absinthe--Lecoq hung his head abashed and did
+not utter a word. But he felt neither anger nor impatience.
+
+He had come to ask advice, and was glad that it should be given him. He
+had made many mistakes, as he now saw only too plainly; and when they
+were pointed out to him he neither fumed nor fretted, nor tried to prove
+that he had been right when he had been wrong. This was certainly an
+excellent trait in his character.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Tabaret had poured out a great glass of some cooling drink
+and drained it. He now resumed: “I need not remind you of the mistake
+you made in not compelling Toinon Chupin to tell you all she knew about
+this affair while she was in your power. ‘A bird in the hand’--you know
+the proverb.”
+
+“Be assured, Monsieur Tabaret, that this mistake has cost me enough to
+make me realize the danger of allowing a well-disposed witness’s zeal to
+cool down.”
+
+“We will say no more about that, then. But I must tell you that three
+or four times, at least, it has been in your power to clear up this
+mystery.”
+
+The oracle paused, awaiting some protestation from his disciple. None
+came, however. “If he says this,” thought the young detective, “it must
+indeed be so.”
+
+This discretion made a great impression on old Tabaret, and increased
+the esteem he had conceived for Lecoq. “The first time that you were
+lacking in discretion,” said he, “was when you tried to discover the
+owner of the diamond earring found at the Poivriere.”
+
+“I made every effort to discover the last owner.”
+
+“You tried very hard, I don’t deny it; but as for making every
+effort--that’s quite another thing. For instance, when you heard that
+the Baroness de Watchau was dead, and that all her property had been
+sold, what did you do?”
+
+“You know; I went immediately to the person who had charge of the sale.”
+
+“Very well! and afterwards?”
+
+“I examined the catalogue; and as, among the jewels mentioned, I could
+find none that answered the description of these diamonds, I knew that
+the clue was quite lost.”
+
+“There is precisely where you are mistaken!” exclaimed old Tirauclair,
+exultantly. “If such valuable jewels are not mentioned in the catalogue
+of the sale, the Baroness de Watchau could not have possessed them at
+the time of her death. And if she no longer possessed them she must have
+given them away or sold them. And who could she have sold them to? To
+one of her lady friends, very probably. For this reason, had I been in
+your place, I should have found out the names of her intimate friends;
+this would have been a very easy task; and then, I should have tried to
+win the favor of all the lady’s-maids in the service of these friends.
+This would have only been a pastime for a good-looking young fellow like
+you. Then, I should have shown this earring to each maid in succession
+until I found one who said: ‘That diamond belongs to my mistress,’ or
+one who was seized with a nervous trembling.”
+
+“And to think that this idea did not once occur to me!” ejaculated
+Lecoq.
+
+“Wait, wait, I am coming to the second mistake you made,” retorted the
+oracle. “What did you do when you obtained possession of the trunk
+which May pretended was his? Why you played directly into this cunning
+adversary’s hand. How could you fail to see that this trunk was only
+an accessory article; a bit of ‘property’ got ready in ‘mounting’ the
+‘comedy’? You should have known that it could only have been deposited
+with Madame Milner by the accomplice, and that all its contents must
+have been purchased for the occasion.”
+
+“I knew this, of course; but even under these circumstances, what could
+I do?”
+
+“What could you do, my boy? Well, I am only a poor old man, but I should
+have interviewed every clothier in Paris; and at last some one would
+have exclaimed: ‘Those articles! Why, I sold them to an individual like
+this or that--who purchased them for one of his friends whose measure he
+brought with him.’”
+
+Angry with himself, Lecoq struck his clenched hand violently upon
+the table beside him. “Sacrebleu!” he exclaimed, “that method was
+infallible, and so simple too! Ah! I shall never forgive myself for my
+stupidity as long as I live!”
+
+“Gently, gently!” interrupted old Tirauclair. “You are going too far,
+my dear boy. Stupidity is not the proper word at all; you should say
+carelessness, thoughtlessness. You are young--what else could one
+expect? What is far less inexcusable is the manner in which you
+conducted the chase, after the prisoner was allowed to escape.”
+
+“Alas!” murmured the young man, now completely discouraged; “did I
+blunder in that?”
+
+“Terribly, my son; and here is where I really blame you. What diabolical
+influence induced you to follow May, step by step, like a common
+policeman?”
+
+This time Lecoq was stupefied. “Ought I to have allowed him to escape
+me?” he inquired.
+
+“No; but if I had been by your side in the gallery of the Odeon, when
+you so clearly divined the prisoner’s intentions, I should have said to
+you: ‘This fellow, friend Lecoq, will hasten to Madame Milner’s house to
+inform her of his escape. Let us run after him.’ I shouldn’t have tried
+to prevent his seeing her, mind. But when he had left the Hotel de
+Mariembourg, I should have added: ‘Now, let him go where he chooses; but
+attach yourself to Madame Milner; don’t lose sight of her; cling to
+her as closely as her own shadow, for she will lead you to the
+accomplice--that is to say--to the solution of the mystery.’”
+
+“That’s the truth; I see it now.”
+
+“But instead of that, what did you do? You ran to the hotel, you
+terrified the boy! When a fisherman has cast his bait and the fish are
+swimming near, he doesn’t sound a gong to frighten them all away!”
+
+Thus it was that old Tabaret reviewed the entire course of investigation
+and pursuit, remodeling it in accordance with his own method of
+induction. Lecoq had originally had a magnificent inspiration. In his
+first investigations he had displayed remarkable talent; and yet he had
+not succeeded. Why? Simply because he had neglected the axiom with which
+he started: “Always distrust what seems probable!”
+
+But the young man listened to the oracle’s “summing up” with divided
+attention. A thousand projects were darting through his brain, and at
+length he could no longer restrain himself. “You have saved me from
+despair,” he exclaimed, “I thought everything was lost; but I see that
+my blunders can be repaired. What I neglected to do, I can do now; there
+is still time. Haven’t I the diamond earring, as well as various effects
+belonging to the prisoner, still in my possession? Madame Milner still
+owns the Hotel de Mariembourg, and I will watch her.”
+
+“And what for, my boy?”
+
+“What for? Why, to find my fugitive, to be sure!”
+
+Had the young detective been less engrossed with his idea, he would have
+detected a slight smile that curved Papa Tirauclair’s thick lips.
+
+“Ah, my son! is it possible that you don’t suspect the real name of this
+pretended buffoon?” inquired the oracle somewhat despondently.
+
+Lecoq trembled and averted his face. He did not wish Tabaret to see his
+eyes. “No,” he replied, “I don’t suspect--”
+
+“You are uttering a falsehood!” interrupted the sick man. “You know as
+well as I do, that May resides in the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Germain, and
+that he is known as the Duc de Sairmeuse.”
+
+On hearing these words, Father Absinthe indulged in a hearty laugh: “Ah!
+that’s a good joke!” he exclaimed. “Ah, ha!”
+
+Such was not Lecoq’s opinion, however. “Well, yes, Monsieur Tabaret,”
+ said he, “the idea did occur to me; but I drove it away.”
+
+“And why, if you please?”
+
+“Because--because--”
+
+“Because you would not believe in the logical sequence of your premises;
+but I am consistent, and I say that it seems impossible the murderer
+arrested in the Widow Chupin’s drinking den should be the Duc de
+Sairmeuse. Hence, the murderer arrested there, May, the pretended
+buffoon, is the Duc de Sairmeuse!”
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+How this idea had entered old Tabaret’s head, Lecoq could not
+understand. A vague suspicion had, it is true, flitted through his own
+mind; but it was in a moment of despair when he was distracted at having
+lost May, and when certain of Couturier’s remarks furnished the excuse
+for any ridiculous supposition. And yet now Father Tirauclair calmly
+proclaimed this suspicion--which Lecoq had not dared seriously to
+entertain, even for an instant--to be an undoubted fact.
+
+“You look as if you had suddenly fallen from the clouds,” exclaimed the
+oracle, noticing his visitor’s amazement. “Do you suppose that I spoke
+at random like a parrot?”
+
+“No, certainly not, but--”
+
+“Tush! You are surprised because you know nothing of contemporary
+history. If you don’t wish to remain all your life a common detective,
+like your friend Gevrol, you must read, and make yourself familiar with
+all the leading events of the century.”
+
+“I must confess that I don’t see the connection.”
+
+M. Tabaret did not deign to reply. Turning to Father Absinthe, he
+requested the old detective, in the most affable tones, to go to the
+library and fetch two large volumes entitled: “General Biography of
+the Men of the Present Age,” which he would find in the bookcase on the
+right. Father Absinthe hastened to obey; and as soon as the books were
+brought, M. Tabaret began turning the pages with an eager hand, like a
+person seeking some word in a dictionary.
+
+“Esbayron,” he muttered, “Escars, Escayrac, Escher, Escodica--at last
+we have it--Escorval! Listen attentively, my boy, and you will be
+enlightened.”
+
+This injunction was entirely unnecessary. Never had the young
+detective’s faculties been more keenly on the alert. It was in an
+emphatic voice that the sick man then read: “Escorval (Louis-Guillaume,
+baron d’).--Diplomatist and politician, born at Montaignac, December
+3d, 1769; of an old family of lawyers. He was completing his studies in
+Paris at the outbreak of the Revolution and embraced the popular
+cause with all the ardor of youth. But, soon disapproving the excesses
+committed in the name of Liberty, he sided with the Reactionists,
+advised, perhaps, by Roederer, who was one of his relatives. Commended
+to the favor of the First Counsel by M. de Talleyrand, he began
+his diplomatic career with a mission to Switzerland; and during the
+existence of the First Empire he was entrusted with many important
+negotiations. Devoted to the Emperor, he found himself gravely
+compromised at the advent of the Second Restoration. At the time of the
+celebrated rising at Montaignac, he was arrested on the double charge of
+high treason and conspiracy. He was tried by a military commission, and
+condemned to death. The sentence was not executed, however. He owed his
+life to the noble devotion and heroic energy of a priest, one of his
+friends, the Abbe Midon, cure of the little village of Sairmeuse. The
+baron d’Escorval had only one son, who embraced the judicial profession
+at a very early age.”
+
+Lecoq was intensely disappointed. “I understand,” he remarked. “This
+is the biography of our magistrate’s father. Only I don’t see that it
+teaches us anything.”
+
+An ironical smile curved old Tirauclair’s lips. “It teaches us that
+M. d’Escorval’s father was condemned to death,” he replied. “That’s
+something, I assure you. A little patience, and you will soon know
+everything.”
+
+Having found a new leaf, he recommenced to read: “Sairmeuse
+(Anne-Marie-Victor de Tingry, Duc de).--A French general and politician,
+born at the chateau de Sairmeuse, near Montaignac, in 1758. The
+Sairmeuse family is one of the oldest and most illustrious in France. It
+must not be confounded with the ducal family of Sermeuse, whose name is
+written with an ‘e.’ Leaving France at the beginning of the Revolution,
+Anne de Sairmeuse began by serving in the army of Conde. Some years
+later he offered his sword to Russia; and it is asserted by some of his
+biographers that he was fighting in the Russian ranks at the time of the
+disastrous retreat from Moscow. Returning to France with the Bourbons,
+he became notorious by the intensity of his ultra-royalist opinions.
+It is certain that he had the good fortune to regain possession of his
+immense family estates; and the rank and dignities which he had gained
+in foreign lands were confirmed. Appointed by the king to preside at the
+military commission charged with arresting and trying the conspirators
+of Montaignac his zeal and severity resulted in the capture and
+conviction of all the parties implicated.”
+
+Lecoq sprang up with sparkling eyes. “I see it clearly now,” he
+exclaimed. “The father of the present Duc de Sairmeuse tried to have the
+father of the present M. d’Escorval beheaded.”
+
+M. Tabaret was the picture of complacency. “You see the assistance
+history gives,” said he. “But I have not finished, my boy; the present
+Duc de Sairmeuse also has his article which will be of interest to us.
+So listen: Sairmeuse (Anne-Marie-Martial)--Son of the preceding, was
+born in London toward the close of the last century; received his early
+education in England, and completed it at the Court of Austria, which
+he subsequently visited on several confidential missions. Heir to the
+opinions, prejudices, and animosities of his father, he placed at the
+service of his party a highly cultivated intellect, unusual penetration,
+and extraordinary abilities. A leader at a time when political passion
+was raging highest, he had the courage to assume the sole responsibility
+of the most unpopular measures. The hostility he encountered, however
+eventually obliged him to retire from office, leaving behind him
+animosities likely to terminate only with his life.”
+
+The sick man closed the book, and with assumed modesty, he asked: “Ah,
+well! What do you think of my little method of induction?”
+
+But Lecoq was too much engrossed with his own thoughts to reply to this
+question. “I think,” he remarked, “that if the Duc de Sairmeuse had
+disappeared for two months--the period of May’s imprisonment, all Paris
+would have known of it--and so--”
+
+“You are dreaming,” interrupted Tabaret. “Why with his wife and his
+valet de chambre for accomplices, the duke could absent himself for a
+year if he liked, and yet all his servants would believe him to be in
+the house.”
+
+“I admit that,” said Lecoq, at last; “but unfortunately, there is one
+circumstance which completely upsets the theory we have built up so
+laboriously.”
+
+“And what is that if you please?”
+
+“If the man who took part in the broil at the Poivriere had been the Duc
+de Sairmeuse, he would have disclosed his name--he would have declared
+that, having been attacked, he had only defended himself--and his name
+alone would have opened the prison doors. Instead of that, what did the
+prisoner do? He attempted to kill himself. Would a grand seigneur, like
+the Duc de Sairmeuse, to whom life must be a perpetual enchantment, have
+thought of committing suicide?”
+
+A mocking whistle from the old Tabaret interrupted the speaker. “You
+seem to have forgotten the last sentence in his biography: ‘M. Sairmeuse
+leaves behind him ill-will and hatred.’ Do you know the price he might
+have been compelled to pay for his liberty! No--no more do I. To explain
+his presence at the Poivriere, and the presence of a woman, who was
+perhaps his wife, who knows what disgraceful secrets he would have
+been obliged to reveal? Between shame and suicide, he chose suicide. He
+wished to save his name and honor intact.”
+
+Old Tirauclair spoke with such vehemence that even Father Absinthe was
+deeply impressed, although, to tell the truth, he had understood but
+little of the conversation.
+
+As for Lecoq, he rose very pale, his lips trembling a little. “You will
+excuse my hypocrisy, Monsieur Tabaret,” he said in an agitated voice.
+“I only offered these last objections for form’s sake. I had thought of
+what you now say, but I distrusted myself, and I wanted to hear you say
+it yourself.” Then with an imperious gesture, he added: “Now, I know
+what I have to do.”
+
+Old Tabaret raised his hands toward heaven with every sign of intense
+dismay. “Unhappy man!” he exclaimed; “do you think of going to arrest
+the Duc de Sairmeuse! Poor Lecoq! Free, this man is almost omnipotent,
+and you, an infinitesimal agent of police, would be shattered as easily
+as glass. Take care, my boy, don’t attack the duke. I wouldn’t be
+responsible for the consequences. You might imperil your life.”
+
+The young detective shook his head. “Oh! I don’t deceive myself,” said
+he. “I know that the duke is far beyond my reach--at least for the
+present. But he will be in my power again, the day I learn his secret.
+I don’t fear danger; but I know, that if I am to succeed, I must conceal
+myself, and so I will. Yes, I will remain in the shade until I can
+unveil this mystery; but then I shall reappear in my true character. And
+if May be really the Duc de Sairmeuse, I shall have my revenge.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monsieur Lecoq, v.1, by Emile Gaboriau
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/mrjusticeraffles b/files/books/unrelated/mrjusticeraffles
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e90d294
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/mrjusticeraffles
@@ -0,0 +1,8078 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Justice Raffles, by E. W. Hornung
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Mr. Justice Raffles
+
+Author: E. W. Hornung
+
+Posting Date: December 8, 2011 [EBook #9806]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 19, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES
+
+                            BY E.W. HORNUNG
+
+                                 1909
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter
+
+
+     I. An Inaugural Banquet
+
+    II. "His Own Familiar Friend"
+
+   III. Council of War
+
+    IV. "Our Mr. Shylock"
+
+     V. Thin Air
+
+    VI. Camilla Belsize
+
+   VII. In Which We Fail to Score
+
+  VIII. The State of the Case
+
+    IX. A Triple Alliance
+
+     X. "My Raffles Right or Wrong"
+
+    XI. A Dash in the Dark
+
+   XII. A Midsummer Night's Dream
+
+  XIII. Knocked Out
+
+   XIV. Corpus Delicti
+
+    XV. Trial by Raffles
+
+   XVI. Watch and Ward
+
+  XVII. A Secret Service
+
+ XVIII. The Death of a Sinner
+
+   XIX. Apologia
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Justice Raffles
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+An Inaugural Banquet
+
+
+Raffles had vanished from the face of the town, and even I had no
+conception of his whereabouts until he cabled to me to meet the 7.31 at
+Charing Cross next night. That was on the Tuesday before the 'Varsity
+match, or a full fortnight after his mysterious disappearance. The
+telegram was from Carlsbad, of all places for Raffles of all men! Of
+course there was only one thing that could possibly have taken so rare a
+specimen of physical fitness to any such pernicious spot. But to my
+horror he emerged from the train, on the Wednesday evening, a cadaverous
+caricature of the splendid person I had gone to meet.
+
+"Not a word, my dear Bunny, till I have bitten British beef!" said he,
+in tones as hollow as his cheeks. "No, I'm not going to stop to clear
+my baggage now. You can do that for me to-morrow, Bunny, like a dear
+good pal."
+
+"Any time you like," said I, giving him my arm. "But where shall we dine?
+Kellner's? Neapolo's? The Carlton or the Club?"
+
+But Raffles shook his head at one and all.
+
+"I don't want to dine at all," he said. "I know what I want!"
+
+And he led the way from the station, stopping once to gloat over the
+sunset across Trafalgar Square, and again to inhale the tarry scent of
+the warm wood-paving, which was perfume to his nostrils as the din of its
+traffic was music to his ears, before we came to one of those political
+palaces which permit themselves to be included in the list of ordinary
+clubs. Raffles, to my surprise, walked in as though the marble hall
+belonged to him, and as straight as might be to the grill-room where
+white-capped cooks were making things hiss upon a silver grill. He did
+not consult me as to what we were to have. He had made up his mind about
+that in the train. But he chose the fillet steaks himself, he insisted on
+seeing the kidneys, and had a word to say about the fried potatoes, and
+the Welsh rarebit that was to follow. And all this was as
+uncharacteristic of the normal Raffles (who was least fastidious at the
+table) as the sigh with which he dropped into the chair opposite mine,
+and crossed his arms upon the cloth.
+
+"I didn't know you were a member of this place," said I, feeling really
+rather shocked at the discovery, but also that it was a safer subject for
+me to open than that of his late mysterious movements.
+
+"There are a good many things you don't know about me, Bunny," said he
+wearily. "Did you know I was in Carlsbad, for instance?"
+
+"Of course I didn't."
+
+"Yet you remember the last time we sat down together?"
+
+"You mean that night we had supper at the Savoy?"
+
+"It's only three weeks ago, Bunny."
+
+"It seems months to me."
+
+"And years to me!" cried Raffles. "But surely you remember that lost
+tribesman at the next table, with the nose like the village pump, and the
+wife with the emerald necklace?"
+
+"I should think I did," said I; "you mean the great Dan Levy, otherwise
+Mr. Shylock? Why, you told me all about him, A. J."
+
+"Did I? Then you may possibly recollect that the Shylocks were off to
+Carlsbad the very next day. It was the old man's last orgy before his
+annual cure, and he let the whole room know it. Ah, Bunny, I can
+sympathise with the poor brute now!"
+
+"But what on earth took you there, old fellow?"
+
+"Can you ask? Have you forgotten how you saw the emeralds under their
+table when they'd gone, and how _I_ forgot myself and ran after them with
+the best necklace I'd handled since the days of Lady Melrose?"
+
+I shook my head, partly in answer to his question, but partly also over a
+piece of perversity which still rankled in my recollection. But now I was
+prepared for something even more perverse.
+
+"You were quite right," continued Raffles, recalling my recriminations at
+the time; "it was a rotten thing to do. It was also the action of a
+tactless idiot, since anybody could have seen that a heavy necklace like
+that couldn't have dropped off without the wearer's knowledge."
+
+"You don't mean to say she dropped it on purpose?" I exclaimed with more
+interest, for I suddenly foresaw the remainder of his tale.
+
+"I do," said Raffles. "The poor old pet did it deliberately when stooping
+to pick up something else; and all to get it stolen and delay their trip
+to Carlsbad, where her swab of a husband makes her do the cure with him."
+
+I said I always felt that we had failed to fulfil an obvious destiny in
+the matter of those emeralds; and there was something touching in the way
+Raffles now sided with me against himself.
+
+"But I saw it the moment I had yanked them up," said he, "and heard that
+fat swine curse his wife for dropping them. He told her she'd done it on
+purpose, too; he hit the nail on the head all right; but it was her poor
+head, and that showed me my unworthy impulse in its true light, Bunny. I
+didn't need your reproaches to make me realise what a skunk I'd been all
+round. I saw that the necklace was morally yours, and there was one clear
+call for me to restore it to you by hook, crook, or barrel. I left for
+Carlsbad as soon after its wrongful owners as prudence permitted."
+
+"Admirable!" said I, overjoyed to find old Raffles by no means in such
+bad form as he looked. "But not to have taken me with you, A. J., that's
+the unkind cut I can't forgive."
+
+"My dear Bunny, you couldn't have borne it," said Raffles solemnly. "The
+cure would have killed you; look what it's done to me."
+
+"Don't tell me you went through with it!" I rallied him.
+
+"Of course I did, Bunny. I played the game like a prayer-book."
+
+"But why, in the name of all that's wanton?"
+
+"You don't know Carlsbad, or you wouldn't ask. The place is squirming
+with spies and humbugs. If I had broken the rules one of the prize
+humbugs laid down for me I should have been spotted in a tick by a spy,
+and bowled out myself for a spy and a humbug rolled into one. Oh, Bunny,
+if old man Dante were alive to-day I should commend him to that sink of
+salubrity for the redraw material of another and a worse Inferno!"
+
+The steaks had arrived, smoking hot, with a kidney apiece and lashings of
+fried potatoes. And for a divine interval (as it must have been to him)
+Raffles's only words were to the waiter, and referred to successive
+tankards of bitter, with the superfluous rider that the man who said we
+couldn't drink beer was a liar. But indeed I never could myself, and only
+achieved the impossible in this case out of sheer sympathy with Raffles.
+And eventually I had my reward, in such a recital of malignant privation
+as I cannot trust myself to set down in any words but his.
+
+"No, Bunny, you couldn't have borne it for half a week; you'd have looked
+like that all the time!" quoth Raffles. I suppose my face had fallen (as
+it does too easily) at his aspersion on my endurance. "Cheer up, my man;
+that's better," he went on, as I did my best. "But it was no smiling
+matter out there. No one does smile after the first week; your sense of
+humour is the first thing the cure eradicates. There was a hunting man at
+my hotel, getting his weight down to ride a special thoroughbred, and no
+doubt a cheery dog at home; but, poor devil, he hadn't much chance of
+good cheer there! Miles and miles on his poor feet before breakfast;
+mud-poultices all the morning; and not the semblance of a drink all day,
+except some aerated muck called Gieshübler. He was allowed to lap that up
+an hour after meals, when his tongue would be hanging out of his mouth.
+We went to the same weighing machine at cock-crow, and though he looked
+quite good-natured once when I caught him asleep in his chair, I have
+known him tear up his weight ticket when he had gained an ounce or two
+instead of losing one or two pounds. We began by taking our walks
+together, but his conversation used to get so physically introspective
+that one couldn't get in a word about one's own works edgeways."
+
+"But there was nothing wrong with your works," I reminded Raffles; he
+shook his head as one who was not so sure.
+
+"Perhaps not at first, but the cure soon sees to that! I closed in like a
+concertina, Bunny, and I only hope I shall be able to pull out like one.
+You see, it's the custom of the accursed place for one to telephone for
+a doctor the moment one arrives. I consulted the hunting man, who of
+course recommended his own in order to make sure of a companion on the
+rack. The old arch-humbug was down upon me in ten minutes, examining me
+from crown to heel, and made the most unblushing report upon my general
+condition. He said I had a liver! I'll swear I hadn't before I went to
+Carlsbad, but I shouldn't be a bit surprised if I'd brought one back."
+
+And he tipped his tankard with a solemn face, before falling to work upon
+the Welsh rarebit which had just arrived.
+
+"It looks like gold, and it's golden eating," said poor old Raffles. "I
+only wish that sly dog of a doctor could see me at it! He had the nerve
+to make me write out my own health-warrant, and it was so like my friend
+the hunting man's that it dispelled his settled gloom for the whole of
+that evening. We used to begin our drinking day at the same well of
+German damnably defiled, and we paced the same colonnade to the blare of
+the same well-fed band. That wasn't a joke, Bunny; it's not a thing to
+joke about; mud-poultices and dry meals, with teetotal poisons in
+between, were to be my portion too. You stiffen your lip at that, eh,
+Bunny? I told you that you never would or could have stood it; but it was
+the only game to play for the Emerald Stakes. It kept one above suspicion
+all the time. And then I didn't mind that part as much as you would, or
+as my hunting pal did; he was driven to fainting at the doctor's place
+one day, in the forlorn hope of a toothful of brandy to bring him round.
+But all he got was a glass of cheap Marsala."
+
+"But did you win those stakes after all?"
+
+"Of course I did, Bunny," said Raffles below his breath, and with a look
+that I remembered later. "But the waiters are listening as it is, and
+I'll tell you the rest some other time. I suppose you know what brought
+me back so soon?"
+
+"Hadn't you finished your cure?"
+
+"Not by three good days. I had the satisfaction of a row royal with the
+Lord High Humbug to account for my hurried departure. But, as a matter of
+fact, if Teddy Garland hadn't got his Blue at the eleventh hour I should
+be at Carlsbad still."
+
+E.M. Garland (Eton and Trinity) was the Cambridge wicketkeeper, and one
+of the many young cricketers who owed a good deal to Raffles. They had
+made friends in some country-house week, and foregathered afterward in
+town, where the young fellow's father had a house at which Raffles
+became a constant guest. I am afraid I was a little prejudiced both
+against the father, a retired brewer whom I had never met, and the son
+whom I did meet once or twice at the Albany. Yet I could quite understand
+the mutual attraction between Raffles and this much younger man; indeed
+he was a mere boy, but like so many of his school he seemed to have a
+knowledge of the world beyond his years, and withal such a spontaneous
+spring of sweetness and charm as neither knowledge nor experience could
+sensibly pollute. And yet I had a shrewd suspicion that wild oats had
+been somewhat freely sown, and that it was Raffles who had stepped in and
+taken the sower in hand, and turned him into the stuff of which Blues are
+made. At least I knew that no one could be sounder friend or saner
+counsellor to any young fellow in need of either. And many there must be
+to bear me out in their hearts; but they did not know their Raffles as I
+knew mine; and if they say that was why they thought so much of him, let
+them have patience, and at last they shall hear something that need not
+make them think the less.
+
+"I couldn't let poor Teddy keep at Lord's," explained Raffles, "and me
+not there to egg him on! You see, Bunny, I taught him a thing or two in
+those little matches we played together last August. I take a fatherly
+interest in the child."
+
+"You must have done him a lot of good," I suggested, "in every way."
+
+Raffles looked up from his bill and asked me what I meant. I saw he was
+not pleased with my remark, but I was not going back on it.
+
+"Well, I should imagine you had straightened him out a bit, if you ask
+me."
+
+"I didn't ask you, Bunny, that's just the point!" said Raffles. And I
+watched him tip the waiter without the least _arrière-pensée_ on
+either side.
+
+"After all," said I, on our way down the marble stair, "you have told me
+a good deal about the lad. I remember once hearing you say he had a lot
+of debts, for example."
+
+"So I was afraid," replied Raffles, frankly; "and between ourselves, I
+offered to finance him before I went abroad. Teddy wouldn't hear of it;
+that hot young blood of his was up at the thought, though he was
+perfectly delightful in what he said. So don't jump to rotten
+conclusions, Bunny, but stroll up to the Albany and have a drink."
+
+And when we had reclaimed our hats and coats, and lit our Sullivans in
+the hall, out we marched as though I were now part-owner of the place
+with Raffles.
+
+"That," said I, to effect a thorough change of conversation,
+since I felt at one with all the world, "is certainly the finest
+grill in Europe."
+
+"That's why we went there, Bunny."
+
+"But must I say I was rather surprised to find you a member of a place
+where you tip the waiter and take a ticket for your hat!"
+
+I was not surprised, however, to hear Raffles defend his own
+caravanserai.
+
+"I would go a step further," he remarked, "and make every member show his
+badge as they do at Lord's."
+
+"But surely the porter knows the members by sight?"
+
+"Not he! There are far too many thousands of them."
+
+"I should have thought he must."
+
+"And I know he doesn't."
+
+"Well, you ought to know, A.J., since you're a member yourself."
+
+"On the contrary, my dear Bunny, I happen to know because I never was
+one!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"His Own Familiar Friend"
+
+
+How we laughed as we turned into Whitehall! I began to feel I had been
+wrong about Raffles after all, and that enhanced my mirth. Surely this
+was the old gay rascal, and it was by some uncanny feat of his stupendous
+will that he had appeared so haggard on the platform. In the London
+lamplight that he loved so well, under a starry sky of an almost
+theatrical blue, he looked another man already. If such a change was due
+to a few draughts of bitter beer and a few ounces of fillet steak, then I
+felt I was the brewers' friend and the vegetarians' foe for life.
+Nevertheless I could detect a serious side to my companion's mood,
+especially when he spoke once more of Teddy Garland, and told me that he
+had cabled to him also before leaving Carlsbad. And I could not help
+wondering, with a discreditable pang, whether his intercourse with that
+honest lad could have bred in Raffles a remorse for his own misdeeds,
+such as I myself had often tried, but always failed, to produce.
+
+So we came to the Albany in sober frame, for all our recent levity,
+thinking at least no evil for once in our lawless lives. And there was
+our good friend Barraclough, the porter, to salute and welcome us in the
+courtyard.
+
+"There's a gen'leman writing you a letter upstairs," said he to Raffles.
+"It's Mr. Garland, sir, so I took him up."
+
+"Teddy!" cried Raffles, and took the stairs two at a time.
+
+I followed rather heavily. It was not jealousy, but I did feel rather
+critical of this mushroom intimacy. So I followed up, feeling that the
+evening was spoilt for me--and God knows I was right! Not till my dying
+day shall I forget the tableau that awaited me in those familiar rooms. I
+see it now as plainly as I see the problem picture of the year, which
+lies in wait for one in all the illustrated papers; indeed, it was a
+problem picture itself in flesh and blood.
+
+Raffles had opened his door as only Raffles could open doors, with the
+boyish thought of giving the other boy a fright; and young Garland had
+very naturally started up from the bureau, where he was writing, at the
+sudden clap of his own name behind him. But that was the last of his
+natural actions. He did not advance to grasp Raffles by the hand; there
+was no answering smile of welcome on the fresh young face which used to
+remind me of the Phoebus in Guido's Aurora, with its healthy pink and
+bronze, and its hazel eye like clear amber. The pink faded before our
+gaze, the bronze turned a sickly sallow; and there stood Teddy Garland as
+if glued to the bureau behind him, clutching its edge with all his might.
+I can see his knuckles gleaming like ivory under the back of each
+sunburnt hand.
+
+"What is it? What are you hiding?" demanded Raffles. His love for the lad
+had rung out in his first greeting; his puzzled voice was still jocular
+and genial, but the other's attitude soon strangled that. All this time I
+had been standing in vague horror on the threshold; now Raffles beckoned
+me in and switched on more light. It fell full upon a ghastly and a
+guilty face, that yet stared bravely in the glare. Raffles locked the
+door behind us, put the key in his pocket, and strode over to the desk.
+
+No need to report their first broken syllables: enough that it was no
+note young Garland was writing, but a cheque which he was laboriously
+copying into Raffles's cheque-book, from an old cheque abstracted from a
+pass-book with A. J. RAFFLES in gilt capitals upon its brown leather
+back. Raffles had only that year opened a banking account, and I
+remembered his telling me how thoroughly he meant to disregard the
+instructions on his cheque-book by always leaving it about to advertise
+the fact. And this was the result. A glance convicted his friend of
+criminal intent: a sheet of notepaper lay covered with trial signatures.
+Yet Raffles could turn and look with infinite pity upon the miserable
+youth who was still looking defiantly on him.
+
+"My poor chap!" was all he said.
+
+And at that the broken boy found the tongue of a hoarse and
+quavering old man.
+
+"Won't you hand me over and be done with it?" he croaked. "Must you
+torture me yourself?"
+
+It was all I could do to refrain from putting in my word, and telling the
+fellow it was not for him to ask questions. Raffles merely inquired
+whether he had thought it all out before.
+
+"God knows I hadn't, A. J.! I came up to write you a note, I swear I
+did," said Garland with a sudden sob.
+
+"No need to swear it," returned Raffles, actually smiling. "Your word's
+quite good enough for me."
+
+"God bless you for that, after this!" the other choked, in terrible
+disorder now.
+
+"It was pretty obvious," said Raffles reassuringly.
+
+"Was it? Are you sure? You do remember offering me a cheque last month,
+and my refusing it?"
+
+"Why, of course I do!" cried Raffles, with such spontaneous heartiness
+that I could see he had never thought of it since mentioning the matter
+to me at our meal. What I could not see was any reason for such
+conspicuous relief, or the extenuating quality of a circumstance which
+seemed to me rather to aggravate the offence.
+
+"I have regretted that refusal ever since," young Garland continued very
+simply. "It was a mistake at the time, but this week of all weeks it's
+been a tragedy. Money I must have; I'll tell you why directly. When I got
+your wire last night it seemed as though my wretched prayers had been
+answered. I was going to someone else this morning, but I made up my mind
+to wait for you instead. You were the one I really could turn to, and yet
+I refused your great offer a month ago. But you said you would be back
+to-night; and you weren't here when I came. I telephoned and found that
+the train had come in all right, and that there wasn't another until the
+morning. Tomorrow morning's my limit, and to-morrow's the match." He
+stopped as he saw what Raffles was doing. "Don't, Raffles, I don't
+deserve it!" he added in fresh distress.
+
+But Raffles had unlocked the tantalus and found a syphon in the
+corner cupboard, and it was a very yellow bumper that he handed to
+the guilty youth.
+
+"Drink some," he said, "or I won't listen to another word."
+
+"I'm going to be ruined before the match begins. I am!" the poor fellow
+insisted, turning to me when Raffles shook his head. "And it'll break my
+father's heart, and--and--"
+
+I thought he had worse still to tell us, he broke off in such despair;
+but either he changed his mind, or the current of his thoughts set inward
+in spite of him, for when he spoke again it was to offer us both a
+further explanation of his conduct.
+
+"I only came up to leave a line for Raffles," he said to me, "in case he
+did get back in time. It was the porter himself who fixed me up at that
+bureau. He'll tell you how many times I had called before. And then I saw
+before my nose in one pigeon-hole your cheque-book, Raffles, and your
+pass-book bulging with old cheques."
+
+"And as I wasn't back to write one for you," said Raffles, "you wrote it
+for me. And quite right, too!"
+
+"Don't laugh at me!" cried the boy, his lost colour rushing back. And he
+looked at me again as though my long face hurt him less than the
+sprightly sympathy of his friend.
+
+"I'm not laughing, Teddy," replied Raffles kindly. "I was never more
+serious in my life. It was playing the friend to come to me at all in
+your fix, but it was the act of a real good pal to draw on me behind my
+back rather than let me feel I'd ruined you by not turning up in time.
+You may shake your head as hard as you like, but I never was paid a
+higher compliment."
+
+And the consummate casuist went on working a congenial vein until a less
+miserable sinner might have been persuaded that he had done nothing
+really dishonourable; but young Garland had the grace neither to make nor
+to accept any excuse for his own conduct. I never heard a man more down
+upon himself, or confession of error couched in stronger terms; and yet
+there was something so sincere and ingenuous in his remorse, something
+that Raffles and I had lost so long ago, that in our hearts I am sure we
+took his follies more seriously than our own crimes. But foolish he
+indeed had been, if not criminally foolish as he said. It was the old
+story of the prodigal son of an indulgent father. There had been, as I
+suspected, a certain amount of youthful riot which the influence of
+Raffles had already quelled; but there had also been much reckless
+extravagance, of which Raffles naturally knew less, since your scapegrace
+is constitutionally quicker to confess himself as such than as a fool.
+Suffice it that this one had thrown himself on his father's generosity,
+only to find that the father himself was in financial straits.
+
+"What!" cried Raffles, "with that house on his hands?"
+
+"I knew it would surprise you," said Teddy Garland. "I can't understand
+it myself; he gave me no particulars, but the mere fact was enough for
+me. I simply couldn't tell my father everything after that. He wrote me a
+cheque for all I did own up to, but I could see it was such a tooth that
+I swore I'd never come on him to pay another farthing. And I never will!"
+
+The boy took a sip from his glass, for his voice had faltered, and then
+he paused to light another cigarette, because the last had gone out
+between his fingers. So sensitive and yet so desperate was the blonde
+young face, with the creased forehead and the nervous mouth, that I saw
+Raffles look another way until the match was blown out.
+
+"But at the time I might have done worse, and did," said Teddy, "a
+thousand times! I went to the Jews. That's the whole trouble. There were
+more debts--debts of honour--and to square up I went to the Jews. It was
+only a matter of two or three hundred to start with; but you may know,
+though I didn't, what a snowball the smallest sum becomes in the hands of
+those devils. I borrowed three hundred and signed a promissory note for
+four hundred and fifty-six."
+
+"Only fifty per cent!" said Raffles. "You got off cheap if the percentage
+was per annum."
+
+"Wait a bit! It was by way of being even more reasonable than that. The
+four hundred and fifty-six was repayable in monthly instalments of twenty
+quid, and I kept them up religiously until the sixth payment fell due.
+That was soon after Christmas, when one's always hard up, and for the
+first time I was a day or two late--not more, mind you; yet what do you
+suppose happened? My cheque was returned, and the whole blessed balance
+demanded on the nail!"
+
+Raffles was following intently, with that complete concentration which
+was a signal force in his equipment. His face no longer changed at
+anything he heard; it was as strenuously attentive as that of any judge
+upon the bench. Never had I clearer vision of the man he might have been
+but for the kink in his nature which had made him what he was.
+
+"The promissory note was for four-fifty-six," said he, "and this sudden
+demand was for the lot less the hundred you had paid?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"What did you do?" I asked, not to seem behind Raffles in my grasp
+of the case.
+
+"Told them to take my instalment or go to blazes for the rest!"
+
+"And they?"
+
+"Absolutely drop the whole thing until this very week, and then come down
+on me for--what do you suppose?"
+
+"Getting on for a thousand," said Raffles after a moment's thought.
+
+"Nonsense!" I cried. Garland looked astonished too.
+
+"Raffles knows all about it," said he. "Seven hundred was the actual
+figure. I needn't tell you I have given the bounders a wide berth since
+the day I raised the wind; but I went and had it out with them over this.
+And half the seven hundred is for default interest, I'll trouble you,
+from the beginning of January down to date!"
+
+"Had you agreed to that?"
+
+"Not to my recollection, but there it was as plain as a pikestaff on my
+promissory note. A halfpenny in the shilling per week over and above
+everything else when the original interest wasn't forthcoming."
+
+"Printed or written on your note of hand?"
+
+"Printed--printed small, I needn't tell you--but quite large enough for
+me to read when I signed the cursed bond. In fact I believe I did read
+it; but a halfpenny a week! Who could ever believe it would mount up like
+that? But it does; it's right enough, and the long and short of it is
+that unless I pay up by twelve o'clock to-morrow the governor's to be
+called in to say whether he'll pay up for me or see me made a bankrupt
+under his nose. Twelve o'clock, when the match begins! Of course they
+know that, and are trading on it. Only this evening I had the most
+insolent ultimatum, saying it was my 'dead and last chance.'"
+
+"So then you came round here?"
+
+"I was coming in any case. I wish I'd shot myself first!"
+
+"My dear fellow, it was doing me proud; don't let us lose our sense of
+proportion, Teddy."
+
+But young Garland had his face upon his hand, and once more he was the
+miserable man who had begun brokenly to unfold the history of his shame.
+The unconscious animation produced by the mere unloading of his heart,
+the natural boyish slang with which his tale had been freely garnished,
+had faded from his face, had died upon his lips. Once more he was a soul
+in torments of despair and degradation; and yet once more did the absence
+of the abject in man and manner redeem him from the depths of either. In
+these moments of reaction he was pitiful, but not contemptible, much less
+unlovable. Indeed, I could see the qualities that had won the heart of
+Raffles as I had never seen them before. There is a native nobility not
+to be destroyed by a single descent into the ignoble, an essential
+honesty too bright and brilliant to be dimmed by incidental dishonour;
+and both remained to the younger man, in the eyes of the other two, who
+were even then determining to preserve in him all that they themselves
+had lost. The thought came naturally enough to me. And yet I may well
+have derived it from a face that for once was easy to read, a clear-cut
+face that had never looked so sharp in profile, or, to my knowledge, half
+so gentle in expression.
+
+"And what about these Jews?" asked Raffles at length.
+
+"There's really only one."
+
+"Are we to guess his name?"
+
+"No, I don't mind telling you. It's Dan Levy."
+
+"Of course it is!" cried Raffles with a nod for me. "Our Mr. Shylock in
+all his glory!"
+
+Teddy snatched his face from his hands.
+
+"You don't know him, do you?"
+
+"I might almost say I know him at home," said Raffles. "But as a matter
+of fact I met him abroad."
+
+Teddy was on his feet.
+
+"But do you know him well enough--"
+
+"Certainly. I'll see him in the morning. But I ought to have the receipts
+for the various instalments you have paid, and perhaps that letter saying
+it was your last chance."
+
+"Here they all are," said Garland, producing a bulky envelope. "But of
+course I'll come with you--"
+
+"Of course you'll do nothing of the kind, Teddy! I won't have your eye
+put out for the match by that old ruffian, and I'm not going to let you
+sit up all night either. Where are you staying, my man?"
+
+"Nowhere yet. I left my kit at the club. I was going out home if I'd
+caught you early enough."
+
+"Stout fellow! You stay here."
+
+"My dear old man, I couldn't think of it," said Teddy gratefully.
+
+"My dear young man, I don't care whether you think of it or not. Here you
+stay, and moreover you turn in at once. I can fix you up with all you
+want, and Barraclough shall bring your kit round before you're awake."
+
+"But you haven't got a bed, Raffles?"
+
+"You shall have mine. I hardly ever go to bed--do I, Bunny?"
+
+"I've seldom seen you there," said I.
+
+"But you were travelling all last night?"
+
+"And straight through till this evening, and I sleep all the time in a
+train," said Raffles. "I hardly opened an eye all day; if I turned in
+to-night I shouldn't get a wink."
+
+"Well, I shan't either," said the other hopelessly. "I've forgotten how
+to sleep!"
+
+"Wait till I learn you!" said Raffles, and went into the inner room and
+lit it up.
+
+"I'm terribly sorry about it all," whispered young Garland, turning to me
+as though we were old friends now.
+
+"And I'm sorry for you," said I from my heart. "I know what it is."
+
+Garland was still staring when Raffles returned with a tiny bottle from
+which he was shaking little round black things into his left palm.
+
+"Clean sheets yawning for you, Teddy," said he. "And now take two of
+these, and one more spot of whisky, and you'll be asleep in ten minutes."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Somnol. The latest thing out, and quite the best."
+
+"But won't they give me a frightful head?"
+
+"Not a bit of it; you'll be as right as rain ten minutes after you wake
+up. And you needn't leave this before eleven to-morrow morning, because
+you don't want a knock at the nets, do you?"
+
+"I ought to have one," said Teddy seriously. But Raffles laughed
+him to scorn.
+
+"They're not playing you for runs, my man, and I shouldn't run any risks
+with those hands. Remember all the chances they're going to lap up
+to-morrow, and all the byes they've not got to let!"
+
+And Raffles had administered his opiate before the patient knew much more
+about it; next minute he was shaking hands with me, and the minute after
+that Raffles went in to put out his light. He was gone some little time;
+and I remember leaning out of the window in order not to overhear the
+conversation in the next room. The night was nearly as fine as ever. The
+starry ceiling over the Albany Courtyard was only less beautifully blue
+than when Raffles and I had come in a couple of hours ago. The traffic in
+Piccadilly came as crisply to the ear as on a winter's night of hard
+frost. It was a night of wine, and sparkling wine, and the day at Lord's
+must surely be a day of nectar. I could not help wondering whether any
+man had ever played in the University match with such a load upon his
+soul as E.M. Garland was taking to his forced slumbers; and then whether
+any heavy-laden soul had ever hit upon two such brother confessors as
+Raffles and myself!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Council of War
+
+
+Raffles was humming a snatch of something too choice for me to recognise
+when I drew in my head from the glorious night. The folding-doors were
+shut, and the grandfather's clock on one side of them made it almost
+midnight. Raffles would not stop his tune for me, but he pointed to the
+syphon and decanter, and I replenished my glass. He had a glass beside
+him also, which was less usual, but he did not sit down beside his glass;
+he was far too fidgety for that; even bothering about a pair of pictures
+which had changed places under some zealous hand in his absence, or
+rather two of Mr. Hollyer's fine renderings of Watts and Burne-Jones of
+which I had never seen Raffles take the slightest notice before. But it
+seemed that they must hang where he had hung them, and for once I saw
+them hanging straight. The books had also suffered from good intentions;
+he gave them up with a shrug. Archives and arcana he tested or examined,
+and so a good many minutes passed without a word. But when he stole back
+into the inner room, after waiting a little at the folding-doors, there
+was still some faint strain upon his lips; it was only when he returned,
+shutting the door none too quietly behind him, that he stopped humming
+and spoke out with a grimmer face than he had worn all night.
+
+"That boy's in a bigger hole than he thinks. But we must pull him out
+between us before play begins. It's one clear call for us, Bunny!"
+
+"Is it a bigger hole than you thought?" I asked, thinking myself of the
+conversation which I had managed not to overhear.
+
+"I don't say that, Bunny, though I never should have dreamt of his old
+father being in one too. I own I can't understand that. They live in a
+regular country house in the middle of Kensington, and there are only the
+two of them. But I've given Teddy my word not to go to the old man for
+the money, so it's no use talking about it."
+
+But apparently it was what they had been talking about behind the
+folding-doors; it only surprised me to see how much Raffles took
+it to heart.
+
+"So you have made up your mind to raise the money elsewhere?"
+
+"Before that lad in there opens his eyes."
+
+"Is he asleep already?"
+
+"Like the dead," said Raffles, dropping into his chair and drinking
+thoughtfully; "and so he will be till we wake him up. It's a ticklish
+experiment, Bunny, but even a splitting head for the first hour's play is
+better than a sleepless night; I've tried both, so I ought to know. I
+shouldn't even wonder if he did himself more than justice to-morrow; one
+often does when just less than fit; it takes off that dangerous edge of
+over-keenness which so often cuts one's own throat."
+
+"But what do you think of it all, A.J.?"
+
+"Not so much worse than I let him think I thought."
+
+"But you must have been amazed?"
+
+"I am past amazement at the worst thing the best of us ever does, and
+contrariwise of course. Your rich man proves a pauper, and your honest
+man plays the knave; we're all of us capable of every damned thing. But
+let us thank our stars and Teddy's that we got back just when we did."
+
+"Why at that moment?"
+
+Raffles produced the unfinished cheque, shook his head over it, and sent
+it fluttering across to me.
+
+"Was there ever such a childish attempt? They'd have kept him in the bank
+while they sent for the police. If ever you want to play this game,
+Bunny, you must let me coach you up a bit."
+
+"But it was never one of your games, A.J.!"
+
+"Only incidentally once or twice; it never appealed to me," said Raffles,
+sending expanding circlets of smoke to crown the girls on the Golden
+Stair that was no longer tilted in a leaning tower. "No, Bunny, an
+occasional _exeat_ at school is my modest record as a forger, though I
+admit that augured ill. Do you remember how I left my cheque-book about
+on purpose for what's happened? To be sinned against instead of sinning,
+in all the papers, would have set one up as an honest man for life. I
+thought, God forgive me, of poor old Barraclough or somebody of that
+kind. And to think it should be 'the friend in whom my soul confided'!
+Not that I ever did confide in him, Bunny, much as I love this lad."
+
+Despite the tense of that last statement, it was the old Raffles who was
+speaking now, the incisively cynical old Raffles that I still knew the
+best, the Raffles of the impudent quotations and jaunty _jeux d'esprit_.
+This Raffles only meant half he said--but had generally done the other
+half! I met his mood by reminding him (out of his own _Whitaker_) that
+the sun rose at 3.51, in case he thought of breaking in anywhere that
+night. I had the honour of making Raffles smile.
+
+"I did think of it, Bunny," said he. "But there's only one crib that we
+could crack in decency for this money; and our Mr. Shylock's is not the
+sort of city that Caesar himself would have taken _ex itinere_. It's a
+case for the _testudo_ and all the rest of it. You must remember that
+I've been there, Bunny; at least I've visited his 'moving tent,' if one
+may jump from an ancient to an 'Ancient and Modern.' And if that was as
+impregnable as I found it, his permanent citadel must be perched upon the
+very rock of defence!"
+
+"You must tell me about that, Raffles," said I, tiring a little of his
+kaleidoscopic metaphors. Let him be as allusive as he liked when there
+was no risky work on hand, and I was his lucky and delighted audience
+till all hours of the night or morning. But for a deed of darkness I
+wanted fewer fireworks, a steadier light from his intellectual
+lantern. And yet these were the very moments that inspired his
+pyrotechnic displays.
+
+"Oh, I shall tell you all right," said Raffles. "But just now the next
+few hours are of more importance than the last few weeks. Of course
+Shylock's the man for our money; but knowing our tribesmen as I do, I
+think we had better begin by borrowing it like simple Christians."
+
+"Then we have it to pay back again."
+
+"And that's the psychological moment for raiding our 'miser's sunless
+coffers'--if he happens to have any. It will give us time to find out."
+
+"But he doesn't keep open office all night," I objected.
+
+"But he opens at nine o'clock in the morning," said Raffles, "to catch
+the early stockbroker who would rather be bled than hammered."
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"Our Mrs. Shylock."
+
+"You must have made great friends with her?"
+
+"More in pity than for the sake of secrets."
+
+"But you went where the secrets were?"
+
+"And she gave them away wholesale."
+
+"She would," I said, "to you."
+
+"She told me a lot about the impending libel action."
+
+"Shylock _v. Fact?_"
+
+"Yes; it's coming on before the vacation, you know."
+
+"So I saw in some paper."
+
+"But you know what it's all about, Bunny?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Another old rascal, the Maharajah of Hathipur, and his perfectly
+fabulous debts. It seems he's been in our Mr. Shylock's clutches for
+years, but instead of taking his pound of flesh he's always increasing
+the amount. Of course that's the whole duty of money-lenders, but now
+they say the figure runs well into six. No one has any sympathy with that
+old heathen; he's said to have been a pal of Nana's before the Mutiny,
+and in it up to the neck he only saved by turning against his own lot in
+time; in any case it's the pot and the kettle so far as moral colour is
+concerned. But I believe it's an actual fact that syndicates have been
+formed to buy up the black man's debts and take a reasonable interest,
+only the dirty white man always gets to windward of the syndicate.
+They're on the point of bringing it off, when old Levy inveigles the
+nigger into some new Oriental extravagance. _Fact_ has exposed the whole
+thing, and printed blackmailing letters which Shylock swears are
+forgeries. That's both their cases in a philippine! The leeches told the
+Jew he must do his Carlsbad this year before the case came on; and the
+tremendous amount it's going to cost may account for his dunning old
+clients the moment he gets back."
+
+"Then why should he lend to you?"
+
+"I'm a new client, Bunny; that makes all the difference. Then we were
+very good pals out there."
+
+"But you and Mrs. Shylock were better still?"
+
+"Unbeknowns, Bunny! She used to tell me her troubles when I lent her an
+arm and took due care to look a martyr; my hunting friend had coarse
+metaphors about heavy-weights and the knacker's yard."
+
+"And yet you came away with the poor soul's necklace?"
+
+Raffles was tapping the chronic cigarette on the table at his elbow; he
+stood up to light it, as one does stand up to make the dramatic
+announcements of one's life, and he spoke through the flame of the match
+as it rose and fell between his puffs.
+
+"No--Bunny--I did not!"
+
+"But you told me you won the Emerald Stakes!" I cried, jumping up
+in my turn.
+
+"So I did, Bunny, but I gave them back again."
+
+"You gave yourself away to her, as she'd given him away to you?"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Bunny," said Raffles, subsiding into his chair. "I
+can't tell you the whole thing now, but here are the main heads. They're
+at the Savoy Hotel, in Carlsbad I mean. I go to Pupp's. We meet. They
+stare. I come out of my British shell as the humble hero of the affair at
+the other Savoy. I crab my hotel. They swear by theirs. I go to see their
+rooms. I wait till I can get the very same thing immediately overhead on
+the second floor--where I can even hear the old swine cursing her from
+under his mud-poultice! Both suites have balconies that might have been
+made for me. Need I go on?"
+
+"I wonder you weren't suspected."
+
+"There's no end to your capacity for wonder, Bunny. I took some sweet old
+rags with me on purpose, carefully packed inside a decent suit, and I had
+the luck to pick up a foul old German cap that some peasant had cast off
+in the woods. I only meant to leave it on them like a card; as it
+was--well, I was waiting for the best barber in the place to open his
+shop next morning."
+
+"What had happened?"
+
+"A whole actful of unrehearsed effects; that's why I think twice before
+taking on old Shylock again. I admire him, Bunny, as a steely foeman. I
+look forward to another game with him on his own ground. But I must find
+out the pace of the wicket before I put myself on."
+
+"I suppose you had tea with them, and all that sort of thing?"
+
+"Gieshübler!" said Raffles with a shudder. "But I made it last as long as
+tea, and thought I had located the little green lamps before I took my
+leave. There was a japanned despatch box in one corner. 'That's the
+Emerald Isle,' I thought, 'I'll soon have it out of the sea. The old man
+won't trust 'em to the old lady after what happened in town,' I needn't
+tell you I knew they were there somewhere; he made her wear them even at
+the tragic travesty of a Carlsbad hotel dinner."
+
+Raffles was forgetting to be laconic now. I believe he had forgotten
+the lad in the next room, and everything else but the breathless battle
+that he was fighting over again for my benefit. He told me how he
+waited for a dark night, and then slid down from his sitting-room
+balcony to the one below. And my emeralds were not in the japanned box
+after all; and just as he had assured himself of the fact, the
+folding-doors opened "as it might be these," and there stood Dan Levy
+"in a suit of swagger silk pyjamas."
+
+"They gave me a sudden respect for him," continued Raffles; "it struck
+me, for the first time, that mud baths mightn't be the only ones he ever
+took. His face was as evil as ever, but he was utterly unarmed, and I was
+not; and yet there he stood and abused me like a pickpocket, as if there
+was no chance of my firing, and he didn't care whether I did or not. So I
+stuck my revolver nearly in his face, and pulled the hammer up and up.
+Good God, Bunny, if I had pulled too hard! But that made him blink a bit,
+and I was jolly glad to let it down again. 'Out with those emeralds,'
+says I in low German mugged up in case of need. Of course you realise
+that I was absolutely unrecognisable, a low blackguard with a blackened
+face. 'I don't know what you mean,' says he, 'and I'm damned if I care.'
+'_Das halsband_, says I, which means the necklace. 'Go to hell,' says he.
+But I struck myself and shook my head and then my fist at him and nodded.
+He laughed in my face; and upon my soul we were at a deadlock. So I
+pointed to the clock and held up one finger. 'I've one minute to live,
+old girl,' says he through the doors, 'if this rotter has the guts to
+shoot, and I don't think he has. Why the hell don't you get out the other
+way and alarm the 'ouse?' And that raised the siege, Bunny. In comes the
+old woman, as plucky as he was, and shoves the necklace into my left
+hand. I longed to refuse it. I didn't dare. And the old beast took her
+and shook her like a rat, until I covered him again, and swore in German
+that if he showed himself on the balcony for the next two minutes he'd be
+_ein toter Englander_! That was the other bit I'd got off pat; it was
+meant to mean 'a dead Englishman.' And I left the fine old girl clinging
+on to him, instead of him to her!"
+
+I emptied my lungs and my glass too. Raffles took a sip himself.
+
+"But the rope was fixed to _your_ balcony, A.J.?"
+
+"But I began by fixing the other end to theirs, and the moment I was
+safely up I undid my end and dropped it clear to the ground. They found
+it dangling all right when out they rushed together. Of course I'd picked
+the right ball in the way of nights; it was bone-dry as well as
+pitch-dark, and in five minutes I was helping the rest of the hotel to
+search for impossible footprints on the gravel, and to stamp out any
+there might conceivably have been."
+
+"So nobody ever suspected you?"
+
+"Not a soul, I can safely say; I was the first my victims bored with the
+whole yarn."
+
+"Then why return the swag? It's an old trick of yours, Raffles, but in a
+case like this, with a pig like that, I confess I don't see the point."
+
+"You forget the poor old lady, Bunny. She had a dog's life before; after
+that the beans he gave her weren't even fit for a dog. I loved her for
+her pluck in standing up to him; it beat his hollow in standing up to me;
+there was only one reward for her, and it was in my gift."
+
+"But how on earth did you manage that?"
+
+"Not by public presentation, Bunny, nor yet by taking the old dame into
+my confidence _more cuniculi!"_
+
+"I suppose you returned the necklace anonymously?"
+
+"As a low-down German burglar would be sure to do! No, Bunny, I planted
+it in the woods where I knew it would be found. And then I had to watch
+lest it was found by the wrong sort. But luckily Mr. Shylock had sprung a
+substantial reward, and all came right in the end. He sent his doctor to
+blazes, and had a buck feed and lashings on the night it was recovered.
+The hunting man and I were invited to the thanksgiving spread; but I
+wouldn't budge from the diet, and he was ashamed to unless I did. It made
+a coolness between us, and now I doubt if we shall ever have that
+enormous dinner we used to talk about to celebrate our return from a
+living tomb."
+
+But I was not interested in that shadowy fox-hunter. "Dan Levy's a
+formidable brute to tackle," said I at length, and none too buoyantly.
+
+"That's a very true observation, Bunny; it's also exactly why I so looked
+forward to tackling him. It ought to be the kind of conflict that the
+halfpenny press have learnt to call Homeric."
+
+"Are you thinking of to-morrow, or of when it comes to robbing Peter to
+pay Peter?"
+
+"Excellent, Bunny!" cried Raffles, as though I had made a shot worthy of
+his willow. "How the small hours brighten us up!" He drew the curtains
+and displayed a window like a child's slate with the sashes ruled across
+it. "You perceive how we have tired the stars with talking, and cleaned
+them from the sky! The mellifluous Heraclitus can have been no sitter up
+o' nights, or his pal wouldn't have boasted about tiring the sun by our
+methods. What a lot the two old pets must have missed!"
+
+"You haven't answered my question," said I resignedly. "Nor have you told
+me how you propose to go to work to raise this money in the first
+instance."
+
+"If you like to light another Sullivan," said Raffles, "and mix yourself
+another very small and final one, I can tell you now, Bunny."
+
+And tell me he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"Our Mr. Shylock"
+
+
+I have often wondered in what pause or phase of our conversation Raffles
+hit upon the plan which we duly carried out; for we had been talking
+incessantly, since his arrival about eight o'clock at night, until two in
+the morning. Yet that which we discussed between two and three was what
+we actually did between nine and ten, with the single exception
+necessitated by an altogether unforeseen development, of which the less
+said the better until the proper time. The foresight and imagination of a
+Raffles are obviously apt to outstrip his spoken words; but even in the
+course of speech his ideas would crystallise, quite palpably to the
+listener, and the sentence that began by throwing out a shadowy idea
+would culminate in a definite project, as the image comes into focus
+under the lens, and with as much detail into the bargain.
+
+Suffice it that after a long night of it at the Albany, and but a bath
+and a cup of tea at my own flat, I found Raffles waiting for me in
+Piccadilly, and down we went together to the jaws of Jermyn Street. There
+we nodded, and I was proceeding down the hill when I turned on my heel as
+though I had forgotten something, and entered Jermyn Street not fifty
+yards behind Raffles. I had no thought of catching him up. But it so
+happened that I was in his wake in time to witness a first _contretemps_
+which did not amount to much at the time; this was merely the violent
+exit of another of Dan Levy's early callers into the very arms of
+Raffles. There was a heated apology, accepted with courteous composure,
+and followed by an excited outpouring which I did not come near enough to
+overhear. It was delivered by a little man in an aureole of indigo hair,
+who brushed his great sombrero violently as he spoke and Raffles
+listened. I could see from their manner that the collision which had just
+occurred was not the subject under discussion; but I failed to
+distinguish a word, though I listened outside a hatter's until Raffles
+had gone in and his new acquaintance had passed me with blazing eyes and
+a volley of husky vows in broken English.
+
+"Another of Mr. Shylock's victims," thought I; and indeed he might have
+been bleeding internally from the loss of his pound of flesh; at any rate
+there was bloodshed in his eyes.
+
+I stood a long time outside that hatter's window, and finally went in to
+choose a cap. But the light is wicked in those narrow shops, and this
+necessitated my carrying several caps to the broad daylight of the
+threshold to gauge their shades, and incidentally to achieve a swift
+survey of the street. Then they crowned me with an ingenious apparatus
+like a typewriter, to get the exact shape and measure of my skull, for I
+had intimated that I had no desire to dress it anywhere else for the
+future. All this must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after
+getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's
+hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one
+in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next
+perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new
+bowler) brought me face to face with Raffles once more.
+
+We shouted and shook hands; our encounter had taken place almost under
+the money-lender's windows, and it was so un-English in its cordiality
+that between our slaps and grasps Raffles managed deftly to insert a
+stout packet in my breast pocket. I cannot think the most critical
+pedestrian could have seen it done. But streets have as many eyes as
+Argus, and some of them are always on one.
+
+"They had to send to the bank for it," whispered Raffles. "It barely
+passed through their hands. But don't you let Shylock spot his own
+envelope!"
+
+In another second he was saying something very different that anybody
+might have heard, and in yet another he was hustling me across Shylock's
+threshold. "I'll take you up and introduce you," he cried aloud. "You
+couldn't come to a better man, my dear fellow--he's the only honest one
+in Europe. Is Mr. Levy disengaged?"
+
+A stunted young gentleman, who spoke as though he had a hare-lip or was
+in liquor, neither calamity having really befallen him, said that he
+thought so, but would see, which he proceeded to do through a telephone,
+after shifting the indicator from "Through" to "Private." He slid off his
+stool at once, and another youth, of similar appearance and still more
+similar peculiarity of speech, who entered in a hurry at that moment, was
+told to hold on while he showed the gentlemen up-stairs. There were other
+clerks behind the mahogany bulwark, and we heard the newcomer greeting
+them hoarsely as we climbed up into the presence.
+
+Dan Levy, as I must try to call him when Raffles is not varnishing my
+tale, looked a very big man at his enormous desk, but by no means so
+elephantine as at the tiny table in the Savoy Restaurant a month
+earlier. His privations had not only reduced his bulk to the naked eye,
+but made him look ten years younger. He wore the habiliments of a
+gentleman; even as he sat at his desk his well-cut coat and well-tied tie
+filled me with that inconsequent respect which the silk pyjamas had
+engendered in Raffles. But the great face that greeted us with a shrewd
+and rather scornful geniality impressed me yet more powerfully. In its
+massive features and its craggy contour it displayed the frank pugnacity
+of the pugilist rather than the low cunning of the traditional usurer;
+and the nose in particular, while of far healthier appearance than when I
+had seen it first and last, was both dominant and menacing in its
+immensity. It was a comfort to turn from this formidable countenance to
+that of Raffles, who had entered with his own serene unconscious
+confidence, and now introduced us with that inimitable air of
+light-hearted authority which stamped him in all shades of society.
+
+"'Appy to meet you, sir. I hope you're well?" said Mr. Levy, dropping one
+aspirate but putting in the next with care. "Take a seat, sir, please."
+
+But I kept my legs, though I felt them near to trembling, and, diving a
+hand into a breast pocket, I began working the contents out of the
+envelope that Raffles had given me, while I spoke out in a tone
+sufficiently rehearsed at the Albany overnight.
+
+"I'm not so sure about the happiness," said I. "I mean about its lasting,
+Mr. Levy. I come from my friend, Mr. Edward Garland."
+
+"I thought you came to borrow money!" interposed Raffles with much
+indignation. The moneylender was watching me with bright eyes and lips I
+could no longer see.
+
+"I never said so," I rapped out at Raffles; and I thought I saw approval
+and encouragement behind his stare like truth at the bottom of the well.
+
+"Who _is_ the little biter?" the money-lender inquired of him with
+delightful insolence.
+
+"An old friend of mine," replied Raffles, in an injured tone that made a
+convincing end of the old friendship. "I thought he was hard up, or I
+never should have brought him in to introduce to you."
+
+"I didn't ask you for your introduction, Raffles," said I offensively. "I
+simply met you coming out as I was coming in. I thought you damned
+officious, if you ask me!"
+
+Whereupon, with an Anglo-Saxon threat of subsequent violence to my
+person, Raffles flung open the door to leave us to our interview. This
+was exactly as it had been rehearsed. But Dan Levy called Raffles back.
+And that was exactly as we had hoped.
+
+"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" said the Jew. "Please don't make a cockpit of my
+office, gentlemen; and pray, Mr. Raffles, don't leave me to the mercies
+of your very dangerous friend."
+
+"You can be two to one if you like," I gasped valiantly. "_I_
+don't care."
+
+And my chest heaved in accordance with my stage instructions, as also
+with a realism to which it was a relief to give full play.
+
+"Come now," said Levy. "What did Mr. Garland send you about?"
+
+"You know well enough," said I: "his debt to you."
+
+"Don't be rude about it," said Levy. "What about the debt?"
+
+"It's a damned disgrace!" said I.
+
+"I quite agree," he chuckled. "It ought to 'ave been settled months ago."
+
+"Months ago?" I echoed. "It's only twelve months since he borrowed three
+hundred pounds from you, and now you're sticking him for seven!"
+
+"I am," said Levy, opening uncompromising lips that entirely disappeared
+again next instant.
+
+"He borrows three hundred for a year at the outside, and you blackmail
+him for eight hundred when the year's up."
+
+"You said 'seven' just now," interrupted Raffles, but in the voice of a
+man who was getting a fright.
+
+"You also said 'blackmailing,'" added Dan Levy portentously. "Do you want
+to be thrown downstairs?"
+
+"Do _you_ deny the figures?" I retorted.
+
+"No, I don't; have you got his repayment cards?"
+
+"Yes, here in my hands, and they shan't leave them. You see, you're not
+aware," I added severely, as I turned to Raffles, "that this young fellow
+has already paid up one hundred in instalments; that's what makes the
+eight; and all this is what'll happen to you if you've been fool enough
+to get into the same boat."
+
+The money-lender had borne with me longer than either of us had expected
+that he would; but now he wheeled back his chair and stood up, a pillar
+of peril and a mouthful of oaths.
+
+"Is that all you've come to say?" he thundered. "If so, you young devil,
+out you go!"
+
+"No, it isn't," said I, spreading out a document attached to the cards of
+receipt which Raffles had obtained from Teddy Garland; these I had
+managed to extract without anything else from the inner pocket in which I
+had been trying to empty out Raffles's envelope. "Here," I continued, "is
+a letter, written only yesterday, by you to Mr. Garland, in which you
+say, among other very insolent things: 'This is final, and absolutely no
+excuses of any kind will be tolerated or accepted. You have given ten
+times more trouble than your custom is worth, and I shall be glad to get
+rid of you. So you had better pay up before twelve o'clock to-morrow, as
+you may depend that the above threats will be carried out to the very
+letter, and steps will be taken to carry them into effect at that hour.
+This is your dead and last chance, and the last time I will write you on
+the subject.'"
+
+"So it is," said Levy with an oath. "This is a very bad case, Mr.
+Raffles."
+
+"I agree," said I. "And may I ask if you propose to 'get rid' of Mr.
+Garland by making him 'pay up' in full?"
+
+"Before twelve o'clock to-day," said Dan Levy, with a snap of his
+prize-fighting jaws.
+
+"Eight hundred, first and last, for the three hundred he borrowed a
+year ago?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Surely that's very hard on the boy," I said, reaching the conciliatory
+stage by degrees on which Raffles paid me many compliments later; but at
+the time he remarked, "I should say it was his own fault."
+
+"Of course it is, Mr. Raffles," cried the moneylender, taking a more
+conciliatory tone himself. "It was my money; it was my three 'undred
+golden sovereigns; and you can sell what's yours for what it'll fetch,
+can't you?"
+
+"Obviously," said Raffles.
+
+"Very well, then, money's like anything else; if you haven't got it, and
+can't beg or earn it, you've got to buy it at a price. I sell my money,
+that's all. And I've a right to sell it at a fancy price if I can get a
+fancy price for it. A man may be a fool to pay my figure; that depends
+'ow much he wants the money at the time, and it's his affair, not mine.
+Your gay young friend was all right if he hadn't defaulted, but a
+defaulter deserves to pay through the nose, and be damned to him. It
+wasn't me let your friend in; he let in himself, with his eyes open. Mr.
+Garland knew very well what I was charging him, and what I shouldn't
+'esitate to charge over and above if he gave me half a chance. Why should
+I? Wasn't it in the bond? What do you all think I run my show for? It's
+business, Mr. Raffles, not robbery, my dear sir. All business is
+robbery, if you come to that. But you'll find mine is all above-board and
+in the bond."
+
+"A very admirable exposition," said Raffles weightily.
+
+"Not that it applies to you, Mr. Raffles," the other was adroit enough to
+add. "Mr. Garland was no friend of mine, and he was a fool, whereas I
+hope I may say that you're the one and not the other."
+
+"Then it comes to this," said I, "that you mean him to pay up in full
+this morning?"
+
+"By noon, and it's just gone ten."
+
+"The whole seven hundred pounds?"
+
+"Sterling," said Mr. Levy "No cheques entertained."
+
+"Then," said I, with an air of final defeat, "there's nothing for it but
+to follow my instructions and pay you now on the nail!"
+
+I did not look at Levy, but I heard the sudden intake of his breath at
+the sight of my bank-notes, and I felt its baleful exhalation on my
+forehead as I stooped and began counting them out upon his desk. I had
+made some progress before he addressed me in terms of protest. There was
+almost a tremor in his voice. I had no call to be so hasty; it looked as
+though I had been playing a game with him. Why couldn't I tell him I had
+the money with me all the time? The question was asked with a sudden
+oath, because I had gone on counting it out regardless of his overtures.
+I took as little notice of his anger.
+
+"And now, Mr. Levy," I concluded, "may I ask you to return me Mr.
+Garland's promissory note?"
+
+"Yes, you may ask and you shall receive!" he snarled, and opened his safe
+so violently that the keys fell out. Raffles replaced them with exemplary
+promptitude while the note of hand was being found.
+
+The evil little document was in my possession at last. Levy roared down
+the tube, and the young man of the imperfect diction duly appeared.
+
+"Take that young biter," cried Levy, "and throw him into the street. Call
+up Moses to lend you a 'and."
+
+But the first murderer stood nonplussed, looking from Raffles to me, and
+finally inquiring which biter his master meant.
+
+"That one!" bellowed the money-lender, shaking a lethal fist at me. "Mr.
+Raffles is a friend o' mine."
+
+"But 'e'th a friend of 'ith too," lisped the young man. "Thimeon Markth
+come acroth the thtreet to tell me tho. He thaw them thake handth
+outthide our plathe, after he'd theen 'em arm-in-arm in Piccadilly, 'an
+he come in to thay tho in cathe--"
+
+But the youth of limited articulation was not allowed to finish his
+explanation; he was grasped by the scruff of the neck and kicked and
+shaken out of the room, and his collar flung after him. I heard him
+blubbering on the stairs as Levy locked the door and put the key in his
+pocket. But I did not hear Raffles slip into the swivel chair behind
+the desk, or know that he had done so until the usurer and I turned
+round together.
+
+"Out of that!" blustered Levy.
+
+But Raffles tilted the chair back on its spring and laughed softly
+in his face.
+
+"Not if I know it," said he. "If you don't open the door in about one
+minute I shall require this telephone of yours to ring up the police."
+
+"The police, eh?" said Levy, with a sinister recovery of self-control.
+"You'd better leave that to me, you precious pair of swindlers!"
+
+"Besides," continued Raffles, "of course you keep an _argumentum ad
+hominem_ in one of these drawers. Ah, here it is, and just as well in my
+hands as in yours!"
+
+He had opened the top drawer in the right-hand pedestal, and taken
+therefrom a big bulldog revolver; it was the work of few moments to empty
+its five chambers, and hand the pistol by its barrel to the owner.
+
+"Curse you!" hissed the latter, hurling it into the fender with a fearful
+clatter. "But you'll pay for this, my fine gentlemen; this isn't sharp
+practice, but criminal fraud."
+
+"The burden of proof," said Raffles, "lies with you. Meanwhile, will you
+be good enough to open that door instead of looking as sick as a cold
+mud-poultice?"
+
+The money-lender had, indeed, turned as grey as his hair; and his
+eyebrows, which were black and looked dyed, stood out like smears of ink.
+Nevertheless, the simile which Raffles had employed with his own
+unfortunate facility was more picturesque than discreet. I saw it set Mr.
+Shylock thinking. Luckily, the evil of the day was sufficient for it and
+him; but so far from complying, he set his back to the locked door and
+swore a sweet oath never to budge.
+
+"Oh, very well!" resumed Raffles, and the receiver was at his ear without
+more ado. "Is that the Exchange? Give me nine-two-double-three Gerrard,
+will you?"
+
+"It's fraud," reiterated Levy. "And you know it."
+
+"It's nothing of the sort, and _you_ know it," murmured Raffles, with
+the proper pre-occupation of the man at the telephone.
+
+"You lent the money," I added. "That's your business. It's nothing to do
+with you what he chooses to do with it."
+
+"He's a cursed swindler," hissed Levy. "And you're his damned decoy!"
+
+I was not sorry to see Raffles's face light up across the desk.
+
+"Is that Howson, Anstruther and Martin?--they're only my solicitors, Mr.
+Levy.... Put me through to Mr. Martin, please.... That you, Charlie? ...
+You might come in a cab to Jermyn Street--I forget the number--Dan
+Levy's, the money-lender's--thanks, old chap! ... Wait a bit, Charlie--a
+constable...."
+
+But Dan Levy had unlocked his door and flung it open.
+
+"There you are, you scoundrels! But we'll meet again, my fine
+swell-mobsmen!"
+
+Raffles was frowning at the telephone.
+
+"I've been cut off," said he. "Wait a bit! Clear call for you, Mr. Levy,
+I believe!"
+
+And they changed places, without exchanging another word until Raffles
+and I were on the stairs.
+
+"Why, the 'phone's not even _through!_" yelled the money-lender,
+rushing out.
+
+"But _we_ are, Mr. Levy!" cried Raffles. And down we ran into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Thin Air
+
+
+Raffles hailed a passing hansom, and had bundled me in before I realised
+that he was not coming with me.
+
+"Drive down to the club for Teddy's cricket-bag," said he; "we'll make
+him get straight into flannels to save time. Order breakfast for three in
+half-an-hour precisely, and I'll tell him everything before you're back."
+
+His eyes were shining with the prospect as I drove away, not sorry to
+escape the scene of that young man's awakening to better fortune than he
+deserved. For in my heart I could not quite forgive the act in which
+Raffles and I had caught him overnight. Raffles might make as light of it
+as he pleased; it was impossible for another to take his affectionately
+lenient view, not of the moral question involved, but of the breach of
+faith between friend and friend. My own feeling in the matter, however,
+if a little jaundiced, was not so strong as to prevent me from gloating
+over the victory in which I had just assisted. I thought of the notorious
+extortioner who had fallen to our unscrupulous but not indictable wiles;
+and my heart tinkled with the hansom bell. I thought of the good that we
+had done for once, of the undoubted wrong we had contrived to right by a
+species of justifiable chicanery. And I forgot all about the youth whose
+battle we had fought and won, until I found myself ordering his
+breakfast, and having his cricket-bag taken out to my cab.
+
+Raffles was waiting for me in the Albany courtyard. I thought he was
+frowning at the sky, which was not what it had been earlier in the
+morning, until I remembered how little time there was to lose.
+
+"Haven't you seen anything of him?" he cried as I jumped out.
+
+"Of whom, Raffles?"
+
+"Teddy, of course!"
+
+"Teddy Garland? Has he gone out?"
+
+"Before I got in," said Raffles, grimly. "I wonder where the devil he
+is!"
+
+He had paid the cabman and taken down the bag himself. I followed him up
+to his rooms.
+
+"But what's the meaning of it, Raffles?"
+
+"That's what I want to know."
+
+"Could he have gone out for a paper?"
+
+"They were all here before I went. I left them on his bed."
+
+"Or for a shave?"
+
+"That's more likely; but he's been out nearly an hour."
+
+"But you can't have been gone much longer yourself, Raffles, and I
+understood you left him fast asleep?"
+
+"That's the worst of it, Bunny. He must have been shamming. Barraclough
+saw him go out ten minutes after me."
+
+"Could you have disturbed him when you went?"
+
+Raffles shook his head.
+
+"I never shut a door more carefully in my life. I made row enough when I
+came back, Bunny, on purpose to wake him up, and I can tell you it gave
+me a turn when there wasn't a sound from in there! He'd shut all the
+doors after him; it was a second or two before I had the pluck to open
+them. I thought something horrible had happened!"
+
+"You don't think so still?"
+
+"I don't know what to think," said Raffles, gloomily; "nothing has panned
+out as I thought it would. You must remember that we have given ourselves
+away to Dan Levy, whatever else we have done, and without doubt set up
+the enemy of our lives in the very next street. It's close quarters,
+Bunny; we shall have an expert eye upon us for some time to come. But I
+should rather enjoy that than otherwise, if only Teddy hadn't bolted in
+this rotten way."
+
+Never had I known Raffles in so pessimistic a mood. I did not share his
+sombre view of either matter, though I confined my remarks to the one
+that seemed to weigh most heavily on his mind.
+
+"A guinea to a gooseberry," I wagered, "that you find your man safe and
+sound at Lord's."
+
+"I rang them up ten minutes ago," said Raffles. "They hadn't heard of him
+then; besides, here's his cricket-bag."
+
+"He may have been at the club when I fetched it away--I never asked."
+
+"I did, Bunny. I rang them up as well, just after you had left."
+
+"Then what about his father's house?"
+
+"That's our one chance," said Raffles. "They're not on the telephone, but
+now that you're here I've a good mind to drive out and see if Teddy's
+there. You know what a state he was in last night, and you know how a
+thing can seem worse when you wake and remember it than it did at the
+time it happened. I begin to hope he's gone straight to old Garland with
+the whole story; in that case he's bound to come back for his kit; and by
+Jove, Bunny, there's a step upon the stairs!"
+
+We had left the doors open behind us, and a step it was, ascending
+hastily enough to our floor. But it was not the step of a very young man,
+and Raffles was the first to recognise the fact; his face fell as we
+looked at each other for a single moment of suspense; in another he was
+out of the room, and I heard him greeting Mr. Garland on the landing.
+
+"Then you haven't brought Teddy with you?" I heard Raffles add.
+
+"Do you mean to say he isn't here?" replied so pleasant a voice--in
+accents of such acute dismay--that Mr. Garland had my sympathy
+before we met.
+
+"He has been," said Raffles, "and I'm expecting him back every minute.
+Won't you come in and wait, Mr. Garland?"
+
+The pleasant voice made an exclamation of premature relief; the pair
+entered, and I was introduced to the last person I should have suspected
+of being a retired brewer at all, much less of squandering his money in
+retirement as suggested by his son. I was prepared for a conventional
+embodiment of reckless prosperity, for a pseudo-military type in louder
+purple and finer linen than the real thing. I shook hands instead with a
+gentle, elderly man, whose kindly eyes beamed bravely amid careworn
+furrows, and whose slightly diffident yet wholly cordial address won my
+heart outright.
+
+"So you've lost no time in welcoming the wanderer!" said he. "You're
+nearly as bad as my boy, who was quite bent on seeing Raffles last night
+or first thing this morning. He told me he should stay the night in town
+if necessary, and he evidently has."
+
+There was still a trace of anxiety in the father's manner, but there was
+also a twinkle in his eyes, which kindled with genial fires as Raffles
+gave a perfectly truthful account of the young man's movements (as
+distinct from his words and deeds) overnight.
+
+"And what do you think of his great news?" asked Mr. Garland. "Was it a
+surprise to you, Raffles?"
+
+Raffles shook his head with a rather weary smile, and I sat up in my
+chair. What great news was this?
+
+"This son of mine has just got engaged," explained Mr. Garland for my
+benefit. "And as a matter of fact it's his engagement that brings me
+here; you gentlemen mustn't think I want to keep an eagle eye upon him;
+but Miss Belsize has just wired to say she is coming up early to go with
+us to the match, instead of meeting at Lord's, and I thought she would be
+so disappointed not to find Teddy, especially as they are bound to see
+very little of each other all day."
+
+I for my part was wondering why I had not heard of Miss Belsize or this
+engagement from Raffles. He must himself have heard of it last thing at
+night in the next room, while I was star-gazing here at the open window.
+Yet in all the small hours he had never told me of a circumstance which
+extenuated young Garland's conduct if it did nothing else. Even now it
+was not from Raffles that I received either word or look of explanation.
+But his face had suddenly lit up.
+
+"May I ask," he exclaimed, "if the telegram was to Teddy or to you,
+Mr. Garland?"
+
+"It was addressed to Teddy, but of course I opened it in his absence."
+
+"Could it have been an answer to an invitation or suggestion of his?"
+
+"Very easily. They had lunch together yesterday, and Camilla might have
+had to consult Lady Laura."
+
+"Then that's the whole thing!" cried Raffles. "Teddy was on his way home
+while you were on yours into town! How did you come?"
+
+"In the brougham."
+
+"Through the Park?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"While he was in a hansom in Knightsbridge or Kensington Gore! That's
+how you missed him," said Raffles confidently. "If you drive straight
+back you'll be in time to take him on to Lord's."
+
+Mr. Garland begged us both to drive back with him; and we thought we
+might; we decided that we would, and were all three under way in about a
+minute. Yet it was considerably after eleven when we bowled through
+Kensington to a house that I had never seen before, a house since swept
+away by the flowing tide of flats, but I can still see every stone and
+slate of it as clearly as on that summer morning more than ten years ago.
+It stood just off the thoroughfare, in grounds of its own out of all
+keeping with their metropolitan environment; they ran from one
+side-street to another, and further back than we could see. Vivid lawn
+and towering tree, brilliant beds and crystal vineries, struck one more
+forcibly (and favourably) than the mullioned and turreted mansion of a
+house. And yet a double stream of omnibuses rattled incessantly within a
+few yards of the steps on which the three of us soon stood nonplussed.
+
+Mr. Edward had not been seen or heard of at the house. Neither had Miss
+Belsize arrived; that was the one consolatory feature.
+
+"Come into the library," said Mr. Garland; and when we were among his
+books, which were somewhat beautifully bound and cased in glass, he
+turned to Raffles and added hoarsely: "There's something in all this I
+haven't been told, and I insist on knowing what it is."
+
+"But you know as much as I do," protested Raffles. "I went out leaving
+Teddy asleep and came back to find him flown."
+
+"What time was that?"
+
+"Between nine and half-past when I went out. I was away nearly an hour."
+
+"Why leave him asleep at that time of morning?"
+
+"I wanted him to have every minute he could get. We had been sitting up
+rather late."
+
+"But why, Raffles? What could you have to talk about all night when you
+were tired and it was Teddy's business to keep fresh for to-day? Why,
+after all, should he want to see you the moment you got back? He's not
+the first young fellow who's got rather suddenly engaged to a charming
+girl; is he in any trouble about it, Raffles?"
+
+"About his engagement--not that I'm aware."
+
+"Then he is in some trouble?"
+
+"He was, Mr. Garland," answered Raffles. "I give you my word that he
+isn't now."
+
+Mr. Garland grasped the back of a chair.
+
+"Was it some money trouble, Raffles? Of course, if my boy has given you
+his confidence, I have no right simply as his father--"
+
+"It is hardly that, sir," said Raffles, gently; "it is I who have no
+right to give him away. But if you don't mind leaving it at that, Mr.
+Garland, there is perhaps no harm in my saying that it _was_ about some
+little temporary embarrassment that Teddy was so anxious to see me."
+
+"And you helped him?" cried the poor man, plainly torn between gratitude
+and humiliation.
+
+"Not out of my pocket," replied Raffles, smiling. "The matter was not so
+serious as Teddy thought; it only required adjustment."
+
+"God bless you, Raffles!" murmured Mr. Garland, with a catch in his
+voice. "I won't ask for a single detail. My poor boy went to the right
+man; he knew better than to come to me. Like father, like son!" he
+muttered to himself, and dropped into the chair he had been handling, and
+bent his head over his folded arms.
+
+He seemed to have forgotten the untoward effect of Teddy's disappearance
+in the peculiar humiliation of its first cause. Raffles took out his
+watch, and held up the dial for me to see. It was after the half-hour
+now; but at this moment a servant entered with a missive, and the master
+recovered his self-control.
+
+"This'll be from Teddy!" he cried, fumbling with his glasses. "No; it's
+for him, and by special messenger. I'd better open it. I don't suppose
+it's Miss Belsize again."
+
+"Miss Belsize is in the drawing-room, sir," said the man. "She said you
+were not to be disturbed."
+
+"Oh, tell her we shan't be long," said Mr. Garland, with a new strain of
+trouble in his tone. "Listen to this--listen to this," he went on before
+the door was shut: "'What has happened? Lost toss. Whipham plays if you
+don't turn up in time.--J. S.'"
+
+"Jack Studley," said Raffles, "the Cambridge skipper."
+
+"I know! I know! And Whipham's reserve man, isn't he?"
+
+"And another wicket-keeper, worse luck!" exclaimed Raffles. "If he turns
+out and takes a single ball, and Teddy is only one over late, it will
+still be too late for him to play."
+
+"Then it's too late already," said Mr. Garland, sinking back into his
+chair with a groan.
+
+"But that note from Studley may have been half-an-hour on the way."
+
+"No, Raffles, it's not an ordinary note; it's a message telephoned
+straight from Lord's--probably within the last few minutes--to a
+messenger office not a hundred yards from this door!"
+
+Mr. Garland sat staring miserably at the carpet; he was beginning to look
+ill with perplexity and suspense. Raffles himself, who had turned his
+back upon us with a shrug of acquiescence in the inevitable, was a
+monument of discomfiture as he stood gazing through a glass door into the
+adjoining conservatory. There was no actual window in the library, but
+this door was a single sheet of plate-glass into which a man might well
+have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a
+panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and
+straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with
+an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy
+fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in
+the body of the room.
+
+"It's raining!" he cried, waving a hand above his head. "Have you a
+barometer, Mr. Garland?"
+
+"That's an aneroid under the lamp-bracket."
+
+"How often do you set the indicator?"
+
+"Last thing every night. I remember it was between Fair and Change when I
+went to bed. It made me anxious."
+
+"It may make you thankful now. It's between Change and Rain this
+morning. And the rain's begun, and while there's rain there's hope!"
+
+In a twinkling Raffles had regained all his own irresistible buoyancy and
+assurance. But the older man was not capable of so prompt a recovery.
+
+"Something has happened to my boy!"
+
+"But not necessarily anything terrible."
+
+"If I knew what, Raffles--if only I knew what!"
+
+Raffles eyed the pale and twitching face with sidelong solicitude. He
+himself had the confident expression which always gave me confidence; the
+rattle on the conservatory roof was growing louder every minute.
+
+"I intend to find out," said he; "and if the rain goes on long enough,
+we may still see Teddy playing when it stops. But I shall want your
+help, sir."
+
+"I am ready to go with you anywhere, Raffles."
+
+"You can only help me, Mr. Garland, by staying where you are."
+
+"Where I am?"
+
+"In the house all day," said Raffles firmly. "It is absolutely essential
+to my idea."
+
+"And that is, Raffles?"
+
+"To save Teddy's face, in the first instance. I shall drive straight up
+to Lord's, in your brougham if I may. I know Studley rather well; he
+shall keep Teddy's place open till the last possible moment."
+
+"But how shall you account for his absence?" I asked.
+
+"I shall account for it all right," said Raffles darkly. "I can save his
+face for the time being, at all events at Lord's."
+
+"But that's the only place that matters," said I.
+
+"On the contrary, Bunny, this very house matters even more as long as
+Miss Belsize is here. You forget that they're engaged, and that she's in
+the next room now."
+
+"Good God!" whispered Mr. Garland. "I had forgotten that myself."
+
+"She is the last who must know of this affair," said Raffles, with, I
+thought, undue authority. "And you are the only one who can keep it from
+her, sir."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Miss Belsize mustn't go up to Lord's this morning. She would only spoil
+her things, and you may tell her from me that there would be no play for
+an hour after this, even if it stopped this minute, which it won't.
+Meanwhile let her think that Teddy's weatherbound with the rest of them
+in the pavilion; but she mustn't come until you hear from me again; and
+the best way to keep her here is to stay with her yourself."
+
+"And when may I expect to hear?" asked Mr. Garland as Raffles held
+out his hand.
+
+"Let me see. I shall be at Lord's in less than twenty minutes; another
+five or ten should polish off Studley; and then I shall barricade myself
+in the telephone-box and ring up every hospital in town! You see, it may
+be an accident after all, though I don't think so. You won't hear from
+me on the point unless it is; the fewer messengers flying about the
+better, if you agree with me as to the wisdom of keeping the matter dark
+at this end."
+
+"Oh, yes, I agree with you, Raffles; but it will be a terribly hard
+task for me!"
+
+"It will, indeed, Mr. Garland. Yet no news is always good news, and I
+promise to come straight to you the moment I have news of any kind."
+
+With that they shook hands, our host with an obvious reluctance that
+turned to a less understandable dismay as I also prepared to take my
+leave of him.
+
+"What!" cried he, "am I to be left quite alone to hoodwink that poor girl
+and hide my own anxiety?"
+
+"There's no reason why you should come, Bunny," said Raffles to me. "If
+either of them is a one-man job, it's mine."
+
+Our host said no more, but he looked at me so wistfully that I could not
+but offer to stay with him if he wished it; and when at length the
+drawing-room door had closed upon him and his son's _fiancee_, I took an
+umbrella from the stand and saw Raffles through the providential downpour
+into the brougham.
+
+"I'm sorry, Bunny," he muttered between the butler in the porch and the
+coachman on the box. "This sort of thing is neither in my line nor yours,
+but it serves us right for straying from the path of candid crime. We
+should have opened a safe for that seven hundred."
+
+"But what do you really think is at the bottom of this extraordinary
+disappearance?"
+
+"Some madness or other, I'm afraid; but if that boy is still in the land
+of the living, I shall have him before the sun goes down on his
+insanity."
+
+"And what about this engagement of his?" I pursued. "Do you
+disapprove of it?"
+
+"Why on earth should I?" asked Raffles, rather sharply, as he plunged
+from under my umbrella into the brougham.
+
+"Because you never told me when he told you," I replied. "Is the girl
+beneath him?"
+
+Raffles looked at me inscrutably with his clear blue eyes.
+
+"You'd better find out for yourself," said he. "Tell the coachman to
+hurry up to Lord's--and pray that this rain may last!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Camilla Belsize
+
+
+It would be hard to find a better refuge on a rainy day than the
+amphibious retreat described by Raffles as a "country house in
+Kensington." There was a good square hall, full of the club comforts so
+welcome in a home, such as magazines and cigarettes, and a fire when the
+rain set in. The usual rooms opened off the hall, and the library was not
+the only one that led on into the conservatory; the drawing-room was
+another, in which I heard voices as I lit a cigarette among the palms and
+tree-ferns. It struck me that poor Mr. Garland was finding it hard work
+to propitiate the lady whom Raffles had deemed unworthy of mention
+overnight. But I own I was in no hurry to take over the invidious task.
+To me it need prove nothing more; to him, anguish; but I could not help
+feeling that even as matters stood I was quite sufficiently embroiled in
+these people's affairs. Their name had been little more than a name to me
+until the last few hours. Only yesterday I might have hesitated to nod to
+Teddy Garland at the club, so seldom had we met. Yet here was I helping
+Raffles to keep the worst about the son from the father's knowledge, and
+on the point of helping that father to keep what might easily prove worse
+still from his daughter-in-law to be. And all the time there was the
+worst of all to be hidden from everybody concerning Raffles and me!
+
+Meanwhile I explored a system of flower-houses and vineries that ran out
+from the conservatory in a continuous chain--each link with its own
+temperature and its individual scent--and not a pane but rattled and
+streamed beneath the timely torrent. It was in a fernery where a playing
+fountain added its tuneful drop to the noisy deluge that the voices of
+the drawing-room sounded suddenly at my elbow, and I was introduced to
+Miss Belsize before I could recover from my surprise. My foolish face
+must have made her smile in spite of herself, for I did not see quite the
+same smile again all day; but it made me her admirer on the spot, and I
+really think she warmed to me for amusing her even for a moment.
+
+So we began rather well; and that was a mercy in the light of poor Mr.
+Garland's cynically prompt departure; but we did not go on quite as well
+as we had begun. I do not say that Miss Belsize was in a bad temper, but
+emphatically she was not pleased, and I for one had the utmost sympathy
+with her displeasure. She was simply but exquisitely dressed, with
+unostentatious touches of Cambridge blue and a picture hat that really
+was a picture. Yet on a perfect stranger in a humid rockery she was
+wasting what had been meant for mankind at Lord's. The only consolation I
+could suggest was that by this time Lord's would be more humid still.
+
+"And so there's something to be said for being bored to tears under
+shelter, Miss Belsize." Miss Belsize did not deny that she was bored.
+
+"But there's plenty of shelter there," said she.
+
+"Packed with draggled dresses and squelching shoes! You might swim for it
+before they admitted you to that Pavilion, you know."
+
+"But if the ground's under water, how can they play to-day?"
+
+"They can't, Miss Belsize, I don't mind betting."
+
+That was a rash remark.
+
+"Then why doesn't Teddy come back?"
+
+"Oh, well, you know," I hedged, "you can never be quite absolutely sure.
+It might clear up. They're bound to give it a chance until the afternoon.
+And the players can't leave till stumps are drawn."
+
+"I should have thought Teddy could have come home to lunch," said Miss
+Belsize, "even if he had to go back afterwards."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he did come," said I, conceiving the bare
+possibility: "and A.J. with him."
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Raffles?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Belsize; he's the only A.J. that counts!"
+
+Camilla Belsize turned slightly in the basket-chair to which she had
+confided her delicate frock, and our eyes met almost for the first time.
+Certainly we had not exchanged so long a look before, for she had been
+watching the torpid goldfish in the rockery pool, and I admiring her bold
+profile and the querulous poise of a fine head as I tried to argue her
+out of all desire for Lord's. Suddenly our eyes met, as I say, and hers
+dazzled me; they were soft and yet brilliant, tender and yet cynical,
+calmly reckless, audaciously sentimental--all that and more as I see them
+now on looking back; but at the time I was merely dazzled.
+
+"So you and Mr. Raffles are great friends?" said Miss Belsize, harking
+back to a remark of Mr. Garland's in introducing us.
+
+"Rather!" I replied.
+
+"Are you as great a friend of his as Teddy is?"
+
+I liked that, but simply said I was an older friend. "Raffles and I were
+at school together," I added loftily.
+
+"Really? I should have thought he was before your time."
+
+"No, only senior to me. I happened to be his fag."
+
+"And what sort of a schoolboy was Mr. Raffles?" inquired Miss Belsize,
+not by any means in the tone of a devotee. But I reflected that her own
+devotion was bespoke, and not improbably tainted with some little
+jealousy of Raffles.
+
+"He was the most Admirable Crichton who was ever at the school," said I:
+"captain of the eleven, the fastest man in the fifteen, athletic
+champion, and an ornament of the Upper Sixth."
+
+"And you worshipped him, I suppose?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+My companion had been taking renewed interest in the goldfish; now she
+looked at me again with the cynical light full on in her eyes.
+
+"You must be rather disappointed in him now!"
+
+"Disappointed! Why?" I asked with much outward amusement. But I was
+beginning to feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Of course I don't know much about him," remarked Miss Belsize as though
+she cared less.
+
+"But does anybody know anything of Mr. Raffles except as a cricketer?"
+
+"I do," said I, with injudicious alacrity.
+
+"Well," said Miss Belsize, "what else is he?"
+
+"The best fellow in the world, among other things."
+
+"But what other things?"
+
+"Ask Teddy!" I said unluckily.
+
+"I have," replied Miss Belsize. "But Teddy doesn't know. He often
+wonders how Mr. Raffles can afford to play so much cricket without doing
+any work."
+
+"Does he, indeed!"
+
+"Many people do."
+
+"And what do they say about him?"
+
+Miss Belsize hesitated, watching me for a moment and the goldfish rather
+longer. The rain sounded louder, and the fountain as though it had been
+turned on again, before she answered:
+
+"More than their prayers, no doubt!"
+
+"Do you mean," I almost gasped, "as to the way Raffles gets his living?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You might tell me the kind of things they say, Miss Belsize!"
+
+"But if there's no truth in them?"
+
+"I'll soon tell you if there is or not."
+
+"But suppose I don't care either way?" said Miss Belsize with a
+brilliant smile.
+
+"Then I care so much that I should be extremely grateful to you."
+
+"Mind, I don't believe it myself, Mr. Manders."
+
+"You don't believe--"
+
+"That Mr. Raffles lives by his wits and--his cricket!"
+
+I jumped to my feet.
+
+"Is that all they say about him?" I cried.
+
+"Isn't it enough?" asked Miss Belsize, astonished in her turn at my
+demeanour.
+
+"Oh, quite enough, quite enough!" said I. "It's only the most
+scandalously unfair and utterly untrue report that ever got
+about--that's all!"
+
+This heavy irony was, of course, intended to convey the impression that
+one's first explosion of relief had been equally ironical. But I was to
+discover that Camilla Belsize was never easily deceived; it was
+unpleasantly apparent in her bold eyes before she opened her firm mouth.
+
+"Yet you seemed to expect something worse," she said at length.
+
+"What could be worse?" I asked, my back against the wall of my own
+indiscretion. "Why, a man like A.J. Raffles would rather be any mortal
+thing than a paid amateur!"
+
+"But you haven't told me what he _is_, Mr. Manders."
+
+"And you haven't told me, Miss Belsize, why you're so interested in A. J.
+after all!" I retorted, getting home for once, and sitting down again on
+the strength of it.
+
+But Miss Belsize was my superior to the last; in the single moment of my
+ascendency she made me blush for it and for myself. She would be quite
+frank with me: my friend Mr. Raffles did interest her rather more than
+she cared to say. It was because Teddy thought so much of him, that was
+the only reason, and her one excuse for all inquisitive questions and
+censorious remarks. I must have thought her very rude; but now I knew.
+Mr. Raffles had been such a friend to Teddy; sometimes she wondered
+whether he was quite a good friend; and there I had "the whole thing in a
+nutshell."
+
+I had indeed! And I knew the nut, and had tasted its bitter kernel too
+often to make any mistake about it. Jealousy was its other name. But I
+did not care how jealous Miss Belsize became of Raffles as long as
+jealousy did not beget suspicion; and my mind was not entirely relieved
+on that point.
+
+We dropped the whole subject, however, with some abruptness; and the
+rest of our conversation in the rockery, and in the steaming orchid-house
+and further vineries which we proceeded to explore together, was quite
+refreshingly tame. Yet I think it was on this desultory tour, to the
+still incessant accompaniment of rain on the glasshouses, that Camilla's
+mother took shape in my mind as the Lady Laura Belsize, an apparently
+impecunious widow reduced to "semi-detachment down the river" and
+suburban neighbours whose manners and customs my companion hit off with
+vivacious intolerance. She told me how she had shocked them by smoking
+cigarettes in the back garden, and pronounced a gratuitous conviction
+that I of all people would have been no less scandalised! That was in the
+uttermost vinery, and in another minute two Sullivans were in full blast
+under the vines. I remember discovering that the great brand was not
+unfamiliar to Miss Belsize, and even gathering that it was Raffles
+himself who had made it known to her. Raffles, whom she did not "know
+much about," or consider "quite a good friend" for Teddy Garland!
+
+I was becoming curious to see this antagonistic pair together; but it was
+the middle of the afternoon before Raffles reappeared, though Mr. Garland
+told me he had received an optimistic note from him by special messenger
+earlier in the day. I felt I might have been told a little more,
+considering the intimate part I was already playing as a stranger in a
+strange house. But I was only too thankful to find that Raffles had so
+far infected our host with his confidence as to tide us through luncheon
+with far fewer embarrassments than before; nor did Mr. Garland desert us
+again until the butler with a visitor's card brought about his abrupt
+departure from the conservatory.
+
+Then my troubles began afresh. It stopped raining at last; if Miss
+Belsize could have had her way we should all have started for Lord's that
+minute. I took her into the garden to show her the state of the lawns,
+coldly scintillant with standing water and rimmed by regular canals.
+Lord's would be like them, only fifty times worse; play had no doubt been
+abandoned on that quagmire for the day. Miss Belsize was not so sure
+about that; why should we not drive over and find out? I said that was
+the surest way of missing Teddy. She said a hansom would take us there
+and back in a half-an-hour. I gained time disputing that statement, but
+said if we went at all I was sure Mr. Garland would want to go with us,
+and that in his own brougham. All this on the crown of a sloppy path, and
+when Miss Belsize asked me how many more times I was going to change my
+ground, I could not help looking at her absurd shoes sinking into the
+softened gravel, and saying I thought it was for her to do that. Miss
+Belsize took my advice to the extent of turning upon a submerged heel,
+though with none too complimentary a smile; and then it was that I saw
+what I had been curious to see all day. Raffles was coming down the path
+towards us. And I saw Miss Belsize hesitate and stiffen before shaking
+hands with him.
+
+"They've given it up as a bad job at last," said he. "I've just come from
+Lord's, and Teddy won't be very long."
+
+"Why didn't you bring him with you?" asked Miss Belsize pertinently.
+
+"Well, I thought you ought to know the worst at once," said Raffles,
+rather lamely for him; "and then a man playing in a 'Varsity match is
+never quite his own master, you know. Still, he oughtn't to keep you
+waiting much longer."
+
+It was perhaps unfortunately put; at any rate Miss Belsize took it
+pretty plainly amiss, and I saw her colour rise as she declared she had
+been waiting in the hope of seeing some cricket. Since that was at an
+end she must be thinking of getting home, and would just say good-bye to
+Mr. Garland. This sudden decision took me as much by surprise as I
+believe it took Miss Belsize herself; but having announced her
+intention, however hot-headedly, she proceeded to action by way of the
+conservatory and the library door, while Raffles and I went through into
+the hall the other way.
+
+"I'm afraid I've put my foot in it," said he to me. "But it's just as
+well, since I needn't tell you there's no sign of Teddy up at Lord's."
+
+"Have you been there all day?" I asked him under my breath.
+
+"Except when I went to the office of this rag," replied Raffles,
+brandishing an evening paper that ill deserved his epithet. "See what
+they say about Teddy here."
+
+And I held my breath while Raffles showed me a stupendous statement in
+the stop-press column: it was to the effect that E.M. Garland (Eton and
+Trinity) might be unable to keep wicket for Cambridge after all, "owing
+to the serious illness of his father."
+
+"His father!" I exclaimed. "Why, his father's closeted with somebody or
+other at this very moment behind the door you're looking at!"
+
+"I know, Bunny. I've seen him."
+
+"But what an extraordinary fabrication to get into a decent paper! I
+don't wonder you went to the office about it."
+
+"You'll wonder still less when I tell you I have an old pal on the
+staff."
+
+"Of course you made him take it straight out?"
+
+"On the contrary, Bunny, I persuaded him to put it in!"
+
+And Raffles chuckled in my face as I have known him chuckle over many a
+more felonious--but less incomprehensible--exploit.
+
+"Didn't you see, Bunny, how bad the poor old boy looked in his library
+this morning? That gave me my idea; the fiction is at least founded on
+fact. I wonder you don't see the point; as a matter of fact, there are
+two points, just as there were two jobs I took on this morning; one was
+to find Teddy, and the other was to save his face at Lord's. Well, I
+haven't actually found him yet; but if he's in the land of the living he
+will see this statement, and when he does see it even you may guess what
+he will do! Meanwhile, there's nothing but sympathy for him at Lord's.
+Studley couldn't have been nicer; a place will be kept for Teddy up to
+the eleventh hour to-morrow. And if that isn't killing two birds with one
+stone, Bunny, may I never perform the feat!"
+
+"But what will old Garland say, A. J.?"
+
+"He has already said, Bunny. I told him what I was doing in a note
+before lunch, and the moment I arrived just now he came out to hear what
+I had done. He doesn't mind what I do so long as I find Teddy and save
+his face before the world at large and Miss Belsize in particular. Look
+out, Bunny--here she is!"
+
+The excitement in his whisper was not characteristic of Raffles, but it
+was less remarkable than the change in Camilla Belsize as she entered the
+hall through the drawing-room as we had done before her. For one moment I
+suspected her of eavesdropping; then I saw that all traces of personal
+pique had vanished from her face, and that some anxiety for another had
+taken its place. She came up to Raffles and me as though she had forgiven
+both of us our trespasses of two or three minutes ago.
+
+"I didn't go into the library after all," she said, looking askance at
+the library door. "I am afraid Mr. Garland is having a trying interview
+with somebody. I had just a glimpse of the man's face as I hesitated, and
+I thought I recognised him."
+
+"Who was it?" I asked, for I myself had wondered who the rather
+mysterious visitor might be for whom Mr. Garland had deserted us so
+abruptly in the conservatory, and with whom he was still conferring in
+the hour of so many issues.
+
+"I believe it's a dreadful man I know by sight down the river," said
+Miss Belsize; and hardly had she spoke before the library door opened
+and out came the dreadful man in the portentous person of Dan Levy, the
+usurer of European notoriety, our victim of the morning and our certain
+enemy for life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which We Fail to Score
+
+
+Mr. Levy sailed in with frock-coat flying, shiny hat in hand; he was
+evidently prepared for us, and Raffles for once behaved as though we
+were prepared for Mr. Levy. Of myself I cannot speak. I was ready for a
+terrific scene. But Raffles was magnificent, and to do our enemy justice
+he was quite as good; they faced each other with a nod and a smile of
+mutual suavity, shot with underlying animosity on the one side and
+delightful defiance on the other. Not a word was said or a tone employed
+to betray the true situation between the three of us; for I took my cue
+from the two protagonists just in time to preserve the triple truce.
+Meanwhile Mr. Garland, obviously distressed as he was, and really ill as
+he looked, was not the least successful of us in hiding his emotions;
+for having expressed a grim satisfaction in the coincidence of our all
+knowing each other, he added that he supposed Miss Belsize was an
+exception, and presented Mr. Levy forthwith as though he were an
+ordinary guest.
+
+"You must find a better exception than this young lady!" cried that
+worthy with a certain _aplomb_. "I know you very well by sight, Miss
+Belsize, and your mother, Lady Laura, into the bargain."
+
+"Really?" said Miss Belsize, without returning the compliment at
+her command.
+
+"The bargain!" muttered Raffles to me with sly irony. The echo was not
+meant for Levy's ears, but it reached them nevertheless, and was taken up
+with adroit urbanity.
+
+"I didn't mean to use a trade term," explained the Jew, "though
+bargains, I confess, are somewhat in my line; and I don't often get the
+worst of one, Mr. Raffles; when I do, the other fellow usually lives to
+repent it."
+
+It was said with a laugh for the lady's benefit, but with a gleam of the
+eyes for ours. Raffles answered the laugh with a much heartier one; the
+look he ignored. I saw Miss Belsize beginning to watch the pair, and only
+interrupted by the arrival of the tea-tray, over which Mr. Garland begged
+her to preside. Mr. Garland seemed to have an anxious eye upon us all in
+turn; at Raffles he looked wistfully as though burning to get him to
+himself for further consultation; but the fact that he refrained from
+doing so, coupled with a grimly punctilious manner towards the
+money-lender, gave the impression that his son's whereabouts was no
+longer the sole anxiety.
+
+"And yet," remarked Miss Belsize, as we formed a group about her in the
+firelight, "you seem to have met your match the other day, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"Where was that, Miss Belsize?"
+
+"Somewhere on the Continent, wasn't it? It got into the newspapers, I
+know, but I forget the name of the place."
+
+"Do you mean when my wife and I were robbed at Carlsbad?"
+
+I was holding my breath now as I had not held it all day. Raffles was
+merely smiling into his teacup as one who knew all about the affair.
+
+"Carlsbad it was!" certified Miss Belsize, as though it mattered. "I
+remember now."
+
+"I don't call that meeting your match," said the money-lender. "An
+unarmed man with a frightened wife at his elbow is no match for a
+desperate criminal with a loaded revolver."
+
+"Was it as bad as all that?" whispered Camilla Belsize.
+
+Up to this point one had felt her to be forcing the unlucky topic with
+the best of intentions towards us all; now she was interested in the
+episode for its own sake, and eager for more details than Mr. Levy had a
+mind to impart.
+
+"It makes a good tale, I know," said he, "but I shall prefer telling
+it when they've got the man. If you want to know any more, Miss
+Belsize, you'd better ask Mr. Raffles; 'e was in our hotel, and came
+in for all the excitement. But it was just a trifle too exciting for
+me and my wife."
+
+"Raffles at Carlsbad?" exclaimed Mr. Garland.
+
+Miss Belsize only stared.
+
+"Yes," said Raffles. "That's where I had the pleasure of meeting
+Mr. Levy."
+
+"Didn't you know he was there?" inquired the money-lender of our host.
+And he looked sharply at Raffles as Mr. Garland replied that this was the
+first he had heard of it.
+
+"But it's the first we've seen of each other, sir," said Raffles,
+"except those few minutes this morning. And I told you I only got back
+last night."
+
+"But you never told me you had been at Carlsbad, Raffles!"
+
+"It's a sore subject, you see," said Raffles, with a sigh and a laugh.
+"Isn't it, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"You seem to find it so," replied the moneylender.
+
+They were standing face to face in the firelight, each with a shoulder
+against the massive chimney-piece; and Camilla Belsize was still staring
+at them both from her place behind the tea-tray; and I was watching the
+three of them by turns from the other side of the hall.
+
+"But you're the fittest man I know. Raffles," pursued old Garland with
+terrible tact. "What on earth were you doing at a place like Carlsbad?"
+
+"The cure," said Raffles. "There's nothing else to do there--is there,
+Mr. Levy?"
+
+Levy replied with his eyes on Raffles:
+
+"Unless you've got to cope with a _swell mobsman_ who steals your
+wife's jewels and then gets in such a funk that he practically gives
+them back again!"
+
+The emphasised term was the one that Dan Levy had applied to Raffles and
+myself in his own office that very morning.
+
+"Did he give them back again?" asked Camilla Belsize, breaking her
+silence on an eager note.
+
+Raffles turned to her at once.
+
+"The jewels were found buried in the woods," said he. "Out there
+everybody thought the thief had simply hidden them. But no doubt Mr. Levy
+has the better information."
+
+Mr. Levy smiled sardonically in the firelight. And it was at this point I
+followed the example of Miss Belsize and put in my one belated word.
+
+"I shouldn't have thought there was such a thing as a swell mob in the
+wilds of Austria," said I.
+
+"There isn't," admitted the money-lender readily. "But your true mobsman
+knows his whole blooming Continent as well as Piccadilly Circus. His
+'ead-quarters are in London, but a week's journey at an hour's notice is
+nothing to him if the swag looks worth it. Mrs. Levy's necklace was
+actually taken at Carlsbad, for instance, but the odds are that it was
+marked down at some London theatre--or restaurant, eh, Mr. Raffles?"
+
+"I'm afraid I can't offer an expert opinion," said Raffles very merrily
+as their eyes met. "But if the man was an Englishman and knew that you
+were one, why didn't he bully you in the vulgar tongue?"
+
+"Who told you he didn't?" cried Levy, with a sudden grin that left no
+doubt about the thought behind it. To me that thought had been obvious
+from its birth within the last few minutes; but this expression of it was
+as obvious a mistake.
+
+"Who told me anything about it," retorted Raffles, "except yourself and
+Mrs. Levy? Your gospels clashed a little here and there; but both agreed
+that the fellow threatened you in German as well as with a revolver."
+
+"We thought it was German," rejoined Levy, with dexterity. "It might
+'ave been 'Industani or 'Eathen Chinee for all I know! But there was no
+error about the revolver. I can see it covering me, and his shooting eye
+looking along the barrel into mine--as plainly as I'm looking into yours
+now, Mr. Raffles."
+
+Raffles laughed outright.
+
+"I hope I'm a pleasanter spectacle, Mr. Levy? I remember your telling me
+that the other fellow looked the most colossal cut-throat."
+
+"So he did," said Levy; "he looked a good deal worse than he need to have
+done. His face was blackened and disguised, but his teeth were as white
+as yours are."
+
+"Any other little point in common?"
+
+"I had a good look at the hand that pointed the revolver."
+
+Raffles held out his hands.
+
+"Better have a good look at mine."
+
+"His were as black as his face, but even yours are no smoother or
+better kept."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll clap the bracelets on them yet, Mr. Levy."
+
+"You'll get your wish, I promise you, Mr. Raffles."
+
+"You don't mean to say you've spotted your man?" cried A.J. airily.
+
+"I've got my eye on him!" replied Dan Levy, looking Raffles through
+and through.
+
+"And won't you tell us who he is?" asked Raffles, returning that deadly
+look with smiling interest, but answering a tone as deadly in one that
+maintained the note of persiflage in spite of Daniel Levy.
+
+For Levy alone had changed the key with his last words; to that point I
+declare the whole passage might have gone for banter before the keenest
+eyes and the sharpest ears in Europe. I alone could know what a duel the
+two men were fighting behind their smiles. I alone could follow the finer
+shades, the mutual play of glance and gesture, the subtle tide of covert
+battle. So now I saw Levy debating with himself as to whether he should
+accept this impudent challenge and denounce Raffles there and then. I saw
+him hesitate, saw him reflect. The crafty, coarse, emphatic face was
+easily read; and when it suddenly lit up with a baleful light, I felt we
+might be on our guard against something more malign than mere reckless
+denunciation.
+
+"Yes!" whispered a voice I hardly recognised. "Won't you tell us
+who it was?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Levy, still looking Raffles full in the eyes. "But I
+know all about him now!"
+
+I looked at Miss Belsize; she it was who had spoken, her pale face set,
+her pale lips trembling. I remembered her many questions about Raffles
+during the morning. And I began to wonder whether after all I was the
+only entirely understanding witness of what had passed here in the
+firelit hall.
+
+Mr. Garland, at any rate, had no inkling of the truth. Yet even in that
+kindly face there was a vague indignation and distress, though it passed
+almost as our eyes met. Into his there had come a sudden light; he sprang
+up as one alike rejuvenated and transfigured; there was a quick step in
+the porch, and next instant the truant Teddy was in our midst.
+
+Mr. Garland met him with outstretched hand but not a question or a
+syllable of surprise; it was Teddy who uttered the cry of joy, who stood
+gazing at his father and raining questions upon him as though they had
+the hall to themselves. What was all this in the evening papers? Who had
+put it in? Was there any truth in it at all?
+
+"None, Teddy," said Mr. Garland, with some bitterness; "my health was
+never better in my life."
+
+"Then I can't understand it," cried the son, with savage simplicity. "I
+suppose it's some rotten practical joke; if so, I would give something to
+lay hands on the joker!"
+
+His father was still the only one of us he seemed to see, or could bring
+himself to face in his distress. Not that young Garland had the
+appearance of one who had been through fresh vicissitudes; on the
+contrary, he looked both trimmer and ruddier than overnight; and in his
+sudden fit of passionate indignation, twice the man that one remembered
+so humiliated and abased.
+
+Raffles came forward from the fireside.
+
+"There are some of us," said he, "who won't be so hard on the beggar
+for bringing you back from Lord's at last! You must remember that I'm
+the only one here who has been up there at all, or seen anything of
+you all day."
+
+Their eyes met; and for one moment I thought that Teddy Garland was going
+to repudiate this cool _suggestio falsi_, and tell us all where he had
+really been; but that was now impossible without giving Raffles away, and
+then there was his Camilla in evident ignorance of the disappearance
+which he had expected to find common property. The double circumstance
+was too strong for him; he took her hand with a confused apology which
+was not even necessary. Anybody could see that the boy had burst among us
+with eyes for his father only, and thoughts of nothing but the report
+about his health; as for Miss Belsize, she looked as though she liked him
+the better for it, or it may have been for an excitability rare in him
+and rarely becoming. His pink face burnt like a flame. His eyes were
+brilliant; they met mine at last, and I was warmly greeted; but their
+friendly light burst into a blaze of wrath as almost simultaneously they
+fell upon his bugbear in the background.
+
+"So you've kept your threat, Mr. Levy!" said young Garland, quietly
+enough once he had found his voice.
+
+"I generally do," remarked the money-lender, with a malevolent laugh.
+
+"His threat!" cried Mr. Garland sharply. "What are you talking
+about, Teddy?"
+
+"I will tell you," said the young man. "And you, too!" he added almost
+harshly, as Camilla Belsize rose as though about to withdraw. "You may as
+well know what I am--while there's time. I got into debt--I borrowed from
+this man."
+
+"You borrowed from him?"
+
+It was Mr. Garland speaking in a voice hard to recognise, with an
+emphasis harder still to understand; and as he spoke he glared at Levy
+with new loathing and abhorrence.
+
+"Yes," said Teddy; "he had been pestering me with his beastly circulars
+every week of my first year at Cambridge. He even wrote to me in his own
+fist. It was as though he knew something about me and meant getting me in
+his clutches; and he got me all right in the end, and bled me to the last
+drop as I deserved. I don't complain so far as I'm concerned. It serves
+me right. But I did mean to get through without coming to you again,
+father! I was fool enough to tell him so the other day; that was when he
+threatened to come to you himself. But I didn't think he was such a brute
+as to come to-day!"
+
+"Or such a fool?" suggested Raffles, as he put a piece of paper into
+Teddy's hands.
+
+It was his own original promissory note, the one we had recovered from
+Dan Levy in the morning. Teddy glanced at it, clutched Raffles by the
+hand, and went up to the money-lender as though he meant to take him by
+the throat before us all.
+
+"Does this mean that we're square?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"It means that you are," replied Dan Levy.
+
+"In fact it amounts to your receipt for every penny I ever owed you?"
+
+"Every penny that you owed me, certainly."
+
+"Yet you must come to my father all the same; you must have it both
+ways--your money and your spite as well!"
+
+"Put it that way if you like," said Levy, with a shrug of his massive
+shoulders. "It isn't the case, but what does that matter so long as
+you're 'appy?"
+
+"No," said Teddy through his teeth; "nothing matters now that I've come
+back in time."
+
+"In time for what?"
+
+"To turn you out of the house if you don't clear out this instant!"
+
+The great gross man looked upon his athletic young opponent, and folded
+his arms with a guttural chuckle.
+
+"So you mean to chuck me out, do you?"
+
+"By all my gods, if you make me, Mr. Levy! Here's your hat; there's the
+door; and never you dare to set foot in this house again."
+
+The money-lender took his shiny topper, gave it a meditative polish with
+his sleeve, and actually went as bidden to the threshold of the porch;
+but I saw the suppression of a grin beneath the pendulous nose, a cunning
+twinkle in the inscrutable eyes, and it did not astonish me when the
+fellow turned to deliver a Parthian shot. I was only surprised at the
+harmless character of the shot.
+
+"May I ask whose house it is?" were his words, in themselves notable
+chiefly for the aspirates of undue deliberation.
+
+"Not mine, I know; but I'm the son of the house," returned Teddy
+truculently, "and out you go!"
+
+"Are you so sure that it's even your father's house?" inquired Levy with
+the deadly suavity of which he was capable when he liked. A groan from
+Mr. Garland confirmed the doubt implied in the words.
+
+"The whole place is his," declared the son, with a sort of nervous
+scorn--"freehold and everything."
+
+"The whole place happens to be _mine_--'freehold and everything!'"
+replied Levy, spitting his iced poison in separate syllables. "And as for
+clearing out, that'll be your job, and I've given you a week to do it
+in--the two of you!"
+
+He stood a moment in the open doorway, towering in his triumph, glaring
+on us all in turn, but at Raffles longest and last of all.
+
+"And you needn't think you're going to save the old man," came with
+a passionate hiss, "like you did the son--_because I know all about
+you now_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The State of the Case
+
+
+Of course I made all decent haste from the distressing scene, and of
+course Raffles stayed behind at the solicitation of his unhappy friends.
+I was sorry to desert him in view of one aspect of the case; but I was
+not sorry to dine quietly at the club after the alarms and excitements
+of that disastrous day. The strain had been the greater after sitting up
+all night, and I for one could barely realise all that had happened in
+the twenty-four hours. It seemed incredible that the same midsummer
+night and day should have seen the return of Raffles and our orgy at the
+club to which neither of us belonged; the dramatic douche that saluted
+us at the Albany; the confessions and conferences of the night, the
+overthrow of the money-lender in the morning; and then the untimely
+disappearance of Teddy Garland, my day of it at his father's house, and
+the rain and the ruse that saved the passing situation, only to
+aggravate the crowning catastrophe of the money-lender's triumph over
+Raffles and all his friends.
+
+Already a bewildering sequence to look back upon; but it is in the
+nature of a retrospect to reverse the order of things, and it was the new
+risk run by Raffles that now loomed largest in my mind, and Levy's last
+word of warning to him that rang the loudest in my ears. The apparently
+complete ruin of the Garlands was still a profound mystery to me. But no
+mere mystery can hold the mind against impending peril; and I was less
+exercised to account for the downfall of these poor people than in
+wondering whether it would be followed by that of their friend and mine.
+Had his Carlsbad crime really found him out? Had Levy only refrained from
+downright denunciation of Raffles in order to denounce him more
+effectually to the police? These were the doubts that dogged me at my
+dinner, and on through the evening until Raffles himself appeared in my
+corner of the smoking-room, with as brisk a step and as buoyant a
+countenance as though the whole world and he were one.
+
+"My dear Bunny! I've never given the matter another thought," said he in
+answer to my nervous queries, "and why the deuce should Dan Levy? He has
+scored us off quite handsomely as it is; he's not such a fool as to put
+himself in the wrong by stating what he couldn't possibly prove. They
+wouldn't listen to him at Scotland Yard; it's not their job, in the
+first place. And even if it were, no one knows better than our Mr.
+Shylock that he hasn't a shred of evidence against me."
+
+"Still," said I, "he happens to have hit upon the truth, and that's half
+the battle in a criminal charge."
+
+"Then it's a battle I should love to fight, if the odds weren't all on
+Number One! What happens, after all? He recovers his property--he's not a
+pin the worse off--but because he has a row with me about something else
+he thinks he can identify me with the Teutonic thief! But not in his
+heart, Bunny; he's not such a fool as that. Dan Levy's no fool at all,
+but the most magnificent knave I've been up against yet. If you want to
+hear all about his tactics, come round to the Albany and I'll open your
+eyes for you."
+
+His own were radiant with light and life, though he could not have closed
+them since his arrival at Charing Cross the night before. But midnight
+was his hour. Raffles was at his best when the stars of the firmament are
+at theirs; not at Lord's in the light of day, but at dead of night in the
+historic chambers to which we now repaired. Certainly he had a congenial
+subject in the celebrated Daniel, "a villain after my own black heart,
+Bunny! A foeman worthy of Excalibur itself."
+
+And how he longed for the fierce joy of further combat for a bigger
+stake! But the stake was big enough for even Raffles to shake a hopeless
+head over it. And his face grew grave as he passed from the fascinating
+prowess of his enemy to the pitiful position of his friends.
+
+"They said I might tell you, Bunny, but the figures must keep until I
+have them in black and white. I've promised to see if there really isn't
+a forlorn hope of getting these poor Garlands out of the spider's web.
+But there isn't, Bunny, I don't mind telling you."
+
+"What I can't understand," said I, "is how father and son seem to have
+walked into the same parlour--and the father a business man!"
+
+"Just what he never was," replied Raffles; "that's at the bottom of the
+whole thing. He was born into a big business, but he wasn't born a
+business man. So his partners were jolly glad to buy him out some years
+ago; and then it was that poor old Garland lashed out into the place
+where you spent the day, Bunny. It has been his ruin. The price was
+pretty stiff to start with; you might have a house in most squares and
+quite a good place in the country for what you've got to pay for a cross
+between the two. But the mixture was exactly what attracted these good
+people; for it was not only in Mrs. Garland's time, but it seems she was
+the first to set her heart upon the place. So she was the first to leave
+it for a better world--poor soul--before the glass was on the last
+vinery. And the poor old boy was left to pay the shot alone."
+
+"I wonder he didn't get rid of the whole show," said I, "after that."
+
+"I've no doubt he felt like it, Bunny, but you don't get rid of a place
+like that in five minutes; it's neither fish nor flesh; the ordinary
+house-hunter, with the money to spend, wants to be nearer in or further
+out. On the other hand there was a good reason for holding on. That part
+of Kensington is being gradually rebuilt; old Garland had bought the
+freehold, and sooner or later it was safe to sell at a handsome profit
+for building sites. That was the one excuse for his dip; it was really a
+fine investment, or would have been if he had left more margin for upkeep
+and living expenses. As it was he soon found himself a bit of a beggar on
+horseback. And instead of selling his horse at a sacrifice, he put him at
+a fence that's brought down many a better rider."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"South Africans!" replied Raffles succinctly. "Piles were changing hands
+over them at the time, and poor old Garland began with a lucky dip
+himself; that finished him off. There's no tiger like an old tiger that
+never tasted blood before. Our respected brewer became a reckless
+gambler, lashed at everything, and in due course omitted to cover his
+losses. They were big enough to ruin him, without being enormous.
+Thousands were wanted at almost a moment's notice; no time to fix up an
+honest mortgage; it was a case of pay, fail, or borrow through the nose!
+And old Garland took ten thousand of the best from Dan Levy--and had
+another dip!"
+
+"And lost again?"
+
+"And lost again, and borrowed again, this time on the security of his
+house; and the long and short of it is that he and every stick, brick and
+branch he is supposed to possess have been in Dan Levy's hands for months
+and years."
+
+"On a sort of mortgage?"
+
+"On a perfectly nice and normal mortgage so far as interest went, only
+with a power to call in the money after six months. But old Garland is
+being bled to the heart for iniquitous interest on the first ten
+thousand, and of course he can't meet the call for another fifteen when
+it comes; but he thinks it's all right because Levy doesn't press for the
+dibs. Of course it's all wrong from that moment. Levy has the right to
+take possession whenever he jolly well likes; but it doesn't suit him to
+have the place empty on his hands, it might depreciate a rising property,
+and so poor old Garland is deliberately lulled into a false sense of
+security. And there's no saying how long that state of things might have
+lasted if we hadn't taken a rise out of old Shylock this morning."
+
+"Then it's our fault, A.J.?"
+
+"It's mine," said Raffles remorsefully. "The idea, I believe, was
+altogether mine, Bunny; that's why I'd give my bowing hand to take the
+old ruffian at his word, and save the governor as we did the boy!"
+
+"But how _do_ you account for his getting them both into his toils?" I
+asked. "What was the point of lending heavily to the son when the father
+already owed more than he could pay?"
+
+"There are so many points," said Raffles. "They love you to owe more than
+you can pay; it's not their principal that they care about nearly so much
+as your interest; what they hate is to lose you when once they've got
+you. In this case Levy would see how frightfully keen poor old Garland
+was about his boy--to do him properly and, above all, not to let him see
+what an effort it's become. Levy would find out something about the boy;
+that he's getting hard up himself, that he's bound to discover the old
+man's secret, and capable of making trouble and spoiling things when he
+does. 'Better give him the same sort of secret of his own to keep,' says
+Levy, 'then they'll both hold their tongues, and I'll have one of 'em
+under each thumb till all's blue.' So he goes for Teddy till he gets him,
+and finances father and son in watertight compartments until this libel
+case comes along and does make things look a bit blue for once. Not blue
+enough, mind you, to compel the sale of a big rising property at a
+sacrifice; but the sort of thing to make a man squeeze his small
+creditors all round, while still nursing his top class. So you see how it
+all fits in. They say the old blackguard is briefing Mr. Attorney
+himself; that along with all the rest to scale, will run him into
+thousands even if he wins his case."
+
+"May he lose it!" said I, drinking devoutly, while Raffles lit the
+inevitable Egyptian. I gathered that this plausible exposition of Mr.
+Levy's tactics had some foundation in the disclosures of his hapless
+friends; but his ready grasp of an alien subject was highly
+characteristic of Raffles. I said I supposed Miss Belsize had not
+remained to hear the whole humiliating story, but Raffles replied briefly
+that she had. By putting the words into his mouth, I now learnt that she
+had taken the whole trouble as finely as I should somehow have expected
+from those fearless eyes of hers; that Teddy had offered to release her
+on the spot, and that Camilla Belsize had refused to be released; but
+when I applauded her spirit, Raffles was ostentatiously irresponsive.
+Nothing, indeed, could have been more marked than the contrast between
+his reluctance to discuss Miss Belsize and the captious gusto with which
+she had discussed him. But in each case the inference was that there was
+no love lost between the pair; and in each case I could not help
+wondering why.
+
+There was, however, another subject upon which Raffles exercised a much
+more vexatious reserve. Had I been more sympathetically interested in
+Teddy Garland, no doubt I should have sought an earlier explanation of
+his sensational disappearance, instead of leaving it to the last. My
+interest in the escapade, however, was considerably quickened by the
+prompt refusal of Raffles to tell me a word about it.
+
+"No, Bunny," said he, "I'm not going to give the boy away. His father
+knows, and I know--and that's enough."
+
+"Was it your paragraph in the papers that brought him back?"
+
+Raffles paused, cigarette between fingers, in a leonine perambulation of
+his cage; and his smile was a sufficient affirmative.
+
+"I mustn't talk about it, really, Bunny," was his actual reply. "It
+wouldn't be fair."
+
+"I don't think it's conspicuously fair on me," I retorted, "to set me to
+cover up your pal's tracks, to give me a lie like that to act all day,
+and then not to take one into the secret when he does turn up. I call it
+trading on a fellow's good-nature--not that I care a curse!"
+
+"Then that's all right, Bunny," said Raffles genially. "If you cared I
+should feel bound to apologise to you for the very rotten way you've been
+treated all round; as it is I give you my word not to take you in with me
+if I have another dip at Dan Levy."
+
+"But you're not seriously thinking of it, Raffles?"
+
+"I am if I see half a chance of squaring him short of wilful murder."
+
+"You mean a chance of settling his account against the Garlands?"
+
+"To say nothing of my own account against Dan Levy! I'm spoiling for
+another round with that sportsman, Bunny, for its own sake quite apart
+from these poor pals of mine."
+
+"And you really think the game would be worth a candle that might fire
+the secret mine of your life and blow your character to blazes?"
+
+One could not fraternise with Raffles without contracting a certain
+facility in fluent and florid metaphor; and this parody of his lighter
+manner drew a smile from my model. But it was the bleak smile of a man
+thinking of other things, and I thought he nodded rather sadly. He was
+standing by the open window; he turned and leant out as I had done that
+interminable twenty-four hours ago; and I longed to know his thoughts,
+to guess what it was that I knew he had not told me, that I could not
+divine for myself. There was something behind his mask of gay
+pugnacity; nay, there was something behind the good Garlands and their
+culpably commonplace misfortunes. They were the pretext. But could they
+be the Cause?
+
+The night was as still as the night before. In another moment a flash
+might have enlightened me. But, in the complete cessation of sound in
+the room, I suddenly heard one, soft and stealthy but quite distinct,
+outside the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Triple Alliance
+
+
+It was the intermittent sound of cautious movements, the creak of a sole
+not repeated for a great many seconds, the all but inaudible passing of a
+hand over the unseen side of the door leading into the lobby. It may be
+that I imagined more than I actually heard of the last detail;
+nevertheless I was as sure of what was happening as though the door had
+been plate-glass. Yet there was the outer door between lobby and landing
+and that I distinctly remembered Raffles shutting behind him when we
+entered. Unable to attract his attention now, and never sorry to be the
+one to take the other by surprise, I listened without breathing until
+assurance was doubly sure, then bounded out of my chair without a word.
+And there was a resounding knock at the inner door, even as I flung it
+open upon a special evening edition of Mr. Daniel Levy, a resplendent
+figure with a great stud blazing in a frilled shirt, white waistcoat and
+gloves, opera-hat and cigar, and all the other insignia of a nocturnal
+vulgarian about town.
+
+"May I come in?" said he with unctuous affability.
+
+"May you!" I took it upon myself to shout. "I like that, seeing that you
+came in long ago! I heard you all right--you were listening at the
+door--probably looking through the keyhole--and you only knocked when I
+jumped up to open it!"
+
+"My dear Bunny!" exclaimed Raffles, a reproving hand upon my shoulder.
+And he bade the unbidden guest a jovial welcome.
+
+"But the outer door was shut," I expostulated. "He must have forced it or
+else picked the lock."
+
+"Why not, Bunny? Love isn't the only thing that laughs at locksmiths,"
+remarked Raffles with exasperating geniality.
+
+"Neither are swell mobsmen!" cried Dan Levy, not more ironically than
+Raffles, only with a heavier type of irony.
+
+Raffles conducted him to a chair. Levy stepped behind it and grasped the
+back as though prepared to break the furniture on our heads if necessary.
+Raffles offered him a drink; it was declined with a crafty grin that made
+no secret of a base suspicion.
+
+"I don't drink with the swell mob," said the money-lender.
+
+"My dear Mr. Levy," returned Raffles, "you're the very man I wanted to
+see, and nobody could possibly be more welcome in my humble quarters;
+but that's the fourth time to-day I've heard you make use of an obsolete
+expression. You know as well as I do that the slap-bang-here-we-are-again
+type of work is a thing of the past. Where are the jolly dogs of the old
+song now?"
+
+"'Ere at the Albany!" said Levy. "Here in your rooms, Mr. A.J. Raffles."
+
+"Well, Bunny," said Raffles, "I suppose we must both plead guilty to a
+hair of the jolly dog that bit him--eh?"
+
+"You know what I mean," our visitor ground out through his teeth. "You're
+cracksmen, magsmen, mobsmen, the two of you; so you may as well both own
+up to it."
+
+"Cracksmen? Magsmen? Mobsmen?" repeated Raffles, with his head on one
+side. "What does the kind gentleman mean, Bunny? Wait! I have
+it--thieves! Common thieves!"
+
+And he laughed loud and long in the moneylender's face and mine.
+
+"You may laugh," said Levy. "I'm too old a bird for your chaff; the
+only wonder is I didn't spot you right off when we were abroad." He
+grinned malevolently. "Shall I tell you when I did tumble to it--Mr.
+Ananias J. Raffles?"
+
+"Daniel in the liars' den," murmured Raffles, wiping the tears from his
+eyes. "Oh, yes, do tell us anything you like; this is the best
+entertainment we've had for a long time, isn't it, Bunny?"
+
+"Chalks!" said I.
+
+"I thought of it this morning," proceeded the money-lender, with a
+grim contempt for all our raillery, "when you played your pretty trick
+upon me, so glib and smooth, and up to every move, the pair of you!
+One borrowing the money, and the other paying me back in my very own
+actual coin!"
+
+"Well," said I, "there was no crime in that."
+
+"Oh, yes, there was," replied Levy, with a wide wise grin; "there was the
+one crime you two ought to know better than ever to commit, if you call
+yourselves what I called you just now. The crime that you committed was
+the crime of being found out; but for that I should never have suspected
+friend Ananias of that other job at Carlsbad; no, not even when I saw his
+friends so surprised to hear that he'd been out there--a strapping young
+chap like 'im! Yes," cried the money-lender, lifting the chair and
+jobbing it down on the floor; "this morning was when I thought of it, but
+this afternoon was when I jolly well knew."
+
+Raffles was no longer smiling; his eyes were like points of steel, his
+lips like a steel trap.
+
+"I saw what you thought," said he, disdainfully. "And you still
+seriously think I took your wife's necklace and hid it in the woods?"
+
+"I know you did."
+
+"Then what the devil are you doing here alone?" cried Raffles. "Why
+didn't you bring along a couple of good men and true from Scotland
+Yard? Here I am, Mr. Levy, entirely at your service. Why don't you give
+me in charge?"
+
+Levy chuckled consumedly--ventriloquously--behind his three gold buttons
+and his one diamond stud.
+
+"P'r'aps I'm not such a bad sort as you think," said he. "An' p'r'aps you
+two gentlemen are not such bad sorts as _I_ thought."
+
+"Gentlemen once more, eh?" said Raffles. "Isn't that rather a quick
+recovery for swell magsmen, or whatever we were a minute ago?"
+
+"P'r'aps I never really thought you quite so bad as all that, Mr.
+Raffles."
+
+"Perhaps you never really thought I took the necklace, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"I know you took it," returned Levy, his new tone of crafty conciliation
+softening to a semblance of downright apology. "But I believe you did put
+it back where you knew it'd be found. And I begin to think you only took
+it for a bit o' fun!"
+
+"If he took it at all," said I. "Which is absurd."
+
+"I only wish I had!" exclaimed Raffles, with gratuitous audacity. "I
+agree with you, Mr. Levy, it would have been more like a bit of fun than
+anything that came my way on the human rubbish-heap we were both
+inhabiting for our sins."
+
+"The kind of fun that appeals to you?" suggested Levy, with a very
+shrewd glance.
+
+"It would," said Raffles, "I feel sure."
+
+"'Ow would you care for another bit o' fun like it, Mr. Raffles?"
+
+"Don't say 'another,' please."
+
+"Well, would you like to try your 'and at the game again?"
+
+"Not 'again,' Mr. Levy; and my 'prentice' hand, if you don't mind."
+
+"I beg pardon; my mistake," said Levy, with becoming gravity.
+
+"How would I like to try my prentice hand on picking and stealing for the
+pure fun of the thing? Is that it, Mr. Levy?"
+
+Raffles was magnificent now; but so was the other in his own way. And
+once more I could but admire the tact with which Levy had discarded his
+favourite cudgels, and the surprising play that he was making with the
+buttoned foil.
+
+"It'd be more picking than stealing," said he. "Tricky picking too,
+Raffles, but innocent enough even for an amatoor."
+
+"I thank you, Mr. Levy. So you have a definite case in mind?"
+
+"I have--a case of recovering a man's own property."
+
+"You being the man, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"I being the man, Mr. Raffles."
+
+"Bunny, I begin to see why he didn't bring the police with him!"
+
+I affected to have seen it for some time; thereupon our friend the enemy
+protested that in no circumstances could he have taken such a course. By
+the searchlight of the present he might have detected things which had
+entirely escaped his notice in the past--incriminating things--things
+that would put together into a Case. But, after all, what evidence had he
+against Raffles as yet? Mr. Levy himself propounded the question with
+unflinching candour. He might inform the Metropolitan Police of his
+strong suspicions; and they might communicate with the Austrian police,
+and evidence beyond the belated evidence of his own senses be duly
+forthcoming; but nothing could be done at once, and if Raffles cared to
+endorse his theory of the practical joke, by owning up to that and
+nothing more, then, so far as Mr. Levy was concerned, nothing should ever
+be done at all.
+
+"Except this little innocent recovery of your own property," suggested
+Raffles. "I suppose that's the condition?"
+
+"Condition's not the word I should have employed," said Levy, with a
+shrug.
+
+"Preliminary, then?"
+
+"Indemnity is more the idea. You put me to a lot of trouble by
+abstracting Mrs. Levy's jewels for your own amusement--"
+
+"So you assert, Mr. Levy."
+
+"Well, I may be wrong; that remains to be seen--or not--as you decide,"
+rejoined the Jew, lifting his mask for the moment. "At all events you
+admit that it's the sort of adventure you would like to try. And so I ask
+you to amuse yourself by abstracting something else of mine that 'appens
+to have got into the wrong hands; then, I say, we shall be quits."
+
+"Well," said Raffles, "there's no harm in our hearing what sort of
+property it is, and where you think it's to be found."
+
+The usurer leant forward in his chair; he had long been sitting in the
+one which at first he had seemed inclined to wield as a defensive weapon.
+We all drew together into a smaller triangle. And I found our visitor
+looking specially hard at me for the first time.
+
+"I've seen you, too, before to-day," said he. "I thought I had, after
+you'd gone this morning, and when we met in the afternoon I made sure. It
+was at the Savoy when me and my wife were dining there and you gentlemen
+were at the next table." There was a crafty twinkle in his eye, but the
+natural allusion to the necklace was not made. "I suppose," he continued,
+"you are partners in--amusement? Otherwise I should insist on speaking to
+Mr. Raffles alone."
+
+"Bunny and I are one," said Raffles airily.
+
+"Though two to one--numerically speaking," remarked Levy, with a
+disparaging eye on me. "However, if you're both in the job, so much the
+more chance of bringing it off, I daresay. But you'll never 'ave to
+'andle a lighter swag, gentlemen!"
+
+"More jewellery?" inquired Raffles, as one thoroughly enjoying the joke.
+
+"No--lighter than that--a letter!"
+
+"One little letter?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"Of your own writing, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"No, sir!" thundered the money-lender, just when I could have sworn his
+lips were framing an affirmative.
+
+"I see; it was written to you, not by you."
+
+"Wrong again, Raffles!"
+
+"Then how can the letter be your property, my dear Mr. Levy?"
+
+There was a pause. The money-lender was at visible grips with some new
+difficulty. I watched his heavy but not unhandsome face, and timed the
+moment of mastery by the sudden light in his crafty eyes.
+
+"They think it was written by me," said he. "It's a forgery,
+written on my office paper; if that isn't my property, I should
+like to know what is?"
+
+"It certainly ought to be," returned Raffles, sympathetically. "Of course
+you're speaking of the crucial letter in your case against _Fact_?"
+
+"I am," said Levy, rather startled; "but 'ow did you know I was?"
+
+"I am naturally interested in the case."
+
+"And you've read about it in the papers; they've had a fat sight too much
+to say about it, with the whole case still _sub judice_."
+
+"I read the original articles in _Fact_" said Raffles.
+
+"And the letters I'm supposed to have written?"
+
+"Yes; there was only one of them that struck me as being slap in the
+wind's eye."
+
+"That's the one I want."
+
+"If it's genuine, Mr. Levy, it might easily form the basis of a more
+serious sort of case."
+
+"But it isn't genuine."
+
+"Nor would you be the first plaintiff in the High Court of Justice,"
+pursued Raffles, blowing soft grey rings into the upper air, "who has
+been rather rudely transformed into the defendant at the Old Bailey."
+
+"But it isn't genuine, I'm telling you!" cried Dan Levy with a curse.
+
+"Then what in the world do you want with the letter? Let the prosecution
+love and cherish it, and trump it up in court for all it's worth; the
+less it is worth, the more certain to explode and blow their case to
+bits. A palpable forgery in the hands of Mr. Attorney!" cried Raffles,
+with a wink at me. "It'll be the best fun of its kind since the late
+lamented Mr. Pigott; my dear Bunny, we must both be there."
+
+Mr. Levy's uneasiness was a sight for timid eyes. He had presented his
+case to us naked and unashamed; already he was in our hands more surely
+than Raffles was in his. But Raffles was the last person to betray his
+sense of an advantage a second too soon: he merely gave me another
+wink. The usurer was frowning at the carpet. Suddenly he sprang up and
+burst out in a bitter tirade upon the popular and even the judicial
+prejudice against his own beneficent calling. No money-lender would
+ever get justice in a British court of law; easier for the camel to
+thread the needle's eye. That flagrant forgery would be accepted at
+sight by our vaunted British jury. The only chance was to abstract it
+before the case came on.
+
+"But if it can be proved to be a forgery," urged Raffles, "nothing could
+possibly turn the tables on the other side with such complete and
+instantaneous effect."
+
+"I've told you what I reckon my only chance," said Levy fiercely. "Let me
+remind you that it's yours as well!"
+
+"If you talk like that," said Raffles, "I shan't consider it."
+
+"You won't in any case, I should hope," said I.
+
+"Oh, yes, I might; but not if he talks like that."
+
+Levy stopped talking quite like that.
+
+"Will you do it, Mr. Raffles, or will you not?"
+
+"Abstract the--forgery?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where from?"
+
+"Wherever it may be; their solicitors' safe, I suppose."
+
+"Who are the solicitors to _Fact_?"
+
+"Burroughs and Burroughs."
+
+"Of Gray's Inn Square?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"The strongest firm in England for a criminal case," said Raffles, with a
+grimace at me. "Their strong-room is probably the strongest strong-room!"
+
+"I said it was a tricky job," rejoined the moneylender.
+
+Raffles looked more than dubious.
+
+"Big game for a first shoot, eh, Bunny?"
+
+"Too big by half."
+
+"And you merely wish to have their letter--withdrawn, Mr. Levy?"
+
+"That's the way to put it."
+
+And the diamond stud sparkled again as it heaved upon the billows of an
+intestine chuckle.
+
+"Withdrawn--and nothing more?"
+
+"That'll be good enough for me, Mr. Raffles."
+
+"Even though they miss it the very next morning?"
+
+"Let them miss it."
+
+Raffles joined his finger-tips judicially, and shook his head in
+serene dissent.
+
+"It would do you more harm than good, Mr. Levy. I should be inclined to
+go one better--if I went into the thing at all," he added, with so much
+point that I was thankful to think he was beginning to decide against it.
+
+"What improvement do you suggest?" inquired Dan Levy, who had evidently
+no such premonition.
+
+"I should take a sheet of your paper with me, and forge the forgery!"
+said Raffles, a light in his eye and a gusto in his voice that I knew
+only too well. "But I shouldn't do my work as perfectly as--the other
+cove--did his. My effort would look the same as yours--_his_--until Mr.
+Attorney fixed it with his eyeglass in open court. And then the bottom
+would be out of the defence in five minutes!"
+
+Dan Levy came straight over to Raffles--quivering like a jelly--beaming
+at every pore.
+
+"Shake!" he cried. "I always knew you were a man after my own heart, but
+I didn't know you were a man of genius until this minute."
+
+"It's no use my shaking," replied Raffles, the tips of his sensitive
+fingers still together, "until I make up my mind to take on the job. And
+I'm a very long way from doing that yet, Mr. Levy."
+
+I breathed again.
+
+"But you must, my dear friend, you simply must!" said Levy, in a new tone
+of pure persuasion. I was sorry he forgot to threaten instead. Perhaps it
+was not forgetfulness; perhaps he was beginning to know his Raffles as I
+knew mine; if so, I was sorrier still.
+
+"It's a case of _quid pro quo_," said Raffles calmly. "You can't expect
+me to break out into downright crime--however technical the actual
+offence--unless you make it worth my while."
+
+Levy became the man I wanted him to be again. "I fancy it's worth your
+while not to hear anything more about Carlsbad," said he, though still
+with less of the old manner than I could have wished.
+
+"What!" cried Raffles, "when you own yourself that you've no evidence
+against me there?"
+
+"Evidence is to be got that may mean five years to you; don't you make
+any mistake about that."
+
+"Whereas the evidence of this particular letter against yourself has, on
+your own showing, already been obtained! It's as you like, of course,"
+added Raffles, getting up with a shrug. "But if the Old Bailey sees us
+both, Mr. Levy, I'll back my chance against yours--and your sentence
+against mine!"
+
+Raffles helped himself to a drink, after a quizzical look at his guest,
+decanter in hand; the usurer snatched it from him and splashed out half a
+tumbler. Certainly he was beginning to know his Raffles perilously well.
+
+"There, damn you!" said he, blinking into an empty glass. "I trust you
+further than I'd trust any other young blood of your kidney; name your
+price, and you shall earn it if you can."
+
+"You may think it a rather long one, Mr. Levy."
+
+"Never mind; you say what you want."
+
+"Leave that money of yours on the mortgage with Mr. Garland; forgive
+him his other debt as you hope to be forgiven; and either that letter
+shall be in your hands, or I'll be in the hands of the police, before a
+week is up!"
+
+Spoken from man to man with equal austerity and resolution, yet in a
+voice persuasive and conciliatory rather than arbitrary or dictatorial,
+the mere form and manner of this quixotic undertaking thrilled all my
+fibres in defiance of its sense. It was like the blare of bugles in a
+dubious cause; one's blood responded before one's brain; and but for
+Raffles, little as his friends were to me, and much as I repudiated his
+sacrifices on their behalf, that very minute I might have led the first
+assault on their oppressor. In a sudden fury the savage had hurled his
+empty tumbler into the fireplace, and followed the crash with such a
+volley of abuse as I have seldom heard from human brute.
+
+"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Levy," said Raffles, contemptuously; "if we
+copied your tactics we should throw you through that open window!"
+
+And I stood by for my share in the deed.
+
+"Yes! I know it'd pay you to break my neck," retorted Levy. "You'd rather
+swing than do time, wouldn't you?"
+
+"And you prefer the other alternative," said Raffles, "to loosing your
+grip upon a man who's done you no harm whatever! In interest alone he's
+almost repaid all you lent him in the first instance; you've first-class
+security for the rest; yet you must ruin him to revenge yourself upon us.
+On us, mark you! It's against us you've got your grievance, not against
+old Garland or his son. You've lost sight of that fact. That little trick
+this morning was our doing entirely. Why don't you take it out of us? Why
+refuse a fair offer to spite people who have done you no harm?"
+
+"It's not a fair offer," growled Levy. "I made you the fair offer."
+
+But his rage had moderated; he was beginning to listen to Raffles and to
+reason, with however ill a grace. It was the very moment which Raffles
+was the very man to improve.
+
+"Mr. Levy," said he, "do you suppose I care whether you hold your tongue
+or not on a matter of mere suspicion, which you can't support by a grain
+of evidence? You lose a piece of jewellery abroad; you recover it intact;
+and after many days you get the bright idea that I'm the culprit because
+I happen to have been staying in your hotel at the time. It never
+occurred to you there or then, though you interviewed the gentleman face
+to face, as you were constantly interviewing me. But as soon as I borrow
+some money from you, here in London in the ordinary way, you say I must
+be the man who borrowed Mrs. Levy's necklace in that extraordinary way at
+Carlsbad! I should say it to the marines, Mr. Levy, if I were you;
+they're the only force that are likely to listen to you."
+
+"I do say it, all the same; and what's more you don't deny it. If you
+weren't the man you wouldn't be so ready for another game like it now."
+
+"Ready for it?" cried Raffles, more than ready for an undeniable point.
+"I'm always your man for a new sensation, Mr. Levy, and for years I've
+taken an academic interest in the very fine art of burglary; isn't that
+so, Bunny?"
+
+"I've often heard you say so," I replied without mishap.
+
+"In these piping times," continued Raffles, "it's about the one exciting
+and romantic career open to us. If it were not so infernally dishonest I
+should have half a mind to follow it myself. And here you come and put
+up a crib for me to crack in the best interests of equity and justice;
+not to enrich the wicked cracksman, but to restore his rightful property
+to the honest financier; a sort of teetotal felony--the very ginger-ale
+of crime! Is that a beverage to refuse--a chance to miss--a temptation to
+resist? Yet the risks are just as great as if it were a fine old fruity
+felony; you can't expect me to run them for nothing, or even for their
+own exciting sake. You know my terms, Mr. Levy; if you don't accept them,
+it's already two in the morning, and I should like to get to bed before
+it's light."
+
+"And if I did accept them?" said Levy, after a considerable pause.
+
+"The letter to which you attach such importance would most probably be in
+your possession by the beginning of next week."
+
+"And I should have to take my hands off a nice little property that has
+tumbled into them?"
+
+"Only for a time," said Raffles. "On the other hand, you would be
+permanently out of danger of figuring in the dock on a charge of
+blackmail. And you know your profession isn't popular in the courts, Mr.
+Levy; it's in nearly as bad odour as the crime of blackmail!"
+
+A singular docility had descended like a mantle upon Daniel Levy: no
+uncommon reaction in the case of very passionate men, and yet in this
+case ominous, sinister, and completely unconvincing so far as I
+personally was concerned. I longed to tell Raffles what I thought, to put
+him on his guard against his obvious superior in low cunning. But Raffles
+would not even catch my eye. And already he looked insanely pleased with
+himself and his apparent advantage.
+
+"Will you give me until to-morrow morning?" said Levy, taking up his hat.
+
+"If you mean the morning; by eleven I must be at Lord's."
+
+"Say ten o'clock in Jermyn Street?"
+
+"It's a strange bargain, Mr. Levy. I should prefer to clinch it out of
+earshot of your clerks."
+
+"Then I will come here."
+
+"I shall be ready for you at ten."
+
+"And alone?"
+
+There was a sidelong glance at me with the proviso.
+
+"You shall search the premises yourself and seal up all the doors."
+
+"Meanwhile," said Levy, putting on his hat, "I shall think about it, but
+that's all. I haven't agreed yet, Mr. Raffles; don't you make too sure
+that I ever shall. I shall think about it--but don't you make too sure."
+
+He was gone like a lamb, this wild beast of five minutes back. Raffles
+showed him out, and down into the courtyard, and out again into
+Piccadilly. There was no question but that he was gone for good; back
+came Raffles, rubbing his hands for joy.
+
+"A fine night, Bunny! A finer day to follow! But a nice, slow,
+wicket-keeper's wicket if ever Teddy had one in his life!"
+
+I came to my point with all vehemence.
+
+"Confound Teddy!" I cried from my heart. "I should have thought you had
+run risks enough for his sake as it was!"
+
+"How do you know it's for his sake--or anybody's?" asked Raffles, quite
+hotly. "Do you suppose I want to be beaten by a brute like Levy, Garlands
+or no Garlands? Besides, there's far less risk in what I mean to do than
+in what I've been doing; at all events it's in my line."
+
+"It's not in your line," I retorted, "to strike a bargain with a swine
+who won't dream of keeping his side."
+
+"I shall make him," said Raffles. "If he won't do what I want he shan't
+have what he wants."
+
+"But how could you trust him to keep his word?"
+
+"His word!" cried Raffles, in ironical echo. "We shall have to carry
+matters far beyond his word, of course; deeds, not words, Bunny, and the
+deeds properly prepared by solicitors and executed by Dan Levy before he
+lays a finger on his own blackmailing letter. You remember old Mother
+Hubbard in our house at school? He's a little solicitor somewhere in the
+City; he'll throw the whole thing into legal shape for us, and ask no
+questions and tell no tales. You leave Mr. Shylock to me and Mother, and
+we'll bring him up to the scratch as he ought to go."
+
+There was no arguing with Raffles in such a mood; argue I did, but he
+paid no attention to what I said. He had unlocked a drawer in the bureau,
+and taken out a map that I had never seen before. I looked over his
+shoulder as he spread it out in the light of his reading-lamp. And it was
+a map of London capriciously sprinkled with wheels and asterisks of red
+ink; there was a finished wheel in Bond Street, another in Half-Moon
+Street, one on the site of Thornaby House, Park Lane, and others as
+remote as St. John's Wood and Peter Street, Campden Hill; the asterisks
+were fewer, and I have less reason to remember their latitude and
+longitude.
+
+"What's this, A.J.?" I asked. "It looks exactly like a war-map."
+
+"It is one, Bunny," said he; "it's the map of one man's war against the
+ordered forces of society. The spokes are only the scenes of future
+operations, but each finished wheel marks the field of some past
+engagement, in which you have usually been the one man's one and only
+accomplice."
+
+And he stooped and drew the neatest of blood-red asterisks at the
+southern extremity of Gray's Inn Square.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"My Raffles Right or Wrong"
+
+
+The historic sward had just been cleared for action when Raffles and I
+met at Lord's next day. I blush to own I had been knave and fool enough
+to suggest that he should smuggle me into the pavilion; but perhaps the
+only laws of man that Raffles really respected were those of the M.C.C.,
+and it was in Block B. that he joined me a minute or so before eleven.
+The sun was as strong and the sky as blue as though the disastrous day
+before had been just such another. But its tropical shower-bath had left
+the London air as cleanly and as clear as crystal; the neutral tints of
+every day were splashes of vivid colour, the waiting umpires animated
+snow-men, the heap of sawdust at either end a pyramid of powdered gold
+upon an emerald ground. And in the expectant hush before the appearance
+of the fielding side, I still recall the Yorkshire accent of the Surrey
+Poet, hawking his latest lyric on some "Great Stand by Mr. Webbe and Mr.
+Stoddart," and incidentally assuring the crowd that Cambridge was going
+to win because everybody said Oxford would.
+
+"Just in time," said Raffles, as he sat down and the Cambridge men
+emerged from the pavilion, capped and sashed in varying shades of light
+blue. The captain's colours were bleached by service; but the
+wicket-keeper's were the newest and the bluest of the lot, and as a male
+historian I shrink from saying how well they suited him.
+
+"Teddy Garland looks as though nothing had happened," was what I said at
+the time, as I peered through my binocular at the padded figure with the
+pink face and the gigantic gloves.
+
+"That's because he knows there's a chance of nothing more happening," was
+the reply. "I've seen him and his poor old governor up here since I saw
+Dan Levy."
+
+I eagerly inquired as to the upshot of the earlier interview, but Raffles
+looked as though he had not heard. The Oxford captain had come out to
+open the innings with a player less known to fame; the first ball of the
+match hurtled down the pitch, and the Oxford captain left it severely
+alone. Teddy took it charmingly, and almost with the same movement the
+ball was back in the bowler's hands.
+
+"_He's_ all right!" muttered Raffles with a long breath. "So is our Mr.
+Shylock, Bunny; we fixed things up in no time after all. But the worst of
+it is I shall only be able to stop--"
+
+He broke off, mouth open as it might have been mine. A ball had been
+driven hard to extra cover, and quite well fielded; another had been
+taken by Teddy as competently as the first, but not returned to the
+bowler. The Oxford captain had played at it, and we heard something even
+in Block B.
+
+"How's that?" came almost simultaneously in Teddy's ringing voice. Up
+went the umpire's finger, and down came Raffles's hand upon my thigh.
+
+"He's caught him, Bunny!" he cried in my ear above the Cambridge cheers.
+"The best bat on either side, and Teddy's outed him third ball!" He
+stopped to watch the defeated captain's slow return, the demonstration on
+the pitch in Teddy's honour; then he touched me on the arm and dropped
+his voice. "He's forgotten all his troubles now, Bunny, if you like;
+nothing's going to worry him till lunch, unless he misses a sitting
+chance. And he won't, you'll see; a good start means even more behind the
+sticks than in front of 'em."
+
+Raffles was quite right. Another wicket fell cheaply in another way; then
+came a long spell of plucky cricket, a stand not masterly but dogged and
+judicious, in which many a ball outside the off-stump was allowed to pass
+unmolested, and a few were unfortunate in just beating the edge of the
+bat. On the tricky wicket Teddy's work was cut out for him, and
+beautifully he did it. It was a treat to see his lithe form crouching
+behind the bails, to rise next instant with the rising ball; his great
+gloves were always in the right place, always adhesive. Once only he held
+them up prematurely, and a fine ball brushed the wicket on its way for
+four byes; it was his sole error all the morning. Raffles sat enchanted;
+so in truth did I; but between the overs I endeavoured to obtain
+particulars of his latest parley with Dan Levy, and once or twice
+extracted a stray detail.
+
+"The old sinner has a place on the river, Bunny, though I have my
+suspicions of a second establishment nearer town. But I'm to find him at
+his lawful home all the next few nights, and sitting up for me till two
+in the morning."
+
+"Then you're going to Gray's Inn Square this week?"
+
+"I'm going there this morning for a peep at the crib; there's no time to
+be lost, but on the other hand there's a devil of a lot to learn. I say,
+Bunny, there's going to be another change of bowling; the fast stuff,
+too, by Jove!"
+
+A massive youth had taken the ball at the top end, and the wicket-keeper
+was retiring to a more respectful distance behind the stumps.
+
+"You'll let me know when it's to be?" I whispered, but Raffles only
+answered, "I wonder Jack Studley didn't wait till there was more of a
+crust on the mud pie. That tripe's no use without a fast wicket!"
+
+The technical slang of the modern cricket-field is ever a weariness; at
+the moment it was something worse, and I resigned myself to the silent
+contemplation of as wild an over as ever was bowled at Lord's. A shocking
+thing to the off was sent skipping past point for four. "Tripe!" muttered
+Raffles to himself. A very good one went over the bails and thud into
+Garland's gloves like a round-shot. "Well bowled!" said Raffles with less
+reserve. Another delivery was merely ignored, both at the wicket and at
+my side, and then came a high full-pitch to leg which the batsman hit
+hard but very late. It was a hit that might have smashed the pavilion
+palings. But it never reached them; it stuck in Teddy's left glove
+instead, and none of us knew it till we saw him staggering towards
+long-leg, and tossing up the ball as he recovered balance.
+
+"That's the worst ball that ever took a wicket in this match!" vowed a
+reverend veteran as the din died down.
+
+"And the best catch!" cried Raffles. "Come on, Bunny; that's my _nunc
+dimittis_ for the day. There would be nothing to compare with it if I
+could stop to see every ball bowled, and I mustn't see another."
+
+"But why?" I asked, as I followed Raffles into the press behind the
+carriages.
+
+"I've already told you why," said he.
+
+I got as close to him as one could in that crowd.
+
+"You're not thinking of doing it to-night, A.J.?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you'll let _me_ know?"
+
+"Not if I can help it, Bunny; didn't I promise not to drag you any
+further through this particular mire?"
+
+"But if _I_ can help _you_?" I whispered, after a momentary separation in
+the throng.
+
+"Oh! if I can't get on without you," said Raffles, not nicely, "I'll let
+you know fast enough. But do drop the subject now; here come old Garland
+and Camilla Belsize!"
+
+They did not see us quite so soon as we saw them, and for a moment one
+felt a spy; but it was an interesting moment even to a person smarting
+from a snub. The ruined man looked haggard, ill, unfit to be about, the
+very embodiment of the newspaper report concerning him. But the spirit
+beamed through the shrinking flesh, the poor old fellow was alight with
+pride and love, exultant in spite of himself and his misfortunes. He had
+seen his boy's great catch; he had heard the cheers, he would hear them
+till his dying hour. Camilla Belsize had also seen and heard, but not
+with the same exquisite appreciation. Cricket was a game to her, it was
+not that quintessence and epitome of life it would seem to be to some of
+its devotees; and real life was pressing so heavily upon her that the
+trivial consolation which had banished her companion's load could not
+lighten hers. So at least I thought as they approached, the man so worn
+and radiant, the girl so pensive for all her glorious youth and beauty:
+his was the old head bowed with sorrow, his also the simpler and the
+younger heart.
+
+"That catch will console me for a lot," I heard him say quite heartily to
+Raffles. But Camilla's comment was altogether perfunctory; indeed, I
+wondered that so sophisticated a person did not affect some little
+enthusiasm. She seemed more interested, however, in the crowd than in the
+cricket. And that was usual enough.
+
+Raffles was already saying he must go, with an explanatory murmur to Mr.
+Garland, who clasped his hand with a suddenly clouded countenance. But
+Miss Belsize only bowed, and scarcely took her eyes off a couple of
+outwardly inferior men, who had attracted my attention through hers,
+until they also passed out of the ground.
+
+Mr. Garland was on tip-toes watching the game again with mercurial
+ardour.
+
+"Mr. Manders will look after me," she said to him, "won't you, Mr.
+Manders?" I made some suitable asseveration, and she added: "Mr.
+Garland's a member, you know, and dying to go into the Pavilion."
+
+"Only just to hear what they think of Teddy," the poor old boy confessed;
+and when we had arranged where to meet in the interval, away he hurried
+with his keen, worn face.
+
+Miss Belsize turned to me the moment he was gone.
+
+"I want to speak to you, Mr. Manders," she said quickly but without
+embarrassment. "Where can we talk?"
+
+"And watch as well?" I suggested, thinking of the young man at his best
+behind the sticks.
+
+"I want to speak to you first," she said, "where we shan't be overheard.
+It's about Mr. Raffles!" added Miss Belsize as she met my stare.
+
+About Raffles again! About Raffles, after all that she had learnt the
+day before! I did not enjoy the prospect as I led the way past the
+ivy-mantled tennis-court of those days to the practice-ground, turned for
+the nonce into a tented lawn.
+
+"And what about Raffles?" I asked as we struck out for ourselves across
+the grass.
+
+"I'm afraid he's in some danger," replied Miss Belsize. And she stopped
+in her walk and confronted me as frankly as though we had the animated
+scene to ourselves.
+
+"Danger!" I repeated, guiltily enough, no doubt. "What makes you think
+that, Miss Belsize?"
+
+My companion hesitated for the first time.
+
+"You won't tell him I told you, Mr. Manders?"
+
+"Not if you don't want me to," said I, taken aback more by her manner
+than by the request itself.
+
+"You promise me that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then tell me, did you notice two men who passed close to us just after
+we had all met?"
+
+"There are so many men to notice," said I to gain time.
+
+"But these were not the sort one expects to see here to-day."
+
+"Did they wear bowlers and short coats?"
+
+"You did notice them!"
+
+"Only because I saw you watching them," said I, recalling the
+whole scene.
+
+"They wanted watching," rejoined Miss Belsize dryly. "They followed Mr.
+Raffles out of the ground!"
+
+"So they did!" I reflected aloud in my alarm.
+
+"They were following you both when you met us."
+
+"The dickens they were! Was that the first you saw of them?"
+
+"No; the first time was over there at the nets before play began. I
+noticed those two men behind Teddy's net. They were not watching him;
+that called my attention to them. It's my belief they were lying in wait
+for Mr. Raffles; at any rate, when he came they moved away. But they
+followed us afterwards across the ground."
+
+"You are sure of that?"
+
+"I looked round to see," said Miss Belsize, avoiding my eyes for the
+first time.
+
+"Did you think the men--detectives?"
+
+And I forced a laugh.
+
+"I was afraid they might be, Mr. Manders, though I have never seen one
+off the stage."
+
+"Still," I pursued, with painfully sustained amusement, "you were
+ready to find A.J. Raffles being shadowed here at Lord's of all places
+in the world?"
+
+"I was ready for anything, anywhere," said Miss Belsize, "after all I
+heard yesterday afternoon."
+
+"You mean about poor Mr. Garland and his affairs?"
+
+It was an ingenuously disingenuous suggestion; it brought my companion's
+eyes back to mine, with something of the scorn that I deserved.
+
+"No, Mr. Manders, I meant after what we all heard between Mr. Levy
+and Mr. Raffles; and you knew very well what I meant," added Miss
+Belsize severely.
+
+"But surely you didn't take all that seriously?" said I, without denying
+the just impeachment.
+
+"How could I help it? The insinuation was serious enough, in all
+conscience!" exclaimed Camilla Belsize.
+
+"That is," said I, since she was not to be wilfully misunderstood, "that
+poor old Raffles had something to do with this jewel robbery at
+Carlsbad?"
+
+"If it was a robbery."
+
+She winced at the word.
+
+"Do you mean it might have been a trick?" said I, recalling the victim's
+own make-believe at the Albany. And not only did Camilla appear to
+embrace that theory with open arms; she had the nerve to pretend that it
+really was what she had meant.
+
+"Obviously!" says she, with an impromptu superiority worthy of Raffles
+himself. "I wonder you never thought of that, Mr. Manders, when you know
+what a trick you both played Mr. Levy only yesterday. Mr. Raffles himself
+told us all about that; and I'm very grateful to you both; you must know
+I am--for Teddy's sake," added Miss Belsize, with one quick remorseful
+glance towards the great arena. "Still it only shows what Mr. Raffles
+is--and--and it's what I meant when we were talking about him yesterday."
+
+"I don't remember," said I, remembering fast enough.
+
+"In the rockery," she reminded me. "When you asked what people said about
+him, and I said that about living on his wits."
+
+"And being a paid amateur!"
+
+"But the other was the worst."
+
+"I'm not so sure," said I. "But his wits wouldn't carry him very far if
+he only took necklaces and put them back again."
+
+"But it was all a joke," she reminded us both with a bit of a start.
+"It must have been a joke, if Mr. Raffles did it at all. And it would
+be dreadful if anything happened to him because of a wretched
+practical joke!"
+
+There was no mistake about her feeling now; she really felt that it would
+be "dreadful if anything happened" to the man whom yesterday she had
+seemed both to dislike and to distrust. Her voice vibrated with anxiety.
+A bright film covered the fine eyes, and they were finer than ever as
+they continued to face me unashamed; but I was fool enough to speak my
+mind, and at that they flashed themselves dry.
+
+"I thought you didn't like him?" had been my remark, and "Who says I do?"
+was hers. "But he has done a lot for Teddy," she went on, "and never more
+than yesterday," with her hand for an instant on my arm, "when you helped
+him! I am dreadfully sorry for Mr. Garland, sorrier than I am for poor
+Teddy. But Mr. Raffles is more than sorry. I know he means to do what he
+can. He seems to think there must be something wrong; he spoke of
+bringing that brute to reason--if not to justice. It would be too
+dreadful if such a creature could turn the tables on Mr. Raffles by
+trumping up any charge against him!"
+
+There was an absolute echo of my own tone in "trumping up any charge,"
+and I thought the echo sounded even more insincere. But at least it
+showed me where we were. Miss Belsize was not deceived; she only wanted
+me to think she was. Miss Belsize had divined what I knew, but neither
+of us would admit to the other that the charge against Raffles would be
+true enough.
+
+"But why should these men follow him?" said I, really wondering why they
+should. "If there were anything definite against old Raffles, don't you
+think he would be arrested?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know," was the slightly irritable answer. "I only think he
+should be warned that he is being followed."
+
+"Whatever he has done?" I ventured.
+
+"Yes!" said she. "Whatever he has done--after what he did for Teddy
+yesterday!"
+
+"You want me to warn him?"
+
+"Yes--but not from me!"
+
+"And suppose he really did take Mrs. Levy's necklace?"
+
+"That's just what we are supposing."
+
+"But suppose it wasn't for a joke at all?"
+
+I spoke as one playfully plumbing the abysmally absurd; what I did desire
+to sound was the loyalty of this new, unexpected, and still captious
+ally. And I thought myself strangely successful at the first cast; for
+Miss Belsize looked me in the face as I was looking her, and I trusted
+her before she spoke.
+
+"Well, after yesterday," she said, "I should warn him all the same!"
+
+"You would back your Raffles right or wrong?" I murmured, perceiving that
+Camilla Belsize was, after all, like all the rest of us.
+
+"Against a vulgar extortioner, most decidedly!" she returned, without
+repudiating the possessive pronoun. "It doesn't follow that I think
+anything of him--apart from what you did between you for Teddy
+yesterday."
+
+We had continued our stroll some time ago, and now it was I who stood
+still. I looked at my watch. It still wanted some minutes to the
+luncheon interval.
+
+"If Raffles took a cab to his rooms," I said, "he must be nearly there
+and I must telephone to him."
+
+"Is there a call-office on the ground?"
+
+"Only in the pavilion, I believe, for the use of the members."
+
+"Then you must go to the nearest one outside."
+
+"And what about you?"
+
+Miss Belsize brightened with her smile of perfect and unconscious
+independence.
+
+"Oh, I shall be all right," she said. "I know where to find Mr. Garland,
+even if I don't pick up an escort on the way."
+
+But it was she who escorted me to the tall turnstile nearest
+Wellington Road.
+
+"And you do see why I want to put Mr. Raffles on his guard?" she said
+pointedly as we shook hands. "It's only because you and he have done so
+much for Teddy!"
+
+And because she did not end by reminding me of my promise, I was all the
+more reluctantly determined to keep it to the letter, even though Raffles
+should think as ill as ever of one who was at least beginning to think
+better of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A Dash in the Dark
+
+
+In a few lines which I found waiting for me at the club, and have
+somewhat imprudently preserved, Raffles professes to have known he was
+being shadowed even before we met at Lord's: "but it was no use talking
+about it until the foe were in the cart." He goes on to explain the
+simple means by which he reduced the gentlemen in billycocks to the pitch
+of discomfiture implied in his metaphor. He had taken a hansom to the
+Burlington Gardens entrance to the Albany, and kept it waiting while he
+went in and changed his clothes; then he had sent Barraclough to pay off
+the cab, and himself marched out into Piccadilly, what time the billycock
+brims were still shading watchful eyes in Burlington Gardens. There, to
+be sure, I myself had spotted one of the precious pair when I drove up
+after vain exertions at the call-office outside Lord's; but by that time
+his confederate was on guard at the Piccadilly end, and Raffles had not
+only shown a clean pair of wings, but left the poor brutes to watch an
+empty cage. He dismisses them not unfairly with the epithet
+"amateurish." Thus I was the more surprised, but not the less relieved,
+to learn that he was "running down into the country for the weekend, to
+be out of their way"; but he would be back on the Monday night, "to keep
+an engagement you wot of, Bunny. And if you like you may meet me under
+the clock at Waterloo (in flannel kit and tennis-shoes for choice) at the
+witching hour of twelve sharp."
+
+If I liked! I had a premature drink in honour of an invitation more
+gratifying to my vanity than any compliment old Raffles had paid me yet;
+for I could still hear his ironical undertaking to let me know if he
+could not do without me, and there was obviously no irony in this
+delightfully early intimation of that very flattering fact. It altered my
+whole view of the case. I might disapprove of the risks Raffles was
+running for his other friends, but the more I was allowed to share in
+them the less critical I was inclined to be. Besides I was myself clearly
+implicated in the issue as between my own friend and the common enemy; it
+was no more palatable to me than it was to Raffles, to be beaten by Dan
+Levy after our initial victory over him. So I drank like a man to his
+destruction, and subsequently stole forth to spy upon his foolish
+myrmidons, who flattered themselves that they were spying on Raffles. The
+imbeciles were at it still! The one hanging about Burlington Gardens
+looked unutterably bored, but with his blots of whisker and his grimy
+jowl, as flagrant a detective officer as ever I saw, even if he had not
+so considerately dressed the part. The other bruiser was an equally
+distinctive type, with a formidable fighting face and a chest like a
+barrel; but in Piccadilly he seemed to me less occupied in taking notice
+than in avoiding it. In innocuous futility one could scarcely excel the
+other; and between them they raised my spirits to the zenith.
+
+I spent the rest of the afternoon at their own game, dogging Miss Belsize
+about Lord's until at last I had an opportunity of informing her that
+Raffles was quite safe. It may be that I made my report with too much
+gusto when my chance came; at any rate, it was only the fact that
+appeared to interest Miss Belsize; the details, over which I gloated,
+seemed to inspire in her a repugnance consistent with the prejudice she
+had displayed against Raffles yesterday, but not with her grateful
+solicitude on his behalf as revealed to me that very morning. I could
+only feel that gratitude was the beginning and the end of her new regard
+for him. Raffles had never fascinated this young girl as he did the rest
+of us; ordinarily engaged to an ordinary man, she was proof against the
+glamour that dazzled us. Nay, though she would not admit it even to me
+his friend, though like Levy she pretended to embrace the theory of the
+practical joke, making it the pretext for her anxiety, I felt more
+certain than ever that she now guessed, and had long suspected, what
+manner of man Raffles really was, and that her natural antipathy was
+greater even than before. Still more certain was I that she would never
+betray him by word or deed; that, whatever harm might come of his present
+proceedings, it would not be through Camilla Belsize.
+
+But I was now determined to do my own utmost to minimise the dangers, to
+be a real help to Raffles in the act of altruistic depravity to which he
+had committed himself, and not merely a fifth wheel to his dashing
+chariot. Accordingly I went into solemn training for the event before us:
+a Turkish bath on the Saturday, a quiet Sunday between Mount Street and
+the club, and most of Monday lying like a log in cold-blooded preparation
+for the night's work. And when night fell I took it upon me to
+reconnoitre the ground myself before meeting Raffles at Waterloo.
+
+Another cool and starry evening seemed to have tempted all the town and
+his wife into the streets. The great streams of traffic were busier than
+ever, the backwaters emptier, and Gray's Inn a basin drained to the last
+dreg of visible humanity. In one moment I passed through gateway and
+alley from the voices and lights of Holborn into a perfectly deserted
+square of bare ground and bright stars. The contrast was altogether
+startling, for I had never been there before; but for the same reason I
+had already lost my bearings, believing myself to be in Gray's Inn Square
+when I was only in South Square, Gray's Inn. Here I entered upon a
+hopeless search for the offices of Burroughs and Burroughs. Door after
+door had I tried in vain, and was beginning to realise my mistake, when a
+stray molecule of the population drifted in from Holborn as I had done,
+but with the quick step of the man who knows his way. I darted from a
+doorway to inquire mine, but he was across the square before I could cut
+him off, and as he passed through the rays of a lamp beside a second
+archway, I fell back thanking Providence and Raffles for my rubber soles.
+The man had neither seen nor heard me, but at the last moment I had
+recognised him as the burlier of the two blockheads who had shadowed
+Raffles three days before.
+
+He passed under the arch without looking round. I flattened myself
+against the wall on my side of the arch; and in so standing I was all
+but eye-witness of a sudden encounter in the square beyond.
+
+The quick steps stopped, and there was a "Here you are!" on one side,
+and a "Well! Where is he?" on the other, both very eager and below
+the breath.
+
+"On the job," whispered the first voice. "Up to the neck!"
+
+"When did 'e go in?"
+
+"Nearly an hour ago; when I sent the messenger."
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Up through number seventeen."
+
+"Next door, eh?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Over the roof?"
+
+"Can't say; he's left no tracks. I been up to see."
+
+"I suppose there's the usual ladder and trapdoor?"
+
+"Yes, but the ladder's hanging in its proper place. He couldn't have put
+it back there, could he?"
+
+The other grunted; presently he expressed a doubt whether Raffles (and it
+thrilled me to hear the very name) had succeeded in breaking into the
+lawyer's office at all. The first man on the scene, however, was quite
+sure of it--and so was I.
+
+"And we've got to hang about," grumbled the newcomer, "till he comes
+out again?"
+
+"That's it. We can't miss him. He must come back into the square or
+through into the gardens, and if he does that he'll have to come over
+these here railings into Field Court. We got him either way, and there's
+a step just here where we can sit and see both ways as though it had been
+made for us. You come and try ... a door into the old hall ..."
+
+That was all I heard distinctly; first their footsteps, and then the few
+extra yards, made the rest unintelligible. But I had heard enough. "The
+usual ladder and trap-door!" Those blessed words alone might prove worth
+their weight in great letters of solid gold.
+
+Now I could breathe again; now I relaxed my body and turned my head, and
+peered through the arch with impunity, and along the whole western side
+of Gray's Inn Square, with its dusky fringe of plane-trees and its vivid
+line of lamps, its strip of pavement, and its wall of many-windowed
+houses under one unbroken roof. Dim lights smouldered in the column of
+landing windows over every door; otherwise there was no break in the
+blackness of that gaunt façade. Yet in some dark room or other behind
+those walls I seemed to see Raffles at work as plainly as I had just
+heard our natural enemies plotting his destruction. I saw him at a safe.
+I saw him at a desk. I saw him leaving everything as he had found it,
+only to steal down and out into the very arms of the law. And I felt that
+even that desperate _dénouement_ was little more than he deserved for
+letting me think myself accessory before the fact, when all the time he
+meant me to have nothing whatever to do with it! Well, I should have
+everything to do with it now; if Raffles was to be saved from the
+consequences of his own insanity, I and I alone must save him. It was the
+chance of my life to show him my real worth. And yet the difficulty of
+the thing might have daunted Raffles himself.
+
+I knew what to do if only I could gain the house which he had made the
+base of his own operations; at least I knew what to attempt, and what
+Raffles had done I might do. So far the wily couple within earshot had
+helped me out of their own mouths. But they were only just round the
+corner that hid them from my view; stray words still reached me; and they
+knew me by sight, would recognise me at a glance, might pounce upon me as
+I passed. Unless--
+
+_I_ had it!
+
+The crowd in Holborn seemed strange and unreal as I jostled in its midst
+once more. I was out of it in a moment, however, and into a 'bus, and out
+of the 'bus in a couple of minutes by my watch. One more minute and I was
+seeing how far back I could sit in a hansom bound for Gray's Inn Square.
+
+"I forget the number," I had told the cabman, "but it's three or four
+doors beyond Burroughs and Burroughs, the solicitors."
+
+The gate into Holborn had to be opened for me, but the gate-keeper had
+not seen me on my previous entrance and exit afoot through the postern.
+It was when we drove under the further arch into the actual square that I
+pressed my head hard against the back of the hansom, and turned my face
+towards Field Court. The enemy might have abandoned their position, they
+might meet me face to face as I landed on the pavement; that was my risk,
+and I ran it without disaster. We passed the only house with an outer
+door to it in the square (now there is none), and on the plate beside it
+I read BURROUGHS AND BURROUGHS with a thrill. Up went my stick; my
+shilling (with a peculiarly superfluous sixpence for luck) I thrust
+through the trap with the other hand; and I was across the pavement, and
+on the stairs four clear doors beyond the lawyer's office, before the
+driver had begun to turn his horse.
+
+They were broad bare stairs, with great office doors right and left on
+every landing, and in the middle the landing window looking out into the
+square. I waited well within the window on the first floor; and as my
+hansom drove out under the arch, the light of its near lamp flashed
+across two figures lounging on the steps of that entrance to the hall;
+but there was no stopping or challenging the cabman, no sound at all but
+those of hoofs and bell, and soon only that of my own heart beating as I
+fled up the rest of the stairs in my rubber soles.
+
+Near the top I paused to thank my kindly stars; sure enough there was a
+long step-ladder hanging on a great nail over the last half-landing, and
+a square trap-door right over the landing proper! I ran up just to see
+the names on the two top doors; one was evidently that of some
+pettifogging firm of solicitors, while the other bespoke a private
+resident, whom I judged to be out of town by the congestion of postal
+matter that met my fingers in his letter-box. Neither had any terrors for
+me. The step-ladder was unhooked without another moment's hesitation.
+Care alone was necessary to place it in position without making a noise;
+then up I went, and up went the trapdoor next, without mishap or
+hindrance until I tried to stand up in the loft, and caught my head a
+crack against the tiles instead.
+
+This was disconcerting in more ways than one, for I could not leave the
+ladder where it was, and it was nearly twice my height. I struck a match
+and lit up a sufficient perspective of lumber and cobwebs to reassure me.
+The loft was long enough, and the trap-door plumb under the apex of the
+roof, whereas I had stepped sideways off the ladder. It was to be got up,
+and I got it up, though not by any means as silently as I could have
+wished. I knelt and listened at the open trap-door for a good minute
+before closing it with great caution, a squeak and a scuttle in the loft
+itself being the only sign that I had disturbed a living creature.
+
+There was a grimy dormer window, not looking down into the square, but
+leading like a companion hatchway into a valley of once red tiles, now
+stained blue-black in the starlight. It was great to stand upright here
+in the pure night air out of sight of man or beast. Smokeless
+chimney-stacks deleted whole pages of stars, but put me more in mind of
+pollards rising out of these rigid valleys, and sprouting with telephone
+wires that interlaced for foliage. The valley I was in ended fore and
+aft in a similar slope to that at either side; the length of it
+doubtless tallied with the frontage of a single house; and when I had
+clambered over the southern extremity into a precisely similar valley I
+saw that this must be the case. I had entered the fourth house beyond
+Burroughs and Burroughs's, or was it the fifth? I threaded three
+valleys, and then I knew.
+
+In all three there had been dormer windows on either hand, that on the
+square side leading into the loft; the other, or others, forming a sort
+of skylight to some top-floor room. Suddenly I struck one of these
+standing very wide open, and trod upon a rope's end curled like a snake
+on the leads. I stooped down, and at a touch I knew that I had hold of
+Raffles's favourite Manila, which united a silken flexibility with the
+strength of any hawser. It was tied to the window-post, and it dangled
+into a room in which there was a dull red glow of fire: an inhabited room
+if ever I put my nose in one! My body must follow, however, where Raffles
+had led the way; and when it did I came to ground sooner than I expected
+on something less secure. The dying firelight, struggling through the
+bars of a kitchen range, showed my tennis-shoes in the middle of the
+kitchen table. A cat was stretching itself on the hearth-rug as I made a
+step of a wooden chair, and came down like a cat myself.
+
+I found the kitchen door, found a passage so dark that the window at the
+end hung like a picture slashed across the middle. Yet it only looked
+into the square, for I peered out when I had crept along the passage, and
+even thought I both heard and saw the enemy at their old post. But I was
+in another enemy's country now; at every step I stopped to listen for the
+thud of feet bounding out of bed. Hearing nothing, I had the temerity at
+last to strike a match upon my trousers, and by its light I found the
+outer door. This was not bolted nor yet shut; it was merely ajar, and so
+I left it.
+
+The rooms opposite appeared to be an empty set; those on the second and
+first floors were only partially shut off by swing doors leading to
+different departments of the mighty offices of Burroughs and Burroughs.
+There were no lights upon these landings, and I gathered my information
+by means of successive matches, whose tell-tale ends I carefully
+concealed about my person, and from copious legends painted on the walls.
+Thus I had little difficulty in groping my way to the private offices of
+Sir John Burroughs, head of the celebrated firm; but I looked in vain for
+a layer of light under any of the massive mahogany doors with which this
+portion of the premises was glorified. Then I began softly trying doors
+that proved to be locked. Only one yielded to my hand; and when it was a
+few inches open, all was still black; but the next few brought me to the
+end of my quest, and the close of my solitary adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A Midsummer Night's Work
+
+
+The dense and total darkness was broken in one place, and one only, by a
+plateful of light proceeding from a tiny bulb of incandescence in its
+centre. This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a
+pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other
+side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its
+plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me,
+and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his
+task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and I could watch its absolute
+concentration. The brow was furrowed, and the mouth pursed, yet there was
+a hint of the same quiet and wary smile with which Raffles would bowl an
+over or drill holes in a door.
+
+I stood for some moments fascinated, entranced, before creeping in to
+warn him of my presence in a whisper. But this time he heard my step,
+snatched up electric torch and glittering revolver, and covered me with
+the one in the other's light.
+
+"A.J.!" I gasped.
+
+"Bunny!" he exclaimed in equal amazement and displeasure. "What the devil
+do you mean by this?"
+
+"You're in danger," I whispered. "I came to warn you!"
+
+"Danger? I'm never out of it. But how did you know where to find me, and
+how on God's earth did _you_ get here?"
+
+"I'll tell you some other time. You know those two brutes you dodged the
+other day?"
+
+"I ought to."
+
+"They're waiting below for you at this very moment."
+
+Raffles peered a few moments through the handful of white light between
+our faces.
+
+"Let them wait!" said he, and replaced the torch upon the table and put
+down his revolver for his pen.
+
+"They're detectives!" I urged.
+
+"Are they, Bunny?"
+
+"What else could they be?"
+
+"What, indeed!" murmured Raffles, as he fell to work again with bent head
+and deliberate pen.
+
+"You gave them the slip on Friday, but they must have known your game and
+lain in wait for you here, one or other of them, ever since. It's my
+belief Dan Levy put them up to it, and the yarn about the letter was just
+to tempt you into this trap and get you caught in the act. He didn't want
+a copy one bit; for God's sake, don't stop to finish it now!"
+
+"I don't agree with you," said Raffles without looking up, "and I don't
+do things by halves, Your precious detectives must have patience, Bunny,
+and so must you." He held his watch to the bulb. "In about twenty minutes
+there'll be real danger, but we couldn't be safer in our beds for the
+next ten. So perhaps you'll let me finish without further interruption,
+or else get out by yourself as you came in."
+
+I turned away from Raffles and his light, and blundered back to the
+landing. The blood boiled in my veins. Here had I fought and groped my
+way to his side, through difficulties it might have taxed even him to
+surmount, as one man swims ashore with a rope from the wreck, at the same
+mortal risk, with the same humane purpose. And not a word of thanks, not
+one syllable of congratulation, but "get out by yourself as you came in!"
+I had more than half a mind to get out, and for good; nay, as I stood and
+listened on the landing, I could have found it in my outraged heart to
+welcome those very sleuthhounds from the square, with a cordon of police
+behind them.
+
+Yet my boiling blood ran cold when warm breath smote my cheek and a hand
+my shoulder at one and the same awful moment.
+
+"Raffles!" I cried in a strangled voice.
+
+"Hush, Bunny!" he chuckled in my ear. "Didn't you know who it was?"
+
+"I never heard you; why did you steal on me like that?"
+
+"You see you're not the only one who can do it, Bunny! I own it would
+have served me right if you'd brought the square about our ears."
+
+"Have you finished in there?" I asked gruffly.
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"Then you'd better hurry up and put everything as you found it."
+
+"It's all done, Bunny; red tape tied on such a perfect forgery that
+the crux will be to prove it is one; safe locked up, and every paper
+in its place."
+
+"I never heard a sound."
+
+"I never made one," said Raffles, leading me upstairs by the arm. "You
+see how you put me on my mettle, Bunny, old boy!"
+
+I said no more till we reached the self-contained flat at the top of the
+house; then I begged Raffles to be quiet in a lower whisper than his own.
+
+"Why, Bunny? Do you think there are people inside?"
+
+"Aren't there?" I cried aloud in my relief.
+
+"You flatter me, Bunny!" laughed Raffles, as we groped our way in. "This
+is where they keep their John Bulldog, a magnificent figure of a
+commissionaire with the V.C. itself on his manly bosom. Catch me come
+when he was at home; one of us would have had to die, and it would have
+been a shame either way. Poor pussy, then, poor puss!"
+
+We had reached the kitchen and the cat was rubbing itself against
+Raffles's legs.
+
+"But how on earth did you get rid of him for the night?"
+
+"Made friends with him when I called on Friday; didn't I tell you I had
+an appointment with the bloated head of this notorious firm when I
+cleared out of Lord's? I'm about to strengthen his already unrivalled
+list of clients; you shall hear all about that later. We had another
+interview this afternoon, when I asked my V.C. if he ever went to the
+theatre; you see he had spotted Tom Fool, and told me he never had a
+chance of getting to Lord's. So I got him tickets for 'Rosemary' instead,
+but of course I swore they had just been given to me and I couldn't use
+them. You should have seen how the hero beamed! So that's where he is,
+he and his wife--or was, until the curtain went down."
+
+"Good Lord, Raffles, is the piece over?"
+
+"Nearly ten minutes ago, but it'll take 'em all that unless they come
+home in a cab."
+
+And Raffles had been sitting before the fire, on the kitchen table,
+encouraging the cat, when this formidable V.C. and his wife must be
+coming every instant nearer Gray's Inn Square!
+
+"Why, my dear Bunny, I should back myself to swarm up and out without
+making a sound or leaving a sign, if I heard our hero's key in the lock
+this moment. After you, Bunny."
+
+I climbed up with trembling knees, Raffles holding the rope taut to make
+it easier. Once more I stood upright under the stars and the telephone
+wires, and leaned against a chimney-stack to wait for Raffles. But before
+I saw him, before I even heard his unnecessarily noiseless movements, I
+heard something else that sent a chill all through me.
+
+It was not the sound of a key in the lock. It was something far worse
+than that. It was the sound of voices on the roof, and of footsteps
+drawing nearer through the very next valley of leads and tiles.
+
+I was crouching on the leads outside the dormer window as Raffles
+climbed into sight within.
+
+"They're after us up here!" I whispered in his face. "On the next roof! I
+hear them!"
+
+Up came Raffles with his hands upon the sill, then with his knees between
+his hands, and so out on all-fours into the narrow rivulet of lead
+between the sloping tiles. Out of the opposite slope, a yard or two on,
+rose a stout stack of masonry, a many-headed monster with a chimney-pot
+on each, and a full supply of wires for whiskers. Behind this Gorgon of
+the house-tops Raffles hustled me without a word, and himself took
+shelter as the muffled voices on the next roof grew more distinct. They
+were the voices that I had overheard already in the square, the voices
+but not the tones. The tones--the words--were those of an enemy divided
+against itself.
+
+"And now we've gone and come too far!" grumbled the one who had been last
+to arrive upon the scene below.
+
+"We did that," the other muttered, "the moment we came in after 'em. We
+should've stopped where we were."
+
+"With that other cove driving up and going in without ever showing a
+glim?"
+
+Raffles nudged me, and I saw what I had done. But the weakling of the
+pair still defended the position he had reluctantly abandoned on _terra
+firma_; he was all for returning while there was time; and there were
+fragments of the broken argument that were beginning to puzzle me when a
+soft oath from the man in front proclaimed the discovery of the open
+window and the rope.
+
+"We got 'em," he whispered, stagily, "like rats in a trap!"
+
+"You forget what it is we've got to get."
+
+"Well, we must first catch our man, mustn't we? And how d'ye know his pal
+hasn't gone in to warn him where we were? If he has, and we'd stopped
+there, they'd do us easy."
+
+"They may do us easier down there in the dark," replied the other, with a
+palpable shiver. "They'll hear us and lie in wait. In the dark! We shan't
+have a dog's chance."
+
+"All right! You get out of it and save your skin. I'd rather work alone
+than with a blessed funk!"
+
+The situation was identical with many a one in the past between Raffles
+and me. The poor brute in my part resented the charge against his courage
+as warmly as I had always done. He was merely for the better part of
+valour, and how right he was Raffles and I only knew. I hoped the lesson
+was not lost upon Raffles. Dialogue and action alike resembled one of
+our own performances far more than ordinary police methods as we knew
+them. We heard the squeeze of the leader's clothes and the rattle of his
+buttons over the window ledge. "It's like old times," we heard him
+mutter; and before many moments the weakling was impulsively whispering
+down to know if he should follow.
+
+I felt for that fellow at every stage of his unwilling proceedings. I was
+to feel for him still more. Raffles had stepped down like a cat from
+behind our cover; grasping an angle of the stack with either hand, I put
+my head round after him. The wretched player of my old part was on his
+haunches at the window, stooping forward, more in than out. I saw Raffles
+grinning in the starlight, saw his foot poised and the other poor devil
+disappear. Then a dull bump, then a double crash and such a cursing as
+left no doubt that the second fellow had fallen plumb on top of the
+first. Also from his language I fancied he would survive the fall.
+
+But Raffles took no peep at his handiwork; hardly had the rope whipped
+out at my feet than he had untied the other end.
+
+"Like lamplighters, Bunny!"
+
+And back we went helter-skelter along the valleys of lead and over the
+hills of tile.... The noise in the kitchen died away as we put a roof or
+two between us and that of Burroughs and Burroughs.
+
+"This is where I came out," I called to Raffles as he passed the place.
+"There's a ladder here where I left it in the loft!"
+
+"No time for ladders!" cried Raffles over his shoulder, and not for some
+moments did he stop in his stride. Nor was it I who stopped him then; it
+was a sudden hubbub somewhere behind us, somewhere below; the blowing of
+a police whistle, and the sound of many footsteps in the square.
+
+"That's for us!" I gasped. "The ladder! The ladder!"
+
+"Ladder be damned!" returned Raffles, roughly. "It isn't for us at all;
+it's my pal the V.C. who has come home and bottled the other blighters."
+
+"Thinking they're thieves?"
+
+"Thinking any rot you like! Our course is over the rest of the roofs on
+this side, over the whole lot at the top end, and, if possible, down the
+last staircase in the corner. Then we only have to show ourselves in the
+square for a tick before we're out by way of Verulam Buildings."
+
+"Is there another gate there?" I asked as he scampered on with me
+after him.
+
+"Yes; but it's closed and the porter leaves at twelve, and it must be
+jolly near that now. Wait, Bunny! Some one or other is sure to be looking
+out of the top windows across the square; they'll see us if we take our
+fences too freely!"
+
+We had come to one of the transverse tile-slopes, which hitherto we had
+run boldly up and down in our helpful and noiseless rubber soles; now,
+not to show ourselves against the stars, to a stray pair of eyes on some
+other high level, we crept up on all fours and rolled over at full
+length. It added considerably to our time over more than a whole side of
+the square. Meanwhile the police whistles had stopped, but the company in
+the square had swollen audibly.
+
+It seemed an age, but I suppose it was not many minutes, before we came
+to the last of the dormer windows, looking into the last vale of tiles in
+the north-east angle of the square. Something gleamed in the starlight,
+there was a sharp little sound of splitting wood, and Raffles led me on
+hands and knees into just such a loft as I had entered before by ladder.
+His electric torch discovered the trapdoor at a gleam. Raffles opened it
+and let down the rope, only to whisk it up again so smartly that it
+struck my face like a whiplash.
+
+A door had opened on the top landing. We listened over the open
+trap-door, and knew that another stood listening on the invisible
+threshold underneath; then we saw him running downstairs, and my heart
+leapt for he never once looked up. I can see him still, foreshortened by
+our bird's-eye view into a Turkish fez and a fringe of white hair and red
+neck, a billow of dressing-gown, and bare heels peeping out of bedroom
+slippers at every step that we could follow; but no face all the way
+down, because he was a bent old boy who never looked like looking up.
+
+Raffles threw his rope aside, gave me his hand instead, and dropped me on
+the landing like a feather, dropping after me without a moment's pause.
+In fact, the old fellow with the fez could hardly have completed his
+descent of the stairs when we began ours. Yet through the landing window
+we saw him charging diagonally across the square, shouting and
+gesticulating in his flight to the gathering crowd near the far corner.
+
+"He spotted us, Bunny!" exclaimed Raffles, after listening an instant
+in the entrance. "Stick to me like my shadow, and do every blessed
+thing I do."
+
+Out he dived, I after him, and round to the left with the speed of
+lightning, but apparently not without the lightning's attribute of
+attracting attention to itself. There was a hullabaloo across the square
+behind us, and I looked round to see the crowd there breaking in our
+direction, as I rushed after Raffles under an arch and up the alley in
+front of Verulam Buildings.
+
+It was striking midnight as we made our sprint along this alley, and at
+the far end the porter was preparing to depart, but he waited to let us
+through the gate into Gray's Inn Road, and not until he had done so can
+the hounds have entered the straight. We did not hear them till the gate
+had clanged behind us, nor had it opened again before we were high and
+dry in a hansom.
+
+"King's Cross!" roared Raffles for all the street to hear; but before we
+reached Clerkenwell Road he said he meant Waterloo, and round we went to
+the right along the tram-lines. I was too breathless to ask questions,
+and Raffles offered no explanations until he had lit a Sullivan. "That
+little bit of wrong way may lose us our train," he said as he puffed the
+first cloud. "But it'll shoot the whole field to King's Cross as sure as
+scent is scent; and if we do catch our train, Bunny, we shall have it to
+ourselves as far as this pack is concerned. Hurrah! Blackfriar's Bridge
+and a good five minutes to go!"
+
+"You're going straight down to Levy's with the letter?"
+
+"Yes; that's why I wanted you to meet me under the clock at twelve."
+
+"But why in tennis-shoes?" I asked, recalling the injunctions in his
+note, and the meaning that I had naturally read into them.
+
+"I thought we might possibly finish the night on the river," replied
+Raffles, darkly. "I think so still."
+
+"And _I_ thought you meant me to lend you a hand in Gray's Inn!"
+
+Raffles laughed.
+
+"The less you think, my dear old Bunny, the better it always is!
+To-night, for example, you have performed prodigies on my account; your
+unselfish audacity has only been equalled by your resource; but, my dear
+fellow, it was a sadly unnecessary effort."
+
+"Unnecessary to tell you those brutes were waiting for you down below?"
+
+"Quite, Bunny. I saw one of them and let him see me. I knew he'd send off
+for his pal."
+
+"Then I don't understand your tactics or theirs."
+
+"Mine were to walk out the very way we did, you and I. They would never
+have seen me from the opposite corner of the square, or dreamt of going
+in after me if they hadn't spotted your getting in before them to put me
+on my guard. The place would have been left exactly as I found it, and
+those two numskulls as much in the lurch as I left them last week outside
+the Albany."
+
+"Perhaps they were beginning to fear that," said I, "and meant ferreting
+for you in any case if you didn't show up."
+
+"Not they," said Raffles. "One of them was against it as it was; it
+wasn't their job at all."
+
+"Not to take you in the act if they could?"
+
+"No; their job was to take the letter from me as soon as I got back to
+earth. That was all. I happen to know. Those were their instructions from
+old Levy."
+
+"Levy!"
+
+"Did it never occur to you that I was being dogged by his creatures?"
+
+"His creatures, Raffles?"
+
+"He set them to shadow me from the hour of our interview on Saturday
+morning. Their instructions were to bag the letter from me as soon as I
+got it, but to let me go free to the devil!"
+
+"How can you know, A.J.?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, where do you suppose I've been spending the week-end? Did
+you think I'd go in with a sly dog like old Shylock without watching him
+and finding out his real game? I should have thought it hardly necessary
+to tell you I've been down the river all the time; down the river,"
+added Raffles, chuckling, "in a Canadian canoe and a torpedo beard! I was
+cruising near the foot of the old brute's garden on Friday evening when
+one of the precious pair came down to tell him they had let me slip
+already. I landed and heard the whole thing through the window of the
+room where we shall find him to-night. It was Levy who set them to watch
+the crib since they'd lost the cracksman; he was good enough to reiterate
+all his orders for my benefit. You will hear me take him through them
+when we get down there, so it's no use going over the same ground twice."
+
+"Funny orders for a couple of Scotland Yard detectives!" was my puzzled
+comment as Raffles produced an inordinate cab-fare.
+
+"Scotland Yard?" said he. "My good Bunny, those were no limbs of the law;
+they're old thieves set to catch a thief, and they've been caught
+themselves for their pains!"
+
+Of course they were! Every detail of their appearance and their behaviour
+confirmed the statement in the flash that brought them all before my
+mind! And I had never thought of it, never but dreamt that we were doing
+battle with the archenemies of our class. But there was no time for
+further reflection, nor had I recovered breath enough for another word,
+when the hansom clattered up the cobbles into Waterloo Station. And our
+last sprint of that athletic night ended in a simultaneous leap into
+separate carriages as the platform slid away from the 12:10 train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Knocked Out
+
+
+But it was hardly likely to be the last excitement of the night, as I saw
+for myself before Raffles joined me at Vauxhall. An arch-traitor like
+Daniel Levy might at least be trusted to play the game out with loaded
+dice; no single sportsman could compete against his callous machinations;
+and that was obviously where I was coming in. I only wished I had not
+come in before! I saw now the harm that I had done by my rash proceedings
+in Gray's Inn, the extra risk entailed already and a worse one still
+impending. If the wretches who had shadowed him were really Levy's
+mercenaries, and if they really had been taken in their own trap, their
+first measure of self-defence would be the denunciation of Raffles to the
+real police. Such at least was my idea, and Raffles himself made light
+enough of it; he thought they could not expose him without dragging in
+Levy, who had probably made it worth their while not to do that on any
+consideration. His magnanimity in the matter, which he flatly refused to
+take as seriously as I did, made it difficult for me to press old
+Raffles, as I otherwise might have done, for an outline of those further
+plans in which I hoped to atone for my blunders by being of some use to
+him after all. His nonchalant manner convinced me that they were
+cut-and-dried; but I was left perhaps deservedly in the dark as to the
+details. I merely gathered that he had brought down some document for
+Levy to sign in execution of the verbal agreement made between them in
+town; not until that agreement was completed by his signature was the
+harpy to receive the precious epistle he pretended never to have written.
+Raffles, in fine, had the air of a man who has the game in his hands, who
+is none the less prepared for foul play on the other side, and by no
+means perturbed at the prospect.
+
+We left the train at a sweet-smelling platform, on which the lights were
+being extinguished as we turned into a quiet road where bats flew over
+our heads between the lamp-posts, and a policeman was passing a disc of
+light over a jerry-built abuse of the name of Queen Anne. Our way led
+through quieter roads of larger houses standing further back, until at
+last we came to the enemy's gates. They were wooden gates without a
+lodge, yet the house set well beyond them, on the river's brim, was a
+mansion of considerable size and still greater peculiarity. It was really
+two houses, large and small, connected by a spine of white posts and
+joists and glimmering glass. In the more substantial building no lights
+were to be seen from the gates, but in the annex a large French window
+made a lighted square at right angles with the river and the road. We had
+set foot in the gravel drive; with a long line of poplars down one side,
+and on the other a wide lawn dotted with cedars and small shrubs, when
+Raffles strode among these with a smothered exclamation, and a wild
+figure started from the ground.
+
+"What are you doing here?" demanded Raffles, with all the righteous
+austerity of a law-abiding citizen.
+
+"Nutting, sare!" replied an alien tongue, a gleam of good teeth in the
+shadow of his great soft hat. "I been see Mistare Le-vie in ze 'ouse, on
+ze beezness, shentlemen."
+
+"Seen him, have you? Then if I were you I should make a decent
+departure," said Raffles, "by the gate--" to which he pointed with
+increased severity of tone and bearing.
+
+The weird figure uncovered a shaggy head of hair, made us a grotesque bow
+with his right hand melodramatically buried in the folds of a voluminous
+cape, and stalked off in the starlight with much dignity. But we heard
+him running in the road before the gate had clicked behind him.
+
+"Isn't that the fellow we saw in Jermyn Street last Thursday?" I asked
+Raffles in a whisper.
+
+"That's the chap," he whispered back. "I wonder if he spotted us, Bunny?
+Levy's treated him scandalously, of course; it all came out in a torrent
+the other morning. I only hope he hasn't been serving Dan Levy as Jack
+Rutter served old Baird! I could swear that was a weapon of sorts he'd
+got under his cloak."
+
+And as we stood together under the stars, listening to the last of the
+runaway footfalls, I recalled the killing of another and a less notorious
+usurer by a man we both knew, and had even helped to shield from the
+consequences of his crime. Yet the memory of our terrible discovery on
+that occasion had not the effect of making me shrink from such another
+now; nor could I echo the hope of Raffles in my heart of hearts. If Dan
+Levy also had come to a bad end--well, it was no more than he deserved,
+if only for his treachery to Raffles, and, at any rate, it would put a
+stop to our plunging from bad to worse in an adventure of which the
+sequel might well be worst of all. I do not say that I was wicked enough
+absolutely to desire the death of this sinner for our benefit; but I saw
+the benefit at least as plainly as the awful possibility, and it was not
+with unalloyed relief that I beheld a great figure stride through the
+lighted windows at our nearer approach.
+
+Though his back was to the light before I saw his face, and the whole man
+might have been hacked out of ebony, it was every inch the living Levy
+who stood peering in our direction, one hand hollowed at an ear, the
+other shading both eyes.
+
+"Is that you, boys?" he croaked in sepulchral salute.
+
+"It depends which boys you mean," replied Raffles, marching into the zone
+of light. "There are so many of us about to-night!"
+
+Levy's arms dropped at his sides, and I heard him mutter "Raffles!" with
+a malediction. Next moment he was inquiring whether we had come down
+alone, yet peering past us into the velvet night for his answer.
+
+"I brought our friend Bunny," said Raffles, "but that's all."
+
+"Then what do you mean by saying there are so many of you about?"
+
+"I was thinking of the gentleman who was here just before us."
+
+"Here just before you? Why, I haven't seen a soul since my 'ousehold
+went to bed."
+
+"But we met the fellow just this minute within your gates: a little
+foreign devil with a head like a mop and the cloak of an operatic
+conspirator."
+
+"That beggar!" cried Levy, flying into a high state of excitement on the
+spot. "That blessed little beggar on my tracks down here! I've 'ad him
+thrown out of the office in Jermyn Street; he's threatened me by letter
+and telegram; so now he thinks he'll come and try it on in person down
+'ere. Seen me, eh? I wish I'd seen '_im_! I'm ready for biters like that,
+gentlemen. I'm not to be caught on the 'op down here!"
+
+And a plated revolver twinkled and flashed in the electric light as Levy
+drew it from his hip pocket and flourished it in our faces; he would have
+gone prowling through the grounds with it if Raffles had not assured him
+that the foreign foe had fled on our arrival. As it was the pistol was
+not put back in his pocket when Levy at length conducted us indoors; he
+placed it on an occasional table beside the glass that he drained on
+entering; and forthwith set his back to a fire which seemed in keeping
+with the advanced hour, and doubly welcome in an apartment so vast that
+the billiard table was a mere item at one end, and sundry trophies of
+travel and the chase a far more striking and unforeseen feature.
+
+"Why, that's a better grisly than the one at Lord's!" exclaimed Raffles,
+pausing to admire a glorious fellow near the door, while I mixed myself
+the drink he had declined.
+
+"Yes," said Levy, "the man that shot all this lot used to go about saying
+he'd shoot _me_ at one time; but I need 'ardly tell you he gave it up as
+a bad job, and went an' did what some folks call a worse instead. He
+didn't get much show 'ere, _I_ can tell you; that little foreign snipe
+won't either, nor yet any other carrion that think they want my blood.
+I'd empty this shooter o' mine into their in'ards as soon as look at 'em,
+I don't give a curse who they are! Just as well I wasn't brought up to
+your profession, eh, Raffles?"
+
+"I don't quite follow you, Mr. Levy."
+
+"Oh yes you do!" said the money-lender, with his gastric chuckle. "How've
+you got on with that little bit o' burgling?"
+
+And I saw him screw up his bright eyes, and glance through the open
+windows into the outer darkness, as though there was still a hope in his
+mind that we had not come down alone. I formed the impression that Levy
+had returned by a fairly late train himself, for he was in morning dress,
+in dusty boots, and there was an abundant supply of sandwiches on the
+table with the drinks. But he seemed to have confined his own attentions
+to the bottle, and I liked to think that the sandwiches had been cut for
+the two emissaries for whom he was welcome to look out for all night.
+
+"How did you get on?" he repeated when he had given them up for
+the present.
+
+"For a first attempt," replied Raffles, without a twinkle, "I don't think
+I've done so badly."
+
+"Ah! I keep forgetting you're a young beginner," said Levy, catching the
+old note in his turn.
+
+"A beginner who's scarcely likely to go on, Mr. Levy, if all cribs are as
+easy to crack as that lawyers' office of yours in Gray's Inn Square."
+
+"As easy?"
+
+Raffles recollected his pose.
+
+"It was enormous fun," said he. "Of course one couldn't know that
+there would be no hitch. There was an exciting moment towards the end.
+I have to thank you for quite a new thrill of sorts. But, my dear Mr.
+Levy, it was as easy as ringing the bell and being shown in; it only
+took rather longer."
+
+"What about the caretaker?" asked the usurer, with a curiosity no longer
+to be concealed.
+
+"He obliged me by taking his wife to the theatre."
+
+"At your expense?"
+
+"No, Mr. Levy, the item will be debited to you in due course."
+
+"So you got in without any difficulty?"
+
+"Over the roof."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I hit upon the right room."
+
+"And then, Raffles?"
+
+"I opened the right safe."
+
+"Go on, man!"
+
+But the man was only going on at his own rate, and the more Levy pressed
+him, the greater his apparent reluctance to go on at all.
+
+"Well, I found the letter all right. Oh, yes, I made a copy of it. Was it
+a good copy? Almost too good, if you ask me." Thus Raffles under
+increasing pressure.
+
+"Well? Well? You left that one there, I suppose? What happened next?"
+
+There was no longer any masking the moneylender's eagerness to extract
+the _dénouement_ of Raffles's adventure; that it required extracting must
+have seemed a sufficient earnest of the ultimate misadventure so craftily
+plotted by Levy himself. His great nose glowed with the imminence of
+victory. His strong lips loosened their habitual hold upon each other,
+and there was an impressionist daub of yellow fang between. The brilliant
+little eyes were reduced to sparkling pinheads of malevolent glee. This
+was not the fighting face I knew better and despised less, it was the
+living epitome of low cunning and foul play.
+
+"The next thing that happened," said Raffles, in his most leisurely
+manner, "was the descent of Bunny like a bolt from the blue."
+
+"Had he gone in with you?"
+
+"No; he came in after me as bold as blazes to say that a couple of
+common, low detectives were waiting for me down below in the square!"
+
+"That was very kind of 'im," snarled Levy, pouring a murderous fire upon
+my person from his little black eyes.
+
+"Kind!" cried Raffles. "It saved the whole show."
+
+"It did, did it?"
+
+"I had time to dodge the limbs of the law by getting out another way, and
+never letting them know that I had got out at all."
+
+"Then you left them there?"
+
+"In their glory!" said Raffles, radiant in his own.
+
+Though I must confess I could not see them at the time, there were
+excellent reasons for not stating there and then the delicious plight in
+which we had really left Levy's myrmidons. I myself would have driven
+home our triumph and his treachery by throwing our winning cards upon the
+table and simultaneously exposing his false play. But Raffles was right,
+and I should have been wrong, as I was soon enough to see for myself.
+
+"And you came away, I suppose," suggested the money-lender, ironically,
+"with my original letter in your pocket?"
+
+"Oh, no, I didn't," replied Raffles, with a reproving shake of the head.
+
+"I thought not!" cried Levy in a gust of exultation.
+
+"I came away," said Raffles, "if you'll pardon the correction, with the
+letter you never dreamt of writing, Mr. Levy!"
+
+The Jew turned a deeper shade of yellow; but he had the wisdom and the
+self-control otherwise to ignore the point against him. "You'd better let
+me see it," said he, and flung out his open hand with a gesture of
+authority which it took a Raffles to resist.
+
+Levy was still standing with his back to the fire, and I was at his feet
+in a saddle-bag chair, with my yellow beaker on the table at my elbow.
+But Raffles remained aloof upon his legs, and he withdrew still further
+from the fire as he unfolded a large sheet of office paper, stamped with
+the notorious address in Jermyn Street, and displayed it on high like a
+phylactery.
+
+"You may see, by all means, Mr. Levy," said Raffles, with a slight but
+sufficient emphasis on his verb.
+
+"But I'm not to touch--is that it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I must ask you to look first," said Raffles, smiling. "I
+should suggest, however, that you exercise the same caution in showing me
+that part of your _quid pro quo_ which you have doubtless in readiness;
+the other part is in my pocket ready for you to sign; and after that, the
+three little papers can change hands simultaneously."
+
+Nothing could have excelled the firmness of this intimation, except the
+exggravating delicacy with which it was conveyed. I saw Levy clench and
+unclench his great fists, and his canine jaw working protuberantly as he
+ground his teeth. But not a word escaped him, and I was admiring the
+monster's self-control when of a sudden he swooped upon the table at my
+side, completely filled his empty glass with neat whiskey, and,
+spluttering and blinking from an enormous gulp, made a lurch for Raffles
+with his drink in one hand and his plated pistol in the other.
+
+"Now I'll have a look," he hiccoughed, "an' a good look, unless you want
+a lump of lead in your liver!"
+
+Raffles awaited his uncertain advance with a contemptuous smile.
+
+"You're not such a fool as all that, Mr. Levy, drunk or sober," said he;
+but his eye was on the waving weapon, and so was mine; and I was
+wondering how a man could have got so very suddenly drunk, when the
+nobbler of crude spirit was hurled with most sober aim, glass and all,
+full in the face of Raffles, and the letter plucked from his grasp and
+flung upon the fire, while Raffles was still reeling in his blindness,
+and before I had struggled to my feet.
+
+Raffles, for the moment, was absolutely blinded; as I say, his face was
+streaming with blood and whiskey, and the prince of traitors already
+crowing over his vile handiwork. But that was only for a moment, too; the
+blackguard had been fool enough to turn his back on me; and, first
+jumping upon my chair, I sprang upon him like any leopard, and brought
+him down with my ten fingers in his neck, and such a crack on the parquet
+with his skull as left it a deadweight on my hands. I remember the
+rasping of his bristles as I disengaged my fingers and let the leaden
+head fall back; it fell sideways now, and if it had but looked less dead
+I believe I should have stamped the life out of the reptile on the spot.
+
+I know that I rose exultant from my deed....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Corpus Delicti
+
+
+Raffles was still stamping and staggering with his knuckles in his eyes,
+and I heard him saying, "The letter, Bunny, the letter!" in a way that
+made me realise all at once that he had been saying nothing else since
+the moment of the foul assault. It was too late now and must have been
+from the first; a few filmy scraps of blackened paper, stirring on the
+hearth, were all that remained of the letter by which Levy had set such
+store, for which Raffles had risked so much.
+
+"He's burnt it," said I. "He was too quick for me."
+
+"And he's nearly burnt my eyes out," returned Raffles, rubbing them
+again. "He was too quick for us both."
+
+"Not altogether," said I, grimly. "I believe I've cracked his skull and
+finished him off!"
+
+Raffles rubbed and rubbed until his bloodshot eyes were blinking out of a
+blood-stained face into that of the fallen man. He found and felt the
+pulse in a wrist like a ship's cable.
+
+"No, Bunny, there's some life in him yet! Run out and see if there are
+any lights in the other part of the house."
+
+When I came back Raffles was listening at the door leading into the long
+glass passage.
+
+"Not a light!" said I.
+
+"Nor a sound," he whispered. "We're in better luck than we might have
+been; even his revolver didn't go off." Raffles extracted it from under
+the prostrate body. "It might just as easily have gone off and shot him,
+or one of us." And he put the pistol in his own pocket.
+
+"But have I killed him, Raffles?"
+
+"Not yet, Bunny."
+
+"But do you think he's going to die?"
+
+I was overcome by reaction now; my knees knocked together, my teeth
+chattered in my head; nor could I look any longer upon the great body
+sprawling prone, or the insensate head twisted sideways on the
+parquet floor.
+
+"He's all right," said Raffles, when he had knelt and felt and listened
+again. I whimpered a pious but inconsistent ejaculation. Raffles sat back
+on his heels, and meditatively wiped a smear of his own blood from the
+polished floor. "You'd better leave him to me," he said, looking and
+getting up with sudden decision.
+
+"But what am I to do?"
+
+"Go down to the boathouse and wait in the boat."
+
+"Where is the boathouse?"
+
+"You can't miss it if you follow the lawn down to the water's edge.
+There's a door on this side; if it isn't open, force it with this."
+
+And he passed me his pocket jimmy as naturally as another would have
+handed over a bunch of keys.
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"You'll find yourself on the top step leading down to the water; stand
+tight, and lash out all round until you find a windlass. Wind that
+windlass as gingerly as though it were a watch with a weak heart; you
+will be raising a kind of portcullis at the other end of the boathouse,
+but if you're heard doing it at dead of night we may have to run or swim
+for it. Raise the thing just high enough to let us under in the boat, and
+then lie low on board till I come."
+
+Reluctant to leave that ghastly form upon the floor, but now stricken
+helpless in its presence, I was softer wax than ever in the hands of
+Raffles, and soon found myself alone in the dew upon an errand in which I
+neither saw nor sought for any point. Enough that Raffles had given me
+something to do for our salvation; what part he had assigned to himself,
+what he was about indoors already, and the nature of his ultimate design,
+were questions quite beyond me for the moment. I did not worry about
+them. Had I killed my man? That was the one thing that mattered to me,
+and I frankly doubt whether even it mattered at the time so supremely as
+it seemed to have mattered now. Away from the _corpus delicti_, my horror
+was already less of the deed than of the consequences, and I had quite a
+level view of those. What I had done was barely even manslaughter at the
+worst. But at the best the man was not dead. Raffles was bringing him to
+life again. Alive or dead, I could trust him to Raffles, and go about my
+own part of the business, as indeed I did in a kind of torpor of the
+normal sensibilities.
+
+Not much do I remember of that dreamy interval, until the dream became
+the nightmare that was still in store. The river ran like a broad road
+under the stars, with hardly a glimmer and not a floating thing upon it.
+The boathouse stood at the foot of a file of poplars, and I only found it
+by stooping low and getting everything over my own height against the
+stars. The door was not locked; but the darkness within was such that I
+could not see my own hand as it wound the windlass inch by inch. Between
+the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and
+heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse;
+that was the last of the "portcullis," as Raffles called it, rising out
+of the river; indeed, I could now see the difference in the stretch of
+stream underneath, for the open end of the boathouse was much less dark
+than mine; and when the faint band of reflected starlight had broadened
+as I thought enough, I ceased winding and groped my way down the steps
+into the boat.
+
+But inaction at such a crisis was an intolerable state, and the last
+thing I wanted was time to think. With nothing more to do I must needs
+wonder what I was doing in the boat, and then what Raffles could want
+with the boat if it was true that Levy was not seriously hurt. I could
+see the strategic value of my position if we had been robbing the house,
+but Raffles was not out for robbery this time; and I did not believe he
+would suddenly change his mind. Could it be that he had never been quite
+confident of the recovery of Levy, but had sent me to prepare this means
+of escape from the scene of a tragedy? I cannot have been long in the
+boat, for my thwart was still rocking under me, when this suspicion shot
+me ashore in a cold sweat. In my haste I went into the river up to one
+knee, and ran across the lawn with that boot squelching. Raffles came out
+of the lighted room to meet me, and as he stood like Levy against the
+electric glare, the first thing I noticed was that he was wearing an
+overcoat that did not belong to him, and that the pockets of this
+overcoat were bulging grotesquely. But it was the last thing I remembered
+in the horror that was to come.
+
+Levy was lying where I had left him, only straighter, and with a cushion
+under his head, as though he were not merely dead, but laid out in his
+clothes where he had fallen.
+
+"I was just coming for you, Bunny," whispered Raffles before I could find
+my voice. "I want you to take hold of his boots."
+
+"His boots!" I gasped, taking Raffles by the sleeve instead. "What on
+earth for?"
+
+"To carry him down to the boat!"
+
+"But is he--is he still--"
+
+"Alive?" Raffles was smiling as though I amused him mightily. "Rather,
+Bunny! Too full of life to be left, I can tell you; but it'll be daylight
+if we stop for explanations now. Are you going to lend a hand, or am I to
+drag him through the dew myself?"
+
+I lent every fibre, and Raffles raised the lifeless trunk, I suppose by
+the armpits, and led the way backward into the night, after switching off
+the lights within. But the first stage of our revolting journey was a
+very short one. We deposited our poor burden as charily as possible on
+the gravel, and I watched over it for some of the longest minutes of my
+life, while Raffles shut and fastened all the windows, left the room as
+Levy himself might have left it, and finally found his way out by one of
+the doors. And all the while not a movement or a sound came from the
+senseless clay at my feet; but once, when I bent over him, the smell of
+whiskey was curiously vital and reassuring.
+
+We started off again, Raffles with every muscle on the strain, I with
+every nerve; this time we staggered across the lawn without a rest,
+but at the boathouse we put him down in the dew, until I took off my
+coat and we got him lying on that while we debated about the
+boathouse, its darkness, and its steps. The combination beat us on a
+moment's consideration; and again I was the one to stay, and watch,
+and listen to my own heart beating; and then to the water bubbling at
+the prow and dripping from the blades as Raffles sculled round to the
+edge of the lawn.
+
+I need dwell no more upon the difficulty and the horror of getting that
+inanimate mass on board; both were bad enough, but candour compels me to
+admit that the difficulty dwarfed all else until at last we overcame it.
+How near we were to swamping our craft, and making sure of our victim by
+drowning, I still shudder to remember; but I think it must have prevented
+me from shuddering over more remote possibilities at the time. It was a
+time, if ever there was one, to trust in Raffles and keep one's powder
+dry; and to that extent I may say I played the game. But it was his game,
+not mine, and its very object was unknown to me. Never, in fact, had I
+followed my inveterate leader quite so implicitly, so blindly, or with
+such reckless excitement. And yet, if the worst did happen and our mute
+passenger was never to open his eyes again, it seemed to me that we were
+well on the road to turn manslaughter into murder in the eyes of any
+British jury: the road that might easily lead to destruction at the
+hangman's hands.
+
+But a more immediate menace seemed only to have awaited the actual moment
+of embarkation, when, as we were pushing off, the rhythmical plash and
+swish of a paddle fell suddenly upon our ears, and we clutched the bank
+while a canoe shot down-stream within a length of us. Luckily the night
+was as dark as ever, and all we saw of the paddler was a white shirt
+fluttering as it passed. But there lay Levy with his heavy head between
+my shins in the stern-sheets, with his waistcoat open, and _his_ white
+shirt catching what light there was as greedily as the other; and his
+white face as conspicuous to my guilty mind as though we had rubbed it
+with phosphorus. Nor was I the only one to lay this last peril to heart.
+Raffles sat silent for several minutes on his thwart; and when he did dip
+his sculls it was to muffle his strokes so that even I could scarcely
+hear them, and to keep peering behind him down the Stygian stream.
+
+So long had we been getting under way that nothing surprised me more
+than the extreme brevity of our actual voyage. Not many houses and
+gardens had slipped behind us on the Middlesex shore, when we turned
+into an inlet running under the very windows of a house so near the
+river itself that even I might have thrown a stone from any one of them
+into Surrey. The inlet was empty and ill-smelling; there was a crazy
+landing-stage, and the many windows overlooking us had the black gloss
+of empty darkness within. Seen by starlight with a troubled eye, the
+house had one salient feature in the shape of a square tower, which
+stood out from the facade fronting the river, and rose to nearly twice
+the height of the main roof. But this curious excrescence only added to
+the forbidding character of as gloomy a mansion as one could wish to
+approach by stealth at dead of night.
+
+"What's this place?" I whispered as Raffles made fast to a post.
+
+"An unoccupied house, Bunny."
+
+"Do you mean to occupy it?"
+
+"I mean our passenger to do so--if we can land him alive or dead!"
+
+"Hush, Raffles!"
+
+"It's a case of heels first, this time--"
+
+"Shut up!"
+
+Raffles was kneeling on the landing-stage--luckily on a level with our
+rowlocks--and reaching down into the boat.
+
+"Give me his heels," he muttered; "you can look after his business end.
+You needn't be afraid of waking the old hound, nor yet hurting him."
+
+"I'm not," I whispered, though mere words had never made my blood run
+colder. "You don't understand me. Listen to that!"
+
+And as Raffles knelt on the landing-stage, and I crouched in the boat,
+with something desperately like a dead man stretched between us, there
+was a swish and a dip outside the inlet, and a flutter of white on the
+river beyond.
+
+"Another narrow squeak!" he muttered with grim levity when the sound had
+died away. "I wonder who it is paddling his own canoe at dead of night?"
+
+"I'm wondering how much he saw."
+
+"Nothing," said Raffles, as though there could be no two opinions on the
+point. "What did we see to swear to between a sweater and a
+pocket-handkerchief? Only something white, and we were looking out, and
+it's far darker in here than out there on the main stream. But it'll
+soon be getting light, and we really may be seen unless we land our big
+fish first."
+
+And without more ado he dragged the lifeless Levy ashore by the heels,
+while I alternately grasped the landing-stage to steady the boat, and did
+my best to protect the limp members and the leaden head from actual
+injury. All my efforts could not avert a few hard knocks, however, and
+these were sustained with such a horrifying insensibility of body and
+limb, that my worst suspicions were renewed before I crawled ashore
+myself, and remained kneeling over the prostrate form.
+
+"Are you certain, Raffles?" I began, and could not finish the
+awful question.
+
+"That he's alive?" said Raffles. "Rather, Bunny, and he'll be kicking
+below the belt again in a few more hours!"
+
+"A few more _hours_, A.J.?"
+
+"I give him four or five."
+
+"Then it's concussion of the brain!"
+
+"It's the brain all right," said Raffles. "But for 'concussion' I should
+say 'coma,' if I were you."
+
+"What have I done!" I murmured, shaking my head over the poor old brute.
+
+"You?" said Raffles. "Less than you think, perhaps!"
+
+"But the man's never moved a muscle."
+
+"Oh, yes, he has, Bunny!"
+
+"When?"
+
+"I'll tell you at the next stage," said Raffles. "Up with his heels and
+come this way."
+
+And we trailed across a lawn so woefully neglected that the big body
+sagging between us, though it cleared the ground by several inches, swept
+the dew from the rank growth until we got it propped up on some steps at
+the base of the tower, and Raffles ran up to open the door. More steps
+there were within, stone steps allowing so little room for one foot and
+so much for the other as to suggest a spiral staircase from top to bottom
+of the tower. So it turned out to be; but there were landings
+communicating with the house, and on the first of them we laid our man
+and sat down to rest.
+
+"How I love a silent, uncomplaining, stone staircase!" sighed the now
+quite invisible Raffles. "So of course we find one thrown away upon an
+empty house. Are you there, Bunny?"
+
+"Rather! Are you quite sure nobody else is here?" I asked, for he was
+scarcely troubling to lower his voice.
+
+"Only Levy, and he won't count till all hours."
+
+"I'm waiting to hear how you know."
+
+"Have a Sullivan, first."
+
+"Are we as safe as all that?"
+
+"If we're careful to make an ash-tray of our own pockets," said Raffles,
+and I heard him tapping his cigarette in the dark. I refused to run any
+risks. Next moment his match revealed him sitting at the bottom of one
+flight, and me at the top of the flight below; either spiral was lost in
+shadow; and all I saw besides was a cloud of smoke from the blood-stained
+lips of Raffles, more clouds of cobwebs, and Levy's boots lying over on
+their uppers, almost in my lap. Raffles called my attention to them
+before he blew out his match.
+
+"He hasn't turned his toes up yet, you see! It's a hog's sleep, but not
+by any means his last."
+
+"Did you mean just now that he woke up while I was in the boathouse?"
+
+"Almost as soon as your back was turned, Bunny--if you call it waking up.
+You had knocked him out, you know, but only for a few minutes."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that he was none the worse?"
+
+"Very little, Bunny."
+
+My feeble heart jumped about in my body.
+
+"Then what knocked him out again, A.J.?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"In the same way?"
+
+"No, Bunny, he asked for a drink and I gave him one."
+
+"A doctored drink!" I whispered with some horror; it was refreshing to
+feel once more horrified at some act not one's own.
+
+"So to speak," said Raffles, with a gesture that I followed by the red
+end of his cigarette; "I certainly touched it up a bit, but I always
+meant to touch up his liquor if the beggar went back on his word. He did
+a good deal worse--for the second time of asking--and you did better than
+I ever knew you do before, Bunny! I simply carried on the good work. Our
+friend is full of a judicious blend of his own whiskey and the stuff poor
+Teddy had the other night. And when he does come to his senses I believe
+we shall find him damned sensible."
+
+"And if he isn't, I suppose you'll keep him here until he is?"
+
+"I shall hold him up to ransom," said Raffles, "at the top of this ruddy
+tower, until he pays through both nostrils for the privilege of climbing
+down alive."
+
+"You mean until he stands by his side of your bargain?" said I, only
+hoping that was his meaning, but not without other apprehensions which
+Raffles speedily confirmed.
+
+"And the rest!" he replied, significantly. "You don't suppose the skunk's
+going to get off as lightly as if he'd played the game, do you? I've got
+one of my own to play now, Bunny, and I mean to play it for all I'm
+worth. I thought it would come to this!"
+
+In fact, he had foreseen treachery from the first, and the desperate
+device of kidnapping the traitor proved to have been as deliberate a move
+as Raffles had ever planned to meet a probable contingency. He had
+brought down a pair of handcuffs as well as a sufficient supply of
+Somnol. My own deed of violence was the one entirely unforeseen effect,
+and Raffles vowed it had been a help. But when I inquired whether he had
+ever been over this empty house before, an irritable jerk of his
+cigarette end foretold the answer.
+
+"My good Bunny, is this a time for rotten questions? Of course I've been
+over the whole place; didn't I tell you I'd been spending the week-end in
+these parts? I got an order to view the place, and have bribed the
+gardener not to let anybody else see over it till I've made up my mind.
+The gardener's cottage is on the other side of the main road, which runs
+flush with the front of the house; there's a splendid garden on that
+side, but it takes him all his time to keep it up, so he's given up
+bothering about this bit here. He only sets foot in the house to show
+people over; his wife comes in sometimes to open the downstairs windows;
+the ones upstairs are never shut. So you perceive we shall be fairly free
+from interruption at the top of this tower, especially when I tell you
+that it finishes in a room as sound-proof as old Carlyle's crow's-nest in
+Cheyne Row."
+
+It flashed across me that another great man of letters had made his local
+habitation if not his name in this part of the Thames Valley; and when I
+asked if this was that celebrity's house, Raffles seemed surprised that
+I had not recognised it as such in the dark. He said it would never let
+again, as the place was far too good for its position, which was now much
+too near London. He also told me that the idea of holding Dan Levy up to
+ransom had occurred to him when he found himself being followed about
+town by Levy's "mamelukes," and saw what a traitor he had to cope with.
+
+"And I hope you like the idea, Bunny," he added, "because I was never
+caught kidnapping before, and in all London there wasn't a bigger man
+to kidnap."
+
+"I love it," said I (and it was true enough of the abstract idea), "but
+don't you think he's just a bit too big? Won't the country ring with his
+disappearance?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, nobody will dream he's disappeared!" said Raffles,
+confidently. "I know the habits of the beast; didn't I tell you he ran
+another show somewhere? Nobody seems to know where, but when he isn't
+here, that's where he's supposed to be, and when he's there he cuts town
+for days on end. I suppose you never noticed I've been wearing an
+overcoat all this time, Bunny?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I did," said I. "Of course it's one of his?"
+
+"The very one he'd have worn to-night, and his soft hat from the same
+peg is in one of the pockets; their absence won't look as if he'd come
+out feet first, will it, Bunny? I thought his stick might be in the way,
+so instead of bringing it too, I stowed it away behind his books. But
+these things will serve a second turn when we see our way to letting him
+go again like a gentleman."
+
+The red end of the Sullivan went out sizzling between a moistened thumb
+and finger, and no doubt Raffles put it carefully in his pocket as he
+rose to resume the ascent. It was still perfectly dark on the tower
+stairs; but by the time we reached the sanctum at the top we could see
+each other's outlines against certain ovals of wild grey sky and dying
+stars. For there was a window more like a porthole in three of the four
+walls; in the fourth wall was a cavity like a ship's bunk, into which we
+lifted our still unconscious prisoner as gently as we might. Nor was that
+the last that was done for him, now that some slight amends were
+possible. From an invisible locker Raffles produced bundles of thin,
+coarse stuff, one of which he placed as a pillow under the sleeper's
+head, while the other was shaken out into a covering for his body.
+
+"And you asked me if I'd ever been over the place!" said Raffles,
+putting a third bundle in my hands. "Why, I slept up here last night,
+just to see if it was all as quiet as it looked; these were my
+bed-clothes, and I want you to follow my example."
+
+"I go to sleep?" I cried. "I couldn't and wouldn't for a thousand
+pounds, Raffles!"
+
+"Oh, yes, you could!" said Raffles, and as he spoke there was a horrible
+explosion in the tower. Upon my word, I thought one of us was shot, until
+there came the smaller sounds of froth pattering on the floor and liquor
+bubbling from a bottle.
+
+"Champagne!" I exclaimed, when he had handed me the metal cap of a flask,
+and I had taken a sip. "Did you hide that up here as well?"
+
+"I hid nothing up here except myself," returned Raffles, laughing. "This
+is one of a couple of pints from the cellarette in Levy's billiard den;
+take your will of it, Bunny, and perhaps the old man may have the other
+when he's a good boy. I fancy we shall find it a stronger card than it
+looks. Meanwhile let sleeping dogs lie and lying dogs sleep! And you'd be
+far more use to me later, Bunny, if only you'd try to do the same."
+
+I was beginning to feel that I might try, for Raffles was filling up the
+metal cup every minute, and also plying me with sandwiches from Levy's
+table, brought hence (with the champagne) in Levy's overcoat pocket. It
+was still pleasing to reflect that they had been originally intended for
+the rival bravos of Gray's Inn. But another idea that did occur to me, I
+dismissed at the time, and so justly that I would disabuse any other
+suspicious mind of it without delay. Dear old Raffles was scarcely more
+skilful and audacious as amateur cracksman than as amateur anaesthetist,
+nor was he ever averse from the practice of his uncanny genius at either
+game. But, sleepy as I soon found myself at the close of our very long
+night's work, I had no subsequent reason to suppose that Raffles had
+given _me_ drop or morsel of anything but sandwiches and champagne.
+
+So I rolled myself up on the locker, just as things were beginning to
+take visible shape even without the tower windows behind them, and I was
+almost dropping off to sleep when a sudden anxiety smote my mind.
+
+"What about the boat?" I asked.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Raffles!" I cried. "What are you going to do about the beggar's boat?"
+
+"You go to sleep," came the sharp reply, "and leave the boat to me."
+
+And I fancied from his voice that Raffles also had lain him down, but on
+the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Trial by Raffles
+
+
+When I awoke it was dazzling daylight in the tower, and the little scene
+was quite a surprise to me. It had felt far larger in the dark. I suppose
+the floor-space was about twelve feet square, but it was contracted on
+one side by the well and banisters of a wooden staircase from the room
+below, on another by the ship's bunk, and opposite that by the locker on
+which I lay. Moreover, the four walls, or rather the four triangles of
+roof, sloped so sharply to the apex of the tower as to leave an inner
+margin in which few grown persons could have stood upright. The port-hole
+windows were shrouded with rags of cobweb spotted with dead flies. They
+had evidently not been opened for years; it was even more depressingly
+obvious that we must not open them. One was thankful for such modicum of
+comparatively pure air as came up the open stair from the floor below;
+but in the freshness of the morning one trembled to anticipate the
+atmosphere of this stale and stuffy eyrie through the heat of a summer's
+day. And yet neither the size nor the scent of the place, nor any other
+merely scenic feature, was half so disturbing or fantastic as the
+appearance of my two companions.
+
+Raffles, not quite at the top of the stairs, but near enough to loll over
+the banisters, and Levy, cumbering the ship's bunk, were indeed startling
+figures to an eye still dim with sleep. Raffles had an ugly cut from the
+left nostril to the corner of the mouth; he had washed the blood from his
+face, but the dark and angry streak remained to heighten his unusual
+pallor. Levy looked crumpled and debauched, flabbily and feebly senile,
+yet with his vital forces making a last flicker in his fiery eyes. He was
+grotesquely swathed in scarlet bunting, from which his doubled fists
+protruded in handcuffs; a bit of thin rope attached the handcuffs to a
+peg on which his coat and hat were also hanging, and a longer bit was
+taken round the banisters from the other end of the bunting, which I now
+perceived to be a tattered and torn Red Ensign. This led to the discovery
+that I myself had been sleeping in the Union Jack, and it brought my eyes
+back to the ghastly face of Raffles, who was already smiling at mine.
+
+"Enjoyed your night under canvas, Bunny? Then you might get up and
+present your colours to the prisoner in the bunk. You needn't be
+frightened of him, Bunny; he's such a devilish tough customer that I've
+had to clap him in irons, as you see. Yet he can't say I haven't given
+him rope enough; he's got lashings of rope--eh, Bunny?"
+
+"That's right!" said Levy, with a bitter snarl. "Get a man down by foul
+play, and then wipe your boots on him! I'd stick it like a lamb if only
+you'd give me that drink."
+
+And then it was, as I got to my feet, and shook myself free from the
+folds of the Union Jack, that I saw the unopened pint of champagne
+standing against the banisters in full view of the bunk. I confess I eyed
+it wistfully myself; but Raffles was adamant alike to friend and foe, and
+merely beckoned me to follow him down the wooden stair, without answering
+Levy at all. I certainly thought it a risk to leave that worthy unwatched
+for a moment, but it was scarcely for more. The room below was fitted
+with a bath and a lavatory basin, which Raffles pointed out to me without
+going all the way down himself. At the same time he handed me a stale
+remnant of the sandwiches removed with Levy from his house.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to wash these down at that tap," said he. "The
+poor devil has finished what you left at daybreak, besides making a hole
+in my flask; but he can't or won't eat a bite, and if only he stands his
+trial and takes his sentence like a man, I think he might have the other
+pint to his own infernal cheek."
+
+"Trial and sentence!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were going to hold him
+up to ransom?"
+
+"Not without a fair trial, my dear Bunny," said Raffles in the accents of
+reproof. "We must hear what the old swab has to say for himself, when
+he's heard what I've got to say to him. So you stick your head under the
+tap when you've had your snack, Bunny; it won't come up to the swim I had
+after I'd taken the boat back, when you and Shylock were fast asleep, but
+it's all you've time for if you want to hear me open my case."
+
+And open it he did before himself, as judge and counsel in one, sitting
+on the locker as on the bench, the very moment I reappeared in court.
+
+"Prisoner in the bunk, before we formulate the charge against you we had
+better deal with your last request for drink, made in the same breath as
+a preposterous complaint about foul play. The request has been made and
+granted more than once already this morning. This time it's refused.
+Drink has been your undoing, prisoner in the bunk; it is drink that
+necessitates your annual purification at Carlsbad, and yet within a week
+of that chastening experience you come before me without knowing where
+you are or how you got here."
+
+"That wasn't the whisky," muttered Levy with a tortured brow. "That
+was something else, which you'll hear more about; foul play it was,
+and you'll pay for it yet. There's not a headache in a hogshead of
+my whisky."
+
+"Well," resumed Raffles, "your champagne is on the same high level, and
+here's a pint of the best which you can open for yourself if only you
+show your sense before I've done with you. But you won't advance that
+little millennium by talking about foul play as though it were all on one
+side and the foulest of the foul not on yours. You will only retard the
+business of the court. You are indicted with extortion and sharp practice
+in all your dealings, with cheating and misleading your customers,
+attempting to cheat and betray your friends, and breaking all the rules
+of civilised crime. You are not invited to plead either way, because this
+court would not attach the slightest value to your plea; but presently
+you will get an opportunity of addressing the court in mitigation of your
+sentence. Or, if you like," continued Raffles, with a wink at me, "you
+may be represented by counsel. My learned friend here, I'm sure, will be
+proud to undertake your defence as a 'docker'; or--perhaps I should say a
+'bunker,' Mr. Bunny?"
+
+And Raffles laughed as coyly as a real judge at a real judicial joke,
+whereupon I joined in so uproariously as to find myself degraded from the
+position of leading counsel to that of the general public in a single
+flash from the judge's eye.
+
+"If I hear any more laughter," said Raffles, "I shall clear the court.
+It's perfectly monstrous that people should come here to a court of
+justice and behave as though they were at a theatre."
+
+Levy had been reclining with his yellow face twisted and his red eyes
+shut; but now these burst open as with flames, and the dry lips spat a
+hearty curse at the judge upon the locker.
+
+"Take care!" said Raffles. "Contempt of court won't do you any good,
+you know!"
+
+"And what good will all this foolery do you? Say what you've got to say
+against me, and be damned to you!"
+
+"I fear you're confusing our functions sadly," said Raffles, with a
+compassionate shake of the head. "But so far as your first exhortation
+goes, I shall endeavour to take you at your word. You are a money-lender
+trading, among other places, in Jermyn Street, St. James's, under the
+style and title of Daniel Levy."
+
+"It 'appens to be my name."
+
+"That I can well believe," rejoined Raffles; "and if I may say so, Mr.
+Levy, I respect you for it. You don't call yourself MacGregor or
+Montgomery. You don't sail under false colours at all. You fly the skull
+and crossbones of Daniel Levy, and it's one of the points that
+distinguish you from the ruck of money-lenders and put you in a class by
+yourself. Unfortunately, the other points are not so creditable. If you
+are more brazen than most you are also more unscrupulous; if you fly at
+higher game, you descend to lower dodges. You may be the biggest man
+alive at your job; you are certainly the biggest villain."
+
+"But I'm up against a bigger now," said Levy, shifting his position and
+closing his crimson eyes.
+
+"Possibly," said Raffles, as he produced a long envelope and unfolded a
+sheet of foolscap; "but permit me to remind you of a few of your own
+proven villainies before you take any more shots at mine. Last year you
+had three of your great bargains set aside by the law as hard and
+unconscionable; but every year you have these cases, and at best the
+terms are modified in favour of your wretched client. But it's only the
+exception who will face the music of the law-courts and the Press, and
+you figure on the general run. You prefer people like the Lincolnshire
+vicar you hounded into an asylum the year before last. You cherish the
+memory of the seven poor devils that you drove to suicide between 1890
+and 1894; that sort pay the uttermost farthing before the debt to nature!
+You set great store by the impoverished gentry and nobility who have you
+to stay with them when the worst comes to the worst, and secure a respite
+in exchange for introductions to their pals. No fish is too large for
+your net, and none is too small, from his highness of Hathipur to that
+poor little builder at Bromley, who cut the throats--"
+
+"Stop it!" cried Levy, in a lather of impotent rage.
+
+"By all means," said Raffles, restoring the paper to its envelope. "It's
+an ugly little load for one man's soul, I admit; but you must see it was
+about time somebody beat you at your own beastly game."
+
+"It's a pack of blithering lies," retorted Levy, "and you haven't beaten
+me yet. Stick to facts within your own knowledge, and then tell me if
+your precious Garlands haven't brought their troubles on themselves?"
+
+"Certainly they have," said Raffles. "But it isn't your treatment of the
+Garlands that has brought you to this pretty pass."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Your treatment of me, Mr. Levy."
+
+"A cursed crook like you!"
+
+"A party to a pretty definite bargain, however, and a discredited person
+only so far as that bargain is concerned."
+
+"And the rest!" said the money-lender, jeering feebly. "I know more about
+you than you guess."
+
+"I should have put it the other way round," replied Raffles, smiling.
+"But we are both forgetting ourselves, prisoner in the bunk. Kindly note
+that your trial is resumed, and further contempt will not be allowed to
+go unpurged. You referred a moment ago to my unfortunate friends; you say
+they were the engineers of their own misfortunes. That might be said of
+all who ever put themselves in your clutches. You squeeze them as hard as
+the law will let you, and in this case I don't see how the law is to
+interfere. So I interfere myself--in the first instance as disastrously
+as you please."
+
+"You did so!" exclaimed Levy, with a flicker of his inflamed eyes. "You
+brought things to a head; that's all _you_ did."
+
+"On the contrary, you and I came to an agreement which still holds good,"
+said Raffles, significantly. "You are to return me a certain note of hand
+for thirteen thousand and odd pounds, taken in exchange for a loan of ten
+thousand, and you are also to give an understanding to leave another
+fifteen thousand of yours on mortgage for another year at least, instead
+of foreclosing, as you threatened and had a right to do this week. That
+was your side of the bargain."
+
+"Well," said Levy, "and when did I go back on it?"
+
+"My side," continued Raffles, ignoring the interpolation, "was to get you
+by hook or crook a certain letter which you say you never wrote. As a
+matter of fact it was only to be got by crook--"
+
+"Aha!"
+
+"I got hold of it, nevertheless. I brought it to you at your house last
+night. And you instantly destroyed it after as foul an attack as one man
+ever made upon another!"
+
+Raffles had risen in his wrath, was towering over the prostrate prisoner,
+forgetful of the mock trial, dead even to the humour which he himself had
+infused into a sufficiently lurid situation, but quite terribly alive to
+the act of treachery and violence which had brought that situation about.
+And I must say that Levy looked no less alive to his own enormity; he
+quailed in his bonds with a guilty fearfulness strange to witness in so
+truculent a brute; and it was with something near a quaver that his voice
+came next.
+
+"I know that was wrong," the poor devil owned. "I'm very sorry for it,
+I'm sure! But you wouldn't trust me with my own property, and that and
+the drink together made me mad."
+
+"So you acknowledge the alcoholic influence at last?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I must have been as drunk as an owl."
+
+"You know you've been suggesting that we drugged you?"
+
+"Not seriously, Mr. Raffles. I knew the old stale taste too well. It must
+have been the best part of a bottle I had before you got down."
+
+"In your anxiety to see me safe and sound?"
+
+"That's it--with the letter."
+
+"You never dreamt of playing me false until I hesitated to let you
+handle it?"
+
+"Never for one moment, my dear Raffles!"
+
+Raffles was still standing up to his last inch under the apex of the
+tower, his head and shoulders the butt of a climbing sunbeam full of
+fretful motes. I could not see his expression from the banisters,
+but only its effect upon Dan Levy, who first held up his manacled
+hands in hypocritical protestation, and then dropped them as though
+it were a bad job.
+
+"Then why," said Raffles, "did you have me watched almost from the moment
+that we parted company at the Albany last Friday morning?"
+
+"_I_ have you watched!" exclaimed the other in real horror. "Why should
+I? It must have been the police."
+
+"It was not the police, though the blackguards did their best to look as
+if they were. I happen to be too familiar with both classes to be
+deceived. Your fellows were waiting for me up at Lord's, but I had no
+difficulty in shaking them off when I got back to the Albany. They gave
+me no further trouble until last night, when they got on my tracks at
+Gray's Inn in the guise of the two common, low detectives whom I believe
+I have already mentioned to you."
+
+"You said you left them there in their glory."
+
+"It was glorious from my point of view rather than theirs."
+
+Levy struggled into a less recumbent posture.
+
+"And what makes you think," said he, "that I set this watch upon you?"
+
+"I don't think," returned Raffles. "I know."
+
+"And how the devil do you know?"
+
+Raffles answered with a slow smile, and a still slower shake of the head:
+"You really mustn't ask me to give everybody away, Mr. Levy!"
+
+The money-lender swore an oath of sheer incredulous surprise, but checked
+himself at that and tried one more poser.
+
+"And what do you suppose was my object in having you watched, if it
+wasn't to ensure your safety?"
+
+"It might have been to make doubly sure of the letter, and to cut down
+expenses at the same swoop, by knocking me on the head and abstracting
+the treasure from my person. It was a jolly cunning idea--prisoner in
+the bunk! I shouldn't be upset about it just because it didn't come off.
+My compliments especially on making up your varlets in the quite
+colourable image of the true detective. If they had fallen upon me, and
+it had been a case of my liberty or your letter, you know well enough
+which I should let go."
+
+But Levy had fallen back upon his pillow of folded flag, and the Red
+Ensign over him bubbled and heaved with his impotent paroxysms.
+
+"They told you! They must have told you!" he ground out through his
+teeth. "The traitors--the blasted traitors!"
+
+"It's a catching complaint, you see, Mr. Levy," said Raffles,
+"especially when one's elders and betters themselves succumb to it."
+
+"But they're such liars!" cried Levy, shifting his ground again. "Don't
+you see what liars they are? I did set them to watch you, but for your
+own good, as I've just been telling you. I was so afraid something might
+'appen to you; they were there to see that nothing did. Now do you spot
+their game? I'd got to take the skunks into the secret, more or less, an'
+they've played it double on us both. Meant bagging the letter from you to
+blackmail me with it; that's what they meant! Of course, when they failed
+to bring it off, they'd pitch any yarn to you. But that was their game
+all right. You must see for yourself it could never have been mine,
+Raffles, and--and let me out o' this, like a good feller!"
+
+"Is this your defence?" asked Raffles as he resumed his seat on the
+judicial locker.
+
+"Isn't it your own?" the other asked in his turn, with an eager removal
+of all resentment from his manner. "'Aven't we both been got at by those
+two jackets? Of course I was sorry ever to 'ave trusted 'em an inch, and
+you were quite right to serve me as you did if what they'd been telling
+you 'ad been the truth; but, now you see it was all a pack of lies it's
+surely about time to stop treating me like a mad dog."
+
+"Then you really mean to stand by your side of the original arrangement?"
+
+"Always did," declared our captive; "never 'ad the slightest intention of
+doing anything else."
+
+"Then where's the first thing you promised me in fair exchange for what
+you destroyed last night? Where's Mr. Garland's note of hand?"
+
+"In my pocket-book, and that's in my pocket."
+
+"In case the worst comes to the worst," murmured Raffles in sly
+commentary, and with a sidelong glance at me.
+
+"What's that? Don't you believe me? I'll 'and it over this minute, if
+only you'll take these damned things off my wrists. There's no excuse for
+'em now, you know!"
+
+Raffles shook his head.
+
+"I'd rather not trust myself within reach of your raw fists yet,
+prisoner. But my marshal will produce the note from your person if
+it's there."
+
+It was there, in a swollen pocket-book which I replaced otherwise intact
+while Raffles compared the signature on the note of hand with samples
+which he had brought with him for the purpose.
+
+"It's genuine enough," said Levy, with a sudden snarl and a lethal look
+that I intercepted at close quarters.
+
+"So I perceive," said Raffles. "And now I require an equally genuine
+signature to this little document which is also a part of your bond."
+
+The little document turned out to be a veritable Deed, engrossed on
+parchment, embossed with a ten-shilling stamp, and duly calling itself an
+INDENTURE, in fourteenth century capitals. So much I saw as I held it up
+for the prisoner to read over. The illegally legal instrument is still in
+existence, with its unpunctuated jargon about "hereditaments" and "fee
+simple," its "and whereas the said Daniel Levy" in every other line, and
+its eventual plain provision for "the said sum of £15,000 to remain
+charged upon the security of the hereditaments in the said recited
+Indenture ... until the expiration of one year computed from--" that
+summer's day in that empty tower! The whole thing had been properly and
+innocently prepared by old Mother Hubbard, the "little solicitor" whom
+Raffles had mentioned as having been in our house at school, from a copy
+of the original mortgage deed supplied in equal innocence by Mr. Garland.
+I sometimes wonder what those worthy citizens would have said, if they
+had dreamt for a moment under what conditions of acute duress their deed
+was to be signed!
+
+Signed it was, however, and with less demur than might have been expected
+of so inveterate a fighter as Dan Levy. But his one remaining course was
+obviously the line of least resistance; no other would square with his
+ingenious repudiation of the charge of treachery to Raffles, much less
+with his repeated protestations that he had always intended to perform
+his part of their agreement. It was to his immediate interest to convince
+us of his good faith, and up to this point he might well have thought he
+had succeeded in so doing. Raffles had concealed his full knowledge of
+the creature's duplicity, had enjoyed leading him on from lie to lie, and
+I had enjoyed listening almost as much as I now delighted in the dilemma
+in which Levy had landed himself; for either he must sign and look
+pleasant, or else abandon his innocent posture altogether; and so he
+looked as pleasant as he could, and signed in his handcuffs, with but the
+shadow of a fight for their immediate removal.
+
+"And now," said Levy, when I had duly witnessed his signature, "I think
+I've about earned that little drop of my own champagne."
+
+"Not quite yet," replied Raffles, in a tone like thin ice. "We are only
+at the point we should have reached the moment I arrived at your house
+last night; you have now done under compulsion what you had agreed to do
+of your own free will then."
+
+Levy lay back in the bunk, plunged in billows of incongruous bunting,
+with fallen jaw and fiery eyes, an equal blend of anger and alarm. "But I
+told you I wasn't myself last night," he whined. "I've said I was very
+sorry for all I done, but can't 'ardly remember doing. I say it again
+from the bottom of my 'eart."
+
+"I've no doubt you do," said Raffles. "But what you did after our
+arrival was nothing to what you had already done; it was only the last
+of those acts of treachery for which you are still on your
+trial--prisoner in the bunk!"
+
+"But I thought I'd explained all the rest?" cried the prisoner, in a
+palsy of impotent rage and disappointment.
+
+"You have," said Raffles, "in the sense of making your perfidy even
+plainer than it was before. Come, Mr. Levy! I know every move you've
+made, and the game's been up longer than you think; you won't score a
+point by telling lies that contradict each other and aggravate your
+guilt. Have you nothing better to say why the sentence of the court
+should not be passed upon you?"
+
+A sullen silence was broken by a more precise and staccato repetition
+of the question. And then to my amazement, I beheld the gross lower
+lip of Levy actually trembling, and a distressing flicker of the
+inflamed eyelids.
+
+"I felt you'd swindled me," he quavered out "And I thought--I'd
+swindle--you."
+
+"Bravo!" cried Raffles. "That's the first honest thing you've said; let
+me tell you, for your encouragement, that it reduces your punishment by
+twenty-five per cent. You will, nevertheless, pay a fine of fifteen
+hundred pounds for your latest little effort in low treason."
+
+Though not unprepared for some such ultimatum, I must own I heard it with
+dismay. On all sorts of grounds, some of them as unworthy as itself, this
+last demand failed to meet with my approval; and I determined to
+expostulate with Raffles before it was too late. Meanwhile I hid my
+feelings as best I could, and admired the spirit with which Dan Levy
+expressed his.
+
+"I'll see you damned first!" he cried. "It's blackmail!"
+
+"Guineas," said Raffles, "for contempt of court."
+
+And more to my surprise than ever, not a little indeed to my secret
+disappointment, our captive speedily collapsed again, whimpering,
+moaning, gnashing his teeth, and clutching at the Red Ensign, with closed
+eyes and distorted face, so much as though he were about to have a fit
+that I caught up the half-bottle of champagne, and began removing the
+wire at a nod from Raffles.
+
+"Don't cut the string just yet," he added, however, with an eye on
+Levy--who instantly opened his.
+
+"I'll pay up!" he whispered, feebly yet eagerly. "It serves me right. I
+promise I'll pay up!"
+
+"Good!" said Raffles. "Here's your own cheque-book from your own room,
+and here's my fountain pen."
+
+"You won't take my word?"
+
+"It's quite enough to have to take your cheque; it should have been
+hard cash."
+
+"So it shall be, Raffles, if you come up with me to my office!"
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"To my bank, then!"
+
+"I prefer to go alone. You will kindly make it an open cheque payable
+to bearer."
+
+The fountain pen was poised over the chequebook, but only because I had
+placed it in Levy's fingers, and was holding the cheque-book under them.
+
+"And what if I refuse?" he demanded, with a last flash of his
+native spirit.
+
+"We shall say good-bye, and give you until to-night."
+
+"All day to call for help in!" muttered Levy, all but to himself.
+
+"Do you happen to know where you are?" Raffles asked him.
+
+"No, but I can find out."
+
+"If you knew already you would also know that you might call till you
+were black in the face; but to keep you in blissful ignorance you will be
+bound a good deal more securely than you are at present. And to spare
+your poor voice you will also be very thoroughly gagged."
+
+Levy took remarkably little notice of either threat or gibe.
+
+"And if I give in and sign?" said he, after a pause.
+
+"You will remain exactly as you are, with one of us to keep you company,
+while the other goes up to town to cash your cheque. You can't expect me
+to give you a chance of stopping it, you know."
+
+This, again, struck me as a hard condition, if only prudent when one came
+to think of it from our point of view; still, it took even me by
+surprise, and I expected Levy to fling away the pen in disgust. He
+balanced it, however, as though also weighing the two alternatives very
+carefully in his mind, and during his deliberations his bloodshot eyes
+wandered from Raffles to me and back again to Raffles. In a word, the
+latest prospect appeared to disturb Mr. Levy less than, for obvious
+reasons, it did me. Certainly for him it was the lesser of the two evils,
+and as such he seemed to accept it when he finally wrote out the cheque
+for fifteen hundred guineas (Raffles insisting on these), and signed it
+firmly before sinking back as though exhausted by the effort.
+
+Raffles was as good as his word about the champagne now: dram by dram
+he poured the whole pint into the cup belonging to his flask, and dram
+by dram our prisoner tossed it off, but with closed eyes, like a
+delirious invalid, and towards the end, with a head so heavy that
+Raffles had to raise it from the rolled flag, though foul talons still
+came twitching out for more. It was an unlovely process, I will
+confess; but what was a pint, as Raffles said? At any rate I could bear
+him out that these potations had not been hocussed, and Raffles
+whispered the same for the flask which he handed me with Levy's
+revolver at the head of the wooden stairs.
+
+"I'm coming down," said I, "for a word with you in the room below."
+
+Raffles looked at me with open eyes, then more narrowly at the red lids
+of Levy, and finally at his own watch.
+
+"Very well, Bunny, but I must cut and run for my train in about a minute.
+There's a 9.24 which would get me to the bank before eleven, and back
+here by one or two."
+
+"Why go to the bank at all?" I asked him point-blank in the lower room.
+
+"To cash his cheque before he has a chance of stopping it. Would you like
+to go instead of me, Bunny?"
+
+"No, thank you!"
+
+"Well, don't get hot about it; you've got the better billet of the two."
+
+"The softer one, perhaps."
+
+"Infinitely, Bunny, with the old bird full of his own champagne, and his
+own revolver in your pocket or your hand! The worst he can do is to
+start yelling out, and I really do believe that not a soul would hear
+him if he did. The gardeners are always at work on the other side of the
+main road. A passing boatload is the only danger, and I doubt if even
+they would hear."
+
+"My billet's all right," said I, valiantly. "It's yours that
+worries me."
+
+"Mine!" cried Raffles, with an almost merry laugh. "My dear, good Bunny,
+you may make your mind easy about my little bit! Of course, it'll take
+some doing at the bank. I don't say it's a straight part there. But trust
+me to play it on my head."
+
+"Raffles," I said, in a low voice that may have trembled, "it's not a
+part for you to play at all! I don't mean the little bit at the bank. I
+mean this whole blackmailing part of the business. It's not like you,
+Raffles. It spoils the whole thing!"
+
+I had got it off my chest without a hitch. But so far Raffles had not
+discouraged me. There was a look on his face which even made me think
+that he agreed with me in his heart. Both hardened as he thought it over.
+
+"It's Levy who's spoilt the whole thing," he rejoined obdurately in
+the end. "He's been playing me false all the time, and he's got to
+pay for it."
+
+"But you never meant to make anything out of him, A.J.!"
+
+"Well, I do now, and I've told you why. Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"Because it's not your game!" I cried, with all the eager persuasion in
+my power. "Because it's the sort of thing Dan Levy would do
+himself--it's _his_ game, all right--it simply drags you down to his
+level--"
+
+But there he stopped me with a look, and not the kind of look I often had
+from Raffles, It was no new feat of mine to make him angry, scornful,
+bitterly cynical or sarcastic. This, however, was a look of pain and even
+shame, as though he had suddenly seen himself in a new and peculiarly
+unlovely light.
+
+"Down to it!" he exclaimed, with an irony that was not for me. "As though
+there could be a much lower level than mine! Do you know, Bunny, I
+sometimes think my moral sense is ahead of yours?"
+
+I could have laughed outright; but the humour that was the salt of him
+seemed suddenly to have gone out of Raffles.
+
+"I know what I am," said he, "but I'm afraid you're getting a hopeless
+villain-worshipper!"
+
+"It's not the villain I care about," I answered, meaning every word.
+"It's the sportsman behind the villain, as you know perfectly well."
+
+"I know the villain behind the sportsman rather better," replied Raffles,
+laughing when I least expected it. "But you're by way of forgetting his
+existence altogether. I shouldn't wonder if some day you wrote me up
+into a heavy hero, Bunny, and made me turn in my quicklime! Let this
+remind you what I always was and shall be to the end."
+
+And he took my hand, as I fondly hoped in surrender to my appeal to those
+better feelings which I knew I had for once succeeded in quickening
+within him.
+
+But it was only to bid me a mischievous goodbye, ere he ran down the
+spiral stair, leaving me to listen till I lost his feathery foot-falls in
+the base of the tower, and then to mount guard over my tethered,
+handcuffed, somnolent, and yet always formidable prisoner at the top.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Watch and Ward
+
+
+I well remember, as I set reluctant foot upon the wooden stair, taking a
+last and somewhat lingering look at the dust and dirt of the lower
+chamber, as one who knew not what might happen before he saw it again.
+The stain as of red rust in the lavatory basin, the gritty deposit in the
+bath, the verdigris on all the taps, the foul opacity of the windows, are
+among the trivialities that somehow stamped themselves upon my mind. One
+of the windows was open at the top, had been so long open that the
+aperture was curtained with cobwebs at each extremity, but in between I
+got quite a poignant picture of the Thames as I went upstairs. It was
+only a sinuous perspective of sunlit ripples twinkling between wooded
+gardens and open meadows, a fisherman or two upon the tow-path, a canoe
+in mid-stream, a gaunt church crowning all against the sky. But inset in
+such surroundings it was like a flash from a magic-lantern in a
+coal-cellar. And very loth was I to exchange that sunny peep for an
+indefinite prospect of my prisoner's person at close quarters.
+
+Yet the first stage of my vigil proved such a sinecure as to give me
+some confidence for all the rest. Dan Levy opened neither his lips nor
+his eyes at my approach, but lay on his back with the Red Ensign drawn
+up to his chin, and the peaceful countenance of profound oblivion. I
+remember taking a good look at him, and thinking that his face improved
+remarkably in repose, that in death he might look fine. The forehead was
+higher and broader than I had realised, the thick lips were firm enough
+now, but the closing of the crafty little eyes was the greatest gain of
+all. On the whole, not only a better but a stronger face than it had
+been all the morning, a more formidable face by far. But the man had
+fallen asleep in his bonds, and forgotten them; he would wake up abject
+enough; if not, I had the means to reduce him to docility. Meanwhile, I
+was in no hurry to show my power, but stole on tiptoe to the locker, and
+took my seat by inches.
+
+Levy did not move a muscle. No sound escaped him either, and somehow or
+other I should have expected him to snore; indeed, it might have come as
+a relief, for the silence of the tower soon got upon my nerves. It was
+not a complete silence; that was (and always is) the worst of it. The
+wooden stairs creaked more than once; there were little rattlings, faint
+and distant, as of a dried leaf or a loose window, in the bowels of the
+house; and though nothing came of any of these noises, except a fresh
+period of tension on my part, they made the skin act on my forehead every
+time. Then I remember a real anxiety over a blue-bottle, that must have
+come in through the open window just below, for suddenly it buzzed into
+my ken and looked like attacking Levy on the spot. Somehow I slew it with
+less noise than the brute itself was making; and not until after that
+breathless achievement did I realise how anxious I was to keep my
+prisoner asleep. Yet I had the revolver, and he lay handcuffed and bound
+down! It was in the next long silence that I became sensitive to another
+sound which indeed I had heard at intervals already, only to dismiss it
+from my mind as one of the signs of extraneous life which were bound to
+penetrate even to the top of my tower. It was a slow and regular beat, as
+of a sledge-hammer in a distant forge, or some sort of machinery only
+audible when there was absolutely nothing else to be heard. It could
+hardly be near at hand, for I could not hear it properly unless I held my
+breath. Then, however, it was always there, a sound that never ceased or
+altered, so that in the end I sat and listened to it and nothing else. I
+was not even looking at Levy when he asked me if I knew what it was.
+
+His voice was quiet and civil enough, but it undoubtedly made me jump,
+and that brought a malicious twinkle into the little eyes that looked as
+though they had been studying me at their leisure. They were perhaps less
+violently bloodshot than before, the massive features calm and strong as
+they had been in slumber or its artful counterfeit.
+
+"I thought you were asleep?" I snapped, and knew better for certain
+before he spoke.
+
+"You see, that pint o' pop did me prouder than intended," he explained.
+"It's made a new man o' me, you'll be sorry to 'ear."
+
+I should have been sorrier to believe it, but I did not say so, or
+anything else just then. The dull and distant beat came back to the ear.
+And Levy again inquired if I knew what it was.
+
+"Do you?" I demanded.
+
+"Rather!" he replied, with cheerful certitude. "It's the clock, of
+course."
+
+"What clock?"
+
+"The one on the tower, a bit lower down, facing the road."
+
+"How do _you_ know?" I demanded, with uneasy credulity.
+
+"My good young man," said Dan Levy, "I know the face of that clock as
+well as I know the inside of this tower."
+
+"Then you do know where you are!" I cried, in such surprise that Levy
+grinned in a way that ill became a captive.
+
+"Why," said he, "I sold the last tenant up, and nearly took the 'ouse
+myself instead o' the place I got. It was what first attracted me to the
+neighhour'ood."
+
+"Why couldn't you tell us the truth before?" I demanded, but my warmth
+merely broadened his grin.
+
+"Why should I? It sometimes pays to seem more at a loss than you are."
+
+"It won't in this case," said I through my teeth. But for all my
+austerity, and all his bonds, the prisoner continued to regard me with
+quiet but most disquieting amusement.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that," he observed at length. "It rather paid, to my
+way of thinking, when Raffles went off to cash my cheque, and left you to
+keep an eye on me."
+
+"Oh, did it!" said I, with pregnant emphasis, and my right hand found
+comfort in my jacket pocket, on the butt of the old brute's own weapon.
+
+"I only mean," he rejoined, in a more conciliatory voice, "that you
+strike me as being more open to reason than your flash friend."
+
+I said nothing to that.
+
+"On the other 'and," continued Levy, still more deliberately, as though
+he really was comparing us in his mind; "on the other _hand_" stooping to
+pick up what he had dropped, "you don't take so many risks. Raffles takes
+so many that he's bound to land you both in the jug some day, if he
+hasn't done it this time. I believe he has, myself. But it's no use
+hollering before you're out o' the wood."
+
+I agreed, with more confidence than I felt.
+
+"Yet I wonder he never thought of it," my prisoner went on as if
+to himself.
+
+"Thought of what?"
+
+"Only the clock. He must've seen it before, if you never did; you don't
+tell me this little bit o' kidnapping was a sudden idea! It's all been
+thought out and the ground gone over, and the clock seen, as I say. Seen
+going. Yet it never strikes our flash friend that a going clock's got to
+be wound up once a week, and it might be as well to find out which day!"
+
+"How do you know he didn't?"
+
+"Because this 'appens to be the day!"
+
+And Levy lay back in the bunk with the internal chuckle that I was
+beginning to know so well, but had little thought to hear from him in his
+present predicament. It galled me the more because I felt that Raffles
+would certainly not have heard it in my place. But at least I had the
+satisfaction of flatly and profanely refusing to believe the prisoner's
+statement.
+
+"That be blowed for a bluff!" was more or less what I said. "It's too
+much of a coincidence to be anything else."
+
+"The odds are only six to one against it," said Levy, indifferently. "One
+of you takes them with his eyes open. It seems rather a pity that the
+other should feel bound to follow him to certain ruin. But I suppose you
+know your own business best."
+
+"At all events," I boasted, "I know better than to be bluffed by the most
+obvious lie I ever heard in my life. You tell me how you know about the
+man coming to wind the clock, and I may listen to you."
+
+"I know because I know the man; little Scotchman he is, nothing to run
+away from--though he looks as hard as nails--what there is of him," said
+Levy, in a circumstantial and impartial flow that could not but carry
+some conviction. "He comes over from Kingston every Tuesday on his bike;
+some time before lunch he comes, and sees to my own clocks on the same
+trip. That's how I know. But you needn't believe me if you don't like."
+
+"And where exactly does he come to wind this clock? I see nothing that
+can possibly have to do with it up here."
+
+"No," said Levy; "he comes no higher than the floor below." I seemed to
+remember a kind of cupboard at the head of the spiral stair. "But that's
+near enough."
+
+"You mean that we shall hear him?"
+
+"And he us!" added Levy, with unmistakable determination.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Levy," said I, showing him his own revolver, "if we do
+hear anybody, I shall hold this to your head, and if he does hear us I
+shall blow out your beastly brains!"
+
+The mere feeling that I was, perhaps, the last person capable of any such
+deed enabled me to grind out this shocking threat in a voice worthy of
+it, and with a face, I hoped, not less in keeping. It was all the more
+mortifying when Dan Levy treated my tragedy as farce; in fact, if
+anything could have made me as bad as my word, it would have been the
+guttural laugh with which he greeted it.
+
+"Excuse me," said he, dabbing his red eyes with the edge of the red
+bunting, "but the thought of your letting that thing off in order to
+preserve silence--why, it's as droll as your whole attempt to play the
+cold-blooded villain--_you_!"
+
+"I shall play him to some purpose," I hissed, "if you drive me to it. I
+laid you out last night, remember, and for two pins I'll do the same
+thing again this morning. So now you know."
+
+"That wasn't in cold blood," said Levy, rolling his head from side to
+side; "that was when the lot of us were brawling in our cups. I don't
+count that. You're in a false position, my dear sir. I don't mean last
+night or this morning--though I can see that you're no brigand or
+blackmailer at bottom--and I shouldn't wonder if you never forgave
+Raffles for letting you in for this partic'lar part of this partic'lar
+job. But that isn't what I mean. You've got in with a villain, but you
+ain't one yourself; that's where you're in the false position. He's
+the magsman, you're only the swell. _I_ can see that. But the judge
+won't. You'll both get served the same, and in your case it'll be a
+thousand shames!"
+
+He had propped himself on one elbow, and was speaking eagerly,
+persuasively, with almost a fatherly solicitude; yet I felt that both his
+words and their effect on me were being weighed and measured with
+meticulous discretion. And I encouraged him with a countenance as
+deliberately rueful and depressed, to an end which had only occurred to
+me with the significance of his altered tone.
+
+"I can't help it," I muttered. "I must go through with the whole
+thing now."
+
+"Why must you?" demanded Levy. "You've been led into a job that's none of
+your business, on be'alf of folks who're no friends of yours, and the
+job's developed into a serious crime, and the crime's going to be found
+out before you're an hour older. Why go through with it to certain quod?"
+
+"There's nothing else for it," I answered, with a sulky resignation,
+though my pulse was quick with eagerness for what I felt was coming.
+
+And then it came.
+
+"Why not get out of the whole thing," suggested Levy, boldly, "before
+it's too late?"
+
+"How can I?" said I, to lead him on with a more explicit proposition.
+
+"By first releasing me, and then clearing out yourself!"
+
+I looked at him as though this was certainly an idea, as though I were
+actually considering it in spite of myself and Raffles; and his eagerness
+fed upon my apparent indecision. He held up his fettered hands, begging
+and cajoling me to remove his handcuffs, and I, instead of telling him it
+was not in my power to do so until Raffles returned, pretended to
+hesitate on quite different grounds.
+
+"It's all very well," I said, "but are you going to make it worth
+my while?"
+
+"Certainly!" cried he. "Give me my chequebook out of my own pocket, where
+you were good enough to stow it before that blackguard left, and I'll
+write you one cheque for a hundred now, and another for another hundred
+before I leave this tower."
+
+"You really will?" I temporised.
+
+"I swear it!" he asseverated; and I still believe he might have kept his
+word about that. But now I knew where he _had_ been lying to me, and now
+was the time to let him know I knew it.
+
+"Two hundred pounds," said I, "for the liberty you are bound to get for
+nothing, as you yourself have pointed out, when the man turns up to wind
+the clock? A couple of hundred to save less than a couple of hours?"
+
+Levy changed colour as he saw his mistake, and his eyes flashed with
+sudden fury; otherwise his self-command was only less admirable than his
+presence of mind.
+
+"It wasn't to save time," said he; "it was to save my face in the
+neighbourhood. The well-known money-lender found bound and handcuffed in
+an empty house! It means the first laugh at my expense, whoever has the
+last laugh. But you're quite right; it wasn't worth two hundred golden
+sovereigns. Let them laugh! At any rate you and your flash friend'll be
+laughing on the wrong side of your mouths before the day's out. So that's
+all there is to it, and you'd better start screwing up your courage if
+you want to do me in! I did mean to give you another chance in life--but
+by God I wouldn't now if you were to go down on your knees for one!"
+
+Considering that he was bound and I was free, that I was armed and he
+defenceless, there was perhaps more humour than the prisoner saw in his
+picture of me upon my knees to him. Not that I saw it all at once myself.
+I was too busy wondering whether there could be anything in his
+clock-winding story after all. Certainly it was inconsistent with the big
+bribe offered for his immediate freedom; but it was with something more
+than mere adroitness that the money-lender had reconciled the two things.
+In his place I should have been no less anxious to keep my humiliating
+experience a secret from the world; with his means I could conceive
+myself prepared to pay as dearly for such secrecy. On the other hand, if
+his idea was to stop the huge cheque already given to Raffles, then there
+was indeed no time to be lost, and the only wonder was that Levy should
+have waited so long before making overtures to me.
+
+Raffles had now been gone a very long time, as it seemed to me, but my
+watch had run down, and the clock on the tower did not strike. Why they
+kept it going at all was a mystery to me; but now that Dan Levy was lying
+still again, with set teeth and inexorable eyes, I heard it beating out
+the seconds more than ever like a distant sledgehammer, and sixty of
+these I counted up into a minute of such portentous duration that what
+had seemed many hours to me might easily have been less than one. I only
+knew that the sun, which had begun by pouring in at one port-hole and out
+at the other, which had bathed the prisoner in his bunk about the time of
+his trial by Raffles, now crowned me with fire if I sat upon the locker,
+and made its varnish sticky if I did not. The atmosphere of the place was
+fast becoming unendurable in its unwholesome heat and sour stagnation. I
+sat in my shirt-sleeves at the top of the stairs, where one got such air
+as entered by the open window below. Levy had kicked off his covering of
+scarlet bunting, with a sudden oath which must have been the only sound
+within the tower for an hour at least; all the rest of the time he lay
+with fettered fists clenched upon his breast, with fierce eyes fixed upon
+the top of the bunk, and something about the whole man that I was forced
+to watch, something indomitable and intensely alert, a curious suggestion
+of smouldering fires on the point of leaping into flame.
+
+I feared this man in my heart of hearts. I may as well admit it frankly.
+It was not that he was twice my size, for I had the like advantage in
+point of years; it was not that I had any reason to distrust the
+strength of his bonds or the efficacy of the weapon in my possession. It
+was a question of personality, not of material advantage or
+disadvantage, or of physical fear at all. It was simply the spirit of
+the man that dominated mine. I felt that my mere flesh and blood would
+at any moment give a good account of his, as well they might with the
+odds that were on my side. Yet that did not lessen the sense of subtle
+and essential inferiority, which grew upon my nerves with almost every
+minute of that endless morning, and made me long for the relief of
+physical contest even on equal terms. I could have set the old ruffian
+free, and thrown his revolver out of the window, and then said to him,
+"Come on! Your weight against my age, and may the devil take the worse
+man!" Instead, I must sit glaring at him to mask my qualms. And after
+much thinking about the kind of conflict that could never be, in the end
+came one of a less heroic but not less desperate type, before there was
+time to think at all.
+
+Levy had raised his head, ever so little, but yet enough for my
+vigilance. I saw him listening. I listened too. And down below in the
+core of the tower I heard, or thought I heard, a step like a feather, and
+then after some moments another. But I had spent those moments in gazing
+instinctively down the stair; it was the least rattle of the handcuffs
+that brought my eyes like lightning back to the bunk; and there was Levy
+with hollow palms about his mouth, and his mouth wide open for the roar
+that my own palms stifled in his throat.
+
+Indeed, I had leapt upon him once more like a fiend, and for an instant I
+enjoyed a shameful advantage; it can hardly have lasted longer. The brute
+first bit me through the hand, so that I carry his mark to this day;
+then, with his own hands, he took me by the throat, and I thought that my
+last moments were come. He squeezed so hard that I thought my windpipe
+must burst, thought my eyes must leave their sockets. It was the grip of
+a gorilla, and it was accompanied by a spate of curses and the grin of a
+devil incarnate. All my dreams of equal combat had not prepared me for
+superhuman power on his part, such utter impotence on mine. I tried to
+wrench myself from his murderous clasp, and was nearly felled by the top
+of the bunk. I hurled myself out sideways, and out he came after me,
+tearing down the peg to which his handcuffs were tethered; that only gave
+him the better grip upon my throat, and he never relaxed it for an
+instant, scrambling to his feet when I staggered to mine, for by them
+alone was he fast now to the banisters.
+
+Meanwhile I was feeling in an empty pocket for his revolver, which had
+fallen out as we struggled on the floor. I saw it there now with my
+starting eyeballs, kicked about by our shuffling feet. I tried to make a
+dive for it, but Levy had seen it also, and he kicked it through the
+banisters without relaxing his murderous hold. I could have sworn
+afterwards that I heard the weapon fall with a clatter on the wooden
+stairs. But what I still remember hearing most distinctly (and feeling
+hot upon my face) is the stertorous breathing that was unbroken by a
+single syllable after the first few seconds.
+
+It was a brutal encounter, not short and sharp like the one over-night,
+but horribly protracted. Nor was all the brutality by any means on one
+side; neither will I pretend that I was getting much more than my deserts
+in the defeat that threatened to end in my extinction. Not for an instant
+had my enemy loosened his deadly clutch, and now he had me penned against
+the banisters, and my one hope was that they would give way before our
+united weight, and precipitate us both into the room below. That would be
+better than being slowly throttled, even if it were only a better death.
+Other chance there was none, and I was actually trying to fling myself
+over, beating the air with both hands wildly, when one of them closed
+upon the butt of the revolver that I thought had been kicked into the
+room below!
+
+I was too far gone to realise that a miracle had happened--to be so much
+as puzzled by it then. But I was not too far gone to use that revolver,
+and to use it as I would have done on cool reflection. I thrust it under
+my opponent's armpit, and I fired through into space. The report was
+deafening. It did its work. Levy let go of me, and staggered back as
+though I had really shot him. And that instant I was brandishing his
+weapon in his face.
+
+"You tried to shoot me! You tried to shoot me!" he gasped twice over
+through a livid mask.
+
+"No, I didn't!" I panted. "I tried to frighten you, and I jolly well
+succeeded! But I'll shoot you like a dog if you don't get back to your
+kennel and lie down."
+
+He sat and gasped upon the side of the bunk. There was no more fight in
+him. His very lips were blue. I put the pistol back in my pocket, and
+retracted my threat in a sudden panic.
+
+"There! It's your own fault if you so much as see it again," I promised
+him, in a breathless disorder only second to his own.
+
+"But you jolly nearly strangled me. And now we're a pretty pair!"
+
+His hands grasped the edge of the bunk, and he leant his weight on them,
+breathing very hard. It might have been an attack of asthma, or it might
+have been a more serious seizure, but it was a case for stimulants if
+ever I saw one, and in the nick of time I remembered the flask that
+Raffles had left with me. It was the work of a very few seconds to pour
+out a goodly ration, and of but another for Daniel Levy to toss off the
+raw spirit like water. He was begging for more before I had helped
+myself. And more I gave him in the end; for it was no small relief to me
+to watch the leaden hue disappearing from the flabby face, and the
+laboured breathing gradually subside, even if it meant a renewal of our
+desperate hostilities.
+
+But all that was at an end; the man was shaken to the core by his
+perfectly legitimate attempt at my destruction. He looked dreadfully old
+and hideous as he got bodily back into the bunk of his own accord. There,
+when I had yielded to his further importunities, and the flask was empty,
+he fell at length into a sleep as genuine as the last was not; and I was
+still watching over the poor devil, keeping the flies off him, and
+sometimes fanning him with a flag, less perhaps from humane motives than
+to keep him quiet as long as possible, when Raffles returned to light up
+the tableau like a sinister sunbeam.
+
+Raffles had had his own adventures in town, and I soon had reason to feel
+thankful that I had not gone up instead of him. It seemed he had foreseen
+from the first the possibility of trouble at the bank over a large and
+absolutely open cheque. So he had gone first to the Chelsea studio in
+which he played the painter who never painted but kept a whole wardrobe
+of disguises for the models he never hired. Thence he had issued on this
+occasion in the living image of a well-known military man about town who
+was also well known to be a client of Dan Levy's. Raffles said the
+cashier stared at him, but the cheque was cashed without a word. The
+unfortunate part of it was that in returning to his cab he had
+encountered an acquaintance both of his own and of the spendthrift
+soldier, and had been greeted evidently in the latter capacity.
+
+"It was a jolly difficult little moment, Bunny. I had to say there was
+some mistake, and I had to remember to say it in a manner equally unlike
+my own and the other beggar's! But all's well that ends well; and if
+you'll do exactly what I tell you I think we may flatter ourselves that a
+happy issue is at last in sight."
+
+"What am I to do now?" I asked with some misgiving.
+
+"Clear out of this, Bunny, and wait for me in town. You've done jolly
+well, old fellow, and so have I in my own department of the game.
+Everything's in order, down to those fifteen hundred guineas which are
+now concealed about my person in as hard cash as I can carry. I've seen
+old Garland and given him back his promissory note myself, with Levy's
+undertaking about the mortgage. It was a pretty trying interview, as you
+can understand; but I couldn't help wondering what the poor old boy would
+say if he dreamt what sort of pressure I've been applying on his behalf!
+Well, it's all over now except our several exits from the surreptitious
+stage. I can't make mine without our sleeping partner, but you would
+really simplify matters, Bunny, by not waiting for us."
+
+There was a good deal to be said for such a course, though it went not a
+little against my grain. Raffles had changed his clothes and had a bath
+in town, to say nothing of his luncheon. I was by this time indescribably
+dirty and dishevelled, besides feeling fairly famished now that mental
+relief allowed a thought for one's lower man. Raffles had foreseen my
+plight, and had actually prepared a way of escape for me by the front
+door in broad daylight. I need not recapitulate the elaborate story he
+had told the caretaking gardener across the road; but he had borrowed the
+gardener's keys as a probable purchaser of the property, who had to meet
+his builder and a business friend at the house during the course of the
+afternoon. I was to be the builder, and in that capacity to give the
+gardener an ingenious message calculated to leave Raffles and Levy in
+uninterrupted possession until my return. And of course I was never to
+return at all.
+
+The whole thing seemed to me a super-subtle means to a far simpler end
+than the one we had achieved by stealth in the dead of the previous
+night. But it was Raffles all over and I ultimately acquiesced, on the
+understanding that we were to meet again in the Albany at seven o'clock,
+preparatory to dining somewhere in final celebration of the whole affair.
+
+But much was to happen before seven o'clock, and it began happening. I
+shook the dust of that derelict tower from my feet; for one of them trod
+on something at the darkest point of the descent; and the thing went
+tinkling down ahead on its own account, until it lay shimmering in the
+light on a lower landing, where I picked it up.
+
+Now I had not said much to Raffles about my hitherto inexplicable
+experience with the revolver, when I thought it had gone through the
+banisters, but found it afterwards in my hand. Raffles said it would not
+have gone through, that I must have been all but over the banisters
+myself when I grasped the butt as it protruded through them on the level
+of the floor. This he said (like many another thing) as though it made an
+end of the matter. But it was not the end of the matter in my own mind;
+and now I could have told him what the explanation was, or at least to
+what conclusion I had jumped. I had half a mind to climb all the way up
+again on purpose to put him in the wrong upon the point. Then I
+remembered how anxious he had seemed to get rid of me, and for other
+reasons also I decided to let him wait a bit for his surprise.
+
+Meanwhile my own plans were altered, and when I had delivered my
+egregious message to the gardener across the road, I sought the nearest
+shops on my way to the nearest station; and at one of the shops I got me
+a clean collar, at another a tooth-brush; and all I did at the station
+was to utilise my purchases in the course of such scanty toilet as the
+lavatory accommodation would permit.
+
+A few minutes later I was inquiring my way to a house which it took me
+another twenty or twenty-five to find.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A Secret Service
+
+
+This house also was on the river, but it was very small bricks-and-mortar
+compared with the other two. One of a semi-detached couple built close to
+the road, with narrow strips of garden to the river's brim, its dingy
+stucco front and its green Venetian blinds conveyed no conceivable
+attraction beyond that of a situation more likely to prove a drawback
+three seasons out of the four. The wooden gate had not swung home behind
+me before I was at the top of a somewhat dirty flight of steps,
+contemplating blistered paint and ground glass fit for a bathroom window,
+and listening to the last reverberations of an obsolete type of bell.
+There was indeed something oppressively and yet prettily Victorian about
+the riparian retreat to which Lady Laura Belsize had retired in her
+impoverished widowhood.
+
+It was not for Lady Laura that I asked, however, but for Miss Belsize,
+and the almost slatternly maid really couldn't say whether Miss Belsize
+was in or whether she wasn't. She might be in the garden, or she might
+be on the river. Would I step inside and wait a minute? I would and did,
+but it was more minutes than one that I was kept languishing in an
+interior as dingy as the outside of the house. I had time to take the
+whole thing in. There were massive remnants of deservedly unfashionable
+furniture. The sofa I can still see in my mind's eye, and the steel
+fire-irons, and the crystal chandelier. An aged and gigantic Broadwood
+occupied nearly half the room; and in a cheap frame thereon, inviting all
+sorts of comparisons and contrasts, stood a full-length portrait of
+Camilla Belsize resplendent in contemporary court kit.
+
+I was still studying that frankly barbaric paraphernalia--the feather,
+the necklace, the coiled train--and wondering what noble kinsman had come
+to the rescue for the great occasion, and why Camilla should have looked
+so bored with her finery, when the door opened and she herself
+entered--not even very smartly dressed--and looking anything but bored,
+although I say it.
+
+But she did seem astonished, anxious, indignant, reproachful, and to my
+mind still more nervous and distressed, though this hardly showed through
+the loopholes of her pride. And as for her white serge coat and skirt,
+they looked as though they had seen considerable service on the river,
+and I immediately perceived that one of the large enamel buttons was
+missing from the coat.
+
+Up to that moment, I may now confess, I had been suffering from no slight
+nervous anxiety of my own. But all qualms were lost in sheer excitement
+when I spoke.
+
+"You may well wonder at this intrusion," I began. "But I thought this
+must be yours, Miss Belsize."
+
+And from my waistcoat pocket I produced the missing button of enamel.
+
+"Where did you find it?" inquired Miss Belsize, with an admirably slight
+increase of astonishment in voice and look. "And how did you know it was
+mine?" came quickly in the next breath.
+
+"I didn't know," I answered. "I guessed. It was the shot of my life!"
+
+"But you don't say where you found it?"
+
+"In an empty house not far from here."
+
+She had held her breath; now I felt it like the lightest zephyr. And
+quite unconsciously I had retained the enamel button.
+
+"Well, Mr. Manders? I'm very much obliged to you. But may I have it
+back again?"
+
+I returned her property. We had been staring at each other all the time.
+I stared still harder as she repeated her perfunctory thanks.
+
+"So it was you!" I said, and was sorry to see her looking purposely
+puzzled at that, but thankful when the reckless light outshone all the
+rest in those chameleon eyes of hers.
+
+"Who did you think it was?" she asked me with a frosty little smile.
+
+"I didn't know if it was anybody at all. I didn't know what to think,"
+said I, quite candidly. "I simply found his pistol in my hand."
+
+"Whose pistol?"
+
+"Dan Levy's."
+
+"Good!" she said grimly. "That makes it all the better."
+
+"You saved my life."
+
+"I thought you had taken his--and I'd collaborated!"
+
+There was not a tremor in her voice; it was cautious, eager, daring,
+intense, but absolutely her own voice now.
+
+"No," I said, "I didn't shoot the fellow, but I made him think I had."
+
+"You made me think so too, until I heard what you said to him."
+
+"Yet you never made a sound yourself."
+
+"I should think not! I made myself scarce instead."
+
+"But, Miss Belsize, I shall go perfectly mad if you don't tell me how you
+happened to be there at all!"
+
+"Don't you think it's for you to tell me that about yourself
+and--all of you?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind which of us fires first!" said I, excitedly.
+
+"Then I will," she said at once, and took me to the dreadful sofa at the
+inner end of the room, and sat down as though it were the most ordinary
+experience she had to relate. Nor could I believe the things that had
+really happened, and all so recently, as we talked them over in that
+commonplace environment of faded gentility. There was a window behind us,
+overlooking the ribbon of lawn and the cord of gravel, and the bunch of
+willows that hedged them from the Thames. It all looked unreal to me,
+unreal in its very realism as the scene of our incredible conversation.
+
+"You know what happened the other afternoon--I mean the day they
+couldn't play," began Miss Belsize, "because you were there; and though
+you didn't stay to hear all that came out afterwards, I expect you know
+everything now. Mr. Raffles would be sure to tell you; in fact, I heard
+poor dear Mr. Garland give him leave. It's a dreadful story from every
+point of view. Nobody comes out of it with flying colours, but what nice
+person could cope with a horrid money-lender? Mr. Raffles, perhaps--if
+you call him nice!"
+
+I said that was about the worst thing I called him. I mentioned some of
+the other things. Miss Belsize listened to them with exemplary patience.
+
+"Well," she resumed, "he was quite nice about this. I will say that for
+him. He said he knew Mr. Levy pretty well, and would see what could be
+done. But he spoke like an executioner who was going to see what could be
+done with the condemned man! And all the time I was wondering what had
+been done already at Carlsbad--what exactly that horrid creature meant
+when he was talking _at_ Mr. Raffles before us all. Well, of course, I
+knew what he meant us to think he meant; but was there, could there be,
+anything in it?"
+
+Miss Belsize looked at me as though she expected an answer, only to stop
+me the moment I opened my mouth to speak.
+
+"I don't want to know, Mr. Manders! Of course you know all about Mr.
+Raffles"--there was a touch of feeling in this--"but it's nothing to me,
+though in this case I should certainly have been on his side. You said
+yourself that it could only have been a practical joke, if there was
+anything in it at all, and so I tried to think in spite of those horrid
+men who were following him about at Lord's, even in spite of the way he
+vanished with them after him. But he never came near the match
+again--though he had travelled all the way from Carlsbad to see it! Why
+had he ever been there? What had he really done there? And what could he
+possibly do to rescue anybody from Mr. Levy, if he himself was already in
+Levy's power?"
+
+"You don't know Raffles," said I, promptly enough this time. "He never
+was in any man's power for many minutes. I would back him to save the
+most desperate situation you could devise."
+
+"You mean by some desperate deed? That's what I feared," declared Miss
+Belsize, rather strenuously. "Something really had happened at Carlsbad;
+something worse was by way of happening next. For Teddy's sake," she
+whispered, "and his poor father's!"
+
+I agreed that old Raffles stuck at nothing for his friends, and Miss
+Belsize again said that was what she had feared. Her tone had completely
+altered about Raffles, as well it might. I thought it would have broken
+with gratitude when she spoke of the unlucky father and son.
+
+"And I was right!" she exclaimed, with that other kind of feeling to
+which I found it harder to put a name. "I came home miserable from the
+match on Saturday--"
+
+"Though Teddy had done so well!" I was fool enough to interject.
+
+"I couldn't help thinking about Mr. Raffles," replied Camilla, with a
+flash of her frank eyes, "and wondering, and wondering, what had
+happened. And then on Sunday I saw him on the river."
+
+"He didn't tell me."
+
+"He didn't know I recognised him; he was disguised--absolutely!" said
+Camilla Belsize under her breath. "But he couldn't disguise himself from
+me," she added as though glorying in her perspicacity.
+
+"Did you tell him so, Miss Belsize?"
+
+"Not I, indeed! I didn't speak to him; it was no business of mine. But
+there he was, at the bottom of Mr. Levy's garden, having a good look at
+the boathouse when nobody was about. Why? What could his object be? And
+why disguise himself? I thought of the affair at Carlsbad, and I felt
+certain that something of the kind was going to happen again!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What could I do? Should I do anything at all? Was it any business of
+mine? You may imagine the way I cross-questioned myself, and you may
+imagine the crooked answers I got! I won't bore you with the psychology
+of the thing; it's pretty obvious after all. It was not so much a case
+of doing the best as of knowing the worst. All day yesterday there were
+no developments of any sort, and there was no sign of Mr. Raffles;
+nothing had happened in the night, or we should have heard of it; but
+that made me all the more certain that something or other would happen
+last night. The week's grace was nearly up--you know what I mean--their
+last week at their own house. If anything was to be done, it was about
+time, and I knew Mr. Raffles was going to do something. I wanted to know
+what--that was all."
+
+"Quite right, too!" I murmured. But I doubt if Miss Belsize heard me; she
+was in no need of my encouragement or my approval. The old light--her own
+light--the reckless light--was burning away in her brilliant eyes!
+
+"The night before," she went on, "I hardly slept a wink; last night I
+preferred not to go to bed at all. I told you I sometimes did weird
+things that astonished the natives of these suburban shores. Well, last
+night, if it wasn't early this morning, I made my weirdest effort yet. I
+have a canoe, you know; just now I almost live in it. Last night I went
+out unbeknowns after midnight, partly to reassure myself, partly--I beg
+your pardon, Mr. Manders?"
+
+"I didn't speak."
+
+"Your face shouted!"
+
+"I'd rather you went on."
+
+"But if you know what I'm going to say?"
+
+Of course I knew, but I dragged it from her none the less. The nebulous
+white-shirted figure in the canoe, that had skimmed past Dan Levy's
+frontage as we were trying to get him aboard his own pleasure-boat, and
+again past the empty house when we were in the act of disembarking him
+there, that figure was the trim and slim one now at my side. She had seen
+us--searched for us--each time. Our voices she had heard and recognised;
+only our actions, or rather that midnight deed of ours, had she
+misinterpreted. She would not admit it to me, but I still believe she
+feared it was a dead body that we had shipped at dead of night to hide
+away in that desolate tower.
+
+Yet I cannot think she thought it in her heart. I rather fancy (what she
+indeed averred) that some vague inkling of the truth flashed across her
+at least as often as that monstrous hypothesis. But know she must;
+therefore, after boldly ascertaining that nothing was known of the
+master's whereabouts at Levy's house, but that no uneasiness was
+entertained on his account, this young woman, true to the audacity which
+I had seen in her eyes from the first, had taken the still bolder step of
+landing on the rank lawn and entering the empty tower to discover its
+secret, for herself. Her stealthy step upon the spiral stair had been the
+signal for my mortal struggle with Dan Levy. She had heard the whole, and
+even seen a little of that; in fact, she had gathered enough from Levy's
+horrible imprecations to form later a rough but not incorrect impression
+of the situation between him and Raffles and me. As for the moneylender's
+language, it was with a welcome gleam of humour that Miss Belsize assured
+me she had "gone too straight to hounds" in her time to be as completely
+paralysed by it as her mother's neighbours might have been. And as for
+the revolver, it had fallen at her feet, and first she thought I was
+going to follow it over the banisters, and before she could think again
+she had restored the weapon to my wildly clutching hand!
+
+"But when you fired I felt a murderess," she said. "So you see I
+misjudged you for the second time."
+
+If I am conveying a dash of flippancy in our talk, let me earnestly
+declare that it was hardly even a dash. It was but a wry and rueful
+humour on the girl's part, and that only towards the end, but I can
+promise my worst critic that I was never less facetious in my life. I
+was thinking in my heavy way that I had never looked into such eyes as
+these, so bold, so sad, so merry with it all! I was thinking that I had
+never listened to such a voice, or come across recklessness and
+sentiment so harmonised, save also in her eyes! I was thinking that
+there never was a girl to touch Camilla Belsize, or a man either except
+A. J. Raffles! And yet--
+
+And yet it was over Raffles that she took all the wind from my sails,
+exactly as she had done at Lord's, only now she did it at parting, and
+sent me off into the dusk a slightly puzzled and exceedingly
+exasperated man.
+
+"Of course," said Camilla at her garden gate, "of course you won't repeat
+a word of what I've told you, Mr. Manders?"
+
+"You mean about your adventures last night and to-day?" said I, somewhat
+taken aback.
+
+"I mean every single thing we've talked about!" was her sweeping reply.
+"Not a syllable must go an inch further; otherwise I shall be very sorry
+I ever spoke to you."
+
+As though she had come and confided in me of her own accord! But I
+passed that, even if I noticed it at the time.
+
+"I won't tell a soul, of course," I said, and fidgeted. "That
+is--except--I suppose you don't mind--"
+
+"I do! There must be no exceptions."
+
+"Not even old Raffles?"
+
+"Mr. Raffles least of all!" cried Camilla Belsize, with almost a forked
+flash from those masterful eyes. "Mr. Raffles is the last person in the
+world who must ever know a single thing."
+
+"Not even that it was you who absolutely saved the situation for him and
+me?" I asked, wistfully; for I much wanted these two to think better of
+each other; and it had begun to look as though I had my wish, so far as
+Camilla was concerned, while I had only to tell Raffles everything to
+make him her slave for life. But now she was adamant on the point,
+adamant heated in some hidden flame.
+
+"It's rather hard lines on me, Mr. Manders, if because I go and get
+excited, and twist off a button in my excitement, as I suppose I must
+have done--unless it's a judgment on me--it's rather hard lines if you
+give me away when I never should have given myself away to you!"
+
+This was unkind. It was still more unfair in view of the former passage
+between us to the same tune. I was evidently getting no credit for my
+very irksome fidelity. I helped myself to some at once.
+
+"You gave yourself away to me at Lord's all right," said I, cheerfully.
+"And I never let out a word of that."
+
+"Not even to Mr. Raffles?" she asked, with a quick unguarded intonation
+that was almost wistful.
+
+"Not a word," was my reply. "Raffles has no idea you noticed anything,
+much less how keen you were for me to warn him."
+
+Miss Belsize looked at me a moment with civil war in her splendid eyes.
+Then something won--I think it was only her pride--and she was holding
+out her hand.
+
+"He must never know a word of this either," said she, firmly as at first.
+"And I hope you'll forgive me for not trusting you quite as I always
+shall for the future."
+
+"I'll forgive you everything, Miss Belsize, except your dislike of dear
+old Raffles!"
+
+I had spoken quite earnestly, keeping her hand; she drew it away as I
+made my point.
+
+"I don't dislike him," she answered in a strange tone; but with a
+stranger stress she added, "I don't _like_ him either."
+
+And even then I could not see what the verb should have been, or why
+Miss Belsize should turn away so quickly in the end, and snatch her eyes
+away quicker still.
+
+I saw them, and thought of her, all the way back to the station, but not
+an inch further. So I need no sympathy on that score. If I did, it would
+have been just the same that July evening, for I saw somebody else and
+had something else to think about from the moment I set foot upon the
+platform. It was the wrong platform. I was about to cross by the bridge
+when a down train came rattling in, and out jumped a man I knew by sight
+before it stopped.
+
+The man was Mackenzie, the incorrigibly Scotch detective whom we had met
+at Milchester Abbey, who I always thought had kept an eye on Raffles ever
+since. He was across the platform before the train pulled up, and I did
+what Raffles would have done in my place. I ran after him.
+
+"Ye ken Dan Levy's hoose by the river?" I heard him babble to his
+cabman, with wilful breadth of speech. "Then drive there, mon, like the
+deevil himsel'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Death of a Sinner
+
+
+What was I to do? I knew what Raffles would have done; he would have
+outstripped Mackenzie in his descent upon the moneylender, beaten the cab
+on foot most probably, and dared Dan Levy to denounce him to the
+detective. I could see a delicious situation, and Raffles conducting it
+inimitably to a triumphant issue. But I was not Raffles, and what was
+more I was due already at his chambers in the Albany. I must have been
+talking to Miss Belsize by the hour together; to my horror I found it
+close upon seven by the station clock; and it was some minutes past when
+I plunged into the first up train. Waterloo was reached before eight, but
+I was a good hour late at the Albany, and Raffles let me know it in his
+shirt-sleeves from the window.
+
+"I thought you were dead, Bunny!" he muttered down as though he wished I
+were. I scaled his staircase at two or three bounds, and began all about
+Mackenzie in the lobby.
+
+"So soon!" says Raffles, with a mere lift of the eyebrows. "Well, thank
+God, I was ready for him again."
+
+I now saw that Raffles was not dressing, though he had changed his
+clothes, and this surprised me for all my breathless preoccupation. But I
+had the reason at a glance through the folding-doors into his bedroom.
+The bed was cumbered with clothes and an open suit-case. A Gladstone bag
+stood strapped and bulging; a travelling rug lay ready for rolling up,
+and Raffles himself looked out of training in his travelling tweeds.
+
+"Going away?" I ejaculated.
+
+"Rather!" said he, folding a smoking jacket. "Isn't it about time after
+what you've told me?"
+
+"But you were packing before you knew!"
+
+"Then for God's sake go and do the same yourself!" he cried, "and don't
+ask questions now. I was beginning to pack enough for us both, but you'll
+have time to shove in a shirt and collar of your own if you jump straight
+into a hansom. I'll take the tickets, and we'll meet on the platform at
+five to nine."
+
+"What platform, Raffles?"
+
+"Charing Cross. Continental train."
+
+"But where the deuce do you think of going?"
+
+"Australia, if you like! We'll discuss it in our flight across Europe."
+
+"Our flight!" I repeated. "What has happened since I left you, Raffles?"
+
+"Look here, Bunny, you go and pack!" was all my answer from a savage
+face, as I was fairly driven to the door. "Do you realise that you were
+due here one golden hour ago, and have I asked what happened to you? Then
+don't you ask rotten questions that there's no time to answer. I'll tell
+you everything in the train, Bunny."
+
+And my name at the end in a different voice, and his hand for an instant
+on my shoulder as I passed out, were my only consolation for his truly
+terrifying behaviour, my only comfort and reassurance of any kind, until
+we really were off by the night mail from Charing Cross.
+
+Raffles was himself again by that time, I was thankful to find, nor did
+he betray that dread or expectation of pursuit which would have tallied
+with his previous manner. He merely looked relieved when the Embankment
+lights ran right and left in our wake. I remember one of his remarks,
+that they made the finest necklace in the world when all was said, and
+another that Big Ben was the Koh-i-noor of the London lights. But he had
+also a quizzical eye upon the paper bag from which I was endeavouring to
+make a meal at last. And more than once he wagged his head with a
+humorous admixture of reproof and sympathy; for with shamefaced
+admissions and downcast pauses I was allowing him to suppose I had been
+drinking at some riverside public-house instead of hurrying up to town,
+but that the _rencontre_ with Mackenzie had served to sober me.
+
+"Poor Bunny! We won't pursue the matter any further; but I do know where
+we both should have been between seven and eight. It was as nice a little
+dinner as I ever ordered in my life. And to think that we never turned up
+to eat a bite of it!"
+
+"Didn't _you_?" I queried, and my sense of guilt deepened to remorse as
+Raffles shook his head.
+
+"No fear, Bunny! I wanted to see you safe and sound. That was what made
+me so stuffy when you did turn up."
+
+Loud were my lamentations, and earnest my entreaties to Raffles to share
+the contents of my paper bag; but not he. To replace such a feast as he
+had ordered with sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs would be worse than
+going healthily hungry for once; it was all very well for me who knew not
+what I had missed. Not that Raffles was hungry by his own accounts; he
+had merely fancied a little dinner, more after my heart than his, for
+our last on British soil.
+
+This, and the way he said it, brought me back to the heart of things; for
+beneath his frothy phrases I felt that the wine of life was bitter to his
+taste. His gayety now afforded no truer criterion to his real feelings
+than had his petulance at the Albany. What had happened since our parting
+in that fatal tower, to make this wild flight necessary without my news,
+and whither in all earnest were we to fly?
+
+"Oh, nothing!" said Raffles, in unsatisfactory answer to my first
+question. "I thought you would have seen that we couldn't clear out too
+soon after restoring poor Shylock, like our brethren in the song, 'to his
+friends and his relations.'"
+
+"But I thought you had something else for him to sign?"
+
+"So I had, Bunny."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"A plain statement of all he had suborned me to do for him, and what he
+had given me for doing it," said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan from his
+last easeful. "One might almost call it a receipt for the letter I stole
+and he destroyed."
+
+"And did he sign that?"
+
+"I insisted on it for our protection."
+
+"Then we are protected, and yet we cut and run?"
+
+Raffles shrugged his shoulders as we hurtled between the lighted
+platforms of Herne Hill.
+
+"There's no immunity from a clever cove like that, Bunny, unless you send
+him to another world or put the thick of this one between you. He may
+hold his tongue about the last twenty-four hours--I believe he will--but
+that needn't prevent him from setting old Mackenzie to watch us day and
+night. So we are not going to stay to be watched. We are starting off
+round the world for a change. Before we get very far Mr. Shylock may be
+in the jug himself; that accursed letter won't be the only incriminating
+thing against him, you take my word. Then we can come back trailing
+clouds of glory, and blowing clouds of Sullivan. Then we can have our
+_secondes noces_--meaning second knocks, Bunny, and more power to our
+elbows when we get them!"
+
+But I was not convinced. There was something else at the bottom of this
+sudden impulse and its inconceivably sudden execution. Why had he never
+told me of this plan? Well, because it had never become one until after
+the morning's work at Levy's bank, in itself a reason for being out of
+the way, as I myself admitted. But he would have told me if only I had
+turned up at seven: he had never meant to give me time for much packing,
+added Raffles, as he was anxious that neither of us should leave the
+impression that we had gone far afield.
+
+I thought this was childish, and treating me like a child, to which,
+however, I was used; but more than ever did I feel that Raffles was not
+being frank with me, that he for one was making good his escape from
+something or somebody besides Dan Levy. And in the end he admitted that
+this was so. But we had not dashed through Sitting-bourne and Faversham
+before I wormed my way to about the last discovery that I expected to
+make concerning A. J. Raffles.
+
+"What an inquisitor you are, Bunny!" said he, putting down an evening
+paper that he had only just taken up. "Can't you see that this whole show
+has been no ordinary one for me? I've been fighting for a crowd I rather
+love. Their battle has got on my nerves as none of my own ever did; and
+now it's won I honestly funk their gratitude as much as anything."
+
+That was another hard saying to swallow; and yet, as Raffles said it, I
+knew it to be true. He was looking me full in the face in the ample
+light of the first-class compartment, which we of course had to
+ourselves. Some softening influence seemed to have been at work upon
+him; he looked resolute as ever, but full of regret, than which nothing
+was rarer in A.J.
+
+"I suppose," said I, "that poor old Garland has treated you to a pretty
+good dose already?"
+
+"Yes, Bunny; that he has."
+
+"And well he may, and well may Teddy and Camilla Belsize!"
+
+"But I couldn't do with it from them," said Raffles, with quite a bitter
+little laugh. "Teddy wasn't there, of course; he's up north for that
+rotten match the team play nowadays against Liverpool. But the game's
+fizzling, he'll be home to-morrow, and I simply can't face him and his
+Camilla. He'll be a married man before we see him again," added Raffles,
+getting hold of his evening paper once more.
+
+"Is that to come off so soon?"
+
+"The sooner the better," said Raffles, strangely.
+
+"You're not quite happy about it," said I, with execrable tact, I know,
+and yet deliberately, because his view of this marriage had always
+puzzled me.
+
+"I'm happy as long as they are," responded Raffles, not without a laugh
+at his own meritorious sentiment. "I only wish," he sighed, "that they
+were both absolutely worthy of each other!"
+
+"And you don't think they are?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"You think such a lot of young Garland?"
+
+"I'm very fond of him, Bunny."
+
+"But you see his faults?"
+
+"I've always seen them; they're not full-fathom-five like mine!"
+
+"Yet you think she's not good enough for him?"
+
+"Not good enough--she?" and he stopped himself at that. But his voice
+was enough for me; the unspoken antithesis was stronger than words
+could have made it. Scales fell from my eyes. "Where on earth did you
+get that idea?"
+
+"I thought it was yours, A.J."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"You seemed to disapprove of the engagement from the first."
+
+"So I did, after what poor Teddy had been up to in his extremity! I may
+as well be honest about that now. It was all right in a pal of ours,
+Bunny, but all wrong in the man who dreamt of marrying Camilla Belsize."
+
+"Yet you have just been moving heaven and hell to make it possible for
+them to marry after all!"
+
+Raffles made another attempt upon his paper. I marvel now that he let me
+catechise him as I was doing. But the truth had just dawned upon me, and
+I simply had to see it whole as the risen sun, whereas Raffles seemed
+under no such passionate necessity to keep it to himself.
+
+"Teddy's all right," said he, inconsistently. "He'll never try anything
+of the kind again; he's had a lesson for life. Besides, I don't often
+take my hand from the plough, as you ought to know. Bunny. It was I who
+brought those two together. But it was none of my mundane business to put
+them asunder again."
+
+"It was you who brought them together?" I repeated insidiously.
+
+"More or less, Bunny. It was at some cricket week, if it wasn't two weeks
+running; they were pals already, but she and I were greater pals before
+the first week was over."
+
+"And yet you didn't cut him out!"
+
+"My dear Bunny, I should hope not."
+
+"But you might have done, A.J.; don't tell me you couldn't if
+you'd tried."
+
+Raffles played with his paper without replying. He was no coxcomb. But
+neither would he ape an alien humility.
+
+"It wouldn't have been the game, Bunny--won or lost--Teddy or no Teddy:
+And yet," he added, with pensive candour, "we were getting on like a
+semi-detached house on fire! I burnt my fingers, I don't mind telling
+you; if I hadn't been what I am, Bunny, I might have taken my courage in
+all ten of 'em, and 'put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.'"
+
+"I wish you had," I whispered, as he studied his paper upside down.
+
+"Why, Bunny? What rot you do talk!" he cried, but only with the skin-deep
+irritation of a half-hearted displeasure.
+
+"She's the only woman I ever met," I went on unguardedly, "who was your
+mate at heart--in pluck--in temperament!"
+
+"How the devil do you know?" cried Raffles, off his own guard now, and
+staring in my guilty face.
+
+But I have never denied that I could emulate his presence of mind
+upon occasion.
+
+"You forget what a lot we saw of each other last Thursday in the rain."
+
+"Did she talk about me then?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Had she her knife in me, Bunny?"
+
+"Well--yes--a little!"
+
+Raffles smiled stoically: it was a smile of duty done and odds
+well damned.
+
+"Up to the hilt, Bunny, up to the hilt is what you mean. I stuck it in
+for her. It's easily done, and it needed doing, for my sake if not for
+hers. Sooner or later I should have choked her off, so the sooner the
+better. You play them false, you cut a dance, you let them down over
+something that doesn't matter, and they'll never give you a dog's chance
+over anything that does! I got her to write and never answered. What do
+you think of that for a cavalier swine? I said I'd call before I went
+abroad, and only wired to say sorry I couldn't. I don't say it would or
+could have been all right otherwise; but you see it was all right for
+Teddy before I got back! Which was as it was to be. She would hardly look
+at me at first last week; but, Bunny, she wasn't above looking when that
+old Shylock was playing at giving me away before them all. She looked at
+him, and she looked at me, and I've got one of the looks she gave him,
+and another that she never meant me to see, bottled in my blackguard
+heart forever!"
+
+Raffles looked dim to me across the narrow compartment; but there was
+no nonsense in his look or voice. I longed to tell him all I knew, all
+that she had said to me and he had unwittingly interpreted; that she
+loved him, as now at last I knew she did; but I had given her my word,
+and after all it was a word to keep for both their sakes as well as
+for its own.
+
+"You were made for each other, you two!"
+
+That was all I said, and Raffles only laughed.
+
+"All the more reason to hook it round the world, Bunny, before there's a
+dog's chance of our meeting again."
+
+He opened his paper the proper way up at last. The train rushed on with
+flying sparks, and flying lights along the line. We were getting nearer
+Dover now. My next brilliant remark was that I could "smell the sea."
+Raffles let it pass; he had been talking of the close-of-play scores in
+the stop-press column, and I thought he was studying them rather
+silently. Or perhaps he was not studying them at all, but still thinking
+of Camilla Belsize, and the look from those brave bright eyes that she
+had never meant him to see. Then, suddenly, I perceived that his forehead
+was glistening white and wet in the lamplight.
+
+"What is it, Raffles? What's the matter?"
+
+He reversed his paper with a shaky hand, and thrust it upon me without a
+word, merely pointing out four or five ill-printed lines of latest news.
+This was the item that danced before my eyes:
+
+TRAGIC DEATH OF FAMOUS MONEYLENDER
+
+Mr. Daniel Levy, the financier, reported shot dead at front gates of his
+residence in Thames Valley at 5.30 this afternoon, by unknown man who
+made good his escape.
+
+I looked up into a ghastly face.
+
+"It was half-past five when I left him, Bunny!"
+
+"You left him--"
+
+I could not ask it. But the ghastly face had given me a ghastlier
+thought.
+
+"As well as you are, Bunny!" so Raffles completed my sentence. "Do you
+think I'd leave him for dead at his own gates?"
+
+Of course I denied the thought; but it had come to haunt me none the
+less; for if I had sailed so near such a deed, what about Raffles under
+equal provocation? And what such motive for the very flight that we were
+making with but a moment's preparation? It all fitted in, except the face
+and voice of Raffles as they had been while he was speaking of Camilla
+Belsize; but again, the fatal act would indeed have made him feel that he
+had lost her, and loosened his tongue upon his loss as something had done
+without doubt; and as for voice and face, there was no longer in either
+any lack of the mad excitement of the hunted man.
+
+"But what were you doing at his gates, A.J.?"
+
+"I saw him home. It was on my way. Why not?"
+
+"And you say you left him at half-past five?"
+
+"I swear it. I looked at my watch, thinking of my train, and my watch is
+plumb right."
+
+"And you heard no shot as you went on?"
+
+"No--I was hurrying. I even ran. I must have been seen running! And now
+I'm like Charley's Aunt," he went on with his sardonic laugh, "and bound
+to stick to it until they catch me by the leg. Now you know what
+Mackenzie was doing down there! The old hound may be on my track already.
+There's no going back now."
+
+"Not for an innocent man?"
+
+"Not for such dubious innocence as mine, Bunny! Remember all we've been
+up to with poor old Levy for the last twenty-four hours."
+
+He paused, remembering everything himself, as I could see; and the human
+compassion in his face should have been sufficient answer to my vile
+misgivings. But there was contrition in his look as well, and that was a
+much rarer sign in Raffles. Rarer still was a glance of alarm almost akin
+to panic, alike without precedent in my experience of my friend and
+beyond belief in my reading of his character. But through all there
+peeped a conscious enjoyment of these new sensations, a very zest in the
+novelty of fear, which I knew to be at once signally characteristic, and
+yet compatible either with his story or with my own base dread.
+
+"Nobody need ever know about that," said I, with the certainty that
+nobody ever would know through the one other who knew already. But
+Raffles threw cold water upon that poor little flicker of confidence and
+good hope.
+
+"It's bound to come out, Bunny. They'll start accounting for his last
+hours on earth, and they'll stick ominously in the first five minutes
+working backwards. Then I am described as bolting from the scene, then
+identified with myself, then found to have fled the country! Then
+Carlsbad, then our first row with him, then yesterday's big cheque; my
+heavy double finds he was impersonated at the bank; it all comes out bit
+by bit, and if I'm caught it means that dingy Old Bailey dock on the
+capital charge!"
+
+"Then I'll be with you," said I, "as accessory before and after the fact.
+That's one thing!"
+
+"No, no, Bunny! You must shake me off and get back to town. I'll push
+you out as we slow down through the streets of Dover, and you can put
+up for the night at the Lord Warden. That's the sort of public place
+for the likes of us to lie low in, Bunny. Don't forget all my rules
+when I'm gone."
+
+"You're not going without me, A.J."
+
+"Not even if I did it, Bunny?"
+
+"No; less than ever then!"
+
+Raffles leant across and took my hand. There was a flash of mischief in
+his eyes, but a very tender light as well.
+
+"It makes me almost wish I were what I do believe you thought I was,"
+said he, "to see you stick to me all the same! But it's about time that
+we were making the lights of Dover," he added, beating an abrupt retreat
+from sentiment, even to the length of getting up and looking out as we
+clattered through a country station. His head was in again before the
+platform was left behind, a pale face peering into mine, real panic
+flaring in those altered eyes, like blue lights at sea. "My God, Bunny!"
+cried Raffles. "I believe Dover's as far as I shall ever get!"
+
+"Why? What's the matter now?"
+
+"A head sticking out of the next compartment but one!"
+
+"Mackenzie's?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+I had seen it in his face.
+
+"After us already?"
+
+"God knows! Not necessarily; they watch the ports after a big murder."
+
+"Swagger detectives from Scotland Yard?"
+
+Raffles did not answer; he had something else to do. Already he was
+turning his pockets inside out. A false beard rolled off the seat.
+
+"That's for you," he said as I picked it up. "I'll finish making you up."
+He was busy on himself in one of the oblong mirrors, kneeling on the
+cushions to be near his work. "If it's a scent at all it must be a pretty
+hot one, Bunny, to have landed him in the very train and coach! But it
+mayn't be as bad as it looked at first sight. He can't have much to go
+upon yet. If he's only going to shadow us while they find out more at
+home, we shall give him the slip all right."
+
+"Do you think he saw you?"
+
+"Looking out? No, thank goodness, he was looking toward Dover too."
+
+"But before we started?"
+
+"No, Bunny, I don't believe he came aboard before Cannon Street. I
+remember hearing a bit of a fuss there. But our blinds were down,
+thank God!"
+
+They were all down now, but by our decreasing speed I felt that we were
+already gliding over level crossings to the admiration of belated
+townsfolk waiting at the gates. Raffles turned from his mirror, and I
+from mine, simultaneously; and even to my initiated eye it was not
+Raffles at all, but another noble scamp who even in those days before the
+war was the observed of all observers about town.
+
+"It's ever so much better than anonymous disguises," said Raffles, as he
+went to work upon me with his pocket make-up box and his lightning
+touch. "I was always rather like him, and I tried him on yesterday with
+such success at the bank that I certainly can't do better to-night. As
+for you, Bunny, if you slouch your hat and stick your beard in your bread
+basket, you ought to pass for a poor relation or a disreputable dun. But
+here we are, my lad, and now for Meester Mackenzie o' Scoteland Yarrd!"
+
+The gaunt detective was in fact the first person we beheld upon the pier
+platform; raw-boned, stiff-jointed, and more than middle-aged, he must
+nevertheless have jumped out once again before the train stopped, and
+that almost on top of a diminutive telegraph boy, who was waiting while
+the old hound read his telegram with one eye and watched emerging
+passengers with both. Whether we should have passed him unobserved I
+cannot say. We could but have tried; but Raffles preferred to grasp the
+nettle and salute Mackenzie with a pleasant nod.
+
+"Good evening, my lord!" says the Scotchman with a canny smirk.
+
+"I can guess why you're down here," says Raffles, actually producing a
+palpable Sullivan under the nose of the law.
+
+"Is that a fact?" inquires the other, oiling the rebuff with
+deferential grin.
+
+"And I mustn't stand between you and poor Dan Levy's murderer," adds
+my lord, nodding finally, when Mackenzie steps after him to my
+horror. But it is only to show Raffles his telegram. And he does not
+follow us on board.
+
+Neither did our disguises accompany our countenances across the Channel.
+It was at dead of night on the upper deck (whence all but us had fled)
+that Raffles showed me how to doff my beard and still look as though I
+had merely buttoned it inside my overcoat; meanwhile his own moustachios
+and imperial were disappearing by discreet degrees; and at last he told
+me why, though not by any means without pressing.
+
+"I'm only afraid you'll want to turn straight back from Calais, Bunny!"
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't."
+
+"You'll come with me round the world, so to speak?"
+
+"To its uttermost ends, A. J.!"
+
+"You do know now who it really is that I don't want to see again
+just yet?"
+
+"Yes. I know. Now tell me what Mackenzie told you."
+
+"It was all in the wire he showed me," said Raffles. "The wire was to say
+that the murderer of Dan Levy had given himself up to the police!"
+
+Profane expletives flew from my lips; those of much holier men might
+have been no less unguardedly emphatic in the self-same circumstances.
+
+"But who was it?"
+
+"I could have told you all along if you hadn't suspected me."
+
+"It wasn't a suspicion, Raffles. It was never more than a dread, and I
+didn't even dread it in my heart of hearts. Do tell me now."
+
+Raffles watched the red end of a ruined Sullivan make a fine trajectory
+as it flew to leeward between sea and stars.
+
+"It was that poor unlucky little alien who was waiting for him the other
+morning in Jermyn Street, and again last night near his own garden gate.
+That's where he got him in the end. But it wasn't a shooting case at all,
+Bunny; that's why I never heard anything. It was a case of stabbing in
+accordance with the best traditions of the Latin races."
+
+"God forgive both poor devils!" said I at last.
+
+"And other two," said Raffles, "who have rather more to be forgiven."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Apologia
+
+
+On one of the worst days of last year, to wit the first day of the Eton
+and Harrow match, I had turned into the Hamman, in Jermyn Street, as the
+best available asylum for wet boots that might no longer enter any club.
+Mine had been removed by a little pinchbeck oriental in the outer courts,
+and I wandered within unpleasantly conscious of a hole in one sock, to
+find myself by no means the only obvious refugee from the rain. The bath
+was in fact inconveniently crowded. But at length I found a divan to suit
+me in an upstairs alcove. I had the choice indeed of more than one; but
+in spite of my antecedents I am fastidious about my cooling companions in
+a Turkish bath, and it was by no accident that I hung my clothes opposite
+to a newer morning coat and a pair of trousers more decisively creased
+than my own.
+
+But the coincidence in pickle was no less remarkable. In ensuing stages
+of physical devastation one had dim glimpses of a not unfamiliar,
+reddish countenance; but with the increment of years it has been my lot
+to contract short sight as well as incipient obesity, and in the hot
+rooms my glasses lose their grip upon my nose. So it was not until I lay
+swathed upon my divan that I recognised E.M. Garland in the fine
+fresh-faced owner of the nice clothes opposite mine. A tawny moustache
+rather spoilt him as Phoebus, and there was a hint of old gold about the
+shaven jaw and chin; but I never saw better looks of the unintellectual
+order; and the amber eye was as clear as ever, the great strong
+wicket-keeper's hand unexpectedly hearty, when recognition dawned on
+Teddy in his turn.
+
+He spoke of Raffles without hesitation or reserve, and of me and my
+Raffles writings as though there was nothing reprehensible in one or the
+other, displaying indeed a flattering knowledge of those pious memorials.
+
+"But of course I take them with a grain of salt," said Teddy Garland;
+"you don't make me believe you were either of you such desperate dogs
+as all that. I can't see you climbing ropes or squirming through
+scullery windows--even for the fun of the thing!" he added with
+somewhat tardy tact.
+
+It is certainly rather hard to credit now. I felt that after all there
+was something to be said for being too fat at forty, and that Teddy
+Garland had said it excellently.
+
+"Now," he continued, "if only you would give us the row between Raffles
+and Dan Levy, I mean the whole battle royal that A.J. fought and won for
+me and my poor father, that would be something like! The world would see
+the sort of chap he really was."
+
+"I am afraid it would have to see the sort of chaps we all were just
+then," said I, as I still think with exemplary delicacy; but Teddy lay
+silent and florid for some time. These athletes have their vanity. But
+this one rose superior to his.
+
+"Manders," said he, leaving his divan and coming and sitting on the edge
+of mine, "you have my free leave to give me and mine away to the four
+winds, if you will tell the truth about that duel, and what Raffles did
+for the lot of us!"
+
+"Perhaps he did more than you ever knew."
+
+"Put it all in."
+
+"It was a longer duel than you think. He once called it a guerilla duel."
+
+"Then make a book of it."
+
+"But I've written my last word about the old boy."
+
+"Then by George I've a good mind to write it myself!"
+
+This was an awful threat. Happily he lacked the materials, and so I told
+him. "I haven't got them all myself," I added, only to be politely but
+openly disbelieved. "I don't know where you were," said I, "all that
+first day of the match, when it rained."
+
+Garland was beginning to smile when the surprise of my statement got home
+and changed his face.
+
+"Do you mean to say A.J. never told you?" he cried, still incredulously.
+
+"No; he wouldn't give you away."
+
+"Not even to you--his pal?"
+
+"No. I was naturally curious on the point. But he refused to tell me."
+
+"What a chap!" murmured Teddy, with a tender enthusiasm that made me love
+him. "What a friend for a fellow! Well, Manders, if you don't write all
+this I certainly shall. So I may as well tell you where I was."
+
+"I must say it would interest me to know."
+
+My companion resumed his smile where he had left it off. "I wonder if you
+would ever guess?" he speculated, looking down into my face.
+
+"I don't suppose I should."
+
+"No more do I; not in a month of Sundays; for I spent that day on the
+very sofa I was on a minute ago!"
+
+I looked at the striped divan opposite. I looked at Teddy Garland
+sitting on mine. His smile was a little wry with the remnant of his
+bygone shame; he hurried on before I could find a word.
+
+"You remember that drug I had? Somnol I think it was. That was a risky
+game to play with any head but one's own; still A. J. was right in
+thinking I should have been worse without any sleep at all. I should,"
+said Teddy, "but I should have rolled up at Lord's! The beastly stuff put
+me asleep all right, but it didn't keep me asleep long enough! I was
+awake before four, heard you both talking in the next room, remembered
+everything in a flash! But for that flash I should have dropped off again
+in a minute; but if you remember all I had to remember, Manders, you
+won't wonder that I lay madly awake all the rest of the night. My head
+was rotten with sleep, but my heart was in such hell as I couldn't
+describe to you if I tried."
+
+"I've been there," said I, briefly.
+
+"Well, then, you can imagine my frightful thoughts. Suicide was one; but
+to get out of that came first, to get away without looking either of you
+in the face in broad daylight. So I shammed sleep when Raffles looked in,
+and when you both went out I dressed in five minutes and slunk out too.
+I had no idea where I was going. I don't remember what brought me down
+into this street. It may have been my debt to Dan Levy. All I remember is
+finding myself opposite this place, my head splitting, and the sudden
+idea that a bath might freshen me up and couldn't make me worse. I
+remembered A.J. telling me he had once taken six wickets after one. So in
+I came. I had my bath, and some tea and toast in the hot-rooms; we were
+all to have a late breakfast together, if you recollect. I felt I should
+be in plenty of time for that and Lord's--if only I hadn't boiled all the
+cricket out of me. So I came up here and lay down there. But what I
+hadn't boiled out was that beastly drug. It got back on me like a
+boomerang. I closed my eyes for a minute--and it was well on in the
+afternoon when I awoke!"
+
+Here Teddy interrupted himself to order whiskies and soda of a
+metropolitan Bashi-Bazouk who happened to pass along the gallery; and to
+go stumbling over to his pockets, in his swaddling towels, for cigarettes
+and matches. And the rest of his discourse was less coherent.
+
+"Then I did feel it was a toss-up between my razor and a charge of shot!
+I had no idea it was raining; if you look up at that coloured skylight,
+you can't say if it's raining now. There's another sort of hatchway on
+top of it. Then you hear that fountain tinkling all the time; you don't
+hear any rain, do you?--It was after three, but I lay till nearly four
+simply cursing my luck; there was no hurry then. At last I wondered what
+the papers had to say about me--who was playing in my place, who'd won
+the toss and all the rest of it. So I had the nerve to send out for one,
+and what should I see? 'No play at Lord's'--and sudden illness of my poor
+old father! You know the rest, Manders, because in less than twenty
+minutes after that we met."
+
+"And I remember thinking how fit you looked," said I. "It was the
+bath, of course, and the sleep on top of it. But I wonder they let you
+sleep so long."
+
+"How could they know what I'd been up to?" said Teddy. "I mightn't have
+had any sleep for a week; it was their business to let me be. But to
+think of the rain coming on and saving me--for even Raffles couldn't have
+done it without the rain. That was the great slice of luck--while I was
+lying right there! And that's why I like to lie there still--for luck
+rather than remembrance!"
+
+The drinks came; we smoked and sipped. I regretted to find that Teddy was
+no longer faithful to the only old cigarette. But his loyalty to Raffles
+won my heart as he had never won it in his youth.
+
+"Give us away to your heart's content," said he; "but give the dear old
+devil his due at last."
+
+"But who exactly do you mean by 'us'?"
+
+"My father not so much, perhaps, because he's dead and gone; but self and
+wife as much as ever you like."
+
+"Are you sure Mrs. Garland won't mind?"
+
+"Mind! It was for her he did it all; didn't you know that?"
+
+I didn't know Teddy knew it, and I began to think him a finer fellow than
+I had supposed.
+
+"Am I to say all I know about that too?" I asked.
+
+"Rather! Camilla and I will both be delighted--so long as you change our
+names--for we both loved him!" said Teddy Garland.
+
+I wonder if they both forgive me for taking him entirely at his word?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Justice Raffles, by E. W. Hornung
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/mythsandlegendsofchina b/files/books/unrelated/mythsandlegendsofchina
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc029d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/mythsandlegendsofchina
@@ -0,0 +1,13322 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Legends of China, by E. T. C. Werner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Myths and Legends of China
+
+Author: E. T. C. Werner
+
+Release Date: March 4, 2005 [EBook #15250]
+Last Updated: January 7, 2017
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF CHINA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeroen Hellingman and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Myths & Legends of China
+
+                                   By
+
+                             E.T.C. Werner
+
+  H.B.M. Consul Foochow (Retired) Barrister-at-law Middle Temple Late
+    Member of The Chinese Government Historiographical Bureau Peking
+ Author of "Descriptive Sociology: Chinese" "China of the Chinese" Etc.
+
+
+                      George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.
+                          London Bombay Sydney
+
+
+
+
+In Memoriam
+
+_Gladys Nina Chalmers Werner_
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+The chief literary sources of Chinese myths are the _Li tai shên hsien
+t'ung chien_, in thirty-two volumes, the _Shên hsien lieh chuan_,
+in eight volumes, the _Fêng shên yen i_, in eight volumes, and the
+_Sou shên chi_, in ten volumes. In writing the following pages I
+have translated or paraphrased largely from these works. I have also
+consulted and at times quoted from the excellent volumes on Chinese
+Superstitions by Père Henri Doré, comprised in the valuable series
+_Variétés Sinologiques_, published by the Catholic Mission Press
+at Shanghai. The native works contained in the Ssu K'u Ch'üan Shu,
+one of the few public libraries in Peking, have proved useful for
+purposes of reference. My heartiest thanks are due to my good friend
+Mr Mu Hsüeh-hsün, a scholar of wide learning and generous disposition,
+for having kindly allowed me to use his very large and useful library
+of Chinese books. The late Dr G.E. Morrison also, until he sold it
+to a Japanese baron, was good enough to let me consult his extensive
+collection of foreign works relating to China whenever I wished, but
+owing to the fact that so very little work has been done in Chinese
+mythology by Western writers I found it better in dealing with this
+subject to go direct to the original Chinese texts. I am indebted to
+Professor H.A. Giles, and to his publishers, Messrs Kelly and Walsh,
+Shanghai, for permission to reprint from _Strange Stories from a
+Chinese Studio_ the fox legends given in Chapter XV.
+
+This is, so far as I know, the only monograph on Chinese mythology
+in any non-Chinese language. Nor do the native works include any
+scientific analysis or philosophical treatment of their myths.
+
+My aim, after summarizing the sociology of the Chinese as a
+prerequisite to the understanding of their ideas and sentiments,
+and dealing as fully as possible, consistently with limitations of
+space (limitations which have necessitated the presentation of a
+very large and intricate topic in a highly compressed form), with
+the philosophy of the subject, has been to set forth in English dress
+those myths which may be regarded as the accredited representatives
+of Chinese mythology--those which live in the minds of the people and
+are referred to most frequently in their literature, not those which
+are merely diverting without being typical or instructive--in short,
+a true, not a distorted image.
+
+_Edward Theodore Chalmers Werner_
+
+_Peking_
+_February_ 1922
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Chapter
+
+I.      The Sociology of the Chinese
+II.     On Chinese Mythology
+III.    Cosmogony--P'an Ku and the Creation Myth
+IV.     The Gods of China
+V.      Myths of the Stars
+VI.     Myths of Thunder, Lightning, Wind, and Rain
+VII.    Myths of the Waters
+VIII.   Myths of Fire
+IX.     Myths of Epidemics, Medicine, Exorcism, Etc.
+X.      The Goddess of Mercy
+XI.     The Eight Immortals
+XII.    The Guardian of the Gate of Heaven
+XIII.   A Battle of the Gods
+XIV.    How the Monkey Became a God
+XV.     Fox Legends
+XVI.    Miscellaneous Legends
+        The Pronunciation of Chinese Words
+
+
+
+
+
+_Mais cet Orient, cette Asie, quelles en sont, enfin, les frontières
+réelles?... Ces frontières sont d'une netteté qui ne permet aucune
+erreur. L'Asie est là où cesse la vulgarité, où naît la dignité,
+et où commence l'élégance intellectuelle. Et l'Orient est là où sont
+les sources débordantes de poésie._
+
+_Mardrus_,
+_La Reine de Saba_
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Sociology of the Chinese
+
+
+Racial Origin
+
+In spite of much research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese
+people remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence
+they came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration
+from elsewhere; the Chinese themselves have a tradition of a Western
+origin. The first picture we have of their actual history shows us, not
+a people behaving as if long settled in a land which was their home and
+that of their forefathers, but an alien race fighting with wild beasts,
+clearing dense forests, and driving back the aboriginal inhabitants.
+
+Setting aside several theories (including the one that the Chinese
+are autochthonous and their civilization indigenous) now regarded
+by the best authorities as untenable, the researches of sinologists
+seem to indicate an origin (1) in early Akkadia; or (2) in Khotan,
+the Tarim valley (generally what is now known as Eastern Turkestan),
+or the K'un-lun Mountains (concerning which more presently). The
+second hypothesis may relate only to a sojourn of longer or shorter
+duration on the way from Akkadia to the ultimate settlement in China,
+especially since the Khotan civilization has been shown to have
+been imported from the Punjab in the third century B.C. The fact
+that serious mistakes have been made regarding the identifications
+of early Chinese rulers with Babylonian kings, and of the Chinese
+_po-hsing_ (Cantonese _bak-sing_) 'people' with the Bak Sing or Bak
+tribes, does not exclude the possibility of an Akkadian origin. But
+in either case the immigration into China was probably gradual, and
+may have taken the route from Western or Central Asia direct to the
+banks of the Yellow River, or may possibly have followed that to the
+south-east through Burma and then to the north-east through what is
+now China--the settlement of the latter country having thus spread
+from south-west to north-east, or in a north-easterly direction along
+the Yangtzu River, and so north, instead of, as is generally supposed,
+from north to south.
+
+
+Southern Origin Improbable
+
+But this latter route would present many difficulties; it would seem
+to have been put forward merely as ancillary to the theory that the
+Chinese originated in the Indo-Chinese peninsula. This theory is
+based upon the assumptions that the ancient Chinese ideograms include
+representations of tropical animals and plants; that the oldest and
+purest forms of the language are found in the south; and that the
+Chinese and the Indo-Chinese groups of languages are both tonal. But
+all of these facts or alleged facts are as easily or better accounted
+for by the supposition that the Chinese arrived from the north
+or north-west in successive waves of migration, the later arrivals
+pushing the earlier farther and farther toward the south, so that the
+oldest and purest forms of Chinese would be found just where they are,
+the tonal languages of the Indo-Chinese peninsula being in that case
+regarded as the languages of the vanguard of the migration. Also, the
+ideograms referred to represent animals and plants of the temperate
+zone rather than of the tropics, but even if it could be shown, which
+it cannot, that these animals and plants now belong exclusively to the
+tropics, that would be no proof of the tropical origin of the Chinese,
+for in the earliest times the climate of North China was much milder
+than it is now, and animals such as tigers and elephants existed in the
+dense jungles which are later found only in more southern latitudes.
+
+
+Expansion of Races from North to South
+
+The theory of a southern origin (to which a further serious objection
+will be stated presently) implies a gradual infiltration of Chinese
+immigrants through South or Mid-China (as above indicated) toward
+the north, but there is little doubt that the movement of the races
+has been from north to south and not _vice versa_. In what are now
+the provinces of Western Kansu and Ssuch'uan there lived a people
+related to the Chinese (as proved by the study of Indo-Chinese
+comparative philology) who moved into the present territory of Tibet
+and are known as Tibetans; in what is now the province of Yünnan were
+the Shan or Ai-lao (modern Laos), who, forced by Mongol invasions,
+emigrated to the peninsula in the south and became the Siamese; and in
+Indo-China, not related to the Chinese, were the Annamese, Khmer, Mon,
+Khasi, Colarains (whose remnants are dispersed over the hill tracts
+of Central India), and other tribes, extending in prehistoric times
+into Southern China, but subsequently driven back by the expansion
+of the Chinese in that direction.
+
+
+Arrival of the Chinese in China
+
+Taking into consideration all the existing evidence, the objections to
+all other theories of the origin of the Chinese seem to be greater
+than any yet raised to the theory that immigrants from the Tarim
+valley or beyond (_i.e._ from Elam or Akkadia, either direct or _via_
+Eastern Turkestan) struck the banks of the Yellow River in their
+eastward journey and followed its course until they reached the
+localities where we first find them settled, namely, in the region
+covered by parts of the three modern provinces of Shansi, Shensi,
+and Honan where their frontiers join. They were then (about 2500 or
+3000 B.C.) in a relatively advanced state of civilization. The country
+east and south of this district was inhabited by aboriginal tribes,
+with whom the Chinese fought, as they did with the wild animals and the
+dense vegetation, but with whom they also commingled and intermarried,
+and among whom they planted colonies as centres from which to spread
+their civilization.
+
+
+The K'un-lun Mountains
+
+With reference to the K'un-lun Mountains, designated in Chinese
+mythology as the abode of the gods--the ancestors of the Chinese
+race--it should be noted that these are identified not with the range
+dividing Tibet from Chinese Turkestan, but with the Hindu Kush. That
+brings us somewhat nearer to Babylon, and the apparent convergence
+of the two theories, the Central Asian and the Western Asian, would
+seem to point to a possible solution of the problem. Nü Kua, one of
+the alleged creators of human beings, and Nü and Kua, the first two
+human beings (according to a variation of the legend), are placed
+in the K'un-lun Mountains. That looks hopeful. Unfortunately, the
+K'un-lun legend is proved to be of Taoist origin. K'un-lun is the
+central mountain of the world, and 3000 miles in height. There is
+the fountain of immortality, and thence flow the four great rivers
+of the world. In other words, it is the Sumêru of Hindu mythology
+transplanted into Chinese legend, and for our present purpose without
+historical value.
+
+It would take up too much space to go into details of this interesting
+problem of the origin of the Chinese and their civilization, the
+cultural connexions or similarities of China and Western Asia in
+pre-Babylonian times, the origin of the two distinct culture-areas
+so marked throughout the greater part of Chinese history, etc., and
+it will be sufficient for our present purpose to state the conclusion
+to which the evidence points.
+
+
+Provisional Conclusion
+
+Pending the discovery of decisive evidence, the following provisional
+conclusion has much to recommend it--namely, that the ancestors
+of the Chinese people came from the west, from Akkadia or Elam,
+or from Khotan, or (more probably) from Akkadia or Elam _via_
+Khotan, as one nomad or pastoral tribe or group of nomad or pastoral
+tribes, or as successive waves of immigrants, reached what is now
+China Proper at its north-west corner, settled round the elbow of
+the Yellow River, spread north-eastward, eastward, and southward,
+conquering, absorbing, or pushing before them the aborigines into
+what is now South and South-west China. These aboriginal races, who
+represent a wave or waves of neolithic immigrants from Western Asia
+earlier than the relatively high-headed immigrants into North China
+(who arrived about the twenty-fifth or twenty-fourth century B.C.),
+and who have left so deep an impress on the Japanese, mixed and
+intermarried with the Chinese in the south, eventually producing the
+pronounced differences, in physical, mental, and emotional traits,
+in sentiments, ideas, languages, processes, and products, from the
+Northern Chinese which are so conspicuous at the present day.
+
+
+
+Inorganic Environment
+
+At the beginning of their known history the country occupied by the
+Chinese was the comparatively small region above mentioned. It was
+then a tract of an irregular oblong shape, lying between latitude 34°
+and 40° N. and longitude 107° and 114° E. This territory round the
+elbow of the Yellow River had an area of about 50,000 square miles,
+and was gradually extended to the sea-coast on the north-east as far as
+longitude 119°, when its area was about doubled. It had a population of
+perhaps a million, increasing with the expansion to two millions. This
+may be called infant China. Its period (the Feudal Period) was in
+the two thousand years between the twenty-fourth and third centuries
+B.C. During the first centuries of the Monarchical Period, which lasted
+from 221 B.C. to A.D. 1912, it had expanded to the south to such an
+extent that it included all of the Eighteen Provinces constituting
+what is known as China Proper of modern times, with the exception of
+a portion of the west of Kansu and the greater portions of Ssuch'uan
+and Yünnan. At the time of the Manchu conquest at the beginning of the
+seventeenth century A.D. it embraced all the territory lying between
+latitude 18° and 40° N. and longitude 98° and 122° E. (the Eighteen
+Provinces or China Proper), with the addition of the vast outlying
+territories of Manchuria, Mongolia, Ili, Koko-nor, Tibet, and Corea,
+with suzerainty over Burma and Annam--an area of more than 5,000,000
+square miles, including the 2,000,000 square miles covered by the
+Eighteen Provinces. Generally, this territory is mountainous in the
+west, sloping gradually down toward the sea on the east. It contains
+three chief ranges of mountains and large alluvial plains in the north,
+east, and south. Three great and about thirty large rivers intersect
+the country, their numerous tributaries reaching every part of it.
+
+As regards geological features, the great alluvial plains rest upon
+granite, new red sandstone, or limestone. In the north is found the
+peculiar loess formation, having its origin probably in the accumulated
+dust of ages blown from the Mongolian plateau. The passage from north
+to south is generally from the older to the newer rocks; from east to
+west a similar series is found, with some volcanic features in the
+west and south. Coal and iron are the chief minerals, gold, silver,
+copper, lead, tin, jade, etc., being also mined.
+
+The climate of this vast area is not uniform. In the north the winter
+is long and rigorous, the summer hot and dry, with a short rainy season
+in July and August; in the south the summer is long, hot, and moist,
+the winter short. The mean temperature is 50.3° F. and 70° F. in the
+north and south respectively. Generally, the thermometer is low for
+the latitude, though perhaps it is more correct to say that the Gulf
+Stream raises the temperature of the west coast of Europe above the
+average. The mean rainfall in the north is 16, in the south 70 inches,
+with variations in other parts. Typhoons blow in the south between
+July and October.
+
+
+Organic Environment
+
+The vegetal productions are abundant and most varied. The rice-zone
+(significant in relation to the cultural distinctions above noted)
+embraces the southern half of the country. Tea, first cultivated
+for its infusion in A.D. 350, is grown in the southern and central
+provinces between the twenty-third and thirty-fifth degrees of
+latitude, though it is also found as far north as Shantung, the chief
+'tea district,' however, being the large area south of the Yangtzu
+River, east of the Tungting Lake and great Siang River, and north of
+the Kuangtung Province. The other chief vegetal products are wheat,
+barley, maize, millet, the bean, yam, sweet and common potato, tomato,
+eggplant, ginseng, cabbage, bamboo, indigo, pepper, tobacco, camphor,
+tallow, ground-nut, poppy, water-melon, sugar, cotton, hemp, and
+silk. Among the fruits grown are the date, mulberry, orange, lemon,
+pumelo, persimmon, lichi, pomegranate, pineapple, fig, coconut, mango,
+and banana, besides the usual kinds common in Western countries.
+
+The wild animals include the tiger, panther, leopard, bear, sable,
+otter, monkey, wolf, fox, twenty-seven or more species of ruminants,
+and numerous species of rodents. The rhinoceros, elephant, and tapir
+still exist in Yünnan. The domestic animals include the camel and the
+water-buffalo. There are about 700 species of birds, and innumerable
+species of fishes and insects.
+
+
+Sociological Environment
+
+On their arrival in what is now known as China the Chinese, as already
+noted, fought with the aboriginal tribes. The latter were exterminated,
+absorbed, or driven south with the spread of Chinese rule. The Chinese
+"picked out the eyes of the land," and consequently the non-Chinese
+tribes now live in the unhealthy forests or marshes of the south,
+or in mountain regions difficult of access, some even in trees (a
+voluntary, not compulsory promotion), though several, such as the Dog
+Jung in Fukien, retain settlements like islands among the ruling race.
+
+In the third century B.C. began the hostile relations of the Chinese
+with the northern nomads, which continued throughout the greater
+part of their history. During the first six centuries A.D. there was
+intercourse with Rome, Parthia, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Ceylon, India,
+and Indo-China, and in the seventh century with the Arabs. Europe
+was brought within the sociological environment by Christian
+travellers. From the tenth to the thirteenth century the north
+was occupied by Kitans and Nüchêns, and the whole Empire was under
+Mongol sway for eighty-eight years in the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries. Relations of a commercial and religious nature were held
+with neighbours during the following four hundred years. Regular
+diplomatic intercourse with Western nations was established as a result
+of a series of wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Until
+recently the nation held aloof from alliances and was generally averse
+to foreign intercourse. From 1537 onward, as a sequel of war or treaty,
+concessions, settlements, etc., were obtained by foreign Powers. China
+has now lost some of her border countries and large adjacent islands,
+the military and commercial pressure of Western nations and Japan
+having taken the place of the military pressure of the Tartars already
+referred to. The great problem for her, an agricultural nation, is
+how to find means and the military spirit to maintain her integrity,
+the further violation of which could not but be regarded by the student
+of sociological history as a great tragedy and a world-wide calamity.
+
+
+Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual Characters
+
+The physical characters of the Chinese are too well known to need
+detailed recital. The original immigrants into North China all
+belonged to blond races, but the modern Chinese have little left of
+the immigrant stock. The oblique, almond-shaped eyes, with black iris
+and the orbits far apart, have a vertical fold of skin over the inner
+canthus, concealing a part of the iris, a peculiarity distinguishing
+the eastern races of Asia from all other families of man. The stature
+and weight of brain are generally below the average. The hair is black,
+coarse, and cylindrical; the beard scanty or absent. The colour of
+the skin is darker in the south than in the north.
+
+Emotionally the Chinese are sober, industrious, of remarkable
+endurance, grateful, courteous, and ceremonious, with a high sense
+of mercantile honour, but timorous, cruel, unsympathetic, mendacious,
+and libidinous.
+
+Intellectually they were until recently, and to a large extent
+still are, non-progressive, in bondage to uniformity and mechanism
+in culture, imitative, unimaginative, torpid, indirect, suspicious,
+and superstitious.
+
+The character is being modified by intercourse with other peoples
+of the earth and by the strong force of physical, intellectual,
+and moral education.
+
+
+Marriage in Early Times
+
+Certain parts of the marriage ceremonial of China as now existing
+indicate that the original form of marriage was by capture--of which,
+indeed, there is evidence in the classical _Book of Odes_. But a
+regular form of marriage (in reality a contract of sale) is shown
+to have existed in the earliest historical times. The form was not
+monogamous, though it seems soon to have assumed that of a qualified
+monogamy consisting of one wife and one or more concubines, the
+number of the latter being as a rule limited only by the means of the
+husband. The higher the rank the larger was the number of concubines
+and handmaids in addition to the wife proper, the palaces of the
+kings and princes containing several hundreds of them. This form it
+has retained to the present day, though associations now exist for
+the abolition of concubinage. In early times, as well as throughout
+the whole of Chinese history, concubinage was in fact universal,
+and there is some evidence also of polyandry (which, however, cannot
+have prevailed to any great extent). The age for marriage was twenty
+for the man and fifteen for the girl, celibacy after thirty and twenty
+respectively being officially discouraged. In the province of Shantung
+it was usual for the wives to be older than their husbands. The
+parents' consent to the betrothal was sought through the intervention
+of a matchmaker, the proposal originating with the parents, and
+the wishes of the future bride and bridegroom not being taken into
+consideration. The conclusion of the marriage was the progress of the
+bride from the house of her parents to that of the bridegroom, where
+after various ceremonies she and he worshipped his ancestors together,
+the worship amounting to little more than an announcement of the union
+to the ancestral spirits. After a short sojourn with her husband the
+bride revisited her parents, and the marriage was not considered as
+finally consummated until after this visit had taken place.
+
+The status of women was low, and the power of the husband great--so
+great that he could kill his wife with impunity. Divorce was common,
+and all in favour of the husband, who, while he could not be
+divorced by her, could put his wife away for disobedience or even
+for loquaciousness. A widower remarried immediately, but refusal
+to remarry by a widow was esteemed an act of chastity. She often
+mutilated herself or even committed suicide to prevent remarriage,
+and was posthumously honoured for doing so. Being her husband's as
+much in the Otherworld as in this, remarriage would partake of the
+character of unchastity and insubordination; the argument, of course,
+not applying to the case of the husband, who by remarriage simply
+adds another member to his clan without infringing on anyone's rights.
+
+
+Marriage in Monarchical and Republican Periods
+
+The marital system of the early classical times, of which the above
+were the essentials, changed but little during the long period of
+monarchical rule lasting from 221 B.C. to A.D. 1912. The principal
+object, as before, was to secure an heir to sacrifice to the spirits of
+deceased progenitors. Marriage was not compulsory, but old bachelors
+and old maids were very scarce. The concubines were subject to the
+wife, who was considered to be the mother of their children as well
+as her own. Her status, however, was not greatly superior. Implicit
+obedience was exacted from her. She could not possess property, but
+could not be hired out for prostitution. The latter vice was common,
+in spite of the early age at which marriage took place and in spite
+of the system of concubinage--which is after all but a legalized
+transfer of prostitutional cohabitation to the domestic circle.
+
+Since the establishment of the Republic in 1912 the 'landslide' in the
+direction of Western progress has had its effect also on the domestic
+institutions. But while the essentials of the marriage contract remain
+practically the same as before, the most conspicuous changes have been
+in the accompanying ceremonial--now sometimes quite foreign, but in a
+very large, perhaps the greatest, number of cases that odious thing,
+half foreign, half Chinese; as, for instance, when the procession,
+otherwise native, includes foreign glass-panelled carriages, or the
+bridegroom wears a 'bowler' or top-hat with his Chinese dress--and
+in the greater freedom allowed to women, who are seen out of doors
+much more than formerly, sit at table with their husbands, attend
+public functions and dinners, dress largely in foreign fashion,
+and play tennis and other games, instead of being prisoners of the
+'inner apartment' and household drudges little better than slaves.
+
+One unexpected result of this increased freedom is certainly
+remarkable, and is one not likely to have been predicted by the most
+far-sighted sociologist. Many of the 'progressive' Chinese, now that
+it is the fashion for Chinese wives to be seen in public with their
+husbands, finding the uneducated, _gauche_, small-footed household
+drudge unable to compete with the smarter foreign-educated wives
+of their neighbours, have actually repudiated them and taken unto
+themselves spouses whom they can exhibit in public without 'loss
+of face'! It is, however, only fair to add that the total number
+of these cases, though by no means inconsiderable, appears to be
+proportionately small.
+
+
+Parents and Children
+
+As was the power of the husband over the wife, so was that of the
+father over his children. Infanticide (due chiefly to poverty,
+and varying with it) was frequent, especially in the case of female
+children, who were but slightly esteemed; the practice prevailing
+extensively in three or four provinces, less extensively in others,
+and being practically absent in a large number. Beyond the fact that
+some penalties were enacted against it by the Emperor Ch'ien Lung
+(A.D. 1736-96), and that by statute it was a capital offence to murder
+children in order to use parts of their bodies for medicine, it was
+not legally prohibited. When the abuse became too scandalous in any
+district proclamations condemning it would be issued by the local
+officials. A man might, by purchase and contract, adopt a person
+as son, daughter, or grandchild, such person acquiring thereby all
+the rights of a son or daughter. Descent, both of real and personal
+property, was to all the sons of wives and concubines as joint heirs,
+irrespective of seniority. Bastards received half shares. Estates were
+not divisible by the children during the lifetime of their parents
+or grandparents.
+
+The head of the family being but the life-renter of the family
+property, bound by fixed rules, wills were superfluous, and were used
+only where the customary respect for the parents gave them a voice
+in arranging the details of the succession. For this purpose verbal
+or written instructions were commonly given.
+
+In the absence of the father, the male relatives of the same surname
+assumed the guardianship of the young. The guardian exercised full
+authority and enjoyed the surplus revenues of his ward's estate,
+but might not alienate the property.
+
+There are many instances in Chinese history of extreme devotion of
+children to parents taking the form of self-wounding and even of
+suicide in the hope of curing parents' illnesses or saving their lives.
+
+
+Political History
+
+The country inhabited by the Chinese on their arrival from the West
+was, as we saw, the district where the modern provinces of Shansi,
+Shensi, and Honan join. This they extended in an easterly direction
+to the shores of the Gulf of Chihli--a stretch of territory about 600
+miles long by 300 broad. The population, as already stated, was between
+one and two millions. During the first two thousand years of their
+known history the boundaries of this region were not greatly enlarged,
+but beyond the more or less undefined borderland to the south were
+_chou_ or colonies, nuclei of Chinese population, which continually
+increased in size through conquest of the neighbouring territory. In
+221 B.C. all the feudal states into which this territory had been
+parcelled out, and which fought with one another, were subjugated
+and absorbed by the state of Ch'in, which in that year instituted the
+monarchical form of government--the form which obtained in China for
+the next twenty-one centuries.
+
+Though the origin of the name 'China' has not yet been finally decided,
+the best authorities regard it as derived from the name of this feudal
+state of Ch'in.
+
+Under this short-lived dynasty of Ch'in and the famous Han dynasty
+(221 B.C. to A.D. 221) which followed it, the Empire expanded until
+it embraced almost all the territory now known as China Proper
+(the Eighteen Provinces of Manchu times). To these were added
+in order between 194 B.C. and A.D. 1414: Corea, Sinkiang (the
+New Territory or Eastern Turkestan), Manchuria, Formosa, Tibet,
+and Mongolia--Formosa and Corea being annexed by Japan in 1895 and
+1910 respectively. Numerous other extra-China countries and islands,
+acquired and lost during the long course of Chinese history (at one
+time, from 73 to 48 B.C., "all Asia from Japan to the Caspian Sea was
+tributary to the Middle Kingdom," _i.e._ China), it is not necessary
+to mention here. During the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1280) the
+Tartars owned the northern half of China, as far down as the Yangtzu
+River, and in the Yüan dynasty (1280-1368) they conquered the whole
+country. During the period 1644-1912 it was in the possession of
+the Manchus. At present the five chief component peoples of China are
+represented in the striped national flag (from the top downward) by red
+(Manchus), yellow (Chinese), blue (Mongolians), white (Mohammedans),
+and black (Tibetans). This flag was adopted on the establishment of the
+Republic in 1912, and supplanted the triangular Dragon flag previously
+in use. By this time the population--which had varied considerably at
+different periods owing to war, famine, and pestilence--had increased
+to about 400,000,000.
+
+
+General Government
+
+The general division of the nation was into the King and the People,
+The former was regarded as appointed by the will of Heaven and
+as the parent of the latter. Besides being king, he was also
+law-giver, commander-in-chief of the armies, high priest, and
+master of ceremonies. The people were divided into four classes: (1)
+_Shih_, Officers (later Scholars), consisting of _Ch'ên_, Officials
+(a few of whom were ennobled), and _Shên Shih_, Gentry; (2) _Nung_,
+Agriculturists; (3) _Kung_, Artisans; and (4) _Shang_, Merchants.
+
+For administrative purposes there were at the seat of central
+government (which, first at P'ing-yang--in modern Shansi--was
+moved eleven times during the Feudal Period, and was finally
+at Yin) ministers, or ministers and a hierarchy of officials,
+the country being divided into provinces, varying in number from
+nine in the earliest times to thirty-six under the First Emperor,
+221 B.C., and finally twenty-two at the present day. At first these
+provinces contained states, which were models of the central state,
+the ruler's 'Middle Kingdom.' The provincial administration was
+in the hands of twelve Pastors or Lord-Lieutenants. They were the
+chiefs of all the nobles in a province. Civil and military offices
+were not differentiated. The feudal lords or princes of states often
+resided at the king's court, officers of that court being also sent
+forth as princes of states. The king was the source of legislation
+and administered justice. The princes in their several states had
+the power of rewards and punishments. Revenue was derived from a
+tithe on the land, from the income of artisans, merchants, fishermen,
+foresters, and from the tribute brought by savage tribes.
+
+The general structure and principles of this system of administration
+remained the same, with few variations, down to the end of the
+Monarchical Period in 1912. At the end of that period we find the
+emperor still considered as of divine descent, still the head of
+the civil, legislative, military, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial
+administration, with the nation still divided into the same four
+classes. The chief ministries at the capital, Peking, could in most
+cases trace their descent from their prototypes of feudal times, and
+the principal provincial administrative officials--the Governor-General
+or Viceroy, governor, provincial treasurer, judge, etc.--had similarly
+a pedigree running back to offices then existing--a continuous duration
+of adherence to type which is probably unique.
+
+Appointment to office was at first by selection, followed by an
+examination to test proficiency; later was introduced the system of
+public competitive literary examinations for office, fully organized
+in the seventeenth century, and abolished in 1903, when official
+positions were thrown open to the graduates of colleges established
+on a modern basis.
+
+In 1912, on the overthrow of the Manchu monarchy, China became a
+republic, with an elected President, and a Parliament consisting
+of a Senate and House of Representatives. The various government
+departments were reorganized on Western lines, and a large number
+of new offices instituted. Up to the present year the Law of the
+Constitution, owing to political dissension between the North and
+the South, has not been put into force.
+
+
+Laws
+
+Chinese law, like primitive law generally, was not instituted
+in order to ensure justice between man and man; its object was
+to enforce subordination of the ruled to the ruler. The laws were
+punitive and vindictive rather than reformatory or remedial, criminal
+rather than civil. Punishments were cruel: branding, cutting off the
+nose, the legs at the knees, castration, and death, the latter not
+necessarily, or indeed ordinarily, for taking life. They included in
+some cases punishment of the family, the clan, and the neighbours of
+the offender. The _lex talionis_ was in full force.
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of the harsh nature of the punishments, possibly
+adapted, more or less, to a harsh state of society, though the "proper
+end of punishments"--to "make an end of punishing"--was missed, the
+Chinese evolved a series of excellent legal codes. This series began
+with the revision of King Mu's _Punishments_ in 950 B.C., the first
+regular code being issued in 650 B.C., and ended with the well-known
+_Ta Ch'ing lü li_ (_Laws and Statutes of the Great Ch'ing Dynasty_),
+issued in A.D. 1647. Of these codes the great exemplar was the _Law
+Classic_ drawn up by Li K'uei (_Li K'uei fa ching_), a statesman
+in the service of the first ruler of the Wei State, in the fourth
+century B.C. The _Ta Ch'ing lü li_ has been highly praised by competent
+judges. Originally it sanctioned only two kinds of punishment, death
+and flogging, but others were in use, and the barbarous _ling ch'ih_,
+'lingering death' or 'slicing to pieces,' invented about A.D. 1000
+and abolished in 1905, was inflicted for high treason, parricide,
+on women who killed their husbands, and murderers of three persons
+of one family. In fact, until some first-hand knowledge of Western
+systems and procedure was obtained, the vindictive as opposed to the
+reformatory idea of punishments continued to obtain in China down to
+quite recent years, and has not yet entirely disappeared. Though the
+crueller forms of punishment had been legally abolished, they continued
+to be used in many parts. Having been joint judge at Chinese trials
+at which, in spite of my protests, prisoners were hung up by their
+thumbs and made to kneel on chains in order to extort confession
+(without which no accused person could be punished), I can testify
+that the true meaning of the "proper end of punishments" had no more
+entered into the Chinese mind at the close of the monarchical _régime_
+than it had 4000 years before.
+
+As a result of the reform movement into which China was forced as
+an alternative to foreign domination toward the end of the Manchu
+Period, but chiefly owing to the bait held out by Western Powers,
+that extraterritoriality would be abolished when China had reformed
+her judicial system, a new Provisional Criminal Code was published. It
+substituted death by hanging or strangulation for decapitation, and
+imprisonment for various lengths of time for bambooing. It was adopted
+in large measure by the Republican _régime_, and is the chief legal
+instrument in use at the present time. But close examination reveals
+the fact that it is almost an exact copy of the Japanese penal code,
+which in turn was modelled upon that of Germany. It is, in fact, a
+Western code imitated, and as it stands is quite out of harmony with
+present conditions in China. It will have to be modified and recast
+to be a suitable, just, and practicable national legal instrument
+for the Chinese people. Moreover, it is frequently overridden in a
+high-handed manner by the police, who often keep a person acquitted
+by the Courts of Justice in custody until they have 'squeezed' him
+of all they can hope to get out of him. And it is noteworthy that,
+though provision was made in the Draft Code for trial by jury, this
+provision never went into effect; and the slavish imitation of alien
+methods is shown by the curiously inconsistent reason given--that "the
+fact that jury trials have been abolished in Japan is indicative of the
+inadvisability of transplanting this Western institution into China!"
+
+
+Local Government
+
+The central administration being a far-flung network of officialdom,
+there was hardly any room for local government apart from it. We
+find it only in the village elder and those associated with him, who
+took up what government was necessary where the jurisdiction of the
+unit of the central administration--the district magistracy--ceased,
+or at least did not concern itself in meddling much.
+
+
+Military System
+
+The peace-loving agricultural settlers in early China had at first
+no army. When occasion arose, all the farmers exchanged their
+ploughshares for swords and bows and arrows, and went forth to
+fight. In the intervals between the harvests, when the fields were
+clear, they held manoeuvres and practised the arts of warfare. The
+king, who had his Six Armies, under the Six High Nobles, forming
+the royal military force, led the troops in person, accompanied by
+the spirit-tablets of his ancestors and of the gods of the land and
+grain. Chariots, drawn by four horses and containing soldiers armed
+with spears and javelins and archers, were much in use. A thousand
+chariots was the regular force. Warriors wore buskins on their legs,
+and were sometimes gagged in order to prevent the alarm being given to
+the enemy. In action the chariots occupied the centre, the bowmen the
+left, the spearmen the right flank. Elephants were sometimes used in
+attack. Spy-kites, signal-flags, hook-ladders, horns, cymbals, drums,
+and beacon-fires were in use. The ears of the vanquished were taken
+to the king, quarter being rarely if ever given.
+
+After the establishment of absolute monarchical government standing
+armies became the rule. Military science was taught, and soldiers
+sometimes trained for seven years. Chariots with upper storeys or
+spy-towers were used for fighting in narrow defiles, and hollow squares
+were formed of mixed chariots, infantry, and dragoons. The weakness of
+disunion of forces was well understood. In the sixth century A.D. the
+massed troops numbered about a million and a quarter. In A.D. 627
+there was an efficient standing army of 900,000 men, the term of
+service being from the ages of twenty to sixty. During the Mongol
+dynasty (1280-1368) there was a navy of 5000 ships manned by 70,000
+trained fighters. The Mongols completely revolutionized tactics and
+improved on all the military knowledge of the time. In 1614 the Manchu
+'Eight Banners,' composed of Manchus, Mongolians, and Chinese, were
+instituted. The provincial forces, designated the Army of the Green
+Standard, were divided into land forces and marine forces, superseded
+on active service by 'braves' (_yung_), or irregulars, enlisted and
+discharged according to circumstances. After the war with Japan in
+1894 reforms were seriously undertaken, with the result that the army
+has now been modernized in dress, weapons, tactics, etc., and is by
+no means a negligible quantity in the world's fighting forces. A
+modern navy is also being acquired by building and purchase. For
+many centuries the soldier, being, like the priest, unproductive,
+was regarded with disdain, and now that his indispensableness for
+defensive purposes is recognized he has to fight not only any actual
+enemy who may attack him, but those far subtler forces from over the
+sea which seem likely to obtain supremacy in his military councils,
+if not actual control of his whole military system. It is, in my view,
+the duty of Western nations to take steps before it is too late to
+avert this great disaster.
+
+
+Ecclesiastical Institutions
+
+The dancing and chanting exorcists called _wu_ were the first Chinese
+priests, with temples containing gods worshipped and sacrificed
+to, but there was no special sacerdotal class. Worship of Heaven
+could only be performed by the king or emperor. Ecclesiastical and
+political functions were not completely separated. The king was
+_pontifex maximus_, the nobles, statesmen, and civil and military
+officers acted as priests, the ranks being similar to those of the
+political hierarchy. Worship took place in the 'Hall of Light,'
+which was also a palace and audience and council chamber. Sacrifices
+were offered to Heaven, the hills and rivers, ancestors, and all the
+spirits. Dancing held a conspicuous place in worship. Idols are spoken
+of in the earliest times.
+
+Of course, each religion, as it formed itself out of the original
+ancestor-worship, had its own sacred places, functionaries,
+observances, ceremonial. Thus, at the State worship of Heaven, Nature,
+etc., there were the 'Great,' 'Medium,' and 'Inferior' sacrifices,
+consisting of animals, silk, grain, jade, etc. Panegyrics were sung,
+and robes of appropriate colour worn. In spring, summer, autumn,
+and winter there were the seasonal sacrifices at the appropriate
+altars. Taoism and Buddhism had their temples, monasteries, priests,
+sacrifices, and ritual; and there were village and wayside temples
+and shrines to ancestors, the gods of thunder, rain, wind, grain,
+agriculture, and many others. Now encouraged, now tolerated, now
+persecuted, the ecclesiastical _personnel_ and structure of Taoism and
+Buddhism survived into modern times, when we find complete schemes
+of ecclesiastical gradations of rank and authority grafted upon
+these two priestly hierarchies, and their temples, priests, etc.,
+fulfilling generally, with worship of ancestors, State or official
+(Confucianism) and private or unofficial, and the observance of various
+annual festivals, such as 'All Souls' Day' for wandering and hungry
+ghosts, the spiritual needs of the people as the 'Three Religions'
+(_San Chiao_). The emperor, as high priest, took the responsibility
+for calamities, etc., making confession to Heaven and praying that
+as a punishment the evil be diverted from the people to his own
+person. Statesmen, nobles, and officials discharged, as already noted,
+priestly functions in connexion with the State religion in addition
+to their ordinary duties. As a rule, priests proper, frowned upon as
+non-producers, were recruited from the lower classes, were celibate,
+unintellectual, idle, and immoral. There was nothing, even in the
+elaborate ceremonies on special occasions in the Buddhist temples,
+which could be likened to what is known as 'public worship' and
+'common prayer' in the West. Worship had for its sole object either
+the attainment of some good or the prevention of some evil.
+
+Generally this represents the state of things under the Republican
+_régime_; the chief differences being greater neglect of ecclesiastical
+matters and the conversion of a large number of temples into schools.
+
+
+Professional Institutions
+
+We read of physicians, blind musicians, poets, teachers, prayer-makers,
+architects, scribes, painters, diviners, ceremonialists, orators,
+and others during the Feudal Period, These professions were of
+ecclesiastical origin, not yet completely differentiated from the
+'Church,' and both in earlier and later times not always or often
+differentiated from each other. Thus the historiographers combined the
+duties of statesmen, scholars, authors, and generals. The professions
+of authors and teachers, musicians and poets, were united in one
+person. And so it continued to the present day. Priests discharge
+medical functions, poets still sing their verses. But experienced
+medical specialists, though few, are to be found, as well as women
+doctors; there are veterinary surgeons, musicians (chiefly belonging
+to the poorest classes and often blind), actors, teachers, attorneys,
+diviners, artists, letter-writers, and many others, men of letters
+being perhaps the most prominent and most esteemed.
+
+
+
+Accessory Institutions
+
+A system of schools, academies, colleges, and universities obtained in
+villages, districts, departments, and principalities. The instruction
+was divided into 'Primary Learning' and 'Great Learning.' There were
+special schools of dancing and music. Libraries and almshouses for
+old men are mentioned. Associations of scholars for literary purposes
+seem to have been numerous.
+
+Whatever form and direction education might have taken, it became
+stereotyped at an early age by the road to office being made to
+lead through a knowledge of the classical writings of the ancient
+sages. It became not only 'the thing' to be well versed in the sayings
+of Confucius, Mencius; etc., and to be able to compose good essays on
+them containing not a single wrongly written character, but useless
+for aspirants to office--who constituted practically the whole of the
+literary class--to acquire any other knowledge. So obsessed was the
+national mind by this literary mania that even infants' spines were
+made to bend so as to produce when adult the 'scholarly stoop.' And
+from the fact that besides the scholar class the rest of the community
+consisted of agriculturists, artisans, and merchants, whose knowledge
+was that of their fathers and grandfathers, inculcated in the sons
+and grandsons as it had been in them, showing them how to carry on
+in the same groove the calling to which Fate had assigned them, a
+departure from which would have been considered 'unfilial'--unless,
+of course (as it very rarely did), it went the length of attaining
+through study of the classics a place in the official class, and thus
+shedding eternal lustre on the family--it will readily be seen that
+there was nothing to cause education to be concerned with any but one
+or two of the subjects which are included by Western peoples under
+that designation. It became at an early age, and remained for many
+centuries, a rote-learning of the elementary text-books, followed by
+a similar acquisition by heart of the texts of the works of Confucius
+and other classical writers. And so it remained until the abolition, in
+1905, of the old competitive examination system, and the substitution
+of all that is included in the term 'modern education' at schools,
+colleges, and universities all over the country, in which there is
+rapidly growing up a force that is regenerating the Chinese people,
+and will make itself felt throughout the whole world.
+
+It is this keen and shrewd appreciation of the learned, and this lust
+for knowledge, which, barring the tragedy of foreign domination, will
+make China, in the truest and best sense of the word, a great nation,
+where, as in the United States of America, the rigid class status and
+undervaluation, if not disdaining, of knowledge which are proving so
+disastrous in England and other European countries will be avoided,
+and the aristocracy of learning established in its place.
+
+Besides educational institutions, we find institutions for poor relief,
+hospitals, foundling hospitals, orphan asylums, banking, insurance,
+and loan associations, travellers' clubs, mercantile corporations,
+anti-opium societies, co-operative burial societies, as well as many
+others, some imitated from Western models.
+
+
+Bodily Mutilations
+
+Compared with the practices found to exist among most primitive races,
+the mutilations the Chinese were in the habit of inflicting were but
+few. They flattened the skulls of their babies by means of stones, so
+as to cause them to taper at the top, and we have already seen what
+they did to their spines; also the mutilations in warfare, and the
+punishments inflicted both within and without the law; and how filial
+children and loyal wives mutilated themselves for the sake of their
+parents and to prevent remarriage. Eunuchs, of course, existed in great
+numbers. People bit, cut, or marked their arms to pledge oaths. But
+the practices which are more peculiarly associated with the Chinese
+are the compressing of women's feet and the wearing of the queue,
+misnamed 'pigtail.' The former is known to have been in force about
+A.D. 934, though it may have been introduced as early as 583. It did
+not, however, become firmly established for more than a century. This
+'extremely painful mutilation,' begun in infancy, illustrates the
+tyranny of fashion, for it is supposed to have arisen in the imitation
+by the women generally of the small feet of an imperial concubine
+admired by one of the emperors from ten to fifteen centuries ago
+(the books differ as to his identity). The second was a badge of
+servitude inflicted by the Manchus on the Chinese when they conquered
+China at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Discountenanced by
+governmental edicts, both of these practices are now tending toward
+extinction, though, of course, compressed feet and 'pigtails' are
+still to be seen in every town and village. Legally, the queue was
+abolished when the Chinese rid themselves of the Manchu yoke in 1912.
+
+
+Funeral Rites
+
+Not understanding the real nature of death, the Chinese believed
+it was merely a state of suspended animation, in which the soul
+had failed to return to the body, though it might yet do so,
+even after long intervals. Consequently they delayed burial, and
+fed the corpse, and went on to the house-tops and called aloud
+to the spirit to return. When at length they were convinced that
+the absent spirit could not be induced to re-enter the body, they
+placed the latter in a coffin and buried it--providing it, however,
+with all that it had found necessary in this life (food, clothing,
+wives, servants, etc.), which it would require also in the next (in
+their view rather a continuation of the present existence than the
+beginning of another)--and, having inducted or persuaded the spirit
+to enter the 'soul-tablet' which accompanied the funeral procession
+(which took place the moment the tablet was 'dotted,' _i.e._ when
+the character _wang_, 'prince,' was changed into _chu_, 'lord'),
+carried it back home again, set it up in a shrine in the main hall,
+and fell down and worshipped it. Thus was the spirit propitiated,
+and as long as occasional offerings were not overlooked the power
+for evil possessed by it would not be exerted against the surviving
+inmates of the house, whom it had so thoughtlessly deserted.
+
+The latter mourned by screaming, wailing, stamping their feet,
+and beating their breasts, renouncing (in the earliest times) even
+their clothes, dwelling, and belongings to the dead, removing to
+mourning-sheds of clay, fasting, or eating only rice gruel, sleeping
+on straw with a clod for a pillow, and speaking only on subjects of
+death and burial. Office and public duties were resigned, and marriage,
+music, and separation from the clan prohibited.
+
+During the lapse of the long ages of monarchical rule funeral rites
+became more elaborate and magnificent, but, though less rigid and
+ceremonious since the institution of the Republic, they have retained
+their essential character down to the present day.
+
+Funeral ceremonial was more exacting than that connected with most
+other observances, including those of marriage. Invitations or
+notifications were sent to friends, and after receipt of these _fu_,
+on the various days appointed therein, the guest was obliged to send
+presents, such as money, paper horses, slaves, etc., and go and join
+in the lamentations of the hired mourners and attend at the prayers
+recited by the priests. Funeral etiquette could not be _pu'd, i.e._
+made good, if overlooked or neglected at the right time, as it could
+in the case of the marriage ceremonial.
+
+Instead of symmetrical public graveyards, as in the West, the
+Chinese cemeteries belong to the family or clan of the deceased,
+and are generally beautiful and peaceful places planted with trees
+and surrounded by artistic walls enclosing the grave-mounds and
+monumental tablets. The cemeteries themselves are the metonyms of the
+villages, and the graves of the houses. In the north especially the
+grave is very often surmounted by a huge marble tortoise bearing the
+inscribed tablet, or what we call the gravestone, on its back. The
+tombs of the last two lines of emperors, the Ming and the Manchu,
+are magnificent structures, spread over enormous areas, and always
+artistically situated on hillsides facing natural or artificial lakes
+or seas. Contrary to the practice in Egypt, with the two exceptions
+above mentioned the conquering dynasties have always destroyed the
+tombs of their predecessors. But for this savage vandalism, China
+would probably possess the most magnificent assembly of imperial
+tombs in the world's records.
+
+
+
+Laws of Intercourse
+
+Throughout the whole course of their existence as a social aggregate
+the Chinese have pushed ceremonial observances to an extreme
+limit. "Ceremonies," says the _Li chi_, the great classic of ceremonial
+usages, "are the greatest of all things by which men live." Ranks were
+distinguished by different headdresses, garments, badges, weapons,
+writing-tablets, number of attendants, carriages, horses, height of
+walls, etc. Daily as well as official life was regulated by minute
+observances. There were written codes embracing almost every attitude
+and act of inferiors toward superiors, of superiors toward inferiors,
+and of equals toward equals. Visits, forms of address, and giving
+of presents had each their set of formulae, known and observed by
+every one as strictly and regularly as each child in China learned by
+heart and repeated aloud the three-word sentences of the elementary
+_Trimetrical Classic_. But while the school text-book was extremely
+simple, ceremonial observances were extremely elaborate. A Chinese
+was in this respect as much a slave to the living as in his funeral
+rites he was a slave to the dead. Only now, in the rush of 'modern
+progress,' is the doffing of the hat taking the place of the 'kowtow'
+(_k'o-t'ou_).
+
+It is in this matter of ceremonial observances that the East
+and the West have misunderstood each other perhaps more than in
+all others. Where rules of etiquette are not only different,
+but are diametrically opposed, there is every opportunity for
+misunderstanding, if not estrangement. The points at issue in
+such questions as 'kowtowing' to the emperor and the worshipping
+of ancestors are generally known, but the Westerner, as a rule, is
+ignorant of the fact that if he wishes to conform to Chinese etiquette
+when in China (instead of to those Western customs which are in many
+cases unfortunately taking their place) he should not, for instance,
+take off his hat when entering a house or a temple, should not shake
+hands with his host, nor, if he wishes to express approval, should he
+clap his hands. Clapping of hands in China (_i.e._ non-Europeanized
+China) is used to drive away the _sha ch'i_, or deathly influence of
+evil spirits, and to clap the hands at the close of the remarks of a
+Chinese host (as I have seen prominent, well-meaning, but ill-guided
+men of the West do) is equivalent to disapproval, if not insult. Had
+our diplomatists been sociologists instead of only commercial agents,
+more than one war might have been avoided.
+
+
+Habits and Customs
+
+At intervals during the year the Chinese make holiday. Their public
+festivals begin with the celebration of the advent of the new
+year. They let off innumerable firecrackers, and make much merriment
+in their homes, drinking and feasting, and visiting their friends
+for several days. Accounts are squared, houses cleaned, fresh paper
+'door-gods' pasted on the front doors, strips of red paper with
+characters implying happiness, wealth, good fortune, longevity, etc.,
+stuck on the doorposts or the lintel, tables, etc., covered with red
+cloth, and flowers and decorations displayed everywhere. Business
+is suspended, and the merriment, dressing in new clothes, feasting,
+visiting, offerings to gods and ancestors, and idling continue pretty
+consistently during the first half of the first moon, the vacation
+ending with the Feast of Lanterns, which occupies the last three
+days. It originated in the Han dynasty 2000 years ago. Innumerable
+lanterns of all sizes, shapes, colours (except wholly white, or rather
+undyed material, the colour of mourning), and designs are lit in front
+of public and private buildings, but the use of these was an addition
+about 800 years later, _i.e._ about 1200 years ago. Paper dragons,
+hundreds of yards long, are moved along the streets at a slow pace,
+supported on the heads of men whose legs only are visible, giving
+the impression of huge serpents winding through the thoroughfares.
+
+Of the other chief festivals, about eight in number (not counting the
+festivals of the four seasons with their equinoxes and solstices), four
+are specially concerned with the propitiation of the spirits--namely,
+the Earlier Spirit Festival (fifteenth day of second moon), the
+Festival of the Tombs (about the third day of the third moon), when
+graves are put in order and special offerings made to the dead, the
+Middle Spirit Festival (fifteenth day of seventh moon), and the Later
+Spirit Festival (fifteenth day of tenth moon). The Dragon-boat Festival
+(fifth day of fifth moon) is said to have originated as a commemoration
+of the death of the poet Ch'ü Yüan, who drowned himself in disgust
+at the official intrigue and corruption of which he was the victim,
+but the object is the procuring of sufficient rain to ensure a good
+harvest. It is celebrated by racing with long narrow boats shaped to
+represent dragons and propelled by scores of rowers, pasting of charms
+on the doors of dwellings, and eating a special kind of rice-cake,
+with a liquor as a beverage.
+
+The fifteenth day of the eighth moon is the Mid-autumn Festival, known
+by foreigners as All Souls' Day. On this occasion the women worship the
+moon, offering cakes, fruit, etc. The gates of Purgatory are opened,
+and the hungry ghosts troop forth to enjoy themselves for a month on
+the good things provided for them by the pious. The ninth day of the
+ninth moon is the Chung Yang Festival, when every one who possibly
+can ascends to a high place--a hill or temple-tower. This inaugurates
+the kite-flying season, and is supposed to promote longevity. During
+that season, which lasts several months, the Chinese people the sky
+with dragons, centipedes, frogs, butterflies, and hundreds of other
+cleverly devised creatures, which, by means of simple mechanisms worked
+by the wind, roll their eyes, make appropriate sounds, and move their
+paws, wings, tails, etc., in a most realistic manner. The festival
+originated in a warning received by a scholar named Huan Ching from
+his master Fei Ch'ang-fang, a native of Ju-nan in Honan, who lived
+during the Han dynasty, that a terrible calamity was about to happen,
+and enjoining him to escape with his family to a high place. On his
+return he found all his domestic animals dead, and was told that
+they had died instead of himself and his relatives. On New Year's Eve
+(_Tuan Nien_ or _Chu Hsi_) the Kitchen-god ascends to Heaven to make
+his annual report, the wise feasting him with honey and other sticky
+food before his departure, so that his lips may be sealed and he be
+unable to 'let on' too much to the powers that be in the regions above!
+
+
+Sports and Games
+
+The first sports of the Chinese were festival gatherings for purposes
+of archery, to which succeeded exercises partaking of a military
+character. Hunting was a favourite amusement. They played games of
+calculation, chess (or the 'game of war'), shuttlecock with the feet,
+pitch-pot (throwing arrows from a distance into a narrow-necked jar),
+and 'horn-goring' (fighting on the shoulders of others with horned
+masks on their heads). Stilts, football, dice-throwing, boat-racing,
+dog-racing, cock-fighting, kite-flying, as well as singing and dancing
+marionettes, afforded recreation and amusement.
+
+Many of these games became obsolete in course of time, and new ones
+were invented. At the end of the Monarchical Period, during the Manchu
+dynasty, we find those most in use to be foot-shuttlecock, lifting of
+beams headed with heavy stones--dumb-bells four feet long and weighing
+thirty or forty pounds--kite-flying, quail-fighting, cricket-fighting,
+sending birds after seeds thrown into the air, sauntering through
+fields, playing chess or 'morra,' or gambling with cards, dice, or
+over the cricket- and quail-fights or seed-catching birds. There were
+numerous and varied children's games tending to develop strength,
+skill, quickness of action, parental instinct, accuracy, and
+sagacity. Theatricals were performed by strolling troupes on stages
+erected opposite temples, though permanent theatres also existed,
+female parts until recently being taken by male actors. Peep-shows,
+conjurers, ventriloquists, acrobats, fortune-tellers, and story-tellers
+kept crowds amused or interested. Generally, 'young China' of the
+present day, identified with the party of progress, seems to have
+adopted most of the outdoor but very few of the indoor games of
+Western nations.
+
+
+Domestic Life
+
+In domestic or private life, observances at birth, betrothal, and
+marriage were elaborate, and retained superstitious elements. Early
+rising was general. Shaving of the head and beard, as well as cleaning
+of the ears and massage, was done by barbers. There were public
+baths in all cities and towns. Shops were closed at nightfall, and,
+the streets being until recent times ill-lit or unlit, passengers or
+their attendants carried lanterns. Most houses, except the poorest,
+had private watchmen. Generally two meals a day were taken. Dinners to
+friends were served at inns or restaurants, accompanied or followed
+by musical or theatrical performances. The place of honour is stated
+in Western books on China to be on the left, but the fact is that the
+place of honour is the one which shows the utmost solicitude for the
+safety of the guest. It is therefore not necessarily one fixed place,
+but would usually be the one facing the door, so that the guest might
+be in a position to see an enemy enter, and take measures accordingly.
+
+Lap-dogs and cage-birds were kept as pets; 'wonks,' the _huang kou_,
+or 'yellow dog,' were guards of houses and street scavengers. Aquaria
+with goldfish were often to be seen in the houses of the upper and
+middle classes, the gardens and courtyards of which usually contained
+rockeries and artistic shrubs and flowers.
+
+Whiskers were never worn, and moustaches and beards only after forty,
+before which age the hair grew, if at all, very scantily. Full,
+thick beards, as in the West, were practically never seen, even on
+the aged. Snuff-bottles, tobacco-pipes, and fans were carried by both
+sexes. Nails were worn long by members of the literary and leisured
+classes. Non-Manchu women and girls had cramped feet, and both Manchu
+and Chinese women used cosmetics freely.
+
+
+Industrial Institutions
+
+While the men attended to farm-work, women took care of the
+mulberry-orchards and silkworms, and did spinning, weaving, and
+embroidery. This, the primitive division of labour, held throughout,
+though added to on both sides, so that eventually the men did most
+of the agriculture, arts, production, distribution, fighting, etc.,
+and the women, besides the duties above named and some field-labour,
+mended old clothes, drilled and sharpened needles, pasted tin-foil,
+made shoes, and gathered and sorted the leaves of the tea-plant. In
+course of time trades became highly specialized--their number being
+legion--and localized, bankers, for instance, congregating in Shansi,
+carpenters in Chi Chou, and porcelain-manufacturers in Jao Chou,
+in Kiangsi.
+
+As to land, it became at an early age the property of the sovereign,
+who farmed it out to his relatives or favourites. It was arranged on
+the _ching_, or 'well' system--eight private squares round a ninth
+public square cultivated by the eight farmer families in common for the
+benefit of the State. From the beginning to the end of the Monarchical
+Period tenure continued to be of the Crown, land being unallodial, and
+mostly held in clans or families, and not entailed, the conditions
+of tenure being payment of an annual tax, a fee for alienation,
+and money compensation for personal services to the Government,
+generally incorporated into the direct tax as scutage. Slavery,
+unknown in the earliest times, existed as a recognized institution
+during the whole of the Monarchical Period.
+
+Production was chiefly confined to human and animal labour, machinery
+being only now in use on a large scale. Internal distribution
+was carried on from numerous centres and at fairs, shops, markets,
+etc. With few exceptions, the great trade-routes by land and sea have
+remained the same during the last two thousand years. Foreign trade was
+with Western Asia, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Arabia, etc., and from the
+seventeenth century A.D. more generally with European countries. The
+usual primitive means of conveyance, such as human beings, animals,
+carts, boats, etc., were partly displaced by steam-vessels from
+1861 onward.
+
+Exchange was effected by barter, cowries of different values being the
+prototype of coins, which were cast in greater or less quantity under
+each reign. But until within recent years there was only one coin,
+the copper cash, in use, bullion and paper notes being the other
+media of exchange. Silver Mexican dollars and subsidiary coins came
+into use with the advent of foreign commerce. Weights and measures
+(which generally decreased from north to south), officially arranged
+partly on the decimal system, were discarded by the people in ordinary
+commercial transactions for the more convenient duodecimal subdivision.
+
+
+Arts
+
+Hunting, fishing, cooking, weaving, dyeing, carpentry, metallurgy,
+glass-, brick-, and paper-making, printing, and book-binding were
+in a more or less primitive stage, the mechanical arts showing much
+servile imitation and simplicity in design; but pottery, carving,
+and lacquer-work were in an exceptionally high state of development,
+the articles produced being surpassed in quality and beauty by no
+others in the world.
+
+
+Agriculture and Rearing of Livestock
+
+From the earliest times the greater portion of the available land was
+under cultivation. Except when the country has been devastated by war,
+the Chinese have devoted close attention to the cultivation of the
+soil continuously for forty centuries. Even the hills are terraced for
+extra growing-room. But poverty and governmental inaction caused much
+to lie idle. There were two annual crops in the north, and five in two
+years in the south. Perhaps two-thirds of the population cultivated the
+soil. The methods, however, remained primitive; but the great fertility
+of the soil and the great industry of the farmer, with generous but
+careful use of fertilizers, enabled the vast territory to support an
+enormous population. Rice, wheat, barley, buckwheat, maize, kaoliang,
+several millets, and oats were the chief grains cultivated. Beans,
+peas, oil-bearing seeds (sesame, rape, etc.), fibre-plants (hemp,
+ramie, jute, cotton, etc.), starch-roots (taros, yams, sweet potatoes,
+etc.), tobacco, indigo, tea, sugar, fruits, were among the more
+important crops produced. Fruit-growing, however, lacked scientific
+method. The rotation of crops was not a usual practice, but grafting,
+pruning, dwarfing, enlarging, selecting, and varying species were well
+understood. Vegetable-culture had reached a high state of perfection,
+the smallest patches of land being made to bring forth abundantly. This
+is the more creditable inasmuch as most small farmers could not afford
+to purchase expensive foreign machinery, which, in many cases, would
+be too large or complicated for their purposes.
+
+The principal animals, birds, etc., reared were the pig, ass, horse,
+mule, cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, yak, fowl, duck, goose, pigeon,
+silkworm, and bee.
+
+The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the successor to the Board
+of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, instituted during recent
+years, is now adapting Western methods to the cultivation of the
+fertile soil of China, and even greater results than in the past may
+be expected in the future.
+
+
+Sentiments and Moral Ideas
+
+The Chinese have always shown a keen delight in the beautiful--in
+flowers, music, poetry, literature, embroidery, paintings,
+porcelain. They cultivated ornamental plants, almost every house,
+as we saw, having its garden, large or small, and tables were often
+decorated with flowers in vases or ornamental wire baskets or fruits or
+sweetmeats. Confucius made music an instrument of government. Paper
+bearing the written character was so respected that it might not
+be thrown on the ground or trodden on. Delight was always shown in
+beautiful scenery or tales of the marvellous. Commanding or agreeable
+situations were chosen for temples. But until within the last few
+years streets and houses were generally unclean, and decency in public
+frequently absent.
+
+Morality was favoured by public opinion, but in spite of early
+marriages and concubinage there was much laxity. Cruelty both
+to human beings and animals has always been a marked trait in
+the Chinese character. Savagery in warfare, cannibalism, luxury,
+drunkenness, and corruption prevailed in the earliest times. The
+attitude toward women was despotic. But moral principles pervaded the
+classical writings, and formed the basis of law. In spite of these,
+the inferior sentiment of revenge was, as we have seen, approved and
+preached as a sacred duty. As a result of the universal _yin-yang_
+dualistic doctrines, immorality was leniently regarded. In modern
+times, at least, mercantile honour was high, "a merchant's word
+is as good as his bond" being truer in China than in many other
+countries. Intemperance was rare. Opium-smoking was much indulged in
+until the use of the drug was forcibly suppressed (1906-16). Even now
+much is smuggled into the country, or its growth overlooked by bribed
+officials. Clan quarrels and fights were common, vendettas sometimes
+continuing for generations. Suicide under depressing circumstances
+was approved and honoured; it was frequently resorted to under the
+sting of great injustice. There was a deep reverence for parents
+and superiors. Disregard of the truth, when useful, was universal,
+and unattended by a sense of shame, even on detection. Thieving was
+common. The illegal exactions of rulers were burdensome. In times
+of prosperity pride and satisfaction in material matters was not
+concealed, and was often short-sighted. Politeness was practically
+universal, though said to be often superficial; but gratitude was a
+marked characteristic, and was heartfelt. Mutual conjugal affection
+was strong. The love of gambling was universal.
+
+But little has occurred in recent years to modify the above
+characters. Nevertheless the inferior traits are certainly being
+changed by education and by the formation of societies whose members
+bind themselves against immorality, concubinage, gambling, drinking,
+smoking, etc.
+
+
+Religious Ideas
+
+Chinese religion is inherently an attitude toward the spirits or gods
+with the object of obtaining a benefit or averting a calamity. We
+shall deal with it more fully in another chapter. Suffice it to say
+here that it originated in ancestor-worship, and that the greater
+part of it remains ancestor-worship to the present day. The State
+religion, which was Confucianism, was ancestor-worship. Taoism,
+originally a philosophy, became a worship of spirits--of the souls of
+dead men supposed to have taken up their abode in animals, reptiles,
+insects, trees, stones, etc.--borrowed the cloak of religion from
+Buddhism, which eventually outshone it, and degenerated into a system
+of exorcism and magic. Buddhism, a religion originating in India, in
+which Buddha, once a man, is worshipped, in which no beings are known
+with greater power than can be attained to by man, and according to
+which at death the soul migrates into anything from a deified human
+being to an elephant, a bird, a plant, a wall, a broom, or any piece
+of inorganic matter, was imported ready made into China and took the
+side of popular superstition and Taoism against the orthodox belief,
+finding that its power lay in the influence on the popular mind of its
+doctrine respecting a future state, in contrast to the indifference
+of Confucianism. Its pleading for compassion and preservation of life
+met a crying need, and but for it the state of things in this respect
+would be worse than it is.
+
+Religion, apart from ancestor-worship, does not enter largely
+into Chinese life. There is none of the real 'love of God' found,
+for example, in the fervent as distinguished from the conventional
+Christian. And as ancestor-worship gradually loses its hold and dies
+out agnosticism will take its place.
+
+
+Superstitions
+
+An almost infinite variety of superstitious practices, due to the
+belief in the good or evil influences of departed spirits, exists in
+all parts of China. Days are lucky or unlucky. Eclipses are due to a
+dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon. The rainbow is supposed to be
+the result of a meeting between the impure vapours of the sun and the
+earth. Amulets are worn, and charms hung up, sprigs of artemisia or
+of peach-blossom are placed near beds and over lintels respectively,
+children and adults are 'locked to life' by means of locks on chains
+or cords worn round the neck, old brass mirrors are supposed to cure
+insanity, figures of gourds, tigers' claws, or the unicorn are worn
+to ensure good fortune or ward off sickness, fire, etc., spells of
+many kinds, composed mostly of the written characters for happiness
+and longevity, are worn, or written on paper, cloth, leaves, etc.,
+and burned, the ashes being made into a decoction and drunk by the
+young or sick.
+
+Divination by means of the divining stalks (the divining plant,
+milfoil or yarrow) and the tortoiseshell has been carried on from
+time immemorial, but was not originally practised with the object of
+ascertaining future events, but in order to decide doubts, much as
+lots are drawn or a coin tossed in the West. _Fêng-shui_, "the art of
+adapting the residence of the living and the dead so as to co-operate
+and harmonize with the local currents of the cosmic breath" (the _yin_
+and the _yang_: see Chapter III), a doctrine which had its root in
+ancestor-worship, has exercised an enormous influence on Chinese
+thought and life from the earliest times, and especially from those
+of Chu Hsi and other philosophers of the Sung dynasty.
+
+
+Knowledge
+
+Having noted that Chinese education was mainly literary, and why it
+was so, it is easy to see that there would be little or no demand
+for the kind of knowledge classified in the West under the head of
+science. In so far as any demand existed, it did so, at any rate at
+first, only because it subserved vital needs. Thus, astronomy, or more
+properly astrology, was studied in order that the calendar might be
+regulated, and so the routine of agriculture correctly followed, for
+on that depended the people's daily rice, or rather, in the beginning,
+the various fruits and kinds of flesh which constituted their means of
+sustentation before their now universal food was known. In philosophy
+they have had two periods of great activity, the first beginning with
+Lao Tzu and Confucius in the sixth century B.C. and ending with the
+Burning of the Books by the First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, in 213 B.C.;
+the second beginning with Chou Tzu (A.D. 1017-73) and ending with Chu
+Hsi (1130-1200). The department of philosophy in the imperial library
+contained in 190 B.C. 2705 volumes by 137 authors. There can be no
+doubt that this zeal for the orthodox learning, combined with the
+literary test for office, was the reason why scientific knowledge was
+prevented from developing; so much so, that after four thousand or more
+years of national life we find, during the Manchu Period, which ended
+the monarchical _régime_, few of the educated class, giants though they
+were in knowledge of all departments of their literature and history
+(the continuity of their traditions laid down in their twenty-four
+Dynastic Annals has been described as one of the great wonders of the
+world), with even the elementary scientific learning of a schoolboy
+in the West. 'Crude,' 'primitive,' 'mediocre,' 'vague,' 'inaccurate,'
+'want of analysis and generalization,' are terms we find applied to
+their knowledge of such leading sciences as geography, mathematics,
+chemistry, botany, and geology. Their medicine was much hampered
+by superstition, and perhaps more so by such beliefs as that the
+seat of the intellect is in the stomach, that thoughts proceed from
+the heart, that the pit of the stomach is the seat of the breath,
+that the soul resides in the liver, etc.--the result partly of the
+idea that dissection of the body would maim it permanently during
+its existence in the Otherworld. What progress was made was due to
+European instruction; and this again is the _causa causans_ of the
+great wave of progress in scientific and philosophical knowledge
+which is rolling over the whole country and will have marked effects
+on the history of the world during the coming century.
+
+
+Language
+
+Originally polysyllabic, the Chinese language later assumed a
+monosyllabic, isolating, uninflected form, grammatical relations
+being indicated by position. From the earliest forms of speech several
+subordinate vernacular languages arose in various districts, and from
+these sprang local dialects, etc. Tone-distinctions arose--_i.e._
+the same words pronounced with a different intonation came to
+mean different things. Development of these distinctions led to
+carelessness of articulation, and multiplication of what would be
+homonyms but for these tones. It is incorrect to assume that the tones
+were invented to distinguish similar sounds. So that, at the present
+day, anyone who says _ma_ will mean either an exclamation, hemp,
+horse, or curse according to the quality he gives to the sound. The
+language remains in a primitive state, without inflexion, declension,
+or distinction of parts of speech. The order in a sentence is: subject,
+verb, complement direct, complement indirect. Gender is formed by
+distinctive particles; number by prefixing numerals, etc.; cases
+by position or appropriate prepositions. Adjectives precede nouns;
+position determines comparison; and absence of punctuation causes
+ambiguity. The latter is now introduced into most newly published
+works. The new education is bringing with it innumerable words and
+phrases not found in the old literature or dictionaries. Japanese
+idioms which are now being imported into the language are making it
+less pure.
+
+The written language, too well known to need detailed description, a
+thing of beauty and a joy for ever to those able to appreciate it, said
+to have taken originally the form of knotted cords and then of notches
+on wood (though this was more probably the origin of numeration than of
+writing proper), took later that of rude outlines of natural objects,
+and then went on to the phonetic system, under which each character is
+composed of two parts, the radical, indicating the meaning, and the
+phonetic, indicating the sound. They were symbols, non-agglutinative
+and non-inflexional, and were written in vertical columns, probably
+from having in early times been painted or cut on strips of bark.
+
+
+Achievements of the Chinese
+
+As the result of all this fitful fever during so many centuries,
+we find that the Chinese, after having lived in nests "in order to
+avoid the animals," and then in caves, have built themselves houses
+and palaces which are still made after the pattern of their prototype,
+with a flat wall behind, the openings in front, the walls put in after
+the pillars and roof-tree have been fixed, and out-buildings added on
+as side extensions. The _k'ang_, or 'stove-bed' (now a platform made
+of bricks), found all over the northern provinces, was a place scooped
+out of the side of the cave, with an opening underneath in which (as
+now) a fire was lit in winter. Windows and shutters opened upward,
+being a survival of the mat or shade hung in front of the apertures
+in the walls of the primitive cave-dwelling. Four of these buildings
+facing each other round a square made the courtyard, and one or more
+courtyards made the compound. They have fed themselves on almost
+everything edible to be found on, under, or above land or water,
+except milk, but live chiefly on rice, chicken, fish, vegetables,
+including garlic, and tea, though at one time they ate flesh and
+drank wine, sometimes to excess, before tea was cultivated. They
+have clothed themselves in skins and feathers, and then in silks
+and satins, but mostly in cotton, and hardly ever in wool. Under
+the Manchu _régime_ the type of dress adopted was that of this
+horse-riding race, showing the chief characteristics of that noble
+animal, the broad sleeves representing the hoofs, the queue the mane,
+etc. This queue was formed of the hair growing from the back part
+of the scalp, the front of which was shaved. Unlike the Egyptians,
+they did not wear wigs. They have nearly always had the decency to
+wear their coats long, and have despised the Westerner for wearing
+his too short. They are now paradoxical enough to make the mistake
+of adopting the Westerner's costume.
+
+They have made to themselves great canals, bridges, aqueducts, and
+the longest wall there has ever been on the face of the earth (which
+could not be seen from the moon, as some sinologists have erroneously
+supposed, any more than a hair, however long, could be seen at a
+distance of a hundred yards). They have made long and wide roads, but
+failed to keep them in repair during the last few centuries, though
+much zeal, possibly due to commerce on oil- or electricity-driven
+wheels, is now being shown in this direction. They have built honorary
+portals to chaste widows, pagodas, and arched bridges of great beauty,
+not forgetting to surround each city with a high and substantial wall
+to keep out unfriendly people. They have made innumerable implements
+and weapons, from pens and fans and chopsticks to ploughs and carts
+and ships; from fiery darts, 'flame elephants,' bows and spears,
+spiked chariots, battering-rams, and hurling-engines to mangonels,
+trebuchets, matchlocks of wrought iron and plain bore with long
+barrels resting on a stock, and gingals fourteen feet long resting on
+a tripod, cuirasses of quilted cotton cloth covered with brass knobs,
+and helmets of iron or polished steel, sometimes inlaid, with neck-
+and ear-lappets. And they have been content not to improve upon these
+to any appreciable extent; but have lately shown a tendency to make
+the later patterns imported from the West in their own factories.
+
+They have produced one of the greatest and most remarkable
+accumulations of literature the world has ever seen, and the finest
+porcelain; some music, not very fine; and some magnificent painting,
+though hardly any sculpture, and little architecture that will live.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+On Chinese Mythology
+
+
+Mythology and Intellectual Progress
+
+The Manichæst, _yin-yang_ (dualist), idea of existence, to which
+further reference will be made in the next chapter, finds its
+illustration in the dual life, real and imaginary, of all the
+peoples of the earth. They have both real histories and mythological
+histories. In the preceding chapter I have dealt briefly with the
+first--the life of reality--in China from the earliest times to the
+present day; the succeeding chapters are concerned with the second--the
+life of imagination. A survey of the first was necessary for a complete
+understanding of the second. The two react upon each other, affecting
+the national character and through it the history of the world.
+
+Mythology is the science of the unscientific man's explanation
+of what we call the Otherworld--itself and its denizens, their
+mysterious habits and surprising actions both there and here, usually
+including the creation of this world also. By the Otherworld he does
+not necessarily mean anything distant or even invisible, though the
+things he explains would mostly be included by us under those terms. In
+some countries myths are abundant, in others scarce. Why should this
+be? Why should some peoples tell many and marvellous tales about their
+gods and others say little about them, though they may say a great deal
+to them? We recall the 'great' myths of Greece and Scandinavia. Other
+races are 'poor' in myths. The difference is to be explained by the
+mental characters of the peoples as moulded by their surroundings and
+hereditary tendencies. The problem is of course a psychological one,
+for it is, as already noted, in imagination that myths have their
+root. Now imagination grows with each stage of intellectual progress,
+for intellectual progress implies increasing representativeness of
+thought. In the lower stages of human development imagination is feeble
+and unproductive; in the highest stages it is strong and constructive.
+
+
+The Chinese Intellect
+
+The Chinese are not unimaginative, but their minds did not go on to the
+construction of any myths which should be world-great and immortal;
+and one reason why they did not construct such myths was that their
+intellectual progress was arrested at a comparatively early stage. It
+was arrested because there was not that contact and competition
+with other peoples which demands brain-work of an active kind as the
+alternative of subjugation, inferiority, or extinction, and because,
+as we have already seen, the knowledge required of them was mainly
+the parrot-like repetition of the old instead of the thinking-out of
+the new [1]--a state of things rendered possible by the isolation
+just referred to. Confucius discountenanced discussion about the
+supernatural, and just as it is probable that the exhortations of Wên
+Wang, the virtual founder of the Chou dynasty (1121-255 B.C.), against
+drunkenness, in a time before tea was known to them, helped to make
+the Chinese the sober people that they are, so it is probable--more
+than probable--that this attitude of Confucius may have nipped in
+the bud much that might have developed a vigorous mythology, though
+for a reason to be stated later it may be doubted if he thereby
+deprived the world of any beautiful and marvellous results of the
+highest flights of poetical creativeness. There are times, such as
+those of any great political upheaval, when human nature will assert
+itself and break through its shackles in spite of all artificial
+or conventional restraints. Considering the enormous influence of
+Confucianism throughout the latter half of Chinese history--_i.e._
+the last two thousand years--it is surprising that the Chinese dared
+to think about supernatural matters at all, except in the matter of
+propitiating their dead ancestors. That they did so is evidence not
+only of human nature's inherent tendency to tell stories, but also
+of the irrepressible strength of feeling which breaks all laws and
+commandments under great stimulus. On the opposing unæsthetic side
+this may be compared to the feeling which prompts the unpremeditated
+assassination of a man who is guilty of great injustice, even though
+it be certain that in due course he would have met his deserts at
+the hands of the public executioner.
+
+
+The Influence of Religion
+
+Apart from this, the influence of Confucianism would have been even
+greater than it was, but for the imperial partiality periodically
+shown for rival doctrines, such as Buddhism and Taoism, which threw
+their weight on the side of the supernatural, and which at times
+were exalted to such great heights as to be officially recognized as
+State religions. These, Buddhism especially, appealed to the popular
+imagination and love of the marvellous. Buddhism spoke of the future
+state and the nature of the gods in no uncertain tones. It showed
+men how to reach the one and attain to the other. Its founder was
+virtuous; his commandments pure and life-sustaining. It supplied in
+great part what Confucianism lacked. And, as in the fifth and sixth
+centuries A.D., when Buddhism and Taoism joined forces and a working
+union existed between them, they practically excluded for the time
+all the "chilly growth of Confucian classicism."
+
+Other opponents of myth, including a critical philosopher of great
+ability, we shall have occasion to notice presently.
+
+
+History and Myth
+
+The sobriety and accuracy of Chinese historians is proverbial. I
+have dilated upon this in another work, and need add here only what
+I inadvertently omitted there--a point hitherto unnoticed or at least
+unremarked--that the very word for history in Chinese (_shih_) means
+impartiality or an impartial annalist. It has been said that where
+there is much myth there is little history, and _vice versa_, and
+though this may not be universally true, undoubtedly the persistently
+truthful recording of facts, events, and sayings, even at the risk
+of loss, yea, and actual loss of life of the historian as the result
+of his refusal to make false entries in his chronicle at the bidding
+of the emperor (as in the case of the historiographers of Ch'i in
+547 B.C.), indicates a type of mind which would require some very
+strong stimulus to cause it to soar very far into the hazy realms of
+fanciful imagination.
+
+
+Chinese Rigidity
+
+A further cause, already hinted at above, for the arrest of
+intellectual progress is to be found in the growth of the nation
+in size during many centuries of isolation from the main stream
+of world-civilization, without that increase in heterogeneity
+which comes from the moulding by forces external to itself. "As
+iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his
+friend." Consequently we find China what is known to sociology as an
+'aggregate of the first order,' which during its evolution has parted
+with its internal life-heat without absorbing enough from external
+sources to enable it to retain the plastic condition necessary to
+further, or at least rapid, development. It is in a state of rigidity,
+a state recognized and understood by the sociologist in his study of
+the evolution of nations.
+
+
+The Prerequisites to Myth
+
+But the mere increase of constructive imagination is not sufficient
+to produce myth. If it were, it would be reasonable to argue that
+as intellectual progress goes on myths become more numerous, and the
+greater the progress the greater the number of myths. This we do not
+find. In fact, if constructive imagination went on increasing without
+the intervention of any further factor, there need not necessarily be
+any myth at all. We might almost say that the reverse is the case. We
+connect myth with primitive folk, not with the greatest philosophers
+or the most advanced nations--not, that is, with the most advanced
+stages of national progress wherein constructive imagination makes
+the nation great and strong. In these stages the philosopher studies
+or criticizes myth, he does not make it.
+
+In order that there may be myth, three further conditions must be
+fulfilled. There must, as we have seen, be constructive imagination,
+but, nevertheless, there must not be too much of it. As stated above,
+mythology, or rather myth, is the _unscientific_ man's explanation. If
+the constructive imagination is so great that it becomes self-critical,
+if the story-teller doubts his own story, if, in short, his mind is
+scientific enough to see that his explanation is no explanation at all,
+then there can be no myth properly so called. As in religion, unless
+the myth-maker believes in his myth with all his heart and soul and
+strength, and each new disciple, as it is cared for and grows under
+his hands during the course of years, holds that he must put his shoes
+from off his feet because the place whereon he treads is holy ground,
+the faith will not be propagated, for it will lack the vital spark
+which alone can make it a living thing.
+
+
+Stimulus Necessary
+
+The next condition is that there must be a stimulus. It is not ideas,
+but feelings, which govern the world, and in the history of mythology
+where feeling is absent we find either weak imitation or repetition
+of the myths of other peoples (though this must not be confused
+with certain elements which seem to be common to the myths of all
+races), or concoction, contamination, or "genealogical tree-making,"
+or myths originated by "leisurely, peaceful tradition" and lacking
+the essential qualities which appeal to the human soul and make their
+possessors very careful to preserve them among their most loved and
+valued treasures. But, on the other hand, where feeling is stirred,
+where the requisite stimulus exists, where the people are in great
+danger, or allured by the prize of some breathless adventure, the
+contact produces the spark of divine poetry, the myths are full of
+artistic, philosophic, and religious suggestiveness, and have abiding
+significance and charm. They are the children, the poetic fruit, of
+great labour and serious struggles, revealing the most fundamental
+forces, hopes, and cravings of the human soul. Nations highly strung,
+undergoing strenuous emotion, intensely energized by constant conflict
+with other nations, have their imagination stimulated to exceptional
+poetic creativeness. The background of the Danaïds is Egyptian,
+not Greek, but it was the danger in which the Greeks were placed in
+their wars with the sons of the land of the Pharaohs that stimulated
+the Greek imagination to the creation of that great myth.
+
+This explains why so many of the greatest myths have their staging,
+not in the country itself whose treasured possessions they are, but
+where that country is 'playing the great game,' is carrying on wars
+decisive of far-reaching national events, which arouse to the greatest
+pitch of excitement the feelings both of the combatants and of those
+who are watching them from their homes. It is by such great events,
+not by the romance-writer in his peaceful study, that mythology, like
+literature, is "incisively determined." Imagination, we saw, goes
+_pari passu_ with intellectual progress, and intellectual progress,
+in early times, is furthered not so much by the mere contact as
+by the actual conflict of nations. And we see also that myths may,
+and very frequently do, have a character quite different from that
+of the nation to which they appertain, for environment plays a most
+important part both in their inception and subsequent growth--a truth
+too obvious to need detailed elaboration.
+
+
+Persistent Soul-expression
+
+A third condition is that the type of imagination must be persistent
+through fairly long periods of time, otherwise not only will there
+be an absence of sufficient feeling or momentum to cause the myths
+to be repeated and kept alive and transmitted to posterity, but the
+inducement to add to them and so enable them to mature and become
+complete and finished off and sufficiently attractive to appeal to
+the human mind in spite of the foreign character they often bear will
+be lacking. In other words, myths and legends grow. They resemble not
+so much the narrative of the story-teller or novelist as a gradually
+developing art like music, or a body of ideas like philosophy. They
+are human and natural, though they express the thought not of any one
+individual mind, but of the folk-soul, exemplifying in poetical form
+some great psychological or physiographical truth.
+
+
+The Character of Chinese Myth
+
+The nature of the case thus forbids us to expect to find the Chinese
+myths exhibiting the advanced state and brilliant heterogeneity of
+those which have become part of the world's permanent literature. We
+must expect them to be true to type and conditions, as we expect the
+other ideas of the Chinese to be, and looking for them in the light
+of this knowledge we shall find them just where we should expect to
+find them.
+
+The great sagas and eddas exalted among the world's literary
+masterpieces, and forming part of the very life of a large number of
+its inhabitants, are absent in China. "The Chinese people," says one
+well-known sinologist, "are not prone to mythological invention." "He
+who expects to find in Tibet," says another writer, "the poetical
+charm of Greek or Germanic mythology will be disappointed. There is
+a striking poverty of imagination in all the myths and legends. A
+great monotony pervades them all. Many of their stories, taken from
+the sacred texts, are quite puerile and insipid. It may be noted
+that the Chinese mythology labours under the same defect." And
+then there comes the crushing judgment of an over-zealous Christian
+missionary sinologist: "There is no hierarchy of gods brought in to
+rule and inhabit the world they made, no conclave on Mount Olympus,
+nor judgment of the mortal soul by Osiris, no transfer of human love
+and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers above; all here is ascribed
+to disembodied agencies or principles, and their works are represented
+as moving on in quiet order. There is no religion [!], no imagination;
+all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting.... It has not, as in
+Greece and Egypt, been explained in sublime poetry, shadowed forth in
+gorgeous ritual and magnificent festivals, represented in exquisite
+sculptures, nor preserved in faultless, imposing fanes and temples,
+filled with ideal creations." Besides being incorrect as to many
+of its alleged facts, this view would certainly be shown by further
+study to be greatly exaggerated.
+
+
+Periods Fertile in Myth
+
+What we should expect, then, to find from our philosophical study of
+the Chinese mind as affected by its surroundings would be barrenness of
+constructive imagination, except when birth was given to myth through
+the operation of some external agency. And this we do find. The period
+of the overthrow of the Yin dynasty and the establishment of the
+great house of Chou in 1122 B.C., or of the Wars of the Three States,
+for example, in the third century after Christ, a time of terrible
+anarchy, a medieval age of epic heroism, sung in a hundred forms of
+prose and verse, which has entered as motive into a dozen dramas,
+or the advent of Buddhism, which opened up a new world of thought and
+life to the simple, sober, peace-loving agricultural folk of China,
+were stimuli not by any means devoid of result. In China there are gods
+many and heroes many, and the very fact of the existence of so great
+a multitude of gods would logically imply a wealth of mythological
+lore inseparable from their apotheosis. You cannot--and the Chinese
+cannot--get behind reason. A man is not made a god without some
+cause being assigned for so important and far-reaching a step; and
+in matters of this sort the stated cause is apt to take the form of
+a narrative more or less marvellous or miraculous. These resulting
+myths may, of course, be born and grow at a later time than that
+in which the circumstances giving rise to them took place, but,
+if so, that merely proves the persistent power of the originating
+stimulus. That in China these narratives always or often reach the
+highest flights of constructive imagination is not maintained--the
+maintenance of that argument would indeed be contradictory; but even
+in those countries where the mythological garden has produced some of
+the finest flowers millions of seeds must have been sown which either
+did not spring up at all or at least failed to bring forth fruit. And
+in the realm of mythology it is not only those gods who sit in the
+highest seats--creators of the world or heads of great religions--who
+dominate mankind; the humbler, though often no less powerful gods
+or spirits--those even who run on all fours and live in holes in the
+ground, or buzz through the air and have their thrones in the shadow
+of a leaf--have often made a deeper impress on the minds and in the
+hearts of the people, and through that impress, for good or evil, have,
+in greater or less degree, modified the life of the visible universe.
+
+
+Sources of Chinese Myth
+
+"So, if we ask whence comes the heroic and the romantic, which supplies
+the story-teller's stock-in-trade, the answer is easy. The legends and
+history of early China furnish abundance of material for them. To the
+Chinese mind their ancient world was crowded with heroes, fairies, and
+devils, who played their part in the mixed-up drama, and left a name
+and fame both remarkable and piquant. Every one who is familiar with
+the ways and the language of the people knows that the country is full
+of common objects to which poetic names have been given, and with many
+of them there is associated a legend or a myth. A deep river's gorge is
+called 'the Blind Man's Pass,' because a peculiar bit of rock, looked
+at from a certain angle, assumes the outline of the human form, and
+there comes to be connected therewith a pleasing story which reaches
+its climax in the petrifaction of the hero. A mountain's crest shaped
+like a swooping eagle will from some one have received the name of
+'Eagle Mountain,' whilst by its side another shaped like a couchant
+lion will have a name to match. There is no lack of poetry among the
+people, and most striking objects claim a poetic name, and not a few
+of them are associated with curious legends. It is, however, to their
+national history that the story-teller goes for his most interesting
+subjects, and as the so-called history of China imperceptibly passes
+into the legendary period, and this again fades into the mythical,
+and as all this is assuredly believed by the masses of the people,
+it is obvious that in the national life of China there is no dearth
+of heroes whose deeds of prowess will command the rapt attention of
+the crowds who listen." [2]
+
+The soul in China is everywhere in evidence, and if myths have "first
+and foremost to do with the life of the soul" it would appear strange
+that the Chinese, having spiritualized everything from a stone to the
+sky, have not been creative of myth. Why they have not the foregoing
+considerations show us clearly enough. We must take them and their
+myths as we find them. Let us, then, note briefly the result of their
+mental workings as reacted on by their environment.
+
+
+Phases of Chinese Myth
+
+We cannot identify the earliest mythology of the Chinese with that of
+any primitive race. The myths, if any, of their place of origin may
+have faded and been forgotten in their slow migration eastward. We
+cannot say that when they came from the West (which they probably
+did) they brought their myths with them, for in spite of certain
+conjectural derivations from Babylon we do not find them possessed
+of any which we can identify as imported by them at that time. But
+research seems to have gone at least as far as this--namely, that
+while we cannot say that Chinese myth was derived from Indian myth,
+there is good reason to believe that Chinese and Indian myth had a
+common origin, which was of course outside of China.
+
+To set forth in detail the various phases through which Chinese myth
+has passed would involve a technical description foreign to the purpose
+of a popular work. It will sufficiently serve our present purpose to
+outline its most prominent features.
+
+In the earliest times there was an 'age of magic' followed by an
+'heroic age,' but myths were very rare before 800 B.C., and what is
+known as primitive mythology is said to have been invented or imitated
+from foreign sources after 820 B.C. In the eighth century B.C. myths
+of an astrological character began to attract attention. In the age
+of Lao Tzu (604 B.C.), the reputed founder of the Taoist religion,
+fresh legends appear, though Lao Tzu himself, absorbed in the abstract,
+records none. Neither did Confucius (551-479 B.C.) nor Mencius, who
+lived two hundred years later, add any legends to history. But in the
+Period of the Warring States (500-100 B.C.) fresh stimuli and great
+emotion prompted to mythological creation.
+
+
+Tso-ch'iu Ming and Lieh Tzu
+
+Tso-ch'iu Ming, commentator on Confucius's _Annals_, frequently
+introduced legend into his history. Lieh Tzu (fifth and fourth
+centuries B.C.), a metaphysician, is one of the earliest authors who
+deal in myths. He is the first to mention the story of Hsi Wang Mu, the
+Western Queen, and from his day onward the fabulists have vied with one
+another in fantastic descriptions of the wonders of her fairyland. He
+was the first to mention the islands of the immortals in the ocean,
+the kingdoms of the dwarfs and giants, the fruit of immortality, the
+repairing of the heavens by Nü Kua Shih with five-coloured stones,
+and the great tortoise which supports the universe.
+
+
+The T'ang and Sung Epochs
+
+Religious romance began at this time. The T'ang epoch (A.B. 618-907)
+was one of the resurrection of the arts of peace after a long period of
+dissension. A purer and more enduring form of intellect was gradually
+overcoming the grosser but less solid superstition. Nevertheless the
+intellectual movement which now manifested itself was not strong
+enough to prevail against the powers of mythological darkness. It
+was reserved for the scholars of the Sung Period (A.D. 960-1280)
+to carry through to victory a strong and sustained offensive against
+the spiritualistic obsessions which had weighed upon the Chinese mind
+more or less persistently from the Han Period (206 B.C.-A.D. 221)
+onward. The dogma of materialism was specially cultivated at this
+time. The struggle of sober reason against superstition or imaginative
+invention was largely a struggle of Confucianism against Taoism. Though
+many centuries had elapsed since the great Master walked the earth,
+the anti-myth movement of the T'ang and Sung Periods was in reality the
+long arm and heavy fist of Confucius emphasizing a truer rationalism
+than that of his opponents and denouncing the danger of leaving the
+firm earth to soar into the unknown hazy regions of fantasy. It was
+Sung scholarship that gave the death-blow to Chinese mythology.
+
+It is unnecessary to labour the point further, because after the Sung
+epoch we do not meet with any period of new mythological creation,
+and its absence can be ascribed to no other cause than its defeat at
+the hands of the Sung philosophers. After their time the tender plant
+was always in danger of being stunted or killed by the withering blast
+of philosophical criticism. Anything in the nature of myth ascribable
+to post-Sung times can at best be regarded only as a late blossom
+born when summer days are past.
+
+
+Myth and Doubt
+
+It will bear repetition to say that unless the myth-builder firmly
+believes in his myth, be he the layer of the foundation-stone or one
+of the raisers of the superstructure, he will hardly make it a living
+thing. Once he believes in reincarnation and the suspension of natural
+laws, the boundless vistas of space and the limitless æons of time are
+opened to him. He can perform miracles which astound the world. But
+if he allow his mind to inquire, for instance, why it should have been
+necessary for Elijah to part the waters of the Jordan with his garment
+in order that he and Elisha might pass over dryshod, or for Bodhidharma
+to stand on a reed to cross the great Yangtzu River, or for innumerable
+Immortals to sit on 'favourable clouds' to make their journeys through
+space, he spoils myth--his child is stillborn or does not survive to
+maturity. Though the growth of philosophy and decay of superstition
+may be good for a nation, the process is certainly conducive to the
+destruction of its myth and much of its poetry. The true mythologist
+takes myth for myth, enters into its spirit, and enjoys it.
+
+We may thus expect to find in the realm of Chinese mythology a large
+number of little hills rather than a few great mountains, but the
+little hills are very good ones after their kind; and the object of
+this work is to present Chinese myth as it is, not as it might have
+been had the universe been differently constituted. Nevertheless, if,
+as we may rightly do, we judge of myth by the sentiments pervading
+it and the ideals upheld and taught by it, we shall find that Chinese
+myth must be ranked among the greatest.
+
+
+Myth and Legend
+
+The general principles considered above, while they explain the paucity
+of myth in China, explain also the abundance of legend there. The six
+hundred years during which the Mongols, Mings, and Manchus sat upon
+the throne of China are barren of myth, but like all periods of the
+Chinese national life are fertile in legend. And this chiefly for the
+reason that myths are more general, national, divine, while legends are
+more local, individual, human. And since, in China as elsewhere, the
+lower classes are as a rule less educated and more superstitious than
+the upper classes--have a certain amount of constructive imagination,
+but not enough to be self-critical--legends, rejected or even ridiculed
+by the scholarly class when their knowledge has become sufficiently
+scientific, continue to be invented and believed in by the peasant and
+the dweller in districts far from the madding crowd long after myth,
+properly so called, has exhaled its last breath.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Cosmogony-p'an Ku and the Creation Myth
+
+
+The Fashioner of the Universe
+
+The most conspicuous figure in Chinese cosmogony is P'an Ku. He it was
+who chiselled the universe out of Chaos. According to Chinese ideas,
+he was the offspring of the original dual powers of Nature, the _yin_
+and the _yang_ (to be considered presently), which, having in some
+incomprehensible way produced him, set him the task of giving form
+to Chaos and "making the heavens and the earth."
+
+Some accounts describe him as the actual creator of the universe--"the
+ancestor of Heaven and earth and all that live and move and have their
+being." 'P'an' means 'the shell of an egg,' and 'Ku' 'to secure,'
+'solid,' referring to P'an Ku being hatched from out of Chaos and
+to his settling the arrangement of the causes to which his origin
+was due. The characters themselves may, however, mean nothing more
+than 'Researches into antiquity,' though some bolder translators
+have assigned to them the significance if not the literal sense of
+'aboriginal abyss,' or the Babylonian Tiamat, 'the Deep.'
+
+P'an Ku is pictured as a man of dwarfish stature clothed in bearskin,
+or merely in leaves or with an apron of leaves. He has two horns on
+his head. In his right hand he holds a hammer and in his left a chisel
+(sometimes these are reversed), the only implements he used in carrying
+out his great task. Other pictures show him attended in his labours
+by the four supernatural creatures--the unicorn, phoenix, tortoise,
+and dragon; others again with the sun in one hand and the moon in the
+other, some of the firstfruits of his stupendous labours. (The reason
+for these being there will be apparent presently.) His task occupied
+eighteen thousand years, during which he formed the sun, moon, and
+stars, the heavens and the earth, himself increasing in stature day
+by day, being daily six feet taller than the day before, until, his
+labours ended, he died that his works might live. His head became the
+mountains, his breath the wind and clouds, his voice the thunder,
+his limbs the four quarters of the earth, his blood the rivers,
+his flesh the soil, his beard the constellations, his skin and hair
+the herbs and trees, his teeth, bones, and marrow the metals, rocks,
+and precious stones, his sweat the rain, and the insects creeping
+over his body human beings, who thus had a lowlier origin even than
+the tears of Khepera in Egyptian cosmology. [3]
+
+This account of P'an Ku and his achievements is of Taoist origin. The
+Buddhists have given a somewhat different account of him, which is
+a late adaptation from the Taoist myth, and must not be mistaken for
+Buddhist cosmogony proper. [4]
+
+
+The Sun and the Moon
+
+In some of the pictures of P'an Ku he is represented, as already noted,
+as holding the sun in one hand and the moon in the other. Sometimes
+they are in the form of those bodies, sometimes in the classic
+character. The legend says that when P'an Ku put things in order in
+the lower world, he did not put these two luminaries in their proper
+courses, so they retired into the Han Sea, and the people dwelt in
+darkness. The Terrestrial Emperor sent an officer, Terrestrial Time,
+with orders that they should come forth and take their places in
+the heavens and give the world day and night. They refused to obey
+the order. They were reported to Ju Lai; P'an Ku was called, and,
+at the divine direction of Buddha, wrote the character for 'sun'
+in his left hand, and that for 'moon' in his right hand; and went to
+the Han Sea, and stretched forth his left hand and called the sun,
+and then stretched forth his right hand and called the moon, at the
+same time repeating a charm devoutly seven times; and they forthwith
+ascended on high, and separated time into day and night. [5]
+
+Other legends recount that P'an Ku had the head of a dragon and
+the body of a serpent; and that by breathing he caused the wind,
+by opening his eyes he created day, his voice made the thunder, etc.
+
+
+P'an Ku and Ymer
+
+Thus we have the heavens and the earth fashioned by this wonderful
+being in eighteen thousand years. With regard to him we may adapt
+the Scandinavian ballad:
+
+
+    It was Time's morning
+    When P'an Ku lived;
+    There was no sand, no sea,
+    Nor cooling billows;
+
+
+
+    Earth there was none,
+    No lofty Heaven;
+    No spot of living green;
+    Only a deep profound.
+
+
+And it is interesting to note, in passing, the similarity between this
+Chinese artificer of the universe and Ymer, the giant, who discharges
+the same functions in Scandinavian mythology. Though P'an Ku did not
+have the same kind of birth nor meet with the violent death of the
+latter, the results as regards the origin of the universe seem to
+have been pretty much the same. [6]
+
+
+P'an Ku a Late Creation
+
+But though the Chinese creation myth deals with primeval things it
+does not itself belong to a primitive time. According to some writers
+whose views are entitled to respect, it was invented during the fourth
+century A.D. by the Taoist recluse, Magistrate Ko Hung, author of the
+_Shên hsien chuan_ (_Biographies of the Gods_). The picturesque person
+of P'an Ku is said to have been a concession to the popular dislike
+of, or inability to comprehend, the abstract. He was conceived, some
+Chinese writers say, because the philosophical explanations of the
+Cosmos were too recondite for the ordinary mind to grasp. That he
+did fulfil the purpose of furnishing the ordinary mind with a fairly
+easily comprehensible picture of the creation may be admitted; but,
+as will presently be seen, it is over-stating the case to say that he
+was conceived with the set purpose of furnishing the ordinary mind with
+a concrete solution or illustration of this great problem. There is
+no evidence that P'an Ku had existed as a tradition before the time
+when we meet with the written account of him; and, what is more,
+there is no evidence that there existed any demand on the part of
+the popular mind for any such solution or illustration. The ordinary
+mind would seem to have been either indifferent to or satisfied
+with the abstruse cosmogonical and cosmological theories of the
+early sages for at least a thousand years. The cosmogonies of the _I
+ching_, of Lao Tzu, Confucius (such as it was), Kuan Tzu, Mencius,
+Chuang Tzu, were impersonal. P'an Ku and his myth must be regarded
+rather as an accident than as a creation resulting from any sudden
+flow of psychological forces or wind of discontent ruffling the
+placid Chinese mind. If the Chinese brought with them from Babylon
+or anywhere else the elements of a cosmogony, whether of a more or
+less abstruse scientific nature or a personal mythological narrative,
+it must have been subsequently forgotten or at least has not survived
+in China. But for Ko Hung's eccentricity and his wish to experiment
+with cinnabar from Cochin-China in order to find the elixir of life,
+P'an Ku would probably never have been invented, and the Chinese mind
+would have been content to go on ignoring the problem or would have
+quietly acquiesced in the abstract philosophical explanations of the
+learned which it did not understand. Chinese cosmogony would then
+have consisted exclusively of the recondite impersonal metaphysics
+which the Chinese mind had entertained or been fed on for the nine
+hundred or more years preceding the invention of the P'an Ku myth.
+
+
+Nü Kua Shih, the Repairer of the Heavens
+
+It is true that there exist one or two other explanations of the
+origin of things which introduce a personal creator. There is,
+for instance, the legend--first mentioned by Lieh Tzu (to whom we
+shall revert later)--which represents Nü Kua Shih (also called Nü
+Wa and Nü Hsi), said to have been the sister and successor of Fu
+Hsi, the mythical sovereign whose reign is ascribed to the years
+2953-2838 B.C., as having been the creator of human beings when
+the earth first emerged from Chaos. She (or he, for the sex seems
+uncertain), who had the "body of a serpent and head of an ox" (or a
+human head and horns of an ox, according to some writers), "moulded
+yellow earth and made man." Ssu-ma Chêng, of the eighth century A.D.,
+author of the _Historical Records_ and of another work on the three
+great legendary emperors, Fu Hsi, Shên Nung, and Huang Ti, gives
+the following account of her: "Fu Hsi was succeeded by Nü Kua, who
+like him had the surname Fêng. Nü Kua had the body of a serpent and
+a human head, with the virtuous endowments of a divine sage. Toward
+the end of her reign there was among the feudatory princes Kung Kung,
+whose functions were the administration of punishment. Violent and
+ambitious, he became a rebel, and sought by the influence of water
+to overcome that of wood [under which Nü Kua reigned]. He did battle
+with Chu Jung [said to have been one of the ministers of Huang Ti,
+and later the God of Fire], but was not victorious; whereupon he
+struck his head against the Imperfect Mountain, Pu Chou Shan, and
+brought it down. The pillars of Heaven were broken and the corners of
+the earth gave way. Hereupon Nü Kua melted stones of the five colours
+to repair the heavens, and cut off the feet of the tortoise to set
+upright the four extremities of the earth. [7] Gathering the ashes
+of reeds she stopped the flooding waters, and thus rescued the land
+of Chi, Chi Chou [the early seat of the Chinese sovereignty]."
+
+Another account separates the name and makes Nü and Kua brother
+and sister, describing them as the only two human beings in
+existence. At the creation they were placed at the foot of the K'un-lun
+Mountains. Then they prayed, saying, "If thou, O God, hast sent us to
+be man and wife, the smoke of our sacrifice will stay in one place;
+but if not, it will be scattered." The smoke remained stationary.
+
+But though Nü Kua is said to have moulded the first man (or the first
+human beings) out of clay, it is to be noted that, being only the
+successor of Fu Hsi, long lines of rulers had preceded her of whom no
+account is given, and also that, as regards the heavens and the earth
+at least, she is regarded as the repairer and not the creator of them.
+
+Heaven-deaf (T'ien-lung) and Earth-dumb (Ti-ya), the two attendants
+of Wên Ch'ang, the God of Literature (see following chapter), have
+also been drawn into the cosmogonical net. From their union came the
+heavens and the earth, mankind, and all living things.
+
+These and other brief and unelaborated personal cosmogonies, even if
+not to be regarded as spurious imitations, certainly have not become
+established in the Chinese mind as the explanation of the way in which
+the universe came to be: in this sphere the P'an Ku legend reigns
+supreme; and, owing to its concrete, easily apprehensible nature,
+has probably done so ever since the time of its invention.
+
+
+Early Cosmogony Dualistic
+
+The period before the appearance of the P'an Ku myth may be divided
+into two parts; that from some early unknown date up to about the
+middle of the Confucian epoch, say 500 B.C., and that from 500 B.C. to
+A.D. 400. We know that during the latter period the minds of Chinese
+scholars were frequently occupied with speculations as to the origin
+of the universe. Before 500 B.C. we have no documentary remains
+telling us what the Chinese believed about the origin of things;
+but it is exceedingly unlikely that no theories or speculations at
+all concerning the origin of themselves and their surroundings were
+formed by this intelligent people during the eighteen centuries or
+more which preceded the date at which we find the views held by them
+put into written form. It is safe to assume that the dualism which
+later occupied their philosophical thoughts to so great an extent
+as almost to seem inseparable from them, and exercised so powerful
+an influence throughout the course of their history, was not only
+formulating itself during that long period, but had gradually reached
+an advanced stage. We may even go so far as to say that dualism, or
+its beginnings, existed in the very earliest times, for the belief in
+the second self or ghost or double of the dead is in reality nothing
+else. And we find it operating with apparently undiminished energy
+after the Chinese mind had reached its maturity in the Sung dynasty.
+
+
+
+The Canon of Changes
+
+The Bible of Chinese dualism is the _I ching_, the _Canon of Changes_
+(or _Permutations_). It is held in great veneration both on account
+of its antiquity and also because of the "unfathomable wisdom which
+is supposed to lie concealed under its mysterious symbols." It is
+placed first in the list of the classics, or Sacred Books, though
+it is not the oldest of them. When exactly the work itself on which
+the subsequent elaborations were founded was composed is not now
+known. Its origin is attributed to the legendary emperor Fu Hsi
+(2953-2838 B.C.). It does not furnish a cosmogony proper, but merely
+a dualistic system as an explanation, or attempted explanation,
+or even perhaps only a record, of the constant changes (in modern
+philosophical language the "redistribution of matter and motion")
+going on everywhere. That explanation or record was used for purposes
+of divination. This dualistic system, by a simple addition, became
+a monism, and at the same time furnished the Chinese with a cosmogony.
+
+
+The Five Elements
+
+The Five Elements or Forces (_wu hsing_)--which, according to
+the Chinese, are metal, air, fire, water, and wood--are first
+mentioned in Chinese literature in a chapter of the classic _Book
+of History_. [8] They play a very important part in Chinese thought:
+'elements' meaning generally not so much the actual substances as the
+forces essential to human, life. They have to be noticed in passing,
+because they were involved in the development of the cosmogonical
+ideas which took place in the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D.
+
+
+
+Monism
+
+As their imagination grew, it was natural that the Chinese should
+begin to ask themselves what, if the _yang_ and the _yin_ by
+their permutations produced, or gave shape to, all things, was it
+that produced the _yang_ and the _yin_. When we see traces of this
+inquisitive tendency we find ourselves on the borderland of dualism
+where the transition is taking place into the realm of monism. But
+though there may have been a tendency toward monism in early times, it
+was only in the Sung dynasty that the philosophers definitely placed
+behind the _yang_ and the _yin_ a First Cause--the Grand Origin,
+Grand Extreme, Grand Terminus, or Ultimate Ground of Existence. [9]
+They gave to it the name _t'ai chi_, and represented it by a concrete
+sign, the symbol of a circle. The complete scheme shows the evolution
+of the Sixty-four Diagrams (_kua_) from the _t'ai chi_ through the
+_yang_ and the _yin_, the Four, Eight, Sixteen, and Thirty-two
+Diagrams successively. This conception was the work of the Sung
+philosopher Chou Tun-i (A.D. 1017-73), commonly known as Chou Tzu,
+and his disciple Chu Hsi (A.D. 1130-1200), known as Chu Tzu or Chu
+Fu Tzu, the famous historian and Confucian commentator--two of the
+greatest names in Chinese philosophy. It was at this time that the
+tide of constructive imagination in China, tinged though it always
+was with classical Confucianism, rose to its greatest height. There
+is the philosopher's seeking for causes. Yet in this matter of the
+First Cause we detect, in the full flood of Confucianism, the potent
+influence of Taoist and Buddhist speculations. It has even been said
+that the Sung philosophy, which grew, not from the _I ching_ itself,
+but from the appendixes to it, is more Taoistic than Confucian. As it
+was with the P'an Ku legend, so was it with this more philosophical
+cosmogony. The more fertile Taoist and Buddhist imaginations led to the
+preservation of what the Confucianists, distrusting the marvellous,
+would have allowed to die a natural death. It was, after all, the
+mystical foreign elements which gave point to--we may rightly say
+rounded off--the early dualism by converting it into monism, carrying
+philosophical speculation from the Knowable to the Unknowable, and
+furnishing the Chinese with their first scientific theory of the
+origin, not of the changes going on in the universe (on which they
+had already formed their opinions), but of the universe itself.
+
+
+Chou Tzu's "T'ai Chi T'u"
+
+Chou Tun-i, appropriately apotheosized as 'Prince in the Empire of
+Reason,' completed and systematized the philosophical world-conception
+which had hitherto obtained in the Chinese mind. He did not ask his
+fellow-countrymen to discard any part of what they had long held in
+high esteem: he raised the old theories from the sphere of science to
+that of philosophy by unifying them and bringing them to a focus. And
+he made this unification intelligible to the Chinese mind by his famous
+_T'ai chi t'u_, or Diagram of the Great Origin (or Grand Terminus),
+showing that the Grand Original Cause, itself uncaused, produces the
+_yang_ and the _yin_, these the Five Elements, and so on, through
+the male and female norms (_tao_), to the production of all things.
+
+
+Chu Hsi's Monistic Philosophy
+
+The writings of Chu Hsi, especially his treatise on _The Immaterial
+Principle [li] and Primary Matter [ch'i]_, leave no doubt as to the
+monism of his philosophy. In this work occurs the passage: "In the
+universe there exists no primary matter devoid of the immaterial
+principle; and no immaterial principle apart from primary matter";
+and although the two are never separated "the immaterial principle
+[as Chou Tzu explains] is what is previous to form, while primary
+matter is what is subsequent to form," the idea being that the two
+are different manifestations of the same mysterious force from which
+all things proceed.
+
+It is unnecessary to follow this philosophy along all the different
+branches which grew out of it, for we are here concerned only with
+the seed. We have observed how Chinese dualism became a monism, and
+how while the monism was established the dualism was retained. It is
+this mono-dualistic theory, combining the older and newer philosophy,
+which in China, then as now, constitutes the accepted explanation of
+the origin of things, of the universe itself and all that it contains.
+
+
+Lao Tzu's "Tao"
+
+There are other cosmogonies in Chinese philosophy, but they need not
+detain us long. Lao Tzu (sixth century B.C.), in his _Tao-tê ching,
+The Canon of Reason and Virtue_ (at first entitled simply _Lao Tzu_),
+gave to the then existing scattered sporadic conceptions of the
+universe a literary form. His _tao_, or 'Way,' is the originator
+of Heaven and earth, it is "the mother of all things." His Way,
+which was "before God," is but a metaphorical expression for the
+manner in which things came at first into being out of the primal
+nothingness, and how the phenomena of nature continue to go on,
+"in stillness and quietness, without striving or crying." Lao Tzu is
+thus so far monistic, but he is also mystical, transcendental, even
+pantheistic. The way that can be walked is not the Eternal Way; the
+name that can be named is not the Eternal Name. The Unnameable is the
+originator of Heaven and earth; manifesting itself as the Nameable,
+it is "the mother of all things." "In Eternal Non-Being I see the
+Spirituality of Things; in Eternal Being their limitation. Though
+different under these two aspects, they are the same in origin;
+it is when development takes place that different names have to be
+used. It is while they are in the condition of sameness that the
+mystery concerning them exists. This mystery is indeed the mystery
+of mysteries. It is the door of all spirituality."
+
+This _tao_, indefinable and in its essence unknowable, is "the
+fountain-head of all beings, and the norm of all actions. But it is
+not only the formative principle of the universe; it also seems to be
+primordial matter: chaotic in its composition, born prior to Heaven
+and earth, noiseless, formless, standing alone in its solitude, and
+not changing, universal in its activity, and unrelaxing, without being
+exhausted, it is capable of becoming the mother of the universe." And
+there we may leave it. There is no scheme of creation, properly so
+called. The Unwalkable Way leads us to nothing further in the way of
+a cosmogony.
+
+
+Confucius's Agnosticism
+
+Confucius (551-479 B.C.) did not throw any light on the problem of
+origin. He did not speculate on the creation of things nor the end
+of them. He was not troubled to account for the origin of man, nor
+did he seek to know about his hereafter. He meddled neither with
+physics nor metaphysics. There might, he thought, be something on
+the other side of life, for he admitted the existence of spiritual
+beings. They had an influence on the living, because they caused
+them to clothe themselves in ceremonious dress and attend to the
+sacrificial ceremonies. But we should not trouble ourselves about
+them, any more than about supernatural things, or physical prowess,
+or monstrosities. How can we serve spiritual beings while we do not
+know how to serve men? We feel the existence of something invisible
+and mysterious, but its nature and meaning are too deep for the
+human understanding to grasp. The safest, indeed the only reasonable,
+course is that of the agnostic--to leave alone the unknowable, while
+acknowledging its existence and its mystery, and to try to understand
+knowable phenomena and guide our actions accordingly.
+
+Between the monism of Lao Tzu and the positivism of Confucius on
+the one hand, and the landmark of the Taoistic transcendentalism of
+Chuang Tzu (fourth and third centuries B.C.) on the other, we find
+several "guesses at the riddle of existence" which must be briefly
+noted as links in the chain of Chinese speculative thought on this
+important subject.
+
+
+Mo Tzu and Creation
+
+In the philosophy of Mo Ti (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.),
+generally known as Mo Tzu or Mu Tzu, the philosopher of humanism and
+utilitarianism, we find the idea of creation. It was, he says, Heaven
+(which was anthropomorphically regarded by him as a personal Supreme
+Being) who "created the sun, moon, and innumerable stars." His system
+closely resembles Christianity, but the great power of Confucianism as
+a weapon wielded against all opponents by its doughty defender Mencius
+(372-289 B.C.) is shown by the complete suppression of the influence
+of Mo Tzuism at his hands. He even went so far as to describe Mo Tzu
+and those who thought with him as "wild animals."
+
+
+Mencius and the First Cause
+
+Mencius himself regarded Heaven as the First Cause, or Cause of Causes,
+but it was not the same personal Heaven as that of Mo Tzu. Nor does
+he hang any cosmogony upon it. His chief concern was to eulogize the
+doctrines of the great Confucius, and like him he preferred to let
+the origin of the universe look after itself.
+
+
+Lieh Tzu's Absolute
+
+Lieh Tzu (said to have lived in the fifth century B.C.), one
+of the brightest stars in the Taoist constellation, considered
+this nameable world as having evolved from an unnameable absolute
+being. The evolution did not take place through the direction of
+a personal will working out a plan of creation: "In the beginning
+there was Chaos [_hun tun_]. It was a mingled potentiality of Form
+[_hsing_], Pneuma [_ch'i_], and Substance [_chih_]. A Great Change
+[_t'ai i_] took place in it, and there was a Great Starting [_t'ai
+ch'u_] which is the beginning of Form. The Great Starting evolved a
+Great Beginning [_t'ai shih_], which is the inception of Pneuma. The
+Great Beginning was followed by the Great Blank [_t'ai su_], which
+is the first formation of Substance. Substance, Pneuma, and Form
+being all evolved out of the primordial chaotic mass, this material
+world as it lies before us came into existence." And that which
+made it possible for Chaos to evolve was the Solitary Indeterminate
+(_i tu_ or the _tao_), which is not created, but is able to create
+everlastingly. And being both Solitary and Indeterminate it tells us
+nothing determinate about itself.
+
+
+Chuang Tzu's Super-tao
+
+Chuang Chou (fourth and third centuries B.C.), generally known
+as Chuang Tzu, the most brilliant Taoist of all, maintained with
+Lao Tzu that the universe started from the Nameless, but it was if
+possible a more absolute and transcendental Nameless than that of
+Lao Tzu. He dwells on the relativity of knowledge; as when asleep he
+did not know that he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly, so
+when awake he did not know that he was not a butterfly dreaming that
+he was a man. [10] But "all is embraced in the obliterating unity of
+the _tao_, and the wise man, passing into the realm of the Infinite,
+finds rest therein." And this _tao_, of which we hear so much in
+Chinese philosophy, was before the Great Ultimate or Grand Terminus
+(_t'ai chi_), and "from it came the mysterious existence of God
+[_ti_]. It produced Heaven, it produced earth."
+
+
+Popular Cosmogony still Personal or Dualistic
+
+These and other cosmogonies which the Chinese have devised, though
+it is necessary to note their existence in order to give a just idea
+of their cosmological speculations, need not, as I said, detain us
+long; and the reason why they need not do so is that, in the matter
+of cosmogony, the P'an Ku legend and the _yin-yang_ system with its
+monistic elaboration occupy virtually the whole field of the Chinese
+mental vision. It is these two--the popular and the scientific--that
+we mean when we speak of Chinese cosmogony. Though here and there a
+stern sectarian might deny that the universe originated in one or the
+other of these two ways, still, the general rule holds good. And I
+have dealt with them in this order because, though the P'an Ku legend
+belongs to the fourth century A.D., the _I ching_ dualism was not,
+rightly speaking, a cosmogony until Chou Tun-i made it one by the
+publication of his _T'ai chi t'u_ in the eleventh century A.D. Over
+the unscientific and the scientific minds of the Chinese these two
+are paramount.
+
+Applying the general principles stated in the preceding chapter,
+we find the same cause which operated to restrict the growth of
+mythology in general in China operated also in like manner in this
+particular branch of it. With one exception Chinese cosmogony is
+non-mythological. The careful and studiously accurate historians
+(whose work aimed at being _ex veritate_, 'made of truth'), the
+sober literature, the vast influence of agnostic, matter-of-fact
+Confucianism, supported by the heavy Mencian artillery, are
+indisputable indications of a constructive imagination which grew too
+quickly and became too rapidly scientific to admit of much soaring
+into the realms of fantasy. Unaroused by any strong stimulus in
+their ponderings over the riddle of the universe, the sober, plodding
+scientists and the calm, truth-loving philosophers gained a peaceful
+victory over the mythologists.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Gods of China
+
+
+The Birth of the Soul
+
+The dualism noted in the last chapter is well illustrated by the
+Chinese pantheon. Whether as the result of the co-operation of the
+_yin_ and the _yang_ or of the final dissolution of P'an Ku, human
+beings came into existence. To the primitive mind the body and its
+shadow, an object and its reflection in water, real life and dream
+life, sensibility and insensibility (as in fainting, etc.), suggest the
+idea of another life parallel with this life and of the doings of the
+'other self' in it. This 'other self,' this spirit, which leaves the
+body for longer or shorter intervals in dreams, swoons, death, may
+return or be brought back, and the body revive. Spirits which do not
+return or are not brought back may cause mischief, either alone, or by
+entry into another human or animal body or even an inanimate object,
+and should therefore be propitiated. Hence worship and deification.
+
+
+The Populous Otherworld
+
+The Chinese pantheon has gradually become so multitudinous that there
+is scarcely a being or thing which is not, or has not been at some time
+or other, propitiated or worshipped. As there are good and evil people
+in this world, so there are gods and demons in the Otherworld: we find
+a polytheism limited only by a polydemonism. The dualistic hierarchy is
+almost all-embracing. To get a clear idea of this populous Otherworld,
+of the supernal and infernal hosts and their organizations, it needs
+but to imagine the social structure in its main features as it existed
+throughout the greater part of Chinese history, and to make certain
+additions. The social structure consisted of the ruler, his court,
+his civil, military, and ecclesiastical officials, and his subjects
+(classed as Scholars--officials and gentry--Agriculturists, Artisans,
+and Merchants, in that order).
+
+
+Worship of Shang Ti
+
+When these died, their other selves continued to exist and to hold
+the same rank in the spirit world as they did in this one. The _ti_,
+emperor, became the _Shang Ti_, Emperor on High, who dwelt in _T'ien_,
+Heaven (originally the great dome). [11] And Shang Ti, the Emperor
+on High, was worshipped by _ti_, the emperor here below, in order to
+pacify or please him--to ensure a continuance of his benevolence on
+his behalf in the world of spirits. Confusion of ideas and paucity
+of primitive language lead to personification and worship of a thing
+or being in which a spirit has taken up its abode in place of or in
+addition to worship of the spirit itself. Thus Heaven (T'ien) itself
+came to be personified and worshipped in addition to Shang Ti, the
+Emperor who had gone to Heaven, and who was considered as the chief
+ruler in the spiritual world. The worship of Shang Ti was in existence
+before that of T'ien was introduced. Shang Ti was worshipped by the
+emperor and his family as their ancestor, or the head of the hierarchy
+of their ancestors. The people could not worship Shang Ti, for to do so
+would imply a familiarity or a claim of relationship punishable with
+death. The emperor worshipped his ancestors, the officials theirs,
+the people theirs. But, in the same way and sense that the people
+worshipped the emperor on earth, as the 'father' of the nation,
+namely, by adoration and obeisance, so also could they in this way
+and this sense worship Shang Ti. An Englishman may take off his hat
+as the king passes in the street to his coronation without taking any
+part in the official service in Westminster Abbey. So the 'worship'
+of Shang Ti by the people was not done officially or with any special
+ceremonial or on fixed State occasions, as in the case of the worship
+of Shang Ti by the emperor. This, subject to a qualification to be
+mentioned later, is really all that is meant (or should be meant)
+when it is said that the Chinese worship Shang Ti.
+
+As regards sacrifices to Shang Ti, these could be offered officially
+only by the emperor, as High Priest on earth, who was attended or
+assisted in the ceremonies by members of his own family or clan or
+the proper State officials (often, even in comparatively modern times,
+members of the imperial family or clan). In these official sacrifices,
+which formed part of the State worship, the people could not take part;
+nor did they at first offer sacrifices to Shang Ti in their own homes
+or elsewhere. In what way and to what extent they did so later will
+be shown presently.
+
+
+Worship of T'ien
+
+Owing to T'ien, Heaven, the abode of the spirits, becoming personified,
+it came to be worshipped not only by the emperor, but by the people
+also. But there was a difference between these two worships, because
+the emperor performed his worship of Heaven officially at the great
+altar of the Temple of Heaven at Peking (in early times at the altar
+in the suburb of the capital), whereas the people (continuing always
+to worship their ancestors) worshipped Heaven, when they did so
+at all--the custom being observed by some and not by others, just
+as in Western countries some people go to church, while others stay
+away--usually at the time of the New Year, in a simple, unceremonious
+way, by lighting some incense-sticks and waving them toward the sky
+in the courtyards of their own houses or in the street just outside
+their doors.
+
+
+Confusion of Shang Ti and T'ien
+
+The qualification necessary to the above description is that, as
+time went on and especially since the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280),
+much confusion arose regarding Shang Ti and T'ien, and thus it came
+about that the terms became mixed and their definitions obscure. This
+confusion of ideas has prevailed down to the present time. One result
+of this is that the people may sometimes state, when they wave their
+incense-sticks or light their candles, that their humble sacrifice
+is made to Shang Ti, whom in reality they have no right either to
+worship or to offer sacrifice to, but whom they may unofficially pay
+respect and make obeisance to, as they might and did to the emperor
+behind the high boards on the roadsides which shielded him from their
+view as he was borne along in his elaborate procession on the few
+occasions when he came forth from the imperial city.
+
+Thus we find that, while only the emperor could worship and sacrifice
+to Shang Ti, and only he could officially worship and sacrifice to
+T'ien, the people who early personified and worshipped T'ien, as
+already shown, came, owing to confusion of the meanings of Shang Ti
+and T'ien, unofficially to 'worship' both, but only in the sense and to
+the extent indicated, and to offer 'sacrifices' to both, also only in
+the sense and to the extent indicated. But for these qualifications,
+the statement that the Chinese worship and sacrifice to Shang Ti and
+T'ien would be apt to convey an incorrect idea.
+
+From this it will be apparent that Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler on High,
+and T'ien, Heaven (later personified), do not mean 'God' in the sense
+that the word is used in the Christian religion. To state that they
+do, as so many writers on China have done, without pointing out the
+essential differences, is misleading. That Chinese religion was or is
+"a monotheistic worship of God" is further disproved by the fact that
+Shang Ti and T'ien do not appear in the list of the popular pantheon at
+all, though all the other gods are there represented. Neither Shang Ti
+nor T'ien mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the Father,
+Son, and Holy Ghost of the New Testament. Did they mean this, the
+efforts of the Christian missionaries to convert the Chinese would be
+largely superfluous. The Christian religion, even the Holy Trinity,
+is a monotheism. That the Chinese religion (even though a summary
+of extracts from the majority of foreign books on China might point
+to its being so) is not a monotheism, but a polytheism or even a
+pantheism (as long as that term is taken in the sense of universal
+deification and not in that of one spiritual being immanent in all
+things), the rest of this chapter will abundantly prove.
+
+There have been three periods in which gods have been created in
+unusually large numbers: that of the mythical emperor Hsien Yüan
+(2698-2598 B.C.), that of Chiang Tzu-ya (in the twelfth century B.C.),
+and that of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (in the fourteenth
+century A.D.).
+
+
+The Otherworld Similar to this World
+
+The similarity of the Otherworld to this world above alluded to is
+well shown by Du Bose in his _Dragon, Image, and, Demon_, from which
+I quote the following passages:
+
+"The world of spirits is an exact counterpart of the Chinese Empire,
+or, as has been remarked, it is 'China ploughed under'; this is the
+world of light; put out the lights and you have Tartarus. China has
+eighteen [now twenty-two] provinces, so has Hades; each province has
+eight or nine prefects, or departments; so each province in Hades
+has eight or nine departments; every prefect or department averages
+ten counties, so every department in Hades has ten counties. In
+Soochow the Governor, the provincial Treasurer, the Criminal Judge,
+the Intendant of Circuit, the Prefect or Departmental Governor, and
+the three District Magistrates or County Governors each have temples
+with their apotheoses in the other world. Not only these, but every
+_yamên_ secretary, runner, executioner, policeman, and constable
+has his counterpart in the land of darkness. The market-towns have
+also mandarins of lesser rank in charge, besides a host of revenue
+collectors, the bureau of government works and other departments,
+with several hundred thousand officials, who all rank as gods beyond
+the grave. These deities are civilians; the military having a similar
+gradation for the armies of Hades, whose captains are gods, and whose
+battalions are devils.
+
+"The framers of this wonderful scheme for the spirits of the dead,
+having no higher standard, transferred to the authorities of
+that world the etiquette, tastes, and venality of their correlate
+officials in the Chinese Government, thus making it necessary to
+use similar means to appease the one which are found necessary to
+move the other. All the State gods have their assistants, attendants,
+door-keepers, runners, horses, horsemen, detectives, and executioners,
+corresponding in every particular to those of Chinese officials of
+the same rank." (Pp. 358-359.)
+
+This likeness explains also why the hierarchy of beings in the
+Otherworld concerns itself not only with the affairs of the Otherworld,
+but with those of this world as well. So faithful is the likeness
+that we find the gods (the term is used in this chapter to include
+goddesses, who are, however, relatively few) subjected to many of
+the rules and conditions existing on this earth. Not only do they, as
+already shown, differ in rank, but they hold _levées_ and audiences
+and may be promoted for distinguished services, just as the Chinese
+officials are. They "may rise from an humble position to one near the
+Pearly Emperor, who gives them the reward of merit for ruling well the
+affairs of men. The correlative deities of the mandarins are only of
+equal rank, yet the fact that they have been apotheosized makes them
+their superiors and fit objects of worship. Chinese mandarins rotate in
+office, generally every three years, and then there is a corresponding
+change in Hades. The image in the temple remains the same, but the
+spirit which dwells in the clay tabernacle changes, so the idol has
+a different name, birthday, and tenant. The priests are informed by
+the Great Wizard of the Dragon Tiger Mountain, but how can the people
+know gods which are not the same to-day as yesterday?" (Pp. 360-361.)
+
+The gods also indulge in amusements, marry, sin, are punished, die,
+are resurrected, or die and are transformed, or die finally. [12]
+
+
+The Three Religions
+
+We have in China the universal worship of ancestors, which constitutes
+(or did until A.D. 1912) the State religion, usually known as
+Confucianism, and in addition we have the gods of the specific
+religions (which also originally took their rise in ancestor-worship),
+namely, Buddhism and Taoism. (Other religions, though tolerated,
+are not recognized as Chinese religions.) It is with a brief account
+of this great hierarchy and its mythology that we will now concern
+ourselves.
+
+Besides the ordinary ancestor-worship (as distinct from the State
+worship) the people took to Buddhism and Taoism, which became
+the popular religions, and the _literati_ also honoured the gods
+of these two sects. Buddhist deities gradually became installed in
+Taoist temples, and the Taoist immortals were given seats beside the
+Buddhas in their sanctuaries. Every one patronized the god who seemed
+to him the most popular and the most lucrative. There even came to
+be united in the same temple and worshipped at the same altar the
+three religious founders or figure-heads, Confucius, Buddha, and Lao
+Tzu. The three religions were even regarded as forming one whole,
+or at least, though different, as having one and the same object:
+_san êrh i yeh_, or _han san wei i_, "the three are one," or "the
+three unite to form one" (a quotation from the phrase _T'ai chi han
+san wei i_ of Fang Yü-lu: "When they reach the extreme the three are
+seen to be one"). In the popular pictorial representations of the
+pantheon this impartiality is clearly shown.
+
+
+The Super-triad
+
+The toleration, fraternity, or co-mixture of the three
+religions--ancestor-worship or Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism,
+and Taoism--explains the compound nature of the triune head of
+the Chinese pantheon. The numerous deities of Buddhism and Taoism
+culminate each in a triad of gods (the Three Precious Ones and the
+Three Pure Ones respectively), but the three religions jointly have
+also a triad compounded of one representative member of each. This
+general or super-triad is, of course, composed of Confucius, Lao Tzu,
+and Buddha. This is the officially decreed order, though it is varied
+occasionally by Buddha being placed in the centre (the place of honour)
+as an act of ceremonial deference shown to a 'stranger' or 'guest'
+from another country.
+
+
+Worship of the Living
+
+Before proceeding to consider the gods of China in detail, it is
+necessary to note that ancestor-worship, which, as before stated,
+is worship of the ghosts of deceased persons, who are usually but
+not invariably relatives of the worshipper, has at times a sort of
+preliminary stage in this world consisting of the worship of living
+beings. Emperors, viceroys, popular officials, or people beloved for
+their good deeds have had altars, temples, and images erected to them,
+where they are worshipped in the same way as those who have already
+"shuffled off this mortal coil." The most usual cases are perhaps those
+of the worship of living emperors and those in which some high official
+who has gained the gratitude of the people is transferred to another
+post. The explanation is simple. The second self which exists after
+death is identical with the second self inhabiting the body during
+life. Therefore it may be propitiated or gratified by sacrifices
+of food, drink, etc., or theatricals performed in its honour, and
+continue its protection and good offices even though now far away.
+
+
+
+Confucianism
+
+Confucianism (_Ju Chiao_) is said to be the religion of the learned,
+and the learned were the officials and the _literati_ or lettered
+class, which includes scholars waiting for posts, those who have failed
+to get posts (or, though qualified, prefer to live in retirement), and
+those who have retired from posts. Of this 'religion' it has been said:
+
+"The name embraces education, letters, ethics, and political
+philosophy. Its head was not a religious man, practised few religious
+rites, and taught nothing about religion. In its usual acceptation the
+term Confucianist means 'a gentleman and a scholar'; he may worship
+only once a year, yet he belongs to the Church. Unlike its two sisters,
+it has no priesthood, and fundamentally is not a religion at all;
+yet with the many rites grafted on the original tree it becomes a
+religion, and the one most difficult to deal with. Considered as a
+Church, the classics are its scriptures, the schools its churches, the
+teachers its priests, ethics its theology, and the written character,
+so sacred, its symbol." [13]
+
+
+Confucius not a God
+
+It should be noted that Confucius himself is not a god, though he
+has been and is worshipped (66,000 animals used to be offered to him
+every year; probably the number is about the same now). Suggestions
+have been made to make him the God of China and Confucianism the
+religion of China, so that he and his religion would hold the same
+relative positions that Christ and Christianity do in the West. I
+was present at the lengthy debate which took place on this subject
+in the Chinese Parliament in February 1917, but in spite of many
+long, learned, and eloquent speeches, chiefly by scholars of the
+old school, the motion was not carried. Nevertheless, the worship
+accorded to Confucius was and is (except by 'new' or 'young' China)
+of so extreme a nature that he may almost be described as the great
+unapotheosized god of China. [14] Some of his portraits even ascribe to
+him superhuman attributes. But in spite of all this the fact remains
+that Confucius has not been appointed a god and holds no _exequatur_
+entitling him to that rank.
+
+If we inquire into the reason of this we find that, astonishing
+though it may seem, Confucius is classed by the Chinese not as a god
+(_shên_), but as a demon (_kuei_). A short historical statement will
+make the matter clear.
+
+In the classical _Li chi, Book of Ceremonial_, we find the categorical
+assignment of the worship of certain objects to certain subjective
+beings: the emperor worshipped Heaven and earth, the feudal princes the
+mountains and rivers, the officials the hearth, and the _literati_
+their ancestors. Heaven, earth, mountains, rivers, and hearth
+were called _shên_ (gods), and ancestors _kuei_ (demons). This
+distinction is due to Heaven being regarded as the god and the
+people as demons--the upper is the god, the lower the evil spirit or
+demon. Though _kuei_ were usually bad, the term in Chinese includes
+both good and evil spirits. In ancient times those who had by their
+meritorious virtue while in the world averted calamities from the
+people were posthumously worshipped and called gods, but those who were
+worshipped by their descendants only were called spirits or demons.
+
+In the worship of Confucius by emperors of various dynasties (details
+of which need not be given here) the highest titles conferred on him
+were _Hsien Shêng_, 'Former or Ancestral Saint,' and even _Win Hsüan
+Wang_, 'Accomplished and Illustrious Prince,' and others containing
+like epithets. When for his image or idol there was (in the eleventh
+year--A.D. 1307--of the reign-period Ta Tê of the Emperor Ch'êng
+Tsung of the Yüan dynasty) substituted the tablet now seen in the
+Confucian temples, these were the inscriptions engraved on it. In the
+inscriptions authoritatively placed on the tablets the word _shên_
+does not occur; in those cases where it does occur it has been
+placed there (as by the Taoists) illegally and without authority
+by too ardent devotees. Confucius may not be called a _shên_, since
+there is no record showing that the great ethical teacher was ever
+apotheosized, or that any order was given that the character _shên_
+was to be applied to him.
+
+
+The God of Literature
+
+In addition to the ancestors of whose worship it really consists,
+Confucianism has in its pantheon the specialized gods worshipped by
+the _literati_. Naturally the chief of these is Wên Ch'ang, the God of
+Literature. The account of him (which varies in several particulars
+in different Chinese works) relates that he was a man of the name
+of Chang Ya, who was born during the T'ang dynasty in the kingdom of
+Yüeh (modern Chêkiang), and went to live at Tzu T'ung in Ssuch'uan,
+where his intelligence raised him to the position of President of the
+Board of Ceremonies. Another account refers to him as Chang Ya Tzu,
+the Soul or Spirit of Tzu T'ung, and states that he held office in the
+Chin dynasty (A.D. 265-316), and was killed in a fight. Another again
+states that under the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280), in the third year
+(A.D. 1000) of the reign-period Hsien P'ing of the Emperor Chên Tsung,
+he repressed the revolt of Wang Chün at Ch'êng Tu in Ssuch'uan. General
+Lei Yu-chung caused to be shot into the besieged town arrows to which
+notices were attached inviting the inhabitants to surrender. Suddenly
+a man mounted a ladder, and pointing to the rebels cried in a loud
+voice: "The Spirit of Tzu T'ung has sent me to inform you that the
+town will fall into the hands of the enemy on the twentieth day of
+the ninth moon, and not a single person will escape death." Attempts
+to strike down this prophet of evil were in vain, for he had already
+disappeared. The town was captured on the day indicated. The general,
+as a reward, caused the temple of Tzu T'ung's Spirit to be repaired,
+and sacrifices offered to it.
+
+The object of worship nowadays in the temples dedicated to Wên Ch'ang
+is Tzu T'ung Ti Chün, the God of Tzu T'ung. The convenient elasticity
+of dualism enabled Chang to have as many as seventeen reincarnations,
+which ranged over a period of some three thousand years.
+
+Various emperors at various times bestowed upon Wên Ch'ang honorific
+titles, until ultimately, in the Yüan, or Mongol, dynasty, in the reign
+Yen Yu, in A.D. 1314, the title was conferred on him of Supporter of
+the Yüan Dynasty, Diffuser of Renovating Influences, Ssu-lu of Wên
+Ch'ang, God and Lord. He was thus apotheosized, and took his place
+among the gods of China. By steps few or many a man in China has
+often become a god.
+
+
+Wên Ch'ang and the Great Bear
+
+Thus we have the God of Literature, Wên Ch'ang Ti Chün, duly installed
+in the Chinese pantheon, and sacrifices were offered to him in the
+schools.
+
+But scholars, especially those about to enter for the public
+competitive examinations, worshipped as the God of Literature, or as
+his palace or abode (Wên Ch'ang), the star K'uei in the Great Bear,
+or Dipper, or Bushel--the latter name derived from its resemblance in
+shape to the measure used by the Chinese and called _tou_. The term
+K'uei was more generally applied to the four stars forming the body
+or square part of the Dipper, the three forming the tail or handle
+being called Shao or Piao. How all this came about is another story.
+
+A scholar, as famous for his literary skill as his facial deformities,
+had been admitted as first academician at the metropolitan
+examinations. It was the custom that the Emperor should give with
+his own hand a rose of gold to the fortunate candidate. This scholar,
+whose name was Chung K'uei, presented himself according to custom to
+receive the reward which by right was due to him. At the sight of
+his repulsive face the Emperor refused the golden rose. In despair
+the miserable rejected one went and threw himself into the sea. At
+the moment when he was being choked by the waters a mysterious fish
+or monster called _ao_ raised him on its back and brought him to the
+surface. K'uei ascended to Heaven and became arbiter of the destinies
+of men of letters. His abode was said to be the star K'uei, a name
+given by the Chinese to the sixteen stars of the constellation or
+'mansion' of Andromeda and Pisces. The scholars quite soon began
+to worship K'uei as the God of Literature, and to represent it on a
+column in the temples. Then sacrifices were offered to it. This star
+or constellation was regarded as the palace of the god. The legend
+gave rise to an expression frequently used in Chinese of one who
+comes out first in an examination, namely, _tu chan ao t'ou_, "to
+stand alone on the sea-monster's head." It is especially to be noted
+that though the two K'ueis have the same sound they are represented
+by different characters, and that the two constellations are not the
+same, but are situated in widely different parts of the heavens.
+
+How then did it come about that scholars worshipped the K'uei in
+the Great Bear as the abode of the God of Literature? (It may be
+remarked in passing that a literary people could not have chosen
+a more appropriate palace for this god, since the Great Bear,
+the 'Chariot of Heaven,' is regarded as the centre and governor
+of the whole universe.) The worship, we saw, was at first that of
+the star K'uei, the apotheosized 'homely,' successful, but rejected
+candidate. As time went on, there was a general demand for a sensible,
+concrete representation of this star-god: a simple character did not
+satisfy the popular taste. But it was no easy matter to comply with the
+demand. Eventually, guided doubtless by the community of pronunciation,
+they substituted for the star or group of stars K'uei (1),
+venerated in ancient times, a new star or group of stars K'uei (2),
+forming the square part of the Bushel, Dipper, or Great Bear. But for
+this again no bodily image could be found, so the form of the written
+character itself was taken, and so drawn as to represent a _kuei_
+(3) (disembodied spirit, or ghost) with its foot raised, and bearing
+aloft a _tou_ (4) (bushel-measure). The adoration was thus misplaced,
+for the constellation K'uei (2) was mistaken for K'uei (1), the proper
+object of worship. It was due to this confusion by the scholars that
+the Northern Bushel came to be worshipped as the God of Literature.
+
+
+Wên Ch'ang and Tzu T'ung
+
+This worship had nothing whatever to do with the Spirit of Tzu T'ung,
+but the Taoists have connected Chang Ya with the constellation in
+another way by saying that Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler, entrusted Chang
+Ya's son with the management of the palace of Wên Ch'ang. And scholars
+gradually acquired the habit of saying that they owed their success
+to the Spirit of Tzu T'ung, which they falsely represented as being an
+incarnation of the star Wên Ch'ang. This is how Chang Ya came to have
+the honorific title of Wên Ch'ang, but, as a Chinese author points
+out, Chang belonged properly to Ssuch'uan, and his worship should
+be confined to that province. The _literati_ there venerated him as
+their master, and as a mark of affection and gratitude built a temple
+to him; but in doing so they had no intention of making him the God of
+Literature. "There being no real connexion between Chang Ya and K'uei,
+the worship should be stopped." The device of combining the personality
+of the patron of literature enthroned among the stars with that of the
+deified mortal canonized as the Spirit of Tzu T'ung was essentially a
+Taoist trick. "The thaumaturgic reputation assigned to the Spirit of
+Chang Ya Tzu was confined for centuries to the valleys of Ssuch'uan,
+until at some period antecedent to the reign Yen Yu, in A.D. 1314,
+a combination was arranged between the functions of the local god
+and those of the stellar patron of literature. Imperial sanction
+was obtained for this stroke of priestly cunning; and notwithstanding
+protests continually repeated by orthodox sticklers for accuracy in the
+religious canon, the composite deity has maintained his claims intact,
+and an inseparable connexion between the God of Literature created by
+imperial patent and the spirit lodged among the stars of Ursa Major is
+fully recognized in the State ceremonial of the present day." A temple
+dedicated to this divinity by the State exists in every city of China,
+besides others erected as private benefactions or speculations.
+
+Wherever Wên Ch'ang is worshipped there will also be found a separate
+representation of K'uei Hsing, showing that while the official deity
+has been allowed to 'borrow glory' from the popular god, and even
+to assume his personality, the independent existence of the stellar
+spirit is nevertheless sedulously maintained. The place of the latter
+in the heavens above is invariably symbolized by the lodgment of his
+idol in an upper storey or tower, known as the K'uei Hsing Ko or K'uei
+Hsing Lou. Here students worship the patron of their profession with
+incense and prayers. Thus the ancient stellar divinity still largely
+monopolizes the popular idea of a guardian of literature and study,
+notwithstanding that the deified recluse of Tzu T'ung has been added in
+this capacity to the State pantheon for more than five hundred years.
+
+
+Heaven-deaf and Earth-dumb
+
+The popular representations of Wên Ch'ang depict the god himself and
+four other figures. The central and largest is the demure portrait of
+the god, clothed in blue and holding a sceptre in his left hand. Behind
+him stand two youthful attendants. They are the servant and groom
+who always accompany him on his journeys (on which he rides a white
+horse). Their names are respectively Hsüan T'ung-tzu and Ti-mu, 'Sombre
+Youth' and 'Earth-mother'; more commonly they are called T'ien-lung,
+'Deaf Celestial,' and Ti-ya, 'Mute Terrestrial,' or 'Deaf as Heaven'
+and 'Mute as Earth.' Thus they cannot divulge the secrets of their
+master's administration as he distributes intellectual gifts, literary
+skill, etc. Their cosmogonical connexion has already been referred
+to in a previous chapter.
+
+
+Image of K'uei Hsing
+
+In front of Wên Ch'ang, on his left, stands K'uei Hsing. He is
+represented as of diminutive stature, with the visage of a demon,
+holding a writing-brush in his right hand and a _tou_ in his left,
+one of his legs kicking up behind--the figure being obviously intended
+as an impersonation of the character _k'uei_ (2). [16] He is regarded
+as the distributor of literary degrees, and was invoked above all
+in order to obtain success at the competitive examinations. His
+images and temples are found in all towns. In the temples dedicated
+to Wên Ch'ang there are always two secondary altars, one of which is
+consecrated to his worship.
+
+
+Mr Redcoat
+
+The other is dedicated to Chu I, 'Mr Redcoat.' He and K'uei Hsing
+are represented as the two inseparable companions of the God of
+Literature. The legend related of Chu I is as follows:
+
+During the T'ang dynasty, in the reign-period Chien Chung (A.D. 780-4)
+of the Emperor Tê Tsung, the Princess T'ai Yin noticed that Lu Ch'i,
+a native of Hua Chou, had the bones of an Immortal, and wished to
+marry him.
+
+Ma P'o, her neighbour, introduced him one day into the Crystal
+Palace for an interview with his future wife. The Princess gave him
+the choice of three careers: to live in the Dragon Prince's Palace,
+with the guarantee of immortal life, to enjoy immortality among the
+people on the earth, or to have the honour of becoming a minister of
+the Empire. Lu Ch'i first answered that he would like to live in the
+Crystal Palace. The young lady, overjoyed, said to him: "I am Princess
+T'ai Yin. I will at once inform Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler." A moment
+later the arrival of a celestial messenger was announced. Two officers
+bearing flags preceded him and conducted him to the foot of the flight
+of steps. He then presented himself as Chu I, the envoy of Shang Ti.
+
+Addressing himself to Lu Ch'i, he asked: "Do you wish to live in the
+Crystal Palace?" The latter did not reply. T'ai Yin urged him to give
+his answer, but he persisted in keeping silent. The Princess in despair
+retired to her apartment, and brought out five pieces of precious
+cloth, which she presented to the divine envoy, begging him to have
+patience a little longer and wait for the answer. After some time,
+Chu I repeated his question. Then Lu Ch'i in a firm voice answered:
+"I have consecrated my life to the hard labour of study, and wish to
+attain to the dignity of minister on this earth."
+
+T'ai Yin ordered Ma P'o to conduct Lu Ch'i from the palace. From that
+day his face became transformed: he acquired the lips of a dragon,
+the head of a panther, the green face of an Immortal, etc. He took
+his degree, and was promoted to be Director of the Censorate. The
+Emperor, appreciating the good sense shown in his advice, appointed
+him a minister of the Empire.
+
+From this legend it would seem that Chu I is the purveyor of official
+posts; however, in practice, he is more generally regarded as the
+protector of weak candidates, as the God of Good Luck for those who
+present themselves at the examinations with a somewhat light equipment
+of literary knowledge. The special legend relating to this _rôle_
+is known everywhere in China. It is as follows:
+
+
+Mr Redcoat nods his Head
+
+An examiner, engaged in correcting the essays of the candidates,
+after a superficial scrutiny of one of the essays, put it on one
+side as manifestly inferior, being quite determined not to pass the
+candidate who had composed it. The essay, moved by some mysterious
+power, was replaced in front of his eyes, as if to invite him to
+examine it more attentively. At the same time a reverend old man,
+clothed in a red garment, suddenly appeared before him, and by a nod
+of his head gave him to understand that he should pass the essay. The
+examiner, surprised at the novelty of the incident, and fortified by
+the approval of his supernatural visitor, admitted the author of the
+essay to the literary degree.
+
+Chu I, like K'uei Hsing, is invoked by the _literati_ as a powerful
+protector and aid to success. When anyone with but a poor chance of
+passing presents himself at an examination, his friends encourage
+him by the popular saying: "Who knows but that Mr Redcoat will nod
+his head?"
+
+
+Mr Golden Cuirass
+
+Chu I is sometimes accompanied by another personage, named Chin Chia,
+'Mr Golden Cuirass.' Like K'uei Hsing and Chu I he has charge of the
+interests of scholars, but differs from them in that he holds a flag,
+which he has only to wave in front of a house for the family inhabiting
+it to be assured that among their descendants will be some who will
+win literary honours and be promoted to high offices under the State.
+
+Though Chin Chia is the protector of scholars, he is also the
+redoubtable avenger of their evil actions: his flag is saluted as a
+good omen, but his sword is the terror of the wicked.
+
+
+The God of War
+
+Still another patron deity of literature is the God of War. "How,"
+it may be asked, "can so peaceful a people as the Chinese put so
+peaceful an occupation as literature under the patronage of so warlike
+a deity as the God of War?" But that question betrays ignorance of the
+character of the Chinese Kuan Ti. He is not a cruel tyrant delighting
+in battle and the slaying of enemies: he is the god who can _avert
+war and protect the people from its horrors_.
+
+A youth, whose name was originally Chang-shêng, afterward changed to
+Shou-chang, and then to Yün-chang, who was born near Chieh Liang,
+in Ho Tung (now the town of Chieh Chou in Shansi), and was of an
+intractable nature, having exasperated his parents, was shut up in a
+room from which he escaped by breaking through the window. In one of
+the neighbouring houses he heard a young lady and an old man weeping
+and lamenting. Running to the foot of the wall of the compound, he
+inquired the reason of their grief. The old man replied that though
+his daughter was already engaged, the uncle of the local official,
+smitten by her beauty, wished to make her his concubine. His petitions
+to the official had only been rejected with curses.
+
+Beside himself with rage, the youth seized a sword and went and killed
+both the official and his uncle. He escaped through the T'ung Kuan, the
+pass to Shensi. Having with difficulty avoided capture by the barrier
+officials, he knelt down at the side of a brook to wash his face;
+when lo! his appearance was completely transformed. His complexion
+had become reddish-grey, and he was absolutely unrecognizable. He
+then presented himself with assurance before the officers, who asked
+him his name. "My name is Kuan," he replied. It was by that name that
+he was thereafter known.
+
+
+The Meat-seller's Challenge
+
+One day he arrived at Chu-chou, a dependent sub-prefecture of Peking,
+in Chihli. There Chang Fei, a butcher, who had been selling his meat
+all the morning, at noon lowered what remained into a well, placed
+over the mouth of the well a stone weighing twenty-five pounds, and
+said with a sneer: "If anyone can lift that stone and take my meat,
+I will make him a present of it!" Kuan Yü, going up to the edge of
+the well, lifted the stone with the same ease as he would a tile,
+took the meat, and made off. Chang Fei pursued him, and eventually
+the two came to blows, but no one dared to separate them. Just then
+Liu Pei, a hawker of straw shoes, arrived, interposed, and put a stop
+to the fight. The community of ideas which they found they possessed
+soon gave rise to a firm friendship between the three men.
+
+
+The Oath in the Peach-orchard
+
+Another account represents Liu Pei and Chang Fei as having entered
+a village inn to drink wine, when a man of gigantic stature pushing
+a wheelbarrow stopped at the door to rest. As he seated himself,
+he hailed the waiter, saying: "Bring me some wine quickly, because
+I have to hasten to reach the town to enlist in the army."
+
+Liu Pei looked at this man, nine feet in height, with a beard two feet
+long. His face was the colour of the fruit of the jujube-tree, and
+his lips carmine. Eyebrows like sleeping silkworms shaded his phoenix
+eyes, which were a scarlet red. Terrible indeed was his bearing.
+
+"What is your name?" asked Liu Pei. "My family name is Kuan, my own
+name is Yü, my surname Yün Chang," he replied. "I am from the Ho Tung
+country. For the last five or six years I have been wandering about
+the world as a fugitive, to escape from my pursuers, because I killed
+a powerful man of my country who was oppressing the poor people. I
+hear that they are collecting a body of troops to crush the brigands,
+and I should like to join the expedition."
+
+Chang Fêi, also named Chang I Tê, is described as eight feet in
+height, with round shining eyes in a panther's head, and a pointed
+chin bristling with a tiger's beard. His voice resembled the rumbling
+of thunder. His ardour was like that of a fiery steed. He was a native
+of Cho Chün, where he possessed some fertile farms, and was a butcher
+and wine-merchant.
+
+Liu Pei, surnamed Hsüan Tê, otherwise Hsien Chu, was the third member
+of the group.
+
+The three men went to Chang Fei's farm, and on the morrow met together
+in his peach-orchard, and sealed their friendship with an oath. Having
+procured a black ox and a white horse, with the various accessories
+to a sacrifice, they immolated the victims, burnt the incense of
+friendship, and after twice prostrating themselves took this oath:
+
+"We three, Liu Pei, Kuan Yû, and Chang Fei, already united by mutual
+friendship, although belonging to different clans, now bind ourselves
+by the union of our hearts, and join our forces in order to help each
+other in times of danger.
+
+"We wish to pay to the State our debt of loyal citizens and give peace
+to our black-haired compatriots. We do not inquire if we were born
+in the same year, the same month, or on the same day, but we desire
+only that the same year, the same month, and the same day may find us
+united in death. May Heaven our King and Earth our Queen see clearly
+our hearts! If any one of us violate justice or forget benefits,
+may Heaven and Man unite to punish him!"
+
+The oath having been formally taken, Liu Pei was saluted as elder
+brother, Kuan Yü as the second, and Chang Fei as the youngest. Their
+sacrifice to Heaven and earth ended, they killed an ox and served
+a feast, to which the soldiers of the district were invited to the
+number of three hundred or more. They all drank copiously until they
+were intoxicated. Liu Pei enrolled the peasants; Chang Fei procured
+for them horses and arms; and then they set out to make war on the
+Yellow Turbans (Huang Chin Tsei). Kuan Yü proved himself worthy
+of the affection which Liu Pei showed him; brave and generous, he
+never turned aside from danger. His fidelity was shown especially
+on one occasion when, having been taken prisoner by Ts'ao Ts'ao,
+together with two of Liu Pei's wives, and having been allotted a common
+sleeping-apartment with his fellow-captives, he preserved the ladies'
+reputation and his own trustworthiness by standing all night at the
+door of the room with a lighted lantern in his hand.
+
+Into details of the various exploits of the three Brothers of the
+Peach-orchard we need not enter here. They are written in full in the
+book of the _Story of the Three Kingdoms_, a romance in which every
+Chinese who can read takes keen delight. Kuan Yü remained faithful to
+his oath, even though tempted with a marquisate by the great Ts'ao
+Ts'ao, but he was at length captured by Sun Ch'üan and put to death
+(A.D. 219). Long celebrated as the most renowned of China's military
+heroes, he was ennobled in A.D. 1120 as Faithful and Loyal Duke. Eight
+years later he had conferred on him by letters patent the still more
+glorious title of Magnificent Prince and Pacificator. The Emperor Wên
+(A.D. 1330-3) of the Yüan dynasty added the appellation Warrior Prince
+and Civilizer, and, finally, the Emperor Wan Li of the Ming dynasty,
+in 1594, conferred on him the title of Faithful and Loyal Great _Ti_,
+Supporter of Heaven and Protector of the Kingdom. He thus became a god,
+a _ti_, and has ever since received worship as Kuan Ti or Wu Ti, the
+God of War. Temples (1600 State temples and thousands of smaller ones)
+erected in his honour are to be seen in all parts of the country. He
+is one of the most popular gods of China. During the last half-century
+of the Manchu Period his fame greatly increased. In 1856 he is said
+to have appeared in the heavens and successfully turned the tide of
+battle in favour of the Imperialists. His portrait hangs in every tent,
+but his worship is not confined to the officials and the army, for
+many trades and professions have elected him as a patron saint. The
+sword of the public executioner used to be kept within the precincts
+of his temple, and after an execution the presiding magistrate would
+stop there to worship for fear the ghost of the criminal might follow
+him home. He knew that the spirit would not dare to enter Kuan Ti's
+presence.
+
+Thus the Chinese have no fewer than three gods of literature--perhaps
+not too many for so literary a people. A fourth, a Taoist god, will
+be mentioned later.
+
+
+Buddhism in China
+
+Buddhism and its mythology have formed an important part of Chinese
+thought for nearly two thousand years. The religion was brought
+to China about A.D. 65, ready-made in its Mahayanistic form, in
+consequence of a dream of the Emperor Ming Ti (A.D. 58-76) of the
+Eastern Han dynasty in or about the year 63; though some knowledge
+of Buddha and his doctrines existed as early as 217 B.C. As Buddha,
+the chief deity of Buddhism, was a man and became a god, the religion
+originated, like the others, in ancestor-worship. When a man dies, says
+this religion, his other self reappears in one form or another, "from a
+clod to a divinity." The way for Buddhism in China was paved by Taoism,
+and Buddhism reciprocally affected Taoism by helpful development of
+its doctrines of sanctity and immortalization. Buddhism also, as it has
+been well put by Dr De Groot, [17] "contributed much to the ceremonial
+adornment of ancestor-worship. Its salvation work on behalf of the
+dead saved its place in Confucian China; for of Confucianism itself,
+piety and devotion towards parents and ancestors, and the promotion of
+their happiness, were the core, and, consequently, their worship with
+sacrifices and ceremonies was always a sacred duty." It was thus that
+it was possible for the gods of Buddhism to be introduced into China
+and to maintain their special characters and fulfil their special
+functions without being absorbed into or submerged by the existing
+native religions. The result was, as we have seen, in the end a
+partnership rather than a relation of master and servant; and I say
+'in the end' because, contrary to popular belief, the Chinese have
+not been tolerant of foreign religious faiths, and at various times
+have persecuted Buddhism as relentlessly as they have other rivals
+to orthodox Confucianism.
+
+
+Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood
+
+At the head of the Buddhist gods in China we find the triad
+known as Buddha, the Law, and the Church, or Priesthood, which are
+personified as Shih-chia Fo (Shâkya), O-mi-t'o Fo (Amita), and Ju-lai
+Fo (Tathagata); otherwise Fo Pao, Fa Pao, and Sêng Pao (the _San Pao_,
+'Three Precious Ones')--that is, Buddha, the prophet who came into the
+world to teach the Law, Dharma, the Law Everlasting, and Samgha, its
+mystical body, Priesthood, or Church. Dharma is an entity underived,
+containing the spiritual elements and material constituents of the
+universe. From it the other two evolve: Buddha (Shâkyamuni), the
+creative energy, Samgha, the totality of existence and of life. To the
+people these are three personal Buddhas, whom they worship without
+concerning themselves about their origin. To the priests they are
+simply the Buddha, past, present, or future. There are also several
+other of these groups or triads, ten or more, composed of different
+deities, or sometimes containing one or two of the triad already
+named. Shâkyamuni heads the list, having a place in at least six.
+
+The legend of the Buddha belongs rather to Indian than to Chinese
+mythology, and is too long to be reproduced here. [18]
+
+The principal gods of Buddhism are Jan-têng Fo, the Light-lamp
+Buddha, Mi-lo Fo (Maitrêya), the expected Messiah of the Buddhists,
+O-mi-t'o Fo (Amitabha or Amita), the guide who conducts his devotees
+to the Western Paradise, Yüeh-shih Fo, the Master-physician Buddha,
+Ta-shih-chih P'u-sa (Mahastama), companion of Amitabha, P'i-lu Fo
+(Vairotchana), the highest of the Threefold Embodiments, Kuan Yin,
+the Goddess of Mercy, Ti-tsang Wang, the God of Hades, Wei-t'o
+(Vihârapâla), the Dêva protector of the Law of Buddha and Buddhist
+temples, the Four Diamond Kings of Heaven, and Bodhidharma, the first
+of the six Patriarchs of Eastern or Chinese Buddhism.
+
+
+Diamond Kings of Heaven
+
+On the right and left sides of the entrance hall of Buddhist temples,
+two on each side, are the gigantic figures of the four great _Ssu Ta
+Chin-kang_ or _T'ien-wang_, the Diamond Kings of Heaven, protectors
+or governors of the continents lying in the direction of the four
+cardinal points from Mount Sumêru, the centre of the world. They are
+four brothers named respectively Mo-li Ch'ing (Pure), or Tsêng Chang,
+Mo-li Hung (Vast), or Kuang Mu, Mo-li Hai (Sea), or To Wên, and Mo-li
+Shou (Age), or Ch'ih Kuo. The _Chin kuang ming_ states that they bestow
+all kinds of happiness on those who honour the Three Treasures, Buddha,
+the Law, and the Priesthood. Kings and nations who neglect the Law
+lose their protection. They are described and represented as follows:
+
+Mo-li Ch'ing, the eldest, is twenty-four feet in height, with a beard
+the hairs of which are like copper wire. He carries a magnificent
+jade ring and a spear, and always fights on foot. He has also a magic
+sword, 'Blue Cloud,' on the blade of which are engraved the characters
+_Ti, Shui, Huo, Fêng_ (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind). When brandished,
+it causes a black wind, which produces tens of thousands of spears,
+which pierce the bodies of men and turn them to dust. The wind is
+followed by a fire, which fills the air with tens of thousands of
+golden fiery serpents. A thick smoke also rises out of the ground,
+which blinds and burns men, none being able to escape.
+
+Mo-li Hung carries in his hand an umbrella, called the Umbrella of
+Chaos, formed of pearls possessed of spiritual properties. Opening
+this marvellous implement causes the heavens and earth to be covered
+with thick darkness, and turning it upside down produces violent
+storms of wind and thunder and universal earthquakes.
+
+Mo-li Hai holds a four-stringed guitar, the twanging of which
+supernaturally affects the earth, water, fire, or wind. When it is
+played all the world listens, and the camps of the enemy take fire.
+
+Mo-li Shou has two whips and a panther-skin bag, the home of a creature
+resembling a white rat, known as Hua-hu Tiao. When at large this
+creature assumes the form of a white winged elephant, which devours
+men. He sometimes has also a snake or other man-eating creature,
+always ready to obey his behests.
+
+
+
+Legend of the Diamond Kings
+
+The legend of the Four Diamond Kings given in the _Fêng shên yen i_
+is as follows: At the time of the consolidation of the Chou dynasty
+in the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C., Chiang Tzu-ya, chief
+counsellor to Wên Wang, and General Huang Fei-hu were defending
+the town and mountain of Hsi-ch'i. The supporters of the house of
+Shang appealed to the four genii Mo, who lived at Chia-mêng Kuan,
+praying them to come to their aid. They agreed, raised an army
+of 100,000 celestial soldiers, and traversing towns, fields, and
+mountains arrived in less than a day at the north gate of Hsi-ch'i,
+where Mo-li Ch'ing pitched his camp and entrenched his soldiers.
+
+Hearing of this, Huang Fei-hu hastened to warn Chiang Tzu-ya of the
+danger which threatened him. "The four great generals who have just
+arrived at the north gate," he said, "are marvellously powerful genii,
+experts in all the mysteries of magic and use of wonderful charms. It
+is much to be feared that we shall not be able to resist them."
+
+Many fierce battles ensued. At first these went in favour of the
+_Chin-kang_, thanks to their magical weapons and especially to Mo-li
+Shou's Hua-hu Tiao, who terrorized the enemy by devouring their
+bravest warriors.
+
+
+Hua-hu Tiao devours Yang Chien
+
+Unfortunately for the _Chin-kang_, the brute attacked and swallowed
+Yang Chien, the nephew of Yü Huang. This genie, on entering the body
+of the monster, rent his heart asunder and cut him in two. As he could
+transform himself at will, he assumed the shape of Hua-hu Tiao, and
+went off to Mo-li Shou, who unsuspectingly put him back into his bag.
+
+The Four Kings held a festival to celebrate their triumph, and having
+drunk copiously gave themselves over to sleep. During the night Yang
+Chien came out of the bag, with the intention of possessing himself of
+the three magical weapons of the _Chin-kang_. But he succeeded only in
+carrying off the umbrella of Mo-li Hung. In a subsequent engagement
+No-cha, the son of Vadjrâ-pani, the God of Thunder, broke the jade
+ring of Mo-li Ch'ing. Misfortune followed misfortune. The _Chin-kang_,
+deprived of their magical weapons, began to lose heart. To complete
+their discomfiture, Huang T'ien Hua brought to the attack a matchless
+magical weapon. This was a spike 7 1/2 inches long, enclosed in a
+silk sheath, and called 'Heart-piercer.' It projected so strong a
+ray of light that eyes were blinded by it.
+
+Huang T'ien Hua, hard pressed by Mo-li Ch'ing, drew the mysterious
+spike from its sheath, and hurled it at his adversary. It entered
+his neck, and with a deep groan the giant fell dead.
+
+Mo-li Hung and Mo-li Hai hastened to avenge their brother, but ere
+they could come within striking distance of Huang Ti'en Hua his
+redoubtable spike reached their hearts, and they lay prone at his feet.
+
+The one remaining hope for the sole survivor was in Hua-hu Tiao. Mo-li
+Shou, not knowing that the creature had been slain, put his hand into
+the bag to pull him out, whereupon Yang Chien, who had re-entered the
+bag, bit his hand off at the wrist, so that there remained nothing
+but a stump of bone.
+
+In this moment of intense agony Mo-li Shou fell an easy prey to Huang
+T'ien Hua, the magical spike pierced his heart, and he fell bathed
+in his blood. Thus perished the last of the _Chin-kang_.
+
+
+
+The Three Pure Ones
+
+Turning to the gods of Taoism, we find that the triad or trinity,
+already noted as forming the head of that hierarchy, consists of
+three Supreme Gods, each in his own Heaven. These three Heavens,
+the _San Ch'ing_, 'Three Pure Ones' (this name being also applied
+to the sovereigns ruling in them), were formed from the three airs,
+which are subdivisions of the one primordial air.
+
+The first Heaven is Yü Ch'ing. In it reigns the first member of
+the Taoist triad. He inhabits the Jade Mountain. The entrance to
+his palace is named the Golden Door. He is the source of all truth,
+as the sun is the source of all light.
+
+Various authorities give his name differently--Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun,
+or Lo Ching Hsin, and call him T'ien Pao, 'the Treasure of Heaven,'
+Some state that the name of the ruler of this first Heaven is Yü
+Huang, and in the popular mind he it is who occupies this supreme
+position. The Three Pure Ones are above him in rank, but to him, the
+Pearly Emperor, is entrusted the superintendence of the world. He has
+all the power of Heaven and earth in his hands. He is the correlative
+of Heaven, or rather Heaven itself.
+
+The second Heaven, Shang Ch'ing, is ruled by the second person of
+the triad, named Ling-pao T'ien-tsun, or Tao Chün. No information is
+given as to his origin. He is the custodian of the sacred books. He has
+existed from the beginning of the world. He calculates time, dividing
+it into different epochs. He occupies the upper pole of the world, and
+determines the movements and interaction, or regulates the relations
+of the _yin_ and the _yang_, the two great principles of nature.
+
+In the third Heaven, T'ai Ch'ing, the Taoists place Lao Tzu, the
+promulgator of the true doctrine drawn up by Ling-pao T'ien-tsun. He
+is alternatively called Shên Pao, 'the Treasure of the Spirits,'
+and T'ai-shang Lao-chûn, 'the Most Eminent Aged Ruler.' Under various
+assumed names he has appeared as the teacher of kings and emperors,
+the reformer of successive generations.
+
+This three-storied Taoist Heaven, or three Heavens, is the result of
+the wish of the Taoists not to be out-rivalled by the Buddhists. For
+Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood they substitute the _Tao_, or
+Reason, the Classics, and the Priesthood.
+
+As regards the organization of the Taoist Heavens, Yü Huang has on his
+register the name of eight hundred Taoist divinities and a multitude
+of Immortals. These are all divided into three categories: Saints
+(_Shêng-jên_), Heroes (_Chên-jên_), and Immortals (_Hsien-jên_),
+occupying the three Heavens respectively in that order.
+
+
+The Three Causes
+
+Connected with Taoism, but not exclusively associated with that
+religion, is the worship of the Three Causes, the deities presiding
+over three departments of physical nature, Heaven, earth, and
+water. They are known by various designations: _San Kuan_, 'the Three
+Agents'; _San Yüan_, 'the Three Origins'; _San Kuan Ta Ti_, 'the Three
+Great Emperor Agents'; and _T'ai Shang San Kuan_, 'the Three Supreme
+Agents.' This worship has passed through four chief phases, as follows:
+
+The first comprises Heaven, earth, and water, _T'ien, Ti, Shui_,
+the sources of happiness, forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from
+evil respectively. Each of these is called King-emperor. Their names,
+written on labels and offered to Heaven (on a mountain), earth (by
+burial), and water (by immersion), are supposed to cure sickness. This
+idea dates from the Han dynasty, being first noted about A.D. 172.
+
+The second, _San Yüan_ dating from A.D. 407 under the Wei dynasty,
+identified the Three Agents with three dates of which they were
+respectively made the patrons. The year was divided into three unequal
+parts: the first to the seventh moon; the seventh to the tenth; and
+the tenth to the twelfth. Of these, the fifteenth day of the first,
+seventh, and tenth moons respectively became the three principal dates
+of these periods. Thus the Agent of Heaven became the principal patron
+of the first division, honoured on the fifteenth day of the first moon,
+and so on.
+
+The third phase, _San Kuan_, resulted from the first two being found
+too complicated for popular favour. The _San Kuan_ were the three
+sons of a man, Ch'ên Tzu-ch'un, who was so handsome and intelligent
+that the three daughters of Lung Wang, the Dragon-king, fell in
+love with him and went to live with him. The eldest girl was the
+mother of the Superior Cause, the second of the Medium Cause, and the
+third of the Inferior Cause. All these were gifted with supernatural
+powers. Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun canonized them as the Three Great Emperor
+Agents of Heaven, earth, and water, governors of all beings, devils
+or gods, in the three regions of the universe. As in the first phase,
+the _T'ien Kuan_ confers happiness, the _Ti Kuan_ grants remission
+of sins, and the _Shui Kuan_ delivers from evil or misfortune.
+
+The fourth phase consisted simply in the substitution by the priests
+for the abstract or time-principles of the three great sovereigns
+of ancient times, Yao, Shun, and Yü. The _literati_, proud of the
+apotheosis of their ancient rulers, hastened to offer incense to them,
+and temples, _San Yüan Kung_, arose in very many parts of the Empire.
+
+A variation of this phase is the canonization, with the title of _San
+Yüan_ or Three Causes, of _Wu-k'o San Chên Chün_, 'the Three True
+Sovereigns, Guests of the Kingdom of Wu.' They were three Censors
+who lived in the reign of King Li (Li Wang, 878-841 B.C.) of the Chou
+dynasty. Leaving the service of the Chou on account of Li's dissolute
+living, they went to live in Wu, and brought victory to that state in
+its war with the Ch'u State, then returned to their own country, and
+became pillars of the Chou State under Li's successor. They appeared
+to protect the Emperor Chên Tsung when he was offering the _Fêng-shan_
+sacrifices on T'ai Shan in A.D. 1008, on which occasion they were
+canonized with the titles of Superior, Medium, and Inferior Causes,
+as before, conferring upon them the regencies of Heaven, earth,
+and water respectively.
+
+
+Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun
+
+Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun, or the First Cause, the Highest in Heaven,
+generally placed at the head of the Taoist triad, is said never
+to have existed but in the fertile imagination of the Lao Tzuist
+sectarians. According to them Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun had neither origin
+nor master, but is himself the cause of all beings, which is why he
+is called the First Cause.
+
+As first member of the triad, and sovereign ruler of the First Heaven,
+Yü Ch'ing, where reign the saints, he is raised in rank above all
+the other gods. The name assigned to him is Lo Ching Hsin. He was
+born before all beginnings; his substance is imperishable; it is
+formed essentially of uncreated air, air _a se_, invisible and without
+perceptible limits. No one has been able to penetrate to the beginnings
+of his existence. The source of all truth, he at each renovation of
+the worlds--that is, at each new _kalpa_--gives out the mysterious
+doctrine which confers immortality. All who reach this knowledge
+attain by degrees to life eternal, become refined like the spirits,
+or instantly become Immortals, even while upon earth.
+
+Originally, Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun was not a member of the Taoist
+triad. He resided above the Three Heavens, above the Three Pure
+Ones, surviving the destructions and renovations of the universe,
+as an immovable rock in the midst of a stormy sea. He set the stars
+in motion, and caused the planets to revolve. The chief of his secret
+police was Tsao Chün, the Kitchen-god, who rendered to him an account
+of the good and evil deeds of each family. His executive agent was
+Lei Tsu, the God of Thunder, and his subordinates. The seven stars
+of the North Pole were the palace of his ministers, whose offices
+were on the various sacred mountains. Nowadays, however, Yüan-shih
+T'ien-tsun is generally neglected for Yü Huang.
+
+
+An Avatar of P'an Ku
+
+According to the tradition of Chin Hung, the God of T'ai Shan
+of the fifth generation from P'an Ku, this being, then called
+Yüan-shih T'ien-wang, was an avatar of P'an Ku. It came about in
+this wise. In remote ages there lived on the mountains an old man,
+Yüan-shih T'ien-wang, who used to sit on a rock and preach to the
+multitude. He spoke of the highest antiquity as if from personal
+experience. When Chin Hung asked him where he lived, he just raised
+his hand toward Heaven, iridescent clouds enveloped his body, and he
+replied: "Whoso wishes to know where I dwell must rise to impenetrable
+heights." "But how," said Chin Hung, "was he to be found in this
+immense emptiness?" Two genii, Ch'ih Ching-tzu and Huang Lao, then
+descended on the summit of T'ai Shan and said: "Let us go and visit
+this Yüan-shih. To do so, we must cross the boundaries of the universe
+and pass beyond the farthest stars." Chin Hung begged them to give
+him their instructions, to which he listened attentively. They then
+ascended the highest of the sacred peaks, and thence mounted into the
+heavens, calling to him from the misty heights: "If you wish to know
+the origin of Yüan-shih, you must pass beyond the confines of Heaven
+and earth, because he lives beyond the limits of the worlds. You must
+ascend and ascend until you reach the sphere of nothingness and of
+being, in the plains of the luminous shadows."
+
+Having reached these ethereal heights, the two genii saw a bright
+light, and Hsüan-hsüan Shang-jên appeared before them. The two
+genii bowed to do him homage and to express their gratitude. "You
+cannot better show your gratitude," he replied, "than by making my
+doctrine known among men. You desire," he added, "to know the history
+of Yüan-shih. I will tell it you. When P'an Ku had completed his
+work in the primitive Chaos, his spirit left its mortal envelope
+and found itself tossed about in empty space without any fixed
+support. 'I must,' it said, 'get reborn in visible form; until I can
+go through a new birth I shall remain empty and unsettled,' His soul,
+carried on the wings of the wind, reached Fu-yü T'ai. There it saw
+a saintly lady named T'ai Yüan, forty years of age, still a virgin,
+and living alone on Mount Ts'u-o. Air and variegated clouds were
+the sole nourishment of her vital spirits. An hermaphrodite, at
+once both the active and the passive principle, she daily scaled the
+highest peak of the mountain to gather there the flowery quintessence
+of the sun and the moon. P'an Ku, captivated by her virgin purity,
+took advantage of a moment when she was breathing to enter her mouth
+in the form of a ray of light. She was _enceinte_ for twelve years,
+at the end of which period the fruit of her womb came out through her
+spinal column. From its first moment the child could walk and speak,
+and its body was surrounded by a five-coloured cloud. The newly-born
+took the name of Yüan-shih T'ien-wang, and his mother was generally
+known as T'ai-yüan Shêng-mu, 'the Holy Mother of the First Cause.'"
+
+
+Yü Huang
+
+Yü Huang means 'the Jade Emperor,' or 'the Pure August One,' jade
+symbolizing purity. He is also known by the name Yü-huang Shang-ti,
+'the Pure August Emperor on High.'
+
+The history of this deity, who later received many honorific titles
+and became the most popular god, a very Chinese Jupiter, seems to be
+somewhat as follows: The Emperor Ch'êng Tsung of the Sung dynasty
+having been obliged in A.D. 1005 to sign a disgraceful peace with
+the Tunguses or Kitans, the dynasty was in danger of losing the
+support of the nation. In order to hoodwink the people the Emperor
+constituted himself a seer, and announced with great pomp that he
+was in direct communication with the gods of Heaven. In doing this
+he was following the advice of his crafty and unreliable minister
+Wang Ch'in-jo, who had often tried to persuade him that the pretended
+revelations attributed to Fu Hsi, Yü Wang, and others were only pure
+inventions to induce obedience. The Emperor, having studied his part
+well, assembled his ministers in the tenth moon of the year 1012,
+and made to them the following declaration: "In a dream I had a visit
+from an Immortal, who brought me a letter from Yü Huang, the purport
+of which was as follows: 'I have already sent you by your ancestor
+Chao [T'ai Tsu] two celestial missives. Now I am going to send him in
+person to visit you.'" A little while after his ancestor T'ai Tsu,
+the founder of the dynasty, came according to Yü Huang's promise,
+and Ch'êng Tsung hastened to inform his ministers of it. This is the
+origin of Yü Huang. He was born of a fraud, and came ready-made from
+the brain of an emperor.
+
+
+The Cask of Pearls
+
+Fearing to be admonished for the fraud by another of his ministers,
+the scholar Wang Tan, the Emperor resolved to put a golden gag in his
+mouth. So one day, having invited him to a banquet, he overwhelmed
+him with flattery and made him drunk with good wine. "I would like
+the members of your family also to taste this wine," he added, "so I
+am making you a present of a cask of it." When Wang Tan returned home,
+he found the cask filled with precious pearls. Out of gratitude to the
+Emperor he kept silent as to the fraud, and made no further opposition
+to his plans, but when on his death-bed he asked that his head be
+shaved like a priest's and that he be clothed in priestly robes so
+that he might expiate his crime of feebleness before the Emperor.
+
+K'ang Hsi, the great Emperor of the Ch'ing dynasty, who had already
+declared that if it is wrong to impute deceit to a man it is still
+more reprehensible to impute a fraud to Heaven, stigmatized him as
+follows: "Wang Tan committed two faults: the first was in showing
+himself a vile flatterer of his Prince during his life; the second
+was in becoming a worshipper of Buddha at his death."
+
+
+The Legend of Yü Huang
+
+So much for historical record. The legend of Yü Huang relates that in
+ancient times there existed a kingdom named Kuang Yen Miao Lo Kuo,
+whose king was Ching Tê, his queen being called Pao Yüeh. Though
+getting on in years, the latter had no son. The Taoist priests were
+summoned by edict to the palace to perform their rites. They recited
+prayers with the object of obtaining an heir to the throne. During
+the ensuing night the Queen had a vision. Lao Chün appeared to her,
+riding a dragon, and carrying a male child in his arms. He floated down
+through the air in her direction. The Queen begged him to give her the
+child as an heir to the throne. "I am quite willing," he said. "Here
+it is." She fell on her knees and thanked him. On waking she found
+herself _enceinte_. At the end of a year the Prince was born. From
+an early age he showed himself compassionate and generous to the
+poor. On the death of his father he ascended the throne, but after
+reigning only a few days abdicated in favour of his chief minister,
+and became a hermit at P'u-ming, in Shensi, and also on Mount Hsiu Yen,
+in Yünnan. Having attained to perfection, he passed the rest of his
+days in curing sickness and saving life; and it was in the exercise
+of these charitable deeds that he died. The emperors Ch'êng Tsung
+and Hui Tsung, of the Sung dynasty, loaded him with all the various
+titles associated with his name at the present day.
+
+Both Buddhists and Taoists claim him as their own, the former
+identifying him with Indra, in which case Yü Huang is a Buddhist deity
+incorporated into the Taoist pantheon. He has also been taken to be
+the subject of a 'nature myth.' The Emperor Ching Tê, his father,
+is the sun, the Queen Pao Yüeh the moon, and the marriage symbolizes
+the rebirth of the vivifying power which clothes nature with green
+plants and beautiful flowers.
+
+
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu
+
+In modern Taoism T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu is regarded as the first of
+the Patriarchs and one of the most powerful genii of the sect. His
+master was Hung-chün Lao-tsu. He wore a red robe embroidered with
+white cranes, and rode a _k'uei niu_, a monster resembling a buffalo,
+with one long horn like a unicorn. His palace, the Pi Yu Kung, was
+situated on Mount Tzu Chih Yai.
+
+This genie took the part of Chou Wang and helped him to resist Wu
+Wang's armies. First, he sent his disciple To-pao Tao-jên to Chieh-p'ai
+Kuan. He gave him four precious swords and the plan of a fort which
+he was to construct and to name Chu-hsien Chên, 'the Citadel of all
+the Immortals.'
+
+To-pao Tao-jên carried out his orders, but he had to fight a battle
+with Kuang Ch'êng-tzu, and the latter, armed with a celestial seal,
+struck his adversary so hard that he fell to the ground and had to
+take refuge in flight.
+
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu came to the defence of his disciple and to
+restore the morale of his forces. Unfortunately, a posse of gods
+arrived to aid Wu Wang's powerful general, Chiang Tzu-ya. The first
+who attacked T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu was Lao Tzu, who struck him several
+times with his stick. Then came Chun T'i, armed with his cane. The
+buffalo of T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu stamped him under foot, and Chun
+T'i was thrown to the earth, and only just had time to rise quickly
+and mount into the air amid a great cloud of dust.
+
+There could be no doubt that the fight was going against T'ung-t'ien
+Chiao-chu; to complete his discomfiture Jan-têng Tao-jên cleft the air
+and fell upon him unexpectedly. With a violent blow of his 'Fix-sea'
+staff he cast him down and compelled him to give up the struggle.
+
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu then prepared plans for a new fortified camp
+beyond T'ung Kuan, and tried to take the offensive again, but again
+Lao Tzu stopped him with a blow of his stick. Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun
+wounded his shoulder with his precious stone Ju-i, and Chun-t'i
+Tao-jên waved his 'Branch of the Seven Virtues.' Immediately the
+magic sword of T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu was reduced to splinters, and
+he saved himself only by flight.
+
+Hung-chün Lao-tsu, the master of these three genii, seeing his three
+beloved disciples in the _mêlée_, resolved to make peace between
+them. He assembled all three in a tent in Chiang Tzu-ya's camp, made
+them kneel before him, then reproached T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu at length
+for having taken the part of the tyrant Chou, and recommended them
+in future to live in harmony. After finishing his speech, he produced
+three pills, and ordered each of the genii to swallow one. When they
+had done so, Hung-chün Lao-tsu said to them: "I have given you these
+pills to ensure an inviolable truce among you. Know that the first
+who entertains a thought of discord in his heart will find that the
+pill will explode in his stomach and cause his instant death."
+
+Hung-chün Lao-tsu then took T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu away with him on
+his cloud to Heaven.
+
+
+
+Immortals, Heroes, Saints
+
+An Immortal, according to Taoist lore, is a solitary man of the
+mountains. He appears to die, but does not. After 'death' his body
+retains all the qualities of the living. The body or corpse is for
+him only a means of transition, a phase of metamorphosis--a cocoon
+or chrysalis, the temporary abode of the butterfly.
+
+To reach this state a hygienic regimen both of the body and mind must
+be observed. All luxury, greed, and ambition must be avoided. But
+negation is not enough. In the system of nourishment all the elements
+which strengthen the essence of the constituent _yin_ and _yang_
+principles must be found by means of medicine, chemistry, gymnastic
+exercises, etc. When the maximum vital force has been acquired the
+means of preserving it and keeping it from the attacks of death
+and disease must be discovered; in a word, he must spiritualize
+himself--render himself completely independent of matter. All
+the experiments have for their object the storing in the pills of
+immortality the elements necessary for the development of the vital
+force and for the constitution of a new spiritual and super-humanized
+being. In this ascending perfection there are several grades:
+
+(1) The Immortal (_Hsien_). The first stage consists in bringing
+about the birth of the superhuman in the ascetic's person, which
+reaching perfection leaves the earthly body, like the grasshopper
+its sheath. This first stage attained, the Immortal travels at will
+throughout the universe, enjoys all the advantages of perfect health
+without dreading disease or death, eats and drinks copiously--nothing
+is wanting to complete his happiness.
+
+(2) The Perfect Man, or Hero (_Chên-jên_). The second stage is a higher
+one. The whole body is spiritualized. It has become so subtile, so
+spiritual, that it can fly in the air. Borne on the wings of the wind,
+seated on the clouds of Heaven, it travels from one world to another
+and fixes its habitation in the stars. It is freed from all laws of
+matter, but is, however, not completely changed into pure spirit.
+
+(3) The Saint (_Shêng-jên_). The third stage is that of the superhuman
+beings or saints. They are those who have attained to extraordinary
+intelligence and virtue.
+
+
+The God of the Immortals
+
+Mu Kung or Tung Wang Kung, the God of the Immortals, was also called
+I Chün Ming and Yü Huang Chün, the Prince Yü Huang.
+
+The primitive vapour congealed, remained inactive for a time, and
+then produced living beings, beginning with the formation of Mu Kung,
+the purest substance of the Eastern Air, and sovereign of the active
+male principle _yang_ and of all the countries of the East. His
+palace is in the misty heavens, violet clouds form its dome, blue
+clouds its walls. Hsien T'ung, 'the Immortal Youth,' and Yü Nü,
+'the Jade Maiden,' are his servants. He keeps the register of all
+the Immortals, male and female.
+
+
+Hsi Wang Mu
+
+Hsi Wang Mu was formed of the pure quintessence of the Western Air,
+in the legendary continent of Shên Chou. She is often called the
+Golden Mother of the Tortoise.
+
+Her family name is variously given as Hou, Yang, and Ho. Her own name
+was Hui, and first name Wan-chin. She had nine sons and twenty-four
+daughters.
+
+As Mu Kung, formed of the Eastern Air, is the active principle of
+the male air and sovereign of the Eastern Air, so Hsi Wang Mu, born
+of the Western Air, is the passive or female principle (_yin_) and
+sovereign of the Western Air. These two principles, co-operating,
+engender Heaven and earth and all the beings of the universe, and
+thus become the two principles of life and of the subsistence of all
+that exists. She is the head of the troop of genii dwelling on the
+K'un-lun Mountains (the Taoist equivalent of the Buddhist Sumêru), and
+from time to time holds intercourse with favoured imperial votaries.
+
+
+The Feast of Peaches
+
+Hsi Wang Mu's palace is situated in the high mountains of the snowy
+K'un-lun. It is 1000 _li_ (about 333 miles) in circuit; a rampart of
+massive gold surrounds its battlements of precious stones. Its right
+wing rises on the edge of the Kingfishers' River. It is the usual
+abode of the Immortals, who are divided into seven special categories
+according to the colour of their garments--red, blue, black, violet,
+yellow, green, and 'nature-colour.' There is a marvellous fountain
+built of precious stones, where the periodical banquet of the
+Immortals is held. This feast is called P'an-t'ao Hui, 'the Feast of
+Peaches.' It takes place on the borders of the Yao Ch'ih, Lake of Gems,
+and is attended by both male and female Immortals. Besides several
+superfine meats, they are served with bears' paws, monkeys' lips,
+dragons' liver, phoenix marrow, and peaches gathered in the orchard,
+endowed with the mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who
+have the good luck to taste them. It was by these peaches that the
+date of the banquet was fixed. The tree put forth leaves once every
+three thousand years, and it required three thousand years after that
+for the fruit to ripen. These were Hsi Wang Mu's birthdays, when all
+the Immortals assembled for the great feast, "the occasion being more
+festive than solemn, for there was music on invisible instruments,
+and songs not from mortal tongues."
+
+
+The First Taoist Pope
+
+Chang Tao-ling, the first Taoist pope, was born in A.D. 35, in the
+reign of the Emperor Kuang Wu Ti of the Han dynasty. His birthplace
+is variously given as the T'ien-mu Shan, 'Eye of Heaven Mountain,'
+in Lin-an Hsien, in Chekiang, and Fêng-yang Fu, in Anhui. He devoted
+himself wholly to study and meditation, declining all offers to enter
+the service of the State. He preferred to take up his abode in the
+mountains of Western China, where he persevered in the study of alchemy
+and in cultivating the virtues of purity and mental abstraction. From
+the hands of Lao Tzu he received supernaturally a mystic treatise,
+by following the instructions in which he was successful in his search
+for the elixir of life.
+
+One day when he was engaged in experimenting with the 'Dragon-tiger
+elixir' a spiritual being appeared to him and said: "On Po-sung
+Mountain is a stone house in which are concealed the writings of the
+Three Emperors of antiquity and a canonical work. By obtaining these
+you may ascend to Heaven, if you undergo the course of discipline
+they prescribe."
+
+Chang Tao-ling found these works, and by means of them obtained
+the power of flying, of hearing distant sounds, and of leaving
+his body. After going through a thousand days of discipline, and
+receiving instruction from a goddess, who taught him to walk about
+among the stars, he proceeded to fight with the king of the demons,
+to divide mountains and seas, and to command the wind and thunder. All
+the demons fled before him. On account of the prodigious slaughter of
+demons by this hero the wind and thunder were reduced to subjection,
+and various divinities came with eager haste to acknowledge their
+faults. In nine years he gained the power to ascend to Heaven.
+
+
+The Founder of Modern Taoism
+
+Chang Tao-ling may rightly be considered as the true founder of modern
+Taoism. The recipes for the pills of immortality contained in the
+mysterious books, and the invention of talismans for the cure of all
+sorts of maladies, not only exalted him to the high position he has
+since occupied in the minds of his numerous disciples, but enabled
+them in turn to exploit successfully this new source of power and
+wealth. From that time the Taoist sect began to specialize in the art
+of healing. Protecting or curing talismans bearing the Master's seal
+were purchased for enormous sums. It is thus seen that he was after
+all a deceiver of the people, and unbelievers or rival partisans of
+other sects have dubbed him a 'rice-thief'--which perhaps he was.
+
+He is generally represented as clothed in richly decorated garments,
+brandishing with his right hand his magic sword, holding in his
+left a cup containing the draught of immortality, and riding a tiger
+which in one paw grasps his magic seal and with the others tramples
+down the five venomous creatures: lizard, snake, spider, toad,
+and centipede. Pictures of him with these accessories are pasted
+up in houses on the fifth day of the fifth moon to forfend calamity
+and sickness.
+
+
+
+The Peach-gathering
+
+It is related of him that, not wishing to ascend to Heaven too soon,
+he partook of only half of the pill of immortality, dividing the
+other half among several of his admirers, and that he had at least two
+selves or personalities, one of which used to disport itself in a boat
+on a small lake in front of his house. The other self would receive
+his visitors, entertaining them with food and drink and instructive
+conversation. On one occasion this self said to them: "You are unable
+to quit the world altogether as I can, but by imitating my example in
+the matter of family relations you could procure a medicine which would
+prolong your lives by several centuries. I have given the crucible
+in which Huang Ti prepared the draught of immortality to my disciple
+Wang Ch'ang. Later on, a man will come from the East, who also will
+make use of it. He will arrive on the seventh day of the first moon."
+
+Exactly on that day there arrived from the East a man named Chao
+Shêng, who was the person indicated by Chang Tao-ling. He was
+recognized by a manifestation of himself he had caused to appear
+in advance of his coming. Chang then led all his disciples, to the
+number of three hundred, to the highest peak of the Yün-t'ai. Below
+them they saw a peach-tree growing near a pointed rock, stretching
+out its branches like arms above a fathomless abyss. It was a large
+tree, covered with ripe fruit. Chang said to his disciples: "I will
+communicate a spiritual formula to the one among you who will dare
+to gather the fruit of that tree." They all leaned over to look,
+but each declared the feat to be impossible. Chao Shêng alone had
+the courage to rush out to the point of the rock and up the tree
+stretching out into space. With firm foot he stood and gathered the
+peaches, placing them in the folds of his cloak, as many as it would
+hold, but when he wished to climb back up the precipitous slope,
+his hands slipped on the smooth rock, and all his attempts were in
+vain. Accordingly, he threw the peaches, three hundred and two in all,
+one by one up to Chang Tao-ling, who distributed them. Each disciple
+ate one, as also did Chang, who reserved the remaining one for Chao
+Shêng, whom he helped to climb up again. To do this Chang extended
+his arm to a length of thirty feet, all present marvelling at the
+miracle. After Chao had eaten his peach Chang stood on the edge of
+the precipice, and said with a laugh: "Chao Shêng was brave enough
+to climb out to that tree and his foot never tripped. I too will make
+the attempt. If I succeed I will have a big peach as a reward." Having
+spoken thus, he leapt into space, and alighted in the branches of the
+peach-tree. Wang Ch'ang and Chao Shêng also jumped into the tree and
+stood one on each side of him. There Chang communicated to them the
+mysterious formula. Three days later they returned to their homes;
+then, having made final arrangements, they repaired once more to the
+mountain peak, whence, in the presence of the other disciples, who
+followed them with their eyes until they had completely disappeared
+from view, all three ascended to Heaven in broad daylight.
+
+
+Chang Tao-ling's Great Power
+
+The name of Chang Tao-ling, the Heavenly Teacher, is a household
+word in China. He is on earth the Vicegerent of the Pearly Emperor
+in Heaven, and the Commander-in-Chief of the hosts of Taoism. He, the
+chief of the wizards, the 'true [_i.e._ ideal] man,' as he is called,
+wields an immense spiritual power throughout the land. The present
+pope boasts of an unbroken line for three-score generations. His
+family obtained possession of the Dragon-tiger Mountain in Kiangsi
+about A.D. 1000. "This personage," says a pre-Republican writer,
+"assumes a state which mimics the imperial. He confers buttons like
+an emperor. Priests come to him from various cities and temples to
+receive promotion, whom he invests with titles and presents with
+seals of office."
+
+
+Kings of Heaven
+
+The Four Kings of Heaven, Ssu Ta T'ien-wang, reside on Mount Sumêru
+(Hsü-mi Shan), the centre of the universe. It is 3,360,000 _li_--that
+is, about a million miles--high. [19] Its eastern slope is of gold, its
+western of silver, its south-eastern of crystal, and its north-eastern
+of agate. The Four Kings appear to be the Taoist reflection of the
+four _Chin-kang_ of Buddhism already noticed. Their names are Li,
+Ma, Chao, and Wên. They are represented as holding a pagoda, sword,
+two swords, and spiked club respectively. Their worship appears to
+be due to their auspicious appearance and aid on various critical
+occasions in the dynastic history of the T'ang and Sung Periods.
+
+
+T'ai I
+
+Temples are found in various parts dedicated to T'ai I, the Great
+One, or Great Unity. When Emperor Wu Ti (140-86 B.C.) of the Han
+dynasty was in search of the secret of immortality, and various
+suggestions had proved unsatisfactory, a Taoist priest, Miao Chi,
+told the Emperor that his want of success was due to his omission to
+sacrifice to T'ai I, the first of the celestial spirits, quoting the
+classical precedent of antiquity found in the _Book of History_. The
+Emperor, believing his word, ordered the Grand Master of Sacrifices to
+re-establish this worship at the capital. He followed carefully the
+prescriptions of Miao Chi. This enraged the _literati_, who resolved
+to ruin him. One day, when the Emperor was about to drink one of
+his potions, one of the chief courtiers seized the cup and drank the
+contents himself. The Emperor was about to have him slain, when he
+said: "Your Majesty's order is unnecessary; if the potion confers
+immortality, I cannot be killed; if, on the other hand, it does not,
+your Majesty should recompense me for disproving the pretensions of
+the Taoist priest." The Emperor, however, was not convinced.
+
+One account represents T'ai I as having lived in the time of
+Shên Nung, the Divine Husbandman, who visited him to consult with
+him on the subjects of diseases and fortune. He was Hsien Yüan's
+medical preceptor. His medical knowledge was handed down to future
+generations. He was one of those who, with the Immortals, was invited
+to the great Peach Assembly of the Western Royal Mother.
+
+As the spirit of the star T'ai I he resides in the Eastern Palace,
+listening for the cries of sufferers in order to save them. For this
+purpose he assumes numberless forms in various regions. With a boat
+of lotus-flowers of nine colours he ferries men over to the shore of
+salvation. Holding in his hand a willow-branch, he scatters from it
+the dew of the doctrine.
+
+T'ai I is variously represented as the Ruler of the Five Celestial
+Sovereigns, Cosmic Matter before it congealed into concrete shapes, the
+Triune Spirit of Heaven, earth, and T'ai I as three separate entities,
+an unknown Spirit, the Spirit of the Pole Star, etc., but practically
+the Taoists confine their T'ai I to T'ai-i Chên-jên, in which Perfect
+Man they personify the abstract philosophical notions. [20]
+
+
+Goddess of the North Star
+
+Tou Mu, the Bushel Mother, or Goddess of the North Star, worshipped
+by both Buddhists and Taoists, is the Indian Maritchi, and was made a
+stellar divinity by the Taoists. She is said to have been the mother
+of the nine Jên Huang or Human Sovereigns of fabulous antiquity,
+who succeeded the lines of Celestial and Terrestrial Sovereigns. She
+occupies in the Taoist religion the same relative position as Kuan
+Yin, who may be said to be the heart of Buddhism. Having attained to
+a profound knowledge of celestial mysteries, she shone with heavenly
+light, could cross the seas, and pass from the sun to the moon. She
+also had a kind heart for the sufferings of humanity. The King of Chou
+Yü, in the north, married her on hearing of her many virtues. They
+had nine sons. Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun came to earth to invite her, her
+husband, and nine sons to enjoy the delights of Heaven. He placed
+her in the palace Tou Shu, the Pivot of the Pole, because all the
+other stars revolve round it, and gave her the title of Queen of the
+Doctrine of Primitive Heaven. Her nine sons have their palaces in
+the neighbouring stars.
+
+Tou Mu wears the Buddhist crown, is seated on a lotus throne, has
+three eyes, eighteen arms, and holds various precious objects in her
+numerous hands, such as a bow, spear, sword, flag, dragon's head,
+pagoda, five chariots, sun's disk, moon's disk, etc. She has control
+of the books of life and death, and all who wish to prolong their
+days worship at her shrine. Her devotees abstain from animal food on
+the third and twenty-seventh day of every month.
+
+Of her sons, two are the Northern and Southern Bushels; the latter,
+dressed in red, rules birth; the former, in white, rules death. "A
+young Esau once found them on the South Mountain, under a tree,
+playing chess, and by an offer of venison his lease of life was
+extended from nineteen to ninety-nine years."
+
+
+Snorter and Blower
+
+At the time of the overthrow of the Shang and establishment of the Chou
+dynasty in 1122 B.C. there lived two marshals, Chêng Lung and Ch'ên
+Ch'i. These were Hêng and Ha, the Snorter and Blower respectively.
+
+The former was the chief superintendent of supplies for the armies of
+the tyrant emperor Chou, the Nero of China. The latter was in charge
+of the victualling department of the same army.
+
+From his master, Tu O, the celebrated Taoist magician of the K'un-lun
+Mountains, Hêng acquired a marvellous power. When he snorted, his
+nostrils, with a sound like that of a bell, emitted two white columns
+of light, which destroyed his enemies, body and soul. Thus through him
+the Chou gained numerous victories. But one day he was captured, bound,
+and taken to the general of Chou. His life was spared, and he was
+made general superintendent of army stores as well as generalissimo
+of five army corps. Later on he found himself face to face with the
+Blower. The latter had learnt from the magician how to store in his
+chest a supply of yellow gas which, when he blew it out, annihilated
+anyone whom it struck. By this means he caused large gaps to be made
+in the ranks of the enemy.
+
+Being opposed to each other, the one snorting out great streaks of
+white light, the other blowing streams of yellow gas, the combat
+continued until the Blower was wounded in the shoulder by No-cha,
+of the army of Chou, and pierced in the stomach with a spear by Huang
+Fei-hu, Yellow Flying Tiger.
+
+The Snorter in turn was slain in this fight by Marshal Chin Ta-shêng,
+'Golden Big Pint,' who was an ox-spirit and endowed with the mysterious
+power of producing in his entrails the celebrated _niu huang_,
+ox-yellow, or bezoar. Facing the Snorter, he spat in his face, with
+a noise like thunder, a piece of bezoar as large as a rice-bowl. It
+struck him on the nose and split his nostrils. He fell to the earth,
+and was immediately cut in two by a blow from his victor's sword.
+
+After the Chou dynasty had been definitely established Chiang Tzu-ya
+canonized the two marshals Hêng and Ha, and conferred on them the
+offices of guardians of the Buddhist temple gates, where their gigantic
+images may be seen.
+
+
+Blue Dragon and White Tiger
+
+The functions discharged by Hêng and Ha at the gates of Buddhist
+temples are in Taoist temples discharged by Blue Dragon and White
+Tiger.
+
+The former, the Spirit of the Blue Dragon Star, was Têng Chiu-kung,
+one of the chief generals of the last emperor of the Yin dynasty. He
+had a son named Têng Hsiu, and a daughter named Ch'an-yü.
+
+The army of Têng Chiu-kung was camped at San-shan Kuan, when he
+received orders to proceed to the battle then taking place at Hsi
+Ch'i. There, in standing up to No-cha and Huang Fei-hu, he had his
+left arm broken by the former's magic bracelet, but, fortunately for
+him, his subordinate, T'u Hsing-sun, a renowned magician, gave him
+a remedy which quickly healed the fracture.
+
+His daughter then came on the scene to avenge her father. She had a
+magic weapon, the Five-fire Stone, which she hurled full in the face
+of Yang Chien. But the Immortal was not wounded; on the other hand,
+his celestial dog jumped at Ch'an-yü and bit her neck, so that she
+was obliged to flee. T'u Hsing-sun, however, healed the wound.
+
+After a banquet, Têng Chiu-kung promised his daughter in marriage to
+T'u Hsing-sun if he would gain him the victory at Hsi Ch'i. Chiang
+Tzu-ya then persuaded T'u's magic master, Chü Liu-sun, to call his
+disciple over to his camp, where he asked him why he was fighting
+against the new dynasty. "Because," he replied, "Chiu-kung has promised
+me his daughter in marriage as a reward of success." Chiang Tzu-ya
+thereupon promised to obtain the bride, and sent a force to seize
+her. As a result of the fighting that ensued, Chiu-kung was beaten,
+and retreated in confusion, leaving Ch'an-yü in the hands of the
+victors. During the next few days the marriage was celebrated with
+great ceremony in the victor's camp. According to custom, the bride
+returned for some days to her father's house, and while there she
+earnestly exhorted Chiu-kung to submit. Following her advice, he went
+over to Chiang Tzu-ya's party.
+
+In the ensuing battles he fought valiantly on the side of his former
+enemy, and killed many famous warriors, but he was eventually attacked
+by the Blower, from whose mouth a column of yellow gas struck him,
+throwing him from his steed. He was made prisoner, and executed by
+order of General Ch'iu Yin. Chiang Tzu-ya conferred on him the kingdom
+of the Blue Dragon Star.
+
+The Spirit of the White Tiger Star is Yin Ch'êng-hsiu. His father,
+Yin P'o-pai, a high courtier of the tyrant Chou Wang, was sent to
+negotiate peace with Chiang Tzu-ya, but was seized and put to death by
+Marquis Chiang Wên-huan. His son, attempting to avenge his father's
+murder, was pierced by a spear, and his head was cut off and carried
+in triumph to Chiang Tzu-ya.
+
+As compensation he was, though somewhat tardily, canonized as the
+Spirit of the White Tiger Star.
+
+
+Apotheosized Philosophers
+
+The philosophers Lieh Tzu, Huai-nan Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mo Tzu, etc.,
+have also been apotheosized. Nothing very remarkable is related
+of them. Most of them had several reincarnations and possessed
+supernatural powers. The second, who was a king, when taken by
+the Eight Immortals to the genii's Heaven forgot now and then to
+address them as superiors, and but for their intercession with
+Yü Ti, the Pearly Emperor, would have been reincarnated. In order
+to humiliate himself, he thereafter called himself Huai-nan Tzu,
+'the Sage of the South of the Huai.' The third, Chuang Tzu, Chuang
+Shêng, or Chuang Chou, was a disciple of Lao Tzu. Chuang Tzu was in
+the habit of sleeping during the day, and at night would transform
+himself into a butterfly, which fluttered gaily over the flowers in
+the garden. On waking, he would still feel the sensation of flying in
+his shoulders. On asking Lao Tzu the reason for this, he was told:
+"Formerly you were a white butterfly which, having partaken of the
+quintessence of flowers and of the _yin_ and the _yang_, should have
+been immortalized; but one day you stole some peaches and flowers in
+Wang Mu Niang-niang's garden. The guardian of the garden slew you,
+and that is how you came to be reincarnated." At this time he was
+fifty years of age.
+
+
+Fanning the Grave
+
+One of the tales associated with him describes how he saw a young
+woman in mourning vigorously fanning a newly made grave. On his asking
+her the reason of this strange conduct, she replied: "I am doing this
+because my husband begged me to wait until the earth on his tomb was
+dry before I remarried!" Chuang Tzu offered to help her, and as soon
+as he waved the fan once the earth was dry. The young widow thanked
+him and departed.
+
+On his return home, Chuang Shêng related this incident to his
+wife. She expressed astonishment at such conduct on the part of a
+wife. "There's nothing to be surprised at," rejoined the husband;
+"that's how things go in this world." Seeing that he was poking fun
+at her, she protested angrily. Some little time after this Chuang
+Shêng died. His wife, much grieved, buried him.
+
+
+Husband and Wife
+
+A few days later a young man named Ch'u Wang-sun arrived with the
+intention, as he said, of placing himself under the instruction of
+Chuang Shêng. When he heard that he was dead he went and performed
+prostrations before his tomb, and afterward took up his abode in an
+empty room, saying that he wished to study. After half a month had
+elapsed, the widow asked an old servant who had accompanied Wang-sun
+if the young man was married. On his replying in the negative, she
+requested the old servant to propose a match between them. Wang-sun
+made some objections, saying that people would criticize their
+conduct. "Since my husband is dead, what can they say?" replied
+the widow. She then put off her mourning-garments and prepared for
+the wedding.
+
+Wang-sun took her to the grave of her husband, and said to her:
+"The gentleman has returned to life!" She looked at Wang-sun and
+recognized the features of her husband. She was so overwhelmed with
+shame that she hanged herself. Chuang Shêng buried her in an empty
+tomb, and then began to sing.
+
+He burnt his house, went away to P'u-shui, in Hupei, and occupied
+himself in fishing. From there he went on to Chung-t'iao Shan, where
+he met Fêng Hou and her teacher Hsüan Nü, the Mother of Heaven. In
+their company he visited the palaces of the stars. One day, when he
+was attending a banquet at the palace of Wang-mu, Shang Ti gave him as
+his kingdom the planet Jupiter, and assigned to him as his palace the
+ancient abode of Mao Mêng, the stellar god reincarnated during the Chou
+dynasty. He had not yet returned, and had left his palace empty. Shang
+Ti had cautioned him never to absent himself without his permission.
+
+
+Canonized Generalissimos
+
+A large number of military men also have been canonized as celestial
+generalissimos. A few will serve as examples of the rest.
+
+
+
+The Three Musical Brothers
+
+There were three brothers: T'ien Yüan-shuai, the eldest; T'ien Hung-i,
+the second; and T'ien Chih-piao, the youngest. They were all musicians
+of unsurpassed talent.
+
+In the K'ai-yüan Period (A.D. 713-42) the Emperor Hsüan Tsung, of
+the T'ang dynasty, appointed them his music masters. At the sound of
+their wonderful flute the clouds in the sky stopped in their courses;
+the harmony of their songs caused the odoriferous _la mei_ flower to
+open in winter. They excelled also in songs and dances.
+
+The Emperor fell sick. He saw in a dream the three brothers
+accompanying their singing on a mandolin and violin. The harmony of
+their songs charmed his ear, and on waking he found himself well
+again. Out of gratitude for this benefit he conferred on each the
+title of marquis.
+
+The Grand Master of the Taoists was trying to stay the ravages
+of a pestilence, but he could not conquer the devils which caused
+it. Under these circumstances he appealed to the three brothers and
+asked their advice as to what course to adopt. T'ien Yüan-shuai had a
+large boat built, called 'Spirit-boat.' He assembled in it a million
+spirits, and ordered them to beat drums. On hearing this tumult all
+the demons of the town came out to listen. T'ien Yüan-shuai, seizing
+the opportunity, captured them all and, with the help of the Grand
+Master, expelled them from the town.
+
+Besides the canonization of the three T'ien brothers, all the members
+of their families received posthumous titles.
+
+
+
+The Dragon-boat Festival
+
+This is said to be the origin of the dragon-boats which are to be
+seen on all the waterways of China on the fifth day of the fifth
+moon. [21] The Festival of the Dragon-boats, held on that day, was
+instituted in memory of the statesman-poet Ch'ü Yüan (332-296 B.C.),
+who drowned himself in the Mi-lo River, an affluent of the Tung-t'ing
+Lake, after having been falsely accused by one of the petty princes
+of the State. The people, out of pity for the unfortunate courtier,
+sent out these boats in search of his body.
+
+
+Chiang Tzu-ya
+
+In the wars which resulted in the overthrow of the tyrant Chou Wang
+and his dynasty and the establishment of the great Chou dynasty,
+the most influential generalissimo was Chiang Tzu-ya. His family name
+was Chiang, and his own name Shang, but owing to his descent from one
+of the ministers of the ancient King Yao, whose heirs owned the fief
+of Lü, the family came to be called by that name, and he himself was
+known as Lü Shang. His honorific title was T'ai Kung Wang, 'Hope of
+T'ai Kung,' given him by Wên Wang, who recognized in the person of
+Chiang Tzu-ya the wise minister whom his father T'ai Kung had caused
+him to expect before his death.
+
+
+The Battle of Mu Yeh
+
+Chiang Tzu-ya was originally in the service of the tyrant Chou Wang,
+but transferred his services to the Chou cause, and by his wonderful
+skill enabled that house finally to gain the victory. The decisive
+battle took place at Mu Yeh, situated to the south of Wei-hui Fu,
+in 1122 B.C. The soldiers of Yin, 700,000 in number, were defeated,
+and Chou, the tyrant, shut himself up in his magnificent palace, set
+it alight, and was burned alive with all his possessions. For this
+achievement Chiang Tzu-ya was granted by Wu Wang the title of Father
+and Counsellor, and was appointed Prince of Ch'i, with perpetual
+succession to his descendants.
+
+
+A Legend of Chiang Tzu-ya
+
+The _Feng shên yen i_ contains many chapters describing in detail the
+various battles which resulted in the overthrow of the last tyrant
+of the Shang dynasty and the establishment of the illustrious Chou
+dynasty on the throne of China. This legend and the following one
+are epitomized from that work.
+
+
+No-cha defeats Chang Kuei-fang
+
+The redoubtable No-cha having, by means of his Heaven-and-earth
+Bracelet, vanquished Fêng Lin, a star-god and subordinate officer of
+Chang Kuei-fang, in spite of the black smoke-clouds which he blew
+out of his nostrils, the defeated warrior fled and sought the aid
+of his chief, who fought No-cha in some thirty to forty encounters
+without succeeding in dislodging him from his Wind-fire Wheel,
+which enabled him to move about rapidly and to perform prodigious
+feats, such as causing hosts of silver flying dragons like clouds of
+snow to descend upon his enemy. During one of these fights No-cha
+heard his name called three times, but paid no heed. Finally, with
+his Heaven-and-earth Bracelet he broke Chang Kuei-fang's left arm,
+following this up by shooting out some dazzling rays of light which
+knocked him off his horse.
+
+When he returned to the city to report his victory to Tzu-ya,
+the latter asked him if during the battle Kuei-fang had called
+his name. "Yes," replied No-cha, "he called, but I took no heed
+of him." "When Kuei-fang calls," said Tzu-ya, "the _hun_ and the
+_p'o_ [_anima_ and _umbra_] become separated, and so the body
+falls apart." "But," replied No-cha, "I had changed myself into a
+lotus-flower, which has neither _hun_ nor _p'o_, so he could not
+succeed in getting me off my magic wheel."
+
+
+Tzu-ya goes to K'un-lun
+
+Tzu-ya, however, still uncertain in mind about the finality of No-cha's
+victories, went to consult Wu Wang (whose death had not yet taken
+place at this time). After the interview Tzu-ya informed Wu Wang of
+his wish to visit K'un-lun Mountain. Wu Wang warned him of the danger
+of leaving the kingdom with the enemy so near the capital; but Tzu-ya
+obtained his consent by saying he would be absent only three days
+at most. So he gave instructions regarding the defence to No-cha,
+and went off in his spirit chariot to K'un-lun. On his arrival at the
+Unicorn Precipice he was much enraptured with the beautiful scenery,
+the colours, flowers, trees, bridges, birds, deer, apes, blue lions,
+white elephants, etc., all of which seemed to make earth surpass
+Heaven in loveliness.
+
+
+He receives the List of Immortals
+
+From the Unicorn Precipice he went on to the Jade Palace of
+Abstraction. Here he was presented to Yüan-shih. From him he received
+the List of Promotions to Immortals, which Nan-chi Hsien-wêng,
+'Ancient Immortal of the South Pole,' had brought, and was told to
+go and erect a Fêng Shên T'ai (Spirits' Promotion Terrace) on which
+to exhibit it. Yüan-shih also warned him that if anyone called him
+while he was on the way he was to be most careful not to answer. On
+reaching the Unicorn Precipice on his way back, he heard some one
+call: "Chiang Tzu-ya!" This happened three times without his paying
+any heed. Then the voice was heard to say: "Now that you are Prime
+Minister, how devoid of feeling and forgetful of bygone benefits you
+must be not to remember one who studied with you in the Jade Palace
+of Abstraction!" Tzu-ya could not but turn his head and look. He
+then saw that it was Shên Kung-pao. He said: "Brother, I did not know
+it was you who were calling me, and I did not heed you as Shih-tsun
+told me on no account to reply." Shên Kung-pao said: "What is that
+you hold in your hand?" He told him it was the List of Promotions
+to Immortals. Shên Kung-pao then tried to entice Tzu-ya from his
+allegiance to Chou. Among Shên's tactics was that of convincing
+Tzu-ya of the superiority of the magical arts at the disposal of
+the supporters of Chou Wang. "You," he said, "can drain the sea,
+change the hills, and suchlike things, but what are those compared
+with my powers, who can take off my head, make it mount into space,
+travel 10,000,000 _li_, and return to my neck just as complete as
+before and able to speak? Burn your List of Promotions to Immortals
+and come with me." Tzu-ya, thinking that a head which could travel
+10,000,000 _li_ and be the same as before was exceedingly rare, said:
+"Brother, you take your head off, and if in reality it can do as you
+say, rise into space and return and be as before, I shall be willing to
+burn the List of Promotions to Immortals and return with you to Chao
+Ko." Shên Kung-pao said: "You will not go back on your word?" Tzu-ya
+said: "When your elder brother has spoken his word is as unchangeable
+as Mount T'ai, How can there be any going back on my word?"
+
+
+The Soaring Head
+
+Shên Kung-pao then doffed his Taoist cap, seized his sword, with his
+left hand firmly grasped the blue thread binding his hair, and with
+his right cut off his head. His body did not fall down. He then took
+his head and threw it up into space. Tzu-ya gazed with upturned face
+as it continued to rise, and was sorely puzzled. But the Ancient
+Immortal of the South Pole had kept a watch on the proceedings. He
+said: "Tzu-ya is a loyal and honest man; it looks as if he has been
+deceived by this charlatan." He ordered White Crane Youth to assume
+quickly the form of a crane and fetch Shên Kung-pao's head.
+
+
+The Ancient Immortal saves the Situation
+
+Tzu-ya was still gazing upward when he felt a slap on his back
+and, turning round, saw that it was the Ancient Immortal of the
+South Pole. Tzu-ya quickly asked: "My elder brother, why have you
+returned?" Hsien-wêng said: "You are a fool. Shên Kung-pao is a
+man of unholy practices. These few small tricks of his you take as
+realities. But if the head does not return to the neck within an hour
+and three-quarters the blood will coagulate and he will die. Shih-tsun
+ordered you not to reply to anyone; why did you not hearken to
+his words? From the Jade Palace of Abstraction I saw you speaking
+together, and knew you had promised to burn the List of Promotions to
+Immortals. So I ordered White Crane Youth to bring me the head. After
+an hour and three-quarters Shên Kung-pao will be recompensed."
+
+Tzu-ya said: "My elder brother, since you know all you can pardon
+him. In the Taoist heart there is no place where mercy cannot be
+exercised. Remember the many years during which he has faithfully
+followed the Path."
+
+Eventually the Ancient Immortal was persuaded, but in the meantime
+Shên Kung-pao, finding that his head did not return, became very much
+troubled in mind. In an hour and three-quarters the blood would stop
+flowing and he would die. However, Tzu-ya having succeeded in his
+intercession with the Ancient Immortal, the latter signed to White
+Crane Youth, who was flying in space with the head in his beak, to
+let it drop. He did so, but when it reached the neck it was facing
+backward. Shên Kung-pao quickly put up his hand, took hold of an ear,
+and turned his head the right way round. He was then able to open
+his eyes, when he saw the Ancient Immortal of the South Pole. The
+latter arraigned him in a loud voice saying: "You as-good-as-dead
+charlatan, who by means of corrupt tricks try to deceive Tzu-ya and
+make him burn the List of Immortals and help Chou Wang against Chou,
+what do you mean by all this? You should be taken to the Jade Palace
+of Abstraction to be punished!"
+
+Shên Kung-pao, ashamed, could not reply; mounting his tiger, he made
+off; but as he left he hurled back a threat that the Chou would yet
+have their white bones piled mountains high at Hsi Ch'i. Subsequently
+Tzu-ya, carefully preserving the precious List, after many adventures
+succeeded in building the Fêng Shên T'ai, and posted the List up on
+it. Having accomplished his mission, he returned in time to resist
+the capture of Hsi Ch'i by Chang Kuei-fang, whose troops were defeated
+with great slaughter.
+
+
+
+Ch'iung Hsiao's Magic Scissors
+
+In another of the many conflicts between the two rival states Lao Tzu
+entered the battle, whereupon Ch'iung Hsiao, a goddess who fought for
+the house of Shang (Chou), hurled into the air her gold scaly-dragon
+scissors. As these slowly descended, opening and closing in a most
+ominous manner, Lao Tzu waved the sleeve of his jacket and they fell
+into the sea and became absolutely motionless. Many similar tricks
+were used by the various contestants. The Gold Bushel of Chaotic
+Origin succumbed to the Wind-fire Sphere, and so on. Ch'iung Hsiao
+resumed the attack with some magic two-edged swords, but was killed
+by a blow from White Crane Youth's Three-precious Jade Sceptre, hurled
+at her by Lao Tzu's orders. Pi Hsiao, her sister, attempted to avenge
+her death, but Yüan-shih, producing from his sleeve a magical box,
+threw it into the air and caught Pi Hsiao in it. When it was opened
+it was found that she had melted into blood and water.
+
+
+Chiang Tzu-ya defeats Wên Chung
+
+After this Lao Tzu rallied many of the skilful spirits to help Chiang
+Tzu-ya in his battle with Wên Chung, providing them with the Ancient
+Immortal of the South Pole's Sand-blaster and an earth-conquering light
+which enabled them to travel a thousand _li_ in a day. From the hot
+sand used the contest became known as the Red Sand Battle. Jan Têng,
+on P'êng-lai Mountain, in consultation with Tzu-ya, also arranged
+the plan of battle.
+
+
+The Red Sand Battle
+
+The fight began with a challenge from the Ancient Immortal of the
+South Pole to Chang Shao. The latter, riding his deer, dashed into
+the fray, and aimed a terrific blow with his sword at Hsien-wêng's
+head, but White Crane Youth warded it off with his Three-precious Jade
+Sceptre. Chang then produced a two-edged sword and renewed the attack,
+but, being disarmed, dismounted from his deer and threw several
+handfuls of hot sand at Hsien-wêng. The latter, however, easily
+fanned them away with his Five-fire Seven-feathers Fan, rendering
+them harmless. Chang then fetched a whole bushel of the hot sand and
+scattered it over the enemy, but Hsien-wêng counteracted the menace
+by merely waving his fan. White Crane Youth struck Chang Shao with
+his jade sceptre, knocking him off his horse, and then dispatched
+him with his two-edged sword.
+
+After this battle Wu Wang was found to be already dead. Jan Têng
+on learning this ordered Lei Chên-tzu to take the corpse to Mount
+P'êng and wash it. He then dissolved a pill in water and poured the
+solution into Wu Wang's mouth, whereupon he revived and was escorted
+back to his palace.
+
+
+Further Fighting
+
+Preparations were then made for resuming the attack on Wên
+Chung. While the latter was consulting with Ts'ai-yün Hsien-tzu and
+Han Chih-hsien, he heard the sound of the Chou guns and the thunder of
+their troops. Wên Chung, mounting his black unicorn, galloped like a
+whiff of smoke to meet Tzu-ya, but was stopped by blows from two silver
+hammers wielded by Huang T'ien-hua. Han Chih-hsien came to Wên's aid,
+but was opposed by Pi Hsiang-yang. Ts'ai-yün Hsien-tzu dashed into
+the fray, but No-cha stepped on to his Wind-fire Wheel and opposed
+him. From all sides other Immortals joined in the terrific battle,
+which was a turmoil of longbows and crossbows, iron armour and brass
+mail, striking whips and falling hammers, weapons cleaving mail and
+mail resisting weapons. In this fierce contest, while Tzu-ya was
+fighting Wên Chung, Han Chih-hsien released a black wind from his
+magic wind-bag, but he did not know that the Taoist Barge of Mercy
+(which transports departed souls to the land of bliss), sent by
+Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, had on board the Stop-wind Pearl,
+by which the black storm was immediately quelled. Thereupon Tzu-ya
+quickly seized his Vanquish-spirits Whip and struck Han Chih-hsien
+in the middle of the skull, so that the brain-fluid gushed forth and
+he died. No-cha then slew Ts'ai-yün Hsien-tzu with a spear-thrust.
+
+Thus the stern fight went on, until finally Tzu-ya, under cover
+of night, attacked Wên Chung's troops simultaneously on all four
+sides. The noise of slaughter filled the air. Generals and rank and
+file, lanterns, torches, swords, spears, guns, and daggers were one
+confused _mêlée_; Heaven could scarcely be distinguished from earth,
+and corpses were piled mountains high.
+
+Tzu-ya, having broken through seven lines of the enemy's ranks,
+forced his way into Wên Chung's camp. The latter mounted his unicorn,
+and brandishing his magic whip dashed to meet him. Tzu-ya drew
+his sword and stopped his onrush, being aided by Lung Hsü-hu, who
+repeatedly cast a rain of hot stones on to the troops. In the midst
+of the fight Tzu-ya brought out his great magic whip, and in spite
+of Wên Chung's efforts to avoid it succeeded in wounding him in the
+left arm. The Chou troops were fighting like dragons lashing their
+tails and pythons curling their bodies. To add to their disasters,
+the Chou now saw flames rising behind the camp, and knew that their
+provisions were being burned by Yang Chien.
+
+The Chou armies, with gongs beating and drums rolling, advanced for a
+final effort, the slaughter being so great that even the devils wept
+and the spirits wailed. Wên Chung was eventually driven back seventy
+_li_ to Ch'i Hill. His troops could do nothing but sigh and stumble
+along. He made for Peach-blossom Range, but as he approached it he
+saw a yellow banner hoisted, and under it was Kuang Ch'êng-tzu. Being
+prevented from escaping in that direction he joined battle, but by
+use of red-hot sand, his two-edged sword, and his Turn-heaven Seal
+Kuang Ch'êng-tzu put him to flight. He then made off toward the
+west, followed by Têng Chung. His design was to make for Swallow
+Hill, which he reached after several days of weary marching. Here
+he saw another yellow banner flying, and Ch'ih Ching-tzu informed
+him that Jan Têng had forbidden him to stop at Swallow Hill or to
+go through the Five Passes. This led to another pitched battle,
+Wên Chung using his magic whip and Ch'ih his spiritual two-edged
+sword. After several bouts Ch'ih brought out his _yin-yang_ mirror,
+by use of which irresistible weapon Wên was driven to Yellow Flower
+Hill and Blue Dragon Pass, and so on from battle to battle, until he
+was drawn up to Heaven from the top of Dead-dragon Mountain.
+
+
+Thousand-li Eye and Favourable-wind Ear
+
+Ch'ien-li Yen, 'Thousand-_li_ Eye,' and Shun-fêng Êrh, 'Favourable-wind
+Ear,' were two brothers named Kao Ming and Kao Chio. On account
+of their martial bearing they found favour with the tyrant emperor
+Chou Wang, who appointed them generals, and sent them to serve with
+Generalissimo Yüan Hung (who was a monkey which had taken human form)
+at Mêng-ching.
+
+Kao Ming was very tall, with a blue face, flaming eyes, a large mouth,
+and prominent teeth like those of a rhinoceros.
+
+Kao Chio had a greenish face and skin, two horns on his head, a red
+beard, and a large mouth with teeth shaped like swords.
+
+One of their first encounters was with No-cha, who hurled at them his
+mystic bracelet, which struck Kao Chio on the head, but did not leave
+even a scratch. When, however, he seized his fire-globe the brothers
+thought it wiser to retreat.
+
+Finding no means of conquering them, Yang Chien, Chiang Tzu-ya, and
+Li Ching took counsel together and decided to have recourse to Fu
+Hsi's trigrams, and by smearing them with the blood of a fowl and a
+dog to destroy their spiritual power.
+
+But the two brothers were fully informed of what was
+designed. Thousand-_li_ Eye had seen and Favourable-wind Ear had
+heard everything, so that all their preparations proved unavailing.
+
+Yang Chien then went to Chiang Tzu-ya and said to him: "These
+two brothers are powerful devils; I must take more effectual
+measures." "Where will you go for aid?" asked Chiang Tzu-ya. "I
+cannot tell you, for they would hear," replied Yang. He then
+left. Favourable-wind Ear heard this dialogue, and Thousand-_li_
+Eye saw him leave. "He did not say where he was going," they said
+to each other, "but we fear him not." Yang Chien went to Yü-ch'üan
+Shan, where lived Yü-ting Chên-jên, 'Hero Jade-tripod.' He told him
+about their two adversaries, and asked him how they were to conquer
+them. "These two genii," replied the Chên-jên, "are from Ch'i-p'an
+Shan, Chessboard Mountain. One is a spiritual peach-tree, the other
+a spiritual pomegranate-tree. Their roots cover an area of thirty
+square _li_ of ground. On that mountain there is a temple dedicated to
+Huang-ti, in which are clay images of two devils called Ch'ien-li Yen
+and Shun-fêng Êrh. The peach-tree and pomegranate-tree, having become
+spiritual beings, have taken up their abode in these images. One has
+eyes which can see objects distinctly at a distance of a thousand _li_,
+the other ears that can hear sounds at a like distance. But beyond
+that distance they can neither see nor hear. Return and tell Chiang
+Tzu-ya to have the roots of those trees torn up and burned, and the
+images destroyed; then the two genii will be easily vanquished. In
+order that they may neither see nor hear you during your conversation
+with Chiang Tzu-ya, wave flags about the camp and order the soldiers
+to beat tom-toms and drums."
+
+
+How the Brothers were Defeated
+
+Yang Chien returned to Chiang Tzu-ya. "What have you been doing?" asked
+the latter. Before replying Yang Chien went to the camp and ordered
+soldiers to wave large red flags and a thousand others to beat the
+tom-toms and drums. The air was so filled with the flags and the
+noise that nothing else could be either seen or heard. Under cover of
+this device Yang Chien then communicated to Chiang Tzu-ya the course
+advised by the Chên-jên.
+
+Accordingly Li Ching at the head of three thousand soldiers proceeded
+to Ch'i-p'an Shan, pulled up and burned the roots of the two trees,
+and broke the images to pieces. At the same time Lei Chên-tzu was
+ordered to attack the two genii.
+
+Thousand-_li_ Eye and Favourable-wind Ear could neither see nor hear:
+the flags effectually screened the horizon and the infernal noise of
+the drums and gongs deadened all other sound. They did not know how
+to stop them.
+
+The following night Yüan Hung decided to take the camp of Chiang
+Tzu-ya by assault, and sent the brothers in advance. They were,
+however, themselves surprised by Wu Wang's officers, who surrounded
+them. Chiang Tzu-ya then threw into the air his 'devil-chaser' whip,
+which fell on the two scouts and cleft their skulls in twain.
+
+
+Celestial Ministries
+
+The dualistic idea, already referred to, of the Otherworld being
+a replica of this one is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in
+the celestial Ministries or official Bureaux or Boards, with their
+chiefs and staffs functioning over the spiritual hierarchies. The Nine
+Ministries up aloft doubtless had their origin in imitation of the Six,
+Eight, or Nine Ministries or Boards which at various periods of history
+have formed the executive part of the official hierarchy in China. But
+their names are different and their functions do not coincide.
+
+Generally, the functions of the officers of the celestial Boards are
+to protect mankind from the evils represented in the title of the
+Board, as, for example, thunder, smallpox, fire, etc. In all cases
+the duties seem to be remedial. As the God of War was, as we saw, the
+god who protects people from the evils of war, so the vast hierarchy
+of these various divinities is conceived as functioning for the good
+of mankind. Being too numerous for inclusion here, an account of them
+is given under various headings in some of the following chapters.
+
+
+Protectors of the People
+
+Besides the gods who hold definite official posts in these various
+Ministries, there are a very large number who are also protecting
+patrons of the people; and, though _ex officio_, in many cases quite
+as popular and powerful, if not more so. Among the most important
+are the following: Shê-chi, Gods of the Soil and Crops; Shên Nung,
+God of Agriculture; Hou-t'u, Earth-mother; Ch'êng-huang, City-god;
+T'u-ti, Local Gods; Tsao Chün, Kitchen-god; T'ien-hou and An-kung,
+Goddess and God of Sailors; Ts'an Nü, Goddess of Silkworms; Pa-ch'a,
+God of Grasshoppers; Fu Shên, Ts'ai Shên, and Shou Hsing, Gods of
+Happiness, Wealth, and Longevity; Mên Shên, Door-gods; and Shê-mo Wang,
+etc., the Gods of Serpents.
+
+
+The Ch'êng-huang
+
+Ch'êng-huang is the Celestial Mandarin or City-god. Every fortified
+city or town in China is surrounded by a wall, _ch'êng_, composed
+usually of two battlemented walls, the space between which is filled
+with earth. This earth is dug from the ground outside, making a ditch,
+or _huang_, running parallel with the _ch'êng_. The Ch'êng-huang
+is the spiritual official of the city or town. All the numerous
+Ch'êng-huang constitute a celestial Ministry of Justice, presided
+over by a Ch'êng-huang-in-chief.
+
+The origin of the worship of the Ch'êng-huang dates back to the time
+of the great Emperor Yao (2357 B.C.), who instituted a sacrifice called
+Pa Cha in honour of eight spirits, of whom the seventh, Shui Yung, had
+the meaning of, or corresponded to, the dyke and rampart known later
+as Ch'êng-huang. Since the Sung dynasty sacrifices have been offered
+to the Ch'êng-huang all over the country, though now and then some
+towns have adopted another or special god as their Ch'êng-huang, such
+as Chou Hsin, adopted as the Ch'êng-huang of Hangchou, the capital of
+Chekiang Province. Concerning Chou Hsin, who had a "face of ice and
+iron," and was so much dreaded for his severity that old and young
+fled at his approach, it is related that once when he was trying a
+case a storm blew some leaves on to his table. In spite of diligent
+search the tree to which this kind of leaf belonged could not be found
+anywhere in the neighbourhood, but was eventually discovered in a
+Buddhist temple a long way off. The judge declared that the priests
+of this temple must be guilty of murder. By his order the tree was
+felled, and in its trunk was found the body of a woman who had been
+assassinated, and the priests were convicted of the murder.
+
+
+The Kitchen-god
+
+Tsao Chün is a Taoist invention, but is universally worshipped by
+all families in China--about sixty millions of pictures of him are
+regularly worshipped twice a month--at new and full moon. "His temple
+is a little niche in the brick cooking-range; his palace is often
+filled with smoke; and his Majesty sells for one farthing." He is also
+called 'the God of the Stove.' The origin of his worship, according to
+the legend, is that a Taoist priest, Li Shao-chün by name, of the Ch'i
+State, obtained from the Kitchen-god the double favour of exemption
+from growing old and of being able to live without eating. He then
+went to the Emperor Hsiao Wu-ti (140-86 B.C.) of the Han dynasty, and
+promised that credulous monarch that he should benefit by the powers
+of the god provided that he would consent to patronize and encourage
+his religion. It was by this means, he added, that the Emperor Huang
+Ti obtained his knowledge of alchemy, which enabled him to make gold.
+
+The Emperor asked the priest to bring him his divine patron, and one
+night the image of Tsao Chün appeared to him.
+
+Deceived by this trick, dazzled by the ingots of gold which he too
+should obtain, and determined to risk everything for the pill of
+immortality which was among the benefits promised, the Emperor made
+a solemn sacrifice to the God of the Kitchen.
+
+This was the first time that a sacrifice had been officially offered
+to this new deity.
+
+Li Shao-chün gradually lost the confidence of the Emperor and, at
+his wits' end, conceived the plan of writing some phrases on a piece
+of silk and then causing them to be swallowed by an ox. This done,
+he announced that a wonderful script would be found in the animal's
+stomach. The ox being killed, the script was found there as predicted,
+but Li's unlucky star decreed that the Emperor should recognize
+his handwriting, and he was forthwith put to death. Nevertheless,
+the worship of the Kitchen-god continued and increased, and exists
+in full vigour down to the present day.
+
+This deity has power over the lives of the members of each family
+under his supervision, distributes riches and poverty at will, and
+makes an annual report to the Supreme Being on the conduct of the
+family during the year, for which purpose he is usually absent for from
+four to seven days. Some hold that he also makes these reports once or
+twice or several times each month. Various ceremonies are performed on
+seeing him off to Heaven and welcoming him back. One of the former,
+as we saw, is to regale him with honey, so that only sweet words,
+if any, may be spoken by him while up aloft!
+
+
+Ts'an Nü
+
+In the kingdom of Shu (modern Ssuch'uan), in the time of Kao Hsing
+Ti, a band of robbers kidnapped the father of Ts'an Nü. A whole year
+elapsed, and the father's horse still remained in the stable as he
+had left it. The thought of not seeing her father again caused Ts'an
+Nü such grief that she would take no nourishment. Her mother did
+what she could to console her, and further promised her in marriage
+to anyone who would bring back her father. But no one was found who
+could do this. Hearing the offer, the horse stamped with impatience,
+and struggled so much that at length he broke the halter by which
+he was tied up. He then galloped away and disappeared. Several days
+later, his owner returned riding the horse. From that time the horse
+neighed incessantly, and refused all food. This caused the mother
+to make known to her husband the promise she had made concerning her
+daughter. "An oath made to men," he replied, "does not hold good for
+a horse. Is a human being meant to live in marital relations with
+a horse?" Nevertheless, however good and abundant food they offered
+him, the horse would not eat. When he saw the young lady he plunged
+and kicked furiously. Losing his temper, the father discharged an
+arrow and killed him on the spot; then he skinned him and spread the
+skin on the ground outside the house to dry. As the young lady was
+passing the spot the skin suddenly moved, rose up, enveloped her,
+and disappeared into space. Ten days later it was found at the foot
+of a mulberry-tree; Ts'an Nü changed into a silkworm, was eating the
+mulberry-leaves, and spinning for herself a silken garment.
+
+The parents of course were in despair. But one day, while they were
+overwhelmed with sad thoughts, they saw on a cloud Ts'an Nü riding
+the horse and attended by several dozens of servants. She descended
+toward her parents, and said to them: "The Supreme Being, as a reward
+for my martyrdom in the cause of filial piety and my love of virtue,
+has conferred on me the dignity of Concubine of the Nine Palaces. Be
+reassured as to my fate, for in Heaven I shall live for ever." Having
+said this she disappeared into space.
+
+In the temples her image is to be seen covered with a horse's
+skin. She is called Ma-t'ou Niang, 'the Lady with the Horse's
+Head,' and is prayed to for the prosperity of mulberry-trees and
+silkworms. The worship continues even in modern times. The goddess
+is also represented as a stellar divinity, the star T'ien Ssu; as
+the first man who reared silkworms, in this character bearing the
+same name as the God of Agriculture, Pasture, and Fire; and as the
+wife of the Emperor Huang Ti.
+
+
+The God of Happiness
+
+The God of Happiness, Fu Shên, owes his origin to the predilection
+of the Emperor Wu Ti (A.D. 502-50) of the Liang dynasty for dwarfs as
+servants and comedians in his palace. The number levied from the Tao
+Chou district in Hunan became greater and greater, until it seriously
+prejudiced the ties of family relations. When Yang Ch'êng, _alias_
+Yang Hsi-chi, was Criminal Judge of Tao Chou he represented to the
+Emperor that, according to law, the dwarfs were his subjects but not
+his slaves. Being touched by this remark, the Emperor ordered the
+levy to be stopped.
+
+Overjoyed at their liberation from this hardship, the people
+of that district set up images of Yang and offered sacrifices to
+him. Everywhere he was venerated as the Spirit of Happiness. It was in
+this simple way that there came into being a god whose portraits and
+images abound everywhere throughout the country, and who is worshipped
+almost as universally as the God of Riches himself.
+
+Another person who attained to the dignity of God of Happiness (known
+as Tsêng-fu Hsiang-kung, 'the Young Gentleman who Increases Happiness')
+was Li Kuei-tsu, the minister of Emperor Wên Ti of the Wei dynasty,
+the son of the famous Ts'ao Ts'ao, but in modern times the honour
+seems to have passed to Kuo Tzu-i. He was the saviour of the T'ang
+dynasty from the depredations of the Turfans in the reign of the
+Emperor Hsüan Tsung. He lived A.D. 697-781, was a native of Hua Chou,
+in Shensi, and one of the most illustrious of Chinese generals. He
+is very often represented in pictures clothed in blue official robes,
+leading his small son Kuo Ai to Court.
+
+
+The God of Wealth
+
+As with many other Chinese gods, the proto-being of the God of Wealth,
+Ts'ai Shên, has been ascribed to several persons. The original and
+best known until later times was Chao Kung-ming. The accounts of him
+differ also, but the following is the most popular.
+
+When Chiang Tzu-ya was fighting for Wu Wang of the Chou dynasty
+against the last of the Shang emperors, Chao Kung-ming, then a
+hermit on Mount Ô-mei, took the part of the latter. He performed
+many wonderful feats. He could ride a black tiger and hurl pearls
+which burst like bombshells. But he was eventually overcome by the
+form of witchcraft known in Wales as _Ciurp Creadh_. Chiang Tzu-ya
+made a straw image of him, wrote his name on it, burned incense and
+worshipped before it for twenty days, and on the twenty-first shot
+arrows made of peach-wood into its eyes and heart. At that same
+moment Kung-ming, then in the enemy's camp, felt ill and fainted,
+and uttering a cry gave up the ghost.
+
+Later on Chiang Tzu-ya persuaded Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun to release from
+the Otherworld the spirits of the heroes who had died in battle,
+and when Chao Kung-ming was led into his presence he praised his
+bravery, deplored the circumstances of his death, and canonized him
+as President of the Ministry of Riches and Prosperity.
+
+The God of Riches is universally worshipped in China; images and
+portraits of him are to be seen everywhere. Talismans, trees of which
+the branches are strings of cash, and the fruits ingots of gold,
+to be obtained merely by shaking them down, a magic inexhaustible
+casket full of gold and silver--these and other spiritual sources
+of wealth are associated with this much-adored deity. He himself
+is represented in the guise of a visitor accompanied by a crowd of
+attendants laden with all the treasures that the hearts of men, women,
+and children could desire.
+
+
+The God of Longevity
+
+The God of Longevity, Shou Hsing, was first a stellar deity, later on
+represented in human form. It was a constellation formed of the two
+star-groups Chio and K'ang, the first two on the list of twenty-eight
+constellations. Hence, say the Chinese writers, because of this
+precedence, it was called the Star of Longevity. When it appears the
+nation enjoys peace, when it disappears there will be war. Ch'in Shih
+Huang-ti, the First Emperor, was the first to offer sacrifices to this
+star, the Old Man of the South Pole, at Shê Po, in 246 B.C. Since then
+the worship has been continued pretty regularly until modern times.
+
+But desire for something more concrete, or at least more personal,
+than a star led to the god's being represented as an old man. Connected
+with this is a long legend which turns on the point that after the
+father of Chao Yen had been told by the celebrated physiognomist
+Kuan Lo that his son would not live beyond the age of nineteen, the
+transposition from _shih-chiu_, nineteen, to _chiu-shih_, ninety,
+was made by one of two gamblers, who turned out to be the Spirit of
+the North Pole, who fixes the time of decease, as the Spirit of the
+South Pole does that of birth.
+
+The deity is a domestic god, of happy mien, with a very high
+forehead, usually spoken of as Shou Hsing Lao T'ou Tzu, 'Longevity
+Star Old-pate,' and is represented as riding a stag, with a flying bat
+above his head. He holds in his hand a large peach, and attached to his
+long staff are a gourd and a scroll. The stag and the bat both indicate
+_fu_, happiness. The peach, gourd, and scroll are symbols of longevity.
+
+
+The Door-gods
+
+An old legend relates that in the earliest times there grew on
+Mount Tu Shuo, in the Eastern Sea, a peach-tree of fabulous size
+whose branches covered an area of several thousand square _li_. The
+lowest branches, which inclined toward the north-east, formed the
+Door of the Devils (_kuei_), through which millions of them passed
+in and out. Two spirits, named Shên Shu (or Shu Yü) and Yü Lü, had
+been instructed to guard this passage. Those who had done wrong to
+mankind were immediately bound by them and given over to be devoured
+by tigers. When Huang Ti heard of this he had the portraits of the
+two spirits painted on peach-wood tablets and hung above the doors to
+keep off evil spirits. This led to the suspension of the small figures
+or plaques on the doors of the people generally. Gradually they were
+supplanted by paintings on paper pasted on the doors, showing the two
+spirits armed with bows, arrows, spears, etc., Shên Shu on the left,
+Yü Lü on the right.
+
+In later times, however, these Door-gods were supplanted in popular
+favour by two ministers of the Emperor T'ai Tsung of the T'ang dynasty,
+by name Ch'in Shu-pao and Hu Ching-tê. T'ai Tsung had fallen sick, and
+imagined that he heard demons rampaging in his bedroom. The ministers
+of State, on inquiring as to the nature of the malady, were informed
+by the physician that his Majesty's pulse was feverish, that he seemed
+nervous and saw visions, and that his life was in danger.
+
+The ministers were in great fear. The Empress summoned other physicians
+to a consultation, and after the sick Emperor had informed them that,
+though all was quiet during the daytime, he was sure he saw and heard
+demons during the night, Ch'in Shu-pao and Hu Ching-tê stated that
+they would sit up all night and watch outside his door.
+
+Accordingly they posted themselves, fully armed, outside the palace
+gate all night, and the Emperor slept in peace. Next day the Emperor
+thanked them heartily, and from that time his sickness diminished. The
+two ministers, however, continued their vigils until the Emperor
+informed them that he would no longer impose upon their readiness
+to sacrifice themselves. He ordered them to paint their portraits
+in full martial array and paste these on the palace doors to see if
+that would not have the same effect. For some nights all was peace;
+then the same commotion was heard at the back gates of the palace. The
+minister Wei Chêng offered to stand guard at the back gates in the
+same way that his colleagues had done at the front gates. The result
+was that in a few days the Emperor's health was entirely restored.
+
+Thus it is that Wei Chêng is often associated with the other two
+Door-gods, sometimes with them, sometimes in place of them. Pictures
+of these _mên shên_, elaborately coloured, and renewed at the New Year,
+are to be seen on almost every door in China.
+
+
+Chinese Polytheism
+
+That the names of the gods of China are legion will be readily
+conceded when it is said that, besides those already described,
+those still to be mentioned, and many others to whom space will not
+permit us to refer, there are also gods, goddesses, patrons, etc.,
+of wind, rain, snow, frost, rivers, tides, caves, trees, flowers,
+theatres, horses, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, pigs, scorpions,
+locusts, gold, tea, salt, compass, archery, bridges, lamps, gems,
+wells, carpenters, masons, barbers, tailors, jugglers, nets, wine,
+bean-curd, jade, paper-clothing, eye, ear, nose, tongue, teeth,
+heart, liver, throat, hands, feet, skin, architecture, rain-clothes,
+monkeys, lice, Punch and Judy, fire-crackers, cruelty, revenge, manure,
+fornication, shadows, corners, gamblers, oculists, smallpox, liver
+complaint, stomach-ache, measles, luck, womb, midwives, hasteners
+of child-birth, brigands, butchers, furnishers, centipedes, frogs,
+stones, beds, candle-merchants, fishermen, millers, wig-merchants,
+incense-merchants, spectacle-makers, cobblers, harness-makers,
+seedsmen, innkeepers, basket-makers, chemists, painters, perfumers,
+jewellers, brush-makers, dyers, fortune-tellers, strolling singers,
+brothels, varnishers, combs, etc., etc. There is a god of the light
+of the eye as well as of the eye itself, of smallpox-marks as well as
+of smallpox, of 'benign' measles as well as of measles. After reading
+a full list of the gods of China, those who insist that the religion
+of China was or is a monotheism may be disposed to revise their belief.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Myths of the Stars
+
+
+Astrological Superstitions
+
+According to Chinese ideas, the sun, moon, and planets influence
+sublunary events, especially the life and death of human beings, and
+changes in their colour menace approaching calamities. Alterations
+in the appearance of the sun announce misfortunes to the State or its
+head, as revolts, famines, or the death of the emperor; when the moon
+waxes red, or turns pale, men should be in awe of the unlucky times
+thus fore-omened.
+
+The sun is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and
+the moon by a hare on its hind-legs pounding rice in a mortar, or
+by a three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of Ch'ang Ô,
+detailed later. The moon is a special object of worship in autumn,
+and moon-cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season. All the
+stars are ranged into constellations, and an emperor is installed
+over them, who resides at the North Pole; five monarchs also live
+in the five stars in Leo, where is a palace called Wu Ti Tso, or
+'Throne of the Five Emperors.' In this celestial government there are
+also an heir-apparent, empresses, sons and daughters, and tribunals,
+and the constellations receive the names of men, animals, and other
+terrestrial objects. The Great Bear, or Dipper, is worshipped as the
+residence of the Fates, where the duration of life and other events
+relating to mankind are measured and meted out. Fears are excited by
+unusual phenomena among the heavenly bodies.
+
+Both the sun and the moon are worshipped by the Government in
+appropriate temples on the east and west sides of Peking.
+
+
+Various Star-gods
+
+Some of the star-gods, such as the God of Literature, the Goddess of
+the North Star, the Gods of Happiness, Longevity, etc., are noticed
+in other parts of this work. The cycle-gods are also star-gods. There
+are sixty years in a cycle, and over each of these presides a special
+star-deity. The one worshipped is the one which gave light on the
+birthday of the worshipper, and therefore the latter burns candles
+before that particular image on each succeeding anniversary. These
+cycle-gods are represented by most grotesque images: "white, black,
+yellow, and red; ferocious gods with vindictive eyeballs popping out,
+and gentle faces as expressive as a lump of putty; some looking like
+men and some like women." In one temple one of the sixty was in the
+form of a hog, and another in that of a goose. "Here is an image
+with arms protruding out of his eye-sockets, and eyes in the palms
+of his hands, looking downward to see the secret things within the
+earth. See that rabbit, Minerva-like, jumping from the divine head;
+again a mud-rat emerges from his occipital hiding-place, and lo! a
+snake comes coiling from the brain of another god--so the long line
+serves as models for an artist who desires to study the fantastic."
+
+
+Shooting the Heavenly Dog
+
+In the family sleeping-apartments in Chinese houses hang pictures
+of Chang Hsien, a white-faced, long-bearded man with a little boy by
+his side, and in his hand a bow and arrow, with which he is shooting
+the Heavenly Dog. The dog is the Dog-star, and if the 'fate' of the
+family is under this star there will be no son, or the child will be
+short-lived. Chang Hsien is the patron of child-bearing women, and was
+worshipped under the Sung dynasty by women desirous of offspring. The
+introduction of this name into the Chinese pantheon is due to an
+incident in the history of Hua-jui Fu-jên, a name given to Lady Fei,
+concubine of Mêng Ch'ang, the last ruler of the Later Shu State,
+A.D. 935-964. When she was brought from Shu to grace the harem of
+the founder of the Sung dynasty, in A.D. 960, she is said to have
+preserved secretly the portrait of her former lord, the Prince of Shu,
+whose memory she passionately cherished. Jealously questioned by her
+new consort respecting her devotion to this picture, she declared it
+to be the representation of Chang Hsien, the divine being worshipped
+by women desirous of offspring. Opinions differ as to the origin
+of the worship. One account says that the Emperor Jên Tsung, of the
+Sung dynasty, saw in a dream a beautiful young man with white skin
+and black hair, carrying a bow in his hand. He said to the Emperor:
+"The star T'ien Kou, Heavenly Dog, in the heavens is hiding the
+sun and moon, and on earth devouring small children. It is only my
+presence which keeps him at bay."
+
+On waking, the Emperor at once ordered the young man's portrait to
+be painted and exhibited, and from that time childless families would
+write the name Chang Hsien on tablets and worship them.
+
+Another account describes Chang Hsien as the spirit of the star
+Chang. In the popular representations Chang Hsien is seen in the
+form of a distinguished personage drawing a bow. The spirit of the
+star Chang is supposed to preside over the kitchen of Heaven and to
+arrange the banquets given by the gods.
+
+
+The Sun-king
+
+The worship of the sun is part of the State religion, and the officials
+make their offerings to the sun-tablet. The moon also is worshipped. At
+the harvest moon, the full moon of the eighth month, the Chinese
+bow before the heavenly luminary, and each family burns incense as
+an offering. Thus "100,000 classes all receive the blessings of the
+icy-wheel in the Milky Way along the heavenly street, a mirror always
+bright." In Chinese illustrations we see the moon-palace of Ch'ang O,
+who stole the pill of immortality and flew to the moon, the fragrant
+tree which one of the genii tried to cut down, and a hare pestling
+medicine in a mortar. This refers to the following legend.
+
+The sun and the moon are both included by the Chinese among the
+stars, the spirit of the former being called T'ai-yang Ti-chün,
+'the Sun-king,' or Jih-kung Ch'ih-chiang, 'Ch'ih-chiang of the Solar
+Palace,' that of the latter T'ai-yin Huang-chün, 'the Moon-queen,'
+or Yüeh-fu Ch'ang O, 'Ch'ang O of the Lunar Palace.'
+
+Ch'ih-chiang Tzu-yü lived in the reign of Hsien-yüan Huang-ti, who
+appointed him Director of Construction and Furnishing.
+
+When Hsien-yüan went on his visit to Ô-mei Shan, a mountain in
+Ssuch'uan, Ch'ih-chiang Tzu-yü obtained permission to accompany
+him. Their object was to be initiated into the doctrine of immortality.
+
+The Emperor was instructed in the secrets of the doctrine by T'ai-i
+Huang-jên, the spirit of this famous mountain, who, when he was about
+to take his departure, begged him to allow Ch'ih-chiang Tzu-yü to
+remain with him. The new hermit went out every day to gather the
+flowering plants which formed the only food of his master, T'ai-i
+Huang-jên, and he also took to eating these flowers, so that his body
+gradually became spiritualized.
+
+
+The Steep Summit
+
+One day T'ai-i Huang-jên sent him to cut some bamboos on the summit of
+Ô-mei Shan, distant more than three hundred _li_ from the place where
+they lived. When he reached the base of the summit, all of a sudden
+three giddy peaks confronted him, so dangerous that even the monkeys
+and other animals dared not attempt to scale them. But he took his
+courage in his hands, climbed the steep slope, and by sheer energy
+reached the summit. Having cut the bamboos, he tried to descend, but
+the rocks rose like a wall in sharp points all round him, and he could
+not find a foothold anywhere. Then, though laden with the bamboos, he
+threw himself into the air, and was borne on the wings of the wind. He
+came to earth safe and sound at the foot of the mountain, and ran with
+the bamboos to his master. On account of this feat he was considered
+advanced enough to be admitted to instruction in the doctrine.
+
+
+The Divine Archer
+
+The Emperor Yao, in the twelfth year of his reign (2346 B.C.), one day,
+while walking in the streets of Huai-yang, met a man carrying a bow
+and arrows, the bow being bound round with a piece of red stuff. This
+was Ch'ih-chiang Tzu-yü. He told the Emperor he was a skilful archer
+and could fly in the air on the wings of the wind. Yao, to test his
+skill, ordered him to shoot one of his arrows at a pine-tree on the
+top of a neighbouring mountain. Ch'ih shot an arrow which transfixed
+the tree, and then jumped on to a current of air to go and fetch
+the arrow back. Because of this the Emperor named him Shên I, 'the
+Divine Archer,' attached him to his suite, and appointed him Chief
+Mechanician of all Works in Wood. He continued to live only on flowers.
+
+
+Vanquishes the Wind-spirit
+
+At this time terrible calamities began to lay waste the land. Ten
+suns appeared in the sky, the heat of which burnt up all the crops;
+dreadful storms uprooted trees and overturned houses; floods overspread
+the country. Near the Tung-t'ing Lake a serpent, a thousand feet long,
+devoured human beings, and wild boars of enormous size did great
+damage in the eastern part of the kingdom. Yao ordered Shên I to go
+and slay the devils and monsters who were causing all this mischief,
+placing three hundred men at his service for that purpose.
+
+Shên I took up his post on Mount Ch'ing Ch'iu to study the cause of the
+devastating storms, and found that these tempests were released by Fei
+Lien, the Spirit of the Wind, who blew them out of a sack. As we shall
+see when considering the thunder myths, the ensuing conflict ended
+in Fei Lien suing for mercy and swearing friendship to his victor,
+whereupon the storms ceased.
+
+
+Dispels the Nine False Suns
+
+After this first victory Shên I led his troops to the banks of the
+Hsi Ho, West River, at Lin Shan. Here he discovered that on three
+neighbouring peaks nine extraordinary birds were blowing out fire and
+thus forming nine new suns in the sky. Shên I shot nine arrows in
+succession, pierced the birds, and immediately the nine false suns
+resolved themselves into red clouds and melted away. Shên I and his
+soldiers found the nine arrows stuck in nine red stones at the top
+of the mountain.
+
+
+Marries the Sister of the Water-spirit
+
+Shên I then led his soldiers to Kao-liang, where the river had risen
+and formed an immense torrent. He shot an arrow into the water,
+which thereupon withdrew to its source. In the flood he saw a man
+clothed in white, riding a white horse and accompanied by a dozen
+attendants. He quickly discharged an arrow, striking him in the left
+eye, and the horseman at once took to flight. He was accompanied
+by a young woman named Hêng O [22], the younger sister of Ho Po,
+the Spirit of the Waters. Shên I shot an arrow into her hair. She
+turned and thanked him for sparing her life, adding: "I will agree
+to be your wife." After these events had been duly reported to the
+Emperor Yao, the wedding took place.
+
+
+Slays Various Dangerous Creatures
+
+Three months later Yao ordered Shên I to go and kill the great
+Tung-t'ing serpent. An arrow in the left eye laid him out stark and
+dead. The wild boars also were all caught in traps and slain. As a
+reward for these achievements Yao canonized Shên I with the title of
+Marquis Pacifier of the Country.
+
+
+Builds a Palace for Chin Mu
+
+About this time T'ai-wu Fu-jên, the third daughter of Hsi Wang Mu,
+had entered a nunnery on Nan-min Shan, to the north of Lo-fou Shan,
+where her mother's palace was situated. She mounted a dragon to
+visit her mother, and all along the course left a streak of light in
+her wake. One day the Emperor Yao, from the top of Ch'ing-yün Shan,
+saw this track of light, and asked Shên I the cause of this unusual
+phenomenon. The latter mounted the current of luminous air, and
+letting it carry him whither it listed, found himself on Lo-fou Shan,
+in front of the door of the mountain, which was guarded by a great
+spiritual monster. On seeing Shên I this creature called together
+a large number of phoenixes and other birds of gigantic size and
+set them at Shên I. One arrow, however, settled the matter. They
+all fled, the door opened, and a lady followed by ten attendants
+presented herself. She was no other than Chin Mu herself. Shên I,
+having saluted her and explained the object of his visit, was admitted
+to the goddess's palace, and royally entertained.
+
+"I have heard," said Shên I to her, "that you possess the pills of
+immortality; I beg you to give me one or two." "You are a well-known
+architect," replied Chin Mu; "please build me a palace near this
+mountain." Together they went to inspect a celebrated site known as
+Pai-yü-kuei Shan, 'White Jade-tortoise Mountain,' and fixed upon it
+as the location of the new abode of the goddess. Shên I had all the
+spirits of the mountain to work for him. The walls were built of jade,
+sweet-smelling woods were used for the framework and wainscoting,
+the roof was of glass, the steps of agate. In a fortnight's time
+sixteen palace buildings stretched magnificently along the side of
+the mountain. Chin Mu gave to the architect a wonderful pill which
+would bestow upon him immortality as well as the faculty of being
+able at will to fly through the air. "But," she said, "it must not
+be eaten now: you must first go through a twelve months' preparatory
+course of exercise and diet, without which the pill will not have all
+the desired results." Shên I thanked the goddess, took leave of her,
+and, returning to the Emperor, related to him all that had happened.
+
+
+Kills Chisel-tooth
+
+On reaching home, the archer hid his precious pill under a rafter,
+lest anyone should steal it, and then began the preparatory course
+in immortality.
+
+At this time there appeared in the south a strange man named Tso Ch'ih,
+'Chisel-tooth.' He had round eyes and a long projecting tooth. He
+was a well-known criminal. Yao ordered Shên I and his small band
+of brave followers to deal with this new enemy. This extraordinary
+man lived in a cave, and when Shên I and his men arrived he emerged
+brandishing a padlock. Shên I broke his long tooth by shooting an
+arrow at it, and Tso Ch'ih fled, but was struck in the back and laid
+low by another arrow from Shên I. The victor took the broken tooth
+with him as a trophy.
+
+
+Hêng Ô flies to the Moon
+
+Hêng Ô, during her husband's absence, saw a white light which seemed
+to issue from a beam in the roof, while a most delicious odour filled
+every room. By the aid of a ladder she reached up to the spot whence
+the light came, found the pill of immortality, and ate it. She suddenly
+felt that she was freed from the operation of the laws of gravity
+and as if she had wings, and was just essaying her first flight when
+Shên I returned. He went to look for his pill, and, not finding it,
+asked Hêng Ô what had happened.
+
+The young wife, seized with fear, opened the window and flew out. Shên
+I took his bow and pursued her. The moon was full, the night clear,
+and he saw his wife flying rapidly in front of him, only about the
+size of a toad. Just when he was redoubling his pace to catch her up
+a blast of wind struck him to the ground like a dead leaf.
+
+Hêng Ô continued her flight until she reached a luminous sphere,
+shining like glass, of enormous size, and very cold. The only
+vegetation consisted of cinnamon-trees. No living being was to be
+seen. All of a sudden she began to cough, and vomited the covering
+of the pill of immortality, which was changed into a rabbit as white
+as the purest jade. This was the ancestor of the spirituality of the
+_yin_, or female, principle. Hêng Ô noticed a bitter taste in her
+mouth, drank some dew, and, feeling hungry, ate some cinnamon. She
+took up her abode in this sphere.
+
+As to Shên I, he was carried by the hurricane up into a high
+mountain. Finding himself before the door of a palace, he was invited
+to enter, and found that it was the palace of Tung-hua Ti-chün,
+otherwise Tung Wang Kung, the husband of Hsi Wang Mu.
+
+
+The Sun-palace and the Bird of Dawn
+
+The God of the Immortals said to Shên I: "You must not be annoyed
+with Hêng Ô. Everybody's fate is settled beforehand. Your labours
+are nearing an end, and you will become an Immortal. It was I who
+let loose the whirlwind that brought you here. Hêng O, through having
+borrowed the forces which by right belong to you, is now an Immortal
+in the Palace of the Moon. As for you, you deserve much for having
+so bravely fought the nine false suns. As a reward you shall have
+the Palace of the Sun. Thus the _yin_ and the _yang_ will be united
+in marriage." This said, Tung-hua Ti-chün ordered his servants to
+bring a red Chinese sarsaparilla cake, with a lunar talisman.
+
+"Eat this cake," he said; "it will protect you from the heat of the
+solar hearth. And by wearing this talisman you will be able at will
+to visit the lunar palace of Hêng O; but the converse does not hold
+good, for your wife will not have access to the solar palace." This is
+why the light of the moon has its birth in the sun, and decreases in
+proportion to its distance from the sun, the moon being light or dark
+according as the sun comes and goes. Shên I ate the sarsaparilla cake,
+attached the talisman to his body, thanked the god, and prepared to
+leave. Tung Wang Kung said to him: "The sun rises and sets at fixed
+times; you do not yet know the laws of day and night; it is absolutely
+necessary for you to take with you the bird with the golden plumage,
+which will sing to advise you of the exact times of the rising,
+culmination, and setting of the sun." "Where is this bird to be
+found?" asked Shên I. "It is the one you hear calling _Ia! Ia!_
+It is the ancestor of the spirituality of the _yang_, or male,
+principle. Through having eaten the active principle of the sun,
+it has assumed the form of a three-footed bird, which perches on the
+_fu-sang_ tree [a tree said to grow at the place where the sun rises]
+in the middle of the Eastern Sea. This tree is several thousands of
+feet in height and of gigantic girth. The bird keeps near the source
+of the dawn, and when it sees the sun taking his morning bath gives
+vent to a cry that shakes the heavens and wakes up all humanity. That
+is why I ordered Ling Chên-tzu to put it in a cage on T'ao-hua Shan,
+Peach-blossom Hill; since then its cries have been less harsh. Go
+and fetch it and take it to the Palace of the Sun. Then you will
+understand all the laws of the daily movements." He then wrote a
+charm which Shên I was to present to Ling Chên-tzu to make him open
+the cage and hand the golden bird over to him.
+
+The charm worked, and Ling Chên-tzu opened the cage. The bird of
+golden plumage had a sonorous voice and majestic bearing. "This
+bird," he said, "lays eggs which hatch out nestlings with red combs,
+who answer him every morning when he starts crowing. He is usually
+called the cock of heaven, and the cocks down here which crow morning
+and evening are descendants of the celestial cock."
+
+
+Shên I visits the Moon
+
+Shên I, riding on the celestial bird, traversed the air and reached
+the disk of the sun just at mid-day. He found himself carried into
+the centre of an immense horizon, as large as the earth, and did not
+perceive the rotatory movement of the sun. He then enjoyed complete
+happiness without care or trouble. The thought of the happy hours
+passed with his wife Hêng O, however, came back to memory, and, borne
+on a ray of sunlight, he flew to the moon. He saw the cinnamon-trees
+and the frozen-looking horizon. Going to a secluded spot, he found
+Hêng O there all alone. On seeing him she was about to run away,
+but Shên I took her hand and reassured her. "I am now living in the
+solar palace," he said; "do not let the past annoy you." Shên I cut
+down some cinnamon-trees, used them for pillars, shaped some precious
+stones, and so built a palace, which he named Kuang-han Kung, 'Palace
+of Great Cold.' From that time forth, on the fifteenth day of every
+moon, he went to visit her in her palace. That is the conjunction of
+the _yang_ and _yin_, male and female principles, which causes the
+great brilliancy of the moon at that epoch.
+
+Shên I, on returning to his solar kingdom, built a wonderful palace,
+which he called the Palace of the Lonely Park.
+
+From that time the sun and moon each had their ruling sovereign. This
+_régime_ dates from the forty-ninth year (2309 B.C.) of Yao's reign.
+
+When the old Emperor was informed that Shên I and his wife had both
+gone up to Heaven he was much grieved to lose the man who had rendered
+him such valuable service, and bestowed upon him the posthumous title
+of Tsung Pu, 'Governor of Countries.' In the representations of this
+god and goddess the former is shown holding the sun, the latter the
+moon. The Chinese add the sequel that Hêng O became changed into a
+toad, whose outline is traceable on the moon's surface.
+
+
+Star-worship
+
+The star-deities are adored by parents on behalf of their children;
+they control courtship and marriage, bring prosperity or adversity in
+business, send pestilence and war, regulate rainfall and drought, and
+command angels and demons; so every event in life is determined by the
+'star-ruler' who at that time from the shining firmament manages the
+destinies of men and nations. The worship is performed in the native
+homes either by astrologers engaged for that purpose or by Taoist
+priests. In times of sickness, ten paper star-gods are arranged,
+five good on one side and five bad on the other; a feast is placed
+before them, and it is supposed that when the bad have eaten enough
+they will take their flight to the south-west; the propitiation of
+the good star-gods is in the hope that they will expel the evil stars,
+and happiness thus be obtained.
+
+The practical effect of this worship is seen in the following
+examples taken from the Chinese list of one hundred and twenty-nine
+lucky and unlucky stars, which, with the sixty cycle-stars and the
+twenty-eight constellations, besides a vast multitude of others, make
+up the celestial galaxy worshipped by China's millions: the Orphan
+Star enables a woman to become a man; the Star of Pleasure decides
+on betrothals, binding the feet of those destined to be lovers with
+silver cords; the Bonepiercing Star produces rheumatism; the Morning
+Star, if not worshipped, kills the father or mother during the year;
+the Balustrade Star promotes lawsuits; the Three-corpse Star controls
+suicide, the Peach-blossom Star lunacy; and so on.
+
+
+The Herdsman and the Weaver-girl
+
+In the myths and legends which have clustered about the observations of
+the stars by the Chinese there are subjects for pictorial illustration
+without number. One of these stories is the fable of Aquila and Vega,
+known in Chinese mythology as the Herdsman and the Weaver-girl. The
+latter, the daughter of the Sun-god, was so constantly busied with her
+loom that her father became worried at her close habits and thought
+that by marrying her to a neighbour, who herded cattle on the banks
+of the Silver Stream of Heaven (the Milky Way), she might awake to
+a brighter manner of living.
+
+No sooner did the maiden become wife than her habits and character
+utterly changed for the worse. She became not only very merry and
+lively, but quite forsook loom and needle, giving up her nights
+and days to play and idleness; no silly lover could have been more
+foolish than she. The Sun-king, in great wrath at all this, concluded
+that the husband was the cause of it, and determined to separate the
+couple. So he ordered him to remove to the other side of the river of
+stars, and told him that hereafter they should meet only once a year,
+on the seventh night of the seventh month. To make a bridge over the
+flood of stars, the Sun-king called myriads of magpies, who thereupon
+flew together, and, making a bridge, supported the poor lover on
+their wings and backs as if on a roadway of solid land. So, bidding
+his weeping wife farewell, the lover-husband sorrowfully crossed the
+River of Heaven, and all the magpies instantly flew away. But the two
+were separated, the one to lead his ox, the other to ply her shuttle
+during the long hours of the day with diligent toil, and the Sun-king
+again rejoiced in his daughter's industry.
+
+At last the time for their reunion drew near, and only one fear
+possessed the loving wife. What if it should rain? For the River
+of Heaven is always full to the brim, and one extra drop causes a
+flood which sweeps away even the bird-bridge. But not a drop fell;
+all the heavens were clear. The magpies flew joyfully in myriads,
+making a way for the tiny feet of the little lady. Trembling with joy,
+and with heart fluttering more than the bridge of wings, she crossed
+the River of Heaven and was in the arms of her husband. This she did
+every year. The husband stayed on his side of the river, and the
+wife came to him on the magpie bridge, save on the sad occasions
+when it rained. So every year the people hope for clear weather,
+and the happy festival is celebrated alike by old and young.
+
+These two constellations are worshipped principally by women, that
+they may gain cunning in the arts of needlework and making of fancy
+flowers. Water-melons, fruits, vegetables, cakes, etc., are placed
+with incense in the reception-room, and before these offerings are
+performed the kneeling and the knocking of the head on the ground in
+the usual way.
+
+
+The Twenty-eight Constellations
+
+Sacrifices were offered to these spirits by the Emperor on the marble
+altar of the Temple of Heaven, and by the high officials throughout
+the provinces. Of the twenty-eight the following are regarded as
+propitious--namely, the Horned, Room, Tail, Sieve, Bushel, House,
+Wall, Mound, Stomach, End, Bristling, Well, Drawn-bow, and Revolving
+Constellations; the Neck, Bottom, Heart, Cow, Female, Empty, Danger,
+Astride, Cock, Mixed, Demon, Willow, Star, Wing, are unpropitious.
+
+The twenty-eight constellations seem to have become the abodes of gods
+as a result of the defeat of a Taoist Patriarch T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu,
+who had espoused the cause of the tyrant Chou, when he and all his
+followers were slaughtered by the heavenly hosts in the terrible
+catastrophe known as the Battle of the Ten Thousand Immortals. Chiang
+Tzu-ya as a reward conferred on them the appanage of the twenty-eight
+constellations. The five planets, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and
+Saturn, are also the abodes of stellar divinities, called the White,
+Green, Black, Red, and Yellow Rulers respectively. Stars good and
+bad are all likewise inhabited by gods or demons.
+
+
+A Victim of Ta Chi
+
+Concerning Tzu-wei Hsing, the constellation Tzu-wei (north circumpolar
+stars), of which the stellar deity is Po I-k'ao, the following legend
+is related in the _Fêng shên yen i_.
+
+Po I-k'ao was the eldest son of Wên Wang, and governed the kingdom
+during the seven years that the old King Was detained as a prisoner of
+the tyrant Chou. He did everything possible to procure his father's
+release. Knowing the tastes of the cruel King, he sent him for his
+harem ten of the prettiest women who could be found, accompanied by
+seven chariots made of perfumed wood, and a white-faced monkey of
+marvellous intelligence. Besides these he included in his presents
+a magic carpet, on which it was necessary only to sit in order to
+recover immediately from the effects of drunkenness.
+
+Unfortunately for Po I-k'ao, Chou's favourite concubine, Ta
+Chi, conceived a passion for him and had recourse to all sorts
+of ruses to catch him in her net; but his conduct was throughout
+irreproachable. Vexed by his indifference, she tried slander in order
+to bring about his ruin. But her calumnies did not at first have
+the result she expected. Chou, after inquiry, was convinced of the
+innocence of Po. But an accident spoiled everything. In the middle
+of an amusing _séance_ the monkey which had been given to the King
+by Po perceived some sweets in the hand of Ta Chi, and, jumping on
+to her body, snatched them from Her. The King and his concubine were
+furious, Chou had the monkey killed forthwith, and Ta Chi accused Po
+I-k'ao of having brought the animal into the palace with the object
+of making an attempt on the lives of the King and herself. But the
+Prince explained that the monkey, being only an animal, could not
+grasp even the first idea of entering into a conspiracy.
+
+Shortly after this Po committed an unpardonable fault which changed
+the goodwill of the King into mortal enmity. He allowed himself to
+go so far as to suggest to the King that he should break off his
+relations with this infamous woman, the source of all the woes which
+were desolating the kingdom, and when Ta Chi on this account grossly
+insulted him he struck her with his lute.
+
+For this offence Ta Chi caused him to be crucified in the palace. Large
+nails were driven through his hands and feet, and his flesh was cut
+off in pieces. Not content with ruining Po I-k'ao, this wretched
+woman wished also to ruin Wen Wang. She therefore advised the King to
+have the flesh of the murdered man made up into rissoles and sent as
+a present to his father. If he refused to eat the flesh of his own
+son he was to be accused of contempt for the King, and there would
+thus be a pretext for having him executed. Wen Wang, being versed in
+divination and the science of the _pa kua_, Eight Trigrams, knew that
+these rissoles contained the flesh of his son, and to avoid the snare
+spread for him he ate three of the rissoles in the presence of the
+royal envoys. On their return the latter reported this to the King,
+who found himself helpless on learning of Wen Wang's conduct.
+
+Po I-k'ao was canonized by Chiang Tzu-ya, and appointed ruler of the
+constellation Tzu-wei of the North Polar heavens.
+
+
+Myths of Time
+
+T'ai Sui is the celestial spirit who presides over the year. He
+is the President of the Ministry of Time. This god is much to
+be feared. Whoever offends against him is sure to be destroyed. He
+strikes when least expected to. T'ai Sui is also the Ministry itself,
+whose members, numbering a hundred and twenty, are set over time,
+years, months, and days. The conception is held by some writers to
+be of Chaldeo-Assyrian origin.
+
+The god T'ai Sui is not mentioned in the T'ang and Sung rituals, but in
+the Yüan dynasty (A.D. 1280-1368) sacrifices were offered to him in the
+College of the Grand Historiographer whenever any work of importance
+was about to be undertaken. Under this dynasty the sacrifices were
+offered to T'ai Sui and to the ruling gods of the months and of the
+days. But these sacrifices were not offered at regular times: it
+was only at the beginning of the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty (1644-1912)
+that it was decided to offer the sacrifices at fixed periods.
+
+
+The Planet Jupiter
+
+T'ai Sui corresponds to the planet Jupiter. He travels across the
+sky, passing through the twelve sidereal mansions. He is a stellar
+god. Therefore an altar is raised to him and sacrifices are offered
+on it under the open sky. This practice dates from the beginning of
+the Ming dynasty, when the Emperor T'ai Tsu ordered sacrifices to
+this god to be made throughout the Empire. According to some authors,
+he corresponds to the god of the twelve sidereal mansions. He is also
+variously represented as the moon, which turns to the left in the sky,
+and the sun, which turns to the right. The diviners gave to T'ai Sui
+the title of Grand Marshal, following the example of the usurper Wang
+Mang (A.D. 9-23) of the Western Han dynasty, who gave that title to
+the year-star.
+
+
+Legend of T'ai Sui
+
+The following is the legend of T'ai Sui.
+
+T'ai Sui was the son of the Emperor Chou, the last of the Yin
+dynasty. His mother was Queen Chiang. When he was born he looked
+like a lump of formless flesh. The infamous Ta Chi, the favourite
+concubine of this wicked Emperor, at once informed him that a monster
+had been born in the palace, and the over-credulous sovereign ordered
+that it should immediately be cast outside the city. Shên Chên-jên,
+who was passing, saw the small abandoned one, and said: "This is an
+Immortal who has just been born." With his knife he cut open the caul
+which enveloped it, and the child was exposed.
+
+His protector carried him to the cave Shui Lien, where he led the
+life of a hermit, and entrusted the infant to Ho Hsien-ku, who acted
+as his nurse and brought him up.
+
+The child's hermit-name was Yin Ting-nu, his ordinary name Yin
+No-cha, but during his boyhood he was known as Yin Chiao, _i.e._
+'Yin the Deserted of the Suburb,' When he had reached an age when he
+was sufficiently intelligent, his nurse informed him that he was not
+her son, but really the son of the Emperor Chou, who, deceived by the
+calumnies of his favourite Ta Chi, had taken him for an evil monster
+and had him cast out of the palace. His mother had been thrown down
+from an upper storey and killed. Yin Chiao went to his rescuer and
+begged him to allow him to avenge his mother's death. The Goddess
+T'ien Fei, the Heavenly Concubine, picked out two magic weapons from
+the armoury in the cave, a battle-axe and club, both of gold, and
+gave them to Yin Chiao. When the Shang army was defeated at Mu Yeh,
+Yin Chiao broke into a tower where Ta Chi was, seized her, and brought
+her before the victor, King Wu, who gave him permission to split her
+head open with his battle-axe. But Ta Chi was a spiritual hen-pheasant
+(some say a spiritual vixen). She transformed herself into smoke and
+disappeared. To reward Yin Chiao for his filial piety and bravery
+in fighting the demons, Yü Ti canonized him with the title T'ai Sui
+Marshal Yin.
+
+According to another version of the legend, Yin Chiao fought on
+the side of the Yin against Wu Wang, and after many adventures was
+caught by Jan Têng between two mountains, which he pressed together,
+leaving only Yin Chiao's head exposed above the summits. The general
+Wu Chi promptly cut it off with a spade. Chiang Tz[u)]-ya subsequently
+canonized Yin Chiao.
+
+
+Worship of T'ai Sui
+
+The worship of T'ai Sui seems to have first taken place in the reign
+of Shên Tsung (A.D. 1068-86) of the Sung dynasty, and was continued
+during the remainder of the Monarchical Period. The object of the
+worship is to avert calamities, T'ai Sui being a dangerous spirit
+who can do injury to palaces and cottages, to people in their houses
+as well as to travellers on the roads. But he has this peculiarity,
+that he injures persons and things not in the district in which he
+himself is, but in those districts which adjoin it. Thus, if some
+constructive work is undertaken in a region where T'ai Sui happens
+to be, the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts take precautions
+against his evil influence. This they generally do by hanging out the
+appropriate talisman. In order to ascertain in what region T'ai Sui
+is at any particular time, an elaborate diagram is consulted. This
+consists of a representation of the twelve terrestrial branches
+or stems, _ti chih_> and the ten celestial trunks, _t'ien kan,_
+indicating the cardinal points and the intermediate points, north-east,
+north-west, south-east, and south-west. The four cardinal points are
+further verified with the aid of the Five Elements, the Five Colours,
+and the Eight Trigrams. By using this device, it is possible to find
+the geographical position of T'ai Sui during the current year, the
+position of threatened districts, and the methods to be employed to
+provide against danger.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Myths of Thunder, Lightning, Wind, and Rain
+
+
+The Ministry of Thunder and Storms
+
+As already noted, affairs in the Otherworld are managed by official
+Bureaux or Ministries very similar to those on earth. The _Fêng shên
+yen i_ mentions several of these, and gives full details of their
+constitution. The first is the Ministry of Thunder and Storms. This
+is composed of a large number of officials. The principal ones are
+Lei Tsu, the Ancestor of Thunder, Lei Kung, the Duke of Thunder, Tien
+Mu, the Mother of Lightning, Feng Po, the Count of Wind, and Y['u]
+Shih, the Master of Rain. These correspond to the Buddhist Asuras,
+the "fourth class of sentient beings, the mightiest of all demons,
+titanic enemies of the Dêvas," and the Vedic Maruta, storm-demons. In
+the temples Lei Tsu is placed in the centre with the other four to
+right and left. There are also sometimes represented other gods of
+rain, or attendants. These are Hsing T'ien Chün and T'ao T'ien Chün,
+both officers of Wen Chung, or Lei Tsu, Ma Yüan-shuai, Generalissimo
+Ma, whose exploits are referred to later, and others.
+
+
+The President of the Ministry of Thunder
+
+This divinity has three eyes, one in the middle of his forehead, from
+which, when open, a ray of white light proceeds to a distance of more
+than two feet. Mounted on a black unicorn, he traverses millions of
+miles in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+His origin is ascribed to a man named Wên Chung, generally known
+as Wên Chung T'ai-shih, 'the Great Teacher Wên Chung,' He was
+a minister of the tyrant king Chou (1154-1122 B.C.), and fought
+against the armies of the Chou dynasty. Being defeated, he fled
+to the mountains of Yen, Yen Shan, where he met Ch'ih Ching-tzu,
+one of the alleged discoverers of fire, and joined battle with him;
+the latter, however, flashed his _yin-yang_ mirror at the unicorn,
+and put it out of action. Lei Chên-tzu, one of Wu Wang's marshals,
+then struck the animal with his staff, and severed it in twain.
+
+Wên Chung escaped in the direction of the mountains of Chüeh-lung Ling,
+where another marshal, Yün Chung-tzu, barred his way. Yün's hands had
+the power of producing lightning, and eight columns of mysterious fire
+suddenly came out of the earth, completely enveloping Wên Chung. They
+were thirty feet high and ten feet in circumference. Ninety fiery
+dragons came out of each and flew away up into the air. The sky was
+like a furnace, and the earth shook with the awful claps of thunder. In
+this fiery prison Wên Chung died.
+
+When the new dynasty finally proved victorious, Chiang Tzu-ya, by
+order of Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun, conferred on Wên Chung the supreme
+direction of the Ministry of Thunder, appointing him celestial prince
+and plenipotentiary defender of the laws governing the distribution of
+clouds and rain. His full title was Celestial and Highly-honoured Head
+of the Nine Orbits of the Heavens, Voice of the Thunder, and Regulator
+of the Universe. His birthday is celebrated on the twenty-fourth day
+of the sixth moon.
+
+
+The Duke of Thunder
+
+The Spirit of Thunder, for whom Lei Tsu is often mistaken, is
+represented as an ugly, black, bat-winged demon, with clawed feet,
+monkey's head, and eagle's beak, who holds in one hand a steel
+chisel, and in the other a spiritual hammer, with which he beats
+numerous drums strung about him, thus producing the terrific noise
+of thunder. According to Chinese reasoning it is the sound of these
+drums, and not the lightning, which causes death.
+
+A. Gruenwedel, in his _Guide to the Lamaist Collection of Prince
+Uchtomsky,_ p. 161, states that the Chino-Japanese God of Thunder,
+Lei Kung, has the shape of the Indian divine bird Garuda. Are we to
+suppose, then, that the Chinese Lei Kung is of Indian origin? In modern
+pictures the God of Thunder is depicted with a cock's head and claws,
+carrying in one hand the hammer, in the other the chisel. We learn,
+however, from Wang Ch'ung's _Lun Hêng_ that in the first century B.C.,
+when Buddhism was not yet introduced into China, the 'Thunderer' was
+represented as a strong man, not as a bird, with one hand dragging
+a cluster of drums, and with the other brandishing a hammer. Thus
+Lei Kung existed already in China when the latter received her first
+knowledge of India. Yet his modern image may well owe its wings to the
+Indian rain-god Vajrapani, who in one form appears with Garuda wings.
+
+Lei Kung P'u-sa, the avatar of Lei Kung (whose existence as the Spirit
+of Thunder is denied by at least one Chinese writer), has made various
+appearances on the earth. One of these is described below.
+
+
+Lei Kung in the Tree
+
+A certain Yeh Ch'ien-chao of Hsin Chou, when a youth, used to climb
+the mountain Chien-ch'ang Shan for the purpose of cutting firewood and
+collecting medicinal herbs. One day when he had taken refuge under
+a tree during a rain-storm there was a loud clap of thunder, and he
+saw a winged being, with a blue face, large mouth, and bird's claws,
+caught in a cleft of the tree. This being addressed Yeh, saying:
+"I am Lei Kung. In splitting this tree I got caught in it; if you
+will free me I will reward you handsomely." The woodcutter opened the
+cleft wider by driving in some stones as wedges, and liberated the
+prisoner. "Return to this spot to-morrow," said the latter, "and I
+will reward you." The next day the woodcutter kept the appointment,
+and received from Lei Kung a book. "If you consult this work," he
+explained, "you will be able at will to bring thunder or rain, cure
+sickness, or assuage sorrow. We are five brothers, of whom I am the
+youngest. When you want to bring rain call one or other of my brothers;
+but call me only in case of pressing necessity, because I have a bad
+character; but I will come if it is really necessary." Having said
+these words, he disappeared.
+
+Yeh Ch'ien-chao, by means of the prescriptions contained in the
+mysterious book, could cure illnesses as easily as the sun dissipates
+the morning mist. One day, when he was intoxicated and had gone to
+bed in the temple of Chi-chou Ssu, the magistrate wished to arrest and
+punish him. But when he reached the steps of the _yamên_, Ch'ien-chao
+called Lei Kung to his aid. A terrible clap of thunder immediately
+resounded throughout the district. The magistrate, nearly dead with
+fright, at once dismissed the case without punishing the culprit. The
+four brothers never failed to come to his aid.
+
+By the use of his power Ch'ien-chao saved many regions from famine
+by bringing timely rain.
+
+
+
+The Mysterious Bottle
+
+Another legend relates that an old woman living in Kiangsi had her arm
+broken through being struck by lightning, when a voice from above was
+heard saying: "I have made a mistake." A bottle fell out of space, and
+the voice again said: "Apply the contents and you will be healed at
+once." This being done, the old woman's arm was promptly mended. The
+villagers, regarding the contents of the bottle as divine medicine,
+wished to take it away and hide it for future use, but several of
+them together could not lift it from the ground. Suddenly, however,
+it rose up and disappeared into space. Other persons in Kiangsi were
+also struck, and the same voice was heard to say: "Apply some grubs
+to the throat and they will recover." After this had been done the
+victims returned to consciousness none the worse for their experience.
+
+The worship of Lei Kung seems to have been carried on regularly from
+about the time of the Christian era.
+
+
+Lei Chên-tzu
+
+Another Son of Thunder is Lei Chên-tzu, mentioned above, whose name
+when a child was Wên Yü, who was hatched from an egg after a clap
+of thunder and found by the soldiers of Wên Wang in some brushwood
+near an old tomb. The infant's chief characteristic was its brilliant
+eyes. Wên Wang, who already had ninety-nine children, adopted it as
+his hundredth, but gave it to a hermit named Yün Chung-tzu to rear
+as his disciple. The hermit showed him the way to rescue his adopted
+father from the tyrant who held him prisoner. In seeking for some
+powerful weapon the child found on the hillside two apricots, and
+ate them both. He then noticed that wings had grown on his shoulders,
+and was too much ashamed to return home.
+
+But the hermit, who knew intuitively what had taken place, sent a
+servant to seek him. When they met the servant said: "Do you know that
+your face is completely altered?" The mysterious fruit had not only
+caused Lei Chên-tzu to grow wings, known as Wings of the Wind and
+Thunder, but his face had become green, his nose long and pointed,
+and two tusks protruded horizontally from each side of his mouth,
+while his eyes shone like mirrors.
+
+Lei Chên-tzu now went and rescued Wên Wang, dispersing his enemies
+by means of his mystical power and bringing the old man back on his
+shoulders. Having placed him in safety he returned to the hermit.
+
+
+The Mother of Lightning
+
+This divinity is represented as a female figure, gorgeously apparelled
+in blue, green, red, and white, holding in either hand a mirror from
+which proceed two broad streams or flashes of light. Lightning, say
+the Chinese, is caused by the rubbing together of the _yin_ and the
+_yang_, just as sparks of fire may be produced by the friction of
+two substances.
+
+
+The Origin of the Spirit of Lightning
+
+Tung Wang Kung, the King of the Immortals, was playing at pitch-pot
+[23] with Yü Nü. He lost; whereupon Heaven smiled, and from its
+half-open mouth a ray of light came out. This was lightning; it is
+regarded as feminine because it is supposed to come from the earth,
+which is of the _yin_, or female, principle.
+
+
+The God of the Wind
+
+Fêng Po, the God of the Wind, is represented as an old man with a
+white beard, yellow cloak, and blue and red cap. He holds a large
+sack, and directs the wind which comes from its mouth in any direction
+he pleases.
+
+There are various ideas regarding the nature of this deity. He is
+regarded as a stellar divinity under the control of the star Ch'i,
+[24] because the wind blows at the time when the moon leaves that
+celestial mansion. He is also said to be a dragon called Fei Lien, at
+first one of the supporters of the rebel Ch'ih Yu, who was defeated
+by Huang Ti. Having been transformed into a spiritual monster, he
+stirred up tremendous winds in the southern regions. The Emperor
+Yao sent Shên I with three hundred soldiers to quiet the storms and
+appease Ch'ih Yu's relatives, who were wreaking their vengeance on the
+people. Shên I ordered the people to spread a long cloth in front of
+their houses, fixing it with stones. The wind, blowing against this,
+had to change its direction. Shên I then flew on the wind to the top
+of a high mountain, whence he saw a monster at the base. It had the
+shape of a huge yellow and white sack, and kept inhaling and exhaling
+in great gusts. Shên I, concluding that this was the cause of all
+these storms, shot an arrow and hit the monster, whereupon it took
+refuge in a deep cave. Here it turned on Shên I and, drawing a sword,
+dared him to attack the Mother of the Winds. Shên I, however, bravely
+faced the monster and discharged another arrow, this time hitting it
+in the knee. The monster immediately threw down its sword and begged
+that its life might be spared.
+
+Fei Lien is elsewhere described as a dragon who was originally one of
+the wicked ministers of the tyrant Chou, and could walk with unheard-of
+swiftness. Both he and his son Ô Lai, who was so strong that he could
+tear a tiger or rhinoceros to pieces with his hands, were killed when
+in the service of Chou Wang. Fei Lien is also said to have the body
+of a stag, about the size of a leopard, with a bird's head, horns,
+and a serpent's tail, and to be able to make the wind blow whenever
+he wishes.
+
+
+The Master of Rain
+
+Yü Shih, the Master of Rain, clad in yellow scale-armour, with a blue
+hat and yellow busby, stands on a cloud and from a watering-can pours
+rain upon the earth. Like many other gods, however, he is represented
+in various forms. Sometimes he holds a plate, on which is a small
+dragon, in his left hand, while with his right he pours down the
+rain. He is obviously the Parjanya of Vedism.
+
+According to a native account, the God of Rain is one Ch'ih Sung-tzu,
+who appeared during a terrible drought in the reign of Shên Nung
+(2838-2698 B.C.), and owing to his reputed magical power was requested
+by the latter to bring rain from the sky. "Nothing is easier," he
+replied; "pour a bottleful of water into an earthen bowl and give it
+to me." This being done, he plucked from a neighbouring mountain a
+branch of a tree, soaked it in the water, and with it sprinkled the
+earth. Immediately clouds gathered and rain fell in torrents, filling
+the rivers to overflowing. Ch'ih Sung-tzu was then honoured as the God
+of Rain, and his images show him holding the mystic bowl. He resides
+in the K'un-lun Mountains, and has many extraordinary peculiarities,
+such as the power to go through water without getting wet, to pass
+through fire without being burned, and to float in space.
+
+This Rain-god also assumes the form of a silkworm chrysalis in
+another account. He is there believed to possess a concubine who has
+a black face, holds a serpent in each hand, and has other serpents,
+red and green, reposing on her right and left ears respectively;
+also a mysterious bird, with only one leg, the _shang yang_, which
+can change its height at will and drink the seas dry. The following
+legend is related of this bird.
+
+
+The One-legged Bird
+
+At the time when Hsüan-ming Ta-jên instructed Fei Lien in the secrets
+of magic, the latter saw a wonderful bird which drew in water with its
+beak and blew it out again in the shape of rain. Fei lien tamed it,
+and would take it about in his sleeve.
+
+Later on a one-legged bird was seen in the palace of the Prince of
+Ch'i walking up and down and hopping in front of the throne. Being
+much puzzled, the Prince sent a messenger to Lu to inquire of Confucius
+concerning this strange behaviour. "This bird is a _shang yang_" said
+Confucius; "its appearance is a sign of rain. In former times the
+children used to amuse themselves by hopping on one foot, knitting
+their eyebrows, and saying: 'It will rain, because the _shang yang_
+is disporting himself.' Since this bird has gone to Ch'i, heavy rain
+will fall, and the people should be told to dig channels and repair
+the dykes, for the whole country will be inundated." Not only Ch'i, but
+all the adjacent kingdoms were flooded; all sustained grievous damage
+except Ch'i, where the necessary precautions had been taken. This
+caused Duke Ching to exclaim: "Alas! how few listen to the words of
+the sages!"
+
+
+Ma Yüan-shuai
+
+Ma Yüan-shuai is a three-eyed monster condemned by Ju Lai to
+reincarnation for excessive cruelty in the extermination of evil
+spirits. In order to obey this command he entered the womb of Ma
+Chin-mu in the form of five globes of fire. Being a precocious youth,
+he could fight when only three days old, and killed the Dragon-king
+of the Eastern Sea. From his instructor he received a spiritual work
+dealing with wind, thunder, snakes, etc., and a triangular piece of
+stone which he could at will change into anything he liked. By order of
+Yü Ti he subdued the Spirits of the Wind and Fire, the Blue Dragon,
+the King of the Five Dragons, and the Spirit of the Five Hundred
+Fire Ducks, all without injury to himself. For these and many other
+enterprises he was rewarded by Yü Ti with various magic articles
+and with the title of Generalissimo of the West, and is regarded as
+so successful an interceder with Yü Ti that he is prayed to for all
+sorts of benefits.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Myths of the Waters
+
+
+The Dragons
+
+The dragons are spirits of the waters. "The dragon is a kind of being
+whose miraculous changes are inscrutable." In a sense the dragon
+is the type of a man, self-controlled, and with powers that verge
+upon the supernatural. In China the dragon, except as noted below,
+is not a power for evil, but a beneficent being producing rain and
+representing the fecundating principle in nature. He is the essence
+of the _yang_, or male, principle. "He controls the rain, and so
+holds in his power prosperity and peace." The evil dragons are those
+introduced by the Buddhists, who applied the current dragon legends
+to the _nagas_ inhabiting the mountains. These mountain _nagas_, or
+dragons (perhaps originally dreaded mountain tribes), are harmful,
+those inhabiting lakes and rivers friendly and helpful. The dragon,
+the "chief of the three hundred and sixty scaly reptiles," is most
+generally represented as having the head of a horse and the tail of a
+snake, with wings on its sides. It has four legs. The imperial dragon
+has five claws on each foot, other dragons only four. The dragon is
+also said to have nine 'resemblances': "its horns resemble those of
+a deer, its head that of a camel, its eyes those of a devil, its neck
+that of a snake, its abdomen that of a large cockle, its scales those
+of a carp, its claws those of an eagle, the soles of its feet those of
+a tiger, its ears those of an ox;" but some have no ears, the organ of
+hearing being said to be in the horns, or the creature "hears through
+its horns." These various properties are supposed to indicate the
+"fossil remnants of primitive worship of many animals." The small
+dragon is like the silk caterpillar. The large dragon fills the Heaven
+and the earth. Before the dragon, sometimes suspended from his neck,
+is a pearl. This represents the sun. There are azure, scaly, horned,
+hornless, winged, etc., dragons, which apparently evolve one out
+of the other: "a horned dragon," for example, "in a thousand years
+changes to a flying dragon."
+
+The dragon is also represented as the father of the great emperors
+of ancient times. His bones, teeth, and saliva are employed as a
+medicine. He has the power of transformation and of rendering himself
+visible or invisible at pleasure. In the spring he ascends to the
+skies, and in the autumn buries himself in the watery depths. Some are
+wingless, and rise into the air by their own inherent power. There is
+the celestial dragon, who guards the mansions of the gods and supports
+them so that they do not fall; the divine dragon, who causes the winds
+to blow and produces rain for the benefit of mankind; the earth-dragon,
+who marks out the courses of rivers and streams; and the dragon of the
+hidden treasures, who watches over the wealth concealed from mortals.
+
+The Buddhists count their dragons in number equal to the fish of the
+great deep, which defies arithmetical computation, and can be expressed
+only by their sacred numerals. The people have a more certain faith
+in them than in most of their divinities, because they see them so
+often; every cloud with a curious configuration or serpentine tail
+is a dragon. "We see him," they say. The scattering of the cloud is
+his disappearance. He rules the hills, is connected with _fêng-shui_
+(geomancy), dwells round the graves, is associated with the Confucian
+worship, is the Neptune of the sea, and appears on dry land.
+
+
+The Dragon-kings
+
+The Sea-dragon Kings live in gorgeous palaces in the depths of the
+sea, where they feed on pearls and opals. There are five of these
+divinities, the chief being in the centre, and the other four occupying
+the north, the west, the south, and the east. Each is a league in
+length, and so bulky that in shifting its posture it tosses one
+mountain against another. It has five feet, one of them being in the
+middle of its belly, and each foot is armed with five sharp claws. It
+can reach into the heavens, and stretch itself into all quarters of
+the sea. It has a glowing armour of yellow scales, a beard under its
+long snout, a hairy tail, and shaggy legs. Its forehead projects over
+its blazing eyes, its ears are small and thick, its mouth gaping,
+its tongue long, and its teeth sharp. Fish are boiled by the blast of
+its breath, and roasted by the fiery exhalations of its body. When it
+rises to the surface the whole ocean surges, waterspouts foam, and
+typhoons rage. When it flies, wingless, through the air, the winds
+howl, torrents of rain descend, houses are unroofed, the firmament
+is filled with a din, and whatever lies along its route is swept away
+with a roar in the hurricane created by the speed of its passage.
+
+The five Sea-dragon Kings are all immortal. They know each other's
+thoughts, plans, and wishes without intercommunication. Like all the
+other gods they go once a year to the superior Heavens, to make an
+annual report to the Supreme Ruler; but they go in the third month,
+at which time none of the other gods dare appear, and their stay
+above is but brief. They generally remain in the depths of the ocean,
+where their courts are filled with their progeny, their dependents,
+and their attendants, and where the gods and genii sometimes visit
+them. Their palaces, of divers coloured transparent stones, with
+crystal doors, are said to have been seen in the early morning by
+persons gazing into the deep waters.
+
+
+The Foolish Dragon
+
+The part of the great Buddha legend referring to the dragon is
+as follows:
+
+In years gone by, a dragon living in the great sea saw that his wife's
+health was not good. He, seeing her colour fade away, said: "My dear,
+what shall I get you to eat?" Mrs Dragon was silent. Just tell me and
+I will get it," pleaded the affectionate husband. "You cannot do it;
+why trouble?" quoth she. "Trust me, and you shall have your heart's
+desire," said the dragon. "Well, I want a monkey's heart to eat." "Why,
+Mrs Dragon, the monkeys live in the mountain forests! How can I get
+one of their hearts?" "Well, I am going to die; I know I am."
+
+Forthwith the dragon went on shore, and, spying a monkey on the top
+of a tree, said: "Hail, shining one, are you not afraid you will
+fall?" "No, I have no such fear." "Why eat of one tree? Cross the
+sea, and you will find forests of fruit and flowers." "How can I
+cross?" "Get on my back." The dragon with his tiny load went seaward,
+and then suddenly dived down. "Where are you going?" said the monkey,
+with the salt water in his eyes and mouth. "Oh! my dear sir! my wife
+is very sad and ill, and has taken a fancy to your heart." "What
+shall I do?" thought the monkey. He then spoke, "Illustrious friend,
+why did not you tell me? I left my heart on the top of the tree;
+take me back, and I will get it for Mrs Dragon." The dragon returned
+to the shore. As the monkey was tardy in coming down from the tree,
+the dragon said: "Hurry up, little friend, I am waiting." Then the
+monkey thought within himself, "What a fool this dragon is!"
+
+Then Buddha said to his followers: "At this time I was the monkey."
+
+
+The Ministry of Waters
+
+In the spirit-world there is a Ministry which controls all things
+connected with the waters on earth, salt or fresh. Its main
+divisions are the Department of Salt Waters, presided over by four
+Dragon-kings--those of the East, South, West, and North--and the
+Department of Sweet Waters, presided over by the Four Kings (_Ssu
+Tu_) of the four great rivers--the Blue (Chiang), Yellow (Ho), Huai,
+and Ch'i--and the Dragon-spirits who control the Secondary Waters, the
+rivers, springs, lakes, pools, rapids. Into the names and functions of
+the very large number of officials connected with these departments
+it is unnecessary to enter. It will be sufficient here to refer only
+to those whose names are connected with myth or legend.
+
+
+An Unauthorized Portrait
+
+One of these legends relates to the visit of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti,
+the First Emperor, to the Spirit of the Sea, Yang Hou, originally
+a marquis (_bou_) of the State Yang, who became a god through being
+drowned in the sea.
+
+Po Shih, a Taoist priest, told the Emperor that an enormous oyster
+vomited from the sea a mysterious substance which accumulated in the
+form of a tower, and was known as 'the market of the sea' (Chinese for
+'mirage'). Every year, at a certain period, the breath from his mouth
+was like the rays of the sun. The Emperor expressed a wish to see
+it, and Po Shih said he would write a letter to the God of the Sea,
+and the next day the Emperor could behold the wonderful sight.
+
+The Emperor then remembered a dream he had had the year before in
+which he saw two men fighting for the sun. The one killed the other,
+and carried it off. He therefore wished to visit the country where
+the sun rose. Po Shih said that all that was necessary was to throw
+rocks into the sea and build a bridge across them. Thereupon he
+rang his magic bell, the earth shook, and rocks began to rise up;
+but as they moved too slowly he struck them with his whip, and blood
+came from them which left red marks in many places. The row of rocks
+extended as far as the shore of the sun-country, but to build the
+bridge across them was found to be beyond the reach of human skill.
+
+So Po Shih sent another messenger to the God of the Sea, requesting
+him to raise a pillar and place a beam across it which could be used
+as a bridge. The submarine spirits came and placed themselves at the
+service of the Emperor, who asked for an interview with the god. To
+this the latter agreed on condition that no one should make a portrait
+of him, he being very ugly. Instantly a stone gangway 100,000 feet
+long rose out of the sea, and the Emperor, mounting his horse, went
+with his courtiers to the palace of the god. Among his followers was
+one Lu Tung-shih, who tried to draw a portrait of the god by using
+his foot under the surface of the water. Detecting this manoeuvre,
+the god was incensed, and said to the Emperor: "You have broken your
+word; did you bring Lu here to insult me? Retire at once, or evil will
+befall you." The Emperor, seeing that the situation was precarious,
+mounted his horse and galloped off. As soon as he reached the beach,
+the stone cause-way sank, and all his suite perished in the waves. One
+of the Court magicians said to the Emperor: "This god ought to be
+feared as much as the God of Thunder; then he could be made to help
+us. To-day a grave mistake has been made." For several days after
+this incident the waves beat upon the beach with increasing fury. The
+Emperor then built a temple and a pagoda to the god on Chih-fu Shan
+and Wên-têng Shan respectively; by which act of propitiation he was
+apparently appeased.
+
+
+The Shipwrecked Servant
+
+Once the Eight Immortals (see Chapter XI) were on their way to
+Ch'ang-li Shan to celebrate the birthday anniversary of Hsien Wêng,
+the God of Longevity. They had with them a servant who bore the
+presents they intended to offer to the god. When they reached the
+seashore the Immortals walked on the waves without any difficulty,
+but Lan Ts'ai-ho remarked that the servant was unable to follow them,
+and said that a means of transport must be found for him. So Ts'ao
+Kuo-chiu took a plank of cypress-wood and made a raft. But when they
+were in mid-ocean a typhoon arose and upset the raft, and servant
+and presents sank to the bottom of the sea.
+
+Regarding this as the hostile act of a water-devil, the Immortals said
+they must demand an explanation from the Dragon-king, Ao Ch'in. Li
+T'ieh-kuai took his gourd, and, directing the mouth toward the bottom
+of the sea, created so brilliant a light that it illuminated the whole
+palace of the Sea-king. Ao Ch'in, surprised, asked where this powerful
+light originated, and deputed a courier to ascertain its cause.
+
+To this messenger the Immortals made their complaint. "All we want,"
+they added, "is that the Dragon-king shall restore to us our servant
+and the presents." On this being reported to Ao Ch'in he suspected
+his son of being the cause, and, having established his guilt,
+severely reprimanded him. The young Prince took his sword, and,
+followed by an escort, went to find those who had made the complaint
+to his father. As soon as he caught sight of the Immortals he began
+to inveigh against them.
+
+
+A Battle and its Results
+
+Han Hsiang Tzu, not liking this undeserved abuse, changed his flute
+into a fishing-line, and as soon as the Dragon-prince was within reach
+caught him on the hook, with intent to retain him as a hostage. The
+Prince's escort returned in great haste and informed Ao Ch'in of
+what had occurred. The latter declared that his son was in the wrong,
+and proposed to restore the shipwrecked servant and the presents. The
+Court officers, however, held a different opinion. "These Immortals,"
+they said, "dare to hold captive your Majesty's son merely on account
+of a few lost presents and a shipwrecked servant. This is a great
+insult, which we ask permission to avenge." Eventually they won
+over Ao Ch'in, and the armies of the deep gathered for the fray. The
+Immortals called to their aid the other Taoist Immortals and Heroes,
+and thus two formidable armies found themselves face to face.
+
+Several attempts were made by other divinities to avert the conflict,
+but without success. The battle was a strenuous one. Ao Ch'in received
+a ball of fire full on his head, and his army was threatened with
+disaster when Tz'u-hang Ta-shih appeared with his bottle of lustral
+water. He sprinkled the combatants with this magic fluid, using a
+willow-branch for the purpose, thus causing all their magic powers
+to disappear.
+
+Shui Kuan, the Ruler of the Watery Elements, then arrived, and
+reproached Ao Ch'in; he assured him that if the matter were to
+come to the knowledge of Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler, he would not
+only be severely punished, but would risk losing his post. Ao Ch'in
+expressed penitence, restored the servant and the presents, and made
+full apology to the Eight Immortals.
+
+
+The Dragon in the Pond
+
+One day Chang Tao-ling, the 'father of modern Taoism,' was on
+Ho-ming Shan with his disciple Wang Ch'ang. "See," he said, "that
+shaft of white light on Yang Shan yonder! There are undoubtedly
+some bad spirits there. Let us go and bring them to reason." When
+they reached the foot of the mountain they met twelve women who had
+the appearance of evil spirits. Chang Tao-ling asked them whence
+came the shaft of white light. They answered that it was the _yin_,
+or female, principle of the earth. "Where is the source of the salt
+water?" he asked again. "That pond in front of you," they replied,
+"in which lives a very wicked dragon." Chang Tao-ling tried to force
+the dragon to come out, but without success. Then he drew a phoenix
+with golden wings on a charm and hurled it into the air over the
+pond. Thereupon the dragon took fright and fled, the pond immediately
+drying up. After that Chang Tao-ling took his sword and stuck it in
+the ground, whereupon a well full of salt water appeared on the spot.
+
+
+The Spirits of the Well
+
+The twelve women each offered Chang Tao-ling a jade ring, and asked
+that they might become his wives. He took the rings, and pressing
+them together in his hands made of them one large single ring. "I
+will throw this ring into the well," he said, "and the one of you
+who recovers it shall be my wife." All the twelve women jumped into
+the well to get the ring; whereupon Chang Tao-ling put a cover over
+it and fastened it down, telling them that henceforth they should be
+the spirits of the well and would never be allowed to come out.
+
+Shortly after this Chang Tao-ling met a hunter. He exhorted him not
+to kill living beings, but to change his occupation to that of a
+salt-burner, instructing him how to draw out the salt from salt-water
+wells. Thus the people of that district were advantaged both by being
+able to obtain the salt and by being no longer molested by the twelve
+female spirits. A temple, called Temple of the Prince of Ch'ing Ho,
+was built by them, and the territory of Ling Chou was given to Chang
+Tao-ling in recognition of the benefits he had conferred upon the
+people.
+
+
+The Dragon-king's Daughter
+
+A graduate named Liu I, in the reign-period I Fêng (A.D. 676-679)
+of the Emperor Kao Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, having failed in
+his examination for his licentiate's degree, when passing through
+Ching-yang Hsien, in Ch'ang-an, Shensi, on his way home, saw a
+young woman tending goats by the roadside. She said to him: "I am the
+youngest daughter of the Dragonking of the Tung-t'ing Lake. My parents
+married me to the son of the God of the River Ching, but my husband,
+misled by the slanders of the servants, repudiated me. I have heard
+that you are returning to the Kingdom of Wu, which is quite close
+to my native district, so I want to ask you to take this letter to
+my father. To the north of the Tung-t'ing Lake you will find a large
+orange-tree, called by the natives Protector of the Soil. Strike it
+three times with your girdle and some one will appear."
+
+Some months later the graduate went to the spot, found the orange-tree,
+and struck it three times, whereupon a warrior arose from the lake
+and, saluting him, asked what he wanted. "I wish to see your great
+King," the graduate replied. The warrior struck the waters, opening
+a passage for Liu I, and led him to a palace. "This," he said, "is
+the palace of Ling Hsü." In a few minutes there appeared a person
+dressed in violet-coloured clothes and holding in his hand a piece
+of jade. "This is our King," said the warrior. "I am your Majesty's
+neighbour," replied Liu I. "I spent my youth in Ch'u and studied in
+Ch'in. I have just failed in my licentiate examination. On my way
+home I saw your daughter tending some goats; she was all dishevelled,
+and in so pitiable a condition that it hurt me to see her, She has
+sent you this letter."
+
+
+Golden Dragon Great Prince
+
+On reading the letter the King wept, and all the courtiers followed
+his example. "Stop wailing," said the King, "lest Ch'ien-t'ang
+hear." "Who is Ch'ien-t'ang?" asked Liu I. "He is my dear brother,"
+replied the King; "formerly he was one of the chief administrators of
+the Ch'ien-t'ang River; now he is the chief God of Rivers." "Why are
+you so afraid that he might hear what I have just told you?" "Because
+he has a terrible temper. It was he who, in the reign of Yao, caused
+a nine-years flood."
+
+Before he had finished speaking, a red dragon, a thousand feet long,
+with red scales, mane of fire, bloody tongue, and eyes blazing
+like lightning, passed through the air with rapid flight and
+disappeared. Barely a few moments had elapsed when it returned with
+a young woman whom Liu I recognized as the one who had entrusted him
+with the letter. The Dragon-king, overjoyed, said to him: "This is my
+daughter; her husband is no more, and she offers you her hand." Liu
+did not dare to accept, since it appeared that they had just killed
+her husband. He took his departure, and married a woman named Chang,
+who soon died. He then married another named Han, who also died. He
+then went to live at Nanking, and, his solitude preying upon his
+spirits, he decided to marry yet again. A middleman spoke to him of a
+girl of Fang Yang, in Chihli, whose father, Hao, had been Magistrate
+of Ch'ing Liu, in Anhui. This man was always absent on his travels,
+no one knew whither. The girl's mother, Cheng, had married her two
+years before to a man named Chang of Ch'ing Ho, in Chihli, who had
+just died. Distressed at her daughter being left a widow so young,
+the mother wished to find another husband for her.
+
+Liu I agreed to marry this young woman, and at the end of a year
+they had a son. She then said to her husband: "I am the daughter
+of the King of the Tung-t'ing Lake. It was you who saved me from
+my miserable plight on the bank of the Ching, and I swore I would
+reward you. Formerly you refused to accept my hand, and my parents
+decided to marry me to the son of a silk-merchant. I cut my hair,
+and never ceased to hope that I might some time or other be united
+to you in order that I might show you my gratitude."
+
+In A.D. 712, in the reign-period K'ai-yüan of the Emperor Hsüan Tsung
+of the T'ang dynasty, they both returned to the Tung-t'ing Lake;
+but the legend says nothing further with regard to them.
+
+Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler, conferred on Liu I the title of Chin
+Lung Ta Wang, 'Golden Dragon Great Prince.'
+
+
+The Old Mother of the Waters
+
+The Old Mother of the Waters, Shul-mu Niang-niang, is the legendary
+spirit of Ssu-chou, in Anhui. To her is popularly ascribed the
+destruction of the ancient city of Ssu-chou, which was completely
+submerged by the waters of the Hung-tsê Lake in A.D. 1574.
+
+One author states that this Goddess of the Waters is the younger
+sister of the White Spiritual Elephant, a guardian of the Door of
+Buddha. This elephant is the "subtle principle of metamorphosed water."
+
+In his _Recherches sur Us Superstitions en Chine_, Père Henri Doré,
+S.J., relates the legends he had heard with regard to this deity. One
+of these is as follows:
+
+Shui-mu Niang-niang inundated the town of Ssu-chou almost every year. A
+report was presented to Yu Huang, Lord of the Skies, begging him to
+put an end to the scourge which devastated the country and cost so
+many lives. The Lord of the Skies commanded the Great Kings of the
+Skies and their generals to raise troops and take the field in order
+to capture this goddess and deprive her of the power of doing further
+mischief. But her tricks triumphed over force, and the city continued
+to be periodically devastated by inundations.
+
+One day Shui-mu Niang-niang was seen near the city gate carrying two
+buckets of water. Li Lao-chün suspected some plot, but, an open attack
+being too risky, he preferred to adopt a ruse. He went and bought
+a donkey, led it to the buckets of water, and let it drink their
+contents. Unfortunately the animal could not drink all the water,
+so that a little remained at the bottom of the buckets. Now these
+magical buckets contained the sources of the five great lakes, which
+held enough water to inundate the whole of China. Shui-mu Niang-niang
+with her foot overturned one of the buckets, and the water that had
+remained in it was enough to cause a formidable flood, which submerged
+the unfortunate town, and buried it for ever under the immense sheet
+of water called the Lake of Hung-tsê.
+
+So great a crime deserved an exemplary punishment, and accordingly Yü
+Huang sent reinforcements to his armies, and a pursuit of the goddess
+was methodically organized.
+
+
+The Magic Vermicelli
+
+Sun Hou-tzu, the Monkey Sun, [25] the rapid courier, who in a
+single skip could traverse 108,000 _li_ (36,000 miles), started in
+pursuit and caught her up, but the astute goddess was clever enough
+to slip through his fingers. Sun Hou-tzu, furious at this setback,
+went to ask Kuan-yin P'u-sa to come to his aid. She promised to do
+so. As one may imagine, the furious race she had had to escape from
+her enemy had given Shui-mu Niang-niang a good appetite. Exhausted
+with fatigue, and with an empty stomach, she caught sight of a woman
+selling vermicelli, who had just prepared two bowls of it and was
+awaiting customers. Shui-mu Niang-niang went up to her and began
+to eat the strength-giving food with avidity. No sooner had she
+eaten half of the vermicelli than it changed in her stomach into
+iron chains, which wound round her intestines. The end of the chain
+protruded from her mouth, and the contents of the bowl became another
+long chain which welded itself to the end which stuck out beyond her
+lips. The vermicelli-seller was no other than Kuan-yin P'u-sa herself,
+who had conceived this stratagem as a means of ridding herself of
+this evil-working goddess. She ordered Sun Hou-tzu to take her down
+a deep well at the foot of a mountain in Hsü-i Hsien and to fasten
+her securely there. It is there that Shui-mu Niang-niang remains in
+her liquid prison. The end of the chain is to be seen when the water
+is low.
+
+
+Hsü, the Dragon-slayer
+
+Hsü Chên-chün was a native either of Ju-ning Fu in Honan, or of
+Nan-ch'ang Fu in Kiangsi. His father was Hsü Su. His personal name
+was Ching-chih, and his ordinary name Sun.
+
+At forty-one years of age, when he was Magistrate of Ching-yang,
+near the modern Chih-chiang Hsien, in Hupei, during times of drought
+he had only to touch a piece of tile to turn it into gold, and thus
+relieve the people of their distress. He also saved many lives by
+curing sickness through the use of talismans and magic formulæ.
+
+During the period of the dynastic troubles he resigned and joined
+the famous magician Kuo P'o. Together they proceeded to the minister
+Wang Tun, who had risen against the Eastern Chin dynasty. Kuo P'o's
+remonstrances only irritated the minister, who cut off his head.
+
+Hsü Sun then threw his chalice on the ridgepole of the room, causing
+it to be whirled into the air. As Wang Tun was watching the career of
+the chalice, Hsü disappeared and escaped. When he reached Lu-chiang
+K'ou, in Anhui, he boarded a boat, which two dragons towed into the
+offing and then raised into the air. In an instant they had borne it
+to the Lü Shan Mountains, to the south of Kiukiang, in Kiangsi. The
+perplexed boatman opened the window of his boat and took a furtive
+look out. Thereupon the dragons, finding themselves discovered by an
+infidel, set the boat down on the top of the mountain and fled.
+
+
+The Spiritual Alligator
+
+In this country was a dragon, or spiritual alligator, which transformed
+itself into a young man named Shên Lang, and married Chia Yü, daughter
+of the Chief Judge of T'an Chou (Ch'ang-sha Fu, capital of Hunan). The
+young people lived in rooms below the official apartments. During
+spring and summer Shên Lang, as dragons are wont to do, roamed in the
+rivers and lakes. One day Hsü Chên-chün met him, recognized him as a
+dragon, and knew that he was the cause of the numerous floods which
+were devastating Kiangsi Province. He determined to find a means of
+getting rid of him.
+
+Shên Lang, aware of the steps being taken against him, changed himself
+into a yellow ox and fled. Hsü Chên-chün at once transformed himself
+into a black ox and started in pursuit. The yellow ox jumped down a
+well to hide, but the black ox followed suit. The yellow ox then jumped
+out again, and escaped to Ch'ang-sha, where he reassumed a human form
+and lived with Ms wife in the home of his father-in-law, Hsü Sun,
+returning to the town, hastened to the _yamên,_ and called to Shên
+Lang to come out and show himself, addressing him in a severe tone
+of voice as follows: "Dragon, how dare you hide yourself there under
+a borrowed form?" Shên Lang then reassumed the form of a spiritual
+alligator, and Hsü Sun ordered the spiritual soldiers to kill him. He
+then commanded his two sons to come out of their abode. By merely
+spurting a mouthful of water on them he transformed them into young
+dragons. Chia Yü was told to vacate the rooms with all speed, and
+in the twinkling of an eye the whole _yamên_ sank beneath the earth,
+and there remained nothing but a lake where it had been.
+
+Hsü Chên-chün, after his victory over the dragon, assembled the members
+of his family, to the number of forty-two, on Hsi Shan, outside the
+city of Nan-ch'ang Fu, and all ascended to Heaven in full daylight,
+taking with them even the dogs and chickens. He was then 133 years
+old. This took place on the first day of the eighth moon of the second
+year (A.D. 374) of the reign-period Ning-K'ang of the reign of the
+Emperor Hsiao Wu Ti of the Eastern Chin dynasty.
+
+Subsequently a temple was erected to him, and in A.D. 1111 he was
+canonized as Just Prince, Admirable and Beneficent.
+
+
+The Great Flood
+
+The repairing of the heavens by Nü Kua, elsewhere alluded to, is also
+attributed to the following incident.
+
+Before the Chinese Empire was founded a noble and wonderful queen
+fought with the chief of the tribes who inhabited the country round
+about Ô-mei Shan. In a fierce battle the chief and his followers met
+defeat; raging with anger at being beaten by a woman, he rushed up
+the mountain-side; the Queen pursued him with her army, and overtook
+him at the summit; finding no place to hide himself, he attempted in
+desperation both to wreak vengeance upon his enemies and to end his
+own life by beating his head violently against the cane of the Heavenly
+Bamboo which grew there. By his mad battering he at last succeeded in
+knocking down the towering trunk of the tree, and as he did so its
+top tore great rents in the canopy of the sky, through which poured
+great floods of water, inundating the whole earth and drowning all the
+inhabitants except the victorious Queen and her soldiers. The floods
+had no power to harm her or her followers, because she herself was
+an all-powerful divinity and was known as the 'Mother of the Gods,'
+and the 'Defender of the Gods.' From the mountain-side she gathered
+together stones of a kind having five colours, and ground them into
+powder; of this she made a plaster or mortar, with which she repaired
+the tears in the heavens, and the floods immediately ceased.
+
+
+The Marriage of the River-god
+
+In Yeh Hsien there was a witch and some official attendants who
+collected money from the people yearly for the marriage of the
+River-god.
+
+The witch would select a pretty girl of low birth, and say that she
+should be the Queen of the River-god. The girl was bathed, and clothed
+in a beautiful dress of gay and costly silk. She was then taken to
+the bank of the river, to a monastery which was beautifully decorated
+with scrolls and banners. A feast was held, and the girl was placed
+on a bed which was floated out upon the tide till it disappeared
+under the waters.
+
+Many families having beautiful daughters moved to distant places,
+and gradually the city became deserted. The common belief in Yeh was
+that if no queen was offered to the River-god a flood would come and
+drown the people.
+
+One day Hsi-mên Pao, Magistrate of Yeh Hsien, said to his attendants:
+"When the marriage of the River-god takes place I wish to say farewell
+to the chosen girl."
+
+Accordingly Hsi-mên Pao was present to witness the ceremony. About
+three thousand people had come together. Standing beside the old
+witch were ten of her female disciples, "Call the girl out," said
+Hsi-mên Pao. After seeing her, Hsi-mên Pao said to the witch: "She
+is not fair. Go you to the River-god and tell him that we will find
+a fairer maid and present her to him later on." His attendants then
+seized the witch and threw her into the river.
+
+After a little while Hsi-mên Pao said: "Why does she stay so long? Send
+a disciple to call her back." One of the disciples was thrown into the
+river. Another and yet another followed. The magistrate then said:"
+The witches are females and therefore cannot bring me a reply." So
+one of the official attendants of the witch was thrown into the river.
+
+Hsi-mên Pao stood on the bank for a long time, apparently awaiting
+a reply. The spectators were alarmed. Hsi-mên Pao then bade his
+attendants send the remaining disciples of the witch and the other
+official attendants to recall their mistress. The wretches threw
+themselves on their knees and knocked their heads on the ground,
+which was stained with the blood from their foreheads, and with tears
+confessed their sin.
+
+"The River-god detains his guest too long," said Hsi-mên Pao at
+length. "Let us adjourn."
+
+Thereafter none dared to celebrate the marriage of the River-god.
+
+
+Legend of the Building of Peking
+
+When the Mongol Yüan dynasty had been destroyed, and the Emperor
+Hung Wu had succeeded in firmly establishing that of the Great Ming,
+Ta Ming, he made Chin-ling, the present Nanking, his capital, and held
+his Court there with great splendour, envoys from every province within
+the 'Four Seas' (the Chinese Empire) assembling there to witness his
+greatness and to prostrate themselves before the Dragon Throne.
+
+The Emperor had many sons and daughters by his different consorts and
+concubines, each mother, in her inmost heart, fondly hoping that her
+own son would be selected by his father to succeed him.
+
+Although the Empress had a son, who was the heir-apparent, yet she felt
+envious of those ladies who had likewise been blessed with children,
+for fear one of the princes should supplant her son in the affection
+of the Emperor and in the succession. This envy displayed itself on
+every occasion; she was greatly beloved by the Emperor, and exerted
+all her influence with him, as the other young princes grew up,
+to get them removed from Court. Through her means most of them were
+sent to the different provinces as governors; those provinces under
+their government being so many principalities or kingdoms.
+
+
+
+Chu-ti
+
+One of the consorts of Hung Wu, the Lady Wêng, had a son named
+Chu-ti. This young prince was very handsome and graceful in his
+deportment; he was, moreover, of an amiable disposition. He was the
+fourth son of the Emperor, and his pleasing manner and address had made
+him a great favourite, not only with his father, but with every one
+about the Court. The Empress noticed the evident affection the Emperor
+evinced for this prince, and determined to get him removed from the
+Court as soon as possible. By a judicious use of flattery and cajolery,
+she ultimately persuaded the Emperor to appoint the prince governor of
+the Yen country, and thenceforth he was styled Yen Wang, Prince of Yen.
+
+
+The Sealed Packet
+
+The young Prince, shortly after, taking an affectionate leave of
+the Emperor, left Chin-ling to proceed to his post. Ere he departed,
+however, a Taoist priest, called Liu Po-wên, who had a great affection
+for the Prince, put a sealed packet into his hand, and told him to
+open it when he found himself in difficulty, distress, or danger; the
+perusal of the first portion that came to his hand would invariably
+suggest some remedy for the evil, whatever it was. After doing so,
+he was again to seal the packet, without further looking into its
+contents, till some other emergency arose necessitating advice or
+assistance, when he would again find it. The Prince departed on his
+journey, and in the course of time, without meeting with any adventures
+worth recording, arrived safely at his destination.
+
+
+
+A Desolate Region
+
+The place where Peking now stands was originally called Yu Chou; in the
+T'ang dynasty it was called Pei-p'ing Fu; and afterward became known
+as Shun-t'ien Fu--but that was after the city now called Peking was
+built. The name of the country in which this place was situated was
+Yen. It was a mere barren wilderness, with very few inhabitants; these
+lived in huts and scattered hamlets, and there was no city to afford
+protection to the people and to check the depredations of robbers.
+
+When the Prince saw what a desolate-looking place he had been appointed
+to, and thought of the long years he was probably destined to spend
+there, he grew very melancholy, and nothing his attendants essayed
+to do in hope of alleviating his sorrow succeeded.
+
+
+The Prince opens the Sealed Packet
+
+All at once the Prince bethought himself of the packet which the old
+Taoist priest had given him; he forthwith proceeded to make search for
+it--for in the bustle and excitement of travelling he had forgotten
+all about it--in hope that it might suggest something to better the
+prospects before him. Having found the packet, he hastily broke it
+open to see what instructions it contained; taking out the first
+paper which came to hand, he read the following:
+
+"When you reach Pei-p'ing Fu you must build a city there and name
+it No-cha Ch'êng, the City of No-cha. [26] But, as the work will
+be costly, you must issue a proclamation inviting the wealthy to
+subscribe the necessary funds for building it. At the back of this
+paper is a plan of the city; you must be careful to act according to
+the instructions accompanying it."
+
+The Prince inspected the plan, carefully read the instructions, and
+found even the minutest details fully explained. He was struck with
+the grandeur of the design of the proposed city, and at once acted on
+the instructions contained in the packet; proclamations were posted up,
+and large sums were speedily subscribed, ten of the wealthiest families
+who had accompanied him from Chin-ling being the largest contributors,
+supporting the plan not only with their purses, by giving immense sums,
+but by their influence among their less wealthy neighbours.
+
+
+The City is Founded
+
+When sufficient money had been subscribed, a propitious day was chosen
+on which to commence the undertaking. Trenches where the foundations
+of the walls were to be were first dug out, according to the plan
+found in the packet. The foundations themselves consisted of layers
+of stone quarried from the western hills; bricks of an immense size
+were made and burnt in the neighbourhood; the moat was dug out, and
+the earth from it used to fill in the centre of the walls, which,
+when complete, were forty-eight _li_ in circumference, fifty cubits in
+height, and fifty in breadth; the whole circuit of the walls having
+battlements and embrasures. Above each of the nine gates of the city
+immense three-storied towers were built, each tower being ninety-nine
+cubits in height.
+
+Near the front entrance of the city, facing each other, were built the
+Temples of Heaven and of Earth. In rear of it the beautiful 'Coal Hill'
+(better known as 'Prospect Hill') was raised; while in the square in
+front of the Great Gate of the palace was buried an immense quantity
+of charcoal (that and the coal being stored as a precaution in case
+of siege).
+
+The palace, containing many superb buildings, was built in a style of
+exceeding splendour; in the various enclosures were beautiful gardens
+and lakes; in the different courtyards, too, seventy-two wells were
+dug and thirty-six golden tanks placed. The whole of the buildings
+and grounds was surrounded by a lofty wall and a stone-paved moat,
+in which the lotus and other flowers bloomed in great beauty and
+profusion, and in the clear waters of which myriads of gold and silver
+fish disported themselves.
+
+The geomancy of the city was similar to that of Chin-ling, When
+everything was completed the Prince compared it with the plan and
+found that the city tallied with it in every respect. He was much
+delighted, and called for the ten wealthy persons who had been
+the chief contributors, and gave each of them a pair of 'couchant
+dragon' silk- or satin-embroidered cuffs, and allowed them great
+privileges. Up to the present time there is the common saying:
+"Since then the 'dragon-cuffed' gentlefolks have flourished."
+
+
+General Prosperity
+
+All the people were loud in praise of the beauty and strength of the
+newly built city. Merchants from every province hastened to Peking,
+attracted by the news they heard of its magnificence and the prospect
+there was of profitably disposing of their wares. In short, the people
+were prosperous and happy, food was plentiful, the troops brave, the
+monarch just, his ministers virtuous, and all enjoyed the blessings
+of peace.
+
+
+A Drought and its Cause
+
+While everything was thus tranquil, a sudden and untoward event
+occurred which spread dismay and consternation on all sides. One day
+when the Prince went into the hall of audience one of his ministers
+reported that "the wells are thirsty and the rivers dried up"--there
+was no water, and the people were all in the greatest alarm. The
+Prince at once called his counsellors together to devise some means
+of remedying this disaster and causing the water to return to the
+wells and springs, but no one could suggest a suitable plan.
+
+It is necessary to explain the cause of this scarcity of water. There
+was a dragon's cave outside the east gate of the city at a place
+called Lei-chên K'ou, 'Thunder-clap Mouth' or 'Pass' (the name of a
+village). The dragon had not been seen for myriads of years, yet it
+was well known that he lived there.
+
+In digging out the earth to build the wall the workmen had broken into
+this dragon's cave, little thinking of the consequences which would
+result. The dragon was exceedingly wroth and determined to shift his
+abode, but the she-dragon said: "We have lived here thousands of years,
+and shall we suffer the Prince of Yen to drive us forth thus? If we
+_do_ go we will collect all the water, place it in our _yin-yang_
+baskets [used for drawing water], and at midnight we will appear in a
+dream to the Prince, requesting permission to retire. If he gives us
+permission to do so, and allows us also to take our baskets of water
+with us, he will fall into our trap, for we shall take the waler with
+his own consent,"
+
+
+
+The Prince's Dream
+
+The two dragons then transformed themselves into an old man and
+an old woman, went to the chamber of the Prince, who was asleep,
+and appeared to him in a dream. Kneeling before him, they cried:
+"O Lord of a Thousand Years, we have come before you to beg leave to
+retire from this place, and to beseech you out of your great bounty
+to give us permission to take these two baskets of water with us."
+
+The Prince readily assented, little dreaming of the danger he was
+incurring. The dragons were highly delighted, and hastened out of
+his presence; they filled the baskets with all the water there was
+in Peking, and carried them off with them.
+
+When the Prince awoke he paid no attention to his dream till he
+heard the report of the scarcity of water, when, reflecting on the
+singularity of his dream, he thought there might be some hidden meaning
+in it. He therefore had recourse to the packet again, and discovered
+that his dream-visitors had been dragons, who had taken the waters of
+Peking away with them in their magic baskets; the packet, however,
+contained directions for the recovery of the water, and he at once
+prepared to follow them.
+
+
+The Pursuit of the Dragons
+
+In haste the Prince donned his armour, mounted his black steed, and,
+spear in hand, dashed out of the west gate of the city. He pressed on
+his horse, which went swift as the wind, nor did he slacken speed till
+he came up with the water-stealing dragons, who still retained the
+forms in which they had appeared to him in his dream. On a cart were
+the two identical baskets he had seen; in front of the cart, dragging
+it, was the old woman, while behind, pushing it, was the old man.
+
+
+An Unexpected Flood
+
+When the Prince saw them he galloped up to the cart, and, without
+pausing, thrust his spear into one of the baskets, making a great hole,
+out of which the water rushed so rapidly that the Prince was much
+frightened. He dashed off at full speed to save himself from being
+swallowed up by the waters, which in a very short time had risen more
+than thirty feet and had flooded the surrounding country. On galloped
+the Prince, followed by the roaring water, till he reached a hill,
+up which he urged his startled horse. When he gained the top he found
+that it stood out of the water like an island, completely surrounded;
+the water was seething and swirling round the hill in a frightful
+manner, but no vestige could he see of either of the dragons.
+
+
+The Waters Subside
+
+The Prince was very much alarmed at his perilous position, when
+suddenly a Buddhist priest appeared before him, with clasped hands and
+bent head, who bade him not be alarmed, as with Heaven's assistance
+he would soon disperse the water. Hereupon the priest recited a short
+prayer or spell, and the waters receded as rapidly as they had risen,
+and finally returned to their proper channels.
+
+
+The Origin of Chên-shui T'a
+
+The broken basket became a large deep hole, some three _mu_ (about
+half an English acre) in extent, in the centre of which was a fountain
+which threw up a vast body of clear water. From the midst of this
+there arose a pagoda, which rose and fell with the water, floating on
+the top like a vessel; the spire thrusting itself far up into the sky,
+and swaying about like the mast of a ship in a storm.
+
+The Prince returned to the city filled with wonder at what he
+had seen, and with joy at having so successfully carried out the
+directions contained in the packet. On all sides he was greeted by
+the acclamations of the people, who hailed him as the saviour of
+Peking. Since that time Peking has never had the misfortune to be
+without water.
+
+The pagoda is called the Pagoda on the Hill of the Imperial Spring
+(Yü Ch'üan Shan T'a; more commonly Chên-shui T'a, 'Water-repressing
+Pagoda'). [27] The spring is still there, and day and night,
+unceasingly, its clear waters bubble up and flow eastward to Peking,
+which would now be a barren wilderness but for Yen Wang's pursuit of
+the water.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Myths of Fire
+
+
+The Ministry of Fire
+
+The celestial organization of Fire is the fifth Ministry, and is
+presided over by a President, Lo Hsüan, whose titular designation is
+Huo-tê Hsing-chün, 'Stellar Sovereign of the Fire-virtue,' with five
+subordinate ministers, four of whom are star-gods, and the fifth a
+"celestial prince who receives fire": Chieh-huo T'ien-chün. Like so
+many other Chinese deities, the five were all ministers of the tyrant
+emperor Chou.
+
+It is related that Lo Hsüan was originally a Taoist priest known as
+Yen-chung Hsien, of the island Huo-lung, 'Fire-dragon.' His face was
+the colour of ripe fruit of the jujube-tree, his hair and beard red,
+the former done up in the shape of a fish-tail, and he had three
+eyes. He wore a red cloak ornamented with the _pa kua_; his horse
+snorted flames from its nostrils and fire darted from its hoofs.
+
+While fighting in the service of the son of the tyrant emperor,
+Lo Hsüan suddenly changed himself into a giant with three heads and
+six arms. In each of his hands he held a magic weapon. These were a
+seal which reflected the heavens and the earth, a wheel of the five
+fire-dragons, a gourd containing ten thousand fire-crows, and, in
+the other hands, two swords which floated like smoke, and a column
+of smoke several thousands of _li_ long enclosing swords of fire.
+
+
+A Conflagration
+
+Having arrived at the city of Hsi Ch'i, Lo Hsüan sent forth his
+smoke-column, the air was filled with swords of fire, the ten thousand
+fire-crows, emerging from the gourd, spread themselves over the town,
+and a terrible conflagration broke out, the whole place being ablaze
+in a few minutes.
+
+At this juncture there appeared in the sky the Princess Lung Chi,
+daughter of Wang-mu Niang-niang; forthwith she spread over the
+city her shroud of mist and dew, and the fire was extinguished by a
+heavy downpour of rain. All the mysterious mechanisms of Lo Hsüan
+lost their efficacy, and the magician took to his heels down the
+side of the mountain. There he was met by Li, the Pagoda-bearer,
+[28] who threw his golden pagoda into the air. The pagoda fell on Lo
+Hsüan's head and broke his skull.
+
+
+C'ih Ching-tzu
+
+Of the various fire-gods, Ch'ih Ching-tzu, the principle of spiritual
+fire, is one of the five spirits representing the Five Elements. He
+is Fire personified, which has its birth in the south, on Mount
+Shih-t'ang. He himself and everything connected with him--his skin,
+hair, beard, trousers, cloak of leaves, etc.--are all of the colour of
+fire, though he is sometimes represented with a blue cap resembling
+the blue tip of a flame. He appeared in the presence of Huang Lao
+in a fire-cloud. He it was who obtained fire from the wood of the
+mulberry-tree, and the heat of this fire, joined with the moisture
+of water, developed the germs of terrestrial beings.
+
+
+The Red Emperor
+
+Chu Jung, though also otherwise personified, is generally regarded as
+having been a legendary emperor who made his first appearance in the
+time of Hsien Yuan (2698-2598 B.C.). In his youth he asked Kuang-shou
+Lao-jên, 'Old Longevity,' to grant him immortality. "The time has
+not yet come," replied Old Longevity; "before it does you have to
+become an emperor. I will give you the means of reaching the end you
+desire. Give orders that after you are dead you are to be buried on
+the southern slope of the sacred mountain Hêng Shan; there you will
+learn the doctrine of Ch'ih Ching-tzu and will become immortal."
+
+The Emperor Hsien Yüan, having abdicated the throne, sent for Chu Jung,
+and bestowed upon him the crown. Chu Jung, having become emperor,
+taught the people the use of fire and the advantages to be derived
+therefrom. In those early times the forests were filled with venomous
+reptiles and savage animals; he ordered the peasants to set fire to the
+brushwood to drive away these dangerous neighbours and keep them at a
+distance. He also taught his subjects the art of purifying, forging,
+and welding metals by the action of fire. He was nicknamed Ch'ih Ti,
+'the Red Emperor.' He reigned for more than two hundred years, and
+became an Immortal, His capital was the ancient city of Kuei, thirty
+_li_ north-east of Hsin-chêng Hsien, in the Prefecture of K'ai-fêng
+Fu, Honan. His tomb is on the southern slope of Heng Shan. The peak
+is known as Chu Jung Peak. His descendants, who went to live in the
+south, were the ancestors of the Directors of Fire.
+
+
+Hui Lu
+
+The most popular God of Fire, however, is Hui Lu, a celebrated
+magician who, according to the _Shên hsien t'ung chien_, lived some
+time before the reign of Ti K'u (2436-2366 B.C.), the father of Yao
+the Great, and had a mysterious bird named Pi Fang and a hundred other
+fire-birds shut up in a gourd. He had only to let them out to set up
+a conflagration which would extend over the whole country.
+
+Huang Ti ordered Chu Jung to fight Hui Lu and also to subdue the
+rebel Chih Yu. Chu Jung had a large bracelet of pure gold--a most
+wonderful and effective weapon. He hurled it into the air, and it
+fell on Hui Lu's neck, throwing him to the ground and rendering him
+incapable of moving. Finding resistance impossible, he asked mercy
+from his victor and promised to be his follower in the spiritual
+contests. Subsequently he always called himself Huo-shih Chih T'u,
+'the Disciple of the Master of Fire.'
+
+
+The Fire-emperor
+
+Shen Nung, the God of Agriculture, also adds to his other functions
+those appertaining to the God of Fire, the reason being that when
+he succeeded the Emperor Fu Hsi on the throne he adopted fire as
+the emblem of his government, just as Huang Ti adopted the symbol
+of Earth. Thus he came to be called Huo Ti, the 'Fire-emperor.' He
+taught his subjects the use of fire for smelting metals and making
+implements and weapons, and the use of oil in lamps, etc. All the
+divisions of his official hierarchy were connected in some way with
+this element; thus, there were the Ministers of Fire generally, the
+officers of Fire of the North, South, etc. Becoming thus doubly the
+patron of fire, a second fire symbol (_huo_) was added to his name,
+changing it from Huo Ti, 'Fire-emperor,' to Yen Ti, 'Blazing Emperor,'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Myths of Epidemics, Medicine, Exorcism, Etc.
+
+
+The Ministry of Epidemics
+
+The gods of epidemics, etc., belong to the sixth, ninth, second,
+and third celestial Ministries. The composition of the Ministry of
+Epidemics is arranged differently in different works as Epidemics
+(regarded as epidemics on earth, but as demons in Heaven) of the
+Centre, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, or as the marshals clothed
+in yellow, green, red, white, and blue respectively, or as the Officers
+of the East, West, South, and North, with two additional members:
+a Taoist who quells the plague, and the Grand Master who exhorts
+people to do right.
+
+With regard to the Ministry of Seasonal Epidemics, it is related that
+in the sixth moon of the eleventh year (A.D. 599) of the reign of Kao
+Tsu, founder of the Sui dynasty, five stalwart persons appeared in
+the air, clothed in robes of five colours, each carrying different
+objects in his hands: the first a spoon and earthenware vase, the
+second a leather bag and sword, the third a fan, the fourth a club,
+the fifth a jug of fire. The Emperor asked Chang Chü-jên, his Grand
+Historiographer, who these were and if they were benevolent or evil
+spirits. The official answered: "These are the five powers of the five
+directions. Their appearance indicates the imminence of epidemics,
+which will last throughout the four seasons of the year." "What
+remedy is there, and how am I to protect the people?" inquired the
+Emperor. "There is no remedy," replied the official, "for epidemics
+are sent by Heaven." During that year the mortality was very great. The
+Emperor built a temple to the five persons, and bestowed upon them the
+title of Marshals to the Five Spirits of the Plague. During that and
+the following dynasty sacrifices were offered to them on the fifth
+day of the fifth moon.
+
+
+The President of the Ministry
+
+The following particulars are given concerning the President of the
+Ministry, whose name was Lü Yüeh. He was an old Taoist hermit, living
+at Chiu-lung Tao, 'Nine-dragon Island,' who became an Immortal. The
+four members of the Ministry were his disciples. He wore a red garment,
+had a blue face, red hair, long teeth, and three eyes. His war-horse
+was named the Myopic Camel. He carried a magic sword, and was in the
+service of Chou Wang, whose armies were concentrated at Hsi Ch'i. In
+a duel with Mu-cha, brother of No-cha, he had his arm severed by a
+sword-cut. In another battle with Huang T'ien-hua, son of Huang Fei-hu,
+he appeared with three heads and six arms. In his many hands he held
+the celestial seal, plague microbes, the flag of plague, the plague
+sword, and two mysterious swords. His faces were green, and large
+teeth protruded from his mouths. Huang T'ien-hua threw his magic
+weapon, Huo-lung Piao, and hit him on the leg. Just at that moment
+Chiang Tzu-ya arrived with his goblin-dispelling whip and felled him
+with a blow. He was able, however, to rise again, and took to flight.
+
+
+The Plague-disseminating Umbrellas
+
+Resolved to avenge his defeat, he joined General Hsü Fang, who was
+commanding an army corps at Ch'uan-yün Kuan. Round the mountain he
+organized a system of entrenchments and of infection against their
+enemies. Yang Chien released his celestial hound, which bit Lü Yüeh
+on the crown of his head. Then Yang Jên, armed with his magic fan,
+pursued Lü Yüeh and compelled him to retreat to his fortress. Lü
+Yüeh mounted the central raised part of the embattled wall and opened
+all his plague-disseminating umbrellas, with the object of infecting
+Yang Jên, but the latter, simply by waving his fan, reduced all the
+umbrellas to dust, and also burned the fort, and with it Lü Yüeh.
+
+Similar wonderful achievements are related in short notices in the
+_Fêng shên yen i_ of the four other officers of the Ministry.
+
+Li P'ing, the sixth officer of the Ministry, met a like fate to that
+of Lü Yüeh after having failed to induce the latter to abandon the
+cause of the Shang dynasty for that of Chou.
+
+
+The Five Graduates
+
+In Père Henri Doré's _Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine_
+is given an interesting legend concerning five other gods of
+epidemics. These gods are called the Wu Yüeh, 'Five Mountains,'
+and are worshipped in the temple San-i Ko at Ju-kao, especially in
+outbreaks of contagious diseases and fevers. A sufferer goes to the
+temple and promises offerings to the gods in the event of recovery. The
+customary offering is five small wheaten loaves, called _shao ping_,
+and a pound of meat.
+
+The Wu Yüeh are stellar devils whom Yü Huang sent to be reincarnated on
+earth. Their names were T'ien Po-hsüeh, Tung Hung-wên, Ts'ai Wên-chü,
+Chao Wu-chên, and Huang Ying-tu, and they were reincarnated at
+Nan-ch'ang Fu, Chien-ch'ang Fu, Yen-mên Kuan, Yang Chou, and Nanking
+respectively. They were all noted for their brilliant intellects,
+and were clever scholars who passed their graduate's examination
+with success.
+
+When Li Shih-min ascended the throne, in A.D. 627, he called together
+all the _literati_ of the Empire to take the Doctor's Examination
+in the capital. Our five graduates started for the metropolis, but,
+losing their way, were robbed by brigands, and had to beg help in
+order to reach the end of their journey. By good luck they all met in
+the temple San-i Ko, and related to each other the various hardships
+they had undergone. But when they eventually reached the capital
+the examination was over, and they were out in the streets without
+resources. So they took an oath of brotherhood for life and death. They
+pawned some of the few clothes they possessed, and buying some musical
+instruments formed themselves into a band of strolling musicians.
+
+The first bought a drum, the second a seven-stringed guitar, the
+third a mandolin, the fourth a clarinet, and the fifth and youngest
+composed songs.
+
+Thus they went through the streets of the capital giving their
+concerts, and Fate decreed that Li Shih-min should hear their
+melodies. Charmed with the sweet sounds, he asked Hsü Mao-kung
+whence came this band of musicians, whose skill was certainly
+exceptional. Having made inquiries, the minister related their
+experiences to the Emperor. Li Shih-min ordered them to be brought
+into his presence, and after hearing them play and sing appointed them
+to his private suite, and henceforth they accompanied him wherever
+he went.
+
+
+The Emperors Strategy
+
+The Emperor bore malice toward Chang T'ien-shih, the Master of
+the Taoists, because he refused to pay the taxes on his property,
+and conceived a plan to bring about his destruction. He caused a
+spacious subterranean chamber to be dug under the reception-hall of
+his palace. A wire passed through the ceiling to where the Emperor
+sat. He could thus at will give the signal for the music to begin
+or stop. Having stationed the five musicians in this subterranean
+chamber, he summoned the Master of the Taoists to his presence and
+invited him to a banquet. During the course of this he pulled the wire,
+and a subterranean babel began.
+
+The Emperor pretended to be terrified, and allowed himself to fall
+to the ground. Then, addressing himself to the T'ien-shih, he said:
+"I know that you can at will catch the devilish hobgoblins which
+molest human beings. You can hear for yourself the infernal row they
+make in my palace. I order you under penalty of death to put a stop
+to their pranks and to exterminate them."
+
+
+The Musicians are Slain
+
+Having spoken thus, the Emperor rose and left. The Master of the
+Taoists brought his projecting mirror, and began to seek for the
+evil spirits. In vain he inspected the palace and its precincts;
+he could discover nothing. Fearing that he was lost, he in despair
+threw his mirror on the floor of the reception-hall.
+
+A minute later, sad and pensive, he stooped to pick it up; what was
+his joyful surprise when he saw reflected in it the subterranean room
+and the musicians! At once he drew five talismans on yellow paper,
+burned them, and ordered his celestial general, Chao Kung-ming, to
+take his sword and kill the five musicians. The order was promptly
+executed, and the T'ien-shih informed the Emperor, who received the
+news with ridicule, not believing it to be true. He went to his seat
+and pulled the wire, but all remained silent. A second and third time
+he gave the signal, but without response. He then ordered his Grand
+Officer to ascertain what had happened. The officer found the five
+graduates bathed in their blood, and lifeless.
+
+The Emperor, furious, reproached the Master of the Taoists. "But,"
+replied the T'ien-shih, "was it not your Majesty who ordered me under
+pain of death to exterminate the authors of this pandemonium?" Li
+Shih-min could not reply. He dismissed the Master of the Taoists and
+ordered the five victims to be buried.
+
+
+The Emperor Tormented
+
+After the funeral ceremonies, apparitions appeared at night in the
+place where they had been killed, and the palace became a babel. The
+spirits threw bricks and broke the tiles on the roofs.
+
+The Emperor ordered his uncomfortable visitors to go to the T'ien-shih
+who had murdered them. They obeyed, and, seizing the garments of the
+Master of the Taoists, swore not to allow him any rest if he would
+not restore them to life.
+
+To appease them the Taoist said: "I am going to give each of you a
+wonderful object. You are then to return and spread epidemics among
+wicked people, beginning in the imperial palace and with the Emperor
+himself, with the object of forcing him to canonize you."
+
+One received a fan, another a gourd filled with fire, the third a
+metallic ring to encircle people's heads, the fourth a stick made of
+wolves' teeth, and the fifth a cup of lustral water.
+
+The spirit-graduates left full of joy, and made their first experiment
+on Li Shih-min. The first gave him feverish chills by waving his
+fan, the second burned him with the fire from his gourd, the third
+encircled his head with the ring, causing him violent headache, the
+fourth struck him with his stick, and the fifth poured out his cup
+of lustral water on his head.
+
+The same night a similar tragedy took place in the palace of the
+Empress and the two chief imperial concubines.
+
+T'ai-po Chin-hsing, however, informed Yü Huang what had happened,
+and, touched with compassion, he sent three Immortals with pills and
+talismans which cured the Empress and the ladies of the palace.
+
+
+The Graduates Canonized
+
+Li Shih-min, having also recovered his health, summoned the five
+deceased graduates and expressed his regret for the unfortunate issue
+of his design against the T'ien-shih. He proceeded: "To the south of
+the capital is the temple San-i Ko. I will change its name to Hsiang
+Shan Wu Yüeh Shên, 'Fragrant Hill of the Five Mountain Spirits.' On
+the twenty-eighth day of the ninth moon betake yourselves to that
+temple to receive the seals of your canonization." He conferred upon
+them the title of Ti, 'Emperor.'
+
+
+The Ministry of Medicine
+
+The celestial Ministry of Medicine is composed of three main
+divisions comprising: (1) the Ancestral Gods of the Chinese race;
+(2) the King of Remedies, Yao Wang; and (3) the Specialists. There
+is a separate Ministry of Smallpox. This latter controls and cures
+smallpox, and the establishment of a separate celestial Ministry is
+significant of the prevalence and importance of the affliction. The
+ravages of smallpox in China, indeed, have been terrific: so much so,
+that, until recent years, it was considered as natural and inevitable
+for a child to have smallpox as for it to cut its teeth. One of the
+ceremonial questions addressed by a visitor to the parent of a child
+was always _Ch'u la hua'rh mei yu_? "Has he had the smallpox?" and a
+child who escaped the scourge was often, if not as a rule, regarded
+with disfavour and, curiously enough, as a weakling. Probably the
+train of thought in the Chinese mind was that, as it is the fittest
+who survive, those who have successfully passed through the process of
+"putting out the flowers" have proved their fitness in the struggle
+for existence. Nowadays vaccination is general, and the number of
+pockmarked faces seen is much smaller than it used to be--in fact,
+the pockmarked are now the exception. But, as far as I have been
+able to ascertain, the Ministry of Smallpox has not been abolished,
+and possibly its members, like those of some more mundane ministries,
+continue to draw large salaries for doing little or no work.
+
+
+The Medicine-gods
+
+The chief gods of medicine are the mythical kings P'an Ku, Fu Hsi,
+Shên Nung, and Huang Ti. The first two, being by different writers
+regarded as the first progenitor or creator of the Chinese people,
+are alternatives, so that Fu Hsi, Shên Nung, and Huang Ti may be said
+to be a sort of ancestral triad of medicine-gods, superior to the
+actual God or King of Medicine, Yao Wang. Of P'an Ku we have spoken
+sufficiently in Chapter III, and with regard to Fu Hsi, also called
+T'ien Huang Shih, 'the Celestial Emperor,' the mythical sovereign
+and supposed inventor of cooking, musical instruments, the calendar,
+hunting, fishing, etc., the chief interest for our present purpose
+centres in his discovery of the _pa kua_, or Eight Trigrams. It is on
+the strength of these trigrams that Fu Hsi is regarded as the chief
+god of medicine, since it is by their mystical power that the Chinese
+physicians influence the minds and maladies of their patients. He
+is represented as holding in front of him a disk on which the signs
+are painted.
+
+
+The Ministry of Exorcism
+
+The Ministry of Exorcism is a Taoist invention and is composed of seven
+chief ministers, whose duty is to expel evil spirits from dwellings
+and generally to counteract the annoyances of infernal demons. The
+two gods usually referred to in the popular legends are P'an Kuan and
+Chung K'uei. The first is really the Guardian of the Living and the
+Dead in the Otherworld, Fêng-tu P'an Kuan (Fêng-tu or Fêng-tu Ch'êng
+being the region beyond the tomb). He was originally a scholar named
+Ts'ui Chio, who became Magistrate of Tz'u Chou, and later Minister
+of Ceremonies. After his death he was appointed to the spiritual post
+above mentioned. His best-known achievement is his prolongation of the
+life of the Emperor T'ai Tsung of the T'ang dynasty by twenty years by
+changing _i_, 'one,' into _san_, 'three,' in the life-register kept
+by the gods. The term P'an Kuan is, however, more generally used as
+the designation of an officer or civil or military attendant upon
+a god than of any special individual, and the original P'an Kuan,
+'the Decider of Life in Hades,' has been gradually supplanted in
+popular favour by Chung K'uei, 'the Protector against Evil Spirits.'
+
+
+The Exorcism of 'Emptiness and Devastation'
+
+The Emperor Ming Huang of the T'ang dynasty, also known as T'ang
+Hsüan Tsung, in the reign-period K'ai Yüan (A.D. 712-742), after an
+expedition to Mount Li in Shensi, was attacked by fever. During a
+nightmare he saw a small demon fantastically dressed in red trousers,
+with a shoe on one foot but none on the other, and a shoe hanging from
+his girdle. Having broken through a bamboo gate, he took possession
+of an embroidered box and a jade flute, and then began to make a
+tour of the palace, sporting and gambolling. The Emperor grew angry
+and questioned him. "Your humble servant," replied the little demon,
+"is named Hsü Hao, 'Emptiness and Devastation,'" "I have never heard
+of such a person," said the Emperor. The demon rejoined, "Hsü means to
+desire Emptiness, because in Emptiness one can fly just as one wishes;
+Hao, 'Devastation,' changes people's joy to sadness. "The Emperor,
+irritated by this flippancy, was about to call his guard, when suddenly
+a great devil appeared, wearing a tattered head-covering and a blue
+robe, a horn clasp on his belt, and official boots on his feet. He
+went up to the sprite, tore out one of his eyes, crushed it up, and ate
+it. The Emperor asked the newcomer who he was. "Your humble servant,"
+he replied, "is Chung K'uei, Physician of Tung-nan Shan in Shensi. In
+the reign-period Wu Tê (A.D. 618-627) of the Emperor Kao Tsu of the
+T'ang dynasty I was ignominiously rejected and unjustly defrauded
+of a first class in the public examinations. Overwhelmed with shame,
+I committed suicide on the steps of the imperial palace. The Emperor
+ordered me to be buried in a green robe [reserved for members of the
+imperial clan], and out of gratitude for that favour I swore to protect
+the sovereign in any part of the Empire against the evil machinations
+of the demon Hsü Hao." At these words the Emperor awoke and found
+that the fever had left him. His Majesty called for Wu Tao-tzu (one
+of the most celebrated Chinese artists) to paint the portrait of the
+person he had seen in his dream. The work was so well done that the
+Emperor recognized it as the actual demon he had seen in his sleep,
+and rewarded the artist with a hundred taels of gold. The portrait is
+said to have been still in the imperial palace during the Sung dynasty.
+
+Another version of the legend says that Chung K'uefs essay was
+recognized by the examiners as equal to the work of the best authors
+of antiquity, but that the Emperor rejected him on account of his
+extremely ugly features, whereupon he committed suicide in his
+presence, was honoured by the Emperor and accorded a funeral as if
+he had been the successful first candidate, and canonized with the
+title of Great Spiritual Chaser of Demons for the Whole Empire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Goddess of Mercy
+
+
+The Guardian Angel of Buddhism
+
+As Mary is the guiding spirit of Rome, so is Kuan Yin of the Buddhist
+faith.
+
+According to a beautiful Chinese legend, Kuan Yin. when about to
+enter Heaven, heard a cry of anguish rising from the earth beneath
+her, and, moved by pity, paused as her feet touched the glorious
+threshold. Hence her name 'Kuan (Shih) Yin' (one who notices or hears
+the cry, or prayer, of the world).
+
+Kuan Yin was at one time always represented as a man; but in the
+T'ang dynasty and Five Dynasties we find him represented as a woman,
+and he has been generally, though not invariably, so represented
+since that time.
+
+In old Buddhism Shâkyamuni was the chief god, and in many temples
+he still nominally occupies the seat of honour, but he is completely
+eclipsed by the God or Goddess of Mercy.
+
+"The men love her, the children adore her, and the women chant her
+prayers. Whatever the temple may be, there is nearly always a chapel
+for Kuan Yin within its precincts; she lives in many homes, and in
+many, many hearts she sits enshrined. She is the patron goddess of
+mothers, and when we remember the relative value of a son in Chinese
+estimation we can appreciate the heartiness of the worship. She
+protects in sorrow, and so millions of times the prayer is offered,
+'Great mercy, great pity, save from sorrow, save from suffering,' or,
+as it is in the books, 'Great mercy, great pity, save from misery,
+save from evil, broad, great, efficacious, responsive Kuan Yin Buddha,'
+She saves the tempest-tossed sailor, and so has eclipsed the Empress
+of Heaven, who, as the female Neptune, is the patroness of seamen;
+in drought the mandarins worship the Dragon and the Pearly Emperor,
+but if they fail the bronze Goddess of Mercy from the hills brings
+rain. Other gods are feared, she is loved; others have black,
+scornful faces, her countenance is radiant as gold, and gentle as
+the moon-beam; she draws near to the people and the people draw near
+to her. Her throne is upon the Isle of Pootoo [P'u T'o], to which
+she came floating upon a water-lily. She is the model of Chinese
+beauty, and to say a lady or a little girl is a 'Kuan Yin' is the
+highest compliment that can be paid to grace and loveliness. She is
+fortunate in having three birthdays, the nineteenth of the second,
+sixth, and ninth moons." There are many metamorphoses of this goddess.
+
+
+The Buddhist Saviour
+
+"She is called Kuan Yin because at any cry of misery she 'hears the
+voice and removes the sorrow.' Her appellation is 'Taking-away-fear
+Buddha,' If in the midst of the fire the name of Kuan Yin is called,
+the fire cannot burn; if tossed by mountain billows, call her name,
+and shallow waters will be reached. If merchants go across the sea
+seeking gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, and a storm comes
+up and threatens to carry the crew to the evil devil's kingdom,
+if one on board calls on the name of Kuan Yin, the ship will be
+saved. If one goes into a conflict and calls on the name of Kuan
+Yin, the sword and spear of the enemy fall harmless. If the three
+thousand great kingdoms are visited by demons, call on her name,
+and these demons cannot with an evil eye look on a man. If, within,
+you have evil thoughts, only call on Kuan Yin, and your heart will
+be purified, Anger and wrath may be dispelled by calling on the name
+of Kuan Yin. A lunatic who prays to Kuan Yin will become sane. Kuan
+Yin gives sons to mothers, and if the mother asks for a daughter she
+will be beautiful. Two men--one chanting the names of the 6,200,000
+Buddhas, in number like the sands of the Ganges, and the other simply
+calling on Kuan Yin--have equal merit. Kuan Yin may take the form of
+a Buddha, a prince, a priest, a nun, a scholar, any form or shape,
+go to any kingdom, and preach the law throughout the earth."
+
+
+Miao Chuang desires an Heir
+
+In the twenty-first year of the reign of Ta Hao, the Great Great
+One, of the Golden Heavenly Dynasty, a man named P'o Chia, whose
+first name was Lo Yü, an enterprising kinglet of Hsi Yii, seized the
+throne for twenty years, after carrying on a war for a space of three
+years. His kingdom was known as Hsing Lin, and the title of his reign
+as Miao Chuang.
+
+The kingdom of Hsing Lin was, so says the Chinese writer, situated
+between India on the west, the kingdom of T'ien Cheng on the south,
+and the kingdom of Siam on the north, and was 3000 _li_ in length. The
+boundaries differ according to different authors. Of this kingdom
+the two pillars of State were the Grand Minister Chao Chen and the
+General Ch'u Chieh. The Queen Pao Tê, whose maiden name was Po Ya, and
+the King Miao Chuang had lived nearly half a century without having
+any male issue to succeed to the throne. This was a source of great
+grief to them. Po Ya suggested to the King that the God of Hua Shan,
+the sacred mountain in the west, had the reputation of being always
+willing to help; and that if he prayed to him and asked his pardon
+for having shed so much blood during the wars which preceded his
+accession to the throne he might obtain an heir.
+
+Welcoming this suggestion, the King sent for Chao Chên and ordered
+him to dispatch to the temple of Hua Shan the two Chief Ministers of
+Ceremonies, Hsi Hêng-nan and Chih Tu, with instructions to request
+fifty Buddhist and Taoist priests to pray for seven days and seven
+nights in order that the King might obtain a son. When that period
+was over, the King and Queen would go in person to offer sacrifices
+in the temple.
+
+
+Prayers to the Gods
+
+The envoys took with them many rare and valuable presents, and for
+seven days and seven nights the temple resounded with the sound of
+drums, bells, and all kinds of instruments, intermingled with the
+voices of the praying priests. On their arrival the King and Queen
+offered sacrifices to the god of the sacred mountain.
+
+But the God of Hua Shan knew that the King had been deprived of a
+male heir as a punishment for the bloody hecatombs during his three
+years' war. The priests, however, interceded for him, urging that the
+King had come in person to offer the sacrifices, wherefore the God
+could not altogether reject his prayer. So he ordered Ch'ien-li Yen,
+'Thousand-_li_ Eye,' and Shun-fêng Erh, 'Favourable-wind Ear,' [29]
+to go quickly and ascertain if there were not some worthy person who
+was on the point of being reincarnated into this world.
+
+The two messengers shortly returned, and stated that in India, in the
+Chiu Ling Mountains, in the village of Chih-shu Yüan, there lived a
+good man named Shih Ch'in-ch'ang, whose ancestors for three generations
+had observed all the ascetic rules of the Buddhists. This man was the
+father of three children, the eldest Shih Wên, the second Shih Chin,
+and the third Shih Shan, all worthy followers of the great Buddha.
+
+
+The Murder of the Tais
+
+Wang Chê, a brigand chief, and thirty of his followers, finding
+themselves pursued and harassed by the Indian soldiers, without
+provisions or shelter, dying of hunger, went to Shih Wên and begged for
+something to eat. Knowing that they were evildoers, Shih Wên and his
+two brothers refused to give them anything; if they starved, they said,
+the peasants would no longer suffer from their depredations. Thereupon
+the brigands decided that it was a case of life for life, and broke
+into the house of a rich family of the name of Tai, burning their
+home, killing a hundred men, women, and children, and carrying off
+everything they possessed.
+
+The local _t'u-ti_ at once made a report to Yü Huang.
+
+"This Shih family," replied the god, "for three generations has
+given itself up to good works, and certainly the brigands were not
+deserving of any pity. However, it is impossible to deny that the
+three brothers Shih, in refusing them food, morally compelled them to
+loot the Tai family's house, putting all to the sword or flames. Is
+not this the same as if they had committed the crime themselves? Let
+them be arrested and put in chains in the celestial prison, and let
+them never see the light of the sun again."
+
+"Since," said the messenger to the God of Hua Shan, "your gratitude
+toward Miao Chuang compels you to grant him an heir, why not ask Yü
+Huang to pardon their crime and reincarnate them in the womb of the
+Queen Po Ya, so that they may begin a new terrestrial existence and
+give themselves up to good works?" As a result, the God of Hua Shan
+called the Spirit of the Wind and gave him a message for Yü Huang.
+
+
+A Message for Yü Huang
+
+The message was as follows: "King Miao Chuang has offered sacrifice
+to me and begged me to grant him an heir. But since by his wars he
+has caused the deaths of a large number of human beings, he does not
+deserve to have his request granted. Now these three brothers Shih
+have offended your Majesty by constraining the brigand Wang Che to be
+guilty of murder and robbery. I pray you to take into account their
+past good works and pardon their crime, giving them an opportunity
+of expiating it by causing them all three to be reborn, but of the
+female sex, in the womb of Po Ya the Queen. [30] In this way they
+will be able to atone for their crime and save many souls." Yü Huang
+was pleased to comply, and he ordered the Spirit of the North Pole
+to release the three captives and take their souls to the palace of
+King Miao Chuang, where in three years' time they would be changed
+into females in the womb of Queen Po Ya.
+
+
+Birth of the Three Daughters
+
+The King, who was anxiously expecting day by day the birth of an heir,
+was informed one morning that a daughter had been born to him. She was
+named Miao Ch'ing. A year went by, and another daughter was born. This
+one was named Miao Yin. When, at the end of the third year, another
+daughter was born, the King, beside himself with rage, called his
+Grand Minister Chao Chên and, all disconsolate, said to him, "I am
+past fifty, and have no male child to succeed me on the throne. My
+dynasty will therefore become extinct. Of what use have been all my
+labours and all my victories?" Chao Chen tried to console him, saying,
+"Heaven has granted you three daughters: no human power can change this
+divine decree. When these princesses have grown up, we will choose
+three sons-in-law for your Majesty, and you can elect your successor
+from among them. Who will dare to dispute his right to the throne?"
+
+The King named the third daughter Miao Shan. She became noted for her
+modesty and many other good qualities, and scrupulously observed all
+the tenets of the Buddhist doctrines. Virtuous living seemed, indeed,
+to be to her a second nature.
+
+
+Miao Shan's Ambition
+
+One day, when the three sisters were playing in the palace garden of
+Perpetual Spring, Miao Shan, with a serious mien, said to her sisters,
+"Riches and glory are like the rain in spring or the morning dew;
+a little while, and all is gone. Kings and emperors think to enjoy to
+the end the good fortune which places them in a rank apart from other
+human beings; but sickness lays them low in their coffins, and all
+is over. Where are now all those powerful dynasties which have laid
+down the law to the world? As for me, I desire nothing more than a
+peaceful retreat on a lone mountain, there to attempt the attainment
+of perfection. If some day I can reach a high degree of goodness,
+then, borne on the clouds of Heaven, I will travel throughout the
+universe, passing in the twinkling of an eye from east to west. I
+will rescue my father and mother, and bring them to Heaven; I will
+save the miserable and afflicted on earth; I will convert the spirits
+which do evil, and cause them to do good. That is my only ambition."
+
+
+Her Sisters Marry
+
+No sooner had she finished speaking than a lady of the Court came to
+announce that the King had found sons-in-law to his liking for his two
+elder daughters. The wedding-feast was to be the very next day. "Be
+quick," she added, "and prepare your presents, your dresses, and so
+forth, for the King's order is imperative." The husband chosen for Miao
+Ch'ing was a First Academician named Chao K'uei. His personal name was
+Tê Ta, and he was the son of a celebrated minister of the reigning
+dynasty. Miao Yin's husband-elect was a military officer named Ho
+Fêng, whose personal name was Ch'ao Yang. He had passed first in the
+examination for the Military Doctorate. The marriage ceremonies were
+of a magnificent character. Festivity followed festivity; the newly-wed
+were duly installed in their palaces, and general happiness prevailed.
+
+
+Miao Shan's Renunciation
+
+There now remained only Miao Shan. The King and Queen wished to find
+for her a man famous for knowledge and virtue, capable of ruling the
+kingdom, and worthy of being the successor to the throne. So the
+King called her and explained to her all his plans regarding her,
+and how all his hopes rested on her.
+
+"It is a crime," she replied, "for me not to comply with my father's
+wishes; but you must pardon me if my ideas differ from yours."
+
+"Tell me what your ideas are," said the King.
+
+"I do not wish to marry," she rejoined. "I wish to attain to perfection
+and to Buddhahood. Then I promise that I will not be ungrateful
+to you."
+
+"Wretch of a daughter," cried the King in anger, "you think you can
+teach me, the head of the State and ruler of so great a people! Has
+anyone ever known a daughter of a king become a nun? Can a good woman
+be found in that class? Put aside all these mad ideas of a nunnery,
+and tell me at once if you will marry a First Academician or a Military
+First Graduate."
+
+"Who is there," answered the girl, "who does not love the royal
+dignity?--what person who does not aspire to the happiness of
+marriage? However, I wish to become a nun. With respect to the riches
+and glory of this world, my heart is as cold as a dead cinder, and
+I feel a keen desire to make it ever purer and purer."
+
+The King rose in fury, and wished to cast her out from his
+presence. Miao Shan, knowing she could not openly disobey his orders,
+took another course. "If you absolutely insist upon my marrying,"
+she said, "I will consent; only I must marry a physician."
+
+"A physician!" growled the King. "Are men of good family and talents
+wanting in my kingdom? What an absurd idea, to want to marry a
+physician!"
+
+"My wish is," said Miao Shan, "to heal humanity of all its ills; of
+cold, heat, lust, old age, and all infirmities. I wish to equalize all
+classes, putting rich and poor on the same footing, to have community
+of goods, without distinction of persons. If you will grant me my wish,
+I can still in this way become a Buddha, a Saviour of Mankind. There
+is no necessity to call in the diviners to choose an auspicious day. I
+am ready to be married now."
+
+
+She is Exiled to the Garden
+
+At these words the King was mad with rage. "Wicked imbecile!" he
+cried, "what diabolical suggestions are these that you dare to make
+in my presence?"
+
+Without further ado he called Ho T'ao, who on that day was officer
+of the palace guard. When he had arrived and kneeled to receive the
+King's commands, the latter said: "This wicked nun dishonours me. Take
+from her her Court robes, and drive her from my presence. Take her
+to the Queen's garden, and let her perish there of cold: that will
+be one care less for my troubled heart."
+
+Miao Shan fell on her face and thanked the King, and then went with
+the officer to the Queen's garden, where she began to lead her retired
+hermit life, with the moon for companion and the wind for friend,
+content to see all obstacles overthrown on her way to Nirvana, the
+highest state of spiritual bliss, and glad to exchange the pleasures
+of the palace for the sweetness of solitude.
+
+
+The Nunnery of the White Bird
+
+After futile attempts to dissuade her from her purpose by the Court
+ladies, her parents, and sisters, the King and Queen next deputed
+Miao Hung and Ts'ui Hung to make a last attempt to bring their
+misguided daughter to her senses. Miao Shan, annoyed at this renewed
+solicitation, in a haughty manner ordered them never again to come and
+torment her with their silly prattle. "I have found out," she added,
+"that there is a well-known temple at Ju Chou in Lung-shu Hsien. This
+Buddhist temple is known as the Nunnery of the White Bird, Po-ch'iao
+Ch'an-ssu. In it five hundred nuns give themselves up to the study
+of the true doctrine and the way of perfection. Go then and ask the
+Queen on my behalf to obtain the King's permission for me to retire
+thither. If you can procure me this favour, I will not fail to reward
+you later."
+
+Miao Chuang summoned the messengers and inquired the result of their
+efforts. "She is more unapproachable than ever," they replied; "she has
+even ordered us to ask the Queen to obtain your Majesty's permission
+to retire to the Nunnery of the White Bird in Lung-shu Hsien."
+
+The King gave his permission, but sent strict orders to the nunnery,
+instructing the nuns to do all in their power to dissuade the Princess
+when she arrived from carrying out her intention to remain.
+
+
+Her Reception at the Nunnery
+
+This Nunnery of the White Bird had been built by Huang Ti, and
+the five hundred nuns who lived in it had as Superior a lady named
+I Yu, who was remarkable for her virtue. On receipt of the royal
+mandate, she had summoned Chêng Chêng-ch'ang, the choir-mistress,
+and informed her that Princess Miao Shan, owing to a disagreement
+with her father, would shortly arrive at the temple. She requested
+her to receive the visitor courteously, but at the same time to do
+all she could to dissuade her from adopting the life of a nun. Having
+given these instructions, the Superior, accompanied by two novices,
+went to meet Miao Shan at the gate of the temple. On her arrival
+they saluted her. The Princess returned the salute, but said: "I
+have just left the world in order to place myself under your orders:
+why do you come and salute me on my arrival? I beg you to be so good
+as to take me into the temple, in order that I may pay my respects to
+the Buddha." I Yu led her into the principal hall, and instructed the
+nuns to light incense-sticks, ring the bells, and beat the drums. The
+visit to the temple finished, she went into the preaching-hall, where
+she greeted her instructresses. The latter obeyed the King's command
+and endeavoured to persuade the Princess to return to her home, but,
+as none of their arguments had any effect, it was at length decided to
+give her a trial, and to put her in charge of the kitchen, where she
+could prepare the food for the nunnery, and generally be at the service
+of all. If she did not give satisfaction they could dismiss her.
+
+
+She makes Offering to the Buddha
+
+Miao Shan joyfully agreed, and proceeded to make her humble submission
+to the Buddha. She knelt before Ju Lai, and made offering to him,
+praying as follows: "Great Buddha, full of goodness and mercy, your
+humble servant wishes to leave the world. Grant that I may never
+yield to the temptations which will be sent to try my faith." Miao
+Shan further promised to observe all the regulations of the nunnery
+and to obey the superiors.
+
+
+Spiritual Aid
+
+This generous self-sacrifice touched the heart of Yü Huang, the Master
+of Heaven, who summoned the Spirit of the North Star and instructed
+him as follows: "Miao Shan, the third daughter of King Miao Chuang,
+has renounced the world in order to devote herself to the attainment of
+perfection. Her father has consigned her to the Nunnery of the White
+Bird. She has undertaken without grumbling the burden of all the work
+in the nunnery. If she is left without help, who is there who will be
+willing to adopt the virtuous life? Do you go quickly and order the
+Three Agents, the Gods of the Five Sacred Peaks, the Eight Ministers
+of the Heavenly Dragon, Ch'ieh Lan, and the _t'u-ti_ to send her help
+at once. Tell the Sea-dragon to dig her a well near the kitchen,
+a tiger to bring her firewood, birds to collect vegetables for the
+inmates of the nunnery, and all the spirits of Heaven to help her in
+her duties, that she may give herself up without disturbance to the
+pursuit of perfection. See that my commands are promptly obeyed." The
+Spirit of the North Star complied without delay.
+
+
+The Nunnery on Fire
+
+Seeing all these gods arrive to help the novice, the Superior, I Yu,
+held consultation with the choir-mistress, saying: "We assigned to
+the Princess the burdensome work of the kitchen because she refused to
+return to the world; but since she has entered on her duties the gods
+of the eight caves of Heaven have come to offer her fruit, Ch'ieh Lan
+sweeps the kitchen, the dragon has dug a well, the God of the Hearth
+and the tiger bring her fuel, birds collect vegetables for her, the
+nunnery bell every evening at dusk booms of itself, as if struck by
+some mysterious hand. Obviously miracles are being performed. Hasten
+and fetch the King, and beg his Majesty to recall his daughter."
+
+Chêng Chêng-ch'ang started on her way, and, on arrival, informed
+the King of all that had taken place. The King called Hu Pi-li,
+the chief of the guard, and ordered him to go to the sub-prefecture
+of Lung-shu Hsien at the head of an army corps of 5000 infantry and
+cavalry. He was to surround the Nunnery of the White Bird and burn it
+to the ground, together with the nuns. When he reached the place the
+commander surrounded the nunnery with his soldiers, and set fire to
+it. The five hundred doomed nuns invoked the aid of Heaven and earth,
+and then, addressing Miao Shan, said: "It is you who have brought
+upon us this terrible disaster."
+
+"It is true," said Miao Shan. "I alone am the cause of your
+destruction." She then knelt down and prayed to Heaven: "Great
+Sovereign of the Universe, your servant is the daughter of King Miao
+Chuang; you are the grandson of King Lun. Will you not rescue your
+younger sister? You have left your palace; I also have left mine. You
+in former times betook yourself to the snowy mountains to attain
+perfection; I came here with the same object. Will you not save us
+from this fiery destruction?"
+
+Her prayer ended, Miao Shan took a bamboo hairpin from her hair,
+pricked the roof of her mouth with it, and spat the flowing blood
+toward Heaven. Immediately great clouds gathered in all parts of the
+sky and sent down inundating showers, which put out the fire that
+threatened the nunnery. The nuns threw themselves on their knees and
+thanked her effusively for having saved their lives.
+
+Hu Pi-li retired, and went in haste to inform the King of this
+extraordinary occurrence. The King, enraged, ordered him to go back
+at once, bring his daughter in chains, and behead her on the spot.
+
+
+The Execution of Miao Shan
+
+But the Queen, who had heard of this new plot, begged the King to grant
+her daughter a last chance. "If you will give permission," she said,
+"I will have a magnificent pavilion built at the side of the road
+where Miao Shan will pass in chains on the way to her execution, and
+will go there with our two other daughters and our sons-in-law. As
+she passes we will have music, songs, feasting, everything likely
+to impress her and make her contrast our luxurious life with her
+miserable plight. This will surely bring her to repentance."
+
+"I agree," said the King, "to counter-order her execution until your
+preparations are complete." Nevertheless, when the time came, Miao
+Shan showed nothing but disdain for all this worldly show, and to all
+advances replied only: "I love not these pompous vanities; I swear
+that I prefer death to the so-called joys of this world." She was then
+led to the place of execution. All the Court was present. Sacrifices
+were made to her as to one already dead. A Grand Minister pronounced
+the sacrificial oration.
+
+In the midst of all this the Queen appeared, and ordered the officials
+to return to their posts, that she might once more exhort her daughter
+to repent. But Miao Shan only listened in silence with downcast eyes.
+
+The King felt great repugnance to shedding his daughter's blood, and
+ordered her to be imprisoned in the palace, in order that he might make
+a last effort to save her. "I am the King," he said; "my orders cannot
+be lightly set aside. Disobedience to them involves punishment, and
+in spite of my paternal love for you, if you persist in your present
+attitude, you will be executed to-morrow in front of the palace gate."
+
+The _t'u-ti_, hearing the King's verdict, went with all speed to Yü
+Huang, and reported to him the sentence which had been pronounced
+against Miao Shan. Yü Huang exclaimed: "Save Buddha, there is none in
+the west so noble as this Princess. To-morrow, at the appointed hour,
+go to the scene of execution, break the swords, and splinter the lances
+they will use to kill her. See that she suffers no pain. At the moment
+of her death transform yourself into a tiger, and bring her body to
+the pine-wood. Having deposited it in a safe place, put a magic pill
+in her mouth to arrest decay. Her triumphant soul on its return from
+the lower regions must find it in a perfect state of preservation in
+order to be able to re-enter it and animate it afresh. After that,
+she must betake herself to Hsiang Shan on P'u T'o Island, where she
+will reach the highest state of perfection."
+
+On the day appointed, Commander Hu Pi-li led the condemned Princess
+to the place of execution. A body of troops had been stationed
+there to maintain order. The _t'u-ti_ was in attendance at the
+palace gates. Miao Shan was radiant with joy. "To-day," she said,
+"I leave the world for a better life. Hasten to take my life, but
+beware of mutilating my body."
+
+The King's warrant arrived, and suddenly the sky became overcast and
+darkness fell upon the earth. A bright light surrounded Miao Shan,
+and when the sword of the executioner fell upon the neck of the
+victim it was broken in two. Then they thrust at her with a spear,
+but the weapon fell to pieces. After that the King ordered that she be
+strangled with a silken cord. A few moments later a tiger leapt into
+the execution ground, dispersed the executioners, put the inanimate
+body of Miao Shan on his back, and disappeared into the pine-forest. Hu
+Pi-li rushed to the palace, recounted to the King full details of
+all that had occurred, and received a reward of two ingots of gold.
+
+
+Miao Shan visits the Infernal Regions
+
+Meantime, Miao Shan's soul, which remained unhurt, was borne on
+a cloud; when, waking as from a dream, she lifted her head and
+looked round, she could not see her body. "My father has just had
+me strangled," she sighed. "How is it that I find myself in this
+place? Here are neither mountains, nor trees, nor vegetation; no sun,
+moon, nor stars; no habitation, no sound, no cackling of a fowl nor
+barking of a dog. How can I live in this desolate region?"
+
+Suddenly a young man dressed in blue, shining with a brilliant light,
+and carrying a large banner, appeared and said to her: "By order of
+Yen Wang, the King of the Hells, I come to take you to the eighteen
+infernal regions."
+
+"What is this cursed place where I am now?" asked Miao Shan.
+
+"This is the lower world, Hell," he replied. "Your refusal to marry,
+and the magnanimity with which you chose an ignominious death rather
+than break your resolutions, deserve the recognition of Yü Huang,
+and the ten gods of the lower regions, impressed and pleased at your
+eminent virtue, have sent me to you. Fear nothing and follow me."
+
+Thus Miao Shan began her visit to all the infernal regions. The Gods
+of the Ten Hells came to congratulate her.
+
+"Who am I," asked Miao Shan, "that you should deign to take the
+trouble to show me such respect?"
+
+"We have heard," they replied, "that when you recite your prayers
+all evil disappears as if by magic. We should like to hear you pray."
+
+"I consent," replied Miao Shan, "on condition that all the condemned
+ones in the ten infernal regions be released from their chains in
+order to listen to me."
+
+At the appointed time the condemned were led in by Niu T'ou ('Ox-head')
+and Ma Mien ('Horse-face'), the two chief constables of Hell, and
+Miao Shan began her prayers. No sooner had she finished than Hell was
+suddenly transformed into a paradise of joy, and the instruments of
+torture into lotus-flowers.
+
+
+Hell a Paradise
+
+P'an Kuan, the keeper of the Register of the Living and the Dead,
+presented a memorial to Yen Wang stating that since Miao Shan's
+arrival there was no more pain in Hell; and all the condemned were
+beside themselves with happiness. "Since it has always been decreed,"
+he added, "that, in justice, there must be both a Heaven and a Hell,
+if you do not send this saint back to earth, there will no longer be
+any Hell, but only a Heaven."
+
+"Since that is so," said Yen Wang, "let forty-eight flag-bearers
+escort her across the Styx Bridge [Nai-ho Ch'iao], that she may be
+taken to the pine-forest to reenter her body, and resume her life in
+the upper world."
+
+The King of the Hells having paid his respects to her, the youth
+in blue conducted her soul back to her body, which she found lying
+under a pine-tree. Having reentered it, Miao Shan found herself alive
+again. A bitter sigh escaped from her lips. "I remember," she said,
+"all that I saw and heard in Hell. I sigh for the moment which will
+find me free of all impediments, and yet my soul has re-entered my
+body. Here, without any lonely mountain on which to give myself up
+to the pursuit of perfection, what will become of me?" Great tears
+welled from her eyes.
+
+
+A Test of Virtue
+
+Just then Ju Lai Buddha appeared. "Why have you come to this place?" he
+asked. Miao Shan explained why the King had put her to death, and
+how after her descent into Hell her soul had re-entered her body. "I
+greatly pity your misfortune," Ju Lai said, "but there is no one to
+help you. I also am alone. Why should we not marry? We could build
+ourselves a hut, and pass our days in peace. What say you?" "Sir,"
+she replied, "you must not make impossible suggestions. I died and
+came to life again. How can you speak so lightly? Do me the pleasure
+of withdrawing from my presence."
+
+"Well," said the visitor, "he to whom you are speaking is no other
+than the Buddha of the West. I came to test your virtue. This place
+is not suitable for your devotional exercises; I invite you to come
+to Hsiang Shan."
+
+Miao Shan threw herself on her knees and said: "My bodily eyes deceived
+me. I never thought that your Majesty would come to a place like
+this. Pardon my seeming want of respect. Where is this Hsiang Shan?"
+
+"Hsiang Shan is a very old monastery," Ju Lai replied, "built in
+the earliest historical times. It is inhabited by Immortals. It is
+situated in the sea, on P'u T'o Island, a dependency of the kingdom
+of Annam. There you will be able to reach the highest perfection."
+
+"How far off is this island?" Miao Shan asked. "More than three
+thousand _li_," Ju Lai replied. "I fear," she said, "I could not bear
+the fatigue of so long a journey." "Calm yourself," he rejoined. "I
+have brought with me a magic peach, of a kind not to be found in any
+earthly orchard. Once you have eaten it, you will experience neither
+hunger nor thirst; old age and death will have no power over you:
+you will live for ever."
+
+Miao Shan ate the magic peach, took leave of Ju Lai, and started
+on the way to Hsiang Shan. From the clouds the Spirit of the North
+Star saw her wending her way painfully toward P'u T'o. He called the
+Guardian of the Soil of Hsiang Shan and said to him: "Miao Shan is
+on her way to your country; the way is long and difficult. Do you
+take the form of a tiger, and carry her to her journey's end."
+
+The _t'u-ti_ transformed himself into a tiger and stationed himself
+in the middle of the road along which Miao Shan must pass, giving
+vent to ferocious roars.
+
+"I am a poor girl devoid of filial piety," said Miao Shan when she
+came up. "I have disobeyed my father's commands; devour me, and make
+an end of me."
+
+The tiger then spoke, saying: "I am not a real tiger, but the Guardian
+of the Soil of Hsiang Shan. I have received instructions to carry
+you there. Get on my back."
+
+"Since you have received these instructions," said the girl, "I will
+obey, and when I have attained to perfection I will not forget your
+kindness."
+
+The tiger went off like a flash of lightning, and in the twinkling
+of an eye Miao Shan found herself at the foot of the rocky slopes of
+P'u T'o Island.
+
+
+
+Miao Shan attains to Perfection
+
+After nine years in this retreat Miao Shan had reached the acme
+of perfection. Ti-tsang Wang then came to Hsiang Shan, and was so
+astonished at her virtue that he inquired of the local _t'u-ti_ as to
+what had brought about this wonderful result. "With the exception of Ju
+Lai, in all the west no one equals her in dignity and perfection. She
+is the Queen of the three thousand P'u-sa's and of all the beings on
+earth who have skin and blood. We regard her as our sovereign in all
+things. Therefore, on the nineteenth day of the eleventh moon we will
+enthrone her, that the whole world may profit by her beneficence."
+
+The _t'u-ti_ sent out his invitations for the ceremony. The Dragon-king
+of the Western Sea, the Gods of the Five Sacred Mountains, the
+Emperor-saints to the number of one hundred and twenty, the thirty-six
+officials of the Ministry of Time, the celestial functionaries in
+charge of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, the Three Causes, the
+Five Saints, the Eight Immortals, the Ten Kings of the Hells--all
+were present on the appointed day. Miao Shan took her seat on the
+lotus-throne, and the assembled gods proclaimed her sovereign of
+Heaven and earth, and a Buddha. Moreover, they decided that it was
+not meet that she should remain alone at Hsiang Shan; so they begged
+her to choose a worthy young man and a virtuous damsel to serve her
+in the temple.
+
+The _t'u-ti_ was entrusted with the task of finding them. While making
+search, he met a young priest named Shan Ts'ai. After the death of
+his parents he had become a hermit on Ta-hua Shan, and was still a
+novice in the science of perfection.
+
+Miao Shan ordered him to be brought to her. "Who are you?" she asked.
+
+"I am a poor orphan priest of no merit," he replied. "From my earliest
+youth I have led the life of a hermit. I have been told that your
+power is equalled only by your goodness, so I have ventured to come
+to pray you to show me how to attain to perfection."
+
+"My only fear," replied Miao Shan, "is that your desire for perfection
+may not be sincere."
+
+"I have now no parents," the priest continued, "and I have come more
+than a thousand _li_ to find you. How can I be wanting in sincerity?"
+
+"What special degree of ability have you attained during your course
+of perfection?" asked Miao Shan.
+
+"I have no skill," replied Shan Ts'ai, "but I rely for everything
+on your great pity, and under your guidance I hope to reach the
+required ability."
+
+"Very well," said Miao Shan, "take up your station on the top of
+yonder peak, and wait till I find a means of transporting you."
+
+
+A Ruse
+
+Miao Shan called the _t'u-ti_ and bade him go and beg all the Immortals
+to disguise themselves as pirates and to besiege the mountain, waving
+torches, and threatening with swords and spears to kill her. "Then
+I will seek refuge on the summit, and thence leap over the precipice
+to prove Shan Ts'ai's fidelity and affection."
+
+A minute later a horde of brigands of ferocious aspect rushed up
+to the temple of Hsiang Shan. Miao Shan cried for help, rushed
+up the steep incline, missed her footing, and rolled down into the
+ravine. Shan Ts'ai, seeing her fall into the abyss, without hesitation
+flung himself after her in order to rescue her. When he reached her,
+he asked: "What have you to fear from the robbers? You have nothing
+for them to steal; why throw yourself over the precipice, exposing
+yourself to certain death?"
+
+Miao Shan saw that he was weeping, and wept too. "I must comply with
+the wish of Heaven," she said.
+
+
+The Transformation of Shan Ts'ai
+
+Shan Ts'ai, inconsolable, prayed Heaven and earth to save his
+protectress. Miao Shan said to him: "You should not have risked
+your life by throwing yourself over the precipice, I have not yet
+transformed you. But you did a brave thing, and I know that you have
+a good heart. Now, look down there." "Oh," said he, "if I mistake
+not, that is a corpse." "Yes," she replied, "that is your former
+body. Now you are transformed you can rise at will and fly in the
+air." Shan Ts'ai bowed low to thank his benefactress, who said to him:
+"Henceforth you must say your prayers by my side, and not leave me
+for a single day."
+
+
+'Brother and Sister'
+
+With her spiritual sight Miao Shan perceived at the bottom of the
+Southern Sea the third son of Lung Wang, who, in carrying out his
+father's orders, was cleaving the waves in the form of a carp. While
+doing so, he was caught in a fisherman's net, taken to the market
+at Yüeh Chou, and offered for sale. Miao Shan at once sent her
+faithful Shan Ts'ai, in the guise of a servant, to buy him, giving
+him a thousand cash to purchase the fish, which he was to take to
+the foot of the rocks at P'u T'o and set free in the sea. The son
+of Lung Wang heartily thanked his deliverer, and on his return to
+the palace related to his father what had occurred. The King said:
+"As a reward, make her a present of a luminous pearl, so that she
+may recite her prayers by its light at night-time."
+
+Lung Nü, the daughter of Lung Wang's third son, obtained her
+grandfather's permission to take the gift to Miao Shan and beg that
+she might be allowed to study the doctrine of the sages under her
+guidance. After having proved her sincerity, she was accepted as a
+pupil. Shan Ts'ai called her his sister, and Lung Nü reciprocated
+by calling him her dear brother. Both lived as brother and sister by
+Miao Shan's side.
+
+
+The King's Punishment
+
+After King Miao Chuang had burned the Nunnery of the White Bird and
+killed his daughter, Ch'ieh Lan Buddha presented a petition to Yü Huang
+praying that the crime be not allowed to go unpunished. Yü Huang,
+justly irritated, ordered P'an Kuan to consult the Register of the
+Living and the Dead to see how long this homicidal King had yet to
+live. P'an Kuan turned over the pages of his register, and saw that
+according to the divine ordinances the King's reign on the throne of
+Hsing Lin should last for twenty years, but that this period had not
+yet expired. [31] "That which has been decreed is immutable," said
+Yü Huang, "but I will punish him by sending him illness." He called
+the God of Epidemics, and ordered him to afflict the King's body with
+ulcers, of a kind which could not be healed except by remedies to be
+given him by his daughter Miao Shan.
+
+The order was promptly executed, and the King could get no rest by day
+or by night. His two daughters and their husbands spent their time in
+feasting while he tossed about in agony on his sick-bed. In vain the
+most famous physicians were called in; the malady only grew worse, and
+despair took hold of the patient. He then caused a proclamation to be
+made that he would grant the succession to the throne to any person who
+would provide him with an effectual remedy to restore him to health.
+
+
+The Disguised Priest-doctor
+
+Miao Shan had learnt by revelation at Hsiang Shan all that was taking
+place at the palace. She assumed the form of a priest-doctor, clothed
+herself in a priest's gown, with the regulation headdress and straw
+shoes, and attached to her girdle a gourd containing pills and other
+medicines. In this apparel she went straight to the palace gate,
+read the royal edict posted there, and tore it down. Some members of
+the palace guard seized her, and inquired angrily: "Who are you that
+you should dare to tear down the royal proclamation?"
+
+"I, a poor priest, am also a doctor," she replied. "I read the edict
+posted on the palace gates. The King is inquiring for a doctor who
+can heal him. I am a doctor of an old cultured family, and propose
+to restore him to health."
+
+"If you are of a cultured family, why did you become a priest?" they
+asked. "Would it not have been better to gain your living honestly
+in practising your art than to shave your head and go loafing about
+the world? Besides, all the highest physicians have tried in vain to
+cure the King; do you imagine that you will be more skilful than all
+the aged practitioners?"
+
+"Set your minds at ease," she replied. "I have received from my
+ancestors the most efficacious remedies, and I guarantee that I
+shall restore the King to health," The palace guard then consented
+to transmit her petition to the Queen, who informed the King, and in
+the end the pretended priest was admitted. Having reached the royal
+bed-chamber, he sat still awhile in order to calm himself before
+feeling the pulse, and to have complete control of all his faculties
+while examining the King. When he felt quite sure of himself, he
+approached the King's bed, took the King's hand, felt his pulse,
+carefully diagnosed the nature of the illness, and assured himself
+that it was easily curable.
+
+
+Strange Medicine
+
+One serious difficulty, however, presented itself, and that was that
+the right medicine was almost impossible to procure. The King showed
+his displeasure by saying: "For every illness there is a medical
+prescription, and for every prescription a specific medicine; how
+can you say that the diagnosis is easy, but that there is no remedy?"
+
+"Your Majesty," replied the priest, "the remedy for your illness is
+not to be found in any pharmacy, and no one would agree to sell it."
+
+The King became angry, believed that he was being imposed upon,
+and ordered those about him to drive away the priest, who left smiling.
+
+The following night the King saw in a dream an old man who said to
+him: "This priest alone can cure your illness, and if you ask him he
+himself will give you the right remedy."
+
+The King awoke as soon as these words had been uttered, and begged
+the Queen to recall the priest. When the latter had returned, the
+King related his dream, and begged the priest to procure for him the
+remedy required. "What, after all, is this remedy that I must have
+in order to be cured?" he asked.
+
+"There must be the hand and eye of a living person, from which to
+compound the ointment which alone can save you," answered the priest.
+
+The King called out in indignation: "This priest is fooling me! Who
+would ever give his hand or his eye? Even if anyone would, I could
+never have the heart to make use of them."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the priest, "there is no other effective remedy."
+
+"Then where can I procure this remedy?" asked the King.
+
+"Your Majesty must send your ministers, who must observe the Buddhist
+rules of abstinence, to Hsiang Shan, where they will be given what
+is required."
+
+"Where is Hsiang Shan, and how far from here?"
+
+"About three thousand or more _li_, but I myself will indicate the
+route to be followed; in a very short time they will return."
+
+The King, who was suffering terribly, was more contented when he
+heard that the journey could be rapidly accomplished. He called his
+two ministers, Chao Chên and Liu Ch'in, and instructed them to lose
+no time in starting for Hsiang Shan and to observe scrupulously the
+Buddhist rules of abstinence. He ordered the Minister of Ceremonies
+to detain the priest in the palace until their return.
+
+
+A Conspiracy that Failed
+
+The two sons-in-law of the King, Ho Fêng and Chao K'uei, who had
+already made secret preparations to succeed to the throne as soon as
+the King should breathe his last, learned with no little surprise
+that the priest had hopes of curing the King's illness, and that
+he was waiting in the palace until the saving remedy was brought
+to him. Fearing that they might be disappointed in their ambition,
+and that after his recovery the King, faithful to his promise,
+would give the crown to the priest, they entered into a conspiracy
+with an unscrupulous courtier named Ho Li. They were obliged to act
+quickly, because the ministers were travelling by forced marches,
+and would soon be back. That same night Ho Li was to give to the
+King a poisoned drink, composed, he would say, by the priest with
+the object of assuaging the King's pain until the return of his
+two ministers. Shortly after, an assassin, Su Ta, was to murder the
+priest. Thus at one stroke both the King and the priest would meet
+their death, and the kingdom would pass to the King's two sons-in-law.
+
+Miao Shan had returned to Hsiang Shan, leaving in the palace the bodily
+form of the priest. She saw the two traitors Ho Fêng and Chao K'uei
+preparing the poison, and was aware of their wicked intentions. Calling
+the spirit Yu I, who was on duty that day, she told him to fly to
+the palace and change into a harmless soup the poison about to be
+administered to the King and to bind the assassin hand and foot.
+
+At midnight Ho Li, carrying in his hand the poisoned drink, knocked
+at the door of the royal apartment, and said to the Queen that the
+priest had prepared a soothing potion while awaiting the return of
+the ministers. "I come," he said, "to offer it to his Majesty." The
+Queen took the bowl in her hands and was about to give it to the King,
+when Yu I arrived unannounced. Quick as thought he snatched the bowl
+from the Queen and poured the contents on the ground; at the same
+moment he knocked over those present in the room, so that they all
+rolled on the floor.
+
+At the time this was happening the assassin Su Ta entered the priest's
+room, and struck him with his sword. Instantly the assassin, without
+knowing how, found himself enwrapped in the priest's robe and thrown
+to the ground. He struggled and tried to free himself, but found
+that his hands had been rendered useless by some mysterious power,
+and that flight was impossible. The spirit Yu I, having fulfilled the
+mission entrusted to him, now returned to Hsiang Shan and reported
+to Miao Shan.
+
+
+A Confession and its Results
+
+Next morning, the two sons-in-law of the King heard of the turn things
+had taken during the night. The whole palace was in a state of the
+greatest confusion.
+
+When he was informed that the priest had been killed, the King called
+Ch'u Ting-lieh and ordered him to have the murderer arrested. Su Ta
+was put to the torture and confessed all that he knew. Together with
+Ho Li he was condemned to be cut into a thousand pieces.
+
+The two sons-in-law were seized and ordered to instant execution,
+and it was only on the Queen's intercession that their wives were
+spared. The infuriated King, however, ordered that his two daughters
+should be imprisoned in the palace.
+
+
+The Gruesome Remedy
+
+Meantime Chao Chên and Liu Ch'in had reached Hsiang Shan. When they
+were brought to Miao Shan the ministers took out the King's letter and
+read it to her. "I, Miao Chuang, King of Hsing Lin, have learned that
+there dwells at Hsiang Shan an Immortal whose power and compassion
+have no equal in the whole world. I have passed my fiftieth year, and
+am afflicted with ulcers that all remedies have failed to cure. To-day
+a priest has assured me that at Hsiang Shan I can obtain the hand and
+eye of a living person, with which he will prepare an ointment able
+to restore me to my usual state of health. Relying upon his word
+and upon the goodness of the Immortal to whom he has directed me,
+I venture to beg that those two parts of a living body necessary to
+heal my ulcers be sent to me. I assure you of my everlasting gratitude,
+fully confident that my request will not be refused."
+
+The next morning Miao Shan bade the ministers take a knife and cut
+off her left hand and gouge out her left eye. Liu Ch'in took the
+knife offered him, but did not dare to obey the order. "Be quick,"
+urged the Immortal; "you have been commanded to return as soon as
+possible; why do you hesitate as if you were a young girl?" Liu
+Ch'in was forced to proceed. He plunged in the knife, and the red
+blood flooded the ground, spreading an odour like sweet incense. The
+hand and eye were placed on a golden plate, and, having paid their
+grateful respects to the Immortal, the envoys hastened to return.
+
+When they had left, Miao Shan, who had transformed herself in order to
+allow the envoys to remove her hand and eye, told Shan Ts'ai that she
+was now going to prepare the ointment necessary for the cure of the
+King. "Should the Queen," she added, "send for another eye and hand,
+I will transform myself again, and you can give them to her." No sooner
+had she finished speaking than she mounted a cloud and disappeared
+in space. The two ministers reached the palace and presented to the
+Queen the gruesome remedy which they had brought from the temple. She,
+overcome with gratitude and emotion, wept copiously. "What Immortal,"
+she asked, "can have been so charitable as to sacrifice a hand and eye
+for the King's benefit?" Then suddenly her tears gushed forth with
+redoubled vigour, and she uttered a great cry, for she recognized
+the hand of her daughter by a black scar which was on it.
+
+
+Half-measures
+
+"Who else, in fact, but his child," she continued amid her sobs,
+"could have had the courage to give her hand to save her father's
+life?" "What are you saying?" said the King. "In the world there are
+many hands like this." While they thus reasoned, the priest entered
+the King's apartment. "This great Immortal has long devoted herself
+to the attainment of perfection," he said. "Those she has healed
+are innumerable. Give me the hand and eye." He took them and shortly
+produced an ointment which, he told the King, was to be applied to his
+left side. No sooner had it touched his skin than the pain on his left
+side disappeared as if by magic; no sign of ulcers was to be seen on
+that side, but his right side remained swollen and painful as before.
+
+"Why is it," asked the King, "that this remedy, which is so efficacious
+for the left side, should not be applied to the right?" "Because,"
+replied the priest, "the left hand and eye of the saint cures only
+the left side. If you wish to be completely cured, you must send
+your officers to obtain the right eye and right hand also." The King
+accordingly dispatched his envoys anew with a letter of thanks, and
+begging as a further favour that the cure should be completed by the
+healing also of his right side.
+
+
+The King Cured
+
+On the arrival of the envoys Shan Ts'ai met them in the mutilated form
+of Miao Shan, and he bade them cut off his right hand, pluck out his
+right eye, and put them on a plate. At the sight of the four bleeding
+wounds Liu Ch'in could not refrain from calling out indignantly:
+"This priest is a wicked man, thus to make a martyr of a woman in
+order to obtain the succession!"
+
+Having thus spoken, he left with his companion for the kingdom of
+Hsing Lin. On their return the King was overwhelmed with joy. The
+priest quickly prepared the ointment, and the King, without delay,
+applied it to his right side. At once the ulcers disappeared like the
+darkness of night before the rising sun. The whole Court congratulated
+the King and eulogized the priest. The King conferred upon the latter
+the title Priest of the Brilliant Eye. He fell on his face to return
+thanks, and added: "I, a poor priest, have left the world, and have
+only one wish, namely, that your Majesty should govern your subjects
+with justice and sympathy and that all the officials of the realm
+should prove themselves men of integrity. As for me, I am used to
+roaming about. I have no desire for any royal estate. My happiness
+exceeds all earthly joys."
+
+Having thus spoken, the priest waved the sleeve of his cloak, a cloud
+descended from Heaven, and seating himself upon it he disappeared
+in the sky. From the cloud a note containing the following words was
+seen to fall: "I am one of the Teachers of the West. I came to cure
+the King's illness, and so to glorify the True Doctrine."
+
+
+
+The King's Daughter
+
+All who witnessed this miracle exclaimed with one voice: "This priest
+is the Living Buddha, who is going back to Heaven!" The note was taken
+to King Miao Chuang, who exclaimed: "Who am I that I should deserve
+that one of the rulers of Heaven should deign to descend and cure me
+by the sacrifice of hands and eyes?"
+
+"What was the face of the saintly person like who gave you the
+remedy?" he then asked Chao Chên.
+
+"It was like unto that of your deceased daughter, Miao Shan,"
+he replied.
+
+"When you removed her hands and eyes did she seem to suffer?"
+
+"I saw a great flow of blood, and my heart failed, but the face of
+the victim seemed radiant with happiness."
+
+"This certainly must be my daughter Miao Shan, who has attained to
+perfection," said the King. "Who but she would have given hands
+and eyes? Purify yourselves and observe the rules of abstinence,
+and go quickly to Hsiang Shan to return thanks to the saint for this
+inestimable favour. I myself will ere long make a pilgrimage thither
+to return thanks in person."
+
+
+The King and Queen taken Prisoners
+
+Three years later the King and Queen, with the grandees of their
+Court, set out to visit Hsiang Shan, but on the way the monarchs were
+captured by the Green Lion, or God of Fire, and the White Elephant,
+or Spirit of the Water, the two guardians of the Temple of Buddha,
+who transported them to a dark cavern in the mountains. A terrific
+battle then took place between the evil spirits on the one side and
+some hosts of heavenly genii, who had been summoned to the rescue,
+on the other. While its issue was still uncertain, reinforcements
+under the Red Child Devil, who could resist fire, and the Dragon-king
+of the Eastern Sea, who could subdue water, finally routed the enemy,
+and the prisoners were released.
+
+
+The King's Repentance
+
+The King and Queen now resumed their pilgrimage, and Miao Shan
+instructed Shan Ts'ai to receive the monarchs when they arrived
+to offer incense. She herself took up her place on the altar, her
+eyes torn out, her hands cut off, and her wrists all dripping with
+blood. The King recognized his daughter, and bitterly reproached
+himself; the Queen fell swooning at her feet. Miao Shan then spoke and
+tried to comfort them. She told them of all that she had experienced
+since the day when she had been executed, and how she had attained
+to immortal perfection. She then went on: "In order to punish you
+for having caused the deaths of all those who perished in the wars
+preceding your accession to the throne, and also to avenge the burning
+of the Nunnery of the White Bird, Yü Huang afflicted you with those
+grievous ulcers. It was then that I changed myself into a priest in
+order to heal you, and gave my eyes and hands, with which I prepared
+the ointment that cured you. It was I, moreover, who procured your
+liberty from Buddha when you were imprisoned in the cave by the Green
+Lion and the White Elephant."
+
+
+Sackcloth and Ashes
+
+At these words the King threw himself with his face on the ground,
+offered incense, worshipped Heaven, earth, the sun, and the moon,
+saying with a voice broken by sobs: "I committed a great crime in
+killing my daughter, who has sacrificed her eyes and hands in order
+to cure my sickness."
+
+No sooner were these words uttered than Miao Shan reassumed her
+normal form, and, descending from the altar, approached her parents
+and sisters. Her body had again its original completeness; and in the
+presence of its perfect beauty, and at finding themselves reunited
+as one family, all wept for joy.
+
+"Well," said Miao Shan to her father, "will you now force me to marry
+and prevent my devoting myself to the attainment of perfection?"
+
+"Speak no more of that," replied the King. "I was in the wrong. If you
+had not reached perfection, I should not now be alive. I have made up
+my mind to exchange my sceptre for the pursuit of the perfect life,
+which I wish to lead henceforth together with you."
+
+
+The King renounces the Throne
+
+Then, in the presence of all, he addressed his Grand Minister Chao
+Chên, saying: "Your devotion to the service of the State has rendered
+you worthy to wear the crown: I surrender it to you." The Court
+proclaimed Chao Chên King of Hsing Lin, bade farewell to Miao Chuang,
+and set out for their kingdom accompanied by their new sovereign.
+
+
+Pardon of the Green Lion and the White Elephant
+
+Buddha had summoned the White Elephant and the Green Lion, and
+was on the point of sentencing them to eternal damnation when the
+compassionate Miao Shan interceded for them. "Certainly you deserve
+no forgiveness," he said, "but I cannot refuse a request made by
+Miao Shan, whose clemency is without limit. I give you over to her,
+to serve and obey her in everything. Follow her."
+
+
+Miao Shan becomes a Buddha
+
+The guardian spirit on duty that day then announced the arrival of a
+messenger from Yü Huang. It was T'ai-po Chin-hsing, who was the bearer
+of a divine decree, which he handed to Miao Shan. It read as follows:
+"I, the august Emperor, make known to you this decree: Miao Chuang,
+King of Hsing Lin, forgetful alike of Heaven and Hell, the six virtues,
+and metempsychosis, has led a blameworthy life; but your nine years
+of penitence, the filial piety which caused you to sacrifice your own
+body to effect his cure, in short, all your virtues, have redeemed
+his faults. Your eyes can see and your ears can hear all the good
+and bad deeds and words of men. You are the object of my especial
+regard. Therefore I make proclamation of this decree of canonization.
+
+"Miao Shan will have the title of Very Merciful and Very Compassionate
+P'u-sa, Saviour of the Afflicted, Miraculous and Always Helpful
+Protectress of Mortals. On your lofty precious lotus-flower throne,
+you will be the Sovereign of the Southern Seas and of P'u T'o Isle.
+
+"Your two sisters, hitherto tainted with earthly pleasures, will
+gradually progress till they reach true perfection.
+
+"Miao Ch'ing will have the title of Very Virtuous P'u-sa, the
+Completely Beautiful, Rider of the Green Lion.
+
+"Miao Yin will be honoured with the title of Very Virtuous and
+Completely Resplendent P'u-sa, Rider of the White Elephant.
+
+"King Miao Chuang is raised to the dignity of Virtuous Conquering
+P'u-sa, Surveyor of Mortals.
+
+"Queen Po Ya receives the title of P'u-sa of Ten Thousand Virtues,
+Surveyor of Famous Women.
+
+"Shan Ts'ai has bestowed upon him the title of Golden Youth.
+
+"Lung Nü has the title of Jade Maiden.
+
+"During all time incense is to be burned before all the members of
+this canonized group."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Eight Immortals
+
+
+Pa Hsien
+
+Either singly or in groups the Eight Immortals, Pa Hsien, of the Taoist
+religion are one of the most popular subjects of representation in
+China; their portraits are to be seen everywhere--on porcelain vases,
+teapots, teacups, fans, scrolls, embroidery, etc. Images of them are
+made in porcelain, earthenware, roots, wood, metals. The term 'Eight
+Immortals' is figuratively used for happiness. The number eight has
+become lucky in association with this tradition, and persons or things
+eight in number are graced accordingly. Thus we read of reverence shown
+to the 'Eight Genii Table' (_Pa Hsien Cho_), the 'Eight Genii Bridge'
+(_Pa Hsien Ch'iao_), 'Eight Genii Vermicelli' (_Pa Hsien Mien_), the
+'Eight Genii of the Wine-cup' (_Tin Chung Pa Hsien_)--wine-bibbers of
+the T'ang dynasty celebrated by Tu Fu, the poet. They are favourite
+subjects of romance, and special objects of adoration. In them we see
+"the embodiment of the ideas of perfect but imaginary happiness which
+possess the minds of the Chinese people." Three of them (Chung-li
+Ch'üan, Chang Kuo, and Lü Yen) were historical personages; the others
+are mentioned only in fables or romances. They represent all kinds
+of people--old, young, male, female, civil, military, rich, poor,
+afflicted, cultured, noble. They are also representative of early,
+middle, and later historical periods.
+
+The legend of the Eight Immortals is certainly not older than the time
+of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280), and is probably to be assigned
+to that of the Yüan dynasty (1280-1368). But some, if not all, of
+the group seem to have been previously celebrated as Immortals in the
+Taoist legends. Their biographies are usually arranged in the order
+of their official eminence or seniority in age. Here I follow that
+adopted in _Hsiu hsiang Pa Hsien tung yu chi_ [32] in which they are
+described in the order in which they became Immortals.
+
+
+Li T'ieh-kuai
+
+Li T'ieh-kuai, depicted always with his crutch and gourd full of
+magic medicines, was of the family name of Li, his own name being
+Li Yüan (Hs'üan, now read Yüan). He is also known as K'ung-mu. Hsi
+Wang Mu cured him of an ulcer on the leg and taught him the art of
+becoming immortal. He was canonized as Rector of the East. He is
+said to have been of commanding stature and dignified mien, devoting
+himself solely to the study of Taoist lore. Hsi Wang Mu made him a
+present of an iron crutch, and sent him to the capital to teach the
+doctrine of immortality to Han Chung-li.
+
+He is also identified with Li Ning-yang, to whom Lao Tzu descended
+from Heaven in order to instruct him in the wisdom of the gods. Soon
+after he had completed his course of instruction his soul left his
+body to go on a visit to Hua Shan. Some say he was summoned by Lao
+Tzu, others that Lao Tzu engaged him as escort to the countries of
+Hsi Yü. He left his disciple Lang Ling in charge of his body, saying
+that if he did not return within seven days he was to have the body
+cremated. Unfortunately, when only six days had elapsed the disciple
+was called away to the death-bed of his mother. In order to be able
+to leave at once he cremated the body forthwith, and when the soul
+returned it found only a heap of ashes. Some say the body was not
+cremated, but only became devitalized through neglect or through
+being uninhabited for so long a time. The object of the setting of
+the watch was not only to prevent injury to or theft of the body,
+but also to prevent any other soul from taking up its abode in it.
+
+In a forest near by a beggar had just died of hunger. Finding this
+corpse untenanted, the wandering spirit entered it through the
+temples, and made off. When he found that his head was long and
+pointed, his face black, his beard and hair woolly and dishevelled,
+his eyes of gigantic size, and one of his legs lame, he wished to
+get out of this vile body; but Lao Tzu advised him not to make the
+attempt and gave him a gold band to keep his hair in order, and an
+iron crutch to help his lame leg. On lifting his hand to his eyes,
+he found they were as large as buckles. That is why he was called Li
+K'ung-mu, 'Li Hollow Eyes.' Popularly he is known as Li T'ieh-kuai,
+'Li with the Iron Crutch.' No precise period seems to be assigned
+to his career on earth, though one tradition places him in the Yüan
+dynasty. Another account says that he was changed into a dragon,
+and in that form ascended to Heaven.
+
+Elsewhere it is related that T'ieh-kuai, after entering the body of
+the lame beggar, benevolently proceeded to revive the mother of Yang,
+his negligent disciple. Leaning on his iron staff and carrying a gourd
+of medicines on his back he went to Yang's house, where preparations
+were being made for the funeral. The contents of the gourd, poured
+into the mouth, revived the dead woman. He then made himself known,
+and, giving Yang another pill, vanished in a gust of wind. Two hundred
+years later he effected the immortalization of his disciple.
+
+During his peregrinations on earth he would hang a bottle on the
+wall at night and jump into it, emerging on the following morning. He
+frequently returned to earth, and at times tried to bring about the
+transmigration of others.
+
+An example is the case of Ch'ao Tu, the watchman. T'ieh-kuai walked
+into a fiery furnace and bade Ch'ao follow. The latter, being afraid
+of imitating an act evidently associated with the supernatural world
+of evil spirits, refused to do so. T'ieh-kuai then told Ch'ao to step
+on to a leaf floating on the surface of the river, saying that it was
+a boat that would bear him across safely. Again the watchman refused,
+whereupon T'ieh-kuai, remarking that the cares of this world were
+evidently too weighty for him to be able to ascend to immortality,
+stepped on to the leaf himself and vanished.
+
+
+Chung-li Ch'üan
+
+Regarding the origin and life of this Immortal several different
+accounts are given. One states that his family name was Chung-li,
+and that he lived in the Han dynasty, being therefore called Han
+Chung-li. His cognomen was Ch'üan, his literary appellation Chi Tao,
+and his pseudonyms Ho-ho Tzu and Wang-yang Tzu; his style Yün-fang.
+
+He was born in the district of Hsien-yang Hsien (a sub-prefecture of
+the ancient capital Hsi-an Fu) in Shensi. He became Marshal of the
+Empire in the cyclic year 2496. In his old age he became a hermit
+on Yang-chio Shan, thirty _li_ north-east of I-ch'êng Hsien in the
+prefecture of P'ing-yang Fu in Shansi. He is referred to by the title
+of King-emperor of the True Active Principle.
+
+Another account describes Chung-li Ch'üan as merely a vice-marshal
+in the service of Duke Chou Hsiao. He was defeated in battle, and
+escaped to Chung-nan Shan, where he met the Five Heroes, the Flowers
+of the East, who instructed him in the doctrine of immortality. At
+the end of the T'ang dynasty Han Chung-li taught this same science of
+immortality to Lü Tung-pin (see p. 297), and took the pompous title
+of the Only Independent One Under Heaven.
+
+Other versions state that Han Chung-li is not the name of a person,
+but of a country; that he was a Taoist priest Chung Li-tzu; and that
+he was a beggar, Chung-li by name, who gave to one Lao Chih a pill of
+immortality. No sooner had the latter swallowed it than he went mad,
+left his wife, and ascended to Heaven.
+
+During a great famine he transmuted copper and pewter into silver
+by amalgamating them with some mysterious drug. This treasure he
+distributed among the poor, and thousands of lives were thus saved.
+
+One day, while he was meditating, the stone wall of his dwelling in the
+mountains was rent asunder, and a jade casket exposed to view. This was
+found to contain secret information as to how to become an Immortal.
+
+When he had followed these instructions for some time, his room was
+filled with many-coloured clouds, music was heard, and a celestial
+stork came and bore him away on its back to the regions of immortality.
+
+He is sometimes represented holding his feather-fan, Yü-mao Shan;
+at other times the peach of immortality. Since his admission to
+the ranks of the gods, he has appeared on earth at various times as
+the messenger of Heaven. On one of these occasions he met Lü Yen,
+as narrated on p. 297.
+
+
+
+Lan Ts'ai-ho
+
+Lan Ts'ai-ho is variously stated to have been a woman and an
+hermaphrodite. She is the strolling singer or mountebank of the
+Immortals. Usually she plays a flute or a pair of cymbals. Her origin
+is unknown, but her personal name is said to have been Yang Su,
+and her career is assigned to the period of the T'ang dynasty. She
+wandered abroad clad in a tattered blue gown held by a black wooden
+belt three inches wide, with one foot shoeless and the other shod,
+wearing in summer an undergarment of wadded material, and in winter
+sleeping on the snow, her breath rising in a brilliant cloud like
+the steam from a boiling cauldron. In this guise she earned her
+livelihood by singing in the streets, keeping time with a wand three
+feet long. Though taken for a lunatic, the doggerel verse she sang
+disproved the popular slanders. It denounced this fleeting life and
+its delusive pleasures. When given money, she either strung it on
+a cord and waved it to the time of her song or scattered it on the
+ground for the poor to pick up.
+
+One day she was found to have become intoxicated in an inn at Fêng-yang
+Fu in Anhui, and while in that state disappeared on a cloud, having
+thrown down to earth her shoe, robe, belt, and castanets.
+
+According to popular belief, however, only one of the Eight Immortals,
+namely, Ho Hsien-ku, was a woman, Lan Ts'ai-ho being represented as a
+young person of about sixteen, bearing a basket of fruit. According
+to the _Hsiu hsiang Pa Hsien tung yu chi_, he was 'the Red-footed
+Great Genius,' Ch'ih-chiao Ta-hsien incarnate. Though he was a man,
+adds the writer, he could not understand how to be a man (which is
+perhaps the reason why he has been supposed to be a woman).
+
+
+
+Chang Kuo
+
+The period assigned to Chang Kuo is the middle or close of the seventh
+to the middle of the eighth century A.D. He lived as a hermit on
+Chung-t'iao Shan, in the prefecture of P'ing-yang Fu in Shansi. The
+Emperors T'ai Tsung and Kao Tsung of the T'ang dynasty frequently
+invited him to Court, but he persistently refused to go. At last,
+pressed once more by the Empress Wu (A.D. 684-705), he consented
+to leave his retreat, but was struck down by death at the gate of
+the Temple of the Jealous Woman. His body began to decay and to be
+eaten by worms, when lo! he was seen again, alive and well, on the
+mountains of Hêng Chou in P'ing-yang Fu. He rode on a white mule,
+which carried him thousands of miles in a day, and which, when the
+journey was finished, he folded up like a sheet of paper and put away
+in his wallet. When he again required its services, he had only to
+spurt water upon the packet from his mouth and the animal at once
+assumed its proper shape. At all times he performed wonderful feats
+of necromancy, and declared that he had been Grand Minister to the
+Emperor Yao (2357-2255 B.C.) during a previous existence.
+
+In the twenty-third year (A.D. 735) of the reign-period K'ai Yüan
+of the Emperor Hsüan Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, he was called to
+Lo-yang in Honan, and elected Chief of the Imperial Academy, with
+the honourable title of Very Perspicacious Teacher.
+
+It was just at this time that the famous Taoist Yeh Fa-shan, thanks
+to his skill in necromancy, was in great favour at Court. The Emperor
+asked him who this Chang Kuo Lao (he usually has the epithet Lao,
+'old,' added to his name) was. "I know," replied the magician;
+"but if I were to tell your Majesty I should fall dead at your feet,
+so I dare not speak unless your Majesty will promise that you will
+go with bare feet and bare head to ask Chang Kuo to forgive you, in
+which case I should immediately revive." Hsüan Tsung having promised,
+Fa-shan then said: "Chang Kuo is a white spiritual bat which came out
+of primeval chaos." No sooner had he spoken than he dropped dead at
+the Emperor's feet.
+
+Hsüan Tsung, with bare head and feet, went to Chang Kuo as he had
+promised, and begged forgiveness for his indiscretion. The latter then
+sprinkled water on Fa-shan's face and he revived. Soon after Chang fell
+sick and returned to die in the Hêng Chou Mountains during the period
+A.D. 742-746. When his disciples opened his tomb, they found it empty.
+
+He is usually seen mounted on his white mule, sometimes facing its
+head, sometimes its tail. He carries a phoenix-feather or a peach
+of immortality.
+
+At his interviews with the Emperor Ming Huang in A.D. 723 (when he
+was alive still) Chang Kuo "entertained the Emperor with a variety of
+magical tricks, such as rendering himself invisible, drinking off a
+cup of aconite, and felling birds or flowers by pointing at them. He
+refused the hand of an imperial princess, and also declined to have
+his portrait placed in the Hall of Worthies."
+
+A picture of Chang Kuo sitting on a donkey and offering a descendant
+to the newly married couple is often found in the nuptial chamber. It
+seems somewhat incongruous that an old ascetic should be associated
+with matrimonial happiness and the granting of offspring, but the
+explanation may possibly be connected with his performance of wonderful
+feats of necromancy, though he is said not to have given encouragement
+to others in these things during his lifetime.
+
+
+
+Ho Hsien Ku
+
+A maiden holding in her hand a magic lotus-blossom, the flower of
+open-heartedness, or the peach of immortality given her by Lü Tung-pin
+in the mountain-gorge as a symbol of identity, playing at times the
+_shêng_ or reed-organ, or drinking wine--this is the picture the
+Chinese paint of the Immortal Ho Hsien Ku.
+
+She was the daughter of Ho T'ai, a native of Tsêng-ch'êng Hsien in
+Kuangtung. Others say her father was a shopkeeper at Ling-ling in
+Hunan. She lived in the time of the usurping empress Wu (A.D. 684-705)
+of the T'ang dynasty. At her birth six hairs were found growing on
+the crown of her head, and the account says she never had any more,
+though the pictures represent her with a full head of hair. She
+elected to live on Yün-mu Ling, twenty _li_ west of Tsêng-ch'êng
+Hsien. On that mountain was found a stone called _yün-mu shih_,
+'mother-of-pearl.' In a dream she saw a spirit who ordered her to
+powder and eat one of these stones, by doing which she could acquire
+both agility and immortality. She complied with this injunction, and
+also vowed herself to a life of virginity. Her days were thenceforth
+passed in floating from one peak to another, bringing home at night
+to her mother the fruits she collected on the mountain. She gradually
+found that she had no need to eat in order to live. Her fame having
+reached the ears of the Empress, she was invited to Court, but while
+journeying thither suddenly disappeared from mortal view and became
+an Immortal. She is said to have been seen again in A.D. 750 floating
+upon a cloud of many colours at the temple of Ma Ku, the famous female
+Taoist magician, and again, some years later, in the city of Canton.
+
+She is represented as an extremely beautiful maiden, and is remarkable
+as occupying so prominent a position in a cult in which no system of
+female asceticism is developed.
+
+
+Lü Tung-pin
+
+Lü Tung-pin's family name was Lü; his personal name Tung-pin; also Yen;
+and his pseudonym Shun Yang Tzu. He was born in A.D. 798 at Yung-lo
+Hsien, in the prefecture of Ho-chung Fu in Shansi, a hundred and twenty
+_li_ south-east of the present sub-prefecture of Yung-chi Hsien (P'u
+Chou). He came of an official family, his grandfather having been
+President of the Ministry of Ceremonies, and his father Prefect of
+Hai Chou. He was 5 feet 2 inches in height, and at twenty was still
+unmarried. At this time he made a journey to Lu Shan in Kiangsi,
+where he met the Fire-dragon, who presented him with a magic sword,
+which enabled him at will to hide himself in the heavens.
+
+During his visit to the capital, Ch'ang-an in Shensi, he met
+the Immortal Han Chung-li, who instructed him in the mysteries of
+alchemy and the elixir of life. When he revealed himself as Yün-fang
+Hsien-shêng, Lü Yen expressed an ardent desire to aid in converting
+mankind to the true doctrine, but was first exposed to a series of
+ten temptations. These being successfully overcome, he was invested
+with supernatural power and magic weapons, with which he traversed
+the Empire, slaying dragons and ridding the earth of divers kinds
+of evils, during a period of upward of four hundred years. Another
+version says that Han Chung-li was in an inn, heating a jug of
+rice-wine. Here Lü met him, and going to sleep dreamed that he
+was promoted to a very high office and was exceptionally favoured
+by fortune in every way. This had gone on for fifty years when
+unexpectedly a serious fault caused him to be condemned to exile,
+and his family was exterminated. Alone in the world, he was sighing
+bitterly, when he awoke with a start. All had taken place in so short
+a space of time that Han Chung-li's wine was not yet hot. This is the
+incident referred to in Chinese literature in the phrase 'rice-wine
+dream.' Convinced of the hollowness of worldly dignities, he followed
+Han Chung-li to the Ho Ling Mountains at Chung-nan in Shensi, where
+he was initiated into the divine mysteries, and became an Immortal.
+
+In A.D. 1115 the Emperor Hui Tsung conferred on him the title of Hero
+of Marvellous Wisdom; and later he was proclaimed King-emperor and
+Strong Protector.
+
+There are various versions of the legend of Lü Tung-pin. One of these
+adds that in order to fulfil his promise made to Chung-li to do what
+he could to aid in the work of converting his fellow-creatures to the
+true doctrine, he went to Yüch Yang in the guise of an oil-seller,
+intending to immortalize all those who did not ask for additional
+weight to the quantity of oil purchased. During a whole year he met
+only selfish and extortionate customers, with the exception of one
+old lady who alone did not ask for more than was her due. So he went
+to her house, and seeing a well in the courtyard threw a few grains
+of rice into it. The water miraculously turned into wine, from the
+sale of which the dame amassed great wealth.
+
+He was very skilful in fencing, and is always represented with his
+magic Excalibur named Chan-yao Kuai, 'Devil-slaying Sabre,' and in
+one hand holds a fly-whisk, Yün-chou, or 'Cloud-sweeper,' a symbol
+common in Taoism of being able to fly at will through the air and to
+walk on the clouds of Heaven.
+
+Like Kuan Kung, he is shown bearing in his arms a male
+child--indicating a promise of numerous progeny, including _literati_
+and famous officials. Consequently he is one of the spiritual beings
+honoured by the _literati_.
+
+
+Han Hsiang Tzu
+
+Han Hsiang Tzu, who is depicted with a bouquet of flowers or a basket
+of peaches of immortality, is stated to have been a grand-nephew of
+Han Yü (A.D. 768-824), the great statesman, philosopher, and poet of
+the T'ang dynasty, and an ardent votary of transcendental study. His
+own name was Ch'ing Fu. The child was entrusted to his uncle to
+be educated and prepared for the public examinations. He excelled
+his teacher in intelligence and the performance of wonderful feats,
+such as the production from a little earth in a flower-pot of some
+marvellous flowering plants, on the leaves of which were written in
+letters of gold some verses to this effect:
+
+
+    The clouds hide Mount Ch'in Ling.
+      Where is your abode?
+    The snow is deep on Lan Kuan;
+      Your horse refuses to advance.
+
+
+"What is the meaning of these verses?" asked Han Yü. "You will see,"
+replied Han Hsiang Tzu.
+
+Some time afterward Han Yü was sent in disgrace to the prefecture of
+Ch'ao-chou Fu in Kuangtung. When he reached the foot of Lan Kuan the
+snow was so deep that he could not go on. Han Hsiang Tzu appeared, and,
+sweeping away the snow, made a path for him. Han Yü then understood
+the prophecy in his pupil's verses.
+
+When Han Hsiang Tzu was leaving his uncle, he gave him the following
+in verse:
+
+Many indeed are the eminent men who have served their country, but
+which of them surpasses you in his knowledge of literature? When
+you have reached a high position, you will be buried in a damp and
+foggy land.
+
+Han Yü also gave his pupil a farewell verse:
+
+How many here below allow themselves to be inebriated by the love
+of honours and pelf! Alone and watchful you persevere in the right
+path. But a time will come when, taking your flight to the sky,
+you will open in the ethereal blue a luminous roadway.
+
+Han Yü was depressed at the thought of the damp climate of his place
+of exile. "I fear there is no doubt," he said, "that I shall die
+without seeing my family again."
+
+Han Hsiang Tzu consoled him, gave him a prescription, and said: "Not
+only will you return in perfect health to the bosom of your family,
+but you will be reinstated in your former offices." All this took
+place exactly as he had predicted.
+
+Another account states that he became the disciple of Lü Tung-pin, and,
+having been carried up to the supernatural peach-tree of the genii,
+fell from its branches, but during his descent attained to the state
+of immortality. Still another version says that he was killed by the
+fall, was transformed, and then underwent the various experiences
+with Han Yü already related.
+
+
+Ts'ao Kuo-chiu
+
+Ts'ao Kuo-chiu was connected with the imperial family of the Sungs,
+and is shown with the tablet of admission to Court in his hand. He
+became one of the Eight Immortals because the other seven, who
+occupied seven of the eight grottos of the Upper Spheres, wished to
+see the eighth inhabited, and nominated him because "his disposition
+resembled that of a genie." The legend relates that the Empress
+Ts'ao, wife of the Emperor Jên Tsung (A.D. 1023-64), had two younger
+brothers. The elder of the two, Ching-hsiu, did not concern himself
+with the affairs of State; the younger, Ching-chih, was notorious for
+his misbehaviour. In spite of all warnings he refused to reform, and
+being at last guilty of homicide was condemned to death. His brother,
+ashamed at what had occurred, went and hid in the mountains, where he
+clothed his head and body with wild plants, resolved to lead the life
+of a hermit. One day Han Chung-li and Lü Tung-pin found him in his
+retreat, and asked him what he was doing. "I am engaged in studying
+the Way," he replied. "What way, and where is it?" they asked. He
+pointed to the sky. "Where is the sky?" they went on. He pointed to
+his heart. The two visitors smiled and said: "The heart is the sky,
+and the sky is the Way; you understand the origin of things." They
+then gave him a recipe for perfection, to enable him to take his
+place among the Perfect Ones. In a few days only he had reached this
+much-sought-after condition.
+
+In another version we find fuller details concerning this
+Immortal. A graduate named Yüan Wên-chêng of Ch'ao-yang Hsien, in
+the sub-prefecture of Ch'ao-chou Fu in Kuangtung, was travelling with
+his wife to take his examinations at the capital. Ts'ao Ching-chih,
+the younger brother of the Empress, saw the lady, and was struck with
+her beauty. In order to gratify his passion he invited the graduate
+and his young wife to the palace, where he strangled the husband and
+tried to force the wife to cohabit with him. She refused obstinately,
+and as a last resort he had her imprisoned in a noisome dungeon. The
+soul of the graduate appeared to the imperial Censor Pao Lao-yeh,
+and begged him to exact vengeance for the execrable crime. The
+elder brother, Ching-hsiu, seeing the case put in the hands of the
+upright Pao Lao-yeh, and knowing his brother to be guilty of homicide,
+advised him to put the woman to death, in order to cut off all sources
+of information and so to prevent further proceedings. The young
+voluptuary thereupon caused the woman to be thrown down a deep well,
+but the star T'ai-po Chin-hsing, in the form of an old man, drew her
+out again. While making her escape, she met on the road an official
+procession which she mistook for that of Pao Lao-yeh, and, going up to
+the sedan chair, made her accusation. This official was no other than
+the elder brother of the murderer. Ching-hsiu, terrified, dared not
+refuse to accept the charge, but on the pretext that the woman had
+not placed herself respectfully by the side of the official chair,
+and thus had not left a way clear for the passage of his retinue, he
+had her beaten with iron-spiked whips, and she was cast away for dead
+in a neighbouring lane. This time also she revived, and ran to inform
+Pao Lao-yeh. The latter immediately had Ts'ao Ching-hsiu arrested,
+cangued, and fettered. Without loss of time he wrote an invitation to
+the second brother, Ts'ao Ching-chih, and on his arrival confronted him
+with the graduate's wife, who accused him to his face. Pao Lao-yeh had
+him put in a pit, and remained deaf to all entreaties of the Emperor
+and Empress on his behalf. A few days later the murderer was taken to
+the place of execution, and his head rolled in the dust. The problem
+now was how to get Ts'ao Ching-hsiu out of the hands of the terrible
+Censor. The Emperor Jên Tsung, to please the Empress, had a universal
+amnesty proclaimed throughout the Empire, under which all prisoners
+were set free. On receipt of this edict, Pao Lao-yeh liberated Ts'ao
+Ching-hsiu from the cangue, and allowed him to go free. As one risen
+from the dead, he gave himself up to the practice of perfection,
+became a hermit, and, through the instruction of the Perfect Ones,
+became one of the Eight Immortals.
+
+
+Pa Hsien Kuo Hai
+
+The phrase _Pa Hsien kuo hai_, 'the Eight Immortals crossing the sea,'
+refers to the legend of an expedition made by these deities. Their
+object was to behold the wondrous things of the sea not to be found
+in the celestial sphere.
+
+The usual mode of celestial locomotion--by taking a seat on a
+cloud--was discarded at the suggestion of Lü Yen who recommended that
+they should show the infinite variety of their talents by placing
+things on the surface of the sea and stepping on them.
+
+Li T'ieh-kuai threw down his crutch, and scudded rapidly over the
+waves. Chung-li Ch'üan used his feather-fan, Chang Kuo his paper
+mule, Lü Tung-pin his sword, Han Hsiang Tzu his flower-basket, Ho
+Hsien Ku her lotus-flower, Lan Ts'ai-ho his musical instrument, and
+Ts'ao Kuo-chiu his tablet of admission to Court. The popular pictures
+often represent most of these articles changed into various kinds
+of sea-monsters. The musical instrument was noticed by the son of
+the Dragon-king of the Eastern Sea. This avaricious prince conceived
+the idea of stealing the instrument and imprisoning its owner. The
+Immortals thereupon declared war, the details of which are described at
+length by the Chinese writers, the outcome being that the Dragon-king
+was utterly defeated. After this the Eight Immortals continued their
+submarine exploits for an indefinite time, encountering numberless
+adventures; but here the author travels far into the fertile region
+of romance, beyond the frontiers of our present province.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Guardian of the Gate of Heaven
+
+
+Li, the Pagoda-bearer
+
+In Buddhist temples there is to be seen a richly attired figure of
+a man holding in his hand a model of a pagoda. He is Li, the Prime
+Minister of Heaven and father of No-cha.
+
+He was a general under the tyrant Chou and commander of Ch'ên-t'ang
+Kuan at the time when the bloody war was being waged which resulted
+in the extinction of the Yin dynasty.
+
+No-cha is one of the most frequently mentioned heroes in Chinese
+romance; he is represented in one account as being Yü Huang's
+shield-bearer, sixty feet in height, his three heads with nine
+eyes crowned by a golden wheel, his eight hands each holding a
+magic weapon, and his mouth vomiting blue clouds. At the sound of
+his Voice, we are told, the heavens shook and the foundations of the
+earth trembled. His duty was to bring into submission all the demons
+which desolated the world.
+
+His birth was in this wise. Li Ching's wife, Yin Shih, bore him three
+sons, the eldest Chin-cha, the second Mu-cha, and the third No-cha,
+generally known as 'the Third Prince.'
+
+Yin Shih dreamed one night that a Taoist priest entered her room. She
+indignantly exclaimed: "How dare you come into my room in this
+indiscreet manner?" The priest replied: "Woman, receive the child of
+the unicorn!" Before she could reply the Taoist pushed an object to
+her bosom.
+
+Yin Shih awoke in a fright, a cold sweat all over her body. Having
+awakened her husband, she told him what she had dreamed. At that moment
+she was seized with the pains of childbirth. Li Ching withdrew to an
+adjoining room, uneasy at what seemed to be inauspicious omens. A
+little later two servants ran to him, crying out: "Your wife has
+given birth to a monstrous freak!"
+
+
+An Avatar of the Intelligent Pearl
+
+Li Ching seized his sword and went into his wife's room, which he found
+filled with a red light exhaling a most extraordinary odour. A ball
+of flesh was rolling on the floor like a wheel; with a blow of his
+sword he cut it open, and a babe emerged, surrounded by a halo of red
+light. Its face was very white, a gold bracelet was on its right wrist,
+and it wore a pair of red silk trousers, from which proceeded rays
+of dazzling golden light. The bracelet was 'the horizon of Heaven and
+earth,' and the two precious objects belonged to the cave Chin-kuang
+Tung of T'ai-i Chên-jên, the priest who had bestowed them upon him
+when he appeared to his mother during her sleep. The child itself
+was an avatar of Ling Chu-tzu, 'the Intelligent Pearl.'
+
+On the morrow T'ai-i Chên-jên returned and asked Li Ching's permission
+to see the new-born babe. "He shall be called No-cha," he said,
+"and will become my disciple."
+
+
+A Precocious Youth
+
+At seven years of age No-cha was already six feet in height. One day
+he asked his mother if he might go for a walk outside the town. His
+mother granted him permission on condition that he was accompanied
+by a servant. She also counselled him not to remain too long outside
+the wall, lest his father should become anxious.
+
+It was in the fifth moon: the heat was excessive. No-cha had not gone
+a _li_ before he was in a profuse perspiration. Some way ahead he saw
+a clump of trees, to which he hastened, and, settling himself in the
+shade, opened his coat, and breathed with relief the fresher air. In
+front of him he saw a stream of limpid green water running between
+two rows of willows, gently agitated by the movement of the wind, and
+flowing round a rock. The child ran to the banks of the stream, and
+said to his guardian: "I am covered with perspiration, and will bathe
+from the rock." "Be quick," said the servant; "if your father returns
+home before you he will be anxious." No-cha stripped himself, took his
+red silk trousers, several feet long, and dipped them in the water,
+intending to use them as a towel. No sooner were the magic trousers
+immersed in the stream than the water began to boil, and Heaven and
+earth trembled. The water of this river, the Chiu-wan Ho, 'Nine-bends
+River,' which communicated with the Eastern Sea, turned completely
+red, and Lung Wang's palace shook to its foundations. The Dragon-king,
+surprised at seeing the walls of his crystal palace shaking, called
+his officers and inquired: "How is it that the palace threatens to
+collapse? There should not be an earthquake at this time." He ordered
+one of his attendants to go at once and find out what evil was giving
+rise to the commotion. When the officer reached the river he saw that
+the water was red, but noticed nothing else except a boy dipping a
+band of silk in the stream. He cleft the water and called out angrily:
+"That child should be thrown into the water for making the river red
+and causing Lung Wang's palace to shake."
+
+"Who is that who speaks so brutally?" said No-cha. Then, seeing that
+the man intended to seize him, he jumped aside, took his gold bracelet,
+and hurled it in the air. It fell on the head of the officer, and
+No-cha left him dead on the rock. Then he picked up his bracelet and
+said smiling: "His blood has stained my precious horizon of Heaven
+and earth." He then washed it in the water.
+
+
+The Slaying of the Dragon-king's Son
+
+"How is it that the officer does not return?" inquired Lung Wang. At
+that moment attendants came to inform him that his retainer had been
+murdered by a boy.
+
+Thereupon Ao Ping, the third son of Lung Wang, placing himself at the
+head of a troop of marines, his trident in his hand, left the palace
+precincts. The warriors dashed into the river, raising on every side
+waves mountains high. Seeing the water rising, No-cha stood up on
+the rock and was confronted by Ao Ping mounted on a sea-monster.
+
+"Who slew my messenger?" cried the warrior.
+
+"I did," answered No-cha.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded Ao Ping.
+
+"I am No-cha, the third son of Li Ching of Ch'ên-t'ang Kuan. I came
+here to bathe and refresh myself; your messenger cursed me, and I
+killed him. Then--"
+
+"Rascal! do you not know that your victim was a deputy of the King
+of Heaven? How dare you kill him, and then boast of your crime?"
+
+So saying, Ao Ping thrust at the boy with his trident. No-cha, by a
+brisk move, evaded the thrust.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked in turn.
+
+"I am Ao Ping, the third son of Lung Wang."
+
+"Ah, you are a blusterer," jeered the boy; "if you dare to touch me
+I will skin you alive, you and your mud-eels!"
+
+"You make me choke with rage," rejoined Ao Ping, at the same time
+thrusting again with his trident.
+
+Furious at this renewed attack, No-cha spread his silk trousers in
+the air, and thousands of balls of fire flew out of them, felling Lung
+Wang's son. No-cha put his foot on Ao Ping's head and struck it with
+his magic bracelet, whereupon he appeared in his true form of a dragon.
+
+"I am now going to pull out your sinews," he said, "in order to make
+a belt for my father to use to bind on his cuirass."
+
+No-cha was as good as his word, and Ao Ping's escort ran and informed
+Lung Wang of the fate of his son. The Dragon-king went to Li Ching
+and demanded an explanation.
+
+Being entirely ignorant of what had taken place, Li Ching sought
+No-cha to question him.
+
+
+An Unruly Son
+
+No-cha was in the garden, occupied in weaving the belt of
+dragon-sinew. The stupefaction of Li Ching may be imagined. "You
+have brought most awful misfortunes upon us," he exclaimed. "Come
+and give an account of your conduct." "Have no fear," replied No-cha
+superciliously; "his son's sinews are still intact; I will give them
+back to him if he wishes."
+
+When they entered the house he saluted the Dragon-king, made a curt
+apology, and offered to return his son's sinews. The father, moved
+with grief at the sight of the proofs of the tragedy, said bitterly
+to Li Ching: "You have such a son and yet dare to deny his guilt,
+though you heard him haughtily admitting it! To-morrow I shall report
+the matter to Yü Huang." Having spoken thus, he departed.
+
+Li Ching was overwhelmed at the enormity of his son's crime. His
+wife, in an adjoining room, hearing his lamentations, went to her
+husband. "What obnoxious creature is this that you have brought into
+the world?" he said to her angrily. "He has slain two spirits, the
+son of Lung Wang and a steward sent by the King of Heaven. To-morrow
+the Dragon-king is to lodge a complaint with Yü Huang, and two or
+three days hence will see the end of our existence."
+
+The poor mother began to weep copiously. "What!" she sobbed, "you whom
+I suffered so much for, you are to be the cause of our ruin and death!"
+
+No-cha, seeing his parents so distracted, fell on his knees. "Let me
+tell you once for all," he said, "that I am no ordinary mortal. I am
+the disciple of T'ai-i Chên-jên; my magic weapons I received from him;
+it is they which brought upon me the undying hatred of Lung Wang. But
+he cannot prevail. To-day I will go and ask my master's advice. The
+guilty alone should suffer the penalty; it is unjust that his parents
+should suffer in his stead."
+
+
+Drastic Measures
+
+He then left for Ch'ien-yüan Shan, and entered the cave of his master
+T'ai-i Chên-jên, to whom he related his adventures. The master dwelt
+upon the grave consequences of the murders, and then ordered No-cha to
+bare his breast. With his finger he drew on the skin a magic formula,
+after which he gave him some secret instructions. "Now," he said, "go
+to the gate of Heaven and await the arrival of Lung Wang, who purposes
+to accuse you before Yü Huang. Then you must come again to consult me,
+that your parents may not be molested because of your misdeeds."
+
+When No-cha reached the gate of Heaven it was closed. In vain he sought
+for Lung Wang, but after a while he saw him approaching. Lung Wang did
+not see No-cha, for the formula written by T'ai-i Chên-jên rendered
+him invisible. As Lung Wang approached the gate No-cha ran up to him
+and struck him so hard a blow with his golden bracelet that he fell
+to the ground. Then No-cha stamped on him, cursing him vehemently.
+
+The Dragon-king now recognized his assailant and sharply reproached him
+with his crimes, but the only reparation he got was a renewal of kicks
+and blows. Then, partially lifting Lung Wang's cloak and raising his
+shield, No-cha tore off from his body about forty scales. Blood flowed
+copiously, and the Dragon-king, under stress of the pain, begged his
+foe to spare his life. To this No-cha consented on condition that he
+relinquished his purpose of accusing him before Yü Huang.
+
+"Now," went on No-cha, "change yourself into a small serpent that I
+may take you back without fear of your escaping."
+
+Lung Wang took the form of a small blue dragon, and followed No-cha
+to his father's house, upon entering which Lung Wang resumed his
+normal form, and accused No-cha of having belaboured him. "I will go
+with all the Dragon-kings and lay an accusation before Yü Huang,"
+he said. Thereupon he transformed himself into a gust of wind,
+and disappeared.
+
+
+
+No-cha draws a Bow at a Venture
+
+"Things are going from bad to worse," sighed Li Ching, His son,
+however, consoled him: "I beg you, my father, not to let the future
+trouble you. I am the chosen one of the gods. My master is T'ai-i
+Chên-jên, and he has assured me that he can easily protect us."
+
+No-cha now went out and ascended a tower which commanded a view of
+the entrance of the fort. There he found a wonderful bow and three
+magic arrows. No-cha did not know that this was the spiritual weapon
+belonging to the fort. "My master informed me that I am destined
+to fight to establish the coming Chou dynasty; I ought therefore to
+perfect myself in the use of weapons. This is a good opportunity." He
+accordingly seized the bow and shot an arrow toward the south-west. A
+red trail indicated the path of the arrow, which hissed as it flew. At
+that moment Pi Yün, a servant of Shih-chi Niang-niang, happened to be
+at the foot of K'u-lou Shan (Skeleton Hill), in front of the cave of
+his mistress. The arrow pierced his throat, and he fell dead, bathed
+in his blood. Shih-chi Niang-niang came out of her cave, and examining
+the arrow found that it bore the inscription: "Arrow which shakes the
+heavens." She thus knew that it must have come from Ch'ên-t'ang Kuan,
+where the magic bow was kept.
+
+
+Another Encounter
+
+The goddess mounted her blue phoenix, flew over the fort, seized Li
+Ching, and carried him to her cave. There she made him kneel before
+her, and reminded him how she had protected him that he might gain
+honour and glory on earth before he attained to immortality. "It is
+thus that you show your gratitude--by killing my servant!"
+
+Li Ching swore that he was innocent; but the tell-tale arrow was
+there, and it could not but have come from the fortress. Li Ching
+begged the goddess to set him at liberty, in order that he might find
+the culprit and bring him to her. "If I cannot find him," he added,
+"you may take my life."
+
+Once again No-cha frankly admitted his deed to his father, and followed
+him to the cave of Shih-chi Niang-niang. When he reached the entrance
+the second servant reproached him with the crime, whereupon No-cha
+struck him a heavy blow. Shih-chi Niang-niang, infuriated, threw
+herself at No-cha, sword in hand; one after the other she wrenched
+from him his bracelet and magic trousers.
+
+Deprived of his magic weapons, No-cha fled to his master, T'ai-i
+Chên-jên. The goddess followed and demanded that he be put to
+death. A terrible conflict ensued between the two champions, until
+T'ai-i Chên-jên hurled into the air his globe of nine fire-dragons,
+which, falling on Shih-chi Niang-niang, enveloped her in a whirlwind
+of flame. When this had passed it was seen that she was changed
+into stone.
+
+"Now you are safe," said T'ai-i Chên-jên to No-cha, "but return
+quickly, for the Four Dragon-kings have laid their accusation before
+Yü Huang, and they are going to carry off your parents. Follow my
+advice, and you will rescue your parents from their misfortune."
+
+
+No-cha commits Hara-Kiri
+
+On his return No-cha found the Four Dragon-kings on the point of
+carrying off his parents. "It is I," he said, "who killed Ao Ping, and
+I who should pay the penalty. Why are you molesting my parents? I am
+about to return to them what I received from them. Will it satisfy
+you?"
+
+Lung Wang agreed, whereupon No-cha took a sword, and before their eyes
+cut off an arm, sliced open his stomach, and fell unconscious. His
+soul, borne on the wind, went straight to the cave of T'ai-i Chên-jên,
+while his mother busied herself with burying his body.
+
+"Your home is not here," said his master to him; "return to Ch'ên-t'ang
+Kuan, and beg your mother to build a temple on Ts'ui-p'ing Shan,
+forty _li_ farther on. Incense will be burned to you for three years,
+at the end of which time you will be reincarnated."
+
+
+A Habitation for the Soul
+
+During the night, toward the third watch, while his mother was in a
+deep sleep, No-cha appeared to her in a dream and said: "My mother,
+pity me; since my death, my soul, separated from my body, wanders about
+without a home. Build me, I pray you, a temple on Ts'ui-p'ing Shan,
+that I may be reincarnated." His mother awoke in tears, and related
+her vision to Li Ching, who reproached her for her blind attachment
+to her unnatural son, the cause of so much disaster.
+
+For five or six nights the son appeared to his mother, each time
+repeating his request. The last time he added: "Do not forget that by
+nature I am ferocious; if you refuse my request evil will befall you."
+
+His mother then sent builders to the mountain to construct a temple
+to No-cha, and his image was set up in it. Miracles were not wanting,
+and the number of pilgrims who visited the shrine increased daily.
+
+
+
+Li Ching destroys his Son's Statue
+
+One day Li Ching, with a troop of his soldiers, was passing this
+mountain, and saw the roads crowded with pilgrims of both sexes. "Where
+are these people going?" he asked. "For six months past," he was told,
+"the spirit of the temple on this mountain has continued to perform
+miracles. People come from far and near to worship and supplicate him."
+
+"What is the name of this spirit?" inquired Li Ching.
+
+"No-cha," they replied.
+
+"No-cha!" exclaimed the father. "I will go and see him myself."
+
+In a rage Li Ching entered the temple and examined the statue, which
+was a speaking image of his son. By its side were images of two of
+his servants. He took his whip and began to beat the statue, cursing
+it all the while. "It is not enough, apparently, for you to have been
+a source of disaster to us," he said; "but even after your death you
+must deceive the multitude." He whipped the statue until it fell to
+pieces; he then kicked over the images of the servants, and went back,
+admonishing the people not to worship so wicked a man, the shame and
+ruin of his family. By his orders the temple was burnt to the ground.
+
+When he reached Ch'ên-t'ang Kuan his wife came to him, but he received
+her coldly. "You gave birth to that cursed son," he said, "who has been
+the plague of our lives, and after his death you build him a temple in
+which he deceives the people. Do you wish to have me disgraced? If I
+were to be accused at Court of having instituted the worship of false
+gods, would not my destruction be certain? I have burned the temple,
+and intend that that shall settle the matter once for all; if ever
+you think of rebuilding it I will break off all relations with you."
+
+
+No-cha consults his Master
+
+At the time of his father's visit No-cha was absent from the temple. On
+his return he found only its smoking remnants. The spirits of his
+two servants ran up lamenting. "Who has demolished my temple?" he
+asked. "Li Ching," they replied. "In doing this he has exceeded his
+powers," said No-cha. "I gave him back the substance I received from
+him; why did he come with violence to break up my image? I will have
+nothing more to do with him."
+
+No-cha's soul had already begun to be spiritualised. So he determined
+to go to T'ai-i Chên-jên and beg for his help. "The worship rendered
+to you there," replied the Taoist, "had nothing in it which should
+have offended your father; it did not concern him. He was in the
+wrong. Before long Chiang Tzu-ya will descend to inaugurate the new
+dynasty, and since you must throw in your lot with him I will find
+a way to aid you."
+
+
+A New No-cha
+
+T'ai-i Chên-jên had two water-lily stalks and three lotus-leaves
+brought to him. He spread these on the ground in the form of a human
+being and placed the soul of No-cha in this lotus skeleton, uttering
+magic incantations the while. There emerged a new No-cha full of
+life, with a fresh complexion, purple lips, keen glance, and sixteen
+feet of height. "Follow me to my peach-garden," said T'ai-i Chên-jên,
+"and I will give you your weapons." He handed him a fiery spear, very
+sharp, and two wind-and-fire wheels which, placed under his feet,
+served as a Vehicle. A brick of gold in a panther-skin bag completed
+his magic armament. The new warrior, after thanking his master,
+mounted his wind-and-fire wheels and returned to Ch'ên-t'ang Kuan.
+
+
+A Battle between Father and Son
+
+Li Ching was informed that his son No-cha had returned and was
+threatening vengeance. So he took his weapons, mounted his horse,
+and went forth to meet him. Having cursed each other profusely, they
+joined battle, but Li Ching was worsted and compelled to flee. No-cha
+pursued his father, but as he was on the point of overtaking him Li
+Ching's second son, Mu-cha, came on the scene, and keenly reproached
+his brother for his unfilial conduct.
+
+"Li Ching is no longer my father," replied No-cha. "I gave him back
+my substance; why did he burn my temple and smash up my image?"
+
+Mu-cha thereupon prepared to defend his father, but received on his
+back a blow from the golden brick, and fell unconscious. No-cha then
+resumed his pursuit of Li Ching.
+
+His strength exhausted, and in danger of falling into the hands
+of his enemy, Li Ching drew his sword and was about to kill
+himself. "Stop!" cried a Taoist priest. "Come into my cave, and I
+will protect you."
+
+When No-cha came up he could not see Li Ching, and demanded his
+surrender from the Taoist. But he had to do with one stronger than
+himself, no less a being than Wên-chu T'ien-tsun, whom T'ai-i Chên-jên
+had sent in order that No-cha might receive a lesson. The Taoist,
+with the aid of his magic weapon, seized No-cha, and in a moment he
+found a gold ring fastened round his neck, two chains on his feet,
+and he was bound to a pillar of gold.
+
+
+Peace at the Last
+
+At this moment, as if by accident, T'ai-i Chên-jên appeared upon the
+scene. His master had No-cha brought before Wên-chu T'ien-tsun and
+Li Ching, and advised him to live at peace with his father, but he
+also rebuked the father for having burned the temple on Ts'ui-p'ing
+Shan. This done, he ordered Li Ching to go home, and No-cha to return
+to his cave. The latter, overflowing with anger, his heart full of
+vengeance, started again in pursuit of Li Ching, swearing that he would
+punish him. But the Taoist reappeared and prepared to protect Li Ching.
+
+No-cha, bristling like a savage cat, threw himself at his enemy
+and tried to pierce him with his spear, but a white lotus-flower
+emerged from the Taoist's mouth and arrested the course of the
+weapon. As No-cha continued to threaten him, the Taoist drew from
+his sleeve a mysterious object which rose in the air, and, falling
+at the feet of No-cha, enveloped him in flames. Then No-cha prayed
+for mercy. The Taoist exacted from him three separate promises: to
+live in harmony with his father, to recognize and address him as his
+father, and to throw himself at his, the Taoist's, feet, to indicate
+his reconciliation with himself.
+
+After this act of reconciliation had been performed, Wên-chu T'ien-tsun
+promised Li Ching that he should leave his official post to become an
+Immortal able to place his services at the disposal of the new Chou
+dynasty, shortly to come into power. In order to ensure that their
+reconciliation should last for ever, and to place it beyond No-cha's
+power to seek revenge, he gave Li Ching the wonderful object by whose
+agency No-cha's feet had been burned, and which had been the means
+of bringing him into subjection. It was a golden pagoda, which became
+the characteristic weapon of Li Ching, and gave rise to his nickname,
+Li the Pagoda-bearer. Finally, Yü Huang appointed him Generalissimo
+of the Twenty-six Celestial Officers, Grand Marshal of the Skies,
+and Guardian of the Gate of Heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A Battle of the Gods
+
+
+Multifarious Versatile Divinities
+
+The _Fêng shên yen i_ describes at length how, during the wars which
+preceded the accession of the Chou dynasty in 1122 B.C., a multitude
+of demigods, Buddhas, Immortals, etc., took part on one side or the
+other, some fighting for the old, some for the new dynasty. They were
+wonderful creatures, gifted with marvellous powers. They could at will
+change their form, multiply their heads and limbs, become invisible,
+and create, by merely uttering a word, terrible monsters who bit and
+destroyed, or sent forth poison gases, or emitted flames from their
+nostrils. In these battles there is much lightning, thunder, flight
+of fire-dragons, dark clouds which vomit burning hails of murderous
+weapons; swords, spears, and arrows fall from the sky on to the heads
+of the combatants; the earth trembles, the pillars of Heaven shake.
+
+
+Chun T'i
+
+One of these gifted warriors was Chun T'i, a Taoist of the Western
+Paradise, who appeared on the scene when the armies of the rival
+dynasties were facing each other. K'ung Hsüan was gallantly holding
+the pass of the Chin-chi Ling; Chiang Tzu-ya was trying to take it
+by assault--so far without success.
+
+Chun T'i's mission was to take K'ung Hsüan to the abode of the blest,
+his wisdom and general progress having now reached the required
+degree of perfection. This was a means of breaking down the invincible
+resistance of this powerful enemy and at the same time of rewarding
+his brilliant talents.
+
+But K'ung Hsüan did not approve of this plan, and a fight took
+place between the two champions. At one moment Chun T'i was seized
+by a luminous bow and carried into the air, but while enveloped in a
+cloud of fire he appeared with eighteen arms and twenty-four heads,
+holding in each hand a powerful talisman.
+
+
+The One-eyed Peacock
+
+He put a silk cord round K'ung Hsüan's neck, touched him with his
+wand, and forced him to reassume his original form of a red one-eyed
+peacock. Chun T'i seated himself on the peacock's back, and it
+flew across the sky, bearing its saviour and master to the Western
+Paradise. Brilliantly variegated clouds marked its track through space.
+
+
+Arrangements for the Siege
+
+On the disappearance of its defender the defile of Chin-chi Ling
+was captured, and the village of Chieh-p'ai Kuan, the bulwark of the
+enemy's forces, reached. This place was defended by a host of genii
+and Immortals, the most distinguished among them being the Taoist
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu, whose specially effective charms had so far
+kept the fort secure against every attempt upon it.
+
+Lao Tzu himself had deigned to descend from dwelling in happiness,
+together with Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun and Chieh-yin Tao-jên, to take
+part in the siege. But the town had four gates, and these heavenly
+rulers were only three in number. So Chun T'i was recalled, and each
+member of the quartette was entrusted with the task of capturing one
+of the gates.
+
+
+
+Impediments
+
+Chun T'i's duty was to take the Chüeh-hsien Mên, defended by
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu. The warriors who had tried to enter the town by
+this gate had one and all paid for their temerity with their lives. The
+moment each had crossed the threshold a clap of thunder had resounded,
+and a mysterious sword, moving with lightning rapidity, had slain him.
+
+
+Offence and Defence
+
+As Chun T'i advanced at the head of his warriors terrible lightning
+rent the air and the mysterious sword descended like a thunderbolt
+upon his head. But Chun T'i held on high his Seven-precious Branch,
+whereupon there emerged from it thousands of lotus-flowers, which
+formed an impenetrable covering and stopped the sword in its fall. This
+and the other gates were then forced, and a grand assault was now
+directed against the chief defender of the town.
+
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu, riding his ox and surrounded by his warriors,
+for the last time risked the chance of war and bravely faced his four
+terrible adversaries. With his sword held aloft, he threw himself on
+Chieh-yin Tao-jên, whose only weapon was his fly-whisk. But there
+emerged from this a five-coloured lotus-flower, which stopped the
+sword-thrust. While Lao Tzu struck the hero with his staff, Yüan-shih
+T'ien-tsun warded off the terrible sword with his jade _ju-i_.
+
+Chun T'i now called to his help the spiritual peacock, and took the
+form of a warrior with twenty-four heads and eighteen arms. His
+mysterious weapons surrounded T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu, and Lao Tzu
+struck the hero so hard that fire came out from his eyes, nose,
+and mouth. Unable to parry the assaults of his adversaries, he next
+received a blow from Chun T'i's magic wand, which felled him, and he
+took flight in a whirlwind of dust.
+
+The defenders now offered no further resistance, and Yüan-shih
+T'ien-tsun thanked Chun T'i for the valuable assistance he had rendered
+in the capture of the village, after which the gods returned to their
+palace in the Western Heaven.
+
+
+Attempts at Revenge
+
+T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu, vanquished and routed, swore to have his
+revenge. He called to his aid the spirits of the twenty-eight
+constellations, and marched to attack Wu Wang's army. The honour of
+the victory that ensued belonged to Chun T'i, who disarmed both the
+Immortal Wu Yün and T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu.
+
+Wu Yün, armed with his magic sword, entered the lists against Chun
+T'i; but the latter opened his mouth and a blue lotus-flower came
+out and stopped the blows aimed at him. Other thrusts were met by
+similar miracles.
+
+"Why continue so useless a fight?" said Chun T'i at last. "Abandon
+the cause of the Shang, and come with me to the Western Paradise. I
+came to save you, and you must not compel me to make you resume your
+original form."
+
+An insulting flow of words was the reply; again the magic sword
+descended like lightning, and again the stroke was averted by a timely
+lotus-flower. Chun T'i now waved his wand, and the magic sword was
+broken to bits, the handle only remaining in Wu Yün's hand.
+
+
+
+The Golden-bearded Turtle
+
+Mad with rage, Wu Yün seized his club and tried to fell his enemy. But
+Chun T'i summoned a disciple, who appeared with a bamboo pole. This he
+thrust out like a fishing-rod, and on a hook at the end of the line
+attached to the pole dangled a large golden-bearded turtle. This
+was the Immortal Wu Yün, now in his original form of a spiritual
+turtle. The disciple seated himself on its back, and both, disappearing
+into space, returned to the Western Heavens.
+
+
+The Battle Won
+
+To conquer T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu was more difficult, but after a long
+fight Chun T'i waved his Wand of the Seven Treasures and broke his
+adversary's sword. The latter, disarmed and vanquished, disappeared
+in a cloud of dust. Chun T'i did not trouble to pursue him. The battle
+was won.
+
+
+Buddhahood
+
+A disciple of T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu, P'i-lu Hsien, 'the Immortal
+P'i-lu,' seeing his master beaten in two successive engagements,
+left the battlefield and followed Chun T'i to the Western Paradise,
+to become a Buddha. He is known as P'i-lu Fo, one of the principal
+gods of Buddhism.
+
+Chun T'i's festival is celebrated on the sixth day of the third
+moon. He is generally shown with eight hands and three faces, one of
+the latter being that of a pig.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+How the Monkey Became a God
+
+
+The Hsi Yu Chi
+
+In dealing with the gods of China we noticed the monkey among them. Why
+and in what manner he attained to that exalted rank is set forth in
+detail in the _Hsi yu chi_ [33]--a work the contents of which have
+become woven into the fabric of Chinese legendary lore and are known
+and loved by every intelligent native. Its pages are filled with
+ghosts, demons, and fairies, good and bad, but "it contains no more
+than the average Chinese really believes to exist, and his belief in
+such manifestations is so firm that from the cradle to the grave he
+lives and moves and has his being in reference to them." Its characters
+are said to be allegorical, though it may be doubted whether these
+implications may rightly be read into the Chinese text. Thus:
+
+Hsüan (or Yüan) Chuang, or T'ang Sêng, is the pilgrim of the _Hsi yu
+chi_, who symbolizes conscience, to which all actions are brought for
+trial. The priestly garment of Hsüan Chuang symbolizes the good work
+of the rectified human nature. It is held to be a great protection
+to the new heart from the myriads of evil beings which surround it,
+seeking its destruction.
+
+Sun Hou-tzu, the Monkey Fairy, represents human nature, which is prone
+to all evil. His unreasonable vagaries moved Hsüan Chuang to compel
+him to wear a Head-splitting Helmet which would contract upon his head
+in moments of waywardness. The agonizing pressure thus caused would
+bring him to his senses, irrespective of his distance from his master.
+
+The iron wand of Sun Hou-tzu is said to represent the use that can be
+made of doctrine. It was useful for all purposes, great or small. By
+a word it could be made invisible, and by a word it could become long
+enough to span the distance between Heaven and earth.
+
+Chu Pa-chieh, the Pig Fairy, with his muck-rake, stands for the
+coarser passions, which are constantly at war with the conscience in
+their endeavours to cast off all restraint.
+
+Sha Ho-shang, Priest Sha, is a good representation of Mr Faithful
+in _The Pilgrim's Progress_. In the _Hsi yu chi_ he stands for the
+human character, which is naturally weak and which needs constant
+encouragement.
+
+
+Legend of Sun Hou-tzu
+
+The deeds of this marvellous creature, the hero of the _Hsi yu chi_,
+are to be met with continually in Chinese popular literature, and they
+are very much alive in the popular mind. In certain parts a regular
+worship is offered to him, and in many temples representations of or
+legends concerning him are to be seen or heard.
+
+Other names by which Sun Hou-tzu is referred to are: Sun Hsing-chê,
+Sun Wu-k'ung, Mei Hou-wang, Ch'i-t'ien Ta Shêng, and Pi-ma Wên, the
+last-mentioned being a title which caused him annoyance by recalling
+the derisive dignity conferred upon him by Yü Huang. [34] Throughout
+the remainder of this chapter Sun Hou-tzu will be shortly referred
+to as 'Sun.'
+
+Beyond the seas, in the Eastern continent, in the kingdom of Ao-lai,
+is the mountain Hua-kuo Shan. On the steep sides of this mountain there
+is a rocky point 36 feet 5 inches high and 24 feet in circumference. At
+the very top an egg formed, and, fructified by the breath of the wind,
+gave birth to a stone monkey. The newly-born saluted the four points
+of the horizon; from his eyes shone golden streaks of lightning,
+which filled the palace of the North Pole Star with light. This light
+subsided as soon as he was able to take nourishment.
+
+"To-day," said Yü Huang to himself, "I am going to complete the
+wonderful diversity of the beings engendered by Heaven and earth. This
+monkey will skip and gambol to the highest peaks of mountains, jump
+about in the waters, and, eating the fruit of the trees, will be the
+companion of the gibbon and the crane. Like the deer he will pass
+his nights on the mountain slopes, and during the day will be seen
+leaping on their summits or in their caverns. That will be the finest
+ornament of all for the mountains!"
+
+The creature's exploits soon caused him to be proclaimed king
+of the monkeys. He then began to try to find some means of
+becoming immortal. After travelling for eighteen years by land
+and sea he met the Immortal P'u-t'i Tsu-shih on the mountain
+Ling-t'ai-fang-ts'un. During his travels the monkey had gradually
+acquired human attributes; his face remained always as it had been
+originally, but dressed in human apparel he began to be civilized. His
+new master gave him the family name of Sun, and personal name of
+Wu-k'ung, 'Discoverer of Secrets.' He taught him how to fly through
+the air, and to change into seventy-two different forms. With one
+leap he could cover 108,000 _li_ (about 36,000 miles).
+
+
+
+A Rod of Iron
+
+Sun, after his return to Hua-kuo Shan, slew the demon Hun-shih Mo-wang,
+who had been molesting the monkeys during his long absence. Then he
+organized his subjects into a regular army, 47,000 all told. Thus the
+peace of the simian kingdom was assured. As for himself, he could
+not find a weapon to suit him, and went to consult Ao Kuang, the
+Lung Wang, or Dragon-king of the Eastern Sea, about it. It was from
+him that he obtained the formidable rod of iron, formerly planted in
+the ocean-bed by the Great Yü (Yü Wang) to regulate the level of the
+waters. He pulled it out, and modified it to suit his tastes. The
+two extremities he bound round with gold bands, and on it engraved
+the words: 'Gold-bound Wand of my Desires.' This magic weapon could
+accommodate itself to all his wishes; being able to assume the most
+incredible proportions or to reduce itself to the form of the finest of
+needles, which he kept hidden in his ear. He terrorized the Four Kings
+of the sea, and dressed himself at their expense. The neighbouring
+kings allied themselves with him. A splendid banquet with copious
+libations of wine sealed the alliance of friendship with the seven
+kings; but alas! Sun had partaken so liberally that when he was seeing
+his guests off, no sooner had he taken a few steps than he fell into a
+drunken sleep. The undertakers of Yen Wang, the King of the Hells, to
+whom Lung Wang had accused him as the disturber of his watery kingdom,
+seized his soul, put chains round its neck, and led it down to the
+infernal regions. Sun awoke in front of the gate of the kingdom of
+the dead, broke his fetters, killed his two custodians, and, armed
+with his magic staff, penetrated into the realm of Yen Wang, where
+he threatened to carry out general destruction. He called to the ten
+infernal gods to bring him the Register of the Living and the Dead,
+tore out with his own hand the page on which were written his name
+and those of his monkey subjects, and then told the King of the Hells
+that he was no longer subject to the laws of death. Yen Wang yielded,
+though with bad grace, and Sun returned triumphant from his expedition
+beyond the tomb.
+
+Before long Sun's escapades came to the knowledge of Yü Huang. Ao
+Kuang and Yen Wang each sent deputies to the Master of Heaven, who
+took note of the double accusation, and sent T'ai-po Chin-hsing to
+summon before him this disturber of the heavenly peace.
+
+
+Grand Master of the Heavenly Stables
+
+In order to keep him occupied, Sun was appointed Grand Master of the
+Heavenly Stables, and was entrusted with the feeding of Yü Huang's
+horses; his official celestial title being Pi-ma Wên. Later on,
+learning the object of the creation of this derisory appointment,
+he overturned the Master's throne, seized his staff, broke down the
+South Gate of Heaven, and descended on a cloud to Hua-kuo Shan.
+
+
+Grand Superintendent of the Heavenly Peach-garden
+
+Yü Huang in great indignation organized a siege of Hua-kuo Shan,
+but the Kings of Heaven and the generals with their celestial armies
+were repulsed several times. Sun now arrogated to himself the pompous
+title of Grand Saint, Governor of Heaven. He had this emblazoned on
+his banners, and threatened Yü Huang that he would carry destruction
+into his kingdom if he refused to recognize his new dignity. Yü
+Huang, alarmed at the result of the military operations, agreed to
+the condition laid down by Sun. The latter was then appointed Grand
+Superintendent of the Heavenly Peach-garden, the fruit of which
+conferred immortality, and a new palace was built for him.
+
+
+Double Immortality
+
+Having made minute observations on the secret properties of the
+peaches, Sun ate of them and was thus assured against death. The
+time was ripe for him to indulge in his tricks without restraint,
+and an opportunity soon presented itself. Deeply hurt at not having
+been invited to the feast of the Peach Festival, P'an-t'ao Hui, given
+periodically to the Immortals by Wang-mu Niang-niang, the Goddess of
+the Immortals, he resolved upon revenge. When the preparations for the
+feast were complete he cast a spell over the servants, causing them
+to fall into a deep sleep, and then ate up all the most juicy meats
+and drank the fine wines provided for the heavenly guests. Sun had,
+however, indulged himself too liberally; with heavy head and bleary
+eye he missed the road back to his heavenly abode, and came unaware
+to the gate of Lao Chün, who was, however, absent from his palace. It
+was only a matter of a few minutes for Sun to enter and swallow the
+pills of immortality which Lao Chün kept in five gourds. Thus Sun,
+doubly immortal, riding on the mist, again descended to Hua-kuo Shan.
+
+
+Sun Hou-tzu Captured
+
+These numerous misdeeds aroused the indignation of all the gods and
+goddesses. Accusations poured in upon Yü Huang, and he ordered the Four
+Gods of the Heavens and their chief generals to bring Sun to him. The
+armies laid siege to Hua-kuo Shan, a net was spread in the heavens,
+fantastic battles took place, but the resistance of the enemy was as
+strenuous and obstinate as before.
+
+Lao Chün and Êrh-lang, nephew of Yü Huang, then appeared on the
+scene. Sun's warriors resisted gallantly, but the forces of Heaven
+were too much for them, and at length they were overcome. At this
+juncture Sun changed his form, and in spite of the net in the sky
+managed to find a way out. In vain search was made everywhere, until
+Li T'ien-wang, by the help of his devil-finding mirror, detected the
+quarry and informed Êrh-lang, who rushed off in pursuit. Lao Chün
+hurled his magic ring on to the head of the fugitive, who stumbled
+and fell. Quick as lightning, the celestial dog, T'ien Kou, who was
+in Êrh-lang's service, threw himself on him, bit him in the calf,
+and caused him to stumble afresh. This was the end of the fight. Sun,
+surrounded on all sides, was seized and chained. The battle was won.
+
+
+Sun escapes from Lao Chün's Furnace
+
+The celestial armies now raised the siege, and returned to their
+quarters. But a new and unexpected difficulty arose. Yü Huang condemned
+the criminal to death, but when they went to carry out the sentence
+the executioners learned that he was invulnerable; swords, iron,
+fire, even lightning, could make no impression on his skin. Yü Huang,
+alarmed, asked Lao Chün the reason of this. The latter replied that
+there was nothing surprising about it, seeing that the knave had
+eaten the peaches of life in the garden of Heaven and the pills of
+immortality which he had composed. "Hand him over to me," he added. "I
+will distil him in my furnace of the Eight Trigrams, and extract from
+his composition the elements which render him immortal."
+
+Yü Huang ordered that the prisoner be handed over, and in the sight
+of all he was shut up in Lao Chün's alchemical furnace, which for
+forty-nine days was heated white-hot. But at an unguarded moment
+Sun lifted the lid, emerged in a rage, seized his magic staff, and
+threatened to destroy Heaven and exterminate its inhabitants. Yü Huang,
+at the end of his resources, summoned Buddha, who came and addressed
+Sun as follows: "Why do you wish to possess yourself of the Kingdom
+of the Heavens?"
+
+"Have I not power enough to be the God of Heaven?" was the arrogant
+reply.
+
+"What qualifications have you?" asked Buddha. "Enumerate them."
+
+"My qualifications are innumerable," replied Sun. "I am invulnerable,
+I am immortal, I can change myself into seventy-two different forms,
+I can ride on the clouds of Heaven and pass through the air at will,
+with one leap I can traverse a hundred and eight thousand _li_."
+
+"Well," replied Buddha, "have a match with me; I wager that in one
+leap you cannot even jump out of the palm of my hand. If you succeed
+I will bestow upon you the sovereignty of Heaven."
+
+
+Broad-jump Competition
+
+Sun rose into space, flew like lightning in the great vastness, and
+reached the confines of Heaven, opposite the five great red pillars
+which are the boundaries of the created universe. On one of them
+he wrote his name, as irrefutable evidence that he could reach this
+extreme limit; this done, he returned triumphant to demand of Buddha
+the coveted inheritance.
+
+"But, wretch," said Buddha, "you never went out of my hand!"
+
+"How is that?" rejoined Sun. "I went as far as the pillars of Heaven,
+and even took the precaution of writing my name on one of them as
+proof in case of need."
+
+"Look then at the words you have written," said Buddha, lifting
+a finger on which Sun read with stupefaction his name as he had
+inscribed it.
+
+Buddha then seized Sun, transported him out of Heaven, and changed
+his five fingers into the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire,
+and earth, which instantly formed five high mountains contiguous to
+each other. The mountains were called Wu Hsing Shan, and Buddha shut
+Sun up in them.
+
+
+Conditions of Release
+
+Thus subdued, Sun would not have been able to get out of his stone
+prison but for the intercession of Kuan Yin P'u-sa, who obtained
+his release on his solemn promise that he would serve as guide,
+philosopher, and friend to Hsüan Chuang, the priest who was to
+undertake the difficult journey of 108,000 _li_ to the Western
+Heaven. This promise, on the whole, he fulfilled in the service
+of Hsüan Chuang during the fourteen years of the long journey. Now
+faithful, now restive and undisciplined, he was always the one to
+triumph in the end over the eighty-one fantastical tribulations which
+beset them as they journeyed.
+
+
+
+Sha Ho-shang
+
+One of the principal of Sun's fellow-servants of the Master was
+Sha Ho-shang.
+
+He is depicted wearing a necklace of skulls, the heads of the nine
+Chinese deputies sent in former centuries to find the Buddhist canon,
+but whom Sha Ho-shang had devoured on the banks of Liu-sha River when
+they had attempted to cross it.
+
+He is also known by the name of Sha Wu-ching, and was originally
+Grand Superintendent of the Manufactory of Stores for Yü Huang's
+palace. During a great banquet given on the Peach Festival to all
+the gods and Immortals of the Chinese Olympus he let fall a crystal
+bowl, which was smashed to atoms. Yü Huang caused him to be beaten
+with eight hundred blows, drove him out of Heaven, and exiled him to
+earth. He lived on the banks of the Liu-sha Ho, where every seventh
+day a mysterious sword appeared and wounded him in the neck. Having
+no other means of subsistence, he used to devour the passers-by.
+
+
+Sha Ho-shang becomes Baggage-coolie
+
+When Kuan Yin passed through that region on her way to China to find
+the priest who was predestined to devote himself to the laborious
+undertaking of the quest of the sacred Buddhist books, Sha Ho-shang
+threw himself on his knees before her and begged her to put an end
+to all his woes.
+
+The goddess promised that he should be delivered by the priest,
+her envoy, provided he would engage himself in the service of the
+pilgrim. On his promising to do this, and to lead a better life,
+she herself ordained him priest. In the end it came about that Hsüan
+Chuang, when passing the Sha Ho, took him into his suite as coolie
+to carry his baggage. Yü Huang pardoned him in consideration of the
+service he was rendering to the Buddhist cause.
+
+
+Chu Pa-chieh
+
+Chu Pa-chieh is a grotesque, even gross, personage, with all the
+instincts of animalism. One day, while he was occupying the high office
+of Overseer-general of the Navigation of the Milky Way, he, during a
+fit of drunkenness, vilely assaulted the daughter of Yü Huang. The
+latter had him beaten with two thousand blows from an iron hammer,
+and exiled to earth to be reincarnated.
+
+During his transition a mistake was made, and entering the womb of
+a sow he was born half-man, half-pig, with the head and ears of a
+pig and a human body. He began by killing and eating his mother, and
+then devoured his little porcine brothers. Then he went to live on the
+wild mountain Fu-ling Shan, where, armed with an iron rake, he first
+robbed and then ate the travellers who passed through that region.
+
+Mao Êrh-chieh, who lived in the cave Yün-chan Tung, engaged him as
+carrier of her personal effects, which she afterward bequeathed to him.
+
+Yielding to the exhortations of the Goddess Kuan Yin, who, at the
+time of her journey to China, persuaded him to lead a less dissolute
+life, he was ordained a priest by the goddess herself, who gave him
+the name of Chu (Pig), and the religious name of Wu-nêng, 'Seeker
+after Strength.' This monster was knocked down by Sun when the latter
+was passing over the mountain accompanied by Hsüan Chuang, and he
+declared himself a disciple of the pilgrim priest. He accompanied him
+throughout the journey, and was also received in the Western Paradise
+as a reward for his aid to the Buddhist propaganda.
+
+
+
+Hsüan Chuang, the Master
+
+The origin of this priest was as follows: In the reign of the Emperor
+T'ai Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, Ch'ên Kuang-jui, a graduate of Hai
+Chou, in his examination for the doctor's degree came out as _chuang
+yüan_, first on the list. Wên Chiao (also named Man-t'ang Chiao), the
+daughter of the minister Yin K'ai-shan, meeting the young academician,
+fell in love with him, and married him. Several days after the wedding
+the Emperor appointed Ch'ên Kuang-jui Governor of Chiang Chou (modern
+Chên-chiang Fu), in Kiangsu. After a short visit to his native town he
+started to take up his post. His old mother and his wife accompanied
+him. When they reached Hung Chou his mother fell sick and they were
+forced to stay for a time at the Inn of Ten Thousand Flowers, kept
+by one Liu Hsiao-êrh. Days passed; the sickness did not leave her,
+and as the time for her son to take over the seals of office was
+drawing near, he had to proceed without her.
+
+
+The Released Carp
+
+Before his departure he noticed a fisherman holding in his hand a fine
+carp; this he bought for a small sum to give to his mother. Suddenly
+he noticed that the fish had a very extraordinary look, and, changing
+his mind, he let it go in the waters of the Hung Chiang, afterward
+telling his mother what he had done. She congratulated him on his
+action, and assured him that the good deed would not go unrewarded.
+
+
+The Chuang Yüan Murdered
+
+Ch'ên Kuang-jui re-entered his boat with his wife and a servant. They
+were stopped by the chief waterman, Liu Hung, and his assistant. Struck
+with the great beauty of Ch'ên Kuang-jui's wife, the former planned
+a crime which he carried out with the help of his assistant. At the
+dead of night he took the boat to a retired spot, killed Ch'ên and
+his servant, threw their bodies into the river, seized his official
+documents of title and the woman he coveted, passed himself off as the
+real _chuang yüan_, and took possession of the magistracy of Chiang
+Chou. The widow, who was with child, had two alternatives--silence
+or death. Meantime she chose the former. Before she gave birth to her
+child, T'ai-po Chin-hsing, the Spirit of the South Pole Star, appeared
+to her, and said he had been sent by Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy,
+to present her with a son whose fame would fill the Empire. "Above
+all," he added, "take every precaution lest Liu Hung kill the child,
+for he will certainly do so if he can." When the child was born the
+mother, during the absence of Liu Hung, determined to expose it rather
+than see it slain. Accordingly she wrapped it up carefully in a shirt,
+and carried it to the bank of the Blue River. She then bit her finger,
+and with the blood wrote a short note stating the child's origin,
+and hid it in its breast. Moreover, she bit off the infant's left
+little toe, as an indelible mark of identity. No sooner had this been
+done than a gust of wind blew a large plank to the river's edge. The
+poor mother tied her infant firmly to this plank and abandoned it to
+the mercy of the waves. The waif was carried to the shore of the isle
+of Chin Shan, on which stands the famous monastery of Chin-shan Ssu,
+near Chinkiang. The cries of the infant attracted the attention of
+an old monk named Chang Lao, who rescued it and gave it the name of
+Chiang Liu, 'Waif of the River.' He reared it with much care, and
+treasured the note its mother had written with her blood. The child
+grew up, and Chang Lao made him a priest, naming him Hsüan Chuang on
+the day of his taking the vows. When he was eighteen years of age,
+having one day quarrelled with another priest, who had cursed him and
+reproached him with having neither father nor mother, he, much hurt,
+went to his protector Chang Lao. The latter said to him: "The time has
+come to reveal to you your origin." He then told him all, showed him
+the note, and made him promise to avenge his assassinated father. To
+this end he was made a roving priest, went to the official Court,
+and eventually got into touch with his mother, who was still living
+with the prefect Liu Hung. The letter placed in his bosom, and the
+shirt in which he had been wrapped, easily proved the truth of his
+statements. The mother, happy at having found her son, promised to
+go and see him at Chin Shan. In order to do this, she pretended to
+be sick, and told Liu Hung that formerly, when still young, she had
+taken a vow which she had not yet been able to fulfil. Liu Hung himself
+helped her to do so by sending a large gift of money to the priests,
+and allowed her to go with her servants to perform her devotions at
+Chin-shan Ssu. On this second visit, during which she could speak
+more freely with her son, she wished to see for herself the wound
+she had made on his foot. This removed the last shadow of doubt.
+
+
+Hsüan Chuang finds his Grandmother
+
+She told Hsüan Chuang that he must first of all go to Hung Chou and
+find his grandmother, formerly left at the Inn of Ten Thousand Flowers,
+and then on to Ch'ang-an to take to her father Yin K'ai-shan a letter,
+putting him in possession of the chief facts concerning Liu Hung,
+and praying him to avenge her.
+
+She gave him a stick of incense to take to her mother-in-law. The old
+lady lived the life of a beggar in a wretched hovel near the city gate,
+and had become blind from weeping. The priest told her of the tragic
+death of her son, then touched her eyes with the stick of incense, and
+her sight was restored. "And I," she exclaimed, "have so often accused
+my son of ingratitude, believing him to be still alive!" He took her
+back to the Inn of Ten Thousand Flowers and settled the account, then
+hastened to the palace of Yin K'ai-shan. Having obtained an audience,
+he showed the minister the letter, and informed him of all that had
+taken place.
+
+
+The Murderer Executed
+
+The following day a report was presented to the Emperor, who gave
+orders for the immediate arrest and execution of the murderer of
+Ch'ên Kuang-jui.
+
+Yin K'ai-shan went with all haste to Chên-chiang, where he arrived
+during the night, surrounded the official residence, and seized
+the culprit, whom he sent to the place where he had committed the
+murder. His heart and liver were torn out and sacrificed to the victim.
+
+
+The Carp's Gratitude
+
+Now it happened that Ch'ên Kuang-jui was not dead after all. The
+carp released by him was in fact no other than Lung Wang, the God
+of the River, who had been going through his kingdom in that guise
+and had been caught in the fisherman's net. On learning that his
+rescuer had been cast into the river, Lung Wang had saved him, and
+appointed him an officer of his Court. On that day, when his son,
+wife, and father-in-law were sacrificing the heart of his assassin
+to his _manes_ on the river-bank, Lung Wang ordered that he return
+to earth. His body suddenly appeared on the surface of the water,
+floated to the bank, revived, and came out full of life and health. The
+happiness of the family reunited under such unexpected circumstances
+may well be imagined. Ch'ên Kuang-jui returned with his father-in-law
+to Chên-chiang, where he took up his official post, eighteen years
+after his nomination to it.
+
+Hsüan Chuang became the Emperor's favourite priest. He was held in
+great respect at the capital, and had innumerable honours bestowed upon
+him, and in the end was chosen for the journey to the Western Paradise,
+where Buddha in person handed him the sacred books of Buddhism.
+
+
+Pai Ma, the White Horse
+
+When he left the capital, Hsüan Chuang had been presented by the
+Emperor with a white horse to carry him on his long pilgrimage. One
+day, when he reached Shê-p'an Shan, near a torrent, a dragon emerged
+from the deep river-bed and devoured both the horse and its saddle. Sun
+tried in vain to find the dragon, and at last had to seek the aid of
+Kuan Yin.
+
+Now Yü Lung San T'ai-tzu, son of Ao Jun, Dragonking of the Western
+Sea, having burnt a precious pearl on the roof of his father's palace,
+was denounced to Yü Huang, who had him beaten with three hundred blows
+and suspended in the air. He was awaiting death when Kuan Yin passed
+on her way to China. The unfortunate dragon requested the goddess
+to have pity on him, whereupon she prevailed upon Yü Huang to spare
+his life on condition that he served as steed for her pilgrim on the
+expedition to the Western Paradise. The dragon was handed over to
+Kuan Yin, who showed him the deep pool in which he was to dwell while
+awaiting the arrival of the priest. It was this dragon who had devoured
+Hsüan Chuang's horse, and Kuan Yin now bade him change himself into a
+horse of the same colour to carry the priest to his destination. He
+had the honour of bearing on his back the sacred books that Buddha
+gave to T'ai Tsung's deputy, and the first Buddhist temple built at
+the capital bore the name of Pai-ma Miao, 'Temple of the White Horse.'
+
+
+Perils by the Way
+
+It is natural to expect that numberless exciting adventures should
+befall such an interesting quartette, and indeed the _Hsi yu chi_,
+which contains a hundred chapters, is full of them. The pilgrims
+encountered eighty difficulties on the journey out and one on the
+journey home. The following examples are characteristic of the rest.
+
+
+The Grove of Cypress-trees
+
+The travellers were making their way westward through shining
+waters and over green hills, where they found endless luxuriance
+of vegetation and flowers of all colours in profusion. But the way
+was long and lonely, and as darkness came on without any sign of
+habitation the Priest said: "Where shall we find a resting-place for
+the night?" The Monkey replied: "My Master, he who has left home
+and become a priest must dine on the wind and lodge on the water,
+lie down under the moon and sleep in the forest; everywhere is his
+home; why then ask where shall we rest?" But Pa-chieh, who was the
+bearer of the pilgrim's baggage, was not satisfied with this reply,
+and tried to get his load transferred to the horse, but was silenced
+when told that the latter's sole duty was to carry the Master.
+
+However, the Monkey gave Pai Ma a blow with his rod, causing him to
+start forward at a great pace, and in a few minutes from the brow of
+a hill Hsüan Chuang espied in the distance a grove of cypress-trees,
+beneath the shade of which was a large enclosure. This seemed a
+suitable place to pass the night, so they made toward it, and as
+they approached observed in the enclosure a spacious and luxurious
+establishment. There being no indications that the place was then
+inhabited, the Monkey made his way inside.
+
+
+A Proposal of Marriage
+
+He was met by a lady of charming appearance, who came out of an inner
+room, and said: "Who is this that ventures to intrude upon a widow's
+household?" The situation was embarrassing, but the lady proved to
+be most affable, welcomed them all very heartily, told them how she
+became a widow and had been left in possession of riches in abundance,
+and that she had three daughters, Truth, Love, and Pity by name. She
+then proceeded to make a proposal of marriage, not only on behalf
+of herself, but of her three daughters as well. They were four men,
+and here were four women; she had mountain lands for fruit-trees,
+dry lands for grain, flooded fields for rice--more than five thousand
+acres of each; horses, oxen, sheep, pigs innumerable; sixty or seventy
+farmsteads; granaries choked with grain; storehouses full of silks
+and satins; gold and silver enough to last several lifetimes however
+extravagantly they lived. Why should the four travellers not finish
+their journey there, and be happy ever afterward? The temptation was
+great, especially as the three daughters were ladies of surpassing
+beauty as well as adepts at needlework and embroidery, well read,
+and able to sing sweetly.
+
+But Hsüan Chuang sat as if listening to frogs after rain, unmoved
+except by anger that she should attempt to divert him from his heavenly
+purpose, and in the end the lady retired in a rage, slamming the door
+behind her.
+
+The covetous Pa-chieh, however, expressed himself in favour of
+accepting the widow's terms. Finding it impossible to do so openly,
+he stole round to the back and secured a private interview. His
+personal appearance was against him, but the widow was not altogether
+uncompliant. She not only entertained the travellers, but agreed
+to Pa-chieh retiring within the household in the character of a
+son-in-law, the other three remaining as guests in the guest-rooms.
+
+
+Blind Man's Buff
+
+But a new problem now arose. If Pa-chieh were wedded to one of the
+three daughters, the others would feel aggrieved. So the widow proposed
+to blindfold him with a handkerchief, and marry him to whichever
+he succeeded in catching. But, with the bandage tied over his eyes,
+Pa-chieh only found himself groping in darkness. "The tinkling sound
+of female trinkets was all around him, the odour of musk was in his
+nostrils; like fairy forms they fluttered about him, but he could no
+more grasp one than he could a shadow. One way and another he ran till
+he was too giddy to stand, and could only stumble helplessly about."
+
+The prospective mother-in-law then unloosed the bandage, and informed
+Pa-chieh that it was not her daughters' 'slipperiness,' as he had
+called it, which prevented their capture, but the extreme modesty of
+each in being generous enough to forgo her claims in favour of one of
+her sisters. Pa-chieh thereupon became very importunate, urging his
+suit for any one of the daughters or for the mother herself or for all
+three or all four. This was beyond all conscience, but the widow was
+equal to the emergency, and suggested another solution. Each of her
+daughters wore a waistcoat embroidered in jewels and gold. Pa-chieh
+was to try these on in turn, and to marry the owner of the one which
+fitted him. Pa-chieh put one on, but as he was tying the cord round
+his waist it transformed itself into strong coils of rope which bound
+him tightly in every limb. He rolled about in excruciating agony,
+and as he did so the curtain of enchantment fell and the beauties
+and the palace disappeared.
+
+Next morning the rest of the party on waking up also found that all
+had changed, and saw that they had been sleeping on the ground in the
+cypress-grove. On making search they found Pa-chieh bound fast to a
+tree. They cut him down, to pursue the journey a sadder and wiser Pig,
+and the butt of many a quip from his fellow-travellers.
+
+
+The Lotus Cave
+
+When the party left the Elephant Country, seeing a mountain ahead,
+the Master warned his disciples to be careful. Sun said: "Master, say
+not so; remember the text of the Sacred Book, 'So long as the heart is
+right there is nothing to fear.'" After this Sun kept a close watch
+on Pa-chieh, who, while professing to be on guard, slept most of the
+time. When they arrived at Ping-ting Shan they were approached by a
+woodcutter, who warned them that in the mountain, which extended for
+600 _li_ (200 miles), there was a Lotus Cave, inhabited by a band
+of demons under two chiefs, who were lying in wait to devour the
+travellers. The woodcutter then disappeared. Accordingly, Pa-chieh
+was ordered to keep watch. But, seeing some hay, he lay down and went
+to sleep, and the mountain demons carried him away to the Lotus Cave.
+
+On seeing Pa-chieh, the second chief said: "He is no good; you must
+go in search of the Master and the Monkey." All this time the Monkey,
+to protect his Master, was walking ahead of the horse, swinging his
+club up and down and to right and left. The Demon-king saw him from
+the top of the mountain and said to himself: "This Monkey is famous
+for his magic, but I will prove that he is no match for me; I will
+yet feast on his Master." So, descending the mountain, he transformed
+himself into a lame beggar and waited by the roadside. The Master,
+out of pity, persuaded the Monkey to carry him. While on the Monkey's
+back the Demon, by magic skill, threw Mount Mêru on to Sun's head,
+but the Monkey warded it off with his left shoulder, and walked
+on. Then the Demon threw Mount Ô-mei on to Sun's head, and this
+he warded off with his right shoulder, and walked on, much to the
+Demon's surprise. Lastly the Demon caused T'ai Shan to fall on to his
+head. This at last stunned the Monkey. Sha Ho-shang now defended the
+Master with his staff, which was, however, no match for the Demon's
+starry sword. The Demon seized the Master and carried him under one
+arm and Sha Ho-shang under the other to the Lotus Cave.
+
+The two Demons then planned to take their two most precious things,
+a yellow gourd and a jade vase, and try to bottle the Monkey. They
+arranged to carry them upside down and call out the Monkey's name. If
+he replied, then he would be inside, and they could seal him up,
+using the seal of the great Ancient of Days, the dweller in the
+mansion of T'ai Sui. [35]
+
+
+The Monkey under the Mountain
+
+When the Monkey found that he was being crushed under the mountain he
+was greatly distressed about his Master, and cried out: "Oh, Master,
+you delivered me from under the mountain before, and trained me in
+religion; how is it that you have brought me to this pass? If you
+must die, why should Sha Ho-shang and Pa-chieh and the Dragon-horse
+also suffer?" Then his tears poured down like rain.
+
+The spirits of the mountain were astonished at hearing these words. The
+guardian angels of the Five Religions asked: "Whose is this mountain,
+and who is crushed beneath it?" The local gods replied: "The mountain
+is ours, but who is under it we do not know." "If you do not know,"
+the angels replied, "we will tell you. It is the Great Holy One,
+the Equal of Heaven, who rebelled there five hundred years ago. He
+is now converted, and is the disciple of the Chinese ambassador. How
+dare you lend your mountain to the Demon for such a purpose?" The
+guardian angels and local gods then recited some prayers, and the
+mountain was removed. The Monkey sprang up, brandishing his spear,
+and the spirits at once apologized, saying that they were under
+enforced service to the Demons.
+
+While they were speaking Sun saw a light approaching, and asked
+what it was. The spirits replied: "This light comes from the Demons'
+magic treasures. We fear they are bringing them to catch you." Sun
+then said: "Now we shall have some sport. Who is the Demon-chief's
+associate?" "He is a Taoist," they replied, "who is always occupied in
+preparing chemicals." The Monkey said: "Leave me, and I will catch them
+myself." He then transformed himself into a duplicate of the Taoist.
+
+
+The Magic Gourd
+
+Sun went to meet the Demons, and in conversation learnt from them that
+they were on their way to catch the famous Monkey, and that the magic
+gourd and vase were for that purpose. They showed these treasures to
+him, and explained that the gourd, though small, could hold a thousand
+people. "That is nothing," replied Sun. "I have a gourd which can
+contain all the heavens." At this they marvelled greatly, and made a
+bargain with him, according to which he was to give them his gourd,
+after it had been tested as to its capacity to contain the heavens,
+in exchange for their precious gourd and vase. Going up to Heaven,
+the Monkey obtained permission to extinguish the light of the sun,
+moon, and stars for one hour. At noon the next day there was complete
+darkness, and the Demons believed Sun when he stated that he had put
+the whole heavens into his gourd so that there could be no light. They
+then handed over to the Monkey their magic gourd and vase, and in
+exchange he gave them his false gourd.
+
+
+
+The Magic Rope
+
+On discovering that they had been deceived, the Demons made complaint
+to their chiefs, who informed them that Sun, by pretending to be one
+of the Immortals, had outwitted them. They had now lost two out of
+their five magic treasures. There remained three, the magic sword,
+the magic palm fan, and the magic rope. "Go," said they, "and invite
+our dear grandmother to come and dine on human flesh." Personating
+one of the Demons, Sun himself went on this errand. He told the old
+lady that he wanted her to bring with her the magic rope, with which
+to catch Sun. She was delighted, and set out in her chair carried by
+two fairies.
+
+When they had gone some few _li_, Sun killed the ladies, and then saw
+that they were foxes. He took the magic rope, and thus had three of
+the magic treasures. Having changed the dead so that they looked like
+living creatures, he returned to the Lotus Cave. Many small demons came
+running up, saying that the old lady had been slain. The Demon-king,
+alarmed, proposed to release the whole party. But his younger brother
+said: "No, let me fight Sun. If I win, we can eat them; if I fail,
+we can let them go."
+
+After thirty bouts Sun lost the magic rope, and the Demon lassoed him
+with it and carried him to the cave, and took back the magic gourd
+and vase. Sun now transformed himself into two false demons. One he
+placed instead of himself in the lasso bound to a pillar, and then
+went and reported to the second Demon-chief that Sun was struggling
+hard, and that he should be bound with a stronger rope lest he make
+his escape. Thus, by this strategy, Sun obtained possession of the
+magic rope again. By a similar trick he also got back the magic gourd
+and vase.
+
+
+
+The Master Rescued
+
+Sun and the Demons now began to wrangle about the respective merits
+of their gourds, which, each assured the other, could imprison men
+and make them obey their wishes. Finally, Sun succeeded in putting
+one of the Demons into his gourd.
+
+There ensued another fight concerning the magic sword and palm fan,
+during which the fan was burnt to ashes. After more encounters Sun
+succeeded in bottling the second Demon in the magic vase, and sealed
+him up with the seal of the Ancient of Days. Then the magic sword
+was delivered, and the Demons submitted. Sun returned to the cave,
+fetched his Master out, swept the cave clean of all evil spirits, and
+they then started again on their westward journey. On the road they
+met a blind man, who addressed them saying: "Whither away, Buddhist
+Priest? I am the Ancient of Days. Give me back my magic treasures. In
+the gourd I keep the pills of immortality. In the vase I keep the
+water of life. The sword I use to subdue demons. With the fan I stir
+up enthusiasm. With the cord I bind bundles. One of these two Demons
+had charge of the gold crucible. They stole my magic treasures and
+fled to the mundane sphere of mortals. You, having captured them,
+are deserving of great reward." But Sun replied: "You should be
+severely punished for allowing your servants to do this evil in the
+world." The Ancient of Days replied: "No, without these trials your
+Master and his disciples could never attain to perfection."
+
+Sun understood and said: "Since you have come in person for the magic
+treasures, I return them to you." After receiving them, the Ancient
+of Days returned to his T'ai Sui mansion in the skies.
+
+
+
+The Red Child Demon
+
+By the autumn the travellers arrived at a great mountain. They saw
+on the road a red cloud which the Monkey thought must be a demon. It
+was in fact a demon child who, in order to entrap the Master, had had
+himself bound and tied to the branch of a tree. The child repeatedly
+cried out to the passers-by to deliver him. Sun suspected that it was
+a trick; but the Master could no longer endure the pitiful wails; he
+ordered his disciples to loose the child, and the Monkey to carry him.
+
+As they proceeded on their way the Demon caused a strong whirlwind to
+spring up, and during this he carried off the Master. Sun discovered
+that the Demon was an old friend of his, who, centuries before, had
+pledged himself to eternal friendship. So he consoled his comrades
+by saying that he felt sure no harm would come to the Master.
+
+
+A Prospective Feast
+
+Soon Sun and his companions reached a mountain covered with
+pine-forests. Here they found the Demon in his cave, intent upon
+feasting on the Priest. The Demon refused to recognize his ancient
+friendship with Sun, so the two came to blows. The Demon set fire to
+everything, so that the Monkey might be blinded by the smoke. Thus
+he was unable to find his Master. In despair he said: "I must get
+the help of some one more skilful than myself." Pa-chieh was sent
+to fetch Kuan Yin. The Demon then seized a magic bag, transformed
+himself into the shape of Kuan Yin, and invited Pa-chieh to enter the
+cave. The simpleton fell into the trap and was seized and placed in
+the bag. Then the Demon appeared in his true form, and said: "I am
+the beggar child, and mean to cook you for my dinner. A fine man to
+protect his Master you are!" The Demon then summoned six of his most
+doughty generals and ordered them to accompany him to fetch his father,
+King Ox-head, to dine off the pilgrim. When they had gone Sun opened
+the bag, released Pa-chieh, and both followed the six generals.
+
+
+The Generals Tricked
+
+Sun thought that as the Demon had played a trick on Pa-chieh, he
+would play one on his generals. So he hurried on in front of them,
+and changed himself into the form of King Ox-head. The Demon and
+his generals were invited into his presence, and Red Child said:
+"If anyone eats of the pilgrim's flesh, his life will be prolonged
+indefinitely. Now he is caught and I invite you to feast on him." Sun,
+personifying the father, said: "No, I cannot come. I am fasting
+to-day. Moreover, Sun has charge of the pilgrim, and if any harm befall
+him it will be the worse for you, for he has seventy-two magic arts. He
+can make himself so big that your cave cannot contain him, and he
+can make himself as small as a fly, a mosquito, a bee, or a butterfly."
+
+Sun then went to Kuan Yin and appealed for help. She gave him a
+bottle, but he found he could not move it. "No," said Kuan Yin,
+"for all the forces of the ocean are stored in it."
+
+Kuan Yin lifted it with ease, and said: "This dew water is different
+from dragon water, and can extinguish the fire of passion. I will
+send a fairy with you on your boat. You need no sails. The fairy
+needs only to blow a little, and the boat moves along without any
+effort." Finally, the Red Child, having been overcome, repented and
+begged to be received as a disciple. Kuan Yin received him and blessed
+him, giving him the name of Steward.
+
+
+The Demons of Blackwater River
+
+One day the Master suddenly exclaimed: "What is that noise?" Sun
+replied: "You are afraid; you have forgotten the Heart Prayer,
+according to which we are to be indifferent to all the calls of the
+six senses--the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. These are the Six
+Thieves. If you cannot suppress them, how do you expect to see the
+Great Lord?" The Master thought a while and then said: "O disciple,
+when shall we see the Incarnate Model (Ju Lai) face to face?"
+
+Pa-chieh said: "If we are to meet such demons as these, it will take
+us a thousand years to get to the West." But Sha Ho-shang rejoined:
+"Both you and I are stupid; if we persevere and travel on, shoulder
+to shoulder, we shall reach there at last." While thus talking,
+they saw before them a dark river in flood, which the horse could not
+cross. Seeing a small boat, the Master said: "Let us engage that boat
+to take us across." While crossing the river in it, they discovered
+that it was a boat sent by the Demon of Blackwater River to entrap
+them in midstream, and the Master would have been slain had not Sun
+and the Western Dragon come to the rescue.
+
+
+The Slow-carts Country
+
+Having crossed the Blackwater River, they journeyed westward,
+facing wind and snow. Suddenly they heard a great shout as of
+ten thousand voices. The Master was alarmed, but Sun laughingly
+went to investigate. Sitting on a cloud, he rose in the air, and
+saw a city, outside of which there were thousands of priests and
+carts laden with bricks and all kinds of building materials. This
+was the city where Taoists were respected, and Buddhists were not
+wanted. The Monkey, who appeared among the people as a Taoist, was
+informed that the country was called the Ch'ê Ch'ih, 'Slow-carts
+Country,' and for twenty years had been ruled by three Taoists who
+could procure rain during times of drought. Their names were Tiger,
+Deer, and Sheep. They could also command the wind, and change stones
+into gold. The Monkey said to the two leading Taoists: "I wonder
+if I shall be so fortunate as to see your Emperor?" They replied:
+"We will see to that when we have attended to our business." The
+Monkey inquired what business the priests could have. "In former
+times," they said, "when our King ordered the Buddhists to pray for
+rain, their prayers were not answered. Then the Taoists prayed, and
+copious showers fell. Since then all the Buddhist priests have been
+our slaves, and have to carry the building materials, as you see. We
+must assign them their work, and then will come to you." Sun replied:
+"Never mind; I am in search of an uncle of mine, from whom I have not
+heard for many years. Perhaps he is here among your slaves." They said:
+"You may see if you can find him."
+
+
+Restraints on Freedom
+
+Sun went to look for his uncle. Hearing this, many Buddhist priests
+surrounded him, hoping to be recognized as his lost relative. After
+a while he smiled. They asked him the reason. He said: "Why do you
+make no progress? Life is not meant for idleness." They said: "We
+cannot do anything. We are terribly oppressed." "What power have your
+masters?" "By using their magic they can call up wind or rain." "That
+is a small matter," said Sun. "What else can they do?" "They can make
+the pills of immortality, and change stone into gold."
+
+Sun said: "These are also small matters; many can do the same. How did
+these Taoists deceive your King?" "The King attends their prayers night
+and day, expecting thereby to attain to immortality." "Why do you not
+leave the place?" "It is impossible, for the King has ordered pictures
+of us to be hung up everywhere. In all the numerous prefectures,
+magistracies, and market-places in Slow-carts Country are pictures of
+the Buddhist priests, and any official who catches a runaway priest
+is promoted three degrees, while every non-official receives fifty
+taels. The proclamation is signed by the King. So you see we are
+helpless." Sun then said: "You might as well die and end it all."
+
+
+Immortal for Suffering
+
+They replied: "A great number have died. At one time we numbered
+more than two thousand. But through deaths and suicides there now
+remain only about five hundred. And we who remain cannot die. Ropes
+cannot strangle us, swords cannot cut us; if we plunge into the
+river we cannot sink; poison does not kill us." Sun said: "Then
+you are fortunate, for you are all Immortals." "Alas!" said they,
+"we are immortal only for suffering. We get poor food. We have only
+sand to sleep on. But in the night hours spirits appear to us and
+tell us not to kill ourselves, for an Arhat will come from the East
+to deliver us. With him there is a disciple, the Great Holy One,
+the Equal of Heaven, most powerful and tender-hearted. He will put
+an end to these Taoists and have pity on us Buddhists."
+
+
+The Saviour of the Buddhists
+
+Inwardly Sun was glad that his fame had gone abroad. Returning to the
+city, he met the two chief Taoists. They asked him if he had found
+his relative. "Yes," he replied, "they are all my relatives!" They
+smiled and said: "How is it that you have so many relatives?" Sun
+said: "One hundred are my father's relatives, one hundred my mother's
+relatives, and the remainder my adopted relatives. If you will let
+all these priests depart with me, then I will enter the city with you;
+otherwise I will not enter." "You must be mad to speak to us in this
+way. The priests were given us by the King. If you had asked for a
+few only, we might have consented, but your request is altogether
+unreasonable." Sun then asked them three times if they would liberate
+the priests. When they finally refused, he grew very angry, took his
+magic spear from his ear and brandished it in the air, when all their
+heads fell off and rolled on the ground.
+
+
+Anger of the Buddhist Priests
+
+The Buddhist priests saw from a distance what had taken place,
+and shouted: "Murder, murder! The Taoist superintendents are being
+killed." They surrounded Sun, saying: "These priests are our masters;
+they go to the temple without visiting the King, and return home
+without taking leave of the King. The King is the high priest. Why
+have you killed his disciples? The Taoist chief priest will certainly
+accuse us Buddhist priests of the murders. What are we to do? If we go
+into the city with you they will make you pay for this with your life."
+
+Sun laughed. "My friends," he said, "do not trouble yourselves over
+this matter. I am not the Master of the Clouds, but the Great Holy
+One, a disciple of the Holy Master from China, going to the Western
+Paradise to fetch the sacred books, and have come to save you."
+
+"No, no," said they, "this cannot be, for we know him." Sun replied:
+"Having never met him, how can you know him?" They replied: "We have
+seen him in our dreams. The spirit of the planet Venus has described
+him to us and warned us not to make a mistake." "What description did
+he give?" asked Sun. They replied: "He has a hard head, bright eyes,
+a round, hairy face without cheeks, sharp teeth, prominent mouth,
+a hot temper, and is uglier than the Thunder-god. He has a rod of
+iron, caused a disturbance in Heaven itself, but later repented,
+and is coming with the Buddhist pilgrim in order to save mankind from
+calamities and misery." With mixed feelings Sun replied: "My friends,
+no doubt you are right in saying I am not Sun. I am only his disciple,
+who has come to learn how to carry out his plans. But," he added,
+pointing with his hand, "is not that Sun coming yonder?" They all
+looked in the direction in which he had pointed.
+
+
+Sun bestows Talismans
+
+Sun quickly changed himself from a Taoist priest, and appeared in
+his natural form. At this they all fell down and worshipped him,
+asking his forgiveness because their mortal eyes could not recognize
+him. They then begged him to enter the city and compel the demons to
+repent. Sun told them to follow him. He then went with them to a sandy
+place, emptied two carts and smashed them into splinters, and threw
+all the bricks, tiles, and timber into a heap, calling upon all the
+priests to disperse. "Tomorrow," he said, "I am going to see the King,
+and will destroy the Taoists!" Then they said: "Sir, we dare not go
+any farther, lest they attempt to seize you and cause trouble." "Have
+no fear," he replied; "but if you think so I will give you a charm to
+protect you." He pulled out some hairs, and gave one to each to hold
+firmly on the third finger. "If anyone tries to seize you," he said,
+"keep tight hold of it, call out 'Great Holy One, the Equal of Heaven,'
+and I will at once come to your rescue, even though I be ten thousand
+miles away." Some of them tried the charm, and, sure enough, there
+he was before them like the God of Thunder. In his hand he held a
+rod of iron, and he could keep ten thousand men and horses at bay.
+
+
+The Magic Circle
+
+It was now winter. The pilgrims were crossing a high mountain by
+a narrow pass, and the Master was afraid of wild beasts. The three
+disciples bade him fear not, as they were united, and were all good
+men seeking truth. Being cold and hungry they rejoiced to see a fine
+building ahead of them, but Sun said: "It is another devil's trap. I
+will make a ring round you. Inside that you will be safe. Do not wander
+outside it. I will go and look for food." Sun returned with his bowl
+full of rice, but found that his companions had got tired of waiting,
+and had disappeared. They had gone forward to the fine building, which
+Pa-chieh entered. Not a soul was to be seen, but on going upstairs
+he was terrified to see a human skeleton of immense size lying on
+the floor. At this moment the Demon of the house descended on them,
+bound the Master, and said: "We have been told that if we eat of your
+flesh our white hair will become black again, and our lost teeth grow
+anew." So he ordered the small devils who accompanied him to bind the
+others. This they did, and thrust the pilgrims into a cave, and then
+lay in wait for Sun. It was not long before the Monkey came up, when
+a great fight ensued. In the end, having failed, notwithstanding the
+exercise of numerous magic arts, to release his companions, Sun betook
+himself to the Spiritual Mountain and besought Ju Lai's aid. Eighteen
+_lohan_ were sent to help him against the Demon. When Sun renewed the
+attack, the _lohan_ threw diamond dust into the air, which blinded the
+Demon and also half buried him. But, by skilful use of his magic coil,
+he gathered up all the diamond dust and carried it back to his cave.
+
+The _lohan_ then advised Sun to seek the aid of the Ancient of
+Days. Accordingly, Sun ascended to the thirty-third Heaven, where
+was the palace of the god. He there discovered that the Demon was
+none other than one of the god's ox-spirits who had stolen the magic
+coil. It was, in fact, the same coil with which Sun himself had at
+last been subdued when he had rebelled against Heaven.
+
+
+Help from Ju Lai
+
+The Ancient of Days mounted a cloud and went with Sun to the cave. When
+the Demon saw who had come he was terrified. The Ancient of Days then
+recited an incantation, and the Demon surrendered the magic coil
+to him. On the recitation of a second incantation all his strength
+left him, and he appeared as a bull, and was led away by a ring in
+his nose. The Master and his disciples were then set at liberty,
+and proceeded on their journey.
+
+
+The Fire-quenching Fan
+
+In the autumn the pilgrims found themselves in the Ssu Ha Li Country,
+where everything was red--red walls, red tiles, red varnish on doors
+and furniture. Sixty _li_ from this place was the Flaming Mountain,
+which lay on their road westward.
+
+An old man they met told them that it was possible to cross the
+Flaming Mountain only if they had the Magic Iron Fan, which, waved
+once, quenched fire, waved a second time produced strong wind, and
+waved a third time produced rain. This magic fan was kept by the
+Iron-fan Princess in a cave on Ts'ui-yün Shan, 1500 _li_ distant. On
+hearing this, Sun mounted a cloud, and in an instant was transported
+to the cave. The Iron-fan Princess was one of the _lochas_ (wives
+and daughters of demons), and the mother of the Red Child Demon, who
+had become a disciple of Kuan Yin. On seeing Sun she was very angry,
+and determined to be revenged for the outwitting of her husband,
+King Ox-head, and for the carrying away of her son. The Monkey said:
+"If you lend me the Iron Fan I will bring your son to see you." For
+answer she struck him with a sword. They then fell to fighting, the
+contest lasting a long while, until at length, feeling her strength
+failing, the Princess took out the Iron Fan and waved it. The wind
+it raised blew Sun to a distance of 84,000 _li_, and whirled him
+about like a leaf in a whirlwind. But he soon returned, reinforced
+by further magic power lent him by the Buddhist saints. The Princess,
+however, deceived him by giving him a fan which increased the flames
+of the mountain instead of quenching them. Sun and his friends had
+to retreat more than 20 _li_, or they would have been burned.
+
+The local mountain-gods now appeared, bringing refreshments, and urging
+the pilgrims to get the Fan so as to enable them to proceed on their
+journey. Sun pointed to his fan and said: "Is not this the Fan?" They
+smiled and said: "No, this is a false one which the Princess has
+given you." They added: "Originally there was no Flaming Mountain, but
+when you upset the furnace in Heaven five hundred years ago the fire
+fell here, and has been burning ever since. For not having taken more
+care in Heaven, we have been set to guard it. The Demon-king Ox-head,
+though he married the _locha_ Princess, deserted her some two years
+ago for the only daughter of a fox-king. They live at Chi-lei Shan,
+some three thousand _li_ from here. If you can get the true Iron
+Fan through his help you will be able to extinguish the flames, take
+your Master to the West, save the lives of many people round here,
+and enable us to return to Heaven once more."
+
+Sun at once mounted a cloud and was soon at Chi-lei Shan. There
+he met the Fox-princess, whom he upbraided and pursued back to
+her cave. The Ox-demon came out and became very angry with Sun
+for having frightened her. Sun asked him to return with him to the
+_locha_ Princess and persuade her to give him the Magic Fan, This he
+refused to do. They then fought three battles, in all of which Sun
+was successful. He changed into the Ox-demon's shape and visited the
+_locha_ Princess. She, thinking he was the Ox-demon, gladly received
+him, and finally gave him the Magic Fan; he then set out to return
+to his Master.
+
+
+The Power of the Magic Fan
+
+The Ox-demon, following after Sun, saw him walking along, joyfully
+carrying the Magic Fan on his shoulder. Now Sun had forgotten to ask
+how to make it small, like an apricot leaf, as it was at first. The
+Ox-demon changed himself into the form of Pa-chieh, and going up to
+Sun he said: "Brother Sun, I am glad to see you back; I hope you have
+succeeded." "Yes," replied Sun, and described his fights, and how he
+had tricked the Ox-demon's wife into giving him the Fan. The seeming
+Pa-chieh said: "You must be very tired after all your efforts; let
+me carry the Magic Fan for you." As soon as he had got possession of
+it he appeared in his true form, and tried to use it to blow Sun away
+84,000 _li_, for he did not know that the Great Holy One had swallowed
+a wind-resisting pill, and was therefore immovable. He then put the
+Magic Fan in his mouth and fought with his two swords. He was a match
+for Sun in all the magic arts, but through the aid of Pa-chieh and
+the help of the local gods sent by the Master the Monkey was able
+to prevail against him. The Ox-demon changed himself many times into
+a number of birds, but for each of these Sun changed himself into a
+swifter and stronger one. The Ox-demon then changed himself into many
+beasts, such as tigers, leopards, bears, elephants, and an ox 10,000
+feet long. He then said to Sun, with a laugh: "What can you do to me
+now?" Sun seized his rod of iron, and cried: "Grow!" He immediately
+became 100,000 feet high, with eyes like the sun and moon. They fought
+till the heavens and the earth shook with their onslaughts.
+
+
+
+Defeat of the Ox-demon
+
+The Ox-demon being of so fierce and terrible a nature, both Buddha
+in Heaven and the Taoist Celestial Ruler sent down whole legions of
+celebrated warriors to help the Master's servant. The Ox-demon tried
+to escape in every direction, one after the other, but his efforts
+were in vain. Finally defeated, he was made to promise for himself and
+his wife to give up their evil ways and to follow the holy precepts
+of the Buddhist doctrine.
+
+The Magic Fan was given to Sun, who at once proceeded to test its
+powers. When he waved it once the fires on Flaming Mountain died
+out. When he waved it a second time a gentle breeze sprang up. When
+he waved it a third time refreshing rain fell everywhere, and the
+pilgrims proceeded on their way in comfort.
+
+
+The Lovely Women
+
+Having travelled over many mountains, the travellers came to a
+village. The Master said: "You, my disciples, are always very kind,
+taking round the begging-bowl and getting food for me. To-day I will
+take the begging-bowl myself." But Sun said: "That is not right; you
+must let us, your disciples, do this for you." But the Master insisted.
+
+When he reached the village, there was not a man to be seen, but only
+some lovely women. He did not think that it was right for him to speak
+to women. On the other hand, if he did not procure anything for their
+meal, his disciples would make fun of him. So, after long hesitation,
+he went forward and begged food of them. They invited him to their cave
+home, and, having learnt who he was, ordered food for him, but it was
+all human flesh. The Master informed them that he was a vegetarian,
+and rose to take his departure, but instead of letting him go they
+surrounded and bound him, thinking that he would be a fine meal for
+them next day.
+
+
+An Awkward Predicament
+
+Then seven of the women went out to bathe in a pool. There Sun, in
+search of his Master, found them and would have killed them, only he
+thought it was not right to kill women. So he changed himself into an
+eagle and carried away their clothes to his nest. This so frightened
+the women that they crouched in the pool and did not dare to come out.
+
+But Pa-chieh, also in search of his Master, found the women bathing. He
+changed himself into a fish, which the women tried to catch, chasing
+him hither and thither round the pool. After a while Pa-chieh leapt
+out of the pool and, appearing in his true form, threatened the
+women for having bound his Master. In their fright the women fled to
+a pavilion, round which they spun spiders' threads so thickly that
+Pa-chieh became entangled and fell. They then escaped to their cave
+and put on some clothes.
+
+
+How the Master was Rescued
+
+When Pa-chieh at length had disentangled himself from the webs, he saw
+Sun and Sha Ho-shang approaching. Having learnt what had happened,
+they feared the women might do some injury to the Master, so they
+ran to the cave to rescue him. On the way they were beset by the
+seven dwarf sons of the seven women, who transformed themselves into
+a swarm of dragon-flies, bees, and other insects. But Sun pulled out
+some hairs and, changing them into seven different swarms of flying
+insects, destroyed the hostile swarm, and the ground was covered a
+foot deep with the dead bodies. On reaching the cave, the pilgrims
+found it had been deserted by the women. They released the Master,
+and made him promise never to beg for food again. Having given the
+promise, he mounted his horse, and they proceeded on their journey.
+
+
+The Spiders and the Extinguisher
+
+When they had gone a short distance they perceived a great building of
+fine architecture ahead of them. It proved to be a Taoist temple. Sha
+Ho-shang said: "Let us enter, for Buddhism and Taoism teach the
+same things. They differ only in their vestments." The Taoist abbot
+received them with civility and ordered five cups of tea. Now he was
+in league with the seven women, and when the servant had made the tea
+they put poison in each cup. Sun, however, suspected a conspiracy,
+and did not drink his tea. Seeing that the rest had been poisoned, he
+went and attacked the sisters, who transformed themselves into huge
+spiders. They were able to spin ropes instead of webs with which to
+bind their enemies. But Sun attacked and killed them all.
+
+The Taoist abbot then showed himself in his true form, a demon with
+a thousand eyes. He joined battle with Sun, and a terrible contest
+ensued, the result being that the Demon succeeded in putting an
+extinguisher on his enemy. This was a new trick which Sun did not
+understand. However, after trying in vain to break out through the
+top and sides, he began to bore downward, and, finding that the
+extinguisher was not deep in the ground, he succeeded in effecting
+his escape from below. But he feared that his Master and the others
+would die of the poison. At this juncture, while he was suffering
+mental tortures on their behalf, a Bodhisattva, Lady Pi Lan, came
+to his rescue. By the aid of her magic he broke the extinguisher,
+gave his Master and fellow-disciples pills to counteract the poison,
+and so rescued them.
+
+
+Shaving a Whole City
+
+The summer had now arrived. On the road the pilgrims met an old
+lady and a little boy. The old lady said: "You are priests; do not
+go forward, for you are about to pass into the country known as the
+Country that exterminates Religion. The inhabitants have vowed to
+kill ten thousand priests. They have already slain that number all
+but four noted ones whose arrival they expect; then their number will
+be complete."
+
+This old lady was Kuan Yin, with Shên Tsai (Steward), who had come to
+give them warning. Sun thereupon changed himself into a candle-moth
+and flew into the city to examine for himself. He entered an inn,
+and heard the innkeeper warning his guests to look after their own
+clothes and belongings when they went to sleep. In order to travel
+safely through the city, Sun decided that they should all put on
+turbans and clothing resembling that of the citizens. Perceiving
+from the innkeeper's warning that thieving was common, Sun stole some
+clothing and turbans for his Master and comrades. Then they all came
+to the inn at dusk, Sun representing himself as a horse-dealer.
+
+Fearing that in their sleep their turbans would fall off, and their
+shaven heads be revealed, Sun arranged that they should sleep in a
+cupboard, which he asked the landlady to lock.
+
+During the night robbers came and carried the cupboard away, thinking
+to find in it silver to buy horses. A watchman saw many men carrying
+this cupboard, and became suspicious, and called out the soldiers. The
+robbers ran away, leaving the cupboard in the open. The Master was very
+angry with Sun for getting him into this danger. He feared that at
+daylight they would be discovered and all be executed. But Sun said:
+"Do not be alarmed; I will save you yet!" He changed himself into an
+ant, and escaped from the cupboard. Then he plucked out some hairs
+and changed them into a thousand monkeys like himself. To each he
+gave a razor and a charm for inducing sleep. When the King and all
+the officials and their wives had succumbed to this charm, the monkeys
+were to shave their heads.
+
+On the morrow there was a terrible commotion throughout the city,
+as all the leaders and their families found themselves shaved like
+Buddhists.
+
+Thus the Master was saved again.
+
+
+The Return to China
+
+The pilgrims having overcome the predicted eighty difficulties of
+their outward journey, there remained only one to be overcome on the
+homeward way.
+
+They were now returning upon a cloud which had been placed at their
+disposal, and which had been charged to bear them safely home. But
+alas! the cloud broke and precipitated them to the earth by the side
+of a wide river which they must cross. There were no ferry-boats or
+rafts to be seen, so they were glad to avail themselves of the kind
+offices of a turtle, who offered to take them across on his back. But
+in midstream the turtle reminded Hsüan Chuang of a promise he had made
+him when on his outward journey, namely, that he would intercede for
+him before the Ruler of the West, and ask his Majesty to forgive all
+past offences and allow him to resume his humanity again. The turtle
+asked him if he had remembered to keep his word. Hsüan Chuang replied:
+"I remember our conversation, but I am sorry to say that under great
+pressure I quite forgot to keep my promise." "Then," said the turtle,
+"you are at liberty to dispense with my services." He then disappeared
+beneath the water, leaving the pilgrims floundering in the stream with
+their precious books. They swam the river, and with great difficulty
+managed to save a number of volumes, which they dried in the sun.
+
+
+The Travellers Honoured
+
+The pilgrims reached the capital of their country without further
+difficulty. As soon as they appeared in sight the whole population
+became greatly excited, and cutting down branches of willow-trees
+went out to meet them. As a mark of special distinction the Emperor
+sent his own horse for Hsüan Chuang to ride on, and the pilgrims were
+escorted with royal honours into the city, where the Emperor and his
+grateful Court were waiting to receive them. Hsüan Chuang's queer
+trio of converts at first caused great amusement among the crowds
+who thronged to see them, but when they learned of Sun's superhuman
+achievements, and his brave defence of the Master, their amusement
+was changed into wondering admiration.
+
+But the greatest honours were conferred upon the travellers at
+a meeting of the Immortals presided over by Mi-lo Fo, the Coming
+Buddha. Addressing Hsüan Chuang, the Buddha said, "In a previous
+existence you were one of my chief disciples. But for disobedience
+and for lightly esteeming the great teaching your soul was imprisoned
+in the Eastern Land. Now a memorial has been presented to me stating
+that you have obtained the True Classics of Salvation, thus, by your
+faithfulness, completing your meritorious labours. You are appointed
+to the high office of Controller of Sacrifices to his Supreme Majesty
+the Pearly Emperor."
+
+Turning to Sun, the Buddha said, "You, Sun, for creating a disturbance
+in the palace of Heaven, were imprisoned beneath the Mountain of
+the Five Elements, until the fullness of Heaven's calamities had
+descended upon you, and you had repented and had joined the holy
+religion of Buddha. From that time you have endeavoured to suppress
+evil and cherish virtue. And on your journey to the West you have
+subjugated evil spirits, ghosts, and demons. For your services you
+are appointed God of Victorious Strife."
+
+For his repentance, and for his assistance to his Master, Chu Pa-chieh,
+the Pig Fairy, was appointed Head Altar-washer to the Gods. This
+was the highest office for which he was eligible, on account of his
+inherent greed.
+
+Sha Ho-shang was elevated to the rank of Golden Body Perpetual Saint.
+
+Pai Ma, the white horse who had patiently carried Hsüan Chuang and
+his burden of books, was led by a god down the Spirit Mountain to
+the banks of the Pool of Dragon-transformation. Pai Ma plunged in,
+when he changed at once into a four-footed dragon, with horns, scales,
+claws, and wings complete. From this time he became the chief of the
+celestial dragon tribe.
+
+Sun's first thought upon receiving his promotion was to get rid of the
+Head-splitting Helmet. Accordingly he said to his Master, "Now that
+I am, like yourself, a Buddha, I want you to relieve my head of the
+helmet you imposed upon me during the years of my waywardness." Hsüan
+Chuang replied, "If you have really become a Buddha, your helmet
+should have disappeared of itself. Are you sure it is still upon your
+head?" Sun raised his hand, and lo! the helmet was gone.
+
+After this the great assembly broke up, and each of the Immortals
+returned in peace to his own celestial abode.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Fox Legends
+
+
+The Fox
+
+Among the many animals worshipped by the Chinese, those at times
+seen emerging from coffins or graves naturally hold a prominent
+place. They are supposed to be the transmigrated souls of deceased
+human beings. We should therefore expect such animals as the fox,
+stoat, weasel, etc., to be closely associated with the worship of
+ghosts, spirits, and suchlike creatures, and that they should be the
+subjects of, or included in, a large number of Chinese legends. This
+we find. Of these animals the fox is mentioned in Chinese legendary
+lore perhaps more often than any other.
+
+The subject of fox-lore has been dealt with exhaustively by
+my respected colleague, the late Mr Thomas Watters (formerly
+H.B.M. Consul-General at Canton, a man of vast learning and extreme
+modesty, insufficiently appreciated in his generation), in the _Journal
+of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, viii, 45-65,
+to which the reader is referred for details. Generally, the fox is
+a creature of ill omen, long-lived (living to eight hundred or even
+a thousand years), with a peculiar virtue in every part of his body,
+able to produce fire by striking the ground with his tail, cunning,
+cautious, sceptical, able to see into the future, to transform himself
+(usually into old men, or scholars, or pretty young maidens), and
+fond of playing pranks and tormenting mankind.
+
+
+Fox Legends
+
+Many interesting fox legends are to be found in a collection of stories
+entitled _Liao chai chih i_, by P'u Sung-ling (seventeenth century
+A.D.), part of which was translated into English many years ago by
+Professor H.A. Giles and appeared in two fascinating volumes called
+_Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_. These legends were related
+to the Chinese writer by various people as their own experiences.
+
+
+Friendship with Foxes
+
+A certain man had an enormous stack of straw, as big as a hill, in
+which his servants, taking what was daily required for use, had made
+quite a large hole. In this hole a fox fixed his abode, and would
+often show himself to the master of the house under the form of an
+old man. One day the latter invited the master to walk into his abode;
+he at first declined, but accepted on being pressed; and when he got
+inside, lo! he saw a long suite of handsome apartments. They then
+sat down, and exquisitely perfumed tea and wine were brought; but
+the place was so gloomy that there was no difference between night
+and day. By and by, the entertainment being over, the guest took his
+leave; and on looking back the beautiful rooms and their contents had
+all disappeared. The old man himself was in the habit of going away in
+the evening and returning with the first streaks of morning; and as
+no one was able to follow him, the master of the house asked him one
+day whither he went. To this he replied that a friend invited him to
+take wine; and then the master begged to be allowed to accompany him,
+a proposal to which the old man very reluctantly consented. However,
+he seized the master by the arm, and away they went as though riding
+on the wings of the wind; and in about the time it takes to cook
+a pot of millet they reached a city and walked into a restaurant,
+where there were a number of people drinking together and making a
+great noise. The old man led his companion to a gallery above, from
+which they could look down on the feasters below; and he himself went
+down and brought away from the tables all kinds of nice food and wine,
+without appearing to be seen or noticed by any of the company. After
+a while a man dressed in red garments came forward and laid upon
+the table some dishes of cumquats; [36] the master at once requested
+the old man to go down and get him some of these. "Ah," replied the
+latter, "that is an upright man: I cannot approach him." Thereupon
+the master said to himself, "By thus seeking the companionship of a
+fox, I then am deflected from the true course. Henceforth I too will
+be an upright man." No sooner had he formed this resolution than he
+suddenly lost all control over his body, and fell from the gallery
+down among the revellers below. These gentlemen were much astonished
+by his unexpected descent; and he himself, looking up, saw there was
+no gallery to the house, but only a large beam upon which he had
+been sitting. He now detailed the whole of the circumstances, and
+those present made up a purse for him to pay his travelling expenses;
+for he was at Yü-t'ai--a thousand _li_ from home.
+
+
+The Marriage Lottery
+
+A certain labourer, named Ma T'ien-jung, lost his wife when he was
+only about twenty years of age, and was too poor to take another. One
+day, when out hoeing in the fields, he beheld a nice-looking young
+lady leave the path and come tripping across the furrows toward
+him. Her face was well painted, [37] and she had altogether such a
+refined look that Ma concluded she must have lost her way, and began
+to make some playful remarks in consequence. "You go along home,"
+cried the young lady, "and I'll be with you by and by." Ma doubted
+this rather extraordinary promise, but she vowed and declared she
+would not break her word; and then Ma went off, telling her that his
+front door faced the north, etc. At midnight the young lady arrived,
+and then Ma saw that her hands and face were covered with fine hair,
+which made him suspect at once that she was a fox. She did not deny the
+accusation; and accordingly Ma said to her, "If you really are one of
+those wonderful creatures you will be able to get me anything I want;
+and I should be much obliged if you would begin by giving me some
+money to relieve my poverty." The young lady said she would; and next
+evening, when she came again, Ma asked her where the money was. "Dear
+me!" replied she, "I quite forgot it." When she was going away Ma
+reminded her of what he wanted, but on the following evening she made
+precisely the same excuse, promising to bring it another day. A few
+nights afterward Ma asked her once more for the money, and then she
+drew from her sleeve two pieces of silver, each weighing about five
+or six ounces. They were both of fine quality, with turned-up edges,
+[38] and Ma was very pleased, and stored them away in a cupboard. Some
+months after this he happened to require some money for use, and took
+out these pieces; but the person to whom he showed them said they
+were only pewter, and easily bit off a portion of one of them with
+his teeth. Ma was much alarmed, and put the pieces away directly,
+taking the opportunity when evening came of abusing the young lady
+roundly. "It's all your bad luck," retorted she. "Real gold would be
+too much for your inferior destiny." There was an end of that; but Ma
+went on to say, "I always heard that fox-girls were of surpassing
+beauty; how is it you are not?" "Oh," replied the young lady,
+"we always adapt ourselves to our company. Now you haven't the luck
+of an ounce of silver to call your own; and what would you do, for
+instance, with a beautiful princess? My beauty may not be good enough
+for the aristocracy; but among your big-footed, bent-backed rustics,
+[39] why, it may safely be called 'surpassing'!"
+
+A few months passed away, and then one day the young lady came and
+gave Ma three ounces of silver, saying, "You have often asked me for
+money, but in consequence of your bad luck I have always refrained
+from giving you any. Now, however, your marriage is at hand, and
+I here give you the cost of a wife, which you may also regard as a
+parting gift from me." Ma replied that he was not engaged, to which the
+young lady answered that in a few days a go-between would visit him
+to arrange the affair. "And what will she be like?" asked Ma. "Why,
+as your aspirations are for 'surpassing' beauty," replied the young
+lady, "of course she will be possessed of surpassing beauty." "I hardly
+expect that," said Ma; "at any rate, three ounces of silver will not be
+enough to get a wife." "Marriages," explained the young lady, "are made
+in the moon; [40] mortals have nothing to do with them." "And why must
+you be going away like this?" inquired Ma. "Because," answered she,
+"for us to meet only by night is not the proper thing. I had better
+get you another wife and have done with you." Then when morning came
+she departed, giving Ma a pinch of yellow powder, saying, "In case
+you are ill after we are separated, this will cure you." Next day,
+sure enough, a go-between did come, and Ma at once asked what the
+proposed bride was like; to which the former replied that she was
+very passable-looking. Four or five ounces of silver was fixed as the
+marriage present, Ma making no difficulty on that score, but declaring
+he must have a peep at the young lady. [41]  The go-between said she
+was a respectable girl, and would never allow herself to be seen;
+however, it was arranged that they should go to the house together,
+and await a good opportunity. So off they went, Ma remaining outside
+while the go-between went in, returning in a little while to tell
+him it was all right. "A relative of mine lives in the same court,
+and just now I saw the young lady sitting in the hall. We have only
+got to pretend we are going to see my relative, and you will be able
+to get a glimpse of her." Ma consented, and they accordingly passed
+through the hall, where he saw the young lady sitting down with her
+head bent forward while some one was scratching her back. She seemed
+to be all that the go-between had said; but when they came to discuss
+the money it appeared that the young lady wanted only one or two ounces
+of silver, just to buy herself a few clothes, etc., which Ma thought
+was a very small amount; so he gave the go-between a present for her
+trouble, which just finished up the three ounces his fox-friend had
+provided. An auspicious day was chosen, and the young lady came over
+to his house; when lo! she was humpbacked and pigeon-breasted, with
+a short neck like a tortoise, and feet which were fully ten inches
+long. The meaning of his fox-friend's remarks then flashed upon him.
+
+
+The Magnanimous Girl
+
+At Chin-ling there lived a young man named Ku, who had considerable
+ability, but was very poor; and having an old mother, he was very
+loth to leave home. So he employed himself in writing or painting
+[42] for people, and gave his mother the proceeds, going on thus
+till he was twenty-five years of age without taking a wife. Opposite
+to their house was another building, which had long been untenanted;
+and one day an old woman and a young girl came to occupy it, but there
+being no gentleman with them young Ku did not make any inquiries as
+to who they were or whence they hailed. Shortly afterward it chanced
+that just as Ku was entering the house he observed a young lady
+come out of his mother's door. She was about eighteen or nineteen,
+very clever and refined-looking, and altogether such a girl as one
+rarely sets eyes on; and when she noticed Mr Ku she did not run away,
+but seemed quite self-possessed. "It was the young lady over the way;
+she came to borrow my scissors and measure," said his mother, "and
+she told me that there is only her mother and herself. They don't
+seem to belong to the lower classes. I asked her why she didn't get
+married, to which she replied that her mother was old. I must go and
+call on her to-morrow, and find out how the land lies. If she doesn't
+expect too much, you could take care of her mother for her." So next
+day Ku's mother went, and found that the girl's mother was deaf, and
+that they were evidently poor, apparently not having a day's food in
+the house. Ku's mother asked what their employment was, and the old
+lady said they trusted for food to her daughter's ten fingers. She
+then threw out some hints about uniting the two families, to which
+the old lady seemed to agree; but, on consultation with her daughter,
+the latter would not consent. Mrs Ku returned home and told her son,
+saying, "Perhaps she thinks we are too poor. She doesn't speak or
+laugh, is very nice-looking, and as pure as snow; truly no ordinary
+girl." There ended that; until one day, as Ku was sitting in his
+study, up came a very agreeable young fellow, who said he was from a
+neighbouring village, and engaged Ku to draw a picture for him. The
+two youths soon struck up a firm friendship and met constantly,
+and later it happened that the stranger chanced to see the young
+lady of over the way. "Who is that?" said he, following her with
+his eyes. Ku told him, and then he said, "She is certainly pretty,
+but rather stern in her appearance." By and by Ku went in, and his
+mother told him the girl had come to beg a little rice, as they had
+had nothing to eat all day. "She's a good daughter," said his mother,
+"and I'm very sorry for her. We must try and help them a little." Ku
+thereupon shouldered a peck of rice, and, knocking at their door,
+presented it with his mother's compliments. The young lady received
+the rice, but said nothing; and then she got into the habit of coming
+over and helping Ku's mother with her work and household affairs,
+almost as if she had been her daughter-in-law, for which Ku was very
+grateful to her, and whenever he had anything nice he always sent some
+of it in to her mother, though the young lady herself never once took
+the trouble to thank him. So things went on until Ku's mother got an
+abscess on her leg, and lay writhing in agony day and night. Then the
+young lady devoted herself to the invalid, waiting on her and giving
+her medicine with such care and attention that at last the sick woman
+cried out, "O that I could secure such a daughter-in-law as you to see
+this old body into its grave!" The young lady soothed her, and replied,
+"Your son is a hundred times more filial than I, a poor widow's only
+daughter." "But even a filial son makes a bad nurse," answered the
+patient; "besides, I am now drawing toward the evening of my life,
+when my body will be exposed to the mists and the dews, and I am
+vexed in spirit about our ancestral worship and the continuance of our
+line." As she was speaking Ku walked in; and his mother, weeping, said,
+"I am deeply indebted to this young lady; do not forget to repay her
+goodness." Ku made a low bow, but the young lady said, "Sir, when you
+were kind to my mother, I did not thank you; why then thank me?" Ku
+thereupon became more than ever attached to her; but could never get
+her to depart in the slightest degree from her cold demeanour toward
+himself. One day, however, he managed to squeeze her hand, upon which
+she told him never to do so again; and then for some time he neither
+saw nor heard anything of her. She had conceived a violent dislike
+to the young stranger above mentioned; and one evening, when he was
+sitting talking with Ku, the young lady appeared. After a while she
+got angry at something he said, and drew from her robe a glittering
+knife about a foot long. The young man, seeing her do this, ran out
+in a fright and she after him, only to find that he had vanished. She
+then threw her dagger up into the air, and _whish!_ a streak of light
+like a rainbow, and something came tumbling down with a flop. Ku got
+a light, and ran to see what it was; and lo! there lay a white fox,
+head in one place and body in another. "There is your _friend_,"
+cried the girl; "I knew he would cause me to destroy him sooner or
+later." Ku dragged it into the house, and said, "Let us wait till
+to-morrow to talk it over; we shall then be more calm." Next day the
+young lady arrived, and Ku inquired about her knowledge of the black
+art; but she told Ku not to trouble himself about such affairs, and
+to keep it secret or it might be prejudicial to his happiness. Ku
+then entreated her to consent to their union, to which she replied
+that she had already been as it were a daughter-in-law to his mother,
+and there was no need to push the thing further. "Is it because I am
+poor?" asked Ku. "Well, I am not rich," answered she, "but the fact
+is I had rather not." She then took her leave, and the next evening
+when Ku went across to their house to try once more to persuade her
+the young lady had disappeared, and was never seen again.
+
+
+The Boon-companion
+
+Once upon a time there was a young man named Ch'ê, who was not
+particularly well off, but at the same time very fond of his wine;
+so much so that without his three stoups of liquor every night he was
+quite unable to sleep, and bottles were seldom absent from the head
+of his bed. One night he had woken up and was turning over and over,
+when he fancied some one was in the bed with him; but then, thinking
+it was only the clothes which had slipped off, he put out his hand
+to feel, and in doing so touched something silky like a cat. Striking
+a light, he found it was a fox, lying in a drunken sleep like a dog;
+and then looking at his wine bottle he saw that it had been emptied. "A
+boon-companion," said he, laughing, as he avoided startling the animal,
+and, covering it up, lay down to sleep with his arm across it, and the
+candle alight so as to see what transformation it might undergo. About
+midnight the fox stretched itself, and Ch'ê cried, "Well, to be sure,
+you've had a nice sleep!" He then drew off the clothes, and beheld an
+elegant young man in a scholar's dress; but the young man jumped up,
+and, making a low obeisance, returned his host many thanks for not
+cutting off his head. "Oh," replied Ch'ê, "I am not averse to liquor
+myself; in fact they say I'm too much given to it. If you have no
+objection, we'll be a pair of bottle-and-glass chums." So they lay
+down and went to sleep again, Ch'ê urging the young man to visit him
+often, and saying that they must have faith in each other. The fox
+agreed to this, but when Ch'ê awoke in the morning his bedfellow had
+already disappeared. So he prepared a goblet of first-rate wine in
+expectation of his friend's arrival, and at nightfall sure enough he
+came. They then sat together drinking, and the fox cracked so many
+jokes that Ch'ê said he regretted he had not known him before. "And
+truly I don't know how to repay your kindness," replied the former,
+"in preparing all this nice wine for me." "Oh," said Ch'ê, "what's
+a pint or so of wine?--nothing worth speaking of." "Well," rejoined
+the fox, "you are only a poor scholar, and money isn't so easily to be
+got. I must see if I can't secure a little wine capital for you." Next
+evening, when he arrived, he said to Ch'ê, "Two miles down toward
+the south-east you will find some silver lying by the wayside. Go
+early in the morning and get it." So on the morrow Ch'ê set off,
+and actually obtained two lumps of silver, with which he bought some
+choice morsels to help them out with their wine that evening. The fox
+now told him that there was a vault in his backyard which he ought to
+open; and when he did so he found therein more than a hundred strings
+of cash. [43] "Now then," cried Ch'ê, delighted, "I shall have no more
+anxiety about funds for buying wine with all this in my purse!" "Ah,"
+replied the fox, "the water in a puddle is not inexhaustible. I must
+do something further for you." Some days afterward the fox said to
+Ch'ê, "Buckwheat is very cheap in the market just now. Something is
+to be done in that line." Accordingly Ch'ê bought over forty tons,
+and thereby incurred general ridicule; but by and by there was a bad
+drought, and all kinds of grain and beans were spoilt. Only buckwheat
+would grow, and Ch'ê sold off his stock at a profit of 1000 per
+cent. His wealth thus began to increase; he bought two hundred acres
+of rich land, and always planted his crops, corn, millet, or what not,
+upon the advice of the fox secretly given him beforehand. The fox
+looked on Ch'ê's wife as a sister, and on Ch'ê's children as his own;
+but when subsequently Ch'ê died it never came to the house again.
+
+
+The Alchemist [44]
+
+At Ch'ang-an there lived a scholar named Chia Tzu-lung, who one day
+noticed a very refined-looking stranger; and, on making inquiries
+about him, learned that he was a Mr Chên who had taken lodgings
+hard by. Accordingly, Chia called next day and sent in his card,
+but did not see Chên, who happened to be out at the time. The same
+thing occurred thrice; and at length Chia engaged some one to watch
+and let him know when Mr Chên was at home. However, even then the
+latter would not come forth to receive his guest, and Chia had to
+go in and rout him out. The two now entered into conversation, and
+soon became mutually charmed with each other; and by and by Chia sent
+off a servant to bring wine from a neighbouring wine-shop. Mr Chên
+proved himself a pleasant boon-companion, and when the wine was nearly
+finished he went to a box and took from it some wine-cups and a large
+and beautiful jade tankard; into the latter he poured a single cup of
+wine, and immediately it was filled to the brim. They then proceeded
+to help themselves from the tankard; but however much they took out,
+the contents never seemed to diminish. Chia was astonished at this,
+and begged Mr Chên to tell him how it was done. "Ah," replied Mr Chên,
+"I tried to avoid making your acquaintance solely because of your
+one bad quality--avarice. The art I practise is a secret known to
+the Immortals only: how can I divulge it to you?" "You do me wrong,"
+rejoined Chia, "in thus attributing avarice to me. The avaricious,
+indeed, are always poor." Mr Chên laughed, and they separated for that
+day; but from that time they were constantly together, and all ceremony
+was laid aside between them. Whenever Chia wanted money Mr Chên would
+bring out a black stone, and, muttering a charm, would rub it on a tile
+or a brick, which was forthwith changed into a lump of silver. This
+silver he would give to Chia, and it was always just as much as he
+actually required, neither more nor less; and if ever the latter asked
+for more Mr Chên would rally him on the subject of avarice. Finally
+Chia determined to try to get possession of this stone; and one day,
+when Mr Chên was sleeping off the fumes of a drinking-bout, he tried
+to extract it from his clothes. However, Chên detected him at once,
+and declared that they could be friends no more, and next day he
+left the place altogether. About a year afterward Chia was one day
+wandering by the river-bank, when he saw a handsome-looking stone,
+marvellously like that in the possession of Mr Chên; and he picked
+it up at once and carried it home with him. A few days passed away,
+and suddenly Mr Chên presented himself at Chia's house, and explained
+that the stone in question possessed the property of changing anything
+into gold, and had been bestowed upon him long before by a certain
+Taoist priest whom he had followed as a disciple. "Alas!" added he,
+"I got tipsy and lost it; but divination told me where it was,
+and if you will now restore it to me I will take care to repay your
+kindness." "You have divined rightly," replied Chia; "the stone is
+with me; but recollect, if you please, that the indigent Kuan Chung
+[45] shared the wealth of his friend Pao Shu." At this hint Mr Chên
+said he would give Chia one hundred ounces of silver; to which the
+latter replied that one hundred ounces was a fair offer, but that he
+would far sooner have Mr Chên teach him the formula to utter when
+rubbing the stone on anything, so that he might try the thing once
+himself. Mr Chên was afraid to do this; whereupon Chia cried out,
+"You are an Immortal yourself; you must know well enough that I
+would never deceive a friend." So Mr Chên was prevailed upon to
+teach him the formula, and then Chia would have tried the art upon
+the immense stone washing-block [46] which was lying near at hand
+had not Mr Chên seized his arm and begged him not to do anything
+so outrageous. Chia then picked up half a brick and laid it on the
+washing-block, saying to Mr Chên, "This little piece is not too much,
+surely?" Accordingly Mr Chên relaxed his hold and let Chia proceed;
+which he did by promptly ignoring the half-brick and quickly rubbing
+the stone on the washing-block. Mr Chên turned pale when he saw him
+do this, and made a dash forward to get hold of the stone, but it was
+too late; the washing-block was already a solid mass of silver, and
+Chia quietly handed him back the stone. "Alas! alas!" cried Mr Chên
+in despair, "what is to be done now? For, having thus irregularly
+conferred wealth upon a mortal, Heaven will surely punish me. Oh,
+if you would save me, give away one hundred coffins [47] and one
+hundred suits of wadded clothes." "My friend," replied Chia, "my
+object in getting money was not to hoard it up like a miser." Mr
+Chên was delighted at this; and during the next three years Chia
+engaged in trade, taking care to fulfil always his promise to Mr
+Chên. At the expiration of that time Mr Chên himself reappeared, and,
+grasping Chia's hand, said to him, "Trustworthy and noble friend,
+when we last parted the Spirit of Happiness impeached me before God,
+[48] and my name was erased from the list of angels. But now that you
+have carried out my request that sentence has been rescinded. Go on
+as you have begun, without ceasing." Chia asked Mr Chên what office
+he filled in Heaven; to which the latter replied that he was only
+a fox who, by a sinless life, had finally attained to that clear
+perception of the truth which leads to immortality. Wine was then
+brought, and the two friends enjoyed themselves together as of old;
+and even when Chia had passed the age of ninety years the fox still
+used to visit him from time to time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Miscellaneous Legends
+
+
+The Unnatural People
+
+The _Shan hai ching_, or _Hill and River Classic_, contains
+descriptions of some curious people supposed to inhabit the regions
+on the maps represented on the nine tripod vases of the Great Yü,
+first emperor of the Hsia dynasty.
+
+
+The Pygmies
+
+The pygmies inhabit many mountainous regions of the Empire, but are
+few in number. They are less than nine inches high, but are well
+formed. They live in thatched houses that resemble ants' nests. When
+they walk out they go in companies of from six to ten, joining hands
+in a line for mutual protection against birds that might carry them
+away, or other creatures that might attack them. Their tone of voice
+is too low to be distinguished by an ordinary human ear. They occupy
+themselves in working in wood, gold, silver, and precious stones, but
+a small proportion are tillers of the soil. They wear clothes of a red
+colour. The sexes are distinguishable by a slight beard on the men,
+and long tresses on the women, the latter in some cases reaching four
+to five inches in length. Their heads are unduly large, being quite
+out of proportion to their small bodies. A husband and wife usually
+go about hand in hand. A Hakka charcoal-burner once found three of the
+children playing in his tobacco-box. He kept them there, and afterward,
+when he was showing them to a friend, he laughed so that drops of
+saliva flew from his mouth and shot two of them dead. He then begged
+his friend to take the third and put it in a place of safety before
+he should laugh again. His friend attempted to lift it from the box,
+but it died on being touched.
+
+
+The Giants
+
+In the Country of the Giants the people are fifty feet in height. Their
+footprints are six feet in length. Their teeth are like those of a
+saw. Their finger-nails present the appearance of hooked claws, while
+their diet consists wholly of uncooked animal food. Their eyebrows
+are of such length as to protrude from the front of the carts in
+which they ride, large though it is necessary for these vehicles to
+be. Their bodies are covered with long black hair resembling that
+of the bear. They live to the advanced age of eighteen thousand
+years. Though cannibals, they never eat members of their own tribe,
+confining their indulgence in human flesh chiefly to enemies taken in
+battle. Their country extends some thousands of miles along certain
+mountain ranges in North-eastern Asia, in the passes of which they
+have strong iron gates, easy to close, but difficult to open; hence,
+though their neighbours maintain large standing armies, they have
+thus far never been conquered.
+
+
+The Headless People
+
+The Headless People inhabit the Long Sheep range, to which their
+ancestors were banished in the remote past for an offence against the
+gods. One of the said ancestors had entered into a controversy with
+the rulers of the heavens, and they in their anger had transformed
+his two breasts into eyes and his navel into a mouth, removed his
+head, leaving him without nose and ears, thus cutting him off from
+smell and sound, and banished him to the Long Sheep Mountains, where
+with a shield and axe, the only weapons vouchsafed to the people of
+the Headless Country, he and his posterity were compelled to defend
+themselves from their enemies and provide their subsistence. This,
+however, does not in the least seem to have affected their tempers,
+as their bodies are wreathed in perpetual smiles, except when they
+flourish their warlike weapons on the approach of an enemy. They are
+not without understanding, because, according to Chinese notions of
+physiology, "their bellies are full of wisdom."
+
+
+The Armless People
+
+In the Mountains of the Sun and Moon, which are in the Centre of the
+Great Waste, are the people who have no arms, but whose legs instead
+grow out of their shoulders. They pick flowers with their toes. They
+bow by raising the body horizontal with the shoulders, thus turning
+the face to the ground.
+
+
+The Long-armed and Long-legged People
+
+The Long-armed People are about thirty feet high, their arms reaching
+from the shoulders to the ground. Once when a company of explorers
+was passing through the country which borders on the Eastern Sea they
+inquired of an old man if he knew whether or not there were people
+dwelling beyond the waters. He replied that a cloth garment, in fashion
+and texture not unlike that of a Chinese coat, with sleeves thirty
+feet in length, had been found in the sea. The explorers fitted out an
+expedition, and the discovery of the Long-armed Country was the result.
+
+The natives subsist for the most part on fish, which they obtain by
+wading in the water, and taking the fish with their hands instead of
+with hooks or nets.
+
+The arms of the Long-legged People are of a normal length, the legs
+are developed to a length corresponding to that of the arms of the
+Long-armed People.
+
+The country of the latter borders on that of the Long-legs. The habits
+and food of the two are similar. The difference in their physical
+structure makes them of mutual assistance, those with the long arms
+being able to take the shellfish of the shallow waters, while those
+with the long legs take the surface fish from the deeper localities;
+thus the two gather a harvest otherwise unobtainable.
+
+
+The One-eyed People and Others
+
+A little to the east of the Country of the Long-legs are to be found
+the One-eyed People. They have but one eye, rather larger than the
+ordinary human eye, placed in the centre of the forehead, directly
+above the nose. Other clans or families have but one arm and one leg,
+some having a right arm and left leg, others a left arm and right
+leg, while still others have both on the same side, and go in pairs,
+like shoes. Another species not only has but one arm and one leg,
+but is of such fashion as to have but one eye, one nostril, and beard
+on but one side of the face, there being as it were rights and lefts,
+the two in reality being one, for it is in this way that they pair. The
+Long-eared People resemble Chinese in all except their ears. They live
+in the far West among mountains and in caves. Their pendant, flabby
+ears extend to the ground, and would impede their feet in walking if
+they did not support them on their hands. They are sensitive to the
+faintest sound. Still another people in this region are distinguished
+by having six toes on each foot.
+
+
+
+The Feathered People, etc.
+
+The Feathered People are very tall, and are covered with fluffy
+down. They have wings in place of arms, and can fly short distances. On
+the points of the wings are claws, which serve as hands. Their
+noses are like beaks. Gentle and timid, they do not leave their own
+country. They have good voices, and like to sing ballads. If one
+wishes to visit this people he must go far to the south-east and then
+inquire. There is also the Land of the People with Three Faces, who
+live in the centre of the Great Waste and never die; the Land of the
+Three-heads, east of the K'un-lun Mountains; the Three-body Country,
+the inhabitants of which have one head with three bodies, three arms
+and but two legs; and yet another where the people have square heads,
+broad shoulders, and three legs, and the stones on the land are all
+gold and jade.
+
+
+The People of the Punctured Bodies
+
+Another community is said to be composed of people who have holes
+through their chests. They can be carried about on a pole put through
+the orifice, or may be comfortably hung upon a peg. They sometimes
+string themselves on a rope, and thus walk out in file. They are
+harmless people, and eat snakes that they kill with bows and arrows,
+and they are very long-lived.
+
+
+The Women's Kingdom
+
+The Women's Kingdom, the country inhabited exclusively by women, is
+said to be surrounded by a sea of less density than ordinary water,
+so that ships sink on approaching the shores. It has been reached only
+by boats carried thither in whirlwinds, and but few of those wrecked
+on its rocks have survived and returned to tell of its wonders. The
+women have houses, gardens, and shops. Instead of money they use gems,
+perforated and strung like beads. They reproduce their kind by sleeping
+where the south wind blows upon them.
+
+
+The Land of the Flying Cart
+
+Situated to the north of the Plain of Great Joy, the Land of
+the Flying Cart joins the Country of the One-armed People on the
+south-west and that of the Three-bodied People on the south-east. The
+inhabitants have but one arm, and an additional eye of large size in
+the centre of the forehead, making three eyes in all. Their carts,
+though wheeled, do not run along the ground, but chase each other in
+mid-air as gracefully as a flock of swallows. The vehicles have a
+kind of winged framework at each end, and the one-armed occupants,
+each grasping a flag, talk and laugh one to another in great glee
+during what might be called their aerial recreation were it not for
+the fact that it seems to be their sole occupation.
+
+
+The Expectant Wife
+
+A curious legend is told regarding a solitary, weird figure which
+stands out, rudely weatherworn, from a hill-top in the pass called
+Shao-hsing Gorge, Canton Province. This point of the pass is called
+Lung-mên, or Dragon's Mouth, and the hill the Husband-expecting
+Hill. The figure itself, which is called the Expectant Wife, resembles
+that of a woman. Her bent head and figure down to the waist are
+very lifelike.
+
+The story, widely known in this and the neighbouring province, runs as
+follows. Centuries ago a certain poor woman was left by her husband,
+who went on a journey into Kwangsi, close by, but in those days
+considered a wild and distant region, full of dangers. He promised
+to return in three years. The time went slowly and sadly past, for
+she dearly loved her lord, but no husband appeared. He, ungrateful
+and unfaithful spouse, had fallen in love with a fair one in Kwangsi,
+a sorceress or witch, who threw a spell over him and charmed him to
+his destruction, turning him at length into stone. To this day his
+figure may be seen standing near a cave close by the river which is
+known by the name of the Detained Man Cave.
+
+The wife, broken by grief at her husband's failure to return, was
+likewise turned into a stone, and it is said that a supernatural
+power will one day bring the couple to life again and reward the
+ever-faithful wife. The legend receives entire credence from the
+simple boatmen sad country people.
+
+
+The Wild Men
+
+The wild beasts of the mountain have a king. He is a wild man, with
+long, thick locks, fiery red in colour, and his body is covered with
+hair. He is very strong: with a single blow of his huge fist, he can
+break large rocks to pieces; he also can pull up the trees of the
+forest by the root. His flesh is as hard as iron and is invulnerable
+to the thrusts of knife, spear, or sword. He rides upon a tiger when
+he leaves his home; he rules over the wolves, leopards, and tigers, and
+governs all their affairs. Many other wild men, like him in appearance,
+live in these mountains, but on account of his great strength he alone
+is king. These wild men kill and eat all human beings they meet, and
+other hill tribes live in terror of meeting them. Indeed, who of all
+these mountain people would have been left alive had not some men,
+more crafty than their fellows, devised a means of overpowering these
+fierce savages?
+
+This is the method referred to: On leaving his home the herb-gatherer
+of the mountains arms himself with two large hollow bamboo tubes which
+he slips over his wrists and arms; he also carries a jar of very
+strong wine. When he meets one of the wild men he stands still and
+allows the giant to grasp him by the arm. As the giant holds him fast,
+as he supposes, in his firm grasp, he quietly and slowly withdraws
+one arm from the bamboo cuff, and, taking the pot of wine from the
+other hand, quickly pours it down the throat of the stooping giant,
+whose mouth is wide open with immoderate laughter at the thought of
+having captured a victim so easily. The potent draught of wine acts
+at once, causing the victim to drop to the ground in a dead sleep,
+whereupon the herb-gatherer either dispatches him summarily with a
+thrust through the heart, or leaves the drunken tyrant to sleep off the
+effect of his draught, while he returns again to his work of collecting
+the health-restoring herbs. In this way have the numbers of these wild
+men become less and less, until at the present time but few remain.
+
+
+The Jointed Snake
+
+The people on Ô-mei Shan tell of a wonderful kind of snake that is
+said to live there. Part of its life is spent among the branches of
+the trees; if by chance it falls to the ground it breaks up into two
+or more pieces. These separate segments later on come together again
+and unite.
+
+Many other marvellous and interesting tales are related of this
+mountain and its inhabitants.
+
+
+
+The Casting of the Great Bell
+
+In every province of China there is a legend relating to the casting
+of the great bell swung in the bell tower of the chief city. These
+legends are curiously identical in almost every detail. The following
+is the one current in Peking.
+
+It was in the reign of Yung Lo, the third monarch of the Ming dynasty,
+that Peking first became the capital of China. Till that period the
+'Son of Heaven' had held his Court at Nanking, and Peking had been
+of comparatively little note. Now, however, on being honoured by the
+'Sacred Presence,' stately buildings arose in all directions for
+the accommodation of the Emperor and his courtiers. Clever men from
+all parts of the Empire were attracted to the capital, and such as
+possessed talent were sure of lucrative employment. About this time the
+Drum Tower and the Bell Tower were built; both of them as 'look-out'
+and 'alarm' towers. The Drum Tower was furnished with a monster drum,
+which it still possesses, of such a size that the thunder of its tones
+might be heard all over the city, the sound being almost enough to
+waken the dead.
+
+The Bell Tower had been completed some time before attempts were
+made to cast a bell proportionate to the size of the building. At
+length Yung Lo ordered Kuan Yu, a mandarin of the second grade, who
+was skilled in casting guns, to cast a bell the sound of which should
+be heard, on the least alarm, in every part of the city. Kuan Yu at
+once commenced the undertaking. He secured the services of a great
+number of experienced workmen, and collected immense quantities of
+material. Months passed, and at length it was announced to the Emperor
+that everything was ready for the casting. A day was appointed; the
+Emperor, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, and preceded by the
+Court musicians, went to witness the ceremony. At a given signal,
+and to the crash of music, the melted metal rushed into the mould
+prepared for it. The Emperor and his Court then retired, leaving
+Kuan Yu and his subordinates to await the cooling of the metal, which
+would tell of failure or success. At length the metal was sufficiently
+cool to detach the mould from it. Kuan Yu, in breathless trepidation,
+hastened to inspect it, but to his mortification and grief discovered
+it to be honeycombed in many places. The circumstance was reported to
+the Emperor, who was naturally vexed at the expenditure of so much
+time, labour, and money with so unsatisfactory a result. However,
+he ordered Kuan Yu to try again.
+
+The mandarin hastened to obey, and, thinking the failure of the
+first attempt must have resulted from some oversight or omission on
+his part, he watched every detail with redoubled care and attention,
+fully determined that no neglect or remissness should mar the success
+of this second casting.
+
+After months of labour the mould was again prepared, and the metal
+poured into it, but again with the same result. Kuan Yu was distracted,
+not only at the loss of his reputation, but at the certain loss of
+the Emperor's favour. Yung Lo, when he heard of this second failure,
+was very wroth, and at once ordered Kuan Yu into his presence, and
+told him he would give him a third and last trial, and if he did
+not succeed this time he would behead him. Kuan Yu went home in a
+despairing state of mind, asking himself what crime he or any of his
+ancestors could have committed to have justified this calamity.
+
+Now Kuan Yu had an only daughter, about sixteen years of age, and,
+having no sons, the whole of his love was centred in this girl, for
+he had hopes of perpetuating his name and fame through her marriage
+with some deserving young nobleman. Truly she was worthy of being
+loved. She had "almond-shaped eyes, like the autumn waves, which,
+sparkling and dancing in the sun, seem to leap up in very joy and
+wantonness to kiss the fragrant reeds that grow upon the rivers'
+banks, yet of such limpid transparency that one's form could be
+seen in their liquid depths as if reflected in a mirror. These were
+surrounded by long silken lashes--now drooping in coy modesty, anon
+rising in youthful gaiety and disclosing the laughing eyes but just
+before concealed beneath them. Eyebrows like the willow leaf; cheeks
+of snowy whiteness, yet tinged with the gentlest colouring of the
+rose; teeth like pearls of the finest water were seen peeping from
+between half-open lips, so luscious and juicy that they resembled
+two cherries; hair of the jettiest blackness and of the silkiest
+texture. Her form was such as poets love to describe and painters
+limn; there was grace and ease in every movement; she appeared to
+glide rather than walk, so light was she of foot. Add to her other
+charms that she was skilful in verse-making, excellent in embroidery,
+and unequalled in the execution of her household duties, and we have
+but a faint description of Ko-ai, the beautiful daughter of Kuan Yu."
+
+Well might the father be proud of and love his beautiful child,
+and she returned his love with all the ardour of her affectionate
+nature; often cheering him with her innocent gaiety when he returned
+from his daily vocations wearied or vexed. Seeing him now return
+with despair depicted in his countenance, she tenderly inquired the
+cause, not without hope of being the means of alleviating it. When
+her father told her of his failures, and of the Emperor's threat, she
+exclaimed: "Oh, my father, be comforted! Heaven will not always be thus
+unrelenting. Are we not told that 'out of evil cometh good'? These
+two failures will but enhance the glory of your eventual success,
+for success _this_ time _must_ crown your efforts. I am only a girl,
+and cannot assist you but with my prayers; these I will daily and
+hourly offer up for your success; and the prayers of a daughter for
+a loved parent _must_ be heard." Somewhat soothed by the endearments
+of Ko-ai, Kuan Yu again devoted himself to his task with redoubled
+energy, Ko-ai meanwhile constantly praying for him in his absence,
+and ministering to his wants when he returned home. One day it
+occurred to the maiden to go to a celebrated astrologer to ascertain
+the cause of these failures, and to ask what means could be taken to
+prevent a recurrence of them. She thus learned that the next casting
+would also be a disappointment if the blood of a maiden were not
+mixed with the ingredients. She returned home full of horror at this
+information, yet inwardly resolving to immolate herself rather than
+allow her father to fail. The day for the casting at length came,
+and Ko-ai requested her father to allow her to witness the ceremony
+and "to exult in his success," as she laughingly said. Kuan Yu gave
+his consent, and accompanied by several servants she went, taking up
+a position near the mould.
+
+Everything was prepared as before. An immense concourse assembled
+to witness the third and final casting, which was to result either
+in honour or degradation and death for Kuan Yu. A dead silence
+prevailed through the vast assemblage as the melted metal once more
+rushed to its destination; this was broken by a shriek, and a cry,
+"For my father!" and Ko-ai was seen to throw herself headlong into the
+seething, hissing metal. One of her servants attempted to seize her
+while in the act of plunging into the boiling fluid, but succeeded only
+in grasping one of her shoes, which came off in his hand. The father
+was frantic, and had to be kept by force from following her example;
+he was taken home a raving maniac. The prediction of the astrologer
+was fulfilled, for, on uncovering the bell after it had cooled, it
+was found to be perfect, but not a vestige of Ko-ai was to be seen;
+the blood of a maiden had indeed been infused with the ingredients.
+
+After a time the bell was suspended by order of the Emperor,
+and expectation was at its height to hear it rung for the first
+time. The Emperor himself was present. The bell was struck, and far
+and near was heard the deep tone of its sonorous boom. This indeed
+was a triumph! Here was a bell surpassing in size and sound any
+other that had ever been cast! But--and the surrounding multitudes
+were horror-struck as they listened--the heavy boom of the bell was
+followed by a low wailing sound like the agonized cry of a woman, and
+the word _hsieh_ (shoe) was distinctly heard. To this day the bell,
+each time it is rung, after every boom appears to utter the word
+'hsieh,' and people when they hear it shudder and say, "There's poor
+Ko-ai's voice calling for her shoe."
+
+
+The Cursed Temple
+
+The reign of Ch'ung Chêng, the last monarch of the Ming dynasty,
+was much troubled both by internal broils and by wars. He was
+constantly threatened by Tartar hordes from without, though these
+were generally beaten back by the celebrated general Wu San-kuei,
+and the country was perpetually in a state of anarchy and confusion,
+being overrun by bands of marauding rebels; indeed, so bold did
+these become under a chief named Li Tzu-ch'êng that they actually
+marched on the capital with the avowed intention of placing their
+leader on the Dragon Throne. Ch'ung Chêng, on the reception of this
+startling news, with no one that he could trust in such an emergency
+(for Wu San-kuei was absent on an expedition against the Tartars),
+was at his wits' end. The insurgents were almost in sight of Peking,
+and at any moment might arrive. Rebellion threatened in the city
+itself. If he went out boldly to attack the oncoming rebels his own
+troops might go over to the enemy, or deliver him into their hands;
+if he stayed in the city the people would naturally attribute it to
+pusillanimity, and probably open the gates to the rebels.
+
+In this strait he resolved to go to the San Kuan Miao, an imperial
+temple situated near the Ch'ao-yang Mên, and inquire of the gods as
+to what he should do, and decide his fate by 'drawing the slip.' If he
+drew a long slip, this would be a good omen, and he would boldly march
+out to meet the rebels, confident of victory; if a middle length one,
+he would remain quietly in the palace and passively await whatever
+might happen; but if he should unfortunately draw a short one he would
+take his own life rather than suffer death at the hands of the rebels.
+
+Upon arrival at the temple, in the presence of the high officers of
+his Court, the sacrifices were offered up, and the incense burnt,
+previous to drawing the slip on which hung the destiny of an empire,
+while Ch'ung Chêng himself remained on his knees in prayer. At the
+conclusion of the sacrificial ceremony the tube containing the bamboo
+fortune-telling sticks was placed in the Emperor's hand by one of
+the priests. His courtiers and the attendant priests stood round in
+breathless suspense, watching him as he swayed the tube to and fro;
+at length one fell to the ground; there was dead silence as it was
+raised by a priest and handed to the Emperor. _It was a short one!_
+Dismay fell on every one present, no one daring to break the painful,
+horrible silence. After a pause the Emperor, with a cry of mingled
+rage and despair, dashed the slip to the ground, exclaiming: "May this
+temple built by my ancestors evermore be accursed! Henceforward may
+every suppliant be denied what he entreats, as I have been! Those
+who come in sorrow, may that sorrow be doubled; in happiness, may
+that happiness be changed to misery; in hope, may they meet despair;
+in health, sickness; in the pride of life and strength, death! I,
+Ch'ung Chêng, the last of the Mings, curse it!"
+
+Without another word he retired, followed by his courtiers, proceeded
+at once to the palace, and went straight to the apartments of the
+Empress. The next morning he and his Empress were found suspended from
+a tree on Prospect Hill. "In their death they were not divided." The
+scenes that followed; how the rebels took possession of the city and
+were driven out again by the Chinese general, assisted by the Tartars;
+how the Tartars finally succeeded in establishing the Manchu dynasty,
+are all matters of history. The words used by the Emperor at the
+temple were prophetic; he _was_ the last of the Mings. The tree on
+which the monarch of a mighty Empire closed his career and brought
+the Ming dynasty to an end was ordered to be surrounded with chains;
+it still exists, and is still in chains. Upward of two hundred
+and seventy years have passed since that time, yet the temple is
+standing as of old; but the halls that at one time were crowded with
+worshippers are now silent, no one ever venturing to worship there;
+it is the resort of the fox and the bat, and people at night pass it
+shudderingly--"It is the cursed temple!"
+
+
+The Maniac's Mite
+
+An interesting story is told of a lady named Ch'ên, who was a
+Buddhist nun celebrated for her virtue and austerity. Between the
+years 1628 and 1643 she left her nunnery near Wei-hai city and set
+out on a long journey for the purpose of collecting subscriptions for
+casting a new image of the Buddha. She wandered through Shantung and
+Chihli and finally reached Peking, and there--subscription-book in
+hand--she stationed herself at the great south gate in order to take
+toll from those who wished to lay up for themselves treasures in the
+Western Heaven. The first passer-by who took any notice of her was an
+amiable maniac. His dress was made of coloured shreds and patches,
+and his general appearance was wild and uncouth. "Whither away,
+nun?" he asked. She explained that she was collecting subscriptions
+for the casting of a great image of Buddha, and had come all the
+way from Shantung. "Throughout my life," remarked the madman, "I was
+ever a generous giver." So, taking the nun's subscription-book, he
+headed a page with his own name (in very large characters) and the
+amount subscribed. The amount in question was two cash, equivalent
+to a small fraction of a farthing. He then handed over the two small
+coins and went on his way.
+
+In course of time the nun returned to Wei-hai-wei with her
+subscriptions, and the work of casting the image was duly begun. When
+the time had come for the process of smelting, it was observed that
+the copper remained hard and intractable. Again and again the furnace
+was fed with fuel, but the shapeless mass of metal remained firm as a
+rock. The head workman, who was a man of wide experience, volunteered
+an explanation of the mystery. "An offering of great value must be
+missing," he said. "Let the collection-book be examined so that it
+may be seen whose subscription has been withheld." The nun, who was
+standing by, immediately produced the madman's money, which on account
+of its minute value she had not taken the trouble to hand over. "There
+is one cash," she said, "and there is another. Certainly the offering
+of these must have been an act of the highest merit, and the giver
+must be a holy man who will some day attain Buddhahood." As she said
+this she threw the two cash into the midst of the cauldron. Great
+bubbles rose and burst, the metal melted and ran like the sap from
+a tree, limpid as flowing water, and in a few moments the work was
+accomplished and the new Buddha successfully cast.
+
+
+The City-god of Yen Ch'êng
+
+The following story of the Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa of Yen Ch'êng (Salt
+City) is told by Helena von Poseck in the _East of Asia Magazine_,
+vol. iii (1904), pp. 169-171. This legend is also related of several
+other cities in China.
+
+The Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa is, as already noted, the tutelary god of a
+city, his position in the unseen world answering to that of a _chih
+hsien_, or district magistrate, among men, if the city under his
+care be a _hsien_; but if the city hold the rank of a _fu_, it has
+(or used to have until recently) two Ch'êng-huang P'u-sas, one a
+prefect, and the other a district magistrate. One part of his duty
+consists of sending small demons to carry off the spirits of the
+dying, of which spirits he afterward acts as ruler and judge. He is
+supposed to exercise special care over the _k'u kuei_, or spirits
+which have no descendants to worship and offer sacrifices to them,
+and on the occasion of the Seventh Month Festival he is carried round
+the city in his chair to maintain order among them, while the people
+offer food to them, and burn paper money for their benefit. He is
+also carried in procession at the Ch'ing Ming Festival, and on the
+first day of the tenth month.
+
+The Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa of the city of Yen Ch'êng is in the extremely
+unfortunate predicament of having no skin to his face, which fact is
+thus accounted for:
+
+Once upon a time there lived at Yen Ch'êng an orphan boy who was
+brought up by his uncle and aunt. He was just entering upon his teens
+when his aunt lost a gold hairpin, and accused him of having stolen
+it. The boy, whose conscience was clear in the matter, thought of a
+plan by which his innocence might be proved.
+
+"Let us go to-morrow to Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa's temple," he said, "and
+I will there swear an oath before the god, so that he may manifest
+my innocence."
+
+They accordingly repaired to the temple, and the boy, solemnly
+addressing the idol, said:
+
+"If I have taken my aunt's gold pin, may my foot twist, and may I
+fall as I go out of your temple door!"
+
+Alas for the poor suppliant! As he stepped over the threshold his
+foot twisted, and he fell to the ground. Of course, everybody was
+firmly convinced of his guilt, and what could the poor boy say when
+his own appeal to the god thus turned against him?
+
+After such a proof of his depravity his aunt had no room in her house
+for her orphan nephew, neither did he himself wish to stay with people
+who suspected him of theft. So he left the home which had sheltered
+him for years, and wandered out alone into the cold hard world. Many
+a hardship did he encounter, but with rare pluck he persevered in
+his studies, and at the age of twenty odd years became a mandarin.
+
+In course of time our hero returned to Yen Ch'êng to visit his uncle
+and aunt. While there he betook himself to the temple of the deity who
+had dealt so hardly with him, and prayed for a revelation as to the
+whereabouts of the lost hairpin. He slept that night in the temple,
+and was rewarded by a vision in which the Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa told
+him that the pin would be found under the floor of his aunt's house.
+
+He hastened back, and informed his relatives, who took up the boards
+in the place indicated, and lo! there lay the long-lost pin! The
+women of the house then remembered that the pin had been used in
+pasting together the various layers of the soles of shoes, and, when
+night came, had been carelessly left on the table. No doubt rats,
+attracted by the smell of the paste which clung to it, had carried
+it off to their domains under the floor.
+
+The young mandarin joyfully returned to the temple, and offered
+sacrifices by way of thanksgiving to the Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa for
+bringing his innocence to light, but he could not refrain from
+addressing to him what one is disposed to consider a well-merited
+reproach.
+
+"You made me fall down," he said, "and so led people to think I was
+guilty, and now you accept my gifts. Aren't you ashamed to do such
+a thing? _You have no face!_"
+
+As he uttered the words all the plaster fell from the face of the idol,
+and was smashed into fragments.
+
+From that day forward the Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa of Yen Ch'êng has had
+no skin on his face. People have tried to patch up the disfigured
+countenance, but in vain: the plaster always falls off, and the face
+remains skinless.
+
+Some try to defend the Ch'êng-huang P'u-sa by saying that he was not
+at home on the day when his temple was visited by the accused boy and
+his relatives, and that one of the little demons employed by him in
+carrying off dead people's spirits out of sheer mischief perpetrated
+a practical joke on the poor boy.
+
+In that case it is certainly hard that his skin should so persistently
+testify against him by refusing to remain on his face!
+
+
+The Origin of a Lake
+
+In the city of Ta-yeh Hsien, Hupei, there is a large sheet of water
+known as the Liang-ti Lake. The people of the district give the
+following account of its origin:
+
+About five hundred years ago, during the Ming dynasty, there was no
+lake where the broad waters now spread. A flourishing _hsien_ city
+stood in the centre of a populous country. The city was noted for its
+wickedness, but amid the wicked population dwelt one righteous woman,
+a strict vegetarian and a follower of all good works. In a vision of
+the night it was revealed to her that the city and neighbourhood would
+be destroyed by water, and the sign promised was that when the stone
+lions in front of the _yamên_ wept tears of blood, then destruction
+was near at hand. Like Jonah at Nineveh, the woman, known to-day
+simply as Niang-tzu, walked up and down the streets of the city,
+warning all of the coming calamity. She was laughed at and looked
+upon as mad by the careless people. A pork-butcher in the town,
+a noted wag, took some pig's blood and sprinkled it round the eyes
+of the stone lions. This had the desired effect, for when Niang-tzu
+saw the blood she fled from the city amid the jeers and laughter of
+the inhabitants. Before many hours had passed, however, the face of
+the sky darkened, a mighty earthquake shook the country-side, there
+was a great subsidence of the earth's surface, and the waters of the
+Yangtzu River flowed into the hollow, burying the city and villages
+out of sight. But a spot of ground on which the good woman stood,
+after escaping from the doomed city, remained at its normal level,
+and it stands to-day in the midst of the lake, an island called
+Niang-tzu, a place at which boats anchor at night, or to which they
+fly for shelter from the storms that sweep the lake. They are saved
+to-day because of one good woman helped by the gods so long ago.
+
+As a proof of the truth of the above story, it is asserted that on
+clear days traces of the buried city may be seen, while occasionally
+a fisherman casting his net hauls up some household utensil or relic
+of bygone days.
+
+
+Miao Creation Legends
+
+If the Miao have no written records, they have many legends in verse,
+which they learn to repeat and sing. The Hei Miao (or Black Miao, so
+called from their dark chocolate-coloured clothes) treasure poetical
+legends of the Creation and of a deluge. These are composed in lines
+of five syllables, in stanzas of unequal length, one interrogative
+and one responsive. They are sung or recited by two persons or two
+groups at feasts and festivals, often by a group of youths and a
+group of maidens. The legend of the Creation commences:
+
+
+    Who made Heaven and earth?
+    Who made insects?
+    Who made men?
+    Made male and made female?
+      I who speak don't know.
+
+
+
+
+    Heavenly King made Heaven and earth,
+    Ziene made insects,
+    Ziene made men and demons,
+    Made male and made female.
+      How is it you don't know?
+
+
+
+    How made Heaven and earth?
+    How made insects?
+    How made men and demons?
+    Made male and made female?
+      I who speak don't know.
+
+
+
+    Heavenly King was intelligent,
+    Spat a lot of spittle into his hand,
+    Clapped his hands with a noise,
+    Produced Heaven and earth,
+    Tall grass made insects,
+    Stories made men and demons,
+    Made male and made female.
+      How is it you don't know?
+
+
+
+The legend proceeds to state how and by whom the heavens were
+propped up and how the sun was made and fixed in its place, but the
+continuation is exceedingly silly.
+
+The legend of the Flood is another very silly composition, but it is
+interesting to note that it tells of a great deluge. It commences:
+
+
+    Who came to the bad disposition,
+    To send fire and burn the hill?
+    Who came to the bad disposition,
+    To send water and destroy the earth?
+      I who sing don't know.
+
+
+
+    Zie did. Zie was of bad disposition,
+    Zie sent fire and burned the hill;
+    Thunder did. Thunder was of bad disposition,
+    Thunder sent water and destroyed the earth.
+      Why don't you know?
+
+
+In this story of the flood only two persons were saved in a large
+bottle gourd used as a boat, and these were A Zie and his sister. After
+the flood the brother wished his sister to become his wife, but she
+objected to this as not being proper. At length she proposed that
+one should take the upper and one the nether millstone, and going to
+opposite hills should set the stones rolling to the valley between. If
+these should be found in the valley properly adjusted one above the
+other she would be his wife, but not if they came to rest apart. The
+young man, considering it unlikely that two stones thus rolled down
+from opposite hills would be found in the valley one upon another,
+while pretending to accept the test suggested, secretly placed two
+other stones in the valley one upon the other. The stones rolled from
+the hills were lost in the tall wild grass, and on descending into
+the valley A Zie called his sister to come and see the stones he had
+placed. She, however, was not satisfied, and suggested as another test
+that each should take a knife from a double sheath and, going again
+to the opposite hill-tops, hurl them into the valley below. If both
+these knives were found in the sheath in the valley she would marry
+him, but if the knives were found apart they would live apart. Again
+the brother surreptitiously placed two knives in the sheath, and, the
+experiment ending as A Zie wished, his sister became his wife. They
+had one child, a misshapen thing without arms or legs, which A Zie
+in great anger killed and cut to pieces. He threw the pieces all
+over the hill, and next morning, on awaking, he found these pieces
+transformed into men and women; thus the earth was repeopled.
+
+
+The Dream of the South Branch
+
+The dawn of Chinese romantic literature must be ascribed to the
+period between the eighth and tenth centuries of our era, when
+the cultivation of the liberal arts received encouragement at the
+hands of sovereigns who had reunited the Empire under the sway of
+a single ruler, and whose conquests and distant embassies attracted
+representatives from every Asiatic nation to their splendid Court. It
+was during this period that the vast bulk of Indian literature was
+successfully attacked by a host of Buddhist translators, and that the
+alchemists and mechanicians of Central Asia, Persia, and the Byzantine
+Empire introduced their varied acquirements to the knowledge of the
+Chinese. With the flow of new learning which thus gained admittance to
+qualify the frigid and monotonous cultivation of the ancient classics
+and their commentators, there came also an impetus to indulgence in
+the licence of imagination in which it is impossible to mistake the
+influence of Western minds. While the Sanskrit fables, on the one
+hand, passed into a Chinese dress, and contributed to the colouring
+of the popular mythology, the legends which circulated from mouth to
+mouth in the lively Arabian bazaars found, in like manner, an echo
+in the heart of China. Side by side with the mechanical efforts
+of rhythmical composition which constitute the national ideal of
+poetry there began, during the middle period of the T'ang dynasty
+(A.D. 618-907), to grow up a class of romantic tales in which the
+kinship of ideas with those that distinguish the products of Arabian
+genius is too marked to be ignored. The invisible world appears
+suddenly to open before the Chinese eye; the relations of the sexes
+overstep for a moment the chilling limit imposed by the traditions
+of Confucian decorum; a certain degree of freedom and geniality is,
+in a word, for the first time and only for a brief interval infused
+into the intellectual expression of a nation hitherto closely cramped
+in the bonds of a narrow pedantry. It was at this period that the
+drama began to flourish, and the germs of the modern novelist's art
+made their first appearance. Among the works of imagination dating
+from the period in question which have come down to the present
+day there is perhaps none which better illustrates the effect of an
+exotic fancy upon the sober and methodical authorship of the Chinese,
+or which has left a more enduring mark upon the language, than the
+little tale which is given in translation in the following pages.
+
+The _Nan k'o mêng_, or _Dream of the South Branch_ (as the title,
+literally translated, should read), is the work of a writer named
+Li Kung-tso, who, from an incidental mention of his own experiences
+in Kiangsi which appears in another of his tales, is ascertained
+to have lived at the beginning of the ninth century of our era. The
+_nan k'o_, or South Branch, is the portion of a _huai_ tree (_Sophora
+Japdonica_, a tree well known in China, and somewhat resembling the
+American locust-tree) in which the adventures narrated in the story
+are supposed to have occurred; and from this narrative of a dream,
+recalling more than one of the incidents recounted in the Arabian
+Nights, the Chinese have borrowed a metaphor to enrich the vocabulary
+of their literature. The equivalent of our own phrase "the baseless
+fabric of a vision" is in Chinese _nan k'o chih mêng_--a dream of
+the south branch.
+
+
+Ch'un-yü Fên enters the Locust-tree
+
+Ch'un-yü Fên, a native of Tung-p'ing, was by nature a gallant who
+had little regard for the proprieties of life, and whose principal
+enjoyment was found in indulgence in wine-bibbing in the society
+of boon-companions. At one time he held a commission in the army,
+but this he lost through his dissipated conduct, and from that time
+he more than ever gave himself up to the pleasures of the wine-cup.
+
+One day--it was in the ninth moon of the seventh year of Chêng Yüan
+(A.D. 791)--after drinking heavily with a party of friends under a
+wide-spreading old locust-tree near his house, he had to be carried
+to bed and there left to recover, his friends saying that they would
+leave him while they went to bathe their feet. The moment he laid down
+his head he fell into a deep slumber. In his dream appeared to him two
+men clothed in purple, who kneeling down informed him that they had
+been sent by their master the King of Huai-an ('Locust-tree Peace') to
+request his presence. Unconsciously he rose, and, arranging his dress,
+followed his visitors to the door, where he saw a varnished chariot
+drawn by a white horse. On each side were ranged seven attendants,
+by whom he was assisted to mount, whereupon the carriage drove off,
+and, going out of the garden gate, passed through a hole in the trunk
+of the locust-tree already spoken of. Filled with astonishment, but
+too much afraid to speak, Ch'un-yü noticed that he was passing by
+hills and rivers, trees and roads, but of quite a different kind from
+those he was accustomed to. A few miles brought them to the walls
+of a city, the approach to which was lined with men and vehicles,
+who fell back at once the moment the order was given. Over the gate
+of the city was a pavilion on which was written in gold letters "The
+Capital of Huai-an." As he passed through, the guard turned out, and
+a mounted officer, shouting that the husband of the King's daughter
+had arrived, showed him the way into a hall where he was to rest
+awhile. The room contained fruits and flowers of every description,
+and on the tables was laid out a profuse display of refreshments.
+
+While Ch'un-yü still remained lost in astonishment, a cry was raised
+that the Prime Minister was coming. Ch'un-yü got up to meet him,
+and the two received each other with every demonstration of politeness.
+
+
+He marries the King's Daughter
+
+The minister, looking at Ch'un-yü, said: "The King, my master,
+has brought you to this remote region in order to give his daughter
+in marriage to you." "How could I, a poor useless wretch," replied
+Ch'un-yü, "have ever aspired to such honour?" With these words both
+proceeded toward the audience-chamber, passing through a hall lined
+with soldiers, among whom, to his great joy and surprise, Ch'un-yü
+recognized an old friend of his former drinking days, to whom he
+did not, however, then venture to speak; and, following the Prime
+Minister, he was ushered into the King's presence. The King, a man
+of noble bearing and imposing stature, was dressed in plain silk,
+a jewelled crown reposing on his head. Ch'un-yü was so awe-stricken
+that he was powerless even to look up, and the attendants on either
+side were obliged to remind him to make his prostrations. The King,
+addressing him, said: "Your father, small as my kingdom is, did not
+disdain to promise that you should marry my daughter." Ch'un-yü could
+not utter a word; he merely lay prostrate on the ground. After a
+few moments he was taken back to his apartments, and he busied his
+thoughts in trying to discover what all this meant. "My father,"
+he said to himself, "fought on the northern frontier, and was taken
+prisoner; but whether his life was saved or not I don't know. It may
+be that this affair was settled while he was in those distant regions."
+
+That same night preparations were made for the marriage; and the
+rooms and passages were filled with damsels who passed and repassed,
+filling the air with the sound of their dancing and music. They
+surrounded Ch'un-yü and kept up a constant fire of witty remarks,
+while he sat there overcome by their grace and beauty, unable to say
+a word. "Do you remember," said one of them, coming up to Ch'un-yü,
+"the other day when with the Lady Ling-chi I was listening to the
+service in the courtyard of a temple, and while I, with all the other
+girls, was sitting on the window step, you came up to us, talking
+nonsense, and trying to get up a flirtation? Don't you remember how
+we tied a handkerchief on the stem of a bamboo?" Then she continued:
+"Another time at a temple, when I threw down two gold hairpins and an
+ivory box as an offering, you asked the priest to let you look at the
+things, and after admiring them for a long time you turned toward me,
+and said that neither the gifts nor the donor were of this world;
+and you wanted to know my name, and where I lived, but I wouldn't
+tell you; and then you gazed on me so tenderly, and could not take
+your eyes off me. You remember this, without doubt?" "I have ever
+treasured the recollection in my heart; how could I possibly forget
+it?" was Ch'un-yü's reply, whereat all the maidens exclaimed that they
+had never expected to see him in their midst on this joyful occasion.
+
+At this moment three men came up to Ch'un-yü and stated that they
+had been appointed his ministers. He stepped up to one of them
+and asked him if his name was not Tzu-hua. "It is," was the reply;
+whereupon Ch'un-yü, taking him by the hands, recalled to him their
+old friendship, and questioned him as to how he had found his way
+to this spot. He then proceeded to ask him if Chou-pien was also
+here. "He is," replied the other, "and holding very high office;
+he has often used his influence on my behalf."
+
+As they were talking, Ch'un-yü was summoned to the palace, and as he
+passed within, a curtain in front of him was drawn aside, disclosing
+a young girl of about fourteen years of age. She was known as the
+Princess of the Golden Stem, and her dazzling beauty was well in
+keeping with her matchless grace.
+
+
+He writes to his Father
+
+The marriage was celebrated with all magnificence, and the young
+couple grew fonder from day to day. Their establishment was kept up
+in princely style, their principal amusement being the chase, the King
+himself frequently inviting Ch'un-yü to join him in hunting expeditions
+to the Tortoise-back Hill. As they were returning one day from one of
+these excursions, Ch'un-yü said to the King: "On my marriage day your
+Majesty told me that it was my father's desire that I should espouse
+your daughter. My father was worsted in battle on the frontier, and
+for seventeen years we have had no news of him. If your Majesty knows
+his whereabouts, I would beg permission to go and see him."
+
+"Your father," replied the King, "is frequently heard of; you may
+send him a letter; it is not necessary to go to him." Accordingly a
+letter and some presents were got ready and sent, and in due time a
+reply was received, in which Ch'un-yü's father asked many questions
+about his relations, his son's occupation, but manifested no desire
+that the latter should come to him.
+
+
+He takes Office
+
+One day Ch'un-yü's wife asked him if he would not like to hold
+office. His answer was to the effect that he had always been a rolling
+stone, and had no experience of official affairs, but the Princess
+promised to give him her assistance, and found occasion to speak on the
+subject to her father. In consequence the King one day told Ch'un-yü
+that he was not satisfied with the state of affairs in the south of his
+territory, that the present governor was old and useless, and that he
+would be pleased if he would proceed thither. Ch'un-yü bowed to the
+King's commands, and inwardly congratulated himself that such good
+fortune should have befallen a rover like him. He was supplied with a
+splendid outfit, and farewell entertainments were given in his honour.
+
+Before leaving he acknowledged to the King that he had no great
+confidence in his own powers, and suggested that he should be allowed
+to take with him Chou-pien and Tzu-hua as commissioners of justice
+and finance. The King gave his consent, and issued the necessary
+instructions. The day of departure having arrived, both the King
+and the Queen came to see Ch'un-yü and his wife off, and to Ch'un-yü
+the King said: "The province of Nan-k'o is rich and fertile; and the
+inhabitants are brave and prosperous; it is by kindness that you must
+rule them." To her daughter the Queen said: "Your husband is violent
+and fond of wine. The duty of a wife is to be kind and submissive. Act
+well toward him, and I shall have no anxiety. Nan-k'o, it is true,
+is not very far--only one day's journey; still, in parting from
+you my tears will flow." Ch'un-yü and his bride waved a farewell,
+and were whirled away toward their destination, reaching Nan-k'o the
+same evening.
+
+Once settled in the place, Ch'un-yü set himself to become thoroughly
+acquainted with the manners and customs of the people, and to relieve
+distress. To Chou-pien and Tzu-hua he confided all questions of
+administration, and in the course of twenty years a great improvement
+was to be noticed in the affairs of the province. The people showed
+their appreciation by erecting a monument to his honour, while the
+King conferred upon him an estate and the dignity of a title, and in
+recognition of their services promoted Chou-pien and Tzu-hua to very
+high posts. Ch'un-yü's children also shared their father's rewards;
+the two sons were given office, while the two daughters were betrothed
+to members of the royal family. There remained nothing which could
+add to his fame and greatness.
+
+
+He meets with Disasters
+
+About this period the state of T'an-lo made an incursion on the
+province of Nan-k'o. The King at once commanded that Chou-pien should
+proceed at the head of 30,000 men to repel the enemy. Chou-pien,
+full of confidence, attacked the foe, but sustained a disastrous
+defeat, and, barely escaping with his life, returned to the capital,
+leaving the invaders to plunder the country and retire. Ch'un-yü threw
+Chou-pien into prison, and asked the King what punishment should be
+visited upon him. His Majesty granted Chou-pien his pardon; but that
+same month he died of disease.
+
+A few days later Ch'un-yü's wife also fell ill and died, whereupon
+he begged permission to resign his post and return to Court with his
+wife's remains. This request was granted, and Tzu-hua was appointed
+in his stead. As Ch'un-yü, sad and dejected, was leaving the city
+with the funeral _cortège_, he found the road lined with people giving
+loud expression to their grief, and almost ready to prevent his taking
+his departure.
+
+
+
+He returns Home
+
+As he neared the capital the King and Queen, dressed in mourning, were
+awaiting the bier in tears. The Princess, after a posthumous title
+had been conferred upon her, was buried with great magnificence a few
+miles to the east of the city, while Ch'un-yü remained in the capital,
+living in such state, and gaining so much influence, that he excited
+the King's jealousy; and when it was foretold, by means of signs in
+the heavens, that ruin threatened the kingdom, that its inhabitants
+would be swept away, and that this would be the work of an alien,
+the prophecy seemed to point to ambitious designs on the part of
+Ch'un-yü, and means were taken to keep him under restraint.
+
+Ch'un-yü, conscious that he had faithfully filled a high office for
+many years, felt greatly grieved by these calumnies--a result which
+the King could not avoid noticing. He accordingly sent for Ch'un-yü,
+and said: "For more than twenty years we have been connexions,
+although my poor daughter, unfortunately, has not been spared to be
+a companion to you in old age. Her mother is now taking care of her
+children; your own home you have not seen for many years; return to
+see your friends; your children will be looked after, and in three
+years you will see them again." "Is not this my home? Whither else am
+I to go?" was Ch'un-yü's reply. "My friend," the King said laughingly,
+"you are a human being; you don't belong to this place." At these words
+Ch'un-yü seemed to fall into a deep swoon, and he remained unconscious
+for some time, after which he began to recall some glimpses of the
+distant past. With tears in his eyes he begged that he might be
+allowed to return to his home, and, saying farewell, he departed.
+
+Outside the palace he found the same two officials in purple clothes
+who had led the way so many years ago. A conveyance was also there,
+but this time it was a mere bullock-cart, with no outriders. He took
+the same road as before, and noticed the same hills and streams. The
+two officials were by no means imposing this time, and when he asked
+how far was his destination they continued to hum and whistle and
+paid no attention to him. At last they passed through an opening, and
+he recognized his own village, precisely as he had left it. The two
+officials desired him to get down and walk up the steps before him,
+where, much to his horror, he saw himself lying down in the porch. He
+was too much bedazed with terror to advance, but the two officials
+called out his name several times, and upon this he awoke. The
+servants were bustling about the house, and his two companions
+were still washing their feet. Everything was as he had left it,
+and the lifetime he had lived in his dream had occupied only a few
+moments. Calling out to his two friends, he made them follow him to
+the locust-tree, and pointed out the opening through which he had
+begun his journey in dream-land.
+
+An axe was sent for, and the interior of the trunk thrown open,
+whereupon a series of galleries was laid bare. At the root of the
+tree a mound of earth was discovered, in shape like a city, and
+swarming with ants. This was the capital of the kingdom in which
+he had lived in his dream. A terrace surrounded by a guard of ants
+was the residence of the King and Queen, two winged insects with
+red heads. Twenty feet or so along another gallery was found an
+old tortoise-shell covered with a thick growth of moss; it was the
+Tortoise-back Hill of the dream. In another direction was found a
+small mound of earth round which was coiled a root in shape like a
+dragon's tongue; it was the grave of the King's daughter, Ch'un-yü's
+wife in the vision. As he recalled each incident of the dream he was
+much affected at discovering its counterpart in this nest of ants,
+and he refused to allow his companions to disturb it further. They
+replaced everything as they had found it; but that night a storm of
+wind and rain came, and next morning not a vestige of the ants was
+to be seen. They had all disappeared, and here was the fulfilment of
+the warning in the dream, that the kingdom would be swept away.
+
+
+Ch'un-yü Regenerate
+
+At this time Ch'un-yü had not seen Chou-pien and Tzu-hua for some
+ten days. He sent a messenger to make inquiries about them, and the
+news he brought back was that Chou-pien was dead and Tzu-hua lying
+ill. The fleeting nature of man's existence revealed itself to him
+as he recalled the greatness of these two men in the ant-world. From
+that day he became a reformed man; drink and dissipation were put
+aside. After three years had elapsed he died, thus giving effect to
+the promise of the ant-king that he should see his children once more
+at the end of three years.
+
+
+Why the Jung Tribe have Heads of Dogs
+
+The wave of conquest which swept from north to south in the earliest
+periods of Chinese history [49] left on its way, like small islands
+in the ocean, certain remnants of aboriginal tribes which survived
+and continued to exist despite the sustained hostile attitude of the
+flood of alien settlers around them. When stationed at Foochow I saw
+the settlements of one of these tribes which lived in the mountainous
+country not very many miles inland from that place. They were those
+of the Jung tribe, the members of which wore on their heads a large
+and peculiar headgear constructed of bamboo splints resting on a
+peg inserted in the chignon at the back of the head, the weight of
+the structure in front being counterbalanced by a pad, serving as
+a weight, attached to the end of the splints, which projected as
+far down as the middle of the shoulders. This framework was covered
+by a mantilla of red cloth which, when not rolled up, concealed the
+whole head and face, The following legend, related to me on the spot,
+explains the origin of this unusual headdress.
+
+
+Two Tribes at War
+
+In early times the Chief of a Chinese tribe (another version says
+an Emperor of China) was at war with the Chief of another tribe who
+came to attack his territory from the west. The Western Chief so badly
+defeated the Chinese army that none of the generals or soldiers could
+be induced to renew hostilities and endeavour to drive the enemy back
+to his own country. This distressed the Chinese Chief very much. As
+a last resort he issued a proclamation promising his daughter in
+marriage to anyone who would bring him the head of his enemy, the
+Chief of the West.
+
+
+The Chief's Promise
+
+The people in the palace talked much of this promise made by the
+Chief, and their conversation was listened to by a fine large white
+dog belonging to one of the generals. This dog, having pondered the
+matter well, waited until midnight and then stole over to the tent
+of the enemy Chief. The latter, as well as his guard, was asleep;
+or, if the guard was not, the dog succeeded in avoiding him in the
+darkness. Entering the tent, the dog gnawed through the Chief's
+neck and carried his head off in his mouth. At dawn he placed it at
+the Chinese Chief's feet, and waited for his reward. The Chief was
+soon able to verify the fact that his enemy had been slain, for the
+headless body had caused so much consternation in the hostile army
+that it had already begun to retreat from Chinese territory.
+
+
+A Strange Contract
+
+The dog then reminded the Chief of his promise, and asked for his
+daughter's hand in marriage. "But how," said the Chief, "can I possibly
+marry my daughter to a dog?" "Well," replied the dog, "will you agree
+to her marrying me if I change myself into a man?" This seemed a safe
+promise to make, and the Chief agreed. The dog then stipulated that
+he should be placed under a large bell and that no one should move
+it or look into it for a space of 280 days.
+
+
+The Chiefs Curiosity
+
+This was done, and for 279 days the bell remained unmoved, but on
+the 280th day the Chief could restrain his curiosity no longer,
+and tilting up the bell saw that the dog had changed into a man
+all except his head, the last day being required to complete the
+transformation. However, the spell was now broken, and the result was
+a man with a dog's head. Since it was the Chief's fault that, through
+his over-inquisitiveness, the dog could not become altogether a man,
+he was obliged to keep his promise, and the wedding duly took place,
+the bridegroom's head being veiled for the occasion by a red mantilla.
+
+
+The Origin of a Custom
+
+Unfortunately the fruit of the union took more after their father
+than their mother, and though comely of limb had exceedingly ugly
+features. [50] They were therefore obliged to continue to wear the
+head-covering adopted by their father at the marriage ceremony, and
+this became so much an integral part of the tribal costume that not
+only has it been worn ever since by their descendants, but a change
+of headgear has become synonymous with a change of husbands or a
+divorce. One account says that at the original bridal ceremony the
+bride wore the red mantilla to prevent her seeing her husband's ugly
+features, and that is why the headdress is worn by the women and not by
+the men, or more generally by the former than the latter, though others
+say that it was originally worn by the ugly children of both sexes.
+
+
+And of a Worship
+
+This legend explains the dog-worship of the Jung tribe, which now
+consists of four clans, with a separate surname (Lei, Chung, Lang,
+and Pan) to each, has a language of its own, and does not intermarry
+with the Foochow natives. At about the time of the old Chinese New
+Year (somewhere in February) they paint a large figure of a dog on a
+screen and worship it, saying it is their ancestor who was victorious
+over the Western invader.
+
+
+
+Conclusion
+
+If the greatness of nations is to be judged by the greatness of
+their myths (using the word 'great' in the sense of world-famous
+and of perennial influence), there would be few great nations, and
+China would not be one of them. As stated in an earlier chapter, the
+design has been to give an account of Chinese myth as it is, and not
+as it might have been under imaginary conditions. But for the Chinese
+philosophers we should in all probability have had more Chinese myths,
+but philosophy is unifying, and without it we might have had a break-up
+of China and perhaps no myths at all, or none specially belonging to
+China as a whole and separate independent nation. Had there been great,
+world-stirring myths there could hardly but have been also more wars,
+more cruelty, more wounding of the "heart that weeps and trembles,"
+more saturating of the earth with human blood. It is not a small thing
+to have conquered myth with philosophy, especially at a time when the
+Western world was still steeped in the grossest superstition. Therefore
+we may be thankful that the Chinese were and are a peace-loving, sober,
+agricultural, industrial, non-military, non-priest-ridden, literary,
+and philosophical people, and that we have instead of great myths a
+great people.
+
+But if the real test of greatness is purity and justice, then Chinese
+myth must be placed among the greatest of all; for it is not obscene,
+and it is invariably just.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Pronunciation of Chinese Words
+
+During the course of Chinese history the restriction of intercourse
+due to mountain-chains or other natural obstacles between various
+tribes or divisions of the Chinese people led to the birth of a number
+of families of languages, which again became the parents of numerous
+local dialects. These dialects have in most cases restricted ranges,
+so that that of one district may be partially or wholly unintelligible
+to the natives of another situated at a distance of only a hundred
+miles or less.
+
+The Court or Government language is that spoken in Peking and the
+metropolitan district, and is the language of official communication
+throughout the country. Though neither the oldest nor the purest
+Chinese dialect, it seems destined more than any other to come into
+universal use in China. The natives of each province or district will
+of course continue to speak to each other in their own particular
+dialect, and foreign missionaries or merchants, for example, whose
+special duties or transactions are connected with special districts
+will naturally learn and use the dialects of those districts; but as
+a means of intercommunication generally between natives of different
+provinces, or between natives and foreigners, the Court language seems
+likely to continue in use and to spread more and more over the whole
+country. It is to this that the following remarks apply.
+
+The essentials of correct pronunciation of Chinese are accuracy of
+sound, tone, and rhythm.
+
+
+Sound
+
+_Vowels and Diphthongs_
+
+_a_ as in _father_.
+
+_ai_ as in Italian _amái_.
+
+_ao_. Italian _ao_ in _Aosta_: sometimes _á-oo,_ the _au_ in _cauto_.
+
+_e_ in _eh_, _en_, as in _yet_, _lens_.
+
+_ei_. Nearly _ey_ in _grey_, but more as in Italian _lei_, _contei_.
+
+_ê_. The vowel-sound in _lurk_.
+
+_êi_. The foregoing _ê_ followed enclitically by _y_. _Money_ without
+the _n_ = _mêi_.
+
+_êrh._ The _urr_ in _purr_.
+
+_i_. As a single or final syllable the vowel-sound in _ease_, _tree_;
+in _ih_, _in_, _ing_, as in _chick_, _thing_.
+
+_ia_ generally as in the Italian _Maria_.
+
+_iai_. The _iai_ in the Italian _vecchiaia_.
+
+_iao_ as in _ia_ and _ao_, with the terminal peculiarity of the latter.
+
+_ie_ as in the Italian _siesta_.
+
+_io_. The French _io_ in _pioche_.
+
+_iu_ as a final, longer than the English _ew_. In _liu, niu_, almost
+_leyew, neyew_. In _chiung, hsiung, iung_, is _eeyong_ (_o_ in _roll_).
+
+_o._ Between vowel-sound in _awe_ and that in _roll_.
+
+_ou._ Really _êo_; _ou_ in _round_.
+
+_ü._ The vowel-sound in the French _tu, eût_.
+
+_üa._ Only in _üan_, which in some tones is _üen_. The _u_ as above;
+the _an_ as       in _antic_.
+
+_üe_. The vowel-sounds in the French _tu es_.
+
+_üo_. A disputed sound, used, if at all, interchangeably with _io_
+in certain       syllables.
+
+_u_. The _oo_ in _too_; in _un_ and _ung_ as in the Italian _punto_.
+
+_ua_. Nearly _ooa_, in many instances contracting to _wa_.
+
+_uai_ as in the Italian _guai_.
+
+_uei._ The vowel-sounds in the French _jouer_.
+
+_uê._ Only in final _uên_ = _ú-un_; frequently _wên_ or _wun_.
+
+_ui._ The vowel-sounds in _screwy_; in some tones _uei_.
+
+_uo._ The Italian _uo_ in _fuori_; often _wo_, and at times nearly
+_oo_.
+
+_u._ Between the _i_ in _bit_ and the _u_ in _shut_.
+
+_Consonants_
+
+_ch_ as in _chair_; but before _ih_ softened to _dj_.
+
+_ch'_. A strong breathing. _Mu_ch-ha_rm_ without the italicized
+letters = _ch'a_.
+
+_f_ as in farm.
+
+_h_ as _ch_ in Scotch _loch_.
+
+_hs_. A slight aspirate preceding and modifying the sibilant, which is,
+however, the stronger of the two consonants; _e.g. hsing_ = _hissing_
+without the first _i_,
+
+_j_. Nearly the French _j_ in _jaune_; the English _s_ in _fusion_.
+
+_k_. _c_ in _car_, _k_ in _king_; but when following other sounds
+often softened to       _g_ in _go, gate_.
+
+_k'_. The aspirate as in _ch'_. _Ki_ck-ha_rd_ without the italicized
+letters =        _k'a_; and _ki_ck-he_r_ == _k'ê_.
+
+_l_ as in English.
+
+_m_ as in English.
+
+_n_ as in English.
+
+_ng_. The italicized letters in the French mo_n ga_lant = _nga_;
+mo_n gai_llard = _ngai_; so_n go_sier = _ngo_.
+
+_p_ as in English.
+
+_p'_ The Irish pronunciation of _p_arty, _p_arliament. _Sla_p-ha_rd_
+without the italicized letters = _p'a_.
+
+_s_ as in English.
+
+_sh_ as in English.
+
+_ss_. Only in _ssu_. The object of employing _ss_ is to fix attention
+on the peculiar vowel-sound _u_ (see above).
+
+_t_ as in English.
+
+_t'_ The Irish _t_ in _t_orment. _Hi_t-ha_rd_ without the italicized
+letters = _t'a_.
+
+_ts_ as in _jetsam_; after another word softened to _ds_ in _gladsome_.
+
+_ts'._ The aspirate intervening, as in _ch'_, etc. _Be_ts-ha_rd_
+without the italicized         letters = _ts'a_.
+
+_tz_. Employed to mark the peculiarity of the final _u_; hardly of
+greater power than _ts_.
+
+_tz'_ like _ts'_. This, _tz_, and _ss_ used only before _u_.
+
+_w_ as in English; but very faint, or even non-existent, before _ü_.
+
+_y_ as in English; but very faint before _i_ or _ü_.
+
+
+Tone
+
+The correct pronunciation of the sound (_yin_) is not sufficient to
+make a Chinese spoken word intelligible. Unless the tone (_shêng_),
+or musical note, is simultaneously correctly given, either the wrong
+meaning or no meaning at all will be conveyed. The tone is the key in
+which the voice is pitched. Accent is a 'song added to,' and tone is
+emphasized accent. The number of these tones differs in the different
+dialects. In Pekingese there are now four. They are best indicated
+in transliteration by numbers added to the sound, thus:
+
+_pa_ (1) _pa_ (2) _pa_ (3) _pa_ (4)
+
+To say, for example, _pa_ (3) instead of _pa_ (1) would be as great
+a mistake as to say 'grasp' instead of 'trumpet.' Correctness of tone
+cannot be learnt except by oral instruction.
+
+
+Rhythm
+
+What tone is to the individual sound rhythm is to the sentence. This
+also, together with proper appreciation of the mutual modifications
+of tone and rhythm, can be correctly acquired only by oral instruction.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+[1] The inventions of the Chinese during a period of four thousand
+years may be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
+
+[2] _East of Asia Magazine_, i, 15-16.
+
+[3] _Cf_. Aristotle's belief that bugs arose spontaneously from sweat.
+
+[4] For the Buddhist account see _China Review_, xi, 80-82.
+
+[5] Compare the Japanese legend, which relates that the Sun-goddess was
+induced to come out of a cave by being tempted to gaze at herself in a
+mirror. See _Myths and Legends of Japan_, F. Hadland Davis, pp. 27-28.
+
+[6] See _Myths of the Norsemen_, by H. A. Guerber. These resemblances
+and the further one--namely, the dualism in the prechaotic epoch
+(a very interesting point in Scandinavian mythology)--illustrate the
+danger of inferring identity of origin from similarity of physical,
+intellectual, or moral results. Several remarkable parallelisms of
+Chinese religious and mythological beliefs with those recorded in
+the Hebrew scriptures may also be briefly noted. There is an age
+of virtue and happiness, a garden with a tree bearing 'apples of
+immortality,' guarded by a winged serpent (dragon), the fall of man,
+the beginnings of lust and war (the doctrine of original sin), a great
+flood, virgin-born god-men who rescue man from barbarism and endow
+him with superhuman attributes, discipleship, worship of a Virgin
+Mother, trinities, monasticism, celibacy, fasting, preaching, prayers,
+primeval Chaos, Paradise, etc. For details see _Chinese Repository,_
+vii, 520-521.
+
+[7] _Cf._ the dwarfs in the Scandinavian myth.
+
+[8] See Legge, _Shu ching_, ii, 320, note.
+
+[9] In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is as well to note that the
+mention of the _t'ai chi_ in the _Canon of Changes (I ching_) no more
+constituted monism the philosophy of China than did the steam-driven
+machinery mentioned by Hero of Alexandria constitute the first century
+B.C. the 'age of steam.' Similarly, to take another example, the idea
+of the earth's rotundity, though conceived centuries before Ptolemy
+in the second century, did not become established before the sixteenth
+century. It was, in fact, from the _I ching_ that the Chinese derived
+their _dualistic_ (not their monistic) conception of the world.
+
+[10] "Formerly, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, flying
+about and feeling that it was enjoying itself. I did not know that
+it was Chou. Suddenly I awoke and was myself again, the veritable
+Chou. I did not know whether it had formerly been Chou dreaming that
+he was a butterfly, or whether it was now a butterfly dreaming that
+it was Chou." _Chuang Tzu_, Book II.
+
+[11] See the present writer's _China of the Chinese_, chapter viii.
+
+[12] See Du Bose, pp. 282, 286, 361, 409, 410, and _Journal of the
+North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, xxxiv, 110-111.
+
+[13] Du Bose, p. 38.
+
+[14] He is sometimes represented as a reincarnation of Wên Chung;
+see p. 198.
+
+[16] See footnote, p. 107.
+
+[17] _Religion_, p. 177.
+
+[18] See _Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists_, by Sister Nivedita and
+Ananda Coomaraswamy.
+
+[19] The native accounts differ on this point. _Cf._ p. 16.
+
+[20] For further details concerning T'ai I see _Babylonian and Oriental
+Record_, vi, 145-150.
+
+[21] _Cf._ Chapter I.
+
+[22] She is the same as Ch'ang Ô, the name Hêng being changed to
+Ch'ang because it was the tabooed personal name of the Emperors Mu
+Tsung of the T'ang dynasty and Chên Tsung of the Sung dynasty.
+
+[23] See p. 45.
+
+[24] In Sagittarius, or the Sieve; Chinese constellation of the
+Leopard.
+
+[25] See Chapter XIV.
+
+[26] See Chapter XII.
+
+[27] This pagoda is distant about twenty _li_ (seven miles) from
+Peking. It is on the top of the hill, while the spring is at the foot,
+half a _li_ distant. The imperial family used the water from this
+spring, whence it was carried to Peking in carts.
+
+[28] See Chapter XII.
+
+[29] See Chapter IV.
+
+[30] This has reference to the change of Kuan Yin from the masculine
+to the feminine gender, already mentioned.
+
+[31] There is evidently a mistake here, since the King was twenty
+when he ascended the throne and fifty at the birth of Miao Shan.
+
+[32] _An Illustrated Account of the Eight Immortals' Mission to
+the East_.
+
+[33] A record of a journey to the Western Paradise to procure
+the Buddhist scriptures for the Emperor of China. The work is a
+dramatization of the introduction of Buddhism into China.
+
+[34] See p. 329.
+
+[35] See p. 195.
+
+[36] Literally 'golden oranges.' These are skilfully preserved by
+the Cantonese, and form a delicious sweetmeat for dessert.
+
+[37] Only slave-girls and women of the poorer classes and old women
+omit this very important part of a Chinese lady's toilet.
+
+[38] Alluding probably to the shape of the 'shoe' or ingot of silver.
+
+[39] Slave-girls do not have their feet compressed.
+
+[40] Wherein resides an old gentleman who ties together with a red cord
+the feet of those destined to become man and wife. From this bond there
+is no escape, no matter what distance may separate the affianced pair.
+
+[41] This proceeding is highly improper, but is 'winked at' in a
+large majority of Chinese betrothals.
+
+[42] The usual occupation of poor scholars who are ashamed to go
+into trade and who have not enterprise enough to start as doctors or
+fortune-tellers. Besides painting pictures and fans, and illustrating
+books, these men write fancy scrolls in the various ornamental styles
+so much prized by the Chinese; they keep accounts for people, and
+write or read business and private letters for the illiterate masses.
+
+[43] Say about £10.
+
+[44] Alchemy is first mentioned in Chinese history B.C. 133, and was
+widely cultivated in China during the Han dynasty by priests of the
+Taoist religion.
+
+[45] Kuan Chung and Pao Shu are the Chinese types of friendship. They
+were two statesmen of considerable ability who flourished in the
+seventh century B.C.
+
+[46] These are used, together with a heavy wooden _bâton_, by the
+Chinese washerman, the effect being most disastrous to a European
+wardrobe.
+
+[47] To provide coffins for poor people has ever been regarded as
+an act of transcendent merit. The tornado at Canton in April 1878,
+in which several thousand lives were lost, afforded an admirable
+opportunity for the exercise of this form of charity--an opportunity
+which was largely taken advantage of by the benevolent.
+
+[48] For usurping its prerogative by allowing Chia to obtain wealth.
+
+[49] See Chapter I.
+
+[50] Compare the legend of the tailed Miao Tzu tribes named Yao,
+'mountain-dogs' or 'jackals,' living on the mountain ranges in the
+north-west of Kuangtung Province, related in the _Jih chi so chih_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Myths and Legends of China, by E. T. C. Werner
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, by 
+E.M. Berens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome
+
+Author: E.M. Berens
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2007 [EBook #22381]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND LEGENDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Keith Edkins and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+_A HAND-BOOK OF MYTHOLOGY._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE
+
+MYTHS AND LEGENDS
+
+OF
+
+ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME.
+
+BY
+
+E. M. BERENS.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED FROM ANTIQUE SCULPTURES._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NEW YORK:
+
+MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.,
+
+43, 45 AND 47 EAST TENTH STREET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{i}
+
+PREFACE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The want of an interesting work on Greek and Roman mythology, suitable for
+the requirements of both boys and girls, has long been recognized by the
+principals of our advanced schools. The study of the classics themselves,
+even where the attainments of the pupil have rendered this feasible, has
+not been found altogether successful in giving to the student a clear and
+succinct idea of the religious beliefs of the ancients, and it has been
+suggested that a work which would so deal with the subject as to render it
+at once interesting and instructive would be hailed as a valuable
+introduction to the study of classic authors, and would be found to assist
+materially the labours of both master and pupil.
+
+In endeavouring to supply this want I have sought to place before the
+reader a lifelike picture of the deities of classical times as they were
+conceived and worshipped by the ancients themselves, and thereby to awaken
+in the minds of young students a desire to become more intimately
+acquainted with the noble productions of classical antiquity.
+
+It has been my aim to render the Legends, which form the second portion of
+the work, a picture, as it were, of old Greek life; its customs, its
+superstitions, and its princely hospitalities, for which reason they are
+given at somewhat greater length than is usual in works of the kind.
+
+In a chapter devoted to the purpose some interesting particulars have been
+collected respecting the public worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans
+(more especially of the former), to which is subjoined an account of their
+principal festivals.
+
+I may add that no pains have been spared in order that, without passing
+over details the omission of which would have {ii} marred the completeness
+of the work, not a single passage should be found which could possibly
+offend the most scrupulous delicacy; and also that I have purposely treated
+the subject with that reverence which I consider due to every religious
+system, however erroneous.
+
+It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the importance of the study of
+Mythology: our poems, our novels, and even our daily journals teem with
+classical allusions; nor can a visit to our art galleries and museums be
+fully enjoyed without something more than a mere superficial knowledge of a
+subject which has in all ages inspired painters, sculptors, and poets. It
+therefore only remains for me to express a hope that my little work may
+prove useful, not only to teachers and scholars, but also to a large class
+of general readers, who, in whiling away a leisure hour, may derive some
+pleasure and profit from its perusal.
+
+E. M. BERENS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{iii}
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  PART I.--MYTHS.
+                                                    Page
+  Introduction,                                       7
+
+  FIRST DYNASTY.
+  ORIGIN OF THE WORLD--
+      URANUS AND GÆA (Coelus and Terra),  11
+
+  SECOND DYNASTY.
+      CRONUS (Saturn),                      14
+      RHEA (Ops),                           18
+      DIVISION OF THE WORLD,                19
+      THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF MAN,     21
+
+  THIRD DYNASTY.
+  OLYMPIAN DIVINITIES--
+      ZEUS (Jupiter),                       26
+      HERA (Juno),                          38
+      PALLAS-ATHENE (Minerva),              43
+      THEMIS,                               48
+      HESTIA (Vesta),                       48
+      DEMETER (Ceres),                      50
+      APHRODITE (Venus),                    58
+      HELIOS (Sol),                         61
+      EOS (Aurora),                         67
+      PHOEBUS-APOLLO,                     68
+      HECATE,                               85
+      SELENE (Luna),                        86
+      ARTEMIS (Diana),                      87
+      HEPHÆSTUS (Vulcan),                   97
+      POSEIDON (Neptune),                  101
+
+  {iv}
+  SEA DIVINITIES--
+      OCEANUS,                             107
+      NEREUS,                              108
+      PROTEUS,                             108
+      TRITON AND THE TRITONS,              109
+      GLAUCUS,                             109
+      THETIS,                              110
+      THAUMAS, PHORCYS, AND CETO,          111
+      LEUCOTHEA,                           111
+      THE SIRENS,                          112
+      ARES (Mars),                         112
+      NIKE (Victoria),                     117
+      HERMES (Mercury),                    117
+      DIONYSUS (Bacchus or Liber),         124
+      AÏDES (Pluto),                       130
+      PLUTUS,                              137
+
+  MINOR DIVINITIES--
+      THE HARPIES,                         137
+      ERINYES, EUMENIDES (Furiæ, Diræ),    138
+      MOIRÆ OR FATES (Parcæ),              139
+      NEMESIS,                             141
+
+  NIGHT AND HER CHILDREN--
+      NYX (Nox),                           142
+      THANATOS (Mors), HYPNUS (Somnus),    142
+      MORPHEUS,                            143
+      THE GORGONS,                         144
+      GRÆÆ,                                145
+      SPHINX,                              146
+      TYCHE (Fortuna) and ANANKE (Necessitas),     147
+      KER,                                 149
+      ATE,                                 149
+      MOMUS,                               149
+      EROS (Cupid, Amor) and PSYCHE,       150
+      HYMEN,                               154
+      IRIS,                                155
+      HEBE (Juventas),                     156
+      GANYMEDES,                           157
+  {v}
+      THE MUSES,                           157
+      PEGASUS,                             162
+      THE HESPERIDES,                      162
+      CHARITES OR GRACES,                  163
+      HORÆ (Seasons),                      164
+      THE NYMPHS,                          165
+      THE WINDS,                           170
+      PAN (Faunus),                        171
+      THE SATYRS,                          174
+      PRIAPUS,                             175
+      ASCLEPIAS (Æsculapius),              176
+
+  ROMAN DIVINITIES--
+      JANUS,                               178
+      FLORA,                               180
+      ROBIGUS,                             180
+      POMONA,                              180
+      VERTUMNUS,                           181
+      PALES,                               181
+      PICUS,                               182
+      PICUMNUS AND PILUMNUS,               182
+      SILVANUS,                            182
+      TERMINUS,                            182
+      CONSUS,                              183
+      LIBITINA,                            183
+      LAVERNA,                             184
+      COMUS,                               184
+      CAMENÆ,                              184
+      GENII,                               185
+      MANES,                               185
+      PENATES,                             187
+
+  PUBLIC WORSHIP OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS--
+      TEMPLES,                             188
+      STATUES,                             190
+      ALTARS,                              191
+      PRIESTS,                             191
+      SACRIFICES,                          192
+      ORACLES,                             194
+      SOOTHSAYERS,                         195
+  {vi}
+      AUGURS,                              196
+      FESTIVALS,                           196
+
+  GREEK FESTIVALS--
+      ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES,                196
+      THESMOPHORIA,                        197
+      DIONYSIA,                            197
+      PANATHENÆA,                          199
+      DAPHNEPHORIA,                        200
+
+  ROMAN FESTIVALS--
+      SATURNALIA,                          200
+      CEREALIA,                            201
+      VESTALIA,                            201
+
+  PART II.--LEGENDS.
+      CADMUS,                              203
+      PERSEUS,                             205
+      ION,                                 210
+      DÆDALUS AND ICARUS,                  211
+      THE ARGONAUTS,                       213
+      PELOPS,                              232
+      HERACLES,                            234
+      BELLEROPHON,                         256
+      THESEUS,                             259
+      OEDIPUS,                           269
+      THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES,            272
+      THE EPIGONI,                         276
+      ALCMÆON AND THE NECKLACE,            277
+      THE HERACLIDÆ,                       280
+      THE SIEGE OF TROY,                   283
+      RETURN OF THE GREEKS FROM TROY,      304
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{7}
+
+MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART I.--MYTHS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+Before entering upon the many strange beliefs of the ancient Greeks, and
+the extraordinary number of gods they worshipped, we must first consider
+what kind of beings these divinities were.
+
+In appearance, the gods were supposed to resemble mortals, whom, however,
+they far surpassed in beauty, grandeur, and strength; they were also more
+commanding in stature, height being considered by the Greeks an attribute
+of beauty in man or woman. They resembled human beings in their feelings
+and habits, intermarrying and having children, and requiring daily
+nourishment to recruit their strength, and refreshing sleep to restore
+their energies. Their blood, a bright ethereal fluid called Ichor, never
+engendered disease, and, when shed, had the power of producing new life.
+
+The Greeks believed that the mental qualifications of their gods were of a
+much higher order than those of men, but nevertheless, as we shall see,
+they were not considered to be exempt from human passions, and we
+frequently behold them actuated by revenge, deceit, and jealousy. They,
+however, always punish the evil-doer, and visit with dire calamities any
+impious mortal who dares to neglect their worship or despise their rites.
+We often hear of them visiting mankind and partaking of their hospitality,
+and not unfrequently both gods and goddesses {8} become attached to
+mortals, with whom they unite themselves, the offspring of these unions
+being called heroes or demi-gods, who were usually renowned for their great
+strength and courage. But although there were so many points of resemblance
+between gods and men, there remained the one great characteristic
+distinction, viz., that the gods enjoyed immortality. Still, they were not
+invulnerable, and we often hear of them being wounded, and suffering in
+consequence such exquisite torture that they have earnestly prayed to be
+deprived of their privilege of immortality.
+
+The gods knew no limitation of time or space, being able to transport
+themselves to incredible distances with the speed of thought. They
+possessed the power of rendering themselves invisible at will, and could
+assume the forms of men or animals as it suited their convenience. They
+could also transform human beings into trees, stones, animals, &c., either
+as a punishment for their misdeeds, or as a means of protecting the
+individual, thus transformed, from impending danger. Their robes were like
+those worn by mortals, but were perfect in form and much finer in texture.
+Their weapons also resembled those used by mankind; we hear of spears,
+shields, helmets, bows and arrows, &c., being employed by the gods. Each
+deity possessed a beautiful chariot, which, drawn by horses or other
+animals of celestial breed, conveyed them rapidly over land and sea
+according to their pleasure. Most of these divinities lived on the summit
+of Mount Olympus, each possessing his or her individual habitation, and all
+meeting together on festive occasions in the council-chamber of the gods,
+where their banquets were enlivened by the sweet strains of Apollo's lyre,
+whilst the beautiful voices of the Muses poured forth their rich melodies
+to his harmonious accompaniment. Magnificent temples were erected to their
+honour, where they were worshipped with the greatest solemnity; rich gifts
+were presented to them, and animals, and indeed sometimes human beings,
+were sacrificed on their altars.
+
+In the study of Grecian mythology we meet with some {9} curious, and what
+may at first sight appear unaccountable notions. Thus we hear of terrible
+giants hurling rocks, upheaving mountains, and raising earthquakes which
+engulf whole armies; these ideas, however, may be accounted for by the
+awful convulsions of nature, which were in operation in pre-historic times.
+Again, the daily recurring phenomena, which to us, who know them to be the
+result of certain well-ascertained laws of nature, are so familiar as to
+excite no remark, were, to the early Greeks, matter of grave speculation,
+and not unfrequently of alarm. For instance, when they heard the awful roar
+of thunder, and saw vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by black clouds
+and torrents of rain, they believed that the great god of heaven was angry,
+and they trembled at his wrath. If the calm and tranquil sea became
+suddenly agitated, and the crested billows rose mountains high, dashing
+furiously against the rocks, and threatening destruction to all within
+their reach, the sea-god was supposed to be in a furious rage. When they
+beheld the sky glowing with the hues of coming day they thought that the
+goddess of the dawn, with rosy fingers, was drawing aside the dark veil of
+night, to allow her brother, the sun-god, to enter upon his brilliant
+career. Thus personifying all the powers of nature, this very imaginative
+and highly poetical nation beheld a divinity in every tree that grew, in
+every stream that flowed, in the bright beams of the glorious sun, and the
+clear, cold rays of the silvery moon; for them the whole universe lived and
+breathed, peopled by a thousand forms of grace and beauty.
+
+The most important of these divinities may have been something more than
+the mere creations of an active and poetical imagination. They were
+possibly human beings who had so distinguished themselves in life by their
+preeminence over their fellow-mortals that after death they were deified by
+the people among whom they lived, and the poets touched with their magic
+wand the details of lives, which, in more prosaic times, would simply have
+been recorded as illustrious. {10}
+
+It is highly probable that the reputed actions of these deified beings were
+commemorated by bards, who, travelling from one state to another,
+celebrated their praise in song; it therefore becomes exceedingly
+difficult, nay almost impossible, to separate bare facts from the
+exaggerations which never fail to accompany oral traditions.
+
+In order to exemplify this, let us suppose that Orpheus, the son of Apollo,
+so renowned for his extraordinary musical powers, had existed at the
+present day. We should no doubt have ranked him among the greatest of our
+musicians, and honoured him as such; but the Greeks, with their vivid
+imagination and poetic license, exaggerated his remarkable gifts, and
+attributed to his music supernatural influence over animate and inanimate
+nature. Thus we hear of wild beasts tamed, of mighty rivers arrested in
+their course, and of mountains being moved by the sweet tones of his voice.
+The theory here advanced may possibly prove useful in the future, in
+suggesting to the reader the probable basis of many of the extraordinary
+accounts we meet with in the study of classical mythology.
+
+And now a few words will be necessary concerning the religious beliefs of
+the Romans. When the Greeks first settled in Italy they found in the
+country they colonized a mythology belonging to the Celtic inhabitants,
+which, according to the Greek custom of paying reverence to all gods, known
+or unknown, they readily adopted, selecting and appropriating those
+divinities which had the greatest affinity to their own, and thus they
+formed a religious belief which naturally bore the impress of its ancient
+Greek source. As the primitive Celts, however, were a less civilized people
+than the Greeks, their mythology was of a more barbarous character, and
+this circumstance, combined with the fact that the Romans were not gifted
+with the vivid imagination of their Greek neighbours, leaves its mark on
+the Roman mythology, which is far less fertile in fanciful conceits, and
+deficient in all those fairy-like stories and wonderfully poetic ideas
+which so strongly characterize that of the Greeks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+{11}
+
+ORIGIN OF THE WORLD.--FIRST DYNASTY.
+
+URANUS AND GÆA. (COELUS AND TERRA.)
+
+The ancient Greeks had several different theories with regard to the origin
+of the world, but the generally accepted notion was that before this world
+came into existence, there was in its place a confused mass of shapeless
+elements called Chaos. These elements becoming at length consolidated (by
+what means does not appear), resolved themselves into two widely different
+substances, the lighter portion of which, soaring on high, formed the sky
+or firmament, and constituted itself into a vast, overarching vault, which
+protected the firm and solid mass beneath.
+
+Thus came into being the two first great primeval deities of the Greeks,
+Uranus and Ge or Gæa.
+
+Uranus, the more refined deity, represented the light and air of heaven,
+possessing the distinguishing qualities of light, heat, purity, and
+omnipresence, whilst Gæa, the firm, flat,[1] life-sustaining earth, was
+worshipped as the great all-nourishing mother. Her many titles refer to her
+more or less in this character, and she appears to have been universally
+revered among the Greeks, there being scarcely a city in Greece which did
+not contain a temple erected in her honour; indeed Gæa was held in such
+veneration that her name was always invoked whenever the gods took a solemn
+oath, made an emphatic declaration, or implored assistance.
+
+Uranus, the heaven, was believed to have united himself in marriage with
+Gæa, the earth; and a moment's reflection will show what a truly poetical,
+and also what a logical idea this was; for, taken in a figurative sense,
+{12} this union actually does exist. The smiles of heaven produce the
+flowers of earth, whereas his long-continued frowns exercise so depressing
+an influence upon his loving partner, that she no longer decks herself in
+bright and festive robes, but responds with ready sympathy to his
+melancholy mood.
+
+The first-born child of Uranus and Gæa was Oceanus,[2] the ocean stream,
+that vast expanse of ever-flowing water which encircled the earth. Here we
+meet with another logical though fanciful conclusion, which a very slight
+knowledge of the workings of nature proves to have been just and true. The
+ocean is formed from the rains which descend from heaven and the streams
+which flow from earth. By making Oceanus therefore the offspring of Uranus
+and Gæa, the ancients, if we take this notion in its literal sense, merely
+assert that the ocean is produced by the combined influence of heaven and
+earth, whilst at the same time their fervid and poetical imagination led
+them to see in this, as in all manifestations of the powers of nature, an
+actual, tangible divinity.
+
+But Uranus, the heaven, the embodiment of light, heat, and the breath of
+life, produced offspring who were of a much less material nature than his
+son Oceanus. These other children of his were supposed to occupy the
+intermediate space which divided him from Gæa. Nearest to Uranus, and just
+beneath him, came Aether (Ether), a bright creation representing that
+highly rarified atmosphere which immortals alone could breathe. Then
+followed Aër (Air), which was in close proximity to Gæa, and represented,
+as its name implies, the grosser atmosphere surrounding the earth which
+mortals could freely breathe, and without which they would perish. Aether
+and Aër were separated from each other by divinities called Nephelae. These
+were their restless and wandering sisters, who existed in the form of
+clouds, ever {13} floating between Aether and Aër. Gæa also produced the
+mountains, and Pontus (the sea). She united herself with the latter, and
+their offspring were the sea-deities Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and
+Eurybia.
+
+Co-existent with Uranus and Gæa were two mighty powers who were also the
+offspring of Chaos. These were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), who
+formed a striking contrast to the cheerful light of heaven and the bright
+smiles of earth. Erebus reigned in that mysterious world below where no ray
+of sunshine, no gleam of daylight, nor vestige of health-giving terrestrial
+life ever appeared. Nyx, the sister of Erebus, represented Night, and was
+worshipped by the ancients with the greatest solemnity.
+
+Uranus was also supposed to have been united to Nyx, but only in his
+capacity as god of light, he being considered the source and fountain of
+all light, and their children were Eos (Aurora), the Dawn, and Hemera, the
+Daylight. Nyx again, on her side was also doubly united, having been
+married at some indefinite period to Erebus.
+
+In addition to those children of heaven and earth already enumerated,
+Uranus and Gæa produced two distinctly different races of beings called
+Giants and Titans. The Giants personified brute strength alone, but the
+Titans united to their great physical power intellectual qualifications
+variously developed. There were three Giants, Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges,
+who each possessed a hundred hands and fifty heads, and were known
+collectively by the name of the Hecatoncheires, which signified
+hundred-handed. These mighty Giants could shake the universe and produce
+earthquakes; it is therefore evident that they represented those active
+subterranean forces to which allusion has been made in the opening chapter.
+The Titans were twelve in number; their names were: Oceanus, Ceos, Crios,
+Hyperion, Iapetus, Cronus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and
+Tethys.
+
+Now Uranus, the chaste light of heaven, the essence of all that is bright
+and pleasing, held in abhorrence his {14} crude, rough, and turbulent
+offspring, the Giants, and moreover feared that their great power might
+eventually prove hurtful to himself. He therefore hurled them into
+Tartarus, that portion of the lower world which served as the subterranean
+dungeon of the gods. In order to avenge the oppression of her children, the
+Giants, Gæa instigated a conspiracy on the part of the Titans against
+Uranus, which was carried to a successful issue by her son Cronus. He
+wounded his father, and from the blood of the wound which fell upon the
+earth sprang a race of monstrous beings also called Giants. Assisted by his
+brother-Titans, Cronus succeeded in dethroning his father, who, enraged at
+his defeat, cursed his rebellious son, and foretold to him a similar fate.
+Cronus now became invested with supreme power, and assigned to his brothers
+offices of distinction, subordinate only to himself. Subsequently, however,
+when, secure of his position, he no longer needed their assistance, he
+basely repaid their former services with treachery, made war upon his
+brothers and faithful allies, and, assisted by the Giants, completely
+defeated them, sending such as resisted his all-conquering arm down into
+the lowest depths of Tartarus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND DYNASTY.
+
+CRONUS (SATURN).
+
+Cronus was the god of time in its sense of eternal duration. He married
+Rhea, daughter of Uranus and Gæa, a very important divinity, to whom a
+special chapter will be devoted hereafter. Their children were, three sons:
+Aïdes (Pluto), Poseidon (Neptune), Zeus (Jupiter), and three daughters:
+Hestia (Vesta), Demeter (Ceres), and Hera (Juno). Cronus, having an uneasy
+conscience, was afraid that his children might one day rise up against his
+authority, and thus verify the prediction of his father {15} Uranus. In
+order, therefore, to render the prophecy impossible of fulfilment, Cronus
+swallowed each child as soon as it was born,[3] greatly to the sorrow and
+indignation of his wife Rhea. When it came to Zeus, the sixth and last,
+Rhea resolved to try and save this one child at least, to love and cherish,
+and appealed to her parents, Uranus and Gæa, for counsel and assistance. By
+their advice she wrapped a stone in baby-clothes, and Cronus, in eager
+haste, swallowed it, without noticing the deception. The child thus saved,
+eventually, as we shall see, dethroned his father Cronus, became supreme
+god in his stead, and was universally venerated as the great national god
+of the Greeks.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Anxious to preserve the secret of his existence from Cronus, Rhea sent the
+infant Zeus secretly to Crete, where he was nourished, protected, and
+educated. A sacred goat, called Amalthea, supplied the place of his mother,
+by providing him with milk; nymphs, called Melissae, fed him with honey,
+and eagles and doves brought him nectar and ambrosia.[4] He was kept
+concealed in a cave in the heart of Mount Ida, and the Curetes, or priests
+of Rhea, by beating their shields together, kept up a constant noise at the
+entrance, which drowned the cries of the child and frightened away all
+intruders. Under the watchful care of the Nymphs the infant Zeus throve
+rapidly, developing great physical powers, combined with {16} extraordinary
+wisdom and intelligence. Grown to manhood, he determined to compel his
+father to restore his brothers and sisters to the light of day, and is said
+to have been assisted in this difficult task by the goddess Metis, who
+artfully persuaded Cronus to drink a potion, which caused him to give back
+the children he had swallowed. The stone which had counterfeited Zeus was
+placed at Delphi, where it was long exhibited as a sacred relic.
+
+Cronus was so enraged at being circumvented that war between the father and
+son became inevitable. The rival forces ranged themselves on two separate
+high mountains in Thessaly; Zeus, with his brothers and sisters, took his
+stand on Mount Olympus, where he was joined by Oceanus, and others of the
+Titans, who had forsaken Cronus on account of his oppressions. Cronus and
+his brother-Titans took possession of Mount Othrys, and prepared for
+battle. The struggle was long and fierce, and at length Zeus, finding that
+he was no nearer victory than before, bethought himself of the existence of
+the imprisoned Giants, and knowing that they would be able to render him
+most powerful assistance, he hastened to liberate them. He also called to
+his aid the Cyclops (sons of Poseidon and Amphitrite),[5] who had only one
+eye each in the middle of their foreheads, and were called Brontes
+(Thunder), Steropes (Lightning), and Pyracmon (Fire-anvil). They promptly
+responded to his summons for help, and brought with them tremendous
+thunderbolts which the Hecatoncheires, with their hundred hands, hurled
+down upon the enemy, at the same time raising mighty earthquakes, which
+swallowed up and destroyed all who opposed them. Aided by these new and
+powerful allies, Zeus now made a furious onslaught on his enemies, and so
+tremendous was the encounter that all nature is said to have throbbed in
+accord with this mighty effort of the celestial deities. The sea rose
+mountains high, and its angry billows {17} hissed and foamed; the earth
+shook to its foundations, the heavens sent forth rolling thunder, and flash
+after flash of death-bringing lightning, whilst a blinding mist enveloped
+Cronus and his allies.
+
+And now the fortunes of war began to turn, and victory smiled on Zeus.
+Cronus and his army were completely overthrown, his brothers despatched to
+the gloomy depths of the lower world, and Cronus himself was banished from
+his kingdom and deprived for ever of the supreme power, which now became
+vested in his son Zeus. This war was called the Titanomachia, and is most
+graphically described by the old classic poets.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+With the defeat of Cronus and his banishment from his dominions, his career
+as a ruling Greek divinity entirely ceases. But being, like all the gods,
+immortal, he was supposed to be still in existence, though possessing no
+longer either influence or authority, his place being filled to a certain
+extent by his descendant and successor, Zeus.
+
+Cronus is often represented as an old man leaning on a scythe, with an
+hour-glass in his hand. The hour-glass symbolizes the fast-fleeting moments
+as they succeed each other unceasingly; the scythe is emblematical of time,
+which mows down all before it.
+
+SATURN.
+
+The Romans, according to their custom of identifying their deities with
+those of the Greek gods whose attributes were similar to their own,
+declared Cronus to be identical with their old agricultural divinity
+Saturn. They believed that after his defeat in the {18} Titanomachia and
+his banishment from his dominions by Zeus, he took refuge with Janus, king
+of Italy, who received the exiled deity with great kindness, and even
+shared his throne with him. Their united reign became so thoroughly
+peaceful and happy, and was distinguished by such uninterrupted prosperity,
+that it was called the Golden Age.
+
+Saturn is usually represented bearing a sickle in the one hand and a
+wheat-sheaf in the other.
+
+A temple was erected to him at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, in which
+were deposited the public treasury and the laws of the state.
+
+RHEA (OPS).
+
+Rhea, the wife of Cronus, and mother of Zeus and the other great gods of
+Olympus, personified the earth, and was regarded as the Great Mother and
+unceasing producer of all plant-life. She was also believed to exercise
+unbounded sway over the animal creation, more especially over the lion, the
+noble king of beasts. Rhea is generally represented wearing a crown of
+turrets or towers and seated on a throne, with lions crouching at her feet.
+She is sometimes depicted sitting in a chariot, drawn by lions.
+
+The principal seat of her worship, which was always of a very riotous
+character, was at Crete. At her festivals, which took place at night, the
+wildest music of flutes, cymbals, and drums resounded, whilst joyful shouts
+and cries, accompanied by dancing and loud stamping of feet, filled the
+air.
+
+This divinity was introduced into Crete by its first colonists from
+Phrygia, in Asia Minor, in which country she was worshipped under the name
+of Cybele. The people of Crete adored her as the Great Mother, more
+especially in her signification as the sustainer of the vegetable world.
+Seeing, however, that year by year, as winter appears, all her glory
+vanishes, her flowers fade, and her trees become leafless, they poetically
+expressed this process of nature under the figure of a lost love. She {19}
+was said to have been tenderly attached to a youth of remarkable beauty,
+named Atys, who, to her grief and indignation, proved faithless to her. He
+was about to unite himself to a nymph called Sagaris, when, in the midst of
+the wedding feast, the rage of the incensed goddess suddenly burst forth
+upon all present. A panic seized the assembled guests, and Atys, becoming
+afflicted with temporary madness, fled to the mountains and destroyed
+himself. Cybele, moved with sorrow and regret, instituted a yearly mourning
+for his loss, when her priests, the Corybantes, with their usual noisy
+accompaniments, marched into the mountains to seek the lost youth. Having
+discovered him[6] they gave full vent to their ecstatic delight by
+indulging in the most violent gesticulations, dancing, shouting, and, at
+the same time, wounding and gashing themselves in a frightful manner.
+
+OPS.
+
+In Rome the Greek Rhea was identified with Ops, the goddess of plenty, the
+wife of Saturn, who had a variety of appellations. She was called
+Magna-Mater, Mater-Deorum, Berecynthia-Idea, and also Dindymene. This
+latter title she acquired from three high mountains in Phrygia, whence she
+was brought to Rome as Cybele during the second Punic war, B.C. 205, in
+obedience to an injunction contained in the Sybilline books. She was
+represented as a matron crowned with towers, seated in a chariot drawn by
+lions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DIVISION OF THE WORLD.
+
+We will now return to Zeus and his brothers, who, having gained a complete
+victory over their enemies, began to consider how the world, which they had
+{20} conquered, should be divided between them. At last it was settled by
+lot that Zeus should reign supreme in Heaven, whilst Aïdes governed the
+Lower World, and Poseidon had full command over the Sea, but the supremacy
+of Zeus was recognized in all three kingdoms, in heaven, on earth (in which
+of course the sea was included), and under the earth. Zeus held his court
+on the top of Mount Olympus, whose summit was beyond the clouds; the
+dominions of Aïdes were the gloomy unknown regions below the earth; and
+Poseidon reigned over the sea. It will be seen that the realm of each of
+these gods was enveloped in mystery. Olympus was shrouded in mists, Hades
+was wrapt in gloomy darkness, and the sea was, and indeed still is, a
+source of wonder and deep interest. Hence we see that what to other nations
+were merely strange phenomena, served this poetical and imaginative people
+as a foundation upon which to build the wonderful stories of their
+mythology.
+
+The division of the world being now satisfactorily arranged, it would seem
+that all things ought to have gone on smoothly, but such was not the case.
+Trouble arose in an unlooked-for quarter. The Giants, those hideous
+monsters (some with legs formed of serpents) who had sprung from the earth
+and the blood of Uranus, declared war against the triumphant deities of
+Olympus, and a struggle ensued, which, in consequence of Gæa having made
+these children of hers invincible as long as they kept their feet on the
+ground, was wearisome and protracted. Their mother's precaution, however,
+was rendered unavailing by pieces of rock being hurled upon them, which
+threw them down, and their feet being no longer placed firmly on their
+mother-earth, they were overcome, and this tedious war (which was called
+the Gigantomachia) at last came to an end. Among the most daring of these
+earth-born giants were Enceladus, Rhoetus, and the valiant Mimas, who, with
+youthful fire and energy, hurled against heaven great masses of rock and
+burning oak-trees, and defied the lightnings of Zeus. One of the most
+powerful monsters who opposed Zeus in this {21} war was called Typhon or
+Typhoeus. He was the youngest son of Tartarus and Gæa, and had a hundred
+heads, with eyes which struck terror to the beholders, and awe-inspiring
+voices frightful to hear. This dreadful monster resolved to conquer both
+gods and men, but his plans were at length defeated by Zeus, who, after a
+violent encounter, succeeded in destroying him with a thunderbolt, but not
+before he had so terrified the gods that they had fled for refuge to Egypt,
+where they metamorphosed themselves into different animals and thus
+escaped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
+
+Just as there were several theories concerning the origin of the world, so
+there were various accounts of the creation of man.
+
+The first natural belief of the Greek people was that man had sprung from
+the earth. They saw the tender plants and flowers force their way through
+the ground in the early spring of the year after the frost of winter had
+disappeared, and so they naturally concluded that man must also have issued
+from the earth in a similar manner. Like the wild plants and flowers, he
+was supposed to have had no cultivation, and resembled in his habits the
+untamed beasts of the field, having no habitation except that which nature
+had provided in the holes of the rocks, and in the dense forests whose
+overarching boughs protected him from the inclemency of the weather.
+
+In the course of time these primitive human beings became tamed and
+civilized by the gods and heroes, who taught them to work in metals, to
+build houses, and other useful arts of civilization. But the human race
+became in the course of time so degenerate that the gods resolved to
+destroy all mankind by means of a flood; Deucalion {22} (son of Prometheus)
+and his wife Pyrrha, being, on account of their piety, the only mortals
+saved.
+
+By the command of his father, Deucalion built a ship, in which he and his
+wife took refuge during the deluge, which lasted for nine days. When the
+waters abated the ship rested on Mount Othrys in Thessaly, or according to
+some on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion and his wife now consulted the oracle of
+Themis as to how the human race might be restored. The answer was, that
+they were to cover their heads, and throw the bones of their mother behind
+them. For some time they were perplexed as to the meaning of the oracular
+command, but at length both agreed that by the bones of their mother were
+meant the stones of the earth. They accordingly took up stones from the
+mountain side and cast them over their shoulders. From those thrown by
+Deucalion there sprang up men, and from those thrown by Pyrrha, women.
+
+After the lapse of time the theory of Autochthony (from _autos_, self, and
+_chthon_, earth) was laid aside. When this belief existed there were no
+religious teachers whatever; but in course of time temples were raised in
+honour of the different gods, and priests appointed to offer sacrifices to
+them and conduct their worship. These priests were looked upon as
+authorities in all religious matters, and the doctrine they taught was,
+that man had been created by the gods, and that there had been several
+successive ages of men, which were called the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and
+Iron Ages.
+
+Life in the Golden Age was one unceasing round of ever-recurring pleasures
+unmarred by sorrow or care. The favoured mortals living at this happy time
+led pure and joyous lives, thinking no evil, and doing no wrong. The earth
+brought forth fruits and flowers without toil or labour in plentiful
+luxuriance, and war was unknown. This delightful and god-like existence
+lasted for hundreds of years, and when at length life on earth was ended,
+death laid his hand so gently upon them that they passed painlessly away in
+a happy dream, and continued their existence as ministering spirits in
+Hades, watching over and {23} protecting those they had loved and left
+behind on earth. The men of the Silver Age[7] were a long time growing up,
+and during their childhood, which lasted a hundred years, they suffered
+from ill-health and extreme debility. When they at last became men they
+lived but a short time, for they would not abstain from mutual injury, nor
+pay the service due to the gods, and were therefore banished to Hades.
+There, unlike the beings of the Golden Age, they exercised no beneficent
+supervision over the dear ones left behind, but wandered about as restless
+spirits, always sighing for the lost pleasures they had enjoyed in life.
+
+The men of the Brazen Age were quite a different race of beings, being as
+strong and powerful as those of the Silver Age were weak and enervated.
+Everything which surrounded them was of brass; their arms, their tools,
+their dwellings, and all that they made. Their characters seem to have
+resembled the metal in which they delighted; their minds and hearts were
+hard, obdurate, and cruel. They led a life of strife and contention,
+introduced into the world, which had hitherto known nothing but peace and
+tranquillity, the scourge of war, and were in fact only happy when fighting
+and quarrelling with each other. Hitherto Themis, the goddess of Justice,
+had been living among mankind, but becoming disheartened at their evil
+doings, she abandoned the earth, and winged her flight back to heaven. At
+last the gods became so tired of their evil deeds and continual
+dissensions, that they removed them from the face of the earth, and sent
+them down to Hades to share the fate of their predecessors.
+
+We now come to the men of the Iron Age. The earth, no longer teeming with
+fruitfulness, only yielded her increase after much toil and labour. The
+goddess of Justice having abandoned mankind, no influence remained
+sufficiently powerful to preserve them from every kind of wickedness and
+sin. This condition grew worse as time went on, until at last Zeus in his
+anger let loose the water-courses from above, and drowned every {24}
+individual of this evil race, except Deucalion and Pyrrha.
+
+The theory of Hesiod,[8] the oldest of all the Greek poets, was that the
+Titan Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, had formed man out of clay, and that
+Athene had breathed a soul into him. Full of love for the beings he had
+called into existence, Prometheus determined to elevate their minds and
+improve their condition in every way; he therefore taught them astronomy,
+mathematics, the alphabet, how to cure diseases, and the art of divination.
+He created this race in such great numbers that the gods began to see the
+necessity of instituting certain fixed laws with regard to the sacrifices
+due to them, and the worship to which they considered themselves entitled
+from mankind in return for the protection which they accorded them. An
+assembly was therefore convened at Mecone in order to settle these points.
+It was decided that Prometheus, as the advocate of man, should slay an ox,
+which should be divided into two equal parts, and that the gods should
+select one portion which should henceforth, in all future sacrifices, be
+set apart for them. Prometheus so divided the ox that one part consisted of
+the bones (which formed of course the least valuable portion of the
+animal), artfully concealed by the white fat; whilst the other contained
+all the edible parts, which he covered with the skin, and on the top of all
+he laid the stomach.
+
+Zeus, pretending to be deceived, chose the heap of bones, but he saw
+through the stratagem, and was so angry at the deception practised on him
+by Prometheus that he avenged himself by refusing to mortals the gift of
+fire. {25} Prometheus, however, resolved to brave the anger of the great
+ruler of Olympus, and to obtain from heaven the vital spark so necessary
+for the further progress and comfort of the human race. He accordingly
+contrived to steal some sparks from the chariot of the sun, which he
+conveyed to earth hidden in a hollow tube. Furious at being again
+outwitted, Zeus determined to be revenged first on mankind, and then on
+Prometheus. To punish the former he commanded Hephæstus (Vulcan) to mould a
+beautiful woman out of clay, and determined that through her
+instrumentality trouble and misery should be brought into the world.
+
+The gods were so charmed with the graceful and artistic creation of
+Hephæstus, that they all determined to endow her with some special gift.
+Hermes (Mercury) bestowed on her a smooth persuasive tongue, Aphrodite gave
+her beauty and the art of pleasing; the Graces made her fascinating, and
+Athene (Minerva) gifted her with the possession of feminine
+accomplishments. She was called Pandora, which means all-gifted, having
+received every attribute necessary to make her charming and irresistible.
+Thus beautifully formed and endowed, this exquisite creature, attired by
+the Graces, and crowned with flowers by the Seasons, was conducted to the
+house of Epimetheus[9] by Hermes the messenger of the gods. Now Epimetheus
+had been warned by his brother not to accept any gift whatever from the
+gods; but he was so fascinated by the beautiful being who suddenly appeared
+before him, that he welcomed her to his home, and made her his wife. It was
+not long, however, before he had cause to regret his weakness.
+
+He had in his possession a jar of rare workmanship, containing all the
+blessings reserved by the gods for mankind, which he had been expressly
+forbidden to open. But woman's proverbial curiosity could not withstand so
+great a temptation, and Pandora determined to solve the mystery at any
+cost. Watching her opportunity she raised the lid, and immediately all the
+blessings which {26} the gods had thus reserved for mankind took wing and
+flew away. But all was not lost. Just as Hope (which lay at the bottom) was
+about to escape, Pandora hastily closed the lid of the jar, and thus
+preserved to man that never-failing solace which helps him to bear with
+courage the many ills which assail him.[10]
+
+Having punished mankind, Zeus determined to execute vengeance on
+Prometheus. He accordingly chained him to a rock in Mount Caucasus, and
+sent an eagle every day to gnaw away his liver, which grew again every
+night ready for fresh torments. For thirty years Prometheus endured this
+fearful punishment; but at length Zeus relented, and permitted his son
+Heracles (Hercules) to kill the eagle, and the sufferer was released.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THIRD DYNASTY--OLYMPIAN DIVINITIES.
+
+ZEUS[11] (JUPITER).
+
+Zeus, the great presiding deity of the universe, the ruler of heaven and
+earth, was regarded by the Greeks, first, as the god of all aërial
+phenomena; secondly, as the personification of the laws of nature; thirdly,
+as lord of state-life; and fourthly, as the father of gods and men.
+
+As the god of aërial phenomena he could, by shaking his ægis,[12] produce
+storms, tempests, and intense darkness. At his command the mighty thunder
+rolls, the lightning flashes, and the clouds open and pour forth their
+refreshing streams to fructify the earth.
+
+As the personification of the operations of nature, he represents those
+grand laws of unchanging and harmonious order, by which not only the
+physical but also {27} the moral world is governed. Hence he is the god of
+regulated time as marked by the changing seasons, and by the regular
+succession of day and night, in contradistinction to his father Cronus, who
+represents time absolutely, _i.e._ eternity.
+
+As the lord of state-life, he is the founder of kingly power, the upholder
+of all institutions connected with the state, and the special friend and
+patron of princes, whom he guards and assists with his advice and counsel.
+He protects the assembly of the people, and, in fact, watches over the
+welfare of the whole community.
+
+As the father of the gods, Zeus sees that each deity performs his or her
+individual duty, punishes their misdeeds, settles their disputes, and acts
+towards them on all occasions as their all-knowing counsellor and mighty
+friend.
+
+As the father of men, he takes a paternal interest in the actions and
+well-being of mortals. He watches over them with tender solicitude,
+rewarding truth, charity, and uprightness, but severely punishing perjury,
+cruelty, and want of hospitality. Even the poorest and most forlorn
+wanderer finds in him a powerful advocate, for he, by a wise and merciful
+dispensation, ordains that the mighty ones of the earth should succour
+their distressed and needy brethren.
+
+The Greeks believed that the home of this their mighty and all-powerful
+deity was on the top of Mount Olympus, that high and lofty mountain between
+Thessaly and Macedon, whose summit, wrapt in clouds and mist, was hidden
+from mortal view. It was supposed that this mysterious region, which even a
+bird could not reach, extended beyond the clouds right into Aether, the
+realm of the immortal gods. The poets describe this ethereal atmosphere as
+bright, glistening, and refreshing, exercising a peculiar, gladdening
+influence over the minds and hearts of those privileged beings permitted to
+share its delights. Here youth never ages, and the passing years leave no
+traces on its favoured inhabitants. On the cloud-capped summit of Olympus
+was the palace of {28} Zeus and Hera, of burnished gold, chased silver, and
+gleaming ivory. Lower down were the homes of the other gods, which, though
+less commanding in position and size, were yet similar to that of Zeus in
+design and workmanship, all being the work of the divine artist Hephæstus.
+Below these were other palaces of silver, ebony, ivory, or burnished brass,
+where the Heroes, or Demi-gods, resided.
+
+As the worship of Zeus formed so important a feature in the religion of the
+Greeks, his statues were necessarily both numerous and magnificent. He is
+usually represented as a man of noble and imposing mien, his countenance
+expressing all the lofty majesty of the omnipotent ruler of the universe,
+combined with the gracious, yet serious, benignity of the father and friend
+of mankind. He may be recognized by his rich flowing beard, and the thick
+masses of hair, which rise straight from the high and intellectual forehead
+and fall to his shoulders in clustering locks. The nose is large and finely
+formed, and the slightly-opened lips impart an air of sympathetic
+kindliness which invites confidence. He is always accompanied by an eagle,
+which either surmounts his sceptre, or sits at his feet; he generally bears
+in his uplifted hand a sheaf of thunder-bolts, just ready to be hurled,
+whilst in the other he holds the lightning. The head is frequently
+encircled with a wreath of oak-leaves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The most celebrated statue of the Olympian Zeus was that by the famous
+Athenian sculptor Phidias, which was forty feet high, and stood in the
+temple of Zeus at Olympia. It was formed of ivory and gold, and was {29}
+such a masterpiece of art, that it was reckoned among the seven wonders of
+the world. It represented the god, seated on a throne, holding in his right
+hand a life-sized image of Nike (the goddess of Victory), and in his left a
+royal sceptre, surmounted by an eagle. It is said that the great sculptor
+had concentrated all the marvellous powers of his genius on this sublime
+conception, and earnestly entreated Zeus to give him a decided proof that
+his labours were approved. An answer to his prayer came through the open
+roof of the temple in the shape of a flash of lightning, which Phidias
+interpreted as a sign that the god of heaven was pleased with his work.
+
+Zeus was first worshipped at Dodona in Epirus, where, at the foot of Mount
+Tomarus, on the woody shore of Lake Joanina, was his famous oracle, the
+most ancient in Greece. Here the voice of the eternal and invisible god was
+supposed to be heard in the rustling leaves of a giant oak, announcing to
+mankind the will of heaven and the destiny of mortals; these revelations
+being interpreted to the people by the priests of Zeus, who were called
+Selli. Recent excavations which have been made at this spot have brought to
+light the ruins of the ancient temple of Zeus, and also, among other
+interesting relics, some plates of lead, on which are engraved inquiries
+which were evidently made by certain individuals who consulted the oracle.
+These little leaden plates speak to us, as it were, in a curiously homely
+manner of a by-gone time in the buried past. One person inquires what god
+he should apply to for health and fortune; another asks for advice
+concerning his child; and a third, evidently a shepherd, promises a gift to
+the oracle should a speculation in sheep turn out successfully. Had these
+little memorials been of gold instead of lead, they would doubtless have
+shared the fate of the numerous treasures which adorned this and other
+temples, in the universal pillage which took place when Greece fell into
+the hands of barbarians.
+
+Though Dodona was the most ancient of his shrines, the great national seat
+of the worship of Zeus was at Olympia in Elis, where there was a
+magnificent temple {30} dedicated to him, containing the famous colossal
+statue by Phidias above described. Crowds of devout worshippers flocked to
+this world-renowned fane from all parts of Greece, not only to pay homage
+to their supreme deity, but also to join in the celebrated games which were
+held there at intervals of four years. The Olympic games were such a
+thoroughly national institution, that even Greeks who had left their native
+country made a point of returning on these occasions, if possible, in order
+to contend with their fellow-countrymen in the various athletic sports
+which took place at these festivals.
+
+It will be seen on reflection that in a country like Greece, which
+contained so many petty states, often at variance with each other, these
+national gatherings must have been most valuable as a means of uniting the
+Greeks in one great bond of brotherhood. On these festive occasions the
+whole nation met together, forgetting for the moment all past differences,
+and uniting in the enjoyment of the same festivities.
+
+It will doubtless have been remarked that in the representations of Zeus he
+is always accompanied by an eagle. This royal bird was sacred to him,
+probably from the fact of its being the only creature capable of gazing at
+the sun without being dazzled, which may have suggested the idea that it
+was able to contemplate the splendour of divine majesty unshrinkingly.
+
+The oak-tree, and also the summits of mountains, were sacred to Zeus. His
+sacrifices consisted of white bulls, cows, and goats.
+
+Zeus had seven immortal wives, whose names were Metis, Themis, Eurynome,
+Demeter, Mnemosyne, Leto, and Hera.
+
+METIS, his first wife, was one of the Oceanides or sea-nymphs. She was the
+personification of prudence and wisdom, a convincing proof of which she
+displayed in her successful administration of the potion which caused
+Cronus to yield up his children. She was endowed with the gift of prophecy,
+and foretold to Zeus that one of their children would gain ascendency over
+{31} him. In order, therefore, to avert the possibility of the prediction
+being fulfilled he swallowed her before any children were born to them.
+Feeling afterwards violent pains in his head, he sent for Hephæstus, and
+ordered him to open it with an axe. His command was obeyed, and out sprang,
+with a loud and martial shout, a beautiful being, clad in armour from head
+to foot. This was Athene (Minerva), goddess of Armed Resistance and Wisdom.
+
+THEMIS was the goddess of Justice, Law, and Order.
+
+EURYNOME was one of the Oceanides, and the mother of the Charites or
+Graces.
+
+DEMETER,[13] the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was the goddess of
+Agriculture.
+
+MNEMOSYNE, the daughter of Uranus and Gæa, was the goddess of Memory and
+the mother of the nine Muses.
+
+LETO (Latona) was the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe. She was gifted with
+wonderful beauty, and was tenderly loved by Zeus, but her lot was far from
+being a happy one, for Hera, being extremely jealous of her, persecuted her
+with inveterate cruelty, and sent the dreadful serpent Python[14] to
+terrify and torment her wherever she went. But Zeus, who had observed with
+the deepest compassion her weary wanderings and agonized fears, resolved to
+create for her some place of refuge, however humble, where she might feel
+herself safe from the venomous attacks of the serpent. He therefore brought
+her to Delos, a floating island in the Ægean Sea, which he made stationary
+by attaching it with chains of adamant to the bottom of the sea. Here she
+gave birth to her twin-children, Apollo and Artemis (Diana), two of the
+most beautiful of the immortals.
+
+According to some versions of the story of Leto, Zeus transformed her into
+a quail, in order that she might thus elude the vigilance of Hera, and she
+is said to have {32} resumed her true form when she arrived at the island
+of Delos.
+
+HERA, being the principal wife of Zeus and queen of heaven, a detailed
+account will be given of her in a special chapter.
+
+In the union of Zeus with most of his immortal wives we shall find that an
+allegorical meaning is conveyed. His marriage with Metis, who is said to
+have surpassed both gods and men in knowledge, represents supreme power
+allied to wisdom and prudence. His union with Themis typifies the bond
+which exists between divine majesty and justice, law, and order. Eurynome,
+as the mother of the Charites or Graces, supplied the refining and
+harmonizing influences of grace and beauty, whilst the marriage of Zeus
+with Mnemosyne typifies the union of genius with memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In addition to the seven immortal wives of Zeus, he was also allied to a
+number of mortal maidens whom he visited under various disguises, as it was
+supposed that if he revealed himself in his true form as king of heaven the
+splendour of his glory would cause instant destruction to mortals. The
+mortal consorts of Zeus have been such a favourite theme with poets,
+painters, and sculptors, that it is necessary to give some account of their
+individual history. Those best known are Antiope, Leda, Europa, Callisto,
+Alcmene, Semele, Io, and Danae.
+
+ANTIOPE, to whom Zeus appeared under the form of a satyr, was the daughter
+of Nicteus, king of Thebes. To escape the anger of her father she fled to
+Sicyon, where king Epopeus, enraptured with her wonderful beauty, made her
+his wife without asking her father's consent. This so enraged Nicteus that
+he declared war against Epopeus, in order to compel him to restore Antiope.
+At his death, which took place before he could succeed in his purpose,
+Nicteus left his kingdom to his brother Lycus, commanding him, at the same
+time, to carry on the war, and execute his vengeance. Lycus invaded Sicyon,
+defeated and killed Epopeus, and brought back {33} Antiope as a prisoner.
+On the way to Thebes she gave birth to her twin-sons, Amphion and Zethus,
+who, by the orders of Lycus, were at once exposed on Mount Cithaeron, and
+would have perished but for the kindness of a shepherd, who took pity on
+them and preserved their lives. Antiope was, for many years, held captive
+by her uncle Lycus, and compelled to suffer the utmost cruelty at the hands
+of his wife Dirce. But one day her bonds were miraculously loosened, and
+she flew for shelter and protection to the humble dwelling of her sons on
+Mount Cithaeron. During the long period of their mother's captivity the
+babes had grown into sturdy youths, and, as they listened angrily to the
+story of her wrongs, they became all impatience to avenge them. Setting off
+at once to Thebes they succeeded in possessing themselves of the town, and
+after slaying the cruel Lycus they bound Dirce by the hair to the horns of
+a wild bull, which dragged her hither and thither until she expired. Her
+mangled body was cast into the fount near Thebes, which still bears her
+name. Amphion became king of Thebes in his uncle's stead. He was a friend
+of the Muses, and devoted to music and poetry. His brother, Zethus, was
+famous for his skill in archery, and was passionately fond of the chase. It
+is said that when Amphion wished to inclose the town of Thebes with walls
+and towers, he had but to play a sweet melody on the lyre, given to him by
+Hermes, and the huge stones began to move, and obediently fitted themselves
+together.
+
+The punishment of Dirce at the hands of Amphion and Zethus forms the
+subject of the world-renowned marble group in the museum at Naples, known
+by the name of the Farnese Bull.
+
+In sculpture Amphion is always represented with a lyre; Zethus with a club.
+
+LEDA, whose affections Zeus won under the form of a swan, was the daughter
+of Thestius, king of Ætolia. Her twin-sons, Castor and (Polydeuces or)
+Pollux,[15] were {34} renowned for their tender attachment to each other.
+They were also famous for their physical accomplishments, Castor being the
+most expert charioteer of his day, and Pollux the first of pugilists. Their
+names appear both among the hunters of the Calydonian boar-hunt and the
+heroes of the Argonautic expedition. The brothers became attached to the
+daughters of Leucippus, prince of the Messenians, who had been betrothed by
+their father to Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus. Having persuaded
+Leucippus to break his promise, the twins carried off the maidens as their
+brides. Idas and Lynceus, naturally furious at this proceeding, challenged
+the Dioscuri to mortal combat, in which Castor perished by the hand of
+Idas, and Lynceus by that of Pollux. Zeus wished to confer the gift of
+immortality upon Pollux, but he refused to accept it unless allowed to
+share it with Castor. Zeus gave the desired permission, and the faithful
+brothers were both allowed to live, but only on alternate days. The
+Dioscuri received divine honours throughout Greece, and were worshipped
+with special reverence at Sparta.
+
+EUROPA was the beautiful daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. She was one
+day gathering flowers with her companions in a meadow near the sea-shore,
+when Zeus, charmed with her great beauty, and wishing to win her love,
+transformed himself into a beautiful white bull, and trotted quietly up to
+the princess, so as not to alarm her. Surprised at the gentleness of the
+animal, and admiring its beauty, as it lay placidly on the grass, she
+caressed it, crowned it with flowers, and, at last, playfully seated
+herself on its back. Hardly had she done so than the disguised god bounded
+away with his lovely burden, and swam across the sea with her to the island
+of Crete.
+
+Europa was the mother of Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus. Minos, who became
+king of Crete, was celebrated for his justice and moderation, and after
+death he was created one of the judges of the lower world, which office he
+held in conjunction with his brothers. {35}
+
+CALLISTO, the daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, was a huntress in the
+train of Artemis, devoted to the pleasures of the chase, who had made a vow
+never to marry; but Zeus, under the form of the huntress-goddess, succeeded
+in obtaining her affections. Hera, being extremely jealous of her, changed
+her into a bear, and caused Artemis (who failed to recognize her attendant
+under this form) to hunt her in the chase, and put an end to her existence.
+After her death she was placed by Zeus among the stars as a constellation,
+under the name of Arctos, or the bear.
+
+ALCMENE, the daughter of Electryon, king of Mycenae, was betrothed to her
+cousin Amphytrion; but, during his absence on a perilous undertaking, Zeus
+assumed his form, and obtained her affections. Heracles (whose
+world-renowned exploits will be related among the legends) was the son of
+Alcmene and Zeus.
+
+SEMELE, a beautiful princess, the daughter of Cadmus, king of Phoenicia,
+was greatly beloved by Zeus. Like the unfortunate Callisto, she was hated
+by Hera with jealous malignity, and the haughty queen of heaven determined
+to effect her destruction. Disguising herself, therefore, as Beroe,
+Semele's faithful old nurse, she artfully persuaded her to insist upon Zeus
+visiting her, as he appeared to Hera, in all his power and glory, well
+knowing that this would cause her instant death. Semele, suspecting no
+treachery, followed the advice of her supposed nurse; and the next time
+Zeus came to her, she earnestly entreated him to grant the favour she was
+about to ask. Zeus swore by the Styx (which was to the gods an irrevocable
+oath) to accede to her request whatsoever it might be. Semele, therefore,
+secure of gaining her petition, begged of Zeus to appear to her in all the
+glory of his divine power and majesty. As he had sworn to grant whatever
+she asked of him, he was compelled to comply with her wish; he therefore
+revealed himself as the mighty lord of the universe, accompanied by thunder
+and lightning, and she was instantly consumed in the flames. {36}
+
+IO, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, was a priestess of Hera. She was
+very beautiful, and Zeus, who was much attached to her, transformed her
+into a white cow, in order to defeat the jealous intrigues of Hera, who,
+however, was not to be deceived. Aware of the stratagem, she contrived to
+obtain the animal from Zeus, and placed her under the watchful care of a
+man called Argus-Panoptes, who fastened her to an olive-tree in the grove
+of Hera. He had a hundred eyes, of which, when asleep, he never closed more
+than two at a time; being thus always on the watch, Hera found him
+extremely useful in keeping guard over Io. Hermes, however, by the command
+of Zeus, succeeded in putting all his eyes to sleep with the sound of his
+magic lyre, and then, taking advantage of his helpless condition, slew him.
+The story goes, that in commemoration of the services which Argus had
+rendered her, Hera placed his eyes on the tail of a peacock, as a lasting
+memorial of her gratitude. Ever fertile in resource, Hera now sent a gadfly
+to worry and torment the unfortunate Io incessantly, and she wandered all
+over the world in hopes of escaping from her tormentor. At length she
+reached Egypt, where she found rest and freedom from the persecutions of
+her enemy. On the banks of the Nile she resumed her original form and gave
+birth to a son called Epaphus, who afterwards became king of Egypt, and
+built the famous city of Memphis.
+
+DANAE.--Zeus appeared to Danae under the form of a shower of gold. (Further
+details concerning her will be found in the legend of Perseus.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Greeks supposed that the divine ruler of the Universe occasionally
+assumed a human form, and descended from his celestial abode, in order to
+visit mankind and observe their proceedings, his aim being generally either
+to punish the guilty, or to reward the deserving.
+
+On one occasion Zeus, accompanied by Hermes, made a journey through
+Phrygia, seeking hospitality and shelter wherever they went. But nowhere
+did they receive a {37} kindly welcome till they came to the humble cottage
+of an old man and his wife called Philemon and Baucis, who entertained them
+with the greatest kindness, setting before them what frugal fare their
+humble means permitted, and bidding them welcome with unaffected
+cordiality. Observing in the course of their simple repast that the wine
+bowl was miraculously replenished, the aged couple became convinced of the
+divine nature of their guests. The gods now informed them that on account
+of its wickedness their native place was doomed to destruction, and told
+them to climb the neighbouring hill with them, which overlooked the village
+where they dwelt. What was their dismay on beholding at their feet, in
+place of the spot where they had passed so many happy years together,
+nothing but a watery plain, the only house to be seen being their own
+little cottage, which suddenly changed itself into a temple before their
+eyes. Zeus now asked the worthy pair to name any wish they particularly
+desired and it should be granted. They accordingly begged that they might
+serve the gods in the temple below, and end life together.
+
+Their wish was granted, for, after spending the remainder of their lives in
+the worship of the gods, they both died at the same instant, and were
+transformed by Zeus into trees, remaining for ever side by side.
+
+Upon another occasion Zeus, wishing to ascertain for himself the truth of
+the reports concerning the atrocious wickedness of mankind, made a journey
+through Arcadia. Being recognized by the Arcadians as king of heaven, he
+was received by them with becoming respect and veneration; but Lycaon,
+their king, who had rendered himself infamous by the gross impiety of
+himself and his sons, doubted the divinity of Zeus, ridiculed his people
+for being so easily duped, and, according to his custom of killing all
+strangers who ventured to trust his hospitality, resolved to murder him.
+Before executing this wicked design, however, he decided to put Zeus to the
+test, and having killed a boy for the purpose, placed before him a dish
+containing human flesh. But Zeus was {38} not to be deceived. He beheld the
+revolting dish with horror and loathing, and angrily upsetting the table
+upon which it was placed, turned Lycaon into a wolf, and destroyed all his
+fifty sons by lightning, except Nyctimus, who was saved by the intervention
+of Gæa.
+
+JUPITER.
+
+The Roman Jupiter, who is so frequently confounded with the Greek Zeus, is
+identical with him only as being the head of the Olympic gods, and the
+presiding deity over Life, Light, and Aërial Phenomena. Jupiter is lord of
+life in its widest and most comprehensive signification, having absolute
+power over life and death, in which respect he differed from the Greek
+Zeus, who was to a certain extent controlled by the all-potent sway of the
+Moiræ or Fates. Zeus, as we have seen, often condescends to visit mankind,
+either as a mortal, or under various disguises, whereas Jupiter always
+remains essentially the supreme god of heaven, and never appears upon
+earth.
+
+The most celebrated temple of Jupiter was that on the Capitoline Hill in
+the city of Rome, where he was worshipped under the names of
+Jupiter-Optimus-Maximus, Capitolinus, and Tarpeius.
+
+The Romans represented him seated on a throne of ivory, holding in his
+right hand a sheaf of thunderbolts, and in his left a sceptre, whilst an
+eagle stands beside his throne.
+
+HERA (JUNO).
+
+Hera, the eldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was born at Samos, or,
+according to some accounts, at Argos, and was reared by the sea-divinities
+Oceanus and Tethys, who were models of conjugal fidelity.[16] She was the
+{39} principal wife of Zeus, and, as queen of heaven, participated in the
+honours paid to him, but her dominion only extended over the air (the lower
+aërial regions). Hera appears to be the sublime embodiment of strict
+matronly virtue, and is on that account the protectress of purity and
+married women. Faultless herself in her fidelity as a wife, she is
+essentially the type of the sanctity of the marriage tie, and holds in
+abhorrence any violation of its obligations. So strongly was she imbued
+with this hatred of any immorality, that, finding herself so often called
+upon to punish the failings of both gods and men in this respect, she
+became jealous, harsh, and vindictive. Her exalted position as the wife of
+the supreme deity, combined with her extreme beauty, caused her to become
+exceedingly vain, and she consequently resented with great severity any
+infringement on her rights as queen of heaven, or any apparent slight on
+her personal appearance.
+
+The following story will signally illustrate how ready she was to resent
+any slight offered to her.
+
+At the marriage of the sea-nymph Thetis with a mortal called Peleus, all
+the gods and goddesses were present, except Eris (the goddess of Discord).
+Indignant at not being invited, she determined to cause dissension in the
+assembly, and for this purpose threw into the midst of the guests a golden
+apple with the inscription on it "For the Fairest." Now, as all the
+goddesses were extremely beautiful, each claimed the apple; but at length,
+the rest having relinquished their pretensions, the number of candidates
+was reduced to three, Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite, who agreed to appeal to
+Paris for a settlement of this delicate question, he being noted for the
+wisdom he had displayed in his judgment upon several occasions. Paris was
+the son of Priam, king of Troy, who, ignorant of his noble birth, was at
+this time feeding his flocks on Mount Ida, in Phrygia. Hermes, as messenger
+of the gods, conducted the three rival beauties to the young shepherd, and
+with breathless anxiety they awaited his decision. Each fair candidate
+endeavoured {40} to secure his favour by the most tempting offers. Hera
+promised him extensive dominions; Athene, martial fame and glory; and
+Aphrodite, the loveliest woman in the world. But whether he really
+considered Aphrodite the fairest of the three, or preferred a beautiful
+wife to fame and power, we cannot tell; all we know is that to her he
+awarded the golden apple, and she became ever after universally
+acknowledged as the goddess of beauty. Hera, having fully expected that
+Paris would give her the preference, was so indignant that she never
+forgave him, and not only persecuted him, but all the family of Priam,
+whose dreadful sufferings and misfortunes during the Trojan war were
+attributed to her influence. In fact, she carried her animosity to such an
+extent that it was often the cause of domestic disagreements between
+herself and Zeus, who espoused the cause of the Trojans.
+
+Among the many stories of these frequent quarrels there is one connected
+with Heracles, the favourite son of Zeus, which is as follows:--Hera having
+raised a storm at sea in order to drive him out of his course, Zeus became
+so angry that he hung her in the clouds by a golden chain, and attached
+heavy anvils to her feet. Her son Hephæstus tried to release his mother
+from her humiliating position, for which Zeus threw him out of heaven, and
+his leg was broken by the fall.
+
+Hera, being deeply offended with Zeus, determined to separate herself from
+him for ever, and she accordingly left him and took up her abode in Euboea.
+Surprised and grieved at this unlooked-for desertion, Zeus resolved to
+leave no means untried to win her back again. In this emergency he
+consulted Cithaeron, king of Platea, who was famed for his great wisdom and
+subtlety. Cithaeron advised him to dress up an image in bridal attire and
+place it in a chariot, announcing that this was Platea, his future wife.
+The artifice succeeded. Hera, incensed at the idea of a rival, flew to meet
+the procession in great anger, and seizing the supposed bride, she
+furiously attacked her and dragged off her nuptial attire. Her delight on
+discovering the deception was so great that a {41} reconciliation took
+place, and, committing the image to the flames, with joyful laughter she
+seated herself in its place and returned to Olympus.
+
+Hera was the mother of Ares (Mars), Hephæstus, Hebe, and Eileithyia. Ares
+was the god of War; Hephæstus, of Fire; Hebe, of Youth; and Eileithyia
+presided over the birth of mortals.
+
+Hera dearly loved Greece, and indeed always watched over and protected
+Greek interests, her beloved and favourite cities being Argos, Samos,
+Sparta, and Mycenæ.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Her principal temples were at Argos and Samos. From a remote period she was
+greatly venerated at Olympia, and her temple there, which stood in the
+Altis or sacred grove, was five hundred years older than that of Zeus on
+the same spot. Some interesting excavations which are now going on there
+have brought to light the remains of the ancient edifice, which contains
+among other treasures of antiquity several beautiful statues, the work of
+the famous sculptors of ancient Greece. At first this temple was built of
+wood, then of stone, and the one lately discovered was formed of
+conglomerate of shells.
+
+In the Altis races were run by young maidens in honour of Hera, and the
+fleetest of foot received in token of her victory an olive-wreath and a
+piece of the flesh of the sacrifices. These races, like the Olympic Games,
+were celebrated at intervals of four years, and were called Heræ. A
+beautiful robe, woven by sixteen women chosen from the sixteen cities of
+Elis, was always offered to Hera on these {42} occasions, and choral songs
+and sacred dances formed part of the ceremonies.
+
+Hera is usually represented seated on a throne, holding a pomegranate in
+one hand and a sceptre surmounted by a cuckoo in the other. She appears as
+a calm, dignified matron of majestic beauty, robed in a tunic and mantle,
+her forehead is broad and intellectual, her eyes large and fully opened,
+and her arms dazzlingly white and finely moulded.
+
+The finest statue of this divinity was that by Polycletus at Argos.
+
+Her attributes are the diadem, veil, sceptre, and peacock.
+
+The first day of every month a ewe-lamb and sow were sacrificed to Hera.
+The hawk, goose, and more particularly the peacock[17] were sacred to her.
+Flocks of these beautiful birds generally surround her throne and draw her
+chariot, Iris, the Rainbow, being seated behind her.
+
+Her favourite flowers were the dittany, poppy, and lily.
+
+JUNO.
+
+Juno, the Roman divinity supposed to be identical with the Greek Hera,
+differed from her in the most salient points, for whereas Hera invariably
+appears as the haughty, unbending queen of heaven, Juno, on the other hand,
+is revered and beloved as the type of a matron and housewife. She was
+worshipped in Rome under various titles, most of which point to her
+vocation as the protectress of married women. Juno was believed to watch
+over and guard the life of every woman from her birth to her death. The
+principal temples dedicated to her were in Rome, one being erected on the
+Aventine, and the other on the Capitoline Hill. She had also a temple on
+the Arx, in which she was worshipped as Juno Moneta, or the {43} warning
+goddess. Adjacent to this shrine was the public mint.[18] On the 1st of
+March a grand annual festival, called the Matronalia, was celebrated in her
+honour by all the married women of Rome, and this religious institution was
+accompanied with much solemnity.[19]
+
+PALLAS-ATHENE (MINERVA).
+
+Pallas-Athene, goddess of Wisdom and Armed Resistance, was a purely Greek
+divinity; that is to say, no other nation possessed a corresponding
+conception. She was supposed, as already related, to have issued from the
+head of Zeus himself, clad in armour from head to foot. The miraculous
+advent of this maiden goddess is beautifully described by Homer in one of
+his hymns: snow-capped Olympus shook to its foundation; the glad earth
+re-echoed her martial shout; the billowy sea became agitated; and Helios,
+the sun-god, arrested his fiery steeds in their headlong course to welcome
+this wonderful emanation from the godhead. Athene was at once admitted into
+the assembly of the gods, and henceforth took her place as the most
+faithful and sagacious of all her father's counsellors. This brave,
+dauntless maiden, so exactly the essence of all that is noble in the
+character of "the father of gods and men," remained throughout chaste in
+word and deed, and kind at heart, without exhibiting any of those failings
+which somewhat mar the nobler features in the character of Zeus. This
+direct emanation from his own self, justly his favourite child, his better
+and purer counterpart, received from him several important prerogatives.
+She was permitted to hurl the thunderbolts, to prolong the life of man, and
+to bestow the gift of prophecy; in fact Athene was the only divinity whose
+authority was equal to that of Zeus himself, and when he had ceased to
+visit the earth in person {44} she was empowered by him to act as his
+deputy. It was her especial duty to protect the state and all peaceful
+associations of mankind, which she possessed the power of defending when
+occasion required. She encouraged the maintenance of law and order, and
+defended the right on all occasions, for which reason, in the Trojan war
+she espouses the cause of the Greeks and exerts all her influence on their
+behalf. The Areopagus, a court of justice where religious causes and
+murders were tried, was believed to have been instituted by her, and when
+both sides happened to have an equal number of votes she gave the
+casting-vote in favour of the accused. She was the patroness of learning,
+science, and art, more particularly where these contributed directly
+towards the welfare of nations. She presided over all inventions connected
+with agriculture, invented the plough, and taught mankind how to use oxen
+for farming purposes. She also instructed mankind in the use of numbers,
+trumpets, chariots, &c., and presided over the building of the Argo,[20]
+thereby encouraging the useful art of navigation. She also taught the
+Greeks how to build the wooden horse by means of which the destruction of
+Troy was effected.
+
+The safety of cities depended on her care, for which reason her temples
+were generally built on the citadels, and she was supposed to watch over
+the defence of the walls, fortifications, harbours, &c. A divinity who so
+faithfully guarded the best interests of the state, by not only protecting
+it from the attacks of enemies, but also by developing its chief resources
+of wealth and prosperity, was worthily chosen as the presiding deity of the
+state, and in this character as an essentially political goddess she was
+called Athene-Polias.
+
+The fact of Athene having been born clad in armour, which merely signified
+that her virtue and purity were unassailable, has given rise to the
+erroneous supposition that she was the presiding goddess of war; but a
+deeper {45} study of her character in all its bearings proves that, in
+contradistinction to her brother Ares, the god of war, who loved strife for
+its own sake, she only takes up arms to protect the innocent and deserving
+against tyrannical oppression. It is true that in the Iliad we frequently
+see her on the battlefield fighting valiantly, and protecting her favourite
+heroes; but this is always at the command of Zeus, who even supplies her
+with arms for the purpose, as it is supposed that she possessed none of her
+own. A marked feature in the representations of this deity is the ægis,
+that wonderful shield given to her by her father as a further means of
+defence, which, when in danger, she swung so swiftly round and round that
+it kept at a distance all antagonistic influences; hence her name Pallas,
+from _pallo_, I swing. In the centre of this shield, which was covered with
+dragon's scales, bordered with serpents, and which she sometimes wore as a
+breastplate, was the awe-inspiring head of the Medusa, which had the effect
+of turning to stone all beholders.
+
+In addition to the many functions which she exercised in connection with
+the state, Athene presided over the two chief departments of feminine
+industry, spinning and weaving. In the latter art she herself displayed
+unrivalled ability and exquisite taste. She wove her own robe and that of
+Hera, which last she is said to have embroidered very richly; she also gave
+Jason a cloak wrought by herself, when he set forth in quest of the Golden
+Fleece. Being on one occasion challenged to a contest in this
+accomplishment by a mortal maiden named Arachne, whom she had instructed in
+the art of weaving, she accepted the challenge and was completely
+vanquished by her pupil. Angry at her defeat, she struck the unfortunate
+maiden on the forehead with the shuttle which she held in her hand; and
+Arachne, being of a sensitive nature, was so hurt by this indignity that
+she hung herself in despair, and was changed by Athene into a spider. This
+goddess is said to have invented the flute,[21] upon {46} which she played
+with considerable talent, until one day, being laughed at by the assembled
+gods and goddesses for the contortions which her countenance assumed during
+these musical efforts, she hastily ran to a fountain in order to convince
+herself whether she deserved their ridicule. Finding to her intense disgust
+that such was indeed the fact, she threw the flute away, and never raised
+it to her lips again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Athene is usually represented fully draped; she has a serious and
+thoughtful aspect, as though replete with earnestness and wisdom; the
+beautiful oval contour of her countenance is adorned by the luxuriance of
+her wealth of hair, which is drawn back from the temples and hangs down in
+careless grace; she looks the embodiment of strength, grandeur, and
+majesty; whilst her broad shoulders and small hips give her a slightly
+masculine appearance.
+
+When represented as the war-goddess she appears clad in armour, with a
+helmet on her head, from which waves a large plume; she carries the ægis on
+her arm, and in her hand a golden staff, which possessed the property of
+endowing her chosen favourites with youth and dignity.
+
+Athene was universally worshipped throughout Greece, but was regarded with
+special veneration by the Athenians, she being the guardian deity of
+Athens. Her most celebrated temple was the Parthenon, which stood on the
+{47} Acropolis at Athens, and contained her world-renowned statue by
+Phidias, which ranks second only to that of Zeus by the same great artist.
+This colossal statue was 39 feet high, and was composed of ivory and gold;
+its majestic beauty formed the chief attraction of the temple. It
+represented her standing erect, bearing her spear and shield; in her hand
+she held an image of Nike, and at her feet there lay a serpent.
+
+The tree sacred to her was the olive, which she herself produced in a
+contest with Poseidon. The olive-tree thus called into existence was
+preserved in the temple of Erectheus, on the Acropolis, and is said to have
+possessed such marvellous vitality, that when the Persians burned it after
+sacking the town it immediately burst forth into new shoots.
+
+The principal festival held in honour of this divinity was the Panathenæa.
+
+The owl, cock, and serpent were the animals sacred to her, and her
+sacrifices were rams, bulls, and cows.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+MINERVA.
+
+The Minerva of the Romans was identified with the Pallas-Athene of the
+Greeks. Like her she presides over learning and all useful arts, and is the
+patroness of the feminine accomplishments of sewing, spinning, weaving, &c.
+Schools were under her especial care, and schoolboys, therefore, had
+holidays during her festivals (the Greater Quinquatria), when they always
+brought a gift to their master, called the Minerval.
+
+It is worthy of notice that the only three divinities {48} worshipped in
+the Capitol were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and in their joint honour the
+Ludi Maximi or great games were held.
+
+THEMIS.
+
+Themis, who has already been alluded to as the wife of Zeus, was the
+daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and personified those divine laws of justice
+and order by means of which the well-being and morality of communities are
+regulated. She presided over the assemblies of the people and the laws of
+hospitality. To her was intrusted the office of convoking the assembly of
+the gods, and she was also mistress of ritual and ceremony. On account of
+her great wisdom Zeus himself frequently sought her counsel and acted upon
+her advice. Themis was a prophetic divinity, and had an oracle near the
+river Cephissus in Boeotia.
+
+She is usually represented as being in the full maturity of womanhood, of
+fair aspect, and wearing a flowing garment, which drapes her noble,
+majestic form; in her right hand she holds the sword of justice, and in her
+left the scales, which indicate the impartiality with which every cause is
+carefully weighed by her, her eyes being bandaged so that the personality
+of the individual should carry no weight with respect to the verdict.
+
+This divinity is sometimes identified with Tyche, sometimes with Ananke.
+
+Themis, like so many other Greek divinities, takes the place of a more
+ancient deity of the same name who was a daughter of Uranus and Gæa. This
+elder Themis inherited from her mother the gift of prophecy, and when she
+became merged into her younger representative she transmitted to her this
+prophetic power.
+
+HESTIA (Vesta).
+
+Hestia was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She was the goddess of Fire in
+its first application to the wants of mankind, hence she was essentially
+the presiding deity {49} of the domestic hearth and the guardian spirit of
+man, and it was her pure and benign influence which was supposed to protect
+the sanctity of domestic life.
+
+Now in these early ages the hearth was regarded as the most important and
+most sacred portion of the dwelling, probably because the protection of the
+fire was an important consideration, for if once permitted to become
+extinct, re-ignition was attended with extreme difficulty. In fact, the
+hearth was held so sacred that it constituted the sanctum of the family,
+for which reason it was always erected in the centre of every house. It was
+a few feet in height and was built of stone; the fire was placed on the top
+of it, and served the double purpose of preparing the daily meals, and
+consuming the family sacrifices. Round this domestic hearth or altar were
+gathered the various members of the family, the head of the house occupying
+the place of honour nearest the hearth. Here prayers were said and
+sacrifices offered, and here also every kind and loving feeling was
+fostered, which even extended to the hunted and guilty stranger, who, if he
+once succeeded in touching this sacred altar, was safe from pursuit and
+punishment, and was henceforth placed under the protection of the family.
+Any crime committed within the sacred precincts of the domestic hearth was
+invariably visited by death.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In Grecian cities there was a common hall, called the Prytaneum, in which
+the members of the government had their meals at the expense of the state,
+and here too was the Hestia, or public hearth, with its fire, by means of
+which those meals were prepared. It was customary for emigrants to take
+with them a portion of this sacred fire, which they jealously guarded and
+brought with them to their new home, where it served as a connecting link
+between the young Greek colony and the mother country. Hestia is generally
+represented standing, and in accordance with the dignity and sanctity of
+her character, always appears fully draped. Her countenance is
+distinguished by a serene gravity of expression. {50}
+
+VESTA.
+
+Vesta occupies a distinguished place among the earlier divinities of the
+Romans. Her temple in Rome, containing as it were the hearthstone of the
+nation, stood close beside the palace of Numa Pompilius.
+
+On her altar burned the never-ceasing fire, which was tended by her
+priestesses, the Vestal Virgins.[22]
+
+The temple of Vesta was circular in form, and contained that sacred and
+highly prized treasure the Palladium of Troy.[23]
+
+The great festival in honour of Vesta, called the Vestalia, was celebrated
+on the 9th of June.
+
+DEMETER (Ceres).
+
+Demeter (from _Ge-meter_, earth-mother) was the daughter of Cronus and
+Rhea.[24] She represented that portion of Gæa (the whole solid earth) which
+we call the earth's crust, and which produces all vegetation. As goddess of
+agriculture, field-fruits, plenty, and productiveness, she was the
+sustainer of material life, and was therefore a divinity of great
+importance. When ancient Gæa lost, with Uranus, her position as a ruling
+divinity, she abdicated her sway in favour of her daughter Rhea, who
+henceforth inherited the powers which her mother had previously possessed,
+receiving in her place the honour and worship of mankind. In a very old
+poem Gæa is accordingly described as retiring to a cavern in the bowels
+{51} of the earth, where she sits in the lap of her daughter, slumbering,
+moaning, and nodding for ever and ever.
+
+It is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinctive difference between
+the three great earth-goddesses Gæa, Rhea, and Demeter. Gæa represents the
+earth as a whole, with its mighty subterranean forces; Rhea is that
+productive power which causes vegetation to spring forth, thus sustaining
+men and animals; Demeter, by presiding over agriculture, directs and
+utilizes Rhea's productive powers. But in later times, when Rhea, like
+other ancient divinities, loses her importance as a ruling deity, Demeter
+assumes all her functions and attributes, and then becomes the goddess of
+the life-producing and life-maintaining earth-crust. We must bear in mind
+the fact that man in his primitive state knew neither how to sow nor how to
+till the ground; when, therefore, he had exhausted the pastures which
+surrounded him he was compelled to seek others which were as yet unreaped;
+thus, roaming constantly from one place to another, settled habitations,
+and consequently civilizing influences, were impossible. Demeter, however,
+by introducing a knowledge of agriculture, put an end, at once and for
+ever, to that nomadic life which was now no longer necessary.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The favour of Demeter was believed to bring mankind rich harvests and
+fruitful crops, whereas her displeasure caused blight, drought, and famine.
+The island of Sicily was supposed to be under her especial protection, and
+there she was regarded with particular veneration, the Sicilians naturally
+attributing the wonderful fertility of their country to the partiality of
+the goddess.
+
+Demeter is usually represented as a woman of noble {52} bearing and
+majestic appearance, tall, matronly, and dignified, with beautiful golden
+hair, which falls in rippling curls over her stately shoulders, the yellow
+locks being emblematical of the ripened ears of corn. Sometimes she appears
+seated in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, at others she stands erect,
+her figure drawn up to its full height, and always fully draped; she bears
+a sheaf of wheat-ears in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. The
+wheat-ears are not unfrequently replaced by a bunch of poppies, with which
+her brows are also garlanded, though sometimes she merely wears a simple
+riband in her hair.
+
+Demeter, as the wife of Zeus, became the mother of Persephone (Proserpine),
+to whom she was so tenderly attached that her whole life was bound up in
+her, and she knew no happiness except in her society. One day, however,
+whilst Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow, attended by the
+ocean-nymphs, she saw to her surprise a beautiful narcissus, from the stem
+of which sprang forth a hundred blossoms. Drawing near to examine this
+lovely flower, whose exquisite scent perfumed the air, she stooped down to
+gather it, suspecting no evil, when a yawning abyss opened at her feet, and
+Aïdes, the grim ruler of the lower world, appeared from its depths, seated
+in his dazzling chariot drawn by four black horses. Regardless of her tears
+and the shrieks of her female attendants, Aïdes seized the terrified
+maiden, and bore her away to the gloomy realms over which he reigned in
+melancholy grandeur. Helios, the all-seeing sun-god, and Hecate, a
+mysterious and very ancient divinity, alone heard her cries for aid, but
+were powerless to help her. When Demeter became conscious of her loss her
+grief was intense, and she refused to be comforted. She knew not where to
+seek for her child, but feeling that repose and inaction were impossible,
+she set out on her weary search, taking with her two torches which she
+lighted in the flames of Mount Etna to guide her on her way. For nine long
+days and nights she wandered on, inquiring of every one she met for tidings
+of her child. {53} But all was in vain! Neither gods nor men could give her
+the comfort which her soul so hungered for. At last, on the tenth day, the
+disconsolate mother met Hecate, who informed her that she had heard her
+daughter's cries, but knew not who it was that had borne her away. By
+Hecate's advice Demeter consulted Helios, whose all-seeing eye nothing
+escapes, and from him she learnt that it was Zeus himself who had permitted
+Aïdes to seize Persephone, and transport her to the lower world in order
+that she might become his wife. Indignant with Zeus for having given his
+sanction to the abduction of his daughter, and filled with the bitterest
+sorrow, she abandoned her home in Olympus, and refused all heavenly food.
+Disguising herself as an old woman, she descended upon earth, and commenced
+a weary pilgrimage among mankind. One evening she arrived at a place called
+Eleusis, in Attica, and sat down to rest herself near a well beneath the
+shade of an olive-tree. The youthful daughters of Celeus, the king of the
+country, came with their pails of brass to draw water from this well, and
+seeing that the tired wayfarer appeared faint and dispirited, they spoke
+kindly to her, asking who she was, and whence she came. Demeter replied
+that she had made her escape from pirates, who had captured her, and added
+that she would feel grateful for a home with any worthy family, whom she
+would be willing to serve in a menial capacity. The princesses, on hearing
+this, begged Demeter to have a moment's patience while they returned home
+and consulted their mother, Metaneira. They soon brought the joyful
+intelligence that she was desirous of securing her services as nurse to her
+infant son Demophoon, or Triptolemus. When Demeter arrived at the house a
+radiant light suddenly illumined her, which circumstance so overawed
+Metaneira that she treated the unknown stranger with the greatest respect,
+and hospitably offered her food and drink. But Demeter, still grief-worn
+and dejected, refused her friendly offers, and held herself apart from the
+social board. At length, however, the maid-servant Iambe succeeded, by
+means {54} of playful jests and merriment, in somewhat dispelling the grief
+of the sorrowing mother, causing her at times to smile in spite of herself,
+and even inducing her to partake of a mixture of barley-meal, mint, and
+water, which was prepared according to the directions of the goddess
+herself. Time passed on, and the young child throve amazingly under the
+care of his kind and judicious nurse, who, however, gave him no food, but
+anointed him daily with ambrosia, and every night laid him secretly in the
+fire in order to render him immortal and exempt from old age. But,
+unfortunately, this benevolent design on the part of Demeter was frustrated
+by Metaneira herself, whose curiosity, one night, impelled her to watch the
+proceedings of the mysterious being who nursed her child. When to her
+horror she beheld her son placed in the flames, she shrieked aloud.
+Demeter, incensed at this untimely interruption, instantly withdrew the
+child, and throwing him on the ground, revealed herself in her true
+character. The bent and aged form had vanished, and in its place there
+stood a bright and beauteous being, whose golden locks streamed over her
+shoulders in richest luxuriance, her whole aspect bespeaking dignity and
+majesty. She told the awe-struck Metaneira that she was the goddess
+Demeter, and had intended to make her son immortal, but that her fatal
+curiosity had rendered this impossible, adding, however, that the child,
+having slept in her arms, and been nursed on her lap, should ever command
+the respect and esteem of mankind. She then desired that a temple and altar
+should be erected to her on a neighbouring hill by the people of Eleusis,
+promising that she herself would direct them how to perform the sacred
+rites and ceremonies, which should be observed in her honour. With these
+words she took her departure never to return.
+
+Obedient to her commands, Celeus called together a meeting of his people,
+and built the temple on the spot which the goddess had indicated. It was
+soon completed, and Demeter took up her abode in it, but her heart was
+still sad for the loss of her daughter, and the whole world felt the
+influence of her grief and dejection. This was {55} indeed a terrible year
+for mankind. Demeter no longer smiled on the earth she was wont to bless,
+and though the husbandman sowed the grain, and the groaning oxen ploughed
+the fields, no harvest rewarded their labour. All was barren, dreary
+desolation. The world was threatened with famine, and the gods with the
+loss of their accustomed honours and sacrifices; it became evident,
+therefore, to Zeus himself that some measures must be adopted to appease
+the anger of the goddess. He accordingly despatched Iris and many of the
+other gods and goddesses to implore Demeter to return to Olympus; but all
+their prayers were fruitless. The incensed goddess swore that until her
+daughter was restored to her she would not allow the grain to spring forth
+from the earth. At length Zeus sent Hermes, his faithful messenger, to the
+lower world with a petition to Aïdes, urgently entreating him to restore
+Persephone to the arms of her disconsolate mother. When he arrived in the
+gloomy realms of Aïdes, Hermes found him seated on a throne with the
+beautiful Persephone beside him, sorrowfully bewailing her unhappy fate. On
+learning his errand, Aïdes consented to resign Persephone, who joyfully
+prepared to follow the messenger of the gods to the abode of life and
+light. Before taking leave of her husband, he presented to her a few seeds
+of pomegranate, which in her excitement she thoughtlessly swallowed, and
+this simple act, as the sequel will show, materially affected her whole
+future life. The meeting between mother and child was one of unmixed
+rapture, and for the moment all the past was forgotten. The loving mother's
+happiness would now have been complete had not Aïdes asserted his rights.
+These were, that if any immortal had tasted food in his realms they were
+bound to remain there for ever. Of course the ruler of the lower world had
+to prove this assertion. This, however, he found no difficulty in doing, as
+Ascalaphus, the son of Acheron and Orphne, was his witness to the fact.[25]
+Zeus, pitying the disappointment of Demeter at finding {56} her hopes thus
+blighted, succeeded in effecting a compromise by inducing his brother Aïdes
+to allow Persephone to spend six months of the year with the gods above,
+whilst during the other six she was to be the joyless companion of her grim
+lord below. Accompanied by her daughter, the beautiful Persephone, Demeter
+now resumed her long-abandoned dwelling in Olympus; the sympathetic earth
+responded gaily to her bright smiles, the corn at once sprang forth from
+the ground in fullest plenty, the trees, which late were sered and bare,
+now donned their brightest emerald robes, and the flowers, so long
+imprisoned in the hard, dry soil, filled the whole air with their fragrant
+perfume. Thus ends this charming story, which was a favourite theme with
+all the classic authors.
+
+It is very possible that the poets who first created this graceful myth
+merely intended it as an allegory to illustrate the change of seasons; in
+the course of time, however, a literal meaning became attached to this and
+similar poetical fancies, and thus the people of Greece came to regard as
+an article of religious belief what, in the first instance, was nothing
+more than a poetic simile.
+
+In the temple erected to Demeter at Eleusis, the famous Eleusinian
+Mysteries were instituted by the goddess herself. It is exceedingly
+difficult, as in the case of all secret societies, to discover anything
+with certainty concerning these sacred rites. The most plausible
+supposition is that the doctrines taught by the priests to the favoured few
+whom they initiated, were religious truths which were deemed unfit for the
+uninstructed mind of the multitude. For instance, it is supposed that the
+myth of Demeter and Persephone was explained by the teachers of the
+Mysteries to signify the temporary loss which mother earth sustains every
+year when the icy breath of winter robs her of her flowers and fruits and
+grain.
+
+It is believed that in later times a still deeper meaning was conveyed by
+this beautiful myth, viz., the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The
+grain, which, as it were, remains dead for a time in the dark earth, only
+{57} to rise one day dressed in a newer and lovelier garb, was supposed to
+symbolize the soul, which, after death, frees itself from corruption, to
+live again under a better and purer form.
+
+When Demeter instituted the Eleusinian Mysteries, Celeus and his family
+were the first to be initiated, Celeus himself being appointed high-priest.
+His son Triptolemus and his daughters, who acted as priestesses, assisted
+him in the duties of his sacred office. The Mysteries were celebrated by
+the Athenians every five years, and were, for a long time, their exclusive
+privilege. They took place by torchlight, and were conducted with the
+greatest solemnity.
+
+In order to spread abroad the blessings which agriculture confers, Demeter
+presented Triptolemus with her chariot drawn by winged dragons, and, giving
+him some grains of corn, desired him to journey through the world, teaching
+mankind the arts of agriculture and husbandry.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Demeter exercised great severity towards those who incurred her
+displeasure. We find examples of this in the stories of Stellio and
+Eresicthon. Stellio was a youth who ridiculed the goddess for the eagerness
+with which she was eating a bowl of porridge, when weary and faint in the
+vain search for her daughter. Resolved that he should never again have an
+opportunity of thus offending, she angrily threw into his face the
+remainder of the food, and changed him into a spotted lizard.
+
+Eresicthon, son of Triopas, had drawn upon himself the anger of Demeter by
+cutting down her sacred groves, for which she punished him with a constant
+and insatiable hunger. He sold all his possessions in order to satisfy his
+cravings, and was forced at last to devour his own limbs. His daughter
+Metra, who was devotedly attached to him, possessed the power of
+transforming herself into a variety of different animals. By this means she
+contrived to support her father, who sold her again and again each time she
+assumed a different form, and thus he dragged on a pitiful existence. {58}
+
+CERES.
+
+The Roman Ceres is actually the Greek Demeter under another name, her
+attributes, worship, festivals, &c., being precisely identical.
+
+The Romans were indebted to Sicily for this divinity, her worship having
+been introduced by the Greek colonists who settled there.
+
+The Cerealia, or festivals in honour of Ceres, commenced on the 12th of
+April, and lasted several days.
+
+APHRODITE (VENUS).
+
+Aphrodite (from _aphros_, sea-foam, and _dite_, issued), the daughter of
+Zeus and a sea-nymph called Dione, was the goddess of Love and Beauty.
+
+Dione, being a sea-nymph, gave birth to her daughter beneath the waves; but
+the child of the heaven-inhabiting Zeus was forced to ascend from the
+ocean-depths and mount to the snow-capped summits of Olympus, in order to
+breathe that ethereal and most refined atmosphere which pertains to the
+celestial gods.
+
+Aphrodite was the mother of Eros (Cupid), the god of Love, also of Æneas,
+the great Trojan hero and the head of that Greek colony which settled in
+Italy, and from which arose the city of Rome. As a mother Aphrodite claims
+our sympathy for the tenderness she exhibits towards her children. Homer
+tells us in his Iliad, how, when Æneas was wounded in battle, she came to
+his assistance, regardless of personal danger, and was herself severely
+wounded in attempting to save his life. {59}
+
+Aphrodite was tenderly attached to a lovely youth, called Adonis, whose
+exquisite beauty has become proverbial. He was a motherless babe, and
+Aphrodite, taking pity on him, placed him in a chest and intrusted him to
+the care of Persephone, who became so fond of the beautiful youth that she
+refused to part with him. Zeus, being appealed to by the rival
+foster-mothers, decided that Adonis should spend four months of every year
+with Persephone, four with Aphrodite, whilst during the remaining four
+months he should be left to his own devices. He became, however, so
+attached to Aphrodite that he voluntarily devoted to her the time at his
+own disposal. Adonis was killed, during the chase, by a wild boar, to the
+great grief of Aphrodite, who bemoaned his loss so persistently that Aïdes,
+moved with pity, permitted him to pass six months of every year with her,
+whilst the remaining half of the year was spent by him in the lower world.
+
+Aphrodite possessed a magic girdle (the famous _cestus_) which she
+frequently lent to unhappy maidens suffering from the pangs of unrequited
+love, as it was endowed with the power of inspiring affection for the
+wearer, whom it invested with every attribute of grace, beauty, and
+fascination.
+
+Her usual attendants are the Charites or Graces (Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and
+Thalia), who are represented undraped and intertwined in a loving embrace.
+
+In Hesiod's _Theogony_ she is supposed to belong to the more ancient
+divinities, and, whilst those of later date are represented as having
+descended one from another, and all more or less from Zeus, Aphrodite has a
+variously-accounted-for, yet independent origin.
+
+The most poetical version of her birth is that when Uranus was wounded by
+his son Cronus, his blood mingled with the foam of the sea, whereupon the
+bubbling waters at once assumed a rosy tint, and from their depths arose,
+in all the surpassing glory of her loveliness, Aphrodite, goddess of love
+and beauty! Shaking her long, fair tresses, the water-drops rolled down
+into the beautiful {60} sea-shell in which she stood, and became
+transformed into pure glistening pearls. Wafted by the soft and balmy
+breezes, she floated on to Cythera, and was thence transported to the
+island of Cyprus. Lightly she stepped on shore, and under the gentle
+pressure of her delicate foot the dry and rigid sand became transformed
+into a verdant meadow, where every varied shade of colour and every sweet
+odour charmed the senses. The whole island of Cyprus became clothed with
+verdure, and greeted this fairest of all created beings with a glad smile
+of friendly welcome. Here she was received by the Seasons, who decked her
+with garments of immortal fabric, encircling her fair brow with a wreath of
+purest gold, whilst from her ears depended costly rings, and a glittering
+chain embraced her swan-like throat. And now, arrayed in all the panoply of
+her irresistible charms, the nymphs escort her to the dazzling halls of
+Olympus, where she is received with ecstatic enthusiasm by the admiring
+gods and goddesses. The gods all vied with each other in aspiring to the
+honour of her hand, but Hephæstus became the envied possessor of this
+lovely being, who, however, proved as faithless as she was beautiful, and
+caused her husband much unhappiness, owing to the preference she showed at
+various times for some of the other gods and also for mortal men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The celebrated Venus of Milo, now in the Louvre, is an exquisite statue of
+this divinity. The head is beautifully formed; the rich waves of hair
+descend on her rather low but broad forehead and are caught up gracefully
+in a small knot at the back of the head; the expression of the face is most
+bewitching, and bespeaks the perfect {61} joyousness of a happy nature
+combined with the dignity of a goddess; the drapery falls in careless folds
+from the waist downwards, and her whole attitude is the embodiment of all
+that is graceful and lovely in womanhood. She is of medium height, and the
+form is perfect in its symmetry and faultless proportions.
+
+Aphrodite is also frequently represented in the act of confining her
+dripping locks in a knot, whilst her attendant nymphs envelop her in a
+gauzy veil.
+
+The animals sacred to her were the dove, swan, swallow, and sparrow. Her
+favourite plants were the myrtle, apple-tree, rose, and poppy.
+
+The worship of Aphrodite is supposed to have been introduced into Greece
+from Central Asia. There is no doubt that she was originally identical with
+the famous Astarté, the Ashtoreth of the Bible, against whose idolatrous
+worship and infamous rites the prophets of old hurled forth their sublime
+and powerful anathemas.
+
+VENUS.
+
+The Venus of the Romans was identified with the Aphrodite of the Greeks.
+The worship of this divinity was only established in Rome in comparatively
+later times. Annual festivals, called Veneralia, were held in her honour,
+and the month of April, when flowers and plants spring forth afresh, was
+sacred to her. She was worshipped as Venus Cloacina (or the Purifier), and
+as Venus Myrtea (or the myrtle goddess), an epithet derived from the
+myrtle, the emblem of Love.
+
+HELIOS (SOL).
+
+The worship of Helios was introduced into Greece from Asia. According to
+the earliest conceptions of the Greeks he was not only the sun-god, but
+also the personification of life and all life-giving power, for light is
+well known to be an indispensable condition of all healthy terrestrial
+life. The worship of the sun was originally very widely spread, {62} not
+only among the early Greeks themselves, but also among other primitive
+nations. To us the sun is simply the orb of light, which, high above our
+heads, performs each day the functions assigned to it by a mighty and
+invisible Power; we can, therefore, form but a faint idea of the impression
+which it produced upon the spirit of a people whose intellect was still in
+its infancy, and who believed, with child-like simplicity, that every power
+of nature was a divinity, which, according as its character was baleful or
+beneficent, worked for the destruction or benefit of the human race.
+
+Helios, who was the son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, is described as
+rising every morning in the east, preceded by his sister Eos (the Dawn),
+who, with her rosy fingers, paints the tips of the mountains, and draws
+aside that misty veil through which her brother is about to appear. When he
+has burst forth in all the glorious light of day, Eos disappears, and
+Helios now drives his flame-darting chariot along the accustomed track.
+This chariot, which is of burnished gold, is drawn by four fire-breathing
+steeds, behind which the young god stands erect with flashing eyes, his
+head surrounded with rays, holding in one hand the reins of those fiery
+coursers which in all hands save his are unmanageable. When towards evening
+he descends the curve[26] in order to cool his burning forehead in the
+waters of the deep sea, he is followed closely by his sister Selene (the
+Moon), who is now prepared to take charge of the world, and illumine with
+her silver crescent the dusky night. Helios meanwhile rests from his
+labours, and, reclining softly on the cool fragrant couch prepared for him
+by the sea-nymphs, recruits himself for another life-giving, joy-inspiring,
+and beauteous day.
+
+It may appear strange that, although the Greeks considered the earth to be
+a flat circle, no explanation is given of the fact that Helios sinks down
+in the far {63} west regularly every evening, and yet reappears as
+regularly every morning in the east. Whether he was supposed to pass
+through Tartarus, and thus regain the opposite extremity through the bowels
+of the earth, or whether they thought he possessed any other means of
+making this transit, there is not a line in either Homer or Hesiod to
+prove. In later times, however, the poets invented the graceful fiction,
+that when Helios had finished his course, and reached the western side of
+the curve, a winged-boat, or cup, which had been made for him by Hephæstus,
+awaited him there, and conveyed him rapidly, with his glorious equipage, to
+the east, where he recommenced his bright and glowing career.
+
+This divinity was invoked as a witness when a solemn oath was taken, as it
+was believed that nothing escaped his all-seeing eye, and it was this fact
+which enabled him to inform Demeter of the fate of her daughter, as already
+related. He was supposed to possess flocks and herds in various localities,
+which may possibly be intended to represent the days and nights of the
+year, or the stars of heaven.
+
+Helios is said to have loved Clytie, a daughter of Oceanus, who ardently
+returned his affection; but in the course of time the fickle sun-god
+transferred his devotion to Leucothea, the daughter of Orchamus, king of
+the eastern countries, which so angered the forsaken Clytie that she
+informed Orchamus of his daughter's attachment, and he punished her by
+inhumanly burying her alive. Helios, overcome with grief, endeavoured, by
+every means in his power, to recall her to life. At last, finding all his
+efforts unavailing, he sprinkled her grave with heavenly nectar, and
+immediately there sprang forth from the spot a shoot of frankincense, which
+spread around its aromatic perfume.
+
+The jealous Clytie gained nothing by her cruel conduct, for the sun-god
+came to her no more. Inconsolable at his loss, she threw herself upon the
+ground, and refused all sustenance. For nine long days she turned her face
+towards the glorious god of day, as he moved along the {64} heavens, till
+at length her limbs became rooted in the ground, and she was transformed
+into a flower, which ever turns towards the sun.
+
+Helios married Perse, daughter of Oceanus, and their children were, Aëtes,
+king of Colchis (celebrated in the legend of the Argonauts as the possessor
+of the Golden Fleece), and Circe, the renowned sorceress.
+
+Helios had another son named Phaethon, whose mother was Clymene, one of the
+Oceanides. The youth was very beautiful, and a great favourite with
+Aphrodite, who intrusted him with the care of one of her temples, which
+flattering proof of her regard caused him to become vain and presumptuous.
+His friend Epaphus, son of Zeus and Io, endeavoured to check his youthful
+vanity by pretending to disbelieve his assertion that the sun-god was his
+father. Phaethon, full of resentment, and eager to be able to refute the
+calumny, hastened to his mother Clymene, and besought her to tell him
+whether Helios was really his father. Moved by his entreaties, and at the
+same time angry at the reproach of Epaphus, Clymene pointed to the glorious
+sun, then shining down upon them, and assured her son that in that bright
+orb he beheld the author of his being, adding that if he had still any
+doubt, he might visit the radiant dwelling of the great god of light and
+inquire for himself. Overjoyed at his mother's reassuring words, and
+following the directions she gave him, Phaethon quickly wended his way to
+his father's palace.
+
+As he entered the palace of the sun-god the dazzling rays almost blinded
+him, and prevented him from approaching the throne on which his father was
+seated, surrounded by the Hours, Days, Months, Years, and Seasons. Helios,
+who with his all-seeing eye had watched him from afar, removed his crown of
+glittering rays, and bade him not to be afraid, but to draw near to his
+father. Encouraged by this kind reception, Phaethon entreated him to bestow
+upon him such a proof of his love, that all the world might be convinced
+that he was indeed his son; whereupon Helios desired him to ask any favour
+he pleased, {65} and swore by the Styx that it should be granted. The
+impetuous youth immediately requested permission to drive the chariot of
+the sun for one whole day. His father listened horror-struck to this
+presumptuous demand, and by representing the many dangers which would beset
+his path, endeavoured to dissuade him from so perilous an undertaking; but
+his son, deaf to all advice, pressed his point with such pertinacity, that
+Helios was reluctantly compelled to lead him to the chariot. Phaethon
+paused for a moment to admire the beauty of the glittering equipage, the
+gift of the god of fire, who had formed it of gold, and ornamented it with
+precious stones, which reflected the rays of the sun. And now Helios,
+seeing his sister, the Dawn, opening her doors in the rosy east, ordered
+the Hours to yoke the horses. The goddesses speedily obeyed the command,
+and the father then anointed the face of his son with a sacred balm, to
+enable him to endure the burning flames which issued from the nostrils of
+the steeds, and sorrowfully placing his crown of rays upon his head,
+desired him to ascend the chariot.
+
+The eager youth joyfully took his place and grasped the coveted reins, but
+no sooner did the fiery coursers of the sun feel the inexperienced hand
+which attempted to guide them, than they became restive and unmanageable.
+Wildly they rushed out of their accustomed track, now soaring so high as to
+threaten the heavens with destruction, now descending so low as nearly to
+set the earth on fire. At last the unfortunate charioteer, blinded with the
+glare, and terrified at the awful devastation he had caused, dropped the
+reins from his trembling hands. Mountains and forests were in flames,
+rivers and streams were dried up, and a general conflagration was imminent.
+The scorched earth now called on Zeus for help, who hurled his thunderbolt
+at Phaethon, and with a flash of lightning brought the fiery steeds to a
+standstill. The lifeless body of the youth fell headlong into the river
+Eridanus,[27] where it was received and buried by the {66} nymphs of the
+stream. His sisters mourned so long for him that they were transformed by
+Zeus into poplars, and the tears they shed, falling into the waters, became
+drops of clear, transparent amber. Cycnus, the faithful friend of the
+unhappy Phaethon, felt such overwhelming grief at his terrible fate, that
+he pined and wasted away. The gods, moved with compassion, transformed him
+into a swan, which for ever brooded over the fatal spot where the waters
+had closed over the head of his unfortunate friend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The chief seat of the worship of Helios was the island of Rhodes, which
+according to the following myth was his especial territory. At the time of
+the Titanomachia, when the gods were dividing the world by lot, Helios
+happened to be absent, and consequently received no share. He, therefore,
+complained to Zeus, who proposed to have a new allotment, but this Helios
+would not allow, saying, that as he pursued his daily journey, his
+penetrating eye had beheld a lovely, fertile island lying beneath the waves
+of the ocean, and that if the immortals would swear to give him the
+undisturbed possession of this spot, he would be content to accept it as
+his share of the universe. The gods took the oath, whereupon the island of
+Rhodes immediately raised itself above the surface of the waters.
+
+The famous Colossus of Rhodes, which was one of the seven wonders of the
+world, was erected in honour of Helios. This wonderful statue was 105 feet
+high, and was formed entirely of brass; it formed the entrance to the
+harbour at Rhodes, and the largest vessel could easily sail between the
+legs, which stood on moles, each side of the harbour. Though so gigantic,
+it was perfectly proportioned in every part. Some idea of {67} its size may
+be gained from the fact that very few people were able to span the thumb of
+this statue with their arms. In the interior of the Colossus was a winding
+staircase leading to the top, from the summit of which, by means of a
+telescope, the coast of Syria, and also the shores of Egypt, are said to
+have been visible.[28]
+
+EOS (AURORA).
+
+Eos, the Dawn, like her brother Helios, whose advent she always announced,
+was also deified by the early Greeks. She too had her own chariot, which
+she drove across the vast horizon both morning and night, before and after
+the sun-god. Hence she is not merely the personification of the rosy morn,
+but also of twilight, for which reason her palace is placed in the west, on
+the island Ææa. The abode of Eos is a magnificent structure, surrounded by
+flowery meads and velvety lawns, where nymphs and other immortal beings,
+wind in and out in the mazy figures of the dance, whilst the music of a
+sweetly-tuned melody accompanies their graceful, gliding movements.
+
+Eos is described by the poets as a beautiful maiden with rosy arms and
+fingers, and large wings, whose plumage is of an ever-changing hue; she
+bears a star on her forehead, and a torch in her hand. Wrapping round her
+the rich folds of her violet-tinged mantle, she leaves her couch before the
+break of day, and herself yokes her two horses, Lampetus and Phaethon, to
+her glorious chariot. She then hastens with active cheerfulness to open the
+gates of heaven, in order to herald the approach of her brother, the god of
+day, whilst the tender plants and flowers, revived by the morning dew, lift
+their heads to welcome her as she passes.
+
+{68}
+
+Eos first married the Titan Astræus,[29] and their children were Heosphorus
+(Hesperus), the evening star, and the winds. She afterwards became united
+to Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, who had won her affection by
+his unrivalled beauty; and Eos, unhappy at the thought of their being ever
+separated by death, obtained for him from Zeus the gift of immortality,
+forgetting, however, to add to it that of eternal youth. The consequence
+was that when, in the course of time, Tithonus grew old and decrepid, and
+lost all the beauty which had won her admiration, Eos became disgusted with
+his infirmities, and at last shut him up in a chamber, where soon little
+else was left of him but his voice, which had now sunk into a weak, feeble
+quaver. According to some of the later poets, he became so weary of his
+cheerless and miserable existence, that he entreated to be allowed to die.
+This was, however, impossible; but Eos, pitying his unhappy condition,
+exerted her divine power, and changed him into a grasshopper, which is, as
+it were, all voice, and whose monotonous, ceaseless chirpings may not
+inaptly be compared to the meaningless babble of extreme old age.
+
+PHOEBUS-APOLLO.
+
+Phoebus-Apollo, the god of Light, Prophecy, Music, Poetry, and the Arts and
+Sciences, is by far the noblest conception within the whole range of Greek
+mythology, and his worship, which not only extended to all the states of
+Greece, but also to Asia Minor and to every Greek colony throughout the
+world, stands out among the most ancient and strongly-marked features of
+Grecian history, and exerted a more decided influence over the Greek
+nation, than that of any other deity, not excepting Zeus himself.
+
+Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was born beneath the shade of a
+palm tree which grew at the foot {69} of Mount Cynthus, on the barren and
+rocky island of Delos. The poets tell us that the earth smiled when the
+young god first beheld the light of day, and that Delos became so proud and
+exultant at the honour thus conferred upon her, that she covered herself
+with golden flowers; swans surrounded the island, and the Delian nymphs
+celebrated his birth with songs of joy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The unhappy Leto, driven to Delos by the relentless persecutions of Hera,
+was not long permitted to enjoy her haven of refuge. Being still tormented
+by her enemy, the young mother was once more obliged to fly; she therefore
+resigned the charge of her new-born babe to the goddess Themis, who
+carefully wrapped the helpless infant in swaddling-clothes, and fed him
+with nectar and ambrosia; but he had no sooner partaken of the heavenly
+food than, to the amazement of the goddess, he burst asunder the bands
+which confined his infant limbs, and springing to his feet, appeared before
+her as a full-grown youth of divine strength and beauty. He now demanded a
+lyre and a bow, declaring that henceforth he would announce to mankind the
+will of his father Zeus. "The golden lyre," said he, "shall be my friend,
+the bent bow my delight, and in oracles will I foretell the dark future."
+With these words he ascended to Olympus, where he was received with joyful
+acclamations into the assembly of the celestial gods, who acknowledged him
+as the most beautiful and glorious of all the sons of Zeus.
+
+Phoebus-Apollo was the god of light in a twofold {70} signification: first,
+as representing the great orb of day which illumines the world; and
+secondly, as the heavenly light which animates the soul of man. He
+inherited his function as sun-god from Helios, with whom, in later times,
+he was so completely identified, that the personality of the one became
+gradually merged in that of the other. We, accordingly, find Helios
+frequently confounded with Apollo, myths belonging to the former attributed
+to the latter; and with some tribes--the Ionic, for instance--so complete
+is this identification, that Apollo is called by them Helios-Apollo.
+
+As the divinity whose power is developed in the broad light of day, he
+brings joy and delight to nature, and health and prosperity to man. By the
+influence of his warm and gentle rays he disperses the noxious vapours of
+the night, assists the grain to ripen and the flowers to bloom.
+
+But although, as god of the sun, he is a life-giving and life-preserving
+power, who, by his genial influence, dispels the cold of winter, he is, at
+the same time, the god who, by means of his fiercely darting rays, could
+spread disease and send sudden death to men and animals; and it is to this
+phase of his character that we must look for the explanation of his being
+considered, in conjunction with his twin-sister, Artemis (as moon-goddess),
+a divinity of death. The brother and sister share this function between
+them, he taking man and she woman as her aim, and those especially who died
+in the bloom of youth, or at an advanced age, were believed to have been
+killed by their gentle arrows. But Apollo did not always send an easy
+death. We see in the _Iliad_ how, when angry with the Greeks, the "god of
+the silver bow" strode down from Olympus, with his quiver full of
+death-bringing darts, and sent a raging pestilence into their camp. For
+nine days he let fly his fatal arrows, first on animals and then on men,
+till the air became darkened with the smoke from the funeral pyres.
+
+In his character as god of light, Phoebus-Apollo is the protecting deity of
+shepherds, because it is he who warms {71} the fields and meadows, and
+gives rich pastures to the flocks, thereby gladdening the heart of the
+herdsman.
+
+As the temperate heat of the sun exercises so invigorating an effect on man
+and animals, and promotes the growth of those medicinal herbs and vegetable
+productions necessary for the cure of diseases, Phoebus-Apollo was supposed
+to possess the power of restoring life and health; hence he was regarded as
+the god of healing; but this feature in his character we shall find more
+particularly developed in his son Asclepius (Æsculapius), the veritable god
+of the healing art.
+
+Pursuing our analysis of the various phases in the character of
+Phoebus-Apollo, we find that with the first beams of his genial light, all
+nature awakens to renewed life, and the woods re-echo with the jubilant
+sound of the untaught lays, warbled by thousands of feathered choristers.
+Hence, by a natural inference, he is the god of music, and as, according to
+the belief of the ancients, the inspirations of genius were inseparably
+connected with the glorious light of heaven, he is also the god of poetry,
+and acts as the special patron of the arts and sciences. Apollo is himself
+the heavenly musician among the Olympic gods, whose banquets are gladdened
+by the wondrous strains which he produces from his favourite instrument,
+the seven-stringed lyre. In the cultus of Apollo, music formed a
+distinguishing feature. All sacred dances, and even the sacrifices in his
+honour, were performed to the sound of musical instruments; and it is, in a
+great measure, owing to the influence which the music in his worship
+exercised on the Greek nation, that Apollo came to be regarded as the
+leader of the nine Muses, the legitimate divinities of poetry and song. In
+this character he is called Musagetes, and is always represented robed in a
+long flowing garment; his lyre, to the tones of which he appears to be
+singing, is suspended by a band across the chest; his head is encircled by
+a wreath of laurel, and his long hair, streaming down over his shoulders,
+gives him a somewhat effeminate appearance.
+
+And now we must view the glorious god of light under {72} another, and (as
+far as regards his influence over the Greek nation) a much more important
+aspect; for, in historical times, all the other functions and attributes of
+Apollo sink into comparative insignificance before the great power which he
+exercised as god of prophecy. It is true that all Greek gods were endowed,
+to a certain extent, with the faculty of foretelling future events; but
+Apollo, as sun-god, was the concentration of all prophetic power, as it was
+supposed that nothing escaped his all-seeing eye, which penetrated the most
+hidden recesses, and laid bare the secrets which lay concealed behind the
+dark veil of the future.
+
+We have seen that when Apollo assumed his god-like form, he took his place
+among the immortals; but he had not long enjoyed the rapturous delights of
+Olympus, before he felt within him an ardent desire to fulfil his great
+mission of interpreting to mankind the will of his mighty father. He
+accordingly descended to earth, and travelled through many countries,
+seeking a fitting site upon which to establish an oracle. At length he
+reached the southern side of the rocky heights of Parnassus, beneath which
+lay the harbour of Crissa. Here, under the overhanging cliff, he found a
+secluded spot, where, from the most ancient times, there had existed an
+oracle, in which Gæa herself had revealed the future to man, and which, in
+Deucalion's time, she had resigned to Themis. It was guarded by the huge
+serpent Python, the scourge of the surrounding neighbourhood, and the
+terror alike of men and cattle. The young god, full of confidence in his
+unerring aim, attacked and slew the monster with his arrows, thus freeing
+land and people from their mighty enemy.
+
+The grateful inhabitants, anxious to do honour to their deliverer, flocked
+round Apollo, who proceeded to mark out a plan for a temple, and, with the
+assistance of numbers of eager volunteers, a suitable edifice was soon
+erected. It now became necessary to choose ministers, who would offer up
+sacrifices, interpret his prophecies to the people, and take charge of the
+temple. Looking round, he saw in the far distance a vessel bound from Crete
+to the {73} Peloponnesus, and determined to avail himself of her crew for
+his service. Assuming the shape of an enormous dolphin, he agitated the
+waters to such a degree, that the ship was tossed violently to and fro, to
+the great alarm of the mariners; at the same time he raised a mighty wind,
+which drove the ship into the harbour of Crissa, where she ran aground. The
+terrified sailors dared not set foot on shore; but Apollo, under the form
+of a vigorous youth, stepped down to the vessel, revealed himself in his
+true character, and informed them that it was he who had driven them to
+Crissa, in order that they might become his priests, and serve him in his
+temple. Arrived at the sacred fane, he instructed them how to perform the
+services in his honour, and desired them to worship him under the name of
+Apollo-Delphinios, because he had first appeared to them under the form of
+a dolphin. Thus was established the far-famed oracle of Delphi, the only
+institution of the kind which was not exclusively national, for it was
+consulted by Lydians, Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, &c., and, in fact, was
+held in the highest repute all over the world. In obedience to its decrees,
+the laws of Lycurgus were introduced, and the earliest Greek colonies
+founded. No cities were built without first consulting the Delphic oracle,
+for it was believed that Apollo took special delight in the founding of
+cities, the first stone of which he laid in person; nor was any enterprise
+ever undertaken, without inquiring at this sacred fane as to its probable
+success.
+
+But that which brought Apollo more closely home to the hearts of the
+people, and raised the whole moral tone of the Greek nation, was the
+belief, gradually developed with the intelligence of the people, that he
+was the god who accepted repentance as an atonement for sin, who pardoned
+the contrite sinner, and who acted as the special protector of those, who,
+like Orestes, had committed a crime, which required long years of
+expiation.
+
+Apollo is represented by the poets as being eternally young; his
+countenance, glowing with joyous life, is the embodiment of immortal
+beauty; his eyes are of a deep {74} blue; his forehead low, but broad and
+intellectual; his hair, which falls over his shoulders in long waving
+locks, is of a golden, or warm chestnut hue. He is crowned with laurel, and
+wears a purple robe; in his hand he bears his silver bow, which is unbent
+when he smiles, but ready for use when he menaces evil-doers.
+
+But Apollo, the eternally beautiful youth, the perfection of all that is
+graceful and refined, rarely seems to have been happy in his love; either
+his advances met with a repulse, or his union with the object of his
+affection was attended with fatal consequences.
+
+His first love was Daphne (daughter of Peneus, the river-god), who was so
+averse to marriage that she entreated her father to allow her to lead a
+life of celibacy, and devote herself to the chase, which she loved to the
+exclusion of all other pursuits. But one day, soon after his victory over
+the Python, Apollo happened to see Eros bending his bow, and proud of his
+own superior strength and skill, he laughed at the efforts of the little
+archer, saying that such a weapon was more suited to the one who had just
+killed the terrible serpent. Eros angrily replied that his arrow should
+pierce the heart of the mocker himself, and flying off to the summit of
+Mount Parnassus, he drew from his quiver two darts of different
+workmanship--one of gold, which had the effect of inspiring love; the other
+of lead, which created aversion. Taking aim at Apollo, he pierced his
+breast with the golden shaft, whilst the leaden one he discharged into the
+bosom of the beautiful Daphne. The son of Leto instantly felt the most
+ardent affection for the nymph, who, on her part, evinced the greatest
+dislike towards her divine lover, and, at his approach, fled from him like
+a hunted deer. He called upon her in the most endearing accents to stay,
+but she still sped on, until at length, becoming faint with fatigue, and
+fearing that she was about to succumb, she called upon the gods to come to
+her aid. Hardly had she uttered her prayer before a heavy torpor seized her
+limbs, and just as Apollo threw out his arms to embrace her, she became
+transformed {75} into a laurel-bush. He sorrowfully crowned his head with
+its leaves, and declared, that in memory of his love, it should henceforth
+remain evergreen, and be held sacred to him.
+
+He next sought the love of Marpessa, the daughter of Evenus; but though her
+father approved his suit, the maiden preferred a youth named Idas, who
+contrived to carry her off in a winged chariot which he had procured from
+Poseidon. Apollo pursued the fugitives, whom he quickly overtook, and
+forcibly seizing the bride, refused to resign her. Zeus then interfered,
+and declared that Marpessa herself must decide which of her lovers should
+claim her as his wife. After due reflection she accepted Idas as her
+husband, judiciously concluding that although the attractions of the divine
+Apollo were superior to those of her lover, it would be wiser to unite
+herself to a mortal, who, growing old with herself, would be less likely to
+forsake her, when advancing years should rob her of her charms.
+
+Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, was another object of the love
+of Apollo. She feigned to return his affection, and promised to marry him,
+provided he would confer upon her the gift of prophecy; but having received
+the boon she desired, the treacherous maiden refused to comply with the
+conditions upon which it had been granted. Incensed at her breach of faith,
+Apollo, unable to recall the gift he had bestowed, rendered it useless by
+causing her predictions to fail in obtaining credence. Cassandra became
+famous in history for her prophetic powers, but her prophecies were never
+believed. For instance, she warned her brother Paris that if he brought
+back a wife from Greece he would cause the destruction of his father's
+house and kingdom; she also warned the Trojans not to admit the wooden
+horse within the walls of the city, and foretold to Agamemnon all the
+disasters which afterwards befell him.
+
+Apollo afterwards married Coronis, a nymph of Larissa, and thought himself
+happy in the possession of her faithful love; but once more he was doomed
+to {76} disappointment, for one day his favourite bird, the crow, flew to
+him with the intelligence that his wife had transferred her affections to a
+youth of Haemonia. Apollo, burning with rage, instantly destroyed her with
+one of his death-bringing darts. Too late he repented of his rashness, for
+she had been tenderly beloved by him, and he would fain have recalled her
+to life; but, although he exerted all his healing powers, his efforts were
+in vain. He punished the crow for its garrulity by changing the colour of
+its plumage from pure white to intense black, and forbade it to fly any
+longer among the other birds.
+
+Coronis left an infant son named Asclepius, who afterwards became god of
+medicine. His powers were so extraordinary that he could not only cure the
+sick, but could even restore the dead to life. At last Aïdes complained to
+Zeus that the number of shades conducted to his dominions was daily
+decreasing, and the great ruler of Olympus, fearing that mankind, thus
+protected against sickness and death, would be able to defy the gods
+themselves, killed Asclepius with one of his thunderbolts. The loss of his
+highly gifted son so exasperated Apollo that, being unable to vent his
+anger on Zeus, he destroyed the Cyclops, who had forged the fatal
+thunderbolts. For this offence, Apollo would have been banished by Zeus to
+Tartarus, but at the earnest intercession of Leto he partially relented,
+and contented himself with depriving him of all power and dignity, and
+imposing on him a temporary servitude in the house of Admetus, king of
+Thessaly. Apollo faithfully served his royal master for nine years in the
+humble capacity of a shepherd, and was treated by him with every kindness
+and consideration. During the period of his service the king sought the
+hand of Alcestis, the beautiful daughter of Pelias, son of Poseidon; but
+her father declared that he would only resign her to the suitor who should
+succeed in yoking a lion and a wild boar to his chariot. By the aid of his
+divine herdsman, Admetus accomplished this difficult task, and gained his
+bride. Nor was this the only favour which the king received from the exiled
+god, for Apollo obtained from {77} the Fates the gift of immortality for
+his benefactor, on condition that when his last hour approached, some
+member of his own family should be willing to die in his stead. When the
+fatal hour arrived, and Admetus felt that he was at the point of death, he
+implored his aged parents to yield to him their few remaining days. But
+"life is sweet" even to old age, and they both refused to make the
+sacrifice demanded of them. Alcestis, however, who had secretly devoted
+herself to death for her husband, was seized with a mortal sickness, which
+kept pace with his rapid recovery. The devoted wife breathed her last in
+the arms of Admetus, and he had just consigned her to the tomb, when
+Heracles chanced to come to the palace. Admetus held the rites of
+hospitality so sacred, that he at first kept silence with regard to his
+great bereavement; but as soon as his friend heard what had occurred, he
+bravely descended into the tomb, and when death came to claim his prey, he
+exerted his marvellous strength, and held him in his arms, until he
+promised to restore the beautiful and heroic queen to the bosom of her
+family.
+
+Whilst pursuing the peaceful life of a shepherd, Apollo formed a strong
+friendship with two youths named Hyacinthus and Cyparissus, but the great
+favour shown to them by the god did not suffice to shield them from
+misfortune. The former was one day throwing the discus with Apollo, when,
+running too eagerly to take up the one thrown by the god, he was struck on
+the head with it and killed on the spot. Apollo was overcome with grief at
+the sad end of his young favourite, but being unable to restore him to
+life, he changed him into the flower called after him the Hyacinth.
+Cyparissus had the misfortune to kill by accident one of Apollo's favourite
+stags, which so preyed on his mind that he gradually pined away, and died
+of a broken heart. He was transformed by the god into a cypress-tree, which
+owes its name to this story.
+
+After these sad occurrences Apollo quitted Thessaly and repaired to
+Phrygia, in Asia Minor, where he met Poseidon, who, like himself, was in
+exile, and condemned {78} to a temporary servitude on earth. The two gods
+now entered the service of Laomedon, king of Troy, Apollo undertaking to
+tend his flocks, and Poseidon to build the walls of the city. But Apollo
+also contributed his assistance in the erection of those wonderful walls,
+and, by the aid of his marvellous musical powers, the labours of his
+fellow-worker, Poseidon, were rendered so light and easy that his otherwise
+arduous task advanced with astonishing celerity; for, as the master-hand of
+the god of music grasped the chords of his lyre,[30] the huge blocks of
+stone moved of their own accord, adjusting themselves with the utmost
+nicety into the places designed for them.
+
+But though Apollo was so renowned in the art of music, there were two
+individuals who had the effrontery to consider themselves equal to him in
+this respect, and, accordingly, each challenged him to compete with them in
+a musical contest. These were Marsyas and Pan. Marsyas was a satyr, who,
+having picked up the flute which Athene had thrown away in disgust,
+discovered, to his great delight and astonishment, that, in consequence of
+its having touched the lips of a goddess, it played of itself in the most
+charming manner. Marsyas, who was a great lover of music, and much beloved
+on this account by all the elf-like denizens of the woods and glens, was so
+intoxicated with joy at this discovery, that he foolishly challenged Apollo
+to compete with him in a musical contest. The challenge being accepted, the
+Muses were chosen umpires, and it was decided that the unsuccessful
+candidate should suffer the punishment of being flayed alive. For a long
+time the merits of both claimants remained so equally balanced, that it was
+impossible to award the palm of victory to either, seeing which, Apollo,
+resolved to conquer, added the sweet tones of his melodious voice to the
+strains of his lyre, {79} and this at once turned the scale in his favour.
+The unhappy Marsyas being defeated, had to undergo the terrible penalty,
+and his untimely fate was universally lamented; indeed the Satyrs and
+Dryads, his companions, wept so incessantly at his fate, that their tears,
+uniting together, formed a river in Phrygia which is still known by the
+name of Marsyas.
+
+The result of the contest with Pan was by no means of so serious a
+character. The god of shepherds having affirmed that he could play more
+skilfully on his flute of seven reeds (the syrinx or Pan's pipe), than
+Apollo on his world-renowned lyre, a contest ensued, in which Apollo was
+pronounced the victor by all the judges appointed to decide between the
+rival candidates. Midas, king of Phrygia, alone demurred at this decision,
+having the bad taste to prefer the uncouth tones of the Pan's pipe to the
+refined melodies of Apollo's lyre. Incensed at the obstinacy and stupidity
+of the Phrygian king, Apollo punished him by giving him the ears of an ass.
+Midas, horrified at being thus disfigured, determined to hide his disgrace
+from his subjects by means of a cap; his barber, however, could not be kept
+in ignorance of the fact, and was therefore bribed with rich gifts never to
+reveal it. Finding, however, that he could not keep the secret any longer,
+he dug a hole in the ground into which he whispered it; then closing up the
+aperture he returned home, feeling greatly relieved at having thus eased
+his mind of its burden. But after all, this very humiliating secret was
+revealed to the world, for some reeds which sprung up from the spot
+murmured incessantly, as they waved to and fro in the wind: "King Midas has
+the ears of an ass."
+
+In the sad and beautiful story of Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, and wife of
+Amphion, king of Thebes, we have another instance of the severe punishments
+meted out by Apollo to those who in any way incurred his displeasure. Niobe
+was the proud mother of seven sons and seven daughters, and exulting in the
+number of her children, she, upon one occasion, ridiculed the worship of
+Leto, {80} because she had but one son and daughter, and desired the
+Thebans, for the future, to give to her the honours and sacrifices which
+they had hitherto offered to the mother of Apollo and Artemis. The
+sacrilegious words had scarcely passed her lips before Apollo called upon
+his sister Artemis to assist him in avenging the insult offered to their
+mother, and soon their invisible arrows sped through the air. Apollo slew
+all the sons, and Artemis had already slain all the daughters save one, the
+youngest and best beloved, whom Niobe clasped in her arms, when the
+agonized mother implored the enraged deities to leave her, at least, one
+out of all her beautiful children; but, even as she prayed, the deadly
+arrow reached the heart of this child also. Meanwhile the unhappy father,
+unable to bear the loss of his children, had destroyed himself, and his
+dead body lay beside the lifeless corpse of his favourite son. Widowed and
+childless, the heart-broken mother sat among her dead, and the gods, in
+pity for her unutterable woe, turned her into a stone, which they
+transferred to Siphylus, her native Phrygian mountain, where it still
+continues to shed tears.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The punishment of Niobe forms the subject of a magnificent marble group,
+which was found at Rome in the year 1553, and is now in the gallery of
+Uffizi, at Florence.
+
+The renowned singer Orpheus was the son of Apollo and Calliope, the muse of
+epic poetry, and, as might be expected with parents so highly gifted, was
+endowed with most distinguished intellectual qualifications. He was a poet,
+a teacher of the religious doctrines known as the Orphic mysteries, and a
+great musician, having inherited from his father an extraordinary genius
+for music. {81} When he sang to the sweet tones of his lyre, he charmed all
+nature, and summoned round him the wild beasts of the forests, who, under
+the influence of his music, became tame and gentle as lambs. The madly
+rushing torrents stopped their rapid course, and the very mountains and
+trees moved from their places at the sound of his entrancing melodies.
+
+Orpheus became united to a lovely nymph named Eurydice, the daughter of the
+sea-god Nereus, whom he fondly loved. She was no less attached to him, and
+their married life was full of joy and happiness. But it was only
+short-lived; for Aristæus,[31] the half-brother of Orpheus, having fallen
+in love with the beautiful Eurydice, forcibly endeavoured to take her from
+her husband, and as she fled across some fields to elude his pursuit, she
+was bitten in the foot by a venomous snake, which lay concealed in the long
+grass. Eurydice died of the wound, and her sorrowing husband filled the
+groves and valleys with his piteous and unceasing lamentations.
+
+His longing to behold her once more became at last so unconquerable, that
+he determined to brave the horrors of the lower world, in order to entreat
+Aïdes to restore to him his beloved wife. Armed only with his golden lyre,
+the gift of Apollo, he descended into the gloomy depths of Hades, where his
+heavenly music arrested for a while the torments of the unhappy sufferers.
+The stone of Sisyphus remained motionless; Tantalus forgot his perpetual
+thirst; the wheel of Ixion ceased to revolve; and even the Furies shed
+tears, and withheld for a time their persecutions. Undismayed at the scenes
+of horror and suffering which met his view on every side, he pursued his
+way until he arrived at the palace of Aïdes. Presenting himself before the
+throne on which sat the stony-hearted king and his consort Persephone,
+Orpheus recounted his woes to the sound of his lyre. Moved to pity by his
+sweet strains, they listened to his {82} melancholy story, and consented to
+release Eurydice on condition that he should not look upon her until they
+reached the upper world. Orpheus gladly promised to comply with this
+injunction, and, followed by Eurydice, ascended the steep and gloomy path
+which led to the realms of life and light. All went well until he was just
+about to pass the extreme limits of Hades, when, forgetting for the moment
+the hard condition, he turned to convince himself that his beloved wife was
+really behind him. The glance was fatal, and destroyed all his hopes of
+happiness; for, as he yearningly stretched out his arms to embrace her, she
+was caught back, and vanished from his sight for ever. The grief of Orpheus
+at this second loss was even more intense than before, and he now avoided
+all human society. In vain did the nymphs, his once chosen companions,
+endeavour to win him back to his accustomed haunts; their power to charm
+was gone, and music was now his sole consolation. He wandered forth alone,
+choosing the wildest and most secluded paths, and the hills and vales
+resounded with his pathetic melodies. At last he happened to cross the path
+of some Thracian women, who were performing the wild rites of Dionysus
+(Bacchus), and in their mad fury at his refusing to join them, they
+furiously attacked him, and tore him in pieces. In pity for his unhappy
+fate, the Muses collected his remains, which they buried at the foot of
+Mount Olympus, and the nightingale warbled a funeral dirge over his grave.
+His head was thrown into the river Hebrus, and as it floated down the
+stream, the lips still continued to murmur the beloved name of Eurydice.
+
+The chief seat of the worship of Apollo was at Delphi, and here was the
+most magnificent of all his temples, the foundation of which reaches far
+beyond all historical knowledge, and which contained immense riches, the
+offerings of kings and private persons, who had received favourable replies
+from the oracle. The Greeks believed Delphi to be the central point of the
+earth, because two eagles sent forth by Zeus, one from the east, the other
+{83} from the west, were said to have arrived there at the same moment.
+
+The Pythian games, celebrated in honour of the victory of Apollo over the
+Python, took place at Delphi every four years. At the first celebration of
+these games, gods, goddesses, and heroes contended for the prizes, which
+were at first of gold or silver, but consisted, in later times, of simple
+laurel wreaths.
+
+On account of its being the place of his birth, the whole island of Delos
+was consecrated to Apollo, where he was worshipped with great solemnity;
+the greatest care was taken to preserve the sanctity of the spot, for which
+reason no one was suffered to be buried there. At the foot of Mount Cynthus
+was a splendid temple of Apollo which possessed an oracle, and was enriched
+with magnificent offerings from all parts of Greece. Even foreign nations
+held this island sacred, for when the Persians passed it on their way to
+attack Greece, they not only sailed by, leaving it uninjured, but sent rich
+presents to the temple. Games, called Delia, instituted by Theseus, were
+celebrated at Delos every four years.
+
+A festival termed the Gymnopedæa was held at Sparta in honour of Apollo, in
+which boys sang the praises of the gods, and of the three hundred
+Lacedæmonians who fell at the battle of Thermopylæ.
+
+Wolves and hawks were sacrificed to Apollo, and the birds sacred to him
+were the hawk, raven, and swan.
+
+ROMAN APOLLO.
+
+The worship of Apollo never occupied the all-important position in Rome
+which it held in Greece, nor was it introduced till a comparatively late
+period. There was no sanctuary erected to this divinity until B.C. 430,
+when the Romans, in order to avert a plague, built a temple in his honour;
+but we do not find the worship of Apollo becoming in any way prominent
+until the time of Augustus, who, having called upon this god for aid before
+the famous battle of Actium, ascribed the victory which he {84} gained, to
+his influence, and accordingly erected a temple there, which he enriched
+with a portion of the spoil.
+
+Augustus afterwards built another temple in honour of Apollo, on the
+Palatine Hill, in which at the foot of his statue, were deposited two gilt
+chests, containing the Sibylline oracles. These oracles were collected to
+replace the Sibylline books originally preserved in the temple of Jupiter,
+which were destroyed when that edifice was burned.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Sibyls were maidens who had received the gift of prophecy, and the
+privilege of living to an incredible age. One of these Sibyls (known as the
+Cumæan) appeared to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, offering
+for sale nine books, which she informed him had been written by herself.
+Not knowing who she was, Tarquin refused to buy them, upon which she burned
+three, and returned with six, demanding the same price as before. Being
+again driven away as an impostor, she again retired and burned three more,
+returning with the remaining three, for which she still asked the same
+price as at first. Tarquin, amazed at her inconsistency, now consulted the
+Augurs, who blamed him for not having bought the nine books when they were
+first offered to him, and desired him to secure the remaining three, at
+whatever price they were to be had. He, accordingly, purchased the volumes,
+which were found to contain predictions of great importance to the Romans.
+After the disposal of the books, the Sibyl vanished, and was seen no more.
+
+The most beautiful and renowned of all the statues of Apollo now in
+existence, is that known as the Apollo Belvedere, which was found in 1503
+among the ruins of {85} ancient Antium. It was purchased by Pope Julius
+II., who removed it to the Belvedere of the Vatican, from whence it takes
+its name, and where it has been, for more than three hundred years, the
+admiration of the world. When Rome was taken, and plundered by the French,
+this celebrated statue was transported to Paris, and placed in the museum
+there, but in 1815 it was restored to its former place in the Vatican. The
+attitude of the figure, which is more than seven feet high, is inimitable
+in its freedom, grace, and majesty. The forehead is noble and intellectual,
+and the whole countenance so exquisite in its beauty, that one pauses
+spell-bound to gaze on so perfect a conception. The god has a very youthful
+appearance, as is usual in all his representations, and with the exception
+of a short mantle which falls from his shoulders, is unclothed. He stands
+against the trunk of a tree, up which a serpent is creeping, and his left
+arm is outstretched, as though about to punish.
+
+HECATE.
+
+Hecate would appear to have been originally a moon-goddess worshipped by
+the Thracians. She became confounded, and eventually identified with Selene
+and Persephone, and is one of those divinities of whom the ancients had
+various conflicting accounts.
+
+Hecate was the daughter of Perses and "gold-wreathed" Astræa (the starry
+night[32]), and her sway extended over earth, heaven, and hell, for which
+reason she is represented in works of art as a triple divinity, having
+three female bodies, all young and beautiful, and united together.
+
+In later times, when this divinity becomes identified with Persephone, she
+is supposed to inhabit the lower world as a malignant deity, and
+henceforward it is the gloomy, awe-inspiring side of her character which
+alone {86} develops itself. She now presides over all practices connected
+with witchcraft and enchantments, haunts sepulchres, and the point where
+two roads cross, and lonely spots where murders have been committed. She
+was supposed to be connected with the appearance of ghosts and spectres, to
+possess unlimited influence over the powers of the lower world, and to be
+able to lay to rest unearthly apparitions by her magic spells and
+incantations.
+
+Hecate appears as a gigantic woman, bearing a torch and a sword. Her feet
+and hair are formed of snakes, and her passage is accompanied by voices of
+thunder, weird shrieks and yells, and the deep baying and howling of dogs.
+
+Her favour was propitiated by offerings and sacrifices, principally
+consisting of black lambs. Her festivals were celebrated at night, by
+torchlight, when these animals were offered to her, accompanied by many
+peculiar ceremonies. These ceremonies were carried out with the minutest
+attention to details, as it was believed that the omission of the slightest
+particular would afford to her ministers, the evil spirits of the lower
+world, who hovered round the worshippers, an opportunity for entering among
+them, and exerting their baneful influence. At the end of every month food
+was placed wherever two roads met, in readiness for her and other malignant
+divinities.
+
+In studying the peculiar characteristics which Hecate assumes when she
+usurps the place of Persephone, the rightful mistress of the lower world,
+we are reminded of the various superstitions with regard to spectres,
+witchcraft, &c., which have, even down to our own times, exerted so
+powerful an influence over the minds of the ignorant, and which would
+appear to owe their origin to a remote pagan source.
+
+SELENE (LUNA).
+
+Just as Helios personified the sun, so his sister Selene represented the
+moon, and was supposed to drive her {87} chariot across the sky whilst her
+brother was reposing after the toils of the day.
+
+When the shades of evening began to enfold the earth, the two milk-white
+steeds of Selene rose out of the mysterious depths of Oceanus. Seated in a
+silvery chariot, and accompanied by her daughter Herse, the goddess of the
+dew, appeared the mild and gentle queen of the night, with a crescent on
+her fair brow, a gauzy veil flowing behind, and a lighted torch in her
+hand.
+
+Selene greatly admired a beautiful young shepherd named Endymion, to whom
+Zeus had accorded the privilege of eternal youth, combined with the faculty
+of sleeping whenever he desired, and as long as he wished. Seeing this
+lovely youth fast asleep on Mount Latmus, Selene was so struck with his
+beauty, that she came down every night from heaven to watch over and
+protect him.
+
+ARTEMIS (DIANA).
+
+Artemis was worshipped by the Greeks under various appellations, to each of
+which belonged special characteristics. Thus she is known as the Arcadian,
+Ephesian and Brauronian Artemis, and also as Selene-Artemis, and in order
+fully to comprehend the worship of this divinity, we must consider her
+under each aspect.
+
+ARCADIAN ARTEMIS.
+
+The Arcadian Artemis (the real Artemis of the Greeks) was the daughter of
+Zeus and Leto, and twin-sister of Apollo. She was the goddess of Hunting
+and Chastity, and having obtained from her father permission to lead a life
+of celibacy, she ever remained a maiden-divinity. Artemis is the feminine
+counterpart of her brother, the glorious god of Light, and, like him,
+though she deals out destruction and sudden death to men and animals, she
+is also able to alleviate suffering and cure diseases. Like Apollo also,
+she is skilled in the use of the bow, but in a far more eminent degree, for
+in the character of Artemis, who devoted herself to the chase with
+passionate {88} ardour, this becomes an all-distinguishing feature. Armed
+with her bow and quiver, and attended by her train of huntresses, who were
+nymphs of the woods and springs, she roamed over the mountains in pursuit
+of her favourite exercise, destroying in her course the wild animals of the
+forest. When the chase was ended, Artemis and her maidens loved to assemble
+in a shady grove, or on the banks of a favourite stream, where they joined
+in the merry song, or graceful dance, and made the hills resound with their
+joyous shouts.
+
+As the type of purity and chastity, Artemis was especially venerated by
+young maidens, who, before marrying, sacrificed their hair to her. She was
+also the patroness of those vowed to celibacy, and punished severely any
+infringement of their obligation.
+
+The huntress-goddess is represented as being a head taller than her
+attendant nymphs, and always appears as a youthful and slender maiden. Her
+features are beautiful, but wanting in gentleness of expression; her hair
+is gathered negligently into a knot at the back of her well-shaped head;
+and her figure, though somewhat masculine, is most graceful in its attitude
+and proportions. The short robe she wears, leaves her limbs free for the
+exercise of the chase, her devotion to which is indicated by the quiver
+which is slung over her shoulder, and the bow which she bears in her hand.
+
+There are many famous statues of this divinity; but the most celebrated is
+that known as the Diana of Versailles, now in the Louvre, which forms a not
+unworthy companion to the Apollo-Belvedere of the Vatican. In this statue,
+the goddess appears in the act of rescuing a hunted deer from its pursuers,
+on whom she is turning with angry mien. One hand is laid protectingly on
+the head of the stag, whilst with the other she draws an arrow from the
+quiver which hangs over her shoulder.
+
+Her attributes are the bow, quiver, and spear. The animals sacred to her
+are the hind, dog, bear, and wild boar.
+
+Artemis promptly resented any disregard or neglect of {89} her worship; a
+remarkable instance of this is shown in the story of the Calydonian
+boar-hunt, which is as follows:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Oeneus, king of Calydon in Ætolia, had incurred the displeasure of Artemis
+by neglecting to include her in a general sacrifice to the gods which he
+had offered up, out of gratitude for a bountiful harvest. The goddess,
+enraged at this neglect, sent a wild boar of extraordinary size and
+prodigious strength, which destroyed the sprouting grain, laid waste the
+fields, and threatened the inhabitants with famine and death. At this
+juncture, Meleager, the brave son of Oeneus, returned from the Argonautic
+expedition, and finding his country ravaged by this dreadful scourge,
+entreated the assistance of all the celebrated heroes of the age to join
+him in hunting the ferocious monster. Among the most famous of those who
+responded to his call were Jason, Castor and Pollux, Idas and Lynceus,
+Peleus, Telamon, Admetus, Perithous, and Theseus. The brothers of Althea,
+wife of Oeneus, joined the hunters, and Meleager also enlisted into his
+service the fleet-footed huntress Atalanta.
+
+The father of this maiden was Schoeneus, an Arcadian, who, disappointed at
+the birth of a daughter when he had particularly desired a son, had exposed
+her on the Parthenian Hill, where he left her to perish. Here she was
+nursed by a she-bear, and at last found by some hunters, who reared her,
+and gave her the name of Atalanta. As the maiden grew up, she became an
+ardent {90} lover of the chase, and was alike distinguished for her beauty
+and courage. Though often wooed, she led a life of strict celibacy, an
+oracle having predicted that inevitable misfortune awaited her, should she
+give herself in marriage to any of her numerous suitors.
+
+Many of the heroes objected to hunt in company with a maiden; but Meleager,
+who loved Atalanta, overcame their opposition, and the valiant band set out
+on their expedition. Atalanta was the first to wound the boar with her
+spear, but not before two of the heroes had met their death from his fierce
+tusks. After a long and desperate encounter, Meleager succeeded in killing
+the monster, and presented the head and hide to Atalanta, as trophies of
+the victory. The uncles of Meleager, however, forcibly took the hide from
+the maiden, claiming their right to the spoil as next of kin, if Meleager
+resigned it. Artemis, whose anger was still unappeased, caused a violent
+quarrel to arise between uncles and nephew, and, in the struggle which
+ensued, Meleager killed his mother's brothers, and then restored the hide
+to Atalanta. When Althea beheld the dead bodies of the slain heroes, her
+grief and anger knew no bounds. She swore to revenge the death of her
+brothers on her own son, and unfortunately for him, the instrument of
+vengeance lay ready to her hand.
+
+At the birth of Meleager, the Moirae, or Fates, entered the house of
+Oeneus, and pointing to a piece of wood then burning on the hearth,
+declared that as soon as it was consumed the babe would surely die. On
+hearing this, Althea seized the brand, laid it up carefully in a chest, and
+henceforth preserved it as her most precious possession. But now, love for
+her son giving place to the resentment she felt against the murderer of her
+brothers, she threw the fatal brand into the devouring flames. As it
+consumed, the vigour of Meleager wasted away, and when it was reduced to
+ashes, he expired. Repenting too late the terrible effects of her rash
+deed, Althea, in remorse and despair, took away her own life.
+
+The news of the courage and intrepidity displayed by {91} Atalanta in the
+famous boar-hunt, being carried to the ears of her father, caused him to
+acknowledge his long-lost child. Urged by him to choose one of her numerous
+suitors, she consented to do so, but made it a condition that he alone, who
+could outstrip her in the race, should become her husband, whilst those she
+defeated should be put to death by her, with the lance which she bore in
+her hand. Thus many suitors had perished, for the maiden was unequalled for
+swiftness of foot, but at last a beautiful youth, named Hippomenes, who had
+vainly endeavoured to win her love by his assiduous attentions in the
+chase, ventured to enter the fatal lists. Knowing that only by stratagem
+could he hope to be successful, he obtained, by the help of Aphrodite,
+three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, which he threw down
+at intervals during his course. Atalanta, secure of victory, stooped to
+pick up the tempting fruit, and, in the meantime, Hippomenes arrived at the
+goal. He became the husband of the lovely Atalanta, but forgot, in his
+newly found happiness, the gratitude which he owed to Aphrodite, and the
+goddess withdrew her favour from the pair. Not long after, the prediction
+which foretold misfortune to Atalanta, in the event of her marriage, was
+verified, for she and her husband, having strayed unsanctioned into a
+sacred grove of Zeus, were both transformed into lions.
+
+The trophies of the ever-memorable boar-hunt had been carried by Atalanta
+into Arcadia, and, for many centuries, the identical hide and enormous
+tusks of the Calydonian boar hung in the temple of Athene at Tegea. The
+tusks were afterwards conveyed to Rome, and shown there among other
+curiosities.
+
+A forcible instance of the manner in which Artemis resented any intrusion
+on her retirement, is seen in the fate which befell the famous hunter
+Actaeon, who happening one day to see Artemis and her attendants bathing,
+imprudently ventured to approach the spot. The goddess, incensed at his
+audacity, sprinkled him with water, and transformed him into a stag,
+whereupon he was torn in pieces and devoured by his own dogs. {92}
+
+EPHESIAN ARTEMIS.
+
+The Ephesian Artemis, known to us as "Diana of the Ephesians," was a very
+ancient Asiatic divinity of Persian origin called Metra,[33] whose worship
+the Greek colonists found already established, when they first settled in
+Asia Minor, and whom they identified with their own Greek Artemis, though
+she really possessed but one single attribute in common with their home
+deity.
+
+Metra was a twofold divinity, and represented, in one phase of her
+character, all-pervading love; in the other she was the light of heaven;
+and as Artemis, in her character as Selene, was the only Greek female
+divinity who represented celestial light, the Greek settlers, according to
+their custom of fusing foreign deities into their own, seized at once upon
+this point of resemblance, and decided that Metra should henceforth be
+regarded as identical with Artemis.
+
+In her character as the love which pervades all nature, and penetrates
+everywhere, they believed her also to be present in the mysterious Realm of
+Shades, where she exercised her benign sway, replacing to a certain extent
+that ancient divinity Hecate, and partly usurping also the place of
+Persephone, as mistress of the lower world. Thus they believed that it was
+she who permitted the spirits of the departed to revisit the earth, in
+order to communicate with those they loved, and to give them timely warning
+of coming evil. In fact, this great, mighty, and omnipresent power of love,
+as embodied in the Ephesian Artemis, was believed by the great thinkers of
+old, to be the ruling spirit of the universe, and it was to her influence,
+that all the mysterious and beneficent workings of nature were ascribed.
+
+There was a magnificent temple erected to this divinity at Ephesus (a city
+of Asia Minor), which was ranked among the seven wonders of the world, and
+was unequalled in beauty and grandeur. The interior of this {93} edifice
+was adorned with statues and paintings, and contained one hundred and
+twenty-seven columns, sixty feet in height, each column having been placed
+there by a different king. The wealth deposited in this temple was
+enormous, and the goddess was here worshipped with particular awe and
+solemnity. In the interior of the edifice stood a statue of her, formed of
+ebony, with lions on her arms and turrets on her head, whilst a number of
+breasts indicated the fruitfulness of the earth and of nature. Ctesiphon
+was the principal architect of this world-renowned structure, which,
+however, was not entirely completed till two hundred and twenty years after
+the foundation-stone was laid. But the labour of centuries was destroyed in
+a single night; for a man called Herostratus, seized with the insane desire
+of making his name famous to all succeeding generations, set fire to it and
+completely destroyed it.[34] So great was the indignation and sorrow of the
+Ephesians at this calamity, that they enacted a law, forbidding the
+incendiary's name to be mentioned, thereby however, defeating their own
+object, for thus the name of Herostratus has been handed down to posterity,
+and will live as long as the memory of the famous temple of Ephesus.
+
+BRAURONIAN ARTEMIS.
+
+In ancient times, the country which we now call the Crimea, was known by
+the name of the Taurica Chersonnesus. It was colonized by Greek settlers,
+who, finding that the Scythian inhabitants had a native divinity somewhat
+resembling their own Artemis, identified her with the huntress-goddess of
+the mother-country. The worship of this Taurian Artemis was attended with
+the most barbarous practices, for, in accordance with a law which she had
+enacted, all strangers, whether male or female, landing, or shipwrecked on
+her shores, were sacrificed upon her altars. It is supposed that this
+decree was {94} issued by the Taurian goddess of Chastity, to protect the
+purity of her followers, by keeping them apart from foreign influences.
+
+The interesting story of Iphigenia, a priestess in the temple of Artemis at
+Tauris, forms the subject of one of Schiller's most beautiful plays. The
+circumstances occurred at the commencement of the Trojan war, and are as
+follows:--The fleet, collected by the Greeks for the siege of Troy, had
+assembled at Aulis, in Boeotia, and was about to set sail, when Agamemnon,
+the commander-in-chief, had the misfortune to kill accidentally a stag
+which was grazing in a grove, sacred to Artemis. The offended goddess sent
+continuous calms that delayed the departure of the fleet, and Calchas, the
+soothsayer, who had accompanied the expedition, declared that nothing less
+than the sacrifice of Agamemnon's favorite daughter, Iphigenia, would
+appease the wrath of the goddess. At these words, the heroic heart of the
+brave leader sank within him, and he declared that rather than consent to
+so fearful an alternative, he would give up his share in the expedition and
+return to Argos. In this dilemma Odysseus and other great generals called a
+council to discuss the matter, and, after much deliberation, it was decided
+that private feeling must yield to the welfare of the state. For a long
+time the unhappy Agamemnon turned a deaf ear to their arguments, but at
+last they succeeded in persuading him that it was his duty to make the
+sacrifice. He, accordingly, despatched a messenger to his wife,
+Clytemnæstra, begging her to send Iphigenia to him, alleging as a pretext
+that the great hero Achilles desired to make her his wife. Rejoicing at the
+brilliant destiny which awaited her beautiful daughter, the fond mother at
+once obeyed the command, and sent her to Aulis. When the maiden arrived at
+her destination, and discovered, to her horror, the dreadful fate which
+awaited her, she threw herself in an agony of grief at her father's feet,
+and with sobs and tears entreated him to have mercy on her, and to spare
+her young life. But alas! her doom was sealed, and her now repentant and
+{95} heart-broken father was powerless to avert it. The unfortunate victim
+was bound to the altar, and already the fatal knife was raised to deal the
+death-blow, when suddenly Iphigenia disappeared from view, and in her place
+on the altar, lay a beautiful deer ready to be sacrificed. It was Artemis
+herself, who, pitying the youth and beauty of her victim, caused her to be
+conveyed in a cloud to Taurica, where she became one of her priestesses,
+and intrusted with the charge of her temple; a dignity, however, which
+necessitated the offering of those human sacrifices presented to Artemis.
+
+Many years passed away, during which time the long and wearisome siege of
+Troy had come to an end, and the brave Agamemnon had returned home to meet
+death at the hands of his wife and Aegisthus. But his daughter, Iphigenia,
+was still an exile from her native country, and continued to perform the
+terrible duties which her office involved. She had long given up all hopes
+of ever being restored to her friends, when one day two Greek strangers
+landed on Taurica's inhospitable shores. These were Orestes and Pylades,
+whose romantic attachment to each other has made their names synonymous for
+devoted self-sacrificing friendship. Orestes was Iphigenia's brother, and
+Pylades her cousin, and their object in undertaking an expedition fraught
+with so much peril, was to obtain the statue of the Taurian Artemis.
+Orestes, having incurred the anger of the Furies for avenging the murder of
+his father Agamemnon, was pursued by them wherever he went, until at last
+he was informed by the oracle of Delphi that, in order to pacify them, he
+must convey the image of the Taurian Artemis from Tauris to Attica. This he
+at once resolved to do, and accompanied by his faithful friend Pylades, who
+insisted on sharing the dangers of the undertaking, he set out for Taurica.
+But the unfortunate youths had hardly stepped on shore before they were
+seized by the natives, who, as usual, conveyed them for sacrifice to the
+temple of Artemis. Iphigenia, discovering that they were Greeks, though
+unaware of their near relationship to herself, thought the {96} opportunity
+a favourable one for sending tidings of her existence to her native
+country, and, accordingly, requested one of the strangers to be the bearer
+of a letter from her to her family. A magnanimous dispute now arose between
+the friends, and each besought the other to accept the precious privilege
+of life and freedom. Pylades, at length overcome by the urgent entreaties
+of Orestes, agreed to be the bearer of the missive, but on looking more
+closely at the superscription, he observed, to his intense surprise, that
+it was addressed to Orestes. Hereupon an explanation followed; the brother
+and sister recognized each other, amid joyful tears and loving embraces,
+and assisted by her friends and kinsmen, Iphigenia escaped with them from a
+country where she had spent so many unhappy days, and witnessed so many
+scenes of horror and anguish.
+
+The fugitives, having contrived to obtain the image of the Taurian Artemis,
+carried it with them to Brauron in Attica. This divinity was henceforth
+known as the Brauronian Artemis, and the rites which had rendered her
+worship so infamous in Taurica were now introduced into Greece, and human
+victims bled freely under the sacrificial knife, both in Athens and Sparta.
+The revolting practice of offering human sacrifices to her, was continued
+until the time of Lycurgus, the great Spartan lawgiver, who put an end to
+it by substituting in its place one, which was hardly less barbarous,
+namely, the scourging of youths, who were whipped on the altars of the
+Brauronian Artemis in the most cruel manner; sometimes indeed they expired
+under the lash, in which case their mothers, far from lamenting their fate,
+are said to have rejoiced, considering this an honourable death for their
+sons.
+
+SELENE-ARTEMIS.
+
+Hitherto we have seen Artemis only in the various phases of her terrestrial
+character; but just as her brother Apollo drew into himself by degrees the
+attributes of that more ancient divinity Helios, the sun-god, so, in like
+manner, she came to be identified in later times {97} with Selene, the
+moon-goddess, in which character she is always represented as wearing on
+her forehead a glittering crescent, whilst a flowing veil, bespangled with
+stars, reaches to her feet, and a long robe completely envelops her.
+
+DIANA.
+
+The Diana of the Romans was identified with the Greek Artemis, with whom
+she shares that peculiar tripartite character, which so strongly marks the
+individuality of the Greek goddess. In heaven she was Luna (the moon), on
+earth Diana (the huntress-goddess), and in the lower world Proserpine; but,
+unlike the Ephesian Artemis, Diana, in her character as Proserpine, carries
+with her into the lower world no element of love or sympathy; she is, on
+the contrary, characterized by practices altogether hostile to man, such as
+the exercise of witchcraft, evil charms, and other antagonistic influences,
+and is, in fact, the Greek Hecate, in her later development.
+
+The statues of Diana were generally erected at a point where three roads
+met, for which reason she is called Trivia (from _tri_, three, and _via_,
+way).
+
+A temple was dedicated to her on the Aventine hill by Servius Tullius, who
+is said to have first introduced the worship of this divinity into Rome.
+
+The Nemoralia, or Grove Festivals, were celebrated in her honour on the
+13th of August, on the Lacus Nemorensis, or forest-buried lake, near
+Aricia. The priest who officiated in her temple on this spot, was always a
+fugitive slave, who had gained his office by murdering his predecessor, and
+hence was constantly armed, in order that he might thus be prepared to
+encounter a new aspirant.
+
+HEPHÆSTUS (VULCAN).
+
+Hephæstus, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of fire in its beneficial
+aspect, and the presiding deity over all workmanship accomplished by means
+of this useful element. He was universally honoured, not only as the {98}
+god of all mechanical arts, but also as a house and hearth divinity, who
+exercised a beneficial influence on civilized society in general. Unlike
+the other Greek divinities, he was ugly and deformed, being awkward in his
+movements, and limping in his gait. This latter defect originated, as we
+have already seen, in the wrath of his father Zeus, who hurled him down
+from heaven[35] in consequence of his taking the part of Hera, in one of
+the domestic disagreements, which so frequently arose between this royal
+pair. Hephæstus was a whole day falling from Olympus to the earth, where he
+at length alighted on the island of Lemnos. The inhabitants of the country,
+seeing him descending through the air, received him in their arms; but in
+spite of their care, his leg was broken by the fall, and he remained ever
+afterwards lame in one foot. Grateful for the kindness of the Lemnians, he
+henceforth took up his abode in their island, and there built for himself a
+superb palace, and forges for the pursuit of his avocation. He instructed
+the people how to work in metals, and also taught them other valuable and
+useful arts.
+
+It is said that the first work of Hephæstus was a most ingenious throne of
+gold, with secret springs, which he presented to Hera. It was arranged in
+such a manner that, once seated, she found herself unable to move, and
+though all the gods endeavoured to extricate her, their efforts were
+unavailing. Hephæstus thus revenged himself on his mother for the cruelty
+she had always displayed towards him, on account of his want of comeliness
+and grace. Dionysus, the wine god, contrived, however, to intoxicate
+Hephæstus, and then induced him to return to Olympus, where, after having
+released the {99} queen of heaven from her very undignified position, he
+became reconciled to his parents.
+
+He now built for himself a glorious palace on Olympus, of shining gold, and
+made for the other deities those magnificent edifices which they inhabited.
+He was assisted in his various and exquisitely skilful works of art, by two
+female statues of pure gold, formed by his own hand, which possessed the
+power of motion, and always accompanied him wherever he went. With the
+assistance of the Cyclops, he forged for Zeus his wonderful thunderbolts,
+thus investing his mighty father with a new power of terrible import. Zeus
+testified his appreciation of this precious gift, by bestowing upon
+Hephæstus the beautiful Aphrodite in marriage,[36] but this was a
+questionable boon; for the lovely Aphrodite, who was the personification of
+all grace and beauty, felt no affection for her ungainly and unattractive
+spouse, and amused herself by ridiculing his awkward movements and
+unsightly person. On one occasion especially, when Hephæstus good-naturedly
+took upon himself the office of cup-bearer to the gods, his hobbling gait
+and extreme awkwardness created the greatest mirth amongst the celestials,
+in which his disloyal partner was the first to join, with unconcealed
+merriment.
+
+Aphrodite greatly preferred Ares to her husband, and this preference
+naturally gave rise to much jealousy on the part of Hephæstus, and caused
+them great unhappiness.
+
+Hephæstus appears to have been an indispensable member of the Olympic
+Assembly, where he plays the part of smith, armourer, chariot-builder, &c.
+As already mentioned, he constructed the palaces where the gods resided,
+fashioned the golden shoes with which they trod the air or water, built for
+them their wonderful chariots, and shod with brass the horses of celestial
+breed, which conveyed these glittering equipages over land and sea. He also
+made the tripods which moved of themselves in and out of the celestial
+halls, formed for Zeus the {100} far-famed ægis, and erected the
+magnificent palace of the sun. He also created the brazen-footed bulls of
+Aetes, which breathed flames from their nostrils, sent forth clouds of
+smoke, and filled the air with their roaring.
+
+Among his most renowned works of art for the use of mortals were: the
+armour of Achilles and Æneas, the beautiful necklace of Harmonia, and the
+crown of Ariadne; but his masterpiece was Pandora, of whom a detailed
+account has already been given.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There was a temple on Mount Etna erected in his honour, which none but the
+pure and virtuous were permitted to enter. The entrance to this temple was
+guarded by dogs, which possessed the extraordinary faculty of being able to
+discriminate between the righteous and the unrighteous, fawning upon and
+caressing the good, whilst they rushed upon all evil-doers and drove them
+away.
+
+Hephæstus is usually represented as a powerful, brawny, and very muscular
+man of middle height and mature age; his strong uplifted arm is raised in
+the act of striking the anvil with a hammer, which he holds in one hand,
+whilst with the other he is turning a thunderbolt, which an eagle beside
+him is waiting to carry to Zeus. The principal seat of his worship was the
+island of Lemnos, where he was regarded with peculiar veneration.
+
+VULCAN.
+
+The Roman Vulcan was merely an importation from Greece, which never at any
+time took firm root in Rome, nor entered largely into the actual life and
+sympathies of the nation, his worship being unattended by the devotional
+feeling and enthusiasm which characterized the religious rites of the other
+deities. He still, however, retained in Rome his {101} Greek attributes as
+god of fire, and unrivalled master of the art of working in metals, and was
+ranked among the twelve great gods of Olympus, whose gilded statues were
+arranged consecutively along the Forum. His Roman name, Vulcan, would seem
+to indicate a connection with the first great metal-working artificer of
+Biblical history, Tubal-Cain.
+
+POSEIDON (NEPTUNE).
+
+Poseidon was the son of Kronos and Rhea, and the brother of Zeus. He was
+god of the sea, more particularly of the Mediterranean, and, like the
+element over which he presided, was of a variable disposition, now
+violently agitated, and now calm and placid, for which reason he is
+sometimes represented by the poets as quiet and composed, and at others as
+disturbed and angry.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the earliest ages of Greek mythology, he merely symbolized the watery
+element; but in later times, as navigation and intercourse with other
+nations engendered greater traffic by sea, Poseidon gained in importance,
+and came to be regarded as a distinct divinity, holding indisputable
+dominion over the sea, and over all sea-divinities, who acknowledged him as
+their sovereign ruler. He possessed the power of causing at will, mighty
+and destructive tempests, in which the billows rise mountains high, the
+wind becomes a hurricane, land and sea being enveloped in thick mists,
+whilst destruction assails the unfortunate mariners exposed to their fury.
+On the other hand, his alone was the power of stilling the angry {102}
+waves, of soothing the troubled waters, and granting safe voyages to
+mariners. For this reason, Poseidon was always invoked and propitiated by a
+libation before a voyage was undertaken, and sacrifices and thanksgivings
+were gratefully offered to him after a safe and prosperous journey by sea.
+
+The symbol of his power was the fisherman's fork or trident,[37] by means
+of which he produced earthquakes, raised up islands from the bottom of the
+sea, and caused wells to spring forth out of the earth.
+
+Poseidon was essentially the presiding deity over fishermen, and was on
+that account, more particularly worshipped and revered in countries
+bordering on the sea-coast, where fish naturally formed a staple commodity
+of trade. He was supposed to vent his displeasure by sending disastrous
+inundations, which completely destroyed whole countries, and were usually
+accompanied by terrible marine monsters, who swallowed up and devoured
+those whom the floods had spared. It is probable that these sea-monsters
+are the poetical figures which represent the demons of hunger and famine,
+necessarily accompanying a general inundation.
+
+Poseidon is generally represented as resembling his brother Zeus in
+features, height, and general aspect; but we miss in the countenance of the
+sea-god the kindness and benignity which so pleasingly distinguish his
+mighty brother. The eyes are bright and piercing, and the contour of the
+face somewhat sharper in its outline than that of Zeus, thus corresponding,
+as it were, with his more angry and violent nature. His hair waves in dark,
+disorderly masses over his shoulders; his chest is broad, and his frame
+powerful and stalwart; he wears a short, curling beard, and a band round
+his head. He usually appears standing erect in a graceful shell-chariot,
+drawn by hippocamps, or sea-horses, with golden manes and brazen hoofs, who
+bound over the dancing waves with such wonderful swiftness, that the
+chariot scarcely touches {103} the water. The monsters of the deep,
+acknowledging their mighty lord, gambol playfully around him, whilst the
+sea joyfully smooths a path for the passage of its all-powerful ruler.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He inhabited a beautiful palace at the bottom of the sea at Ægea in Euboea,
+and also possessed a royal residence on Mount Olympus, which, however, he
+only visited when his presence was required at the council of the gods.
+
+His wonderful palace beneath the waters was of vast extent; in its lofty
+and capacious halls thousands of his followers could assemble. The exterior
+of the building was of bright gold, which the continual wash of the waters
+preserved untarnished; in the interior, lofty and graceful columns
+supported the gleaming dome. Everywhere fountains of glistening, silvery
+water played; everywhere groves and arbours of feathery-leaved sea-plants
+appeared, whilst rocks of pure crystal glistened with all the varied
+colours of the rainbow. Some of the paths were strewn with white sparkling
+sand, interspersed with jewels, pearls, and amber. This delightful abode
+was surrounded on all sides by wide fields, where there were whole groves
+of dark purple coralline, and tufts of beautiful scarlet-leaved plants, and
+sea-anemones of every tint. Here grew bright, pinky sea-weeds, mosses of
+all hues and shades, and tall grasses, which, growing upwards, formed
+emerald caves and grottoes such as the Nereides love, whilst fish of
+various kinds playfully darted in and out, in the full enjoyment of their
+native element. Nor was illumination wanting in this fairy-like region,
+which at night was lit up by the glow-worms of the deep.
+
+But although Poseidon ruled with absolute power over the ocean and its
+inhabitants, he nevertheless bowed submissively to the will of the great
+ruler of Olympus, and appeared at all times desirous of conciliating him.
+We {104} find him coming to his aid when emergency demanded, and frequently
+rendering him valuable assistance against his opponents. At the time when
+Zeus was harassed by the attacks of the Giants, he proved himself a most
+powerful ally, engaging in single combat with a hideous giant named
+Polybotes, whom he followed over the sea, and at last succeeded in
+destroying, by hurling upon him the island of Cos.
+
+These amicable relations between the brothers were, however, sometimes
+interrupted. Thus, for instance, upon one occasion Poseidon joined Hera and
+Athene in a secret conspiracy to seize upon the ruler of heaven, place him
+in fetters, and deprive him of the sovereign power. The conspiracy being
+discovered, Hera, as the chief instigator of this sacrilegious attempt on
+the divine person of Zeus, was severely chastised, and even beaten, by her
+enraged spouse, as a punishment for her rebellion and treachery, whilst
+Poseidon was condemned, for the space of a whole year, to forego his
+dominion over the sea, and it was at this time that, in conjunction with
+Apollo, he built for Laomedon the walls of Troy.
+
+Poseidon married a sea-nymph named Amphitrite, whom he wooed under the form
+of a dolphin. She afterwards became jealous of a beautiful maiden called
+Scylla, who was beloved by Poseidon, and in order to revenge herself she
+threw some herbs into a well where Scylla was bathing, which had the effect
+of metamorphosing her into a monster of terrible aspect, having twelve
+feet, six heads with six long necks, and a voice which resembled the bark
+of a dog. This awful monster is said to have inhabited a cave at a very
+great height in the famous rock which still bears her name,[38] and was
+supposed to swoop down from her rocky eminence upon every ship that passed,
+and with each of her six heads to secure a victim.
+
+Amphitrite is often represented assisting Poseidon in attaching the
+sea-horses to his chariot.
+
+{105}
+
+The Cyclops, who have been already alluded to in the history of Cronus,
+were the sons of Poseidon and Amphitrite. They were a wild race of gigantic
+growth, similar in their nature to the earth-born Giants, and had only one
+eye each in the middle of their foreheads. They led a lawless life,
+possessing neither social manners nor fear of the gods, and were the
+workmen of Hephæstus, whose workshop was supposed to be in the heart of the
+volcanic mountain Ætna.
+
+Here we have another striking instance of the manner in which the Greeks
+personified the powers of nature, which they saw in active operation around
+them. They beheld with awe, mingled with astonishment, the fire, stones,
+and ashes which poured forth from the summit of this and other volcanic
+mountains, and, with their vivacity of imagination, found a solution of the
+mystery in the supposition, that the god of Fire must be busy at work with
+his men in the depths of the earth, and that the mighty flames which they
+beheld, issued in this manner from his subterranean forge.
+
+The chief representative of the Cyclops was the man-eating monster
+Polyphemus, described by Homer as having been blinded and outwitted at last
+by Odysseus. This monster fell in love with a beautiful nymph called
+Galatea; but, as may be supposed, his addresses were not acceptable to the
+fair maiden, who rejected them in favour of a youth named Acis, upon which
+Polyphemus, with his usual barbarity, destroyed the life of his rival by
+throwing upon him a gigantic rock. The blood of the murdered Acis, gushing
+out of the rock, formed a stream which still bears his name.
+
+Triton, Rhoda,[39] and Benthesicyme were also children of Poseidon and
+Amphitrite.
+
+The sea-god was the father of two giant sons called Otus and Ephialtes.[40]
+When only nine years old they {106} were said to be twenty-seven cubits[41]
+in height and nine in breadth. These youthful giants were as rebellious as
+they were powerful, even presuming to threaten the gods themselves with
+hostilities. During the war of the Gigantomachia, they endeavoured to scale
+heaven by piling mighty mountains one upon another. Already had they
+succeeded in placing Mount Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa, when this
+impious project was frustrated by Apollo, who destroyed them with his
+arrows. It was supposed that had not their lives been thus cut off before
+reaching maturity, their sacrilegious designs would have been carried into
+effect.
+
+Pelias and Neleus were also sons of Poseidon. Their mother Tyro was
+attached to the river-god Enipeus, whose form Poseidon assumed, and thus
+won her love. Pelias became afterwards famous in the story of the
+Argonauts, and Neleus was the father of Nestor, who was distinguished in
+the Trojan War.
+
+The Greeks believed that it was to Poseidon they were indebted for the
+existence of the horse, which he is said to have produced in the following
+manner: Athene and Poseidon both claiming the right to name Cecropia (the
+ancient name of Athens), a violent dispute arose, which was finally settled
+by an assembly of the Olympian gods, who decided that whichever of the
+contending parties presented mankind with the most useful gift, should
+obtain the privilege of naming the city. Upon this Poseidon struck the
+ground with his trident, and the horse sprang forth in all his untamed
+strength and graceful beauty. From the spot which Athene touched with her
+wand, issued the olive-tree, whereupon the gods unanimously awarded to her
+the victory, declaring her gift to be the emblem of peace and plenty,
+whilst that of Poseidon was thought to be the symbol of war and {107}
+bloodshed. Athene accordingly called the city Athens, after herself, and it
+has ever since retained this name.
+
+Poseidon tamed the horse for the use of mankind, and was believed to have
+taught men the art of managing horses by the bridle. The Isthmian games (so
+named because they were held on the Isthmus of Corinth), in which horse and
+chariot races were a distinguishing feature, were instituted in honour of
+Poseidon.
+
+He was more especially worshipped in the Peloponnesus, though universally
+revered throughout Greece and in the south of Italy. His sacrifices were
+generally black and white bulls, also wild boars and rams. His usual
+attributes are the trident, horse, and dolphin.
+
+In some parts of Greece this divinity was identified with the sea-god
+Nereus, for which reason the Nereides, or daughters of Nereus, are
+represented as accompanying him.
+
+NEPTUNE.
+
+The Romans worshipped Poseidon under the name of Neptune, and invested him
+with all the attributes which belong to the Greek divinity.
+
+The Roman commanders never undertook any naval expedition without
+propitiating Neptune by a sacrifice.
+
+His temple at Rome was in the Campus Martius, and the festivals
+commemorated in his honour were called Neptunalia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEA DIVINITIES.
+
+OCEANUS.
+
+Oceanus was the son of Uranus and Gæa. He was the personification of the
+ever-flowing stream, which, according to the primitive notions of the early
+Greeks, encircled the world, and from which sprang all the rivers and
+streams that watered the earth. He was married to Tethys, one of the
+Titans, and was the father of a {108} numerous progeny called the
+Oceanides, who are said to have been three thousand in number. He alone, of
+all the Titans, refrained from taking part against Zeus in the
+Titanomachia, and was, on that account, the only one of the primeval
+divinities permitted to retain his dominion under the new dynasty.
+
+NEREUS.
+
+Nereus appears to have been the personification of the sea in its calm and
+placid moods, and was, after Poseidon, the most important of the
+sea-deities. He is represented as a kind and benevolent old man, possessing
+the gift of prophecy, and presiding more particularly over the Ægean Sea,
+of which he was considered to be the protecting spirit. There he dwelt with
+his wife Doris and their fifty blooming daughters, the Nereides, beneath
+the waves in a beautiful grotto-palace, and was ever ready to assist
+distressed mariners in the hour of danger.
+
+PROTEUS.
+
+Proteus, more familiarly known as "The Old Man of the Sea," was a son of
+Poseidon, and gifted with prophetic power. But he had an invincible
+objection to being consulted in his capacity as seer, and those who wished
+him to foretell events, watched for the hour of noon, when he was in the
+habit of coming up to the island of Pharos,[42] with Poseidon's flock of
+seals, which he tended at the bottom of the sea. Surrounded by these
+creatures of the deep, he used to slumber beneath the grateful shade of the
+rocks. This was the favourable moment to seize the prophet, who, in order
+to avoid importunities, would change himself into an infinite variety of
+forms. But patience gained the day; for if he were only held long enough,
+he became wearied at last, and, resuming his true form, gave the
+information desired, after which he dived down again to the bottom of the
+sea, accompanied by the animals he tended.
+
+{109}
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TRITON and the TRITONS.
+
+Triton was the only son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, but he possessed little
+influence, being altogether a minor divinity. He is usually represented as
+preceding his father and acting as his trumpeter, using a conch-shell for
+this purpose. He lived with his parents in their beautiful golden palace
+beneath the sea at Ægea, and his favourite pastime was to ride over the
+billows on horses or sea-monsters. Triton is always represented as half
+man, half fish, the body below the waist terminating in the tail of a
+dolphin. We frequently find mention of Tritons who are either the offspring
+or kindred of Triton.
+
+GLAUCUS.
+
+Glaucus is said to have become a sea-divinity in the following manner.
+While angling one day, he observed that the fish he caught and threw on the
+bank, at once nibbled at the grass and then leaped back into the water. His
+curiosity was naturally excited, and he proceeded to gratify it by taking
+up a few blades and tasting them. No sooner was this done than, obeying an
+irresistible impulse, he precipitated himself into the deep, and became a
+sea-god.
+
+Like most sea-divinities he was gifted with prophetic power, and each year
+visited all the islands and coasts with a train of marine monsters,
+foretelling all kinds of evil. Hence fishermen dreaded his approach, and
+endeavoured, by prayer and fasting, to avert the misfortunes which he
+prophesied. He is often represented floating on the billows, his body
+covered with mussels, sea-weed, and shells, wearing a full beard and long
+flowing hair, and bitterly bewailing his immortality.
+
+{110}
+
+THETIS.
+
+The silver-footed, fair-haired Thetis, who plays an important part in the
+mythology of Greece, was the daughter of Nereus, or, as some assert, of
+Poseidon. Her grace and beauty were so remarkable that Zeus and Poseidon
+both sought an alliance with her; but, as it had been foretold that a son
+of hers would gain supremacy over his father, they relinquished their
+intentions, and she became the wife of Peleus, son of Æacus. Like Proteus,
+Thetis possessed the power of transforming herself into a variety of
+different shapes, and when wooed by Peleus she exerted this power in order
+to elude him. But, knowing that persistence would eventually succeed, he
+held her fast until she assumed her true form. Their nuptials were
+celebrated with the utmost pomp and magnificence, and were honoured by the
+presence of all the gods and goddesses, with the exception of Eris. How the
+goddess of discord resented her exclusion from the marriage festivities has
+already been shown.
+
+Thetis ever retained great influence over the mighty lord of heaven, which,
+as we shall see hereafter, she used in favour of her renowned son,
+Achilles, in the Trojan War.
+
+When Halcyone plunged into the sea in despair after the shipwreck and death
+of her husband King Ceyx, Thetis transformed both husband and wife into the
+birds called kingfishers (halcyones), which, with the tender affection
+which characterized the unfortunate couple, always fly in pairs. The idea
+of the ancients was that these birds brought forth their young in nests,
+which float on the surface of the sea in calm weather, before and after the
+shortest day, when Thetis was said to keep the waters smooth and tranquil
+for their especial benefit; hence the term "halcyon-days," which signifies
+a period of rest and untroubled felicity.
+
+{111}
+
+THAUMAS, PHORCYS, and CETO.
+
+The early Greeks, with their extraordinary power of personifying all and
+every attribute of Nature, gave a distinct personality to those mighty
+wonders of the deep, which, in all ages, have afforded matter of
+speculation to educated and uneducated alike. Among these personifications
+we find Thaumas, Phorcys, and their sister Ceto, who were the offspring of
+Pontus.
+
+Thaumas (whose name signifies Wonder) typifies that peculiar, translucent
+condition of the surface of the sea when it reflects, mirror-like, various
+images, and appears to hold in its transparent embrace the flaming stars
+and illuminated cities, which are so frequently reflected on its glassy
+bosom.
+
+Thaumas married the lovely Electra (whose name signifies the sparkling
+light produced by electricity), daughter of Oceanus. Her amber-coloured
+hair was of such rare beauty that none of her fair-haired sisters could
+compare with her, and when she wept, her tears, being too precious to be
+lost, formed drops of shining amber.
+
+Phorcys and Ceto personified more especially the hidden perils and terrors
+of the ocean. They were the parents of the Gorgons, the Græa, and the
+Dragon which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LEUCOTHEA.
+
+Leucothea was originally a mortal named Ino, daughter of Cadmus, king of
+Thebes. She married Athamas, king of Orchomenus, who, incensed at her
+unnatural conduct to her step-children,[43] pursued her and her son to the
+sea-shore, when, seeing no hope of escape, she flung herself with her child
+into the deep. They were kindly received by the Nereides, and became
+sea-divinities under the name of Leucothea and Palæmon.
+
+{112}
+
+THE SIRENS.
+
+The Sirens would appear to have been personifications of those numerous
+rocks and unseen dangers, which abound on the S.W. coast of Italy. They
+were sea-nymphs, with the upper part of the body that of a maiden and the
+lower that of a sea-bird, having wings attached to their shoulders, and
+were endowed with such wonderful voices, that their sweet songs are said to
+have lured mariners to destruction.
+
+ARES (MARS).
+
+Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of war, who gloried in strife
+for its own sake; he loved the tumult and havoc of the battlefield, and
+delighted in slaughter and extermination; in fact he presents no benevolent
+aspect which could possibly react favourably upon human life.
+
+Epic poets, in particular, represent the god of battles as a wild
+ungovernable warrior, who passes through the armies like a whirlwind,
+hurling to the ground the brave and cowardly alike; destroying chariots and
+helmets, and triumphing over the terrible desolation which he produces.
+
+In all the myths concerning Ares, his sister Athene ever appears in
+opposition to him, endeavouring by every means in her power to defeat his
+bloodthirsty designs. Thus she assists the divine hero Diomedes at the
+siege of Troy, to overcome Ares in battle, and so well does he profit by
+her timely aid, that he succeeds in wounding the sanguinary war-god, who
+makes his exit from the field, roaring like ten thousand bulls.
+
+{113}
+
+Ares appears to have been an object of aversion to all the gods of Olympus,
+Aphrodite alone excepted. As the son of Hera, he had inherited from his
+mother the strongest feelings of independence and contradiction, and as he
+took delight in upsetting that peaceful course of state-life which it was
+pre-eminently the care of Zeus to establish, he was naturally disliked and
+even hated by him.
+
+When wounded by Diomedes, as above related, he complains to his father, but
+receives no sympathy from the otherwise kindly and beneficent ruler of
+Olympus, who thus angrily addresses him: "Do not trouble me with thy
+complaints, thou who art of all the gods of Olympus most hateful to me, for
+thou delightest in nought save war and strife. The very spirit of thy
+mother lives in thee, and wert thou not my son, long ago wouldst thou have
+lain deeper down in the bowels of the earth than the son of Uranus."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Ares, upon one occasion, incurred the anger of Poseidon by slaying his son
+Halirrhothios, who had insulted Alcippe, the daughter of the war-god. For
+this deed, Poseidon summoned Ares to appear before the tribunal of the
+Olympic gods, which was held upon a hill in Athens. Ares was acquitted, and
+this event is supposed to have given rise to the name Areopagus (or Hill of
+Ares), which afterwards became so famous as a court of justice. In the
+Gigantomachia, Ares was defeated by the Aloidæ, the two giant-sons of
+Poseidon, who put him in chains, and kept him in prison for thirteen
+months.
+
+Ares is represented as a man of youthful appearance; his tall muscular form
+combines great strength with wonderful agility. In his right hand he bears
+a sword or a mighty lance, while on the left arm he carries his round
+shield (see next page). His demoniacal surroundings are Terror and
+Fear;[44] Enyo, the goddess of the war-cry; Keidomos, the demon of the
+noise of battles; and Eris (Contention), his twin-sister and companion, who
+always {114} precedes his chariot when he rushes to the fight, the latter
+being evidently a simile of the poets to express the fact that war follows
+contention.
+
+Eris is represented as a woman of florid complexion, with dishevelled hair,
+and her whole appearance angry and menacing. In one hand she brandishes a
+poniard and a hissing adder, whilst in the other she carries a burning
+torch. Her dress is torn and disorderly, and her hair intertwined with
+venomous snakes. This divinity was never invoked by mortals, except when
+they desired her assistance for the accomplishment of evil purposes.
+
+MARS.
+
+The Roman divinity most closely resembling the Greek Ares, and identified
+with him, was called Mars, Mamers, and Marspiter or Father Mars.
+
+The earliest Italian tribes, who were mostly engaged in the pursuit of
+husbandry, regarded this deity more especially as the god of spring, who
+vanquished the powers of winter, and encouraged the peaceful arts of
+agriculture. But with the Romans, who were an essentially warlike nation,
+Mars gradually loses his peaceful character, and, as god of war, attains,
+after Jupiter, the highest position among the Olympic gods. The Romans
+looked upon him as their special protector, and declared him to have been
+the father of Romulus and Remus, the founders of their city. But although
+he was especially {115} worshipped in Rome as god of war, he still
+continued to preside over agriculture, and was also the protecting deity
+who watched over the welfare of the state.
+
+As the god who strode with warlike step to the battlefield, he was called
+Gradivus (from _gradus_, a step), it being popularly believed by the Romans
+that he himself marched before them to battle, and acted as their invisible
+protector. As the presiding deity over agriculture, he was styled Sylvanus,
+whilst in his character as guardian of the state, he bore the name of
+Quirinus.[45]
+
+The priests of Mars were twelve in number, and were called Salii, or the
+dancers, from the fact that sacred dances, in full armour, formed an
+important item in their peculiar ceremonial. This religious order, the
+members of which were always chosen from the noblest families in Rome, was
+first instituted by Numa Pompilius, who intrusted to their special charge
+the Anciliæ, or sacred shields. It is said that one morning, when Numa was
+imploring the protection of Jupiter for the newly-founded city of Rome, the
+god of heaven, as though in answer to his prayer, sent down an oblong
+brazen shield, and, as it fell at the feet of the king, a voice was heard
+announcing that on its preservation depended the future safety and
+prosperity of Rome. In order, therefore, to lessen the chances of this
+sacred treasure being abstracted, Numa caused eleven more to be made
+exactly like it, which were then given into the care of the Salii.
+
+The assistance and protection of the god of war was always solemnly invoked
+before the departure of a Roman army for the field of battle, and any
+reverses of fortune were invariably ascribed to his anger, which was
+accordingly propitiated by means of extraordinary sin-offerings and
+prayers.
+
+In Rome a field, called the Campus Martius, was dedicated to Mars. It was a
+large, open space, in which armies were collected and reviewed, general
+assemblies of {116} the people held, and the young nobility trained to
+martial exercises.
+
+The most celebrated and magnificent of the numerous temples built by the
+Romans in honour of this deity was the one erected by Augustus in the
+Forum, to commemorate the overthrow of the murderers of Cæsar.
+
+Of all existing statues of Mars the most renowned is that in the Villa
+Ludovisi at Rome, in which he is represented as a powerful, muscular man in
+the full vigour of youth. The attitude is that of thoughtful repose, but
+the short, curly hair, dilated nostrils, and strongly marked features leave
+no doubt as to the force and turbulence of his character. At his feet, the
+sculptor has placed the little god of love, who looks up all undaunted at
+the mighty war-god, as though mischievously conscious that this unusually
+quiet mood is attributable to his influence.
+
+Religious festivals in honour of Mars were generally held in the month of
+March; but he had also a festival on the Ides of October, when
+chariot-races took place, after which, the right-hand horse of the team
+which had drawn the victorious chariot, was sacrificed to him. In ancient
+times, human sacrifices, more especially prisoners of war, were offered to
+him; but, at a later period, this cruel practice was discontinued.
+
+The attributes of this divinity are the helmet, shield, and spear. The
+animals consecrated to him were the wolf, horse, vulture, and woodpecker.
+
+Intimately associated with Mars in his character as god of war, was a
+goddess called BELLONA, who was evidently the female divinity of battle
+with one or other of the primitive nations of Italy (most probably the
+Sabines), and is usually seen accompanying Mars, whose war-chariot she
+guides. Bellona appears on the battle-field, inspired with mad rage,
+cruelty, and the love of extermination. She is in full armour, her hair is
+dishevelled, and she bears a scourge in one hand, and a lance in the other.
+
+A temple was erected to her on the Campus Martius. Before the entrance to
+this edifice stood a pillar, over which a spear was thrown when war was
+publicly declared. {117}
+
+NIKE (VICTORIA).
+
+Nike, the goddess of victory, was the daughter of the Titan Pallas, and of
+Styx, the presiding nymph of the river of that name in the lower world.
+
+In her statues, Nike somewhat resembles Athene, but may easily be
+recognized by her large, graceful wings and flowing drapery, which is
+negligently fastened on the right shoulder, and only partially conceals her
+lovely form. In her left hand, she holds aloft a crown of laurel, and in
+the right, a palm-branch. In ancient sculpture, Nike is usually represented
+in connection with colossal statues of Zeus or Pallas-Athene, in which case
+she is life-sized, and stands on a ball, held in the open palm of the deity
+she accompanies. Sometimes she is represented engaged in inscribing the
+victory of a conqueror on his shield, her right foot being slightly raised
+and placed on a ball.
+
+A celebrated temple was erected to this divinity on the Acropolis at
+Athens, which is still to be seen, and is in excellent preservation.
+
+VICTORIA.
+
+Under the name of Victoria, Nike was highly honoured by the Romans, with
+whom love of conquest was an all-absorbing characteristic. There were
+several sanctuaries in Rome dedicated to her, the principal of which was on
+the Capitol, where it was the custom of generals, after success had
+attended their arms, to erect statues of the goddess in commemoration of
+their victories. The most magnificent of these statues, was that raised by
+Augustus after the battle of Actium. A festival was celebrated in honour of
+Nike on the 12th of April.
+
+HERMES (MERCURY).
+
+Hermes was the swift-footed messenger, and trusted ambassador of all the
+gods, and conductor of shades to Hades. He presided over the rearing and
+education of {118} the young, and encouraged gymnastic exercises and
+athletic pursuits, for which reason, all gymnasiums and wrestling schools
+throughout Greece were adorned with his statues. He is said to have
+invented the alphabet, and to have taught the art of interpreting foreign
+languages, and his versatility, sagacity, and cunning were so
+extraordinary, that Zeus invariably chose him as his attendant, when,
+disguised as a mortal, he journeyed on earth.
+
+Hermes was worshipped as god of eloquence, most probably from the fact
+that, in his office as ambassador, this faculty was indispensable to the
+successful issue of the negotiations with which he was intrusted. He was
+regarded as the god who granted increase and prosperity to flocks and
+herds, and, on this account, was worshipped with special veneration by
+herdsmen.
+
+In ancient times, trade was conducted chiefly by means of the exchange of
+cattle. Hermes, therefore, as god of herdsmen, came to be regarded as the
+protector of merchants, and, as ready wit and adroitness are valuable
+qualities both in buying and selling, he was also looked upon as the patron
+of artifice and cunning. Indeed, so deeply was this notion rooted in the
+minds of the Greek people, that he was popularly believed to be also god of
+thieves, and of all persons who live by their wits.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As the patron of commerce, Hermes was naturally supposed to be the promoter
+of intercourse among nations; hence, he is essentially the god of
+travellers, over whose safety he presided, and he severely punished those
+who refused assistance to the lost or weary wayfarer. He was also guardian
+of streets and roads, and his statues, called Hermæ (which were pillars of
+stone surmounted by a head of Hermes), were placed at cross-roads, and
+frequently in streets and public squares.
+
+Being the god of all undertakings in which gain was a feature, he was
+worshipped as the giver of wealth and {119} good luck, and any unexpected
+stroke of fortune was attributed to his influence. He also presided over
+the game of dice, in which he is said to have been instructed by Apollo.
+
+Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia, the eldest and most beautiful of the
+seven Pleiades (daughters of Atlas), and was born in a cave of Mount
+Cyllene in Arcadia. As a mere babe, he exhibited an extraordinary faculty
+for cunning and dissimulation; in fact, he was a thief from his cradle,
+for, not many hours after his birth, we find him creeping stealthily out of
+the cave in which he was born, in order to steal some oxen belonging to his
+brother Apollo, who was at this time feeding the flocks of Admetus. But he
+had not proceeded very far on his expedition before he found a tortoise,
+which he killed, and, stretching seven strings across the empty shell,
+invented a lyre, upon which he at once began to play with exquisite skill.
+When he had sufficiently amused himself with the instrument, he placed it
+in his cradle, and then resumed his journey to Pieria, where the cattle of
+Admetus were grazing. Arriving at sunset at his destination, he succeeded
+in separating fifty oxen from his brother's herd, which he now drove before
+him, taking the precaution to cover his feet with sandals made of twigs of
+myrtle, in order to escape detection. But the little rogue was not
+unobserved, for the theft had been witnessed by an old shepherd named
+Battus, who was tending the flocks of Neleus, king of Pylos (father of
+Nestor). Hermes, frightened at being discovered, bribed him with the finest
+cow in the herd not to betray him, and Battus promised to keep the secret.
+But Hermes, astute as he was dishonest, determined to test the shepherd's
+integrity. Feigning to go away, he assumed the form of Admetus, and then
+returning to the spot offered the old man two of his best oxen if he would
+disclose the author of the theft. The ruse succeeded, for the avaricious
+shepherd, unable to resist the tempting bait, gave the desired information,
+upon which Hermes, exerting his divine power, changed him into a lump of
+touchstone, as a {120} punishment for his treachery and avarice. Hermes now
+killed two of the oxen, which he sacrificed to himself and the other gods,
+concealing the remainder in the cave. He then carefully extinguished the
+fire, and, after throwing his twig shoes into the river Alpheus, returned
+to Cyllene.
+
+Apollo, by means of his all-seeing power, soon discovered who it was that
+had robbed him, and hastening to Cyllene, demanded restitution of his
+property. On his complaining to Maia of her son's conduct, she pointed to
+the innocent babe then lying, apparently fast asleep, in his cradle,
+whereupon, Apollo angrily aroused the pretended sleeper, and charged him
+with the theft; but the child stoutly denied all knowledge of it, and so
+cleverly did he play his part, that he even inquired in the most naive
+manner what sort of animals cows were. Apollo threatened to throw him into
+Tartarus if he would not confess the truth, but all to no purpose. At last,
+he seized the babe in his arms, and brought him into the presence of his
+august father, who was seated in the council chamber of the gods. Zeus
+listened to the charge made by Apollo, and then sternly desired Hermes to
+say where he had hidden the cattle. The child, who was still in
+swaddling-clothes, looked up bravely into his father's face and said, "Now,
+do I look capable of driving away a herd of cattle; I, who was only born
+yesterday, and whose feet are much too soft and tender to tread in rough
+places? Until this moment, I lay in sweet sleep on my mother's bosom, and
+have never even crossed the threshold of our dwelling. You know well that I
+am not guilty; but, if you wish, I will affirm it by the most solemn
+oaths." As the child stood before him, looking the picture of innocence,
+Zeus could not refrain from smiling at his cleverness and cunning, but,
+being perfectly aware of his guilt, he commanded him to conduct Apollo to
+the cave where he had concealed the herd, and Hermes, seeing that further
+subterfuge was useless, unhesitatingly obeyed. But when the divine shepherd
+was about to drive his cattle back into Pieria, Hermes, as though by
+chance, touched the chords of his {121} lyre. Hitherto Apollo had heard
+nothing but the music of his own three-stringed lyre and the syrinx, or
+Pan's pipe, and, as he listened entranced to the delightful strains of this
+new instrument, his longing to possess it became so great, that he gladly
+offered the oxen in exchange, promising at the same time, to give Hermes
+full dominion over flocks and herds, as well as over horses, and all the
+wild animals of the woods and forests. The offer was accepted, and, a
+reconciliation being thus effected between the brothers, Hermes became
+henceforth god of herdsmen, whilst Apollo devoted himself enthusiastically
+to the art of music.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They now proceeded together to Olympus, where Apollo introduced Hermes as
+his chosen friend and companion, and, having made him swear by the Styx,
+that he would never steal his lyre or bow, nor invade his sanctuary at
+Delphi, he presented him with the Caduceus, or golden wand. This wand was
+surmounted by wings, and on presenting it to Hermes, Apollo informed him
+that it possessed the faculty of uniting in love, all beings divided by
+hate. Wishing to prove the truth of this assertion, Hermes threw it down
+between two snakes which were fighting, whereupon the angry combatants
+clasped each other in a loving embrace, and curling round the staff,
+remained ever after permanently attached to it. The wand itself typified
+power; the serpents, wisdom; and the wings, despatch--all qualities
+characteristic of a trustworthy ambassador.
+
+The young god was now presented by his father with a winged silver cap
+(Petasus), and also with silver wings for his feet (Talaria), and was
+forthwith appointed herald of the gods, and conductor of shades to Hades,
+which office had hitherto been filled by Aïdes.
+
+As messenger of the gods, we find him employed on all occasions requiring
+special skill, tact, or despatch. Thus he conducts Hera, Athene, and
+Aphrodite to Paris, leads Priam to Achilles to demand the body of Hector,
+{122} binds Prometheus to Mount Caucasus, secures Ixion to the eternally
+revolving wheel, destroys Argus, the hundred-eyed guardian of Io, &c. &c.
+
+As conductor of shades, Hermes was always invoked by the dying to grant
+them a safe and speedy passage across the Styx. He also possessed the power
+of bringing back departed spirits to the upper world, and was, therefore,
+the mediator between the living and the dead.
+
+The poets relate many amusing stories of the youthful tricks played by this
+mischief-loving god upon the other immortals. For instance, he had the
+audacity to extract the Medusa's head from the shield of Athene, which he
+playfully attached to the back of Hephæstus; he also stole the girdle of
+Aphrodite; deprived Artemis of her arrows, and Ares of his spear, but these
+acts were always performed with such graceful dexterity, combined with such
+perfect good humour, that even the gods and goddesses he thus provoked,
+were fain to pardon him, and he became a universal favourite with them all.
+
+It is said that Hermes was one day flying over Athens, when, looking down
+into the city, he beheld a number of maidens returning in solemn procession
+from the temple of Pallas-Athene. Foremost among them was Herse, the
+beautiful daughter of king Cecrops, and Hermes was so struck with her
+exceeding loveliness that he determined to seek an interview with her. He
+accordingly presented himself at the royal palace, and begged her sister
+Agraulos to favour his suit; but, being of an avaricious turn of mind, she
+refused to do so without the payment of an enormous sum of money. It did
+not take the messenger of the gods long to obtain the means of fulfilling
+this condition, and he soon returned with a well-filled purse. But
+meanwhile Athene, to punish the cupidity of Agraulos, had caused the demon
+of envy to take possession of her, and the consequence was, that, being
+unable to contemplate the happiness of her sister, she sat down before the
+door, and resolutely refused to allow Hermes to enter. He tried every
+persuasion and blandishment in his power, but she still remained obstinate.
+At last, his patience {123} being exhausted, he changed her into a mass of
+black stone, and, the obstacle to his wishes being removed, he succeeded in
+persuading Herse to become his wife.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In his statues, Hermes is represented as a beardless youth, with broad
+chest and graceful but muscular limbs; the face is handsome and
+intelligent, and a genial smile of kindly benevolence plays round the
+delicately chiselled lips.
+
+As messenger of the gods he wears the Petasus and Talaria, and bears in his
+hand the Caduceus or herald's staff.
+
+As god of eloquence, he is often represented with chains of gold hanging
+from his lips, whilst, as the patron of merchants, he bears a purse in his
+hand.
+
+The wonderful excavations in Olympia, to which allusion has already been
+made, have brought to light an exquisite marble group of Hermes and the
+infant Bacchus, by Praxiteles. In this great work of art, Hermes is
+represented as a young and handsome man, who is looking down kindly and
+affectionately at the child resting on his arm, but unfortunately nothing
+remains of the infant save the right hand, which is laid lovingly on the
+shoulder of his protector.
+
+The sacrifices to Hermes consisted of incense, honey, cakes, pigs, and
+especially lambs and young goats. As god of eloquence, the tongues of
+animals were sacrificed to him.
+
+MERCURY.
+
+Mercury was the Roman god of commerce and gain. We find mention of a temple
+having been erected to him {124} near the Circus Maximus as early as B.C.
+495; and he had also a temple and a sacred fount near the Porta Capena.
+Magic powers were ascribed to the latter, and on the festival of Mercury,
+which took place on the 25th of May, it was the custom for merchants to
+sprinkle themselves and their merchandise with this holy water, in order to
+insure large profits from their wares.
+
+The Fetiales (Roman priests whose duty it was to act as guardians of the
+public faith) refused to recognize the identity of Mercury with Hermes, and
+ordered him to be represented with a sacred branch as the emblem of peace,
+instead of the Caduceus. In later times, however, he was completely
+identified with the Greek Hermes.
+
+DIONYSUS (BACCHUS).
+
+Dionysus, also called Bacchus (from _bacca_, berry), was the god of wine,
+and the personification of the blessings of Nature in general.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The worship of this divinity, which is supposed to have been introduced
+into Greece from Asia (in all probability from India), first took root in
+Thrace, whence it gradually spread into other parts of Greece.
+
+Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, and was snatched by Zeus from the
+devouring flames in which his mother perished, when he appeared to her in
+all the splendour of his divine glory. The motherless child was intrusted
+to the charge of Hermes, who conveyed him to Semele's sister, Ino. But
+Hera, still implacable in her vengeance, visited Athamas, the husband of
+Ino, with madness, {125} and the child's life being no longer safe, he was
+transferred to the fostering care of the nymphs of Mount Nysa. An aged
+satyr named Silenus, the son of Pan, took upon himself the office of
+guardian and preceptor to the young god, who, in his turn, became much
+attached to his kind tutor; hence we see Silenus always figuring as one of
+the chief personages in the various expeditions of the wine-god.
+
+Dionysus passed an innocent and uneventful childhood, roaming through the
+woods and forests, surrounded by nymphs, satyrs, and shepherds. During one
+of these rambles, he found a fruit growing wild, of a most refreshing and
+cooling nature. This was the vine, from which he subsequently learnt to
+extract a juice which formed a most exhilarating beverage. After his
+companions had partaken freely of it, they felt their whole being pervaded
+by an unwonted sense of pleasurable excitement, and gave full vent to their
+overflowing exuberance, by shouting, singing, and dancing. Their numbers
+were soon swelled by a crowd, eager to taste a beverage productive of such
+extraordinary results, and anxious to join in the worship of a divinity to
+whom they were indebted for this new enjoyment. Dionysus, on his part,
+seeing how agreeably his discovery had affected his immediate followers,
+resolved to extend the boon to mankind in general. He saw that wine, used
+in moderation, would enable man to enjoy a happier, and more sociable
+existence, and that, under its invigorating influence, the sorrowful might,
+for a while, forget their grief and the sick their pain. He accordingly
+gathered round him his zealous followers, and they set forth on their
+travels, planting the vine and teaching its cultivation wherever they went.
+
+We now behold Dionysus at the head of a large army composed of men, women,
+fauns, and satyrs, all bearing in their hands the Thyrsus (a staff entwined
+with vine-branches surmounted by a fir-cone), and clashing together cymbals
+and other musical instruments. Seated in a chariot drawn by panthers, and
+accompanied by thousands of enthusiastic followers, Dionysus made a
+triumphal {126} progress through Syria, Egypt, Arabia, India, &c.,
+conquering all before him, founding cities, and establishing on every side
+a more civilized and sociable mode of life among the inhabitants of the
+various countries through which he passed.
+
+When Dionysus returned to Greece from his Eastern expedition, he
+encountered great opposition from Lycurgus, king of Thrace, and Pentheus,
+king of Thebes. The former, highly disapproving of the wild revels which
+attended the worship of the wine-god, drove away his attendants, the nymphs
+of Nysa, from that sacred mountain, and so effectually intimidated
+Dionysus, that he precipitated himself into the sea, where he was received
+into the arms of the ocean-nymph, Thetis. But the impious king bitterly
+expiated his sacrilegious conduct. He was punished with the loss of his
+reason, and, during one of his mad paroxysms, killed his own son Dryas,
+whom he mistook for a vine.
+
+Pentheus, king of Thebes, seeing his subjects so completely infatuated by
+the riotous worship of this new divinity, and fearing the demoralizing
+effects of the unseemly nocturnal orgies held in honour of the wine-god,
+strictly prohibited his people from taking any part in the wild
+Bacchanalian revels. Anxious to save him from the consequences of his
+impiety, Dionysus appeared to him under the form of a youth in the king's
+train, and earnestly warned him to desist from his denunciations. But the
+well-meant admonition failed in its purpose, for Pentheus only became more
+incensed at this interference, and, commanding Dionysus to be cast into
+prison, caused the most cruel preparations to be made for his immediate
+execution. But the god soon freed himself from his ignoble confinement, for
+scarcely had his jailers departed, ere the prison-doors opened of
+themselves, and, bursting asunder his iron chains, he escaped to rejoin his
+devoted followers.
+
+Meanwhile, the mother of the king and her sisters, inspired with
+Bacchanalian fury, had repaired to Mount Cithæron, in order to join the
+worshippers of the {127} wine-god in those dreadful orgies which were
+solemnized exclusively by women, and at which no man was allowed to be
+present. Enraged at finding his commands thus openly disregarded by the
+members of his own family, Pentheus resolved to witness for himself the
+excesses of which he had heard such terrible reports, and for this purpose,
+concealed himself behind a tree on Mount Cithæron; but his hiding-place
+being discovered, he was dragged out by the half-maddened crew of
+Bacchantes and, horrible to relate, he was torn in pieces by his own mother
+Agave and her two sisters.
+
+An incident which occurred to Dionysus on one of his travels has been a
+favourite subject with the classic poets. One day, as some Tyrrhenian
+pirates approached the shores of Greece, they beheld Dionysus, in the form
+of a beautiful youth, attired in radiant garments. Thinking to secure a
+rich prize, they seized him, bound him, and conveyed him on board their
+vessel, resolved to carry him with them to Asia and there sell him as a
+slave. But the fetters dropped from his limbs, and the pilot, who was the
+first to perceive the miracle, called upon his companions to restore the
+youth carefully to the spot whence they had taken him, assuring them that
+he was a god, and that adverse winds and storms would, in all probability,
+result from their impious conduct. But, refusing to part with their
+prisoner, they set sail for the open sea. Suddenly, to the alarm of all on
+board, the ship stood still, masts and sails were covered with clustering
+vines and wreaths of ivy-leaves, streams of fragrant wine inundated the
+vessel, and heavenly strains of music were heard around. The terrified
+crew, too late repentant, crowded round the pilot for protection, and
+entreated him to steer for the shore. But the hour of retribution had
+arrived. Dionysus assumed the form of a lion, whilst beside him appeared a
+bear, which, with a terrific roar, rushed upon the captain and tore him in
+pieces; the sailors, in an agony of terror, leaped overboard, and were
+changed into dolphins. The discreet and pious steersman was alone permitted
+to escape the fate of his companions, {128} and to him Dionysus, who had
+resumed his true form, addressed words of kind and affectionate
+encouragement, and announced his name and dignity. They now set sail, and
+Dionysus desired the pilot to land him at the island of Naxos, where he
+found the lovely Ariadne, daughter of Minos, king of Crete. She had been
+abandoned by Theseus on this lonely spot, and, when Dionysus now beheld
+her, was lying fast asleep on a rock, worn out with sorrow and weeping.
+Wrapt in admiration, the god stood gazing at the beautiful vision before
+him, and when she at length unclosed her eyes, he revealed himself to her,
+and, in gentle tones, sought to banish her grief. Grateful for his kind
+sympathy, coming as it did at a moment when she had deemed herself forsaken
+and friendless, she gradually regained her former serenity, and, yielding
+to his entreaties, consented to become his wife.
+
+Dionysus, having established his worship in various parts of the world,
+descended to the realm of shades in search of his ill-fated mother, whom he
+conducted to Olympus, where, under the name of Thyone, she was admitted
+into the assembly of the immortal gods.
+
+Among the most noted worshippers of Dionysus was Midas,[46] the wealthy
+king of Phrygia, the same who, as already related, gave judgment against
+Apollo. Upon one occasion Silenus, the preceptor and friend of Dionysus,
+being in an intoxicated condition, strayed into the rose-gardens of this
+monarch, where he was found by some of the king's attendants, who bound him
+with roses and conducted him to the presence of their royal master. Midas
+treated the aged satyr with the greatest consideration, and, after
+entertaining him hospitably for ten days, led him back to Dionysus, who was
+so grateful for the kind attention shown to his old friend, that he offered
+to grant Midas any favour he chose to demand; whereupon the avaricious
+monarch, not content with his boundless wealth, and still thirsting for
+more, desired that everything he touched might turn to gold. The request
+was {129} complied with in so literal a sense, that the now wretched Midas
+bitterly repented his folly and cupidity, for, when the pangs of hunger
+assailed him, and he essayed to appease his cravings, the food became gold
+ere he could swallow it; as he raised the cup of wine to his parched lips,
+the sparkling draught was changed into the metal he had so coveted, and
+when at length, wearied and faint, he stretched his aching frame on his
+hitherto luxurious couch, this also was transformed into the substance
+which had now become the curse of his existence. The despairing king at
+last implored the god to take back the fatal gift, and Dionysus, pitying
+his unhappy plight, desired him to bathe in the river Pactolus, a small
+stream in Lydia, in order to lose the power which had become the bane of
+his life. Midas joyfully obeying the injunction, was at once freed from the
+consequences of his avaricious demand, and from this time forth the sands
+of the river Pactolus have ever contained grains of gold.
+
+Representations of Dionysus are of two kinds. According to the earliest
+conceptions, he appears as a grave and dignified man in the prime of life;
+his countenance is earnest, thoughtful, and benevolent; he wears a full
+beard, and is draped from head to foot in the garb of an Eastern monarch.
+But the sculptors of a later period represent him as a youth of singular
+beauty, though of somewhat effeminate appearance; the expression of the
+countenance is gentle and winning; the limbs are supple and gracefully
+moulded; and the hair, which is adorned by a wreath of vine or ivy leaves,
+falls over the shoulders in long curls. In one hand he bears the Thyrsus,
+and in the other a drinking-cup with two handles, these being his
+distinguishing attributes. He is often represented riding on a panther, or
+seated in a chariot drawn by lions, tigers, panthers, or lynxes.
+
+Being the god of wine, which is calculated to promote sociability, he
+rarely appears alone, but is usually accompanied by Bacchantes, satyrs, and
+mountain-nymphs.
+
+The finest modern representation of Ariadne is that by Danneker, at
+Frankfort-on-the-Maine. In this statue she {130} appears riding on a
+panther; the beautiful upturned face inclines slightly over the left
+shoulder; the features are regular and finely cut, and a wreath of
+ivy-leaves encircles the well-shaped head. With her right hand she
+gracefully clasps the folds of drapery which fall away negligently from her
+rounded form, whilst the other rests lightly and caressingly on the head of
+the animal.
+
+Dionysus was regarded as the patron of the drama, and at the state festival
+of the Dionysia, which was celebrated with great pomp in the city of
+Athens, dramatic entertainments took place in his honour, for which all the
+renowned Greek dramatists of antiquity composed their immortal tragedies
+and comedies.
+
+He was also a prophetic divinity, and possessed oracles, the principal of
+which was that on Mount Rhodope in Thrace.
+
+The tiger, lynx, panther, dolphin, serpent, and ass were sacred to this
+god. His favourite plants were the vine, ivy, laurel, and asphodel. His
+sacrifices consisted of goats, probably on account of their being
+destructive to vineyards.
+
+BACCHUS OR LIBER.
+
+The Romans had a divinity called Liber who presided over vegetation, and
+was, on this account, identified with the Greek Dionysus, and worshipped
+under the name of Bacchus.
+
+The festival of Liber, called the Liberalia, was celebrated on the 17th of
+March.
+
+AÏDES (PLUTO).
+
+Aïdes, Aïdoneus, or Hades, was the son of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest
+brother of Zeus and Poseidon. He was the ruler of that subterranean region
+called Erebus, which was inhabited by the shades or spirits of the dead,
+and also by those dethroned and exiled deities who had been vanquished by
+Zeus and his allies. Aïdes, the grim and gloomy monarch of this lower
+world, was the {131} successor of Erebus, that ancient primeval divinity
+after whom these realms were called.
+
+The early Greeks regarded Aïdes in the light of their greatest foe, and
+Homer tells us that he was "of all the gods the most detested," being in
+their eyes the grim robber who stole from them their nearest and dearest,
+and eventually deprived each of them of their share in terrestrial
+existence. His name was so feared that it was never mentioned by mortals,
+who, when they invoked him, struck the earth with their hands, and in
+sacrificing to him turned away their faces.
+
+The belief of the people with regard to a future state was, in the Homeric
+age, a sad and cheerless one. It was supposed that when a mortal ceased to
+exist, his spirit tenanted the shadowy outline of the human form it had
+quitted. These shadows, or shades as they were called, were driven by Aïdes
+into his dominions, where they passed their time, some in brooding over the
+vicissitudes of fortune which they had experienced on earth, others in
+regretting the lost pleasures they had enjoyed in life, but all in a
+condition of semi-consciousness, from which the intellect could only be
+roused to full activity by drinking of the blood of the sacrifices offered
+to their shades by living friends, which, for a time, endowed them with
+their former mental vigour. The only beings supposed to enjoy any happiness
+in a future state were the heroes, whose acts of daring and deeds of
+prowess had, during their life, reflected honour on the land of their
+birth; and even these, according to Homer, pined after their career of
+earthly activity. He tells us that when Odysseus visited the lower world at
+the command of Circe, and held communion with the shades of the heroes of
+the Trojan war, Achilles assured him that he would rather be the poorest
+day-labourer on earth than reign supreme over the realm of shades.
+
+The early Greek poets offer but scanty allusions to Erebus. Homer appears
+purposely to envelop these realms in vagueness and mystery, in order,
+probably, to heighten the sensation of awe inseparably connected with {132}
+the lower world. In the Odyssey he describes the entrance to Erebus as
+being beyond the furthermost edge of Oceanus, in the far west, where dwelt
+the Cimmerians, enveloped in eternal mists and darkness.
+
+In later times, however, in consequence of extended intercourse with
+foreign nations, new ideas became gradually introduced, and we find
+Egyptian theories with regard to a future state taking root in Greece,
+which become eventually the religious belief of the whole nation. It is now
+that the poets and philosophers, and more especially the teachers of the
+Eleusinian Mysteries, begin to inculcate the doctrine of the future reward
+and punishment of good and bad deeds. Aïdes, who had hitherto been regarded
+as the dread enemy of mankind, who delights in his grim office, and keeps
+the shades imprisoned in his dominions after withdrawing them from the joys
+of existence, now receives them with hospitality and friendship, and Hermes
+replaces him as conductor of shades to Hades. Under this new aspect Aïdes
+usurps the functions of a totally different divinity called Plutus (the god
+of riches), and is henceforth regarded as the giver of wealth to mankind,
+in the shape of those precious metals which lie concealed in the bowels of
+the earth.
+
+The later poets mention various entrances to Erebus, which were for the
+most part caves and fissures. There was one in the mountain of Taenarum,
+another in Thesprotia, and a third, the most celebrated of all, in Italy,
+near the pestiferous Lake Avernus, over which it is said no bird could fly,
+so noxious were its exhalations.
+
+In the dominions of Aïdes there were four great rivers, three of which had
+to be crossed by all the shades. These three were Acheron (sorrow), Cocytus
+(lamentation), and Styx (intense darkness), the sacred stream which flowed
+nine times round these realms.
+
+The shades were ferried over the Styx by the grim, unshaven old boatman
+Charon, who, however, only took those whose bodies had received funereal
+rites on earth, and who had brought with them his indispensable toll, which
+was a small coin or obolus, usually placed under the {133} tongue of a dead
+person for this purpose. If these conditions had not been fulfilled, the
+unhappy shades were left behind to wander up and down the banks for a
+hundred years as restless spirits.
+
+On the opposite bank of the Styx was the tribunal of Minos, the supreme
+judge, before whom all shades had to appear, and who, after hearing full
+confession of their actions whilst on earth, pronounced the sentence of
+happiness or misery to which their deeds had entitled them. This tribunal
+was guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus, who, with his three
+necks bristling with snakes, lay at full length on the ground;--a
+formidable sentinel, who permitted all shades to enter, but none to return.
+
+The happy spirits, destined to enjoy the delights of Elysium, passed out on
+the right, and proceeded to the golden palace where Aïdes and Persephone
+held their royal court, from whom they received a kindly greeting, ere they
+set out for the Elysian Fields which lay beyond.[47] This blissful region
+was replete with all that could charm the senses or please the imagination;
+the air was balmy and fragrant, rippling brooks flowed peacefully through
+the smiling meadows, which glowed with the varied hues of a thousand
+flowers, whilst the groves resounded with the joyous songs of birds. The
+occupations and amusements of the happy shades were of the same nature as
+those which they had delighted in whilst on earth. Here the warrior found
+his horses, chariots, and arms, the musician his lyre, and the hunter his
+quiver and bow.
+
+In a secluded vale of Elysium there flowed a gentle, silent stream, called
+Lethe (oblivion), whose waters had the effect of dispelling care, and
+producing utter forgetfulness of former events. According to the
+Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, it was supposed that
+after the shades had inhabited Elysium for a thousand years they were
+destined to animate other bodies on {134} earth, and before leaving Elysium
+they drank of the river Lethe, in order that they might enter upon their
+new career without any remembrance of the past.
+
+The guilty souls, after leaving the presence of Minos, were conducted to
+the great judgment-hall of Hades, whose massive walls of solid adamant were
+surrounded by the river Phlegethon, the waves of which rolled flames of
+fire, and lit up, with their lurid glare, these awful realms. In the
+interior sat the dread judge Rhadamanthus, who declared to each comer the
+precise torments which awaited him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners were
+then seized by the Furies, who scourged them with their whips, and dragged
+them along to the great gate, which closed the opening to Tartarus, into
+whose awful depths they were hurled, to suffer endless torture.
+
+Tartarus was a vast and gloomy expanse, as far below Hades as the earth is
+distant from the skies. There the Titans, fallen from their high estate,
+dragged out a dreary and monotonous existence; there also were Otus and
+Ephialtes, those giant sons of Poseidon, who, with impious hands, had
+attempted to scale Olympus and dethrone its mighty ruler. Principal among
+the sufferers in this abode of gloom were Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus,
+Ixion, and the Danaïdes.
+
+TITYUS, one of the earth-born giants, had insulted Hera on her way to
+Peitho, for which offence Zeus flung him into Tartarus, where he suffered
+dreadful torture, inflicted by two vultures, which perpetually gnawed his
+liver.
+
+TANTALUS was a wise and wealthy king of Lydia, with whom the gods
+themselves condescended to associate; he was even permitted to sit at table
+with Zeus, who delighted in his conversation, and listened with interest to
+the wisdom of his observations. Tantalus, however, elated at these
+distinguished marks of divine favour, presumed upon his position, and used
+unbecoming language to Zeus himself; he also stole nectar and ambrosia from
+the table of the gods, with which he regaled his friends; but his greatest
+crime consisted in killing his own son, {135} Pelops, and serving him up at
+one of the banquets to the gods, in order to test their omniscience. For
+these heinous offences he was condemned by Zeus to eternal punishment in
+Tartarus, where, tortured with an ever-burning thirst, he was plunged up to
+the chin in water, which, as he stooped to drink, always receded from his
+parched lips. Tall trees, with spreading branches laden with delicious
+fruits, hung temptingly over his head; but no sooner did he raise himself
+to grasp them, than a wind arose, and carried them beyond his reach.
+
+SISYPHUS was a great tyrant who, according to some accounts, barbarously
+murdered all travellers who came into his dominions, by hurling upon them
+enormous pieces of rock. In punishment for his crimes he was condemned to
+roll incessantly a huge block of stone up a steep hill, which, as soon as
+it reached the summit, always rolled back again to the plain below.
+
+IXION was a king of Thessaly to whom Zeus accorded the privilege of joining
+the festive banquets of the gods; but, taking advantage of his exalted
+position, he presumed to aspire to the favour of Hera, which so greatly
+incensed Zeus, that he struck him with his thunderbolts, and commanded
+Hermes to throw him into Tartarus, and bind him to an ever-revolving wheel.
+
+The DANAÏDES were the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, who had
+married their fifty cousins, the sons of Ægyptus. By the command of their
+father, who had been warned by an oracle that his son-in-law would cause
+his death, they all killed their husbands in one night, Hypermnestra alone
+excepted. Their punishment in the lower world was to fill with water a
+vessel full of holes,--a never-ending and useless task.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Aïdes is usually represented as a man of mature years and stern majestic
+mien, bearing a striking resemblance to his brother Zeus; but the gloomy
+and inexorable expression of the face contrasts forcibly with that peculiar
+benignity which so characterizes the countenance of the mighty ruler of
+heaven. He is seated on a throne of ebony, with his queen, the grave and
+sad Persephone, {136} beside him, and wears a full beard, and long flowing
+black hair, which hangs straight down over his forehead; in his hand he
+either bears a two-pronged fork or the keys of the lower world, and at his
+feet sits Cerberus. He is sometimes seen in a chariot of gold, drawn by
+four black horses, and wearing on his head a helmet made for him by the
+Cyclops, which rendered the wearer invisible. This helmet he frequently
+lent to mortals and immortals.
+
+Aïdes, who was universally worshipped throughout Greece, had temples
+erected to his honour in Elis, Olympia, and also at Athens.
+
+His sacrifices, which took place at night, consisted of black sheep, and
+the blood, instead of being sprinkled on the altars or received in vessels,
+as at other sacrifices, was permitted to run down into a trench, dug for
+this purpose. The officiating priests wore black robes, and were crowned
+with cypress.
+
+The narcissus, maiden-hair, and cypress were sacred to this divinity.
+
+PLUTO.
+
+Before the introduction into Rome of the religion and literature of Greece,
+the Romans had no belief in a realm of future happiness or misery,
+corresponding to the Greek Hades; hence they had no god of the lower world
+identical with Aïdes. They supposed that there was, in the centre of the
+earth, a vast, gloomy, and impenetrably dark cavity called Orcus, which
+formed a place of eternal rest for the dead. But with the introduction of
+Greek mythology, the Roman Orcus became the Greek Hades, and {137} all the
+Greek notions with regard to a future state now obtained with the Romans,
+who worshipped Aïdes under the name of Pluto, his other appellations being
+Dis (from _dives_, rich) and Orcus from the dominions over which he ruled.
+In Rome there were no temples erected to this divinity.
+
+PLUTUS.
+
+Plutus, the son of Demeter and a mortal called Iasion, was the god of
+wealth, and is represented as being lame when he makes his appearance, and
+winged when he takes his departure. He was supposed to be both blind and
+foolish, because he bestows his gifts without discrimination, and
+frequently upon the most unworthy objects.
+
+Plutus was believed to have his abode in the bowels of the earth, which was
+probably the reason why, in later times, Aïdes became confounded with this
+divinity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MINOR DIVINITIES.
+
+THE HARPIES.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Harpies, who, like the Furies, were employed by the gods as instruments
+for the punishment of the guilty, were three female divinities, daughters
+of Thaumas and Electra, called Aello, Ocypete, and Celæno.
+
+They were represented with the head of a fair-haired maiden and the body of
+a vulture, and were perpetually devoured by the pangs of insatiable hunger,
+which caused them to torment their victims by robbing them of their food;
+this they either devoured with great {138} gluttony, or defiled in such a
+manner as to render it unfit to be eaten.
+
+Their wonderfully rapid flight far surpassed that of birds, or even of the
+winds themselves. If any mortal suddenly and unaccountably disappeared, the
+Harpies were believed to have carried him off. Thus they were supposed to
+have borne away the daughters of King Pandareos to act as servants to the
+Erinyes.
+
+The Harpies would appear to be personifications of sudden tempests, which,
+with ruthless violence, sweep over whole districts, carrying off or
+injuring all before them.
+
+ERINYES, EUMENIDES (FURIÆ, DIRÆ).
+
+The Erinyes or Furies were female divinities who personified the torturing
+pangs of an evil conscience, and the remorse which inevitably follows
+wrong-doing.
+
+Their names were Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone, and their origin was
+variously accounted for. According to Hesiod, they sprang from the blood of
+Uranus, when wounded by Cronus, and were hence supposed to be the
+embodiment of all the terrible imprecations, which the defeated deity
+called down upon the head of his rebellious son. According to other
+accounts they were the daughters of Night.
+
+Their place of abode was the lower world, where they were employed by Aïdes
+and Persephone to chastise and torment those shades who, during their
+earthly career, had committed crimes, and had not been reconciled to the
+gods before descending to Hades.
+
+But their sphere of action was not confined to the realm of shades, for
+they appeared upon earth as the avenging deities who relentlessly pursued
+and punished murderers, perjurers, those who had failed in duty to their
+parents, in hospitality to strangers, or in the respect due to old age.
+Nothing escaped the piercing glance of these terrible divinities, from whom
+flight was unavailing, for no corner of the earth was so remote as {139} to
+be beyond their reach, nor did any mortal dare to offer to their victims an
+asylum from their persecutions.
+
+The Furies are frequently represented with wings; their bodies are black,
+blood drips from their eyes, and snakes twine in their hair. In their hands
+they bear either a dagger, scourge, torch, or serpent.
+
+When they pursued Orestes they constantly held up a mirror to his horrified
+gaze, in which he beheld the face of his murdered mother.
+
+These divinities were also called Eumenides, which signifies the
+"well-meaning" or "soothed goddesses;" This appellation was given to them
+because they were so feared and dreaded that people dared not call them by
+their proper title, and hoped by this means to propitiate their wrath.
+
+In later times the Furies came to be regarded as salutary agencies, who, by
+severely punishing sin, upheld the cause of morality and social order, and
+thus contributed to the welfare of mankind. They now lose their
+awe-inspiring aspect, and are represented, more especially in Athens, as
+earnest maidens, dressed, like Artemis, in short tunics suitable for the
+chase, but still retaining, in their hands, the wand of office in the form
+of a snake.
+
+Their sacrifices consisted of black sheep and a libation composed of a
+mixture of honey and water, called Nephalia. A celebrated temple was
+erected to the Eumenides at Athens, near the Areopagus.
+
+MOIRÆ OR FATES (PARCÆ).
+
+The ancients believed that the duration of human existence and the
+destinies of mortals were regulated by three sister-goddesses, called
+Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who were the daughters of Zeus and Themis.
+
+The power which they wielded over the fate of man was significantly
+indicated under the figure of a thread, which they spun out for the life of
+each human being from his birth to the grave. This occupation they divided
+between them. Clotho wound the flax round the distaff, {140} ready for her
+sister Lachesis, who span out the thread of life, which Atropos, with her
+scissors, relentlessly snapt asunder, when the career of an individual was
+about to terminate.
+
+Homer speaks of one Moira only, the daughter of Night, who represents the
+moral force by which the universe is governed, and to whom both mortals and
+immortals were forced to submit, Zeus himself being powerless to avert her
+decrees; but in later times this conception of one inexorable,
+all-conquering fate became amplified by the poets into that above
+described, and the Moiræ are henceforth the special presiding deities over
+the life and death of mortals.
+
+The Moiræ are represented by the poets as stern, inexorable female
+divinities, aged, hideous, and also lame, which is evidently meant to
+indicate the slow and halting march of destiny, which they controlled.
+Painters and sculptors, on the other hand, depicted them as beautiful
+maidens of a grave but kindly aspect.
+
+There is a charming representation of Lachesis, which depicts her in all
+the grace of youth and beauty. She is sitting spinning, and at her feet lie
+two masks, one comic, the other tragic, as though to convey the idea, that,
+to a divinity of fate, the brightest and saddest scenes of earthly
+existence are alike indifferent, and that she quietly and steadily pursues
+her occupation, regardless of human weal or woe.
+
+When represented at the feet of Aïdes in the lower world they are clad in
+dark robes; but when they appear in Olympus they wear bright garments,
+bespangled with stars, and are seated on radiant thrones, with crowns on
+their heads.
+
+It was considered the function of the Moiræ to indicate to the Furies the
+precise torture which the wicked should undergo for their crimes.
+
+They were regarded as prophetic divinities, and had sanctuaries in many
+parts of Greece.
+
+The Moiræ are mentioned as assisting the Charites to conduct Persephone to
+the upper world at her periodical {141} reunion with her mother Demeter.
+They also appear in company with Eileithyia, goddess of birth.
+
+NEMESIS.
+
+Nemesis, the daughter of Nyx, represents that power which adjusts the
+balance of human affairs, by awarding to each individual the fate which his
+actions deserve. She rewards, humble, unacknowledged merit, punishes crime,
+deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune, humiliates the proud and
+overbearing, and visits all evil on the wrong-doer; thus maintaining that
+proper balance of things, which the Greeks recognized as a necessary
+condition of all civilized life. But though Nemesis, in her original
+character, was the distributor of rewards as well as punishments, the world
+was so full of sin, that she found but little occupation in her first
+capacity, and hence became finally regarded as the avenging goddess only.
+
+We have seen a striking instance of the manner in which this divinity
+punishes the proud and arrogant in the history of Niobe. Apollo and Artemis
+were merely the instruments for avenging the insult offered to their
+mother; but it was Nemesis who prompted the deed, and presided over its
+execution.
+
+Homer makes no mention of Nemesis; it is therefore evident that she was a
+conception of later times, when higher views of morality had obtained among
+the Greek nation.
+
+Nemesis is represented as a beautiful woman of thoughtful and benign aspect
+and regal bearing; a diadem crowns her majestic brow, and she bears in her
+hand a rudder, balance, and cubit;--fitting emblems of the manner in which
+she guides, weighs, and measures all human events. She is also sometimes
+seen with a wheel, to symbolize the rapidity with which she executes
+justice. As the avenger of evil she appears winged, bearing in her hand
+either a scourge or a sword, and seated in a chariot drawn by griffins.
+{142}
+
+Nemesis is frequently called Adrastia, and also Rhamnusia, from Rhamnus in
+Attica, the chief seat of her worship, which contained a celebrated statue
+of the goddess.
+
+Nemesis was worshipped by the Romans, (who invoked her on the Capitol), as
+a divinity who possessed the power of averting the pernicious consequences
+of envy.
+
+NIGHT AND HER CHILDREN.
+DEATH, SLEEP, AND DREAMS.
+
+NYX (NOX).
+
+Nyx, the daughter of Chaos, being the personification of Night, was,
+according to the poetic ideas of the Greeks, considered to be the mother of
+everything mysterious and inexplicable, such as death, sleep, dreams, &c.
+She became united to Erebus, and their children were Aether and Hemera (Air
+and Daylight), evidently a simile of the poets, to indicate that darkness
+always precedes light.
+
+Nyx inhabited a palace in the dark regions of the lower world, and is
+represented as a beautiful woman, seated in a chariot, drawn by two black
+horses. She is clothed in dark robes, wears a long veil, and is accompanied
+by the stars, which follow in her train.
+
+THANATOS (MORS) AND HYPNUS (SOMNUS).
+
+Thanatos (Death) and his twin-brother Hypnus (Sleep) were the children of
+Nyx.
+
+Their dwelling was in the realm of shades, and when they appear among
+mortals, Thanatos is feared and hated as the enemy of mankind, whose hard
+heart knows no pity, whilst his brother Hypnus is universally loved and
+welcomed as their kindest and most beneficent friend.
+
+But though the ancients regarded Thanatos as a gloomy and mournful
+divinity, they did not represent him with any exterior repulsiveness. On
+the contrary, he appears as a beautiful youth, who holds in his hand an
+inverted {143} torch, emblematical of the light of life being extinguished,
+whilst his disengaged arm is thrown lovingly round the shoulder of his
+brother Hypnus.
+
+Hypnus is sometimes depicted standing erect with closed eyes; at others he
+is in a recumbent position beside his brother Thanatos, and usually bears a
+poppy-stalk in his hand.
+
+A most interesting description of the abode of Hypnus is given by Ovid in
+his Metamorphoses. He tells us how the god of Sleep dwelt in a
+mountain-cave near the realm of the Cimmerians, which the sun never pierced
+with his rays. No sound disturbed the stillness, no song of birds, not a
+branch moved, and no human voice broke the profound silence which reigned
+everywhere. From the lowermost rocks of the cave issued the river Lethe,
+and one might almost have supposed that its course was arrested, were it
+not for the low, monotonous hum of the water, which invited slumber. The
+entrance was partially hidden by numberless white and red poppies, which
+Mother Night had gathered and planted there, and from the juice of which
+she extracts drowsiness, which she scatters in liquid drops all over the
+earth, as soon as the sun-god has sunk to rest. In the centre of the cave
+stands a couch of blackest ebony, with a bed of down, over which is laid a
+coverlet of sable hue. Here the god himself reposes, surrounded by
+innumerable forms. These are idle dreams, more numerous than the sands of
+the sea. Chief among them is Morpheus, that changeful god, who may assume
+any shape or form he pleases. Nor can the god of Sleep resist his own
+power; for though he may rouse himself for a while, he soon succumbs to the
+drowsy influences which surround him.
+
+MORPHEUS.
+
+Morpheus, the son of Hypnus, was the god of Dreams.
+
+He is always represented winged, and appears sometimes as a youth,
+sometimes as an old man. In his hand he bears a cluster of poppies, and as
+he steps with {144} noiseless footsteps over the earth, he gently scatters
+the seeds of this sleep-producing plant over the eyes of weary mortals.
+
+Homer describes the House of Dreams as having two gates: one, whence issue
+all deceptive and flattering visions, being formed of ivory; the other,
+through which proceed those dreams which are fulfilled, of horn.
+
+THE GORGONS.
+
+The Gorgons, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, were the three daughters of
+Phorcys and Ceto, and were the personification of those benumbing, and, as
+it were, petrifying sensations, which result from sudden and extreme fear.
+
+They were frightful winged monsters, whose bodies were covered with scales;
+hissing, wriggling snakes clustered round their heads instead of hair;
+their hands were of brass; their teeth resembled the tusks of a wild boar;
+and their whole aspect was so appalling, that they are said to have turned
+into stone all who beheld them.
+
+These terrible sisters were supposed to dwell in that remote and mysterious
+region in the far West, beyond the sacred stream of Oceanus.
+
+The Gorgons were the servants of Aïdes, who made use of them to terrify and
+overawe those shades, doomed to be kept in a constant state of unrest as a
+punishment for their misdeeds, whilst the Furies, on their part, scourged
+them with their whips and tortured them incessantly.
+
+The most celebrated of the three sisters was Medusa, who alone was mortal.
+She was originally a golden-haired and very beautiful maiden, who, as a
+priestess of Athene, was devoted to a life of celibacy; but, being wooed by
+Poseidon, whom she loved in return, she forgot her vows, and became united
+to him in marriage. For this offence she was punished by the goddess in a
+most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair which had so
+charmed her husband, was changed into a {145} venomous snake; her once
+gentle, love-inspiring eyes now became blood-shot, furious orbs, which
+excited fear and disgust in the mind of the beholder; whilst her former
+roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge. Seeing
+herself thus transformed into so repulsive an object, Medusa fled from her
+home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by
+all the world, she now developed into a character, worthy of her outward
+appearance. In her despair she fled to Africa, where, as she passed
+restlessly from place to place, infant snakes dropped from her hair, and
+thus, according to the belief of the ancients, that country became the
+hotbed of these venomous reptiles. With the curse of Athene upon her, she
+turned into stone whomsoever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of
+nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the
+hands of Perseus.
+
+It is well to observe that when the Gorgons are spoken of in the singular,
+it is Medusa who is alluded to.
+
+Medusa was the mother of Pegasus and Chrysaor, father of the three-headed,
+winged giant Geryones, who was slain by Heracles.
+
+GRÆÆ.
+
+The Grææ, who acted as servants to their sisters the Gorgons, were also
+three in number; their names were Pephredo, Enyo, and Dino.
+
+In their original conception they were merely personifications of kindly
+and venerable old age, possessing all its benevolent attributes without its
+natural infirmities. They were old and gray from their birth, and so they
+ever remained. In later times, however, they came to be regarded as
+misshapen females, decrepid, and hideously ugly, having only one eye, one
+tooth, and one gray wig between them, which they lent to each other, when
+one of them wished to appear before the world.
+
+When Perseus entered upon his expedition to slay the Medusa, he repaired to
+the abode of the Grææ, in the far {146} west, to inquire the way to the
+Gorgons, and on their refusing to give any information, he deprived them of
+their one eye, tooth, and wig, and did not restore them until he received
+the necessary directions.
+
+SPHINX.
+
+The Sphinx was an ancient Egyptian divinity, who personified wisdom, and
+the fertility of nature. She is represented as a lion-couchant, with the
+head and bust of a woman, and wears a peculiar sort of hood, which
+completely envelops her head, and falls down on either side of the face.
+
+Transplanted into Greece, this sublime and mysterious Egyptian deity
+degenerates into an insignificant, and yet malignant power, and though she
+also deals in mysteries, they are, as we shall see, of a totally different
+character, and altogether inimical to human life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Sphinx is represented, according to Greek genealogy, as the offspring
+of Typhon and Echidna.[48] Hera, being upon one occasion displeased with
+the Thebans, sent them this awful monster, as a punishment for their
+offences. Taking her seat on a rocky eminence near the city of Thebes,
+commanding a pass which the Thebans were compelled to traverse in their
+usual way of business, she propounded to all comers a riddle, and if they
+failed to solve it, she tore them in pieces.
+
+During the reign of King Creon, so many people had fallen a sacrifice to
+this monster, that he determined to use every effort to rid the country of
+so terrible a scourge. On consulting the oracle of Delphi, he was informed
+that the only way to destroy the Sphinx was to solve one of her riddles,
+when she would immediately precipitate herself from the rock on which she
+was seated.
+
+Creon, accordingly, made a public declaration to the effect, that whoever
+could give the true interpretation of a riddle propounded by the monster,
+should obtain the crown, and the hand of his sister Jocaste. Oedipus
+offered {147} himself as a candidate, and proceeding to the spot where she
+kept guard, received from her the following riddle for solution: "What
+creature goes in the morning on four legs, at noon on two, and in the
+evening on three?" Oedipus replied, that it must be man, who during his
+infancy creeps on all fours, in his prime walks erect on two legs, and when
+old age has enfeebled his powers, calls a staff to his assistance, and thus
+has, as it were, three legs.
+
+The Sphinx no sooner heard this reply, which was the correct solution of
+her riddle, than she flung herself over the precipice, and perished in the
+abyss below.
+
+The Greek Sphinx may be recognized by having wings and by being of smaller
+dimensions than the Egyptian Sphinx.
+
+TYCHE (FORTUNA) AND ANANKE (NECESSITAS).
+
+TYCHE (FORTUNA).
+
+Tyche personified that peculiar combination of circumstances which we call
+luck or fortune, and was considered to be the source of all unexpected
+events in human life, whether good or evil. If a person succeeded in all he
+undertook without possessing any special merit of his own, Tyche was
+supposed to have smiled on his birth. If, on the other hand, undeserved
+ill-luck followed him through life, and all his efforts resulted in
+failure, it was ascribed to her adverse influence.
+
+This goddess of Fortune is variously represented. Sometimes she is depicted
+bearing in her hand two rudders, with one of which she steers the bark of
+the fortunate, and with the other that of the unfortunate among mortals. In
+later times she appears blindfolded, and stands on a ball or wheel,
+indicative of the fickleness and ever-revolving {148} changes of fortune.
+She frequently bears the sceptre and cornucopia[49] or horn of plenty, and
+is usually winged. In her temple at Thebes, she is represented holding the
+infant Plutus in her arms, to symbolize her power over riches and
+prosperity.
+
+Tyche was worshipped in various parts of Greece, but more particularly by
+the Athenians, who believed in her special predilection for their city.
+
+FORTUNA.
+
+Tyche was worshipped in Rome under the name of Fortuna, and held a position
+of much greater importance among the Romans than the Greeks.
+
+In later times Fortuna is never represented either winged or standing on a
+ball; she merely bears the cornucopia. It is evident, therefore, that she
+had come to be regarded as the goddess of good luck only, who brings
+blessings to man, and not, as with the Greeks, as the personification of
+the fluctuations of fortune.
+
+In addition to Fortuna, the Romans worshipped Felicitas as the giver of
+positive good fortune.
+
+ANANKE (NECESSITAS).
+
+As Ananke, Tyche assumes quite another character, and becomes the
+embodiment of those immutable laws of nature, by which certain causes
+produce certain inevitable results.
+
+In a statue of this divinity at Athens she was represented with hands of
+bronze, and surrounded with nails and hammers. The hands of bronze probably
+indicated the irresistible power of the inevitable, and the hammer and
+chains the fetters which she forged for man.
+
+Ananke was worshipped in Rome under the name of Necessitas.
+
+{149}
+
+KER.
+
+In addition to the Moiræ, who presided over the life of mortals, there was
+another divinity, called Ker, appointed for each human being at the moment
+of his birth. The Ker belonging to an individual was believed to develop
+with his growth, either for good or evil; and when the ultimate fate of a
+mortal was about to be decided, his Ker was weighed in the balance, and,
+according to the preponderance of its worth or worthlessness, life or death
+was awarded to the human being in question. It becomes evident, therefore,
+that according to the belief of the early Greeks, each individual had it in
+his power, to a certain extent, to shorten or prolong his own existence.
+
+The Keres, who are frequently mentioned by Homer, were the goddesses who
+delighted in the slaughter of the battle-field.
+
+ATE.
+
+Ate, the daughter of Zeus and Eris, was a divinity who delighted in evil.
+
+Having instigated Hera to deprive Heracles of his birthright, her father
+seized her by the hair of her head, and hurled her from Olympus, forbidding
+her, under the most solemn imprecations, ever to return. Henceforth she
+wandered among mankind, sowing dissension, working mischief, and luring men
+to all actions inimical to their welfare and happiness. Hence, when a
+reconciliation took place between friends who had quarrelled, Ate was
+blamed as the original cause of disagreement.
+
+MOMUS.
+
+Momus, the son of Nyx, was the god of raillery and ridicule, who delighted
+to criticise, with bitter sarcasm, the actions of gods and men, and
+contrived to discover in all things some defect or blemish. Thus when
+Prometheus created the first man, Momus considered his work incomplete
+because there was no aperture in the breast through which his inmost
+thoughts might be read. He {150} also found fault with a house built by
+Athene because, being unprovided with the means of locomotion, it could
+never be removed from an unhealthy locality. Aphrodite alone defied his
+criticism, for, to his great chagrin, he could find no fault with her
+perfect form.[50]
+
+In what manner the ancients represented this god is unknown. In modern art
+he is depicted like a king's jester, with a fool's cap and bells.
+
+EROS (CUPID, AMOR) AND PSYCHE.
+
+According to Hesiod's Theogony, Eros, the divine spirit of Love, sprang
+forth from Chaos, while all was still in confusion, and by his beneficent
+power reduced to order and harmony the shapeless, conflicting elements,
+which, under his influence, began to assume distinct forms. This ancient
+Eros is represented as a full-grown and very beautiful youth, crowned with
+flowers, and leaning on a shepherd's crook.
+
+In the course of time, this beautiful conception gradually faded away, and
+though occasional mention still continues to be made of the Eros of Chaos,
+he is replaced by the son of Aphrodite, the popular, mischief-loving little
+god of Love, so familiar to us all.
+
+In one of the myths concerning Eros, Aphrodite is described as complaining
+to Themis, that her son, though so beautiful, did not appear to increase in
+stature; whereupon Themis suggested that his small proportions were
+probably attributable to the fact of his being always alone, and advised
+his mother to let him have a companion. Aphrodite accordingly gave him, as
+a playfellow, his younger brother Anteros (requited love), and soon had the
+gratification of seeing the little Eros begin to grow and thrive; but,
+curious to relate, this desirable result only continued as long as the
+brothers remained together, for the moment they were separated, Eros shrank
+once more to his original size.
+
+{151}
+
+By degrees the conception of Eros became multiplied and we hear of little
+love-gods (Amors), who appear under the most charming and diversified
+forms. These love-gods, who afforded to artists inexhaustible subjects for
+the exercise of their imagination, are represented as being engaged in
+various occupations, such as hunting, fishing, rowing, driving chariots,
+and even busying themselves in mechanical labour.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Perhaps no myth is more charming and interesting than that of Eros and
+Psyche, which is as follows:--Psyche, the youngest of three princesses, was
+so transcendently beautiful that Aphrodite herself became jealous of her,
+and no mortal dared to aspire to the honour of her hand. As her sisters,
+who were by no means equal to her in attractions, were married, and Psyche
+still remained unwedded, her father consulted the oracle of Delphi, and, in
+obedience to the divine response, caused her to be dressed as though for
+the grave, and conducted to the edge of a yawning precipice. No sooner was
+she alone than she felt herself lifted up, and wafted away by the gentle
+west wind Zephyrus, who transported her to a verdant meadow, in the midst
+of which stood a stately palace, surrounded by groves and fountains.
+
+Here dwelt Eros, the god of Love, in whose arms Zephyrus deposited his
+lovely burden. Eros, himself unseen, wooed her in the softest accents of
+affection; but warned her, as she valued his love, not to endeavour to
+behold his form. For some time Psyche was obedient to the injunction of her
+immortal spouse, and made no effort to gratify her natural curiosity; but,
+unfortunately, in the midst of her happiness she was seized with an
+unconquerable longing for the society of her {152} sisters, and, in
+accordance with her desire, they were conducted by Zephyrus to her
+fairy-like abode. Filled with envy at the sight of her felicity, they
+poisoned her mind against her husband, and telling her that her unseen
+lover was a frightful monster, they gave her a sharp dagger, which they
+persuaded her to use for the purpose of delivering herself from his power.
+
+After the departure of her sisters, Psyche resolved to take the first
+opportunity of following their malicious counsel. She accordingly rose in
+the dead of night, and taking a lamp in one hand and a dagger in the other,
+stealthily approached the couch where Eros was reposing, when, instead of
+the frightful monster she had expected to see, the beauteous form of the
+god of Love greeted her view. Overcome with surprise and admiration, Psyche
+stooped down to gaze more closely on his lovely features, when, from the
+lamp which she held in her trembling hand, there fell a drop of burning oil
+upon the shoulder of the sleeping god, who instantly awoke, and seeing
+Psyche standing over him with the instrument of death in her hand,
+sorrowfully reproached her for her treacherous designs, and, spreading out
+his wings, flew away.
+
+In despair at having lost her lover, the unhappy Psyche endeavoured to put
+an end to her existence by throwing herself into the nearest river; but
+instead of closing over her, the waters bore her gently to the opposite
+bank, where Pan (the god of shepherds) received her, and consoled her with
+the hope of becoming eventually reconciled to her husband.
+
+Meanwhile her wicked sisters, in expectation of meeting with the same good
+fortune which had befallen Psyche, placed themselves on the edge of the
+rock, but were both precipitated into the chasm below.
+
+Psyche herself, filled with a restless yearning for her lost love, wandered
+all over the world in search of him. At length she appealed to Aphrodite to
+take compassion on her; but the goddess of Beauty, still jealous of her
+charms, imposed upon her the hardest tasks, the accomplishment of which
+often appeared impossible. In these {153} she was always assisted by
+invisible, beneficent beings, sent to her by Eros, who still loved her, and
+continued to watch over her welfare.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Psyche had to undergo a long and severe penance before she became worthy to
+regain the happiness, which she had so foolishly trifled away. At last
+Aphrodite commanded her to descend into the under world, and obtain from
+Persephone a box containing all the charms of beauty. Psyche's courage now
+failed her, for she concluded that death must of necessity precede her
+entrance into the realm of shades. About to abandon herself to despair, she
+heard a voice which warned her of every danger to be avoided on her
+perilous journey, and instructed her with regard to certain precautions to
+be observed. These were as follows:--not to omit to provide herself with
+the ferryman's toll for Charon, and the cake to pacify Cerberus, also to
+refrain from taking any part in the banquets of Aïdes and Persephone, and,
+above all things, to bring the box of beauty charms unopened to Aphrodite.
+In conclusion, the voice assured her, that compliance with the above
+conditions would insure for her a safe return to the realms of light. But,
+alas, Psyche, who had implicitly followed all injunctions, could not
+withstand the temptation of the last condition; and, hardly had she quitted
+the lower world, when, unable to resist the curiosity which devoured her,
+she raised the lid of the box with eager expectation. But, instead of the
+wondrous charms of beauty which she expected to behold, there issued from
+the casket a dense black vapour, which had the effect of throwing her into
+a death-like sleep, out of which Eros, who had long hovered round her
+unseen, at length awoke her with the point of one of his golden arrows. He
+gently reproached her with this second proof of her curiosity and folly,
+and then, having persuaded Aphrodite to be reconciled to his beloved, he
+induced Zeus to admit her among the immortal gods.
+
+Their reunion was celebrated amidst the rejoicings of all the Olympian
+deities. The Graces shed perfume on {154} their path, the Hours sprinkled
+roses over the sky, Apollo added the music of his lyre, and the Muses
+united their voices in a glad chorus of delight.
+
+This myth would appear to be an allegory, which signifies that the soul,
+before it can be reunited to its original divine essence, must be purified
+by the chastening sorrows and sufferings of its earthly career.[51]
+
+Eros is represented as a lovely boy, with rounded limbs, and a merry,
+roguish expression. He has golden wings, and a quiver slung over his
+shoulder, which contained his magical and unerring arrows; in one hand he
+bears his golden bow, and in the other a torch.
+
+He is also frequently depicted riding on a lion, dolphin, or eagle, or
+seated in a chariot drawn by stags or wild boars, undoubtedly emblematical
+of the power of love as the subduer of all nature, even of the wild
+animals.
+
+In Rome, Eros was worshipped under the name of Amor or Cupid.
+
+HYMEN.
+
+Hymen or Hymenæus, the son of Apollo and the muse Urania, was the god who
+presided over marriage and nuptial solemnities, and was hence invoked at
+all marriage festivities.
+
+There is a myth concerning this divinity, which tells us that Hymen was a
+beautiful youth of very poor parents, who fell in love with a wealthy
+maiden, so far above him in rank, that he dared not cherish the hope of
+ever becoming united to her. Still he missed no opportunity of seeing her,
+and, upon one occasion, disguised himself as {155} a girl, and joined a
+troop of maidens, who, in company with his beloved, were proceeding from
+Athens to Eleusis, in order to attend a festival of Demeter. On their way
+thither they were surprised by pirates, who carried them off to a desert
+island, where the ruffians, after drinking deeply, fell into a heavy sleep.
+Hymen, seizing the opportunity, slew them all, and then set sail for
+Athens, where he found the parents of the maidens in the greatest distress
+at their unaccountable disappearance. He comforted them with the assurance
+that their children should be restored to them, provided they would promise
+to give him in marriage the maiden he loved. The condition being gladly
+complied with, he at once returned to the island, and brought back the
+maidens in safety to Athens, whereupon he became united to the object of
+his love; and their union proved so remarkably happy, that henceforth the
+name of Hymen became synonymous with conjugal felicity.
+
+IRIS (THE RAINBOW).
+
+Iris, the daughter of Thaumas and Electra, personified the rainbow, and was
+the special attendant and messenger of the queen of heaven, whose commands
+she executed with singular tact, intelligence, and swiftness.
+
+Most primitive nations have regarded the rainbow as a bridge of
+communication between heaven and earth, and this is doubtless the reason
+why Iris, who represented that beautiful phenomenon of nature, should have
+been invested by the Greeks with the office of communicating between gods
+and men.
+
+Iris is usually represented seated behind the chariot of Hera, ready to do
+the bidding of her royal mistress. She appears under the form of a slender
+maiden of great beauty, robed in an airy fabric of variegated hues,
+resembling mother-of-pearl; her sandals are bright as burnished silver, she
+has golden wings, and wherever she appears, a radiance of light, and a
+sweet odour, as of delicate spring flowers, pervades the air. {156}
+
+[Illustration]
+
+HEBE (JUVENTAS).
+
+Hebe was the personification of eternal youth under its most attractive and
+joyous aspect.
+
+She was the daughter of Zeus and Hera, and though of such distinguished
+rank, is nevertheless represented as cup-bearer to the gods; a forcible
+exemplification of the old patriarchal custom, in accordance with which the
+daughters of the house, even when of the highest lineage, personally
+assisted in serving the guests.
+
+Hebe is represented as a comely, modest maiden, small, of a beautifully
+rounded contour, with nut-brown tresses and sparkling eyes. She is often
+depicted pouring out nectar from an upraised vessel, or bearing in her hand
+a shallow dish, supposed to contain ambrosia, the ever youth-renewing food
+of the immortals.
+
+In consequence of an act of awkwardness, which caused her to slip while
+serving the gods, Hebe was deprived of her office, which was henceforth
+delegated to Ganymedes, son of Tros.
+
+Hebe afterwards became the bride of Heracles, when, after his apotheosis,
+he was received among the immortals.
+
+JUVENTAS.
+
+Juventas was the Roman divinity identified with Hebe, whose attributes,
+however, were regarded by the Romans as applying more particularly to the
+imperishable vigour and immortal glory of the state.
+
+In Rome, several temples were erected in honour of this goddess. {157}
+
+GANYMEDES.
+
+Ganymedes, the youngest son of Tros, king of Troy, was one day drawing
+water from a well on Mount Ida, when he was observed by Zeus, who, struck
+with his wonderful beauty, sent his eagle to transport him to Olympus,
+where he was endowed with immortality, and appointed cup-bearer to the
+gods.
+
+Ganymedes is represented as a youth of exquisite beauty, with short golden
+locks, delicately chiselled features, beaming blue eyes, and pouting lips.
+
+THE MUSES.
+
+Of all the Olympic deities, none occupy a more distinguished position than
+the Muses, the nine beautiful daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
+
+In their original signification, they presided merely over music, song, and
+dance; but with the progress of civilization the arts and sciences claimed
+their special presiding divinities, and we see these graceful creations, in
+later times, sharing among them various functions, such as poetry,
+astronomy, &c.
+
+The Muses were honoured alike by mortals and immortals. In Olympus, where
+Apollo acted as their leader, no banquet or festivity was considered
+complete without their joy-inspiring presence, and on earth no social
+gathering was celebrated without libations being poured out to them; nor
+was any task involving intellectual effort ever undertaken, without
+earnestly supplicating their assistance. They endowed their chosen
+favourites with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding; they bestowed upon
+the orator the gift of eloquence, inspired the poet with his noblest
+thoughts, and the musician with his sweetest harmonies.
+
+Like so many of the Greek divinities, however, the refined conception of
+the Muses is somewhat marred by the acerbity with which they punished any
+effort on the part {158} of mortals to rival them in their divine powers.
+An instance of this is seen in the case of Thamyris, a Thracian bard, who
+presumed to invite them to a trial of skill in music. Having vanquished
+him, they not only afflicted him with blindness, but deprived him also of
+the power of song.
+
+Another example of the manner in which the gods punished presumption and
+vanity is seen in the story of the daughters of King Pierus. Proud of the
+perfection to which they had brought their skill in music, they presumed to
+challenge the Muses themselves in the art over which they specially
+presided. The contest took place on Mount Helicon, and it is said that when
+the mortal maidens commenced their song, the sky became dark and misty,
+whereas when the Muses raised their heavenly voices, all nature seemed to
+rejoice, and Mount Helicon itself moved with exultation. The Pierides were
+signally defeated, and were transformed by the Muses into singing birds, as
+a punishment for having dared to challenge comparison with the immortals.
+
+Undeterred by the above example, the Sirens also entered into a similar
+contest. The songs of the Muses were loyal and true, whilst those of the
+Sirens were the false and deceptive strains with which so many unfortunate
+mariners had been lured to their death. The Sirens were defeated by the
+Muses, and as a mark of humiliation, were deprived of the feathers with
+which their bodies were adorned.
+
+The oldest seat of the worship of the Muses was Pieria in Thrace, where
+they were supposed to have first seen the light of day. Pieria is a
+district on one of the sloping declivities of Mount Olympus, whence a
+number of rivulets, as they flow towards the plains beneath, produce those
+sweet, soothing sounds, which may possibly have suggested this spot as a
+fitting home for the presiding divinities of song.
+
+They dwelt on the summits of Mounts Helicon, Parnassus, and Pindus, and
+loved to haunt the springs and fountains which gushed forth amidst these
+rocky {159} heights, all of which were sacred to them and to poetic
+inspiration. Aganippe and Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, and the Castalian
+spring on Mount Parnassus, were sacred to the Muses. The latter flowed
+between two lofty rocks above the city of Delphi, and in ancient times its
+waters were introduced into a square stone basin, where they were retained
+for the use of the Pythia and the priests of Apollo.
+
+[Illustration: CALLIOPE.]
+
+The libations to these divinities consisted of water, milk, and honey, but
+never of wine.
+
+Their names and functions are as follows:--
+
+CALLIOPE, the most honoured of the Muses, presided over heroic song and
+epic poetry, and is represented with a pencil in her hand, and a slate upon
+her knee.
+
+CLIO, the muse of History, holds in her hand a roll of parchment, and wears
+a wreath of laurel.
+
+MELPOMENE, the muse of Tragedy, bears a tragic mask.
+
+THALIA, the muse of Comedy, carries in her right hand a shepherd's crook,
+and has a comic mask beside her.
+
+POLYHYMNIA, the muse of Sacred Hymns, is crowned with a wreath of laurel.
+She is always represented in a thoughtful attitude, and entirely enveloped
+in rich folds of drapery.
+
+TERPSICHORE, the muse of Dance and Roundelay, is represented in the act of
+playing on a seven-stringed lyre.
+
+URANIA, the muse of Astronomy, stands erect, and bears in her left hand a
+celestial globe.
+
+EUTERPE, the muse of Harmony, is represented bearing a musical instrument,
+usually a flute.
+
+ERATO, the muse of Love and hymeneal songs, wears a wreath of laurel, and
+is striking the chords of a lyre. {160}
+
+[Illustration: CLIO.]
+
+[Illustration: TERPSICHORE.]
+
+[Illustration: EUTERPE.]
+
+[Illustration: ERATO.]
+
+With regard to the origin of the Muses, it is said that they were created
+by Zeus in answer to a request on the part of the victorious deities, after
+the war with the {161} Titans, that some special divinities should be
+called into existence, in order to commemorate in song the glorious deeds
+of the Olympian gods.
+
+[Illustration: URANIA.]
+
+[Illustration: MELPOMENE.]
+
+[Illustration: THALIA.]
+
+[Illustration: POLYHYMNIA.]
+
+{162}
+
+PEGASUS.
+
+Pegasus was a beautiful winged horse who sprang from the body of Medusa
+when she was slain by the hero Perseus, the son of Zeus and Danaë.
+Spreading out his wings he immediately flew to the top of Mount Olympus,
+where he was received with delight and admiration by all the immortals. A
+place in his palace was assigned to him by Zeus, who employed him to carry
+his thunder and lightning. Pegasus permitted none but the gods to mount
+him, except in the case of Bellerophon, whom, at the command of Athene, he
+carried aloft, in order that he might slay the Chimæra with his arrows.
+
+The later poets represent Pegasus as being at the service of the Muses, and
+for this reason he is more celebrated in modern times than in antiquity. He
+would appear to represent that poetical inspiration, which tends to develop
+man's higher nature, and causes the mind to soar heavenwards. The only
+mention by the ancients of Pegasus in connection with the Muses, is the
+story of his having produced with his hoofs, the famous fountain
+Hippocrene.
+
+It is said that during their contest with the Pierides, the Muses played
+and sang on the summit of Mount Helicon with such extraordinary power and
+sweetness, that heaven and earth stood still to listen, whilst the mountain
+raised itself in joyous ecstasy towards the abode of the celestial gods.
+Poseidon, seeing his special function thus interfered with, sent Pegasus to
+check the boldness of the mountain, in daring to move without his
+permission. When Pegasus reached the summit, he stamped the ground with his
+hoofs, and out gushed the waters of Hippocrene, afterwards so renowned as
+the sacred fount, whence the Muses quaffed their richest draughts of
+inspiration.
+
+THE HESPERIDES.
+
+The Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas, dwelt in an island in the far west,
+whence they derived their name. {163}
+
+They were appointed by Hera to act as guardians to a tree bearing golden
+apples, which had been presented to her by Gæa on the occasion of her
+marriage with Zeus.
+
+It is said that the Hesperides, being unable to withstand the temptation of
+tasting the golden fruit confided to their care, were deprived of their
+office, which was henceforth delegated to the terrible dragon Ladon, who
+now became the ever-watchful sentinel of these precious treasures.
+
+The names of the Hesperides were Aegle, Arethusa, and Hesperia.
+
+CHARITES (GRATIÆ) GRACES.
+
+All those gentler attributes which beautify and refine human existence were
+personified by the Greeks under the form of three lovely sisters,
+Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome (or,
+according to later writers, of Dionysus and Aphrodite).
+
+They are represented as beautiful, slender maidens in the full bloom of
+youth, with hands and arms lovingly intertwined, and are either undraped,
+or wear a fleecy, transparent garment of an ethereal fabric.
+
+They portray every gentle emotion of the heart, which vents itself in
+friendship and benevolence, and were believed to preside over those
+qualities which constitute grace, modesty, unconscious beauty, gentleness,
+kindliness, innocent joy, purity of mind and body, and eternal youth.
+
+They not only possessed the most perfect beauty themselves, but also
+conferred this gift upon others. All the enjoyments of life were enhanced
+by their presence, and were deemed incomplete without them; and wherever
+joy or pleasure, grace and gaiety reigned, there they were supposed to be
+present.
+
+Temples and altars were everywhere erected in their honour, and people of
+all ages and of every rank in life entreated their favour. Incense was
+burnt daily upon their altars, and at every banquet they were invoked,
+{164} and a libation poured out to them, as they not only heightened all
+enjoyment, but also by their refining influence moderated the exciting
+effects of wine.
+
+Music, eloquence, poetry, and art, though the direct work of the Muses,
+received at the hands of the Graces an additional touch of refinement and
+beauty; for which reason they are always regarded as the friends of the
+Muses, with whom they lived on Mount Olympus.
+
+Their special function was to act, in conjunction with the Seasons, as
+attendants upon Aphrodite, whom they adorned with wreaths of flowers, and
+she emerges from their hands like the Queen of Spring, perfumed with the
+odour of roses and violets, and all sweet-scented blossoms.
+
+The Graces are frequently seen in attendance on other divinities; thus they
+carry music for Apollo, myrtles for Aphrodite, &c., and frequently
+accompany the Muses, Eros, or Dionysus.
+
+HORÆ (SEASONS).
+
+Closely allied to the Graces were the Horæ, or Seasons, who were also
+represented as three beautiful maidens, daughters of Zeus and Themis. Their
+names were Eunomia, Dice, and Irene.
+
+It may appear strange that these divinities, presiding over the seasons,
+should be but three in number, but this is quite in accordance with the
+notions of the ancient Greeks, who only recognized spring, summer, and
+autumn as seasons; nature being supposed to be wrapt in death or slumber,
+during that cheerless and unproductive portion of the year which we call
+winter. In some parts of Greece there were but two Horæ, Thallo, goddess of
+the bloom, and Carpo, of the corn and fruit-bearing season.
+
+The Horæ are always regarded as friendly towards mankind, and totally
+devoid of guile or subtlety; they are represented as joyous, but gentle
+maidens, crowned with flowers, and holding each other by the hand in a
+round dance. When they are depicted separately as personifications of the
+different seasons, the Hora {165} representing spring appears laden with
+flowers, that of summer bears a sheaf of corn, whilst the personification
+of autumn has her hands filled with clusters of grapes and other fruits.
+They also appear in company with the Graces in the train of Aphrodite, and
+are seen with Apollo and the Muses.
+
+They are inseparably connected with all that is good and beautiful in
+nature, and as the regular alternation of the seasons, like all her other
+operations, demands the most perfect order and regularity, the Horæ, being
+the daughters of Themis, came to be regarded as the representatives of
+order, and the just administration of human affairs in civilized
+communities. Each of these graceful maidens took upon herself a separate
+function: Eunomia presided more especially over state life, Dice guarded
+the interests of individuals, whilst Irene, the gayest and brightest of the
+three sisters, was the light-hearted companion of Dionysus.
+
+The Horæ were also the deities of the fast-fleeting hours, and thus
+presided over the smaller, as well as the larger divisions of time. In this
+capacity they assist every morning in yoking the celestial horses to the
+glorious chariot of the sun, which they again help to unyoke when he sinks
+to rest.
+
+In their original conception they were personifications of the clouds, and
+are described as opening and closing the gates of heaven, and causing
+fruits and flowers to spring forth, when they pour down upon them their
+refreshing and life-giving streams.
+
+THE NYMPHS.
+
+The graceful beings called the Nymphs were the presiding deities of the
+woods, grottoes, streams, meadows, &c.
+
+These divinities were supposed to be beautiful maidens of fairy-like form,
+and robed in more or less shadowy garments. They were held in the greatest
+veneration, though, being minor divinities, they had no temples {166}
+dedicated to them, but were worshipped in caves or grottoes, with libations
+of milk, honey, oil, &c.
+
+They may be divided into three distinct classes, viz., water, mountain, and
+tree or wood nymphs.
+
+WATER NYMPHS.
+
+OCEANIDES, NEREIDES, AND NAIADES.
+
+The worship of water-deities is common to most primitive nations. The
+streams, springs, and fountains of a country bear the same relation to it
+which the blood, coursing through the numberless arteries of a human being,
+bears to the body; both represent the living, moving, life-awakening
+element, without which existence would be impossible. Hence we find among
+most nations a deep feeling of attachment to the streams and waters of
+their native land, the remembrance of which, when absent in foreign climes,
+is always treasured with peculiar fondness. Thus among the early Greeks,
+each tribe came to regard the rivers and springs of its individual state as
+beneficent powers, which brought blessing and prosperity to the country. It
+is probable also that the charm which ever accompanies the sound of running
+water exercised its power over their imagination. They heard with delight
+the gentle whisper of the fountain, lulling the senses with its low,
+rippling tones; the soft purling of the brook as it rushes over the
+pebbles, or the mighty voice of the waterfall as it dashes on in its
+headlong course; and the beings which they pictured to themselves as
+presiding over all these charming sights and sounds of nature,
+corresponded, in their graceful appearance, with the scenes with which they
+were associated.
+
+OCEANIDES.
+
+The OCEANIDES, or Ocean Nymphs, were the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys,
+and, like most sea divinities, were endowed with the gift of prophecy.
+
+They are personifications of those delicate vapour-like {167} exhalations,
+which, in warm climates, are emitted from the surface of the sea, more
+especially at sunset, and are impelled forwards by the evening breeze. They
+are accordingly represented as misty, shadowy beings, with graceful swaying
+forms, and robed in pale blue, gauze-like fabrics.
+
+THE NEREIDES.
+
+The NEREIDES were the daughters of Nereus and Doris, and were nymphs of the
+Mediterranean Sea.
+
+They are similar in appearance to the Oceanides, but their beauty is of a
+less shadowy order, and is more like that of mortals. They wear a flowing,
+pale green robe; their liquid eyes resemble, in their clear depths, the
+lucid waters of the sea they inhabit; their hair floats carelessly over
+their shoulders, and assumes the greenish tint of the water itself, which,
+far from deteriorating from their beauty, greatly adds to its effect. The
+Nereides either accompany the chariot of the mighty ruler of the sea, or
+follow in his train.
+
+We are told by the poets that the lonely mariner watches the Nereides with
+silent awe and wondering delight, as they rise from their grotto-palaces in
+the deep, and dance, in joyful groups, over the sleeping waves. Some, with
+arms entwined, follow with their movements the melodies which seem to hover
+over the sea, whilst others scatter liquid gems around, these being
+emblematical of the phosphorescent light, so frequently observed at night
+by the traveller in southern waters.
+
+The best known of the Nereides were Thetis, the wife of Peleus, Amphitrite,
+the spouse of Poseidon, and Galatea, the beloved of Acis.
+
+THE NAIADES.
+
+The NAIADES were the nymphs of fresh-water springs, lakes, brooks, rivers,
+&c.
+
+As the trees, plants, and flowers owed their nourishment to their genial,
+fostering care, these divinities were {168} regarded by the Greeks as
+special benefactors to mankind. Like all the nymphs, they possessed the
+gift of prophecy, for which reason many of the springs and fountains over
+which they presided were believed to inspire mortals who drank of their
+waters with the power of foretelling future events. The Naiades are
+intimately connected in idea with those flowers which are called after them
+Nymphæ, or water-lilies, whose broad, green leaves and yellow cups float
+upon the surface of the water, as though proudly conscious of their own
+grace and beauty.
+
+We often hear of the Naiades forming alliances with mortals, and also of
+their being wooed by the sylvan deities of the woods and dales.
+
+DRYADES, OR TREE NYMPHS.
+
+The tree nymphs partook of the distinguishing characteristics of the
+particular tree to whose life they were wedded, and were known collectively
+by the name of the Dryades.
+
+The HAMADRYADES, or oak nymphs, represent in their peculiar individuality
+the quiet, self-reliant power which appears to belong essentially to the
+grand and lordly king of the forest.
+
+The BIRCH NYMPH is a melancholy maiden with floating hair, resembling the
+branches of the pale and fragile-looking tree which she inhabits.
+
+The BEECH NYMPH is strong and sturdy, full of life and joyousness, and
+appears to give promise of faithful love and undisturbed repose, whilst her
+rosy cheeks, deep brown eyes, and graceful form bespeak health, vigour, and
+vitality.
+
+The nymph of the LINDEN TREE is represented as a little coy maiden, whose
+short silver-gray dress reaches a little below the knee, and displays to
+advantage her delicately formed limbs. The sweet face, which is partly
+averted, reveals a pair of large blue eyes, which appear to look at you
+with wondering surprise and shy mistrust; {169} her pale, golden hair is
+bound by the faintest streak of rose-coloured ribbon.
+
+The tree nymph, being wedded to the life of the tree she inhabited, ceased
+to exist when it was either felled, or so injured as to wither away and
+die.
+
+NYMPHS OF THE VALLEYS AND MOUNTAINS.
+
+NAPÆÆ AND OREADES.
+
+The Napææ were the kind and gentle nymphs of the valleys and glens who
+appear in the train of Artemis. They are represented as lovely maidens with
+short tunics, which, reaching only to the knee, do not impede their swift
+and graceful movements in the exercise of the chase. Their pale brown
+tresses are fastened in a knot at the back of the head, whence a few stray
+curls escape over their shoulders. The Napææ are shy as the fawns, and
+quite as frolicsome.
+
+The OREADES, or mountain nymphs, who are the principal and constant
+companions of Artemis, are tall, graceful maidens, attired as huntresses.
+They are ardent followers of the chase, and spare neither the gentle deer
+nor the timid hare, nor indeed any animal they meet with in their rapid
+course. Wherever their wild hunt goes the shy Napææ are represented as
+hiding behind the leaves, whilst their favourites, the fawns, kneel
+tremblingly beside them, looking up beseechingly for protection from the
+wild huntresses; and even the bold Satyrs dart away at their approach, and
+seek safety in flight.
+
+There is a myth connected with one of these mountain nymphs, the
+unfortunate Echo. She became enamoured of a beautiful youth named
+Narcissus, son of the river-god Cephissus, who, however, failed to return
+her love, which so grieved her that she gradually pined away, becoming a
+mere shadow of her former self, till, at length, nothing remained of her
+except her voice, which henceforth gave back, with unerring fidelity, every
+sound that was uttered in the hills and dales. Narcissus himself {170} also
+met with an unhappy fate, for Aphrodite punished him by causing him to fall
+in love with his own image, which he beheld in a neighbouring fountain,
+whereupon, consumed with unrequited love, he wasted away, and was changed
+into the flower which bears his name.
+
+The LIMONIADES, or meadow nymphs, resemble the Naiades, and are usually
+represented dancing hand in hand in a circle.
+
+The HYADES, who in appearance are somewhat similar to the Oceanides, are
+cloudy divinities, and, from the fact of their being invariably accompanied
+by rain, are represented as incessantly weeping.
+
+The MELIADES were the nymphs who presided over fruit-trees.
+
+Before concluding this subject, attention should be drawn to the fact that,
+in more modern times, this beautiful idea of animating all nature in detail
+reappears under the various local traditions extant in different countries.
+Thus do the Oceanides and Nereides live again in the mermaids, whose
+existence is still believed in by mariners, whilst the flower and meadow
+nymphs assume the shape of those tiny elves and fairies, who were formerly
+believed to hold their midnight revels in every wood and on every common;
+indeed, even at the present day, the Irish peasantry, especially in the
+west, firmly believe in the existence of the fairies, or "good people," as
+they are called.
+
+THE WINDS.
+
+According to the oldest accounts, Æolus was a king of the Æolian Islands,
+to whom Zeus gave the command of the winds, which he kept shut up in a deep
+cave, and which he freed at his pleasure, or at the command of the gods.
+
+In later times the above belief underwent a change, and the winds came to
+be regarded as distinct divinities, whose aspect accorded with the
+respective winds with which they were identified. They were depicted as
+{171} winged youths in full vigour in the act of flying through the air.
+
+The principal winds were: Boreas (the north wind), Eurus (the east wind),
+Zephyrus (the west wind), and Notus (the south wind), who were said to be
+the children of Eos and Astræus.
+
+There are no myths of interest connected with these divinities. Zephyrus
+was united to Chloris (Flora), the goddess of flowers. Of Boreas it is
+related that while flying over the river Ilissus, he beheld on the banks
+Oreithyia, the charming daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, whom he
+carried off to his native Thrace, and there made her his bride. Boreas and
+Oreithyia were the parents of Zetes and Calais, afterwards famous in the
+expedition of the Argonauts.
+
+There was an altar erected at Athens in honour of Boreas, in commemoration
+of his having destroyed the Persian fleet sent to attack the Greeks.
+
+On the Acropolis at Athens there was a celebrated octagonal temple, built
+by Pericles, which was dedicated to the winds, and on its sides were their
+various representations. The ruins of this temple are still to be seen.
+
+PAN (FAUNUS).
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Pan was the god of fertility, and the special patron of shepherds and
+huntsmen; he presided over all rural occupations, was chief of the Satyrs,
+and head of all rural divinities.
+
+According to the common belief, he was the son of Hermes and a wood nymph,
+and came into the world with horns sprouting from his forehead, a goat's
+beard and a crooked nose, pointed ears, and the tail and feet of a goat,
+and presented altogether so repulsive {172} an appearance that, at the
+sight of him, his mother fled in dismay.
+
+Hermes, however, took up his curious little offspring, wrapt him in a hare
+skin, and carried him in his arms to Olympus. The grotesque form and merry
+antics of the little stranger made him a great favourite with all the
+immortals, especially Dionysus; and they bestowed upon him the name of Pan
+(all), because he had delighted them _all_.
+
+His favourite haunts were grottoes, and his delight was to wander in
+uncontrolled freedom over rocks and mountains, following his various
+pursuits, ever cheerful, and usually very noisy. He was a great lover of
+music, singing, dancing, and all pursuits which enhance the pleasures of
+life; and hence, in spite of his repulsive appearance, we see him
+surrounded with nymphs of the forests and dales, who love to dance round
+him to the cheerful music of his pipe, the syrinx. The myth concerning the
+origin of Pan's pipe is as follows:--Pan became enamoured of a beautiful
+nymph, called Syrinx, who, appalled at his terrible appearance, fled from
+the pertinacious attentions of her unwelcome suitor. He pursued her to the
+banks of the river Ladon, when, seeing his near approach, and feeling
+escape impossible, she called on the gods for assistance, who, in answer to
+her prayer, transformed her into a reed, just as Pan was about to seize
+her. Whilst the love-sick Pan was sighing and lamenting his unfortunate
+fate, the winds gently swayed the reeds, and produced a murmuring sound as
+of one complaining. Charmed with the soothing tones, he endeavoured to
+reproduce them himself, and after cutting seven of the reeds of unequal
+length, he joined them together, and succeeded in producing the pipe, which
+he called the syrinx, in memory of his lost love.
+
+Pan was regarded by shepherds as their most valiant protector, who defended
+their flocks from the attacks of wolves. The shepherds of these early
+times, having no penfolds, were in the habit of gathering together their
+flocks in mountain caves, to protect them against the {173} inclemency of
+the weather, and also to secure them at night against the attacks of wild
+animals; these caves, therefore, which were very numerous in the mountain
+districts of Arcadia, Boeotia, &c., were all consecrated to Pan.
+
+As it is customary in all tropical climates to repose during the heat of
+the day, Pan is represented as greatly enjoying his afternoon sleep in the
+cool shelter of a tree or cave, and also as being highly displeased at any
+sound which disturbed his slumbers, for which reason the shepherds were
+always particularly careful to keep unbroken silence during these hours,
+whilst they themselves indulged in a quiet siesta.
+
+Pan was equally beloved by huntsmen, being himself a great lover of the
+woods, which afforded to his cheerful and active disposition full scope,
+and in which he loved to range at will. He was regarded as the patron of
+the chase, and the rural sportsmen, returning from an unsuccessful day's
+sport, beat, in token of their displeasure, the wooden image of Pan, which
+always occupied a prominent place in their dwellings.
+
+All sudden and unaccountable sounds which startle travellers in lonely
+spots, were attributed to Pan, who possessed a frightful and most
+discordant voice; hence the term _pan_ic terror, to indicate sudden fear.
+The Athenians ascribed their victory at Marathon to the alarm which he
+created among the Persians by his terrible voice.
+
+Pan was gifted with the power of prophecy, which he is said to have
+imparted to Apollo, and he possessed a well-known and very ancient oracle
+in Arcadia, in which state he was more especially worshipped.
+
+The artists of later times have somewhat toned down the original very
+unattractive conception of Pan, as above described, and merely represent
+him as a young man, hardened by the exposure to all weathers which a rural
+life involves, and bearing in his hand the shepherd's crook and
+syrinx--these being his usual attributes--whilst small horns project from
+his forehead. He is either undraped, or wears merely the light cloak called
+the chlamys.
+
+The usual offerings to Pan were milk and honey in {174} shepherds' bowls.
+Cows, lambs, and rams were also sacrificed to him.
+
+After the introduction of Pan into the worship of Dionysus, we hear of a
+number of little Pans (Panisci), who are sometimes confounded with the
+Satyrs.
+
+FAUNUS.
+
+The Romans had an old Italian divinity called Faunus, who, as the god of
+shepherds, was identified with the Greek Pan, and represented in a similar
+manner.
+
+Faunus is frequently called Inuus or the fertilizer, and Lupercus or the
+one who wards off wolves. Like Pan, he possessed the gift of prophecy, and
+was the presiding spirit of the woods and fields; he also shared with his
+Greek prototype the faculty of alarming travellers in solitary places. Bad
+dreams and evil apparitions were attributed to Faunus, and he was believed
+to enter houses stealthily at night for this purpose.
+
+Fauna was the wife of Faunus, and participated in his functions.
+
+THE SATYRS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Satyrs were a race of woodland spirits, who evidently personified the
+free, wild, and untrammelled life of the forest. Their appearance was both
+grotesque and repulsive; they had flat broad noses, pointed ears, and
+little horns sprouting from their foreheads, a rough shaggy skin, and small
+goat's tails. They led a life of pleasure and self-indulgence, followed the
+chase, revelled in every description of wild music and dancing, were
+terrible wine-bibbers, and addicted to the deep slumbers which follow heavy
+potations. They were no less dreaded by mortals than by the gentle woodland
+nymphs, who always avoided their coarse rough sports.
+
+The Satyrs were conspicuous figures in the train of Dionysus, and, as we
+have seen, Silenus their chief was tutor to the wine god. The older Satyrs
+were called Silens, and are represented in antique sculpture, as more
+nearly approaching the human form.
+
+{175}
+
+In addition to the ordinary Satyrs, artists delighted in depicting little
+Satyrs, young imps, frolicking about the woods in a marvellous variety of
+droll attitudes. These little fellows greatly resemble their friends and
+companions, the Panisci.
+
+In rural districts it was customary for the shepherds and peasants who
+attended the festivals of Dionysus, to dress themselves in the skins of
+goats and other animals, and, under this disguise, they permitted
+themselves all kinds of playful tricks and excesses, to which circumstance
+the conception of the Satyrs is by some authorities attributed.
+
+In Rome the old Italian wood-divinities, the FAUNS, who had goats' feet and
+all other characteristics of the Satyrs greatly exaggerated, were
+identified with them.
+
+PRIAPUS.
+
+Priapus, the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, was regarded as the god of
+fruitfulness, the protector of flocks, sheep, goats, bees, the fruit of the
+vine, and all garden produce.
+
+His statues, which were set up in gardens and vineyards, acted not only as
+objects of worship, but also as scarecrows, the appearance of this god
+being especially repulsive and unsightly. These statues were formed of wood
+or stone, and from the hips downwards were merely rude columns. They
+represent him as having a red and very ugly face; he bears in his hand a
+pruning knife, and his head is crowned with a wreath of vine and laurel. He
+usually carries fruit in his garments or a cornucopia in his hand, always,
+however, retaining his singularly revolting aspect. It is said that Hera,
+wishing {176} to punish Aphrodite, sent her this misshapen and unsightly
+son, and that when he was born, his mother was so horrified at the sight of
+him, that she ordered him to be exposed on the mountains, where he was
+found by some shepherds, who, taking pity on him, saved his life.
+
+This divinity was chiefly worshipped at Lampsacus, his birthplace. Asses
+were sacrificed to him, and he received the first-fruits of the fields and
+gardens, with a libation of milk and honey.
+
+The worship of Priapus was introduced into Rome at the same time as that of
+Aphrodite, and was identified with a native Italian divinity named Mutunus.
+
+ASCLEPIAS (ÆSCULAPIUS).
+
+Asclepias, the god of the healing art, was the son of Apollo and the nymph
+Coronis. He was educated by the noble Centaur Chiron, who instructed him in
+all knowledge, but more especially in that of the properties of herbs.
+Asclepias searched out the hidden powers of plants, and discovered cures
+for the various diseases which afflict the human body. He brought his art
+to such perfection, that he not only succeeded in warding off death, but
+also restored the dead to life. It was popularly believed that he was
+materially assisted in his wonderful cures by the blood of the Medusa,
+given to him by Pallas-Athene.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is well to observe that the shrines of this divinity, which were usually
+built in healthy places, on hills outside the town, or near wells which
+were believed to have healing powers, offered at the same time means of
+cure for the sick and suffering, thus combining religious with sanitary
+influences. It was the custom for the sufferer to sleep in the temple,
+when, if he had been earnest in his devotions, Asclepias appeared to him in
+a dream, and revealed the means to be employed for the cure of his malady.
+On the walls of these temples were hung tablets, inscribed by the different
+pilgrims with the particulars of their maladies, the remedies practised,
+and the cures {177} worked by the god:--a custom undoubtedly productive of
+most beneficial results.
+
+Groves, temples, and altars were dedicated to Asclepias in many parts of
+Greece, but Epidaurus, the chief seat of his worship,--where, indeed, it is
+said to have originated,--contained his principal temple, which served at
+the same time as a hospital.
+
+The statue of Asclepias in the temple at Epidaurus was formed of ivory and
+gold, and represented him as an old man with a full beard, leaning on a
+staff round which a serpent is climbing. The serpent was the distinguishing
+symbol of this divinity, partly because these reptiles were greatly used by
+the ancients in the cure of diseases, and partly also because all the
+prudence and wisdom of the serpent were deemed indispensable to the
+judicious physician.
+
+His usual attributes are a staff, a bowl, a bunch of herbs, a pineapple, a
+dog, and a serpent.
+
+His children inherited, for the most part, the distinguished talents of
+their father. Two of his sons, Machaon and Podalirius, accompanied
+Agamemnon to the Trojan war, in which expedition they became renowned, not
+only as military heroes, but also as skilful physicians.
+
+Their sisters, HYGEIA (health), and PANACEA (all-healing), had temples
+dedicated to them, and received divine honours. The function of Hygeia was
+to maintain the health of the community, which great blessing was supposed
+to be brought by her as a direct and beneficent gift from the gods.
+
+ÆSCULAPIUS.
+
+The worship of Æsculapius was introduced into Rome from Epidaurus, whence
+the statue of the god of healing {178} was brought at the time of a great
+pestilence. Grateful for their deliverance from this plague, the Romans
+erected a temple in his honour, on an island near the mouth of the Tiber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROMAN DIVINITIES.
+
+JANUS.
+
+From the earliest ages Janus was regarded by the Romans with the utmost
+affection and veneration, as a divinity who ranked only second to Jupiter
+himself, and through whom all prayers and petitions were transmitted to the
+other gods.
+
+He was believed to preside over the beginnings of all things, hence it was
+he who inaugurated the years, months, and seasons, and in course of time
+came to be considered as specially protecting the beginnings of all human
+enterprises. The great importance which the Romans attached to an
+auspicious commencement, as contributing to the ultimate success of an
+enterprise, accounts for the high estimation in which Janus was held as the
+god of beginnings.
+
+This divinity would appear to have been the ancient sun-god of the Italian
+tribes, in which capacity he opens and closes the gates of heaven every
+morning and evening. Hence he was regarded as the door-keeper of heaven,
+and also as the presiding deity over all gates, entrances, &c., on earth.
+
+The fact of his being the god of city gates, which were called Jani after
+him, is ascribed, however, to the following myth:--After the abduction of
+their women by the Romans, the Sabines, in revenge, invaded the Roman
+state, and were already about to enter the gates of the city, when suddenly
+a hot sulphur spring, which was believed to have been sent by Janus for
+their special preservation, gushed forth from the earth, and arrested the
+progress of the enemy.
+
+{179}
+
+In his character as guardian of gates and doors, he was also regarded as a
+protecting deity of the home, for which reason little shrines were erected
+to him over the doors of houses, which contained an image of the god,
+having two faces.
+
+Janus possessed no temples in the ordinary acceptation of the word, but all
+the gates of cities were dedicated to him. Close to the Forum of Rome stood
+the so-called temple of Janus, which, however, was merely an arched
+passage, closed by massive gates. This temple was open only in time of war,
+as it was supposed that the god had then taken his departure with the Roman
+army, over whose welfare he personally presided. It is worthy of notice, as
+an evidence of the many wars in which the Romans were engaged, that the
+gates of this sanctuary were only closed three times during 700 years.
+
+As the god who ushers in the new year, the first month was called after
+him, and on the 1st of January his most important festival was celebrated,
+on which occasion all entrances of public and private buildings were
+decorated with laurel branches and garlands of flowers.
+
+His sacrifices, consisting of cakes, wine, and barley, were offered to him
+at the beginning of every month; and before sacrificing to the other gods
+his name was always invoked, and a libation poured out to him.
+
+Janus is usually represented with two faces; in his special function as
+door-keeper of heaven he stands erect, bearing a key in one hand, and a rod
+or sceptre in the other.
+
+It is supposed that Janus was the most ancient king of Italy, who, during
+his life, governed his subjects with such wisdom and moderation that, in
+gratitude for the benefits conferred upon them, his people deified him
+after death and placed him in the foremost rank among their divinities. We
+have already seen in the history of Cronus that Saturn, who was identified
+with the Greek Cronus (god of time), was the friend and colleague of Janus.
+Anxious to prove his gratitude to his benefactor, Cronus endowed him with
+the knowledge of past and future {180} events, which enabled him to adopt
+the wisest measures for the welfare of his subjects, and it is on this
+account that Janus is represented with two faces looking in opposite
+directions, the one to the past, the other to the future.
+
+FLORA.
+
+Flora was the goddess of flowers, and was regarded as a beneficent power,
+who watched over and protected the early blossoms.
+
+She was held in the highest estimation by the Romans, and a festival,
+called the Floralia, was celebrated in her honour from the 28th of April to
+the 1st of May. This festival was a season of universal merriment, in which
+flowers were used profusely in adorning houses, streets, &c., and were worn
+by young girls in their hair.
+
+Flora, who typified the season of Spring, is generally represented as a
+lovely maiden, garlanded with flowers.
+
+ROBIGUS.
+
+In opposition to Flora we find an antagonistic divinity, called Robigus, a
+worker of evil, who delighted in the destruction of the tender herbs by
+mildew, and whose wrath could only be averted by prayers and sacrifices,
+when he was invoked under the title of Averuncus, or the Avertor.
+
+The festival of Robigus (the Robigalia) was celebrated on the 25th of
+April.
+
+POMONA.
+
+Pomona was the goddess of orchards and fruit-trees, who, according to Ovid,
+cares not for woods or streams, but loves her gardens and the boughs that
+bear the thriving fruit.
+
+Pomona, who typifies Autumn, is represented as a lovely maiden, laden with
+branches of fruit-trees.
+
+{181}
+
+VERTUMNUS.
+
+Vertumnus was the god of garden and field produce. He personifies the
+change of seasons, and that process of transformation in nature by means of
+which the leaf-buds become developed into blossoms, and the blossoms into
+fruit.
+
+The change of seasons is symbolized in a myth which represents Vertumnus as
+metamorphosing himself into a variety of different forms in order to gain
+the affection of Pomona, who so loved her vocation that she abjured all
+thoughts of marriage. He first appears to her as a ploughman, typifying
+Spring; then as a reaper, to represent Summer; afterwards as a
+vine-gatherer, to indicate Autumn; and finally as a gray-haired old woman,
+symbolical of the snows of Winter; but it was not until he assumed his true
+form, that of a beautiful youth, that he succeeded in his suit.
+
+Vertumnus is generally represented crowned with wheat-sheaves, and bearing
+in his hand a cornucopia.
+
+PALES.
+
+Pales, a very ancient Italian divinity, is represented sometimes as a male,
+sometimes as a female power.
+
+As a male divinity he is more particularly the god of shepherds and flocks.
+
+As a female deity, Pales presides over husbandry and the fruitfulness of
+herds. Her festivals, the Palilia, were celebrated on the 21st of April,
+the day on which the city of Rome was founded. During this festival it was
+customary for shepherds to ignite a mass of straw, through which they
+rushed with their flocks, believing that this ordeal would purify them from
+sin.
+
+The name Palatine, which originally signified a pastoral colony, is derived
+from this divinity. Her offerings were cakes and milk.
+
+{182}
+
+PICUS.
+
+Picus, the son of Saturn and father of Faunus, was a woodland divinity,
+gifted with prophetic powers.
+
+An ancient myth relates that Picus was a beautiful youth, united to a nymph
+called Canens. The sorceress Circe, infatuated by his beauty, endeavoured
+to secure his love, but he rejected her advances, and she, in revenge,
+changed him into a woodpecker, under which form he still retained his
+powers of prophecy.
+
+Picus is represented as a youth, with a woodpecker perched upon his head,
+which bird became henceforth regarded as possessed of the power of
+prophecy.
+
+PICUMNUS AND PILUMNUS.
+
+Picumnus and Pilumnus were two household divinities of the Romans, who were
+the special presiding deities of new-born infants.
+
+SILVANUS.
+
+Silvanus was a woodland divinity, who, like Faunus, greatly resembled the
+Greek Pan. He was the presiding deity of plantations and forests, and
+specially protected the boundaries of fields.
+
+Silvanus is represented as a hale old man, carrying a cypress-tree, for,
+according to Roman mythology, the transformation of the youth Cyparissus
+into the tree which bears his name was attributed to him.
+
+His sacrifices consisted of milk, meat, wine, grapes, wheat-ears, and pigs.
+
+TERMINUS.
+
+Terminus was the god who presided over all boundaries and landmarks.
+
+He was originally represented by a simple block of stone, which in later
+times became surmounted by a {183} head of this divinity. Numa Pompilius,
+the great benefactor of his people, anxious to inculcate respect for the
+rights of property, specially enjoined the erection of these blocks of
+stone, as a durable monument to mark the line dividing one property from
+another. He also caused altars to be raised to Terminus, and instituted his
+festival (the Terminalia), which was celebrated on the 23rd of February.
+
+Upon one occasion, when Tarquin wished to remove the altars of several
+deities, in order to build a new temple, it is said that Terminus and
+Juventas alone objected to being displaced. This obstinate refusal on their
+part was interpreted as a good omen, signifying that the city of Rome would
+never lose her boundaries, and would remain ever young and vigorous.
+
+CONSUS.
+
+Consus was the god of secret counsel.
+
+The Romans believed that when an idea developed itself spontaneously within
+the mind of an individual, it was Consus who had prompted the suggestion.
+This applied, however, more particularly to plans which resulted
+satisfactorily.
+
+An altar was erected to this divinity on the Circus Maximus, which was kept
+always covered, except during his festival, the Consualia, which was
+celebrated on the 18th of August.
+
+LIBITINA.
+
+Libitina was the goddess who presided over funerals. This divinity was
+identified with Venus, possibly because the ancients considered that the
+power of love extended even to the realms of death.
+
+Her temple in Rome, which was erected by Servius Tullius, contained all the
+requisites for funerals, and these could either be bought or hired there. A
+register of all deaths which occurred in the city of Rome was kept in {184}
+this temple, and in order to ascertain the rate of mortality, a piece of
+money was paid by command of Servius Tullius, on the demise of each person.
+
+LAVERNA.
+
+Laverna was the presiding goddess of thieves, and of all artifice and
+fraud. There was an altar erected to her near the Porta Lavernalis, which
+was called after her, and she possessed a sacred grove on the Via Salavia.
+
+COMUS.
+
+Comus was the presiding genius of banquets, festive scenes, revelry, and
+all joyous pleasures and reckless gaiety.
+
+He is represented as a young man crowned with flowers, his face heated and
+flushed with wine, leaning against a post in a half-sleepy and drunken
+attitude, with a torch falling from his hand.
+
+THE CAMENÆ.
+
+The Camenæ were prophetic nymphs held in high veneration by the ancient
+Italians. They were four in number, the best known of whom are Carmenta and
+Egeria.
+
+Carmenta was celebrated as being the mother of Evander, who led an Arcadian
+colony into Italy, and founded a town on the river Tiber, which became
+afterwards incorporated with the city of Rome. Evander is said to have been
+the first who introduced Greek art and civilization into Italy, and also
+the worship of Greek divinities.
+
+A temple was erected to Carmenta on the Capitoline Hill, and a festival,
+called the Carmentalia, was celebrated in her honour on the 11th of
+January.
+
+Egeria is said to have initiated Numa Pompilius in the forms of religious
+worship, which he introduced among his people. She was regarded as the
+giver of {185} life, and was therefore invoked by women before the birth of
+their children.
+
+The Camenæ are frequently identified by Roman writers with the Muses.
+
+GENII.
+
+A comforting and assuring belief existed among the Romans, that each
+individual was accompanied through life, from the hour of his birth to that
+of his death, by a protecting spirit, called his genius, who prompted him
+to good and noble deeds, and acted towards him as a guardian angel,
+comforting him in sorrow, and guiding him throughout his earthly career.
+
+In the course of time a second genius was believed to exist, of an evil
+nature, who, as the instigator of all wrong-doing, was ever at war with the
+beneficent genius; and on the issue of the conflict between these
+antagonistic influences, depended the fate of the individual. The genii
+were depicted as winged beings, greatly resembling our modern
+representations of guardian angels.
+
+Every state, town, or city, (as well as every man), possessed its special
+genius. The sacrifices to the genii consisted of wine, cakes, and incense,
+which were offered to them on birthdays.
+
+The genius which guided a woman was called, after the queen of heaven,
+Juno.
+
+Among the Greeks, beings called Dæmons were regarded as exercising similar
+functions to those of the Roman genii. They were believed to be the spirits
+of the righteous race which existed in the Golden Age, who watched over
+mankind, carrying their prayers to the gods, and the gifts of the gods to
+them.
+
+MANES.
+
+LEMURES (LARVÆ) AND LARES.
+
+The Manes were the spirits of the departed, and were of two kinds, viz.,
+Lemures (or Larvæ) and Lares. {186}
+
+The Lemures were those Manes who haunted their former abodes on earth as
+evil spirits, appearing at night under awful forms and hideous shapes,
+greatly to the alarm of their friends and relatives. They were so feared
+that a festival, called the Lemuralia, was celebrated in order to
+propitiate them.
+
+It appears extremely probable that the superstitions with regard to ghosts,
+haunted houses, &c., which exist even at the present day, owe their origin
+to this very ancient pagan source.
+
+The Lares Familiares were a much more pleasing conception. They were the
+spirits of the ancestors of each family, who exercised after death a
+protecting power over the well-being and prosperity of the family to which
+they had in life belonged. The place of honour beside the hearth was
+occupied by the statue of the Lar of the house, who was supposed to have
+been the founder of the family. This statue was the object of profound
+veneration, and was honoured on all occasions by every member of the
+family; a portion of each meal was laid before it, and it was believed to
+take an active part in all family affairs and domestic events, whether of a
+sad or joyful nature. Before starting on any expedition the master of the
+house saluted the statue of the Lar, and, on his return, a solemn
+thanksgiving was offered to this, the presiding deity of his hearth and
+home, in grateful acknowledgment of his protection; whereupon the statue
+was crowned with garlands of flowers, these being the favourite offerings
+to the Lares on all occasions of especial family rejoicing.
+
+The first act of a bride on entering her new abode was to do homage to the
+Lar, in the belief that he would exercise over her a protecting influence
+and shield her from evil.
+
+In addition to those above enumerated there were also public Lares, who
+were guardians of the state, highroads, country, and sea. Their temples
+were always open for any pious worshipper to enter, and on their altars
+public sacrifices were offered for the welfare of the state or city. {187}
+
+PENATES.
+
+The Penates were deities selected by each family, and frequently by its
+individual members, as a special protector. Various causes led to this
+selection. If, for instance, a child were born on the festival of Vesta, it
+was thought that that deity would henceforward act as its special guardian.
+If a youth possessed great business talents he adopted Mercury as his
+tutelary deity; should he, on the other hand, develop a passion for music,
+Apollo was selected as his patron god, and so forth. These became regarded
+as the special divinities of the household, small images of them adorned
+the surroundings of the hearth, and honours similar to those paid to the
+Lares were accorded to them.
+
+Just as there were public Lares so there were public Penates, which were
+worshipped by the Roman people under the form of two youthful warriors,
+who, in later times, were regarded as identical with Castor and Pollux.
+They are generally represented on horseback, with conical caps on their
+heads, and bearing long spears in their hands.
+
+{188}
+
+[Illustration]
+
+PUBLIC WORSHIP OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS.
+
+TEMPLES.
+
+In very remote times the Greeks had no shrines or sanctuaries devoted to
+public worship, but performed their devotions beneath the vast and
+boundless canopy of heaven, in the great temple of nature itself. Believing
+that their divinities throned above the clouds, pious worshippers naturally
+sought the highest available points, in order to place themselves in the
+closest communion possible with their gods; hence the summits of high
+mountains were selected for devotional purposes, and the more exalted the
+rank and importance of the divinity invoked, the more elevated was the site
+selected for his or her worship. But the inconvenience attending this mode
+of worship gradually suggested the idea of erecting edifices which would
+afford means of shelter from the inclemency of the weather.
+
+These structures were, in the first instance, of the most simple form, and
+without decoration; but when, with the progress of civilization, the Greeks
+became a {189} wealthy and powerful people, temples were built and adorned
+with the greatest splendour and magnificence, talent, labour, and wealth
+being lavished unsparingly on their erection and decoration; indeed so
+massively were they constructed, that some of them have, to a certain
+extent, withstood the ravages of time. The city of Athens especially
+contains numerous remains of these buildings of antiquity. On the Acropolis
+we may still behold, among other monuments of ancient art, the temple of
+Athene-Polias, and that of Theseus, the latter of which is the most entire
+ancient edifice in the world. In the island of Delos, also, are to be seen
+the ruins of the temples of Apollo and Artemis, both of which are in a
+wonderful state of preservation. These ruins are most valuable, being
+sufficiently complete to enable us to study, by their aid, the plan and
+character of the original structure.
+
+Among the Lacedæmonians, however, we find no vestiges of these stately
+temples, for they were specially enjoined by a law of Lycurgus to serve the
+gods with as little outlay as possible. When the great lawgiver was asked
+the reason of this injunction, he replied that the Lacedæmonians, being a
+poor nation, might otherwise abstain altogether from the observance of
+their religious duties, and wisely added that magnificent edifices and
+costly sacrifices were not so pleasing to the gods, as the true piety and
+unfeigned devotion of their worshippers.
+
+The most ancient temples known to us served a double purpose: they were not
+only consecrated to the service of the gods, but were at the same time
+venerable monuments in honour of the dead. Thus, for instance, the temple
+of Pallas-Athene, in the tower of the city of Larissa, served as the
+sepulchre of Acrisius, and the Acropolis at Athens received the ashes of
+Cecrops, founder of the city.
+
+A temple was frequently dedicated to two or more gods, and was always built
+after the manner considered most acceptable to the particular divinities to
+whom it was consecrated; for just as trees, birds, and animals of {190}
+every description were held to be sacred to certain deities, so almost
+every god had a form of building peculiar to himself, which was deemed more
+acceptable to him than any other. Thus the Doric style of architecture was
+sacred to Zeus, Ares, and Heracles; the Ionic to Apollo, Artemis, and
+Dionysus; and the Corinthian to Hestia.
+
+In the porch of the temple stood a vessel of stone or brass, containing
+holy water (which had been consecrated by putting into it a burning torch,
+taken from the altar), with which all those admitted to take part in the
+sacrifices were besprinkled. In the inmost recess of the sanctuary was the
+most holy place, into which none but the priests were suffered to enter.
+
+Temples in the country were usually surrounded with groves of trees. The
+solitude of these shady retreats naturally tended to inspire the worshipper
+with awe and reverence, added to which the delightful shade and coolness
+afforded by tall leafy trees is peculiarly grateful in hot countries.
+Indeed so general did this custom of building temples in groves become,
+that all places devoted to sacred purposes, even where no trees existed,
+were called groves. That this practice must be of very remote antiquity is
+proved by the Biblical injunction, having for its object the separation of
+the Jews from all idolatrous practices: "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove
+of trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God."
+
+STATUES.
+
+The Greeks worshipped their gods without any visible representations of
+them until the time of Cecrops. The most ancient of these representations
+consisted of square blocks of stone, upon which the name of the deity
+intended to be represented was engraved. The first attempts at sculpture
+were rude stocks, with a head at one end and a shapeless trunk at the
+other, tapering slightly down to the feet, which, however, were not
+divided, the limbs being in no way defined. But the artists of later times
+devoted all their genius to the {191} successful production of the highest
+ideals of their gods, some of which are preserved to this day, and are
+regarded as examples of purest art.
+
+On a pedestal in the centre of the edifice stood the statue of the divinity
+to whom the temple was dedicated, surrounded by images of other gods, all
+of which were fenced off by rails.
+
+ALTARS.
+
+The altar in a Greek temple, which stood in the centre of the building and
+in front of the statue of the presiding deity, was generally of a circular
+form, and constructed of stone. It was customary to engrave upon it the
+name or distinguishing symbol of the divinity to whom it was dedicated; and
+it was held so sacred that if any malefactor fled to it his life was safe
+from his pursuers, and it was considered one of the greatest acts of
+sacrilege to force him from this asylum.
+
+The most ancient altars were adorned with horns, which in former times were
+emblems of power and dignity, as wealth, and consequently importance,
+consisted among most primitive nations in flocks and herds.
+
+In addition to those erected in places of public worship, altars were
+frequently raised in groves, on highways, or in the market-places of
+cities.
+
+The gods of the lower world had no altars whatever, ditches or trenches
+being dug for the reception of the blood of the sacrifices offered to them.
+
+PRIESTS.
+
+In ancient times the priests were recognized as a special social caste, and
+were distinguished not only by their sacerdotal vestments, but also by
+their piety, wisdom, and blameless life. They were the chosen mediators
+between gods and men, and offered prayers and sacrifices in the name of the
+people, whom they also instructed as to what vows, gifts, and offerings
+would be most acceptable to the gods.
+
+{192}
+
+Every deity had a different order of priests consecrated to his worship,
+and in every place a high-priest was appointed, whose duty it was to
+superintend the rest of his order, and also to carry out the more sacred
+rites and religious observances.
+
+Priests and priestesses were permitted to marry, but not a second time;
+some, however, voluntarily adopted a life of celibacy.
+
+SACRIFICES.
+
+There is no doubt that a feeling of gratitude to the gods for their
+protecting care, and the abundance with which they were believed to bless
+mankind, has induced men of all nations and in all countries to feel a
+desire to sacrifice to their divinities some portion of the gifts so
+generously lavished upon them.
+
+Among the Greeks, sacrifices were of various kinds. They consisted of
+_free-will offerings_, _propitiatory offerings_, &c.
+
+_Free-will offerings_ were grateful acknowledgments for benefits received,
+and usually consisted of the first-fruits of the field, or the finest of
+the flocks and herds, which were required to be without spot or blemish.
+
+_Propitiatory offerings_ were brought with the object of appeasing the
+anger of the gods.
+
+In addition to those above enumerated, sacrifices were made, either with a
+view of obtaining success in an enterprise about to be undertaken, or in
+fulfilment of a vow, or at the command of an oracle.
+
+Every sacrifice was accompanied by salt and also by a libation, which
+usually consisted of wine, the cup being always filled to the brim,
+indicating that the offering was made without stint. When sacrificing to
+the infernal gods the cup containing the libation was filled with blood.
+
+The animals offered to the Olympian divinities were white, whilst those to
+the gods of the lower world were black. When a man offered a special
+sacrifice for himself or his family it partook of the nature of his {193}
+occupation; thus a shepherd brought a sheep, a vine-grower his grapes, and
+so forth. But in the case of public sacrifices, the supposed individuality
+of the deity was always consulted. For instance, to Demeter a sow was
+offered, because that animal is apt to root up the seed-corn; to Dionysus a
+goat, on account of its being destructive to vineyards, &c.
+
+The value of offerings depended greatly upon the position of the
+individual; it being regarded as a contempt of the gods for a rich man to
+bring a sordid offering, whilst from a poor man the smallest oblation was
+considered acceptable.
+
+Hecatombs consisted of a hundred animals, and were offered by entire
+communities, or by wealthy individuals who either desired, or had obtained
+some special favour from the gods.
+
+When a sacrifice was to be offered, a fire was kindled on the altar, into
+which wine and frankincense were poured, in order to increase the flame. In
+very ancient times, the victim was laid upon the altar and burned whole;
+but after the time of Prometheus portions only of the shoulders, thighs,
+entrails, &c., were sacrificed, the remainder becoming the perquisites of
+the priests.
+
+The officiating priests wore a crown composed of the leaves of the tree
+sacred to the deity they invoked. Thus when sacrificing to Apollo the
+crowns were of laurel; when to Heracles, of poplar. This practice of
+wearing crowns was, at a later period, adopted by the general public at
+banquets and other festivities.
+
+On occasions of special solemnity the horns of the victim were overlaid
+with gold, and the altars decked with flowers and sacred herbs.
+
+The mode of conducting the sacrifices was as follows:--All things being
+prepared, a salt cake, the sacrificial knife, and the crowns, were placed
+in a small basket, and carried to the sanctuary by a young maiden,
+whereupon the victim was conducted into the temple, frequently to the
+accompaniment of music. If a small animal, it was driven loose to the
+altar; if a large one, it was led by a {194} long trailing rope, in order
+to indicate that it was not an unwilling sacrifice.
+
+When all were assembled, the priest, after walking in solemn state round
+the altar, besprinkled it with a mixture of meal and holy water, after
+which he also besprinkled the assembled worshippers, and exhorted them to
+join with him in prayer. The service being ended, the priest first tasted
+the libation, and after causing the congregation to do the like, poured the
+remainder between the horns of the victim, after which frankincense was
+strewn upon the altar, and a portion of the meal and water poured upon the
+animal, which was then killed. If by any chance the victim escaped the
+stroke, or became in any way restless, it was regarded as an evil omen; if,
+on the contrary, it expired without a struggle, it was considered
+auspicious.
+
+At the sacrifices to the aërial divinities music was added, whilst dances
+were performed round the altar, and sacred hymns sung. These hymns were
+generally composed in honour of the gods, and contained an account of their
+famous actions, their clemency and beneficence, and the gifts conferred by
+them on mankind. In conclusion, the gods were invoked for a continuance of
+their favour, and when the service was ended a feast was held.
+
+ORACLES.
+
+The desire to penetrate the dark veil of futurity, and thereby to avert, if
+possible, threatened danger, has animated mankind in all ages of the world.
+Prophetic knowledge was sought by the Greeks at the mouth of oracles, whose
+predictions were interpreted to the people by priests, specially appointed
+for the purpose.
+
+The most famous of these institutions was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi,
+which was held in general repute all over the world. People flocked from
+far and near to consult this wonderful mouth-piece of the gods, one month
+in the year being specially set apart for the purpose.
+
+{195}
+
+The priestess who delivered the oracles was called the Pythia, after the
+serpent Python, which was killed by Apollo. Having first bathed in the
+waters of the Castalian spring, she was conducted into the temple by the
+priests, and was seated on a sort of three-legged stool or table, called a
+tripod, which was placed over the mouth of a cave whence issued sulphurous
+vapours. Here she gradually became affected in a remarkable manner, and
+fell into an ecstatic condition, in which she uttered wild and
+extraordinary phrases, which were held to be the utterance of Apollo
+himself; these the priests interpreted to the people, but in most cases in
+so ambiguous a manner that the fulfilment of the prediction could not
+easily be disputed. During the ceremony, clouds of incense filled the
+temple, and hid the priestess from the view of the uninitiated, and at its
+conclusion she was reconducted, in a fainting condition, to her cell.
+
+The following is a striking instance of the ambiguity of oracular
+predictions:--Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, before going to war with
+Cyrus, king of Persia, consulted an oracle as to the probable success of
+the expedition. The reply he received was, that if he crossed a certain
+river he would destroy a great empire. Interpreting the response as being
+favourable to his design, Croesus crossed the river, and encountered the
+Persian king, by whom he was entirely defeated; and his own empire being
+destroyed, the prediction of the oracle was said to have been fulfilled.
+
+SOOTHSAYERS (AUGURS).
+
+In addition to the manifestation of the will of the gods by means of
+oracles, the Greeks also believed that certain men, called soothsayers,
+were gifted with the power of foretelling future events from dreams, from
+observing the flight of birds, the entrails of sacrificed animals, and even
+the direction of the flames and smoke from the altar, &c. {196}
+
+AUGURS.
+
+The Roman soothsayers were called augurs, and played an important part in
+the history of the Romans, as no enterprise was ever undertaken without
+first consulting them with regard to its ultimate success.
+
+FESTIVALS.
+
+Festivals were instituted as seasons of rest, rejoicing, and thanksgiving,
+and also as anniversaries to commemorate events of national importance. The
+most ancient festivals were those held after the ingathering of the harvest
+or vintage, and were celebrated with rejoicings and merry-makings, which
+lasted many days, during which time the first-fruits of the fields were
+offered to the gods, accompanied by prayers and thanksgiving.
+
+The festivals held in cities in honour of special divinities, or in
+commemoration of particular events, were conducted with an elaborate
+ceremonial. Gorgeous processions, games, chariot races, &c., were
+conspicuous features on these occasions, and dramatic performances,
+representing particular episodes in the lives of the gods and heroes,
+frequently took place.
+
+We subjoin a few of the most interesting of the Greek and Roman festivals.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GREEK FESTIVALS.
+
+ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES.
+
+One of the most ancient and important among the festivals observed by the
+Greeks was that of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which was celebrated in honour
+of Demeter and Persephone. The name was derived from Eleusis, a town in
+Attica, where the Mysteries were first introduced by the goddess herself.
+They were divided into the {197} Greater and Lesser Mysteries, and,
+according to the general account, were held every five years. The Greater,
+which were celebrated in honour of Demeter, and lasted nine days, were held
+in autumn; the Lesser, dedicated to Persephone (who at these festivals was
+affectionately called Cora, or the maiden), were held in spring.
+
+It is supposed that the secrets taught to the initiated by the priests--the
+expounders of the Mysteries--were moral meanings, elucidated from the myths
+concerning Demeter and Persephone; but the most important belief inculcated
+was the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. That the lessons taught
+were of the highest moral character is universally admitted. "The souls of
+those who participated in them were filled with the sweetest hopes both as
+to this and the future world;" and it was a common saying among the
+Athenians: "In the Mysteries no one is sad."
+
+The initiation into these solemn rites (which was originally the exclusive
+privilege of the Athenians) was accompanied with awe-inspiring ceremonies;
+and secrecy was so strictly enjoined that its violation was punished by
+death. At the conclusion of the initiation great rejoicings took place,
+chariot-races, wrestling matches, &c., were held, and solemn sacrifices
+offered.
+
+The initiation into the Lesser Mysteries served as a preparation for the
+Greater.
+
+THESMOPHORIA.
+
+The Thesmophoria was another festival held in honour of Demeter, in her
+character as presiding over marriage and social institutions resulting from
+the spread of agriculture.
+
+This festival was celebrated exclusively by women.
+
+DIONYSIA.
+
+A joyous spring festival was held in honour of Dionysus, in the month of
+March, and lasted several days.
+
+{198}
+
+This festival, which was called the Greater Dionysia, was celebrated with
+particular splendour at Athens, when strangers flocked from all parts of
+the world to take part in the ceremonies. The city was gaily decorated, the
+houses were garlanded with ivy-leaves, crowds perambulated the streets,
+everything wore its holiday garb, and wine was freely indulged in.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the processions which took place during these festivities, the statue of
+Dionysus was carried, and men and women, crowned with ivy and bearing the
+thyrsus, were dressed in every description of grotesque costume, and played
+on drums, pipes, flutes, cymbals, &c. Some representing Silenus rode on
+asses, others wearing fawn-skins appeared as Pan or the Satyrs, and the
+whole multitude sang pæans in honour of the wine-god. Public shows, games,
+and sports took place, and the entire city was full of revelry.
+
+What lent additional interest to these festivals was the custom of
+introducing new comedies and tragedies to the public, representations of
+which were given, and prizes awarded to those which elicited the greatest
+admiration.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Lesser Dionysia were vintage festivals, celebrated in rural districts
+in the month of November, and were characterized by drinking, feasting, and
+joviality of all kinds.
+
+In connection with some of the festivals in honour of Dionysus were certain
+mystic observances, into which only women, called Menades or Bacchantes,
+were initiated. Clad in fawn-skins, they assembled by night on the mountain
+sides, {199} some carrying blazing torches, others thyrsi, and all animated
+with religious enthusiasm and frenzy. They shouted, clapped their hands,
+danced wildly, and worked themselves up to such a pitch of excitement and
+fury that in their mad frenzy they tore in pieces the animal brought as a
+sacrifice to Dionysus.
+
+Under the name of Bacchanalia, these mystic rites were introduced into
+Rome, where men also were allowed to participate in them; but they were
+attended with such frightful excesses that the state authorities at length
+interfered and prohibited them.
+
+PANATHENÆA.
+
+The Panathenæa was a famous festival celebrated in Athens in honour of
+Athene-Polias, the guardian of the state. There were two festivals of this
+name, the Lesser and the Greater Panathenæa. The former was held annually,
+and the latter, which lasted several days, was celebrated every fourth
+year.
+
+For the Greater Panathenæa a garment, embroidered with gold, called the
+Peplus, was specially woven by Athenian maidens, on which was represented
+the victory gained by Athene over the Giants. This garment was suspended to
+the mast of a ship which stood outside the city; and during the festival,
+which was characterized by a grand procession, the ship (with the Peplus on
+its mast) was impelled forward by means of invisible machinery, and formed
+the most conspicuous feature of the pageant. The whole population, bearing
+olive branches in their hands, took part in the procession; and amidst
+music and rejoicings this imposing pageant wended its way to the temple of
+Athene-Polias, where the Peplus was deposited on the statue of the goddess.
+
+At this festival, Homer's poems were declaimed aloud, and poets also
+introduced their own works to the public. Musical contests, foot and horse
+races, and wrestling matches were held, and dances were performed by boys
+in armour.
+
+{200}
+
+Men who had deserved well of their country were presented at the festival
+with a crown of gold, and the name of the person so distinguished was
+announced publicly by a herald.
+
+The victors in the races and athletic games received, as a prize, a vase of
+oil, supposed to have been extracted from the fruit of the sacred
+olive-tree of Athene.
+
+DAPHNEPHORIA.
+
+The Daphnephoria was celebrated at Thebes in honour of Apollo every ninth
+year.
+
+The distinguishing feature of this festival was a procession to the temple
+of Apollo, in which a young priest (the Daphnephorus) of noble descent,
+splendidly attired and wearing a crown of gold, was preceded by a youth,
+carrying an emblematical representation of the sun, moon, stars, and days
+of the year, and followed by beautiful maidens bearing laurel branches, and
+singing hymns in honour of the god.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROMAN FESTIVALS.
+
+SATURNALIA.
+
+The Saturnalia, a national festival held in December in honour of Saturn,
+was celebrated after the ingathering of the harvest, and lasted several
+days.
+
+It was a time of universal rejoicing, cessation from labour, and
+merry-making. School children had holidays, friends sent presents to each
+other, the law-courts were closed, and no business was transacted.
+
+Crowds of people from the surrounding country flocked to Rome for this
+festival attired in every variety of masquerade dress; practical jokes were
+given and received with the utmost good humour, shouts of exultation filled
+{201} the air, all classes abandoned themselves to enjoyment, and
+unrestrained hilarity reigned supreme. Social distinctions were for a time
+suspended, or even reversed; and so heartily was the spirit of this
+festival entered into, that masters waited upon their slaves at banquets
+which they provided for them; the slaves being dressed upon these occasions
+in the garments of their masters.
+
+There appears little doubt that the modern Carnival is a survival of the
+ancient Saturnalia.
+
+CEREALIA.
+
+This festival was celebrated in honour of Ceres. It was solemnized
+exclusively by women, who, dressed in white garments, wandered about with
+torches in their hands, to represent the search of the goddess for her
+daughter Proserpine.
+
+During this festival, games were celebrated in the Circus Maximus, to which
+none were admitted unless clothed in white.
+
+VESTALIA.
+
+The Vestalia was a festival held in honour of Vesta on the 9th of June, and
+was celebrated exclusively by women, who walked barefooted in procession to
+the temple of the goddess.
+
+The priestesses of Vesta, called Vestales or Vestal Virgins, played a
+conspicuous part in these festivals. They were six in number, and were
+chosen--between the ages of six and ten--from the noblest families in Rome.
+Their term of office was thirty years. During the first ten years, they
+were initiated in their religious duties, during the second ten they
+performed them, and during the third they instructed novices. Their chief
+duty was to watch and feed the ever-burning flame on the altar of Vesta,
+the extinction of which was regarded as a national calamity of ominous
+import.
+
+{202}
+
+Great honours and privileges were accorded to them; the best seats were
+reserved for their use at all public spectacles, and even the consuls and
+prætors made way for them to pass. If they met a criminal on his way to
+execution they had the power to pardon him, provided it could be proved
+that the meeting was accidental.
+
+The Vestales were vowed to chastity, a violation of which was visited by
+the frightful punishment of being buried alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{203}
+
+PART II.--LEGENDS.
+
+CADMUS.
+
+The following is the legendary account of the founding of Thebes:--
+
+After the abduction of his daughter Europa by Zeus, Agenor, king of
+Phoenicia, unable to reconcile himself to her loss, despatched his son
+Cadmus in search of her, desiring him not to return without his sister.
+
+For many years Cadmus pursued his search through various countries, but
+without success. Not daring to return home without her, he consulted the
+oracle of Apollo at Delphi; and the reply was that he must desist from his
+task, and take upon himself a new duty, _i.e._ that of founding a city, the
+site of which would be indicated to him by a heifer which had never borne
+the yoke, and which would lie down on the spot whereon the city was to be
+built.
+
+Scarcely had Cadmus left the sacred fane, when he observed a heifer who
+bore no marks of servitude on her neck, walking slowly in front of him. He
+followed the animal for a considerable distance, until at length, on the
+site where Thebes afterwards stood, she looked towards heaven and, gently
+lowing, lay down in the long grass. Grateful for this mark of divine
+favour, Cadmus resolved to offer up the animal as a sacrifice, and
+accordingly sent his followers to fetch water for the libation from a
+neighbouring spring. This spring, which was sacred to Ares, was situated in
+a wood, and guarded by a fierce dragon, who, at the approach of the
+retainers of Cadmus, suddenly pounced upon them and killed them.
+
+After waiting some time for the return of his servants {204} Cadmus grew
+impatient, and hastily arming himself with his lance and spear, set out to
+seek them. On reaching the spot, the mangled remains of his unfortunate
+followers met his view, and near them he beheld the frightful monster,
+dripping with the blood of his victims. Seizing a huge rock, the hero
+hurled it with all his might upon the dragon; but protected by his tough
+black skin and steely scales as by a coat of mail, he remained unhurt.
+Cadmus now tried his lance, and with more success, for it pierced the side
+of the beast, who, furious with pain, sprang at his adversary, when Cadmus,
+leaping aside, succeeded in fixing the point of his spear within his jaws,
+which final stroke put an end to the encounter.
+
+While Cadmus stood surveying his vanquished foe Pallas-Athene appeared to
+him, and commanded him to sow the teeth of the dead dragon in the ground.
+He obeyed; and out of the furrows there arose a band of armed men, who at
+once commenced to fight with each other, until all except five were killed.
+These last surviving warriors made peace with each other, and it was with
+their assistance that Cadmus now built the famous city of Thebes. In later
+times the noblest Theban families proudly claimed their descent from these
+mighty earth-born warriors.
+
+Ares was furious with rage when he discovered that Cadmus had slain his
+dragon, and would have killed him had not Zeus interfered, and induced him
+to mitigate his punishment to that of servitude for the term of eight
+years. At the end of that time the god of war became reconciled to Cadmus,
+and, in token of his forgiveness, bestowed upon him the hand of his
+daughter Harmonia in marriage. Their nuptials were almost as celebrated as
+those of Peleus and Thetis. All the gods honoured them with their presence,
+and offered rich gifts and congratulations. Cadmus himself presented his
+lovely bride with a splendid necklace fashioned by Hephæstus, which,
+however, after the death of Harmonia, always proved fatal to its possessor.
+
+The children of Cadmus and Harmonia were one son, {205} Polydorus, and four
+daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, and Agave.
+
+For many years the founder of Thebes reigned happily, but at length a
+conspiracy was formed against him, and he was deprived of his throne by his
+grandson Pentheus. Accompanied by his faithful wife Harmonia, he retired
+into Illyria, and after death they were both changed by Zeus into serpents,
+and transferred to Elysium.
+
+PERSEUS.
+
+Perseus, one of the most renowned of the legendary heroes of antiquity, was
+the son of Zeus and Danaë, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos.
+
+An oracle having foretold to Acrisius that a son of Danaë would be the
+cause of his death, he imprisoned her in a tower of brass in order to keep
+her secluded from the world. Zeus, however, descended through the roof of
+the tower in the form of a shower of gold, and the lovely Danaë became his
+bride.
+
+For four years Acrisius remained in ignorance of this union, but one
+evening as he chanced to pass by the brazen chamber, he heard the cry of a
+young child proceeding from within, which led to the discovery of his
+daughter's marriage with Zeus. Enraged at finding all his precautions
+unavailing, Acrisius commanded the mother and child to be placed in a chest
+and thrown into the sea.
+
+But it was not the will of Zeus that they should perish. He directed
+Poseidon to calm the troubled waters, and caused the chest to float safely
+to the island of Seriphus. Dictys, brother of Polydectes, king of the
+island, was fishing on the sea-shore when he saw the chest stranded on the
+beach; and pitying the helpless condition of its unhappy occupants, he
+conducted them to the palace of the king, where they were treated with the
+greatest kindness.
+
+Polydectes eventually became united to Danaë, and {206} bestowed upon
+Perseus an education befitting a hero. When he saw his stepson develop into
+a noble and manly youth he endeavoured to instil into his mind a desire to
+signalize himself by the achievement of some great and heroic deed, and
+after mature deliberation it was decided that the slaying of the Gorgon,
+Medusa, would bring him the greatest renown.
+
+For the successful accomplishment of his object it was necessary for him to
+be provided with a pair of winged sandals, a magic wallet, and the helmet
+of Aïdes, which rendered the wearer invisible, all of which were in the
+keeping of the Nymphs, the place of whose abode was known only to the Grææ.
+Perseus started on his expedition, and, guided by Hermes and Pallas-Athene,
+arrived, after a long journey, in the far-off region, on the borders of
+Oceanus, where dwelt the Grææ, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. He at once
+applied to them for the necessary information, and on their refusing to
+grant it he deprived them of their single eye and tooth, which he only
+restored to them when they gave him full directions with regard to his
+route. He then proceeded to the abode of the Nymphs, from whom he obtained
+the objects indispensable for his purpose.
+
+Equipped with the magic helmet and wallet, and armed with a sickle, the
+gift of Hermes, he attached to his feet the winged sandals, and flew to the
+abode of the Gorgons, whom he found fast asleep. Now as Perseus had been
+warned by his celestial guides that whoever looked upon these weird sisters
+would be transformed into stone, he stood with averted face before the
+sleepers, and caught on his bright metal shield their triple image. Then,
+guided by Pallas-Athene, he cut off the head of the Medusa, which he placed
+in his wallet. No sooner had he done so than from the headless trunk there
+sprang forth the winged steed Pegasus, and Chrysaor, the father of the
+winged giant Geryon. He now hastened to elude the pursuit of the two
+surviving sisters, who, aroused from their slumbers, eagerly rushed to
+avenge the death of their sister.
+
+{207}
+
+His invisible helmet and winged sandals here stood him in good stead; for
+the former concealed him from the view of the Gorgons, whilst the latter
+bore him swiftly over land and sea, far beyond the reach of pursuit. In
+passing over the burning plains of Libya the drops of blood from the head
+of the Medusa oozed through the wallet, and falling on the hot sands below
+produced a brood of many-coloured snakes, which spread all over the
+country.
+
+Perseus continued his flight until he reached the kingdom of Atlas, of whom
+he begged rest and shelter. But as this king possessed a valuable orchard,
+in which every tree bore golden fruit, he was fearful lest the slayer of
+the Medusa might destroy the dragon which guarded it, and then rob him of
+his treasures. He therefore refused to grant the hospitality which the hero
+demanded, whereupon Perseus, exasperated at the churlish repulse, produced
+from his wallet the head of the Medusa, and holding it towards the king,
+transformed him into a stony mountain. Beard and hair erected themselves
+into forests; shoulders, hands, and limbs became huge rocks, and the head
+grew up into a craggy peak which reached into the clouds.
+
+Perseus then resumed his travels. His winged sandals bore him over deserts
+and mountains, until he arrived at Æthiopia, the kingdom of King Cepheus.
+Here he found the country inundated with disastrous floods, towns and
+villages destroyed, and everywhere signs of desolation and ruin. On a
+projecting cliff close to the shore he beheld a lovely maiden chained to a
+rock. This was Andromeda, the king's daughter. Her mother Cassiopea, having
+boasted that her beauty surpassed that of the Nereides, the angry
+sea-nymphs appealed to Poseidon to avenge their wrongs, whereupon the
+sea-god devastated the country with a terrible inundation, which brought
+with it a huge monster who devoured all that came in his way.
+
+In their distress the unfortunate Æthiopians applied to the oracle of
+Jupiter-Ammon, in the Libyan desert, {208} and obtained the response, that
+only by the sacrifice of the king's daughter to the monster could the
+country and people be saved.
+
+Cepheus, who was tenderly attached to his child, at first refused to listen
+to this dreadful proposal; but overcome at length by the prayers and
+solicitations of his unhappy subjects, the heart-broken father gave up his
+child for the welfare of his country. Andromeda was accordingly chained to
+a rock on the sea-shore to serve as a prey to the monster, whilst her
+unhappy parents bewailed her sad fate on the beach below.
+
+On being informed of the meaning of this tragic scene, Perseus proposed to
+Cepheus to slay the dragon, on condition that the lovely victim should
+become his bride. Overjoyed at the prospect of Andromeda's release, the
+king gladly acceded to the stipulation, and Perseus hastened to the rock,
+to breathe words of hope and comfort to the trembling maiden. Then assuming
+once more the helmet of Aïdes, he mounted into the air, and awaited the
+approach of the monster.
+
+Presently the sea opened, and the shark's head of the gigantic beast of the
+deep raised itself above the waves. Lashing his tail furiously from side to
+side, he leaped forward to seize his victim; but the gallant hero, watching
+his opportunity, suddenly darted down, and producing the head of the Medusa
+from his wallet, held it before the eyes of the dragon, whose hideous body
+became gradually transformed into a huge black rock, which remained for
+ever a silent witness of the miraculous deliverance of Andromeda. Perseus
+then led the maiden to her now happy parents, who, anxious to evince their
+gratitude to her deliverer ordered immediate preparations to be made for
+the nuptial feast. But the young hero was not to bear away his lovely bride
+uncontested; for in the midst of the banquet, Phineus, the king's brother,
+to whom Andromeda had previously been betrothed, returned to claim his
+bride. Followed by a band of armed warriors he forced his way into the
+hall, and a desperate encounter took place between the rivals, {209} which
+might have terminated fatally for Perseus, had he not suddenly bethought
+himself of the Medusa's head. Calling to his friends to avert their faces,
+he drew it from his wallet, and held it before Phineus and his formidable
+body-guard, whereupon they all stiffened into stone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Perseus now took leave of the Æthiopian king, and, accompanied by his
+beautiful bride, returned to Seriphus, where a joyful meeting took place
+between Danaë and her son. He then sent a messenger to his grandfather,
+informing him that he intended returning to Argos; but Acrisius, fearing
+the fulfilment of the oracular prediction, fled for protection to his
+friend Teutemias, king of Larissa. Anxious to induce the aged monarch to
+return to Argos, Perseus followed him thither. But here a strange fatality
+occurred. Whilst taking part in some funereal games, celebrated in honour
+of the king's father, Perseus, by an unfortunate throw of the discus,
+accidentally struck his grandfather, and thereby was the innocent cause of
+his death.
+
+After celebrating the funereal rites of Acrisius with due solemnity,
+Perseus returned to Argos; but feeling loath to occupy the throne of one
+whose death he had caused, he exchanged kingdoms with Megapenthes, king of
+Tiryns, and in course of time founded the cities of Mycenæ and Midea.
+
+The head of the Medusa he presented to his divine patroness, Pallas-Athene,
+who placed it in the centre of her shield.
+
+Many great heroes were descended from Perseus and Andromeda, foremost among
+whom was Heracles, whose mother, Alcmene, was their granddaughter.
+
+Heroic honours were paid to Perseus, not only {210} throughout Argos, but
+also at Athens and in the island of Seriphus.
+
+ION.
+
+Ion was the son of Crëusa (the beauteous daughter of Erechtheus, king of
+Athens) and the sun-god Phoebus-Apollo, to whom she was united without the
+knowledge of her father.
+
+Fearing the anger of Erechtheus, Crëusa placed her new-born babe in a
+little wicker basket, and hanging some golden charms round his neck,
+invoked for him the protection of the gods, and concealed him in a lonely
+cave. Apollo, pitying his deserted child, sent Hermes to convey him to
+Delphi, where he deposited his charge on the steps of the temple. Next
+morning the Delphic priestess discovered the infant, and was so charmed by
+his engaging appearance that she adopted him as her own son. The young
+child was carefully tended and reared by his kind foster-mother, and was
+brought up in the service of the temple, where he was intrusted with some
+of the minor duties of the holy edifice.
+
+And now to return to Crëusa. During a war with the Euboeans, in which the
+latter were signally defeated, Xuthus, son of Æolus, greatly distinguished
+himself on the side of the Athenians, and as a reward for his valuable
+services, the hand of Crëusa, the king's daughter, was bestowed upon him in
+marriage. Their union, however, was not blest with children, and as this
+was a source of great grief to both of them, they repaired to Delphi in
+order to consult the oracle. The response was, that Xuthus should regard
+the first person who met him on leaving the sanctuary as his son. Now it
+happened that Ion, the young guardian of the temple, was the first to greet
+his view, and when Xuthus beheld the beautiful youth, he gladly welcomed
+him as his son, declaring that the gods had sent him to be a blessing and
+comfort to his old age. Crëusa, however, who concluded that the youth was
+the offspring of a secret marriage on the part of her husband, was filled
+with suspicion and jealousy; {211} when an old servant, observing her
+grief, begged her to be comforted, assuring her that the cause of her
+distress should be speedily removed.
+
+When, upon the occasion of the public adoption of his son, Xuthus gave a
+grand banquet, the old servant of Crëusa contrived to mix a strong poison
+in the wine of the unsuspecting Ion. But the youth--according to the pious
+custom of the ancients, of offering a libation to the gods before partaking
+of any repast--poured upon the ground a portion of the wine before putting
+it to his lips, when suddenly, as if by a miracle, a dove flew into the
+banquet-hall, and sipped of the wine of the libation; whereupon the poor
+little creature began to quiver in every limb, and in a few moments
+expired.
+
+Ion's suspicions at once fell upon the obsequious servant of Crëusa, who
+with such officious attention had filled his cup. He violently seized the
+old man, and accused him of his murderous intentions. Unprepared for this
+sudden attack he admitted his guilt, but pointed to the wife of Xuthus as
+the instigator of the crime. Ion was about to avenge himself upon Crëusa,
+when, by means of the divine intervention of Apollo, his foster-mother, the
+Delphic priestess appeared on the scene, and explained the true
+relationship which existed between Crëusa and Ion. In order to set all
+doubts at rest, she produced the charms which she had found round the neck
+of the infant, and also the wicker basket in which he had been conveyed to
+Delphi.
+
+Mother and son now became reconciled to each other, and Crëusa revealed to
+Ion the secret of his divine origin. The priestess of Delphi foretold that
+he would become the father of a great nation, called after him the Ionians,
+and also that Xuthus and Crëusa would have a son called Dorus, who would be
+the progenitor of the Dorian people, both of which predictions were in due
+time verified.
+
+DÆDALUS and ICARUS.
+
+Dædalus, a descendant of Erechtheus, was an Athenian architect, sculptor,
+and mechanician. He was the first {212} to introduce the art of sculpture
+in its higher development, for before his time statues were merely rude
+representations, having the limbs altogether undefined.
+
+But great as was his genius, still greater was his vanity, and he could
+brook no rival. Now his nephew and pupil, Talus, exhibited great talent,
+having invented both the saw and the compass, and Dædalus, fearing lest he
+might overshadow his own fame, secretly killed him by throwing him down
+from the citadel of Pallas-Athene. The murder being discovered, Dædalus was
+summoned before the court of the Areopagus and condemned to death; but he
+made his escape to the island of Crete, where he was received by king Minos
+in a manner worthy of his great reputation.
+
+Dædalus constructed for the king the world-renowned labyrinth, which was an
+immense building, full of intricate passages, intersecting each other in
+such a manner, that even Dædalus himself is said, upon one occasion, to
+have nearly lost his way in it; and it was in this building the king placed
+the Minotaur, a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body
+of a man.
+
+In the course of time the great artist became weary of his long exile, more
+especially as the king, under the guise of friendship, kept him almost a
+prisoner. He therefore resolved to make his escape, and for this purpose
+ingeniously contrived wings for himself and his young son Icarus, whom he
+diligently trained how to use them. Having awaited a favourable
+opportunity, father and son commenced their flight, and were well on their
+way when Icarus, pleased with the novel sensation, forgot altogether his
+father's oft-repeated injunction not to approach too near the sun. The
+consequence was that the wax, by means of which his wings were attached,
+melted, and he fell into the sea and was drowned. The body of the
+unfortunate Icarus was washed up by the tide, and was buried by the
+bereaved father on an island which he called after his son, Icaria.
+
+After this sad event, Dædalus winged his flight to the island of Sicily,
+where he met with a kind welcome from {213} king Cocalus, for whom he
+constructed several important public works. But no sooner did Minos receive
+the intelligence that his great architect had found an asylum with Cocalus
+than he sailed over to Sicily with a large army, and sent messengers to the
+Sicilian king demanding the surrender of his guest. Cocalus feigned
+compliance and invited Minos to his palace, where he was treacherously put
+to death in a warm bath. The body of their king was brought to Agrigent by
+the Cretans, where it was buried with great pomp, and over his tomb a
+temple to Aphrodite was erected.
+
+Dædalus passed the remainder of his life tranquilly in the island of
+Sicily, where he occupied himself in the construction of various beautiful
+works of art.
+
+THE ARGONAUTS.
+
+Aeson, king of Iolcus, was forced to fly from his dominions, which had been
+usurped by his younger brother, Pelias, and with difficulty succeeded in
+saving the life of his young son, Jason, who was at that time only ten
+years of age. He intrusted him to the care of the Centaur Chiron, by whom
+he was carefully trained in company with other noble youths, who, like
+himself, afterwards signalized themselves by their bravery and heroic
+exploits. For ten years Jason remained in the cave of the Centaur, by whom
+he was instructed in all useful and warlike arts. But as he approached
+manhood he became filled with an unconquerable desire to regain his
+paternal inheritance. He therefore took leave of his kind friend and
+preceptor, and set out for Iolcus to demand from his uncle Pelias the
+kingdom which he had so unjustly usurped.
+
+In the course of his journey he came to a broad and foaming river, on the
+banks of which he perceived an old woman, who implored him to help her
+across. At first he hesitated, knowing that even alone he would find some
+difficulty in stemming the fierce torrent; but, {214} pitying her forlorn
+condition, he raised her in his arms, and succeeded, with a great effort,
+in reaching the opposite shore. But as soon as her feet had touched the
+earth she became transformed into a beautiful woman, who, looking kindly at
+the bewildered youth, informed him that she was the goddess Hera, and that
+she would henceforth guide and protect him throughout his career. She then
+disappeared, and, full of hope and courage at this divine manifestation,
+Jason pursued his journey. He now perceived that in crossing the river he
+had lost one of his sandals, but as it could not be recovered he was
+obliged to proceed without it.
+
+On his arrival at Iolcus he found his uncle in the market-place, offering
+up a public sacrifice to Poseidon. When the king had concluded his
+offering, his eye fell upon the distinguished stranger, whose manly beauty
+and heroic bearing had already attracted the attention of his people.
+Observing that one foot was unshod, he was reminded of an oracular
+prediction which foretold to him the loss of his kingdom by a man wearing
+only one sandal. He, however, disguised his fears, conversed kindly with
+the youth, and drew from him his name and errand. Then pretending to be
+highly pleased with his nephew, Pelias entertained him sumptuously for five
+days, during which time all was festivity and rejoicing. On the sixth,
+Jason appeared before his uncle, and with manly firmness demanded from him
+the throne and kingdom which were his by right. Pelias, dissembling his
+true feelings, smilingly consented to grant his request, provided that, in
+return, Jason would undertake an expedition for him, which his advanced age
+prevented him from accomplishing himself. He informed his nephew that the
+shade of Phryxus had appeared to him in his dreams, and entreated him to
+bring back from Colchis his mortal remains and the Golden Fleece; and added
+that if Jason succeeded in obtaining for him these sacred relics, throne,
+kingdom, and sceptre should be his.
+
+{215}
+
+STORY OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.
+
+Athamas, king of Boeotia, had married Nephele, a cloud-nymph, and their
+children were Helle and Phryxus. The restless and wandering nature of
+Nephele, however, soon wearied her husband, who, being a mortal, had little
+sympathy with his ethereal consort; so he divorced her, and married the
+beautiful but wicked Ino (sister of Semele), who hated her step-children,
+and even planned their destruction. But the watchful Nephele contrived to
+circumvent her cruel designs, and succeeded in getting the children out of
+the palace. She then placed them both on the back of a winged ram, with a
+fleece of pure gold, which had been given to her by Hermes; and on this
+wonderful animal brother and sister rode through the air over land and sea;
+but on the way Helle, becoming seized with giddiness, fell into the sea
+(called after her the Hellespont) and was drowned.
+
+Phryxus arrived safely at Colchis, where he was hospitably received by king
+Aëtes, who gave him one of his daughters in marriage. In gratitude to Zeus
+for the protection accorded him during his flight, Phryxus sacrificed to
+him the golden ram, whilst the fleece he presented to Aëtes, who nailed it
+up in the Grove of Ares, and dedicated it to the god of War. An oracle
+having declared that the life of Aëtes depended on the safe-keeping of the
+fleece, he carefully guarded the entrance to the grove by placing before it
+an immense dragon, which never slept.
+
+BUILDING AND LAUNCH OF THE ARGO.--We will now return to Jason, who eagerly
+undertook the perilous expedition proposed to him by his uncle, who, well
+aware of the dangers attending such an enterprise, hoped by this means to
+rid himself for ever of the unwelcome intruder.
+
+Jason accordingly began to arrange his plans without delay, and invited the
+young heroes whose friendship he {216} had formed whilst under the care of
+Chiron, to join him in the perilous expedition. None refused the
+invitation, all feeling honoured at being allowed the privilege of taking
+part in so noble and heroic an undertaking.
+
+Jason now applied to Argos, one of the cleverest ship-builders of his time,
+who, under the guidance of Pallas-Athene, built for him a splendid
+fifty-oared galley, which was called the Argo, after the builder. In the
+upper deck of the vessel the goddess had imbedded a board from the speaking
+oak of the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, which ever retained its powers of
+prophecy. The exterior of the ship was ornamented with magnificent
+carvings, and the whole vessel was so strongly built that it defied the
+power of the winds and waves, and was, nevertheless, so light that the
+heroes, when necessary, were able to carry it on their shoulders. When the
+vessel was completed, the Argonauts (so called after their ship) assembled,
+and their places were distributed by lot.
+
+Jason was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition, Tiphys acted as
+steersman, Lynceus as pilot. In the bow of the vessel sat the renowned hero
+Heracles; in the stern, Peleus (father of Achilles) and Telamon (the father
+of Ajax the Great). In the inner space were Castor and Pollux, Neleus (the
+father of Nestor), Admetus (the husband of Alcestes), Meleager (the slayer
+of the Calydonian boar), Orpheus (the renowned singer), Menoctius (the
+father of Patroclus), Theseus (afterwards king of Athens) and his friend
+Pirithöus (the son of Ixion), Hylas (the adopted son of Heracles), Euphemus
+(the son of Poseidon), Oileus (father of Ajax the Lesser), Zetes and Calais
+(the winged sons of Boreas), Idmon the Seer (the son of Apollo), Mopsus
+(the Thessalian prophet), &c. &c.
+
+Before their departure Jason offered a solemn sacrifice to Poseidon and all
+the other sea-deities; he also invoked the protection of Zeus and the
+Fates, and then, Mopsus having taken the auguries, and found them
+auspicious, the heroes stepped on board. And now a favourable breeze having
+sprung up, they take their allotted places, {217} the anchor is weighed,
+and the ship glides like a bird out of the harbour into the waters of the
+great sea.
+
+ARRIVAL AT LEMNOS.--The Argo, with her brave crew of fifty heroes, was soon
+out of sight, and the sea-breeze only wafted to the shore a faint echo of
+the sweet strains of Orpheus.
+
+For a time all went smoothly, but the vessel was soon driven, by stress of
+weather, to take refuge in a harbour in the island of Lemnos. This island
+was inhabited by women only, who, the year before, in a fit of mad
+jealousy, had killed all the male population of the island, with the
+exception of the father of their queen, Hypsipyle. As the protection of
+their island now devolved upon themselves they were always on the look-out
+for danger. When, therefore, they sighted the Argo from afar they armed
+themselves and rushed to the shore, determined to repel any invasion of
+their territory.
+
+On arriving in port the Argonauts, astonished at beholding an armed crowd
+of women, despatched a herald in one of their boats, bearing the staff of
+peace and friendship. Hypsipyle, the queen, proposed that food and presents
+should be sent to the strangers, in order to prevent their landing; but her
+old nurse, who stood beside her, suggested that this would be a good
+opportunity to provide themselves with noble husbands, who would act as
+their defenders, and thus put an end to their constant fears. Hypsipyle
+listened attentively to the advice of her nurse, and after some
+consultation, decided to invite the strangers into the city. Robed in his
+purple mantle, the gift of Pallas-Athene, Jason, accompanied by some of his
+companions, stepped on shore, where he was met by a deputation consisting
+of the most beautiful of the Lemnian women, and, as commander of the
+expedition, was invited into the palace of the queen.
+
+When he appeared before Hypsipyle, she was so struck with his godlike and
+heroic presence that she presented him with her father's sceptre, and
+invited him to seat himself on the throne beside her. Jason thereupon {218}
+took up his residence in the royal castle, whilst his companions scattered
+themselves through the town, spending their time in feasting and pleasure.
+Heracles, with a few chosen comrades, alone remained on board.
+
+From day to day their departure was delayed, and the Argonauts, in their
+new life of dissipation, had almost forgotten the object of the expedition,
+when Heracles suddenly appeared amongst them, and at last recalled them to
+a sense of their duty.
+
+GIANTS AND DOLIONES.--The Argonauts now pursued their voyage, till contrary
+winds drove them towards an island, inhabited by the Doliones, whose king
+Cyzicus received them with great kindness and hospitality. The Doliones
+were descendants of Poseidon, who protected them against the frequent
+attacks of their fierce and formidable neighbours, the earth-born
+Giants--monsters with six arms.
+
+Whilst his companions were attending a banquet given by king Cyzicus,
+Heracles, who, as usual, had remained behind to guard the ship, observed
+that these Giants were busy blocking up the harbour with huge rocks. He at
+once realized the danger, and, attacking them with his arrows, succeeded in
+considerably thinning their numbers; then, assisted by the heroes, who at
+length came to his aid, he effectually destroyed the remainder.
+
+The Argo now steered out of the harbour and set sail; but in consequence of
+a severe storm which arose at night, was driven back once more to the
+shores of the kindly Doliones. Unfortunately, however, owing to the
+darkness of the night, the inhabitants failed to recognize their former
+guests, and, mistaking them for enemies, commenced to attack them. Those
+who had so recently parted as friends were now engaged in mortal combat,
+and in the battle which ensued, Jason himself pierced to the heart his
+friend king Cyzicus; whereupon the Doliones, being deprived of their
+leader, fled to their city and closed the gates. When morning dawned, and
+both sides perceived their error, they were filled with {219} the deepest
+sorrow and remorse; and for three days the heroes remained with the
+Doliones, celebrating the funereal rites of the slain, with every
+demonstration of mourning and solemnity.
+
+HERACLES LEFT BEHIND.--The Argonauts once more set sail, and after a stormy
+voyage arrived at Mysia, where they were hospitably received by the
+inhabitants, who spread before them plentiful banquets and sumptuously
+regaled them.
+
+While his friends were feasting, Heracles, who had declined to join them,
+went into the forest to seek a fir-tree which he required for an oar, and
+was missed by his adopted son Hylas, who set out to seek him. When the
+youth arrived at a spring, in the most secluded part of the forest, the
+nymph of the fountain was so struck by his beauty that she drew him down
+beneath the waters, and he was seen no more. Polyphemus, one of the heroes,
+who happened to be also in the forest, heard his cry for help, and on
+meeting Heracles informed him of the circumstance. They at once set out in
+search of the missing youth, no traces of whom were to be found, and whilst
+they were engaged looking for him, the Argo set sail and left them behind.
+
+The ship had proceeded some distance before the absence of Heracles was
+observed. Some of the heroes were in favour of returning for him, others
+wished to proceed on their journey, when, in the midst of the dispute, the
+sea-god Glaucus arose from the waves, and informed them that it was the
+will of Zeus that Heracles, having another mission to perform, should
+remain behind. The Argonauts continued their voyage without their
+companions; Heracles returned to Argos, whilst Polyphemus remained with the
+Mysians, where he founded a city and became its king.
+
+CONTEST WITH AMYCUS.--Next morning the Argo touched at the country of the
+Bebrycians, whose king Amycus was a famous pugilist, and permitted no
+strangers to leave his shores without matching their {220} strength with
+his. When the heroes, therefore, demanded permission to land, they were
+informed that they could only do so provided that one of their number
+should engage in a boxing-match with the king. Pollux, who was the best
+pugilist in Greece, was selected as their champion, and a contest took
+place, which, after a tremendous struggle, proved fatal to Amycus, who had
+hitherto been victorious in all similar encounters.
+
+PHINEUS AND THE HARPIES.--They now proceeded towards Bithynia, where
+reigned the blind old prophet-king Phineus, son of Agenor. Phineus had been
+punished by the gods with premature old age and blindness for having abused
+the gift of prophecy. He was also tormented by the Harpies, who swooped
+down upon his food, which they either devoured or so defiled as to render
+it unfit to be eaten. This poor old man, trembling with the weakness of
+age, and faint with hunger, appeared before the Argonauts, and implored
+their assistance against his fiendish tormentors, whereupon Zetes and
+Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, recognizing in him the husband of their
+sister Cleopatra, affectionately embraced him, and promised to rescue him
+from his painful position.
+
+The heroes prepared a banquet on the sea-shore, to which they invited
+Phineus; but no sooner had he taken his place, than the Harpies appeared
+and devoured all the viands. Zetes and Calais now rose up into the air,
+drove the Harpies away, and were pursuing them with drawn swords, when
+Iris, the swift-footed messenger of the gods, appeared, and desired them to
+desist from their work of vengeance, promising that Phineus should be no
+longer molested.
+
+Freed at length from his tormentors the old man sat down and enjoyed a
+plentiful repast with his kind friends the Argonauts, who now informed him
+of the object of their voyage. In gratitude for his deliverance Phineus
+gave them much useful information concerning their journey, and not only
+warned them of the manifold {221} dangers awaiting them, but also
+instructed them how they might be overcome.
+
+PASSAGE OF THE SYMPLEGADES.--After a fortnight's sojourn in Bithynia the
+Argonauts once more set sail, but had not proceeded far on their course,
+when they heard a fearful and tremendous crash. This was caused by the
+meeting of two great rocky islands, called the Symplegades, which floated
+about in the sea, and constantly met and separated.
+
+Before leaving Bithynia, the blind old seer, Phineus, had informed them
+that they would be compelled to pass between these terrible rocks, and he
+instructed them how to do so with safety. As they now approached the scene
+of danger they remembered his advice, and acted upon it. Typhus, the
+steersman, stood at the helm, whilst Euphemus held in his hand a dove ready
+to be let loose; for Phineus had told them that if the dove ventured to fly
+through, they might safely follow. Euphemus now despatched the bird, which
+passed swiftly through the islands, yet not without losing some of the
+feathers of her tail, so speedily did they reunite. Seizing the moment when
+the rocks once more separated, the Argonauts worked at their oars with all
+their might, and achieved the perilous passage in safety.
+
+After the miraculous passage of the Argo, the Symplegades became
+permanently united, and attached to the bottom of the sea.
+
+THE STYMPHALIDES.--The Argo pursued her course along the southern coast of
+the Pontus, and arrived at the island of Aretias, which was inhabited by
+birds, who, as they flew through the air, discharged from their wings
+feathers sharp as arrows.
+
+As the ship was gliding along, Oileus was wounded by one of these birds,
+whereupon the Argonauts held a council, and by the advice of Amphidamas, an
+experienced hero, all put on their helmets, and held up their glittering
+shields, uttering, at the same time, such fearful cries that {222} the
+birds flew away in terror, and the Argonauts were enabled to land with
+safety on the island.
+
+Here they found four shipwrecked youths, who proved to be the sons of
+Phryxus, and were greeted by Jason as his cousins. On ascertaining the
+object of the expedition they volunteered to accompany the Argo, and to
+show the heroes the way to Colchis. They also informed them that the Golden
+Fleece was guarded by a fearful dragon, that king Aëtes was extremely
+cruel, and, as the son of Apollo, was possessed of superhuman strength.
+
+ARRIVAL AT COLCHIS.--Taking with them the four new-comers they journeyed
+on, and soon came in sight of the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus, when,
+towards evening, the loud flapping of wings was heard overhead. It was the
+giant eagle of Prometheus on his way to torture the noble and
+long-suffering Titan, whose fearful groans soon afterwards fell upon their
+ears. That night they reached their journey's end, and anchored in the
+smooth waters of the river Phases. On the left bank of this river they
+beheld Ceuta, the capital of Colchis; and on their right a wide field, and
+the sacred grove of Ares, where the Golden Fleece, suspended from a
+magnificent oak-tree, was glittering in the sun. Jason now filled a golden
+cup with wine, and offered a libation to mother-earth, the gods of the
+country, and the shades of those of the heroes who had died on the voyage.
+
+Next morning a council was held, in which it was decided, that before
+resorting to forcible measures kind and conciliatory overtures should first
+be made to king Aëtes in order to induce him to resign the Golden Fleece.
+It was arranged that Jason, with a few chosen companions, should proceed to
+the royal castle, leaving the remainder of the crew to guard the Argo.
+Accompanied, therefore, by Telamon and Augeas, and the four sons of
+Phryxus, he set out for the palace.
+
+When they arrived in sight of the castle they were struck by the vastness
+and massiveness of the building, at the entrance to which sparkling
+fountains played in {223} the midst of luxuriant and park-like gardens.
+Here the king's daughters, Chalciope and Medea, who were walking in the
+grounds of the palace, met them. The former, to her great joy, recognized
+in the youths who accompanied the hero her own long-lost sons, whom she had
+mourned as dead, whilst the young and lovely Medea was struck with the
+noble and manly form of Jason.
+
+The news of the return of the sons of Phryxus soon spread through the
+palace, and brought Aëtes himself to the scene, whereupon the strangers
+were presented to him, and were invited to a banquet which the king ordered
+to be prepared in their honour. All the most beautiful ladies of the court
+were present at this entertainment; but in the eyes of Jason none could
+compare with the king's daughter, the young and lovely Medea.
+
+When the banquet was ended, Jason related to the king his various
+adventures, and also the object of his expedition, with the circumstances
+which had led to his undertaking it. Aëtes listened, in silent indignation,
+to this recital, and then burst out into a torrent of invectives against
+the Argonauts and his grand-children, declaring that the Fleece was his
+rightful property, and that on no consideration would he consent to
+relinquish it. Jason, however, with mild and persuasive words, contrived so
+far to conciliate him, that he was induced to promise that if the heroes
+could succeed in demonstrating their divine origin by the performance of
+some task requiring superhuman power, the Fleece should be theirs.
+
+The task proposed by Aëtes to Jason was that he should yoke the two
+brazen-footed, fire-breathing oxen of the king (which had been made for him
+by Hephæstus) to his ponderous iron plough. Having done this he must till
+with them the stony field of Ares, and then sow in the furrows the
+poisonous teeth of a dragon, from which armed men would arise. These he
+must destroy to a man, or he himself would perish at their hands.
+
+When Jason heard what was expected of him, his heart for a moment sank
+within him; but he determined, nevertheless, not to flinch from his task,
+but to trust to the {224} assistance of the gods, and to his own courage
+and energy.
+
+JASON PLOUGHS THE FIELD OF ARES.--Accompanied by his two friends, Telamon
+and Augeas, and also by Argus, the son of Chalciope, Jason returned to the
+vessel for the purpose of holding a consultation as to the best means of
+accomplishing these perilous feats.
+
+Argus explained to Jason all the difficulties of the superhuman task which
+lay before him, and pronounced it as his opinion that the only means by
+which success was possible was to enlist the assistance of the Princess
+Medea, who was a priestess of Hecate, and a great enchantress. His
+suggestion meeting with approval, he returned to the palace, and by the aid
+of his mother an interview was arranged between Jason and Medea, which took
+place, at an early hour next morning, in the temple of Hecate.
+
+A confession of mutual attachment took place, and Medea, trembling for her
+lover's safety, presented him with a magic salve, which possessed the
+property of rendering any person anointed with it invulnerable for the
+space of one day against fire and steel, and invincible against any
+adversary however powerful. With this salve she instructed him to anoint
+his spear and shield on the day of his great undertaking. She further added
+that when, after having ploughed the field and sown the teeth, armed men
+should arise from the furrows, he must on no account lose heart, but
+remember to throw among them a huge rock, over the possession of which they
+would fight among themselves, and their attention being thus diverted he
+would find it an easy task to destroy them. Overwhelmed with gratitude,
+Jason thanked her, in the most earnest manner, for her wise counsel and
+timely aid; at the same time he offered her his hand, and promised her he
+would not return to Greece without taking her with him as his wife.
+
+Next morning Aëtes, in all the pomp of state, surrounded by his family and
+the members of his court, {225} repaired to a spot whence a full view of
+the approaching spectacle could be obtained. Soon Jason appeared in the
+field of Ares, looking as noble and majestic as the god of war himself. In
+a distant part of the field the brazen yokes and the massive plough met his
+view, but as yet the dread animals themselves were nowhere to be seen. He
+was about to go in quest of them, when they suddenly rushed out from a
+subterranean cave, breathing flames of fire, and enveloped in a thick
+smoke.
+
+The friends of Jason trembled; but the undaunted hero, relying on the magic
+powers with which he was imbued by Medea, seized the oxen, one after the
+other, by the horns, and forced them to the yoke. Near the plough was a
+helmet full of dragon's teeth, which he sowed as he ploughed the field,
+whilst with sharp pricks from his lance he compelled the monstrous
+creatures to draw the plough over the stony ground, which was thus speedily
+tilled.
+
+While Jason was engaged sowing the dragon's teeth in the deep furrows of
+the field, he kept a cautious look-out lest the germinating giant brood
+might grow too quickly for him, and as soon as the four acres of land had
+been tilled he unyoked the oxen, and succeeded in frightening them so
+effectually with his weapons, that they rushed back in terror to their
+subterranean stables. Meanwhile armed men had sprung up out of the furrows,
+and the whole field now bristled with lances; but Jason, remembering the
+instructions of Medea, seized an immense rock and hurled it into the midst
+of these earth-born warriors, who immediately began to attack each other.
+Jason then rushed furiously upon them, and after a terrible struggle not
+one of the giants remained alive.
+
+Furious at seeing his murderous schemes thus defeated, Aëtes not only
+perfidiously refused to give Jason the Fleece which he had so bravely
+earned, but, in his anger, determined to destroy all the Argonauts, and to
+burn their vessel.
+
+JASON SECURES THE GOLDEN FLEECE.--Becoming aware of the treacherous designs
+of her father, Medea at {226} once took measures to baffle them. In the
+darkness of night she went on board the Argo, and warned the heroes of
+their approaching danger. She then advised Jason to accompany her without
+loss of time to the sacred grove, in order to possess himself of the
+long-coveted treasure. They set out together, and Medea, followed by Jason,
+led the way, and advanced boldly into the grove. The tall oak-tree was soon
+discovered, from the topmost boughs of which hung the beautiful Golden
+Fleece. At the foot of this tree, keeping his ever-wakeful watch, lay the
+dreadful, sleepless dragon, who at sight of them bounded forward, opening
+his huge jaws.
+
+Medea now called into play her magic powers, and quietly approaching the
+monster, threw over him a few drops of a potion, which soon took effect,
+and sent him into a deep sleep; whereupon Jason, seizing the opportunity,
+climbed the tree and secured the Fleece. Their perilous task being now
+accomplished, Jason and Medea quitted the grove, and hastened on board the
+Argo, which immediately put to sea.
+
+MURDER OF ABSYRTUS.--Meanwhile Aëtes, having discovered the loss of his
+daughter and the Golden Fleece, despatched a large fleet, under the command
+of his son Absyrtus, in pursuit of the fugitives. After some days' sail
+they arrived at an island at the mouth of the river Ister, where they found
+the Argo at anchor, and surrounded her with their numerous ships. They then
+despatched a herald on board of her, demanding the surrender of Medea and
+the Fleece.
+
+Medea now consulted Jason, and, with his consent, carried out the following
+stratagem. She sent a message to her brother Absyrtus, to the effect that
+she had been carried off against her will, and promised that if he would
+meet her, in the darkness of night, in the temple of Artemis, she would
+assist him in regaining possession of the Golden Fleece. Relying on the
+good faith of his sister, Absyrtus fell into the snare, and duly appeared
+at the appointed trysting-place; and whilst Medea kept her {227} brother
+engaged in conversation, Jason rushed forward and slew him. Then, according
+to a preconcerted signal, he held aloft a lighted torch, whereupon the
+Argonauts attacked the Colchians, put them to flight, and entirely defeated
+them.
+
+The Argonauts now returned to their ship, when the prophetic board from the
+Dodonean oak thus addressed them: "The cruel murder of Absyrtus was
+witnessed by the Erinyes, and you will not escape the wrath of Zeus until
+the goddess Circe has purified you from your crime. Let Castor and Pollux
+pray to the gods that you may be enabled to find the abode of the
+sorceress." In obedience to the voice, the twin-brothers invoked divine
+assistance, and the heroes set out in search of the isle of Circe.
+
+THEY ARRIVE AT THE ISLAND OF CIRCE.--The good ship Argo sped on her way,
+and, after passing safely through the foaming waters of the river Eridanus,
+at length arrived in the harbour of the island of Circe, where she cast
+anchor.
+
+Commanding his companions to remain on board, Jason landed with Medea, and
+conducted her to the palace of the sorceress. The goddess of charms and
+magic arts received them kindly, and invited them to be seated; but instead
+of doing so they assumed a supplicating attitude, and humbly besought her
+protection. They then informed her of the dreadful crime which they had
+committed, and implored her to purify them from it. This Circe promised to
+do. She forthwith commanded her attendant Naiads to kindle the fire on the
+altar, and to prepare everything necessary for the performance of the
+mystic rites, after which a dog was sacrificed, and the sacred cakes were
+burned. Having thus duly purified the criminals, she severely reprimanded
+them for the horrible murder of which they had been guilty; whereupon
+Medea, with veiled head, and weeping bitterly, was reconducted by Jason to
+the Argo.
+
+FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE ARGONAUTS.--Having left the island of Circe they
+were wafted by gentle {228} zephyrs towards the abode of the Sirens, whose
+enticing strains soon fell upon their ears. The Argonauts, powerfully
+affected by the melody, were making ready to land, when Orpheus perceived
+the danger, and, to the accompaniment of his magic lyre, commenced one of
+his enchanting songs, which so completely absorbed his listeners that they
+passed the island in safety; but not before Butes, one of their number,
+lured by the seductive music of the Sirens, had sprung from the vessel into
+the waves below. Aphrodite, however, in pity for his youth, landed him
+gently on the island of Libibaon before the Sirens could reach him, and
+there he remained for many years.
+
+And now the Argonauts approached new dangers, for on one side of them
+seethed and foamed the whirlpool of Charybdis, whilst on the other towered
+the mighty rock whence the monster Scylla swooped down upon unfortunate
+mariners; but here the goddess Hera came to their assistance, and sent to
+them the sea-nymph Thetis, who guided them safely through these dangerous
+straits.
+
+The Argo next arrived at the island of the Phæaces, where they were
+hospitably entertained by King Alcinous and his queen Arete. But the
+banquet prepared for them by their kind host was unexpectedly interrupted
+by the appearance of a large army of Colchians, sent by Aëtes to demand the
+restoration of his daughter.
+
+Medea threw herself at the feet of the queen, and implored her to save her
+from the anger of her father, and Arete, in her kindness of heart, promised
+her her protection. Next morning, in an assembly of the people at which the
+Colchians were invited to be present, the latter were informed that as
+Medea was the lawful wife of Jason they could not consent to deliver her
+up; whereupon the Colchians, seeing that the resolution of the king was not
+to be shaken, and fearing to face the anger of Aëtes should they return to
+Colchis without her, sought permission of Alcinous to settle in his
+kingdom, which request was accorded them.
+
+{229}
+
+After these events the Argonauts once more set sail, and steered for
+Iolcus; but, in the course of a terrible and fearful night, a mighty storm
+arose, and in the morning they found themselves stranded on the treacherous
+quicksands of Syrtes, on the shores of Libya. Here all was a waste and
+barren desert, untenanted by any living creature, save the venomous snakes
+which had sprung from the blood of the Medusa when borne by Perseus over
+these arid plains.
+
+They had already passed several days in this abode of desolation, beneath
+the rays of the scorching sun, and had abandoned themselves to the deepest
+despair, when the Libyan queen, who was a prophetess of divine origin,
+appeared to Jason, and informed him that a sea-horse would be sent by the
+gods to act as his guide.
+
+Scarcely had she departed when a gigantic hippocamp was seen in the
+distance, making its way towards the Argo. Jason now related to his
+companions the particulars of his interview with the Libyan prophetess, and
+after some deliberation it was decided to carry the Argo on their
+shoulders, and to follow wherever the sea-horse should lead them. They then
+commenced a long and weary journey through the desert, and at last, after
+twelve days of severe toil and terrible suffering, the welcome sight of the
+sea greeted their view. In gratitude for having been saved from their
+manifold dangers they offered up sacrifices to the gods, and launched their
+ship once more into the deep waters of the ocean.
+
+ARRIVAL AT CRETE.--With heartfelt joy and gladness they proceeded on their
+homeward voyage, and after some days arrived at the island of Crete, where
+they purposed to furnish themselves with fresh provisions and water. Their
+landing, however, was opposed by a terrible giant who guarded the island
+against all intruders. This giant, whose name was Talus, was the last of
+the Brazen race, and being formed of brass, was invulnerable, except in his
+right ankle, where there was a sinew of flesh and a vein of blood. As he
+saw the Argo {230} nearing the coast, he hurled huge rocks at her, which
+would inevitably have sunk the vessel had not the crew beat a hasty
+retreat. Although sadly in want of food and water, the Argonauts had
+decided to proceed on their journey rather than face so powerful an
+opponent, when Medea came forward and assured them that if they would trust
+to her she would destroy the giant.
+
+Enveloped in the folds of a rich purple mantle, she stepped on deck, and
+after invoking the aid of the Fates, uttered a magic incantation, which had
+the effect of throwing Talus into a deep sleep. He stretched himself at
+full length upon the ground, and in doing so grazed his vulnerable ankle
+against the point of a sharp rock, whereupon a mighty stream of blood
+gushed forth from the wound. Awakened by the pain, he tried to rise, but in
+vain, and with a mighty groan of anguish the giant fell dead, and his
+enormous body rolled heavily over into the deep. The heroes being now able
+to land, provisioned their vessel, after which they resumed their homeward
+voyage.
+
+ARRIVAL AT IOLCUS.--After a terrible night of storm and darkness they
+passed the island of Ægina, and at length reached in safety the port of
+Iolcus, where the recital of their numerous adventures and hair-breadth
+escapes was listened to with wondering admiration by their
+fellow-countrymen.
+
+The Argo was consecrated to Poseidon, and was carefully preserved for many
+generations till no vestige of it remained, when it was placed in the
+heavens as a brilliant constellation.
+
+On his arrival at Iolcus, Jason conducted his beautiful bride to the palace
+of his uncle Pelias, taking with him the Golden Fleece, for the sake of
+which this perilous expedition had been undertaken. But the old king, who
+had never expected that Jason would return alive, basely refused to fulfil
+his part of the compact, and declined to abdicate the throne.
+
+{231}
+
+Indignant at the wrongs of her husband, Medea avenged them in a most
+shocking manner. She made friends with the daughters of the king, and
+feigned great interest in all their concerns. Having gained their
+confidence, she informed them, that among her numerous magic arts, she
+possessed the power of restoring to the aged all the vigour and strength of
+youth, and in order to give them a convincing proof of the truth of her
+assertion, she cut up an old ram, which she boiled in a cauldron,
+whereupon, after uttering various mystic incantations, there came forth
+from the vessel a beautiful young lamb. She then assured them, that in a
+similar manner they could restore to their old father his former youthful
+frame and vigour. The fond and credulous daughters of Pelias lent an all
+too willing ear to the wicked sorceress, and thus the old king perished at
+the hands of his innocent children.
+
+DEATH OF JASON.--Medea and Jason now fled to Corinth, where at length they
+found, for a time, peace and tranquillity, their happiness being completed
+by the birth of three children.
+
+As time passed on, however, and Medea began to lose the beauty which had
+won the love of her husband, he grew weary of her, and became attracted by
+the youthful charms of Glauce, the beautiful daughter of Creon, king of
+Corinth. Jason had obtained her father's consent to their union, and the
+wedding-day was already fixed, before he disclosed to Medea the treachery
+which he meditated against her. He used all his persuasive powers in order
+to induce her to consent to his union with Glauce, assuring her that his
+affection had in no way diminished, but that for the sake of the advantages
+which would thereby accrue to their children, he had decided on forming
+this alliance with the royal house. Though justly enraged at his deceitful
+conduct, Medea dissembled her wrath, and, feigning to be satisfied with
+this explanation, sent, as a wedding-gift to her rival, a magnificent robe
+of cloth-of-gold. This robe was imbued with a deadly {232} poison which
+penetrated to the flesh and bone of the wearer, and burned them as though
+with a consuming fire. Pleased with the beauty and costliness of the
+garment, the unsuspecting Glauce lost no time in donning it; but no sooner
+had she done so than the fell poison began to take effect. In vain she
+tried to tear the robe away; it defied all efforts to be removed, and after
+horrible and protracted sufferings, she expired.
+
+Maddened at the loss of her husband's love Medea next put to death her
+three sons, and when Jason, thirsting for revenge, left the chamber of his
+dead bride, and flew to his own house in search of Medea, the ghastly
+spectacle of his murdered children met his view. He rushed frantically to
+seek the murderess, but nowhere could she be found. At length, hearing a
+sound above his head, he looked up, and beheld Medea gliding through the
+air in a golden chariot drawn by dragons.
+
+In a fit of despair Jason threw himself on his own sword, and perished on
+the threshold of his desolate and deserted home.
+
+PELOPS.
+
+Pelops, the son of the cruel Tantalus, was a pious and virtuous prince.
+After his father was banished into Tartarus, a war ensued between Pelops
+and the king of Troy, in which the former was vanquished and forced to fly
+from his dominions in Phrygia. He emigrated into Greece, where, at the
+court of Oenomaus, king of Elis, he beheld Hippodamia, the king's daughter,
+whose beauty won his heart. But an oracle having foretold to Oenomaus that
+he would die on the day of his daughter's marriage, he threw every obstacle
+in the way of her suitors, and declared that he would only give her to him
+who succeeded in vanquishing him in a chariot race, but that all
+unsuccessful competitors should suffer death at his hands.
+
+The conditions of the contest were as follows:--The race was to be run from
+a given point at Pisa to the altar of Poseidon at Corinth; the suitor was
+allowed to start {233} on his course whilst Oenomaus performed his
+sacrifice to Zeus, and only on its completion did the king mount his
+chariot, guided by the skilful Myrtilus, and drawn by his two famous
+horses, Phylla and Harpinna, who surpassed in swiftness the winds
+themselves. In this manner many a gallant young prince had perished; for
+although a considerable start was given to all competitors, still Oenomaus,
+with his swift team, always overtook them before they reached the goal, and
+killed them with his spear. But the love of Pelops for Hippodamia overcame
+all fears, and, undeterred by the terrible fate of his predecessors, he
+announced himself to Oenomaus as a suitor for the hand of his daughter.
+
+On the eve of the race, Pelops repaired to the sea-shore and earnestly
+implored Poseidon to assist him in his perilous undertaking. The sea-god
+heard his prayer, and sent him out of the deep a chariot drawn by two
+winged horses.
+
+When Pelops appeared on the course, the king at once recognized the horses
+of Poseidon; but, nothing daunted, he relied on his own supernatural team,
+and the contest was allowed to proceed.
+
+Whilst the king was offering his sacrifice to Zeus Pelops set out on the
+race, and had nearly reached the goal, when, turning round, he beheld
+Oenomaus, spear in hand, who, with his magic steeds, had nearly overtaken
+him. But in this emergency Poseidon came to the aid of the son of Tantalus.
+He caused the wheels of the royal chariot to fly off, whereupon the king
+was thrown out violently, and killed on the spot, just as Pelops arrived at
+the altar of Poseidon.
+
+As the hero was about to return to Pisa to claim his bride, he beheld, in
+the distance, flames issuing from the royal castle, which at that instant
+had been struck by lightning. With his winged horses he flew to rescue his
+lovely bride, and succeeded in extricating her uninjured from the burning
+building. They soon afterwards became united, and Pelops reigned in Pisa
+for many years in great splendour.
+
+{234}
+
+HERACLES (HERCULES).
+
+Heracles, the most renowned hero of antiquity, was the son of Zeus and
+Alcmene, and the great grandson of Perseus.
+
+At the time of his birth Alcmene was living at Thebes with her husband
+Amphitryon, and thus the infant Heracles was born in the palace of his
+stepfather.
+
+Aware of the animosity with which Hera persecuted all those who rivalled
+her in the affections of Zeus, Alcmene, fearful lest this hatred should be
+visited on her innocent child, intrusted him, soon after his birth, to the
+care of a faithful servant, with instructions to expose him in a certain
+field, and there leave him, feeling assured that the divine offspring of
+Zeus would not long remain without the protection of the gods.
+
+Soon after the child had been thus abandoned, Hera and Pallas-Athene
+happened to pass by the field, and were attracted by its cries. Athene
+pityingly took up the infant in her arms, and prevailed upon the queen of
+heaven to put it to her breast; but no sooner had she done so, than the
+child, causing her pain, she angrily threw him to the ground, and left the
+spot. Athene, moved with compassion, carried him to Alcmene, and entreated
+her kind offices on behalf of the poor little foundling. Alcmene at once
+recognized her child, and joyfully accepted the charge.
+
+Soon afterwards Hera, to her extreme annoyance, discovered whom she had
+nursed, and became filled with jealous rage. She now sent two venomous
+snakes into the chamber of Alcmene, which crept, unperceived by the nurses,
+to the cradle of the sleeping child. He awoke with a cry, and grasping a
+snake in each hand, strangled them both. Alcmene and her attendants, whom
+the cry of the child had awakened, rushed to the cradle, where, to their
+astonishment and terror, they beheld the two reptiles dead in the hands of
+the infant Heracles. Amphitryon was also attracted to the chamber by the
+{235} commotion, and when he beheld this astounding proof of supernatural
+strength, he declared that the child must have been sent to him as a
+special gift from Zeus. He accordingly consulted the famous seer Tiresias,
+who now informed him of the divine origin of his stepson, and
+prognosticated for him a great and distinguished future.
+
+When Amphitryon heard the noble destiny which awaited the child intrusted
+to his care, he resolved to educate him in a manner worthy of his future
+career. At a suitable age he himself taught him how to guide a chariot;
+Eurytus, how to handle the bow; Autolycus, dexterity in wrestling and
+boxing; and Castor, the art of armed warfare; whilst Linus, the son of
+Apollo, instructed him in music and letters.
+
+Heracles was an apt pupil; but undue harshness was intolerable to his high
+spirit, and old Linus, who was not the gentlest of teachers, one day
+corrected him with blows, whereupon the boy angrily took up his lyre, and,
+with one stroke of his powerful arm, killed his tutor on the spot.
+
+Apprehensive lest the ungovernable temper of the youth might again involve
+him in similar acts of violence, Amphitryon sent him into the country,
+where he placed him under the charge of one of his most trusted herdsmen.
+Here, as he grew up to manhood, his extraordinary stature and strength
+became the wonder and admiration of all beholders. His aim, whether with
+spear, lance, or bow, was unerring, and at the age of eighteen he was
+considered to be the strongest as well as the most beautiful youth in all
+Greece.
+
+THE CHOICE OF HERACLES.--Heracles felt that the time had now arrived when
+it became necessary to decide for himself how to make use of the
+extraordinary powers with which he had been endowed by the gods; and in
+order to meditate in solitude on this all-important subject, he repaired to
+a lonely and secluded spot in the heart of the forest.
+
+Here two females of great beauty appeared to him. {236} One was Vice, the
+other Virtue. The former was full of artificial wiles and fascinating arts,
+her face painted and her dress gaudy and attractive; whilst the latter was
+of noble bearing and modest mien, her robes of spotless purity.
+
+Vice stepped forward and thus addressed him: "If you will walk in my paths,
+and make me your friend, your life shall be one round of pleasure and
+enjoyment. You shall taste of every delight which can be procured on earth;
+the choicest viands, the most delicious wines, the most luxuriant of
+couches shall be ever at your disposal; and all this without any exertion
+on your part, either physical or mental."
+
+Virtue now spoke in her turn: "If you will follow me and be my friend, I
+promise you the reward of a good conscience, and the love and respect of
+your fellowmen. I cannot undertake to smooth your path with roses, or to
+give you a life of idleness and pleasure; for you must know that the gods
+grant no good and desirable thing that is not earned by labour; and as you
+sow, so must you reap."
+
+Heracles listened patiently and attentively to both speakers, and then,
+after mature deliberation, decided to follow in the paths of virtue, and
+henceforth to honour the gods, and to devote his life to the service of his
+country.
+
+Full of these noble resolves he sought once more his rural home, where he
+was informed that on Mount Cithæron, at the foot of which the herds of
+Amphitryon were grazing, a ferocious lion had fixed his lair, and was
+committing such frightful ravages among the flocks and herds that he had
+become the scourge and terror of the whole neighbourhood. Heracles at once
+armed himself and ascended the mountain, where he soon caught sight of the
+lion, and rushing at him with his sword succeeded in killing him. The hide
+of the animal he wore ever afterwards over his shoulders, and the head
+served him as a helmet.
+
+As he was returning from this, his first exploit, he met {237} the heralds
+of Erginus, king of the Minyans, who were proceeding to Thebes to demand
+their annual tribute of 100 oxen. Indignant at this humiliation of his
+native city, Heracles mutilated the heralds, and sent them back, with ropes
+round their necks, to their royal master.
+
+Erginus was so incensed at the ill-treatment of his messengers that he
+collected an army and appeared before the gates of Thebes, demanding the
+surrender of Heracles. Creon, who was at this time king of Thebes, fearing
+the consequences of a refusal, was about to yield, when the hero, with the
+assistance of Amphitryon and a band of brave youths, advanced against the
+Minyans.
+
+Heracles took possession of a narrow defile through which the enemy were
+compelled to pass, and as they entered the pass the Thebans fell upon them,
+killed their king Erginus, and completely routed them. In this engagement
+Amphitryon, the kind friend and foster-father of Heracles, lost his life.
+The hero now advanced upon Orchomenus, the capital of the Minyans, where he
+burned the royal castle and sacked the town.
+
+After this signal victory all Greece rang with the fame of the young hero,
+and Creon, in gratitude for his great services, bestowed upon him his
+daughter Megara in marriage. The Olympian gods testified their appreciation
+of his valour by sending him presents; Hermes gave him a sword,
+Phoebus-Apollo a bundle of arrows, Hephæstus a golden quiver, and Athene a
+coat of leather.
+
+HERACLES AND EURYSTHEUS.--And now it will be necessary to retrace our
+steps. Just before the birth of Heracles, Zeus, in an assembly of the gods,
+exultingly declared that the child who should be born on that day to the
+house of Perseus should rule over all his race. When Hera heard her lord's
+boastful announcement she knew well that it was for the child of the hated
+Alcmene that this brilliant destiny was designed; and in order to rob the
+son of her rival of his rights, she called to her aid the goddess
+Eilithyia, who retarded the birth of {238} Heracles, and caused his cousin
+Eurystheus (another grandson of Perseus) to precede him into the world. And
+thus, as the word of the mighty Zeus was irrevocable, Heracles became the
+subject and servant of his cousin Eurystheus.
+
+When, after his splendid victory over Erginus, the fame of Heracles spread
+throughout Greece, Eurystheus (who had become king of Mycenæ), jealous of
+the reputation of the young hero, asserted his rights, and commanded him to
+undertake for him various difficult tasks. But the proud spirit of the hero
+rebelled against this humiliation, and he was about to refuse compliance,
+when Zeus appeared to him and desired him not to rebel against the Fates.
+Heracles now repaired to Delphi in order to consult the oracle, and
+received the answer that after performing ten tasks for his cousin
+Eurystheus his servitude would be at an end.
+
+Soon afterwards Heracles fell into a state of the deepest melancholy, and
+through the influence of his inveterate enemy, the goddess Hera, this
+despondency developed into raving madness, in which condition he killed his
+own children. When he at length regained his reason he was so horrified and
+grieved at what he had done, that he shut himself up in his chamber and
+avoided all intercourse with men. But in his loneliness and seclusion the
+conviction that work would be the best means of procuring oblivion of the
+past decided him to enter, without delay, upon the tasks appointed him by
+Eurystheus.
+
+1. THE NEMEAN LION.--His first task was to bring to Eurystheus the skin of
+the much-dreaded Nemean lion, which ravaged the territory between Cleone
+and Nemea, and whose hide was invulnerable against any mortal weapon.
+
+Heracles proceeded to the forest of Nemea, where, having discovered the
+lion's lair, he attempted to pierce him with his arrows; but finding these
+of no avail he felled him to the ground with his club, and before the
+animal had time to recover from the terrible blow, {239} Heracles seized
+him by the neck and, with a mighty effort, succeeded in strangling him. He
+then made himself a coat of mail of the skin, and a new helmet of the head
+of the animal. Thus attired, he so alarmed Eurystheus by appearing suddenly
+before him, that the king concealed himself in his palace, and henceforth
+forbade Heracles to enter his presence, but commanded him to receive his
+behests, for the future, through his messenger Copreus.
+
+2. THE HYDRA.--His second task was to slay the Hydra, a monster serpent
+(the offspring of Typhon and Echidna), bristling with nine heads, one of
+which was immortal. This monster infested the neighbourhood of Lerna, where
+she committed great depredations among the herds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Heracles, accompanied by his nephew Iolaus, set out in a chariot for the
+marsh of Lerna, in the slimy waters of which he found her. He commenced the
+attack by assailing her with his fierce arrows, in order to force her to
+leave her lair, from which she at length emerged, and sought refuge in a
+wood on a neighbouring hill. Heracles now rushed forward and endeavoured to
+crush her heads by means of well-directed blows from his tremendous club;
+but no sooner was one head destroyed than it was immediately replaced by
+two others. He next seized the monster in his powerful grasp; but at this
+juncture a giant crab came to the assistance of the Hydra and commenced
+biting the feet of her assailant. Heracles destroyed this new adversary
+with his club, and now called upon his nephew to come to his aid. At his
+command Iolaus set fire to the neighbouring trees, {240} and, with a
+burning branch, seared the necks of the monster as Heracles cut them off,
+thus effectually preventing the growth of more. Heracles next struck off
+the immortal head, which he buried by the road-side, and placed over it a
+heavy stone. Into the poisonous blood of the monster he then dipped his
+arrows, which ever afterwards rendered wounds inflicted by them incurable.
+
+3. THE HORNED HIND.--The third labour of Heracles was to bring the horned
+hind Cerunitis alive to Mycenæ. This animal, which was sacred to Artemis,
+had golden antlers and hoofs of brass.
+
+Not wishing to wound the hind Heracles patiently pursued her through many
+countries for a whole year, and overtook her at last on the banks of the
+river Ladon; but even there he was compelled, in order to secure her, to
+wound her with one of his arrows, after which he lifted her on his
+shoulders and carried her through Arcadia. On his way he met Artemis with
+her brother Phoebus-Apollo, when the goddess angrily reproved him for
+wounding her favourite hind; but Heracles succeeded in appeasing her
+displeasure, whereupon she permitted him to take the animal alive to
+Mycenæ.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+4. THE ERYMANTIAN BOAR.--The fourth task imposed upon Heracles by
+Eurystheus was to bring alive to Mycenæ the Erymantian boar, which had laid
+waste the region of Erymantia, and was the scourge of the surrounding
+neighbourhood.
+
+On his way thither he craved food and shelter of a Centaur named Pholus,
+who received him with generous hospitality, setting before him a good and
+plentiful repast. When Heracles expressed his surprise that at such a
+well-furnished board {241} wine should be wanting, his host explained that
+the wine-cellar was the common property of all the Centaurs, and that it
+was against the rules for a cask to be broached, except all were present to
+partake of it. By dint of persuasion, however, Heracles prevailed on his
+kind host to make an exception in his favour; but the powerful, luscious
+odour of the good old wine soon spread over the mountains, and brought
+large numbers of Centaurs to the spot, all armed with huge rocks and
+fir-trees. Heracles drove them back with fire-brands, and then, following
+up his victory, pursued them with his arrows as far as Malea, where they
+took refuge in the cave of the kind old Centaur Chiron. Unfortunately,
+however, as Heracles was shooting at them with his poisoned darts, one of
+these pierced the knee of Chiron. When Heracles discovered that it was the
+friend of his early days that he had wounded, he was overcome with sorrow
+and regret. He at once extracted the arrow, and anointed the wound with a
+salve, the virtue of which had been taught him by Chiron himself. But all
+his efforts were unavailing. The wound, imbued with the deadly poison of
+the Hydra, was incurable, and so great was the agony of Chiron that, at the
+intercession of Heracles, death was sent him by the gods; for otherwise,
+being immortal, he would have been doomed to endless suffering.
+
+Pholus, who had so kindly entertained Heracles, also perished by means of
+one of these arrows, which he had extracted from the body of a dead
+Centaur. While he was quietly examining it, astonished that so small and
+insignificant an object should be productive of such serious results, the
+arrow fell upon his foot and fatally wounded him. Full of grief at this
+untoward event, Heracles buried him with due honours, and then set out to
+chase the boar.
+
+With loud shouts and terrible cries he first drove him out of the thickets
+into the deep snow-drifts which covered the summit of the mountain, and
+then, having at length wearied him with his incessant pursuit, he captured
+the exhausted animal, bound him with a rope, and brought him alive to
+Mycenæ.
+
+{242}
+
+5. CLEANSING THE STABLES OF AUGEAS.--After slaying the Erymantian boar
+Eurystheus commanded Heracles to cleanse in one day the stables of Augeas.
+
+Augeas was a king of Elis who was very rich in herds. Three thousand of his
+cattle he kept near the royal palace in an inclosure where the refuse had
+accumulated for many years. When Heracles presented himself before the
+king, and offered to cleanse his stables in one day, provided he should
+receive in return a tenth part of the herds, Augeas, thinking the feat
+impossible, accepted his offer in the presence of his son Phyleus.
+
+Near the palace were the two rivers Peneus and Alpheus, the streams of
+which Heracles conducted into the stables by means of a trench which he dug
+for this purpose, and as the waters rushed through the shed, they swept
+away with them the whole mass of accumulated filth.
+
+But when Augeas heard that this was one of the labours imposed by
+Eurystheus, he refused the promised guerdon. Heracles brought the matter
+before a court, and called Phyleus as a witness to the justice of his
+claim, whereupon Augeas, without waiting for the delivery of the verdict,
+angrily banished Heracles and his son from his dominions.
+
+6. THE STYMPHALIDES.--The sixth task was to chase away the Stymphalides,
+which were immense birds of prey who, as we have seen (in the legend of the
+Argonauts), shot from their wings feathers sharp as arrows. The home of
+these birds was on the shore of the lake Stymphalis, in Arcadia (after
+which they were called), where they caused great destruction among men and
+cattle.
+
+On approaching the lake, Heracles observed great numbers of them; and,
+while hesitating how to commence the attack, he suddenly felt a hand on his
+shoulder. Looking round he beheld the majestic form of Pallas-Athene, who
+held in her hand a gigantic pair of brazen clappers made by Hephæstus, with
+which she {243} presented him; whereupon he ascended to the summit of a
+neighbouring hill, and commenced to rattle them violently. The shrill noise
+of these instruments was so intolerable to the birds that they rose into
+the air in terror, upon which he aimed at them with his arrows, destroying
+them in great numbers, whilst such as escaped his darts flew away, never to
+return.
+
+7. THE CRETAN BULL.--The seventh labour of Heracles was to capture the
+Cretan bull.
+
+Minos, king of Crete, having vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon any animal
+which should first appear out of the sea, the god caused a magnificent bull
+to emerge from the waves in order to test the sincerity of the Cretan king,
+who, in making this vow, had alleged that he possessed no animal, among his
+own herds, worthy the acceptance of the mighty sea-god. Charmed with the
+splendid animal sent by Poseidon, and eager to possess it, Minos placed it
+among his herds, and substituted as a sacrifice one of his own bulls.
+Hereupon Poseidon, in order to punish the cupidity of Minos, caused the
+animal to become mad, and commit such great havoc in the island as to
+endanger the safety of the inhabitants. When Heracles, therefore, arrived
+in Crete for the purpose of capturing the bull, Minos, far from opposing
+his design, gladly gave him permission to do so.
+
+The hero not only succeeded in securing the animal, but tamed him so
+effectually that he rode on his back right across the sea as far as the
+Peloponnesus. He now delivered him up to Eurystheus, who at once set him at
+liberty, after which he became as ferocious and wild as before, roamed all
+over Greece into Arcadia, and was eventually killed by Theseus on the
+plains of Marathon.
+
+8. THE MARES OF DIOMEDES.--The eighth labour of Heracles was to bring to
+Eurystheus the mares of Diomedes, a son of Ares, and king of the
+Bistonians, a warlike Thracian tribe. This king possessed a breed of wild
+horses of tremendous size and strength, whose food consisted of human
+flesh, and all strangers who had the {244} misfortune to enter the country
+were made prisoners and flung before the horses, who devoured them.
+
+When Heracles arrived he first captured the cruel Diomedes himself, and
+then threw him before his own mares, who, after devouring their master,
+became perfectly tame and tractable. They were then led by Heracles to the
+sea-shore, when the Bistonians, enraged at the loss of their king, rushed
+after the hero and attacked him. He now gave the animals in charge of his
+friend Abderus, and made such a furious onslaught on his assailants that
+they turned and fled.
+
+But on his return from this encounter he found, to his great grief, that
+the mares had torn his friend in pieces and devoured him. After celebrating
+due funereal rites to the unfortunate Abderus, Heracles built a city in his
+honour, which he named after him. He then returned to Tiryns, where he
+delivered up the mares to Eurystheus, who set them loose on Mount Olympus,
+where they became the prey of wild beasts.
+
+It was after the performance of this task that Heracles joined the
+Argonauts in their expedition to gain possession of the Golden Fleece, and
+was left behind at Chios, as already narrated. During his wanderings he
+undertook his ninth labour, which was to bring to Eurystheus the girdle of
+Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons.
+
+9. THE GIRDLE OF HIPPOLYTE.--The Amazons, who dwelt on the shores of the
+Black Sea, near the river Thermodon, were a nation of warlike women,
+renowned for their strength, courage, and great skill in horsemanship.
+Their queen, Hippolyte, had received from her father, Ares, a beautiful
+girdle, which she always wore as a sign of her royal power and authority,
+and it was this girdle which Heracles was required to place in the hands of
+Eurystheus, who designed it as a gift for his daughter Admete.
+
+Foreseeing that this would be a task of no ordinary difficulty the hero
+called to his aid a select band of brave companions, with whom he embarked
+for the Amazonian {245} town Themiscyra. Here they were met by queen
+Hippolyte, who was so impressed by the extraordinary stature and noble
+bearing of Heracles that, on learning his errand, she at once consented to
+present him with the coveted girdle. But Hera, his implacable enemy,
+assuming the form of an Amazon, spread the report in the town that a
+stranger was about to carry off their queen. The Amazons at once flew to
+arms and mounted their horses, whereupon a battle ensued, in which many of
+their bravest warriors were killed or wounded. Among the latter was their
+most skilful leader, Melanippe, whom Heracles afterwards restored to
+Hippolyte, receiving the girdle in exchange.
+
+On his voyage home the hero stopped at Troy, where a new adventure awaited
+him.
+
+During the time that Apollo and Poseidon were condemned by Zeus to a
+temporary servitude on earth, they built for king Laomedon the famous walls
+of Troy, afterwards so renowned in history; but when their work was
+completed the king treacherously refused to give them the reward due to
+them. The incensed deities now combined to punish the offender. Apollo sent
+a pestilence which decimated the people, and Poseidon a flood, which bore
+with it a marine monster, who swallowed in his huge jaws all that came
+within his reach.
+
+In his distress Laomedon consulted an oracle, and was informed that only by
+the sacrifice of his own daughter Hesione could the anger of the gods be
+appeased. Yielding at length to the urgent appeals of his people he
+consented to make the sacrifice, and on the arrival of Heracles the maiden
+was already chained to a rock in readiness to be devoured by the monster.
+
+When Laomedon beheld the renowned hero, whose marvellous feats of strength
+and courage had become the wonder and admiration of all mankind, he
+earnestly implored him to save his daughter from her impending fate, and to
+rid the country of the monster, holding out to him as a reward the horses
+which Zeus had presented to {246} his grandfather Tros in compensation for
+robbing him of his son Ganymede.
+
+Heracles unhesitatingly accepted the offer, and when the monster appeared,
+opening his terrible jaws to receive his prey, the hero, sword in hand,
+attacked and slew him. But the perfidious monarch once more broke faith,
+and Heracles, vowing future vengeance, departed for Mycenæ, where he
+presented the girdle to Eurystheus.
+
+10. THE OXEN OF GERYONES.--The tenth labour of Heracles was the capture of
+the magnificent oxen belonging to the giant Geryon or Geryones, who dwelt
+on the island of Erythia in the bay of Gadria (Cadiz). This giant, who was
+the son of Chrysaor, had three bodies with three heads, six hands, and six
+feet. He possessed a herd of splendid cattle, which were famous for their
+size, beauty, and rich red colour. They were guarded by another giant named
+Eurytion, and a two-headed dog called Orthrus, the offspring of Typhon and
+Echidna.
+
+In choosing for him a task so replete with danger, Eurystheus was in hopes
+that he might rid himself for ever of his hated cousin. But the indomitable
+courage of the hero rose with the prospect of this difficult and dangerous
+undertaking.
+
+After a long and wearisome journey he at last arrived at the western coast
+of Africa, where, as a monument of his perilous expedition, he erected the
+famous "Pillars of Hercules," one of which he placed on each side of the
+Straits of Gibraltar. Here he found the intense heat so insufferable that
+he angrily raised his bow towards heaven, and threatened to shoot the
+sun-god. But Helios, far from being incensed at his audacity, was so struck
+with admiration at his daring that he lent to him the golden boat with
+which he accomplished his nocturnal transit from West to East, and thus
+Heracles crossed over safely to the island of Erythia.
+
+No sooner had he landed than Eurytion, accompanied by his savage dog
+Orthrus, fiercely attacked him; but Heracles, with a superhuman effort,
+slew the dog and {247} then his master. Hereupon he collected the herd, and
+was proceeding to the sea-shore when Geryones himself met him, and a
+desperate encounter took place, in which the giant perished.
+
+Heracles then drove the cattle into the sea, and seizing one of the oxen by
+the horns, swam with them over to the opposite coast of Iberia (Spain).
+Then driving his magnificent prize before him through Gaul, Italy, Illyria,
+and Thrace, he at length arrived, after many perilous adventures and
+hair-breadth escapes, at Mycenæ, where he delivered them up to Eurystheus,
+who sacrificed them to Hera.
+
+Heracles had now executed his ten tasks, which had been accomplished in the
+space of eight years; but Eurystheus refused to include the slaying of the
+Hydra and the cleansing of the stables of Augeas among the number, alleging
+as a reason that the one had been performed by the assistance of Iolaus,
+and that the other had been executed for hire. He therefore insisted on
+Heracles substituting two more labours in their place.
+
+11. THE APPLES OF THE HESPERIDES.--The eleventh task imposed by Eurystheus
+was to bring him the golden apples of the Hesperides, which grew on a tree
+presented by Gæa to Hera, on the occasion of her marriage with Zeus. This
+sacred tree was guarded by four maidens, daughters of Night, called the
+Hesperides, who were assisted in their task by a terrible hundred-headed
+dragon. This dragon never slept, and out of its hundred throats came a
+constant hissing sound, which effectually warned off all intruders. But
+what rendered the undertaking still more difficult was the complete
+ignorance of the hero as to the locality of the garden, and he was forced,
+in consequence, to make many fruitless journeys and to undergo many trials
+before he could find it.
+
+He first travelled through Thessaly and arrived at the river Echedorus,
+where he met the giant Cycnus, the son of Ares and Pyrene, who challenged
+him to single combat. In this encounter Heracles completely vanquished
+{248} his opponent, who was killed in the contest; but now a mightier
+adversary appeared on the scene, for the war-god himself came to avenge his
+son. A terrible struggle ensued, which had lasted some time, when Zeus
+interfered between the brothers, and put an end to the strife by hurling a
+thunderbolt between them. Heracles proceeded on his journey, and reached
+the banks of the river Eridanus, where dwelt the Nymphs, daughters of Zeus
+and Themis. On seeking advice from them as to his route, they directed him
+to the old sea-god Nereus, who alone knew the way to the Garden of the
+Hesperides. Heracles found him asleep, and seizing the opportunity, held
+him so firmly in his powerful grasp that he could not possibly escape, so
+that notwithstanding his various metamorphoses he was at last compelled to
+give the information required. The hero then crossed over to Libya, where
+he engaged in a wrestling-match with king Anteos, son of Poseidon and Gæa,
+which terminated fatally for his antagonist.
+
+From thence he proceeded to Egypt, where reigned Busiris, another son of
+Poseidon, who (acting on the advice given by an oracle during a time of
+great scarcity) sacrificed all strangers to Zeus. When Heracles arrived he
+was seized and dragged to the altar; but the powerful demi-god burst
+asunder his bonds, and then slew Busiris and his son.
+
+Resuming his journey he now wandered on through Arabia until he arrived at
+Mount Caucasus, where Prometheus groaned in unceasing agony. It was at this
+time that Heracles (as already related) shot the eagle which had so long
+tortured the noble and devoted friend of mankind. Full of gratitude for his
+deliverance, Prometheus instructed him how to find his way to that remote
+region in the far West where Atlas supported the heavens on his shoulders,
+near which lay the Garden of the Hesperides. He also warned Heracles not to
+attempt to secure the precious fruit himself, but to assume for a time the
+duties of Atlas, and to despatch him for the apples. {249}
+
+On arriving at his destination Heracles followed the advice of Prometheus.
+Atlas, who willingly entered into the arrangement, contrived to put the
+dragon to sleep, and then, having cunningly outwitted the Hesperides,
+carried off three of the golden apples, which he now brought to Heracles.
+But when the latter was prepared to relinquish his burden, Atlas, having
+once tasted the delights of freedom, declined to resume his post, and
+announced his intention of being himself the bearer of the apples to
+Eurystheus, leaving Heracles to fill his place. To this proposal the hero
+feigned assent, merely begging that Atlas would be kind enough to support
+the heavens for a few moments whilst he contrived a pad for his head. Atlas
+good-naturedly threw down the apples and once more resumed his load, upon
+which Heracles bade him adieu, and departed.
+
+When Heracles conveyed the golden apples to Eurystheus the latter presented
+them to the hero, whereupon Heracles placed the sacred fruit on the altar
+of Pallas-Athene, who restored them to the garden of the Hesperides.
+
+12. CERBERUS.--The twelfth and last labour which Eurystheus imposed on
+Heracles was to bring up Cerberus from the lower world, believing that all
+his heroic powers would be unavailing in the Realm of Shades, and that in
+this, his last and most perilous undertaking, the hero must at length
+succumb and perish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cerberus was a monster dog with three heads, out of whose awful jaws
+dripped poison; the hair of his head and back was formed of venomous
+snakes, and his body terminated in the tail of a dragon.
+
+After being initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, and {250} obtaining
+from the priests certain information necessary for the accomplishment of
+his task, Heracles set out for Tænarum in Lacolia, where there was an
+opening which led to the under-world. Conducted by Hermes, he commenced his
+descent into the awful gulf, where myriads of shades soon began to appear,
+all of whom fled in terror at his approach, Meleager and Medusa alone
+excepted. About to strike the latter with his sword, Hermes interfered and
+stayed his hand, reminding him that she was but a shadow, and that
+consequently no weapon could avail against her.
+
+Arrived before the gates of Hades he found Theseus and Pirithöus, who had
+been fixed to an enchanted rock by Aïdes for their presumption in
+endeavouring to carry off Persephone. When they saw Heracles they implored
+him to set them free. The hero succeeded in delivering Theseus, but when he
+endeavoured to liberate Pirithöus, the earth shook so violently beneath him
+that he was compelled to relinquish his task.
+
+Proceeding further Heracles recognized Ascalaphus, who, as we have seen in
+the history of Demeter, had revealed the fact that Persephone had swallowed
+the seeds of a pomegranate offered to her by her husband, which bound her
+to Aïdes for ever. Ascalaphus was groaning beneath a huge rock which
+Demeter in her anger had hurled upon him, and which Heracles now removed,
+releasing the sufferer.
+
+Before the gates of his palace stood Aïdes the mighty ruler of the lower
+world, and barred his entrance; but Heracles, aiming at him with one of his
+unerring darts, shot him in the shoulder, so that for the first time the
+god experienced the agony of mortal suffering. Heracles then demanded of
+him permission to take Cerberus to the upper-world, and to this Aïdes
+consented on condition that he should secure him unarmed. Protected by his
+breastplate and lion's skin Heracles went in search of the monster, whom he
+found at the mouth of the river Acheron. Undismayed by the hideous barking
+which proceeded from his three heads, he seized the {251} throat with one
+hand and the legs with the other, and although the dragon which served him
+as a tail bit him severely, he did not relinquish his grasp. In this manner
+he conducted him to the upper-world, through an opening near Troezen in
+Argolia.
+
+When Eurystheus beheld Cerberus he stood aghast, and despairing of ever
+getting rid of his hated rival, he returned the hell-hound to the hero, who
+restored him to Aïdes, and with this last task the subjection of Heracles
+to Eurystheus terminated.
+
+MURDER OF IPHITUS.--Free at last Heracles now returned to Thebes; and it
+being impossible for him to live happily with Megara in consequence of his
+having murdered her children he, with her own consent, gave her in marriage
+to his nephew Iolaus. Heracles himself sought the hand of Iole, daughter of
+Eurytus, king of Oechalia, who had instructed him when a boy in the use of
+the bow. Hearing that this king had promised to give his daughter to him
+who could surpass himself and his three sons in shooting with the bow,
+Heracles lost no time in presenting himself as a competitor. He soon proved
+that he was no unworthy pupil of Eurytus, for he signally defeated all his
+opponents. But although the king treated him with marked respect and honour
+he refused, nevertheless, to give him the hand of his daughter, fearing for
+her a similar fate to that which had befallen Megara. Iphitus, the eldest
+son of Eurytus, alone espoused the cause of Heracles, and essayed to induce
+his father to give his consent to the marriage; but all to no purpose, and
+at length, stung to the quick at his rejection, the hero angrily took his
+departure.
+
+Soon afterwards the oxen of the king were stolen by the notorious thief
+Autolycus, and Heracles was suspected by Eurytus of having committed the
+theft. But Iphitus loyally defended his absent friend, and proposed to seek
+out Heracles, and with his assistance to go in search of the missing
+cattle. {252}
+
+The hero warmly welcomed his staunch young friend, and entered cordially
+into his plan. They at once set out on their expedition; but their search
+proved altogether unsuccessful. When they approached the city of Tiryns
+they mounted a tower in hopes of discovering the missing herd in the
+surrounding country; but as they stood on the topmost summit of the
+building, Heracles became suddenly seized with one of his former attacks of
+madness, and mistaking his friend Iphitus for an enemy, hurled him down
+into the plain below, and he was killed on the spot.
+
+Heracles now set forth on a weary pilgrimage, begging in vain that some one
+would purify him from the murder of Iphitus. It was during these wanderings
+that he arrived at the palace of his friend Admetus, whose beautiful and
+heroic wife (Alcestes) he restored to her husband after a terrible struggle
+with Death, as already related.
+
+Soon after this event Heracles was struck with a fearful disease, and
+betook himself to the temple of Delphi, hoping to obtain from the oracle
+the means of relief. The priestess, however, refused him a response on the
+ground of his having murdered Iphitus, whereupon the angry hero seized upon
+the tripod, which he carried off, declaring that he would construct an
+oracle for himself. Apollo, who witnessed the sacrilege, came down to
+defend his sanctuary, and a violent struggle ensued. Zeus once more
+interfered, and, flashing his lightnings between his two favourite sons,
+ended the combat. The Pythia now vouchsafed an answer to the prayer of the
+hero, and commanded him, in expiation of his crime, to allow himself to be
+sold by Hermes for three years as a slave, the purchase-money to be given
+to Eurytus in compensation for the loss of his son.
+
+HERACLES BECOMES THE SLAVE OF OMPHALE.--Heracles bowed in submission to the
+divine will, and was conducted by Hermes to Omphale, queen of Lydia. The
+three talents which she paid for him were given {253} to Eurytus, who,
+however, declined to accept the money, which was handed over to the
+children of Iphitus.
+
+Heracles now regained his former vigour. He rid the territory of Omphale of
+the robbers which infested it and performed for her various other services
+requiring strength and courage. It was about this time that he took part in
+the Calydonian boar-hunt, details of which have already been given.
+
+When Omphale learned that her slave was none other than the renowned
+Heracles himself she at once gave him his liberty, and offered him her hand
+and kingdom. In her palace Heracles abandoned himself to all the enervating
+luxuries of an oriental life, and so completely was the great hero
+enthralled by the fascination which his mistress exercised over him, that
+whilst she playfully donned his lion's skin and helmet, he, attired in
+female garments, sat at her feet spinning wool, and beguiling the time by
+the relation of his past adventures.
+
+But when at length, his term of bondage having expired, he became master of
+his own actions, the manly and energetic spirit of the hero reasserted
+itself, and tearing himself away from the palace of the Mæonian queen, he
+determined to carry out the revenge he had so long meditated against the
+treacherous Laomedon and the faithless Augeas.
+
+HERACLES EXECUTES VENGEANCE ON LAOMEDON AND AUGEAS.--Gathering round him
+some of his old brave companions-in-arms, Heracles collected a fleet of
+vessels and set sail for Troy, where he landed, took the city by storm, and
+killed Laomedon, who thus met at length the retribution he had so richly
+deserved.
+
+To Telamon, one of his bravest followers, he gave Hesione, the daughter of
+the king, in marriage. When Heracles gave her permission to release one of
+the prisoners of war she chose her own brother Podarces, whereupon she was
+informed that as he was already a prisoner of war she would be compelled to
+ransom him. {254} On hearing this Hesione took off her golden diadem, which
+she joyfully handed to the hero. Owing to this circumstance Podarces
+henceforth bore the name of Priamus (or Priam), which signifies the
+"ransomed one."
+
+Heracles now marched against Augeas to execute his vengeance on him also
+for his perfidious conduct. He stormed the city of Elis and put to death
+Augeas and his sons, sparing only his brave advocate and staunch defender
+Phyleus, on whom he bestowed the vacant throne of his father.
+
+HERACLES AND DEIANEIRA.--Heracles now proceeded to Calydon, where he wooed
+the beautiful Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus, king of Ætolia; but he
+encountered a formidable rival in Achelous, the river-god, and it was
+agreed that their claims should be decided by single combat. Trusting to
+his power of assuming various forms at will, Achelous felt confident of
+success; but this availed him nothing, for having at last transformed
+himself into a bull, his mighty adversary broke off one of his horns, and
+compelled him to acknowledge himself defeated.
+
+After passing three happy years with Deianeira an unfortunate accident
+occurred, which for a time marred their felicity. Heracles was one day
+present at a banquet given by Oeneus, when, by a sudden swing of his hand,
+he had the misfortune to strike on the head a youth of noble birth, who,
+according to the custom of the ancients, was serving the guests at table,
+and so violent was the blow that it caused his death. The father of the
+unfortunate youth, who had witnessed the occurrence, saw that it was the
+result of accident, and therefore absolved the hero from blame. But
+Heracles resolved to act according to the law of the land, banished himself
+from the country, and bidding farewell to his father-in-law, set out for
+Trachin to visit his friend King Ceyx, taking with him his wife Deianeira,
+and his young son Hyllus.
+
+In the course of their journey they arrived at the river Evenus, over which
+the Centaur Nessus was in the habit {255} of carrying travellers for hire.
+Heracles, with his little son in his arms, forded the stream unaided,
+intrusting his wife to the care of the Centaur, who, charmed with the
+beauty of his fair burden, attempted to carry her off. But her cries were
+heard by her husband, who without hesitation shot Nessus through the heart
+with one of his poisoned arrows. Now the dying Centaur was thirsting for
+revenge. He called Deianeira to his side, and directed her to secure some
+of the blood which flowed from his wound, assuring her that if, when in
+danger of losing her husband's affection, she used it in the manner
+indicated by him, it would act as a charm, and prevent her from being
+supplanted by a rival. Heracles and Deianeira now pursued their journey,
+and after several adventures at length arrived at their destination.
+
+DEATH OF HERACLES.--The last expedition undertaken by the great hero was
+against Eurytus, king of Oechalia, to revenge himself upon this king and
+his sons for having refused to bestow upon him the hand of Iole, after
+having fairly won the maiden. Having collected a large army Heracles set
+out for Euboea in order to besiege Oechalia, its capital. Success crowned
+his arms. He stormed the citadel, slew the king and his three sons, reduced
+the town to ashes, and carried away captive the young and beautiful Iole.
+
+Returning from his victorious expedition, Heracles halted at Cenoeus in
+order to offer a sacrifice to Zeus, and sent to Deianeira to Trachin for a
+sacrificial robe. Deianeira having been informed that the fair Iole was in
+the train of Heracles was fearful lest her youthful charms might supplant
+her in the affection of her husband, and calling to mind the advice of the
+dying Centaur, she determined to test the efficacy of the love-charm which
+he had given to her. Taking out the phial which she had carefully
+preserved, she imbued the robe with a portion of the liquid which it
+contained, and then sent it to Heracles.
+
+The victorious hero clothed himself with the garment, {256} and was about
+to perform the sacrifice, when the hot flames rising from the altar heated
+the poison with which it was imbued, and soon every fibre of his body was
+penetrated by the deadly venom. The unfortunate hero, suffering the most
+fearful tortures, endeavoured to tear off the robe, but it adhered so
+closely to the skin that all his efforts to remove it only increased his
+agonies.
+
+In this pitiable condition he was conveyed to Trachin, where Deianeira, on
+beholding the terrible suffering of which she was the innocent cause, was
+overcome with grief and remorse, and hanged herself in despair. The dying
+hero called his son Hyllus to his side, and desired him to make Iole his
+wife, and then ordering his followers to erect a funeral pyre, he mounted
+it and implored the by-standers to set fire to it, and thus in mercy to
+terminate his insufferable torments. But no one had the courage to obey
+him, until at last his friend and companion Philoctetes, yielding to his
+piteous appeal, lighted the pile, and received in return the bow and arrows
+of the hero.
+
+Soon flames on flames ascended, and amidst vivid flashes of lightning,
+accompanied by awful peals of thunder, Pallas-Athene descended in a cloud,
+and bore her favourite hero in a chariot to Olympus.
+
+Heracles became admitted among the immortals; and Hera, in token of her
+reconciliation, bestowed upon him the hand of her beautiful daughter Hebe,
+the goddess of eternal youth.
+
+BELLEROPHON.
+
+Bellerophon, or Bellerophontes, was the son of Glaucus, king of Corinth,
+and grandson of Sisyphus. In consequence of an unpremeditated murder
+Bellerophon fled to Tiryns, where he was kindly received by King Proetus,
+who purified him from his crime. Antea, the wife of Proetus, was so charmed
+with the comely youth that she fell in love with him; but Bellerophon did
+not return her affection, and she, in revenge, slandered him to the king by
+a gross misrepresentation of the facts. {257}
+
+The first impulse of Proetus, when informed of the conduct of Bellerophon,
+was to kill him; but the youth, with his gentle and winning manners, had so
+endeared himself to his host that he felt it impossible to take his life
+with his own hands. He therefore sent him to his father-in-law, Iobates,
+king of Lycia, with a kind of letter or tablet which contained mysterious
+signs, indicating his desire that the bearer of the missive should be put
+to death. But the gods watched over the true and loyal youth, and inclined
+the heart of Iobates, who was an amiable prince, towards his guest. Judging
+by his appearance that he was of noble birth, he entertained him, according
+to the hospitable custom of the Greeks, in the most princely manner for
+nine days, and not until the morning of the tenth did he inquire his name
+and errand.
+
+Bellerophon now presented to him the letter intrusted to him by Proetus.
+Iobates, who had become greatly attached to the youth, was horror-struck at
+its contents. Nevertheless he concluded that Proetus must have good reasons
+for his conduct, and that probably Bellerophon had committed a crime which
+deserved death. But as he could not make up his mind to murder the guest he
+had grown to esteem, he decided to despatch him upon dangerous enterprises,
+in which he would in all probability lose his life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He first sent him to kill the Chimæra, a monster which was at this time
+devastating the country. The fore part of its body was that of a lion, the
+centre of a goat, and the hind part of a dragon; whilst out of its jaws
+issued flames of fire.
+
+Before starting on this difficult task Bellerophon invoked the protection
+of the gods, and in answer to his prayer they despatched to his aid the
+immortal-winged horse Pegasus, the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa. But
+the divine animal would not suffer himself to be {258} caught, and at last,
+worn out with his fruitless exertions, Bellerophon fell into a deep sleep
+beside the sacred spring Pirene. Here Pallas-Athene appeared to him in a
+dream, and presented him with a magic bridle for the purpose of capturing
+the divine steed. On awaking Bellerophon instinctively put out his hand to
+grasp it, when, to his amazement, there lay beside him the bridle of his
+dream, whilst Pegasus was quietly drinking at the fountain close by.
+Seizing him by the mane Bellerophon threw the bridle over his head, and
+succeeded in mounting him without further difficulty; then rising with him
+into the air he slew the Chimæra with his arrows.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Iobates next sent him on an expedition against the Solymans, a fierce
+neighbouring tribe with whom he was at enmity. Bellerophon succeeded in
+vanquishing them, and was then despatched against the much-dreaded Amazons;
+but greatly to the astonishment of Iobates the hero again returned
+victorious.
+
+Finally, Iobates placed a number of the bravest Lycians in ambush for the
+purpose of destroying him, but not one returned alive, for Bellerophon
+bravely defended himself and slew them all. Convinced at length that
+Bellerophon, far from deserving death, was the special favourite of the
+gods, who had evidently protected him throughout his perilous exploits, the
+king now ceased his persecutions.
+
+Iobates admitted him to a share in the government, and gave him his
+daughter in marriage. But Bellerophon having attained the summit of earthly
+prosperity became intoxicated with pride and vanity, and incurred the
+displeasure of the gods by endeavouring to mount to heaven on his winged
+horse, for the purpose of gratifying his idle curiosity. Zeus punished him
+for his impiety by sending {259} a gadfly to sting the horse, who became so
+restive that he threw his rider, who was precipitated to the earth. Filled
+with remorse at having offended the gods Bellerophon fell a prey to the
+deepest melancholy, and wandered about for the remainder of his life in the
+loneliest and most desolate places.
+
+After death he was honoured in Corinth as a hero, and an altar was erected
+to him in the grove of Poseidon.
+
+THESEUS.
+
+Aegeus, king of Athens, being twice married, and having no children, was so
+desirous of an heir to his throne that he made a pilgrimage to Delphi in
+order to consult the oracle. But the response being ambiguous, he repaired
+to Troezen to consult his wise friend Pittheus, who reigned over that city,
+by whose advice he contracted a secret marriage with his friend's daughter
+Aethra.
+
+After passing some time with his bride, Aegeus prepared to take his
+departure for his own dominions; but before doing so he led Aethra to the
+sea-shore, where, after depositing his sword and sandals under a huge rock,
+he thus addressed her: "Should the gods bless our union with a son, do not
+reveal to him the name and rank of his father until he is old enough to
+possess the strength requisite for moving this stone. Then send him to my
+palace at Athens bearing these tokens of his identity."
+
+A son was born to Aethra, whom she called Theseus, and who was carefully
+trained and educated by his grandfather Pittheus. When he had developed
+into a strong and manly youth his mother conducted him to the spot where
+the rock had been placed by Aegeus, and at her command he rolled away the
+stone, and took possession of the sword and sandals which had lain there
+for sixteen years, and which she now desired him to convey to his father
+Aegeus, king of Athens.
+
+His mother and grandfather were anxious that the youth should travel by the
+safe sea route, the road between Troezen and Athens being at this time
+infested {260} with robbers of great ferocity and enormous strength. But
+feeling within himself the spirit of a hero, Theseus resolved to emulate
+the deeds of Heracles, with whose fame all Greece resounded, and therefore
+chose the more dangerous journey by land, as calculated to afford him an
+opportunity of distinguishing himself by feats of valour.
+
+His first adventure occurred at Epidaurus, where he met Periphetes, a son
+of Hephæstus, who was armed with an iron club, with which he killed all
+travellers. Having received from his grandfather a full description of this
+savage, Theseus at once recognized him, and rushing upon him with his
+sword, succeeded after a desperate encounter in killing him. He
+appropriated the club as a trophy of his victory, and proceeded on his
+journey without hinderance until he arrived at the Isthmus of Corinth.
+
+Here the people warned him to beware of Sinnis the robber, who forced all
+travellers to bend with him one of the branches of a tall pine-tree. Having
+dragged it to the ground, the cruel Sinnis suddenly released his hold,
+whereupon the bough rebounding high up into the air, the unfortunate victim
+was dashed to the ground and killed. When Theseus beheld Sinnis advancing
+towards him he steadily awaited his approach; then seizing his powerful
+club, he killed the inhuman wretch with one blow.
+
+Passing through the woody district of Crommyon Theseus next slew a wild and
+dangerous sow which had long ravaged the country.
+
+He then continued his journey and approached the borders of Megara, where,
+on a narrow path overhanging the sea, dwelt the wicked Scyron, another
+terror to travellers. It was his custom to compel all strangers who passed
+his abode to wash his feet, during which operation he kicked them over the
+rock into the sea. Theseus boldly attacked the giant, overcame him, and
+then flung his body over the cliff where so many of his victims had
+perished.
+
+Theseus now journeyed on to Eleusis, where he found {261} another adversary
+in the person of King Cercyon, who forced all comers to wrestle with him,
+and killed those whom he vanquished; but Theseus overcame the mighty
+wrestler and slew him.
+
+Near Eleusis, on the banks of the river Cephissus, Theseus met with a new
+adventure. Here lived the giant Damastes, called Procrustes or the
+Stretcher, who had two iron beds, one being long and the other short, into
+which he forced all strangers; In the short one he placed the tall men,
+whose limbs he cut to the size of the bed, whilst to the short ones he
+assigned the large bed, stretching them out to fit it; and thus he left his
+victims to expire in the most cruel torments. Theseus freed the country
+from this inhuman monster by serving him as he had done his unfortunate
+victims.
+
+The hero now continued his journey, and at length reached Athens without
+meeting with any further adventures. When he arrived at his destination he
+found his father a helpless tool in the hands of the sorceress Medea, whom
+he had married after her departure from Corinth. Knowing, by means of her
+supernatural powers, that Theseus was the king's son, and fearing that her
+influence might be weakened by his presence, she poisoned the mind of the
+old king against the stranger, whom she represented as being a spy. It was
+accordingly arranged that Theseus should be invited to a banquet, and a
+strong poison mixed with his wine.
+
+Now Theseus had resolved to reveal himself at this feast to the father whom
+he yearned to embrace. Before tasting the wine he put his plan into
+execution, and drew out his sword so that the eyes of the king might rest
+upon it. When Aegeus beheld once more the well-known weapon which he had so
+often wielded, he knew that it was his son who stood before him. He warmly
+embraced him, presented him as his heir to his courtiers and subjects, and
+then, no longer able to endure the sight of Medea, he banished her for ever
+from his dominions.
+
+When Theseus was acknowledged as the rightful heir to the throne he was
+opposed by the fifty sons of Pallas, {262} the king's brother, who had
+confidently expected that on the demise of the old king the government of
+the country would devolve upon them. They therefore resolved to put Theseus
+to death; but their plans becoming known to him, he surprised them as they
+lay in ambush awaiting his approach, and destroyed them all.
+
+Fearing, however, lest the Athenians might entertain a prejudice against
+him on account of his extermination of their fellow-citizens, the
+Pallantids, Theseus resolved to perform some signal service for the state,
+which should gain for him the hearts of the people. He accordingly decided
+to rid the country of the famous bull of Marathon, which had become a
+terror to the cultivators of the land. He captured the animal and brought
+him in chains to Athens, where, after publicly exhibiting him to the
+astonished multitude, he solemnly sacrificed him to Apollo.
+
+The next enterprise undertaken by Theseus far surpassed all his other feats
+of heroic daring, and secured to him the universal admiration and gratitude
+of his fellow-citizens. This was the slaying of the Minotaur, which put an
+end for ever to the shameful tribute of seven youths and seven maidens
+which was exacted from the Athenians every nine years.
+
+The origin of this barbarous tribute was as follows: Androgeos, the
+youthful son of Minos, king of Crete, having been treacherously murdered by
+the Athenians, his father, anxious to avenge the death of his son, declared
+war against their king Aegeus, and conquered Athens and the villages in its
+vicinity. The conqueror henceforth compelled the Athenians to send to him
+every nine years a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens of the noblest
+families of the land, who became the prey of the Minotaur, a monster,
+half-man, half-bull, whose lair was in the wonderful labyrinth, constructed
+by Dædalus for the Cretan king.
+
+When Theseus informed his father of his heroic determination, he was
+overwhelmed with grief, and endeavoured, by every means in his power, to
+shake his son's resolution, but, confident of success, Theseus assured his
+{263} father that he would slay the Minotaur and return home victorious.
+
+It was customary for the vessel bearing its unhappy freight of human
+victims to use on this voyage black sails only; but Theseus promised his
+father that, should he return in safety, he would hoist white ones in their
+place.
+
+Before leaving Athens Theseus, by the advice of an oracle, chose Aphrodite
+as his guardian and protectress, and accordingly offered up a sacrifice to
+her. When he arrived in the presence of king Minos, the goddess of Love
+inspired Ariadne, the beautiful daughter of the king, with an ardent
+attachment for the noble young hero. During a secret interview, in which a
+mutual confession of affection took place, Ariadne furnished him with a
+sharp sword and a clue of thread, the end of which she desired him to
+fasten at the entrance to the labyrinth and to continue to unwind it till
+he reached the lair of the Minotaur. Full of hope as to the successful
+issue of his undertaking, Theseus took leave of the kind maiden, after
+expressing his gratitude for her timely aid.
+
+At the head of his companions he was now conducted by Minos to the entrance
+of the labyrinth. Strictly adhering to the injunctions of the fair Ariadne
+he succeeded in finding the Minotaur, whom, after a fierce and violent
+struggle, he defeated and killed; then carefully feeling his way, by means
+of the clue of thread, he led his companions safely out of the labyrinth.
+They then fled to their ship, taking with them the lovely maiden to whose
+affection for their deliverer they owed their safety.
+
+Arrived at the island of Naxos, Theseus had a dream, in which Dionysus, the
+wine-god, appeared to him, and informed him that the Fates had decreed that
+Ariadne should be his bride, at the same time menacing the hero with all
+kinds of misfortunes should he refuse to resign her. Now Theseus, having
+been taught from his youth to reverence the gods, feared to disobey the
+wishes of Dionysus. He accordingly took a sad farewell of the {264}
+beautiful maiden who so tenderly loved him, and left her on the lonely
+island, where she was found and wooed by the wine-god.
+
+Theseus and his companions felt keenly the loss of their benefactress, and
+in their grief at parting with her, forgot that the ship still bore the
+black sails with which she had left the Attic coast. As she neared the port
+of Athens, Aegeus, who was anxiously awaiting the return of his son on the
+beach, caught sight of the vessel with its black sails, and concluding that
+his gallant son had perished, threw himself in despair into the sea.
+
+With the unanimous approval of the Athenians, Theseus now ascended the
+vacant throne, and soon proved himself to be not only a valiant hero but
+also a wise prince and prudent legislator. Athens was at this time but a
+small city surrounded by a number of villages, each of which possessed its
+own separate form of government; but by means of kind and conciliatory
+measures Theseus induced the heads of these different communities to resign
+their sovereignty, and to intrust the administration of public affairs to a
+court which should sit constantly at Athens, and exercise jurisdiction over
+all the inhabitants of Attica. The result of these judicious measures was,
+that the Athenians became a united and powerful people, and that numbers of
+strangers and foreigners flocked to Athens, which became a flourishing
+maritime port and a commercial centre of great importance.
+
+Theseus renewed the Isthmian Games, and also instituted numerous festivals,
+the principal of which was the Panathenæa, held in honour of Athene-Polias.
+
+It is related that Theseus upon one occasion arrived during a voyage at the
+Amazonian coast. Anxious to ascertain the object of his visit, the Amazons
+sent Hippolyte, one of their number, with presents to the stranger; but no
+sooner did the fair herald set foot on board his vessel than Theseus set
+sail and carried her off to Athens, where he made her his queen. Enraged at
+this indignity the Amazons determined to be revenged. Some time afterwards,
+when the whole affair would {265} appear to have been forgotten, they
+seized the opportunity when the city of Athens was in a defenceless
+condition and landed an army in Attica. So sudden was their attack that
+they had penetrated into the very heart of the city before the Athenians
+could organize their forces; but Theseus expeditiously collected his troops
+and commenced such a furious onslaught upon the invaders that, after a
+desperate encounter, they were driven from the city. Peace was then
+concluded, whereupon the Amazons evacuated the country. During this
+engagement Hippolyte, forgetful of her origin, fought valiantly by the side
+of her husband against her own kinsfolk, and perished on the field of
+battle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was soon after this sad event that Theseus joined the world-renowned
+Calydonian Boar-hunt, in which he took a leading part. He also formed one
+of the brave band who shared in the perils of the Argonautic expedition.
+
+The remarkable friendship which existed between Theseus and Pirithöus
+originated under such peculiar circumstances that it is worthy of mention.
+
+Hearing upon one occasion that his herds, pasturing in the plains of
+Marathon, had been carried off by Pirithöus, Theseus collected together an
+armed force and sallied forth to punish the plunderer. But, when the two
+heroes met face to face, both were seized with an impulse of sympathetic
+admiration for each other. Pirithöus, holding out his hand in token of
+peace, exclaimed, "What satisfaction shall I render thee, oh Theseus? Be
+thou thyself the judge." Theseus seized the proffered hand and replied, "I
+ask nought save thy {266} friendship;" whereupon the heroes embraced each
+other and swore eternal fidelity.
+
+When, soon afterwards, Pirithöus became united to Hippodamia, a Thessalian
+princess, he invited Theseus to the wedding-feast, which was also attended,
+among other guests, by a large number of Centaurs, who were friends of
+Pirithöus. Towards the end of the banquet Eurytion, a young Centaur, heated
+and flushed with wine, seized the lovely bride and sought by force to carry
+her off. The other Centaurs, following his example, each endeavoured to
+capture a maiden. Pirithöus and his followers, aided by Theseus, who
+rendered most valuable assistance, attacked the Centaurs, and after a
+violent hand-to-hand struggle in which many perished, forced them to
+relinquish their prey.
+
+After the death of Hippolyte Theseus sought the hand of Phædra, the sister
+of his former bride Ariadne, to whom he became united. For some years they
+lived happily together, and their union was blessed by the birth of two
+sons. During this time Hippolytus, the son of the Amazonian queen, had been
+absent from home, having been placed under the care of the king's uncles in
+order to be educated. When, having grown to manhood, he now returned to his
+father's palace, his young stepmother, Phædra, fell violently in love with
+him; but Hippolytus failed to return her affection, and treated her with
+contempt and indifference. Filled with rage and despair at his coldness
+Phædra put an end to her existence; and when she was discovered by her
+husband she held in her hand a letter, accusing Hippolytus of being the
+cause of her death, and of having conspired against the honour of the king.
+
+Now Poseidon had upon one occasion promised to grant Theseus whatever
+request he should demand; he therefore called upon the sea-god to destroy
+Hippolytus, whom he cursed in the most solemn manner. The father's awful
+malediction fell but too soon upon his innocent son; for, as the latter was
+driving his chariot along the sea-shore, between Troezen and Athens, a
+{267} monster, sent by Poseidon, rose out of the deep, and so frightened
+the horses that they became altogether unmanageable. As they rushed on in
+their mad career the chariot was dashed to pieces, and the unfortunate
+youth, whose feet had become entangled in the reins, was dragged along
+until life was nearly extinct.
+
+In this condition he was found by the unhappy Theseus, who, having
+ascertained the true facts of the case from an old servant of Phædra, had
+hastened to prevent the catastrophe. But he arrived too late, and was only
+able to soothe the last moments of his dying son by acknowledging the sad
+mistake which he had committed, and declaring his firm belief in his honour
+and innocence.
+
+After these events Theseus was persuaded by his friend Pirithöus, who had
+also about this time lost his young wife, Hippodamia, to join him in a
+journey through Greece, with the object of carrying off by force the most
+beautiful maidens whom they should chance to meet.
+
+Arrived at Sparta they beheld, in the temple of Artemis, Helen, the
+daughter of Zeus and Leda, who was engaged in performing sacred dances in
+honour of the goddess. Although the maiden was only nine years old the fame
+of her beauty, which was destined to play so important a part in the
+history of Greece, had already spread far and wide. Theseus and Pirithöus
+forcibly abducted her, and then having cast lots for her, she fell to
+Theseus, who placed her under the charge of his mother Æthra.
+
+Pirithöus now requested Theseus to assist him in his ambitious scheme of
+descending to the lower world and carrying off Persephone, the queen of
+Hades. Though fully alive to the perils of the undertaking Theseus would
+not forsake his friend, and together they sought the gloomy realm of
+Shades. But Aïdes had been forewarned of their approach, and scarcely had
+the two friends set foot within his dominions when, by his orders, they
+were seized, bound with chains, and secured to an enchanted rock at the
+entrance of Hades. Here the two {268} friends languished for many years,
+until Heracles passed by in his search for Cerberus, when he released
+Theseus; but in obedience to an injunction of the gods, left Pirithöus to
+endure for ever the punishment of his too daring ambition.
+
+While Theseus was imprisoned in the under world Castor and Pollux, the
+brothers of Helen, invaded Athens, and demanded the restoration of their
+young sister. Seeing his country threatened with the horrors of warfare, an
+Athenian citizen named Academus, who knew of Helen's place of concealment,
+repaired to the camp of the Dioscuri, and informed them where they would
+find her. Æthra at once resigned her charge, whereupon the brothers took
+leave of Athens, and, accompanied by Helen, returned to their native
+country.
+
+But the prolonged absence of Theseus gave rise to other troubles of a more
+serious character. Thinking the opportunity favourable for a revolt, a
+faction, headed by Menesthius, a descendant of Erechtheus, arrogated to
+themselves supreme power, and seized the reins of government.
+
+Returned to Athens, Theseus at once took active measures to quell the
+insubordination which existed on all sides. He expelled Menesthius from
+office, rigorously punished the ringleaders of the revolt, and placed
+himself once more upon the throne. But his hold upon the people was gone.
+His former services were all forgotten, and, finding at length that
+dissensions and revolts were rife, he voluntarily abdicated the throne, and
+retired to his estates in the island of Scyros. Here Lycomedes, king of the
+island, feigned to receive him with the utmost friendship; but being, as it
+is supposed, in league with Menesthius, he led the old king to the summit
+of a high rock, under pretence of showing him his estates, and
+treacherously killed him by pushing him over the cliff.
+
+Many centuries after his death, by the command of the oracle of Delphi,
+Cimon, the father of Miltiades, at the conclusion of the Persian war,
+brought the remains of Theseus, the great benefactor of Athens, to that
+city, {269} and in his honour a temple was erected, which exists to the
+present day, and serves as a museum of art.
+
+OEDIPUS.
+
+Laius, king of Thebes, the son of Labdacus, and a direct descendant of
+Cadmus, was married to Jocaste, the daughter of a noble Theban. An oracle
+having foretold that he would perish by the hand of his own son, he
+determined to destroy the infant to whom Jocaste had just given birth. With
+the consent of his wife, whose affection for her husband overcame her love
+for her child, he pierced the feet of the babe, bound them together, and
+handed the infant over to a servant, with instructions to expose him on
+Mount Cithæron to perish. But instead of obeying this cruel command, the
+servant intrusted him to a shepherd who was tending the flocks of Polybus,
+king of Corinth, and then returned to Laius and Jocaste, and informed them
+that their orders had been obeyed. The parents were satisfied with the
+intelligence, and quieted their conscience by the reflection that they had
+thus prevented their son from committing the crime of parricide.
+
+Meanwhile the shepherd of king Polybus had unbound the feet of the infant,
+and in consequence of their being much swollen he called him Oedipus, or
+Swollen-foot. He then carried him to the king, his master, who, pitying the
+poor little waif, enlisted for him the kind offices of his wife, Merope.
+Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen as their own son, and grew up in
+the belief that they were his parents, until one day a Corinthian noble
+taunted him at a banquet with not being the son of the king. Stung at this
+reproach the youth appealed to Merope, but receiving an equivocal, though
+kindly answer, he repaired to Delphi to consult the oracle. The Pythia
+vouchsafed no reply to his inquiry, but informed him, to his horror, that
+he was fated to kill his father and to marry his own mother.
+
+Filled with dismay, for he was tenderly attached to Polybus and Merope,
+Oedipus determined not to return {270} to Corinth, and took instead the
+road leading to Boeotia. On his way a chariot passed him, in which sat an
+old man with two servants, who rudely pushed the pedestrian out of the
+path. In the scuffle which ensued Oedipus struck the old man with his heavy
+stick, and he fell back dead on the seat of the chariot. Struck with dismay
+at the unpremeditated murder which he had committed, the youth fled, and
+left the spot without learning that the old man whom he had killed was his
+father, Laius, king of Thebes.
+
+Not long after this occurrence the Sphinx (full details of whom have
+already been given) was sent by the goddess Hera as a punishment to the
+Thebans. Stationed on a rocky height just outside the city, she propounded
+to the passers by riddles which she had been taught by the Muses, and
+whoever failed to solve them was torn in pieces and devoured by the
+monster, and in this manner great numbers of the inhabitants of Thebes had
+perished.
+
+Now on the death of the old king Laius, Creon, the brother of the widowed
+queen, had seized the reins of government and mounted the vacant throne;
+and when at length his own son fell a victim to the Sphinx, he resolved at
+all costs to rid the country of this fearful scourge. He accordingly issued
+a proclamation, that the kingdom and the hand of his sister Jocaste should
+be awarded to him who should succeed in solving one of the riddles of the
+Sphinx, it having been foretold by an oracle that only then would the
+country be freed from the monster.
+
+Just as this proclamation was being made in the streets of Thebes Oedipus,
+with his pilgrim's staff in his hand, entered the city. Tempted by the
+prospect of so magnificent a reward he repaired to the rock, and boldly
+requested the Sphinx to propound to him one of her riddles. She proposed to
+him one which she deemed impossible of solution, but Oedipus at once solved
+it; whereupon the Sphinx, full of rage and despair, precipitated herself
+into the abyss and perished. Oedipus {271} received the promised reward. He
+became king of Thebes and the husband of Jocaste, the widow of his father,
+king Laius.
+
+For many years Oedipus enjoyed the greatest happiness and tranquillity.
+Four children were born to him--two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two
+daughters, Antigone and Ismene. But at last the gods afflicted the country
+with a grievous pestilence, which made terrible havoc among the people. In
+their distress they entreated the help of the king, who was regarded by his
+subjects as a special favourite of the gods. Oedipus consulted an oracle,
+and the response was that the pestilence would continue to rage until the
+land was purified of the blood of king Laius, whose murderer was living
+unpunished at Thebes.
+
+The king now invoked the most solemn imprecations on the head of the
+murderer, and offered a reward for any information concerning him. He then
+sent for the blind old seer Tiresias, and implored him, by means of his
+prophetic powers, to reveal to him the author of the crime. Tiresias at
+first hesitated, but yielding to the earnest solicitations of the king, the
+old prophet thus addressed him: "Thou thyself art the murderer of the old
+king Laius, who was thy father; and thou art wedded to his widow, thine own
+mother." In order to convince Oedipus of the truth of his words, he brought
+forward the old servant who had exposed him as a babe on Mount Cithæron,
+and the shepherd who had conveyed him to king Polybus. Horrified at this
+awful revelation Oedipus, in a fit of despair, deprived himself of sight,
+and the unfortunate Jocaste, unable to survive her disgrace, hanged
+herself.
+
+Accompanied by his faithful and devoted daughter Antigone, Oedipus quitted
+Thebes and became a miserable and homeless outcast, begging his bread from
+place to place. At length, after a long and painful pilgrimage, he found a
+place of refuge in the grove of the Eumenides (at Colonus, near Athens),
+where his last moments were soothed and tended by the care and devotion of
+the faithful Antigone.
+
+{272}
+
+THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.
+
+After the voluntary abdication of Oedipus, his two sons, Eteocles and
+Polynices, took possession of the crown and reigned over the city of
+Thebes. But Eteocles, being an ambitious prince, soon seized the reins of
+government himself, and expelled his brother from the throne.
+
+Polynices now repaired to Argos, where he arrived in the dead of night.
+Outside the gates of the royal palace he encountered Tydeus, the son of
+Oeneus, king of Calydon. Having accidentally killed a relative in the
+chase, Tydeus was also a fugitive; but being mistaken by Polynices in the
+darkness for an enemy, a quarrel ensued, which might have ended fatally,
+had not king Adrastus, aroused by the clamour, appeared on the scene and
+parted the combatants.
+
+By the light of the torches borne by his attendants Adrastus observed, to
+his surprise, that on the shield of Polynices a lion was depicted, and on
+that of Tydeus a boar. The former bore this insignia in honour of the
+renowned hero Heracles, the latter in memory of the famous Calydonian
+boar-hunt. This circumstance reminded the king of an extraordinary oracular
+prediction concerning his two beautiful daughters, Argia and Deipyle, which
+was to the effect that he would give them in marriage to a lion and a boar.
+Hailing with delight what he regarded as an auspicious solution of the
+mysterious prophecy, he invited the strangers into his palace; and when he
+heard their history, and had convinced himself that they were of noble
+birth, he bestowed upon Polynices his beautiful daughter Argia, and upon
+Tydeus the fair Deipyle, promising at the same time that he would assist
+both his sons-in-law to regain their rightful patrimony.
+
+The first care of Adrastus was to aid Polynices in regaining possession of
+his lawful share in the government of Thebes. He accordingly invited the
+most powerful chiefs in his kingdom to join in the expedition, {273} all of
+whom readily obeyed the call with the exception of the king's
+brother-in-law, Amphiaraus, the seer. As he foresaw a disastrous
+termination to the enterprise, and knew that not one of the heroes, save
+Adrastus himself, would return alive, he earnestly dissuaded the king from
+carrying out his project, and declined to take any part in the undertaking.
+But Adrastus, seconded by Polynices and Tydeus, was obstinately bent on the
+achievement of his purpose, and Amphiaraus, in order to escape from their
+importunities, concealed himself in a hiding-place known only to his wife
+Eriphyle.
+
+Now on the occasion of the marriage of Amphiaraus it had been agreed, that
+if he ever differed in opinion with the king, his wife should decide the
+question. As the presence of Amphiaraus was indispensable to the success of
+the undertaking, and, moreover, as Adrastus would not enter upon it without
+"the eye of the army," as he called his brother-in-law, Polynices, bent on
+securing his services, determined to bribe Eriphyle to use her influence
+with her husband and to decide the question in accordance with his wishes.
+He bethought himself of the beautiful necklace of Harmonia, wife of Cadmus,
+which he had brought with him in his flight from Thebes. Without loss of
+time he presented himself before the wife of Amphiaraus, and held up to her
+admiring gaze the glittering bauble, promising that if she revealed the
+hiding-place of her husband and induced him to join the expedition, the
+necklace should be hers. Eriphyle, unable to withstand the tempting bait,
+accepted the bribe, and thus Amphiaraus was compelled to join the army. But
+before leaving his home he extorted a solemn promise from his son Alcmæon
+that, should he perish on the field of battle, he would avenge his death on
+his mother, the perfidious Eriphyle.
+
+Seven leaders were now chosen, each at the head of a separate detachment of
+troops. These were Adrastus the king, his two brothers Hippomedon and
+Parthenopæus, Capaneus his nephew, Polynices and Tydeus, and Amphiaraus.
+
+{274}
+
+When the army was collected they set out for Nemea, which was at this time
+governed by king Lycurgus. Here the Argives, being short of water, halted
+on the outskirts of a forest in order to search for a spring, when they saw
+a majestic and beautiful woman seated on the trunk of a tree, nursing an
+infant. They concluded from her noble and queenly appearance that she must
+be a goddess, but were informed by her that she was Hypsipile, queen of the
+Lemnians, who had been carried away captive by pirates, and sold as a slave
+to king Lycurgus, and that she was now acting as nurse to his infant son.
+When the warriors told her that they were in search of water, she laid the
+child down in the grass, and led them to a secret spring in the forest,
+with which she alone was acquainted. But on their return they found, to
+their grief, that the unfortunate babe had been killed during their
+absence, by a serpent. They slew the reptile, and then collecting the
+remains of the infant, they buried them with funereal honours and proceeded
+on their way.
+
+The warlike host now appeared before the walls of Thebes, and each leader
+placed himself before one of the seven gates of the city in readiness for
+the attack. Eteocles, in conjunction with Creon, had made due preparations
+to repel the invaders, and had stationed troops, under the command of
+trusty leaders, to guard each of the gates. Then, according to the practice
+of the ancients of consulting soothsayers before entering upon any
+undertaking, the blind old seer Tiresias was sent for, who, after carefully
+taking the auguries from the flight of birds, declared that all efforts to
+defend the city would prove unavailing, unless the youngest descendant of
+the house of Cadmus would offer himself as a voluntary sacrifice for the
+good of the state.
+
+When Creon heard the words of the seer his first thought was of his
+favourite son Menoeceus, the youngest scion of the royal house, who was
+present at the interview. He therefore earnestly implored him to leave the
+city, and to repair for safety to Delphi. But the gallant youth heroically
+resolved to sacrifice his life for the {275} benefit of his country, and
+after taking leave of his old father, mounted the city walls, and plunging
+a dagger into his heart, perished in the sight of the contending hosts.
+
+Adrastus now gave his troops the word of command to storm the city, and
+they rushed forward to the attack with great valour. The battle raged long
+and furiously, and after heavy losses on both sides the Argives were routed
+and put to flight.
+
+After the lapse of some days they reorganized their forces, and again
+appeared before the gates of Thebes, when Eteocles, grieved to think that
+there should be such a terrible loss of life on his account, sent a herald
+into the opposite camp, with a proposition that the fate of the campaign
+should be decided by single combat between himself and his brother
+Polynices. The challenge was readily accepted, and in the duel which took
+place outside the city walls, in the sight of the rival forces, Eteocles
+and Polynices were both fatally wounded and expired on the field of battle.
+
+Both sides now claimed the day, and the result was that hostilities
+recommenced, and soon the battle raged with greater fury than ever. But
+victory at last declared itself for the Thebans. In their flight the
+Argives lost all their leaders, Adrastus excepted, who owed his safety to
+the fleetness of his horse Arion.
+
+By the death of the brothers, Creon became once more king of Thebes, and in
+order to show his abhorrence of the conduct of Polynices in fighting
+against his country, he strictly forbade any one to bury either his remains
+or those of his allies. But the faithful Antigone, who had returned to
+Thebes on the death of her father, could not endure that the body of her
+brother should remain unburied. She therefore bravely disregarded the
+orders of the king, and endeavoured to give sepulture to the remains of
+Polynices.
+
+When Creon discovered that his commands had been set at defiance, he
+inhumanly condemned the devoted maiden to be entombed alive in a
+subterranean vault. {276} But retribution was at hand. His son, Hæmon, who
+was betrothed to Antigone, having contrived to effect an entrance into the
+vault, was horrified to find that Antigone had hanged herself by her veil.
+Feeling that life without her would be intolerable, he threw himself in
+despair on his own sword, and after solemnly invoking the malediction of
+the gods on the head of his father, expired beside the dead body of his
+betrothed.
+
+Hardly had the news of the tragic fate of his son reached the king, before
+another messenger appeared, bearing the tidings that his wife Eurydice, on
+hearing of the death of Hæmon, had put an end to her existence, and thus
+the king found himself in his old age both widowed and childless.
+
+Nor did he succeed in the execution of his vindictive designs; for
+Adrastus, who, after his flight from Thebes, had taken refuge at Athens,
+induced Theseus to lead an army against the Thebans, to compel them to
+restore the dead bodies of the Argive warriors to their friends, in order
+that they might perform due funereal rites in honour of the slain. This
+undertaking was successfully accomplished, and the remains of the fallen
+heroes were interred with due honours.
+
+THE EPIGONI.
+
+Ten years after these events the sons of the slain heroes, who were called
+Epigoni, or descendants, resolved to avenge the death of their fathers, and
+with this object entered upon a new expedition against the city of Thebes.
+
+By the advice of the Delphic oracle the command was intrusted to Alcmæon,
+the son of Amphiaraus; but remembering the injunction of his father he
+hesitated to accept this post before executing vengeance on his mother
+Eriphyle. Thersander, however, the son of Polynices, adopting similar
+tactics to those of his father, bribed Eriphyle with the beautiful veil of
+Harmonia, bequeathed to him by Polynices, to induce her son {277} Alcmæon
+and his brother Amphilochus to join in this second war against Thebes.
+
+Now the mother of Alcmæon was gifted with that rare fascination which
+renders its possessor irresistible to all who may chance to come within its
+influence; nor was her own son able to withstand her blandishments.
+Yielding therefore to her wily representations he accepted the command of
+the troops, and at the head of a large and powerful army advanced upon
+Thebes.
+
+Before the gates of the city Alcmæon encountered the Thebans under the
+command of Laodamas, the son of Eteocles. A fierce battle ensued, in which
+the Theban leader, after performing prodigies of valour, perished by the
+hand of Alcmæon.
+
+After losing their chief and the flower of their army, the Thebans
+retreated behind the city walls, and the enemy now pressed them hard on
+every side. In their distress they appealed to the blind old seer Tiresias,
+who was over a hundred years old. With trembling lips and in broken
+accents, he informed them that they could only save their lives by
+abandoning their native city with their wives and families. Upon this they
+despatched ambassadors into the enemy's camp; and whilst these were
+protracting negotiations during the night, the Thebans, with their wives
+and children, evacuated the city. Next morning the Argives entered Thebes
+and plundered it, placing Thersander, the son of Polynices (who was a
+descendant of Cadmus), on the throne which his father had so vainly
+contested.
+
+ALCMÆON AND THE NECKLACE.
+
+When Alcmæon returned from his expedition against the Thebans he determined
+to fulfil the last injunction of his father Amphiaraus, who had desired him
+to be revenged on his mother Eriphyle for her perfidy in accepting a bribe
+to betray him. This resolution was further strengthened by the discovery
+that his unprincipled mother had urged him also to join the expedition
+{278} in return for the much-coveted veil of Harmonia. He therefore put her
+to death; and taking with him the ill-fated necklace and veil, abandoned
+for ever the home of his fathers.
+
+But the gods, who could not suffer so unnatural a crime to go unpunished,
+afflicted him with madness, and sent one of the Furies to pursue him
+unceasingly. In this unhappy condition he wandered about from place to
+place, until at last having reached Psophis in Arcadia, Phegeus, king of
+the country, not only purified him of his crime, but also bestowed upon him
+the hand of his daughter Arsinoë, to whom Alcmæon presented the necklace
+and veil, which had already been the cause of so much unhappiness.
+
+Though now released from his mental affliction, the curse which hung over
+him was not entirely removed, and on his account the country of his
+adoption was visited with a severe drought. On consulting the oracle of
+Delphi he was informed that any land which offered him shelter would be
+cursed by the gods, and that the malediction would continue to follow him
+till he came to a country which was not in existence at the time he had
+murdered his mother. Bereft of hope, and resolved no longer to cast the
+shadow of his dark fate over those he loved, Alcmæon took a tender leave of
+his wife and little son, and became once more an outcast and wanderer.
+
+Arrived after a long and painful pilgrimage at the river Achelous, he
+discovered, to his unspeakable joy, a beautiful and fertile island, which
+had but lately emerged from beneath the water. Here he took up his abode;
+and in this haven of rest he was at length freed from his sufferings, and
+finally purified of his crime by the river-god Achelous. But in his
+new-found home where prosperity smiled upon him, Alcmæon soon forgot the
+loving wife and child he had left behind, and wooed Calirrhoë, the
+beautiful daughter of the river-god, who became united to him in marriage.
+
+For many years Alcmæon and Calirrhoë lived happily together, and two sons
+were born to them. But {279} unfortunately for the peace of her husband,
+the daughter of Achelous had heard of the celebrated necklace and veil of
+Harmonia, and became seized with a violent desire to become the possessor
+of these precious treasures.
+
+Now the necklace and veil were in the safe-keeping of Arsinoë; but as
+Alcmæon had carefully concealed the fact of his former marriage from his
+young wife, he informed her, when no longer able to combat her
+importunities, that he had concealed them in a cave in his native country,
+and promised to hasten thither and procure them for her. He accordingly
+took leave of Calirrhoë and his children, and proceeded to Psophis, where
+he presented himself before his deserted wife and her father, king Phegeus.
+To them he excused his absence by the fact of his having suffered from a
+fresh attack of madness, and added that an oracle had foretold to him that
+his malady would only be cured when he had deposited the necklace and veil
+of Harmonia in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Arsinoë, deceived by his
+artful representations, unhesitatingly restored to him his bridal gifts,
+whereupon Alcmæon set out on his homeward journey, well satisfied with the
+successful issue of his expedition.
+
+But the fatal necklace and veil were doomed to bring ruin and disaster to
+all who possessed them. During his sojourn at the court of king Phegeus,
+one of the servants who had accompanied Alcmæon betrayed the secret of his
+union with the daughter of the river-god; and when the king informed his
+sons of his treacherous conduct, they determined to avenge the wrongs of
+their sister Arsinoë. They accordingly concealed themselves at a point of
+the road which Alcmæon was compelled to pass, and as he neared the spot
+they suddenly emerged from their place of ambush, fell upon him and
+despatched him.
+
+When Arsinoë, who still loved her faithless husband, heard of the murder,
+she bitterly reproached her brothers for the crime which they had
+perpetrated, at which they were so incensed, that they placed her in a
+chest, and conveyed her to Agapenor, son of Ancæus, at Tegea. {280} Here
+they accused her of the murder of which they themselves were guilty, and
+she suffered a painful death.
+
+Calirrhoë, on learning the sad fate of Alcmæon, implored Zeus that her
+infant sons might grow at once to manhood, and avenge the death of their
+father. The ruler of Olympus heard the petition of the bereaved wife, and,
+in answer to her prayer, the children of yesterday became transformed into
+bearded men, full of strength and courage, and thirsting for revenge.
+
+Hastening to Tegea, they there encountered the sons of Phegeus, who were
+about to repair to Delphi, in order to deposit the necklace and veil in the
+sanctuary of Apollo; and before the brothers had time to defend themselves,
+the stalwart sons of Calirrhoë rushed upon them and slew them. They then
+proceeded to Psophis, where they killed king Phegeus and his wife, after
+which they returned to their mother with the necklace and veil, which, by
+the command of her father Achelous, were deposited as sacred offerings in
+the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
+
+THE HERACLIDÆ.
+
+After the apotheosis of Heracles, his children were so cruelly persecuted
+by Eurystheus, that they fled for protection to king Ceyx at Trachin,
+accompanied by the aged Iolaus, the nephew and life-long friend of their
+father, who constituted himself their guide and protector. But on
+Eurystheus demanding the surrender of the fugitives, the Heraclidæ, knowing
+that the small force at the disposal of king Ceyx would be altogether
+inadequate to protect them against the powerful king of Argos, abandoned
+his territory, and sought refuge at Athens, where they were hospitably
+received by king Demophoon, the son of the great hero Theseus. He warmly
+espoused their cause, and determined to protect them at all costs against
+Eurystheus, who had despatched a numerous force in pursuit of them.
+
+When the Athenians had made all necessary preparations to repel the
+invaders, an oracle announced that the {281} sacrifice of a maiden of noble
+birth was necessary to ensure to them victory; whereupon Macaria, the
+beautiful daughter of Heracles and Deianira, magnanimously offered herself
+as a sacrifice, and, surrounded by the noblest matrons and maidens of
+Athens, voluntarily devoted herself to death.
+
+While these events were transpiring in Athens, Hyllus, the eldest son of
+Heracles and Deianira, had advanced with a large army to the assistance of
+his brothers, and having sent a messenger to the king announcing his
+arrival, Demophoon, with his army, joined his forces.
+
+In the thick of the battle which ensued, Iolaus, following a sudden
+impulse, borrowed the chariot of Hyllus, and earnestly entreated Zeus and
+Hebe to restore to him, for this one day only, the vigour and strength of
+his youth. His prayer was heard. A thick cloud descended from heaven and
+enveloped the chariot, and when it disappeared, Iolaus, in the full
+plenitude of manly vigour, stood revealed before the astonished gaze of the
+combatants. He then led on his valiant band of warriors, and soon the enemy
+was in headlong flight; and Eurystheus, who was taken prisoner, was put to
+death by the command of king Demophoon.
+
+After gratefully acknowledging the timely aid of the Athenians, Hyllus,
+accompanied by the faithful Iolaus and his brothers, took leave of king
+Demophoon, and proceeded to invade the Peloponnesus, which they regarded as
+their lawful patrimony; for, according to the will of Zeus, it should have
+been the rightful possession of their father, the great hero Heracles, had
+not Hera maliciously defeated his plans by causing his cousin Eurystheus to
+precede him into the world.
+
+For the space of twelve months the Heraclidæ contrived to maintain
+themselves in the Peloponnesus; but at the expiration of that time a
+pestilence broke out, which spread over the entire peninsula, and compelled
+the Heraclidæ to evacuate the country and return to Attica, where for a
+time they settled.
+
+After the lapse of three years Hyllus resolved on {282} making another
+effort to obtain his paternal inheritance. Before setting out on the
+expedition, however, he consulted the oracle of Delphi, and the response
+was, that he must wait for the third fruit before the enterprise would
+prove successful. Interpreting this ambiguous reply to signify the third
+summer, Hyllus controlled his impatience for three years, when, having
+collected a powerful army, he once more entered the Peloponnesus.
+
+At the isthmus of Corinth he was opposed by Atreus, the son of Pelops, who
+at the death of Eurystheus had inherited the kingdom. In order to save
+bloodshed, Hyllus offered to decide his claims by single combat, the
+conditions being, that if he were victorious, he and his brothers should
+obtain undisputed possession of their rights; but if defeated, the
+Heraclidæ were to desist for fifty years from attempting to press their
+claim.
+
+The challenge was accepted by Echemon, king of Tegea, and Hyllus lost his
+life in the encounter, whereupon the sons of Heracles, in virtue of their
+agreement, abandoned the Peloponnesus and retired to Marathon.
+
+Hyllus was succeeded by his son Cleodæus, who, at the expiration of the
+appointed time, collected a large army and invaded the Peloponnesus; but he
+was not more successful than his father had been, and perished there with
+all his forces.
+
+Twenty years later his son Aristomachus consulted an oracle, which promised
+him victory if he went by way of the defile. The Heraclidæ once more set
+out, but were again defeated, and Aristomachus shared the fate of his
+father and grandfather, and fell on the field of battle.
+
+When, at the expiration of thirty years, the sons of Aristomachus, Temenus,
+Cresphontes, and Aristodemus again consulted the oracle, the answer was
+still the same; but this time the following explanation accompanied the
+response: the third fruit signified the third generation, to which they
+themselves belonged, and not the third fruit of the earth; and by the
+defile was indicated, not the isthmus of Corinth, but the straits on the
+right of the isthmus.
+
+{283}
+
+Temenus lost no time in collecting an army and building ships of war; but
+just as all was ready and the fleet about to sail, Aristodemus, the
+youngest of the brothers, was struck by lightning. To add to their
+misfortunes, Hippolytes, a descendant of Heracles, who had joined in the
+expedition, killed a soothsayer whom he mistook for a spy, and the gods, in
+their displeasure, sent violent tempests, by means of which the entire
+fleet was destroyed, whilst famine and pestilence decimated the ranks of
+the army.
+
+The oracle, on being again consulted, advised that Hippolytes, being the
+offender, should be banished from the country for ten years, and that the
+command of the troops should be delegated to a man having three eyes. A
+search was at once instituted by the Heraclidæ for a man answering to this
+description, who was found at length in the person of Oxylus, a descendant
+of the Ætolian race of kings. In obedience to the command of the oracle,
+Hippolytes was banished, an army and fleet once more equipped, and Oxylus
+elected commander-in-chief.
+
+And now success at length crowned the efforts of the long-suffering
+descendants of the great hero. They obtained possession of the
+Peloponnesus, which was divided among them by lot. Argos fell to Temenus,
+Lacedæmon to Aristodemus, and Messene to Cresphontes. In gratitude for the
+services of their able leader, Oxylus, the kingdom of Elis, was conferred
+upon him by the Heraclidæ.
+
+THE SIEGE OF TROY.
+
+Troy or Ilion was the capital of a kingdom in Asia Minor, situated near the
+Hellespont, and founded by Ilus, son of Tros. At the time of the famous
+Trojan war this city was under the government of Priam, a direct descendant
+of Ilus. Priam was married to Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, king of Thrace;
+and among the most celebrated of their children were the renowned and {284}
+valiant Hector, the prophetess Cassandra, and Paris, the cause of the
+Trojan war.
+
+Before the birth of her second son Paris, Hecuba dreamt that she had given
+birth to a flaming brand, which was interpreted by Æsacus the seer (a son
+of Priam by a former marriage) to signify that she would bear a son who
+would cause the destruction of the city of Troy. Anxious to prevent the
+fulfilment of the prophecy, Hecuba caused her new-born babe to be exposed
+on Mount Ida to perish; but being found by some kind-hearted shepherds, the
+child was reared by them, and grew up unconscious of his noble birth.
+
+As the boy approached manhood he became remarkable, not only for his
+wonderful beauty of form and feature, but also for his strength and
+courage, which he exercised in defending the flocks from the attacks of
+robbers and wild beasts; hence he was called Alexander, or helper of men.
+It was about this time that he settled the famous dispute concerning the
+golden apple, thrown by the goddess of Discord into the assembly of the
+gods. As we have already seen, he gave his decision in favour of Aphrodite;
+thus creating for himself two implacable enemies, for Hera and Athene never
+forgave the slight.
+
+Paris became united to a beautiful nymph named Oenone, with whom he lived
+happily in the seclusion and tranquillity of a pastoral life; but to her
+deep grief this peaceful existence was not fated to be of long duration.
+
+Hearing that some funereal games were about to be held in Troy in honour of
+a departed relative of the king, Paris resolved to visit the capital and
+take part in them himself. There he so greatly distinguished himself in a
+contest with his unknown brothers, Hector and Deiphobus, that the proud
+young princes, enraged that an obscure shepherd should snatch from them the
+prize of victory, were about to create a disturbance, when Cassandra, who
+had been a spectator of the proceedings, stepped forward, and announced to
+them that the humble peasant who had so signally defeated them was their
+own {285} brother Paris. He was then conducted to the presence of his
+parents, who joyfully acknowledged him as their child; and amidst the
+festivities and rejoicings in honour of their new-found son the ominous
+prediction of the past was forgotten.
+
+As a proof of his confidence, the king now intrusted Paris with a somewhat
+delicate mission. As we have already seen in the Legend of Heracles, that
+great hero conquered Troy, and after killing king Laomedon, carried away
+captive his beautiful daughter Hesione, whom he bestowed in marriage on his
+friend Telamon. But although she became princess of Salamis, and lived
+happily with her husband, her brother Priam never ceased to regret her
+loss, and the indignity which had been passed upon his house; and it was
+now proposed that Paris should be equipped with a numerous fleet, and
+proceed to Greece in order to demand the restoration of the king's sister.
+
+Before setting out on this expedition, Paris was warned by Cassandra
+against bringing home a wife from Greece, and she predicted that if he
+disregarded her injunction he would bring inevitable ruin upon the city of
+Troy, and destruction to the house of Priam.
+
+Under the command of Paris the fleet set sail, and arrived safely in
+Greece. Here the young Trojan prince first beheld Helen, the daughter of
+Zeus and Leda, and sister of the Dioscuri, who was the wife of Menelaus,
+king of Sparta, and the loveliest woman of her time. The most renowned
+heroes in Greece had sought the honour of her hand; but her stepfather,
+Tyndareus, king of Sparta, fearing that if he bestowed her in marriage on
+one of her numerous lovers he would make enemies of the rest, made it a
+stipulation that all suitors should solemnly swear to assist and defend the
+successful candidate, with all the means at their command, in any feud
+which might hereafter arise in connection with the marriage. He at length
+conferred the hand of Helen upon Menelaus, a warlike prince, devoted to
+martial exercises and the pleasures of the chase, to whom he resigned his
+throne and kingdom.
+
+{286}
+
+When Paris arrived at Sparta, and sought hospitality at the royal palace,
+he was kindly received by king Menelaus. At the banquet given in his
+honour, he charmed both host and hostess by his graceful manner and varied
+accomplishments, and specially ingratiated himself with the fair Helen, to
+whom he presented some rare and chaste trinkets of Asiatic manufacture.
+
+Whilst Paris was still a guest at the court of the king of Sparta, the
+latter received an invitation from his friend Idomeneus, king of Crete, to
+join him in a hunting expedition; and Menelaus, being of an unsuspicious
+and easy temperament, accepted the invitation, leaving to Helen the duty of
+entertaining the distinguished stranger. Captivated by her surpassing
+loveliness, the Trojan prince forgot every sense of honour and duty, and
+resolved to rob his absent host of his beautiful wife. He accordingly
+collected his followers, and with their assistance stormed the royal
+castle, possessed himself of the rich treasures which it contained, and
+succeeded in carrying off its beautiful, and not altogether unwilling
+mistress.
+
+They at once set sail, but were driven by stress of weather to the island
+of Crania, where they cast anchor; and it was not until some years had
+elapsed, during which time home and country were forgotten, that Paris and
+Helen proceeded to Troy.
+
+PREPARATIONS FOR THE WAR.--When Menelaus heard of the violation of his
+hearth and home he proceeded to Pylos, accompanied by his brother
+Agamemnon, in order to consult the wise old king Nestor, who was renowned
+for his great experience and state-craft. On hearing the facts of the case
+Nestor expressed it as his opinion that only by means of the combined
+efforts of all the states of Greece could Menelaus hope to regain Helen in
+defiance of so powerful a kingdom as that of Troy.
+
+Menelaus and Agamemnon now raised the war-cry, which was unanimously
+responded to from one end of Greece to the other. Many of those who
+volunteered {287} their services were former suitors of the fair Helen, and
+were therefore bound by their oath to support the cause of Menelaus; others
+joined from pure love of adventure, but one and all were deeply impressed
+with the disgrace which would attach to their country should such a crime
+be suffered to go unpunished. Thus a powerful army was collected in which
+few names of note were missing.
+
+Only in the case of two great heroes, Odysseus (Ulysses) and Achilles, did
+Menelaus experience any difficulty.
+
+Odysseus, famed for his wisdom and great astuteness, was at this time
+living happily in Ithaca with his fair young wife Penelope and his little
+son Telemachus, and was loath to leave his happy home for a perilous
+foreign expedition of uncertain duration. When therefore his services were
+solicited he feigned madness; but the shrewd Palamedes, a distinguished
+hero in the suite of Menelaus, detected and exposed the ruse, and thus
+Odysseus was forced to join in the war. But he never forgave the
+interference of Palamedes, and, as we shall see, eventually revenged
+himself upon him in a most cruel manner.
+
+Achilles was the son of Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis, who is said to
+have dipped her son, when a babe, in the river Styx, and thereby rendered
+him invulnerable, except in the right heel, by which she held him. When the
+boy was nine years old it was foretold to Thetis that he would either enjoy
+a long life of inglorious ease and inactivity, or that after a brief career
+of victory he would die the death of a hero. Naturally desirous of
+prolonging the life of her son, the fond mother devoutly hoped that the
+former fate might be allotted to him. With this view she conveyed him to
+the island of Scyros, in the Ægean Sea, where, disguised as a girl, he was
+brought up among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of the country.
+
+Now that the presence of Achilles was required, owing to an oracular
+prediction that Troy could not be taken without him, Menelaus consulted
+Calchas the soothsayer, who revealed to him the place of his concealment.
+Odysseus was accordingly despatched to Scyros, where, by {288} means of a
+clever device, he soon discovered which among the maidens was the object of
+his search. Disguising himself as a merchant, Odysseus obtained an
+introduction to the royal palace, where he offered to the king's daughters
+various trinkets for sale. The girls, with one exception, all examined his
+wares with unfeigned interest. Observing this circumstance Odysseus
+shrewdly concluded that the one who held aloof must be none other than the
+young Achilles himself. But in order further to test the correctness of his
+deduction, he now exhibited a beautiful set of warlike accoutrements,
+whilst, at a given signal, stirring strains of martial music were heard
+outside; whereupon Achilles, fired with warlike ardour, seized the weapons,
+and thus revealed his identity. He now joined the cause of the Greeks,
+accompanied at the request of his father by his kinsman Patroclus, and
+contributed to the expedition a large force of Thessalian troops, or
+Myrmidons, as they were called, and also fifty ships.
+
+For ten long years Agamemnon and the other chiefs devoted all their energy
+and means in preparing for the expedition against Troy. But during these
+warlike preparations an attempt at a peaceful solution of the difficulty
+was not neglected. An embassy consisting of Menelaus, Odysseus, &c., was
+despatched to king Priam demanding the surrender of Helen; but though the
+embassy was received with the utmost pomp and ceremony, the demand was
+nevertheless rejected; upon which the ambassadors returned to Greece, and
+the order was given for the fleet to assemble at Aulis, in Boeotia.
+
+Never before in the annals of Greece had so large an army been collected. A
+hundred thousand warriors were assembled at Aulis, and in its bay floated
+over a thousand ships, ready to convey them to the Trojan coast. The
+command of this mighty host was intrusted to Agamemnon, king of Argos, the
+most powerful of all the Greek princes.
+
+Before the fleet set sail solemn sacrifices were offered to the gods on the
+sea-shore, when suddenly a serpent was seen to ascend a plane-tree, in
+which was a sparrow's {289} nest containing nine young ones. The reptile
+first devoured the young birds and then their mother, after which it was
+turned by Zeus into stone. Calchas the soothsayer, on being consulted,
+interpreted the miracle to signify that the war with Troy would last for
+nine years, and that only in the tenth would the city be taken.
+
+DEPARTURE OF THE GREEK FLEET.--The fleet then set sail; but mistaking the
+Mysian coast for that of Troy, they landed troops and commenced to ravage
+the country. Telephus, king of the Mysians, who was a son of the great hero
+Heracles, opposed them with a large army, and succeeded in driving them
+back to their ships, but was himself wounded in the engagement by the spear
+of Achilles. Patroclus, who fought valiantly by the side of his kinsman,
+was also wounded in this battle; but Achilles, who was a pupil of Chiron,
+carefully bound up the wound, which he succeeded in healing; and from this
+incident dates the celebrated friendship which ever after existed between
+the two heroes, who even in death remained united.
+
+The Greeks now returned to Aulis. Meanwhile, the wound of Telephus proving
+incurable, he consulted an oracle, and the response was, that he alone who
+had inflicted the wound possessed the power of curing it. Telephus
+accordingly proceeded to the Greek camp, where he was healed by Achilles,
+and, at the solicitation of Odysseus, consented to act as guide in the
+voyage to Troy.
+
+Just as the expedition was about to start for the second time, Agamemnon
+had the misfortune to kill a hind sacred to Artemis, who, in her anger,
+sent continuous calms, which prevented the fleet from setting sail. Calchas
+on being consulted announced that the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter
+of Agamemnon, would alone appease the incensed goddess. How Agamemnon at
+length overcame his feelings as a father, and how Iphigenia was saved by
+Artemis herself, has been already related in a previous chapter.
+
+A fair wind having at length sprung up, the fleet {290} once more set sail.
+They first stopped at the island of Tenedos, where the famous archer
+Philoctetes--who possessed the bow and arrows of Heracles, given to him by
+the dying hero--was bitten in the foot by a venomous snake. So unbearable
+was the odour emitted by the wound, that, at the suggestion of Odysseus,
+Philoctetes was conveyed to the island of Lesbos, where, to his great
+chagrin, he was abandoned to his fate, and the fleet proceeded on their
+journey to Troy.
+
+COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES.--Having received early intelligence of the
+impending invasion of their country, the Trojans sought the assistance of
+the neighbouring states, who all gallantly responded to their call for
+help, and thus ample preparations were made to receive the enemy. King
+Priam being himself too advanced in years for active service, the command
+of the army devolved upon his eldest son, the brave and valiant Hector.
+
+At the approach of the Greek fleet the Trojans appeared on the coast in
+order to prevent their landing. But great hesitation prevailed among the
+troops as to who should be the first to set foot on the enemy's soil, it
+having been predicted that whoever did so would fall a sacrifice to the
+Fates. Protesilaus of Phylace, however, nobly disregarding the ominous
+prediction, leaped on shore, and fell by the hand of Hector.
+
+The Greeks then succeeded in effecting a landing, and in the engagement
+which ensued the Trojans were signally defeated, and driven to seek safety
+behind the walls of their city. With Achilles at their head the Greeks now
+made a desperate attempt to take the city by storm, but were repulsed with
+terrible losses. After this defeat the invaders, foreseeing a long and
+wearisome campaign, drew up their ships on land, erected tents, huts, &c.,
+and formed an intrenched camp on the coast.
+
+Between the Greek camp and the city of Troy was a plain watered by the
+rivers Scamander and Simois, and it was on this plain, afterwards so
+renowned in history, {291} that the ever memorable battles between the
+Greeks and Trojans were fought.
+
+The impossibility of taking the city by storm was now recognized by the
+leaders of the Greek forces. The Trojans, on their side, being less
+numerous than the enemy, dared not venture on a great battle in the open
+field; hence the war dragged on for many weary years without any decisive
+engagement taking place.
+
+It was about this time that Odysseus carried out his long meditated revenge
+against Palamedes. Palamedes was one of the wisest, most energetic, and
+most upright of all the Greek heroes, and it was in consequence of his
+unflagging zeal and wonderful eloquence that most of the chiefs had been
+induced to join the expedition. But the very qualities which endeared him
+to the hearts of his countrymen rendered him hateful in the eyes of his
+implacable enemy, Odysseus, who never forgave his having detected his
+scheme to avoid joining the army.
+
+In order to effect the ruin of Palamedes, Odysseus concealed in his tent a
+vast sum of money. He next wrote a letter, purporting to be from king Priam
+to Palamedes, in which the former thanked the Greek hero effusively for the
+valuable information received from him, referring at the same time to a
+large sum of money which he had sent to him as a reward. This letter, which
+was found upon the person of a Phrygian prisoner, was read aloud in a
+council of the Greek princes. Palamedes was arraigned before the chiefs of
+the army and accused of betraying his country to the enemy, whereupon a
+search was instituted, and a large sum of money being found in his tent, he
+was pronounced guilty and sentenced to be stoned to death. Though fully
+aware of the base treachery practised against him, Palamedes offered not a
+word in self-defence, knowing but too well that, in the face of such
+damning evidence, the attempt to prove his innocence would be vain.
+
+DEFECTION OF ACHILLES.--During the first year of the campaign the Greeks
+ravaged the surrounding country, {292} and pillaged the neighbouring
+villages. Upon one of these foraging expeditions the city of Pedasus was
+sacked, and Agamemnon, as commander-in-chief, received as his share of the
+spoil the beautiful Chrysëis, daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo;
+whilst to Achilles was allotted another captive, the fair Brisëis. The
+following day Chryses, anxious to ransom his daughter, repaired to the
+Greek camp; but Agamemnon refused to accede to his proposal, and with rude
+and insulting words drove the old man away. Full of grief at the loss of
+his child Chryses called upon Apollo for vengeance on her captor. His
+prayer was heard, and the god sent a dreadful pestilence which raged for
+ten days in the camp of the Greeks. Achilles at length called together a
+council, and inquired of Calchas the soothsayer how to arrest this terrible
+visitation of the gods. The seer replied that Apollo, incensed at the
+insult offered to his priest, had sent the plague, and that only by the
+surrender of Chrysëis could his anger be appeased.
+
+On hearing this Agamemnon agreed to resign the maiden; but being already
+embittered against Calchas for his prediction with regard to his own
+daughter Iphigenia, he now heaped insults upon the soothsayer and accused
+him of plotting against his interests. Achilles espoused the cause of
+Calchas, and a violent dispute arose, in which the son of Thetis would have
+killed his chief but for the timely interference of Pallas-Athene, who
+suddenly appeared beside him, unseen by the rest, and recalled him to a
+sense of the duty he owed to his commander. Agamemnon revenged himself on
+Achilles by depriving him of his beautiful captive, the fair Brisëis, who
+had become so attached to her kind and noble captor that she wept bitterly
+on being removed from his charge. Achilles, now fairly disgusted with the
+ungenerous conduct of his chief, withdrew himself to his tent, and
+obstinately declined to take further part in the war.
+
+Heart-sore and dejected he repaired to the sea-shore, and there invoked the
+presence of his divine mother. In answer to his prayer Thetis emerged from
+beneath {293} the waves, and comforted her gallant son with the assurance
+that she would entreat the mighty Zeus to avenge his wrongs by giving
+victory to the Trojans, so that the Greeks might learn to realize the great
+loss which they had sustained by his withdrawal from the army. The Trojans
+being informed by one of their spies of the defection of Achilles, became
+emboldened by the absence of this brave and intrepid leader, whom they
+feared above all the other Greek heroes; they accordingly sallied forth,
+and made a bold and eminently successful attack upon the Greeks, who,
+although they most bravely and obstinately defended their position, were
+completely routed, and driven back to their intrenchments, Agamemnon and
+most of the other Greek leaders being wounded in the engagement.
+
+Encouraged by this marked and signal success the Trojans now commenced to
+besiege the Greeks in their own camp. At this juncture Agamemnon, seeing
+the danger which threatened the army, sunk for the moment all personal
+grievances, and despatched an embassy to Achilles consisting of many noble
+and distinguished chiefs, urgently entreating him to come to the assistance
+of his countrymen in this their hour of peril; promising that not only
+should the fair Brisëis be restored to him, but also that the hand of his
+own daughter should be bestowed on him in marriage, with seven towns as her
+dowry. But the obstinate determination of the proud hero was not to be
+moved; and though he listened courteously to the arguments and
+representations of the messengers of Agamemnon, his resolution to take no
+further part in the war remained unshaken.
+
+In one of the engagements which took place soon afterwards, the Trojans,
+under the command of Hector, penetrated into the heart of the Greek camp,
+and had already commenced to burn their ships, when Patroclus, seeing the
+distress of his countrymen, earnestly besought Achilles to send him to the
+rescue at the head of the Myrmidons. The better nature of the hero
+prevailed, and he not only intrusted to his friend the command of {294} his
+brave band of warriors, but lent him also his own suit of armour.
+
+Patroclus having mounted the war-chariot of the hero, Achilles lifted on
+high a golden goblet and poured out a libation of wine to the gods,
+accompanied by an earnest petition for victory, and the safe return of his
+beloved comrade. As a parting injunction he warned Patroclus against
+advancing too far into the territory of the enemy, and entreated him to be
+content with rescuing the galleys.
+
+At the head of the Myrmidons Patroclus now made a desperate attack upon the
+enemy, who, thinking that the invincible Achilles was himself in command of
+his battalions, became disheartened, and were put to flight. Patroclus
+followed up his victory and pursued the Trojans as far as the walls of
+their city, altogether forgetting in the excitement of battle the
+injunction of his friend Achilles. But his temerity cost the young hero his
+life, for he now encountered the mighty Hector himself, and fell by his
+hands. Hector stripped the armour from his dead foe, and would have dragged
+the body into the city had not Menelaus and Ajax the Greater rushed
+forward, and after a long and fierce struggle succeeded in rescuing it from
+desecration.
+
+DEATH OF HECTOR.--And now came the mournful task of informing Achilles of
+the fate of his friend. He wept bitterly over the dead body of his comrade,
+and solemnly vowed that the funereal rites should not be solemnized in his
+honour until he had slain Hector with his own hands, and captured twelve
+Trojans to be immolated on his funeral pyre. All other considerations
+vanished before the burning desire to avenge the death of his friend; and
+Achilles, now thoroughly aroused from his apathy, became reconciled to
+Agamemnon, and rejoined the Greek army. At the request of the goddess
+Thetis, Hephæstus forged for him a new suit of armour, which far surpassed
+in magnificence that of all the other heroes.
+
+Thus gloriously arrayed he was soon seen striding {295} along, calling the
+Greeks to arms. He now led the troops against the enemy, who were defeated
+and put to flight until, near the gates of the city, Achilles and Hector
+encountered each other. But here, for the first time throughout his whole
+career, the courage of the Trojan hero deserted him. At the near approach
+of his redoubtable antagonist he turned and fled for his life. Achilles
+pursued him; and thrice round the walls of the city was the terrible race
+run, in sight of the old king and queen, who had mounted the walls to watch
+the battle. Hector endeavoured, during each course, to reach the city
+gates, so that his comrades might open them to admit him or cover him with
+their missiles; but his adversary, seeing his design, forced him into the
+open plain, at the same time calling to his friends to hurl no spear upon
+his foe, but to leave to him the vengeance he had so long panted for. At
+length, wearied with the hot pursuit, Hector made a stand and challenged
+his foe to single combat. A desperate encounter took place, in which Hector
+succumbed to his powerful adversary at the Scæan gate; and with his last
+dying breath the Trojan hero foretold to his conqueror that he himself
+would soon perish on the same spot.
+
+The infuriated victor bound the lifeless corse of his fallen foe to his
+chariot, and dragged it three times round the city walls and thence to the
+Greek camp. Overwhelmed with horror at this terrible scene the aged parents
+of Hector uttered such heart-rending cries of anguish that they reached the
+ears of Andromache, his faithful wife, who, rushing to the walls, beheld
+the dead body of her husband, bound to the conqueror's car.
+
+Achilles now solemnized the funereal rites in honour of his friend
+Patroclus. The dead body of the hero was borne to the funeral pile by the
+Myrmidons in full panoply. His dogs and horses were then slain to accompany
+him, in case he should need them in the realm of shades; after which
+Achilles, in fulfilment of his savage vow, slaughtered twelve brave Trojan
+captives, who were {296} laid on the funeral pyre, which was now lighted.
+When all was consumed the bones of Patroclus were carefully collected and
+inclosed in a golden urn. Then followed the funereal games, which consisted
+of chariot-races, fighting with the cestus (a sort of boxing-glove),
+wrestling matches, foot-races, and single combats with shield and spear, in
+all of which the most distinguished heroes took part, and contended for the
+prizes.
+
+PENTHESILEA.--After the death of Hector, their great hope and bulwark, the
+Trojans did not venture beyond the walls of their city. But soon their
+hopes were revived by the appearance of a powerful army of Amazons under
+the command of their queen Penthesilea, a daughter of Ares, whose great
+ambition was to measure swords with the renowned Achilles himself, and to
+avenge the death of the valiant Hector.
+
+Hostilities now recommenced in the open plain. Penthesilea led the Trojan
+host; the Greeks on their side being under the command of Achilles and
+Ajax. Whilst the latter succeeded in putting the enemy to flight, Achilles
+was challenged by Penthesilea to single combat. With heroic courage she
+went forth to the fight; but even the strongest men failed before the power
+of the great Achilles, and though a daughter of Ares, Penthesilea was but a
+woman. With generous chivalry the hero endeavoured to spare the brave and
+beautiful maiden-warrior, and only when his own life was in imminent danger
+did he make a serious effort to vanquish his enemy, when Penthesilea shared
+the fate of all who ventured to oppose the spear of Achilles, and fell by
+his hand.
+
+Feeling herself fatally wounded, she remembered the desecration of the dead
+body of Hector, and earnestly entreated the forbearance of the hero. But
+the petition was hardly necessary, for Achilles, full of compassion for his
+brave but unfortunate adversary, lifted her gently from the ground, and she
+expired in his arms.
+
+On beholding the dead body of their leader in the {297} possession of
+Achilles, the Amazons and Trojans prepared for a fresh attack in order to
+wrest it from his hands; but observing their purpose, Achilles stepped
+forward and loudly called upon them to halt. Then in a few well-chosen
+words he praised the great valour and intrepidity of the fallen queen, and
+expressed his willingness to resign the body at once.
+
+The chivalrous conduct of Achilles was fully appreciated by both Greeks and
+Trojans. Thersites alone, a base and cowardly wretch, attributed unworthy
+motives to the gracious proceedings of the hero; and, not content with
+these insinuations, he savagely pierced with his lance the dead body of the
+Amazonian queen; whereupon Achilles, with one blow of his powerful arm,
+felled him to the ground, and killed him on the spot.
+
+The well-merited death of Thersites excited no commiseration, but his
+kinsman Diomedes came forward and claimed compensation for the murder of
+his relative; and as Agamemnon, who, as commander-in-chief, might easily
+have settled the difficulty, refrained from interfering, the proud nature
+of Achilles resented the implied condemnation of his conduct, and he once
+more abandoned the Greek army and took ship for Lesbos. Odysseus, however,
+followed him to the island, and, with his usual tact, succeeded in inducing
+the hero to return to the camp.
+
+DEATH OF ACHILLES.--A new ally of the Trojans now appeared on the field in
+the person of Memnon, the Æthiopian, a son of Eos and Tithonus, who brought
+with him a powerful reinforcement of negroes. Memnon was the first opponent
+who had yet encountered Achilles on an equal footing; for like the great
+hero himself he was the son of a goddess, and possessed also, like
+Achilles, a suit of armour made for him by Hephæstus.
+
+Before the heroes encountered each other in single combat, the two
+goddesses, Thetis and Eos, hastened to Olympus to intercede with its mighty
+ruler for the life of their sons. Resolved even in this instance not to act
+in opposition to the Moiræ, Zeus seized the golden scales {298} in which he
+weighed the lot of mortals, and placed in it the respective fates of the
+two heroes, whereupon that of Memnon weighed down the balance, thus
+portending his death.
+
+Eos abandoned Olympus in despair. Arrived on the battlefield she beheld the
+lifeless body of her son, who, after a long and brave defence, had at
+length succumbed to the all-conquering arm of Achilles. At her command her
+children, the Winds, flew down to the plain, and seizing the body of the
+slain hero conveyed it through the air safe from the desecration of the
+enemy.
+
+The triumph of Achilles was not of long duration. Intoxicated with success
+he attempted, at the head of the Greek army, to storm the city of Troy,
+when Paris, by the aid of Phoebus-Apollo, aimed a well-directed dart at the
+hero, which pierced his vulnerable heel, and he fell to the ground fatally
+wounded before the Scæan gate. But though face to face with death, the
+intrepid hero, raising himself from the ground, still performed prodigies
+of valour, and not until his tottering limbs refused their office was the
+enemy aware that the wound was mortal.
+
+By the combined efforts of Ajax and Odysseus the body of Achilles was
+wrested from the enemy after a long and terrible fight, and conveyed to the
+Greek camp. Weeping bitterly over the untimely fate of her gallant son,
+Thetis came to embrace him for the last time, and mingled her regrets and
+lamentations with those of the whole Greek army. The funeral pyre was then
+lighted, and the voices of the Muses were heard chanting his funeral dirge.
+When, according to the custom of the ancients, the body had been burned on
+the pyre, the bones of the hero were collected, inclosed in a golden urn,
+and deposited beside the remains of his beloved friend Patroclus.
+
+In the funereal games celebrated in honour of the fallen hero, the property
+of her son was offered by Thetis as the prize of victory. But it was
+unanimously agreed that the beautiful suit of armour made by Hephæstus
+should be awarded to him who had contributed the most to the {299} rescue
+of the body from the hands of the enemy. Popular opinion unanimously
+decided in favour of Odysseus, which verdict was confirmed by the Trojan
+prisoners who were present at the engagement. Unable to endure the slight,
+the unfortunate Ajax lost his reason, and in this condition put an end to
+his existence.
+
+FINAL MEASURES.--Thus were the Greeks deprived at one and the same time of
+their bravest and most powerful leader, and of him also who approached the
+nearest to this distinction. For a time operations were at a standstill,
+until Odysseus at length, contrived by means of a cleverly-arranged ambush
+to capture Helenus, the son of Priam. Like his sister Cassandra, Helenus
+possessed the gift of prophecy, and the unfortunate youth was now coerced
+by Odysseus into using this gift against the welfare of his native city.
+
+The Greeks learned from the Trojan prince that three conditions were
+indispensable to the conquest of Troy:--In the first place the son of
+Achilles must fight in their ranks; secondly, the arrows of Heracles must
+be used against the enemy; and thirdly, they must obtain possession of the
+wooden image of Pallas-Athene, the famous Palladium of Troy.
+
+The first condition was easily fulfilled. Ever ready to serve the interests
+of the community, Odysseus repaired to the island of Scyros, where he found
+Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. Having succeeded in arousing the ambition
+of the fiery youth, he generously resigned to him the magnificent armour of
+his father, and then conveyed him to the Greek camp, where he immediately
+distinguished himself in single combat with Eurypylus, the son of Telephus,
+who had come to the aid of the Trojans.
+
+To procure the poison-dipped arrows of Heracles was a matter of greater
+difficulty. They were still in the possession of the much-aggrieved
+Philoctetes, who had remained in the island of Lemnos, his wound still
+unhealed, suffering the most abject misery. But the {300} judicious zeal of
+the indefatigable and ever-active Odysseus, who was accompanied in this
+undertaking by Diomedes, at length gained the day, and he induced
+Philoctetes to accompany him to the camp, where the skilful leech Machaon,
+the son of Asclepias, healed him of his wound.
+
+Philoctetes became reconciled to Agamemnon, and in an engagement which took
+place soon after, he mortally wounded Paris, the son of Priam. But though
+pierced by the fatal arrow of the demi-god, death did not immediately
+ensue; and Paris, calling to mind the prediction of an oracle, that his
+deserted wife Oenone could alone cure him if wounded, caused himself to be
+transported to her abode on Mount Ida, where he implored her by the memory
+of their past love to save his life. But mindful only of her wrongs, Oenone
+crushed out of her heart every womanly feeling of pity and compassion, and
+sternly bade him depart. Soon, however, all her former affection for her
+husband awoke within her. With frantic haste she followed him; but on her
+arrival in the city she found the dead body of Paris already laid on the
+lighted funeral pile, and, in her remorse and despair, Oenone threw herself
+on the lifeless form of her husband and perished in the flames.
+
+The Trojans were now shut up within their walls and closely besieged; but
+the third and most difficult condition being still unfulfilled, all efforts
+to take the city were unavailing. In this emergency the wise and devoted
+Odysseus came once more to the aid of his comrades. Having disfigured
+himself with self-inflicted wounds, he assumed the disguise of a wretched
+old mendicant, and then crept stealthily into the city in order to discover
+where the Palladium was preserved. He succeeded in his object, and was
+recognized by no one save the fair Helen, who after the death of Paris had
+been given in marriage to his brother Deiphobus. But since death had robbed
+her of her lover, the heart of the Greek princess had turned yearningly
+towards her native country and her husband Menelaus, and Odysseus now found
+in her a most unlooked-for ally. On his return to the camp {301} Odysseus
+called to his aid the valiant Diomedes, and with his assistance the
+perilous task of abstracting the Palladium from its sacred precincts was,
+after some difficulty, effected.
+
+The conditions of conquest being now fulfilled, a council was called to
+decide on final proceedings. Epeios, a Greek sculptor, who had accompanied
+the expedition, was desired to construct a colossal wooden horse large
+enough to contain a number of able and distinguished heroes. On its
+completion a band of warriors concealed themselves within, whereupon the
+Greek army broke up their camp, and then set fire to it, as though, wearied
+of the long and tedious ten years' siege, they had abandoned the enterprise
+as hopeless.
+
+Accompanied by Agamemnon and the sage Nestor, the fleet set sail for the
+island of Tenedos, where they cast anchor, anxiously awaiting the torch
+signal to hasten back to the Trojan coast.
+
+DESTRUCTION OF TROY.--When the Trojans saw the enemy depart, and the Greek
+camp in flames, they believed themselves safe at last, and streamed in
+great numbers out of the town in order to view the site where the Greeks
+had so long encamped. Here they found the gigantic wooden horse, which they
+examined with wondering curiosity, various opinions being expressed with
+regard to its utility. Some supposed it to be an engine of war, and were in
+favour of destroying it, others regarded it as a sacred idol, and proposed
+that it should be brought into the city. Two circumstances which now
+occurred induced the Trojans to incline towards the latter opinion.
+
+Chief among those who suspected a treacherous design in this huge
+contrivance was Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, who, in company with his two
+young sons, had issued from the city with the Trojans in order to offer a
+sacrifice to the gods. With all the eloquence at his command he urged his
+countrymen not to place confidence in any gift of the Greeks, and even went
+so far as to pierce the {302} side of the horse with a spear which he took
+from a warrior beside him, whereupon the arms of the heroes were heard to
+rattle. The hearts of the brave men concealed inside the horse quailed
+within them, and they had already given themselves up for lost, when
+Pallas-Athene, who ever watched over the cause of the Greeks, now came to
+their aid, and a miracle occurred in order to blind and deceive the devoted
+Trojans;--for the fall of Troy was decreed by the gods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whilst Laocoon with his two sons stood prepared to perform the sacrifice,
+two enormous serpents suddenly rose out of the sea, and made direct for the
+altar. They entwined themselves first round the tender limbs of the
+helpless youths, and then encircled their father who rushed to their
+assistance, and thus all three were destroyed in sight of the horrified
+multitude. The Trojans naturally interpreted the fate of Laocoon and his
+sons to be a punishment sent by Zeus for his sacrilege against the wooden
+horse, and were now fully convinced that it must be consecrated to the
+gods.
+
+The crafty Odysseus had left behind his trusty friend Sinon with full
+instructions as to his course of action. Assuming the rôle assigned to him,
+he now approached king Priam with fettered hands and piteous entreaties,
+alleging that the Greeks, in obedience to the command of an oracle, had
+attempted to immolate him as a sacrifice; but that he had contrived to
+escape from their hands, and now sought protection from the king.
+
+The kind-hearted monarch, believing his story, released {303} his bonds,
+assured him of his favour, and then begged him to explain the true meaning
+of the wooden horse. Sinon willingly complied. He informed the king that
+Pallas-Athene, who had hitherto been the hope and stay of the Greeks
+throughout the war, was so deeply offended at the removal of her sacred
+image, the Palladium, from her temple in Troy, that she had withdrawn her
+protection from the Greeks, and refused all further aid till it was
+restored to its rightful place. Hence the Greeks had returned home in order
+to seek fresh instructions from an oracle. But before leaving, Calchas the
+seer had advised their building this gigantic wooden horse as a tribute to
+the offended goddess, hoping thereby to appease her just anger. He further
+explained that it had been constructed of such colossal proportions in
+order to prevent its being brought into the city, so that the favour of
+Pallas-Athene might not be transferred to the Trojans.
+
+Hardly had the crafty Sinon ceased speaking when the Trojans, with one
+accord, urged that the wooden horse should be brought into their city
+without delay. The gates being too low to admit its entrance, a breach was
+made in the walls, and the horse was conveyed in triumph into the very
+heart of Troy; whereupon the Trojans, overjoyed at what they deemed the
+successful issue of the campaign, abandoned themselves to feasting and
+rioting.
+
+Amidst the universal rejoicing the unhappy Cassandra, foreseeing the result
+of the admission of the wooden horse into the city, was seen rushing
+through the streets with wild gestures and dishevelled hair, warning her
+people against the dangers which awaited them. But her eloquent words fell
+on deaf ears; for it was ever the fate of the unfortunate prophetess that
+her predictions should find no credence.
+
+When, after the day's excitement, the Trojans had retired to rest, and all
+was hushed and silent, Sinon, in the dead of night, released the heroes
+from their voluntary imprisonment. The signal was then given to the Greek
+fleet lying off Tenedos, and the whole army in unbroken silence once more
+landed on the Trojan coast. {304}
+
+To enter the city was now an easy matter, and a fearful slaughter ensued.
+Aroused from their slumbers, the Trojans, under the command of their
+bravest leaders, made a gallant defence, but were easily overcome. All
+their most valiant heroes fell in the fight, and soon the whole city was
+wrapt in flames.
+
+Priam fell by the hand of Neoptolemus, who killed him as he lay prostrate
+before the altar of Zeus, praying for divine assistance in this awful hour
+of peril. The unfortunate Andromache with her young son Astyanax had taken
+refuge on the summit of a tower, where she was discovered by the victors,
+who, fearing lest the son of Hector might one day rise against them to
+avenge the death of his father, tore him from her arms and hurled him over
+the battlements.
+
+Æneas alone, the son of Aphrodite, the beloved of gods and men, escaped the
+universal carnage with his son and his old father Anchises, whom he carried
+on his shoulders out of the city. He first sought refuge on Mount Ida, and
+afterwards fled to Italy, where he became the ancestral hero of the Roman
+people.
+
+Menelaus now sought Helen in the royal palace, who, being immortal, still
+retained all her former beauty and fascination. A reconciliation took
+place, and she accompanied her husband on his homeward voyage. Andromache,
+the widow of the brave Hector, was given in marriage to Neoptolemus,
+Cassandra fell to the share of Agamemnon, and Hecuba, the gray-haired and
+widowed queen, was made prisoner by Odysseus.
+
+The boundless treasures of the wealthy Trojan king fell into the hands of
+the Greek heroes, who, after having levelled the city of Troy to the
+ground, prepared for their homeward voyage.
+
+RETURN OF THE GREEKS FROM TROY.
+
+During the sacking of the city of Troy the Greeks, in the hour of victory,
+committed many acts of desecration and cruelty, which called down upon them
+the wrath of the {305} gods, for which reason their homeward voyage was
+beset with manifold dangers and disasters, and many perished before they
+reached their native land.
+
+Nestor, Diomedes, Philoctetes, and Neoptolemus were among those who arrived
+safely in Greece after a prosperous voyage. The vessel which carried
+Menelaus and Helen was driven by violent tempests to the coast of Egypt,
+and only after many years of weary wanderings and vicissitudes did they
+succeed in reaching their home at Sparta.
+
+Ajax the Lesser having offended Pallas-Athene by desecrating her temple on
+the night of the destruction of Troy, was shipwrecked off Cape Caphareus.
+He succeeded, however, in clinging to a rock, and his life might have been
+spared but for his impious boast that he needed not the help of the gods.
+No sooner had he uttered the sacrilegious words than Poseidon, enraged at
+his audacity, split with his trident the rock to which the hero was
+clinging, and the unfortunate Ajax was overwhelmed by the waves.
+
+FATE OF AGAMEMNON.--The homeward voyage of Agamemnon was tolerably
+uneventful and prosperous; but on his arrival at Mycenæ misfortune and ruin
+awaited him.
+
+His wife Clytemnestra, in revenge for the sacrifice of her beloved daughter
+Iphigenia, had formed a secret alliance during his absence with Ægisthus,
+the son of Thyestes, and on the return of Agamemnon they both conspired to
+compass his destruction. Clytemnestra feigned the greatest joy on beholding
+her husband, and in spite of the urgent warnings of Cassandra, who was now
+a captive in his train, he received her protestations of affection with the
+most trusting confidence. In her well-assumed anxiety for the comfort of
+the weary traveller, she prepared a warm bath for his refreshment, and at a
+given signal from the treacherous queen, Ægisthus, who was concealed in an
+adjoining chamber, rushed upon the defenceless hero and slew him. {306}
+
+During the massacre of the retainers of Agamemnon which followed, his
+daughter Electra, with great presence of mind, contrived to save her young
+brother Orestes. He fled for refuge to his uncle Strophius, king of Phocis,
+who educated him with his own son Pylades, and an ardent friendship sprung
+up between the youths, which, from its constancy and disinterestedness, has
+become proverbial.
+
+As Orestes grew up to manhood, his one great all-absorbing desire was to
+avenge the death of his father. Accompanied by his faithful friend Pylades,
+he repaired in disguise to Mycenæ, where Ægisthus and Clytemnestra reigned
+conjointly over the kingdom of Argos. In order to disarm suspicion he had
+taken the precaution to despatch a messenger to Clytemnestra, purporting to
+be sent by king Strophius, to announce to her the untimely death of her son
+Orestes through an accident during a chariot-race at Delphi.
+
+Arrived at Mycenæ, he found his sister Electra so overwhelmed with grief at
+the news of her brother's death that to her he revealed his identity. When
+he heard from her lips how cruelly she had been treated by her mother, and
+how joyfully the news of his demise had been received, his long pent-up
+passion completely overpowered him, and rushing into the presence of the
+king and queen, he first pierced Clytemnestra to the heart, and afterwards
+her guilty partner.
+
+But the crime of murdering his own mother was not long unavenged by the
+gods. Hardly was the fatal act committed when the Furies appeared and
+unceasingly pursued the unfortunate Orestes wherever he went. In this
+wretched plight he sought refuge in the temple of Delphi, where he
+earnestly besought Apollo to release him from his cruel tormentors. The god
+commanded him, in expiation of his crime, to repair to Taurica-Chersonnesus
+and convey the statue of Artemis from thence to the kingdom of Attica, an
+expedition fraught with extreme peril. We have already seen in a former
+chapter how Orestes escaped the fate which befell all strangers {307} who
+landed on the Taurian coast, and how, with the aid of his sister Iphigenia,
+the priestess of the temple, he succeeded in conveying the statue of the
+goddess to his native country.
+
+But the Furies did not so easily relinquish their prey, and only by means
+of the interposition of the just and powerful goddess Pallas-Athene was
+Orestes finally liberated from their persecution. His peace of mind being
+at length restored, Orestes assumed the government of the kingdom of Argos,
+and became united to the beautiful Hermione, daughter of Helen and
+Menelaus. On his faithful friend Pylades he bestowed the hand of his
+beloved sister, the good and faithful Electra.
+
+HOMEWARD VOYAGE OF ODYSSEUS.--With his twelve ships laden with enormous
+treasures, captured during the sacking of Troy, Odysseus set sail with a
+light heart for his rocky island home of Ithaca. At length the happy hour
+had arrived which for ten long years the hero had so anxiously awaited, and
+he little dreamt that ten more must elapse before he would be permitted by
+the Fates to clasp to his heart his beloved wife and child.
+
+During his homeward voyage his little fleet was driven by stress of weather
+to a land whose inhabitants subsisted entirely on a curious plant called
+the lotus, which was sweet as honey to the taste, but had the effect of
+causing utter oblivion of home and country, and of creating an irresistible
+longing to remain for ever in the land of the lotus-eaters. Odysseus and
+his companions were hospitably received by the inhabitants, who regaled
+them freely with their peculiar and very delicious food; after partaking of
+which, however, the comrades of the hero refused to leave the country, and
+it was only by sheer force that he at length succeeded in bringing them
+back to their ships.
+
+POLYPHEMUS.--Continuing their journey, they next arrived at the country of
+the Cyclops, a race of giants remarkable for having only one eye, which was
+placed in the centre of their foreheads. Here Odysseus, whose love of
+adventure overcame more prudent considerations, {308} left his fleet safely
+anchored in the bay of a neighbouring island, and with twelve chosen
+companions set out to explore the country.
+
+Near the shore they found a vast cave, into which they boldly entered. In
+the interior they saw to their surprise huge piles of cheese and great
+pails of milk ranged round the walls. After partaking freely of these
+provisions his companions endeavoured to persuade Odysseus to return to the
+ship; but the hero being curious to make the acquaintance of the owner of
+this extraordinary abode, ordered them to remain and await his pleasure.
+
+Towards evening a fierce giant made his appearance, bearing an enormous
+load of wood upon his shoulders, and driving before him a large flock of
+sheep. This was Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, the owner of the cave.
+After all his sheep had entered, the giant rolled before the entrance to
+the cave an enormous rock, which the combined strength of a hundred men
+would have been powerless to move.
+
+Having kindled a fire of great logs of pine-wood he was about to prepare
+his supper when the flames revealed to him, in a corner of the cavern, its
+new occupants, who now came forward and informed him that they were
+shipwrecked mariners, and claimed his hospitality in the name of Zeus. But
+the fierce monster railed at the great ruler of Olympus--for the lawless
+Cyclops knew no fear of the gods--and hardly vouchsafed a reply to the
+demand of the hero. To the consternation of Odysseus the giant seized two
+of his companions, and, after dashing them to the ground, consumed their
+remains, washing down the ghastly meal with huge draughts of milk. He then
+stretched his gigantic limbs on the ground, and soon fell fast asleep
+beside the fire.
+
+Thinking the opportunity a favourable one to rid himself and his companions
+of their terrible enemy, Odysseus drew his sword, and, creeping stealthily
+forward, was about to slay the giant when he suddenly remembered that the
+aperture of the cave was effectually closed by the immense rock, which
+rendered egress impossible. He {309} therefore wisely determined to wait
+until the following day, and set his wits to work in the meantime to devise
+a scheme by which he and his companions might make their escape.
+
+When, early next morning, the giant awoke, two more unfortunate companions
+of the hero were seized by him and devoured; after which Polyphemus
+leisurely drove out his flock, taking care to secure the entrance of the
+cave as before.
+
+Next evening the giant devoured two more of his victims, and when he had
+finished his revolting meal Odysseus stepped forward and presented him with
+a large measure of wine which he had brought with him from his ship in a
+goat's skin. Delighted with the delicious beverage the giant inquired the
+name of the donor. Odysseus replied that his name was Noman, whereupon
+Polyphemus, graciously announced that he would evince his gratitude by
+eating him the last.
+
+The monster, thoroughly overcome with the powerful old liquor, soon fell
+into a heavy sleep, and Odysseus lost no time in putting his plans into
+execution. He had cut during the day a large piece of the giant's own
+olive-staff, which he now heated in the fire, and, aided by his companions,
+thrust it into the eye-ball of Polyphemus, and in this manner effectually
+blinded him.
+
+The giant made the cave resound with his howls of pain and rage. His cries
+being heard by his brother Cyclops, who lived in caves not far distant from
+his own, they soon came trooping over the hills from all sides, and
+assailed the door of the cave with inquiries concerning the cause of his
+cries and groans. But as his only reply was, "Noman has injured me," they
+concluded that he had been playing them a trick, and therefore abandoned
+him to his fate.
+
+The blinded giant now groped vainly round his cave in hopes of laying hands
+on some of his tormentors; but wearied at length of these fruitless
+exertions he rolled away the rock which closed the aperture, thinking that
+his victims would rush out with the sheep, when it would {310} be an easy
+matter to capture them. But in the meantime Odysseus had not been idle, and
+the subtlety of the hero was now brought into play, and proved more than a
+match for the giant's strength. The sheep were very large, and Odysseus,
+with bands of willow taken from the bed of Polyphemus, had cleverly linked
+them together three abreast, and under each centre one had secured one of
+his comrades. After providing for the safety of his companions, Odysseus
+himself selected the finest ram of the flock, and, by clinging to the wool
+of the animal, made his escape. As the sheep passed out of the cave the
+giant felt carefully among them for his victims, but not finding them on
+the backs of the animals he let them pass, and thus they all escaped.
+
+They now hastened on board their vessel, and Odysseus, thinking himself at
+a safe distance, shouted out his real name and mockingly defied the giant;
+whereupon Polyphemus seized a huge rock, and, following the direction of
+the voice, hurled it towards the ship, which narrowly escaped destruction.
+He then called upon his father Poseidon to avenge him, entreating him to
+curse Odysseus with a long and tedious voyage, to destroy all his ships and
+all his companions, and to make his return as late, as unhappy, and as
+desolate as possible.
+
+FURTHER ADVENTURES.--After sailing about over unknown seas for some time
+the hero and his followers cast anchor at the island of Æolus, king of the
+Winds, who welcomed them cordially, and sumptuously entertained them for a
+whole month.
+
+When they took their leave he gave Odysseus the skin of an ox, into which
+he had placed all the contrary winds in order to insure to them a safe and
+speedy voyage, and then, having cautioned him on no account to open it,
+caused the gentle Zephyrus to blow so that he might waft them to the shores
+of Greece.
+
+On the evening of the tenth day after their departure they arrived in sight
+of the watch-fires of Ithaca. But here, unfortunately, Odysseus, being
+completely wearied {311} out, fell asleep, and his comrades, thinking Æolus
+had given him a treasure in the bag which he so sedulously guarded, seized
+this opportunity of opening it, whereupon all the adverse winds rushed out,
+and drove them back to the Æolian island. This time, however, Æolus did not
+welcome them as before, but dismissed them with bitter reproaches and
+upbraidings for their disregard of his injunctions.
+
+After a six days' voyage they at length sighted land. Observing what
+appeared to be the smoke from a large town, Odysseus despatched a herald,
+accompanied by two of his comrades, in order to procure provisions. When
+they arrived in the city they discovered to their consternation that they
+had set foot in the land of the Læstrygones, a race of fierce and gigantic
+cannibals, governed by their king Antiphates. The unfortunate herald was
+seized and killed by the king; but his two companions, who took to flight,
+succeeded in reaching their ship in safety, and urgently entreated their
+chief to put to sea without delay.
+
+But Antiphates and his fellow-giants pursued the fugitives to the
+sea-shore, where they now appeared in large numbers. They seized huge
+rocks, which they hurled upon the fleet, sinking eleven of the ships with
+all hands, on board; the vessel under the immediate command of Odysseus
+being the only one which escaped destruction. In this ship, with his few
+remaining followers, Odysseus now set sail, but was driven by adverse winds
+to an island called Ææa.
+
+CIRCE.--The hero and his companions were in sore need of provisions, but,
+warned by previous disasters, Odysseus resolved that only a certain number
+of the ship's crew should be despatched to reconnoitre the country; and on
+lots being drawn by Odysseus and Eurylochus, it fell to the share of the
+latter to fill the office of conductor to the little band selected for this
+purpose.
+
+They soon came to a magnificent marble palace, which was situated in a
+charming and fertile valley. Here {312} dwelt a beautiful enchantress
+called Circe, daughter of the sun-god and the sea-nymph Perse. The entrance
+to her abode was guarded by wolves and lions, who, however, to the great
+surprise of the strangers, were tame and harmless as lambs. These were, in
+fact, human beings who, by the wicked arts of the sorceress, had been thus
+transformed. From within they heard the enchanting voice of the goddess,
+who was singing a sweet melody as she sat at her work, weaving a web such
+as immortals alone could produce. She graciously invited them to enter, and
+all save the prudent and cautious Eurylochus accepted the invitation.
+
+As they trod the wide and spacious halls of tesselated marble objects of
+wealth and beauty met their view on all sides. The soft and luxuriant
+couches on which she bade them be seated were studded with silver, and the
+banquet which she provided for their refreshment was served in vessels of
+pure gold. But while her unsuspecting guests were abandoning themselves to
+the pleasures of the table the wicked enchantress was secretly working
+their ruin; for the wine-cup which was presented to them was drugged with a
+potent draught, after partaking of which the sorceress touched them with
+her magic wand, and they were immediately transformed into swine, still,
+however, retaining their human senses.
+
+When Odysseus heard from Eurylochus of the terrible fate which had befallen
+his companions he set out, regardless of personal danger, resolved to make
+an effort to rescue them. On his way to the palace of the sorceress he met
+a fair youth bearing a wand of gold, who revealed himself to him as Hermes,
+the divine messenger of the gods. He gently reproached the hero for his
+temerity in venturing to enter the abode of Circe unprovided with an
+antidote against her spells, and presented him with a peculiar herb called
+Moly, assuring him that it would inevitably counteract the baneful arts of
+the fell enchantress. Hermes warned Odysseus that Circe would offer him a
+draught of drugged wine with the intention of transforming him as she had
+done his companions. He bade him drink the wine, the effect of {313} which
+would be completely nullified by the herb which he had given him, and then
+rush boldly at the sorceress as though he would take her life, whereupon
+her power over him would cease, she would recognize her master, and grant
+him whatever he might desire.
+
+Circe received the hero with all the grace and fascination at her command,
+and presented him with a draught of wine in a golden goblet. This he
+readily accepted, trusting to the efficacy of the antidote. Then, in
+obedience to the injunction of Hermes, he drew his sword from its scabbard
+and rushed upon the sorceress as though he would slay her.
+
+When Circe found that her fell purpose was for the first time frustrated,
+and that a mortal had dared to attack her, she knew that it must be the
+great Odysseus who stood before her, whose visit to her abode had been
+foretold to her by Hermes. At his solicitation she restored to his
+companions their human form, promising at the same time that henceforth the
+hero and his comrades should be free from her enchantments.
+
+But all warnings and past experience were forgotten by Odysseus when Circe
+commenced to exercise upon him her fascinations and blandishments. At her
+request his companions took up their abode in the island, and he himself
+became the guest and slave of the enchantress for a whole year; and it was
+only at the earnest admonition of his friends that he was at length induced
+to free himself from her toils.
+
+Circe had become so attached to the gallant hero that it cost her a great
+effort to part with him, but having vowed not to exercise her magic spells
+against him she was powerless to detain him further. The goddess now warned
+him that his future would be beset with many dangers, and commanded him to
+consult the blind old seer Tiresias,[52] in the realm of Hades, concerning
+his future destiny. She then loaded his ship with provisions for the
+voyage, and reluctantly bade him farewell.
+
+{314}
+
+THE REALM OF SHADES.--Though somewhat appalled at the prospect of seeking
+the weird and gloomy realms inhabited by the spirits of the dead, Odysseus
+nevertheless obeyed the command of the goddess, who gave him full
+directions with regard to his course, and also certain injunctions which it
+was important that he should carry out with strict attention to detail.
+
+He accordingly set sail with his companions for the dark and gloomy land of
+the Cimmerians, which lay at the furthermost end of the world, beyond the
+great stream Oceanus. Favoured by gentle breezes they soon reached their
+destination in the far west. On arriving at the spot indicated by Circe,
+where the turbid waters of the rivers Acheron and Cocytus mingled at the
+entrance to the lower world, Odysseus landed, unattended by his companions.
+
+Having dug a trench to receive the blood of the sacrifices he now offered a
+black ram and ewe to the powers of darkness, whereupon crowds of shades
+rose up from the yawning gulf, clustering round him, eager to quaff the
+blood of the sacrifice, which would restore to them for a time their mental
+vigour. But mindful of the injunction of Circe, Odysseus brandished his
+sword, and suffered none to approach until Tiresias had appeared. The great
+prophet now came slowly forward leaning on his golden staff, and after
+drinking of the sacrifice proceeded to impart to Odysseus the hidden
+secrets of his future fate. Tiresias also warned him of the numerous perils
+which would assail him, not only during his homeward voyage but also on his
+return to Ithaca, and then instructed him how to avoid them.
+
+Meanwhile numbers of other shades had quaffed the sense-awakening draught
+of the sacrifice, among whom Odysseus recognized to his dismay his
+tenderly-loved mother Anticlea. From her he learned that she had died of
+grief at her son's protracted absence, and that his aged father Laertes was
+wearing his life away in vain and anxious longings for his return. He also
+conversed with the ill-fated Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Achilles. The latter
+{315} bemoaned his shadowy and unreal existence, and plaintively assured
+his former companion-in-arms that rather would he be the poorest
+day-labourer on earth than reign supreme as king over the realm of shades.
+Ajax alone, who still brooded over his wrongs, held aloof, refusing to
+converse with Odysseus, and sullenly retired when the hero addressed him.
+
+But at last so many shades came swarming round him that the courage of
+Odysseus failed him, and he fled in terror back to his ship. Having
+rejoined his companions they once more put to sea, and proceeded on their
+homeward voyage.
+
+THE SIRENS.--After some days' sail their course led them past the island of
+the Sirens.
+
+Now Circe had warned Odysseus on no account to listen to the seductive
+melodies of these treacherous nymphs; for that all who gave ear to their
+enticing strains felt an unconquerable desire to leap overboard and join
+them, when they either perished at their hands, or were engulfed by the
+waves.
+
+In order that his crew should not hear the song of the Sirens, Odysseus had
+filled their ears with melted wax; but the hero himself so dearly loved
+adventure that he could not resist the temptation of braving this new
+danger. By his own desire, therefore, he was lashed to the mast, and his
+comrades had strict orders on no account to release him until they were out
+of sight of the island, no matter how he might implore them to set him
+free.
+
+As they neared the fatal shore they beheld the Sirens seated side by side
+on the verdant slopes of their island; and as their sweet and alluring
+strains fell upon his ear the hero became so powerfully affected by them,
+that, forgetful of all danger, he entreated his comrades to release him;
+but the sailors, obedient to their orders, refused to unbind him until the
+enchanted island had disappeared from view. The danger past, the hero
+gratefully acknowledged the firmness of his followers, which had been the
+means of saving his life. {316}
+
+THE ISLAND OF HELIOS.--They now approached the terrible dangers of Scylla
+and Charybdis, between which Circe had desired them to pass. As Odysseus
+steered the vessel beneath the great rock, Scylla swooped down and seized
+six of his crew from the deck, and the cries of her wretched victims long
+rang in his ears. At length they reached the island of Trinacria (Sicily),
+whereon the sun-god pastured his flocks and herds, and Odysseus, calling to
+mind the warning of Tiresias to avoid this sacred island, would fain have
+steered the vessel past and left the country unexplored. But his crew
+became mutinous, and insisted on landing. Odysseus was therefore obliged to
+yield, but before allowing them to set foot on shore he made them take an
+oath not to touch the sacred herds of Helios, and to be ready to sail again
+on the following morning.
+
+It happened, unfortunately, however, that stress of weather compelled them
+to remain a whole month at Trinacria, and the store of wine and food given
+to them by Circe at parting being completely exhausted, they were obliged
+to subsist on what fish and birds the island afforded. Frequently there was
+not sufficient to satisfy their hunger, and one evening when Odysseus, worn
+out with anxiety and fatigue, had fallen asleep, Eurylochus persuaded the
+hungry men to break their vows and kill some of the sacred oxen.
+
+Dreadful was the anger of Helios, who caused the hides of the slaughtered
+animals to creep and the joints on the spits to bellow like living cattle,
+and threatened that unless Zeus punished the impious crew he would withdraw
+his light from the heavens and shine only in Hades. Anxious to appease the
+enraged deity Zeus assured him that his cause should be avenged. When,
+therefore, after feasting for seven days Odysseus and his companions again
+set sail, the ruler of Olympus caused a terrible storm to overtake them,
+during which the ship was struck with lightning and went to pieces. All the
+crew were drowned except Odysseus, who, clinging to a mast, floated about
+in the open sea for nine days, when, after once more {317} escaping being
+sucked in by the whirlpool of Charybdis, he was cast ashore on the island
+of Ogygia.
+
+CALYPSO.--Ogygia was an island covered with dense forests, where, in the
+midst of a grove of cypress and poplar, stood the charming grotto-palace of
+the nymph Calypso, daughter of the Titan Atlas. The entrance to the grotto
+was entwined with a leafy trellis-work of vine-branches, from which
+depended clusters of purple and golden grapes; the plashing of fountains
+gave a delicious sense of coolness to the air, which was filled with the
+songs of birds, and the ground was carpeted with violets and mosses.
+
+Calypso cordially welcomed the forlorn and shipwrecked hero, and hospitably
+ministered to his wants. In the course of time she became so greatly
+attached to him that she offered him immortality and eternal youth if he
+would consent to remain with her for ever. But the heart of Odysseus turned
+yearningly towards his beloved wife Penelope and his young son. He
+therefore refused the boon, and earnestly entreated the gods to permit him
+to revisit his home. But the curse of Poseidon still followed the
+unfortunate hero, and for seven long years he was detained on the island by
+Calypso, sorely against his will.
+
+At length Pallas-Athene interceded with her mighty father on his behalf,
+and Zeus, yielding to her request, forthwith despatched the fleet-footed
+Hermes to Calypso, commanding her to permit Odysseus to depart and to
+provide him with the means of transport.
+
+The goddess, though loath to part with her guest, dared not disobey the
+commands of the mighty Zeus. She therefore instructed the hero how to
+construct a raft, for which she herself wove the sails. Odysseus now bade
+her farewell, and alone and unaided embarked on the frail little craft for
+his native land.
+
+NAUSICAA.--For seventeen days Odysseus contrived to pilot the raft
+skilfully through all the perils of the deep, directing his course
+according to the directions {318} of Calypso, and guided by the stars of
+heaven. On the eighteenth day he joyfully hailed the distant outline of the
+Phæacian coast, and began to look forward hopefully to temporary rest and
+shelter. But Poseidon, still enraged with the hero who had blinded and
+insulted his son, caused an awful tempest to arise, during which the raft
+was swamped by the waves, and Odysseus only saved himself by clinging for
+bare life to a portion of the wreck.
+
+For two days and nights he floated about, drifted hither and thither by the
+angry billows, till at last, after many a narrow escape of his life, the
+sea-goddess Leucothea came to his aid, and he was cast ashore on the coast
+of Scheria, the island of the luxurious Phæaces. Worn out with the
+hardships and dangers he had passed through he crept into a thicket for
+security, and, lying down on a bed of dried leaves, soon fell fast asleep.
+
+It chanced that Nausicaa, the beautiful daughter of king Alcinous and his
+queen Arete, had come down to the shore, accompanied by her maidens, to
+wash the linen which was destined to form part of her marriage portion.
+When they had finished their task they bathed and sat down to a repast,
+after which they amused themselves with singing and playing at ball.
+
+Their joyous shouts at last awoke Odysseus, who, rising from his hiding
+place, suddenly found himself in the midst of the happy group. Alarmed at
+his wild aspect the attendants of Nausicaa fled in terror; but the
+princess, pitying the forlorn condition of the stranger, addressed him with
+kind and sympathetic words. After hearing from him the account of his
+shipwreck and the terrible hardships he had undergone, Nausicaa called back
+her attendants, reproached them for their want of courtesy, and bade them
+supply the wanderer with food, drink, and suitable raiment. Odysseus then
+left the maidens to resume their games, whilst he bathed and clothed
+himself with the garments with which they had furnished him. Athene now
+appeared to the hero and endowed him with a commanding and magnificent
+stature, and with more than mortal beauty. When he reappeared, the young
+{319} princess was struck with admiration, and requested the hero to visit
+the palace of her father. She then desired her attendants to yoke the mules
+to the wagons and prepare to return home.
+
+Odysseus was cordially received by the king and queen, who entertained him
+with magnificent hospitality, and in return for their kindness the hero
+related to them the history of his long and eventful voyage, and the many
+extraordinary adventures and miraculous escapes which had befallen him
+since his departure from the coast of Ilion.
+
+When he at last took leave of his royal entertainers Alcinous loaded him
+with rich gifts, and ordered him to be conveyed in one of his own ships to
+Ithaca.
+
+ARRIVAL AT ITHACA.--The voyage was a short and prosperous one. By the
+direction of king Alcinous rich furs had been laid on deck for the comfort
+of his guest, on which the hero, leaving the guidance of the ship to the
+Phæacian sailors, soon fell into a deep sleep. When next morning the vessel
+arrived in the harbour of Ithaca the sailors, concluding that so unusually
+profound a slumber must be sent by the gods, conveyed him on shore without
+disturbing him, where they gently placed him beneath the cool shade of an
+olive-tree.
+
+When Odysseus awoke he knew not where he was, for his ever-watchful
+protectress Pallas-Athene had enveloped him in a thick cloud in order to
+conceal him from view. She now appeared to him in the disguise of a
+shepherd, and informed him that he was in his native land; that his father
+Laertes, bent with sorrow and old age, had withdrawn from the court; that
+his son Telemachus had grown to manhood, and was gone to seek for tidings
+of his father; and that his wife Penelope was harassed by the importunities
+of numerous suitors, who had taken possession of his home and devoured his
+substance. In order to gain time Penelope had promised to marry one of her
+lovers as soon as she had finished weaving a robe for the aged Laertes; but
+by secretly undoing at night {320} what she had done in the day she
+effectually retarded the completion of the work, and thus deferred her
+final reply. Just as Odysseus had set foot in Ithaca the angry suitors had
+discovered her stratagem, and had become in consequence more clamorous than
+ever. When the hero heard that this was indeed his native land, which,
+after an absence of twenty years, the gods had at length permitted him to
+behold once more, he threw himself on the ground, and kissed it in an
+ecstacy of joy.
+
+The goddess, who had meanwhile revealed her identity to Odysseus, now
+assisted him to conceal in a neighbouring cave the valuable gifts of the
+Phæacian king. Then seating herself beside him she consulted with him as to
+the best means of ridding his palace of its shameless occupants.
+
+In order to prevent his being recognized she caused him to assume the form
+of an aged mendicant. His limbs became decrepid, his brown locks vanished,
+his eyes grew dim and bleared, and the regal robes given to him by king
+Alcinous were replaced by a tattered garb of dingy hue, which hung loosely
+round his shrunken form. Athene then desired him to seek shelter in the hut
+of Eumæus his own swine-herd.
+
+Eumæus received the old beggar hospitably, kindly ministered to his wants,
+and even confided to him his distress at the long continued absence of his
+beloved old master, and his regrets at being compelled by the unruly
+invaders of his house, to slaughter for their use all the finest and
+fattest of the herd.
+
+It chanced that the following morning Telemachus returned from his long and
+fruitless search for his father, and going first to the hut of Eumæus,
+heard from him the story of the seeming beggar whom he promised to
+befriend. Athene now urged Odysseus to make himself known to his son; and
+at her touch his beggar's rags disappeared, and he stood before Telemachus
+arrayed in royal robes and in the full strength and vigour of manhood. So
+imposing was the appearance of the hero that at first the young prince
+thought he must be a god; but when {321} he was convinced that it was
+indeed his beloved father, whose prolonged absence had caused him so much
+grief, he fell upon his neck and embraced him with every expression of
+dutiful affection.
+
+Odysseus charged Telemachus to keep his return a secret, and concerted with
+him a plan whereby they might rid themselves of the detested suitors. In
+order to carry it into effect Telemachus was to induce his mother to
+promise her hand to the one who could conquer in shooting with the famous
+bow of Odysseus, which the hero had left behind when he went to Troy,
+deeming it too precious a treasure to be taken with him. Odysseus now
+resumed his beggar's dress and appearance and accompanied his son to the
+palace, before the door of which lay his faithful dog Argo, who, though
+worn and feeble with age and neglect, instantly recognized his master. In
+his delight the poor animal made a last effort to welcome him; but his
+strength was exhausted, and he expired at his feet.
+
+When Odysseus entered his ancestral halls he was mocked and reviled by the
+riotous suitors, and Antinous, the most shameless of them all, ridiculed
+his abject appearance, and insolently bade him depart; but Penelope hearing
+of their cruel conduct, was touched with compassion, and desired her
+maidens to bring the poor mendicant into her presence. She spoke kindly to
+him, inquiring who he was and whence he came. He told her that he was the
+brother of the king of Crete, in whose palace he had seen Odysseus, who was
+about starting for Ithaca, and had declared his intention of arriving there
+before the year was out. The queen, overjoyed at the happy tidings, ordered
+her maidens to prepare a bed for the stranger, and to treat him as an
+honoured guest. She then desired the old nurse Euryclea to provide him with
+suitable raiment and to attend to all his wants.
+
+As the old servant was bathing his feet her eyes fell upon a scar which
+Odysseus had received in his youth from the tusks of a wild boar; and
+instantly recognizing the beloved master whom she had nursed as a babe, she
+{322} would have cried aloud in her joy, but the hero placing his hand upon
+her mouth, implored her not to betray him.
+
+The next day was a festival of Apollo, and the suitors in honour of the
+occasion feasted with more than their accustomed revelry. After the banquet
+was over Penelope, taking down the great bow of Odysseus from its place,
+entered the hall and declared that whosoever of her lovers could bend it
+and send an arrow through twelve rings (a feat which she had often seen
+Odysseus perform) should be chosen by her as her husband.
+
+All the suitors tried their skill, but in vain; not one possessed the
+strength required to draw the bow. Odysseus now stepped forward and asked
+permission to be allowed to try, but the haughty nobles mocked at his
+audacity, and would not have permitted it had not Telemachus interfered.
+The pretended beggar took up the bow, and with the greatest ease sent an
+arrow whizzing through the rings; then turning to Antinous, who was just
+raising a goblet of wine to his lips, he pierced him to the heart. At this
+the suitors sprang to their feet and looked round for their arms; but in
+obedience to the instructions of Odysseus Telemachus had previously removed
+them. He and his father now attacked the riotous revellers, and after a
+desperate encounter not one of the whole crew remained alive.
+
+The joyful intelligence of the return of Odysseus being conveyed to
+Penelope she descended to the hall, but refused to recognize, in the aged
+beggar, her gallant husband; whereupon he retired to the bath, from which
+he emerged in all the vigour and beauty with which Athene had endowed him
+at the court of Alcinous. But Penelope, still incredulous, determined to
+put him to a sure test. She therefore commanded in his hearing that his own
+bed should be brought from his chamber. Now the foot of this bed had been
+fashioned by Odysseus himself out of the stem of an olive-tree which was
+still rooted in the ground, and round it he had built the walls of the
+chamber. Knowing therefore that the bed could not be moved, he exclaimed
+that the errand was useless, for that no {323} mortal could stir it from
+its place. Then Penelope knew that it must be Odysseus himself who stood
+before her, and a most touching and affectionate meeting took place between
+the long-separated husband and wife.
+
+The following day the hero set out to seek his old father Laertes, whom he
+found on one of his estates in the country engaged in digging up a young
+olive-tree. The poor old man, who was dressed in the humble garb of a
+labourer, bore the traces of deep grief on his furrowed countenance, and so
+shocked was his son at the change in his appearance that for a moment he
+turned aside to conceal his tears.
+
+When Odysseus revealed himself to his father as the son whom he had so long
+mourned as lost, the joy of the poor old man was almost greater than he
+could bear. With loving care Odysseus led him into the house, where at
+length, for the first time since the departure of his son, Laertes once
+more resumed his regal robes, and piously thanked the gods for this great
+and unlooked-for happiness.
+
+But not yet was the hero permitted to enjoy his well-earned repose, for the
+friends and relatives of the suitors now rose in rebellion against him and
+pursued him to the abode of his father. The struggle, however, was but a
+short one. After a brief contest negotiations of a peaceful nature were
+entered into between Odysseus and his subjects. Recognizing the justice of
+his cause, they became reconciled to their chief, who for many years
+continued to reign over them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{325}
+
+PRONOUNCING INDEX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[_Note._--The system of pronunciation here followed is the English system,
+because it is the one at present most used among English-speaking peoples.
+In it the letters have substantially their English sound. Upon the
+continent of Europe the pronunciation of Latin and Greek is in like manner
+made to correspond in each nation to the pronunciation of its own language,
+and thus there is much diversity among the continental systems, though they
+resemble each other more closely than they do the English. In England and
+America also the continental methods of pronunciation have been extensively
+used. Thus Æneas may be pronounced A-na´-ahss; Aïdes ah-ee´-daze. Since the
+true, the ancient, pronunciation has been lost, and, as many contend,
+cannot be even substantially recovered, it is a matter of individual
+preference what system shall be followed.]
+
+          A.
+
+  Abderus (ab-dee´-rus), 244.
+  Absyrtus (ab-sir´-tus), 226.
+  Academus (ak-[)a]-dee´-mus), 268.
+  Achelous (ak-e-lo´-us), 254, 278.
+  Acheron (ak´-e-ron), 132, 250.
+  Achilles ([)a]-kil´-leez), 131, 291, 287, 297.
+  Acis ([=a]´-sis), 105, 167.
+  Acrisius ([)a]-crish´-e-us), 189, 205, 209.
+  Acropolis ([)a]-crop´-o-lis), 189.
+  Actæon (ak-tee´-on), 91.
+  Admete (ad-mee´-te), 244.
+  Admetus (ad-mee´-tus), 76, 119, 216.
+  Adonis ([)a]-don´-iss), 59.
+  Adrastia (ad-ras-ti´-ah), 142.
+  Adrastus ([)a]-dras´-tus), 272.
+  Æacus (ee´-[)a]-cus), 34.
+  Ææa (ee-ee´-ah), island of, 67.
+  Ægean Sea (ee-gee´-an), 287.
+  [53]Ægeus (ee´-juce), 259, 262, 264.
+  Ægina (ee-ji´-nah), island of, 230.
+  Ægis (ee´-jiss), 26.
+  Ægisthus (ee-jiss´-thus, _th_ as in _both_), 305.
+  Ægle (egg´-le), 163.
+  Ægyptus (ee-jip´-tus), 135.
+  Aello ([)a]-el´-lo), 137.
+  Æneas (ee-nee´-ass), 304.
+  Æolus (ee´-o-lus), 170, 210.
+  Aër ([=a]´-er), 12.
+  Æsacus (es´-a-cus), 284.
+  Æsculapius (es-cu-la´-pe-us), 177.
+  Æson (ee´-son), 213.
+  Æetes (ee-ee´-teez), 215, 222.
+  Æther (ee´-ther), 12.
+  Æthiopia (e-thi-o´-pe-ah), 207.
+  Æthra (ee´-thrah), 259, 267, 288.
+  Ætna, Mount (et´-nah), 100.
+  Agamemnon (ag-[)a]-mem´-non), 94, 286, 305.
+  Agave ([)a]-ga´-ve), 127, 205.
+  Agenor ([)a]-jee´-nor), 203.
+  Ages, 22.
+  Aglaia (ag-lay´-yah), 163.
+  Agraulos ([)a]-graw´-l[)o]s), 122.
+  Agrigent (ag´-ri-jent), 213.
+  Aïdes (a-i´-deez), 52, 130, 250.
+    --helmet of 206, 208.
+  Aïdoneus (a-i-do´-nuce), 130.
+  Air, 12.
+  Ajax ([=a]´-jax) the Greater, 298.
+    --the Lesser, 305.
+  Alcestis (al-ses´-tiss), 76.
+  Alcinous (al-sin´-o-us), 228, 318.
+  Alcippe (al-sip´-pe), 113
+  Alcmæon (alk-mee´-on), 273, 277.
+  Alcmene (alk-mee´-ne), 35, 234.
+  Alecto (a-leck´-to), 138.
+  Alexander (al-ex-an´-der), 284.
+  Aloidæ (al-o-i´-de), 113.
+  Alpheus (al´-fuce), 242.
+  Altars, 191.
+  Althea (al-thee´-ah, _th_ as in _both_), 90.
+  Altis (al´-tis) the, 41.
+  Amalthea (am-al-thee´-ah), 15.
+  Amazons (am´-a-zons), 244, 258, 264.
+  Ambrosia (am-bro´-zhah), 15.
+  {326}
+  Amor ([=a]´-mor), 150.
+  Amphiaraus (am´-fe-a-ray´-us), 273.
+  Amphidamas (am-fid´-a-mass), 221.
+  Amphilochus (am-fil´-o-cus), 277.
+  Amphion (am-fi´-on), 33.
+  Amphitrite (am-fe-tri´-te), 104, 167.
+  Amphitrion (am-fit´-re-on), 35, 234.
+  Amycus (am´-i-cus), 219.
+  Anaitis-Aphroditis (an-a-i´-tis-af-ro-di´-tis), 92.
+  Ananke (an-ang´-ke), 147.
+  Anciliæ (an-sil´-e-e), 115.
+  Androgeos (an-dro´-je-oss), 262.
+  Andromache (an-drom´-a-ke), 295, 304.
+  Andromeda (an-drom´-e-dah), 207.
+  Antea (an-tee´-ah), 256.
+  Anteos (an-tee´-[)o]s), 248.
+  Anteros (an´-te-ross), 150.
+  Antigone (an-tig´-o-ne), 271, 275.
+  Antinous (an-tin´-o-us), 321.
+  Antiope (an-ti´-o-pe), 32.
+  Antiphates (an-tif´-a-teez), 311.
+  Aphareus (af´-a-ruce), 34.
+  Aphrodite (af-ro-di´-te), 58, 99, 152.
+  Apollo ([)a]-pol´-lo), 68.
+    --(Roman), 83.
+  Apple of Discord, 39.
+  Arachne (a-rak´-ne), 45.
+  Arcadia (ar-ca´-de-ah), 240.
+  Arctos (ark´-t[)o]s), 35.
+  Areopagus (a-re-op´-a-gus), 44, 113, 212.
+  Ares ([=a]´-reez), 99, 112.
+    --grove of, 215.
+    --field of, 223, 225.
+  Arete (a-ree´-te _or_ ar´-e-te), 228, 318.
+  Arethusa (ar-e-thu´-sah), 163.
+  Aretias ([)a]-ree´-she-ass), 221.
+  Argia (ar-ji´-ah), 272.
+  Argives (ar-jives), 274.
+  Argo, 215, 230, 321.
+  Argonauts (ar´-go-nawts), 213.
+  Argos (ar´-g[)o]s), 209, 216, 283.
+  Argus, 224.
+  Argus-Panoptes (pan-op´-teez), 36.
+  Ariadne (a-re-ad´-ne), 128, 263.
+  Aricia (a-rish´-e-ah), 97.
+  Arion (a-ri´-on), 275.
+  Aristæus (ar-iss-tee´-us), 81.
+  Aristodemus (a-ris´-to-de´-mus), 282.
+  Aristomachus (ar-is-tom´-a-cus), 282.
+  Arsinoë (ar-sin´-o-e), 278.
+  Artemis (ar´-te-miss), 87.
+  Ascalaphus (ass-cal´-a-fuss), 55, 250.
+  Asclepius (ass-clee´-pe-us), 71, 76, 176.
+  Ashtoreth (ash´-to-reth), 61.
+  Asphodel meadows (ass-fo-del), 133.
+  Astarte (ass-tar´-te), 61.
+  Astræa (ass-tree´-ah), 85.
+  Astræus (ass-tree´-us), 68.
+  Astyanax (ass-ti´-a-nax), 304.
+  Atalanta (at-a-lan´-tah), 89.
+  Ate ([=a]´-te), 149.
+  Athamas (ath´-a-mass), 111, 215.
+  Athene (a-thee´-ne, _th_ as in _both_), 43.
+  Athene-Polias (po´-le-ass), 44, 189, 199, 264.
+  Athens, 264.
+  Atlas, 207, 248.
+  Atreus, ([)a]´-truce), 282.
+  Atropos (at´-ro-p[)o]s), 139.
+  Atys ([=a]´-tiss), 19.
+  Augeas (aw´-je-ass), 242, 254.
+  Augurs, 196.
+  Aulis (aw´-lis), 97.
+  Aurora (aw-ro´-rah), 13, 67.
+  Autochthony (aw-tok´-tho-ny), 22.
+  Autolycus (aw-tol´-i-cus), 235, 251.
+  Autonoe, (aw-ton´-o-e), 205.
+  Avernus (a-ver´-nus), 132.
+  Avertor ([=a]-ver´-tor), 180.
+  Averuncus (av-e-run´-cus), 180.
+
+          B.
+
+  Bacchanalia (bac-ca-na´-le-ah), 199.
+  Bacchantes (bac-can´-teez), 198.
+  Bacchus (bac´-cus), 130.
+  Battus (bat´-tus), 119.
+  Baucis (baw´-sis), 37.
+  Bebricians (be-brish´-e-anz), 219.
+  Beech-nymph, 168.
+  Bellerophon (bel-ler´-o-fon), 256.
+  Bellerophontes (bel-ler´-o-fon´-teez), 256.
+  Bellona (bel-lo´-nah), 116.
+  Belvedere (bel´-vi-deer), 85.
+  Benthesicyme, (ben-the-siss´-i-me), 105.
+  Berecynthia-Idea (ber´-e-sin´-the-ah-i-dee´-ah), 19.
+  Beroe (ber´-o-e, first _e_ like ei in _their_), 35.
+  Birch-nymph, 168.
+  Bistonians (bis-to´-ne-anz), 243.
+  Bithynia (bi-thin´-e-ah), 220.
+  Boreas (bo´-re-ass), 171.
+  Brauron (braw´-ron), 96.
+  Brazen Age, 23.
+  Briareus (bri´-a-ruce), 13.
+  Brisëis (bri-see´-iss), 292.
+  Brontes (bron´-teez), 16.
+  Busiris (bu-si´-ris), 248.
+  Butes (bu´-teez), 228.
+
+          C.
+
+  Cadmus, 203.
+  Caduceus (ca-du´-she-us), 121.
+  Calais (cal´-a-iss), 171, 220.
+  Calchas (cal´-kas), 94, 287, 289, 292.
+  Calirrhoë (cal-lir´-ro-e), 278.
+  Calliope (cal-li´-o-pe), 80, 159.
+  Callisto (cal-lis´-to), 35.
+  {327}
+  Calydonian Boar-hunt, 89.
+  Calypso (ca-lip´-so), 317.
+  Camenæ (ca-mee´-nee), 184.
+  Campus Martius (mar´-she-us), 115.
+  Canens (ca´-nenz), 182.
+  Capaneus (cap´-a-nuce), 273.
+  Caphareus, Cape (ca-fa´-ruce), 305.
+  Carmenta (car-men´-tah), 184.
+  Carmentalia (car-men-ta´-le-ah), 184.
+  Carnival, 201.
+  Carpo, 164.
+  Cassandra (cas-san´-drah), 284, 303, 305.
+  Cassiopea (cas´-se-o-pee´-ah), 207.
+  Castalian Spring, 159, 195.
+  Castor, 33, 187, 268.
+  Caucasus (caw´-c[)a]-sus), Mount, 222.
+  Cecrops (see´-crops), 189.
+  Celæno (se-lee´-no), 137.
+  Celeus (see´-le-us), 53.
+  Celts, 10.
+  Cenæus (se-nee´-us), 255.
+  Centaurs (sen´-tawrs), 266.
+  Ceos (see´-[)o]s), 13.
+  Cepheus (see´-fuce), 207.
+  Cephissus (se-fiss´-us), 169.
+  Cerberus (ser´-be-rus), 133, 153, 249.
+  Cercyon (ser´-se-on), 261.
+  Cerealia (se-re-a´-le-ah), 201.
+  Ceres (see´-reez), 58, 201.
+  Cerunitis (ser-u-ni´-tis), 240.
+  Cestus (ses´-tus), 59.
+  Ceto (see´-to), 111.
+  Ceuta (su´-tah), 222.
+  Ceyx (see´-ix), 110, 254, 280.
+  Chalciope (cal-si´-o-pe), 223.
+  Chaos (ka´-oss), 11.
+  Chares (ca´-reez), 99.
+  Charites (car´-i-teez), 163.
+  Charon (ca´-ron), 132, 153.
+  Charybdis (ca-rib´-dis), 228, 316.
+  Chimæra (ki-mee´-rah), 257, 162.
+  Chiron (ki´-ron), 289.
+  Chloris (clo´-ris), 171.
+  Chrysaor (cris-[=a]´-or), 145.
+  Chrysëis (cri-see´-iss), 292.
+  Chryses (cri´-seez), 292.
+  Cimmerians (sim-me´-ri-anz), 132, 314.
+  Cimon (si´-mon), 268.
+  Circe (sir´-se), 64, 182, 227, 311.
+  Cithæron (si-thee´-ron, _th_ as in _both_), 40.
+    --Mount, 236.
+  Cleodæus (cle-o-dee´-us), 282.
+  Cleopatra (cle-o-pat´-rah), 220.
+  Clio (cli´-o), 159.
+  Cloacina (clo-a-si´-nah), 61.
+  Clotho (clo´-tho), 139.
+  Clymene (clim´-e-ne), 64.
+  Clytæmnestra (clit-em-nes´-trah), 94, 305, 306.
+  Clytie (cli´-ti-e), 63.
+  Cocalus (coc´-a-lus), 213.
+  Cocytus (co-si´-tus), 132, 314.
+  Coelus (see´-lus), 11.
+  Colchis (col´-kis), 215, 222.
+  Colonus (co-lo´-nus), 271.
+  Colossus of Rhodes (co-l[)o]s´-sus), 66.
+  Comus (co´-mus), 184.
+  Consualia (con-su-a´-le-ah), 183.
+  Consus (con´-sus), 183.
+  Copreus (co´-pruce), 239.
+  Cora, 197.
+  Cornucopia (cor-noo-co´-pe-ah), 148.
+  Coronis (co-ro´-nis), 75.
+  Corybantes (cor-i-ban´-teez), 19.
+  Cos, island of (coss), 104.
+  Cottos (cot´-t[)o]s), 13.
+  Crania, island of (cra-ni´-ah), 286.
+  Creon (cree´-on), 237, 275.
+  Cresphontes (cres-fon´-teez), 282.
+  Cretan Bull, 243.
+  Crete (creet), 229.
+  Crëusa (cre-yu´-sah), 210.
+  Crios (cri´-[)o]s), 13.
+  Croesus (cree´-sus), 195.
+  Crommyon (crom´-me-on), 260.
+  Cronus (cro´-nus), 14, 179.
+  Ctesiphon (tes´-i-fon), 93.
+  Cumæan Sibyl, the (cu-mee´-an), 84.
+  Cupid (cu´-pid), 150.
+  Curetes (cu-ree´-teez), 15.
+  Cybele (sib´-i-le), 18, 128.
+  Cyclops (si´-clops), 105, 307.
+  Cycnus (sik´-nus), 66, 247.
+  Cyllene, Mount (sil-lee´-ne), 119.
+  Cyparissus (sip-a-ris´-sus), 77, 182.
+  Cyprus, island of (si´-prus), 60.
+  Cyrus (si´-rus), 195.
+  Cythera (sith-ee´-rah), 60.
+  Cyzicus (siz´-i-cus), 218.
+
+          D.
+
+  Dædalus (ded´-a-lus), 211.
+  Dæmons (de´-mons), 185.
+  Damastes (da-mas´-teez), 261.
+  Danaë (dan´-a-e), 205, 209.
+  Danaïdes (dan-a´-[)i]-deez), 135.
+  Danaus (dan´-a-us), 135.
+  Danneker (dan´-ek-ker), 129.
+  Daphne (daf´-ne), 74.
+  Daphnephoria (daf-ne-fo´-re-ah), 200.
+  Daphnephorus (daf-nef´-o-rus), 200.
+  Deianeira (de-i´-a-ni´-rah), 254.
+  Deiphobus (de-if´-o-bus), 300.
+  Deipyle (de-ip´-i-le), 272.
+  Delia (dee´-le-ah), 83.
+  Delos, island of (dee´-l[)o]s), 69, 83.
+  Delphi (del´-fi), 82.
+  Delphic Oracle, 194.
+  Demeter (de-mee´-ter), 50, 197.
+  Demi-gods, 8.
+  Demophoon (de-mof´-o-on), 53, 280.
+  Deucalion (du-ca´-le-on), 21.
+  Diana (di-an´-nah), 87.
+    --of Versailles, 88.
+  {328}
+  Dice (di´-se), 164.
+  Dictys (dic´-tiss), 205.
+  Dindymene (din-di-mee´-ne), 19.
+  Dino (di´-no), 145.
+  Diomedes (di-o-mee´-deez), 112, 243, 297, 305.
+  Dione (di-o´-ne), 58.
+  Dionysia (di-o-nish´-e-ah), 180, 197.
+  Dionysus (di-o-ni´-sus), 124, 193, 198, 263.
+  Dioscuri (di-[)o]s-cu´-ri), 33.
+  Diræ (di´-ree), 138.
+  Dirce (dir´-se), 33.
+  Dis (diss), 137.
+  Discord, goddess of, 284.
+  Dodona (do-do´-nah), 29, 216.
+  Doliones (do-li´-o-neez), 218.
+  Dorians (do´-re-anz), 211.
+  Doris (do´-ris), 108.
+  Dorus (do´-rus), 211.
+  Dryades (dri´-a-deez), 168.
+  Dryas (dri´-ass), 126.
+  Dymas (di´-mass), 283.
+
+          E.
+
+  Echedorus (ek-e-do´-rus), 247.
+  Echemon (ek-kee´-mon), 282.
+  Echidna, (ek-kid´-nah), 146.
+  Echo (ek´-o), 169.
+  Egeria (e-gee´-re-ah), 184.
+  Eilithyia (i-lith-i´-yah), 41, 237.
+  Electra (e-lek´-trah), 111, 306.
+  Electryon (e-lek´-tre-on), 35.
+  Eleusinian Mysteries (el-u-sin´-e-an), 56, 132, 196.
+  Eleusis (e-lu´-sis), 54.
+  Elis (ee´-lis), 254, 283.
+  Elysian Fields (e-lizh´-e-an), 133.
+  Elysium (e-lizh´-e-um), 133.
+  Enceladus (en-sel´-a-dus), 20.
+  Endymion (en-dim´-e-on), 87.
+  Enipeus (e-ni´-puce), 106.
+  Enyo (e-ni´-o), 113.
+  Eos (ee´-[)o]s), 67, 297.
+  Epaphus (ep´-a-fus), 36, 64.
+  Epeios (ep-i´-[)o]s), 301.
+  Ephesus, temple of (ef´-e-sus), 92.
+  Ephialtes (ef-e-[=a]l´-teez), 105.
+  Epidaurus (ep-e-daw´-rus), 260.
+  Epigoni (e-pig´-o-ni), 276.
+  Epimetheus (ep-e-me´-thuce), 25.
+  Epopeus (e-po´-puce), 32.
+  Erato (er´-a-to), 159.
+  Erebus (er´-e-buss), 13.
+  Erechtheus (e-rek´-thuce), 210.
+  Eresichthon (er-e-sik´-thon), 57.
+  Erginus (er-ji´-nus), 237.
+  Eridanus, river, the (e-rid´-a-nus), 65, 227, 248.
+  Erinnyes (e-rin´-ne-eez), 138.
+  Eriphyle (er-i-fi´-le), 273.
+  Eris (ee´-ris), 39.
+  Eros (ee´-r[)o]s), 74, 150.
+  Erymantian Boar (er-e-man´-shun), 240.
+  Erythia (er-e-thi´-ah), 246.
+  Eteocles (e-tee´-o-cleez), 272, 275.
+  Ether (ee´-ther), 12.
+  Euboeans (u-bee´-anz), 210.
+  Eumæus (u-mee´-us), 320.
+  Eumenides (u-men´-i-deez), 138, 271.
+  Eunomia (u-no´-me-ah), 164.
+  Euphemus (u-fee´-mus), 221.
+  Euphrosyne (u-fros´-i-ne), 163.
+  Europa (u-ro´-pah), 34.
+  Eurus (u´-rus), 171.
+  Euryale (u-ri´-a-le), 144.
+  Eurybia (u-rib´-e-ah), 13.
+  Euryclea (u-ri-clee´-ah), 321.
+  Eurydice (u-rid´-i-se), 81.
+  Eurylochus (u-ril´-o-kus), 311.
+  Eurynome (u-rin´-o-me), 98.
+  Eurypylus (u-rip´-i-lus), 299.
+  Eurystheus (u-riss´-thuce), 237, 280.
+  Eurytion (u-rit´-e-on), 246, 266.
+  Eurytus (u´-ri-tus), 235.
+  Euterpe (u-ter´-pe), 159.
+  Evander (e-van´-der), 184.
+  Evenus (e-ve´-nus), 254.
+
+          F.
+
+  Farnese Bull, the (far´-neez), 33.
+  Fates, 139.
+  Fauns (fawns), 175.
+  Faunus (faw´-nus), 174.
+  Festivals, 196.
+  Fetiales (fe-she-a´-leez), 124.
+  Flora, 180.
+  Floralia (flo-ra´-le-ah), 180.
+  Fortuna (for-tu´-nah), 147.
+  Furies, 278, 306.
+
+          G.
+
+  Gadria (gad´-re-ah), 246.
+  Gæa (je´-ah), 11.
+  Galatea (gal-a-tee´-ah), 167.
+  Ganymede (gan-i-mee´-de), 156, 246.
+  Ganymedes (gan-i-mee´-deez), 156, 246.
+  Ge, 11.
+  Genii (jee´-ne-i), 185.
+  Geryon (jee´-re-on), 246.
+  Geryones (je-ri´-o-neez), 246.
+  Giants, 13, 199, 218.
+  Gigantomachia (ji-gan´-to-ma´-ke-ah), 20.
+  Glauce (glaw´-se), 231.
+  Glaucus (glaw´-cus), 109, 219.
+  Golden Age, 22, 185.
+  Golden Fleece, 215, 223, 226, 230.
+  Gordius (gor´-de-us), 128.
+  Gorgons, 144, 206.
+  Graces, 163.
+  {329}
+  Gradivus (gra-di´-vus), 115.
+  Grææ (gree´-ee), 145, 206.
+  Gratiæ (gra´-she-ee), 163.
+  Gyges (ji´-jeez), 13.
+
+          H.
+
+  Hades (ha´-deez), 250.
+  Hæmon (hee´-mon), 276.
+  Halcyone (hal-si´-o-ne), 110.
+  Halirrothius (hal-ir-ro´-the-us), 113.
+  Hamadryades (ham-a-dry´-a-deez), 168.
+  Harmonia (har-mo´-ne-ah), 204, 276.
+  Harpies (har´-piz), 137, 220.
+  Harpinna (har-pin´-nah), 233.
+  Hebe (hee´-be), 41, 156, 256.
+  Hebrus, river, the (hee´-brus), 82.
+  Hecate (hec´-a-te), 85.
+  Hecatombs (hec´-a-tomes), 193.
+  Hecatoncheires (hec´-a-ton-ki´-reez), 13.
+  Hector, 284, 290, 293.
+  Hecuba (hec´-u-bah), 283, 304.
+  Helen, 267, 286, 304.
+  Helenus (hel´-e-nus), 299.
+  Helicon (hel´-e-con), 158, 162.
+  Helios, (hee´-le-[)o]s), 61, 316.
+  Helios-Apollo, 70.
+  Helle (hel´-le), 215.
+  Hemera (hee´-me-rah), 13, 142.
+  Heosphorus (he-[)o]s´-fo-rus), 68.
+  Hephæstus (he-fes´-tus), 97.
+  Hera (he´-rah), 38, 214.
+  Heracles [54] (her´-a-cleez), 26, 218, 234.
+  Heraclidæ [54] (her-a-cli´-dee), 280.
+  Heræ (he´-ree), 41.
+  Hercules (her´-cu-leez) _See_ Heracles.
+    --Pillars of, 246.
+  Hermæ (her´-mee), 118.
+  Hermes (her´-meez), 117, 250, 312.
+  Hermione (her-mi´-o-ne), 307.
+  Heroes, 8.
+  Herostratus (he-ros´-tra-tus), 93.
+  Herse (her´-se), 87, 122.
+  Hesiod's Theogony (he´-she-od), 24, 150.
+  Hesione (he-si´-o-ne), 245, 253, 285.
+  Hesperia (hes-pee´-re-ah), 163.
+  Hesperides (hes-per´-i-deez), 162, 247.
+  Hesperus (hes´-pe-rus), 68.
+  Hestia (hes´-te-ah), 48.
+  Hip´pocamp, 229.
+  Hippocamps, 102.
+  Hippocrene (hip-po-cree´-ne), 159, 162.
+  Hippodamia (hip´-po-da-mi´-ah), 232, 266.
+  Hippolyte (hip-pol´-i-te), 264.
+  Hippolyte's Girdle, 244.
+  Hippolytes (hip-pol´-i teez), 283.
+  Hippolytus (hip-pol´-i-tus), 266.
+  Hippomedon (hip-pom´-e-don), 273.
+  Hippomenes (hip-pom´-e-neez), 91.
+  Horæ (ho´-ree), 164.
+  Horned Hind, 240.
+  Hyacinthus (hi-a-sin´-thus), 77.
+  Hyades (hi´-a-deez), 170.
+  Hydra, Lernean, the (hi´-drah, ler-nee´-an), 239.
+  Hygeia (hi-jee´-yah), 177.
+  Hylas (hi´-las), 216, 219.
+  Hyllus (hil´-lus), 254, 281.
+  Hymen (hi´-men), or Hymenæus (hi-me-nee´-us), 154.
+  Hyperion (hi-pee´-re-on), 13.
+  Hypermnestra (hip-erm-nes´-trah), 135.
+  Hypnus (hip´-nus), 142.
+  Hypsipyle (hip-sip´-i-le), 274.
+
+          I.
+
+  Iambe (i-am´-be), 53.
+  Iapetus (i-ap´-e-tus), 24.
+  Iasion (i-a´-zhe-on), 137.
+  Iberia (i-bee´-re-ah), 247.
+  Icaria (i-ca´-re-ah), 212.
+  Icarus (ic´-a-rus), 211.
+  Ichor (i´-kor), 7.
+  Ida, Mount, 157, 284, 300.
+  Idas (i´-dass), 34, 75.
+  Idmon (id´-mon), 216.
+  Idomeneus (i-dom´-e-nuce), 286.
+  Ilion (il´-e-on), 283.
+  Illyria (il-lir´-e-ah), 205.
+  Ilus (i´-lus), 283.
+  Inachus (in´-a-cus), 36.
+  Ino (i´-no), 205, 215.
+  Inuus (in´-u-us), 174.
+  Io (i´-o), 36.
+  Iobates (i-ob´-a-teez), 257.
+  Iolaus (i-o-la´-us), 239, 251, 281.
+  Iolcus (i-ol´-cus), 213, 230.
+  Iole (i´-o-le), 251, 255.
+  Ion (i´-on), 210.
+  Iphigenia (if´-i-ge-ni´-ah), 94, 289, 307.
+  Iphitus (if´-i-tus), 251.
+  Iris (i´-ris), 155, 220.
+  Iron Age, 23.
+  Ismene (iss-mee´-ne), 271.
+  Ister (iss´-ter), 226.
+  Isthmian Games (isth´-me-an), 107, 264.
+  Ithaca (ith´-a-cah), 310, 319.
+  Ixion (ix-i´-on), 135.
+
+          J.
+
+  Jani (ja´-ni), 178.
+  Janus (ja´-nus), 18, 178.
+  {330}
+  Jason (ja´-son), 213.
+  Jocasta (jo-cas´-tah), 269, 270.
+  Juno (ju´-no), 42, 185.
+  Jupiter (ju´-pe-ter), 38.
+  Jupiter-Ammon, 207.
+  Juventas (ju-ven´-t[)a]ss), 156, 183.
+
+          K.
+
+  Keidomos (ki´-do-mos), 113.
+  Ker (cur), 149.
+  Keres (kee´-reez), 149.
+
+          L.
+
+  Labdacus (lab´-da-cus), 269.
+  Labyrinth (lab´-i-rinth), 212, 262.
+  Lacedæmon (las-e-dee´-mon), 283.
+  Lac´edæmo´nians, 189.
+  Lachesis (lak´-e-sis), 139.
+  Lacolia (la-co´-le-ah), 250.
+  Lacus Nemorensis (la´-cus nem-o-ren´-sis), 97.
+  Ladon (la´-don), 240.
+  Laertes (la-er´-teez), 314, 323.
+  Læstrygones (les-trig´-o-neez), 311.
+  Laius (la´-yus), 269.
+  Lampetus (lam´-pe-tus), 67.
+  Lampsacus (lamp´-sa-cus), 176.
+  Laocoon (la-oc´-o-on), 301.
+  Laodamas (la-od´-a-mass), 277.
+  Laomedon (la-om´-e-don), 104, 245, 253.
+  Lar, 186.
+  Lares Familiares (la´-reez fa-mil´-e-a´-reez), 186.
+  Larissa (la-ris´-sah), 189, 209.
+  Latmus Mount, 87.
+  Latona (la-to´-nah), 31.
+  Laverna (la-ver´-nah), 184.
+  Leda (lee´-dah), 33.
+  Lemnos, island of, (lem´-noss), 98, 217.
+  Lemuralia (lem-u-ra´-le-ah), 186.
+  Lemures (lem´-u-reez), 186.
+  Lerna, 239.
+  Lernean Hydra. _See_ Hydra.
+  Lesbos (lez´-bos), 290.
+  Lethe (lee´-the, _th_ as in _both_), 133.
+  Leto (lee´-to), 31.
+  Leucippus (lu-sip´-pus), 34.
+  Leucothea (lu-co´-the-ah, _th_ as in _both_), 111, 318.
+  Liber (li´-ber), 130.
+  Liberalia (lib-er-a´-le-ah), 130.
+  Libya (lib´-yah), 207, 229.
+  Limoniades (lim-o-ni´-a-deez), 170.
+  Linden-nymph, 168.
+  Linus (li´-nus), 235.
+  Lion, Nemean (ne´-me-an), 238.
+  Ludi Maximi (lu´-di max´-i-mi), 48.
+  Ludovici Villa (lu-do-vee´-chee), 116.
+  Luna (lu´-nah), 86, 97.
+  Lupercus (lu-per´-cus), 174.
+  Lycaon (li-cay´-on), 37.
+  Lycomedes (lic-o-mee´-deez), 268, 287.
+  Lycurgus (li-cur´-gus), 126, 189, 274.
+  Lycus (li´-cus), 32.
+  Lynceus (lin´-suce), 34, 216.
+
+          M.
+
+  Macaria (ma-ca´-re-ah), 281.
+  Machaon (ma-ca´-on), 177, 300.
+  Magna-Mater (may´-ter), 19.
+  Maia (may´-yah), 119.
+  Mamers (ma´-merz), 114.
+  Manes (ma´-neez), 185.
+  Marathonian Bull (mar-a-tho´-ne-an), 262.
+  Mares of Diomedes, 243
+  Marpessa (mar-pes´-sah), 75.
+  Mars (marz), 114.
+  Marspiter (mars´-pe-ter), 114.
+  Marsyas (mar´-she-ass), 78.
+  Mater-Deorum (dee-o´-rum), 19.
+  Matronalia (ma-tro-na´-le-ah), 43.
+  Mecone (me-co´-ne), 24.
+  Medea (me-dee´-ah), 223, 261.
+  Medusa (me-du´-sah), 45, 144, 206.
+  Megæra (me-jee´-rah), 138.
+  Megapenthes (meg-a-pen´-theez), 209.
+  Megara (meg´-a-rah), 138, 237, 251.
+  Melanippe (mel-a-nip´-pe), 245.
+  Meleager (me-le-a´-jer), 89, 216.
+  Meliades (me-li´-a-deez), 170.
+  Melissa (me-lis´-sah), 15.
+  Melpomene (mel-pom´-e-ne), 159.
+  Memnon (mem´-non), 297.
+  Memphis (mem´-fiss), 36.
+  Menades (men´-a-deez), 198.
+  Menelaus (men-e-la´-us), 294, 304, 305.
+  Menesthius (me-nes´-the-us), 268.
+  Menoeceus (me-nee´-suce), 274.
+  Menoetius (me-nee´-she-us), 216.
+  Mercury (mer´-cu-ry), 123.
+  Merope (mer´-ope, first _e_ like _ei_ in _their_), 269.
+  Messene (mes-see´-ne), 283.
+  Metaneira (met-a-ni´-rah), 53.
+  Metis (mee´-tiss), 30.
+  Metra (mee´-trah), 57, 92.
+  Midas (mi´-das), 79, 128.
+  Midea (mi-dee´-ah), 209.
+  Milo (mi´-lo), 60.
+  Miltiades (mil-ti´-a-deez), 268.
+  Mimas (mi´-mass), 20.
+  Minerva (mi-ner´-vah), 47.
+  Minerval (mi-ner´-val), 47.
+  Minos (mi´-n[)o]s), 34, 134, 212, 243.
+  Minotaur (min´-o-tawr), 212, 262.
+  Minyans (min´-yanz), 237.
+  Mnemosyne (ne-m[)o]s´-i-ne), 13, 31.
+  Moira (moy´-rah), 139.
+  Moiræ (moy´-ree), 297, 139.
+  {331}
+  Moly (mo´-ly), 312.
+  Momus (mo´-mus), 149.
+  Moneta Juno (mo-nee´-tah), 42.
+  Mopsus, 216.
+  Morpheus (mor´-fuce), 143.
+  Mors (morz). _See_ Thanatos.
+  Musagetes (mu-saj´-e-teez), 71.
+  Muses, 157.
+  Mutunus (mu-tu´-nus), 176.
+  Mycenæ (mi-see´-ne), 209, 305.
+  Myrmidons (mir´-mi-dons), 288, 293, 295.
+  Myrtilus (mir´-ti-lus), 233.
+  Mysia (mish´-e-ah), 219.
+  Mysians, 289.
+
+          N.
+
+  Naiads (na´-yads), or Naiades (na-i´-a-deez), 166, 227.
+  Napææ (na-pee´-ee), 169.
+  Narcissus (nar-sis´-sus), 169.
+  Nausicaa (naw-sic´-a-ah), 317.
+  Naxos (nax´-oss), 128, 263.
+  Necessitas (ne-ses´-si-tass), 148.
+  Nectar, 15.
+  Neleus (nee´-luce), 106, 119, 216.
+  Nemea (nee´-me-ah), 274.
+  Nemean Lion. _See_ Lion.
+  Nemesis (nem´-e-siss), 141.
+  Nemoralia (nem-o-ra´-le-ah), 97.
+  Neoptolemus (ne-op-tol´-e-mus), 299, 304.
+  Nephalia (ne-fa´-le-ah), 139.
+  Nephelæ (nef´-e-lee), 12.
+  Nephele (nef´-e-le), 215.
+  Neptunalia (nep-tu-na´-le-ah), 107.
+  Neptune (nept´-une), 14, 107.
+  Nereides (ne-ree´-i-deez), 108, 167.
+  Nereus (nee´-ruce), 13, 108.
+  Nessus, 254.
+  Nestor, 286, 301, 305.
+  Nike (ni´-ke), 117.
+  Niobe (ni´-o-be), 79, 141.
+  Noman, 309.
+  Notus (no´-tus), 171.
+  Nox. _See_ Nyx.
+  Nyctimus (nic´-ti-mus), 38.
+  Nycteus (nic´-tuce), 32.
+  Nymphs, 165.
+  Nysa, Mount (ni´-sah), 125.
+  Nyx (nix), 13, 142.
+
+          O.
+
+  Oceanides (o-se-an´-i-deez), 108, 166.
+  Oceanus (o-see´-a-nus), 12, 107, 166, 314.
+  Ocypete (o-sip´-e-te), 137.
+  Odysseus (o-dis´-suce), 131, 287, 307.
+  Oechalia (e-ka´-le-ah), 255.
+  Oedipus (ed´-i-pus), 146, 269.
+  Oeneus (ee´-nuce), 89, 254.
+  Oenomaus (ee-nom´-a-us), 232.
+  Oenone (ee-no´-ne) 284, 300.
+  Ogygia (o-jij´-e-ah), 317.
+  Oileus (o-i´-luce), 216, 221.
+  Olympia (o-lim´-pe-ah), 29, 123.
+  Olym´pic Games, 30.
+  Olym´pus, Mount, 27.
+  Omphale (om´-fa-le), 252.
+  Ops, 19.
+  Oracles, 194.
+  Orchamus (or´-ca-mus), 63.
+  Orchomenus (or-com´-e-nus), 237.
+  Orcus (or´-cus), 136.
+  Oreades (o-ree´-a-deez), 169.
+  Orithyia (or´-i-thi´-yah), 171.
+  Orestes (o-res´-teez), 95, 139, 306.
+  Orpheus (or´-fuce), 80, 216, 228.
+  Orthrus (or´-thrus), 246.
+  Ossa (oss´-sah), 106.
+  Othrys, Mount, (o´-thris), 16.
+  Otus (o´-tus), 105.
+  Oxen of Geryones. _See_ Geryones.
+  Oxylus (ox´-i-lus), 283.
+
+          P.
+
+  Palæmon (pa-lee´-mon), 111.
+  Palamedes (pal-a-mee´-deez), 287, 291.
+  Palatine (pal´-a-tin), 181.
+  Pales (pa´-leez), 181.
+  Palilia (pa-lil´-e-ah), 181.
+  Palladium (pal-la´-de-um), 299, 301.
+  Pallan´tids, 262.
+  Pallas (pal´-lass), 117.
+  Pallas-Athene, 43, 234, 302.
+  Pan, 79, 171, 198.
+  Panacea (pan-a-see´-ah), 177.
+  Panathenæa (pan´-ath-e-nee´-ah), 199.
+  Pandareos (pan-da´-re-oss), 138.
+  Pandora (pan-do´-rah), 25.
+  Panisci (pa-nis´-si), 174.
+  Panoptes (pa-nop´-teez), 246.
+  Parcæ (par´-see). _See_ Moiræ.
+  Paris (par´-ris), 39, 284, 286.
+  Parnassus (par-nas´-sus), 158.
+  Parthenon (par´-the-non), 46.
+    --Hill, 89.
+  Parthenopæus (par´-then-o-pee´-us), 273.
+  Patroclus (p[)a]-tro´-clus), 288, 293, 314.
+  Pedasus (ped´-a-sus), 292.
+  Pegasus (peg´-a-sus), 145, 162, 257.
+  Peitho (pi´-tho), 134.
+  Peleus (pee´-luce), 39, 287.
+  Pelias (pee´-le-ass), 106, 213, 230.
+  Pelion, Mount (pee´-le-on), 106.
+  Peloponnesus (pel´-o-pon-nee´-sus), 281.
+  Pelops (pee´-lops), 135, 232.
+  Penates (pe-na´-teez), 187.
+  {332}
+  Penelope (pe-nel´-o-pe), 287, 319.
+  Peneus (pe-nee´-us), 74, 242.
+  Penthesilea (pen´-the-si-lee´-ah), 296
+  Pentheus (pen´-thuce), 126, 205.
+  Pephredo (pe-free´-do), 145.
+  Peplus (pee´-plus), 199.
+  Periphetes (per-i-fee´-teez), 260.
+  Perse (per´-se), 64, 312.
+  Persephone (per-sef´-o-ne), 52, 197, 267.
+  Perseus (per´-suce), 145, 205.
+  Petasus (pet´-a-sus), 121.
+  Phæaces (fee-a´-seez), 228, 318.
+  Phædra (fee´-drah), 266.
+  Phaëthon (fa´-e-thon), 64, 67.
+  Pharos, isle of, (fa´-r[)o]s), 108.
+  Phases, river (fa´-seez), 222.
+  Phegeus (fee´-juce), 278.
+  Phidias (fid´-e-ass), 28.
+  Philemon (fi-lee´-mon), 37.
+  Philoctetes (fil-oc-tee´-teez), 256, 290, 299.
+  Phineus (fi´-nuce), 208, 220.
+  Phlegethon (flej´-e-thon), 134.
+  Phocis (fo´-siss), 306.
+  Phoebe (fee´-be), 13.
+  Phoebus-Apollo (fee´-bus), 68, 298.
+  Pholus (fo´-lus), 240.
+  Phorcys (for´-siss), 13, 111.
+  Phrygia (frij´-e-ah), 18.
+  Phryxus (frix´-us), 222.
+  Phylace (fil´-a-se), 290.
+  Phyleus (fi´-luce), 242, 254.
+  Phylla (fil´-lah), 233.
+  Picumnus (pi-cum´-nus), 182.
+  Picus (pi´-cus), 182.
+  Pieria (pi-ee´-re-ah), 119, 158.
+  Pierides (pi-er´-i-deez), 158, 162.
+  Pierus (pi´-e-rus), 158.
+  Pilumnus (pi-lum´-nus), 182.
+  Pindus, Mount, 158.
+  Pirithöus (pi-rith´-o-us), 216, 250, 265.
+  Pisa (pi´-sah), 232.
+  Pittheus (pit´-thuce), 259.
+  Platea (pla-tee´-ah), 40.
+  Pleiades (plee´-ya-deez), 119.
+  Pluto (plu´-to), 136.
+  Plutus (plu´-tus), 132, 137, 148.
+  Podalirius (pod-a-lir´-e-us), 177.
+  Podarces (po-dar´-seez), 253.
+  Pollux, 33, 187, 227, 268.
+  Polybotes (pol-e-bo´-teez), 104.
+  Polybus (pol´-e-bus), 269.
+  Polydectes (pol-e-dec´-teez), 205.
+  Polydeuces (pol-e-du´-seez). _See_ Pollux.
+  Polydorus (pol-e-do´-rus), 205.
+  Polyhymnia (pol-e-him´-ne-ah), 159.
+  Polynices (pol-e-ni´-seez), 271, 272, 275.
+  Polyphemus (pol-e-fee´-mus), 105, 219, 307.
+  Pomona (po-mo´-nah), 180.
+  Pontus, 13.
+  Porta Lavernalis (lav-er-na´-lis), 184.
+  Poseidon (po-si´-don), 101, 162, 266.
+  Praxiteles (prax-it´-e-leez), 123.
+  Priam (pri´-am), 254, 283, 304.
+  Priamus (pri´-a-mus). _See_ Priam.
+  Priapus (pri-a´-pus), 175.
+  Priests, 191.
+  Procrustes (pro-crus´-teez), 261.
+  Proetus (pree´-tus), 257.
+  Prometheus (pro-mee´-thuce), 24, 149, 193, 222.
+  Proserpine (pross´-er-pine), _See_ Persephone.
+  Protesilaus (pro-tess´-i-la´-us), 290.
+  Proteus (pro´-tuce), 108.
+  Prytaneum (prit-a-nee´-um), 49.
+  Psophis (so´-fiss), 278.
+  Psyche (si´-ke), 150.
+  Pylades (pil´-a-deez), 95, 306.
+  Pylos (pi´-l[)o]s), 286.
+  Pyracmon (pi-rac´-mon), 16.
+  Pyrrha (pir´-rah), 22.
+  Pythia (pith´-e-ah) 195, 269.
+  Pythian Games, 83.
+  Python (pi´-thon), 31, 72, 195.
+
+          Q.
+
+  Quirinus (que-ri´-nus), 115.
+
+          R.
+
+  Remus (ree´-mus), 114.
+  Rhadamanthus (rad-a-man´-thus), 34, 134.
+  Rhamnus (ram´-nus), 142.
+  Rhamnusia (ram-nu´-zhe-ah), 142.
+  Rhea (ree´-ah), 13, 18.
+  Rhoda (ro´-dah), 105.
+  Rhodes (roads), 105.
+  Rhodope, Mount (rod´-o-pe), 130.
+  Rhoetus (ree´-tus), 20.
+  Robigus (ro-bi´-gus), 180.
+  Romulus (rom´-u-lus), 114.
+
+          S.
+
+  Sacrifices, 192.
+  Sagaris (sag´-a-ris), 19.
+  Salamis (sal´-a-mis), 285.
+  Salii (sa´-le-i), 115.
+  Samos (sa´-mos), 34.
+  Saturn (sat´-urn), 17, 200.
+  Saturnalia (sat-ur-na´-le-ah), 200.
+  Satyrs (sa´-turz), 174, 198.
+  Scamander (sca-man´-der), 290.
+  Scheria (skee´-re-ah), 318.
+  Schoeneus (skee´-nuce), 89.
+  Scyros, island of, (si´-r[)o]s), 268, 287.
+  Scylla (sil´-lah), 104, 316.
+  Scyron (si´-ron), 260.
+  {333}
+  Seasons, 164.
+  Selene (se-lee´-ne), 86.
+  Selene-Artemis, 96.
+  Selli (sel´-li), 29.
+  Semele (sem´-e-le), 35, 205, 215.
+  Seriphus (se-ri´-fus), 205.
+  Servius Tullius (ser´-ve-us tul´-le-us), 184.
+  Shades, realm of, 267, 314.
+  Sibyls (sib´-bles), 84.
+  Silens (si´-lenz), 174.
+  Silenus (si-lee´-nus), 125, 198.
+  Silvanus (sil-va´-nus), 115, 182.
+  Silver Age, 23.
+  Simois (sim´-o-iss), 290.
+  Sinnis (sin´-nis), 260.
+  Sinon (si´-non), 302.
+  Siphylus (sif´-i-lus), 80.
+  Sirens (si´-renz), 112, 158, 315.
+  Sisyphus (sis´-i-fus), 135.
+  Sol (soll). _See_ Helios.
+  Solymans (sol´-i-mans), 258.
+  Somnus (som´-nus). _See_ Hypnus.
+  Soothsayers, 195.
+  Sparta, 285.
+  Sphinx (sfinks), 146.
+  Stables, Augean (aw-jee´-an), 242.
+  Statues, 190.
+  Stellio (stel´-le-o), 57.
+  Steropes (ster´-o peez, the first _e_ like _ei_ in _their_), 16.
+  Stheno (sthee´-no), 144.
+  Strophius (stro´-fe-us), 306.
+  Stymphalides (stim-fal´-i-deez), 221, 242.
+  Styx (sticks), 117, 132, 287.
+  Symplegades (sim-pleg´-a-deez), 221.
+  Syrinx (si´-rinks), 172.
+  Syrtes (sir´-teez), 229.
+
+          T.
+
+  Tænarum (ten´-a-rum), 132, 250.
+  Talaria (ta-la´-re-ah), 121.
+  Talus (ta´-lus), 229.
+  Tantalus (tan´-ta-lus), 134.
+  Tarquinius Superbus (tar-quin´-e-us su-per´-bus), 84.
+  Tartarus (tar´-ta-rus), 14, 134.
+  Taurica Chersonesus (taw´-ri-cah ker-so-nee´-sus), 93, 306.
+  Tauris (taw´-ris), 93, 306.
+  Tegea (tee´-je-ah), 279.
+  Telamon (tel´-a-mon), 216, 253, 285.
+  Telemachus (tel-lem´-a-cus), 287, 320.
+  Telephus (tel´-e-fus), 289.
+  Temenus (tem´-e-nus), 282.
+  Temples, 188.
+  Tenedos (ten´-e-dos), 290, 301, 303.
+  Terminus (ter´-mi-nus), 182.
+  Terpsichore (terp-sic´-o-re), 159.
+  Terra (ter´-rah, the _e_ like _ei_ in _their_), 11.
+  Tethys (tee´-thiss, _th_ as in _both_), 107, 166.
+  Teutamias (tu-ta´-me-ass), 209.
+  [55]Thalia (tha-li´-ah), 159, 163.
+  Thallo (thal´-lo), 164.
+  Thamyris (tham´-i ris), 158.
+  Thanatos (than´-a-tos), 142.
+  Thaumas (thaw´-mass), 13, 111, 137.
+  Thebes (theebs), 203.
+  Theia (thi´-ah), 13.
+  Themis (thee´-mis), 31, 48.
+  Themiscyra (the-mis´-se-rah), 245.
+  Thermodon (ther-mo´-don), 244.
+  Thersander (ther-san´-der), 276.
+  Thersites (ther-si´-teez), 297.
+  Theseus (thee´-suce), 250, 259.
+  Thesmophoria (thes-mo-fo´-re-ah), 197.
+  Thes´saly, 77.
+  Thestius (thes´-te-us), 33.
+  Thetis (thee´-tis), 39, 98, 110, 297.
+  Thyone (thi-o´-ne), 128.
+  Tiphys (ti´-fiss), 216.
+  Tiresias (ti-ree´-she-ass), 235, 271, 274, 277, 313.
+  Tiryns (ti´-rinz), 209, 252.
+  Tirynth (ti´-rinth), 209, 252.
+  Tisiphone (ti-sif´-o-ne), 138.
+  Titanomachia (ti´-tan-o-ma´-ke-ah), 17.
+  Titans (ti´-tanz), 13.
+  Tithonus (ti-tho´-nus), 68, 297.
+  Tityus (tit´-e-us), 134.
+  Trachin (tra´-kin), 254.
+  Trachis (tra´-kis), 254.
+  Trinacria (tri-na´-cre-ah), 316.
+  Triptolemus (trip-tol´-e-mus), 53.
+  Triton (tri´-ton), 109.
+  Trivia (triv´-e-ah), 97.
+  Troezen (tree´-zen), 251
+  Tros (tr[)o]ss), 157, 246.
+  Troy, 283.
+    -- walls of, 104.
+  Tubal-Cain (too´-bal-cane), 101.
+  Tyche (ti´-ke), 147.
+  Tydeus (ti´-duce), 272.
+  Tyndareus (tin-da´-re-us), 285.
+  Typhoeus (ti-fo´-yuce), 21.
+  Typhon (ti´-fon), 21.
+  Tyro (ti´-ro), 106.
+
+          U.
+
+  Uffizi Gallery (oof´-fid-ze), 80.
+  Ulysses (u-lis´-seez), _See_ Odysseus.
+  Urania (u-ra´-ne-ah), 159.
+  Uranus (u´-ra-nus), 11.
+
+          V.
+
+  Veneralia (ven-e-ra´-le-ah), 61.
+  {334}
+  Venus (vee´-nus), 61, 183.
+   -- of Milo, 60.
+  Vertumnus (ver-tum´-nus), 181.
+  Vesta (ves´-tah), 50, 201.
+  Vestalia (ves-ta´-le-ah), 59, 201.
+  Via Salavia (vi´-ah sa-la´-ve-ah), 184.
+  Victo´ria, 117.
+  Vulcan, 100.
+
+          W.
+
+  Winds, 170, 298.
+  Wooden Horse, 301.
+
+          X.
+
+  Xuthus (zoo-thus), 210.
+
+          Z.
+
+  Zephyrus (zef´-i-rus), 151, 171, 310.
+  Zetes (zee´-teez), 171.
+  Zethus (zee´-thus), 33.
+  Zeus (zuce), 26.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+            KELLOGG'S TEXT-BOOK ON RHETORIC.
+              KELLOGG'S TEXT-BOOK ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object clearly
+in view--to so develop the study of the English language as to present a
+complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to the study of
+English Literature. The troublesome contradictions which arise in using
+books arranged by different authors on these subjects, and which require
+much time for explanation in the schoolroom, will be avoided by the use of
+the above "Complete Course."
+
+Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books.
+
+  MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO., PUBLISHERS.
+      43, 45, and 47 East Tenth Street, New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NOTES
+
+[1] The early Greeks supposed the earth to be a flat circle, in the centre
+of which was Greece. Oceanus, the ocean stream, encircled it; the
+Mediterranean being supposed to flow into this river on the one side, and
+the Euxine, or Black Sea, on the other.
+
+[2] Owing to the vagueness of the various accounts of creation, the origin
+of the primeval gods is variously accounted for. Thus, for instance,
+Oceanus, with some, becomes the younger brother of Uranus and Gæa.
+
+[3] The myth of Cronus swallowing his children is evidently intended by the
+poets to express the melancholy truth that time destroys all things.
+
+[4] Nectar was the drink, and ambrosia the food of the gods.
+
+[5] The Cyclops are generally mentioned as the sons of Uranus and Gæa, but
+Homer speaks of Polyphemus, the chief of the Cyclops, as the son of
+Poseidon, and states the Cyclops to be his brothers.
+
+[6] Possibly an image of him placed in readiness.
+
+[7] This age was contemporary with the commencement of the dynasty of Zeus.
+
+[8] Hesiod is said to have lived 850 years before the Christian era,
+consequently about 200 years after King David. He lived in Boeotia, where
+his tomb is still shown at Orchomenus. This ancient writer left behind him
+two great poems, one entitled "The Works and Days," in which he gives us
+some of the earliest Greek legends, and the other, "The Theogony,"
+containing the genealogies of the gods; but, unfortunately, both these
+poems have been so interpolated by the writers of the Alexandrian school
+that they have lost their value as reliable sources of information with
+regard to the early beliefs of the Greek nation.
+
+[9] Epimetheus signifies after-thought, Prometheus fore-thought.
+
+[10] There are various versions of this myth. According to some the jar or
+vase was full of all "the ills which flesh is heir to."
+
+[11] From _Diaus_, the sky.
+
+[12] A sacred shield made for Zeus by Hephæstus, which derived its name
+from being covered by the skin of the goat Amalthea, the word Ægis
+signifying goat's-skin.
+
+[13] See Demeter.
+
+[14] This frightful monster had sprung from the slimy and stagnant waters
+which remained on the surface of the earth after the deluge of Deucalion.
+
+[15] Castor and Pollux were known by the name of the Dioscuri, from _dios_,
+gods, and _kuroi_, youths.
+
+[16] The ancient Greeks attributed much of the subsequent character of an
+individual to early influences; hence Hera, the future queen and mistress
+of heaven, is represented as being brought up in a domesticated and orderly
+household, where home virtues are carefully inculcated.
+
+[17] In the Homeric age peacocks were unknown; it is therefore the later
+poets who describe Hera surrounded with peacocks, which were brought to
+Greece from India.
+
+[18] This circumstance has given rise to the erroneous conclusion that Juno
+presided over the finances of the state, but the word _moneta_ is derived
+from the Latin _monere_, which means to warn or admonish.
+
+[19] See Roman Festivals.
+
+[20] The first large ship possessed by the Greeks fit for more than coast
+navigation.
+
+[21] When Perseus, with the help of Athene, had cut off the head of the
+Medusa, the two sisters caused a sad dirge-like song to issue from the
+mouths of the many snakes of which their hair was composed, whereupon
+Athene, pleased with the sound, imitated the melody on a reed, and thus
+invented the flute.
+
+[22] For details see Roman Festivals.
+
+[23] See Legend of Troy.
+
+[24] Some, with but little reason, make Demeter the daughter of Uranus and
+Gæa.
+
+[25] Demeter transformed Ascalaphus into an owl for revealing the secret.
+
+[26] The course which the sun ran was considered by the ancients to be a
+rising and descending curve [drawing of an arc], the centre of which was
+supposed to be reached by Helios at mid-day.
+
+[27] The river Po.
+
+[28] This great work of antiquity was destroyed by an earthquake fifty-six
+years after its erection, B.C. 256. The fragments remained on the ground
+for many centuries, until Rhodes was conquered by the Turks, and they were
+eventually sold by one of the generals of Caliph Othman IV. to a merchant
+of Emesa for £36,000, A.D. 672.
+
+[29] According to some authorities, Strymon.
+
+[30] This wonderful lyre, which had been given to Apollo by Hermes
+(Mercury) in exchange for the Caduceus or rod of wealth, is said to have
+possessed such extraordinary powers, that it caused a stone, upon which it
+was laid, to become so melodious, that ever afterwards, on being touched,
+it emitted a musical sound which resembled that produced by the lyre
+itself.
+
+[31] Aristæus was worshipped as a rural divinity in various parts of
+Greece, and was supposed to have taught mankind how to catch bees, and to
+utilize honey and wax.
+
+[32] Astræa was the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. Perses was son
+of the Titans Crios and Eurybia.
+
+[33] Called also Anaitis-Aphroditis.
+
+[34] This occurred during the night Alexander the Great was born.
+
+[35] Another version with regard to the origin of this defect, is that
+being born ugly and deformed, his mother Hera, disgusted at his
+unsightliness, herself threw him violently from her lap, and it was then
+that his leg was broken, producing the lameness from which he suffered ever
+after. On this occasion he fell into the sea, and was saved by the
+sea-nymphs Thetis and Eurynome, who kept him for nine years in a cavern
+beneath the ocean, where he made for them, in gratitude for their kindness,
+several beautiful ornaments, and trinkets of rare workmanship.
+
+[36] According to some accounts Chares was the wife of Hephæstus.
+
+[37] The trident resembled the arrow-headed pronged fork, used by the
+fishermen of the Mediterranean Sea in the eel-fishery.
+
+[38] Scylla is a dangerous rock, much dreaded by mariners, in the Straits
+of Messina.
+
+[39] The island of Rhodes owes its name to her.
+
+[40] It is worthy of notice that the sons of Poseidon were, for the most
+part, distinguished by great force and turbulence of character, in keeping
+with the element over which their father was the presiding deity. They were
+giants in power, and intractable, fiery, and impatient by nature, spurning
+all efforts to control them; in all respects, therefore, fitting
+representatives of their progenitor, the mighty ruler of the sea.
+
+[41] A cubit is the length from the elbow to the extremity of the middle
+finger, and therefore an indefinite measure, but modern usage takes it as
+representing a length of seventeen to eighteen inches.
+
+[42] On the Egyptian coast.
+
+[43] See Legend of the Argonauts.
+
+[44] His two sons Deimos and Phobos.
+
+[45] Romulus was deified by the Romans after death, and was worshipped by
+them under the name of Quirinus, an appellation which he shared in common
+with his father Mars.
+
+[46] Midas was the son of Cybele and Gordius, the king who tied the
+celebrated and intricate knot.
+
+[47] The shades of those mortals whose lives had neither been distinguished
+by virtue nor vice, were condemned to a monotonous, joyless, existence in
+the Asphodel meadows of Hades.
+
+[48] Echidna was a bloodthirsty monster, half maiden, half serpent.
+
+[49] One of the horns of the goat Amalthea, broken off by Zeus, and
+supposed to possess the power of filling itself with whatsoever its owner
+desired.
+
+[50] According to another account, Momus discovered that Aphrodite made a
+noise when she walked.
+
+[51] The word Psyche signifies "butterfly," the emblem of the soul in
+ancient art.
+
+[52] Tiresias alone, of all the shades, was in full possession of his
+mental vigour.
+
+[53] Most of the words ending in eus may also be pronounced thus:
+_Æ´-ge-us_, _[=a]´-tre-us_, _pro-me´-the-us_, etc.
+
+[54] The first e like ei in their.
+
+[55] _Th_ at the beginning of a word has its soft sound, as in _both_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece
+and Rome, by E.M. Berens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND LEGENDS ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/phantomoftheopera b/files/books/unrelated/phantomoftheopera
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a3a406e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/phantomoftheopera
@@ -0,0 +1,10757 @@
+Contents
+
+ Chapter
+
+        PROLOGUE
+     I  IS IT A GHOST?
+    II  THE NEW MARGARITA
+   III  THE MYSTERIOUS REASON
+    IV  BOX FIVE
+     V  THE ENCHANTED VIOLIN
+    VI  A VISIT TO BOX FIVE
+   VII  FAUST AND WHAT FOLLOWED
+  VIII  THE MYSTERIOUS BROUGHAM
+    IX  AT THE MASKED BALL
+     X  FORGET THE NAME OF THE MAN'S VOICE
+    XI  ABOVE THE TRAP-DOORS
+   XII  APOLLO'S LYRE
+  XIII  A MASTER-STROKE OF THE TRAP-DOOR LOVER
+   XIV  THE SINGULAR ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY-PIN
+    XV  CHRISTINE!  CHRISTINE!
+   XVI  MME. GIRY'S REVELATIONS
+  XVII  THE SAFETY-PIN AGAIN
+ XVIII  THE COMMISSARY, THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
+   XIX  THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
+    XX  IN THE CELLARS OF THE OPERA
+   XXI  INTERESTING VICISSITUDES
+  XXII  IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER
+ XXIII  THE TORTURES BEGIN
+  XXIV  BARRELS!  BARRELS!
+   XXV  THE SCORPION OR THE GRASSHOPPER:  WHICH
+  XXVI  THE END OF THE GHOST'S LOVE STORY
+        EPILOGUE
+
+{plus a "bonus chapter" called "THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE"}
+
+
+
+
+The Phantom of the Opera
+
+
+
+Prologue
+
+
+IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THIS SINGULAR WORK INFORMS THE READER HOW HE
+ACQUIRED THE CERTAINTY THAT THE OPERA GHOST REALLY EXISTED
+
+The Opera ghost really existed.  He was not, as was long believed, a
+creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the
+managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the
+young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the
+cloak-room attendants or the concierge.  Yes, he existed in flesh and
+blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;
+that is to say, of a spectral shade.
+
+When I began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music I
+was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the phenomena
+ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and fantastic
+tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes; and I soon conceived
+the idea that this tragedy might reasonably be explained by the
+phenomena in question.  The events do not date more than thirty years
+back; and it would not be difficult to find at the present day, in the
+foyer of the ballet, old men of the highest respectability, men upon
+whose word one could absolutely rely, who would remember as though they
+happened yesterday the mysterious and dramatic conditions that attended
+the kidnapping of Christine Daae, the disappearance of the Vicomte de
+Chagny and the death of his elder brother, Count Philippe, whose body
+was found on the bank of the lake that exists in the lower cellars of
+the Opera on the Rue-Scribe side.  But none of those witnesses had
+until that day thought that there was any reason for connecting the
+more or less legendary figure of the Opera ghost with that terrible
+story.
+
+The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry that at
+every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight, might be
+looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of
+abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in the hopeless
+pursuit of a vain image.  At last, I received the proof that my
+presentiments had not deceived me, and I was rewarded for all my
+efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost
+was more than a mere shade.
+
+On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER, the
+light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who, during
+his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious behavior of
+the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he could at the
+very moment when he became the first victim of the curious financial
+operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."
+
+I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful
+acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a landing
+with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he introduced me
+gaily.  The acting-manager knew all about my investigations and how
+eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover the
+whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case, M.
+Faure.  Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead; and here he
+was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen years, and the first
+thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to come to the
+secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.  The little
+old man was M. Faure himself.
+
+We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole
+Chagny case as he had understood it at the time.  He was bound to
+conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidental
+death of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary; but
+he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken place
+between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae.  He could
+not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount.  When I mentioned
+the ghost, he only laughed.  He, too, had been told of the curious
+manifestations that seemed to point to the existence of an abnormal
+being, residing in one of the most mysterious corners of the Opera, and
+he knew the story of the envelope; but he had never seen anything in it
+worthy of his attention as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case, and
+it was as much as he had done to listen to the evidence of a witness
+who appeared of his own accord and declared that he had often met the
+ghost.  This witness was none other than the man whom all Paris called
+the "Persian" and who was well-known to every subscriber to the Opera.
+The magistrate took him for a visionary.
+
+I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian.  I wanted, if
+there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.  My
+luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat in the
+Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died five
+months after my visit.  I was at first inclined to be suspicious; but
+when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor, all that he knew
+about the ghost and had handed me the proofs of the ghost's
+existence--including the strange correspondence of Christine Daae--to
+do as I pleased with, I was no longer able to doubt.  No, the ghost was
+not a myth!
+
+I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have been forged
+from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainly been fed on
+the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discovered some of
+Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and, on a
+comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed.  I also went
+into the past history of the Persian and found that he was an upright
+man, incapable of inventing a story that might have defeated the ends
+of justice.
+
+This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who, at one
+time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were friends of
+the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents and set forth all
+my inferences.  In this connection, I should like to print a few lines
+which I received from General D----:
+
+SIR:
+
+I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.
+I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance of that
+great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy which threw the whole of
+the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning, there was a great deal of
+talk, in the foyer of the ballet, on the subject of the "ghost;" and I
+believe that it only ceased to be discussed in consequence of the later
+affair that excited us all so greatly.  But, if it be possible--as,
+after hearing you, I believe--to explain the tragedy through the ghost,
+then I beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.
+
+Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more
+easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have
+tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each
+other all their lives.
+
+Believe me, etc.
+
+Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the
+ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom.
+All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the
+Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my
+labors in a very definite fashion.  It will be remembered that, later,
+when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the
+phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a
+corpse.  Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that of
+the Opera ghost.  I made the acting-manager put this proof to the test
+with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me
+if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.
+
+The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of
+the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their
+skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt
+which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions.  I
+came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the
+Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the
+unheard-of chance described above.
+
+But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.
+For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by
+thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for the
+first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae), M.
+Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager, M.
+Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne
+de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg" of the story (and
+who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable
+corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now
+deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box.  All these were of
+the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able to
+reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest
+details, before the reader's eyes.
+
+And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the
+threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present
+management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my
+inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the
+acting-manager, and that most amiable of men, the architect intrusted
+with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me
+the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would
+never return them to him.  Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the
+generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who
+allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow
+the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.
+
+GASTON LEROUX.
+
+
+
+Chapter I  Is it the Ghost?
+
+
+It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
+the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their
+retirement.  Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the
+principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the
+ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte.  They
+rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and
+unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror.  Sorelli, who wished to
+be alone for a moment to "run through" the speech which she was to make
+to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and
+tumultuous crowd.  It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted
+nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
+neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:
+
+"It's the ghost!"  And she locked the door.
+
+Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace
+elegance.  A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two
+provided the necessary furniture.  On the walls hung a few engravings,
+relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the
+Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini.  But
+the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were
+lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their time singing,
+quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers and buying one
+another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until the call-boy's
+bell rang.
+
+Sorelli was very superstitious.  She shuddered when she heard little
+Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then,
+as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and the Opera
+ghost in particular, at once asked for details:
+
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were
+giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.
+
+Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes, hair black as
+ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor
+little bones--little Giry added:
+
+"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.
+
+And they all began to talk together.  The ghost had appeared to them in
+the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood
+before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.
+He seemed to have come straight through the wall.
+
+"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.  "You see
+the ghost everywhere!"
+
+And it was true.  For several months, there had been nothing discussed
+at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the
+building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to
+whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one
+knowing how or where.  As became a real ghost, he made no noise in
+walking.  People began by laughing and making fun of this specter
+dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend
+soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet.  All
+the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less
+often.  And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at ease.
+When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence or his passing
+by accident, comic or serious, for which the general superstition held
+him responsible.  Had any one met with a fall, or suffered a practical
+joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or lost a powderpuff, it
+was at once the fault of the ghost, of the Opera ghost.
+
+After all, who had seen him?  You meet so many men in dress-clothes at
+the Opera who are not ghosts.  But this dress-suit had a peculiarity of
+its own.  It covered a skeleton.  At least, so the ballet-girls said.
+And, of course, it had a death's head.
+
+Was all this serious?  The truth is that the idea of the skeleton came
+from the description of the ghost given by Joseph Buquet, the chief
+scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost.  He had run up against
+the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights, which leads to
+"the cellars."  He had seen him for a second--for the ghost had
+fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him he said:
+
+"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton
+frame.  His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.
+You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull.  His skin,
+which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but
+a nasty yellow.  His nose is so little worth talking about that you
+can't see it side-face; and THE ABSENCE of that nose is a horrible
+thing TO LOOK AT.  All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks
+on his forehead and behind his ears."
+
+This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man, very slow at
+imagining things.  His words were received with interest and amazement;
+and soon there were other people to say that they too had met a man in
+dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.  Sensible men who
+had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph Buquet had been the
+victim of a joke played by one of his assistants.  And then, one after
+the other, there came a series of incidents so curious and so
+inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to feel uneasy.
+
+For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow!  He fears nothing, least of
+all fire!  Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round
+of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little
+farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, scared,
+trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically
+fainted in the arms of the proud mother of little Jammes.[1]  And why?
+Because he had seen coming toward him, AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT
+WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT, A HEAD OF FIRE!  And, as I said, a
+fireman is not afraid of fire.
+
+The fireman's name was Pampin.
+
+The corps de ballet was flung into consternation.  At first sight, this
+fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's description of
+the ghost.  But the young ladies soon persuaded themselves that the
+ghost had several heads, which he changed about as he pleased.  And, of
+course, they at once imagined that they were in the greatest danger.
+Once a fireman did not hesitate to faint, leaders and front-row and
+back-row girls alike had plenty of excuses for the fright that made
+them quicken their pace when passing some dark corner or ill-lighted
+corridor.  Sorelli herself, on the day after the adventure of the
+fireman, placed a horseshoe on the table in front of the
+stage-door-keeper's box, which every one who entered the Opera
+otherwise than as a spectator must touch before setting foot on the
+first tread of the staircase.  This horse-shoe was not invented by
+me--any more than any other part of this story, alas!--and may still be
+seen on the table in the passage outside the stage-door-keeper's box,
+when you enter the Opera through the court known as the Cour de
+l'Administration.
+
+To return to the evening in question.
+
+"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried.
+
+An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing-room. Nothing was
+heard but the hard breathing of the girls.  At last, Jammes, flinging
+herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every mark of real
+terror on her face, whispered:
+
+"Listen!"
+
+Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door.  There was no
+sound of footsteps.  It was like light silk sliding over the panel.
+Then it stopped.
+
+Sorelli tried to show more pluck than the others.  She went up to the
+door and, in a quavering voice, asked:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+But nobody answered.  Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her last
+movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly:
+
+"Is there any one behind the door?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!  Of course there is!" cried that little dried plum of a
+Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt.
+"Whatever you do, don't open the door!  Oh, Lord, don't open the door!"
+
+But Sorelli, armed with a dagger that never left her, turned the key
+and drew back the door, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner
+dressing-room and Meg Giry sighed:
+
+"Mother!  Mother!"
+
+Sorelli looked into the passage bravely.  It was empty; a gas-flame, in
+its glass prison, cast a red and suspicious light into the surrounding
+darkness, without succeeding in dispelling it.  And the dancer slammed
+the door again, with a deep sigh.
+
+"No," she said, "there is no one there."
+
+"Still, we saw him!"  Jammes declared, returning with timid little
+steps to her place beside Sorelli.  "He must be somewhere prowling
+about.  I shan't go back to dress.  We had better all go down to the
+foyer together, at once, for the 'speech,' and we will come up again
+together."
+
+And the child reverently touched the little coral finger-ring which she
+wore as a charm against bad luck, while Sorelli, stealthily, with the
+tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross on the
+wooden ring which adorned the fourth finger of her left hand.  She said
+to the little ballet-girls:
+
+"Come, children, pull yourselves together!  I dare say no one has ever
+seen the ghost."
+
+"Yes, yes, we saw him--we saw him just now!" cried the girls.  "He had
+his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared to Joseph
+Buquet!"
+
+"And Gabriel saw him too!" said Jammes.  "Only yesterday!  Yesterday
+afternoon--in broad day-light----"
+
+"Gabriel, the chorus-master?"
+
+"Why, yes, didn't you know?"
+
+"And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight?"
+
+"Who?  Gabriel?"
+
+"Why, no, the ghost!"
+
+"Certainly!  Gabriel told me so himself.  That's what he knew him by.
+Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office.  Suddenly the door opened
+and the Persian entered.  You know the Persian has the evil eye----"
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered the little ballet-girls in chorus, warding off
+ill-luck by pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent
+Persian, while their second and third fingers were bent on the palm and
+held down by the thumb.
+
+"And you know how superstitious Gabriel is," continued Jammes.
+"However, he is always polite.  When he meets the Persian, he just puts
+his hand in his pocket and touches his keys.  Well, the moment the
+Persian appeared in the doorway, Gabriel gave one jump from his chair
+to the lock of the cupboard, so as to touch iron!  In doing so, he tore
+a whole skirt of his overcoat on a nail.  Hurrying to get out of the
+room, he banged his forehead against a hat-peg and gave himself a huge
+bump; then, suddenly stepping back, he skinned his arm on the screen,
+near the piano; he tried to lean on the piano, but the lid fell on his
+hands and crushed his fingers; he rushed out of the office like a
+madman, slipped on the staircase and came down the whole of the first
+flight on his back.  I was just passing with mother.  We picked him up.
+He was covered with bruises and his face was all over blood.  We were
+frightened out of our lives, but, all at once, he began to thank
+Providence that he had got off so cheaply.  Then he told us what had
+frightened him.  He had seen the ghost behind the Persian, THE GHOST
+WITH THE DEATH'S HEAD just like Joseph Buquet's description!"
+
+Jammes had told her story ever so quickly, as though the ghost were at
+her heels, and was quite out of breath at the finish.  A silence
+followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement.  It was
+broken by little Giry, who said:
+
+"Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue."
+
+"Why should he hold his tongue?" asked somebody.
+
+"That's mother's opinion," replied Meg, lowering her voice and looking
+all about her as though fearing lest other ears than those present
+might overhear.
+
+"And why is it your mother's opinion?"
+
+"Hush!  Mother says the ghost doesn't like being talked about."
+
+"And why does your mother say so?"
+
+"Because--because--nothing--"
+
+This reticence exasperated the curiosity of the young ladies, who
+crowded round little Giry, begging her to explain herself.  They were
+there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously in one movement of
+entreaty and fear, communicating their terror to one another, taking a
+keen pleasure in feeling their blood freeze in their veins.
+
+"I swore not to tell!" gasped Meg.
+
+But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg,
+burning to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:
+
+"Well, it's because of the private box."
+
+"What private box?"
+
+"The ghost's box!"
+
+"Has the ghost a box?  Oh, do tell us, do tell us!"
+
+"Not so loud!" said Meg.  "It's Box Five, you know, the box on the
+grand tier, next to the stage-box, on the left."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"I tell you it is.  Mother has charge of it.  But you swear you won't
+say a word?"
+
+"Of course, of course."
+
+"Well, that's the ghost's box.  No one has had it for over a month,
+except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office that it
+must never be sold."
+
+"And does the ghost really come there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then somebody does come?"
+
+"Why, no!  The ghost comes, but there is nobody there."
+
+The little ballet-girls exchanged glances.  If the ghost came to the
+box, he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death's head.
+This was what they tried to make Meg understand, but she replied:
+
+"That's just it!  The ghost is not seen.  And he has no dress-coat and
+no head!  All that talk about his death's head and his head of fire is
+nonsense!  There's nothing in it.  You only hear him when he is in the
+box.  Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him.  Mother knows,
+because she gives him his program."
+
+Sorelli interfered.
+
+"Giry, child, you're getting at us!"
+
+Thereupon little Giry began to cry.
+
+"I ought to have held my tongue--if mother ever came to know!  But I
+was quite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk of things that
+don't concern him--it will bring him bad luck--mother was saying so
+last night----"
+
+There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage and a
+breathless voice cried:
+
+"Cecile!  Cecile!  Are you there?"
+
+"It's mother's voice," said Jammes.  "What's the matter?"
+
+She opened the door.  A respectable lady, built on the lines of a
+Pomeranian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning
+into a vacant arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly in her brick-dust
+colored face.
+
+"How awful!" she said.  "How awful!"
+
+"What?  What?"
+
+"Joseph Buquet!"
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"Joseph Buquet is dead!"
+
+The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished outcries,
+with scared requests for explanations.
+
+"Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!"
+
+"It's the ghost!" little Giry blurted, as though in spite of herself;
+but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:
+"No, no!--I, didn't say it!--I didn't say it!----"
+
+All around her, her panic-stricken companions repeated under their
+breaths:
+
+"Yes--it must be the ghost!"
+
+Sorelli was very pale.
+
+"I shall never be able to recite my speech," she said.
+
+Ma Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of liqueur that
+happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have something to do
+with it.
+
+The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death.
+The verdict at the inquest was "natural suicide."  In his Memoirs of
+Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded MM.
+Debienne and Poligny, describes the incident as follows:
+
+"A grievous accident spoiled the little party which MM.  Debienne and
+Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement.  I was in the manager's
+office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly came darting in.  He
+seemed half mad and told me that the body of a scene-shifter had been
+found hanging in the third cellar under the stage, between a farm-house
+and a scene from the Roi de Lahore.  I shouted:
+
+"'Come and cut him down!'
+
+"By the time I had rushed down the staircase and the Jacob's ladder,
+the man was no longer hanging from his rope!"
+
+So this is an event which M. Moncharmin thinks natural.  A man hangs at
+the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope has disappeared.
+Oh, M. Moncharmin found a very simple explanation!  Listen to him:
+
+"It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost no
+time in taking their precautions against the evil eye."
+
+There you are!  Picture the corps de ballet scuttling down the Jacob's
+ladder and dividing the suicide's rope among themselves in less time
+than it takes to write!  When, on the other hand, I think of the exact
+spot where the body was discovered--the third cellar underneath the
+stage!--imagine that SOMEBODY must have been interested in seeing that
+the rope disappeared after it had effected its purpose; and time will
+show if I am wrong.
+
+The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was
+very popular.  The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls,
+crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess, made
+for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases, trotting as
+fast as their little pink legs could carry them.
+
+
+[1] I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro
+Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II  The New Margarita
+
+
+On the first landing, Sorelli ran against the Comte de Chagny, who was
+coming up-stairs. The count, who was generally so calm, seemed greatly
+excited.
+
+"I was just going to you," he said, taking off his hat.  "Oh, Sorelli,
+what an evening!  And Christine Daae:  what a triumph!"
+
+"Impossible!" said Meg Giry.  "Six months ago, she used to sing like a
+CROCK!  But do let us get by, my dear count," continues the brat, with
+a saucy curtsey.  "We are going to inquire after a poor man who was
+found hanging by the neck."
+
+Just then the acting-manager came fussing past and stopped when he
+heard this remark.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed roughly.  "Have you girls heard already?  Well,
+please forget about it for tonight--and above all don't let M. Debienne
+and M. Poligny hear; it would upset them too much on their last day."
+
+They all went on to the foyer of the ballet, which was already full of
+people.  The Comte de Chagny was right; no gala performance ever
+equalled this one.  All the great composers of the day had conducted
+their own works in turns.  Faure and Krauss had sung; and, on that
+evening, Christine Daae had revealed her true self, for the first time,
+to the astonished and enthusiastic audience.  Gounod had conducted the
+Funeral March of a Marionnette; Reyer, his beautiful overture to
+Siguar; Saint Saens, the Danse Macabre and a Reverie Orientale;
+Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian march; Guiraud, his Carnaval;
+Delibes, the Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia.
+Mlle. Krauss had sung the bolero in the Vespri Siciliani; and Mlle.
+Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia.
+
+But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by
+singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet.  It was the first time
+that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod, which had not been
+transferred to the Opera and which was revived at the Opera Comique
+after it had been produced at the old Theatre Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho.
+Those who heard her say that her voice, in these passages, was
+seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman notes that she gave
+forth in the prison scene and the final trio in FAUST, which she sang
+in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill.  No one had ever heard or
+seen anything like it.
+
+Daae revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor, a
+radiance hitherto unsuspected.  The whole house went mad, rising to its
+feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted
+in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her
+dressing-room. A few subscribers, however, protested.  Why had so great
+a treasure been kept from them all that time?  Till then, Christine
+Daae had played a good Siebel to Carlotta's rather too splendidly
+material Margarita.  And it had needed Carlotta's incomprehensible and
+inexcusable absence from this gala night for the little Daae, at a
+moment's warning, to show all that she could do in a part of the
+program reserved for the Spanish diva!  Well, what the subscribers
+wanted to know was, why had Debienne and Poligny applied to Daae, when
+Carlotta was taken ill?  Did they know of her hidden genius?  And, if
+they knew of it, why had they kept it hidden?  And why had she kept it
+hidden?  Oddly enough, she was not known to have a professor of singing
+at that moment.  She had often said she meant to practise alone for the
+future.  The whole thing was a mystery.
+
+The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this
+frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding.  Philippe Georges
+Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age.  He was a great
+aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with
+attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold
+eyes.  He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to
+the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.
+He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience.  On the
+death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest
+and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the
+fourteenth century.  The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and,
+when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for
+Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate.  His two
+sisters and his brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived
+their claim to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's
+hands, as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.
+When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their
+portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging to
+them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.
+
+The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in
+giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder
+brother.  At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years
+of age.  Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's
+education.  He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters
+and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived
+at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea.  The lad entered the
+Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made
+his trip round the world.  Thanks to powerful influence, he had just
+been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin,
+which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of
+the D'Artoi's expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three
+years.  Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be
+over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate
+stripling for the hard work in store for him.
+
+The shyness of the sailor-lad--I was almost saying his innocence--was
+remarkable.  He seemed to have but just left the women's apron-strings.
+As a matter of fact, petted as he was by his two sisters and his old
+aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine education manners that
+were almost candid and stamped with a charm that nothing had yet been
+able to sully.  He was a little over twenty-one years of age and looked
+eighteen.  He had a small, fair mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a
+complexion like a girl's.
+
+Philippe spoiled Raoul.  To begin with, he was very proud of him and
+pleased to foresee a glorious career for his junior in the navy in
+which one of their ancestors, the famous Chagny de La Roche, had held
+the rank of admiral.  He took advantage of the young man's leave of
+absence to show him Paris, with all its luxurious and artistic
+delights.  The count considered that, at Raoul's age, it is not good to
+be too good.  Philippe himself had a character that was very
+well-balanced in work and pleasure alike; his demeanor was always
+faultless; and he was incapable of setting his brother a bad example.
+He took him with him wherever he went.  He even introduced him to the
+foyer of the ballet.  I know that the count was said to be "on terms"
+with Sorelli.  But it could hardly be reckoned as a crime for this
+nobleman, a bachelor, with plenty of leisure, especially since his
+sisters were settled, to come and spend an hour or two after dinner in
+the company of a dancer, who, though not so very, very witty, had the
+finest eyes that ever were seen!  And, besides, there are places where
+a true Parisian, when he has the rank of the Comte de Chagny, is bound
+to show himself; and at that time the foyer of the ballet at the Opera
+was one of those places.
+
+Lastly, Philippe would perhaps not have taken his brother behind the
+scenes of the Opera if Raoul had not been the first to ask him,
+repeatedly renewing his request with a gentle obstinacy which the count
+remembered at a later date.
+
+On that evening, Philippe, after applauding the Daae, turned to Raoul
+and saw that he was quite pale.
+
+"Don't you see," said Raoul, "that the woman's fainting?"
+
+"You look like fainting yourself," said the count.  "What's the matter?"
+
+But Raoul had recovered himself and was standing up.
+
+"Let's go and see," he said, "she never sang like that before."
+
+The count gave his brother a curious smiling glance and seemed quite
+pleased. They were soon at the door leading from the house to the
+stage.  Numbers of subscribers were slowly making their way through.
+Raoul tore his gloves without knowing what he was doing and Philippe
+had much too kind a heart to laugh at him for his impatience.  But he
+now understood why Raoul was absent-minded when spoken to and why he
+always tried to turn every conversation to the subject of the Opera.
+
+They reached the stage and pushed through the crowd of gentlemen,
+scene-shifters, supers and chorus-girls, Raoul leading the way, feeling
+that his heart no longer belonged to him, his face set with passion,
+while Count Philippe followed him with difficulty and continued to
+smile.  At the back of the stage, Raoul had to stop before the inrush
+of the little troop of ballet-girls who blocked the passage which he
+was trying to enter.  More than one chaffing phrase darted from little
+made-up lips, to which he did not reply; and at last he was able to
+pass, and dived into the semi-darkness of a corridor ringing with the
+name of "Daae!  Daae!"  The count was surprised to find that Raoul knew
+the way.  He had never taken him to Christine's himself and came to the
+conclusion that Raoul must have gone there alone while the count stayed
+talking in the foyer with Sorelli, who often asked him to wait until it
+was her time to "go on" and sometimes handed him the little gaiters in
+which she ran down from her dressing-room to preserve the spotlessness
+of her satin dancing-shoes and her flesh-colored tights.  Sorelli had
+an excuse; she had lost her mother.
+
+Postponing his usual visit to Sorelli for a few minutes, the count
+followed his brother down the passage that led to Daae's dressing-room
+and saw that it had never been so crammed as on that evening, when the
+whole house seemed excited by her success and also by her fainting fit.
+For the girl had not yet come to; and the doctor of the theater had
+just arrived at the moment when Raoul entered at his heels.  Christine,
+therefore, received the first aid of the one, while opening her eyes in
+the arms of the other.  The count and many more remained crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor, that those gentlemen had better clear the
+room?" asked Raoul coolly.  "There's no breathing here."
+
+"You're quite right," said the doctor.
+
+And he sent every one away, except Raoul and the maid, who looked at
+Raoul with eyes of the most undisguised astonishment.  She had never
+seen him before and yet dared not question him; and the doctor imagined
+that the young man was only acting as he did because he had the right
+to.  The viscount, therefore, remained in the room watching Christine
+as she slowly returned to life, while even the joint managers, Debienne
+and Poligny, who had come to offer their sympathy and congratulations,
+found themselves thrust into the passage among the crowd of dandies.
+The Comte de Chagny, who was one of those standing outside, laughed:
+
+"Oh, the rogue, the rogue!"  And he added, under his breath: "Those
+youngsters with their school-girl airs!  So he's a Chagny after all!"
+
+He turned to go to Sorelli's dressing-room, but met her on the way,
+with her little troop of trembling ballet-girls, as we have seen.
+
+Meanwhile, Christine Daae uttered a deep sigh, which was answered by a
+groan.  She turned her head, saw Raoul and started.  She looked at the
+doctor, on whom she bestowed a smile, then at her maid, then at Raoul
+again.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, in a voice not much above a whisper, "who are
+you?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," replied the young man, kneeling on one knee and
+pressing a fervent kiss on the diva's hand, "I AM THE LITTLE BOY WHO
+WENT INTO THE SEA TO RESCUE YOUR SCARF."
+
+Christine again looked at the doctor and the maid; and all three began
+to laugh.
+
+Raoul turned very red and stood up.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, "since you are pleased not to recognize me, I
+should like to say something to you in private, something very
+important."
+
+"When I am better, do you mind?"  And her voice shook.  "You have been
+very good."
+
+"Yes, you must go," said the doctor, with his pleasantest smile.
+"Leave me to attend to mademoiselle."
+
+"I am not ill now," said Christine suddenly, with strange and
+unexpected energy.
+
+She rose and passed her hand over her eyelids.
+
+"Thank you, Doctor.  I should like to be alone.  Please go away, all of
+you.  Leave me.  I feel very restless this evening."
+
+The doctor tried to make a short protest, but, perceiving the girl's
+evident agitation, he thought the best remedy was not to thwart her.
+And he went away, saying to Raoul, outside:
+
+"She is not herself to-night. She is usually so gentle."
+
+Then he said good night and Raoul was left alone.  The whole of this
+part of the theater was now deserted.  The farewell ceremony was no
+doubt taking place in the foyer of the ballet.  Raoul thought that Daae
+might go to it and he waited in the silent solitude, even hiding in the
+favoring shadow of a doorway.  He felt a terrible pain at his heart and
+it was of this that he wanted to speak to Daae without delay.
+
+Suddenly the dressing-room door opened and the maid came out by
+herself, carrying bundles.  He stopped her and asked how her mistress
+was.  The woman laughed and said that she was quite well, but that he
+must not disturb her, for she wished to be left alone.  And she passed
+on.  One idea alone filled Raoul's burning brain:  of course, Daae
+wished to be left alone FOR HIM!  Had he not told her that he wanted to
+speak to her privately?
+
+Hardly breathing, he went up to the dressing-room and, with his ear to
+the door to catch her reply, prepared to knock.  But his hand dropped.
+He had heard A MAN'S VOICE in the dressing-room, saying, in a curiously
+masterful tone:
+
+"Christine, you must love me!"
+
+And Christine's voice, infinitely sad and trembling, as though
+accompanied by tears, replied:
+
+"How can you talk like that?  WHEN I SING ONLY FOR YOU!"
+
+Raoul leaned against the panel to ease his pain.  His heart, which had
+seemed gone for ever, returned to his breast and was throbbing loudly.
+The whole passage echoed with its beating and Raoul's ears were
+deafened.  Surely, if his heart continued to make such a noise, they
+would hear it inside, they would open the door and the young man would
+be turned away in disgrace.  What a position for a Chagny!  To be
+caught listening behind a door!  He took his heart in his two hands to
+make it stop.
+
+The man's voice spoke again:  "Are you very tired?"
+
+"Oh, to-night I gave you my soul and I am dead!"  Christine replied.
+
+"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child," replied the grave man's voice,
+"and I thank you.  No emperor ever received so fair a gift.  THE ANGELS
+WEPT TONIGHT."
+
+Raoul heard nothing after that.  Nevertheless, he did not go away, but,
+as though he feared lest he should be caught, he returned to his dark
+corner, determined to wait for the man to leave the room.  At one and
+the same time, he had learned what love meant, and hatred.  He knew
+that he loved.  He wanted to know whom he hated.  To his great
+astonishment, the door opened and Christine Daae appeared, wrapped in
+furs, with her face hidden in a lace veil, alone.  She closed the door
+behind her, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it.  She passed
+him.  He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his eyes were fixed
+on the door, which did not open again.
+
+When the passage was once more deserted, he crossed it, opened the door
+of the dressing-room, went in and shut the door.  He found himself in
+absolute darkness.  The gas had been turned out.
+
+"There is some one here!" said Raoul, with his back against the closed
+door, in a quivering voice.  "What are you hiding for?"
+
+All was darkness and silence.  Raoul heard only the sound of his own
+breathing.  He quite failed to see that the indiscretion of his conduct
+was exceeding all bounds.
+
+"You shan't leave this until I let you!" he exclaimed.  "If you don't
+answer, you are a coward!  But I'll expose you!"
+
+And he struck a match.  The blaze lit up the room.  There was no one in
+the room!  Raoul, first turning the key in the door, lit the gas-jets.
+He went into the dressing-closet, opened the cupboards, hunted about,
+felt the walls with his moist hands.  Nothing!
+
+"Look here!" he said, aloud.  "Am I going mad?"
+
+He stood for ten minutes listening to the gas flaring in the silence of
+the empty room; lover though he was, he did not even think of stealing
+a ribbon that would have given him the perfume of the woman he loved.
+He went out, not knowing what he was doing nor where he was going.  At
+a given moment in his wayward progress, an icy draft struck him in the
+face.  He found himself at the bottom of a staircase, down which,
+behind him, a procession of workmen were carrying a sort of stretcher,
+covered with a white sheet.
+
+"Which is the way out, please?" he asked of one of the men.
+
+"Straight in front of you, the door is open.  But let us pass."
+
+Pointing to the stretcher, he asked mechanically:  "What's that?"
+
+The workmen answered:
+
+"'That' is Joseph Buquet, who was found in the third cellar, hanging
+between a farm-house and a scene from the ROI DE LAHORE."
+
+He took off his hat, fell back to make room for the procession and went
+out.
+
+
+
+Chapter III The Mysterious Reason
+
+
+During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place.  I have
+already said that this magnificent function was being given on the
+occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny, who had
+determined to "die game," as we say nowadays.  They had been assisted
+in the realization of their ideal, though melancholy, program by all
+that counted in the social and artistic world of Paris.  All these
+people met, after the performance, in the foyer of the ballet, where
+Sorelli waited for the arrival of the retiring managers with a glass of
+champagne in her hand and a little prepared speech at the tip of her
+tongue.  Behind her, the members of the Corps de Ballet, young and old,
+discussed the events of the day in whispers or exchanged discreet
+signals with their friends, a noisy crowd of whom surrounded the
+supper-tables arranged along the slanting floor.
+
+A few of the dancers had already changed into ordinary dress; but most
+of them wore their skirts of gossamer gauze; and all had thought it the
+right thing to put on a special face for the occasion:  all, that is,
+except little Jammes, whose fifteen summers--happy age!--seemed already
+to have forgotten the ghost and the death of Joseph Buquet.  She never
+ceased to laugh and chatter, to hop about and play practical jokes,
+until Mm. Debienne and Poligny appeared on the steps of the foyer, when
+she was severely called to order by the impatient Sorelli.
+
+Everybody remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful, as is
+the Paris way.  None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned
+to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom
+or indifference over his inward joy.  You know that one of your friends
+is in trouble; do not try to console him: he will tell you that he is
+already comforted; but, should he have met with good fortune, be
+careful how you congratulate him:  he thinks it so natural that he is
+surprised that you should speak of it.  In Paris, our lives are one
+masked ball; and the foyer of the ballet is the last place in which two
+men so "knowing" as M. Debienne and M. Poligny would have made the
+mistake of betraying their grief, however genuine it might be.  And
+they were already smiling rather too broadly upon Sorelli, who had
+begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from that little madcap
+of a Jammes broke the smile of the managers so brutally that the
+expression of distress and dismay that lay beneath it became apparent
+to all eyes:
+
+"The Opera ghost!"
+
+Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her
+finger pointed, among the crowd of dandies, to a face so pallid, so
+lugubrious and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities under the
+straddling eyebrows, that the death's head in question immediately
+scored a huge success.
+
+"The Opera ghost!  The Opera ghost!"  Everybody laughed and pushed his
+neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he was gone.
+He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him,
+while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes and while little
+Giry stood screaming like a peacock.
+
+Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; the
+managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost
+himself.  No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were
+to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the foyer of the
+singers, and that finally they were themselves to receive their
+personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the
+managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.
+
+Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin
+Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were lavish in
+protestations of friendship and received a thousand flattering
+compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had feared that
+they had a rather tedious evening in store for them at once put on
+brighter faces.  The supper was almost gay and a particularly clever
+speech of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
+the past with the successes of the future, caused the greatest
+cordiality to prevail.
+
+The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the
+two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--of
+the Opera house.  And those little keys, the object of general
+curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of
+some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end of the
+table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the hollow eyes,
+which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet and been greeted
+by little Jammes' exclamation:
+
+"The Opera ghost!"
+
+There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither ate
+nor drank.  Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended by
+turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked the
+most funereal thoughts.  No one repeated the joke of the foyer, no one
+exclaimed:
+
+"There's the Opera ghost!"
+
+He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have
+stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them; but every
+one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at the table of the
+living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure.  The friends of
+Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny
+guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's, while Debienne's
+and Poligny's friends believed that the cadaverous individual belonged
+to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin's party.
+
+The result was that no request was made for an explanation; no
+unpleasant remark; no joke in bad taste, which might have offended this
+visitor from the tomb.  A few of those present who knew the story of
+the ghost and the description of him given by the chief
+scene-shifter--they did not know of Joseph Buquet's death--thought, in
+their own minds, that the man at the end of the table might easily have
+passed for him; and yet, according to the story, the ghost had no nose
+and the person in question had.  But M. Moncharmin declares, in his
+Memoirs, that the guest's nose was transparent:  "long, thin and
+transparent" are his exact words.  I, for my part, will add that this
+might very well apply to a false nose.  M. Moncharmin may have taken
+for transparency what was only shininess.  Everybody knows that
+orthopaedic science provides beautiful false noses for those who have
+lost their noses naturally or as the result of an operation.
+
+Did the ghost really take a seat at the managers' supper-table that
+night, uninvited?  And can we be sure that the figure was that of the
+Opera ghost himself?  Who would venture to assert as much?  I mention
+the incident, not because I wish for a second to make the reader
+believe--or even to try to make him believe--that the ghost was capable
+of such a sublime piece of impudence; but because, after all, the thing
+is impossible.
+
+M. Armand Moncharmin, in chapter eleven of his Memoirs, says:
+
+"When I think of this first evening, I can not separate the secret
+confided to us by MM. Debienne and Poligny in their office from the
+presence at our supper of that GHOSTLY person whom none of us knew."
+
+What happened was this:  Mm. Debienne and Poligny, sitting at the
+center of the table, had not seen the man with the death's head.
+Suddenly he began to speak.
+
+"The ballet-girls are right," he said.  "The death of that poor Buquet
+is perhaps not so natural as people think."
+
+Debienne and Poligny gave a start.
+
+"Is Buquet dead?" they cried.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, or the shadow of a man, quietly.  "He was
+found, this evening, hanging in the third cellar, between a farm-house
+and a scene from the Roi de Lahore."
+
+The two managers, or rather ex-managers, at once rose and stared
+strangely at the speaker.  They were more excited than they need have
+been, that is to say, more excited than any one need be by the
+announcement of the suicide of a chief scene-shifter. They looked at
+each other.  They, had both turned whiter than the table-cloth.  At
+last, Debienne made a sign to Mm. Richard and Moncharmin; Poligny
+muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four went into
+the managers' office.  I leave M. Moncharmin to complete the story.  In
+his Memoirs, he says:
+
+"Mm. Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited, and
+they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us.  First, they
+asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table, who had
+told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered in the
+negative, they looked still more concerned.  They took the master-keys
+from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised us to have new
+locks made, with the greatest secrecy, for the rooms, closets and
+presses that we might wish to have hermetically closed.  They said this
+so funnily that we began to laugh and to ask if there were thieves at
+the Opera.  They replied that there was something worse, which was the
+GHOST.  We began to laugh again, feeling sure that they were indulging
+in some joke that was intended to crown our little entertainment.
+Then, at their request, we became 'serious,' resolving to humor them
+and to enter into the spirit of the game.  They told us that they never
+would have spoken to us of the ghost, if they had not received formal
+orders from the ghost himself to ask us to be pleasant to him and to
+grant any request that he might make.  However, in their relief at
+leaving a domain where that tyrannical shade held sway, they had
+hesitated until the last moment to tell us this curious story, which
+our skeptical minds were certainly not prepared to entertain.  But the
+announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal
+reminder that, whenever they had disregarded the ghost's wishes, some
+fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their
+dependence.
+
+"During these unexpected utterances made in a tone of the most secret
+and important confidence, I looked at Richard.  Richard, in his student
+days, had acquired a great reputation for practical joking, and he
+seemed to relish the dish which was being served up to him in his turn.
+He did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning was a little
+gruesome because of the death of Buquet.  He nodded his head sadly,
+while the others spoke, and his features assumed the air of a man who
+bitterly regretted having taken over the Opera, now that he knew that
+there was a ghost mixed up in the business.  I could think of nothing
+better than to give him a servile imitation of this attitude of
+despair.  However, in spite of all our efforts, we could not, at the
+finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces of MM. Debienne and
+Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from the gloomiest state of mind
+to one of the most insolent merriment, acted as though they thought
+that we had gone mad.
+
+"The joke became a little tedious; and Richard asked half-seriously and
+half in jest:
+
+"'But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?'
+
+"M. Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the
+memorandum-book. The memorandum-book begins with the well-known words
+saying that 'the management of the Opera shall give to the performance
+of the National Academy of Music the splendor that becomes the first
+lyric stage in France' and ends with Clause 98, which says that the
+privilege can be withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions
+stipulated in the memorandum-book.  This is followed by the conditions,
+which are four in number.
+
+"The copy produced by M. Poligny was written in black ink and exactly
+similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it
+contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer, labored handwriting,
+as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the
+ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the down-strokes
+and has not learned to join its letters.  This paragraph ran, word for
+word, as follows:
+
+"'5. Or if the manager, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight
+the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost, an
+allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two hundred and forty
+thousand francs a year.'
+
+"M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which
+we certainly did not expect.
+
+"'Is this all?  Does he not want anything else?' asked Richard, with
+the greatest coolness.
+
+"'Yes, he does,' replied Poligny.
+
+"And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he came to
+the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to
+be reserved for the free use of the president of the republic, the
+ministers and so on.  At the end of this clause, a line had been added,
+also in red ink:
+
+"'Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal of the
+Opera ghost for every performance.'
+
+"When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise from
+our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly by the hand and
+congratulate them on thinking of this charming little joke, which
+proved that the old French sense of humor was never likely to become
+extinct.  Richard added that he now understood why MM.  Debienne and
+Poligny were retiring from the management of the National Academy of
+Music.  Business was impossible with so unreasonable a ghost.
+
+"'Certainly, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not be picked up
+for the asking,' said M. Poligny, without moving a muscle of his face.
+'And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us?  We
+did not sell it once; and not only that, but we had to return the
+subscription:  why, it's awful!  We really can't work to keep ghosts!
+We prefer to go away!'
+
+"'Yes,' echoed M. Debienne, 'we prefer to go away.  Let us go.'"
+
+"And he stood up.  Richard said:  'But, after all all, it seems to me
+that you were much too kind to the ghost.  If I had such a troublesome
+ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.'
+
+"'But how?  Where?' they cried, in chorus.  'We have never seen him!'
+
+"'But when he comes to his box?'
+
+"'WE HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM IN HIS BOX.'
+
+"'Then sell it.'
+
+"'Sell the Opera ghost's box!  Well, gentlemen, try it.'
+
+"Thereupon we all four left the office.  Richard and I had 'never
+laughed so much in our lives.'"
+
+
+
+Chapter IV  Box Five
+
+
+Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long
+period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found time
+to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by telling what
+went on there.  M. Moncharmin did not know a note of music, but he
+called the minister of education and fine arts by his Christian name,
+had dabbled a little in society journalism and enjoyed a considerable
+private income.  Lastly, he was a charming fellow and showed that he
+was not lacking in intelligence, for, as soon as he made up his mind to
+be a sleeping partner in the Opera, he selected the best possible
+active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.
+
+Firmin Richard was a very distinguished composer, who had published a
+number of successful pieces of all kinds and who liked nearly every
+form of music and every sort of musician.  Clearly, therefore, it was
+the duty of every sort of musician to like M. Firmin Richard.  The only
+things to be said against him were that he was rather masterful in his
+ways and endowed with a very hasty temper.
+
+The first few days which the partners spent at the Opera were given
+over to the delight of finding themselves the head of so magnificent an
+enterprise; and they had forgotten all about that curious, fantastic
+story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that proved to them that
+the joke--if joke it were--was not over.  M. Firmin Richard reached his
+office that morning at eleven o'clock. His secretary, M. Remy, showed
+him half a dozen letters which he had not opened because they were
+marked "private." One of the letters had at once attracted Richard's
+attention not only because the envelope was addressed in red ink, but
+because he seemed to have seen the writing before.  He soon remembered
+that it was the red handwriting in which the memorandum-book had been
+so curiously completed.  He recognized the clumsy childish hand.  He
+opened the letter and read:
+
+DEAR MR.  MANAGER:
+
+I am sorry to have to trouble you at a time when you must be so very
+busy, renewing important engagements, signing fresh ones and generally
+displaying your excellent taste.  I know what you have done for
+Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes and for a few others whose
+admirable qualities of talent or genius you have suspected.
+
+Of course, when I use these words, I do not mean to apply them to La
+Carlotta, who sings like a squirt and who ought never to have been
+allowed to leave the Ambassadeurs and the Cafe Jacquin; nor to La
+Sorelli, who owes her success mainly to the coach-builders; nor to
+little Jammes, who dances like a calf in a field.  And I am not
+speaking of Christine Daae either, though her genius is certain,
+whereas your jealousy prevents her from creating any important part.
+When all is said, you are free to conduct your little business as you
+think best, are you not?
+
+All the same, I should like to take advantage of the fact that you have
+not yet turned Christine Daae out of doors by hearing her this evening
+in the part of Siebel, as that of Margarita has been forbidden her
+since her triumph of the other evening; and I will ask you not to
+dispose of my box to-day nor on the FOLLOWING DAYS, for I can not end
+this letter without telling you how disagreeably surprised I have been
+once or twice, to hear, on arriving at the Opera, that my box had been
+sold, at the box-office, by your orders.
+
+I did not protest, first, because I dislike scandal, and, second,
+because I thought that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny, who
+were always charming to me, had neglected, before leaving, to mention
+my little fads to you.  I have now received a reply from those
+gentlemen to my letter asking for an explanation, and this reply proves
+that you know all about my Memorandum-Book and, consequently, that you
+are treating me with outrageous contempt.  IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN
+PEACE, YOU MUST NOT BEGIN BY TAKING AWAY MY PRIVATE BOX.
+
+Believe me to be, dear Mr. Manager, without prejudice to these little
+observations,
+
+        Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,
+                                OPERA GHOST.
+
+The letter was accompanied by a cutting from the agony-column of the
+Revue Theatrale, which ran:
+
+O. G.--There is no excuse for R. and M.  We told them and left your
+memorandum-book in their hands.  Kind regards.
+
+M. Firmin Richard had hardly finished reading this letter when M.
+Armand Moncharmin entered, carrying one exactly similar.  They looked
+at each other and burst out laughing.
+
+"They are keeping up the joke," said M. Richard, "but I don't call it
+funny."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked M. Moncharmin.  "Do they imagine that,
+because they have been managers of the Opera, we are going to let them
+have a box for an indefinite period?"
+
+"I am not in the mood to let myself be laughed at long," said Firmin
+Richard.
+
+"It's harmless enough," observed Armand Moncharmin.  "What is it they
+really want?  A box for to-night?"
+
+M. Firmin Richard told his secretary to send Box Five on the grand tier
+to Mm. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not sold.  It was not.  It was
+sent off to them.  Debienne lived at the corner of the Rue Scribe and
+the Boulevard des Capucines; Poligny, in the Rue Auber.  O. Ghost's two
+letters had been posted at the Boulevard des Capucines post-office, as
+Moncharmin remarked after examining the envelopes.
+
+"You see!" said Richard.
+
+They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age
+should amuse themselves with such childish tricks.
+
+"They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.  "Did you
+notice how they treat us with regard to Carlotta, Sorelli and Little
+Jammes?"
+
+"Why, my dear fellow, these two are mad with jealousy!  To think that
+they went to the expense of, an advertisement in the Revue Theatrale!
+Have they nothing better to do?"
+
+"By the way," said Moncharmin, "they seem to be greatly interested in
+that little Christine Daae!"
+
+"You know as well as I do that she has the reputation of being quite
+good," said Richard.
+
+"Reputations are easily obtained," replied Moncharmin.  "Haven't I a
+reputation for knowing all about music?  And I don't know one key from
+another."
+
+"Don't be afraid:  you never had that reputation," Richard declared.
+
+Thereupon he ordered the artists to be shown in, who, for the last two
+hours, had been walking up and down outside the door behind which fame
+and fortune--or dismissal--awaited them.
+
+The whole day was spent in discussing, negotiating, signing or
+cancelling contracts; and the two overworked managers went to bed
+early, without so much as casting a glance at Box Five to see whether
+M. Debienne and M. Poligny were enjoying the performance.
+
+Next morning, the managers received a card of thanks from the ghost:
+
+DEAR, MR.  MANAGER:
+
+Thanks.  Charming evening.  Daae exquisite.  Choruses want waking up.
+Carlotta a splendid commonplace instrument.  Will write you soon for
+the 240,000 francs, or 233,424 fr. 70 c., to be correct.  Mm. Debienne
+and Poligny have sent me the 6,575 fr. 30 c. representing the first ten
+days of my allowance for the current year; their privileges finished on
+the evening of the tenth inst.
+
+Kind regards.  O. G.
+
+On the other hand, there was a letter from Mm. Debienne and Poligny:
+
+GENTLEMEN:
+
+We are much obliged for your kind thought of us, but you will easily
+understand that the prospect of again hearing Faust, pleasant though it
+is to ex-managers of the Opera, can not make us forget that we have no
+right to occupy Box Five on the grand tier, which is the exclusive
+property of HIM of whom we spoke to you when we went through the
+memorandum-book with you for the last time.  See Clause 98, final
+paragraph.
+
+Accept, gentlemen, etc.
+
+"Oh, those fellows are beginning to annoy me!" shouted Firmin Richard,
+snatching up the letter.
+
+And that evening Box Five was sold.
+
+The next morning, Mm. Richard and Moncharmin, on reaching their office,
+found an inspector's report relating to an incident that had happened,
+the night before, in Box Five.  I give the essential part of the report:
+
+I was obliged to call in a municipal guard twice, this evening, to
+clear Box Five on the grand tier, once at the beginning and once in the
+middle of the second act.  The occupants, who arrived as the curtain
+rose on the second act, created a regular scandal by their laughter and
+their ridiculous observations.  There were cries of "Hush!" all around
+them and the whole house was beginning to protest, when the box-keeper
+came to fetch me.  I entered the box and said what I thought necessary.
+The people did not seem to me to be in their right mind; and they made
+stupid remarks.  I said that, if the noise was repeated, I should be
+compelled to clear the box.  The moment I left, I heard the laughing
+again, with fresh protests from the house.  I returned with a municipal
+guard, who turned them out.  They protested, still laughing, saying
+they would not go unless they had their money back.  At last, they
+became quiet and I allowed them to enter the box again.  The laughter
+at once recommenced; and, this time, I had them turned out definitely.
+
+"Send for the inspector," said Richard to his secretary, who had
+already read the report and marked it with blue pencil.
+
+M. Remy, the secretary, had foreseen the order and called the inspector
+at once.
+
+"Tell us what happened," said Richard bluntly.
+
+The inspector began to splutter and referred to the report.
+
+"Well, but what were those people laughing at?" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"They must have been dining, sir, and seemed more inclined to lark
+about than to listen to good music.  The moment they entered the box,
+they came out again and called the box-keeper, who asked them what they
+wanted.  They said, 'Look in the box:  there's no one there, is there?'
+'No,' said the woman.  'Well,' said they, 'when we went in, we heard a
+voice saying THAT THE BOX WAS TAKEN!'"
+
+M. Moncharmin could not help smiling as he looked at M. Richard; but M.
+Richard did not smile.  He himself had done too much in that way in his
+time not to recognize, in the inspector's story, all the marks of one
+of those practical jokes which begin by amusing and end by enraging the
+victims.  The inspector, to curry favor with M. Moncharmin, who was
+smiling, thought it best to give a smile too.  A most unfortunate
+smile!  M. Richard glared at his subordinate, who thenceforth made it
+his business to display a face of utter consternation.
+
+"However, when the people arrived," roared Richard, "there was no one
+in the box, was there?"
+
+"Not a soul, sir, not a soul!  Nor in the box on the right, nor in the
+box on the left: not a soul, sir, I swear!  The box-keeper told it me
+often enough, which proves that it was all a joke."
+
+"Oh, you agree, do you?" said Richard.  "You agree!  It's a joke!  And
+you think it funny, no doubt?"
+
+"I think it in very bad taste, sir."
+
+"And what did the box-keeper say?"
+
+"Oh, she just said that it was the Opera ghost.  That's all she said!"
+
+And the inspector grinned.  But he soon found that he had made a
+mistake in grinning, for the words had no sooner left his mouth than M.
+Richard, from gloomy, became furious.
+
+"Send for the box-keeper!" he shouted.  "Send for her!  This minute!
+This minute!  And bring her in to me here!  And turn all those people
+out!"
+
+The inspector tried to protest, but Richard closed his mouth with an
+angry order to hold his tongue.  Then, when the wretched man's lips
+seemed shut for ever, the manager commanded him to open them once more.
+
+"Who is this 'Opera ghost?'" he snarled.
+
+But the inspector was by this time incapable of speaking a word.  He
+managed to convey, by a despairing gesture, that he knew nothing about
+it, or rather that he did not wish to know.
+
+"Have you ever seen him, have you seen the Opera ghost?"
+
+The inspector, by means of a vigorous shake of the head, denied ever
+having seen the ghost in question.
+
+"Very well!" said M. Richard coldly.
+
+The inspector's eyes started out of his head, as though to ask why the
+manager had uttered that ominous "Very well!"
+
+"Because I'm going to settle the account of any one who has not seen
+him!" explained the manager.  "As he seems to be everywhere, I can't
+have people telling me that they see him nowhere.  I like people to
+work for me when I employ them!"
+
+Having said this, M. Richard paid no attention to the inspector and
+discussed various matters of business with his acting-manager, who had
+entered the room meanwhile.  The inspector thought he could go and was
+gently--oh, so gently!--sidling toward the door, when M. Richard nailed
+the man to the floor with a thundering:
+
+"Stay where you are!"
+
+M. Remy had sent for the box-keeper to the Rue de Provence, close to
+the Opera, where she was engaged as a porteress.  She soon made her
+appearance.
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Mme. Giry.  You know me well enough, sir; I'm the mother of little
+Giry, little Meg, what!"
+
+This was said in so rough and solemn a tone that, for a moment, M.
+Richard was impressed.  He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her
+worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet.  It was quite
+evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know or
+could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even
+"little Meg!"  But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that the celebrated
+box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her.
+
+"Never heard of her!" the manager declared.  "But that's no reason,
+Mme. Giry, why I shouldn't ask you what happened last night to make you
+and the inspector call in a municipal guard."
+
+"I was just wanting to see you, sir, and talk to you about it, so that
+you mightn't have the same unpleasantness as M. Debienne and M.
+Poligny.  They wouldn't listen to me either, at first."
+
+"I'm not asking you about all that.  I'm asking what happened last
+night."
+
+Mme. Giry turned purple with indignation.  Never had she been spoken to
+like that.  She rose as though to go, gathering up the folds of her
+skirt and waving the feathers of her dingy bonnet with dignity, but,
+changing her mind, she sat down again and said, in a haughty voice:
+
+"I'll tell you what happened.  The ghost was annoyed again!"
+
+Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M.
+Moncharmin interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it
+appeared that Mme. Giry thought it quite natural that a voice should be
+heard to say that a box was taken, when there was nobody in the box.
+She was unable to explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her,
+except by the intervention of the ghost.  Nobody could see the ghost in
+his box, but everybody could hear him.  She had often heard him; and
+they could believe her, for she always spoke the truth.  They could ask
+M. Debienne and M. Poligny, and anybody who knew her; and also M.
+Isidore Saack, who had had a leg broken by the ghost!
+
+"Indeed!" said Moncharmin, interrupting her.  "Did the ghost break poor
+Isidore Saack's leg?"
+
+Mme. Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance.
+However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents.  The
+thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny's time, also in Box
+Five and also during a performance of FAUST.  Mme. Giry coughed,
+cleared her throat--it sounded as though she were preparing to sing the
+whole of Gounod's score--and began:
+
+"It was like this, sir.  That night, M. Maniera and his lady, the
+jewelers in the Rue Mogador, were sitting in the front of the box, with
+their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera.
+Mephistopheles was singing"--Mme. Giry here burst into song
+herself--"'Catarina, while you play at sleeping,' and then M. Maniera
+heard a voice in his right ear (his wife was on his left) saying, 'Ha,
+ha!  Julie's not playing at sleeping!'  His wife happened to be called
+Julie.  So.  M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking to
+him like that.  Nobody there!  He rubs his ear and asks himself, if
+he's dreaming.  Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade...  But,
+perhaps I'm boring you gentlemen?"
+
+"No, no, go on."
+
+"You are too good, gentlemen," with a smirk.  "Well, then,
+Mephistopheles went on with his serenade"--Mme. Giry, burst into song
+again--"'Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss, to a
+mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.' And then M. Maniera again
+hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, 'Ha, ha!  Julie
+wouldn't mind according a kiss to Isidore!'  Then he turns round again,
+but, this time, to the left; and what do you think he sees?  Isidore,
+who had taken his lady's hand and was covering it with kisses through
+the little round place in the glove--like this, gentlemen"--rapturously
+kissing the bit of palm left bare in the middle of her thread gloves.
+"Then they had a lively time between them!  Bang!  Bang!  M. Maniera,
+who was big and strong, like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M.
+Isidore Saack, who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin, saving his
+presence.  There was a great uproar.  People in the house shouted,
+'That will do!  Stop them!  He'll kill him!'  Then, at last, M. Isidore
+Saack managed to run away."
+
+"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin, a little
+vexed that his figure had made so little impression on Mme. Giry.
+
+"He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily.  "He broke
+it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir, and
+it will be long before the poor gentleman will be able to go up it
+again!"
+
+"Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?" asked
+M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.
+
+"No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself.  So----"
+
+"But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?"
+
+"As I'm speaking to you now, my good sir!"  Mme. Giry replied.
+
+"And, when the ghost speaks to you, what does he say?"
+
+"Well, he tells me to bring him a footstool!"
+
+This time, Richard burst out laughing, as did Moncharmin and Remy, the
+secretary.  Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful not
+to laugh, while Mme. Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that was
+positively threatening.
+
+"Instead of laughing," she cried indignantly, "you'd do better to do as
+M. Poligny did, who found out for himself."
+
+"Found out about what?" asked Moncharmin, who had never been so much
+amused in his life.
+
+"About the ghost, of course! ... Look here ..."
+
+She suddenly calmed herself, feeling that this was a solemn moment in
+her life:
+
+"LOOK HERE," she repeated.  "They were playing La Juive.  M. Poligny
+thought he would watch the performance from the ghost's box... Well,
+when Leopold cries, 'Let us fly!'--you know--and Eleazer stops them and
+says, 'Whither go ye?' ... well, M. Poligny--I was watching him from
+the back of the next box, which was empty--M. Poligny got up and walked
+out quite stiffly, like a statue, and before I had time to ask him,
+'Whither go ye?' like Eleazer, he was down the staircase, but without
+breaking his leg.
+
+"Still, that doesn't let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask you
+for a footstool," insisted M. Moncharmin.
+
+"Well, from that evening, no one tried to take the ghost's private box
+from him.  The manager gave orders that he was to have it at each
+performance.  And, whenever he came, he asked me for a footstool."
+
+"Tut, tut!  A ghost asking for a footstool!  Then this ghost of yours
+is a woman?"
+
+"No, the ghost is a man."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"He has a man's voice, oh, such a lovely man's voice!  This is what
+happens:  When he comes to the opera, it's usually in the middle of the
+first act.  He gives three little taps on the door of Box Five.  The
+first time I heard those three taps, when I knew there was no one in
+the box, you can think how puzzled I was!  I opened the door, listened,
+looked; nobody!  And then I heard a voice say, 'Mme. Jules' my poor
+husband's name was Jules--'a footstool, please.' Saving your presence,
+gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like.  But the voice went on,
+'Don't be frightened, Mme. Jules, I'm the Opera ghost!'  And the voice
+was so soft and kind that I hardly felt frightened.  THE VOICE WAS
+SITTING IN THE CORNER CHAIR, ON THE RIGHT, IN THE FRONT ROW."
+
+"Was there any one in the box on the right of Box Five?" asked
+Moncharmin.
+
+"No; Box Seven, and Box Three, the one on the left, were both empty.
+The curtain had only just gone up."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Well, I brought the footstool.  Of course, it wasn't for himself he
+wanted it, but for his lady!  But I never heard her nor saw her."
+
+"Eh?  What?  So now the ghost is married!"  The eyes of the two
+managers traveled from Mme. Giry to the inspector, who, standing behind
+the box-keeper, was waving his arms to attract their attention.  He
+tapped his forehead with a distressful forefinger, to convey his
+opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad, a piece of
+pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination to get rid of
+an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service.  Meanwhile, the worthy
+lady went on about her ghost, now painting his generosity:
+
+"At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs,
+sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days without
+coming.  Only, since people have begun to annoy him again, he gives me
+nothing at all.
+
+"Excuse me, my good woman," said Moncharmin, while Mme. Giry tossed the
+feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity, "excuse me,
+how does the ghost manage to give you your two francs?"
+
+"Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course.  I find
+them with the program, which I always give him.  Some evenings, I find
+flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his lady's
+bodice ... for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day, they left
+a fan behind them."
+
+"Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he?  And what did you do with it?"
+
+"Well, I brought it back to the box next night."
+
+Here the inspector's voice was raised.
+
+"You've broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mme. Giry."
+
+"Hold your tongue, you fool!" muttered M. Firmin Richard.
+
+"You brought back the fan.  And then?"
+
+"Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there at the
+end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box of English
+sweets, which I'm very fond of.  That's one of the ghost's pretty
+thoughts."
+
+"That will do, Mme. Giry.  You can go."
+
+When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never
+deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to
+dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he had gone in
+his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make up the inspector's
+accounts.  Left alone, the managers told each other of the idea which
+they both had in mind, which was that they should look into that little
+matter of Box Five themselves.
+
+
+
+Chapter V The Enchanted Violin
+
+
+Christine Daae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did
+not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera.  After the famous
+gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's; but this was the
+last occasion on which she was heard in private.  She refused, without
+plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert to which she had
+promised her assistance.  She acted throughout as though she were no
+longer the mistress of her own destiny and as though she feared a fresh
+triumph.
+
+She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done his
+best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him and also
+to ask him to cease speaking in her favor.  Her reason for this curious
+attitude was never known.  Some pretended that it was due to
+overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty.  But people on
+the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think that I shall not
+be far from the truth if I ascribe her action simply to fear.  Yes, I
+believe that Christine Daae was frightened by what had happened to her.
+I have a letter of Christine's (it forms part of the Persian's
+collection), relating to this period, which suggests a feeling of
+absolute dismay:
+
+"I don't know myself when I sing," writes the poor child.
+
+She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried in vain to
+meet her.  He wrote to her, asking to call upon her, but despaired of
+receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent him the following note:
+
+MONSIEUR:
+
+I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue my
+scarf.  I feel that I must write to you to-day, when I am going to
+Perros, in fulfilment of a sacred duty.  To-morrow is the anniversary
+of the death of my poor father, whom you knew and who was very fond of
+you.  He is buried there, with his violin, in the graveyard of the
+little church, at the bottom of the slope where we used to play as
+children, beside the road where, when we were a little bigger, we said
+good-by for the last time.
+
+The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide, dressed as
+quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet to take to his
+brother and jumped into a cab which brought him to the Gare
+Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train.  He spent a dismal
+day in town and did not recover his spirits until the evening, when he
+was seated in his compartment in the Brittany express.  He read
+Christine's note over and over again, smelling its perfume, recalling
+the sweet pictures of his childhood, and spent the rest of that tedious
+night journey in feverish dreams that began and ended with Christine
+Daae.  Day was breaking when he alighted at Lannion.  He hurried to the
+diligence for Perros-Guirec.  He was the only passenger.  He questioned
+the driver and learned that, on the evening of the previous day, a
+young lady who looked like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at
+the inn known as the Setting Sun.
+
+The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story of
+the little Swedish singer.  Most of the details are still unknown to
+the public.
+
+There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala, a peasant
+who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and
+singing in the choir on Sundays.  This peasant had a little daughter to
+whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read.
+Daae's father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it.  Not a
+fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he
+did.  His reputation was widespread and he was always invited to set
+the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals.  His wife died
+when Christine was entering upon her sixth year.  Then the father, who
+cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his patch of ground and
+went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune.  He found nothing but
+poverty.
+
+He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, strumming his
+Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never left his side,
+listened to him in ecstasy or sang to his playing.  One day, at Ljimby
+Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg.  He
+maintained that the father was the first violinist in the world and
+that the daughter had the making of a great artist.  Her education and
+instruction were provided for.  She made rapid progress and charmed
+everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her genuine
+eagerness to please.
+
+When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and
+Christine with them.  "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her
+daughter.  As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness.  He
+never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he
+kept up with his violin.  For hours at a time, he remained locked up in
+his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing, very, very softly.
+Sometimes Mamma Valerius would come and listen behind the door, wipe
+away a tear and go down-stairs again on tiptoe, sighing for her
+Scandinavian skies.
+
+Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the
+whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of
+Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his own country.
+Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the
+sea stopped its roaring to listen to them.  And then he induced Mamma
+Valerius to indulge a queer whim of his.  At the time of the "pardons,"
+or Breton pilgrimages, the village festival and dances, he went off
+with his fiddle, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his
+daughter with him for a week.  They gave the smallest hamlets music to
+last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at
+the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor
+in Sweden.  At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no
+collection, refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around
+could not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped
+the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven.
+They followed them from village to village.
+
+One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take a
+longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from the
+little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her.  They
+came to the shore of an inlet which is still called Trestraou, but
+which now, I believe, harbors a casino or something of the sort.  At
+that time, there was nothing but sky and sea and a stretch of golden
+beach.  Only, there was also a high wind, which blew Christine's scarf
+out to sea.  Christine gave a cry and put out her arms, but the scarf
+was already far on the waves.  Then she heard a voice say:
+
+"It's all right, I'll go and fetch your scarf out of the sea."
+
+And she saw a little boy running fast, in spite of the outcries and the
+indignant protests of a worthy lady in black.  The little boy ran into
+the sea, dressed as he was, and brought her back her scarf.  Boy and
+scarf were both soaked through.  The lady in black made a great fuss,
+but Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy, who was none
+other than the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, staying at Lannion with his
+aunt.
+
+During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every
+day.  At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius, Daae
+consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons.  In this way,
+Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's
+childhood.  They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of
+mind.  They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their
+favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like
+beggars:
+
+"Ma'am ..." or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us,
+please?"
+
+And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for
+nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen
+the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
+
+But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the
+evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daae came and sat down
+by them on the roadside and, in a low voice, as though fearing lest he
+should frighten the ghosts whom he evoked, told them the legends of the
+land of the North.  And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask
+for more.
+
+There was one story that began:
+
+"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep, still lakes that
+open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains ..."
+
+And another:
+
+"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing.  Her hair was golden
+as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes.  She
+wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock
+and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved, when
+she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music."
+
+While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue
+eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky
+to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep.  The Angel of Music
+played a part in all Daddy Daae's tales; and he maintained that every
+great musician, every great artist received a visit from the Angel at
+least once in his life.  Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle,
+as happened to Lotte, and that is how there are little prodigies who
+play the fiddle at six better than men at fifty, which, you must admit,
+is very wonderful.  Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the
+children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practise their
+scales.  And, sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children
+have a bad heart or a bad conscience.
+
+No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to
+hear him.  He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad
+and disheartened.  Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial
+harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives.
+Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to
+the rest of mankind.  And they can not touch an instrument, or open
+their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human
+sounds to shame.  Then people who do not know that the Angel has
+visited those persons say that they have genius.
+
+Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music.
+But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up, as he
+said:
+
+"You will hear him one day, my child!  When I am in Heaven, I will send
+him to you!"
+
+Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.
+
+Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros.  Professor
+Valerius was dead, but his widow remained in France with Daddy Daae and
+his daughter, who continued to play the violin and sing, wrapping in
+their dream of harmony their kind patroness, who seemed henceforth to
+live on music alone.  The young man, as he now was, had come to Perros
+on the chance of finding them and went straight to the house in which
+they used to stay.  He first saw the old man; and then Christine
+entered, carrying the tea-tray. She flushed at the sight of Raoul, who
+went up to her and kissed her.  She asked him a few questions,
+performed her duties as hostess prettily, took up the tray again and
+left the room.  Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a
+bench, a prey to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first
+time.  Raoul followed her and they talked till the evening, very shyly.
+They were quite changed, cautious as two diplomatists, and told each
+other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments.
+When they took leave of each other by the roadside, Raoul, pressing a
+kiss on Christine's trembling hand, said:
+
+"Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you!"
+
+And he went away regretting his words, for he knew that Christine could
+not be the wife of the Vicomte de Chagny.
+
+As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself
+wholly to her art.  She made wonderful progress and those who heard her
+prophesied that she would be the greatest singer in the world.
+Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost,
+with him, her voice, her soul and her genius.  She retained just, but
+only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she did not
+distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without enthusiasm
+and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius, with whom she
+continued to live.
+
+The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by
+the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which it evoked,
+but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art.  He returned
+to listen to her.  He followed her in the wings.  He waited for her
+behind a Jacob's ladder.  He tried to attract her attention.  More than
+once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she did not see
+him.  She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody.  She was all
+indifference.  Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful and he was
+shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself.  And then came the
+lightning-flash of the gala performance: the heavens torn asunder and
+an angel's voice heard upon earth for the delight of mankind and the
+utter capture of his heart.
+
+And then ... and then there was that man's voice behind the door--"You
+must love me!"--and no one in the room...
+
+Why did she laugh when he reminded her of the incident of the scarf?
+Why did she not recognize him?  And why had she written to him? ...
+
+Perros was reached at last.  Raoul walked into the smoky sitting-room
+of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him,
+smiling and showing no astonishment.
+
+"So you have come," she said.  "I felt that I should find you here,
+when I came back from mass.  Some one told me so, at the church."
+
+"Who?" asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.
+
+"Why, my poor father, who is dead."
+
+There was a silence; and then Raoul asked:
+
+"Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I can
+not live without you?"
+
+Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head.  In a trembling
+voice, she said:
+
+"Me?  You are dreaming, my friend!"
+
+And she burst out laughing, to put herself in countenance.
+
+"Don't laugh, Christine; I am quite serious," Raoul answered.
+
+And she replied gravely:  "I did not make you come to tell me such
+things as that."
+
+"You 'made me come,' Christine; you knew that your letter would not
+leave me indignant and that I should hasten to Perros.  How can you
+have thought that, if you did not think I loved you?"
+
+"I thought you would remember our games here, as children, in which my
+father so often joined.  I really don't know what I thought...  Perhaps
+I was wrong to write to you ... This anniversary and your sudden
+appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening, reminded me of
+the time long past and made me write to you as the little girl that I
+then was..."
+
+There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul not
+natural.  He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it: the
+distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that.  But why was
+this affection distressed?  That was what he wished to know and what
+was irritating him.
+
+"When you saw me in your dressing-room, was that the first time you
+noticed me, Christine?"
+
+She was incapable of lying.
+
+"No," she said, "I had seen you several times in your brother's box.
+And also on the stage."
+
+"I thought so!" said Raoul, compressing his lips.  "But then why, when
+you saw me in your room, at your feet, reminding you that I had rescued
+your scarf from the sea, why did you answer as though you did not know
+me and also why did you laugh?"
+
+The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared at Raoul
+without replying.  The young man himself was aghast at the sudden
+quarrel which he had dared to raise at the very moment when he had
+resolved to speak words of gentleness, love and submission to
+Christine.  A husband, a lover with all rights, would talk no
+differently to a wife, a mistress who had offended him.  But he had
+gone too far and saw no other way out of the ridiculous position than
+to behave odiously.
+
+"You don't answer!" he said angrily and unhappily.  "Well, I will
+answer for you.  It was because there was some one in the room who was
+in your way, Christine, some one that you did not wish to know that you
+could be interested in any one else!"
+
+"If any one was in my way, my friend," Christine broke in coldly, "if
+any one was in my way, that evening, it was yourself, since I told you
+to leave the room!"
+
+"Yes, so that you might remain with the other!"
+
+"What are you saying, monsieur?" asked the girl excitedly.  "And to
+what other do you refer?"
+
+"To the man to whom you said, 'I sing only for you! ... to-night I gave
+you my soul and I am dead!'"
+
+Christine seized Raoul's arm and clutched it with a strength which no
+one would have suspected in so frail a creature.
+
+"Then you were listening behind the door?"
+
+"Yes, because I love you everything ... And I heard everything ..."
+
+"You heard what?"
+
+And the young girl, becoming strangely calm, released Raoul's arm.
+
+"He said to you, 'Christine, you must love me!'"
+
+At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face, dark
+rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the point of
+swooning.  Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched, but Christine
+had overcome her passing faintness and said, in a low voice:
+
+"Go on!  Go on!  Tell me all you heard!"
+
+At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered:  "I heard him reply,
+when you said you had given him your soul, 'Your soul is a beautiful
+thing, child, and I thank you.  No emperor ever received so fair a
+gift.  The angels wept tonight.'"
+
+Christine carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable
+emotion.  Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul was
+terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened and two great
+tears trickled, like two pearls, down her ivory cheeks.
+
+"Christine!"
+
+"Raoul!"
+
+The young man tried to take her in his arms, but she escaped and fled
+in great disorder.
+
+While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul was at his wit's end
+what to do.  He refused to breakfast.  He was terribly concerned and
+bitterly grieved to see the hours, which he had hoped to find so sweet,
+slip past without the presence of the young Swedish girl.  Why did she
+not come to roam with him through the country where they had so many
+memories in common?  He heard that she had had a mass said, that
+morning, for the repose of her father's soul and spent a long time
+praying in the little church and on the fiddler's tomb.  Then, as she
+seemed to have nothing more to do at Perros and, in fact, was doing
+nothing there, why did she not go back to Paris at once?
+
+Raoul walked away, dejectedly, to the graveyard in which the church
+stood and was indeed alone among the tombs, reading the inscriptions;
+but, when he turned behind the apse, he was suddenly struck by the
+dazzling note of the flowers that straggled over the white ground.
+They were marvelous red roses that had blossomed in the morning, in the
+snow, giving a glimpse of life among the dead, for death was all around
+him.  It also, like the flowers, issued from the ground, which had
+flung back a number of its corpses.  Skeletons and skulls by the
+hundred were heaped against the wall of the church, held in position by
+a wire that left the whole gruesome stack visible.  Dead men's bones,
+arranged in rows, like bricks, to form the first course upon which the
+walls of the sacristy had been built.  The door of the sacristy opened
+in the middle of that bony structure, as is often seen in old Breton
+churches.
+
+Raoul said a prayer for Daae and then, painfully impressed by all those
+eternal smiles on the mouths of skulls, he climbed the slope and sat
+down on the edge of the heath overlooking the sea.  The wind fell with
+the evening.  Raoul was surrounded by icy darkness, but he did not feel
+the cold.  It was here, he remembered, that he used to come with little
+Christine to see the Korrigans dance at the rising of the moon.  He had
+never seen any, though his eyes were good, whereas Christine, who was a
+little shortsighted, pretended that she had seen many.  He smiled at
+the thought and then suddenly gave a start.  A voice behind him said:
+
+"Do you think the Korrigans will come this evening?"
+
+It was Christine.  He tried to speak.  She put her gloved hand on his
+mouth.
+
+"Listen, Raoul.  I have decided to tell you something serious, very
+serious ... Do you remember the legend of the Angel of Music?"
+
+"I do indeed," he said.  "I believe it was here that your father first
+told it to us."
+
+"And it was here that he said, 'When I am in Heaven, my child, I will
+send him to you.'  Well, Raoul, my father is in Heaven, and I have been
+visited by the Angel of Music."
+
+"I have no doubt of it," replied the young man gravely, for it seemed
+to him that his friend, in obedience to a pious thought, was connecting
+the memory of her father with the brilliancy of her last triumph.
+
+Christine appeared astonished at the Vicomte de Chagny's coolness:
+
+"How do you understand it?" she asked, bringing her pale face so close
+to his that he might have thought that Christine was going to give him
+a kiss; but she only wanted to read his eyes in spite of the dark.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that no human being can sing as you sang the
+other evening without the intervention of some miracle.  No professor
+on earth can teach you such accents as those.  You have heard the Angel
+of Music, Christine."
+
+"Yes," she said solemnly, "IN MY DRESSING-ROOM. That is where he comes
+to give me my lessons daily."
+
+"In your dressing-room?" he echoed stupidly.
+
+"Yes, that is where I have heard him; and I have not been the only one
+to hear him."
+
+"Who else heard him, Christine?"
+
+"You, my friend."
+
+"I?  I heard the Angel of Music?"
+
+"Yes, the other evening, it was he who was talking when you were
+listening behind the door.  It was he who said, 'You must love me.' But
+I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice.  Imagine my
+astonishment when you told me, this morning, that you could hear him
+too."
+
+Raoul burst out laughing.  The first rays of the moon came and shrouded
+the two young people in their light.  Christine turned on Raoul with a
+hostile air.  Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire.
+
+"What are you laughing at?  YOU think you heard a man's voice, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Well! ..." replied the young man, whose ideas began to grow confused
+in the face of Christine's determined attitude.
+
+"It's you, Raoul, who say that?  You, an old playfellow of my own!  A
+friend of my father's! But you have changed since those days.  What are
+you thinking of?  I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I
+don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.  If you had
+opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody in the room!"
+
+"That's true!  I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found no
+one in the room."
+
+"So you see! ... Well?"
+
+The viscount summoned up all his courage.
+
+"Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you."
+
+She gave a cry and ran away.  He ran after her, but, in a tone of
+fierce anger, she called out:  "Leave me!  Leave me!" And she
+disappeared.
+
+Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited and
+very sad.  He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying
+that she would not be down to dinner.  Raoul dined alone, in a very
+gloomy mood.  Then he went to his room and tried to read, went to bed
+and tried to sleep.  There was no sound in the next room.
+
+The hours passed slowly.  It was about half-past eleven when he
+distinctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step, in the
+room next to his.  Then Christine had not gone to bed!  Without
+troubling for a reason, Raoul dressed, taking care not to make a sound,
+and waited.  Waited for what?  How could he tell?  But his heart
+thumped in his chest when he heard Christine's door turn slowly on its
+hinges.  Where could she be going, at this hour, when every one was
+fast asleep at Perros?  Softly opening the door, he saw Christine's
+white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage.  She went
+down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her.  Suddenly he
+heard two voices in rapid conversation.  He caught one sentence: "Don't
+lose the key."
+
+It was the landlady's voice.  The door facing the sea was opened and
+locked again.  Then all was still.
+
+Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window.  Christine's
+white form stood on the deserted quay.
+
+The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree
+growing against the wall held out its branches to Raoul's impatient
+arms and enabled him to climb down unknown to the landlady.  Her
+amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the
+young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead than alive,
+and when she learned that he had been found stretched at full length on
+the steps of the high altar of the little church.  She ran at once to
+tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady,
+did her best to revive him.  He soon opened his eyes and was not long
+in recovering when he saw his friend's charming face leaning over him.
+
+A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the
+intervention of the public prosecutor, M. Mifroid, the commissary of
+police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touching the events of the night
+at Perros.  I quote the questions and answers as given in the official
+report pp. 150 et seq.:
+
+Q. "Did Mlle. Daae not see you come down from your room by the curious
+road which you selected?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur, no, although, when walking behind her, I took no
+pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps.  In fact, I was anxious that
+she should turn round and see me.  I realized that I had no excuse for
+following her and that this way of spying on her was unworthy of me.
+But she seemed not to hear me and acted exactly as though I were not
+there.  She quietly left the quay and then suddenly walked quickly up
+the road.  The church-clock had struck a quarter to twelve and I
+thought that this must have made her hurry, for she began almost to run
+and continued hastening until she came to the church."
+
+Q. "Was the gate open?"
+
+R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem to surprise
+Mlle. Daae."
+
+Q. "Was there no one in the churchyard?"
+
+R. "I did not see any one; and, if there had been, I must have seen
+him.  The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light."
+
+Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur.  They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly
+hidden under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the
+ground.  The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves.  The
+church stood out quite brightly.  I never saw so clear a night.  It was
+very fine and very cold and one could see everything."
+
+Q. "Are you at all superstitious?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur, I am a practising Catholic,"
+
+Q. "In what condition of mind were you?"
+
+R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you.  Mlle. Daae's curious
+action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon
+as I saw her go to the churchyard, I thought that she meant to fulfil
+some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural
+that I recovered all my calmness.  I was only surprised that she had
+not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite audible on
+the hard snow.  But she must have been taken up with her intentions and
+I resolved not to disturb her.  She knelt down by her father's grave,
+made the sign of the cross and began to pray.  At that moment, it
+struck midnight.  At the last stroke, I saw Mlle. Daae life{sic} her
+eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms as though in ecstasy.  I was
+wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and
+everything within me seemed drawn toward the invisible, WHICH WAS
+PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC!  Christine and I knew that music; we
+had heard it as children.  But it had never been executed with such
+divine art, even by M. Daae.  I remembered all that Christine had told
+me of the Angel of Music.  The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus,
+which old M. Daae used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of
+faith.  If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played
+better, that night, on the late musician's violin.  When the music
+stopped, I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;
+it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering."
+
+Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding behind
+that very heap of bones?"
+
+R. "It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so
+that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked
+slowly to the gate.  She was so much absorbed just then that I am not
+surprised that she did not see me."
+
+Q. "Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying
+half-dead on the steps of the high altar?"
+
+R. "First a skull rolled to my feet ... then another ... then another
+... It was as if I were the mark of that ghastly game of bowls.  And I
+had an idea that false step must have destroyed the balance of the
+structure behind which our musician was concealed.  This surmise seemed
+to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly glide along the sacristy
+wall.  I ran up.  The shadow had already pushed open the door and
+entered the church.  But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold
+of a corner of its cloak.  At that moment, we were just in front of the
+high altar; and the moonbeams fell straight upon us through the
+stained-glass windows of the apse.  As I did not let go of the cloak,
+the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death's head, which
+darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes.  I felt as if I were
+face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly
+apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me ... and I remember
+nothing more until I recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun."
+
+
+
+Chapter VI  A Visit to Box Five
+
+
+We left M. Firmin Richard and M. Armand Moncharmin at the moment when
+they were deciding "to look into that little matter of Box Five."
+
+Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby
+outside the managers' offices to the stage and its dependencies, they
+crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers' door and entered the
+house through the first little passage on the left.  Then they made
+their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at Box Five on
+the grand tier, They could not see it well, because it was half in
+darkness and because great covers were flung over the red velvet of the
+ledges of all the boxes.
+
+They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence
+surrounded them.  It was the time when most of the stage-hands go out
+for a drink.  The staff had left the boards for the moment, leaving a
+scene half set.  A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light, that
+seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some
+opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard
+battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted
+a fantastic shape.  In the orchestra stalls, the drugget covering them
+looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous waves had been suddenly
+rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as
+everybody knows, is called Adamastor.  MM. Moncharmin and Richard were
+the shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea.
+They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave
+their ship and try to struggle to the shore.  The eight great polished
+columns stood up in the dusk like so many huge piles supporting the
+threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were
+represented by the circular, parallel, waving lines of the balconies of
+the grand, first and second tiers of boxes.  At the top, right on top
+of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu's copper ceiling, figures grinned and
+grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin's distress.
+And yet these figures were usually very serious.  Their names were
+Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne,
+Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa.  Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom
+we all know by her box, looked down upon the two new managers of the
+Opera, who ended by clutching at some piece of wreckage and from there
+stared silently at Box Five on the grand tier.
+
+I have said that they were distressed.  At least, I presume so.  M.
+Moncharmin, in any case, admits that he was impressed.  To quote his
+own words, in his Memoirs:
+
+"This moonshine about the Opera ghost in which, since we first took
+over the duties of MM. Poligny and Debienne, we had been so nicely
+steeped"--Moncharmin's style is not always irreproachable--"had no
+doubt ended by blinding my imaginative and also my visual faculties.
+It may be that the exceptional surroundings in which we found
+ourselves, in the midst of an incredible silence, impressed us to an
+unusual extent.  It may be that we were the sport of a kind of
+hallucination brought about by the semi-darkness of the theater and the
+partial gloom that filled Box Five.  At any rate, I saw and Richard
+also saw a shape in the box.  Richard said nothing, nor I either.  But
+we spontaneously seized each other's hand.  We stood like that for some
+minutes, without moving, with our eyes fixed on the same point; but the
+figure had disappeared.  Then we went out and, in the lobby,
+communicated our impressions to each other and talked about 'the
+shape.'  The misfortune was that my shape was not in the least like
+Richard's. I had seen a thing like a death's head resting on the ledge
+of the box, whereas Richard saw the shape of an old woman who looked
+like Mme. Giry.  We soon discovered that we had really been the victims
+of an illusion, whereupon, without further delay and laughing like
+madmen, we ran to Box Five on the grand tier, went inside and found no
+shape of any kind."
+
+Box Five is just like all the other grand tier boxes.  There is nothing
+to distinguish it from any of the others.  M. Moncharmin and M.
+Richard, ostensibly highly amused and laughing at each other, moved the
+furniture of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs and particularly
+examined the arm-chair in which "the man's voice" used to sit.  But
+they saw that it was a respectable arm-chair, with no magic about it.
+Altogether, the box was the most ordinary box in the world, with its
+red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge covered in red
+velvet.  After, feeling the carpet in the most serious manner possible,
+and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else, they went down to
+the corresponding box on the pit tier below.  In Box Five on the pit
+tier, which is just inside the first exit from the stalls on the left,
+they found nothing worth mentioning either.
+
+"Those people are all making fools of us!"  Firmin Richard ended by
+exclaiming.  "It will be FAUST on Saturday:  let us both see the
+performance from Box Five on the grand tier!"
+
+
+
+Chapter VII  Faust and What Followed
+
+
+On the Saturday morning, on reaching their office, the joint managers
+found a letter from O. G. worded in these terms:
+
+MY DEAR MANAGERS:
+
+So it is to be war between us?
+
+If you still care for peace, here is my ultimatum.  It consists of the
+four following conditions:
+
+1.  You must give me back my private box; and I wish it to be at my
+free disposal from henceforward.
+
+2.  The part of Margarita shall be sung this evening by Christine Daae.
+Never mind about Carlotta; she will be ill.
+
+3.  I absolutely insist upon the good and loyal services of Mme. Giry,
+my box-keeper, whom you will reinstate in her functions forthwith.
+
+4.  Let me know by a letter handed to Mme. Giry, who will see that it
+reaches me, that you accept, as your predecessors did, the conditions
+in my memorandum-book relating to my monthly allowance.  I will inform
+you later how you are to pay it to me.
+
+If you refuse, you will give FAUST to-night in a house with a curse
+upon it.
+
+Take my advice and be warned in time.  O. G.
+
+"Look here, I'm getting sick of him, sick of him!" shouted Richard,
+bringing his fists down on his office-table.
+
+Just then, Mercier, the acting-manager, entered.
+
+"Lachenel would like to see one of you gentlemen," he said.  "He says
+that his business is urgent and he seems quite upset."
+
+"Who's Lachenel?" asked Richard.
+
+"He's your stud-groom."
+
+"What do you mean?  My stud-groom?"
+
+"Yes, sir," explained Mercier, "there are several grooms at the Opera
+and M. Lachenel is at the head of them."
+
+"And what does this groom do?"
+
+"He has the chief management of the stable."
+
+"What stable?"
+
+"Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera."
+
+"Is there a stable at the Opera?  Upon my word, I didn't know.  Where
+is it?"
+
+"In the cellars, on the Rotunda side.  It's a very important
+department; we have twelve horses."
+
+"Twelve horses!  And what for, in Heaven's name?"
+
+"Why, we want trained horses for the processions in the Juive, The
+Profeta and so on; horses 'used to the boards.'  It is the grooms'
+business to teach them.  M. Lachenel is very clever at it.  He used to
+manage Franconi's stables."
+
+"Very well ... but what does he want?"
+
+"I don't know; I never saw him in such a state."
+
+"He can come in."
+
+M. Lachenel came in, carrying a riding-whip, with which he struck his
+right boot in an irritable manner.
+
+"Good morning, M. Lachenel," said Richard, somewhat impressed.  "To
+what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
+
+"Mr. Manager, I have come to ask you to get rid of the whole stable."
+
+"What, you want to get rid of our horses?"
+
+"I'm not talking of the horses, but of the stablemen."
+
+"How many stablemen have you, M. Lachenel?"
+
+"Six stablemen!  That's at least two too many."
+
+"These are 'places,'" Mercier interposed, "created and forced upon us
+by the under-secretary for fine arts.  They are filled by protegees of
+the government and, if I may venture to ..."
+
+"I don't care a hang for the government!" roared Richard.  "We don't
+need more than four stablemen for twelve horses."
+
+"Eleven," said the head riding-master, correcting him.
+
+"Twelve," repeated Richard.
+
+"Eleven," repeated Lachenel.
+
+"Oh, the acting-manager told me that you had twelve horses!"
+
+"I did have twelve, but I have only eleven since Cesar was stolen."
+
+And M. Lachenel gave himself a great smack on the boot with his whip.
+
+"Has Cesar been stolen?" cried the acting-manager. "Cesar, the white
+horse in the Profeta?"
+
+"There are not two Cesars," said the stud-groom dryly.  "I was ten
+years at Franconi's and I have seen plenty of horses in my time.  Well,
+there are not two Cesars.  And he's been stolen."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know.  Nobody knows.  That's why I have come to ask you to
+sack the whole stable."
+
+"What do your stablemen say?"
+
+"All sorts of nonsense.  Some of them accuse the supers.  Others
+pretend that it's the acting-manager's doorkeeper ..."
+
+"My doorkeeper?  I'll answer for him as I would for myself!" protested
+Mercier.
+
+"But, after all, M. Lachenel," cried Richard, "you must have some idea."
+
+"Yes, I have," M. Lachenel declared.  "I have an idea and I'll tell you
+what it is.  There's no doubt about it in my mind." He walked up to the
+two managers and whispered.  "It's the ghost who did the trick!"
+
+Richard gave a jump.
+
+"What, you too!  You too!"
+
+"How do you mean, I too?  Isn't it natural, after what I saw?"
+
+"What did you see?"
+
+"I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white
+horse that was as like Cesar as two peas!"
+
+"And did you run after them?"
+
+"I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared in
+the darkness of the underground gallery."
+
+M. Richard rose.  "That will do, M. Lachenel.  You can go ...  We will
+lodge a complaint against THE GHOST."
+
+"And sack my stable?"
+
+"Oh, of course!  Good morning."
+
+M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew.  Richard foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Settle that idiot's account at once, please."
+
+"He is a friend of the government representative's!" Mercier ventured
+to say.
+
+"And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni's with Lagrene, Scholl and
+Pertuiset, the lion-hunter," added Moncharmin.  "We shall have the
+whole press against us!  He'll tell the story of the ghost; and
+everybody will be laughing at our expense!  We may as well be dead as
+ridiculous!"
+
+"All right, say no more about it."
+
+At that moment the door opened.  It must have been deserted by its
+usual Cerberus, for Mme. Giry entered without ceremony, holding a
+letter in her hand, and said hurriedly:
+
+"I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this
+morning from the Opera ghost.  He told me to come to you, that you had
+something to ..."
+
+She did not complete the sentence.  She saw Firmin Richard's face; and
+it was a terrible sight.  He seemed ready to burst.  He said nothing,
+he could not speak.  But suddenly he acted.  First, his left arm seized
+upon the quaint person of Mme. Giry and made her describe so unexpected
+a semicircle that she uttered a despairing cry.  Next, his right foot
+imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which certainly had
+never before undergone a similar outrage in a similar place.  The thing
+happened so quickly that Mme. Giry, when in the passage, was still
+quite bewildered and seemed not to understand.  But, suddenly, she
+understood; and the Opera rang with her indignant yells, her violent
+protests and threats.
+
+About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own in the
+Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought her letters
+to her bed.  Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink,
+in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:
+
+If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune at
+the moment when you open your mouth to sing ... a misfortune worse than
+death.
+
+The letter took away Carlotta's appetite for breakfast.  She pushed
+back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought hard.  It was not the
+first letter of the kind which she had received, but she never had one
+couched in such threatening terms.
+
+She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous
+attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had
+sworn to ruin her.  She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched
+against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but
+she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.
+
+The truth is that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself
+against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it.  Carlotta had never
+forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had achieved when taking
+her place at a moment's notice.  When Carlotta heard of the astounding
+reception bestowed upon her understudy, she was at once cured of an
+incipient attack of bronchitis and a bad fit of sulking against the
+management and lost the slightest inclination to shirk her duties.
+From that time, she worked with all her might to "smother" her rival,
+enlisting the services of influential friends to persuade the managers
+not to give Christine an opportunity for a fresh triumph.  Certain
+newspapers which had begun to extol the talent of Christine now
+interested themselves only in the fame of Carlotta.  Lastly, in the
+theater itself, the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva made
+the most scandalous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her
+endless minor unpleasantnesses.
+
+When Carlotta had finished thinking over the threat contained in the
+strange letter, she got up.
+
+"We shall see," she said, adding a few oaths in her native Spanish with
+a very determined air.
+
+The first thing she saw, when looking out of her window, was a hearse.
+She was very superstitious; and the hearse and the letter convinced her
+that she was running the most serious dangers that evening.  She
+collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened at that
+evening's performance with a plot organized by Christine Daae and
+declared that they must play a trick upon that chit by filling the
+house with her, Carlotta's, admirers.  She had no lack of them, had
+she?  She relied upon them to hold themselves prepared for any
+eventuality and to silence the adversaries, if, as she feared, they
+created a disturbance.
+
+M. Richard's private secretary called to ask after the diva's health
+and returned with the assurance that she was perfectly well and that,
+"were she dying," she would sing the part of Margarita that evening.
+The secretary urged her, in his chief's name, to commit no imprudence,
+to stay at home all day and to be careful of drafts; and Carlotta could
+not help, after he had gone, comparing this unusual and unexpected
+advice with the threats contained in the letter.
+
+It was five o'clock when the post brought a second anonymous letter in
+the same hand as the first.  It was short and said simply:
+
+You have a bad cold.  If you are wise, you will see that it is madness
+to try to sing to-night.
+
+Carlotta sneered, shrugged her handsome shoulders and sang two or three
+notes to reassure herself.
+
+Her friends were faithful to their promise.  They were all at the Opera
+that night, but looked round in vain for the fierce conspirators whom
+they were instructed to suppress.  The only unusual thing was the
+presence of M. Richard and M. Moncharmin in Box Five.  Carlotta's
+friends thought that, perhaps, the managers had wind, on their side, of
+the proposed disturbance and that they had determined to be in the
+house, so as to stop it then and there; but this was unjustifiable
+supposition, as the reader knows.  M. Richard and M. Moncharmin were
+thinking of nothing but their ghost.
+
+"Vain!  In vain do I call, through my vigil weary, On creation and its
+Lord!  Never reply will break the silence dreary!  No sign!  No single
+word!"
+
+The famous baritone, Carolus Fonta, had hardly finished Doctor Faust's
+first appeal to the powers of darkness, when M. Firmin Richard, who was
+sitting in the ghost's own chair, the front chair on the right, leaned
+over to his partner and asked him chaffingly:
+
+"Well, has the ghost whispered a word in your ear yet?"
+
+"Wait, don't be in such a hurry," replied M. Armand Moncharmin, in the
+same gay tone.  "The performance has only begun and you know that the
+ghost does not usually come until the middle of the first act."
+
+The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise
+Carlotta's friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act.  As
+for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell.
+
+"That's one!" said Moncharmin.
+
+"Yes, the ghost is late," said Firmin Richard.
+
+"It's not a bad house," said Moncharmin, "for 'a house with a curse on
+it.'"
+
+M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman, dressed in
+black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium with a man in
+a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her.
+
+"Who on earth are 'those?'" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"'Those,' my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and her
+brother."
+
+"Did you give them their tickets?"
+
+"I did ... My concierge had never been to the Opera--this is, the first
+time--and, as she is now going to come every night, I wanted her to
+have a good seat, before spending her time showing other people to
+theirs."
+
+Moncharmin asked what he meant and Richard answered that he had
+persuaded his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to
+come and take Mme. Giry's place.  Yes, he would like to see if, with
+that woman instead of the old lunatic, Box Five would continue to
+astonish the natives?
+
+"By the way," said Moncharmin, "you know that Mother Giry is going to
+lodge a complaint against you."
+
+"With whom?  The ghost?"
+
+The ghost!  Moncharmin had almost forgotten him.  However, that
+mysterious person did nothing to bring himself to the memory of the
+managers; and they were just saying so to each other for the second
+time, when the door of the box suddenly opened to admit the startled
+stage-manager.
+
+"What's the matter?" they both asked, amazed at seeing him there at
+such a time.
+
+"It seems there's a plot got up by Christine Daae's friends against
+Carlotta.  Carlotta's furious."
+
+"What on earth ... ?" said Richard, knitting his brows.
+
+But the curtain rose on the kermess scene and Richard made a sign to
+the stage-manager to go away.  When the two were alone again,
+Moncharmin leaned over to Richard:
+
+"Then Daae has friends?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, she has."
+
+"Whom?"
+
+Richard glanced across at a box on the grand tier containing no one but
+two men.
+
+"The Comte de Chagny?"
+
+"Yes, he spoke to me in her favor with such warmth that, if I had not
+known him to be Sorelli's friend ..."
+
+"Really?  Really?" said Moncharmin.  "And who is that pale young man
+beside him?"
+
+"That's his brother, the viscount."
+
+"He ought to be in his bed.  He looks ill."
+
+The stage rang with gay song:
+
+            "Red or white liquor,
+            Coarse or fine!
+            What can it matter,
+            So we have wine?"
+
+Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly
+before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign.  Siebel made her
+entrance.  Christine Daae looked charming in her boy's clothes; and
+Carlotta's partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation which
+would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends.  But
+nothing happened.
+
+On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang the only
+two lines allotted her in this second act:
+
+         "No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty,
+         And do not need an arm to help me on my way,"
+
+Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause.  It was so unexpected
+and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about the rumors looked
+at one another and asked what was happening.  And this act also was
+finished without incident.
+
+Then everybody said:  "Of course, it will be during the next act."
+
+Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that the
+"row" would begin with the ballad of the KING OF THULE and rushed to
+the subscribers' entrance to warn Carlotta.  The managers left the box
+during the entr'acte to find out more about the cabal of which the
+stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats,
+shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly.
+
+The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English
+sweets on the little shelf of the ledge.  Who had put it there?  They
+asked the box-keepers, but none of them knew.  Then they went back to
+the shelf and, next to the box of sweets, found an opera glass.  They
+looked at each other.  They had no inclination to laugh.  All that Mme.
+Giry had told them returned to their memory ... and then ... and then
+... they seemed to feel a curious sort of draft around them ... They
+sat down in silence.
+
+The scene represented Margarita's garden:
+
+            "Gentle flow'rs in the dew,
+                Be message from me ..."
+
+As she sang these first two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs
+in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny in
+his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure, less
+crystal-clear than usual.  Something seemed to deaden and dull her
+singing...
+
+"What a queer girl she is!" said one of Carlotta's friends in the
+stalls, almost aloud.  "The other day she was divine; and to-night
+she's simply bleating.  She has no experience, no training."
+
+            "Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there
+                And tell her from me ..."
+
+The viscount put his head under his hands and wept.  The count, behind
+him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.
+For him, usually so cold and correct, to betray his inner feelings like
+that, by outward signs, the count must be very angry.  He was.  He had
+seen his brother return from a rapid and mysterious journey in an
+alarming state of health.  The explanation that followed was
+unsatisfactory and the count asked Christine Daae for an appointment.
+She had the audacity to reply that she could not see either him or his
+brother...
+
+            "Would she but deign to hear me
+            And with one smile to cheer me ..."
+
+"The little baggage!" growled the count.
+
+And he wondered what she wanted.  What she was hoping for... She was a
+virtuous girl, she was said to have no friend, no protector of any sort
+...  That angel from the North must be very artful!
+
+Raoul, behind the curtain of his hands that veiled his boyish tears,
+thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris,
+where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night, had
+arrived before him:
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE PLAYFELLOW:
+
+You must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak of me
+again.  If you love me just a little, do this for me, for me who will
+never forget you, my dear Raoul.  My life depends upon it.  Your life
+depends upon it.  YOUR LITTLE CHRISTINE.
+
+Thunders of applause.  Carlotta made her entrance.
+
+           "I wish I could but know who was he
+           That addressed me,
+           If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is ..."
+
+When Margarita had finished singing the ballad of the KING OF THULE,
+she was loudly cheered and again when she came to the end of the jewel
+song:
+
+            "Ah, the joy of past compare
+            These jewels bright to wear! ..."
+
+Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house,
+certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung
+herself into her part without restraint of modesty ...  She was no
+longer Margarita, she was Carmen.  She was applauded all the more; and
+her debut with Faust seemed about to bring her a new success, when
+suddenly ... a terrible thing happened.
+
+Faust had knelt on one knee:
+
+         "Let me gaze on the form below me,
+             While from yonder ether blue
+         Look how the star of eve, bright and tender,
+                lingers o'er me,
+             To love thy beauty too!"
+
+And Margarita replied:
+
+         "Oh, how strange!
+             Like a spell does the evening bind me!
+         And a deep languid charm
+         I feel without alarm
+             With its melody enwind me
+         And all my heart subdue."
+
+At that moment, at that identical moment, the terrible thing
+happened... Carlotta croaked like a toad:
+
+"Co-ack!"
+
+There was consternation on Carlotta's face and consternation on the
+faces of all the audience.  The two managers in their box could not
+suppress an exclamation of horror.  Every one felt that the thing was
+not natural, that there was witchcraft behind it.  That toad smelt of
+brimstone.  Poor, wretched, despairing, crushed Carlotta!
+
+The uproar in the house was indescribable.  If the thing had happened
+to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted.  But everybody
+knew how perfect an instrument her voice was; and there was no display
+of anger, but only of horror and dismay, the sort of dismay which men
+would have felt if they had witnessed the catastrophe that broke the
+arms of the Venus de Milo...  And even then they would have seen ...
+and understood ...
+
+But here that toad was incomprehensible!  So much so that, after some
+seconds spent in asking herself if she had really heard that note, that
+sound, that infernal noise issue from her throat, she tried to persuade
+herself that it was not so, that she was the victim of an illusion, an
+illusion of the ear, and not of an act of treachery on the part of her
+voice....
+
+Meanwhile, in Box Five, Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale.
+This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread
+which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while, they
+had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost.  They had felt his
+breath.  Moncharmin's hair stood on end.  Richard wiped the
+perspiration from his forehead.  Yes, the ghost was there, around them,
+behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him,
+they heard his breath, close, close, close to them! ... They were sure
+that there were three people in the box ...  They trembled ...  They
+thought of running away ...  They dared not ...  They dared not make a
+movement or exchange a word that would have told the ghost that they
+knew that he was there! ... What was going to happen?
+
+This happened.
+
+"Co-ack!" Their joint exclamation of horror was heard all over the
+house.  THEY FELT THAT THEY WERE SMARTING UNDER THE GHOST'S ATTACKS.
+Leaning over the ledge of their box, they stared at Carlotta as though
+they did not recognize her.  That infernal girl must have given the
+signal for some catastrophe.  Ah, they were waiting for the
+catastrophe!  The ghost had told them it would come!  The house had a
+curse upon it!  The two managers gasped and panted under the weight of
+the catastrophe.  Richard's stifled voice was heard calling to Carlotta:
+
+"Well, go on!"
+
+No, Carlotta did not go on ...  Bravely, heroically, she started afresh
+on the fatal line at the end of which the toad had appeared.
+
+An awful silence succeeded the uproar.  Carlotta's voice alone once
+more filled the resounding house:
+
+"I feel without alarm ..."
+
+The audience also felt, but not without alarm. ..
+
+        "I feel without alarm ...
+        I feel without alarm--co-ack!
+        With its melody enwind me--co-ack!
+        And all my heart sub--co-ack!"
+
+The toad also had started afresh!
+
+The house broke into a wild tumult.  The two managers collapsed in
+their chairs and dared not even turn round; they had not the strength;
+the ghost was chuckling behind their backs!  And, at last, they
+distinctly heard his voice in their right ears, the impossible voice,
+the mouthless voice, saying:
+
+"SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!"
+
+With one accord, they raised their eyes to the ceiling and uttered a
+terrible cry.  The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was
+slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice.
+Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing
+into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror.  A
+wild rush for the doors followed.
+
+The papers of the day state that there were numbers wounded and one
+killed.  The chandelier had crashed down upon the head of the wretched
+woman who had come to the Opera for the first time in her life, the one
+whom M. Richard had appointed to succeed Mme. Giry, the ghost's
+box-keeper, in her functions!  She died on the spot and, the next
+morning, a newspaper appeared with this heading:
+
+TWO HUNDRED KILOS ON THE HEAD OF A CONCIERGE
+
+That was her sole epitaph!
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII  The Mysterious Brougham
+
+
+That tragic evening was bad for everybody.  Carlotta fell ill.  As for
+Christine Daae, she disappeared after the performance.  A fortnight
+elapsed during which she was seen neither at the Opera nor outside.
+
+Raoul, of course, was the first to be astonished at the prima donna's
+absence.  He wrote to her at Mme. Valerius' flat and received no reply.
+His grief increased and he ended by being seriously alarmed at never
+seeing her name on the program.  FAUST was played without her.
+
+One afternoon he went to the managers' office to ask the reason of
+Christine's disappearance.  He found them both looking extremely
+worried.  Their own friends did not recognize them: they had lost all
+their gaiety and spirits.  They were seen crossing the stage with
+hanging heads, care-worn brows, pale cheeks, as though pursued by some
+abominable thought or a prey to some persistent sport of fate.
+
+The fall of the chandelier had involved them in no little
+responsibility; but it was difficult to make them speak about it.  The
+inquest had ended in a verdict of accidental death, caused by the wear
+and tear of the chains by which the chandelier was hung from the
+ceiling; but it was the duty of both the old and the new managers to
+have discovered this wear and tear and to have remedied it in time.
+And I feel bound to say that MM. Richard and Moncharmin at this time
+appeared so changed, so absent-minded, so mysterious, so
+incomprehensible that many of the subscribers thought that some event
+even more horrible than the fall of the chandelier must have affected
+their state of mind.
+
+In their daily intercourse, they showed themselves very impatient,
+except with Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions.  And
+their reception of the Vicomte de Chagny, when he came to ask about
+Christine, was anything but cordial.  They merely told him that she was
+taking a holiday.  He asked how long the holiday was for, and they
+replied curtly that it was for an unlimited period, as Mlle. Daae had
+requested leave of absence for reasons of health.
+
+"Then she is ill!" he cried.  "What is the matter with her?"
+
+"We don't know."
+
+"Didn't you send the doctor of the Opera to see her?"
+
+"No, she did not ask for him; and, as we trust her, we took her word."
+
+Raoul left the building a prey to the gloomiest thoughts.  He resolved,
+come what might, to go and inquire of Mamma Valerius.  He remembered
+the strong phrases in Christine's letter, forbidding him to make any
+attempt to see her.  But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heard
+behind the dressing-room door, his conversation with Christine at the
+edge of the moor made him suspect some machination which, devilish
+though it might be, was none the less human.  The girl's highly strung
+imagination, her affectionate and credulous mind, the primitive
+education which had surrounded her childhood with a circle of legends,
+the constant brooding over her dead father and, above all, the state of
+sublime ecstasy into which music threw her from the moment that this
+art was made manifest to her in certain exceptional conditions, as in
+the churchyard at Perros; all this seemed to him to constitute a moral
+ground only too favorable for the malevolent designs of some mysterious
+and unscrupulous person.  Of whom was Christine Daae the victim?  This
+was the very reasonable question which Raoul put to himself as he
+hurried off to Mamma Valerius.
+
+He trembled as he rang at a little flat in the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.  The door was opened by the maid whom he had
+seen coming out of Christine's dressing-room one evening.  He asked if
+he could speak to Mme. Valerius.  He was told that she was ill in bed
+and was not receiving visitors.
+
+"Take in my card, please," he said.
+
+The maid soon returned and showed him into a small and scantily
+furnished drawing-room, in which portraits of Professor Valerius and
+old Daae hung on opposite walls.
+
+"Madame begs Monsieur le Vicomte to excuse her," said the servant.
+"She can only see him in her bedroom, because she can no longer stand
+on her poor legs."
+
+Five minutes later, Raoul was ushered into an ill-lit room where he at
+once recognized the good, kind face of Christine's benefactress in the
+semi-darkness of an alcove.  Mamma Valerius' hair was now quite white,
+but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary, had their
+expression been so bright, so pure, so child-like.
+
+"M. de Chagny!" she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to her
+visitor.  "Ah, it's Heaven that sends you here! ... We can talk of HER."
+
+This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man's ears.  He
+at once asked:
+
+"Madame ... where is Christine?"
+
+And the old lady replied calmly:
+
+"She is with her good genius!"
+
+"What good genius?" exclaimed poor Raoul.
+
+"Why, the Angel of Music!"
+
+The viscount dropped into a chair.  Really?  Christine was with the
+Angel of Music?  And there lay Mamma Valerius in bed, smiling to him
+and putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent!  And she
+added:
+
+"You must not tell anybody!"
+
+"You can rely on me," said Raoul.
+
+He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine,
+already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled; and it
+seemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him, around the
+room, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair and
+forget-me-not eyes.
+
+"I know!  I know I can!" she said, with a happy laugh.  "But why don't
+you come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy?  Give
+me your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte, which
+Daddy Daae had told you.  I am very fond of you, M. Raoul, you know.
+And so is Christine too!"
+
+"She is fond of me!" sighed the young man.  He found a difficulty in
+collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius'
+"good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken to
+him so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort of
+nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost,
+whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behind
+the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who were
+repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet,
+had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.
+
+He asked in a low voice:  "What makes you think that Christine is fond
+of me, madame?"
+
+"She used to speak of you every day."
+
+"Really? ... And what did she tell you?"
+
+"She told me that you had made her a proposal!"
+
+And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly.  Raoul sprang from
+his chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.
+
+"What's this?  Where are you going?  Sit down again at once, will you?
+... Do you think I will let you go like that? ... If you're angry with
+me for laughing, I beg your pardon... After all, what has happened
+isn't your fault... Didn't you know? ... Did you think that Christine
+was free? ..."
+
+"Is Christine engaged to be married?" the wretched Raoul asked, in a
+choking voice.
+
+"Why no!  Why no! ... You know as well as I do that Christine couldn't
+marry, even if she wanted to!"
+
+"But I don't know anything about it! ... And why can't Christine marry?"
+
+"Because of the Angel of Music, of course! ..."
+
+"I don't follow ..."
+
+"Yes, he forbids her to! ..."
+
+"He forbids her! ... The Angel of Music forbids her to marry!"
+
+"Oh, he forbids her ... without forbidding her.  It's like this: he
+tells her that, if she got married, she would never hear him again.
+That's all! ... And that he would go away for ever! ... So, you
+understand, she can't let the Angel of Music go.  It's quite natural."
+
+"Yes, yes," echoed Raoul submissively, "it's quite natural."
+
+"Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she met you
+at Perros, where she went with her good genius."
+
+"Oh, she went to Perros with her good genius, did she?"
+
+"That is to say, he arranged to meet her down there, in Perros
+churchyard, at Daae's grave.  He promised to play her The Resurrection
+of Lazarus on her father's violin!"
+
+Raoul de Chagny rose and, with a very authoritative air, pronounced
+these peremptory words:
+
+"Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives."
+
+The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command.  She
+raised her eyes and said:
+
+"In Heaven!"
+
+Such simplicity baffled him.  He did not know what to say in the
+presence of this candid and perfect faith in a genius who came down
+nightly from Heaven to haunt the dressing-rooms at the Opera.
+
+He now realized the possible state of mind of a girl brought up between
+a superstitious fiddler and a visionary old lady and he shuddered when
+he thought of the consequences of it all.
+
+"Is Christine still a good girl?" he asked suddenly, in spite of
+himself.
+
+"I swear it, as I hope to be saved!" exclaimed the old woman, who, this
+time, seemed to be incensed.  "And, if you doubt it, sir, I don't know
+what you are here for!"
+
+Raoul tore at his gloves.
+
+"How long has she known this 'genius?'"
+
+"About three months ...  Yes, it's quite three months since he began to
+give her lessons."
+
+The viscount threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.
+
+"The genius gives her lessons! ... And where, pray?"
+
+"Now that she has gone away with him, I can't say; but, up to a
+fortnight ago, it was in Christine's dressing-room. It would be
+impossible in this little flat.  The whole house would hear them.
+Whereas, at the Opera, at eight o'clock in the morning, there is no one
+about, do you see!"
+
+"Yes, I see!  I see!" cried the viscount.
+
+And he hurriedly took leave of Mme. Valerius, who asked herself if the
+young nobleman was not a little off his head.
+
+He walked home to his brother's house in a pitiful state.  He could
+have struck himself, banged his head against the walls!  To think that
+he had believed in her innocence, in her purity!  The Angel of Music!
+He knew him now!  He saw him!  It was beyond a doubt some unspeakable
+tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang!
+He thought himself as absurd and as wretched as could be.  Oh, what a
+miserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was M. le Vicomte de
+Chagny! thought Raoul, furiously.  And she, what a bold and damnable
+sly creature!
+
+His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms, like a
+child.  The count consoled him, without asking for explanations; and
+Raoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him the story
+of the Angel of Music.  His brother suggested taking him out to dinner.
+Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably have refused any
+invitation that evening, if the count had not, as an inducement, told
+him that the lady of his thoughts had been seen, the night before, in
+company of the other sex in the Bois.  At first, the viscount refused
+to believe; but he received such exact details that he ceased
+protesting.  She had been seen, it appeared, driving in a brougham,
+with the window down.  She seemed to be slowly taking in the icy night
+air.  There was a glorious moon shining.  She was recognized beyond a
+doubt.  As for her companion, only his shadowy outline was
+distinguished leaning back in the dark.  The carriage was going at a
+walking pace in a lonely drive behind the grand stand at Longchamp.
+
+Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress by
+flinging himself, as people say, into "the vortex of pleasure." Alas,
+he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early, found
+himself, by ten o'clock in the evening, in a cab, behind the Longchamp
+race-course.
+
+It was bitterly cold.  The road seemed deserted and very bright under
+the moonlight.  He told the driver to wait for him patiently at the
+corner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could, stood
+stamping his feet to keep warm.  He had been indulging in this healthy
+exercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage turned the corner of
+the road and came quietly in his direction, at a walking pace.
+
+As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from the
+window.  And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.
+
+"Christine!"
+
+The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips.  He
+could not keep it back... He would have given anything to withdraw it,
+for that name, proclaimed in the stillness of the night, had acted as
+though it were the preconcerted signal for a furious rush on the part
+of the whole turn-out, which dashed past him before he could put into
+execution his plan of leaping at the horses' heads.  The carriage
+window had been closed and the girl's face had disappeared.  And the
+brougham, behind which he was now running, was no more than a black
+spot on the white road.
+
+He called out again:  "Christine!"
+
+No reply.  And he stopped in the midst of the silence.
+
+With a lack-luster eye, he stared down that cold, desolate road and
+into the pale, dead night.  Nothing was colder than his heart, nothing
+half so dead:  he had loved an angel and now he despised a woman!
+
+Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you!  Was it
+really, was it really necessary to have so fresh and young a face, a
+forehead so shy and always ready to cover itself with the pink blush of
+modesty in order to pass in the lonely night, in a carriage and pair,
+accompanied by a mysterious lover?  Surely there should be some limit
+to hypocrisy and lying! ...
+
+She had passed without answering his cry ...  And he was thinking of
+dying; and he was twenty years old! ...
+
+His valet found him in the morning sitting on his bed.  He had not
+undressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that some
+disaster had occurred.  Raoul snatched his letters from the man's
+hands.  He had recognized Christine's paper and hand-writing. She said:
+
+DEAR:
+
+Go to the masked ball at the Opera on the night after to-morrow.  At
+twelve o'clock, be in the little room behind the chimney-place of the
+big crush-room. Stand near the door that leads to the Rotunda.  Don't
+mention this appointment to any one on earth.  Wear a white domino and
+be carefully masked.  As you love me, do not let yourself be
+recognized.  CHRISTINE.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX  At the Masked Ball
+
+
+The envelope was covered with mud and unstamped.  It bore the words "To
+be handed to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny," with the address in
+pencil.  It must have been flung out in the hope that a passer-by would
+pick up the note and deliver it, which was what happened.  The note had
+been picked up on the pavement of the Place de l'Opera.
+
+Raoul read it over again with fevered eyes.  No more was needed to
+revive his hope.  The somber picture which he had for a moment imagined
+of a Christine forgetting her duty to herself made way for his original
+conception of an unfortunate, innocent child, the victim of imprudence
+and exaggerated sensibility.  To what extent, at this time, was she
+really a victim?  Whose prisoner was she?  Into what whirlpool had she
+been dragged?  He asked himself these questions with a cruel anguish;
+but even this pain seemed endurable beside the frenzy into which he was
+thrown at the thought of a lying and deceitful Christine.  What had
+happened?  What influence had she undergone?  What monster had carried
+her off and by what means? ...
+
+By what means indeed but that of music?  He knew Christine's story.
+After her father's death, she acquired a distaste of everything in
+life, including her art.  She went through the CONSERVATOIRE like a
+poor soulless singing-machine.  And, suddenly, she awoke as though
+through the intervention of a god.  The Angel of Music appeared upon
+the scene!  She sang Margarita in FAUST and triumphed! ...
+
+The Angel of Music! ... For three months the Angel of Music had been
+giving Christine lessons ...  Ah, he was a punctual singing-master! ...
+And now he was taking her for drives in the Bois! ...
+
+Raoul's fingers clutched at his flesh, above his jealous heart.  In his
+inexperience, he now asked himself with terror what game the girl was
+playing?  Up to what point could an opera-singer make a fool of a
+good-natured young man, quite new to love?  O misery! ...
+
+Thus did Raoul's thoughts fly from one extreme to the other.  He no
+longer knew whether to pity Christine or to curse her; and he pitied
+and cursed her turn and turn about.  At all events, he bought a white
+domino.
+
+The hour of the appointment came at last.  With his face in a mask
+trimmed with long, thick lace, looking like a pierrot in his white
+wrap, the viscount thought himself very ridiculous.  Men of the world
+do not go to the Opera ball in fancy-dress! It was absurd.  One
+thought, however, consoled the viscount:  he would certainly never be
+recognized!
+
+This ball was an exceptional affair, given some time before Shrovetide,
+in honor of the anniversary of the birth of a famous draftsman; and it
+was expected to be much gayer, noisier, more Bohemian than the ordinary
+masked ball.  Numbers of artists had arranged to go, accompanied by a
+whole cohort of models and pupils, who, by midnight, began to create a
+tremendous din.  Raoul climbed the grand staircase at five minutes to
+twelve, did not linger to look at the motley dresses displayed all the
+way up the marble steps, one of the richest settings in the world,
+allowed no facetious mask to draw him into a war of wits, replied to no
+jests and shook off the bold familiarity of a number of couples who had
+already become a trifle too gay.  Crossing the big crush-room and
+escaping from a mad whirl of dancers in which he was caught for a
+moment, he at last entered the room mentioned in Christine's letter.
+He found it crammed; for this small space was the point where all those
+who were going to supper in the Rotunda crossed those who were
+returning from taking a glass of champagne.  The fun, here, waxed fast
+and furious.
+
+Raoul leaned against a door-post and waited.  He did not wait long.  A
+black domino passed and gave a quick squeeze to the tips of his
+fingers.  He understood that it was she and followed her:
+
+"Is that you, Christine?" he asked, between his teeth.
+
+The black domino turned round promptly and raised her finger to her
+lips, no doubt to warn him not to mention her name again.  Raoul
+continued to follow her in silence.
+
+He was afraid of losing her, after meeting her again in such strange
+circumstances.  His grudge against her was gone.  He no longer doubted
+that she had "nothing to reproach herself with," however peculiar and
+inexplicable her conduct might seem.  He was ready to make any display
+of clemency, forgiveness or cowardice.  He was in love.  And, no doubt,
+he would soon receive a very natural explanation of her curious absence.
+
+The black domino turned back from time to time to see if the white
+domino was still following.
+
+As Raoul once more passed through the great crush-room, this time in
+the wake of his guide, he could not help noticing a group crowding
+round a person whose disguise, eccentric air and gruesome appearance
+were causing a sensation.  It was a man dressed all in scarlet, with a
+huge hat and feathers on the top of a wonderful death's head.  From his
+shoulders hung an immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the
+floor like a king's train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold
+letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, "Don't touch me!  I
+am Red Death stalking abroad!"
+
+Then one, greatly daring, did try to touch him ... but a skeleton hand
+shot out of a crimson sleeve and violently seized the rash one's wrist;
+and he, feeling the clutch of the knucklebones, the furious grasp of
+Death, uttered a cry of pain and terror.  When Red Death released him
+at last, he ran away like a very madman, pursued by the jeers of the
+bystanders.
+
+It was at this moment that Raoul passed in front of the funereal
+masquerader, who had just happened to turn in his direction.  And he
+nearly exclaimed:
+
+"The death's head of Perros-Guirec!"
+
+He had recognized him! ... He wanted to dart forward, forgetting
+Christine; but the black domino, who also seemed a prey to some strange
+excitement, caught him by the arm and dragged him from the crush-room,
+far from the mad crowd through which Red Death was stalking...
+
+The black domino kept on turning back and, apparently, on two occasions
+saw something that startled her, for she hurried her pace and Raoul's
+as though they were being pursued.
+
+They went up two floors.  Here, the stairs and corridors were almost
+deserted.  The black domino opened the door of a private box and
+beckoned to the white domino to follow her.  Then Christine, whom he
+recognized by the sound of her voice, closed the door behind them and
+warned him, in a whisper, to remain at the back of the box and on no
+account to show himself.  Raoul took off his mask.  Christine kept hers
+on.  And, when Raoul was about to ask her to remove it, he was
+surprised to see her put her ear to the partition and listen eagerly
+for a sound outside.  Then she opened the door ajar, looked out into
+the corridor and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"He must have gone up higher."  Suddenly she exclaimed:  "He is coming
+down again!"
+
+She tried to close the door, but Raoul prevented her; for he had seen,
+on the top step of the staircase that led to the floor above, A RED
+FOOT, followed by another ... and slowly, majestically, the whole
+scarlet dress of Red Death met his eyes.  And he once more saw the
+death's head of Perros-Guirec.
+
+"It's he!" he exclaimed.  "This time, he shall not escape me! ..."
+
+But Christian{sic} had slammed the door at the moment when Raoul was on
+the point of rushing out.  He tried to push her aside.
+
+"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" she asked, in a changed voice.  "Who shall
+not escape you?"
+
+Raoul tried to overcome the girl's resistance by force, but she
+repelled him with a strength which he would not have suspected in her.
+He understood, or thought he understood, and at once lost his temper.
+
+"Who?" he repeated angrily.  "Why, he, the man who hides behind that
+hideous mask of death! ... The evil genius of the churchyard at Perros!
+... Red Death! ... In a word, madam, your friend ...  your Angel of
+Music! ... But I shall snatch off his mask, as I shall snatch off my
+own; and, this time, we shall look each other in the face, he and I,
+with no veil and no lies between us; and I shall know whom you love and
+who loves you!"
+
+He burst into a mad laugh, while Christine gave a disconsolate moan
+behind her velvet mask.  With a tragic gesture, she flung out her two
+arms, which fixed a barrier of white flesh against the door.
+
+"In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass! ..."
+
+He stopped.  What had she said? ... In the name of their love? ...
+Never before had she confessed that she loved him.  And yet she had had
+opportunities enough ...  Pooh, her only object was to gain a few
+seconds! ... She wished to give the Red Death time to escape ...  And,
+in accents of childish hatred, he said:
+
+"You lie, madam, for you do not love me and you have never loved me!
+What a poor fellow I must be to let you mock and flout me as you have
+done!  Why did you give me every reason for hope, at Perros ...  for
+honest hope, madam, for I am an honest man and I believed you to be an
+honest woman, when your only intention was to deceive me!  Alas, you
+have deceived us all!  You have taken a shameful advantage of the
+candid affection of your benefactress herself, who continues to believe
+in your sincerity while you go about the Opera ball with Red Death! ...
+I despise you! ..."
+
+And he burst into tears.  She allowed him to insult her.  She thought
+of but one thing, to keep him from leaving the box.
+
+"You will beg my pardon, one day, for all those ugly words, Raoul, and
+when you do I shall forgive you!"
+
+He shook his head.  "No, no, you have driven me mad!  When I think that
+I had only one object in life:  to give my name to an opera wench!"
+
+"Raoul! ... How can you?"
+
+"I shall die of shame!"
+
+"No, dear, live!" said Christine's grave and changed voice.  "And ...
+good-by. Good-by, Raoul ..."
+
+The boy stepped forward, staggering as he went.  He risked one more
+sarcasm:
+
+"Oh, you must let me come and applaud you from time to time!"
+
+"I shall never sing again, Raoul! ..."
+
+"Really?" he replied, still more satirically.  "So he is taking you off
+the stage:  I congratulate you! ... But we shall meet in the Bois, one
+of these evenings!"
+
+"Not in the Bois nor anywhere, Raoul:  you shall not see me again ..."
+
+"May one ask at least to what darkness you are returning? ... For what
+hell are you leaving, mysterious lady ... or for what paradise?"
+
+"I came to tell you, dear, but I can't tell you now ... you would not
+believe me!  You have lost faith in me, Raoul; it is finished!"
+
+She spoke in such a despairing voice that the lad began to feel remorse
+for his cruelty.
+
+"But look here!" he cried.  "Can't you tell me what all this means!
+...  You are free, there is no one to interfere with you...  You go
+about Paris ...  You put on a domino to come to the ball...  Why do you
+not go home? ... What have you been doing this past fortnight? ... What
+is this tale about the Angel of Music, which you have been telling
+Mamma Valerius?  Some one may have taken you in, played upon your
+innocence.  I was a witness of it myself, at Perros ... but you know
+what to believe now!  You seem to me quite sensible, Christine.  You
+know what you are doing ...  And meanwhile Mamma Valerius lies waiting
+for you at home and appealing to your 'good genius!' ... Explain
+yourself, Christine, I beg of you!  Any one might have been deceived as
+I was.  What is this farce?"
+
+Christine simply took off her mask and said:  "Dear, it is a tragedy!"
+
+Raoul now saw her face and could not restrain an exclamation of
+surprise and terror.  The fresh complexion of former days was gone.  A
+mortal pallor covered those features, which he had known so charming
+and so gentle, and sorrow had furrowed them with pitiless lines and
+traced dark and unspeakably sad shadows under her eyes.
+
+"My dearest!  My dearest!" he moaned, holding out his arms.  "You
+promised to forgive me ..."
+
+"Perhaps! ... Some day, perhaps!" she said, resuming her mask; and she
+went away, forbidding him, with a gesture, to follow her.
+
+He tried to disobey her; but she turned round and repeated her gesture
+of farewell with such authority that he dared not move a step.
+
+He watched her till she was out of sight.  Then he also went down among
+the crowd, hardly knowing what he was doing, with throbbing temples and
+an aching heart; and, as he crossed the dancing-floor, he asked if
+anybody had seen Red Death.  Yes, every one had seen Red Death; but
+Raoul could not find him; and, at two o'clock in the morning, he turned
+down the passage, behind the scenes, that led to Christine Daae's
+dressing-room.
+
+His footsteps took him to that room where he had first known suffering.
+He tapped at the door.  There was no answer.  He entered, as he had
+entered when he looked everywhere for "the man's voice." The room was
+empty.  A gas-jet was burning, turned down low.  He saw some
+writing-paper on a little desk.  He thought of writing to Christine,
+but he heard steps in the passage.  He had only time to hide in the
+inner room, which was separated from the dressing-room by a curtain.
+
+Christine entered, took off her mask with a weary movement and flung it
+on the table.  She sighed and let her pretty head fall into her two
+hands.  What was she thinking of?  Of Raoul?  No, for Raoul heard her
+murmur:  "Poor Erik!"
+
+At first, he thought he must be mistaken.  To begin with, he was
+persuaded that, if any one was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul.  It
+would have been quite natural if she had said, "Poor Raoul," after what
+had happened between them.  But, shaking her head, she repeated:  "Poor
+Erik!"
+
+What had this Erik to do with Christine's sighs and why was she pitying
+Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?
+
+Christine began to write, deliberately, calmly and so placidly that
+Raoul, who was still trembling from the effects of the tragedy that
+separated them, was painfully impressed.
+
+"What coolness!" he said to himself.
+
+She wrote on, filling two, three, four sheets.  Suddenly, she raised
+her head and hid the sheets in her bodice ... She seemed to be
+listening ...  Raoul also listened ...  Whence came that strange sound,
+that distant rhythm? ... A faint singing seemed to issue from the walls
+... yes, it was as though the walls themselves were singing! ... The
+song became plainer ... the words were now distinguishable ... he heard
+a voice, a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice ... but,
+for all its softness, it remained a male voice ... The voice came
+nearer and nearer ... it came through the wall ... it approached ...
+and now the voice was IN THE ROOM, in front of Christine.  Christine
+rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to some one:
+
+"Here I am, Erik," she said.  "I am ready.  But you are late."
+
+Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes,
+which showed him nothing.  Christine's face lit up.  A smile of
+happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that of sick
+people when they receive the first hope of recovery.
+
+The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had never
+in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet, more
+gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short, more
+irresistibly triumphant.  He listened to it in a fever and he now began
+to understand how Christine Daae was able to appear one evening, before
+the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a
+superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the
+mysterious and invisible master.
+
+The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet.
+Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done,
+in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing The Resurrection
+of Lazarus.  And nothing could describe the passion with which the
+voice sang:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+The strains went through Raoul's heart.  Struggling against the charm
+that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and of
+almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most, he
+succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to
+where Christine stood.  She herself was moving to the back of the room,
+the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected
+her image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered
+by her.
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came
+toward her.  The two Christines--the real one and the reflection--ended
+by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one
+embrace.  But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent him staggering,
+Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept over his face;
+he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines spinning round him,
+laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he could not touch one of
+them.  At last, everything stood still again; and he saw himself in the
+glass.  But Christine had disappeared.
+
+He rushed up to the glass.  He struck at the walls.  Nobody!  And
+meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+Which way, which way had Christine gone? ... Which way would she
+return? ...
+
+Would she return?  Alas, had she not declared to him that everything
+was finished?  And was the voice not repeating:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+To me?  To whom?
+
+Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair which
+Christine had just left.  Like her, he let his head fall into his
+hands.  When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his young
+cheeks, real, heavy tears like those which jealous children shed, tears
+that wept for a sorrow which was in no way fanciful, but which is
+common to all the lovers on earth and which he expressed aloud:
+
+"Who is this Erik?" he said.
+
+
+
+Chapter X  Forget the Name of the Man's Voice
+
+
+The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort of
+dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses, M. le
+Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valerius'.  He came upon a
+charming picture.  Christine herself was seated by the bedside of the
+old lady, who was sitting up against the pillows, knitting.  The pink
+and white had returned to the young girl's cheeks.  The dark rings
+round her eyes had disappeared.  Raoul no longer recognized the tragic
+face of the day before.  If the veil of melancholy over those adorable
+features had not still appeared to the young man as the last trace of
+the weird drama in whose toils that mysterious child was struggling, he
+could have believed that Christine was not its heroine at all.
+
+She rose, without showing any emotion, and offered him her hand.  But
+Raoul's stupefaction was so great that he stood there dumfounded,
+without a gesture, without a word.
+
+"Well, M. de Chagny," exclaimed Mamma Valerius, "don't you know our
+Christine?  Her good genius has sent her back to us!"
+
+"Mamma!" the girl broke in promptly, while a deep blush mantled to her
+eyes.  "I thought, mamma, that there was to be no more question of
+that! ... You know there is no such thing as the Angel of Music!"
+
+"But, child, he gave you lessons for three months!"
+
+"Mamma, I have promised to explain everything to you one of these days;
+and I hope to do so but you have promised me, until that day, to be
+silent and to ask me no more questions whatever!"
+
+"Provided that you promised never to leave me again!  But have you
+promised that, Christine?"
+
+"Mamma, all this can not interest M. de Chagny."
+
+"On the contrary, mademoiselle," said the young man, in a voice which
+he tried to make firm and brave, but which still trembled, "anything
+that concerns you interests me to an extent which perhaps you will one
+day understand.  I do not deny that my surprise equals my pleasure at
+finding you with your adopted mother and that, after what happened
+between us yesterday, after what you said and what I was able to guess,
+I hardly expected to see you here so soon.  I should be the first to
+delight at your return, if you were not so bent on preserving a secrecy
+that may be fatal to you ... and I have been your friend too long not
+to be alarmed, with Mme. Valerius, at a disastrous adventure which will
+remain dangerous so long as we have not unraveled its threads and of
+which you will certainly end by being the victim, Christine."
+
+At these words, Mamma Valerius tossed about in her bed.
+
+"What does this mean?" she cried.  "Is Christine in danger?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said Raoul courageously, notwithstanding the signs which
+Christine made to him.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed the good, simple old woman, gasping for breath.
+"You must tell me everything, Christine!  Why did you try to reassure
+me?  And what danger is it, M. de Chagny?"
+
+"An impostor is abusing her good faith."
+
+"Is the Angel of Music an impostor?"
+
+"She told you herself that there is no Angel of Music."
+
+"But then what is it, in Heaven's name?  You will be the death of me!"
+
+"There is a terrible mystery around us, madame, around you, around
+Christine, a mystery much more to be feared than any number of ghosts
+or genii!"
+
+Mamma Valerius turned a terrified face to Christine, who had already
+run to her adopted mother and was holding her in her arms.
+
+"Don't believe him, mummy, don't believe him," she repeated.
+
+"Then tell me that you will never leave me again," implored the widow.
+
+Christine was silent and Raoul resumed.
+
+"That is what you must promise, Christine.  It is the only thing that
+can reassure your mother and me.  We will undertake not to ask you a
+single question about the past, if you promise us to remain under our
+protection in future."
+
+"That is an undertaking which I have not asked of you and a promise
+which I refuse to make you!" said the young girl haughtily.  "I am
+mistress of my own actions, M. de Chagny: you have no right to control
+them, and I will beg you to desist henceforth.  As to what I have done
+during the last fortnight, there is only one man in the world who has
+the right to demand an account of me: my husband!  Well, I have no
+husband and I never mean to marry!"
+
+She threw out her hands to emphasize her words and Raoul turned pale,
+not only because of the words which he had heard, but because he had
+caught sight of a plain gold ring on Christine's finger.
+
+"You have no husband and yet you wear a wedding-ring."
+
+He tried to seize her hand, but she swiftly drew it back.
+
+"That's a present!" she said, blushing once more and vainly striving to
+hide her embarrassment.
+
+"Christine!  As you have no husband, that ring can only have been given
+by one who hopes to make you his wife!  Why deceive us further?  Why
+torture me still more?  That ring is a promise; and that promise has
+been accepted!"
+
+"That's what I said!" exclaimed the old lady.
+
+"And what did she answer, madame?"
+
+"What I chose," said Christine, driven to exasperation.  "Don't you
+think, monsieur, that this cross-examination has lasted long enough?
+As far as I am concerned ..."
+
+Raoul was afraid to let her finish her speech.  He interrupted her:
+
+"I beg your pardon for speaking as I did, mademoiselle.  You know the
+good intentions that make me meddle, just now, in matters which, you no
+doubt think, have nothing to do with me.  But allow me to tell you what
+I have seen--and I have seen more than you suspect, Christine--or what
+I thought I saw, for, to tell you the truth, I have sometimes been
+inclined to doubt the evidence of my eyes."
+
+"Well, what did you see, sir, or think you saw?"
+
+"I saw your ecstasy AT THE SOUND OF THE VOICE, Christine:  the voice
+that came from the wall or the next room to yours ... yes, YOUR
+ECSTASY!  And that is what makes me alarmed on your behalf.  You are
+under a very dangerous spell.  And yet it seems that you are aware of
+the imposture, because you say to-day THAT THERE IS NO ANGEL OF MUSIC!
+In that case, Christine, why did you follow him that time?  Why did you
+stand up, with radiant features, as though you were really hearing
+angels? ... Ah, it is a very dangerous voice, Christine, for I myself,
+when I heard it, was so much fascinated by it that you vanished before
+my eyes without my seeing which way you passed!  Christine, Christine,
+in the name of Heaven, in the name of your father who is in Heaven now
+and who loved you so dearly and who loved me too, Christine, tell us,
+tell your benefactress and me, to whom does that voice belong?  If you
+do, we will save you in spite of yourself.  Come, Christine, the name
+of the man!  The name of the man who had the audacity to put a ring on
+your finger!"
+
+"M. de Chagny," the girl declared coldly, "you shall never know!"
+
+Thereupon, seeing the hostility with which her ward had addressed the
+viscount, Mamma Valerius suddenly took Christine's part.
+
+"And, if she does love that man, Monsieur le Vicomte, even then it is
+no business of yours!"
+
+"Alas, madame," Raoul humbly replied, unable to restrain his tears,
+"alas, I believe that Christine really does love him! ... But it is not
+only that which drives me to despair; for what I am not certain of,
+madame, is that the man whom Christine loves is worthy of her love!"
+
+"It is for me to be the judge of that, monsieur!" said Christine,
+looking Raoul angrily in the face.
+
+"When a man," continued Raoul, "adopts such romantic methods to entice
+a young girl's affections. .."
+
+"The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool:  is that it?"
+
+"Christine!"
+
+"Raoul, why do you condemn a man whom you have never seen, whom no one
+knows and about whom you yourself know nothing?"
+
+"Yes, Christine ...  Yes ...  I at least know the name that you thought
+to keep from me for ever ...  The name of your Angel of Music,
+mademoiselle, is Erik!"
+
+Christine at once betrayed herself.  She turned as white as a sheet and
+stammered:  "Who told you?"
+
+"You yourself!"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"By pitying him the other night, the night of the masked ball.  When
+you went to your dressing-room, did you not say, 'Poor Erik?' Well,
+Christine, there was a poor Raoul who overheard you."
+
+"This is the second time that you have listened behind the door, M. de
+Chagny!"
+
+"I was not behind the door ... I was in the dressing-room, in the inner
+room, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh, unhappy man!" moaned the girl, showing every sign of unspeakable
+terror.  "Unhappy man!  Do you want to be killed?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+Raoul uttered this "perhaps" with so much love and despair in his voice
+that Christine could not keep back a sob.  She took his hands and
+looked at him with all the pure affection of which she was capable:
+
+"Raoul," she said, "forget THE MAN'S VOICE and do not even remember its
+name... You must never try to fathom the mystery of THE MAN'S VOICE."
+
+"Is the mystery so very terrible?"
+
+"There is no more awful mystery on this earth.  Swear to me that you
+will make no attempt to find out," she insisted.  "Swear to me that you
+will never come to my dressing-room, unless I send for you."
+
+"Then you promise to send for me sometimes, Christine?"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Then I swear to do as you ask."
+
+He kissed her hands and went away, cursing Erik and resolving to be
+patient.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI  Above the Trap-Doors
+
+
+The next day, he saw her at the Opera.  She was still wearing the plain
+gold ring.  She was gentle and kind to him.  She talked to him of the
+plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career.
+
+He told her that the date of the Polar expedition had been put forward
+and that he would leave France in three weeks, or a month at latest.
+She suggested, almost gaily, that he must look upon the voyage with
+delight, as a stage toward his coming fame.  And when he replied that
+fame without love was no attraction in his eyes, she treated him as a
+child whose sorrows were only short-lived.
+
+"How can you speak so lightly of such serious things?" he asked.
+"Perhaps we shall never see each other again!  I may die during that
+expedition."
+
+"Or I," she said simply.
+
+She no longer smiled or jested.  She seemed to be thinking of some new
+thing that had entered her mind for the first time.  Her eyes were all
+aglow with it.
+
+"What are you thinking of, Christine?"
+
+"I am thinking that we shall not see each other again ..."
+
+"And does that make you so radiant?"
+
+"And that, in a month, we shall have to say good-by for ever!"
+
+"Unless, Christine, we pledge our faith and wait for each other for
+ever."
+
+She put her hand on his mouth.
+
+"Hush, Raoul! ... You know there is no question of that ...  And we
+shall never be married:  that is understood!"
+
+She seemed suddenly almost unable to contain an overpowering gaiety.
+She clapped her hands with childish glee.  Raoul stared at her in
+amazement.
+
+"But ... but," she continued, holding out her two hands to Raoul, or
+rather giving them to him, as though she had suddenly resolved to make
+him a present of them, "but if we can not be married, we can ... we can
+be engaged!  Nobody will know but ourselves, Raoul.  There have been
+plenty of secret marriages:  why not a secret engagement? ... We are
+engaged, dear, for a month!  In a month, you will go away, and I can be
+happy at the thought of that month all my life long!"
+
+She was enchanted with her inspiration.  Then she became serious again.
+
+"This," she said, "IS A HAPPINESS THAT WILL HARM NO ONE."
+
+Raoul jumped at the idea.  He bowed to Christine and said:
+
+"Mademoiselle, I have the honor to ask for your hand."
+
+"Why, you have both of them already, my dear betrothed! ...  Oh, Raoul,
+how happy we shall be! ... We must play at being engaged all day long."
+
+It was the prettiest game in the world and they enjoyed it like the
+children that they were.  Oh, the wonderful speeches they made to each
+other and the eternal vows they exchanged!  They played at hearts as
+other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two
+hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to
+catch them, each time, without hurting them.
+
+One day, about a week after the game began, Raoul's heart was badly
+hurt and he stopped playing and uttered these wild words:
+
+"I shan't go to the North Pole!"
+
+Christine, who, in her innocence, had not dreamed of such a
+possibility, suddenly discovered the danger of the game and reproached
+herself bitterly.  She did not say a word in reply to Raoul's remark
+and went straight home.
+
+This happened in the afternoon, in the singer's dressing-room, where
+they met every day and where they amused themselves by dining on three
+biscuits, two glasses of port and a bunch of violets.  In the evening,
+she did not sing; and he did not receive his usual letter, though they
+had arranged to write to each other daily during that month.  The next
+morning, he ran off to Mamma Valerius, who told him that Christine had
+gone away for two days.  She had left at five o'clock the day before.
+
+Raoul was distracted.  He hated Mamma Valerius for giving him such news
+as that with such stupefying calmness.  He tried to sound her, but the
+old lady obviously knew nothing.
+
+Christine returned on the following day.  She returned in triumph.  She
+renewed her extraordinary success of the gala performance.  Since the
+adventure of the "toad," Carlotta had not been able to appear on the
+stage.  The terror of a fresh "co-ack" filled her heart and deprived
+her of all her power of singing; and the theater that had witnessed her
+incomprehensible disgrace had become odious to her.  She contrived to
+cancel her contract.  Daae was offered the vacant place for the time.
+She received thunders of applause in the Juive.
+
+The viscount, who, of course, was present, was the only one to suffer
+on hearing the thousand echoes of this fresh triumph; for Christine
+still wore her plain gold ring.  A distant voice whispered in the young
+man's ear:
+
+"She is wearing the ring again to-night; and you did not give it to
+her.  She gave her soul again tonight and did not give it to you...  If
+she will not tell you what she has been doing the past two days ... you
+must go and ask Erik!"
+
+He ran behind the scenes and placed himself in her way.  She saw him
+for her eyes were looking for him.  She said:
+
+"Quick!  Quick! ... Come!"
+
+And she dragged him to her dressing-room.
+
+Raoul at once threw himself on his knees before her.  He swore to her
+that he would go and he entreated her never again to withhold a single
+hour of the ideal happiness which she had promised him.  She let her
+tears flow.  They kissed like a despairing brother and sister who have
+been smitten with a common loss and who meet to mourn a dead parent.
+
+Suddenly, she snatched herself from the young man's soft and timid
+embrace, seemed to listen to something, and, with a quick gesture,
+pointed to the door.  When he was on the threshold, she said, in so low
+a voice that the viscount guessed rather than heard her words:
+
+"To-morrow, my dear betrothed!  And be happy, Raoul:  I sang for you
+to-night!"
+
+He returned the next day.  But those two days of absence had broken the
+charm of their delightful make-believe. They looked at each other, in
+the dressing-room, with their sad eyes, without exchanging a word.
+Raoul had to restrain himself not to cry out:
+
+"I am jealous!  I am jealous!  I am jealous!"
+
+But she heard him all the same.  Then she said:
+
+"Come for a walk, dear.  The air will do you good."
+
+Raoul thought that she would propose a stroll in the country, far from
+that building which he detested as a prison whose jailer he could feel
+walking within the walls ... the jailer Erik ...  But she took him to
+the stage and made him sit on the wooden curb of a well, in the
+doubtful peace and coolness of a first scene set for the evening's
+performance.
+
+On another day, she wandered with him, hand in, hand, along the
+deserted paths of a garden whose creepers had been cut out by a
+decorator's skilful hands.  It was as though the real sky, the real
+flowers, the real earth were forbidden her for all time and she
+condemned to breathe no other air than that of the theater.  An
+occasional fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from
+afar.  And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent
+disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running in
+front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes
+fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst of a
+regular forest of yards and masts.  If he hesitated, she said, with an
+adorable pout of her lips:
+
+"You, a sailor!"
+
+And then they returned to terra firma, that is to say, to some passage
+that led them to the little girls' dancing-school, where brats between
+six and ten were practising their steps, in the hope of becoming great
+dancers one day, "covered with diamonds ..." Meanwhile, Christine gave
+them sweets instead.
+
+She took him to the wardrobe and property-rooms, took him all over her
+empire, which was artificial, but immense, covering seventeen stories
+from the ground-floor to the roof and inhabited by an army of subjects.
+She moved among them like a popular queen, encouraging them in their
+labors, sitting down in the workshops, giving words of advice to the
+workmen whose hands hesitated to cut into the rich stuffs that were to
+clothe heroes.  There were inhabitants of that country who practised
+every trade.  There were cobblers, there were goldsmiths.  All had
+learned to know her and to love her, for she always interested herself
+in all their troubles and all their little hobbies.
+
+She knew unsuspected corners that were secretly occupied by little old
+couples.  She knocked at their door and introduced Raoul to them as a
+Prince Charming who had asked for her hand; and the two of them,
+sitting on some worm-eaten "property," would listen to the legends of
+the Opera, even as, in their childhood, they had listened to the old
+Breton tales.  Those old people remembered nothing outside the Opera.
+They had lived there for years without number.  Past managements had
+forgotten them; palace revolutions had taken no notice of them; the
+history of France had run its course unknown to them; and nobody
+recollected their existence.
+
+The precious days sped in this way; and Raoul and Christine, by
+affecting excessive interest in outside matters, strove awkwardly to
+hide from each other the one thought of their hearts.  One fact was
+certain, that Christine, who until then had shown herself the stronger
+of the two, became suddenly inexpressibly nervous.  When on their
+expeditions, she would start running without reason or else suddenly
+stop; and her hand, turning ice-cold in a moment, would hold the young
+man back.  Sometimes her eyes seemed to pursue imaginary shadows.  She
+cried, "This way," and "This way," and "This way," laughing a
+breathless laugh that often ended in tears.  Then Raoul tried to speak,
+to question her, in spite of his promises.  But, even before he had
+worded his question, she answered feverishly:
+
+"Nothing ... I swear it is nothing."
+
+Once, when they were passing before an open trapdoor on the stage,
+Raoul stopped over the dark cavity.
+
+"You have shown me over the upper part of your empire, Christine, but
+there are strange stories told of the lower part.  Shall we go down?"
+
+She caught him in her arms, as though she feared to see him disappear
+down the black hole, and, in a trembling voice, whispered:
+
+"Never! ... I will not have you go there! ... Besides, it's not mine
+... EVERYTHING THAT IS UNDERGROUND BELONGS TO HIM!"
+
+Raoul looked her in the eyes and said roughly:
+
+"So he lives down there, does he?"
+
+"I never said so ...  Who told you a thing like that?  Come away!  I
+sometimes wonder if you are quite sane, Raoul ...  You always take
+things in such an impossible way ...  Come along!  Come!"
+
+And she literally dragged him away, for he was obstinate and wanted to
+remain by the trap-door; that hole attracted him.
+
+Suddenly, the trap-door was closed and so quickly that they did not
+even see the hand that worked it; and they remained quite dazed.
+
+"Perhaps HE was there," Raoul said, at last.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, but did not seem easy.
+
+"No, no, it was the 'trap-door-shutters.' They must do something, you
+know ...  They open and shut the trap-doors without any particular
+reason ...  It's like the 'door-shutters:' they must spend their time
+somehow."
+
+"But suppose it were HE, Christine?"
+
+"No, no!  He has shut himself up, he is working."
+
+"Oh, really!  He's working, is he?"
+
+"Yes, he can't open and shut the trap-doors and work at the same time."
+She shivered.
+
+"What is he working at?"
+
+"Oh, something terrible! ... But it's all the better for us... When
+he's working at that, he sees nothing; he does not eat, drink, or
+breathe for days and nights at a time ... he becomes a living dead man
+and has no time to amuse himself with the trap-doors." She shivered
+again.  She was still holding him in her arms.  Then she sighed and
+said, in her turn:
+
+"Suppose it were HE!"
+
+"Are you afraid of him?"
+
+"No, no, of course not," she said.
+
+For all that, on the next day and the following days, Christine was
+careful to avoid the trap-doors. Her agitation only increased as the
+hours passed.  At last, one afternoon, she arrived very late, with her
+face so desperately pale and her eyes so desperately red, that Raoul
+resolved to go to all lengths, including that which he foreshadowed
+when he blurted out that he would not go on the North Pole expedition
+unless she first told him the secret of the man's voice.
+
+"Hush!  Hush, in Heaven's name! Suppose HE heard you, you unfortunate
+Raoul!"
+
+And Christine's eyes stared wildly at everything around her.
+
+"I will remove you from his power, Christine, I swear it.  And you
+shall not think of him any more."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+She allowed herself this doubt, which was an encouragernent, while
+dragging the young man up to the topmost floor of the theater, far,
+very far from the trap-doors.
+
+"I shall hide you in some unknown corner of the world, where HE can not
+come to look for you.  You will be safe; and then I shall go away ...
+as you have sworn never to marry."
+
+Christine seized Raoul's hands and squeezed them with incredible
+rapture.  But, suddenly becoming alarmed again, she turned away her
+head.
+
+"Higher!" was all she said.  "Higher still!"
+
+And she dragged him up toward the summit.
+
+He had a difficulty in following her.  They were soon under the very
+roof, in the maze of timber-work. They slipped through the buttresses,
+the rafters, the joists; they ran from beam to beam as they might have
+run from tree to tree in a forest.
+
+And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every
+moment, she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own
+shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she
+did and which made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should.
+As for Raoul, he saw nothing either; for, when he had Christine in
+front of him, nothing interested him that happened behind.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII  Apollo's Lyre
+
+
+On this way, they reached the roof.  Christine tripped over it as
+lightly as a swallow.  Their eyes swept the empty space between the
+three domes and the triangular pediment.  She breathed freely over
+Paris, the whole valley of which was seen at work below.  She called
+Raoul to come quite close to her and they walked side by side along the
+zinc streets, in the leaden avenues; they looked at their twin shapes
+in the huge tanks, full of stagnant water, where, in the hot weather,
+the little boys of the ballet, a score or so, learn to swim and dive.
+
+The shadow had followed behind them clinging to their steps; and the
+two children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down,
+trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a great
+bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.
+
+It was a gorgeous spring evening.  Clouds, which had just received
+their gossamer robe of gold and purple from the setting sun, drifted
+slowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:
+
+"Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of the
+world, and then you will leave me, Raoul.  But, if, when the moment
+comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you--well you must
+carry me off by force!"
+
+"Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, shaking her head in an odd fashion.  "He is a
+demon!"  And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan.  "I am
+afraid now of going back to live with him ... in the ground!"
+
+"What compels you to go back, Christine?"
+
+"If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen! ...  But
+I can't do it, I can't do it! ... I know one ought to be sorry for
+people who live underground ...  But he is too horrible!  And yet the
+time is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he will
+come and fetch me with his voice.  And he will drag me with him,
+underground, and go on his knees before me, with his death's head.  And
+he will tell me that he loves me!  And he will cry!  Oh, those tears,
+Raoul, those tears in the two black eye-sockets of the death's head!  I
+can not see those tears flow again!"
+
+She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.
+
+"No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you!
+You shall not see his tears!  Let us fly, Christine, let us fly at
+once!"
+
+And he tried to drag her away, then and there.  But she stopped him.
+
+"No, no," she said, shaking her head sadly.  "Not now! ... It would be
+too cruel ... let him hear me sing to-morrow evening ... and then we
+will go away.  You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at
+midnight exactly.  He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room by
+the lake ... we shall be free and you shall take me away ...  You must
+promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go back
+this time, I shall perhaps never return."
+
+And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind
+her, replied.
+
+"Didn't you hear?"
+
+Her teeth chattered.
+
+"No," said Raoul, "I heard nothing."
+
+"It is too terrible," she confessed, "to be always trembling like this!
+... And yet we run no danger here; we are at home, in the sky, in the
+open air, in the light.  The sun is flaming; and night-birds can not
+bear to look at the sun.  I have never seen him by daylight ... it must
+be awful! ... Oh, the first time I saw him! ... I thought that he was
+going to die."
+
+"Why?" asked Raoul, really frightened at the aspect which this strange
+confidence was taking.
+
+"BECAUSE I HAD SEEN HIM!"
+
+This time, Raoul and Christine turned round at the same time:
+
+"There is some one in pain," said Raoul.  "Perhaps some one has been
+hurt.  Did you hear?"
+
+"I can't say," Christine confessed.  "Even when he is not there, my
+ears are full of his sighs.  Still, if you heard ..."
+
+They stood up and looked around them.  They were quite alone on the
+immense lead roof.  They sat down again and Raoul said:
+
+"Tell me how you saw him first."
+
+"I had heard him for three months without seeing him.  The first time I
+heard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing
+in another room.  I went out and looked everywhere; but, as you know,
+Raoul, my dressing-room is very much by itself; and I could not find
+the voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside.  And it
+not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like a
+real man's voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful as the
+voice of an angel.  I had never got the Angel of Music whom my poor
+father had promised to send me as soon as he was dead.  I really think
+that Mamma Valerius was a little bit to blame.  I told her about it;
+and she at once said, 'It must be the Angel; at any rate, you can do no
+harm by asking him.'  I did so; and the man's voice replied that, yes,
+it was the Angel's voice, the voice which I was expecting and which my
+father had promised me.  From that time onward, the voice and I became
+great friends.  It asked leave to give me lessons every day.  I agreed
+and never failed to keep the appointment which it gave me in my
+dressing-room. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of
+what those lessons were like."
+
+"No, I have no idea," said Raoul.  "What was your accompaniment?"
+
+"We were accompanied by a music which I do not know:  it was behind the
+wall and wonderfully accurate.  The voice seemed to understand mine
+exactly, to know precisely where my father had left off teaching me.
+In a few weeks' time, I hardly knew myself when I sang.  I was even
+frightened.  I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft behind it; but
+Mamma Valerius reassured me.  She said that she knew I was much too
+simple a girl to give the devil a hold on me ...  My progress, by the
+voice's own order, was kept a secret between the voice, Mamma Valerius
+and myself.  It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I
+sang with my ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything.  I
+did all that the voice asked.  It said, 'Wait and see:  we shall
+astonish Paris!' And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream.
+It was then that I saw you for the first time one evening, in the
+house.  I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delight
+when I reached my dressing-room.  Unfortunately, the voice was there
+before me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened.  It
+asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story
+secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart.  Then the
+voice was silent.  I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged and
+entreated, but in vain.  I was terrified lest it had gone for good.  I
+wish to Heaven it had, dear!  ... That night, I went home in a
+desperate condition.  I told Mamma Valerius, who said, 'Why, of course,
+the voice is jealous!'  And that, dear, first revealed to me that I
+loved you."
+
+Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder.  They sat like
+that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not perceive
+the movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping shadow of two
+great black wings, a shadow that came along the roof so near, so near
+them that it could have stifled them by closing over them.
+
+"The next day," Christine continued, with a sigh, "I went back to my
+dressing-room in a very pensive frame of mind.  The voice was there,
+spoke to me with great sadness and told me plainly that, if I must
+bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice to do but to
+go back to Heaven.  And it said this with such an accent of HUMAN
+sorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected and begun to
+believe that I was the victim of my deluded senses.  But my faith in
+the voice, with which the memory of my father was so closely
+intermingled, remained undisturbed.  I feared nothing so much as that I
+might never hear it again; I had thought about my love for you and
+realized all the useless danger of it; and I did not even know if you
+remembered me.  Whatever happened, your position in society forbade me
+to contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you; and I swore to the
+voice that you were no more than a brother to me nor ever would be and
+that my heart was incapable of any earthly love.  And that, dear, was
+why I refused to recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or in
+the passages.  Meanwhile, the hours during which the voice taught me
+were spent in a divine frenzy, until, at last, the voice said to me,
+'You can now, Christine Daae, give to men a little of the music of
+Heaven.' I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the
+theater that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; but
+I sang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a moment
+as if my soul were leaving my body!"
+
+"Oh, Christine," said Raoul, "my heart quivered that night at every
+accent of your voice.  I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and I
+wept with you.  How could you sing, sing like that while crying?"
+
+"I felt myself fainting," said Christine, "I closed my eyes.  When I
+opened them, you were by my side.  But the voice was there also, Raoul!
+I was afraid for your sake and again I would not recognize you and
+began to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf in
+the sea! ... Alas, there is no deceiving the voice! ... The voice
+recognized you and the voice was jealous! ... It said that, if I did
+not love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other old
+friend.  It made me scene upon scene.  At last, I said to the voice,
+'That will do!  I am going to Perros to-morrow, to pray on my father's
+grave, and I shall ask M. Raoul de Chagny to go with me.'  'Do as you
+please,' replied the voice, 'but I shall be at Perros too, for I am
+wherever you are, Christine; and, if you are still worthy of me, if you
+have not lied to me, I will play you The Resurrection of Lazarus, on
+the stroke of midnight, on your father's tomb and on your father's
+violin.'  That, dear, was how I came to write you the letter that
+brought you to Perros.  How could I have been so beguiled?  How was it,
+when I saw the personal, the selfish point of view of the voice, that I
+did not suspect some impostor?  Alas, I was no longer mistress of
+myself:  I had become his thing!"
+
+"But, after all," cried Raoul, "you soon came to know the truth!  Why
+did you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?"
+
+"Know the truth, Raoul?  Rid myself of that nightmare?  But, my poor
+boy, I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned the
+truth! ... Pity me, Raoul, pity me! ... You remember the terrible
+evening when Carlotta thought that she had been turned into a toad on
+the stage and when the house was suddenly plunged in darkness through
+the chandelier crashing to the floor?  There were killed and wounded
+that night and the whole theater rang with terrified screams.  My first
+thought was for you and the voice.  I was at once easy, where you were
+concerned, for I had seen you in your brother's box and I knew that you
+were not in danger.  But the voice had told me that it would be at the
+performance and I was really afraid for it, just as if it had been an
+ordinary person who was capable of dying.  I thought to myself, 'The
+chandelier may have come down upon the voice.'  I was then on the stage
+and was nearly running into the house, to look for the voice among the
+killed and wounded, when I thought that, if the voice was safe, it
+would be sure to be in my dressing-room and I rushed to my room.  The
+voice was not there.  I locked my door and, with tears in my eyes,
+besought it, if it were still alive, to manifest itself to me.  The
+voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail which
+I knew well.  It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound of the
+Redeemer's voice, he begins to open his eyes and see the light of day.
+It was the music which you and I, Raoul, heard at Perros.  And then the
+voice began to sing the leading phrase, 'Come!  And believe in me!
+Whoso believes in me shall live!  Walk!  Whoso hath believed in me
+shall never die! ...'  I can not tell you the effect which that music
+had upon me.  It seemed to command me, personally, to come, to stand up
+and come to it.  It retreated and I followed.  'Come! And believe in
+me!'  I believed in it, I came ...  I came and--this was the
+extraordinary thing--my dressing-room, as I moved, seemed to lengthen
+out ... to lengthen out ...  Evidently, it must have been an effect of
+mirrors ... for I had the mirror in front of me ...  And, suddenly, I
+was outside the room without knowing how!"
+
+"What!  Without knowing how?  Christine, Christine, you must really
+stop dreaming!"
+
+"I was not dreaming, dear, I was outside my room without knowing how.
+You, who saw me disappear from my room one evening, may be able to
+explain it; but I can not.  I can only tell you that, suddenly, there
+was no mirror before me and no dressing-room.  I was in a dark passage,
+I was frightened and I cried out.  It was quite dark, but for a faint
+red glimmer at a distant corner of the wall.  I tried out.  My voice
+was the only sound, for the singing and the violin had stopped.  And,
+suddenly, a hand was laid on mine ... or rather a stone-cold, bony
+thing that seized my wrist and did not let go.  I cried out again.  An
+arm took me round the waist and supported me.  I struggled for a little
+while and then gave up the attempt.  I was dragged toward the little
+red light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in a
+large cloak and wearing a mask that hid his whole face.  I made one
+last effort; my limbs stiffened, my mouth opened to scream, but a hand
+closed it, a hand which I felt on my lips, on my skin ... a hand that
+smelt of death.  Then I fainted away.
+
+"When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness.  A
+lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well.  The water
+splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on
+which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black
+cloak and the black mask.  He was bathing my temples and his hands
+smelt of death.  I tried to push them away and asked, 'Who are you?
+Where is the voice?'  His only answer was a sigh.  Suddenly, a hot
+breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the
+man's black shape, in the darkness.  The black shape lifted me on to
+the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I
+murmured, 'Cesar!' The animal quivered.  Raoul, I was lying half back
+on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA,
+which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets.  I remembered that, one
+evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had
+disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost.  I believed
+in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost.  Now, however, I
+began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost's prisoner.  I
+called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that
+the voice and the ghost were one.  You have heard about the Opera
+ghost, have you not, Raoul?"
+
+"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the
+Profeta?"
+
+"I made no movement and let myself go.  The black shape held me up, and
+I made no effort to escape.  A curious feeling of peacefulness came
+over me and I thought that I must be under the influence of some
+cordial.  I had the full command of my senses; and my eyes became used
+to the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams.  I
+calculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably running
+all round the Opera, which is immense, underground.  I had once been
+down into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor, though
+there were two lower still, large enough to hold a town.  But the
+figures of which I caught sight had made me run away.  There are demons
+down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wield
+shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames and, if you
+come too near them, they frighten you by suddenly opening the red
+mouths of their furnaces ...  Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying me
+on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quite
+small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came into
+sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our winding
+way.  At last, they disappeared altogether.  The shape was still
+holding me up and Cesar walked on, unled and sure-footed. I could not
+tell you, even approximately, how long this ride lasted; I only know
+that we seemed to turn and turn and often went down a spiral stair into
+the very heart of the earth.  Even then, it may be that my head was
+turning, but I don't think so: no, my mind was quite clear.  At last,
+Cesar raised his nostrils, sniffed the air and quickened his pace a
+little.  I felt a moistness in the air and Cesar stopped.  The darkness
+had lifted.  A sort of bluey light surrounded us.  We were on the edge
+of a lake, whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into the
+darkness; but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat
+fastened to an iron ring on the wharf!"
+
+"A boat!"
+
+"Yes, but I knew that all that existed and that there was nothing
+supernatural about that underground lake and boat.  But think of the
+exceptional conditions in which I arrived upon that shore!  I don't
+know whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man's
+shape lifted me into the boat, but my terror began all over again.  My
+gruesome escort must have noticed it, for he sent Cesar back and I
+heard his hoofs trampling up a staircase while the man jumped into the
+boat, untied the rope that held it and seized the oars.  He rowed with
+a quick, powerful stroke; and his eyes, under the mask, never left me.
+We slipped across the noiseless water in the bluey light which I told
+you of; then we were in the dark again and we touched shore.  And I was
+once more taken up in the man's arms.  I cried aloud.  And then,
+suddenly, I was silent, dazed by the light... Yes, a dazzling light in
+the midst of which I had been put down.  I sprang to my feet.  I was in
+the middle of a drawing-room that seemed to me to be decorated, adorned
+and furnished with nothing but flowers, flowers both magnificent and
+stupid, because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like
+those which they sell in the shops on the boulevards.  They were much
+too civilized flowers, like those which I used to find in my
+dressing-room after a first night.  And, in the midst of all these
+flowers, stood the black shape of the man in the mask, with arms
+crossed, and he said, 'Don't be afraid, Christine; you are in no
+danger.' IT WAS THE VOICE!
+
+"My anger equaled my amazement.  I rushed at the mask and tried to
+snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice.  The man said, 'You
+are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.' And, taking me
+gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down on
+his knees before me and said nothing more!  His humility gave me back
+some of my courage; and the light restored me to the realties of life.
+However extraordinary the adventure might be, I was now surrounded by
+mortal, visible, tangible things.  The furniture, the hangings, the
+candles, the vases and the very flowers in their baskets, of which I
+could almost have told whence they came and what they cost, were bound
+to confine my imagination to the limits of a drawing-room quite as
+commonplace as any that, at least, had the excuse of not being in the
+cellars of the Opera.  I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible,
+eccentric person, who, in some mysterious fashion, had succeeded in
+taking up his abode there, under the Opera house, five stories below
+the level of the ground.  And the voice, the voice which I had
+recognized under the mask, was on its knees before me, WAS A MAN!  And
+I began to cry...  The man, still kneeling, must have understood the
+cause of my tears, for he said, 'It is true, Christine! ... I am not an
+Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost ... I am Erik!'"
+
+Christine's narrative was again interrupted.  An echo behind them
+seemed to repeat the word after her.
+
+"Erik!"
+
+What echo? ... They both turned round and saw that night had fallen.
+Raoul made a movement as though to rise, but Christine kept him beside
+her.
+
+"Don't go," she said.  "I want you to know everything HERE!"
+
+"But why here, Christine?  I am afraid of your catching cold."
+
+"We have nothing to fear except the trap-doors, dear, and here we are
+miles away from the trap-doors ... and I am not allowed to see you
+outside the theater.  This is not the time to annoy him.  We must not
+arouse his suspicion."
+
+"Christine!  Christine!  Something tells me that we are wrong to wait
+till to-morrow evening and that we ought to fly at once."
+
+"I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will cause
+him infinite pain."
+
+"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him for
+good."
+
+"You are right in that, Raoul, for certainly he will die of my flight."
+And she added in a dull voice, "But then it counts both ways ...  for
+we risk his killing us."
+
+"Does he love you so much?"
+
+"He would commit murder for me."
+
+"But one can find out where he lives.  One can go in search of him.
+Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him and
+force him to answer!"
+
+Christine shook her head.
+
+"No, no!  There is nothing to be done with Erik except to run away!"
+
+"Then why, when you were able to run away, did you go back to him?"
+
+"Because I had to.  And you will understand that when I tell you how I
+left him."
+
+"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul.  "And you, Christine, tell me, do you
+hate him too?"
+
+"No," said Christine simply.
+
+"No, of course not ...  Why, you love him!  Your fear, your terror, all
+of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind
+which people do not admit even to themselves," said Raoul bitterly.
+"The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it...  Picture it:
+a man who lives in a palace underground!" And he gave a leer.
+
+"Then you want me to go back there?" said the young girl cruelly.
+"Take care, Raoul; I have told you:  I should never return!"
+
+There was an appalling silence between the three of them: the two who
+spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.
+
+"Before answering that," said Raoul, at last, speaking very slowly, "I
+should like to know with what feeling he inspires you, since you do not
+hate him."
+
+"With horror!" she said.  "That is the terrible thing about it.  He
+fills me with horror and I do not hate him.  How can I hate him, Raoul?
+Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground.  He
+accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! ... He
+confesses his cheat.  He loves me!  He lays at my feet an immense and
+tragic love...  He has carried me off for love! ... He has imprisoned
+me with him, underground, for love! ... But he respects me:  he crawls,
+he moans, he weeps! ... And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that
+I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my
+liberty ... he offered it ... he offered to show me the mysterious road
+... Only ... only he rose too ... and I was made to remember that,
+though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the
+voice ... for he sang.  And I listened ... and stayed! ... That night,
+we did not exchange another word.  He sang me to sleep.
+
+"When I woke up, I was alone, lying on a sofa in a simply furnished
+little bedroom, with an ordinary mahogany bedstead, lit by a lamp
+standing on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers.
+I soon discovered that I was a prisoner and that the only outlet from
+my room led to a very comfortable bath-room. On returning to the
+bedroom, I saw on the chest of drawers a note, in red ink, which said,
+'My dear Christine, you need have no concern as to your fate.  You have
+no better nor more respectful friend in the world than myself.  You are
+alone, at present, in this home which is yours.  I am going out
+shopping to fetch you all the things that you can need.' I felt sure
+that I had fallen into the hands of a madman.  I ran round my little
+apartment, looking for a way of escape which I could not find.  I
+upbraided myself for my absurd superstition, which had caused me to
+fall into the trap.  I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the same
+time.
+
+"This was the state of mind in which Erik found me.  After giving three
+taps on the wall, he walked in quietly through a door which I had not
+noticed and which he left open.  He had his arms full of boxes and
+parcels and arranged them on the bed, in a leisurely fashion, while I
+overwhelmed him with abuse and called upon him to take off his mask, if
+it covered the face of an honest man.  He replied serenely, 'You shall
+never see Erik's face.'  And he reproached me with not having finished
+dressing at that time of day: he was good enough to tell me that it was
+two o'clock in the afternoon.  He said he would give me half an hour
+and, while he spoke, wound up my watch and set it for me.  After which,
+he asked me to come to the dining-room, where a nice lunch was waiting
+for us.
+
+"I was very angry, slammed the door in his face and went to the
+bath-room ...  When I came out again, feeling greatly refreshed, Erik
+said that he loved me, but that he would never tell me so except when I
+allowed him and that the rest of the time would be devoted to music.
+'What do you mean by the rest of the time?' I asked.  'Five days,' he
+said, with decision.  I asked him if I should then be free and he said,
+'You will be free, Christine, for, when those five days are past, you
+will have learned not to see me; and then, from time to time, you will
+come to see your poor Erik!' He pointed to a chair opposite him, at a
+small table, and I sat down, feeling greatly perturbed.  However, I ate
+a few prawns and the wing of a chicken and drank half a glass of tokay,
+which he had himself, he told me, brought from the Konigsberg cellars.
+Erik did not eat or drink.  I asked him what his nationality was and if
+that name of Erik did not point to his Scandinavian origin.  He said
+that he had no name and no country and that he had taken the name of
+Erik by accident.
+
+"After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he
+would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and
+gave a cry.  What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony;
+and I remembered that his hands smelt of death.  'Oh, forgive me!' he
+moaned.  And he opened a door before me.  'This is my bedroom, if you
+care to see it.  It is rather curious.' His manners, his words, his
+attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation.  I felt
+as if I were entering the room of a dead person.  The walls were all
+hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set
+off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with
+the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated.  In the middle of the
+room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and,
+under the canopy, an open coffin.  'That is where I sleep,' said Erik.
+'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.'  The
+sight upset me so much that I turned away my head.
+
+"Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the
+walls.  On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes.  I asked
+leave to look at it and read, 'Don Juan Triumphant.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I
+compose sometimes.'  I began that work twenty years ago.  When I have
+finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up
+again.'  'You must work at it as seldom as you can,' I said.  He
+replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together,
+during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a
+time.'  'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?' I
+asked, thinking to please him.  'You must never ask me that,' he said,
+in a gloomy voice.  'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will
+only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is
+not struck by fire from Heaven.'  Thereupon we returned to the
+drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole
+apartment.  I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat
+down to the piano.  He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music
+that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it.
+Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose
+all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to
+Paris.  Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.' He spoke
+these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words.  We at
+once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us.
+I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed
+before.  As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at
+every note.  Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing
+cries.  Erik's black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor
+of Venice.  He was Othello himself.  Suddenly, I felt a need to see
+beneath the mask.  I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a
+movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore
+away the mask.  Oh, horror, horror, horror!"
+
+Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her,
+while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now
+thrice moaned the cry:
+
+"Horror! ... Horror! ... Horror!"
+
+Raoul and Christine, clasping each other closely, raised their eyes to
+the stars that shone in a clear and peaceful sky.  Raoul said:
+
+"Strange, Christine, that this calm, soft night should be so full of
+plaintive sounds.  One would think that it was sorrowing with us."
+
+"When you know the secret, Raoul, your ears, like mine, will be full of
+lamentations."
+
+She took Raoul's protecting hands in hers and, with a long shiver,
+continued:
+
+"Yes, if I lived to be a hundred, I should always hear the superhuman
+cry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appeared
+before my eyes ...  Raoul, you have seen death's heads, when they have
+been dried and withered by the centuries, and, perhaps, if you were not
+the victim of a nightmare, you saw HIS death's head at Perros.  And
+then you saw Red Death stalking about at the last masked ball.  But all
+those death's heads were motionless and their dumb horror was not
+alive.  But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming to
+life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its
+nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; AND
+NOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later, you can
+not see his blazing eyes except in the dark.
+
+"I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his teeth,
+and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words and
+curses at me.  Leaning over me, he cried, 'Look! You want to see!  See!
+Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness!  Look at Erik's
+face!  Now you know the face of the voice!  You were not content to
+hear me, eh?  You wanted to know what I looked like!  Oh, you women are
+so inquisitive!  Well, are you satisfied?  I'm a very good-looking
+fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to
+me.  She loves me for ever.  I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!'  And,
+drawing himself up to his full height, with his hand on his hip,
+wagging the hideous thing that was his head on his shoulders, he
+roared, 'Look at me!  I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turned
+away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally,
+twisting his dead fingers into my hair."
+
+"Enough!  Enough!" cried Raoul.  "I will kill him.  In Heaven's name,
+Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is!  I must kill
+him!"
+
+"Oh, be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know!"
+
+"Yes, I want to know how and why you went back; I must know! ...  But,
+in any case, I will kill him!"
+
+"Oh, Raoul, listen, listen! ... He dragged me by my hair and then ...
+and then ... Oh, it is too horrible!"
+
+"Well, what?  Out with it!" exclaimed Raoul fiercely.  "Out with it,
+quick!"
+
+"Then he hissed at me.  'Ah, I frighten you, do I? ... I dare say! ...
+Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... this
+... my head is a mask?  Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the
+other!  Come!  Come along!  I insist!  Your hands!  Your hands!  Give
+me your hands!'  And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful
+face.  He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh
+with my nails! ... 'Know,' he shouted, while his throat throbbed and
+panted like a furnace, 'know that I am built up of death from head to
+foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will
+never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying,
+crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore
+can never leave me again! ... As long as you thought me handsome, you
+could have come back, I know you would have come back ... but, now that
+you know my hideousness, you would run away for good... So I shall keep
+you here! ... Why did you want to see me?  Oh, mad Christine, who
+wanted to see me! ... When my own father never saw me and when my
+mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!'
+
+"He had let go of me at last and was dragging himself about on the
+floor, uttering terrible sobs. And then he crawled away like a snake,
+went into his room, closed the door and left me alone to my
+reflections.  Presently I heard the sound of the organ; and then I
+began to understand Erik's contemptuous phrase when he spoke about
+Opera music.  What I now heard was utterly different from what I had
+heard up to then.  His Don Juan Triumphant (for I had not a doubt but
+that he had rushed to his masterpiece to forget the horror of the
+moment) seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob.  But,
+little by little, it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which
+mankind is capable.  It intoxicated me; and I opened the door that
+separated us.  Erik rose, as I entered, BUT DARED NOT TURN IN MY
+DIRECTION.  'Erik,' I cried, 'show me your face without fear!  I swear
+that you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I
+shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the
+splendor of your genius!'  Then Erik turned round, for he believed me,
+and I also had faith in myself.  He fell at my feet, with words of love
+...  with words of love in his dead mouth ... and the music had ceased
+...  He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my
+eyes.
+
+"What more can I tell you, dear?  You now know the tragedy.  It went on
+for a fortnight--a fortnight during which I lied to him.  My lies were
+as hideous as the monster who inspired them; but they were the price of
+my liberty.  I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even when
+he was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its
+master.  He was my faithful slave and paid me endless little
+attentions.  Gradually, I gave him such confidence that he ventured to
+take me walking on the banks of the lake and to row me in the boat on
+its leaden waters; toward the end of my captivity he let me out through
+the gates that closed the underground passages in the Rue Scribe.  Here
+a carriage awaited us and took us to the Bois.  The night when we met
+you was nearly fatal to me, for he is terribly jealous of you and I had
+to tell him that you were soon going away ...  Then, at last, after a
+fortnight of that horrible captivity, during which I was filled with
+pity, enthusiasm, despair and horror by turns, he believed me when I
+said, 'I WILL COME BACK!'"
+
+"And you went back, Christine," groaned Raoul.
+
+"Yes, dear, and I must tell you that it was not his frightful threats
+when setting me free that helped me to keep my word, but the harrowing
+sob which he gave on the threshold of the tomb.  ...  That sob attached
+me to the unfortunate man more than I myself suspected when saying
+good-by to him.  Poor Erik!  Poor Erik!"
+
+"Christine," said Raoul, rising, "you tell me that you love me; but you
+had recovered your liberty hardly a few hours before you returned to
+Erik!  Remember the masked ball!"
+
+"Yes; and do you remember those hours which I passed with you, Raoul
+... to the great danger of both of us?"
+
+"I doubted your love for me, during those hours."
+
+"Do you doubt it still, Raoul? ... Then know that each of my visits to
+Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of
+calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love!  And I am so
+frightened, so frightened! ..."
+
+"You are frightened ... but do you love me?  If Erik were good-looking,
+would you love me, Christine?"
+
+She rose in her turn, put her two trembling arms round the young man's
+neck and said:
+
+"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give you
+my lips!  Take them, for the first time and the last."
+
+He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent
+asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes, filled
+with dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared, high up above
+them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes
+and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII  A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover
+
+
+Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof and the blazing
+eyes that showed only in the dark; and they did not stop before they
+came to the eighth floor on the way down.
+
+There was no performance at the Opera that night and the passages were
+empty.  Suddenly, a queer-looking form stood before them and blocked
+the road:
+
+"No, not this way!"
+
+And the form pointed to another passage by which they were to reach the
+wings.  Raoul wanted to stop and ask for an explanation.  But the form,
+which wore a sort of long frock-coat and a pointed cap, said:
+
+"Quick!  Go away quickly!"
+
+Christine was already dragging Raoul, compelling him to start running
+again.
+
+"But who is he?  Who is that man?" he asked.
+
+Christine replied:  "It's the Persian."
+
+"What's he doing here?"
+
+"Nobody knows.  He is always in the Opera."
+
+"You are making me run away, for the first time in my life.  If we
+really saw Erik, what I ought to have done was to nail him to Apollo's
+lyre, just as we nail the owls to the walls of our Breton farms; and
+there would have been no more question of him."
+
+"My dear Raoul, you would first have had to climb up to Apollo's lyre:
+that is no easy matter."
+
+"The blazing eyes were there!"
+
+"Oh, you are getting like me now, seeing him everywhere!  What I took
+for blazing eyes was probably a couple of stars shining through the
+strings of the lyre."
+
+And Christine went down another floor, with Raoul following her.
+
+"As you have quite made up your mind to go, Christine, I assure you it
+would be better to go at once.  Why wait for to-morrow? He may have
+heard us to-night."
+
+"No, no, he is working, I tell you, at his Don Juan Triumphant and not
+thinking of us."
+
+"You're so sure of that you keep on looking behind you!"
+
+"Come to my dressing-room."
+
+"Hadn't we better meet outside the Opera?"
+
+"Never, till we go away for good!  It would bring us bad luck, if I did
+not keep my word.  I promised him to see you only here."
+
+"It's a good thing for me that he allowed you even that.  Do you know,"
+said Raoul bitterly, "that it was very plucky of you to let us play at
+being engaged?"
+
+"Why, my dear, he knows all about it!  He said, 'I trust you,
+Christine.  M. de Chagny is in love with you and is going abroad.
+Before he goes, I want him to be as happy as I am.'  Are people so
+unhappy when they love?"
+
+"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved."
+
+They came to Christine's dressing-room.
+
+"Why do you think that you are safer in this room than on the stage?"
+asked Raoul.  "You heard him through the walls here, therefore he can
+certainly hear us."
+
+"No. He gave me his word not to be behind the walls of my dressing-room
+again and I believe Erik's word.  This room and my bedroom on the lake
+are for me, exclusively, and not to be approached by him."
+
+"How can you have gone from this room into that dark passage,
+Christine?  Suppose we try to repeat your movements; shall we?"
+
+"It is dangerous, dear, for the glass might carry me off again; and,
+instead of running away, I should be obliged to go to the end of the
+secret passage to the lake and there call Erik."
+
+"Would he hear you?"
+
+"Erik will hear me wherever I call him.  He told me so.  He is a very
+curious genius.  You must not think, Raoul, that he is simply a man who
+amuses himself by living underground.  He does things that no other man
+could do; he knows things which nobody in the world knows."
+
+"Take care, Christine, you are making a ghost of him again!"
+
+"No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all."
+
+"A man of Heaven and earth ... that is all! ... A nice way to speak of
+him! ... And are you still resolved to run away from him?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow, you will have no resolve left!"
+
+"Then, Raoul, you must run away with me in spite of myself; is that
+understood?"
+
+"I shall be here at twelve to-morrow night; I shall keep my promise,
+whatever happens.  You say that, after listening to the performance, he
+is to wait for you in the dining-room on the lake?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And how are you to reach him, if you don't know how to go out by the
+glass?"
+
+"Why, by going straight to the edge of the lake."
+
+Christine opened a box, took out an enormous key and showed it to Raoul.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The key of the gate to the underground passage in the Rue Scribe."
+
+"I understand, Christine.  It leads straight to the lake.  Give it to
+me, Christine, will you?"
+
+"Never!" she said.  "That would be treacherous!"
+
+Suddenly Christine changed color.  A mortal pallor overspread her
+features.
+
+"Oh heavens!" she cried.  "Erik!  Erik!  Have pity on me!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" said Raoul.  "You told me he could hear you!"
+
+But the singer's attitude became more and more inexplicable.  She wrung
+her fingers, repeating, with a distraught air:
+
+"Oh, Heaven!  Oh, Heaven!"
+
+"But what is it?  What is it?"  Raoul implored.
+
+"The ring ... the gold ring he gave me."
+
+"Oh, so Erik gave you that ring!"
+
+"You know he did, Raoul!  But what you don't know is that, when he gave
+it to me, he said, 'I give you back your liberty, Christine, on
+condition that this ring is always on your finger.  As long as you keep
+it, you will be protected against all danger and Erik will remain your
+friend.  But woe to you if you ever part with it, for Erik will have
+his revenge!' ... My dear, my dear, the ring is gone! ... Woe to us
+both!"
+
+They both looked for the ring, but could not find it.  Christine
+refused to be pacified.
+
+"It was while I gave you that kiss, up above, under Apollo's lyre," she
+said.  "The ring must have slipped from my finger and dropped into the
+street!  We can never find it.  And what misfortunes are in store for
+us now!  Oh, to run away!"
+
+"Let us run away at once," Raoul insisted, once more.
+
+She hesitated.  He thought that she was going to say yes...  Then her
+bright pupils became dimmed and she said:
+
+"No!  To-morrow!"
+
+And she left him hurriedly, still wringing and rubbing her fingers, as
+though she hoped to bring the ring back like that.
+
+Raoul went home, greatly perturbed at all that he had heard.
+
+[Illustration: They Sat Like that for a Moment in Silence]
+
+"If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as
+he went to bed, "she is lost.  But I shall save her."
+
+He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark.  Thrice
+over, he shouted:
+
+"Humbug! ... Humbug! ... Humbug!"
+
+But, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow.  A cold sweat poured
+from his temples.  Two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared at the
+foot of his bed.  They stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the darkness
+of the night.
+
+Raoul was no coward; and yet he trembled.  He put out a groping,
+hesitating hand toward the table by his bedside.  He found the matches
+and lit his candle.  The eyes disappeared.
+
+Still uneasy in his mind, he thought to himself:
+
+"She told me that HIS eyes only showed in the dark.  His eyes have
+disappeared in the light, but HE may be there still."
+
+And he rose, hunted about, went round the room.  He looked under his
+bed, like a child.  Then he thought himself absurd, got into bed again
+and blew out the candle.  The eyes reappeared.
+
+He sat up and stared back at them with all the courage he possessed.
+Then he cried:
+
+"Is that you, Erik?  Man, genius, or ghost, is it you?"
+
+He reflected:  "If it's he, he's on the balcony!"
+
+Then he ran to the chest of drawers and groped for his revolver.  He
+opened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and closed the
+window again.  He went back to bed, shivering, for the night was cold,
+and put the revolver on the table within his reach.
+
+The eyes were still there, at the foot of the bed.  Were they between
+the bed and the window-pane or behind the pane, that is to say, on the
+balcony?  That was what Raoul wanted to know.  He also wanted to know
+if those eyes belonged to a human being... He wanted to know
+everything.  Then, patiently, calmly, he seized his revolver and took
+aim.  He aimed a little above the two eyes.  Surely, if they were eyes
+and if above those two eyes there was a forehead and if Raoul was not
+too clumsy ...
+
+The shot made a terrible din amid the silence of the slumbering house.
+And, while footsteps came hurrying along the passages, Raoul sat up
+with outstretched arm, ready to fire again, if need be.
+
+This time, the two eyes had disappeared.
+
+Servants appeared, carrying lights; Count Philippe, terribly anxious:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I think I have been dreaming," replied the young man.  "I fired at two
+stars that kept me from sleeping."
+
+"You're raving!  Are you ill?  For God's sake, tell me, Raoul: what
+happened?"
+
+And the count seized hold of the revolver.
+
+"No, no, I'm not raving...  Besides, we shall soon see ..."
+
+He got out of bed, put on a dressing-gown and slippers, took a light
+from the hands of a servant and, opening the window, stepped out on the
+balcony.
+
+The count saw that the window had been pierced by a bullet at a man's
+height.  Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle: "Aha!" he
+said.  "Blood! ... Blood! ... Here, there, more blood!  ...  That's a
+good thing!  A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!" he grinned.
+
+"Raoul!  Raoul!  Raoul!"
+
+The count was shaking him as though he were trying to waken a
+sleep-walker.
+
+"But, my dear brother, I'm not asleep!"  Raoul protested impatiently.
+"You can see the blood for yourself.  I thought I had been dreaming and
+firing at two stars.  It was Erik's eyes ... and here is his blood! ...
+After all, perhaps I was wrong to shoot; and Christine is quite capable
+of never forgiving me ...  All this would not have happened if I had
+drawn the curtains before going to bed."
+
+"Raoul, have you suddenly gone mad?  Wake up!"
+
+"What, still?  You would do better to help me find Erik ... for, after
+all, a ghost who bleeds can always be found."
+
+The count's valet said:
+
+"That is so, sir; there is blood on the balcony."
+
+The other man-servant brought a lamp, by the light of which they
+examined the balcony carefully.  The marks of blood followed the rail
+till they reached a gutter-spout; then they went up the gutter-spout.
+
+"My dear fellow," said Count Philippe, "you have fired at a cat."
+
+"The misfortune is," said Raoul, with a grin, "that it's quite
+possible.  With Erik, you never know.  Is it Erik?  Is it the cat?  Is
+it the ghost?  No, with Erik, you can't tell!"
+
+Raoul went on making this strange sort of remarks which corresponded so
+intimately and logically with the preoccupation of his brain and which,
+at the same time, tended to persuade many people that his mind was
+unhinged.  The count himself was seized with this idea; and, later, the
+examining magistrate, on receiving the report of the commissary of
+police, came to the same conclusion.
+
+"Who is Erik?" asked the count, pressing his brother's hand.
+
+"He is my rival.  And, if he's not dead, it's a pity."
+
+He dismissed the servants with a wave of the hand and the two Chagnys
+were left alone.  But the men were not out of earshot before the
+count's valet heard Raoul say, distinctly and emphatically:
+
+"I shall carry off Christine Daae to-night."
+
+This phrase was afterward repeated to M. Faure, the
+examining-magistrate.  But no one ever knew exactly what passed between
+the two brothers at this interview.  The servants declared that this
+was not their first quarrel.  Their voices penetrated the wall; and it
+was always an actress called Christine Daae that was in question.
+
+At breakfast--the early morning breakfast, which the count took in his
+study--Philippe sent for his brother.  Raoul arrived silent and gloomy.
+The scene was a very short one.  Philippe handed his brother a copy of
+the Epoque and said:
+
+"Read that!"
+
+The viscount read:
+
+"The latest news in the Faubourg is that there is a promise of marriage
+between Mlle. Christine Daae, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte Raoul
+de Chagny.  If the gossips are to be credited, Count Philippe has sworn
+that, for the first time on record, the Chagnys shall not keep their
+promise.  But, as love is all-powerful, at the Opera as--and even more
+than--elsewhere, we wonder how Count Philippe intends to prevent the
+viscount, his brother, from leading the new Margarita to the altar.
+The two brothers are said to adore each other; but the count is
+curiously mistaken if he imagines that brotherly love will triumph over
+love pure and simple."
+
+"You see, Raoul," said the count, "you are making us ridiculous!  That
+little girl has turned your head with her ghost-stories."
+
+The viscount had evidently repeated Christine's narrative to his
+brother, during the night.  All that he now said was:
+
+"Good-by, Philippe."
+
+"Have you quite made up your mind?  You are going to-night? With her?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Surely you will not do anything so foolish?  I SHALL know how to
+prevent you!"
+
+"Good-by, Philippe," said the viscount again and left the room.
+
+This scene was described to the examining-magistrate by the count
+himself, who did not see Raoul again until that evening, at the Opera,
+a few minutes before Christine's disappearance.
+
+Raoul, in fact, devoted the whole day to his preparations for the
+flight.  The horses, the carriage, the coachman, the provisions, the
+luggage, the money required for the journey, the road to be taken (he
+had resolved not to go by train, so as to throw the ghost off the
+scent): all this had to be settled and provided for; and it occupied
+him until nine o'clock at night.
+
+At nine o'clock, a sort of traveling-barouche with the curtains of its
+windows close-down, took its place in the rank on the Rotunda side.  It
+was drawn by two powerful horses driven by a coachman whose face was
+almost concealed in the long folds of a muffler.  In front of this
+traveling-carriage were three broughams, belonging respectively to
+Carlotta, who had suddenly returned to Paris, to Sorelli and, at the
+head of the rank, to Comte Philippe de Chagny.  No one left the
+barouche.  The coachman remained on his box, and the three other
+coachmen remained on theirs.
+
+A shadow in a long black cloak and a soft black felt hat passed along
+the pavement between the Rotunda and the carriages, examined the
+barouche carefully, went up to the horses and the coachman and then
+moved away without saying a word, The magistrate afterward believed
+that this shadow was that of the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny; but I do not
+agree, seeing that that evening, as every evening, the Vicomte de
+Chagny was wearing a tall hat, which hat, besides, was subsequently
+found.  I am more inclined to think that the shadow was that of the
+ghost, who knew all about the whole affair, as the reader will soon
+perceive.
+
+They were giving FAUST, as it happened, before a splendid house.  The
+Faubourg was magnificently represented; and the paragraph in that
+morning's EPOQUE had already produced its effect, for all eyes were
+turned to the box in which Count Philippe sat alone, apparently in a
+very indifferent and careless frame of mind.  The feminine element in
+the brilliant audience seemed curiously puzzled; and the viscount's
+absence gave rise to any amount of whispering behind the fans.
+Christine Daae met with a rather cold reception.  That special audience
+could not forgive her for aiming so high.
+
+The singer noticed this unfavorable attitude of a portion of the house
+and was confused by it.
+
+The regular frequenters of the Opera, who pretended to know the truth
+about the viscount's love-story, exchanged significant smiles at
+certain passages in Margarita's part; and they made a show of turning
+and looking at Philippe de Chagny's box when Christine sang:
+
+        "I wish I could but know who was he
+        That addressed me,
+        If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is."
+
+The count sat with his chin on his hand and seemed to pay no attention
+to these manifestations.  He kept his eyes fixed on the stage; but his
+thoughts appeared to be far away.
+
+Christine lost her self-assurance more and more.  She trembled.  She
+felt on the verge of a breakdown ...  Carolus Fonta wondered if she was
+ill, if she could keep the stage until the end of the Garden Act.  In
+the front of the house, people remembered the catastrophe that had
+befallen Carlotta at the end of that act and the historic "co-ack"
+which had momentarily interrupted her career in Paris.
+
+Just then, Carlotta made her entrance in a box facing the stage, a
+sensational entrance.  Poor Christine raised her eyes upon this fresh
+subject of excitement.  She recognized her rival.  She thought she saw
+a sneer on her lips.  That saved her.  She forgot everything, in order
+to triumph once more.
+
+From that moment the prima donna sang with all her heart and soul.  She
+tried to surpass all that she had done till then; and she succeeded.
+In the last act when she began the invocation to the angels, she made
+all the members of the audience feel as though they too had wings.
+
+In the center of the amphitheater a man stood up and remained standing,
+facing the singer.  It was Raoul.
+
+"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed ..."
+
+And Christine, her arms outstretched, her throat filled with music, the
+glory of her hair falling over her bare shoulders, uttered the divine
+cry:
+
+"My spirit longs with thee to rest!"
+
+It was at that moment that the stage was suddenly plunged in darkness.
+It happened so quickly that the spectators hardly had time to utter a
+sound of stupefaction, for the gas at once lit up the stage again.  But
+Christine Daae was no longer there!
+
+What had become of her?  What was that miracle?  All exchanged glances
+without understanding, and the excitement at once reached its height.
+Nor was the tension any less great on the stage itself.  Men rushed
+from the wings to the spot where Christine had been singing that very
+instant.  The performance was interrupted amid the greatest disorder.
+
+Where had Christine gone?  What witchcraft had snatched her, away
+before the eyes of thousands of enthusiastic onlookers and from the
+arms of Carolus Fonta himself?  It was as though the angels had really
+carried her up "to rest."
+
+Raoul, still standing up in the amphitheater, had uttered a cry.  Count
+Philippe had sprung to his feet in his box.  People looked at the
+stage, at the count, at Raoul, and wondered if this curious event was
+connected in any way with the paragraph in that morning's paper.  But
+Raoul hurriedly left his seat, the count disappeared from his box and,
+while the curtain was lowered, the subscribers rushed to the door that
+led behind the scenes.  The rest of the audience waited amid an
+indescribable hubbub.  Every one spoke at once.  Every one tried to
+suggest an explanation of the extraordinary incident.
+
+At last, the curtain rose slowly and Carolus Fonta stepped to the
+conductor's desk and, in a sad and serious voice, said:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has taken place and
+thrown us into a state of the greatest alarm.  Our sister-artist,
+Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and nobody can tell us
+how!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV  The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin
+
+
+Behind the curtain, there was an indescribable crowd.  Artists,
+scene-shifters, dancers, supers, choristers, subscribers were all
+asking questions, shouting and hustling one another.
+
+"What became of her?"
+
+"She's run away."
+
+"With the Vicomte de Chagny, of course!"
+
+"No, with the count!"
+
+"Ah, here's Carlotta!  Carlotta did the trick!"
+
+"No, it was the ghost!"  And a few laughed, especially as a careful
+examination of the trap-doors and boards had put the idea of an
+accident out of the question.
+
+Amid this noisy throng, three men stood talking in a low voice and with
+despairing gestures.  They were Gabriel, the chorus-master; Mercier,
+the acting-manager; and Remy, the secretary.  They retired to a corner
+of the lobby by which the stage communicates with the wide passage
+leading to the foyer of the ballet.  Here they stood and argued behind
+some enormous "properties."
+
+"I knocked at the door," said Remy.  "They did not answer.  Perhaps
+they are not in the office.  In any case, it's impossible to find out,
+for they took the keys with them."
+
+"They" were obviously the managers, who had given orders, during the
+last entr'acte, that they were not to be disturbed on any pretext
+whatever.  They were not in to anybody.
+
+"All the same," exclaimed Gabriel, "a singer isn't run away with, from
+the middle of the stage, every day!"
+
+"Did you shout that to them?" asked Mercier, impatiently.
+
+"I'll go back again," said Remy, and disappeared at a run.
+
+Thereupon the stage-manager arrived.
+
+"Well, M. Mercier, are you coming?  What are you two doing here?
+You're wanted, Mr. Acting-Manager."
+
+"I refuse to know or to do anything before the commissary arrives,"
+declared Mercier.  "I have sent for Mifroid.  We shall see when he
+comes!"
+
+"And I tell you that you ought to go down to the organ at once."
+
+"Not before the commissary comes."
+
+"I've been down to the organ myself already."
+
+"Ah!  And what did you see?"
+
+"Well, I saw nobody!  Do you hear--nobody!"
+
+"What do you want me to do down there for{sic}?"
+
+"You're right!" said the stage-manager, frantically pushing his hands
+through his rebellious hair.  "You're right!  But there might be some
+one at the organ who could tell us how the stage came to be suddenly
+darkened.  Now Mauclair is nowhere to be found.  Do you understand
+that?"
+
+Mauclair was the gas-man, who dispensed day and night at will on the
+stage of the Opera.
+
+"Mauclair is not to be found!" repeated Mercier, taken aback.  "Well,
+what about his assistants?"
+
+"There's no Mauclair and no assistants!  No one at the lights, I tell
+you!  You can imagine," roared the stage-manager, "that that little
+girl must have been carried off by somebody else:  she didn't run away
+by herself!  It was a calculated stroke and we have to find out about
+it ...  And what are the managers doing all this time?  ...  I gave
+orders that no one was to go down to the lights and I posted a fireman
+in front of the gas-man's box beside the organ.  Wasn't that right?"
+
+"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right.  And now let's wait for the
+commissary."
+
+The stage-manager walked away, shrugging his shoulders, fuming,
+muttering insults at those milksops who remained quietly squatting in a
+corner while the whole theater was topsyturvy{sic}.
+
+Gabriel and Mercier were not so quiet as all that.  Only they had
+received an order that paralyzed them.  The managers were not to be
+disturbed on any account.  Remy had violated that order and met with no
+success.
+
+At that moment he returned from his new expedition, wearing a curiously
+startled air.
+
+"Well, have you seen them?" asked Mercier.
+
+"Moncharmin opened the door at last.  His eyes were starting out of his
+head.  I thought he meant to strike me.  I could not get a word in; and
+what do you think he shouted at me?  'Have you a safety-pin?' 'No!'
+'Well, then, clear out!'  I tried to tell him that an unheard-of thing
+had happened on the stage, but he roared, 'A safety-pin! Give me a
+safety-pin at once!'  A boy heard him--he was bellowing like a
+bull--ran up with a safety-pin and gave it to him; whereupon Moncharmin
+slammed the door in my face, and there you are!"
+
+"And couldn't you have said, 'Christine Daae.'"
+
+"I should like to have seen you in my place.  He was foaming at the
+mouth.  He thought of nothing but his safety-pin. I believe, if they
+hadn't brought him one on the spot, he would have fallen down in a fit!
+... Oh, all this isn't natural; and our managers are going mad! ...
+Besides, it can't go on like this!  I'm not used to being treated in
+that fashion!"
+
+Suddenly Gabriel whispered:
+
+"It's another trick of O. G.'s."
+
+Rimy gave a grin, Mercier a sigh and seemed about to speak ... but,
+meeting Gabriel's eye, said nothing.
+
+However, Mercier felt his responsibility increased as the minutes
+passed without the managers' appearing; and, at last, he could stand it
+no longer.
+
+"Look here, I'll go and hunt them out myself!"
+
+Gabriel, turning very gloomy and serious, stopped him.
+
+"Be careful what you're doing, Mercier!  If they're staying in their
+office, it's probably because they have to!  O. G. has more than one
+trick in his bag!"
+
+But Mercier shook his head.
+
+"That's their lookout!  I'm going!  If people had listened to me, the
+police would have known everything long ago!"
+
+And he went.
+
+"What's everything?" asked Remy.  "What was there to tell the police?
+Why don't you answer, Gabriel? ... Ah, so you know something!  Well,
+you would do better to tell me, too, if you don't want me to shout out
+that you are all going mad! ... Yes, that's what you are:  mad!"
+
+Gabriel put on a stupid look and pretended not to understand the
+private secretary's unseemly outburst.
+
+"What 'something' am I supposed to know?" he said.  "I don't know what
+you mean."
+
+Remy began to lose his temper.
+
+"This evening, Richard and Moncharmin were behaving like lunatics,
+here, between the acts."
+
+"I never noticed it," growled Gabriel, very much annoyed.
+
+"Then you're the only one! ... Do you think that I didn't see them? ...
+And that M. Parabise, the manager of the Credit Central, noticed
+nothing? ... And that M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, has no eyes to
+see with? ... Why, all the subscribers were pointing at our managers!"
+
+"But what were our managers doing?" asked Gabriel, putting on his most
+innocent air.
+
+"What were they doing?  You know better than any one what they were
+doing! ... You were there! ... And you were watching them, you and
+Mercier! ... And you were the only two who didn't laugh."
+
+"I don't understand!"
+
+Gabriel raised his arms and dropped them to his sides again, which
+gesture was meant to convey that the question did not interest him in
+the least.  Remy continued:
+
+"What is the sense of this new mania of theirs?  WHY WON'T THEY HAVE
+ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM NOW?"
+
+"What?  WON'T THEY HAVE ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM?"
+
+"AND THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH THEM!"
+
+"Really?  Have you noticed THAT THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH THEM?
+That is certainly odd!"
+
+"Oh, so you admit it!  And high time, too!  And THEN, THEY WALK
+BACKWARD!"
+
+"BACKWARD!  You have seen our managers WALK BACKWARD?  Why, I thought
+that only crabs walked backward!"
+
+"Don't laugh, Gabriel; don't laugh!"
+
+"I'm not laughing," protested Gabriel, looking as solemn as a judge.
+
+"Perhaps you can tell me this, Gabriel, as you're an intimate friend of
+the management:  When I went up to M. Richard, outside the foyer,
+during the Garden interval, with my hand out before me, why did M.
+Moncharmin hurriedly whisper to me, 'Go away!  Go away!  Whatever you
+do, don't touch M. le Directeur!'  Am I supposed to have an infectious
+disease?"
+
+"It's incredible!"
+
+"And, a little later, when M. de La Borderie went up to M. Richard,
+didn't you see M. Moncharmin fling himself between them and hear him
+exclaim, 'M. l'Ambassadeur I entreat you not to touch M. le Directeur'?"
+
+"It's terrible! ... And what was Richard doing meanwhile?"
+
+"What was he doing?  Why, you saw him!  He turned about, BOWED IN FRONT
+OF HIM, THOUGH THERE WAS NOBODY IN FRONT OF HIM, AND WITHDREW BACKWARD."
+
+"BACKWARD?"
+
+"And Moncharmin, behind Richard, also turned about; that is, he
+described a semicircle behind Richard and also WALKED BACKWARD! ... And
+they went LIKE THAT to the staircase leading to the managers' office:
+BACKWARD, BACKWARD, BACKWARD!  ...  Well, if they are not mad, will you
+explain what it means?"
+
+"Perhaps they were practising a figure in the ballet," suggested
+Gabriel, without much conviction in his voice.
+
+The secretary was furious at this wretched joke, made at so dramatic a
+moment.  He knit his brows and contracted his lips.  Then he put his
+mouth to Gabriel's ear:
+
+"Don't be so sly, Gabriel.  There are things going on for which you and
+Mercier are partly responsible."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gabriel.
+
+"Christine Daae is not the only one who suddenly disappeared to-night."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"There's no nonsense about it.  Perhaps you can tell me why, when
+Mother Giry came down to the foyer just now, Mercier took her by the
+hand and hurried her away with him?"
+
+"Really?" said Gabriel, "I never saw it."
+
+"You did see it, Gabriel, for you went with Mercier and Mother Giry to
+Mercier's office.  Since then, you and Mercier have been seen, but no
+one has seen Mother Giry."
+
+"Do you think we've eaten her?"
+
+"No, but you've locked her up in the office; and any one passing the
+office can hear her yelling, 'Oh, the scoundrels!  Oh, the scoundrels!'"
+
+At this point of this singular conversation, Mercier arrived, all out
+of breath.
+
+"There!" he said, in a gloomy voice.  "It's worse than ever! ...  I
+shouted, 'It's a serious matter!  Open the door!  It's I, Mercier.' I
+heard footsteps.  The door opened and Moncharmin appeared.  He was very
+pale.  He said, 'What do you want?'  I answered, 'Some one has run away
+with Christine Daae.'  What do you think he said?  'And a good job,
+too!'  And he shut the door, after putting this in my hand."
+
+Mercier opened his hand; Remy and Gabriel looked.
+
+"The safety-pin!" cried Remy.
+
+"Strange!  Strange!" muttered Gabriel, who could not help shivering.
+
+Suddenly a voice made them all three turn round.
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen.  Could you tell me where Christine Daae
+is?"
+
+In spite of the seriousness of the circumstances, the absurdity of the
+question would have made them roar with laughter, if they had not
+caught sight of a face so sorrow-stricken that they were at once seized
+with pity.  It was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.
+
+
+
+Chapter XV  Christine!  Christine!
+
+
+Raoul's first thought, after Christine Daae's fantastic disappearance,
+was to accuse Erik.  He no longer doubted the almost supernatural
+powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in which he
+had set up his empire.  And Raoul rushed on the stage, in a mad fit of
+love and despair.
+
+"Christine!  Christine!" he moaned, calling to her as he felt that she
+must be calling to him from the depths of that dark pit to which the
+monster had carried her.  "Christine!  Christine!"
+
+And he seemed to hear the girl's screams through the frail boards that
+separated him from her.  He bent forward, he listened, ... he wandered
+over the stage like a madman.  Ah, to descend, to descend into that pit
+of darkness every entrance to which was closed to him, ... for the
+stairs that led below the stage were forbidden to one and all that
+night!
+
+"Christine!  Christine! ..."
+
+People pushed him aside, laughing.  They made fun of him.  They thought
+the poor lover's brain was gone!
+
+By what mad road, through what passages of mystery and darkness known
+to him alone had Erik dragged that pure-souled child to the awful
+haunt, with the Louis-Philippe room, opening out on the lake?
+
+"Christine!  Christine! ... Why don't you answer? ... Are you alive?
+..."
+
+Hideous thoughts flashed through Raoul's congested brain.  Of course,
+Erik must have discovered their secret, must have known that Christine
+had played him false.  What a vengeance would be his!
+
+And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come, the night
+before, and roamed over his balcony.  Why had he not put them out for
+good?  There were some men's eyes that dilated in the darkness and
+shone like stars or like cats' eyes.  Certainly Albinos, who seemed to
+have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night: everybody knew
+that! ... Yes, yes, he had undoubtedly fired at Erik.  Why had he not
+killed him?  The monster had fled up the gutter-spout like a cat or a
+convict who--everybody knew that also--would scale the very skies, with
+the help of a gutter-spout ...  No doubt Erik was at that time
+contemplating some decisive step against Raoul, but he had been wounded
+and had escaped to turn against poor Christine instead.
+
+Such were the cruel thoughts that haunted Raoul as he ran to the
+singer's dressing-room.
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+Bitter tears scorched the boy's eyelids as he saw scattered over the
+furniture the clothes which his beautiful bride was to have worn at the
+hour of their flight.  Oh, why had she refused to leave earlier?
+
+Why had she toyed with the threatening catastrophe?  Why toyed with the
+monster's heart?  Why, in a final access of pity, had she insisted on
+flinging, as a last sop to that demon's soul, her divine song:
+
+            "Holy angel, in Heaven blessed,
+            My spirit longs with thee to rest!"
+
+Raoul, his throat filled with sobs, oaths and insults, fumbled
+awkwardly at the great mirror that had opened one night, before his
+eyes, to let Christine pass to the murky dwelling below.  He pushed,
+pressed, groped about, but the glass apparently obeyed no one but Erik
+...  Perhaps actions were not enough with a glass of the kind?  Perhaps
+he was expected to utter certain words?  When he was a little boy, he
+had heard that there were things that obeyed the spoken word!
+
+Suddenly, Raoul remembered something about a gate opening into the Rue
+Scribe, an underground passage running straight to the Rue Scribe from
+the lake ...  Yes, Christine had told him about that...  And, when he
+found that the key was no longer in the box, he nevertheless ran to the
+Rue Scribe.  Outside, in the street, he passed his trembling hands over
+the huge stones, felt for outlets ... met with iron bars ... were those
+they? ... Or these? ...  Or could it be that air-hole? ... He plunged
+his useless eyes through the bars ...  How dark it was in there! ... He
+listened ...  All was silence! ... He went round the building ... and
+came to bigger bars, immense gates! ... It was the entrance to the Cour
+de l'Administration.
+
+Raoul rushed into the doorkeeper's lodge.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame, could you tell me where to find a gate or
+door, made of bars, iron bars, opening into the Rue Scribe ...  and
+leading to the lake? ... You know the lake I mean? ... Yes, the
+underground lake ... under the Opera."
+
+"Yes, sir, I know there is a lake under the Opera, but I don't know
+which door leads to it.  I have never been there!"
+
+"And the Rue Scribe, madame, the Rue Scribe?  Have you never been to
+the Rue Scribe?"
+
+The woman laughed, screamed with laughter!  Raoul darted away, roaring
+with anger, ran up-stairs, four stairs at a time, down-stairs, rushed
+through the whole of the business side of the opera-house, found
+himself once more in the light of the stage.
+
+He stopped, with his heart thumping in his chest:  suppose Christine
+Daae had been found?  He saw a group of men and asked:
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen.  Could you tell me where Christine Daae
+is?"
+
+And somebody laughed.
+
+At the same moment the stage buzzed with a new sound and, amid a crowd
+of men in evening-dress, all talking and gesticulating together,
+appeared a man who seemed very calm and displayed a pleasant face, all
+pink and chubby-cheeked, crowned with curly hair and lit up by a pair
+of wonderfully serene blue eyes.  Mercier, the acting-manager, called
+the Vicomte de Chagny's attention to him and said:
+
+"This is the gentleman to whom you should put your question, monsieur.
+Let me introduce Mifroid, the commissary of police."
+
+"Ah, M. le Vicomte de Chagny!  Delighted to meet you, monsieur," said
+the commissary.  "Would you mind coming with me? ... And now where are
+the managers? ... Where are the managers?"
+
+Mercier did not answer, and Remy, the secretary, volunteered the
+information that the managers were locked up in their office and that
+they knew nothing as yet of what had happened.
+
+"You don't mean to say so!  Let us go up to the office!"
+
+And M. Mifroid, followed by an ever-increasing crowd, turned toward the
+business side of the building.  Mercier took advantage of the confusion
+to slip a key into Gabriel's hand:
+
+"This is all going very badly," he whispered.  "You had better let
+Mother Giry out."
+
+And Gabriel moved away.
+
+They soon came to the managers' door.  Mercier stormed in vain: the
+door remained closed.
+
+"Open in the name of the law!" commanded M. Mifroid, in a loud and
+rather anxious voice.
+
+At last the door was opened.  All rushed in to the office, on the
+commissary's heels.
+
+Raoul was the last to enter.  As he was about to follow the rest into
+the room, a hand was laid on his shoulder and he heard these words
+spoken in his ear:
+
+"ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!"
+
+He turned around, with a stifled exclamation.  The hand that was laid
+on his shoulder was now placed on the lips of a person with an ebony
+skin, with eyes of jade and with an astrakhan cap on his head: the
+Persian!  The stranger kept up the gesture that recommended discretion
+and then, at the moment when the astonished viscount was about to ask
+the reason of his mysterious intervention, bowed and disappeared.
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI  Mme. Giry's Astounding Revelations as to Her Personal
+Relations with the Opera Ghost
+
+
+Before following the commissary into the manager's office I must
+describe certain extraordinary occurrences that took place in that
+office which Remy and Mercier had vainly tried to enter and into which
+MM. Richard and Moncharmin had locked themselves with an object which
+the reader does not yet know, but which it is my duty, as an historian,
+to reveal without further postponement.
+
+I have had occasion to say that the managers' mood had undergone a
+disagreeable change for some time past and to convey the fact that this
+change was due not only to the fall of the chandelier on the famous
+night of the gala performance.
+
+The reader must know that the ghost had calmly been paid his first
+twenty thousand francs.  Oh, there had been wailing and gnashing of
+teeth, indeed!  And yet the thing had happened as simply as could be.
+
+One morning, the managers found on their table an envelope addressed to
+"Monsieur O. G. (private)" and accompanied by a note from O. G. himself:
+
+The time has come to carry out the clause in the memorandum-book.
+Please put twenty notes of a thousand francs each into this envelope,
+seal it with your own seal and hand it to Mme. Giry, who will do what
+is necessary.
+
+The managers did not hesitate; without wasting time in asking how these
+confounded communications came to be delivered in an office which they
+were careful to keep locked, they seized this opportunity of laying
+hands, on the mysterious blackmailer.  And, after telling the whole
+story, under the promise of secrecy, to Gabriel and Mercier, they put
+the twenty thousand francs into the envelope and without asking for
+explanations, handed it to Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her
+functions.  The box-keeper displayed no astonishment.  I need hardly
+say that she was well watched.  She went straight to the ghost's box
+and placed the precious envelope on the little shelf attached to the
+ledge.  The two managers, as well as Gabriel and Mercier, were hidden
+in such a way that they did not lose sight of the envelope for a second
+during the performance and even afterward, for, as the envelope had not
+moved, those who watched it did not move either; and Mme. Giry went
+away while the managers, Gabriel and Mercier were still there.  At
+last, they became tired of waiting and opened the envelope, after
+ascertaining that the seals had not been broken.
+
+At first sight, Richard and Moncharmin thought that the notes were
+still there; but soon they perceived that they were not the same.  The
+twenty real notes were gone and had been replaced by twenty notes, of
+the "Bank of St. Farce"![1]
+
+The managers' rage and fright were unmistakable.  Moncharmin wanted to
+send for the commissary of police, but Richard objected.  He no doubt
+had a plan, for he said:
+
+"Don't let us make ourselves ridiculous!  All Paris would laugh at us.
+O. G. has won the first game:  we will win the second."
+
+He was thinking of the next month's allowance.
+
+Nevertheless, they had been so absolutely tricked that they were bound
+to suffer a certain dejection.  And, upon my word, it was not difficult
+to understand.  We must not forget that the managers had an idea at the
+back of their minds, all the time, that this strange incident might be
+an unpleasant practical joke on the part of their predecessors and that
+it would not do to divulge it prematurely.  On the other hand,
+Moncharmin was sometimes troubled with a suspicion of Richard himself,
+who occasionally took fanciful whims into his head.  And so they were
+content to await events, while keeping an eye on Mother Giry.  Richard
+would not have her spoken to.
+
+"If she is a confederate," he said, "the notes are gone long ago.  But,
+in my opinion, she is merely an idiot."
+
+"She's not the only idiot in this business," said Moncharmin pensively.
+
+"Well, who could have thought it?" moaned Richard.  "But don't be
+afraid ... next time, I shall have taken my precautions."
+
+The next time fell on the same day that beheld the disappearance of
+Christine Daae.  In the morning, a note from the ghost reminded them
+that the money was due.  It read:
+
+Do just as you did last time.  It went very well.  Put the twenty
+thousand in the envelope and hand it to our excellent Mme. Giry.
+
+And the note was accompanied by the usual envelope.  They had only to
+insert the notes.
+
+This was done about half an hour before the curtain rose on the first
+act of Faust.  Richard showed the envelope to Moncharmin.  Then he
+counted the twenty thousand-franc notes in front of him and put the
+notes into the envelope, but without closing it.
+
+"And now," he said, "let's have Mother Giry in."
+
+The old woman was sent for.  She entered with a sweeping courtesy.  She
+still wore her black taffeta dress, the color of which was rapidly
+turning to rust and lilac, to say nothing of the dingy bonnet.  She
+seemed in a good temper.  She at once said:
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen!  It's for the envelope, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, Mme. Giry," said Richard, most amiably.  "For the envelope ...
+and something else besides."
+
+"At your service, M. Richard, at your service.  And what is the
+something else, please?"
+
+"First of all, Mme. Giry, I have a little question to put to you."
+
+"By all means, M. Richard:  Mme. Giry is here to answer you."
+
+"Are you still on good terms with the ghost?"
+
+"Couldn't be better, sir; couldn't be better."
+
+"Ah, we are delighted ...  Look here, Mme. Giry," said Richard, in the
+tone of making an important confidence.  "We may just as well tell you,
+among ourselves ... you're no fool!"
+
+"Why, sir," exclaimed the box-keeper, stopping the pleasant nodding of
+the black feathers in her dingy bonnet, "I assure you no one has ever
+doubted that!"
+
+"We are quite agreed and we shall soon understand one another.  The
+story of the ghost is all humbug, isn't it? ... Well, still between
+ourselves, ... it has lasted long enough."
+
+Mme. Giry looked at the managers as though they were talking Chinese.
+She walked up to Richard's table and asked, rather anxiously:
+
+"What do you mean?  I don't understand."
+
+"Oh, you, understand quite well.  In any case, you've got to
+understand...  And, first of all, tell us his name."
+
+"Whose name?"
+
+"The name of the man whose accomplice you are, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"I am the ghost's accomplice?  I? ... His accomplice in what, pray?"
+
+"You do all he wants."
+
+"Oh!  He's not very troublesome, you know."
+
+"And does he still tip you?"
+
+"I mustn't complain."
+
+"How much does he give you for bringing him that envelope?"
+
+"Ten francs."
+
+"You poor thing!  That's not much, is it?
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'll tell you that presently, Mme. Giry.  Just now we should like to
+know for what extraordinary reason you have given yourself body and
+soul, to this ghost ... Mme. Giry's friendship and devotion are not to
+be bought for five francs or ten francs."
+
+"That's true enough ...  And I can tell you the reason, sir.  There's
+no disgrace about it...  on the contrary."
+
+"We're quite sure of that, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"Well, it's like this ... only the ghost doesn't like me to talk about
+his business."
+
+"Indeed?" sneered Richard.
+
+"But this is a matter that concerns myself alone ...  Well, it was in
+Box Five one evening, I found a letter addressed to myself, a sort of
+note written in red ink.  I needn't read the letter to you sir; I know
+it by heart, and I shall never forget it if I live to be a hundred!"
+
+And Mme. Giry, drawing herself up, recited the letter with touching
+eloquence:
+
+MADAM:
+
+1825.  Mlle. Menetrier, leader of the ballet, became Marquise de Cussy.
+
+1832.  Mlle. Marie Taglioni, a dancer, became Comtesse Gilbert des
+Voisins.
+
+1846.  La Sota, a dancer, married a brother of the King of Spain.
+
+1847.  Lola Montes, a dancer, became the morganatic wife of King Louis
+of Bavaria and was created Countess of Landsfeld.
+
+1848.  Mlle. Maria, a dancer, became Baronne d'Herneville.
+
+1870.  Theresa Hessier, a dancer, married Dom Fernando, brother to the
+King of Portugal.
+
+Richard and Moncharmin listened to the old woman, who, as she proceeded
+with the enumeration of these glorious nuptials, swelled out, took
+courage and, at last, in a voice bursting with pride, flung out the
+last sentence of the prophetic letter:
+
+1885.  Meg Giry, Empress!
+
+Exhausted by this supreme effort, the box-keeper fell into a chair,
+saying:
+
+"Gentlemen, the letter was signed, 'Opera Ghost.'  I had heard much of
+the ghost, but only half believed in him.  From the day when he
+declared that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit of my
+womb, would be empress, I believed in him altogether."
+
+And really it was not necessary to make a long study of Mme. Giry's
+excited features to understand what could be got out of that fine
+intellect with the two words "ghost" and "empress."
+
+But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet?  That was the
+question.
+
+"You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he
+says?" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"Yes.  To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted
+to be the leader of a row.  I said to the ghost, 'If she is to be
+empress in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at
+once.' He said, 'Look upon it as done.'  And he had only a word to say
+to M. Poligny and the thing was done."
+
+"So you see that M. Poligny saw him!"
+
+"No, not any more than I did; but he heard him.  The ghost said a word
+in his ear, you know, on the evening when he left Box Five, looking so
+dreadfully pale."
+
+Moncharmin heaved a sigh.  "What a business!" he groaned.
+
+"Ah!" said Mme. Giry.  "I always thought there were secrets between the
+ghost and M. Poligny.  Anything that the ghost asked M. Poligny to do
+M. Poligny did.  M. Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
+
+"You hear, Richard:  Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
+
+"Yes, yes, I hear!" said Richard.  "M. Poligny is a friend of the
+ghost; and, as Mme. Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, there we are!  ...
+But I don't care a hang about M. Poligny," he added roughly.  "The only
+person whose fate really interests me is Mme. Giry...  Mme. Giry, do
+you know what is in this envelope?"
+
+"Why, of course not," she said.
+
+"Well, look."
+
+Mine.  Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye, which soon
+recovered its brilliancy.
+
+"Thousand-franc notes!" she cried.
+
+"Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes!  And you knew it!"
+
+"I, sir?  I? ... I swear ..."
+
+"Don't swear, Mme. Giry! ... And now I will tell you the second reason
+why I sent for you.  Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested."
+
+The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected the
+attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes of
+exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace on the old
+lady's tempestuous chignon.  Surprise, indignation, protest and dismay
+were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother in a sort of
+extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound, half slide, that
+brought her right under the nose of M. Richard, who could not help
+pushing back his chair.
+
+"HAVE ME ARRESTED!"
+
+The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth that
+were left to it into Richard's face.
+
+M. Richard behaved like a hero.  He retreated no farther.  His
+threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out the keeper of
+Box Five to the absent magistrates.
+
+"I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!"
+
+"Say that again!"
+
+And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear,
+before Mr. Manager Moncharmin had time to intervene.  But it was not
+the withered hand of the angry old beldame that fell on the managerial
+ear, but the envelope itself, the cause of all the trouble, the magic
+envelope that opened with the blow, scattering the bank-notes, which
+escaped in a fantastic whirl of giant butterflies.
+
+The two managers gave a shout, and the same thought made them both go
+on their knees, feverishly, picking up and hurriedly examining the
+precious scraps of paper.
+
+"Are they still genuine, Moncharmin?"
+
+"Are they still genuine, Richard?"
+
+"Yes, they are still genuine!"
+
+Above their heads, Mme. Giry's three teeth were clashing in a noisy
+contest, full of hideous interjections.  But all that could be clearly
+distinguished was this LEIT-MOTIF:
+
+"I, a thief! ... I, a thief, I?"
+
+She choked with rage.  She shouted:
+
+"I never heard of such a thing!"
+
+And, suddenly, she darted up to Richard again.
+
+"In any case," she yelped, "you, M. Richard, ought to know better than
+I where the twenty thousand francs went to!"
+
+"I?" asked Richard, astounded.  "And how should I know?"
+
+Moncharmin, looking severe and dissatisfied, at once insisted that the
+good lady should explain herself.
+
+"What does this mean, Mme. Giry?" he asked.  "And why do you say that
+M. Richard ought to know better than you where the twenty-thousand
+francs went to?"
+
+As for Richard, who felt himself turning red under Moncharmin's eyes,
+he took Mme. Giry by the wrist and shook it violently.  In a voice
+growling and rolling like thunder, he roared:
+
+"Why should I know better than you where the twenty-thousand francs
+went to?  Why?  Answer me!"
+
+"Because they went into your pocket!" gasped the old woman, looking at
+him as if he were the devil incarnate.
+
+Richard would have rushed upon Mme. Giry, if Moncharmin had not stayed
+his avenging hand and hastened to ask her, more gently:
+
+"How can you suspect my partner, M. Richard, of putting twenty-thousand
+francs in his pocket?"
+
+"I never said that," declared Mme. Giry, "seeing that it was myself who
+put the twenty-thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket." And she
+added, under her voice, "There!  It's out! ... And may the ghost
+forgive me!"
+
+Richard began bellowing anew, but Moncharmin authoritatively ordered
+him to be silent.
+
+"Allow me!  Allow me!  Let the woman explain herself.  Let me question
+her."  And he added:  "It is really astonishing that you should take up
+such a tone! ... We are on the verge of clearing up the whole mystery.
+And you're in a rage! ... You're wrong to behave like that...  I'm
+enjoying myself immensely."
+
+Mme. Giry, like the martyr that she was, raised her head, her face
+beaming with faith in her own innocence.
+
+"You tell me there were twenty-thousand francs in the envelope which I
+put into M. Richard's pocket; but I tell you again that I knew nothing
+about it ...  Nor M. Richard either, for that matter!"
+
+"Aha!" said Richard, suddenly assuming a swaggering air which
+Moncharmin did not like.  "I knew nothing either!  You put
+twenty-thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing either!  I am
+very glad to hear it, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"Yes," the terrible dame agreed, "yes, it's true.  We neither of us
+knew anything.  But you, you must have ended by finding out!"
+
+Richard would certainly have swallowed Mme. Giry alive, if Moncharmin
+had not been there!  But Moncharmin protected her.  He resumed his
+questions:
+
+"What sort of envelope did you put in M. Richard's pocket?  It was not
+the one which we gave you, the one which you took to Box Five before
+our eyes; and yet that was the one which contained the twenty-thousand
+francs."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  The envelope which M. le Directeur gave me was the
+one which I slipped into M. le Directeur's pocket," explained Mme.
+Giry.  "The one which I took to the ghost's box was another envelope,
+just like it, which the ghost gave me beforehand and which I hid up my
+sleeve."
+
+So saying, Mme. Giry took from her sleeve an envelope ready prepared
+and similarly addressed to that containing the twenty-thousand francs.
+The managers took it from her.  They examined it and saw that it was
+fastened with seals stamped with their own managerial seal.  They
+opened it.  It contained twenty Bank of St. Farce notes like those
+which had so much astounded them the month before.
+
+"How simple!" said Richard.
+
+"How simple!" repeated Moncharmin.  And he continued with his eyes
+fixed upon Mme. Giry, as though trying to hypnotize her.
+
+"So it was the ghost who gave you this envelope and told you to
+substitute it for the one which we gave you?  And it was the ghost who
+told you to put the other into M. Richard's pocket?"
+
+"Yes, it was the ghost."
+
+"Then would you mind giving us a specimen of your little talents?  Here
+is the envelope.  Act as though we knew nothing."
+
+"As you please, gentlemen."
+
+Mme. Giry took the envelope with the twenty notes inside it and made
+for the door.  She was on the point of going out when the two managers
+rushed at her:
+
+"Oh, no!  Oh, no!  We're not going to be 'done' a second time!  Once
+bitten, twice shy!"
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the old woman, in self-excuse,
+"you told me to act as though you knew nothing ...  Well, if you knew
+nothing, I should go away with your envelope!"
+
+"And then how would you slip it into my pocket?" argued Richard, whom
+Moncharmin fixed with his left eye, while keeping his right on Mme.
+Giry:  a proceeding likely to strain his sight, but Moncharmin was
+prepared to go to any length to discover the truth.
+
+"I am to slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, sir.  You
+know that I always take a little turn behind the scenes, in the course
+of the evening, and I often go with my daughter to the ballet-foyer,
+which I am entitled to do, as her mother; I bring her her shoes, when
+the ballet is about to begin ... in fact, I come and go as I please ...
+The subscribers come and go too...  So do you, sir ...  There are lots
+of people about ...  I go behind you and slip the envelope into the
+tail-pocket of your dress-coat ...  There's no witchcraft about that!"
+
+"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.
+"No witchcraft!  Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"
+
+Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.
+
+"And why, may I ask?"
+
+"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope
+which you put there.  I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."
+
+"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at the
+next performance ... on the evening when the under-secretary of state
+for fine arts ..."
+
+At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry:
+
+"Yes, that's true, I remember now!  The under-secretary went behind the
+scenes.  He asked for me.  I went down to the ballet-foyer for a
+moment.  I was on the foyer steps ...  The under-secretary and his
+chief clerk were in the foyer itself.  I suddenly turned around ... you
+had passed behind me, Mme. Giry ...  You seemed to push against me ...
+Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"
+
+"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it.  I had just finished my little
+business.  That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"
+
+And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed
+behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed
+by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails of M.
+Richard's dress-coat.
+
+"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale.  "It's very
+clever of O. G.  The problem which he had to solve was this: how to do
+away with any dangerous intermediary between the man who gives the
+twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it.  And by far the
+best thing he could hit upon was to come and take the money from my
+pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not know that it was
+there.  It's wonderful!"
+
+"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!"  Moncharmin agreed.  "Only, you forget,
+Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that
+nobody put anything in my pocket!"
+
+
+
+[1] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond
+with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--Translator's
+Note.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII  The Safety-Pin Again
+
+
+Moncharmin's last phrase so dearly expressed the suspicion in which he
+now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation,
+at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yield to all
+Moncharmin's wishes, with the object of helping him to discover the
+miscreant who was victimizing them.
+
+This brings us to the interval after the Garden Act, with the strange
+conduct observed by M. Remy and those curious lapses from the dignity
+that might be expected of the managers.  It was arranged between
+Richard and Moncharmin, first, that Richard should repeat the exact
+movements which he had made on the night of the disappearance of the
+first twenty-thousand francs; and, second, that Moncharmin should not
+for an instant lose sight of Richard's coat-tail pocket, into which
+Mme. Giry was to slip the twenty-thousand francs.
+
+M. Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he had
+stood when he bowed to the under-secretary for fine arts.  M.
+Moncharmin took up his position a few steps behind him.
+
+Mme. Giry passed, rubbed up against M. Richard, got rid of her
+twenty-thousand francs in the manager's coat-tail pocket and
+disappeared ...  Or rather she was conjured away.  In accordance with
+the instructions received from Moncharmin a few minutes earlier,
+Mercier took the good lady to the acting-manager's office and turned
+the key on her, thus making it impossible for her to communicate with
+her ghost.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Richard was bending and bowing and scraping and walking
+backward, just as if he had that high and mighty minister, the
+under-secretary for fine arts, before him.  Only, though these marks of
+politeness would have created no astonishment if the under-secretary of
+state had really been in front of M. Richard, they caused an easily
+comprehensible amazement to the spectators of this very natural but
+quite inexplicable scene when M. Richard had no body in front of him.
+
+M. Richard bowed ... to nobody; bent his back ... before nobody; and
+walked backward ... before nobody ...  And, a few steps behind him, M.
+Moncharmin did the same thing that he was doing in addition to pushing
+away M. Remy and begging M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, and the
+manager of the Credit Central "not to touch M. le Directeur."
+
+Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come to him
+presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone, and say:
+
+"Perhaps it was the ambassador ... or the manager of the Credit Central
+... or Remy."
+
+The more so as, at the time of the first scene, as Richard himself
+admitted, Richard had met nobody in that part of the theater after Mme.
+Giry had brushed up against him...
+
+Having begun by walking backward in order to bow, Richard continued to
+do so from prudence, until he reached the passage leading to the
+offices of the management.  In this way, he was constantly watched by
+Moncharmin from behind and himself kept an eye on any one approaching
+from the front.  Once more, this novel method of walking behind the
+scenes, adopted by the managers of our National Academy of Music,
+attracted attention; but the managers themselves thought of nothing but
+their twenty-thousand francs.
+
+On reaching the half-dark passage, Richard said to Moncharmin, in a low
+voice:
+
+"I am sure that nobody has touched me ...  You had now better keep at
+some distance from me and watch me till I come to door of the office:
+it is better not to arouse suspicion and we can see anything that
+happens."
+
+But Moncharmin replied.  "No, Richard, no!  You walk ahead and I'll
+walk immediately behind you!  I won't leave you by a step!"
+
+"But, in that case," exclaimed Richard, "they will never steal our
+twenty-thousand francs!"
+
+"I should hope not, indeed!" declared Moncharmin.
+
+"Then what we are doing is absurd!"
+
+"We are doing exactly what we did last time ...  Last time, I joined
+you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind you down
+this passage."
+
+"That's true!" sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying
+Moncharmin.
+
+Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into their
+office.  Moncharmin himself put the key in his pocket:
+
+"We remained locked up like this, last time," he said, "until you left
+the Opera to go home."
+
+"That's so.  No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"Then," said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, "then I
+must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera."
+
+"No," said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, "no, that's
+impossible.  For I dropped you in my cab.  The twenty-thousand francs
+disappeared at your place:  there's not a shadow of a doubt about that."
+
+"It's incredible!" protested Richard.  "I am sure of my servants ...
+and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since."
+
+Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he did not
+wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think that Moncharmin
+was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.
+
+"Moncharmin, I've had enough of this!"
+
+"Richard, I've had too much of it!"
+
+"Do you dare to suspect me?"
+
+"Yes, of a silly joke."
+
+"One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs."
+
+"That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper and
+ostentatiously studying its contents.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked Richard.  "Are you going to read the paper
+next?"
+
+"Yes, Richard, until I take you home."
+
+"Like last time?"
+
+"Yes, like last time."
+
+Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands.  Moncharmin stood
+up, more irritated than ever, and found himself faced by an exasperated
+Richard, who, crossing his arms on his chest, said:
+
+"Look here, I'm thinking of this, I'M THINKING OF WHAT I MIGHT THINK
+if, like last time, after my spending the evening alone with you, you
+brought me home and if, at the moment of parting, I perceived that
+twenty-thousand francs had disappeared from my coat-pocket ... like
+last time."
+
+"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.
+
+"I might think that, as you hadn't left me by a foot's breadth and as,
+by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me, like last time,
+I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs was no longer in my
+pocket, it stood a very good chance of being in yours!"
+
+Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion.
+
+"Oh!" he shouted.  "A safety-pin!"
+
+"What do you want a safety-pin for?"
+
+"To fasten you up with! ... A safety-pin! ... A safety-pin!"
+
+"You want to fasten me with a safety-pin?"
+
+"Yes, to fasten you to the twenty-thousand francs!  Then, whether it's
+here, or on the drive from here to your place, or at your place, you
+will feel the hand that pulls at your pocket and you will see if it's
+mine!  Oh, so you're suspecting me now, are you?  A safety-pin!"
+
+And that was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door on the passage
+and shouted:
+
+"A safety-pin! ... somebody give me a safety-pin!"
+
+And we also know how, at the same moment, Remy, who had no safety-pin,
+was received by Moncharmin, while a boy procured the pin so eagerly
+longed for.  And what happened was this:  Moncharmin first locked the
+door again.  Then he knelt down behind Richard's back.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that the notes are still there?"
+
+"So do I," said Richard.
+
+"The real ones?" asked Moncharmin, resolved not to be "had" this time.
+
+"Look for yourself," said Richard.  "I refuse to touch them."
+
+Moncharmin took the envelope from Richard's pocket and drew out the
+bank-notes with a trembling hand, for, this time, in order frequently
+to make sure of the presence of the notes, he had not sealed the
+envelope nor even fastened it.  He felt reassured on finding that they
+were all there and quite genuine.  He put them back in the tail-pocket
+and pinned them with great care.  Then he sat down behind Richard's
+coat-tails and kept his eyes fixed on them, while Richard, sitting at
+his writing-table, did not stir.
+
+"A little patience, Richard," said Moncharmin.  "We have only a few
+minutes to wait ...  The clock will soon strike twelve.  Last time, we
+left at the last stroke of twelve."
+
+"Oh, I shall have all the patience necessary!"
+
+The time passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling.  Richard tried to
+laugh.
+
+"I shall end by believing in the omnipotence of the ghost," he said.
+"Just now, don't you find something uncomfortable, disquieting,
+alarming in the atmosphere of this room?"
+
+"You're quite right," said Moncharmin, who was really impressed.
+
+"The ghost!" continued Richard, in a low voice, as though fearing lest
+he should be overheard by invisible ears.  "The ghost!  Suppose, all
+the same, it were a ghost who puts the magic envelopes on the table ...
+who talks in Box Five ... who killed Joseph Buquet ...  who unhooked
+the chandelier ... and who robs us!  For, after all, after all, after
+all, there is no one here except you and me, and, if the notes
+disappear and neither you nor I have anything to do with it, well, we
+shall have to believe in the ghost ... in the ghost."
+
+At that moment, the clock on the mantlepiece gave its warning click and
+the first stroke of twelve struck.
+
+The two managers shuddered.  The perspiration streamed from their
+foreheads.  The twelfth stroke sounded strangely in their ears.
+
+When the clock stopped, they gave a sigh and rose from their chairs.
+
+"I think we can go now," said Moncharmin.
+
+"I think so," Richard a agreed.
+
+"Before we go, do you mind if I look in your pocket?"
+
+"But, of course, Moncharmin, YOU MUST! ... Well?" he asked, as
+Moncharmin was feeling at the pocket.
+
+"Well, I can feel the pin."
+
+"Of course, as you said, we can't be robbed without noticing it."
+
+But Moncharmin, whose hands were still fumbling, bellowed:
+
+"I can feel the pin, but I can't feel the notes!"
+
+"Come, no joking, Moncharmin! ... This isn't the time for it."
+
+"Well, feel for yourself."
+
+Richard tore off his coat.  The two managers turned the pocket inside
+out.  THE POCKET WAS EMPTY.  And the curious thing was that the pin
+remained, stuck in the same place.
+
+Richard and Moncharmin turned pale.  There was no longer any doubt
+about the witchcraft.
+
+"The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin.
+
+But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner.
+
+"No one but you has touched my pocket!  Give me back my twenty-thousand
+francs! ... Give me back my twenty-thousand francs! ..."
+
+"On my soul," sighed Moncharmin, who was ready to swoon, "on my soul, I
+swear that I haven't got it!"
+
+Then somebody knocked at the door.  Moncharmin opened it automatically,
+seemed hardly to recognize Mercier, his business-manager, exchanged a
+few words with him, without knowing what he was saying and, with an
+unconscious movement, put the safety-pin, for which he had no further
+use, into the hands of his bewildered subordinate ...
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII  The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian
+
+
+The first words of the commissary of police, on entering the managers'
+office, were to ask after the missing prima donna.
+
+"Is Christine Daae here?"
+
+"Christine Daae here?" echoed Richard.  "No. Why?"
+
+As for Moncharmin, he had not the strength left to utter a word.
+
+Richard repeated, for the commissary and the compact crowd which had
+followed him into the office observed an impressive silence.
+
+"Why do you ask if Christine Daae is here, M. LE COMMISSAIRE?"
+
+"Because she has to be found," declared the commissary of police
+solemnly.
+
+"What do you mean, she has to be found?  Has she disappeared?"
+
+"In the middle of the performance!"
+
+"In the middle of the performance?  This is extraordinary!"
+
+"Isn't it?  And what is quite as extraordinary is that you should first
+learn it from me!"
+
+"Yes," said Richard, taking his head in his hands and muttering.  "What
+is this new business?  Oh, it's enough to make a man send in his
+resignation!"
+
+And he pulled a few hairs out of his mustache without even knowing what
+he was doing.
+
+"So she ... so she disappeared in the middle of the performance?" he
+repeated.
+
+"Yes, she was carried off in the Prison Act, at the moment when she was
+invoking the aid of the angels; but I doubt if she was carried off by
+an angel."
+
+"And I am sure that she was!"
+
+Everybody looked round.  A young man, pale and trembling with
+excitement, repeated:
+
+"I am sure of it!"
+
+"Sure of what?" asked Mifroid.
+
+"That Christine Daae was carried off by an angel, M. LE COMMISSAIRE and
+I can tell you his name."
+
+"Aha, M. le Vicomte de Chagny!  So you maintain that Christine Daae was
+carried off by an angel:  an angel of the Opera, no doubt?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur, by an angel of the Opera; and I will tell you where he
+lives ... when we are alone."
+
+"You are right, monsieur."
+
+And the commissary of police, inviting Raoul to take a chair, cleared
+the room of all the rest, excepting the managers.
+
+Then Raoul spoke:
+
+"M. le Commissaire, the angel is called Erik, he lives in the Opera and
+he is the Angel of Music!"
+
+"The Angel of Music!  Really!  That is very curious! ... The Angel of
+Music!"  And, turning to the managers, M. Mifroid asked, "Have you an
+Angel of Music on the premises, gentlemen?"
+
+Richard and Moncharmin shook their heads, without even speaking.
+
+"Oh," said the viscount, "those gentlemen have heard of the Opera
+ghost.  Well, I am in a position to state that the Opera ghost and the
+Angel of Music are one and the same person; and his real name is Erik."
+
+M. Mifroid rose and looked at Raoul attentively.
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur but is it your intention to make fun of
+the law?  And, if not, what is all this about the Opera ghost?"
+
+"I say that these gentlemen have heard of him."
+
+"Gentlemen, it appears that you know the Opera ghost?"
+
+Richard rose, with the remaining hairs of his mustache in his hand.
+
+"No, M. Commissary, no, we do not know him, but we wish that we did,
+for this very evening he has robbed us of twenty-thousand francs!"
+
+And Richard turned a terrible look on Moncharmin, which seemed to say:
+
+"Give me back the twenty-thousand francs, or I'll tell the whole story."
+
+Moncharmin understood what he meant, for, with a distracted gesture, he
+said:
+
+"Oh, tell everything and have done with it!"
+
+As for Mifroid, he looked at the managers and at Raoul by turns and
+wondered whether he had strayed into a lunatic asylum.  He passed his
+hand through his hair.
+
+"A ghost," he said, "who, on the same evening, carries off an
+opera-singer and steals twenty-thousand francs is a ghost who must have
+his hands very full!  If you don't mind, we will take the questions in
+order.  The singer first, the twenty-thousand francs after.  Come, M.
+de Chagny, let us try to talk seriously.  You believe that Mlle.
+Christine Daae has been carried off by an individual called Erik.  Do
+you know this person?  Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In a church yard."
+
+M. Mifroid gave a start, began to scrutinize Raoul again and said:
+
+"Of course! ... That's where ghosts usually hang out! ... And what were
+you doing in that churchyard?"
+
+"Monsieur," said Raoul, "I can quite understand how absurd my replies
+must seem to you.  But I beg you to believe that I am in full
+possession of my faculties.  The safety of the person dearest to me in
+the world is at stake.  I should like to convince you in a few words,
+for time is pressing and every minute is valuable.  Unfortunately, if I
+do not tell you the strangest story that ever was from the beginning,
+you will not believe me.  I will tell you all I know about the Opera
+ghost, M. Commissary.  Alas, I do not know much! ..."
+
+"Never mind, go on, go on!" exclaimed Richard and Moncharmin, suddenly
+greatly interested.
+
+Unfortunately for their hopes of learning some detail that could put
+them on the track of their hoaxer, they were soon compelled to accept
+the fact that M. Raoul de Chagny had completely lost his head.  All
+that story about Perros-Guirec, death's heads and enchanted violins,
+could only have taken birth in the disordered brain of a youth mad with
+love.  It was evident, also, that Mr. Commissary Mifroid shared their
+view; and the magistrate would certainly have cut short the incoherent
+narrative if circumstances had not taken it upon themselves to
+interrupt it.
+
+The door opened and a man entered, curiously dressed in an enormous
+frock-coat and a tall hat, at once shabby and shiny, that came down to
+his ears.  He went up to the commissary and spoke to him in a whisper.
+It was doubtless a detective come to deliver an important communication.
+
+During this conversation, M. Mifroid did not take his eyes off Raoul.
+At last, addressing him, he said:
+
+"Monsieur, we have talked enough about the ghost.  We will now talk
+about yourself a little, if you have no objection: you were to carry
+off Mlle. Christine Daae to-night?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"After the performance?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"All your arrangements were made?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"The carriage that brought you was to take you both away...  There were
+fresh horses in readiness at every stage ..."
+
+"That is true, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"And nevertheless your carriage is still outside the Rotunda awaiting
+your orders, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"Did you know that there were three other carriages there, in addition
+to yours?"
+
+"I did not pay the least attention."
+
+"They were the carriages of Mlle. Sorelli, which could not find room in
+the Cour de l'Administration; of Carlotta; and of your brother, M. le
+Comte de Chagny..."
+
+"Very likely..."
+
+"What is certain is that, though your carriage and Sorelli's and
+Carlotta's are still there, by the Rotunda pavement, M. le Comte de
+Chagny's carriage is gone."
+
+"This has nothing to say to ..."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Was not M. le Comte opposed to your marriage with
+Mlle. Daae?"
+
+"That is a matter that only concerns the family."
+
+"You have answered my question:  he was opposed to it ... and that was
+why you were carrying Christine Daae out of your brother's reach...
+Well, M. de Chagny, allow me to inform you that your brother has been
+smarter than you!  It is he who has carried off Christine Daae!"
+
+"Oh, impossible!" moaned Raoul, pressing his hand to his heart.  "Are
+you sure?"
+
+"Immediately after the artist's disappearance, which was procured by
+means which we have still to ascertain, he flung into his carriage,
+which drove right across Paris at a furious pace."
+
+"Across Paris?" asked poor Raoul, in a hoarse voice.  "What do you mean
+by across Paris?"
+
+"Across Paris and out of Paris ... by the Brussels road."
+
+"Oh," cried the young man, "I shall catch them!"  And he rushed out of
+the office.
+
+"And bring her back to us!" cried the commisary gaily ...  "Ah, that's
+a trick worth two of the Angel of Music's!"
+
+And, turning to his audience, M. Mifroid delivered a little lecture on
+police methods.
+
+"I don't know for a moment whether M. le Comte de Chagny has really
+carried Christine Daae off or not ... but I want to know and I believe
+that, at this moment, no one is more anxious to inform us than his
+brother ...  And now he is flying in pursuit of him!  He is my chief
+auxiliary!  This, gentlemen, is the art of the police, which is
+believed to be so complicated and which, nevertheless appears so simple
+as soon its you see that it consists in getting your work done by
+people who have nothing to do with the police."
+
+But M. le Commissaire de Police Mifroid would not have been quite so
+satisfied with himself if he had known that the rush of his rapid
+emissary was stopped at the entrance to the very first corridor.  A
+tall figure blocked Raoul's way.
+
+"Where are you going so fast, M. de Chagny?" asked a voice.
+
+Raoul impatiently raised his eyes and recognized the astrakhan cap of
+an hour ago.  He stopped:
+
+"It's you!" he cried, in a feverish voice.  "You, who know Erik's
+secrets and don't want me to speak of them.  Who are you?"
+
+"You know who I am! ... I am the Persian!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX  The Viscount and the Persian
+
+
+Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that
+mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a
+Persian and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue de
+Rivoli.
+
+The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan cap
+bent over Raoul.
+
+"I hope, M. de Chagny," he said, "that you have not betrayed Erik's
+secret?"
+
+"And why should I hesitate to betray that monster, sir?" Raoul rejoined
+haughtily, trying to shake off the intruder.  "Is he your friend, by
+any chance?"
+
+"I hope that you said nothing about Erik, sir, because Erik's secret is
+also Christine Daae's and to talk about one is to talk about the other!"
+
+"Oh, sir," said Raoul, becoming more and more impatient, "you seem to
+know about many things that interest me; and yet I have no time to
+listen to you!"
+
+"Once more, M. de Chagny, where are you going so fast?"
+
+"Can not you guess?  To Christine Daae's assistance..."
+
+"Then, sir, stay here, for Christine Daae is here!"
+
+"With Erik?"
+
+"With Erik."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I was at the performance and no one in the world but Erik could
+contrive an abduction like that! ... Oh," he said, with a deep sigh, "I
+recognized the monster's touch! ..."
+
+"You know him then?"
+
+The Persian did not reply, but heaved a fresh sigh.
+
+"Sir," said Raoul, "I do not know what your intentions are, but can you
+do anything to help me?  I mean, to help Christine Daae?"
+
+"I think so, M. de Chagny, and that is why I spoke to you."
+
+"What can you do?"
+
+"Try to take you to her ... and to him."
+
+"If you can do me that service, sir, my life is yours! ... One word
+more:  the commissary of police tells me that Christine Daae has been
+carried off by my brother, Count Philippe."
+
+"Oh, M. de Chagny, I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"It's not possible, is it?"
+
+"I don't know if it is possible or not; but there are ways and ways of
+carrying people off; and M. le Comte Philippe has never, as far as I
+know, had anything to do with witchcraft."
+
+"Your arguments are convincing, sir, and I am a fool! ... Oh, let us
+make haste!  I place myself entirely in your hands! ...  How should I
+not believe you, when you are the only one to believe me ... when you
+are the only one not to smile when Erik's name is mentioned?"
+
+And the young man impetuously seized the Persian's hands.  They were
+ice-cold.
+
+"Silence!" said the Persian, stopping and listening to the distant
+sounds of the theater.  "We must not mention that name here.  Let us
+say 'he' and 'him;' then there will be less danger of attracting his
+attention."
+
+"Do you think he is near us?"
+
+"It is quite possible, Sir, if he is not, at this moment, with his
+victim, IN THE HOUSE ON THE LAKE."
+
+"Ah, so you know that house too?"
+
+"If he is not there, he may be here, in this wall, in this floor, in
+this ceiling! ... Come!"
+
+And the Persian, asking Raoul to deaden the sound of his footsteps, led
+him down passages which Raoul had never seen before, even at the time
+when Christine used to take him for walks through that labyrinth.
+
+"If only Darius has come!" said the Persian.
+
+"Who is Darius?"
+
+"Darius?  My servant."
+
+They were now in the center of a real deserted square, an immense
+apartment ill-lit by a small lamp.  The Persian stopped Raoul and, in
+the softest of whispers, asked:
+
+"What did you say to the commissary?"
+
+"I said that Christine Daae's abductor was the Angel of Music, ALIAS
+the Opera ghost, and that the real name was ..."
+
+"Hush! ... And did he believe you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He attached no importance to what you said?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He took you for a bit of a madman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So much the better!" sighed the Persian.
+
+And they continued their road.  After going up and down several
+staircases which Raoul had never seen before, the two men found
+themselves in front of a door which the Persian opened with a
+master-key. The Persian and Raoul were both, of course, in
+dress-clothes; but, whereas Raoul had a tall hat, the Persian wore the
+astrakhan cap which I have already mentioned.  It was an infringement
+of the rule which insists upon the tall hat behind the scenes; but in
+France foreigners are allowed every license: the Englishman his
+traveling-cap, the Persian his cap of astrakhan.
+
+"Sir," said the Persian, "your tall hat will be in your way: you would
+do well to leave it in the dressing-room."
+
+"What dressing-room?" asked Raoul.
+
+"Christine Daae's."
+
+And the Persian, letting Raoul through the door which he had just
+opened, showed him the actress' room opposite.  They were at the end of
+the passage the whole length of which Raoul had been accustomed to
+traverse before knocking at Christine's door.
+
+"How well you know the Opera, sir!"
+
+"Not so well as 'he' does!" said the Persian modestly.
+
+And he pushed the young man into Christine's dressing-room, which was
+as Raoul had left it a few minutes earlier.
+
+Closing the door, the Persian went to a very thin partition that
+separated the dressing-room from a big lumber-room next to it.  He
+listened and then coughed loudly.
+
+There was a sound of some one stirring in the lumber-room; and, a few
+seconds later, a finger tapped at the door.
+
+"Come in," said the Persian.
+
+A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and dressed in a long
+overcoat.  He bowed and took a richly carved case from under his coat,
+put it on the dressing-table, bowed once again and went to the door.
+
+"Did no one see you come in, Darius?"
+
+"No, master."
+
+"Let no one see you go out."
+
+The servant glanced down the passage and swiftly disappeared.
+
+The Persian opened the case.  It contained a pair of long pistols.
+
+"When Christine Daae was carried off, sir, I sent word to my servant to
+bring me these pistols.  I have had them a long time and they can be
+relied upon."
+
+"Do you mean to fight a duel?" asked the young man.
+
+"It will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight," said the
+other, examining the priming of his pistols.  "And what a duel!"
+Handing one of the pistols to Raoul, he added, "In this duel, we shall
+be two to one; but you must be prepared for everything, for we shall be
+fighting the most terrible adversary that you can imagine.  But you
+love Christine Daae, do you not?"
+
+"I worship the ground she stands on!  But you, sir, who do not love
+her, tell me why I find you ready to risk your life for her!  You must
+certainly hate Erik!"
+
+"No, sir," said the Persian sadly, "I do not hate him.  If I hated him,
+he would long ago have ceased doing harm."
+
+"Has he done you harm?"
+
+"I have forgiven him the harm which he has done me."
+
+"I do not understand you.  You treat him as a monster, you speak of his
+crime, he has done you harm and I find in you the same inexplicable
+pity that drove me to despair when I saw it in Christine!"
+
+The Persian did not reply.  He fetched a stool and set it against the
+wall facing the great mirror that filled the whole of the wall-space
+opposite.  Then he climbed on the stool and, with his nose to the
+wallpaper, seemed to be looking for something.
+
+"Ah," he said, after a long search, "I have it!"  And, raising his
+finger above his head, he pressed against a corner in the pattern of
+the paper.  Then he turned round and jumped off the stool:
+
+"In half a minute," he said, "he shall be ON HIS ROAD!" and crossing
+the whole of the dressing-room he felt the great mirror.
+
+"No, it is not yielding yet," he muttered.
+
+"Oh, are we going out by the mirror?" asked Raoul.  "Like Christine
+Daae."
+
+"So you knew that Christine Daae went out by that mirror?"
+
+"She did so before my eyes, sir!  I was hidden behind the curtain of
+the inner room and I saw her vanish not by the glass, but in the glass!"
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I thought it was an aberration of my senses, a mad dream.
+
+"Or some new fancy of the ghost's!" chuckled the Persian.  "Ah, M. de
+Chagny," he continued, still with his hand on the mirror, "would that
+we had to do with a ghost!  We could then leave our pistols in their
+case ...  Put down your hat, please ... there ... and now cover your
+shirt-front as much as you can with your coat ... as I am doing ...
+Bring the lapels forward ... turn up the collar ...  We must make
+ourselves as invisible as possible."
+
+Bearing against the mirror, after a short silence, he said:
+
+"It takes some time to release the counterbalance, when you press on
+the spring from the inside of the room.  It is different when you are
+behind the wall and can act directly on the counterbalance.  Then the
+mirror turns at once and is moved with incredible rapidity."
+
+"What counterbalance?" asked Raoul.
+
+"Why, the counterbalance that lifts the whole of this wall on to its
+pivot.  You surely don't expect it to move of itself, by enchantment!
+If you watch, you will see the mirror first rise an inch or two and
+then shift an inch or two from left to right.  It will then be on a
+pivot and will swing round."
+
+"It's not turning!" said Raoul impatiently.
+
+"Oh, wait!  You have time enough to be impatient, sir!  The mechanism
+has obviously become rusty, or else the spring isn't working... Unless
+it is something else," added the Persian, anxiously.
+
+"What?"
+
+"He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and blocked the
+whole apparatus."
+
+"Why should he?  He does not know that we are coming this way!"
+
+"I dare say he suspects it, for he knows that I understand the system."
+
+"It's not turning! ... And Christine, sir, Christine?"
+
+The Persian said coldly:
+
+"We shall do all that it is humanly possible to do! ... But he may stop
+us at the first step! ... He commands the walls, the doors and the
+trapdoors.  In my country, he was known by a name which means the
+'trap-door lover.'"
+
+"But why do these walls obey him alone?  He did not build them!"
+
+"Yes, sir, that is just what he did!"
+
+Raoul looked at him in amazement; but the Persian made a sign to him to
+be silent and pointed to the glass ...  There was a sort of shivering
+reflection.  Their image was troubled as in a rippling sheet of water
+and then all became stationary again.
+
+"You see, sir, that it is not turning!  Let us take another road!"
+
+"To-night, there is no other!" declared the Persian, in a singularly
+mournful voice.  "And now, look out!  And be ready to fire."
+
+He himself raised his pistol opposite the glass.  Raoul imitated his
+movement.  With his free arm, the Persian drew the young man to his
+chest and, suddenly, the mirror turned, in a blinding daze of
+cross-lights: it turned like one of those revolving doors which have
+lately been fixed to the entrances of most restaurants, it turned,
+carrying Raoul and the Persian with it and suddenly hurling them from
+the full light into the deepest darkness.
+
+
+
+Chapter XX  In the Cellars of the Opera
+
+
+"Your hand high, ready to fire!" repeated Raoul's companion quickly.
+
+The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it described
+upon itself, closed again; and the two men stood motionless for a
+moment, holding their breath.
+
+At last, the Persian decided to make a movement; and Raoul heard him
+slip on his knees and feel for something in the dark with his groping
+hands.  Suddenly, the darkness was made visible by a small dark lantern
+and Raoul instinctively stepped backward as though to escape the
+scrutiny of a secret enemy.  But he soon perceived that the light
+belonged to the Persian, whose movements he was closely observing.  The
+little red disk was turned in every direction and Raoul saw that the
+floor, the walls and the ceiling were all formed of planking.  It must
+have been the ordinary road taken by Erik to reach Christine's
+dressing-room and impose upon her innocence.  And Raoul, remembering
+the Persian's remark, thought that it had been mysteriously constructed
+by the ghost himself.  Later, he learned that Erik had found, all
+prepared for him, a secret passage, long known to himself alone and
+contrived at the time of the Paris Commune to allow the jailers to
+convey their prisoners straight to the dungeons that had been
+constructed for them in the cellars; for the Federates had occupied the
+opera-house immediately after the eighteenth of March and had made a
+starting-place right at the top for their Mongolfier balloons, which
+carried their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and a state
+prison right at the bottom.
+
+The Persian went on his knees and put his lantern on the ground.  He
+seemed to be working at the floor; and suddenly he turned off his
+light.  Then Raoul heard a faint click and saw a very pale luminous
+square in the floor of the passage.  It was as though a window had
+opened on the Opera cellars, which were still lit.  Raoul no longer saw
+the Persian, but he suddenly felt him by his side and heard him whisper:
+
+"Follow me and do all that I do."
+
+Raoul turned to the luminous aperture.  Then he saw the Persian, who
+was still on his knees, hang by his hands from the rim of the opening,
+with his pistol between his teeth, and slide into the cellar below.
+
+Curiously enough, the viscount had absolute confidence in the Persian,
+though he knew nothing about him.  His emotion when speaking of the
+"monster" struck him as sincere; and, if the Persian had cherished any
+sinister designs against him, he would not have armed him with his own
+hands.  Besides, Raoul must reach Christine at all costs.  He therefore
+went on his knees also and hung from the trap with both hands.
+
+"Let go!" said a voice.
+
+And he dropped into the arms of the Persian, who told him to lie down
+flat, closed the trap-door above him and crouched down beside him.
+Raoul tried to ask a question, but the Persian's hand was on his mouth
+and he heard a voice which he recognized as that of the commissary of
+police.
+
+Raoul and the Persian were completely hidden behind a wooden partition.
+Near them, a small staircase led to a little room in which the
+commissary appeared to be walking up and down, asking questions.  The
+faint light was just enough to enable Raoul to distinguish the shape of
+things around him.  And he could not restrain a dull cry: there were
+three corpses there.
+
+The first lay on the narrow landing of the little staircase; the two
+others had rolled to the bottom of the staircase.  Raoul could have
+touched one of the two poor wretches by passing his fingers through the
+partition.
+
+"Silence!" whispered the Persian.
+
+He too had seen the bodies and he gave one word in explanation:
+
+"HE!"
+
+The commissary's voice was now heard more distinctly.  He was asking
+for information about the system of lighting, which the stage-manager
+supplied.  The commissary therefore must be in the "organ" or its
+immediate neighborhood.
+
+Contrary to what one might think, especially in connection with an
+opera-house, the "organ" is not a musical instrument.  At that time,
+electricity was employed only for a very few scenic effects and for the
+bells.  The immense building and the stage itself were still lit by
+gas; hydrogen was used to regulate and modify the lighting of a scene;
+and this was done by means of a special apparatus which, because of the
+multiplicity of its pipes, was known as the "organ." A box beside the
+prompter's box was reserved for the chief gas-man, who from there gave
+his orders to his assistants and saw that they were executed.  Mauclair
+stayed in this box during all the performances.
+
+But now Mauclair was not in his box and his assistants not in their
+places.
+
+"Mauclair!  Mauclair!"
+
+The stage-manager's voice echoed through the cellars.  But Mauclair did
+not reply.
+
+I have said that a door opened on a little staircase that led to the
+second cellar.  The commissary pushed it, but it resisted.
+
+"I say," he said to the stage-manager, "I can't open this door: is it
+always so difficult?"
+
+The stage-manager forced it open with his shoulder.  He saw that, at
+the same time, he was pushing a human body and he could not keep back
+an exclamation, for he recognized the body at once:
+
+"Mauclair!  Poor devil!  He is dead!"
+
+But Mr. Commissary Mifroid, whom nothing surprised, was stooping over
+that big body.
+
+"No," he said, "he is dead-drunk, which is not quite the same thing."
+
+"It's the first time, if so," said the stage-manager
+
+"Then some one has given him a narcotic.  That is quite possible."
+
+Mifroid went down a few steps and said:
+
+"Look!"
+
+By the light of a little red lantern, at the foot of the stairs, they
+saw two other bodies.  The stage-manager recognized Mauclair's
+assistants.  Mifroid went down and listened to their breathing.
+
+"They are sound asleep," he said.  "Very curious business!  Some person
+unknown must have interfered with the gas-man and his staff ... and
+that person unknown was obviously working on behalf of the kidnapper
+...  But what a funny idea to kidnap a performer on the stage! ... Send
+for the doctor of the theater, please." And Mifroid repeated, "Curious,
+decidedly curious business!"
+
+Then he turned to the little room, addressing the people whom Raoul and
+the Persian were unable to see from where they lay.
+
+"What do you say to all this, gentlemen?  You are the only ones who
+have not given your views.  And yet you must have an opinion of some
+sort."
+
+Thereupon, Raoul and the Persian saw the startled faces of the joint
+managers appear above the landing--and they heard Moncharmin's excited
+voice:
+
+"There are things happening here, Mr. Commissary, which we are unable
+to explain."
+
+And the two faces disappeared.
+
+"Thank you for the information, gentlemen," said Mifroid, with a jeer.
+
+But the stage-manager, holding his chin in the hollow of his right
+hand, which is the attitude of profound thought, said:
+
+"It is not the first time that Mauclair has fallen asleep in the
+theater.  I remember finding him, one evening, snoring in his little
+recess, with his snuff-box beside him."
+
+"Is that long ago?" asked M. Mifroid, carefully wiping his eye-glasses.
+
+"No, not so very long ago ...  Wait a bit! ... It was the night ... of
+course, yes ... It was the night when Carlotta--you know, Mr.
+Commissary--gave her famous 'co-ack'!"
+
+"Really?  The night when Carlotta gave her famous 'co-ack'?"
+
+And M. Mifroid, replacing his gleaming glasses on his nose, fixed the
+stage-manager with a contemplative stare.
+
+"So Mauclair takes snuff, does he?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Commissary ...  Look, there is his snuff-box on that little
+shelf ...  Oh! he's a great snuff-taker!"
+
+"So am I," said Mifroid and put the snuff-box in his pocket.
+
+Raoul and the Persian, themselves unobserved, watched the removal of
+the three bodies by a number of scene-shifters, who were followed by
+the commissary and all the people with him.  Their steps were heard for
+a few minutes on the stage above.  When they were alone the Persian
+made a sign to Raoul to stand up.  Raoul did so; but, as he did not
+lift his hand in front of his eyes, ready to fire, the Persian told him
+to resume that attitude and to continue it, whatever happened.
+
+"But it tires the hand unnecessarily," whispered Raoul.  "If I do fire,
+I shan't be sure of my aim."
+
+"Then shift your pistol to the other hand," said the Persian.
+
+"I can't shoot with my left hand."
+
+Thereupon, the Persian made this queer reply, which was certainly not
+calculated to throw light into the young man's flurried brain:
+
+"It's not a question of shooting with the right hand or the left; it's
+a question of holding one of your hands as though you were going to
+pull the trigger of a pistol with your arm bent.  As for the pistol
+itself, when all is said, you can put that in your pocket!"  And he
+added, "Let this be clearly understood, or I will answer for nothing.
+It is a matter of life and death.  And now, silence and follow me!"
+
+The cellars of the Opera are enormous and they are five in number.
+Raoul followed the Persian and wondered what he would have done without
+his companion in that extraordinary labyrinth.  They went down to the
+third cellar; and their progress was still lit by some distant lamp.
+
+The lower they went, the more precautions the Persian seemed to take.
+He kept on turning to Raoul to see if he was holding his arm properly,
+showing him how he himself carried his hand as if always ready to fire,
+though the pistol was in his pocket.
+
+Suddenly, a loud voice made them stop.  Some one above them shouted:
+
+"All the door-shutters on the stage!  The commissary of police wants
+them!"
+
+Steps were heard and shadows glided through the darkness.  The Persian
+drew Raoul behind a set piece.  They saw passing before and above them
+old men bent by age and the past burden of opera-scenery.  Some could
+hardly drag themselves along; others, from habit, with stooping bodies
+and outstretched hands, looked for doors to shut.
+
+They were the door-shutters, the old, worn-out scene-shifters, on whom
+a charitable management had taken pity, giving them the job of shutting
+doors above and below the stage.  They went about incessantly, from top
+to bottom of the building, shutting the doors; and they were also
+called "The draft-expellers," at least at that time, for I have little
+doubt that by now they are all dead.  Drafts are very bad for the
+voice, wherever they may come from.[1]
+
+The two men might have stumbled over them, waking them up and provoking
+a request for explanations.  For the moment, M. Mifroid's inquiry saved
+them from any such unpleasant encounters.
+
+The Persian and Raoul welcomed this incident, which relieved them of
+inconvenient witnesses, for some of those door-shutters, having nothing
+else to do or nowhere to lay their heads, stayed at the Opera, from
+idleness or necessity, and spent the night there.
+
+But they were not left to enjoy their solitude for long.  Other shades
+now came down by the same way by which the door-shutters had gone up.
+Each of these shades carried a little lantern and moved it about,
+above, below and all around, as though looking for something or
+somebody.
+
+"Hang it!" muttered the Persian.  "I don't know what they are looking
+for, but they might easily find us ...  Let us get away, quick! ...
+Your hand up, sir, ready to fire! ... Bend your arm ... more ... that's
+it! ... Hand at the level of your eye, as though you were fighting a
+duel and waiting for the word to fire!  Oh, leave your pistol in your
+pocket.  Quick, come along, down-stairs.  Level of your eye!  Question
+of life or death! ...  Here, this way, these stairs!"  They reached the
+fifth cellar.  "Oh, what a duel, sir, what a duel!"
+
+Once in the fifth cellar, the Persian drew breath.  He seemed to enjoy
+a rather greater sense of security than he had displayed when they both
+stopped in the third; but he never altered the attitude of his hand.
+And Raoul, remembering the Persian's observation--"I know these pistols
+can be relied upon"--was more and more astonished, wondering why any
+one should be so gratified at being able to rely upon a pistol which he
+did not intend to use!
+
+But the Persian left him no time for reflection.  Telling Raoul to stay
+where he was, he ran up a few steps of the staircase which they had
+just left and then returned.
+
+"How stupid of us!" he whispered.  "We shall soon have seen the end of
+those men with their lanterns.  It is the firemen going their
+rounds."[2]
+
+The two men waited five minutes longer.  Then the Persian took Raoul up
+the stairs again; but suddenly he stopped him with a gesture.
+Something moved in the darkness before them.
+
+"Flat on your stomach!" whispered the Persian.
+
+The two men lay flat on the floor.
+
+They were only just in time.  A shade, this time carrying no light,
+just a shade in the shade, passed.  It passed close to them, near
+enough to touch them.
+
+They felt the warmth of its cloak upon them.  For they could
+distinguish the shade sufficiently to see that it wore a cloak which
+shrouded it from head to foot.  On its head it had a soft felt hat ...
+
+It moved away, drawing its feet against the walls and sometimes giving
+a kick into a corner.
+
+"Whew!" said the Persian.  "We've had a narrow escape; that shade knows
+me and has twice taken me to the managers' office."
+
+"Is it some one belonging to the theater police?" asked Raoul.
+
+"It's some one much worse than that!" replied the Persian, without
+giving any further explanation.[3]
+
+"It's not ... he?"
+
+"He? ... If he does not come behind us, we shall always see his yellow
+eyes!  That is more or less our safeguard to-night. But he may come
+from behind, stealing up; and we are dead men if we do not keep our
+hands as though about to fire, at the level of our eyes, in front!"
+
+The Persian had hardly finished speaking, when a fantastic face came in
+sight ... a whole fiery face, not only two yellow eyes!
+
+Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no
+body attached to it.  The face shed fire, looked in the darkness like a
+flame shaped as a man's face.
+
+"Oh," said the Persian, between his teeth.  "I have never seen this
+before! ... Pampin was not mad, after all: he had seen it! ...  What
+can that flame be?  It is not HE, but he may have sent it!  ... Take
+care! ... Take care!  Your hand at the level of your eyes, in Heaven's
+name, at the level of your eyes! ... know most of his tricks ...  but
+not this one ...  Come, let us run ...  it is safer.  Hand at the level
+of your eyes!"
+
+And they fled down the long passage that opened before them.
+
+After a few seconds, that seemed to them like long minutes, they
+stopped.
+
+"He doesn't often come this way," said the Persian.  "This side has
+nothing to do with him.  This side does not lead to the lake nor to the
+house on the lake ...  But perhaps he knows that we are at his heels
+... although I promised him to leave him alone and never to meddle in
+his business again!"
+
+So saying, he turned his head and Raoul also turned his head; and they
+again saw the head of fire behind their two heads.  It had followed
+them.  And it must have run also, and perhaps faster than they, for it
+seemed to be nearer to them.
+
+At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they
+could not guess the nature.  They simply noticed that the sound seemed
+to move and to approach with the fiery face.  It was a noise as though
+thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard, the perfectly
+unendurable noise that is sometimes made by a little stone inside the
+chalk that grates on the blackboard.
+
+They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining
+on them.  They could see its features clearly now.  The eyes were round
+and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a
+hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when
+the moon is quite red, bright red.
+
+How did that red moon manage to glide through the darkness, at a man's
+height, with nothing to support it, at least apparently?  And how did
+it go so fast, so straight ahead, with such staring, staring eyes?  And
+what was that scratching, scraping, grating sound which it brought with
+it?
+
+The Persian and Raoul could retreat no farther and flattened themselves
+against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen because of that
+incomprehensible head of fire, and especially now, because of the more
+intense, swarming, living, "numerous" sound, for the sound was
+certainly made up of hundreds of little sounds that moved in the
+darkness, under the fiery face.
+
+And the fiery face came on ... with its noise ... came level with them!
+...
+
+And the two companions, flat against their wall, felt their hair stand
+on end with horror, for they now knew what the thousand noises meant.
+They came in a troop, hustled along in the shadow by innumerable little
+hurried waves, swifter than the waves that rush over the sands at high
+tide, little night-waves foaming under the moon, under the fiery head
+that was like a moon.  And the little waves passed between their legs,
+climbing up their legs, irresistibly, and Raoul and the Persian could
+no longer restrain their cries of horror, dismay and pain.  Nor could
+they continue to hold their hands at the level of their eyes: their
+hands went down to their legs to push back the waves, which were full
+of little legs and nails and claws and teeth.
+
+Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the
+fireman.  But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries,
+and spoke to them:
+
+"Don't move!  Don't move! ... Whatever you do, don't come after me!
+...  I am the rat-catcher! ... Let me pass, with my rats! ..."
+
+And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness, while the
+passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change which the
+rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern.  Before, so as not to scare
+the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on himself,
+lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight, he lit the dark
+space in front of him.  And he jumped along, dragging with him the
+waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.
+
+Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.
+
+"I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the
+rat-catcher," said the Persian.  "But he never told me that he looked
+like that ...  and it's funny that I should never have met him before
+...  Of course, Erik never comes to this part!"
+
+[Illustration: two page color illustration]
+
+"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul.  "When shall we get
+there? ... Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake! ...  When we
+are at the lake, we will call out! ... Christine will hear us! ... And
+HE will hear us, too! ... And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!"
+"Baby!" said the Persian.  "We shall never enter the house on the lake
+by the lake! ... I myself have never landed on the other bank ... the
+bank on which the house stands.  ... You have to cross the lake first
+... and it is well guarded!  ... I fear that more than one of those
+men--old scene-shifters, old door-shutters--who have never been seen
+again were simply tempted to cross the lake ...  It is terrible ...  I
+myself would have been nearly killed there ... if the monster had not
+recognized me in time!  ... One piece of advice, sir; never go near the
+lake... And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing
+under the water, the siren's voice!"
+
+"But then, what are we here for?" asked Raoul, in a transport of fever,
+impatience and rage.  "If you can do nothing for Christine, at least
+let me die for her!"  The Persian tried to calm the young man.
+
+"We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me, which is
+to enter the house unperceived by the monster."
+
+"And is there any hope of that, sir?"
+
+"Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!"
+
+"And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing the lake?"
+
+"From the third cellar, from which we were so unluckily driven away.
+We will go back there now ...  I will tell you," said the Persian, with
+a sudden change in his voice, "I will tell you the exact place, sir: it
+is between a set piece and a discarded scene from ROI DE LAHORE,
+exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died...  Come, sir, take
+courage and follow me!  And hold your hand at the level of your eyes!
+... But where are we?"
+
+The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous
+corridors that crossed each other at right angles.
+
+"We must be," he said, "in the part used more particularly for the
+waterworks.  I see no fire coming from the furnaces."
+
+He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road, stopping abruptly when he
+was afraid of meeting some waterman.  Then they had to protect
+themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge, which the
+men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized the demons whom
+Christine had seen at the time of her first captivity.
+
+In this way, they gradually arrived beneath the huge cellars below the
+stage.  They must at this time have been at the very bottom of the
+"tub" and at an extremely great depth, when we remember that the earth
+was dug out at fifty feet below the water that lay under the whole of
+that part of Paris.[4]
+
+The Persian touched a partition-wall and said:
+
+"If I am not mistaken, this is a wall that might easily belong to the
+house on the lake."
+
+He was striking a partition-wall of the "tub," and perhaps it would be
+as well for the reader to know how the bottom and the partition-walls
+of the tub were built.  In order to prevent the water surrounding the
+building-operations from remaining in immediate contact with the walls
+supporting the whole of the theatrical machinery, the architect was
+obliged to build a double case in every direction.  The work of
+constructing this double case took a whole year.  It was the wall of
+the first inner case that the Persian struck when speaking to Raoul of
+the house on the lake.  To any one understanding the architecture of
+the edifice, the Persian's action would seem to indicate that Erik's
+mysterious house had been built in the double case, formed of a thick
+wall constructed as an embankment or dam, then of a brick wall, a
+tremendous layer of cement and another wall several yards in thickness.
+
+At the Persian's words, Raoul flung himself against the wall and
+listened eagerly.  But he heard nothing ... nothing ... except distant
+steps sounding on the floor of the upper portions of the theater.
+
+The Persian darkened his lantern again.
+
+"Look out!" he said.  "Keep your hand up!  And silence!  For we shall
+try another way of getting in."
+
+And he led him to the little staircase by which they had come down
+lately.
+
+They went up, stopping at each step, peering into the darkness and the
+silence, till they came to the third cellar.  Here the Persian motioned
+to Raoul to go on his knees; and, in this way, crawling on both knees
+and one hand--for the other hand was held in the position
+indicated--they reached the end wall.
+
+Against this wall stood a large discarded scene from the ROI DE LAHORE.
+Close to this scene was a set piece.  Between the scene and the set
+piece there was just room for a body ... for a body which one day was
+found hanging there.  The body of Joseph Buquet.
+
+The Persian, still kneeling, stopped and listened.  For a moment, he
+seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul; then he turned his eyes upward,
+toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint glimmer of a
+lantern, through a cranny between two boards.  This glimmer seemed to
+trouble the Persian.
+
+At last, he tossed his head and made up his mind to act.  He slipped
+between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE, with Raoul
+close upon his heels.  With his free hand, the Persian felt the wall.
+Raoul saw him bear heavily upon the wall, just as he had pressed
+against the wall in Christine's dressing-room. Then a stone gave way,
+leaving a hole in the wall.
+
+This time, the Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made a sign
+to Raoul to do as he did.  He cocked the pistol.
+
+And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole in the
+wall.  Raoul, who had wished to pass first, had to be content to follow
+him.
+
+The hole was very narrow.  The Persian stopped almost at once.  Raoul
+heard him feeling the stones around him.  Then the Persian took out his
+dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath him and
+immediately extinguished his lantern.  Raoul heard him say, in a
+whisper:
+
+"We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise; take off
+your boots."
+
+The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.
+
+"Put them outside the wall," he said.  "We shall find them there when
+we leave."[5]
+
+He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round and
+said:
+
+"I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and let
+myself drop INTO HIS HOUSE.  You must do exactly the same.  Do not be
+afraid.  I will catch you in my arms."
+
+Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall of the
+Persian, and then dropped down.
+
+He felt himself clasped in the Persian's arms.
+
+"Hush!" said the Persian.
+
+And they stood motionless, listening.
+
+The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.
+
+Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,
+turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which
+they had come, and failing to find it:
+
+"Oh!" he said.  "The stone has closed of itself!"
+
+And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.
+
+The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he
+examined for a second and flung away with horror.
+
+"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.
+
+"What is it?" asked Raoul.
+
+The Persian shivered.  "It might very well be the rope by which the man
+was hanged, and which was looked for so long."
+
+And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk
+of his lantern over the walls.  In this way, he lit up a curious thing:
+the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves;
+and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared in
+the ceiling.
+
+Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at
+first to make out the appearance of things:  they saw a corner of a
+branch ... and a leaf ... and another leaf ... and, next to it, nothing
+at all, nothing but the ray of light that seemed to reflect itself ...
+Raoul passed his hand over that nothing, over that reflection.
+
+"Hullo!" he said.  "The wall is a looking-glass!"
+
+"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion.
+And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead, he
+added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!"
+
+What the Persian knew of this torture-chamber and what there befell him
+and his companion shall be told in his own words, as set down in a
+manuscript which he left behind him, and which I copy VERBATIM.
+
+
+
+[1] M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few
+additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom he was
+unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera.
+
+[2] In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch
+over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances; but this
+service has since been suppressed.  I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the
+reason, and he replied:
+
+"It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter
+inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set fire to
+the building!"
+
+[3] Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the
+apparition of this shade.  Whereas, in this historic narrative,
+everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course
+of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand
+what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than
+that!"  The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M.
+Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret
+regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the
+wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the
+cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on
+gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage.  I
+am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no
+more.
+
+[4] All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera.
+To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell
+the reader that it represented the area of the courtyard of the Louvre
+and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame.  And
+nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake.
+
+[5] These two pairs of boots, which were placed, according to the
+Persian's papers, just between the set piece and the scene from the ROI
+DE LAHORE, on the spot where Joseph Buquet was found hanging, were
+never discovered.  They must have been taken by some stage-carpenter or
+"door-shutter."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI  Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in
+the Cellars of the Opera
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE
+
+It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake.  I had
+often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my
+country, to open its mysterious doors to me.  He always refused.  I
+made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance.  Watch him
+as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent
+abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to
+see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake.  One day, when I
+thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that
+part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear.  It was then
+that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and
+whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.
+
+I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I
+floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that
+hovered all around me.  It was half breath, half music; it rose softly
+from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew
+not what artifice.  It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that
+it did not alarm me.  On the contrary, in my longing to approach the
+source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little
+boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing
+came from the water itself.  By this time, I was alone in the boat in
+the middle of the lake; the voice--for it was now distinctly a
+voice--was beside me, on the water.  I leaned over, leaned still
+farther.  The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed
+through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely nothing on
+its surface, which was smooth and black as ink.  I shook my ears to get
+rid of a possible humming; but I soon had to accept the fact that there
+was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that
+followed and now attracted me.
+
+Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought
+that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the
+traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake.
+Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic
+things not to know them through and through; and I had no doubt but
+that I was face to face with some new invention of Erik's. But this
+invention was so perfect that, as I leaned out of the boat, I was
+impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its
+charm; and I leaned out, leaned out until I almost overturned the boat.
+
+Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and
+seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible
+force.  I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to
+give a cry by which Erik knew me.  For it was he; and, instead of
+drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and
+laid me gently on the bank:
+
+"How imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with
+water.  "Why try to enter my house?  I never invited you!  I don't want
+you there, nor anybody!  Did you save my life only to make it
+unbearable to me?  However great the service you rendered him, Erik may
+end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not
+even Erik himself."
+
+He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already
+called the trick of the siren.  He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik,
+who is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas--is
+also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited,
+and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to
+prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.
+
+He laughed and showed me a long reed.
+
+"It's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful
+for breathing and singing in the water.  I learned it from the Tonkin
+pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the
+rivers."[1]
+
+I spoke to him severely.
+
+"It's a trick that nearly killed me!"  I said.  "And it may have been
+fatal to others!  You know what you promised me, Erik?  No more
+murders!"
+
+"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most
+amiable air.
+
+"Wretched man!"  I cried.  "Have you forgotten the rosy hours of
+Mazenderan?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them.  I used
+to make the little sultana laugh, though!"
+
+"All that belongs to the past," I declared; "but there is the present
+... and you are responsible to me for the present, because, if I had
+wished, there would have been none at all for you.  Remember that,
+Erik:  I saved your life!"
+
+And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him of
+something that had long been on my mind:
+
+"Erik," I asked, "Erik, swear that ..."
+
+"What?" he retorted.  "You know I never keep my oaths.  Oaths are made
+to catch gulls with."
+
+"Tell me ... you can tell me, at any rate..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, the chandelier ... the chandelier, Erik? ..."
+
+"What about the chandelier?"
+
+"You know what I mean."
+
+"Oh," he sniggered, "I don't mind telling you about the chandelier!
+... IT WASN'T I! ... The chandelier was very old and worn."
+
+When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever.  He jumped into the
+boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.
+
+"Very old and worn, my dear daroga![2]  Very old and worn, the
+chandelier! ... It fell of itself! ... It came down with a smash! ...
+And now, daroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you'll
+catch a cold in the head! ...  And never get into my boat again ...
+And, whatever you do, don't try to enter my house:  I'm not always
+there ... daroga!  And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem
+Mass to you!"
+
+So saying, swinging to and fro, like a monkey, and still chuckling, he
+pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.
+
+From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by
+the lake.  That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially
+since he had learned that I knew about it.  But I felt that there must
+be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik disappear in the third
+cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.
+
+Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a
+perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was
+concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.[3]
+
+And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought
+to myself, "I should not be surprised if that were Erik," even as
+others used to say, "It's the ghost!"  How often have I not heard
+people utter that phrase with a smile!  Poor devils!  If they had known
+that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they would not have
+laughed!
+
+Although Erik announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and
+that he had become the most virtuous of men SINCE HE WAS LOVED FOR
+HIMSELF--a sentence that, at first, perplexed me most terribly--I could
+not help shuddering when I thought of the monster.  His horrible,
+unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pale of
+humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason, he no longer
+believed that he had any duty toward the human race.  The way in which
+he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm, for I foresaw the
+cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this event to which he
+alluded so boastfully.
+
+On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic
+established between the monster and Christine Daae.  Hiding in the
+lumber-room next to the young prima donna's dressing-room, I listened
+to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine into
+marvelous ecstasy; but, all the same, I would never have thought that
+Erik's voice--which was loud as thunder or soft as angels' voices, at
+will--could have made her forget his ugliness.  I understood all when I
+learned that Christine had not yet seen him!  I had occasion to go to
+the dressing-room and, remembering the lessons he had once given me, I
+had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made the wall with the
+mirror swing round and I ascertained the means of hollow bricks and so
+on--by which he made his voice carry to Christine as though she heard
+it close beside her.  In this way also I discovered the road that led
+to the well and the dungeon--the Communists' dungeon--and also the
+trap-door that enabled Erik to go straight to the cellars below the
+stage.
+
+A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes and
+ears that Erik and Christine Daae saw each other and to catch the
+monster stooping over the little well, in the Communists' road and
+sprinkling the forehead of Christine Daae, who had fainted.  A white
+horse, the horse out of the PROFETA, which had disappeared from the
+stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them.  I showed
+myself.  It was terrible.  I saw sparks fly from those yellow eyes and,
+before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that
+stunned me.
+
+When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had
+disappeared.  I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the
+house on the lake.  Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the
+bank, notwithstanding the attendant danger.  For twenty-four hours, I
+lay in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out,
+driven by the need of obtaining provisions.  And, in this connection, I
+may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show
+himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache attached
+to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.  This did not quite
+take away his corpse-like air, but it made him almost, I say almost,
+endurable to look at.
+
+I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting,
+was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door, the
+door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in the dark,
+I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon the boat
+touched shore.  Erik jumped out and walked up to me:
+
+"You've been here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying
+me.  I tell you, all this will end very badly.  And you will have
+brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with
+you.  You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I
+who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here.  I
+spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you,
+seriously, don't let me catch you there again!  Upon my word, you don't
+seem able to take a hint!"
+
+He was so furious that I did not think, for the moment, of interrupting
+him.  After puffing and blowing like a walrus, he put his horrible
+thought into words:
+
+"Yes, you must learn, once and for all--once and for all, I say--to
+take a hint!  I tell you that, with your recklessness--for you have
+already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not
+know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers,
+who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage
+mechanism and life behind the scenes:  I know all about it, I was
+there, in the office; you know I am everywhere--well, I tell you that,
+with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what you are after
+here ... and they will end by knowing that you are after Erik ... and
+then they will be after Erik themselves and they will discover the
+house on the lake ...  If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you,
+old chap, a bad lookout! ...  I won't answer for anything."
+
+Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.
+
+"I won't answer for anything! ... If Erik's secrets cease to be Erik's
+secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBER OF THE HUMAN
+RACE!  That's all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby,
+it ought to be enough for you ... except that you don't know how to
+take a hint."
+
+He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels
+against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.  I simply
+said:
+
+"It's not Erik that I'm after here!"
+
+"Who then?"
+
+"You know as well as I do:  it's Christine Daae," I answered.
+
+He retorted:  "I have every right to see her in my own house.  I am
+loved for my own sake."
+
+"That's not true," I said.  "You have carried her off and are keeping
+her locked up."
+
+"Listen," he said.  "Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs
+again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?"
+
+"Yes, I promise you," I replied, without hesitation, for I felt
+convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.
+
+"Well, then, it's quite simple ...  Christine Daae shall leave this as
+she pleases and come back again! ... Yes, come back again, because she
+wishes ... come back of herself, because she loves me for myself! ..."
+
+"Oh, I doubt if she will come back! ... But it is your duty to let her
+go."  "My duty, you great booby! ... It is my wish ...  my wish to let
+her go; and she will come back again ... for she loves me! ... All this
+will end in a marriage ... a marriage at the Madeleine, you great
+booby!  Do you believe me now?  When I tell you that my nuptial mass is
+written ... wait till you hear the KYRIE..."
+
+He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:
+
+"KYRIE! ... KYRIE! ... KYRIE ELEISON! ... Wait till you hear, wait till
+you hear that mass."
+
+"Look here," I said.  "I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae come
+out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord."
+
+"And you won't meddle any more in my affairs?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Very well, you shall see that to-night. Come to the masked ball.
+Christine and I will go and have a look round.  Then you can hide in
+the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her
+dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists' road... And,
+now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!"
+
+To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.
+Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several
+times, without, apparently, being forced to do so.  It was very
+difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik.  However, I resolved to be
+extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the
+shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists' road.  But the idea
+of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly
+went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which
+had been left there for some reason or other.  At last my patience was
+rewarded.  One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees.  I
+was certain that he could not see me.  He passed between the scene
+behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a
+spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.  He passed
+through this, and the stone closed behind him.
+
+I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my
+turn.  Everything happened as with Erik.  But I was careful not to go
+through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside.  On the other
+hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of
+the death of Joseph Buquet.  I did not wish to jeopardize the
+advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many
+people, "to a goodly number of the human race," in Erik's words; and I
+left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.
+
+I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and
+Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the
+terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of
+anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake,
+as he imagined.  I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the
+Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love-affair.
+
+He filled Christine's mind, through the terror with which he inspired
+her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de
+Chagny.  While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on
+the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little
+suspected that some one was watching over them.  I was prepared to do
+anything:  to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police
+afterward.  But Erik did not show himself; and I felt none the more
+comfortable for that.
+
+I must explain my whole plan.  I thought that the monster, being driven
+from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to enter it, without
+danger, through the passage in the third cellar.  It was important, for
+everybody's sake, that I should know exactly what was inside.  One day,
+tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved the stone and at once
+heard an astounding music: the monster was working at his Don Juan
+Triumphant, with every door in his house wide open.  I knew that this
+was the work of his life.  I was careful not to stir and remained
+prudently in my dark hole.
+
+He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place,
+like a madman.  And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:
+
+"It must be finished FIRST!  Quite finished!"
+
+This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the music
+recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.
+
+On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come to the
+theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I should hear
+bad news.  I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading in a morning
+paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and
+the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do
+better to denounce the monster.  But reason returned to me, and I was
+persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible
+catastrophe.
+
+When, my cab set me down before the Opera, I was really almost
+astonished to see it still standing!  But I am something of a fatalist,
+like all good Orientals, and I entered ready, for anything.
+
+Christine Daae's abduction in the Prison Act, which naturally surprised
+everybody, found me prepared.  I was quite certain that she had been
+juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers.  And I thought
+positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps of everybody,
+so much so that I thought of advising all these people who were staying
+on at the theater to make good their escape.  I felt, however, that
+they would be sure to look upon me as mad and I refrained.
+
+On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay, as far as I
+was concerned.  The chances were in my favor that Erik, at that moment,
+was thinking only of his captive.  This was the moment to enter his
+house through the third cellar; and I resolved to take with me that
+poor little desperate viscount, who, at the first suggestion, accepted,
+with an amount of confidence in myself that touched me profoundly.  I
+had sent my servant for my pistols.  I gave one to the viscount and
+advised him to hold himself ready to fire, for, after all, Erik might
+be waiting for us behind the wall.  We were to go by the Communists'
+road and through the trap-door.
+
+Seeing my pistols, the little viscount asked me if we were going to
+fight a duel.  I said:
+
+"Yes; and what a duel!"  But, of course, I had no time to explain
+anything to him.  The little viscount is a brave fellow, but he knew
+hardly anything about his adversary; and it was so much the better.  My
+great fear was that he was already somewhere near us, preparing the
+Punjab lasso.  No one knows better than he how to throw the Punjab
+lasso, for he is the king of stranglers even as he is the prince of
+conjurors.  When he had finished making the little sultana laugh, at
+the time of the "rosy hours of Mazenderan," she herself used to ask him
+to amuse her by giving her a thrill.  It was then that he introduced
+the sport of the Punjab lasso.
+
+He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art of
+strangulation.  He would make them lock him into a courtyard to which
+they brought a warrior--usually, a man condemned to death--armed with a
+long pike and broadsword.  Erik had only his lasso; and it was always
+just when the warrior thought that he was going to fell Erik with a
+tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistle through the air.  With
+a turn of the wrist, Erik tightened the noose round his adversary's
+neck and, in this fashion, dragged him before the little sultana and
+her women, who sat looking from a window and applauding.  The little
+sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab lasso and killed several of
+her women and even of the friends who visited her.  But I prefer to
+drop this terrible subject of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  I have
+mentioned it only to explain why, on arriving with the Vicomte de
+Chagny in the cellars of the Opera, I was bound to protect my companion
+against the ever-threatening danger of death by strangling.  My pistols
+could serve no purpose, for Erik was not likely to show himself; but
+Erik could always strangle us.  I had no time to explain all this to
+the viscount; besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating
+the position.  I simply told M. de Chagny to keep his hand at the level
+of his eyes, with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to
+fire.  With his victim in this attitude, it is impossible even for the
+most expert strangler to throw the lasso with advantage.  It catches
+you not only round the neck, but also round the arm or hand.  This
+enables you easily to unloose the lasso, which then becomes harmless.
+
+After avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door-shutters and
+the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher and passing the man in the
+felt hat unperceived, the viscount and I arrived without obstacle in
+the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene from the Roi de
+Lahore.  I worked the stone, and we jumped into the house which Erik
+had built himself in the double case of the foundation-walls of the
+Opera.  And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do,
+because Erik was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Garnier,
+the architect of the Opera, and continued to work by himself when the
+works were officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and
+the Commune.
+
+I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his
+house.  I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan.
+From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into
+a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was
+overheard or repeated by an echo.  With his trap-doors the monster was
+responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds.  He hit upon
+astonishing inventions.  Of these, the most curious, horrible and
+dangerous was the so-called torture-chamber. Except in special cases,
+when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting suffering upon
+some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned
+to death.  And, even then, when these had "had enough," they were
+always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or
+bowstring, left for their use at the foot of an iron tree.
+
+My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into which M.
+le Vicomte de Chagny and I had dropped was an exact copy of the
+torture-chamber of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  At our feet, I found
+the Punjab lasso which I had been dreading all the evening.  I was
+convinced that this rope had already done duty for Joseph Buquet, who,
+like myself, must have caught Erik one evening working the stone in the
+third cellar.  He probably tried it in his turn, fell into the
+torture-chamber and only left it hanged.  I can well imagine Erik
+dragging the body, in order to get rid of it, to the scene from the Roi
+de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the
+superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to
+his lair!  Then, upon reflection, Erik went back to fetch the Punjab
+lasso, which is very curiously made out of catgut, and which might have
+set an examining magistrate thinking.  This explains the disappearance
+of the rope.
+
+And now I discovered the lasso, at our feet, in the torture-chamber!
+...  I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved
+the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.
+
+M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:
+
+"What is the matter, sir?"
+
+I made him a violent sign to be silent.
+
+
+
+[1] An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end of
+July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham was tracked,
+together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded
+in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.
+
+[2] DAROGA is Persian for chief of police.
+
+[3] The Persian might easily have admitted that Erik's fate also
+interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government of
+Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have been all
+up with the modest pension of the erstwhile daroga.  It is only fair,
+however, to add that the Persian had a noble and generous heart; and I
+do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes which he feared for
+others greatly occupied his mind.  His conduct, throughout this
+business, proves it and is above all praise.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII  In the Torture Chamber
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
+
+We were in the middle of a little six-cornered room, the sides of which
+were covered with mirrors from top to bottom.  In the corners, we could
+clearly see the "joins" in the glasses, the segments intended to turn
+on their gear; yes, I recognized them and I recognized the iron tree in
+the corner, at the bottom of one of those segments ... the iron tree,
+with its iron branch, for the hanged men.
+
+I seized my companion's arm:  the Vicomte de Chagny was all a-quiver,
+eager to shout to his betrothed that he was bringing her help.  I
+feared that he would not be able to contain himself.
+
+Suddenly, we heard a noise on our left.  It sounded at first like a
+door opening and shutting in the next room; and then there was a dull
+moan.  I clutched M. de Chagny's arm more firmly still; and then we
+distinctly heard these words:
+
+"You must make your choice!  The wedding mass or the requiem mass!" I
+recognized the voice of the monster.
+
+There was another moan, followed by a long silence.
+
+I was persuaded by now that the monster was unaware of our presence in
+his house, for otherwise he would certainly have managed not to let us
+hear him.  He would only have had to close the little invisible window
+through which the torture-lovers look down into the torture-chamber.
+Besides, I was certain that, if he had known of our presence, the
+tortures would have begun at once.
+
+The important thing was not to let him know; and I dreaded nothing so
+much as the impulsiveness of the Vicomte de Chagny, who wanted to rush
+through the walls to Christine Daae, whose moans we continued to hear
+at intervals.
+
+"The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed, "whereas
+the wedding mass--you can take my word for it--is magnificent!  You
+must take a resolution and know your own mind!  I can't go on living
+like this, like a mole in a burrow!  Don Juan Triumphant is finished;
+and now I want to live like everybody else.  I want to have a wife like
+everybody else and to take her out on Sundays.  I have invented a mask
+that makes me look like anybody.  People will not even turn round in
+the streets.  You will be the happiest of women.  And we will sing, all
+by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight.  You are crying!  You
+are afraid of me!  And yet I am not really wicked.  Love me and you
+shall see!  All I wanted was to be loved for myself.  If you loved me I
+should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that
+you pleased."
+
+Soon the moans that accompanied this sort of love's litany increased
+and increased.  I have never heard anything more despairing; and M. de
+Chagny and I recognized that this terrible lamentation came from Erik
+himself.  Christine seemed to be standing dumb with horror, without the
+strength to cry out, while the monster was on his knees before her.
+
+Three times over, Erik fiercely bewailed his fate:
+
+"You don't love me!  You don't love me!  You don't love me!"
+
+And then, more gently:
+
+"Why do you cry?  You know it gives me pain to see you cry!"
+
+A silence.
+
+Each silence gave us fresh hope.  We said to ourselves:
+
+"Perhaps he has left Christine behind the wall."
+
+And we thought only of the possibility of warning Christine Daae of our
+presence, unknown to the monster.  We were unable to leave the
+torture-chamber now, unless Christine opened the door to us; and it was
+only on this condition that we could hope to help her, for we did not
+even know where the door might be.
+
+Suddenly, the silence in the next room was disturbed by the ringing of
+an electric bell.  There was a bound on the other side of the wall and
+Erik's voice of thunder:
+
+"Somebody ringing!  Walk in, please!"
+
+A sinister chuckle.
+
+"Who has come bothering now?  Wait for me here ...  I AM GOING TO TELL
+THE SIREN TO OPEN THE DOOR."
+
+Steps moved away, a door closed.  I had no time to think of the fresh
+horror that was preparing; I forgot that the monster was only going out
+perhaps to perpetrate a fresh crime; I understood but one thing:
+Christine was alone behind the wall!
+
+The Vicomte de Chagny was already calling to her:
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+As we could hear what was said in the next room, there was no reason
+why my companion should not be heard in his turn.  Nevertheless, the
+viscount had to repeat his cry time after time.
+
+At last, a faint voice reached us.
+
+"I am dreaming!" it said.
+
+"Christine, Christine, it is I, Raoul!"
+
+A silence.
+
+"But answer me, Christine! ... In Heaven's name, if you are alone,
+answer me!"
+
+Then Christine's voice whispered Raoul's name.
+
+"Yes!  Yes!  It is I!  It is not a dream! ... Christine, trust me! ...
+We are here to save you ... but be prudent!  When you hear the monster,
+warn us!"
+
+Then Christine gave way to fear.  She trembled lest Erik should
+discover where Raoul was hidden; she told us in a few hurried words
+that Erik had gone quite mad with love and that he had decided TO KILL
+EVERYBODY AND HIMSELF WITH EVERYBODY if she did not consent to become
+his wife.  He had given her till eleven o'clock the next evening for
+reflection.  It was the last respite.  She must choose, as he said,
+between the wedding mass and the requiem.
+
+And Erik had then uttered a phrase which Christine did not quite
+understand:
+
+"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"
+
+But I understood the sentence perfectly, for it corresponded in a
+terrible manner with my own dreadful thought.
+
+"Can you tell us where Erik is?"  I asked.
+
+She replied that he must have left the house.
+
+"Could you make sure?"
+
+"No. I am fastened.  I can not stir a limb."
+
+When we heard this, M. de Chagny and I gave a yell of fury.  Our
+safety, the safety of all three of us, depended on the girl's liberty
+of movement.
+
+"But where are you?" asked Christine.  "There are only two doors in my
+room, the Louis-Philippe room of which I told you, Raoul; a door
+through which Erik comes and goes, and another which he has never
+opened before me and which he has forbidden me ever to go through,
+because he says it is the most dangerous of the doors, the door of the
+torture-chamber!"
+
+"Christine, that is where we are!"
+
+"You are in the torture-chamber?"
+
+"Yes, but we can not see the door."
+
+"Oh, if I could only drag myself so far!  I would knock at the door and
+that would tell you where it is."
+
+"Is it a door with a lock to it?"  I asked.
+
+"Yes, with a lock."
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said, "it is absolutely necessary, that you should
+open that door to us!"
+
+"But how?" asked the poor girl tearfully.
+
+We heard her straining, trying to free herself from the bonds that held
+her.
+
+"I know where the key is," she said, in a voice that seemed exhausted
+by the effort she had made.  "But I am fastened so tight ...  Oh, the
+wretch!"
+
+And she gave a sob.
+
+"Where is the key?"  I asked, signing to M. de Chagny not to speak and
+to leave the business to me, for we had not a moment to lose.
+
+"In the next room, near the organ, with another little bronze key,
+which he also forbade me to touch.  They are both in a little leather
+bag which he calls the bag of life and death...  Raoul!  Raoul!  Fly!
+Everything is mysterious and terrible here, and Erik will soon have
+gone quite mad, and you are in the torture-chamber! ... Go back by the
+way you came.  There must be a reason why the room is called by that
+name!"
+
+"Christine," said the young man.  "We will go from here together or die
+together!"
+
+"We must keep cool," I whispered.  "Why has he fastened you,
+mademoiselle?  You can't escape from his house; and he knows it!"
+
+"I tried to commit suicide!  The monster went out last night, after
+carrying me here fainting and half chloroformed.  He was going TO HIS
+BANKER, so he said! ... When he returned he found me with my face
+covered with blood ...  I had tried to kill myself by striking my
+forehead against the walls."
+
+"Christine!" groaned Raoul; and he began to sob.
+
+"Then he bound me ...  I am not allowed to die until eleven o'clock
+to-morrow evening."
+
+"Mademoiselle," I declared, "the monster bound you ... and he shall
+unbind you.  You have only to play the necessary part!  Remember that
+he loves you!"
+
+"Alas!" we heard.  "Am I likely to forget it!"
+
+"Remember it and smile to him ... entreat him ... tell him that your
+bonds hurt you."
+
+But Christine Daae said:
+
+"Hush! ... I hear something in the wall on the lake! ... It is he! ...
+Go away!  Go away!  Go away!"
+
+"We could not go away, even if we wanted to," I said, as impressively
+as I could.  "We can not leave this!  And we are in the
+torture-chamber!"
+
+"Hush!" whispered Christine again.
+
+Heavy steps sounded slowly behind the wall, then stopped and made the
+floor creak once more.  Next came a tremendous sigh, followed by a cry
+of horror from Christine, and we heard Erik's voice:
+
+"I beg your pardon for letting you see a face like this!  What a state
+I am in, am I not?  It's THE OTHER ONE'S FAULT!  Why did he ring?  Do I
+ask people who pass to tell me the time?  He will never ask anybody the
+time again!  It is the siren's fault."
+
+[Illustration: two page color illustration]
+
+Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal
+depths of a soul.
+
+"Why did you cry out, Christine?"
+
+"Because I am in pain, Erik."
+
+"I thought I had frightened you."
+
+"Erik, unloose my bonds ...  Am I not your prisoner?"
+
+"You will try to kill yourself again."
+
+"You have given me till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening, Erik."
+
+The footsteps dragged along the floor again.
+
+"After all, as we are to die together ... and I am just as eager as you
+... yes, I have had enough of this life, you know...  Wait, don't move,
+I will release you ...  You have only one word to say:  'NO!' And it
+will at once be over WITH EVERYBODY!  ... You are right, you are right;
+why wait till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening?  True, it would have
+been grander, finer ...  But that is childish nonsense ...  We should
+only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death ... the rest
+doesn't matter...  YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET? ...  Oh,
+my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside! ... Apart from that,
+Christine, I think I am subject to hallucinations ...  You know, the
+man who rang at the siren's door just now--go and look if he's ringing
+at the bottom of the lake-well, he was rather like...  There, turn
+round ... are you glad?  You're free now...  Oh, my poor Christine,
+look at your wrists:  tell me, have I hurt them? ... That alone
+deserves death ...  Talking of death, I MUST SING HIS REQUIEM!"
+
+Hearing these terrible remarks, I received an awful presentiment ... I
+too had once rung at the monster's door ... and, without knowing it,
+must have set some warning current in motion.
+
+And I remembered the two arms that had emerged from the inky waters...
+What poor wretch had strayed to that shore this time?  Who was 'the
+other one,' the one whose requiem we now heard sung?
+
+Erik sang like the god of thunder, sang a DIES IRAE that enveloped us
+as in a storm.  The elements seemed to rage around us.  Suddenly, the
+organ and the voice ceased so suddenly that M. de Chagny sprang back,
+on the other side of the wall, with emotion.  And the voice, changed
+and transformed, distinctly grated out these metallic syllables: "WHAT
+HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAG?"
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII  The Tortures Begin
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.
+
+The voice repeated angrily:  "What have you done with my bag?  So it
+was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!"
+
+We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe
+room, as though to seek shelter on the other side of our wall.
+
+"What are you running away for?" asked the furious voice, which had
+followed her.  "Give me back my bag, will you?  Don't you know that it
+is the bag of life and death?"
+
+"Listen to me, Erik," sighed the girl.  "As it is settled that we are
+to live together ... what difference can it make to you?"
+
+"You know there are only two keys in it," said the monster.  "What do
+you want to do?"
+
+"I want to look at this room which I have never seen and which you have
+always kept from me ...  It's woman's curiosity!" she said, in a tone
+which she tried to render playful.
+
+But the trick was too childish for Erik to be taken in by it.
+
+"I don't like curious women," he retorted, "and you had better remember
+the story of BLUE-BEARD and be careful ...  Come, give me back my bag!
+... Give me back my bag! ... Leave the key alone, will you, you
+inquisitive little thing?"
+
+And he chuckled, while Christine gave a cry of pain.  Erik had
+evidently recovered the bag from her.
+
+At that moment, the viscount could not help uttering an exclamation of
+impotent rage.
+
+"Why, what's that?" said the monster.  "Did you hear, Christine?"
+
+"No, no," replied the poor girl.  "I heard nothing."
+
+"I thought I heard a cry."
+
+"A cry!  Are you going mad, Erik?  Whom do you expect to give a cry, in
+this house? ... I cried out, because you hurt me!  I heard nothing."
+
+"I don't like the way you said that! ... You're trembling...  You're
+quite excited ...  You're lying! ... That was a cry, there was a cry!
+... There is some one in the torture-chamber! ...  Ah, I understand
+now!"
+
+"There is no one there, Erik!"
+
+"I understand!"
+
+"No one!"
+
+"The man you want to marry, perhaps!"
+
+"I don't want to marry anybody, you know I don't."
+
+Another nasty chuckle.  "Well, it won't take long to find out.
+Christine, my love, we need not open the door to see what is happening
+in the torture-chamber. Would you like to see?  Would you like to see?
+Look here!  If there is some one, if there is really some one there,
+you will see the invisible window light up at the top, near the
+ceiling.  We need only draw the black curtain and put out the light in
+here.  There, that's it ...  Let's put out the light!  You're not
+afraid of the dark, when you're with your little husband!"
+
+Then we heard Christine's voice of anguish:
+
+"No! ... I'm frightened! ... I tell you, I'm afraid of the dark! ...  I
+don't care about that room now ...  You're always frightening me, like
+a child, with your torture-chamber! ... And so I became inquisitive...
+But I don't care about it now ... not a bit ... not a bit!"
+
+And that which I feared above all things began, AUTOMATICALLY.  We were
+suddenly flooded with light!  Yes, on our side of the wall, everything
+seemed aglow.  The Vicomte de Chagny was so much taken aback that he
+staggered.  And the angry voice roared:
+
+"I told you there was some one!  Do you see the window now?  The
+lighted window, right up there?  The man behind the wall can't see it!
+But you shall go up the folding steps:  that is what they are there
+for! ... You have often asked me to tell you; and now you know! ...
+They are there to give a peep into the torture-chamber ... you
+inquisitive little thing!"
+
+"What tortures? ... Who is being tortured? ... Erik, Erik, say you are
+only trying to frighten me! ... Say it, if you love me, Erik! ... There
+are no tortures, are there?"
+
+"Go and look at the little window, dear!"
+
+I do not know if the viscount heard the girl's swooning voice, for he
+was too much occupied by the astounding spectacle that now appeared
+before his distracted gaze.  As for me, I had seen that sight too
+often, through the little window, at the time of the rosy hours of
+Mazenderan; and I cared only for what was being said next door, seeking
+for a hint how to act, what resolution to take.
+
+"Go and peep through the little window!  Tell me what he looks like!"
+
+We heard the steps being dragged against the wall.
+
+"Up with you! ... No! ... No, I will go up myself, dear!"
+
+"Oh, very well, I will go up.  Let me go!"
+
+"Oh, my darling, my darling! ... How sweet of you! ... How nice of you
+to save me the exertion at my age! ... Tell me what he looks like!"
+
+At that moment, we distinctly heard these words above our heads:
+
+"There is no one there, dear!"
+
+"No one? ... Are you sure there is no one?"
+
+"Why, of course not ... no one!"
+
+"Well, that's all right! ... What's the matter, Christine?  You're not
+going to faint, are you ... as there is no one there? ...  Here ...
+come down ... there! ... Pull yourself together ... as there is no one
+there! ... BUT HOW DO YOU LIKE THE LANDSCAPE?"
+
+"Oh, very much!"
+
+"There, that's better! ... You're better now, are you not? ...  That's
+all right, you're better! ... No excitement! ... And what a funny
+house, isn't it, with landscapes like that in it?"
+
+"Yes, it's like the Musee Grevin ...  But, say, Erik ... there are no
+tortures in there! ... What a fright you gave me!"
+
+"Why ... as there is no one there?"
+
+"Did you design that room?  It's very handsome.  You're a great artist,
+Erik."
+
+"Yes, a great artist, in my own line."
+
+"But tell me, Erik, why did you call that room the torture-chamber?"
+
+"Oh, it's very simple.  First of all, what did you see?"
+
+"I saw a forest."
+
+"And what is in a forest?"
+
+"Trees."
+
+"And what is in a tree?"
+
+"Birds."
+
+"Did you see any birds?"
+
+"No, I did not see any birds."
+
+"Well, what did you see?  Think!  You saw branches And what are the
+branches?" asked the terrible voice.  "THERE'S A GIBBET!  That is why I
+call my wood the torture-chamber! ... You see, it's all a joke.  I
+never express myself like other people.  But I am very tired of it! ...
+I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house
+and of living like a mountebank, in a house with a false bottom! ...
+I'm tired of it!  I want to have a nice, quiet flat, with ordinary
+doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else!  A wife whom
+I could love and take out on Sundays and keep amused on week-days ...
+Here, shall I show you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a
+few minutes, while waiting for eleven o'clock to-morrow evening ...  My
+dear little Christine! ... Are you listening to me? ... Tell me you
+love me! ...  No, you don't love me ... but no matter, you will! ...
+Once, you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind...
+And now you don't mind looking at it and you forget what is behind! ...
+One can get used to everything ... if one wishes...  Plenty of young
+people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each
+other since!  Oh, I don't know what I am talking about!  But you would
+have lots of fun with me.  For instance, I am the greatest
+ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the
+world! ... You're laughing ...  Perhaps you don't believe me?  Listen."
+
+The wretch, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world, was
+only trying to divert the child's attention from the torture-chamber;
+but it was a stupid scheme, for Christine thought of nothing but us!
+She repeatedly besought him, in the gentlest tones which she could
+assume:
+
+"Put out the light in the little window! ... Erik, do put out the light
+in the little window!"
+
+For she saw that this light, which appeared so suddenly and of which
+the monster had spoken in so threatening a voice, must mean something
+terrible.  One thing must have pacified her for a moment; and that was
+seeing the two of us, behind the wall, in the midst of that resplendent
+light, alive and well.  But she would certainly have felt much easier
+if the light had been put out.
+
+Meantime, the other had already begun to play the ventriloquist.  He
+said:
+
+"Here, I raise my mask a little ...  Oh, only a little! ...  You see my
+lips, such lips as I have?  They're not moving! ... My mouth is
+closed--such mouth as I have--and yet you hear my voice... Where will
+you have it?  In your left ear?  In your right ear?  In the table?  In
+those little ebony boxes on the mantelpiece? ...  Listen, dear, it's in
+the little box on the right of the mantelpiece: what does it say?
+'SHALL I TURN THE SCORPION?' ... And now, crack!  What does it say in
+the little box on the left?  'SHALL I TURN THE GRASSHOPPER?' ... And
+now, crack!  Here it is in the little leather bag ...  What does it
+say?  'I AM THE LITTLE BAG OF LIFE AND DEATH!' ...  And now, crack!  It
+is in Carlotta's throat, in Carlotta's golden throat, in Carlotta's
+crystal throat, as I live!  What does it say?  It says, 'It's I, Mr.
+Toad, it's I singing!  I FEEL WITHOUT ALARM--CO-ACK--WITH ITS MELODY
+ENWIND ME--CO-ACK!' ...  And now, crack!  It is on a chair in the
+ghost's box and it says, 'MADAME CARLOTTA IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING
+THE CHANDELIER DOWN!' ... And now, crack!  Aha!  Where is Erik's voice
+now?  Listen, Christine, darling!  Listen!  It is behind the door of
+the torture-chamber! Listen!  It's myself in the torture-chamber! And
+what do I say?  I say, 'Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose, and
+come to look round the torture-chamber! Aha, aha, aha!'"
+
+Oh, the ventriloquist's terrible voice!  It was everywhere, everywhere.
+It passed through the little invisible window, through the walls.  It
+ran around us, between us.  Erik was there, speaking to us!  We made a
+movement as though to fling ourselves upon him.  But, already, swifter,
+more fleeting than the voice of the echo, Erik's voice had leaped back
+behind the wall!
+
+Soon we heard nothing more at all, for this is what happened:
+
+"Erik!  Erik!" said Christine's voice.  "You tire me with your voice.
+Don't go on, Erik!  Isn't it very hot here?"
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Erik's voice, "the heat is unendurable!"
+
+"But what does this mean? ... The wall is really getting quite hot! ...
+The wall is burning!"
+
+"I'll tell you, Christine, dear:  it is because of the forest next
+door."
+
+"Well, what has that to do with it?  The forest?"
+
+"WHY, DIDN'T YOU SEE THAT IT WAS AN AFRICAN FOREST?"
+
+And the monster laughed so loudly and hideously that we could no longer
+distinguish Christine's supplicating cries!  The Vicomte de Chagny
+shouted and banged against the walls like a madman.  I could not
+restrain him.  But we heard nothing except the monster's laughter, and
+the monster himself can have heard nothing else.  And then there was
+the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along and a
+door slammed and then nothing, nothing more around us save the
+scorching silence of the south in the heart of a tropical forest!
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV  "Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any Barrels to Sell?"
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
+
+I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I were
+imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors.  Plenty
+of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: they are
+called "palaces of illusion," or some such name.  But the invention
+belongs entirely to Erik, who built the first room of this kind under
+my eyes, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  A decorative
+object, such as a column, for instance, was placed in one of the
+corners and immediately produced a hall of a thousand columns; for,
+thanks to the mirrors, the real room was multiplied by six hexagonal
+rooms, each of which, in its turn, was multiplied indefinitely.  But
+the little sultana soon tired of this infantile illusion, whereupon
+Erik altered his invention into a "torture-chamber." For the
+architectural motive placed in one corner, he substituted an iron tree.
+This tree, with its painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and was
+made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the "patient" who was
+locked into the torture-chamber.  We shall see how the scene thus
+obtained was twice altered instantaneously into two successive other
+scenes, by means of the automatic rotation of the drums or rollers in
+the corners.  These were divided into three sections, fitting into the
+angles of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative scheme that came
+into sight as the roller revolved upon its axis.
+
+The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay hold of,
+because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were simply
+furnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught of the
+victim, who was flung into the chamber empty-handed and barefoot.
+
+There was no furniture.  The ceiling was capable of being lit up.  An
+ingenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated,
+allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will.
+
+I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention,
+producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion of an
+equatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no one may
+doubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled to say that I am
+mad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[1]
+
+I now return to the facts where I left them.  When the ceiling lit up
+and the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefaction
+was immense.  That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks and
+branches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation.  He passed
+his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyes
+blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.
+
+I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise me at
+all; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was happening
+next door.  Lastly, my attention was especially attracted, not so much
+to the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it.  These mirrors were
+broken in parts.  Yes, they were marked and scratched; they had been
+"starred," in spite of their solidity; and this proved to me that the
+torture-chamber in which we now were HAD ALREADY SERVED A PURPOSE.
+
+Yes, some wretch, whose feet were not bare like those of the victims of
+the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had certainly fallen into this "mortal
+illusion" and, mad with rage, had kicked against those mirrors which,
+nevertheless, continued to reflect his agony.  And the branch of the
+tree on which he had put an end to his own sufferings was arranged in
+such a way that, before dying, he had seen, for his last consolation, a
+thousand men writhing in his company.
+
+Yes, Joseph Buquet had undoubtedly been through all this!  Were we to
+die as he had done?  I did not think so, for I knew that we had a few
+hours before us and that I could employ them to better purpose than
+Joseph Buquet was able to do.  After all, I was thoroughly acquainted
+with most of Erik's "tricks;" and now or never was the time to turn my
+knowledge to account.
+
+To begin with, I gave up every idea of returning to the passage that
+had brought us to that accursed chamber.  I did not trouble about the
+possibility of working the inside stone that closed the passage; and
+this for the simple reason that to do so was out of the question.  We
+had dropped from too great a height into the torture-chamber; there was
+no furniture to help us reach that passage; not even the branch of the
+iron tree, not even each other's shoulders were of any avail.
+
+There was only one possible outlet, that opening into the
+Louis-Philippe room in which Erik and Christine Daae were.  But, though
+this outlet looked like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it was
+absolutely invisible to us.  We must therefore try to open it without
+even knowing where it was.
+
+When I was quite sure that there was no hope for us from Christine
+Daae's side, when I had heard the monster dragging the poor girl from
+the Louis-Philippe room LEST SHE SHOULD INTERFERE WITH OUR TORTURES, I
+resolved to set to work without delay.
+
+But I had first to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking about
+like a madman, uttering incoherent cries.  The snatches of conversation
+which he had caught between Christine and the monster had contributed
+not a little to drive him beside himself: add to that the shock of the
+magic forest and the scorching heat which was beginning to make the
+prespiration{sic} stream down his temples and you will have no
+difficulty in understanding his state of mind.  He shouted Christine's
+name, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass in
+his endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest.  In short,
+the torture was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared for
+it.
+
+I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason.  I made
+him touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches and explained
+to him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery by which we were
+surrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves to be the victims,
+like ordinary, ignorant people.
+
+"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying to
+yourself.  And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found the
+door."
+
+And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me by
+shouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick of the
+door in less than an hour's time.
+
+Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared that
+he would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there was
+nothing better to do!  And he added that, from where he was, "the view
+was splendid!"  The torture was working, in spite of all that I had
+said.
+
+Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began to
+finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which to
+press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system of
+pivots.  This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass, no larger
+than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden.  I hunted and hunted.  I
+felt as high as my hands could reach.  Erik was about the same height
+as myself and I thought that he would not have placed the spring higher
+than suited his stature.
+
+While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care, I
+endeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and more
+overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that blazing
+forest.
+
+I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished three
+panels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round on hearing a
+muttered exclamation from the viscount.
+
+"I am stifling," he said.  "All those mirrors are sending out an
+infernal heat!  Do you think you will find that spring soon?  If you
+are much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"
+
+I was not sorry to hear him talk like this.  He had not said a word of
+the forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold out some
+time longer against the torture.  But he added:
+
+"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until eleven
+to-morrow evening.  If we can't get out of here and go to her
+assistance, at least we shall be dead before her!  Then Erik's mass can
+serve for all of us!"
+
+And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.
+
+As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for accepting
+death, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement, to my
+panel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while speaking
+and, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer able to find
+my panel for certain!  I had to begin all over again, at random,
+feeling, fumbling, groping.
+
+Now the fever laid hold of me in my turn ... for I found nothing,
+absolutely nothing.  In the next room, all was silence.  We were quite
+lost in the forest, without an outlet, a compass, a guide or anything.
+Oh, I knew what awaited us if nobody came to our aid ...  or if I did
+not find the spring!  But, look as I might, I found nothing but
+branches, beautiful branches that stood straight up before me, or
+spread gracefully over my head.  But they gave no shade.  And this was
+natural enough, as we were in an equatorial forest, with the sun right
+above our heads, an African forest.
+
+M. de Chagny and I had repeatedly taken off our coats and put them on
+again, finding at one time that they made us feel still hotter and at
+another that they protected us against the heat.  I was still making a
+moral resistance, but M. de Chagny seemed to me quite "gone." He
+pretended that he had been walking in that forest for three days and
+nights, without stopping, looking for Christine Daae!  From time to
+time, he thought he saw her behind the trunk of a tree, or gliding
+between the branches; and he called to her with words of supplication
+that brought the tears to my eyes.  And then, at last:
+
+"Oh, how thirsty I am!" he cried, in delirious accents.
+
+I too was thirsty.  My throat was on fire.  And, yet, squatting on the
+floor, I went on hunting, hunting, hunting for the spring of the
+invisible door ... especially as it was dangerous to remain in the
+forest as evening drew nigh.  Already the shades of night were
+beginning to surround us.  It had happened very quickly: night falls
+quickly in tropical countries ... suddenly, with hardly any twilight.
+
+Now night, in the forests of the equator, is always dangerous,
+particularly when, like ourselves, one has not the materials for a fire
+to keep off the beasts of prey.  I did indeed try for a moment to break
+off the branches, which I would have lit with my dark lantern, but I
+knocked myself also against the mirrors and remembered, in time, that
+we had only images of branches to do with.
+
+The heat did not go with the daylight; on the contrary, it was now
+still hotter under the blue rays of the moon.  I urged the viscount to
+hold our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from camp, while I went
+on looking for my spring.
+
+Suddenly, we heard a lion roaring a few yards away.
+
+"Oh," whispered the viscount, "he is quite close! ... Don't you see
+him? ... There ... through the trees ... in that thicket!  If he roars
+again, I will fire! ..."
+
+And the roaring began again, louder than before.  And the viscount
+fired, but I do not think that he hit the lion; only, he smashed a
+mirror, as I perceived the next morning, at daybreak.  We must have
+covered a good distance during the night, for we suddenly found
+ourselves on the edge of the desert, an immense desert of sand, stones
+and rocks.  It was really not worth while leaving the forest to come
+upon the desert.  Tired out, I flung myself down beside the viscount,
+for I had had enough of looking for springs which I could not find.
+
+I was quite surprised--and I said so to the viscount--that we had
+encountered no other dangerous animals during the night.  Usually,
+after the lion came the leopard and sometimes the buzz of the tsetse
+fly.  These were easily obtained effects; and I explained to M. de
+Chagny that Erik imitated the roar of a lion on a long tabour or
+timbrel, with an ass's skin at one end.  Over this skin he tied a
+string of catgut, which was fastened at the middle to another similar
+string passing through the whole length of the tabour.  Erik had only
+to rub this string with a glove smeared with resin and, according to
+the manner in which he rubbed it, he imitated to perfection the voice
+of the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly.
+
+The idea that Erik was probably in the room beside us, working his
+trick, made me suddenly resolve to enter into a parley with him, for we
+must obviously give up all thought of taking him by surprise.  And by
+this time he must be quite aware who were the occupants of his
+torture-chamber. I called him:  "Erik!  Erik!"
+
+I shouted as loudly as I could across the desert, but there was no
+answer to my voice.  All around us lay the silence and the bare
+immensity of that stony desert.  What was to become of us in the midst
+of that awful solitude?
+
+We were beginning literally to die of heat, hunger and thirst ...  of
+thirst especially.  At last, I saw M. de Chagny raise himself on his
+elbow and point to a spot on the horizon.  He had discovered an oasis!
+
+Yes, far in the distance was an oasis ... an oasis with limpid water,
+which reflected the iron trees! ... Tush, it was the scene of the
+mirage ...  I recognized it at once ... the worst of the three! ... No
+one had been able to fight against it ... no one...  I did my utmost to
+keep my head AND NOT TO HOPE FOR WATER, because I knew that, if a man
+hoped for water, the water that reflected the iron tree, and if, after
+hoping for water, he struck against the mirror, then there was only one
+thing for him to do: to hang himself on the iron tree!
+
+So I cried to M. de Chagny:
+
+"It's the mirage! ... It's the mirage! ... Don't believe in the water!
+... It's another trick of the mirrors! ..."
+
+Then he flatly told me to shut up, with my tricks of the mirrors, my
+springs, my revolving doors and my palaces of illusions!  He angrily
+declared that I must be either blind or mad to imagine that all that
+water flowing over there, among those splendid, numberless trees, was
+not real water! ... And the desert was real!  ... And so was the
+forest! ... And it was no use trying to take him in ... he was an old,
+experienced traveler ... he had been all over the place!
+
+And he dragged himself along, saying:  "Water!  Water!"
+
+And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.
+
+And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.
+
+For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT! ... We heard it flow,
+we heard it ripple! ... Do you understand that word "ripple?" ... IT IS
+A SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE!  ... You put your tongue out
+of your mouth to listen to it better!
+
+Lastly--and this was the most pitiless torture of all--we heard the
+rain and it was not raining!  This was an infernal invention...  Oh, I
+knew well enough how Erik obtained it!  He filled with little stones a
+very long and narrow box, broken up inside with wooden and metal
+projections.  The stones, in falling, struck against these projections
+and rebounded from one to another; and the result was a series of
+pattering sounds that exactly imitated a rainstorm.
+
+Ah, you should have seen us putting out our tongues and dragging
+ourselves toward the rippling river-bank! Our eyes and ears were full
+of water, but our tongues were hard and dry as horn!
+
+When we reached the mirror, M. de Chagny licked it ... and I also
+licked the glass.
+
+It was burning hot!
+
+Then we rolled on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair.  M. de Chagny
+put the one pistol that was still loaded to his temple; and I stared at
+the Punjab lasso at the foot of the iron tree.  I knew why the iron
+tree had returned, in this third change of scene! ...  The iron tree
+was waiting for me! ...
+
+But, as I stared at the Punjab lasso, I saw a thing that made me start
+so violently that M. de Chagny delayed his attempt at suicide.  I took
+his arm.  And then I caught the pistol from him ... and then I dragged
+myself on my knees toward what I had seen.
+
+I had discovered, near the Punjab lasso, in a groove in the floor, a
+black-headed nail of which I knew the use.  At last I had discovered
+the spring!  I felt the nail ...  I lifted a radiant face to M. de
+Chagny ...  The black-headed nail yielded to my pressure ...
+
+And then ...
+
+And then we saw not a door opened in the wall, but a cellar-flap
+released in the floor.  Cool air came up to us from the black hole
+below.  We stooped over that square of darkness as though over a limpid
+well.  With our chins in the cool shade, we drank it in.  And we bent
+lower and lower over the trap-door. What could there be in that cellar
+which opened before us?  Water?  Water to drink?
+
+I thrust my arm into the darkness and came upon a stone and another
+stone ... a staircase ... a dark staircase leading into the cellar.
+The viscount wanted to fling himself down the hole; but I, fearing a
+new trick of the monster's, stopped him, turned on my dark lantern and
+went down first.
+
+The staircase was a winding one and led down into pitchy darkness.  But
+oh, how deliciously cool were the darkness and the stairs?  The lake
+could not be far away.
+
+We soon reached the bottom.  Our eyes were beginning to accustom
+themselves to the dark, to distinguish shapes around us ...  circular
+shapes ... on which I turned the light of my lantern.
+
+Barrels!
+
+We were in Erik's cellar:  it was here that he must keep his wine and
+perhaps his drinking-water. I knew that Erik was a great lover of good
+wine.  Ah, there was plenty to drink here!
+
+M. de Chagny patted the round shapes and kept on saying:
+
+"Barrels!  Barrels!  What a lot of barrels! ..."
+
+Indeed, there was quite a number of them, symmetrically arranged in two
+rows, one on either side of us.  They were small barrels and I thought
+that Erik must have selected them of that size to facilitate their
+carriage to the house on the lake.
+
+We examined them successively, to see if one of them had not a funnel,
+showing that it had been tapped at some time or another.  But all the
+barrels were hermetically closed.
+
+Then, after half lifting one to make sure it was full, we went on our
+knees and, with the blade of a small knife which I carried, I prepared
+to stave in the bung-hole.
+
+At that moment, I seemed to hear, coming from very far, a sort of
+monotonous chant which I knew well, from often hearing it in the
+streets of Paris:
+
+"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell?"
+
+My hand desisted from its work.  M. de Chagny had also heard.  He said:
+
+"That's funny!  It sounds as if the barrel were singing!"
+
+The song was renewed, farther away:
+
+"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell? ..."
+
+"Oh, I swear," said the viscount, "that the tune dies away in the
+barrel! ..."
+
+We stood up and went to look behind the barrel.
+
+"It's inside," said M. de Chagny, "it's inside!"
+
+But we heard nothing there and were driven to accuse the bad condition
+of our senses.  And we returned to the bung-hole. M. de Chagny put his
+two hands together underneath it and, with a last effort, I burst the
+bung.
+
+"What's this?" cried the viscount.  "This isn't water!"
+
+The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ...  I stooped
+to look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence that
+it broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness.
+
+What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!
+
+
+
+[1] It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing,
+he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on
+the part of those who were likely to read his narrative.  Nowadays,
+when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would be
+superfluous.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV  The Scorpion or the Grasshopper:  Which?
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED
+
+The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all
+our past and present sufferings.  We now knew all that the monster
+meant to convey when he said to Christine Daae:
+
+"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"
+
+Yes, buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera!
+
+The monster had given her until eleven o'clock in the evening.  He had
+chosen his time well.  There would be many people, many "members of the
+human race," up there, in the resplendent theater.  What finer retinue
+could be expected for his funeral?  He would go down to the tomb
+escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest
+jewels.
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
+
+We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance ...  if
+Christine Daae said no!
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening! ...
+
+And what else could Christine say but no?  Would she not prefer to
+espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?  She did not know
+that on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many
+members of the human race!
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
+
+And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the
+stone steps, for the light in the trap-door overhead that led to the
+room of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:
+
+"Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!"
+
+At last, I found the staircase.  But, suddenly I drew myself up on the
+first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:
+
+"What is the time?"
+
+Ah, what was the time? ... For, after all, eleven o'clock to-morrow
+evening might be now, might be this very moment!  Who could tell us the
+time?  We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days
+... for years ... since the beginning of the world.  Perhaps we should
+be blown up then and there!  Ah, a sound!  A crack!  "Did you hear
+that? ... There, in the corner ... good heavens! ...  Like a sound of
+machinery! ... Again! ... Oh, for a light! ...  Perhaps it's the
+machinery that is to blow everything up! ...  I tell you, a cracking
+sound:  are you deaf?"
+
+M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen.  Fear spurred us on.  We
+rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything
+to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of
+mirrors!
+
+We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the room
+of mirrors as in the cellar which we had left.  We dragged ourselves
+along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated us
+from the powder-magazine. What was the time?  We shouted, we called: M.
+de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik.  I reminded him that I had saved his
+life.  But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness: what
+was the time?  We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we had
+spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning.  If only we could see
+the face of a watch! ...  Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagny's was
+still going ...  He told me that he had wound it up before dressing for
+the Opera ...  We had not a match upon us ...  And yet we must know ...
+M. de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands... He
+questioned the hands of the watch with his finger-tips, going by the
+position of the ring of the watch ...  Judging by the space between the
+hands, he thought it might be just eleven o'clock!
+
+But perhaps it was not the eleven o'clock of which we stood in dread.
+Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!
+
+Suddenly, I exclaimed:  "Hush!"
+
+I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room.  Some one tapped against
+the wall.  Christine Daae's voice said:
+
+"Raoul!  Raoul!"  We were now all talking at once, on either side of
+the wall.  Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. de
+Chagny alive.  The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done
+nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the "yes" which she
+refused.  And yet she had promised him that "yes," if he would take her
+to the torture-chamber. But he had obstinately declined, and had
+uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race!  At
+last, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out,
+leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.
+
+"Hours and hours?  What is the time now?  What is the time, Christine?"
+
+"It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!"
+
+"But which eleven o'clock?"
+
+"The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death! ... He told me so
+just before he went ...  He is terrible ...  He is quite mad: he tore
+off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames! ... He did nothing but
+laugh! ... He said, 'I give you five minutes to spare your blushes!
+Here,' he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death,
+'here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the
+mantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room...  In one of the caskets, you
+will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly
+imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you.  If you
+turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you
+have said yes.  The grasshopper will mean no.'  And he laughed like a
+drunken demon.  I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the
+key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me
+that request ...  But he told me that there was no future need for that
+key and that he was going to throw it into the lake! ...  And he again
+laughed like a drunken demon and left me.  Oh, his last words were,
+'The grasshopper!  Be careful of the grasshopper!  A grasshopper does
+not only turn:  it hops!  It hops!  And it hops jolly high!'"
+
+The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the
+grasshopper were scratching at my brain.  Nevertheless, I had
+sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were
+turned, it would hop ... and with it many members of the human race!
+There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric
+current intended to blow up the powder-magazine!
+
+M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from
+hearing Christine's voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words,
+the situation in which we and all the Opera were.  He told her to turn
+the scorpion at once.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Christine," I cried, "where are you?"
+
+"By the scorpion."
+
+"Don't touch it!"
+
+The idea had come to me--for I knew my Erik--that the monster had
+perhaps deceived the girl once more.  Perhaps it was the scorpion that
+would blow everything up.  After all, why wasn't he there?  The five
+minutes were long past ... and he was not back...  Perhaps he had taken
+shelter and was waiting for the explosion!  ... Why had he not
+returned? ... He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to
+become his voluntary prey! ... Why had he not returned?
+
+"Don't touch the scorpion!"  I said.
+
+"Here he comes!" cried Christine.  "I hear him!  Here he is!"
+
+We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room.  He came up to
+Christine, but did not speak.  Then I raised my voice:
+
+"Erik!  It is I!  Do you know me?"
+
+With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:
+
+"So you are not dead in there?  Well, then, see that you keep quiet."
+
+I tried to speak, but he said coldly:
+
+"Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up."  And he added,
+"The honor rests with mademoiselle ...  Mademoiselle has not touched
+the scorpion"--how deliberately he spoke!--"mademoiselle has not
+touched the grasshopper"--with that composure!--"but it is not too late
+to do the right thing.  There, I open the caskets without a key, for I
+am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please.
+I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears
+inside.  Aren't they pretty?  If you turn the grasshopper,
+mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up.  There is enough gun-powder
+under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris.  If you turn the
+scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned.
+Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome
+present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a
+poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's ... you shall make them a present of
+their lives ...  For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the
+scorpion ...  And merrily, merrily, we will be married!"
+
+A pause; and then:
+
+"If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I
+shall turn the grasshopper ... and the grasshopper, I tell you, HOPS
+JOLLY HIGH!"
+
+The terrible silence began anew.  The Vicomte de Chagny, realizing that
+there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees and
+prayed.  As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take my
+heart in both hands, lest it should burst.  At last, we heard Erik's
+voice:
+
+"The two minutes are past ...  Good-by, mademoiselle...  Hop,
+grasshopper!  "Erik," cried Christine, "do you swear to me, monster, do
+you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?
+
+"Yes, to hop at our wedding."
+
+"Ah, you see!  You said, to hop!"
+
+"At our wedding, ingenuous child! ... The scorpion opens the ball...
+But that will do! ... You won't have the scorpion?  Then I turn the
+grasshopper!"
+
+"Erik!"
+
+"Enough!"
+
+I was crying out in concert with Christine.  M. de Chagny was still on
+his knees, praying.
+
+"Erik!  I have turned the scorpion!"
+
+Oh, the second through which we passed!
+
+Waiting!  Waiting to find ourselves in fragments, amid the roar and the
+ruins!
+
+Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss
+through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket!
+
+It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud.  But it was not
+the hiss of fire.  It was more like the hiss of water.  And now it
+became a gurgling sound:  "Guggle!  Guggle!"
+
+We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when the
+terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.
+
+The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, the
+powder-barrels--"Barrels! ...  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"--and we
+went down to it with parched throats.  It rose to our chins, to our
+mouths. And we drank.  We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank.
+And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up with
+the water.
+
+The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of
+the room.  If, this went on, the whole house on the lake would be
+swamped.  The floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regular
+little lake, in which our feet splashed.  Surely there was water enough
+now!  Erik must turn off the tap!
+
+"Erik!  Erik!  That is water enough for the gunpowder!  Turn off the
+tap!  Turn off the scorpion!"
+
+But Erik did not reply.  We heard nothing but the water rising: it was
+half-way to our waists!
+
+"Christine!" cried M. de Chagny.  "Christine!  The water is up to our
+knees!"
+
+But Christine did not reply ...  We heard nothing but the water rising.
+
+No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn
+the scorpion!
+
+We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us and
+clasped us and froze us!
+
+"Erik!  Erik!"
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the
+water, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned with
+us and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again;
+and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.
+
+Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen
+that.  Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had never
+shown me that, through the little invisible window.
+
+"Erik!  Erik!"  I cried.  "I saved your life!  Remember! ... You were
+sentenced to death!  But for me, you would be dead now! ...  Erik!"
+
+We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage.  But, suddenly,
+my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree!  I called M. de
+Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.
+
+And the water rose still higher.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Can you remember?  How much space is there between the
+branch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling?  Do try to remember!
+...  After all, the water may stop, it must find its level! ... There,
+I think it is stopping! ... No, no, oh, horrible! ... Swim!  Swim for
+your life!"
+
+Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we
+fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air
+above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear
+escaping through some vent-hole or other.
+
+"Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then
+glue our mouths to it!"
+
+But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls!  Oh, how
+those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers! ... We whirled
+round again! ... We began to sink!  ... One last effort! ... A last
+cry:  "Erik! ... Christine! ..."
+
+"Guggle, guggle, guggle!" in our ears.  "Guggle!  Guggle!"  At the
+bottom of the dark water, our ears went, "Guggle!  Guggle!"
+
+And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, between
+two guggles:
+
+"Barrels!  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI  The End of the Ghost's Love Story
+
+
+The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative
+which the Persian left behind him.
+
+Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to
+abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and his companion were saved
+by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae.  And I had the rest of the
+story from the lips of the daroga himself.
+
+When I went to see him, he was still living in his little flat in the
+Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries.  He was very ill, and it
+required all my ardor as an historian pledged to the truth to persuade
+him to live the incredible tragedy over again for my benefit.  His
+faithful old servant Darius showed me in to him.  The daroga received
+me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries.  He still had
+his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn.  He had
+shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with an
+astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused himself
+by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves; but his mind
+was quite clear, and he told me his story with perfect lucidity.
+
+It seems that, when he opened his eyes, the daroga found himself lying
+on a bed.  M. de Chagny was on a sofa, beside the wardrobe.  An angel
+and a devil were watching over them.
+
+After the deceptions and illusions of the torture-chamber, the
+precision of the details of that quiet little middle-class room seemed
+to have been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of
+the mortal rash enough to stray into that abode of living nightmare.
+The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the chest of drawers,
+those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed on the
+backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the
+harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot
+filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats
+and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded
+lamp standing on a small round table:  this collection of ugly,
+peaceable, reasonable furniture, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OPERA CELLARS,
+bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings.
+
+And the figure of the masked man seemed all the more formidable in this
+old-fashioned, neat and trim little frame.  It bent down over the
+Persian and said, in his ear:
+
+"Are you better, daroga? ... You are looking at my furniture? ...  It
+is all that I have left of my poor unhappy mother."
+
+Christine Daae did not say a word:  she moved about noiselessly, like a
+sister of charity, who had taken a vow of silence.  She brought a cup
+of cordial, or of hot tea, he did not remember which.  The man in the
+mask took it from her hands and gave it to the Persian.  M. de Chagny
+was still sleeping.
+
+Erik poured a drop of rum into the daroga's cup and, pointing to the
+viscount, said:
+
+"He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive,
+daroga.  He is quite well.  He is asleep.  We must not wake him."
+
+Erik left the room for a moment, and the Persian raised himself on his
+elbow, looked around him and saw Christine Daae sitting by the
+fireside.  He spoke to her, called her, but he was still very weak and
+fell back on his pillow.  Christine came to him, laid her hand on his
+forehead and went away again.  And the Persian remembered that, as she
+went, she did not give a glance at M. de Chagny, who, it is true, was
+sleeping peacefully; and she sat down again in her chair by the
+chimney-corner, silent as a sister of charity who had taken a vow of
+silence.
+
+Erik returned with some little bottles which he placed on the
+mantelpiece.  And, again in a whisper, so as not to wake M. de Chagny,
+he said to the Persian, after sitting down and feeling his pulse:
+
+"You are now saved, both of you.  And soon I shall take you up to the
+surface of the earth, TO PLEASE MY WIFE."
+
+Thereupon he rose, without any further explanation, and disappeared
+once more.
+
+The Persian now looked at Christine's quiet profile under the lamp.
+She was reading a tiny book, with gilt edges, like a religious book.
+There are editions of THE IMITATION that look like that.  The Persian
+still had in his ears the natural tone in which the other had said, "to
+please my wife."  Very gently, he called her again; but Christine was
+wrapped up in her book and did not hear him.
+
+Erik returned, mixed the daroga a draft and advised him not to speak to
+"his wife" again nor to any one, BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE VERY DANGEROUS TO
+EVERYBODY'S HEALTH.
+
+Eventually, the Persian fell asleep, like M. de Chagny, and did not
+wake until he was in his own room, nursed by his faithful Darius, who
+told him that, on the night before, he was found propped against the
+door of his flat, where he had been brought by a stranger, who rang the
+bell before going away.
+
+As soon as the daroga recovered his strength and his wits, he sent to
+Count Philippe's house to inquire after the viscount's health.  The
+answer was that the young man had not been seen and that Count Philippe
+was dead.  His body was found on the bank of the Opera lake, on the
+Rue-Scribe side.  The Persian remembered the requiem mass which he had
+heard from behind the wall of the torture-chamber, and had no doubt
+concerning the crime and the criminal.  Knowing Erik as he did, he
+easily reconstructed the tragedy.  Thinking that his brother had run
+away with Christine Daae, Philippe had dashed in pursuit of him along
+the Brussels Road, where he knew that everything was prepared for the
+elopement.  Failing to find the pair, he hurried back to the Opera,
+remembered Raoul's strange confidence about his fantastic rival and
+learned that the viscount had made every effort to enter the cellars of
+the theater and that he had disappeared, leaving his hat in the prima
+donna's dressing-room beside an empty pistol-case. And the count, who
+no longer entertained any doubt of his brother's madness, in his turn
+darted into that infernal underground maze.  This was enough, in the
+Persian's eyes, to explain the discovery of the Comte de Chagny's
+corpse on the shore of the lake, where the siren, Erik's siren, kept
+watch.
+
+The Persian did not hesitate.  He determined to inform the police.  Now
+the case was in the hands of an examining-magistrate called Faure, an
+incredulous, commonplace, superficial sort of person, (I write as I
+think), with a mind utterly unprepared to receive a confidence of this
+kind.  M. Faure took down the daroga's depositions and proceeded to
+treat him as a madman.
+
+Despairing of ever obtaining a hearing, the Persian sat down to write.
+As the police did not want his evidence, perhaps the press would be
+glad of it; and he had just written the last line of the narrative I
+have quoted in the preceding chapters, when Darius announced the visit
+of a stranger who refused his name, who would not show his face and
+declared simply that he did not intend to leave the place until he had
+spoken to the daroga.
+
+The Persian at once felt who his singular visitor was and ordered him
+to be shown in.  The daroga was right.  It was the ghost, it was Erik!
+
+He looked extremely weak and leaned against the wall, as though he were
+afraid of falling.  Taking off his hat, he revealed a forehead white as
+wax.  The rest of the horrible face was hidden by the mask.
+
+The Persian rose to his feet as Erik entered.
+
+"Murderer of Count Philippe, what have you done with his brother and
+Christine Daae?"
+
+Erik staggered under this direct attack, kept silent for a moment,
+dragged himself to a chair and heaved a deep sigh.  Then, speaking in
+short phrases and gasping for breath between the words:
+
+"Daroga, don't talk to me ... about Count Philippe ...  He was dead ...
+by the time ... I left my house ... he was dead ... when ...  the siren
+sang ...  It was an ... accident ... a sad ... a very sad ... accident.
+He fell very awkwardly ... but simply and naturally ...  into the lake!
+..."
+
+"You lie!" shouted the Persian.
+
+Erik bowed his head and said:
+
+"I have not come here ... to talk about Count Philippe ...  but to tell
+you that ... I am going ... to die..."
+
+"Where are Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae?"
+
+"I am going to die."
+
+"Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae?"
+
+"Of love ... daroga ... I am dying ... of love ... That is how it is
+... loved her so! ... And I love her still ... daroga ... and I am
+dying of love for her, I ... I tell you! ... If you knew how beautiful
+she was ...  when she let me kiss her ... alive ... It was the first
+... time, daroga, the first ... time I ever kissed a woman ...  Yes,
+alive ...  I kissed her alive ... and she looked as beautiful as if she
+had been dead!"
+
+The Persian shook Erik by the arm:
+
+"Will you tell me if she is alive or dead."
+
+"Why do you shake me like that?" asked Erik, making an effort to speak
+more connectedly.  "I tell you that I am going to die...  Yes, I kissed
+her alive ..."
+
+"And now she is dead?"
+
+"I tell you I kissed her just like that, on her forehead ...  and she
+did not draw back her forehead from my lips! ... Oh, she is a good
+girl! ... As to her being dead, I don't think so; but it has nothing to
+do with me ...  No, no, she is not dead!  And no one shall touch a hair
+of her head!  She is a good, honest girl, and she saved your life,
+daroga, at a moment when I would not have given twopence for your
+Persian skin.  As a matter of fact, nobody bothered about you.  Why
+were you there with that little chap?  You would have died as well as
+he!  My word, how she entreated me for her little chap!  But I told her
+that, as she had turned the scorpion, she had, through that very fact,
+and of her own free will, become engaged to me and that she did not
+need to have two men engaged to her, which was true enough.
+
+"As for you, you did not exist, you had ceased to exist, I tell you,
+and you were going to die with the other! ... Only, mark me, daroga,
+when you were yelling like the devil, because of the water, Christine
+came to me with her beautiful blue eyes wide open, and swore to me, as
+she hoped to be saved, that she consented to be MY LIVING WIFE! ...
+Until then, in the depths of her eyes, daroga, I had always seen my
+dead wife; it was the first time I saw MY LIVING WIFE there.  She was
+sincere, as she hoped to be saved.  She would not kill herself.  It was
+a bargain ...  Half a minute later, all the water was back in the lake;
+and I had a hard job with you, daroga, for, upon my honor, I thought
+you were done for! ...  However! ... There you were! ... It was
+understood that I was to take you both up to the surface of the earth.
+When, at last, I cleared the Louis-Philippe room of you, I came back
+alone ..."
+
+"What have you done with the Vicomte de Chagny?" asked the Persian,
+interrupting him.
+
+"Ah, you see, daroga, I couldn't carry HIM up like that, at once.  ...
+He was a hostage ...  But I could not keep him in the house on the
+lake, either, because of Christine; so I locked him up comfortably, I
+chained him up nicely--a whiff of the Mazenderan scent had left him as
+limp as a rag--in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most
+deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no
+one ever comes, and where no one ever hears you.  Then I came back to
+Christine, she was waiting for me."
+
+Erik here rose solemnly.  Then he continued, but, as he spoke, he was
+overcome by all his former emotion and began to tremble like a leaf:
+
+"Yes, she was waiting for me ... waiting for me erect and alive, a
+real, living bride ... as she hoped to be saved ...  And, when I ...
+came forward, more timid than ... a little child, she did not run away
+... no, no ... she stayed ... she waited for me ...  I even believe ...
+daroga ... that she put out her forehead ... a little ... oh, not much
+... just a little ...  like a living bride ...  And ... and ... I ...
+kissed her! ...  I! ... I! ... I! ... And she did not die! ... Oh, how
+good it is, daroga, to kiss somebody on the forehead! ... You can't
+tell! ...  But I!  I! ... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother
+would never ... let me kiss her ...  She used to run away ... and throw
+me my mask!  ... Nor any other woman ... ever, ever! ... Ah, you can
+understand, my happiness was so great, I cried.  And I fell at her
+feet, crying ... and I kissed her feet ... her little feet ... crying.
+You're crying, too, daroga ... and she cried also ... the angel cried!
+..." Erik sobbed aloud and the Persian himself could not retain his
+tears in the presence of that masked man, who, with his shoulders
+shaking and his hands clutched at his chest, was moaning with pain and
+love by turns.
+
+"Yes, daroga ... I felt her tears flow on my forehead ... on mine,
+mine! ... They were soft ... they were sweet! ... They trickled under
+my mask ... they mingled with my tears in my eyes ... yes ... they
+flowed between my lips ...  Listen, daroga, listen to what I did ...  I
+tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears ... and she did not
+run away! ... And she did not die! ...  She remained alive, weeping
+over me, with me.  We cried together!  I have tasted all the happiness
+the world can offer!"
+
+And Erik fell into a chair, choking for breath:
+
+"Ah, I am not going to die yet ... presently I shall ... but let me
+cry! ... Listen, daroga ... listen to this ...  While I was at her feet
+... I heard her say, 'Poor, unhappy Erik!' ...  AND SHE TOOK MY HAND!
+... I had become no more, you know, than a poor dog ready to die for
+her ...  I mean it, daroga! ...  I held in my hand a ring, a plain gold
+ring which I had given her ... which she had lost ... and which I had
+found again ...  a wedding-ring, you know ...  I slipped it into her
+little hand and said, 'There! ... Take it! ... Take it for you ... and
+him!  ... It shall be my wedding-present a present from your poor,
+unhappy Erik ...  I know you love the boy ... don't cry any more!  ...
+She asked me, in a very soft voice, what I meant ...  Then I made her
+understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready
+to die for her ... but that she could marry the young man when she
+pleased, because she had cried with me and mingled her tears with mine!
+..."
+
+Erik's emotion was so great that he had to tell the Persian not to look
+at him, for he was choking and must take off his mask.  The daroga went
+to the window and opened it.  His heart was full of pity, but he took
+care to keep his eyes fixed on the trees in the Tuileries gardens, lest
+he should see the monster's face.
+
+"I went and released the young man," Erik continued, "and told him to
+come with me to Christine ...  They kissed before me in the
+Louis-Philippe room ...  Christine had my ring ...  I made Christine
+swear to come back, one night, when I was dead, crossing the lake from
+the Rue-Scribe side, and bury me in the greatest secrecy with the gold
+ring, which she was to wear until that moment.  ... I told her where
+she would find my body and what to do with it...  Then Christine kissed
+me, for the first time, herself, here, on the forehead--don't look,
+daroga!--here, on the forehead ... on my forehead, mine--don't look,
+daroga!--and they went off together...  Christine had stopped crying
+...  I alone cried ...  Daroga, daroga, if Christine keeps her promise,
+she will come back soon! ..."
+
+The Persian asked him no questions.  He was quite reassured as to the
+fate of Raoul Chagny and Christine Daae; no one could have doubted the
+word of the weeping Erik that night.
+
+The monster resumed his mask and collected his strength to leave the
+daroga.  He told him that, when he felt his end to be very near at
+hand, he would send him, in gratitude for the kindness which the
+Persian had once shown him, that which he held dearest in the world:
+all Christine Daae's papers, which she had written for Raoul's benefit
+and left with Erik, together with a few objects belonging to her, such
+as a pair of gloves, a shoe-buckle and two pocket-handkerchiefs. In
+reply to the Persian's questions, Erik told him that the two young
+people, at soon as they found themselves free, had resolved to go and
+look for a priest in some lonely spot where they could hide their
+happiness and that, with this object in view, they had started from
+"the northern railway station of the world."  Lastly, Erik relied on
+the Persian, as soon as he received the promised relics and papers, to
+inform the young couple of his death and to advertise it in the EPOQUE.
+
+That was all.  The Persian saw Erik to the door of his flat, and Darius
+helped him down to the street.  A cab was waiting for him.  Erik
+stepped in; and the Persian, who had gone back to the window, heard him
+say to the driver:
+
+"Go to the Opera."
+
+And the cab drove off into the night.
+
+The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time.
+Three weeks later, the Epoque published this advertisement:
+
+"Erik is dead."
+
+
+
+Epilogue.
+
+
+I have now told the singular, but veracious story of the Opera ghost.
+As I declared on the first page of this work, it is no longer possible
+to deny that Erik really lived.  There are to-day so many proofs of his
+existence within the reach of everybody that we can follow Erik's
+actions logically through the whole tragedy of the Chagnys.
+
+There is no need to repeat here how greatly the case excited the
+capital.  The kidnapping of the artist, the death of the Comte de
+Chagny under such exceptional conditions, the disappearance of his
+brother, the drugging of the gas-man at the Opera and of his two
+assistants: what tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded
+the idyll of Raoul and the sweet and charming Christine! ... What had
+become of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was
+never, never to hear again? ... She was represented as the victim of a
+rivalry between the two brothers; and nobody suspected what had really
+happened, nobody understood that, as Raoul and Christine had both
+disappeared, both had withdrawn far from the world to enjoy a happiness
+which they would not have cared to make public after the inexplicable
+death of Count Philippe ...  They took the train one day from "the
+northern railway station of the world." ... Possibly, I too shall take
+the train at that station, one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O
+Norway, O silent Scandinavia, for the perhaps still living traces of
+Raoul and Christine and also of Mamma Valerius, who disappeared at the
+same time! ... Possibly, some day, I shall hear the lonely echoes of
+the North repeat the singing of her who knew the Angel of Music! ...
+
+Long after the case was pigeonholed by the unintelligent care of M. le
+Juge d'Instruction Faure, the newspapers made efforts, at intervals, to
+fathom the mystery.  One evening paper alone, which knew all the gossip
+of the theaters, said:
+
+"We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost."
+
+And even that was written by way of irony.
+
+The Persian alone knew the whole truth and held the main proofs, which
+came to him with the pious relics promised by the ghost.  It fell to my
+lot to complete those proofs with the aid of the daroga himself.  Day
+by day, I kept him informed of the progress of my inquiries; and he
+directed them.  He had not been to the Opera for years and years, but
+he had preserved the most accurate recollection of the building, and
+there was no better guide than he possible to help me discover its most
+secret recesses.  He also told me where to gather further information,
+whom to ask; and he sent me to call on M. Poligny, at a moment when the
+poor man was nearly drawing his last breath.  I had no idea that he was
+so very ill, and I shall never forget the effect which my questions
+about the ghost produced upon him.  He looked at me as if I were the
+devil and answered only in a few incoherent sentences, which showed,
+however--and that was the main thing--the extent of the perturbation
+which O. G., in his time, had brought into that already very restless
+life (for M. Poligny was what people call a man of pleasure).
+
+When I came and told the Persian of the poor result of my visit to M.
+Poligny, the daroga gave a faint smile and said:
+
+"Poligny never knew how far that extraordinary blackguard of an Erik
+humbugged him."--The Persian, by the way, spoke of Erik sometimes as a
+demigod and sometimes as the lowest of the low--"Poligny was
+superstitious and Erik knew it.  Erik knew most things about the public
+and private affairs of the Opera.  When M. Poligny heard a mysterious
+voice tell him, in Box Five, of the manner in which he used to spend
+his time and abuse his partner's confidence, he did not wait to hear
+any more.  Thinking at first that it was a voice from Heaven, he
+believed himself damned; and then, when the voice began to ask for
+money, he saw that he was being victimized by a shrewd blackmailer to
+whom Debienne himself had fallen a prey.  Both of them, already tired
+of management for various reasons, went away without trying to
+investigate further into the personality of that curious O. G., who had
+forced such a singular memorandum-book upon them.  They bequeathed the
+whole mystery to their successors and heaved a sigh of relief when they
+were rid of a business that had puzzled them without amusing them in
+the least."
+
+I then spoke of the two successors and expressed my surprise that, in
+his Memoirs of a Manager, M. Moncharmin should describe the Opera
+ghost's behavior at such length in the first part of the book and
+hardly mention it at all in the second.  In reply to this, the Persian,
+who knew the MEMOIRS as thoroughly as if he had written them himself,
+observed that I should find the explanation of the whole business if I
+would just recollect the few lines which Moncharmin devotes to the
+ghost in the second part aforesaid.  I quote these lines, which are
+particularly interesting because they describe the very simple manner
+in which the famous incident of the twenty-thousand francs was closed:
+
+"As for O. G., some of whose curious tricks I have related in the first
+part of my Memoirs, I will only say that he redeemed by one spontaneous
+fine action all the worry which he had caused my dear friend and
+partner and, I am bound to say, myself.  He felt, no doubt, that there
+are limits to a joke, especially when it is so expensive and when the
+commissary of police has been informed, for, at the moment when we had
+made an appointment in our office with M. Mifroid to tell him the whole
+story, a few days after the disappearance of Christine Daae, we found,
+on Richard's table, a large envelope, inscribed, in red ink, "WITH O.
+G.'S COMPLIMENTS."  It contained the large sum of money which he had
+succeeded in playfully extracting, for the time being, from the
+treasury.  Richard was at once of the opinion that we must be content
+with that and drop the business.  I agreed with Richard.  All's well
+that ends well.  What do you say, O. G.?"
+
+Of course, Moncharmin, especially after the money had been restored,
+continued to believe that he had, for a short while, been the butt of
+Richard's sense of humor, whereas Richard, on his side, was convinced
+that Moncharmin had amused himself by inventing the whole of the affair
+of the Opera ghost, in order to revenge himself for a few jokes.
+
+I asked the Persian to tell me by what trick the ghost had taken
+twenty-thousand francs from Richard's pocket in spite of the
+safety-pin. He replied that he had not gone into this little detail,
+but that, if I myself cared to make an investigation on the spot, I
+should certainly find the solution to the riddle in the managers'
+office by remembering that Erik had not been nicknamed the trap-door
+lover for nothing.  I promised the Persian to do so as soon as I had
+time, and I may as well tell the reader at once that the results of my
+investigation were perfectly satisfactory; and I hardly believed that I
+should ever discover so many undeniable proofs of the authenticity of
+the feats ascribed to the ghost.
+
+The Persian's manuscript, Christine Daae's papers, the statements made
+to me by the people who used to work under MM. Richard and Moncharmin,
+by little Meg herself (the worthy Madame Giry, I am sorry to say, is no
+more) and by Sorelli, who is now living in retirement at Louveciennes:
+all the documents relating to the existence of the ghost, which I
+propose to deposit in the archives of the Opera, have been checked and
+confirmed by a number of important discoveries of which I am justly
+proud.  I have not been able to find the house on the lake, Erik having
+blocked up all the secret entrances.[1]  On the other hand, I have
+discovered the secret passage of the Communists, the planking of which
+is falling to pieces in parts, and also the trap-door through which
+Raoul and the Persian penetrated into the cellars of the opera-house.
+In the Communists' dungeon, I noticed numbers of initials traced on the
+walls by the unfortunate people confined in it; and among these were an
+"R" and a "C." R. C.: Raoul de Chagny.  The letters are there to this
+day.
+
+If the reader will visit the Opera one morning and ask leave to stroll
+where he pleases, without being accompanied by a stupid guide, let him
+go to Box Five and knock with his fist or stick on the enormous column
+that separates this from the stage-box. He will find that the column
+sounds hollow.  After that, do not be astonished by the suggestion that
+it was occupied by the voice of the ghost:  there is room inside the
+column for two men.  If you are surprised that, when the various
+incidents occurred, no one turned round to look at the column, you must
+remember that it presented the appearance of solid marble, and that the
+voice contained in it seemed rather to come from the opposite side,
+for, as we have seen, the ghost was an expert ventriloquist.
+
+The column was elaborately carved and decorated with the sculptor's
+chisel; and I do not despair of one day discovering the ornament that
+could be raised or lowered at will, so as to admit of the ghost's
+mysterious correspondence with Mme. Giry and of his generosity.
+
+However, all these discoveries are nothing, to my mind, compared with
+that which I was able to make, in the presence of the acting-manager,
+in the managers' office, within a couple of inches from the desk-chair,
+and which consisted of a trap-door, the width of a board in the
+flooring and the length of a man's fore-arm and no longer; a trap-door
+that falls back like the lid of a box; a trap-door through which I can
+see a hand come and dexterously fumble at the pocket of a swallow-tail
+coat.
+
+That is the way the forty-thousand francs went! ...  And that also is
+the way by which, through some trick or other, they were returned.
+
+Speaking about this to the Persian, I said:
+
+"So we may take it, as the forty-thousand francs were returned, that
+Erik was simply amusing himself with that memorandum-book of his?"
+
+"Don't you believe it!" he replied.  "Erik wanted money.  Thinking
+himself without the pale of humanity, he was restrained by no scruples
+and he employed his extraordinary gifts of dexterity and imagination,
+which he had received by way of compensation for his extraordinary
+uglinesss, to prey upon his fellow-men. His reason for restoring the
+forty-thousand francs, of his own accord, was that he no longer wanted
+it.  He had relinquished his marriage with Christine Daae.  He had
+relinquished everything above the surface of the earth."
+
+According to the Persian's account, Erik was born in a small town not
+far from Rouen.  He was the son of a master-mason. He ran away at an
+early age from his father's house, where his ugliness was a subject of
+horror and terror to his parents.  For a time, he frequented the fairs,
+where a showman exhibited him as the "living corpse." He seems to have
+crossed the whole of Europe, from fair to fair, and to have completed
+his strange education as an artist and magician at the very
+fountain-head of art and magic, among the Gipsies.  A period of Erik's
+life remained quite obscure.  He was seen at the fair of
+Nijni-Novgorod, where he displayed himself in all his hideous glory.
+He already sang as nobody on this earth had ever sung before; he
+practised ventriloquism and gave displays of legerdemain so
+extraordinary that the caravans returning to Asia talked about it
+during the whole length of their journey.  In this way, his reputation
+penetrated the walls of the palace at Mazenderan, where the little
+sultana, the favorite of the Shah-in-Shah, was boring herself to death.
+A dealer in furs, returning to Samarkand from Nijni-Novgorod, told of
+the marvels which he had seen performed in Erik's tent.  The trader was
+summoned to the palace and the daroga of Mazenderan was told to
+question him.  Next the daroga was instructed to go and find Erik.  He
+brought him to Persia, where for some months Erik's will was law.  He
+was guilty of not a few horrors, for he seemed not to know the
+difference between good and evil.  He took part calmly in a number of
+political assassinations; and he turned his diabolical inventive powers
+against the Emir of Afghanistan, who was at war with the Persian
+empire.  The Shah took a liking to him.
+
+This was the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, of which the
+daroga's narrative has given us a glimpse.  Erik had very original
+ideas on the subject of architecture and thought out a palace much as a
+conjuror contrives a trick-casket. The Shah ordered him to construct an
+edifice of this kind.  Erik did so; and the building appears to have
+been so ingenious that His Majesty was able to move about in it unseen
+and to disappear without a possibility of the trick's being discovered.
+When the Shah-in-Shah found himself the possessor of this gem, he
+ordered Erik's yellow eyes to be put out.  But he reflected that, even
+when blind, Erik would still be able to build so remarkable a house for
+another sovereign; and also that, as long as Erik was alive, some one
+would know the secret of the wonderful palace.  Erik's death was
+decided upon, together with that of all the laborers who had worked
+under his orders.  The execution of this abominable decree devolved
+upon the daroga of Mazenderan.  Erik had shown him some slight services
+and procured him many a hearty laugh.  He saved Erik by providing him
+with the means of escape, but nearly paid with his head for his
+generous indulgence.
+
+Fortunately for the daroga, a corpse, half-eaten by the birds of prey,
+was found on the shore of the Caspian Sea, and was taken for Erik's
+body, because the daroga's friends had dressed the remains in clothing
+that belonged to Erik.  The daroga was let off with the loss of the
+imperial favor, the confiscation of his property and an order of
+perpetual banishment.  As a member of the Royal House, however, he
+continued to receive a monthly pension of a few hundred francs from the
+Persian treasury; and on this he came to live in Paris.
+
+As for Erik, he went to Asia Minor and thence to Constantinople, where
+he entered the Sultan's employment.  In explanation of the services
+which he was able to render a monarch haunted by perpetual terrors, I
+need only say that it was Erik who constructed all the famous
+trap-doors and secret chambers and mysterious strong-boxes which were
+found at Yildiz-Kiosk after the last Turkish revolution.  He also
+invented those automata, dressed like the Sultan and resembling the
+Sultan in all respects,[2] which made people believe that the
+Commander of the Faithful was awake at one place, when, in reality, he
+was asleep elsewhere.
+
+Of course, he had to leave the Sultan's service for the same reasons
+that made him fly from Persia:  he knew too much.  Then, tired of his
+adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one
+"like everybody else."  And he became a contractor, like any ordinary
+contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks.  He tendered
+for part of the foundations in the Opera.  His estimate was accepted.
+When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his
+artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand.  Besides,
+was he not as ugly as ever?  He dreamed of creating for his own use a
+dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from
+men's eyes for all time.
+
+The reader knows and guesses the rest.  It is all in keeping with this
+incredible and yet veracious story.  Poor, unhappy Erik!  Shall we pity
+him?  Shall we curse him?  He asked only to be "some one," like
+everybody else.  But he was too ugly!  And he had to hide his genius OR
+USE IT TO PLAY TRICKS WITH, when, with an ordinary face, he would have
+been one of the most distinguished of mankind!  He had a heart that
+could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to
+content himself with a cellar.  Ah, yes, we must needs pity the Opera
+ghost.
+
+I have prayed over his mortal remains, that God might show him mercy
+notwithstanding his crimes.  Yes, I am sure, quite sure that I prayed
+beside his body, the other day, when they took it from the spot where
+they were burying the phonographic records.  It was his skeleton.  I
+did not recognize it by the ugliness of the head, for all men are ugly
+when they have been dead as long as that, but by the plain gold ring
+which he wore and which Christine Daae had certainly slipped on his
+finger, when she came to bury him in accordance with her promise.
+
+The skeleton was lying near the little well, in the place where the
+Angel of Music first held Christine Daae fainting in his trembling
+arms, on the night when he carried her down to the cellars of the
+opera-house.
+
+And, now, what do they mean to do with that skeleton?  Surely they will
+not bury it in the common grave! ... I say that the place of the
+skeleton of the Opera ghost is in the archives of the National Academy
+of Music.  It is no ordinary skeleton.
+
+
+
+[1] Even so, I am convinced that it would be easy to reach it by
+draining the lake, as I have repeatedly requested the Ministry of Fine
+Arts to do.  I was speaking about it to M. Dujardin-Beaumetz, the
+under-secretary for fine arts, only forty-eight hours before the
+publication of this book.  Who knows but that the score of DON JUAN
+TRIUMPHANT might yet be discovered in the house on the lake?
+
+[2] See the interview of the special correspondent of the MATIN, with
+Mohammed-Ali Bey, on the day after the entry of the Salonika troops
+into Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+The Paris Opera House
+
+
+THE SCENE OF GASTON LEROUX'S NOVEL, "THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA"
+
+That Mr. Leroux has used, for the scene of his story, the Paris Opera
+House as it really is and has not created a building out of his
+imagination, is shown by this interesting description of it taken from
+an article which appeared in Scribner's Magazine in 1879, a short time
+after the building was completed:
+
+"The new Opera House, commenced under the Empire and finished under the
+Republic, is the most complete building of the kind in the world and in
+many respects the most beautiful.  No European capital possesses an
+opera house so comprehensive in plan and execution, and none can boast
+an edifice equally vast and splendid.
+
+"The site of the Opera House was chosen in 1861.  It was determined to
+lay the foundation exceptionally deep and strong.  It was well known
+that water would be met with, but it was impossible to foresee at what
+depth or in what quantity it would be found.  Exceptional depth also
+was necessary, as the stage arrangements were to be such as to admit a
+scene fifty feet high to be lowered on its frame.  It was therefore
+necessary to lay a foundation in a soil soaked with water which should
+be sufficiently solid to sustain a weight of 22,000,000 pounds, and at
+the same time to be perfectly dry, as the cellars were intended for the
+storage of scenery and properties.  While the work was in progress, the
+excavation was kept free from water by means of eight pumps, worked by
+steam power, and in operation, without interruption, day and night,
+from March second to October thirteenth.  The floor of the cellar was
+covered with a layer of concrete, then with two coats of cement,
+another layer of concrete and a coat of bitumen.  The wall includes an
+outer wall built as a coffer-dam, a brick wall, a coat of cement, and a
+wall proper, a little over a yard thick.  After all this was done the
+whole was filled with water, in order that the fluid, by penetrating
+into the most minute interstices, might deposit a sediment which would
+close them more surely and perfectly than it would be possible to do by
+hand.  Twelve years elapsed before the completion of the building, and
+during that time it was demonstrated that the precautions taken secured
+absolute impermeability and solidity.
+
+"The events of 1870 interrupted work just as it was about to be
+prosecuted most vigorously, and the new Opera House was put to new and
+unexpected uses.  During the siege, it was converted into a vast
+military storehouse and filled with a heterogeneous mass of goods.
+After the siege the building fell into the hands of the Commune and the
+roof was turned into a balloon station.  The damage done, however, was
+slight.
+
+"The fine stone employed in the construction was brought from quarries
+in Sweden, Scotland, Italy, Algeria, Finland, Spain, Belgium and
+France.  While work on the exterior was in progress, the building was
+covered in by a wooden shell, rendered transparent by thousands of
+small panes of glass.  In 1867 a swarm of men, supplied with hammers
+and axes, stripped the house of its habit, and showed in all its
+splendor the great structure.  No picture can do justice to the rich
+colors of the edifice or to the harmonious tone resulting from the
+skilful use of many diverse materials.  The effect of the frontage is
+completed by the cupola of the auditorium, topped with a cap of bronze
+sparingly adorned with gilding.  Farther on, on a level with the towers
+of Notre-Dame, is the gable end of the roof of the stage, a 'Pegasus',
+by M. Lequesne, rising at either end of the roof, and a bronze group by
+M. Millet, representing 'Apollo lifting his golden lyre', commanding
+the apex.  Apollo, it may here be mentioned, is useful as well as
+ornamental, for his lyre is tipped with a metal point which does duty
+as a lightning-rod, and conducts the fluid to the body and down the
+nether limbs of the god.
+
+"The spectator, having climbed ten steps and left behind him a gateway,
+reaches a vestibule in which are statues of Lully, Rameau, Gluck, and
+Handel.  Ten steps of green Swedish marble lead to a second vestibule
+for ticket-sellers. Visitors who enter by the pavilion reserved for
+carriages pass through a hallway where ticket offices are situated.
+The larger number of the audience, before entering the auditorium,
+traverse a large circular vestibule located exactly beneath it.  The
+ceiling of this portion of the building is upheld by sixteen fluted
+columns of Jura stone, with white marble capitals, forming a portico.
+Here servants are to await their masters, and spectators may remain
+until their carriages are summoned.  The third entrance, which is quite
+distinct from the others, is reserved for the Executive.  The section
+of the building set aside for the use of the Emperor Napoleon was to
+have included an antechamber for the bodyguards; a salon for the
+aides-de-camp; a large salon and a smaller one for the Empress; hat and
+cloak rooms, etc.  Moreover, there were to be in close proximity to the
+entrance, stables for three coaches, for the outriders' horses, and for
+the twenty-one horsemen acting as an escort; a station for a squad of
+infantry of thirty-one men and ten cent-gardes, and a stable for the
+horses of the latter; and, besides, a salon for fifteen or twenty
+domestics.  Thus arrangements had to be made to accommodate in this
+part of the building about one hundred persons, fifty horses, and
+half-a-dozen carriages.  The fall of the Empire suggested some changes,
+but ample provision still exists for emergencies.
+
+"Its novel conception, perfect fitness, and rare splendor of material,
+make the grand stairway unquestionably one of the most remarkable
+features of the building.  It presents to the spectator, who has just
+passed through the subscribers' pavilion, a gorgeous picture.  From
+this point he beholds the ceiling formed by the central landing; this
+and the columns sustaining it, built of Echaillon stone, are
+honeycombed with arabesques and heavy with ornaments; the steps are of
+white marble, and antique red marble balusters rest on green marble
+sockets and support a balustrade of onyx.  To the right and to the left
+of this landing are stairways to the floor, on a plane with the first
+row of boxes.  On this floor stand thirty monolith columns of
+Sarrancolin marble, with white marble bases and capitals.  Pilasters of
+peach-blossom and violet stone are against the corresponding walls.
+More than fifty blocks had to be extracted from the quarry to find
+thirty perfect monoliths.
+
+"The foyer de la danse has particular interest for the habitues of the
+Opera.  It is a place of reunion to which subscribers to three
+performances a week are admitted between the acts in accordance with a
+usage established in 1870.  Three immense looking-glasses cover the
+back wall of the FOYER, and a chandelier with one hundred and seven
+burners supplies it with light.  The paintings include twenty oval
+medallions, in which are portrayed the twenty danseuses of most
+celebrity since the opera has existed in France, and four panels by M.
+Boulanger, typifying 'The War Dance', 'The Rustic Dance', 'The Dance of
+Love' and 'The Bacchic Dance.' While the ladies of the ballet receive
+their admirers in this foyer, they can practise their steps.
+Velvet-cushioned bars have to this end been secured at convenient
+points, and the floor has been given the same slope as that of the
+stage, so that the labor expended may be thoroughly profitable to the
+performance. The singers' foyer, on the same floor, is a much less
+lively resort than the foyer de la danse, as vocalists rarely leave
+their dressing-rooms before they are summoned to the stage.  Thirty
+panels with portraits of the artists of repute in the annals of the
+Opera adorn this foyer.
+
+"Some estimate ... may be arrived at by sitting before the concierge an
+hour or so before the representation commences.  First appear the stage
+carpenters, who are always seventy, and sometimes, when L'Africaine,
+for example, with its ship scene, is the opera, one hundred and ten
+strong.  Then come stage upholsterers, whose sole duty is to lay
+carpets, hang curtains, etc.; gas-men, and a squad of firemen.
+Claqueurs, call-boys, property-men, dressers, coiffeurs,
+supernumeraries, and artists, follow.  The supernumeraries number about
+one hundred; some are hired by the year, but the 'masses' are generally
+recruited at the last minute and are generally working-men who seek to
+add to their meagre earnings.  There are about a hundred choristers,
+and about eighty musicians.
+
+"Next we behold equeries, whose horses are hoisted on the stage by
+means of an elevator; electricians who manage the light-producing
+batteries; hydrauliciens to take charge of the water-works in ballets
+like La Source; artificers who prepare the conflagration in Le Profeta;
+florists who make ready Margarita's garden, and a host of minor
+employees.  This personnel is provided for as follows:  Eighty
+dressing-rooms are reserved for the artists, each including a small
+antechamber, the dressing-room proper, and a little closet.  Besides
+these apartments, the Opera has a dressing-room for sixty male, and
+another for fifty female choristers; a third for thirty-four male
+dancers; four dressing-rooms for twenty female dancers of different
+grades; a dressing-room for one hundred and ninety supernumeraries,
+etc."
+
+A few figures taken from the article will suggest the enormous capacity
+and the perfect convenience of the house.  "There are 2,531 doors and
+7,593 keys; 14 furnaces and grates heat the house; the gaspipes if
+connected would form a pipe almost 16 miles long; 9 reservoirs, and two
+tanks hold 22,222 gallons of water and distribute their contents
+through 22,829 2-5 feet of piping; 538 persons have places assigned
+wherein to change their attire.  The musicians have a foyer with 100
+closets for their instruments."
+
+The author remarks of his visit to the Opera House that it "was almost
+as bewildering as it was agreeable.  Giant stairways and colossal
+halls, huge frescoes and enormous mirrors, gold and marble, satin and
+velvet, met the eye at every turn."
+
+In a recent letter Mr. Andre Castaigne, whose remarkable pictures
+illustrate the text, speaks of a river or lake under the Opera House
+and mentions the fact that there are now also three metropolitan
+railway tunnels, one on top of the other.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Raffles, by E. W. Hornung
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Raffles
+       Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman
+
+Author: E. W. Hornung
+
+Posting Date: September 27, 2008 [EBook #707]
+Release Date: November, 1996
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAFFLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RAFFLES
+
+FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN
+
+
+BY
+
+E. W. HORNUNG
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  NO SINECURE
+  A JUBILEE PRESENT
+  THE FATE OF FAUSTINA
+  THE LAST LAUGH
+  TO CATCH A THIEF
+  AN OLD FLAME
+  THE WRONG HOUSE
+  THE KNEES OF THE GODS
+
+
+
+
+RAFFLES
+
+
+
+NO SINECURE
+
+
+I
+
+I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram calling my
+attention to the advertisement, or the advertisement itself.  The
+telegram is before me as I write.  It would appear to have been handed
+in at Vere Street at eight o'clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and
+received before half-past at Holloway B.O.  And in that drab region it
+duly found me, unwashen but at work before the day grew hot and my
+attic insupportable.
+
+"See Mr. Maturin's advertisement Daily Mail might suit you earnestly
+beg try will speak if necessary ---- ----"
+
+I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one breath that
+took away mine; but I leave out the  initials at the end, which
+completed the surprise.  They stood very obviously for the knighted
+specialist whose consulting-room is within a cab-whistle of Vere
+Street, and who once called me kinsman for his sins.  More recently he
+had called me other names.  I was a disgrace, qualified by an adjective
+which seemed to me another. I had made my bed, and I could go and lie
+and die in it.  If I ever again had the insolence to show my nose in
+that house,  I should go out quicker than I came in.  All this, and
+more, my least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face;
+could ring for his man, and give him his brutal instructions on the
+spot; and then relent to the tune of this telegram!  I have no phrase
+for my amazement.  I literally could not believe my eyes.  Yet their
+evidence was more and more conclusive: a very epistle could not have
+been more characteristic of its sender. Meanly  elliptical, ludicrously
+precise, saving half-pence at the expense of sense, yet paying like a
+man for  "Mr." Maturin, that was my distinguished relative from his
+bald patch to his corns.  Nor was all  the rest unlike him, upon second
+thoughts. He  had a reputation for charity; he was going to live  up to
+it after all.  Either that, or it was the sudden impulse of which the
+most calculating are capable at times; the morning papers with the
+early cup of tea, this advertisement seen by chance, and the rest upon
+the spur of a guilty conscience.
+
+Well, I must see it for myself, and the sooner the better, though work
+pressed.  I was writing a series of articles upon prison life, and had
+my nib into the whole System; a literary and philanthropical daily was
+parading my "charges," the graver ones with the more gusto; and the
+terms, if unhandsome for creative work, were temporary wealth to me.
+It so happened that my first check  had just arrived by the eight
+o'clock post; and my position should be appreciated when I say that I
+had to cash it to obtain a Daily Mail.
+
+Of the advertisement itself, what is to be said?  It should speak for
+itself if I could find it, but I cannot, and only remember that it was
+a "male  nurse and constant attendant" that was "wanted  for an elderly
+gentleman in feeble health."  A  male nurse!  An absurd tag was
+appended, offering "liberal salary to University or public-school man";
+and of a sudden I saw that I should get this thing if I applied for it.
+What other "University or public-school man" would dream of  doing so?
+Was any other in such straits as I?  And then my relenting relative; he
+not only promised to speak for me, but was the very man to do so.
+Could any recommendation compete with his in the matter of a male
+nurse?  And need the duties of such be necessarily loathsome and
+repellent?  Certainly the surroundings would be better than those of my
+common lodging-house and own particular garret; and the food; and every
+other condition of life that I could think of on my way back to that
+unsavory asylum.  So I dived into a pawnbroker's shop, where I was a
+stranger only upon my present errand, and within the hour was  airing a
+decent if antiquated suit, but little corrupted by the pawnbroker's
+moth, and a new straw hat, on the top of a tram.
+
+The address given in the advertisement was that of a flat at Earl's
+Court, which cost me a cross-country journey, finishing with the
+District Railway and a seven minutes' walk.  It was now past mid-day,
+and the tarry wood-pavement was good to smell as I strode up the Earl's
+Court Road.  It was great to walk the civilized world again.  Here were
+men with coats on their backs, and ladies in gloves.  My only fear was
+lest I might run up against one or other whom I had known of old.  But
+it was my lucky day.  I felt it in my bones.  I was going to get this
+berth; and sometimes I should be able to smell the wood-pavement on the
+old boy's errands; perhaps he would insist on skimming over it in his
+bath-chair, with me behind.
+
+I felt quite nervous when I reached the flats.  They were a small pile
+in a side street, and I pitied the doctor whose plate I saw upon the
+palings before the ground-floor windows; he must be in a  very small
+way, I thought.  I rather pitied myself as well. I had indulged in
+visions of better flats than these.  There were no balconies.  The
+porter was out of livery.  There was no lift, and my invalid on the
+third floor!  I trudged up, wishing I  had never lived in Mount Street,
+and brushed against a dejected individual coming down.  A  full-blooded
+young fellow in a frock-coat flung the right door open at my summons.
+
+"Does Mr. Maturin live here?" I inquired.
+
+"That's right," said the full-blooded young man, grinning all over a
+convivial countenance.
+
+"I--I've come about his advertisement in the Daily Mail."
+
+"You're the thirty-ninth," cried the blood; "that was the thirty-eighth
+you met upon the stairs,  and the day's still young.  Excuse my staring
+at you.  Yes, you pass your prelim., and can come inside; you're one of
+the few.  We had most just after breakfast, but now the porter's
+heading off the worst cases, and that last chap was the first for
+twenty minutes. Come in here."
+
+And I was ushered into an empty room with a good bay-window, which
+enabled my full-blooded friend to inspect me yet more critically in a
+good light; this he did without the least false delicacy;  then his
+questions began.
+
+"'Varsity man?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Public school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+I told him, and he sighed relief.
+
+"At last!  You're the very first I've not had to argue with as to what
+is and what is not a public school.  Expelled?"
+
+"No," I said, after a moment's hesitation; "no, I was not expelled.
+And I hope you won't expel me if I ask a question in my turn?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Are you Mr. Maturin's son?"
+
+"No, my name's Theobald.  You may have seen it down below."
+
+"The doctor?" I said.
+
+"His doctor," said Theobald, with a satisfied  eye.  "Mr. Maturin's
+doctor.  He is having a  male nurse and attendant by my advice, and he
+wants a gentleman if he can get one.  I rather think he'll see you,
+though he's only seen two or three all day. There are certain questions
+which  he prefers to ask himself, and it's no good going over the same
+ground twice.  So perhaps I had better tell him about you before we get
+any further."
+
+And he withdrew to a room still nearer the entrance, as I could hear,
+for it was a very small flat indeed.  But now two doors were shut
+between us, and I had to rest content with murmurs through the wall
+until the doctor returned to summon me.
+
+"I have persuaded my patient to see you," he whispered, "but I confess
+I am not sanguine of the result.  He is very difficult to please.  You
+must prepare yourself for a querulous invalid, and for no sinecure if
+you get the billet."
+
+"May I ask what's the matter with him?"
+
+"By all means--when you've got the billet."
+
+Dr. Theobald then led the way, his professional dignity so thoroughly
+intact that I could not but smile as I followed his swinging coat-tails
+to the sick-room.  I carried no smile across the  threshold of a
+darkened chamber which reeked of drugs and twinkled with medicine
+bottles, and in the middle of which a gaunt figure lay abed in the
+half-light.
+
+"Take him to the window, take him to the window," a thin voice snapped,
+"and let's have a look  at him.  Open the blind a bit. Not as much as
+that, damn you, not as much as that!"
+
+The doctor took the oath as though it had been a fee.  I no longer
+pitied him.  It was now very clear to me that he had one patient who
+was a little practice in himself.  I determined there and then that he
+should prove a little profession to me, if  we could but keep him alive
+between us.  Mr. Maturin, however, had the whitest face that I have
+ever seen, and his teeth gleamed out through the dusk as though the
+withered lips no longer met about them; nor did they except in speech;
+and anything ghastlier than the perpetual grin of his repose I defy you
+to imagine.  It was with this grin that he lay regarding me while the
+doctor held the blind.
+
+"So you think you could look after me, do you?"
+
+"I'm certain I could, sir."
+
+"Single-handed, mind!  I don't keep another soul.  You would have to
+cook your own grub and my slops.  Do you think you could do all that?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I think so."
+
+"Why do you?  Have you any experience of the kind?"
+
+"No, sir, none."
+
+"Then why do you pretend you have?"
+
+"I only meant that I would do my best."
+
+"Only meant, only meant!  Have you done your best at everything else,
+then?"
+
+I hung my head.  This was a facer.  And there was something in my
+invalid which thrust the unspoken lie down my throat.
+
+"No, sir, I have not," I told him plainly.
+
+"He, he, he!" the old wretch tittered; "and you do well to own it; you
+do well, sir, very well indeed.  If you hadn't owned up, out you would
+have gone, out neck-and-crop!  You've saved your bacon.  You may do
+more.  So you are a public-school boy, and a very good school yours is,
+but you weren't at either University. Is that correct?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"What did you do when you left school?"
+
+"I came in for money."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I spent my money."
+
+"And since then?"
+
+I stood like a mule.
+
+"And since then, I say!"
+
+"A relative of mine will tell you if you ask him.  He is an eminent
+man, and he has promised to  speak for me.  I would rather say no more
+myself."
+
+"But you shall, sir, but you shall!  Do you suppose that I suppose a
+public-school boy would apply for a berth like this if something or
+other hadn't happened?  What I want is a gentleman of sorts, and I
+don't much care what sort; but you've got to tell me what did happen,
+if you don't tell anybody else.  Dr. Theobald, sir, you can go to the
+devil if you won't take a hint. This man  may do or he may not.  You
+have no more to say to it till I send him down to tell you one thing or
+the other.  Clear out, sir, clear out; and if you think you've anything
+to complain of, you stick it down in the bill!"
+
+In the mild excitement of our interview the thin voice had gathered
+strength, and the last shrill insult was screamed after the devoted
+medico, as he retired in such order that I felt certain he was going to
+take this trying patient at his word. The  bedroom door closed, then
+the outer one, and the doctor's heels went drumming down the common
+stair.  I was alone in the flat with this highly singular and rather
+terrible old man.
+
+"And a damned good riddance!" croaked the invalid, raising himself on
+one elbow without  delay.  "I may not have much body left to boast
+about, but at least I've got a lost old soul to call my own.  That's
+why I want a gentleman of sorts  about me. I've been too dependent on
+that chap.  He won't even let me smoke, and he's been in the flat all
+day to see I didn't. You'll find the cigarettes behind the Madonna of
+the Chair."
+
+It was a steel engraving of the great Raffaelle, and the frame was
+tilted from the wall; at a touch a packet of cigarettes tumbled down
+from behind.
+
+"Thanks; and now a light."
+
+I struck the match and held it, while the invalid inhaled with normal
+lips; and suddenly I sighed.  I was irresistibly reminded of my poor
+dear old Raffles.  A smoke-ring worthy of the great A. J. was floating
+upward from the sick man's lips.
+
+"And now take one yourself.  I have smoked more poisonous cigarettes.
+But even these are not Sullivans!"
+
+I cannot repeat what I said.  I have no idea what I did.  I only
+know--I only knew--that it was A. J. Raffles in the flesh!
+
+
+II
+
+"Yes, Bunny, it was the very devil of a swim;  but I defy you to sink
+in the Mediterranean.  That  sunset saved me.  The sea was on fire.  I
+hardly  swam under water at all, but went all I knew for the sun
+itself; when it set I must have been a mile away; until it did I was
+the invisible man.  I  figured on that, and only hope it wasn't set
+down as a case of suicide.  I shall get outed quite soon enough, Bunny,
+but I'd rather be dropped by the hangman than throw my own wicket away."
+
+"Oh, my dear old chap, to think of having you by the hand again! I feel
+as though we were both aboard that German liner, and all that's
+happened since a nightmare.  I thought that time was  the last!"
+
+"It looked rather like it, Bunny.  It was taking all the risks, and
+hitting at everything.  But the game came off, and some day I'll tell
+you how."
+
+"Oh, I'm in no hurry to hear.  It's enough for me to see you lying
+there.  I don't want to know how you came there, or why, though I fear
+you must be pretty bad.  I must have a good look at you before I let
+you speak another word!"
+
+I raised one of the blinds, I sat upon the bed, and I had that look.
+It left me all unable to conjecture his true state of health, but quite
+certain  in my own mind that my dear Raffles was not and never would be
+the man that he had been.  He had aged twenty years; he looked fifty at
+the very least.  His hair was white; there was no trick  about that;
+and his face was another white.  The lines about the corners of the
+eyes and mouth were both many and deep.  On the other hand, the eyes
+themselves were alight and alert as ever; they were still keen and gray
+and gleaming, like finely tempered steel.  Even the mouth, with a
+cigarette to close it, was the mouth of Raffles and no other:  strong
+and unscrupulous as the man himself.  It was only the physical strength
+which appeared to  have departed; but that was quite sufficient to make
+my heart bleed for the dear rascal who had cost me every tie I valued
+but the tie between us two.
+
+"Think I look much older?" he asked at length.
+
+"A bit," I admitted.  "But it is chiefly your hair."
+
+"Whereby hangs a tale for when we've talked ourselves out, though I
+have often thought it was that long swim that started it.  Still, the
+Island of Elba is a rummy show, I can assure you.  And  Naples is a
+rummier!"
+
+"You went there after all?"
+
+"Rather!  It's the European paradise for such as our noble selves.  But
+there's no place that's a patch on little London as a non-conductor of
+heat;  it never need get too hot for a fellow here;  if it does it's
+his own fault.  It's the kind of wicket you don't get out on, unless
+you get yourself out.  So here I am again, and have been for the last
+six weeks.  And I mean to have another knock."
+
+"But surely, old fellow, you're not awfully fit, are you?"
+
+"Fit?  My dear Bunny, I'm dead--I'm at the bottom of the sea--and don't
+you forget it for a  minute."
+
+"But are you all right, or are you not?"
+
+"No, I'm half-poisoned by Theobald's prescriptions and putrid
+cigarettes, and as weak as a cat from lying in bed."
+
+"Then why on earth lie in bed, Raffles?"
+
+"Because it's better than lying in gaol, as I am afraid YOU know, my
+poor dear fellow.  I tell you I am dead; and my one terror is of coming
+to life again by accident.  Can't you see? I simply dare not show my
+nose out of doors--by day.  You  have no idea of the number of
+perfectly innocent things a dead man daren't do.  I can't even smoke
+Sullivans, because no one man was ever so partial to them as I was in
+my lifetime, and you never know when you may start a clew."
+
+"What brought you to these mansions?"
+
+"I fancied a flat, and a man recommended these on the boat; such a good
+chap, Bunny; he was my reference when it came to signing the lease.
+You see I landed on a stretcher--most pathetic case--old Australian
+without a friend in old country--ordered Engadine as last chance--no
+go--not an earthly--sentimental wish to die in London--that's the
+history of Mr. Maturin.  If it doesn't  hit you hard, Bunny, you're the
+first.  But it hit friend Theobald hardest of all.  I'm an income to
+him.  I believe he's going to marry on me."
+
+"Does he guess there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Knows, bless you!  But he doesn't know I know he knows, and there
+isn't a disease in the  dictionary that he hasn't treated me for since
+he's had me in hand.  To do him justice, I believe he thinks me a
+hypochondriac of the first water; but that young man will go far if he
+keeps on the wicket.  He has spent half his nights up here, at guineas
+apiece."
+
+"Guineas must be plentiful, old chap!"
+
+"They have been, Bunny.  I can't say more.  But I don't see why they
+shouldn't be again."
+
+I was not going to inquire where the guineas came from.  As if I cared!
+But I did ask old Raffles how in the world he had got upon my tracks;
+and thereby drew the sort of smile with which old gentlemen rub their
+hands, and old ladies nod their noses. Raffles merely produced a
+perfect  oval of blue smoke before replying.
+
+"I was waiting for you to ask that, Bunny; it's a long time since I did
+anything upon which I plume myself more.  Of course, in the first
+place, I spotted you at once by these prison articles; they were not
+signed, but the fist was the fist of my sitting rabbit!"
+
+"But who gave you my address?"
+
+"I wheedled it out of your excellent editor; called on him at dead of
+night, when I occasionally go afield like other ghosts, and wept it out
+of him in five minutes.  I was your only relative;  your name was not
+your own name; if he insisted  I would give him mine.  He didn't
+insist, Bunny,  and I danced down his stairs with your address in my
+pocket."
+
+"Last night?"
+
+"No, last week."
+
+"And so the advertisement was yours, as well as the telegram!"
+
+I had, of course, forgotten both in the high excitement of the hour, or
+I should scarcely have announced my belated discovery with such an air.
+As it was I made Raffles look at me as I had known  him look before,
+and the droop of his eyelids  began to sting.
+
+"Why all this subtlety?" I petulantly exclaimed.  "Why couldn't you
+come straight away to me in a cab?"
+
+He did not inform me that I was hopeless as ever.  He did not address
+me as his good rabbit.
+
+He was silent for a time, and then spoke in a tone which made me
+ashamed of mine.
+
+"You see, there are two or three of me now, Bunny: one's at the bottom
+of the Mediterranean,  and one's an old Australian desirous of dying in
+the old country, but in no immediate danger of  dying anywhere.  The
+old Australian doesn't know a soul in town; he's got to be consistent,
+or he's done.  This sitter Theobald is his only friend, and has seen
+rather too much of him; ordinary dust won't do for his eyes.  Begin to
+see?  To pick you out of a crowd, that was the game; to let old
+Theobald help to pick you, better still!  To start with, he was dead
+against my having anybody at all; wanted me all to himself, naturally;
+but anything rather than kill the goose!  So he is to have a fiver a
+week while he keeps me alive, and he's going to be married next month.
+That's a pity in some ways, but a good thing in others; he will want
+more money than he foresees, and he  may always be of use to us at a
+pinch.  Meanwhile he eats out of my hand."
+
+I complimented Raffles on the mere composition of his telegram, with
+half the characteristics  of my distinguished kinsman squeezed into a
+dozen odd words; and let him know how the old ruffian had really
+treated me.  Raffles was not surprised; we had dined together at my
+relative's in the old days, and filed for reference a professional
+valuation of his household gods.  I now learnt that the telegram had
+been posted, with the hour marked for its despatch, at the pillar
+nearest Vere Street, on the night before the advertisement was due to
+appear in the Daily Mail.  This also  had been carefully prearranged;
+and Raffles's only fear had been lest it might be held over despite his
+explicit instructions, and so drive me to the  doctor for an
+explanation of his telegram.  But the adverse chances had been weeded
+out and  weeded out to the irreducible minimum of  risk.
+
+His greatest risk, according to Raffles, lay nearest home: bedridden
+invalid that he was supposed to be, his nightly terror was of running
+into Theobald's arms in the immediate neighborhood of the flat.  But
+Raffles had characteristic methods of minimizing even that danger, of
+which something anon; meanwhile he recounted more than one of  his
+nocturnal adventures, all, however, of a singularly innocent type; and
+one thing I noticed while  he talked.  His room was the first as you
+entered  the flat.  The long inner wall divided the room  not merely
+from the passage but from the outer landing as well. Thus every step
+upon the bare stone stairs could be heard by Raffles where he lay;  and
+he would never speak while one was ascending, until it had passed his
+door.  The afternoon brought more than one applicant for the post which
+it was my duty to tell them that I had already obtained.  Between three
+and four, however, Raffles, suddenly looking at his watch, packed me
+off in a hurry to the other end of  London for my things.
+
+"I'm afraid you must be famishing, Bunny.  It's a fact that I eat very
+little, and that at odd hours, but I ought not to have forgotten you.
+Get yourself a snack outside, but not a square meal if you  can resist
+one.  We've got to celebrate this day this night!"
+
+"To-night?" I cried.
+
+"To-night at eleven, and Kellner's the place.  You may well open your
+eyes, but we didn't go there much, if you remember, and the staff seems
+changed.  Anyway we'll risk it for once.  I was in last night, talking
+like a stage American, and supper's ordered for eleven sharp."
+
+"You made as sure of me as all that!"
+
+"There was no harm in ordering supper.  We shall have it in a private
+room, but you may as well dress if you've got the duds."
+
+"They're at my only forgiving relative's."
+
+"How much will get them out, and square you up, and bring you back bag
+and baggage in good time?"
+
+I had to calculate.
+
+"A tenner, easily."
+
+"I had one ready for you.  Here it is, and I wouldn't lose any time if
+I were you.  On the way you might look up Theobald, tell him you've got
+it and how long you'll be gone, and that I can't be left alone all the
+time.  And, by Jove, yes!  You get me a stall for the Lyceum at the
+nearest agent's; there are two or three in High Street; and say it was
+given you when you come in. That young  man shall be out of the way
+to-night."
+
+I found our doctor in a minute consulting-room and his shirt-sleeves, a
+tall tumbler at his elbow; at least I caught sight of the tumbler on
+entering;  thereafter he stood in front of it, with a futility which
+had my sympathy.
+
+"So you've got the billet," said Dr. Theobald.  "Well, as I told you
+before, and as you have since probably discovered for yourself, you
+won't find it exactly a sinecure.  My own part of the business is by no
+means that; indeed, there are those who would throw up the case, after
+the kind of treatment that you have seen for yourself.  But
+professional considerations are not the only ones, and one cannot make
+too many allowances in such a case."
+
+"But what is the case?" I asked him.  "You said you would tell me if I
+was successful."
+
+Dr. Theobald's shrug was worthy of the profession he seemed destined to
+adorn; it was not incompatible with any construction which one chose to
+put upon it.  Next moment he had stiffened. I suppose I still spoke
+more or less like  a gentleman.  Yet, after all, I was only the  male
+nurse.  He seemed to remember this suddenly, and he took occasion to
+remind me of the fact.
+
+"Ah," said he, "that was before I knew you were altogether without
+experience; and I must  say that I was surprised even at Mr. Maturin's
+engaging you after that; but it will depend upon yourself how long I
+allow him to persist in so curious an experiment.  As for what is the
+matter with him, my good fellow, it is no use my giving you an answer
+which would be double Dutch to you; moreover, I have still to test your
+discretionary powers.  I may say, however, that that  poor gentleman
+presents at once the most complex and most troublesome case, which is
+responsibility enough without certain features which make it all but
+insupportable.  Beyond this I must refuse to discuss my patient for the
+present; but I shall certainly go up if I can find time."
+
+He went up within five minutes.  I found him there on my return at
+dusk.  But he did not refuse my stall for the Lyceum, which Raffles
+would not allow me to use myself, and presented to him off-hand without
+my leave.
+
+"And don't you bother any more about me till to-morrow," snapped the
+high thin voice as he was off.  "I can send for you now when I want
+you, and I'm hoping to have a decent night for once."
+
+
+III
+
+It was half-past ten when we left the flat, in an interval of silence
+on the noisy stairs.  The silence was unbroken by our wary feet.  Yet
+for me a surprise was in store upon the very landing.  Instead of going
+downstairs, Raffles led me up two flights, and so out upon a perfectly
+flat roof.
+
+"There are two entrances to these mansions," he explained between stars
+and chimney-stacks: "one to our staircase, and another round the
+corner.  But there's only one porter, and he lives on the  basement
+underneath us, and affects the door nearest home.  We miss him by using
+the wrong stairs, and we run less risk of old Theobald.  I got the tip
+from the postmen, who come up one way and down the other.  Now, follow
+me, and look out!"
+
+There was indeed some necessity for caution, for each half of the
+building had its L-shaped well dropping sheer to the base, the parapets
+so low that one might easily have tripped over them into  eternity.
+However, we were soon upon the second staircase, which opened on the
+roof like the first.  And twenty minutes of the next twenty-five we
+spent in an admirable hansom, skimming east.
+
+"Not much change in the old hole, Bunny.  More of these magic-lantern
+advertisements ... and absolutely the worst bit of taste in town,
+though it's saying something, in that equestrian statue with the gilt
+stirrups and fixings; why don't they black the buffer's boots and his
+horse's hoofs while they are about it? ...  More bicyclists, of course.
+That was just beginning, if you remember.  It might have been useful to
+us.... And there's the old club, getting put into a crate for the
+Jubilee; by Jove, Bunny, we ought to be there.  I wouldn't lean forward
+in Piccadilly, old chap.  If you're seen I'm thought of, and we shall
+have to be jolly careful at Kellner's....  Ah, there it is!  Did I tell
+you I was a low-down stage Yankee at Kellner's?  You'd better be
+another, while the waiter's in the room."
+
+We had the little room upstairs; and on the very threshold I, even I,
+who knew my Raffles of old, was taken horribly aback. The table was
+laid for three.  I called his attention to it in a whisper.
+
+"Why, yep!" came through his nose.  "Say, boy, the lady, she's not
+comin', but you leave that tackle where 'tis.  If I'm liable to pay, I
+guess I'll have all there is to it."
+
+I have never been in America, and the American public is the last on
+earth that I desire to insult;  but idiom and intonation alike would
+have imposed upon my inexperience.  I had to look at Raffles to make
+sure that it was he who spoke, and I had my own reasons for looking
+hard.
+
+"Who on earth was the lady?" I inquired aghast at the first opportunity.
+
+"She isn't on earth.  They don't like wasting this room on two, that's
+all.  Bunny--my Bunny--here's to us both!"
+
+And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of Steinberg,
+1868; but of the rare delights of that supper I can scarcely trust
+myself to write.  It was no mere meal, it was no coarse orgy, but a
+little feast for the fastidious gods, not unworthy of Lucullus at his
+worst.  And I who had bolted my skilly at Wormwood Scrubbs, and
+tightened my  belt in a Holloway attic, it was I who sat down to this
+ineffable repast!  Where the courses were few, but each a triumph of
+its kind, it would be invidious to single out any one dish; but the
+Jambon de Westphalie au Champagne tempts me sorely.  And then the
+champagne that we drank, not the quantity but the quality!  Well, it
+was Pol Roger, '84, and  quite good enough for me; but even so it was
+not  more dry, nor did it sparkle more, than the merry  rascal who had
+dragged me thus far to the devil, but should lead me dancing the rest
+of the way.  I was beginning to tell him so.  I had done my honest best
+since my reappearance in the world;  but the world had done its worst
+by me.  A further antithesis and my final intention were both upon  my
+tongue when the waiter with the Chateau Margaux cut me short; for he
+was the bearer of more than that great wine; bringing also a card upon
+a  silver tray.
+
+"Show him up," said Raffles, laconically.
+
+"And who is this?" I cried when the man was gone.  Raffles reached
+across the table and gripped  my arm in a vice.  His eyes were steel
+points fixed on mine.
+
+"Bunny, stand by me," said he in the old irresistible voice, a voice
+both stern and winning.  "Stand by me, Bunny--if there's a row!"
+
+And there was time for nothing more, the door flying open, and a dapper
+person entering with a bow; a frock-coat on his back, gold pince-nez on
+his nose; a shiny hat in one hand, and a black bag in the other.
+
+"Good-evening, gentlemen," said he, at home and smiling.
+
+"Sit down," drawled Raffles in casual response.  "Say, let me introduce
+you to Mr. Ezra B. Martin, of Shicawgo.  Mr. Martin is my future
+brother-in-law.  This is Mr. Robinson, Ezra, manager to Sparks &
+Company, the cellerbrated joolers on Re-gent Street."
+
+I pricked up my ears, but contented myself with a nod.  I altogether
+distrusted my ability to live up to my new name and address.
+
+"I figured on Miss Martin bein' right here, too," continued Raffles,
+"but I regret to say she's  not feelin' so good.  We light out for
+Parrus on the 9 A. M. train to-morrer mornin', and she  guessed she'd
+be too dead.  Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Robinson; but you'll see I'm
+advertisin' your wares."
+
+Raffles held his right hand under the electric light, and a diamond
+ring flashed upon his little finger.  I could have sworn it was not
+there five  minutes before.
+
+The tradesman had a disappointed face, but for a moment it brightened
+as he expatiated on the value of that ring and on the price his people
+had accepted for it.  I was invited to guess the figure, but I shook a
+discreet head.  I have seldom been more taciturn in my life.
+
+"Forty-five pounds," cried the jeweller; "and it would be cheap at
+fifty guineas."
+
+"That's right," assented Raffles.  "That'd be dead cheap, I allow.  But
+then, my boy, you gotten ready cash, and don't you forget it."
+
+I do not dwell upon my own mystification in all this.  I merely pause
+to state that I was keenly enjoying that very element. Nothing could
+have been more typical of Raffles and the past. It was only my own
+attitude that was changed.
+
+It appeared that the mythical lady, my sister, had just become engaged
+to Raffles, who seemed  all anxiety to pin her down with gifts of
+price.  I could not quite gather whose gift to whom was the diamond
+ring; but it had evidently been paid for; and I voyaged to the moon,
+wondering when and how.  I was recalled to this planet by a deluge of
+gems from the jeweller's bag.  They lay alight in their cases like the
+electric lamps above.  We all three put our heads together over them,
+myself  without the slightest clew as to what was coming, but not
+unprepared for violent crime.  One does not do eighteen months for
+nothing.
+
+"Right away," Raffles was saying.  "We'll choose for her, and you'll
+change anything she don't like.  Is that the idea?"
+
+"That was my suggestion, sir."
+
+"Then come on, Ezra.  I guess you know Sadie's taste.  You help me
+choose."
+
+And we chose--lord!  What did we not choose?  There was her ring, a
+diamond half-hoop.  It cost L95, and there was no attempt to get it for
+L90.  Then there was a diamond necklet--two  hundred guineas, but
+pounds accepted.  That was  to be the gift of the bridegroom.  The
+wedding  was evidently imminent.  It behooved me to play a  brotherly
+part.  I therefore rose to the occasion; calculated she would like a
+diamond star (L116), but reckoned it was more than I could afford; and
+sustained a vicious kick under the table for either verb.  I was afraid
+to open my mouth on finally  obtaining the star for the round hundred.
+And then the fat fell in the fire; for pay we could not; though a
+remittance (said Raffles) was "overdo from Noo York."
+
+"But I don't know you, gentlemen," the jeweller exclaimed.  "I haven't
+even the name of your hotel!"
+
+"I told you we was stoppin' with friends," said Raffles, who was not
+angry, though thwarted and crushed.  "But that's right, sir! Oh, that's
+dead  right, and I'm the last man to ask you to take Quixotic risks.
+I'm tryin' to figure a way out.  Yes, SIR, that's what I'm tryin' to
+do."
+
+"I wish you could, sir," the jeweller said, with feeling.  "It isn't as
+if we hadn't seen the color  of your money.  But certain rules I'm
+sworn to observe; it isn't as if I was in business for myself; and--you
+say you start for Paris in the morning!"
+
+"On the 9 A. M. train," mused Raffles; "and I've heard no-end yarns
+about the joolers' stores in Parrus.  But that ain't fair; don't you
+take no notice o' that.  I'm tryin' to figure a way out.  Yes, SIR!"
+
+He was smoking cigarettes out of a twenty-five box; the tradesman and I
+had cigars.  Raffles sat frowning with a pregnant eye, and it was only
+too clear to me that his plans had miscarried.  I could not help
+thinking, however, that they deserved to do so, if he had counted upon
+buying credit for all but L400 by a single payment of some ten per
+cent.  That again seemed unworthy of Raffles, and I, for my part, still
+sat prepared to spring any moment at our visitor's throat.
+
+"We could mail you the money from Parrus,"  drawled Raffles at length.
+"But how should we know you'd hold up your end of the string, and mail
+us the same articles we've selected to-night?"
+
+The visitor stiffened in his chair.  The name of his firm should be
+sufficient guarantee for that.
+
+"I guess I'm no better acquainted with their name than they are with
+mine," remarked Raffles, laughing.  "See here, though!  I got a scheme.
+You pack 'em in this!"
+
+He turned the cigarettes out of the tin box,  while the jeweller and I
+joined wondering eyes.
+
+"Pack 'em in this," repeated Raffles, "the three things we want, and
+never mind the boxes; you can pack 'em in cotton-wool.  Then we'll ring
+for string and sealing wax, seal up the lot right here,  and you can
+take 'em away in your grip.  Within three days we'll have our
+remittance, and mail you the money, and you'll mail us this darned box
+with my seal unbroken!  It's no use you lookin' so sick, Mr. Jooler;
+you won't trust us any, and yet  we're goin' to trust you some.  Ring
+the bell, Ezra, and we'll see if they've gotten any sealing-wax and
+string."
+
+They had; and the thing was done.  The tradesman did not like it; the
+precaution was absolutely unnecessary; but since he was taking all his
+goods away with him, the sold with the unsold, his sentimental
+objections soon fell to the ground.  He packed necklet, ring, and star,
+with his own hands, in cotton-wool; and the cigarette-box held them so
+easily that at the last moment, when the box was closed, and the string
+ready, Raffles very nearly added a diamond bee-brooch at L51 10s.  This
+temptation, however, he ultimately overcame, to the other's chagrin.
+The cigarette-box was tied up, and the string sealed, oddly enough,
+with the diamond of the ring that had been bought and paid for.
+
+"I'll chance you having another ring in the store the dead spit of
+mine," laughed Raffles, as he relinquished the box, and it disappeared
+into the tradesman's bag.  "And now, Mr. Robinson, I hope you'll
+appreciate my true hospitality in not offering you any thing to drink
+while business was in progress.  That's Chateau Margaux, sir, and I
+should judge it's what you'd call an eighteen-carat article."
+
+In the cab which we took to the vicinity of the flat, I was instantly
+snubbed for asking questions which the driver might easily overhear,
+and took the repulse just a little to heart.  I could make  neither
+head nor tail of Raffles's dealings with the man from Regent Street,
+and was naturally inquisitive as to the meaning of it all.  But I held
+my tongue until we had regained the flat in the cautious manner of our
+exit, and even there until Raffles rallied me with a hand on either
+shoulder and an old smile upon his face.
+
+"You rabbit!" said he.  "Why couldn't you wait till we got home?"
+
+"Why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do?" I retorted as of
+yore.
+
+"Because your dear old phiz is still worth its weight in innocence, and
+because you never could act for nuts!  You looked as puzzled as the
+other poor devil; but you wouldn't if you had known what my game really
+was."
+
+"And pray what was it?"
+
+"That," said Raffles, and he smacked the cigarette-box down upon the
+mantelpiece.  It was not tied.  It was not sealed.  It flew open from
+the force of the impact.  And the diamond ring that cost L95, the
+necklet for L200, and my flaming  star at another L100, all three lay
+safe and snug in the jeweller's own cotton-wool!
+
+"Duplicate boxes!" I cried.
+
+"Duplicate boxes, my brainy Bunny.  One was already packed and
+weighted, and in my pocket.  I don't know whether you noticed me
+weighing the three things together in my hand?  I know that neither of
+you saw me change the boxes, for I did it when I was nearest buying the
+bee-brooch at the end, and you were too puzzled, and the other  Johnny
+too keen.  It was the cheapest shot in the game; the dear ones were
+sending old Theobald  to Southampton on a fool's errand yesterday
+afternoon, and showing one's own nose down Regent Street in broad
+daylight while he was gone;  but some things are worth paying for, and
+certain  risks one must always take.  Nice boxes, aren't  they?  I only
+wished they contained a better cigarette; but a notorious brand was
+essential; a box  of Sullivans would have brought me to life to-morrow."
+
+"But they oughtn't to open it to-morrow."
+
+"Nor will they, as a matter of fact.  Meanwhile, Bunny, I may call upon
+you to dispose of the boodle."
+
+"I'm on for any mortal thing!"
+
+My voice rang true, I swear, but it was the way  of Raffles to take the
+evidence of as many senses  as possible.  I felt the cold steel of his
+eyes through  mine and through my brain.  But what he saw seemed to
+satisfy him no less than what he heard, for his hand found my hand, and
+pressed it with a  fervor foreign to the man.
+
+"I know you are, and I knew you would be.  Only remember, Bunny, it's
+my turn next to pay the shot!"
+
+You shall hear how he paid it when the time came.
+
+
+
+A JUBILEE PRESENT
+
+The Room of Gold, in the British Museum, is probably well enough known
+to the inquiring alien and the travelled American.  A true Londoner,
+however, I myself had never heard of it until Raffles casually proposed
+a raid.
+
+"The older I grow, Bunny, the less I think of your so-called precious
+stones.  When did they ever bring in half their market value in L.s.d.
+There was the first little crib we ever cracked together--you with
+your innocent eyes shut.  A  thousand pounds that stuff was worth; but
+how many hundreds did it actually fetch.  The Ardagh emeralds weren't
+much better; old Lady Melrose's necklace was far worse; but that little
+lot the other night has about finished me.  A cool hundred for goods
+priced well over four; and L35 to come off for bait, since we only got
+a tenner for the ring I bought and paid for like an ass.  I'll be shot
+if I  ever touch a diamond again!  Not if it was the  Koh-I-noor; those
+few whacking stones are too well known, and to cut them up is to
+decrease their value by arithmetical retrogression.  Besides, that
+brings you up against the Fence once more, and I'm done with the
+beggars for good and all.  You talk about your editors and publishers,
+you literary swine.  Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher, but
+a six-barred, barbed-wired, spike-topped Fence.  What we really want is
+an Incorporated Society of Thieves, with some public-spirited old
+forger to run it for us on business lines."
+
+Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath, not, I am afraid,
+out of any respect for my one redeeming profession, but because we were
+taking a midnight airing on the roof, after a whole day of June in the
+little flat below.  The stars  shone overhead, the lights of London
+underneath, and between the lips of Raffles a cigarette of the old and
+only brand.  I had sent in secret for a box of the best; the boon had
+arrived that night; and the foregoing speech was the first result.  I
+could afford to ignore the insolent asides, however, where the apparent
+contention was so manifestly unsound.
+
+"And how are you going to get rid of your gold?" said I, pertinently.
+
+"Nothing easier, my dear rabbit."
+
+"Is your Room of Gold a roomful of sovereigns?"
+
+Raffles laughed softly at my scorn.
+
+"No, Bunny, it's principally in the shape of archaic ornaments, whose
+value, I admit, is largely  extrinsic.  But gold is gold, from
+Phoenicia to  Klondike, and if we cleared the room we should eventually
+do very well."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I should melt it down into a nugget, and bring it home from the U.S.A.
+to-morrow."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Make them pay up in hard cash across the counter of the Bank of
+England.  And you CAN make them."
+
+That I knew, and so said nothing for a time, remaining a hostile though
+a silent critic, while we paced the cool black leads with our bare
+feet, softly as cats.
+
+"And how do you propose to get enough away," at length I asked, "to
+make it worth while?"
+
+"Ah, there you have it," said Raffles.  "I only propose to reconnoitre
+the ground, to see what we  can see.  We might find some hiding-place
+for a night; that, I am afraid, would be our only chance."
+
+"Have you ever been there before?"
+
+"Not since they got the one good, portable piece which I believe that
+they exhibit now.  It's a long time since I read of it--I can't
+remember where--but I know they have got a gold cup of sorts worth
+several thousands.  A number of the immorally  rich clubbed together
+and presented it to the nation; and two of the richly immoral intend to
+snaffle it for themselves.  At any rate we might go and have a look at
+it, Bunny, don't you think?"
+
+Think!  I seized his arm.
+
+"When?  When?  When?" I asked, like a quick-firing gun.
+
+"The sooner the better, while old Theobald's away on his honeymoon."
+
+Our medico had married the week before, nor was any fellow-practitioner
+taking his work--at least not that considerable branch of it which
+consisted of Raffles--during his brief absence from  town.  There were
+reasons, delightfully obvious to us, why such a plan would have been
+highly unwise in Dr. Theobald.  I, however, was sending him daily
+screeds, and both matutinal and nocturnal telegrams, the composition of
+which afforded Raffles not a little enjoyment.
+
+"Well, then, when--when?" I began to repeat.
+
+"To-morrow, if you like."
+
+"Only to look?"
+
+The limitation was my one regret.
+
+"We must do so, Bunny, before we leap."
+
+"Very well," I sighed.  "But to-morrow it is!"
+
+And the morrow it really was.
+
+I saw the porter that night, and, I still think, bought his absolute
+allegiance for the second coin of the realm.  My story, however,
+invented by  Raffles, was sufficiently specious in itself.  That sick
+gentleman, Mr. Maturin (as I had to remember to call him), was really,
+or apparently, sickening for fresh air.  Dr. Theobald would allow him
+none; he was pestering me for just one day in the country while the
+glorious weather lasted. I was myself convinced that no possible harm
+could come of the experiment.  Would the porter help me in so innocent
+and meritorious an intrigue?  The  man hesitated.  I produced my
+half-sovereign.  The man was lost.  And at half-past eight next
+morning--before the heat of the day--Raffles and I drove to Kew Gardens
+in a hired landau which was to call for us at mid-day and wait until we
+came.  The porter had assisted me to carry my invalid downstairs, in a
+carrying-chair hired (like  the landau) from Harrod's Stores for the
+occasion.
+
+It was little after nine when we crawled together into the gardens; by
+half-past my invalid had had enough, and out he tottered on my arm; a
+cab, a  message to our coachman, a timely train to Baker Street,
+another cab, and we were at the British Museum--brisk pedestrians
+now--not very many  minutes after the opening hour of 10 A.M.
+
+It was one of those glowing days which will not be forgotten by many
+who were in town at the  time.  The Diamond Jubilee was upon us, and
+Queen's weather had already set in.  Raffles, indeed, declared it was
+as hot as Italy and Australia  put together; and certainly the short
+summer nights gave the channels of wood and asphalt and the continents
+of brick and mortar but little time to cool.  At the British Museum the
+pigeons were crooning among the shadows of the grimy colonnade, and the
+stalwart janitors looked less stalwart  than usual, as though their
+medals were too heavy for them.  I recognized some habitual Readers
+going to their labor underneath the dome; of mere visitors we seemed
+among the first.
+
+"That's the room," said Raffles, who had bought the two-penny guide, as
+we studied it openly on the nearest bench; "number 43, upstairs and
+sharp round to the right.  Come on, Bunny!"
+
+And he led the way in silence, but with a long methodical stride which
+I could not understand until we came to the corridor leading to the
+Room of Gold, when he turned to me for a moment.
+
+"A hundred and thirty-nine yards from this to  the open street," said
+Raffles, "not counting the stairs.  I suppose we COULD do it in twenty
+seconds, but if we did we should have to jump the gates.  No, you must
+remember to loaf out at slow march, Bunny, whether you like it or not."
+
+"But you talked about a hiding-place for a night?"
+
+"Quite so--for all night.  We should have to get back, go on lying low,
+and saunter out with the crowd next day--after doing the whole show
+thoroughly."
+
+"What!  With gold in our pockets--"
+
+"And gold in our boots, and gold up the sleeves and legs of our suits!
+You leave that to me, Bunny, and wait till you've tried two pairs of
+trousers sewn together at the foot!  This is only a preliminary
+reconnoitre.  And here we are."
+
+It is none of my business to describe the so-called Room of Gold, with
+which I, for one, was not a little disappointed.  The glass cases,
+which both fill and line it, may contain unique examples of the
+goldsmith's art in times and places of which one heard quite enough in
+the course of one's classical education; but, from a professional point
+of view, I would as lief have the ransacking of a single window in the
+West End as the pick of all those spoils of Etruria and of ancient
+Greece. The  gold may not be so soft as it appears, but it certainly
+looks as though you could bite off the business ends of the spoons, and
+stop your own teeth in doing so.  Nor should I care to be seen wearing
+one of the rings; but the greatest fraud of all  (from the aforesaid
+standpoint) is assuredly that very cup of which Raffles had spoken.
+Moreover, he felt this himself.
+
+"Why, it's as thin as paper," said he, "and enamelled like a
+middle-aged lady of quality!  But, by Jove, it's one of the most
+beautiful things I ever saw in my life, Bunny.  I should like to have
+it for its own sake, by all my gods!"
+
+The thing had a little square case of plate-glass all to itself at one
+end of the room.  It may have been the thing of beauty that Raffles
+affected to consider it, but I for my part was in no mood to look at it
+in that light.  Underneath were the names of the plutocrats who had
+subscribed for this national gewgaw, and I fell to wondering where
+their L8,000 came in, while Raffles devoured his  two-penny guide-book
+as greedily as a school-girl with a zeal for culture.
+
+"Those are scenes from the martyrdom of St. Agnes," said he ...
+"'translucent on relief ... one of the finest specimens of its  kind.'
+I should think it was!  Bunny, you Philistine, why can't you admire the
+thing for its own  sake?  It would be worth having only to live up to!
+There never was such rich enamelling on such thin gold; and what a good
+scheme to hang the lid up over it, so that you can see how thin it is.
+I wonder if we could lift it, Bunny, by hook or crook?"
+
+"You'd better try, sir," said a dry voice at his elbow.
+
+The madman seemed to think we had the room to ourselves.  I knew
+better, but, like another madman, had let him ramble on unchecked.  And
+here  was a stolid constable confronting us, in the short tunic that
+they wear in summer, his whistle on its chain, but no truncheon at his
+side.  Heavens!  how I see him now: a man of medium size, with a
+broad, good-humored, perspiring face, and a limp moustache.  He looked
+sternly at Raffles, and Raffles looked merrily at him.
+
+"Going to run me in, officer?" said he.  "That WOULD be a joke--my hat!"
+
+"I didn't say as I was, sir," replied the policeman.  "But that's queer
+talk for a gentleman like you, sir, in the British Museum!"  And he
+wagged  his helmet at my invalid, who had taken his airing in
+frock-coat and top-hat, the more readily to assume his present part.
+
+"What!" cried Raffles, "simply saying to my friend that I'd like to
+lift the gold cup?  Why, so I should, officer, so I should! I don't
+mind who hears me say so.  It's one of the most beautiful things I ever
+saw in all my life."
+
+The constable's face had already relaxed, and now a grin peeped under
+the limp moustache.  "I  daresay there's many as feels like that, sir,"
+said he.
+
+"Exactly; and I say what I feel, that's all," said Raffles airily.
+"But seriously, officer, is a valuable thing like this quite safe in a
+case like that?"
+
+"Safe enough as long as I'm here," replied the other, between grim jest
+and stout earnest.  Raffles studied his face; he was still watching
+Raffles; and I kept an eye on them both without putting in my word.
+
+"You appear to be single-handed," observed Raffles.  "Is that wise?"
+
+The note of anxiety was capitally caught; it was at once personal and
+public-spirited, that of the enthusiastic savant, afraid for a national
+treasure which few appreciated as he did himself.  And, to be sure, the
+three of us now had this treasury to ourselves; one or two others had
+been there when we entered; but now they were gone.
+
+"I'm not single-handed," said the officer, comfortably.  "See that seat
+by the door?  One of the attendants sits there all day long."
+
+"Then where is he now?"
+
+"Talking to another attendant just outside.  If you listen you'll hear
+them for yourself."
+
+We listened, and we did hear them, but not just outside.  In my own
+mind I even questioned  whether they were in the corridor through which
+we had come; to me it sounded as though they were just outside the
+corridor.
+
+"You mean the fellow with the billiard-cue who was here when we came
+in?" pursued Raffles.
+
+"That wasn't a billiard-cue!  It was a pointer," the intelligent
+officer explained.
+
+"It ought to be a javelin," said Raffles, nervously.  "It ought to be a
+poleaxe!  The public treasure ought to be better guarded than this.  I
+shall write to the Times about it--you see if I don't!"
+
+All at once, yet somehow not so suddenly as to excite suspicion,
+Raffles had become the elderly busybody with nerves; why, I could not
+for the life of me imagine; and the policeman seemed equally at sea.
+
+"Lor' bless you, sir," said he, "I'm all right; don't you bother your
+head about ME."
+
+"But you haven't even got a truncheon!"
+
+"Not likely to want one either.  You see, sir, it's early as yet; in a
+few minutes these here rooms will fill up; and there's safety in
+numbers, as they say."
+
+"Oh, it will fill up soon, will it?"
+
+"Any minute now, sir."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"It isn't often empty as long as this, sir.  It's the Jubilee, I
+suppose."
+
+"Meanwhile, what if my friend and I had been professional thieves?
+Why, we could have over-powered you in an instant, my good fellow!"
+
+"That you couldn't; leastways, not without bringing the whole place
+about your ears."
+
+"Well, I shall write to the Times, all the same.  I'm a connoisseur in
+all this sort of thing, and I won't have unnecessary risks run with the
+nation's property.  You said there was an attendant just  outside, but
+he sounds to me as though he were at the other end of the corridor.  I
+shall write to-day!"
+
+For an instant we all three listened; and Raffles was right. Then I saw
+two things in one glance.  Raffles had stepped a few inches backward,
+and stood poised upon the ball of each foot, his arms half raised, a
+light in his eyes.  And another kind  of light was breaking over the
+crass features of our friend the constable.
+
+"Then shall I tell you what I'LL do?" he cried, with a sudden clutch at
+the whistle-chain on his chest.  The whistle flew out, but it never
+reached his lips.  There were a couple of sharp smacks, like  double
+barrels discharged all but simultaneously, and the man reeled against
+me so that I could not help catching him as he fell.
+
+"Well done, Bunny!  I've knocked him out--I've knocked him out! Run you
+to the door and see if the attendants have heard anything, and take
+them on if they have."
+
+Mechanically I did as I was told.  There was no time for thought, still
+less for remonstrance or reproach, though my surprise must have been
+even more complete than that of the constable before Raffles knocked
+the sense out of him.  Even in my  utter bewilderment, however, the
+instinctive caution of the real criminal did not desert me.  I ran to
+the door, but I sauntered through it, to plant myself before a
+Pompeiian fresco in the corridor; and there were the two attendants
+still gossiping outside the further door; nor did they hear the dull
+crash which I heard even as I watched them out of the corner of each
+eye.
+
+It was hot weather, as I have said, but the perspiration on my body
+seemed already to have turned into a skin of ice.  Then I caught the
+faint  reflection of my own face in the casing of the fresco, and it
+frightened me into some semblance of myself as Raffles joined me with
+his hands in his pockets.  But my fear and indignation were redoubled
+at the sight of him, when a single glance  convinced me that his
+pockets were as empty as his hands, and his mad outrage the most wanton
+and  reckless of his whole career.
+
+"Ah, very interesting, very interesting, but nothing to what they have
+in the museum at Naples or in Pompeii itself.  You must go there some
+day, Bunny.  I've a good mind to take you myself.  Meanwhile--slow
+march!  The beggar hasn't moved an eyelid.  We may swing for him if you
+show indecent haste!"
+
+"We!" I whispered.  "We!"
+
+And my knees knocked together as we came up to the chatting attendants.
+But Raffles must needs interrupt them to ask the way to the Prehistoric
+Saloon.
+
+"At the top of the stairs."
+
+"Thank you.  Then we'll work round that way to the Egyptian part."
+
+And we left them resuming their providential chat.
+
+"I believe you're mad," I said bitterly as we went.
+
+"I believe I was," admitted Raffles; "but I'm not now, and I'll see you
+through.  A hundred and thirty-nine yards, wasn't it? Then it can't be
+more than a hundred and twenty now--not as much.  Steady, Bunny, for
+God's sake.  It's SLOW march--for our lives."
+
+There was this much management.  The rest was our colossal luck. A
+hansom was being paid off at the foot of the steps outside, and in we
+jumped, Raffles shouting "Charing Cross!" for all Bloomsbury to hear.
+
+We had turned into Bloomsbury Street without exchanging a syllable when
+he struck the trap-door with his fist.
+
+"Where the devil are you driving us?"
+
+"Charing Cross, sir."
+
+"I said King's Cross!  Round you spin, and drive like blazes, or we
+miss our train!  There's one to York at 10:35," added Raffles as the
+trap-door slammed; "we'll book there, Bunny, and then we'll slope
+through the subway to the Metropolitan, and so to ground via Baker
+Street and Earl's Court."
+
+And actually in half an hour he was seated once more in the hired
+carrying chair, while the porter and I staggered upstairs with my
+decrepit charge, for whose shattered strength even one hour in Kew
+Gardens had proved too much!  Then, and not until then, when we had got
+rid of the porter and  were alone at last, did I tell Raffles, in the
+most nervous English at my command, frankly and exactly what I thought
+of him and of his latest deed.  Once started, moreover, I spoke as I
+have seldom spoken to living man; and Raffles, of all men, stood my
+abuse without a murmur; or rather he sat it out, too astounded even to
+take off his hat, though I thought his eyebrows would have lifted it
+from his head.
+
+"But it always was your infernal way," I was  savagely concluding.
+"You make one plan, and yet you tell me another--"
+
+"Not to-day, Bunny, I swear!"
+
+"You mean to tell me you really did start with the bare idea of finding
+a place to hide in for a night?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"It was to be the mere reconnoitre you pretended?"
+
+"There was no pretence about it, Bunny."
+
+"Then why on earth go and do what you did?"
+
+"The reason would be obvious to anyone but you," said Raffles, still
+with no unkindly scorn.  "It was the temptation of a minute--the final
+impulse of the fraction of a second, when Roberto saw that I was
+tempted, and let me see that he saw it. It's not a thing I care to do,
+and I sha'n't be happy till the papers tell me the poor devil is alive.
+But a knock-out shot was the only chance for us then."
+
+"Why?  You don't get run in for being tempted, nor yet for showing that
+you are!"
+
+"But I should have deserved running in if I hadn't yielded to such a
+temptation as that,  Bunny.  It was a chance in a hundred thousand!  We
+might go there every day of our lives, and never again be the only
+outsiders in the room, with  the billiard-marking Johnnie practically
+out of ear-shot at one and the same time.  It was a gift from the gods;
+not to have taken it would have been flying in the face of Providence."
+
+"But you didn't take it," said I.  "You went and left it behind."
+
+I wish I had had a Kodak for the little smile with which Raffles shook
+his head, for it was one that he kept for those great moments of which
+our vocation is not devoid.  All this time he had been wearing his hat,
+tilted a little over eyebrows no longer raised.  And now at last I knew
+where the gold cup was.
+
+It stood for days upon his chimney-piece, this costly trophy whose
+ancient history and final fate filled newspaper columns even in these
+days of Jubilee, and for which the flower of Scotland Yard was said to
+be seeking high and low.  Our constable, we learnt, had been stunned
+only, and, from the moment that I brought him an evening paper with the
+news, Raffles's spirits rose to a height inconsistent with his equable
+temperament, and as unusual in him as the sudden impulse upon which he
+had acted with such effect.  The cup itself appealed to me no more than
+it had done  before.  Exquisite it might be, handsome it was,  but so
+light in the hand that the mere gold of it would scarcely have poured
+three figures out of melting-pot. And what said Raffles but that he
+would never melt it at all!
+
+"Taking it was an offence against the laws of the land, Bunny. That is
+nothing.  But destroying it would be a crime against God and Art, and
+may I be spitted on the vane of St. Mary Abbot's if I commit it!"
+
+Talk such as this was unanswerable; indeed, the whole affair had passed
+the pale of useful comment; and the one course left to a practical
+person was to shrug his shoulders and enjoy the joke. This was not a
+little enhanced by the newspaper reports, which described Raffles as a
+handsome youth, and his unwilling accomplice as an older man of
+blackguardly appearance and low type.
+
+"Hits us both off rather neatly, Bunny," said he.  "But what none of
+them do justice to is my dear cup.  Look at it; only look at it, man!
+Was ever anything so rich and yet so chaste? St. Agnes must have had a
+pretty bad time, but it would be almost worth it to go down to
+posterity in such enamel upon such gold.  And then  the history of the
+thing.  Do you realize that it's five hundred years old and has
+belonged to Henry  the Eighth and to Elizabeth among others?  Bunny,
+when you have me cremated, you can put my ashes in yonder cup, and lay
+us in the deep-delved earth together!"
+
+"And meanwhile?"
+
+"It is the joy of my heart, the light of my life, the delight of mine
+eye."
+
+"And suppose other eyes catch sight of it?"
+
+"They never must; they never shall."
+
+Raffles would have been too absurd had he not been thoroughly alive to
+his own absurdity; there was nevertheless an underlying sincerity in
+his appreciation of any and every  form of beauty, which all his
+nonsense could not conceal.  And his infatuation for the cup was, as he
+declared, a very pure passion, since the circumstances debarred him
+from the chief joy of the average collector, that of showing his
+treasure to his friends.  At last, however, and at the height  of his
+craze, Raffles and reason seemed to come together again as suddenly as
+they had parted company in the Room of Gold.
+
+"Bunny," he cried, flinging his newspaper across the room, "I've got an
+idea after your own heart.  I know where I can place it after all!"
+
+"Do you mean the cup?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then I congratulate you."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Upon the recovery of your senses."
+
+"Thanks galore.  But you've been confoundedly unsympathetic about this
+thing, Bunny, and I don't think I shall tell you my scheme till I've
+carried  it out."
+
+"Quite time enough," said I.
+
+"It will mean your letting me loose for an hour or two under cloud of
+this very night.  To-morrow's Sunday, the Jubilee's on Tuesday, and old
+Theobald's coming back for it."
+
+"It doesn't much matter whether he's back or not if you go late enough."
+
+"I mustn't be late.  They don't keep open.  No, it's no use your asking
+any questions.  Go out and buy me a big box of Huntley & Palmer's
+biscuits; any sort you like, only they must be theirs, and  absolutely
+the biggest box they sell."
+
+"My dear man!"
+
+"No questions, Bunny; you do your part and I'll do mine."
+
+Subtlety and success were in his face.  It was enough for me, and I had
+done his extraordinary bidding within a quarter of an hour.  In another
+minute Raffles had opened the box and tumbled all the biscuits into the
+nearest chair.
+
+"Now newspapers!"
+
+I fetched a pile.  He bid the cup of gold a ridiculous farewell,
+wrapped it up in newspaper after newspaper, and finally packed it in
+the empty  biscuit-box.
+
+"Now some brown paper.  I don't want to be taken for the grocer's young
+man."
+
+A neat enough parcel it made, when the string had been tied and the
+ends cut close; what was  more difficult was to wrap up Raffles himself
+in such a way that even the porter should not recognize him if they
+came face to face at the corner.  And the sun was still up.  But
+Raffles would go, and when he did I should not have known him  myself.
+
+He may have been an hour away.  It was barely dusk when he returned,
+and my first question referred to our dangerous ally, the porter.
+Raffles had passed him unsuspected in going, but had  managed to avoid
+him altogether on the return journey, which he had completed by way of
+the other entrance and the roof.  I breathed again.
+
+"And what have you done with the cup?"
+
+"Placed it!"
+
+"How much for?  How much for?"
+
+"Let me think.  I had a couple of cabs, and the postage was a tanner,
+with another twopence for registration.  Yes, it cost me exactly
+five-and-eight."
+
+"IT cost YOU!  But what did you GET for it, Raffles?"
+
+"Nothing, my boy."
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Not a crimson cent."
+
+"I am not surprised.  I never thought it had a market value.  I told
+you so in the beginning,"  I said, irritably.  "But what on earth have
+you  done with the thing?"
+
+"Sent it to the Queen."
+
+"You haven't!"
+
+Rogue is a word with various meanings, and Raffles had been one sort of
+rogue ever since I had known him; but now, for once, he was the
+innocent variety, a great gray-haired child, running over with
+merriment and mischief.
+
+"Well, I've sent it to Sir Arthur Bigge, to present to her Majesty,
+with the loyal respects of the thief, if that will do for you," said
+Raffles.  "I thought they might take too much stock of me at the G.P.O.
+if I addressed it to the Sovereign her-self.  Yes, I drove over to St.
+Martin's-le-Grand with it, and I registered the box into the bargain.
+Do a thing properly if you do it at all."
+
+"But why on earth," I groaned, "do such a thing at all?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, we have been reigned over for sixty years by infinitely
+the finest monarch the world has ever seen.  The world is taking the
+present opportunity of signifying the fact for all it is worth.  Every
+nation is laying of its best at her royal feet; every class in the
+community is doing its little level--except ours.  All I have done is
+to remove one reproach from our fraternity."
+
+At this I came round, was infected with his spirit, called him the
+sportsman he always was and would be, and shook his daredevil hand in
+mine; but, at the same time, I still had my qualms.
+
+"Supposing they trace it to us?" said I.
+
+"There's not much to catch hold of in a biscuit-box by Huntley &
+Palmer," replied Raffles; "that was why I sent you for one.  And I
+didn't write  a word upon a sheet of paper which could possibly be
+traced.  I simply printed two or three on a virginal post-card--another
+half-penny to the bad--which might have been bought at any post-office
+in the kingdom.  No, old chap, the G.P.O. was the one real danger;
+there was one detective  I spotted for myself; and the sight of him has
+left me with a thirst.  Whisky and Sullivans for two, Bunny, if you
+please."
+
+Raffles was soon clinking his glass against mine.
+
+"The Queen," said he.  "God bless her!"
+
+
+
+THE FATE OF FAUSTINA
+
+  "Mar--ga--ri,
+  e perzo a Salvatore!  Mar--ga--ri,
+  Ma l'ommo e cacciatore!  Mar--ga--ri,
+  Nun ce aje corpa tu!
+  Chello ch' e fatto, e fatto, un ne parlammo cchieu!"
+
+A piano-organ was pouring the metallic music through our open windows,
+while a voice of brass brayed the words, which I have since  obtained,
+and print above for identification by such  as know their Italy better
+than I.  They will not  thank me for reminding them of a tune so lately
+epidemic in that land of aloes and blue skies; but at least it is
+unlikely to run in their heads as the ribald accompaniment to a
+tragedy; and it does in mine.
+
+It was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the lawful and
+necessary siesta for such as turn night into day.  I was therefore
+shutting my window in a rage, and wondering whether I should  not do
+the same for Raffles, when he appeared in the silk pajamas to which the
+chronic solicitude of Dr. Theobald confined him from morning to  night.
+
+"Don't do that, Bunny," said he.  "I rather like that thing, and want
+to listen.  What sort of fellows are they to look at, by the way?"
+
+I put my head out to see, it being a primary rule of our quaint
+establishment that Raffles must never show himself at any of the
+windows.  I remember now how hot the sill was to my elbows, as I leant
+upon it and looked down, in order to satisfy a curiosity in which I
+could see no point.
+
+"Dirty-looking beggars," said I over my shoulder: "dark as dark; blue
+chins, oleaginous curls, and ear-rings; ragged as they make them, but
+nothing picturesque in their rags."
+
+"Neapolitans all over," murmured Raffles behind me; "and that's a
+characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other grinds;
+they always have that out there."
+
+"He's rather a fine chap, the singer," said I, as the song ended.  "My
+hat, what teeth!  He's looking up here, and grinning all round his
+head; shall I chuck him anything?"
+
+"Well, I have no reason to love the Neapolitans; but it takes me
+back--it takes me back!  Yes, here you are, one each."
+
+It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my hand, but I had
+thrown them into the street for pennies before I saw what they were.
+Thereupon I left the Italians bowing to the mud, as well they might,
+and I turned to protest against  such wanton waste.  But Raffles was
+walking up and down, his head bent, his eyes troubled; and his one
+excuse disarmed remonstrance.
+
+"They took me back," he repeated.  "My God, how they took me back!"
+
+Suddenly he stopped in his stride.
+
+"You don't understand, Bunny, old chap; but if you like you shall.  I
+always meant to tell you  some day, but never felt worked up to it
+before,  and it's not the kind of thing one talks about for talking's
+sake.  It isn't a nursery story, Bunny, and there isn't a laugh in it
+from start to finish; on the contrary, you have often asked me what
+turned my hair gray, and now you are going to hear."
+
+This was promising, but Raffles's manner was something more.  It was
+unique in my memory of the man.  His fine face softened and set hard by
+turns.  I never knew it so hard.  I never knew it so soft.  And the
+same might be said of his voice, now tender as any woman's, now flying
+to the other extreme of equally unwonted ferocity.  But this was toward
+the end of his tale; the beginning he treated characteristically
+enough, though I could have wished for a less cavalier account of the
+island of Elba, where, upon his own showing, he had met with much
+humanity.
+
+"Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified snag, or for
+the mollusks, its inhabitants.  But they started by wounding my vanity,
+so perhaps I am prejudiced, after all.  I sprung myself upon them as a
+shipwrecked sailor--a sole survivor--stripped in the sea and landed
+without a stitch--yet they took no more interest in me than you do in
+Italian organ-grinders.  They were decent enough.  I didn't have to
+pick and steal for a square meal and a pair of trousers; it would have
+been more exciting if I had.  But what a place!  Napoleon couldn't
+stand it, you remember, but he held on longer than I did.  I put in a
+few weeks in their infernal mines, simply to pick up a smattering of
+Italian; then got across to the mainland in a little wooden
+timber-tramp; and ungratefully glad I was to leave Elba blazing in just
+such another sunset as the one you won't forget.
+
+"The tramp was bound for Naples, but first it touched at Baiae, where I
+carefully deserted in the night.  There are too many English in Naples
+itself, though I thought it would make a first happy hunting-ground
+when I knew the language better and had altered myself a bit more.
+Meanwhile I got a billet of several sorts on one of the loveliest spots
+that ever I struck on all my travels.  The place was a vineyard, but it
+overhung the sea, and I got taken on as tame sailorman and emergency
+bottle-washer.  The wages were the noble figure of a lira and a half,
+which is just over a bob, a day, but there were lashings of sound wine
+for one and all, and better wine to bathe in.  And for eight whole
+months, my boy, I was an absolutely honest man.  The luxury of it,
+Bunny!  I out-heroded Herod, wouldn't touch a grape, and went in the
+most delicious danger of being knifed for my principles by the thieving
+crew I had joined.
+
+"It was the kind of place where every prospect pleases--and all the
+rest of it--especially all the rest.  But may I see it in my dreams
+till I die--as it was in the beginning--before anything began to
+happen.  It was a wedge of rock sticking out into the bay, thatched
+with vines, and with the rummiest old house on the very edge of all, a
+devil of a height above the sea: you might have sat at the windows and
+dropped your Sullivan-ends plumb into blue water a hundred and fifty
+feet below.
+
+"From the garden behind the house--such a garden, Bunny--oleanders and
+mimosa, myrtles, rosemarys and red tangles of fiery, untamed
+flowers--in a corner of this garden was the top of a subterranean stair
+down to the sea; at least there were nearly two hundred steps tunnelled
+through the solid rock; then an iron gate, and another eighty steps in
+the open air; and last of all a cave fit for pirates,
+a-penny-plain-and-two-pence-colored. This cave gave upon the sweetest
+little thing in coves, all deep blue water and honest rocks; and here I
+looked after the vineyard shipping, a pot-bellied tub with a brown
+sail, and a sort of dingy.  The tub took the wine to Naples, and the
+dingy was the tub's tender.
+
+"The house above was said to be on the identical site of a suburban
+retreat of the admirable Tiberius; there was the old sinner's private
+theatre with the tiers cut clean to this day, the well where he used to
+fatten his lampreys on his slaves, and a  ruined temple of those
+ripping old Roman bricks, shallow as dominoes and ruddier than the
+cherry.  I never was much of an antiquary, but I could have become one
+there if I'd had nothing else to  do; but I had lots.  When I wasn't
+busy with the  boats I had to trim the vines, or gather the grapes,  or
+even help make the wine itself in a cool, dark, musty vault underneath
+the temple, that I can see and smell as I jaw.  And can't I hear it and
+feel it too!  Squish, squash, bubble; squash, squish, guggle; and your
+feet as though you had been wading through slaughter to a throne.  Yes,
+Bunny, you mightn't think it, but this good right foot, that never was
+on the wrong side of the crease when the ball left my hand, has also
+been known to
+
+       'crush the lees of pleasure
+         From sanguine grapes of pain.'"
+
+He made a sudden pause, as though he had stumbled on the truth in jest.
+His face filled with lines.  We were sitting in the room that had been
+bare when first I saw it; there were basket-chairs and a table in it
+now, all meant ostensibly for me; and hence Raffles would slip to his
+bed, with schoolboy relish, at every tinkle of the bell.  This
+afternoon we felt fairly safe, for Theobald had called in the morning,
+and Mrs. Theobald still took up much of his time.  Through the open
+window we could hear the piano-organ and "Mar--gar--ri" a  few hundred
+yards further on.  I fancied Raffles was listening to it while he
+paused.  He shook his head abstractedly when I handed him the
+cigarettes; and his tone hereafter was never just what it had been.
+
+"I don't know, Bunny, whether you're a believer in transmigration of
+souls.  I have often thought it easier to believe than lots of other
+things, and I have been pretty near believing in it myself since I had
+my being on that villa of Tiberius.  The brute who had it in my day, if
+he isn't still running it with a whole skin, was or is as cold-blooded
+a blackguard as the worst of the emperors, but I have often thought he
+had a lot in common with Tiberius.  He had the great high sensual Roman
+nose, eyes that were sinks of iniquity in themselves, and that swelled
+with fatness, like the rest of him, so that he wheezed if he walked a
+yard; otherwise rather a fine beast to look at, with a huge gray
+moustache, like a flying gull, and the most courteous manners even  to
+his men; but one of the worst, Bunny, one of the worst that ever was.
+It was said that the vineyard was only his hobby; if so, he did his
+best to make his hobby pay.  He used to come out from Naples for the
+week-ends--in the tub when it wasn't too rough for his nerves--and he
+didn't always come alone.  His very name sounded unhealthy--Corbucci.
+I suppose I ought to add that he was a Count, though Counts are
+two-a-penny in  Naples, and in season all the year round.
+
+"He had a little English, and liked to air it upon me, much to my
+disgust; if I could not hope to conceal my nationality as yet, I at
+least did not want to have it advertised; and the swine had English
+friends.  When he heard that I was bathing in November, when the bay is
+still as warm  as new milk, he would shake his wicked old head and say,
+'You are very audashuss--you are very audashuss!' and put on no end of
+side before his Italians.  By God, he had pitched upon the right word
+unawares, and I let him know it in the end!
+
+"But that bathing, Bunny; it was absolutely the best I ever had
+anywhere.  I said just now the water was like wine; in my own mind I
+used to call it blue champagne, and was rather annoyed that I had no
+one to admire the phrase.  Otherwise I assure you that I missed my own
+particular kind very little indeed, though I often wished that YOU were
+there, old chap; particularly when I went for my lonesome swim; first
+thing in the morning, when the Bay was all rose-leaves, and last thing
+at night, when your body caught phosphorescent fire!  Ah, yes, it was a
+good enough life for a change; a perfect paradise to lie low in;
+another Eden until ...
+
+"My poor Eve!"
+
+And he fetched a sigh that took away his words; then his jaws snapped
+together, and his eyes spoke terribly while he conquered his emotion.
+I pen the last word advisedly.  I fancy it is one which  I have never
+used before in writing of A. J. Raffles,  for I cannot at the moment
+recall any other occasion upon which its use would have been justified.
+On resuming, however, he was not only calm, but cold; and this flying
+for safety to the other extreme is the single instance of self-distrust
+which the present Achates can record to the credit of his impious
+AEneas.
+
+"I called the girl Eve," said he.  "Her real name was Faustina, and she
+was one of a vast family who hung out in a hovel on the inland border
+of the vineyard.  And Aphrodite rising from the sea was less wonderful
+and not more beautiful than Aphrodite emerging from that hole!
+
+"It was the most exquisite face I ever saw or shall see in this life.
+Absolutely perfect features; a skin that reminded you of old gold, so
+delicate was its bronze; magnificent hair, not black but nearly; and
+such eyes and teeth as would have made the fortune of a face without
+another point.  I tell you, Bunny, London would go mad about a girl
+like that.  But I don't believe there's such  another in the world.
+And there she was wasting her sweetness upon that lovely but desolate
+little corner of it! Well, she did not waste it upon me.  I would have
+married her, and lived happily ever after in such a hovel as her
+people's--with her.  Only to look at her--only to look at her for the
+rest of my days--I could have lain low and remained dead even to you!
+And that's all I'm going to tell you about that, Bunny; cursed be he
+who tells more!  Yet don't run away with the idea that this poor
+Faustina was the only woman I ever cared about. I don't believe in all
+that 'only' rot; nevertheless I tell you that she was the one being who
+ever entirely satisfied my sense of beauty; and I honestly believe I
+could have chucked the world and been true to Faustina for that alone.
+
+"We met sometimes in the little temple I told you about, sometimes
+among the vines; now by honest accident, now by flagrant design; and
+found a ready-made rendezvous, romantic as one could wish, in the cave
+down all those subterranean steps. Then the sea would call us--my blue
+champagne--my sparkling cobalt--and there was the dingy  ready to our
+hand.  Oh, those nights!  I never knew which I liked best, the moonlit
+ones when you sculled through silver and could see for miles, or the
+dark nights when the fishermen's torches stood for the sea, and a red
+zig-zag in the sky for old Vesuvius.  We were happy.  I don't mind
+owning it.  We seemed not to have a care between us.  My mates took no
+interest in my affairs, and Faustina's family did not appear to bother
+about her.  The Count was in Naples five nights of the seven; the other
+two we sighed apart.
+
+"At first it was the oldest story in literature--Eden plus Eve. The
+place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was heaven itself.
+So for a little; then one night, a Monday night, Faustina burst out
+crying in the boat; and sobbed her story as we drifted without mishap
+by the mercy of the Lord.  And that was almost as old a story as the
+other.
+
+"She was engaged--what!  Had I never heard of it?  Did I mean to upset
+the boat?  What was her engagement beside our love? 'Niente, niente,'
+crooned Faustina, sighing yet smiling through her tears.  No, but what
+did matter was that the man had threatened to stab her to the
+heart--and  would do it as soon as look at her--that I knew.
+
+"I knew it merely from my knowledge of the Neapolitans, for I had no
+idea who the man might  be.  I knew it, and yet I took this detail
+better than the fact of the engagement, though now I began to laugh at
+both.  As if I was going to let her marry anybody else!  As if a hair
+of her lovely head should be touched while I lived to protect her!  I
+had a great mind to row away to blazes with her that very night, and
+never go near the vineyard again, or let her either.  But we had not a
+lira between us at the time, and only the rags in which we sat barefoot
+in the boat.  Besides, I had to know the name of the animal who had
+threatened a woman, and such a woman as this.
+
+"For a long time she refused to tell me, with splendid obduracy; but I
+was as determined as she; so at last she made conditions. I was not to
+go and get put in prison for sticking a knife into him--he wasn't worth
+it--and I did promise not to stab him in the back.  Faustina seemed
+quite satisfied, though a little puzzled by my manner, having herself
+the racial tolerance for cold steel; and next moment she had taken away
+my breath.  'It is Stefano,' she whispered, and hung her head.
+
+"And well she might, poor thing!  Stefano, of all creatures on God's
+earth--for her!
+
+"Bunny, he was a miserable little undersized
+wretch--ill-favored--servile--surly--and second only to his master in
+bestial cunning and hypocrisy.  His face was enough for me; that was
+what I read in it, and I don't often make mistakes.  He was Corbucci's
+own confidential body-servant, and that alone was enough to damn him in
+decent eyes:  always came out first on the Saturday with the spese, to
+have all ready for his master and current mistress, and stayed behind
+on the Monday to clear and lock up.  Stefano!  That worm!  I  could
+well understand his threatening a woman  with a knife; what beat me was
+how any woman could ever have listened to him; above all, that Faustina
+should be the one!  It passed my comprehension.  But I questioned her
+as gently as I could; and her explanation was largely the thread-bare
+one you would expect.  Her parents were so poor. They were so many in
+family.  Some of  them begged--would I promise never to tell?  Then
+some of them stole--sometimes--and all knew the pains of actual want.
+She looked after the cows, but there were only two of them, and
+brought the milk to the vineyard and elsewhere; but that was not
+employment for more than one; and there were countless sisters waiting
+to take her place.  Then he was so rich, Stefano.
+
+"'Rich!' I echoed.  'Stefano?'
+
+"'Si, Arturo mio.'
+
+"Yes, I played the game on that vineyard, Bunny, even to going my own
+first name.
+
+"'And how comes he to be rich?' I asked, suspiciously.
+
+"She did not know; but he had given her such beautiful jewels; the
+family had lived on them for months, she pretending an avocat had taken
+charge of them for her against her marriage. But I cared nothing about
+all that.
+
+"'Jewels!  Stefano!' I could only mutter.
+
+"'Perhaps the Count has paid for some of them.  He is very kind.'
+
+"'To you, is he?'
+
+"'Oh, yes, very kind.'
+
+"'And you would live in his house afterwards?'
+
+"'Not now, mia cara--not now!'
+
+"'No, by God you don't!' said I in English.  'But you would have done
+so, eh?'
+
+"'Of course.  That was arranged.  The Count is really very kind.'
+
+"'Do you see anything of him when he comes here?'
+
+"Yes, he had sometimes brought her little presents, sweetmeats,
+ribbons, and the like; but the offering had always been made through
+this toad of a Stefano.  Knowing the men, I now knew all.  But
+Faustina, she had the pure and simple heart, and the white soul, by the
+God who made it, and for all her kindness to a tattered scapegrace who
+made love to her in broken Italian between the ripples and the stars.
+She was not to know what I was, remember; and beside Corbucci and his
+henchman I was the Archangel Gabriel come down  to earth.
+
+"Well, as I lay awake that night, two more lines of Swinburne came into
+my head, and came to  stay:
+
+       "God said 'Let him who wins her take
+         And keep Faustine.'
+
+"On that couplet I slept at last, and it was my text and watchword when
+I awoke in the morning.  I forget how well you know your Swinburne,
+Bunny; but don't you run away with the idea that there was anything
+else in common between his Faustine and mine.  For the last time let me
+tell you that poor Faustina was the whitest and the best I ever knew.
+
+"Well, I was strung up for trouble when the next Saturday came, and
+I'll tell you what I had done.  I had broken the pledge and burgled
+Corbucci's villa in my best manner during his absence in Naples.  Not
+that it gave me the slightest trouble; but no human being could have
+told that I had been in, when I came out. And I had stolen nothing,
+mark you, but only borrowed a revolver from a drawer in the Count's
+desk, with one or two trifling accessories; for by this time I had the
+measure of these damned Neapolitans.  They are spry enough with a
+knife, but you show them the  business end of a shooting-iron, and
+they'll streak like rabbits for the nearest hole.  But the revolver
+wasn't for my own use.  It was for Faustina, and I taught her how to
+use it in the cave down there by the sea, shooting at candles stuck
+upon the rock.  The noise in the cave was something frightful, but high
+up above it couldn't be heard at all, as  we proved to each other's
+satisfaction pretty early in the proceedings.  So now Faustina was
+armed with munitions of self-defence; and I knew enough of her
+character to entertain no doubt as to their spirited use upon occasion.
+Between the two of us, in fact, our friend Stefano seemed tolerably
+certain of a warm week-end.
+
+"But the Saturday brought word that the Count was not coming this week,
+being in Rome on business, and unable to return in time; so for a whole
+Sunday we were promised peace; and made bold  plans accordingly.  There
+was no further merit in hushing this thing up.  'Let him who wins her
+take and keep Faustine.' Yes, but let him win her openly, or lose her
+and be damned to him!  So on the Sunday I was going to have it out with
+her people--with the Count and Stefano as soon as they showed their
+noses.  I had no inducement, remember, ever to return to surreptitious
+life within a cab-fare of Wormwood Scrubbs. Faustina and the Bay of
+Naples were quite good enough for me. And the prehistoric man in me
+rather exulted in the idea of fighting for my desire.
+
+"On the Saturday, however, we were able to meet for the last time as
+heretofore--just once more in secret--down there in the cave--as soon
+as might be after dark.  Neither of us minded if we were kept for
+hours; each knew in the end that the other would come; and there was a
+charm of its own even in waiting with such knowledge.  But that night I
+did lose patience: not in the cave, but up above, where first on one
+pretext and then on another the direttore kept me going until I smelt a
+rat.  He was not given to exacting overtime, this direttore, whose only
+fault was his servile subjection to our common boss.  It seemed pretty
+obvious, therefore, that he was acting upon some secret instructions
+from Corbucci himself, and, the moment I suspected this, I asked him to
+his face if it was not the case.  And it was; he admitted it with many
+shrugs, being a conveniently weak person, whom one felt almost ashamed
+of bullying as the occasion demanded.
+
+"The fact was, however, that the Count had sent for him on finding he
+had to go to Rome, and had said he was very sorry to go just then, as
+among other things he intended to speak to me about Faustina.  Stefano
+had told him all about his row with her, and moreover that it was on my
+account, which Faustina had never told me, though I had guessed as much
+for myself.  Well, the Count was going to take his jackal's part for
+all he was worth, which was just exactly what I had expected him to do.
+He intended going for me on his return, but meanwhile I was not to make
+hay in his absence, and so this tool of a direttore had orders to keep
+me at it night and day.  I undertook not to give the poor beast away,
+but at the same time told him I had not the faintest intention of doing
+another stroke of work that night.
+
+"It was very dark, and I remember knocking my head against the oranges
+as I ran up the long, shallow steps which ended the journey between the
+direttore's lodge and the villa itself.  But at the  back of the villa
+was the garden I spoke about, and also a bare chunk of the cliff where
+it was bored by that subterranean stair.  So I saw the stars  close
+overhead, and the fishermen's torches far below, the coastwise lights
+and the crimson hieroglyph that spelt Vesuvius, before I plunged into
+the darkness of the shaft.  And that was the last time I appreciated
+the unique and peaceful charm of this outlandish spot.
+
+"The stair was in two long flights, with an air-hole or two at the top
+of the upper one, but not another pin-prick till you came to the iron
+gate at the bottom of the lower.  As you may read of an infinitely
+lighter place, in a finer work of fiction than you are ever likely to
+write, Bunny, it was 'gloomy at noon, dark as midnight at dusk, and
+black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight.'  I won't swear to my
+quotation, but I will to those  stairs.  They were as black that night
+as the inside  of the safest safe in the strongest strong-room in the
+Chancery Lane Deposit.  Yet I had not got far down them with my bare
+feet before I heard somebody else coming up in boots.  You may imagine
+what a turn that gave me!  It could not be Faustina, who went barefoot
+three seasons of the four, and yet there was Faustina waiting for me
+down below.  What a fright she must have had!  And all at once my own
+blood ran cold: for the man sang like a kettle as he plodded up and up.
+It was, it must be, the short-winded Count himself, whom we all
+supposed to be in Rome!
+
+"Higher he came and nearer, nearer, slowly yet hurriedly, now stopping
+to cough and gasp, now taking a few steps by elephantine assault.  I
+should have enjoyed the situation if it had not been  for poor Faustina
+in the cave; as it was I was filled with nameless fears.  But I could
+not resist giving that grampus Corbucci one bad moment on account.  A
+crazy hand-rail ran up one wall, so I  carefully flattened myself
+against the other, and  he passed within six inches of me, puffing and
+wheezing like a brass band.  I let him go a few steps higher, and then
+I let him have it with both lungs.
+
+"Buona sera, eccellenza, signori!' I roared  after him.  And a scream
+came down in answer--such a scream!  A dozen different terrors were in
+it; and the wheezing had stopped, with the old scoundrel's heart.
+
+"'Chi sta la?' he squeaked at last, gibbering and whimpering like a
+whipped monkey, so that I could not bear to miss his face, and got a
+match all ready to strike.
+
+"'Arturo, signori.'
+
+"He didn't repeat my name, nor did he damn me in heaps.  He did nothing
+but wheeze for a good minute, and when he spoke it was with insinuating
+civility, in his best English.
+
+"'Come nearer, Arturo.  You are in the lower regions down there. I want
+to speak with you.'
+
+"'No, thanks.  I'm in a hurry,' I said, and dropped that match back
+into my pocket.  He  might be armed, and I was not.
+
+"'So you are in a 'urry!' and he wheezed amusement.  'And you thought I
+was still in Rome, no doubt; and so I was until this afternoon, when I
+caught train at the eleventh moment, and then another train from Naples
+to Pozzuoli.  I have been rowed here now by a fisherman of Pozzuoli.  I
+had not time to stop anywhere in Naples, but only to drive from station
+to station.  So I am without Stefano, Arturo, I am without Stefano.'
+
+"His sly voice sounded preternaturally sly in the absolute darkness,
+but even through that impenetrable veil I knew it for a sham.  I had
+laid hold of the hand-rail.  It shook violently in my hand; he also was
+holding it where he stood.  And  these suppressed tremors, or rather
+their detection in this way, struck a strange chill to my heart, just
+as I was beginning to pluck it up.
+
+"'It is lucky for Stefano,' said I, grim as death.
+
+"'Ah, but you must not be too 'ard on 'im,' remonstrated the Count.
+'You have stole his girl, he speak with me about it, and I wish to
+speak with you.  It is very audashuss, Arturo, very audashuss!  Perhaps
+you are even going to meet her now, eh?'"
+
+I told him straight that I was.
+
+"'Then there is no 'urry, for she is not there.'
+
+"'You didn't see her in the cave?' I cried, too delighted at the
+thought to keep it to  myself.
+
+"'I had no such fortune,' the old devil said.
+
+"'She is there, all the same.'
+
+"'I only wish I 'ad known.'
+
+"'And I've kept her long enough!'
+
+"In fact I threw this over my shoulder as I turned and went running
+down.
+
+"'I 'ope you will find her!' his malicious voice came croaking after
+me.  'I 'ope you will--I 'ope so.'
+
+"And find her I did."
+
+Raffles had been on his feet some time, unable to sit still or to
+stand, moving excitedly about the room.  But now he stood still enough,
+his elbows on the cast-iron mantelpiece, his head between his  hands.
+
+"Dead?" I whispered.
+
+And he nodded to the wall.
+
+"There was not a sound in the cave.  There was no answer to my voice.
+Then I went in, and my foot touched hers, and it was colder than the
+rock ...  Bunny, they had stabbed her to the heart.  She had fought
+them, and they had stabbed her to the heart!"
+
+"You say 'they,'" I said gently, as he stood in heavy silence, his back
+still turned.  "I thought Stefano had been left behind?"
+
+Raffles was round in a flash, his face white-hot, his eyes dancing
+death.
+
+"He was in the cave!" he shouted.  "I saw him--I spotted him--it was
+broad twilight after those stairs--and I went for him with my bare
+hands.  Not fists, Bunny; not fists for a thing like that; I meant
+getting my fingers into his vile little heart and tearing it out by the
+roots.  I was stark mad.  But he had the revolver--hers.  He blazed it
+at arm's length, and missed.  And that steadied me.  I had smashed his
+funny-bone against the rock before he could blaze again; the revolver
+fell with  a rattle, but without going off; in an instant I had it
+tight, and the little swine at my mercy at last."
+
+"You didn't show him any?"
+
+"Mercy?  With Faustina dead at my feet? I should have deserved none in
+the next world if I had shown him any in this!  No, I just stood over
+him, with the revolver in both hands, feeling the chambers with my
+thumb; and as I stood he stabbed at me; but I stepped back to that one,
+and brought him down with a bullet in his guts.
+
+"'And I can spare you two or three more,' I said, for my poor girl
+could not have fired a shot.  'Take that one to hell with you--and
+that--and that!'
+
+"Then I started coughing and wheezing like the Count himself, for the
+place was full of smoke.  When it cleared my man was very dead, and I
+tipped him into the sea, to defile that rather than Faustina's cave.
+And then--and then--we were  alone for the last time, she and I, in our
+own pet  haunt; and I could scarcely see her, yet I would not strike a
+match, for I knew she would not have me see her as she was.  I could
+say good-by to her without that.  I said it; and I left her like a man,
+and up the first open-air steps with my head in the air and the stars
+all sharp in the sky; then suddenly they swam, and back I went like a
+lunatic, to see if she was really dead, to bring her back to life ...
+Bunny, I can't tell you any more."
+
+"Not of the Count?" I murmured at last.
+
+"Not even of the Count," said Raffles, turning round with a sigh.  "I
+left him pretty sorry for himself; but what was the good of that?  I
+had taken blood for blood, and it was not Corbucci who had killed
+Faustina.  No, the plan was his,  but that was not part of the plan.
+They had found out about our meetings in the cave: nothing simpler than
+to have me kept hard at it overhead and to carry off Faustina by brute
+force in the boat.  It was their only chance, for she had said more to
+Stefano than she had admitted to me, and more than I am going to repeat
+about myself.  No persuasion would have induced her to listen to him
+again; so they tried force; and she drew Corbucci's revolver on them,
+but they had taken her by surprise, and Stefano stabbed her before she
+could fire."
+
+"But how do you know all that?" I asked Raffles, for his tale was going
+to pieces in the telling, and the tragic end of poor Faustina was no
+ending for me.
+
+"Oh," said he, "I had it from Corbucci at his own revolver's point.  He
+was waiting at his window, and I could have potted him at my ease where
+he stood against the light listening hard enough  but not seeing a
+thing.  So he asked whether it was Stefano, and I whispered, 'Si,
+signore'; and then whether he had finished Arturo, and I brought the
+same shot off again.  He had let me in before he knew who was finished
+and who was not."
+
+"And did you finish him?"
+
+"No; that was too good for Corbucci.  But I bound and gagged him about
+as tight as man was ever gagged or bound, and I left him in his room
+with the shutters shut and the house locked up.  The shutters of that
+old place were six inches thick, and the walls nearly six feet; that
+was on the Saturday night, and the Count wasn't expected at the
+vineyard before the following Saturday. Meanwhile he was supposed to be
+in Rome.  But the dead would doubtless be discovered next day, and I am
+afraid this would lead to his own discovery with the life still in him.
+I believe he  figured on that himself, for he sat threatening me gamely
+till the last.  You never saw such a sight as he was, with his head
+split in two by a ruler tied at the back of it, and his great moustache
+pushed up into his bulging eyes.  But I locked him  up in the dark
+without a qualm, and I wished and still wish him every torment of the
+damned."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"The night was still young, and within ten miles there was the best of
+ports in a storm, and hundreds of holds for the humble stowaway to
+choose from.  But I didn't want to go further than Genoa, for by this
+time my Italian would wash, so I chose the old Norddeutscher Lloyd, and
+had an excellent voyage in one of the boats slung in-board over the
+bridge.  That's better than any hold, Bunny, and I did splendidly on
+oranges brought from the vineyard."
+
+"And at Genoa?"
+
+"At Genoa I took to my wits once more, and have been living on nothing
+else ever since.  But there I had to begin all over again, and at the
+very bottom of the ladder.  I slept in the streets.  I begged.  I did
+all manner of terrible things, rather hoping for a bad end, but never
+coming to one.  Then one day I saw a white-headed old chap looking at
+me through a shop-window--a window I had designs upon--and when I
+stared at him he stared at me--and we wore the same rags.  So I had
+come to that!  But one reflection makes many.  I had not recognized
+myself; who on earth would recognize me?  London called me--and here I
+am. Italy had broken my heart--and there it stays."
+
+Flippant as a schoolboy one moment, playful even in the bitterness of
+the next, and now no longer giving way to the feeling which had spoilt
+the climax of his tale, Raffles needed knowing as I alone knew him for
+a right appreciation of those last words.  That they were no mere words
+I know full well. That, but for the tragedy of his Italian life, that
+life would have sufficed him for years, if not for ever, I did and do
+still believe.  But I alone see him as I saw him then, the lines upon
+his face, and the pain behind the lines; how they came to disappear,
+and what removed them, you will never guess.  It was the one thing you
+would have expected to have the opposite effect, the thing indeed that
+had forced his confidence, the organ and the voice once more beneath
+our very windows:
+
+       "Margarita de Parete,
+         era a' sarta d' e' signore;
+         se pugneva sempe e ddete
+         pe penzare a Salvatore!
+       "Mar--ga--ri,
+         e perzo e Salvatore!
+      Mar--ga--ri,
+         Ma l'ommo e cacciatore!
+      Mar--ga--ri,
+         Nun ce aje corpa tu!
+      Chello ch' e fatto, e fatto, un ne parlammo cchieu!"
+
+I simply stared at Raffles.  Instead of deepening, his lines had
+vanished.  He looked years younger, mischievous and merry and alert as
+I remembered him of old in the breathless crisis of some madcap
+escapade.  He was holding up his finger; he was stealing to the window;
+he was peeping through the blind as though our side street were
+Scotland Yard itself; he was stealing back again, all revelry,
+excitement, and suspense.
+
+"I half thought they were after me before," said he.  "That was why I
+made you look.  I daren't take a proper look myself, but what a jest if
+they were!  What a jest!"
+
+"Do you mean the police?" said I.
+
+"The police!  Bunny, do you know them and me so little that you can
+look me in the face and ask  such a question?  My boy, I'm dead to
+them--off their books--a good deal deader than being off the hooks!
+Why, if I went to Scotland Yard this minute, to give myself up, they'd
+chuck me out for a harmless lunatic.  No, I fear an enemy nowadays, and
+I go in terror of the sometime friend, but I have the utmost confidence
+in the dear police."
+
+"Then whom do you mean?"
+
+"The Camorra!"
+
+I repeated the word with a different intonation.  Not that I had never
+heard of that most powerful and sinister of secret societies; but I
+failed to see on what grounds Raffles should jump to the conclusion
+that these everyday organ-grinders belonged to it.
+
+"It was one of Corbucci's threats," said he.  "If I killed him the
+Camorra would certainly kill me; he kept on telling me so; it was like
+his cunning not to say that he would put them on my tracks whether or
+no."
+
+"He is probably a member himself!"
+
+"Obviously, from what he said."
+
+"But why on earth should you think that these fellows are?" I demanded,
+as that brazen voice came rasping through a second verse.
+
+"I don't think.  It was only an idea.  That thing is so thoroughly
+Neapolitan, and I never heard it on a London organ before.  Then again,
+what should bring them back here?"
+
+I peeped through the blind in my turn; and, to be sure, there was the
+fellow with the blue chin  and the white teeth watching our windows,
+and ours only, as he bawled.
+
+"And why?" cried Raffles, his eyes dancing when I told him.
+
+"Why should they come sneaking  back to us?  Doesn't that look
+suspicious, Bunny; doesn't that promise a lark?"
+
+"Not to me," I said, having the smile for once.  "How many people,
+should you imagine, toss them five shilling for as many minutes of
+their infernal row?  You seem to forget that's what you did an hour
+ago!"
+
+Raffles had forgotten.  His blank face confessed the fact.  Then
+suddenly he burst outlaughing at  himself.
+
+"Bunny," said he, "you've no imagination, and I never knew I had so
+much!  Of course you're right.  I only wish you were not, for there's
+nothing I should enjoy more than taking on another Neapolitan or two.
+You see, I owe them something still!  I didn't settle in full.  I owe
+them  more than ever I shall pay them on this side Styx!"
+
+He had hardened even as he spoke: the lines and the years had come
+again, and his eyes were flint and steel, with an honest grief behind
+the glitter.
+
+
+
+THE LAST LAUGH
+
+As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, the pick of our exploits,
+from a frankly criminal point of view, are of least use for the
+comparatively pure purposes of these papers.  They might be appreciated
+in a trade journal (if only  that want could be supplied), by skilled
+manipulators of the jemmy and the large light bunch; but, as records of
+unbroken yet insignificant success, they would be found at once too
+trivial and too technical, if not sordid and unprofitable into the
+bargain.  The latter epithets, and worse, have indeed already been
+applied, if not to Raffles and all his works, at least to mine upon
+Raffles, by more than one worthy wielder of a virtuous pen.  I need not
+say how heartily I disagree with that truly  pious opinion.  So far
+from admitting a single word of it, I maintain it is the liveliest
+warning that I am giving to the world.  Raffles was a genius, and he
+could not make it pay!  Raffles had invention, resource, incomparable
+audacity, and a  nerve in ten thousand. He was both strategian and
+tactician, and we all now know the difference between the two.  Yet for
+months he had been hiding like a rat in a hole, unable to show even his
+altered face by night or day without risk, unless another risk were
+courted by three inches of conspicuous crepe.  Then thus far our
+rewards had oftener than not been no reward at all.  Altogether it was
+a very different story from the old festive, unsuspected, club and
+cricket days, with their noctes ambrosianae at the Albany.
+
+And now, in addition to the eternal peril of recognition, there was yet
+another menace of which I knew nothing.  I thought no more of our
+Neapolitan organ-grinders, though I did often think of the moving page
+that they had torn for me out of my friend's strange life in Italy.
+Raffles never alluded to the subject again, and for my part I had
+entirely forgotten his wild ideas connecting the organ-grinders with
+the Camorra, and imagining them upon his own tracks.  I heard no more
+of it, and thought as little, as I say.  Then one night in the
+autumn--I shrink from shocking the susceptible for nothing--but there
+was a certain house in Palace Gardens, and when we got there Raffles
+would pass on.  I could see no soul in sight, no glimmer in the
+windows.  But Raffles had my arm,  and on we went without talking about
+it.  Sharp to the left on the Notting Hill side, sharper still up
+Silver Street, a little tacking west and south, a plunge across High
+Street, and presently we were home.
+
+"Pyjamas first," said Raffles, with as much authority as though it
+mattered.  It was a warm night, however, though September, and I did
+not mind until I came in clad as he commanded to find the autocrat
+himself still booted and capped.  He was peeping through the blind, and
+the gas was still turned down.  But he said that I could turn it up, as
+he helped himself to a cigarette and nothing with it.
+
+"May I mix you one?" said I.
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"We were followed."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"You never saw it."
+
+"But YOU never looked round."
+
+"I have an eye at the back of each ear, Bunny."
+
+I helped myself and I fear with less moderation than might have been
+the case a minute before.
+
+"So that was why--"
+
+"That was why," said Raffles, nodding; but he did not smile, and I put
+down my glass untouched.
+
+"They were following us then!"
+
+"All up Palace Gardens."
+
+"I thought you wound about coming back over the hill."
+
+"Nevertheless, one of them's in the street below at this moment."
+
+No, he was not fooling me.  He was very grim.  And he had not taken off
+a thing; perhaps he did not think it worth while.
+
+"Plain clothes?" I sighed, following the sartorial train of thought,
+even to the loathly arrows  that had decorated my person once already
+for a little aeon.  Next time they would give me double.  The skilly
+was in my stomach when I saw Raffles's face.
+
+"Who said it was the police, Bunny?" said he.  "It's the Italians.
+They're only after me; they  won't hurt a hair of YOUR head, let alone
+cropping it!  Have a drink, and don't mind me. I shall score them off
+before I'm done."
+
+"And I'll help you!"
+
+"No, old chap, you won't.  This is my own little show.  I've known
+about it for weeks.  I  first tumbled to it the day those Neapolitans
+came back with their organs, though I didn't seriously  suspect things
+then; they never came again, those two, they had done their part.
+That's the Camorra  all over, from all accounts.  The Count I told you
+about is pretty high up in it, by the way he spoke, but there will be
+grades and grades between him  and the organ-grinders.  I shouldn't be
+surprised if he had every low-down Neapolitan ice-creamer in the town
+upon my tracks!  The organization's  incredible.  Then do you remember
+the superior foreigner who came to the door a few days afterwards?  You
+said he had velvet eyes."
+
+"I never connected him with those two!"
+
+"Of course you didn't, Bunny, so you threatened to kick the fellow
+downstairs, and only made them keener on the scent.  It was too late to
+say anything when you told me.  But the very next time I showed my nose
+outside I heard a camera click as I passed, and the fiend was a person
+with velvet eyes.  Then there was a lull--that happened weeks ago.
+They had sent me to Italy for identification by Count Corbucci."
+
+"But this is all theory," I exclaimed.  "How on earth can you know?"
+
+"I don't know," said Raffles, "but I should like to bet.  Our friend
+the bloodhound is hanging  about the corner near the pillar-box; look
+through my window, it's dark in there, and tell me who  he is."
+
+The man was too far away for me to swear to his face, but he wore a
+covert-coat of un-English length, and the lamp across the road played
+steadily on his boots; they were very yellow, and they  made no noise
+when he took a turn.  I strained my  eyes, and all at once I remembered
+the thin-soled, low-heeled, splay yellow boots of the insidious
+foreigner, with the soft eyes and the brown-paper face, whom I had
+turned from the door as a palpable fraud.  The ring at the bell was the
+first I had heard of him, there had been no warning step upon the
+stairs, and my suspicious eye had searched his feet for rubber soles.
+
+"It's the fellow," I said, returning to Raffles, and I described his
+boots.
+
+Raffles was delighted.
+
+"Well done, Bunny; you're coming on," said  he.  "Now I wonder if he's
+been over here all the time, or if they sent him over expressly?  You
+did better than you think in spotting those boots, for they can only
+have been made in Italy, and that looks like the special envoy.  But
+it's no use speculating.  I must find out."
+
+"How can you?"
+
+"He won't stay there all night."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"When he gets tired of it I shall return the compliment and follow HIM."
+
+"Not alone," said I, firmly.
+
+"Well, we'll see.  We'll see at once," said Raffles, rising. "Out with
+the gas, Bunny, while I take a look.  Thank you.  Now wait a bit ... yes!
+He's chucked it; he's off already; and so am I!"
+
+But I slipped to our outer door, and held the passage.
+
+"I don't let you go alone, you know."
+
+"You can't come with me in pyjamas."
+
+"Now I see why you made me put them on!"
+
+"Bunny, if you don't shift I shall have to shift you.  This is my very
+own private one-man show.  But I'll be back in an hour--there!"
+
+"You swear?"
+
+"By all my gods."
+
+I gave in.  How could I help giving in?  He did not look the man that
+he had been, but you never knew with Raffles, and I could not have him
+lay a hand on me.  I let him go with a shrug and my blessing, then ran
+into his room to see the last of him from the window.
+
+The creature in the coat and boots had reached the end of our little
+street, where he appeared to have hesitated, so that Raffles was just
+in time to see which way he turned.  And Raffles was after him at an
+easy pace, and had himself almost reached the corner when my attention
+was distracted from the alert nonchalance of his gait.  I was
+marvelling that it alone had not long ago betrayed him, for nothing
+about him was so unconsciously characteristic, when suddenly I realized
+that Raffles was not the only person in the little lonely street.
+Another pedestrian had entered from the other end, a man heavily built
+and clad, with an astrakhan collar to his coat on this warm  night, and
+a black slouch hat that hid his features  from my bird's-eye view.  His
+steps were the short and shuffling ones of a man advanced in years and
+in fatty degeneration, but of a sudden they stopped beneath my very
+eyes.  I could have dropped a  marble into the dinted crown of the
+black felt hat.  Then, at the same moment, Raffles turned the corner
+without looking round, and the big man below raised both his hands and
+his face. Of the  latter I saw only the huge white moustache, like a
+flying gull, as Raffles had described it; for at a  glance I divined
+that this was his arch-enemy, the Count Corbucci himself.
+
+I did not stop to consider the subtleties of the system by which the
+real hunter lagged behind while his subordinate pointed the quarry like
+a sporting dog.  I left the Count shuffling onward faster than before,
+and I jumped into some clothes as though the flats were on fire.  If
+the Count was going to follow Raffles in his turn, then I would follow
+the Count in mine, and there would be a midnight procession of us
+through the town.  But I found no sign of him in the empty street, and
+no sign in the Earl's Court Road, that looked as empty for all its
+length, save for a natural enemy standing like a waxwork figure with a
+glimmer at his belt.
+
+"Officer," I gasped, "have you seen anything of an old gentleman with a
+big white mustache?"
+
+The unlicked cub of a common constable seemed to eye me the more
+suspiciously for the flattering form of my address.
+
+"Took a hansom," said he at length.
+
+A hansom!  Then he was not following the others on foot; there was no
+guessing his game.  But something must be said or done.
+
+"He's a friend of mine," I explained, "and I want to overtake him.  Did
+you hear where he told the fellow to drive?"
+
+A curt negative was the policeman's reply to that; and if ever I take
+part in a night assault-at-arms, revolver versus baton, in the back
+kitchen, I know which member of the Metropolitan Police Force I should
+like for my opponent.
+
+If there was no overtaking the Count, however, it should be a
+comparatively simple matter in the case of the couple on foot, and I
+wildly hailed the first hansom that crawled into my ken. I must tell
+Raffles who it was that I had seen; the Earl's Court Road was long, and
+the time since he vanished in it but a few short minutes.  I drove down
+the length of that useful thoroughfare, with an  eye apiece on either
+pavement, sweeping each as with a brush, but never a Raffles came into
+the pan. Then I tried the Fulham Road, first to the west, then to the
+east, and in the end drove home to the flat as bold as brass.  I did
+not realize my indiscretion until I had paid the man and was on the
+stairs.  Raffles never dreamt of driving all the way back; but I was
+hoping now to find him waiting up above.  He had said an hour.  I had
+remembered it suddenly.  And now the hour was more than up.  But the
+flat was as empty as I had left it; the very light that had encouraged
+me, pale though it was, as I turned the corner in my hansom, was but
+the light that I myself had left burning in the desolate passage.
+
+I can give you no conception of the night that I  spent.  Most of it I
+hung across the sill, throwing  a wide net with my ears, catching every
+footstep  afar off, every hansom bell farther still, only to  gather in
+some alien whom I seldom even landed in our street.  Then I would
+listen at the door.
+
+He might come over the roof; and eventually some one did; but now it
+was broad daylight, and  I flung the door open in the milkman's face,
+which  whitened at the shock as though I had ducked him  in his own
+pail.
+
+"You're late," I thundered as the first excuse for my excitement.
+
+"Beg your pardon," said he, indignantly, "but I'm half an hour before
+my usual time."
+
+"Then I beg yours," said I; "but the fact is, Mr. Maturin has had one
+of his bad nights, and I seem to have been waiting hours for milk to
+make him a cup of tea."
+
+This little fib (ready enough for Raffles, though I say it) earned me
+not only forgiveness but that obliging sympathy which is a branch of
+the business of the man at the door.  The good fellow said that he
+could see I had been sitting up all night, and he left me pluming
+myself upon the accidental art with which I had told my very necessary
+tarra-diddle.  On reflection I gave the credit to instinct, not
+accident, and then sighed afresh as I realized how the influence of the
+master was sinking into  me, and he Heaven knew where!  But my
+punishment was swift to follow, for within the hour the bell rang
+imperiously twice, and there was Dr. Theobald on our mat; in a yellow
+Jaeger suit, with a chin as yellow jutting over the flaps that he had
+turned up to hide his pyjamas.
+
+"What's this about a bad night?" said he.
+
+"He couldn't sleep, and he wouldn't let me," I  whispered, never
+loosening my grasp of the door, and standing tight against the other
+wall.  "But he's sleeping like a baby now."
+
+"I must see him."
+
+"He gave strict orders that you should not."
+
+"I'm his medical man, and I--"
+
+"You know what he is," I said, shrugging; "the least thing wakes him,
+and you will if you insist on seeing him now.  It will be the last
+time, I  warn you!  I know what he said, and you don't."
+
+The doctor cursed me under his fiery moustache.
+
+"I shall come up during the course of the morning," he snarled.
+
+"And I shall tie up the bell," I said, "and if it doesn't ring he'll be
+sleeping still, but I will not risk waking him by coming to the door
+again."
+
+And with that I shut it in his face.  I was improving, as Raffles had
+said; but what would it profit me if some evil had befallen him?  And
+now I was prepared for the worst.  A boy came up whistling and leaving
+papers on the mats; it  was getting on for eight o'clock, and the
+whiskey  and soda of half-past twelve stood untouched and stagnant in
+the tumbler.  If the worst had happened to Raffles, I felt that I would
+either never drink again, or else seldom do anything else.
+
+Meanwhile I could not even break my fast, but roamed the flat in a
+misery not to be described, my very linen still unchanged, my cheeks
+and chin now tawny from the unwholesome night.  How long would it go
+on?  I wondered for a time.  Then I changed my tune: how long could I
+endure it?
+
+It went on actually until the forenoon only, but my endurance cannot be
+measured by the time, for to me every hour of it was an arctic night.
+Yet it cannot have been much after eleven when the ring came at the
+bell, which I had forgotten to tie up after all.  But this was not the
+doctor;  neither, too well I knew, was it the wanderer returned.  Our
+bell was the pneumatic one that tells  you if the touch be light or
+heavy; the hand upon it now was tentative and shy.
+
+The owner of the hand I had never seen before.  He was young and
+ragged, with one eye blank,  but the other ablaze with some fell
+excitement.  And straightway he burst into a low torrent of words, of
+which all I knew was that they were Italian, and therefore news of
+Raffles, if only I had known the language! But dumb-show might help us
+somewhat, and in I dragged him, though against his will, a new alarm in
+his one wild  eye.
+
+"Non capite?" he cried when I had him inside and had withstood the
+torrent.
+
+"No, I'm bothered if I do!" I answered, guessing his question from his
+tone.
+
+"Vostro amico," he repeated over and over again; and then, "Poco tempo,
+poco tempo, poco tempo!"
+
+For once in my life the classical education of  my public-school days
+was of real value.  "My  pal, my pal, and no time to be lost!" I
+translated freely, and flew for my hat.
+
+"Ecco, signore!" cried the fellow, snatching the watch from my
+waistcoat pocket, and putting one  black thumb-nail on the long hand,
+the other on  he numeral twelve.  "Mezzogiorno--poco tempo--poco
+tempo!"  And again I seized his meaning,  that it was twenty past
+eleven, and we must be there by twelve.  But where, but where?  It was
+maddening to be summoned like this, and not to know  what had happened,
+nor to have any means of finding out. But my presence of mind stood by
+me still, I was improving by seven-league strides, and I crammed my
+handkerchief between the drum and hammer of the bell before leaving.
+The doctor could ring now till he was black in the face, but I was not
+coming, and he need not think it.
+
+I half expected to find a hansom waiting, but there was none, and we
+had gone some distance down the Earl's Court Road before we got one; in
+fact, we had to run to the stand.  Opposite is the church with the
+clock upon it, as everybody knows, and at sight of the dial my
+companion had wrung his hands; it was close upon the half-hour.
+
+"Poco tempo--pochissimo!" he wailed.  "Bloom-buree Ske-warr," he then
+cried to the cabman--"numero trentotto!"
+
+"Bloomsbury Square," I roared on my own account, "I'll show you the
+house when we get there, only drive like be-damned!"
+
+My companion lay back gasping in his corner.  The small glass told me
+that my own face was pretty red.
+
+"A nice show!" I cried; "and not a word can you tell me.  Didn't you
+bring me a note?"
+
+I might have known by this time that he had not, still I went through
+the pantomime of writing with my finger on my cuff.  But he shrugged
+and  shook his head.
+
+"Niente," said he.  "Una quistione di vita, di vita!"
+
+"What's that?" I snapped, my early training come in again.  "Say it
+slowly--andante--rallentando."
+
+Thank Italy for the stage instructions in the songs one used to murder!
+The fellow actually understood.
+
+"Una--quistione--di--vita."
+
+"Or mors, eh?" I shouted, and up went the trap-door over our heads.
+
+"Avanti, avanti, avanti!" cried the Italian, turning up his one-eyed
+face.
+
+"Hell-to-leather," I translated, "and double fare if you do it by
+twelve o'clock."
+
+But in the streets of London how is one to know the time?  In the
+Earl's Court Road it had not  been half-past, and at Barker's in High
+Street it was but a minute later.  A long half-mile a minute, that was
+going like the wind, and indeed we had done much of it at a gallop.
+But the next hundred yards took us five minutes by the next clock, and
+which was one to believe?  I fell back upon my own old watch (it was my
+own), which made it eighteen minutes to the hour as we swung across the
+Serpentine bridge, and by the quarter we were in the Bayswater
+Road--not up for once.
+
+"Presto, presto," my pale guide murmured.  "Affretatevi--avanti!"
+
+"Ten bob if you do it," I cried through the trap, without the slightest
+notion of what we were to do.  But it was "una quistione di vita," and
+"vostro amico" must and could only be my miserable Raffles.
+
+What a very godsend is the perfect hansom to the man or woman in a
+hurry!  It had been our great good fortune to jump into a perfect
+hansom; there was no choice, we had to take the first upon the rank,
+but it must have deserved its place with the rest nowhere.  New tires,
+superb springs, a horse in a thousand, and a driver up to every trick
+of his trade!  In and out we went like a fast half-back at the Rugby
+game, yet where the traffic was thinnest, there were we.  And how he
+knew his way!  At the Marble Arch he slipped out of the main stream,
+and so into Wigmore Street, then up and in and out and on until I saw
+the gold tips of the Museum palisade gleaming between the horse's ears
+in the sun.  Plop, plop, plop; ting, ling, ling; bell and horse-shoes,
+horse-shoes and bell, until the colossal figure of C. J. Fox in a grimy
+toga spelt Bloomsbury Square with my watch still wanting three minutes
+to the hour.
+
+"What number?" cried the good fellow over-head.
+
+"Trentotto, trentotto," said my guide, but he was looking to the right,
+and I bundled him out to show the house on foot.  I had not
+half-a-sovereign after all, but I flung our dear driver a whole one
+instead, and only wish that it had been a hundred.
+
+Already the Italian had his latch-key in the door of 38, and in another
+moment we were rushing up the narrow stairs of as dingy a London house
+as prejudiced countryman can conceive.  It was panelled, but it was
+dark and evil-smelling, and how we should have found our way even to
+the stairs but for an unwholesome jet of yellow gas in the hall, I
+cannot myself imagine.  However, up we went pell-mell, to the
+right-about on the half-landing, and so like a whirlwind into the
+drawing-room a few steps higher.  There the gas was also burning behind
+closed shutters, and the scene is photographed upon my brain, though I
+cannot have looked upon it for a whole instant as I sprang in at my
+leader's heels.
+
+This room also was panelled, and in the middle of the wall on our left,
+his hands lashed to a ring-bolt high above his head, his toes barely
+touching the floor, his neck pinioned by a strap passing through
+smaller ring-bolts under either ear, and every inch of him secured on
+the same principle, stood, or rather hung, all that was left of
+Raffles, for at the first glance I believed him dead.  A black ruler
+gagged him, the ends lashed behind his neck, the blood upon it caked to
+bronze in the gaslight.  And in front of him, ticking like a
+sledge-hammer, its only hand upon the stroke of twelve, stood a
+simple, old-fashioned, grandfather's clock--but not for half an instant
+longer--only until my guide could hurl himself upon it and send the
+whole thing crashing into the corner.  An ear-splitting report
+accompanied the crash, a white cloud lifted from the fallen clock, and
+I saw a revolver smoking in a vice screwed below the dial, an
+arrangement of wires sprouting from the dial itself, and the single
+hand at once at its zenith and in contact with these.
+
+"Tumble to it, Bunny?"
+
+He was alive; these were his first words; the Italian had the
+blood-caked ruler in his hand, and with his knife was reaching up to
+cut the thongs that lashed the hands.  He was not tall enough, I seized
+him and lifted him up, then fell to work with my own knife upon the
+straps.  And Raffles smiled faintly upon us through his blood-stains.
+
+"I want you to tumble to it," he whispered; "the neatest thing in
+revenge I ever knew, and another minute would have fixed it. I've been
+waiting for it twelve hours, watching the clock round, death at the end
+of the lap!  Electric connection.  Simple enough.  Hour-hand only--O
+Lord!"
+
+We had cut the last strap.  He could not stand.  We supported him
+between us to a horsehair sofa,  for the room was furnished, and I
+begged him not to speak, while his one-eyed deliverer was at the  door
+before Raffles recalled him with a sharp word in Italian.
+
+"He wants to get me a drink, but that can wait,"  said he, in firmer
+voice; "I shall enjoy it the more when I've told you what happened.
+Don't let him  go, Bunny; put your back against the door.  He's  a
+decent soul, and it's lucky for me I got a word with him before they
+trussed me up.  I've promised to set him up in life, and I will, but I
+don't want him out of my sight for the moment."
+
+"If you squared him last night," I exclaimed, "why the blazes didn't he
+come to me till the eleventh hour?"
+
+"Ah, I knew he'd have to cut it fine though I  hoped not quite so fine
+as all that.  But all's well that ends well, and I declare I don't feel
+so much the worse.  I shall be sore about the gills for a bit--and what
+do you think?"
+
+He pointed to the long black ruler with the bronze stain; it lay upon
+the floor; he held out his hand for it, and I gave it to him.
+
+
+"The same one I gagged him with," said Raffles, with his still ghastly
+smile; "he was a bit of an artist, old Corbucci, after all!"
+
+"Now let's hear how you fell into his clutches," said I, briskly, for I
+was as anxious to hear as he seemed to tell me, only for my part I
+could have  waited until we were safe in the flat.
+
+"I do want to get it off my chest, Bunny," old Raffles admitted, "and
+yet I hardly can tell you after all.  I followed your friend with the
+velvet eyes.  I followed him all the way here. Of course I came up to
+have a good look at the house when he'd let himself in, and damme if he
+hadn't left the door ajar!  Who could resist that?  I had  pushed it
+half open and had just one foot on the mat when I got such a crack on
+the head as I hope never to get again.  When I came to my wits they
+were hauling me up to that ring-bolt by the hands, and old Corbucci
+himself was bowing to me, but how HE got here I don't know yet."
+
+"I can tell you that," said I, and told how I had seen the Count for
+myself on the pavement underneath our windows.  "Moreover," I
+continued, "I saw him spot you, and five minutes after in Earl's Court
+Road I was told he'd driven off in a cab.  He would see you following
+his man, drive home ahead, and catch you by having the door left open
+in the way you describe."
+
+"Well," said Raffles, "he deserved to catch me somehow, for he'd come
+from Naples on purpose, ruler and all, and the ring-bolts were ready
+fixed, and even this house taken furnished for nothing else!  He meant
+catching me before he'd done, and scoring me off in exactly the same
+way that I scored off him, only going one better of course.  He told me
+so himself, sitting where I am sitting now, at three o'clock this
+morning, and smoking a most abominable cigar that I've smelt ever
+since.  It appears he sat twenty-four hours when I left HIM trussed up,
+but he said twelve would content him in my case, as there was certain
+death at the end of them, and I mightn't have life enough left to
+appreciate my end if he made it longer.  But I wouldn't have trusted
+him if he could have got the clock to go twice round without firing off
+the  pistol.  He explained the whole mechanism of that to me; he had
+thought it all out on the vineyard I told you about; and then he asked
+if I remembered what he had promised me in the name of the  Camorra.  I
+only remembered some vague threats,  but he was good enough to give me
+so many particulars of that institution that I could make a European
+reputation by exposing the whole show if it wasn't for my unfortunate
+resemblance to that infernal rascal Raffles.  Do you think they would
+know me at the Yard, Bunny, after all this time?  Upon my soul I've a
+good mind to risk it!"
+
+I offered no opinion on the point.  How could it interest me then?  But
+interested I was in Raffles, never more so in my life.  He had been
+tortured all night and half a day, yet he could sit and talk like this
+the moment we cut him down; he had been within a minute of his death,
+yet he was as full of life as ever; ill-treated and defeated at the
+best, he could still smile through his blood as though the boot were on
+the other leg.  I had imagined that I knew my Raffles at last.  I was
+not likely so to flatter myself again.
+
+"But what has happened to these villains?" I burst out, and my
+indignation was not only against them for their cruelty, but also
+against their victim  for his phlegmatic attitude toward them.  It was
+difficult to believe that this was Raffles.
+
+"Oh," said he, "they were to go off to Italy INSTANTER; they should be
+crossing now.  But do listen to what I am telling you; it's
+interesting, my dear man.  This old sinner Corbucci turns out to have
+been no end of a boss in the Camorra--says so himself.  One of the capi
+paranze, my  boy, no less; and the velvety Johnny a giovano onorato,
+Anglice, fresher.  This fellow here was also in it, and I've sworn to
+protect him from them evermore; and it's just as I said, half the
+organ-grinders in London belong, and the whole lot of them were put on
+my tracks by secret instructions.  This excellent youth manufactures
+iced poison on Saffron Hill when he's at home."
+
+"And why on earth didn't he come to me quicker?"
+
+"Because he couldn't talk to you, he could only fetch you, and it was
+as much as his life was worth  to do that before our friends had
+departed.  They were going by the eleven o'clock from Victoria, and
+that didn't leave much chance, but he certainly  oughtn't to have run
+it as fine as he did.  Still you must remember that I had to fix things
+up with him in the fewest possible words, in a single minute that the
+other two were indiscreet enough to leave us alone together."
+
+The ragamuffin in question was watching us with all his solitary eye,
+as though he knew that we were discussing him.  Suddenly he broke out
+in agonized accents, his hands clasped, and a face so full of fear that
+every moment I expected to see him on his knees.  But Raffles answered
+kindly, reassuringly, I could tell from his tone, and then turned to me
+with a compassionate shrug.
+
+"He says he couldn't find the mansions, Bunny, and really it's not to
+be wondered at.  I had only time to tell him to hunt you up and bring
+you here by hook or crook before twelve to-day, and after all he has
+done that.  But now the poor devil thinks you're riled with him, and
+that we'll give him away to the Camorra."
+
+"Oh, it's not with him I'm riled," I said frankly, "but with those
+other blackguards, and--and with you, old chap, for taking it all  as
+you do, while such infamous scoundrels have the last laugh, and are
+safely on their way to France!"
+
+Raffles looked up at me with a curiously open eye, an eye that I never
+saw when he was not in earnest.  I fancied he did not like my last
+expression but one.  After all, it was no laughing matter to him.
+
+"But are they?" said he.  "I'm not so sure."
+
+"You said they were!"
+
+"I said they should be."
+
+"Didn't you hear them go?"
+
+"I heard nothing but the clock all night.  It was like Big Ben striking
+at the last--striking nine to the fellow on the drop."
+
+And in that open eye I saw at last a deep glimmer of the ordeal through
+which he had passed.
+
+"But, my dear old Raffles, if they're still on the premises--"
+
+The thought was too thrilling for a finished sentence.
+
+"I hope they are," he said grimly, going to the door.  "There's a gas
+on!  Was that burning when you came in?"
+
+Now that I thought of it, yes, it had been.
+
+"And there's a frightfully foul smell," I added, as I followed Raffles
+down the stairs.  He turned to me gravely with his hand upon the
+front-room door, and at the same moment I saw a coat with an astrakhan
+collar hanging on the pegs.
+
+"They are in here, Bunny," he said, and turned the handle.
+
+The door would only open a few inches.  But a detestable odor came out,
+with a broad bar of yellow gaslight.  Raffles put his handkerchief to
+his nose.  I followed his example, signing to our ally to do the same,
+and in another minute we had all three squeezed into the room.
+
+The man with the yellow boots was lying against the door, the Count's
+great carcass sprawled upon the table, and at a glance it was evident
+that both men had been dead some hours.  The old Camorrist had the stem
+of a liqueur-glass between his swollen blue fingers, one of which had
+been cut in the breakage, and the livid flesh was also brown with the
+last blood that it would ever shed.  His face was on the table, the
+huge moustache projecting from under either leaden cheek, yet looking
+itself strangely alive.  Broken bread and scraps of frozen macaroni lay
+upon the cloth and at the bottom of two soup-plates and a tureen; the
+macaroni had a tinge of tomato; and there was a crimson dram left in
+the tumblers, with an empty fiasco to show whence it came.  But near
+the great gray head upon the table another liqueur-glass stood,
+unbroken, and still full of some white and stinking liquid; and near
+that a tiny silver flask, which made me recoil from Raffles as I had
+not from the dead; for I knew it to be his.
+
+"Come out of this poisonous air," he said sternly, "and I will tell you
+how it has happened."
+
+So we all three gathered together in the hall.  But it was Raffles who
+stood nearest the street-door, his back to it, his eyes upon us two.
+And  though it was to me only that he spoke at first, he would pause
+from point to point, and translate into Italian for the benefit of the
+one-eyed alien to whom he owed his life.
+
+"You probably don't even know the name, Bunny," he began, "of the
+deadliest poison yet known to science.  It is cyanide of cacodyl, and I
+have carried that small flask of it about with me for months.  Where I
+got it matters nothing; the  whole point is that a mere sniff reduces
+flesh to clay.  I  have never had any opinion of suicide, as you  know,
+but I always felt it worth while to be forearmed against the very
+worst.  Well, a bottle of  this stuff is calculated to stiffen an
+ordinary roomful of ordinary people within five minutes;  and I
+remembered my flask when they had me as good as crucified in the small
+hours of this morning.  I asked them to take it out of my pocket.  I
+begged them to give me a drink before they left  me.  And what do you
+suppose they did?"
+
+I thought of many things but suggested none, while Raffles turned this
+much of his statement into sufficiently fluent Italian.  But when he
+faced  me again his face was still flaming.
+
+"That beast Corbucci!" said he--"how can I pity him?  He took the
+flask; he would give me none; he flicked me in the face instead. My
+idea  was that he, at least, should go with me--to sell my life as
+dearly as that--and a sniff would have settled us both. But no, he must
+tantalize and torment me; he thought it brandy; he must take it
+downstairs to drink to my destruction!  Can  you have any pity for a
+hound like that?"
+
+"Let us go," I at last said, hoarsely, as Raffles finished speaking in
+Italian, and his second listener stood open-mouthed.
+
+"We will go," said Raffles, "and we will chance being seen; if the
+worst comes to the worst this good chap will prove that I have been
+tied up since one o'clock this morning, and the medical evidence will
+decide how long those dogs have been dead."
+
+But the worst did not come to the worst, more power to my unforgotten
+friend the cabman, who never came forward to say what manner of men he
+had driven to Bloomsbury Square at top speed on the very day upon which
+the tragedy was discovered there, or whence he had driven them.  To be
+sure, they had not behaved like murderers, whereas the evidence at the
+inquest all went to show that the defunct Corbucci was little better.
+His reputation, which transpired with his identity, was that of a
+libertine and a renegade, while the infernal apparatus upstairs
+revealed the fiendish arts of the anarchist to boot.  The inquiry
+resulted  eventually in an open verdict, and was chiefly instrumental
+in killing such compassion as is usually felt for the dead who die in
+their sins.
+
+But Raffles would not have passed this title for this tale.
+
+
+
+TO CATCH A THIEF
+
+I
+
+Society persons are not likely to have forgotten the series of
+audacious robberies by which so many of themselves suffered in turn
+during the brief course of a recent season.  Raid after raid was made
+upon the smartest houses in town, and within a few weeks more than one
+exalted head had been shorn of its priceless tiara.  The Duke and
+Duchess of Dorchester lost half the portable pieces of their historic
+plate on the very night of their Graces' almost equally historic
+costume ball.  The Kenworthy diamonds were taken in broad daylight,
+during the excitement of a charitable meeting on the ground floor, and
+the gifts of her belted bridegroom to Lady May Paulton while the outer
+air was thick with a prismatic shower of confetti.  It was obvious that
+all this was the work of no ordinary thief, and perhaps inevitable that
+the name of Raffles should have been dragged from oblivion by callous
+disrespecters of the departed and unreasoning apologists for the
+police.  These wiseacres did not hesitate to bring a dead man back to
+life because they knew of no living one capable of such feats; it is
+their heedless and inconsequent calumnies that the present paper is
+partly intended to refute.  As a matter of fact, our joint innocence in
+this matter was only exceeded by our common envy, and for a long time,
+like the rest of the world, neither of us had the slightest clew to the
+identity of the person who was following in our steps with such
+irritating results.
+
+"I should mind less," said Raffles, "if the fellow were really playing
+my game.  But abuse of hospitality was never one of my strokes, and it
+seems to me the only shot he's got.  When we took old Lady Melrose's
+necklace, Bunny, we were not staying with the Melroses, if you
+recollect."
+
+We were discussing the robberies for the hundredth time, but for once
+under conditions more favorable to animated conversation than our
+unique circumstances permitted in the flat.  We did not often dine out.
+Dr. Theobald was one impediment, the risk of recognition was another.
+But there were exceptions, when the doctor was away or the patient
+defiant, and on these rare occasions we frequented a certain
+unpretentious restaurant in the Fulham quarter, where the cooking was
+plain but excellent, and the cellar a surprise.  Our bottle of '89
+champagne was empty to the label when the subject arose, to be touched
+by Raffles in the reminiscent manner indicated above.  I can see his
+clear eye upon me now, reading me, weighing me.  But I was not so
+sensitive to his scrutiny at the time.  His tone was deliberate,
+calculating, preparatory; not as I heard it then, through a head full
+of wine, but as it floats back to me across the gulf between that
+moment and this.
+
+"Excellent fillet!" said I, grossly.  "So you think this chap is as
+much in society as we were, do you?"
+
+I preferred not to think so myself.  We had cause enough for jealousy
+without that.  But Raffles raised his eyebrows an eloquent half-inch.
+
+"As much, my dear Bunny?  He is not only in it, but of it; there's no
+comparison between us there.  Society is in rings like a target, and we
+never were in the bull's-eye, however thick you may lay on the ink!  I
+was asked for my cricket.  I haven't forgotten it yet.  But this
+fellow's one of themselves,  with the right of entre into the houses
+which we could only 'enter' in a professional sense.  That's obvious
+unless all these little exploits are the work of different hands, which
+they as obviously are not.  And it's why I'd give five hundred pounds
+to put salt on him to-night!"
+
+"Not you," said I, as I drained my glass in festive incredulity.
+
+"But I would, my dear Bunny.  Waiter! another half-bottle of this," and
+Raffles leant across the table as the empty one was taken away.  "I
+never was more serious in my life," he continued below his breath.
+"Whatever else our successor may be, he's not a dead man like me, or a
+marked man like you.  If there's any truth in my theory he's one of the
+last people upon whom suspicion is ever likely to rest; and oh, Bunny,
+what a partner he would make for you and me!"
+
+Under less genial influences the very idea of a third partner would
+have filled my soul with offence; but Raffles had chosen his moment
+unerringly, and his arguments lost nothing by the flowing accompaniment
+of the extra pint.  They were, however, quite strong in themselves.
+The gist of them was that thus far we had remarkably little to show for
+what Raffles would call "our second innings."  This even I could not
+deny.  We had scored a few "long singles," but our "best shots"  had
+gone "straight to hand," and we were "playing a deuced slow game."
+Therefore we needed a new partner--and the metaphor failed Raffles.
+
+It had served its turn.  I already agreed with him.  In truth I was
+tired of my false position as hireling attendant, and had long fancied
+myself an object of suspicion to that other impostor the doctor.  A
+fresh, untrammelled start was a fascinating idea to me, though two was
+company, and three in our case might be worse than none.  But I did not
+see how we could hope, with our respective handicaps, to solve a
+problem which was already the despair of Scotland Yard.
+
+"Suppose I have solved it," observed Raffles, cracking a walnut in his
+palm.
+
+"How could you?" I asked, without believing for an instant that he had.
+
+"I have been taking the Morning Post for some time now."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You have got me a good many odd numbers of the less base society
+papers."
+
+"I can't for the life of me see what you're driving at."
+
+Raffles smiled indulgently as he cracked another nut.
+
+"That's because you've neither observation nor imagination, Bunny--and
+yet you try to write!  Well, you wouldn't think it, but I have a fairly
+complete list of the people who were at the various functions under
+cover of which these different little coups were brought off."
+
+I said very stolidly that I did not see how that could help him. It was
+the only answer to his  good-humored but self-satisfied contempt; it
+happened also to be true.
+
+"Think," said Raffles, in a patient voice.
+
+"When thieves break in and steal," said I, "upstairs, I don't see much
+point in discovering who was downstairs at the time."
+
+"Quite," said Raffles--"when they do break in."
+
+"But that's what they have done in all these cases.  An upstairs door
+found screwed up, when things were at their height below; thief gone
+and jewels with him before alarm could be raised. Why, the trick's so
+old that I never knew you condescend to play it."
+
+"Not so old as it looks," said Raffles, choosing the cigars and handing
+me mine.  "Cognac or Benedictine, Bunny?"
+
+"Brandy," I said, coarsely.
+
+"Besides," he went on, "the rooms were not screwed up; at Dorchester
+House, at any rate, the door was only locked, and the key missing, so
+that it might have been done on either side."
+
+"But that was where he left his rope-ladder behind him!" I exclaimed in
+triumph; but Raffles only shook his head.
+
+"I don't believe in that rope-ladder, Bunny, except as a blind."
+
+"Then what on earth do you believe?"
+
+"That every one of these so-called burglaries has been done from the
+inside, by one of the guests; and what's more I'm very much mistaken if
+I haven't spotted the right sportsman."
+
+I began to believe that he really had, there was such a wicked gravity
+in the eyes that twinkled faintly into mine.  I raised my glass in
+convivial congratulation, and still remember the somewhat anxious eye
+with which Raffles saw it emptied.
+
+"I can only find one likely name," he continued, "that figures in all
+these lists, and it is anything  but a likely one at first sight.  Lord
+Ernest Belville was at all those functions.  Know anything about him,
+Bunny?"
+
+"Not the Rational Drink fanatic?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's all I want to know."
+
+"Quite," said Raffles; "and yet what could be more promising?  A man
+whose views are so broad and moderate, and so widely held already
+(saving your presence, Bunny), does not bore the world with them
+without ulterior motives.  So far so good.  What are this chap's
+motives?  Does he want to advertise himself?  No, he's somebody
+already.  But is he rich?  On the contrary, he's as poor as a rat for
+his position, and apparently without the least ambition to be anything
+else;  certainly he won't enrich himself by making a public fad of what
+all sensible people are agreed upon as it is.  Then suddenly one gets
+one's own old idea--the alternative profession!  My cricket--his
+Rational Drink!  But it is no use jumping to conclusions.  I must know
+more than the newspapers can tell me.  Our aristocratic friend is
+forty, and unmarried.  What has he been doing all these years?  How the
+devil was I to find out?"
+
+"How did you?" I asked, declining to spoil my digestion with a
+conundrum, as it was his evident intention that I should.
+
+"Interviewed him!" said Raffles, smiling slowly on my amazement.
+
+"You--interviewed him?" I echoed.  "When--and where?"
+
+"Last Thursday night, when, if you remember, we kept early hours,
+because I felt done.  What  was the use of telling you what I had up my
+sleeve, Bunny?  It might have ended in fizzle, as it still may.  But
+Lord Ernest Belville was addressing  the meeting at Exeter Hall; I
+waited for him when the show was over, dogged him home to King John's
+Mansions, and interviewed him in his own rooms there before he turned
+in."
+
+My journalistic jealousy was piqued to the quick.  Affecting a
+scepticism I did not feel (for  no outrage was beyond the pale of his
+impudence), I inquired dryly which journal Raffles had pretended to
+represent.  It is unnecessary to report his answer. I could not believe
+him without further explanation.
+
+"I should have thought," he said, "that even you would have spotted a
+practice I never omit upon certain occasions.  I always pay a visit to
+the drawing-room, and fill my waistcoat pocket from the card-tray.  It
+is an immense help in any little temporary impersonation.  On Thursday
+night I sent up the card of a powerful writer connected with a powerful
+paper; if Lord Ernest had known him in the flesh I should have been
+obliged to confess to a journalistic ruse; luckily he didn't--and I had
+been sent by my editor to get the interview for next morning.  What
+could be better--for the alternative profession?"
+
+I inquired what the interview had brought forth.
+
+"Everything," said Raffles.  "Lord Ernest has been a wanderer these
+twenty years.  Texas, Fiji, Australia.  I suspect him of wives and
+families in all three.  But his manners are a liberal education.  He
+gave me some beautiful whiskey, and forgot all about his fad.  He is
+strong and subtle, but I talked him off his guard.  He is going to the
+Kirkleathams' to-night--I saw the card stuck up.  I stuck some wax into
+his keyhole as he was switching off the lights."
+
+And, with an eye upon the waiters, Raffles showed me a skeleton key,
+newly twisted and filed;  but my share of the extra pint (I am afraid
+no fair share) had made me dense.  I looked from the key to Raffles
+with puckered forehead--for I happened to catch sight of it in the
+mirror behind him.
+
+"The Dowager Lady Kirkleatham," he whispered, "has diamonds as big as
+beans, and likes to have 'em all on--and goes to bed early--and happens
+to be in town!"
+
+And now I saw.
+
+"The villain means to get them from her!"
+
+"And I mean to get them from the villain," said Raffles; "or, rather,
+your share and mine."
+
+"Will he consent to a partnership?"
+
+"We shall have him at our mercy.  He daren't refuse."
+
+Raffles's plan was to gain access to Lord Ernest's rooms before
+midnight; there we were to lie in wait for the aristocratic rascal, and
+if I left all details to Raffles, and simply stood by in case of a
+rumpus, I should be playing my part and earning my share.  It was a
+part that I had played before, not always with a good grace, though
+there had never been any question about the share.  But to-night I was
+nothing loath.  I had had just champagne enough--how Raffles knew my
+measure!--and I was ready and eager for anything.  Indeed, I did not
+wish to wait for the coffee, which was  to be especially strong by
+order of Raffles. But on that he insisted, and it was between ten and
+eleven when at last we were in our cab.
+
+"It would be fatal to be too early," he said as we drove; "on the other
+hand, it would be dangerous to leave it too late.  One must risk
+something.  How I should love to drive down Piccadilly and see the
+lights!  But unnecessary risks are another story."
+
+
+II
+
+King John's Mansions, as everybody knows, are the oldest, the ugliest,
+and the tallest block  of flats in all London.  But they are built
+upon a more generous scale than has since become the rule, and with a
+less studious regard  for the economy of space. We were about to  drive
+into the spacious courtyard when the gate-keeper checked us in order to
+let another hansom  drive out.
+
+It contained a middle-aged man of the military type, like ourselves in
+evening dress.  That much I saw as his hansom crossed our bows,
+because I could not help seeing it, but I should  not have given the
+incident a second thought if it had not been for his extraordinary
+effect upon Raffles.  In an instant he was out upon the curb, paying
+the cabby, and in another he was leading me across the street, away
+from the mansions.
+
+"Where on earth are you going?" I naturally exclaimed.
+
+"Into the park," said he.  "We are too early."
+
+His voice told me more than his words.  It was strangely stern.
+
+"Was that him--in the hansom?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Well, then, the coast's clear," said I, comfortably.  I was for
+turning back then and there, but Raffles forced me on with a hand that
+hardened  on my arm.
+
+"It was a nearer thing than I care about," said he.  "This seat will
+do; no, the next one's further from a lamp-post.  We will give him a
+good half-hour, and I don't want to talk."
+
+We had been seated some minutes when Big Ben sent a languid chime over
+our heads to the stars.  It was half-past ten, and a sultry night.
+Eleven had struck before Raffles awoke from his sullen reverie, and
+recalled me from mine with a slap on the back.  In a couple of minutes
+we were in the lighted vestibule at the inner end of the courtyard of
+King John's Mansions.
+
+"Just left Lord Ernest at Lady Kirkleatham's," said Raffles. "Gave me
+his key and asked us to wait for him in his rooms.  Will you send us up
+in the lift?"
+
+In a small way, I never knew old Raffles do anything better. There was
+not an instant's demur.  Lord Ernest Belville's rooms were at the top
+of the building, but we were in them as quickly as lift could carry and
+page-boy conduct us.  And there was no need for the skeleton key after
+all; the boy opened the outer door with one of his own, and switched on
+the lights before leaving us.
+
+"Now that's interesting," said Raffles, as soon as we were alone; "they
+can come in and clean when he is out.  What if he keeps his swag at the
+bank?  By Jove, that's an idea for him!  I don't believe he's getting
+rid of it; it's all lying low somewhere, if I'm not mistaken, and he's
+not a fool."
+
+While he spoke he was moving about the sitting-room, which was
+charmingly furnished in the antique style, and making as many remarks
+as  though he were an auctioneer's clerk with an inventory to prepare
+and a day to do it in, instead  of a cracksman who might be surprised
+in his crib at any moment.
+
+"Chippendale of sorts, eh, Bunny?  Not genuine, of course; but where
+can you get genuine Chippendale now, and who knows it when they  see
+it?  There's no merit in mere antiquity.  Yet the way people pose on
+the subject!  If a thing's handsome and useful, and good
+cabinet-making, it's good enough for me."
+
+"Hadn't we better explore the whole place?"  I suggested nervously.  He
+had not even bolted the outer door.  Nor would he when I called his
+attention to the omission.
+
+"If Lord Ernest finds his rooms locked up he'll raise Cain," said
+Raffles; "we must let him come in and lock up for himself before we
+corner him.  But he won't come yet; if he did it might be awkward, for
+they'd tell him down below what I told them.  A new staff comes on at
+midnight.  I discovered that the other night."
+
+"Supposing he does come in before?"
+
+"Well, he can't have us turned out without first seeing who we are, and
+he won't try it on when I've had one word with him. Unless my
+suspicions are unfounded, I mean."
+
+"Isn't it about time to test them?"
+
+"My good Bunny, what do you suppose I've been doing all this while?  He
+keeps nothing in  here.  There isn't a lock to the Chippendale that you
+couldn't pick with a penknife, and not a loose board in the floor, for
+I was treading for one before the boy left us.  Chimney's no use in a
+place like this where they keep them swept for you.  Yes, I'm quite
+ready to try his bedroom."
+
+There was but a bathroom besides; no kitchen, no servant's room;
+neither are necessary in King John's Mansions.  I thought it as well to
+put my  head inside the bathroom while Raffles went into the bedroom,
+for I was tormented by the horrible idea that the man might all this
+time be concealed somewhere in the flat.  But the bathroom blazed void
+in the electric light.  I found Raffles hanging out of the starry
+square which was the bedroom window, for the room was still in
+darkness.  I felt for the switch at the door.
+
+"Put it out again!" said Raffles fiercely.  He rose from the sill, drew
+blind and curtains carefully, then switched on the light himself.  It
+fell  upon a face creased more in pity than in anger, and Raffles only
+shook his head as I hung mine.
+
+"It's all right, old boy," said he; "but corridors have windows too,
+and servants have eyes; and you and I are supposed to be in the other
+room, not in this.  But cheer up, Bunny!  This is THE room; look at the
+extra bolt on the door; he's had that put on, and there's an iron
+ladder to his window in case of fire!  Way of escape ready against the
+hour of need; he's a better man than I thought him, Bunny, after all.
+But you may bet your bottom dollar that if there's any boodle in the
+flat it's in this room."
+
+Yet the room was very lightly furnished; and nothing was locked. We
+looked everywhere, but we looked in vain.  The wardrobe was filled with
+hanging coats and trousers in a press, the drawers with the softest
+silk and finest linen.  It was a  camp bedstead that would not have
+unsettled an anchorite; there was no place for treasure there.  I
+looked up the chimney, but Raffles told me not to be a fool, and asked
+if I ever listened to what he said. There was no question about his
+temper now.  I never knew him in a worse.
+
+"Then he has got it in the bank," he growled.  "I'll swear I'm not
+mistaken in my man!"
+
+I had the tact not to differ with him there.  But I could not help
+suggesting that now was our time to remedy any mistake we might have
+made.  We were on the right side of midnight still.
+
+"Then we stultify ourselves downstairs," said Raffles.  "No, I'll be
+shot if I do!  He may come in with the Kirkleatham diamonds! You do
+what you like, Bunny, but I don't budge."
+
+"I certainly shan't leave you," I retorted, "to be knocked into the
+middle of next week by a better man than yourself."
+
+I had borrowed his own tone, and he did not like it.  They never do.  I
+thought for a moment that Raffles was going to strike me--for the first
+and last time in his life.  He could if he liked.  My blood was up.  I
+was ready to send him to the devil. And I emphasized my offence by
+nodding and shrugging toward a pair of very large Indian clubs that
+stood in the fender, on either side of the chimney up which I had
+presumed to glance.
+
+In an instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and  was whirling them
+about his gray head in a mixture of childish pique and puerile bravado
+which I should have thought him altogether above.
+
+And  suddenly as I watched him his face changed, softened, lit up, and
+he swung the clubs gently down upon the bed.
+
+"They're not heavy enough for their size," said he rapidly; "and I'll
+take my oath they're not the same weight!"
+
+He shook one club after the other, with both hands, close to his ear;
+then he examined their butt-ends under the electric light. I saw what
+he  suspected now, and caught the contagion of his suppressed
+excitement.  Neither of us spoke.  But Raffles had taken out the
+portable tool-box that he called a knife, and always carried, and as he
+opened the gimlet he handed me the club he held.  Instinctively I
+tucked the small end under my arm, and presented the other to Raffles.
+
+"Hold him tight," he whispered, smiling.  "He's not only a better man
+than I thought him, Bunny; he's hit upon a better dodge than ever I
+did, of its kind.  Only I should have weighted them evenly--to a hair."
+
+He had screwed the gimlet into the circular butt, close to the edge,
+and now we were wrenching in opposite directions.  For a moment or more
+nothing happened.  Then all at once something gave, and Raffles swore
+an oath as soft as any prayer.  And for the minute after that his hand
+went round and round with the gimlet, as though he were grinding a
+piano-organ, while the end wormed slowly out on its delicate thread of
+fine hard wood.
+
+The clubs were as hollow as drinking-horns, the pair of them, for we
+went from one to the other without pausing to undo the padded packets
+that poured out upon the bed.  These were deliciously heavy to the
+hand, yet thickly swathed in cotton-wool, so that some stuck together,
+retaining the shape of the cavity, as though they had been run out of a
+mould.  And when we did open them--but let Raffles speak.
+
+He had deputed me to screw in the ends of the clubs, and to replace the
+latter in the fender where we had found them.  When I had done the
+counterpane was glittering with diamonds where it was not shimmering
+with pearls.
+
+"If this isn't that tiara that Lady May was married in," said Raffles,
+"and that disappeared out of the room she changed in, while it rained
+confetti on the steps, I'll present it to her instead of the one she
+lost....  It was stupid to keep these old gold spoons, valuable as they
+are;  they made the difference in the weight....  Here we have probably
+the Kenworthy diamonds....  I don't know the history of these
+pearls.... This looks like one family of rings--left on the
+basin-stand, perhaps--alas, poor lady!  And that's the lot."
+
+Our eyes met across the bed.
+
+"What's it all worth?" I asked, hoarsely.
+
+"Impossible to say.  But more than all we ever took in all our lives.
+That I'll swear to."
+
+"More than all--"
+
+My tongue swelled with the thought.
+
+"But it'll take some turning into cash, old chap!"
+
+"And--must it be a partnership?" I asked, finding a lugubrious voice at
+length.
+
+"Partnership be damned!" cried Raffles, heartily.  "Let's get out
+quicker than we came in."
+
+We pocketed the things between us, cotton-wool and all, not because we
+wanted the latter, but to remove all immediate traces of our really
+meritorious deed.
+
+"The sinner won't dare to say a word when he does find out," remarked
+Raffles of Lord Ernest; "but that's no reason why he should find out
+before he must.  Everything's straight in here, I think; no, better
+leave the window open as it was, and the blind up.  Now out with the
+light.  One peep at the other room.  That's all right, too.  Out with
+the passage light, Bunny, while I open--"
+
+His words died away in a whisper.  A key was fumbling at the lock
+outside.
+
+"Out with it--out with it!" whispered Raffles in an agony; and as I
+obeyed he picked me off my feet and swung me bodily but silently into
+the bedroom, just as the outer door opened, and a masterful step strode
+in.
+
+The next five were horrible minutes.  We heard the apostle of Rational
+Drink unlock one of the deep drawers in his antique sideboard, and
+sounds followed suspiciously like the splash of spirits and the steady
+stream from a siphon.  Never before or since did I experience such a
+thirst as assailed me at that moment, nor do I believe that many
+tropical explorers have known its equal.  But I  had Raffles with me,
+and his hand was as steady and as cool as the hand of a trained nurse.
+That I know because he turned up the collar of my overcoat for me, for
+some reason, and buttoned it at the throat.  I afterwards found that he
+had done the same to his own, but I did not hear him doing it.  The one
+thing I heard in the bedroom was a tiny metallic click, muffled and
+deadened in his overcoat pocket, and it not only removed my last
+tremor, but strung me to a higher pitch of excitement than ever.  Yet I
+had then no conception of the game that Raffles was deciding to play,
+and that I was to play with him in another minute.
+
+It cannot have been longer before Lord Ernest came into his bedroom.
+Heavens, but my heart had not forgotten how to thump! We were standing
+near the door, and I could swear he touched me; then his boots creaked,
+there was a rattle in the fender--and Raffles switched on the light.
+
+Lord Ernest Belville crouched in its glare with one Indian club held by
+the end, like a footman with a stolen bottle.  A good-looking,
+well-built, iron-gray, iron-jawed man; but a fool and a weakling at
+that moment, if he had never been either before.
+
+"Lord Ernest Belville," said Raffles, "it's no use.  This is a loaded
+revolver, and if you force me I shall use it on you as I would on any
+other desperate criminal.  I am here to arrest you for a series of
+robberies at the Duke of Dorchester's,  Sir John Kenworthy's, and other
+noblemen's and gentlemen's houses during the present season.  You'd
+better drop what you've got in your hand.  It's empty."
+
+Lord Ernest lifted the club an inch or two, and  with it his
+eyebrows--and after it his stalwart frame as the club crashed back into
+the fender.  And as he stood at his full height, a courteous but ironic
+smile under the cropped moustache, he looked what he was, criminal or
+not.
+
+"Scotland Yard?" said he.
+
+"That's our affair, my lord."
+
+"I didn't think they'd got it in them," said Lord Ernest.  "Now I
+recognize you.  You're my interviewer.  No, I didn't think any of you
+fellows had got all that in you.  Come into the other room, and I'll
+show you something else.  Oh, keep me covered by all means.  But look
+at this!"
+
+On the antique sideboard, their size doubled by reflection in the
+polished mahogany, lay a coruscating cluster of precious stones, that
+fell in festoons about Lord Ernest's fingers as he handed them to
+Raffles with scarcely a shrug.
+
+"The Kirkleatham diamonds," said he.  "Better add 'em to the bag."
+
+Raffles did so without a smile; with his overcoat buttoned up to the
+chin, his tall hat pressed  down to his eyes, and between the two his
+incisive features and his keen, stern glance, he looked the ideal
+detective of fiction and the stage.  What  _I_ looked God knows, but I
+did my best to glower and show my teeth at his side.  I had thrown
+myself into the game, and it was obviously a winning one.
+
+"Wouldn't take a share, I suppose?" Lord Ernest said casually.
+
+Raffles did not condescend to reply.  I rolled back my lips like a
+bull-pup.
+
+"Then a drink, at least!"
+
+My mouth watered, but Raffles shook his head impatiently.
+
+"We must be going, my lord, and you will have to come with us."
+
+I wondered what in the world we should do with him when we had got him.
+
+"Give me time to put some things together?  Pair of pyjamas and
+tooth-brush, don't you know?"
+
+"I cannot give you many minutes, my lord, but I don't want to cause a
+disturbance here, so I'll tell them to call a cab if you like.  But I
+shall be back in a minute, and you must be ready in five.  Here,
+inspector, you'd better keep this while I am gone."
+
+And I was left alone with that dangerous criminal!  Raffles nipped my
+arm as he handed me the revolver, but I got small comfort out of that.
+
+"'Sea-green Incorruptible?'" inquired Lord Ernest as we stood face to
+face.
+
+"You don't corrupt me," I replied through naked teeth.
+
+"Then come into my room.  I'll lead the way.  Think you can hit me if I
+misbehave?"
+
+I put the bed between us without a second's delay.  My prisoner flung a
+suit-case upon it, and tossed things into it with a dejected air;
+suddenly, as he was fitting them in, without raising his  head (which I
+was watching), his right hand closed over the barrel with which I
+covered him.
+
+"You'd better not shoot," he said, a knee upon his side of the bed; "if
+you do it may be as bad for you as it will be for me!"
+
+I tried to wrest the revolver from him.
+
+"I will if you force me," I hissed.
+
+"You'd better not," he repeated, smiling; and now I saw that if I did I
+should only shoot into the bed or my own legs.  His hand was on the top
+of mine, bending it down, and the revolver with it.  The strength of it
+was as the strength of ten of mine; and now both his knees were on the
+bed; and suddenly I saw his other hand, doubled into a fist, coming up
+slowly over the suit-case.
+
+"Help!" I called feebly.
+
+"Help, forsooth!  I begin to believe YOU ARE from the Yard," he
+said--and his upper-cut came with the "Yard."  It caught me under the
+chin.
+
+It lifted me off my legs.  I have a dim recollection of the crash that
+I made in falling.
+
+
+III
+
+Raffles was standing over me when I recovered consciousness.  I lay
+stretched upon the bed across which that blackguard Belville had struck
+his knavish blow.  The suit-case was on the floor, but its dastardly
+owner had disappeared.
+
+"Is he gone?" was my first faint question.
+
+"Thank God you're not, anyway!" replied Raffles, with what struck me
+then as mere flippancy.  I managed to raise myself upon one elbow.
+
+"I meant Lord Ernest Belville," said I, with dignity.  "Are you quite
+sure that he's cleared  out?"
+
+Raffles waved a hand towards the window, which stood wide open to the
+summer stars.
+
+"Of course," said he, "and by the route I intended him to take; he's
+gone by the iron-ladder,  as I hoped he would.  What on earth should we
+have done with him?  My poor, dear Bunny, I thought you'd take a bribe!
+But it's really more convincing as it is, and just as well for Lord
+Ernest to be convinced for the time being."
+
+"Are you sure he is?" I questioned, as I found a rather shaky pair of
+legs.
+
+"Of course!" cried Raffles again, in the tone to make one blush for the
+least misgiving on the  point.  "Not that it matters one bit," he
+added, airily, "for we have him either way; and when he does tumble to
+it, as he may any minute, he won't dare to open his mouth."
+
+"Then the sooner we clear out the better," said I, but I looked askance
+at the open window, for my head was spinning still.
+
+"When you feel up to it," returned Raffles, "we shall STROLL out, and I
+shall do myself the honor of ringing for the lift.  The force of habit
+is too strong in you, Bunny.  I shall shut the window and leave
+everything exactly as we found it.  Lord Ernest will probably tumble
+before he is badly missed; and then he may come back to put salt on us;
+but I should like to know what he can do even if he succeeds!  Come,
+Bunny, pull yourself together, and you'll be a different man when
+you're in the open air."
+
+And for a while I felt one, such was my relief at getting out of those
+infernal mansions with unfettered wrists; this we managed easily
+enough; but once more Raffles's performance of a small part was no less
+perfect than his more ambitious work upstairs, and something of the
+successful artist's elation possessed him as we walked arm-in-arm
+across St. James's Park.  It was long since I had known him so pleased
+with himself, and only too long since he had had such reason.
+
+"I don't think I ever had a brighter idea in my life," he said; "never
+thought of it till he was in the next room; never dreamt of its coming
+off so ideally even then, and didn't much care, because we had him all
+ways up.  I'm only sorry you let him knock you out.  I was waiting
+outside the door all the time, and it made me sick to hear it.  But I
+once broke my own head, Bunny, if you  remember, and not in half such
+an excellent cause!"
+
+Raffles touched all his pockets in his turn, the pockets that contained
+a small fortune apiece, and he smiled in my face as we crossed the
+lighted avenues of the Mall.  Next moment he was hailing a hansom--for
+I suppose I was still pretty  pale--and not a word would he let me
+speak until we had alighted as near as was prudent to the  flat.
+
+"What a brute I've been, Bunny!" he whispered  then, "but you take half
+the swag, old boy, and right well you've earned it. No, we'll go in by
+the wrong door and over the roof; it's too late for old Theobald to be
+still at the play, and too early for him to be safely in his cups."
+
+So we climbed the many stairs with cat-like stealth, and like cats
+crept out upon the grimy leads.  But to-night they were no blacker than
+their canopy of sky; not a chimney-stack stood out against the starless
+night; one had to feel one's way in order to avoid tripping over the
+low parapets of the L-shaped wells that ran from roof to basement to
+light the inner rooms.  One of these wells was spanned by a flimsy
+bridge with iron handrails that felt warm to the touch as Raffles led
+the way across!  A hotter and a closer night I have never known.
+
+"The flat will be like an oven," I grumbled, at the head of our own
+staircase.
+
+"Then we won't go down," said Raffles, promptly; "we'll slack it up
+here for a bit instead.  No, Bunny, you stay where you are! I'll fetch
+you a drink and a deck-chair, and you shan't come down till you feel
+more fit."
+
+And I let him have his way, I will not say as usual, for I had even
+less than my normal power of resistance that night.  That villainous
+upper-cut!  My head still sang and throbbed, as I seated  myself on one
+of the aforesaid parapets, and buried it in my hot hands.  Nor was the
+night one to dispel a headache; there was distinct thunder in the air.
+Thus I sat in a heap, and brooded  over my misadventure, a pretty
+figure of a subordinate villain, until the step came for which I
+waited; and it never struck me that it came from the wrong direction.
+
+"You have been quick," said I, simply.
+
+"Yes," hissed a voice I recognized; "and you've got to be quicker
+still!  Here, out with your wrists; no, one at a time; and if you utter
+a syllable you're a dead man."
+
+It was Lord Ernest Belville; his close-cropped, iron-gray moustache
+gleamed through the darkness, drawn up over his set teeth.  In his hand
+glittered a pair of handcuffs, and before I knew it one had snapped its
+jaws about my right wrist.
+
+"Now come this way," said Lord Ernest, showing me a revolver also, "and
+wait for your friend.  And, recollect, a single syllable of warning
+will be your death!"
+
+With that the ruffian led me to the very bridge I had just crossed at
+Raffles's heels, and handcuffed me to the iron rail midway across the
+chasm.  It no longer felt warm to my touch, but icy as the blood in all
+my veins.
+
+So this high-born hypocrite had beaten us at our game and his, and
+Raffles had met his match at last!  That was the most intolerable
+thought, that Raffles should be down in the flat on my account, and
+that I could not warn him of his impending fate; for how was it
+possible without  making such an outcry as should bring the mansions
+about our ears?  And there I shivered on that wretched plank, chained
+like Andromeda to the rock, with a black infinity above and below; and
+before my eyes, now grown familiar with the  peculiar darkness, stood
+Lord Ernest Belville, waiting for Raffles to emerge with full hands and
+unsuspecting heart! Taken so horribly unawares, even Raffles must fall
+an easy prey to a desperado in resource and courage scarcely second to
+himself, but one whom he had fatally underrated from the beginning.
+Not that I paused to think how the thing had happened; my one concern
+was for what was to happen next.
+
+And what did happen was worse than my worst foreboding, for first a
+light came flickering into the  sort of companion-hatch at the head of
+the stairs, and finally Raffles--in his shirt-sleeves! He was  not only
+carrying a candle to put the finishing touch to him as a target; he had
+dispensed with coat and waistcoat downstairs, and was at once
+full-handed and unarmed.
+
+"Where are you, old chap?" he cried, softly, himself blinded by the
+light he carried; and he advanced a couple of steps towards Belville.
+"This isn't you, is it?"
+
+And Raffles stopped, his candle held on high, a folding chair under the
+other arm.
+
+"No, I am not your friend," replied Lord Ernest, easily; "but kindly
+remain standing exactly where you are, and don't lower that candle an
+inch, unless you want your brains blown into the street."
+
+Raffles said never a word, but for a moment did as he was bid; and the
+unshaken flame of the candle was testimony alike to the stillness of
+the night and to the finest set of nerves in Europe.
+
+Then, to my horror, he coolly stooped, placing candle and chair on the
+leads, and his hands in his pockets, as though it were but a popgun
+that covered him.
+
+"Why didn't you shoot?" he asked insolently as he rose. "Frightened of
+the noise?  I should  be, too, with an old-pattern machine like that.
+All very well for service in the field--but on the house-tops at dead
+of night!"
+
+"I shall shoot, however," replied Lord Ernest, as quietly in his turn,
+and with less insolence, "and chance the noise, unless you instantly
+restore my property.  I am glad you don't dispute the last word," he
+continued after a slight pause.  "There  is no keener honor than that
+which subsists, or ought to subsist, among thieves; and I need hardly
+say that I soon spotted you as one of the fraternity.  Not in the
+beginning, mind you!  For the moment I did think you were one of these
+smart detectives jumped to life from some sixpenny  magazine; but to
+preserve the illusion you ought to provide yourself with a worthier
+lieutenant.  It  was he who gave your show away," chuckled the wretch,
+dropping for a moment the affected style of speech which seemed
+intended to enhance our humiliation; "smart detectives don't go about
+with little innocents to assist them.  You needn't be  anxious about
+him, by the way; it wasn't necessary to pitch him into the street; he
+is to be seen though not heard, if you look in the right direction.
+Nor must you put all the blame upon your friend; it  was not he, but
+you, who made so sure that I had got out by the window.  You see, I was
+in my bathroom all the time--with the door open."
+
+"The bathroom, eh?" Raffles echoed with professional interest. "And you
+followed us on foot across the park?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"And then in a cab?"
+
+"And afterwards on foot once more."
+
+"The simplest skeleton would let you in down below."
+
+I saw the lower half of Lord Ernest's face grinning in the light of the
+candle set between them on the ground.
+
+"You follow every move," said he; "there can be no doubt you are one of
+the fraternity; and I shouldn't wonder if we had formed our style upon
+the same model.  Ever know A. J. Raffles?"
+
+The abrupt question took my breath away; but Raffles himself did not
+lose an instant over his answer.
+
+"Intimately," said he.
+
+"That accounts for you, then," laughed Lord Ernest, "as it does for me,
+though I never had the honor of the master's acquaintance.  Nor is it
+for me to say which is the worthier disciple.  Perhaps, however, now
+that your friend is handcuffed in mid-air, and you yourself are at my
+mercy, you will concede me some little temporary advantage?"
+
+And his face split in another grin from the cropped moustache downward,
+as I saw no longer by candlelight but by a flash of lightning which
+tore the sky in two before Raffles could  reply.
+
+"You have the bulge at present," admitted Raffles; "but you have still
+to lay hands upon your, or our, ill-gotten goods.  To shoot me is not
+necessarily to do so; to bring either one of us to a violent end is
+only to court a yet more violent and  infinitely more disgraceful one
+for yourself.  Family considerations alone should rule that risk out of
+your game.  Now, an hour or two ago, when the exact opposite--"
+
+The remainder of Raffles's speech was drowned from my ears by the
+belated crash of thunder  which the lightning had foretold.  So loud,
+however, was the crash when it came, that the storm was evidently
+approaching us at a high velocity; yet as the last echo rumbled away, I
+heard Raffles talking as though he had never stopped.
+
+"You offered us a share," he was saying; "unless you mean to murder us
+both in cold blood, it will be worth your while to repeat that offer.
+We should be dangerous enemies; you had far better make the best of us
+as friends."
+
+"Lead the way down to your flat," said Lord Ernest, with a flourish of
+his service revolver, "and perhaps we may talk about it.  It is for me
+to make the terms, I imagine, and in the first place I am not going to
+get wet to the skin up here."
+
+The rain was beginning in great drops, even as he spoke, and by a
+second flash of lightning I saw Raffles pointing to me.
+
+"But what about my friend?" said he.
+
+And then came the second peal.
+
+"Oh, HE'S all right," the great brute replied;  "do him good! You don't
+catch me letting myself in for two to one!"
+
+"You will find it equally difficult," rejoined Raffles, "to induce me
+to leave my friend to the mercy of a night like this. He has not
+recovered from the blow you struck him in your own rooms.  I am not
+such a fool as to blame you for that, but you are a worse sportsman
+than I take you for if you think of leaving him where he is.  If he
+stays, however, so do I."
+
+And, just as it ceased, Raffles's voice seemed distinctly nearer to me;
+but in the darkness and the rain, which was now as heavy as hail, I
+could see nothing clearly.  The rain had already extinguished the
+candle.  I heard an oath from Belville, a laugh from Raffles, and for a
+second that was all.  Raffles was coming to me, and the other could not
+even see to fire; that was all I knew in the pitchy interval of
+invisible rain before the next crash and the next flash.
+
+And then!
+
+This time they came together, and not till my dying hour shall I forget
+the sight that the lightning lit and the thunder applauded.  Raffles
+was on one of the parapets of the gulf that my foot-bridge spanned, and
+in the sudden illumination he stepped across it as one might across a
+garden path.  The width was scarcely greater, but the  depth!  In the
+sudden flare I saw to the concrete bottom of the well, and it looked no
+larger than the hollow of my hand.  Raffles was laughing in  my ear; he
+had the iron railing fast; it was between us, but his foothold was as
+secure as mine.  Lord Ernest Belville, on the contrary, was the fifth
+of a second late for the light, and half a foot short in his spring.
+Something struck our plank bridge so hard as to set it quivering like a
+harp-string; there was half a gasp and half a sob in mid-air beneath
+our feet; and then a sound far below that I prefer not to describe.  I
+am not sure that I could hit upon the perfect simile; it is more than
+enough for me that I can hear it still.  And with that sickening sound
+came the loudest clap of thunder yet, and a great white glare that
+showed us our enemy's body far below, with one white hand spread like a
+starfish, but the head of him mercifully twisted underneath.
+
+"It was all his own fault, Bunny.  Poor devil!  May he and all of us be
+forgiven; but pull yourself together for your own sake. Well, you can't
+fall; stay where you are a minute."
+
+I remember the uproar of the elements while Raffles was gone; no other
+sound mingled with it; not the opening of a single window, not the
+uplifting of a single voice.  Then came Raffles with soap and water,
+and the gyve was wheedled from one wrist, as you withdraw a ring for
+which the finger has grown too large.  Of the rest, I only remember
+shivering till morning in a pitch-dark flat, whose invalid occupier was
+for once the nurse, and I his patient.
+
+And that is the true ending of the episode in which we two set
+ourselves to catch one of our own kidney, albeit in another place I
+have shirked  the whole truth.  It is not a grateful task to show
+Raffles as completely at fault as he really was on that occasion; nor
+do I derive any subtle satisfaction from recounting my own twofold
+humiliation, or from having assisted never so indirectly in the death
+of a not uncongenial sinner.  The truth, however, has after all a merit
+of its own, and the great kinsfolk of poor Lord Ernest have but little
+to lose by its divulgence.  It would seem that they knew more of the
+real character of the apostle of Rational Drink than was known at
+Exeter Hall.  The tragedy was indeed hushed up, as tragedies only are
+when they occur in such circles.  But the rumor that did get abroad, as
+to the class of enterprise which the poor scamp was pursuing when he
+met his death, cannot be too soon exploded, since it breathed upon the
+fair fame of some of the most respectable flats in Kensington.
+
+
+
+AN OLD FLAME
+
+I
+
+The square shall be nameless, but if you drive due west from Piccadilly
+the cab-man will eventually find it on his left, and he ought to thank
+you for two shillings.  It is not a fashionable square, but there are
+few with a finer garden,  while the studios on the south side lend
+distinction of another sort. The houses, however, are small and dingy,
+and about the last to attract the expert practitioner in search of a
+crib.  Heaven knows it was with no such thought I trailed Raffles
+thither, one unlucky evening at the latter end of that same season,
+when Dr. Theobald had at last insisted upon the bath-chair which I had
+foreseen in the beginning.  Trees whispered in the green garden
+aforesaid, and the cool, smooth lawns looked so inviting that I
+wondered whether some philanthropic resident could not be induced to
+lend us the key.  But Raffles would not listen to the suggestion, when
+I stopped to make it, and what was worse, I found him looking wistfully
+at the little houses instead.
+
+"Such balconies, Bunny!  A leg up, and there you would be!"
+
+I expressed a conviction that there would be nothing worth taking in
+the square, but took care to have him under way again as I spoke.
+
+"I daresay you're right," sighed Raffles.  "Rings and watches, I
+suppose, but it would be hard luck to take them from people who live in
+houses like these.  I don't know, though.  Here's one with an extra
+story.  Stop, Bunny; if you don't stop I'll hold on to the railings!
+This is a good house; look at the knocker and the electric bell.
+They've had that put in.  There's some money here, my rabbit!  I dare
+bet there's a silver-table in the drawing-room; and the windows are
+wide open.  Electric light, too, by Jove!"
+
+Since stop I must, I had done so on the other side of the road, in the
+shadow of the leafy palings, and as Raffles spoke the ground floor
+windows opposite had flown alight, showing as pretty a little
+dinner-table as one could wish to see, with a man at his wine at the
+far end, and the back  of a lady in evening dress toward us.  It was
+like a lantern-picture thrown upon a screen. There were only the pair
+of them, but the table was brilliant with silver and gay with flowers,
+and the maid waited with the indefinable air of a good servant.  It
+certainly seemed a good house.
+
+"She's going to let down the blind!" whispered Raffles, in high
+excitement.  "No, confound them, they've told her not to.  Mark down
+her necklace, Bunny, and invoice his stud.  What a brute he looks!  But
+I like the table, and that's her show.  She has the taste; but he must
+have money.  See the festive picture over the sideboard?  Looks  to me
+like a Jacques Saillard.  But that silver-table would be good enough
+for me."
+
+"Get on," said I.  "You're in a bath-chair."
+
+"But the whole square's at dinner!  We should have the ball at our
+feet.  It wouldn't take two twos!"
+
+"With those blinds up, and the cook in the kitchen underneath?"
+
+He nodded, leaning forward in the chair, his hands upon the wraps about
+his legs.
+
+"You must be mad," said I, and got back to my handles with the word,
+but when I tugged the chair ran light.
+
+"Keep an eye on the rug," came in a whisper from the middle of the
+road; and there stood my invalid, his pale face in a quiver of pure
+mischief, yet set with his insane resolve.  "I'm only going to see
+whether that woman has a silver-table--"
+
+"We don't want it--"
+
+"It won't take a minute--"
+
+"It's madness, madness--"
+
+"Then don't you wait!"
+
+It was like him to leave me with that, and this time I had taken him at
+his last word had not  my own given me an idea.  Mad I had called him,
+and mad I could declare him upon oath if  necessary. It was not as
+though the thing had happened far from home.  They could learn all
+about us at the nearest mansions.  I referred them  to Dr. Theobald;
+this was a Mr. Maturin, one of his patients, and I was his keeper, and
+he had never given me the slip before.  I heard myself making these
+explanations on the doorstep, and pointing to the deserted bath-chair
+as the proof, while the pretty parlor maid ran for the police.  It
+would be a more serious matter for me than for my charge.  I should
+lose my place.  No, he had never done such a thing before, and I would
+answer for it that he never should again.
+
+I saw myself conducting Raffles back to his chair, with a firm hand and
+a stern tongue.  I  heard him thanking me in whispers on the way  home.
+It would be the first tight place I had ever got him out of, and I was
+quite anxious for him to get into it, so sure was I of every move.  My
+whole position had altered in the few seconds that it took me to follow
+this illuminating train of ideas; it was now so strong that I could
+watch Raffles without much anxiety.  And he was worth watching.
+
+He had stepped boldly but softly to the front door, and there he was
+still waiting, ready to ring if the door opened or a face appeared in
+the  area, and doubtless to pretend that he had rung already.  But he
+had not to ring at all; and suddenly I saw his foot in the letter-box,
+his left hand on the lintel overhead.  It was thrilling, even to a
+hardened accomplice with an explanation up his  sleeve!  A tight grip
+with that left hand of his,  as he leant backward with all his weight
+upon those five fingers; a right arm stretched outward and upward to
+its last inch; and the base of the low, projecting balcony was safely
+caught.
+
+I looked down and took breath.  The maid was removing the crumbs in the
+lighted room, and the square was empty as before.  What a blessing it
+was the end of the season!  Many of the houses remained in darkness.  I
+looked up again, and Raffles was drawing his left leg over the balcony
+railing.  In another moment he had disappeared through one of the
+French windows which opened upon the balcony, and in yet another he had
+switched on the electric light within.  This was bad enough, for now I,
+at least, could see everything he did; but the crowning folly was still
+to come. There was no point in it; the mad thing was done for my
+benefit, as I knew at once and he afterward confessed; but the lunatic
+reappeared on the balcony, bowing like a mountebank--in his crape mask!
+
+I set off with the empty chair, but I came back.  I could not desert
+old Raffles, even when I would, but must try to explain away his mask
+as well, if  he had not the sense to take it off in time.  It  would be
+difficult, but burglaries are not usually committed from a bath-chair,
+and for the rest I put my faith in Dr. Theobald.  Meanwhile Raffles had
+at least withdrawn from the balcony, and now  I could only see his head
+as he peered into a cabinet at the other side of the room.  It was like
+the opera of Aida, in which two scenes are enacted simultaneously, one
+in the dungeon below, the other in the temple above.  In the same
+fashion my attention now became divided between the picture of Raffles
+moving stealthily about the upper room, and that of the husband and
+wife at table underneath.  And all at once, as the man replenished his
+glass with a shrug of the shoulders, the woman pushed back her chair
+and sailed to the door.
+
+Raffles was standing before the fireplace upstairs.  He had taken one
+of the framed photographs from the chimney-piece, and was scanning it
+at suicidal length through the eye-holes in the hideous mask which he
+still wore.  He would need it after all. The lady had left the room
+below, opening and shutting the door for herself; the man was filling
+his glass once more.  I would have shrieked my warning to Raffles, so
+fatally engrossed overhead, but at this moment (of all  others) a
+constable (of all men) was marching sedately down our side of the
+square.  There was nothing for it but to turn a melancholy eye upon the
+bath-chair, and to ask the constable the time.  I was evidently to be
+kept there all night, I remarked, and only realized with the words that
+they disposed of my other explanations before they were uttered.  It
+was a horrible moment for such a discovery. Fortunately the enemy was
+on the pavement, from which he could scarcely have seen more than the
+drawing-room ceiling, had he looked; but he was not many houses distant
+when a door opened and a woman gasped so that I  heard both across the
+road.  And never shall I forget the subsequent tableaux in the lighted
+room behind the low balcony and the French windows.
+
+Raffles stood confronted by a dark and handsome woman whose profile, as
+I saw it first in the electric light, is cut like a cameo in my memory.
+It had the undeviating line of brow and nose, the  short upper lip, the
+perfect chin, that are united  in marble oftener than in the flesh; and
+like marble she stood, or rather like some beautiful pale bronze; for
+that was her coloring, and she lost none of it that I could see,
+neither trembled; but her bosom rose and fell, and that was all.  So
+she stood without flinching before a masked ruffian, who, I felt, would
+be the first to appreciate her courage; to me it was so superb that I
+could think of it in this way even then, and marvel how Raffles himself
+could stand unabashed before so brave a figure.  He had not to do so
+long.  The woman scorned him, and he stood unmoved, a framed
+photograph still in his hand.  Then, with a quick, determined movement
+she turned, not to the door or to the bell, but to the open window by
+which Raffles had entered; and this with that accursed policeman still
+in view. So far no word had passed between the pair.  But at this point
+Raffles said something, I could not hear what, but at the sound of his
+voice the woman wheeled.  And Raffles was looking humbly in her face,
+the crape mask snatched from his own.
+
+"Arthur!" she cried; and that might have been heard in the middle of
+the square garden.
+
+Then they stood gazing at each other, neither unmoved any more, and
+while they stood the street-door opened and banged.  It was her husband
+leaving the house, a fine figure of a man, but a dissipated face, and a
+step even now distinguished  by the extreme caution which precedes
+unsteadiness.  He broke the spell. His wife came to the  balcony, then
+looked back into the room, and yet again along the road, and this time
+I saw her face.  It was the face of one glancing indeed from Hyperion
+to a satyr. And then I saw the rings flash, as her hand fell gently
+upon Raffles's arm.
+
+They disappeared from that window.  Their heads showed for an instant
+in the next.  Then they dipped out of sight, and an inner ceiling
+flashed out under a new light; they had gone into the back
+drawing-room, beyond my ken.  The  maid came up with coffee, her
+mistress hastily met her at the door, and once more disappeared.  The
+square was as quiet as ever.  I remained some minutes where I was.  Now
+and then I thought I heard their voices in the back drawing-room.  I
+was seldom sure.
+
+My state of mind may be imagined by those readers who take an interest
+in my personal psychology.  It does not amuse me to look back upon it.
+But at length I had the sense to put myself in Raffles's place.  He had
+been recognized at last, he had come to life.  Only one person knew as
+yet,  but that person was a woman, and a woman who had once been fond
+of him, if the human face could speak.  Would she keep his secret?
+Would  he tell her where he lived?  It was terrible to think we were
+such neighbors, and with the thought that it was terrible came a little
+enlightenment as to what could still be done for the best.  He would
+not tell her where he lived.  I knew him too well for that. He would
+run for it when he could, and the bath-chair and I must not be there to
+give him away.  I dragged the infernal vehicle round the nearer corner.
+Then I waited--there could be no harm in that--and at last he came.
+
+He was walking briskly, so I was right, and he had not played the
+invalid to her; yet I heard him cry out with pleasure as he turned the
+corner, and he flung himself into the chair with a long-drawn sigh that
+did me good.
+
+"Well done, Bunny--well done!  I am on my way to Earl's Court, she's
+capable of following me, but she won't look for me in a bath-chair.
+Home, home, home, and not another word till we get there!"
+
+Capable of following him?  She overtook us  before we were past the
+studios on the south side of the square, the woman herself, in a hooded
+opera-cloak.  But she never gave us a glance, and we saw her turn
+safely in the right direction for Earl's Court, and the wrong one for
+our humble mansions.  Raffles thanked his gods in a voice that
+trembled, and five minutes later we were in the flat.  Then for once it
+was Raffles who filled the tumblers and found the cigarettes, and for
+once (and once only in all my knowledge of him) did he drain his glass
+at a draught.
+
+"You didn't see the balcony scene?" he asked at length; and they were
+his first words since the woman passed us on his track.
+
+"Do you mean when she came in?"
+
+"No, when I came down."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"I hope nobody else saw it," said Raffles devoutly.  "I don't say that
+Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister to us.  But you might have
+said so, Bunny!"
+
+He was staring at the carpet with as wry a face as lover ever wore.
+
+"An old flame?" said I, gently.
+
+"A married woman," he groaned.
+
+"So I gathered."
+
+"But she always was one, Bunny," said he, ruefully.  "That's the
+trouble.  It makes all the difference in the world!"
+
+I saw the difference, but said I did not see how it could make any now.
+He had eluded the lady, after all; had we not seen her off upon a scent
+as false as scent could be?  There was occasion for redoubled caution
+in the future, but none for immediate anxiety.  I quoted the bedside
+Theobald, but Raffles did not smile.  His eyes had been downcast all
+this time, and now, when he raised them, I perceived that my comfort
+had been administered to deaf ears.
+
+"Do you know who she is?" said he.
+
+"Not from Eve."
+
+"Jacques Saillard," he said, as though now I must know.
+
+But the name left me cold and stolid.  I had heard it, but that was
+all.  It was lamentable ignorance, I am aware, but I had specialized in
+Letters at the expense of Art.
+
+"You must know her pictures," said Raffles, patiently; "but I suppose
+you thought she was a man.  They would appeal to you, Bunny; that
+festive piece over the sideboard was her work. Sometimes they risk her
+at the Academy, sometimes they fight shy. She has one of those studios
+in the same square; they used to live up near  Lord's."
+
+My mind was busy brightening a dim memory of nymphs reflected in woody
+pools.  "Of course!"  I exclaimed, and added something about "a clever
+woman."  Raffles rose at the phrase.
+
+"A clever woman!" he echoed, scornfully; "if she were only that I
+should feel safe as houses.  Clever women can't forget their
+cleverness, they carry it as badly as a boy does his wine, and are
+about as dangerous.  I don't call Jacques Saillard clever outside her
+art, but neither do I call her a woman at all.  She does man's work
+over a man's name, has the will of any ten men I ever knew, and I don't
+mind telling you that I fear her more than any person on God's earth.
+I broke with her once," said Raffles, grimly, "but I know her.  If I
+had been asked to name the one person in London by whom I was keenest
+NOT to be bowled out, I should have named Jacques Saillard."
+
+That he had never before named her to me was as characteristic as the
+reticence with which Raffles  spoke of their past relations, and even
+of their conversation in the back drawing-room that evening.
+
+It was a question of principle with him, and one that I like to
+remember.  "Never give a woman away, Bunny," he used to say; and he
+said it again to-night, but with a heavy cloud upon him, as though his
+chivalry was sorely tried.
+
+"That's all right," said I, "if you're not going to be given away
+yourself."
+
+"That's just it, Bunny!  That's just--"
+
+The words were out of him, it was too late to recall them.  I had hit
+the nail upon the head.
+
+"So she threatened you," I said, "did she?"
+
+"I didn't say so," he replied, coldly.
+
+"And she is mated with a clown!" I pursued.
+
+"How she ever married him," he admitted, "is a mystery to me."
+
+"It always is," said I, the wise man for once, and rather enjoying the
+role.
+
+"Southern blood?"
+
+"Spanish."
+
+"She'll be pestering you to run off with her, old chap," said I.
+
+Raffles was pacing the room.  He stopped in his stride for half a
+second.  So she had begun pestering him already!  It is wonderful how
+acute any fool can be in the affairs of his friend.
+
+But  Raffles resumed his walk without a syllable, and I retreated to
+safer ground.
+
+"So you sent her to Earl's Court," I mused aloud; and at last he smiled.
+
+"You'll be interested to hear, Bunny," said he, "that I am now living
+in Seven Dials, and Bill Sikes couldn't hold a farthing dip to me.
+Bless you, she had my old police record at her fingers' ends, but it
+was fit to frame compared with the one  I gave her.  I had sunk as low
+as they dig.  I divided my nights between the open parks and a thieves'
+kitchen in Seven Dials.  If I was decently dressed it was because I had
+stolen the suit down the Thames Valley beat the night before last.  I
+was on my way back when first that sleepy square, and then her open
+window, proved too much for me.  You should have heard me beg her to
+let me push on to the devil in my own way; there I spread  myself, for
+I meant every word; but I swore the final stage would be a six-foot
+drop."
+
+"You did lay it on," said I.
+
+"It was necessary, and that had its effect.  She let me go.  But at the
+last moment she said she didn't believe I was so black as I painted
+myself, and then there was the balcony scene you missed."
+
+So that was all.  I could not help telling him that he had got out of
+it better than he deserved for ever getting in.  Next moment I
+regretted the  remark.
+
+"If I have got out of it," said Raffles, doubtfully.  "We are
+dreadfully near neighbors, and I can't move in a minute, with old
+Theobald taking a grave view of my case.  I suppose I had better lie
+low, and thank the gods again for putting her off the scent for the
+time being."
+
+No doubt our conversation was carried beyond this point, but it
+certainly was not many minutes later, nor had we left the subject, when
+the electric bell thrilled us both to a sudden silence.
+
+"The doctor?" I queried, hope fighting with my horror.
+
+"It was a single ring."
+
+"The last post?"
+
+"You know he knocks, and it's long past his time."
+
+The electric bell rang again, but now as though it never would stop.
+
+"You go, Bunny," said Raffles, with decision.  His eyes were sparkling.
+His smile was firm.
+
+"What am I to say?"
+
+"If it's the lady let her in."
+
+It was the lady, still in her evening cloak, with her fine dark head
+half-hidden by the hood, and an engaging contempt of appearances upon
+her angry face.  She was even handsomer than I had thought, and her
+beauty of a bolder type, but she was also angrier than I had
+anticipated when I came so readily to the door.  The passage into which
+it opened was an exceedingly narrow one, as I have often said, but I
+never dreamt of barring this woman's way, though not a word did she
+stoop to say to me.  I was only too glad to flatten myself against the
+wall, as the rustling fury strode past me into the lighted room with
+the open door.
+
+"So this is your thieves' kitchen!" she cried, in high-pitched scorn.
+
+I was on the threshold myself, and Raffles glanced towards me with
+raised eyebrows.
+
+"I have certainly had better quarters in my day," said he, "but you
+need not call them absurd names before my man."
+
+"Then send your 'man' about his business," said Jacques Saillard, with
+an unpleasant stress upon the word indicated.
+
+But when the door was shut I heard Raffles assuring her that I knew
+nothing, that he was a real invalid overcome by a sudden mad
+temptation, and all he had told her of his life a lie to hide his
+whereabouts, but all he was telling her now she could prove for herself
+without leaving that building.  It seemed, however, that she had proved
+it already by going first to the porter below stairs.  Yet I do not
+think she cared one atom which story was the truth.
+
+"So you thought I could pass you in your chair,"  she said, "or ever in
+this world again, without hearing from my heart that it was you!"
+
+
+II
+
+"Bunny," said Raffles, "I'm awfully sorry, old chap, but you've got to
+go."
+
+It was some weeks since the first untimely visitation of Jacques
+Saillard, but there had been many others at all hours of the day, while
+Raffles had  been induced to pay at least one to her studio in the
+neighboring square.  These intrusions he had endured at first with an
+air of humorous resignation which imposed upon me less than he
+imagined.  The woman meant well, he said, after all, and could be
+trusted to keep his secret loyally.  It was plain to me, however, that
+Raffles did not trust her, and that his pretence upon the point was a
+deliberate pose to conceal the extent to which she had him in her
+power.  Otherwise there would have been little point in hiding anything
+from the one person in possession of the cardinal secret of his
+identity.
+
+But Raffles thought it worth his while to hoodwink Jacques Saillard in
+the subsidiary matter of his health, in which Dr. Theobald lent him
+unwitting assistance, and, as we have seen, to impress upon  her that I
+was actually his attendant, and as ignorant of his past as the doctor
+himself.  "So you're all right, Bunny," he had assured me; "she thinks
+you knew nothing the other night.  I told you she wasn't a clever woman
+outside her work.  But hasn't she a will!"  I told Raffles it was very
+considerate of him to keep me out of it, but that it seemed to me like
+tying up the bag when the cat had escaped.  His reply was an admission
+that one must be on the defensive with such a woman and in such a case.
+Soon after this, Raffles, looking far  from well, fell back upon his
+own last line of  defence, namely, his bed; and now, as always in the
+end, I could see some sense in his subtleties, since it was
+comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques Saillard from the door,
+with Dr. Theobald's explicit injunctions, and with my own honesty
+unquestioned.  So for a day we had peace once more.  Then came letters,
+then the doctor again and again, and finally my dismissal in the
+incredible words which have necessitated these explanations.
+
+"Go?" I echoed.  "Go where?"
+
+"It's that ass Theobald," said Raffles.  "He insists."
+
+"On my going altogether?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And you mean to let him have his way?"
+
+I had no language for my mortification and disgust, though neither was
+as yet quite so great as my  surprise.  I had foreseen almost every
+conceivable consequence of the mad act which brought all this trouble
+to pass, but a voluntary division between Raffles and me had certainly
+never entered my calculations.  Nor could I think that it had occurred
+to him before our egregious doctor's last visit, this very morning.
+Raffles had looked irritated as he broke the news to me from his
+pillow, and now there was some sympathy in the way he sat up in bed, as
+though he felt the thing himself.
+
+"I am obliged to give in to the fellow," said he.  "He's saving me from
+my friend, and I'm bound to humor him.  But I can tell you that we've
+been arguing about you for the last half hour, Bunny.  It was no use;
+the idiot has had his knife in you from the first; and he wouldn't see
+me through on any other conditions."
+
+"So he is going to see you through, is he?"
+
+"It tots up to that," said Raffles, looking at me rather hard. "At all
+events he has come to my rescue for the time being, and it's for me to
+manage the rest.  You don't know what it has been, Bunny,  these last
+few weeks; and gallantry forbids that I should tell you even now.  But
+would you rather elope against your will, or have your continued
+existence made known to the world in general and the police in
+particular?  That is practically the problem which I have had to solve,
+and the temporary  solution was to fall ill.  As a matter of fact, I am
+ill; and now what do you think?  I owe it to you to  tell you, Bunny,
+though it goes against the grain.  She would take me 'to the dear, warm
+underworld,  where the sun really shines,' and she would 'nurse me back
+to life and love!'  The artistic temperament is a fearsome thing,
+Bunny, in a woman with the devil's own will!"
+
+Raffles tore up the letter from which he had read these piquant
+extracts, and lay back on the pillows  with the tired air of the
+veritable invalid which he seemed able to assume at will.  But for once
+he did look as though bed was the best place for him; and I used the
+fact as an argument for my own retention in defiance of Dr. Theobald.
+The town was full of typhoid, I said, and certainly that autumnal
+scourge was in the air.  Did he want me to leave him at the very moment
+when he might be sickening for a serious illness?
+
+"You know I don't, my good fellow," said Raffles, wearily; "but
+Theobald does, and I can't  afford to go against him now.  Not that I
+really care what happens to me now that that woman knows I'm in the
+land of the living; she'll let it out, to a dead certainty, and at the
+best there'll be  a hue and cry, which is the very thing I have escaped
+all these years.  Now, what I want you  to do is to go and take some
+quiet place somewhere, and then let me know, so that I may have a port
+in the storm when it breaks."
+
+"Now you're talking!" I cried, recovering my spirits.  "I thought you
+meant to go and drop a fellow altogether!"
+
+"Exactly the sort of thing you would think," rejoined Raffles, with a
+contempt that was welcome enough after my late alarm. "No, my dear
+rabbit, what you've got to do is to make a new burrow for us both.  Try
+down the Thames, in some quiet nook that a literary man would naturally
+select.  I've often thought that more use might be made of a boat,
+while the family are at dinner, than there ever has been yet.  If
+Raffles is to come to life, old chap, he shall go a-Raffling for all
+he's worth!  There's something to be done with a bicycle, too.  Try Ham
+Common or Roehampton, or some such sleepy hollow a trifle off the line;
+and say you're expecting your brother from the colonies."
+
+Into this arrangement I entered without the slightest hesitation, for
+we had funds enough to carry it out on a comfortable scale, and Raffles
+placed a sufficient share at my disposal for the nonce.  Moreover, I
+for one was only too glad to seek fresh fields and pastures new--a
+phrase which  I determined to interpret literally in my choice of fresh
+surroundings.  I was tired of our submerged life in the poky little
+flat, especially now that we  had money enough for better things.  I
+myself of late had dark dealings with the receivers, with the result
+that poor Lord Ernest Belville's successes were now indeed ours.
+Subsequent complications had been the more galling on that account,
+while the wanton way in which they had been  created was the most
+irritating reflection of all.  But it had brought its own punishment
+upon Raffles, and I fancied the lesson would prove salutary when we
+again settled down.
+
+"If ever we do, Bunny!" said he, as I took his hand and told him how I
+was already looking forward to the time.
+
+"But of course we will!" I cried, concealing the resentment at leaving
+him which his tone and his appearance renewed in my breast.
+
+"I'm not so sure of it," he said, gloomily.  "I'm in somebody's
+clutches, and I've got to get out of them first."
+
+"I'll sit tight until you do."
+
+"Well," he said, "if you don't see me in ten days you never will."
+
+"Only ten days?" I echoed.  "That's nothing at all."
+
+"A lot may happen in ten days," replied Raffles, in the same depressing
+tone, so very depressing in him; and with that he held out his hand a
+second time, and dropped mine suddenly after as sudden a pressure for
+farewell.
+
+I left the flat in considerable dejection after all, unable to decide
+whether Raffles was really ill, or only worried as I knew him to be.
+And at the foot of the stairs the author of my dismissal, that
+confounded Theobald, flung open his door and waylaid me.
+
+"Are you going?" he demanded.
+
+The traps in my hands proclaimed that I was, but I dropped them at his
+feet to have it out with him then and there.
+
+"Yes," I answered fiercely, "thanks to you!"
+
+"Well, my good fellow," he said, his full-blooded face lightening and
+softening at the same  time, as though a load were off his mind, "it's
+no pleasure to me to deprive any man of his billet, but you never were
+a nurse, and you know that as well as I do."
+
+I began to wonder what he meant, and how much he did know, and my
+speculations kept me silent.  "But come in here a moment," he
+continued, just as I decided that he knew nothing at all.  And, leading
+me into his minute consulting-room,  Dr. Theobald solemnly presented me
+with a sovereign by way of compensation, which I pocketed as solemnly,
+and with as much gratitude as if I had not fifty of them distributed
+over my person as it was.  The good fellow had quite forgotten my
+social status, about which he himself had been so particular at our
+earliest interview; but he had  never accustomed himself to treat me as
+a gentleman, and I do not suppose he had been improving his memory by
+the tall tumbler which I saw him poke behind a photograph as we entered.
+
+"There's one thing I should like to know before I go," said I, turning
+suddenly on the doctor's mat, "and that is whether Mr. Maturin is
+really ill or not!"
+
+I meant, of course, at the present moment, but Dr. Theobald braced
+himself like a recruit at the drill-sergeant's voice.
+
+"Of course he is," he snapped--"so ill as to need a nurse who can
+nurse, by way of a change."
+
+With that his door shut in my face, and I had to go my way, in the dark
+as to whether he had mistaken my meaning, and was telling me a lie, or
+not.
+
+But for my misgivings upon this point I might have extracted some very
+genuine enjoyment out of the next few days.  I had decent clothes to my
+back, with money, as I say, in most of the pockets, and more freedom to
+spend it than was possible  in the constant society of a man whose
+personal liberty depended on a universal supposition that  he was dead.
+Raffles was as bold as ever, and I as fond of him, but whereas he would
+run any risk in a professional exploit, there were many innocent
+recreations still open to me which would have been sheer madness in
+him.  He could not even watch a match, from the sixpenny seats, at
+Lord's cricket-ground, where the Gentlemen were every year in a worse
+way without him.  He never travelled by rail, and dining out was a risk
+only to be run with some ulterior object in view.  In fact, much as it
+had changed, Raffles could no longer show his face with perfect
+impunity in any quarter or at any hour. Moreover, after the lesson he
+had now learnt, I foresaw increased caution on his part in this
+respect.  But I myself was under no such perpetual disadvantage, and,
+while what was good enough for Raffles was quite good enough for me so
+long as we were together, I saw no harm in profiting by the present
+opportunity of "doing my-self well."
+
+Such were my reflections on the way to Richmond in a hansom cab.
+Richmond had struck us both as the best centre of operations in search
+of the suburban retreat which Raffles wanted, and by road, in a
+well-appointed, well-selected hansom, was certainly the most agreeable
+way of getting there.  In a week or ten days Raffles was to write to me
+at the Richmond post-office, but for at least a week I should be "on my
+own."  It was not an unpleasant sensation as I leant back in the
+comfortable hansom, and rather to one side, in order to have a good
+look at myself in the bevelled mirror that is almost as great an
+improvement in these vehicles as the rubber tires.  Really I was not an
+ill-looking youth, if one may call one's self such at the age of
+thirty.  I could lay no claim either to the striking cast of
+countenance or to the peculiar charm of expression which made the face
+of  Raffles like no other in the world.  But this very distinction was
+in itself a danger, for its impression was indelible, whereas I might
+still have been mistaken for a hundred other young fellows at large in
+London.  Incredible as it may appear to the moralists, I had sustained
+no external hallmark  by my term of imprisonment, and I am vain enough
+to believe that the evil which I did had not a separate existence in my
+face.  This afternoon, indeed, I was struck by the purity of my fresh
+complexion,  and rather depressed by the general innocence of the
+visage which peered into mine from the little  mirror.  My
+straw-colored moustache, grown in the flat after a protracted holiday,
+again preserved the most disappointing dimensions, and was still
+invisible in certain lights without wax.  So far  from discerning the
+desperate criminal who has "done time" once, and deserved it over and
+over again, the superior but superficial observer might have imagined
+that he detected a certain element of folly in my face.
+
+At all events it was not the face to shut the doors of a first-class
+hotel against me, without accidental evidence of a more explicit kind,
+and it was with no little satisfaction that I directed the man to drive
+to the Star and Garter.  I also told him to  go through Richmond Park,
+though he warned me that it would add considerably to the distance and
+his fare.  It was autumn, and it struck me that the tints would be
+fine.  And I had learnt from Raffles to appreciate such things, even
+amid the excitement of an audacious enterprise.
+
+If I dwell upon my appreciation of this occasion it is because, like
+most pleasures, it was exceedingly short-lived.  I was very comfortable
+at the Star and Garter, which was so empty that I had a room worthy of
+a prince, where I could  enjoy the finest of all views (in patriotic
+opinion) every morning while I shaved.  I walked many miles through the
+noble park, over the commons of Ham and Wimbledon, and one day as far
+as  that of Esher, where I was forcibly reminded of a service we once
+rendered to a distinguished resident in this delightful locality.  But
+it was on Ham  Common, one of the places which Raffles had mentioned as
+specially desirable, that I actually found an almost ideal retreat.
+This was a cottage where I heard, on inquiry, that rooms were to be let
+in  the summer.  The landlady, a motherly body, of  visible excellence,
+was surprised indeed at receiving an application for the winter months;
+but I  have generally found that the title of "author,"  claimed with
+an air, explains every little innocent irregularity of conduct or
+appearance, and even requires something of the kind to carry conviction
+to the lay intelligence.  The present case was one in point, and when I
+said that I could only write in a room facing north, on mutton chops
+and milk,  with a cold ham in the wardrobe in case of nocturnal
+inspiration, to which I was liable, my literary character was
+established beyond dispute.  I secured the rooms, paid a month's rent
+in advance at my own request, and moped in them dreadfully until the
+week was up and Raffles due any day.  I explained that the inspiration
+would not come, and asked abruptly if the mutton was New Zealand.
+
+Thrice had I made fruitless inquiries at the Richmond post-office; but
+on the tenth day I was in and out almost every hour.  Not a word was
+there for me up to the last post at night. Home I trudged to Ham with
+horrible forebodings, and  back again to Richmond after breakfast next
+morning.  Still there was nothing.  I could bear it no more.  At ten
+minutes to eleven I was climbing the station stairs at Earl's Court.
+
+It was a wretched morning there, a weeping  mist shrouding the long,
+straight street, and clinging to one's face in clammy caresses.  I felt
+how  much better it was down at Ham, as I turned into our side street,
+and saw the flats looming like mountains, the chimney-pots hidden in
+the mist.  At our entrance stood a nebulous conveyance, that I took at
+first for a tradesman's van; to my horror it proved to be a hearse; and
+all at once the white breath ceased upon my lips.
+
+I had looked up at our windows and the blinds were down!
+
+I rushed within.  The doctor's door stood open.  I neither knocked nor
+rang, but found him in his consulting-room with red eyes and a blotchy
+face.  Otherwise he was in solemn black from head to  heel.
+
+"Who is dead?" I burst out.  "Who is dead?"
+
+The red eyes looked redder than ever as Dr. Theobald opened them at the
+unwarrantable sight of me; and he was terribly slow in answering.  But
+in the end he did answer, and did not kick me out as he evidently had a
+mind.
+
+"Mr. Maturin," he said, and sighed like a beaten man.
+
+I said nothing.  It was no surprise to me.  I had known it all these
+minutes.  Nay, I had dreaded this from the first, had divined it at the
+last, though to the last also I had refused to entertain my own
+conviction.  Raffles dead!  A real invalid after all!  Raffles dead,
+and on the point of burial!
+
+"What did he die of?" I asked, unconsciously drawing on that fund of
+grim self-control which the weakest of us seem to hold in reserve for
+real calamity.
+
+"Typhoid," he answered.  "Kensington is full of it."
+
+"He was sickening for it when I left, and you knew it, and could get
+rid of me then!"
+
+"My good fellow, I was obliged to have a more experienced nurse for
+that very reason."
+
+The doctor's tone was so conciliatory that I remembered in an instant
+what a humbug the man was, and became suddenly possessed with the vague
+conviction that he was imposing upon me now.
+
+"Are you sure it was typhoid at all?" I cried fiercely to his face.
+"Are you sure it wasn't suicide--or murder?"
+
+I confess that I can see little point in this speech as I write it
+down, but it was what I said in a burst of grief and of wild suspicion;
+nor was it without effect upon Dr. Theobald, who turned bright scarlet
+from his well-brushed hair to his immaculate collar.
+
+"Do you want me to throw you out into the street?" he cried; and all at
+once I remembered that I had come to Raffles as a perfect stranger, and
+for his sake might as well preserve that character to the last.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, brokenly.  "He  was so good to me--I
+became so attached to him.  You forget I am originally of his class."
+
+"I did forget it," replied Theobald, looking relieved at my new tone,
+"and I beg YOUR pardon for doing so.  Hush!  They are bringing him
+down.  I must have a drink before we start, and you'd  better join me."
+
+There was no pretence about his drink this time, and a pretty stiff one
+it was, but I fancy my own must have run it hard.  In my case it cast a
+merciful haze over much of the next hour, which I can  truthfully
+describe as one of the most painful of  my whole existence.  I can have
+known very little of what I was doing.  I only remember finding myself
+in a hansom, suddenly wondering why it was going so slowly, and once
+more awaking to the truth.  But it was to the truth itself more than to
+the liquor that I must have owed my dazed condition.  My next
+recollection is of looking down into the open grave, in a sudden
+passionate anxiety to see the name for myself.  It was not the name of
+my friend, of course, but it was the one under which he had passed for
+many months.
+
+I was still stupefied by a sense of inconceivable loss, and had not
+raised my eyes from that which was slowly forcing me to realize what
+had happened, when there was a rustle at my elbow, and a shower of
+hothouse flowers passed before them,  falling like huge snowflakes
+where my gaze had  rested.  I looked up, and at my side stood a
+majestic figure in deep mourning.  The face was  carefully veiled, but
+I was too close not to recognize the masterful beauty whom the world
+knew  as Jacques Saillard.  I had no sympathy with her; on the
+contrary, my blood boiled with the vague conviction that in some way
+she was responsible  for this death.  Yet she was the only woman
+present--there were not a half a dozen of us altogether--and her
+flowers were the only flowers.
+
+The melancholy ceremony was over, and Jacques Saillard had departed in
+a funeral brougham, evidently hired for the occasion. I had  watched
+her drive away, and the sight of my own cabman, making signs to me
+through the fog, had  suddenly reminded me that I had bidden him to
+wait.  I was the last to leave, and had turned my back upon the
+grave-diggers, already at their final task, when a hand fell lightly
+but firmly upon my shoulder.
+
+"I don't want to make a scene in a cemetery,"  said a voice, in a not
+unkindly, almost confidential whisper.  "Will you get into your own cab
+and come quietly?"
+
+"Who on earth are you?" I exclaimed.
+
+I now remembered having seen the fellow hovering about during the
+funeral, and subconsciously taking him for the undertaker's head man.
+He had certainly that appearance, and even now I could scarcely believe
+that he was anything  else.
+
+"My name won't help you," he said, pityingly.  "But you will guess
+where I come from when I tell you I have a warrant for your arrest."
+
+My sensations at this announcement may not be believed, but I solemnly
+declare that I have seldom experienced so fierce a satisfaction.  Here
+was a new excitement in which to drown my grief; here was something to
+think about; and I should be spared the intolerable experience of a
+solitary return to the little place at Ham.  It was as though I had
+lost a limb and some one had struck me so hard in the face that the
+greater agony was forgotten.  I got into the hansom without a word, my
+captor following at my heels, and giving his own directions to the
+cabman before taking his seat.  The word "station" was the only one I
+caught, and I wondered whether it was to be Bow Street again.  My
+companion's next words, however, or rather the tone in which he uttered
+them, destroyed my capacity for idle speculation.
+
+"Mr. Maturin!" said he.  "Mr. Maturin indeed!"
+
+"Well," said I, "what about him?"
+
+"Do you think we don't know who he was?"
+
+"Who was he?" I asked, defiantly.
+
+"You ought to know," said he.  "You got locked up through him the other
+time, too.  His favorite name was Raffles then."
+
+"It was his real name," I said, indignantly.  "And he has been dead for
+years."
+
+My captor simply chuckled.
+
+"He's at the bottom of the sea, I tell you!"
+
+But I do not know why I should have told him with such spirit, for what
+could it matter to Raffles now?  I did not think; instinct was still
+stronger than reason, and, fresh from his funeral,  I had taken up the
+cudgels for my dead friend as though he were still alive.  Next moment
+I saw this for myself, and my tears came nearer the surface than they
+had been yet; but the fellow at my side laughed outright.
+
+"Shall I tell you something else?" said he.
+
+"As you like."
+
+"He's not even at the bottom of that grave!  He's no more dead than you
+or I, and a sham burial is his latest piece of villainy!"
+
+I doubt whether I could have spoken if I had tried.  I did not try.  I
+had no use for speech.  I  did not even ask him if he was sure, I was
+so sure myself.  It was all as plain to me as riddles usually are when
+one has the answer.  The doctor's alarms, his unscrupulous venality,
+the simulated  illness, my own dismissal, each fitted in its obvious
+place, and not even the last had power as yet to mar my joy in the one
+central fact to which all the rest were as tapers to the sun.
+
+"He is alive!" I cried.  "Nothing else matters--he is alive!"
+
+At last I did ask whether they had got him  too; but thankful as I was
+for the greater knowledge, I confess that I did not much care what
+answer I received.  Already I was figuring out how much we might each
+get, and how old we should  be when we came out.  But my companion
+tilted his hat to the back of his head, at the same time putting his
+face close to mine, and compelling my  scrutiny.  And my answer, as you
+have already guessed, was the face of Raffles himself, superbly
+disguised (but less superbly than his voice), and yet so thinly that I
+should have known him in a trice had I not been too miserable in the
+beginning to give him a second glance.
+
+Jacques Saillard had made his life impossible, and this was the one
+escape.  Raffles had bought the doctor for a thousand pounds, and the
+doctor had bought a "nurse" of his own kidney, on his own account; me,
+for some reason, he would not trust; he had insisted upon my dismissal
+as an essential preliminary to his part in the conspiracy.  Here the
+details were half-humorous, half-grewsome, each in turn as Raffles told
+me the story.  At one period he had been very daringly drugged indeed,
+and, in his own words, "as dead as a man need be"; but he had left
+strict instructions that nobody but the nurse and "my devoted
+physician" should "lay a finger on me" afterwards; and by virtue of
+this proviso a library of books (largely acquired for the occasion) had
+been impiously interred at Kensal Green.  Raffles had definitely
+undertaken not to trust me with the secret, and, but for my untoward
+appearance at the funeral (which he had attended for his own final
+satisfaction), I was assured and am convinced that he would have kept
+his promise to the letter.  In explaining this he gave me the one
+explanation I desired, and in another moment we turned into Praed
+Street, Paddington.
+
+"And I thought you said Bow Street!" said I.  "Are you coming straight
+down to Richmond with me?"
+
+"I may as well," said Raffles, "though I did mean to get my kit first,
+so as to start in fair and  square as the long-lost brother from the
+bush.  That's why I hadn't written.  The function was a  day later than
+I calculated.  I was going to write to-night."
+
+"But what are we to do?" said I, hesitating when he had paid the cab.
+"I have been playing the colonies for all they are worth!"
+
+"Oh, I've lost my luggage," said he, "or a wave came into my cabin and
+spoilt every stitch, or I  had nothing fit to bring ashore.  We'll
+settle that in the train."
+
+
+
+THE WRONG HOUSE
+
+My brother Ralph, who now lived with me on the edge of Ham Common, had
+come home from Australia with a curious affection of the eyes,  due to
+long exposure to the glare out there, and necessitating the use of
+clouded spectacles in the open air.  He had not the rich complexion of
+the typical colonist, being indeed peculiarly pale, but it appeared
+that he had been confined to his berth for the greater part of the
+voyage, while his prematurely gray hair was sufficient proof that the
+rigors of bush life had at last undermined an originally tough
+constitution.  Our landlady, who spoilt my brother from the first, was
+much concerned on his behalf, and wished to call in the local doctor;
+but Ralph said dreadful things about the profession, and quite
+frightened the good woman by arbitrarily forbidding her ever to let a
+doctor inside her door.  I had to apologize to her for the painful
+prejudices and violent language of "these colonists," but the old soul
+was easily mollified.  She had fallen in love with my brother at first
+sight, and she never could do too much for him.  It was owing to our
+landlady that I took to calling him Ralph, for the first time in our
+lives, on her beginning to speak of and to him as "Mr. Raffles."
+
+"This won't do," said he to me.  "It's a name that sticks."
+
+"It must be my fault!  She must have heard it from me," said I
+self-reproachfully.
+
+"You must tell her it's the short for Ralph."
+
+"But it's longer."
+
+"It's the short," said he; "and you've got to tell her so."
+
+Henceforth I heard as much of "Mr. Ralph," his likes and dislikes, what
+he would fancy and what he would not, and oh, what a dear gentleman he
+was, that I often remembered to say "Ralph, old chap," myself.
+
+It was an ideal cottage, as I said when I found it, and in it our
+delicate man became rapidly  robust.  Not that the air was also ideal,
+for, when  it was not raining, we had the same faithful mist from
+November to March.  But it was something to Ralph to get any air at
+all, other than  night-air, and the bicycle did the rest.  We taught
+ourselves, and may I never forget our earlier rides,  through and
+through Richmond Park when the  afternoons were shortest, upon the
+incomparable Ripley Road when we gave a day to it.  Raffles  rode a
+Beeston Humber, a Royal Sunbeam was good enough for me, but he insisted
+on our both having Dunlop tires.
+
+"They seem the most popular brand.  I had my eye on the road all the
+way from Ripley to Cobham, and there were more Dunlop marks than any
+other kind.  Bless you, yes, they all leave their special tracks, and
+we don't want ours to be extra special; the Dunlop's like a
+rattlesnake, and the Palmer leaves telegraph-wires, but surely the
+serpent is more in our line."
+
+That was the winter when there were so many burglaries in the Thames
+Valley from Richmond upward.  It was said that the thieves used
+bicycles in every case, but what is not said?  They were sometimes on
+foot to my knowledge, and we took a great interest in the series, or
+rather sequence of successful crimes.  Raffles would often get his
+devoted old lady to read him the latest local accounts, while I was
+busy with my writing (much I  wrote) in my own room.  We even rode out
+by night ourselves, to see if we could not get on the tracks of the
+thieves, and never did we fail to find hot coffee on the hob for our
+return.  We had indeed fallen upon our feet.  Also, the misty nights
+might have been made for the thieves.  But their success was not so
+consistent, and never so enormous as people said, especially the
+sufferers, who lost more valuables than they had ever been known to
+possess. Failure was often the caitiff's portion,  and disaster once;
+owing, ironically enough, to that very mist which should have served
+them.  But as I am going to tell the story with some particularity, and
+perhaps some gusto, you will see why who read.
+
+The right house stood on high ground near the river, with quite a drive
+(in at one gate and out at the other) sweeping past the steps.  Between
+the  two gates was a half-moon of shrubs, to the left of the steps a
+conservatory, and to their right the walk leading to the tradesmen's
+entrance and the back premises; here also was the pantry window, of
+which more anon.  The right house was the  residence of an opulent
+stockbroker who wore a heavy watch-chain and seemed fair game.  There
+would have been two objections to it had I been  the stockbroker.  The
+house was one of a row, though a goodly row, and an army-crammer had
+established himself next door.  There is a type of such institutions in
+the suburbs; the youths go about in knickerbockers, smoking pipes,
+except on Saturday nights, when they lead each other home from the last
+train.  It was none of our business to spy upon these boys, but their
+manners and customs fell within the field of observation.  And we did
+not choose the night upon which the whole row was likely to be kept
+awake.
+
+The night that we did choose was as misty as even the Thames Valley is
+capable of making them.  Raffles smeared vaseline upon the plated parts
+of his Beeston Humber before starting, and our dear landlady cosseted
+us both, and prayed we might see nothing of the nasty burglars, not
+denying as the reward would be very handy to them that got it, to say
+nothing of the honor and glory.  We had promised her a liberal
+perquisite  in the event of our success, but she must not give other
+cyclists our idea by mentioning it to a soul.  It was about midnight
+when we cycled through  Kingston to Surbiton, having trundled our
+machines across Ham Fields, mournful in the mist as those by Acheron,
+and so over Teddington  Bridge.
+
+I often wonder why the pantry window is the  vulnerable point of nine
+houses out of ten.  This  house of ours was almost the tenth, for the
+window  in question had bars of sorts, but not the right sort.  The
+only bars that Raffles allowed to beat him were the kind that are let
+into the stone outside; those fixed within are merely screwed to the
+woodwork, and you can unscrew as many as necessary if you take the
+trouble and have the time.  Barred windows are usually devoid of other
+fasteners worthy the name; this one was no exception to that foolish
+rule, and a push with the pen-knife did its business.  I am giving
+householders some valuable hints, and perhaps deserving a good mark
+from the critics.  These, in any case, are the points that I would see
+to, were I a rich stockbroker in a riverside suburb.  In giving good
+advice, however, I should not have omitted to say that we had left our
+machines in the semi-circular  shrubbery in front, or that Raffles had
+most ingeniously fitted our lamps with dark slides, which  enabled us
+to leave them burning.
+
+It proved sufficient to unscrew the bars at the bottom only, and then
+to wrench them to either side.  Neither of us had grown stout with
+advancing years, and in a few minutes we both had wormed through into
+the sink, and thence to the floor.  It was not an absolutely noiseless
+process, but once in the pantry we were mice, and no longer blind mice.
+There was a gas-bracket, but we did not meddle with that.  Raffles went
+armed these nights with a better light than gas; if it were not
+immoral, I might recommend a dark-lantern which  was more or less his
+patent.  It was that handy invention, the electric torch, fitted by
+Raffles with a  dark hood to fulfil the functions of a slide. I had
+held it through the bars while he undid the screws,  and now he held it
+to the keyhole, in which a key was turned upon the other side.
+
+There was a pause for consideration, and in the pause we put on our
+masks.  It was never known that these Thames Valley robberies were all
+committed by miscreants decked in the livery of crime, but that was
+because until this night we had never even shown our masks.  It was a
+point upon which  Raffles had insisted on all feasible occasions since
+his furtive return to the world. To-night it twice nearly lost us
+everything--but you shall hear.
+
+There is a forceps for turning keys from the wrong side of the door,
+but the implement is not so easy of manipulation as it might be.
+Raffles for one preferred a sharp knife and the corner of  the panel.
+You go through the panel because that is thinnest, of course in the
+corner nearest the key,  and you use a knife when you can, because it
+makes least noise.  But it does take minutes, and even I can remember
+shifting the electric torch from one hand to the other before the
+aperture was large enough to receive the hand and wrist of Raffles.
+
+He had at such times a motto of which I might have made earlier use,
+but the fact is that I have only once before described a downright
+burglary in which I assisted, and that without knowing it at the time.
+The most solemn student of these annals cannot affirm that he has cut
+through many doors in our company, since (what was to me) the maiden
+effort to which I allude.  I, however, have cracked only too many a
+crib in conjunction with A. J. Raffles, and at the crucial moment he
+would whisper "Victory or Wormwood Scrubbs, Bunny!"  or instead of
+Wormwood Scrubbs it might be  Portland Bill.  This time it was neither
+one nor the other, for with that very word "victory" upon his lips,
+they whitened and parted with the first taste of defeat.
+
+"My hand's held!" gasped Raffles, and the white of his eyes showed all
+round the iris, a rarer thing than you may think.
+
+At the same moment I heard the shuffling feet and the low, excited
+young voices on the other side of the door, and a faint light shone
+round Raffles's wrist.
+
+"Well done, Beefy!"
+
+"Hang on to him!"
+
+"Good old Beefy!"
+
+"Beefy's got him!"
+
+"So have I--so have I!"
+
+And Raffles caught my arm with his one free hand.  "They've got me
+tight," he whispered.  "I'm done."
+
+"Blaze through the door," I urged, and might have done it had I been
+armed.  But I never was.  It was Raffles who monopolized that risk.
+
+"I can't--it's the boys--the wrong house!" he  whispered.  "Curse the
+fog--it's done me.  But you get out, Bunn, while you can; never mind
+me; it's my turn, old chap."
+
+His one hand tightened in affectionate farewell.  I put the electric
+torch in it before I went, trembling in every inch, but without a word.
+
+Get out!  His turn!  Yes, I would get out, but only to come in again,
+for it was my turn--mine--not his.  Would Raffles leave me held by a
+hand through a hole in a door?  What he would have done in my place was
+the thing for me to do now.  I began by diving head-first through the
+pantry window and coming to earth upon all fours.  But even as I stood
+up, and brushed the gravel from the palms of my hands and the knees of
+my knickerbockers, I had no notion what to do next.  And  yet I was
+halfway to the front door before I remembered the vile crape mask upon
+my face, and  tore it off as the door flew open and my feet were  on
+the steps.
+
+"He's into the next garden," I cried to a bevy of pyjamas with bare
+feet and young faces at either end of them.
+
+"Who?  Who?" said they, giving way before me.
+
+"Some fellow who came through one of your windows head-first."
+
+"The other Johnny, the other Johnny," the cherubs chorused.
+
+"Biking past--saw the light--why, what have you there?"
+
+Of course it was Raffles's hand that they had, but now I was in the
+hall among them.  A red-faced barrel of a boy did all the holding, one
+hand round the wrist, the other palm to palm, and his knees braced up
+against the panel.  Another was rendering ostentatious but ineffectual
+aid, and three or four others danced about in their pyjamas.  After
+all, they were not more than four to one.  I had raised my voice, so
+that Raffles might hear me and take heart, and now I raised it again.
+Yet to this day I cannot account for my inspiration, that proved
+nothing less.
+
+"Don't talk so loud," they were crying below their breath; "don't wake
+'em upstairs, this is our show."
+
+"Then I see you've got one of them," said I, as desired.  "Well, if you
+want the other you can have him, too.  I believe he's hurt himself."
+
+"After him, after him!" they exclaimed as one.
+
+"But I think he got over the wall--"
+
+"Come on, you chaps, come on!"
+
+And there was a soft stampede to the hall door.
+
+"Don't all desert me, I say!" gasped the red-faced hero who held
+Raffles prisoner.
+
+"We must have them both, Beefy!"
+
+"That's all very well--"
+
+"Look here," I interposed, "I'll stay by you.  I've a friend outside,
+I'll get him too."
+
+"Thanks awfully," said the valiant Beefy.
+
+The hall was empty now.  My heart beat high.
+
+"How did you hear them?" I inquired, my eye running over him.
+
+"We were down having drinks--game o' Nap--in there."
+
+Beefy jerked his great head toward an open door, and the tail of my eye
+caught the glint of  glasses in the firelight, but the rest of it was
+otherwise engaged.
+
+"Let me relieve you," I said, trembling.
+
+"No, I'm all right."
+
+"Then I must insist."
+
+And before he could answer I had him round the neck with such a will
+that not a gurgle passed my fingers, for they were almost buried in his
+hot, smooth flesh.  Oh, I am not proud of it; the act was as vile as
+act could be; but I was not going to see Raffles taken, my one desire
+was to be the saving of him, and I tremble even now to think to what
+lengths I might have gone for its fulfilment.  As it was, I squeezed
+and tugged until one strong hand gave way after the other and came
+feeling  round for me, but feebly because they had held on so long.
+And what do you suppose was happening at the same moment?  The pinched
+white hand of Raffles, reddening with returning blood, and with a clot
+of blood upon the wrist, was craning upward and turning the key in the
+lock without a moment's loss.
+
+"Steady on, Bunny!"
+
+And I saw that Beefy's ears were blue; but Raffles was feeling in his
+pockets as he spoke.  "Now let him breathe," said he, clapping his
+handkerchief over the poor youth's mouth.  An empty vial was in his
+other hand, and the first few stertorous breaths that the poor boy took
+were the end of him for the time being. Oh, but it was villainous, my
+part especially, for he must have been far gone to go the rest of the
+way so readily.  I began by saying I was not proud of this deed, but
+its dastardly character has come home to me more than ever with the
+penance of writing it out.  I see in myself, at least my then self,
+things that I never saw quite so clearly before.  Yet let me be  quite
+sure that I would not do the same again.  I  had not the smallest
+desire to throttle this innocent lad (nor did I), but only to extricate
+Raffles from the most hopeless position he was ever in; and after all
+it was better than a blow from behind.  On the whole, I will not alter
+a word, nor whine about the thing any more.
+
+We lifted the plucky fellow into Raffles's place in the pantry, locked
+the door on him, and put the key through the panel.  Now was the moment
+for thinking of ourselves, and again that infernal mask which Raffles
+swore by came near the undoing of us both.  We had reached the steps
+when we were hailed by a voice, not from without but from within, and I
+had just time to tear the accursed thing from Raffles's face before he
+turned.
+
+A stout man with a blonde moustache was on the stairs, in his pyjamas
+like the boys.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said he.
+
+"There has been an attempt upon your house,"  said I, still spokesman
+for the night, and still on the wings of inspiration.
+
+"Your sons--"
+
+"My pupils."
+
+"Indeed.  Well, they heard it, drove off the thieves, and have given
+chase."
+
+"And where do you come in?" inquired the stout man, descending.
+
+"We were bicycling past, and I actually saw one fellow come head-first
+through your pantry window.  I think he got over the wall."
+
+Here a breathless boy returned.
+
+"Can't see anything of him," he gasped.
+
+"It's true, then," remarked the crammer.
+
+"Look at that door," said I.
+
+But unfortunately the breathless boy looked also, and now he was being
+joined by others equally short of wind.
+
+"Where's Beefy?" he screamed.  "What on earth's happened to Beefy?"
+
+"My good boys," exclaimed the crammer,  "will one of you be kind enough
+to tell me what you've been doing, and what these gentlemen have been
+doing for you?  Come in all, before you get your death.  I see lights
+in the class-room, and  more than lights.  Can these be signs of a
+carouse?"
+
+"A very innocent one, sir," said a well set-up youth with more
+moustache than I have yet.
+
+"Well, Olphert, boys will be boys.  Suppose you tell me what happened,
+before we come to recriminations."
+
+The bad old proverb was my first warning.  I caught two of the youths
+exchanging glances under raised eyebrows.  Yet their stout, easy-going
+mentor had given me such a reassuring glance of side-long humor, as
+between man of the world and man of the world, that it was difficult to
+suspect him of suspicion.  I was nevertheless itching to be gone.
+
+Young Olphert told his story with engaging candor.  It was true that
+they had come down for an hour's Nap and cigarettes; well, and there
+was no denying that there was whiskey in the glasses. The boys were now
+all back in their class-room, I  think entirely for the sake of warmth;
+but Raffles and I were in knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets, and very
+naturally remained without, while the  army-crammer (who wore bedroom
+slippers) stood on the threshold, with an eye each way.  The more I saw
+of the man the better I liked and the more I feared him.  His chief
+annoyance thus far was that they had not called him when they heard the
+noise, that they had dreamt of leaving him out of the fun.  But he
+seemed more hurt than angry about that.
+
+"Well, sir," concluded Olphert, "we left old Beefy Smith hanging on to
+his hand, and this gentleman with him, so perhaps he can tell us what
+happened next?"
+
+"I wish I could," I cried with all their eyes upon me, for I had had
+time to think.  "Some of you must have heard me say I'd fetch my friend
+in from the road?"
+
+"Yes, I did," piped an innocent from within.
+
+"Well, and when I came back with him things were exactly as you see
+them now.  Evidently the man's strength was too much for the boy's; but
+whether he ran upstairs or outside I know no more than you do."
+
+"It wasn't like that boy to run either way," said the crammer, cocking
+a clear blue eye on me.
+
+"But if he gave chase!"
+
+"It wasn't like him even to let go."
+
+"I don't believe Beefy ever would," put in Olphert.  "That's why we
+gave him the billet."
+
+"He may have followed him through the pantry window," I suggested
+wildly.
+
+"But the door's shut," put in a boy.
+
+"I'll have a look at it," said the crammer.
+
+And the key no longer in the lock, and the insensible youth within!
+The key would be missed,  the door kicked in; nay, with the man's eye
+still upon me, I thought I could smell the chloroform.
+
+I thought I could hear a moan, and prepared for either any moment.  And
+how he did stare!  I  have detested blue eyes ever since, and blonde
+moustaches, and the whole stout easy-going type that is not such a fool
+as it looks.  I had brazened it out with the boys, but the first grown
+man was too many for me, and the blood ran out of my heart as though
+there was no Raffles at my back.  Indeed, I had forgotten him.  I had
+so longed to put this thing through by myself!  Even in my extremity it
+was almost a disappointment to me when his dear, cool voice fell like a
+delicious  draught upon my ears.  But its effect upon the others is
+more interesting to recall.  Until now  the crammer had the centre of
+the stage, but at this point Raffles usurped a place which was always
+his at will.  People would wait for what he had to say, as these people
+waited now for the simplest and most natural thing in the world.
+
+"One moment!" he had begun.
+
+"Well?" said the crammer, relieving me of his eyes at last.
+
+"I don't want to lose any of the fun--"
+
+"Nor must you," said the crammer, with emphasis.
+
+"But we've left our bikes outside, and mine's a Beeston Humber,"
+continued Raffles.  "If you don't mind, we'll bring 'em in before these
+fellows get away on them."
+
+And out he went without a look to see the effect of his words, I after
+him with a determined imitation of his self-control.  But I would have
+given  something to turn round.  I believe that for one  moment the
+shrewd instructor was taken in, but as  I reached the steps I heard him
+asking his pupils whether any of them had seen any bicycles outside.
+
+That moment, however, made the difference.  We were in the shrubbery,
+Raffles with his electric torch drawn and blazing, when we heard the
+kicking at the pantry door, and in the drive with our bicycles before
+man and boys poured pell-mell  down the steps.
+
+We rushed our machines to the nearer gate, for both were shut, and we
+got through and swung it home behind us in the nick of time.  Even I
+could mount before they could reopen the gate, which Raffles held
+against them for half an instant with unnecessary gallantry.  But he
+would see me in front of him, and so it fell to me to lead the way.
+
+Now, I have said that it was a very misty night (hence the whole
+thing), and also that these houses were on a hill.  But they were not
+nearly on the top of the hill, and I did what I firmly believe that
+almost everybody would have done in my place. Raffles, indeed, said he
+would have done it himself, but that was his generosity, and he was the
+one man who would not.  What I did was to turn in the opposite
+direction to the other gate, where we might so easily have been cut
+off, and to pedal for my life--up-hill!
+
+"My God!" I shouted when I found it out.
+
+"Can you turn in your own length?" asked Raffles, following loyally.
+
+"Not certain."
+
+"Then stick to it.  You couldn't help it.  But it's the devil of a
+hill!"
+
+"And here they come!"
+
+"Let them," said Raffles, and brandished his electric torch, our only
+light as yet.
+
+A hill seems endless in the dark, for you cannot see the end, and with
+the patter of bare feet gaining on us, I thought this one could have no
+end at all.  Of course the boys could charge up it quicker than we
+could pedal, but I even heard the voice of their stout instructor
+growing louder through the mist.
+
+"Oh, to think I've let you in for this!"  I groaned, my head over the
+handle-bars, every ounce of my weight first on one foot and then on the
+other.  I glanced at Raffles, and in the white light of his torch he
+was doing it all with his ankles, exactly as though he had been riding
+in a Gymkhana.
+
+"It's the most sporting chase I was ever in,"  said he.
+
+"All my fault!"
+
+"My dear Bunny, I wouldn't have missed it for the world!"
+
+Nor would he forge ahead of me, though he could have done so in a
+moment, he who from his  boyhood had done everything of the kind so
+much  better than anybody else.  No, he must ride a wheel's length
+behind me, and now we could not only hear the boys running, but
+breathing also.  And then of a sudden I saw Raffles on my right
+striking with his torch; a face flew out of the darkness to meet the
+thick glass bulb with the glowing wire enclosed; it was the face of the
+boy Olphert, with his enviable moustache, but it vanished with the
+crash of glass, and the naked wire thickened to the eye like a
+tuning-fork struck red-hot.
+
+I saw no more of that.  One of them had crept up on my side also; as I
+looked, hearing him pant, he was grabbing at my left handle, and I
+nearly sent Raffles into the hedge by the sharp turn I took to the
+right.  His wheel's length saved him.  But my boy could run, was
+overhauling me again, seemed certain of me this time, when all at once
+the Sunbeam ran easily; every ounce of my weight with either foot once
+more, and I was over the crest of the hill, the gray road reeling out
+from under me as I felt for my brake. I looked back at Raffles.  He had
+put up his feet.  I screwed my head round still further, and there were
+the boys in their pyjamas, their hands upon their knees, like  so many
+wicket-keepers, and a big man shaking his fist.  There was a lamp-post
+on the hill-top, and that was the last I saw.
+
+We sailed down to the river, then on through Thames Ditton as far as
+Esher Station, when we turned sharp to the right, and from the dark
+stretch by Imber Court came to light in Molesey,  and were soon
+pedalling like gentlemen of leisure through Bushey Park, our lights
+turned up, the broken torch put out and away.  The big gates had long
+been shut, but you can manoeuvre a bicycle through the others.  We had
+no further adventures on the way home, and our coffee was still warm
+upon the hob.
+
+"But I think it's an occasion for Sullivans," said Raffles, who now
+kept them for such.  "By all my  gods, Bunny, it's been the most
+sporting night we ever had in our lives!  And do you know which was the
+most sporting part of it?"
+
+"That up-hill ride?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of it."
+
+"Turning your torch into a truncheon?"
+
+"My dear Bunny!  A gallant lad--I hated hitting him."
+
+"I know," I said.  "The way you got us out of the house!"
+
+"No, Bunny," said Raffles, blowing rings.  "It came before that, you
+sinner, and you know it!"
+
+"You don't mean anything I did?" said I, self-consciously, for I began
+to see that this was what he did mean.  And now at latest it will also
+be  seen why this story has been told with undue and inexcusable gusto;
+there is none other like it for me to tell; it is my one ewe-lamb in
+all these annals.  But Raffles had a ruder name for it.
+
+"It was the Apotheosis of the Bunny," said he, but in a tone I never
+shall forget.
+
+"I hardly knew what I was doing or saying," I said.  "The whole thing
+was a fluke."
+
+"Then," said Raffles, "it was the kind of fluke I always trusted you to
+make when runs were wanted."
+
+And he held out his dear old hand.
+
+
+THE KNEES OF THE GODS
+
+I
+
+"The worst of this war," said Raffles, "is the way it puts a fellow off
+his work."
+
+It was, of course, the winter before last, and we had done nothing
+dreadful since the early autumn.  Undoubtedly the war was the cause.
+Not that we were among the earlier victims of the fever.  I took
+disgracefully little interest in the Negotiations, while the Ultimatum
+appealed to Raffles as a sporting flutter.  Then we gave the  whole
+thing till Christmas. We still missed the cricket in the papers.  But
+one russet afternoon  we were in Richmond, and a terrible type was
+shouting himself hoarse with "'Eavy British  lorsses--orful slorter o'
+the Bo-wers!  Orful slorter!  Orful slorter!  'Eavy British lorsses!"
+I thought the terrible type had invented it, but Raffles gave him more
+than he asked, and then I held the bicycle while he tried to pronounce
+Eland's Laagte.  We were never again without our sheaf of evening
+papers, and Raffles ordered three morning ones, and I gave up mine in
+spite  of its literary page. We became strategists.  We  knew exactly
+what Buller was to do on landing,  and, still better, what the other
+Generals should  have done.  Our map was the best that could be
+bought, with flags that deserved a better fate than standing still.
+Raffles woke me to hear "The Absent-Minded Beggar" on the morning it
+appeared; he was one of the first substantial subscribers to the fund.
+By this time our dear landlady was more excited than we.  To our
+enthusiasm for Thomas she added a personal bitterness against the Wild
+Boars, as she persisted in calling them, each time as though it were
+the first.  I could linger over our landlady's attitude in the whole
+matter.  That was her only joke about it, and the  true humorist never
+smiled at it herself.  But you had only to say a syllable for a
+venerable gentleman, declared by her to be at the bottom of it all,  to
+hear what she could do to him if she caught him.  She could put him in
+a cage and go on tour with him, and make him howl and dance for his
+food like a debased bear before a fresh audience every day.  Yet a more
+kind-hearted woman I have never known.  The war did not uplift our
+landlady as it did her lodgers.
+
+But presently it ceased to have that precise effect upon us.  Bad was
+being made worse and worse;  and then came more than Englishmen could
+endure in that black week across which the names of  three African
+villages are written forever in letters of blood.  "All three pegs,"
+groaned Raffles on the last morning of the week; "neck-and-crop,
+neck-and-crop!"  It was his first word of cricket since the beginning
+of the war.
+
+We were both depressed.  Old school-fellows had fallen, and I know
+Raffles envied them; he spoke so wistfully of such an end. To cheer him
+up I proposed to break into one of the many more or less royal
+residences in our neighborhood; a tough crib was what he needed; but I
+will not trouble you with what he said to me. There was less crime in
+England that winter than for years past; there was none at all in
+Raffles.  And yet there were those who could denounce the war!
+
+So we went on for a few of those dark days,  Raffles very glum and
+grim, till one fine morning the Yeomanry idea put new heart into us
+all.  It  struck me at once as the glorious scheme it was to  prove,
+but it did not hit me where it hit others.  I was not a fox-hunter, and
+the gentlemen of England would scarcely have owned me as one of them.
+The case of Raffles was in that respect still more  hopeless (he who
+had even played for them at Lord's), and he seemed to feel it.  He
+would not speak to me all the morning; in the afternoon he went for a
+walk alone.  It was another man who came home, flourishing a small
+bottle packed in white paper.
+
+"Bunny," said he, "I never did lift my elbow; it's the one vice I never
+had.  It has taken me all these years to find my tipple, Bunny; but
+here it is, my panacea, my elixir, my magic philtre!"
+
+I thought he had been at it on the road, and asked him the name of the
+stuff.
+
+"Look and see, Bunny."
+
+And if it wasn't a bottle of ladies' hair-dye, warranted to change any
+shade into the once fashionable yellow within a given number of
+applications!
+
+"What on earth," said I, "are you going to do with this?"
+
+"Dye for my country," he cried, swelling.  "Dulce et decorum est,
+Bunny, my boy!"
+
+"Do you mean that you are going to the front?"
+
+"If I can without coming to it."
+
+I looked at him as he stood in the firelight, straight as a dart, spare
+but wiry, alert, laughing, flushed from his wintry walk; and as I
+looked, all the years that I had known him, and more besides, slipped
+from him in my eyes.  I saw him captain of the eleven at school.  I saw
+him running with the muddy ball on days like this, running round the
+other fifteen as a sheep-dog round a flock of sheep.  He had his cap on
+still, and but for the  gray hairs underneath--but here I lost him in a
+sudden mist.  It was not sorrow at his going, for I did not mean to let
+him go alone. It was enthusiasm, admiration, affection, and also, I
+believe, a sudden regret that he had not always appealed to that part
+of my nature to which he was appealing now.  It was a little thrill of
+penitence.  Enough  of it.
+
+"I think it great of you," I said, and at first that was all.
+
+How he laughed at me.  He had had his innings; there was no better way
+of getting out.  He had scored off an African millionaire, the Players,
+a Queensland Legislator, the Camorra, the late Lord Ernest Belville,
+and again and again off Scotland Yard.  What more could one man do in
+one lifetime?  And at the worst it was the death to die: no bed, no
+doctor, no temperature--and Raffles stopped himself.
+
+"No pinioning, no white cap," he added, "if you like that better."
+
+"I don't like any of it," I cried, cordially; "you've simply got to
+come back."
+
+"To what?" he asked, a strange look on him.
+
+And I wondered--for one instant--whether my little thrill had gone
+through him.  He was not a man of little thrills.
+
+Then for a minute I was in misery.  Of course I wanted to go too--he
+shook my hand without a word--but how could I?  They would never  have
+me, a branded jailbird, in the Imperial Yeomanry!  Raffles burst out
+laughing; he had been looking very hard at me for about three seconds.
+
+"You rabbit," he cried, "even to think of it!  We might as well offer
+ourselves to the Metropolitan Police Force.  No, Bunny, we go out to
+the Cape on our own, and that's where we enlist.  One of these
+regiments of irregular horse is the thing for us; you spent part of
+your pretty penny on horse-flesh, I believe, and you remember how  I
+rode in the bush!  We're the very men for them, Bunny, and they won't
+ask to see our birthmarks out there. I don't think even my hoary locks
+would put them off, but it would be too conspicuous in the ranks."
+
+Our landlady first wept on hearing our determination, and then longed
+to have the pulling of certain whiskers (with the tongs, and they
+should be red-hot); but from that day, and for as many as were left to
+us, the good soul made more of us than ever.  Not that she was at all
+surprised; dear brave gentlemen who could look for burglars on their
+bicycles at dead of night, it was only what  you might expect of them,
+bless their lion hearts.  I wanted to wink at Raffles, but he would not
+catch my eye.  He was a ginger-headed Raffles by the end of January,
+and it was extraordinary what a difference it made.  His most elaborate
+disguises had not been more effectual than this simple expedient, and,
+with khaki to complete the subdual of his individuality, he had every
+hope of escaping recognition in the field.  The man he dreaded was the
+officer he had known in old days; there were ever so many of him at the
+Front; and it was to minimize this risk that we went out second-class
+at the beginning of February.
+
+It was a weeping day, a day in a shroud, cold as clay, yet for that
+very reason an ideal day upon which to leave England for the sunny
+Front.  Yet my heart was heavy as I looked my last at her; it was heavy
+as the raw, thick air, until Raffles came and leant upon the rail at my
+side.
+
+"I know what you are thinking, and you've got to stop," said he. "It's
+on the knees of the gods,  Bunny, whether we do or we don't, and
+thinking won't make us see over their shoulders."
+
+
+II
+
+Now I made as bad a soldier (except at heart) as Raffles made a good
+one, and I could not say a harder thing of myself.  My ignorance of
+matters military was up to that time unfathomable, and is still
+profound.  I was always a fool with horses, though I did not think so
+at one time, and I had  never been any good with a gun.  The average
+Tommy may be my intellectual inferior, but he must know some part of
+his work better than I ever knew any of mine.  I never even learnt to
+be killed.  I do not mean that I ever ran away.  The South African
+Field Force might have been strengthened if I had.
+
+The foregoing remarks do not express a pose affected out of superiority
+to the usual spirit of the conquering hero, for no man was keener on
+the war than I, before I went to it.  But one can only write with gusto
+of events (like that little affair at Surbiton) in which one has
+acquitted oneself without discredit, and I cannot say that of my part
+in the war, of which I now loathe the thought for other reasons.  The
+battlefield was no place for me, and neither was the camp.  My
+ineptitude made me the butt of the looting, cursing, swash-buckling lot
+who formed the very irregular squadron which we joined; and it would
+have gone hard with me but for Raffles, who was soon the darling devil
+of them all, but never more loyally my friend.  Your fireside
+fire-eater does not think of these  things.  He imagines all the
+fighting to be with the enemy.  He will probably be horrified to hear
+that men can detest each other as cordially in khaki as in any other
+wear, and with a virulence seldom inspired by the bearded dead-shot in
+the opposite trench.  To the fireside fire-eater, therefore (for you
+have seen me one myself), I dedicate the story of Corporal Connal,
+Captain Bellingham, the General, Raffles, and myself.
+
+I must be vague, for obvious reasons.  The troop is fighting as I
+write; you will soon hear why I am not; but neither is Raffles, nor
+Corporal Connal.  They are fighting as well as ever, those other
+hard-living, harder-dying sons of all soils; but I am not going to say
+where it was that we fought with them.  I believe that no body of men
+of equal size has done half so much heroic work.  But they had got
+themselves a bad name off the field, so to speak; and I am not going to
+make it worse by saddling them before the world with Raffles and
+myself, and that ruffian Connal.
+
+The fellow was a mongrel type, a Glasgow Irishman by birth and
+upbringing, but he had been  in South Africa for years, and he
+certainly knew the country very well.  This circumstance, coupled with
+the fact that he was a very handy man with horses, as all colonists
+are, had procured him the first small step from the ranks which
+facilitates bullying if a man be a bully by nature, and is physically
+fitted to be a successful one.  Connal was a hulking ruffian, and in me
+had ideal game.  The  brute was offensive to me from the hour I joined.
+The details are of no importance, but I stood up to him at first in
+words, and finally for a few seconds on my feet.  Then I went down like
+an ox, and Raffles came out of his tent.  Their fight lasted twenty
+minutes, and Raffles was marked, but the net result was dreadfully
+conventional, for the  bully was a bully no more.
+
+But I began gradually to suspect that he was something worse. All this
+time we were fighting  every day, or so it seems when I look back.
+Never a great engagement, and yet never a day when we were wholly out
+of touch with the enemy.  I had thus several opportunities of watching
+the other enemy under fire, and had almost convinced myself of the
+systematic harmlessness of his own shooting, when a more glaring
+incident occurred.
+
+One night three troops of our squadron were ordered to a certain point
+whither they had patrolled the previous week; but our own particular
+troop was to stay behind, and in charge of no other than the villanous
+corporal, both our officer and sergeant having gone into hospital with
+enteric.  Our detention, however, was very temporary, and Connal would
+seem to have received the usual vague orders to proceed in the early
+morning to the place where the other three companies had camped.  It
+appeared that we were to form an escort to two squadron-wagons
+containing kits, provisions, and ammunition.
+
+Before daylight Connal had reported his departure to the commanding
+officer, and we passed the outposts at gray dawn. Now, though I was
+perhaps the least observant person in the troop, I was not the least
+wideawake where Corporal Connal was concerned, and it struck me at once
+that we were heading in the wrong direction.  My reasons are not
+material, but as a matter of fact our last week's patrol had pushed its
+khaki tentacles both east and west; and eastward they had met with
+resistance so determined as to compel them to retire; yet it was
+eastward that we were travelling now.  I at once spurred alongside
+Raffles, as he rode, bronzed and bearded, with warworn wide-awake over
+eyes grown keen as a hawk's, and a cutty-pipe sticking straight out
+from his front teeth.  I can see him now, so gaunt and grim and
+debonair, yet already with much of the nonsense gone out of him, though
+I thought he only smiled on my misgivings.
+
+"Did he get the instructions, Bunny, or did we?  Very well, then; give
+the devil a chance."
+
+There was nothing further to be said, but I felt more crushed than
+convinced; so we jogged along into broad daylight, until Raffles
+himself gave a whistle of surprise.
+
+"A white flag, Bunny, by all my gods!"
+
+I could not see it; he had the longest sight in all our squadron; but
+in a little the fluttering emblem, which had gained such a sinister
+significance in most of our eyes, was patent even to mine.  A little
+longer, and the shaggy Boer was in our midst upon his shaggy pony, with
+a half-scared, half-incredulous look in his deep-set eyes.  He was on
+his way to our lines with some missive, and had little enough to say to
+us, though frivolous and flippant questions were showered upon him from
+most saddles.
+
+"Any Boers over there?" asked one, pointing in the direction in which
+we were still heading.
+
+"Shut up!" interjected Raffles in crisp rebuke.
+
+The Boer looked stolid but sinister.
+
+"Any of our chaps?" added another.
+
+The Boer rode on with an open grin.
+
+And the incredible conclusion of the matter was that we were actually
+within their lines in another hour; saw them as large as life within a
+mile and a half on either side of us; and must every man of us have
+been taken prisoner had not every man but Connal refused to go one inch
+further, and had not the Boers themselves obviously suspected some
+subtle ruse as the only conceivable explanation of so madcap a
+manoeuvre.  They allowed us to retire  without firing a shot; and
+retire you may be sure we did, the Kaffirs flogging their teams in a
+fury of fear, and our precious corporal sullen but defiant.
+
+I have said this was the conclusion of the matter, and I blush to
+repeat that it practically was.  Connal was indeed wheeled up before
+the colonel, but his instructions were not written instructions, and he
+lied his way out with equal hardihood and tact.
+
+"You said 'over there,' sir," he stoutly reiterated; and the vagueness
+with which such orders were undoubtedly given was the saving of him for
+the time being.
+
+I need not tell you how indignant I felt, for one.
+
+"The fellow is a spy!" I said to Raffles, with no nursery oath, as we
+strolled within the lines that night.
+
+He merely smiled in my face.
+
+"And have you only just found it out, Bunny?  I have known it almost
+ever since we joined; but this morning I did think we had him on toast."
+
+"It's disgraceful that we had not," cried I.  "He ought to have been
+shot like a dog."
+
+"Not so loud, Bunny, though I quite agree; but I don't regret what has
+happened as much as you do.  Not that I am less bloodthirsty than you
+are in this case, but a good deal more so! Bunny, I'm  mad-keen on
+bowling him out with my own unaided hand--though I may ask you to take
+the wicket.  Meanwhile, don't wear all your animosity upon your sleeve;
+the fellow has friends who still believe in him; and there is no need
+for you to be more openly his enemy than you were before."
+
+Well, I can only vow that I did my best to follow this sound advice;
+but who but a Raffles can control his every look?  It was never my
+forte, as you  know, yet to this day I cannot conceive what I did to
+excite the treacherous corporal's suspicions.  He was clever enough,
+however, not to betray them, and lucky enough to turn the tables on us,
+as you shall hear.
+
+
+III
+
+Bloemfontein had fallen since our arrival, but there was plenty of
+fight in the Free Staters still, and I will not deny that it was these
+gentry who were showing us the sport for which our corps came in.
+Constant skirmishing was our portion, with now and then an action that
+you would know at least by name, did I feel free to mention them.  But
+I do not, and indeed it is better so.  I have not to describe the war
+even as I saw it, I am thankful to say, but only the martial story of
+us two and those others of whom you wot.  Corporal Connal was the
+dangerous blackguard you have seen.  Captain Bellingham is best known
+for his position in the batting averages a year or two ago, and for his
+subsequent failure to obtain a place in any of the five Test Matches.
+But I only think of him as the officer who recognized Raffles.
+
+We had taken a village, making quite a little name for it and for
+ourselves, and in the village our division was reinforced by a fresh
+brigade of the Imperial troops.  It was a day of rest, our first for
+weeks, but Raffles and I spent no small part of it in seeking high and
+low for a worthy means of quenching the kind of thirst which used to
+beset Yeomen and others who had left good cellars for the veldt.  The
+old knack came back to us both, though I believe that I alone was
+conscious of it at the time; and we were leaving the house, splendidly
+supplied, when we almost ran into the arms of an infantry officer, with
+a scowl upon his red-hot face, and an eye-glass flaming at us in the
+sun.
+
+"Peter Bellingham!" gasped Raffles under his  breath, and then we
+saluted and tried to pass on, with the bottles ringing like
+church-bells under our  khaki.  But Captain Bellingham was a hard man.
+
+"What have you men been doin'?" drawled he.
+
+"Nothing, sir," we protested, like innocence with an injury.
+
+"Lootin' 's forbidden," said he.  "You had better let me see those
+bottles."
+
+"We are done," whispered Raffles, and straightway we made a sideboard
+of the stoop across which he had crept at so inopportune a moment.  I
+had not the heart to raise my eyes again, yet it was many moments
+before the officer broke silence.
+
+"Uam Var!" he murmured reverentially at last.  "And Long John of Ben
+Nevis!  The first drop that's been discovered in the whole
+psalm-singing show!  What lot do you two belong to?"
+
+I answered.
+
+"I must have your names."
+
+In my agitation I gave my real one.  Raffles had turned away, as though
+in heart-broken contemplation of our lost loot.  I saw the officer
+studying his half-profile with an alarming face.
+
+"What's YOUR name?" he rapped out at last.
+
+But his strange, low voice said plainly that he knew, and Raffles faced
+him with the monosyllable of confession and assent.  I did not count
+the seconds until the next word, but it was Captain Bellingham who
+uttered it at last.
+
+"I thought you were dead."
+
+"Now you see I am not."
+
+"But you are at your old games!"
+
+"I am not," cried Raffles, and his tone was new to me.  I have seldom
+heard one more indignant.  "Yes," he continued, "this is loot, and the
+wrong  'un will out.  That's what you're thinking, Peter--I beg your
+pardon--sir.  But he isn't let out in the field!  We're playing the
+game as much as you are, old--sir."
+
+The plural number caused the captain to toss me a contemptuous look.
+"Is this the fellah who was taken when you swam for it?" he inquired,
+relapsing into his drawl.  Raffles said I was, and with that took a
+passionate oath upon our absolute rectitude as volunteers.  There could
+be no doubting him; but the officer's eyes went back at the bottles on
+the stoop.
+
+"But look at those," said he; and as he looked himself the light eye
+melted in his fiery face.  "And I've got Sparklets in my tent," he
+sighed.  "You make it in a minute!"
+
+Not a word from Raffles, and none, you may be sure, from me. Then
+suddenly Bellingham told  me where his tent was, and, adding that our
+case  was one for serious consideration, strode in its direction
+without another word until some sunlit paces separated us.
+
+"You can bring that stuff with you," he then flung over a
+shoulder-strap, "and I advise you to  put it where you had it before."
+
+A trooper saluted him some yards further on, and looked evilly at us as
+we followed with our loot.  It was Corporal Connal of ours, and the
+thought of him takes my mind off the certainly gallant captain who only
+that day had joined our division with the reinforcements.  I could not
+stand the man myself.  He added soda-water to our whiskey in his tent,
+and would only keep a couple of bottles when we came away.  Softened by
+the spirit, to which disuse made us all a little sensitive, our officer
+was soon convinced of the honest part that we were playing for once,
+and for fifty minutes of the hour we spent with him he and Raffles
+talked cricket without a break.  On parting they even shook hands; that
+was Long John in the captain's head; but the snob never addressed a
+syllable to me.
+
+And now to the gallows-bird who was still corporal of our troop: it was
+not long before Raffles was to have his wish and the traitor's wicket.
+We had resumed our advance, or rather our humble part in the great
+surrounding movement then taking place, and were under pretty heavy
+fire once more, when Connal was shot in the hand.  It was a curious
+casualty in more than one respect, and nobody seems to have seen it
+happen.  Though a flesh wound, it was a bloody one, and that may be why
+the surgeon did not at once detect those features which afterwards
+convinced him that the injury had been self-inflicted.  It was the
+right hand, and until it healed the man could be of no further use in
+the firing line; nor was the case serious enough for admission to a
+crowded field-hospital; and Connal himself offered his services as
+custodian of a number of our horses which we were keeping out of harm's
+way in a donga.  They had come there in the following manner: That
+morning we had been heliographed to reinforce the C.M.R., only to find
+that the enemy had the range to a nicety when we reached the spot.
+There were trenches for us men, but no place of safety for our horses
+nearer than this long and narrow donga which ran from within our lines
+towards those of the Boers.  So some of us galloped them thither,
+six-in-hand, amid the whine of shrapnel and the whistle of shot. I
+remember the man next me being killed by a shell with all his team, and
+the tangle of flying harness, torn horseflesh, and crimson khaki, that
+we left behind us on the veldt; also that a small red  flag,
+ludicrously like those used to indicate a putting-green, marked the
+single sloping entrance to the otherwise precipitous donga, which I for
+one was duly thankful to reach alive.
+
+The same evening Connal, with a few other light casualties to assist
+him, took over the charge for which he had volunteered and for which he
+was so admirably fitted by his knowledge of horses and his general
+experience of the country; nevertheless, he managed to lose three or
+four fine chargers in the course of the first night; and, early in the
+second, Raffles shook me out of a heavy slumber in the trenches where
+we had been firing all day.
+
+"I have found the spot, Bunny," he whispered; "we ought to out him
+before the night is over."
+
+"Connal?"
+
+Raffles nodded.
+
+"You know what happened to some of his horses last night?  Well, he let
+them go himself."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"I'm as certain of it," said Raffles, "as though I'd seen him do it;
+and if he does it again I shall see him.  I can even tell you how it
+happened.  Connal insisted on having one end of the donga to  himself,
+and of course his end is the one nearest the Boers. Well, then, he
+tells the other fellows to go to sleep at their end--I have it direct
+from one of them--and you bet they don't need a second invitation.  The
+rest I hope to see to-night."
+
+"It seems almost incredible," said I.
+
+"Not more so than the Light Horseman's dodge of poisoning the troughs;
+that happened at Ladysmith before Christmas; and two kind friends did
+for that blackguard what you and I are going to do for this one, and a
+firing-party did the rest.  Brutes!  A mounted man's worth a file on
+foot in  this country, and well they know it.  But this  beauty goes
+one better than the poison; that was  wilful waste; but I'll eat my
+wideawake if our loss last night wasn't the enemy's double gain!  What
+we've got to do, Bunny, is to catch him in the act.  It may mean
+watching him all night, but was ever game so well worth the candle?"
+
+One may say in passing that, at this particular point of contact, the
+enemy were in superior force, and for once in a mood as aggressive as
+our own.  They were led with a dash, and handled with a skill, which
+did not always characterize their commanders at this stage of the war.
+Their position  was very similar to ours, and indeed we were to spend
+the whole of next day in trying with an  equal will to turn each other
+out.  The result will scarcely be forgotten by those who recognize the
+occasion from these remarks.  Meanwhile it was  the eve of battle (most
+evenings were), and there  was that villain with the horses in the
+donga, and here were we two upon his track.
+
+Raffles's plan was to reconnoitre the place, and then take up a
+position from which we could watch our man and pounce upon him if he
+gave us cause.  The spot that we eventually chose and stealthily
+occupied was behind some bushes through which we could see down into
+the donga; there were the precious horses; and there sure enough was
+our wounded corporal, sitting smoking in his cloak, some glimmering
+thing in his lap.
+
+"That's his revolver, and it's a Mauser," whispered Raffles.  "He
+shan't have a chance of using it on us; either we must be on him before
+he knows we are anywhere near, or simply report.  It's easily proved
+once we are sure; but I should like to have the taking of him too."
+
+There was a setting moon.  Shadows were sharp and black.  The man
+smoked steadily, and the hungry horses did what I never saw horses do
+before; they stood and nibbled at each other's tails. I was used to
+sleeping in the open, under the  jewelled dome that seems so much
+vaster and  grander in these wide spaces of the earth.  I lay listening
+to the horses, and to the myriad small strange voices of the veldt, to
+which I cannot even now put a name, while Raffles watched.  "One  head
+is better than two," he said, "when you don't want it to be seen."  We
+were to take watch and watch about, however, and the other might sleep
+if he could; it was not my fault that I did nothing else; it was
+Raffles who could trust nobody but himself.  Nor was there any time for
+recriminations when he did rouse me in the end.
+
+But a moment ago, as it seemed to me, I had been gazing upward at the
+stars and listening to the dear, minute sounds of peace; and in another
+the great gray slate was clean, and every bone of me set in plaster of
+Paris, and sniping beginning between pickets with the day.  It was an
+occasional crack, not a constant crackle, but the whistle of a  bullet
+as it passed us by, or a tiny transitory flame for the one bit of
+detail on a blue hill-side, was an unpleasant warning that we two on
+ours were a target in ourselves.  But Raffles paid no attention to
+their fire; he was pointing downward through the bushes to where
+Corporal Connal stood with his back to us, shooing a last charger out
+of the mouth of the donga towards the Boer trenches.
+
+"That's his third," whispered Raffles, "but it's the first I've seen
+distinctly, for he waited for the blind spot before the dawn.  It's
+enough to land him, I fancy, but we mustn't lose time.  Are you ready
+for a creep?"
+
+I stretched myself, and said I was; but I devoutly wished it was not
+quite so early in the  morning.
+
+"Like cats, then, till he hears, and then into him for all we're worth.
+He's stowed his iron safe away, but he mustn't have time even to feel
+for it.  You take his left arm, Bunny, and hang on to that like a
+ferret, and I'll do the rest.  Ready?  Then  now!"
+
+And in less time than it would take to tell, we were over the lip of
+the donga and had fallen upon the fellow before he could turn his head;
+nevertheless, for a few instants he fought like a wild beast, striking,
+kicking, and swinging me off my feet as I obeyed my instructions to the
+letter, and stuck to his left like a leech.  But he soon gave that up,
+panting and blaspheming, demanded explanations in his hybrid tongue
+that had half a brogue and  half a burr.  What were we doing?  What had
+he done? Raffles at his back, with his right wrist twisted round and
+pinned into the small of it, soon told him that, and I think the words
+must have been the first intimation that he had as to who his
+assailants were.
+
+"So it's you two!" he cried, and a light broke over him.  He was no
+longer trying to shake us off, and now he dropped his curses also, and
+stood chuckling to himself instead.  "Well," he went on, "you're bloody
+liars both, but I know something else that you are, so you'd better let
+go."
+
+A coldness ran through me, and I never saw  Raffles so taken aback.
+His grip must have relaxed for a fraction of time, for our captive
+broke out in a fresh and desperate struggle, but now we pinned him
+tighter than ever, and soon I saw him turning green and yellow with the
+pain.
+
+"You're breaking my wrist!" he yelled at last.
+
+"Then stand still and tell us who we are."
+
+And he stood still and told us our real names.  But Raffles insisted on
+hearing how he had found us out, and smiled as though he had known what
+was coming when it came.  I was dumbfounded.
+
+The accursed hound had followed us that evening to Captain Bellingham's
+tent, and his undoubted cleverness in his own profession of spy had
+done  the rest.
+
+"And now you'd better let me go," said the master of the situation, as
+I for one could not help  regarding him.
+
+"I'll see you damned," said Raffles, savagely.
+
+"Then you're damned and done for yourself, my cocky criminal. Raffles
+the burglar!  Raffles  the society thief!  Not dead after all, but
+'live and  'listed.  Send him home and give him fourteen years, and
+won't he like 'em, that's all!"
+
+"I shall have the pleasure of hearing you shot first," retorted
+Raffles, through his teeth, "and  that alone will make them bearable.
+Come on, Bunny, let's drive the swine along and get it over."
+
+And drive him we did, he cursing, cajoling, struggling, gloating, and
+blubbering by turns.  But Raffles never wavered for an instant, though
+his face was tragic, and it went to my heart, where that look stays
+still.  I remember at the time, though I never let my hold relax, there
+was a moment when I added my entreaties to those of our prisoner.
+Raffles did not even reply to me.  But I was thinking of him, I swear.
+I was thinking of that gray set face that I never saw before or after.
+
+"Your story will be tested," said the commanding officer, when Connal
+had been marched to the guard-tent.  "Is there any truth in his?"
+
+"It is perfectly true, sir."
+
+"And the notorious Raffles has been alive all these years, and you are
+really he?"
+
+"I am, sir."
+
+"And what are you doing at the front?"
+
+Somehow I thought that Raffles was going to smile, but the grim set of
+his mouth never altered, neither was there any change in the ashy
+pallor which had come over him in the donga when Connal mouthed his
+name.  It was only his eyes that lighted up at the last question.
+
+"I am fighting, sir," said he, as simply as any subaltern in the army.
+
+The commanding officer inclined a grizzled head perceptibly, and no
+more.  He was not one of any school, our General; he had his own ways,
+and we loved both him and them; and I believe that he loved the rough
+but gallant corps that bore his name.  He once told us that he knew
+something about most of us, and there were things that Raffles had done
+of which he must have heard.  But he only moved his grizzled head.
+
+"Did you know he was going to give you away?"  he asked at length, with
+a jerk of it toward the guard-tent.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But you thought it worth while, did you?"
+
+"I thought it necessary, sir."
+
+The General paused, drumming on his table, making up his mind. Then his
+chin came up with the decision that we loved in him.
+
+"I shall sift all this," said he.  "An officer's name was mentioned,
+and I shall see him myself.  Meanwhile you had better go on--fighting."
+
+
+IV
+
+Corporal Connal paid the penalty of his crime before the sun was far
+above the hill held by the enemy.  There was abundance of
+circumstantial evidence against him, besides the direct testimony of
+Raffles and myself, and the wretch was shot at last with little
+ceremony and less shrift.  And that was the one good thing that
+happened on the day that broke upon us hiding behind the bushes
+overlooking the donga; by noon it was my own turn.
+
+I have avoided speaking of my wound before I need, and from the
+preceding pages you would not gather that I am more or less lame for
+life.  You will soon see now why I was in no hurry to recall the
+incident.  I used to think of a wound received in one's country's
+service as the proudest trophy a man could acquire. But the sight of
+mine depresses me every morning of my life; it was due for one thing to
+my own slow eye for cover, in taking which (to aggravate my case) our
+hardy little corps happened to excel.
+
+The bullet went clean through my thigh, drilling the bone, but happily
+missing the sciatic nerve; thus the mere pain was less than it might
+have been, but of course I went over in a light-brown heap.  We were
+advancing on our stomachs to take the hill, and thus extend our
+position, and it was at this point that the fire became too heavy for
+us, so  that for hours (in the event) we moved neither  forward nor
+back.  But it was not a minute before Raffles came to me through the
+whistling scud, and in another I was on my back behind a shallow rock,
+with him kneeling over me and unrolling my  bandage in the teeth of
+that murderous fire.  It was on the knees of the gods, he said, when I
+begged him to bend lower, but for the moment I thought his tone as
+changed as his face had been earlier in the morning.  To oblige me,
+however, he took more care; and, when he had done all that one comrade
+could for another, he did avail himself of the cover he had found for
+me.  So there  we lay together on the veldt, under blinding sun and
+withering fire, and I suppose it is the veldt that I should describe,
+as it swims and flickers before wounded eyes.  I shut mine to bring it
+back, but all that comes is the keen brown face of Raffles, still a
+shade paler than its wont; now bending to sight and fire; now peering
+to see results, brows raised, eyes widened; anon turning to me with the
+word to set my tight lips grinning.  He  was talking all the time, but
+for my sake, and I knew it.  Can you wonder that I could not see an
+inch beyond him?  He was the battle to me then; he is the whole war to
+me as I look back  now.
+
+"Feel equal to a cigarette?  It will buck you up, Bunny.  No, that one
+in the silver paper, I've hoarded it for this.  Here's a light; and so
+Bunny takes the Sullivan!  All honor to the sporting  rabbit!"
+
+"At least I went over like one," said I, sending the only clouds into
+the blue, and chiefly wishing  for their longer endurance. I was as hot
+as a cinder from my head to one foot; the other leg was ceasing to
+belong to me.
+
+"Wait a bit," says Raffles, puckering; "there's a gray felt hat at deep
+long-on, and I want to add  it to the bag for vengeance....
+Wait--yes--no, no luck!  I must pitch 'em up a bit more. Hallo!
+Magazine empty.  How goes the Sullivan, Bunny?  Rum to be smoking one
+on the veldt with a hole in your leg!"
+
+"It's doing me good," I said, and I believe it was.  But Raffles lay
+looking at me as he lightened his bandolier.
+
+"Do you remember," he said softly, "the day we first began to think
+about the war?  I can see the pink, misty river light, and feel the
+first bite there was in the air when one stood about; don't you wish we
+had either here!  'Orful slorter, orful slorter;' that fellow's face, I
+see it too; and here we have the thing he cried.  Can you believe it's
+only six months ago?"
+
+"Yes," I sighed, enjoying the thought of that afternoon less than he
+did; "yes, we were slow to catch fire at first."
+
+"Too slow," he said quickly.
+
+"But when we did catch," I went on, wishing we never had, "we soon
+burnt up."
+
+"And then went out," laughed Raffles gayly.  He was loaded up again.
+"Another over at the  gray felt hat," said he; "by Jove, though, I
+believe he's having an over at me!"
+
+"I wish you'd be careful," I urged.  "I heard it too."
+
+"My dear Bunny, it's on the knees you wot of.  If anything's down in
+the specifications surely that is.  Besides--that was nearer!"
+
+"To you?"
+
+"No, to him.  Poor devil, he has his specifications too; it's
+comforting to think that....  I can't see where that one pitched; it
+may have been a wide; and it's very nearly the end of the over again.
+Feeling worse, Bunny?"
+
+"No, I've only closed my eyes.  Go on talking."
+
+"It was I who let you in for this," he said, at his bandolier again.
+
+"No, I'm glad I came out."
+
+And I believe I still was, in a way; for it WAS rather fine to be
+wounded, just then, with the pain growing less; but the sensation was
+not to last me  many minutes, and I can truthfully say that I have
+never felt it since.
+
+"Ah, but you haven't had such a good time as I  have!"
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+Had his voice vibrated, or had I imagined it?  Pain-waves and loss of
+blood were playing tricks with my senses; now they were quite dull, and
+my leg alive and throbbing; now I had no leg at all, but more than all
+my ordinary senses in every other part of me.  And the devil's
+orchestra was  playing all the time, and all around me, on every class
+of fiendish instrument, which you have been made to hear for yourselves
+in every newspaper.  Yet all that I heard was Raffles talking.
+
+"I have had a good time, Bunny."
+
+Yes, his voice was sad; but that was all; the vibration must have been
+in me.
+
+"I know you have, old chap," said I.
+
+"I am grateful to the General for giving me to-day.  It may be the
+last.  Then I can only say it's been the best--by Jove!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+And I opened my eyes.  His were shining.  I can see them now.
+
+"Got him--got the hat!  No, I'm hanged if I have; at least he wasn't in
+it.  The crafty cuss, he must have stuck it up on purpose.  Another
+over ... scoring's slow....  I wonder if he's sportsman enough to take
+a hint?  His hat-trick's foolish. Will he show his face if I show mine?"
+
+I lay with closed ears and eyes.  My leg had come to life again, and
+the rest of me was numb.
+
+"Bunny!"
+
+His voice sounded higher.  He must have been sitting upright.
+
+"Well?"
+
+But it was not well with me; that was all I thought as my lips made the
+word.
+
+"It's not only been the best time I ever had, old Bunny, but I'm not
+half sure--"
+
+Of what I can but guess; the sentence was not finished, and never could
+be in this world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Raffles, by E. W. Hornung
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: R. Holmes & Co.
+
+Author: John Kendrick Bangs
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2007 [EBook #20559]
+[Last updated: March 7, 2015]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK R. HOLMES & CO. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Douglas Ethington
+
+
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and
+Amateur Cracksman by Birth
+
+by John Kendrick Bangs
+
+
+Contents
+I.    INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+II.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+III.  THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+IV.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+V.    THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+VI.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+VII.  THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+VIII. "THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+IX.   THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+X.    THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+
+
+R. HOLMES & CO.
+
+
+
+I
+INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
+
+It was a blistering night in August. All day long the mercury in the
+thermometer had been flirting with the figures at the top of the tube, and
+the promised shower at night which a mendacious Weather Bureau had been
+prophesying as a slight mitigation of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly
+by its absence. I had but one comfort in the sweltering hours of the day,
+afternoon and evening, and that was that my family were away in the
+mountains, and there was no law against my sitting around all day clad only
+in my pajamas, and otherwise concealed from possibly intruding eyes by the
+wreaths of smoke that I extracted from the nineteen or twenty cigars which,
+when there is no protesting eye to suggest otherwise, form my daily
+allowance. I had tried every method known to the resourceful flat-dweller
+of modern times to get cool and to stay so, but alas, it was impossible.
+Even the radiators, which all winter long had never once given forth a
+spark of heat, now hissed to the touch of my moistened finger. Enough
+cooling drinks to float an ocean greyhound had passed into my inner man,
+with no other result than to make me perspire more profusely than ever,
+and in so far as sensations went, to make me feel hotter than before.
+Finally, as a last resource, along about midnight, its gridiron floor
+having had a chance to lose some of its stored-up warmth, I climbed out
+upon the fire-escape at the rear of the Richmere, hitched my hammock from
+one of the railings thereof to the leader running from the roof to the
+area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed
+pavement of our backyard--so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions
+which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though
+nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by
+the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of
+vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of
+the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock and gave
+some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I ceased the perfervid
+language I had been using practically since sunrise, and dozed off. And
+then there entered upon the scene that marvelous man, Raffles Holmes, of
+whose exploits it is the purpose of these papers to tell.
+
+I had dozed perhaps for a full hour when the first strange sounds grated
+upon my ear. Somebody had opened a window in the kitchen of the first-floor
+apartment below, and with a dark lantern was inspecting the iron platform
+of the fire-escape without. A moment later this somebody crawled out of the
+window, and with movements that in themselves were a sufficient indication
+of the questionable character of his proceedings, made for the ladder
+leading to the floor above, upon which many a time and oft had I too
+climbed to home and safety when an inconsiderate janitor had locked me out.
+Every step that he took was stealthy--that much I could see by the dim
+starlight. His lantern he had turned dark again, evidently lest he should
+attract attention in the apartments below as he passed their windows in his
+upward flight.
+
+"Ha! ha!" thought I to myself. "It's never too hot for Mr. Sneak to get in
+his fine work. I wonder whose stuff he is after?"
+
+Turning over flat on my stomach so that I might the more readily observe
+the man's movements, and breathing pianissimo lest he in turn should
+observe mine, I watched him as he climbed. Up he came as silently as the
+midnight mouse upon a soft carpet--up past the Jorkins apartments on the
+second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past
+the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up
+past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and
+then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach
+of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one
+side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for two full
+minutes.
+
+"Humph!" whispered my inner consciousness to itself. "He is the coolest
+thing I've seen since last Christmas left town. I wonder what he is up to?
+There's nothing in my apartment worth stealing, now that my wife and
+children are away, unless it be my Jap valet, Nogi, who might make a very
+excellent cab driver if I could only find words to convey to his mind the
+idea that he is discharged."
+
+And then the visitor, apparently having correctly assured himself that
+there was no one within, stepped across the window sill and vanished into
+the darkness of my kitchen. A moment later I too entered the window in
+pursuit, not so close a one, however, as to acquaint him with my proximity.
+I wanted to see what the chap was up to; and also being totally unarmed and
+ignorant as to whether or not he carried dangerous weapons, I determined to
+go slow for a little while. Moreover, the situation was not wholly devoid
+of novelty, and it seemed to me that here at last was abundant opportunity
+for a new sensation. As he had entered, so did he walk cautiously along the
+narrow bowling alley that serves for a hallway connecting my drawing-room
+and library with the dining-room, until he came to the library, into which
+he disappeared. This was not reassuring to me, because, to tell the truth,
+I value my books more than I do my plate, and if I were to be robbed I
+should much have preferred his taking my plated plate from the dining-room
+than any one of my editions-deluxe sets of the works of Marie Corelli, Hall
+Caine, and other standard authors from the library shelves. Once in the
+library, he quietly drew the shades at the windows thereof to bar possible
+intruding eyes from without, turned on the electric lights, and proceeded
+to go through my papers as calmly and coolly as though they were his own.
+In a short time, apparently, he found what he wanted in the shape of a
+royalty statement recently received by me from my publishers, and, lighting
+one of my cigars from a bundle of brevas in front of him, took off his coat
+and sat down to peruse the statement of my returns. Simple though it was,
+this act aroused the first feeling of resentment in my breast, for the
+relations between the author and his publishers are among the most sacred
+confidences of life, and the peeping Tom who peers through a keyhole at the
+courtship of a young man engaged in wooing his fiancée is no worse an
+intruder than he who would tear aside the veil of secrecy which screens the
+official returns of a "best seller" from the public eye. Feeling,
+therefore, that I had permitted matters to proceed as far as they might
+with propriety, I instantly entered the room and confronted my uninvited
+guest, bracing myself, of course, for the defensive onslaught which I
+naturally expected to sustain. But nothing of the sort occurred, for the
+intruder, with a composure that was nothing short of marvelous under the
+circumstances, instead of rising hurriedly like one caught in some
+disreputable act, merely leaned farther back in the chair, took the cigar
+from his mouth, and greeted me with:
+
+"Howdy do, sir. What can I do for you this beastly hot night?"
+
+The cold rim of a revolver-barrel placed at my temple could not more
+effectually have put me out of business than this nonchalant reception.
+Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of
+August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him. "I
+wouldn't mind a Remsen cooler myself," he went on, "but the fact is your
+butler is off for to-night, and I'm hanged if I can find a lemon in the
+house. Maybe you'll join me in a smoke?" he added, shoving my own bundle of
+brevas across the table. "Help yourself."
+
+"I guess I know where the lemons are," said I. "But how did you know my
+butler was out?"
+
+"I telephoned him to go to Philadelphia this afternoon to see his brother
+Yoku, who is ill there," said my visitor. "You see, I didn't want him
+around to-night when I called. I knew I could manage you alone in case you
+turned up, as you see you have, but two of you, and one a Jap, I was afraid
+might involve us all in ugly complications. Between you and me, Jenkins,
+these Orientals are pretty lively fighters, and your man Nogi particularly
+has got jiu-jitsu down to a pretty fine point, so I had to do something to
+get rid of him. Our arrangement is a matter for two, not three, anyhow."
+
+"So," said I, coldly. "You and I have an arrangement, have we? I wasn't
+aware of it."
+
+"Not yet," he answered. "But there's a chance that we may have. If I can
+only satisfy myself that you are the man I'm looking for, there is no
+earthly reason that I can see why we should not come to terms. Go on out
+and get the lemons and the gin and soda, and let's talk this thing over man
+to man like a couple of good fellows at the club. I mean you no harm, and
+you certainly don't wish to do any kind of injury to a chap who, even
+though appearances are against him, really means to do you a good turn."
+
+"Appearances certainly are against you, sir," said I, a trifle warmly, for
+the man's composure was irritating. "A disappearance would be more likely
+to do you credit at this moment."
+
+"Tush, Jenkins!" he answered. "Why waste breath saying self-evident things?
+Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings
+by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must
+confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as to be visible even to the
+blind. You don't talk like an author whose stuff is worth ten cents a
+word--more like a penny-a-liner, in fact, with whom words are of such small
+value that no one's the loser if he throws away a whole dictionary. Go out
+and mix a couple of your best Remsen coolers, and by the time you get back
+I'll have got to the gist of this royalty statement of yours, which is all
+I've come for. Your silver and books and love letters and manuscripts are
+safe from me. I wouldn't have 'em as a gift."
+
+"What concern have you with my royalties?" I demanded.
+
+"A vital one," said he. "Mix the coolers, and when you get back I'll tell
+you. Go on. There's a good chap. It'll be daylight before long, and I want
+to close up this job if I can before sunrise."
+
+What there was in the man's manner to persuade me to compliance with his
+wishes, I am sure I cannot say definitely. There was a cold, steely glitter
+in his eye, for one thing. With it, however, was a strengthfulness of
+purpose, a certain pleasant masterfulness, that made me feel that I could
+trust him, and it was to this aspect of his nature that I yielded. There
+was something frankly appealing in his long, thin, ascetic looking face,
+and I found it irresistible.
+
+"All right," said I with a smile and a frown to express the conflicting
+quality of my emotions. "So be it. I'll get the coolers, but you must
+remember, my friend, that there are coolers and coolers, just as there are
+jugs and jugs. The kind of jug that remains for you will depend upon the
+story you have to tell when I get back, so you'd better see that it's a
+good one."
+
+"I am not afraid, Jenkins, old chap," he said with a hearty laugh as I
+rose. "If this royalty statement can prove to me that you are the literary
+partner I need in my business, I can prove to you that I'm a good man to
+tie up to--so go along with you."
+
+
+With this he lighted a fresh cigar and turned to a perusal of my statement,
+which, I am glad to say, was a good one, owing to the great success of my
+book, _Wild Animals I Have Never Met_--the seventh-best seller at
+Rochester, Watertown, and Miami in June and July, 1905--while I went out
+into the dining-room and mixed the coolers. As you may imagine, I was not
+long at it, for my curiosity over my visitor lent wings to my corkscrew,
+and in five minutes I was back with the tempting beverages in the tall
+glasses, the lemon curl giving it the vertebrate appearance that all stiff
+drinks should have, and the ice tinkling refreshingly upon the sultry air.
+
+"There," said I, placing his glass before him. "Drink hearty, and then to
+business. Who are you?"
+
+"There is my card," he replied, swallowing a goodly half of the cooler and
+smacking his lips appreciatively, and tossing a visiting card across to me
+on the other side of the table. I picked up the card and read as follows:
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, London and New York."
+
+"Raffles Holmes?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"The same, Mr. Jenkins," said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes, the
+famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, the distinguished--er--ah--
+cricketer, sir."
+
+I gazed at him, dumb with astonishment.
+
+"You've heard of my father, Sherlock Holmes?" asked my visitor.
+
+I confessed that the name of the gentleman was not unfamiliar to me.
+
+"And Mr. Raffles, my grandfather?" he persisted.
+
+"If there ever was a story of that fascinating man that I have not read, Mr.
+Holmes," said I, "I beg you will let me have it."
+
+"Well, then," said he with that quick, nervous manner which proved him a
+true son of Sherlock Holmes, "did it never occur to you as an extraordinary
+happening, as you read of my father's wonderful powers as a detective, and
+of Raffles' equally wonderful prowess as a--er--well, let us not mince
+words--as a thief, Mr. Jenkins, the two men operating in England at the same
+time, that no story ever appeared in which Sherlock Holmes's genius was
+pitted against the subtly planned misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not
+surprising that with two such men as they were, working out their destinies
+in almost identical grooves of daily action, they should never have crossed
+each other's paths as far as the public is the wiser, and in the very nature
+of the conflicting interests of their respective lines of action as foemen,
+the one pursuing, the other pursued, they should to the public's knowledge
+never have clashed?"
+
+"Now that you speak of it," said I, "it was rather extraordinary that
+nothing of the sort happened. One would think that the sufferers from the
+depredations of Raffles would immediately have gone to Holmes for assistance
+in bringing the other to justice. Truly, as you intimate, it was strange
+that they never did."
+
+"Pardon me, Jenkins," put in my visitor. "I never intimated anything of the
+sort. What I intimated was that no story of any such conflict ever came to
+light. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes was put upon a Raffles case in
+1883, and while success attended upon every step of it, and my grandfather
+was run to earth by him as easily as was ever any other criminal in Holmes's
+grip, a little naked god called Cupid stepped in, saved Raffles from jail,
+and wrote the word failure across Holmes's docket of the case. _I, sir, am
+the only tangible result of Lord Dorrington's retainers to Sherlock
+Holmes._"
+
+"You speak enigmatically, after the occasional fashion of your illustrious
+father," said I. "The Dorrington case is unfamiliar to me."
+
+"Naturally so," said my vis-à-vis. "Because, save to my father, my
+grandfather, and myself, the details are unknown to anybody. Not even my
+mother knew of the incident, and as for Dr. Watson and Bunny, the scribes
+through whose industry the adventures of those two great men were
+respectively narrated to an absorbed world, they didn't even know there had
+ever been a Dorrington case, because Sherlock Holmes never told Watson and
+Raffles never told Bunny. But they both told me, and now that I am satisfied
+that there is a demand for your books, I am willing to tell it to you with
+the understanding that we share and share alike in the profits if perchance
+you think well enough of it to write it up."
+
+"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."
+
+"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my
+grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time
+and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I
+took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject
+myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll
+tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, a good
+deal of romance, and my ancestry are involved."
+
+
+
+II
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
+
+"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back
+in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly
+famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties,
+were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was
+a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether
+he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting
+fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington
+Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington
+Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country place for over Sunday.
+
+"Sometimes there'd be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more
+devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known
+cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J.
+Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the cricketers never partook of
+Dorrington's hospitality save when his lordship was present, for your
+cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in such matters than your turfmen
+or ring-side habitués. It so happened one year, however, that his lordship
+was absent from England for the better part of eight months, and, when the
+time came for the annual cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he
+cabled his London representative to see to it that everything was carried on
+just as if he were present, and that every one should be invited for the
+usual week's play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were
+carried out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was
+absent, the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual,
+was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven
+months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of
+the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of
+common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute
+mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the
+night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in
+sight was that they were gone--Lady Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen
+valuable jewelled rings belonging to his lordship, and, most irremediable of
+losses, the famous ruby seal which George IV had given to Dorrington's
+grandfather, Sir Arthur Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during
+the period of the Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or
+seven thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms
+surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, 'Deering Ton,'
+which the family, upon Sir Arthur's elevation to the peerage in 1836, took
+as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated by the loss.
+The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty thousand pounds, he
+could easily replace, but the personal associations of the seal were such
+that nothing, no amount of money, could duplicate the lost ruby."
+
+"So that his first act," I broke in, breathlessly, "was to send for--"
+
+"Sherlock Holmes, my father," said Raffles Holmes. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins, the
+first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for Sherlock
+Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington Castle and assume
+charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes dropped everything else and
+came. He inspected the gardens, measured the road from the railway station
+to the castle, questioned all the servants; was particularly insistent upon
+knowing where the parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate
+information as to the personal habits of his lordship's dachshund Nicholas;
+subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of his
+life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples; gathered up
+three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship's private apartment, and two
+boxes containing three each of every variety of cigars that Lord Dorrington
+had laid down in his cellar. As you are aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his
+prime, was a great master of detail. He then departed for London, taking
+with him an impression in wax of the missing seal, which Lord Dorrington
+happened to have preserved in his escritoire.
+
+"On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a
+magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was not
+unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where? That was now
+the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had never had any
+communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was in his correspondence
+that the seal had formerly come to him, most assuredly the person who had
+used it had come by it dishonestly. Fortunately, at that time, it was a
+habit of my father's never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that
+he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to
+do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if
+indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his
+attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes,
+and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under
+'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from
+a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, she
+said, of a retired missionary--the Reverend James Tattersby--asking him if
+he would not kindly write his autograph upon the enclosed slip for her
+collection. It was the regular stock application that truly distinguished
+men receive in every mail. The only thing to distinguish it from other
+applications was the beauty of the seal on the fly of the envelope, which
+attracted his passing notice and was then filed away with the other letters
+of similar import.
+
+"'Ho! ho!' quoth Holmes, as he compared the two impressions and discovered
+that they were identical. 'An innocent little maiden who collects
+autographs, and a retired missionary in possession of the Dorrington seal,
+eh? Well, that _is_ interesting. I think I shall run down to Goring-
+Streatley over Sunday and meets Miss Marjorie Tattersby and her reverend
+father. I'd like to see to what style of people I have intrusted my
+autograph.'
+
+"To decide was to act with Sherlock Holmes, and the following Saturday,
+hiring a canoe at Windsor, he made his way up the river until he came to the
+pretty little hamlet, snuggling in the Thames Valley, if such it may be
+called, where the young lady and her good father were dwelling. Fortune
+favored him in that his prey was still there--both much respected by the
+whole community; the father a fine looking, really splendid specimen of a
+man whose presence alone carried a conviction of integrity and a lofty man;
+the daughter--well, to see her was to love her, and the moment the eyes of
+Sherlock fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been
+adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went
+down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by
+Miss Tattersby's beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than
+to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into
+possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired
+missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could manage such a thing, was
+pretty hard to understand, and he fled back to London to think it over.
+Arrived there, he found an invitation to visit Dorrington Castle again
+incog. Lord Dorrington was to have a mixed week-end party over the following
+Sunday, and this, he thought, would give Holmes an opportunity to observe
+the characteristics of Dorrington's visitors and possibly gain therefore
+some clew as to the light-fingered person from whose depredations his
+lordship had suffered. The idea commended itself to Holmes, and in the
+disguise of a young American clergyman, whom Dorrington had met in the
+States, the following Friday found him at Dorrington Castle.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short," said Raffles Holmes, "the young
+clergyman was introduced to many of the leading sportsmen of the hour, and,
+for the most part, they passed muster, but one of them did not, and that was
+the well-known cricketer A. J. Raffles, for the moment Raffles entered the
+room, jovially greeting everybody about him, and was presented to Lord
+Dorrington's new guest, Sherlock Holmes recognized in him no less a person
+that the Reverend James Tattersby, retired missionary of Goring-Streatley-
+on-Thames, and the father of the woman who had filled his soul with love and
+yearning of the truest sort. The problem was solved. Raffles was, to all
+intents and purposes, caught with the goods on. Holmes could have exposed
+him then and there had he chosen to do so, but every time it came to the
+point the lovely face of Marjorie Tattersby came between him and his
+purpose. How could he inflict the pain and shame which the exposure of her
+father's misconduct would certainly entail upon that fair woman, whose
+beauty and fresh innocence had taken so strong a hold upon his heart? No--
+that was out of the question. The thing to do, clearly was to visit Miss
+Tattersby during her father's absence, and, if possible, ascertain from just
+how she had come into possession of the seal, before taking further steps in
+the matter. This he did. Making sure, to begin with, that Raffles was to
+remain at Dorrington Hall for the coming ten days, Holmes had himself
+telegraphed for and returned to London. There he wrote himself a letter of
+introduction to the Reverend James Tattersby, on the paper of the Anglo-
+American Missionary Society, a sheet of which he secured in the public
+writing-room of that institution, armed with which he returned to the
+beautiful little spot on the Thames where the Tattersbys abode. He spent the
+night at the inn, and, in conversation with the landlord and boatmen,
+learned much that was interesting concerning the Reverend James. Among other
+things, he discovered that this gentleman and his daughter had been
+respected residents of the place for three years; that Tattersby was rarely
+seen in the daytime about the place; that he was unusually fond of canoeing
+at night, which, he said, gave him the quiet and solitude necessary for that
+reflection which is so essential to the spiritual being of a minister of
+grace; that he frequently indulged in long absences, during which time it
+was supposed that he was engaged in the work of his calling. He appeared to
+be a man of some, but not lavish, means. The most notable and suggestive
+thing, however, that Holmes ascertained in his conversation with the boatmen
+was that, at the time of the famous Cliveden robbery, when several thousand
+pounds' worth of plate had been taken from the great hall, that later fell
+into the possession of a well-known American hotel-keeper, Tattersby, who
+happened to be on the river late that night, was, according to his own
+statement, the unconscious witness of the escape of the thieves on board a
+mysterious steam-launch, which the police were never able afterwards to
+locate. They had nearly upset his canoe with the wash of their rapidly
+moving craft as they sped past him after having stowed their loot safely on
+board. Tattersby had supposed them to be employés of the estate, and never
+gave the matter another thought until three days later, when the news of the
+robbery was published to the world. He had immediately communicated the news
+of what he had seen to the police, and had done all that lay in his power to
+aid them in locating the robbers, but all to no purpose. From that day to
+this the mystery of the Cliveden plot had never been solved.
+
+"The following day Holmes called at the Tattersby cottage, and was fortunate
+enough to find Miss Tattersby at home. His previous impression as to her
+marvellous beauty was more than confirmed, and each moment that he talked to
+her she revealed new graces of manner that completed the capture of his
+hitherto unsusceptible heart. Miss Tattersby regretted her father's absence.
+He had gone, she said, to attend a secret missionary conference at
+Pentwllycod in Wales, and was not expected back for a week, all of which
+quite suited Sherlock Holmes. Convinced that, after years of waiting, his
+affinity had at last crossed his path, he was in no hurry for the return of
+that parent, who would put an instant quietus upon this affair of the heart.
+Manifestly the thing for him to do was to win the daughter's hand, and then
+intercept the father, acquaint him with his aspirations, and compel
+acquiescence by the force of his knowledge of Raffles's misdeed. Hence,
+instead of taking his departure immediately, he remained at the Goring-
+Streatley Inn, taking care each day to encounter Miss Tattersby on one
+pretext or another, hoping that their acquaintance would ripen into
+friendship, and then into something warmer. Nor was the hope a vain one, for
+when the fair Marjorie learned that it was the visitor's intention to remain
+in the neighborhood until her father's return, she herself bade him to make
+use of the old gentleman's library, to regard himself always as a welcome
+daytime guest. She even suggested pleasant walks through the neighboring
+country, little canoe trips up and down the Thames, which they might take
+together, of all of which Holmes promptly availed himself, with the result
+that, at the end of six days, both realized that they were designed for each
+other, and a passionate declaration followed which opened new vistas of
+happiness for both. Hence it was that, when the Reverend James Tattersby
+arrived at Goring-Streatley the following Monday night, unexpectedly, he was
+astounded to find sitting together in the moonlight, in the charming little
+English garden at the rear of his dwelling, two persons, one of whom was his
+daughter Marjorie and the other a young American curate to whom he had
+already been introduced as A. J. Raffles.
+
+"'We have met before, I think,' said Raffles, coldly, as his eye fell upon
+Holmes.
+
+"'I--er--do not recall the fact,' replied Holmes, meeting the steely stare
+of the home-comer with one of his own flinty glances.
+
+"'H'm!' ejaculated Raffles, non-plussed at the other's failure to recognize
+him. Then he shivered slightly. 'Suppose we go in-doors, it is a trifle
+chilly out here in the night air.'
+
+"The whole thing, the greeting, the meeting, Holmes's demeanor and all, was
+so admirably handled that Marjorie Tattersby never guessed the truth, never
+even suspected the intense dramatic quality of the scene she had just gazed
+upon.
+
+"'Yes, let us go in-doors,' she acquiesced. 'Mr. Dutton has something to say
+to you, papa.'
+
+"'So I presumed,' said Raffles, dryly. 'And something that were better said
+to me alone, I fancy, eh?' he added.
+
+"'Quite so,' said Holmes, calmly. And in-doors they went. Marjorie
+immediately retired to the drawing-room, and Holmes and Raffles went at once
+to Tattersby's study.
+
+"'Well?' said Raffles, impatiently, when they were seated. 'I suppose you
+have come to get the Dorrington seal, Mr. Holmes.'
+
+"'Ah--you know me, then, Mr. Raffles?' said Holmes, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"'Perfectly,' said Raffles. 'I knew you at Dorrington Hall the moment I set
+eyes on you, and, if I hadn't, I should have known later, for the night
+after your departure Lord Dorrington took me into his confidence and
+revealed your identity to me.'
+
+"'I am glad,' said Holmes. 'It saves me a great deal of unnecessary
+explanation. If you admit that you have the seal--"
+
+"'But I don't,' said Raffles. 'I mentioned it a moment ago, because
+Dorrington told me that was what you were after. I haven't got it, Mr.
+Holmes.'
+
+"'I know that,' observed Holmes, quietly. 'It is in the possession of Miss
+Tattersby, your daughter, Mr. Raffles.'
+
+"'She showed it to you, eh?' demanded Raffles, paling.
+
+"'No. She sealed a note to me with it, however,' Holmes replied.
+
+"'A note to you?' cried Raffles.
+
+"'Yes. One asking for my autograph. I have it in my possession,' said
+Holmes.
+
+"'And how do you know that she is the person from whom that note really
+came?' Raffles asked.
+
+"'Because I have seen the autograph which was sent in response to that
+request in your daughter's collection, Mr. Raffles,' said Holmes.
+
+"'So that you conclude--?' Raffles put in, hoarsely.
+
+"'I do not conclude; I begin by surmising, sir, that the missing seal of
+Lord Dorrington was stolen by one of two persons--yourself or Miss Marjorie
+Tattersby,' said Holmes, calmly.
+
+"'Sir!' roared Raffles, springing to his feet menacingly.
+
+"'Sit down, please,' said Holmes. 'You did not let me finish. I was going to
+add, Dr. Tattersby, that a week's acquaintance with that lovely woman, a
+full knowledge of her peculiarly exalted character and guileless nature,
+makes the alternative of guilt that affects her integrity clearly
+preposterous, which, by a very simple process of elimination, fastens the
+guilt, beyond all peradventure, on your shoulders. At any rate, the presence
+of the seal in this house will involve you in difficult explanations. Why is
+it here? How did it come here? Why are you known as the Reverend James
+Tattersby, the missionary, at Goring-Streatley, and as Mr. A. J. Raffles,
+the cricketer and man of the world, at Dorrington Hall, to say nothing of
+the Cliveden plate--'
+
+"'Damnation!' roared the Reverend James Tattersby again, springing to his
+feet and glancing instinctively at the long low book-shelves behind him.
+
+"'To say nothing,' continued Holmes, calmly lighting a cigarette, 'of the
+Cliveden plate now lying concealed behind those dusty theological tomes of
+yours which you never allow to be touched by any other hand than your own.'
+
+"'How did you know?' cried Raffles, hoarsely.
+
+"'I didn't,' laughed Holmes. 'You have only this moment informed me of the
+fact!'
+
+"There was a long pause, during which Raffles paced the floor like a caged
+tiger.
+
+"'I'm a dangerous man to trifle with, Mr. Holmes,' he said, finally. 'I can
+shoot you down in cold blood in a second.'
+
+"'Very likely,' said Holmes. 'But you won't. It would add to the
+difficulties in which the Reverend James Tattersby is already deeply
+immersed. Your troubles are sufficient, as matters stand, without your
+having to explain to the world why you have killed a defenceless guest in
+your own study in cold blood.
+
+"'Well--what do you propose to do?' demanded Raffles, after another pause.
+
+"'Marry your daughter, Mr. Raffles, or Tattersby, whatever your permanent
+name is--I guess it's Tattersby in this case,' said Holmes. 'I love her and
+she loves me. Perhaps I should apologize for having wooed and won her
+without due notice to you, but you doubtless will forgive that. It's a
+little formality you sometimes overlook yourself when you happen to want
+something that belongs to somebody else.'
+
+"What Raffles would have answered no one knows. He had no chance to reply,
+for at that moment Marjorie herself put her radiantly lovely little head in
+at the door with a 'May I come in?' and a moment later she was gathered in
+Holmes's arms, and the happy lovers received the Reverend James Tattersby's
+blessing. They were married a week later, and, as far as the world is
+concerned, the mystery of the Dorrington seal and that of the Cliveden plate
+was never solved.
+
+"'It is compounding a felony, Raffles,' said Holmes, after the wedding, 'but
+for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten commandments!'
+
+"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony
+was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."
+
+"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my
+mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and--
+well, here I am--son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits
+from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary
+partner--a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did
+Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you
+the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and
+your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you
+say? Will you do it?"
+
+"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well,
+just try me!"
+
+And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became
+partners.
+
+
+
+III
+THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
+
+I had seen the marvellous creation very often at the opera, and in many ways
+resented it. Not that I was in the least degree a victim to envy, hatred,
+and malice towards those who are possessed of a superabundance of this
+world's good things--far from it. I rejoice in the great fortunes of earth
+because, with every dollar corralled by the superior energies of the multi-
+millionaires, the fewer there are for other men to seek, and until we stop
+seeking dollars and turn our minds to other, finer things, there will be no
+hope of peace and sweet content upon this little green ball we inhabit. My
+resentment of Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher was not then based on envy
+of its possession, but merely upon the twofold nuisance which it created at
+the opera-house, as the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of
+Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson,
+Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first
+place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera-
+house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady
+made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house
+to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my
+music straight, without interruptions of any sort whatsoever on the side. In
+the second place, the confounded thing glittered so that, from where I sat,
+it was as dazzling as so many small mirrors flashing in the light of the
+sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a
+refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the
+brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the
+persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.
+
+Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great
+flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled
+broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that
+even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the
+chandelier.
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my
+opera undisturbed."
+
+"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own
+fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's
+handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the
+chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk
+to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when
+word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from _Busybody's
+Magazine_ wished to see me on an important matter of business.
+
+"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to
+be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a
+revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my
+dollar."
+
+In a moment another message came over the wire.
+
+"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page
+sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.
+
+"Show him up," I replied, instantly.
+
+Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing
+gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.
+
+"I am Mr. Stikes, of _Busybody's,_ Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in
+his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We
+want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We
+can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but--"
+
+Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my
+terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you
+will pay on acceptance?"
+
+"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say--this
+afternoon?"
+
+I turned away so that he would not see the expression of joy on my face, and
+then there came from behind me a deep chuckle and the observation in a
+familiar voice:
+
+"You might throw in a couple of those Remsen coolers, too, while you're
+about it, Jenkins."
+
+I whirled about as if struck, and there, in place of the gray-bearded
+editor, stood--Raffles Holmes.
+
+"Bully disguise, eh!" he said, folding up his beard and putting it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Ye-e-es," said I, ruefully, as I thought of the vanished two thousand. "I
+think I preferred you in disguise, though, old man," I added.
+
+"You won't when you hear what I've come for," said he. "There's $5000 apiece
+in this job for us."
+
+"To what job do you refer?" I asked.
+
+"The Burlingame case," he replied. "I suppose you read in the papers this
+morning how Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher has turned up missing."
+
+"Yes," said I, "and I'm glad of it."
+
+"You ought to be," said Holmes, "since it will put $5000 in your pocket. You
+haven't heard yet that there is a reward of $10,000 offered for its
+recovery. The public announcement has not yet been made, but it will be in
+to-night's papers, and we are the chaps that are going to get the reward."
+
+"But how?" I demanded.
+
+"Leave that to me," said he. "By-the-way, I wish you'd let me leave this
+suit-case of mine in your room for about ten days. It holds some important
+papers, and my shop is turned topsy-turvy just now with the painters."
+
+"Very well," said I. "I'll shove it under my bed."
+
+"I took the suit-case as Holmes had requested, and hid it away in my
+bedroom, immediately returning to the library, where he sat smoking one of
+my cigars as cool as a cucumber. There was something in his eye, however,
+that aroused my suspicion as soon as I entered.
+
+"See here, Holmes," said I. "I can't afford to be mixed up in any shady
+business like this, you know. Have you got that stomacher?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said he. "Honor bright--I haven't."
+
+I eyed him narrowly.
+
+"I think I understand the evasion," I went on. "_You_ haven't got it because
+I have got it--it's in that suit-case under my bed."
+
+"Open it and see for yourself," said he. "It isn't there."
+
+"But you know where it is?" I demanded.
+
+"How else could I be sure of that $10,000 reward?" he asked.
+
+"Where is it?" I demanded.
+
+"It--er--it isn't located yet--that is, not finally," said he. "And it won't
+be for ten days. Ten days from now Mrs. Burlingame will find it herself and
+we'll divvy on the reward, my boy, and not a trace of dishonesty in the
+whole business."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes filled his pockets with cigars from my stores,
+and bidding me be patient went his way.
+
+The effect of his visit upon my nerves was such that any more work that day
+was impossible. The fear of possible complications to follow upset me
+wholly, and, despite his assurance that the suit-case was innocent of
+surreptitiously acquired stomachers, I could not rid my mind of the
+suspicion that he made of my apartment a fence for the concealment of his
+booty. The more I thought of it the more was I inclined to send for him and
+request him to remove the bag forthwith, and yet, if it should so happen
+that he had spoken the truth, I should by that act endanger our friendship
+and possibly break the pact, which bade fair to be profitable. Suddenly I
+remembered his injunction to me to look for myself and see if the stomacher
+really was concealed there, and I hastened to act upon it. It might have
+been pure bluff on his part, and I resolved not to be bluffed.
+
+The case opened easily, and the moment I glanced into it my suspicions were
+allayed. It contained nothing but bundle after bundle of letters tied
+together with pink and blue ribbons, one or two old daguerreotypes, some
+locks of hair, and an ivory miniature of Raffles Holmes himself as an
+infant. Not a stomacher, diamond or otherwise, was hid in the case, nor any
+other suspicious object, and I closed it with a sheepish feeling of shame
+for having intruded upon the sacred correspondence and relics of the happy
+childhood days of my new friend.
+
+That night, as Holmes had asserted, a reward of $10,000 was offered for the
+recovery of the Burlingame stomacher, and the newspapers for the next ten
+days were full of the theories of detectives of all sorts, amateur,
+professional, and reportorial. Central Office was after it in one place,
+others sought it elsewhere. The editor of one New York paper printed a full
+list of the names of the guests at Mrs. Burlingame's dinner the night the
+treasure was stolen, and, whether they ever discovered it for themselves or
+not, several bearers of highly honored social names were shadowed by
+reporters and others everywhere they went for the next week. At the end of
+five days the reward was increased to $20,000, and then Raffles Holmes's
+name began to appear in connection with the case. Mrs. Burlingame herself
+had sent for him, and, without taking it out of the hands of others, had
+personally requested him to look into the matter. He had gone to Newport and
+looked the situation over there. He had questioned all the servants in her
+two establishments at Newport and New York, and had finally assured the lady
+that, on the following Tuesday morning, he would advise her by wire of the
+definite location of her missing jewel.
+
+During all this time Holmes had not communicated with me at all, and I began
+to fear that, offended by my behavior at our last meeting, he had cut me out
+of his calculations altogether, when, just as I was about to retire on
+Sunday night, he reappeared as he had first come to me--stealing up the
+fire-escape; and this time he wore a mask, and carried unquestionably a
+burglar's kit and a dark lantern. He started nervously as he caught sight of
+me reaching up to turn off the light in the library.
+
+"Hang it call, Jenkins!" he cried. "I thought you'd gone off to the country
+for the week-end."
+
+"No," said I. "I meant to go, but I was detained. What's up?"
+
+"Oh, well--I may as well out with it," he answered. "I didn't want you to
+know, but--well, watch and see."
+
+With this Raffles Holmes strode directly to my bookcase, removed my extra-
+illustrated set of Fox's _Book of Martyrs,_ in five volumes, from the
+shelves, and there, resting upon the shelf behind them, glittered nothing
+less than the missing stomacher!
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes!" I said, "what does this mean? How did those
+diamonds get there?"
+
+"I put them there myself while you were shoving my suit-case under your bed
+the other night," said he.
+
+"You told me you didn't have them," I said, reproachfully.
+
+"I didn't when I spoke--_you_ had them," said he.
+
+"You told me they had not been finally located," I persisted, angrily.
+
+"I told you the truth. They were only temporarily located," he answered.
+"I'm going to locate them definitely to-night, and to-morrow Mrs. Burlingame
+will find them--"
+
+"Where?" I cried.
+
+"_In her own safe in her New York house!_" said Raffles Holmes.
+
+"You--"
+
+"Yes--I took them from Newport myself--very easy job, too," said Raffles
+Holmes. "Ever since I saw them at the opera last winter I have had this in
+mind, so when Mrs. Burlingame gave her dinner I served as an extra butler
+from Delmonico's--drugged the regular chap up on the train on his way up
+from New York--took his clothes, and went in his place. That night I rifled
+the Newport safe of the stomacher, and the next day brought it here. To-
+night I take it to the Burlingame house on Fifth Avenue, secure entrance
+through a basement door, to which, in my capacity of detective, I have
+obtained the key, and, while the caretakers sleep, Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
+stomacher will be placed in the safe on the first floor back.
+
+"To-morrow morning I shall send Mrs. Burlingame this message: _'Have you
+looked in your New York safe?_ [Signed] Raffles Holmes,'" he continued. "She
+will come to town by the first train to find out what I mean; we will go to
+her residence; she will open the safe, and--$20,000 for us."
+
+"By Jove! Holmes, you are a wonder," said I. "This stomacher is worth
+$250,000 at the least," I added, as I took the creation in my hand. "Pot of
+money that!"
+
+"Yes," said he, with a sigh, taking the stomacher from me and fondling it.
+"The Raffles in me tells me that, but the Sherlock Holmes in my veins--well,
+I can't keep it, Jenkins, if that is what you mean."
+
+I blushed at the intimation conveyed by his words, and was silent; and
+Holmes, gathering up his tools and stuffing the stomacher in the capacious
+bosom of his coat, bade me au revoir, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+The rest is already public property. All the morning papers were full of the
+strange recovery of the Burlingame stomacher the following Tuesday morning,
+and the name of Raffles Holmes was in every mouth. That night, the very
+essence of promptitude, Holmes appeared at my apartment and handed me a
+check for my share in the transaction.
+
+"Why--what does this mean?" I cried, as I took in the figures; "$12,500--I
+thought it was to be only $10,000."
+
+"It was," said Raffles Holmes, "but Mrs. Burlingame was so overjoyed at
+getting the thing back she made the check for $25,000 instead of for
+$20,000."
+
+"You're the soul of honor, Holmes!" I murmured.
+
+"On my father's side," he said, with a sigh. "On my mother's side it comes
+hard."
+
+"And Mrs. Burlingame--didn't she ask you how you ferreted the thing out?" I
+asked.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "But I told her that that was my secret, that my secret
+was my profession, and that my profession was my bread and butter."
+
+"But she must have asked you who was the guilty person?" I persisted.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, "she did, and I took her for a little gallop through the
+social register, in search of the guilty party; that got on her nerves, so
+that when it came down to an absolute question of identity she begged me to
+forget it."
+
+"I am dull of comprehension, Raffles," said I. "Tell me exactly what you
+mean."
+
+"Simply this," said Raffles Holmes. "The present four hundred consists of
+about 19,250 people, of whom about twenty-five per cent. go to Newport at
+one time or another--say, 4812. Of these 4812 about ten per cent. are
+eligible for invitations to the Burlingame dinners, or 480. Now whom of the
+480 possibilities having access to the Burlingame cottage would we naturally
+suspect? Surely only those who were in the vicinity the night of the
+robbery. By a process of elimination we narrowed them down to just ten
+persons exclusive of Mrs. Burlingame herself and her husband, old Billie
+Burlingame. We took the lot and canvassed them. There were Mr. and Mrs.
+Willington Bodfish--they left early and the stomacher was known to be safe
+at the time of their departure. There were Bishop and Mrs. Pounderby,
+neither of whom would be at all likely to come back in the dead of night and
+remove property that did not belong to them. There were Senator and Mrs.
+Jorrocks. The Senator is after bigger game than diamond stomachers, and Mrs.
+Jorrocks is known to be honest. There were Harry Gaddsby and his wife. Harry
+doesn't know enough to go in when it rains, and is too timid to call even
+his soul his own, so he couldn't have taken it; and Mrs. Gaddsby is long on
+stomachers, having at least five, and therefore would not be likely to try
+to land a sixth by questionable means. In that way we practically cleared
+eight possibilities of suspicion.
+
+"'Now, Mrs. Burlingame,' said I, 'that leaves four persons still in the
+ring--yourself, your husband, your daughter, and the Duke of Snarleyow, your
+daughter's newly acquired fiancé, in whose honor the dinner was given. Of
+these four, you are naturally yourself the first to be acquitted. Your
+husband comes next, and is not likely to be the guilty party, because if he
+wants a diamond stomacher he needn't steal it, having money enough to buy a
+dozen of them if he wishes. The third, your daughter, should be regarded as
+equally innocent, because if she was really desirous of possessing the jewel
+all she had to do was to borrow it from you. That brings us down to the Duke
+of--"
+
+"'Hush! I beg of you, Mr. Raffles Holmes!' she cried, in great agitation.
+'Not another word, I beseech you! If any one should overhear us--The
+subject, after all, is an unprofitable one, and I'd--I'd rather drop it, and
+it--it--er--it has just occurred to me that possibly I--er--possibly I--'
+
+"'Put the jewel in the safe yourself?' I suggested.
+
+"'Yes,' said Mrs. Burlingame,' with a grateful glance and a tremendous sigh
+of relief. 'Now that I think of it, Mr. Raffles Holmes--that _was_ it. I--
+er--I remember perfectly that--er--that I didn't wear it at all the night of
+my little dinner, and that I _did_ leave it behind me when I left town.'"
+
+"Humph!" said I. "That may account for the extra $5000--"
+
+"It may," said Raffles Holmes, pursing his lips into a deprecatory smile.
+
+
+
+IV
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
+
+"I think," said Raffles Holmes, as he ran over his expense account while
+sitting in my library one night some months ago, "that in view of the
+present condition of my exchequer, my dear Jenkins, it behooveth me to get
+busy. Owning a motor-car is a demned expensive piece of business, and my
+balance at the bank has shrunk to about $1683.59, thanks to my bills for
+cogs, clutches, and gasoline, plus the chauffeur's fines."
+
+"In what capacity shall you work, Raffles or Holmes?" I asked, pausing in my
+writing and regarding him with that affectionate interest which contact with
+him had inspired in me.
+
+"Play the combination always, Jenkins," he replied. "If I did the Raffles
+act alone, I should become the billionaire in this land of silk and money,
+your rich are so careless of their wealth--but where would my conscience be?
+On the other hand, if I stuck to the Holmes act exclusively, I'd starve to
+death; but the combination--ah--there is moderate fortune, my boy, with
+peace of mind thrown in."
+
+Here he rose up, buttoned his coat about his spare figure, and reached out
+for his hat.
+
+"I guess I'll tackle that case of the missing pendants to-morrow," he
+continued, flicking the ash from his cigar and gazing up at the ceiling with
+that strange twist in his eye which I had learned to regard as the harbinger
+of a dawning idea in his mind. "There's ten thousand dollars for somebody in
+that job, and you and I might as well have it as any one else."
+
+"I'm ready," said I, as well I might be, for all I had to do in the matter
+was to record the adventure and take my half of the profits--no very
+difficult proceeding in either case.
+
+"Good," quoth he. "I'll go to Gaffany & Co. to-morrow and offer my
+services."
+
+"You have a clew?" I asked.
+
+"I have an idea," he answered. "As for the lost diamonds, I know no more of
+their whereabouts than you do, but I shall be able beyond all question to
+restore to Gaffany & Co. two pendants just as good as those they have lost,
+and if I do that I am entitled to the reward, I fancy, am I not?"
+
+"Most certainly," said I. "But where the dickens will you find two such
+stones? They are worth $50,000 apiece, and they must match perfectly the two
+remaining jewels which Gaffany & Co. have in their safe."
+
+"I'll match 'em so closely that their own mother couldn't tell 'em apart,"
+said Holmes, with a chuckle.
+
+"Then the report that they are of such rarity of cut and lustre is untrue?"
+I asked.
+
+"It's perfectly true," said Holmes, "but that makes no difference. The two
+stones that I shall return two weeks from to-day to Gaffany & Co. will be as
+like the two they have as they are themselves. Ta-ta, Jenkins--you can count
+on your half of that ten thousand as surely as though it is jingled now in
+your pockets."
+
+And with that Raffles Holmes left me to my own devices.
+
+I presume that most readers of the daily newspapers are tolerably familiar
+with the case of the missing pendants to which Holmes referred, and on the
+quest for which he was now about to embark. There may be some of you,
+however, who have never heard of the mysterious robbery of Gaffany & Co., by
+which two diamonds of almost matchless purity--half of a quartet of these
+stones--pear-shaped and valued at $50,000 each, had disappeared almost as if
+the earth had opened and swallowed them up. They were a part of the famous
+Gloria Diamond, found last year at Kimberley, a huge, uncut gem of such
+value that no single purchaser for it could be found in the world. By a
+syndicate arrangement Gaffany & Co. had assumed charge of it, and were in
+the process of making for a customer a bar with four pendants cut from the
+original, when two of them disappeared. They had been last seen in the hands
+of a trusted employé of many years' standing, to whom they had been intrusted
+for mounting, and he had been seen to replace them, at the end of the day's
+work, in the little cage-like office of the custodian of the safe in which
+jewels of great value were kept at night. This was the last seen of them,
+and although five weeks had elapsed since the discovery of their loss and
+Holmes's decision to look into the matter, no clew of the slightest
+description had been discovered by the thousands of sleuths, professional or
+amateur, who had interested themselves in the case.
+
+"He had such assurance!" I muttered. "To hear him talk one would almost
+believe that they were already in his possession."
+
+I did not see Raffles Holmes again for five days, and then I met him only by
+chance, nor should I have known it was he had he not made himself known to
+me. I was on my way uptown, a little after six o'clock, and as I passed
+Gaffany's an aged man emerged from the employés' entrance, carrying a small
+bag in his hand. He was apparently very near-sighted, for he most
+unceremoniously bumped into me as he came out of the door on to the
+sidewalk.
+
+Deference to age has always been a weakness of mine, and I apologized,
+although it was he that was at fault.
+
+"Don't mention it, Jenkins," he whispered. "You are just the man I want to
+see. Café Panhard--to-night--eleven o'clock. Just happen in, and if a
+foreign-looking person with a red beard speaks to you don't throw him down,
+but act as if you were not annoyed by his mistake."
+
+"You know me?" I asked.
+
+"Tush, man--I'm Raffles Holmes!" and with that he was off.
+
+His make-up was perfect, and as he hobbled his way along Broadway through
+the maze of cars, trucks, and hansoms, there was not in any part of him a
+hint or a suggestion that brought to mind my alert partner.
+
+Of course my excitement was intense. I could hardly wait for eleven o'clock
+to come, and at 9.30 I found myself in front of the Café Panhard a full hour
+and a half ahead of time, and never were there more minutes in that period
+of waiting than there seemed to be then as I paced Broadway until the
+appointed hour. It seemed ages before the clock down in front of the Whirald
+Building pointed to 10.55, but at last the moment arrived, and I entered the
+café, taking one of the little tables in the farther corner, where the light
+was not unduly strong and where the turmoil of the Hungarian band was
+reduced by distance from moltofortissimo to a moderate approach to a
+pianissimo, which would admit of conversation. Again I had to wait, but not
+for so long a time. It was twenty minutes past eleven when a fine-looking
+man of military bearing, wearing a full red beard, entered, and after
+looking the café over, sauntered up to where I sat.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Jenkins," said he, with a slight foreign accent. "Are you
+alone?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"If you don't mind, I should like to sit here for a few moments," he
+observed, pulling out the chair opposite me. "I have your permission?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Robinstein is my name," said he, sitting down, and producing a letter from
+his pocket. "I have here a note from my old friend Raffles Holmes--a note of
+introduction to you. I am a manufacturer of paste jewels--or rather was. I
+have had one or two misfortunes in my business, and find myself here in
+America practically stranded."
+
+"Your place of business was--"
+
+"In the Rue de l'Echelle in Paris," he explained. "I lost everything in
+unfortunate speculation, and have come here to see if I could not get a new
+start. Mr. Holmes thinks you can use your influence with Markoo & Co., the
+theatrical costumers, who, I believe, manufacture themselves all the stage
+jewelry they use in their business, to give me something to do. It was said
+in Paris that the gems which I made were of such quality that they would
+deceive, for a time anyhow, the most expert lapidaries, and if I can only
+get an opening with Markoo & Co. I am quite confident that you will not
+repent having exerted your good offices in my behalf."
+
+"Why, certainly, Mr. Robinstein," said I. "Any friend of Raffles Holmes may
+command my services. I know Tommy Markoo very well, and as this is a pretty
+busy time with him, getting his stuff out for the fall productions, I have
+little doubt I shall be able to help you. By Jove!" I added, as I glanced
+over the café, "that's a singular coincidence--there is Markoo himself just
+coming in the doorway."
+
+"Really?" said Mr. Robinstein, turning and gazing towards the door. "He's a
+different-looking chap from what I had imagined. Perhaps, Mr. Jenkins, it
+would--er--expedite matters if you--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted. "Tommy is alone--we'll have him over."
+
+And I beckoned to Markoo and invited him to join us.
+
+"Good!" said he, in his whole-souled way. "Glad to have a chance to see
+you--I'm so confoundedly busy these days--just think of it, I've been at
+the shop ever since eight o'clock this morning."
+
+"Tommy, I want to introduce you to my friend Mr. Robinstein," said I.
+
+"Not Isidore Robinstein, of Paris?" said Markoo.
+
+"I have that misfortune, Mr. Markoo," said Robinstein.
+
+"Misfortune? Gad, Mr. Robinstein, we look at things through different
+glasses," returned Markoo. "The man who can do your work ought never to
+suffer misfortune--"
+
+"If he only stays out of the stock-market," said Robinstein.
+
+"Aha," laughed Tommy. "Et tu, Brute?"
+
+We all laughed, and if there was any ice to be broken after that it was
+along the line of business of the café. We got along famously together, and
+when we parted company, two hours later, all the necessary arrangements had
+been made for Mr. Robinstein to begin at once with Markoo--the following
+day, in fact.
+
+Four nights later Holmes turned up at my apartment.
+
+"Well," said I, "have you come to report progress?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "The reward will arrive on time, but it's been the de'il's
+own job. Pretty, aren't they!" he added, taking a small package wrapped in
+tissue-paper out of his pocket, and disclosing its contents.
+
+"Gee-rusalem, what beauties!" I cried, as my eyes fell on two such diamonds
+as I had never before seen. They sparkled on the paper like bits of
+sunshine, and that their value was quite $100,000 it did not take one like
+myself, who knew little of gems, to see at a glance. "You have found them,
+have you?"
+
+"Found what?" asked Raffles Holmes.
+
+"The missing pendants," said I.
+
+"Well--not exactly," said Raffles Holmes. "I think I'm on the track of them,
+though. There's an old chap who works beside me down at Gaffany's who spends
+so much of his time drinking ice-water that I'm getting to be suspicious of
+him."
+
+I roared with laughter.
+
+"The ice-water habit is evidence of a criminal nature, eh?" I queried.
+
+"Not per se," said Holmes, gravely, "but in conjunctibus--if my Latin is
+weak, please correct me--it is a very suspicious habit. When I see a man
+drink ten glasses of water in two hours it indicates to my mind that there
+is something in the water-cooler that takes his mind off his business. It is
+not likely to be either the ice or the water, on the doctrine of
+probabilities. Hence it must be something else. I caught him yesterday with
+his hand in it."
+
+"His hand? In the water-cooler?" I demanded.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "He said he was fishing around for a little piece of ice
+to cool his head, which ached, but I think differently. He got as pale as a
+ghost when I started in to fish for a piece for myself because my head ached
+too. I think he took the diamonds and has hid them there, but I'm not sure
+yet, and in my business I can't afford to make mistakes. If my suspicions
+are correct, he is merely awaiting his opportunity to fish them out and
+light out with them."
+
+"Then these," I said, "are--are they paste?"
+
+"No, indeed, they're the real thing," said Raffles Holmes, holding up one of
+the gems to the light, where it fairly coruscated with brilliance. "These
+are the other two of the original quartet."
+
+"Great Heavens, Holmes--do you mean to say that Gaffany & Co. permit you to
+go about with things like this in your pocket?" I demanded.
+
+"Not they," laughed Holmes. "They'd have a fit if they knew I had 'em, only
+they don't know it."
+
+"But how have you concealed the fact from them?" I persisted.
+
+"Robinstein made me a pair exactly like them," said Holmes. "The paste ones
+are now lying in the Gaffany safe, where I saw them placed before leaving
+the shop to-night."
+
+"You're too deep for me, Holmes," said I. "What's the game?"
+
+"Now don't say game, Jenkins," he protested. "I never indulge in games. My
+quarry is not a game, but a scheme. For the past two weeks, with three days
+off, I have been acting as a workman in the Gaffany ship, with the
+ostensible purpose of keeping my eye on certain employés who are under
+suspicion. Each day the remaining two pendant-stones--these--have been
+handed to me to work on, merely to carry out the illusion. The first day, in
+odd moments, I made sketches of them, and on the night of the second I had
+'em down in such detail as to cut and color, that Robinstein had no
+difficulty in reproducing them in the materials at his disposal in Markoo's
+shop. And to-night all I had to do to get them was to keep them and hand in
+the Robinstein substitutes when the hour of closing came."
+
+"So that now, in place of four $50,000 diamonds, Gaffany & Co. are in
+possession of--"
+
+"Two paste pendants, worth about $40 apiece," said Holmes. "If I fail to
+find the originals I shall have to use the paste ones to carry the scheme
+through, but I hate to do it. It's so confoundly inartistic and as old a
+trick as the pyramids."
+
+"And to-morrow--"
+
+Raffles Holmes got up and paced the floor nervously.
+
+"Ah, Jenkins," he said, with a heart-rending sigh, "that is the point. To-
+morrow! Heavens! what will to-morrow's story be? I--I cannot tell."
+
+"What's the matter, Holmes?" said. "Are you in danger?"
+
+"Physically, no--morally, my God! Jenkins, yes. I shall need all of your
+help," he cried.
+
+"What can I do?" I asked. "You know you have only to command me."
+
+"Don't leave me this night for a minute," he groaned. "If you do, I am lost.
+The Raffles in me is rampant when I look at those jewels and think of what
+they will mean if I keep them. An independent fortune forever. All I have to
+do is to get aboard a ship and go to Japan and live in comfort the rest of
+my days with the wealth in my possession, and all the instincts of honesty
+that I possess, through the father in me, will be powerless to prevent my
+indulgence in this crime. Keep me in sight, and if I show the slightest
+inclination to give you the slip, knock me over the head, will you, for my
+own good?"
+
+I promised faithfully that I would do as he asked, but, as an easier way out
+of an unpleasant situation, I drugged his Remsen cooler with a sleeping-
+powder, and an hour later he was lying off on my divan lost to the world for
+eight hours at least. As a further precaution I put the jewels in my own
+safe.
+
+The night's sleep had the desired effect, and with the returning day
+Holmes's better nature asserted itself. Raffles was subdued, and he returned
+to Gaffany's to put the finishing touches to his work.
+
+
+
+"Here's your check, Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, handing me a draft for
+$5000. "The gems were found to-day in the water-cooler in the work-room, and
+Gaffany & Co. paid up like gentlemen."
+
+"And the thief?" I asked.
+
+"Under arrest," said Raffles Holmes. "We caught him fishing for them."
+
+"And your paste jewels, where are they?"
+
+"I wish I knew," he answered, his face clouding over. "In the excitement of
+the moment of the arrest I got 'em mixed with the originals I had last
+night, and they didn't give me time or opportunity to pick 'em out. The four
+were mounted immediately and sent under guard to the purchaser. Gaffany &
+Co. didn't want to keep them a minute longer than was necessary. But the
+purchaser is so rich he will never have to sell 'em--so, you see, Jenkins,
+we're as safe as a church."
+
+"Your friend Robinstein was a character, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Yes," sighed Holmes. "Poor chap--he was a great loss to his friends. He
+taught me the art of making paste gems when I was in Paris. I miss him like
+the dickens."
+
+"Miss him!" said I, getting anxious for Robinstein. "What happened? He
+isn't--"
+
+"Dead," said Holmes. "Two years ago--dear old chap."
+
+"Oh, come now, Holmes," I said. "What new game is this you are rigging on
+me? I met him only five nights ago--and you know it."
+
+"Oh--that one," said Raffles Holmes, with a laugh. "_I_ was that
+Robinstein."
+
+"You?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, me," said Holmes. "You don't suppose I'd let a third party into our
+secret, do you?"
+
+And then he gave me one of those sweet, wistful smiles that made the wonder
+of the man all the greater.
+
+"I wish to the dickens I knew whether these were real or paste!" he
+muttered, taking the extra pendants from his wallet as he spoke. "I don't
+dare ask anybody, and I haven't got any means of telling myself."
+
+"Give them to me," said I, sternly, noting a glitter in his eye that
+suggested the domination for the moment of the Raffles in him.
+
+"Tush, Jenkins," he began, uneasily.
+
+"Give them to me, or I'll brain you, Holmes," said I, standing over him with
+a soda-water bottle gripped in my right hand, "for your own good. Come, give
+up."
+
+He meekly obeyed.
+
+"Come now, get on your hat," said I. "I want you to go out with me."
+
+"What for, Jenkins?" he almost snarled.
+
+"You'll see what for," said I.
+
+And Raffles Holmes obeying, we walked down to the river's edge, where I
+stood for a moment, and then hurled the remaining stones far out into the
+waters.
+
+Holmes gave a gasp and then a sigh of relief.
+
+"There," I said. "It doesn't matter much to us now whether the confounded
+things were real or not."
+
+
+
+V
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes to me the other night as we sat in my den
+looking over the criminal news in the evening papers, in search of some
+interesting material for him to work on, "this paper says that Mrs.
+Wilbraham Ward-Smythe has gone to Atlantic City for a week, and will lend
+her gracious presence to the social functions of the Hotel Garrymore, at
+that interesting city by the sea, until Monday, the 27th, when she will
+depart for Chicago, where her sister is to be married on the 29th. How would
+you like to spend the week with me at the Garrymore?"
+
+"It all depends upon what we are going for," said I. "Also, what in thunder
+has Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe got to do with us, or we with her?"
+
+"Nothing at all," said Holmes. "That is, nothing much."
+
+"Who is she?" I asked, eying him suspiciously.
+
+"All I know is what I have seen in the papers," said Holmes. "She came in on
+the _Altruria_ two weeks ago, and attracted considerable attention by
+declaring $130,000 worth of pearl rope that she bought in Paris, instead of,
+woman-like, trying to smuggle it through the custom-house. It broke the
+heart of pretty nearly every inspector in the service. She'd been watched
+very carefully by the detective bureau in Paris, and when she purchased the
+rope there, the news of it was cabled over in cipher, so that they'd all be
+on the lookout for it when she came in. The whole force on the pier was on
+the qui vive, and one of the most expert women searchers on the pay-roll was
+detailed to give her special attention the minute she set foot on shore; but
+instead of doing as they all believed she would do, and giving the
+inspectors a chance to catch her at trying to evade the duties, to their
+very great profit, she calmly and coolly declared the stuff, paid her little
+sixty-five per cent. like a major, and drove off to the Castoria in full
+possession of her jewels. The Collector of the Port had all he could do to
+keep 'em from draping the custom-house for thirty days, they were all so
+grief-stricken. She'll probably take the rope to Atlantic City with her."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "That's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You're after that
+pearl rope, are you, Raffles?"
+
+"On my honor as a Holmes," said he, "I am not. I shall not touch the pearl
+rope, although I have no doubt that I shall have some unhappy moments during
+the week that I am in the same hotel with it. That's one reason why I'd like
+to have you go along, Jenkins--just to keep me out of temptation. Raffles
+may need more than Holmes to keep him out of mischief. I am confident,
+however, that with you to watch out for me, I shall be able to suppress the
+strong tendency towards evil which at times besets me."
+
+"We'd better keep out of it altogether, Holmes," said I, not liking the
+weight of responsibility for his good behavior that more than once he had
+placed on my shoulders. "You don't deny, I suppose, that the pearl rope is a
+factor in your intentions, whatever they may be."
+
+"Of course I don't, Jenkins," was his response. "If it were not for her
+pearl rope, Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe could go anywhere she pleased without
+attracting any more attention from me than a passing motor-car. It would be
+futile for me to deny that, as a matter of fact, the pearl rope is an
+essential part of my scheme, and, even if it were not futile to do so, I
+should still not deny it, because neither my father nor my grandfather,
+Holmes nor Raffles, ever forgot that a gentleman does not lie."
+
+"Then count me out," said I.
+
+"Even if there is $7500 in it for you?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"If it were $107,500 you could still count me out," I retorted. "I don't
+like the business."
+
+"Very well," said he, with a sight. "I shall have to go alone and endeavor
+to fight the terrible temptation unaided, with a strong probability that I
+shall fail, and, yielding to it, commit my first real act of crime, and in
+that event, with the possibility of a term at Trenton prison, if I am
+caught."
+
+"Give it up, Raffles," I pleaded.
+
+"And all because, in the hour of my need, my best friend, whose aid I
+begged, refused me," he went on, absolutely ignoring my plea.
+
+"Oh, well, if you put it on that score," I said, "I'll go--but you must
+promise me not to touch the pearls."
+
+"I'll do my best not to," he replied. "As usual, you have carte-blanche to
+put me out of business if you catch me trying it."
+
+With this understanding I accompanied Raffles Holmes to Atlantic City the
+following afternoon, and the following evening we were registered at the
+Hotel Garrymore.
+
+Holmes was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe would
+take her famous pearl rope to Atlantic City with her. That very evening,
+while we were sitting at dinner, the lady entered, and draped about her
+stately neck and shoulders was the thing itself, and a more beautiful
+decoration was never worn by woman from the days of the Queen of Sheba to
+this day of lavish display in jewels. It was a marvel, indeed, but the
+moment I saw it I ceased to give the lady credit for superior virtue in
+failing to smuggle it through the custom-house, for its very size would have
+precluded the possibility of a successful issue to any such attempted
+evasion of the law. It was too bulky to have been secreted in any of the
+ordinary ways known to smugglers. Hence her candid acknowledgment of its
+possession was less an evidence of the lady's superiority to the majority of
+her sex in the matter of "beating the government" than of her having been
+confronted with the proverbial choice of the unidentified Hobson.
+
+"By Jove! Jenkins," Raffles Holmes muttered, hoarsely, as Mrs. Ward-Smythe
+paraded the length of the dining-room, as fairly corruscating with her rich
+possessions as though she were a jeweller's window incarnate, "it's a
+positive crime for a woman to appear in a place like this arrayed like that.
+What right has she to subject poor weak humanity to such temptation as now
+confronts every servant in this hotel, to say nothing of guests, who, like
+ourselves, are made breathless with such lavish display? There's poor old
+Tommie Bankson over there, for instance. See how he gloats over those
+pearls. He's fairly red-eyed over them."
+
+I glanced across the dining-room, and sure enough, there sat Tommie Bankson,
+and even from where we were placed we could see his hands tremble with the
+itch for possession, and his lips go dry with excitement as he thought of
+the material assets in full view under the glare of the dining-room electric
+lights.
+
+"I happen to know on the inside," continued Holmes, "that Tommie is not only
+a virtual bankrupt through stock speculation, but is actually face to face
+with criminal disgrace for misuse of trust funds, all of which he could
+escape if he could lay his hands upon half the stuff that woman is so
+carelessly wearing to-night. Do you think it's fair to wear, for the mere
+gratification of one's vanity, things that arouse in the hearts of less
+fortunate beings such passionate reflections and such dire temptations as
+those which are now besetting that man?"
+
+"I guess we've got enough to do looking after Raffles to-night, old man,
+without wasting any of our nerve-tissue on Tommie Bankson," I replied. "Come
+on--let's get out of this. We'll go over to the Pentagon for the night, and
+to-morrow we'll shake the sands of Atlantic City from our feet and hie
+ourselves back to New York, where the temptations are not so strong."
+
+"It's too late," said Raffles Holmes. "I've set out on this adventure and
+I'm going to put it through. I wouldn't give up in the middle of an
+enterprise of this sort any more than I would let a balky horse refuse to
+take a fence I'd put him to. It's going to be harder than I thought, but
+we're in it, and I shall stay to the end."
+
+"What the devil is the adventure, anyhow?" I demanded, impatiently. "You
+vowed you wouldn't touch the rope."
+
+"I hope not to," was his response. "It is up to you to see that I don't. My
+plan does not involve my laying hands upon even the shadow of it."
+
+So we stayed on at the Garrymore, and a worse week I never had anywhere.
+With every glimpse of that infernal jewel the Raffles in Holmes became
+harder and harder to control. In the daytime he was all right, but when
+night came on he was feverish with the desire to acquire possession of the
+pearls. Twice in the middle of the night I caught him endeavoring to sneak
+out of our room, and upon each occasion, when I rushed after him and forced
+him back, he made no denial of my charge that he was going after the jewel.
+The last time it involved us both in such a terrible struggle that I vowed
+then and there that the following morning should see my departure.
+
+"I can't stand the strain, Holmes," said I.
+
+"Well, if you can't stand _your_ strain," said Raffles Holmes, "what do you
+think of mine?"
+
+"The thing to do is to get out, that's all," I retorted. "I won't have a
+nerve left in twenty-four hours. For four nights now I haven't had a
+minute's normal sleep, and this fight you've just put up has regularly
+knocked me out."
+
+"One more day Jenkins," he pleaded. "She goes day after to-morrow, and so do
+we."
+
+"We?" I cried. "After her?"
+
+"Nope--she to Chicago--we to New York," said Holmes. "Stick it out, there's
+a good fellow," and of course I yielded.
+
+The next day--Sunday--was one of feverish excitement, but we got through it
+without mishap, and on Monday morning it was with a sigh of relief that I
+saw Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe pull out of the Philadelphia station en route
+for Chicago, while Raffles Holmes and I returned to New York.
+
+"Well, Raffles," said I, as we sped on our homeward way, "we've had our
+trouble for our pains."
+
+He laughed crisply. "Have we?" said he. "I guess not--not unless you have
+lost the trunk check the porter gave you."
+
+"What, this brass thing?" I demanded, taking the check from my pocket and
+flicking it in the air like a penny.
+
+"That very brass thing," said Holmes.
+
+"You haven't lifted that damned rope and put it in my trunk!" I roared.
+
+"Hush, Jenkins! For Heaven's sake don't make a scene. I haven't done
+anything of the sort," he whispered, looking about him anxiously to make
+sure that we had not been overheard. "Those pearls are as innocent of my
+touch as the top of the Himalaya Mountains is of yours."
+
+"Then what have you done?" I demanded, sulkily.
+
+"Just changed a couple of trunk checks, that's all," said Raffles Holmes.
+"That bit of brass you have in your hand, which was handed to you in the
+station by the porter of the Garrymore, when presented at Jersey City will
+put you in possession of Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe's trunk, containing the
+bulk of her jewels. She's a trifle careless about her possessions, as any
+one could see who watched the nonchalant way in which she paraded the board
+walk with a small fortune on her neck and fingers. Most women would carry
+such things in a small hand-satchel, or at least have the trunk sent by
+registered express, but not Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe; and, thanks to her
+loud voice, listening outside of her door last night, I heard her directing
+her maid where she wished the gems packed."
+
+"And where the dickens is my trunk?" I asked.
+
+"On the way to Chicago," said Raffles Holmes, calmly. "Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-
+Smythe has the check for it."
+
+"Safe business!" I sneered. "Bribed the porter, I presume?"
+
+"Jenkins, you are exceedingly uncomplimentary at times," said Raffles
+Holmes, showing more resentment than I had ever given him credit for.
+"Perhaps you observed that I didn't go to the station in the omnibus."
+
+"No, you went over to the drug-store after some phenacetine for your
+headache," said I.
+
+"Precisely," said Holmes, "and after purchasing the phenacetine I jumped
+aboard the Garrymore express-wagon and got a lift over to the station. It
+was during that ride that I transferred Mrs. Ward-Smythe's check from her
+trunk to yours, and vice versa. It's one of the easiest jobs in the Raffles
+business, especially at this season of the year, when travel is heavy and
+porters are overworked."
+
+"I'll see the trunk in the Hudson River, pearl rope and all, before I'll
+claim it at Jersey City or anywhere else," said I.
+
+"Perfectly right," Holmes returned. "We'll hand the check to the expressman
+when he comes through the train, and neither of us need appear further in
+the matter. It will merely be delivered at your apartment."
+
+"Why not yours?" said I.
+
+"Raffles!" said he, laconically, and I understood.
+
+"And then what?" I asked.
+
+"Let it alone, unopened, safe as a church, until Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+discovers her loss, which will be to-morrow afternoon, and then--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes will step in, unravel the mystery, prove it to be a mere
+innocent mistake, collect about ten or fifteen thousand dollars reward,
+divvy up with you, and the decks will be cleared for what turns up next,"
+said this wonderful player of dangerous games. "And, as a beginning,
+Jenkins, please sign this," he added.
+
+Holmes handed me a typewritten-letter which read as follows.
+
+"THE RICHMORE, June 30, 1905.
+"Raffles Holmes, Esq..
+"DEAR SIR,--I enclose herewith my check for $1000 as a retainer for your
+services in locating for me a missing trunk, which contains articles which I
+value at $10,000. This trunk was checked through to New York from Atlantic
+City on Monday last, 9.40 train, and has not since been found. Whether or
+not it has been stolen, or has gone astray in some wholly innocent manner,
+is not as yet clear. I know of no one better equipped for the task of
+finding it for me than yourself, who, I am given to understand, are the son
+of the famous Sherlock Holmes of England. The check represents the ten per
+cent. commission on the value of the lost articles, which I believe is the
+customary fee for services such as I seek.
+Very truly yours."
+
+"What are you going to do with this?" I demanded.
+
+"Send it as an enclosure to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe, showing my
+credentials as your agent, in asking her if by any mischance your trunk has
+got mixed in with her luggage," observed Holmes. "For form's sake, I shall
+send it to twenty or thirty other people known to have left Atlantic City
+the same day. Moreover, it will suggest the idea to Mrs. Wilbraham Ward-Smythe
+that I am a good man to locate her trunk also, and the delicate
+intimation of my terms will--"
+
+"Aha! I see," said I. "And my thousand-dollar check to you?"
+
+"I shall, of course, keep," observed Holmes. "You want the whole business to
+be bona fide, don't you? It would be unscrupulous for you to ask for its
+return."
+
+I didn't exactly like the idea, but, after all, there was much in what
+Holmes said, and the actual risk of my own capital relieved my conscience of
+the suspicion that by signing the letter I should become a partner in a
+confidence game. Hence I signed the note, mailed it to Raffles Holmes,
+enclosing my check for $1000 with it.
+
+Three days later Holmes entered my room with a broad grin on his face.
+
+"How's this for business?" said he, handing me a letter he had received that
+morning from Chicago.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I am perfectly delighted to receive your letter of July 1. I
+think I have Mr. Jenkins's missing trunk. What pleases me most, however, is
+the possibility of your recovering mine, which also went astray at the same
+time. It contained articles of even greater value than Mr. Jenkins's--my
+pearl rope, among other things, which is appraised at $130,000. Do you think
+there is any chance of your recovering it for me? I enclose my check for
+$5000 as a retainer. The balance of your ten per cent. fee I shall gladly
+pay on receipt of my missing luggage.
+"Most sincerely yours,
+"MAUDE WARD-SMYTHE."
+
+"I rather think, my dear Jenkins," observed Raffles Holmes, "that we have
+that $13,000 reward cinched."
+
+"There's $7000 for you, Jenkins," said Holmes, a week later, handing me his
+check for that amount. "Easy money that. It only took two weeks to turn the
+trick, and $14,000 for fourteen days' work is pretty fair pay. If we could
+count on that for a steady income I think I'd be able to hold Raffles down
+without your assistance."
+
+"You got fourteen thousand, eh?" said I. "I thought it was only to be
+$13,000."
+
+"It was fourteen thousand counting in your $1000," said Raffles Holmes. "You
+see, I'm playing on the square, old man. Half and half in everything."
+
+I squeezed his hand affectionately.
+
+"But--he-ew!" I ejaculated, with a great feeling of relief. "I'm glad the
+thing's over with.
+
+"So am I," said Holmes, with a glitter in his eye. "If we'd kept that trunk
+in this apartment another day there'd have been trouble. I had a piece of
+lead-pipe up my sleeve when I called here Tuesday night."
+
+"What for?" I asked.
+
+"You!" said Raffles Holmes. "If you hadn't had that poker-party with you I'd
+have knocked you out and gone to China with the Ward-Smythe jewels. Sherlock
+Holmes stock was 'way below par Tuesday night."
+
+
+
+VI
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
+
+I had not seen Raffles Holmes for some weeks, nor had I heard from him,
+although I had faithfully remitted to his address his share of the literary
+proceeds of his adventures as promptly as circumstances permitted--$600 on
+the first tale, $920 on the second, and no less than $1800 on the third,
+showing a constantly growing profit on our combination from my side of the
+venture. These checks had not even been presented for payment at the bank.
+Fearing from this that he might be ill, I called at Holmes's lodgings in the
+Rexmere, a well-established bachelor apartment hotel, on Forty-fourth
+Street, to inquire as to the state of his health. The clerk behind the desk
+greeted my cordially as I entered, and bade me go at once to Holmes's
+apartment on the eighteenth floor, which I immediately proceeded to do.
+
+"Here is Mr. Holmes's latch-key, sir," said the clerk. "He told me you were
+to have access to his apartment at any time."
+
+"He is in, is he?" I asked.
+
+"I really don't know, sir. I will call up and inquire, if you wish," replied
+the clerk.
+
+"Oh, never mind," said I. "I'll go up, anyhow, and if he is out, I'll wait."
+
+So up I went, and a few moments later had entered the apartment. As the door
+opened, the little private hallway leading to his den at the rear burst into
+a flood of light, and from an inner room, the entrance to which was closed,
+I could hear Holmes's voice cheerily carolling out snatches of such popular
+airs as "Tammany" and "Ef Yo' Habn't Got No Money Yo' Needn't Bodder Me."
+
+I laughed quietly and at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. It was
+very evident from the tone of his voice that there was nothing serious the
+matter with my friend and partner.
+
+"Hullo, Raffles!" I called out, knocking on the door to the inner room.
+
+     "Tam-ma-nee, Tam-ma-nee;
+     Swampum, swampum,
+     Get their wampum,
+     Tam-ma-nee,"
+
+was the sole answer, and in such fortissimo tones that I was not surprised
+that he did not hear me.
+
+"Oh, I say, Raffles," I hallooed, rapping on the door again, this time with
+the head of my cane. "It's Jenkins, old man. Came to look you up. Was afraid
+something had happened to you."
+
+     "'Way down upon the Suwanee River,
+     Far, far away,
+     Dere's whar my heart am turnin' ever,
+     Dere's whar de ole folks stay,"
+
+was the reply.
+
+Again I laughed.
+
+"He's suffering from a bad attack of coonitis this evening," I observed to
+myself. "Looks to me as if I'd have to let it run its course."
+
+Whereupon I retired to a very comfortable couch near the window and sat down
+to await the termination of the musical.
+
+Five minutes later the singing having shown no signs of abatement I became
+impatient, and a third assault on the door followed, this time with cane,
+hands, and toes in unison.
+
+"I'll have him out this time or die!" I ejaculated, filled with resolve, and
+then began such a pounding upon the door as should have sufficed to awake a
+dead Raffles, not to mention a living one.
+
+"Hi, there, Jenkins!" cried a voice behind me, in the midst of this
+operation, identically the same voice, too, as that still going on in the
+room in front of me. "What the dickens are you trying to do--batter the
+house down?"
+
+I whirled about like a flash, and was deeply startled to see Raffles himself
+standing by the divan I had just vacated, divesting himself of his gloves
+and light overcoat.
+
+"You--Raffles?" I roared in astonishment.
+
+"Yep," said he. "Who else?"
+
+"But the--the other chap--in the room there?"
+
+"Oh," laughed Raffles. "That's my alibi-prover--hold on a minute and I'll
+show you."
+
+Whereupon he unlocked the door into the bedroom, whence had come the tuneful
+lyrics, threw it wide open, and revealed to my astonished gaze no less an
+object than a large talking-machine still engaged in the strenuous
+fulfilment of its noisy mission.
+
+"What the dickens!" I said.
+
+"It's attached to my front-door," said Raffles, silencing the machine. "The
+minute the door is opened it begins to sing like the four-and-twenty
+blackbirds baked in a pie."
+
+"But what good is it?" said I.
+
+"Oh, well--it keeps the servants from spending too much time in my
+apartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come in
+useful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have sworn
+I was in there just now, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I would indeed," said I.
+
+"Well--you see, I wasn't, so there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the-way,
+you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing before
+the evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times already
+to-day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him.
+His card name is Grouch, his real name is--"
+
+Here Raffles Holmes leaned forward and whispered in my ear a name of such
+eminent respectability that I fairly gasped.
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Mr. ----"
+
+"Nobody else," said Raffles Holmes. "Only he don't know I know who he is.
+The third time Grouch called I trailed him to Blank's house, and then
+recognized him as Blank himself."
+
+"And what does he want with you?" I asked.
+
+"That remains to be seen," said Raffles Holmes. "All I know is that next
+Tuesday he will be required to turn over $100,000 unregistered bonds to a
+young man about to come of age, for whom he has been a trustee."
+
+"Aha!" said I. "And you think--"
+
+"I don't think, Jenkins, until the time comes. Gray matter is scarce these
+times, and I'm not wasting any of mine on unnecessary speculation," said
+Raffles Holmes.
+
+At this point the telephone-bell rang and Raffles answered the summons.
+
+"Yes, I'll see Mr. Grouch. Show him up," he said. "It would be mighty
+interesting reading if some newspaper showed him up," he added, with a grin,
+as he returned. "By-the-way, Jenkins, I think you'd better go in there and
+have a half-hour's chat with the talking-machine. I have an idea old man
+Grouch won't have much to say with a third party present. Listen all you
+want to, but don't breathe too loud or you'll frighten him away."
+
+I immediately retired, and a moment later Mr. Grouch entered Raffles
+Holmes's den.
+
+"Glad to see you," said Raffles Holmes, cordially. "I was wondering how soon
+you'd be here."
+
+"You expected me, then?" asked the visitor, in surprise.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "Next Tuesday is young Wilbraham's twenty-first
+birthday, and--"
+
+Peering through a crack in the door I could see Grouch stagger.
+
+"You--you know my errand, then?" he gasped out.
+
+"Only roughly, Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, coolly. "Only roughly. But I am
+very much afraid that I can't do what you want me to. Those bonds are
+doubtless in some broker's box in a safe-deposit company, and I don't
+propose to try to borrow them surreptitiously, even temporarily, from an
+incorporated institution. It is not only a dangerous but a criminal
+operation. Does your employer know that you have taken them?"
+
+"My employer?" stammered Grouch, taken off his guard.
+
+"Yes. Aren't you the confidential secretary of Mr. ----?" Here Holmes
+mentioned the name of the eminent financier and philanthropist. No one would
+have suspected, from the tone of his voice, that Holmes was perfectly aware
+that Grouch and the eminent financier were one and the same person. The idea
+seemed to please and steady the visitor.
+
+"Why--ah--yes--I am Mr. Blank's confidential secretary," he blurted out.
+"And--ah--of course Mr. Blank does not know that I have speculated with the
+bonds and lost them."
+
+"The bonds are--"
+
+"In the hands of Bunker & Burke. I had hoped you would be able to suggest
+some way in which I could get hold of them long enough to turn them over to
+young Wilbraham, and then, in some other way, to restore them later to
+Bunker & Burke."
+
+"That is impossible," said Raffles Holmes. "For the reasons stated, I cannot
+be party to a criminal operation."
+
+"It will mean ruin for me if it cannot be done," moaned Grouch. "For Mr.
+Blank as well, Mr. Holmes; he is so deep in the market he can't possibly
+pull out. I thought possibly you knew of some reformed cracksman who would
+do this one favor for me just to tide things over. All we need is three
+weeks' time--three miserable little weeks."
+
+"Can't be done with a safe-deposit company at the other end of the line,"
+said Raffles Holmes. "If it were Mr. Blank's own private vault at his home
+it would be different. That would be a matter between gentlemen, between Mr.
+Blank and myself, but the other would put a corporation on the trail of the
+safe-breaker--an uncompromising situation."
+
+Grouch's eye glistened.
+
+"You know a man who, for a consideration and with a guarantee against
+prosecution, would break open my--I mean Mr. Blank's private vault?" he
+cried.
+
+"I think so," said Raffles Holmes, noncommittally. "Not as a crime, however,
+merely as a favor, and with the lofty purpose of saving an honored name from
+ruin. My advice to you would be to put a dummy package, supposed to contain
+the missing bonds, along with about $30,000 worth of other securities in
+that vault, and so arrange matters that on the night preceding the date of
+young Wilbraham's majority, the man I will send you shall have the
+opportunity to crack it open and get away with the stuff unmolested and
+unseen. Next day young Wilbraham will see for himself why it is that Mr.
+Blank cannot turn over the trust. That is the only secure and I may say
+decently honest way out of your trouble."
+
+"Mr. Raffles Holmes, you are a genius!" cried Grouch, ecstatically. And then
+he calmed down again as an unpleasant thought flashed across his mind. "Why
+is it necessary to put $30,000 additional in the safe, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Simply as a blind," said Holmes. "Young Wilbraham would be suspicious if
+the burglar got away with nothing but his property, wouldn't he?"
+
+"Quite so," said Grouch. "And now, Mr. Holmes, what will this service cost
+me?"
+
+"Five thousand dollars," said Holmes.
+
+"Phe-e-e-w!" whistled Grouch. "Isn't that pretty steep?"
+
+"No, Mr. Grouch. I save two reputations--yours and Mr. Blank's. Twenty-five
+hundred dollars is not much to pay for a reputation these days--I mean a
+real one, of course, such as yours is up to date," said Holmes, coldly.
+
+"Payable by certified check?" said Grouch.
+
+"Not much," laughed Holmes. "In twenty-dollar bills, Mr. Grouch. You may
+leave them in the safe along with the other valuables."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch, rising. "It shall be as you say.
+Before I go, sir, may I ask how you knew me and by what principle of
+deduction you came to guess my business so accurately?"
+
+"It was simple enough," said Holmes. "I knew, in the first place, that so
+eminent a person as Mr. Blank would not come to me in the guise of a Mr.
+Grouch if he hadn't some very serious trouble on his mind. I knew, from
+reading the society items in the _Whirald_, that Mr. Bobby Wilbraham would
+celebrate the attainment of his majority by a big fête on the 17th of next
+month. Everybody knows that Mr. Blank is Mr. Wilbraham's trustee until he
+comes of age. It was easy enough to surmise from that what the nature of the
+trouble was. Two and two almost invariably make four, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"And how the devil," demanded Grouch, angrily--"how the devil did you know I
+was Blank?"
+
+"Mr. Blank passes the plate at the church I go to every Sunday," said
+Holmes, laughing, "and it would take a great sight more than a two-dollar
+wig and a pair of fifty-cent whiskers to conceal that pompous manner of
+his."
+
+"Tush! You would better not make me angry, Mr. Holmes," said Grouch,
+reddening.
+
+"You can get as angry as you think you can afford to, for all I care, Mr.
+Blank," said Holmes. "It's none of my funeral, you know."
+
+And so the matter was settled. The unmasked Blank, seeing that wrath was
+useless, calmed down and accepted Holmes's terms and method for his relief.
+
+"I'll have my man there at 4 A.M., October 17th, Mr. Blank," said Holmes.
+"See that your end of it is ready. The coast must be kept clear or the
+scheme falls through."
+
+Grouch went heavily out, and Holmes called me back into the room.
+
+"Jenkins," said he, "that man is one of the biggest scoundrels in creation,
+and I'm going to give him a jolt."
+
+"Where are you going to get the retired burglar?" I asked.
+
+"Sir," returned Raffles Holmes, "this is to be a personally conducted
+enterprise. It's a job worthy of my grandsire on my mother's side. Raffles
+will turn the trick."
+
+And it turned out so to be, for the affair went through without a hitch. The
+night of October 16th I spend at Raffles's apartments. He was as calm as
+though nothing unusual were on hand. He sang songs, played the piano, and up
+to midnight was as gay and skittish as a school-boy on vacation. As twelve
+o'clock struck, however, he sobered down, put on his hat and coat, and,
+bidding me remain where I was, departed by means of the fire-escape.
+
+"Keep up the talk, Jenkins," he said. "The walls are thin here, and it's
+just as well, in matters of this sort, that our neighbors should have the
+impression that I have _not_ gone out. I've filled the machine up with a
+choice lot of songs and small-talk to take care of my end of it. A
+consolidated gas company, like yourself, should have no difficulty in
+filling in the gaps."
+
+And with that he left me to as merry and withal as nervous a three hours as
+I ever spent in my life. Raffles had indeed filled that talking-machine--
+thirteen full cylinders of it--with as choice an assortment of causeries and
+humorous anecdotes as any one could have wished to hear. Now and again it
+would bid me cheer up and not worry about him. Once, along about 2 A.M., it
+cried out: "You ought to see me now, Jenkins. I'm right in the middle of
+this Grouch job, and it's a dandy. I'll teach _him_ a lesson." The effect of
+all this was most uncanny. It was as if Raffles Holmes himself spoke to me
+from the depths of that dark room in the Blank household, where he was
+engaged in an enterprise of dreadful risk merely to save the good name of
+one who no longer deserved to bear such a thing. In spite of all this,
+however, as the hours passed I began to grow more and more nervous. The
+talking-machine sang and chattered, but when four o'clock came and Holmes
+had not yet returned, I became almost frenzied with excitement--and then at
+the climax of the tension came the flash of his dark-lantern on the fire-escape,
+and he climbed heavily into the room.
+
+"Thank Heaven you're back," I cried.
+
+"You have reason to," said Holmes, sinking into a chair. "Give me some
+whiskey. That man Blank is a worse scoundrel than I took him for."
+
+"What's happened?" I asked. "Didn't he play square?"
+
+"No," said Holmes, breathing heavily. "He waited until I had busted the
+thing open and was on my way out in the dark hall, and then pounced on me
+with his butler and valet. I bowled the butler down the kitchen stairs, and
+sent the valet howling into the dining-room with an appendicitis jab in the
+stomach and had the pleasure of blacking both of Mr. Blank's eyes."
+
+"And the stuff?"
+
+"Right here," said Holmes, tapping his chest. "I was afraid something might
+happen on the way out and I kept both hands free. I haven't much confidence
+in philanthropists like Blank. Fortunately the scrimmage was in the dark, so
+Blank will never know who hit him."
+
+"What are you going to do with the $35,000?" I queried, as we went over the
+booty later and found it all there.
+
+"Don't know--haven't made up my mind," said Holmes, laconically. "I'm too
+tired to think about that now. It's me for bed." And with that he turned in.
+
+Two days later, about nine o'clock in the evening, Mr. Grouch again called,
+and Holmes received him courteously.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes," Grouch observed, unctuously, rubbing his hands together,
+"it was a nice job, neatly done. It saved the day for me. Wilbraham was
+satisfied, and has given me a whole year to make good the loss. My
+reputation is saved, and--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Blank--or Grouch--er--to what do you refer?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Why, our little transaction of Monday night--or was it Tuesday morning?"
+said Grouch.
+
+"Oh--that!" said Holmes. "Well, I'm glad to hear you managed to pull it off
+satisfactorily. I was a little worried about it. I was afraid you were done
+for."
+
+"Done for?" said Grouch. "No, indeed. The little plan when off without a
+hitch."
+
+"Good," said Holmes. "I congratulate you. _Whom did you get to do the job?_"
+
+"Who--what--what--why, what do you mean, Mr. Holmes?" gasped Grouch.
+
+"Precisely what I say--or maybe you don't like to tell me--such things are
+apt to be on a confidential basis. Anyhow, I'm glad you're safe, Mr. Grouch,
+and I hope your troubles are over."
+
+"They will be when you give me back my $30,000," said Grouch.
+
+"Your what?" demanded Holmes, with well-feigned surprise.
+
+"My $30,000," repeated Blank, his voice rising to a shout.
+
+"My dear Mr. Grouch," said Holmes, "how should I know anything about your
+$30,000?"
+
+"Didn't your--your man take it?" demanded Grouch, huskily.
+
+"My man? Really, Mr. Grouch, you speak in riddles this evening. Pray make
+yourself more clear."
+
+"Your reformed burglar, who broke open my safe, and--" Grouch went on.
+
+"I have no such man, Mr. Grouch."
+
+"Didn't you send a man to my house, Mr. Raffles, to break open my safe, and
+take certain specified parcels of negotiable property therefrom?" said
+Grouch, rising and pounding the table with his fists.
+
+"_I did not!_" returned Holmes, with equal emphasis. "I have never in my
+life sent anybody to your house, sir."
+
+"Then who in the name of Heaven did?" roared Grouch. "The stuff is gone."
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am willing," said he, calmly, "to undertake to find out who did it, if
+anybody, if that is what you mean, Mr. Grouch. Ferreting out crime is my
+profession. Otherwise, I beg to assure you that my interest in the case
+ceases at this moment."
+
+Here Holmes rose with quiet dignity and walked to the door.
+
+"You will find me at my office in the morning, Mr. Grouch." he remarked, "in
+case you wish to consult me professionally."
+
+"Hah!" sneered Grouch. "You think you can put me off this way, do you?"
+
+"I think so," said Holmes, with a glittering eye. "No gentleman or other
+person may try to raise a disturbance in my private apartments and remain
+there."
+
+"We'll see what the police have to say about this, Mr. Raffles Holmes,"
+Grouch shrieked, as he made for the door.
+
+"Very well," said Holmes. "I've no doubt they will find our discussion of
+the other sinners very interesting. They are welcome to the whole story as
+far as I am concerned."
+
+And he closed the door on the ashen face of the suffering Mr. Grouch.
+
+
+
+"What shall I do with your share of the $30,000, Jenkins?" said Raffles
+Holmes a week later.
+
+"Anything you please," said I. "Only don't offer any of it to me. I can't
+question the abstract justice of your mulcting old Blank for the amount,
+but, somehow or other, I don't want any of it myself. Send it to the Board
+of Foreign Missions."
+
+"Good!" said Holmes. "That's what I've done with my share. See!"
+
+And he showed me an evening paper in which the board conveyed its
+acknowledgment of the generosity of an unknown donor of the princely sum of
+$15,000.
+
+
+
+VII
+THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
+
+"Jenkins," said Raffles Holmes, lighting his pipe and throwing himself down
+upon my couch, "don't you sometimes pine for those good old days of Jack
+Sheppard and Dick Turpin? Hang it all--I'm getting blisteringly tired of the
+modern refinements in crime, and yearn for the period when the highwayman
+met you on the road and made you stand and deliver at the point of the
+pistol."
+
+"Indeed I don't!" I ejaculated. "I'm not chicken-livered, Raffles, but I'm
+mighty glad my lines are cast in less strenuous scenes. When a book-agent
+comes in here, for instance, and holds me up for nineteen dollars a volume
+for a set of Kipling in words of one syllable, illustrated by his aunt, and
+every volume autographed by his uncle's step-sister, it's a game of wits
+between us as to whether I shall buy or not buy, and if he gets away with my
+signature to a contract it is because he has legitimately outwitted me. But
+your ancient Turpin overcame you by brute force; you hadn't a run for your
+money from the moment he got his eye on you, and no percentage of the swag
+was ever returned to you as in the case of the Double-Cross Edition of
+Kipling, in which you get at least fifty cents worth of paper and print for
+every nineteen dollars you give up."
+
+"That is merely the commercial way of looking at it," protested Holmes. "You
+reckon up the situation on a basis of mere dollars, strike a balance and
+charge the thing up to profit and loss. But the romance of it all, the
+element of the picturesque, the delicious, tingling sense of adventure which
+was inseparable from a road experience with a commanding personality like
+Turpin--these things are all lost in your prosaic book-agent methods of our
+day. No man writing his memoirs for the enlightenment of posterity would
+ever dream of setting down upon paper the story of how a book-agent robbed
+him of two-hundred dollars, but the chap who has been held up in the dark
+recesses of a forest on a foggy night by a Jack Sheppard would always find
+breathless and eager listeners to or readers of the tale he had to tell,
+even if he lost only a nickel by the transaction."
+
+"Well, old man," said I, "I'm satisfied with the prosaic methods of the gas
+companies, the book-agents, and the riggers of the stock-market. Give me
+Wall Street and you take Dick Turpin and all his crew. But what has set your
+mind to working on the Dick Turpin end of it anyhow? Thinking of going in
+for that sort of thing yourself?"
+
+"M-m-m yes," replied Holmes, hesitatingly. "I am. Not that I pine to become
+one of the Broom Squires myself, but because I--well, I may be forced into
+it."
+
+"Take my advice, Raffles," I interrupted, earnestly. "Let fire-arms and
+highways alone. There's too much of battle, murder, and sudden death in
+loaded guns, and surplus of publicity in street work."
+
+"You mustn't take me so literally, Jenkins," he retorted. "I'm not going to
+follow precisely in the steps of Turpin, but a hold-up on the public highway
+seems to be the only way out of a problem which I have been employed to
+settle. Do you know young Billington Rand?"
+
+"By sight," said I, with a laugh. "And by reputation. You're not going to
+hold him up, are you?" I added, contemptuously.
+
+"Why not?" said Holmes.
+
+"It's like breaking into an empty house in search of antique furniture," I
+explained. "Common report has it that Billington Rand has already been
+skinned by about every skinning agency in town. He's posted at all his
+clubs. Every gambler in town, professional as well as social, has his
+I.O.U.'s for bridge, poker, and faro debts. Everybody knows it except those
+fatuous people down in the Kenesaw National Bank, where he's employed, and
+the Fidelity Company that's on his bond. He wouldn't last five minutes in
+either place if his uncle wasn't a director in both concerns."
+
+"I see that you have a pretty fair idea of Billington Rand's financial
+condition," said Holmes.
+
+"It's rather common talk in the clubs, so why shouldn't I?" I put in.
+"Holding him up would be at most an act of petit larceny, if you measure a
+crime by what you get out of it. It's a great shame, though, for at heart
+Rand is one of the best fellows in the world. He's a man who has all the
+modern false notions of what a fellow ought to do to keep up what he calls
+his end. He plays cards and sustains ruinous losses because he thinks he
+won't be considered a good-fellow if he stays out. He plays bridge with
+ladies and pays up when he loses and doesn't collect when he wins. Win or
+lose he's doomed to be on the wrong side of the market just because of those
+very qualities that make him a lovable person--kind to everybody but
+himself, and weak as dish-water. For Heaven's sake, Raffles, if the poor
+devil _has_ anything left don't take it from him."
+
+"Your sympathy for Rand does you credit," said Holmes. "But I have just as
+much of that as you have, and that is why, at half-past five o'clock to-
+morrow afternoon, I'm going to hold him up, in the public eye, and
+incontinently rob him of $25,000."
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars? Billington Rand?" I gasped.
+
+"Twenty-five thousand dollars. Billington Rand," repeated Holmes, firmly.
+"If you don't believe it come along and see. He doesn't know you, does he?"
+
+"Not from Adam," said I.
+
+"Very good--then you'll be safe as a church. Meet me in the Fifth Avenue
+Hotel corridor at five to-morrow afternoon and I'll show you as pretty a
+hold-up as you ever dreamed of," said Holmes.
+
+"But--I can't take part in a criminal proceeding like that, Holmes," I
+protested.
+
+"You won't have to--even if it were a criminal proceeding, which it is not,"
+he returned. "Nobody outside of you and me will know anything about it but
+Rand himself, and the chances that he will peach are less than a millionth
+part of a half per cent. Anyhow, all you need be is a witness."
+
+There was a long and uneasy silence. I was far from liking the job, but
+after all, so far, Holmes had not led me into any difficulties of a serious
+nature, and, knowing him as I had come to know him, I had a hearty belief
+that any wrong he did was temporary and was sure to be rectified in the long
+run.
+
+"I've a decent motive in all this, Jenkins," he resumed in a few moments.
+"Don't forget that. This hold-up is going to result in a reformation that
+will be for the good of everybody, so don't have any scruples on that
+score."
+
+"All right, Raffles," said I. "You've always played straight with me, so
+far, and I don't doubt your word--only I hate the highway end of it."
+
+"Tutt, Jenkins!" he ejaculated, with a laugh and giving me a whack on the
+shoulders that nearly toppled me over into the fire-place. "Don't be a
+rabbit. The thing will be as easy as cutting calve's-foot jelly with a
+razor."
+
+Thus did I permit myself to be persuaded, and the next afternoon at five,
+Holmes and I met in the corridor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
+
+"Come on," he said, after the first salutations were over. "Rand will be at
+the Thirty-third Street subway at 5.15, and it is important that we should
+catch him before he gets to Fifth Avenue."
+
+"I'm glad it's to be on a side street," I remarked, my heart beating rapidly
+with excitement over the work in hand, for the more I thought of the venture
+the less I liked it.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that it will be," said Holmes, carelessly. "I may pull it
+off in the corridors of the Powhatan."
+
+The pumps in my heart reversed their action and for a moment I feared I
+should drop with dismay.
+
+"In the Powhatan--" I began.
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins!" said Holmes, imperatively. "This is no time for
+protests. We're in it now and there's no drawing back."
+
+Ten minutes later we stood at the intersection of Thirty-third Street and
+Fifth Avenue. Holmes's eyes flashed and his whole nervous system quivered as
+with the joy of the chase.
+
+"Keep your mouth shut, Jenkins, and you'll see a pretty sight," he
+whispered, "for here comes our man."
+
+Sure enough, there was Billington Rand on the other side of the street,
+walking along nervously and clutching an oblong package, wrapped in brown
+paper, firmly in his right hand.
+
+"Now for it," said Holmes, and we crossed the street, scarcely reaching the
+opposite curb before Rand was upon us. Rand eyed us closely and shied off to
+one side as Holmes blocked his progress.
+
+"I'll trouble you for that package, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, quietly.
+
+The man's face went white and he caught his breath.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he demanded, angrily.
+
+"That has nothing to do with the case." retorted Holmes. "I want that
+package or--"
+
+"Get out of my way!" cried Rand, with a justifiable show of resentment. "Or
+I'll call an officer."
+
+"Will you?" said Holmes, quietly. "Will you call an officer and so make
+known to the authorities that you are in possession of twenty-five thousand
+dollars worth of securities that belong to other people, which are supposed
+at this moment to be safely locked up in the vaults of the Kenesaw National
+Back along with other collateral?"
+
+Rand staggered back against the newel-post of a brown-stone stoop, and stood
+there gazing wildly into Holmes's face.
+
+"Of course, if you prefer having the facts made known in that way," Holmes
+continued, coolly, "you have the option. I am not going to use physical
+force to persuade you to hand the package over to me, but you are a greater
+fool than I take you for if you choose that alternative. To use an
+expressive modern phrase, Mr. Billington Rand, you will be caught with the
+goods on, and unless you have a far better explanation of how those
+securities happen in your possession at this moment than I think you have,
+there is no power on earth can keep you from landing in state-prison."
+
+The unfortunate victim of Holmes's adventure fairly gasped in his combined
+rage and fright. Twice he attempted to speak, but only inarticulate sounds
+issued from his lips.
+
+"You are, of course, very much disturbed at the moment," Holmes went on,
+"and I am really very sorry if anything I have done has disarranged any
+honorable enterprise in which you have embarked. I don't wish to hurry you
+into a snap decision, which you may repent later, only either the police or
+I must have that package within an hour. It is for you to say which of us is
+to get it. Suppose we run over to the Powhatan and discuss the matter calmly
+over a bottle of Glengarry? Possibly I can convince you that it will be for
+your own good to do precisely as I tell you and very much to your
+disadvantage to do otherwise."
+
+Rand, stupefied by this sudden intrusion upon his secret by an utter
+stranger, lost what little fight there was left in him, and at least seemed
+to assent to Holmes's proposition. The latter linked arms with him, and in a
+few minutes we walked into the famous hostelry just as if we were three
+friends, bent only upon having a pleasant chat over a café table.
+
+"What'll you have, Mr. Rand?" asked Holmes, suavely. "I'm elected for the
+Glengarry special, with a little carbonic on the side."
+
+"Same," said Rand, laconically.
+
+"Sandwich with it?" asked Holmes. "You'd better."
+
+"Oh, I can't eat anything," began Rand. "I--"
+
+"Bring us some sandwiches, waiter," said Holmes. "Two Glengarry special,
+a syphon of carbonic, and--Jenkins, what's yours?"
+
+The calmness and the cheek of the fellow!
+
+"I'm not in on this at all," I retorted, angered by Holmes's use of my name.
+"And I want Mr. Rand to understand--"
+
+"Oh, tutt!" ejaculated Holmes. "_He_ knows that. Mr. Rand, my friend Jenkins
+has no connection with this enterprise of mine, and he's done his level best
+to dissuade me from holding you up so summarily. All he's along for is to
+write the thing up for--"
+
+"The newspapers?" cried Rand, now thoroughly frightened.
+
+"No," laughed Holmes. "Nothing so useful--the magazines."
+
+Holmes winked at me as he spoke, and I gathered that there was method in his
+apparent madness.
+
+"That's one of the points you want to consider, though, Mr. Rand," he said,
+leaning upon the table with his elbows. "Think of the newspapers to-morrow
+morning if you call the police rather than hand that package over to me.
+It'll be a big sensation for Wall Street and upper Fifth Avenue, to say
+nothing of what the yellows will make of the story for the rest of hoi
+polloi. The newsboys will be yelling extras all over town, printed in great,
+red letters, 'A Club-man Held-Up in Broad Daylight, For $25,000 In
+Securities That Didn't Belong to Him. Billington Rand Has Something To
+Explain. Where Did He Get It?--"
+
+"For Heavens sake, man! don't!" pleased the unfortunate Billington. "God! I
+never thought of that."
+
+"Of course you didn't think of that," said Holmes. "That's why I'm telling
+you about it now. You don't dispute my facts, do you?"
+
+"No, I--" Rand began.
+
+"Of course not," said Holmes. "You might as well dispute the existence of
+the Flat-iron Building. If you don't want to-morrow's papers to be full of
+this thing you'll hand that package over to me."
+
+"But," protested Rand, "I'm only taking them up to--to a--er--to a broker."
+Here he gathered himself together and spoke with greater assurance. "I am
+delivering them, sir, to a broker, on behalf of one of our depositors who--"
+
+"Who has been speculating with what little money he had left, has lost his
+margins, and is now forced into an act of crime to protect his speculation,"
+said Holmes. "The broker is the notorious William C. Gallagher, who runs an
+up-town bucket-shop for speculative ladies to lose their pin-money and
+bridge winnings in, and your depositor's name is Billington Rand, Esq.--
+otherwise yourself."
+
+"How do you know all this?" gasped Rand.
+
+"Oh--maybe I read it on the ticker," laughed Holmes. "Or, what is more
+likely, possibly I overheard Gallagher recommending you to dip into the
+bank's collateral to save your investment, at Green's chop-house last
+night."
+
+"You were at Green's chop-house last night?" cried Rand.
+
+"In the booth adjoining your own, and I heard every word you said," said
+Holmes.
+
+"Well, I don't see why I should give the stuff to you anyhow," growled Rand.
+
+"Chiefly because I happen to be long on information which would be of
+interest, not only to the police, but to the president and board of
+directors of the Kenesaw National Back, Mr. Rand," said Holmes. "It will be
+a simple matter for me to telephone Mr. Horace Huntington, the president of
+your institution, and put him wise to this transaction of yours, and that is
+the second thing I shall do immediately you have decided not to part with
+that package."
+
+"The second thing?" Rand whimpered. "What will you do first?"
+
+"Communicate with the first policeman we meet when we leave here," said
+Holmes. "But take your time, Mr. Rand--take your time. Don't let me hurry
+you into a decision. Try a little of this Glengarry and we'll drink hearty
+to a sensible conclusion."
+
+"I--I'll put them back in the vaults to-morrow," pleaded Rand.
+
+"Can't trust you, my boy," said Holmes. "Not with a persuasive crook like
+old Bucket-ship Gallagher on your trail. They're safer with me."
+
+Rand's answer was a muttered oath as he tossed the package across the table
+and started to leave us.
+
+"One word more, Mr. Rand," said Holmes, detaining him. "Don't do anything
+rash. There's a lot of good-fellowship between criminals, and I'll stand by
+you all right. So far nobody knows you took these things, and even when they
+turn up missing, if you go about your work as if nothing had happened, while
+you may be suspected, nobody can _prove_ that you got the goods."
+
+Rand's face brightened at this remark.
+
+"By Jove!--that's true enough," said he. "Excepting Gallagher," he added,
+his face falling.
+
+"Pah for Gallagher!" cried Holmes, snapping his fingers contemptuously. "If
+he as much as peeped we could put him in jail, and if he sells you out you
+tell him for me that I'll land him in Sing Sing for a term of years. He led
+you into this--"
+
+"He certainly did," moaned Rand.
+
+"And he's got to get you out," said Holmes. "Now, good-bye, old man. The
+worst that can happen to you is a few judgments instead of penal servitude
+for eight or ten years, unless you are foolish enough to try another turn of
+this sort, and then you may not happen on a good-natured highwayman like
+myself to get you out of your troubles. By-the-way, what is the combination
+of the big safe in the outer office of the Kenesaw National?"
+
+"One-eight-nine-seven," said Rand.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes, jotting it down coolly in his memorandum-book.
+"That's a good thing to know."
+
+
+
+That night, shortly before midnight, Holmes left me. "I've got to finish
+this job," said he. "The most ticklish part of the business is yet to come."
+
+"Great Scott, Holmes!" I cried. "Isn't the thing done?"
+
+"No--of course not," he replied. "I've got to bust open the Kenesaw safe."
+
+"Now, my dear Raffles," I began, "why aren't you satisfied with what you've
+done already. Why must you--"
+
+"Shut up, Jenkins," he interrupted, with a laugh. "If you knew what I was
+going to do you wouldn't kick--that is, unless you've turned crook too?"
+
+"Not I," said I, indignantly.
+
+"You don't expect me to keep these bonds, do you?" he asked.
+
+"But what are you going to do with them?" I retorted.
+
+"Put 'em back in the Kenesaw Bank, where they belong, so that they'll be
+found there to-morrow morning. As sure as I don't, Billington Rand is
+doomed," said he. "It's a tough job, but I've been paid a thousand dollars
+by his family, to find out what he's up to, and by thunder, after following
+his trail for three weeks, I've got such a liking for the boy that I'm going
+to save him if it can be done, and if there's any Raffles left in me, such a
+simple proposition as cracking a bank and puting the stuff back where it
+belongs, in a safe of which I have the combination, isn't going to stand in
+my way. Don't fret, old man, it's as good as done. Good-night."
+
+And Raffles Holmes was off. I passed a feverish night, but at five o'clock
+the following morning a telephone message set all my misgivings at rest.
+
+"Hello, Jenkins!" came Raffles's voice over the wire.
+
+"Hello," I replied.
+
+"Just rang you up to let you know that it's all right. The stuff's replaced.
+Easiest job ever--like opening oysters. Pleasant dreams to you," he said,
+and, click, the connection was broken.
+
+Two weeks later Billington Rand resigned from the Kenesaw Bank and went
+West, where he is now leading the simple life on a sheep-ranch. His
+resignation was accepted with regret, and the board of directors, as a
+special mark of their liking, voted him a gift of $2500 for faithful
+services.
+
+"And the best part of it was," said Holmes, when he told me of the young
+man's good fortune, "that his accounts were as straight as a string."
+
+"Holmes, you are a bully chap!" I cried, in a sudden excess of enthusiasm.
+"You do things for nothing sometimes--"
+
+"Nothing!" echoed Holmes--"nothing! Why, that job was worth a million
+dollars to me, Jenkins--but not in coin. Just in good solid satisfaction in
+saving a fine young chap like Billington Rand from the clutches of a sharper
+and sneaking skinflint like old Bucket-shop Gallagher."
+
+
+
+VIII
+"THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
+
+Raffles Holmes was unusually thoughtful the other night when he entered my
+apartment, and for a long time I could get nothing out of him save an
+occasional grunt of assent or dissent from propositions advanced by myself.
+It was quite evident that he was cogitating deeply over some problem that
+was more than ordinarily vexatious, so I finally gave up all efforts at
+conversation, pushed the cigars closer to him, poured him out a stiff dose
+of his favorite Glengarry, and returned to my own work. It was a full hour
+before he volunteered an observation of any kind, and then he plunged
+rapidly into a very remarkable tale.
+
+"I had a singular adventure to-day, Jenkins," he said. "Do you happen to
+have in your set of my father's adventures a portrait of Sherlock Holmes?"
+
+"Yes, I have," I replied. "But you don't need anything of the kind to
+refresh your memory of him. All you have to do is to look at yourself in the
+glass, and you've got the photograph before you."
+
+"I _am_ so like him then?" he queried.
+
+"Most of the time, old man, I am glad to say," said I. "There are days when
+you are the living image of your grandfather Raffles, but that is only when
+you are planning some scheme of villany. I can almost invariably detect the
+trend of your thoughts by a glance at your face--you are Holmes himself in
+your honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delighted
+me more than I can say to find you a fac-simile of your splendid father,
+with naught to suggest your fascinating but vicious granddad."
+
+"That's what I wanted to find out. I had evidence of it this afternoon on
+Broadway," said he. "It was bitterly cold up around Fortieth Street, snowing
+like the devil, and such winds as you'd expect to find nowhere this side of
+Greenland's icy mountains. I came out of a Broadway chop-house and started
+north, when I was stopped by an ill-clad, down-trodden specimen of humanity,
+who begged me, for the love of Heaven to give him a drink. The poor chap's
+condition was such that it would have been manslaughter to refuse him, and a
+moment later I had him before the Skidmore bar, gurgling down a tumblerful
+of raw brandy as though it were water. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and
+turned to thank me, when a look of recognition came into his face, and he
+staggered back half in fear and half in amazement.
+
+"'Sherlock Holmes!' he cried.
+
+"'Am I?' said I, calmly, my curiosity much excited.
+
+"'Him or his twin!' said he.
+
+"'How should you know me?' I asked.
+
+"'Good reason enough,' he muttered. ''Twas Sherlock Holmes as landed me for
+ten years in Reading gaol.'
+
+"'Well, my friend,' I answered, 'I've no doubt you deserved it if he did it.
+I am _not_ Sherlock Holmes, however, but his son.'
+
+"'Will you let me take you by the hand, governor?' he whispered, hoarsely.
+'Not for the kindness you've shown me here, but for the service your old man
+did me. I am Nervy Jim the Snatcher.'
+
+"'Service?' said I, with a laugh. 'You consider it a service to be landed in
+Reading gaol?'
+
+"'They was the only happy years I ever had, sir,' he answered, impetuously.
+'The keepers was good to me. I was well fed; kept workin' hard at an honest
+job, pickin' oakum; the gaol was warm, and I never went to bed by night or
+got up o' mornin's worried over the question o' how I was goin' to get the
+swag to pay my rent. Compared to this'--with a wave of his hand at the
+raging of the elements along Broadway--'Reading gaol was heaven, sir; and
+since I was discharged I've been a helpless, hopeless wanderer, sleepin' in
+doorways, chilled to the bone, half-starved, with not a friendly eye in
+sight, and nothin' to do all day long and all night long but move on when
+the Bobbies tell me to, and think about the happiness I'd left behind me
+when I left Reading. Was you ever homesick, governor?'
+
+"I confessed to an occasional feeling of nostalgia for old Picadilly and the
+Thames.
+
+"'Then you know, says he, 'how I feels now in a strange land, dreamin' of my
+comfortable little cell at Reading; the good meals, the pleasant keepers,
+and a steady job with nothin' to worry about for ten short years. I want to
+go back, governor--I want to go back!'
+
+"Well," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I was pretty nearly floored, but
+when the door of the saloon blew open and a blast of sharp air and a furry
+of snow came in, I couldn't blame the poor beggar--certainly any place in
+the world, even a jail, was more comfortable than Broadway at that moment. I
+explained to him, however, that as far as Reading gaol was concerned, I was
+powerless to help him.
+
+"'But there's just as good prisons here, ain't there, governor?' he pleaded.
+
+"'Oh yes,' said I, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 'Sing Sing is
+a first-class, up-to-date penitentiary, with all modern improvements, and a
+pretty select clientele.'
+
+"'Couldn't you put me in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do
+anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you only will.'
+
+"'Why don't you get yourself arrested as a vagrant?' I asked. 'That'll give
+you three months on Blackwell's Island and will tide you over the winter.'
+
+"'Tain't permanent, governor,' he objected. 'At the end o' three months I'd
+be out and have to begin all over again. What I want is something I can
+count on for ten or twenty years. Besides, I has some pride, governor, and
+for Nervy Jim to do three months' time--Lor', sir, I couldn't bring myself
+to nothin' so small!'
+
+"There was no resisting the poor cuss, Jenkins, and I promised to do what I
+could for him."
+
+"That's a nice job," said I. "What can you do?"
+
+"That's what stumps me," said Raffles Holmes, scratching his head in
+perplexity. "I've set him up in a small tenement down on East Houston Street
+temporarily, and meanwhile, it's up to me to land him in Sing Sing, where he
+can live comfortably for a decade or so, and I'm hanged if I know how to do
+it. He used to be a first-class second-story man, and in his day was an A-1
+snatcher, as his name signifies and my father's diaries attest, but I'm
+afraid his hand is out for a nice job such as I would care to have anything
+to do with myself."
+
+"Better let him slide, Raffles," said I. "He introduces the third party
+element into our arrangement, and that's mighty dangerous."
+
+"True--but consider the literary value of a chap that's homesick for jail,"
+he answered, persuasively. "I don't know, but I think he's new."
+
+Ah, the insidious appeal of that man! He knew the crack in my armor, and
+with neatness and despatch he pierced it, and I fell.
+
+"Well--" I demurred.
+
+"Good," said he. "We'll consider it arranged. I'll fix him out in a week."
+
+Holmes left me at this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On
+the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door
+of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with
+you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of
+his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when
+he hung up the receiver and cut the connection.
+
+"I wanted to excite your curiosity so that you would be sure to come," he
+laughed, when I asked his meaning later. "You and I are going to join Mr.
+Conried's selected chorus of educated persons who want to earn their grand
+opera instead of paying five dollars a performance for it."
+
+And so we did, although I objected a little at first.
+
+"I can't sing," said I.
+
+"Of course you can't," said he. "If you could you wouldn't go into the
+chorus. But don't bother about that, I have a slight pull here and we can
+get in all right as long as we are moderately intelligent, and able-bodied
+enough to carry a spear. By-the-way, in musical circles my name is Dickson.
+Don't forget that."
+
+That Holmes had a pull was shortly proven, for although neither of us was
+more than ordinarily gifted vocally, we proved acceptable and in a short
+time found ourselves enrolled among the supernumeraries who make of
+"Lohengrin" a splendid spectacle to the eye. I found real zest in life
+carrying that spear, and entered into the spirit of what I presumed to be a
+mere frolic with enthusiasm, merely for the experience of it, to say nothing
+of the delight I took in the superb music, which I have always loved.
+
+And then the eventful night came. It was Monday and the house was packed. On
+both sides of the curtain everything was brilliant. The cast was one of the
+best and the audience all that the New York audience is noted for in wealth,
+beauty, and social prestige, and, in the matter of jewels, of lavish
+display. Conspicuous in respect to the last was the ever-popular, though
+somewhat eccentric Mrs. Robinson-Jones, who in her grand-tier box fairly
+scintillated with those marvellous gems which gave her, as a musical critic,
+whose notes on the opera were chiefly confined to observations on its social
+aspects, put it, "the appearance of being lit up by electricity." Even from
+where I stood, as a part and parcel of the mock king's court on the stage, I
+could see the rubies and sapphires and diamonds loom large upon the horizon
+as the read, white, and blue emblem of our national greatness to the truly
+patriotic soul. Little did I dream, as I stood in the rear line of the
+court, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, and
+swelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for a
+voice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soon
+to be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even his
+illustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any other
+business than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wrapt
+in the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, did he seem to be
+aware that there was such a thing as an audience, much less one individual
+member of it, on the other side of the footlights. Like a member of the Old
+Choral Guard, he went through the work in hand as nonchalantly as though it
+were his regular business in life. It was during the intermission between
+the first and second acts that I began to suspect that there was something
+in the wind beside music, for Holmes's face became set, and the resemblance
+to his honorable father, which had of late been so marked, seemed to
+dissolve itself into an unpleasant suggestion of his other forbear, the
+acquisitive Raffles. My own enthusiasm for our operatic experience, which I
+took no pains to conceal, found no response in him, and from the fall of the
+curtain on the first act it seemed to me as if he were trying to avoid me.
+So marked indeed did this desire to hold himself aloof become that I
+resolved to humor him in it, and instead of clinging to his side as had been
+my wont, I let him go his own way, and, at the beginning of the second act,
+he disappeared. I did not see him again until the long passage between
+Ortrud and Telrammund was on, when, in the semi-darkness of the stage, I
+caught sight of him hovering in the vicinity of the electric switch-board by
+which the lights of the house are controlled. Suddenly I saw him reach out
+his hand quickly, and a moment later every box-light went out, leaving the
+auditorium in darkness, relieved only by the lighting of the stage. Almost
+immediately there came a succession of shrieks from the grand-tier in the
+immediate vicinity of the Robinson-Jones box, and I knew that something was
+afoot. Only a slight commotion in the audience was manifest to us upon the
+stage, but there was a hurrying and scurrying of ushers and others of
+greater or less authority, until finally the box-lights flashed out again in
+all their silk-tasselled illumination. The progress of the opera was not
+interrupted for a moment, but in that brief interval of blackness at the
+rear of the house some one had had time to force his way into the Robinson-
+Jones box and snatch from the neck of its fair occupant that wondrous
+hundred-thousand-dollar necklace of matchless rubies that had won the
+admiring regard of many beholders, and the envious interest of not a few.
+
+Three hours later Raffles Holmes and I returned from the days and dress of
+Lohengrin's time to affairs of to-day, and when we were seated in my
+apartment along about two o'clock in the morning, Holmes lit a cigar, poured
+himself out a liberal dose of Glengarry, and with a quiet smile, leaned back
+in his chair.
+
+"Well," he said, "what about it?"
+
+"You have the floor, Raffles," I answered. "Was that your work?"
+
+"One end of it," said he. "It went off like clock-work. Poor old Nervy has
+won his board and lodging for twenty years all right."
+
+"But--he's got away with it," I put in.
+
+"As far as East Houston Street," Holmes observed, quietly. "To-morrow I
+shall take up the case, track Nervy to his lair, secure Mrs. Robinson-Jones'
+necklace, return it to the lady, and within three weeks the Snatcher will
+take up his abode on the banks of the Hudson, the only banks the ordinary
+cracksman is anxious to avoid."
+
+"But how the dickens did you manage to put a crook like that on the grand-
+tier floor?" I demanded.
+
+"Jenkins, what a child you are!" laughed Holmes. "How did I get him there?
+Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones
+box--you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to
+pay for it--and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a
+crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass
+for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his
+ticket, walk in and await the signal. I gave the man his music cue, and two
+minutes before the lights went out he sauntered down the broad staircase to
+the door of the Robinson-Jones box, and was ready to turn the trick. He was
+under cover of darkness long enough to get away with the necklace, and when
+the lights came back, if you had known enough to look out into the
+auditorium you would have seen him back there in his box above, taking in
+the situation as calmly as though he had himself had nothing whatever to do
+with it."
+
+"And how shall you trace him?" I demanded. "Isn't that going to be a little
+dangerous?"
+
+"Not if he followed out my instructions," said Holmes. "If he dropped a
+letter addressed to himself in his own hand-writing at his East Houston
+Street lair, in the little anteroom of the box, as I told him to do, we'll
+have all the clews we need to run him to earth."
+
+"But suppose the police find it?" I asked.
+
+"They won't," laughed Holmes. "They'll spend their time looking for some
+impecunious member of the smart set who might have done the job. They always
+try to find the sensational clew first, and by day after to-morrow morning
+four or five poor but honest members of the four-hundred will find when they
+read the morning papers that they are under surveillance, while I, knowing
+exactly what has happened will have all the start I need. I have already
+offered my services, and by ten o'clock to-morrow morning they will be
+accepted, as will also those of half a hundred other detectives,
+professional and amateur. At eleven I will visit the opera-house, where I
+expect to find the incriminating letter on the floor, or if the cleaning
+women have already done their work, which is very doubtful, I will find it
+later among the sweepings of waste paper in the cellar of the opera-house.
+Accompanied by two plain-clothes men from headquarters I will then proceed
+to Nervy's quarters, and, if he is really sincere in his desire to go to
+jail for a protracted period, we shall find him there giving an imitation of
+a gloat over his booty."
+
+"And suppose the incriminating letter is not there?" I asked. "He may have
+changed his mind."
+
+"I have arranged for that," said Holmes, with a quick, steely glance at me.
+"I've got a duplicate letter in my pocket now. If he didn't drop it, I
+will."
+
+But Nervy Jim was honest at least in his desire for a permanent residence in
+an up-to-date penitentiary, for, even as the deed itself had been
+accomplished with a precision that was almost automatic, so did the work yet
+to be done go off with the nicety of a well-regulated schedule. Everything
+came about as Holmes had predicted, even to the action of the police in
+endeavoring to fasten the crime upon an inoffensive and somewhat impecunious
+social dangler, whose only ambition in life was to lead a cotillion well,
+and whose sole idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make
+some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in
+his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued
+the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for
+libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court
+for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where
+Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early
+visit at the East Houston Street lodging-house, and found the happy Snatcher
+snoring away in his cot with a smile on his face that seemed to indicate
+that he was dreaming he was back in a nice comfortable jail once more; and
+as if to make assurance doubly sure, the missing necklace hung about his
+swarthy neck! Short work was made of the arrest; Nervy Him, almost
+embarrassingly grateful, was railroaded to Sing Sing in ten days' time, for
+fifteen years, and Raffles Holmes had the present pleasure and personal
+satisfaction of restoring the lost necklace to the fair hands of Mrs.
+Robinson-Jones herself.
+
+
+
+"Look at that, Jenkins!" He said, gleefully, when the thing was all over. "A
+check for $10,000."
+
+"Well--that isn't so much, considering the value of the necklace," said I.
+
+"That's the funny part of it," laughed Holmes. "Every stone in it was paste,
+but Mrs. Robinson-Jones never let on for a minute. She paid her little ten
+thousand rather than have it known."
+
+"Great Heavens!--really?" I said.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, replacing the check in his pocket-book. "She's almost as
+nervy as Nervy Jim himself. She's what I call a dead-game sport."
+
+
+
+IX
+THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
+
+Raffles Holmes and I had walked up-town together. It was a beastly cold
+night, and when we reached the Hotel Powhatan my companion suggested that we
+stop in for a moment to thaw out our frozen cheeks, and incidentally, warm
+up the inner man with some one of the spirituous concoctions for which that
+hostelry is deservedly famous. I naturally acquiesced, and in a moment we
+sat at one of the small tables in the combination reading-room and café of
+the hotel.
+
+"Queer place, this," said Holmes, gazing about him at the motley company of
+guests. "It is the gathering place of the noted and the notorious. That
+handsome six-footer, who has just left the room, is the Reverend Dr.
+Harkaway, possibly the most eloquent preacher they have in Boston. At the
+table over in the corner, talking to that gold-haired lady with a roasted
+pheasant on her head in place of a hat, is Jack McBride, the light-weight
+champion of the Northwest, and--by thunder, Jenkins, look at that!"
+
+A heavy-browed, sharp-eyed Englishman appeared in the doorway, stood a
+moment, glanced about him eagerly, and, with a gesture of impatience, turned
+away and disappeared in the throngs of the corridor without.
+
+"There's something doing to bring 'Lord Baskingford' here," muttered Holmes.
+
+"Lord Baskingford?" said I. "Who's he?"
+
+"He's the most expert diamond lifter in London," answered Holmes. "His
+appearance on Piccadilly was a signal always to Scotland Yard to wake up,
+and to the jewellers of Bond Street to lock up. My old daddy used to say
+that Baskingford could scent a Kohinoor quicker than a hound a fox. I wonder
+what his game is."
+
+"Is he a real lord?" I asked.
+
+"Real?" laughed Holmes. "Yes--he's a real Lord of the Lifters, if that's
+what you mean, but if you mean does he belong to the peerage, no. His real
+name is Bob Hollister. He has served two terms in Pentonville, escaped once
+from a Russian prison, and is still in the ring. He's never idle, and if he
+comes to the Powhatan you can gamble your last dollar on it that he has a
+good, big stake somewhere in the neighborhood. We must look over the list of
+arrivals."
+
+We finished our drink and settled the score. Holmes sauntered, in leisurely
+fashion, out into the office, and, leaning easily over the counter,
+inspected the register.
+
+"Got any real live dukes in the house to-night, Mr. Sommers?" he asked of
+the clerk.
+
+"Not to-night, Mr. Holmes," laughed the clerk. "We're rather shy on the
+nobility to-night. The nearest we come to anything worth while in that line
+is a baronet--Sir Henry Darlington of Dorsetshire, England. We can show you
+a nice line of Captains of Industry, however."
+
+"Thank you, Sommers," said Holmes, returning the laugh. "I sha'n't trouble
+you. Fact is, I'm long on Captains of Industry and was just a bit hungry
+to-night for a dash of the British nobility. Who is Sir Henry Darlington of
+Dorsetshire, England?"
+
+"You can search me," said the clerk. "I'm too busy to study genealogy--but
+there's a man here who knows who he is, all right, all right--at least I
+judge so from his manner."
+
+"Who's that?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Himself," said Sommers, with a chuckle. "Now's your chance to ask him--for
+there he goes into the Palm Room."
+
+We glanced over in the direction indicated, and again our eyes fell upon the
+muscular form of "Lord Baskingford."
+
+"Oh!" said Holmes. "Well--he is a pretty fair specimen, isn't he! Little too
+large for my special purpose, though, Sommers," he added, "so you needn't
+wrap him up and send him home."
+
+"All right, Mr. Holmes," grinned the clerk. "Come in again some time when we
+have a few fresh importations in and maybe we can fix you out."
+
+With a swift glance at the open page of the register, Holmes bade the clerk
+good-night and we walked away.
+
+"Room 407," he said, as we moved along the corridor. "Room 407--we mustn't
+forget that. His lordship is evidently expecting some one, and I think I'll
+fool around for a while and see what's in the wind."
+
+A moment or two later we came face to face with the baronet, and watched him
+as he passed along the great hall, scanning every face in the place, and on
+to the steps leading down to the barber-shop, which he descended.
+
+"He's anxious, all right," said Holmes, as we sauntered along. "How would
+you like to take a bite, Jenkins? I'd like to stay here and see this out."
+
+"Very good," said I. "I find it interesting."
+
+So we proceeded towards the Palm Room and sat down to order our repast.
+Scarcely were we seated when one of the hotel boys, resplendent in brass
+buttons, strutted through between the tables, calling aloud in a shrill
+voice:
+
+"Telegram for four-oh-seven. Four hundred and seven, telegram."
+
+"That's the number, Raffles," I whispered, excitedly.
+
+"I know it," he said, quietly. "Give him another chance--"
+
+"Telegram for number four hundred and seven," called the buttons.
+
+"Here, boy," said Holmes, nerving himself up. "Give me that."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" asked the boy.
+
+"Certainly," said Holmes, coolly. "Hand it over--any charge?"
+
+"No, sir," said the boy, giving Raffles the yellow covered message.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, tearing the flap open carelessly as the boy
+departed.
+
+And just then the fictitious baronet entered the room, and, as Holmes read
+his telegram, passed by us, still apparently in search of the unattainable,
+little dreaming how close at hand was the explanation of his troubles. I was
+on the edge of nervous prostration, but Holmes never turned a hair, and,
+save for a slight tremor of his hand, no one would have even guessed that
+there was anything in the wind. Sir Henry Darlington took a seat in the far
+corner of the room.
+
+"That accounts for his uneasiness," said Holmes, tossing the telegram across
+the table.
+
+I read: "Slight delay. Will meet you at eight with the goods." The message
+was signed: "Cato."
+
+"Let's see," said Holmes. It is now six-forty-five. Here--lend me your
+fountain-pen, Jenkins.
+
+I produced the desired article and Holmes, in an admirably feigned hand,
+added to the message the words: "at the Abbey, Lafayette Boulevard. Safer,"
+restored it in amended form to its envelope.
+
+"Call one of the bell-boys, please," he said to the waiter.
+
+A moment later, a second buttons appeared.
+
+"This isn't for me, boy," said Holmes, handing the message back to him.
+"Better take it to the office."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the lad, and off he went.
+
+A few minutes after this incident, Sir Henry again rose impatiently and left
+the room, and, at a proper distance to the rear, Holmes followed him.
+Darlington stopped at the desk, and, observing the telegram in his box,
+called for it and opened it. His face flushed as he tore it into scraps and
+made for the elevator, into which he disappeared.
+
+"He's nibbling the bait all right," said Holmes, gleefully. "We'll just wait
+around here until he starts, and then we'll see what we can do with Cato.
+This is quite an adventure."
+
+"What do you suppose it's all about?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know any more than you do, Jenkins," said Holmes, "save this, that
+old Bob Hollister isn't playing penny-ante. When he goes on to a job as
+elaborately as all this, you can bet your last dollar that the game runs
+into five figures, and, like a loyal subject of his Gracious Majesty King
+Edward VII, whom may the Lord save, he reckons not in dollars but in pounds
+sterling."
+
+"Who can Cato be, I wonder?" I asked.
+
+"We'll know at eight o'clock," said Holmes. "I intend to have him up."
+
+"Up? Up where?" I asked.
+
+"In Darlington's rooms--where else?" demanded Holmes.
+
+"In four hundred and seven?" I gasped.
+
+"Certainly--that's our headquarters, isn't it?" he grinned.
+
+"Now see here, Raffles," I began.
+
+"Shut up Jenkins," he answered. "Just hang on to your nerve--"
+
+"But suppose Darlington turns up?"
+
+"My dear boy, the Abbey is six miles from here and he won't by any living
+chance, get back before ten o'clock to-night. We shall have a good two hours
+and a half to do up old Cato without any interference from him," said
+Holmes. "Suppose he does come--what then? I rather doubt if Sir Henry
+Darlington, of the Hotel Powhatan, New York, or Dorsetshire, England, would
+find it altogether pleasant to hear a few reminiscences of Bob Hollister of
+Pentonville prison, which I have on tap."
+
+"He'll kick up the deuce of a row," I protested.
+
+"Very doubtful, Jenkins," said Raffles. "I sort of believe he'll be as
+gentle as a lamb when he finds out what I know--but, if he isn't, well,
+don't I represent law and order?" and Holmes displayed a detective's badge,
+which he wore for use in emergency cases, pinned to the inner side of his
+suspenders.
+
+As he spoke, Darlington reappeared, and, leaving his key at the office, went
+out through the revolving doorway, and jumped into a hansom.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.
+
+"The Abbey," said Darlington.
+
+"They're off!" whispered Holmes, with a laugh. "And now for Mr. Cato."
+
+We walked back through the office, and, as we passed the bench upon which
+the bell-boys sat, Raffles stopped before the lad who had delivered the
+telegram to him.
+
+"Here, son," he said, handing him a quarter, "run over to the news-stand and
+get me a copy of this months _Salmagundi_--I'll be in the smoking-room."
+
+The boy went off on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with a
+magazine.
+
+"Thanks," said Holmes. "Now get me my key and we'll call it square."
+
+"Four hundred and seven, sir?" said the boy, with a smile of recognition.
+
+"Yep," said Holmes, laconically, as he leaned back in his chair and
+pretended to read.
+
+"Gad, Holmes, what a nerve!" I muttered.
+
+"We need it in this business," said he.
+
+The buttons returned and delivered the key of Sir Henry Darlington's
+apartment into the hands of Raffles Holmes.
+
+Ten minutes later we sat in room 407--I in a blue funk from sheer
+nervousness, Raffles Holmes as imperturbable as the rock of Gibraltar from
+sheer nerve. It was the usual style of hotel room, with bath, pictures,
+telephone, what-nots, wardrobes, and centre-table. The last proved to be the
+main point of interest upon our arrival. It was littered up with papers of
+one sort and another: letters, bills receipted and otherwise, and a large
+assortment of railway and steamship folders. "He knows how to get away," was
+Holmes's comment on the latter. Most of the letters were addressed to Sir
+Henry Darlington, in care of Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., bankers.
+
+"Same old game," laughed Holmes, as he read the superscription. "The most
+conservative banking-house in New York! It's amazing how such institutions
+issue letters indiscriminately to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes along
+and planks down his cash. They don't seem to realize that they thereby
+unconsciously lend the glamour of their own respectability and credit to
+people who, instead of travelling abroad, should be locked up in the most
+convenient penitentiary at home. Aha!" Holmes added, as he ran his eye over
+some of the other documents and came upon a receipted bill. "We're getting
+close to it, Jenkins. Here's a receipted bill from Bar, LeDuc & Co., of
+Fifth Avenue, for $15,000--three rings, one diamond necklace, a ruby stick-
+pin, and a set of pearl shirt-studs."
+
+"Yes," said I, "but what is there suspicious about that? If the things are
+paid for--"
+
+"Precisely," laughed Holmes. "They're paid for. Sir Henry Darlington has
+enough working capital to buy all the credit he needs with Messrs. Bar,
+LeDuc & Co. There isn't a house in this town that, after a cash transaction
+of that kind, conducted through Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co., wouldn't
+send its own soul up on approval to a nice, clean-cut member of the British
+aristocracy like Sir Henry Darlington. We're on the trail, Jenkins--we're on
+the trail. Here's a letter from Bar, LeDuc & Co.--let's see what light that
+sheds on the matter."
+
+Holmes took a letter from an envelope and read, rapidly:
+
+Sir Henry Darlington--care of Bruce, Watkins and so forth--dear Sir Henry--
+We are having some difficulty matching the pearls--they are of unusual
+quality, but we hope to have the necklace ready for delivery as requested on
+Wednesday afternoon at the office of Messrs. Bruce, Watkins and so forth,
+between five and six o'clock. Trusting the delay will not--and so forth--and
+hoping to merit a continuance of your valued favors, we beg to remain, and
+so forth, and so forth.
+
+"That's it," said Holmes. "It's a necklace that Mr. Cato is bringing up to
+Sir Henry Darlington--and, once in his possession--it's Sir Henry for some
+place on one of these folders."
+
+"Why don't they send them directly here?" I inquired.
+
+"It is better for Darlington to emphasize Bruce, Watkins, Brownleigh & Co.,
+and not to bank to much on the Hotel Powhatan, that's why," said Holmes.
+"What's the good of having bankers like that back of you if you don't
+underscore their endorsement? Anyhow, we've discovered the job, Jenkins; to-
+day is Wednesday, and the 'goods' Cato has to deliver and referred to in his
+telegram is the pearl necklace of unusual quality--hence not less than a
+$50,000 stake."
+
+At this point the telephone bell rang.
+
+"Hello," said Holmes, answering immediately, and in a voice entirely unlike
+his own. "Yes--what? Oh yes. Ask him to come up."
+
+He hung up the receiver, put a cigar in his mouth, lit it, and turned to me.
+
+"It's Cato--just called. Coming up," said he.
+
+"I wish to Heavens I was going down," I ejaculated.
+
+"You're a queer duck, Jenkins," grinned Holmes. "Here you are with a front
+seat at what promises to be one of the greatest shows on earth, a real live
+melodrama, and all you can think of is home and mother. Brace up--for here
+he is."
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+"Come in," said Holmes, cheerily.
+
+A tall cadaverous-looking man opened the door and entered. As his eye fell
+upon us, he paused on the threshold.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I--I'm afraid I'm in the wrong--"
+
+"Not at all--come in and sit down," said Holmes, cordially. "That is if you
+are our friend and partner, Cato--Darlington couldn't wait--"
+
+"Couldn't wait?" said Cato.
+
+"Nope," said Holmes. "He was very much annoyed by the delay, Cato. You see
+he's on bigger jobs than this puny little affair of Bar, LeDuc's, and your
+failure to appear on schedule time threw him out. Pearls aren't the only
+chips in Darlington's game, my boy."
+
+"Well--I couldn't help it," said Cato. "Bar, LeDuc's messenger didn't get
+down there until five minutes of six."
+
+"Why should that have kept you until eight?" said Holmes.
+
+"I've got a few side jobs of my own," growled Cato.
+
+"That's what Darlington imagined," said Holmes, "and I don't envy you your
+meeting with him when he comes in. He's a cyclone when he's mad and if
+you've got a cellar handy I'd advise you to get it ready for occupancy.
+Where's the stuff?"
+
+"In here, said Cato, tapping his chest.
+
+"Well," observed Holmes, quietly, "we'd better make ourselves easy until the
+Chief returns. You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
+
+"Go ahead," said Cato. "Don't mind me."
+
+"Light up," said Holmes, tossing him a cigar, and turning to the table where
+he busied himself for the next five minutes, apparently in writing.
+
+Cato smoked away in silence, and picked up Holmes's copy of the _Salmagundi
+Magazine_ which lay on the bureau, and shortly became absorbed in its
+contents. As for me, I had to grip both sides of my chair to conceal my
+nervousness. My legs fairly shook with terror. The silence, broken only by
+the scratching of Holmes's pen, was becoming unendurable and I think I
+should have given way and screamed had not Holmes suddenly risen and walked
+to the telephone, directly back of where Cato was sitting.
+
+"I must ring for stamps," he said. "There don't seem to be any here.
+Darlington's getting stingy in his old age. Hello," he called, but without
+removing the receiver from the hook. "Hello--send me up a dollar's worth of
+two-cent stamps--thank you. Good-bye."
+
+Cato read on, but, in a moment, the magazine dropped from his hand to the
+floor. Holmes was at his side and the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed
+uncomfortably against his right temple.
+
+"That bureau cover--quick," Raffles cried, sharply, to me.
+
+"What are you doing?" gasped Cato, his face turning a greenish-yellow with
+fear.
+
+"Another sound from you and you're a dead one," said Holmes. "You'll see
+what I'm doing quickly enough. Twist it into a rope, Jim," he added,
+addressing me. I did as I was bade with the linen cover, snatching it from
+the bureau, and a second later we had Cato gagged. "Now tie his hands and
+feet with those curtain cords," Holmes went on.
+
+Heavens! how I hated the job, but there was no drawing back now! We had gone
+too far for that.
+
+"There!" said Holmes, as we laid our victim out on the floor, tied hand and
+foot and as powerless to speak as though he had been born deaf and dumb.
+"We'll just rifle your chest, Cato, and stow you away in the bath-tub with a
+sofa-cushion under your head to make you comfortable, and bid you farewell--
+not au revoir, Cato, but just plain farewell forever."
+
+The words were hardly spoken before the deed was accomplished. Tearing aside
+poor Cato's vest and shirt-front, Raffles placed himself in possession of
+the treasure from Bar, LeDuc & Co., after which we lay Darlington's unhappy
+confederate at full length in the porcelain-lined tub, placed a sofa-cushion
+under his head to mitigate his sufferings, locked him in, and started for
+the elevator.
+
+"Great Heavens, Raffles!" I chattered, as we emerged upon the street. "What
+will be the end of this? It's awful. When Sir Henry returns--"
+
+"I wish I could be there to see," said he, with a chuckle.
+
+"I guess we'll see, quick enough. I leave town to-morrow," said I.
+
+"Nonsense," said Holmes. "Don't you worry. I put a quietus on Sir Henry
+Darlington. _He'll_ leave town to-night, and we'll never hear from him
+again--that is, not in this matter."
+
+"But how?" I demanded, far from convinced.
+
+"I wrote him a letter in which I said: 'You will find your treasure in the
+bath-tub,'" laughed Holmes.
+
+"And _that_ will drive him from New York, and close his mouth forever!" I
+observed, sarcastically. "So very likely!"
+
+"No, Jenkins, not that, but the address, my dear boy, the address. I put
+that message in an envelope, and left it on his table where he'll surely see
+it the first thing when he gets back to-night, addressed to 'Bob Hollister,'
+Diamond Merchant, Cell No. 99, Pentonville Prison."
+
+"Aha!" said I, my doubts clearing.
+
+"Likewise--Ho-ho," said Holmes. "It is a delicate intimation to Sir Henry
+Darlington that somebody is on to his little game, and he'll evaporate
+before dawn."
+
+
+
+A week later, Holmes brought me a magnificent pearl scarf-pin.
+
+"What's that?" I asked.
+
+"Your share of the swag," he answered. "I returned the pearl necklace to
+Bar, LeDuc & Co., with a full statement of how it came into my possession.
+They rewarded me with this ruby ring and that stick-pin."
+
+Holmes held up his right hand, on the fourth finger of which glistened a
+brilliant blood-red stone worth not less than fifteen hundred dollars.
+
+I breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I wondered what you were going to do with the necklace," I said.
+
+"So did I--for three days," said Holmes, "and then, when I realized that I
+was a single man, I decided to give it up. If I'd had a wife to wear a
+necklace--well, I'm a little afraid the Raffles side of my nature would have
+won out."
+
+"I wonder whatever became of Darlington," said I.
+
+"I don't know. Sommers says he left town suddenly that same Wednesday night,
+without paying his bill," Holmes answered.
+
+"And Cato?"
+
+"I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather
+inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window,
+or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either
+way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances."
+
+
+
+X
+THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS
+
+I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the
+proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred
+precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite
+the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home,
+is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully
+against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while
+I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable
+chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain
+characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him
+into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at
+rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated
+at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of
+Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization,
+who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway
+magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden
+highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils
+of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his
+rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine
+in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his
+nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known
+acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the
+world of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered
+respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account-books
+would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles
+than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided
+the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at
+"The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual
+assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and
+who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to
+hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry
+Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern
+Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William
+Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of
+the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language;
+James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his
+patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age,
+Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose
+latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the
+delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and,
+what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox,
+U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I
+have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity
+their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their
+lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for
+many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which
+the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were,
+over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to
+the delight of countless listeners.
+
+Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we
+could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so
+many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite
+de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in
+tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had
+enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that
+General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to the floor, and as he
+proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to
+conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in
+the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was
+making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes,
+listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening
+to.
+
+"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached
+to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was
+about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother
+of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event
+the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a
+royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all
+sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there,
+in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most
+inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso,
+like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid
+habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito,
+much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police,
+who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster
+to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their
+shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this,
+however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the
+course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two
+companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to
+hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the
+attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious
+misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating,
+if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of
+escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation,
+where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in
+the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the
+gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly
+expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were
+rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical
+condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old
+Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into
+the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the
+quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to
+bowl over the garroter. Expecting no interference in his nefarious pursuit
+and unwarned by his companions, who were to busily engaged in their
+adventure of loot to observe my approach, he was easy prey, and the good,
+hard whack that I gave him just under his right ear sent him flying, an
+unconscious mass of villanous clay, into the gutter. The surprise of the
+onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing
+the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became
+two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty
+a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more
+demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps
+whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or
+to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert
+with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage over
+such riffraff. Once the odds in the matter of numbers were even, the King
+and I had no further difficulty in handling the others. His Majesty's quarry
+got away by the simple act of taking to his heels, and mine, turning to do
+likewise, received a salute from my right toe which, if I am any judge, must
+have driven the upper end of his spine up through the top of his head. Left
+alone, his Majesty held out his hand and thanked me profusely from my timely
+aid, and asked my name. We thereupon bade each other good-night, and I went
+on to my lodging, little dreaming of the service I had rendered to the
+nation.
+
+"The following day I was astonished to receive at the Legation a
+communication bearing the royal seal, commanding me to appear at the palace
+at once. The summons was obeyed, and, upon entering the palace, I was
+immediately ushered into the presence of the King. He received me most
+graciously, dismissing, however, all his attendants.
+
+"'Colonel Cox,' he said, after the first formal greetings were over, 'you
+rendered me a great service last night.'
+
+"'I, your majesty?' said I. 'In what way?'
+
+"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.
+
+"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's
+friends?'
+
+"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I
+should prefer that it were not known that it was I--'
+
+"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea--"
+
+"'You are discretion itself, Colonel Cox,' laughed the King, 'and to assure
+you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift
+which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all
+commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion
+which you have already so kindly observed regarding the principals involved
+in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and
+appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'
+
+"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to
+accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not
+possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I
+returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed
+myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to
+acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by
+which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or
+indirectly, are strictly governed. I assure you it was not in the least
+degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten
+days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King
+had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence
+they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought
+specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their
+under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair
+of that midnight fracas would even have observed--'A.R. to C.C.'--Alphonso
+Rex to Carrington Cox being, of course, the significance thereof. They were
+put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities
+were transferred to London, I took them away with me.
+
+"In London I chose to live in chambers, and was soon established at No. 7
+Park Place, St. James's, a more than comfortable and centrally located
+apartment-house where I found pretty much everything in the way of
+convenience that a man situated as I was could reasonably ask for. I had not
+been there more than six months, however, when something happened that made
+the ease of apartment life seem somewhat less desirable. That is, my rooms
+were broken open during my absence, over night on a little canoeing trip to
+Henley, and about everything valuable in my possession was removed,
+including the truly regal pepper-pots sent me by his Majesty the King of
+Spain, that I had carelessly left standing upon my sideboard.
+
+"Until last week," the General continued, "nor hide nor hair of any of my
+stolen possessions was every discovered, but last Thursday night I accepted
+the invitation of a gentleman well known in this country as a leader of
+finance, a veritable Captain of Industry, the soul of honor and one of the
+most genial hosts imaginable. I sat down at his table at eight o'clock, and,
+will you believe me, gentlemen, one of the first objects to greet my eye
+upon the brilliantly set napery was nothing less than one of my lost pepper-
+pots. There was no mistaking it. Unique in pattern, it was certain of
+identification anyhow, but what made it the more certain was the cipher
+'A.R. to C.C.'"
+
+"And of course you claimed it?" asked Dozyphrase.
+
+"Of course I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am
+not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and
+massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my
+appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a
+little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, last
+summer. He had acquired it in perfect good faith. What its history had been
+from the time I lost it until then, I am not aware, but there it was, and
+under circumstances of such a character that although it was indubitably my
+property, a strong sense of the proprieties prevented me from regaining its
+possession."
+
+"Who was your host, General?" asked Tickletoe.
+
+The General laughed. "That's telling," said he. "I don't care to go into any
+further details, because some of you well-meaning friends of mine might
+suggest to Mr.--ahem--ha--well, never mind his name--that he should return
+the pepper-pot, and I know that that is what he would do if he were familiar
+with the facts that I have just narrated."
+
+It was at about this point that the gathering broke up, and, after our
+cigars, Holmes and I left the club.
+
+"Come up to my rooms a moment," said Raffles, as we emerged upon the street.
+"I want to show you something."
+
+"All right," said I. "I've nothing in particular to do this afternoon. That
+was a rather interesting tale of the General's, wasn't it?" I added.
+
+"Very," said Holmes. "I guess it's not an uncommon experience, however, in
+these days, for the well-to-do and well-meaning to be in possession of
+stolen property. The fact of its turning up again under the General's very
+nose, so many years later, however, that is unusual. The case will appear
+even more so before the day is over if I am right in one of my conjectures."
+
+What Raffles Holmes's conjecture was was soon to be made clear. In a few
+minutes we had reached his apartment, and there unlocking a huge iron-bound
+chest in his bedroom, he produced from it capacious depths another gold
+pepper-pot. This he handed to me.
+
+"There's the mate!" he observed, quietly.
+
+"By Jove, Raffles--it must be!" I cried, for beyond all question, in the
+woof of the design on the base of the pepper-pot was the cipher "A.R. to
+C.C." "Where the dickens did you get it?"
+
+"That was a wedding-present to my mother," he explained. "That's why I have
+never sold it, not even when I've been on the edge of starvation."
+
+"From whom--do you happen to know?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "I do know. It was a wedding-present to the daughter of
+Raffles by her father, my grandfather, Raffles himself."
+
+"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Then it was Raffles who--well, you know. That
+London flat job?"
+
+"Precisely," said Raffles Holmes. "We've caught the old gentleman red-
+handed."
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said I. "Doesn't it beat creation how small the
+world is."
+
+"It does indeed. I wonder who the chap is who has the other," Raffles
+observed.
+
+"Pretty square of the old General to keep quiet about it," said I.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes. "That's why I'm going to restore this one. I wish I
+could give 'em both back. I don't think my old grandfather would have taken
+the stuff if he'd known what a dead-game sport the old General was, and I
+sort of feel myself under an obligation to make amends."
+
+"You can send him the one you've got through the express companies,
+anonymously," said I.
+
+"No," said Holmes. "The General left them on his sideboard, and on his
+sideboard he must find them. If we could only find out the name of his host
+last Thursday--"
+
+"I tell you--look in the _Sunday Gazoo_ supplement," said I. "They
+frequently publish short paragraphs of the social doings of the week. You
+might get a clew there."
+
+"Good idea," said Holmes. "I happen to have it here, too. There was an
+article in it last Sunday, giving a diagram of Howard Vandergould's new
+house at Nippon's Point, Long Island, which I meant to cut out for future
+reference."
+
+Holmes secured the _Gazoo_, and between us, we made a pretty thorough search
+of its contents, especially "The Doings of Society" columns, and at last we
+found it, as follows:
+
+"A small dinner of thirty was given on Thursday evening last in honor of Mr.
+and Mrs. Wilbur Rattington, of Boston, by Mrs. Rattington's brother, John D.
+Bruce, of Bruce, Watkins & Co., at the latter's residence, 74-- Fifth
+Avenue. Among Mr. Bruce's guests were Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Dandervelt, Mr. and
+Mrs. Elisha Scroog, Jr., Major-General Carrington Cox, Mr. and Mrs.
+Henderson Scovill, and Signor Caruso."
+
+"Old Bruce, eh?" laughed Holmes. "Sans peur et sans reproche. Well, that is
+interesting. One of the few honest railroad bankers in the country, a pillar
+of the church, a leading reformer and--a stolen pepper-pot on his table!
+Gee!"
+
+"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Write to Bruce and tell him the
+facts?"
+
+Holmes's answer was a glance.
+
+"Oh cream-cakes!" he ejaculated, with profane emphasis.
+
+A week after the incidents just described he walked into my room with a
+small package under his arm.
+
+"There's the pair!" he observed, unwrapping the parcel and displaying its
+contents--two superb, golden pepper-pots, both inscribed "A.R. to C.C."
+"Beauties, aren't they?"
+
+"They are, indeed. Did Bruce give it up willingly?" I asked.
+
+"He never said a word," laughed Holmes. "Fact is, he snored all the time I
+was there."
+
+"Snored?" said I.
+
+"Yes--you see, it was at 3.30 this morning," said Holmes, "and I went in the
+back way. Climbed up to the extension roof, in through Bruce's bedroom
+window, down-stairs to the dining-room, while Bruce slept unconscious of my
+arrival. The house next to his is vacant, you know, and it was easy
+travelling."
+
+"You--you--" I began.
+
+"Yes--that's it," said he. "Just a plain vulgar bit of second-story
+business, and I got it. There were a lot of other good things lying around,"
+he added, with a gulp, "but--well, I was righting a wrong this time, so I
+let 'em alone, and, barring this, I didn't deprive old Bruce of a blooming
+thing, not even a wink of sleep."
+
+"And now what?" I demanded.
+
+"It's me for Cedarhurst--that's where the General lives," said he. "I'll get
+there about 11.30 to-night, and as soon as all is quiet, Jenkins, your old
+pal, Raffles Holmes, will climb easily up to the piazza, gently slide back
+the bolts of the French windows in the General's dining-room, proceed
+cautiously to the sideboard, and replace thereon these two souvenirs of a
+brave act by a good old sport, whence they never would have been taken had
+my grandfather known his man."
+
+"You are taking a terrible risk, Raffles," said I, "you can just as easily
+send the tings to the General by express, anonymously."
+
+"Jenkins," he replied, "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals
+neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word
+which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for
+one thing, and besides that it was never needed in their business."
+
+And with that he left me.
+
+
+
+"Well, General," said I to General Cox, a week later at the club, "heard
+anything further about your pepper-pots yet?"
+
+"Most singular thing, Jenkins," said he. "The d----d things turned up again
+one morning last week, and where the devil they came from, I can't imagine.
+One of them, however, had a piece of paper in it on which was written
+'Returned with thanks for their use and apologies for having kept them so
+long.'"
+
+The General opened his wallet and handed me a slip which he took from it.
+
+"There it is. What in thunder do you make out of it?" he asked.
+
+It was in Raffles Holmes's hand-writing.
+
+"Looks to me as though Bruce also had been robbed," I laughed.
+
+"Bruce? Who the devil said anything about Bruce?" demanded the General.
+
+"Why, didn't you tell us he had one of 'em on his table?" said I, reddening.
+
+"Did I?" frowned the General. "Well, if I did, I must be a confounded ass. I
+thought I took particular pains not the mention Bruce's name in the matter."
+
+And then he laughed.
+
+"I shall have to be careful when Bruce comes to dine with me not to have
+those pepper-pots in evidence," he said. "He might ask embarrassing
+questions."
+
+And thus it was that Raffles Holmes atoned for at least one of the offences
+of his illustrious grandsire.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of R. Holmes & Co., by John Kendrick Bangs
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/sherlockholmeswisterialodge b/files/books/unrelated/sherlockholmeswisterialodge
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/sherlockholmeswisterialodge
@@ -0,0 +1,1699 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
+
+Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Posting Date: October 23, 2008 [EBook #2343]
+Release Date: October, 2000
+[Last updated: December 8, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Brannan
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
+
+
+by
+
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
+  2. The Tiger of San Pedro
+
+
+
+
+1.  The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
+
+
+
+I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day
+towards the end of March in the year 1892.  Holmes had received a
+telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply.  He
+made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood
+in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his
+pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message.  Suddenly he
+turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
+
+"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," said
+he.  "How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"
+
+"Strange--remarkable," I suggested.
+
+He shook his head at my definition.
+
+"There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlying
+suggestion of the tragic and the terrible.  If you cast your mind back
+to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a
+long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has
+deepened into the criminal.  Think of that little affair of the
+red-headed men.  That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it
+ended in a desperate attempt at robbery.  Or, again, there was that
+most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which led straight to a
+murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."
+
+"Have you it there?" I asked.
+
+He read the telegram aloud.
+
+"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience.  May I consult
+you?
+
+"Scott Eccles,
+  "Post Office, Charing Cross."
+
+
+"Man or woman?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.
+She would have come."
+
+"Will you see him?"
+
+"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up
+Colonel Carruthers.  My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to
+pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was
+built.  Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and
+romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world.  Can you
+ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however
+trivial it may prove?  But here, unless I am mistaken, is our client."
+
+A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout,
+tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into
+the room.  His life history was written in his heavy features and
+pompous manner.  From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was a
+Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and conventional to
+the last degree. But some amazing experience had disturbed his native
+composure and left its traces in his bristling hair, his flushed, angry
+cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged instantly into his
+business.
+
+"I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,"
+said he.  "Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation.  It
+is most improper--most outrageous.  I must insist upon some
+explanation."  He swelled and puffed in his anger.
+
+"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said Holmes in a soothing voice.
+"May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"
+
+"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the
+police, and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I
+could not leave it where it was.  Private detectives are a class with
+whom I have absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard
+your name--"
+
+"Quite so.  But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"
+
+Holmes glanced at his watch.
+
+"It is a quarter-past two," he said.  "Your telegram was dispatched
+about one.  But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without
+seeing that your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."
+
+Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven chin.
+
+"You are right, Mr. Holmes.  I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was
+only too glad to get out of such a house.  But I have been running
+round making inquiries before I came to you.  I went to the house
+agents, you know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all
+right and that everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge."
+
+"Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing.  "You are like my friend, Dr.
+Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong end foremost.
+Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence,
+exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed and
+unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of
+advice and assistance."
+
+Our client looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional
+appearance.
+
+"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in
+my whole life such a thing has ever happened before.  But I will tell you
+the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am
+sure, that there has been enough to excuse me."
+
+But his narrative was nipped in the bud.  There was a bustle outside,
+and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and
+official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as
+Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, within
+his limitations, a capable officer.  He shook hands with Holmes and
+introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey Constabulary.
+
+"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this
+direction."  He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor.  "Are you Mr.
+John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"We have been following you about all the morning."
+
+"You traced him through the telegram, no doubt," said Holmes.
+
+"Exactly, Mr. Holmes.  We picked up the scent at Charing Cross
+Post-Office and came on here."
+
+"But why do you follow me?  What do you want?"
+
+"We wish a statement, Mr. Scott Eccles, as to the events which led up
+to the death last night of Mr. Aloysius Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, near
+Esher."
+
+Our client had sat up with staring eyes and every tinge of colour
+struck from his astonished face.
+
+"Dead?  Did you say he was dead?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he is dead."
+
+"But how?  An accident?"
+
+"Murder, if ever there was one upon earth."
+
+"Good God!  This is awful!  You don't mean--you don't mean that I am
+suspected?"
+
+"A letter of yours was found in the dead man's pocket, and we know by
+it that you had planned to pass last night at his house."
+
+"So I did."
+
+"Oh, you did, did you?"
+
+Out came the official notebook.
+
+"Wait a bit, Gregson," said Sherlock Holmes.  "All you desire is a
+plain statement, is it not?"
+
+"And it is my duty to warn Mr. Scott Eccles that it may be used against
+him."
+
+"Mr. Eccles was going to tell us about it when you entered the room.  I
+think, Watson, a brandy and soda would do him no harm. Now, sir, I
+suggest that you take no notice of this addition to your audience, and
+that you proceed with your narrative exactly as you would have done had
+you never been interrupted."
+
+Our visitor had gulped off the brandy and the colour had returned to
+his face.  With a dubious glance at the inspector's notebook, he
+plunged at once into his extraordinary statement.
+
+"I am a bachelor," said he, "and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a
+large number of friends.  Among these are the family of a retired
+brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington.  It
+was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia.
+He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in some way with
+the embassy.  He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners,
+and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.
+
+"In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I.
+He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of
+our meeting he came to see me at Lee.  One thing led to another, and it
+ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria
+Lodge, between Esher and Oxshott.  Yesterday evening I went to Esher to
+fulfil this engagement.
+
+"He had described his household to me before I went there.  He lived
+with a faithful servant, a countryman of his own, who looked after all
+his needs.  This fellow could speak English and did his housekeeping
+for him.  Then there was a wonderful cook, he said, a half-breed whom
+he had picked up in his travels, who could serve an excellent dinner.
+I remember that he remarked what a queer household it was to find in
+the heart of Surrey, and that I agreed with him, though it has proved a
+good deal queerer than I thought.
+
+"I drove to the place--about two miles on the south side of Esher.  The
+house was a fair-sized one, standing back from the road, with a curving
+drive which was banked with high evergreen shrubs.  It was an old,
+tumbledown building in a crazy state of disrepair.  When the trap
+pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and
+weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man
+whom I knew so slightly.  He opened the door himself, however, and
+greeted me with a great show of cordiality.  I was handed over to the
+manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag
+in his hand, to my bedroom.  The whole place was depressing.  Our
+dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be
+entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked
+so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He
+continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and
+gave other signs of nervous impatience.  The dinner itself was neither
+well served nor well cooked, and the gloomy presence of the taciturn
+servant did not help to enliven us.  I can assure you that many times
+in the course of the evening I wished that I could invent some excuse
+which would take me back to Lee.
+
+"One thing comes back to my memory which may have a bearing upon the
+business that you two gentlemen are investigating.  I thought nothing
+of it at the time.  Near the end of dinner a note was handed in by the
+servant.  I noticed that after my host had read it he seemed even more
+distrait and strange than before.  He gave up all pretence at
+conversation and sat, smoking endless cigarettes, lost in his own
+thoughts, but he made no remark as to the contents.  About eleven I was
+glad to go to bed.  Some time later Garcia looked in at my door--the
+room was dark at the time--and asked me if I had rung.  I said that I
+had not.  He apologized for having disturbed me so late, saying that it
+was nearly one o'clock.  I dropped off after this and slept soundly all
+night.
+
+"And now I come to the amazing part of my tale.  When I woke it was
+broad daylight.  I glanced at my watch, and the time was nearly nine.
+I had particularly asked to be called at eight, so I was very much
+astonished at this forgetfulness.  I sprang up and rang for the
+servant.  There was no response.  I rang again and again, with the same
+result.  Then I came to the conclusion that the bell was out of order.
+I huddled on my clothes and hurried downstairs in an exceedingly bad
+temper to order some hot water.  You can imagine my surprise when I
+found that there was no one there.  I shouted in the hall.  There was
+no answer.  Then I ran from room to room. All were deserted.  My host
+had shown me which was his bedroom the night before, so I knocked at
+the door. No reply.  I turned the handle and walked in.  The room was
+empty, and the bed had never been slept in.  He had gone with the rest.
+The foreign host, the foreign footman, the foreign cook, all had
+vanished in the night!  That was the end of my visit to Wisteria Lodge."
+
+Sherlock Holmes was rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added this
+bizarre incident to his collection of strange episodes.
+
+"Your experience is, so far as I know, perfectly unique," said he.
+"May I ask, sir, what you did then?"
+
+"I was furious.  My first idea was that I had been the victim of some
+absurd practical joke.  I packed my things, banged the hall door behind
+me, and set off for Esher, with my bag in my hand. I called at Allan
+Brothers', the chief land agents in the village, and found that it was
+from this firm that the villa had been rented.  It struck me that the
+whole proceeding could hardly be for the purpose of making a fool of
+me, and that the main object must be to get out of the rent.  It is
+late in March, so quarter-day is at hand.  But this theory would not
+work.  The agent was obliged to me for my warning, but told me that the
+rent had been paid in advance.  Then I made my way to town and called
+at the Spanish embassy.  The man was unknown there.  After this I went
+to see Melville, at whose house I had first met Garcia, but I found
+that he really knew rather less about him than I did. Finally when I
+got your reply to my wire I came out to you, since I gather that you
+are a person who gives advice in difficult cases.  But now, Mr.
+Inspector, I understand, from what you said when you entered the room,
+that you can carry the story on, and that some tragedy had occurred. I
+can assure you that every word I have said is the truth, and that,
+outside of what I have told you, I know absolutely nothing about the
+fate of this man.  My only desire is to help the law in every possible
+way."
+
+"I am sure of it, Mr. Scott Eccles--I am sure of it," said Inspector
+Gregson in a very amiable tone.  "I am bound to say that everything
+which you have said agrees very closely with the facts as they have
+come to our notice.  For example, there was that note which arrived
+during dinner.  Did you chance to observe what became of it?"
+
+"Yes, I did.  Garcia rolled it up and threw it into the fire."
+
+"What do you say to that, Mr. Baynes?"
+
+The country detective was a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only
+redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost
+hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow.  With a slow smile
+he drew a folded and discoloured scrap of paper from his pocket.
+
+"It was a dog-grate, Mr. Holmes, and he overpitched it.  I picked this
+out unburned from the back of it."
+
+Holmes smiled his appreciation.
+
+"You must have examined the house very carefully to find a single
+pellet of paper."
+
+"I did, Mr. Holmes.  It's my way.  Shall I read it, Mr. Gregson?"
+
+The Londoner nodded.
+
+"The note is written upon ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark.
+It is a quarter-sheet.  The paper is cut off in two snips with a
+short-bladed scissors.  It has been folded over three times and sealed
+with purple wax, put on hurriedly and pressed down with some flat oval
+object.  It is addressed to Mr. Garcia, Wisteria Lodge. It says:
+
+"Our own colours, green and white.  Green open, white shut.  Main
+stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.  Godspeed.  D.
+
+"It is a woman's writing, done with a sharp-pointed pen, but the
+address is either done with another pen or by someone else.  It is
+thicker and bolder, as you see."
+
+"A very remarkable note," said Holmes, glancing it over.  "I must
+compliment you, Mr. Baynes, upon your attention to detail in your
+examination of it.  A few trifling points might perhaps be added. The
+oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link--what else is of such a
+shape?  The scissors were bent nail scissors.  Short as the two snips
+are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve in each."
+
+The country detective chuckled.
+
+"I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of it, but I see there was
+a little over," he said.  "I'm bound to say that I make nothing of the
+note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman, as
+usual was at the bottom of it."
+
+Mr. Scott Eccles had fidgeted in his seat during this conversation.
+
+"I am glad you found the note, since it corroborates my story," said
+he.  "But I beg to point out that I have not yet heard what has
+happened to Mr. Garcia, nor what has become of his household."
+
+"As to Garcia," said Gregson, "that is easily answered.  He was found
+dead this morning upon Oxshott Common, nearly a mile from his home.
+His head had been smashed to pulp by heavy blows of a sandbag or some
+such instrument, which had crushed rather than wounded.  It is a lonely
+corner, and there is no house within a quarter of a mile of the spot.
+He had apparently been struck down first from behind, but his assailant
+had gone on beating him long after he was dead.  It was a most furious
+assault.  There are no footsteps nor any clue to the criminals."
+
+"Robbed?"
+
+"No, there was no attempt at robbery."
+
+"This is very painful--very painful and terrible," said Mr. Scott
+Eccles in a querulous voice, "but it is really uncommonly hard on me.
+I had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion
+and meeting so sad an end.  How do I come to be mixed up with the case?"
+
+"Very simply, sir," Inspector Baynes answered.  "The only document
+found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that
+you would be with him on the night of his death. It was the envelope of
+this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address.  It was
+after nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither you
+nor anyone else inside it.  I wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down in
+London while I examined Wisteria Lodge.  Then I came into town, joined
+Mr. Gregson, and here we are."
+
+"I think now," said Gregson, rising, "we had best put this matter into
+an official shape.  You will come round with us to the station, Mr.
+Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in writing."
+
+"Certainly, I will come at once.  But I retain your services, Mr.
+Holmes.  I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the
+truth."
+
+My friend turned to the country inspector.
+
+"I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr.
+Baynes?"
+
+"Highly honoured, sir, I am sure."
+
+"You appear to have been very prompt and businesslike in all that you
+have done.  Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that
+the man met his death?"
+
+"He had been there since one o'clock.  There was rain about that time,
+and his death had certainly been before the rain."
+
+"But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes," cried our client. "His
+voice is unmistakable.  I could swear to it that it was he who
+addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour."
+
+"Remarkable, but by no means impossible," said Holmes, smiling.
+
+"You have a clue?" asked Gregson.
+
+"On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it
+certainly presents some novel and interesting features.  A further
+knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a final
+and definite opinion.  By the way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything
+remarkable besides this note in your examination of the house?"
+
+The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.
+
+"There were," said he, "one or two _very_ remarkable things. Perhaps
+when I have finished at the police-station you would care to come out
+and give me your opinion of them."
+
+"I am entirely at your service," said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the
+bell.  "You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send
+the boy with this telegram.  He is to pay a five-shilling reply."
+
+We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes
+smoked hard, with his browns drawn down over his keen eyes, and his
+head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.
+
+"Well, Watson," he asked, turning suddenly upon me, "what do you make
+of it?"
+
+"I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles."
+
+"But the crime?"
+
+"Well, taken with the disappearance of the man's companions, I should
+say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled
+from justice."
+
+"That is certainly a possible point of view.  On the face of it you
+must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants
+should have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked
+him on the one night when he had a guest.  They had him alone at their
+mercy every other night in the week."
+
+"Then why did they fly?"
+
+"Quite so.  Why did they fly?  There is a big fact.  Another big fact
+is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear
+Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an
+explanation which would cover both of these big facts?  If it were one
+which would also admit of the mysterious note with its very curious
+phraseology, why, then it would be worth accepting as a temporary
+hypothesis.  If the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit
+themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a
+solution."
+
+"But what is our hypothesis?"
+
+Holmes leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes.
+
+"You must admit, my dear Watson, that the idea of a joke is impossible.
+There were grave events afoot, as the sequel showed, and the coaxing of
+Scott Eccles to Wisteria Lodge had some connection with them."
+
+"But what possible connection?"
+
+"Let us take it link by link.  There is, on the face of it, something
+unnatural about this strange and sudden friendship between the young
+Spaniard and Scott Eccles.  It was the former who forced the pace.  He
+called upon Eccles at the other end of London on the very day after he
+first met him, and he kept in close touch with him until he got him
+down to Esher.  Now, what did he want with Eccles?  What could Eccles
+supply?  I see no charm in the man.  He is not particularly
+intelligent--not a man likely to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin.
+Why, then, was he picked out from all the other people whom Garcia met
+as particularly suited to his purpose?  Has he any one outstanding
+quality?  I say that he has.  He is the very type of conventional
+British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress
+another Briton.  You saw yourself how neither of the inspectors dreamed
+of questioning his statement, extraordinary as it was."
+
+"But what was he to witness?"
+
+"Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another
+way.  That is how I read the matter."
+
+"I see, he might have proved an alibi."
+
+"Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi.  We will
+suppose, for argument's sake, that the household of Wisteria Lodge are
+confederates in some design.  The attempt, whatever it may be, is to
+come off, we will say, before one o'clock.  By some juggling of the
+clocks it is quite possible that they may have got Scott Eccles to bed
+earlier than he thought, but in any case it is likely that when Garcia
+went out of his way to tell him that it was one it was really not more
+than twelve.  If Garcia could do whatever he had to do and be back by
+the hour mentioned he had evidently a powerful reply to any accusation.
+Here was this irreproachable Englishman ready to swear in any court of
+law that the accused was in the house all the time.  It was an
+insurance against the worst."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see that.  But how about the disappearance of the others?"
+
+"I have not all my facts yet, but I do not think there are any
+insuperable difficulties.  Still, it is an error to argue in front of
+your data.  You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit
+your theories."
+
+"And the message?"
+
+"How did it run?  'Our own colours, green and white.'  Sounds like
+racing.  'Green open, white shut.'  That is clearly a signal.  'Main
+stair, first corridor, seventh right, green baize.'  This is an
+assignation.  We may find a jealous husband at the bottom of it all.
+It was clearly a dangerous quest.  She would not have said 'Godspeed'
+had it not been so.  'D'--that should be a guide."
+
+"The man was a Spaniard.  I suggest that 'D' stands for Dolores, a
+common female name in Spain."
+
+"Good, Watson, very good--but quite inadmissable.  A Spaniard would
+write to a Spaniard in Spanish.  The writer of this note is certainly
+English.  Well, we can only possess our soul in patience until this
+excellent inspector come back for us. Meanwhile we can thank our lucky
+fate which has rescued us for a few short hours from the insufferable
+fatigues of idleness."
+
+        *           *           *
+
+An answer had arrived to Holmes's telegram before our Surrey officer
+had returned.  Holmes read it and was about to place it in his notebook
+when he caught a glimpse of my expectant face. He tossed it across with
+a laugh.
+
+"We are moving in exalted circles," said he.
+
+The telegram was a list of names and addresses:
+
+Lord Harringby, The Dingle; Sir George Ffolliott, Oxshott Towers; Mr.
+Hynes Hynes, J.P., Purdley Place; Mr. James Baker Williams, Forton Old
+Hall; Mr. Henderson, High Gable; Rev. Joshua Stone, Nether Walsling.
+
+"This is a very obvious way of limiting our field of operations," said
+Holmes.  "No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already
+adopted some similar plan."
+
+"I don't quite understand."
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, we have already arrived at the conclusion that
+the message received by Garcia at dinner was an appointment or an
+assignation.  Now, if the obvious reading of it is correct, and in
+order to keep the tryst one has to ascend a main stair and seek the
+seventh door in a corridor, it is perfectly clear that the house is a
+very large one.  It is equally certain that this house cannot be more
+than a mile or two from Oxshott, since Garcia was walking in that
+direction and hoped, according to my reading of the facts, to be back
+in Wisteria Lodge in time to avail himself of an alibi, which would
+only be valid up to one o'clock.  As the number of large houses close
+to Oxshott must be limited, I adopted the obvious method of sending to
+the agents mentioned by Scott Eccles and obtaining a list of them.
+Here they are in this telegram, and the other end of our tangled skein
+must lie among them."
+
+        *           *           *
+
+It was nearly six o'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty
+Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.
+
+Holmes and I had taken things for the night, and found comfortable
+quarters at the Bull.  Finally we set out in the company of the
+detective on our visit to Wisteria Lodge.  It was a cold, dark March
+evening, with a sharp wind and a fine rain beating upon our faces, a
+fit setting for the wild common over which our road passed and the
+tragic goal to which it led us.
+
+
+
+
+2.  The Tiger of San Pedro
+
+
+A cold and melancholy walk of a couple of miles brought us to a high
+wooden gate, which opened into a gloomy avenue of chestnuts. The curved
+and shadowed drive led us to a low, dark house, pitch-black against a
+slate-coloured sky. From the front window upon the left of the door
+there peeped a glimmer of a feeble light.
+
+"There's a constable in possession," said Baynes.  "I'll knock at the
+window."  He stepped across the grass plot and tapped with his hand on
+the pane.  Through the fogged glass I dimly saw a man spring up from a
+chair beside the fire, and heard a sharp cry from within the room.  An
+instant later a white-faced, hard-breathing policeman had opened the
+door, the candle wavering in his trembling hand.
+
+"What's the matter, Walters?" asked Baynes sharply.
+
+The man mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and gave a long sigh
+of relief.
+
+"I am glad you have come, sir.  It has been a long evening, and I don't
+think my nerve is as good as it was."
+
+"Your nerve, Walters?  I should not have thought you had a nerve in
+your body."
+
+"Well, sir, it's this lonely, silent house and the queer thing in the
+kitchen.  Then when you tapped at the window I thought it had come
+again."
+
+"That what had come again?"
+
+"The devil, sir, for all I know.  It was at the window."
+
+"What was at the window, and when?"
+
+"It was just about two hours ago.  The light was just fading.  I was
+sitting reading in the chair.  I don't know what made me look up, but
+there was a face looking in at me through the lower pane. Lord, sir,
+what a face it was!  I'll see it in my dreams."
+
+"Tut, tut, Walters.  This is not talk for a police-constable."
+
+"I know, sir, I know; but it shook me, sir, and there's no use to deny
+it.  It wasn't black, sir, nor was it white, nor any colour that I know
+but a kind of queer shade like clay with a splash of milk in it.  Then
+there was the size of it--it was twice yours, sir.  And the look of
+it--the great staring goggle eyes, and the line of white teeth like a
+hungry beast.  I tell you, sir, I couldn't move a finger, nor get my
+breath, till it whisked away and was gone.  Out I ran and through the
+shrubbery, but thank God there was no one there."
+
+"If I didn't know you were a good man, Walters, I should put a black
+mark against you for this.  If it were the devil himself a constable on
+duty should never thank God that he could not lay his hands upon him.
+I suppose the whole thing is not a vision and a touch of nerves?"
+
+"That, at least, is very easily settled," said Holmes, lighting his
+little pocket lantern.  "Yes," he reported, after a short examination
+of the grass bed, "a number twelve shoe, I should say.  If he was all
+on the same scale as his foot he must certainly have been a giant."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"He seems to have broken through the shrubbery and made for the road."
+
+"Well," said the inspector with a grave and thoughtful face, "whoever
+he may have been, and whatever he may have wanted, he's gone for the
+present, and we have more immediate things to attend to.  Now, Mr.
+Holmes, with your permission, I will show you round the house."
+
+The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a careful
+search.  Apparently the tenants had brought little or nothing with
+them, and all the furniture down to the smallest details had been taken
+over with the house.  A good deal of clothing with the stamp of Marx
+and Co., High Holborn, had been left behind.  Telegraphic inquiries had
+been already made which showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer
+save that he was a good payer.  Odds and ends, some pipes, a few
+novels, two of them in Spanish, an old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and
+a guitar were among the personal property.
+
+"Nothing in all this," said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand, from room
+to room.  "But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention to the kitchen."
+
+It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, with a
+straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a bed for the
+cook.  The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and dirty plates, the
+debris of last night's dinner.
+
+"Look at this," said Baynes.  "What do you make of it?"
+
+He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood at the
+back of the dresser.  It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that
+it was difficult to say what it might have been. One could but say that
+it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a
+dwarfish, human figure.  At first, as I examined it, I thought that it
+was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted and
+ancient monkey.  Finally I was left in doubt as to whether it was
+animal or human.  A double band of white shells were strung round the
+centre of it.
+
+"Very interesting--very interesting, indeed!" said Holmes, peering at
+this sinister relic.  "Anything more?"
+
+In silence Baynes led the way to the sink and held forward his candle.
+The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces
+with the feathers still on, were littered all over it.  Holmes pointed
+to the wattles on the severed head.
+
+"A white cock," said he.  "Most interesting!  It is really a very
+curious case."
+
+But Mr. Baynes had kept his most sinister exhibit to the last. From
+under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood.
+Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of
+charred bone.
+
+"Something has been killed and something has been burned.  We raked all
+these out of the fire.  We had a doctor in this morning.  He says that
+they are not human."
+
+Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands.
+
+"I must congratulate you, Inspector, on handling so distinctive and
+instructive a case.  Your powers, if I may say so without offence, seem
+superior to your opportunities."
+
+Inspector Baynes's small eyes twinkled with pleasure.
+
+"You're right, Mr. Holmes.  We stagnate in the provinces.  A case of
+this sort gives a man a chance, and I hope that I shall take it.  What
+do you make of these bones?"
+
+"A lamb, I should say, or a kid."
+
+"And the white cock?"
+
+"Curious, Mr. Baynes, very curious.  I should say almost unique."
+
+"Yes, sir, there must have been some very strange people with some very
+strange ways in this house.  One of them is dead.  Did his companions
+follow him and kill him?  If they did we should have them, for every
+port is watched.  But my own views are different.  Yes, sir, my own
+views are very different."
+
+"You have a theory then?"
+
+"And I'll work it myself, Mr. Holmes.  It's only due to my own credit
+to do so.  Your name is made, but I have still to make mine.  I should
+be glad to be able to say afterwards that I had solved it without your
+help."
+
+Holmes laughed good-humoredly.
+
+"Well, well, Inspector," said he. "Do you follow your path and I will
+follow mine.  My results are always very much at your service if you
+care to apply to me for them.  I think that I have seen all that I wish
+in this house, and that my time may be more profitably employed
+elsewhere.  Au revoir and good luck!"
+
+I could tell by numerous subtle signs, which might have been lost upon
+anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent.  As impassive as
+ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued
+eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker
+manner which assured me that the game was afoot.  After his habit he
+said nothing, and after mine I asked no questions.  Sufficient for me
+to share the sport and lend my humble help to the capture without
+distracting that intent brain with needless interruption.  All would
+come round to me in due time.
+
+I waited, therefore--but to my ever-deepening disappointment I waited
+in vain.  Day succeeded day, and my friend took no step forward.  One
+morning he spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that he
+had visited the British Museum.  Save for this one excursion, he spent
+his days in long and often solitary walks, or in chatting with a number
+of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated.
+
+"I'm sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you," he
+remarked.  "It is very pleasant to see the first green shoots upon the
+hedges and the catkins on the hazels once again. With a spud, a tin
+box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be
+spent."  He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it was a
+poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening.
+
+Occasionally in our rambles we came across Inspector Baynes.  His fat,
+red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he
+greeted my companion.  He said little about the case, but from that
+little we gathered that he also was not dissatisfied at the course of
+events.  I must admit, however, that I was somewhat surprised when,
+some five days after the crime, I opened my morning paper to find in
+large letters:
+
+    THE OXSHOTT MYSTERY
+    A SOLUTION
+    ARREST OF SUPPOSED ASSASSIN
+
+Holmes sprang in his chair as if he had been stung when I read the
+headlines.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried.  "You don't mean that Baynes has got him?"
+
+"Apparently," said I as I read the following report:
+
+"Great excitement was caused in Esher and the neighbouring district
+when it was learned late last night that an arrest had been effected in
+connection with the Oxshott murder.  It will be remembered that Mr.
+Garcia, of Wisteria Lodge, was found dead on Oxshott Common, his body
+showing signs of extreme violence, and that on the same night his
+servant and his cook fled, which appeared to show their participation
+in the crime.  It was suggested, but never proved, that the deceased
+gentleman may have had valuables in the house, and that their
+abstraction was the motive of the crime.  Every effort was made by
+Inspector Baynes, who has the case in hand, to ascertain the hiding
+place of the fugitives, and he had good reason to believe that they had
+not gone far but were lurking in some retreat which had been already
+prepared.  It was certain from the first, however, that they would
+eventually be detected, as the cook, from the evidence of one or two
+tradespeople who have caught a glimpse of him through the window, was a
+man of most remarkable appearance--being a huge and hideous mulatto,
+with yellowish features of a pronounced negroid type.  This man has
+been seen since the crime, for he was detected and pursued by Constable
+Walters on the same evening, when he had the audacity to revisit
+Wisteria Lodge.  Inspector Baynes, considering that such a visit must
+have some purpose in view and was likely, therefore, to be repeated,
+abandoned the house but left an ambuscade in the shrubbery.  The man
+walked into the trap and was captured last night after a struggle in
+which Constable Downing was badly bitten by the savage.  We understand
+that when the prisoner is brought before the magistrates a remand will be
+applied for by the police, and that great developments are hoped from
+his capture."
+
+"Really we must see Baynes at once," cried Holmes, picking up his hat.
+"We will just catch him before he starts."  We hurried down the village
+street and found, as we had expected, that the inspector was just
+leaving his lodgings.
+
+"You've seen the paper, Mr. Holmes?" he asked, holding one out to us.
+
+"Yes, Baynes, I've seen it.  Pray don't think it a liberty if I give
+you a word of friendly warning."
+
+"Of warning, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I have looked into this case with some care, and I am not convinced
+that you are on the right lines.  I don't want you to commit yourself
+too far unless you are sure."
+
+"You're very kind, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"I assure you I speak for your good."
+
+It seemed to me that something like a wink quivered for an instant over
+one of Mr. Baynes's tiny eyes.
+
+"We agreed to work on our own lines, Mr. Holmes.  That's what I am
+doing."
+
+"Oh, very good," said Holmes.  "Don't blame me."
+
+"No, sir; I believe you mean well by me.  But we all have our own
+systems, Mr. Holmes.  You have yours, and maybe I have mine."
+
+"Let us say no more about it."
+
+"You're welcome always to my news.  This fellow is a perfect savage, as
+strong as a cart-horse and as fierce as the devil.  He chewed Downing's
+thumb nearly off before they could master him. He hardly speaks a word
+of English, and we can get nothing out of him but grunts."
+
+"And you think you have evidence that he murdered his late master?"
+
+"I didn't say so, Mr. Holmes; I didn't say so.  We all have our little
+ways.  You try yours and I will try mine.  That's the agreement."
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders as we walked away together.  "I can't
+make the man out.  He seems to be riding for a fall.  Well, as he says,
+we must each try our own way and see what comes of it.  But there's
+something in Inspector Baynes which I can't quite understand."
+
+"Just sit down in that chair, Watson," said Sherlock Holmes when we had
+returned to our apartment at the Bull.  "I want to put you in touch
+with the situation, as I may need your help to-night. Let me show you
+the evolution of this case so far as I have been able to follow it.
+Simple as it has been in its leading features, it has none the less
+presented surprising difficulties in the way of an arrest.  There are
+gaps in that direction which we have still to fill.
+
+"We will go back to the note which was handed in to Garcia upon the
+evening of his death.  We may put aside this idea of Baynes's that
+Garcia's servants were concerned in the matter.  The proof of this lies
+in the fact that it was _he_ who had arranged for the presence of Scott
+Eccles, which could only have been done for the purpose of an alibi.
+It was Garcia, then, who had an enterprise, and apparently a criminal
+enterprise, in hand that night in the course of which he met his death.
+I say 'criminal' because only a man with a criminal enterprise desires
+to establish an alibi. Who, then, is most likely to have taken his
+life?  Surely the person against whom the criminal enterprise was
+directed.  So far it seems to me that we are on safe ground.
+
+"We can now see a reason for the disappearance of Garcia's household.
+They were _all_ confederates in the same unknown crime. If it came off
+when Garcia returned, any possible suspicion would be warded off by the
+Englishman's evidence, and all would be well.  But the attempt was a
+dangerous one, and if Garcia did _not_ return by a certain hour it was
+probable that his own life had been sacrificed.  It had been arranged,
+therefore, that in such a case his two subordinates were to make for
+some prearranged spot where they could escape investigation and be in a
+position afterwards to renew their attempt.  That would fully explain
+the facts, would it not?"
+
+The whole inexplicable tangle seemed to straighten out before me. I
+wondered, as I always did, how it had not been obvious to me before.
+
+"But why should one servant return?"
+
+"We can imagine that in the confusion of flight something precious,
+something which he could not bear to part with, had been left behind.
+That would explain his persistence, would it not?"
+
+"Well, what is the next step?"
+
+"The next step is the note received by Garcia at the dinner.  It
+indicates a confederate at the other end.  Now, where was the other
+end?  I have already shown you that it could only lie in some large
+house, and that the number of large houses is limited. My first days in
+this village were devoted to a series of walks in which in the
+intervals of my botanical researches I made a reconnaissance of all the
+large houses and an examination of the family history of the occupants.
+One house, and only one, riveted my attention.  It is the famous old
+Jacobean grange of High Gable, one mile on the farther side of Oxshott,
+and less than half a mile from the scene of the tragedy.  The other
+mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof
+from romance.  But Mr. Henderson, of High Gable, was by all accounts a
+curious man to whom curious adventures might befall. I concentrated my
+attention, therefore, upon him and his household.
+
+"A singular set of people, Watson--the man himself the most singular of
+them all.  I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to
+read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of
+my true business.  He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray
+hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of
+an emperor--a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his
+parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the
+tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord.  His
+friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate
+brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of speech.
+You see, Watson, we have come already upon two sets of foreigners--one
+at Wisteria Lodge and one at High Gable--so our gaps are beginning to
+close.
+
+"These two men, close and confidential friends, are the centre of the
+household; but there is one other person who for our immediate purpose
+may be even more important.  Henderson has two children--girls of
+eleven and thirteen.  Their governess is a Miss Burnet, an Englishwoman
+of forty or thereabouts.  There is also one confidential manservant.
+This little group forms the real family, for they travel about
+together, and Henderson is a great traveller, always on the move.  It
+is only within the last weeks that he has returned, after a year's
+absence, to High Gable.  I may add that he is enormously rich, and
+whatever his whims may be he can very easily satisfy them.  For the
+rest, his house is full of butlers, footmen, maidservants, and the
+usual overfed, underworked staff of a large English country house.
+
+"So much I learned partly from village gossip and partly from my own
+observation.  There are no better instruments than discharged servants
+with a grievance, and I was lucky enough to find one.  I call it luck,
+but it would not have come my way had I not been looking out for it.
+As Baynes remarks, we all have our systems. It was my system which
+enabled me to find John Warner, late gardener of High Gable, sacked in
+a moment of temper by his imperious employer.  He in turn had friends
+among the indoor servants who unite in their fear and dislike of their
+master.  So I had my key to the secrets of the establishment.
+
+"Curious people, Watson!  I don't pretend to understand it all yet, but
+very curious people anyway.  It's a double-winged house, and the
+servants live on one side, the family on the other. There's no link
+between the two save for Henderson's own servant, who serves the
+family's meals.  Everything is carried to a certain door, which forms
+the one connection.  Governess and children hardly go out at all,
+except into the garden.  Henderson never by any chance walks alone.
+His dark secretary is like his shadow.  The gossip among the servants
+is that their master is terribly afraid of something.  'Sold his soul
+to the devil in exchange for money,' says Warner, 'and expects his
+creditor to come up and claim his own.'  Where they came from, or who
+they are, nobody has an idea.  They are very violent.  Twice Henderson
+has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and heavy
+compensation have kept him out of the courts.
+
+"Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new information.
+We may take it that the letter came out of this strange household and
+was an invitation to Garcia to carry out some attempt which had already
+been planned. Who wrote the note? It was someone within the citadel,
+and it was a woman.  Who then but Miss Burnet, the governess?  All our
+reasoning seems to point that way.  At any rate, we may take it as a
+hypothesis and see what consequences it would entail.  I may add that
+Miss Burnet's age and character make it certain that my first idea that
+there might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.
+
+"If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and confederate of
+Garcia.  What, then, might she be expected to do if she heard of his
+death?  If he met it in some nefarious enterprise her lips might be
+sealed.  Still, in her heart, she must retain bitterness and hatred
+against those who had killed him and would presumably help so far as
+she could to have revenge upon them.  Could we see her, then and try to
+use her?  That was my first thought.  But now we come to a sinister
+fact.  Miss Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night
+of the murder.  From that evening she has utterly vanished.  Is she
+alive?  Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the friend
+whom she had summoned?  Or is she merely a prisoner? There is the point
+which we still have to decide.
+
+"You will appreciate the difficulty of the situation, Watson. There is
+nothing upon which we can apply for a warrant.  Our whole scheme might
+seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate. The woman's disappearance
+counts for nothing, since in that extraordinary household any member of
+it might be invisible for a week.  And yet she may at the present
+moment be in danger of her life.  All I can do is to watch the house
+and leave my agent, Warner, on guard at the gates.  We can't let such a
+situation continue.  If the law can do nothing we must take the risk
+ourselves."
+
+"What do you suggest?"
+
+"I know which is her room.  It is accessible from the top of an
+outhouse.  My suggestion is that you and I go to-night and see if we
+can strike at the very heart of the mystery."
+
+It was not, I must confess, a very alluring prospect.  The old house
+with its atmosphere of murder, the singular and formidable inhabitants,
+the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting
+ourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour.
+But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made
+it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend.
+One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found.  I
+clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast.
+
+But it was not destined that our investigation should have so
+adventurous an ending.  It was about five o'clock, and the shadows of
+the March evening were beginning to fall, when an excited rustic rushed
+into our room.
+
+"They've gone, Mr. Holmes.  They went by the last train.  The lady
+broke away, and I've got her in a cab downstairs."
+
+"Excellent, Warner!" cried Holmes, springing to his feet. "Watson, the
+gaps are closing rapidly."
+
+In the cab was a woman, half-collapsed from nervous exhaustion. She
+bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent
+tragedy.  Her head hung listlessly upon her breast, but as she raised
+it and turned her dull eyes upon us I saw that her pupils were dark
+dots in the centre of the broad gray iris.  She was drugged with opium.
+
+"I watched at the gate, same as you advised, Mr. Holmes," said our
+emissary, the discharged gardener.  "When the carriage came out I
+followed it to the station.  She was like one walking in her sleep, but
+when they tried to get her into the train she came to life and
+struggled.  They pushed her into the carriage.  She fought her way out
+again.  I took her part, got her into a cab, and here we are.  I shan't
+forget the face at the carriage window as I led her away. I'd have a
+short life if he had his way--the black-eyed, scowling, yellow devil."
+
+We carried her upstairs, laid her on the sofa, and a couple of cups of
+the strongest coffee soon cleared her brain from the mists of the drug.
+Baynes had been summoned by Holmes, and the situation rapidly explained
+to him.
+
+"Why, sir, you've got me the very evidence I want," said the inspector
+warmly, shaking my friend by the hand.  "I was on the same scent as you
+from the first."
+
+"What!  You were after Henderson?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Holmes, when you were crawling in the shrubbery at High Gable
+I was up one of the trees in the plantation and saw you down below.  It
+was just who would get his evidence first."
+
+"Then why did you arrest the mulatto?"
+
+Baynes chuckled.
+
+"I was sure Henderson, as he calls himself, felt that he was suspected,
+and that he would lie low and make no move so long as he thought he was
+in any danger.  I arrested the wrong man to make him believe that our
+eyes were off him.  I knew he would be likely to clear off then and
+give us a chance of getting at Miss Burnet."
+
+Holmes laid his hand upon the inspector's shoulder.
+
+"You will rise high in your profession.  You have instinct and
+intuition," said he.
+
+Baynes flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I've had a plain-clothes man waiting at the station all the week.
+Wherever the High Gable folk go he will keep them in sight.  But he
+must have been hard put to it when Miss Burnet broke away.  However,
+your man picked her up, and it all ends well.  We can't arrest without
+her evidence, that is clear, so the sooner we get a statement the
+better."
+
+"Every minute she gets stronger," said Holmes, glancing at the
+governess.  "But tell me, Baynes, who is this man Henderson?"
+
+"Henderson," the inspector answered, "is Don Murillo, once called the
+Tiger of San Pedro."
+
+The Tiger of San Pedro!  The whole history of the man came back to me
+in a flash.  He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty
+tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to
+civilization.  Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient
+virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people
+for ten or twelve years.  His name was a terror through all Central
+America.  At the end of that time there was a universal rising against
+him.  But he was as cunning as he was cruel, and at the first whisper
+of coming trouble he had secretly conveyed his treasures aboard a ship
+which was manned by devoted adherents.  It was an empty palace which
+was stormed by the insurgents next day.  The dictator, his two
+children, his secretary, and his wealth had all escaped them. From that
+moment he had vanished from the world, and his identity had been a
+frequent subject for comment in the European press.
+
+"Yes, sir, Don Murillo, the Tiger of San Pedro," said Baynes. "If you
+look it up you will find that the San Pedro colours are green and
+white, same as in the note, Mr. Holmes.  Henderson he called himself,
+but I traced him back, Paris and Rome and Madrid to Barcelona, where
+his ship came in in '86.  They've been looking for him all the time for
+their revenge, but it is only now that they have begun to find him out."
+
+"They discovered him a year ago," said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and
+was now intently following the conversation.  "Once already his life
+has been attempted, but some evil spirit shielded him.  Now, again, it
+is the noble, chivalrous Garcia who has fallen, while the monster goes
+safe.  But another will come, and yet another, until some day justice
+will be done; that is as certain as the rise of to-morrow's sun."  Her
+thin hands clenched, and her worn face blanched with the passion of her
+hatred.
+
+"But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?" asked Holmes. "How
+can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?"
+
+"I join in it because there is no other way in the world by which
+justice can be gained.  What does the law of England care for the
+rivers of blood shed years ago in San Pedro, or for the shipload of
+treasure which this man has stolen?  To you they are like crimes
+committed in some other planet.  But _we_ know.  We have learned the
+truth in sorrow and in suffering.  To us there is no fiend in hell like
+Juan Murillo, and no peace in life while his victims still cry for
+vengeance."
+
+"No doubt," said Holmes, "he was as you say. I have heard that he was
+atrocious.  But how are you affected?"
+
+"I will tell you it all. This villain's policy was to murder, on one
+pretext or another, every man who showed such promise that he might in
+time come to be a dangerous rival.  My husband--yes, my real name is
+Signora Victor Durando--was the San Pedro minister in London.  He met
+me and married me there.  A nobler man never lived upon earth.
+Unhappily, Murillo heard of his excellence, recalled him on some
+pretext, and had him shot.  With a premonition of his fate he had
+refused to take me with him.  His estates were confiscated, and I was
+left with a pittance and a broken heart.
+
+"Then came the downfall of the tyrant.  He escaped as you have just
+described.  But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and
+dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the
+matter rest.  They banded themselves into a society which should never
+be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part after we had
+discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to attach
+myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his
+movements.  This I was able to do by securing the position of governess
+in his family.  He little knew that the woman who faced him at every
+meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice
+into eternity.  I smiled on him, did my duty to his children, and bided
+my time.  An attempt was made in Paris and failed.  We zig-zagged
+swiftly here and there over Europe to throw off the pursuers and
+finally returned to this house, which he had taken upon his first
+arrival in England.
+
+"But here also the ministers of justice were waiting.  Knowing that he
+would return there, Garcia, who is the son of the former highest
+dignitary in San Pedro, was waiting with two trusty companions of
+humble station, all three fired with the same reasons for revenge. He
+could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and
+never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was known
+in the days of his greatness.  At night, however, he slept alone, and
+the avenger might find him.  On a certain evening, which had been
+prearranged, I sent my friend final instructions, for the man was
+forever on the alert and continually changed his room.  I was to see
+that the doors were open and the signal of a green or white light in a
+window which faced the drive was to give notice if all was safe or if
+the attempt had better be postponed.
+
+"But everything went wrong with us.  In some way I had excited the
+suspicion of Lopez, the secretary.  He crept up behind me and sprang
+upon me just as I had finished the note.  He and his master dragged me
+to my room and held judgment upon me as a convicted traitress.  Then
+and there they would have plunged their knives into me could they have
+seen how to escape the consequences of the deed.  Finally, after much
+debate, they concluded that my murder was too dangerous.  But they
+determined to get rid forever of Garcia.  They had gagged me, and
+Murillo twisted my arm round until I gave him the address.  I swear
+that he might have twisted it off had I understood what it would mean
+to Garcia.  Lopez addressed the note which I had written, sealed it
+with his sleeve-link, and sent it by the hand of the servant, Jose.
+How they murdered him I do not know, save that it was Murillo's hand
+who struck him down, for Lopez had remained to guard me.  I believe he
+must have waited among the gorse bushes through which the path winds
+and struck him down as he passed. At first they were of a mind to let
+him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they
+argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity
+would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further
+attacks. With the death of Garcia, the pursuit might cease, since such
+a death might frighten others from the task.
+
+"All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge
+of what they had done.  I have no doubt that there were times when my
+life hung in the balance.  I was confined to my room, terrorized by the
+most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit--see this
+stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end of my arms--and a
+gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call
+from the window.  For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with
+hardly enough food to hold body and soul together.  This afternoon a
+good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I
+had been drugged.  In a sort of dream I remember being half-led,
+half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the
+train.  Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly
+realize that my liberty lay in my own hands.  I sprang out, they tried
+to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man, who
+led me to the cab, I should never had broken away.  Now, thank God, I
+am beyond their power forever."
+
+We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement.  It was
+Holmes who broke the silence.
+
+"Our difficulties are not over," he remarked, shaking his head. "Our
+police work ends, but our legal work begins."
+
+"Exactly," said I.  "A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of
+self-defence.  There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it
+is only on this one that they can be tried."
+
+"Come, come," said Baynes cheerily, "I think better of the law than
+that.  Self-defence is one thing.  To entice a man in cold blood with
+the object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear
+from him.  No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of
+High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes."
+
+        *           *           *
+
+It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to
+elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts.
+Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track
+by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the
+back-gate into Curzon Square.  From that day they were seen no more in
+England.  Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and
+Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the
+Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and the
+murderers were never arrested.  Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker
+Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary,
+and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted
+brows of his master.  We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had
+come at last.
+
+"A chaotic case, my dear Watson," said Holmes over an evening pipe. "It
+will not be possible for you to present in that compact form which is
+dear to your heart.  It covers two continents, concerns two groups of
+mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly
+respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows
+me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed
+instinct of self-preservation.  It is remarkable only for the fact that
+amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy
+collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials
+and so been guided along the crooked and winding path.  Is there any
+point which is not quite clear to you?"
+
+"The object of the mulatto cook's return?"
+
+"I think that the strange creature in the kitchen may account for it.
+The man was a primitive savage from the backwoods of San Pedro, and
+this was his fetish.  When his companion and he had fled to some
+prearranged retreat--already occupied, no doubt by a confederate--the
+companion had persuaded him to leave so compromising an article of
+furniture.  But the mulatto's heart was with it, and he was driven back
+to it next day, when, on reconnoitering through the window, he found
+policeman Walters in possession.  He waited three days longer, and then
+his piety or his superstition drove him to try once more.  Inspector
+Baynes, who, with his usual astuteness, had minimized the incident
+before me, had really recognized its importance and had left a trap
+into which the creature walked.  Any other point, Watson?"
+
+"The torn bird, the pail of blood, the charred bones, all the mystery
+of that weird kitchen?"
+
+Holmes smiled as he turned up an entry in his note-book.
+
+"I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up on that and other
+points.  Here is a quotation from Eckermann's Voodooism and the Negroid
+Religions:
+
+"'The true voodoo-worshipper attempts nothing of importance without
+certain sacrifices which are intended to propitiate his unclean gods.
+In extreme cases these rites take the form of human sacrifices followed
+by cannibalism.  The more usual victims are a white cock, which is
+plucked in pieces alive, or a black goat, whose throat is cut and body
+burned.'
+
+"So you see our savage friend was very orthodox in his ritual. It is
+grotesque, Watson," Holmes added, as he slowly fastened his notebook,
+"but, as I have had occasion to remark, there is but one step from the
+grotesque to the horrible."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, by 
+Arthur Conan Doyle
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theadventuresofsherlockholmes b/files/books/unrelated/theadventuresofsherlockholmes
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theadventuresofsherlockholmes
@@ -0,0 +1,13029 @@
+Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer and Jose Menendez
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
+
+by
+
+SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+
+   I. A Scandal in Bohemia
+  II. The Red-headed League
+ III. A Case of Identity
+  IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
+   V. The Five Orange Pips
+  VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip
+ VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
+VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band
+  IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
+   X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
+  XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
+ XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
+
+I.
+
+To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard
+him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses
+and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt
+any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that
+one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but
+admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect
+reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a
+lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never
+spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They
+were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing the
+veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner
+to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely
+adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which
+might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a
+sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power
+lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a
+nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and
+that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable
+memory.
+
+I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us
+away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the
+home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first
+finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to
+absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of
+society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in
+Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from
+week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the
+drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still,
+as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his
+immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in
+following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which
+had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time
+to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons
+to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up
+of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee,
+and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so
+delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland.
+Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely
+shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of
+my former friend and companion.
+
+One night--it was on the twentieth of March, 1888--I was
+returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to
+civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I
+passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated
+in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the
+Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes
+again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers.
+His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw
+his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against
+the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head
+sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who
+knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their
+own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his
+drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new
+problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which
+had formerly been in part my own.
+
+His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I
+think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly
+eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars,
+and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he
+stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular
+introspective fashion.
+
+"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that you have
+put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you."
+
+"Seven!" I answered.
+
+"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more,
+I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not
+tell me that you intended to go into harness."
+
+"Then, how do you know?"
+
+"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting
+yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and
+careless servant girl?"
+
+"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly
+have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true
+that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful
+mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you
+deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has
+given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it
+out."
+
+He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands
+together.
+
+"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the
+inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it,
+the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they
+have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round
+the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it.
+Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile
+weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting
+specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a
+gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black
+mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge
+on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted
+his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce
+him to be an active member of the medical profession."
+
+I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his
+process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I
+remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously
+simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each
+successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you
+explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good
+as yours."
+
+"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing
+himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe.
+The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen
+the steps which lead up from the hall to this room."
+
+"Frequently."
+
+"How often?"
+
+"Well, some hundreds of times."
+
+"Then how many are there?"
+
+"How many? I don't know."
+
+"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is
+just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps,
+because I have both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are
+interested in these little problems, and since you are good
+enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you
+may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick,
+pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open upon the table.
+"It came by the last post," said he. "Read it aloud."
+
+The note was undated, and without either signature or address.
+
+"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight
+o'clock," it said, "a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a
+matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of
+the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may
+safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which
+can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have from all
+quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do
+not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask."
+
+"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that
+it means?"
+
+"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before
+one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit
+theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself.
+What do you deduce from it?"
+
+I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was
+written.
+
+"The man who wrote it was presumably well to do," I remarked,
+endeavouring to imitate my companion's processes. "Such paper
+could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly
+strong and stiff."
+
+"Peculiar--that is the very word," said Holmes. "It is not an
+English paper at all. Hold it up to the light."
+
+I did so, and saw a large "E" with a small "g," a "P," and a
+large "G" with a small "t" woven into the texture of the paper.
+
+"What do you make of that?" asked Holmes.
+
+"The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather."
+
+"Not at all. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for
+'Gesellschaft,' which is the German for 'Company.' It is a
+customary contraction like our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for
+'Papier.' Now for the 'Eg.' Let us glance at our Continental
+Gazetteer." He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves.
+"Eglow, Eglonitz--here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking
+country--in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as being
+the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous
+glass-factories and paper-mills.' Ha, ha, my boy, what do you
+make of that?" His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue
+triumphant cloud from his cigarette.
+
+"The paper was made in Bohemia," I said.
+
+"Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you
+note the peculiar construction of the sentence--'This account of
+you we have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman or Russian
+could not have written that. It is the German who is so
+uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover
+what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper and
+prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if
+I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts."
+
+As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and
+grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the
+bell. Holmes whistled.
+
+"A pair, by the sound," said he. "Yes," he continued, glancing
+out of the window. "A nice little brougham and a pair of
+beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There's money in
+this case, Watson, if there is nothing else."
+
+"I think that I had better go, Holmes."
+
+"Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my
+Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity
+to miss it."
+
+"But your client--"
+
+"Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he
+comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best
+attention."
+
+A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and
+in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there
+was a loud and authoritative tap.
+
+"Come in!" said Holmes.
+
+A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six
+inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His
+dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked
+upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed
+across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while
+the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined
+with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch
+which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended
+halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with
+rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence
+which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a
+broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper
+part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black
+vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment,
+for his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower
+part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character,
+with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive
+of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
+
+"You had my note?" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a
+strongly marked German accent. "I told you that I would call." He
+looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to
+address.
+
+"Pray take a seat," said Holmes. "This is my friend and
+colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me
+in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?"
+
+"You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman.
+I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour
+and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most
+extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate
+with you alone."
+
+I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me
+back into my chair. "It is both, or none," said he. "You may say
+before this gentleman anything which you may say to me."
+
+The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must begin," said
+he, "by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at
+the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At
+present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it
+may have an influence upon European history."
+
+"I promise," said Holmes.
+
+"And I."
+
+"You will excuse this mask," continued our strange visitor. "The
+august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to
+you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have
+just called myself is not exactly my own."
+
+"I was aware of it," said Holmes dryly.
+
+"The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution
+has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense
+scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of
+Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House
+of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia."
+
+"I was also aware of that," murmured Holmes, settling himself
+down in his armchair and closing his eyes.
+
+Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid,
+lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him
+as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe.
+Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his
+gigantic client.
+
+"If your Majesty would condescend to state your case," he
+remarked, "I should be better able to advise you."
+
+The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in
+uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he
+tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. "You
+are right," he cried; "I am the King. Why should I attempt to
+conceal it?"
+
+"Why, indeed?" murmured Holmes. "Your Majesty had not spoken
+before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich
+Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and
+hereditary King of Bohemia."
+
+"But you can understand," said our strange visitor, sitting down
+once more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, "you
+can understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in
+my own person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not
+confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I
+have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting
+you."
+
+"Then, pray consult," said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.
+
+"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a
+lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known
+adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you."
+
+"Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor," murmured Holmes without
+opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of
+docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it
+was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not
+at once furnish information. In this case I found her biography
+sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a
+staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea
+fishes.
+
+"Let me see!" said Holmes. "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year
+1858. Contralto--hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera
+of Warsaw--yes! Retired from operatic stage--ha! Living in
+London--quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled
+with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and
+is now desirous of getting those letters back."
+
+"Precisely so. But how--"
+
+"Was there a secret marriage?"
+
+"None."
+
+"No legal papers or certificates?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should
+produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is
+she to prove their authenticity?"
+
+"There is the writing."
+
+"Pooh, pooh! Forgery."
+
+"My private note-paper."
+
+"Stolen."
+
+"My own seal."
+
+"Imitated."
+
+"My photograph."
+
+"Bought."
+
+"We were both in the photograph."
+
+"Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an
+indiscretion."
+
+"I was mad--insane."
+
+"You have compromised yourself seriously."
+
+"I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now."
+
+"It must be recovered."
+
+"We have tried and failed."
+
+"Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought."
+
+"She will not sell."
+
+"Stolen, then."
+
+"Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked
+her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice
+she has been waylaid. There has been no result."
+
+"No sign of it?"
+
+"Absolutely none."
+
+Holmes laughed. "It is quite a pretty little problem," said he.
+
+"But a very serious one to me," returned the King reproachfully.
+
+"Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the
+photograph?"
+
+"To ruin me."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"I am about to be married."
+
+"So I have heard."
+
+"To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the
+King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her
+family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a
+doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end."
+
+"And Irene Adler?"
+
+"Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I
+know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul
+of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and
+the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry
+another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not
+go--none."
+
+"You are sure that she has not sent it yet?"
+
+"I am sure."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the
+betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday."
+
+"Oh, then we have three days yet," said Holmes with a yawn. "That
+is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to
+look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in
+London for the present?"
+
+"Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the
+Count Von Kramm."
+
+"Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress."
+
+"Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety."
+
+"Then, as to money?"
+
+"You have carte blanche."
+
+"Absolutely?"
+
+"I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom
+to have that photograph."
+
+"And for present expenses?"
+
+The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak
+and laid it on the table.
+
+"There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in
+notes," he said.
+
+Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and
+handed it to him.
+
+"And Mademoiselle's address?" he asked.
+
+"Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood."
+
+Holmes took a note of it. "One other question," said he. "Was the
+photograph a cabinet?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Then, good-night, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon
+have some good news for you. And good-night, Watson," he added,
+as the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. "If
+you will be good enough to call to-morrow afternoon at three
+o'clock I should like to chat this little matter over with you."
+
+
+II.
+
+At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had
+not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the
+house shortly after eight o'clock in the morning. I sat down
+beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him,
+however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his
+inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and
+strange features which were associated with the two crimes which
+I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the
+exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own.
+Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my
+friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of
+a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a
+pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the
+quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most
+inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable
+success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to
+enter into my head.
+
+It was close upon four before the door opened, and a
+drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an
+inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room.
+Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of
+disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it
+was indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he
+emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old.
+Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in
+front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes.
+
+"Well, really!" he cried, and then he choked and laughed again
+until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the
+chair.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I
+employed my morning, or what I ended by doing."
+
+"I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the
+habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler."
+
+"Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you,
+however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this
+morning in the character of a groom out of work. There is a
+wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of
+them, and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found
+Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but
+built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock
+to the door. Large sitting-room on the right side, well
+furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those
+preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open.
+Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window
+could be reached from the top of the coach-house. I walked round
+it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without
+noting anything else of interest.
+
+"I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that
+there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the
+garden. I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses,
+and received in exchange twopence, a glass of half and half, two
+fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire
+about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in
+the neighbourhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but
+whose biographies I was compelled to listen to."
+
+"And what of Irene Adler?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is
+the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the
+Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts,
+drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for
+dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings.
+Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark,
+handsome, and dashing, never calls less than once a day, and
+often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. See
+the advantages of a cabman as a confidant. They had driven him
+home a dozen times from Serpentine-mews, and knew all about him.
+When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up
+and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan
+of campaign.
+
+"This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the
+matter. He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the
+relation between them, and what the object of his repeated
+visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the
+former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his
+keeping. If the latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this
+question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony
+Lodge, or turn my attention to the gentleman's chambers in the
+Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field of my
+inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to
+let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the
+situation."
+
+"I am following you closely," I answered.
+
+"I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab
+drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a
+remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached--evidently
+the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a
+great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the
+maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly
+at home.
+
+"He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch
+glimpses of him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and
+down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see
+nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than
+before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from
+his pocket and looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he
+shouted, 'first to Gross & Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to
+the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if
+you do it in twenty minutes!'
+
+"Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do
+well to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau,
+the coachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under
+his ear, while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of
+the buckles. It hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall
+door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment,
+but she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for.
+
+"'The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried, 'and half a
+sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.'
+
+"This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing
+whether I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her
+landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked
+twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could
+object. 'The Church of St. Monica,' said I, 'and half a sovereign
+if you reach it in twenty minutes.' It was twenty-five minutes to
+twelve, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind.
+
+"My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the
+others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their
+steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid
+the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there
+save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who
+seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three
+standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side
+aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church.
+Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to
+me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards
+me.
+
+"'Thank God,' he cried. 'You'll do. Come! Come!'
+
+"'What then?' I asked.
+
+"'Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won't be legal.'
+
+"I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was
+I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear,
+and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally
+assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to
+Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and
+there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady
+on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front. It was
+the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my
+life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just
+now. It seems that there had been some informality about their
+license, that the clergyman absolutely refused to marry them
+without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance
+saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in
+search of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I mean
+to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of the occasion."
+
+"This is a very unexpected turn of affairs," said I; "and what
+then?"
+
+"Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if
+the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate
+very prompt and energetic measures on my part. At the church
+door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and
+she to her own house. 'I shall drive out in the park at five as
+usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove
+away in different directions, and I went off to make my own
+arrangements."
+
+"Which are?"
+
+"Some cold beef and a glass of beer," he answered, ringing the
+bell. "I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to
+be busier still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want
+your co-operation."
+
+"I shall be delighted."
+
+"You don't mind breaking the law?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Nor running a chance of arrest?"
+
+"Not in a good cause."
+
+"Oh, the cause is excellent!"
+
+"Then I am your man."
+
+"I was sure that I might rely on you."
+
+"But what is it you wish?"
+
+"When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to
+you. Now," he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that
+our landlady had provided, "I must discuss it while I eat, for I
+have not much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must
+be on the scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns
+from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to
+occur. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must
+not interfere, come what may. You understand?"
+
+"I am to be neutral?"
+
+"To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small
+unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being
+conveyed into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the
+sitting-room window will open. You are to station yourself close
+to that open window."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And when I raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what
+I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of
+fire. You quite follow me?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+"It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long cigar-shaped
+roll from his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket,
+fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting.
+Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire,
+it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then
+walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten
+minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?"
+
+"I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you,
+and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry
+of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Then you may entirely rely on me."
+
+"That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I
+prepare for the new role I have to play."
+
+He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in
+the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist
+clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white
+tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and
+benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have
+equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His
+expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every
+fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as
+science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in
+crime.
+
+It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still
+wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in
+Serpentine Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just
+being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge,
+waiting for the coming of its occupant. The house was just such
+as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes' succinct description,
+but the locality appeared to be less private than I expected. On
+the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbourhood, it was
+remarkably animated. There was a group of shabbily dressed men
+smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his
+wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse-girl, and
+several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with
+cigars in their mouths.
+
+"You see," remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of
+the house, "this marriage rather simplifies matters. The
+photograph becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are
+that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey
+Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his
+princess. Now the question is, Where are we to find the
+photograph?"
+
+"Where, indeed?"
+
+"It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is
+cabinet size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman's
+dress. She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid
+and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We
+may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her."
+
+"Where, then?"
+
+"Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But
+I am inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive,
+and they like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it
+over to anyone else? She could trust her own guardianship, but
+she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be
+brought to bear upon a business man. Besides, remember that she
+had resolved to use it within a few days. It must be where she
+can lay her hands upon it. It must be in her own house."
+
+"But it has twice been burgled."
+
+"Pshaw! They did not know how to look."
+
+"But how will you look?"
+
+"I will not look."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I will get her to show me."
+
+"But she will refuse."
+
+"She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is
+her carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter."
+
+As he spoke the gleam of the side-lights of a carriage came round
+the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which
+rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of
+the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to open the door in
+the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another
+loafer, who had rushed up with the same intention. A fierce
+quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who
+took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors-grinder,
+who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and
+in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was
+the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who
+struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes
+dashed into the crowd to protect the lady; but just as he reached
+her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood
+running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to
+their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while
+a number of better-dressed people, who had watched the scuffle
+without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady and to
+attend to the injured man. Irene Adler, as I will still call her,
+had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her
+superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking
+back into the street.
+
+"Is the poor gentleman much hurt?" she asked.
+
+"He is dead," cried several voices.
+
+"No, no, there's life in him!" shouted another. "But he'll be
+gone before you can get him to hospital."
+
+"He's a brave fellow," said a woman. "They would have had the
+lady's purse and watch if it hadn't been for him. They were a
+gang, and a rough one, too. Ah, he's breathing now."
+
+"He can't lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?"
+
+"Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable
+sofa. This way, please!"
+
+Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out
+in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings
+from my post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the
+blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay
+upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with
+compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I
+know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life
+than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was
+conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited
+upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery
+to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted
+to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under
+my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are
+but preventing her from injuring another.
+
+Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man
+who is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the
+window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the
+signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of "Fire!" The
+word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of
+spectators, well dressed and ill--gentlemen, ostlers, and
+servant-maids--joined in a general shriek of "Fire!" Thick clouds
+of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I
+caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice
+of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm.
+Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner
+of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my
+friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar.
+He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we
+had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the
+Edgeware Road.
+
+"You did it very nicely, Doctor," he remarked. "Nothing could
+have been better. It is all right."
+
+"You have the photograph?"
+
+"I know where it is."
+
+"And how did you find out?"
+
+"She showed me, as I told you she would."
+
+"I am still in the dark."
+
+"I do not wish to make a mystery," said he, laughing. "The matter
+was perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the
+street was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening."
+
+"I guessed as much."
+
+"Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in
+the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand
+to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick."
+
+"That also I could fathom."
+
+"Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else
+could she do? And into her sitting-room, which was the very room
+which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was
+determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for
+air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your
+chance."
+
+"How did that help you?"
+
+"It was all-important. When a woman thinks that her house is on
+fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she
+values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have
+more than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the
+Darlington substitution scandal it was of use to me, and also in
+the Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby;
+an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to
+me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious
+to her than what we are in quest of. She would rush to secure it.
+The alarm of fire was admirably done. The smoke and shouting were
+enough to shake nerves of steel. She responded beautifully. The
+photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the
+right bell-pull. She was there in an instant, and I caught a
+glimpse of it as she half-drew it out. When I cried out that it
+was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the rocket, rushed
+from the room, and I have not seen her since. I rose, and, making
+my excuses, escaped from the house. I hesitated whether to
+attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had
+come in, and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to
+wait. A little over-precipitance may ruin all."
+
+"And now?" I asked.
+
+"Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King
+to-morrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. We will be
+shown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is
+probable that when she comes she may find neither us nor the
+photograph. It might be a satisfaction to his Majesty to regain
+it with his own hands."
+
+"And when will you call?"
+
+"At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall
+have a clear field. Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage
+may mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to
+the King without delay."
+
+We had reached Baker Street and had stopped at the door. He was
+searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said:
+
+"Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes."
+
+There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the
+greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had
+hurried by.
+
+"I've heard that voice before," said Holmes, staring down the
+dimly lit street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have
+been."
+
+
+III.
+
+I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our
+toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed
+into the room.
+
+"You have really got it!" he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by
+either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"But you have hopes?"
+
+"I have hopes."
+
+"Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone."
+
+"We must have a cab."
+
+"No, my brougham is waiting."
+
+"Then that will simplify matters." We descended and started off
+once more for Briony Lodge.
+
+"Irene Adler is married," remarked Holmes.
+
+"Married! When?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"But to whom?"
+
+"To an English lawyer named Norton."
+
+"But she could not love him."
+
+"I am in hopes that she does."
+
+"And why in hopes?"
+
+"Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future
+annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your
+Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason
+why she should interfere with your Majesty's plan."
+
+"It is true. And yet--Well! I wish she had been of my own
+station! What a queen she would have made!" He relapsed into a
+moody silence, which was not broken until we drew up in
+Serpentine Avenue.
+
+The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood
+upon the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped
+from the brougham.
+
+"Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe?" said she.
+
+"I am Mr. Holmes," answered my companion, looking at her with a
+questioning and rather startled gaze.
+
+"Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She
+left this morning with her husband by the 5:15 train from Charing
+Cross for the Continent."
+
+"What!" Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and
+surprise. "Do you mean that she has left England?"
+
+"Never to return."
+
+"And the papers?" asked the King hoarsely. "All is lost."
+
+"We shall see." He pushed past the servant and rushed into the
+drawing-room, followed by the King and myself. The furniture was
+scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and
+open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before
+her flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small
+sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a
+photograph and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler
+herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to
+"Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for." My friend
+tore it open and we all three read it together. It was dated at
+midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way:
+
+"MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--You really did it very well. You
+took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a
+suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I
+began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had
+been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly
+be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this,
+you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became
+suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind
+old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress
+myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage
+of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to
+watch you, ran up stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as I call
+them, and came down just as you departed.
+
+"Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was
+really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and
+started for the Temple to see my husband.
+
+"We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by
+so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when
+you call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in
+peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may
+do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly
+wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a
+weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might
+take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to
+possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
+
+                                      "Very truly yours,
+                                   "IRENE NORTON, née ADLER."
+
+"What a woman--oh, what a woman!" cried the King of Bohemia, when
+we had all three read this epistle. "Did I not tell you how quick
+and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen?
+Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?"
+
+"From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a
+very different level to your Majesty," said Holmes coldly. "I am
+sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business
+to a more successful conclusion."
+
+"On the contrary, my dear sir," cried the King; "nothing could be
+more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The
+photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire."
+
+"I am glad to hear your Majesty say so."
+
+"I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can
+reward you. This ring--" He slipped an emerald snake ring from
+his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.
+
+"Your Majesty has something which I should value even more
+highly," said Holmes.
+
+"You have but to name it."
+
+"This photograph!"
+
+The King stared at him in amazement.
+
+"Irene's photograph!" he cried. "Certainly, if you wish it."
+
+"I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the
+matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good-morning." He
+bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the
+King had stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his
+chambers.
+
+And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom
+of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were
+beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the
+cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And
+when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her
+photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman.
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+
+I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the
+autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a
+very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.
+With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when
+Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door
+behind me.
+
+"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear
+Watson," he said cordially.
+
+"I was afraid that you were engaged."
+
+"So I am. Very much so."
+
+"Then I can wait in the next room."
+
+"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and
+helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no
+doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also."
+
+The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of
+greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small
+fat-encircled eyes.
+
+"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and
+putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in
+judicial moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love
+of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum
+routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by
+the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you
+will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own
+little adventures."
+
+"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I
+observed.
+
+"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we
+went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary
+Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary
+combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more
+daring than any effort of the imagination."
+
+"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."
+
+"You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my
+view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you
+until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to
+be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call
+upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to
+be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some
+time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique
+things are very often connected not with the larger but with the
+smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for
+doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I
+have heard it is impossible for me to say whether the present
+case is an instance of crime or not, but the course of events is
+certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to.
+Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to
+recommence your narrative. I ask you not merely because my friend
+Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part but also because the
+peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every
+possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some
+slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide
+myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my
+memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the
+facts are, to the best of my belief, unique."
+
+The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some
+little pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the
+inside pocket of his greatcoat. As he glanced down the
+advertisement column, with his head thrust forward and the paper
+flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man and
+endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the
+indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
+
+I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor
+bore every mark of being an average commonplace British
+tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey
+shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat,
+unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy
+Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as
+an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a
+wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether,
+look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save
+his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and
+discontent upon his features.
+
+Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook
+his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances.
+"Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual
+labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has
+been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of
+writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger
+upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
+
+"How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr.
+Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did
+manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's
+carpenter."
+
+"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger
+than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
+developed."
+
+"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"
+
+"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that,
+especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you
+use an arc-and-compass breastpin."
+
+"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
+
+"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for
+five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the
+elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"
+
+"Well, but China?"
+
+"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right
+wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small
+study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature
+of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a
+delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I
+see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter
+becomes even more simple."
+
+Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I
+thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see
+that there was nothing in it, after all."
+
+"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake
+in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my
+poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I
+am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, I have got it now," he answered with his thick red finger
+planted halfway down the column. "Here it is. This is what began
+it all. You just read it for yourself, sir."
+
+I took the paper from him and read as follows:
+
+"TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the late
+Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., there is now
+another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a
+salary of 4 pounds a week for purely nominal services. All
+red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the age
+of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at
+eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7
+Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
+
+"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated after I had twice
+read over the extraordinary announcement.
+
+Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when
+in high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?"
+said he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us
+all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this
+advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note,
+Doctor, of the paper and the date."
+
+"It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months
+ago."
+
+"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?"
+
+"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes," said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; "I have a small
+pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a
+very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than
+just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants,
+but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but
+that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the
+business."
+
+"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth,
+either. It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter
+assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better
+himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after
+all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?"
+
+"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employé who
+comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience
+among employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is
+not as remarkable as your advertisement."
+
+"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a
+fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought
+to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar
+like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his
+main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice
+in him."
+
+"He is still with you, I presume?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
+cooking and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the
+house, for I am a widower and never had any family. We live very
+quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads
+and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.
+
+"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement.
+Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight
+weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says:
+
+"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'
+
+"'Why that?' I asks.
+
+"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the
+Red-headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who
+gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than
+there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what
+to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here's
+a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.'
+
+"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a
+very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of
+my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting
+my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what
+was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.
+
+"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?' he
+asked with his eyes open.
+
+"'Never.'
+
+"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one
+of the vacancies.'
+
+"'And what are they worth?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight,
+and it need not interfere very much with one's other
+occupations.'
+
+"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears,
+for the business has not been over-good for some years, and an
+extra couple of hundred would have been very handy.
+
+"'Tell me all about it,' said I.
+
+"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for
+yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address
+where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out,
+the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah
+Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself
+red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men;
+so when he died it was found that he had left his enormous
+fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the
+interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of
+that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very little to
+do.'
+
+"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who
+would apply.'
+
+"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is
+really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had
+started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the
+old town a good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your
+applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but
+real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr.
+Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be
+worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a
+few hundred pounds.'
+
+"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves,
+that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed
+to me that if there was to be any competition in the matter I
+stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent
+Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might
+prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for
+the day and to come right away with me. He was very willing to
+have a holiday, so we shut the business up and started off for
+the address that was given us in the advertisement.
+
+"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From
+north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in
+his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement.
+Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court
+looked like a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought
+there were so many in the whole country as were brought together
+by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they
+were--straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay;
+but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real
+vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I
+would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear
+of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and
+pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up
+to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream
+upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back
+dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found
+ourselves in the office."
+
+"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked
+Holmes as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge
+pinch of snuff. "Pray continue your very interesting statement."
+
+"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs
+and a deal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that
+was even redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate
+as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in
+them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem
+to be such a very easy matter, after all. However, when our turn
+came the little man was much more favourable to me than to any of
+the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that he
+might have a private word with us.
+
+"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is
+willing to fill a vacancy in the League.'
+
+"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has
+every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so
+fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and
+gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he
+plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my
+success.
+
+"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will,
+however, I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.'
+With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I
+yelled with the pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he as
+he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be. But we
+have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and
+once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which
+would disgust you with human nature.' He stepped over to the
+window and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the
+vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from below,
+and the folk all trooped away in different directions until there
+was not a red-head to be seen except my own and that of the
+manager.
+
+"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of
+the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are
+you a married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'
+
+"I answered that I had not.
+
+"His face fell immediately.
+
+"'Dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am
+sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the
+propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their
+maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a
+bachelor.'
+
+"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was
+not to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for
+a few minutes he said that it would be all right.
+
+"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be
+fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a
+head of hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your
+new duties?'
+
+"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,'
+said I.
+
+"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding.
+'I should be able to look after that for you.'
+
+"'What would be the hours?' I asked.
+
+"'Ten to two.'
+
+"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr.
+Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just
+before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in
+the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man,
+and that he would see to anything that turned up.
+
+"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'
+
+"'Is 4 pounds a week.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is purely nominal.'
+
+"'What do you call purely nominal?'
+
+"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the
+building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole
+position forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You
+don't comply with the conditions if you budge from the office
+during that time.'
+
+"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,'
+said I.
+
+"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness
+nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose
+your billet.'
+
+"'And the work?'
+
+"'Is to copy out the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." There is the first
+volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and
+blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be
+ready to-morrow?'
+
+"'Certainly,' I answered.
+
+"'Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you
+once more on the important position which you have been fortunate
+enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with
+my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased
+at my own good fortune.
+
+"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in
+low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the
+whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its
+object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past
+belief that anyone could make such a will, or that they would pay
+such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the
+'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Vincent Spaulding did what he could to
+cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the
+whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look
+at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a
+quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for
+Pope's Court.
+
+"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
+possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross
+was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off
+upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from
+time to time to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he
+bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had
+written, and locked the door of the office after me.
+
+"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the
+manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my
+week's work. It was the same next week, and the same the week
+after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I
+left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only
+once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at
+all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an
+instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet
+was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk
+the loss of it.
+
+"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about
+Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and
+hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very
+long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly
+filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole
+business came to an end."
+
+"To an end?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as
+usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a
+little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the
+panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself."
+
+He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet
+of note-paper. It read in this fashion:
+
+                  THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
+
+                           IS
+
+                        DISSOLVED.
+
+                     October 9, 1890.
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the
+rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so
+completely overtopped every other consideration that we both
+burst out into a roar of laughter.
+
+"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our
+client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can
+do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere."
+
+"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from
+which he had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for
+the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you
+will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it.
+Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the
+door?"
+
+"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called
+at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything
+about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant
+living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me
+what had become of the Red-headed League. He said that he had
+never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan
+Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him.
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'
+
+"'What, the red-headed man?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor
+and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new
+premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.'
+
+"'Where could I find him?'
+
+"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17
+King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'
+
+"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was
+a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever
+heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."
+
+"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.
+
+"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my
+assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say
+that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite
+good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place
+without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough
+to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right
+away to you."
+
+"And you did very wisely," said Holmes. "Your case is an
+exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it.
+From what you have told me I think that it is possible that
+graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear."
+
+"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost four
+pound a week."
+
+"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do
+not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary
+league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some
+30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have
+gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have
+lost nothing by them."
+
+"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are,
+and what their object was in playing this prank--if it was a
+prank--upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it
+cost them two and thirty pounds."
+
+"We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first,
+one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who
+first called your attention to the advertisement--how long had he
+been with you?"
+
+"About a month then."
+
+"How did he come?"
+
+"In answer to an advertisement."
+
+"Was he the only applicant?"
+
+"No, I had a dozen."
+
+"Why did you pick him?"
+
+"Because he was handy and would come cheap."
+
+"At half-wages, in fact."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?"
+
+"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,
+though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon
+his forehead."
+
+Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought
+as much," said he. "Have you ever observed that his ears are
+pierced for earrings?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he
+was a lad."
+
+"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still
+with you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him."
+
+"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"
+
+"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a
+morning."
+
+"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an
+opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is
+Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, Watson," said Holmes when our visitor had left us, "what
+do you make of it all?"
+
+"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most
+mysterious business."
+
+"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less
+mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless
+crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is
+the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this
+matter."
+
+"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.
+
+"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three pipe problem, and I
+beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled
+himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his
+hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his
+black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird.
+I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and
+indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his
+chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put
+his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
+
+"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he
+remarked. "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare
+you for a few hours?"
+
+"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very
+absorbing."
+
+"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City
+first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that
+there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is
+rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is
+introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!"
+
+We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short
+walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular
+story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky,
+little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy
+two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in
+enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded
+laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and
+uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with
+"JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced
+the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.
+Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side
+and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between
+puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down
+again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally
+he returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously
+upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up
+to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a
+bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step
+in.
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would
+go from here to the Strand."
+
+"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant promptly,
+closing the door.
+
+"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "He is,
+in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring
+I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known
+something of him before."
+
+"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good
+deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you
+inquired your way merely in order that you might see him."
+
+"Not him."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The knees of his trousers."
+
+"And what did you see?"
+
+"What I expected to see."
+
+"Why did you beat the pavement?"
+
+"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We
+are spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg
+Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it."
+
+The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the
+corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a
+contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was
+one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City
+to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense
+stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward,
+while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of
+pedestrians. It was difficult to realise as we looked at the line
+of fine shops and stately business premises that they really
+abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square
+which we had just quitted.
+
+"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing
+along the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the
+houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of
+London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little
+newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank,
+the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building
+depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now,
+Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A
+sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where
+all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no
+red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."
+
+My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a
+very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All
+the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect
+happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the
+music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes
+were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the
+relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was
+possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature
+alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and
+astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction
+against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally
+predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from
+extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was
+never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been
+lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his
+black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase
+would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning
+power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were
+unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a
+man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him
+that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall I
+felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set
+himself to hunt down.
+
+"You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor," he remarked as we
+emerged.
+
+"Yes, it would be as well."
+
+"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This
+business at Coburg Square is serious."
+
+"Why serious?"
+
+"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to
+believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being
+Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help
+to-night."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"Ten will be early enough."
+
+"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
+
+"Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger,
+so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his
+hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the
+crowd.
+
+I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was
+always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings
+with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had
+seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that
+he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to
+happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and
+grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought
+over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed
+copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg
+Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me.
+What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed?
+Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from
+Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a
+formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. I tried to
+puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter aside
+until night should bring an explanation.
+
+It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my
+way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker
+Street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered
+the passage I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering
+his room I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men,
+one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police
+agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a
+very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.
+
+"Ha! Our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his
+pea-jacket and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.
+"Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me
+introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in
+to-night's adventure."
+
+"We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see," said Jones in
+his consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for
+starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do
+the running down."
+
+"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,"
+observed Mr. Merryweather gloomily.
+
+"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said
+the police agent loftily. "He has his own little methods, which
+are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical
+and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It
+is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of
+the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly
+correct than the official force."
+
+"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right," said the
+stranger with deference. "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber.
+It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I
+have not had my rubber."
+
+"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will
+play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and
+that the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather,
+the stake will be some 30,000 pounds; and for you, Jones, it will
+be the man upon whom you wish to lay your hands."
+
+"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a
+young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his
+profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on
+any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John
+Clay. His grandfather was a royal duke, and he himself has been
+to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and
+though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to
+find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week,
+and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next.
+I've been on his track for years and have never set eyes on him
+yet."
+
+"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night.
+I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I
+agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is
+past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two
+will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the
+second."
+
+Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive
+and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in
+the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit
+streets until we emerged into Farrington Street.
+
+"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow
+Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
+matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is
+not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession.
+He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as
+tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we
+are, and they are waiting for us."
+
+We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had
+found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and,
+following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a
+narrow passage and through a side door, which he opened for us.
+Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive
+iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding
+stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr.
+Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us
+down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a
+third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all
+round with crates and massive boxes.
+
+"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked as he
+held up the lantern and gazed about him.
+
+"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon
+the flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite
+hollow!" he remarked, looking up in surprise.
+
+"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet!" said Holmes
+severely. "You have already imperilled the whole success of our
+expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit
+down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"
+
+The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a
+very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his
+knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens,
+began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few
+seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again
+and put his glass in his pocket.
+
+"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked, "for they can
+hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.
+Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their
+work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at
+present, Doctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar of
+the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr.
+Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to
+you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of
+London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at
+present."
+
+"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had
+several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
+
+"Your French gold?"
+
+"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources
+and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of
+France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to
+unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The
+crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between
+layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at
+present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the
+directors have had misgivings upon the subject."
+
+"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is
+time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an
+hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime Mr.
+Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern."
+
+"And sit in the dark?"
+
+"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and
+I thought that, as we were a partie carrée, you might have your
+rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have
+gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And,
+first of all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men,
+and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us
+some harm unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate,
+and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a
+light upon them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no
+compunction about shooting them down."
+
+I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case
+behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front
+of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute
+darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot
+metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready
+to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked
+up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and
+subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the
+vault.
+
+"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back
+through the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have
+done what I asked you, Jones?"
+
+"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."
+
+"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent
+and wait."
+
+What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but
+an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must
+have almost gone and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs
+were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my
+nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my
+hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle
+breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper,
+heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note
+of the bank director. From my position I could look over the case
+in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint
+of a light.
+
+At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then
+it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then,
+without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand
+appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the
+centre of the little area of light. For a minute or more the
+hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then
+it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark
+again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink between
+the stones.
+
+Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending,
+tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon
+its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed
+the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut,
+boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand
+on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and
+waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another
+instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after
+him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face
+and a shock of very red hair.
+
+"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the
+bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"
+
+Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the
+collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of
+rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed
+upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came
+down on the man's wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone
+floor.
+
+"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes blandly. "You have no
+chance at all."
+
+"So I see," the other answered with the utmost coolness. "I fancy
+that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his
+coat-tails."
+
+"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.
+
+"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I
+must compliment you."
+
+"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new
+and effective."
+
+"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker
+at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the
+derbies."
+
+"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,"
+remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists.
+"You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have
+the goodness, also, when you address me always to say 'sir' and
+'please.'"
+
+"All right," said Jones with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would
+you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry
+your Highness to the police-station?"
+
+"That is better," said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow
+to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the
+detective.
+
+"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather as we followed them
+from the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or
+repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated
+in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts
+at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience."
+
+"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr.
+John Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over
+this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond
+that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in
+many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of
+the Red-headed League."
+
+
+"You see, Watson," he explained in the early hours of the morning
+as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it
+was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible
+object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of
+the League, and the copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get
+this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of
+hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but,
+really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was
+no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the colour of his
+accomplice's hair. The 4 pounds a week was a lure which must draw
+him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands?
+They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary
+office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and
+together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the
+week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for
+half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive
+for securing the situation."
+
+"But how could you guess what the motive was?"
+
+"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a
+mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The
+man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in his
+house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and
+such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something
+out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's
+fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the
+cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then
+I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and found that I
+had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in
+London. He was doing something in the cellar--something which
+took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once
+more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel
+to some other building.
+
+"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I
+surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
+ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind.
+It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the
+assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had
+never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his
+face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have
+remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of
+those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they
+were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw the City and
+Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I
+had solved my problem. When you drove home after the concert I
+called upon Scotland Yard and upon the chairman of the bank
+directors, with the result that you have seen."
+
+"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt
+to-night?" I asked.
+
+"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that
+they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other
+words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential
+that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the
+bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than
+any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape.
+For all these reasons I expected them to come to-night."
+
+"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed in unfeigned
+admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings
+true."
+
+"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already
+feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort
+to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little
+problems help me to do so."
+
+"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of
+some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre
+c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand."
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE III. A CASE OF IDENTITY
+
+"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side
+of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely
+stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We
+would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere
+commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window
+hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the
+roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the
+strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the
+wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and
+leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with
+its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and
+unprofitable."
+
+"And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases which
+come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and
+vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to
+its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed,
+neither fascinating nor artistic."
+
+"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a
+realistic effect," remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the
+police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the
+platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an
+observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend
+upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."
+
+I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your thinking
+so," I said. "Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser
+and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout
+three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is
+strange and bizarre. But here"--I picked up the morning paper
+from the ground--"let us put it to a practical test. Here is the
+first heading upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his
+wife.' There is half a column of print, but I know without
+reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of
+course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the
+bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of
+writers could invent nothing more crude."
+
+"Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,"
+said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. "This
+is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged
+in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The
+husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the
+conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of
+winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling
+them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely
+to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller. Take a
+pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over
+you in your example."
+
+He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in
+the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his
+homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon
+it.
+
+"Ah," said he, "I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks.
+It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my
+assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers."
+
+"And the ring?" I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which
+sparkled upon his finger.
+
+"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in
+which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it
+even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of
+my little problems."
+
+"And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest.
+
+"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of
+interest. They are important, you understand, without being
+interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in
+unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation,
+and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the
+charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the
+simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule, is
+the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter
+which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing
+which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however,
+that I may have something better before very many minutes are
+over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken."
+
+He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted
+blinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London street.
+Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite
+there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck,
+and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was
+tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her
+ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous,
+hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated
+backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove
+buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves
+the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp
+clang of the bell.
+
+"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his
+cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always
+means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure
+that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet
+even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously
+wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom
+is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love
+matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or
+grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts."
+
+As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons
+entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself
+loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed
+merchant-man behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed
+her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and,
+having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked
+her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was
+peculiar to him.
+
+"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a
+little trying to do so much typewriting?"
+
+"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the letters
+are without looking." Then, suddenly realising the full purport
+of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear
+and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. "You've
+heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how could you know
+all that?"
+
+"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my business to know
+things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others
+overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me?"
+
+"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege,
+whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had
+given him up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as
+much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in
+my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and
+I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel."
+
+"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?" asked
+Sherlock Holmes, with his finger-tips together and his eyes to
+the ceiling.
+
+Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss
+Mary Sutherland. "Yes, I did bang out of the house," she said,
+"for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr.
+Windibank--that is, my father--took it all. He would not go to
+the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he
+would do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm done,
+it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away
+to you."
+
+"Your father," said Holmes, "your stepfather, surely, since the
+name is different."
+
+"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny,
+too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself."
+
+"And your mother is alive?"
+
+"Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr.
+Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and
+a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father
+was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy
+business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the
+foreman; but when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the
+business, for he was very superior, being a traveller in wines.
+They got 4700 pounds for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't
+near as much as father could have got if he had been alive."
+
+I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this
+rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he
+had listened with the greatest concentration of attention.
+
+"Your own little income," he asked, "does it come out of the
+business?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle
+Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4 1/2 per
+cent. Two thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can
+only touch the interest."
+
+"You interest me extremely," said Holmes. "And since you draw so
+large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the
+bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in
+every way. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely
+upon an income of about 60 pounds."
+
+"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you
+understand that as long as I live at home I don't wish to be a
+burden to them, and so they have the use of the money just while
+I am staying with them. Of course, that is only just for the
+time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every quarter and pays it
+over to mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I
+earn at typewriting. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can
+often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day."
+
+"You have made your position very clear to me," said Holmes.
+"This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as
+freely as before myself. Kindly tell us now all about your
+connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel."
+
+A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked
+nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the
+gasfitters' ball," she said. "They used to send father tickets
+when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and
+sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He
+never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I
+wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat. But this time I
+was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to
+prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all
+father's friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing
+fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much
+as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do,
+he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went,
+mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it
+was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel."
+
+"I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from
+France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball."
+
+"Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and
+shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying
+anything to a woman, for she would have her way."
+
+"I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a
+gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel."
+
+"Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if
+we had got home all safe, and after that we met him--that is to
+say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father
+came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house
+any more."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He
+wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to
+say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle. But
+then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to
+begin with, and I had not got mine yet."
+
+"But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see
+you?"
+
+"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer
+wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each
+other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he
+used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so
+there was no need for father to know."
+
+"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that
+we took. Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in
+Leadenhall Street--and--"
+
+"What office?"
+
+"That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know."
+
+"Where did he live, then?"
+
+"He slept on the premises."
+
+"And you don't know his address?"
+
+"No--except that it was Leadenhall Street."
+
+"Where did you address your letters, then?"
+
+"To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called
+for. He said that if they were sent to the office he would be
+chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady,
+so I offered to typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't
+have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come
+from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the
+machine had come between us. That will just show you how fond he
+was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think
+of."
+
+"It was most suggestive," said Holmes. "It has long been an axiom
+of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
+Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
+
+"He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me
+in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to
+be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his
+voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he
+was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat,
+and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always
+well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just
+as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare."
+
+"Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather,
+returned to France?"
+
+"Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we
+should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest
+and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever
+happened I would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite
+right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion.
+Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder
+of him than I was. Then, when they talked of marrying within the
+week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to
+mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother
+said she would make it all right with him. I didn't quite like
+that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask his leave, as
+he was only a few years older than me; but I didn't want to do
+anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the
+company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on
+the very morning of the wedding."
+
+"It missed him, then?"
+
+"Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived."
+
+"Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for
+the Friday. Was it to be in church?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near
+King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St.
+Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were
+two of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a
+four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the
+street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler
+drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and
+when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one
+there! The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become
+of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. That was
+last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything
+since then to throw any light upon what became of him."
+
+"It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said
+Holmes.
+
+"Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all
+the morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to
+be true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to
+separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him,
+and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed
+strange talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since
+gives a meaning to it."
+
+"Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some
+unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he
+would not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw
+happened."
+
+"But you have no notion as to what it could have been?"
+
+"None."
+
+"One more question. How did your mother take the matter?"
+
+"She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter
+again."
+
+"And your father? Did you tell him?"
+
+"Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had
+happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said,
+what interest could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of
+the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my
+money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him,
+there might be some reason, but Hosmer was very independent about
+money and never would look at a shilling of mine. And yet, what
+could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me
+half-mad to think of it, and I can't sleep a wink at night." She
+pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob
+heavily into it.
+
+"I shall glance into the case for you," said Holmes, rising, "and
+I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the
+weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind
+dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel
+vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life."
+
+"Then you don't think I'll see him again?"
+
+"I fear not."
+
+"Then what has happened to him?"
+
+"You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an
+accurate description of him and any letters of his which you can
+spare."
+
+"I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she.
+"Here is the slip and here are four letters from him."
+
+"Thank you. And your address?"
+
+"No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell."
+
+"Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your
+father's place of business?"
+
+"He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers
+of Fenchurch Street."
+
+"Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will
+leave the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given
+you. Let the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it
+to affect your life."
+
+"You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be
+true to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back."
+
+For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was
+something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which
+compelled our respect. She laid her little bundle of papers upon
+the table and went her way, with a promise to come again whenever
+she might be summoned.
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips
+still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him,
+and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down
+from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a
+counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with
+the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of
+infinite languor in his face.
+
+"Quite an interesting study, that maiden," he observed. "I found
+her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way,
+is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you
+consult my index, in Andover in '77, and there was something of
+the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however,
+there were one or two details which were new to me. But the
+maiden herself was most instructive."
+
+"You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite
+invisible to me," I remarked.
+
+"Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to
+look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring
+you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of
+thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.
+Now, what did you gather from that woman's appearance? Describe
+it."
+
+"Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a
+feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads
+sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her
+dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little
+purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and
+were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't
+observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a
+general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable,
+easy-going way."
+
+Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
+
+"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have
+really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed
+everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and
+you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general
+impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My
+first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is
+perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you
+observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most
+useful material for showing traces. The double line a little
+above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table,
+was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type,
+leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side
+of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the
+broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and,
+observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I
+ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed
+to surprise her."
+
+"It surprised me."
+
+"But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and
+interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots
+which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were
+really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and
+the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower
+buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and
+fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly
+dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned,
+it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry."
+
+"And what else?" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by
+my friend's incisive reasoning.
+
+"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving
+home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right
+glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see
+that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had
+written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been
+this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger.
+All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back
+to business, Watson. Would you mind reading me the advertised
+description of Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
+
+I held the little printed slip to the light.
+
+"Missing," it said, "on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman
+named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height;
+strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in
+the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted
+glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen,
+in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert
+chain, and grey Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over
+elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in
+Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing--"
+
+"That will do," said Holmes. "As to the letters," he continued,
+glancing over them, "they are very commonplace. Absolutely no
+clue in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There
+is one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike
+you."
+
+"They are typewritten," I remarked.
+
+"Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the
+neat little 'Hosmer Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you
+see, but no superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is
+rather vague. The point about the signature is very suggestive--in
+fact, we may call it conclusive."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it
+bears upon the case?"
+
+"I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished to be able
+to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were
+instituted."
+
+"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters,
+which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the
+other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking
+him whether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow
+evening. It is just as well that we should do business with the
+male relatives. And now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the
+answers to those letters come, so we may put our little problem
+upon the shelf for the interim."
+
+I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers
+of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that
+he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy
+demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had
+been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in
+the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler
+photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the
+Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with
+the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle
+indeed which he could not unravel.
+
+I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the
+conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would
+find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up
+to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary
+Sutherland.
+
+A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own
+attention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at
+the bedside of the sufferer. It was not until close upon six
+o'clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a
+hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too
+late to assist at the dénouement of the little mystery. I found
+Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin
+form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. A formidable
+array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell
+of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the
+chemical work which was so dear to him.
+
+"Well, have you solved it?" I asked as I entered.
+
+"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta."
+
+"No, no, the mystery!" I cried.
+
+"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon.
+There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said
+yesterday, some of the details are of interest. The only drawback
+is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel."
+
+"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss
+Sutherland?"
+
+The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet
+opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the
+passage and a tap at the door.
+
+"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank," said
+Holmes. "He has written to me to say that he would be here at
+six. Come in!"
+
+The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some
+thirty years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a
+bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and
+penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of
+us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a
+slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think that
+this typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an
+appointment with me for six o'clock?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not
+quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland
+has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far
+better not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite
+against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable,
+impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily
+controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I
+did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the
+official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family
+misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless
+expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?"
+
+"On the contrary," said Holmes quietly; "I have every reason to
+believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel."
+
+Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. "I am
+delighted to hear it," he said.
+
+"It is a curious thing," remarked Holmes, "that a typewriter has
+really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless
+they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some
+letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one
+side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that
+in every case there is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and
+a slight defect in the tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other
+characteristics, but those are the more obvious."
+
+"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office,
+and no doubt it is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing
+keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes.
+
+"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study,
+Mr. Windibank," Holmes continued. "I think of writing another
+little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its
+relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some
+little attention. I have here four letters which purport to come
+from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case, not
+only are the 'e's' slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will
+observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen
+other characteristics to which I have alluded are there as well."
+
+Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. "I
+cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes,"
+he said. "If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know
+when you have done it."
+
+"Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in
+the door. "I let you know, then, that I have caught him!"
+
+"What! where?" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips
+and glancing about him like a rat in a trap.
+
+"Oh, it won't do--really it won't," said Holmes suavely. "There
+is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too
+transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that
+it was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That's
+right! Sit down and let us talk it over."
+
+Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a
+glitter of moisture on his brow. "It--it's not actionable," he
+stammered.
+
+"I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves,
+Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a
+petty way as ever came before me. Now, let me just run over the
+course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong."
+
+The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his
+breast, like one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up
+on the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands
+in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed,
+than to us.
+
+"The man married a woman very much older than himself for her
+money," said he, "and he enjoyed the use of the money of the
+daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable
+sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have
+made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it.
+The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate
+and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with
+her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would
+not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would
+mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her
+stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of
+keeping her at home and forbidding her to seek the company of
+people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not
+answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and
+finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain
+ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an
+idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the
+connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself,
+covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with
+a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice
+into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the
+girl's short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off
+other lovers by making love himself."
+
+"It was only a joke at first," groaned our visitor. "We never
+thought that she would have been so carried away."
+
+"Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very
+decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that
+her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never
+for an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the
+gentleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the
+loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began
+to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as
+far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced. There
+were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the
+girl's affections from turning towards anyone else. But the
+deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys
+to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to
+bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it
+would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady's mind and
+prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to
+come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and
+hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening
+on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished Miss
+Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to
+his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not
+listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her,
+and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished
+away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a
+four-wheeler and out at the other. I think that was the chain of
+events, Mr. Windibank!"
+
+Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes
+had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold
+sneer upon his pale face.
+
+"It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes," said he, "but if you
+are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is
+you who are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing
+actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door
+locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal
+constraint."
+
+"The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes, unlocking
+and throwing open the door, "yet there never was a man who
+deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a
+friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove!"
+he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon
+the man's face, "it is not part of my duties to my client, but
+here's a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat
+myself to--" He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he
+could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs,
+the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr.
+James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road.
+
+"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing, as he
+threw himself down into his chair once more. "That fellow will
+rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and
+ends on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not
+entirely devoid of interest."
+
+"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I
+remarked.
+
+"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr.
+Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious
+conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really
+profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the
+stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together,
+but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was
+suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice,
+which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My
+suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in
+typewriting his signature, which, of course, inferred that his
+handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognise even
+the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts,
+together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same
+direction."
+
+"And how did you verify them?"
+
+"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I
+knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed
+description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the
+result of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I
+sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me
+whether it answered to the description of any of their
+travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the
+typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at his business
+address asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his
+reply was typewritten and revealed the same trivial but
+characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from
+Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the
+description tallied in every respect with that of their employé,
+James Windibank. Voilà tout!"
+
+"And Miss Sutherland?"
+
+"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old
+Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger
+cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.'
+There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much
+knowledge of the world."
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE IV. THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY
+
+We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the
+maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran
+in this way:
+
+"Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from
+the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy.
+Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect.
+Leave Paddington by the 11:15."
+
+"What do you say, dear?" said my wife, looking across at me.
+"Will you go?"
+
+"I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at
+present."
+
+"Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking
+a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good,
+and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes' cases."
+
+"I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained
+through one of them," I answered. "But if I am to go, I must pack
+at once, for I have only half an hour."
+
+My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the
+effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants were
+few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a
+cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station. Sherlock
+Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt
+figure made even gaunter and taller by his long grey
+travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.
+
+"It is really very good of you to come, Watson," said he. "It
+makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on
+whom I can thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless
+or else biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I shall
+get the tickets."
+
+We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of
+papers which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged
+and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until
+we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a
+gigantic ball and tossed them up onto the rack.
+
+"Have you heard anything of the case?" he asked.
+
+"Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days."
+
+"The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just
+been looking through all the recent papers in order to master the
+particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those
+simple cases which are so extremely difficult."
+
+"That sounds a little paradoxical."
+
+"But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a
+clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more
+difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they
+have established a very serious case against the son of the
+murdered man."
+
+"It is a murder, then?"
+
+"Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for
+granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into
+it. I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have
+been able to understand it, in a very few words.
+
+"Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in
+Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part is a
+Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned
+some years ago to the old country. One of the farms which he
+held, that of Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was
+also an ex-Australian. The men had known each other in the
+colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to
+settle down they should do so as near each other as possible.
+Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his
+tenant but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect
+equality, as they were frequently together. McCarthy had one son,
+a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same
+age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have
+avoided the society of the neighbouring English families and to
+have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were fond of
+sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of the
+neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl.
+Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the
+least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the
+families. Now for the facts.
+
+"On June 3rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at
+Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the
+Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out
+of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been
+out with his serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told
+the man that he must hurry, as he had an appointment of
+importance to keep at three. From that appointment he never came
+back alive.
+
+"From Hatherley Farm-house to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a
+mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One
+was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was
+William Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner. Both
+these witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone. The
+game-keeper adds that within a few minutes of his seeing Mr.
+McCarthy pass he had seen his son, Mr. James McCarthy, going the
+same way with a gun under his arm. To the best of his belief, the
+father was actually in sight at the time, and the son was
+following him. He thought no more of the matter until he heard in
+the evening of the tragedy that had occurred.
+
+"The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder,
+the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly
+wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the
+edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of
+the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the
+woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she
+saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr.
+McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a
+violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using very
+strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his
+hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their
+violence that she ran away and told her mother when she reached
+home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near
+Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to
+fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came
+running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead
+in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was
+much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right
+hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On
+following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the
+grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated
+blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as
+might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's
+gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the
+body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly
+arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned
+at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the
+magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next
+Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out
+before the coroner and the police-court."
+
+"I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If
+ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so
+here."
+
+"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes
+thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing,
+but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it
+pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something
+entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the case
+looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very
+possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several people
+in the neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the
+daughter of the neighbouring landowner, who believe in his
+innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect
+in connection with the Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in
+his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the
+case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged gentlemen are
+flying westward at fifty miles an hour instead of quietly
+digesting their breakfasts at home."
+
+"I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you
+will find little credit to be gained out of this case."
+
+"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he
+answered, laughing. "Besides, we may chance to hit upon some
+other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to
+Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting
+when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by
+means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of
+understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very clearly
+perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand
+side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted
+even so self-evident a thing as that."
+
+"How on earth--"
+
+"My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness
+which characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this
+season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less
+and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until
+it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the
+jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less illuminated
+than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking
+at himself in an equal light and being satisfied with such a
+result. I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and
+inference. Therein lies my métier, and it is just possible that
+it may be of some service in the investigation which lies before
+us. There are one or two minor points which were brought out in
+the inquest, and which are worth considering."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after
+the return to Hatherley Farm. On the inspector of constabulary
+informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not
+surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts.
+This observation of his had the natural effect of removing any
+traces of doubt which might have remained in the minds of the
+coroner's jury."
+
+"It was a confession," I ejaculated.
+
+"No, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence."
+
+"Coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at
+least a most suspicious remark."
+
+"On the contrary," said Holmes, "it is the brightest rift which I
+can at present see in the clouds. However innocent he might be,
+he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the
+circumstances were very black against him. Had he appeared
+surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I
+should have looked upon it as highly suspicious, because such
+surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances,
+and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man. His
+frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent
+man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and
+firmness. As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not
+unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead body of
+his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day
+so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and
+even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so
+important, to raise his hand as if to strike him. The
+self-reproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark
+appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind rather than of a
+guilty one."
+
+I shook my head. "Many men have been hanged on far slighter
+evidence," I remarked.
+
+"So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged."
+
+"What is the young man's own account of the matter?"
+
+"It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters,
+though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive.
+You will find it here, and may read it for yourself."
+
+He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire
+paper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the
+paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own
+statement of what had occurred. I settled myself down in the
+corner of the carriage and read it very carefully. It ran in this
+way:
+
+"Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called
+and gave evidence as follows: 'I had been away from home for
+three days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the
+morning of last Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at
+the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he
+had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom. Shortly after
+my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and,
+looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out
+of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was
+going. I then took my gun and strolled out in the direction of
+the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit
+warren which is upon the other side. On my way I saw William
+Crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence; but
+he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father. I had
+no idea that he was in front of me. When about a hundred yards
+from the pool I heard a cry of "Cooee!" which was a usual signal
+between my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found
+him standing by the pool. He appeared to be much surprised at
+seeing me and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there. A
+conversation ensued which led to high words and almost to blows,
+for my father was a man of a very violent temper. Seeing that his
+passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him and returned
+towards Hatherley Farm. I had not gone more than 150 yards,
+however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me
+to run back again. I found my father expiring upon the ground,
+with his head terribly injured. I dropped my gun and held him in
+my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for
+some minutes, and then made my way to Mr. Turner's lodge-keeper,
+his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one
+near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by
+his injuries. He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and
+forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I know, no
+active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.'
+
+"The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before
+he died?
+
+"Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some
+allusion to a rat.
+
+"The Coroner: What did you understand by that?
+
+"Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was
+delirious.
+
+"The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father
+had this final quarrel?
+
+"Witness: I should prefer not to answer.
+
+"The Coroner: I am afraid that I must press it.
+
+"Witness: It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can
+assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which
+followed.
+
+"The Coroner: That is for the court to decide. I need not point
+out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case
+considerably in any future proceedings which may arise.
+
+"Witness: I must still refuse.
+
+"The Coroner: I understand that the cry of 'Cooee' was a common
+signal between you and your father?
+
+"Witness: It was.
+
+"The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw
+you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?
+
+"Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know.
+
+"A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions
+when you returned on hearing the cry and found your father
+fatally injured?
+
+"Witness: Nothing definite.
+
+"The Coroner: What do you mean?
+
+"Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into
+the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet
+I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay
+upon the ground to the left of me. It seemed to me to be
+something grey in colour, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps.
+When I rose from my father I looked round for it, but it was
+gone.
+
+"'Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?'
+
+"'Yes, it was gone.'
+
+"'You cannot say what it was?'
+
+"'No, I had a feeling something was there.'
+
+"'How far from the body?'
+
+"'A dozen yards or so.'
+
+"'And how far from the edge of the wood?'
+
+"'About the same.'
+
+"'Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen
+yards of it?'
+
+"'Yes, but with my back towards it.'
+
+"This concluded the examination of the witness."
+
+"I see," said I as I glanced down the column, "that the coroner
+in his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy.
+He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his
+father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his
+refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and
+his singular account of his father's dying words. They are all,
+as he remarks, very much against the son."
+
+Holmes laughed softly to himself and stretched himself out upon
+the cushioned seat. "Both you and the coroner have been at some
+pains," said he, "to single out the very strongest points in the
+young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him
+credit for having too much imagination and too little? Too
+little, if he could not invent a cause of quarrel which would
+give him the sympathy of the jury; too much, if he evolved from
+his own inner consciousness anything so outré as a dying
+reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth. No,
+sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what
+this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that
+hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and
+not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the
+scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall be
+there in twenty minutes."
+
+It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through
+the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn,
+found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A
+lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for
+us upon the platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and
+leather-leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic
+surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of
+Scotland Yard. With him we drove to the Hereford Arms where a
+room had already been engaged for us.
+
+"I have ordered a carriage," said Lestrade as we sat over a cup
+of tea. "I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be
+happy until you had been on the scene of the crime."
+
+"It was very nice and complimentary of you," Holmes answered. "It
+is entirely a question of barometric pressure."
+
+Lestrade looked startled. "I do not quite follow," he said.
+
+"How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud
+in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need
+smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country
+hotel abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I
+shall use the carriage to-night."
+
+Lestrade laughed indulgently. "You have, no doubt, already formed
+your conclusions from the newspapers," he said. "The case is as
+plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer
+it becomes. Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a
+very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your
+opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing
+which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my
+soul! here is her carriage at the door."
+
+He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the
+most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her
+violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her
+cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her
+overpowering excitement and concern.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" she cried, glancing from one to the
+other of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition,
+fastening upon my companion, "I am so glad that you have come. I
+have driven down to tell you so. I know that James didn't do it.
+I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it,
+too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each
+other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no
+one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to hurt a fly. Such a
+charge is absurd to anyone who really knows him."
+
+"I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner," said Sherlock Holmes.
+"You may rely upon my doing all that I can."
+
+"But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion?
+Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself
+think that he is innocent?"
+
+"I think that it is very probable."
+
+"There, now!" she cried, throwing back her head and looking
+defiantly at Lestrade. "You hear! He gives me hopes."
+
+Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid that my colleague
+has been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said.
+
+"But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did
+it. And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the
+reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because
+I was concerned in it."
+
+"In what way?" asked Holmes.
+
+"It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had
+many disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that
+there should be a marriage between us. James and I have always
+loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young
+and has seen very little of life yet, and--and--well, he
+naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there
+were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them."
+
+"And your father?" asked Holmes. "Was he in favour of such a
+union?"
+
+"No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in
+favour of it." A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as
+Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her.
+
+"Thank you for this information," said he. "May I see your father
+if I call to-morrow?"
+
+"I am afraid the doctor won't allow it."
+
+"The doctor?"
+
+"Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for
+years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken
+to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his
+nervous system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive
+who had known dad in the old days in Victoria."
+
+"Ha! In Victoria! That is important."
+
+"Yes, at the mines."
+
+"Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner
+made his money."
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to
+me."
+
+"You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you
+will go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do
+tell him that I know him to be innocent."
+
+"I will, Miss Turner."
+
+"I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if
+I leave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking." She
+hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we
+heard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.
+
+"I am ashamed of you, Holmes," said Lestrade with dignity after a
+few minutes' silence. "Why should you raise up hopes which you
+are bound to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I
+call it cruel."
+
+"I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy," said
+Holmes. "Have you an order to see him in prison?"
+
+"Yes, but only for you and me."
+
+"Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have
+still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?"
+
+"Ample."
+
+"Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very
+slow, but I shall only be away a couple of hours."
+
+I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through
+the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel,
+where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a
+yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin,
+however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were
+groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the
+action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room and
+gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the
+day. Supposing that this unhappy young man's story were
+absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely
+unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred between
+the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when,
+drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was
+something terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the
+nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts?
+I rang the bell and called for the weekly county paper, which
+contained a verbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon's
+deposition it was stated that the posterior third of the left
+parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been
+shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon. I marked the spot
+upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been struck from
+behind. That was to some extent in favour of the accused, as when
+seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still, it
+did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his
+back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth while to call
+Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying
+reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be
+delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become
+delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how
+he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my
+brains to find some possible explanation. And then the incident
+of the grey cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the
+murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his
+overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to
+return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was
+kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off. What a
+tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I
+did not wonder at Lestrade's opinion, and yet I had so much faith
+in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose hope as long
+as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction of young
+McCarthy's innocence.
+
+It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone,
+for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town.
+
+"The glass still keeps very high," he remarked as he sat down.
+"It is of importance that it should not rain before we are able
+to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his
+very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not
+wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young
+McCarthy."
+
+"And what did you learn from him?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Could he throw no light?"
+
+"None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew
+who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced
+now that he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very
+quick-witted youth, though comely to look at and, I should think,
+sound at heart."
+
+"I cannot admire his taste," I remarked, "if it is indeed a fact
+that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as
+this Miss Turner."
+
+"Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly,
+insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was
+only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away
+five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get
+into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a
+registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can
+imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not
+doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows
+to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort
+which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father,
+at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss
+Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself,
+and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would
+have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with
+his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in
+Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that
+point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however,
+for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious
+trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and
+has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the
+Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I
+think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all
+that he has suffered."
+
+"But if he is innocent, who has done it?"
+
+"Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two
+points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with
+someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his
+son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would
+return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry
+'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the
+crucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talk
+about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all
+minor matters until to-morrow."
+
+There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke
+bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with
+the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe
+Pool.
+
+"There is serious news this morning," Lestrade observed. "It is
+said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is
+despaired of."
+
+"An elderly man, I presume?" said Holmes.
+
+"About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life
+abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This
+business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend
+of McCarthy's, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I
+have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free."
+
+"Indeed! That is interesting," said Holmes.
+
+"Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody
+about here speaks of his kindness to him."
+
+"Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this
+McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have
+been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of
+marrying his son to Turner's daughter, who is, presumably,
+heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner,
+as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would
+follow? It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself
+was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not
+deduce something from that?"
+
+"We have got to the deductions and the inferences," said
+Lestrade, winking at me. "I find it hard enough to tackle facts,
+Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies."
+
+"You are right," said Holmes demurely; "you do find it very hard
+to tackle the facts."
+
+"Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it
+difficult to get hold of," replied Lestrade with some warmth.
+
+"And that is--"
+
+"That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that
+all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine."
+
+"Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog," said Holmes,
+laughing. "But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley
+Farm upon the left."
+
+"Yes, that is it." It was a widespread, comfortable-looking
+building, two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches
+of lichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless
+chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight
+of this horror still lay heavy upon it. We called at the door,
+when the maid, at Holmes' request, showed us the boots which her
+master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the
+son's, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured
+these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes
+desired to be led to the court-yard, from which we all followed
+the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.
+
+Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent
+as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of
+Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed
+and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines,
+while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter.
+His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips
+compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long,
+sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal
+lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated
+upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell
+unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick,
+impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way
+along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of
+the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is
+all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon
+the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either
+side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and
+once he made quite a little detour into the meadow. Lestrade and
+I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous,
+while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the
+conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a
+definite end.
+
+The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water
+some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the
+Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner.
+Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we could see
+the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the rich
+landowner's dwelling. On the Hatherley side of the pool the woods
+grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass
+twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds
+which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which
+the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground,
+that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the
+fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager
+face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read
+upon the trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking
+up a scent, and then turned upon my companion.
+
+"What did you go into the pool for?" he asked.
+
+"I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon
+or other trace. But how on earth--"
+
+"Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its
+inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and
+there it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all
+have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo
+and wallowed all over it. Here is where the party with the
+lodge-keeper came, and they have covered all tracks for six or
+eight feet round the body. But here are three separate tracks of
+the same feet." He drew out a lens and lay down upon his
+waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to
+himself than to us. "These are young McCarthy's feet. Twice he
+was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so that the soles are
+deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his
+story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are
+the father's feet as he paced up and down. What is this, then? It
+is the butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening. And this?
+Ha, ha! What have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite
+unusual boots! They come, they go, they come again--of course
+that was for the cloak. Now where did they come from?" He ran up
+and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we
+were well within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a
+great beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes traced
+his way to the farther side of this and lay down once more upon
+his face with a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he
+remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks,
+gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope and
+examining with his lens not only the ground but even the bark of
+the tree as far as he could reach. A jagged stone was lying among
+the moss, and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then
+he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the
+highroad, where all traces were lost.
+
+"It has been a case of considerable interest," he remarked,
+returning to his natural manner. "I fancy that this grey house on
+the right must be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a
+word with Moran, and perhaps write a little note. Having done
+that, we may drive back to our luncheon. You may walk to the cab,
+and I shall be with you presently."
+
+It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove
+back into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he
+had picked up in the wood.
+
+"This may interest you, Lestrade," he remarked, holding it out.
+"The murder was done with it."
+
+"I see no marks."
+
+"There are none."
+
+"How do you know, then?"
+
+"The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few
+days. There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It
+corresponds with the injuries. There is no sign of any other
+weapon."
+
+"And the murderer?"
+
+"Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears
+thick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian
+cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his
+pocket. There are several other indications, but these may be
+enough to aid us in our search."
+
+Lestrade laughed. "I am afraid that I am still a sceptic," he
+said. "Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a
+hard-headed British jury."
+
+"Nous verrons," answered Holmes calmly. "You work your own
+method, and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon,
+and shall probably return to London by the evening train."
+
+"And leave your case unfinished?"
+
+"No, finished."
+
+"But the mystery?"
+
+"It is solved."
+
+"Who was the criminal, then?"
+
+"The gentleman I describe."
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a
+populous neighbourhood."
+
+Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am a practical man," he said,
+"and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking
+for a left-handed gentleman with a game leg. I should become the
+laughing-stock of Scotland Yard."
+
+"All right," said Holmes quietly. "I have given you the chance.
+Here are your lodgings. Good-bye. I shall drop you a line before
+I leave."
+
+Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where
+we found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in
+thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds
+himself in a perplexing position.
+
+"Look here, Watson," he said when the cloth was cleared "just sit
+down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don't
+know quite what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a
+cigar and let me expound."
+
+ "Pray do so."
+
+"Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about
+young McCarthy's narrative which struck us both instantly,
+although they impressed me in his favour and you against him. One
+was the fact that his father should, according to his account,
+cry 'Cooee!' before seeing him. The other was his singular dying
+reference to a rat. He mumbled several words, you understand, but
+that was all that caught the son's ear. Now from this double
+point our research must commence, and we will begin it by
+presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true."
+
+"What of this 'Cooee!' then?"
+
+"Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The
+son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that
+he was within earshot. The 'Cooee!' was meant to attract the
+attention of whoever it was that he had the appointment with. But
+'Cooee' is a distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used
+between Australians. There is a strong presumption that the
+person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at Boscombe Pool was
+someone who had been in Australia."
+
+"What of the rat, then?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened
+it out on the table. "This is a map of the Colony of Victoria,"
+he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." He put his hand
+over part of the map. "What do you read?"
+
+"ARAT," I read.
+
+"And now?" He raised his hand.
+
+"BALLARAT."
+
+"Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his
+son only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter
+the name of his murderer. So and so, of Ballarat."
+
+"It is wonderful!" I exclaimed.
+
+"It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down
+considerably. The possession of a grey garment was a third point
+which, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a
+certainty. We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite
+conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only
+be approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could
+hardly wander."
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"Then comes our expedition of to-day. By an examination of the
+ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that
+imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal."
+
+"But how did you gain them?"
+
+"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of
+trifles."
+
+"His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length
+of his stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces."
+
+"Yes, they were peculiar boots."
+
+"But his lameness?"
+
+"The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than
+his left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped--he
+was lame."
+
+"But his left-handedness."
+
+"You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded
+by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from
+immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can
+that be unless it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind
+that tree during the interview between the father and son. He had
+even smoked there. I found the ash of a cigar, which my special
+knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian
+cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and
+written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different
+varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the
+ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss
+where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety
+which are rolled in Rotterdam."
+
+"And the cigar-holder?"
+
+"I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he
+used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the
+cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife."
+
+"Holmes," I said, "you have drawn a net round this man from which
+he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as
+truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him. I see the
+direction in which all this points. The culprit is--"
+
+"Mr. John Turner," cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of
+our sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.
+
+The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His
+slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of
+decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and
+his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual
+strength of body and of character. His tangled beard, grizzled
+hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air
+of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an
+ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were
+tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that
+he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease.
+
+"Pray sit down on the sofa," said Holmes gently. "You had my
+note?"
+
+"Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. You said that you wished to
+see me here to avoid scandal."
+
+"I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall."
+
+"And why did you wish to see me?" He looked across at my
+companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question
+was already answered.
+
+"Yes," said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. "It
+is so. I know all about McCarthy."
+
+The old man sank his face in his hands. "God help me!" he cried.
+"But I would not have let the young man come to harm. I give you
+my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at
+the Assizes."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so," said Holmes gravely.
+
+"I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. It
+would break her heart--it will break her heart when she hears
+that I am arrested."
+
+"It may not come to that," said Holmes.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter
+who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests.
+Young McCarthy must be got off, however."
+
+"I am a dying man," said old Turner. "I have had diabetes for
+years. My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a
+month. Yet I would rather die under my own roof than in a gaol."
+
+Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand
+and a bundle of paper before him. "Just tell us the truth," he
+said. "I shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson
+here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the
+last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall
+not use it unless it is absolutely needed."
+
+"It's as well," said the old man; "it's a question whether I
+shall live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I
+should wish to spare Alice the shock. And now I will make the
+thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but
+will not take me long to tell.
+
+"You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil
+incarnate. I tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of
+such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years,
+and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be
+in his power.
+
+"It was in the early '60's at the diggings. I was a young chap
+then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at
+anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck
+with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you
+would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us, and
+we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time
+to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.
+Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party
+is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.
+
+"One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and
+we lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers
+and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of
+their saddles at the first volley. Three of our boys were killed,
+however, before we got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of
+the wagon-driver, who was this very man McCarthy. I wish to the
+Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his
+wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every
+feature. We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made
+our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted
+from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and
+respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in
+the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money,
+to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too,
+and though my wife died young she left me my dear little Alice.
+Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down
+the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned
+over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All was
+going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me.
+
+"I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in
+Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his
+foot.
+
+"'Here we are, Jack,' says he, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be
+as good as a family to you. There's two of us, me and my son, and
+you can have the keeping of us. If you don't--it's a fine,
+law-abiding country is England, and there's always a policeman
+within hail.'
+
+"Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking
+them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land
+ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness;
+turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my
+elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more
+afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he
+wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without
+question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing
+which I could not give. He asked for Alice.
+
+"His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was
+known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that
+his lad should step into the whole property. But there I was
+firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that
+I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that
+was enough. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do
+his worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses
+to talk it over.
+
+"When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I
+smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone.
+But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in
+me seemed to come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my
+daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she
+were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I
+and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a
+man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and
+a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb,
+I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl!
+Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I
+did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned,
+I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my girl
+should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more
+than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction
+than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought
+back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I
+was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in
+my flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that
+occurred."
+
+"Well, it is not for me to judge you," said Holmes as the old man
+signed the statement which had been drawn out. "I pray that we
+may never be exposed to such a temptation."
+
+"I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do?"
+
+"In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you
+will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the
+Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is
+condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be
+seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or
+dead, shall be safe with us."
+
+"Farewell, then," said the old man solemnly. "Your own deathbeds,
+when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace
+which you have given to mine." Tottering and shaking in all his
+giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room.
+
+"God help us!" said Holmes after a long silence. "Why does fate
+play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such
+a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say,
+'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'"
+
+James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a
+number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and
+submitted to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven
+months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is
+every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily
+together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their
+past.
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS
+
+When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes
+cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which
+present strange and interesting features that it is no easy
+matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however,
+have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have
+not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend
+possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of
+these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his
+analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without
+an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and
+have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and
+surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to
+him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable
+in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted
+to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are
+points in connection with it which never have been, and probably
+never will be, entirely cleared up.
+
+The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater
+or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my
+headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the
+adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant
+Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a
+furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the
+British barque "Sophy Anderson", of the singular adventures of the
+Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the
+Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered,
+Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to
+prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that
+therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a
+deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the
+case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of
+them present such singular features as the strange train of
+circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.
+
+It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales
+had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had
+screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that
+even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced
+to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and
+to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which
+shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like
+untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew
+higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in
+the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the
+fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the
+other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until
+the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text,
+and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of
+the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a
+few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker
+Street.
+
+"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the
+bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?"
+
+"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage
+visitors."
+
+"A client, then?"
+
+"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out
+on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more
+likely to be some crony of the landlady's."
+
+Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there
+came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He
+stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and
+towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.
+
+"Come in!" said he.
+
+The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the
+outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of
+refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella
+which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told
+of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about
+him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his
+face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is
+weighed down with some great anxiety.
+
+"I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to
+his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have
+brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug
+chamber."
+
+"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest
+here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from
+the south-west, I see."
+
+"Yes, from Horsham."
+
+"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is
+quite distinctive."
+
+"I have come for advice."
+
+"That is easily got."
+
+"And help."
+
+"That is not always so easy."
+
+"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast
+how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."
+
+"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards."
+
+"He said that you could solve anything."
+
+"He said too much."
+
+"That you are never beaten."
+
+"I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a
+woman."
+
+"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"
+
+"It is true that I have been generally successful."
+
+"Then you may be so with me."
+
+"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me
+with some details as to your case."
+
+"It is no ordinary one."
+
+"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of
+appeal."
+
+"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you
+have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of
+events than those which have happened in my own family."
+
+"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the
+essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards
+question you as to those details which seem to me to be most
+important."
+
+The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out
+towards the blaze.
+
+"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have,
+as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful
+business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an
+idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the
+affair.
+
+"You must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias
+and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry,
+which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He
+was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business
+met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire
+upon a handsome competence.
+
+"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and
+became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done
+very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army,
+and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When
+Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where
+he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came
+back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham.
+He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his
+reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his
+dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to
+them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very
+foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring
+disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I
+doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or
+three fields round his house, and there he would take his
+exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave
+his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very
+heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any
+friends, not even his own brother.
+
+"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the
+time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This
+would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years
+in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he
+was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he used to be
+fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would
+make me his representative both with the servants and with the
+tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite
+master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I
+liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in
+his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he
+had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was
+invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or
+anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped
+through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a
+collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such
+a room.
+
+"One day--it was in March, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp
+lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a
+common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all
+paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From
+India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can
+this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little
+dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to
+laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight
+of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his
+skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he
+still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and
+then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'
+
+"'What is it, uncle?' I cried.
+
+"'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his
+room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope
+and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the
+gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else
+save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his
+overpowering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I
+ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key,
+which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small
+brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.
+
+"'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,'
+said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my
+room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'
+
+"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to
+step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the
+grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned
+paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I
+glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was
+printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the
+envelope.
+
+"'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave
+my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to
+my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to
+you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you
+cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest
+enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't
+say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper
+where Mr. Fordham shows you.'
+
+"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with
+him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest
+impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every
+way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I
+could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left
+behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed
+and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I
+could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever,
+and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his
+time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the
+inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy
+and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a
+revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man,
+and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by
+man or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, he would
+rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him,
+like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror
+which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen
+his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it
+were new raised from a basin.
+
+"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to
+abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those
+drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when
+we went to search for him, face downward in a little
+green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There
+was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep,
+so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity,
+brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how he winced
+from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself
+that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed,
+however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and
+of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the bank."
+
+"One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee,
+one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me
+have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and
+the date of his supposed suicide."
+
+"The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks
+later, upon the night of May 2nd."
+
+"Thank you. Pray proceed."
+
+"When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my
+request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been
+always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its
+contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a
+paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and
+'Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register' written beneath.
+These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had
+been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was
+nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many
+scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle's life in
+America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had
+done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier.
+Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern
+states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had
+evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag
+politicians who had been sent down from the North.
+
+"Well, it was the beginning of '84 when my father came to live at
+Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the
+January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my
+father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the
+breakfast-table. There he was, sitting with a newly opened
+envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the
+outstretched palm of the other one. He had always laughed at what
+he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but he looked
+very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon
+himself.
+
+"'Why, what on earth does this mean, John?' he stammered.
+
+"My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I.
+
+"He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are
+the very letters. But what is this written above them?'
+
+"'Put the papers on the sundial,' I read, peeping over his
+shoulder.
+
+"'What papers? What sundial?' he asked.
+
+"'The sundial in the garden. There is no other,' said I; 'but the
+papers must be those that are destroyed.'
+
+"'Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a
+civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind.
+Where does the thing come from?'
+
+"'From Dundee,' I answered, glancing at the postmark.
+
+"'Some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'What have I to do
+with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such
+nonsense.'
+
+"'I should certainly speak to the police,' I said.
+
+"'And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.'
+
+"'Then let me do so?'
+
+"'No, I forbid you. I won't have a fuss made about such
+nonsense.'
+
+"It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate
+man. I went about, however, with a heart which was full of
+forebodings.
+
+"On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went
+from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is
+in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad
+that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from
+danger when he was away from home. In that, however, I was in
+error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram
+from the major, imploring me to come at once. My father had
+fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the
+neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I
+hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered
+his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from
+Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him,
+and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in
+bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental causes.'
+Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I
+was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of
+murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no
+robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads.
+And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease,
+and that I was well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been
+woven round him.
+
+"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me
+why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well
+convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an
+incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as
+pressing in one house as in another.
+
+"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two
+years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time
+I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that
+this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended
+with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon,
+however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in
+which it had come upon my father."
+
+The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and
+turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried
+orange pips.
+
+"This is the envelope," he continued. "The postmark is
+London--eastern division. Within are the very words which were
+upon my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put the
+papers on the sundial.'"
+
+"What have you done?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"To tell the truth"--he sank his face into his thin, white
+hands--"I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor
+rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in
+the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight
+and no precautions can guard against."
+
+"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act, man, or you are
+lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for
+despair."
+
+"I have seen the police."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that
+the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all
+practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really
+accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with
+the warnings."
+
+Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. "Incredible
+imbecility!" he cried.
+
+"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in
+the house with me."
+
+"Has he come with you to-night?"
+
+"No. His orders were to stay in the house."
+
+Again Holmes raved in the air.
+
+"Why did you come to me," he cried, "and, above all, why did you
+not come at once?"
+
+"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major
+Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come to
+you."
+
+"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have
+acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than
+that which you have placed before us--no suggestive detail which
+might help us?"
+
+"There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat
+pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted
+paper, he laid it out upon the table. "I have some remembrance,"
+said he, "that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I
+observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the
+ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single sheet
+upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it
+may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from
+among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction. Beyond
+the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I think
+myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is
+undoubtedly my uncle's."
+
+Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,
+which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from
+a book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath were the
+following enigmatical notices:
+
+"4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
+
+"7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and
+      John Swain, of St. Augustine.
+
+"9th. McCauley cleared.
+
+"10th. John Swain cleared.
+
+"12th. Visited Paramore. All well."
+
+"Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it
+to our visitor. "And now you must on no account lose another
+instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told
+me. You must get home instantly and act."
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must
+put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass
+box which you have described. You must also put in a note to say
+that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that
+this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in such
+words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, you
+must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do
+you understand?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+"Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I
+think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our
+web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first
+consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens
+you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the
+guilty parties."
+
+"I thank you," said the young man, rising and pulling on his
+overcoat. "You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall
+certainly do as you advise."
+
+"Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in
+the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that
+you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you
+go back?"
+
+"By train from Waterloo."
+
+"It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that
+you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too
+closely."
+
+"I am armed."
+
+"That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case."
+
+"I shall see you at Horsham, then?"
+
+"No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek
+it."
+
+"Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news
+as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every
+particular." He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside
+the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered
+against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come
+to us from amid the mad elements--blown in upon us like a sheet
+of sea-weed in a gale--and now to have been reabsorbed by them
+once more.
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk
+forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he
+lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue
+smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
+
+"I think, Watson," he remarked at last, "that of all our cases we
+have had none more fantastic than this."
+
+"Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four."
+
+"Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems
+to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the
+Sholtos."
+
+"But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as to
+what these perils are?"
+
+"There can be no question as to their nature," he answered.
+
+"Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue
+this unhappy family?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the
+arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal
+reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown a
+single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the
+chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which
+would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole
+animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who
+has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents
+should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both
+before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the
+reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study
+which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the
+aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest
+pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to
+utilise all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this
+in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all
+knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and
+encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so
+impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge
+which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have
+endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one
+occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits
+in a very precise fashion."
+
+"Yes," I answered, laughing. "It was a singular document.
+Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I
+remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the
+mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry
+eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime
+records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and
+self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the
+main points of my analysis."
+
+Holmes grinned at the last item. "Well," he said, "I say now, as
+I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic
+stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the
+rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he
+can get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which
+has been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster
+all our resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the
+'American Encyclopaedia' which stands upon the shelf beside you.
+Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be
+deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong
+presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for
+leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their
+habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for
+the lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love
+of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of
+someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis
+that it was fear of someone or something which drove him from
+America. As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by
+considering the formidable letters which were received by himself
+and his successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those
+letters?"
+
+"The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the
+third from London."
+
+"From East London. What do you deduce from that?"
+
+"They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship."
+
+"Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that
+the probability--the strong probability--is that the writer was
+on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the
+case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and
+its fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days.
+Does that suggest anything?"
+
+"A greater distance to travel."
+
+"But the letter had also a greater distance to come."
+
+"Then I do not see the point."
+
+"There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man
+or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always send
+their singular warning or token before them when starting upon
+their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign
+when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a
+steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter.
+But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those
+seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which
+brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought the
+writer."
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly
+urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to
+caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which
+it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one
+comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay."
+
+"Good God!" I cried. "What can it mean, this relentless
+persecution?"
+
+"The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital
+importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think
+that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them.
+A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way
+as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in
+it, and they must have been men of resource and determination.
+Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may.
+In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an
+individual and becomes the badge of a society."
+
+"But of what society?"
+
+"Have you never--" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and
+sinking his voice--"have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?"
+
+"I never have."
+
+Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. "Here it
+is," said he presently:
+
+"'Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to
+the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret
+society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the
+Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local
+branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee,
+Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was
+used for political purposes, principally for the terrorising of
+the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country
+of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually
+preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic
+but generally recognised shape--a sprig of oak-leaves in some
+parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this
+the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might
+fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death would
+unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and
+unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organisation of the
+society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a
+case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with
+impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the
+perpetrators. For some years the organisation flourished in spite
+of the efforts of the United States government and of the better
+classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year
+1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have
+been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.'
+
+"You will observe," said Holmes, laying down the volume, "that
+the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the
+disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may
+well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his
+family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track.
+You can understand that this register and diary may implicate
+some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many
+who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered."
+
+"Then the page we have seen--"
+
+"Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent
+the pips to A, B, and C'--that is, sent the society's warning to
+them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or
+left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a
+sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let
+some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only
+chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have
+told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done
+to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for
+half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable
+ways of our fellow-men."
+
+
+It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a
+subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the
+great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came
+down.
+
+"You will excuse me for not waiting for you," said he; "I have, I
+foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of
+young Openshaw's."
+
+"What steps will you take?" I asked.
+
+"It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries.
+I may have to go down to Horsham, after all."
+
+"You will not go there first?"
+
+"No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the
+maid will bring up your coffee."
+
+As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and
+glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a
+chill to my heart.
+
+"Holmes," I cried, "you are too late."
+
+"Ah!" said he, laying down his cup, "I feared as much. How was it
+done?" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.
+
+"My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading 'Tragedy
+Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account:
+
+"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H
+Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and
+a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and
+stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it
+was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was
+given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was
+eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman
+whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his
+pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham.
+It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch
+the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and
+the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge
+of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body
+exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that
+the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident,
+which should have the effect of calling the attention of the
+authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages."
+
+We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and
+shaken than I had ever seen him.
+
+"That hurts my pride, Watson," he said at last. "It is a petty
+feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal
+matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my
+hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that
+I should send him away to his death--!" He sprang from his chair
+and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a
+flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and
+unclasping of his long thin hands.
+
+"They must be cunning devils," he exclaimed at last. "How could
+they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the
+direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too
+crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson,
+we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now!"
+
+"To the police?"
+
+"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may
+take the flies, but not before."
+
+All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in
+the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes
+had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before he
+entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard,
+and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously,
+washing it down with a long draught of water.
+
+"You are hungry," I remarked.
+
+"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since
+breakfast."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Not a bite. I had no time to think of it."
+
+"And how have you succeeded?"
+
+"Well."
+
+"You have a clue?"
+
+"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not
+long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish
+trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he
+squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and
+thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote
+"S. H. for J. O." Then he sealed it and addressed it to "Captain
+James Calhoun, Barque 'Lone Star,' Savannah, Georgia."
+
+"That will await him when he enters port," said he, chuckling.
+"It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a
+precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him."
+
+"And who is this Captain Calhoun?"
+
+"The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first."
+
+"How did you trace it, then?"
+
+He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with
+dates and names.
+
+"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers
+and files of the old papers, following the future career of every
+vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in
+'83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were
+reported there during those months. Of these, one, the 'Lone Star,'
+instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported
+as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to
+one of the states of the Union."
+
+"Texas, I think."
+
+"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must
+have an American origin."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque
+'Lone Star' was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a
+certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present
+in the port of London."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"The 'Lone Star' had arrived here last week. I went down to the
+Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by
+the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired
+to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and
+as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the
+Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight."
+
+"What will you do, then?"
+
+"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I
+learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are
+Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away
+from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who has
+been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship
+reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and
+the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these
+three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder."
+
+There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans,
+and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the
+orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as
+resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very
+severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for
+news of the "Lone Star" of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We
+did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a
+shattered stern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough
+of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it, and that is
+all which we shall ever know of the fate of the "Lone Star."
+
+
+
+ADVENTURE VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP
+
+Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal
+of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to
+opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some
+foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De
+Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had
+drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the
+same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the
+practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many
+years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of
+mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see
+him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point
+pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble
+man.
+
+One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell,
+about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the
+clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work
+down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.
+
+"A patient!" said she. "You'll have to go out."
+
+I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.
+
+We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps
+upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in
+some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.
+
+"You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then,
+suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms
+about my wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. "Oh, I'm in
+such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help."
+
+"Why," said my wife, pulling up her veil, "it is Kate Whitney.
+How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when
+you came in."
+
+"I didn't know what to do, so I came straight to you." That was
+always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds
+to a light-house.
+
+"It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine
+and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or
+should you rather that I sent James off to bed?"
+
+"Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about
+Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about
+him!"
+
+It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her
+husband's trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend
+and school companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words
+as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it
+possible that we could bring him back to her?
+
+It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late
+he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the
+farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been
+confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and
+shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him
+eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the
+dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the
+effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar
+of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could
+she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and
+pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?
+
+There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of
+it. Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second
+thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney's medical
+adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I could manage it
+better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would
+send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the
+address which she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left
+my armchair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding
+eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at
+the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to
+be.
+
+But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my
+adventure. Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the
+high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east
+of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached
+by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the
+mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search.
+Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in
+the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the
+light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch
+and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the
+brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the
+forecastle of an emigrant ship.
+
+Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying
+in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads
+thrown back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a
+dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black
+shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright,
+now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of
+the metal pipes. The most lay silent, but some muttered to
+themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low,
+monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then
+suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own
+thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At
+the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside
+which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old
+man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon
+his knees, staring into the fire.
+
+As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe
+for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.
+
+"Thank you. I have not come to stay," said I. "There is a friend
+of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him."
+
+There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and
+peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and
+unkempt, staring out at me.
+
+"My God! It's Watson," said he. He was in a pitiable state of
+reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. "I say, Watson, what
+o'clock is it?"
+
+"Nearly eleven."
+
+"Of what day?"
+
+"Of Friday, June 19th."
+
+"Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What
+d'you want to frighten a chap for?" He sank his face onto his
+arms and began to sob in a high treble key.
+
+"I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting
+this two days for you. You should be ashamed of yourself!"
+
+"So I am. But you've got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here
+a few hours, three pipes, four pipes--I forget how many. But I'll
+go home with you. I wouldn't frighten Kate--poor little Kate.
+Give me your hand! Have you a cab?"
+
+"Yes, I have one waiting."
+
+"Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I
+owe, Watson. I am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself."
+
+I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of
+sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying
+fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager. As I passed
+the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my
+skirt, and a low voice whispered, "Walk past me, and then look
+back at me." The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I
+glanced down. They could only have come from the old man at my
+side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very
+wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between
+his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his
+fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all my
+self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of
+astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see him
+but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull
+eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and
+grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He
+made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he
+turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided
+into a doddering, loose-lipped senility.
+
+"Holmes!" I whispered, "what on earth are you doing in this den?"
+
+"As low as you can," he answered; "I have excellent ears. If you
+would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend
+of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with
+you."
+
+"I have a cab outside."
+
+"Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he
+appears to be too limp to get into any mischief. I should
+recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to
+say that you have thrown in your lot with me. If you will wait
+outside, I shall be with you in five minutes."
+
+It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests, for
+they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with
+such a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney
+was once confined in the cab my mission was practically
+accomplished; and for the rest, I could not wish anything better
+than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular
+adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. In a
+few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney's bill, led him
+out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness. In a
+very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den,
+and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two
+streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot.
+Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and
+burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
+
+"I suppose, Watson," said he, "that you imagine that I have added
+opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little
+weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical
+views."
+
+"I was certainly surprised to find you there."
+
+"But not more so than I to find you."
+
+"I came to find a friend."
+
+"And I to find an enemy."
+
+"An enemy?"
+
+"Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural
+prey. Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable
+inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent
+ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been
+recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an
+hour's purchase; for I have used it before now for my own
+purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have
+vengeance upon me. There is a trap-door at the back of that
+building, near the corner of Paul's Wharf, which could tell some
+strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless
+nights."
+
+"What! You do not mean bodies?"
+
+"Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had 1000 pounds
+for every poor devil who has been done to death in that den. It
+is the vilest murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that
+Neville St. Clair has entered it never to leave it more. But our
+trap should be here." He put his two forefingers between his
+teeth and whistled shrilly--a signal which was answered by a
+similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle
+of wheels and the clink of horses' hoofs.
+
+"Now, Watson," said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through
+the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from
+its side lanterns. "You'll come with me, won't you?"
+
+"If I can be of use."
+
+"Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still
+more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one."
+
+"The Cedars?"
+
+"Yes; that is Mr. St. Clair's house. I am staying there while I
+conduct the inquiry."
+
+"Where is it, then?"
+
+"Near Lee, in Kent. We have a seven-mile drive before us."
+
+"But I am all in the dark."
+
+"Of course you are. You'll know all about it presently. Jump up
+here. All right, John; we shall not need you. Here's half a
+crown. Look out for me to-morrow, about eleven. Give her her
+head. So long, then!"
+
+He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through
+the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which
+widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad
+balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly
+beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and
+mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of
+the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of
+revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a
+star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of
+the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his
+breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat
+beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which
+seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in
+upon the current of his thoughts. We had driven several miles,
+and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban
+villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up
+his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that he
+is acting for the best.
+
+"You have a grand gift of silence, Watson," said he. "It makes
+you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great
+thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are
+not over-pleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear
+little woman to-night when she meets me at the door."
+
+"You forget that I know nothing about it."
+
+"I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before
+we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can
+get nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I
+can't get the end of it into my hand. Now, I'll state the case
+clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a
+spark where all is dark to me."
+
+"Proceed, then."
+
+"Some years ago--to be definite, in May, 1884--there came to Lee
+a gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have
+plenty of money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very
+nicely, and lived generally in good style. By degrees he made
+friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter
+of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children. He had no
+occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into
+town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon
+Street every night. Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of
+age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very
+affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know
+him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far
+as we have been able to ascertain, amount to 88 pounds 10s., while
+he has 220 pounds standing to his credit in the Capital and
+Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money
+troubles have been weighing upon his mind.
+
+"Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier
+than usual, remarking before he started that he had two important
+commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy
+home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, his wife
+received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his
+departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable
+value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the
+offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up
+in your London, you will know that the office of the company is
+in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where
+you found me to-night. Mrs. St. Clair had her lunch, started for
+the City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company's office,
+got her packet, and found herself at exactly 4:35 walking through
+Swandam Lane on her way back to the station. Have you followed me
+so far?"
+
+"It is very clear."
+
+"If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St.
+Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab,
+as she did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself.
+While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly
+heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her
+husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning
+to her from a second-floor window. The window was open, and she
+distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly
+agitated. He waved his hands frantically to her, and then
+vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that
+he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind.
+One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that
+although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town
+in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.
+
+"Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the
+steps--for the house was none other than the opium den in which
+you found me to-night--and running through the front room she
+attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. At
+the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of
+whom I have spoken, who thrust her back and, aided by a Dane, who
+acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street. Filled
+with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the
+lane and, by rare good-fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of
+constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The
+inspector and two men accompanied her back, and in spite of the
+continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to
+the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no
+sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was
+no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who,
+it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly
+swore that no one else had been in the front room during the
+afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was
+staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had
+been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box
+which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it. Out there fell
+a cascade of children's bricks. It was the toy which he had
+promised to bring home.
+
+"This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple
+showed, made the inspector realise that the matter was serious.
+The rooms were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an
+abominable crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a
+sitting-room and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon
+the back of one of the wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom
+window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered
+at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The
+bedroom window was a broad one and opened from below. On
+examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill,
+and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of
+the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were
+all the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of
+his coat. His boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch--all were
+there. There were no signs of violence upon any of these
+garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St.
+Clair. Out of the window he must apparently have gone for no
+other exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon
+the sill gave little promise that he could save himself by
+swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of
+the tragedy.
+
+"And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately
+implicated in the matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the
+vilest antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St. Clair's story, he was
+known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few
+seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could
+hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defence
+was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no
+knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he
+could not account in any way for the presence of the missing
+gentleman's clothes.
+
+"So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who
+lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was
+certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St.
+Clair. His name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which
+is familiar to every man who goes much to the City. He is a
+professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police
+regulations he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas. Some
+little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand
+side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the
+wall. Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat,
+cross-legged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and as he
+is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the
+greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him. I
+have watched the fellow more than once before ever I thought of
+making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised
+at the harvest which he has reaped in a short time. His
+appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him
+without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a pale face
+disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has
+turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a
+pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular
+contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from amid
+the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he
+is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be
+thrown at him by the passers-by. This is the man whom we now
+learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been
+the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest."
+
+"But a cripple!" said I. "What could he have done single-handed
+against a man in the prime of life?"
+
+"He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in
+other respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man.
+Surely your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that
+weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional
+strength in the others."
+
+"Pray continue your narrative."
+
+"Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the
+window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her
+presence could be of no help to them in their investigations.
+Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful
+examination of the premises, but without finding anything which
+threw any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not
+arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes
+during which he might have communicated with his friend the
+Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and
+searched, without anything being found which could incriminate
+him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right
+shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been
+cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from
+there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and
+that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from
+the same source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr.
+Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in
+his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to
+Mrs. St. Clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband
+at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or
+dreaming. He was removed, loudly protesting, to the
+police-station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in
+the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue.
+
+"And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they
+had feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair's coat, and not
+Neville St. Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And
+what do you think they found in the pockets?"
+
+"I cannot imagine."
+
+"No, I don't think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with
+pennies and half-pennies--421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It
+was no wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a
+human body is a different matter. There is a fierce eddy between
+the wharf and the house. It seemed likely enough that the
+weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked
+away into the river."
+
+"But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the
+room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?"
+
+"No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose
+that this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the
+window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed.
+What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him
+that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would seize
+the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it
+would occur to him that it would swim and not sink. He has little
+time, for he has heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried
+to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his
+Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street.
+There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret
+hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he
+stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the
+pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. He throws it out, and
+would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard
+the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the
+window when the police appeared."
+
+"It certainly sounds feasible."
+
+"Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a
+better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the
+station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before
+been anything against him. He had for years been known as a
+professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very
+quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and
+the questions which have to be solved--what Neville St. Clair was
+doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is
+he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance--are
+all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot
+recall any case within my experience which looked at the first
+glance so simple and yet which presented such difficulties."
+
+While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of
+events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great
+town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and
+we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us.
+Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered
+villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.
+
+"We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion. "We have
+touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in
+Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.
+See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside
+that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have
+little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet."
+
+"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I
+asked.
+
+"Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here.
+Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and
+you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for
+my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have
+no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!"
+
+We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its
+own grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse's head, and
+springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding
+gravel-drive which led to the house. As we approached, the door
+flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad
+in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy
+pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure
+outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one
+half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head
+and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing
+question.
+
+"Well?" she cried, "well?" And then, seeing that there were two
+of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw
+that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"No good news?"
+
+"None."
+
+"No bad?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have
+had a long day."
+
+"This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to
+me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it
+possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this
+investigation."
+
+"I am delighted to see you," said she, pressing my hand warmly.
+"You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our
+arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so
+suddenly upon us."
+
+"My dear madam," said I, "I am an old campaigner, and if I were
+not I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of
+any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be
+indeed happy."
+
+"Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said the lady as we entered a
+well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had
+been laid out, "I should very much like to ask you one or two
+plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain
+answer."
+
+"Certainly, madam."
+
+"Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given
+to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion."
+
+"Upon what point?"
+
+"In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question.
+"Frankly, now!" she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking
+keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.
+
+"Frankly, then, madam, I do not."
+
+"You think that he is dead?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Murdered?"
+
+"I don't say that. Perhaps."
+
+"And on what day did he meet his death?"
+
+"On Monday."
+
+"Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how
+it is that I have received a letter from him to-day."
+
+Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been
+galvanised.
+
+"What!" he roared.
+
+"Yes, to-day." She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of
+paper in the air.
+
+"May I see it?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out
+upon the table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I
+had left my chair and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The
+envelope was a very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend
+postmark and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day
+before, for it was considerably after midnight.
+
+"Coarse writing," murmured Holmes. "Surely this is not your
+husband's writing, madam."
+
+"No, but the enclosure is."
+
+"I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go
+and inquire as to the address."
+
+"How can you tell that?"
+
+"The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried
+itself. The rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that
+blotting-paper has been used. If it had been written straight
+off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This
+man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before
+he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not
+familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but there is
+nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha!
+there has been an enclosure here!"
+
+"Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring."
+
+"And you are sure that this is your husband's hand?"
+
+"One of his hands."
+
+"One?"
+
+"His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual
+writing, and yet I know it well."
+
+"'Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a
+huge error which it may take some little time to rectify.
+Wait in patience.--NEVILLE.' Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf
+of a book, octavo size, no water-mark. Hum! Posted to-day in
+Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been
+gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been
+chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your husband's
+hand, madam?"
+
+"None. Neville wrote those words."
+
+"And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair,
+the clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the
+danger is over."
+
+"But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent.
+The ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from
+him."
+
+"No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!"
+
+"Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only
+posted to-day."
+
+"That is possible."
+
+"If so, much may have happened between."
+
+"Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is
+well with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I
+should know if evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him
+last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room
+rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that
+something had happened. Do you think that I would respond to such
+a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death?"
+
+"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman
+may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical
+reasoner. And in this letter you certainly have a very strong
+piece of evidence to corroborate your view. But if your husband
+is alive and able to write letters, why should he remain away
+from you?"
+
+"I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable."
+
+"And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?"
+
+"Very much so."
+
+"Was the window open?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then he might have called to you?"
+
+"He might."
+
+"He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A call for help, you thought?"
+
+"Yes. He waved his hands."
+
+"But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the
+unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"And you thought he was pulled back?"
+
+"He disappeared so suddenly."
+
+"He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the
+room?"
+
+"No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and
+the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs."
+
+"Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his
+ordinary clothes on?"
+
+"But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare
+throat."
+
+"Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about
+which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little
+supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day
+to-morrow."
+
+A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our
+disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary
+after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however,
+who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for
+days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over,
+rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view
+until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his
+data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now
+preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and
+waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered
+about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from
+the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of
+Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with
+an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front
+of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an
+old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the
+corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him,
+silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set
+aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he
+sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found
+the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still
+between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was
+full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of
+shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
+
+"Awake, Watson?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Game for a morning drive?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the
+stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He
+chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed
+a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night.
+
+As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one
+was stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly
+finished when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was
+putting in the horse.
+
+"I want to test a little theory of mine," said he, pulling on his
+boots. "I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the
+presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve
+to be kicked from here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the
+key of the affair now."
+
+"And where is it?" I asked, smiling.
+
+"In the bathroom," he answered. "Oh, yes, I am not joking," he
+continued, seeing my look of incredulity. "I have just been
+there, and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this
+Gladstone bag. Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will
+not fit the lock."
+
+We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into
+the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and
+trap, with the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both
+sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country
+carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but
+the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as
+some city in a dream.
+
+"It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes,
+flicking the horse on into a gallop. "I confess that I have been
+as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than
+never to learn it at all."
+
+In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily
+from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey
+side. Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the
+river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the
+right and found ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes was well
+known to the force, and the two constables at the door saluted
+him. One of them held the horse's head while the other led us in.
+
+"Who is on duty?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Inspector Bradstreet, sir."
+
+"Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?" A tall, stout official had come
+down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged
+jacket. "I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet."
+"Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here." It was a small,
+office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a
+telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector sat down at his
+desk.
+
+"What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I called about that beggarman, Boone--the one who was charged
+with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St.
+Clair, of Lee."
+
+"Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries."
+
+"So I heard. You have him here?"
+
+"In the cells."
+
+"Is he quiet?"
+
+"Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel."
+
+"Dirty?"
+
+"Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his
+face is as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been
+settled, he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you
+saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it."
+
+"I should like to see him very much."
+
+"Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave
+your bag."
+
+"No, I think that I'll take it."
+
+"Very good. Come this way, if you please." He led us down a
+passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and
+brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each
+side.
+
+"The third on the right is his," said the inspector. "Here it
+is!" He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door
+and glanced through.
+
+"He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well."
+
+We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his
+face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and
+heavily. He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his
+calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his
+tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely
+dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its
+repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right
+across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up
+one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a
+perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over
+his eyes and forehead.
+
+"He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector.
+
+"He certainly needs a wash," remarked Holmes. "I had an idea that
+he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me."
+He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my
+astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.
+
+"He! he! You are a funny one," chuckled the inspector.
+
+"Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very
+quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable
+figure."
+
+"Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector. "He doesn't
+look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?" He slipped his
+key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The
+sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep
+slumber. Holmes stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge,
+and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the
+prisoner's face.
+
+"Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of
+Lee, in the county of Kent."
+
+Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled
+off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the
+coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had
+seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the
+repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled
+red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale,
+sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned,
+rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.
+Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a scream and
+threw himself down with his face to the pillow.
+
+"Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing
+man. I know him from the photograph."
+
+The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons
+himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I
+charged with?"
+
+"With making away with Mr. Neville St.-- Oh, come, you can't be
+charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of
+it," said the inspector with a grin. "Well, I have been
+twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake."
+
+"If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime
+has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally
+detained."
+
+"No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said
+Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted your wife."
+
+"It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner.
+"God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My
+God! What an exposure! What can I do?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him
+kindly on the shoulder.
+
+"If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said
+he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand,
+if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible
+case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the
+details should find their way into the papers. Inspector
+Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you
+might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case
+would then never go into court at all."
+
+"God bless you!" cried the prisoner passionately. "I would have
+endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left
+my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.
+
+"You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a
+schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent
+education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and
+finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day
+my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the
+metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point
+from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying
+begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to
+base my articles. When an actor I had, of course, learned all the
+secrets of making up, and had been famous in the green-room for
+my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my
+face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good
+scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a
+small slip of flesh-coloured plaster. Then with a red head of
+hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business
+part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a
+beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned
+home in the evening I found to my surprise that I had received no
+less than 26s. 4d.
+
+"I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until,
+some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ
+served upon me for 25 pounds. I was at my wit's end where to get
+the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's
+grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers,
+and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In
+ten days I had the money and had paid the debt.
+
+"Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous
+work at 2 pounds a week when I knew that I could earn as much in
+a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on
+the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between my
+pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up
+reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first
+chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets
+with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper of a
+low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could
+every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings
+transform myself into a well-dressed man about town. This fellow,
+a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that
+my secret was safe in his possession.
+
+"Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of
+money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London
+could earn 700 pounds a year--which is less than my average
+takings--but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making
+up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by
+practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City.
+All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me,
+and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds.
+
+"As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the
+country, and eventually married, without anyone having a
+suspicion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had
+business in the City. She little knew what.
+
+"Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my
+room above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw,
+to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the
+street, with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of
+surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my
+confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from
+coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that
+she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on
+those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a wife's
+eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it
+occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that
+the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening
+by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in
+the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was
+weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from
+the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of
+the window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes
+would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of
+constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather,
+I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr.
+Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.
+
+"I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I
+was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and
+hence my preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would
+be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the
+Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together
+with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to
+fear."
+
+"That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes.
+
+"Good God! What a week she must have spent!"
+
+"The police have watched this Lascar," said Inspector Bradstreet,
+"and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to
+post a letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor
+customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days."
+
+"That was it," said Holmes, nodding approvingly; "I have no doubt
+of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?"
+
+"Many times; but what was a fine to me?"
+
+"It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet. "If the police are
+to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone."
+
+"I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take."
+
+"In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps
+may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out.
+I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for
+having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your
+results."
+
+"I reached this one," said my friend, "by sitting upon five
+pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if
+we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast."
+
+
+
+VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE
+
+I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second
+morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the
+compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a
+purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the
+right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly
+studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and
+on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable
+hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several
+places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair
+suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the
+purpose of examination.
+
+"You are engaged," said I; "perhaps I interrupt you."
+
+"Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss
+my results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one"--he jerked his
+thumb in the direction of the old hat--"but there are points in
+connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and
+even of instruction."
+
+I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his
+crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows
+were thick with the ice crystals. "I suppose," I remarked, "that,
+homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to
+it--that it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of
+some mystery and the punishment of some crime."
+
+"No, no. No crime," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "Only one of
+those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have
+four million human beings all jostling each other within the
+space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so
+dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events
+may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be
+presented which may be striking and bizarre without being
+criminal. We have already had experience of such."
+
+"So much so," I remarked, "that of the last six cases which I
+have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any
+legal crime."
+
+"Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler
+papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the
+adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt
+that this small matter will fall into the same innocent category.
+You know Peterson, the commissionaire?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is to him that this trophy belongs."
+
+"It is his hat."
+
+"No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will
+look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual
+problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon
+Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I
+have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's
+fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas
+morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was
+returning from some small jollification and was making his way
+homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in
+the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and
+carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the
+corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger
+and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the
+man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and,
+swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him.
+Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his
+assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and
+seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him,
+dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the
+labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham
+Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of
+Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of
+battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this
+battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose."
+
+"Which surely he restored to their owner?"
+
+"My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that 'For
+Mrs. Henry Baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to
+the bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H.
+B.' are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are
+some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in
+this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any
+one of them."
+
+"What, then, did Peterson do?"
+
+"He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning,
+knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me.
+The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs
+that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it
+should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried
+it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose,
+while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who
+lost his Christmas dinner."
+
+"Did he not advertise?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?"
+
+"Only as much as we can deduce."
+
+"From his hat?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered
+felt?"
+
+"Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather
+yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this
+article?"
+
+I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather
+ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round
+shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of
+red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's
+name; but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials "H. B." were
+scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a
+hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For the rest, it was
+cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places,
+although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the
+discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.
+
+"I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my friend.
+
+"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail,
+however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in
+drawing your inferences."
+
+"Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?"
+
+He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective
+fashion which was characteristic of him. "It is perhaps less
+suggestive than it might have been," he remarked, "and yet there
+are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others
+which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That
+the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the
+face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the
+last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He
+had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a
+moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his
+fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink,
+at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that
+his wife has ceased to love him."
+
+"My dear Holmes!"
+
+"He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect," he
+continued, disregarding my remonstrance. "He is a man who leads a
+sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is
+middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the
+last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are
+the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also,
+by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid
+on in his house."
+
+"You are certainly joking, Holmes."
+
+"Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you
+these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?"
+
+"I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I
+am unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that
+this man was intellectual?"
+
+For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right
+over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. "It is
+a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a
+brain must have something in it."
+
+"The decline of his fortunes, then?"
+
+"This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge
+came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the
+band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could
+afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no
+hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world."
+
+"Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the
+foresight and the moral retrogression?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes laughed. "Here is the foresight," said he putting
+his finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer.
+"They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a
+sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his
+way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see
+that he has broken the elastic and has not troubled to replace
+it, it is obvious that he has less foresight now than formerly,
+which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature. On the other
+hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some of these stains upon the
+felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not
+entirely lost his self-respect."
+
+"Your reasoning is certainly plausible."
+
+"The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is
+grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses
+lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the
+lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of
+hair-ends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all
+appear to be adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of
+lime-cream. This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, grey
+dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house,
+showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time, while
+the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the
+wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in
+the best of training."
+
+"But his wife--you said that she had ceased to love him."
+
+"This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear
+Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and
+when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear
+that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's
+affection."
+
+"But he might be a bachelor."
+
+"Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his
+wife. Remember the card upon the bird's leg."
+
+"You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce
+that the gas is not laid on in his house?"
+
+"One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I
+see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt
+that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with
+burning tallow--walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in
+one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never
+got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?"
+
+"Well, it is very ingenious," said I, laughing; "but since, as
+you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm
+done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a
+waste of energy."
+
+Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew
+open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment
+with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with
+astonishment.
+
+"The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!" he gasped.
+
+"Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off
+through the kitchen window?" Holmes twisted himself round upon
+the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face.
+
+"See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!" He held out
+his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly
+scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but
+of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric
+point in the dark hollow of his hand.
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. "By Jove, Peterson!" said
+he, "this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you
+have got?"
+
+"A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though
+it were putty."
+
+"It's more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone."
+
+"Not the Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle!" I ejaculated.
+
+"Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I
+have read the advertisement about it in The Times every day
+lately. It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be
+conjectured, but the reward offered of 1000 pounds is certainly
+not within a twentieth part of the market price."
+
+"A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy!" The commissionaire
+plumped down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.
+
+"That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are
+sentimental considerations in the background which would induce
+the Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but
+recover the gem."
+
+"It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan," I
+remarked.
+
+"Precisely so, on December 22nd, just five days ago. John Horner,
+a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's
+jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the case
+has been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the
+matter here, I believe." He rummaged amid his newspapers,
+glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out,
+doubled it over, and read the following paragraph:
+
+"Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was
+brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst.,
+abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the
+valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder,
+upper-attendant at the hotel, gave his evidence to the effect
+that he had shown Horner up to the dressing-room of the Countess
+of Morcar upon the day of the robbery in order that he might
+solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose. He had
+remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been
+called away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared,
+that the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco
+casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was
+accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the
+dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was
+arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found
+either upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to
+the Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder's cry of dismay on
+discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room,
+where she found matters as described by the last witness.
+Inspector Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest
+of Horner, who struggled frantically, and protested his innocence
+in the strongest terms. Evidence of a previous conviction for
+robbery having been given against the prisoner, the magistrate
+refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to
+the Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion
+during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion and was
+carried out of court."
+
+"Hum! So much for the police-court," said Holmes thoughtfully,
+tossing aside the paper. "The question for us now to solve is the
+sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to
+the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You
+see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much
+more important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the
+stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry
+Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other
+characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we must set
+ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and
+ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To
+do this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie
+undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If
+this fail, I shall have recourse to other methods."
+
+"What will you say?"
+
+"Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then: 'Found at
+the corner of Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr.
+Henry Baker can have the same by applying at 6:30 this evening at
+221B, Baker Street.' That is clear and concise."
+
+"Very. But will he see it?"
+
+"Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor
+man, the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his
+mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson
+that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must
+have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his
+bird. Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to
+see it, for everyone who knows him will direct his attention to
+it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency
+and have this put in the evening papers."
+
+"In which, sir?"
+
+"Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James's, Evening News,
+Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you."
+
+"Very well, sir. And this stone?"
+
+"Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say,
+Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back and leave it here
+with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place
+of the one which your family is now devouring."
+
+When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and
+held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just
+see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and
+focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet
+baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a
+bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found
+in the banks of the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable
+in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is
+blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has
+already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a
+vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about
+for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal.
+Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the
+gallows and the prison? I'll lock it up in my strong box now and
+drop a line to the Countess to say that we have it."
+
+"Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had
+anything to do with the matter?"
+
+"It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an
+absolutely innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he
+was carrying was of considerably more value than if it were made
+of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine by a very simple
+test if we have an answer to our advertisement."
+
+"And you can do nothing until then?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall
+come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I
+should like to see the solution of so tangled a business."
+
+"Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I
+believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I
+ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop."
+
+I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past
+six when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I
+approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a
+coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the
+bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I
+arrived the door was opened, and we were shown up together to
+Holmes' room.
+
+"Mr. Henry Baker, I believe," said he, rising from his armchair
+and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he
+could so readily assume. "Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr.
+Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is
+more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have
+just come at the right time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat."
+
+He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a
+broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of
+grizzled brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight
+tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes' surmise as to his
+habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in
+front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded
+from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a
+slow staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the
+impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had
+ill-usage at the hands of fortune.
+
+"We have retained these things for some days," said Holmes,
+"because we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your
+address. I am at a loss to know now why you did not advertise."
+
+Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. "Shillings have not
+been so plentiful with me as they once were," he remarked. "I had
+no doubt that the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off
+both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a
+hopeless attempt at recovering them."
+
+"Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to
+eat it."
+
+"To eat it!" Our visitor half rose from his chair in his
+excitement.
+
+"Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so.
+But I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is
+about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your
+purpose equally well?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly," answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of
+your own bird, so if you wish--"
+
+The man burst into a hearty laugh. "They might be useful to me as
+relics of my adventure," said he, "but beyond that I can hardly
+see what use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are
+going to be to me. No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I
+will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive
+upon the sideboard."
+
+Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug
+of his shoulders.
+
+"There is your hat, then, and there your bird," said he. "By the
+way, would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one
+from? I am somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a
+better grown goose."
+
+"Certainly, sir," said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly
+gained property under his arm. "There are a few of us who
+frequent the Alpha Inn, near the Museum--we are to be found in
+the Museum itself during the day, you understand. This year our
+good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which,
+on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to
+receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the
+rest is familiar to you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a
+Scotch bonnet is fitted neither to my years nor my gravity." With
+a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and
+strode off upon his way.
+
+"So much for Mr. Henry Baker," said Holmes when he had closed the
+door behind him. "It is quite certain that he knows nothing
+whatever about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson?"
+
+"Not particularly."
+
+"Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow
+up this clue while it is still hot."
+
+"By all means."
+
+It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped
+cravats about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly
+in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out
+into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out
+crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors' quarter,
+Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into
+Oxford Street. In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at
+the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one
+of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open
+the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from
+the ruddy-faced, white-aproned landlord.
+
+"Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,"
+said he.
+
+"My geese!" The man seemed surprised.
+
+"Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker,
+who was a member of your goose club."
+
+"Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them's not our geese."
+
+"Indeed! Whose, then?"
+
+"Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden."
+
+"Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?"
+
+"Breckinridge is his name."
+
+"Ah! I don't know him. Well, here's your good health landlord,
+and prosperity to your house. Good-night."
+
+"Now for Mr. Breckinridge," he continued, buttoning up his coat
+as we came out into the frosty air. "Remember, Watson that though
+we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we
+have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years' penal
+servitude unless we can establish his innocence. It is possible
+that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we
+have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police,
+and which a singular chance has placed in our hands. Let us
+follow it out to the bitter end. Faces to the south, then, and
+quick march!"
+
+We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a
+zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest
+stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor
+a horsey-looking man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers was
+helping a boy to put up the shutters.
+
+"Good-evening. It's a cold night," said Holmes.
+
+The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my
+companion.
+
+"Sold out of geese, I see," continued Holmes, pointing at the
+bare slabs of marble.
+
+"Let you have five hundred to-morrow morning."
+
+"That's no good."
+
+"Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare."
+
+"Ah, but I was recommended to you."
+
+"Who by?"
+
+"The landlord of the Alpha."
+
+"Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen."
+
+"Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?"
+
+To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the
+salesman.
+
+"Now, then, mister," said he, with his head cocked and his arms
+akimbo, "what are you driving at? Let's have it straight, now."
+
+"It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the
+geese which you supplied to the Alpha."
+
+"Well then, I shan't tell you. So now!"
+
+"Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don't know why you
+should be so warm over such a trifle."
+
+"Warm! You'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am.
+When I pay good money for a good article there should be an end
+of the business; but it's 'Where are the geese?' and 'Who did you
+sell the geese to?' and 'What will you take for the geese?' One
+would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the
+fuss that is made over them."
+
+"Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been
+making inquiries," said Holmes carelessly. "If you won't tell us
+the bet is off, that is all. But I'm always ready to back my
+opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the
+bird I ate is country bred."
+
+"Well, then, you've lost your fiver, for it's town bred," snapped
+the salesman.
+
+"It's nothing of the kind."
+
+"I say it is."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"D'you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled
+them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that
+went to the Alpha were town bred."
+
+"You'll never persuade me to believe that."
+
+"Will you bet, then?"
+
+"It's merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But
+I'll have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be
+obstinate."
+
+The salesman chuckled grimly. "Bring me the books, Bill," said
+he.
+
+The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great
+greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging
+lamp.
+
+"Now then, Mr. Cocksure," said the salesman, "I thought that I
+was out of geese, but before I finish you'll find that there is
+still one left in my shop. You see this little book?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That's the list of the folk from whom I buy. D'you see? Well,
+then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers
+after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger.
+Now, then! You see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a
+list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just
+read it out to me."
+
+"Mrs. Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road--249," read Holmes.
+
+"Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger."
+
+Holmes turned to the page indicated. "Here you are, 'Mrs.
+Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.'"
+
+"Now, then, what's the last entry?"
+
+"'December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.'"
+
+"Quite so. There you are. And underneath?"
+
+"'Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.'"
+
+"What have you to say now?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from
+his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the
+air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off
+he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless
+fashion which was peculiar to him.
+
+"When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink 'un'
+protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,"
+said he. "I daresay that if I had put 100 pounds down in front of
+him, that man would not have given me such complete information
+as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a
+wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our
+quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is
+whether we should go on to this Mrs. Oakshott to-night, or
+whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. It is clear from what
+that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves
+who are anxious about the matter, and I should--"
+
+His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke
+out from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a
+little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of
+yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while
+Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was
+shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure.
+
+"I've had enough of you and your geese," he shouted. "I wish you
+were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more
+with your silly talk I'll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs.
+Oakshott here and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with
+it? Did I buy the geese off you?"
+
+"No; but one of them was mine all the same," whined the little
+man.
+
+"Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it."
+
+"She told me to ask you."
+
+"Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I've had
+enough of it. Get out of this!" He rushed fiercely forward, and
+the inquirer flitted away into the darkness.
+
+"Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road," whispered Holmes.
+"Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this
+fellow." Striding through the scattered knots of people who
+lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook
+the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang
+round, and I could see in the gas-light that every vestige of
+colour had been driven from his face.
+
+"Who are you, then? What do you want?" he asked in a quavering
+voice.
+
+"You will excuse me," said Holmes blandly, "but I could not help
+overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now.
+I think that I could be of assistance to you."
+
+"You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?"
+
+"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other
+people don't know."
+
+"But you can know nothing of this?"
+
+"Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to
+trace some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton
+Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr.
+Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr.
+Henry Baker is a member."
+
+"Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet," cried
+the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers.
+"I can hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter."
+
+Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. "In that
+case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this
+wind-swept market-place," said he. "But pray tell me, before we
+go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting."
+
+The man hesitated for an instant. "My name is John Robinson," he
+answered with a sidelong glance.
+
+"No, no; the real name," said Holmes sweetly. "It is always
+awkward doing business with an alias."
+
+A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. "Well then,"
+said he, "my real name is James Ryder."
+
+"Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray
+step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you
+everything which you would wish to know."
+
+The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with
+half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure
+whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe.
+Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in
+the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during
+our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and
+the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous
+tension within him.
+
+"Here we are!" said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room.
+"The fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold,
+Mr. Ryder. Pray take the basket-chair. I will just put on my
+slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then!
+You want to know what became of those geese?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine in
+which you were interested--white, with a black bar across the
+tail."
+
+Ryder quivered with emotion. "Oh, sir," he cried, "can you tell
+me where it went to?"
+
+"It came here."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don't wonder that
+you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was
+dead--the bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen.
+I have it here in my museum."
+
+Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece
+with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up
+the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold,
+brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a
+drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.
+
+"The game's up, Ryder," said Holmes quietly. "Hold up, man, or
+you'll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair,
+Watson. He's not got blood enough to go in for felony with
+impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little
+more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!"
+
+For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy
+brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring
+with frightened eyes at his accuser.
+
+"I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I
+could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me.
+Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case
+complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the
+Countess of Morcar's?"
+
+"It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it," said he in a
+crackling voice.
+
+"I see--her ladyship's waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of
+sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has
+been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous
+in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the
+making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man
+Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter
+before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him.
+What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady's
+room--you and your confederate Cusack--and you managed that he
+should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you rifled
+the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man
+arrested. You then--"
+
+Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my
+companion's knees. "For God's sake, have mercy!" he shrieked.
+"Think of my father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I
+never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll
+swear it on a Bible. Oh, don't bring it into court! For Christ's
+sake, don't!"
+
+"Get back into your chair!" said Holmes sternly. "It is very well
+to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this
+poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing."
+
+"I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the
+charge against him will break down."
+
+"Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account
+of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came
+the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies
+your only hope of safety."
+
+Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. "I will tell you
+it just as it happened, sir," said he. "When Horner had been
+arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get
+away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment
+the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my
+room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe.
+I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister's
+house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton
+Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there
+every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective;
+and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down
+my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me
+what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I
+had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went
+into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it would
+be best to do.
+
+"I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and
+has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met
+me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they
+could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to
+me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind
+to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my
+confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money.
+But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had
+gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be
+seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat
+pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at
+the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly
+an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the
+best detective that ever lived.
+
+"My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the
+pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she
+was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in
+it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in
+the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds--a fine big
+one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill
+open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger
+could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass
+along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped
+and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the
+matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and
+fluttered off among the others.
+
+"'Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says she.
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'you said you'd give me one for Christmas, and I
+was feeling which was the fattest.'
+
+"'Oh,' says she, 'we've set yours aside for you--Jem's bird, we
+call it. It's the big white one over yonder. There's twenty-six
+of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen
+for the market.'
+
+"'Thank you, Maggie,' says I; 'but if it is all the same to you,
+I'd rather have that one I was handling just now.'
+
+"'The other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we
+fattened it expressly for you.'
+
+"'Never mind. I'll have the other, and I'll take it now,' said I.
+
+"'Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it
+you want, then?'
+
+"'That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the
+flock.'
+
+"'Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.'
+
+"Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird
+all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was
+a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed
+until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My
+heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I
+knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird,
+rushed back to my sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There
+was not a bird to be seen there.
+
+"'Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried.
+
+"'Gone to the dealer's, Jem.'
+
+"'Which dealer's?'
+
+"'Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.'
+
+"'But was there another with a barred tail?' I asked, 'the same
+as the one I chose?'
+
+"'Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never
+tell them apart.'
+
+"Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my
+feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the
+lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they
+had gone. You heard him yourselves to-night. Well, he has always
+answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad.
+Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now--and now I am myself
+a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which
+I sold my character. God help me! God help me!" He burst into
+convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.
+
+There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and
+by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes' finger-tips upon the
+edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.
+
+"Get out!" said he.
+
+"What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!"
+
+"No more words. Get out!"
+
+And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon
+the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running
+footfalls from the street.
+
+"After all, Watson," said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his
+clay pipe, "I am not retained by the police to supply their
+deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing;
+but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must
+collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just
+possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong
+again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and
+you make him a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of
+forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and
+whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you
+will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin
+another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief
+feature."
+
+
+
+VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND
+
+On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I
+have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend
+Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number
+merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did
+rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of
+wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation
+which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.
+Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which
+presented more singular features than that which was associated
+with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran.
+The events in question occurred in the early days of my
+association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors
+in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them
+upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the
+time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by
+the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It
+is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I
+have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the
+death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even
+more terrible than the truth.
+
+It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to
+find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my
+bed. He was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the
+mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter-past seven, I
+blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little
+resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.
+
+"Very sorry to knock you up, Watson," said he, "but it's the
+common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she
+retorted upon me, and I on you."
+
+"What is it, then--a fire?"
+
+"No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a
+considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She
+is waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander
+about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock
+sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is
+something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it
+prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to
+follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I should
+call you and give you the chance."
+
+"My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything."
+
+I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his
+professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid
+deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a
+logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were
+submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in
+a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A
+lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in
+the window, rose as we entered.
+
+"Good-morning, madam," said Holmes cheerily. "My name is Sherlock
+Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson,
+before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am
+glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the
+fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot
+coffee, for I observe that you are shivering."
+
+"It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the woman in a low
+voice, changing her seat as requested.
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror." She raised her veil as
+she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable
+state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless
+frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features
+and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot
+with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard.
+Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick,
+all-comprehensive glances.
+
+"You must not fear," said he soothingly, bending forward and
+patting her forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no
+doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see."
+
+"You know me, then?"
+
+"No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm
+of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had
+a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached
+the station."
+
+The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my
+companion.
+
+"There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left
+arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven
+places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a
+dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you
+sit on the left-hand side of the driver."
+
+"Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said
+she. "I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at
+twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I
+can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues.
+I have no one to turn to--none, save only one, who cares for me,
+and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you,
+Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you
+helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had
+your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me,
+too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness
+which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward
+you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be
+married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you
+shall not find me ungrateful."
+
+Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small
+case-book, which he consulted.
+
+"Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was
+concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time,
+Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote
+the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to
+reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty
+to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which
+suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us
+everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the
+matter."
+
+"Alas!" replied our visitor, "the very horror of my situation
+lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions
+depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to
+another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to
+look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it
+as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can
+read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have
+heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold
+wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid
+the dangers which encompass me."
+
+"I am all attention, madam."
+
+"My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who
+is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in
+England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of
+Surrey."
+
+Holmes nodded his head. "The name is familiar to me," said he.
+
+"The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the
+estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north,
+and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four
+successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition,
+and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the
+days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground,
+and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under
+a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence
+there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but
+his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to
+the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which
+enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta,
+where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he
+established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused
+by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he
+beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital
+sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and
+afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man.
+
+"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner,
+the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery.
+My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old
+at the time of my mother's re-marriage. She had a considerable
+sum of money--not less than 1000 pounds a year--and this she
+bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him,
+with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to
+each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return
+to England my mother died--she was killed eight years ago in a
+railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his
+attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us
+to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The
+money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and
+there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.
+
+"But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time.
+Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our
+neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of
+Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in
+his house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious
+quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper
+approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the
+family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been
+intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of
+disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the
+police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village,
+and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of
+immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.
+
+"Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a
+stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I
+could gather together that I was able to avert another public
+exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies,
+and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few
+acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate,
+and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents,
+wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a
+passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a
+correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon,
+which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the
+villagers almost as much as their master.
+
+"You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I
+had no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with
+us, and for a long time we did all the work of the house. She was
+but thirty at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already
+begun to whiten, even as mine has."
+
+"Your sister is dead, then?"
+
+"She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish
+to speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I
+have described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own
+age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden
+sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we
+were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady's
+house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there
+a half-pay major of marines, to whom she became engaged. My
+stepfather learned of the engagement when my sister returned and
+offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of
+the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event
+occurred which has deprived me of my only companion."
+
+Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes
+closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his
+lids now and glanced across at his visitor.
+
+"Pray be precise as to details," said he.
+
+"It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful
+time is seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have
+already said, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The
+bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms
+being in the central block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms
+the first is Dr. Roylott's, the second my sister's, and the third
+my own. There is no communication between them, but they all open
+out into the same corridor. Do I make myself plain?"
+
+"Perfectly so."
+
+"The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That
+fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we
+knew that he had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled
+by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom
+to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where
+she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding. At
+eleven o'clock she rose to leave me, but she paused at the door
+and looked back.
+
+"'Tell me, Helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle
+in the dead of the night?'
+
+"'Never,' said I.
+
+"'I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in
+your sleep?'
+
+"'Certainly not. But why?'
+
+"'Because during the last few nights I have always, about three
+in the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper,
+and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from--perhaps
+from the next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would
+just ask you whether you had heard it.'
+
+"'No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the
+plantation.'
+
+"'Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you
+did not hear it also.'
+
+"'Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.'
+
+"'Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' She smiled
+back at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her
+key turn in the lock."
+
+"Indeed," said Holmes. "Was it your custom always to lock
+yourselves in at night?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"I think that I mentioned to you that the doctor kept a cheetah
+and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were
+locked."
+
+"Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement."
+
+"I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending
+misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect,
+were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two
+souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind
+was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing
+against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale,
+there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman. I knew
+that it was my sister's voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a
+shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door
+I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and
+a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had
+fallen. As I ran down the passage, my sister's door was unlocked,
+and revolved slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it
+horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By
+the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister appear at the
+opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for
+help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a
+drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that
+moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground.
+She writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were
+dreadfully convulsed. At first I thought that she had not
+recognised me, but as I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out
+in a voice which I shall never forget, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was
+the band! The speckled band!' There was something else which she
+would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the
+air in the direction of the doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion
+seized her and choked her words. I rushed out, calling loudly for
+my stepfather, and I met him hastening from his room in his
+dressing-gown. When he reached my sister's side she was
+unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent
+for medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for
+she slowly sank and died without having recovered her
+consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister."
+
+"One moment," said Holmes, "are you sure about this whistle and
+metallic sound? Could you swear to it?"
+
+"That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is
+my strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of
+the gale and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have
+been deceived."
+
+"Was your sister dressed?"
+
+"No, she was in her night-dress. In her right hand was found the
+charred stump of a match, and in her left a match-box."
+
+"Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when
+the alarm took place. That is important. And what conclusions did
+the coroner come to?"
+
+"He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott's
+conduct had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable
+to find any satisfactory cause of death. My evidence showed that
+the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows
+were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars,
+which were secured every night. The walls were carefully sounded,
+and were shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was
+also thoroughly examined, with the same result. The chimney is
+wide, but is barred up by four large staples. It is certain,
+therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end.
+Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her."
+
+"How about poison?"
+
+"The doctors examined her for it, but without success."
+
+"What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?"
+
+"It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock,
+though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine."
+
+"Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?"
+
+"Yes, there are nearly always some there."
+
+"Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band--a
+speckled band?"
+
+"Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of
+delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of
+people, perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not
+know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear
+over their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which
+she used."
+
+Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied.
+
+"These are very deep waters," said he; "pray go on with your
+narrative."
+
+"Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until
+lately lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend,
+whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask
+my hand in marriage. His name is Armitage--Percy Armitage--the
+second son of Mr. Armitage, of Crane Water, near Reading. My
+stepfather has offered no opposition to the match, and we are to
+be married in the course of the spring. Two days ago some repairs
+were started in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom
+wall has been pierced, so that I have had to move into the
+chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the very bed in
+which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last
+night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I
+suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which
+had been the herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the
+lamp, but nothing was to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to
+go to bed again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was
+daylight I slipped down, got a dog-cart at the Crown Inn, which
+is opposite, and drove to Leatherhead, from whence I have come on
+this morning with the one object of seeing you and asking your
+advice."
+
+"You have done wisely," said my friend. "But have you told me
+all?"
+
+"Yes, all."
+
+"Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather."
+
+"Why, what do you mean?"
+
+For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which
+fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five little
+livid spots, the marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed
+upon the white wrist.
+
+"You have been cruelly used," said Holmes.
+
+The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. "He
+is a hard man," she said, "and perhaps he hardly knows his own
+strength."
+
+There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin
+upon his hands and stared into the crackling fire.
+
+"This is a very deep business," he said at last. "There are a
+thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide
+upon our course of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If
+we were to come to Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for
+us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your
+stepfather?"
+
+"As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some
+most important business. It is probable that he will be away all
+day, and that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a
+housekeeper now, but she is old and foolish, and I could easily
+get her out of the way."
+
+"Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?"
+
+"I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am
+in town. But I shall return by the twelve o'clock train, so as to
+be there in time for your coming."
+
+"And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some
+small business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and
+breakfast?"
+
+"No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have
+confided my trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you
+again this afternoon." She dropped her thick black veil over her
+face and glided from the room.
+
+"And what do you think of it all, Watson?" asked Sherlock Holmes,
+leaning back in his chair.
+
+"It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business."
+
+"Dark enough and sinister enough."
+
+"Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls
+are sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable,
+then her sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her
+mysterious end."
+
+"What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the
+very peculiar words of the dying woman?"
+
+"I cannot think."
+
+"When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of
+a band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor,
+the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has
+an interest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying
+allusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner
+heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of
+those metal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its
+place, I think that there is good ground to think that the
+mystery may be cleared along those lines."
+
+"But what, then, did the gipsies do?"
+
+"I cannot imagine."
+
+"I see many objections to any such theory."
+
+"And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going
+to Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are
+fatal, or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of
+the devil!"
+
+The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that
+our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had
+framed himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar
+mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a
+black top-hat, a long frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters,
+with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand. So tall was he that his
+hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his
+breadth seemed to span it across from side to side. A large face,
+seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and
+marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other
+of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin,
+fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old
+bird of prey.
+
+"Which of you is Holmes?" asked this apparition.
+
+"My name, sir; but you have the advantage of me," said my
+companion quietly.
+
+"I am Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran."
+
+"Indeed, Doctor," said Holmes blandly. "Pray take a seat."
+
+"I will do nothing of the kind. My stepdaughter has been here. I
+have traced her. What has she been saying to you?"
+
+"It is a little cold for the time of the year," said Holmes.
+
+"What has she been saying to you?" screamed the old man
+furiously.
+
+"But I have heard that the crocuses promise well," continued my
+companion imperturbably.
+
+"Ha! You put me off, do you?" said our new visitor, taking a step
+forward and shaking his hunting-crop. "I know you, you scoundrel!
+I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler."
+
+My friend smiled.
+
+"Holmes, the busybody!"
+
+His smile broadened.
+
+"Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!"
+
+Holmes chuckled heartily. "Your conversation is most
+entertaining," said he. "When you go out close the door, for
+there is a decided draught."
+
+"I will go when I have said my say. Don't you dare to meddle with
+my affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her!
+I am a dangerous man to fall foul of! See here." He stepped
+swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with
+his huge brown hands.
+
+"See that you keep yourself out of my grip," he snarled, and
+hurling the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the
+room.
+
+"He seems a very amiable person," said Holmes, laughing. "I am
+not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him
+that my grip was not much more feeble than his own." As he spoke
+he picked up the steel poker and, with a sudden effort,
+straightened it out again.
+
+"Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official
+detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation,
+however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer
+from her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. And now,
+Watson, we shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk
+down to Doctors' Commons, where I hope to get some data which may
+help us in this matter."
+
+
+It was nearly one o'clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his
+excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled
+over with notes and figures.
+
+"I have seen the will of the deceased wife," said he. "To
+determine its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the
+present prices of the investments with which it is concerned. The
+total income, which at the time of the wife's death was little
+short of 1100 pounds, is now, through the fall in agricultural
+prices, not more than 750 pounds. Each daughter can claim an
+income of 250 pounds, in case of marriage. It is evident,
+therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have
+had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to
+a very serious extent. My morning's work has not been wasted,
+since it has proved that he has the very strongest motives for
+standing in the way of anything of the sort. And now, Watson,
+this is too serious for dawdling, especially as the old man is
+aware that we are interesting ourselves in his affairs; so if you
+are ready, we shall call a cab and drive to Waterloo. I should be
+very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your
+pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen
+who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush
+are, I think, all that we need."
+
+At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for
+Leatherhead, where we hired a trap at the station inn and drove
+for four or five miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a
+perfect day, with a bright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the
+heavens. The trees and wayside hedges were just throwing out
+their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant
+smell of the moist earth. To me at least there was a strange
+contrast between the sweet promise of the spring and this
+sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in
+the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over
+his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the
+deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the
+shoulder, and pointed over the meadows.
+
+"Look there!" said he.
+
+A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope,
+thickening into a grove at the highest point. From amid the
+branches there jutted out the grey gables and high roof-tree of a
+very old mansion.
+
+"Stoke Moran?" said he.
+
+"Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott," remarked
+the driver.
+
+"There is some building going on there," said Holmes; "that is
+where we are going."
+
+"There's the village," said the driver, pointing to a cluster of
+roofs some distance to the left; "but if you want to get to the
+house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by
+the foot-path over the fields. There it is, where the lady is
+walking."
+
+"And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner," observed Holmes, shading
+his eyes. "Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest."
+
+We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way
+to Leatherhead.
+
+"I thought it as well," said Holmes as we climbed the stile,
+"that this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or
+on some definite business. It may stop his gossip.
+Good-afternoon, Miss Stoner. You see that we have been as good as
+our word."
+
+Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a
+face which spoke her joy. "I have been waiting so eagerly for
+you," she cried, shaking hands with us warmly. "All has turned
+out splendidly. Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely
+that he will be back before evening."
+
+"We have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance,"
+said Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had
+occurred. Miss Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened.
+
+"Good heavens!" she cried, "he has followed me, then."
+
+"So it appears."
+
+"He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What
+will he say when he returns?"
+
+"He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone
+more cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself
+up from him to-night. If he is violent, we shall take you away to
+your aunt's at Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our
+time, so kindly take us at once to the rooms which we are to
+examine."
+
+The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high
+central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab,
+thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were
+broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly
+caved in, a picture of ruin. The central portion was in little
+better repair, but the right-hand block was comparatively modern,
+and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up
+from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided.
+Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the
+stone-work had been broken into, but there were no signs of any
+workmen at the moment of our visit. Holmes walked slowly up and
+down the ill-trimmed lawn and examined with deep attention the
+outsides of the windows.
+
+"This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep,
+the centre one to your sister's, and the one next to the main
+building to Dr. Roylott's chamber?"
+
+"Exactly so. But I am now sleeping in the middle one."
+
+"Pending the alterations, as I understand. By the way, there does
+not seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end
+wall."
+
+"There were none. I believe that it was an excuse to move me from
+my room."
+
+"Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow
+wing runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There
+are windows in it, of course?"
+
+"Yes, but very small ones. Too narrow for anyone to pass
+through."
+
+"As you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were
+unapproachable from that side. Now, would you have the kindness
+to go into your room and bar your shutters?"
+
+Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination
+through the open window, endeavoured in every way to force the
+shutter open, but without success. There was no slit through
+which a knife could be passed to raise the bar. Then with his
+lens he tested the hinges, but they were of solid iron, built
+firmly into the massive masonry. "Hum!" said he, scratching his
+chin in some perplexity, "my theory certainly presents some
+difficulties. No one could pass these shutters if they were
+bolted. Well, we shall see if the inside throws any light upon
+the matter."
+
+A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which
+the three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third
+chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss
+Stoner was now sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her
+fate. It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a
+gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old country-houses. A
+brown chest of drawers stood in one corner, a narrow
+white-counterpaned bed in another, and a dressing-table on the
+left-hand side of the window. These articles, with two small
+wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save
+for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round and
+the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old
+and discoloured that it may have dated from the original building
+of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat
+silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down,
+taking in every detail of the apartment.
+
+"Where does that bell communicate with?" he asked at last
+pointing to a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the
+tassel actually lying upon the pillow.
+
+"It goes to the housekeeper's room."
+
+"It looks newer than the other things?"
+
+"Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago."
+
+"Your sister asked for it, I suppose?"
+
+"No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we
+wanted for ourselves."
+
+"Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there.
+You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to
+this floor." He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in
+his hand and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining
+minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with
+the wood-work with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he
+walked over to the bed and spent some time in staring at it and
+in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the
+bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug.
+
+"Why, it's a dummy," said he.
+
+"Won't it ring?"
+
+"No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting.
+You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where
+the little opening for the ventilator is."
+
+"How very absurd! I never noticed that before."
+
+"Very strange!" muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. "There are
+one or two very singular points about this room. For example,
+what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another
+room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated
+with the outside air!"
+
+"That is also quite modern," said the lady.
+
+"Done about the same time as the bell-rope?" remarked Holmes.
+
+"Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that
+time."
+
+"They seem to have been of a most interesting character--dummy
+bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. With your
+permission, Miss Stoner, we shall now carry our researches into
+the inner apartment."
+
+Dr. Grimesby Roylott's chamber was larger than that of his
+step-daughter, but was as plainly furnished. A camp-bed, a small
+wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an
+armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a
+round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things
+which met the eye. Holmes walked slowly round and examined each
+and all of them with the keenest interest.
+
+"What's in here?" he asked, tapping the safe.
+
+"My stepfather's business papers."
+
+"Oh! you have seen inside, then?"
+
+"Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of
+papers."
+
+"There isn't a cat in it, for example?"
+
+"No. What a strange idea!"
+
+"Well, look at this!" He took up a small saucer of milk which
+stood on the top of it.
+
+"No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon."
+
+"Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a
+saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I
+daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine." He
+squatted down in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat
+of it with the greatest attention.
+
+"Thank you. That is quite settled," said he, rising and putting
+his lens in his pocket. "Hullo! Here is something interesting!"
+
+The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on
+one corner of the bed. The lash, however, was curled upon itself
+and tied so as to make a loop of whipcord.
+
+"What do you make of that, Watson?"
+
+"It's a common enough lash. But I don't know why it should be
+tied."
+
+"That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it's a wicked world,
+and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst
+of all. I think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and
+with your permission we shall walk out upon the lawn."
+
+I had never seen my friend's face so grim or his brow so dark as
+it was when we turned from the scene of this investigation. We
+had walked several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss
+Stoner nor myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he
+roused himself from his reverie.
+
+"It is very essential, Miss Stoner," said he, "that you should
+absolutely follow my advice in every respect."
+
+"I shall most certainly do so."
+
+"The matter is too serious for any hesitation. Your life may
+depend upon your compliance."
+
+"I assure you that I am in your hands."
+
+"In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in
+your room."
+
+Both Miss Stoner and I gazed at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, it must be so. Let me explain. I believe that that is the
+village inn over there?"
+
+"Yes, that is the Crown."
+
+"Very good. Your windows would be visible from there?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a
+headache, when your stepfather comes back. Then when you hear him
+retire for the night, you must open the shutters of your window,
+undo the hasp, put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then
+withdraw quietly with everything which you are likely to want
+into the room which you used to occupy. I have no doubt that, in
+spite of the repairs, you could manage there for one night."
+
+"Oh, yes, easily."
+
+"The rest you will leave in our hands."
+
+"But what will you do?"
+
+"We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate
+the cause of this noise which has disturbed you."
+
+"I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have already made up your mind,"
+said Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion's sleeve.
+
+"Perhaps I have."
+
+"Then, for pity's sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister's
+death."
+
+"I should prefer to have clearer proofs before I speak."
+
+"You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and
+if she died from some sudden fright."
+
+"No, I do not think so. I think that there was probably some more
+tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if
+Dr. Roylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain.
+Good-bye, and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you,
+you may rest assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers
+that threaten you."
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and
+sitting-room at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and
+from our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and
+of the inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw
+Dr. Grimesby Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside
+the little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some
+slight difficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard
+the hoarse roar of the doctor's voice and saw the fury with which
+he shook his clinched fists at him. The trap drove on, and a few
+minutes later we saw a sudden light spring up among the trees as
+the lamp was lit in one of the sitting-rooms.
+
+"Do you know, Watson," said Holmes as we sat together in the
+gathering darkness, "I have really some scruples as to taking you
+to-night. There is a distinct element of danger."
+
+"Can I be of assistance?"
+
+"Your presence might be invaluable."
+
+"Then I shall certainly come."
+
+"It is very kind of you."
+
+"You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms
+than was visible to me."
+
+"No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more. I imagine
+that you saw all that I did."
+
+"I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose
+that could answer I confess is more than I can imagine."
+
+"You saw the ventilator, too?"
+
+"Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to
+have a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a
+rat could hardly pass through."
+
+"I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to
+Stoke Moran."
+
+"My dear Holmes!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her
+sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that
+suggested at once that there must be a communication between the
+two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been
+remarked upon at the coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator."
+
+"But what harm can there be in that?"
+
+"Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A
+ventilator is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the
+bed dies. Does not that strike you?"
+
+"I cannot as yet see any connection."
+
+"Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened
+like that before?"
+
+"I cannot say that I have."
+
+"The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same
+relative position to the ventilator and to the rope--or so we may
+call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull."
+
+"Holmes," I cried, "I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at.
+We are only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible
+crime."
+
+"Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong
+he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
+Palmer and Pritchard were among the heads of their profession.
+This man strikes even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall
+be able to strike deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough
+before the night is over; for goodness' sake let us have a quiet
+pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more
+cheerful."
+
+
+About nine o'clock the light among the trees was extinguished,
+and all was dark in the direction of the Manor House. Two hours
+passed slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of
+eleven, a single bright light shone out right in front of us.
+
+"That is our signal," said Holmes, springing to his feet; "it
+comes from the middle window."
+
+As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord,
+explaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance,
+and that it was possible that we might spend the night there. A
+moment later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing
+in our faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us
+through the gloom to guide us on our sombre errand.
+
+There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for
+unrepaired breaches gaped in the old park wall. Making our way
+among the trees, we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about
+to enter through the window when out from a clump of laurel
+bushes there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted
+child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs and
+then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness.
+
+"My God!" I whispered; "did you see it?"
+
+Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like
+a vice upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low
+laugh and put his lips to my ear.
+
+"It is a nice household," he murmured. "That is the baboon."
+
+I had forgotten the strange pets which the doctor affected. There
+was a cheetah, too; perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders
+at any moment. I confess that I felt easier in my mind when,
+after following Holmes' example and slipping off my shoes, I
+found myself inside the bedroom. My companion noiselessly closed
+the shutters, moved the lamp onto the table, and cast his eyes
+round the room. All was as we had seen it in the daytime. Then
+creeping up to me and making a trumpet of his hand, he whispered
+into my ear again so gently that it was all that I could do to
+distinguish the words:
+
+"The least sound would be fatal to our plans."
+
+I nodded to show that I had heard.
+
+"We must sit without light. He would see it through the
+ventilator."
+
+I nodded again.
+
+"Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your
+pistol ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of
+the bed, and you in that chair."
+
+I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table.
+
+Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon
+the bed beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the
+stump of a candle. Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left
+in darkness.
+
+How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a
+sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my
+companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same
+state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut
+off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness.
+
+From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at
+our very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that
+the cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the
+deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of
+an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and
+one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for
+whatever might befall.
+
+Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the
+direction of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was
+succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal.
+Someone in the next room had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle
+sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the
+smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears.
+Then suddenly another sound became audible--a very gentle,
+soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping
+continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it, Holmes
+sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with
+his cane at the bell-pull.
+
+"You see it, Watson?" he yelled. "You see it?"
+
+But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I
+heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my
+weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which
+my friend lashed so savagely. I could, however, see that his face
+was deadly pale and filled with horror and loathing. He had
+ceased to strike and was gazing up at the ventilator when
+suddenly there broke from the silence of the night the most
+horrible cry to which I have ever listened. It swelled up louder
+and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled
+in the one dreadful shriek. They say that away down in the
+village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the
+sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts, and I
+stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it
+had died away into the silence from which it rose.
+
+"What can it mean?" I gasped.
+
+"It means that it is all over," Holmes answered. "And perhaps,
+after all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will
+enter Dr. Roylott's room."
+
+With a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the
+corridor. Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply
+from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his
+heels, with the cocked pistol in my hand.
+
+It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a
+dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant
+beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar.
+Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott
+clad in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding
+beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers.
+Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we
+had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upward and his
+eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the
+ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with
+brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his
+head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
+
+"The band! the speckled band!" whispered Holmes.
+
+I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began
+to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat
+diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.
+
+"It is a swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in
+India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence
+does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls
+into the pit which he digs for another. Let us thrust this
+creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to
+some place of shelter and let the county police know what has
+happened."
+
+As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man's lap,
+and throwing the noose round the reptile's neck he drew it from
+its horrid perch and, carrying it at arm's length, threw it into
+the iron safe, which he closed upon it.
+
+Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of
+Stoke Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a
+narrative which has already run to too great a length by telling
+how we broke the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed
+her by the morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow,
+of how the slow process of official inquiry came to the
+conclusion that the doctor met his fate while indiscreetly
+playing with a dangerous pet. The little which I had yet to learn
+of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled back
+next day.
+
+"I had," said he, "come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which
+shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from
+insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of
+the word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to
+explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of
+by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an
+entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly
+reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me
+that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not
+come either from the window or the door. My attention was
+speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this
+ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The
+discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to
+the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was
+there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and
+coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me,
+and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was
+furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I
+was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of
+poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical
+test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless
+man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such
+a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be
+an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could
+distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where
+the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the
+whistle. Of course he must recall the snake before the morning
+light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by
+the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned.
+He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he
+thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the
+rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the
+occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but
+sooner or later she must fall a victim.
+
+"I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his
+room. An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in
+the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary
+in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the
+safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to
+finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic
+clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather
+hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant.
+Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in
+order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the creature hiss
+as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the
+light and attacked it."
+
+"With the result of driving it through the ventilator."
+
+"And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master
+at the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and
+roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person
+it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr.
+Grimesby Roylott's death, and I cannot say that it is likely to
+weigh very heavily upon my conscience."
+
+
+
+IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER'S THUMB
+
+Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy,
+there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his
+notice--that of Mr. Hatherley's thumb, and that of Colonel
+Warburton's madness. Of these the latter may have afforded a
+finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was
+so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that
+it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it
+gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of
+reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results. The story
+has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but,
+like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when
+set forth en bloc in a single half-column of print than when the
+facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery clears
+gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads
+on to the complete truth. At the time the circumstances made a
+deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly
+served to weaken the effect.
+
+It was in the summer of '89, not long after my marriage, that the
+events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned
+to civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker
+Street rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally
+even persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come
+and visit us. My practice had steadily increased, and as I
+happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington
+Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of
+these, whom I had cured of a painful and lingering disease, was
+never weary of advertising my virtues and of endeavouring to send
+me on every sufferer over whom he might have any influence.
+
+One morning, at a little before seven o'clock, I was awakened by
+the maid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come
+from Paddington and were waiting in the consulting-room. I
+dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases
+were seldom trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my
+old ally, the guard, came out of the room and closed the door
+tightly behind him.
+
+"I've got him here," he whispered, jerking his thumb over his
+shoulder; "he's all right."
+
+"What is it, then?" I asked, for his manner suggested that it was
+some strange creature which he had caged up in my room.
+
+"It's a new patient," he whispered. "I thought I'd bring him
+round myself; then he couldn't slip away. There he is, all safe
+and sound. I must go now, Doctor; I have my dooties, just the
+same as you." And off he went, this trusty tout, without even
+giving me time to thank him.
+
+I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the
+table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a
+soft cloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of
+his hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all
+over with bloodstains. He was young, not more than
+five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face; but
+he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression of a man who
+was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took all his
+strength of mind to control.
+
+"I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor," said he, "but I
+have had a very serious accident during the night. I came in by
+train this morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I
+might find a doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me
+here. I gave the maid a card, but I see that she has left it upon
+the side-table."
+
+I took it up and glanced at it. "Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic
+engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor)." That was the name,
+style, and abode of my morning visitor. "I regret that I have
+kept you waiting," said I, sitting down in my library-chair. "You
+are fresh from a night journey, I understand, which is in itself
+a monotonous occupation."
+
+"Oh, my night could not be called monotonous," said he, and
+laughed. He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note,
+leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical
+instincts rose up against that laugh.
+
+"Stop it!" I cried; "pull yourself together!" and I poured out
+some water from a caraffe.
+
+It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical
+outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis
+is over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very
+weary and pale-looking.
+
+"I have been making a fool of myself," he gasped.
+
+"Not at all. Drink this." I dashed some brandy into the water,
+and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.
+
+"That's better!" said he. "And now, Doctor, perhaps you would
+kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb
+used to be."
+
+He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even
+my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four
+protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the
+thumb should have been. It had been hacked or torn right out from
+the roots.
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried, "this is a terrible injury. It must have
+bled considerably."
+
+"Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must
+have been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that
+it was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very
+tightly round the wrist and braced it up with a twig."
+
+"Excellent! You should have been a surgeon."
+
+"It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own
+province."
+
+"This has been done," said I, examining the wound, "by a very
+heavy and sharp instrument."
+
+"A thing like a cleaver," said he.
+
+"An accident, I presume?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"What! a murderous attack?"
+
+"Very murderous indeed."
+
+"You horrify me."
+
+I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered
+it over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back
+without wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time.
+
+"How is that?" I asked when I had finished.
+
+"Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man.
+I was very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through."
+
+"Perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. It is evidently
+trying to your nerves."
+
+"Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police;
+but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing
+evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they
+believed my statement, for it is a very extraordinary one, and I
+have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up; and,
+even if they believe me, the clues which I can give them are so
+vague that it is a question whether justice will be done."
+
+"Ha!" cried I, "if it is anything in the nature of a problem
+which you desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you
+to come to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, before you go to the
+official police."
+
+"Oh, I have heard of that fellow," answered my visitor, "and I
+should be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of
+course I must use the official police as well. Would you give me
+an introduction to him?"
+
+"I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself."
+
+"I should be immensely obliged to you."
+
+"We'll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to
+have a little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it?"
+
+"Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story."
+
+"Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an
+instant." I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my
+wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my
+new acquaintance to Baker Street.
+
+Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his
+sitting-room in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of The
+Times and smoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed
+of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day
+before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the
+mantelpiece. He received us in his quietly genial fashion,
+ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal.
+When it was concluded he settled our new acquaintance upon the
+sofa, placed a pillow beneath his head, and laid a glass of
+brandy and water within his reach.
+
+"It is easy to see that your experience has been no common one,
+Mr. Hatherley," said he. "Pray, lie down there and make yourself
+absolutely at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are
+tired and keep up your strength with a little stimulant."
+
+"Thank you," said my patient, "but I have felt another man since
+the doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has
+completed the cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable
+time as possible, so I shall start at once upon my peculiar
+experiences."
+
+Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded
+expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat
+opposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story
+which our visitor detailed to us.
+
+"You must know," said he, "that I am an orphan and a bachelor,
+residing alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a
+hydraulic engineer, and I have had considerable experience of my
+work during the seven years that I was apprenticed to Venner &
+Matheson, the well-known firm, of Greenwich. Two years ago,
+having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of
+money through my poor father's death, I determined to start in
+business for myself and took professional chambers in Victoria
+Street.
+
+"I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in
+business a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so.
+During two years I have had three consultations and one small
+job, and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought
+me. My gross takings amount to 27 pounds 10s. Every day, from
+nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, I waited in my
+little den, until at last my heart began to sink, and I came to
+believe that I should never have any practice at all.
+
+"Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the
+office, my clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who
+wished to see me upon business. He brought up a card, too, with
+the name of 'Colonel Lysander Stark' engraved upon it. Close at
+his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle
+size, but of an exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have
+ever seen so thin a man. His whole face sharpened away into nose
+and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over
+his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his
+natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his
+step brisk, and his bearing assured. He was plainly but neatly
+dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than
+thirty.
+
+"'Mr. Hatherley?' said he, with something of a German accent.
+'You have been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man
+who is not only proficient in his profession but is also discreet
+and capable of preserving a secret.'
+
+"I bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an
+address. 'May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?'
+
+"'Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just
+at this moment. I have it from the same source that you are both
+an orphan and a bachelor and are residing alone in London.'
+
+"'That is quite correct,' I answered; 'but you will excuse me if
+I say that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional
+qualifications. I understand that it was on a professional matter
+that you wished to speak to me?'
+
+"'Undoubtedly so. But you will find that all I say is really to
+the point. I have a professional commission for you, but absolute
+secrecy is quite essential--absolute secrecy, you understand, and
+of course we may expect that more from a man who is alone than
+from one who lives in the bosom of his family.'
+
+"'If I promise to keep a secret,' said I, 'you may absolutely
+depend upon my doing so.'
+
+"He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I
+had never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye.
+
+"'Do you promise, then?' said he at last.
+
+"'Yes, I promise.'
+
+"'Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No
+reference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?'
+
+"'I have already given you my word.'
+
+"'Very good.' He suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning
+across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was
+empty.
+
+"'That's all right,' said he, coming back. 'I know that clerks are
+sometimes curious as to their master's affairs. Now we can talk
+in safety.' He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to
+stare at me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look.
+
+"A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun
+to rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man.
+Even my dread of losing a client could not restrain me from
+showing my impatience.
+
+"'I beg that you will state your business, sir,' said I; 'my time
+is of value.' Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the
+words came to my lips.
+
+"'How would fifty guineas for a night's work suit you?' he asked.
+
+"'Most admirably.'
+
+"'I say a night's work, but an hour's would be nearer the mark. I
+simply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which
+has got out of gear. If you show us what is wrong we shall soon
+set it right ourselves. What do you think of such a commission as
+that?'
+
+"'The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.'
+
+"'Precisely so. We shall want you to come to-night by the last
+train.'
+
+"'Where to?'
+
+"'To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders
+of Oxfordshire, and within seven miles of Reading. There is a
+train from Paddington which would bring you there at about
+11:15.'
+
+"'Very good.'
+
+"'I shall come down in a carriage to meet you.'
+
+"'There is a drive, then?'
+
+"'Yes, our little place is quite out in the country. It is a good
+seven miles from Eyford Station.'
+
+"'Then we can hardly get there before midnight. I suppose there
+would be no chance of a train back. I should be compelled to stop
+the night.'
+
+"'Yes, we could easily give you a shake-down.'
+
+"'That is very awkward. Could I not come at some more convenient
+hour?'
+
+"'We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to
+recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a
+young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the
+very heads of your profession. Still, of course, if you would
+like to draw out of the business, there is plenty of time to do
+so.'
+
+"I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they
+would be to me. 'Not at all,' said I, 'I shall be very happy to
+accommodate myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to
+understand a little more clearly what it is that you wish me to
+do.'
+
+"'Quite so. It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which
+we have exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. I
+have no wish to commit you to anything without your having it all
+laid before you. I suppose that we are absolutely safe from
+eavesdroppers?'
+
+"'Entirely.'
+
+"'Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that
+fuller's-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found
+in one or two places in England?'
+
+"'I have heard so.'
+
+"'Some little time ago I bought a small place--a very small
+place--within ten miles of Reading. I was fortunate enough to
+discover that there was a deposit of fuller's-earth in one of my
+fields. On examining it, however, I found that this deposit was a
+comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two
+very much larger ones upon the right and left--both of them,
+however, in the grounds of my neighbours. These good people were
+absolutely ignorant that their land contained that which was
+quite as valuable as a gold-mine. Naturally, it was to my
+interest to buy their land before they discovered its true value,
+but unfortunately I had no capital by which I could do this. I
+took a few of my friends into the secret, however, and they
+suggested that we should quietly and secretly work our own little
+deposit and that in this way we should earn the money which would
+enable us to buy the neighbouring fields. This we have now been
+doing for some time, and in order to help us in our operations we
+erected a hydraulic press. This press, as I have already
+explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon the
+subject. We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it
+once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our
+little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts
+came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these
+fields and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you
+promise me that you will not tell a human being that you are
+going to Eyford to-night. I hope that I make it all plain?'
+
+"'I quite follow you,' said I. 'The only point which I could not
+quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press
+in excavating fuller's-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out
+like gravel from a pit.'
+
+"'Ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. We compress
+the earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing
+what they are. But that is a mere detail. I have taken you fully
+into my confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I
+trust you.' He rose as he spoke. 'I shall expect you, then, at
+Eyford at 11:15.'
+
+"'I shall certainly be there.'
+
+"'And not a word to a soul.' He looked at me with a last long,
+questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank
+grasp, he hurried from the room.
+
+"Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very
+much astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission
+which had been intrusted to me. On the one hand, of course, I was
+glad, for the fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked
+had I set a price upon my own services, and it was possible that
+this order might lead to other ones. On the other hand, the face
+and manner of my patron had made an unpleasant impression upon
+me, and I could not think that his explanation of the
+fuller's-earth was sufficient to explain the necessity for my
+coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I should tell
+anyone of my errand. However, I threw all fears to the winds, ate
+a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off, having
+obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue.
+
+"At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station.
+However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I
+reached the little dim-lit station after eleven o'clock. I was the
+only passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the
+platform save a single sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed
+out through the wicket gate, however, I found my acquaintance of
+the morning waiting in the shadow upon the other side. Without a
+word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door
+of which was standing open. He drew up the windows on either
+side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we went as fast as the
+horse could go."
+
+"One horse?" interjected Holmes.
+
+"Yes, only one."
+
+"Did you observe the colour?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it by the side-lights when I was stepping into the
+carriage. It was a chestnut."
+
+"Tired-looking or fresh?"
+
+"Oh, fresh and glossy."
+
+"Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue
+your most interesting statement."
+
+"Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel
+Lysander Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I
+should think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the
+time that we took, that it must have been nearer twelve. He sat
+at my side in silence all the time, and I was aware, more than
+once when I glanced in his direction, that he was looking at me
+with great intensity. The country roads seem to be not very good
+in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly. I
+tried to look out of the windows to see something of where we
+were, but they were made of frosted glass, and I could make out
+nothing save the occasional bright blur of a passing light. Now
+and then I hazarded some remark to break the monotony of the
+journey, but the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the
+conversation soon flagged. At last, however, the bumping of the
+road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a gravel-drive,
+and the carriage came to a stand. Colonel Lysander Stark sprang
+out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly into a porch
+which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of
+the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the
+most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant that
+I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us,
+and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage
+drove away.
+
+"It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled
+about looking for matches and muttering under his breath.
+Suddenly a door opened at the other end of the passage, and a
+long, golden bar of light shot out in our direction. It grew
+broader, and a woman appeared with a lamp in her hand, which she
+held above her head, pushing her face forward and peering at us.
+I could see that she was pretty, and from the gloss with which
+the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich
+material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as
+though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a
+gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly
+fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered
+something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room
+from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the
+lamp in his hand.
+
+"'Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a
+few minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a
+quiet, little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the
+centre, on which several German books were scattered. Colonel
+Stark laid down the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the
+door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, and
+vanished into the darkness.
+
+"I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my
+ignorance of German I could see that two of them were treatises
+on science, the others being volumes of poetry. Then I walked
+across to the window, hoping that I might catch some glimpse of
+the country-side, but an oak shutter, heavily barred, was folded
+across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old
+clock ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise
+everything was deadly still. A vague feeling of uneasiness began
+to steal over me. Who were these German people, and what were
+they doing living in this strange, out-of-the-way place? And
+where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was
+all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no
+idea. For that matter, Reading, and possibly other large towns,
+were within that radius, so the place might not be so secluded,
+after all. Yet it was quite certain, from the absolute stillness,
+that we were in the country. I paced up and down the room,
+humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling
+that I was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee.
+
+"Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the
+utter stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman
+was standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind
+her, the yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and
+beautiful face. I could see at a glance that she was sick with
+fear, and the sight sent a chill to my own heart. She held up one
+shaking finger to warn me to be silent, and she shot a few
+whispered words of broken English at me, her eyes glancing back,
+like those of a frightened horse, into the gloom behind her.
+
+"'I would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to
+speak calmly; 'I would go. I should not stay here. There is no
+good for you to do.'
+
+"'But, madam,' said I, 'I have not yet done what I came for. I
+cannot possibly leave until I have seen the machine.'
+
+"'It is not worth your while to wait,' she went on. 'You can pass
+through the door; no one hinders.' And then, seeing that I smiled
+and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and
+made a step forward, with her hands wrung together. 'For the love
+of Heaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too
+late!'
+
+"But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to
+engage in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I
+thought of my fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of
+the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me. Was it all to
+go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried
+out my commission, and without the payment which was my due? This
+woman might, for all I knew, be a monomaniac. With a stout
+bearing, therefore, though her manner had shaken me more than I
+cared to confess, I still shook my head and declared my intention
+of remaining where I was. She was about to renew her entreaties
+when a door slammed overhead, and the sound of several footsteps
+was heard upon the stairs. She listened for an instant, threw up
+her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and
+as noiselessly as she had come.
+
+"The newcomers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short thick man
+with a chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double
+chin, who was introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson.
+
+"'This is my secretary and manager,' said the colonel. 'By the
+way, I was under the impression that I left this door shut just
+now. I fear that you have felt the draught.'
+
+"'On the contrary,' said I, 'I opened the door myself because I
+felt the room to be a little close.'
+
+"He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'Perhaps we had
+better proceed to business, then,' said he. 'Mr. Ferguson and I
+will take you up to see the machine.'
+
+"'I had better put my hat on, I suppose.'
+
+"'Oh, no, it is in the house.'
+
+"'What, you dig fuller's-earth in the house?'
+
+"'No, no. This is only where we compress it. But never mind that.
+All we wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us
+know what is wrong with it.'
+
+"We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the
+fat manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house,
+with corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little
+low doors, the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the
+generations who had crossed them. There were no carpets and no
+signs of any furniture above the ground floor, while the plaster
+was peeling off the walls, and the damp was breaking through in
+green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put on as unconcerned an
+air as possible, but I had not forgotten the warnings of the
+lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen eye upon
+my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent
+man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at
+least a fellow-countryman.
+
+"Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which
+he unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three
+of us could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside,
+and the colonel ushered me in.
+
+"'We are now,' said he, 'actually within the hydraulic press, and
+it would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were
+to turn it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the
+end of the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of
+many tons upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns
+of water outside which receive the force, and which transmit and
+multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine
+goes readily enough, but there is some stiffness in the working
+of it, and it has lost a little of its force. Perhaps you will
+have the goodness to look it over and to show us how we can set
+it right.'
+
+"I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very
+thoroughly. It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of
+exercising enormous pressure. When I passed outside, however, and
+pressed down the levers which controlled it, I knew at once by
+the whishing sound that there was a slight leakage, which allowed
+a regurgitation of water through one of the side cylinders. An
+examination showed that one of the india-rubber bands which was
+round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to
+fill the socket along which it worked. This was clearly the cause
+of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my companions, who
+followed my remarks very carefully and asked several practical
+questions as to how they should proceed to set it right. When I
+had made it clear to them, I returned to the main chamber of the
+machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity.
+It was obvious at a glance that the story of the fuller's-earth
+was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose
+that so powerful an engine could be designed for so inadequate a
+purpose. The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted of a
+large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a
+crust of metallic deposit all over it. I had stooped and was
+scraping at this to see exactly what it was when I heard a
+muttered exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of the
+colonel looking down at me.
+
+"'What are you doing there?' he asked.
+
+"I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as
+that which he had told me. 'I was admiring your fuller's-earth,'
+said I; 'I think that I should be better able to advise you as to
+your machine if I knew what the exact purpose was for which it
+was used.'
+
+"The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of
+my speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in
+his grey eyes.
+
+"'Very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' He
+took a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key
+in the lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it
+was quite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and
+shoves. 'Hullo!' I yelled. 'Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!'
+
+"And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my
+heart into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish
+of the leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp
+still stood upon the floor where I had placed it when examining
+the trough. By its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming
+down upon me, slowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than
+myself, with a force which must within a minute grind me to a
+shapeless pulp. I threw myself, screaming, against the door, and
+dragged with my nails at the lock. I implored the colonel to let
+me out, but the remorseless clanking of the levers drowned my
+cries. The ceiling was only a foot or two above my head, and with
+my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface. Then it
+flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend
+very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my
+face the weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to
+think of that dreadful snap. Easier the other way, perhaps; and
+yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly black
+shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand
+erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope
+back to my heart.
+
+"I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the
+walls were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw
+a thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which
+broadened and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For
+an instant I could hardly believe that here was indeed a door
+which led away from death. The next instant I threw myself
+through, and lay half-fainting upon the other side. The panel had
+closed again behind me, but the crash of the lamp, and a few
+moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal, told me
+how narrow had been my escape.
+
+"I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and
+I found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor,
+while a woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand,
+while she held a candle in her right. It was the same good friend
+whose warning I had so foolishly rejected.
+
+"'Come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'They will be here in a
+moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste
+the so-precious time, but come!'
+
+"This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to
+my feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding
+stair. The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we
+reached it we heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of
+two voices, one answering the other from the floor on which  we
+were and from the one beneath. My guide stopped and looked about
+her like one  who is at her wit's end. Then she threw open a door
+which led into a bedroom, through the window of which the moon
+was shining brightly.
+
+"'It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be
+that you can jump it.'
+
+"As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the
+passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark
+rushing forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a
+butcher's cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom,
+flung open the window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and
+wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be
+more than thirty feet down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I
+hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between
+my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me. If she were ill-used,
+then at any risks I was determined to go back to her assistance.
+The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before he was at
+the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw her arms round
+him and tried to hold him back.
+
+"'Fritz! Fritz!' she cried in English, 'remember your promise
+after the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be
+silent! Oh, he will be silent!'
+
+"'You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from
+her. 'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me
+pass, I say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the
+window, cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and
+was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was
+conscious of a dull pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the
+garden below.
+
+"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and
+rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I
+understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly,
+however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me.
+I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and
+then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and
+that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my
+handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my
+ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the
+rose-bushes.
+
+"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been
+a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was
+breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with
+dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded
+thumb. The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the
+particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with
+the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But
+to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house
+nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the
+hedge close by the highroad, and just a little lower down was a
+long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the
+very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were
+it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed
+during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.
+
+"Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning
+train. There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The
+same porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I
+arrived. I inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel
+Lysander Stark. The name was strange to him. Had he observed a
+carriage the night before waiting for me? No, he had not. Was
+there a police-station anywhere near? There was one about three
+miles off.
+
+"It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined
+to wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the
+police. It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first
+to have my wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to
+bring me along here. I put the case into your hands and shall do
+exactly what you advise."
+
+We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to
+this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down
+from the shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he
+placed his cuttings.
+
+"Here is an advertisement which will interest you," said he. "It
+appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this:
+'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged
+twenty-six, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten
+o'clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was
+dressed in,' etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that
+the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the
+girl said."
+
+"Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and
+desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should
+stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out
+pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well,
+every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall
+go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for
+Eyford."
+
+Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train
+together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village.
+There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector
+Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself.
+Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the
+seat and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford
+for its centre.
+
+"There you are," said he. "That circle is drawn at a radius of
+ten miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere
+near that line. You said ten miles, I think, sir."
+
+"It was an hour's good drive."
+
+"And you think that they brought you back all that way when you
+were unconscious?"
+
+"They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having
+been lifted and conveyed somewhere."
+
+"What I cannot understand," said I, "is why they should have
+spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden.
+Perhaps the villain was softened by the woman's entreaties."
+
+"I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face
+in my life."
+
+"Oh, we shall soon clear up all that," said Bradstreet. "Well, I
+have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon
+it the folk that we are in search of are to be found."
+
+"I think I could lay my finger on it," said Holmes quietly.
+
+"Really, now!" cried the inspector, "you have formed your
+opinion! Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is
+south, for the country is more deserted there."
+
+"And I say east," said my patient.
+
+"I am for west," remarked the plain-clothes man. "There are
+several quiet little villages up there."
+
+"And I am for north," said I, "because there are no hills there,
+and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up
+any."
+
+"Come," cried the inspector, laughing; "it's a very pretty
+diversity of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do
+you give your casting vote to?"
+
+"You are all wrong."
+
+"But we can't all be."
+
+"Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the
+centre of the circle. "This is where we shall find them."
+
+"But the twelve-mile drive?" gasped Hatherley.
+
+"Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the
+horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that
+if it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?"
+
+"Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet
+thoughtfully. "Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature
+of this gang."
+
+"None at all," said Holmes. "They are coiners on a large scale,
+and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the
+place of silver."
+
+"We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work,"
+said the inspector. "They have been turning out half-crowns by
+the thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could
+get no farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that
+showed that they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this
+lucky chance, I think that we have got them right enough."
+
+But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not
+destined to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into
+Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed
+up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and
+hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape.
+
+"A house on fire?" asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off
+again on its way.
+
+"Yes, sir!" said the station-master.
+
+"When did it break out?"
+
+"I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse,
+and the whole place is in a blaze."
+
+"Whose house is it?"
+
+"Dr. Becher's."
+
+"Tell me," broke in the engineer, "is Dr. Becher a German, very
+thin, with a long, sharp nose?"
+
+The station-master laughed heartily. "No, sir, Dr. Becher is an
+Englishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a
+better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him,
+a patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as
+if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm."
+
+The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all
+hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low
+hill, and there was a great widespread whitewashed building in
+front of us, spouting fire at every chink and window, while in
+the garden in front three fire-engines were vainly striving to
+keep the flames under.
+
+"That's it!" cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. "There is
+the gravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where I lay. That
+second window is the one that I jumped from."
+
+"Well, at least," said Holmes, "you have had your revenge upon
+them. There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which,
+when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls,
+though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to
+observe it at the time. Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for
+your friends of last night, though I very much fear that they are
+a good hundred miles off by now."
+
+And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this
+no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the
+sinister German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a
+peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very
+bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but
+there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes'
+ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clue as to their
+whereabouts.
+
+The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements
+which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a
+newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor.
+About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and
+they subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in,
+and the whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save
+some twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of
+the machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so
+dearly. Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored
+in an out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have
+explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have been
+already referred to.
+
+How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to
+the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained
+forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a
+very plain tale. He had evidently been carried down by two
+persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other
+unusually large ones. On the whole, it was most probable that the
+silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his
+companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out
+of the way of danger.
+
+"Well," said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return
+once more to London, "it has been a pretty business for me! I
+have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what
+have I gained?"
+
+"Experience," said Holmes, laughing. "Indirectly it may be of
+value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the
+reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your
+existence."
+
+
+
+X. THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR
+
+The Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have
+long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles
+in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have
+eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the
+gossips away from this four-year-old drama. As I have reason to
+believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to
+the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a
+considerable share in clearing the matter up, I feel that no
+memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of
+this remarkable episode.
+
+It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I
+was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came
+home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table
+waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather
+had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and
+the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as
+a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence.
+With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had
+surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last,
+saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and
+lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the
+envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend's
+noble correspondent could be.
+
+"Here is a very fashionable epistle," I remarked as he entered.
+"Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a
+fish-monger and a tide-waiter."
+
+"Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety," he
+answered, smiling, "and the humbler are usually the more
+interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social
+summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie."
+
+He broke the seal and glanced over the contents.
+
+"Oh, come, it may prove to be something of interest, after all."
+
+"Not social, then?"
+
+"No, distinctly professional."
+
+"And from a noble client?"
+
+"One of the highest in England."
+
+"My dear fellow, I congratulate you."
+
+"I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my
+client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his
+case. It is just possible, however, that that also may not be
+wanting in this new investigation. You have been reading the
+papers diligently of late, have you not?"
+
+"It looks like it," said I ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in
+the corner. "I have had nothing else to do."
+
+"It is fortunate, for you will perhaps be able to post me up. I
+read nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The
+latter is always instructive. But if you have followed recent
+events so closely you must have read about Lord St. Simon and his
+wedding?"
+
+"Oh, yes, with the deepest interest."
+
+"That is well. The letter which I hold in my hand is from Lord
+St. Simon. I will read it to you, and in return you must turn
+over these papers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter.
+This is what he says:
+
+"'MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:--Lord Backwater tells me that I
+may place implicit reliance upon your judgment and discretion. I
+have determined, therefore, to call upon you and to consult you
+in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in
+connection with my wedding. Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, is
+acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees no
+objection to your co-operation, and that he even thinks that
+it might be of some assistance. I will call at four o'clock in
+the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at that
+time, I hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is of
+paramount importance. Yours faithfully, ST. SIMON.'
+
+"It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen,
+and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink
+upon the outer side of his right little finger," remarked Holmes
+as he folded up the epistle.
+
+"He says four o'clock. It is three now. He will be here in an
+hour."
+
+"Then I have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon
+the subject. Turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in
+their order of time, while I take a glance as to who our client
+is." He picked a red-covered volume from a line of books of
+reference beside the mantelpiece. "Here he is," said he, sitting
+down and flattening it out upon his knee. "'Lord Robert Walsingham
+de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral.' Hum! 'Arms:
+Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable. Born in 1846.'
+He's forty-one years of age, which is mature for marriage. Was
+Under-Secretary for the colonies in a late administration. The
+Duke, his father, was at one time Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on
+the distaff side. Ha! Well, there is nothing very instructive in
+all this. I think that I must turn to you Watson, for something
+more solid."
+
+"I have very little difficulty in finding what I want," said I,
+"for the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as
+remarkable. I feared to refer them to you, however, as I knew
+that you had an inquiry on hand and that you disliked the
+intrusion of other matters."
+
+"Oh, you mean the little problem of the Grosvenor Square
+furniture van. That is quite cleared up now--though, indeed, it
+was obvious from the first. Pray give me the results of your
+newspaper selections."
+
+"Here is the first notice which I can find. It is in the personal
+column of the Morning Post, and dates, as you see, some weeks
+back: 'A marriage has been arranged,' it says, 'and will, if
+rumour is correct, very shortly take place, between Lord Robert
+St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty
+Doran, the only daughter of Aloysius Doran. Esq., of San
+Francisco, Cal., U.S.A.' That is all."
+
+"Terse and to the point," remarked Holmes, stretching his long,
+thin legs towards the fire.
+
+"There was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society
+papers of the same week. Ah, here it is: 'There will soon be a
+call for protection in the marriage market, for the present
+free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against our home
+product. One by one the management of the noble houses of Great
+Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from across
+the Atlantic. An important addition has been made during the last
+week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by
+these charming invaders. Lord St. Simon, who has shown himself
+for over twenty years proof against the little god's arrows, has
+now definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Hatty
+Doran, the fascinating daughter of a California millionaire. Miss
+Doran, whose graceful figure and striking face attracted much
+attention at the Westbury House festivities, is an only child,
+and it is currently reported that her dowry will run to
+considerably over the six figures, with expectancies for the
+future. As it is an open secret that the Duke of Balmoral has
+been compelled to sell his pictures within the last few years,
+and as Lord St. Simon has no property of his own save the small
+estate of Birchmoor, it is obvious that the Californian heiress
+is not the only gainer by an alliance which will enable her to
+make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to a
+British peeress.'"
+
+"Anything else?" asked Holmes, yawning.
+
+"Oh, yes; plenty. Then there is another note in the Morning Post
+to say that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it
+would be at St. George's, Hanover Square, that only half a dozen
+intimate friends would be invited, and that the party would
+return to the furnished house at Lancaster Gate which has been
+taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran. Two days later--that is, on
+Wednesday last--there is a curt announcement that the wedding had
+taken place, and that the honeymoon would be passed at Lord
+Backwater's place, near Petersfield. Those are all the notices
+which appeared before the disappearance of the bride."
+
+"Before the what?" asked Holmes with a start.
+
+"The vanishing of the lady."
+
+"When did she vanish, then?"
+
+"At the wedding breakfast."
+
+"Indeed. This is more interesting than it promised to be; quite
+dramatic, in fact."
+
+"Yes; it struck me as being a little out of the common."
+
+"They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during
+the honeymoon; but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt
+as this. Pray let me have the details."
+
+"I warn you that they are very incomplete."
+
+"Perhaps we may make them less so."
+
+"Such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a
+morning paper of yesterday, which I will read to you. It is
+headed, 'Singular Occurrence at a Fashionable Wedding':
+
+"'The family of Lord Robert St. Simon has been thrown into the
+greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which
+have taken place in connection with his wedding. The ceremony, as
+shortly announced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the
+previous morning; but it is only now that it has been possible to
+confirm the strange rumours which have been so persistently
+floating about. In spite of the attempts of the friends to hush
+the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it
+that no good purpose can be served by affecting to disregard what
+is a common subject for conversation.
+
+"'The ceremony, which was performed at St. George's, Hanover
+Square, was a very quiet one, no one being present save the
+father of the bride, Mr. Aloysius Doran, the Duchess of Balmoral,
+Lord Backwater, Lord Eustace and Lady Clara St. Simon (the
+younger brother and sister of the bridegroom), and Lady Alicia
+Whittington. The whole party proceeded afterwards to the house of
+Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been
+prepared. It appears that some little trouble was caused by a
+woman, whose name has not been ascertained, who endeavoured to
+force her way into the house after the bridal party, alleging
+that she had some claim upon Lord St. Simon. It was only after a
+painful and prolonged scene that she was ejected by the butler
+and the footman. The bride, who had fortunately entered the house
+before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast
+with the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition and
+retired to her room. Her prolonged absence having caused some
+comment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that
+she had only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an
+ulster and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. One of the
+footmen declared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus
+apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress,
+believing her to be with the company. On ascertaining that his
+daughter had disappeared, Mr. Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with
+the bridegroom, instantly put themselves in communication with
+the police, and very energetic inquiries are being made, which
+will probably result in a speedy clearing up of this very
+singular business. Up to a late hour last night, however, nothing
+had transpired as to the whereabouts of the missing lady. There
+are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is said that the
+police have caused the arrest of the woman who had caused the
+original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or some
+other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange
+disappearance of the bride.'"
+
+"And is that all?"
+
+"Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is
+a suggestive one."
+
+"And it is--"
+
+"That Miss Flora Millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance,
+has actually been arrested. It appears that she was formerly a
+danseuse at the Allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom
+for some years. There are no further particulars, and the whole
+case is in your hands now--so far as it has been set forth in the
+public press."
+
+"And an exceedingly interesting case it appears to be. I would
+not have missed it for worlds. But there is a ring at the bell,
+Watson, and as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I
+have no doubt that this will prove to be our noble client. Do not
+dream of going, Watson, for I very much prefer having a witness,
+if only as a check to my own memory."
+
+"Lord Robert St. Simon," announced our page-boy, throwing open
+the door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face,
+high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about
+the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose
+pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. His
+manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue
+impression of age, for he had a slight forward stoop and a little
+bend of the knees as he walked. His hair, too, as he swept off
+his very curly-brimmed hat, was grizzled round the edges and thin
+upon the top. As to his dress, it was careful to the verge of
+foppishness, with high collar, black frock-coat, white waistcoat,
+yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-coloured gaiters.
+He advanced slowly into the room, turning his head from left to
+right, and swinging in his right hand the cord which held his
+golden eyeglasses.
+
+"Good-day, Lord St. Simon," said Holmes, rising and bowing. "Pray
+take the basket-chair. This is my friend and colleague, Dr.
+Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this
+matter over."
+
+"A most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine,
+Mr. Holmes. I have been cut to the quick. I understand that you
+have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir,
+though I presume that they were hardly from the same class of
+society."
+
+"No, I am descending."
+
+"I beg pardon."
+
+"My last client of the sort was a king."
+
+"Oh, really! I had no idea. And which king?"
+
+"The King of Scandinavia."
+
+"What! Had he lost his wife?"
+
+"You can understand," said Holmes suavely, "that I extend to the
+affairs of my other clients the same secrecy which I promise to
+you in yours."
+
+"Of course! Very right! very right! I'm sure I beg pardon. As to
+my own case, I am ready to give you any information which may
+assist you in forming an opinion."
+
+"Thank you. I have already learned all that is in the public
+prints, nothing more. I presume that I may take it as correct--this
+article, for example, as to the disappearance of the bride."
+
+Lord St. Simon glanced over it. "Yes, it is correct, as far as it
+goes."
+
+"But it needs a great deal of supplementing before anyone could
+offer an opinion. I think that I may arrive at my facts most
+directly by questioning you."
+
+"Pray do so."
+
+"When did you first meet Miss Hatty Doran?"
+
+"In San Francisco, a year ago."
+
+"You were travelling in the States?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you become engaged then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you were on a friendly footing?"
+
+"I was amused by her society, and she could see that I was
+amused."
+
+"Her father is very rich?"
+
+"He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope."
+
+"And how did he make his money?"
+
+"In mining. He had nothing a few years ago. Then he struck gold,
+invested it, and came up by leaps and bounds."
+
+"Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your
+wife's character?"
+
+The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down
+into the fire. "You see, Mr. Holmes," said he, "my wife was
+twenty before her father became a rich man. During that time she
+ran free in a mining camp and wandered through woods or
+mountains, so that her education has come from Nature rather than
+from the schoolmaster. She is what we call in England a tomboy,
+with a strong nature, wild and free, unfettered by any sort of
+traditions. She is impetuous--volcanic, I was about to say. She
+is swift in making up her mind and fearless in carrying out her
+resolutions. On the other hand, I would not have given her the
+name which I have the honour to bear"--he gave a little stately
+cough--"had not I thought her to be at bottom a noble woman. I
+believe that she is capable of heroic self-sacrifice and that
+anything dishonourable would be repugnant to her."
+
+"Have you her photograph?"
+
+"I brought this with me." He opened a locket and showed us the
+full face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an
+ivory miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect
+of the lustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the
+exquisite mouth. Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he
+closed the locket and handed it back to Lord St. Simon.
+
+"The young lady came to London, then, and you renewed your
+acquaintance?"
+
+"Yes, her father brought her over for this last London season. I
+met her several times, became engaged to her, and have now
+married her."
+
+"She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry?"
+
+"A fair dowry. Not more than is usual in my family."
+
+"And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a
+fait accompli?"
+
+"I really have made no inquiries on the subject."
+
+"Very naturally not. Did you see Miss Doran on the day before the
+wedding?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was she in good spirits?"
+
+"Never better. She kept talking of what we should do in our
+future lives."
+
+"Indeed! That is very interesting. And on the morning of the
+wedding?"
+
+"She was as bright as possible--at least until after the
+ceremony."
+
+"And did you observe any change in her then?"
+
+"Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had
+ever seen that her temper was just a little sharp. The incident
+however, was too trivial to relate and can have no possible
+bearing upon the case."
+
+"Pray let us have it, for all that."
+
+"Oh, it is childish. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards
+the vestry. She was passing the front pew at the time, and it
+fell over into the pew. There was a moment's delay, but the
+gentleman in the pew handed it up to her again, and it did not
+appear to be the worse for the fall. Yet when I spoke to her of
+the matter, she answered me abruptly; and in the carriage, on our
+way home, she seemed absurdly agitated over this trifling cause."
+
+"Indeed! You say that there was a gentleman in the pew. Some of
+the general public were present, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It is impossible to exclude them when the church is
+open."
+
+"This gentleman was not one of your wife's friends?"
+
+"No, no; I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a
+common-looking person. I hardly noticed his appearance. But
+really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point."
+
+"Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less
+cheerful frame of mind than she had gone to it. What did she do
+on re-entering her father's house?"
+
+"I saw her in conversation with her maid."
+
+"And who is her maid?"
+
+"Alice is her name. She is an American and came from California
+with her."
+
+"A confidential servant?"
+
+"A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed
+her to take great liberties. Still, of course, in America they
+look upon these things in a different way."
+
+"How long did she speak to this Alice?"
+
+"Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of."
+
+"You did not overhear what they said?"
+
+"Lady St. Simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' She was
+accustomed to use slang of the kind. I have no idea what she
+meant."
+
+"American slang is very expressive sometimes. And what did your
+wife do when she finished speaking to her maid?"
+
+"She walked into the breakfast-room."
+
+"On your arm?"
+
+"No, alone. She was very independent in little matters like that.
+Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose
+hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She
+never came back."
+
+"But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to
+her room, covered her bride's dress with a long ulster, put on a
+bonnet, and went out."
+
+"Quite so. And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in
+company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who
+had already made a disturbance at Mr. Doran's house that
+morning."
+
+"Ah, yes. I should like a few particulars as to this young lady,
+and your relations to her."
+
+Lord St. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.
+"We have been on a friendly footing for some years--I may say on
+a very friendly footing. She used to be at the Allegro. I have
+not treated her ungenerously, and she had no just cause of
+complaint against me, but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes.
+Flora was a dear little thing, but exceedingly hot-headed and
+devotedly attached to me. She wrote me dreadful letters when she
+heard that I was about to be married, and, to tell the truth, the
+reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I
+feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to
+Mr. Doran's door just after we returned, and she endeavoured to
+push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my
+wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the
+possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police
+fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again.
+She was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a
+row."
+
+"Did your wife hear all this?"
+
+"No, thank goodness, she did not."
+
+"And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?"
+
+"Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as
+so serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out and laid
+some terrible trap for her."
+
+"Well, it is a possible supposition."
+
+"You think so, too?"
+
+"I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon
+this as likely?"
+
+"I do not think Flora would hurt a fly."
+
+"Still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. Pray
+what is your own theory as to what took place?"
+
+"Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one. I
+have given you all the facts. Since you ask me, however, I may
+say that it has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of
+this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a
+social stride, had the effect of causing some little nervous
+disturbance in my wife."
+
+"In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?"
+
+"Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back--I
+will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to
+without success--I can hardly explain it in any other fashion."
+
+"Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis," said
+Holmes, smiling. "And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have
+nearly all my data. May I ask whether you were seated at the
+breakfast-table so that you could see out of the window?"
+
+"We could see the other side of the road and the Park."
+
+"Quite so. Then I do not think that I need to detain you longer.
+I shall communicate with you."
+
+"Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem," said our
+client, rising.
+
+"I have solved it."
+
+"Eh? What was that?"
+
+"I say that I have solved it."
+
+"Where, then, is my wife?"
+
+"That is a detail which I shall speedily supply."
+
+Lord St. Simon shook his head. "I am afraid that it will take
+wiser heads than yours or mine," he remarked, and bowing in a
+stately, old-fashioned manner he departed.
+
+"It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honour my head by putting
+it on a level with his own," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "I
+think that I shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all
+this cross-questioning. I had formed my conclusions as to the
+case before our client came into the room."
+
+"My dear Holmes!"
+
+"I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I
+remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination
+served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial
+evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a
+trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example."
+
+"But I have heard all that you have heard."
+
+"Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which
+serves me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some
+years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich
+the year after the Franco-Prussian War. It is one of these
+cases--but, hullo, here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon, Lestrade!
+You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are
+cigars in the box."
+
+The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat,
+which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a
+black canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated
+himself and lit the cigar which had been offered to him.
+
+"What's up, then?" asked Holmes with a twinkle in his eye. "You
+look dissatisfied."
+
+"And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage
+case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business."
+
+"Really! You surprise me."
+
+"Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clue seems to slip
+through my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day."
+
+"And very wet it seems to have made you," said Holmes laying his
+hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket.
+
+"Yes, I have been dragging the Serpentine."
+
+"In heaven's name, what for?"
+
+"In search of the body of Lady St. Simon."
+
+Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.
+
+"Have you dragged the basin of Trafalgar Square fountain?" he
+asked.
+
+"Why? What do you mean?"
+
+"Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in
+the one as in the other."
+
+Lestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. "I suppose you
+know all about it," he snarled.
+
+"Well, I have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in
+the matter?"
+
+"I think it very unlikely."
+
+"Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found
+this in it?" He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the
+floor a wedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin
+shoes and a bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked
+in water. "There," said he, putting a new wedding-ring upon the
+top of the pile. "There is a little nut for you to crack, Master
+Holmes."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air.
+"You dragged them from the Serpentine?"
+
+"No. They were found floating near the margin by a park-keeper.
+They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me
+that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off."
+
+"By the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found
+in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And pray what did you hope
+to arrive at through this?"
+
+"At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance."
+
+"I am afraid that you will find it difficult."
+
+"Are you, indeed, now?" cried Lestrade with some bitterness. "I
+am afraid, Holmes, that you are not very practical with your
+deductions and your inferences. You have made two blunders in as
+many minutes. This dress does implicate Miss Flora Millar."
+
+"And how?"
+
+"In the dress is a pocket. In the pocket is a card-case. In the
+card-case is a note. And here is the very note." He slapped it
+down upon the table in front of him. "Listen to this: 'You will
+see me when all is ready. Come at once. F.H.M.' Now my theory all
+along has been that Lady St. Simon was decoyed away by Flora
+Millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was
+responsible for her disappearance. Here, signed with her
+initials, is the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped
+into her hand at the door and which lured her within their
+reach."
+
+"Very good, Lestrade," said Holmes, laughing. "You really are
+very fine indeed. Let me see it." He took up the paper in a
+listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he
+gave a little cry of satisfaction. "This is indeed important,"
+said he.
+
+"Ha! you find it so?"
+
+"Extremely so. I congratulate you warmly."
+
+Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. "Why," he
+shrieked, "you're looking at the wrong side!"
+
+"On the contrary, this is the right side."
+
+"The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil
+over here."
+
+"And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel
+bill, which interests me deeply."
+
+"There's nothing in it. I looked at it before," said Lestrade.
+"'Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s.
+6d., glass sherry, 8d.' I see nothing in that."
+
+"Very likely not. It is most important, all the same. As to the
+note, it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I
+congratulate you again."
+
+"I've wasted time enough," said Lestrade, rising. "I believe in
+hard work and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories.
+Good-day, Mr. Holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom
+of the matter first." He gathered up the garments, thrust them
+into the bag, and made for the door.
+
+"Just one hint to you, Lestrade," drawled Holmes before his rival
+vanished; "I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady
+St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any
+such person."
+
+Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then he turned to me,
+tapped his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and
+hurried away.
+
+He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on
+his overcoat. "There is something in what the fellow says about
+outdoor work," he remarked, "so I think, Watson, that I must
+leave you to your papers for a little."
+
+It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had
+no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a
+confectioner's man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked
+with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and
+presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean
+little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble
+lodging-house mahogany. There were a couple of brace of cold
+woodcock, a pheasant, a pâté de foie gras pie with a group of
+ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these luxuries,
+my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian
+Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid
+for and were ordered to this address.
+
+Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the
+room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his
+eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his
+conclusions.
+
+"They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his hands.
+
+"You seem to expect company. They have laid for five."
+
+"Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in," said he. "I
+am surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I
+fancy that I hear his step now upon the stairs."
+
+It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in,
+dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very
+perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.
+
+"My messenger reached you, then?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure.
+Have you good authority for what you say?"
+
+"The best possible."
+
+Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his
+forehead.
+
+"What will the Duke say," he murmured, "when he hears that one of
+the family has been subjected to such humiliation?"
+
+"It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any
+humiliation."
+
+"Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint."
+
+"I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the
+lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of
+doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she
+had no one to advise her at such a crisis."
+
+"It was a slight, sir, a public slight," said Lord St. Simon,
+tapping his fingers upon the table.
+
+"You must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so
+unprecedented a position."
+
+"I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I have
+been shamefully used."
+
+"I think that I heard a ring," said Holmes. "Yes, there are steps
+on the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view
+of the matter, Lord St. Simon, I have brought an advocate here
+who may be more successful." He opened the door and ushered in a
+lady and gentleman. "Lord St. Simon," said he "allow me to
+introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton. The lady, I
+think, you have already met."
+
+At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his
+seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand
+thrust into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended
+dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out
+her hand to him, but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was
+as well for his resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was
+one which it was hard to resist.
+
+"You're angry, Robert," said she. "Well, I guess you have every
+cause to be."
+
+"Pray make no apology to me," said Lord St. Simon bitterly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I
+should have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of
+rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just
+didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't
+fall down and do a faint right there before the altar."
+
+"Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave
+the room while you explain this matter?"
+
+"If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman,
+"we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business
+already. For my part, I should like all Europe and America to
+hear the rights of it." He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man,
+clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner.
+
+"Then I'll tell our story right away," said the lady. "Frank here
+and I met in '84, in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies, where pa
+was working a claim. We were engaged to each other, Frank and I;
+but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile,
+while poor Frank here had a claim that petered out and came to
+nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Frank; so at last pa
+wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took
+me away to 'Frisco. Frank wouldn't throw up his hand, though; so
+he followed me there, and he saw me without pa knowing anything
+about it. It would only have made him mad to know, so we just
+fixed it all up for ourselves. Frank said that he would go and
+make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had
+as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for him to the end of
+time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he lived.
+'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and
+then I will feel sure of you; and I won't claim to be your
+husband until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and he had
+fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting,
+that we just did it right there; and then Frank went off to seek
+his fortune, and I went back to pa.
+
+"The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then
+he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New
+Mexico. After that came a long newspaper story about how a
+miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was
+my Frank's name among the killed. I fainted dead away, and I was
+very sick for months after. Pa thought I had a decline and took
+me to half the doctors in 'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a
+year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really
+dead. Then Lord St. Simon came to 'Frisco, and we came to London,
+and a marriage was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt
+all the time that no man on this earth would ever take the place
+in my heart that had been given to my poor Frank.
+
+"Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I'd have done
+my duty by him. We can't command our love, but we can our
+actions. I went to the altar with him with the intention to make
+him just as good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may
+imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I
+glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the
+first pew. I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked
+again there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as
+if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I
+didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the
+words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my
+ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make
+a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to
+know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to
+tell me to be still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece of paper,
+and I knew that he was writing me a note. As I passed his pew on
+the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the
+note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a
+line asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so.
+Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now
+to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct.
+
+"When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California,
+and had always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but
+to get a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to
+have spoken to Lord St. Simon, but it was dreadful hard before
+his mother and all those great people. I just made up my mind to
+run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten
+minutes before I saw Frank out of the window at the other side of
+the road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park.
+I slipped out, put on my things, and followed him. Some woman
+came talking something or other about Lord St. Simon to
+me--seemed to me from the little I heard as if he had a little
+secret of his own before marriage also--but I managed to get away
+from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and
+away we drove to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and
+that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank
+had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to
+'Frisco, found that I had given him up for dead and had gone to
+England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the
+very morning of my second wedding."
+
+"I saw it in a paper," explained the American. "It gave the name
+and the church but not where the lady lived."
+
+"Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all
+for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I
+should like to vanish away and never see any of them again--just
+sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It
+was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting
+round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. So
+Frank took my wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of
+them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away
+somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we
+should have gone on to Paris to-morrow, only that this good
+gentleman, Mr. Holmes, came round to us this evening, though how
+he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very
+clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank was right, and
+that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so
+secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord
+St. Simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at
+once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if
+I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very
+meanly of me."
+
+Lord St. Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but
+had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this
+long narrative.
+
+"Excuse me," he said, "but it is not my custom to discuss my most
+intimate personal affairs in this public manner."
+
+"Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure." He put out
+his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him.
+
+"I had hoped," suggested Holmes, "that you would have joined us
+in a friendly supper."
+
+"I think that there you ask a little too much," responded his
+Lordship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent
+developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over
+them. I think that with your permission I will now wish you all a
+very good-night." He included us all in a sweeping bow and
+stalked out of the room.
+
+"Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your
+company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an
+American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the
+folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone
+years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens
+of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a
+quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes."
+
+"The case has been an interesting one," remarked Holmes when our
+visitors had left us, "because it serves to show very clearly how
+simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight
+seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural
+than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing
+stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr.
+Lestrade of Scotland Yard."
+
+"You were not yourself at fault at all, then?"
+
+"From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that
+the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony,
+the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of
+returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the
+morning, then, to cause her to change her mind. What could that
+something be? She could not have spoken to anyone when she was
+out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom. Had she
+seen someone, then? If she had, it must be someone from America
+because she had spent so short a time in this country that she
+could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence
+over her that the mere sight of him would induce her to change
+her plans so completely. You see we have already arrived, by a
+process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have seen an
+American. Then who could this American be, and why should he
+possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might
+be a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in
+rough scenes and under strange conditions. So far I had got
+before I ever heard Lord St. Simon's narrative. When he told us
+of a man in a pew, of the change in the bride's manner, of so
+transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a
+bouquet, of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very
+significant allusion to claim-jumping--which in miners' parlance
+means taking possession of that which another person has a prior
+claim to--the whole situation became absolutely clear. She had
+gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a
+previous husband--the chances being in favour of the latter."
+
+"And how in the world did you find them?"
+
+"It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held
+information in his hands the value of which he did not himself
+know. The initials were, of course, of the highest importance,
+but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had
+settled his bill at one of the most select London hotels."
+
+"How did you deduce the select?"
+
+"By the select prices. Eight shillings for a bed and eightpence
+for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive
+hotels. There are not many in London which charge at that rate.
+In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I
+learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an
+American gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking
+over the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I
+had seen in the duplicate bill. His letters were to be forwarded
+to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate
+enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them
+some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be
+better in every way that they should make their position a little
+clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in
+particular. I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I
+made him keep the appointment."
+
+"But with no very good result," I remarked. "His conduct was
+certainly not very gracious."
+
+"Ah, Watson," said Holmes, smiling, "perhaps you would not be
+very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and
+wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of
+fortune. I think that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully
+and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in
+the same position. Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for
+the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away
+these bleak autumnal evenings."
+
+
+
+XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET
+
+"Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking
+down the street, "here is a madman coming along. It seems rather
+sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone."
+
+My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands
+in the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. It
+was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day
+before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the
+wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed
+into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and
+on the heaped-up edges of the foot-paths it still lay as white as
+when it fell. The grey pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but
+was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer
+passengers than usual. Indeed, from the direction of the
+Metropolitan Station no one was coming save the single gentleman
+whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.
+
+He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a
+massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was
+dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining
+hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet
+his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress
+and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little
+springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to
+set any tax upon his legs. As he ran he jerked his hands up and
+down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most
+extraordinary contortions.
+
+"What on earth can be the matter with him?" I asked. "He is
+looking up at the numbers of the houses."
+
+"I believe that he is coming here," said Holmes, rubbing his
+hands.
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Yes; I rather think he is coming to consult me professionally. I
+think that I recognise the symptoms. Ha! did I not tell you?" As
+he spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and
+pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded with the
+clanging.
+
+A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still
+gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in
+his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and
+pity. For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his
+body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the
+extreme limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his
+feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we
+both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room.
+Sherlock Holmes pushed him down into the easy-chair and, sitting
+beside him, patted his hand and chatted with him in the easy,
+soothing tones which he knew so well how to employ.
+
+"You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?" said he.
+"You are fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have
+recovered yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into
+any little problem which you may submit to me."
+
+The man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting
+against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his
+brow, set his lips tight, and turned his face towards us.
+
+"No doubt you think me mad?" said he.
+
+"I see that you have had some great trouble," responded Holmes.
+
+"God knows I have!--a trouble which is enough to unseat my
+reason, so sudden and so terrible is it. Public disgrace I might
+have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet
+borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man;
+but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have
+been enough to shake my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone.
+The very noblest in the land may suffer unless some way be found
+out of this horrible affair."
+
+"Pray compose yourself, sir," said Holmes, "and let me have a
+clear account of who you are and what it is that has befallen
+you."
+
+"My name," answered our visitor, "is probably familiar to your
+ears. I am Alexander Holder, of the banking firm of Holder &
+Stevenson, of Threadneedle Street."
+
+The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior
+partner in the second largest private banking concern in the City
+of London. What could have happened, then, to bring one of the
+foremost citizens of London to this most pitiable pass? We
+waited, all curiosity, until with another effort he braced
+himself to tell his story.
+
+"I feel that time is of value," said he; "that is why I hastened
+here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure
+your co-operation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and
+hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this
+snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who
+takes very little exercise. I feel better now, and I will put the
+facts before you as shortly and yet as clearly as I can.
+
+"It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking
+business as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative
+investments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection
+and the number of our depositors. One of our most lucrative means
+of laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security
+is unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction
+during the last few years, and there are many noble families to
+whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their
+pictures, libraries, or plate.
+
+"Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a
+card was brought in to me by one of the clerks. I started when I
+saw the name, for it was that of none other than--well, perhaps
+even to you I had better say no more than that it was a name
+which is a household word all over the earth--one of the highest,
+noblest, most exalted names in England. I was overwhelmed by the
+honour and attempted, when he entered, to say so, but he plunged
+at once into business with the air of a man who wishes to hurry
+quickly through a disagreeable task.
+
+"'Mr. Holder,' said he, 'I have been informed that you are in the
+habit of advancing money.'
+
+"'The firm does so when the security is good.' I answered.
+
+"'It is absolutely essential to me,' said he, 'that I should have
+50,000 pounds at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a
+sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it
+a matter of business and to carry out that business myself. In my
+position you can readily understand that it is unwise to place
+one's self under obligations.'
+
+"'For how long, may I ask, do you want this sum?' I asked.
+
+"'Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most
+certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you
+think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the
+money should be paid at once.'
+
+"'I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my
+own private purse,' said I, 'were it not that the strain would be
+rather more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do
+it in the name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must
+insist that, even in your case, every businesslike precaution
+should be taken.'
+
+"'I should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a
+square, black morocco case which he had laid beside his chair.
+'You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?'
+
+"'One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,'
+said I.
+
+"'Precisely.' He opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft,
+flesh-coloured velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewellery
+which he had named. 'There are thirty-nine enormous beryls,' said
+he, 'and the price of the gold chasing is incalculable. The
+lowest estimate would put the worth of the coronet at double the
+sum which I have asked. I am prepared to leave it with you as my
+security.'
+
+"I took the precious case into my hands and looked in some
+perplexity from it to my illustrious client.
+
+"'You doubt its value?' he asked.
+
+"'Not at all. I only doubt--'
+
+"'The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest
+about that. I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely
+certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. It is a
+pure matter of form. Is the security sufficient?'
+
+"'Ample.'
+
+"'You understand, Mr. Holder, that I am giving you a strong proof
+of the confidence which I have in you, founded upon all that I
+have heard of you. I rely upon you not only to be discreet and to
+refrain from all gossip upon the matter but, above all, to
+preserve this coronet with every possible precaution because I
+need not say that a great public scandal would be caused if any
+harm were to befall it. Any injury to it would be almost as
+serious as its complete loss, for there are no beryls in the
+world to match these, and it would be impossible to replace them.
+I leave it with you, however, with every confidence, and I shall
+call for it in person on Monday morning.'
+
+"Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more but,
+calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty 1000
+pound notes. When I was alone once more, however, with the
+precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not
+but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility
+which it entailed upon me. There could be no doubt that, as it
+was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any
+misfortune should occur to it. I already regretted having ever
+consented to take charge of it. However, it was too late to alter
+the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe and turned
+once more to my work.
+
+"When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave
+so precious a thing in the office behind me. Bankers' safes had
+been forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how
+terrible would be the position in which I should find myself! I
+determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always
+carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might
+never be really out of my reach. With this intention, I called a
+cab and drove out to my house at Streatham, carrying the jewel
+with me. I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs
+and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room.
+
+"And now a word as to my household, Mr. Holmes, for I wish you to
+thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep
+out of the house, and may be set aside altogether. I have three
+maid-servants who have been with me a number of years and whose
+absolute reliability is quite above suspicion. Another, Lucy
+Parr, the second waiting-maid, has only been in my service a few
+months. She came with an excellent character, however, and has
+always given me satisfaction. She is a very pretty girl and has
+attracted admirers who have occasionally hung about the place.
+That is the only drawback which we have found to her, but we
+believe her to be a thoroughly good girl in every way.
+
+"So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it
+will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an
+only son, Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr.
+Holmes--a grievous disappointment. I have no doubt that I am
+myself to blame. People tell me that I have spoiled him. Very
+likely I have. When my dear wife died I felt that he was all I
+had to love. I could not bear to see the smile fade even for a
+moment from his face. I have never denied him a wish. Perhaps it
+would have been better for both of us had I been sterner, but I
+meant it for the best.
+
+"It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my
+business, but he was not of a business turn. He was wild,
+wayward, and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the
+handling of large sums of money. When he was young he became a
+member of an aristocratic club, and there, having charming
+manners, he was soon the intimate of a number of men with long
+purses and expensive habits. He learned to play heavily at cards
+and to squander money on the turf, until he had again and again
+to come to me and implore me to give him an advance upon his
+allowance, that he might settle his debts of honour. He tried
+more than once to break away from the dangerous company which he
+was keeping, but each time the influence of his friend, Sir
+George Burnwell, was enough to draw him back again.
+
+"And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George
+Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently
+brought him to my house, and I have found myself that I could
+hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than
+Arthur, a man of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been
+everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of
+great personal beauty. Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far
+away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his
+cynical speech and the look which I have caught in his eyes that
+he is one who should be deeply distrusted. So I think, and so,
+too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into
+character.
+
+"And now there is only she to be described. She is my niece; but
+when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the
+world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my
+daughter. She is a sunbeam in my house--sweet, loving, beautiful,
+a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and
+gentle as a woman could be. She is my right hand. I do not know
+what I could do without her. In only one matter has she ever gone
+against my wishes. Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for
+he loves her devotedly, but each time she has refused him. I
+think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it
+would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his
+whole life; but now, alas! it is too late--forever too late!
+
+"Now, Mr. Holmes, you know the people who live under my roof, and
+I shall continue with my miserable story.
+
+"When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after
+dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious
+treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name
+of my client. Lucy Parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, I am
+sure, left the room; but I cannot swear that the door was closed.
+Mary and Arthur were much interested and wished to see the famous
+coronet, but I thought it better not to disturb it.
+
+"'Where have you put it?' asked Arthur.
+
+"'In my own bureau.'
+
+"'Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the
+night.' said he.
+
+"'It is locked up,' I answered.
+
+"'Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I
+have opened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.'
+
+"He often had a wild way of talking, so that I thought little of
+what he said. He followed me to my room, however, that night with
+a very grave face.
+
+"'Look here, dad,' said he with his eyes cast down, 'can you let
+me have 200 pounds?'
+
+"'No, I cannot!' I answered sharply. 'I have been far too
+generous with you in money matters.'
+
+"'You have been very kind,' said he, 'but I must have this money,
+or else I can never show my face inside the club again.'
+
+"'And a very good thing, too!' I cried.
+
+"'Yes, but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man,'
+said he. 'I could not bear the disgrace. I must raise the money
+in some way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try
+other means.'
+
+"I was very angry, for this was the third demand during the
+month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which
+he bowed and left the room without another word.
+
+"When he was gone I unlocked my bureau, made sure that my
+treasure was safe, and locked it again. Then I started to go
+round the house to see that all was secure--a duty which I
+usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform
+myself that night. As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself
+at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as
+I approached.
+
+"'Tell me, dad,' said she, looking, I thought, a little
+disturbed, 'did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out
+to-night?'
+
+"'Certainly not.'
+
+"'She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she
+has only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that
+it is hardly safe and should be stopped.'
+
+"'You must speak to her in the morning, or I will if you prefer
+it. Are you sure that everything is fastened?'
+
+"'Quite sure, dad.'
+
+"'Then, good-night.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom
+again, where I was soon asleep.
+
+"I am endeavouring to tell you everything, Mr. Holmes, which may
+have any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question
+me upon any point which I do not make clear."
+
+"On the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid."
+
+"I come to a part of my story now in which I should wish to be
+particularly so. I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety
+in my mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual.
+About two in the morning, then, I was awakened by some sound in
+the house. It had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an
+impression behind it as though a window had gently closed
+somewhere. I lay listening with all my ears. Suddenly, to my
+horror, there was a distinct sound of footsteps moving softly in
+the next room. I slipped out of bed, all palpitating with fear,
+and peeped round the corner of my dressing-room door.
+
+"'Arthur!' I screamed, 'you villain! you thief! How dare you
+touch that coronet?'
+
+"The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy,
+dressed only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the
+light, holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be
+wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry
+he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I
+snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with
+three of the beryls in it, was missing.
+
+"'You blackguard!' I shouted, beside myself with rage. 'You have
+destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the
+jewels which you have stolen?'
+
+"'Stolen!' he cried.
+
+"'Yes, thief!' I roared, shaking him by the shoulder.
+
+"'There are none missing. There cannot be any missing,' said he.
+
+"'There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I
+call you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to
+tear off another piece?'
+
+"'You have called me names enough,' said he, 'I will not stand it
+any longer. I shall not say another word about this business,
+since you have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in
+the morning and make my own way in the world.'
+
+"'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried
+half-mad with grief and rage. 'I shall have this matter probed to
+the bottom.'
+
+"'You shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such
+as I should not have thought was in his nature. 'If you choose to
+call the police, let the police find what they can.'
+
+"By this time the whole house was astir, for I had raised my
+voice in my anger. Mary was the first to rush into my room, and,
+at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the
+whole story and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the
+ground. I sent the house-maid for the police and put the
+investigation into their hands at once. When the inspector and a
+constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with
+his arms folded, asked me whether it was my intention to charge
+him with theft. I answered that it had ceased to be a private
+matter, but had become a public one, since the ruined coronet was
+national property. I was determined that the law should have its
+way in everything.
+
+"'At least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. It
+would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the
+house for five minutes.'
+
+"'That you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you
+have stolen,' said I. And then, realising the dreadful position
+in which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only
+my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at
+stake; and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would
+convulse the nation. He might avert it all if he would but tell
+me what he had done with the three missing stones.
+
+"'You may as well face the matter,' said I; 'you have been caught
+in the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous.
+If you but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling
+us where the beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.'
+
+"'Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered,
+turning away from me with a sneer. I saw that he was too hardened
+for any words of mine to influence him. There was but one way for
+it. I called in the inspector and gave him into custody. A search
+was made at once not only of his person but of his room and of
+every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed
+the gems; but no trace of them could be found, nor would the
+wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our
+threats. This morning he was removed to a cell, and I, after
+going through all the police formalities, have hurried round to
+you to implore you to use your skill in unravelling the matter.
+The police have openly confessed that they can at present make
+nothing of it. You may go to any expense which you think
+necessary. I have already offered a reward of 1000 pounds. My
+God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and my son
+in one night. Oh, what shall I do!"
+
+He put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to
+and fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got
+beyond words.
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows
+knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire.
+
+"Do you receive much company?" he asked.
+
+"None save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of
+Arthur's. Sir George Burnwell has been several times lately. No
+one else, I think."
+
+"Do you go out much in society?"
+
+"Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for
+it."
+
+"That is unusual in a young girl."
+
+"She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She
+is four-and-twenty."
+
+"This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to
+her also."
+
+"Terrible! She is even more affected than I."
+
+"You have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt?"
+
+"How can we have when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet
+in his hands."
+
+"I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of
+the coronet at all injured?"
+
+"Yes, it was twisted."
+
+"Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to
+straighten it?"
+
+"God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me.
+But it is too heavy a task. What was he doing there at all? If
+his purpose were innocent, why did he not say so?"
+
+"Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie?
+His silence appears to me to cut both ways. There are several
+singular points about the case. What did the police think of the
+noise which awoke you from your sleep?"
+
+"They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his
+bedroom door."
+
+"A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door
+so as to wake a household. What did they say, then, of the
+disappearance of these gems?"
+
+"They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture
+in the hope of finding them."
+
+"Have they thought of looking outside the house?"
+
+"Yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. The whole garden has
+already been minutely examined."
+
+"Now, my dear sir," said Holmes, "is it not obvious to you now
+that this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you
+or the police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you
+to be a simple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex. Consider
+what is involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came
+down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room,
+opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main
+force a small portion of it, went off to some other place,
+concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that
+nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirty-six
+into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger
+of being discovered. I ask you now, is such a theory tenable?"
+
+"But what other is there?" cried the banker with a gesture of
+despair. "If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain
+them?"
+
+"It is our task to find that out," replied Holmes; "so now, if
+you please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together,
+and devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into
+details."
+
+My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition,
+which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy
+were deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I
+confess that the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be
+as obvious as it did to his unhappy father, but still I had such
+faith in Holmes' judgment that I felt that there must be some
+grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted
+explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the
+southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his
+hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought. Our client
+appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope
+which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a
+desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A short railway
+journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest
+residence of the great financier.
+
+Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing
+back a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a
+snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates
+which closed the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden
+thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges
+stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the
+tradesmen's entrance. On the left ran a lane which led to the
+stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a
+public, though little used, thoroughfare. Holmes left us standing
+at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the
+front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by the garden
+behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr. Holder and I
+went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until he should
+return. We were sitting there in silence when the door opened and
+a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle height,
+slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against
+the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever
+seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were
+bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept
+silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of
+grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the
+more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong
+character, with immense capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding
+my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand
+over his head with a sweet womanly caress.
+
+"You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you
+not, dad?" she asked.
+
+"No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom."
+
+"But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's
+instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will
+be sorry for having acted so harshly."
+
+"Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?"
+
+"Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should
+suspect him."
+
+"How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with
+the coronet in his hand?"
+
+"Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take
+my word for it that he is innocent. Let the matter drop and say
+no more. It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in
+prison!"
+
+"I shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, Mary!
+Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences
+to me. Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman
+down from London to inquire more deeply into it."
+
+"This gentleman?" she asked, facing round to me.
+
+"No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in
+the stable lane now."
+
+"The stable lane?" She raised her dark eyebrows. "What can he
+hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir,
+that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth,
+that my cousin Arthur is innocent of this crime."
+
+"I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may
+prove it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the
+snow from his shoes. "I believe I have the honour of addressing
+Miss Mary Holder. Might I ask you a question or two?"
+
+"Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up."
+
+"You heard nothing yourself last night?"
+
+"Nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. I heard
+that, and I came down."
+
+"You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you
+fasten all the windows?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Were they all fastened this morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked
+to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?"
+
+"Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and
+who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet."
+
+"I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her
+sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery."
+
+"But what is the good of all these vague theories," cried the
+banker impatiently, "when I have told you that I saw Arthur with
+the coronet in his hands?"
+
+"Wait a little, Mr. Holder. We must come back to that. About this
+girl, Miss Holder. You saw her return by the kitchen door, I
+presume?"
+
+"Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I
+met her slipping in. I saw the man, too, in the gloom."
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"Oh, yes! he is the green-grocer who brings our vegetables round.
+His name is Francis Prosper."
+
+"He stood," said Holmes, "to the left of the door--that is to
+say, farther up the path than is necessary to reach the door?"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"And he is a man with a wooden leg?"
+
+Something like fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive
+black eyes. "Why, you are like a magician," said she. "How do you
+know that?" She smiled, but there was no answering smile in
+Holmes' thin, eager face.
+
+"I should be very glad now to go upstairs," said he. "I shall
+probably wish to go over the outside of the house again. Perhaps
+I had better take a look at the lower windows before I go up."
+
+He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at
+the large one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane.
+This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill
+with his powerful magnifying lens. "Now we shall go upstairs,"
+said he at last.
+
+The banker's dressing-room was a plainly furnished little
+chamber, with a grey carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror.
+Holmes went to the bureau first and looked hard at the lock.
+
+"Which key was used to open it?" he asked.
+
+"That which my son himself indicated--that of the cupboard of the
+lumber-room."
+
+"Have you it here?"
+
+"That is it on the dressing-table."
+
+Sherlock Holmes took it up and opened the bureau.
+
+"It is a noiseless lock," said he. "It is no wonder that it did
+not wake you. This case, I presume, contains the coronet. We must
+have a look at it." He opened the case, and taking out the diadem
+he laid it upon the table. It was a magnificent specimen of the
+jeweller's art, and the thirty-six stones were the finest that I
+have ever seen. At one side of the coronet was a cracked edge,
+where a corner holding three gems had been torn away.
+
+"Now, Mr. Holder," said Holmes, "here is the corner which
+corresponds to that which has been so unfortunately lost. Might I
+beg that you will break it off."
+
+The banker recoiled in horror. "I should not dream of trying,"
+said he.
+
+"Then I will." Holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but
+without result. "I feel it give a little," said he; "but, though
+I am exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my
+time to break it. An ordinary man could not do it. Now, what do
+you think would happen if I did break it, Mr. Holder? There would
+be a noise like a pistol shot. Do you tell me that all this
+happened within a few yards of your bed and that you heard
+nothing of it?"
+
+"I do not know what to think. It is all dark to me."
+
+"But perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. What do you think,
+Miss Holder?"
+
+"I confess that I still share my uncle's perplexity."
+
+"Your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him?"
+
+"He had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt."
+
+"Thank you. We have certainly been favoured with extraordinary
+luck during this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault
+if we do not succeed in clearing the matter up. With your
+permission, Mr. Holder, I shall now continue my investigations
+outside."
+
+He went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any
+unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an
+hour or more he was at work, returning at last with his feet
+heavy with snow and his features as inscrutable as ever.
+
+"I think that I have seen now all that there is to see, Mr.
+Holder," said he; "I can serve you best by returning to my
+rooms."
+
+"But the gems, Mr. Holmes. Where are they?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+The banker wrung his hands. "I shall never see them again!" he
+cried. "And my son? You give me hopes?"
+
+"My opinion is in no way altered."
+
+"Then, for God's sake, what was this dark business which was
+acted in my house last night?"
+
+"If you can call upon me at my Baker Street rooms to-morrow
+morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to
+make it clearer. I understand that you give me carte blanche to
+act for you, provided only that I get back the gems, and that you
+place no limit on the sum I may draw."
+
+"I would give my fortune to have them back."
+
+"Very good. I shall look into the matter between this and then.
+Good-bye; it is just possible that I may have to come over here
+again before evening."
+
+It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up
+about the case, although what his conclusions were was more than
+I could even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward
+journey I endeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always
+glided away to some other topic, until at last I gave it over in
+despair. It was not yet three when we found ourselves in our
+rooms once more. He hurried to his chamber and was down again in
+a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned
+up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he
+was a perfect sample of the class.
+
+"I think that this should do," said he, glancing into the glass
+above the fireplace. "I only wish that you could come with me,
+Watson, but I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in
+this matter, or I may be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but I
+shall soon know which it is. I hope that I may be back in a few
+hours." He cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard,
+sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and thrusting this
+rude meal into his pocket he started off upon his expedition.
+
+I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in
+excellent spirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his
+hand. He chucked it down into a corner and helped himself to a
+cup of tea.
+
+"I only looked in as I passed," said he. "I am going right on."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time
+before I get back. Don't wait up for me in case I should be
+late."
+
+"How are you getting on?"
+
+"Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham
+since I saw you last, but I did not call at the house. It is a
+very sweet little problem, and I would not have missed it for a
+good deal. However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get
+these disreputable clothes off and return to my highly
+respectable self."
+
+I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for
+satisfaction than his words alone would imply. His eyes twinkled,
+and there was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. He
+hastened upstairs, and a few minutes later I heard the slam of
+the hall door, which told me that he was off once more upon his
+congenial hunt.
+
+I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so
+I retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away
+for days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that
+his lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he
+came in, but when I came down to breakfast in the morning there
+he was with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the
+other, as fresh and trim as possible.
+
+"You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson," said he, "but
+you remember that our client has rather an early appointment this
+morning."
+
+"Why, it is after nine now," I answered. "I should not be
+surprised if that were he. I thought I heard a ring."
+
+It was, indeed, our friend the financier. I was shocked by the
+change which had come over him, for his face which was naturally
+of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in,
+while his hair seemed to me at least a shade whiter. He entered
+with a weariness and lethargy which was even more painful than
+his violence of the morning before, and he dropped heavily into
+the armchair which I pushed forward for him.
+
+"I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried," said
+he. "Only two days ago I was a happy and prosperous man, without
+a care in the world. Now I am left to a lonely and dishonoured
+age. One sorrow comes close upon the heels of another. My niece,
+Mary, has deserted me."
+
+"Deserted you?"
+
+"Yes. Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was
+empty, and a note for me lay upon the hall table. I had said to
+her last night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had
+married my boy all might have been well with him. Perhaps it was
+thoughtless of me to say so. It is to that remark that she refers
+in this note:
+
+"'MY DEAREST UNCLE:--I feel that I have brought trouble upon you,
+and that if I had acted differently this terrible misfortune
+might never have occurred. I cannot, with this thought in my
+mind, ever again be happy under your roof, and I feel that I must
+leave you forever. Do not worry about my future, for that is
+provided for; and, above all, do not search for me, for it will
+be fruitless labour and an ill-service to me. In life or in
+death, I am ever your loving,--MARY.'
+
+"What could she mean by that note, Mr. Holmes? Do you think it
+points to suicide?"
+
+"No, no, nothing of the kind. It is perhaps the best possible
+solution. I trust, Mr. Holder, that you are nearing the end of
+your troubles."
+
+"Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have
+learned something! Where are the gems?"
+
+"You would not think 1000 pounds apiece an excessive sum for
+them?"
+
+"I would pay ten."
+
+"That would be unnecessary. Three thousand will cover the matter.
+And there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your check-book?
+Here is a pen. Better make it out for 4000 pounds."
+
+With a dazed face the banker made out the required check. Holmes
+walked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of
+gold with three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table.
+
+With a shriek of joy our client clutched it up.
+
+"You have it!" he gasped. "I am saved! I am saved!"
+
+The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and
+he hugged his recovered gems to his bosom.
+
+"There is one other thing you owe, Mr. Holder," said Sherlock
+Holmes rather sternly.
+
+"Owe!" He caught up a pen. "Name the sum, and I will pay it."
+
+"No, the debt is not to me. You owe a very humble apology to that
+noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I
+should be proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to
+have one."
+
+"Then it was not Arthur who took them?"
+
+"I told you yesterday, and I repeat to-day, that it was not."
+
+"You are sure of it! Then let us hurry to him at once to let him
+know that the truth is known."
+
+"He knows it already. When I had cleared it all up I had an
+interview with him, and finding that he would not tell me the
+story, I told it to him, on which he had to confess that I was
+right and to add the very few details which were not yet quite
+clear to me. Your news of this morning, however, may open his
+lips."
+
+"For heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary
+mystery!"
+
+"I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached
+it. And let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me
+to say and for you to hear: there has been an understanding
+between Sir George Burnwell and your niece Mary. They have now
+fled together."
+
+"My Mary? Impossible!"
+
+"It is unfortunately more than possible; it is certain. Neither
+you nor your son knew the true character of this man when you
+admitted him into your family circle. He is one of the most
+dangerous men in England--a ruined gambler, an absolutely
+desperate villain, a man without heart or conscience. Your niece
+knew nothing of such men. When he breathed his vows to her, as he
+had done to a hundred before her, she flattered herself that she
+alone had touched his heart. The devil knows best what he said,
+but at least she became his tool and was in the habit of seeing
+him nearly every evening."
+
+"I cannot, and I will not, believe it!" cried the banker with an
+ashen face.
+
+"I will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night.
+Your niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room,
+slipped down and talked to her lover through the window which
+leads into the stable lane. His footmarks had pressed right
+through the snow, so long had he stood there. She told him of the
+coronet. His wicked lust for gold kindled at the news, and he
+bent her to his will. I have no doubt that she loved you, but
+there are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all
+other loves, and I think that she must have been one. She had
+hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming
+downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and told you
+about one of the servants' escapade with her wooden-legged lover,
+which was all perfectly true.
+
+"Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but
+he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts.
+In the middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door,
+so he rose and, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin
+walking very stealthily along the passage until she disappeared
+into your dressing-room. Petrified with astonishment, the lad
+slipped on some clothes and waited there in the dark to see what
+would come of this strange affair. Presently she emerged from the
+room again, and in the light of the passage-lamp your son saw
+that she carried the precious coronet in her hands. She passed
+down the stairs, and he, thrilling with horror, ran along and
+slipped behind the curtain near your door, whence he could see
+what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her stealthily open the
+window, hand out the coronet to someone in the gloom, and then
+closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing quite close
+to where he stood hid behind the curtain.
+
+"As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action
+without a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the
+instant that she was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune
+this would be for you, and how all-important it was to set it
+right. He rushed down, just as he was, in his bare feet, opened
+the window, sprang out into the snow, and ran down the lane,
+where he could see a dark figure in the moonlight. Sir George
+Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught him, and there was
+a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one side of the
+coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle, your son
+struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something
+suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet
+in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your
+room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in
+the struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you
+appeared upon the scene."
+
+"Is it possible?" gasped the banker.
+
+"You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when
+he felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not
+explain the true state of affairs without betraying one who
+certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He
+took the more chivalrous view, however, and preserved her
+secret."
+
+"And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the
+coronet," cried Mr. Holder. "Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have
+been! And his asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes!
+The dear fellow wanted to see if the missing piece were at the
+scene of the struggle. How cruelly I have misjudged him!"
+
+"When I arrived at the house," continued Holmes, "I at once went
+very carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in
+the snow which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since
+the evening before, and also that there had been a strong frost
+to preserve impressions. I passed along the tradesmen's path, but
+found it all trampled down and indistinguishable. Just beyond it,
+however, at the far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood
+and talked with a man, whose round impressions on one side showed
+that he had a wooden leg. I could even tell that they had been
+disturbed, for the woman had run back swiftly to the door, as was
+shown by the deep toe and light heel marks, while Wooden-leg had
+waited a little, and then had gone away. I thought at the time
+that this might be the maid and her sweetheart, of whom you had
+already spoken to me, and inquiry showed it was so. I passed
+round the garden without seeing anything more than random tracks,
+which I took to be the police; but when I got into the stable
+lane a very long and complex story was written in the snow in
+front of me.
+
+"There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second
+double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked
+feet. I was at once convinced from what you had told me that the
+latter was your son. The first had walked both ways, but the
+other had run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over
+the depression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed
+after the other. I followed them up and found they led to the
+hall window, where Boots had worn all the snow away while
+waiting. Then I walked to the other end, which was a hundred
+yards or more down the lane. I saw where Boots had faced round,
+where the snow was cut up as though there had been a struggle,
+and, finally, where a few drops of blood had fallen, to show me
+that I was not mistaken. Boots had then run down the lane, and
+another little smudge of blood showed that it was he who had been
+hurt. When he came to the highroad at the other end, I found that
+the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to that clue.
+
+"On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the
+sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could
+at once see that someone had passed out. I could distinguish the
+outline of an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming
+in. I was then beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what
+had occurred. A man had waited outside the window; someone had
+brought the gems; the deed had been overseen by your son; he had
+pursued the thief; had struggled with him; they had each tugged
+at the coronet, their united strength causing injuries which
+neither alone could have effected. He had returned with the
+prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his opponent. So
+far I was clear. The question now was, who was the man and who
+was it brought him the coronet?
+
+"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the
+impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
+truth. Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down,
+so there only remained your niece and the maids. But if it were
+the maids, why should your son allow himself to be accused in
+their place? There could be no possible reason. As he loved his
+cousin, however, there was an excellent explanation why he should
+retain her secret--the more so as the secret was a disgraceful
+one. When I remembered that you had seen her at that window, and
+how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my conjecture
+became a certainty.
+
+"And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently,
+for who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must
+feel to you? I knew that you went out little, and that your
+circle of friends was a very limited one. But among them was Sir
+George Burnwell. I had heard of him before as being a man of evil
+reputation among women. It must have been he who wore those boots
+and retained the missing gems. Even though he knew that Arthur
+had discovered him, he might still flatter himself that he was
+safe, for the lad could not say a word without compromising his
+own family.
+
+"Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took
+next. I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house,
+managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that
+his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at
+the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of
+his cast-off shoes. With these I journeyed down to Streatham and
+saw that they exactly fitted the tracks."
+
+"I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening,"
+said Mr. Holder.
+
+"Precisely. It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home
+and changed my clothes. It was a delicate part which I had to
+play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert
+scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our
+hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of
+course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every
+particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a
+life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I
+clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he
+became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give
+him a price for the stones he held--1000 pounds apiece. That
+brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'Why,
+dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the
+three!' I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had
+them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution. Off I
+set to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at 1000
+pounds apiece. Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all
+was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after
+what I may call a really hard day's work."
+
+"A day which has saved England from a great public scandal," said
+the banker, rising. "Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but
+you shall not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your
+skill has indeed exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I
+must fly to my dear boy to apologise to him for the wrong which I
+have done him. As to what you tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my
+very heart. Not even your skill can inform me where she is now."
+
+"I think that we may safely say," returned Holmes, "that she is
+wherever Sir George Burnwell is. It is equally certain, too, that
+whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than
+sufficient punishment."
+
+
+
+XII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES
+
+"To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock
+Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily
+Telegraph, "it is frequently in its least important and lowliest
+manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is
+pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped
+this truth that in these little records of our cases which you
+have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say,
+occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much
+to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I
+have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been
+trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those
+faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made
+my special province."
+
+"And yet," said I, smiling, "I cannot quite hold myself absolved
+from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my
+records."
+
+"You have erred, perhaps," he observed, taking up a glowing
+cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood
+pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a
+disputatious rather than a meditative mood--"you have erred
+perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your
+statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing
+upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is
+really the only notable feature about the thing."
+
+"It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter,"
+I remarked with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism
+which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my
+friend's singular character.
+
+"No, it is not selfishness or conceit," said he, answering, as
+was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words. "If I claim full
+justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing--a
+thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it
+is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should
+dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of
+lectures into a series of tales."
+
+It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after
+breakfast on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at
+Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of
+dun-coloured houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark,
+shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit
+and shone on the white cloth and glimmer of china and metal, for
+the table had not been cleared yet. Sherlock Holmes had been
+silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the
+advertisement columns of a succession of papers until at last,
+having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very
+sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.
+
+"At the same time," he remarked after a pause, during which he
+had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire,
+"you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of
+these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself
+in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense,
+at all. The small matter in which I endeavoured to help the King
+of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the
+problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the
+incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are
+outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I
+fear that you may have bordered on the trivial."
+
+"The end may have been so," I answered, "but the methods I hold
+to have been novel and of interest."
+
+"Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant
+public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a
+compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of
+analysis and deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot
+blame you, for the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at
+least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As
+to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an
+agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to
+young ladies from boarding-schools. I think that I have touched
+bottom at last, however. This note I had this morning marks my
+zero-point, I fancy. Read it!" He tossed a crumpled letter across
+to me.
+
+It was dated from Montague Place upon the preceding evening, and
+ran thus:
+
+"DEAR MR. HOLMES:--I am very anxious to consult you as to whether
+I should or should not accept a situation which has been offered
+to me as governess. I shall call at half-past ten to-morrow if I
+do not inconvenience you. Yours faithfully,
+                                               "VIOLET HUNTER."
+
+"Do you know the young lady?" I asked.
+
+"Not I."
+
+"It is half-past ten now."
+
+"Yes, and I have no doubt that is her ring."
+
+"It may turn out to be of more interest than you think. You
+remember that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to
+be a mere whim at first, developed into a serious investigation.
+It may be so in this case, also."
+
+"Well, let us hope so. But our doubts will very soon be solved,
+for here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question."
+
+As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room.
+She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face,
+freckled like a plover's egg, and with the brisk manner of a
+woman who has had her own way to make in the world.
+
+"You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure," said she, as my
+companion rose to greet her, "but I have had a very strange
+experience, and as I have no parents or relations of any sort
+from whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be
+kind enough to tell me what I should do."
+
+"Pray take a seat, Miss Hunter. I shall be happy to do anything
+that I can to serve you."
+
+I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner
+and speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching
+fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and
+his finger-tips together, to listen to her story.
+
+"I have been a governess for five years," said she, "in the
+family of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel
+received an appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his
+children over to America with him, so that I found myself without
+a situation. I advertised, and I answered advertisements, but
+without success. At last the little money which I had saved began
+to run short, and I was at my wit's end as to what I should do.
+
+"There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End
+called Westaway's, and there I used to call about once a week in
+order to see whether anything had turned up which might suit me.
+Westaway was the name of the founder of the business, but it is
+really managed by Miss Stoper. She sits in her own little office,
+and the ladies who are seeking employment wait in an anteroom,
+and are then shown in one by one, when she consults her ledgers
+and sees whether she has anything which would suit them.
+
+"Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office
+as usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone. A
+prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy
+chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at
+her elbow with a pair of glasses on his nose, looking very
+earnestly at the ladies who entered. As I came in he gave quite a
+jump in his chair and turned quickly to Miss Stoper.
+
+"'That will do,' said he; 'I could not ask for anything better.
+Capital! capital!' He seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his
+hands together in the most genial fashion. He was such a
+comfortable-looking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at
+him.
+
+"'You are looking for a situation, miss?' he asked.
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"'As governess?'
+
+"'Yes, sir.'
+
+"'And what salary do you ask?'
+
+"'I had 4 pounds a month in my last place with Colonel Spence
+Munro.'
+
+"'Oh, tut, tut! sweating--rank sweating!' he cried, throwing his
+fat hands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling
+passion. 'How could anyone offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with
+such attractions and accomplishments?'
+
+"'My accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,' said I.
+'A little French, a little German, music, and drawing--'
+
+"'Tut, tut!' he cried. 'This is all quite beside the question.
+The point is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment
+of a lady? There it is in a nutshell. If you have not, you are
+not fitted for the rearing of a child who may some day play a
+considerable part in the history of the country. But if you have
+why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to
+accept anything under the three figures? Your salary with me,
+madam, would commence at 100 pounds a year.'
+
+"You may imagine, Mr. Holmes, that to me, destitute as I was,
+such an offer seemed almost too good to be true. The gentleman,
+however, seeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face,
+opened a pocket-book and took out a note.
+
+"'It is also my custom,' said he, smiling in the most pleasant
+fashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid
+the white creases of his face, 'to advance to my young ladies
+half their salary beforehand, so that they may meet any little
+expenses of their journey and their wardrobe.'
+
+"It seemed to me that I had never met so fascinating and so
+thoughtful a man. As I was already in debt to my tradesmen, the
+advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something
+unnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know
+a little more before I quite committed myself.
+
+"'May I ask where you live, sir?' said I.
+
+"'Hampshire. Charming rural place. The Copper Beeches, five miles
+on the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my
+dear young lady, and the dearest old country-house.'
+
+"'And my duties, sir? I should be glad to know what they would
+be.'
+
+"'One child--one dear little romper just six years old. Oh, if
+you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack!
+smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back
+in his chair and laughed his eyes into his head again.
+
+"I was a little startled at the nature of the child's amusement,
+but the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was
+joking.
+
+"'My sole duties, then,' I asked, 'are to take charge of a single
+child?'
+
+"'No, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,' he
+cried. 'Your duty would be, as I am sure your good sense would
+suggest, to obey any little commands my wife might give, provided
+always that they were such commands as a lady might with
+propriety obey. You see no difficulty, heh?'
+
+"'I should be happy to make myself useful.'
+
+"'Quite so. In dress now, for example. We are faddy people, you
+know--faddy but kind-hearted. If you were asked to wear any dress
+which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim.
+Heh?'
+
+"'No,' said I, considerably astonished at his words.
+
+"'Or to sit here, or sit there, that would not be offensive to
+you?'
+
+"'Oh, no.'
+
+"'Or to cut your hair quite short before you come to us?'
+
+"I could hardly believe my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes,
+my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of
+chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of
+sacrificing it in this offhand fashion.
+
+"'I am afraid that that is quite impossible,' said I. He had been
+watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a
+shadow pass over his face as I spoke.
+
+"'I am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'It is a
+little fancy of my wife's, and ladies' fancies, you know, madam,
+ladies' fancies must be consulted. And so you won't cut your
+hair?'
+
+"'No, sir, I really could not,' I answered firmly.
+
+"'Ah, very well; then that quite settles the matter. It is a
+pity, because in other respects you would really have done very
+nicely. In that case, Miss Stoper, I had best inspect a few more
+of your young ladies.'
+
+"The manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers
+without a word to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so
+much annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting
+that she had lost a handsome commission through my refusal.
+
+"'Do you desire your name to be kept upon the books?' she asked.
+
+"'If you please, Miss Stoper.'
+
+"'Well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the
+most excellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'You
+can hardly expect us to exert ourselves to find another such
+opening for you. Good-day to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong
+upon the table, and I was shown out by the page.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, when I got back to my lodgings and found
+little enough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the
+table, I began to ask myself whether I had not done a very
+foolish thing. After all, if these people had strange fads and
+expected obedience on the most extraordinary matters, they were
+at least ready to pay for their eccentricity. Very few
+governesses in England are getting 100 pounds a year. Besides,
+what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved by wearing
+it short and perhaps I should be among the number. Next day I was
+inclined to think that I had made a mistake, and by the day after
+I was sure of it. I had almost overcome my pride so far as to go
+back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open
+when I received this letter from the gentleman himself. I have it
+here and I will read it to you:
+
+                       "'The Copper Beeches, near Winchester.
+"'DEAR MISS HUNTER:--Miss Stoper has very kindly given me your
+address, and I write from here to ask you whether you have
+reconsidered your decision. My wife is very anxious that you
+should come, for she has been much attracted by my description of
+you. We are willing to give 30 pounds a quarter, or 120 pounds a
+year, so as to recompense you for any little inconvenience which
+our fads may cause you. They are not very exacting, after all. My
+wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would
+like you to wear such a dress indoors in the morning. You need
+not, however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one
+belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which
+would, I should think, fit you very well. Then, as to sitting
+here or there, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that
+need cause you no inconvenience. As regards your hair, it is no
+doubt a pity, especially as I could not help remarking its beauty
+during our short interview, but I am afraid that I must remain
+firm upon this point, and I only hope that the increased salary
+may recompense you for the loss. Your duties, as far as the child
+is concerned, are very light. Now do try to come, and I shall
+meet you with the dog-cart at Winchester. Let me know your train.
+Yours faithfully, JEPHRO RUCASTLE.'
+
+"That is the letter which I have just received, Mr. Holmes, and
+my mind is made up that I will accept it. I thought, however,
+that before taking the final step I should like to submit the
+whole matter to your consideration."
+
+"Well, Miss Hunter, if your mind is made up, that settles the
+question," said Holmes, smiling.
+
+"But you would not advise me to refuse?"
+
+"I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to
+see a sister of mine apply for."
+
+"What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself
+formed some opinion?"
+
+"Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr.
+Rucastle seemed to be a very kind, good-natured man. Is it not
+possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the
+matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that
+he humours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an
+outbreak?"
+
+"That is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is
+the most probable one. But in any case it does not seem to be a
+nice household for a young lady."
+
+"But the money, Mr. Holmes, the money!"
+
+"Well, yes, of course the pay is good--too good. That is what
+makes me uneasy. Why should they give you 120 pounds a year, when
+they could have their pick for 40 pounds? There must be some
+strong reason behind."
+
+"I thought that if I told you the circumstances you would
+understand afterwards if I wanted your help. I should feel so
+much stronger if I felt that you were at the back of me."
+
+"Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you that
+your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has
+come my way for some months. There is something distinctly novel
+about some of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt
+or in danger--"
+
+"Danger! What danger do you foresee?"
+
+Holmes shook his head gravely. "It would cease to be a danger if
+we could define it," said he. "But at any time, day or night, a
+telegram would bring me down to your help."
+
+"That is enough." She rose briskly from her chair with the
+anxiety all swept from her face. "I shall go down to Hampshire
+quite easy in my mind now. I shall write to Mr. Rucastle at once,
+sacrifice my poor hair to-night, and start for Winchester
+to-morrow." With a few grateful words to Holmes she bade us both
+good-night and bustled off upon her way.
+
+"At least," said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descending
+the stairs, "she seems to be a young lady who is very well able
+to take care of herself."
+
+"And she would need to be," said Holmes gravely. "I am much
+mistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past."
+
+It was not very long before my friend's prediction was fulfilled.
+A fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughts
+turning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alley of
+human experience this lonely woman had strayed into. The unusual
+salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to
+something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether
+the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond
+my powers to determine. As to Holmes, I observed that he sat
+frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an
+abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his
+hand when I mentioned it. "Data! data! data!" he cried
+impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay." And yet he would
+always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever
+have accepted such a situation.
+
+The telegram which we eventually received came late one night
+just as I was thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling down
+to one of those all-night chemical researches which he frequently
+indulged in, when I would leave him stooping over a retort and a
+test-tube at night and find him in the same position when I came
+down to breakfast in the morning. He opened the yellow envelope,
+and then, glancing at the message, threw it across to me.
+
+"Just look up the trains in Bradshaw," said he, and turned back
+to his chemical studies.
+
+The summons was a brief and urgent one.
+
+"Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday
+to-morrow," it said. "Do come! I am at my wit's end.  HUNTER."
+
+"Will you come with me?" asked Holmes, glancing up.
+
+"I should wish to."
+
+"Just look it up, then."
+
+"There is a train at half-past nine," said I, glancing over my
+Bradshaw. "It is due at Winchester at 11:30."
+
+"That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my
+analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the
+morning."
+
+By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the
+old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers
+all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he
+threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal
+spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white
+clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining
+very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air,
+which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside,
+away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and
+grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light
+green of the new foliage.
+
+"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the
+enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.
+
+But Holmes shook his head gravely.
+
+"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of
+a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with
+reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered
+houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them,
+and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their
+isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed
+there."
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these
+dear old homesteads?"
+
+"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief,
+Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest
+alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin
+than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."
+
+"You horrify me!"
+
+"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion
+can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no
+lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of
+a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among
+the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever
+so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is
+but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these
+lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part
+with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the
+deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on,
+year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this
+lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I
+should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of
+country which makes the danger. Still, it is clear that she is
+not personally threatened."
+
+"No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can get away."
+
+"Quite so. She has her freedom."
+
+"What CAN be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?"
+
+"I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would
+cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is
+correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we
+shall no doubt find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower of
+the cathedral, and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has
+to tell."
+
+The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no
+distance from the station, and there we found the young lady
+waiting for us. She had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch
+awaited us upon the table.
+
+"I am so delighted that you have come," she said earnestly. "It
+is so very kind of you both; but indeed I do not know what I
+should do. Your advice will be altogether invaluable to me."
+
+"Pray tell us what has happened to you."
+
+"I will do so, and I must be quick, for I have promised Mr.
+Rucastle to be back before three. I got his leave to come into
+town this morning, though he little knew for what purpose."
+
+"Let us have everything in its due order." Holmes thrust his long
+thin legs out towards the fire and composed himself to listen.
+
+"In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole,
+with no actual ill-treatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle. It is
+only fair to them to say that. But I cannot understand them, and
+I am not easy in my mind about them."
+
+"What can you not understand?"
+
+"Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just
+as it occurred. When I came down, Mr. Rucastle met me here and
+drove me in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he
+said, beautifully situated, but it is not beautiful in itself,
+for it is a large square block of a house, whitewashed, but all
+stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds
+round it, woods on three sides, and on the fourth a field which
+slopes down to the Southampton highroad, which curves past about
+a hundred yards from the front door. This ground in front belongs
+to the house, but the woods all round are part of Lord
+Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper beeches immediately in
+front of the hall door has given its name to the place.
+
+"I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever,
+and was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child.
+There was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to
+us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is
+not mad. I found her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much
+younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think,
+while he can hardly be less than forty-five. From their
+conversation I have gathered that they have been married about
+seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by
+the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr.
+Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them
+was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother. As
+the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite
+imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her
+father's young wife.
+
+"Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as
+in feature. She impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse.
+She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately
+devoted both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey
+eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every
+little want and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her
+also in his bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they
+seemed to be a happy couple. And yet she had some secret sorrow,
+this woman. She would often be lost in deep thought, with the
+saddest look upon her face. More than once I have surprised her
+in tears. I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of
+her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so
+utterly spoiled and so ill-natured a little creature. He is small
+for his age, with a head which is quite disproportionately large.
+His whole life appears to be spent in an alternation between
+savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking. Giving
+pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea
+of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning
+the capture of mice, little birds, and insects. But I would
+rather not talk about the creature, Mr. Holmes, and, indeed, he
+has little to do with my story."
+
+"I am glad of all details," remarked my friend, "whether they
+seem to you to be relevant or not."
+
+"I shall try not to miss anything of importance. The one
+unpleasant thing about the house, which struck me at once, was
+the appearance and conduct of the servants. There are only two, a
+man and his wife. Toller, for that is his name, is a rough,
+uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual
+smell of drink. Twice since I have been with them he has been
+quite drunk, and yet Mr. Rucastle seemed to take no notice of it.
+His wife is a very tall and strong woman with a sour face, as
+silent as Mrs. Rucastle and much less amiable. They are a most
+unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my time in the
+nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one
+corner of the building.
+
+"For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was
+very quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after
+breakfast and whispered something to her husband.
+
+"'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to
+you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut
+your hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest
+iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue
+dress will become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in
+your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should
+both be extremely obliged.'
+
+"The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade
+of blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it
+bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not
+have been a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr.
+and Mrs. Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which
+seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for
+me in the drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching
+along the entire front of the house, with three long windows
+reaching down to the floor. A chair had been placed close to the
+central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was
+asked to sit, and then Mr. Rucastle, walking up and down on the
+other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest
+stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how
+comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs.
+Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humour, never so
+much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad,
+anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr. Rucastle
+suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the
+day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in
+the nursery.
+
+"Two days later this same performance was gone through under
+exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I
+sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny
+stories of which my employer had an immense répertoire, and which
+he told inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and
+moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not
+fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for
+about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then
+suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and
+to change my dress.
+
+"You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to
+what the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly
+be. They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face
+away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire
+to see what was going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be
+impossible, but I soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been
+broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of
+the glass in my handkerchief. On the next occasion, in the midst
+of my laughter, I put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able
+with a little management to see all that there was behind me. I
+confess that I was disappointed. There was nothing. At least that
+was my first impression. At the second glance, however, I
+perceived that there was a man standing in the Southampton Road,
+a small bearded man in a grey suit, who seemed to be looking in
+my direction. The road is an important highway, and there are
+usually people there. This man, however, was leaning against the
+railings which bordered our field and was looking earnestly up. I
+lowered my handkerchief and glanced at Mrs. Rucastle to find her
+eyes fixed upon me with a most searching gaze. She said nothing,
+but I am convinced that she had divined that I had a mirror in my
+hand and had seen what was behind me. She rose at once.
+
+"'Jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the
+road there who stares up at Miss Hunter.'
+
+"'No friend of yours, Miss Hunter?' he asked.
+
+"'No, I know no one in these parts.'
+
+"'Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to
+him to go away.'
+
+"'Surely it would be better to take no notice.'
+
+"'No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn
+round and wave him away like that.'
+
+"I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew
+down the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have
+not sat again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor
+seen the man in the road."
+
+"Pray continue," said Holmes. "Your narrative promises to be a
+most interesting one."
+
+"You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may
+prove to be little relation between the different incidents of
+which I speak. On the very first day that I was at the Copper
+Beeches, Mr. Rucastle took me to a small outhouse which stands
+near the kitchen door. As we approached it I heard the sharp
+rattling of a chain, and the sound as of a large animal moving
+about.
+
+"'Look in here!' said Mr. Rucastle, showing me a slit between two
+planks. 'Is he not a beauty?'
+
+"I looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a
+vague figure huddled up in the darkness.
+
+"'Don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start
+which I had given. 'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine,
+but really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do
+anything with him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then,
+so that he is always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose
+every night, and God help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs
+upon. For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your
+foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life
+is worth.'
+
+"The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to
+look out of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning.
+It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the
+house was silvered over and almost as bright as day. I was
+standing, rapt in the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was
+aware that something was moving under the shadow of the copper
+beeches. As it emerged into the moonshine I saw what it was. It
+was a giant dog, as large as a calf, tawny tinted, with hanging
+jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting bones. It walked slowly
+across the lawn and vanished into the shadow upon the other side.
+That dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart which I do not
+think that any burglar could have done.
+
+"And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as
+you know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a
+great coil at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the
+child was in bed, I began to amuse myself by examining the
+furniture of my room and by rearranging my own little things.
+There was an old chest of drawers in the room, the two upper ones
+empty and open, the lower one locked. I had filled the first two
+with my linen, and as I had still much to pack away I was
+naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third drawer. It
+struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere oversight,
+so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. The very
+first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open. There
+was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never
+guess what it was. It was my coil of hair.
+
+"I took it up and examined it. It was of the same peculiar tint,
+and the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing
+obtruded itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in
+the drawer? With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the
+contents, and drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two
+tresses together, and I assure you that they were identical. Was
+it not extraordinary? Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at
+all of what it meant. I returned the strange hair to the drawer,
+and I said nothing of the matter to the Rucastles as I felt that
+I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had
+locked.
+
+"I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes,
+and I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head.
+There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited
+at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of
+the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked.
+One day, however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle
+coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on
+his face which made him a very different person to the round,
+jovial man to whom I was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his
+brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his
+temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me
+without a word or a look.
+
+"This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the
+grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I
+could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four
+of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the
+fourth was shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I
+strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle
+came out to me, looking as merry and jovial as ever.
+
+"'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you
+without a word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with
+business matters.'
+
+"I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I,
+'you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one
+of them has the shutters up.'
+
+"He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled
+at my remark.
+
+"'Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my
+dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we
+have come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever
+believed it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest
+in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and
+annoyance, but no jest.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there
+was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know,
+I was all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity,
+though I have my share of that. It was more a feeling of duty--a
+feeling that some good might come from my penetrating to this
+place. They talk of woman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's
+instinct which gave me that feeling. At any rate, it was there,
+and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the
+forbidden door.
+
+"It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that,
+besides Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to
+do in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large
+black linen bag with him through the door. Recently he has been
+drinking hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and when
+I came upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt at
+all that he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both
+downstairs, and the child was with them, so that I had an
+admirable opportunity. I turned the key gently in the lock,
+opened the door, and slipped through.
+
+"There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and
+uncarpeted, which turned at a right angle at the farther end.
+Round this corner were three doors in a line, the first and third
+of which were open. They each led into an empty room, dusty and
+cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the other, so
+thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through
+them. The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it
+had been fastened one of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked
+at one end to a ring in the wall, and fastened at the other with
+stout cord. The door itself was locked as well, and the key was
+not there. This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the
+shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from
+beneath it that the room was not in darkness. Evidently there was
+a skylight which let in light from above. As I stood in the
+passage gazing at the sinister door and wondering what secret it
+might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within the room
+and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little
+slit of dim light which shone out from under the door. A mad,
+unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr. Holmes. My
+overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ran--ran
+as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the
+skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door,
+and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting
+outside.
+
+"'So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it
+must be when I saw the door open.'
+
+"'Oh, I am so frightened!' I panted.
+
+"'My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'--you cannot think how
+caressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened
+you, my dear young lady?'
+
+"But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I
+was keenly on my guard against him.
+
+"'I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' I answered.
+'But it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was
+frightened and ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in
+there!'
+
+"'Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly.
+
+"'Why, what did you think?' I asked.
+
+"'Why do you think that I lock this door?'
+
+"'I am sure that I do not know.'
+
+"'It is to keep people out who have no business there. Do you
+see?' He was still smiling in the most amiable manner.
+
+"'I am sure if I had known--'
+
+"'Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over
+that threshold again'--here in an instant the smile hardened into
+a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a
+demon--'I'll throw you to the mastiff.'
+
+"I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that
+I must have rushed past him into my room. I remember nothing
+until I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I
+thought of you, Mr. Holmes. I could not live there longer without
+some advice. I was frightened of the house, of the man, of the
+woman, of the servants, even of the child. They were all horrible
+to me. If I could only bring you down all would be well. Of
+course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was
+almost as strong as my fears. My mind was soon made up. I would
+send you a wire. I put on my hat and cloak, went down to the
+office, which is about half a mile from the house, and then
+returned, feeling very much easier. A horrible doubt came into my
+mind as I approached the door lest the dog might be loose, but I
+remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of
+insensibility that evening, and I knew that he was the only one
+in the household who had any influence with the savage creature,
+or who would venture to set him free. I slipped in in safety and
+lay awake half the night in my joy at the thought of seeing you.
+I had no difficulty in getting leave to come into Winchester this
+morning, but I must be back before three o'clock, for Mr. and
+Mrs. Rucastle are going on a visit, and will be away all the
+evening, so that I must look after the child. Now I have told you
+all my adventures, Mr. Holmes, and I should be very glad if you
+could tell me what it all means, and, above all, what I should
+do."
+
+Holmes and I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story.
+My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in
+his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon
+his face.
+
+"Is Toller still drunk?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. I heard his wife tell Mrs. Rucastle that she could do
+nothing with him."
+
+"That is well. And the Rucastles go out to-night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is there a cellar with a good strong lock?"
+
+"Yes, the wine-cellar."
+
+"You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very
+brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could
+perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not
+think you a quite exceptional woman."
+
+"I will try. What is it?"
+
+"We shall be at the Copper Beeches by seven o'clock, my friend
+and I. The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will,
+we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might
+give the alarm. If you could send her into the cellar on some
+errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate
+matters immensely."
+
+"I will do it."
+
+"Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of
+course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been
+brought there to personate someone, and the real person is
+imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this
+prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice
+Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to
+America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in height,
+figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers had been cut off, very
+possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of
+course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a curious chance you
+came upon her tresses. The man in the road was undoubtedly some
+friend of hers--possibly her fiancé--and no doubt, as you wore
+the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your
+laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture,
+that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer
+desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to prevent
+him from endeavouring to communicate with her. So much is fairly
+clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of
+the child."
+
+"What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated.
+
+"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining
+light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the
+parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have
+frequently gained my first real insight into the character of
+parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is
+abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake, and whether he
+derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or
+from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their
+power."
+
+"I am sure that you are right, Mr. Holmes," cried our client. "A
+thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you
+have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to
+this poor creature."
+
+"We must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning
+man. We can do nothing until seven o'clock. At that hour we shall
+be with you, and it will not be long before we solve the
+mystery."
+
+We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we
+reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside
+public-house. The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining
+like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were
+sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been
+standing smiling on the door-step.
+
+"Have you managed it?" asked Holmes.
+
+A loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. "That is
+Mrs. Toller in the cellar," said she. "Her husband lies snoring
+on the kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates
+of Mr. Rucastle's."
+
+"You have done well indeed!" cried Holmes with enthusiasm. "Now
+lead the way, and we shall soon see the end of this black
+business."
+
+We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a
+passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss
+Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the
+transverse bar. Then he tried the various keys in the lock, but
+without success. No sound came from within, and at the silence
+Holmes' face clouded over.
+
+"I trust that we are not too late," said he. "I think, Miss
+Hunter, that we had better go in without you. Now, Watson, put
+your shoulder to it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our
+way in."
+
+It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united
+strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There
+was no furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a
+basketful of linen. The skylight above was open, and the prisoner
+gone.
+
+"There has been some villainy here," said Holmes; "this beauty
+has guessed Miss Hunter's intentions and has carried his victim
+off."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Through the skylight. We shall soon see how he managed it." He
+swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the
+end of a long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did
+it."
+
+"But it is impossible," said Miss Hunter; "the ladder was not
+there when the Rucastles went away."
+
+"He has come back and done it. I tell you that he is a clever and
+dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were
+he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it
+would be as well for you to have your pistol ready."
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at
+the door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy
+stick in his hand. Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the
+wall at the sight of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and
+confronted him.
+
+"You villain!" said he, "where's your daughter?"
+
+The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open
+skylight.
+
+"It is for me to ask you that," he shrieked, "you thieves! Spies
+and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I'll
+serve you!" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he
+could go.
+
+"He's gone for the dog!" cried Miss Hunter.
+
+"I have my revolver," said I.
+
+"Better close the front door," cried Holmes, and we all rushed
+down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we
+heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a
+horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An
+elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out
+at a side door.
+
+"My God!" he cried. "Someone has loosed the dog. It's not been
+fed for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late!"
+
+Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with
+Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its
+black muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed and
+screamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and
+it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great
+creases of his neck. With much labour we separated them and
+carried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laid
+him upon the drawing-room sofa, and having dispatched the sobered
+Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to
+relieve his pain. We were all assembled round him when the door
+opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room.
+
+"Mrs. Toller!" cried Miss Hunter.
+
+"Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he
+went up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know
+what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains
+were wasted."
+
+"Ha!" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. "It is clear that Mrs.
+Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else."
+
+"Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know."
+
+"Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several
+points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark."
+
+"I will soon make it clear to you," said she; "and I'd have done
+so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's
+police-court business over this, you'll remember that I was the
+one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend
+too.
+
+"She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time
+that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no
+say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until
+after she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could
+learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so
+quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them
+but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was
+safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coming
+forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then
+her father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to
+sign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use
+her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her until
+she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then
+she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her
+beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in her
+young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be."
+
+"Ah," said Holmes, "I think that what you have been good enough
+to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce
+all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this
+system of imprisonment?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of
+the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler."
+
+"That was it, sir."
+
+"But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should
+be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain
+arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your
+interests were the same as his."
+
+"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman," said
+Mrs. Toller serenely.
+
+"And in this way he managed that your good man should have no
+want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment
+when your master had gone out."
+
+"You have it, sir, just as it happened."
+
+"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller," said Holmes, "for
+you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And
+here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think,
+Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester,
+as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a
+questionable one."
+
+And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the
+copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but
+was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of
+his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who
+probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it
+difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were
+married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their
+flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in
+the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend
+Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further
+interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one
+of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at
+Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by 
+Arthur Conan Doyle
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Amateur Cracksman, by E. W. Hornung
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Amateur Cracksman
+
+Author: E. W. Hornung
+
+Posting Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #706]
+Release Date: November, 1996
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN
+
+
+BY
+
+E. W. HORNUNG
+
+
+
+  TO
+  A. C. D.
+  THIS FORM OF FLATTERY
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  THE IDES OF MARCH
+  A COSTUME PIECE
+  GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
+  LE PREMIER PAS
+  WILFUL MURDER
+  NINE POINTS OF THE LAW
+  THE RETURN MATCH
+  THE GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
+
+
+
+
+THE IDES OF MARCH
+
+I
+
+It was half-past twelve when I returned to the Albany as a last
+desperate resort.  The scene of my disaster was much as I had left it.
+The baccarat-counters still strewed the table, with the empty glasses
+and the loaded ash-trays.  A window had been opened to let the smoke
+out, and was letting in the fog instead.  Raffles himself had merely
+discarded his dining jacket for one of his innumerable blazers.  Yet he
+arched his eyebrows as though I had dragged him from his bed.
+
+"Forgotten something?" said he, when he saw me on his mat.
+
+"No," said I, pushing past him without ceremony.  And I led the way
+into his room with an impudence amazing to myself.
+
+"Not come back for your revenge, have you?  Because I'm afraid I can't
+give it to you single-handed.  I was sorry myself that the others--"
+
+We were face to face by his fireside, and I cut him short.
+
+"Raffles," said I, "you may well be surprised at my coming back in this
+way and at this hour.  I hardly know you.  I was never in your rooms
+before to-night.  But I fagged for you at school, and you said you
+remembered me.  Of course that's no excuse; but will you listen to
+me--for two minutes?"
+
+In my emotion I had at first to struggle for every word; but his face
+reassured me as I went on, and I was not mistaken in its expression.
+
+"Certainly, my dear man," said he; "as many minutes as you like.  Have
+a Sullivan and sit down."  And he handed me his silver cigarette-case.
+
+"No," said I, finding a full voice as I shook my head; "no, I won't
+smoke, and I won't sit down, thank you.  Nor will you ask me to do
+either when you've heard what I have to say."
+
+"Really?" said he, lighting his own cigarette with one clear blue eye
+upon me.  "How do you know?"
+
+"Because you'll probably show me the door," I cried bitterly; "and you
+will be justified in doing it!  But it's no use beating about the bush.
+You know I dropped over two hundred just now?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I hadn't the money in my pocket."
+
+"I remember."
+
+"But I had my check-book, and I wrote each of you a check at that desk."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Not one of them was worth the paper it was written on, Raffles.  I am
+overdrawn already at my bank!"
+
+"Surely only for the moment?"
+
+"No.  I have spent everything."
+
+"But somebody told me you were so well off. I heard you had come in for
+money?"
+
+"So I did.  Three years ago.  It has been my curse; now it's all
+gone--every penny!  Yes, I've been a fool; there never was nor will be
+such a fool as I've been....  Isn't this enough for you?  Why don't you
+turn me out?"  He was walking up and down with a very long face instead.
+
+"Couldn't your people do anything?" he asked at length.
+
+"Thank God," I cried, "I have no people!  I was an only child.  I came
+in for everything there was.  My one comfort is that they're gone, and
+will never know."
+
+I cast myself into a chair and hid my face. Raffles continued to pace
+the rich carpet that was of a piece with everything else in his rooms.
+There was no variation in his soft and even footfalls.
+
+"You used to be a literary little cuss," he said at length; "didn't you
+edit the mag. before you left?  Anyway I recollect fagging you to do my
+verses; and literature of all sorts is the very thing nowadays; any
+fool can make a living at it."
+
+I shook my head.  "Any fool couldn't write off my debts," said I.
+
+"Then you have a flat somewhere?" he went on.
+
+"Yes, in Mount Street."
+
+"Well, what about the furniture?"
+
+I laughed aloud in my misery.  "There's been a bill of sale on every
+stick for months!"
+
+And at that Raffles stood still, with raised eyebrows and stern eyes
+that I could meet the better now that he knew the worst; then, with a
+shrug, he resumed his walk, and for some minutes neither of us spoke.
+But in his handsome, unmoved face I read my fate and death-warrant; and
+with every breath I cursed my folly and my cowardice in coming to him
+at all.  Because he had been kind to me at school, when he was captain
+of the eleven, and I his fag, I had dared to look for kindness from him
+now; because I was ruined, and he rich enough to play cricket all the
+summer, and do nothing for the rest of the year, I had fatuously
+counted on his mercy, his sympathy, his help!  Yes, I had relied on him
+in my heart, for all my outward diffidence and humility; and I was
+rightly served.  There was as little of mercy as of sympathy in that
+curling nostril, that rigid jaw, that cold blue eye which never glanced
+my way.  I caught up my hat.  I blundered to my feet.  I would have
+gone without a word; but Raffles stood between me and the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" said he.
+
+"That's my business," I replied.  "I won't trouble YOU any more."
+
+"Then how am I to help you?"
+
+"I didn't ask your help."
+
+"Then why come to me?"
+
+"Why, indeed!" I echoed.  "Will you let me pass?"
+
+"Not until you tell me where you are going and what you mean to do."
+
+"Can't you guess?" I cried.  And for many seconds we stood staring in
+each other's eyes.
+
+"Have you got the pluck?" said he, breaking the spell in a tone so
+cynical that it brought my last drop of blood to the boil.
+
+"You shall see," said I, as I stepped back and whipped the pistol from
+my overcoat pocket. "Now, will you let me pass or shall I do it here?"
+
+The barrel touched my temple, and my thumb the trigger.  Mad with
+excitement as I was, ruined, dishonored, and now finally determined to
+make an end of my misspent life, my only surprise to this day is that I
+did not do so then and there. The despicable satisfaction of involving
+another in one's destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser
+egoism; and had fear or horror flown to my companion's face, I shudder
+to think I might have died diabolically happy with that look for my
+last impious consolation.  It was the look that came instead which held
+my hand.  Neither fear nor horror were in it; only wonder, admiration,
+and such a measure of pleased expectancy as caused me after all to
+pocket my revolver with an oath.
+
+"You devil!" I said.  "I believe you wanted me to do it!"
+
+"Not quite," was the reply, made with a little start, and a change of
+color that came too late. "To tell you the truth, though, I half
+thought you meant it, and I was never more fascinated in my life.  I
+never dreamt you had such stuff in you, Bunny!  No, I'm hanged if I let
+you go now.  And you'd better not try that game again, for you won't
+catch me stand and look on a second time.  We must think of some way
+out of the mess.  I had no idea you were a chap of that sort!  There,
+let me have the gun."
+
+One of his hands fell kindly on my shoulder, while the other slipped
+into my overcoat pocket, and I suffered him to deprive me of my weapon
+without a murmur.  Nor was this simply because Raffles had the subtle
+power of making himself irresistible at will.  He was beyond comparison
+the most masterful man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiescence was
+due to more than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the
+stronger. The forlorn hope which had brought me to the Albany was
+turned as by magic into an almost staggering sense of safety.  Raffles
+would help me after all!  A. J. Raffles would be my friend!  It was as
+though all the world had come round suddenly to my side; so far
+therefore from resisting his action, I caught and clasped his hand with
+a fervor as uncontrollable as the frenzy which had preceded it.
+
+"God bless you!" I cried.  "Forgive me for everything.  I will tell you
+the truth.  I DID think you might help me in my extremity, though I
+well knew that I had no claim upon you.  Still--for the old school's
+sake--the sake of old times--I thought you might give me another
+chance.  If you wouldn't I meant to blow out my brains--and will still
+if you change your mind!"
+
+In truth I feared that it was changing, with his expression, even as I
+spoke, and in spite of his kindly tone and kindlier use of my old
+school nickname.  His next words showed me my mistake.
+
+"What a boy it is for jumping to conclusions! I have my vices, Bunny,
+but backing and filling is not one of them.  Sit down, my good fellow,
+and have a cigarette to soothe your nerves.  I insist.  Whiskey?  The
+worst thing for you; here's some coffee that I was brewing when you
+came in.  Now listen to me.  You speak of 'another chance.'  What do
+you mean?  Another chance at baccarat?  Not if I know it!  You think
+the luck must turn; suppose it didn't?  We should only have made bad
+worse.  No, my dear chap, you've plunged enough. Do you put yourself in
+my hands or do you not? Very well, then you plunge no more, and I
+undertake not to present my check.  Unfortunately there are the other
+men; and still more unfortunately, Bunny, I'm as hard up at this moment
+as you are yourself!"
+
+It was my turn to stare at Raffles.  "You?" I vociferated.  "You hard
+up?  How am I to sit here and believe that?"
+
+"Did I refuse to believe it of you?" he returned, smiling.  "And, with
+your own experience, do you think that because a fellow has rooms in
+this place, and belongs to a club or two, and plays a little cricket,
+he must necessarily have a balance at the bank?  I tell you, my dear
+man, that at this moment I'm as hard up as you ever were.  I have
+nothing but my wits to live on--absolutely nothing else. It was as
+necessary for me to win some money this evening as it was for you.
+We're in the same boat, Bunny; we'd better pull together."
+
+"Together!"  I jumped at it.  "I'll do anything in this world for you,
+Raffles," I said, "if you really mean that you won't give me away.
+Think of anything you like, and I'll do it!  I was a desperate man when
+I came here, and I'm just as desperate now.  I don't mind what I do if
+only I can get out of this without a scandal."
+
+Again I see him, leaning back in one of the luxurious chairs with which
+his room was furnished. I see his indolent, athletic figure; his pale,
+sharp, clean-shaven features; his curly black hair; his strong,
+unscrupulous mouth.  And again I feel the clear beam of his wonderful
+eye, cold and luminous as a star, shining into my brain--sifting the
+very secrets of my heart.
+
+"I wonder if you mean all that!" he said at length.  "You do in your
+present mood; but who can back his mood to last?  Still, there's hope
+when a chap takes that tone.  Now I think of it, too, you were a plucky
+little devil at school; you once did me rather a good turn, I
+recollect.  Remember it, Bunny?  Well, wait a bit, and perhaps I'll be
+able to do you a better one.  Give me time to think."
+
+He got up, lit a fresh cigarette, and fell to pacing the room once
+more, but with a slower and more thoughtful step, and for a much longer
+period than before.  Twice he stopped at my chair as though on the
+point of speaking, but each time he checked himself and resumed his
+stride in silence.  Once he threw up the window, which he had shut some
+time since, and stood for some moments leaning out into the fog which
+filled the Albany courtyard.  Meanwhile a clock on the chimney-piece
+struck one, and one again for the half-hour, without a word between us.
+
+Yet I not only kept my chair with patience, but I acquired an
+incongruous equanimity in that half-hour.  Insensibly I had shifted my
+burden to the broad shoulders of this splendid friend, and my thoughts
+wandered with my eyes as the minutes passed.  The room was the
+good-sized, square one, with the folding doors, the marble
+mantel-piece, and the gloomy, old-fashioned distinction peculiar to the
+Albany.  It was charmingly furnished and arranged, with the right
+amount of negligence and the right amount of taste.  What struck me
+most, however, was the absence of the usual insignia of a cricketer's
+den.  Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, a carved oak
+bookcase, with every shelf in a litter, filled the better part of one
+wall; and where I looked for cricketing groups, I found reproductions
+of such works as "Love and Death" and "The Blessed Damozel," in dusty
+frames and different parallels.  The man might have been a minor poet
+instead of an athlete of the first water.  But there had always been a
+fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition; some of these
+very pictures I had myself dusted in his study at school; and they set
+me thinking of yet another of his many sides--and of the little
+incident to which he had just referred.
+
+Everybody knows how largely the tone of a public school depends on that
+of the eleven, and on the character of the captain of cricket in
+particular; and I have never heard it denied that in A. J. Raffles's
+time our tone was good, or that such influence as he troubled to exert
+was on the side of the angels.  Yet it was whispered in the school that
+he was in the habit of parading the town at night in loud checks and a
+false beard.  It was whispered, and disbelieved.  I alone knew it for a
+fact; for night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the
+rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it
+down again on a given signal.  Well, one night he was over-bold, and
+within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the hey-day of his fame.
+Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided,
+doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the
+untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable incident.
+But I cannot pretend to have forgotten it in throwing myself on this
+man's mercy in my desperation.  And I was wondering how much of his
+leniency was owing to the fact that Raffles had not forgotten it
+either, when he stopped and stood over my chair once more.
+
+"I've been thinking of that night we had the narrow squeak," he began.
+"Why do you start?"
+
+"I was thinking of it too."
+
+He smiled, as though he had read my thoughts.
+
+"Well, you were the right sort of little beggar then, Bunny; you didn't
+talk and you didn't flinch. You asked no questions and you told no
+tales.  I wonder if you're like that now?"
+
+"I don't know," said I, slightly puzzled by his tone.  "I've made such
+a mess of my own affairs that I trust myself about as little as I'm
+likely to be trusted by anybody else.  Yet I never in my life went back
+on a friend.  I will say that, otherwise perhaps I mightn't be in such
+a hole to-night."
+
+"Exactly," said Raffles, nodding to himself, as though in assent to
+some hidden train of thought; "exactly what I remember of you, and I'll
+bet it's as true now as it was ten years ago.  We don't alter, Bunny.
+We only develop.  I suppose neither you nor I are really altered since
+you used to let down that rope and I used to come up it hand over hand.
+You would stick at nothing for a pal--what?"
+
+"At nothing in this world," I was pleased to cry.
+
+"Not even at a crime?" said Raffles, smiling.
+
+I stopped to think, for his tone had changed, and I felt sure he was
+chaffing me.  Yet his eye seemed as much in earnest as ever, and for my
+part I was in no mood for reservations.
+
+"No, not even at that," I declared; "name your crime, and I'm your man."
+
+He looked at me one moment in wonder, and another moment in doubt; then
+turned the matter off with a shake of his head, and the little cynical
+laugh that was all his own.
+
+"You're a nice chap, Bunny!  A real desperate character--what?  Suicide
+one moment, and any crime I like the next!  What you want is a drag, my
+boy, and you did well to come to a decent law-abiding citizen with a
+reputation to lose.  None the less we must have that money to-night--by
+hook or crook."
+
+"To-night, Raffles?"
+
+"The sooner the better.  Every hour after ten o'clock to-morrow morning
+is an hour of risk.  Let one of those checks get round to your own
+bank, and you and it are dishonored together.  No, we must raise the
+wind to-night and re-open your account first thing to-morrow.  And I
+rather think I know where the wind can be raised."
+
+"At two o'clock in the morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But how--but where--at such an hour?"
+
+"From a friend of mine here in Bond Street."
+
+"He must be a very intimate friend!"
+
+"Intimate's not the word.  I have the run of his place and a latch-key
+all to myself."
+
+"You would knock him up at this hour of the night?"
+
+"If he's in bed."
+
+"And it's essential that I should go in with you?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Then I must; but I'm bound to say I don't like the idea, Raffles."
+
+"Do you prefer the alternative?" asked my companion, with a sneer.
+"No, hang it, that's unfair!" he cried apologetically in the same
+breath.  "I quite understand.  It's a beastly ordeal.  But it would
+never do for you to stay outside.  I tell you what, you shall have a
+peg before we start--just one.  There's the whiskey, here's a syphon,
+and I'll be putting on an overcoat while you help yourself."
+
+Well, I daresay I did so with some freedom, for this plan of his was
+not the less distasteful to me from its apparent inevitability.  I must
+own, however, that it possessed fewer terrors before my glass was
+empty.  Meanwhile Raffles rejoined me, with a covert coat over his
+blazer, and a soft felt hat set carelessly on the curly head he shook
+with a smile as I passed him the decanter.
+
+"When we come back," said he.  "Work first, play afterward.  Do you see
+what day it is?" he added, tearing a leaflet from a Shakespearian
+calendar, as I drained my glass.  "March 15th.  'The Ides of March, the
+Ides of March, remember.' Eh, Bunny, my boy?  You won't forget them,
+will you?"
+
+And, with a laugh, he threw some coals on the fire before turning down
+the gas like a careful householder.  So we went out together as the
+clock on the chimney-piece was striking two.
+
+
+II
+
+Piccadilly was a trench of raw white fog, rimmed with blurred
+street-lamps, and lined with a thin coating of adhesive mud.  We met no
+other wayfarers on the deserted flagstones, and were ourselves favored
+with a very hard stare from the constable of the beat, who, however,
+touched his helmet on recognizing my companion.
+
+"You see, I'm known to the police," laughed Raffles as we passed on.
+"Poor devils, they've got to keep their weather eye open on a night
+like this!  A fog may be a bore to you and me, Bunny, but it's a
+perfect godsend to the criminal classes, especially so late in their
+season.  Here we are, though--and I'm hanged if the beggar isn't in bed
+and asleep after all!"
+
+We had turned into Bond Street, and had halted on the curb a few yards
+down on the right.  Raffles was gazing up at some windows across the
+road, windows barely discernible through the mist, and without the
+glimmer of a light to throw them out. They were over a jeweller's shop,
+as I could see by the peep-hole in the shop door, and the bright light
+burning within.  But the entire "upper part," with the private
+street-door next the shop, was black and blank as the sky itself.
+
+"Better give it up for to-night," I urged. "Surely the morning will be
+time enough!"
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Raffles.  "I have his key. We'll surprise him.
+Come along."
+
+And seizing my right arm, he hurried me across the road, opened the
+door with his latch-key, and in another moment had shut it swiftly but
+softly behind us.  We stood together in the dark.  Outside, a measured
+step was approaching; we had heard it through the fog as we crossed the
+street; now, as it drew nearer, my companion's fingers tightened on my
+arm.
+
+"It may be the chap himself," he whispered. "He's the devil of a
+night-bird.  Not a sound, Bunny!  We'll startle the life out of him.
+Ah!"
+
+The measured step had passed without a pause. Raffles drew a deep
+breath, and his singular grip of me slowly relaxed.
+
+"But still, not a sound," he continued in the same whisper; "we'll take
+a rise out of him, wherever he is!  Slip off your shoes and follow me."
+
+Well, you may wonder at my doing so; but you can never have met A. J.
+Raffles.  Half his power lay in a conciliating trick of sinking the
+commander in the leader.  And it was impossible not to follow one who
+led with such a zest.  You might question, but you followed first.  So
+now, when I heard him kick off his own shoes, I did the same, and was
+on the stairs at his heels before I realized what an extraordinary way
+was this of approaching a stranger for money in the dead of night.  But
+obviously Raffles and he were on exceptional terms of intimacy, and I
+could not but infer that they were in the habit of playing practical
+jokes upon each other.
+
+We groped our way so slowly upstairs that I had time to make more than
+one note before we reached the top.  The stair was uncarpeted.  The
+spread fingers of my right hand encountered nothing on the damp wall;
+those of my left trailed through a dust that could be felt on the
+banisters. An eerie sensation had been upon me since we entered the
+house.  It increased with every step we climbed.  What hermit were we
+going to startle in his cell?
+
+We came to a landing.  The banisters led us to the left, and to the
+left again.  Four steps more, and we were on another and a longer
+landing, and suddenly a match blazed from the black.  I never heard it
+struck.  Its flash was blinding.  When my eyes became accustomed to the
+light, there was Raffles holding up the match with one hand, and
+shading it with the other, between bare boards, stripped walls, and the
+open doors of empty rooms.
+
+"Where have you brought me?" I cried.  "The house is unoccupied!"
+
+"Hush!  Wait!" he whispered, and he led the way into one of the empty
+rooms.  His match went out as we crossed the threshold, and he struck
+another without the slightest noise.  Then he stood with his back to
+me, fumbling with something that I could not see.  But, when he threw
+the second match away, there was some other light in its stead, and a
+slight smell of oil.  I stepped forward to look over his shoulder, but
+before I could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern in my
+face.
+
+"What's this?" I gasped.  "What rotten trick are you going to play?"
+
+"It's played," he answered, with his quiet laugh.
+
+"On me?"
+
+"I am afraid so, Bunny."
+
+"Is there no one in the house, then?"
+
+"No one but ourselves."
+
+"So it was mere chaff about your friend in Bond Street, who could let
+us have that money?"
+
+"Not altogether.  It's quite true that Danby is a friend of mine."
+
+"Danby?"
+
+"The jeweller underneath."
+
+"What do you mean?" I whispered, trembling like a leaf as his meaning
+dawned upon me.  "Are we to get the money from the jeweller?"
+
+"Well, not exactly."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"The equivalent--from his shop."
+
+There was no need for another question.  I understood everything but my
+own density.  He had given me a dozen hints, and I had taken none. And
+there I stood staring at him, in that empty room; and there he stood
+with his dark lantern, laughing at me.
+
+"A burglar!" I gasped.  "You--you!"
+
+"I told you I lived by my wits."
+
+"Why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do?  Why couldn't you
+trust me?  Why must you lie?" I demanded, piqued to the quick for all
+my horror.
+
+"I wanted to tell you," said he.  "I was on the point of telling you
+more than once.  You may remember how I sounded you about crime, though
+you have probably forgotten what you said yourself.  I didn't think you
+meant it at the time, but I thought I'd put you to the test.  Now I see
+you didn't, and I don't blame you.  I only am to blame. Get out of it,
+my dear boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me.  You won't give me
+away, whatever else you do!"
+
+Oh, his cleverness!  His fiendish cleverness! Had he fallen back on
+threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet.  But
+he set me free to leave him in the lurch.  He would not blame me.  He
+did not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me.  He knew my weakness
+and my strength, and was playing on both with his master's touch.
+
+"Not so fast," said I.  "Did I put this into your head, or were you
+going to do it in any case?"
+
+"Not in any case," said Raffles.  "It's true I've had the key for days,
+but when I won to-night I thought of chucking it; for, as a matter of
+fact, it's not a one-man job."
+
+"That settles it.  I'm your man."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Yes--for to-night."
+
+"Good old Bunny," he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment to my
+face; the next he was explaining his plans, and I was nodding, as
+though we had been fellow-cracksmen all our days.
+
+"I know the shop," he whispered, "because I've got a few things there.
+I know this upper part too; it's been to let for a month, and I got an
+order to view, and took a cast of the key before using it. The one
+thing I don't know is how to make a connection between the two; at
+present there's none. We may make it up here, though I rather fancy the
+basement myself.  If you wait a minute I'll tell you."
+
+He set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window, and opened it
+with scarcely a sound: only to return, shaking his head, after shutting
+the window with the same care.
+
+"That was our one chance," said he; "a back window above a back window;
+but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an outside
+light. Come down after me to the basement; and remember, though there's
+not a soul on the premises, you can't make too little noise.
+There--there--listen to that!"
+
+It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones
+outside.  Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we stood motionless
+till it had passed.
+
+"Either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these
+jewellers run between them. The watchman's the man for us to watch;
+he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing."
+
+We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in spite of
+us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then down some narrow
+stone steps, at the foot of which Raffles showed his light, and put on
+his shoes once more, bidding me do the same in a rather louder tone
+than he had permitted himself to employ overhead.  We were now
+considerably below the level of the street, in a small space with as
+many doors as it had sides.  Three were ajar, and we saw through them
+into empty cellars; but in the fourth a key was turned and a bolt
+drawn; and this one presently let us out into the bottom of a deep,
+square well of fog.  A similar door faced it across this area, and
+Raffles had the lantern close against it, and was hiding the light with
+his body, when a short and sudden crash made my heart stand still.
+Next moment I saw the door wide open, and Raffles standing within and
+beckoning me with a jimmy.
+
+"Door number one," he whispered.  "Deuce knows how many more there'll
+be, but I know of two at least.  We won't have to make much noise over
+them, either; down here there's less risk."
+
+We were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the narrow stone stair
+which we had just descended: the yard, or well, being the one part
+common to both the private and the business premises.  But this flight
+led to no open passage; instead, a singularly solid mahogany door
+confronted us at the top.
+
+"I thought so," muttered Raffles, handing me the lantern, and pocketing
+a bunch of skeleton keys, after tampering for a few minutes with the
+lock. "It'll be an hour's work to get through that!"
+
+"Can't you pick it?"
+
+"No: I know these locks.  It's no use trying. We must cut it out, and
+it'll take us an hour."
+
+It took us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took
+Raffles; and never in my life have I seen anything more deliberately
+done.  My part was simply to stand by with the dark lantern in one
+hand, and a small bottle of rock-oil in the other.
+
+Raffles had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended obviously for
+his razors, but filled instead with the tools of his secret trade,
+including the rock-oil.  From this case he selected a "bit," capable of
+drilling a hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it to a small but very
+strong steel "brace." Then he took off his covert-coat and his blazer,
+spread them neatly on the top step--knelt on them--turned up his shirt
+cuffs--and went to work with brace-and-bit near the key-hole.  But
+first he oiled the bit to minimize the noise, and this he did
+invariably before beginning a fresh hole, and often in the middle of
+one.  It took thirty-two separate borings to cut around that lock.
+
+I noticed that through the first circular orifice Raffles thrust a
+forefinger; then, as the circle became an ever-lengthening oval, he got
+his hand through up to the thumb; and I heard him swear softly to
+himself.
+
+"I was afraid so!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An iron gate on the other side!"
+
+"How on earth are we to get through that?" I asked in dismay.
+
+"Pick the lock.  But there may be two.  In that case they'll be top and
+bottom, and we shall have two fresh holes to make, as the door opens
+inwards. It won't open two inches as it is."
+
+I confess I did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing that
+one lock had baffled us already; and my disappointment and impatience
+must have been a revelation to me had I stopped to think. The truth is
+that I was entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary
+zeal of which I was myself quite unconscious at the time.  The romance
+and the peril of the whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced.
+My moral sense and my sense of fear were stricken by a common
+paralysis.  And there I stood, shining my light and holding my phial
+with a keener interest than I had ever brought to any honest avocation.
+And there knelt A. J. Raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the
+same watchful, quiet, determined half-smile with which I have seen him
+send down over after over in a county match!
+
+At last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wrenched out bodily,
+and a splendid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder through the
+aperture, and through the bars of the iron gate beyond.
+
+"Now," whispered Raffles, "if there's only one lock it'll be in the
+middle.  Joy!  Here it is!  Only let me pick it, and we're through at
+last."
+
+He withdrew his arm, a skeleton key was selected from the bunch, and
+then back went his arm to the shoulder.  It was a breathless moment.  I
+heard the heart throbbing in my body, the very watch ticking in my
+pocket, and ever and anon the tinkle-tinkle of the skeleton key.
+Then--at last--there came a single unmistakable click.  In another
+minute the mahogany door and the iron gate yawned behind us; and
+Raffles was sitting on an office table, wiping his face, with the
+lantern throwing a steady beam by his side.
+
+We were now in a bare and roomy lobby behind the shop, but separated
+therefrom by an iron curtain, the very sight of which filled me with
+despair. Raffles, however, did not appear in the least depressed, but
+hung up his coat and hat on some pegs in the lobby before examining
+this curtain with his lantern.
+
+"That's nothing," said he, after a minute's inspection; "we'll be
+through that in no time, but there's a door on the other side which may
+give us trouble."
+
+"Another door!" I groaned.  "And how do you mean to tackle this thing?"
+
+"Prise it up with the jointed jimmy.  The weak point of these iron
+curtains is the leverage you can get from below.  But it makes a noise,
+and this is where you're coming in, Bunny; this is where I couldn't do
+without you.  I must have you overhead to knock through when the
+street's clear. I'll come with you and show a light."
+
+Well, you may imagine how little I liked the prospect of this lonely
+vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the vital
+responsibility which it involved.  Hitherto I had been a mere
+spectator.  Now I was to take part in the game. And the fresh
+excitement made me more than ever insensible to those considerations of
+conscience and of safety which were already as dead nerves in my breast.
+
+So I took my post without a murmur in the front room above the shop.
+The fixtures had been left for the refusal of the incoming tenant, and
+fortunately for us they included Venetian blinds which were already
+down.  It was the simplest matter in the world to stand peeping through
+the laths into the street, to beat twice with my foot when anybody was
+approaching, and once when all was clear again.  The noises that even I
+could hear below, with the exception of one metallic crash at the
+beginning, were indeed incredibly slight; but they ceased altogether at
+each double rap from my toe; and a policeman passed quite half a dozen
+times beneath my eyes, and the man whom I took to be the jeweller's
+watchman oftener still, during the better part of an hour that I spent
+at the window.  Once, indeed, my heart was in my mouth, but only once.
+It was when the watchman stopped and peered through the peep-hole into
+the lighted shop.  I waited for his whistle--I waited for the gallows
+or the gaol!  But my signals had been studiously obeyed, and the man
+passed on in undisturbed serenity.
+
+In the end I had a signal in my turn, and retraced my steps with
+lighted matches, down the broad stairs, down the narrow ones, across
+the area, and up into the lobby where Raffles awaited me with an
+outstretched hand.
+
+"Well done, my boy!" said he.  "You're the same good man in a pinch,
+and you shall have your reward.  I've got a thousand pounds' worth if
+I've got a penn'oth.  It's all in my pockets.  And here's something
+else I found in this locker; very decent port and some cigars, meant
+for poor dear Danby's business friends.  Take a pull, and you shall
+light up presently.  I've found a lavatory, too, and we must have a
+wash-and-brush-up before we go, for I'm as black as your boot."
+
+The iron curtain was down, but he insisted on raising it until I could
+peep through the glass door on the other side and see his handiwork in
+the shop beyond.  Here two electric lights were left burning all night
+long, and in their cold white rays I could at first see nothing amiss.
+I looked along an orderly lane, an empty glass counter on my left,
+glass cupboards of untouched silver on my right, and facing me the
+filmy black eye of the peep-hole that shone like a stage moon on the
+street.  The counter had not been emptied by Raffles; its contents were
+in the Chubb's safe, which he had given up at a glance; nor had he
+looked at the silver, except to choose a cigarette case for me.  He had
+confined himself entirely to the shop window.  This was in three
+compartments, each secured for the night by removable panels with
+separate locks. Raffles had removed them a few hours before their time,
+and the electric light shone on a corrugated shutter bare as the ribs
+of an empty carcase.  Every article of value was gone from the one
+place which was invisible from the little window in the door; elsewhere
+all was as it had been left overnight. And but for a train of mangled
+doors behind the iron curtain, a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with
+which liberties had been taken, a rather black towel in the lavatory, a
+burnt match here and there, and our finger-marks on the dusty
+banisters, not a trace of our visit did we leave.
+
+"Had it in my head for long?" said Raffles, as we strolled through the
+streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we were returning
+from a dance.  "No, Bunny, I never thought of it till I saw that upper
+part empty about a month ago, and bought a few things in the shop to
+get the lie of the land.  That reminds me that I never paid for them;
+but, by Jove, I will to-morrow, and if that isn't poetic justice, what
+is?  One visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second
+convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal.  So I had
+practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night
+and in the very plight for it!  But here we are at the Albany, and I
+hope there's some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but
+for my part I'm as cold as Keats's owl."
+
+He could think of Keats on his way from a felony!  He could hanker for
+his fireside like another!  Floodgates were loosed within me, and the
+plain English of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice.  Raffles
+was a burglar.  I had helped him to commit one burglary, therefore I
+was a burglar, too.  Yet I could stand and warm myself by his fire, and
+watch him empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or
+wicked!
+
+My blood froze.  My heart sickened.  My brain whirled.  How I had liked
+this villain!  How I had admired him!  Now my liking and admiration
+must turn to loathing and disgust.  I waited for the change.  I longed
+to feel it in my heart.  But--I longed and I waited in vain!
+
+I saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with their
+hoard.  Rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants,
+aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and
+diamonds always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light,
+dazzling me--blinding me--making me disbelieve because I could no
+longer forget.  Last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver
+from an inner pocket. And that struck a chord.  I suppose I said
+something--my hand flew out.  I can see Raffles now, as he looked at me
+once more with a high arch over each clear eye.  I can see him pick out
+the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me
+my pistol back again.
+
+"You mayn't believe it, Bunny," said he, "but I never carried a loaded
+one before.  On the whole I think it gives one confidence.  Yet it
+would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and
+that's not the game at all, though I have often thought that the
+murderer who has just done the trick must have great sensations before
+things get too hot for him.  Don't look so distressed, my dear chap.
+I've never had those sensations, and I don't suppose I ever shall."
+
+"But this much you have done before?" said I hoarsely.
+
+"Before?  My dear Bunny, you offend me!  Did it look like a first
+attempt?  Of course I have done it before."
+
+"Often?"
+
+"Well--no!  Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events;
+never, as a matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly hard up.  Did you hear
+about the Thimbleby diamonds?  Well, that was the last time--and a poor
+lot of paste they were.  Then there was the little business of the
+Dormer house-boat at Henley last year.  That was mine also--such as it
+was.  I've never brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall
+chuck it up."
+
+Yes, I remembered both cases very well.  To think that he was their
+author!  It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable.  Then my eyes
+would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering in a hundred
+places, and incredulity was at an end.
+
+"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere wonder,
+and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself into my
+fascination for the man.
+
+"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles.  "It was in the Colonies, when
+I was out there playing cricket.  It's too long a story to tell you
+now, but I was in much the same fix that you were in to-night, and it
+was my only way out.  I never meant it for anything more; but I'd
+tasted blood, and it was all over with me.  Why should I work when I
+could steal?  Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when
+excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging
+together?  Of course it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists,
+and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with.  Besides,
+you're not at it all the time.  I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's lines to
+myself, but they're profoundly true.  I only wonder if you'll like the
+life as much as I do!"
+
+"Like it?" I cried out.  "Not I!  It's no life for me.  Once is enough!"
+
+"You wouldn't give me a hand another time?"
+
+"Don't ask me, Raffles.  Don't ask me, for God's sake!"
+
+"Yet you said you would do anything for me! You asked me to name my
+crime!  But I knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back
+on me to-night, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows!  I
+suppose I'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that.  I ought to let
+it end at this.  But you're the very man for me, Bunny, the--very--man!
+Just think how we got through to-night.  Not a scratch--not a hitch!
+There's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be,
+while we worked together."
+
+He was standing in front of me with a hand on either shoulder; he was
+smiling as he knew so well how to smile.  I turned on my heel, planted
+my elbows on the chimney-piece, and my burning head between my hands.
+Next instant a still heartier hand had fallen on my back.
+
+"All right, my boy!  You are quite right and I'm worse than wrong.
+I'll never ask it again. Go, if you want to, and come again about
+mid-day for the cash.  There was no bargain; but, of course, I'll get
+you out of your scrape--especially after the way you've stood by me
+to-night."
+
+I was round again with my blood on fire.
+
+"I'll do it again," I said, through my teeth.
+
+He shook his head.  "Not you," he said, smiling quite good-humoredly on
+my insane enthusiasm.
+
+"I will," I cried with an oath.  "I'll lend you a hand as often as you
+like!  What does it matter now?  I've been in it once.  I'll be in it
+again.  I've gone to the devil anyhow.  I can't go back, and wouldn't
+if I could.  Nothing matters another rap!  When you want me, I'm your
+man!"
+
+And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the Ides of
+March.
+
+
+
+A COSTUME PIECE
+
+London was just then talking of one whose name is already a name and
+nothing more. Reuben Rosenthall had made his millions on the diamond
+fields of South Africa, and had come home to enjoy them according to
+his lights; how he went to work will scarcely be forgotten by any
+reader of the halfpenny evening papers, which revelled in endless
+anecdotes of his original indigence and present prodigality, varied
+with interesting particulars of the extraordinary establishment which
+the millionaire set up in St.  John's Wood.  Here he kept a retinue of
+Kaffirs, who were literally his slaves; and hence he would sally, with
+enormous diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, in the convoy of a
+prize-fighter of heinous repute, who was not, however, by any means the
+worst element in the Rosenthall melange.  So said common gossip; but
+the fact was sufficiently established by the interference of the police
+on at least one occasion, followed by certain magisterial proceedings
+which were reported with justifiable gusto and huge headlines in the
+newspapers aforesaid.
+
+And this was all one knew of Reuben Rosenthall up to the time when the
+Old Bohemian Club, having fallen on evil days, found it worth its while
+to organize a great dinner in honor of so wealthy an exponent of the
+club's principles.  I was not at the banquet myself, but a member took
+Raffles, who told me all about it that very night.
+
+"Most extraordinary show I ever went to in my life," said he.  "As for
+the man himself--well, I was prepared for something grotesque, but the
+fellow fairly took my breath away.  To begin with, he's the most
+astounding brute to look at, well over six feet, with a chest like a
+barrel, and a great hook-nose, and the reddest hair and whiskers you
+ever saw.  Drank like a fire-engine, but only got drunk enough to make
+us a speech that I wouldn't have missed for ten pounds.  I'm only sorry
+you weren't there, too, Bunny, old chap."
+
+I began to be sorry myself, for Raffles was anything but an excitable
+person, and never had I seen him so excited before.  Had he been
+following Rosenthall's example?  His coming to my rooms at midnight,
+merely to tell me about his dinner, was in itself enough to excuse a
+suspicion which was certainly at variance with my knowledge of A. J.
+Raffles.
+
+"What did he say?" I inquired mechanically, divining some subtler
+explanation of this visit, and wondering what on earth it could be.
+
+"Say?" cried Raffles.  "What did he not say!  He boasted of his rise,
+he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for taking him up
+for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique and jealousy because
+he had so much.  He mentioned names, too, with the most charming
+freedom, and swore he was as good a man as the Old Country had to
+show--PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it he pointed to a great diamond
+in the middle of his shirt-front with a little finger loaded with
+another just like it: which of our bloated princes could show a pair
+like that?  As a matter of fact, they seemed quite wonderful stones,
+with a curious purple gleam to them that must mean a pot of money.  But
+old Rosenthall swore he wouldn't take fifty thousand pounds for the
+two, and wanted to know where the other man was who went about with
+twenty-five thousand in his shirt-front and another twenty-five on his
+little finger. He didn't exist.  If he did, he wouldn't have the pluck
+to wear them.  But he had--he'd tell us why. And before you could say
+Jack Robinson he had whipped out a whacking great revolver!"
+
+"Not at the table?"
+
+"At the table!  In the middle of his speech!  But it was nothing to
+what he wanted to do.  He actually wanted us to let him write his name
+in bullets on the opposite wall, to show us why he wasn't afraid to go
+about in all his diamonds!  That brute Purvis, the prize-fighter, who
+is his paid bully, had to bully his master before he could be persuaded
+out of it.  There was quite a panic for the moment; one fellow was
+saying his prayers under the table, and the waiters bolted to a man."
+
+"What a grotesque scene!"
+
+"Grotesque enough, but I rather wish they had let him go the whole hog
+and blaze away.  He was as keen as knives to show us how he could take
+care of his purple diamonds; and, do you know, Bunny, _I_ was as keen
+as knives to see."
+
+And Raffles leaned towards me with a sly, slow smile that made the
+hidden meaning of his visit only too plain to me at last.
+
+"So you think of having a try for his diamonds yourself?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is horribly obvious, I admit.  But--yes, I have set my heart upon
+them!  To be quite frank, I have had them on my conscience for some
+time; one couldn't hear so much of the man, and his prize-fighter, and
+his diamonds, without feeling it a kind of duty to have a go for them;
+but when it comes to brandishing a revolver and practically challenging
+the world, the thing becomes inevitable.  It is simply thrust upon one.
+I was fated to hear that challenge, Bunny, and I, for one, must take it
+up.  I was only sorry I couldn't get on my hind legs and say so then
+and there."
+
+"Well," I said, "I don't see the necessity as things are with us; but,
+of course, I'm your man."
+
+My tone may have been half-hearted.  I did my best to make it
+otherwise.  But it was barely a month since our Bond Street exploit,
+and we certainly could have afforded to behave ourselves for some time
+to come.  We had been getting along so nicely: by his advice I had
+scribbled a thing or two; inspired by Raffles, I had even done an
+article on our own jewel robbery; and for the moment I was quite
+satisfied with this sort of adventure.  I thought we ought to know when
+we were well off, and could see no point in our running fresh risks
+before we were obliged.  On the other hand, I was anxious not to show
+the least disposition to break the pledge that I had given a month ago.
+But it was not on my manifest disinclination that Raffles fastened.
+
+"Necessity, my dear Bunny?  Does the writer only write when the wolf is
+at the door?  Does the painter paint for bread alone?  Must you and I
+be DRIVEN to crime like Tom of Bow and Dick of Whitechapel?  You pain
+me, my dear chap; you needn't laugh, because you do.  Art for art's
+sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me. In this case
+my motives are absolutely pure, for I doubt if we shall ever be able to
+dispose of such peculiar stones.  But if I don't have a try for
+them--after to-night--I shall never be able to hold up my head again."
+
+His eye twinkled, but it glittered, too.
+
+"We shall have our work cut out," was all I said.
+
+"And do you suppose I should be keen on it if we hadn't?" cried
+Raffles.  "My dear fellow, I would rob St. Paul's Cathedral if I could,
+but I could no more scoop a till when the shopwalker wasn't looking
+than I could bag the apples out of an old woman's basket.  Even that
+little business last month was a sordid affair, but it was necessary,
+and I think its strategy redeemed it to some extent. Now there's some
+credit, and more sport, in going where they boast they're on their
+guard against you.  The Bank of England, for example, is the ideal
+crib; but that would need half a dozen of us with years to give to the
+job; and meanwhile Reuben Rosenthall is high enough game for you and
+me.  We know he's armed.  We know how Billy Purvis can fight.  It'll be
+no soft thing, I grant you. But what of that, my good Bunny--what of
+that?  A man's reach must exceed his grasp, dear boy, or what the
+dickens is a heaven for?"
+
+"I would rather we didn't exceed ours just yet," I answered laughing,
+for his spirit was irresistible, and the plan was growing upon me,
+despite my qualms.
+
+"Trust me for that," was his reply; "I'll see you through.  After all I
+expect to find that the difficulties are nearly all on the surface.
+These fellows both drink like the devil, and that should simplify
+matters considerably.  But we shall see, and we must take our time.
+There will probably turn out to be a dozen different ways in which the
+thing might be done, and we shall have to choose between them.  It will
+mean watching the house for at least a week in any case; it may mean
+lots of other things that will take much longer; but give me a week and
+I will tell you more.  That's to say, if you're really on?"
+
+"Of course I am," I replied indignantly.  "But why should I give you a
+week?  Why shouldn't we watch the house together?"
+
+"Because two eyes are as good as four and take up less room.  Never
+hunt in couples unless you're obliged.  But don't you look offended,
+Bunny; there'll be plenty for you to do when the time comes, that I
+promise you.  You shall have your share of the fun, never fear, and a
+purple diamond all to yourself--if we're lucky."
+
+On the whole, however, this conversation left me less than lukewarm,
+and I still remember the depression which came upon me when Raffles was
+gone.  I saw the folly of the enterprise to which I had committed
+myself--the sheer, gratuitous, unnecessary folly of it.  And the
+paradoxes in which Raffles revelled, and the frivolous casuistry which
+was nevertheless half sincere, and which his mere personality rendered
+wholly plausible at the moment of utterance, appealed very little to me
+when recalled in cold blood.  I admired the spirit of pure mischief in
+which he seemed prepared to risk his liberty and his life, but I did
+not find it an infectious spirit on calm reflection.  Yet the thought
+of withdrawal was not to be entertained for a moment.  On the contrary,
+I was impatient of the delay ordained by Raffles; and, perhaps, no
+small part of my secret disaffection came of his galling determination
+to do without me until the last moment.
+
+It made it no better that this was characteristic of the man and of his
+attitude towards me.  For a month we had been, I suppose, the thickest
+thieves in all London, and yet our intimacy was curiously incomplete.
+With all his charming frankness, there was in Raffles a vein of
+capricious reserve which was perceptible enough to be very irritating.
+He had the instinctive secretiveness of the inveterate criminal.  He
+would make mysteries of matters of common concern; for example, I never
+knew how or where he disposed of the Bond Street jewels, on the
+proceeds of which we were both still leading the outward lives of
+hundreds of other young fellows about town.  He was consistently
+mysterious about that and other details, of which it seemed to me that
+I had already earned the right to know everything.  I could not but
+remember how he had led me into my first felony, by means of a trick,
+while yet uncertain whether he could trust me or not.
+
+That I could no longer afford to resent, but I did resent his want of
+confidence in me now.  I said nothing about it, but it rankled every
+day, and never more than in the week that succeeded the Rosenthall
+dinner.  When I met Raffles at the club he would tell me nothing; when
+I went to his rooms he was out, or pretended to be.
+
+One day he told me he was getting on well, but slowly; it was a more
+ticklish game than he had thought; but when I began to ask questions he
+would say no more.  Then and there, in my annoyance, I took my own
+decision.  Since he would tell me nothing of the result of his vigils,
+I determined to keep one on my own account, and that very evening found
+my way to the millionaire's front gates.
+
+The house he was occupying is, I believe, quite the largest in the St.
+John's Wood district.  It stands in the angle formed by two broad
+thoroughfares, neither of which, as it happens, is a 'bus route, and I
+doubt if many quieter spots exist within the four-mile radius.  Quiet
+also was the great square house, in its garden of grass-plots and
+shrubs; the lights were low, the millionaire and his friends obviously
+spending their evening elsewhere.  The garden walls were only a few
+feet high.  In one there was a side door opening into a glass passage;
+in the other two five-barred, grained-and-varnished gates, one at
+either end of the little semi-circular drive, and both wide open. So
+still was the place that I had a great mind to walk boldly in and learn
+something of the premises; in fact, I was on the point of doing so,
+when I heard a quick, shuffling step on the pavement behind me.  I
+turned round and faced the dark scowl and the dirty clenched fists of a
+dilapidated tramp.
+
+"You fool!" said he.  "You utter idiot!"
+
+"Raffles!"
+
+"That's it," he whispered savagely; "tell all the neighborhood--give me
+away at the top of your voice!"
+
+With that he turned his back upon me, and shambled down the road,
+shrugging his shoulders and muttering to himself as though I had
+refused him alms.  A few moments I stood astounded, indignant, at a
+loss; then I followed him.  His feet trailed, his knees gave, his back
+was bowed, his head kept nodding; it was the gait of a man eighty years
+of age.  Presently he waited for me midway between two lamp-posts.  As
+I came up he was lighting rank tobacco, in a cutty pipe, with an
+evil-smelling match, and the flame showed me the suspicion of a smile.
+
+"You must forgive my heat, Bunny, but it really was very foolish of
+you.  Here am I trying every dodge--begging at the door one
+night--hiding in the shrubs the next--doing every mortal thing but
+stand and stare at the house as you went and did. It's a costume piece,
+and in you rush in your ordinary clothes.  I tell you they're on the
+lookout for us night and day.  It's the toughest nut I ever tackled!"
+
+"Well," said I, "if you had told me so before I shouldn't have come.
+You told me nothing."
+
+He looked hard at me from under the broken brim of a battered billycock.
+
+"You're right," he said at length.  "I've been too close.  It's become
+second nature with me when I've anything on.  But here's an end of it,
+Bunny, so far as you're concerned.  I'm going home now, and I want you
+to follow me; but for heaven's sake keep your distance, and don't speak
+to me again till I speak to you.  There--give me a start."  And he was
+off again, a decrepit vagabond, with his hands in his pockets, his
+elbows squared, and frayed coat-tails swinging raggedly from side to
+side.
+
+I followed him to the Finchley Road.  There he took an Atlas omnibus,
+and I sat some rows behind him on the top, but not far enough to escape
+the pest of his vile tobacco.  That he could carry his character-sketch
+to such a pitch--he who would only smoke one brand of cigarette!  It
+was the last, least touch of the insatiable artist, and it charmed away
+what mortification there still remained in me. Once more I felt the
+fascination of a comrade who was forever dazzling one with a fresh and
+unsuspected facet of his character.
+
+As we neared Piccadilly I wondered what he would do.  Surely he was not
+going into the Albany like that?  No, he took another omnibus to Sloane
+Street, I sitting behind him as before.  At Sloane Street we changed
+again, and were presently in the long lean artery of the King's Road.
+I was now all agog to know our destination, nor was I kept many more
+minutes in doubt.  Raffles got down.  I followed.  He crossed the road
+and disappeared up a dark turning.  I pressed after him, and was in
+time to see his coat-tails as he plunged into a still darker flagged
+alley to the right.  He was holding himself up and stepping out like a
+young man once more; also, in some subtle way, he already looked less
+disreputable.  But I alone was there to see him, the alley was
+absolutely deserted, and desperately dark.  At the further end he
+opened a door with a latch-key, and it was darker yet within.
+
+Instinctively I drew back and heard him chuckle. We could no longer see
+each other.
+
+"All right, Bunny!  There's no hanky-panky this time.  These are
+studios, my friend, and I'm one of the lawful tenants."
+
+Indeed, in another minute we were in a lofty room with skylight,
+easels, dressing-cupboard, platform, and every other adjunct save the
+signs of actual labor.  The first thing I saw, as Raffles lit the gas,
+was its reflection in his silk hat on the pegs beside the rest of his
+normal garments.
+
+"Looking for the works of art?" continued Raffles, lighting a cigarette
+and beginning to divest himself of his rags.  "I'm afraid you won't
+find any, but there's the canvas I'm always going to make a start upon.
+I tell them I'm looking high and low for my ideal model.  I have the
+stove lit on principle twice a week, and look in and leave a newspaper
+and a smell of Sullivans--how good they are after shag!  Meanwhile I
+pay my rent and am a good tenant in every way; and it's a very useful
+little pied-a-terre--there's no saying how useful it might be at a
+pinch.  As it is, the billy-cock comes in and the topper goes out, and
+nobody takes the slightest notice of either; at this time of night the
+chances are that there's not a soul in the building except ourselves."
+
+"You never told me you went in for disguises," said I, watching him as
+he cleansed the grime from his face and hands.
+
+"No, Bunny, I've treated you very shabbily all round.  There was really
+no reason why I shouldn't have shown you this place a month ago, and
+yet there was no point in my doing so, and circumstances are just
+conceivable in which it would have suited us both for you to be in
+genuine ignorance of my whereabouts.  I have something to sleep on, as
+you perceive, in case of need, and, of course, my name is not Raffles
+in the King's Road.  So you will see that one might bolt further and
+fare worse."
+
+"Meanwhile you use the place as a dressing-room?"
+
+"It is my private pavilion," said Raffles.  "Disguises?  In some cases
+they're half the battle, and it's always pleasant to feel that, if the
+worst comes to the worst, you needn't necessarily be convicted under
+your own name.  Then they're indispensable in dealing with the fences.
+I drive all my bargains in the tongue and raiment of Shoreditch.  If I
+didn't there'd be the very devil to pay in blackmail. Now, this
+cupboard's full of all sorts of toggery. I tell the woman who cleans
+the room that it's for my models when I find 'em.  By the way, I only
+hope I've got something that'll fit you, for you'll want a rig for
+to-morrow night."
+
+"To-morrow night!" I exclaimed.  "Why, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"The trick," said Raffles.  "I intended writing to you as soon as I got
+back to my rooms, to ask you to look me up to-morrow afternoon; then I
+was going to unfold my plan of campaign, and take you straight into
+action then and there.  There's nothing like putting the nervous
+players in first; it's the sitting with their pads on that upsets their
+applecart; that was another of my reasons for being so confoundedly
+close.  You must try to forgive me.  I couldn't help remembering how
+well you played up last trip, without any time to weaken on it
+beforehand.  All I want is for you to be as cool and smart to-morrow
+night as you were then; though, by Jove, there's no comparison between
+the two cases!"
+
+"I thought you would find it so."
+
+"You were right.  I have.  Mind you, I don't say this will be the
+tougher job all round; we shall probably get in without any difficulty
+at all; it's the getting out again that may flummox us.  That's the
+worst of an irregular household!" cried Raffles, with quite a burst of
+virtuous indignation.  "I assure you, Bunny, I spent the whole of
+Monday night in the shrubbery of the garden next door, looking over the
+wall, and, if you'll believe me, somebody was about all night long!  I
+don't mean the Kaffirs.  I don't believe they ever get to bed at
+all--poor devils!  No, I mean Rosenthall himself, and that pasty-faced
+beast Purvis.  They were up and drinking from midnight, when they came
+in, to broad daylight, when I cleared out.  Even then I left them sober
+enough to slang each other.  By the way, they very nearly came to blows
+in the garden, within a few yards of me, and I heard something that
+might come in useful and make Rosenthall shoot crooked at a critical
+moment.  You know what an I. D. B. is?"
+
+"Illicit Diamond Buyer?"
+
+"Exactly.  Well, it seems that Rosenthall was one.  He must have let it
+out to Purvis in his cups. Anyhow, I heard Purvis taunting him with it,
+and threatening him with the breakwater at Capetown; and I begin to
+think our friends are friend and foe. But about to-morrow night:
+there's nothing subtle in my plan.  It's simply to get in while these
+fellows are out on the loose, and to lie low till they come back, and
+longer.  If possible, we must doctor the whiskey.  That would simplify
+the whole thing, though it's not a very sporting game to play; still,
+we must remember Rosenthall's revolver; we don't want him to sign his
+name on US.  With all those Kaffirs about, however, it's ten to one on
+the whiskey, and a hundred to one against us if we go looking for it.
+A brush with the heathen would spoil everything, if it did no more.
+Besides, there are the ladies--"
+
+"The deuce there are!"
+
+"Ladies with an _I_, and the very voices for raising Cain.  I fear, I
+fear the clamor!  It would be fatal to us.  Au contraire, if we can
+manage to stow ourselves away unbeknownst, half the battle will be won.
+If Rosenthall turns in drunk, it's a purple diamond apiece.  If he sits
+up sober, it may be a bullet instead.  We will hope not, Bunny; and all
+the firing wouldn't be on one side; but it's on the knees of the gods."
+
+And so we left it when we shook hands in Picadilly--not by any means as
+much later as I could have wished.  Raffles would not ask me to his
+rooms that night.  He said he made it a rule to have a long night
+before playing cricket and--other games.  His final word to me was
+framed on the same principle.
+
+"Mind, only one drink to-night, Bunny.  Two at the outside--as you
+value your life--and mine!"
+
+I remember my abject obedience; and the endless, sleepless night it
+gave me; and the roofs of the houses opposite standing out at last
+against the blue-gray London dawn.  I wondered whether I should ever
+see another, and was very hard on myself for that little expedition
+which I had made on my own wilful account.
+
+It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when we took up
+our position in the garden adjoining that of Reuben Rosenthall; the
+house itself was shut up, thanks to the outrageous libertine next door,
+who, by driving away the neighbors, had gone far towards delivering
+himself into our hands.  Practically secure from surprise on that side,
+we could watch our house under cover of a wall just high enough to see
+over, while a fair margin of shrubs in either garden afforded us
+additional protection.  Thus entrenched, we had stood an hour, watching
+a pair of lighted bow-windows with vague shadows flitting continually
+across the blinds, and listening to the drawing of corks, the clink of
+glasses, and a gradual crescendo of coarse voices within.  Our luck
+seemed to have deserted us: the owner of the purple diamonds was dining
+at home and dining at undue length.  I thought it was a dinner-party.
+Raffles differed; in the end he proved right.  Wheels grated in the
+drive, a carriage and pair stood at the steps; there was a stampede
+from the dining-room, and the loud voices died away, to burst forth
+presently from the porch.
+
+Let me make our position perfectly clear.  We were over the wall, at
+the side of the house, but a few feet from the dining-room windows.  On
+our right, one angle of the building cut the back lawn in two
+diagonally; on our left, another angle just permitted us to see the
+jutting steps and the waiting carriage.  We saw Rosenthall come
+out--saw the glimmer of his diamonds before anything. Then came the
+pugilist; then a lady with a head of hair like a bath sponge; then
+another, and the party was complete.
+
+Raffles ducked and pulled me down in great excitement.
+
+"The ladies are going with them," he whispered.  "This is great!"
+
+"That's better still."
+
+"The Gardenia!" the millionaire had bawled.
+
+"And that's best of all," said Raffles, standing upright as hoofs and
+wheels crunched through the gates and rattled off at a fine speed.
+
+"Now what?" I whispered, trembling with excitement.
+
+"They'll be clearing away.  Yes, here come their shadows.  The
+drawing-room windows open on the lawn.  Bunny, it's the psychological
+moment. Where's that mask?"
+
+I produced it with a hand whose trembling I tried in vain to still, and
+could have died for Raffles when he made no comment on what he could
+not fail to notice.  His own hands were firm and cool as he adjusted my
+mask for me, and then his own.
+
+"By Jove, old boy," he whispered cheerily, "you look about the greatest
+ruffian I ever saw! These masks alone will down a nigger, if we meet
+one.  But I'm glad I remembered to tell you not to shave.  You'll pass
+for Whitechapel if the worst comes to the worst and you don't forget to
+talk the lingo.  Better sulk like a mule if you're not sure of it, and
+leave the dialogue to me; but, please our stars, there will be no need.
+Now, are you ready?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Got your gag?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Shooter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then follow me."
+
+In an instant we were over the wall, in another on the lawn behind the
+house.  There was no moon. The very stars in their courses had veiled
+themselves for our benefit.  I crept at my leader's heels to some
+French windows opening upon a shallow veranda.  He pushed.  They
+yielded.
+
+"Luck again," he whispered; "nothing BUT luck! Now for a light."
+
+And the light came!
+
+A good score of electric burners glowed red for the fraction of a
+second, then rained merciless white beams into our blinded eyes.  When
+we found our sight four revolvers covered us, and between two of them
+the colossal frame of Reuben Rosenthall shook with a wheezy laughter
+from head to foot.
+
+"Good-evening, boys," he hiccoughed.  "Glad to see ye at last.  Shift
+foot or finger, you on the left, though, and you're a dead boy.  I mean
+you, you greaser!" he roared out at Raffles.  "I know you.  I've been
+waitin' for you.  I've been WATCHIN' you all this week!  Plucky smart
+you thought yerself, didn't you?  One day beggin', next time shammin'
+tight, and next one o' them old pals from Kimberley what never come
+when I'm in.  But you left the same tracks every day, you buggins, an'
+the same tracks every night, all round the blessed premises."
+
+"All right, guv'nor," drawled Raffles; "don't excite.  It's a fair cop.
+We don't sweat to know 'ow you brung it orf.  On'y don't you go for to
+shoot, 'cos we 'int awmed, s'help me Gord!"
+
+"Ah, you're a knowin' one," said Rosenthall, fingering his triggers.
+"But you've struck a knowin'er."
+
+"Ho, yuss, we know all abaht thet!  Set a thief to ketch a thief--ho,
+yuss."
+
+My eyes had torn themselves from the round black muzzles, from the
+accursed diamonds that had been our snare, the pasty pig-face of the
+over-fed pugilist, and the flaming cheeks and hook nose of Rosenthall
+himself.  I was looking beyond them at the doorway filled with
+quivering silk and plush, black faces, white eyeballs, woolly pates.
+But a sudden silence recalled my attention to the millionaire.  And
+only his nose retained its color.
+
+"What d'ye mean?" he whispered with a hoarse oath.  "Spit it out, or,
+by Christmas, I'll drill you!"
+
+"Whort price thet brikewater?" drawled Raffles coolly.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Rosenthall's revolvers were describing widening orbits.
+
+"Whort price thet brikewater--old _I.D.B._?"
+
+"Where in hell did you get hold o' that?" asked Rosenthall, with a
+rattle in his thick neck, meant for mirth.
+
+"You may well arst," says Raffles.  "It's all over the plice w'ere _I_
+come from."
+
+"Who can have spread such rot?"
+
+"I dunno," says Raffles; "arst the gen'leman on yer left; p'r'aps 'E
+knows."
+
+The gentleman on his left had turned livid with emotion.  Guilty
+conscience never declared itself in plainer terms.  For a moment his
+small eyes bulged like currants in the suet of his face; the next, he
+had pocketed his pistols on a professional instinct, and was upon us
+with his fists.
+
+"Out o' the light--out o' the light!" yelled Rosenthall in a frenzy.
+
+He was too late.  No sooner had the burly pugilist obstructed his fire
+than Raffles was through the window at a bound; while I, for standing
+still and saying nothing, was scientifically felled to the floor.
+
+
+I cannot have been many moments without my senses.  When I recovered
+them there was a great to-do in the garden, but I had the drawing-room
+to myself.  I sat up.  Rosenthall and Purvis were rushing about
+outside, cursing the Kaffirs and nagging at each other.
+
+"Over THAT wall, I tell yer!"
+
+"I tell you it was this one.  Can't you whistle for the police?"
+
+"Police be damned!  I've had enough of the blessed police."
+
+"Then we'd better get back and make sure of the other rotter."
+
+"Oh, make sure o' yer skin.  That's what you'd better do.  Jala, you
+black hog, if I catch YOU skulkin'...."
+
+I never heard the threat.  I was creeping from the drawing-room on my
+hands and knees, my own revolver swinging by its steel ring from my
+teeth.
+
+For an instant I thought that the hall also was deserted.  I was wrong,
+and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours.  Poor devil, I could not bring
+myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened him most hideously
+with my revolver, and left the white teeth chattering in his black head
+as I took the stairs three at a time.  Why I went upstairs in that
+decisive fashion, as though it were my only course, I cannot explain.
+But garden and ground floor seemed alive with men, and I might have
+done worse.
+
+I turned into the first room I came to.  It was a bedroom--empty,
+though lit up; and never shall I forget how I started as I entered, on
+encountering the awful villain that was myself at full length in a
+pier-glass!  Masked, armed, and ragged, I was indeed fit carrion for a
+bullet or the hangman, and to one or the other I made up my mind.
+Nevertheless, I hid myself in the wardrobe behind the mirror; and there
+I stood shivering and cursing my fate, my folly, and Raffles most of
+all--Raffles first and last--for I daresay half an hour.  Then the
+wardrobe door was flung suddenly open; they had stolen into the room
+without a sound; and I was hauled downstairs, an ignominious captive.
+
+Gross scenes followed in the hall; the ladies were now upon the stage,
+and at sight of the desperate criminal they screamed with one accord.
+In truth I must have given them fair cause, though my mask was now torn
+away and hid nothing but my left ear.  Rosenthall answered their
+shrieks with a roar for silence; the woman with the bath-sponge hair
+swore at him shrilly in return; the place became a Babel impossible to
+describe.  I remember wondering how long it would be before the police
+appeared.  Purvis and the ladies were for calling them in and giving me
+in charge without delay.  Rosenthall would not hear of it.  He swore
+that he would shoot man or woman who left his sight.  He had had enough
+of the police.  He was not going to have them coming there to spoil
+sport; he was going to deal with me in his own way.  With that he
+dragged me from all other hands, flung me against a door, and sent a
+bullet crashing through the wood within an inch of my ear.
+
+"You drunken fool!  It'll be murder!" shouted Purvis, getting in the
+way a second time.
+
+"Wha' do I care?  He's armed, isn't he?  I shot him in self-defence.
+It'll be a warning to others.  Will you stand aside, or d'ye want it
+yourself?"
+
+"You're drunk," said Purvis, still between us. "I saw you take a neat
+tumblerful since you come in, and it's made you drunk as a fool.  Pull
+yourself together, old man.  You ain't a-going to do what you'll be
+sorry for."
+
+"Then I won't shoot at him, I'll only shoot roun' an' roun' the beggar.
+You're quite right, ole feller.  Wouldn't hurt him.  Great mishtake.
+Roun' an' roun'.  There--like that!"
+
+His freckled paw shot up over Purvis's shoulder, mauve lightning came
+from his ring, a red flash from his revolver, and shrieks from the
+women as the reverberations died away.  Some splinters lodged in my
+hair.
+
+Next instant the prize-fighter disarmed him; and I was safe from the
+devil, but finally doomed to the deep sea.  A policeman was in our
+midst. He had entered through the drawing-room window; he was an
+officer of few words and creditable promptitude.  In a twinkling he had
+the handcuffs on my wrists, while the pugilist explained the situation,
+and his patron reviled the force and its representative with impotent
+malignity.  A fine watch they kept; a lot of good they did; coming in
+when all was over and the whole household might have been murdered in
+their sleep.  The officer only deigned to notice him as he marched me
+off.
+
+"We know all about YOU, sir," said he contemptuously, and he refused
+the sovereign Purvis proffered.  "You will be seeing me again, sir, at
+Marylebone."
+
+"Shall I come now?"
+
+"As you please, sir.  I rather think the other gentleman requires you
+more, and I don't fancy this young man means to give much trouble."
+
+"Oh, I'm coming quietly," I said.
+
+And I went.
+
+In silence we traversed perhaps a hundred yards. It must have been
+midnight.  We did not meet a soul.  At last I whispered:
+
+"How on earth did you manage it?"
+
+"Purely by luck," said Raffles.  "I had the luck to get clear away
+through knowing every brick of those back-garden walls, and the double
+luck to have these togs with the rest over at Chelsea.  The helmet is
+one of a collection I made up at Oxford; here it goes over this wall,
+and we'd better carry the coat and belt before we meet a real officer.
+I got them once for a fancy ball--ostensibly--and thereby hangs a yarn.
+I always thought they might come in useful a second time.  My chief
+crux to-night was getting rid of the hansom that brought me back.  I
+sent him off to Scotland Yard with ten bob and a special message to
+good old Mackenzie.  The whole detective department will be at
+Rosenthall's in about half an hour.  Of course, I speculated on our
+gentleman's hatred of the police--another huge slice of luck.  If you'd
+got away, well and good; if not, I felt he was the man to play with his
+mouse as long as possible. Yes, Bunny, it's been more of a costume
+piece than I intended, and we've come out of it with a good deal less
+credit.  But, by Jove, we're jolly lucky to have come out of it at all!"
+
+
+
+GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
+
+Old Raffles may or may not have been an exceptional criminal, but as a
+cricketer I dare swear he was unique.  Himself a dangerous bat, a
+brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow bowler of his decade,
+he took incredibly little interest in the game at large.  He never went
+up to Lord's without his cricket-bag, or showed the slightest interest
+in the result of a match in which he was not himself engaged.  Nor was
+this mere hateful egotism on his part.  He professed to have lost all
+enthusiasm for the game, and to keep it up only from the very lowest
+motives.
+
+"Cricket," said Raffles, "like everything else, is good enough sport
+until you discover a better.  As a source of excitement it isn't in it
+with other things you wot of, Bunny, and the involuntary comparison
+becomes a bore.  What's the satisfaction of taking a man's wicket when
+you want his spoons?  Still, if you can bowl a bit your low cunning
+won't get rusty, and always looking for the weak spot's just the kind
+of mental exercise one wants.  Yes, perhaps there's some affinity
+between the two things after all.  But I'd chuck up cricket to-morrow,
+Bunny, if it wasn't for the glorious protection it affords a person of
+my proclivities."
+
+"How so?" said I.  "It brings you before the public, I should have
+thought, far more than is either safe or wise."
+
+"My dear Bunny, that's exactly where you make a mistake.  To follow
+Crime with reasonable impunity you simply MUST have a parallel,
+ostensible career--the more public the better.  The principle is
+obvious.  Mr. Peace, of pious memory, disarmed suspicion by acquiring a
+local reputation for playing the fiddle and taming animals, and it's my
+profound conviction that Jack the Ripper was a really eminent public
+man, whose speeches were very likely reported alongside his atrocities.
+Fill the bill in some prominent part, and you'll never be suspected of
+doubling it with another of equal prominence.  That's why I want you to
+cultivate journalism, my boy, and sign all you can.  And it's the one
+and only reason why I don't burn my bats for firewood."
+
+Nevertheless, when he did play there was no keener performer on the
+field, nor one more anxious to do well for his side.  I remember how he
+went to the nets, before the first match of the season, with his pocket
+full of sovereigns, which he put on the stumps instead of bails.  It
+was a sight to see the professionals bowling like demons for the hard
+cash, for whenever a stump was hit a pound was tossed to the bowler and
+another balanced in its stead, while one man took #3 with a ball that
+spreadeagled the wicket.  Raffles's practice cost him either eight or
+nine sovereigns; but he had absolutely first-class bowling all the
+time; and he made fifty-seven runs next day.
+
+It became my pleasure to accompany him to all his matches, to watch
+every ball he bowled, or played, or fielded, and to sit chatting with
+him in the pavilion when he was doing none of these three things.  You
+might have seen us there, side by side, during the greater part of the
+Gentlemen's first innings against the Players (who had lost the toss)
+on the second Monday in July.  We were to be seen, but not heard, for
+Raffles had failed to score, and was uncommonly cross for a player who
+cared so little for the game.  Merely taciturn with me, he was
+positively rude to more than one member who wanted to know how it had
+happened, or who ventured to commiserate him on his luck; there he sat,
+with a straw hat tilted over his nose and a cigarette stuck between
+lips that curled disagreeably at every advance.  I was therefore much
+surprised when a young fellow of the exquisite type came and squeezed
+himself in between us, and met with a perfectly civil reception despite
+the liberty.  I did not know the boy by sight, nor did Raffles
+introduce us; but their conversation proclaimed at once a slightness of
+acquaintanceship and a license on the lad's part which combined to
+puzzle me.  Mystification reached its height when Raffles was informed
+that the other's father was anxious to meet him, and he instantly
+consented to gratify that whim.
+
+"He's in the Ladies' Enclosure.  Will you come round now?"
+
+"With pleasure," says Raffles.  "Keep a place for me, Bunny."
+
+And they were gone.
+
+"Young Crowley," said some voice further back.  "Last year's Harrow
+Eleven."
+
+"I remember him.  Worst man in the team."
+
+"Keen cricketer, however.  Stopped till he was twenty to get his
+colors.  Governor made him.  Keen breed.  Oh, pretty, sir!  Very
+pretty!"
+
+The game was boring me.  I only came to see old Raffles perform.  Soon
+I was looking wistfully for his return, and at length I saw him
+beckoning me from the palings to the right.
+
+"Want to introduce you to old Amersteth," he whispered, when I joined
+him.  "They've a cricket week next month, when this boy Crowley comes
+of age, and we've both got to go down and play."
+
+"Both!" I echoed.  "But I'm no cricketer!"
+
+"Shut up," says Raffles.  "Leave that to me. I've been lying for all
+I'm worth," he added sepulchrally as we reached the bottom of the
+steps. "I trust to you not to give the show away."
+
+There was a gleam in his eye that I knew well enough elsewhere, but was
+unprepared for in those healthy, sane surroundings; and it was with
+very definite misgivings and surmises that I followed the Zingari
+blazer through the vast flower-bed of hats and bonnets that bloomed
+beneath the ladies' awning.
+
+Lord Amersteth was a fine-looking man with a short mustache and a
+double chin.  He received me with much dry courtesy, through which,
+however, it was not difficult to read a less flattering tale.  I was
+accepted as the inevitable appendage of the invaluable Raffles, with
+whom I felt deeply incensed as I made my bow.
+
+"I have been bold enough," said Lord Amersteth, "to ask one of the
+Gentlemen of England to come down and play some rustic cricket for us
+next month.  He is kind enough to say that he would have liked nothing
+better, but for this little fishing expedition of yours, Mr.-----,
+Mr.-----," and Lord Amersteth succeeded in remembering my name.
+
+It was, of course, the first I had ever heard of that fishing
+expedition, but I made haste to say that it could easily, and should
+certainly, be put off.  Raffles gleamed approval through his eyelashes.
+Lord Amersteth bowed and shrugged.
+
+"You're very good, I'm sure," said he.  "But I understand you're a
+cricketer yourself?"
+
+"He was one at school," said Raffles, with infamous readiness.
+
+"Not a real cricketer," I was stammering meanwhile.
+
+"In the eleven?" said Lord Amersteth.
+
+"I'm afraid not," said I.
+
+"But only just out of it," declared Raffles, to my horror.
+
+"Well, well, we can't all play for the Gentlemen," said Lord Amersteth
+slyly.  "My son Crowley only just scraped into the eleven at Harrow,
+and HE'S going to play.  I may even come in myself at a pinch; so you
+won't be the only duffer, if you are one, and I shall be very glad if
+you will come down and help us too.  You shall flog a stream before
+breakfast and after dinner, if you like."
+
+"I should be very proud," I was beginning, as the mere prelude to
+resolute excuses; but the eye of Raffles opened wide upon me; and I
+hesitated weakly, to be duly lost.
+
+"Then that's settled," said Lord Amersteth, with the slightest
+suspicion of grimness.  "It's to be a little week, you know, when my
+son comes of age.  We play the Free Foresters, the Dorsetshire
+Gentlemen, and probably some local lot as well. But Mr. Raffles will
+tell you all about it, and Crowley shall write.  Another wicket!  By
+Jove, they're all out!  Then I rely on you both." And, with a little
+nod, Lord Amersteth rose and sidled to the gangway.
+
+Raffles rose also, but I caught the sleeve of his blazer.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" I whispered savagely.  "I was nowhere near
+the eleven.  I'm no sort of cricketer.  I shall have to get out of
+this!"
+
+"Not you," he whispered back.  "You needn't play, but come you must.
+If you wait for me after half-past six I'll tell you why."
+
+But I could guess the reason; and I am ashamed to say that it revolted
+me much less than did the notion of making a public fool of myself on a
+cricket-field.  My gorge rose at this as it no longer rose at crime,
+and it was in no tranquil humor that I strolled about the ground while
+Raffles disappeared in the pavilion.  Nor was my annoyance lessened by
+a little meeting I witnessed between young Crowley and his father, who
+shrugged as he stopped and stooped to convey some information which
+made the young man look a little blank. It may have been pure
+self-consciousness on my part, but I could have sworn that the trouble
+was their inability to secure the great Raffles without his
+insignificant friend.
+
+Then the bell rang, and I climbed to the top of the pavilion to watch
+Raffles bowl.  No subtleties are lost up there; and if ever a bowler
+was full of them, it was A. J. Raffles on this day, as, indeed, all the
+cricket world remembers.  One had not to be a cricketer oneself to
+appreciate his perfect command of pitch and break, his beautifully easy
+action, which never varied with the varying pace, his great ball on the
+leg-stump--his dropping head-ball--in a word, the infinite ingenuity of
+that versatile attack.  It was no mere exhibition of athletic prowess,
+it was an intellectual treat, and one with a special significance in my
+eyes.  I saw the "affinity between the two things," saw it in that
+afternoon's tireless warfare against the flower of professional
+cricket.  It was not that Raffles took many wickets for few runs; he
+was too fine a bowler to mind being hit; and time was short, and the
+wicket good.  What I admired, and what I remember, was the combination
+of resource and cunning, of patience and precision, of head-work and
+handiwork, which made every over an artistic whole.  It was all so
+characteristic of that other Raffles whom I alone knew!
+
+"I felt like bowling this afternoon," he told me later in the hansom.
+"With a pitch to help me, I'd have done something big; as it is, three
+for forty-one, out of the four that fell, isn't so bad for a slow
+bowler on a plumb wicket against those fellows.  But I felt venomous!
+Nothing riles me more than being asked about for my cricket as though I
+were a pro. myself."
+
+"Then why on earth go?"
+
+"To punish them, and--because we shall be jolly hard up, Bunny, before
+the season's over!"
+
+"Ah!" said I.  "I thought it was that."
+
+"Of course, it was!  It seems they're going to have the very devil of a
+week of it--balls--dinner parties--swagger house party--general
+junketings--and obviously a houseful of diamonds as well.  Diamonds
+galore!  As a general rule nothing would induce me to abuse my position
+as a guest.  I've never done it, Bunny.  But in this case we're engaged
+like the waiters and the band, and by heaven we'll take our toll!
+Let's have a quiet dinner somewhere and talk it over."
+
+"It seems rather a vulgar sort of theft," I could not help saying; and
+to this, my single protest, Raffles instantly assented.
+
+"It is a vulgar sort," said he; "but I can't help that.  We're getting
+vulgarly hard up again, and there's an end on 't.  Besides, these
+people deserve it, and can afford it.  And don't you run away with the
+idea that all will be plain sailing; nothing will be easier than
+getting some stuff, and nothing harder than avoiding all suspicion, as,
+of course, we must.  We may come away with no more than a good working
+plan of the premises.  Who knows?  In any case there's weeks of
+thinking in it for you and me."
+
+But with those weeks I will not weary you further than by remarking
+that the "thinking," was done entirely by Raffles, who did not always
+trouble to communicate his thoughts to me.  His reticence, however, was
+no longer an irritant.  I began to accept it as a necessary convention
+of these little enterprises.  And, after our last adventure of the
+kind, more especially after its denouement, my trust in Raffles was
+much too solid to be shaken by a want of trust in me, which I still
+believe to have been more the instinct of the criminal than the
+judgment of the man.
+
+It was on Monday, the tenth of August, that we were due at Milchester
+Abbey, Dorset; and the beginning of the month found us cruising about
+that very county, with fly-rods actually in our hands.  The idea was
+that we should acquire at once a local reputation as decent fishermen,
+and some knowledge of the countryside, with a view to further and more
+deliberate operations in the event of an unprofitable week.  There was
+another idea which Raffles kept to himself until he had got me down
+there.  Then one day he produced a cricket-ball in a meadow we were
+crossing, and threw me catches for an hour together.  More hours he
+spent in bowling to me on the nearest green; and, if I was never a
+cricketer, at least I came nearer to being one, by the end of that
+week, than ever before or since.
+
+Incident began early on the Monday.  We had sallied forth from a
+desolate little junction within quite a few miles of Milchester, had
+been caught in a shower, had run for shelter to a wayside inn. A
+florid, overdressed man was drinking in the parlor, and I could have
+sworn it was at the sight of him that Raffles recoiled on the
+threshold, and afterwards insisted on returning to the station through
+the rain.  He assured me, however, that the odor of stale ale had
+almost knocked him down.  And I had to make what I could of his
+speculative, downcast eyes and knitted brows.
+
+Milchester Abbey is a gray, quadrangular pile, deep-set in rich woody
+country, and twinkling with triple rows of quaint windows, every one of
+which seemed alight as we drove up just in time to dress for dinner.
+The carriage had whirled us under I know not how many triumphal arches
+in process of construction, and past the tents and flag-poles of a
+juicy-looking cricket-field, on which Raffles undertook to bowl up to
+his reputation.  But the chief signs of festival were within, where we
+found an enormous house-party assembled, including more persons of
+pomp, majesty, and dominion than I had ever encountered in one room
+before.  I confess I felt overpowered.  Our errand and my own presences
+combined to rob me of an address upon which I have sometimes plumed
+myself; and I have a grim recollection of my nervous relief when dinner
+was at last announced.  I little knew what an ordeal it was to prove.
+
+I had taken in a much less formidable young lady than might have fallen
+to my lot.  Indeed I began by blessing my good fortune in this respect.
+Miss Melhuish was merely the rector's daughter, and she had only been
+asked to make an even number.  She informed me of both facts before the
+soup reached us, and her subsequent conversation was characterized by
+the same engaging candor. It exposed what was little short of a mania
+for imparting information.  I had simply to listen, to nod, and to be
+thankful.
+
+When I confessed to knowing very few of those present, even by sight,
+my entertaining companion proceeded to tell me who everybody was,
+beginning on my left and working conscientiously round to her right.
+This lasted quite a long time, and really interested me; but a great
+deal that followed did not, and, obviously to recapture my unworthy
+attention, Miss Melhuish suddenly asked me, in a sensational whisper,
+whether I could keep a secret.
+
+I said I thought I might, whereupon another question followed, in still
+lower and more thrilling accents:
+
+"Are you afraid of burglars?"
+
+Burglars!  I was roused at last.  The word stabbed me.  I repeated it
+in horrified query.
+
+"So I've found something to interest you at last!" said Miss Melhuish,
+in naive triumph. "Yes--burglars!  But don't speak so loud.  It's
+supposed to be kept a great secret.  I really oughtn't to tell you at
+all!"
+
+"But what is there to tell?" I whispered with satisfactory impatience.
+
+"You promise not to speak of it?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Well, then, there are burglars in the neighborhood."
+
+"Have they committed any robberies?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Then how do you know?"
+
+"They've been seen.  In the district.  Two well-known London thieves!"
+
+Two!  I looked at Raffles.  I had done so often during the evening,
+envying him his high spirits, his iron nerve, his buoyant wit, his
+perfect ease and self-possession.  But now I pitied him; through all my
+own terror and consternation, I pitied him as he sat eating and
+drinking, and laughing and talking, without a cloud of fear or of
+embarrassment on his handsome, taking, daredevil face.  I caught up my
+champagne and emptied the glass.
+
+"Who has seen them?" I then asked calmly.
+
+"A detective.  They were traced down from town a few days ago.  They
+are believed to have designs on the Abbey!"
+
+"But why aren't they run in?"
+
+"Exactly what I asked papa on the way here this evening; he says there
+is no warrant out against the men at present, and all that can be done
+is to watch their movements."
+
+"Oh! so they are being watched?"
+
+"Yes, by a detective who is down here on purpose.  And I heard Lord
+Amersteth tell papa that they had been seen this afternoon at Warbeck
+Junction!"
+
+The very place where Raffles and I had been caught in the rain!  Our
+stampede from the inn was now explained; on the other hand, I was no
+longer to be taken by surprise by anything that my companion might have
+to tell me; and I succeeded in looking her in the face with a smile.
+
+"This is really quite exciting, Miss Melhuish," said I.  "May I ask how
+you come to know so much about it?"
+
+"It's papa," was the confidential reply.  "Lord Amersteth consulted
+him, and he consulted me. But for goodness' sake don't let it get
+about!  I can't think WHAT tempted me to tell you!"
+
+"You may trust me, Miss Melhuish.  But--aren't you frightened?"
+
+Miss Melhuish giggled.
+
+"Not a bit!  They won't come to the rectory. There's nothing for them
+there.  But look round the table: look at the diamonds: look at old
+Lady Melrose's necklace alone!"
+
+The Dowager Marchioness of Melrose was one of the few persons whom it
+had been unnecessary to point out to me.  She sat on Lord Amersteth's
+right, flourishing her ear-trumpet, and drinking champagne with her
+usual notorious freedom, as dissipated and kindly a dame as the world
+has ever seen.  It was a necklace of diamonds and sapphires that rose
+and fell about her ample neck.
+
+"They say it's worth five thousand pounds at least," continued my
+companion.  "Lady Margaret told me so this morning (that's Lady
+Margaret next your Mr. Raffles, you know); and the old dear WILL wear
+them every night.  Think what a haul they would be!  No; we don't feel
+in immediate danger at the rectory."
+
+When the ladies rose, Miss Melhuish bound me to fresh vows of secrecy;
+and left me, I should think, with some remorse for her indiscretion,
+but more satisfaction at the importance which it had undoubtedly given
+her in my eyes.  The opinion may smack of vanity, though, in reality,
+the very springs of conversation reside in that same human, universal
+itch to thrill the auditor.  The peculiarity of Miss Melhuish was that
+she must be thrilling at all costs.  And thrilling she had surely been.
+
+I spare you my feelings of the next two hours. I tried hard to get a
+word with Raffles, but again and again I failed.  In the dining-room he
+and Crowley lit their cigarettes with the same match, and had their
+heads together all the time.  In the drawing-room I had the
+mortification of hearing him talk interminable nonsense into the
+ear-trumpet of Lady Melrose, whom he knew in town.  Lastly, in the
+billiard-room, they had a great and lengthy pool, while I sat aloof and
+chafed more than ever in the company of a very serious Scotchman, who
+had arrived since dinner, and who would talk of nothing but the recent
+improvements in instantaneous photography.  He had not come to play in
+the matches (he told me), but to obtain for Lord Amersteth such a
+series of cricket photographs as had never been taken before; whether
+as an amateur or a professional photographer I was unable to determine.
+I remember, however, seeking distraction in little bursts of resolute
+attention to the conversation of this bore.  And so at last the long
+ordeal ended; glasses were emptied, men said good-night, and I followed
+Raffles to his room.
+
+"It's all up!" I gasped, as he turned up the gas and I shut the door.
+"We're being watched. We've been followed down from town.  There's a
+detective here on the spot!"
+
+"How do YOU know?" asked Raffles, turning upon me quite sharply, but
+without the least dismay.  And I told him how I knew.
+
+"Of course," I added, "it was the fellow we saw in the inn this
+afternoon."
+
+"The detective?" said Raffles.  "Do you mean to say you don't know a
+detective when you see one, Bunny?"
+
+"If that wasn't the fellow, which is?"
+
+Raffles shook his head.
+
+"To think that you've been talking to him for the last hour in the
+billiard-room and couldn't spot what he was!"
+
+"The Scotch photographer--"
+
+I paused aghast.
+
+"Scotch he is," said Raffles, "and photographer he may be.  He is also
+Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard--the very man I sent the message
+to that night last April.  And you couldn't spot who he was in a whole
+hour! O Bunny, Bunny, you were never built for crime!"
+
+"But," said I, "if that was Mackenzie, who was the fellow you bolted
+from at Warbeck?"
+
+"The man he's watching."
+
+"But he's watching us!"
+
+Raffles looked at me with a pitying eye, and shook his head again
+before handing me his open cigarette-case.
+
+"I don't know whether smoking's forbidden in one's bedroom, but you'd
+better take one of these and stand tight, Bunny, because I'm going to
+say something offensive."
+
+I helped myself with a laugh.
+
+"Say what you like, my dear fellow, if it really isn't you and I that
+Mackenzie's after."
+
+"Well, then, it isn't, and it couldn't be, and nobody but a born Bunny
+would suppose for a moment that it was!  Do you seriously think he
+would sit there and knowingly watch his man playing pool under his
+nose?  Well, he might; he's a cool hand, Mackenzie; but I'm not cool
+enough to win a pool under such conditions.  At least I don't think I
+am; it would be interesting to see.  The situation wasn't free from
+strain as it was, though I knew he wasn't thinking of us.  Crowley told
+me all about it after dinner, you see, and then I'd seen one of the men
+for myself this afternoon. You thought it was a detective who made me
+turn tail at that inn.  I really don't know why I didn't tell you at
+the time, but it was just the opposite. That loud, red-faced brute is
+one of the cleverest thieves in London, and I once had a drink with him
+and our mutual fence.  I was an Eastender from tongue to toe at the
+moment, but you will understand that I don't run unnecessary risks of
+recognition by a brute like that."
+
+"He's not alone, I hear."
+
+"By no means; there's at least one other man with him; and it's
+suggested that there may be an accomplice here in the house."
+
+"Did Lord Crowley tell you so?"
+
+"Crowley and the champagne between them.  In confidence, of course,
+just as your girl told you; but even in confidence he never let on
+about Mackenzie.  He told me there was a detective in the background,
+but that was all.  Putting him up as a guest is evidently their big
+secret, to be kept from the other guests because it might offend them,
+but more particularly from the servants whom he's here to watch.
+That's my reading of the situation, Bunny, and you will agree with me
+that it's infinitely more interesting than we could have imagined it
+would prove."
+
+"But infinitely more difficult for us," said I, with a sigh of
+pusillanimous relief.  "Our hands are tied for this week, at all
+events."
+
+"Not necessarily, my dear Bunny, though I admit that the chances are
+against us.  Yet I'm not so sure of that either.  There are all sorts
+of possibilities in these three-cornered combinations.  Set A to watch
+B, and he won't have an eye left for C.  That's the obvious theory, but
+then Mackenzie's a very big A.  I should be sorry to have any boodle
+about me with that man in the house.  Yet it would be great to nip in
+between A and B and score off them both at once!  It would be worth a
+risk, Bunny, to do that; it would be worth risking something merely to
+take on old hands like B and his men at their own old game!  Eh, Bunny?
+That would be something like a match. Gentlemen and Players at single
+wicket, by Jove!"
+
+His eyes were brighter than I had known them for many a day.  They
+shone with the perverted enthusiasm which was roused in him only by the
+contemplation of some new audacity.  He kicked off his shoes and began
+pacing his room with noiseless rapidity; not since the night of the Old
+Bohemian dinner to Reuben Rosenthall had Raffles exhibited such
+excitement in my presence; and I was not sorry at the moment to be
+reminded of the fiasco to which that banquet had been the prelude.
+
+"My dear A. J.," said I in his very own tone, "you're far too fond of
+the uphill game; you will eventually fall a victim to the sporting
+spirit and nothing else.  Take a lesson from our last escape, and fly
+lower as you value our skins.  Study the house as much as you like, but
+do--not--go and shove your head into Mackenzie's mouth!"
+
+My wealth of metaphor brought him to a stand-still, with his cigarette
+between his fingers and a grin beneath his shining eyes.
+
+"You're quite right, Bunny.  I won't.  I really won't.  Yet--you saw
+old Lady Melrose's necklace?  I've been wanting it for years!  But I'm
+not going to play the fool; honor bright, I'm not; yet--by Jove!--to
+get to windward of the professors and Mackenzie too!  It would be a
+great game, Bunny, it would be a great game!"
+
+"Well, you mustn't play it this week."
+
+"No, no, I won't.  But I wonder how the professors think of going to
+work?  That's what one wants to know.  I wonder if they've really got
+an accomplice in the house?  How I wish I knew their game!  But it's
+all right, Bunny; don't you be jealous; it shall be as you wish."
+
+And with that assurance I went off to my own room, and so to bed with
+an incredibly light heart. I had still enough of the honest man in me
+to welcome the postponement of our actual felonies, to dread their
+performance, to deplore their necessity: which is merely another way of
+stating the too patent fact that I was an incomparably weaker man than
+Raffles, while every whit as wicked.
+
+I had, however, one rather strong point.  I possessed the gift of
+dismissing unpleasant considerations, not intimately connected with the
+passing moment, entirely from my mind.  Through the exercise of this
+faculty I had lately been living my frivolous life in town with as much
+ignoble enjoyment as I had derived from it the year before; and
+similarly, here at Milchester, in the long-dreaded cricket-week, I had
+after all a quite excellent time.
+
+It is true that there were other factors in this pleasing
+disappointment.  In the first place, mirabile dictu, there were one or
+two even greater duffers than I on the Abbey cricket-field.  Indeed,
+quite early in the week, when it was of most value to me, I gained
+considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of which I had merely
+heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand, which Lord Amersteth himself
+grasped in public congratulation.  This happy accident was not to be
+undone even by me, and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the
+constant encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in
+itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in my very
+next innings.  Miss Melhuish said pretty things to me that night at the
+great ball in honor of Viscount Crowley's majority; she also told me
+that was the night on which the robbers would assuredly make their
+raid, and was full of arch tremors when we sat out in the garden,
+though the entire premises were illuminated all night long.  Meanwhile
+the quiet Scotchman took countless photographs by day, which he
+developed by night in a dark room admirably situated in the servants'
+part of the house; and it is my firm belief that only two of his
+fellow-guests knew Mr. Clephane of Dundee for Inspector Mackenzie of
+Scotland Yard.
+
+The week was to end with a trumpery match on the Saturday, which two or
+three of us intended abandoning early in order to return to town that
+night.  The match, however, was never played.  In the small hours of
+the Saturday morning a tragedy took place at Milchester Abbey.
+
+Let me tell of the thing as I saw and heard it.  My room opened upon
+the central gallery, and was not even on the same floor as that on
+which Raffles--and I think all the other men--were quartered.  I had
+been put, in fact, into the dressing-room of one of the grand suites,
+and my too near neighbors were old Lady Melrose and my host and
+hostess.  Now, by the Friday evening the actual festivities were at an
+end, and, for the first time that week, I must have been sound asleep
+since midnight, when all at once I found myself sitting up breathless.
+A heavy thud had come against my door, and now I heard hard breathing
+and the dull stamp of muffled feet.
+
+"I've got ye," muttered a voice.  "It's no use struggling."
+
+It was the Scotch detective, and a new fear turned me cold.  There was
+no reply, but the hard breathing grew harder still, and the muffled
+feet beat the floor to a quicker measure.  In sudden panic I sprang out
+of bed and flung open my door. A light burnt low on the landing, and by
+it I could see Mackenzie swaying and staggering in a silent tussle with
+some powerful adversary.
+
+"Hold this man!" he cried, as I appeared. "Hold the rascal!"
+
+But I stood like a fool until the pair of them backed into me, when,
+with a deep breath I flung myself on the fellow, whose face I had seen
+at last. He was one of the footmen who waited at table; and no sooner
+had I pinned him than the detective loosed his hold.
+
+"Hang on to him," he cried.  "There's more of 'em below."
+
+And he went leaping down the stairs, as other doors opened and Lord
+Amersteth and his son appeared simultaneously in their pyjamas.  At
+that my man ceased struggling; but I was still holding him when Crowley
+turned up the gas.
+
+"What the devil's all this?" asked Lord Amersteth, blinking.  "Who was
+that ran downstairs?"
+
+"Mac--Clephane!" said I hastily.
+
+"Aha!" said he, turning to the footman.  "So you're the scoundrel, are
+you?  Well done!  Well done!  Where was he caught?"
+
+I had no idea.
+
+"Here's Lady Melrose's door open," said Crowley.  "Lady Melrose!  Lady
+Melrose!"
+
+"You forget she's deaf," said Lord Amersteth. "Ah! that'll be her maid."
+
+An inner door had opened; next instant there was a little shriek, and a
+white figure gesticulated on the threshold.
+
+"Ou donc est l'ecrin de Madame la Marquise?  La fenetre est ouverte.
+Il a disparu!"
+
+"Window open and jewel-case gone, by Jove!" exclaimed Lord Amersteth.
+"Mais comment est Madame la Marquise?  Est elle bien?"
+
+"Oui, milor.  Elle dort."
+
+"Sleeps through it all," said my lord.  "She's the only one, then!"
+
+"What made Mackenzie--Clephane--bolt?" young Crowley asked me.
+
+"Said there were more of them below."
+
+"Why the devil couldn't you tell us so before?" he cried, and went
+leaping downstairs in his turn.
+
+He was followed by nearly all the cricketers, who now burst upon the
+scene in a body, only to desert it for the chase.  Raffles was one of
+them, and I would gladly have been another, had not the footman chosen
+this moment to hurl me from him, and to make a dash in the direction
+from which they had come.  Lord Amersteth had him in an instant; but
+the fellow fought desperately, and it took the two of us to drag him
+downstairs, amid a terrified chorus from half-open doors.  Eventually
+we handed him over to two other footmen who appeared with their
+nightshirts tucked into their trousers, and my host was good enough to
+compliment me as he led the way outside.
+
+"I thought I heard a shot," he added.  "Didn't you?"
+
+"I thought I heard three."
+
+And out we dashed into the darkness.
+
+I remember how the gravel pricked my feet, how the wet grass numbed
+them as we made for the sound of voices on an outlying lawn.  So dark
+was the night that we were in the cricketers' midst before we saw the
+shimmer of their pyjamas; and then Lord Amersteth almost trod on
+Mackenzie as he lay prostrate in the dew.
+
+"Who's this?" he cried.  "What on earth's happened?"
+
+"It's Clephane," said a man who knelt over him.  "He's got a bullet in
+him somewhere."
+
+"Is he alive?"
+
+"Barely."
+
+"Good God!  Where's Crowley?"
+
+"Here I am," called a breathless voice.  "It's no good, you fellows.
+There's nothing to show which way they've gone.  Here's Raffles; he's
+chucked it, too."  And they ran up panting.
+
+"Well, we've got one of them, at all events," muttered Lord Amersteth.
+"The next thing is to get this poor fellow indoors.  Take his
+shoulders, somebody.  Now his middle.  Join hands under him.  All
+together, now; that's the way.  Poor fellow!  Poor fellow!  His name
+isn't Clephane at all.  He's a Scotland Yard detective, down here for
+these very villains!"
+
+Raffles was the first to express surprise; but he had also been the
+first to raise the wounded man.  Nor had any of them a stronger or more
+tender hand in the slow procession to the house.
+
+In a little we had the senseless man stretched on a sofa in the
+library.  And there, with ice on his wound and brandy in his throat,
+his eyes opened and his lips moved.
+
+Lord Amersteth bent down to catch the words.
+
+"Yes, yes," said he; "we've got one of them safe and sound.  The brute
+you collared upstairs." Lord Amersteth bent lower.  "By Jove!  Lowered
+the jewel-case out of the window, did he?  And they've got clean away
+with it!  Well, well!  I only hope we'll be able to pull this good
+fellow through.  He's off again."
+
+An hour passed: the sun was rising.
+
+It found a dozen young fellows on the settees in the billiard-room,
+drinking whiskey and soda-water in their overcoats and pyjamas, and
+still talking excitedly in one breath.  A time-table was being passed
+from hand to hand: the doctor was still in the library.  At last the
+door opened, and Lord Amersteth put in his head.
+
+"It isn't hopeless," said he, "but it's bad enough. There'll be no
+cricket to-day."
+
+Another hour, and most of us were on our way to catch the early train;
+between us we filled a compartment almost to suffocation.  And still we
+talked all together of the night's event; and still I was a little hero
+in my way, for having kept my hold of the one ruffian who had been
+taken; and my gratification was subtle and intense.  Raffles watched me
+under lowered lids.  Not a word had we had together; not a word did we
+have until we had left the others at Paddington, and were skimming
+through the streets in a hansom with noiseless tires and a tinkling
+bell.
+
+"Well, Bunny," said Raffles, "so the professors have it, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "And I'm jolly glad!"
+
+"That poor Mackenzie has a ball in his chest?"
+
+"That you and I have been on the decent side for once."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You're hopeless, Bunny, quite hopeless!  I take it you wouldn't have
+refused your share if the boodle had fallen to us?  Yet you positively
+enjoy coming off second best--for the second time running!  I confess,
+however, that the professors' methods were full of interest to me.  I,
+for one, have probably gained as much in experience as I have lost in
+other things.  That lowering the jewel-case out of the window was a
+very simple and effective expedient; two of them had been waiting below
+for it for hours."
+
+"How do you know?" I asked.
+
+"I saw them from my own window, which was just above the dear old
+lady's.  I was fretting for that necklace in particular, when I went up
+to turn in for our last night--and I happened to look out of my window.
+In point of fact, I wanted to see whether the one below was open, and
+whether there was the slightest chance of working the oracle with my
+sheet for a rope.  Of course I took the precaution of turning my light
+off first, and it was a lucky thing I did.  I saw the pros. right down
+below, and they never saw me.  I saw a little tiny luminous disk just
+for an instant, and then again for an instant a few minutes later.  Of
+course I knew what it was, for I have my own watch-dial daubed with
+luminous paint; it makes a lantern of sorts when you can get no better.
+But these fellows were not using theirs as a lantern.  They were under
+the old lady's window.  They were watching the time.  The whole thing
+was arranged with their accomplice inside.  Set a thief to catch a
+thief: in a minute I had guessed what the whole thing proved to be."
+
+"And you did nothing!" I exclaimed.
+
+"On the contrary, I went downstairs and straight into Lady Melrose's
+room--"
+
+"You did?"
+
+"Without a moment's hesitation.  To save her jewels.  And I was
+prepared to yell as much into her ear-trumpet for all the house to
+hear.  But the dear lady is too deaf and too fond of her dinner to wake
+easily."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She didn't stir."
+
+"And yet you allowed the professors, as you call them, to take her
+jewels, case and all!"
+
+"All but this," said Raffles, thrusting his fist into my lap.  "I would
+have shown it you before, but really, old fellow, your face all day has
+been worth a fortune to the firm!"
+
+And he opened his fist, to shut it next instant on the bunch of
+diamonds and of sapphires that I had last seen encircling the neck of
+Lady Melrose.
+
+
+
+LE PREMIER PAS
+
+That night he told me the story of his earliest crime.  Not since the
+fateful morning of the Ides of March, when he had just mentioned it as
+an unreported incident of a certain cricket tour, had I succeeded in
+getting a word out of Raffles on the subject.  It was not for want of
+trying; he would shake his head, and watch his cigarette smoke
+thoughtfully; a subtle look in his eyes, half cynical, half wistful, as
+though the decent honest days that were no more had had their merits
+after all.  Raffles would plan a fresh enormity, or glory in the last,
+with the unmitigated enthusiasm of the artist.  It was impossible to
+imagine one throb or twitter of compunction beneath those frankly
+egotistic and infectious transports.  And yet the ghost of a dead
+remorse seemed still to visit him with the memory of his first felony,
+so that I had given the story up long before the night of our return
+from Milchester.  Cricket, however, was in the air, and Raffles's
+cricket-bag back where he sometimes kept it, in the fender, with the
+remains of an Orient label still adhering to the leather.  My eyes had
+been on this label for some time, and I suppose his eyes had been on
+mine, for all at once he asked me if I still burned to hear that yarn.
+
+"It's no use," I replied.  "You won't spin it. I must imagine it for
+myself."
+
+"How can you?"
+
+"Oh, I begin to know your methods."
+
+"You take it I went in with my eyes open, as I do now, eh?"
+
+"I can't imagine your doing otherwise."
+
+"My dear Bunny, it was the most unpremeditated thing I ever did in my
+life!"
+
+His chair wheeled back into the books as he sprang up with sudden
+energy.  There was quite an indignant glitter in his eyes.
+
+"I can't believe that," said I craftily.  "I can't pay you such a poor
+compliment!"
+
+"Then you must be a fool--"
+
+He broke off, stared hard at me, and in a trice stood smiling in his
+own despite.
+
+"Or a better knave than I thought you, Bunny, and by Jove it's the
+knave!  Well--I suppose I'm fairly drawn; I give you best, as they say
+out there.  As a matter of fact I've been thinking of the thing myself;
+last night's racket reminds me of it in one or two respects.  I tell
+you what, though, this is an occasion in any case, and I'm going to
+celebrate it by breaking the one good rule of my life.  I'm going to
+have a second drink!"
+
+The whiskey tinkled, the syphon fizzed, the ice plopped home; and
+seated there in his pyjamas, with the inevitable cigarette, Raffles
+told me the story that I had given up hoping to hear.  The windows were
+wide open; the sounds of Piccadilly floated in at first.  Long before
+he finished, the last wheels had rattled, the last brawler was removed,
+we alone broke the quiet of the summer night.
+
+
+"... No, they do you very well, indeed. You pay for nothing but drinks,
+so to speak, but I'm afraid mine were of a comprehensive character.  I
+had started in a hole, I ought really to have refused the invitation;
+then we all went to the Melbourne Cup, and I had the certain winner
+that didn't win, and that's not the only way you can play the fool in
+Melbourne.  I wasn't the steady old stager I am now, Bunny; my analysis
+was a confession in itself.  But the others didn't know how hard up I
+was, and I swore they shouldn't.  I tried the Jews, but they're extra
+fly out there. Then I thought of a kinsman of sorts, a second cousin of
+my father's whom none of us knew anything about, except that he was
+supposed to be in one or other of the Colonies.  If he was a rich man,
+well and good, I would work him; if not there would be no harm done.  I
+tried to get on his tracks, and, as luck would have it, I succeeded (or
+thought I had) at the very moment when I happened to have a few days to
+myself.  I was cut over on the hand, just before the big Christmas
+match, and couldn't have bowled a ball if they had played me.
+
+"The surgeon who fixed me up happened to ask me if I was any relation
+of Raffles of the National Bank, and the pure luck of it almost took my
+breath away.  A relation who was a high official in one of the banks,
+who would finance me on my mere name--could anything be better?  I made
+up my mind that this Raffles was the man I wanted, and was awfully sold
+to find next moment that he wasn't a high official at all.  Nor had the
+doctor so much as met him, but had merely read of him in connection
+with a small sensation at the suburban branch which my namesake
+managed; an armed robber had been rather pluckily beaten off, with a
+bullet in him, by this Raffles; and the sort of thing was so common out
+there that this was the first I had heard of it!  A suburban branch--my
+financier had faded into some excellent fellow with a billet to lose if
+he called his soul his own. Still a manager was a manager, and I said I
+would soon see whether this was the relative I was looking for, if he
+would be good enough to give me the name of that branch.
+
+"'I'll do more,' says the doctor.  'I'll get you the name of the branch
+he's been promoted to, for I think I heard they'd moved him up one
+already.' And the next day he brought me the name of the township of
+Yea, some fifty miles north of Melbourne; but, with the vagueness which
+characterized all his information, he was unable to say whether I
+should find my relative there or not.
+
+"'He's a single man, and his initials are W. F.,' said the doctor, who
+was certain enough of the immaterial points.  'He left his old post
+several days ago, but it appears he's not due at the new one till the
+New Year.  No doubt he'll go before then to take things over and settle
+in.  You might find him up there and you might not.  If I were you I
+should write.'
+
+"'That'll lose two days,' said I, 'and more if he isn't there,' for I'd
+grown quite keen on this up-country manager, and I felt that if I could
+get at him while the holidays were still on, a little conviviality
+might help matters considerably.
+
+"'Then,' said the doctor, 'I should get a quiet horse and ride.  You
+needn't use that hand.'
+
+"'Can't I go by train?'
+
+"'You can and you can't.  You would still have to ride.  I suppose
+you're a horseman?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Then I should certainly ride all the way.  It's a delightful road,
+through Whittlesea and over the Plenty Ranges.  It'll give you some
+idea of the bush, Mr. Raffles, and you'll see the sources of the water
+supply of this city, sir.  You'll see where every drop of it comes
+from, the pure Yan Yean! I wish I had time to ride with you.'
+
+"'But where can I get a horse?'
+
+"The doctor thought a moment.
+
+"'I've a mare of my own that's as fat as butter for want of work,' said
+he.  'It would be a charity to me to sit on her back for a hundred
+miles or so, and then I should know you'd have no temptation to use
+that hand.'
+
+"'You're far too good!' I protested.
+
+"'You're A. J. Raffles,' he said.
+
+"And if ever there was a prettier compliment, or a finer instance of
+even Colonial hospitality, I can only say, Bunny, that I never heard of
+either."
+
+He sipped his whiskey, threw away the stump of  his cigarette, and lit
+another before continuing.
+
+"Well, I managed to write a line to W. F. with my own hand, which, as
+you will gather, was not very badly wounded; it was simply this third
+finger that was split and in splints; and next morning the doctor
+packed me off on a bovine beast that would have done for an ambulance.
+Half the team came up to see me start; the rest were rather sick with
+me for not stopping to see the match out, as if I could help them to
+win by watching them.  They little knew the game I'd got on myself, but
+still less did I know the game I was going to play.
+
+"It was an interesting ride enough, especially after passing the place
+called Whittlesea, a real wild township on the lower slope of the
+ranges, where I recollect having a deadly meal of hot mutton and tea,
+with the thermometer at three figures in the shade.  The first thirty
+miles or so was a good metal road, too good to go half round the world
+to ride on, but after Whittlesea it was a mere track over the ranges, a
+track I often couldn't see and left entirely to the mare.  Now it
+dipped into a gully and ran through a creek, and all the time the local
+color was inches thick; gum-trees galore and parrots all colors of the
+rainbow.  In one place a whole forest of gums had been ring-barked, and
+were just as though they had been painted white, without a leaf or a
+living thing for miles. And the first living thing I did meet was the
+sort to give you the creeps; it was a riderless horse coming full tilt
+through the bush, with the saddle twisted round and the stirrup-irons
+ringing.  Without thinking, I had a shot at heading him with the
+doctor's mare, and blocked him just enough to allow a man who came
+galloping after to do the rest.
+
+"'Thank ye, mister,' growled the man, a huge chap in a red checked
+shirt, with a beard like W. G. Grace, but the very devil of an
+expression.
+
+"'Been an accident?' said I, reining up.
+
+"'Yes,' said he, scowling as though he defied me to ask any more.
+
+"'And a nasty one,' I said, 'if that's blood on the saddle!'
+
+"Well, Bunny, I may be a blackguard myself, but I don't think I ever
+looked at a fellow as that chap looked at me.  But I stared him out,
+and forced him to admit that it was blood on the twisted saddle, and
+after that he became quite tame.  He told me exactly what had happened.
+A mate of his had been dragged under a branch, and had his nose
+smashed, but that was all; had sat tight after it till he dropped from
+loss of blood; another mate was with him back in the bush.
+
+"As I've said already, Bunny, I wasn't the old stager that I am now--in
+any respect--and we parted good enough friends.  He asked me which way
+I was going, and, when I told him, he said I should save seven miles,
+and get a good hour earlier to Yea, by striking off the track and
+making for a peak that we could see through the trees, and following a
+creek that I should see from the peak.  Don't smile, Bunny!  I began by
+saying I was a child in those days.  Of course, the short cut was the
+long way round; and it was nearly dark when that unlucky mare and I saw
+the single street of Yea.
+
+"I was looking for the bank when a fellow in a white suit ran down from
+the veranda.
+
+"'Mr. Raffles?' said he.
+
+"'Mr. Raffles,' said I, laughing as I shook his hand.
+
+"'You're late.'
+
+"'I was misdirected.'
+
+"'That all?  I'm relieved,' he said.  'Do you know what they are
+saying?  There are some brand-new bushrangers on the road between
+Whittlesea and this--a second Kelly gang!  They'd have caught a Tartar
+in you, eh?'
+
+"'They would in you,' I retorted, and my tu quoque shut him up and
+seemed to puzzle him. Yet there was much more sense in it than in his
+compliment to me, which was absolutely pointless.
+
+"'I'm afraid you'll find things pretty rough,' he resumed, when he had
+unstrapped my valise, and handed my reins to his man.  'It's lucky
+you're a bachelor like myself.'
+
+"I could not quite see the point of this remark either, since, had I
+been married, I should hardly have sprung my wife upon him in this
+free-and-easy fashion.  I muttered the conventional sort of thing, and
+then he said I should find it all right when I settled, as though I had
+come to graze upon him for weeks!  'Well,' thought I, 'these Colonials
+do take the cake for hospitality!'  And, still marvelling, I let him
+lead me into the private part of the bank.
+
+"'Dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour,' said he as we entered.
+'I thought you might like a tub first, and you'll find all ready in the
+room at the end of the passage.  Sing out if there's anything you want.
+Your luggage hasn't turned up yet, by the way, but here's a letter that
+came this morning.'
+
+"'Not for me?'
+
+"'Yes; didn't you expect one?'
+
+"'I certainly did not!'
+
+"'Well, here it is.'
+
+"And, as he lit me to my room, I read my own superscription of the
+previous day--to W. F. Raffles!
+
+"Bunny, you've had your wind bagged at footer, I daresay; you know what
+that's like?  All I can say is that my moral wind was bagged by that
+letter as I hope, old chap, I have never yet bagged yours. I couldn't
+speak.  I could only stand with my own letter in my hands until he had
+the good taste to leave me by myself.
+
+"W. F. Raffles!  We had mistaken EACH OTHER for W. F.  Raffles--for the
+new manager who had not yet arrived!  Small wonder we had conversed at
+cross-purposes; the only wonder was that we had not discovered our
+mutual mistake.  How the other man would have laughed!  But I--I could
+not laugh.  By Jove, no, it was no laughing matter for me!  I saw the
+whole thing in a flash, without a tremor, but with the direst
+depression from my own single point of view.  Call it callous if you
+like, Bunny, but remember that I was in much the same hole as you've
+since been in yourself, and that I had counted on this W. F. Raffles
+even as you counted on A. J.  I thought of the man with the W. G.
+beard--the riderless horse and the bloody saddle--the deliberate
+misdirection that had put me off the track and out of the way--and now
+the missing manager and the report of bushrangers at this end.  But I
+simply don't pretend to have felt any personal pity for a man whom I
+had never seen; that kind of pity's usually cant; and besides, all mine
+was needed for myself.
+
+"I was in as big a hole as ever.  What the devil was I to do?  I doubt
+if I have sufficiently impressed upon you the absolute necessity of my
+returning to Melbourne in funds.  As a matter of fact it was less the
+necessity than my own determination which I can truthfully ascribe as
+absolute.
+
+"Money I would have--but how--but how?  Would this stranger be open to
+persuasion--if I told him the truth?  No; that would set us all
+scouring the country for the rest of the night.  Why should I tell him?
+Suppose I left him to find out his mistake ... would anything be
+gained?  Bunny, I give you my word that I went in to dinner without a
+definite intention in my head, or one premeditated lie upon my lips.  I
+might do the decent, natural thing, and explain matters without loss of
+time; on the other hand, there was no hurry.  I had not opened the
+letter, and could always pretend I had not noticed the initials;
+meanwhile something might turn up.  I could wait a little and see.
+Tempted I already was, but as yet the temptation was vague, and its
+very vagueness made me tremble.
+
+"'Bad news, I'm afraid?' said the manager, when at last I sat down at
+his table.
+
+"'A mere annoyance,' I answered--I do assure you--on the spur of the
+moment and nothing else. But my lie was told; my position was taken;
+from that moment onward there was no retreat.  By implication, without
+realizing what I was doing, I had already declared myself W. F.
+Raffles.  Therefore, W. F. Raffles I would be, in that bank, for that
+night.  And the devil teach me how to use my lie!"
+
+Again he raised his glass to his lips--I had forgotten mine.  His
+cigarette-case caught the gas-light as he handed it to me.  I shook my
+head without taking my eyes from his.
+
+"The devil played up," continued Raffles, with a laugh.  "Before I
+tasted my soup I had decided what to do.  I had determined to rob that
+bank instead of going to bed, and to be back in Melbourne for breakfast
+if the doctor's mare could do it.  I would tell the old fellow that I
+had missed my way and been bushed for hours, as I easily might have
+been, and had never got to Yea at all. At Yea, on the other hand, the
+personation and robbery would ever after be attributed to a member of
+the gang that had waylaid and murdered the new manager with that very
+object.  You are acquiring some experience in such matters, Bunny. I
+ask you, was there ever a better get-out?  Last night's was something
+like it, only never such a certainty.  And I saw it from the
+beginning--saw to the end before I had finished my soup!
+
+"To increase my chances, the cashier, who also lived in the bank, was
+away over the holidays, had actually gone down to Melbourne to see us
+play; and the man who had taken my horse also waited at table; for he
+and his wife were the only servants, and they slept in a separate
+building.  You may depend I ascertained this before we had finished
+dinner.  Indeed I was by way of asking too many questions (the most
+oblique and delicate was that which elicited my host's name, Ewbank),
+nor was I careful enough to conceal their drift.
+
+"'Do you know,' said this fellow Ewbank, who was one of the downright
+sort, 'if it wasn't you, I should say you were in a funk of robbers?
+Have you lost your nerve?'
+
+"'I hope not,' said I, turning jolly hot, I can tell you; 'but--well,
+it is not a pleasant thing to have to put a bullet through a fellow!'
+
+"'No?' said he, coolly.  'I should enjoy nothing better, myself;
+besides, yours didn't go through.'
+
+"'I wish it had!' I was smart enough to cry.
+
+"'Amen!' said he.
+
+"And I emptied my glass; actually I did not know whether my wounded
+bank-robber was in prison, dead, or at large!
+
+"But, now that I had had more than enough of it, Ewbank would come back
+to the subject.  He admitted that the staff was small; but as for
+himself, he had a loaded revolver under his pillow all night, under the
+counter all day, and he was only waiting for his chance.
+
+"'Under the counter eh?' I was ass enough to say.
+
+"'Yes; so had you!'
+
+"He was looking at me in surprise, and something told me that to say
+'of course--I had forgotten!' would have been quite fatal, considering
+what I was supposed to have done.  So I looked down my nose and shook
+my head.
+
+"'But the papers said you had!' he cried.
+
+"'Not under the counter," said I.
+
+"'But it's the regulation!'
+
+"For the moment, Bunny, I felt stumped, though I trust I only looked
+more superior than before, and I think I justified my look.
+
+"'The regulation!' I said at length, in the most offensive tone at my
+command.  'Yes, the regulation would have us all dead men!  My dear
+sir, do you expect your bank robber to let you reach for your gun in
+the place where he knows it's kept?  I had mine in my pocket, and I got
+my chance by retreating from the counter with all visible reluctance.'
+
+"Ewbank stared at me with open eyes and a five-barred forehead, then
+down came his fist on the table.
+
+"'By God!  That was smart!  Still,' he added, like a man who would not
+be in the wrong, 'the papers said the other thing, you know!'
+
+"'Of course,' I rejoined, 'because they said what I told them.  You
+wouldn't have had me advertise the fact that I improved upon the bank's
+regulations, would you?'
+
+"So that cloud rolled over, and by Jove it was a cloud with a golden
+lining.  Not silver--real good Australian gold!  For old Ewbank hadn't
+quite appreciated me till then; he was a hard nut, a much older man
+than myself, and I felt pretty sure he thought me young for the place,
+and my supposed feat a fluke.  But I never saw a man change his mind
+more openly.  He got out his best brandy, he made me throw away the
+cigar I was smoking, and opened a fresh box.  He was a
+convivial-looking party, with a red moustache, and a very humorous face
+(not unlike Tom Emmett's), and from that moment I laid myself out to
+attack him on his convivial flank.  But he wasn't a Rosenthall, Bunny;
+he had a treble-seamed, hand-sewn head, and could have drunk me under
+the table ten times over.
+
+"'All right,' I thought, 'you may go to bed sober, but you'll sleep
+like a timber-yard!'  And I threw half he gave me through the open
+window, when he wasn't looking.
+
+"But he was a good chap, Ewbank, and don't you imagine he was at all
+intemperate.  Convivial I called him, and I only wish he had been
+something more.  He did, however, become more and more genial as the
+evening advanced, and I had not much difficulty in getting him to show
+me round the bank at what was really an unearthly hour for such a
+proceeding.  It was when he went to fetch the revolver before turning
+in.  I kept him out of his bed another twenty minutes, and I knew every
+inch of the business premises before I shook hands with Ewbank in my
+room.
+
+"You won't guess what I did with myself for the next hour.  I undressed
+and went to bed.  The incessant strain involved in even the most
+deliberate impersonation is the most wearing thing I know; then how
+much more so when the impersonation is impromptu!  There's no getting
+your eye in; the next word may bowl you out; it's batting in a bad
+light all through.  I haven't told you of half the tight places I was
+in during a conversation that ran into hours and became dangerously
+intimate towards the end.  You can imagine them for yourself, and then
+picture me spread out on my bed, getting my second wind for the big
+deed of the night.
+
+"Once more I was in luck, for I had not been lying there long before I
+heard my dear Ewbank snoring like a harmonium, and the music never
+ceased for a moment; it was as loud as ever when I crept out and closed
+my door behind me, as regular as ever when I stopped to listen at his.
+And I have still to hear the concert that I shall enjoy much more.  The
+good fellow snored me out of the bank, and was still snoring when I
+again stood and listened under his open window.
+
+"Why did I leave the bank first?  To catch and saddle the mare and
+tether her in a clump of trees close by: to have the means of escape
+nice and handy before I went to work.  I have often wondered at the
+instinctive wisdom of the precaution; unconsciously I was acting on
+what has been one of my guiding principles ever since.  Pains and
+patience were required: I had to get my saddle without waking the man,
+and I was not used to catching horses in a horse-paddock.  Then I
+distrusted the poor mare, and I went back to the stables for a hatful
+of oats, which I left with her in the clump, hat and all.  There was a
+dog, too, to reckon with (our very worst enemy, Bunny); but I had been
+'cute enough to make immense friends with him during the evening; and
+he wagged his tail, not only when I came downstairs, but when I
+reappeared at the back-door.
+
+"As the soi-disant new manager, I had been able, in the most ordinary
+course, to pump poor Ewbank about anything and everything connected
+with the working of the bank, especially in those twenty last
+invaluable minutes before turning in.  And I had made a very natural
+point of asking him where he kept, and would recommend me to keep, the
+keys at night.  Of course I thought he would take them with him to his
+room; but no such thing; he had a dodge worth two of that.  What it was
+doesn't much matter, but no outsider would have found those keys in a
+month of Sundays.
+
+"I, of course, had them in a few seconds, and in a few more I was in
+the strong-room itself.  I forgot to say that the moon had risen and
+was letting quite a lot of light into the bank.  I had, however,
+brought a bit of candle with me from my room; and in the strong-room,
+which was down some narrow stairs behind the counter in the
+banking-chamber, I had no hesitation in lighting it.  There was no
+window down there, and, though I could no longer hear old Ewbank
+snoring, I had not the slightest reason to anticipate disturbance from
+that quarter.  I did think of locking myself in while I was at work,
+but, thank goodness, the iron door had no keyhole on the inside.
+
+"Well, there were heaps of gold in the safe, but I only took what I
+needed and could comfortably carry, not much more than a couple of
+hundred altogether.  Not a note would I touch, and my native caution
+came out also in the way I divided the sovereigns between all my
+pockets, and packed them up so that I shouldn't be like the old woman
+of Banbury Cross.  Well, you think me too cautious still, but I was
+insanely cautious then.  And so it was that, just as I was ready to go,
+whereas I might have been gone ten minutes, there came a violent
+knocking at the outer door.
+
+"Bunny, it was the outer door of the banking-chamber!  My candle must
+have been seen!  And there I stood, with the grease running hot over my
+fingers, in that brick grave of a strong-room!
+
+"There was only one thing to be done.  I must trust to the sound
+sleeping of Ewbank upstairs, open the door myself, knock the visitor
+down, or shoot him with the revolver I had been new chum enough to buy
+before leaving Melbourne, and make a dash for that clump of trees and
+the doctor's mare.  My mind was made up in an instant, and I was at the
+top of the strong-room stairs, the knocking still continuing, when a
+second sound drove me back.  It was the sound of bare feet coming along
+a corridor.
+
+"My narrow stair was stone, I tumbled down it with little noise, and
+had only to push open the iron door, for I had left the keys in the
+safe.  As I did so I heard a handle turn overhead, and thanked my gods
+that I had shut every single door behind me.  You see, old chap, one's
+caution doesn't always let one in!
+
+"'Who's that knocking?' said Ewbank up above.
+
+"I could not make out the answer, but it sounded to me like the
+irrelevant supplication of a spent man.  What I did hear, plainly, was
+the cocking of the bank revolver before the bolts were shot back.
+Then, a tottering step, a hard, short, shallow breathing, and Ewbank's
+voice in horror--
+
+"'My God!  Good Lord!  What's happened to you?  You're bleeding like a
+pig!'
+
+"'Not now,' came with a grateful sort of sigh.
+
+"'But you have been!  What's done it?'
+
+"'Bushrangers.'
+
+"'Down the road?'
+
+"'This and Whittlesea--tied to tree--cock shots--left me--bleed to
+death ...'"
+
+The weak voice failed, and the bare feet bolted.  Now was my time--if
+the poor devil had fainted.  But I could not be sure, and there I
+crouched down below in the dark, at the half-shut iron door, not less
+spellbound than imprisoned.  It was just as well, for Ewbank wasn't
+gone a minute.
+
+"'Drink this,' I heard him say, and, when the other spoke again, his
+voice was stronger.
+
+"'Now I begin to feel alive ...'
+
+"'Don't talk!'
+
+"'It does me good.  You don't know what it was, all those miles alone,
+one an hour at the outside!  I never thought I should come through. You
+must let me tell you--in case I don't!'
+
+"'Well, have another sip.'
+
+"'Thank you ...  I said bushrangers; of course, there are no such
+things nowadays.'
+
+"'What were they, then?'
+
+"'Bank-thieves; the one that had the pot shots was the very brute I
+drove out of the bank at Coburg, with a bullet in him!"'
+
+"I knew it!"
+
+"Of course you did, Bunny; so did I, down in that strong-room; but old
+Ewbank didn't, and I thought he was never going to speak again.
+
+"'You're delirious,' he says at last.  'Who in blazes do you think you
+are?'
+
+"'The new manager.'
+
+"'The new manager's in bed and asleep upstairs.'
+
+"'When did he arrive?'
+
+"'This evening.'
+
+"'Call himself Raffles?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Well, I'm damned!' whispered the real man. 'I thought it was just
+revenge, but now I see what it was.  My dear sir, the man upstairs is
+an imposter--if he's upstairs still!  He must be one of the gang.  He's
+going to rob the bank--if he hasn't done so already!'
+
+"'If he hasn't done so already,' muttered Ewbank after him; 'if he's
+upstairs still!  By God, if he is, I'm sorry for him!'
+
+"His tone was quiet enough, but about the nastiest I ever heard.  I
+tell you, Bunny, I was glad I'd brought that revolver.  It looked as
+though it must be mine against his, muzzle to muzzle.
+
+"'Better have a look down here, first,' said the new manager.
+
+"'While he gets through his window?  No, no, he's not down here.'
+
+"'It's easy to have a look.'
+
+"Bunny, if you ask me what was the most thrilling moment of my infamous
+career, I say it was that moment.  There I stood at the bottom of those
+narrow stone stairs, inside the strong-room, with the door a good foot
+open, and I didn't know whether it would creak or not.  The light was
+coming nearer--and I didn't know!  I had to chance it.  And it didn't
+creak a bit; it was far too solid and well-hung; and I couldn't have
+banged it if I tried, it was too heavy; and it fitted so close that I
+felt and heard the air squeeze out in my face.  Every shred of light
+went out, except the streak underneath, and it brightened.  How I
+blessed that door!
+
+"'No, he's not down THERE,' I heard, as though through cotton-wool;
+then the streak went out too, and in a few seconds I ventured to open
+once more, and was in time to hear them creeping to my room.
+
+"Well, now there was not a fifth of a second to be lost; but I'm proud
+to say I came up those stairs on my toes and fingers, and out of that
+bank (they'd gone and left the door open) just as gingerly as though my
+time had been my own.  I didn't even forget to put on the hat that the
+doctor's mare was eating her oats out of, as well as she could with a
+bit, or it alone would have landed me.  I didn't even gallop away, but
+just jogged off quietly in the thick dust at the side of the road
+(though I own my heart was galloping), and thanked my stars the bank
+was at that end of the township, in which I really hadn't set foot.
+The very last thing I heard was the two managers raising Cain and the
+coachman.  And now, Bunny--"
+
+He stood up and stretched himself, with a smile that ended in a yawn.
+The black windows had faded through every shade of indigo; they now
+framed their opposite neighbors, stark and livid in the dawn; and the
+gas seemed turned to nothing in the globes.
+
+"But that's not all?" I cried.
+
+"I'm sorry to say it is," said Raffles apologetically.  "The thing
+should have ended with an exciting chase, I know, but somehow it
+didn't.  I suppose they thought I had got no end of a start; then they
+had made up their minds that I belonged to the gang, which was not so
+many miles away; and one of them had got as much as he could carry from
+that gang as it was.  But I wasn't to know all that, and I'm bound to
+say that there was plenty of excitement left for me.  Lord, how I made
+that poor brute travel when I got among the trees! Though we must have
+made it over fifty miles from Melbourne, we had done it at a snail's
+pace; and those stolen oats had brisked the old girl up to such a pitch
+that she fairly bolted when she felt her nose turned south.  By Jove,
+it was no joke, in and out among those trees, and under branches with
+your face in the mane!  I told you about the forest of dead gums?  It
+looked perfectly ghostly in the moonlight.  And I found it as still as
+I had left it--so still that I pulled up there, my first halt, and lay
+with my ear to the ground for two or three minutes.  But I heard
+nothing--not a thing but the mare's bellow and my own heart.  I'm
+sorry, Bunny; but if ever you write my memoirs, you won't have any
+difficulty in working up that chase. Play those dead gum-trees for all
+they're worth, and let the bullets fly like hail.  I'll turn round in
+my saddle to see Ewbank coming up hell-to-leather in his white suit,
+and I'll duly paint it red.  Do it in the third person, and they won't
+know how it's going to end."
+
+"But I don't know myself," I complained. "Did the mare carry you all
+the way back to Melbourne?"
+
+"Every rod, pole or perch!  I had her well seen to at our hotel, and
+returned her to the doctor in the evening.  He was tremendously tickled
+to hear that I had been bushed; next morning he brought me the paper to
+show me what I had escaped at Yea!"
+
+"Without suspecting anything?"
+
+"Ah!" said Raffles, as he put out the gas; "that's a point on which
+I've never made up my mind. The mare and her color was a
+coincidence--luckily she was only a bay--and I fancied the condition of
+the beast must have told a tale.  The doctor's manner was certainly
+different.  I'm inclined to think he suspected something, though not
+the right thing.  I wasn't expecting him, and I fear my appearance may
+have increased his suspicions."
+
+I asked him why.
+
+"I used to have rather a heavy moustache," said Raffles, "but I lost it
+the day after I lost my innocence."
+
+
+
+WILFUL MURDER
+
+Of the various robberies in which we were both concerned, it is but the
+few, I find, that will bear telling at any length.  Not that the others
+contained details which even I would hesitate to recount; it is,
+rather, the very absence of untoward incident which renders them
+useless for my present purpose.  In point of fact our plans were so
+craftily laid (by Raffles) that the chances of a hitch were invariably
+reduced to a minimum before we went to work.  We might be disappointed
+in the market value of our haul; but it was quite the exception for us
+to find ourselves confronted by unforeseen impediments, or involved in
+a really dramatic dilemma.  There was a sameness even in our spoil;
+for, of course, only the most precious stones are worth the trouble we
+took and the risks we ran.  In short, our most successful escapades
+would prove the greatest weariness of all in narrative form; and none
+more so than the dull affair of the Ardagh emeralds, some eight or nine
+weeks after the Milchester cricket week.  The former, however, had a
+sequel that I would rather forget than all our burglaries put together.
+
+It was the evening after our return from Ireland, and I was waiting at
+my rooms for Raffles, who had gone off as usual to dispose of the
+plunder.  Raffles had his own method of conducting this very vital
+branch of our business, which I was well content to leave entirely in
+his hands.  He drove the bargains, I believe, in a thin but subtle
+disguise of the flashy-seedy order, and always in the Cockney dialect,
+of which he had made himself a master.  Moreover, he invariably
+employed the same "fence," who was ostensibly a money-lender in a small
+(but yet notorious) way, and in reality a rascal as remarkable as
+Raffles himself. Only lately I also had been to the man, but in my
+proper person.  We had needed capital for the getting of these very
+emeralds, and I had raised a hundred pounds, on the terms you would
+expect, from a soft-spoken graybeard with an ingratiating smile, an
+incessant bow, and the shiftiest old eyes that ever flew from rim to
+rim of a pair of spectacles.  So the original sinews and the final
+spoils of war came in this case from the self-same source--a
+circumstance which appealed to us both.
+
+But these same final spoils I was still to see, and I waited and waited
+with an impatience that grew upon me with the growing dusk.  At my open
+window I had played Sister Ann until the faces in the street below were
+no longer distinguishable. And now I was tearing to and fro in the grip
+of horrible hypotheses--a grip that tightened when at last the
+lift-gates opened with a clatter outside--that held me breathless until
+a well-known tattoo followed on my door.
+
+"In the dark!" said Raffles, as I dragged him in.  "Why, Bunny, what's
+wrong?"
+
+"Nothing--now you've come," said I, shutting the door behind him in a
+fever of relief and anxiety.  "Well?  Well?  What did they fetch?"
+
+"Five hundred."
+
+"Down?"
+
+"Got it in my pocket."
+
+"Good man!" I cried.  "You don't know what a stew I've been in.  I'll
+switch on the light.  I've been thinking of you and nothing else for
+the last hour.  I--I was ass enough to think something had gone wrong!"
+
+Raffles was smiling when the white light filled the room, but for the
+moment I did not perceive the peculiarity of his smile.  I was
+fatuously full of my own late tremors and present relief; and my first
+idiotic act was to spill some whiskey and squirt the soda-water all
+over in my anxiety to do instant justice to the occasion.
+
+"So you thought something had happened?" said Raffles, leaning back in
+my chair as he lit a cigarette, and looking much amused.  "What would
+you say if something had?  Sit tight, my dear chap!  It was nothing of
+the slightest consequence, and it's all over now.  A stern chase and a
+long one, Bunny, but I think I'm well to windward this time."
+
+And suddenly I saw that his collar was limp, his hair matted, his boots
+thick with dust.
+
+"The police?" I whispered aghast.
+
+"Oh, dear, no; only old Baird."
+
+"Baird!  But wasn't it Baird who took the emeralds?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Then how came he to chase you?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I'll tell you if you give me a chance; it's really
+nothing to get in the least excited about.  Old Baird has at last
+spotted that I'm not quite the common cracksman I would have him think
+me.  So he's been doing his best to run me to my burrow."
+
+"And you call that nothing!"
+
+"It would be something if he had succeeded; but he has still to do
+that.  I admit, however, that he made me sit up for the time being.  It
+all comes of going on the job so far from home.  There was the old
+brute with the whole thing in his morning paper.  He KNEW it must have
+been done by some fellow who could pass himself off for a gentleman,
+and I saw his eyebrows go up the moment I told him I was the man, with
+the same old twang that you could cut with a paper-knife.  I did my
+best to get out of it--swore I had a pal who was a real swell--but I
+saw very plainly that I had given myself away.  He gave up haggling.
+He paid my price as though he enjoyed doing it.  But I FELT him
+following me when I made tracks; though, of course, I didn't turn round
+to see."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"My dear Bunny, it's the very worst thing you can do.  As long as you
+look unsuspecting they'll keep their distance, and so long as they keep
+their distance you stand a chance.  Once show that you know you're
+being followed, and it's flight or fight for all you're worth.  I never
+even looked round; and mind you never do in the same hole.  I just
+hurried up to Blackfriars and booked for High Street, Kensington, at
+the top of my voice; and as the train was leaving Sloane Square out I
+hopped, and up all those stairs like a lamplighter, and round to the
+studio by the back streets.  Well, to be on the safe side, I lay low
+there all the afternoon, hearing nothing in the least suspicious, and
+only wishing I had a window to look through instead of that beastly
+skylight.  However, the coast seemed clear enough, and thus far it was
+my mere idea that he would follow me; there was nothing to show he had.
+So at last I marched out in my proper rig--almost straight into old
+Baird's arms!"
+
+"What on earth did you do?"
+
+"Walked past him as though I had never set eyes on him in my life, and
+didn't then; took a hansom in the King's Road, and drove like the deuce
+to Clapham Junction; rushed on to the nearest platform, without a
+ticket, jumped into the first train I saw, got out at Twickenham,
+walked full tilt back to Richmond, took the District to Charing Cross,
+and here I am!  Ready for a tub and a change, and the best dinner the
+club can give us. I came to you first, because I thought you might be
+getting anxious.  Come round with me, and I won't keep you long."
+
+"You're certain you've given him the slip?" I said, as we put on our
+hats.
+
+"Certain enough; but we can make assurance doubly sure," said Raffles,
+and went to my window, where he stood for a moment or two looking down
+into the street.
+
+"All right?" I asked him.
+
+"All right," said he; and we went downstairs forthwith, and so to the
+Albany arm-in-arm.
+
+But we were both rather silent on our way.  I, for my part, was
+wondering what Raffles would do about the studio in Chelsea, whither,
+at all events, he had been successfully dogged.  To me the point seemed
+one of immediate importance, but when I mentioned it he said there was
+time enough to think about that.  His one other remark was made after
+we had nodded (in Bond Street) to a young blood of our acquaintance who
+happened to be getting himself a bad name.
+
+"Poor Jack Rutter!" said Raffles, with a sigh. "Nothing's sadder than
+to see a fellow going to the bad like that.  He's about mad with drink
+and debt, poor devil!  Did you see his eye?  Odd that we should have
+met him to-night, by the way; it's old Baird who's said to have skinned
+him.  By God, but I'd like to skin old Baird!"
+
+And his tone took a sudden low fury, made the more noticeable by
+another long silence, which lasted, indeed, throughout an admirable
+dinner at the club, and for some time after we had settled down in a
+quiet corner of the smoking-room with our coffee and cigars.  Then at
+last I saw Raffles looking at me with his lazy smile, and I knew that
+the morose fit was at an end.
+
+"I daresay you wonder what I've been thinking about all this time?"
+said he.  "I've been thinking what rot it is to go doing things by
+halves!"
+
+"Well," said I, returning his smile, "that's not a charge that you can
+bring against yourself, is it?"
+
+"I'm not so sure," said Raffles, blowing a meditative puff; "as a
+matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil
+of a Jack Rutter.  There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's
+only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and
+us!  He's under the thumb of a villainous money-lender; we are solvent
+citizens.  He's taken to drink; we're as sober as we are solvent.  His
+pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from
+the door.  Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves; and
+we steal outright and are done with it.  Obviously ours is the more
+honest course.  Yet I'm not sure, Bunny, but we're doing the thing by
+halves ourselves!"
+
+"Why?  What more could we do?" I exclaimed in soft derision, looking
+round, however, to make sure that we were not overheard.
+
+"What more," said Raffles.  "Well, murder--for one thing."
+
+"Rot!"
+
+"A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don't mean it for rot.  I've
+told you before that the biggest man alive is the man who's committed a
+murder, and not yet been found out; at least he ought to be, but he so
+very seldom has the soul to appreciate himself.  Just think of it!
+Think of coming in here and talking to the men, very likely about the
+murder itself; and knowing you've done it; and wondering how they'd
+look if THEY knew! Oh, it would be great, simply great!  But, besides
+all that, when you were caught there'd be a merciful and dramatic end
+of you.  You'd fill the bill for a few weeks, and then snuff out with a
+flourish of extra-specials; you wouldn't rust with a vile repose for
+seven or fourteen years."
+
+"Good old Raffles!" I chuckled.  "I begin to forgive you for being in
+bad form at dinner."
+
+"But I was never more earnest in my life."
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"I mean it."
+
+"You know very well that you wouldn't commit a murder, whatever else
+you might do."
+
+"I know very well I'm going to commit one to-night!"
+
+He had been leaning back in the saddle-bag chair, watching me with keen
+eyes sheathed by languid lids; now he started forward, and his eyes
+leapt to mine like cold steel from the scabbard.  They struck home to
+my slow wits; their meaning was no longer in doubt.  I, who knew the
+man, read murder in his clenched hands, and murder in his locked lips,
+but a hundred murders in those hard blue eyes.
+
+"Baird?" I faltered, moistening my lips with my tongue.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But you said it didn't matter about the room in Chelsea?"
+
+"I told a lie."
+
+"Anyway you gave him the slip afterwards!"
+
+"That was another.  I didn't.  I thought I had when I came up to you
+this evening; but when I looked out of your window--you remember?  to
+make assurance doubly sure--there he was on the opposite pavement down
+below."
+
+"And you never said a word about it!"
+
+"I wasn't going to spoil your dinner, Bunny, and I wasn't going to let
+you spoil mine.  But there he was as large as life, and, of course, he
+followed us to the Albany.  A fine game for him to play, a game after
+his mean old heart: blackmail from me, bribes from the police, the one
+bidding against the other; but he sha'n't play it with me, he sha'n't
+live to, and the world will have an extortioner the less.  Waiter!  Two
+Scotch whiskeys and sodas.  I'm off at eleven, Bunny; it's the only
+thing to be done."
+
+"You know where he lives, then?"
+
+"Yes, out Willesden way, and alone; the fellow's a miser among other
+things.  I long ago found out all about him."
+
+Again I looked round the room; it was a young man's club, and young men
+were laughing, chatting, smoking, drinking, on every hand.  One nodded
+to me through the smoke.  Like a machine I nodded to him, and turned
+back to Raffles with a groan.
+
+"Surely you will give him a chance!" I urged. "The very sight of your
+pistol should bring him to terms."
+
+"It wouldn't make him keep them."
+
+"But you might try the effect?"
+
+"I probably shall.  Here's a drink for you, Bunny.  Wish me luck."
+
+"I'm coming too."
+
+"I don't want you."
+
+"But I must come!"
+
+An ugly gleam shot from the steel blue eyes.
+
+"To interfere?" said Raffles.
+
+"Not I."
+
+"You give me your word?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Bunny, if you break it--"
+
+"You may shoot me, too!"
+
+"I most certainly should," said Raffles, solemnly. "So you come at your
+own peril, my dear man; but, if you are coming--well, the sooner the
+better, for I must stop at my rooms on the way."
+
+Five minutes later I was waiting for him at the Piccadilly entrance to
+the Albany.  I had a reason for remaining outside.  It was the
+feeling--half hope, half fear--that Angus Baird might still be on our
+trail--that some more immediate and less cold-blooded way of dealing
+with him might result from a sudden encounter between the money-lender
+and myself.  I would not warn him of his danger; but I would avert
+tragedy at all costs.  And when no such encounter had taken place, and
+Raffles and I were fairly on our way to Willesden, that, I think, was
+still my honest resolve.  I would not break my word if I could help it,
+but it was a comfort to feel that I could break it if I liked, on an
+understood penalty.  Alas!  I fear my good intentions were tainted with
+a devouring curiosity, and overlaid by the fascination which goes hand
+in hand with horror.
+
+I have a poignant recollection of the hour it took us to reach the
+house.  We walked across St. James's Park (I can see the lights now,
+bright on the bridge and blurred in the water), and we had some minutes
+to wait for the last train to Willesden.  It left at 11.21, I remember,
+and Raffles was put out to find it did not go on to Kensal Rise. We had
+to get out at Willesden Junction and walk on through the streets into
+fairly open country that happened to be quite new to me.  I could never
+find the house again.  I remember, however, that we were on a dark
+footpath between woods and fields when the clocks began striking twelve.
+
+"Surely," said I, "we shall find him in bed and asleep?"
+
+"I hope we do," said Raffles grimly.
+
+"Then you mean to break in?"
+
+"What else did you think?"
+
+I had not thought about it at all; the ultimate crime had monopolized
+my mind.  Beside it burglary was a bagatelle, but one to deprecate none
+the less.  I saw obvious objections: the man was au fait with cracksmen
+and their ways: he would certainly have firearms, and might be the
+first to use them.
+
+"I could wish nothing better," said Raffles. "Then it will be man to
+man, and devil take the worst shot.  You don't suppose I prefer foul
+play to fair, do you?  But die he must, by one or the other, or it's a
+long stretch for you and me."
+
+"Better that than this!"
+
+"Then stay where you are, my good fellow.  I told you I didn't want
+you; and this is the house. So good-night."
+
+I could see no house at all, only the angle of a high wall rising
+solitary in the night, with the starlight glittering on battlements of
+broken glass; and in the wall a tall green gate, bristling with spikes,
+and showing a front for battering-rams in the feeble rays an outlying
+lamp-post cast across the new-made road.  It seemed to me a road of
+building-sites, with but this one house built, all by itself, at one
+end; but the night was too dark for more than a mere impression.
+
+Raffles, however, had seen the place by daylight, and had come prepared
+for the special obstacles; already he was reaching up and putting
+champagne corks on the spikes, and in another moment he had his folded
+covert-coat across the corks.  I stepped back as he raised himself, and
+saw a little pyramid of slates snip the sky above the gate; as he
+squirmed over I ran forward, and had my own weight on the spikes and
+corks and covert-coat when he gave the latter a tug.
+
+"Coming after all?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"Take care, then; the place is all bell-wires and springs.  It's no
+soft thing, this!  There--stand still while I take off the corks."
+
+The garden was very small and new, with a grass-plot still in separate
+sods, but a quantity of full-grown laurels stuck into the raw clay
+beds. "Bells in themselves," as Raffles whispered; "there's nothing
+else rustles so--cunning old beast!"  And we gave them a wide berth as
+we crept across the grass.
+
+"He's gone to bed!"
+
+"I don't think so, Bunny.  I believe he's seen us."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I saw a light."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Downstairs, for an instant, when I--"
+
+His whisper died away; he had seen the light again; and so had I.
+
+It lay like a golden rod under the front-door--and vanished.  It
+reappeared like a gold thread under the lintel--and vanished for good.
+We heard the stairs creak, creak, and cease, also for good.  We neither
+saw nor heard any more, though we stood waiting on the grass till our
+feet were soaked with the dew.
+
+"I'm going in," said Raffles at last.  "I don't believe he saw us at
+all.  I wish he had.  This way."
+
+We trod gingerly on the path, but the gravel stuck to our wet soles,
+and grated horribly in a little tiled veranda with a glass door leading
+within. It was through this glass that Raffles had first seen the
+light; and he now proceeded to take out a pane, with the diamond, the
+pot of treacle, and the sheet of brown paper which were seldom omitted
+from his impedimenta.  Nor did he dispense with my own assistance,
+though he may have accepted it as instinctively as it was proffered.
+In any case it was these fingers that helped to spread the treacle on
+the brown paper, and pressed the latter to the glass until the diamond
+had completed its circuit and the pane fell gently back into our hands.
+
+Raffles now inserted his hand, turned the key in the lock, and, by
+making a long arm, succeeded in drawing the bolt at the bottom of the
+door; it proved to be the only one, and the door opened, though not
+very wide.
+
+"What's that?" said Raffles, as something crunched beneath his feet on
+the very threshold.
+
+"A pair of spectacles," I whispered, picking them up.  I was still
+fingering the broken lenses and the bent rims when Raffles tripped and
+almost fell, with a gasping cry that he made no effort to restrain.
+
+"Hush, man, hush!" I entreated under my breath.  "He'll hear you!"
+
+For answer his teeth chattered--even his--and I heard him fumbling with
+his matches.  "No, Bunny; he won't hear us," whispered Raffles,
+presently; and he rose from his knees and lit a gas as the match burnt
+down.
+
+Angus Baird was lying on his own floor, dead, with his gray hairs glued
+together by his blood; near him a poker with the black end glistening;
+in a corner his desk, ransacked, littered. A clock ticked noisily on
+the chimney-piece; for perhaps a hundred seconds there was no other
+sound.
+
+Raffles stood very still, staring down at the dead, as a man might
+stare into an abyss after striding blindly to its brink.  His breath
+came audibly through wide nostrils; he made no other sign, and his lips
+seemed sealed.
+
+"That light!" said I, hoarsely; "the light we saw under the door!"
+
+With a start he turned to me.
+
+"It's true!  I had forgotten it.  It was in here I saw it first!"
+
+"He must be upstairs still!"
+
+"If he is we'll soon rout him out.  Come on!"
+
+Instead I laid a hand upon his arm, imploring him to reflect--that his
+enemy was dead now--that we should certainly be involved--that now or
+never was our own time to escape.  He shook me off in a sudden fury of
+impatience, a reckless contempt in his eyes, and, bidding me save my
+own skin if I liked, he once more turned his back upon me, and this
+time left me half resolved to take him at his word.  Had he forgotten
+on what errand he himself was here?  Was he determined that this night
+should end in black disaster?  As I asked myself these questions his
+match flared in the hall; in another moment the stairs were creaking
+under his feet, even as they had creaked under those of the murderer;
+and the humane instinct that inspired him in defiance of his risk was
+borne in also upon my slower sensibilities.  Could we let the murderer
+go?  My answer was to bound up the creaking stairs and to overhaul
+Raffles on the landing.
+
+But three doors presented themselves; the first opened into a bedroom
+with the bed turned down but undisturbed; the second room was empty in
+every sense; the third door was locked.
+
+Raffles lit the landing gas.
+
+"He's in there," said he, cocking his revolver. "Do you remember how we
+used to break into the studies at school?  Here goes!"
+
+His flat foot crashed over the keyhole, the lock gave, the door flew
+open, and in the sudden draught the landing gas heeled over like a
+cobble in a squall; as the flame righted itself I saw a fixed bath, two
+bath-towels knotted together--an open window--a cowering figure--and
+Raffles struck aghast on the threshold.
+
+"JACK--RUTTER?"
+
+The words came thick and slow with horror, and in horror I heard myself
+repeating them, while the cowering figure by the bathroom window rose
+gradually erect.
+
+"It's you!" he whispered, in amazement no less than our own; "it's you
+two!  What's it mean, Raffles?  I saw you get over the gate; a bell
+rang, the place is full of them.  Then you broke in.  What's it all
+mean?"
+
+"We may tell you that, when you tell us what in God's name you've done,
+Rutter!"
+
+"Done?  What have I done?"  The unhappy wretch came out into the light
+with bloodshot, blinking eyes, and a bloody shirt-front.  "You
+know--you've seen--but I'll tell you if you like.  I've killed a
+robber; that's all.  I've killed a robber, a usurer, a jackal, a
+blackmailer, the cleverest and the cruellest villain unhung.  I'm ready
+to hang for him.  I'd kill him again!"
+
+And he looked us fiercely in the face, a fine defiance in his
+dissipated eyes; his breast heaving, his jaw like a rock.
+
+"Shall I tell you how it happened?" he went passionately on.  "He's
+made my life a hell these weeks and months past.  You may know that.  A
+perfect hell!  Well, to-night I met him in Bond Street.  Do you
+remember when I met you fellows?  He wasn't twenty yards behind you; he
+was on your tracks, Raffles; he saw me nod to you, and stopped me and
+asked me who you were.  He seemed as keen as knives to know, I couldn't
+think why, and didn't care either, for I saw my chance.  I said I'd
+tell him all about you if he'd give me a private interview.  He said he
+wouldn't.  I said he should, and held him by the coat; by the time I
+let him go you were out of sight, and I waited where I was till he came
+back in despair.  I had the whip-hand of him then.  I could dictate
+where the interview should be, and I made him take me home with him,
+still swearing to tell him all about you when we'd had our talk.  Well,
+when we got here I made him give me something to eat, putting him off
+and off; and about ten o'clock I heard the gate shut.  I waited a bit,
+and then asked him if he lived alone.
+
+"'Not at all,' says he; 'did you not see the servant?'
+
+"I said I'd seen her, but I thought I'd heard her go; if I was mistaken
+no doubt she would come when she was called; and I yelled three times
+at the top of my voice.  Of course there was no servant to come.  I
+knew that, because I came to see him one night last week, and he
+interviewed me himself through the gate, but wouldn't open it. Well,
+when I had done yelling, and not a soul had come near us, he was as
+white as that ceiling. Then I told him we could have our chat at last;
+and I picked the poker out of the fender, and told him how he'd robbed
+me, but, by God, he shouldn't rob me any more.  I gave him three
+minutes to write and sign a settlement of all his iniquitous claims
+against me, or have his brains beaten out over his own carpet.  He
+thought a minute, and then went to his desk for pen and paper.  In two
+seconds he was round like lightning with a revolver, and I went for him
+bald-headed.  He fired two or three times and missed; you can find the
+holes if you like; but I hit him every time--my God!  I was like a
+savage till the thing was done. And then I didn't care.  I went through
+his desk looking for my own bills, and was coming away when you turned
+up.  I said I didn't care, nor do I; but I was going to give myself up
+to-night, and shall still; so you see I sha'n't give you fellows much
+trouble!"
+
+He was done; and there we stood on the landing of the lonely house, the
+low, thick, eager voice still racing and ringing through our ears; the
+dead man below, and in front of us his impenitent slayer.  I knew to
+whom the impenitence would appeal when he had heard the story, and I
+was not mistaken.
+
+"That's all rot," said Raffles, speaking after a pause; "we sha'n't let
+you give yourself up."
+
+"You sha'n't stop me!  What would be the good?  The woman saw me; it
+would only be a question of time; and I can't face waiting to be taken.
+Think of it: waiting for them to touch you on the shoulder!  No, no,
+no; I'll give myself up and get it over."
+
+His speech was changed; he faltered, floundered. It was as though a
+clearer perception of his position had come with the bare idea of
+escape from it.
+
+"But listen to me," urged Raffles; "We're here at our peril ourselves.
+We broke in like thieves to enforce redress for a grievance very like
+your own.  But don't you see?  We took out a pane--did the thing like
+regular burglars.  Regular burglars will get the credit of all the
+rest!"
+
+"You mean that I sha'n't be suspected?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"But I don't want to get off scotfree," cried Rutter hysterically.
+"I've killed him.  I know that.  But it was in self-defence; it wasn't
+murder.  I must own up and take the consequences. I shall go mad if I
+don't!"
+
+His hands twitched; his lips quivered; the tears were in his eyes.
+Raffles took him roughly by the shoulder.
+
+"Look here, you fool!  If the three of us were caught here now, do you
+know what those consequences would be?  We should swing in a row at
+Newgate in six weeks' time!  You talk as though we were sitting in a
+club; don't you know it's one o'clock in the morning, and the lights
+on, and a dead man down below?  For God's sake pull yourself together,
+and do what I tell you, or you're a dead man yourself."
+
+"I wish I was one!" Rutter sobbed.  "I wish I had his revolver to blow
+my own brains out. It's lying under him.  O my God, my God!"
+
+His knees knocked together: the frenzy of reaction was at its height.
+We had to take him downstairs between us, and so through the front door
+out into the open air.
+
+All was still outside--all but the smothered weeping of the unstrung
+wretch upon our hands.  Raffles returned for a moment to the house;
+then all was dark as well.  The gate opened from within; we closed it
+carefully behind us; and so left the starlight shining on broken glass
+and polished spikes, one and all as we had found them.
+
+We escaped; no need to dwell on our escape.  Our murderer seemed set
+upon the scaffold--drunk with his deed, he was more trouble than six
+men drunk with wine.  Again and again we threatened to leave him to his
+fate, to wash our hands of him.  But incredible and unmerited luck was
+with the three of us.  Not a soul did we meet between that and
+Willesden; and of those who saw us later, did one think of the two
+young men with crooked white ties, supporting a third in a seemingly
+unmistakable condition, when the evening papers apprised the town of a
+terrible tragedy at Kensal Rise?
+
+We walked to Maida Vale, and thence drove openly to my rooms.  But I
+alone went upstairs; the other two proceeded to the Albany, and I saw
+no more of Raffles for forty-eight hours.  He was not at his rooms when
+I called in the morning; he had left no word.  When he reappeared the
+papers were full of the murder; and the man who had committed it was on
+the wide Atlantic, a steerage passenger from Liverpool to New York.
+
+"There was no arguing with him," so Raffles told me; "either he must
+make a clean breast of it or flee the country.  So I rigged him up at
+the studio, and we took the first train to Liverpool.  Nothing would
+induce him to sit tight and enjoy the situation as I should have
+endeavored to do in his place; and it's just as well!  I went to his
+diggings to destroy some papers, and what do you think I found.  The
+police in possession; there's a warrant out against him already!  The
+idiots think that window wasn't genuine, and the warrant's out.  It
+won't be my fault if it's ever served!"
+
+Nor, after all these years, can I think it will be mine.
+
+
+
+NINE POINTS OF THE LAW
+
+"Well," said Raffles, "what do you make of it?"
+
+I read the advertisement once more before replying.  It was in the last
+column of the Daily Telegraph, and it ran:
+
+TWO THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD--The above sum may be earned by any one
+qualified to undertake delicate mission and prepared to run certain
+risk.--Apply by telegram, Security, London.
+
+
+"I think," said I, "it's the most extraordinary advertisement that ever
+got into print!"
+
+Raffles smiled.
+
+"Not quite all that, Bunny; still, extraordinary enough, I grant you."
+
+"Look at the figure!"
+
+"It is certainly large."
+
+"And the mission--and the risk!"
+
+"Yes; the combination is frank, to say the least of it.  But the really
+original point is requiring applications by telegram to a telegraphic
+address!  There's something in the fellow who thought of that, and
+something in his game; with one word he chokes off the million who
+answer an advertisement every day--when they can raise the stamp. My
+answer cost me five bob; but then I prepaid another."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you've applied?"
+
+"Rather," said Raffles.  "I want two thousand pounds as much as any
+man."
+
+"Put your own name?"
+
+"Well--no, Bunny, I didn't.  In point of fact I smell something
+interesting and illegal, and you know what a cautious chap I am.  I
+signed myself Glasspool, care of Hickey, 38, Conduit Street; that's my
+tailor, and after sending the wire I went round and told him what to
+expect.  He promised to send the reply along the moment it came.  I
+shouldn't be surprised if that's it!"
+
+And he was gone before a double-knock on the outer door had done
+ringing through the rooms, to return next minute with an open telegram
+and a face full of news.
+
+"What do you think?" said he.  "Security's that fellow Addenbrooke, the
+police-court lawyer, and he wants to see me INSTANTER!"
+
+"Do you know him, then?"
+
+"Merely by repute.  I only hope he doesn't know me.  He's the chap who
+got six weeks for sailing too close to the wind in the Sutton-Wilmer
+case; everybody wondered why he wasn't struck off the rolls.  Instead
+of that he's got a first-rate practice on the seamy side, and every
+blackguard with half a case takes it straight to Bennett Addenbrooke.
+He's probably the one man who would have the cheek to put in an
+advertisement like that, and the one man who could do it without
+exciting suspicion.  It's simply in his line; but you may be sure
+there's something shady at the bottom of it.  The odd thing is that I
+have long made up my mind to go to Addenbrooke myself if accidents
+should happen."
+
+"And you're going to him now?"
+
+"This minute," said Raffles, brushing his hat; "and so are you."
+
+"But I came in to drag you out to lunch."
+
+"You shall lunch with me when we've seen this fellow.  Come on, Bunny,
+and we'll choose your name on the way.  Mine's Glasspool, and don't you
+forget it."
+
+Mr. Bennett Addenbrooke occupied substantial offices in Wellington
+Street, Strand, and was out when we arrived; but he had only just gone
+"over the way to the court"; and five minutes sufficed to produce a
+brisk, fresh-colored, resolute-looking man, with a very confident,
+rather festive air, and black eyes that opened wide at the sight of
+Raffles.
+
+"Mr.--Glasspool?" exclaimed the lawyer.
+
+"My name," said Raffles, with dry effrontery.
+
+"Not up at Lord's, however!" said the other, slyly.  "My dear sir, I
+have seen you take far too many wickets to make any mistake!"
+
+For a single moment Raffles looked venomous; then he shrugged and
+smiled, and the smile grew into a little cynical chuckle.
+
+"So you have bowled me out in my turn?" said he.  "Well, I don't think
+there's anything to explain.  I am harder up than I wished to admit
+under my own name, that's all, and I want that thousand pounds reward."
+
+"Two thousand," said the solicitor.  "And the man who is not above an
+alias happens to be just the sort of man I want; so don't let that
+worry you, my dear sir.  The matter, however, is of a strictly private
+and confidential character."  And he looked very hard at me.
+
+"Quite so," said Raffles.  "But there was something about a risk?"
+
+"A certain risk is involved."
+
+"Then surely three heads will be better than two.  I said I wanted that
+thousand pounds; my friend here wants the other.  We are both cursedly
+hard up, and we go into this thing together or not at all.  Must you
+have his name too?  I should give him my real one, Bunny."
+
+Mr. Addenbrooke raised his eyebrows over the card I found for him; then
+he drummed upon it with his finger-nail, and his embarrassment
+expressed itself in a puzzled smile.
+
+"The fact is, I find myself in a difficulty," he confessed at last.
+"Yours is the first reply I have received; people who can afford to
+send long telegrams don't rush to the advertisements in the Daily
+Telegraph; but, on the other hand, I was not quite prepared to hear
+from men like yourselves.  Candidly, and on consideration, I am not
+sure that you ARE the stamp of men for me--men who belong to good
+clubs!  I rather intended to appeal to the--er--adventurous classes."
+
+"We are adventurers," said Raffles gravely.
+
+"But you respect the law?"
+
+The black eyes gleamed shrewdly.
+
+"We are not professional rogues, if that's what you mean," said
+Raffles, smiling.  "But on our beam-ends we are; we would do a good
+deal for a thousand pounds apiece, eh, Bunny?"
+
+"Anything," I murmured.
+
+The solicitor rapped his desk.
+
+"I'll tell you what I want you to do.  You can but refuse.  It's
+illegal, but it's illegality in a good cause; that's the risk, and my
+client is prepared to pay for it.  He will pay for the attempt, in case
+of failure; the money is as good as yours once you consent to run the
+risk.  My client is Sir Bernard Debenham, of Broom Hall, Esher."
+
+"I know his son," I remarked.
+
+Raffles knew him too, but said nothing, and his eye drooped disapproval
+in my direction.  Bennett Addenbrooke turned to me.
+
+"Then," said he, "you have the privilege of knowing one of the most
+complete young black-guards about town, and the fons et origo of the
+whole trouble.  As you know the son, you may know the father too, at
+all events by reputation; and in that case I needn't tell you that he
+is a very peculiar man.  He lives alone in a storehouse of treasures
+which no eyes but his ever behold.  He is said to have the finest
+collection of pictures in the south of England, though nobody ever sees
+them to judge; pictures, fiddles and furniture are his hobby, and he is
+undoubtedly very eccentric. Nor can one deny that there has been
+considerable eccentricity in his treatment of his son.  For years Sir
+Bernard paid his debts, and the other day, without the slightest
+warning, not only refused to do so any more, but absolutely stopped the
+lad's allowance.  Well, I'll tell you what has happened; but first of
+all you must know, or you may remember, that I appeared for young
+Debenham in a little scrape he got into a year or two ago.  I got him
+off all right, and Sir Bernard paid me handsomely on the nail.  And no
+more did I hear or see of either of them until one day last week."
+
+The lawyer drew his chair nearer ours, and leant forward with a hand on
+either knee.
+
+"On Tuesday of last week I had a telegram from Sir Bernard; I was to go
+to him at once.  I found him waiting for me in the drive; without a
+word he led me to the picture-gallery, which was locked and darkened,
+drew up a blind, and stood simply pointing to an empty picture-frame.
+It was a long time before I could get a word out of him.  Then at last
+he told me that that frame had contained one of the rarest and most
+valuable pictures in England--in the world--an original Velasquez.  I
+have checked this," said the lawyer, "and it seems literally true; the
+picture was a portrait of the Infanta Maria Teresa, said to be one of
+the artist's greatest works, second only to another portrait of one of
+the Popes in Rome--so they told me at the National Gallery, where they
+had its history by heart.  They say there that the picture is
+practically priceless.  And young Debenham has sold it for five
+thousand pounds!"
+
+"The deuce he has," said Raffles.
+
+I inquired who had bought it.
+
+"A Queensland legislator of the name of Craggs--the Hon. John Montagu
+Craggs, M.L.C., to give him his full title.  Not that we knew anything
+about him on Tuesday last; we didn't even know for certain that young
+Debenham had stolen the picture.  But he had gone down for money on the
+Monday evening, had been refused, and it was plain enough that he had
+helped himself in this way; he had threatened revenge, and this was it.
+Indeed, when I hunted him up in town on the Tuesday night, he confessed
+as much in the most brazen manner imaginable.  But he wouldn't tell me
+who was the purchaser, and finding out took the rest of the week; but I
+did find out, and a nice time I've had of it ever since!  Backwards and
+forwards between Esher and the Metropole, where the Queenslander is
+staying, sometimes twice a day; threats, offers, prayers, entreaties,
+not one of them a bit of good!"
+
+"But," said Raffles, "surely it's a clear case?  The sale was illegal;
+you can pay him back his money and force him to give the picture up."
+
+"Exactly; but not without an action and a public scandal, and that my
+client declines to face.  He would rather lose even his picture than
+have the whole thing get into the papers; he has disowned his son, but
+he will not disgrace him; yet his picture he must have by hook or
+crook, and there's the rub!  I am to get it back by fair means or foul.
+He gives me carte blanche in the matter, and, I verily believe, would
+throw in a blank check if asked.  He offered one to the Queenslander,
+but Craggs simply tore it in two; the one old boy is as much a
+character as the other, and between the two of them I'm at my wits'
+end."
+
+"So you put that advertisement in the paper?" said Raffles, in the dry
+tones he had adopted throughout the interview.
+
+"As a last resort.  I did."
+
+"And you wish us to STEAL this picture?"
+
+It was magnificently said; the lawyer flushed from his hair to his
+collar.
+
+"I knew you were not the men!" he groaned. "I never thought of men of
+your stamp!  But it's not stealing," he exclaimed heatedly; "it's
+recovering stolen property.  Besides, Sir Bernard will pay him his five
+thousand as soon as he has the picture; and, you'll see, old Craggs
+will be just as loath to let it come out as Sir Bernard himself.  No,
+no--it's an enterprise, an adventure, if you like--but not stealing."
+
+"You yourself mentioned the law," murmured Raffles.
+
+"And the risk," I added.
+
+"We pay for that," he said once more.
+
+"But not enough," said Raffles, shaking his head.  "My good sir,
+consider what it means to us.  You spoke of those clubs; we should not
+only get kicked out of them, but put in prison like common burglars!
+It's true we're hard up, but it simply isn't worth it at the price.
+Double your stakes, and I for one am your man."
+
+Addenbrooke wavered.
+
+"Do you think you could bring it off?"
+
+"We could try."
+
+"But you have no--"
+
+"Experience?  Well, hardly!"
+
+"And you would really run the risk for four thousand pounds?"
+
+Raffles looked at me.  I nodded.
+
+"We would," said he, "and blow the odds!"
+
+"It's more than I can ask my client to pay," said Addenbrooke, growing
+firm.
+
+"Then it's more than you can expect us to risk."
+
+"You are in earnest?"
+
+"God wot!"
+
+"Say three thousand if you succeed!"
+
+"Four is our figure, Mr. Addenbrooke."
+
+"Then I think it should be nothing if you fail."
+
+"Doubles or quits?" cried Raffles.  "Well, that's sporting.  Done!"
+
+Addenbrooke opened his lips, half rose, then sat back in his chair, and
+looked long and shrewdly at Raffles--never once at me.
+
+"I know your bowling," said he reflectively.  "I go up to Lord's
+whenever I want an hour's real rest, and I've seen you bowl again and
+again--yes, and take the best wickets in England on a plumb pitch.  I
+don't forget the last Gentleman and Players; I was there.  You're up to
+every trick--every one ...  I'm inclined to think that if anybody could
+bowl out this old Australian ...  Damme, I believe you're my very man!"
+
+The bargain was clinched at the Cafe Royal, where Bennett Addenbrooke
+insisted on playing host at an extravagant luncheon.  I remember that
+he took his whack of champagne with the nervous freedom of a man at
+high pressure, and have no doubt I kept him in countenance by an equal
+indulgence; but Raffles, ever an exemplar in such matters, was more
+abstemious even than his wont, and very poor company to boot.  I can
+see him now, his eyes in his plate--thinking--thinking.  I can see the
+solicitor glancing from him to me in an apprehension of which I did my
+best to disabuse him by reassuring looks.  At the close Raffles
+apologized for his preoccupation, called for an A.B.C.  time-table, and
+announced his intention of catching the 3.2 to Esher.
+
+"You must excuse me, Mr. Addenbrooke," said he, "but I have my own
+idea, and for the moment I should much prefer to keep it to myself.  It
+may end in fizzle, so I would rather not speak about it to either of
+you just yet.  But speak to Sir Bernard I must, so will you write me
+one line to him on your card?  Of course, if you wish, you must come
+down with me and hear what I say; but I really don't see much point in
+it."
+
+And as usual Raffles had his way, though Bennett Addenbrooke showed
+some temper when he was gone, and I myself shared his annoyance to no
+small extent.  I could only tell him that it was in the nature of
+Raffles to be self-willed and secretive, but that no man of my
+acquaintance had half his audacity and determination; that I for my
+part would trust him through and through, and let him gang his own gait
+every time.  More I dared not say, even to remove those chill
+misgivings with which I knew that the lawyer went his way.
+
+That day I saw no more of Raffles, but a telegram reached me when I was
+dressing for dinner:
+
+"Be in your rooms to-morrow from noon and keep rest of day clear,
+Raffles."
+
+ It had been sent off from Waterloo at 6.42.
+
+So Raffles was back in town; at an earlier stage of our relations I
+should have hunted him up then and there, but now I knew better.  His
+telegram meant that he had no desire for my society that night or the
+following forenoon; that when he wanted me I should see him soon enough.
+
+And see him I did, towards one o'clock next day. I was watching for him
+from my window in Mount Street, when he drove up furiously in a hansom,
+and jumped out without a word to the man.  I met him next minute at the
+lift gates, and he fairly pushed me back into my rooms.
+
+"Five minutes, Bunny!" he cried.  "Not a moment more."
+
+And he tore off his coat before flinging himself into the nearest chair.
+
+"I'm fairly on the rush," he panted; "having the very devil of a time!
+Not a word till I tell you all I've done.  I settled my plan of
+campaign yesterday at lunch.  The first thing was to get in with this
+man Craggs; you can't break into a place like the Metropole, it's got
+to be done from the inside.  Problem one, how to get at the fellow.
+Only one sort of pretext would do--it must be something to do with this
+blessed picture, so that I might see where he'd got it and all that.
+Well, I couldn't go and ask to see it out of curiosity, and I couldn't
+go as a second representative of the other old chap, and it was
+thinking how I could go that made me such a bear at lunch.  But I saw
+my way before we got up.  If I could only lay hold of a copy of the
+picture I might ask leave to go and compare it with the original.  So
+down I went to Esher to find out if there was a copy in existence, and
+was at Broom Hall for one hour and a half yesterday afternoon.  There
+was no copy there, but they must exist, for Sir Bernard himself
+(there's 'copy' THERE!) has allowed a couple to be made since the
+picture has been in his possession. He hunted up the painters'
+addresses, and the rest of the evening I spent in hunting up the
+painters themselves; but their work had been done on commission; one
+copy had gone out of the country, and I'm still on the track of the
+other."
+
+"Then you haven't seen Craggs yet?"
+
+"Seen him and made friends with him, and if possible he's the funnier
+old cuss of the two; but you should study 'em both.  I took the bull by
+the horns this morning, went in and lied like Ananias, and it was just
+as well I did--the old ruffian sails for Australia by to-morrow's boat.
+I told him a man wanted to sell me a copy of the celebrated Infanta
+Maria Teresa of Velasquez, that I'd been down to the supposed owner of
+the picture, only to find that he had just sold it to him.  You should
+have seen his face when I told him that!  He grinned all round his
+wicked old head.  'Did OLD Debenham admit the sale?' says he; and when
+I said he had he chuckled to himself for about five minutes.  He was so
+pleased that he did just what I hoped he would do; he showed me the
+great picture--luckily it isn't by any means a large one--also the case
+he's got it in.  It's an iron map-case in which he brought over the
+plans of his land in Brisbane; he wants to know who would suspect it of
+containing an Old Master, too?  But he's had it fitted with a new
+Chubb's lock, and I managed to take an interest in the key while he was
+gloating over the canvas.  I had the wax in the palm of my hand, and I
+shall make my duplicate this afternoon."
+
+Raffles looked at his watch and jumped up saying he had given me a
+minute too much.
+
+"By the way," he added, "you've got to dine with him at the Metropole
+to-night!"
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes; don't look so scared.  Both of us are invited--I swore you were
+dining with me.  I accepted for us both; but I sha'n't be there."
+
+His clear eye was upon me, bright with meaning and with mischief.
+
+I implored him to tell me what his meaning was.
+
+"You will dine in his private sitting-room," said Raffles; "it adjoins
+his bedroom.  You must keep him sitting as long as possible, Bunny, and
+talking all the time!"
+
+In a flash I saw his plan.
+
+"You're going for the picture while we're at dinner?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"If he hears you?"
+
+"He sha'n't."
+
+"But if he does!"
+
+And I fairly trembled at the thought.
+
+"If he does," said Raffles, "there will be a collision, that's all.
+Revolver would be out of place in the Metropole, but I shall certainly
+take a life-preserver."
+
+"But it's ghastly!" I cried.  "To sit and talk to an utter stranger and
+to know that you're at work in the next room!"
+
+"Two thousand apiece," said Raffles, quietly.
+
+"Upon my soul I believe I shall give it away!"
+
+"Not you, Bunny.  I know you better than you know yourself."
+
+He put on his coat and his hat.
+
+"What time have I to be there?" I asked him, with a groan.
+
+"Quarter to eight.  There will be a telegram from me saying I can't
+turn up.  He's a terror to talk, you'll have no difficulty in keeping
+the ball rolling; but head him off his picture for all you're worth.
+If he offers to show it to you, say you must go.  He locked up the case
+elaborately this afternoon, and there's no earthly reason why he should
+unlock it again in this hemisphere."
+
+"Where shall I find you when I get away?"
+
+"I shall be down at Esher.  I hope to catch the 9.55."
+
+"But surely I can see you again this afternoon?" I cried in a ferment,
+for his hand was on the door.  "I'm not half coached up yet!  I know I
+shall make a mess of it!"
+
+"Not you," he said again, "but _I_ shall if I waste any more time.
+I've got a deuce of a lot of rushing about to do yet.  You won't find
+me at my rooms.  Why not come down to Esher yourself by the last train?
+That's it--down you come with the latest news!  I'll tell old Debenham
+to expect you: he shall give us both a bed.  By Jove! he won't be able
+to do us too well if he's got his picture."
+
+"If!" I groaned as he nodded his adieu; and he left me limp with
+apprehension, sick with fear, in a perfectly pitiable condition of pure
+stage-fright.
+
+For, after all, I had only to act my part; unless Raffles failed where
+he never did fail, unless Raffles the neat and noiseless was for once
+clumsy and inept, all I had to do was indeed to "smile and smile and be
+a villain."  I practiced that smile half the afternoon.  I rehearsed
+putative parts in hypothetical conversations.  I got up stories.  I
+dipped in a book on Queensland at the club.  And at last it was 7.45,
+and I was making my bow to a somewhat elderly man with a small bald
+head and a retreating brow.
+
+"So you're Mr. Raffles's friend?" said he, overhauling me rather rudely
+with his light small eyes. "Seen anything of him?  Expected him early
+to show me something, but he's never come."
+
+No more, evidently, had his telegram, and my troubles were beginning
+early.  I said I had not seen Raffles since one o'clock, telling the
+truth with unction while I could; even as we spoke there came a knock
+at the door; it was the telegram at last, and, after reading it
+himself, the Queenslander handed it to me.
+
+"Called out of town!" he grumbled.  "Sudden illness of near relative!
+What near relatives has he got?"
+
+I knew of none, and for an instant I quailed before the perils of
+invention; then I replied that I had never met any of his people, and
+again felt fortified by my veracity.
+
+"Thought you were bosom pals?" said he, with (as I imagined) a gleam of
+suspicion in his crafty little eyes.
+
+"Only in town," said I.  "I've never been to his place."
+
+"Well," he growled, "I suppose it can't be helped.  Don't know why he
+couldn't come and have his dinner first.  Like to see the death-bed I'D
+go to without MY dinner; it's a full-skin billet, if you ask me.  Well,
+must just dine without him, and he'll have to buy his pig in a poke
+after all.  Mind touching that bell?  Suppose you know what he came to
+see me about?  Sorry I sha'n't see him again, for his own sake.  I
+liked Raffles--took to him amazingly.  He's a cynic.  Like cynics.  One
+myself.  Rank bad form of his mother or his aunt, and I hope she will
+go and kick the bucket."
+
+I connect these specimens of his conversation, though they were
+doubtless detached at the time, and interspersed with remarks of mine
+here and there.  They filled the interval until dinner was served, and
+they gave me an impression of the man which his every subsequent
+utterance confirmed.  It was an impression which did away with all
+remorse for my treacherous presence at his table.  He was that terrible
+type, the Silly Cynic, his aim a caustic commentary on all things and
+all men, his achievement mere vulgar irreverence and unintelligent
+scorn.  Ill-bred and ill-informed, he had (on his own showing) fluked
+into fortune on a rise in land; yet cunning he possessed, as well as
+malice, and he chuckled till he choked over the misfortunes of less
+astute speculators in the same boom.  Even now I cannot feel much
+compunction for my behavior by the Hon. J. M. Craggs, M.L.C.
+
+But never shall I forget the private agonies of the situation, the
+listening to my host with one ear and for Raffles with the other!  Once
+I heard him--though the rooms were not divided by the old-fashioned
+folding-doors, and though the door that did divide them was not only
+shut but richly curtained, I could have sworn I heard him once.  I
+spilt my wine and laughed at the top of my voice at some coarse sally
+of my host's.  And I heard nothing more, though my ears were on the
+strain. But later, to my horror, when the waiter had finally withdrawn,
+Craggs himself sprang up and rushed to his bedroom without a word.  I
+sat like stone till he returned.
+
+"Thought I heard a door go," he said.  "Must have been mistaken ...
+imagination ... gave me quite a turn.  Raffles tell you priceless
+treasure I got in there?"
+
+It was the picture at last; up to this point I had kept him to
+Queensland and the making of his pile. I tried to get him back there
+now, but in vain.  He was reminded of his great ill-gotten possession.
+I said that Raffles had just mentioned it, and that set him off.  With
+the confidential garrulity of a man who has dined too well, he plunged
+into his darling topic, and I looked past him at the clock.  It was
+only a quarter to ten.
+
+In common decency I could not go yet.  So there I sat (we were still at
+port) and learnt what had originally fired my host's ambition to
+possess what he was pleased to call a "real, genuine, twin-screw,
+double-funnelled, copper-bottomed Old Master"; it was to "go one
+better" than some rival legislator of pictorial proclivities.  But even
+an epitome of his monologue would be so much weariness; suffice it that
+it ended inevitably in the invitation I had dreaded all the evening.
+
+"But you must see it.  Next room.  This way."
+
+"Isn't it packed up?" I inquired hastily.
+
+"Lock and key.  That's all."
+
+"Pray don't trouble," I urged.
+
+"Trouble be hanged!" said he.  "Come along."
+
+And all at once I saw that to resist him further would be to heap
+suspicion upon myself against the moment of impending discovery.  I
+therefore followed him into his bedroom without further protest, and
+suffered him first to show me the iron map-case which stood in one
+corner; he took a crafty pride in this receptacle, and I thought he
+would never cease descanting on its innocent appearance and its Chubb's
+lock.  It seemed an interminable age before the key was in the latter.
+Then the ward clicked, and my pulse stood still.
+
+"By Jove!" I cried next instant.
+
+The canvas was in its place among the maps!
+
+"Thought it would knock you," said Craggs, drawing it out and unrolling
+it for my benefit. "Grand thing, ain't it?  Wouldn't think it had been
+painted two hundred and thirty years?  It has, though, MY word!  Old
+Johnson's face will be a treat when he sees it; won't go bragging about
+HIS pictures much more.  Why, this one's worth all the pictures in
+Colony o' Queensland put together.  Worth fifty thousand pounds, my
+boy--and I got it for five!"
+
+He dug me in the ribs, and seemed in the mood for further confidences.
+My appearance checked him, and he rubbed his hands.
+
+"If you take it like that," he chuckled, "how will old Johnson take it?
+Go out and hang himself to his own picture-rods, I hope!"
+
+Heaven knows what I contrived to say at last. Struck speechless first
+by my relief, I continued silent from a very different cause.  A new
+tangle of emotions tied my tongue.  Raffles had failed--Raffles had
+failed!  Could I not succeed?  Was it too late?  Was there no way?
+
+"So long," he said, taking a last look at the canvas before he rolled
+it up--"so long till we get to Brisbane."
+
+The flutter I was in as he closed the case!
+
+"For the last time," he went on, as his keys jingled back into his
+pocket.  "It goes straight into the strong-room on board."
+
+For the last time!  If I could but send him out to Australia with only
+its legitimate contents in his precious map-case!  If I could but
+succeed where Raffles had failed!
+
+We returned to the other room.  I have no notion how long he talked, or
+what about.  Whiskey and soda-water became the order of the hour.  I
+scarcely touched it, but he drank copiously, and before eleven I left
+him incoherent. And the last train for Esher was the 11.50 out of
+Waterloo.
+
+I took a hansom to my rooms.  I was back at the hotel in thirteen
+minutes.  I walked upstairs. The corridor was empty; I stood an instant
+on the sitting-room threshold, heard a snore within, and admitted
+myself softly with my gentleman's own key, which it had been a very
+simple matter to take away with me.
+
+Craggs never moved; he was stretched on the sofa fast asleep.  But not
+fast enough for me.  I saturated my handkerchief with the chloroform I
+had brought, and laid it gently over his mouth. Two or three stertorous
+breaths, and the man was a log.
+
+I removed the handkerchief; I extracted the keys from his pocket.
+
+In less than five minutes I put them back, after winding the picture
+about my body beneath my Inverness cape.  I took some whiskey and
+soda-water before I went.
+
+The train was easily caught--so easily that I trembled for ten minutes
+in my first-class smoking carriage--in terror of every footstep on the
+platform, in unreasonable terror till the end.  Then at last I sat back
+and lit a cigarette, and the lights of Waterloo reeled out behind.
+
+Some men were returning from the theatre.  I can recall their
+conversation even now.  They were disappointed with the piece they had
+seen. It was one of the later Savoy operas, and they spoke wistfully of
+the days of "Pinafore" and "Patience."  One of them hummed a stave, and
+there was an argument as to whether the air was out of "Patience" or
+the "Mikado."  They all got out at Surbiton, and I was alone with my
+triumph for a few intoxicating minutes.  To think that I had succeeded
+where Raffles had failed!
+
+Of all our adventures this was the first in which I had played a
+commanding part; and, of them all, this was infinitely the least
+discreditable.  It left me without a conscientious qualm; I had but
+robbed a robber, when all was said.  And I had done it myself,
+single-handed--ipse egomet!
+
+I pictured Raffles, his surprise, his delight.  He would think a little
+more of me in future.  And that future, it should be different.  We had
+two thousand pounds apiece--surely enough to start afresh as honest
+men--and all through me!
+
+In a glow I sprang out at Esher, and took the one belated cab that was
+waiting under the bridge. In a perfect fever I beheld Broom Hall, with
+the lower story still lit up, and saw the front door open as I climbed
+the steps.
+
+"Thought it was you," said Raffles cheerily. "It's all right.  There's
+a bed for you.  Sir Bernard's sitting up to shake your hand."
+
+His good spirits disappointed me.  But I knew the man: he was one of
+those who wear their brightest smile in the blackest hour.  I knew him
+too well by this time to be deceived.
+
+"I've got it!" I cried in his ear.  "I've got it!"
+
+"Got what?" he asked me, stepping back.
+
+"The picture!"
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+"The picture.  He showed it me.  You had to go without it; I saw that.
+So I determined to have it.  And here it is."
+
+"Let's see," said Raffles grimly.
+
+I threw off my cape and unwound the canvas from about my body.  While I
+was doing so an untidy old gentleman made his appearance in the hall,
+and stood looking on with raised eyebrows.
+
+"Looks pretty fresh for an Old Master, doesn't she?" said Raffles.
+
+His tone was strange.  I could only suppose that he was jealous of my
+success.
+
+"So Craggs said.  I hardly looked at it myself."
+
+"Well, look now--look closely.  By Jove, I must have faked her better
+than I thought!"
+
+"It's a copy!" I cried.
+
+"It's THE copy," he answered.  "It's the copy I've been tearing all
+over the country to procure.  It's the copy I faked back and front, so
+that, on your own showing, it imposed upon Craggs, and might have made
+him happy for life.  And you go and rob him of that!"
+
+I could not speak.
+
+"How did you manage it?" inquired Sir Bernard Debenham.
+
+"Have you killed him?" asked Raffles sardonically.
+
+I did not look at him; I turned to Sir Bernard Debenham, and to him I
+told my story, hoarsely, excitedly, for it was all that I could do to
+keep from breaking down.  But as I spoke I became calmer, and I
+finished in mere bitterness, with the remark that another time Raffles
+might tell me what he meant to do.
+
+"Another time!" he cried instantly.  "My dear Bunny, you speak as
+though we were going to turn burglars for a living!"
+
+"I trust you won't," said Sir Bernard, smiling, "for you are certainly
+two very daring young men. Let us hope our friend from Queensland will
+do as he said, and not open his map-case till he gets back there.  He
+will find my check awaiting him, and I shall be very much surprised if
+he troubles any of us again."
+
+Raffles and I did not speak till I was in the room which had been
+prepared for me.  Nor was I anxious to do so then.  But he followed me
+and took my hand.
+
+"Bunny," said he, "don't you be hard on a fellow!  I was in the deuce
+of a hurry, and didn't know that I should ever get what I wanted in
+time, and that's a fact.  But it serves me right that you should have
+gone and undone one of the best things I ever did.  As for YOUR
+handiwork, old chap, you won't mind my saying that I didn't think you
+had it in you.  In future--"
+
+"Don't talk to me about the future!" I cried. "I hate the whole thing!
+I'm going to chuck it up!"
+
+"So am I," said Raffles, "when I've made my pile."
+
+
+
+THE RETURN MATCH
+
+I had turned into Piccadilly, one thick evening in the following
+November, when my guilty heart stood still at the sudden grip of a hand
+upon my arm.  I thought--I was always thinking--that my inevitable hour
+was come at last.  It was only Raffles, however, who stood smiling at
+me through the fog.
+
+"Well met!" said he.  "I've been looking for you at the club."
+
+"I was just on my way there," I returned, with an attempt to hide my
+tremors.  It was an ineffectual attempt, as I saw from his broader
+smile, and by the indulgent shake of his head.
+
+"Come up to my place instead," said he.  "I've something amusing to
+tell you."
+
+I made excuses, for his tone foretold the kind of amusement, and it was
+a kind against which I had successfully set my face for months.  I have
+stated before, however, and I can but reiterate, that to me, at all
+events, there was never anybody in the world so irresistible as Raffles
+when his mind was made up.  That we had both been independent of crime
+since our little service to Sir Bernard Debenham--that there had been
+no occasion for that masterful mind to be made up in any such direction
+for many a day--was the undeniable basis of a longer spell of honesty
+than I had hitherto enjoyed during the term of our mutual intimacy.  Be
+sure I would deny it if I could; the very thing I am to tell you would
+discredit such a boast.  I made my excuses, as I have said.
+
+But his arm slid through mine, with his little laugh of light-hearted
+mastery.  And even while I argued we were on his staircase in the
+Albany.
+
+His fire had fallen low.  He poked and replenished it after lighting
+the gas.  As for me, I stood by sullenly in my overcoat until he
+dragged it off my back.
+
+"What a chap you are!" said Raffles, playfully. "One would really think
+I had proposed to crack another crib this blessed night!  Well, it
+isn't that, Bunny; so get into that chair, and take one of these
+Sullivans and sit tight."
+
+He held the match to my cigarette; he brought me a whiskey and soda.
+Then he went out into the lobby, and, just as I was beginning to feel
+happy, I heard a bolt shot home.  It cost me an effort to remain in
+that chair; next moment he was straddling another and gloating over my
+discomfiture across his folded arms.
+
+"You remember Milchester, Bunny, old boy?"
+
+His tone was as bland as mine was grim when I answered that I did.
+
+"We had a little match there that wasn't down on the card.  Gentlemen
+and Players, if you recollect?"
+
+"I don't forget it."
+
+"Seeing that you never got an innings, so to speak, I thought you
+might.  Well, the Gentlemen scored pretty freely, but the Players were
+all caught."
+
+"Poor devils!"
+
+"Don't be too sure.  You remember the fellow we saw in the inn?  The
+florid, over-dressed chap who I told you was one of the cleverest
+thieves in town?"
+
+"I remember him.  Crawshay his name turned out to be."
+
+"Well, it was certainly the name he was convicted under, so Crawshay
+let it be.  You needn't waste any pity on HIM, old chap; he escaped
+from Dartmoor yesterday afternoon."
+
+"Well done!"
+
+Raffles smiled, but his eyebrows had gone up, and his shoulders
+followed suit.
+
+"You are perfectly right; it was very well done indeed.  I wonder you
+didn't see it in the paper. In a dense fog on the moor yesterday good
+old Crawshay made a bolt for it, and got away without a scratch under
+heavy fire.  All honor to him, I agree; a fellow with that much grit
+deserves his liberty.  But Crawshay has a good deal more. They hunted
+him all night long; couldn't find him for nuts; and that was all you
+missed in the morning papers."
+
+He unfolded a Pall Mall, which he had brought in with him.
+
+"But listen to this; here's an account of the escape, with just the
+addition which puts the thing on a higher level.  'The fugitive has
+been traced to Totnes, where he appears to have committed a peculiarly
+daring outrage in the early hours of this morning.  He is reported to
+have entered the lodgings of the Rev.  A. H. Ellingworth, curate of the
+parish, who missed his clothes on rising at the usual hour; later in
+the morning those of the convict were discovered neatly folded at the
+bottom of a drawer.  Meanwhile Crawshay had made good his second
+escape, though it is believed that so distinctive a guise will lead to
+his recapture during the day.'  What do you think of that, Bunny?"
+
+"He is certainly a sportsman," said I, reaching for the paper.
+
+"He's more," said Raffles, "he's an artist, and I envy him.  The
+curate, of all men!  Beautiful--beautiful!  But that's not all.  I saw
+just now on the board at the club that there's been an outrage on the
+line near Dawlish.  Parson found insensible in the six-foot way.  Our
+friend again!  The telegram doesn't say so, but it's obvious; he's
+simply knocked some other fellow out, changed clothes again, and come
+on gayly to town.  Isn't it great? I do believe it's the best thing of
+the kind that's ever been done!"
+
+"But why should he come to town?"
+
+In an instant the enthusiasm faded from Raffles's face; clearly I had
+reminded him of some prime anxiety, forgotten in his impersonal joy
+over the exploit of a fellow-criminal.  He looked over his shoulder
+towards the lobby before replying.
+
+"I believe," said he, "that the beggar's on MY tracks!"
+
+And as he spoke he was himself again--quietly amused--cynically
+unperturbed--characteristically enjoying the situation and my surprise.
+
+"But look here, what do you mean?" said I. "What does Crawshay know
+about you?"
+
+"Not much; but he suspects."
+
+"Why should he?"
+
+"Because, in his way he's very nearly as good a man as I am; because,
+my dear Bunny, with eyes in his head and brains behind them, he
+couldn't help suspecting.  He saw me once in town with old Baird.  He
+must have seen me that day in the pub on the way to Milchester, as well
+as afterwards on the cricket-field.  As a matter of fact, I know he
+did, for he wrote and told me so before his trial."
+
+"He wrote to you!  And you never told me!"
+
+The old shrug answered the old grievance.
+
+"What was the good, my dear fellow?  It would only have worried you."
+
+"Well, what did he say?"
+
+"That he was sorry he had been run in before getting back to town, as
+he had proposed doing himself the honor of paying me a call; however,
+he trusted it was only a pleasure deferred, and he begged me not to go
+and get lagged myself before he came out.  Of course he knew the
+Melrose necklace was gone, though he hadn't got it; and he said that
+the man who could take that and leave the rest was a man after his own
+heart.  And so on, with certain little proposals for the far future,
+which I fear may be the very near future indeed! I'm only surprised he
+hasn't turned up yet."
+
+He looked again towards the lobby, which he had left in darkness, with
+the inner door shut as carefully as the outer one.  I asked him what he
+meant to do.
+
+"Let him knock--if he gets so far.  The porter is to say I'm out of
+town; it will be true, too, in another hour or so."
+
+"You're going off to-night?"
+
+"By the 7.15 from Liverpool Street.  I don't say much about my people,
+Bunny, but I have the best of sisters married to a country parson in
+the eastern counties.  They always make me welcome, and let me read the
+lessons for the sake of getting me to church.  I'm sorry you won't be
+there to hear me on Sunday, Bunny.  I've figured out some of my best
+schemes in that parish, and I know of no better port in a storm.  But I
+must pack.  I thought I'd just let you know where I was going, and why,
+in case you cared to follow my example."
+
+He flung the stump of his cigarette into the fire, stretched himself as
+he rose, and remained so long in the inelegant attitude that my eyes
+mounted from his body to his face; a second later they had followed his
+eyes across the room, and I also was on my legs.  On the threshold of
+the folding doors that divided bedroom and sitting-room, a well-built
+man stood in ill-fitting broadcloth, and bowed to us until his bullet
+head presented an unbroken disk of short red hair.
+
+Brief as was my survey of this astounding apparition, the interval was
+long enough for Raffles to recover his composure; his hands were in his
+pockets, and a smile upon his face, when my eyes flew back to him.
+
+"Let me introduce you, Bunny," said he, "to our distinguished
+colleague, Mr. Reginald Crawshay."
+
+The bullet head bobbed up, and there was a wrinkled brow above the
+coarse, shaven face, crimson also, I remember, from the grip of a
+collar several sizes too small.  But I noted nothing consciously at the
+time.  I had jumped to my own conclusion, and I turned on Raffles with
+an oath.
+
+"It's a trick!" I cried.  "It's another of your cursed tricks!  You got
+him here, and then you got me.  You want me to join you, I suppose?
+I'll see you damned!"
+
+So cold was the stare which met this outburst that I became ashamed of
+my words while they were yet upon my lips.
+
+"Really, Bunny!" said Raffles, and turned his shoulder with a shrug.
+
+"Lord love yer," cried Crawshay, "'_E_ knew nothin'.  _'E_ didn't
+expect me; 'E'S all right.  And you're the cool canary, YOU are," he
+went on to Raffles.  "I knoo you were, but, do me proud, you're one
+after my own kidney!"  And he thrust out a shaggy hand.
+
+"After that," said Raffles, taking it, "what am I to say?  But you must
+have heard my opinion of you.  I am proud to make your acquaintance.
+How the deuce did you get in?"
+
+"Never you mind," said Crawshay, loosening his collar; "let's talk
+about how I'm to get out. Lord love yer, but that's better!"
+
+There was a livid ring round his bull-neck, that he fingered tenderly.
+"Didn't know how much longer I might have to play the gent," he
+explained; "didn't know who you'd bring in."
+
+"Drink whiskey and soda?" inquired Raffles, when the convict was in the
+chair from which I had leapt.
+
+"No, I drink it neat," replied Crawshay, "but I talk business first.
+You don't get over me like that, Lor' love yer!"
+
+"Well, then, what can I do for you?"
+
+"You know without me tellin' you."
+
+"Give it a name."
+
+"Clean heels, then; that's what I want to show, and I leaves the way to
+you.  We're brothers in arms, though I ain't armed this time.  It ain't
+necessary.  You've too much sense.  But brothers we are, and you'll see
+a brother through.  Let's put it at that.  You'll see me through in yer
+own way.  I leaves it all to you."
+
+His tone was rich with conciliation and concession; he bent over and
+tore a pair of button boots from his bare feet, which he stretched
+towards the fire, painfully uncurling his toes.
+
+"I hope you take a larger size than them," said he.  "I'd have had a
+see if you'd given me time. I wasn't in long afore you."
+
+"And you won't tell me how you got in?"
+
+"Wot's the use?  I can't teach YOU nothin'.  Besides, I want out.  I
+want out of London, an' England, an' bloomin' Europe too.  That's all I
+want of you, mister.  I don't arst how YOU go on the job.  You know
+w'ere I come from, 'cos I 'eard you say; you know w'ere I want to 'ead
+for, 'cos I've just told yer; the details I leaves entirely to you."
+
+"Well," said Raffles, "we must see what can be done."
+
+"We must," said Mr. Crawshay, and leaned back comfortably, and began
+twirling his stubby thumbs.
+
+Raffles turned to me with a twinkle in his eye; but his forehead was
+scored with thought, and resolve mingled with resignation in the lines
+of his mouth.  And he spoke exactly as though he and I were alone in
+the room.
+
+"You seize the situation, Bunny?  If our friend here is 'copped,' to
+speak his language, he means to 'blow the gaff' on you and me.  He is
+considerate enough not to say so in so many words, but it's plain
+enough, and natural enough for that matter.  I would do the same in his
+place.  We had the bulge before; he has it now; it's perfectly fair. We
+must take on this job; we aren't in a position to refuse it; even if we
+were, I should take it on!  Our friend is a great sportsman; he has got
+clear away from Dartmoor; it would be a thousand pities to let him go
+back.  Nor shall he; not if I can think of a way of getting him abroad."
+
+"Any way you like," murmured Crawshay, with his eyes shut.  "I leaves
+the 'ole thing to you."
+
+"But you'll have to wake up and tell us things."
+
+"All right, mister; but I'm fair on the rocks for a sleep!"
+
+And he stood up, blinking.
+
+"Think you were traced to town?"
+
+"Must have been."
+
+"And here?"
+
+"Not in this fog--not with any luck."
+
+Raffles went into the bedroom, lit the gas there, and returned next
+minute.
+
+"So you got in by the window?"
+
+"That's about it."
+
+"It was devilish smart of you to know which one; it beats me how you
+brought it off in daylight, fog or no fog!  But let that pass.  You
+don't think you were seen?"
+
+"I don't think it, sir."
+
+"Well, let's hope you are right.  I shall reconnoitre and soon find
+out.  And you'd better come too, Bunny, and have something to eat and
+talk it over."
+
+As Raffles looked at me, I looked at Crawshay, anticipating trouble;
+and trouble brewed in his blank, fierce face, in the glitter of his
+startled eyes, in the sudden closing of his fists.
+
+"And what's to become o' me?" he cried out with an oath.
+
+"You wait here."
+
+"No, you don't," he roared, and at a bound had his back to the door.
+"You don't get round me like that, you cuckoos!"
+
+Raffles turned to me with a twitch of the shoulders.  "That's the worst
+of these professors," said he; "they never will use their heads.  They
+see the pegs, and they mean to hit 'em; but that's all they do see and
+mean, and they think we're the same.  No wonder we licked them last
+time!"
+
+"Don't talk through yer neck," snarled the convict.  "Talk out
+straight, curse you!"
+
+"Right," said Raffles.  "I'll talk as straight as you like.  You say
+you put yourself in my hands--you leave it all to me--yet you don't
+trust me an inch!  I know what's to happen if I fail.  I accept the
+risk.  I take this thing on.  Yet you think I'm going straight out to
+give you away and make you give me away in my turn.  You're a fool, Mr.
+Crawshay, though you have broken Dartmoor; you've got to listen to a
+better man, and obey him. I see you through in my own way, or not at
+all. I come and go as I like, and with whom I like, without your
+interference; you stay here and lie just as low as you know how, be as
+wise as your word, and leave the whole thing to me.  If you won't--if
+you're fool enough not to trust me--there's the door.  Go out and say
+what you like, and be damned to you!"
+
+Crawshay slapped his thigh.
+
+"That's talking!" said he.  "Lord love yer, I know where I am when you
+talk like that.  I'll trust yer.  I know a man when he gets his tongue
+between his teeth; you're all right.  I don't say so much about this
+other gent, though I saw him along with you on the job that time in the
+provinces; but if he's a pal of yours, Mr. Raffles, he'll be all right
+too.  I only hope you gents ain't too stony--"
+
+And he touched his pockets with a rueful face.
+
+"I only went for their togs," said he.  "You never struck two such
+stony-broke cusses in yer life!"
+
+"That's all right," said Raffles.  "We'll see you through properly.
+Leave it to us, and you sit tight."
+
+"Rightum!" said Crawshay.  "And I'll have a sleep time you're gone.
+But no sperrits--no, thank'ee--not yet!  Once let me loose on the lush,
+and, Lord love yer, I'm a gone coon!"
+
+Raffles got his overcoat, a long, light driving-coat, I remember, and
+even as he put it on our fugitive was dozing in the chair; we left him
+murmuring incoherently, with the gas out, and his bare feet toasting.
+
+"Not such a bad chap, that professor," said Raffles on the stairs; "a
+real genius in his way, too, though his methods are a little elementary
+for my taste.  But technique isn't everything; to get out of Dartmoor
+and into the Albany in the same twenty-four hours is a whole that
+justifies its parts.  Good Lord!"
+
+We had passed a man in the foggy courtyard, and Raffles had nipped my
+arm.
+
+"Who was it?"
+
+"The last man we want to see!  I hope to heaven he didn't hear me!"
+
+"But who is he, Raffles?"
+
+"Our old friend Mackenzie, from the Yard!"
+
+I stood still with horror.
+
+"Do you think he's on Crawshay's track?"
+
+"I don't know.  I'll find out."
+
+And before I could remonstrate he had wheeled me round; when I found my
+voice he merely laughed, and whispered that the bold course was the
+safe one every time.
+
+"But it's madness--"
+
+"Not it.  Shut up!  Is that YOU, Mr. Mackenzie?"
+
+The detective turned about and scrutinized us keenly; and through the
+gaslit mist I noticed that his hair was grizzled at the temples, and
+his face still cadaverous, from the wound that had nearly been his
+death.
+
+"Ye have the advantage o' me, sirs," said he.
+
+"I hope you're fit again," said my companion. "My name is Raffles, and
+we met at Milchester last year."
+
+"Is that a fact?" cried the Scotchman, with quite a start.  "Yes, now I
+remember your face, and yours too, sir.  Ay, yon was a bad business,
+but it ended vera well, an' that's the main thing."
+
+His native caution had returned to him.  Raffles pinched my arm.
+
+"Yes, it ended splendidly, but for you," said he. "But what about this
+escape of the leader of the gang, that fellow Crawshay?  What do you
+think of that, eh?"
+
+"I havena the parteeculars," replied the Scot.
+
+"Good!" cried Raffles.  "I was only afraid you might be on his tracks
+once more!"
+
+Mackenzie shook his head with a dry smile, and wished us good evening
+as an invisible window was thrown up, and a whistle blown softly
+through the fog.
+
+"We must see this out," whispered Raffles. "Nothing more natural than a
+little curiosity on our part.  After him, quick!"
+
+And we followed the detective into another entrance on the same side as
+that from which we had emerged, the left-hand side on one's way to
+Piccadilly; quite openly we followed him, and at the foot of the stairs
+met one of the porters of the place.  Raffles asked him what was wrong.
+
+"Nothing, sir," said the fellow glibly.
+
+"Rot!" said Raffles.  "That was Mackenzie, the detective.  I've just
+been speaking to him. What's he here for?  Come on, my good fellow; we
+won't give you away, if you've instructions not to tell."
+
+The man looked quaintly wistful, the temptation of an audience hot upon
+him; a door shut upstairs, and he fell.
+
+"It's like this," he whispered.  "This afternoon a gen'leman comes
+arfter rooms, and I sent him to the orfice; one of the clurks, 'e goes
+round with 'im an' shows 'im the empties, an' the gen'leman's partic'ly
+struck on the set the coppers is up in now.  So he sends the clurk to
+fetch the manager, as there was one or two things he wished to speak
+about; an' when they come back, blowed if the gent isn't gone!  Beg yer
+pardon, sir, but he's clean disappeared off the face o' the premises!"
+And the porter looked at us with shining eyes.
+
+"Well?" said Raffles.
+
+"Well, sir, they looked about, an' looked about, an' at larst they give
+him up for a bad job; thought he'd changed his mind an' didn't want to
+tip the clurk; so they shut up the place an' come away. An' that's all
+till about 'alf an hour ago, when I takes the manager his extry-speshul
+Star; in about ten minutes he comes running out with a note, an' sends
+me with it to Scotland Yard in a hansom. An' that's all I know,
+sir--straight.  The coppers is up there now, and the tec, and the
+manager, and they think their gent is about the place somewhere still.
+Least, I reckon that's their idea; but who he is, or what they want him
+for, I dunno."
+
+"Jolly interesting!" said Raffles.  "I'm going up to inquire.  Come on,
+Bunny; there should be some fun."
+
+"Beg yer pardon, Mr. Raffles, but you won't say nothing about me?"
+
+"Not I; you're a good fellow.  I won't forget it if this leads to
+sport.  Sport!" he whispered as we reached the landing.  "It looks like
+precious poor sport for you and me, Bunny!"
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know.  There's no time to think.  This, to start with."
+
+And he thundered on the shut door; a policeman opened it.  Raffles
+strode past him with the air of a chief commissioner, and I followed
+before the man had recovered from his astonishment.  The bare boards
+rang under us; in the bedroom we found a knot of officers stooping over
+the window-ledge with a constable's lantern.  Mackenzie was the first
+to stand upright, and he greeted us with a glare.
+
+"May I ask what you gentlemen want?" said he.
+
+"We want to lend a hand," said Raffles briskly. "We lent one once
+before, and it was my friend here who took over from you the fellow who
+split on all the rest, and held him tightly.  Surely that entitles him,
+at all events, to see any fun that's going?  As for myself, well, it's
+true I only helped to carry you to the house; but for old acquaintance
+I do hope, my dear Mr. Mackenzie, that you will permit us to share such
+sport as there may be.  I myself can only stop a few minutes, in any
+case."
+
+"Then ye'll not see much," growled the detective, "for he's not up
+here.  Constable, go you and stand at the foot o' the stairs, and let
+no other body come up on any conseederation; these gentlemen may be
+able to help us after all."
+
+"That's kind of you, Mackenzie!" cried Raffles warmly.  "But what is it
+all?  I questioned a porter I met coming down, but could get nothing
+out of him, except that somebody had been to see these rooms and not
+since been seen himself."
+
+"He's a man we want," said Mackenzie.  "He's concealed himself
+somewhere about these premises, or I'm vera much mistaken.  D'ye reside
+in the Albany, Mr. Raffles?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Will your rooms be near these?"
+
+"On the next staircase but one."
+
+"Ye'll just have left them?"
+
+"Just."
+
+"Been in all the afternoon, likely?"
+
+"Not all."
+
+"Then I may have to search your rooms, sir.  I am prepared to search
+every room in the Albany!  Our man seems to have gone for the leads;
+but unless he's left more marks outside than in, or we find him up
+there, I shall have the entire building to ransack."
+
+"I will leave you my key," said Raffles at once. "I am dining out, but
+I'll leave it with the officer down below."
+
+I caught my breath in mute amazement.  What was the meaning of this
+insane promise?  It was wilful, gratuitous, suicidal; it made me catch
+at his sleeve in open horror and disgust; but, with a word of thanks,
+Mackenzie had returned to his window-sill, and we sauntered unwatched
+through the folding-doors into the adjoining room.  Here the window
+looked down into the courtyard; it was still open; and as we gazed out
+in apparent idleness, Raffles reassured me.
+
+"It's all right, Bunny; you do what I tell you and leave the rest to
+me.  It's a tight corner, but I don't despair.  What you've got to do
+is to stick to these chaps, especially if they search my rooms; they
+mustn't poke about more than necessary, and they won't if you're there."
+
+"But where will you be?  You're never going to leave me to be landed
+alone?"
+
+"If I do, it will be to turn up trumps at the right moment.  Besides,
+there are such things as windows, and Crawshay's the man to take his
+risks.  You must trust me, Bunny; you've known me long enough."
+
+"Are you going now?"
+
+"There's no time to lose.  Stick to them, old chap; don't let them
+suspect YOU, whatever else you do."  His hand lay an instant on my
+shoulder; then he left me at the window, and recrossed the room.
+
+"I've got to go now," I heard him say; "but my friend will stay and see
+this through, and I'll leave the gas on in my rooms, and my key with
+the constable downstairs.  Good luck, Mackenzie; only wish I could
+stay."
+
+"Good-by, sir," came in a preoccupied voice, "and many thanks."
+
+Mackenzie was still busy at his window, and I remained at mine, a prey
+to mingled fear and wrath, for all my knowledge of Raffles and of his
+infinite resource.  By this time I felt that I knew more or less what
+he would do in any given emergency; at least I could conjecture a
+characteristic course of equal cunning and audacity.  He would return
+to his rooms, put Crawshay on his guard, and--stow him away?  No--there
+were such things as windows.  Then why was Raffles going to desert us
+all?  I thought of many things--lastly of a cab.  These bedroom windows
+looked into a narrow side-street; they were not very high; from them a
+man might drop on to the roof of a cab--even as it passed--and be
+driven away even under the noses of the police!  I pictured Raffles
+driving that cab, unrecognizable in the foggy night; the vision came to
+me as he passed under the window, tucking up the collar of his great
+driving-coat on the way to his rooms; it was still with me when he
+passed again on his way back, and stopped to hand the constable his key.
+
+"We're on his track," said a voice behind me. "He's got up on the
+leads, sure enough, though how he managed it from yon window is a
+myst'ry to me.  We're going to lock up here and try what like it is
+from the attics.  So you'd better come with us if you've a mind."
+
+The top floor at the Albany, as elsewhere, is devoted to the
+servants--a congeries of little kitchens and cubicles, used by many as
+lumber-rooms--by Raffles among the many.  The annex in this case was,
+of course, empty as the rooms below; and that was lucky, for we filled
+it, what with the manager, who now joined us, and another tenant whom
+he brought with him to Mackenzie's undisguised annoyance.
+
+"Better let in all Piccadilly at a crown a head," said he.  "Here, my
+man, out you go on the roof to make one less, and have your truncheon
+handy."
+
+We crowded to the little window, which Mackenzie took care to fill; and
+a minute yielded no sound but the crunch and slither of constabulary
+boots upon sooty slates.  Then came a shout.
+
+"What now?" cried Mackenzie.
+
+"A rope," we heard, "hanging from the spout by a hook!"
+
+"Sirs," purred Mackenzie, "yon's how he got up from below!  He would do
+it with one o' they telescope sticks, an' I never thocht o't!  How long
+a rope, my lad?"
+
+"Quite short.  I've got it."
+
+"Did it hang over a window?  Ask him that!" cried the manager.  "He can
+see by leaning over the parapet."
+
+The question was repeated by Mackenzie; a pause, then "Yes, it did."
+
+"Ask him how many windows along!" shouted the manager in high
+excitement.
+
+"Six, he says," said Mackenzie next minute; and he drew in his head and
+shoulders.  "I should just like to see those rooms, six windows along."
+
+"Mr. Raffles," announced the manager after a mental calculation.
+
+"Is that a fact?" cried Mackenzie.  "Then we shall have no difficulty
+at all.  He's left me his key down below."
+
+The words had a dry, speculative intonation, which even then I found
+time to dislike; it was as though the coincidence had already struck
+the Scotchman as something more.
+
+"Where is Mr. Raffles?" asked the manager, as we all filed downstairs.
+
+"He's gone out to his dinner," said Mackenzie.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"I saw him go," said I.  My heart was beating horribly.  I would not
+trust myself to speak again. But I wormed my way to a front place in
+the little procession, and was, in fact, the second man to cross the
+threshold that had been the Rubicon of my life.  As I did so I uttered
+a cry of pain, for Mackenzie had trod back heavily on my toes; in
+another second I saw the reason, and saw it with another and a louder
+cry.
+
+A man was lying at full length before the fire on his back, with a
+little wound in the white forehead, and the blood draining into his
+eyes.  And the man was Raffles himself!
+
+"Suicide," said Mackenzie calmly.  "No--here's the poker--looks more
+like murder."  He went on his knees and shook his head quite
+cheerfully.  "An' it's not even murder," said he, with a shade of
+disgust in his matter-of-fact voice; "yon's no more than a flesh-wound,
+and I have my doubts whether it felled him; but, sirs, he just stinks
+o' chloryform!"
+
+He got up and fixed his keen gray eyes upon me; my own were full of
+tears, but they faced him unashamed.
+
+"I understood ye to say ye saw him go out?" said he sternly.
+
+"I saw that long driving-coat; of course, I thought he was inside it."
+
+"And I could ha' sworn it was the same gent when he give me the key!"
+
+It was the disconsolate voice of the constable in the background; on
+him turned Mackenzie, white to the lips.
+
+"You'd think anything, some of you damned policemen," said he.  "What's
+your number, you rotter?  P 34?  You'll be hearing more of this, Mr. P
+34!  If that gentleman was dead--instead of coming to himself while I'm
+talking--do you know what you'd be?  Guilty of his manslaughter, you
+stuck pig in buttons!  Do you know who you've let slip, butter-fingers?
+Crawshay--no less--him that broke Dartmoor yesterday.  By the God that
+made ye, P 34, if I lose him I'll hound ye from the forrce!"
+
+Working face--shaking fist--a calm man on fire.  It was a new side of
+Mackenzie, and one to mark and to digest.  Next moment he had flounced
+from our midst.
+
+
+"Difficult thing to break your own head," said Raffles later;
+"infinitely easier to cut your own throat.  Chloroform's another
+matter; when you've used it on others, you know the dose to a nicety.
+So you thought I was really gone?  Poor old Bunny!  But I hope
+Mackenzie saw your face?"
+
+"He did," said I.  I would not tell him all Mackenzie must have seen,
+however.
+
+"That's all right.  I wouldn't have had him miss it for worlds; and you
+mustn't think me a brute, old boy, for I fear that man, and, know, we
+sink or swim together."
+
+"And now we sink or swim with Crawshay, too," said I dolefully.
+
+"Not we!" said Raffles with conviction.  "Old Crawshay's a true
+sportsman, and he'll do by us as we've done by him; besides, this makes
+us quits; and I don't think, Bunny, that we'll take on the professors
+again!"
+
+
+
+THE GIFT OF THE EMPEROR
+
+I
+
+When the King of the Cannibal Islands made faces at Queen Victoria, and
+a European monarch set the cables tingling with his compliments on the
+exploit, the indignation in England was not less than the surprise, for
+the thing was not so common as it has since become.  But when it
+transpired that a gift of peculiar significance was to follow the
+congratulations, to give them weight, the inference prevailed that the
+white potentate and the black had taken simultaneous leave of their
+fourteen senses.  For the gift was a pearl of price unparalleled,
+picked aforetime by British cutlasses from a Polynesian setting, and
+presented by British royalty to the sovereign who seized this
+opportunity of restoring it to its original possessor.
+
+The incident would have been a godsend to the Press a few weeks later.
+Even in June there were leaders, letters, large headlines, leaded type;
+the Daily Chronicle devoting half its literary page to a charming
+drawing of the island capital which the new Pall Mall, in a leading
+article headed by a pun, advised the Government to blow to flinders. I
+was myself driving a poor but not dishonest quill at the time, and the
+topic of the hour goaded me into satiric verse which obtained a better
+place than anything I had yet turned out.  I had let my flat in town,
+and taken inexpensive quarters at Thames Ditton, on the plea of a
+disinterested passion for the river.
+
+"First-rate, old boy!" said Raffles (who must needs come and see me
+there), lying back in the boat while I sculled and steered.  "I suppose
+they pay you pretty well for these, eh?"
+
+"Not a penny."
+
+"Nonsense, Bunny!  I thought they paid so well?  Give them time, and
+you'll get your check."
+
+"Oh, no, I sha'n't," said I gloomily.  "I've got to be content with the
+honor of getting in; the editor wrote to say so, in so many words," I
+added.  But I gave the gentleman his distinguished name.
+
+"You don't mean to say you've written for payment already?"
+
+No; it was the last thing I had intended to admit.  But I had done it.
+The murder was out; there was no sense in further concealment.  I had
+written for my money because I really needed it; if he must know, I was
+cursedly hard up.  Raffles nodded as though he knew already.  I warmed
+to my woes.  It was no easy matter to keep your end up as a raw
+freelance of letters; for my part, I was afraid I wrote neither well
+enough nor ill enough for success.  I suffered from a persistent
+ineffectual feeling after style.  Verse I could manage; but it did not
+pay.  To personal paragraphs and the baser journalism I could not and I
+would not stoop.
+
+Raffles nodded again, this time with a smile that stayed in his eyes as
+he leant back watching me. I knew that he was thinking of other things
+I had stooped to, and I thought I knew what he was going to say.  He
+had said it before so often; he was sure to say it again.  I had my
+answer ready, but evidently he was tired of asking the same question.
+His lids fell, he took up the paper he had dropped, and I sculled the
+length of the old red wall of Hampton Court before he spoke again.
+
+"And they gave you nothing for these!  My dear Bunny, they're capital,
+not only qua verses but for crystallizing your subject and putting it
+in a nutshell.  Certainly you've taught ME more about it than I knew
+before.  But is it really worth fifty thousand pounds--a single pearl?"
+
+"A hundred, I believe; but that wouldn't scan."
+
+"A hundred thousand pounds!" said Raffles, with his eyes shut.  And
+again I made certain what was coming, but again I was mistaken.  "If
+it's worth all that," he cried at last, "there would be no getting rid
+of it at all; it's not like a diamond that you can subdivide.  But I
+beg your pardon, Bunny.  I was forgetting!"
+
+And we said no more about the emperor's gift; for pride thrives on an
+empty pocket, and no privation would have drawn from me the proposal
+which I had expected Raffles to make.  My expectation had been half a
+hope, though I only knew it now.  But neither did we touch again on
+what Raffles professed to have forgotten--my "apostasy," my "lapse into
+virtue," as he had been pleased to call it.  We were both a little
+silent, a little constrained, each preoccupied with his own thoughts.
+It was months since we had met, and, as I saw him off towards eleven
+o'clock that Sunday night, I fancied it was for more months that we
+were saying good-by.
+
+But as we waited for the train I saw those clear eyes peering at me
+under the station lamps, and when I met their glance Raffles shook his
+head.
+
+"You don't look well on it, Bunny," said he. "I never did believe in
+this Thames Valley.  You want a change of air."
+
+I wished I might get it.
+
+"What you really want is a sea voyage."
+
+"And a winter at St. Moritz, or do you recommend Cannes or Cairo?  It's
+all very well, A. J., but you forget what I told you about my funds."
+
+"I forget nothing.  I merely don't want to hurt your feelings.  But,
+look here, a sea voyage you shall have.  I want a change myself, and
+you shall come with me as my guest.  We'll spend July in the
+Mediterranean."
+
+"But you're playing cricket--"
+
+"Hang the cricket!"
+
+"Well, if I thought you meant it--"
+
+"Of course I mean it.  Will you come?"
+
+"Like a shot--if you go."
+
+And I shook his hand, and waved mine in farewell, with the perfectly
+good-humored conviction that I should hear no more of the matter.  It
+was a passing thought, no more, no less.  I soon wished it were more;
+that week found me wishing myself out of England for good and all.  I
+was making nothing.  I could but subsist on the difference between the
+rent I paid for my flat and the rent at which I had sublet it,
+furnished, for the season.  And the season was near its end, and
+creditors awaited me in town.  Was it possible to be entirely honest?
+I had run no bills when I had money in my pocket, and the more
+downright dishonesty seemed to me the less ignoble.
+
+But from Raffles, of course, I heard nothing more; a week went by, and
+half another week; then, late on the second Wednesday night, I found a
+telegram from him at my lodgings, after seeking him vainly in town, and
+dining with desperation at the solitary club to which I still belonged.
+
+"Arrange to leave Waterloo by North German Lloyd special," he wired,
+"9.25 A. M. Monday next will meet you Southampton aboard Uhlan with
+tickets am writing."
+
+And write he did, a light-hearted letter enough, but full of serious
+solicitude for me and for my health and prospects; a letter almost
+touching in the light of our past relations, in the twilight of their
+complete rupture.  He said that he had booked two berths to Naples,
+that we were bound for Capri, which was clearly the island of the
+Lotos-eaters, that we would bask there together, "and for a while
+forget."  It was a charming letter.  I had never seen Italy; the
+privilege of initiation should be his.  No mistake was greater than to
+deem it an impossible country for the summer. The Bay of Naples was
+never so divine, and he wrote of "faery lands forlorn," as though the
+poetry sprang unbidden to his pen.  To come back to earth and prose, I
+might think it unpatriotic of him to choose a German boat, but on no
+other line did you receive such attention and accommodation for your
+money.  There was a hint of better reasons.  Raffles wrote, as he had
+telegraphed, from Bremen; and I gathered that the personal use of some
+little influence with the authorities there had resulted in a material
+reduction in our fares.
+
+Imagine my excitement and delight!  I managed to pay what I owed at
+Thames Ditton, to squeeze a small editor for a very small check, and my
+tailors for one more flannel suit.  I remember that I broke my last
+sovereign to get a box of Sullivan's cigarettes for Raffles to smoke on
+the voyage.  But my heart was as light as my purse on the Monday
+morning, the fairest morning of an unfair summer, when the special
+whirled me through the sunshine to the sea.
+
+A tender awaited us at Southampton.  Raffles was not on board, nor did
+I really look for him till we reached the liner's side.  And then I
+looked in vain.  His face was not among the many that fringed the rail;
+his hand was not of the few that waved to friends.  I climbed aboard in
+a sudden heaviness.  I had no ticket, nor the money to pay for one.  I
+did not even know the number of my room.  My heart was in my mouth as I
+waylaid a steward and asked if a Mr. Raffles was on board.  Thank
+heaven--he was!  But where?  The man did not know, was plainly on some
+other errand, and a-hunting I must go.  But there was no sign of him on
+the promenade deck, and none below in the saloon; the smoking-room was
+empty but for a little German with a red moustache twisted into his
+eyes; nor was Raffles in his own cabin, whither I inquired my way in
+desperation, but where the sight of his own name on the baggage was
+certainly a further reassurance.  Why he himself kept in the
+background, however, I could not conceive, and only sinister reasons
+would suggest themselves in explanation.
+
+"So there you are!  I've been looking for you all over the ship!"
+
+Despite the graven prohibition, I had tried the bridge as a last
+resort; and there, indeed, was A. J. Raffles, seated on a skylight, and
+leaning over one of the officers' long chairs, in which reclined a girl
+in a white drill coat and skirt--a slip of a girl with a pale skin,
+dark hair, and rather remarkable eyes.  So much I noted as he rose and
+quickly turned; thereupon I could think of nothing but the swift
+grimace which preceded a start of well-feigned astonishment.
+
+"Why--BUNNY?" cried Raffles.  "Where have YOU sprung from?"
+
+I stammered something as he pinched my hand.
+
+"And are you coming in this ship?  And to Naples, too?  Well, upon my
+word!  Miss Werner, may I introduce him?"
+
+And he did so without a blush, describing me as an old schoolfellow
+whom he had not seen for months, with wilful circumstance and
+gratuitous detail that filled me at once with confusion, suspicion, and
+revolt.  I felt myself blushing for us both, and I did not care.  My
+address utterly deserted me, and I made no effort to recover it, to
+carry the thing off.  All I would do was to mumble such words as
+Raffles actually put into my mouth, and that I doubt not with a
+thoroughly evil grace.
+
+"So you saw my name in the list of passengers and came in search of me?
+Good old Bunny; I say, though, I wish you'd share my cabin.  I've got a
+beauty on the promenade deck, but they wouldn't promise to keep me by
+myself.  We ought to see about it before they shove in some alien.  In
+any case we shall have to get out of this."
+
+For a quartermaster had entered the wheelhouse, and even while we had
+been speaking the pilot had taken possession of the bridge; as we
+descended, the tender left us with flying handkerchiefs and shrill
+good-bys; and as we bowed to Miss Werner on the promenade deck, there
+came a deep, slow throbbing underfoot, and our voyage had begun.
+
+It did not begin pleasantly between Raffles and me.  On deck he had
+overborne my stubborn perplexity by dint of a forced though forceful
+joviality; in his cabin the gloves were off.
+
+"You idiot," he snarled, "you've given me away again!"
+
+"How have I given you away?"
+
+I ignored the separate insult in his last word.
+
+"How?  I should have thought any clod could see that I meant us to meet
+by chance!"
+
+"After taking both tickets yourself?"
+
+"They knew nothing about that on board; besides, I hadn't decided when
+I took the tickets."
+
+"Then you should have let me know when you did decide.  You lay your
+plans, and never say a word, and expect me to tumble to them by light
+of nature.  How was I to know you had anything on?"
+
+I had turned the tables with some effect.  Raffles almost hung his head.
+
+"The fact is, Bunny, I didn't mean you to know. You--you've grown such
+a pious rabbit in your old age!"
+
+My nickname and his tone went far to mollify me, other things went
+farther, but I had much to forgive him still.
+
+"If you were afraid of writing," I pursued, "it was your business to
+give me the tip the moment I set foot on board.  I would have taken it
+all right.  I am not so virtuous as all that."
+
+Was it my imagination, or did Raffles look slightly ashamed?  If so, it
+was for the first and last time in all the years I knew him; nor can I
+swear to it even now.
+
+"That," said he, "was the very thing I meant to do--to lie in wait in
+my room and get you as you passed.  But--"
+
+"You were better engaged?"
+
+"Say otherwise."
+
+"The charming Miss Werner?"
+
+"She is quite charming."
+
+"Most Australian girls are," said I.
+
+"How did you know she was one?" he cried.
+
+"I heard her speak."
+
+"Brute!" said Raffles, laughing; "she has no more twang than you have.
+Her people are German, she has been to school in Dresden, and is on her
+way out alone."
+
+"Money?" I inquired.
+
+"Confound you!" he said, and, though he was laughing, I thought it was
+a point at which the subject might be changed.
+
+"Well," I said, "it wasn't for Miss Werner you wanted us to play
+strangers, was it?  You have some deeper game than that, eh?"
+
+"I suppose I have."
+
+"Then hadn't you better tell me what it is?"
+
+Raffles treated me to the old cautious scrutiny that I knew so well;
+the very familiarity of it, after all these months, set me smiling in a
+way that might have reassured him; for dimly already I divined his
+enterprise.
+
+"It won't send you off in the pilot's boat, Bunny?"
+
+"Not quite."
+
+"Then--you remember the pearl you wrote the--"
+
+I did not wait for him to finish his sentence.
+
+"You've got it!" I cried, my face on fire, for I caught sight of it
+that moment in the stateroom mirror.
+
+Raffles seemed taken aback.
+
+"Not yet," said he; "but I mean to have it before we get to Naples."
+
+"Is it on board?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But how--where--who's got it?"
+
+"A little German officer, a whipper-snapper with perpendicular
+mustaches."
+
+"I saw him in the smoke-room."
+
+"That's the chap; he's always there.  Herr Captain Wilhelm von Heumann,
+if you look in the list.  Well, he's the special envoy of the emperor,
+and he's taking the pearl out with him."
+
+"You found this out in Bremen?"
+
+"No, in Berlin, from a newspaper man I know there.  I'm ashamed to tell
+you, Bunny, that I went there on purpose!"
+
+I burst out laughing.
+
+"You needn't be ashamed.  You are doing the very thing I was rather
+hoping you were going to propose the other day on the river."
+
+"You were HOPING it?" said Raffles, with his eyes wide open.  Indeed,
+it was his turn to show surprise, and mine to be much more ashamed than
+I felt.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "I was quite keen on the idea, but I wasn't going to
+propose it."
+
+"Yet you would have listened to me the other day?"
+
+Certainly I would, and I told him so without reserve; not brazenly, you
+understand; not even now with the gusto of a man who savors such an
+adventure for its own sake, but doggedly, defiantly, through my teeth,
+as one who had tried to live honestly and failed.  And, while I was
+about it, I told him much more.  Eloquently enough, I daresay, I gave
+him chapter and verse of my hopeless struggle, my inevitable defeat;
+for hopeless and inevitable they were to a man with my record, even
+though that record was written only in one's own soul.  It was the old
+story of the thief trying to turn honest man; the thing was against
+nature, and there was an end of it.
+
+Raffles entirely disagreed with me.  He shook his head over my
+conventional view.  Human nature was a board of checkers; why not
+reconcile one's self to alternate black and white?  Why desire to be
+all one thing or all the other, like our forefathers on the stage or in
+the old-fashioned fiction?  For his part, he enjoyed himself on all
+squares of the board, and liked the light the better for the shade.  My
+conclusion he considered absurd.
+
+"But you err in good company, Bunny, for all the cheap moralists who
+preach the same twaddle: old Virgil was the first and worst offender of
+you all.  I back myself to climb out of Avernus any day I like, and
+sooner or later I shall climb out for good.  I suppose I can't very
+well turn myself into a Limited Liability Company.  But I could retire
+and settle down and live blamelessly ever after. I'm not sure that it
+couldn't be done on this pearl alone!"
+
+"Then you don't still think it too remarkable to sell?"
+
+"We might take a fishery and haul it up with smaller fry.  It would
+come after months of ill luck, just as we were going to sell the
+schooner; by Jove, it would be the talk of the Pacific!"
+
+"Well, we've got to get it first.  Is this von What's-his-name a
+formidable cuss?"
+
+"More so than he looks; and he has the cheek of the devil!"
+
+As he spoke a white drill skirt fluttered past the open state-room
+door, and I caught a glimpse of an upturned moustache beyond.
+
+"But is he the chap we have to deal with?  Won't the pearl be in the
+purser's keeping?"
+
+Raffles stood at the door, frowning out upon the Solent, but for an
+instant he turned to me with a sniff.
+
+"My good fellow, do you suppose the whole ship's company knows there's
+a gem like that aboard?  You said that it was worth a hundred thousand
+pounds; in Berlin they say it's priceless. I doubt if the skipper
+himself knows that von Heumann has it on him."
+
+"And he has?"
+
+"Must have."
+
+"Then we have only him to deal with?"
+
+He answered me without a word.  Something white was fluttering past
+once more, and Raffles, stepping forth, made the promenaders three.
+
+
+II
+
+I do not ask to set foot aboard a finer steamship than the Uhlan of the
+Norddeutscher Lloyd, to meet a kindlier gentleman than her commander,
+or better fellows than his officers.  This much at least let me have
+the grace to admit.  I hated the voyage.  It was no fault of anybody
+connected with the ship; it was no fault of the weather, which was
+monotonously ideal.  Not even in my own heart did the reason reside;
+conscience and I were divorced at last, and the decree made absolute.
+With my scruples had fled all fear, and I was ready to revel between
+bright skies and sparkling sea with the light-hearted detachment of
+Raffles himself.  It was Raffles himself who prevented me, but not
+Raffles alone.  It was Raffles and that Colonial minx on her way home
+from school.
+
+What he could see in her--but that begs the question.  Of course he saw
+no more than I did, but to annoy me, or perhaps to punish me for my
+long defection, he must turn his back on me and devote himself to this
+chit from Southampton to the Mediterranean.  They were always together.
+It was too absurd.  After breakfast they would begin, and go on until
+eleven or twelve at night; there was no intervening hour at which you
+might not hear her nasal laugh, or his quiet voice talking soft
+nonsense into her ear.  Of course it was nonsense!  Is it conceivable
+that a man like Raffles, with his knowledge of the world, and his
+experience of women (a side of his character upon which I have
+purposely never touched, for it deserves another volume); is it
+credible, I ask, that such a man could find anything but nonsense to
+talk by the day together to a giddy young schoolgirl? I would not be
+unfair for the world.
+
+I think I have admitted that the young person had points. Her eyes, I
+suppose, were really fine, and certainly the shape of the little brown
+face was charming, so far as mere contour can charm.
+
+I admit also more audacity than I cared about, with enviable health,
+mettle, and vitality.  I may not have occasion to report any of this
+young lady's speeches (they would scarcely bear it), and am therefore
+the more anxious to describe her without injustice. I confess to some
+little prejudice against her.  I resented her success with Raffles, of
+whom, in consequence, I saw less and less each day.  It is a mean thing
+to have to confess, but there must have been something not unlike
+jealousy rankling within me.
+
+Jealousy there was in another quarter--crude, rampant, undignified
+jealousy.  Captain von Heumann would twirl his mustaches into twin
+spires, shoot his white cuffs over his rings, and stare at me
+insolently through his rimless eyeglasses; we ought to have consoled
+each other, but we never exchanged a syllable.  The captain had a
+murderous scar across one of his cheeks, a present from Heidelberg, and
+I used to think how he must long to have Raffles there to serve the
+same.  It was not as though von Heumann never had his innings. Raffles
+let him go in several times a day, for the malicious pleasure of
+bowling him out as he was "getting set"; those were his words when I
+taxed him disingenuously with obnoxious conduct towards a German on a
+German boat.
+
+"You'll make yourself disliked on board!"
+
+"By von Heumann merely."
+
+"But is that wise when he's the man we've got to diddle?"
+
+"The wisest thing I ever did.  To have chummed up with him would have
+been fatal--the common dodge."
+
+I was consoled, encouraged, almost content.  I had feared Raffles was
+neglecting things, and I told him so in a burst.  Here we were near
+Gibraltar, and not a word since the Solent.  He shook his head with a
+smile.
+
+"Plenty of time, Bunny, plenty of time.  We can do nothing before we
+get to Genoa, and that won't be till Sunday night.  The voyage is still
+young, and so are we; let's make the most of things while we can."
+
+It was after dinner on the promenade deck, and as Raffles spoke he
+glanced sharply fore and aft, leaving me next moment with a step full
+of purpose.  I retired to the smoking-room, to smoke and read in a
+corner, and to watch von Heumann, who very soon came to drink beer and
+to sulk in another.
+
+Few travellers tempt the Red Sea at midsummer; the Uhlan was very empty
+indeed.  She had, however, but a limited supply of cabins on the
+promenade deck, and there was just that excuse for my sharing Raffles's
+room.  I could have had one to myself downstairs, but I must be up
+above.  Raffles had insisted that I should insist on the point. So we
+were together, I think, without suspicion, though also without any
+object that I could see.
+
+On the Sunday afternoon I was asleep in my berth, the lower one, when
+the curtains were shaken by Raffles, who was in his shirt-sleeves on
+the settee.
+
+"Achilles sulking in his bunk!"
+
+"What else is there to do?" I asked him as I stretched and yawned.  I
+noted, however, the good-humor of his tone, and did my best to catch it.
+
+"I have found something else, Bunny."
+
+"I daresay!"
+
+"You misunderstand me.  The whipper-snapper's making his century this
+afternoon.  I've had other fish to fry."
+
+I swung my legs over the side of my berth and sat forward, as he was
+sitting, all attention.  The inner door, a grating, was shut and
+bolted, and curtained like the open porthole.
+
+"We shall be at Genoa before sunset," continued Raffles.  "It's the
+place where the deed's got to be done."
+
+"So you still mean to do it?"
+
+"Did I ever say I didn't?"
+
+"You have said so little either way."
+
+"Advisedly so, my dear Bunny; why spoil a pleasure trip by talking
+unnecessary shop?  But now the time has come.  It must be done at Genoa
+or not at all."
+
+"On land?"
+
+"No, on board, to-morrow night.  To-night would do, but to-morrow is
+better, in case of mishap.  If we were forced to use violence we could
+get away by the earliest train, and nothing be known till the ship was
+sailing and von Heumann found dead or drugged--"
+
+"Not dead!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Of course not," assented Raffles, "or there would be no need for us to
+bolt; but if we should have to bolt, Tuesday morning is our time, when
+this ship has got to sail, whatever happens.  But I don't anticipate
+any violence.  Violence is a confession of terrible incompetence.  In
+all these years how many blows have you known me to strike?  Not one, I
+believe; but I have been quite ready to kill my man every time, if the
+worst came to the worst."
+
+I asked him how he proposed to enter von Heumann's state-room
+unobserved, and even through the curtained gloom of ours his face
+lighted up.
+
+"Climb into my bunk, Bunny, and you shall see."
+
+I did so, but could see nothing.  Raffles reached across me and tapped
+the ventilator, a sort of trapdoor in the wall above his bed, some
+eighteen inches long and half that height.  It opened outwards into the
+ventilating shaft.
+
+"That," said he, "is our door to fortune.  Open it if you like; you
+won't see much, because it doesn't open far; but loosening a couple of
+screws will set that all right.  The shaft, as you may see, is more or
+less bottomless; you pass under it whenever you go to your bath, and
+the top is a skylight on the bridge.  That's why this thing has to be
+done while we're at Genoa, because they keep no watch on the bridge in
+port.  The ventilator opposite ours is von Heumann's.  It again will
+only mean a couple of screws, and there's a beam to stand on while you
+work."
+
+"But if anybody should look up from below?"
+
+"It's extremely unlikely that anybody will be astir below, so unlikely
+that we can afford to chance it.  No, I can't have you there to make
+sure.  The great point is that neither of us should be seen from the
+time we turn in.  A couple of ship's boys do sentry-go on these decks,
+and they shall be our witnesses; by Jove, it'll be the biggest mystery
+that ever was made!"
+
+"If von Heumann doesn't resist."
+
+"Resist!  He won't get the chance.  He drinks too much beer to sleep
+light, and nothing is so easy as to chloroform a heavy sleeper; you've
+even done it yourself on an occasion of which it's perhaps unfair to
+remind you.  Von Heumann will be past sensation almost as soon as I get
+my hand through his ventilator.  I shall crawl in over his body, Bunny,
+my boy!"
+
+"And I?"
+
+"You will hand me what I want and hold the fort in case of accidents,
+and generally lend me the moral support you've made me require.  It's a
+luxury, Bunny, but I found it devilish difficult to do without it after
+you turned pi!"
+
+He said that Von Heumann was certain to sleep with a bolted door, which
+he, of course, would leave unbolted, and spoke of other ways of laying
+a false scent while rifling the cabin.  Not that Raffles anticipated a
+tiresome search.  The pearl would be about von Heumann's person; in
+fact, Raffles knew exactly where and in what he kept it. Naturally I
+asked how he could have come by such knowledge, and his answer led up
+to a momentary unpleasantness.
+
+"It's a very old story, Bunny.  I really forget in what Book it comes;
+I'm only sure of the Testament.  But Samson was the unlucky hero, and
+one Delilah the heroine."
+
+And he looked so knowing that I could not be in a moment's doubt as to
+his meaning.
+
+"So the fair Australian has been playing Delilah?" said I.
+
+"In a very harmless, innocent sort of way."
+
+"She got his mission out of him?"
+
+"Yes, I've forced him to score all the points he could, and that was
+his great stroke, as I hoped it would be.  He has even shown Amy the
+pearl."
+
+"Amy, eh! and she promptly told you?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind.  What makes you think so?  I had the greatest
+trouble in getting it out of her."
+
+His tone should have been a sufficient warning to me.  I had not the
+tact to take it as such.  At last I knew the meaning of his furious
+flirtation, and stood wagging my head and shaking my finger, blinded to
+his frowns by my own enlightenment.
+
+"Wily worm!" said I.  "Now I see through it all; how dense I've been!"
+
+"Sure you're not still?"
+
+"No; now I understand what has beaten me all the week.  I simply
+couldn't fathom what you saw in that little girl.  I never dreamt it
+was part of the game."
+
+"So you think it was that and nothing more?"
+
+"You deep old dog--of course I do!"
+
+"You didn't know she was the daughter of a wealthy squatter?"
+
+"There are wealthy women by the dozen who would marry you to-morrow."
+
+"It doesn't occur to you that I might like to draw stumps, start clean,
+and live happily ever after--in the bush?"
+
+"With that voice?  It certainly does not!"
+
+"Bunny!" he cried, so fiercely that I braced myself for a blow.
+
+But no more followed.
+
+"Do you think you would live happily?" I made bold to ask him.
+
+"God knows!" he answered.  And with that he left me, to marvel at his
+look and tone, and, more than ever, at the insufficiently exciting
+cause.
+
+
+III
+
+Of all the mere feats of cracksmanship which I have seen Raffles
+perform, at once the most delicate and most difficult was that which he
+accomplished between one and two o'clock on the Tuesday morning, aboard
+the North German steamer Uhlan, lying at anchor in Genoa harbor.
+
+Not a hitch occurred.  Everything had been foreseen; everything
+happened as I had been assured everything must.  Nobody was about
+below, only the ship's boys on deck, and nobody on the bridge.  It was
+twenty-five minutes past one when Raffles, without a stitch of clothing
+on his body, but with a glass phial, corked with cotton-wool, between
+his teeth, and a tiny screw-driver behind his ear, squirmed feet first
+through the ventilator over his berth; and it was nineteen minutes to
+two when he returned, head first, with the phial still between his
+teeth, and the cotton-wool rammed home to still the rattling of that
+which lay like a great gray bean within.  He had taken screws out and
+put them in again; he had unfastened von Heumann's ventilator and had
+left it fast as he had found it--fast as he instantly proceeded to make
+his own.  As for von Heumann, it had been enough to place the drenched
+wad first on his mustache, and then to hold it between his gaping lips;
+thereafter the intruder had climbed both ways across his shins without
+eliciting a groan.
+
+And here was the prize--this pearl as large as a filbert--with a pale
+pink tinge like a lady's fingernail--this spoil of a filibustering
+age--this gift from a European emperor to a South Sea chief. We gloated
+over it when all was snug.  We toasted it in whiskey and soda-water
+laid in overnight in view of the great moment.  But the moment was
+greater, more triumphant, than our most sanguine dreams.  All we had
+now to do was to secrete the gem (which Raffles had prised from its
+setting, replacing the latter), so that we could stand the strictest
+search and yet take it ashore with us at Naples; and this Raffles was
+doing when I turned in.  I myself would have landed incontinently, that
+night, at Genoa and bolted with the spoil; he would not hear of it, for
+a dozen good reasons which will be obvious.
+
+On the whole I do not think that anything was discovered or suspected
+before we weighed anchor; but I cannot be sure.  It is difficult to
+believe that a man could be chloroformed in his sleep and feel no
+tell-tale effects, sniff no suspicious odor, in the morning.
+Nevertheless, von Heumann reappeared as though nothing had happened to
+him, his German cap over his eyes and his mustaches brushing the peak.
+And by ten o'clock we were quit of Genoa; the last lean, blue-chinned
+official had left our decks; the last fruitseller had been beaten off
+with bucketsful of water and left cursing us from his boat; the last
+passenger had come aboard at the last moment--a fussy graybeard who
+kept the big ship waiting while he haggled with his boatman over half a
+lira.  But at length we were off, the tug was shed, the lighthouse
+passed, and Raffles and I leaned together over the rail, watching our
+shadows on the pale green, liquid, veined marble that again washed the
+vessel's side.
+
+Von Heumann was having his innings once more; it was part of the design
+that he should remain in all day, and so postpone the inevitable hour;
+and, though the lady looked bored, and was for ever glancing in our
+direction, he seemed only too willing to avail himself of his
+opportunities. But Raffles was moody and ill-at-ease.  He had not the
+air of a successful man.  I could but opine that the impending parting
+at Naples sat heavily on his spirit.
+
+He would neither talk to me, nor would he let me go.
+
+"Stop where you are, Bunny.  I've things to tell you.  Can you swim?"
+
+"A bit."
+
+"Ten miles?"
+
+"Ten?" I burst out laughing.  "Not one!  Why do you ask?"
+
+"We shall be within a ten miles' swim of the shore most of the day."
+
+"What on earth are you driving at, Raffles?"
+
+"Nothing; only I shall swim for it if the worst comes to the worst.  I
+suppose you can't swim under water at all?"
+
+I did not answer his question.  I scarcely heard it: cold beads were
+bursting through my skin.
+
+"Why should the worst come to the worst?" I whispered.  "We aren't
+found out, are we?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why speak as though we were?"
+
+"We may be; an old enemy of ours is on board."
+
+"An old enemy?"
+
+"Mackenzie."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"The man with the beard who came aboard last."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Sure!  I was only sorry to see you didn't recognize him too."
+
+I took my handkerchief to my face; now that I thought of it, there had
+been something familiar in the old man's gait, as well as something
+rather youthful for his apparent years; his very beard seemed
+unconvincing, now that I recalled it in the light of this horrible
+revelation.  I looked up and down the deck, but the old man was nowhere
+to be seen.
+
+"That's the worst of it," said Raffles.  "I saw him go into the
+captain's cabin twenty minutes ago."
+
+"But what can have brought him?" I cried miserably.  "Can it be a
+coincidence--is it somebody else he's after?"
+
+Raffles shook his head.
+
+"Hardly this time."
+
+"Then you think he's after you?"
+
+"I've been afraid of it for some weeks."
+
+"Yet there you stand!"
+
+"What am I to do?  I don't want to swim for it before I must.  I begin
+to wish I'd taken your advice, Bunny, and left the ship at Genoa.  But
+I've not the smallest doubt that Mac was watching both ship and station
+till the last moment.  That's why he ran it so fine."
+
+He took a cigarette and handed me the case, but I shook my head
+impatiently.
+
+"I still don't understand," said I.  "Why should he be after you?  He
+couldn't come all this way about a jewel which was perfectly safe for
+all he knew.  What's your own theory?"
+
+"Simply that he's been on my track for some time, probably ever since
+friend Crawshay slipped clean through his fingers last November.  There
+have been other indications.  I am really not unprepared for this.  But
+it can only be pure suspicion.  I'll defy him to bring anything home,
+and I'll defy him to find the pearl!  Theory, my dear Bunny?  I know
+how he's got here as well as though I'd been inside that Scotchman's
+skin, and I know what he'll do next.  He found out I'd gone abroad, and
+looked for a motive; he found out about von Heumann and his mission,
+and there was his motive cut-and-dried.  Great chance--to nab me on a
+new job altogether.  But he won't do it, Bunny; mark my words, he'll
+search the ship and search us all, when the loss is known; but he'll
+search in vain.  And there's the skipper beckoning the whippersnapper
+to his cabin: the fat will be in the fire in five minutes!"
+
+Yet there was no conflagration, no fuss, no searching of the
+passengers, no whisper of what had happened in the air; instead of a
+stir there was portentous peace; and it was clear to me that Raffles
+was not a little disturbed at the falsification of all his predictions.
+There was something sinister in silence under such a loss, and the
+silence was sustained for hours during which Mackenzie never
+reappeared.  But he was abroad during the luncheon-hour--he was in our
+cabin!  I had left my book in Raffles's berth, and in taking it after
+lunch I touched the quilt.  It was warm from the recent pressure of
+flesh and blood, and on an instinct I sprang to the ventilator; as I
+opened it the ventilator opposite was closed with a snap.
+
+I waylaid Raffles.  "All right!  Let him find the pearl."
+
+"Have you dumped it overboard?"
+
+"That's a question I shan't condescend to answer."
+
+He turned on his heel, and at subsequent intervals I saw him making the
+most of his last afternoon with the inevitable Miss Werner.  I remember
+that she looked both cool and smart in quite a simple affair of brown
+holland, which toned well with her complexion, and was cleverly
+relieved with touches of scarlet.  I quite admired her that afternoon,
+for her eyes were really very good, and so were her teeth, yet I had
+never admired her more directly in my own despite.  For I passed them
+again and again in order to get a word with Raffles, to tell him I knew
+there was danger in the wind; but he would not so much as catch my eye.
+So at last I gave it up.  And I saw him next in the captain's cabin.
+
+They had summoned him first; he had gone in smiling; and smiling I
+found him when they summoned me.  The state-room was spacious, as
+befitted that of a commander.  Mackenzie sat on the settee, his beard
+in front of him on the polished table; but a revolver lay in front of
+the captain; and, when I had entered, the chief officer, who had
+summoned me, shut the door and put his back to it. Von Heumann
+completed the party, his fingers busy with his mustache.
+
+Raffles greeted me.
+
+"This is a great joke!" he cried.  "You remember the pearl you were so
+keen about, Bunny, the emperor's pearl, the pearl money wouldn't buy?
+It seems it was entrusted to our little friend here, to take out to
+Canoodle Dum, and the poor little chap's gone and lost it; ergo, as
+we're Britishers, they think we've got it!"
+
+"But I know ye have," put in Mackenzie, nodding to his beard.
+
+"You will recognize that loyal and patriotic voice," said Raffles.
+"Mon, 'tis our auld acquaintance Mackenzie, o' Scoteland Yarrd an'
+Scoteland itsel'!"
+
+"Dat is enough," cried the captain.  "Have you submid to be searge, or
+do I vorce you?"
+
+"What you will," said Raffles, "but it will do you no harm to give us
+fair play first.  You accuse us of breaking into Captain von Heumann's
+state-room during the small hours of this morning, and abstracting from
+it this confounded pearl.  Well, I can prove that I was in my own room
+all night long, and I have no doubt my friend can prove the same."
+
+"Most certainly I can," said I indignantly. "The ship's boys can bear
+witness to that."
+
+Mackenzie laughed, and shook his head at his reflection in the polished
+mahogany.
+
+"That was ver clever," said he, "and like enough it would ha' served ye
+had I not stepped aboard.  But I've just had a look at they
+ventilators, and I think I know how ye worrked it.  Anyway, captain, it
+makes no matter.  I'll just be clappin' the derbies on these young
+sparks, an' then--"
+
+"By what right?" roared Raffles, in a ringing voice, and I never saw
+his face in such a blaze. "Search us if you like; search every scrap
+and stitch we possess; but you dare to lay a finger on us without a
+warrant!"
+
+"I wouldna' dare," said Mackenzie, as he fumbled in his breast pocket,
+and Raffles dived his hand into his own.  "Haud his wrist!" shouted the
+Scotchman; and the huge Colt that had been with us many a night, but
+had never been fired in my hearing, clattered on the table and was
+raked in by the captain.
+
+"All right," said Raffles savagely to the mate. "You can let go now.  I
+won't try it again.  Now, Mackenzie, let's see your warrant!"
+
+"Ye'll no mishandle it?"
+
+"What good would that do me?  Let me see it," said Raffles,
+peremptorily, and the detective obeyed.  Raffles raised his eyebrows as
+he perused the document; his mouth hardened, but suddenly relaxed; and
+it was with a smile and a shrug that he returned the paper.
+
+"Wull that do for ye?" inquired Mackenzie.
+
+"It may.  I congratulate you, Mackenzie; it's a strong hand, at any
+rate.  Two burglaries and the Melrose necklace, Bunny!"  And he turned
+to me with a rueful smile.
+
+"An' all easy to prove," said the Scotchman, pocketing the warrant.
+"I've one o' these for you," he added, nodding to me, "only not such a
+long one."
+
+"To think," said the captain reproachfully, "that my shib should be
+made a den of thiefs!  It shall be a very disagreeable madder, I have
+been obliged to pud you both in irons until we get to Nables."
+
+"Surely not!" exclaimed Raffles.  "Mackenzie, intercede with him; don't
+give your countrymen away before all hands!  Captain, we can't escape;
+surely you could hush it up for the night?  Look here, here's
+everything I have in my pockets; you empty yours, too, Bunny, and they
+shall strip us stark if they suspect we've weapons up our sleeves. All
+I ask is that we are allowed to get out of this without gyves upon our
+wrists!"
+
+"Webbons you may not have," said the captain; "but wad aboud der bearl
+dat you were sdealing?"
+
+"You shall have it!" cried Raffles.  "You shall have it this minute if
+you guarantee no public indignity on board!"
+
+"That I'll see to," said Mackenzie, "as long as you behave yourselves.
+There now, where is't?"
+
+"On the table under your nose."
+
+My eyes fell with the rest, but no pearl was there; only the contents
+of our pockets--our watches, pocket-books, pencils, penknives,
+cigarette cases--lay on the shiny table along with the revolvers
+already mentioned.
+
+"Ye're humbuggin' us," said Mackenzie. "What's the use?"
+
+"I'm doing nothing of the sort," laughed Raffles.  "I'm testing you.
+Where's the harm?"
+
+"It's here, joke apart?"
+
+"On that table, by all my gods."
+
+Mackenzie opened the cigarette cases and shook each particular
+cigarette.  Thereupon Raffles prayed to be allowed to smoke one, and,
+when his prayer was heard, observed that the pearl had been on the
+table much longer than the cigarettes.  Mackenzie promptly caught up
+the Colt and opened the chamber in the butt.
+
+"Not there, not there," said Raffles; "but you're getting hot.  Try the
+cartridges."
+
+Mackenzie emptied them into his palm, and shook each one at his ear
+without result.
+
+"Oh, give them to me!"
+
+And, in an instant, Raffles had found the right one, had bitten out the
+bullet, and placed the emperor's pearl with a flourish in the centre of
+the table.
+
+"After that you will perhaps show me such little consideration as is in
+your power.  Captain, I have been a bit of a villain, as you see, and
+as such I am ready and willing to lie in irons all night if you deem it
+requisite for the safety of the ship.  All I ask is that you do me one
+favor first."
+
+"That shall debend on wad der vafour has been."
+
+"Captain, I've done a worse thing aboard your ship than any of you
+know.  I have become engaged to be married, and I want to say good-by!"
+
+I suppose we were all equally amazed; but the only one to express his
+amazement was von Heumann, whose deep-chested German oath was almost
+his first contribution to the proceedings.  He was not slow to follow
+it, however, with a vigorous protest against the proposed farewell; but
+he was overruled, and the masterful prisoner had his way. He was to
+have five minutes with the girl, while the captain and Mackenzie stood
+within range (but not earshot), with their revolvers behind their
+backs.  As we were moving from the cabin, in a body, he stopped and
+gripped my hand.
+
+"So I 've let you in at last, Bunny--at last and after all!  If you
+knew how sorry I am.... But you won't get much--I don't see why you
+should get anything at all.  Can you forgive me? This may be for years,
+and it may be for ever, you know!  You were a good pal always when it
+came to the scratch; some day or other you mayn't be so sorry to
+remember you were a good pal at the last!"
+
+There was a meaning in his eye that I understood; and my teeth were
+set, and my nerve strung ready, as I wrung that strong and cunning hand
+for the last time in my life.
+
+How that last scene stays with me, and will stay to my death!  How I
+see every detail, every shadow on the sunlit deck!  We were among the
+islands that dot the course from Genoa to Naples; that was Elba falling
+back on our starboard quarter, that purple patch with the hot sun
+setting over it.  The captain's cabin opened to starboard, and the
+starboard promenade deck, sheeted with sunshine and scored with shadow,
+was deserted, but for the group of which I was one, and for the pale,
+slim, brown figure further aft with Raffles.  Engaged?  I could not
+believe it, cannot to this day. Yet there they stood together, and we
+did not hear a word; there they stood out against the sunset, and the
+long, dazzling highway of sunlit sea that sparkled from Elba to the
+Uhlan's plates; and their shadows reached almost to our feet.
+
+Suddenly--an instant--and the thing was done--a thing I have never
+known whether to admire or to detest.  He caught her--he kissed her
+before us all--then flung her from him so that she almost fell.  It was
+that action which foretold the next. The mate sprang after him, and I
+sprang after the mate.
+
+Raffles was on the rail, but only just.
+
+"Hold him, Bunny!" he cried.  "Hold him tight!"
+
+And, as I obeyed that last behest with all my might, without a thought
+of what I was doing, save that he bade me do it, I saw his hands shoot
+up and his head bob down, and his lithe, spare body cut the sunset as
+cleanly and precisely as though he had plunged at his leisure from a
+diver's board!
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of what followed on deck I can tell you nothing, for I was not there.
+Nor can my final punishment, my long imprisonment, my everlasting
+disgrace, concern or profit you, beyond the interest and advantage to
+be gleaned from the knowledge that I at least had my deserts.  But one
+thing I must set down, believe it who will--one more thing only and I
+am done.
+
+It was into a second-class cabin, on the starboard side, that I was
+promptly thrust in irons, and the door locked upon me as though I were
+another Raffles.  Meanwhile a boat was lowered, and the sea scoured to
+no purpose, as is doubtless on record elsewhere.  But either the
+setting sun, flashing over the waves, must have blinded all eyes, or
+else mine were victims of a strange illusion.
+
+For the boat was back, the screw throbbing, and the prisoner peering
+through his porthole across the sunlit waters that he believed had
+closed for ever over his comrade's head.  Suddenly the sun sank behind
+the Island of Elba, the lane of dancing sunlight was instantaneously
+quenched and swallowed in the trackless waste, and in the middle
+distance, already miles astern, either my sight deceived me or a black
+speck bobbed amid the gray. The bugle had blown for dinner: it may well
+be that all save myself had ceased to strain an eye. And now I lost
+what I had found, now it rose, now sank, and now I gave it up utterly.
+Yet anon it would rise again, a mere mote dancing in the dim gray
+distance, drifting towards a purple island, beneath a fading western
+sky, streaked with dead gold and cerise.  And night fell before I knew
+whether it was a human head or not.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Amateur Cracksman, by E. W. Hornung
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thecasebookofsherlockholmes b/files/books/unrelated/thecasebookofsherlockholmes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..824168e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thecasebookofsherlockholmes
@@ -0,0 +1,9921 @@
+Title: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
+Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
+eBook No.:  0100291.txt
+Language:   English
+Date first posted: December 2001
+Date most recently updated: March 2002
+
+Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
+which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
+is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
+paper edition.
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
+file.
+
+This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
+http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
+
+To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Title:      The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
+Author:     Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PREFACE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLANCHED SOLDIER
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GABLES
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUSSEX VAMPIRE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GARRIDEBS
+THE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CREEPING MAN
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE LIONS MANE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE VEILED LODGER
+THE ADVENTURE OF SHOSCOMBE OLD PLACE
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RETIRED COLOURMAN
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular
+tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make
+repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease
+and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary. One likes
+to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of
+imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding
+may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes
+still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and
+Thackeray's worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible
+careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and
+his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth
+with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have
+vacated.
+
+His career has been a long one--though it is possible to exaggerate
+it; decrepit gentlemen who approach me and declare that his adventures
+formed the reading of their boyhood do not meet the response from me
+which they seem to expect. One is not anxious to have one's personal
+dates handled so unkindly. As a matter of cold fact, Holmes made his
+debut in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of Four, two small booklets
+which appeared between 1887 and 1889. It was in 1891 that "A Scandal in
+Bohemia," the first of the long series of short stories, appeared in
+The Strand Magazine. The public seemed appreciative and desirous of
+more, so that from that date, thirty-nine years ago, they have been
+produced in a broken series which now contains no fewer than fifty-six
+stories, republished in The Adventures, The Memoirs, The Return, and
+His Last Bow. and there remain these twelve published during the last
+few years which are here produced under the title of The Case Book of
+Sherlock Holmes. He began his adventures in the very heart of the later
+Victorian era, carried it through the all-too-short reign of Edward,
+and has managed to hold his own little niche even in these feverish
+days. Thus it would be true to say that those who first read of him, as
+young men, have lived to see their own grown-up children following the
+same adventures in the same magazine. It is a striking example of the
+patience and loyalty of the British public.
+
+I had fully determined at the conclusion of The Memoirs to bring Holmes
+to an end, as I felt that my literary energies should not be directed
+too much into one channel. That pale, clear-cut face and loose-limbed
+figure were taking up an undue share of my imagination. I did the deed,
+but fortunately no coroner had pronounced upon the remains, and so,
+after a long interval, it was not difficult for me to respond to the
+flattering demand and to explain my rash act away. I have never
+regretted it, for I have not in actual practice found that these
+lighter sketches have prevented me from exploring and finding my
+limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry,
+historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmes never
+existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a
+little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work.
+
+And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! I thank you for your past
+constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape
+of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of
+thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance.
+
+ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENT
+
+
+
+"It can't hurt now," was Mr. Sherlock Holmes's comment when, for the
+tenth time in as many years, I asked his leave to reveal the following
+narrative. So it was that at last I obtained permission to put on
+record what was, in some ways, the supreme moment of my friend's
+career.
+
+Both Holmes and I had a weakness for the Turkish bath. It was over a
+smoke in the pleasant lassitude of the drying-room that I have found
+him less reticent and more human than anywhere else. On the upper floor
+of the Northumberland Avenue establishment there is an isolated corner
+where two couches lie side by side, and it was on these that we lay
+upon September 3, 1902, the day when my narrative begins. I had asked
+him whether anything was stirring, and for answer he had shot his long,
+thin, nervous arm out of the sheets which enveloped him and had drawn
+an envelope from the inside pocket of the coat which hung beside him.
+
+"It may be some fussy, self-important fool; it may be a matter of life
+or death," said he as he handed me the note. "I know no more than this
+message tells me."
+
+It was from the Carlton Club and dated the evening before. This is what
+I read:
+
+
+Sir James Damery presents his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and
+will call upon him at 4:30 to-morrow. Sir James begs to say that the
+matter upon which he desires to consult Mr. Holmes is very delicate and
+also very important. He trusts, therefore, that Mr. Holmes will make every
+effort to grant this interview, and that he will confirm it over the
+telephone to the Carlton Club.
+
+
+"I need not say that I have confirmed it, Watson," said Holmes as I
+returned the paper. "Do you know anything of this man Damery?"
+
+"Only that this name is a household word in society."
+
+"Well, I can tell you a little more than that. He has rather a
+reputation for arranging delicate matters which are to be kept out of
+the papers. You may remember his negotiations with Sir George Lewis
+over the Hammerford Will case. He is a man of the world with a natural
+turn for diplomacy. I am bound, therefore, to hope that it is not a
+false scent and that he has some real need for our assistance."
+
+"Our?"
+
+"Well, if you will be so good, Watson."
+
+"I shall be honoured."
+
+"Then you have the hour--4:30. Until then we can put the matter out
+of our heads."
+
+I was living in my own rooms in Queen Anne Street at the time, but I
+was round at Baker Street before the time named. Sharp to the
+half-hour, Colonel Sir James Damery was announced. It is hardly
+necessary to describe him, for many will remember that large, bluff,
+honest personality, that broad, cleanshaven face, and, above all, that
+pleasant, mellow voice. Frankness shone from his gray Irish eyes, and
+good humour played round his mobile, smiling lips. His lucent top-hat,
+his dark frock-coat, indeed, every detail, from the pearl pin in the
+black satin cravat to the lavender spats over the varnished shoes,
+spoke of the meticulous care in dress for which he was famous. The big,
+masterful aristocrat dominated the little room.
+
+"Of course, I was prepared to find Dr. Watson," he remarked with a
+courteous bow. "His collaboration may be very necessary, for we are
+dealing on this occasion, Mr. Holmes, with a man to whom violence is
+familiar and who will, literally, stick at nothing. I should say that
+there is no more dangerous man in Europe."
+
+"I have had several opponents to whom that flattering term has been
+applied," said Holmes with a smile. "Don't you smoke? Then you will
+excuse me if I light my pipe. If your man is more dangerous than the
+late Professor Moriarty, or than the living Colonel Sebastian Moran,
+then he is indeed worth meeting. May I ask his name?"
+
+"Have you ever heard of Baron Gruner?"
+
+"You mean the Austrian murderer?"
+
+Colonel Damery threw up his kid-gloved hands with a laugh. "There is no
+getting past you, Mr. Holmes! Wonderful! So you have already sized him
+up as a murderer?"
+
+"It is my business to follow the details of Continental crime. Who
+could possibly have read what happened at Prague and have any doubts as
+to the man's guilt! It was a purely technical legal point and the
+suspicious death of a witness that saved him! I am as sure that he
+killed his wife when the socalled 'accident' happened in the Splugen
+Pass as if I had seen him do it. I knew, also, that he had come to
+England and had a presentiment that sooner or later he would find me
+some work to do. Well, what has Baron Gruner been up to? I presume it
+is not this old tragedy which has come up again?"
+
+"No, it is more serious than that. To revenge crime is important, but
+to prevent it is more so. It is a terrible thing, Mr. Holmes, to see a
+dreadful event, an atrocious situation, preparing itself before your
+eyes, to clearly understand whither it will lead and yet to be utterly
+unable to avert it. Can a human being be placed in a more trying
+position?"
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Then you will sympathize with the client in whose interests I am
+acting."
+
+"I did not understand that you were merely an intermediary. Who is the
+principal?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes, I must beg you not to press that question. It is important
+that I should be able to assure him that his honoured name has been in
+no way dragged into the matter. His motives are, to the last degree,
+honourable and chivalrous, but he prefers to remain unknown. I need not
+say that your fees will be assured and that you will be given a
+perfectly free hand. Surely the actual name of your client is
+immaterial?"
+
+"I am sorry," said Holmes. "I am accustomed to have mystery at one end
+of my cases, but to have it at both ends is too confusing. I fear, Sir
+James, that I must decline to act."
+
+Our visitor was greatly disturbed. His large, sensitive face was
+darkened with emotion and disappointment.
+
+"You hardly realize the effect of your own action, Mr. Holmes," said
+he. "You place me in a most serious dilemma for I am perfectly certain
+that you would be proud to take over the case if I could give you the
+facts, and yet a promise forbids me from revealing them all. May I, at
+least, lay all that I can before you?"
+
+"By all means, so long as it is understood that I commit myself to
+nothing."
+
+"That is understood. In the first place, you have no doubt heard of
+General de Merville?"
+
+"De Merville of Khyber fame? Yes, I have heard of him."
+
+"He has a daughter, Violet de Merville, young, rich, beautiful,
+accomplished, a wonder-woman in every way. It is this daughter, this
+lovely, innocent girl, whom we are endeavouring to save from the
+clutches of a fiend."
+
+"Baron Gruner has some hold over her, then?"
+
+"The strongest of all holds where a woman is concerned--the hold of
+love. The fellow is, as you may have heard, extraordinarily handsome,
+with a most fascinating manner. a gentle voice and that air of romance
+and mystery which means so much to a woman. He is said to have the
+whole sex at his mercy and to have made ample use of the fact."
+
+"But how came such a man to meet a lady of the standing of Miss Violet
+de Merville?"
+
+"It was on a Mediterranean yachting voyage. The company, though select,
+paid their own passages. No doubt the promoters hardly realized the
+Baron's true character until it was too late. The villain attached
+himself to the lady, and with such effect that he has completely and
+absolutely won her heart. To say that she loves him hardly expresses
+it. She dotes upon him, she is obsessed by him. Outside of him there is
+nothing on earth. She will not hear one word against him. Everything
+has been done to cure her of her madness, but in vain. To sum up, she
+proposes to marry him next month. As she is of age and has a will of
+iron, it is hard to know how to prevent her."
+
+"Does she know about the Austrian episode?"
+
+"The cunning devil has told her every unsavoury public scandal of his
+past life, but always in such a way as to make himself out to be an
+innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version and will listen to
+no other."
+
+"Dear me! But surely you have inadvertently let out the name of your
+client? It is no doubt General de Merville."
+
+Our visitor fidgeted in his chair.
+
+"I could deceive you by saying so, Mr. Holmes, but it would not be
+true. De Merville is a broken man. The strong soldier has been utterly
+demoralized by this incident. He has lost the nerve which never failed
+him on the battlefield and has become a weak, doddering old man,
+utterly incapable of contending with a brilliant, forceful rascal like
+this Austrian. My client however is an old friend, one who has known
+the General intimately for many years and taken a paternal interest in
+this young girl since she wore short frocks. He cannot see this tragedy
+consummated without some attempt to stop it. There is nothing in which
+Scotland Yard can act. It was his own suggestion that you should be
+called in, but it was, as I have said, on the express stipulation that
+he should not be personally involved in the matter. I have no doubt,
+Mr. Holmes, with your great powers you could easily trace my client
+back through me, but I must ask you, as a point of honour, to refrain
+from doing so, and not to break in upon his incognito."
+
+Holmes gave a whimsical smile.
+
+"I think I may safely promise that," said he. "I may add that your
+problem interests me, and that I shall be prepared to look into it. How
+shall I keep in touch with you?"
+
+"The Carlton Club will find me. But in case of emergency, there is a
+private telephone call, 'XX.31.'"
+
+Holmes noted it down and sat, still smiling, with the open memorandum-book
+upon his knee.
+
+"The Baron's present address, please?"
+
+"Vernon Lodge, near Kingston. It is a large house. He has been
+fortunate in some rather shady speculations and is a rich man, which
+naturally makes him a more dangerous antagonist."
+
+"Is he at home at present?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Apart from what you have told me, can you give me any further
+information about the man?"
+
+"He has expensive tastes. He is a horse fancier. For a short time he
+played polo at Hurlingham, but then this Prague affair got noised about
+and he had to leave. He collects books and pictures. He is a man with a
+considerable artistic side to his nature. He is, I believe, a
+recognized authority upon Chinese pottery and has written a book upon
+the subject."
+
+"A complex mind," said Holmes. "All great criminals have that. My old
+friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso. Wainwright was no mean
+artist. I could quote many more. Well, Sir James, you will inform your
+client that I am turning my mind upon Baron Gruner. I can say no more.
+I have some sources of information of my own, and I dare say we may
+find some means of opening the matter up."
+
+When our visitor had left us Holmes sat so long in deep thought that it
+seemed to me that he had forgotten my presence. At last, however, he
+came briskly back to earth.
+
+"Well, Watson, any views?" he asked.
+
+"I should think you had better see the young lady herself."
+
+"My dear Watson, if her poor old broken father cannot move her, how
+shall I, a stranger, prevail? And yet there is something in the
+suggestion if all else fails. But I think we must begin from a
+different angle. I rather fancy that Shinwell Johnson might be a help."
+
+I have not had occasion to mention Shinwell Johnson in these memoirs
+because I have seldom drawn my cases from the latter phases of my
+friend's career. During the first years of the century he became a
+valuable assistant. Johnson, I grieve to say, made his name first as a
+very dangerous villain and served two terms at Parkhurst. Finally he
+repented and allied himself to Holmes, acting as his agent in the huge
+criminal underworld of London and obtaining information which often
+proved to be of vital importance. Had Johnson been a "nark" of the
+police he would soon have been exposed, but as he dealt with cases
+which never came directly into the courts, his activities were never
+realized by his companions. With the glamour of his two convictions
+upon him, he had the entree of every night-club, doss house, and
+gamblingden in the town, and his quick observation and active brain
+made him an ideal agent for gaining information. It was to him that
+Sherlock Holmes now proposed to turn.
+
+It was not possible for me to follow the immediate steps taken by my
+friend, for I had some pressing professional business of my own, but I
+met him by appointment that evening at Simpson's, where, sitting at a
+small table in the front window and looking down at the rushing stream
+of life in the Strand, he told me something of what had passed.
+
+"Johnson is on the prowl," said he. "He may pick up some garbage in the
+darker recesses of the underworld, for it is down there, amid the black
+roots of crime, that we must hunt for this man's secrets."
+
+"But if the lady will not accept what is already known, why should any
+fresh discovery of yours turn her from her purpose?"
+
+"Who knows, Watson? Woman's heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the
+male. Murder might be condoned or explained, and yet some smaller
+offence might rankle. Baron Gruner remarked to me--"
+
+"He remarked to you!"
+
+"Oh, to be sure, I had not told you of my plans. Well, Watson, I love
+to come to close grips with my man. I like to meet him eye to eye and
+read for myself the stuff that he is made of. When I had given Johnson
+his instructions I took a cab out to Kingston and found the Baron in a
+most affable mood."
+
+"Did he recognize you?"
+
+"There was no difficulty about that, for I simply sent in my card. He
+is an excellent antagonist, cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as
+one of your fashionable consultants, and poisonous as a cobra. He has
+breeding in him--a real aristocrat of crime with a superficial
+suggestion of afternoon tea and all the cruelty of the grave behind it.
+Yes, I am glad to have had my attention called to Baron Adelbert
+Gruner."
+
+"You say he was affable?"
+
+"A purring cat who thinks he sees prospective mice. Some people's
+affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls. His
+greeting was characteristic. 'I rather thought I should see you sooner
+or later, Mr. Holmes,' said he. 'You have been engaged, no doubt by
+General de Merville, to endeavour to stop my marriage with his
+daughter, Violet. That is so, is it not?'
+
+"I acquiesced.
+
+"'My dear man,' said he. 'you will only ruin your own well-deserved
+reputation. It is not a case in which you can possibly succeed. You
+will have barren work, to say nothing of incurring some danger. Let me
+very strongly advise you to draw off at once.'
+
+"'It is curious,' I answered, 'but that was the very advice which I
+had intended to give you. I have a respect for your brains, Baron, and
+the little which I have seen of your personality has not lessened it.
+Let me put it to you as man to man. No one wants to rake up your past
+and make you unduly uncomfortable. It is over, and you are now in
+smooth waters, but if you persist in this marriage you will raise up a
+swarm of powerful enemies who will never leave you alone until they
+have made England too hot to hold you. Is the game worth it? Surely you
+would be wiser if you left the lady alone. It would not be pleasant for
+you if these facts of your past were brought to her notice.'
+
+"The Baron has little waxed tips of hair under his nose, like the short
+antennae of an insect. These quivered with amusement as he listened,
+and he finally broke into a gentle chuckle.
+
+"'Excuse my amusement, Mr. Holmes,' said he, 'but it is really funny
+to see you trying to play a hand with no cards in it. I don't think
+anyone could do it better, but it is rather pathetic all the same. Not
+a colour card there, Mr. Holmes, nothing but the smallest of the
+small.'
+
+"'So you think.'
+
+"'So I know. Let me make the thing clear to you, for my own hand is so
+strong that I can afford to show it. I have been fortunate enough to
+win the entire affection of this lady. This was given to me in spite of
+the fact that I told her very clearly of all the unhappy incidents in
+my past life. I also told her that certain wicked and designing persons
+--I hope you recognize yourself--would come to her and tell her
+these things. and I warned her how to treat them. You have heard of
+post-hypnotic suggestion. Mr. Holmes. Well you will see how it works
+for a man of personality can use hypnotism without any vulgar passes or
+tomfoolery. So she is ready for you and, I have no doubt, would give
+you an appointment, for she is quite amenable to her father's will--save
+only in the one little matter.'
+
+"Well, Watson, there seemed to be no more to say, so I took my leave
+with as much cold dignity as I could summon, but, as I had my hand on
+the door-handle, he stopped me.
+
+"'By the way, Mr. Holmes,' said he, 'did you know Le Brun, the French
+agent?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I.
+
+"'Do you know what befell him?'
+
+"'I heard that he was beaten by some Apaches in the Montmartre district
+and crippled for life.'
+
+"'Quite true, Mr. Holmes. By a curious coincidence he had been
+inquiring into my affairs only a week before. Don't do it, Mr. Holmes;
+it's not a lucky thing to do. Several have found that out. My last word
+to you is, go your own way and let me go mine. Good-bye!'
+
+"So there you are, Watson. You are up to date now."
+
+"The fellow seems dangerous."
+
+"Mighty dangerous. I disregard the blusterer, but this is the sort of
+man who says rather less than he means."
+
+"Must you interfere? Does it really matter if he marries the girl?"
+
+"Considering that he undoubtedly murdered his last wife, I should say
+it mattered very much. Besides, the client! Well, well, we need not
+discuss that. When you have finished your coffee you had best come home
+with me, for the blithe Shinwell will be there with his report."
+
+We found him sure enough, a huge, coarse, red-faced, scorbutic man,
+with a pair of vivid black eyes which were the only external sign of
+the very cunning mind within. It seems that he had dived down into what
+was peculiarly his kingdom, and beside him on the settee was a brand
+which he had brought up in the shape of a slim, flame-like young woman
+with a pale, intense face, youthful, and yet so worn with sin and
+sorrow that one read the terrible years which had left their leprous
+mark upon her.
+
+"This is Miss Kitty Winter," said Shinwell Johnson, waving his fat hand
+as an introduction. "What she don't know--well, there, she'll speak
+for herself. Put my hand right on her, Mr. Holmes, within an hour of
+your message."
+
+"I'm easy to find," said the young woman. "Hell, London, gets me every
+time. Same address for Porky Shinwell. We're old mates, Porky, you and
+I. But, by cripes! there is another who ought to be down in a lower
+hell than we if there was any justice in the world! That is the man you
+are after, Mr. Holmes."
+
+Holmes smiled. "I gather we have your good wishes, Miss Winter."
+
+"If I can help to put him where he belongs, I'm yours to the rattle,"
+said our visitor with fierce energy. There was an intensity of hatred
+in her white, set face and her blazing eyes such as woman seldom and
+man never can attain.
+
+"You needn't go into my past, Mr. Holmes. That's neither here nor
+there. But what I am Adelbert Gruner made me. If I could pull him
+down!" She clutched frantically with her hands into the air. "Oh, if I
+could only pull him into the pit where he has pushed so many!"
+
+"You know how the matter stands?"
+
+"Porky Shinwell has been telling me. He's after some other poor fool
+and wants to marry her this time. You want to stop it. Well, you surely
+know enough about this devil to prevent any decent girl in her senses
+wanting to be in the same parish with him."
+
+"She is not in her senses. She is madly in love. She has been told all
+about him. She cares nothing."
+
+"Told about the murder?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My Lord, she must have a nerve!"
+
+"She puts them all down as slanders."
+
+"Couldn't you lay proofs before her silly eyes?"
+
+"Well, can you help us do so?"
+
+"Ain't I a proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he used
+me--"
+
+"Would you do this?"
+
+"Would I? Would I not!"
+
+"Well, it might be worth trying. But he has told her most of his sins
+and had pardon from her, and I understand she will not reopen the
+question."
+
+"I'll lay he didn't tell her all," said Miss Winter. "I caught a
+glimpse of one or two murders besides the one that made such a fuss. He
+would speak of someone in his velvet way and then look at me with a
+steady eye and say: 'He died within a month.' It wasn't hot air,
+either. But I took little notice--you see, I loved him myself at that
+time. Whatever he did went with me, same as with this poor fool! There
+was just one thing that shook me. Yes, by cripes! if it had not been
+for his poisonous, lying tongue that explains and soothes. I'd have
+left him that very night. It's a book he has--a brown leather book
+with a lock, and his arms in gold on the outside. I think he was a bit
+drunk that night, or he would not have shown it to me."
+
+"What was it, then?"
+
+"I tell you. Mr. Holmes. this man collects women, and takes a pride in
+his collection. as some men collect moths or butterflies. He had it all
+in that book. Snapshot photographs. names, details, everything about
+them. It was a beastly book--a book no man, even if he had come from
+the gutter, could have put together. But it was Adelbert Gruner's book
+all the same. 'Souls I have ruined.' He could have put that on the
+outside if he had been so minded. However, that's neither here nor
+there, for the book would not serve you, and, if it would, you can't
+get it."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"How can I tell you where it is now? It's more than a year since I left
+him. I know where he kept it then. He's a precise, tidy cat of a man in
+many of his ways, so maybe it is still in the pigeon-hole of the old
+bureau in the inner study. Do you know his house?"
+
+"I've been in the study," said Holmes.
+
+"Have you. though? You haven't been slow on the job if you only started
+this morning. Maybe dear Adelbert has met his match this time. The
+outer study is the one with the Chinese crockery in it--big glass
+cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that
+leads to the inner study--a small room where he keeps papers and
+things."
+
+"Is he not afraid of burglars?"
+
+"Adelbert is no coward. His worst enemy couldn't say that of him. He
+can look after himself. There's a burglar alarm at night. Besides, what
+is there for a burglar--unless they got away with all this fancy
+crockery?"
+
+"No good," said Shinwell Johnson with the decided voice of the expert.
+"No fence wants stuff of that sort that you can neither melt nor sell."
+
+"Quite so," said Holmes. "Well, now, Miss Winter. if you would call
+here tomorrow evening at five. I would consider in the meanwhile
+whether your suggestion of seeing this lady personally may not be
+arranged. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your cooperation. I need
+not say that my clients will consider liberally--"
+
+"None of that, Mr. Holmes," cried the young woman. "I am not out for
+money. Let me see this man in the mud, and I've got all I've worked for
+--in the mud with my foot on his cursed face. That's my price. I'm
+with you tomorrow or any other day so long as you are on his track.
+Porky here can tell you always where to find me."
+
+I did not see Holmes again until the following evening when we dined
+once more at our Strand restaurant. He shrugged his shoulders when I
+asked him what luck he had had in his interview. Then he told the
+story, which I would repeat in this way. His hard, dry statement needs
+some little editing to soften it into the terms of real life.
+
+"There was no difficulty at all about the appointment," said Holmes,
+"for the girl glories in showing abject filial obedience in all
+secondary things in an attempt to atone for her flagrant breach of it
+in her engagement. The General phoned that all was ready, and the fiery
+Miss W. turned up according to schedule, so that at half-past five a
+cab deposited us outside 104 Berkeley Square, where the old soldier
+resides--one of those awful gray London castles which would make a
+church seem frivolous. A footman showed us into a great
+yellow-curtained drawing-room, and there was the lady awaiting us,
+demure, pale, self-contained, as inflexible and remote as a snow image
+on a mountain.
+
+"I don't quite know how to make her clear to you, Watson. Perhaps you
+may meet her before we are through, and you can use your own gift of
+words. She is beautiful, but with the ethereal other-world beauty of
+some fanatic whose thoughts are set on high. I have seen such faces in
+the pictures of the old masters of the Middle Ages. How a beastman
+could have laid his vile paws upon such a being of the beyond I cannot
+imagine. You may have noticed how extremes call to each other, the
+spiritual to the animal, the cave-man to the angel. You never saw a
+worse case than this.
+
+"She knew what we had come for, of course--that villain had lost no
+time in poisoning her mind against us. Miss Winter's advent rather
+amazed her, I think, but she waved us into our respective chairs like a
+reverend abbess receiving two rather leprous mendicants. If your head
+is inclined to swell. my dear Watson, take a course of Miss Violet de
+Merville.
+
+"'Well, sir,' said she in a voice like the wind from an iceberg, 'your
+name is familiar to me. You have called. as I understand, to malign my
+fiance, Baron Gruner. It is only by my father's request that I see you
+at all, and I warn you in advance that anything you can say could not
+possibly have the slightest effect upon my mind.'
+
+"I was sorry for her, Watson. I thought of her for the moment as I
+would have thought of a daughter of my own. I am not often eloquent. I
+use my head, not my heart. But I really did plead with her with all the
+warmth of words that I could find in my nature. I pictured to her the
+awful position of the woman who only wakes to a man's character after
+she is his wife--a woman who has to submit to be caressed by bloody
+hands and lecherous lips. I spared her nothing--the shame, the fear,
+the agony, the hopelessness of it all. All my hot words could not bring
+one tinge of colour to those ivory cheeks or one gleam of emotion to
+those abstracted eyes. I thought of what the rascal had said about a
+post-hypnotic influence. One could really believe that she was living
+above the earth in some ecstatic dream. Yet there was nothing
+indefinite in her replies.
+
+"'I have listened to you with patience, Mr. Holmes,' said she. 'The
+effect upon my mind is exactly as predicted. I am aware that Adelbert,
+that my fiance, has had a stormy life in which he has incurred bitter
+hatreds and most unjust aspersions. You are only the last of a series
+who have brought their slanders before me. Possibly you mean well,
+though I learn that you are a paid agent who would have been equally
+willing to act for the Baron as against him. But in any case I wish you
+to understand once for all that I love him and that he loves me, and
+that the opinion of all the world is no more to me than the twitter of
+those birds outside the window. If his noble nature has ever for an
+instant fallen, it may be that I have been specially sent to raise it
+to its true and lofty level. I am not clear'--here she turned eyes
+upon my companion--'who this young lady may be.'
+
+"I was about to answer when the girl broke in like a whirlwind. If ever
+you saw flame and ice face to face, it was those two women.
+
+"'I'll tell you who I am,' she cried, springing out of her chair, her
+mouth all twisted with passion--'I am his last mistress. I am one of
+a hundred that he has tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the
+refuse heap, as he will you also. Your refuse heap is more likely to be
+a grave, and maybe that's the best. I tell you, you foolish woman, if
+you marry this man he'll be the death of you. It may be a broken heart
+or it may be a broken neck, but he'll have you one way or the other.
+It's not out of love for you I'm speaking. I don't care a tinker's
+curse whether you live or die. It's out of hate for him and to spite
+him and to get back on him for what he did to me. But it's all the
+same, and you needn't look at me like that, my fine lady, for you may
+be lower than I am before you are through with it.'
+
+"'I should prefer not to discuss such matters,' said Miss de Merville
+coldly. 'Let me say once for all that I am aware of three passages in
+my fiance's life in which he became entangled with designing women, and
+that I am assured of his hearty repentance for any evil that he may
+have done.'
+
+"'Three passages!' screamed my companion. 'You fool! You unutterable
+fool!'
+
+"'Mr. Holmes, I beg that you will bring this interview to an end,'
+said the icy voice. 'I have obeyed my father's wish in seeing you, but
+I am not compelled to listen to the ravings of this person.'
+
+"With an oath Miss Winter darted forward, and if I had not caught her
+wrist she would have clutched this maddening woman by the hair. I
+dragged her towards the door and was lucky to get her back into the cab
+without a public scene, for she was beside herself with rage. In a cold
+way I felt pretty furious myself, Watson, for there was something
+indescribably annoying in the calm aloofness and supreme
+self-complaisance of the woman whom we were trying to save. So now once
+again you know exactly how we stand, and it is clear that I must plan
+some fresh opening move, for this gambit won't work. I'll keep in touch
+with you, Watson, for it is more than likely that you will have your
+part to play, though it is just possible that the next move may lie
+with them rather than with us."
+
+And it did. Their blow fell--or his blow rather, for never could I
+believe that the lady was privy to it. I think I could show you the
+very paving-stone upon which I stood when my eyes fell upon the
+placard, and a pang of horror passed through my very soul. It was
+between the Grand Hotel and Charing Cross Station, where a one-legged
+news-vender displayed his evening papers. The date was just two days
+after the last conversation. There, black upon yellow, was the terrible
+news-sheet:
+
+MURDEROUS ATTACK UPON SHERLOCK HOLMES
+
+I think I stood stunned for some moments. Then I have a confused
+recollection of snatching at a paper. of the remonstrance of the man,
+whom I had not paid, and, finally, of standing in the doorway of a
+chemist's shop while I turned up the fateful paragraph. This was how it
+ran:
+
+
+We learn with regret that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private
+detective, was the victim this morning of a murderous assault which has
+left him in a precarious position. There are no exact details to hand,
+but the event seems to have occurred about twelve o'clock in Regent
+Street, outside the Cafe Royal. The attack was made by two men armed with
+sticks, and Mr. Holmes was beaten about the head and body, receiving
+injuries which the doctors describe as most serious. He was carried to
+Charing Cross Hospital and afterwards insisted upon being taken to his
+rooms in Baker Street. The miscreants who attacked him appear to have
+been respectably dressed men, who escaped from the bystanders by
+passing through the Cafe Royal and out into Glasshouse Street behind it.
+
+No doubt they belonged to that criminal fraternity which has so often had
+occasion to bewail the activity and ingenuity of the injured man.
+
+
+I need not say that my eyes had hardly glanced over the paragraph
+before I had sprung into a hansom and was on my way to Baker Street. I
+found Sir Leslie Oakshott, the famous surgeon, in the hall and his
+brougham waiting at the curb.
+
+"No immediate danger," was his report. "Two lacerated scalp wounds and
+some considerable bruises. Several stitches have been necessary.
+Morphine has been injected and quiet is essential, but an interview of
+a few minutes would not be absolutely forbidden."
+
+With this permission I stole into the darkened room. The sufferer was
+wide awake, and I heard my name in a hoarse whisper. The blind was
+three-quarters down, but one ray of sunlight slanted through and struck
+the bandaged head of the injured man. A crimson patch had soaked
+through the white linen compress. I sat beside him and bent my head.
+
+"All right, Watson. Don't look so scared," he muttered in a very weak
+voice. "It's not as bad as it seems."
+
+"Thank God for that!"
+
+"I'm a bit of a single-stick expert. as you know. I took most of them
+on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me."
+
+"What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set
+them on. I'll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word."
+
+"Good old Watson! No, we can do nothing there unless the police lay
+their hands on the men. But their get-away had been well prepared. We
+may be sure of that. Wait a little. I have my plans. The first thing is
+to exaggerate my injuries. They'll come to you for news. Put it on
+thick, Watson. Lucky if I live the week out concussion delirium--what
+you like! You can't overdo it."
+
+"But Sir Leslie Oakshott?"
+
+"Oh, he's all right. He shall see the worst side of me. I'll look after
+that."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Yes. Tell Shinwell Johnson to get that girl out of the way. Those
+beauties will be after her now. They know, of course, that she was with
+me in the case. If they dared to do me in it is not likely they will
+neglect her. That is urgent. Do it to-night."
+
+"I'll go now. Anything more?"
+
+"Put my pipe on the table--and the tobacco-slipper. Right! Come in
+each morning and we will plan our campaign."
+
+I arranged with Johnson that evening to take Miss Winter to a quiet
+suburb and see that she lay low until the danger was past.
+
+For six days the public were under the impression that Holmes was at
+the door of death. The bulletins were very grave and there were
+sinister paragraphs in the papers. My continual visits assured me that
+it was not so bad as that. His wiry constitution and his determined
+will were working wonders. He was recovering fast, and I had suspicions
+at times that he was really finding himself faster than he pretended
+even to me. There was a curious secretive streak in the man which led
+to many dramatic effects, but left even his closest friend guessing as
+to what his exact plans might be. He pushed to an extreme the axiom
+that the only safe plotter was he who plotted alone. I was nearer him
+than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap between.
+
+On the seventh day the stitches were taken out, in spite of which there
+was a report of erysipelas in the evening papers. The same evening
+papers had an announcement which I was bound, sick or well, to carry to
+my friend. It was simply that among the passengers on the Cunard boat
+Ruritania, starting from Liverpool on Friday, was the Baron Adelbert
+Gruner, who had some important financial business to settle in the
+States before his impending wedding to Miss Violet de Merville, only
+daughter of, etc., etc. Holmes listened to the news with a cold,
+concentrated look upon his pale face, which told me that it hit him
+hard.
+
+"Friday!" he cried. "Only three clear days. I believe the rascal wants
+to put himself out of danger's way. But he won't, Watson! By the Lord
+Harry, he won't! Now, Watson, I want you to do something for me."
+
+"I am here to be used, Holmes."
+
+"Well, then, spend the next twenty-four hours in an intensive study of
+Chinese pottery."
+
+He gave no explanations and I asked for none. By long experience I had
+learned the wisdom of obedience. But when I had left his room I walked
+down Baker Street, revolving in my head how on earth I was to carry out
+so strange an order. Finally I drove to the London Library in St.
+James's Square, put the matter to my friend Lomax, the sublibrarian,
+and departed to my rooms with a goodly volume under my arm.
+
+It is said that the barrister who crams up a case with such care that
+he can examine an expert witness upon the Monday has forgotten all his
+forced knowledge before the Saturday. Certainly I should not like now
+to pose as an authority upon ceramics. And yet all that evening, and
+all that night with a short interval for rest, and all next morning, I
+was sucking in knowledge and committing names to memory. There I
+learned of the hall-marks of the great artist-decorators, of the
+mystery of cyclical dates, the marks of the Hung-wu and the beauties of
+the Yung-lo, the writings of Tang-ying, and the glories of the
+primitive period of the Sung and the Yuan. I was charged with all this
+information when I called upon Holmes next evening. He was out of bed
+now, though you would not have guessed it from the published reports,
+and he sat with his much-bandaged head resting upon his hand in the
+depth of his favourite armchair.
+
+"Why, Holmes," I said, "if one believed the papers, you are dying."
+
+"That," said he, "is the very impression which I intended to convey.
+And now, Watson, have you learned your lessons?"
+
+"At least I have tried to."
+
+"Good. You could keep up an intelligent conversation on the subject?"
+
+"I believe I could."
+
+"Then hand me that little box from the mantelpiece."
+
+He opened the lid and took out a small object most carefully wrapped in
+some fine Eastern silk. This he unfolded, and disclosed a delicate
+little saucer of the most beautiful deep-blue colour.
+
+"It needs careful handling, Watson. This is the real egg-shell pottery
+of the Ming dynasty. No finer piece ever passed through Christie's. A
+complete set of this would be worth a king's ransom--in fact, it is
+doubtful if there is a complete set outside the imperial palace of
+Peking. The sight of this would drive a real connoisseur wild."
+
+"What am I to do with it?"
+
+Holmes handed me a card upon which was printed: "Dr. Hill Barton, 369
+Half Moon Street."
+
+"That is your name for the evening, Watson. You will call upon Baron
+Gruner. I know something of his habits, and at half-past eight he would
+probably be disengaged. A note will tell him in advance that you are
+about to call, and you will say that you are bringing him a specimen of
+an absolutely unique set of Ming china. You may as well be a medical
+man, since that is a part which you can play without duplicity. You are
+a collector this set has come your way, you have heard of the Baron's
+interest in the subject, and you are not averse to selling at a price."
+
+"What price?"
+
+"Well asked, Watson. You would certainly fall down badly if you did not
+know the value of your own wares. This saucer was got for me by Sir
+James, and comes, I understand, from the collection of his client. You
+will not exaggerate if you say that it could hardly be matched in the
+world."
+
+"I could perhaps suggest that the set should be valued by an expert."
+
+"Excellent, Watson! You scintillate to-day. Suggest Christie or
+Sotheby. Your delicacy prevents your putting a price for yourself."
+
+"But if he won't see me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he will see you. He has the collection mania in its most
+acute form--and especially on this subject, on which he is an
+acknowledged authority. Sit down, Watson, and I will dictate the
+letter. No answer needed. You will merely say that you are coming, and
+why."
+
+It was an admirable document, short, courteous, and stimulating to the
+curiosity of the connoisseur. A district messenger was duly dispatched
+with it. On the same evening, with the precious saucer in my hand and
+the card of Dr. Hill Barton in my pocket, I set off on my own
+adventure.
+
+The beautiful house and grounds indicated that Baron Gruner was, as Sir
+James had said, a man of considerable wealth. A long winding drive,
+with banks of rare shrubs on either side, opened out into a great
+gravelled square adorned with statues. The place had been built by a
+South African gold king in the days of the great boom, and the long,
+low house with the turrets at the corners, though an architectural
+nightmare, was imposing in its size and solidity. A butler, who would
+have adorned a bench of bishops, showed me in and handed me over to a
+plush-clad footman, who ushered me into the Baron's presence.
+
+He was standing at the open front of a great case which stood between
+the windows and which contained part of his Chinese collection. He
+turned as I entered with a small brown vase in his hand.
+
+"Pray sit down, Doctor," said he. "I was looking over my own treasures
+and wondering whether I could really afford to add to them. This little
+Tang specimen, which dates from the seventh century, would probably
+interest you. I am sure you never saw finer workmanship or a richer
+glaze. Have you the Ming saucer with you of which you spoke?"
+
+I carefully unpacked it and handed it to him. He seated himself at his
+desk, pulled over the lamp, for it was growing dark, and set himself to
+examine it. As he did so the yellow light beat upon his own features,
+and I was able to study them at my ease.
+
+He was certainly a remarkably handsome man. His European reputation for
+beauty was fully deserved. In figure he was not more than of middle
+size, but was built upon graceful and active lines. His face was
+swarthy, almost Oriental, with large, dark, languorous eyes which might
+easily hold an irresistible fascination for women. His hair and
+moustache were raven black, the latter short, pointed, and carefully
+waxed. His features were regular and pleasing, save only his straight,
+thin-lipped mouth. If ever I saw a murderer's mouth it was there--a
+cruel, hard gash in the face, compressed, inexorable, and terrible. He
+was ill-advised to train his moustache away from it, for it was
+Nature's danger-signal, set as a warning to his victims. His voice was
+engaging and his manners perfect. In age I should have put him at
+little over thirty, though his record afterwards showed that he was
+forty-two.
+
+"Very fine--very fine indeed!" he said at last. "And you say you have
+a set of six to correspond. What puzzles me is that I should not have
+heard of such magnificent specimens. I only know of one in England to
+match this, and it is certainly not likely to be in the market. Would
+it be indiscreet if I were to ask you, Dr. Hill Barton, how you
+obtained this?"
+
+"Does it really matter?" I asked with as careless an air as I could
+muster.
+
+"You can see that the piece is genuine, and, as to the value, I am
+content to take an expert's valuation."
+
+"Very mysterious," said he with a quick, suspicious flash of his dark
+eyes. "In dealing with objects of such value, one naturally wishes to
+know all about the transaction. That the piece is genuine is certain. I
+have no doubts at all about that. But suppose--I am bound to take
+every possibility into account--that it should prove afterwards that
+you had no right to sell?"
+
+"I would guarantee you against any claim of the son."
+
+"That, of course, would open up the question as to what your guarantee
+was worth."
+
+"My bankers would answer that."
+
+"Quite so. And yet the whole transaction strikes me as rather unusual."
+
+"You can do business or not," said I with indifference. "I have given
+you the first offer as I understood that you were a connoisseur, but I
+shall have no difficulty in other quaerers."
+
+"Who told you I was a connoisseur?"
+
+"I was aware that you had written a book upon the subject."
+
+"Have you read the book?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dear me, this becomes more and more difficult for me to understand!
+You are a connoisseur and collector with a very valuable piece in your
+collection, and yet you have never troubled to consult the one book
+which would have told you of the real meaning and value of what you
+held. How do you explain that?"
+
+"I am a very busy man. I am a doctor in practice."
+
+"That is no answer. If a man has a hobby he follows it up, whatever his
+other pursuits may be. You said in your note that you were a
+connoisseur."
+
+"So I am."
+
+"Might I ask you a few questions to test you? I am obliged to tell you,
+Doctor--if you are indeed a doctor--that the incident becomes more
+and more suspicious. I would ask you what do you know of the Emperor
+Shomu and how do you associate him with the Shoso-in near Nara? Dear
+me, does that puzzle you? Tell me a little about the Nonhern Wei
+dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics."
+
+I sprang from my chair in simulated anger.
+
+"This is intolerable, sir," said I. "I came here to do you a favour,
+and not to be examined as if I were a schoolboy. My knowledge on these
+subjects may be second only to your own, but I certainly shall not
+answer questions which have been put in so offensive a way."
+
+He looked at me steadily. The languor had gone from his eyes. They
+suddenly glared. There was a gleam of teeth from between those cruel
+lips.
+
+"What is the game? You are here as a spy. You are an emissary of
+Holmes. This is a trick that you are playing upon me. The fellow is
+dying I hear, so he sends his tools to keep watch upon me. You've made
+your way in here without leave, and, by God! you may find it harder to
+get out than to get in."
+
+He had sprung to his feet, and I stepped back, bracing myself for an
+attack, for the man was beside himself with rage. He may have suspected
+me from the first; certainly this cross-examination had shown him the
+truth; but it was clear that I could not hope to deceive him. He dived
+his hand into a side-drawer and rummaged furiously. Then something
+struck upon his ear, for he stood listening intently.
+
+"Ah!" he cried. "Ah!" and dashed into the room behind him.
+
+Two steps took me to the open door, and my mind will ever carry a clear
+picture of the scene within. The window leading out to the garden was
+wide open. Beside it, looking like some terrible ghost, his head gin
+with bloody bandages, his face drawn and white, stood Sherlock Holmes.
+The next instant he was through the gap, and I heard the crash of his
+body among the laurel bushes outside. With a howl of rage the master of
+the house rushed after him to the open window.
+
+And then! It was done in an instant, and yet I clearly saw it. An arm
+--a woman's arm--shot out from among the leaves. At the same instant
+the Baron uttered a horrible cry--a yell which will always ring in my
+memory. He clapped his two hands to his face and rushed round the room,
+beating his head horribly against the walls. Then he fell upon the
+carpet, rolling and writhing, while scream after scream resounded
+through the house.
+
+"Water! For God's sake, water!" was his cry.
+
+I seized a carafe from a side-table and rushed to his aid. At the same
+moment the butler and several footmen ran in from the hall. I remember
+that one of them fainted as I knelt by the injured man and turned that
+awful face to the light of the lamp. The vitriol was eating into it
+everywhere and dripping from the ears and the chin. One eye was already
+white and glazed. The other was red and inflamed. The features which I
+had admired a few minutes before were now like some beautiful painting
+over which the artist has passed a wet and foul sponge. They were
+blurred, discoloured, inhuman, terrible.
+
+In a few words I explained exactly what had occurred, so far as the
+vitriol attack was concerned. Some had climbed through the window and
+others had rushed out on to the lawn, but it was dark and it had begun
+to rain. Between his screams the victim raged and raved against the
+avenger. "It was that hell-cat, Kitty Winter!" he cried. "Oh, the
+she-devil! She shall pay for it! She shall pay! Oh, God in heaven, this
+pain is more than I can bear!"
+
+I bathed his face in oil, put cotton wadding on the raw surfaces, and
+administered a hypodermic of morphia. All suspicion of me had passed
+from his mind in the presence of this shock, and he clung to my hands
+as if I might have the power even yet to clear those dead-fish eyes
+which glazed up at me. I could have wept over the ruin had l not
+remembered very clearly the vile life which had led up to so hideous a
+change. It was loathsome to feel the pawing of his burning hands, and I
+was relieved when his family surgeon, closely followed by a specialist,
+came to relieve me of my charge. An inspector of police had also
+arrived, and to him I handed my real card. It would have been useless
+as well as foolish to do otherwise, for I was nearly as well known by
+sight at the Yard as Holmes himself. Then I left that house of gloom
+and terror. Within an hour I was at Baker Street.
+
+Holmes was seated in his familiar chair, looking very pale and
+exhausted. Apart from his injuries, even his iron nerves had been
+shocked by the events of the evening, and he listened with horror to my
+account of the Baron's transformation.
+
+"The wages of sin, Watson--the wages of sin!" said he. "Sooner or
+later it will always come. God knows, there was sin enough," he added,
+taking up a brown volume from the table. "Here is the book the woman
+talked of. If this will not break off the marriage, nothing ever could.
+But it will, Watson. It must. No self-respecting woman could stand it."
+
+"It is his love diary?"
+
+"Or his lust diary. Call it what you will. The moment the woman told us
+of it I realized what a tremendous weapon was there if we could but lay
+our hands on it. I said nothing at the time to indicate my thoughts,
+for this woman might have given it away. But I brooded over it. Then
+this assault upon me gave me the chance of letting the Baron think that
+no precautions need be taken against me. That was all to the good. I
+would have waited a little longer, but his visit to America forced my
+hand. He would never have left so compromising a document behind him.
+Therefore we had to act at once. Burglary at night is impossible. He
+takes precautions. But there was a chance in the evening if I could
+only be sure that his attention was engaged. That was where you and
+your blue saucer came in. But I had to be sure of the position of the
+book, and I knew I had only a few minutes in which to act, for my time
+was limited by your knowledge of Chinese pottery. Therefore I gathered
+the girl up at the last moment. How could I guess what the little
+packet was that she carried so carefully under her cloak? I thought she
+had come altogether on my business, but it seems she had some of her
+own."
+
+"He guessed I came from you."
+
+"I feared he would. But you held him in play just long enough for me to
+get the book, though not long enough for an unobserved escape. Ah, Sir
+James, I am very glad you have come!"
+
+Our courtly friend had appeared in answer to a previous summons. He
+listened with the deepest attention to Holmes's account of what had
+occurred.
+
+"You have done wonders--wonders!" he cried when he had heard the
+narrative. "But if these injuries are as terrible as Dr. Watson
+describes, then surely our purpose of thwarting the marriage is
+sufficiently gained without the use of this horrible book."
+
+Holmes shook his head.
+
+"Women of the De Merville type do not act like that. She would love him
+the more as a disfigured martyr. No, no. It is his moral side, not his
+physical, which we have to destroy. That book will bring her back to
+earth--and I know nothing else that could. It is in his own writing.
+She cannot get past it."
+
+Sir James carried away both it and the precious saucer. As I was myself
+overdue, I went down with him into the street. A brougham was waiting
+for him. He sprang in, gave a hurried order to the cockaded coachman,
+and drove swiftly away. He flung his overcoat half out of the window to
+cover the armorial bearings upon the panel, but I had seen them in the
+glare of our fanlight none the less. I gasped with surprise. Then I
+turned back and ascended the stair to Holmes's room.
+
+"I have found out who our client is," I cried, bursting with my great
+news. "Why, Holmes, it is--"
+
+"It is a loyal friend and a chivalrous gentleman," said Holmes, holding
+up a restraining hand. "Let that now and forever be enough for us."
+
+I do not know how the incriminating book was used. Sir James may have
+managed it. Or it is more probable that so delicate a task was
+entrusted to the young lady's father. The effect, at any rate, was all
+that could be desired.
+
+Three days later appeared a paragraph in the Morning Post to say that
+the marriage between Baron Adelbert Gruner and Miss Violet de Merville
+would not take place. The same paper had the first police-court hearing
+of the proceedings against Miss Kitty Winter on the grave charge of
+vitriol-throwing. Such extenuating circumstances came out in the trial
+that the sentence, as will be remembered was the lowest that was
+possible for such an offence. Sherlock Holmes was threatened with a
+prosecution for burglary, but when an object is good and a client is
+sufficiently illustrious, even the rigid British law becomes human and
+elastic. My friend has not yet stood in the dock.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLANCHED SOLDIER
+
+
+
+The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly
+pertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write an experience
+of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited this persecution, since I have
+often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own
+accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of
+confining himself rigidly to facts and figures. "Try it yourself,
+Holmes!" he has retorted, and I am compelled to admit that, having
+taken my pen in my hand, I do begin to realize that the matter must be
+presented in such a way as may interest the reader. The following case
+can hardly fail to do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my
+collection though it chanced that Watson had no note of it in his
+collection. Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this
+opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my
+various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice,
+but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to
+which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated
+estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your
+conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom
+each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future
+is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.
+
+I find from my notebook that it was in January, 1903, just after the
+conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr. James M. Dodd,
+a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. The good Watson had at that
+time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall
+in our association. I was alone.
+
+It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my
+visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them.
+Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin the interview.
+I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave me more time for
+observation. I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of
+power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.
+
+"From South Africa, sir, I perceive."
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered, with some surprise.
+
+"Imperial Yeomanry, I fancy."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Middlesex Corps, no doubt."
+
+"That is so. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard."
+
+I smiled at his bewildered expression.
+
+"When a gentleman of virile appearance enters my room with such tan
+upon his face as an English sun could never give, and with his
+handkerchief in his sleeve instead of in his pocket, it is not
+difficult to place him. You wear a short beard, which shows that you
+were not a regular. You have the cut of a riding-man. As to Middlesex,
+your card has already shown me that you are a stockbroker from
+Throgmorton Street. What other regiment would you join?"
+
+"You see everything."
+
+"I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I
+see. However, Mr. Dodd, it was not to discuss the science of
+observation that you called upon me this morning. What has been
+happening at Tuxbury Old Park?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes--!"
+
+"My dear sir, there is no mystery. Your letter came with that heading,
+and as you fixed this appointment in very pressing terms it was clear
+that something sudden and important had occurred."
+
+"Yes, indeed. But the letter was written in the afternoon, and a good
+deal has happened since then. If Colonel Emsworth had not kicked me out
+--"
+
+"Kicked you out!"
+
+"Well, that was what it amounted to. He is a hard nail, is Colonel
+Emsworth. The greatest martinet in the Army in his day, and it was a
+day of rough language, too. I couldn't have stuck the colonel if it had
+not been for Godfrey's sake."
+
+I lit my pipe and leaned back in my chair.
+
+"Perhaps you will explain what you are talking about."
+
+My client grinned mischievously.
+
+"I had got into the way of supposing that you knew everything without
+being told," said he. "But I will give you the facts, and I hope to God
+that you will be able to tell me what they mean. I've been awake all
+night puzzling my brain, and the more I think the more incredible does
+it become.
+
+"When I joined up in January, 1901--just two years ago--young
+Godfrey Emsworth had joined the same squadron. He was Colonel
+Emsworth's only son--Emsworth the Crimean V. C.--and he had the
+fighting blood in him, so it is no wonder he volunteered. There was not
+a finer lad in the regiment. We formed a friendship--the sort of
+friendship which can only be made when one lives the same life and
+shares the same joys and sorrows. He was my mate--and that means a
+good deal in the Army. We took the rough and the smooth together for a
+year of hard fighting. Then he was hit with a bullet from an elephant
+gun in the action near Diamond Hill outside-Pretoria. I got one letter
+from the hospital at Cape Town and one from Southampton. Since then not
+a word--not one word, Mr. Holmes, for six months and more, and he my
+closest pal.
+
+"Well, when the war was over, and we all got back, I wrote to his
+father and asked where Godfrey was. No answer. I waited a bit and then
+I wrote again. This time I had a reply, short and gruff. Godfrey had
+gone on a voyage round the world, and it was not likely that he would
+be back for a year. That was all.
+
+"I wasn't satisfied, Mr. Holmes. The whole thing seemed to me so damned
+unnatural. He was a good lad, and he would not drop a pal like that. It
+was not like him. Then, again, I happened to know that he was heir to a
+lot of money, and also that his father and he did not always hit it off
+too well. The old man was sometimes a bully, and young Godfrey had too
+much spirit to stand it. No, I wasn't satisfied, and I determined that
+I would get to the root of the matter. It happened, however, that my
+own affairs needed a lot of straightening out, after two years'
+absence, and so it is only this week that I have been able to take up
+Godfrey's case again. But since I have taken it up I mean to drop
+everything in order to see it through."
+
+Mr. James M. Dodd appeared to be the sort of person whom it would be
+better to have as a friend than as an enemy. His blue eyes were stern
+and his square jaw had set hard as he spoke.
+
+"Well, what have you done?" I asked.
+
+"My first move was to get down to his home, Tuxbury Old Park, near
+Bedford, and to see for myself how the ground lay. I wrote to the
+mother, therefore--I had had quite enough of the curmudgeon of a
+father--and I made a clean frontal attack: Godfrey was my chum, I had
+a great deal of interest which I might tell her of our common
+experiences, I should be in the neighbourhood, would there be any
+objection, et cetera? In reply I had quite an amiable answer from her
+and an offer to put me up for the night. That was what took me down on
+Monday.
+
+"Tuxbury Old Hall is inaccessible--five miles from anywhere. There
+was no trap at the station, so I had to walk, carrying my suitcase, and
+it was nearly dark before I arrived. It is a great wandering house,
+standing in a considerable park. I should judge it was of all sorts of
+ages and styles, starting on a half-timbered Elizabethan foundation and
+ending in a Victorian portico. Inside it was all panelling and tapestry
+and half-effaced old pictures, a house of shadows and mystery. There
+was a butler, old Ralph, who seemed about the same age as the house,
+and there was his wife, who might have been older. She had been
+Godfrey's nurse, and I had heard him speak of her as second only to his
+mother in his affections, so I was drawn to her in spite of her queer
+appearance. The mother I liked also--a gentle little white mouse of a
+woman. It was only the colonel himself whom I barred.
+
+"We had a bit of barney right away, and I should have walked back to
+the station if I had not felt that it might be playing his game for me
+to do so. I was shown straight into his study, and there I found him, a
+huge, bow-backed man with a smoky skin and a straggling gray beard,
+seated behind his littered desk. A red-veined nose jutted out like a
+vulture's beak, and two fierce gray eyes glared at me from under tufted
+brows. I could understand now why Godfrey seldom spoke of his father.
+
+"'Well, sir,' said he in a rasping voice, 'I should be interested to
+know the real reasons for this visit.'
+
+"I answered that I had explained them in my letter to his wife.
+
+"'Yes, yes, you said that you had known Godfrey in Africa. We have, of
+course, only your word for that.'
+
+"'I have his letters to me in my pocket.'
+
+"'Kindly let me see them.'
+
+"He glanced at the two which I handed him, and then he tossed them
+back.
+
+"'Well, what then?' he asked.
+
+"'I was fond of your son Godfrey, sir. Many ties and memories united
+us. Is it not natural that I should wonder at his sudden silence and
+should wish to know what has become of him?'
+
+"'I have some recollections, sir, that I had already corresponded with
+you and had told you what had become of him. He has gone upon a voyage
+round the world. His health was in a poor way after his African
+experiences, and both his mother and I were of opinion that camplete
+rest and change were needed. Kindly pass that explanation on to any
+other friends who may be interested in the matter.'
+
+"'Certainly,' I answered. 'But perhaps you would have the goodness to
+let me have the name of the steamer and of the line by which he sailed,
+together with the date. I have no doubt that I should be able to get a
+letter through to him.'
+
+"My request seemed both to puzzle and to irritate my host. His great
+eyebrows came down over his eyes, and he tapped his fingers impatiently
+on the table. He looked up at last with the expression of one who has
+seen his adversary make a dangerous move at chess, and has decided how
+to meet it.
+
+"'Many people, Mr. Dodd,' said he, 'would take offence at your
+infernal pertinacity and would think that this insistence had reached
+the point of damned impertinence.'
+
+"'You must put it down, sir, to my real love for your son.'
+
+"'Exactly. I have already made every allowance upon that score. I must
+ask you, however, to drop these inquiries. Every family has its own
+inner knowledge and its own motives, which cannot always be made clear
+to outsiders, however well-intentioned. My wife is anxious to hear
+something of Godfrey's past which you are in a position to tell her,
+but I would ask you to let the present and the future alone. Such
+inquiries serve no useful purpose, sir, and place us in a delicate and
+difficult position.'
+
+"So I came to a dead end, Mr. Holmes. There was no getting past it. I
+could only pretend to accept the situation and register a vow inwardly
+that I would never rest until my friend's fate had been cleared up. It
+was a dull evening. We dined quietly, the three of us, in a gloomy,
+faded old room. The lady questioned me eagerly about her son, but the
+old man seemed morose and depressed. I was so bored by the whole
+proceeding that I made an excuse as soon as I decently could and
+retired to my bedroom. It was a large, bare room on the ground floor,
+as gloomy as the rest of the house, but after a year of sleeping upon
+the veldt, Mr. Holmes, one is not too particular about one's quarters.
+I opened the curtains and looked out into the garden, remarking that it
+was a fine night with a bright half-moon. Then I sat down by the
+roaring fire with the lamp on a table beside me, and endeavoured to
+distract my mind with a novel. I was interrupted, however, by Ralph,
+the old butler, who came in with a fresh supply of coals.
+
+"'I thought you might run short in the night-time, sir. It is bitter
+weather and these rooms are cold.'
+
+"He hesitated before leaving the room, and when I looked round he was
+standing facing me with a wistful look upon his wrinkled face.
+
+"'Beg your pardon, sir, but I could not help hearing what you said of
+young Master Godfrey at dinner. You know, sir, that my wife nursed him,
+and so I may say I am his foster-father. It's natural we should take an
+interest. And you say he carried himself well, sir?'
+
+"'There was no braver man in the regiment. He pulled me out once from
+under the rifles of the Boers, or maybe I should not be here.'
+
+"The old butler rubbed his skinny hands.
+
+"'Yes, sir, yes, that is Master Godfrey all over. He was always
+courageous. There's not a tree in the park, sir, that he has not
+climbed. Nothing would stop him. He was a fine boy--and oh, sir, he
+was a fine man.'
+
+"I sprang to my feet.
+
+"'Look here!' I cried. 'You say he was. You speak as if he were dead.
+What is all this mystery? What has become of Godfrey Emsworth?'
+
+"I gripped the old man by the shoulder, but he shrank away.
+
+"'I don't know what you mean, sir. Ask the master about Master
+Godfrey. He knows. It is not for me to interfere.'
+
+"He was leaving the room, but I held his arm
+
+"'Listen,' I said. 'You are going to answer one question before you
+leave if I have to hold you all night. Is Godfrey dead?"
+
+"He could not face my eyes. He was like a man hypnotized The answer was
+dragged from his lips. It was a terrible and unexpected one.
+
+"'I wish to God he was!' he cried, and, tearing himself free he dashed
+from the room.
+
+"You will think, Mr. Holmes, that I returned to my chair in no very
+happy state of mind. The old man's words seemed to me to bear only one
+interpretation. Clearly my poor friend had become involved in some
+criminal or, at the least, disreputable transaction which touched the
+family honour. That stern old man had sent his son away and hidden him
+from the world lest some scandal should come to light. Godfrey was a
+reckless fellow. He was easily influenced by those around him. No doubt
+he had fallen into bad hands and been misled to his ruin. It was a
+piteous business, if it was indeed so, but even now it was my duty to
+hunt him out and see if I could aid him. I was anxiously pondering the
+matter when I looked up, and there was Godfrey Emsworth standing before
+me."
+
+My client had paused as one in deep emotion.
+
+"Pray continue," I said. "Your problem presents some very unusual
+features."
+
+"He was outside the window, Mr. Holmes, with his face pressed against
+the glass. I have told you that I looked out at the night. When I did
+so I left the curtains partly open. His figure was framed in this gap.
+The window came down to the ground and I could see the whole length of
+it, but it was his face which held my gaze. He was deadly pale--never
+have I seen a man so white. I reckon ghosts may look like that; but his
+eyes met mine, and they were the eyes of a living man. He sprang back
+when he saw that I was looking at him, and he vanished into the
+darkness.
+
+"There was something shocking about the man, Mr. Holmes. It wasn't
+merely that ghastly face glimmering as white as cheese in the darkness.
+It was more subtle than that--something slinking, something furtive,
+something guilty--something very unlike the frank, manly lad that I
+had known. It left a feeling of horror in my mind.
+
+"But when a man has been soldiering for a year or two with brother Boer
+as a playmate, he keeps his nerve and acts quickly. Godfrey had hardly
+vanished before I was at the window. There was an awkward catch, and I
+was some little time before I could throw it up. Then I nipped through
+and ran down the garden path in the direction that I thought he might
+have taken.
+
+"It was a long path and the light was not very good, but it seemed to
+me something was moving ahead of me. I ran on and called his name, but
+it was no use. When I got to the end of the path there were several
+others branching in different directions to various outhouses. I stood
+hesitating, and as I did so I heard distinctly the sound of a closing
+door. It was not behind me in the house, but ahead of me, somewhere in
+the darkness. That was enough, Mr. Holmes, to assure me that what I had
+seen was not a vision. Godfrey had run away from me, and he had shut a
+door behind him. Of that I was certain.
+
+"There was nothing more I could do, and I spent an uneasy night turning
+the matter over in my mind and trying to find some theory which would
+cover the facts. Next day I found the colonel rather more conciliatory,
+and as his wife remarked that there were some places of interest in the
+neighbourhood, it gave me an opening to ask whether my presence for one
+more night would incommode them. A somewhat grudging acquiescence from
+the old man gave me a clear day in which to make my observations. I was
+already perfectly convinced that Godfrey was in hiding somewhere near,
+but where and why remained to be solved.
+
+"The house was so large and so rambling that a regiment might be hid
+away in it and no one the wiser. If the secret lay there it was
+difficult for me to penetrate it. But the door which I had heard close
+was certainly not in the house. I must explore the garden and see what
+I could find. There was no difficulty in the way, for the old people
+were busy in their own fashion and left me to my own devices.
+
+"There were several small outhouses, but at the end of the garden there
+was a detached building of some size--large enough for a gardener's
+or a gamekeeper's residence. Could this be the place whence the sound
+of that shutting door had come? I approached it in a careless fashion
+as though I were strolling aimlessly round the grounds. As I did so, a
+small, brisk, bearded man in a black coat and bowler hat--not at all
+the gardener type--came out of the door. To my surprise, he locked it
+after him and put the key in his pocket. Then he looked at me with some
+surprise on his face.
+
+"'Are you a visitor here?' he asked.
+
+"I explained that I was and that I was a friend of Godfrey's.
+
+"'What a pity that he should be away on his travels, for he would have
+so liked to see me,' I continued.
+
+"'Quite so. Exactly,' said he with a rather guilty air. 'No doubt you
+will renew your visit at some more propitious time.' He passed on, but
+when I turned I observed that he was standing watching me,
+half-concealed by the laurels at the far end of the garden.
+
+"I had a good look at the little house as I passed it, but the windows
+were heavily curtained, and, so far as one could see, it was empty. I
+might spoil my own game and even be ordered off the premises if I were
+too audacious, for I was still conscious that I was being watched.
+Therefore, I strolled back to the house and waited for night before I
+went on with my inquiry. When all was dark and quiet I slipped out of
+my window and made my way as silently as possible to the mysterious
+lodge.
+
+"I have said that it was heavily curtained, but now I found that the
+windows were shuttered as well. Some light, however, was breaking
+through one of them, so I concentrated my attention upon this. I was in
+luck, for the curtain had not been quite closed, and there was a crack
+in the shutter, so that I could see the inside of the room. It was a
+cheery place enough, a bright lamp and a blazing fire. Opposite to me
+was seated the little man whom I had seen in the morning. He was
+smoking a pipe and reading a paper."
+
+"What paper?" I asked.
+
+My client seemed annoyed at the interruption of his narrative.
+
+"Can it matter?" he asked.
+
+"It is most essential."
+
+"I really took no notice."
+
+"Possibly you observed whether it was a broad-leafed paper or of that
+smaller type which one associates with weeklies."
+
+"Now that you mention it, it was not large. It might have been the
+Spectator. However, I had little thought to spare upon such details,
+for a second man was seated with his back to the window, and I could
+swear that this second man was Godfrey. I could not see his face, but I
+knew the familiar slope of his shoulders. He was leaning upon his elbow
+in an attitude of great melancholy, his body turned towards the fire. I
+was hesitating as to what I should do when there was a sharp tap on my
+shoulder, and there was Colonel Emsworth beside me.
+
+"'This way, sir!' said he in a low voice. He walked in silence to the
+house, and I followed him into my own bedroom. He had picked up a
+time-table in the hall.
+
+" There is a train to London at 8:30,' said he. 'The trap will be at
+the door at eight.'
+
+"He was white with rage, and, indeed, I felt myself in so difficult a
+position that I could only stammer out a few incoherent apologies in
+which I tried to excuse myself by urging my anxiety for my friend.
+
+"'The matter will not bear discussion,' said he abruptly. 'You have
+made a most damnable intrusion into the privacy of our family. You were
+here as a guest and you have become a spy. I have nothing more to say,
+sir, save that I have no wish ever to see you again.'
+
+"At this I lost my temper, Mr. Holmes, and I spoke with some warmth.
+
+"'I have seen your son, and I am convinced that for some reason of
+your own you are concealing him from the world. I have no idea what
+your motives are in cutting him off in this fashion, but I am sure that
+he is no longer a free agent. I warn you, Colonel Emsworth, that until
+I am assured as to the safety and well-being of my friend I shall never
+desist in my efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery, and I shall
+certainly not allow myself to be intimidated by anything which you may
+say or do.'
+
+"The old fellow looked diabolical, and I really thought he was about to
+attack me. I have said that he was a gaunt, fierce old giant, and
+though I am no weakling I might have been hard put to it to hold my own
+against him. However, after a long glare of rage he turned upon his
+heel and walked out of the room. For my part, I took the appointed
+train in the morning, with the full intention of coming straight to you
+and asking for your advice and assistance at the appointment for which
+I had already written."
+
+Such was the problem which my visitor laid before me. It presented, as
+the astute reader will have already perceived, few difficulties in its
+solution, for a very limited choice of alternatives must get to the
+root of the matter. Still, elementary as it was, there were points of
+interest and novelty about it which may excuse my placing it upon
+record. I now proceeded, using my familiar method of logical analysis,
+to narrow down the possible solutions.
+
+"The servants," I asked; "how many were in the house?"
+
+"To the best of my belief there were only the old butler and his wife.
+They seemed to live in the simplest fashion."
+
+"There was no servant, then, in the detached house?"
+
+"None, unless the little man with the beard acted as such. He seemed,
+however, to be quite a superior person."
+
+"That seems very suggestive. Had you any indication that food was
+conveyed from the one house to the other?"
+
+"Now that you mention it, I did see old Ralph carrying a basket down
+the garden walk and going in the direction of this house. The idea of
+food did not occur to me at the moment."
+
+"Did you make any local inquiries?"
+
+"Yes, I did. I spoke to the station-master and also to the innkeeper in
+the village. I simply asked if they knew anything of my old comrade,
+Godfrey Emsworth. Both of them assured me that he had gone for a voyage
+round the world. He had come home and then had almost at once started
+off again. The story was evidently universally accepted."
+
+"You said nothing of your suspicions?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That was very wise. The matter should certainly be inquired into. I
+will go back with you to Tuxbury Old Park."
+
+"To-day?"
+
+It happened that at the moment I was clearing up the case which my
+friend Watson has described as that of the Abbey School, in which the
+Duke of Greyminster was so deeply involved. I had also a commission
+from the Sultan of Turkey which called for immediate action, as
+political consequences of the gravest kind might arise from its
+neglect. Therefore it was not until the beginning of the next week, as
+my diary records, that I was able to start forth on my mission to
+Bedfordshire in company with Mr. James M. Dodd. As we drove to Eustonn
+we picked up a grave and tacitum gentleman of iron-gray aspect, with
+whom I had made the necessary arrangements.
+
+"This is an old friend," said I to Dodd. "It is possible that his
+presence may be entirely unnecessary, and, on the other hand, it may be
+essential. It is not necessary at the present stage to go further into
+the matter."
+
+The narratives of Watson have accustomed the reader, no doubt, to the
+fact that I do not waste words or disclose my thoughts while a case is
+actually under consideration. Dodd seemed surprised, but nothing more
+was said, and the three of us continued our journey together. In the
+train I asked Dodd one more question which I wished our companion to
+hear.
+
+"You say that you saw your friend's face quite clearly at the window,
+so clearly that you are sure of his identity?"
+
+"I have no doubt about it whatever. His nose was pressed against the
+glass. The lamplight shone full upon him."
+
+"It could not have been someone resembling him?"
+
+"No, no, it was he."
+
+"But you say he was changed?"
+
+"Only in colour. His face was--how shall I describe it?--it was of
+a fish-belly whiteness. It was bleached."
+
+"Was it equally pale all over?"
+
+"I think not. It was his brow which I saw so clearly as it was pressed
+against the window."
+
+"Did you call to him?"
+
+"I was too startled and horrified for the moment. Then I pursued him,
+as I have told you, but without result."
+
+My case was practically complete, and there was only one small incident
+needed to round it off. When, after a considerable drive, we arrived at
+the strange old rambling house which my client had described, it was
+Ralph, the elderly butler, who opened the door. I had requisitioned the
+carriage for the day and had asked my elderly friend to remain within
+it unless we should summon him. Ralph, a little wrinkled old fellow,
+was in the conventional costume of black coat and pepper-and-salt
+trousers, with only one curious variant. He wore brown leather gloves,
+which at sight of us he instantly shuffled off, laying them down on the
+hall-table as we passed in. I have, as my friend Watson may have
+remarked, an abnormally acute set of senses, and a faint but incisive
+scent was apparent. It seemed to centre on the hall table. I turned,
+placed my hat there, knocked it off, stooped to pick it up, and
+contrived to bring my nose within a foot of the gloves. Yes, it was
+undoubtedly from them that the curious tarry odour was oozing. I passed
+on into the study with my case complete. Alas, that I should have to
+show my hand so when I tell my own story! It was by concealing such
+links in the chain that Watson was enabled to produce his meretricious
+finales.
+
+Colonel Emsworth was not in his room, but he came quickly enough on
+receipt of Ralph's message. We heard his quick, heavy step in the
+passage. The door was flung open and he rushed in with bristling beard
+and twisted features, as terrible an old man as ever I have seen. He
+held our cards in his hand, and he tore them up and stamped on the
+fragments.
+
+"Have I not told you, you infernal busybody, that you are warned off
+the premises? Never dare to show your damned face here again. If you
+enter again without my leave I shall be within my rights if I use
+violence. I'll shoot you, sir! By God, I will! As to you, sir," turning
+upon me, "I extend the same warning to you. I am familiar with your
+ignoble profession, but you must take your reputed talents to some
+other field. There is no opening for them here."
+
+"I cannot leave here," said my client firmly, "until I hear from
+Godfrey's own lips that he is under no restraint."
+
+Our involuntary host rang the bell.
+
+"Ralph," he said, "telephone down to the county police and ask the
+inspector to send up two constables. Tell him there are burglars in the
+house."
+
+"One moment," said I. "You must be aware, Mr. Dodd, that Colonel
+Emsworth is within his rights and that we have no legal status within
+his house. On the other hand, he should recognize that your action is
+prompted entirely by solicitude for his son. I venture to hope that if
+I were allowed to have five minutes conversation with Colonel Emsworth
+I could certainly alter his view of the matter."
+
+"I am not so easily altered," said the old soldier. "Ralph, do what I
+have told you. What the devil are you waiting for? Ring up the police!"
+
+"Nothing of the sort," I said, putting my back to the door. "Any police
+interference would bring about the very catastrophe which you dread." I
+took out my notebook and scribbled one word upon a loose sheet. "That,"
+said I as I handed it to Colonel Emsworth, "is what has brought us
+here."
+
+He stared at the writing with a face from which every expression save
+amazement had vanished.
+
+"How do you know?" he gasped, sitting down heavily in his chair.
+
+"It is my business to know things. That is my trade."
+
+He sat in deep thought, his gaunt hand tugging at his straggling beard.
+Then he made a gesture of resignation.
+
+"Well, if you wish to see Godfrey, you shall. It is no doing of mine,
+but you have forced my hand. Ralph, tell Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Kent that
+in five minutes we shall be with them."
+
+At the end of that time we passed down the garden path and found
+ourselves in front of the mystery house at the end. A small bearded man
+stood at the door with a look of considerable astonishment upon his
+face.
+
+"This is very sudden, Colonel Emsworth," said he. "This will disarrange
+all our plans."
+
+"I can't help it, Mr. Kent. Our hands have been forced. Can Mr. Godfrey
+see us?"
+
+"Yes, he is waiting inside." He turned and led us into a large plainly
+furnished front room. A man was standing with his back to the fire, and
+at the sight of him my client sprang forward with outstretched hand.
+
+"Why, Godfrey, old man, this is fine!"
+
+But the other waved him back.
+
+"Don't touch me, Jimmie. Keep your distance. Yes, you may well stare! I
+don't quite look the smart Lance-Corporal Emsworth, of B Squadron, do
+I?"
+
+His appearance was certainly extraordinary. One could see that he had
+indeed been a handsome man with clear-cut features sunburned by an
+African sun, but mottled in patches over this darker surface were
+curious whitish patches which had bleached his skin.
+
+"That's why I don't court visitors," said he. "I don't mind you,
+Jimmie, but I could have done without your friend. I suppose there is
+some good reason for it, but you have me at a disadvantage."
+
+"I wanted to be sure that all was well with you, Godfrey. I saw you
+that night when you looked into my window, and I could not let the
+matter rest till I had cleared things up."
+
+"Old Ralph told me you were there, and I couldn't help taking a peep at
+you. I hoped you would not have seen me, and I had to run to my burrow
+when I heard the window go up."
+
+"But what in heaven's name is the matter?"
+
+"Well, it's not a long story to tell," said he, lighting a cigarette.
+"You remember that morning fight at Buffelsspruit, outside Pretoria, on
+the Eastern railway line? You heard I was hit?"
+
+"Yes, I heard that but I never got particulars."
+
+"Three of us got separated from the others. It was very broken country,
+you may remember. There was Simpson--the fellow we called Baldy
+Simpson--and Anderson, and I. We were clearing brother Boer, but he
+lay low and got the three of us. The other two were killed. I got an
+elephant bullet through my shoulder. I stuck on to my horse, however,
+and he galloped several miles before I fainted and rolled off the
+saddle.
+
+"When I came to myself it was nightfall, and I raised myself up,
+feeling very weak and ill. To my surprise there was a house close
+beside me, a fairly large house with a broad stoep and many windows. It
+was deadly cold. You remember the kind of numb cold which used to come
+at evening, a deadly, sickening sort of cold, very different from a
+crisp healthy frost. Well, I was chilled to the bone, and my only hope
+seemed to lie in reaching that house. I staggered to my feet and
+dragged myself along, hardly conscious of what I did. I have a dim
+memory of slowly ascending the steps, entering a wide-opened door,
+passing into a large room which contained several beds, and throwing
+myself down with a gasp of satisfaction upon one of them. It was
+unmade, but that troubled me not at all. I drew the clothes over my
+shivering body and in a moment I was in a deep sleep.
+
+"It was morning when I wakened, and it seemed to me that instead of
+coming out into a world of sanity I had emerged into some extraordinary
+nightmare. The African sun flooded through the big, curtainless
+windows, and every detail of the great, bare, whitewashed dormitory
+stood out hard and clear. In front of me was standing a small,
+dwarf-like man with a huge, bulbous head, who was jabbering excitedly
+in Dutch, waving two horrible hands which looked to me like brown
+sponges. Behind him stood a group of people who seemed to be intensely
+amused by the situation, but a chill came over me as I looked at them.
+Not one of them was a normal human being. Every one was twisted or
+swollen or disfigured in some strange way. The laughter of these
+strange monstrosities was a dreadful thing to hear.
+
+"It seemed that none of them could speak English, but the situation
+wanted clearing up, for the creature with the big head was growing
+furiously angry, and, uttering wild-beast cries, he had laid his
+deformed hands upon me and was dragging me out of bed, regardless of
+the fresh flow of blood from my wound. The little monster was as strong
+as a bull, and I don't know what he might have done to me had not an
+elderly man who was clearly in authority been attracted to the room by
+the hubbub; He said a few stern words in Dutch, and my persecutor
+shrank away. Then he turned upon me, gazing at me in the utmost
+amazement.
+
+"'How in the world did you come here?' he asked in amazement. 'Wait a
+bit! I see that you are tired out and that wounded shoulder of yours
+wants looking after. I am a doctor, and I'll soon have you tied up.
+But, man alive! you are in far greater danger here than ever you were
+on the battlefield. You are in the Leper Hospital, and you have slept
+in a leper's bed.'
+
+"Need I tell you more, Jimmie? It seems that in view of the approaching
+battle all these poor creatures had been evacuated the day before.
+Then, as the British advanced, they had been brought back by this,
+their medical superintendent, who assured me that, though he believed
+he was immune to the disease, he would none the less never have dared
+to do what I had done. He put me in a private room, treated me kindly,
+and within a week or so I was removed to the general hospital at
+Pretoria.
+
+"So there you have my tragedy. I hoped against hope, but it was not
+until I had reached home that the terrible signs which you see upon my
+face told me that I had not escaped. What was I to do? I was in this
+lonely house. We had two servants whom we could utterly trust. There
+was a house where I could live. Under pledge of secrecy, Mr. Kent, who
+is a surgeon, was prepared to stay with me. It seemed simple enough on
+those lines. The alternative was a dreadful one--segregation for life
+among strangers with never a hope of release. But absolute secrecy was
+necessary, or even in this quiet countryside there would have been an
+outcry, and I should have been dragged to my horrible doom. Even you,
+Jimmie--even you had to be kept in the dark. Why my father has
+relented I cannot imagine."
+
+Colonel Emsworth pointed to me.
+
+"This is the gentleman who forced my hand." He unfolded the scrap of
+paper on which I had written the word "Leprosy." "It seemed to me that
+if he knew so much as that it was safer that he should know all."
+
+"And so it was," said I. "Who knows but good may come of it? I
+understand that only Mr. Kent has seen the patient. May I ask, sir, if
+you are an authority on such complaints, which are, I understand,
+tropical or semi-tropical in their nature?"
+
+"I have the ordinary knowledge of the educated medical man," he
+observed with some stiffness.
+
+"I have no doubt, sir, that you are fully competent, but I am sure that
+you will agree that in such a case a second opinion is valuable. You
+have avoided this, I understand, for fear that pressure should be put
+upon you to segregate the patient."
+
+"That is so," said Colonel Emsworth.
+
+"I foresaw this situation," I explained, "and I have brought with me a
+friend whose discretion may absolutely be trusted. I was able once to
+do him a professional service, and he is ready to advise as a friend
+rather than as a specialist. His name is Sir James Saunders."
+
+The prospect of an interview with Lord Roberts would not have excited
+greater wonder and pleasure in a raw subaltern than was now reflected
+upon the face of Mr. Kent.
+
+"I shall indeed be proud," he murmured.
+
+"Then I will ask Sir James to step this way. He is at present in the
+carriage outside the door. Meanwhile, Colonel Emsworth, we may perhaps
+assemble in your study, where I could give the necessary explanations."
+
+And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and
+ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but
+systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I
+have no such aid. And yet I will give my process of thought even as I
+gave it to my small audience, which included Godfrey's mother in the
+study of Colonel Emsworth.
+
+"That process," said I, "starts upon the supposition that when you have
+eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however
+improbable, must be the truth. It may well be that several explanations
+remain, in which case one tries test after test until one or other of
+them has a convincing amount of support. We will now apply this
+principle to the case in point. As it was first presented to me, there
+were three possible explanations of the seclusion or incarceration of
+this gentleman in an outhouse of his father's mansion. There was the
+explanation that he was in hiding for a crime, or that he was mad and
+that they wished to avoid an asylum, or that he had some disease which
+caused his segregation. I could think of no other adequate solutions.
+These, then, had to be sifted and balanced against each other.
+
+"The criminal solution would not bear inspection. No unsolved crime had
+been reported from that district. I was sure of that. If it were some
+crime not yet discovered, then clearly it would be to the interest of
+the family to get rid of the delinquent and send him abroad rather than
+keep him concealed at home. I could see no explanation for such a line
+of conduct.
+
+"Insanity was more plausible. The presence of the second person in the
+outhouse suggested a keeper. The fact that he locked the door when he
+came out strengthened the supposition and gave the idea of constraint.
+On the other hand, this constraint could not be severe or the young man
+could not have got loose and come down to have a look at his friend.
+You will remember, Mr. Dodd, that I felt round for points, asking you,
+for example, about the paper which Mr. Kent was reading. Had it been
+the Lancet or the British Medical Journal it would have helped me. It
+is not illegal, however, to keep a lunatic upon private premises so
+long as there is a qualified person in attendance and that the
+authorities have been duly notified. Why, then, all this desperate
+desire for secrecy? Once again I could not get the theory to fit the
+facts.
+
+"There remained the third possibility, into which, rare and unlikely as
+it was, everything seemed to fit. Leprosy is not uncommon in South
+Africa. By some extraordinary chance this youth might have contracted
+it. His people would be placed in a very dreadful position, since they
+would desire to save him from segregation. Great secrecy would be
+needed to prevent rumours from getting about and subsequent
+interference by the authorities. A devoted medical man, if sufficiently
+paid, would easily be found to take charge of the sufferer. There would
+be no reason why the latter should not be allowed freedom after dark.
+Bleaching of the skin is a common result of the disease. The case was a
+strong one--so strong that I determined to act as if it were actually
+proved. When on arriving here I noticed that Ralph, who carries out the
+meals, had gloves which are impregnated with disinfectants, my last
+doubts were removed. A single word showed you, sir, that your secret
+was discovered, and if I wrote rather than said it, it was to prove to
+you that my discretion was to be trusted."
+
+I was finishing this little analysis of the case when the door was
+opened and the austere figure of the great dermatologist was ushered
+in. But for once his sphinx-like features had relaxed and there was a
+warm humanity in his eyes. He strode up to Colonel Emsworth and shook
+him by the hand.
+
+"It is often my lot to bring ill-tidings and seldom good," said he.
+"This occasion is the more welcome. It is not leprosy."
+
+"What?"
+
+"A well-marked case of pseudo-leprosy or ichthyosis, a scalelike
+affection of the skin, unsightly, obstinate, but possibly curable, and
+certainly noninfective. Yes, Mr. Holmes, the coincidence is a
+remarkable one. But is it coincidence? Are there not subtle forces at
+work of which we know little? Are we assured that the apprehension from
+which this young man has no doubt suffered terribly since his exposure
+to its contagion may not produce a physical effect which simulates that
+which it fears? At any rate, I pledge my professional reputation--But
+the lady has fainted! I think that Mr. Kent had better be with her
+until she recovers from this joyous shock."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE
+
+
+
+It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy
+room of the first floor in Baker Street which had been the
+starting-point of so many remarkable adventures. He looked round him at
+the scientific charts upon the wall, the acid-charred bench of
+chemicals, the violin-case leaning in the corner, the coal-scuttle,
+which contained of old the pipes and tobacco. Finally, his eyes came
+round to the fresh and smiling face of Billy, the young but very wise
+and tactful page, who had helped a little to fill up the gap of
+loneliness and isolation which surrounded the saturnine figure of the
+great detective.
+
+"It all seems very unchanged, Billy. You don't change, either. I hope
+the same can be said of him?"
+
+Billy glanced with some solicitude at the closed door of the bedroom.
+
+"I think he's in bed and asleep," he said.
+
+It was seven in the evening of a lovely summer's day, but Dr. Watson
+was sufficiently familiar with the irregularity of his old friend's
+hours to feel no surprise at the idea.
+
+"That means a case, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he is very hard at it just now. I'm frightened for his
+health. He gets paler and thinner, and he eats nothing. 'When will you
+be pleased to dine, Mr. Holmes?' Mrs. Hudson asked. 'Seven-thirty, the
+day after to-morrow,' said he. You know his way when he is keen on a
+case."
+
+"Yes, Billy, I know."
+
+"He's following someone. Yesterday he was out as a workman looking for
+a job. To-day he was an old woman. Fairly took me in, he did, and I
+ought to know his ways by now." Billy pointed with a grin to a very
+baggy parasol which leaned against the sofa. "That's part of the old
+woman's outfit," he said.
+
+"But what is it all about, Billy?"
+
+Billy sank his voice, as one who discusses great secrets of State. "I
+don't mind telling you, sir, but it should go no farther. It's this
+case of the Crown diamond."
+
+"What--the hundred-thousand-pound burglary?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They must get it back, sir. Why, we had the Prime Minister
+and the Home Secretary both sitting on that very sofa. Mr. Holmes was
+very nice to them. He soon put them at their ease and promised he would
+do all he could. Then there is Lord Cantlemere--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Yes, sir, you know what that means. He's a stiff'un, sir, if I may say
+so. I can get along with the Prime Minister, and I've nothing against
+the Home Secretary, who seemed a civil, obliging sort of man, but I
+can't stand his Lordship. Neither can Mr. Holmes, sir. You see, he
+don't believe in Mr. Holmes and he was against employing him. He'd
+rather he failed."
+
+"And Mr. Holmes knows it?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes always knows whatever there is to know."
+
+"Well, we'll hope he won't fail and that Lord Cantlemere will be
+confounded. But I say, Billy, what is that curtain for across the
+window?"
+
+"Mr. Holmes had it put up there three days ago. We've got something
+funny behind it."
+
+Billy advanced and drew away the drapery which screened the alcove of
+the bow window.
+
+Dr. Watson could not restrain a cry of amazement. There was a facsimile
+of his old friend, dressing-gown and all, the face turned
+three-quarters towards the window and downward, as though reading an
+invisible book, while the body was sunk deep in an armchair. Billy
+detached the head and held it in the air.
+
+"We put it at different angles, so that it may seem more lifelike. I
+wouldn't dare touch it if the blind were not down. But when it's up you
+can see this from across the way."
+
+"We used something of the sort once before."
+
+"Before my time," said Billy. He drew the window curtains apart and
+looked out into the street. "There are folk who watch us from over
+yonder. I can see a fellow now at the window. Have a look for
+yourself."
+
+Watson had taken a step forward when the bedroom door opened, and the
+long, thin form of Holmes emerged, his face pale and drawn, but his
+step and bearing as active as ever. With a single spring he was at the
+window, and had drawn the blind once more.
+
+"That will do, Billy," said he. "You were in danger of your life then,
+my boy, and I can't do without you just yet. Well, Watson, it is good
+to see you in your old quarters once again. You come at a critical
+moment."
+
+"So I gather."
+
+"You can go, Billy. That boy is a problem, Watson. How far am I
+justified in allowing him to be in danger?"
+
+"Danger of what, Holmes?"
+
+"Of sudden death. I'm expecting something this evening."
+
+"Expecting what?"
+
+"To be murdered, Watson."
+
+"No, no, you are joking, Holmes!"
+
+"Even my limited sense of humour could evolve a better joke than that.
+But we may be comfortable in the meantime, may we not? Is alcohol
+permitted? The gasogene and cigars are in the old place. Let me see you
+once more in the customary armchair. You have not, I hope, learned to
+despise my pipe and my lamentable tobacco? It has to take the place of
+food these days."
+
+"But why not eat?"
+
+"Because the faculties become refined when you starve them. Why,
+surely, as a doctor, my dear Watson, you must admit that what your
+digestion gains in the way of blood supply is so much lost to the
+brain. I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.
+Therefore, it is the brain I must consider."
+
+"But this danger, Holmes?"
+
+"Ah. yes, in case it should come off, it would perhaps be as well that
+you should burden your memory with the name and address of the
+murderer. You can give it to Scotland Yard, with my love and a parting
+blessing. Sylvius is the name--Count Negretto Sylvius. Write it down,
+man, write it down! 136 Moorside Gardens, N. W. Got it?"
+
+Watson's honest face was twitching with anxiety. He knew only too well
+the immense risks taken by Holmes and was well aware that what he said
+was more likely to be under-statement than exaggeration. Watson was
+always the man of action, and he rose to the occasion.
+
+"Count me in, Holmes. I have nothing to do for a day or two."
+
+"Your morals don't improve, Watson. You have added fibbing to your
+other vices. You bear every sign of the busy medical man, with calls on
+him every hour."
+
+"Not such important ones. But can't you have this fellow arrested?"
+
+"Yes, Watson, I could. That's what worries him so."
+
+"But why don't you?"
+
+"Because I don't know where the diamond is."
+
+"Ah! Billy told me--the missing Crown jewel!"
+
+"Yes, the great yellow Mazarin stone. I've cast my net and I have my
+fish. But I have not got the stone. What is the use of taking them? We
+can make the world a better place by laying them by the heels. But that
+is not what I am out for. It's the stone I want."
+
+"And is this Count Sylvius one of your fish?"
+
+"Yes, and he's a shark. He bites. The other is Sam Merton the boxer.
+Not a bad fellow, Sam, but the Count has used him. Sam's not a shark.
+He is a great big silly bull-headed gudgeon. But he is flopping about
+in my net all the same."
+
+"Where is this Count Sylvius?"
+
+"I've been at his very elbow all the morning. You've seen me as an old
+lady, Watson. I was never more convincing. He actually picked up my
+parasol for me once. 'By your leave, madame,' said he--half-ltalian,
+you know, and with the Southern graces of manner when in the mood, but
+a devil incarnate in the other mood. Life is full of whimsical
+happenings, Watson."
+
+"It might have been tragedy."
+
+"Well, perhaps it might. I followed him to old Straubenzee's workshop
+in the Minories. Straubenzee made the air-gun--a very pretty bit of
+work, as I understand, and I rather fancy it is in the opposite window
+at the present moment. Have you seen the dummy? Of course, Billy showed
+it to you. Well, it may get a bullet through its beautiful head at any
+moment. Ah, Billy, what is it?"
+
+The boy had reappeared in the room with a card upon a tray. Holmes
+glanced at it with raised eyebrows and an amused smile.
+
+"The man himself. I had hardly expected this. Grasp the nettle, Watson!
+A man of nerve. Possibly you have heard of his reputation as a shooter
+of big game. It would indeed be a triumphant ending to his excellent
+sporting record if he added me to his bag. This is a proof that he
+feels my toe very close behind his heel."
+
+"Send for the police."
+
+"I probably shall. But not just yet. Would you glance carefully out of
+the window, Watson, and see if anyone is hanging about in the street?"
+
+Watson looked warily round the edge of the curtain.
+
+"Yes, there is one rough fellow near the door."
+
+"That will be Sam Merton--the faithful but rather fatuous Sam. Where
+is this gentleman, Billy?"
+
+"In the waiting-room, sir."
+
+"Show him up when I ring."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"If I am not in the room, show him in all the same."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Watson waited until the door was closed, and then he turned earnestly
+to his companion.
+
+"Look here, Holmes, this is simply impossible. This is a desperate man,
+who sticks at nothing. He may have come to murder you."
+
+"I should not be surprised."
+
+"I insist upon staying with you."
+
+"You would be horribly in the way."
+
+"In his way?"
+
+"No, my dear fellow--in my way."
+
+"Well, I can't possibly leave you."
+
+"Yes, you can, Watson. And you will, for you have never failed to play
+the game. I am sure you will play it to the end. This man has come for
+his own purpose, but he may stay for mine."
+
+Holmes took out his notebook and scribbled a few lines. "Take a cab to
+Scotland Yard and give this to Youghal of the C. I. D. Come back with
+the police. The fellow's arrest will follow."
+
+"I'll do that with joy.
+
+"Before you return I may have just time enough to find out where the
+stone is." He touched the bell. "I think we will go out through the
+bedroom. This second exit is exceedingly useful. I rather want to see
+my shark without his seeing me, and I have, as you will remember, my
+own way of doing it."
+
+It was, therefore, an empty room into which Billy, a minute later,
+ushered Count Sylvius. The famous game-shot, sportsman, and
+man-about-town was a big, swarthy fellow, with a formidable dark
+moustache shading a cruel, thin-lipped mouth, and surmounted by a long,
+curved nose like the beak of an eagle. He was well dressed, but his
+brilliant necktie, shining pin, and glittering rings were flamboyant in
+their effect. As the door closed behind him he looked round him with
+fierce, startled eyes, like one who suspects a trap at every turn. Then
+he gave a violent start as he saw the impassive head and the collar of
+the dressing-gown which projected above the armchair in the window. At
+first his expression was one of pure amazement. Then the light of a
+horrible hope gleamed in his dark, murderous eyes. He took one more
+glance round to see that there were no witnesses, and then, on tiptoe,
+his thick stick half raised, he approached the silent figure. He was
+crouching for his final spring and blow when a cool, sardonic voice
+greeted him from the open bedroom door:
+
+"Don't break it, Count! Don't break it!"
+
+The assassin staggered back, amazement in his convulsed face. For an
+instant he half raised his loaded cane once more, as if he would turn
+his violence from the effigy to the original; but there was something
+in that steady gray eye and mocking smile which caused his hand to sink
+to his side.
+
+"It's a pretty little thing," said Holmes, advancing towards the image.
+"Tavernier, the French modeller, made it. He is as good at waxworks as
+your friend Straubenzee is at air-guns."
+
+"Air-guns, sir! What do you mean?"
+
+"Put your hat and stick on the side-table. Thank you! Pray take a seat.
+Would you care to put your revolver out also? Oh, very good, if you
+prefer to sit upon it. Your visit is really most opportune, for I
+wanted badly to have a few minutes' chat with you."
+
+The Count scowled, with heavy, threatening eyebrows.
+
+"I, too, wished to have some words with you, Holmes. That is why I am
+here. I won't deny that I intended to assault you just now."
+
+Holmes swung his leg on the edge of the table.
+
+"I rather gathered that you had some idea of the sort in your head,"
+said he. "But why these personal attentions?"
+
+"Because you have gone out of your way to annoy me. Because you have
+put your creatures upon my track."
+
+"My creatures! I assure you no!"
+
+"Nonsense! I have had them followed. Two can play at that game,
+Holmes."
+
+"It is a small point, Count Sylvius, but perhaps you would kindly give
+me my prefix when you address me. You can understand that, with my
+routine of work, I should find myself on familiar terms with half the
+rogues' gallery, and you will agree that exceptions are invidious."
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, then."
+
+"Excellent! But I assure you you are mistaken about my alleged agents."
+
+Count Sylvius laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Other people can observe as well as you. Yesterday there was an old
+sporting man. To-day it was an elderly woman. They held me in view all
+day."
+
+"Really, sir, you compliment me. Old Baron Dowson said the night before
+he was hanged that in my case what the law had gained the stage had
+lost. And now you give my little impersonations your kindly praise?"
+
+"It was you--you yourself?"
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders. "You can see in the corner the parasol
+which you so politely handed to me in the Minories before you began to
+suspect."
+
+"If I had known, you might never--"
+
+"Have seen this humble home again. I was well aware of it. We all have
+neglected opportunities to deplore. As it happens, you did not know, so
+here we are!"
+
+The Count's knotted brows gathered more heavily over his menacing eyes.
+"What you say only makes the matter worse. It was not your agents but
+your play-acting, busybody self! You admit that you have dogged me.
+Why?"
+
+"Come now, Count. You used to shoot lions in Algeria."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Why? The sport--the excitement--the danger!"
+
+"And, no doubt, to free the country from a pest?"
+
+"Exactly!"
+
+"My reasons in a nutshell!"
+
+The Count sprang to his feet, and his hand involuntarily moved back to
+his hip-pocket.
+
+"Sit down, sir, sit down! There was another, more practical, reason. I
+want that yellow diamond!"
+
+Count Sylvius lay back in his chair with an evil smile.
+
+"Upon my word!" said he.
+
+"You knew that I was after you for that. The real reason why you are
+here to-night is to find out how much I know about the matter and how
+far my removal is absolutely essential. Well, I should say that, from
+your point of view, it is absolutely essential, for I know all about
+it, save only one thing, which you are about to tell me."
+
+"Oh, indeed! And pray, what is this missing fact?"
+
+"Where the Crown diamond now is."
+
+The Count looked sharply at his companion. "Oh, you want to know that,
+do you? How the devil should I be able to lell you where it is?"
+
+"You can, and you will."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"You can't bluff me, Count Sylvius." Holmes's eyes, as he gazed at him,
+contracted and lightened until they were like two menacing points of
+steel. "You are absolute plate-glass. I see to the very back of your
+mind."
+
+"Then, of course, you see where the diamond is!"
+
+Holmes clapped his hands with amusement, and then pointed a derisive
+finger. "Then you do know. You have admitted it!"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"Now, Count, if you will be reasonable we can do business. If not, you
+will get hurt."
+
+Count Sylvius threw up his eyes to the ceiling. "And you talk about
+bluff!" said he.
+
+Holmes looked at him thoughtfully like a master chess-player who
+meditates his crowning move. Then he threw open the table drawer and
+drew out a squat notebook.
+
+"Do you know what I keep in this book?"
+
+"No, sir, I do not!"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Me!"
+
+"Yes, sir, you! You are all here--every action of yor vile and
+dangerous life."
+
+"Damn you, Holmes!" cried the Count with blazing eyes. "There are
+limits to my patience!"
+
+"It's all here, Count. The real facts as to the death of old Mrs.
+Harold, who left you the Blymer estate, which you so rapidly gambled
+away."
+
+"You are dreaming!"
+
+"And the complete life history of Miss Minnie Warrender."
+
+"Tut! You will make nothing of that!"
+
+"Plenty more here, Count. Here is the robbery in the train de-luxe to
+the Riviera on February 13, 1892. Here is the forged check in the same
+year on the Credit Lyonnais."
+
+"No, you're wrong there."
+
+"Then I am right on the others! Now, Count, you are a card-player. When
+the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time to throw down your
+hand."
+
+"What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?"
+
+"Gently, Count. Restrain that eager mind! Let me get to the points in
+my own humdrum fashion. I have all this against you; but, above all, I
+have a clear case against both you and your fighting bully in the case
+of the Crown diamond."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought
+you away. I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have
+Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and
+the game is up."
+
+The veins stood out on the Count's forehead. His dark, hairy hands were
+clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion. He tried to speak, but
+the words would not shape themselves.
+
+"That's the hand I play from," said Holmes. "I put it all upon the
+table. But one card is missing. It's the king of diamonds. I don't know
+where the stone is."
+
+"You never shall know."
+
+"No? Now, be reasonable, Count. Consider the situation. You are going
+to be locked up for twenty years. So is Sam Merton. What good are you
+going to get out of your diamond? None in the world. But if you hand it
+over--well, I'll compound a felony. We don't want you or Sam. We want
+the stone. Give that up, and so far as I am concerned you can go free
+so long as you behave yourself in the future. If you make another slip
+well, it will be the last. But this time my commission is to get the
+stone, not you."
+
+"But if I refuse?"
+
+"Why, then--alas!--it must be you and not the stone."
+
+Billy had appeared in answer to a ring.
+
+"I think, Count, that it would be as well to have your friend Sam at
+this conference. After all, his interests should be represented. Billy,
+you will see a large and ugly gentleman outside the front door. Ask him
+to come up."
+
+"If he won't come, sir?"
+
+"No violence, Billy. Don't be rough with him. If you tell him that
+Count Sylvius wants him he will certainly come."
+
+"What are you going to do now?" asked the Count as Billy disappeared.
+
+"My friend Watson was with me just now. I told him that I had a shark
+and a gudgeon in my net; now I am drawing the net and up they come
+together."
+
+The Count had risen from his chair, and his hand was behind his back.
+Holmes held something half protruding from the pocket of his
+dressing-gown.
+
+"You won't die in your bed, Holmes."
+
+"I have often had the same idea. Does it matter very much? Aher all,
+Count, your own exit is more likely to be perpendicular than
+horizontal. But these anticipations of the future are morbid. Why not
+give ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of the present?"
+
+A sudden wild-beast light sprang up in the dark, menacing eyes of the
+master criminal. Holmes's figure seemed to grow taller as he grew tense
+and ready.
+
+"It is no use your fingering your revolver, my friend," he said in a
+quiet voice. "You know perfectly well that you dare not use it, even if
+I gave you time to draw it. Nasty, noisy things, revolvers, Count.
+Better stick to air-guns. Ah! I think I hear the fairy footstep of your
+estimable partner. Good day, Mr. Merton. Rather dull in the street, is
+it not?"
+
+The prize-fighter, a heavily built young man with a stupid, obstinate,
+slab-sided face, stood awkwardly at the door, looking about him with a
+puzzled expression. Holmes's debonair manner was a new experience, and
+though he vaguely felt that it was hostile, he did not know how to
+counter it. He turned to his more astute comrade for help.
+
+"What's the game now, Count? What's this fellow want? What's up?" His
+voice was deep and raucous.
+
+The Count shrugged his shoulders, and it was Holmes who answered.
+
+"If I may put it in a nutshell, Mr. Merton, I should say it was all
+up."
+
+The boxer still addressed his remarks to his associate.
+
+"Is this cove trying to be funny, or what? I'm not in the funny mood
+myself."
+
+"No, I expect not," said Holmes. "I think I can promise you that you
+will feel even less humorous as the evening advances. Now, look here,
+Count Sylvius. I'm a busy man and I can't waste time. I'm going into
+that bedroom. Pray make yourselves quite at home in my absence. You can
+explain to your friend how the matter lies without the restraint of my
+presence. I shall try over the Hoffman 'Barcarole' upon my violin. In
+five minutes I shall return for your final answer. You quite grasp the
+alternative, do you not? Shall we take you, or shall we have the
+stone?"
+
+Holmes withdrew, picking up his violin from the corner as he passed. A
+few moments later the long-drawn, wailing notes of that most haunting
+of tunes came faintly through the closed door of the bedroom.
+
+"What is it, then?" asked Merton anxiously as his companion turned to
+him. "Does he know about the stone?"
+
+"He knows a damned sight too much about it. I'm not sure that he
+doesn't know all about it."
+
+"Good Lord!" The boxer's sallow face turned a shade whiter.
+
+"Ikey Sanders has split on us."
+
+"He has, has he? I'll do him down a thick 'un for that if I swing for
+it."
+
+"That won't help us much. We've got to make up our minds what to do."
+
+"Half a mo'," said the boxer, looking suspiciously at the bedroom door.
+"He's a leary cove that wants watching. I suppose he's not listening?"
+
+"How can he be listening with that music going?"
+
+"That's right. Maybe somebody's behind a curtain. Too many curtains in
+this room." As he looked round he suddenly saw for the first time the
+effigy in the window, and stood staring and pointing, too amazed for
+words.
+
+"Tut! it's only a dummy," said the Count.
+
+"A fake, is it? Well, strike me! Madame Tussaud ain't in it. It's the
+living spit of him, gown and all. But them curtains Count!"
+
+"Oh, confound the curtains! We are wasting our time, and there is none
+too much. He can lag us over this stone."
+
+"The deuce he can!"
+
+"But he'll let us slip if we only tell him where the swag is."
+
+"What! Give it up? Give up a hundred thousand quid?"
+
+"It's one or the other."
+
+Merton scratched his short-cropped pate.
+
+"He's alone in there. Let's do him in. If his light were out we should
+have nothing to fear."
+
+The Count shook his head.
+
+"He is armed and ready. If we shot him we could hardly get away in a
+place like this. Besides, it's likely enough that the police know
+whatever evidence he has got. Hallo! What was that?"
+
+There was a vague sound which seemed to come from the window. Both men
+sprang round, but all was quiet. Save for the one strange figure seated
+in the chair, the room was certainly empty.
+
+"Something in the street," said Merton. "Now look here, guv'nor, you've
+got the brains. Surely you can think a way out of it. If slugging is no
+use then it's up to you."
+
+"I've fooled better men than he," the Count answered. "The stone is
+here in my secret pocket. I take no chances leaving it about. It can be
+out of England to-night and cut into four pieces in Amsterdam before
+Sunday. He knows nothing of Van Seddar."
+
+"I thought Van Seddar was going next week."
+
+"He was. But now he must get off by the next boat. One or other of us
+must slip round with the stone to Lime Street and tell him."
+
+"But the false bottom ain't ready."
+
+"Well, he must take it as it is and chance it. There's not a moment to
+lose." Again, with the sense of danger which becomes an instinct with
+the sportsman, he paused and looked hard at the window. Yes, it was
+surely from the street that the faint sound had come.
+
+"As to Holmes," he continued, "we can fool him easily enough. You see,
+the damned fool won't arrest us if he can get the stone. Well, we'll
+promise him the stone. We'll put him on the wrong track about it, and
+before he finds that it is the wrong track it will be in Holland and we
+out of the country."
+
+"That sounds good to me!" cried Sam Merton with a grin.
+
+"You go on and tell the Dutchman to get a move on him. I'll see this
+sucker and fill him up with a bogus confession. I'll tell him that the
+stone is in Liverpool. Confound that whining music; it gets on my
+nerves! By the time he finds it isn't in Liverpool it will be in
+quarters and we on the blue water. Come back here, out of a line with
+that keyhole. Here is the stone."
+
+"I wonder you dare carry it."
+
+"Where could I have it safer? If we could take it out of Whitehall
+someone else could surely take it out of my lodgings."
+
+"Let's have a look at it."
+
+Count Sylvius cast a somewhat unflattering glance at his associate and
+disregarded the unwashed hand which was extended towards him.
+
+"What--d'ye think I'm going to snatch it off you? See here, mister,
+I'm getting a bit tired of your ways."
+
+"Well, well, no offence, Sam. We can't afford to quarrel. Come over to
+the window if you want to see the beauty properly. Now hold it to the
+light! Here!"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+With a single spring Holmes had leaped from the dummy's chair and had
+grasped the precious jewel. He held it now in one hand, while his other
+pointed a revolver at the Count's head. The two villains staggered back
+in utter amazement. Before they had recovered Holmes had pressed the
+electric bell.
+
+"No violence, gentlemen--no violence, I beg of you! Consider the
+furniture! It must be very clear to you that your position is an
+impossible one. The police are waiting below."
+
+The Count's bewilderment overmastered his rage and fear.
+
+"But how the deuce--?" he gasped.
+
+"Your surprise is very natural. You are not aware that a second door
+from my bedroom leads behind that curtain. I fancied that you must have
+heard me when I displaced the figure, but luck was on my side. It gave
+me a chance of listening to your racy conversation which would have
+been painfully constrained had you been aware of my presence."
+
+The Count gave a gesture of resignation.
+
+"We give you best, Holmes. I believe you are the devil himself."
+
+"Not far from him, at any rate," Holmes answered with a polite smile.
+
+Sam Merton's slow intellect had only gradually appreciated the
+situation. Now, as the sound of heavy steps came from the stairs
+outside, he broke silence at last.
+
+"A fair cop!" said he. "But, I say, what about that bloomin' fiddle! I
+hear it yet."
+
+"Tut, tut!" Holmes answered. "You are perfectly right. Let it play!
+These modern gramophones are a remarkable invention."
+
+There was an inrush of police, the handcuffs clicked and the criminals
+were led to the waiting cab. Watson lingered with Holmes,
+congratulating him upon this fresh leaf added to his laurels. Once more
+their conversation was interrupted by the imperturbable Billy with his
+card-tray.
+
+"Lord Cantlemere sir."
+
+"Show him up, Billy. This is the eminent peer who represents the very
+highest interests," said Holmes. "He is an excellent and loyal person,
+but rather of the old regime. Shall we make him unbend? Dare we venture
+upon a slight liberty? He knows, we may conjecture, nothing of what has
+occurred."
+
+The door opened to admit a thin, austere figure with a hatchet face and
+drooping mid-Victorian whiskers of a glossy blackness which hardly
+corresponded with the rounded shoulders and feeble gait. Holmes
+advanced affably, and shook an unresponsive hand.
+
+"How do you do, Lord Cantlemere? It is chilly for the time of year, but
+rather warm indoors. May I take your overcoat?"
+
+"No, I thank you; I will not take it off."
+
+Holmes laid his hand insistently upon the sleeve.
+
+"Pray allow me! My friend Dr. Watson would assure you that these
+changes of temperature are most insidious."
+
+His Lordship shook himself free with some impatience.
+
+"I am quite comfortable, sir. I have no need to stay. I have simply
+looked in to know how your self-appointed task was progressing."
+
+"It is difficult--very difficult."
+
+"I feared that you would find it so."
+
+There was a distinct sneer in the old courtier's words and manner.
+
+"Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us
+of the weakness of self-satisfaction."
+
+"Yes, sir, I have been much perplexed."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"Especially upon one point. Possibly you could help me upon
+
+"You apply for my advice rather late in the day. I thought that you had
+your own all-sufficient methods. Still, I am ready to help you."
+
+"You see, Lord Cantlemere, we can no doubt frame a case against the
+actual thieves."
+
+"When you have caught them."
+
+"Exactly. But the question is--how shall we proceed against the
+receiver?"
+
+"Is this not rather premature?"
+
+"It is as well to have our plans ready. Now, what would you regard as
+final evidence against the receiver?"
+
+"The actual possession of the stone."
+
+"You would arrest him upon that?"
+
+"Most undoubtedly."
+
+Holmes seldom laughed, but he got as near it as his old friend Watson
+could remember.
+
+"In that case, my dear sir, I shall be under the painful necessity of
+advising your arrest."
+
+Lord Cantlemere was very angry. Some of the ancient fires flickered up
+into his sallow cheeks.
+
+"You take a great liberty, Mr. Holmes. In fifty years of official life
+I cannot recall such a case. I am a busy man, sir engaged upon
+important affairs, and I have no time or taste for foolish jokes. I may
+tell you frankly, sir, that I have never been a believer in your
+powers, and that I have always been of the opinion that the matter was
+far safer in the hands of the regular police force. Your conduct
+confirms all my conclusions. I have the honour, sir, to wish you
+good-evening."
+
+Holmes had swiftly changed his position and was between the peer and
+the door.
+
+"One moment, sir," said he. "To actually go off with the Mazarin stone
+would be a more serious offence than to be found in temporary
+possession of it."
+
+"Sir, this is intolerable! Let me pass."
+
+"Put your hand in the right-hand pocket of your overcoat."
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"Come--come, do what I ask."
+
+An instant later the amazed peer was standing, blinking and stammering,
+with the great yellow stone on his shaking palm.
+
+"What! What! How is this, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Too bad, Lord Cantlemere, too bad!" cried Holmes. "My old friend here
+will tell you that I have an impish habit of practical joking. Also
+that I can never resist a dramatic situation. I took the liberty--the
+very great liberty, I admit--of putting the stone into your pocket at
+the beginning of our interview."
+
+The old peer stared from the stone to the smiling face before him.
+
+"Sir, I am bewildered. But--yes--it is indeed the Mazarin stone. We
+are greatly your debtors, Mr. Holmes. Your sense of humour may, as you
+admit, be somewhat perverted, and its exhibition remarkably untimely,
+but at least I withdraw any reflection I have made upon your amazing
+professional powers. But how--"
+
+"The case is but half finished; the details can wait. No doubt, Lord
+Cantlemere, your pleasure in telling of this successful result in the
+exalted circle to which you return will be some small atonement for my
+practical joke. Billy, you will show his Lordship out, and tell Mrs.
+Hudson that I should be glad if she would send up dinner for two as
+soon as possible."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GABLES
+
+
+
+I don't think that any of my adventures with Mr. Sherlock Holmes opened
+quite so abruptly, or so dramatically, as that which I associate with
+The Three Gables. I had not seen Holmes for some days and had no idea
+of the new channel into which his activities had been directed. He was
+in a chatty mood that morning, however, and had just settled me into
+the well-worn low armchair on one side of the fire, while he had curled
+down with his pipe in his mouth upon the opposite chair, when our
+visitor arrived. If I had said that a mad bull had arrived it would
+give a clearer impression of what occurred.
+
+The door had flown open and a huge negro had burst into the room. He
+would have been a comic figure if he had not been terrific, for he was
+dressed in a very loud gray check suit with a flowing salmon-coloured
+tie. His broad face and flattened nose were thrust forward, as his
+sullen dark eyes, with a smouldering gleam of malice in them, turned
+from one of us to the other.
+
+"Which of you gen'l'men is Masser Holmes?" he asked.
+
+Holmes raised his pipe with a languid smile.
+
+"Oh! it's you, is it?" said our visitor, coming with an unpleasant,
+stealthy step round the angle of the table. "See here, Masser Holmes,
+you keep your hands out of other folks' business. Leave folks to manage
+their own affairs. Got that, Masser Holmes?"
+
+"Keep on talking," said Holmes. "It's fine."
+
+"Oh! it's fine, is it?" growled the savage. "It won't be so damn fine
+if I have to trim you up a bit. I've handled your kind before now, and
+they didn't look fine when I was through with them. Look at that,
+Masser Holmes!"
+
+He swung a huge knotted lump of a fist under my friend's nose. Holmes
+examined it closely with an air of great interest.
+
+"Were you born so?" he asked. "Or did it come by degrees?"
+
+It may have been the icy coolness of my friend, or it may have been the
+slight clatter which I made as I picked up the poker. In any case, our
+visitor's manner became less flamboyant.
+
+"Well, I've given you fair warnin'," said he. "I've a friend that's
+interested out Harrow way--you know what I'm meaning--and he don't
+intend to have no buttin' in by you. Got that? You ain't the law, and I
+ain't the law either, and if you come in I'll be on hand also. Don't
+you forget it."
+
+"I've wanted to meet you for some time," said Holmes. "I won't ask you
+to sit down, for I don't like the smell of you, but aren't you Steve
+Dixie, the bruiser?"
+
+"That's my name, Masser Holmes, and you'll get put through it for sure
+if you give me any lip."
+
+"It is certainly the last thing you need," said Holmes, staring at our
+visitor's hideous mouth. "But it was the killing of young Perkins
+outside the Holborn--Bar What! you're not going?"
+
+The negro had sprung back, and his face was leaden. "I won't listen to
+no such talk," said he. "What have I to do with this 'ere Perkins,
+Masser Holmes? I was trainin' at the Bull Ring in Birmingham when this
+boy done gone get into trouble."
+
+"Yes, you'll tell the magistrate about it, Steve," said Holmes. "I've
+been watching you and Barney Stockdale--"
+
+"So help me the Lord! Masser Holmes--"
+
+"That's enough. Get out of it. I'll pick you up when I want you."
+
+"Good-mornin', Masser Holmes. I hope there ain't no hard feelin's about
+this 'ere visit?"
+
+"There will be unless you tell me who sent you."
+
+"Why, there ain't no secret about that, Masser Holmes. It was that same
+gen'l'man that you have just done gone mention."
+
+"And who set him on to it?"
+
+"S'elp me. I don't know, Masser Holmes. He just say, 'Steve, you go see
+Mr. Holmes, and tell him his life ain't safe if he go down Harrow way.'
+That's the whole truth." Without waiting for any further questioning,
+our visitor bolted out of the room almost as precipitately as he had
+entered. Holmes knocked out the ashes of his pipe with a quiet chuckle.
+
+"I am glad you were not forced to break his woolly head, Watson. I
+observed your manoeuvres with the poker. But he is really rather a
+harmless fellow, a great muscular, foolish, blustering baby, and easily
+cowed, as you have seen. He is one of the Spencer John gang and has
+taken part in some dirty work of late which I may clear up when I have
+time. His immediate principal, Barney, is a more astute person. They
+specialize in assaults, intimidation, and the like. What I want to know
+is, who is at the back of them on this particular occasion?"
+
+"But why do they want to intimidate you?"
+
+"It is this Harrow Weald case. It decides me to look into the matter,
+for if it is worth anyone's while to take so much trouble, there must
+be something in it."
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"I was going to tell you when we had this comic interlude. Here is Mrs.
+Maberley's note. If you care to come with me we will wire her and go
+out at once."
+
+DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES [I read]:
+
+I have had a succession of strange incidents occur to me in connection
+with this house, and I should much value your advice. You would find me
+at home any time to-morrow. The house is within a short walk of the
+Weald Station. I believe that my late husband, Mortimer Maberley, was
+one of your early clients.
+
+Yours faithfully, MARY MABERLEY.
+
+The address was "The Three Gables, Harrow Weald."
+
+"So that's that!" said Holmes. "And now, if you can spare the time,
+Watson, we will get upon our way."
+
+A short railway journey, and a shorter drive, brought us to the house,
+a brick and timber villa, standing in its own acre of undeveloped
+grassland. Three small projections above. the upper windows made a
+feeble attempt to justify its name. Behind was a grove of melancholy,
+half-grown pines, and the whole aspect of the place was poor and
+depressing. None the less, we found the house to be well furnished, and
+the lady who received us was a most engaging elderly person, who bore
+every mark of refinement and culture.
+
+"I remember your husband well, madam," said Holmes, "though it is some
+years since he used my services in some trifling matter."
+
+"Probably you would be more familiar with the name of my son Douglas."
+
+Holmes looked at her with great interest.
+
+"Dear me! Are you the mother of Douglas Maberley? I knew him slightly.
+But of course all London knew him. What a magnificent creature he was!
+Where is he now?"
+
+"Dead, Mr. Holmes, dead! He was attache at Rome, and he died there of
+pneumonia last month."
+
+"I am sorry. One could not connect death with such a man. I have never
+known anyone so vitally alive. He lived intensely--every fibre of
+him!"
+
+"Too intensely, Mr. Holmes. That was the ruin of him. You remember him
+as he was--debonair and splendid. You did not see the moody, morose,
+brooding creature into which he developed. His heart was broken. In a
+single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a worn-out
+cynical man."
+
+"A love affair--a woman?"
+
+"Or a fiend. Well, it was not to talk of my poor lad that I asked you
+to come, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"Dr. Watson and I are at your service."
+
+"There have been some very strange happenings. I have been in this
+house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I
+have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a
+man who said that he was a house agent. He said that this house would
+exactly suit a client of his, and that if I would part with it money
+would be no object. It seemed to me very strange as there are several
+empty houses on the market which appear to be equally eligible, but
+naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a price
+which was five hundred pounds more than I gave. He at once closed with
+the offer, but added that his client desired to buy the furniture as
+well and would I put a price upon it. Some of this furniture is from my
+old home, and it is, as you see, very good, so that I named a good
+round sum. To this also he at once agreed. I had always wanted to
+travel, and the bargain was so good a one that it really seemed that I
+should be my own mistress for the rest of my life.
+
+"Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out. Luckily I
+showed it to Mr. Sutro, my lawyer, who lives in Harrow. He said to me,
+'This is a very strange document. Are you aware that if you sign it you
+could not legally take anything out of the house--not even your own
+private possessions?' When the man came again in the evening I pointed
+this out, and I said that I meant only to sell the furniture.
+
+"'No, no, everything,' said he.
+
+"'But my clothes? My jewels?'
+
+"'Well, well, some concession might be made for your personal effects.
+But nothing shall go out of the house unchecked. My client is a very
+liberal man, but he has his fads and his own way of doing things. It is
+everything or nothing with him.'
+
+"'Then it must be nothing,' said I. And there the matter was left, but
+the whole thing seemed to me to be so unusual that I thought--"
+
+Here we had a very extraordinary interruption.
+
+Holmes raised his hand for silence. Then he strode across the room,
+flung open the door, and dragged in a great gaunt woman whom he had
+seized by the shoulder. She entered with ungainly struggle like some
+huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.
+
+"Leave me alone! What are you a-doin' of?" she screeched.
+
+"Why, Susan, what is this?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, I was comin' in to ask if the visitors was stayin' for
+lunch when this man jumped out at me."
+
+"I have been listening to her for the last five minutes, but did not
+wish to interrupt your most interesting narrative. Just a little
+wheezy, Susan, are you not? You breathe too heavily for that kind of
+work."
+
+Susan turned a sulky but amazed face upon her captor. "Who be you,
+anyhow, and what right have you a-pullin' me about like this?"
+
+"It was merely that I wished to ask a question in your presence. Did
+you, Mrs. Maberley, mention to anyone that you were going to write to
+me and consult me?"
+
+"No, Mr. Holmes, I did not."
+
+"Who posted your letter?"
+
+"Susan did."
+
+"Exactly. Now, Susan, to whom was it that you wrote or sent a message
+to say that your mistress was asking advice from me?"
+
+"It's a lie. I sent no message."
+
+"Now, Susan, wheezy people may not live long, you know. It's a wicked
+thing to tell fibs. Whom did you tell?"
+
+"Susan!" cried her mistress, "I believe you are a bad, treacherous
+woman. I remember now that I saw you speaking to someone over the
+hedge."
+
+"That was my own business," said the woman sullenly.
+
+"Suppose I tell you that it was Barney Stockdale to whom you spoke?"
+said Holmes.
+
+"Well, if you know, what do you want to ask for?"
+
+"I was not sure, but I know now. Well now, Susan, it will be worth ten
+pounds to you if you will tell me who is at the back of Barney."
+
+"Someone that could lay down a thousand pounds for every ten you have
+in the world."
+
+"So, a rich man? No; you smiled--a rich woman. Now we have got so
+far, you may as well give the name and earn the tenner."
+
+"I'll see you in hell first."
+
+"Oh, Susan! Language!"
+
+"I am clearing out of here. I've had enough of you all. I'll send for
+my box to-morrow." She flounced for the door.
+
+"Good-bye, Susan. Paregoric is the stuff.... Now," he continued,
+turning suddenly from lively to severe when the door had closed behind
+the flushed and angry woman, "this gang means business. Look how close
+they play the game. Your letter to me had the 10 P.M. postmark. And yet
+Susan passes the word to Barney. Barney has time to go to his employer
+and get instructions; he or she--I incline to the latter from Susan's
+grin when she thought I had blundered--forms a plan. Black Steve is
+called in, and I am warned off by eleven o'clock next morning. That's
+quick work, you know."
+
+"But what do they want?"
+
+"Yes, that's the question. Who had the house before you?"
+
+"A retired sea captain called Ferguson."
+
+"Anything remarkable about him?"
+
+"Not that ever I heard of."
+
+"I was wondering whether he could have buried something. Of course,
+when people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.
+But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world
+without them. At first I thought of some buried valuable. But why, in
+that case, should they want your furniture? You don't happen to have a
+Raphael or a first folio Shakespeare without knowing it?"
+
+"No, I don't think I have anything rarer than a Crown Derby tea-set."
+
+"That would hardly justify all this mystery. Besides, why should they
+not openly state what they want? If they covet your tea-set, they can
+surely offer a price for it without buying you out, lock, stock, and
+barrel. No, as I read it, there is something which you do not know that
+you have, and which you would not give up if you did know."
+
+"That is how I read it," said I.
+
+"Dr. Watson agrees, so that settles it."
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, what can it be?"
+
+"Let us see whether by this purely mental analysis we can get it to a
+finer point. You have been in this house a year."
+
+"Nearly two."
+
+"All the better. During this long period no one wants anything from
+you. Now suddenly within three or four days you have urgent demands.
+What would you gather from that?"
+
+"It can only mean," said I, "that the object, whatever it may be, has
+only just come into the house."
+
+"Settled once again," said Holmes. "Now, Mrs. Maberley has any object
+just arrived?"
+
+"No, I have bought nothing new this year."
+
+"Indeed! That is very remarkable. Well, I think we had best let matters
+develop a little further until we have clearer data. Is that lawyer of
+yours a capable man?"
+
+"Mr. Sutro is most capable."
+
+"Have you another maid, or was the fair Susan, who has just banged your
+front door alone?"
+
+"I have a young girl."
+
+"Try and get Sutro to spend a night or two in the house. You might
+possibly want protection."
+
+"Against whom?"
+
+"Who knows? The matter is certainly obscure. If I can't find what they
+are after, I must approach the matter from the other end and try to get
+at the principal. Did this house-agent man give any address?"
+
+"Simply his card and occupation. Haines-Johnson, Auctioneer and
+Valuer."
+
+"I don't think we shall find him in the directory. Honest business men
+don't conceal their place of business. Well, you will let me know any
+fresh development. I have taken up your case, and you may rely upon it
+that I shall see it through."
+
+As we passed through the hall Holmes's eyes, which missed nothing,
+lighted upon several trunks and cases which were piled in a corner. The
+labels shone out upon them.
+
+"'Milano.' 'Lucerne.' These are from Italy."
+
+"They are poor Douglas's things."
+
+"You have not unpacked them? How long have you had them?"
+
+"They arrived last week."
+
+"But you said--why, surely this might be the missing link. How do we
+know that there is not something of value there?"
+
+"There could not possibly be, Mr. Holmes. Poor Douglas had only his pay
+and a small annuity. What could he have of value?"
+
+Holmes was lost in thought.
+
+"Delay no longer, Mrs. Maberley," he said at last. "Have these things
+taken upstairs to your bedroom. Examine them as soon as possible and
+see what they cohtain. I will come tomorrow and hear your report."
+
+It was quite evident that The Three Gables was under very close
+surveillance, for as we came round the high hedge at the end of the
+lane there was the negro prize-fighter standing in the shadow. We came
+on him quite suddenly, and a grim and menacing figure he looked in that
+lonely place. Holmes clapped his hand to his pocket.
+
+"Lookin' for your gun, Masser Holmes?"
+
+"No, for my scent-bottle, Steve."
+
+"You are funny, Masser Holmes, ain't you?"
+
+"It won't be funny for you, Steve, if I get after you. I gave you fair
+warning this morning."
+
+"Well, Masser Holmes, I done gone think over what you said, and I don't
+want no more talk about that affair of Masser Perkins. S'pose I can
+help you, Masser Holmes, I will."
+
+"Well, then, tell me who is behind you on this job."
+
+"So help me the Lord! Masser Holmes, I told you the truth before. I
+don't know. My boss Barney gives me orders and that's all."
+
+"Well, just bear in mind, Steve, that the lady in that house, and
+everything under that roof, is under my protection. Don't forget it."
+
+"All right, Masser Holmes. I'll remember."
+
+"I've got him thoroughly frightened for his own skin, Watson," Holmes
+remarked as we walked on. "I think he would double-cross his employer
+if he knew who he was. It was lucky I had some knowledge of the Spencer
+John crowd, and that Steve was one of them. Now, Watson, this is a case
+for Langdale Pike, and I am going to see him now. When I get back I may
+be clearer in the matter."
+
+I saw no more of Holmes during the day, but I could well imagine how he
+spent it, for Langdale Pike was his human book of reference upon all
+matters of social scandal. This strange, languid creature spent his
+waking hours in the bow window of a St. James's Street club and was the
+receivingstation as well as the transmitter for all the gossip of the
+metropolis. He made, it was said, a four-figure income by the
+paragraphs which he contributed every week to the garbage papers which
+cater to an inquisitive public. If ever, far down in the turbid depths
+of London life, there was some strange swirl or eddy, it was marked
+with automatic exactness by this human dial upon the surface. Holmes
+discreetly helped Langdale to knowledge, and on occasion was helped in
+turn.
+
+When I met my friend in his room early next morning, I was conscious
+from his bearing that all was well, but none the less a most unpleasant
+surprise was awaiting us. It took the shape of the following telegram.
+
+Please come out at once. Client's house burgled in the night. Police in
+possession.
+
+SUTRO.
+
+Holmes whistled. "The drama has come to a crisis, and quicker than I
+had expected. There is a great driving-power at the back of this
+business, Watson, which does not surprise me after what I have heard.
+This Sutro, of course, is her lawyer. I made a mistake, I fear, in not
+asking you to spend the night on guard. This fellow has clearly proved
+a broken reed. Well, there is nothing for it but another journey to
+Harrow Weald."
+
+We found The Three Gables a very different establishment to the orderly
+household of the previous day. A small group of idlers had assembled at
+the garden gate, while a couple of constables were examining the
+windows and the geranium beds. Within we met a gray old gentleman, who
+introduced himself as the lawyer together with a bustling, rubicund
+inspector, who greeted Hoimes as an old friend.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, no chance for you in this case, I'm afraid. Just a
+common, ordinary burglary, and well within the capacity of the poor old
+police. No experts need apply."
+
+"I am sure the case is in very good hands," said Holmes. "Merely a
+common burglary, you say?"
+
+"Quite so. We know pretty well who the men are and where to find them.
+It is that gang of Barney Stockdale, with the big nigger in it--
+they've been seen about here."
+
+"Excellent! What did they get?"
+
+"Well, they don't seem to have got much. Mrs. Maberley was chloroformed
+and the house was--Ah! here is the lady herself."
+
+Our friend of yesterday, looking very pale and ill, had entered the
+room, leaning upon a little maidservant.
+
+"You gave me good advice, Mr. Holmes," said she, smiling ruefully.
+"Alas, I did not take it! I did not wish to trouble Mr. Sutro, and so I
+was unprotected."
+
+"I only heard of it this morning," the lawyer explained.
+
+"Mr. Holmes advised me to have some friend in the house. I neglected
+his advice, and I have paid for it."
+
+"You look wretchedly ill," said Holmes. "Perhaps you are hardly equal
+to telling me what occurred."
+
+"It is all here," said the inspector, tapping a bulky notebook.
+
+"Still, if the lady is not too exhausted--"
+
+"There is really so little to tell. I have no doubt that wicked Susan
+had planned an entrance for them. They must have known the house to an
+inch. I was conscious for a moment of the chloroform rag which was
+thrust over my mouth, but I have no notion how long I may have been
+senseless. When I woke, one man was at the bedside and another was
+rising with a bundle in his hand from among my son's baggage, which was
+partially opened and littered over the floor. Before he could get away
+I sprang up and seized him."
+
+"You took a big risk," said the inspector.
+
+"I clung to him, but he shook me off, and the other may have struck me,
+for I can remember no more. Mary the maid heard the noise and began
+screaming out of the window. That brought the police, but the rascals
+had got away."
+
+"What did they take?"
+
+"Well, I don't think there is anything of value missing. I am sure
+there was nothing in my son's trunks."
+
+"Did the men leave no clue?"
+
+"There was one sheet of paper which I may have torn from the man that I
+grasped. It was lying all crumpled on the floor. It is in my son's
+handwriting."
+
+"Which means that it is not of much use," said the inspector. "Now if
+it had been in the burglar's--"
+
+"Exactly," said Holmes. "What rugged common sense! None the less, I
+should be curious to see it."
+
+The inspector drew a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocketbook.
+
+"I never pass anything, however trifling," said he with some pomposity.
+"That is my advice to you, Mr. Holmes. In twentyfive years' experience
+I have learned my lesson. There is always the chance of finger-marks or
+something."
+
+Holmes inspected the sheet of paper.
+
+"What do you make of it, Inspector?"
+
+"Seems to be the end of some queer novel, so far as I can see."
+
+"It may certainly prove to be the end of a queer tale," said Holmes.
+"You have noticed the number on the top of the page. It is two hundred
+and forty-five. Where are the odd two hundred and forty-four pages?"
+
+"Well, I suppose the burglars got those. Much good may it do them!"
+
+"It seems a queer thing to break into a house in order to steal such
+papers as that. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?"
+
+"Yes, sir, it suggests that in their hurry the rascals just grabbed at
+what came first to hand. I wish them joy of what they got."
+
+"Why should they go to my son's things?" asked Mrs. Maberley.
+
+"Well, they found nothing valuable downstairs, so they tried their luck
+upstairs. That is how I read it. What do you make of it, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I must think it over, Inspector. Come to the window, Watson." Then, as
+we stood together, he read over the fragment of paper. It began in the
+middle of a sentence and ran like this:
+
+"...face bled considerably from the cuts and blows, but it was nothing
+to the bleeding of his heart as he saw that lovely face, the face for
+which he had been prepared to sacrifice his very life, looking out at
+his agony and humiliation. She smiled--yes, by Heaven! she smiled,
+like the heartless fiend she was, as he looked up at her. It was at
+that moment that love died and hate was born. Man must live for
+something. If it is not for your embrace, my lady, then it shall surely
+be for your undoing and my complete revenge."
+
+"Queer grammar!" said Holmes with a smile as he handed the paper back
+to the inspector. "Did you notice how the 'he' suddenly changed to
+'my'? The writer was so carried away by his own story that he imagined
+himself at the supreme moment to be the hero."
+
+"It seemed mighty poor stuff," said the inspector as he replaced it in
+his book. "What! are you off, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I don't think there is anything more for me to do now that the case is
+in such capable hands. By the way, Mrs. Maberley, did you say you
+wished to travel?"
+
+"It has always been my dream, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"Where would you like to go--Cairo, Madeira, the Riviera?"
+
+"Oh if I had the money I would go round the world."
+
+"Quite so. Round the world. Well, good-morning. I may drop you a line
+in the evening." As we passed the window I caught a glimpse of the
+inspector's smile and shake of the head. "These clever fellows have
+always a touch of madness." That was what I read in the inspector's
+smile.
+
+"Now, Watson, we are at the last lap of our little journey," said
+Holmes when we were back in the roar of central London once more. "I
+think we had best clear the matter up at once, and it would be well
+that you should come with me, for it is safer to have a witness when
+you are dealing with such a lady as Isadora Klein."
+
+We had taken a cab and were speeding to some address in Grosvenor
+Square. Holmes had been sunk in thought, but he roused himself
+suddenly.
+
+"By the way, Watson, I suppose you see it all clearly?"
+
+"No, I can't say that I do. I only gather that we are going to see the
+lady who is behind all this mischief."
+
+"Exactly! But does the name Isadora Klein convey nothing to you? She
+was, of course, the celebrated beauty. There was never a woman to touch
+her. She is pure Spanish, the real blood of the masterfui
+Conquistadors, and her people have been leaders in Pernambuco for
+generations. She married the aged German sugar king, Klein, and
+presently found herself the richest as well as the most lovely widow
+upon earth. Then there was an interval of adventure when she pleased
+her own tastes. She had several lovers, and Douglas Maberley, one of
+the most striking men in London, was one of them. It was by all
+accounts more than an adventure with him. He was not a society
+butterfly but a strong, proud man who gave and expected all. But she is
+the 'belle dame sans merci' of fiction. When her caprice is satisfied
+the matter is ended, and if the other party in the matter can't take
+her word for it she knows how to bring it home to him."
+
+"Then that was his own story--"
+
+"Ah! you are piecing it together now. I hear that she is about to marry
+the young Duke of Lomond, who might almost be her son. His Grace's ma
+might overlook the age, but a big scandal would be a different matter,
+so it is imperative--Ah! here we are."
+
+It was one of the finest corner-houses of the West End. A machine-like
+footman took up our cards and returned with word that the lady was not
+at home. "Then we shall wait until she is," said Holmes cheerfully.
+
+The machine broke down.
+
+"Not at home means not at home to you," said the footman.
+
+"Good," Holmes answered. "That means that we shall not have to wait.
+Kindly give this note to your mistress."
+
+He scribbled three or four words upon a sheet of his notebook, folded
+it, and handed it to the man.
+
+"What did you say, Holmes?" I asked.
+
+"I simply wrote: 'Shall it be the police, then?' I think that should
+pass us in."
+
+It did--with amazing celerity. A minute later we were in an Arabian
+Nights drawing-room, vast and wonderful, in a half gloom, picked out
+with an occasional pink electric light. The lady had come, I felt, to
+that time of life when even the proudest beauty finds the half light
+more welcome. She rose from a settee as we entered: tall, queenly, a
+perfect figure, a lovely mask-like face, with two wonderful Spanish
+eyes which looked murder at us both.
+
+"What is this intrusion--and this insulting message?" she asked,
+holding up the slip of paper.
+
+"I need not explain, madame. I have too much respect for your
+intelligence to do so--though I confess that intelligence has been
+surprisingly at fault of late."
+
+"How so, sir?"
+
+"By supposing that your hired bullies could frighten me from my work.
+Surely no man would take up my profession if it were not that danger
+attracts him. It was you, then, who forced me to examine the case of
+young Maberley."
+
+"I have no idea what you are talking about. What have I to do with
+hired bullies?"
+
+Holmes turned away wearily.
+
+"Yes, I have underrated your intelligence. Well, good-afternoon!"
+
+"Stop! Where are you going?"
+
+"To Scotland Yard."
+
+We had not got halfway to the door before she had overtaken us and was
+holding his arm. She had turned in a moment from steel to velvet.
+
+"Come and sit down, gentlemen. Let us talk this matter over. I feel
+that I may be frank with you, Mr. Holmes. You have the feelings of a
+gentleman. How quick a woman's instinct is to find it out. I will treat
+you as a friend."
+
+"I cannot promise to reciprocate, madame. I am not the law, but I
+represent justice so far as my feeble powers go. I am ready to listen,
+and then I will tell you how I will act."
+
+"No doubt it was foolish of me to threaten a brave man like yourself."
+
+"What was really foolish, madame, is that you have placed yourself in
+the power of a band of rascals who may blackmail or give you away."
+
+"No, no! I am not so simple. Since I have promised to be frank, I may
+say that no one, save Barney Stockdale and Susan, his wife, have the
+least idea who their employer is. As to them, well, it is not the first
+--" She smiled and nodded with a charming coquettish intimacy.
+
+"I see. You've tested them before."
+
+"They are good hounds who run silent."
+
+"Such hounds have a way sooner or later of biting the hand that feeds
+them. They will be arrested for this burglary. The police are already
+after them."
+
+"They will take what comes to them. That is what they are paid for. I
+shall not appear in the matter."
+
+"Unless I bring you into it."
+
+"No, no, you would not. You are a gentleman. It is a woman's secret."
+
+"In the first place, you must give back this manuscript."
+
+She broke into a ripple of laughter and walked to the fireplace. There
+was a calcined mass which she broke up with the poker. "Shall I give
+this back?" she asked. So roguish and exquisite did she look as she
+stood before us with a challenging smile that I felt of all Holmes's
+criminals this was the one whom he would find it hardest to face.
+However, he was immune from sentiment.
+
+"That seals your fate," he said coldly. "You are very prompt in your
+actions, madame, but you have overdone it on this occasion."
+
+She threw the poker down with a clatter.
+
+"How hard you are!" she cried. "May I tell you the whole story?"
+
+"I fancy I could tell it to you."
+
+"But you must look at it with my eyes, Mr. Holmes. You must realize it
+from the point of view of a woman who sees all her life's ambition
+about to be ruined at the last moment. Is such a woman to be blamed if
+she protects herself?"
+
+"The original sin was yours."
+
+"Yes, yes! I admit it. He was a dear boy, Douglas, but it so chanced
+that he could not fit into my plans. He wanted marriage--marriage,
+Mr. Holmes--with a penniless commoner. Nothing less would serve him.
+Then he became pertinacious. Because I had given he seemed to think
+that I still must give, and to him only. It was intolerable. At last I
+had to make him realize it."
+
+"By hiring ruffians to beat him under your own window."
+
+"You do indeed seem to know everything. Well, it is true. Barney and
+the boys drove him away, and were, I admit, a little rough in doing so.
+But what did he do then? Could I have believed that a gentleman would
+do such an act? He wrote a book in which he described his own story. I,
+of course, was the wolf; he the lamb. It was all there, under different
+names, of course; but who in all London would have failed to recognize
+it? What do you say to that, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Well, he was within his rights."
+
+"It was as if the air of Italy had got into his blood and brought with
+it the old cruel Italian spirit. He wrote to me and sent me a copy of
+his book that I might have the torture of anticipation. There were two
+copies, he said--one for me, one for his publisher."
+
+"How did you know the publisher's had not reached him?"
+
+"I knew who his publisher was. It is not his only novel, you know. I
+found out that he had not heard from Italy. Then came Douglas's sudden
+death. So long as that other manuscript was in the world there was no
+safety for me. Of course, it must be among his effects, and these would
+be returned to his mother. I set the gang at work. One of them got into
+the house as servant. I wanted to do the thing honestly. I really and
+truly did. I was ready to buy the house and everything in it. I offered
+any price she cared to ask. I only tried the other way when everything
+else had failed. Now, Mr. Holmes, granting that I was too hard on
+Douglas--and, God knows, I am sorry for it!--what else could I do
+with my whole future at stake?"
+
+Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, well," said he, "I suppose I shall have to compound a felony as
+usual. How much does it cost to go round the world in first-class
+style?"
+
+The lady stared in amazement.
+
+"Could it be done on five thousand pounds?"
+
+"Well, I should think so, indeed!"
+
+"Very good. I think you will sign me a check for that, and I will see
+that it comes to Mrs. Maberley. You owe her a little change of air.
+Meantime, lady"--he wagged a cautionary forefinger--"have a care!
+Have a care! You can't play with edged tools forever without cutting
+those dainty hands."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUSSEX VAMPIRE
+
+
+
+Holmes had read carefully a note which the last post had brought him.
+Then, with the dry chuckle which was his nearest approach to a laugh,
+he tossed it over to me.
+
+"For a mixture of the modern and the mediaeval, of the practical and of
+the wildly fanciful, I think this is surely the limit," said he. "What
+do you make of it, Watson?"
+
+I read as follows:
+
+
+46, OLD JEWRY,
+Nov. 19th.
+
+Re Vampires
+
+SIR:
+
+Our client, Mr. Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and Muirhead, tea brokers, of
+Mincing Lane, has made some inquiry from us in a communication of even
+date concerning vampires. As our firm specializes entirely upon the
+assessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we
+have therefore recommended Mr. Ferguson to call upon
+you and lay the matter before you. We have not forgotten your successful
+action in the case of Matilda Briggs.
+
+We are, sir,
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+MORRISON, MORRISON, AND DODD.
+
+per E. J. C.
+
+
+"Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson," said Holmes
+in a reminiscent voice. "It was a ship which is associated with the
+giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.
+But what do we know about vampires? Does it come within our purview
+either? Anything is better than stagnation, but really we seem to have
+been switched on to a Grimms' fairy tale. Make a long arm, Watson, and
+see what V has to say."
+
+I leaned back and took down the great index volume to which he
+referred. Holmes balanced it on his knee, and his eyes moved slowly and
+lovingly over the record of old cases, mixed with the accumulated
+information of a lifetime.
+
+"Voyage of the Gloria Scott," he read. "That was a bad business. I have
+some recollection that you made a record of it, Watson, though I was
+unable to congratulate you upon the result. Victor Lynch, the forger.
+Venomous lizard or gila. Remarkable case, that! Vittoria, the circus
+belle. Vanderbilt and the Yeggman. Vipers. Vigor, the Hammersmith
+wonder. Hullo! Hullo! Good old index. You can't beat it. Listen to
+this, Watson. Vampirism in Hungary. And again, Vampires in
+Transylvania." He turned over the pages with eagerness, but after a
+short intent perusal he threw down the great book with a snarl of
+disappointment.
+
+"Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who
+can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts?
+It's pure lunacy."
+
+"But surely," said I, "the vampire was not necessarily a dead man? A
+living person might have the habit. I have read, for example, of the
+old sucking the blood of the young in order to retain their youth."
+
+"You are right, Watson. It mentions the legend in one of these
+references. But are we to give serious attention to such things? This
+agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain.
+The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply. I fear that we
+cannot take Mr. Robert Ferguson very seriously. Possibly this note may
+be from him and may throw some light upon what is worrying him."
+
+He took up a second letter which had lain unnoticed upon the table
+while he had been absorbed with the first. This he began to read with a
+smile of amusement upon his face which gradually faded away into an
+expression of intense interest and concentration. When he had finished
+he sat for some little time lost in thought with the letter dangling
+from his fingers. Finally, with a start, he aroused himself from his
+reverie.
+
+"Cheeseman's, Lamberley. Where is Lamberley, Watson?"
+
+"It is in Sussex, South of Horsham."
+
+"Not very far, eh? And Cheeseman's?"
+
+"I know that country, Holmes. It is full of old houses which are named
+after the men who built them centuries ago. You get Odley's and
+Harvey's and Carriton's--the folk are forgotten but their names live
+in their houses."
+
+"Precisely," said Holmes coldly. It was one of the peculiarities of his
+proud, self-contained nature that though he docketed any fresh
+information very quietly and accurately in his brain, he seldom made
+any acknowledgment to the giver. "I rather fancy we shall know a good
+deal more about Cheeseman's, Lamberley, before we are through. The
+letter is, as I had hoped, from Robert Ferguson. By the way, he claims
+acquaintance with you."
+
+"With me!"
+
+"You had better read it."
+
+He handed the letter across. It was headed with the address quoted.
+
+
+DEAR MR HOLMES [it said]:
+
+I have been recommended to you by my lawyers, but indeed the matter is so
+extraordinarily delicate that it is most difficult to discuss. It concerns
+a friend for whom I am acting. This gentleman married some five years ago
+a Peruvian lady the daughter of a Peruvian merchant, whom he had met in
+connection with the importation of nitrates. The lady was very beautiful,
+but the fact of her foreign birth and of her alien religion always caused
+a separation of interests and of feelings between husband and wife, so
+that after a time his love may have cooled towards her and he may have
+come to regard their union as a mistake. He felt there were sides of her
+character which he could never explore or understand. This was the more
+painful as she was as loving a wife as a man could have--to all appearance
+absolutely devoted.
+
+Now for the point which I will make more plain when we meet. Indeed, this
+note is merely to give you a general idea of the situation and to
+ascertain whether you would care to interest yourself in the matter. The
+lady began to show some curious traits quite alien to her ordinarily sweet
+and gentle disposition. The gentleman had been married twice and he had
+one son by the first wife. This boy was now fifteen, a very charming and
+affectionate youth, though unhappily injured through an accident in
+childhood. Twice the wife was caught in the act of assaulting this poor
+lad in the most unprovoked way. Once she struck him with a stick and left
+a great weal on his arm. This was a small matter, however, compared with
+her conduct to her own child, a dear boy just under one year of age. On
+one occasion about a month ago this child had been left by its nurse for
+a few minutes. A loud cry from the baby, as of pain, called the nurse
+back. As she ran into the room she saw her employer, the lady, leaning
+over the baby and apparently biting his neck. There was a small wound in
+the neck from which a stream of blood had escaped. The nurse was so
+horrified that she wished to call the husband, but the lady implored her
+not to do so and actually gave her five pounds as a price for her silence.
+No explanation was ever given, and for the moment the matter was passed
+over. It left, however, a terrible impression upon the nurse's mind, and
+from that time she began to watch her mistress closely and to keep a
+closer guard upon the baby, whom she tenderly loved. It seemed to her that
+even as she watched the mother, so the mother watched her, and that every
+time she was compelled to leave the baby alone the mother was waiting to
+get at it. Day and night the nurse covered the child, and day and night
+the silent, watchful mother seemed to be lying in wait as a wolf waits for
+a lamb. It must read most incredible to you, and yet I beg you to take it
+seriously, for a child's life and a man's sanity may depend upon it.
+
+At last there came one dreadful day when the facts could no longer be
+concealed from the husband. The nurse's nerve had given way; she could
+stand the strain no longer, and she made a clean breast of it all to the
+man. To him it seemed as wild a tale as it may now seem to you. He knew
+his wife to be a loving wife, and, save for the assaults upon her stepson,
+a loving mother. Why, then, should she wound her own dear little baby?
+He told the nurse that she was dreaming, that her suspicions were those of
+a lunatic, and that such libels upon her mistress were not to be
+tolerated. While they were talking a sudden cry of pain was heard. Nurse
+and master rushed together to the nursery. Imagine his feelings,
+Mr. Holmes, as he saw his wife rise from a kneeling position beside the
+cot and saw blood upon the child's exposed neck and upon the sheet. With a
+cry of horror, he turned his wife's face to the light and saw blood all
+round her lips. It was she--she beyond all question--who had drunk the
+poor baby's blood. So the matter stands. She is now confined to her room.
+There has been no explanation. The husband is half demented. He knows,
+and I know, little of vampirism beyond the name. We had thought it was
+some wild tale of foreign parts. And yet here in the very heart of the
+English Sussex--well, all this can be discussed with you in the morning.
+Will you see me? Will you use your great powers in aiding a distracted
+man? If so, kindly wire to Ferguson, Cheeseman's, Lamberley, and I will be
+at your rooms by ten o'clock.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+ROBERT FERGUSON.
+
+P. S. I believe your friend Watson played Rugby for Blackheath when I was
+three-quarter for Richmond. It is the only personal introduction which I
+can give.
+
+
+"Of course I remembered him," said I as I laid down the letter. "Big
+Bob Ferguson, the finest three-quarter Richmond ever had. He was always
+a good-natured chap. It's like him to be so concerned over a friend's
+case."
+
+Holmes looked at me thoughtfully and shook his head.
+
+"I never get your limits, Watson," said he. "There are unexplored
+possibilities about you. Take a wire down, like a good fellow. 'Will
+examine your case with pleasure.'"
+
+"Your case!"
+
+"We must not let him think that this agency is a home for the
+weak-minded. Of course it is his case. Send him that wire and let the
+matter rest till morning."
+
+Promptly at ten o'clock next morning Ferguson strode into our room. I
+had remembered him as a long, slab-sided man with loose limbs and a
+fine turn of speed which had carried him round many an opposing back.
+There is surely nothing in life more painful than to meet the wreck of
+a fine athlete whom one has known in his prime. His great frame had
+fallen in, his flaxen hair was scanty, and his shoulders were bowed. I
+fear that I roused corresponding emotions in him.
+
+"Hullo, Watson," said he, and his voice was still deep and hearty. "You
+don't look quite the man you did when I threw you over the ropes into
+the crowd at the Old Deer Park. I expect I have changed a bit also. But
+it's this last day or two that has aged me. I see by your telegram, Mr.
+Holmes, that it is no use my pretending to be anyone's deputy.".
+
+"It is simpler to deal direct," said Holmes.
+
+"Of course it is. But you can imagine how difficult it is when you are
+speaking of the one woman whom you are bound to protect and help. What
+can I do? How am I to go to the police with such a story? And yet the
+kiddies have got to be protected. Is it madness, Mr. Holmes? Is it
+something in the blood? Have you any similar case in your experience?
+For God's sake, give me some advice, for I am at my wit's end."
+
+"Very naturally, Mr. Ferguson. Now sit here and pull yourself together
+and give me a few clear answers. I can assure you that I am very far
+from being at my wit's end, and that I am confident we shall find some
+solution. First of all, tell me what steps you have taken. Is your wife
+still near the children?"
+
+"We had a dreadful scene. She is a most loving woman, Mr. Holmes. If
+ever a woman loved a man with all her heart and soul, she loves me. She
+was cut to the heart that I should have discovered this horrible, this
+incredible, secret. She would not even speak. She gave no answer to my
+reproaches, save to gaze at me with a sort of wild, despairing look in
+her eyes. Then she rushed to her room and locked herself in. Since then
+she has refused to see me. She has a maid who was with her before her
+marriage, Dolores by name--a friend rather than a servant. She takes
+her food to her."
+
+"Then the child is in no immediate danger?"
+
+"Mrs. Mason, the nurse, has sworn that she will not leave it night or
+day. I can absolutely trust her. I am more uneasy about poor little
+Jack, for, as I told you in my note, he has twice been assaulted by
+her."
+
+"But never wounded?"
+
+"No, she struck him savagely. It is the more terrible as he is a poor
+little inoffensive cripple." Ferguson's gaunt features softened as he
+spoke of his boy. "You would think that the dear lad's condition would
+soften anyone's heart. A fall in childhood and a twisted spine, Mr.
+Holmes. But the dearest, most loving heart within."
+
+Holmes had picked up the letter of yesterday and was reading it over.
+"What other inmates are there in your house, Mr. Ferguson?"
+
+"Two servants who have not been long with us. One stablehand, Michael,
+who sleeps in the house. My wife, myself, my boy Jack, baby, Dolores,
+and Mrs. Mason. That is all."
+
+"I gather that you did not know your wife well at the time of your
+marriage?"
+
+"I had only known her a few weeks."
+
+"How long had this maid Dolores been with her?"
+
+"Some years."
+
+"Then your wife's character would really be better known by Dolores
+than by you?"
+
+"Yes, you may say so."
+
+Holmes made a note.
+
+"I fancy," said he, "that I may be of more use at Lamberley than here.
+It is eminently a case for personal investigation. If the lady remains
+in her room, our presence could not annoy or inconvenience her. Of
+course, we would stay at the inn."
+
+Ferguson gave a gesture of relief.
+
+"It is what I hoped, Mr. Holmes. There is an excellent train at two
+from Victoria if you could come."
+
+"Of course we could come. There is a lull at present. I can give you my
+undivided energies. Watson, of course, comes with us. But there are one
+or two points upon which I wish to be very sure before I start. This
+unhappy lady, as I understand it, has appeared to assault both the
+children, her own baby and your little son?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+"But the assaults take different forms, do they not? She has beaten
+your son."
+
+"Once with a stick and once very savagely with her hands."
+
+"Did she give no explanation why she struck him?"
+
+"None save that she hated him. Again and again she said so."
+
+"Well, that is not unknown among stepmothers. A posthumous jealousy, we
+will say. Is the lady jealous by nature?"
+
+"Yes, she is very jealous--jealous with all the strength of her fiery
+tropical love."
+
+"But the boy--he is fifteen, I understand, and probably very
+developed in mind, since his body has been circumscribed in action. Did
+he give you no explanation of these assaults?"
+
+"No, he declared there was no reason."
+
+"Were they good friends at other times?"
+
+"No, there was never any love between them."
+
+"Yet you say he is affectionate?"
+
+"Never in the world could there be so devoted a son. My life is his
+life. He is absorbed in what I say or do."
+
+Once again Holmes made a note. For some time he sat lost in thought.
+
+"No doubt you and the boy were great comrades before this second
+marriage. You were thrown very close together, were you not?"
+
+"Very much so."
+
+"And the boy, having so affectionate a nature, was devoted, no doubt,
+to the memory of his mother?"
+
+"Most devoted."
+
+"He would certainly seem to be a most interesting lad. There is one
+other point about these assaults. Were the strange attacks upon the
+baby and the assaults upon yow son at the same period?"
+
+"In the first case it was so. It was as if some frenzy had seized her,
+and she had vented her rage upon both. In the second case it was only
+Jack who suffered. Mrs. Mason had no complaint to make about the baby."
+
+"That certainly complicates matters."
+
+"I don't quite follow you, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"Possibly not. One forms provisional theories and waits for time or
+fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human
+nature is weak. I fear that your old friend here has given an
+exaggerated view of my scientific methods. However, I will only say at
+the present stage that your problem does not appear to me to be
+insoluble, and that you may expect to find us at Victoria at two
+o'clock."
+
+It was evening of a dull, foggy November day when, having left our bags
+at the Chequers, Lamberley, we drove through the Sussex clay of a long
+winding lane and finally reached the isolated and ancient farmhouse in
+which Ferguson dwelt. It was a large, straggling building, very old in
+the centre, very new at the wings with towering Tudor chimneys and a
+lichen-spotted, high-pitched roof of Horsham slabs. The doorsteps were
+worn into curves, and the ancient tiles which lined the porch were
+marked with the rebus of a cheese and a man after the original builder.
+Within, the ceilings were corrugated with heavy oaken beams, and the
+uneven floors sagged into sharp curves. An odour of age and decay
+pervaded the whole crumbling building.
+
+There was one very large central room into which Ferguson led us. Here,
+in a huge old-fashioned fireplace with an iron screen behind it dated
+1670, there blazed and spluttered a splendid log fire.
+
+The room, as I gazed round, was a most singular mixture of dates and of
+places. The half-panelled walls may well have belonged to the original
+yeoman farmer of the seventeenth century. They were ornamented,
+however, on the lower part by a line of well-chosen modern
+water-colours; while above, where yellow plaster took the place of oak,
+there was hung a fine collection of South American utensils and
+weapons, which had been brought, no doubt, by the Peruvian lady
+upstairs. Holmes rose, with that quick curiosity which sprang from his
+eager mind, and examined them with some care. He returned with his eyes
+full of thought.
+
+"Hullo!" he cried. "Hullo!"
+
+A spaniel had lain in a basket in the corner. It came slowly forward
+towards its master, walking with difficulty. Its hind legs moved
+irregularly and its tail was on the ground. It licked Ferguson's hand.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"The dog. What's the matter with it?"
+
+"That's what puzzled the vet. A sort of paralysis. Spinal meningitis,
+he thought. But it is passing. He'll be all right soon--won't you,
+Carlo?"
+
+A shiver of assent passed through the drooping tail. The dog's mournful
+eyes passed from one of us to the other. He knew that we were
+discussing his case.
+
+"Did it come on suddenly?"
+
+"In a single night."
+
+"How long ago?"
+
+"It may have been four months ago."
+
+"Very remarkable. Very suggestive."
+
+"What do you see in it, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"A confirmation of what I had already thought."
+
+"For God's sake, what do you think, Mr. Holmes? It may be a mere
+intellectual puzzle to you, but it is life and death to me! My wife a
+would-be murderer--my child in constant danger! Don't play with me,
+Mr. Holmes. It is too terribly serious."
+
+The big Rugby three-quarter was trembling all over. Holmes put his hand
+soothingly upon his arm.
+
+"I fear that there is pain for you, Mr. Ferguson, whatever the solution
+may be," said he. "I would spare you all I can. I cannot say more for
+the instant, but before I leave this house I hope I may have something
+definite."
+
+"Please God you may! If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I will go up to
+my wife's room and see if there has been any change."
+
+He was away some minutes, during which Holmes resumed his examination
+of the curiosities upon the wall. When our host returned it was clear
+from his downcast face that he had made no progress. He brought with
+him a tall, slim, brown-faced girl.
+
+"The tea is ready, Dolores," said Ferguson. "See that your mistress has
+everything she can wish."
+
+"She verra ill," cried the girl, looking with indignant eyes at her
+master. "She no ask for food. She verra ill. She need doctor. I
+frightened stay alone with her without doctor."
+
+Ferguson looked at me with a question in his eyes.
+
+"I should be so glad if I could be of use."
+
+"Would your mistress see Dr. Watson?"
+
+"I take him. I no ask leave. She needs doctor."
+
+"Then I'll come with you at once."
+
+I followed the girl, who was quivering with strong emotion, up the
+staircase and down an ancient corridor. At the end was an iron-clamped
+and massive door. It struck me as I looked at it that if Ferguson tried
+to force his way to his wife he would find it no easy matter. The girl
+drew a key from her pocket, and the heavy oaken planks creaked upon
+their old hinges. I passed in and she swiftly followed, fastening the
+door behind her.
+
+On the bed a woman was lying who was clearly in a high fever. She was
+only half conscious, but as I entered she raised a pair of frightened
+but beautiful eyes and glared at me in apprehension. Seeing a stranger,
+she appeared to be relieved and sank back with a sigh upon the pillow.
+I stepped up to her with a few reassuring words, and she lay still
+while I took her pulse and temperature. Both were high, and yet my
+impression was that the condition was rather that of mental and nervous
+excitement than of any actual seizure.
+
+"She lie like that one day, two day. I 'fraid she die," said the girl.
+
+The woman turned her flushed and handsome face towards me.
+
+"Where is my husband?"
+
+"He is below and would wish to see you."
+
+"I will not see him. I will not see him." Then she seemed to wander off
+into delirium. "A fiend! A fiend! Oh, what shall I do with this devil?"
+
+"Can I help you in any way?"
+
+"No. No one can help. It is finished. All is destroyed. Do what I will,
+all is destroyed."
+
+The woman must have some strange delusion. I could not see honest Bob
+Ferguson in the character of fiend or devil.
+
+"Madame," I said, "your husband loves you dearly. He is deeply grieved
+at this happening."
+
+Again she turned on me those glorious eyes.
+
+"He loves me. Yes. But do I not love him? Do I not love him even to
+sacrifice myself rather than break his dear heart? That is how I love
+him. And yet he could think of me--he could speak of me so."
+
+"He is full of grief, but he cannot understand."
+
+"No, he cannot understand. But he should trust."
+
+"Will you not see him?" I suggested.
+
+"No, no, I cannot forget those terrible words nor the look upon his
+face. I will not see him. Go now. You can do nothing for me. Tell him
+only one thing. I want my child. I have a right to my child. That is
+the only message I can send him." She turned her face to the wall and
+would say no more.
+
+I returned to the room downstairs, where Ferguson and Holmes still sat
+by the fire. Ferguson listened moodily to my account of the interview.
+
+"How can I send her the child?" he said. "How do I know what strange
+impulse might come upon her? How can I ever forget how she rose from
+beside it with its blood upon her lips?" He shuddered at the
+recollection. "The child is safe with Mrs. Mason, and there he must
+remain."
+
+A smart maid, the only modern thing which we had seen in the house, had
+brought in some tea. As she was serving it the door opened and a youth
+entered the room. He was a remarkable lad, pale-faced and fair-haired,
+with excitable light blue eyes which blazed into a sudden flame of
+emotion and joy as they rested upon his father. He rushed forward and
+threw his arms round his neck with the abandon of a loving girl.
+
+"Oh, daddy," he cried, "I did not know that you were due yet. I should
+have been here to meet you. Oh, I am so glad to see you!"
+
+Ferguson gently disengaged himself from the embrace with some little
+show of embarrassment.
+
+"Dear old chap," said he, patting the flaxen head with a very tender
+hand. "I came early because my friends, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, have
+been persuaded to come down and spend an evening with us."
+
+"Is that Mr. Holmes, the detective?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The youth looked at us with a very penetrating and, as it seemed to me,
+unfriendly gaze.
+
+"What about your other child, Mr. Ferguson?" asked Holmes. "Might we
+make the acquaintance of the baby?"
+
+"Ask Mrs. Mason to bring baby down," said Ferguson. The boy went off
+with a curious, shambling gait which told my surgical eyes that he was
+suffering from a weak spine. Presently he returned, and behind him came
+a tall, gaunt woman bearing in her arms a very beautiful child,
+dark-eyed, golden-haired, a wonderful mixture of the Saxon and the
+Latin. Ferguson was evidently devoted to it, for he took it into his
+arms and fondled it most tenderly.
+
+"Fancy anyone having the heart to hurt him," he muttered as he glanced
+down at the small, angry red pucker upon the cherub throat.
+
+It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Holmes and saw a most
+singular intentness in his expression. His face was as set as if it had
+been carved out of old ivory, and his eyes, which had glanced for a
+moment at father and child, were now fixed with eager curiosity upon
+something at the other side of the room. Following his gaze I could
+only guess that he was looking out through the window at the
+melancholy, dripping garden. It is true that a shutter had half closed
+outside and obstructed the view, but none the less it was certainly at
+the window that Holmes was fixing his concentrated attention. Then he
+smiled, and his eyes came back to the baby. On its chubby neck there
+was this small puckered mark. Without speaking, Holmes examined it with
+care. Finally he shook one of the dimpled fists which waved in front of
+him.
+
+"Good-bye, little man. You have made a strange start in life. Nurse, I
+should wish to have a word with you in private."
+
+He took her aside and spoke earnestly for a few minutes. I only heard
+the last words, which were: "Your anxiety will soon, I hope, be set at
+rest." The woman, who seemed to be a sour, silent kind of creature,
+withdrew with the child.
+
+"What is Mrs. Mason like?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Not very prepossessing externally, as you can see, but a heart of
+gold, and devoted to the child."
+
+"Do you like her, Jack?" Holmes turned suddenly upon the boy. His
+expressive mobile face shadowed over, and he shook his head.
+
+"Jacky has very strong likes and dislikes," said Ferguson, putting his
+arm round the boy. "Luckily I am one of his likes."
+
+The boy cooed and nestled his head upon his father's breast. Ferguson
+gently disengaged him.
+
+"Run away, little Jacky," said he, and he watched his son with loving
+eyes until he disappeared. "Now, Mr. Holmes," he continued when the boy
+was gone, "I really feel that I have brought you on a fool's errand,
+for what can you possibly do save give me your sympathy? It must be an
+exceedingly delicate and complex affair from your point of view."
+
+"It is certainly delicate," said my friend with an amused smile, "but I
+have not been struck up to now with its complexity. It has been a case
+for intellectual deduction, but when this original intellectual
+deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent
+incidents, then the subjective becomes objective and we can say
+confidently that we have reached our goal. I had, in fact, reached it
+before we left Baker Street, and the rest has merely been observation
+and confirmation."
+
+Ferguson put his big hand to his furrowed forehead.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Holmes," he said hoarsely; "if you can see the
+truth in this matter, do not keep me in suspense. How do I stand? What
+shall I do? I care nothing as to how you have found your facts so long
+as you have really got them."
+
+"Certainly I owe you an explanation, and you shall have it. But you
+will permit me to handle the matter in my own way? Is the lady capable
+of seeing us, Watson?"
+
+"She is ill, but she is quite rational."
+
+"Very good. It is only in her presence that we can clear the matter up.
+Let us go up to her."
+
+"She will not see me," cried Ferguson.
+
+"Oh, yes, she will," said Holmes. He scribbled a few lines upon a sheet
+of paper. "You at least have the entree, Watson. Will you have the
+goodness to give the lady this note?"
+
+I ascended again and handed the note to Dolores, who cautiously opened
+the door. A minute later I heard a cry from within, a cry in which joy
+and surprise seemed to be blended. Dolores looked out.
+
+"She will see them. She will leesten," said she.
+
+At my summons Ferguson and Holmes came up. As we entered the room
+Ferguson took a step or two towards his wife, who had raised herself in
+the bed, but she held out her hand to repulse him. He sank into an
+armchair, while Holmes seated himself beside him, after bowing to the
+lady, who looked at him with wide-eyed amazement.
+
+"I think we can dispense with Dolores," said Holmes. "Oh, very well,
+madame, if you would rather she stayed I can see no objection. Now, Mr.
+Ferguson, I am a busy man with many calls, and my methods have to be
+short and direct. The swiftest surgery is the least painful. Let me
+first say what will ease your mind. Your wife is a very good, a very
+loving, and a very ill-used woman."
+
+Ferguson sat up with a cry of joy.
+
+"Prove that, Mr. Holmes, and I am your debtor forever."
+
+"I will do so, but in doing so I must wound you deeply in another
+direction."
+
+"I care nothing so long as you clear my wife. Everything on earth is
+insignificant compared to that."
+
+"Let me tell you, then, the train of reasoning which passed through my
+mind in Baker Street. The idea of a vampire was to me absurd. Such
+things do not happen in criminal practice in England. And yet your
+observation was precise. You had seen the lady rise from beside the
+child's cot with the blood upon her lips."
+
+"I did."
+
+"Did it not occur to you that a bleeding wound may be sucked for some
+other purpose than to draw the blood from it? Was there not a queen in
+English history who sucked such a wound to draw poison from it?"
+
+"Poison!"
+
+"A South American household. My instinct felt the presence of those
+weapons upon the wall before my eyes ever saw them. It might have been
+other poison, but that was what occurred to me. When I saw that little
+empty quiver beside the small birdbow, it was just what I expected to
+see. If the child were pricked with one of those arrows dipped in
+curare or some other devilish drug, it would mean death if the venom
+were not sucked out.
+
+"And the dog! If one were to use such a poison, would one not try it
+first in order to see that it had not lost its power? I did not foresee
+the dog, but at least I understand him and he fitted into my
+reconstruction.
+
+"Now do you understand? Your wife feared such an attack. She saw it
+made and saved the child's life, and yet she shrank from telling you
+all the truth, for she knew how you loved the boy and feared lest it
+break your heart."
+
+"Jacky!"
+
+"I watched him as you fondled the child just now. His face was clearly
+reflected in the glass of the window where the shutter formed a
+background. I saw such jealousy, such cruel hatred, as I have seldom
+seen in a human face."
+
+"My Jacky!"
+
+"You have to face it, Mr. Ferguson. It is the more painful because it
+is a distorted love, a maniacal exaggerated love for you, and possibly
+for his dead mother, which has prompted his action. His very soul is
+consumed with hatred for this splendid child, whose health and beauty
+are a contrast to his own weakness."
+
+"Good God! It is incredible!"
+
+"Have I spoken the truth, madame?"
+
+The lady was sobbing, with her face buried in the pillows. Now she
+turned to her husband.
+
+"How could I tell you, Bob? I felt the blow it would be to you. It was
+better that I should wait and that it should come from some other lips
+than mine. When this gentleman, who seems to have powers of magic,
+wrote that he knew all, I was glad."
+
+"I think a year at sea would be my prescription for Master Jacky," said
+Holmes, rising from his chair. "Only one thing is still clouded,
+madame. We can quite understand your attacks upon Master Jacky. There
+is a limit to a mother's patience. But how did you dare to leave the
+child these last two days?"
+
+"I had told Mrs. Mason. She knew."
+
+"Exactly. So I imagined."
+
+Ferguson was standing by the bed, choking, his hands outstretched and
+quivering.
+
+"This, I fancy, is the time for our exit, Watson," said Holmes in a
+whisper. "If you will take one elbow of the too faithful Dolores, I
+will take the other. There, now," he added as he closed the door behind
+him, "I think we may leave them to settle the rest among themselves."
+
+I have only one further note of this case. It is the letter which
+Holmes wrote in final answer to that with which the narrative begins.
+It ran thus:
+
+
+BAKER STREET,
+Nov. 21st.
+Re Vampires
+
+SIR:
+
+Referring to your letter of the 19th, I beg to state that I have looked
+into the inquiry of your client, Mr. Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and
+Muirhead, tea brokers, of Mincing Lane, and that the matter has been
+brought to a satisfactory conclusion. With thanks for your recommendation,
+
+I am, sir,
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GARRIDEBS
+
+
+
+It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one
+man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man
+the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy.
+Well, you shall judge for yourselves.
+
+I remember the date very well, for it was in the same month that Holmes
+refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps some day be
+described. I only refer to the matter in passing, for in my position of
+partner and confidant I am obliged to be particularly careful to avoid
+any indiscretion. I repeat, however, that this enables me to fix the
+date, which was the latter end of June, 1902, shortly after the
+conclusion of the South African War. Holmes had spent several days in
+bed, as was his habit from time to time, but he emerged that morning
+with a long foolscap document in his hand and a twinkle of amusement in
+his austere gray eyes.
+
+"There is a chance for you to make some money. friend Watson," said he.
+"Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?"
+
+I admitted that I had not.
+
+"Well, if you can lay your hand upon a Garrideb, there's money in it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ah, that's a long story--rather a whimsical one, too. I don't think
+in all our explorations of human complexities we have ever come upon
+anything more singular. The fellow will be here presently for
+cross-examination, so I won't open the matter up till he comes. But,
+meanwhile, that's the name we want."
+
+The telephone directory lay on the table beside me, and I turned over
+the pages in a rather hopeless quest. But to my amazement there was
+this strange name in its due place. I gave a cry of triumph.
+
+"Here you are, Holmes! Here it is!"
+
+Holmes took the book from my hand.
+
+"'Garrideb, N.,'" he read, "'136 Little Ryder Street, W.' Sorry to
+disappoint you, my dear Watson, but this is the man himself. That is
+the address upon his letter. We want another to match him."
+
+Mrs. Hudson had come in with a card upon a tray. I took it up and
+glanced at it.
+
+"Why, here it is!" I cried in amazement. "This is a different initial.
+John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law, Moorville, Kansas, U.S.A."
+
+Holmes smiled as he looked at the card. "I am afraid you must make yet
+another effort, Watson," said he. "This gentleman is also in the plot
+already, though I certainly did not expect to see him this morning.
+However, he is in a position to tell us a good deal which I want to
+know."
+
+A moment later he was in the room. Mr. John Garrideb, Counsellor at
+Law, was a short, powerful man with the round, fresh, clean-shaven face
+characteristic of so many American men of affairs. The general effect
+was chubby and rather childlike, so that one received the impression of
+quite a young man with a broad set smile upon his face. His eyes,
+however, were arresting. Seldom in any human head have I seen a pair
+which bespoke a more intense inward life, so bright were they, so
+alert, so responsive to every change of thought. His accent was
+American, but was not accompanied by any eccentricity of speech.
+
+"Mr. Holmes?" he asked, glancing from one to the other. "Ah, yes! Your
+pictures are not unlike you, sir, if I may say so. I believe you have
+had a letter from my namesake, Mr. Nathan Garrideb, have you not?"
+
+"Pray sit down," said Sherlock Holmes. "We shall, I fancy, have a good
+deal to discuss." He took up his sheets of foolscap. "You are, of
+course, the Mr. John Garrideb mentioned in this document. But surely
+you have been in England some time?"
+
+"Why do you say that, Mr. Holmes?" I seemed to read sudden suspicion in
+those expressive eyes.
+
+"Your whole outfit is English."
+
+Mr. Garrideb forced a laugh. "I've read of your tricks, Mr. Holmes, but
+I never thought I would be the subject of them. Where do you read
+that?"
+
+"The shoulder cut of your coat, the toes of your boots--could anyone
+doubt it?"
+
+"Well, well, I had no idea I was so obvious a Britisher. But business
+brought me over here some time ago, and so, as you say, my outfit is
+nearly all London. However, I guess your time is of value, and we did
+not meet to talk about the cut of my socks. What about getting down to
+that paper you hold in your hand?"
+
+Holmes had in some way ruffled our visitor, whose chubby face had
+assumed a far less amiable expression.
+
+"Patience! Patience, Mr. Garrideb!" said my friend in a soothing voice.
+"Dr. Watson would tell you that these little digressions of mine
+sometimes prove in the end to have some bearing on the matter. But why
+did Mr. Nathan Garrideb not come with you?"
+
+"Why did he ever drag you into it at all?" asked our visitor with a
+sudden outflame of anger. "What in thunder had you to do with it? Here
+was a bit of professional business between two gentlemen, and one of
+them must needs call in a detective! I saw him this morning, and he
+told me this fool-trick he had played me, and that's why I am here. But
+I feel bad about it, all the same."
+
+"There was no reflection upon you, Mr. Garrideb. It was simply zeal
+upon his part to gain your end--an end which is, I understand,
+equally vital for both of you. He knew that I had means of getting
+information, and, therefore, it was very natural that he should apply
+to me."
+
+Our visitor's angry face gradually cleared.
+
+"Well, that puts it different," said he. "When I went to see him this
+morning and he told me he had sent to a detective, I just asked for
+your address and came right away. I don't want police butting into a
+private matter. But if you are content just to help us find the man,
+there can be no harm in that."
+
+"Well, that is just how it stands," said Holmes. "And now, sir, since
+you are here, we had best have a clear account from your own lips. My
+friend here knows nothing of the details."
+
+Mr. Garrideb surveyed me with not too friendly a gaze.
+
+"Need he know?" he asked.
+
+"We usually work together."
+
+"Well, there's no reason it should be kept a secret. I'll give you the
+facts as short as I can make them. If you came from Kansas I would not
+need to explain to you who Alexander Hamilton Garrideb was. He made his
+money in real estate, and afterwards in the wheat pit at Chicago, but
+he spent it in buying up as much land as would make one of your
+counties, lying along the Arkansas River, west of Fort Dodge. It's
+grazing-land and lumber-land and arable-land and mineralized-land, and
+just every sort of land that brings dollars to the man that owns it.
+
+"He had no kith nor kin--or, if he had, I never heard of it. But he
+took a kind of pride in the queerness of his name. That was what
+brought us together. I was in the law at Topeka, and one day I had a
+visit from the old man, and he was tickled to death to meet another man
+with his own name. It was his pet fad, and he was dead set to find out
+if there were any more Garridebs in the world. 'Find me another!' said
+he. I told him I was a busy man and could not spend my life hiking
+round the world in search of Garridebs. 'None the less,' said he, 'that
+is just what you will do if things pan out as I planned them.' I
+thought he was joking, but there was a powerful lot of meaning in the
+words, as I was soon to discover.
+
+"For he died within a year of saying them, and he left a will behind
+him. It was the queerest will that has ever been filed in the State of
+Kansas. His property was divided into three parts and I was to have one
+on condition that I found two Garridebs who would share the remainder.
+It's five million dollars for each if it is a cent, but we can't lay a
+finger on it until we all three stand in a row.
+
+"It was so big a chance that I just let my legal practice slide and I
+set forth looking for Garridebs. There is not one in the United States.
+I went through it, sir, with a fine-toothed comb and never a Garrideb
+could I catch. Then I tried the old country. Sure enough there was the
+name in the London telephone directory. I went after him two days ago
+and explained the whole matter to him. But he is a lone man, like
+myself, with some women relations, but no men. It says three adult men
+in the will. So you see we still have a vacancy, and if you can help to
+fill it we will be very ready to pay your charges."
+
+"Well, Watson," said Holmes with a smile, "l said it was rather
+whimsical, did I not? I should have thought, sir, that your obvious way
+was to advertise in the agony columns of the papers."
+
+"I have done that, Mr. Holmes. No replies."
+
+"Dear me! Well, it is certainly a most curious little problem. I may
+take a glance at it in my leisure. By the way, it is curious that you
+should have come from Topeka. I used to have a correspondent--he is
+dead now--old Dr. Lysander Starr, who was mayor in 1890."
+
+"Good old Dr. Starr!" said our visitor. "His name is still honoured.
+Well, Mr. Holmes, I suppose all we can do is to report to you and let
+you know how we progress. I reckon you will hear within a day or two."
+With this assurance our American bowed and departed.
+
+Holmes had lit his pipe, and he sat for some time with a curious smile
+upon his face.
+
+"Well?" I asked at last.
+
+"I am wondering, Watson--just wondering!"
+
+"At what?"
+
+Holmes took his pipe from his lips.
+
+"I was wondering, Watson, what on earth could be the object of this man
+in telling us such a rigmarole of lies. I nearly asked him so--for
+there are times when a brutal frontal attack is the best policy--but
+I judged it better to let him think he had fooled us. Here is a man
+with an English coat frayed at the elbow and trousers bagged at the
+knee with a year's wear, and yet by this document and by his own
+account he is a provincial American lately landed in London. There have
+been no advertisements in the agony columns. You know that I miss
+nothing there. They are my favourite covert for putting up a bird, and
+I would never have overlooked such a cock pheasant as that. I never
+knew a Dr. Lysander Starr, of Topeka. Touch him where you would he was
+false. I think the fellow is really an American, but he has worn his
+accent smooth with years of London. What is his game, then, and what
+motive lies behind this preposterous search for Garridebs? It's worth
+our attention, for, granting that the man is a rascal, he is certainly
+a complex and ingenious one. We must now find out if our other
+correspondent is a fraud also. Just ring him up, Watson."
+
+I did so, and heard a thin, quavering voice at the other end of the
+line.
+
+"Yes, yes, I am Mr. Nathan Garrideb. Is Mr. Holmes there? I should very
+much like to have a word with Mr. Holmes."
+
+My friend took the instrument and I heard the usual syncopated
+dialogue.
+
+"Yes, he has been here. I understand that you don't know him.... How
+long? ... Only two days! ... Yes, yes, of course, it is a most
+captivating prospect. Will you be at home this evening? I suppose your
+namesake will not be there? . . . Very good, we will come then, for I
+would rather have a chat without him.... Dr. Watson will come with
+me.... I understand from your note that you did not go out often....
+Well, we shall be round about six. You need not mention it to the
+American lawyer.... Very good. Good-bye!"
+
+It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder
+Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a
+stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and
+wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular house
+to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early Georgian
+edifice, with a flat brick face broken only by two deep bay windows on
+the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our client lived,
+and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of the huge room in
+which he spent his waking hours. Holmes pointed as we passed to the
+small brass plate which bore the curious name.
+
+"Up some years, Watson," he remarked, indicating its discoloured
+surface. "It's his real name, anyhow, and that is something to note."
+
+The house had a common stair, and there were a number of names painted
+in the hall, some indicating offices and some private chambers. It was
+not a collection of residential flats, but rather the abode of Bohemian
+bachelors. Our client opened the door for us himself and apologized by
+saying that the woman in charge left at four o'clock. Mr. Nathan
+Garrideb proved to be a very tall, loosejointed, round-backed person,
+gaunt and bald, some sixty-odd years of age. He had a cadaverous face,
+with the dull dead skin of a man to whom exercise was unknown. Large
+round spectacles and a small projecting goat's beard combined with his
+stooping attitude to give him an expression of peering curiosity. The
+general effect, however, was amiable, though eccentric.
+
+The room was as curious as its occupant. It looked like a small museum.
+It was both broad and deep, with cupboards and cabinets all round,
+crowded with specimens, geological and anatomical. Cases of butterflies
+and moths flanked each side of the entrance. A large table in the
+centre was littered with all sorts of debris, while the tall brass tube
+of a powerful microscope bristled up among them. As I glanced round I
+was surprised at the universality of the man's interests. Here was a
+case of ancient coins. There was a cabinet of flint instruments. Behind
+his central table was a large cupboard of fossil bones. Above was a
+line of plaster skulls with such names as "Neanderthal," "Heidelberg,"
+"Cro-Magnon" printed beneath them. It was clear that he was a student
+of many subjects. As he stood in front of us now, he held a piece of
+chamois leather in his right hand with which he was polishing a coin.
+
+"Syracusan--of the best period," he explained, holding it up. "They
+degenerated greatly towards the end. At their best I hold them supreme,
+though some prefer the Alexandrian school. You will find a chair here,
+Mr. Holmes. Pray allow me to clear these bones. And you, sir--ah,
+yes, Dr. Watson--if you would have the goodness to put the Japanese
+vase to one side. You see round me my little interests in life. My
+doctor lectures me about never going out, but why should I go out when
+I have so much to hold me here? I can assure you that the adequate
+cataloguing of one of those cabinets would take me three good months."
+
+Holmes looked round him with curiosity.
+
+"But do you tell me that you never go out?" he said.
+
+"Now and again I drive down to Sotheby's or Christie's. Otherwise I
+very seldom leave my room. I am not too strong, and my researches are
+very absorbing. But you can imagine, Mr. Holmes, what a terrific shock
+--pleasant but terrific--it was for me when I heard of this
+unparalleled good fortune. It only needs one more Garrideb to complete
+the matter, and surely we can find one. I had a brother, but he is
+dead, and female relatives are disqualified. But there must surely be
+others in the world. I had heard that you handled strange cases, and
+that was why I sent to you. Of course, this American gentleman is quite
+right, and I should have taken his advice first, but I acted for the
+best."
+
+"I think you acted very wisely indeed," said Holmes. "But are you
+really anxious to acquire an estate in America?"
+
+"Certainly not, sir. Nothing would induce me to leave my collection.
+But this gentleman has assured me that he will buy me out as soon as we
+have established our claim. Five million dollars was the sum named.
+There are a dozen specimens in the market at the present moment which
+fill gaps in my collection, and which I am unable to purchase for want
+of a few hundred pounds. Just think what I could do with five million
+dollars. Why, I have the nucleus of a national collection. I shall be
+the Hans Sloane of my age."
+
+His eyes gleamed behind his great spectacles. It was very clear that no
+pains would be spared by Mr. Nathan Garrideb in finding a namesake.
+
+"I merely called to make your acquaintance, and there is no reason why
+I should interrupt your studies," said Holmes. "I prefer to establish
+personal touch with those with whom I do business. There are few
+questions I need ask, for I have your very clear narrative in my
+pocket, and I filled up the blanks when this American gentleman called.
+I understand that up to this week you were unaware of his existence."
+
+"That is so. He called last Tuesday."
+
+"Did he tell you of our interview to-day?"
+
+"Yes, he came straight back to me. He had been very angry."
+
+"Why should he be angry?"
+
+"He seemed to think it was some reflection on his honour. But he was
+quite cheerful again when he returned."
+
+"Did he suggest any course of action?"
+
+"No, sir, he did not."
+
+"Has he had, or asked for, any money from you?"
+
+"No, sir, never!"
+
+"You see no possible object he has in view?"
+
+"None, except what he states."
+
+"Did you tell him of our telephone appointment?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I did."
+
+Holmes was lost in thought. I could see that he was puzzled.
+
+"Have you any articles of great value in your collection?"
+
+"No, sir. I am not a rich man. It is a good collection, but not a very
+valuable one."
+
+"You have no fear of burglars?"
+
+"Not the least."
+
+"How long have you been in these rooms?"
+
+"Nearly five years."
+
+Holmes's cross-examination was interrupted by an imperative knocking at
+the door. No sooner had our client unlatched it than the American
+lawyer burst excitedly into the room.
+
+"Here you are!" he cried, waving a paper over his head. "I thought I
+should be in time to get you. Mr. Nathan Garrideb, my congratulations!
+You are a rich man, sir. Our business is happily finished and all is
+well. As to you, Mr. Holmes, we can only say we are sorry if we have
+given you any useless trouble."
+
+He handed over the paper to our client, who stood staring at a marked
+advertisement. Holmes and I leaned forward and read it over his
+shoulder. This is how it ran:
+
+
+HOWARD GARRIDEB
+CONSTRUCTOR OF ACRICULTURAL MACHINERY
+
+Binders, reapers, steam and hand plows, drills, harrows, farmer's carts,
+buckboards, and all other appliances. Estimates for Artesian Wells.
+
+Apply Grosvenor Buildings, Aston
+
+
+"Glorious!" gasped our host. "That makes our third man."
+
+"I had opened up inquiries in Birmingham," said the Americn, "and my
+agent there has sent me this advertisement from a local paper. We must
+hustle and put the thing through. I have written to this man and told
+him that you will see him in his office to-morrow afternoon at four
+o'clock."
+
+"You want me to see him?"
+
+"What do you say, Mr. Holmes? Don't you think it would be wiser? Here
+am I, a wandering American with a wonderful tale. Why should he believe
+what I tell him? But you are a Britisher with solid references, and he
+is bound to take notice of what you say. I would go with you if you
+wished, but I have a very busy day to-morrow, and I could always follow
+you if you are in any trouble."
+
+"Well, I have not made such a journey for years."
+
+"It is nothing, Mr. Garrideb. I have figured out our connections. You
+leave at twelve and should be there soon after two. Then you can be
+back the same night. All you have to do is to see this man, explain the
+matter, and get an affidavit of his existence. By the Lord!" he added
+hotly, "considering I've come all the way from the centre of America,
+it is surely little enough if you go a hundred miles in order to put
+this matter through."
+
+"Quite so," said Holmes. "I think what this gentleman says is very
+true."
+
+Mr. Nathan Garrideb shrugged his shoulders with a disconsolate air.
+"Well, if you insist I shall go," said he. "It is certainly hard for me
+to refuse you anything, considering the glory of hope that you have
+brought into my life."
+
+"Then that is agreed," said Holmes, "and no doubt you will let me have
+a report as soon as you can."
+
+"I'll see to that," said the American. "Well," he added looking at his
+watch, "I'll have to get on. I'll call to-morrow, Mr. Nathan, and see
+you off to Birmingham. Coming my way, Mr. Holmes? Well, then, good-bye,
+and we may have good news for you to-morrow night."
+
+I noticed that my friend's face cleared when the American left the
+room, and the look of thoughtful perplexity had vanished.
+
+"I wish I could look over your collection, Mr. Garrideb," said he. "In
+my profession all sorts of odd knowledge comes useful, and this room of
+yours is a storehouse of it."
+
+Our client shone with pleasure and his eyes gleamed from behind his big
+glasses.
+
+"I had always heard, sir, that you were a very intelligent man," said
+he. "I could take you round now if you have the time."
+
+"Unfortunately, I have not. But these specimens are so well labelled
+and classified that they hardly need your personal explanation. If I
+should be able to look in to-morrow, I presume that there would be no
+objection to my glancing over them?"
+
+"None at all. You are most welcome. The place will, of course, be shut
+up, but Mrs. Saunders is in the basement up to four o'clock and would
+let you in with her key."
+
+"Well, I happen to be clear to-morrow afternoon. If you would say a
+word to Mrs. Saunders it would be quite in order. By the way, who is
+your house-agent?"
+
+Our client was amazed at the sudden question.
+
+"Holloway and Steele, in the Edgware Road. But why?"
+
+"I am a bit of an archaeologist myself when it comes to houses," said
+Holmes, laughing. "I was wondering if this was Queen Anne or Georgian."
+
+"Georgian, beyond doubt."
+
+"Really. I should have thought a little earlier. However, it is easily
+ascertained. Well, good-bye, Mr. Garrideb, and may you have every
+success in your Birmingham journey."
+
+The house-agent's was close by, but we found that it was closed for the
+day, so we made our way back to Baker Street. It was not till after
+dinner that Holmes reverted to the subject.
+
+"Our little problem draws to a close," said he. "No doubt you have
+outlined the solution in your own mind."
+
+"I can make neither head nor tail of it."
+
+"The head is surely clear enough and the tail we should see to-morrow.
+Did you notice nothing curious about that advertisement?"
+
+"I saw that the word 'plough' was misspelt."
+
+"Oh, you did notice that, did you? Come, Watson, you improve all the
+time. Yes, it was bad English but good American. The printer had set it
+up as received. Then the buckboards. That is American also. And
+artesian wells are commoner with them than with us. It was a typical
+American advertisement, but purporting to be from an English firm. What
+do you make of that?"
+
+"I can only suppose that this American lawyer put it in himself. What
+his object was I fail to understand."
+
+"Well, there are alternative explanations. Anyhow, he wanted to get
+this good old fossil up to Birmingham. That is very clear. I might have
+told him that he was clearly going on a wild-goose chase, but, on
+second thoughts, it seemed better to clear the stage by letting him go.
+To-morrow, Watson--well, to-morrow will speak for itself."
+
+Holmes was up and out early. When he returned at lunchtime I noticed
+that his face was very grave.
+
+"This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson," said he.
+"It is fair to tell you so, though I know it will only be an additional
+reason to you for running your head into danger. I should know my
+Watson by now. But there is danger, and you should know it."
+
+"Well, it is not the first we have shared, Holmes. I hope it may not be
+the last. What is the particular danger this time?"
+
+"We are up against a very hard case. I have identified Mr. John
+Garrideb, Counsellor at Law. He is none other than 'Killer' Evans, of
+sinister and murderous reputation."
+
+"I fear I am none the wiser."
+
+"Ah, it is not part of your profession to carry about a portable
+Newgate Calendar in your memory. I have been down to see friend
+Lestrade at the Yard. There may be an occasional want of imaginative
+intuition down there, but they lead the world for thoroughness and
+method. I had an idea that we might get on the track of our American
+friend in their records. Sure enough, I found his chubby face smiling
+up at me from the rogues' portrait gallery. 'James Winter, alias
+Morecroft, alias Killer Evans,' was the inscription below." Holmes drew
+an envelope from his pocket. "I scribbled down a few points from his
+dossier: Aged forty-four. Native of Chicago. Known to have shot three
+men in the States. Escaped from penitentiary through political
+influence. Came to London in 1893. Shot a man over cards in a
+night-club in the Waterloo Road in January, 1895. Man died, but he was
+shown to have been the aggressor in the row. Dead man was identified as
+Rodger Prescott, famous as forger and coiner in Chicago. Killer Evans
+released in 1901. Has been under police supervision since, but so far
+as known has led an honest life. Very dangerous man, usually carries
+arms and is prepared to use them. That is our bird, Watson--a
+sporting bird, as you must admit."
+
+"But what is his game?"
+
+"Well, it begins to define itself. I have been to the houseagent's. Our
+client, as he told us, has been there five years. It was unlet for a
+year before then. The previous tenant was a gentleman at large named
+Waldron. Waldron's appearance was well remembered at the office. He had
+suddenly vanished and nothing more been heard of him. He was a tall,
+bearded man with very dark features. Now, Prescott, the man whom Killer
+Evans had shot, was, according to Scotland Yard, a tall, dark man with
+a beard. As a working hypothesis, I think we may take it that Prescott,
+the American criminal, used to live in the very room which our innocent
+friend now devotes to his museum. So at last we get a link, you see."
+
+"And the next link?"
+
+"Well, we must go now and look for that."
+
+He took a revolver from the drawer and handed it to me.
+
+"I have my old favourite with me. If our Wild West friend tries to live
+up to his nickname, we must be ready for him. I'll give you an hour for
+a siesta, Watson, and then I think it will be time for our Ryder Street
+adventure."
+
+It was just four o'clock when we reached the curious apartment of
+Nathan Garrideb. Mrs. Saunders, the caretaker, was about to leave, but
+she had no hesitation in admitting us, for the door shut with a spring
+lock, and Holmes promised to see that all was safe before we left.
+Shortly afterwards the outer door closed, her bonnet passed the bow
+window, and we knew that we were alone in the lower floor of the house.
+Holmes made a rapid examination of the premises. There was one cupboard
+in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. It was behind
+this that we eventually crouched while Holmes in a whisper outlined his
+intentions.
+
+"He wanted to get our amiable friend out of his room--that is very
+clear, and, as the collector never went out, it took some planning to
+do it. The whole of this Garrideb invention was apparently for no other
+end. I must say, Watson, that there is a certain devilish ingenuity
+about it, even if the queer name of the tenant did give him an opening
+which he could hardly have expected. He wove his plot with remarkable
+cunning.''
+
+"But what did he want?"
+
+"Well, that is what we are here to find out. It has nothing whatever to
+do with our client, so far as I can read the situation. It is something
+connected with the man he murdered--the man who may have been his
+confederate in crime. There is some guilty secret in the room. That is
+how I read it. At first I thought our friend might have something in
+his collection more valuable than he knew--something worth the
+attention of a big criminal. But the fact that Rodger Prescott of evil
+memory inhabited these rooms points to some deeper reason. Well,
+Watson, we can but possess our souls in patience and see what the hour
+may bring."
+
+That hour was not long in striking. We crouched closer in the shadow as
+we heard the outer door open and shut. Then came the sharp, metallic
+snap of a key, and the American was in the room. He closed the door
+softly behind him, took a sharp glance around him to see that all was
+safe, threw off his overcoat, and walked up to the central table with
+the brisk manner of one who knows exactly what he has to do and how to
+do it. He pushed the table to one side, tore up the square of carpet on
+which it rested, rolled it completely back, and then, drawing a jemmy
+from his inside pocket, he knelt down and worked vigorously upon the
+floor. Presently we heard the sound of sliding boards, and an instant
+later a square had opened in the planks. Killer Evans struck a match,
+lit a stump of candle, and vanished from our view.
+
+Clearly our moment had come. Holmes touched my wrist as a signal, and
+together we stole across to the open trap-door. Gently as we moved,
+however, the old floor must have creaked under our feet, for the head
+of our American, peering anxiously round, emerged suddenly from the
+open space. His face turned upon us with a glare of baffled rage, which
+gradually softened into a rather shamefaced grin as he realized that
+two pistols were pointed at his head.
+
+"Well, well!" said he coolly as he scrambled to the surface. "I guess
+you have been one too many for me, Mr. Holmes. Saw through my game, I
+suppose, and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, I hand
+it to you; you have me beat and--"
+
+In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had
+fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been
+pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came down on
+the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with
+blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then
+my friend's wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.
+
+"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!"
+
+It was worth a wound--it was worth many wounds--to know the depth
+of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard
+eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the
+one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a
+great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service
+culminated in that moment of revelation.
+
+"It's nothing, Holmes. It's a mere scratch."
+
+He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.
+
+"You are right," he cried with an immense sigh of relief. "It is quite
+superficial." His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who
+was sitting up with a dazed face. "By the Lord, it is as well for you.
+If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room
+alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?"
+
+He had nothing to say for himself. He only sat and scowled. I leaned on
+Holmes's arm, and together we looked down into the small cellar which
+had been disclosed by the secret flap. It was still illuminated by the
+candle which Evans had taken down with him. Our eyes fell upon a mass
+of rusted machinery, great rolls of paper, a litter of bottles, and,
+neatly arranged upon a small table, a number of neat little bundles.
+
+"A printing press--a counterfeiter's outfit," said Holmes.
+
+"Yes, sir," said our prisoner, staggering slowly to his feet and then
+sinking into the chair. "The greatest counterfeiter London ever saw.
+That's Prescott's machine, and those bundles on the table are two
+thousand of Prescott's notes worth a hundred each and fit to pass
+anywhere. Help yourselves, gentlemen. Call it a deal and let me beat
+it."
+
+Holmes laughed.
+
+"We don't do things like that, Mr. Evans. There is no bolthole for you
+in this country. You shot this man Prescott, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and got five years for it, though it was he who pulled on
+me. Five years--when I should have had a medal the size of a soup
+plate. No living man could tell a Prescott from a Bank of England, and
+if I hadn't put him out he would have flooded London with them. I was
+the only one in the world who knew where he made them. Can you wonder
+that I wanted to get to the place? And can you wonder that when I found
+this crazy boob of a bug-hunter with the queer name squatting right on
+the top of it, and never quitting his room, I had to do the best I
+could to shift him? Maybe I would have been wiser if I had put him
+away. It would have been easy enough, but I'm a soft-hearted guy that
+can't begin shooting unless the other man has a gun also. But say, Mr.
+Holmes, what have I done wrong, anyhow? I've not used this plant. I've
+not hurt this old stiff. Where do you get me?"
+
+"Only attempted murder, so far as I can see," said Holmes. "But that's
+not our job. They take that at the next stage. What we wanted at
+present was just your sweet self. Please give the Yard a call, Watson.
+It won't be entirely unexpected."
+
+So those were the facts about Killer Evans and his remarkable invention
+of the three Garridebs. We heard later that our poor old friend never
+got over the shock of his dissipated dreams. When his castle in the air
+fell down, it buried him beneath the ruins. He was last heard of at a
+nursing-home in Brixton. It was a glad day at the Yard when the
+Prescott outfit was discovered, for, though they knew that it existed,
+they had never been able, after the death of the man, to find out where
+it was. Evans had indeed done great service and caused several worthy
+C. I. D. men to sleep the sounder, for the counterfeiter stands in a
+class by himself as a public danger. They would willingly have
+subscribed to that soup-plate medal of which the criminal had spoken,
+but an unappreciative bench took a less favourable view, and the Killer
+returned to those shades from which he had just emerged.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE
+
+
+
+Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross,
+there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatchbox with my name, John
+H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid. It is crammed
+with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the
+curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had at various times to
+examine. Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures,
+and as such will hardly bear narrating, since no final explanation is
+forthcoming. A problem without a solution may interest the student, but
+can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader. Among these unfinished
+tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own
+house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world. No less
+remarkable is that of the cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring
+morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged,
+nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew. A third
+case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known
+journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a match
+box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be
+unknown to science. Apart from these unfathomed cases, there are some
+which involve the secrets of private families to an extent which would
+mean consternation in many exalted quarters if it were thought possible
+that they might find their way into print. I need not say that such a
+breach of confidence is unthinkable, and that these records will be
+separated and destroyed now that my friend has time to turn his
+energies to the matter. There remain a considerable residue of cases of
+greater or less interest which I might have edited before had I not
+feared to give the public a surfeit which might react upon the
+reputation of the man whom above all others I revere. In some I was
+myself concerned and can speak as an eye-witness, while in others I was
+either not present or played so small a part that they could only be
+told as by a third person. The following narrative is drawn from my own
+experience.
+
+It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how
+the last remaining leaves were being whirled from the solitary plane
+tree which graces the yard behind our house. I descended to breakfast
+prepared to find my companion in depressed spirits, for, like all great
+artists, he was easily impressed by his surroundings. On the contrary,
+I found that he had nearly finished his meal, and that his mood was
+particularly bright and joyous, with that somewhat sinister
+cheerfulness which was characteristic of his lighter moments.
+
+"You have a case, Holmes?" I remarked.
+
+"The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson," he
+answered. "It has enabled you to probe my secret. Yes, I have a case.
+After a month of trivialities and stagnation the wheels move once
+more."
+
+"Might I share it?"
+
+"There is little to share, but we may discuss it when you have consumed
+the two hard-boiled eggs with which our new cook has favoured us. Their
+condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the Family Herald
+which I observed yesterday upon the hall-table. Even so trivial a
+matter as cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the
+passage of time and incompatible with the love romance in that
+excellent periodical."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the table had been cleared and we were face
+to face. He had drawn a letter from his pocket.
+
+"You have heard of Neil Gibson, the Gold King?" he said.
+
+"You mean the American Senator?"
+
+"Well, he was once Senator for some Western state, but is better known
+as the greatest gold-mining magnate in the world."
+
+"Yes, I know of him. He has surely lived in England for some time. His
+name is very familiar."
+
+"Yes, he bought a considerable estate in Hampshire some five years ago.
+Possibly you have already heard of the tragic end of his wife?"
+
+"Of course. I remember it now. That is why the name is familiar. But I
+really know nothing of the details."
+
+Holmes waved his hand towards some papers on a chair. "I had no idea
+that the case was coming my way or I should have had my extracts
+ready," said he. "The fact is that the problem, though exceedingly
+sensational, appeared to present no difficulty. The interesting
+personality of the accused does not obscure the clearness of the
+evidence. That was the view taken by the coroner's jury and also in the
+police-court proceedings. It is now referred to the Assizes at
+Winchester. I fear it is a thankless business. I can discover facts,
+Watson, but I cannot change them. Unless some entirely new and
+unexpected ones come to light I do not see what my client can hope
+for."
+
+"Your client?"
+
+"Ah, I forgot I had not told you. I am getting into your involved
+habit, Watson, of telling a story backward. You had best read this
+first."
+
+The letter which he handed to me, written in a bold, masterful hand,
+ran as follows:
+
+
+CLARIDGE'S HOTEL,
+October 3rd.
+
+DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:
+
+I can't see the best woman God ever made go to her death without doing all
+that is possible to save her. I can't explain things--I can't even try to
+explain them, but I know beyond all doubt that Miss Dunbar is innocent.
+You know the facts--who doesn't? It has been the gossip of the country.
+And never a voice raised for her! It's the damned injustice of it all
+that makes me crazy. That woman has a heart that wouldn't let her kill a
+fly. Well, I'll come at eleven to-morrow and see if you can get some ray
+of light in the dark. Maybe I have a clue and don't know it. Anyhow,
+all I know and all I have and all I am are for your use if only you can
+save her. If ever in your life you showed your powers, put them now into
+this case.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+J. NEIL GIBSON.
+
+
+"There you have it," said Sherlock Holmes, knocking out the ashes of
+his after-breakfast pipe and slowly refilling it. "That is the
+gentleman I await. As to the story, you have hardly time to master all
+these papers, so I must give it to you in a nutshell if you are to take
+an intelligent interest in the proceedings. This man is the greatest
+financial power in the world, and a man, as I understand, of most
+violent and formidable character. He married a wife, the victim of this
+tragedy, of whom I know nothing save that she was past her prime, which
+was the more unfortunate as a very attractive governess superintended
+the education of two young children. These are the three people
+concerned, and the scene is a grand old manor house, the centre of a
+historical English state. Then as to the tragedy. The wife was found in
+the grounds nearly half a mile from the house, late at night, clad in
+her dinner dress, with a shawl over her shoulders and a revolver bullet
+through her brain. No weapon was found near her and there was no local
+clue as to the murder. No weapon near her, Watson--mark that! The
+crime seems to have been committed late in the evening, and the body
+was found by a gamekeeper about eleven o'clock, when it was examined by
+the police and by a doctor before being carried up to the house. Is
+this too condensed, or can you follow it clearly?"
+
+"It is all very clear. But why suspect the governess?"
+
+"Well, in the first place there is some very direct evidence. A
+revolver with one discharged chamber and a calibre which corresponded
+with the bullet was found on the floor of her wardrobe." His eyes fixed
+and he repeated in broken words, "On--the--floor--of--her--
+wardrobe." Then he sank into silence, and I saw that some train of
+thought had been set moving which I should be foolish to interrupt.
+Suddenly with a start he emerged into brisk life once more. "Yes,
+Watson, it was found. Pretty damning, eh? So the two juries thought.
+Then the dead woman had a note upon her making an appointment at that
+very place and signed by the governess. How's that? Finally there is
+the motive. Senator Gibson is an attractive person. If his wife dies,
+who more likely to succeed her than the young lady who had already by
+all accounts received pressing attentions from her employer? Love,
+fortune, power, all depending upon one middleaged life. Ugly, Watson--
+very ugly!"
+
+"Yes, indeed, Holmes."
+
+"Nor could she prove an alibi. On the contrary, she had to admit that
+she was down near Thor Bridge--that was the scene of the tragedy--
+about that hour. She couldn't deny it, for some passing villager had
+seen her there."
+
+"That really seems final."
+
+"And yet, Watson--and yet! This bridge--a single broad span of
+stone with balustraded sides--carries the drive over the narrowest
+part of a long, deep, reed-girt sheet of water. Thor Mere it is called.
+In the mouth of the bridge lay the dead woman. Such are the main facts.
+But here, if I mistake not, is our client, considerably before his
+time."
+
+Billy had opened the door, but the name which he announced was an
+unexpected one. Mr. Marlow Bates was a stranger to both of us. He was a
+thin, nervous wisp of a man with frightened eyes and a twitching,
+hesitating manner--a man whom my own professional eye would judge to
+be on the brink of an absolute nervous breakdown.
+
+"You seem agitated, Mr. Bates," said Holmes. "Pray sit down. I fear I
+can only give you a short time, for I have an appointment at eleven."
+
+"I know you have," our visitor gasped, shooting out short sentences
+like a man who is out of breath. "Mr. Gibson is coming. Mr. Gibson is
+my employer. I am manager of his estate. Mr. Holmes, he is a villain--
+an infernal villain."
+
+"Strong language, Mr. Bates."
+
+"I have to be emphatic, Mr. Holmes, for the time is so limited. I would
+not have him find me here for the world. He is almost due now. But I
+was so situated that I could not come earlier. His secretary, Mr.
+Ferguson, only told me this morning of his appointment with you."
+
+"And you are his manager?"
+
+"I have given him notice. In a couple of weeks I shall have shaken off
+his accursed slavery. A hard man, Mr. Holmes, hard to all about him.
+Those public charities are a screen to cover his private iniquities.
+But his wife was his chief victim. He was brutal to her--yes, sir,
+brutal! How she came by her death I do not know, but I am sure that he
+had made her life a misery to her. She was a creature of the tropics, a
+Brazilian by birth, as no doubt you know."
+
+"No, it had escaped me."
+
+"Tropical by birth and tropical by nature. A child of the sun and of
+passion. She had loved him as such women can love, but when her own
+physical charms had faded--I am told that they once were great--
+there was nothing to hold him. We all liked her and felt for her and
+hated him for the way that he treated her. But he is plausible and
+cunning. That is all I have to say to you. Don't take him at his face
+value. There is more behind. Now I'll go. No, no, don't detain me! He
+is almost due."
+
+With a frightened look at the clock our strange visitor literally ran
+to the door and disappeared.
+
+"Well! Well!" said Holmes after an interval of silence. "Mr. Gibson
+seems to have a nice loyal household. But the warning is a useful one,
+and now we can only wait till the man himself appears."
+
+Sharp at the hour we heard a heavy step upon the stairs, and the famous
+millionaire was shown into the room. As I looked upon him I understood
+not only the fears and dislike of his manager but also the execrations
+which so many business rivals have heaped upon his head. If I were a
+sculptor and desired to idealize the successful man of affairs, iron of
+nerve and leathery of conscience, I should choose Mr. Neil Gibson as my
+model. His tall, gaunt, craggy figure had a suggestion of hunger and
+rapacity. An Abraham Lincoln keyed to base uses instead of high ones
+would give some idea of the man. His face might have been chiselled in
+granite, hard-set, craggy, remorseless, with deep lines upon it, the
+scars of many a crisis. Cold gray eyes, looking shrewdly out from under
+bristling brows, surveyed us each in turn. He bowed in perfunctory
+fashion as Holmes mentioned my name, and then with a masterful air of
+possession he drew a chair up to my companion and seated himself with
+his bony knees almost touching him.
+
+"Let me say right here, Mr. Holmes," he began, "that money is nothing
+to me in this case. You can burn it if it's any use in lighting you to
+the truth. This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and
+it's up to you to do it. Name your figure!"
+
+"My professional charges are upon a fixed scale," said Holmes coldly.
+"I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether."
+
+"Well, if dollars make no difference to you, think of the reputation.
+If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming
+you. You'll be the talk of two continents."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Gibson, I do not think that I am in need of booming. It
+may surprise you to know that I prefer to work anonymously, and that it
+is the problem itself which attracts me. But we are wasting time. Let
+us get down to the facts."
+
+"I think that you will find all the main ones in the press reports. I
+don't know that I can add anything which will help you. But if there is
+anything you would wish more light upon--well, I am here to give it."
+
+"Well, there is just one point."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"What were the exact relations between you and Miss Dunbar?"
+
+The Gold King gave a violent start and half rose from his chair. Then
+his massive calm came back to him.
+
+"I suppose you are within your rights--and maybe doing your duty--
+in asking such a question, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"We will agree to suppose so," said Holmes.
+
+"Then I can assure you that our relations were entirely and always
+those of an employer towards a young lady whom he never conversed with,
+or ever saw, save when she was in the company of his children."
+
+Holmes rose from his chair.
+
+"I am a rather busy man, Mr. Gibson," said he, "and I have no time or
+taste for aimless conversations. I wish you goodmorning."
+
+Our visitor had risen also, and his great loose figure towered above
+Holmes. There was an angry gleam from under those bristling brows and a
+tinge of colour in the sallow cheeks.
+
+"What the devil do you mean by this, Mr. Holmes? Do you dismiss my
+case?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Gibson, at least I dismiss you. I should have thought my
+words were plain."
+
+"Plain enough, but what's at the back of it? Raising the price on me,
+or afraid to tackle it, or what? I've a right to a plain answer."
+
+"Well, perhaps you have," said Holmes. "I'll give you one. This case is
+quite sufficiently complicated to start with without the further
+difficulty of false information."
+
+"Meaning that I lie."
+
+"Well, I was trying to express it as delicately as I could, but if you
+insist upon the word I will not contradict you."
+
+I sprang to my feet, for the expression upon the millionaire's face was
+fiendish in its intensity, and he had raised his great knotted fist.
+Holmes smiled languidly and reached his hand out for his pipe.
+
+"Don't be noisy, Mr. Gibson. I find that after breakfast even the
+smallest argument is unsettling. I suggest that a stroll in the morning
+air and a little quiet thought will be greatly to your advantage."
+
+With an effort the Gold King mastered his fury. I could not but admire
+him, for by a supreme self-command he had turned in a minute from a hot
+flame of anger to a frigid and contemptuous indifference.
+
+"Well, it's your choice. I guess you know how to run your own business.
+I can't make you touch the case against your will. You've done yourself
+no good this morning, Mr. Holmes, for I have broken stronger men than
+you. No man ever crossed me and was the better for it."
+
+"So many have said so, and yet here I am," said Holmes, smiling. "Well,
+good-morning, Mr. Gibson. You have a good deal yet to learn."
+
+Our visitor made a noisy exit, but Holmes smoked in imperturbable
+silence with dreamy eyes fixed upon the ceiling.
+
+"Any views, Watson?" he asked at last.
+
+"Well, Holmes, I must confess that when I consider that this is a man
+who would certainly brush any obstacle from his path, and when I
+remember that his wife may have been an obstacle and an object of
+dislike, as that man Bates plainly told us, it seems to me--"
+
+"Exactly. And to me also."
+
+"But what were his relations with the governess, and how did you
+discover them?"
+
+"Bluff, Watson, bluff! When I considered the passionate,
+unconventional, unbusinesslike tone of his letter and contrasted it
+with his self-contained manner and appearance, it was pretty clear that
+there was some deep emotion which centred upon the accused woman rather
+than upon the victim. We've got to understand the exact relations of
+those three people if we are to reach the truth. You saw the frontal
+attack which I made upon him, and how imperturbably he received it.
+Then I bluffed him by giving him the impression that I was absolutely
+certain, when in reality I was only extremely suspicious."
+
+"Perhaps he will come back?"
+
+"He is sure to come back. He must come back. He can't leave it where it
+is. Ha! isn't that a ring? Yes, there is his footstep. Well, Mr.
+Gibson, I was just saying to Dr. Watson that you were somewhat
+overdue."
+
+The Gold King had reentered the room in a more chastened mood than he
+had left it. His wounded pride still showed in his resentful eyes, but
+his common sense had shown him that he must yield if he would attain
+his end.
+
+"I've been thinking it over, Mr. Holmes, and I feel that I have been
+hasty in taking your remarks amiss. You are justified in getting down
+to the facts, whatever they may be, and I think the more of you for it.
+I can assure you, however, that the relations between Miss Dunbar and
+me don't really touch this case."
+
+"That is for me to decide, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, I guess that is so. You're like a surgeon who wants every symptom
+before he can give his diagnosis."
+
+"Exactly. That expresses it. And it is only a patient who has an object
+in deceiving his surgeon who would conceal the facts of his case."
+
+"That may be so, but you will admit, Mr. Holmes, that most men would
+shy off a bit when they are asked point-blank what their relations with
+a woman may be--if there is really some serious feeling in the case.
+I guess most men have a little private reserve of their own in some
+corner of their souls where they don't welcome intruders. And you burst
+suddenly into it. But the object excuses you, since it was to try and
+save her. Well, the stakes are down and the reserve open, and you can
+explore where you will. What is it you want?"
+
+"The truth."
+
+The Gold King paused for a moment as one who marshals his thoughts. His
+grim, deep-lined face had become even sadder and more grave.
+
+"I can give it to you in a very few words, Mr. Holmes," said he at
+last. "There are some things that are painful as well as difficult to
+say, so I won't go deeper than is needful. I met my wife when I was
+gold-hunting in Brazil. Maria Pinto was the daughter of a government
+official at Manaos, and she was very beautiful. I was young and ardent
+in those days, but even now, as I look back with colder blood and a
+more critical eye, I can see that she was rare and wonderful in her
+beauty. It was a deep rich nature, too, passionate, whole-hearted,
+tropical, ill-balanced, very different from the American women whom I
+had known. Well, to make a long story short, I loved her and I married
+her. It was only when the romance had passed--and it lingered for
+years--that I realized that we had nothing--absolutely nothing--
+in common. My love faded. If hers had faded also it might have been
+easier. But you know the wonderful way of women! Do what I might,
+nothing could turn her from me. If I have been harsh to her, even
+brutal as some have said, it has been because I knew that if I could
+kill her love, or if it turned to hate, it would be easier for both of
+us. But nothing changed her. She adored me in those English woods as
+she had adored me twenty years ago on the banks of the Amazon. Do what
+I might, she was as devoted as ever.
+
+"Then came Miss Grace Dunbar. She answered our advertisement and became
+governess to our two children. Perhaps you have seen her portrait in
+the papers. The whole world has proclaimed that she also is a very
+beautiful woman. Now, I make no pretence to be more moral than my
+neighbours, and I will admit to you that I could not live under the
+same roof with such a woman and in daily contact with her without
+feeling a passionate regard for her. Do you blame me, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I do not blame you for feeling it. I should blame you if you expressed
+it, since this young lady was in a sense under your protection."
+
+"Well, maybe so," said the millionaire, though for a moment the reproof
+had brought the old angry gleam into his eyes. "I'm not pretending to
+be any better than I am. I guess all my life I've been a man that
+reached out his hand for what he wanted, and I never wanted anything
+more than the love and possession of that woman. I told her so."
+
+"Oh, you did, did you?"
+
+Holmes could look very formidable when he was moved.
+
+"I said to her that if I could marry her I would, but that it was out
+of my power. I said that money was no object and that all I could do to
+make her happy and comfortable would be done."
+
+"Very generous, I am sure," said Holmes with a sneer.
+
+"See here, Mr. Holmes. I came to you on a question of evidence, not on
+a question of morals. I'm not asking for your criticism."
+
+"It is only for the young lady's sake that I touch your case at all,"
+said Holmes sternly. "I don't know that anything she is accused of is
+really worse than what you have yourself admitted, that you have tried
+to ruin a defenceless girl who was under your roof. Some of you rich
+men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into
+condoning your offences."
+
+To my surprise the Gold King took the reproof with equanimity.
+
+"That's how I feel myself about it now. I thank God that my plans did
+not work out as I intended. She would have none of it, and she wanted
+to leave the house instantly."
+
+"Why did she not?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, others were dependent upon her, and it was
+no light matter for her to let them all down by sacrificing her living.
+When I had sworn--as I did--that she should never be molested
+again, she consented to remain. But there was another reason. She knew
+the influence she had over me, and that it was stronger than any other
+influence in the world. She wanted to use it for good."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, she knew something of my affairs. They are large, Mr. Holmes--
+large beyond the belief of an ordinary man. I can make or break--and
+it is usually break. It wasn't individuals only. It was communities,
+cities, even nations. Business is a hard game, and the weak go to the
+wall. I played the game for all it was worth. I never squealed myself,
+and I never cared if the other fellow squealed. But she saw it
+different. I guess she was right. She believed and said that a fortune
+for one man that was more than he needed should not be built on ten
+thousand ruined men who were left without the means of life. That was
+how she saw it, and I guess she could see past the dollars to something
+that was more lasting. She found that I listened to what she said, and
+she believed she was serving the world by influencing my actions. So
+she stayed--and then this came along."
+
+"Can you throw any light upon that?"
+
+The Gold King paused for a minute or more, his head sunk in his hands,
+lost in deep thought.
+
+"It's very black against her. I can't deny that. And women lead an
+inward life and may do things beyond the judgment of a man. At first I
+was so rattled and taken aback that I was ready to think she had been
+led away in some extraordinary fashion that was clean against her usual
+nature. One explanation came into my head. I give it to you, Mr.
+Holmes, for what it is worth. There is no doubt that my wife was
+bitterly jealous. There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as
+any body-jealousy, and though my wife had no cause--and I think she
+understood this--for the latter, she was aware that this English girl
+exerted an influence upon my mind and my acts that she herself never
+had. It was an influence for good, but that did not mend the matter.
+She was crazy with hatred and the heat of the Amazon was always in her
+blood. She might have planned to murder Miss Dunbar--or we will say
+to threaten her with a gun and so frighten her into leaving us. Then
+there might have been a scuffle and the gun gone off and shot the woman
+who held it."
+
+"That possibility had already occurred to me," said Holmes. "Indeed, it
+is the only obvious alternative to deliberate murder."
+
+"But she utterly denies it."
+
+"Well, that is not final--is it? One can understand that a woman
+placed in so awful a position might hurry home still in her
+bewilderment holding the revolver. She might even throw it down among
+her clothes, hardly knowing what she was doing, and when it was found
+she might try to lie her way out by a total denial, since all
+explanation was impossible. What is against such a supposition?"
+
+"Miss Dunbar herself."
+
+"Well, perhaps."
+
+Holmes looked at his watch. "I have no doubt we can get the necessary
+permits this morning and reach Winchester by the evening train. When I
+have seen this young lady it is very possible that I may be of more use
+to you in the matter, though I cannot promise that my conclusions will
+necessarily be such as you desire."
+
+There was some delay in the official pass, and instead of reaching
+Winchester that day we went down to Thor Place, the Hampshire estate of
+Mr. Neil Gibson. He did not accompany us himself, but we had the
+address of Sergeant Coventry, of the local police, who had first
+examined into the affair. He was a tall, thin, cadaverous man, with a
+secretive and mysterious manner which conveyed the idea that he knew or
+suspected a very great deal more than he dared say. He had a trick,
+too, of suddenly sinking his voice to a whisper as if he had come upon
+something of vital importance, though the information was usually
+commonplace enough. Behind these tricks of manner he soon showed
+himself to be a decent, honest fellow who was not too proud to admit
+that he was out of his depth and would welcome any help.
+
+"Anyhow, I'd rather have you than Scotland Yard, Mr. Holmes," said he.
+"If the Yard gets called into a case, then the local loses all credit
+for success and may be blamed for failure. Now, you play straight, so
+I've heard."
+
+"I need not appear in the matter at all," said Holmes to the evident
+relief of our melancholy acquaintance. "If I can clear it up I don't
+ask to have my name mentioned."
+
+"Well, it's very handsome of you, I am sure. And your friend, Dr.
+Watson, can be trusted, I know. Now, Mr. Holmes, as we walk down to the
+place there is one question I should like to ask you. I'd breathe it to
+no soul but you." He looked round as though he hardly dare utter the
+words. "Don't you think there might be a case against Mr. Neil Gibson
+himself?"
+
+"I have been considering that."
+
+"You've not seen Miss Dunbar. She is a wonderful fine woman in every
+way. He may well have wished his wife out of the road. And these
+Americans are readier with pistols than our folk are. It was his
+pistol, you know."
+
+"Was that clearly made out?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It was one of a pair that he had."
+
+"One of a pair? Where is the other?"
+
+"Well, the gentleman has a lot of firearms of one sort and another. We
+never quite matched that particular pistol--but the box was made for
+two."
+
+"If it was one of a pair you should surely be able to match it."
+
+"Well, we have them all laid out at the house if you would care to look
+them over."
+
+"Later, perhaps. I think we will walk down together and have a look at
+the scene of the tragedy."
+
+This conversation had taken place in the little front room of Sergeant
+Coventry's humble cottage which served as the local police-station. A
+walk of half a mile or so across a wind-swept heath, all gold and
+bronze with the fading ferns, brought us to a side-gate opening into
+the grounds of the Thor Place estate. A path led us through the
+pheasant preserves, and then from a clearing we saw the widespread,
+half-timbered house, half Tudor and half Georgian, upon the crest of
+the hill. Beside us there was a long, reedy pool, constricted in the
+centre where the main carriage drive passed over a stone bridge, but
+swelling into small lakes on either side. Our guide paused at the mouth
+of this bridge, and he pointed to the ground.
+
+"That was where Mrs. Gibson's body lay. I marked it by that stone."
+
+"I understand that you were there before it was moved?"
+
+"Yes, they sent for me at once."
+
+"Who did?"
+
+"Mr. Gibson himself. The moment the alarm was given and he had rushed
+down with others from the house, he insisted that nothing should be
+moved until the police should arrive."
+
+"That was sensible. I gathered from the newspaper report that the shot
+was fired from close quarters."
+
+"Yes, sir, very close."
+
+"Near the right temple?"
+
+"Just behind it, sir."
+
+"How did the body lie?"
+
+"On the back, sir. No trace of a struggle. No marks. No weapon. The
+short note from Miss Dunbar was clutched in her left hand."
+
+"Clutched, you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir, we could hardly open the fingers."
+
+"That is of great importance. It excludes the idea that anyone could
+have placed the note there after death in order to furnish a false
+clue. Dear me! The note, as I remember, was quite short:
+
+
+"'I will be at Thor Bridge at nine o'clock. G. DUNBAR.'
+
+
+"Was that not so?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did Miss Dunbar admit writing it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What was her explanation?"
+
+"Her defence was reserved for the Assizes. She would say nothing."
+
+"The problem is certainly a very interesting one. The point of the
+letter is very obscure, is it not?"
+
+"Well, sir," said the guide, "it seemed, if I may be so bold as to say
+so, the only really clear point in the whole case."
+
+Holmes shook his head.
+
+"Granting that the letter is genuine and was really written, it was
+certainly received some time before--say one hour or two. Why, then,
+was this lady still clasping it in her left hand? Why should she carry
+it so carefully? She did not need to refer to it in the interview. Does
+it not seem remarkable?"
+
+"Well, sir, as you put it, perhaps it does."
+
+"I think I should like to sit quietly for a few minutes and think it
+out." He seated himself upon the stone ledge of the bridge, and I could
+see his quick gray eyes darting their questioning glances in every
+direction. Suddenly he sprang up again and ran across to the opposite
+parapet, whipped his lens from his pocket, and began to examine the
+stonework.
+
+"This is curious," said he.
+
+"Yes, sir, we saw the chip on the ledge. I expect it's been done by
+some passer-by."
+
+The stonework was gray, but at this one point it showed white for a
+space not larger than a sixpence. When examined closely one could see
+that the surface was chipped as by a sharp blow.
+
+"It took some violence to do that," said Holmes thoughtfully. With his
+cane he struck the ledge several times without leaving a mark. "Yes, it
+was a hard knock. In a curious place, too. It was not from above but
+from below, for you see that it is on the lower edge of the parapet."
+
+"But it is at least fifteen feet from the body."
+
+"Yes, it is fifteen feet from the body. It may have nothing to do with
+the matter, but it is a point worth noting. I do not think that we have
+anything more to learn here. There were no footsteps, you say?"
+
+"The ground was iron hard, sir. There were no traces at all."
+
+"Then we can go. We will go up to the house first and look over these
+weapons of which you speak. Then we shall get on to Winchester, for I
+should desire to see Miss Dunbar before we go farther."
+
+Mr. Neil Gibson had not returned from town, but we saw in the house the
+neurotic Mr. Bates who had called upon us in the morning. He showed us
+with a sinister relish the formidable array of firearms of various
+shapes and sizes which his employer had accumulated in the course of an
+adventurous life.
+
+"Mr. Gibson has his enemies, as anyone would expect who knew him and
+his methods," said he. "He sleeps with a loaded revolver in the drawer
+beside his bed. He is a man of violence, sir, and there are times when
+all of us are afraid of him. I am sure that the poor lady who has
+passed was often terrified."
+
+"Did you ever witness physical violence towards her?"
+
+"No, I cannot say that. But I have heard words which were nearly as bad
+--words of cold, cutting contempt, even before the servants."
+
+"Our millionaire does not seem to shine in private life," remarked
+Holmes as we made our way to the station. "Well, Watson, we have come
+on a good many facts, some of them new ones, and yet I seem some way
+from my conclusion. In spite of the very evident dislike which Mr.
+Bates has to his employer, I gather from him that when the alarm came
+he was undoubtedly in his library. Dinner was over at 8:30 and all was
+normal up to then. It is true that the alarm was somewhat late in the
+evening, but the tragedy certainly occurred about the hour named in the
+note. There is no evidence at all that Mr. Gibson had been out of doors
+since his return from town at five o'clock. On the other hand, Miss
+Dunbar, as I understand it, admits that she had made an appointment to
+meet Mrs. Gibson at the bridge. Beyond this she would say nothing, as
+her lawyer had advised her to reserve her defence. We have several very
+vital questions to ask that young lady, and my mind will not be easy
+until we have seen her. I must confess that the case would seem to me
+to be very black against her if it were not for one thing."
+
+"And what is that, Holmes?"
+
+"The finding of the pistol in her wardrobe."
+
+"Dear me, Holmes!" I cried, "that seemed to me to be the most damning
+incident of all."
+
+"Not so, Watson. It had struck me even at my first perfunctory reading
+as very strange, and now that I am in closer touch with the case it is
+my only firm ground for hope. We must look for consistency. Where there
+is a want of it we must suspect deception."
+
+"I hardly follow you."
+
+"Well now, Watson, suppose for a moment that we visualize you in the
+character of a woman who, in a cold, premeditated fashion, is about to
+get rid of a rival. You have planned it. A note has been written. The
+victim has come. You have your weapon. The crime is done. It has been
+workmanlike and complete. Do you tell me that after carrying out so
+crafty a crime you would now ruin your reputation as a criminal by
+forgetting to fling your weapon into those adjacent reed-beds which
+would forever cover it, but you must needs carry it carefully home and
+put it in your own wardrobe, the very first place that would be
+searched? Your best friends would hardly call you a schemer, Watson,
+and yet I could not picture you doing anything so crude as that."
+
+"In the excitement of the moment."
+
+"No, no, Watson, I will not admit that it is possible. Where a crime is
+coolly premeditated, then the means of covering it are coolly
+premeditated also. I hope, therefore, that we are in the presence of a
+serious misconception."
+
+"But there is so much to explain."
+
+"Well, we shall set about explaining it. When once your point of view
+is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the
+truth. For example, there is this revolver. Miss Dunbar disclaims all
+knowledge of it. On our new theory she is speaking truth when she says
+so. Therefore, it was placed in her wardrobe. Who placed it there?
+Someone who wished to incriminate her. Was not that person the actual
+criminal? You see how we come at once upon a most fruitful line of
+inquiry."
+
+We were compelled to spend the night at Winchester, as the formalities
+had not yet been completed, but next morning, in the company of Mr.
+Joyce Cummings, the rising barrister who was entrusted with the
+defence, we were allowed to see the young lady in her cell. I had
+expected from all that we had heard to see a beautiful woman, but I can
+never forget the effect which Miss Dunbar produced upon me. It was no
+wonder that even the masterful millionaire had found in her something
+more powerful than himself--something which could control and guide
+him. One felt, too, as one looked at the strong, clear-cut, and yet
+sensitive face, that even should she be capable of some impetuous deed,
+none the less there was an innate nobility of character which would
+make her influence always for the good. She was a brunette, tall, with
+a noble figure and commanding presence, but her dark eyes had in them
+the appealing, helpless expression of the hunted creature who feels the
+nets around it, but can see no way out from the toils. Now, as she
+realized the presence and the help of my famous friend, there came a
+touch of colour in her wan cheeks and a light of hope began to glimmer
+in the glance which she turned upon us.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Neil Gibson has told you something of what occurred
+between us?" she asked in a low, agitated voice.
+
+"Yes," Holmes answered, "you need not pain yourself by entering into
+that part of the story. After seeing you, I am prepared to accept Mr.
+Gibson's statement both as to the influence which you had over him and
+as to the innocence of your relations with him. But why was the whole
+situation not brought out in court?"
+
+"It seemed to me incredible that such a charge could be sustained. I
+thought that if we waited the whole thing must clear itself up without
+our being compelled to enter into painful details of the inner life of
+the family. But I understand that far from clearing it has become even
+more serious."
+
+"My dear young lady," cried Holmes earnestly, "I beg you to have no
+illusions upon the point. Mr. Cummings here would assure you that all
+the cards are at present against us, and that we must do everything
+that is possible if we are to win clear. It would be a cruel deception
+to pretend that you are not in very great danger. Give me all the help
+you can, then, to get at the truth."
+
+"I will conceal nothing."
+
+"Tell us, then, of your true relations with Mr. Gibson's wife."
+
+"She hated me, Mr. Holmes. She hated me with all the fervour of her
+tropical nature. She was a woman who would do nothing by halves, and
+the measure of her love for her husband was the measure also of her
+hatred for me. It is probable that she misunderstood our relations. I
+would not wish to wrong her, but she loved so vividly in a physical
+sense that she could hardly understand the mental, and even spiritual,
+tie which held her husband to me, or imagine that it was only my desire
+to influence his power to good ends which kept me under his roof. I can
+see now that I was wrong. Nothing could justify me in remaining where I
+was a cause of unhappiness, and yet it is certain that the unhappiness
+would have remained even if I had left the house."
+
+"Now, Miss Dunbar," said Holmes, "I beg you to tell us exactly what
+occurred that evening."
+
+"I can tell you the truth so far as I know it, Mr. Holmes, but I am in
+a position to prove nothing, and there are points--the most vital
+points--which I can neither explain nor can I imagine any
+explanation."
+
+"If you will find the facts, perhaps others may find the explanation."
+
+"With regard, then, to my presence at Thor Bridge that night, I
+received a note from Mrs. Gibson in the morning. It lay on the table of
+the schoolroom, and it may have been left there by her own hand. It
+implored me to see her there after dinner, said she had something
+important to say to me, and asked me to leave an answer on the sundial
+in the garden, as she desired no one to be in our confidence. I saw no
+reason for such secrecy, but I did as she asked, accepting the
+appointment. She asked me to destroy her note and I burned it in the
+schoolroom grate. She was very much afraid of her husband, who treated
+her with a harshness for which I frequently reproached him, and I could
+only imagine that she acted in this way because she did not wish him to
+know of our interview."
+
+"Yet she kept your reply very carefully?"
+
+"Yes. I was surprised to hear that she had it in her hand when she
+died."
+
+"Well, what happened then?"
+
+"I went down as I had promised. When I reached the bridge she was
+waiting for me. Never did I realize till that moment how this poor
+creature hated me. She was like a mad woman--indeed, I think she was
+a mad woman, subtly mad with the deep power of deception which insane
+people may have. How else could she have met me with unconcern every
+day and yet had so raging a hatred of me in her heart? I will not say
+what she said. She poured her whole wild fury out in burning and
+horrible words. I did not even answer--I could not. It was dreadful
+to see her. I put my hands to my ears and rushed away. When I left her
+she was standing, still shrieking out her curses at me, in the mouth of
+the bridge."
+
+"Where she was afterwards found?"
+
+"Within a few yards from the spot."
+
+"And yet, presuming that she met her death shortly after you left her,
+you heard no shot?"
+
+"No, I heard nothing. But, indeed, Mr. Holmes, I was so agitated and
+horrified by this terrible outbreak that I rushed to get back to the
+peace of my own room, and I was incapable of noticing anything which
+happened."
+
+"You say that you returned to your room. Did you leave it again before
+next morning?"
+
+"Yes, when the alarm came that the poor creature had met her death I
+ran out with the others."
+
+"Did you see Mr. Gibson?"
+
+"Yes, he had just returned from the bridge when I saw him. He had sent
+for the doctor and the police."
+
+"Did he seem to you much perturbed?"
+
+"Mr. Gibson is a very strong, self-contained man. I do not think that
+he would ever show his emotions on the surface. But I, who knew him so
+well, could see that he was deeply concerned."
+
+"Then we come to the all-important point. This pistol that was found in
+your room. Had you ever seen it before?"
+
+"Never, I swear it."
+
+"When was it found?"
+
+"Next morning, when the police made their search."
+
+"Among your clothes?"
+
+"Yes, on the floor of my wardrobe under my dresses."
+
+"You could not guess how long it had been there?"
+
+"It had not been there the morning before."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Because I tidied out the wardrobe."
+
+"That is final. Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol
+there in order to inculpate you."
+
+"It must have been so."
+
+"And when?"
+
+"It could only have been at meal-time, or else at the hours when I
+would be in the schoolroom with the children."
+
+"As you were when you got the note?"
+
+"Yes, from that time onward for the whole morning."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Dunbar. Is there any other point which could help me
+in the investigation?"
+
+"I can think of none."
+
+"There was some sign of violence on the stonework of the bridge--a
+perfectly fresh chip just opposite the body. Could you suggest any
+possible explanation of that?"
+
+"Surely it must be a mere coincidence."
+
+"Curious, Miss Dunbar, very curious. Why should it appear at the very
+time of the tragedy, and why at the very place?"
+
+"But what could have caused it? Only great violence could have such an
+effect."
+
+Holmes did not answer. His pale, eager face had suddenly assumed that
+tense, far-away expression which I had learned to associate with the
+supreme manifestations of his genius. So evident was the crisis in his
+mind that none of us dared to speak, and we sat, barrister, prisoner,
+and myself, watching him in a concentrated and absorbed silence.
+Suddenly he sprang from his chair, vibrating with nervous energy and
+the pressing need for action.
+
+"Come, Watson, come!" he cried.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Never mind, my dear lady. You will hear from me, Mr. Cummings. With
+the help of the god of justice I will give you a case which will make
+England ring. You will get news by to-morrow, Miss Dunbar, and
+meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have
+every hope that the light of truth is breaking through."
+
+It was not a long journey from Winchester to Thor Place, but it was
+long to me in my impatience, while for Holmes it was evident that it
+seemed endless; for, in his nervous restlessness he could not sit
+still, but paced the carriage or drummed with his long, sensitive
+fingers upon the cushions beside him. Suddenly, however, as we neared
+our destination he seated himself opposite to me--we had a
+first-class carriage to ourselves--and laying a hand upon each of my
+knees he looked into my eyes with the peculiarly mischievous gaze which
+was charactenstic of his more imp-like moods.
+
+"Watson," said he, "I have some recollection that you go armed upon
+these excursions of ours."
+
+It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his
+own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more
+than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of
+the fact.
+
+"Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters. But have you
+your revolver on you?"
+
+I produced it from my hip-pocket, a short, handy, but very serviceable
+little weapon. He undid the catch, shook out the cartridges, and
+examined it with care.
+
+"It's heavy--remarkably heavy," said he.
+
+"Yes, it is a solid bit of work."
+
+He mused over it for a minute.
+
+"Do you know, Watson," said he, "I believe your revolver is going to
+have a very intimate connection with the mystery which we are
+investigating."
+
+"My dear Holmes, you are joking."
+
+"No, Watson, I am very serious. There is a test before us. If the test
+comes off, all will be clear. And the test will depend upon the conduct
+of this little weapon. One cartridge out. Now we will replace the other
+five and put on the safety-catch. So! That increases the weight and
+makes it a better reproduction."
+
+I had no glimmer of what was in his mind, nor did he enlighten me, but
+sat lost in thought until we pulled up in the little Hampshire station.
+We secured a ramshackle trap, and in a quarter of an hour were at the
+house of our confidential friend, the sergeant.
+
+"A clue, Mr. Holmes? What is it?"
+
+"It all depends upon the behaviour of Dr. Watson's revolver," said my
+friend. "Here it is. Now, officer, can you give me ten yards of
+string?"
+
+The village shop provided a ball of stout twine.
+
+"I think that this is all we will need," said Holmes. "Now, if you
+please, we will get off on what I hope is the last stage of our
+journey."
+
+The sun was setting and turning the rolling Hampshire moor into a
+wonderful autumnal panorama. The sergeant, with many critical and
+incredulous glances, which showed his deep doubts of the sanity of my
+companion, lurched along beside us. As we approached the scene of the
+crime I could see that my friend under all his habitual coolness was in
+truth deeply agitated.
+
+"Yes," he said in answer to my remark, "you have seen me miss my mark
+before, Watson. I have an instinct for such things, and yet it has
+sometimes played me false. It seemed a certainty when first it flashed
+across my mind in the cell at Winchester, but one drawback of an active
+mind is that one can always conceive alternative explanations which
+would make our scent a false one. And yet--and yet--Well, Watson,
+we can but try."
+
+As he walked he had firmly tied one end of the string to the handle of
+the revolver. We had now reached the scene of the tragedy. With great
+care he marked out under the guidance of the policeman the exact spot
+where the body had been stretched. He then hunted among the heather and
+the ferns until he found a considerable stone. This he secured to the
+other end of his line of string, and he hung it over the parapet of the
+bridge so that it swung clear above the water. He then stood on the
+fatal spot, some distance from the edge of the bridge, with my revolver
+in his hand, the string being taut between the weapon and the heavy
+stone on the farther side.
+
+"Now for it!" he cried.
+
+At the words he raised the pistol to his head, and then let go his
+grip. In an instant it had been whisked away by the weight of the
+stone, had struck with a sharp crack against the parapet, and had
+vanished over the side into the water. It had hardly gone before Holmes
+was kneeling beside the stonework, and a joyous cry showed that he had
+found what he expected.
+
+"Was there ever a more exact demonstration?" he cried. "See, Watson,
+your revolver has solved the problem!" As he spoke he pointed to a
+second chip of the exact size and shape of the first which had appeared
+on the under edge of the stone balustrade.
+
+"We'll stay at the inn to-night," he continued as he rose and faced the
+astonished sergeant. "You will, of course, get a grappling-hook and you
+will easily restore my friend's revolver. You will also find beside it
+the revolver, string and weight with which this vindictive woman
+attempted to disguise her own crime and to fasten a charge of murder
+upon an innocent victim. You can let Mr. Gibson know that I will see
+him in the morning, when steps can be taken for Miss Dunbar's
+vindication."
+
+Late that evening, as we sat together smoking our pipes in the village
+inn, Holmes gave me a brief review of what had passed.
+
+"I fear, Watson," said he, "that you will not improve any reputation
+which I may have acquired by adding the case of the Thor Bridge mystery
+to your annals. I have been sluggish in mind and wanting in that
+mixture of imagination and reality which is the basis of my art. I
+confess that the chip in the stonework was a sufficient clue to suggest
+the true solution, and that I blame myself for not having attained it
+sooner.
+
+"It must be admitted that the workings of this unhappy woman's mind
+were deep and subtle, so that it was no very simple matter to unravel
+her plot. I do not think that in our adventures we have ever come
+across a stranger example of what perverted love can bring about.
+Whether Miss Dunbar was her rival in a physical or in a merely mental
+sense seems to have been equally unforgivable in her eyes. No doubt she
+blamed this innocent lady for all those harsh dealings and unkind words
+with which her husband tried to repel her too demonstrative affection.
+Her first resolution was to end her own life. Her second was to do it
+in such a way as to involve her victim in a fate which was worse far
+than any sudden death could be.
+
+"We can follow the various steps quite clearly, and they show a
+remarkable subtlety of mind. A note was extracted very cleverly from
+Miss Dunbar which would make it appear that she had chosen the scene of
+the crime. In her anxiety that it should be discovered she somewhat
+overdid it by holding it in her hand to the last. This alone should
+have excited my suspicions earlier than it did.
+
+"Then she took one of her husband's revolvers--there was, as you saw,
+an arsenal in the house--and kept it for her own use. A similar one
+she concealed that morning in Miss Dunbar's wardrobe after discharging
+one barrel, which she could easily do in the woods without attracting
+attention. She then went down to the bridge where she had contrived
+this exceedingly ingenious method for getting rid of her weapon. When
+Miss Dunbar appeared she used her last breath in pouring out her
+hatred, and then, when she was out of hearing, carried out her terrible
+purpose. Every link is now in its place and the chain is complete. The
+papers may ask why the mere was not dragged in the first instance, but
+it is easy to be wise after the event, and in any case the expanse of a
+reed-filled lake is no easy matter to drag unless you have a clear
+perception of what you are looking for and where. Well, Watson, we have
+helped a remarkable woman, and also a formidable man. Should they in
+the future join their forces, as seems not unlikely, the financial
+world may find that Mr. Neil Gibson has learned something in that
+schoolroom of sorrow where our earthly lessons are taught."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE CREEPING MAN
+
+
+
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes was always of opinion that I should publish the
+singular facts connected with Professor Presbury, if only to dispel
+once for all the ugly rumours which some twenty years ago agitated the
+university and were echoed in the learned societies of London. There
+were, however, certain obstacles in the way, and the true history of
+this curious case remained entombed in the tin box which contains so
+many records of my friend's adventures. Now we have at last obtained
+permission to ventilate the facts which formed one of the very last
+cases handled by Holmes before his retirement from practice. Even now a
+certain reticence and discretion have to be observed in laying the
+matter before the public.
+
+It was one Sunday evening early in September of the year 1903 that I
+received one of Holmes's laconic messages:
+
+
+Come at once if convenient--if inconvenient come all the same. S.H.
+
+
+The relations between us in those latter days were peculiar. He was a
+man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of
+them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the
+old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable.
+When it was a case of active work and a comrade was needed upon whose
+nerve he could place some reliance, my role was obvious. But apart from
+this I had uses. I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He
+liked to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said
+to be made to me--many of them would have been as appropriately
+addressed to his bedstead--but none the less, having formed the
+habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and
+interject. If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my
+mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like
+intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such
+was my humble role in our alliance.
+
+When I arrived at Baker Street I found him huddled up in his armchair
+with updrawn knees, his pipe in his mouth and his brow furrowed with
+thought. It was clear that he was in the throes of some vexatious
+problem. With a wave of his hand he indicated my old armchair, but
+otherwise for half an hour he gave no sign that he was aware of my
+presence. Then with a start he seemed to come from his reverie, and
+with his usual whimsical smile he greeted me back to what had once been
+my home.
+
+"You will excuse a certain abstraction of mind, my dear Watson," said
+he. "Some curious facts have been submitted to me within the last
+twenty-four hours, and they in turn have given rise to some
+speculations of a more general character. I have serious thoughts of
+writing a small monograph upon the uses of dogs in the work of the
+detective."
+
+"But surely, Holmes, this has been explored," said I. "Bloodhounds--
+sleuth-hounds--"
+
+"No, no, Watson, that side of the matter is, of course, obvious. But
+there is another which is far more subtle. You may recollect that in
+the case which you, in your sensational way, coupled with the Copper
+Beeches, I was able, by watching the mind of the child, to form a
+deduction as to the criminal habits of the very smug and respectable
+father."
+
+"Yes, I remember it well."
+
+"My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the family
+life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a
+happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have
+dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods
+of others."
+
+I shook my head. "Surely, Holmes, this is a little far-fetched," said
+I.
+
+He had refilled his pipe and resumed his seat, taking no notice of my
+comment.
+
+"The practical application of what I have said is very close to the
+problem which I am investigating. It is a tangled skein, you
+understand. and I am looking for a loose end. One possible loose end
+lies in the question: Why does Professor Presbury's wolfhound, Roy,
+endeavour to bite him?"
+
+I sank back in my chair in some disappointment. Was it for so trivial a
+question as this that I had been summoned from my work? Holmes glanced
+across at me.
+
+"The same old Watson!" said he. "You never learn that the gravest
+issues may depend upon the smallest things. But is it not on the face
+of it strange that a staid, elderly philosopher--you've heard of
+Presbury, of course, the famous Camford physiologist?--that such a
+man, whose friend has been his devoted wolfhound, should now have been
+twice attacked by his own dog? What do you make of it?"
+
+"The dog is ill."
+
+"Well, that has to be considered. But he attacks no one else, nor does
+he apparently molest his master, save on very special occasions.
+Curious, Watson--very curious. But young Mr. Bennett is before his
+time if that is his ring. I had hoped to have a longer chat with you
+before he came."
+
+There was a quick step on the stairs, a sharp tap at the door and a
+moment later the new client presented himself. He was a tall, handsome
+youth about thirty, well dressed and elegant, but with something in his
+bearing which suggested the shyness of the student rather than the
+self-possession of the man of the world. He shook hands with Holmes,
+and then looked with some surprise at me.
+
+"This matter is very delicate, Mr. Holmes," he said. "Consider the
+relation in which I stand to Professor Presbury both privately and
+publicly. I really can hardly justify myself if I speak before any
+third person."
+
+"Have no fear, Mr. Bennett. Dr. Watson is the very soul of discretion,
+and I can assure you that this is a matter in which I am very likely to
+need an assistant."
+
+"As you like, Mr. Holmes. You will, I am sure, understand my having
+some reserves in the matter."
+
+"You will appreciate it, Watson, when I tell you that this gentleman,
+Mr. Trevor Bennett, is professional assistant to the great scientist,
+lives under his roof, and is engaged to his only daughter. Certainly we
+must agree that the professor has every claim upon his loyalty and
+devotion. But it may best be shown by taking the necessary steps to
+clear up this strange mystery."
+
+"I hope so, Mr. Holmes. That is my one object. Does Dr. Watson know the
+situation?"
+
+"I have not had time to explain it."
+
+"Then perhaps I had better go over the ground again before explaining
+some fresh developments."
+
+"I will do so myself," said Holmes, "in order to show that I have the
+events in their due order. The professor, Watson, is a man of European
+reputation. His life has been academic. There has never been a breath
+of scandal. He is a widower with one daughter, Edith. He is, I gather,
+a man of very virile and positive, one might almost say combative,
+character. So the matter stood until a very few months ago.
+
+"Then the current of his life was broken. He is sixty-one years of age,
+but he became engaged to the daughter of Professor Morphy, his
+colleague in the chair of comparative anatomy. It was not, as I
+understand, the reasoned courting of an elderly man but rather the
+passionate frenzy of youth, for no one could have shown himself a more
+devoted lover. The lady, Alice Morphy, was a very perfect girl both in
+mind and body, so that there was every excuse for the professor's
+infatuation. None the less, it did not meet with full approval in his
+own family."
+
+"We thought it rather excessive," said our visitor.
+
+"Exactly. Excessive and a little violent and unnatural. Professor
+Presbury was rich, however, and there was no objection upon the part of
+the father. The daughter, however, had other views, and there were
+already several candidates for her hand, who, if they were less
+eligible from a worldly point of view, were at least more of an age.
+The girl seemed to like the professor in spite of his eccentricities.
+It was only age which stood in the way.
+
+"About this time a little mystery suddenly clouded the normal routine
+of the professor's life. He did what he had never done before. He left
+home and gave no indication where he was going. He was away a fortnight
+and returned looking rather travel-worn. He made no allusion to where
+he had been, although he was usually the frankest of men. It chanced,
+however, that our client here, Mr. Bennett, received a letter from a
+fellowstudent in Prague, who said that he was glad to have seen
+Professor Presbury there, although he had not been able to talk to him.
+Only in this way did his own household learn where he had been.
+
+"Now comes the point. From that time onward a curious change came over
+the professor. He became furtive and sly. Those around him had always
+the feeling that he was not the man that they had known, but that he
+was under some shadow which had darkened his higher qualities. His
+intellect was not affected. His lectures were as brilliant as ever. But
+always there was something new, something sinister and unexpected. His
+daughter, who was devoted to him, tried again and again to resume the
+old relations and to penetrate this mask which her father seemed to
+have put on. You, sir, as I understand, did the same--but all was in
+vain. And now, Mr. Bennett, tell in your own words the incident of the
+letters."
+
+"You must understand, Dr. Watson, that the professor had no secrets
+from me. If I were his son or his younger brother I could not have more
+completely enjoyed his confidence. As his secretary I handled every
+paper which came to him, and I opened and subdivided his letters.
+Shortly after his return all this was changed. He told me that certain
+letters might come to him from London which would be marked by a cross
+under the stamp. These were to be set aside for his own eyes only. I
+may say that several of these did pass through my hands, that they had
+the E. C. mark, and were in an illiterate handwriting. If he answered
+them at all the answers did not pass through my hands nor into the
+letterbasket in which our correspondence was collected."
+
+"And the box," said Holmes.
+
+"Ah, yes, the box. The professor brought back a little wooden box from
+his travels. It was the one thing which suggested a Continental tour,
+for it was one of those quaint carved things which one associates with
+Germany. This he placed in his instrument cupboard. One day, in looking
+for a canula, I took up the box. To my surprise he was very angry, and
+reproved me in words which were quite savage for my curiosity. It was
+the first time such a thing had happened, and I was deeply hurt. I
+endeavoured to explain that it was a mere accident that I had touched
+the box, but all the evening I was conscious that he looked at me
+harshly and that the incident was rankling in his mind." Mr. Bennett
+drew a little diary book from his pocket. "That was on July 2d," said
+he.
+
+"You are certainly an admirable witness," said Holmes. "I may need some
+of these dates which you have noted."
+
+"I learned method among other things from my great teacher. From the
+time that I observed abnormality in his behaviour I felt that it was my
+duty to study his case. Thus I have it here that it was on that very
+day, July 2d, that Roy attacked the professor as he came from his study
+into the hall. Again, on July 11th, there was a scene of the same sort,
+and then I have a note of yet another upon July 20th. After that we had
+to banish Roy to the stables. He was a dear, affectionate animal--but
+I fear I weary you."
+
+Mr. Bennett spoke in a tone of reproach, for it was very clear that
+Holmes was not listening. His face was rigid and his eyes gazed
+abstractedly at the ceiling. With an effort he recovered himself.
+
+"Singular! Most singular!" he murmured. "These details were new to me,
+Mr. Bennett. I think we have now fairly gone over the old ground, have
+we not? But you spoke of some fresh developments."
+
+The pleasant, open face of our visitor clouded over, shadowed by some
+grim remembrance. "What I speak of occurred the night before last,"
+said he. "I was lying awake about two in the morning, when I was aware
+of a dull muffled sound coming from the passage. I opened my door and
+peeped out. I should explain that the professor sleeps at the end of
+the passage--"
+
+"The date being?" asked Holmes.
+
+Our visitor was clearly annoyed at so irrelevant an interruption.
+
+"I have said, sir, that it was the night before last--that is,
+September 4th."
+
+Holmes nodded and smiled.
+
+"Pray continue," said he.
+
+"He sleeps at the end of the passage and would have to pass my door in
+order to reach the staircase. It was a really terrifying experience,
+Mr. Holmes. I think that I am as strong-nerved as my neighbours, but I
+was shaken by what I saw. The passage was dark save that one window
+halfway along it threw a patch of light. I could see that something was
+coming along the passage, something dark and crouching. Then suddenly
+it emerged into the light, and I saw that it was he. He was crawling,
+Mr. Holmes--crawling! He was not quite on his hands and knees. I
+should rather say on his hands and feet, with his face sunk between his
+hands. Yet he seemed to move with ease. I was so paralyzed by the sight
+that it was not until he had reached my door that I was able to step
+forward and ask if I could assist him. His answer was extraordinary. He
+sprang up, spat out some atrocious word at me, and hurried on past me,
+and down the staircase. I waited about for an hour, but he did not come
+back. It must have been daylight before he regained his room."
+
+"Well, Watson, what make you of that?" asked Holmes with the air of the
+pathologist who presents a rare specimen.
+
+"Lumbago, possibly. I have known a severe attack make a man walk in
+just such a way, and nothing would be more trying to the temper."
+
+"Good, Watson! You always keep us flat-footed on the ground. But we can
+hardly accept lumbago, since he was able to stand erect in a moment."
+
+"He was never better in health," said Bennett. "In fact, he is stronger
+than I have known him for years. But there are the facts, Mr. Holmes.
+It is not a case in which we can consult the police, and yet we are
+utterly at our wit's end as to what to do, and we feel in some strange
+way that we are drifting towards disaster. Edith--Miss Presbury--
+feels as I do, that we cannot wait passively any longer."
+
+"It is certainly a very curious and suggestive case. What do you think,
+Watson?"
+
+"Speaking as a medical man," said I, "it appears to be a case for an
+alienist. The old gentleman's cerebral processes were disturbed by the
+love affair. He made a journey abroad in the hope of breaking himself
+of the passion. His letters and the box may be connected with some
+other private transaction--a loan, perhaps, or share cenificates,
+which are in the box."
+
+"And the wolfhound no doubt disapproved of the financial bargain. No,
+no, Watson, there is more in it than this. Now, I can only suggest--"
+
+What Sherlock Holmes was about to suggest will never be known, for at
+this moment the door opened and a young lady was shown into the room.
+As she appeared Mr. Bennett sprang up with a cry and ran forward with
+his hands out to meet those which she had herself outstretched.
+
+"Edith, dear! Nothing the matter, I hope?"
+
+"I felt I must follow you. Oh, Jack, I have been so dreadfully
+frightened! It is awful to be there alone."
+
+"Mr. Holmes, this is the young lady I spoke of. This is my fiancee."
+
+"We were gradually coming to that conclusion, were we not, Watson?"
+Holmes answered with a smile. "I take it, Miss Presbury, that there is
+some fresh development in the case, and that you thought we should
+know?"
+
+Our new visitor, a bright, handsome girl of a conventional English
+type, smiled back at Holmes as she seated herself beside Mr. Bennett.
+
+"When I found Mr. Bennett had left his hotel I thought I should
+probably find him here. Of course, he had told me that he would consult
+you. But, oh, Mr. Holmes, can you do nothing for my poor father?"
+
+"I have hopes, Miss Presbury, but the case is still obscure. Perhaps
+what you have to say may throw some fresh light upon it."
+
+"It was last night, Mr. Holmes. He had been very strange all day. I am
+sure that there are times when he has no recollection of what he does.
+He lives as in a strange dream. Yesterday was such a day. It was not my
+father with whom I lived. His outward shell was there, but it was not
+really he."
+
+"Tell me what happened."
+
+"I was awakened in the night by the dog barking most furiously. Poor
+Roy, he is chained now near the stable. I may say that I always sleep
+with my door locked; for, as Jack--as Mr. Bennett--will tell you,
+we all have a feeling of impending danger. My room is on the second
+floor. It happened that the blind was up in my window, and there was
+bright moonlight outside. As I lay with my eyes fixed upon the square
+of light, listening to the frenzied barkings of the dog, I was amazed
+to see my father's face looking in at me. Mr. Holmes, I nearly died of
+surprise and horror. There it was pressed against the windowpane, and
+one hand seemed to be raised as if to push up the window. If that
+window had opened, I think I should have gone mad. It was no delusion,
+Mr. Holmes. Don't deceive yourself by thinking so. I dare say it was
+twenty seconds or so that I lay paralyzed and watched the face. Then it
+vanished, but I could not--I could not spring out of bed and look out
+after it. I lay cold and shivering till morning. At breakfast he was
+sharp and fierce in manner, and made no allusion to the adventure of
+the night. Neither did I, but I gave an excuse for coming to town--
+and here I am."
+
+Holmes looked thoroughly surprised at Miss Presbury's narrative.
+
+"My dear young lady, you say that your room is on the second floor. Is
+there a long ladder in the garden?"
+
+"No, Mr. Holmes, that is the amazing part of it. There is no possible
+way of reaching the window--and yet he was there."
+
+"The date being September 5th," said Holmes. "That certainly
+complicates matters."
+
+It was the young lady's turn to look surprised. "This is the second
+time that you have alluded to the date, Mr. Holmes," said Bennett. "Is
+it possible that it has any bearing upon the case?"
+
+"It is possible--very possible--and yet I have not my full material
+at present."
+
+"Possibly you are thinking of the connection between insanity and
+phases of the moon?"
+
+"No, I assure you. It was quite a different line of thought. Possibly
+you can leave your notebook with me, and I will check the dates. Now I
+think, Watson, that our line of action is perfectly clear. This young
+lady has informed us--and I have the greatest confidence in her
+intuition--that her father remembers little or nothing which occurs
+upon certain dates. We will therefore call upon him as if he had given
+us an appointment upon such a date. He will put it down to his own lack
+of memory. Thus we will open our campaign by having a good close view
+of him."
+
+"That is excellent," said Mr. Bennett. "I warn you, however, that the
+professor is irascible and violent at times."
+
+Holmes smiled. "There are reasons why we should come at once--very
+cogent reasons if my theories hold good. To-morrow, Mr. Bennett, will
+certainly see us in Camford. There is, if I remember right, an inn
+called the Chequers where the port used to be above mediocrity and the
+linen was above reproach. I think, Watson, that our lot for the next
+few days might lie in less pleasant places."
+
+Monday morning found us on our way to the famous university town--an
+easy effort on the part of Holmes, who had no roots to pull up, but one
+which involved frantic planning and hurrying on my part, as my practice
+was by this time not inconsiderable. Holmes made no allusion to the
+case until after we had deposited our suitcases at the ancient hostel
+of which he had spoken.
+
+"I think, Watson, that we can catch the professor just before lunch. He
+lectures at eleven and should have an interval at home."
+
+"What possible excuse have we for calling?"
+
+Holmes glanced at his notebook.
+
+"There was a period of excitement upon August 26th. We will assume that
+he is a little hazy as to what he does at such times. If we insist that
+we are there by appointment I think he will hardly venture to
+contradict us. Have you the effrontery necessary to put it through?"
+
+"We can but try."
+
+"Excellent, Watson! Compound of the Busy Bee and Excelsior. We can but
+try--the motto of the firm. A friendly native will surely guide us."
+
+Such a one on the back of a smart hansom swept us past a row of ancient
+colleges and, finally turning into a tree-lined drive, pulled up at the
+door of a charming house, girt round with lawns and covered with purple
+wistaria. Professor Presbury was certainly surrounded with every sign
+not only of comfort but of luxury. Even as we pulled up, a grizzled
+head appeared at the front window, and we were aware of a pair of keen
+eyes from under shaggy brows which surveyed us through large horn
+glasses. A moment later we were actually in his sanctum, and the
+mysterious scientist, whose vagaries had brought us from London, was
+standing before us. There was certainly no sign of eccentricity either
+in his manner or appearance, for he was a portly, largefeatured man,
+grave, tall, and frock-coated, with the dignity of bearing which a
+lecturer needs. His eyes were his most remarkable feature, keen,
+observant, and clever to the verge of cunning.
+
+He looked at our cards. "Pray sit down, gentlemen. What can I do for
+you?"
+
+Mr. Holmes smiled amiably.
+
+"It was the question which I was about to put to you, Professor."
+
+"To me, sir!"
+
+"Possibly there is some mistake. I heard through a second person that
+Professor Presbury of Camford had need of my services."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" It seemed to me that there was a malicious sparkle in the
+intense gray eyes. "You heard that, did you? May I ask the name of your
+informant?"
+
+"I am sorry, Professor, but the matter was rather confidential. If I
+have made a mistake there is no harm done. I can only express my
+regret."
+
+"Not at all. I should wish to go further into this matter. It interests
+me. Have you any scrap of writing, any letter or telegram, to bear out
+your assertion?"
+
+"No, I have not."
+
+"I presume that you do not go so far as to assert that I summoned you?"
+
+"I would rather answer no questions," said Holmes.
+
+"No, I dare say not," said the professor with asperity. "However, that
+particular one can be answered very easily without your aid."
+
+He walked across the room to the bell. Our London friend Mr. Bennett,
+answered the call.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Bennett. These two gentlemen have come from London under
+the impression that they have been summoned. You handle all my
+correspondence. Have you a note of anything going to a person named
+Holmes?"
+
+"No, sir," Bennett answered with a flush.
+
+"That is conclusive," said the professor, glaring angrily at my
+companion. "Now, sir"--he leaned forward with his two hands upon the
+table--" it seems to me that your position is a very questionable
+one."
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I can only repeat that I am sorry that we have made a needless
+intrusion."
+
+"Hardly enough, Mr. Holmes!" the old man cried in a high screaming
+voice, with extraordinary malignancy upon his face. He got between us
+and the door as he spoke, and he shook his two hands at us with furious
+passion. "You can hardly get out of it so easily as that." His face was
+convulsed, and he grinned and gibbered at us in his senseless rage. I
+am convinced that we should have had to fight our way out of the room
+if Mr. Bennett had not intervened.
+
+"My dear Professor," he cried, "consider your position! Consider the
+scandal at the university! Mr. Holmes is a wellknown man. You cannot
+possibly treat him with such discourtesy."
+
+Sulkily our host--if I may call him so--cleared the path to the
+door. We were glad to find ourselves outside the house and in the quiet
+of the tree-lined drive. Holmes seemed greatly amused by the episode.
+
+"Our learned friend's nerves are somewhat out of order," said he.
+"Perhaps our intrusion was a little crude, and yet we have gained that
+personal contact which I desired. But, dear me, Watson, he is surely at
+our heels. The villain still pursues us."
+
+There were the sounds of running feet behind, but it was, to my relief,
+not the formidable professor but his assistant who appeared round the
+curve of the drive. He came panting up to us.
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Holmes. I wished to apologize."
+
+"My dear sir, there is no need. It is all in the way of professional
+experience."
+
+"I have never seen him in a more dangerous mood. But he grows more
+sinister. You can understand now why his daughter and I are alarmed.
+And yet his mind is perfectly clear."
+
+"Too clear!" said Holmes. "That was my miscalculation. It is evident
+that his memory is much more reliable than I had thought. By the way,
+can we, before we go, see the window of Miss Presbury's room?"
+
+Mr. Bennett pushed his way through some shrubs, and we had a view of
+the side of the house.
+
+"It is there. The second on the left."
+
+"Dear me, it seems hardly accessible. And yet you will observe that
+there is a creeper below and a water-pipe above which give some
+foothold."
+
+"I could not climb it myself," said Mr. Bennett.
+
+"Very likely. It would certainly be a dangerous exploit for any normal
+man."
+
+"There was one other thing I wish to tell you, Mr. Holmes. I have the
+address of the man in London to whom the professor writes. He seems to
+have written this morning, and I got it from his blotting-paper. It is
+an ignoble position for a trusted secretary, but what else can I do?"
+
+Holmes glanced at the paper and put it into his pocket.
+
+"Dorak--a curious name. Slavonic, I imagine. Well, it is an important
+link in the chain. We return to London this afternoon, Mr. Bennett. I
+see no good purpose to be served by our remaining. We cannot arrest the
+professor because he has done no crime, nor can we place him under
+constraint, for he cannot be proved to be mad. No action is as yet
+possible."
+
+"Then what on earth are we to do?"
+
+"A little patience, Mr. Bennett. Things will soon develop. Unless I am
+mistaken, next Tuesday may mark a crisis. Certainly we shall be in
+Camford on that day. Meanwhile, the general position is undeniably
+unpleasant, and if Miss Presbury can prolong her visit"
+
+"That is easy."
+
+"Then let her stay till we can assure her that all danger is past.
+Meanwhile, let him have his way and do not cross him. So long as he is
+in a good humour all is well."
+
+"There he is!" said Bennett in a startled whisper. Looking between the
+branches we saw the tall, erect figure emerge from the hall door and
+look around him. He stood leaning forward, his hands swinging straight
+before him, his head turning from side to side. The secretary with a
+last wave slipped off among the trees, and we saw him presently rejoin
+his employer, the two entering the house together in what seemed to be
+animated and even excited conversation.
+
+"I expect the old gentleman has been putting two and two together,"
+said Holmes as we walked hotelward. "He struck me as having a
+particularly clear and logical brain from the little I saw of him.
+Explosive, no doubt, but then from his point of view he has something
+to explode about if detectives are put on his track and he suspects his
+own household of doing it. I rather fancy that friend Bennett is in for
+an uncomfortable time."
+
+Holmes stopped at a post-office and sent off a telegram on our way. The
+answer reached us in the evening, and he tossed it across to me.
+
+
+Have visited the Commercial Road and seen Dorak. Suave person, Bohemian,
+elderly. Keeps large general store. MERCER.
+
+
+"Mercer is since your time," said Holmes. "He is my general utility man
+who looks up routine business. It was important to know something of
+the man with whom our professor was so secretly corresponding. His
+nationality connects up with the Prague visit."
+
+"Thank goodness that something connects with something," said I. "At
+present we seem to be faced by a long series of inexplicable incidents
+with no bearing upon each other. For example, what possible connection
+can there be between an angry wolfhound and a visit to Bohemia, or
+either of them with a man crawling down a passage at night? As to your
+dates, that is the biggest mystification of all."
+
+Holmes smiled and rubbed his hands. We were, I may say, seated in the
+old sitting-room of the ancient hotel, with a bottle of the famous
+vintage of which Holmes had spoken on the table between us.
+
+"Well, now, let us take the dates first," said he, his fingertips
+together and his manner as if he were addressing a class. "This
+excellent young man's diary shows that there was trouble upon July 2d,
+and from then onward it seems to have been at nine-day intervals, with,
+so far as I remember, only one exception. Thus the last outbreak upon
+Friday was on September 3d, which also falls into the series, as did
+August 26th, which preceded it. The thing is beyond coincidence."
+
+I was forced to agree.
+
+"Let us, then, form the provisional theory that every nine days the
+professor takes some strong drug which has a passing but highly
+poisonous effect. His naturally violent nature is intensified by it. He
+learned to take this drug while he was in Prague, and is now supplied
+with it by a Bohemian intermediary in London. This all hangs together,
+Watson!"
+
+"But the dog, the face at the window, the creeping man in the passage?"
+
+"Well, well, we have made a beginning. I should not expect any fresh
+developments until next Tuesday. In the meantime we can only keep in
+touch with friend Bennett and enjoy the amenities of this charming
+town."
+
+In the morning Mr. Bennett slipped round to bring us the latest report.
+As Holmes had imagined, times had not been easy with him. Without
+exactly accusing him of being responsible for our presence, the
+professor had been very rough and rude in his speech, and evidently
+felt some strong grievance. This morning he was quite himself again,
+however, and had delivered his usual brilliant lecture to a crowded
+class. "Apart from his queer fits," said Bennett, "he has actually more
+energy and vitality than I can ever remember, nor was his brain ever
+clearer. But it's not he--it's never the man whom we have known."
+
+"I don't think you have anything to fear now for a week at least,"
+Holmes answered. "I am a busy man, and Dr. Watson has his patients to
+attend to. Let us agree that we meet here at this hour next Tuesday,
+and I shall be surprised if before we leave you again we are not able
+to explain, even if we cannot perhaps put an end to, your troubles.
+Meanwhile, keep us posted in what occurs."
+
+I saw nothing of my friend for the next few days, but on the following
+Monday evening I had a short note asking me to meet him next day at the
+train. From what he told me as we travelled up to Camford all was well,
+the peace of the professor's house had been unruffled, and his own
+conduct perfectly normal. This also was the report which was given us
+by Mr. Bennett himself when he called upon us that evening at our old
+quarters in the Chequers. "He heard from his London correspondent
+to-day. There was a letter and there was a small packet, each with the
+cross under the stamp which warned me not to touch them. There has been
+nothing else."
+
+"That may prove quite enough," said Holmes grimly. "Now, Mr. Bennett,
+we shall, I think, come to some conclusion tonight. If my deductions
+are correct we should have an opportunity of bringing matters to a
+head. In order to do so it is necessary to hold the professor under
+observation. I would suggest, therefore, that you remain awake and on
+the lookout. Should you hear him pass your door, do not interrupt him,
+but follow him as discreetly as you can. Dr. Watson and I will not be
+far off. By the way, where is the key of that little box of which you
+spoke?"
+
+"Upon his watch-chain."
+
+"I fancy our researches must lie in that direction. At the worst the
+lock should not be very formidable. Have you any other able-bodied man
+on the premises?"
+
+"There is the coachman, Macphail."
+
+"Where does he sleep?"
+
+"Over the stables."
+
+"We might possibly want him. Well, we can do no more until we see how
+things develop, Good-bye--but I expect that we shall see you before
+morning."
+
+It was nearly midnight before we took our station among some bushes
+immediately opposite the hall door of the professor. It was a fine
+night, but chilly, and we were glad of our warm overcoats. There was a
+breeze, and clouds were scudding across the sky, obscuring from time to
+time the half-moon. It would have been a dismal vigil were it not for
+the expectation and excitement which carried us along, and the
+assurance of my comrade that we had probably reached the end of the
+strange sequence of events which had engaged our attention.
+
+"If the cycle of nine days holds good then we shall have the professor
+at his worst to-night," said Holmes. "The fact that these strange
+symptoms began after his visit to Prague, that he is in secret
+correspondence with a Bohemian dealer in London, who presumably
+represents someone in Prague, and that he received a packet from him
+this very day, all point in one direction. What he takes and why he
+takes it are still beyond our ken, but that it emanates in some way
+from Prague is clear enough. He takes it under definite directions
+which regulate this ninth-day system, which was the first point which
+attracted my attention. But his symptoms are most remarkable. Did you
+observe his knuckles?"
+
+I had to confess that I did not.
+
+"Thick and horny in a way which is quite new in my experience. Always
+look at the hands first, Watson. Then cuffs, trouserknees, and boots.
+Very curious knuckles which can only be explained by the mode of
+progression observed by--" Holmes paused and suddenly clapped his hand
+to his forehead. "Oh, Watson, Watson, what a fool I have been! It seems
+incredible, and yet it must be true. All points in one direction. How
+could I miss seeing the connection of ideas? Those knuckles how could I
+have passed those knuckles? And the dog! And the ivy! It's surely time
+that I disappeared into that little farm of my dreams. Look out,
+Watson! Here he is! We shall have the chance of seeing for ourselves."
+
+The hall door had slowly opened, and against the lamplit background we
+saw the tall figure of Professor Presbury. He was clad in his dressing
+gown. As he stood outlined in the doorway he was erect but leaning
+forward with dangling arms, as when we saw him last.
+
+Now he stepped forward into the drive, and an extraordinary change came
+over him. He sank down into a crouching position and moved along upon
+his hands and feet, skipping every now and then as if he were
+overflowing with energy and vitality. He moved along the face of the
+house and then round the corner. As he disappeared Bennett slipped
+through the hall door and softly followed him.
+
+"Come, Watson, come!" cried Holmes, and we stole as softly as we could
+through the bushes until we had gained a spot whence we could see the
+other side of the house, which was bathed in the light of the
+half-moon. The professor was clearly visible crouching at the foot of
+the ivy-covered wall. As we watched him he suddenly began with
+incredible agility to ascend it. From branch to branch he sprang, sure
+of foot and firm of grasp, climbing apparently in mere joy at his own
+powers, with no definite object in view. With his dressing-gown
+flapping on each side of him, he looked like some huge bat glued
+against the side of his own house, a great square dark patch upon the
+moonlit wall. Presently he tired of this amusement, and, dropping from
+branch to branch, he squatted down into the old attitude and moved
+towards the stables, creeping along in the same strange way as before.
+The wolfhound was out now, barking furiously, and more excited than
+ever when it actually caught sight of its master. It was straining on
+its chain and quivering with eagerness and rage. The professor squatted
+down very deliberately just out of reach of the hound and began to
+provoke it in every possible way. He took handfuls of pebbles from the
+drive and threw them in the dog's face, prodded him with a stick which
+he had picked up, flicked his hands about only a few inches from the
+gaping mouth, and endeavoured in every way to increase the animal's
+fury, which was already beyond all control. In all our adventures I do
+not know that I have ever seen a more strange sight than this impassive
+and still dignified figure crouching frog-like upon the ground and
+goading to a wilder exhibition of passion the maddened hound, which
+ramped and raged in front of him, by all manner of ingenious and
+calculated cruelty.
+
+And then in a moment it happened! It was not the chain that broke, but
+it was the collar that slipped, for it had been made for a thick-necked
+Newfoundland. We heard the rattle of falling metal, and the next
+instant dog and man were rolling on the ground together, the one
+roaring in rage, the other screaming in a strange shrill falsetto of
+terror. It was a very narrow thing for the professor's life. The savage
+creature had him fairly by the throat, its fangs had bitten deep, and
+he was senseless before we could reach them and drag the two apart. It
+might have been a dangerous task for us, but Bennett's voice and
+presence brought the great wolflhound instantly to reason. The uproar
+had brought the sleepy and astonished coachman from his room above the
+stables. "I'm not surprised," said he, shaking his head. "I've seen him
+at it before. I knew the dog would get him sooner or later."
+
+The hound was secured, and together we carried the professor up to his
+room, where Bennett, who had a medical degree, helped me to dress his
+torn throat. The sharp teeth had passed dangerously near the carotid
+artery, and the haemorrhage was serious. In half an hour the danger was
+past, I had given the patient an injection of morphia, and he had sunk
+into deep sleep. Then, and only then, were we able to look at each
+other and to take stock of the situation.
+
+"I think a first-class surgeon should see him," said I.
+
+"For God's sake, no!" cried Bennett. "At present the scandal is
+confined to our own household. It is safe with us. If it gets beyond
+these walls it will never stop. Consider his position at the
+university, his European reputation, the feelings of his daughter."
+
+"Quite so," said Holmes. "I think it may be quite possible to keep the
+matter to ourselves, and also to prevent its recurrence now that we
+have a free hand. The key from the watch-chain, Mr. Bennett. Macphail
+will guard the patient and let us know if there is any change. Let us
+see what we can find in the professor's mysterious box."
+
+There was not much, but there was enough--an empty phial, another
+nearly full, a hypodermic syringe, several letters in a crabbed,
+foreign hand. The marks on the envelopes showed that they were those
+which had disturbed the routine of the secretary, and each was dated
+from the Commercial Road and signed "A. Dorak." They were mere invoices
+to say that a fresh bottle was being sent to Professor Presbury, or
+receipt to acknowledge money. There was one other envelope, however, in
+a more educated hand and bearing the Austrian stamp with the postmark
+of Prague. "Here we have our material!" cried Holmes as he tore out the
+enclosure.
+
+
+HONOURED COLLEAGUE [it ran]:
+
+Since your esteemed visit I have thought much of your case, and though in
+your circumstances there are some special reasons for the treatment,
+I would none the less enjoin caution, as my results have shown that it is
+not without danger of a kind. It is possible that the serum of anthropoid
+would have been better. I have, as I explained to you, used black-faced
+langur because a specimen was accessible. Langur is, of course, a crawler
+and climber, while anthropoid walks erect and is in all ways nearer. I beg
+you to take every possible precaution that there be no premature
+revelation of the process. I have one other client in England, and Dorak
+is my agent for both. Weekly reports will oblige.
+
+Yours with high esteem,
+H. LOWENSTEIN.
+
+
+Lowenstein! The name brought back to me the memory of some snippet from
+a newspaper which spoke of an obscure scientist who was striving in
+some unknown way for the secret of rejuvenescence and the elixir of
+life. Lowenstein of Prague! Lowenstein with the wondrous
+strength-giving serum, tabooed by the profession because he refused to
+reveal its source. In a few words I said what I remembered. Bennett had
+taken a manual of zoology from the shelves."'Langur,'" he read "'the
+great black-faced monkey of the Himalayan slopes, biggest and most
+human of climbing monkeys.' Many details are added. Well, thanks to you,
+Mr. Holmes, it is very clear that we have traced the evil to its
+source."
+
+"The real source," said Holmes, "lies, of course, in that untimely love
+affair which gave our impetuous professor the idea that he could only
+gain his wish by turning himself into a younger man. When one tries to
+rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of
+man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of
+destiny." He sat musing for a little with the phial in his hand,
+looking at the clear liquid within. "When I have written to this man
+and told him that I hold him criminally responsible for the poisons
+which he circulates, we will have no more trouble. But it may recur.
+Others may find a better way. There is danger there--a very real
+danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual,
+the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual
+would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival
+of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?"
+Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang
+from his chair. "I think there is nothing more to be said, Mr. Bennett.
+The various incidents will now fit themselves easily into the general
+scheme. The dog, of course, was aware of the change far more quickly
+than you. His smell would insure that. It was the monkey, not the
+professor, whom Roy attacked, just as it was the monkey who teased Roy.
+Climbing was a joy to the creature, and it was a mere chance, I take
+it, that the pastime brought him to the young lady's window. There is
+an early train to town, Watson, but I think we shall just have time for
+a cup of tea at the Chequers before we catch it."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE LION'S MANE
+
+
+
+It is a most singular thing that a problem which was certainly as
+abstruse and unusual as any which I have faced in my long professional
+career should have come to me after my retirement, and be brought, as
+it were, to my very door. It occurred after my withdrawal to my little
+Sussex home, when I had given myself up entirely to that soothing life
+of Nature for which I had so often yearned during the long years spent
+amid the gloom of London. At this period of my life the good Watson had
+passed almost beyond my ken. An occasional week-end visit was the most
+that I ever saw of him. Thus I must act as my own chronicler. Ah! had
+he but been with me, how much he might have made of so wonderful a
+happening and of my eventual triumph against every difficulty! As it
+is, however, I must needs tell my tale in my own plain way, showing by
+my words each step upon the difficult road which lay before me as I
+searched for the mystery of the Lion's Mane.
+
+My villa is situated upon the southern slope of the downs, commanding a
+great view of the Channel. At this point the coast-line is entirely of
+chalk cliffs, which can only be descended by a single, long, tortuous
+path, which is steep and slippery. At the bottom of the path lie a
+hundred yards of pebbles and shingle, even when the tide is at full.
+Here and there, however, there are curves and hollows which make
+splendid swimmingpools filled afresh with each flow. This admirable
+beach extends for some miles in each direction, save only at one point
+where the little cove and village of Fulworth break the line.
+
+My house is lonely. I, my old housekeeper, and my bees have the estate
+all to ourselves. Half a mile off, however, is Harold Stackhurst's
+well-known coaching establishment, The Gables, quite a large place,
+which contains some score of young fellows preparing for various
+professions, with a staff of several masters. Stackhurst himself was a
+well-known rowing Blue in his day, and an excellent all-round scholar.
+He and I were always friendly from the day I came to the coast, and he
+was the one man who was on such terms with me that we could drop in on
+each other in the evenings without an invitation.
+
+Towards the end of July, 1907, there was a severe gale, the wind
+blowing up-channel, heaping the seas to the base of the cliffs and
+leaving a lagoon at the turn of the tide. On the morning of which I
+speak the wind had abated, and all Nature was newly washed and fresh.
+It was impossible to work upon so delightful a day, and I strolled out
+before breakfast to enjoy the exquisite air. I walked along the cliff
+path which led to the steep descent to the beach. As I walked I heard a
+shout behind me, and there was Harold Stackhurst waving his hand in
+cheery greeting.
+
+"What a morning, Mr. Holmes! I thought I should see you out."
+
+"Going for a swim, I see."
+
+"At your old tricks again," he laughed, patting his bulging pocket.
+"Yes. McPherson started early, and I expect I may find him there."
+
+Fitzroy McPherson was the science master, a fine upstanding young
+fellow whose life had been crippled by heart trouble following
+rheumatic fever. He was a natural athlete, however, and excelled in
+every game which did not throw too great a strain upon him. Summer and
+winter he went for his swim, and, as I am a swimmer myself, I have
+often joined him.
+
+At this moment we saw the man himself. His head showed above the edge
+of the cliff where the path ends. Then his whole figure appeared at the
+top, staggering like a drunken man. The next instant he threw up his
+hands and, with a terrible cry, fell upon his face. Stackhurst and I
+rushed forward--it may have been fifty yards--and turned him on his
+back. He was obviously dying. Those glazed sunken eyes and dreadful
+livid cheeks could mean nothing else. One glimmer of life came into his
+face for an instant, and he uttered two or three words with an eager
+air of warning. They were slurred and indistinct, but to my ear the
+last of them, which burst in a shriek from his lips, were "the Lion's
+Mane." It was utterly irrelevant and unintelligible, and yet I could
+twist the sound into no other sense. Then he half raised himself from
+the ground, threw his arms into the air, and fell forward on his side.
+He was dead.
+
+My companion was paralyzed by the sudden horror of it, but I, as may
+well be imagined, had every sense on the alert. And I had need, for it
+was speedily evident that we were in the presence of an extraordinary
+case. The man was dressed only in his Burberry overcoat, his trousers,
+and an unlaced pair of canvas shoes. As he fell over, his Burberry,
+which had been simply thrown round his shoulders, slipped off, exposing
+his trunk. We stared at it in amazement. His back was covered with dark
+red lines as though he had been terribly flogged by a thin wire
+scourge. The instrument with which this punishment had been inflicted
+was clearly flexible, for the long, angry weals curved round his
+shoulders and ribs. There was blood dripping down his chin, for he had
+bitten through his lower lip in the paroxysm of his agony. His drawn
+and distorted face told how terrible that agony had been.
+
+I was kneeling and Stackhurst standing by the body when a shadow fell
+across us, and we found that Ian Murdoch was by our side. Murdoch was
+the mathematical coach at the establishment, a tall, dark, thin man, so
+taciturn and aloof that none can be said to have been his friend. He
+seemed to live in some high abstract region of surds and conic
+sections, with little to connect him with ordinary life. He was looked
+upon as an oddity by the students, and would have been their butt, but
+there was some strange outlandish blood in the man, which showed itself
+not only in his coal-black eyes and swarthy face but also in occasional
+outbreaks of temper, which could only be described as ferocious. On one
+occasion, being plagued by a little dog belonging to McPherson, he had
+caught the creature up and hurled it through the plate-glass window, an
+action for which Stackhurst would certainly have given him his
+dismissal had he not been a very valuable teacher. Such was the strange
+complex man who now appeared beside us. He seemed to be honestly
+shocked at the sight before him, though the incident of the dog may
+show that there was no great sympathy between the dead man and himself.
+
+"Poor fellow! Poor fellow! What can I do? How can I help?"
+
+"Were you with him? Can you tell us what has happened?"
+
+"No, no, I was late this morning. I was not on the beach at all. I have
+come straight from The Gables. What can I do?"
+
+"You can hurry to the police-station at Fulworth. Report the matter at
+once."
+
+Without a word he made off at top speed, and I proceeded to take the
+matter in hand, while Stackhurst, dazed at this tragedy, remained by
+the body. My first task naturally was to note who was on the beach.
+From the top of the path I could see the whole sweep of it, and it was
+absolutely deserted save that two or three dark figures could be seen
+far away moving towards the village of Fulworth. Having satisfied
+myself upon this point, I walked slowly down the path. There was clay
+or soft marl mixed with the chalk, and every here and there I saw the
+same footstep, both ascending and descending. No one else had gone down
+to the beach by this track that morning. At one place I observed the
+print of an open hand with the fingers towards the incline. This could
+only mean that poor McPherson had fallen as he ascended. There were
+rounded depressions, too, which suggested that he had come down upon
+his knees more than once. At the bottom of the path was the
+considerable lagoon left by the retreating tide. At the side of it
+McPherson had undressed, for there lay his towel on a rock. It was
+folded and dry, so that it would seem that, after all, he had never
+entered the water. Once or twice as I hunted round amid the hard
+shingle I came on little patches of sand where the print of his canvas
+shoe, and also of his naked foot, could be seen. The latter fact proved
+that he had made all ready to bathe, though the towel indicated that he
+had not actually done so.
+
+And here was the problem clearly defined--as strange a one as had
+ever confronted me. The man had not been on the beach more than a
+quarter of an hour at the most. Stackhurst had followed him from The
+Gables, so there could be no doubt about that. He had gone to bathe and
+had stripped, as the naked footsteps showed. Then he had suddenly
+huddled on his clothes again--they were all dishevelled and
+unfastened--and he had returned without bathing, or at any rate
+without drying himself. And the reason for his change of purpose had
+been that he had been scourged in some savage, inhuman fashion,
+tortured until he bit his lip through in his agony, and was left with
+only strength enough to crawl away and to die. Who had done this
+barbarous deed? There were, it is true, small grottos and caves in the
+base of the cliffs, but the low sun shone directly into them, and there
+was no place for concealment. Then, again, there were those distant
+figures on the beach. They seemed too far away to have been connected
+with the crime, and the broad lagoon in which McPherson had intended to
+bathe lay between him and them, lapping up to the rocks. On the sea two
+or three fishingboats were at no great distance. Their occupants might
+be examined at our leisure. There were several roads for inquiry, but
+none which led to any very obvious goal.
+
+When I at last returned to the body I found that a little group of
+wondering folk had gathered round it. Stackhurst was, of course, still
+there, and Ian Murdoch had just arrived with Anderson, the village
+constable, a big, ginger-moustached man of the slow, solid Sussex breed
+--a breed which covers much good sense under a heavy, silent exterior.
+He listened to everything, took note of all we said, and finally drew
+me aside.
+
+"I'd be glad of your advice, Mr. Holmes. This is a big thing for me to
+handle, and I'll hear of it from Lewes if I go wrong."
+
+I advised him to send for his immediate superior, and for a doctor;
+also to allow nothing to be moved, and as few fresh footmarks as
+possible to be made, until they came. In the meantime I searched the
+dead man's pockets. There were his handkerchief, a large knife, and a
+small folding card-case. From this projected a slip of paper, which I
+unfolded and handed to the constable. There was written on it in a
+scrawling, feminine hand:
+
+I will be there, you may be sure.
+
+MAUDIE.
+
+It read like a love affair, an assignation, though when and where were
+a blank. The constable replaced it in the card-case and returned it
+with the other things to the pockets of the Burberry. Then, as nothing
+more suggested itself, I walked back to my house for breakfast, having
+first arranged that the base of the cliffs should be thoroughly
+searched.
+
+Stackhurst was round in an hour or two to tell me that the body had
+been removed to The Gables, where the inquest would be held. He brought
+with him some serious and definite news. As I expected, nothing had
+been found in the small caves below the cliff, but he had examined the
+papers in McPherson's desk and there were several which showed an
+intimate correspondence with a certain Miss Maud Bellamy, of Fulworth.
+We had then established the identity of the writer of the note.
+
+"The police have the letters," he explained. "I could not bring them.
+But there is no doubt that it was a serious love affair. I see no
+reason, however, to connect it with that horrible happening save,
+indeed, that the lady had made an appointment with him."
+
+"But hardly at a bathing-pool which all of you were in the habit of
+using," I remarked.
+
+"It is mere chance," said he, "that several of the students were not
+with McPherson."
+
+"Was it mere chance?"
+
+Stackhurst knit his brows in thought.
+
+"Ian Murdoch held them back," said he. "He would insist upon some
+algebraic demonstration before breakfast. Poor chap, he is dreadfully
+cut up about it all."
+
+"And yet I gather that they were not friends."
+
+"At one time they were not. But for a year or more Murdoch has been as
+near to McPherson as he ever could be to anyone. He is not of a very
+sympathetic disposition by nature."
+
+"So I understand. I seem to remember your telling me once about a
+quarrel over the ill-usage of a dog."
+
+"That blew over all right."
+
+"But left some vindictive feeling, perhaps."
+
+"No, no, I am sure they were real friends."
+
+"Well, then, we must explore the matter of the girl. Do you know her?"
+
+"Everyone knows her. She is the beauty of the neighbourhood--a real
+beauty, Holmes, who would draw attention everywhere. I knew that
+McPherson was attracted by her, but I had no notion that it had gone so
+far as these letters would seem to indicate."
+
+"But who is she?"
+
+"She is the daughter of old Tom Bellamy who owns all the boats and
+bathing-cots at Fulworth. He was a fisherman to start with, but is now
+a man of some substance. He and his son William run the business."
+
+"Shall we walk into Fulworth and see them?"
+
+"On what pretext?"
+
+"Oh, we can easily find a pretext. After all, this poor man did not
+ill-use himself in this outrageous way. Some human hand was on the
+handle of that scourge, if indeed it was a scourge which inflicted the
+injuries. His circle of acquaintances in this lonely place was surely
+limited. Let us follow it up in every direction and we can hardly fail
+to come upon the motive, which in turn should lead us to the criminal."
+
+It would have been a pleasant walk across the thyme-scented downs had
+our minds not been poisoned by the tragedy we had witnessed. The
+village of Fulworth lies in a hollow curving in a semicircle round the
+bay. Behind the old-fashioned hamlet several modern houses have been
+built upon the rising ground. It was to one of these that Stackhurst
+guided me.
+
+"That's The Haven, as Bellamy called it. The one with the corner tower
+and slate roof. Not bad for a man who started with nothing but--By
+Jove, look at that!"
+
+The garden gate of The Haven had opened and a man had emerged. There
+was no mistaking that tall, angular, straggling figure. It was Ian
+Murdoch, the mathematician. A moment later we confronted him upon the
+road.
+
+"Hullo!" said Stackhurst. The man nodded, gave us a sideways glance
+from his curious dark eyes, and would have-passed us, but his principal
+pulled him up.
+
+"What were you doing there?" he asked.
+
+Murdoch's face flushed with anger. "I am your subordinate, sir, under
+your roof. I am not aware that I owe you any account of my private
+actions."
+
+Stackhurst's nerves were near the surface after all he had endured.
+Otherwise, perhaps, he would have waited. Now he lost his temper
+completely.
+
+"In the circumstances your answer is pure impertinence, Mr. Murdoch."
+
+"Your own question might perhaps come under the same heading."
+
+"This is not the first time that I have had to overlook your
+insubordinate ways. It will certainly be the last. You will kindly make
+fresh arrangements for your future as speedily as you can."
+
+"I had intended to do so. I have lost to-day the only person who made
+The Gables habitable."
+
+He strode off upon his way, while Stackhurst, with angry eyes, stood
+glaring after him. "Is he not an impossible, intolerable man?" he
+cried.
+
+The one thing that impressed itself forcibly upon my mind was that Mr.
+Ian Murdoch was taking the first chance to open a path of escape from
+the scene of the crime. Suspicion, vague and nebulous, was now
+beginning to take outline in my mind. Perhaps the visit to the Bellamys
+might throw some further light upon the matter. Stackhurst pulled
+himself together, and we went forward to the house.
+
+Mr. Bellamy proved to be a middle-aged man with a flaming red beard. He
+seemed to be in a very angry mood, and his face was soon as florid as
+his hair.
+
+"No, sir, I do not desire any particulars. My son here"--indicating a
+powerful young man, with a heavy, sullen face, in the corner of the
+sitting-room--"is of one mind with me that Mr. McPherson's attentions
+to Maud were insulting. Yes, sir, the word 'marriage' was never
+mentioned, and yet there were letters and meetings, and a great deal
+more of which neither of us could approve. She has no mother, and we
+are her only guardians. We are determined--"
+
+But the words were taken from his mouth by the appearance of the lady
+herself. There was no gainsaying that she would have graced any
+assembly in the world. Who could have imagined that so rare a flower
+would grow from such a root and in such an atmosphere? Women have
+seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my
+heart, but I could not look upon her perfect clear-cut face, with all
+the soft freshness of the downlands in her delicate colouring, without
+realizing that no young man would cross her path unscathed. Such was
+the girl who had pushed open the door and stood now, wide-eyed and
+intense, in front of Harold Stackhurst.
+
+"I know already that Fitzroy is dead," she said. "Do not be afraid to
+tell me the particulars."
+
+"This other gentleman of yours let us know the news," explained the
+father.
+
+"There is no reason why my sister should be brought into the matter,"
+growled the younger man.
+
+The sister turned a sharp, fierce look upon him. "This is my business,
+William. Kindly leave me to manage it in my own way. By all accounts
+there has been a crime committed. If I can help to show who did it, it
+is the least I can do for him who is gone."
+
+She listened to a short account from my companion, with a composed
+concentration which showed me that she possessed strong character as
+well as great beauty. Maud Bellamy will always remain in my memory as a
+most complete and remarkable woman. It seems that she already knew me
+by sight, for she turned to me at the end.
+
+"Bring them to justice, Mr. Holmes. You have my sympathy and my help,
+whoever they may be." It seemed to me that she glanced defiantly at her
+father and brother as she spoke.
+
+"Thank you," said I. "I value a woman's instinct in such matters. You
+use the word 'they.' You think that more than one was concerned?"
+
+"I knew Mr. McPherson well enough to be aware that he was a brave and a
+strong man. No single person could ever have inflicted such an outrage
+upon him."
+
+"Might I have one word with you alone?"
+
+"I tell you, Maud, not to mix yourself up in the matter," cried her
+father angrily.
+
+She looked at me helplessly. "What can I do?"
+
+"The whole world will know the facts presently, so there can be no harm
+if I discuss them here," said I. "I should have preferred privacy, but
+if your father will not allow it he must share the deliberations." Then
+I spoke of the note which had been found in the dead man's pocket. "It
+is sure to be produced at the inquest. May I ask you to throw any light
+upon it that you can?"
+
+"I see no reason for mystery," she answered. "We were engaged to be
+married, and we only kept it secret because Fitzroy's uncle, who is
+very old and said to be dying, might have disinherited him if he had
+married against his wish. There was no other reason."
+
+"You could have told us," growled Mr. Bellamy.
+
+"So I would, father, if you had ever shown sympathy."
+
+"I object to my girl picking up with men outside her own station."
+
+"It was your prejudice against him which prevented us from telling you.
+As to this appointment"--she fumbled in her dress and produced a
+crumpled note--"it was in answer to this."
+
+DEAREST [ran the message]:
+
+The old place on the beach just after sunset on Tuesday.
+
+It is the only time I can get away.
+
+F.M.
+
+"Tuesday was to-day, and I had meant to meet him to-night."
+
+I turned over the paper. "This never came by post. How did you get it?"
+
+"I would rather not answer that question. It has really nothing to do
+with the matter which you are investigating. But anything which bears
+upon that I will most freely answer."
+
+She was as good as her word, but there was nothing which was helpful in
+our investigation. She had no reason to think that her fiance had any
+hidden enemy, but she admitted that she had had several warm admirers.
+
+"May I ask if Mr. Ian Murdoch was one of them?"
+
+She blushed and seemed confused.
+
+"There was a time when I thought he was. But that was all changed when
+he understood the relations between Fitzroy and myself."
+
+Again the shadow round this strange man seemed to me to be taking more
+definite shape. His record must be examined. His rooms must be
+privately searched. Stackhurst was a willing collaborator, for in his
+mind also suspicions were forming. We returned from our visit to The
+Haven with the hope that one free end of this tangled skein was already
+in our hands.
+
+A week passed. The inquest had thrown no light upon the matter and had
+been adjourned for further evidence. Stackhurst had made discreet
+inquiry about his subordinate, and there had been a superficial search
+of his room, but without result. Personally, I had gone over the whole
+ground again, both physically and mentally, but with no new
+conclusions. In all my chronicles the reader will find no case which
+brought me so completely to the limit of my powers. Even my imagination
+could conceive no solution to the mystery. And then there came the
+incident of the dog.
+
+It was my old housekeeper who heard of it first by that strange
+wireless by which such people collect the news of the countryside.
+
+"Sad story this, sir, about Mr. McPherson's dog," said she one evening.
+
+I do not encourage such conversations, but the words arrested my
+attention.
+
+"What of Mr. McPherson's dog?"
+
+"Dead, sir. Died of grief for its master."
+
+"Who told you this?"
+
+"Why, sir, everyone is talking of it. It took on terrible, and has
+eaten nothing for a week. Then to-day two of the young gentlemen from
+The Gables found it dead--down on the beach, sir, at the very place
+where its master met his end."
+
+"At the very place." The words stood out clear in my memory. Some dim
+perception that the matter was vital rose in my mind. That the dog
+should die was after the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs. But "in
+the very place"! Why should this lonely beach be fatal to it? Was it
+possible that it also had been sacrificed to some revengeful feud? Was
+it possible--? Yes, the perception was dim, but already something was
+building up in my mind. In a few minutes I was on my way to The Gables,
+where I found Stackhurst in his study. At my request he sent for
+Sudbury and Blount, the two students who had found the dog.
+
+"Yes, it lay on the very edge of the pool," said one of them. "It must
+have followed the trail of its dead master."
+
+I saw the faithful little creature, an Airedale terrier, laid out upon
+the mat in the hall. The body was stiff and rigid, the eyes projecting,
+and the limbs contorted. There was agony in every line of it.
+
+From The Gables I walked down to the bathing-pool. The sun had sunk and
+the shadow of the great cliff lay black across the water, which
+glimmered dully like a sheet of lead. The place was deserted and there
+was no sign of life save for two sea-birds circling and screaming
+overhead. In the fading light I could dimly make out the little dog's
+spoor upon the sand round the very rock on which his master's towel had
+been laid. For a long time I stood in deep meditation while the shadows
+grew darker around me. My mind was filled with racing thoughts. You
+have known what it was to be in a nightmare in which you feel that
+there is some all-important thing for which you search and which you
+know is there, though it remains forever just beyond your reach. That
+was how I felt that evening as I stood alone by that place of death.
+Then at last I turned and walked slowly homeward.
+
+I had just reached the top of the path when it came to me. Like a
+flash, I remembered the thing for which I had so eagerly and vainly
+grasped. You will know, or Watson has written in vain, that I hold a
+vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge without scientific system, but
+very available for the needs of my work. My mind is like a crowded
+box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein--so many that
+I may well have but a vague perception of what was there. I had known
+that there was something which might bear upon this matter. It was
+still vague, but at least I knew how I could make it clear. It was
+monstrous, incredible, and yet it was always a possibility. I would
+test it to the full.
+
+There is a great garret in my little house which is stuffed with books.
+It was into this that I plunged and rummaged for an hour. At the end of
+that time I emerged with a little chocolate and silver volume. Eagerly
+I turned up the chapter of which I had a dim remembrance. Yes, it was
+indeed a far-fetched and unlikely proposition, and yet I could not be
+at rest until I had made sure if it might, indeed, be so. It was late
+when I retired, with my mind eagerly awaiting the work of the morrow.
+
+But that work met with an annoying interruption. I had hardly swallowed
+my early cup of tea and was starting for the beach when I had a call
+from Inspector Bardle of the Sussex Constabulary--a steady, solid,
+bovine man with thoughtful eyes, which looked at me now with a very
+troubled expression.
+
+"I know your immense experience, sir," said he. "This is quite
+unofficial, of course, and need go no farther. But I am fairly up
+against it in this McPherson case. The question is, shall I make an
+arrest, or shall I not?"
+
+"Meaning Mr. Ian Murdoch?"
+
+"Yes, sir. There is really no one else when you come to think of it.
+That's the advantage of this solitude. We narrow it down to a very
+small compass. If he did not do it, then who did?"
+
+"What have you against him?"
+
+He had gleaned along the same furrows as I had. There was Murdoch's
+character and the mystery which seemed to hang round the man. His
+furious bursts of temper, as shown in the incident of the dog. The fact
+that he had quarrelled with McPherson in the past, and that there was
+some reason to think that he might have resented his attentions to Miss
+Bellamy. He had all my points, but no fresh ones, save that Murdoch
+seemed to be making every preparation for departure.
+
+"What would my position be if I let him slip away with all this
+evidence against him?" The burly, phlegmatic man was sorely troubled in
+his mind.
+
+"Consider," I said, "all the essential gaps in your case. On the
+morning of the crime he can surely prove an alibi. He had been with his
+scholars till the last moment, and within a few minutes of McPherson's
+appearance he came upon us from behind. Then bear in mind the absolute
+impossibility that he could single-handed have inflicted this outrage
+upon a man quite as strong as himself. Finally, there is this question
+of the instrument with which these injuries were inflicted."
+
+"What could it be but a scourge or flexible whip of some sort?"
+
+"Have you examined the marks?" I asked.
+
+"I have seen them. So has the doctor."
+
+"But I have examined them very carefully with a lens. They have
+peculiarities."
+
+"What are they, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+I stepped to my bureau and brought out an enlarged photograph. "This is
+my method in such cases," I explained.
+
+"You certainly do things thoroughly, Mr. Holmes."
+
+"I should hardly be what I am if I did not. Now let us consider this
+weal which extends round the right shoulder. Do you observe nothing
+remarkable?"
+
+"I can't say I do."
+
+"Surely it is evident that it is unequal in its intensity. There is a
+dot of extravasated blood here, and another there. There are similar
+indications in this other weal down here. What can that mean?"
+
+"I have no idea. Have you?"
+
+"Perhaps I have. Perhaps I haven't. I may be able to say more soon.
+Anything which will define what made that mark will bring us a long way
+towards the criminal."
+
+"It is, of course, an absurd idea," said the policeman, "but if a
+red-hot net of wire had been laid across the back, then these better
+marked points would represent where the meshes crossed each other."
+
+"A most ingenious comparison. Or shall we say a very stiff
+cat-o'-nine-tails with small hard knots upon it?"
+
+"By Jove, Mr. Holmes, I think you have hit it."
+
+"Or there may be some very different cause, Mr. Bardle. But your case
+is far too weak for an arrest. Besides, we have those last words--the
+'Lion's Mane.'"
+
+"I have wondered whether Ian--"
+
+"Yes, I have considered that. If the second word had borne any
+resemblance to Murdoch--but it did not. He gave it almost in a
+shriek. I am sure that it was 'Mane.'"
+
+"Have you no alternative, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Perhaps I have. But I do not care to discuss it until there is
+something more solid to discuss."
+
+"And when will that be?"
+
+"In an hour--possibly less."
+
+The inspector rubbed his chin and looked at me with dubious eyes.
+
+"I wish I could see what was in your mind, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps it's
+those fishing-boats."
+
+"No, no, they were too far out."
+
+"Well, then, is it Bellamy and that big son of his? They were not too
+sweet upon Mr. McPherson. Could they have done him a mischief?"
+
+"No, no, you won't draw me until I am ready," said I with a smile.
+"Now, Inspector, we each have our own work to do. Perhaps if you were
+to meet me here at midday--"
+
+So far we had got when there came the tremendous interruption which was
+the beginning of the end.
+
+My outer door was flung open, there were blundering footsteps in the
+passage, and Ian Murdoch staggered into the room, pallid, dishevelled,
+his clothes in wild disorder, clawing with his bony hands at the
+furniture to hold himself erect. "Brandy! Brandy!" he gasped, and fell
+groaning upon the sofa.
+
+He was not alone. Behind him came Stackhurst, hatless and panting,
+almost as distrait as his companion.
+
+"Yes, yes, brandy!" he cried. "The man is at his last gasp. It was all
+I could do to bring him here. He fainted twice upon the way."
+
+Half a tumbler of the raw spirit brought about a wondrous change. He
+pushed himself up on one arm and swung his coat from his shoulders.
+"For God's sake oil, opium, morphia!" he cried. "Anything to ease this
+infernal agony!"
+
+The inspector and I cried out at the sight. There, crisscrossed upon
+the man's naked shoulder, was the same strange reticulated pattern of
+red, inflamed lines which had been the death-mark of Fitzroy McPherson.
+
+The pain was evidently terrible and was more than local, for the
+sufferer's breathing would stop for a time, his face would turn black,
+and then with loud gasps he would clap his hand to his heart, while his
+brow dropped beads of sweat. At any moment he might die. More and more
+brandy was poured down his throat, each fresh dose bringing him back to
+life. Pads of cotton-wool soaked in salad-oil seemed to take the agony
+from the strange wounds. At last his head fell heavily upon the
+cushion. Exhausted Nature had taken refuge in its last storehouse of
+vitality. It was half a sleep and half a faint, but at least it was
+ease from pain.
+
+To question him had been impossible, but the moment we were assured of
+his condition Stackhurst turned upon me.
+
+"My God!" he cried, "what is it, Holmes? What is it?"
+
+"Where did you find him?"
+
+"Down on the beach. Exactly where poor McPherson met his end. If this
+man's heart had been weak as McPherson's was, he would not be here now.
+More than once I thought he was gone as I brought him up. It was too
+far to The Gables, so I made for you."
+
+"Did you see him on the beach?"
+
+"I was walking on the cliff when I heard his cry. He was at the edge of
+the water, reeling about like a drunken man. I ran down, threw some
+clothes about him, and brought him up. For heaven's sake, Holmes, use
+all the powers you have and spare no pains to lift the curse from this
+place, for life is becoming unendurable. Can you, with all your
+world-wide reputation, do nothing for us?"
+
+"I think I can, Stackhurst. Come with me now! And you, Inspector, come
+along! We will see if we cannot deliver this murderer into your hands."
+
+Leaving the unconscious man in the charge of my housekeeper, we all
+three went down to the deadly lagoon. On the shingle there was piled a
+little heap of towels and clothes left by the stricken man. Slowly I
+walked round the edge of the water, my comrades in Indian file behind
+me. Most of the pool was quite shallow, but under the cliff where the
+beach was hollowed out it was four or five feet deep. It was to this
+part that a swimmer would naturally go, for it formed a beautiful
+pellucid green pool as clear as crystal. A line of rocks lay above it
+at the base of the cliff, and along this I led the way, peering eagerly
+into the depths beneath me. I had reached the deepest and stillest pool
+when my eyes caught that for which they were searching, and I burst
+into a shout of triumph.
+
+"Cyanea!" I cried. "Cyanea! Behold the Lion's Mane!"
+
+The strange object at which I pointed did indeed look like a tangled
+mass torn from the mane of a lion. It lay upon a rocky shelf some three
+feet under the water, a curious waving, vibrating, hairy creature with
+streaks of silver among its yellow tresses. It pulsated with a slow,
+heavy dilation and contraction.
+
+"It has done mischief enough. Its day is over!" I cried. "Help me,
+Stackhurst! Let us end the murderer forever."
+
+There was a big boulder just above the ledge, and we pushed it until it
+fell with a tremendous splash into the water. When the ripples had
+cleared we saw that it had settled upon the ledge below. One flapping
+edge of yellow membrane showed that our victim was beneath it. A thick
+oily scum oozed out from below the stone and stained the water round,
+rising slowly to the surface.
+
+"Well, this gets me!" cried the inspector. "What was it, Mr. Holmes?
+I'm born and bred in these parts, but I never saw such a thing. It
+don't belong to Sussex."
+
+"Just as well for Sussex," I remarked. "It may have been the southwest
+gale that brought it up. Come back to my house, both of you, and I will
+give you the terrible experience of one who has good reason to remember
+his own meeting with the same peril of the seas."
+
+When we reached my study we found that Murdoch was so far recovered
+that he could sit up. He was dazed in mind, and every now and then was
+shaken by a paroxysm of pain. In broken words he explained that he had
+no notion what had occurred to him, save that terrific pangs had
+suddenly shot through him, and that it had taken all his fortitude to
+reach the bank.
+
+"Here is a book," I said, taking up the little volume, "which first
+brought light into what might have been forever dark. It is 'Out of
+Doors', by the famous observer, J. G. Wood. Wood himself very nearly
+perished from contact with this vile creature, so he wrote with a very
+full knowledge. Cyanea capillata is the miscreant's full name, and he
+can be as dangerous to life as, and far more painful than, the bite of
+the cobra. Let me briefly give this extract.
+
+
+"'If the bather should see a loose roundish mass of tawny membranes and
+fibres, something like very large handfuls of lion's mane and silver
+paper, let him beware, for this is the fearful stinger, Cyanea capillata.'
+
+
+"Could our sinister acquaintance be more clearly described?
+
+"He goes on to tell of his own encounter with one when swimming off the
+coast of Kent. He found that the creature radiated almost invisible
+filaments to the distance of fifty feet, and that anyone within that
+circumference from the deadly centre was in danger of death. Even at a
+distance the effect upon Wood was almost fatal.
+
+"'The multitudinous threads caused light scarlet lines upon the skin which
+on closer examination resolved into minute dots or pustules, each dot
+charged as it were with a red-hot needle making its way through the
+nerves.'
+
+"The local pain was, as he explains, the least part of the exquisite
+torment.
+
+"'Pangs shot through the chest, causing me to fall as if struck by a
+bullet. The pulsation would cease, and then the heart would give six or
+seven leaps as if it would force its way through the chest.'
+
+
+"It nearly killed him, although he had only been exposed to it in the
+disturbed ocean and not in the narrow calm waters of a bathing-pool. He
+says that he could hardly recognize himself afterwards, so white,
+wrinkled and shrivelled was his face. He gulped down brandy, a whole
+bottleful, and it seems to have saved his life. There is the book,
+Inspector. I leave it with you, and you cannot doubt that it contains a
+full explanation of the tragedy of poor McPherson."
+
+"And incidentally exonerates me," remarked Ian Murdoch with a wry
+smile. "I do not blame you, Inspector, nor you, Mr. Holmes, for your
+suspicions were natural. I feel that on the very eve of my arrest I
+have only cleared myself by sharing the fate of my poor friend."
+
+"No, Mr. Murdoch. I was already upon the track, and had I been out as
+early as I intended I might well have saved you from this terrific
+experience."
+
+"But how did you know, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for
+trifles. That phrase 'the Lion's Mane' haunted my mind. I knew that I
+had seen it somewhere in an unexpected context. You have seen that it
+does describe the creature. I have no doubt that it was floating on the
+water when McPherson saw it, and that this phrase was the only one by
+which he could convey to us a warning as to the creature which had been
+his death."
+
+"Then I, at least, am cleared," said Murdoch, rising slowly to his
+feet. "There are one or two words of explanation which I should give,
+for I know the direction in which your inquiries have run. It is true
+that I loved this lady, but from the day when she chose my friend
+McPherson my one desire was to help her to happiness. I was well
+content to stand aside and act as their go-between. Often I carried
+their messages, and it was because I was in their confidence and
+because she was so dear to me that I hastened to tell her of my
+friend's death, lest someone should forestall me in a more sudden and
+heartless manner. She would not tell you, sir, of our relations lest
+you should disapprove and I might suffer. But with your leave I must
+try to get back to The Gables, for my bed will be very welcome."
+
+Stackhurst held out his hand. "Our nerves have all been at
+concert-pitch," said he. "Forgive what is past, Murdoch. We shall
+understand each other better in the future." They passed out together
+with their arms linked in friendly fashion. The inspector remained,
+staring at me in silence with his ox-like eyes.
+
+"Well, you've done it!" he cried at last. "I had read of you, but I
+never believed it. It's wonderful!"
+
+I was forced to shake my head. To accept such praise was to lower one's
+own standards.
+
+"I was slow at the outset--culpably slow. Had the body been found in
+the water I could hardly have missed it. It was the towel which misled
+me. The poor fellow had never thought to dry himself, and so I in turn
+was led to believe that he had never been in the water. Why, then,
+should the attack of any water creature suggest itself to me? That was
+where I went astray. Well, well, Inspector, I often ventured to chaff
+you gentlemen of the police force, but Cyanea capillata very nearly
+avenged Scotland Yard."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE VEILED LODGER
+
+
+
+When one considers that Mr. Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for
+twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to
+cooperate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it will be clear
+that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem has always
+been not to find but to choose. There is the long row of year-books
+which fill a shelf and there are the dispatch-cases filled with
+documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime but of
+the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. Concerning
+these latter, I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg
+that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears
+may not be touched, have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense
+of professional honour which have always distinguished my friend are
+still at work in the choice of these memoirs, and no confidence will be
+abused. I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which
+have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source
+of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr.
+Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the
+politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to
+the public. There is at least one reader who will understand.
+
+It is not reasonable to suppose that every one of these cases gave
+Holmes the opportunity of showing those curious gifts of instinct and
+observation which I have endeavoured to set forth in these memoirs.
+Sometimes he had with much effort to pick the fruit, sometimes it fell
+easily into his lap. But the most terrible human tragedies were often
+involved in those cases which brought him the fewest personal
+opportunities, and it is one of these which I now desire to record. In
+telling it, I have made a slight change of name and place, but
+otherwise the facts are as stated.
+
+One forenoon--it was late in 1896--I received a hurried note from
+Holmes asking for my attendance. When I arrived I found him seated in a
+smoke-laden atmosphere, with an elderly, motherly woman of the buxom
+landlady type in the corresponding chair in front of him.
+
+"This is Mrs. Merrilow, of South Brixton," said my friend with a wave
+of the hand. "Mrs. Merrilow does not object to tobacco, Watson, if you
+wish to indulge your filthy habits. Mrs. Merrilow has an interesting
+story to tell which may well lead to further developments in which your
+presence may be useful."
+
+"Anything I can do--"
+
+"You will understand, Mrs. Merrilow, that if I come to Mrs. Ronder I
+should prefer to have a witness. You will make her understand that
+before we arrive."
+
+"Lord bless you, Mr. Holmes," said our visitor, "she is that anxious to
+see you that you might bring the whole parish at your heels!"
+
+"Then we shall come early in the afternoon. Let us see that we have our
+facts correct before we start. If we go over them it will help Dr.
+Watson to understand the situation. You say that Mrs. Ronder has been
+your lodger for seven years and that you have only once seen her face."
+
+"And I wish to God I had not!" said Mrs. Merrilow.
+
+"It was, I understand, terribly mutilated."
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, you would hardly say it was a face at all. That's
+how it looked. Our milkman got a glimpse of her once peeping out of the
+upper window, and he dropped his tin and the milk all over the front
+garden. That is the kind of face it is. When I saw her--I happened on
+her unawares--she covered up quick, and then she said, 'Now, Mrs.
+Merrilow, you know at last why it is that I never raise my veil.'"
+
+"Do you know anything about her history?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Did she give references when she came?"
+
+"No, sir, but she gave hard cash, and plenty of it. A quarter's rent
+right down on the table in advance and no arguing about terms. In these
+times a poor woman like me can't afford to turn down a chance like
+that."
+
+"Did she give any reason for choosing your house?"
+
+"Mine stands well back from the road and is more private than most.
+Then, again, I only take the one, and I have no family of my own. I
+reckon she had tried others and found that mine suited her best. It's
+privacy she is after, and she is ready to pay for it."
+
+"You say that she never showed her face from first to last save on the
+one accidental occasion. Well, it is a very remarkable story, most
+remarkable, and I don't wonder that you want it examined."
+
+"I don't, Mr. Holmes. I am quite satisfied so long as I get my rent.
+You could not have a quieter lodger, or one who gives less trouble."
+
+"Then what has brought matters to a head?"
+
+"Her health, Mr. Holmes. She seems to be wasting away. And there's
+something terrible on her mind. 'Murder!' she cries. 'Murder!' And once
+I heard her: 'You cruel beast! You monster!' she cried. It was in the
+night, and it fair rang through the house and sent the shivers through
+me. So I went to her in the morning. 'Mrs. Ronder,' I says, 'if you
+have anything that is troubling your soul, there's the clergy,' I says,
+'and there's the police. Between them you should get some help.' 'For
+God's sake, not the police!' says she, 'and the clergy can't change
+what is past. And yet,' she says, 'it would ease my mind if someone
+knew the truth before I died.' 'Well,' says I, 'if you won't have the
+regulars, there is this detective man what we read about'--beggin'
+your pardon, Mr. Holmes. And she, she fair jumped at it. 'That's the
+man,' says she. 'I wonder I never thought of it before. Bring him here,
+Mrs. Merrilow, and if he won't come, tell him I am the wife of Ronder's
+wild beast show. Say that, and give him the name Abbas Parva. Here it
+is as she wrote it, Abbas Parva. 'That will bring him if he's the man I
+think he is.'"
+
+"And it will, too," remarked Holmes. "Very good, Mrs. Merrilow. I
+should like to have a little chat with Dr. Watson. That will carry us
+till lunch-time. About three o'clock you may expect to see us at your
+house in Brixton."
+
+Our visitor had no sooner waddled out of the room--no other verb can
+describe Mrs. Merrilow's method of progression--than Sherlock Holmes
+threw himself with fierce energy upon the pile of commonplace books in
+the corner. For a few minutes there was a constant swish of the leaves,
+and then with a grunt of satisfaction he came upon what he sought. So
+excited was he that he did not rise, but sat upon the floor like some
+strange Buddha, with crossed legs, the huge books all round him, and
+one open upon his knees.
+
+"The case worried me at the time, Watson. Here are my marginal notes to
+prove it. I confess that I could make nothing of it. And yet I was
+convinced that the coroner was wrong. Have you no recollection of the
+Abbas Parva tragedy?"
+
+"None, Holmes."
+
+"And yet you were with me then. But certainly my own impression was
+very superficial. For there was nothing to go by, and none of the
+parties had engaged my services. Perhaps you would care to read the
+papers?"
+
+"Could you not give me the points?"
+
+"That is very easily done. It will probably come back to your memory as
+I talk. Ronder, of course, was a household word. He was the rival of
+Wombwell, and of Sanger, one of the greatest showmen of his day. There
+is evidence, however, that he took to drink, and that both he and his
+show were on the down grade at the time of the great tragedy. The
+caravan had halted for the night at Abbas Parva, which is a small
+village in Berkshire, when this horror occurred. They were on their way
+to Wimbledon, travelling by road, and they were simply camping and not
+exhibiting, as the place is so small a one that it would not have paid
+them to open.
+
+"They had among their exhibits a very fine North African lion. Sahara
+King was its name, and it was the habit, both of Ronder and his wife,
+to give exhibitions inside its cage. Here, you see, is a photograph of
+the performance by which you will perceive that Ronder was a huge
+porcine person and that his wife was a very magnificent woman. It was
+deposed at the inquest that there had been some signs that the lion was
+dangerous, but, as usual, familiarity begat contempt, and no notice was
+taken of the fact.
+
+"It was usual for either Ronder or his wife to feed the lion at night.
+Sometimes one went, sometimes both, but they never allowed anyone else
+to do it, for they believed that so long as they were the food-carriers
+he would regard them as benefactors and would never molest them. On
+this particular night, seven years ago, they both went, and a very
+terrible happening followed, the details of which have never been made
+clear.
+
+"It seems that the whole camp was roused near midnight by the roars of
+the animal and the screams of the woman. The different grooms and
+employees rushed from their tents, carrying lanterns, and by their
+light an awful sight was revealed. Ronder lay, with the back of his
+head crushed in and deep claw-marks across his scalp, some ten yards
+from the cage, which was open. Close to the door of the cage lay Mrs.
+Ronder upon her back, with the creature squatting and snarling above
+her. It had torn her face in such a fashion that it was never thought
+that she could live. Several of the circus men, headed by Leonardo, the
+strong man, and Griggs, the clown, drove the creature off with poles,
+upon which it sprang back into the cage and was at once locked in. How
+it had got loose was a mystery. It was conjectured that the pair
+intended to enter the cage, but that when the door was loosed the
+creature bounded out upon them. There was no other point of interest in
+the evidence save that the woman in a delirium of agony kept screaming,
+'Coward! Coward!' as she was carried back to the van in which they
+lived. It was six months before she was fit to give evidence, but the
+inquest was duly held, with the obvious verdict of death from
+misadventure."
+
+"What alternative could be conceived?" said I.
+
+"You may well say so. And yet there were one or two points which
+worried young Edmunds, of the Berkshire Constabulary. A smart lad that!
+He was sent later to Allahabad. That was how I came into the matter,
+for he dropped in and smoked a pipe or two over it."
+
+"A thin, yellow-haired man?"
+
+"Exactly. I was sure you would pick up the trail presently."
+
+"But what worried him?"
+
+"Well, we were both worried. It was so deucedly difficult to
+reconstruct the affair. Look at it from the lion's point of view. He is
+liberated. What does he do? He takes half a dozen bounds forward, which
+brings him to Ronder. Ronder turns to fly--the claw-marks were on the
+back of his head--but the lion strikes him down. Then, instead of
+bounding on and escaping, he returns to the woman, who was close to the
+cage, and he knocks her over and chews her face up. Then, again, those
+cries of hers would seem to imply that her husband had in some way
+failed her. What could the poor devil have done to help her? You see
+the difficulty?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"And then there was another thing. It comes back to me now as I think
+it over. There was some evidence that just at the time the lion roared
+and the woman screamed, a man began shouting in terror."
+
+"This man Ronder, no doubt."
+
+"Well, if his skull was smashed in you would hardly expect to hear from
+him again. There were at least two witnesses who spoke of the cries of
+a man being mingled with those of a woman."
+
+"I should think the whole camp was crying out by then. As to the other
+points, I think I could suggest a solution."
+
+"I should be glad to consider it."
+
+"The two were together, ten yards from the cage, when the lion got
+loose. The man turned and was struck down. The woman conceived the idea
+of getting into the cage and shutting the door. It was her only refuge.
+She made for it, and just as she reached it the beast bounded after her
+and knocked her over. She was angry with her husband for having
+encouraged the beast's rage by turning. If they had faced it they might
+have cowed it. Hence her cries of 'Coward!'"
+
+"Brilliant, Watson! Only one flaw in your diamond."
+
+"What is the flaw, Holmes?"
+
+"If they were both ten paces from the cage, how came the beast to get
+loose?"
+
+"Is it possible that they had some enemy who loosed it?"
+
+"And why should it attack them savagely when it was in the habit of
+playing with them, and doing tricks with them inside the cage?"
+
+"Possibly the same enemy had done something to enrage it."
+
+Holmes looked thoughtful and remained in silence for some moments.
+
+"Well, Watson, there is this to be said for your theory. Ronder was a
+man of many enemies. Edmunds told me that in his cups he was horrible.
+A huge bully of a man, he cursed and slashed at everyone who came in
+his way. I expect those cries about a monster, of which our visitor has
+spoken, were nocturnal reminiscences of the dear departed. However, our
+speculations are futile until we have all the facts. There is a cold
+partridge on the sideboard, Watson, and a bottle of Montrachet. Let us
+renew our energies before we make a fresh call upon them."
+
+When our hansom deposited us at the house of Mrs. Merrilow, we found
+that plump lady blocking up the open door of her humble but retired
+abode. It was very clear that her chief preoccupation was lest she
+should lose a valuable lodger, and she implored us, before showing us
+up, to say and do nothing which could lead to so undesirable an end.
+Then, having reassured her, we followed her up the straight, badly
+carpeted staircase and were shown into the room of the mysterious
+lodger.
+
+It was a close, musty, ill-ventilated place, as might be expected,
+since its inmate seldom left it. From keeping beasts in a cage, the
+woman seemed, by some retribution of fate, to have become herself a
+beast in a cage. She sat now in a broken armchair in the shadowy corner
+of the room. Long years of inaction had coarsened the lines of her
+figure, but at some period it must have been beautiful, and was still
+full and voluptuous. A thick dark veil covered her face, but it was cut
+off close at her upper lip and disclosed a perfectly shaped mouth and a
+delicately rounded chin. I could well conceive that she had indeed been
+a very remarkable woman. Her voice, too, was well modulated and
+pleasing.
+
+"My name is not unfamiliar to you, Mr. Holmes," said she. "I thought
+that it would bring you."
+
+"That is so, madam, though I do not know how you are aware that I was
+interested in your case."
+
+"I learned it when I had recovered my health and was examined by Mr.
+Edmunds, the county detective. I fear I lied to him. Perhaps it would
+have been wiser had I told the truth."
+
+"It is usually wiser to tell the truth. But why did you lie to him?"
+
+"Because the fate of someone else depended upon it. I know that he was
+a very worthless being, and yet I would not have his destruction upon
+my conscience. We had been so close--so close!"
+
+"But has this impediment been removed?"
+
+"Yes, sir. The person that I allude to is dead."
+
+"Then why should you not now tell the police anything you know?"
+
+"Because there is another person to be considered. That other person is
+myself. I could not stand the scandal and publicity which would come
+from a police examination. I have not long to live, but I wish to die
+undisturbed. And yet I wanted to find one man of judgment to whom I
+could tell my terrible story, so that when I am gone all might be
+understood."
+
+"You compliment me, madam. At the same time, I am a responsible person.
+I do not promise you that when you have spoken I may not myself think
+it my duty to refer the case to the police."
+
+"I think not, Mr. Holmes. I know your character and methods too well,
+for I have followed your work for some years. Reading is the only
+pleasure which fate has left me, and I miss little which passes in the
+world. But in any case, I will take my chance of the use which you may
+make of my tragedy. It will ease my mind to tell it."
+
+"My friend and I would be glad to hear it."
+
+The woman rose and took from a drawer the photograph of a man. He was
+clearly a professional acrobat, a man of magnificent physique, taken
+with his huge arms folded across his swollen chest and a smile breaking
+from under his heavy moustache--the self-satisfied smile of the man
+of many conquests.
+
+"That is Leonardo," she said.
+
+"Leonardo, the strong man, who gave evidence?"
+
+"The same. And this--this is my husband."
+
+It was a dreadful face--a human pig, or rather a human wild boar, for
+it was formidable in its bestiality. One could imagine that vile mouth
+champing and foaming in its rage, and one could conceive those small,
+vicious eyes darting pure malignancy as they looked forth upon the
+world. Ruffian, bully, beast--it was all written on that heavy-jowled
+face.
+
+"Those two pictures will help you, gentlemen, to understand the story.
+I was a poor circus girl brought up on the sawdust, and doing springs
+through the hoop before I was ten. When I became a woman this man loved
+me, if such lust as his can be called love, and in an evil moment I
+became his wife. From that day I was in hell, and he the devil who
+tormented me. There was no one in the show who did not know of his
+treatment. He deserted me for others. He tied me down and lashed me
+with his ridingwhip when I complained. They all pitied me and they all
+loathed him, but what could they do? They feared him, one and all. For
+he was terrible at all times, and murderous when he was drunk. Again
+and again he was had up for assault, and for cruelty to the beasts, but
+he had plenty of money and the fines were nothing to him. The best men
+all left us, and the show began to go downhill. It was only Leonardo
+and I who kept it up--with little Jimmy Griggs, the clown. Poor
+devil, he had not much to be funny about, but he did what he could to
+hold things together.
+
+"Then Leonardo came more and more into my life. You see what he was
+like. I know now the poor spirit that was hidden in that splendid body,
+but compared to my husband he seemed like the angel Gabriel. He pitied
+me and helped me, till at last our intimacy turned to love--deep,
+deep, passionate love, such love as I had dreamed of but never hoped to
+feel. My husband suspected it, but I think that he was a coward as well
+as a bully, and that Leonardo was the one man that he was afraid of. He
+took revenge in his own way by torturing me more than ever. One night
+my cries brought Leonardo to the door of our van. We were near tragedy
+that night, and soon my lover and I understood that it could not be
+avoided. My husband was not fit to live. We planned that he should die.
+
+"Leonardo had a clever, scheming brain. It was he who planned it. I do
+not say that to blame him, for I was ready to go with him every inch of
+the way. But I should never have had the wit to think of such a plan.
+We made a club--Leonardo made it--and in the leaden head he
+fastened five long steel nails, the points outward, with just such a
+spread as the lion's paw. This was to give my husband his death-blow,
+and yet to leave the evidence that it was the lion which we would loose
+who had done the deed.
+
+"It was a pitch-dark night when my husband and I went down, as was our
+custom, to feed the beast. We carried with us the raw meat in a zinc
+pail. Leonardo was waiting at the corner of the big van which we should
+have to pass before we reached the cage. He was too slow, and we walked
+past him before he could strike, but he followed us on tiptoe and I
+heard the crash as the club smashed my husband's skull. My heart leaped
+with joy at the sound. I sprang forward, and I undid the catch which
+held the door of the great lion's cage.
+
+"And then the terrible thing happened. You may have heard how quick
+these creatures are to scent human blood, and how it excites them. Some
+strange instinct had told the creature in one instant that a human
+being had been slain. As I slipped the bars it bounded out and was on
+me in an instant. Leonardo could have saved me. If he had rushed
+forward and struck the beast with his club he might have cowed it. But
+the man lost his nerve. I heard him shout in his terror, and then I saw
+him turn and fly. At the same instant the teeth of the lion met in my
+face. Its hot, filthy breath had already poisoned me and I was hardly
+conscious of pain. With the palms of my hands I tried to push the great
+steaming, blood-stained jaws away from me, and I screamed for help. I
+was conscious that the camp was stirring, and then dimly I remembered a
+group of men. Leonardo, Griggs, and others, dragging me from under the
+creature's paws. That was my last memory, Mr. Holmes, for many a weary
+month. When I came to myself and saw myself in the mirror, I cursed
+that lion--oh, how I cursed him!--not because he had torn away my
+beauty but because he had not torn away my life. I had but one desire,
+Mr. Holmes, and I had enough money to gratify it. It was that I should
+cover myself so that my poor face should be seen by none, and that I
+should dwell where none whom I had ever known should find me. That was
+all that was left to me to do--and that is what I have done. A poor
+wounded beast that has crawled into its hole to die--that is the end
+of Eugenia Ronder."
+
+We sat in silence for some time after the unhappy woman had told her
+story. Then Holmes stretched out his long arm and patted her hand with
+such a show of sympathy as I had seldom known him to exhibit.
+
+"Poor girl!" he said. "Poor girl! The ways of fate are indeed hard to
+understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world
+is a cruel jest. But what of this man Leonardo?"
+
+"I never saw him or heard from him again. Perhaps I have been wrong to
+feel so bitterly against him. He might as soon have loved one of the
+freaks whom we carried round the country as the thing which the lion
+had left. But a woman's love is not so easily set aside. He had left me
+under the beast's claws, he had deserted me in my need, and yet I could
+not bring myself to give him to the gallows. For myself, I cared
+nothing what became of me. What could be more dreadful than my actual
+life? But I stood between Leonardo and his fate."
+
+"And he is dead?"
+
+"He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I saw his death
+in the paper."
+
+"And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is the most
+singular and ingenious part of all your story?"
+
+"I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the camp, with a
+deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths of that pool
+--"
+
+"Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is closed."
+
+"Yes," said the woman, "the case is closed."
+
+We had risen to go, but there was something in the woman's voice which
+arrested Holmes's attention. He turned swiftly upon her.
+
+"Your life is not your own," he said. "Keep your hands off it."
+
+"What use is it to anyone?"
+
+"How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the
+most precious of all lessons to an impatient world."
+
+The woman's answer was a terrible one. She raised her veil and stepped
+forward into the light.
+
+"I wonder if you would bear it," she said.
+
+It was horrible. No words can describe the framework of a face when the
+face itself is gone. Two living and beautiful brown eyes looking sadly
+out from that grisly ruin did but make the view more awful. Holmes held
+up his hand in a gesture of pity and protest, and together we left the
+room.
+
+Two days later, when I called upon my friend, he pointed with some
+pride to a small blue bottle upon his mantelpiece. I picked it up.
+There was a red poison label. A pleasant almondy odour rose when I
+opened it.
+
+"Prussic acid?" said I.
+
+"Exactly. It came by post. 'I send you my temptation. I will follow
+your advice.' That was the message. I think, Watson, we can guess the
+name of the brave woman who sent it."
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF SHOSCOMBE OLD PLACE
+
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power
+microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in
+triumph.
+
+"It is glue, Watson," said he. "Unquestionably it is glue. Have a look
+at these scattered objects in the field!"
+
+I stooped to the eyepiece and focussed for my vision.
+
+"Those hairs are threads from a tweed coat. The irregular gray masses
+are dust. There are epithelial scales on the left. Those brown blobs in
+the centre are undoubtedly glue."
+
+"Well," I said, laughing, "I am prepared to take your word for it. Does
+anything depend upon it?"
+
+"It is a very fine demonstration," he answered. "In the St. Pancras
+case you may remember that a cap was found beside the dead policeman.
+The accused man denies that it is his. But he is a picture-frame maker
+who habitually handles glue."
+
+"Is it one of your cases?"
+
+"No; my friend, Merivale, of the Yard, asked me to look into the case.
+Since I ran down that coiner by the zinc and copper filings in the seam
+of his cuff they have begun to realize the importance of the
+microscope." He looked impatiently at his watch. "I had a new client
+calling, but he is overdue. By the way, Watson, you know something of
+racing?"
+
+"I ought to. I pay for it with about half my wound pension."
+
+"Then I'll make you my 'Handy Guide to the Turf.' What about Sir Robert
+Norberton? Does the name recall anything?"
+
+"Well, I should say so. He lives at Shoscombe Old Place, and I know it
+well, for my summer quarters were down there once. Norberton nearly
+came within your province once."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"It was when he horsewhipped Sam Brewer, the well-known Curzon Street
+money-lender, on Newmarket Heath. He nearly killed the man."
+
+"Ah, he sounds interesting! Does he often indulge in that way?"
+
+"Well, he has the name of being a dangerous man. He is about the most
+daredevil rider in England--second in the Grand National a few years
+back. He is one of those men who have overshot their true generation.
+He should have been a buck in the days of the Regency--a boxer, an
+athlete, a plunger on the turf, a lover of fair ladies, and, by all
+account, so far down Queer Street that he may never find his way back
+again."
+
+"Capital, Watson! A thumb-nail sketch. I seem to know the man. Now, can
+you give me some idea of Shoscombe Old Place?"
+
+"Only that it is in the centre of Shoscombe Park, and that the famous
+Shoscombe stud and training quarters are to be found there."
+
+"And the head trainer," said Holmes, "is John Mason. You need not look
+surprised at my knowledge, Watson, for this is a letter from him which
+I am unfolding. But let us have some more about Shoscombe. I seem to
+have struck a rich vein."
+
+"There are the Shoscombe spaniels," said I. "You hear of them at every
+dog show. The most exclusive breed in England. They are the special
+pride of the lady of Shoscombe Old Place."
+
+"Sir Robert Norberton's wife, I presume!"
+
+"Sir Robert has never married. Just as well, I think, considering his
+prospects. He lives with his widowed sister, Lady Beatrice Falder."
+
+"You mean that she lives with him?"
+
+"No, no. The place belonged to her late husband, Sir James. Norberton
+has no claim on it at all. It is only a life interest and reverts to
+her husband's brother. Meantime, she draws the rents every year."
+
+"And brother Robert, I suppose, spends the said rents?"
+
+"That is about the size of it. He is a devil of a fellow and must lead
+her a most uneasy life. Yet I have heard that she is devoted to him.
+But what is amiss at Shoscombe?"
+
+"Ah, that is just what I want to know. And here, I expect, is the man
+who can tell us."
+
+The door had opened and the page had shown in a tall, clean-shaven man
+with the firm, austere expression which is only seen upon those who
+have to control horses or boys. Mr. John Mason had many of both under
+his sway, and he looked equal to the task. He bowed with cold
+self-possession and seated himself upon the chair to which Holmes had
+waved him.
+
+"You had my note, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Yes, but it explained nothing."
+
+"It was too delicate a thing for me to put the details on paper. And
+too complicated. It was only face to face I could do it."
+
+"Well, we are at your disposal."
+
+"First of all, Mr. Holmes, I think that my employer, Sir Robert, has
+gone mad."
+
+Holmes raised his eyebrows. "This is Baker Street, not Harley Street,"
+said he. "But why do you say so?"
+
+"Well, sir, when a man does one queer thing, or two queer things, there
+may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you
+begin to wonder. I believe Shoscombe Prince and the Derby have turned
+his brain."
+
+"That is a colt you are running?"
+
+"The best in England, Mr. Holmes. I should know, if anyone does. Now,
+I'll be plain with you, for I know you are gentlemen of honour and that
+it won't go beyond the room. Sir Robert has got to win this Derby. He's
+up to the neck, and it's his last chance. Everything he could raise or
+borrow is on the horse--and at fine odds, too! You can get forties
+now, but it was nearer the hundred when he began to back him."
+
+"But how is that if the horse is so good?"
+
+"The public don't know how good he is. Sir Robert has been too clever
+for the touts. He has the Prince's half-brother out for spins. You
+can't tell 'em apart. But there are two lengths in a furlong between
+them when it comes to a gallop. He thinks of nothing but the horse and
+the race. His whole life is on it. He's holding off the Jews till then.
+If the Prince fails him he is done."
+
+"It seems a rather desperate gamble, but where does the madness come
+in?"
+
+"Well, first of all, you have only to look at him. I don't believe he
+sleeps at night. He is down at the stables at all hours. His eyes are
+wild. It has all been too much for his nerves. Then there is his
+conduct to Lady Beatrice!"
+
+"Ah! What is that?"
+
+"They have always been the best of friends. They had the same tastes,
+the two of them, and she loved the horses as much as he did. Every day
+at the same hour she would drive down to see them--and, above all,
+she loved the Prince. He would prick up his ears when he heard the
+wheels on the gravel, and he would trot out each morning to the
+carriage to get his lump of sugar. But that's all over now."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, she seems to have lost all interest in the horses. For a week
+now she has driven past the stables with never so much as
+'Good-morning'!"
+
+"You think there has been a quarrel?"
+
+"And a bitter, savage, spitelful quarrel at that. Why else would he
+give away her pet spaniel that she loved as if he were her child? He
+gave it a few days ago to old Barnes, what keeps the Green Dragon,
+three miles off, at Crendall."
+
+"That certainly did seem strange."
+
+"Of course, with her weak heart and dropsy one couldn't expect that she
+could get about with him, but he spent two hours every evening in her
+room. He might well do what he could, for she has been a rare good
+friend to him. But that's all over, too. He never goes near her. And
+she takes it to heart. She is brooding and sulky and drinking, Mr.
+Holmes--drinking like a fish."
+
+"Did she drink before this estrangement?"
+
+"Well, she took her glass, but now it is often a whole bottle of an
+evening. So Stephens, the butler, told me. It's all changed, Mr.
+Holmes, and there is something damned rotten about it. But then, again,
+what is master doing down at the old church crypt at night? And who is
+the man that meets him there?"
+
+Holmes rubbed his hands.
+
+"Go on, Mr. Mason. You get more and more interesting."
+
+"It was the butler who saw him go. Twelve o'clock at night and raining
+hard. So next night I was up at the house and, sure enough, master was
+off again. Stephens and I went after him, but it was jumpy work, for it
+would have been a bad job if he had seen us. He's a terrible man with
+his fists if he gets started, and no respecter of persons. So we were
+shy of getting too near, but we marked him down all light. It was the
+haunted crypt that he was making for, and there was a man waiting for
+him there."
+
+"What is this haunted cryp?"
+
+"Well, sir, there is an old ruined chapel in the park. It is so old
+that nobody could fix its date. And under it there's a crypt which has
+a bad name among us. It's a dark, damp, lonely place by day, but there
+are few in that county that would have the nerve to go near it at
+night. But master's not afraid. He never feared anything in his life.
+But what is he doing there in the night-time?"
+
+"Wait a bit!" said Holmes. "You say there is another man there. It must
+be one of your own stablemen, or someone from the house! Surely you
+have only to spot who it is and question him?"
+
+"It's no one I know."
+
+"How can you say that?"
+
+"Because I have seen him, Mr. Holmes. It was on that second night. Sir
+Robert turned and passed us--me and Stephens, quaking in the bushes
+like two bunny-rabbits, for there was a bit of moon that night. But we
+could hear the other moving about behind. We were not afraid of him. So
+we up when Sir Robert was gone and pretended we were just having a walk
+like in the moonlight, and so we came right on him as casual and
+innocent as you please. 'Hullo, mate! who may you be?' says I. I guess
+he had not heard us coming, so he looked over his shoulder with a face
+as if he had seen the devil coming out of hell. He let out a yell, and
+away he went as hard as he could lick it in the darkness. He could run!
+--I'll give him that. In a minute he was out of sight and hearing, and
+who he was, or what he was, we never found."
+
+"But you saw him clearly in the moonlight?"
+
+"Yes, I would swear to his yellow face--a mean dog, I should say.
+What could he have in common with Sir Robert?"
+
+Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.
+
+"Who keeps Lady Beatrice Falder company?" he asked at last.
+
+"There is her maid, Carrie Evans. She has been with her this five
+years."
+
+"And is, no doubt, devoted?"
+
+Mr. Mason shuffled uncomfortably.
+
+"She's devoted enough," he answered at last. "But I won't say to whom."
+
+"Ah!" said Holmes.
+
+"I can't tell tales out of school."
+
+"I quite understand, Mr. Mason. Of course, the situation is clear
+enough. From Dr. Watson's description of Sir Robert I can realize that
+no woman is safe from him. Don't you think the quarrel between brother
+and sister may lie there?"
+
+"Well, the scandal has been pretty clear for a long time."
+
+"But she may not have seen it before. Let us suppose that she has
+suddenly found it out. She wants to get rid of the woman. Her brother
+will not permit it. The invalid, with her weak heart and inability to
+get about, has no means of enforcing her will. The hated maid is still
+tied to her. The lady refuses to speak, sulks, takes to drink. Sir
+Robert in his anger takes her pet spaniel away from her. Does not all
+this hang together?"
+
+"Well, it might do--so far as it goes."
+
+"Exactly! As far as it goes. How would all that bear upon the visits by
+night to the old crypt? We can't fit that into our plot."
+
+"No, sir, and there is something more that I can't fit in. Why should
+Sir Robert want to dig up a dead body?"
+
+Holmes sat up abruptly.
+
+"We only found it out yesterday--after I had written to you.
+Yesterday Sir Robert had gone to London, so Stephens and I went down to
+the crypt. It was all in order, sir, except that in one corner was a
+bit of a human body."
+
+"You informed the police, I suppose?"
+
+Our visitor smiled grimly.
+
+"Well, sir, I think it would hardly interest them. It was just the head
+and a few bones of a mummy. It may have been a thousand years old. But
+it wasn't there before. That I'll swear, and so will Stephens. It had
+been stowed away in a corner and covered over with a board, but that
+corner had always been empty before."
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"Well, we just left it there."
+
+"That was wise. You say Sir Robert was away yesterday. Has he
+returned?"
+
+"We expect him back to-day."
+
+"When did Sir Robert give away his sister's dog?"
+
+"It was just a week ago to-day. The creature was howling outside the
+old wellhouse, and Sir Robert was in one of his tantrums that morning.
+He caught it up, and I thought he would have killed it. Then he gave it
+to Sandy Bain, the jockey, and told him to take the dog to old Barnes
+at the Green Dragon, for he never wished to see it again."
+
+Holmes sat for some time in silent thought. He had lit the oldest and
+foulest of his pipes.
+
+"I am not clear yet what you want me to do in this matter, Mr. Mason,"
+he said at last. "Can't you make it more definite?"
+
+"Perhaps this will make it more definite, Mr. Holmes," said our
+visltor.
+
+He took a paper from his pocket, and, unwrapping it carefully, he
+exposed a charred fragment of bone.
+
+Holmes examined it with interest.
+
+"Where did you get it?"
+
+"There is a central heating furnace in the cellar under Lady Beatrice's
+room. It's been off for some time, but Sir Robert complained of cold
+and had it on again.
+
+"Harvey runs it--he's one of my lads. This very morning he came to me
+with this which he found raking out the cinders. He didn't like the
+look of it."
+
+"Nor do I," said Holmes. "What do you make of it, Watson?"
+
+It was burned to a black cinder, but there could be no question as to
+its anatomical significance.
+
+"It's the upper condyle of a human femur," said I.
+
+"Exactly!" Holmes had become very serious. "When does this lad tend to
+the furnace?"
+
+"He makes it up every evening and then leaves it."
+
+"Then anyone could visit it during the night?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Can you enter it from outside?"
+
+"There is one door from outside. There is another which leads up by a
+stair to the passage in which Lady Beatrice's room is situated."
+
+"These are deep waters, Mr. Mason; deep and rather dirty. You say that
+Sir Robert was not at home last night?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then, whoever was burning bones, it was not he."
+
+"That's true. sir."
+
+"What is the name of that inn you spoke of?"
+
+"The Green Dragon."
+
+"Is there good fishing in that part of Berkshire?" The honest trainer
+showed very clearly upon his face that he was convinced that yet
+another lunatic had come into his harassed life.
+
+"Well, sir, I've heard there are trout in the mill-stream and pike in
+the Hall lake."
+
+"That's good enough. Watson and I are famous fishermen--are we not,
+Watson? You may address us in future at the Green Dragon. We should
+reach it to-night. I need not say that we don't want to see you, Mr.
+Mason, but a note will reach us, and no doubt I could find you if I
+want you. When we have gone a little farther into the matter I will let
+you have a considered opinion."
+
+Thus it was that on a bright May evening Holmes and I found ourselves
+alone in a first-class carriage and bound for the little
+"halt-on-demand" station of Shoscombe. The rack above us was covered
+with a formidable litter of rods, reels, and baskets. On reaching our
+destination a short drive took us to an old-fashioned tavern, where a
+sporting host, Josiah Barnes, entered eagerly into our plans for the
+extirpation of the fish of the neighbourhood.
+
+"What about the Hall lake and the chance of a pike?" said Holmes.
+
+The face of the innkeeper clouded.
+
+"That wouldn't do, sir. You might chance to find yourself in the lake
+before you were through."
+
+"How's that, then?"
+
+"It's Sir Robert, sir. He's terrible jealous of touts. If you two
+strangers were as near his training quarters as that he'd be after you
+as sure as fate. He ain't taking no chances, Sir Robert ain't."
+
+"I've heard he has a horse entered for the Derby."
+
+"Yes, and a good colt, too. He carries all our money for the race, and
+all Sir Robert's into the bargain. By the way"--he looked at us with
+thoughtful eyes--"I suppose you ain't on the turf yourselves?"
+
+"No, indeed. Just two weary Londoners who badly need some good
+Berkshire air."
+
+"Well, you are in the right place for that. There is a deal of it lying
+about. But mind what I have told you about Sir Robert. He's the sort
+that strikes first and speaks afterwards. Keep clear of the park."
+
+"Surely, Mr. Barnes! We certainly shall. By the way, that was a most
+beautiful spaniel that was whining in the hall."
+
+"I should say it was. That was the real Shoscombe breed. There ain't a
+better in England."
+
+"I am a dog-fancier myself," said Holmes. "Now, if it is a fair
+question, what would a prize dog like that cost?"
+
+"More than I could pay, sir. It was Sir Robert himself who gave me this
+one. That's why I have to keep it on a lead. It would be off to the
+Hall in a jiffy if I gave it its head."
+
+"We are getting some cards in our hand, Watson," said Holmes when the
+landlord had left us. "It's not an easy one to play, but we may see our
+way in a day or two. By the way, Sir Robert is still in London, I hear.
+We might, perhaps, enter the sacred domain to-night without fear of
+bodily assault. There are one or two points on which I should like
+reassurance."
+
+"Have you any theory, Holmes?"
+
+"Only this, Watson, that something happened a week or so ago which has
+cut deep into the life of the Shoscombe household. What is that
+something? We can only guess at it from its effects. They seem to be of
+a curiously mixed character. But that should surely help us. It is only
+the colourless, uneventful case which is hopeless.
+
+"Let us consider our data. The brother no longer visits the beloved
+invalid sister. He gives away her favourite dog. Her dog, Watson! Does
+that suggest nothing to you?"
+
+"Nothing but the brother's spite."
+
+"Well, it might be so. Or--well, there is an alternative. Now to
+continue our review of the situation from the time that the quarrel, if
+there is a quarrel, began. The lady keeps her room, alters her habits,
+is not seen save when she drives out with her maid, refuses to stop at
+the stables to greet her favourite horse and apparently takes to drink.
+That covers the case, does it not?"
+
+"Save for the business in the crypt."
+
+"That is another line of thought. There are two, and I beg you will not
+tangle them. Line A, which concerns Lady Beatrice, has a vaguely
+sinister flavour, has it not?"
+
+"I can make nothing of it."
+
+"Well, now, let us take up line B, which concerns Sir Robert. He is mad
+keen upon winning the Derby. He is in the hands of the Jews, and may at
+any moment be sold up and his racing stables seized by his creditors.
+He is a daring and desperate man. He derives his income from his
+sister. His sister's maid is his willing tool. So far we seem to be on
+fairly safe ground, do we not?"
+
+"But the crypt?"
+
+"Ah, yes, the crypt! Let us suppose, Watson--it is merely a
+scandalous supposition, a hypothesis put forward for argument's sake--
+that Sir Robert has done away with his sister."
+
+"My dear Holmes, it is out of the question."
+
+"Very possibly, Watson. Sir Robert is a man of an honourable stock. But
+you do occasionally find a carrion crow among the eagles. Let us for a
+moment argue upon this supposition. He could not fly the country until
+he had realized his fortune, and that fortune could only be realized by
+bringing off this coup with Shoscombe Prince. Therefore, he has still
+to stand his ground. To do this he would have to dispose of the body of
+his victim, and he would also have to find a substitute who would
+impersonate her. With the maid as his confidante that would not be
+impossible. The woman's body might be conveyed to the crypt, which is a
+place so seldom visited, and it might be secretly destroyed at night in
+the furnace, leaving behind it such evidence as we have already seen.
+What say you to that, Watson?"
+
+"Well, it is all possible if you grant the original monstrous
+supposition."
+
+"I think that there is a small experiment which we may try to-morrow,
+Watson, in order to throw some light on the matter. Meanwhile, if we
+mean to keep up our characters, I suggest that we have our host in for
+a glass of his own wine and hold some high converse upon eels and dace,
+which seems to be the straight road to his affections. We may chance to
+come upon some useful local gossip in the process."
+
+In the morning Holmes discovered that we had come without our
+spoon-bait for jack, which absolved us from fishing for the day. About
+eleven o'clock we started for a walk, and he obtained leave to take the
+black spaniel with us.
+
+"This is the place," said he as we came to two high park gates with
+heraldic griffins towering above them. "About midday, Mr Barnes informs
+me, the old lady takes a drive, and the carriage must slow down while
+the gates are opened. When it comes through, and before it gathers
+speed, I want you, Watson, to stop the coachman with some question.
+Never mind me. I shall stand behind this holly-bush and see what I can
+see."
+
+It was not a long vigil. Within a quarter of an hour we saw the big
+open yellow barouche coming down the long avenue, with two splendid,
+high-stepping gray carriage horses in the shafts. Holmes crouched
+behind his bush with the dog. I stood unconcemedly swinging a cane in
+the roadway. A keeper ran out and the gates swung open.
+
+The carriage had slowed to a walk, and I was able to get a good look at
+the occupants. A highly coloured young woman with flaxen hair and
+impudent eyes sat on the left. At her right was an elderly person with
+rounded back and a huddle of shawls about her face and shoulders which
+proclaimed the invalid. When the horses reached the highroad I held up
+my hand with an authoritative gesture, and as the coachman pulled up I
+inquired if Sir Robert was at Shoscombe Old Place.
+
+At the same moment Holmes stepped out and released the spaniel. With a
+joyous cry it dashed forward to the carriage and sprang upon the step.
+Then in a moment its eager greeting changed to furious rage, and it
+snapped at the black skirt above it.
+
+"Drive on! Drive on!" shrieked a harsh voice. The coachman lashed the
+horses, and we were left standing in the roadway.
+
+"Well, Watson, that's done it," said Holmes as he fastened the lead to
+the neck of the excited spaniel. "He thought it was his mistress, and
+he found it was a stranger. Dogs don't make mistakes."
+
+"But it was the voice of a man!" I cried.
+
+"Exactly! We have added one card to our hand, Watson, but it needs
+careful playing, all the same."
+
+My companion seemed to have no further plans for the day, and we did
+actually use our fishing tackle in the mill-stream with the result that
+we had a dish of trout for our supper. It was only after that meal that
+Holmes showed signs of renewed activity. Once more we found ourselves
+upon the same road as in the morning, which led us to the park gates. A
+tall, dark figure was awaiting us there, who proved to be our London
+acquaintance, Mr. John Mason, the trainer.
+
+"Good-evening, gentlemen," said he. "I got your note, Mr. Holmes. Sir
+Robert has not returned yet, but I hear that he is expected to-night."
+
+"How far is this crypt from the house?" asked Holmes.
+
+"A good quarter of a mile."
+
+"Then I think we can disregard him altogether."
+
+"I can't afford to do that, Mr. Holmes. The moment he arrives he will
+want to see me to get the last news of Shoscombe Prince."
+
+"I see! In that case we must work without you, Mr. Mason. You can show
+us the crypt and then leave us."
+
+It was pitch-dark and without a moon, but Mason led us over the
+grass-lands until a dark mass loomed up in front of us which proved to
+be the ancient chapel. We entered the broken gap which was once the
+porch, and our guide, stumbling among heaps of loose masonry, picked
+his way to the corner of the building, where a steep stair led down
+into the crypt. Striking a match, he illuminated the melancholy place
+--dismal and evil-smelling, with ancient crumbling walls of rough-hewn
+stone, and piles of coffins, some of lead and some of stone, extending
+upon one side right up to the arched and groined roof which lost itself
+in the shadows above our heads. Holmes had lit his lantern, which shot
+a tiny tunnel of vivid yellow light upon the mournful scene. Its rays
+were reflected back from the coffin-plates, many of them adorned with
+the griffin and coronet of this old family which carried its honours
+even to the gate of Death.
+
+"You spoke of some bones, Mr. Mason. Could you show them before you
+go?"
+
+"They are here in this corner." The trainer strode across and then
+stood in silent surprise as our light was turned upon the place. "They
+are gone," said he.
+
+"So I expected," said Holmes, chuckling. "I fancy the ashes of them
+might even now be found in that oven which had already consumed a
+part."
+
+"But why in the world would anyone want to burn the bones of a man who
+has been dead a thousand years?" asked John Mason.
+
+"That is what we are here to find out," said Holmes. "It may mean a
+long search, and we need not detain you. I fancy that we shall get our
+solution before morning."
+
+When John Mason had left us, Holmes set to work making a very careful
+examination of the graves, ranging from a very ancient one, which
+appeared to be Saxon, in the centre, through a long line of Norman
+Hugos and Odos, until we reached the Sir William and Sir Denis Falder
+of the eighteenth century. It was an hour or more before Holmes came to
+a leaden coffin standing on end before the entrance to the vault. I
+heard his little cry of satisfaction and was aware from his hurried but
+purposeful movements that he had reached a goal. With his lens he was
+eagerly examining the edges of the heavy lid. Then he drew from his
+pocket a short jemmy, a box-opener, which he thrust into a chink,
+levering back the whole front, which seemed to be secured by only a
+couple of clamps. There was a rending, tearing sound as it gave way,
+but it had hardly hinged back and partly revealed the contents before
+we had an unforeseen interruption.
+
+Someone was walking in the chapel above. It was the firm, rapid step of
+one who came with a definite purpose and knew well the ground upon
+which he walked. A light streamed down the stairs, and an instant later
+the man who bore it was framed in the Gothic archway. He was a terrible
+figure, huge in stature and fierce in manner. A large stable-lantern
+which he held in front of him shone upward upon a strong, heavily
+moustached face and angry eyes, which glared round him into every
+recess of the vault, finally fixing themselves with a deadly stare upon
+my companion and myself.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he thundered. "And what are you doing upon my
+property?" Then, as Holmes returned no answer he took a couple of steps
+forward and raised a heavy stick which he carried. "Do you hear me?" he
+cried. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" His cudgel quivered in
+the air.
+
+But instead of shrinking Holmes advanced to meet him.
+
+"I also have a question to ask you, Sir Robert," he said in his
+sternest tone. "Who is this? And what is it doing here?"
+
+He turned and tore open the coffin-lid behind him. In the glare of the
+lantern I saw a body swathed in a sheet from head to foot with
+dreadful, witch-like features, all nose and chin, projecting at one
+end, the dim, glazed eyes staring from a discoloured and crumbling
+face.
+
+The baronet had staggered back with a cry and supported himself against
+a stone sarcophagus.
+
+"How came you to know of this?" he cried. And then, with some return of
+his truculent manner: "What business is it of yours?"
+
+"My name is Sherlock Holmes," said my companion. "Possibly it is
+familiar to you. In any case, my business is that of every other good
+citizen--to uphold the law. It seems to me that you have much to
+answer for."
+
+Sir Robert glared for a moment, but Holmes's quiet voice and cool,
+assured manner had their effect.
+
+"'Fore God, Mr. Holmes, it's all right," said he. "Appearances are
+against me, I'll admit, but I could act no otherwise."
+
+"I should be happy to think so, but I fear your explanations must be
+before the police."
+
+Sir Robert shrugged his broad shoulders.
+
+"Well, if it must be, it must. Come up to the house and you can judge
+for yourself how the matter stands."
+
+A quarter of an hour later we found ourselves in what I judge, from the
+lines of polished barrels behind glass covers, to be the gun-room of
+the old house. It was comfortably furnished, and here Sir Robert left
+us for a few moments. When he returned he had two companions with him;
+the one, the florid young woman whom we had seen in the carriage; the
+other, a small rat-faced man with a disagreeably furtive manner. These
+two wore an appearance of utter bewilderment, which showed that the
+baronet had not yet had time to explain to them the turn events had
+taken.
+
+"There," said Sir Robert with a wave of his hand, "are Mr. and Mrs.
+Norlett. Mrs. Norlett, under her maiden name of Evans, has for some
+years been my sister's confidential maid. I have brought them here
+because I feel that my best course is to explain the true position to
+you, and they are the two people upon earth who can substantiate what I
+say."
+
+"Is this necessary, Sir Robert? Have you thought what you are doing?"
+cried the woman.
+
+"As to me, I entirely disclaim all responsibility," said her husband.
+
+Sir Robert gave him a glance of contempt. "I will take all
+responsibility," said he. "Now, Mr. Holmes, listen to a plain statement
+of the facts.
+
+"You have clearly gone pretty deeply into my affairs or I should not
+have found you where I did. Therefore, you know already, in all
+probability, that I am running a dark horse for the Derby and that
+everything depends upon my success. If I win, all is easy. If I lose--
+well, I dare not think of that!"
+
+"I understand the position," said Holmes.
+
+"I am dependent upon my sister, Lady Beatrice, for everything. But it
+is well known that her interest in the estate is for her own life only.
+For myself, I am deeply in the hands of the Jews. I have always known
+that if my sister were to die my creditors would be on to my estate
+like a flock of vultures. Everything would be seized--my stables, my
+horses--everything. Well, Mr. Holmes, my sister did die just a week
+ago."
+
+"And you told no one!"
+
+"What could I do? Absolute ruin faced me. If I could stave things off
+for three weeks all would be well. Her maid's husband--this man here
+--is an actor. It came into our heads--it came into my head--that
+he could for that short period personate my sister. It was but a case
+of appearing daily in the carriage, for no one need enter her room save
+the maid. It was not difficult to arrange. My sister died of the dropsy
+which had long afflicted her."
+
+"That will be for a coroner to decide."
+
+"Her doctor would certify that for months her symptoms have threatened
+such an end."
+
+"Well, what did you do?"
+
+"The body could not remain there. On the first night Norlett and I
+carried it out to the old well-house, which is now never used. We were
+followed, however, by her pet spaniel, which yapped continually at the
+door, so I felt some safer place was needed. I got rid of the spaniel,
+and we carried the body to the crypt of the church. There was no
+indignity or irreverence, Mr. Holmes. I do not feel that I have wronged
+the dead."
+
+"Your conduct seems to me inexcusable, Sir Robert."
+
+The baronet shook his head impatiently. "It is easy to preach," said
+he. "Perhaps you would have felt differently if you had been in my
+position. One cannot see all one's hopes and all one's plans shattered
+at the last moment and make no effort to save them. It seemed to me
+that it would be no unworthy resting-place if we put her for the time
+in one of the coffins of her husband's ancestors lying in what is still
+consecrated ground. We opened such a coffin, removed the contents, and
+placed her as you have seen her. As to the old relics which we took
+out, we could not leave them on the floor of the crypt. Norlett and I
+removed them, and he descended at night and burned them in the central
+furnace. There is my story, Mr. Holmes, though how you forced my hand
+so that I have to tell it is more than I can say."
+
+Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.
+
+"There is one flaw in your narrative, Sir Robert," he said at last.
+"Your bets on the race, and therefore your hopes for the future, would
+hold good even if your creditors seized your estate."
+
+"The horse would be part of the estate. What do they care for my bets?
+As likely as not they would not run him at all. My chief creditor is,
+unhappily, my most bitter enemy--a rascally fellow, Sam Brewer, whom
+I was once compelled to horsewhip on Newmarket Heath. Do you suppose
+that he would try to save me?"
+
+"Well, Sir Robert," said Holmes, rising, "this matter must, of course,
+be referred to the police. It was my duty to bring the facts to light,
+and there I must leave it. As to the morality or decency of your
+conduct, it is not for me to express an opinion. It is nearly midnight,
+Watson, and I think we may make our way back to our humble abode."
+
+It is generally known now that this singular episode ended upon a
+happier note than Sir Robert's actions deserved. Shoscombe Prince did
+win the Derby, the sporting owner did net eighty thousand pounds in
+bets, and the creditors did hold their hand until the race was over,
+when they were paid in full, and enough was left to reestablish Sir
+Robert in a fair position in life. Both police and coroner took a
+lenient view of the transaction, and beyond a mild censure for the
+delay in registering the lady's decease, the lucky owner got away
+scatheless from this strange incident in a career which has now
+outlived its shadows and promises to end in an honoured old age.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE RETIRED COLOURMAN
+
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes was in a melancholy and philosophic mood that morning.
+His alert practical nature was subject to such reactions.
+
+"Did you see him?" he asked.
+
+"You mean the old fellow who has just gone out?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Yes, I met him at the door."
+
+"What did you think of him?"
+
+"A pathetic, futile, broken creature."
+
+"Exactly, Watson. Pathetic and futile. But is not all life pathetic and
+futile? Is not his story a microcosm of the whole? We reach. We grasp.
+And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a
+shadow--misery."
+
+"Is he one of your clients?"
+
+"Well, I suppose I may call him so. He has been sent on by the Yard.
+Just as medical men occasionally send their incurables to a quack. They
+argue that they can do nothing more, and that whatever happens the
+patient can be no worse than he is."
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+Holmes took a rather soiled card from the table. "Josiah Amberley. He
+says he was junior partner of Brickfall and Amberley, who are
+manufacturers of artistic materials. You will see their names upon
+paint-boxes. He made his little pile, retired from business at the age
+of sixty-one, bought a house at Lewisham. and settled down to rest
+after a life of ceaseless grind. One would think his future was
+tolerably assured."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+Holmes glanced over some notes which he had scribbled upon the back of
+an envelope.
+
+"Retired in 1896, Watson. Early in 1897 he married a woman twenty years
+younger than himself--a good-looking woman, too. if the photograph
+does not flatter. A competence, a wife, leisure--it seemed a straight
+road which lay before him. And yet within two years he is, as you have
+seen, as broken and miserable a creature as crawls beneath the sun."
+
+"But what has happened?"
+
+"The old story, Watson. A treacherous friend and a fickle wife. It
+would appear that Amberley has one hobby in life, and it is chess. Not
+far from him at Lewisham there lives a young doctor who is also a
+chess-player. I have noted his name as Dr. Ray Ernest. Ernest was
+frequently in the house, and an intimacy between him and Mrs. Amberley
+was a natural sequence, for you must admit that our unfortunate client
+has few outward graces, whatever his inner virtues may be. The couple
+went off together last week--destination untraced. What is more, the
+faithless spouse carried off the old man's deed-box as her personal
+luggage with a good part of his life's savings within. Can we find the
+lady? Can we save the money? A commonplace problem so far as it has
+developed, and yet a vital one for Josiah Amberley."
+
+"What will you do about it?"
+
+"Well, the immediate question, my dear Watson, happens to be, What will
+you do?--if you will be good enough to understudy me. You know that I
+am preoccupied with this case of the two Coptic Patriarchs, which
+should come to a head to-day. I really have not time to go out to
+Lewisham, and yet evidence taken on the spot has a special value. The
+old fellow was quite insistent that I should go, but I explained my
+difficulty. He is prepared to meet a representative."
+
+"By all means," I answered. "I confess I don't see that I can be of
+much service, but I am willing to do my best." And so it was that on a
+summer afternoon I set forth to Lewisham, little dreaming that within a
+week the affair in which I was engaging would be the eager debate of
+all England.
+
+It was late that evening before I returned to Baker Street and gave an
+account of my mission. Holmes lay with his gaunt figure stretched in
+his deep chair, his pipe curling forth slow wreaths of acrid tobacco,
+while his eyelids drooped over his eyes so lazily that he might almost
+have been asleep were it not that at any halt or questionable passage
+of my narrative they half lifted, and two gray eyes, as bright and keen
+as rapiers, transfixed me with their searching glance.
+
+"The Haven is the name of Mr. Josiah Amberley's house," I explained. "I
+think it would interest you, Holmes. It is like some penurious
+patrician who has sunk into the company of his inferiors. You know that
+particular quarter, the monotonous brick streets, the weary suburban
+highways. Right in the middle of them, a little island of ancient
+culture and comfort, lies this old home, surrounded by a high sun-baked
+wall mottled with lichens and topped with moss, the sort of wall--"
+
+"Cut out the poetry, Watson," said Holmes severely. "I note that it was
+a high brick wall."
+
+"Exactly. I should not have known which was The Haven had I not asked a
+lounger who was smoking in the street. I have a reason for mentioning
+him. He was a tall, dark, heavily moustached, rather military-looking
+man. He nodded in answer to my inquiry and gave me a curiously
+questioning glance, which came back to my memory a little later.
+
+"I had hardly entered the gateway before I saw Mr. Amberley coming down
+the drive. I only had a glimpse of him this morning, and he certainly
+gave me the impression of a strange creature, but when I saw him in
+full light his appearance was even more abnormal."
+
+"I have, of course, studied it, and yet I should be interested to have
+your impression," said Holmes.
+
+"He seemed to me like a man who was literally bowed down by care. His
+back was curved as though he carried a heavy burden. Yet he was not the
+weakling that I had at first imagined, for his shoulders and chest have
+the framework of a giant, though his figure tapers away into a pair of
+spindled legs."
+
+"Left shoe wrinkled, right one smooth."
+
+"I did not observe that."
+
+"No, you wouldn't. I spotted his artificial limb. But proceed."
+
+"I was struck by the snaky locks of grizzled hair which curled from
+under his old straw hat, and his face with its fierce, eager expression
+and the deeply lined features."
+
+"Very good, Watson. What did he say?"
+
+"He began pouring out the story of his grievances. We walked down the
+drive together, and of course I took a good look round. I have never
+seen a worse-kept place. The garden was all running to seed, giving me
+an impression of wild neglect in which the plants had been allowed to
+find the way of Nature rather than of art. How any decent woman could
+have tolerated such a state of things, I don't know. The house, too,
+was slatternly to the last degree, but the poor man seemed himself to
+be aware of it and to be trying to remedy it, for a great pot of green
+paint stood in the centre of the hall, and he was carrying a thick
+brush in his left hand. He had been working on the woodwork.
+
+"He took me into his dingy sanctum, and we had a long chat. Of course,
+he was disappointed that you had not come yourself. 'I hardly
+expected,' he said, 'that so humble an individual as myself, especially
+after my heavy financial loss, could obtain the complete attention of
+so famous a man as Mr. Sherlock Holmes.'
+
+"I assured him that the financial question did not arise. 'No of
+course, it is art for art's sake with him,' said he, 'but even on the
+artistic side of crime he might have found something here to study. And
+human nature, Dr. Watson--the black ingratitude of it all! When did I
+ever refuse one of her requests? Was ever a woman so pampered? And that
+young man--he might have been my own son. He had the run of my house.
+And yet see how they have treated me! Oh, Dr. Watson, it is a dreadful,
+dreadful world!'
+
+"That was the burden of his song for an hour or more. He had, it seems,
+no suspicion of an intrigue. They lived alone save for a woman who
+comes in by the day and leaves every evening at six. On that particular
+evening old Amberley, wishing to give his wife a treat, had taken two
+upper circle seats at the Haymarket Theatre. At the last moment she had
+complained of a headache and had refused to go. He had gone alone.
+There seemed to be no doubt about the fact, for he produced the unused
+ticket which he had taken for his wife."
+
+"That is remarkable--most remarkable," said Holmes, whose interest in
+the case seemed to be rising. "Pray continue, Watson. I find your
+narrative most arresting. Did you personally examine this ticket? You
+did not, perchance, take the number?"
+
+"It so happens that I did," I answered with some pride. "It chanced to
+be my old school number, thirty-one, and so is stuck in my head."
+
+"Excellent, Watson! His seat, then, was either thirty or thirty-two."
+
+"Quite so," I answered with some mystification. "And on B row."
+
+"That is most satisfactory. What else did he tell you?"
+
+"He showed me his strong-room, as he called it. It really is a
+strong-room--like a bank--with iron door and shutter--
+burglarproof, as he claimed. However, the woman seems to have had a
+duplicate key, and between them they had carried off some seven
+thousand pounds' worth of cash and securities."
+
+"Securities! How could they dispose of those?"
+
+"He said that he had given the police a list and that he hoped they
+would be unsaleable. He had got back from the theatre about midnight
+and found the place plundered, the door and window open, and the
+fugitives gone. There was no letter or message, nor has he heard a word
+since. He at once gave the alarm to the police."
+
+Holmes brooded for some minutes.
+
+"You say he was painting. What was he painting?"
+
+"Well, he was painting the passage. But he had already painted the door
+and woodwork of this room I spoke of."
+
+"Does it not strike you as a strange occupation in the circumstances?"
+
+"'One must do something to ease an aching heart.' That was his own
+explanation. It was eccentric, no doubt, but he is clearly an eccentric
+man. He tore up one of his wife's photographs in my presence--tore it
+up furiously in a tempest of passion. 'I never wish to see her damned
+face again,' he shrieked."
+
+"Anything more, Watson?"
+
+"Yes, one thing which struck me more than anything else. I had driven
+to the Blackheath Station and had caught my train there when, just as
+it was starting, I saw a man dart into the carriage next to my own. You
+know that I have a quick eye for faces, Holmes. It was undoubtedly the
+tall, dark man whom I had addressed in the street. I saw him once more
+at London Bridge, and then I lost him in the crowd. But I am convinced
+that he was following me."
+
+"No doubt! No doubt!" said Holmes. "A tall, dark, heavily moustached
+man, you say, with gray-tinted sun-glasses?"
+
+"Holmes, you are a wizard. I did not say so, but he had gray-tinted
+sun-glasses."
+
+"And a Masonic tie-pin?"
+
+"Holmes!"
+
+"Quite simple, my dear Watson. But let us get down to what is
+practical. I must admit to you that the case, which seemed to me to be
+so absurdly simple as to be hardly worth my notice, is rapidly assuming
+a very different aspect. It is true that though in your mission you
+have missed everything of importance, yet even those things which have
+obtruded themselves upon your notice give rise to serious thought."
+
+"What have I missed?"
+
+"Don't be hurt, my dear fellow. You know that I am quite impersonal. No
+one else would have done better. Some possibly not so well. But clearly
+you have missed some vital points. What is the opinion of the
+neighbours about this man Amberley and his wife? That surely is of
+importance. What of Dr. Ernest? Was he the gay Lothario one would
+expect? With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper
+and accomplice. What about the girl at the post-office, or the wife of
+the greengrocer? I can picture you whispering soft nothings with the
+young lady at the Blue Anchor, and receiving hard somethings in
+exchange. All this you have left undone."
+
+"It can still be done."
+
+"It has been done. Thanks to the telephone and the help of the Yard, I
+can usually get my essentials without leaving this room. As a matter of
+fact, my information confirms the man's story. He has the local repute
+of being a miser as well as a harsh and exacting husband. That he had a
+large sum of money in that strong-room of his is certain. So also is it
+that young Dr. Ernest, an unmarried man, played chess with Amberley,
+and probably played the fool with his wife. All this seems plain
+sailing, and one would think that there was no more to be said--and
+yet!--and yet!"
+
+"Where lies the difficulty?"
+
+"In my imagination, perhaps. Well, leave it there, Watson. Let us
+escape from this weary workaday world by the side door of music. Carina
+sings to-night at the Albert Hall, and we still have time to dress,
+dine, and enjoy."
+
+In the morning I was up betimes, but some toast crumbs and two empty
+eggshells told me that my companion was earlier still. I found a
+scribbled note upon the table.
+
+
+DEAR WATSON:
+
+There are one or two points of contact which I should wish to establish
+with Mr. Josiah Amberley. When I have done so we can dismiss the case--or
+not. I would only ask you to be on hand about three o'clock, as I conceive
+it possible that I may want you.
+
+S.H.
+
+
+I saw nothing of Holmes all day, but at the hour named he returned,
+grave, preoccupied, and aloof. At such times it was wiser to leave him
+to himself.
+
+"Has Amberley been here yet?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah! I am expecting him."
+
+He was not disappointed, for presently the old fellow arrived with a
+very worried and puzzled expression upon his austere face.
+
+"I've had a telegram, Mr. Holmes. I can make nothing of it." He handed
+it over, and Holmes read it aloud.
+
+
+"Come at once without fail. Can give you information as to your recent
+loss. ELMAN. The Vicarage."
+
+
+"Dispatched at 2:10 from Little Purlington," said Holmes. "Little
+Purlington is in Essex, I believe, not far from Frinton. Well, of
+course you will start at once. This is evidently from a responsible
+person, the vicar of the place. Where is my Crockford? Yes, here we
+have him: 'J. C. Elman, M. A., Living of Moosmoor cum Little
+Purlington.' Look up the trains, Watson."
+
+"There is one at 5:20 from Liverpool Street."
+
+"Excellent. You had best go with him, Watson. He may need help or
+advice. Clearly we have come to a crisis in this affair."
+
+But our client seemed by no means eager to start.
+
+"It's perfectly absurd, Mr. Holmes," he said. "What can this man
+possibly know of what has occurred? It is waste of time and money."
+
+"He would not have telegraphed to you if he did not know something.
+Wire at once that you are coming."
+
+"I don't think I shall go."
+
+Holmes assumed his sternest aspect.
+
+"It would make the worst possible impression both on the police and
+upon myself, Mr. Amberley, if when so obvious a clue arose you should
+refuse to follow it up. We should feel that you were not really in
+earnest in this investigation."
+
+Our client seemed horrified at the suggestion.
+
+"Why, of course I shall go if you look at it in that way," said he. "On
+the face of it, it seems absurd to suppose that this parson knows
+anything, but if you think--"
+
+"I do think," said Holmes with emphasis, and so we were launched upon
+our journey. Holmes took me aside before we left the room and gave me
+one word of counsel, which showed that he considered the matter to be
+of importance. "Whatever you do, see that he really does go," said he.
+"Should he break away or return, get to the nearest telephone exchange
+and send the single word 'Bolted.' I will arrange here that it shall
+reach me wherever I am."
+
+Little Purlington is not an easy place to reach, for it is on a branch
+line. My remembrance of the journey is not a pleasant one, for the
+weather was hot, the train slow, and my companion sullen and silent,
+hardly talking at all save to make an occasional sardonic remark as to
+the futility of our proceedings. When we at last reached the little
+station it was a two-mile drive before we came to the Vicarage, where a
+big, solemn, rather pompous clergyman received us in his study. Our
+telegram lay before him.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," he asked, "what can I do for you?"
+
+"We came," I explained, "in answer to your wire."
+
+"My wire! I sent no wire."
+
+"I mean the wire which you sent to Mr. Josiah Amberley about his wife
+and his money."
+
+"If this is a joke, sir, it is a very questionable one," said the vicar
+angrily. "I have never heard of the gentleman you name, and I have not
+sent a wire to anyone."
+
+Our client and I looked at each other in amazement.
+
+"Perhaps there is some mistake," said I; "are there perhaps two
+vicarages? Here is the wire itself, signed Elman and dated from the
+Vicarage."
+
+"There is only one vicarage, sir, and only one vicar, and this wire is
+a scandalous forgery, the origin of which shall certainly be
+investigated by the police. Meanwhile, I can see no possible object in
+prolonging this interview."
+
+So Mr. Amberley and I found ourselves on the roadside in what seemed to
+me to be the most primitive village in England. We made for the
+telegraph office, but it was already closed. There was a telephone,
+however, at the little Railway Arms, and by it I got into touch with
+Holmes, who shared in our amazement at the result of our journey.
+
+"Most singular!" said the distant voice. "Most remarkable! I much fear,
+my dear Watson, that there is no return train to-night. I have
+unwittingly condemned you to the horrors of a country inn. However,
+there is always Nature, Watson--Nature and Josiah Amberley--you can
+be in close commune with both." I heard his dry chuckle as he turned
+away.
+
+It was soon apparent to me that my companion's reputation as a miser
+was not undeserved. He had grumbled at the expense of the journey, had
+insisted upon travelling third-class, and was now clamorous in his
+objections to the hotel bill. Next morning, when we did at last arrive
+in London, it was hard to say which of us was in the worse humour.
+
+"You had best take Baker Street as we pass," said I. "Mr. Holmes may
+have some fresh instructions."
+
+"If they are not worth more than the last ones they are not of much
+use," said Amberley with a malevolent scowl. None the less, he kept me
+company. I had already warned Holmes by telegram of the hour of our
+arrival, but we found a message waiting that he was at Lewisham and
+would expect us there. That was a surprise, but an even greater one was
+to find that he was not alone in the sitting-room of our client. A
+stern-looking, impassive man sat beside him, a dark man with
+gray-tinted glasses and a large Masonic pin projecting from his tie.
+
+"This is my friend Mr. Barker," said Holmes. "He has been interesting
+himself also in your business, Mr. Josiah Amberley, though we have been
+working independently. But we both have the same question to ask you!"
+
+Mr. Amberley sat down heavily. He sensed impending danger. I read it in
+his straining eyes and his twitching features.
+
+"What is the question, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Only this: What did you do with the bodies?"
+
+The man sprang to his feet with a hoarse scream. He clawed into the air
+with his bony hands. His mouth was open, and for the instant he looked
+like some horrible bird of prey. In a flash we got a glimpse of the
+real Josiah Amberley, a misshapen demon with a soul as distorted as his
+body. As he fell back into his chair he clapped his hand to his lips as
+if to stifle a cough. Holmes sprang at his throat like a tiger and
+twisted his face towards the ground. A white pellet fell from between
+his gasping lips.
+
+"No short cuts, Josiah Amberley. Things must be done decently and in
+order. What about it, Barker?"
+
+"I have a cab at the door," said our taciturn companion.
+
+"It is only a few hundred yards to the station. We will go together.
+You can stay here, Watson. I shall be back within half an hour."
+
+The old colourman had the strength of a lion in that great trunk of
+his, but he was helpless in the hands of the two experienced
+man-handlers. Wriggling and twisting he was dragged to the waiting cab,
+and I was left to my solitary vigil in the ill-omened house. In less
+time than he had named, however, Holmes was back, in company with a
+smart young police inspector.
+
+"I've left Barker to look after the formalities," said Holmes. "You had
+not met Barker, Watson. He is my hated rival upon the Surrey shore.
+When you said a tall dark man it was not difficult for me to complete
+the picture. He has several good cases to his credit, has he not,
+Inspector?"
+
+"He has certainly interfered several times," the inspector answered
+with reserve.
+
+"His methods are irregular, no doubt, like my own. The irregulars are
+useful sometimes, you know. You, for example, with your compulsory
+warning about whatever he said being used against him, could never have
+bluffed this rascal into what is virtually a confession."
+
+"Perhaps not. But we get there all the same, Mr. Holmes. Don't imagine
+that we had not formed our own views of this case, and that we would
+not have laid our hands on our man. You will excuse us for feeling sore
+when you jump in with methods which we cannot use, and so rob us of the
+credit."
+
+"There shall be no such robbery, MacKinnon. I assure you that I efface
+myself from now onward, and as to Barker, he has done nothing save what
+I told him."
+
+The inspector seemed considerably relieved.
+
+"That is very handsome of you, Mr. Holmes. Praise or blame can matter
+little to you, but it is very different to us when the newspapers begin
+to ask questions."
+
+"Quite so. But they are pretty sure to ask questions anyhow, so it
+would be as well to have answers. What will you say, for example, when
+the intelligent and enterprising reporter asks you what the exact
+points were which aroused your suspicion, and finally gave you a
+certain conviction as to the real facts?"
+
+The inspector looked puzzled.
+
+"We don't seem to have got any real facts yet, Mr. Holmes. You say that
+the prisoner, in the presence of three witnesses, practically confessed
+by trying to commit suicide, that he had murdered his wife and her
+lover. What other facts have you?"
+
+"Have you arranged for a search?"
+
+"There are three constables on their way."
+
+"Then you will soon get the clearest fact of all. The bodies cannot be
+far away. Try the cellars and the garden. It should not take long to
+dig up the likely places. This house is older than the water-pipes.
+There must be a disused well somewhere. Try your luck there."
+
+"But how did you know of it, and how was it done?"
+
+"I'll show you first how it was done, and then I will give the
+explanation which is due to you, and even more to my longsuffering
+friend here, who has been invaluable throughout. But, first, I would
+give you an insight into this man's mentality. It is a very unusual one
+--so much so that I think his destination is more likely to be
+Broadmoor than the scaffold. He has, to a high degree, the sort of mind
+which one associates with the mediaeval Italian nature rather than with
+the modern Briton. He was a miserable miser who made his wife so
+wretched by his niggardly ways that she was a ready prey for any
+adventurer. Such a one came upon the scene in the person of this
+chess-playing doctor. Amberley excelled at chess--one mark, Watson,
+of a scheming mind. Like all misers, he was a jealous man, and his
+jealousy became a frantic mania. Rightly or wrongly, he suspected an
+intrigue. He determined to have his revenge, and he planned it with
+diabolical cleverness. Come here!"
+
+Holmes led us along the passage with as much certainty as if he had
+lived in the house and halted at the open door of the strong-room.
+
+"Pooh! What an awful smell of paint!" cried the inspector.
+
+"That was our first clue," said Holmes. "You can thank Dr. Watson's
+observation for that, though he failed to draw the inference. It set my
+foot upon the trail. Why should this man at such a time be filling his
+house with strong odours? Obviously, to cover some other smell which he
+wisfhed to conceal--some guilty smell which would suggest suspicions.
+Then came the idea of a room such as you see here with iron door and
+shutter--a hermetically sealed room. Put those two facts together,
+and whither do they lead? I could only determine that by examining the
+house myself. I was already certain that the case was serious, for I
+had examined the box-office chart at the Haymarket Theatre--another
+of Dr. Watson's bull's-eyes--and ascertained that neither B thirty
+nor thirty-two of the upper circle had been occupied that night.
+Therefore, Amberley had not been to the theatre, and his alibi fell to
+the ground. He made a bad slip when he allowed my astute friend to
+notice the number of the seat taken for his wife. The question now
+arose how I might be able to examine the house. I sent an agent to the
+most impossible village I could think of, and summoned my man to it at
+such an hour that he could not possibly get back. To prevent any
+miscarriage, Dr. Watson accompanied him. The good vicar's name I took,
+of course, out of my Crockford. Do I make it all clear to you?"
+
+"It is masterly," said the inspector in an awed voice.
+
+"There being no fear of interruption I proceeded to burgle the house.
+Burglary has always been an alternative profession had I cared to adopt
+it, and I have little doubt that I should have come to the front.
+Observe what I found. You see the gas-pipe along the skirting here.
+Very good. It rises in the angle of the wall, and there is a tap here
+in the corner. The pipe runs out into the strong-room, as you can see,
+and ends in that plaster rose in the centre of the ceiling, where it is
+concealed by the ornamentation. That end is wide open. At any moment by
+turning the outside tap the room could be flooded with gas. With door
+and shutter closed and the tap full on I would not give two minutes of
+conscious sensation to anyone shut up in that little chamber. By what
+devilish device he decoyed them there I do not know, but once inside
+the door they were at his mercy."
+
+The inspector examined the pipe with interest. "One of our officers
+mentioned the smell of gas," said he, "but of course the window and
+door were open then, and the paint--or some of it--was already
+about. He had begun the work of painting the day before, according to
+his story. But what next, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"Well, then came an incident which was rather unexpected to myself. I
+was slipping through the pantry window in the early dawn when I felt a
+hand inside my collar, and a voice said: 'Now, you rascal, what are you
+doing in there?' When I could twist my head round I looked into the
+tinted spectacles of my friend and rival, Mr. Barker. It was a curious
+foregathering and set us both smiling. It seems that he had been
+engaged by Dr. Ray Ernest's family to make some investigations and had
+come to the same conclusion as to foul play. He had watched the house
+for some days and had spotted Dr. Watson as one of the obviously
+suspicious characters who had called there. He could hardly arrest
+Watson, but when he saw a man actually climbing out of the pantry
+window there came a limit to his restraint. Of course, I told him how
+matters stood and we continued the case together."
+
+"Why him? Why not us?"
+
+"Because it was in my mind to put that little test which answered so
+admirably. I fear you would not have gone so far."
+
+The inspector smiled.
+
+"Well, maybe not. I understand that I have your word, Mr. Holmes, that
+you step right out of the case now and that you turn all your results
+over to us."
+
+"Certainly, that is always my custom."
+
+"Well, in the name of the force I thank you. It seems a clear case, as
+you put it, and there can't be much difficulty over the bodies."
+
+"I'll show you a grim little bit of evidence," said Holmes, "and I am
+sure Amberley himself never observed it. You'll get results, Inspector,
+by always putting yourself in the other fellow's place, and thinking
+what you would do yourself. It takes some imagination, but it pays.
+Now, we will suppose that you were shut up in this little room, had not
+two minutes to live, but wanted to get even with the fiend who was
+probably mocking at you from the other side of the door. What would you
+do?"
+
+"Write a message."
+
+"Exactly. You would like to tell people how you died. No use writing on
+paper. That would be seen. If you wrote on the wall someone might rest
+upon it. Now, look here! Just above the skirting is scribbled with a
+purple indelible pencil: 'We we--' That's all.''
+
+"What do you make of that?"
+
+"Well, it's only a foot above the ground. The poor devil was on the
+floor dying when he wrote it. He lost his senses before he could
+finish."
+
+"He was writing, 'We were murdered.'"
+
+"That's how I read it. If you find an indelible pencil on the body--"
+
+"We'll look out for it, you may be sure. But those securities? Clearly
+there was no robbery at all. And yet he did possess those bonds. We
+verified that."
+
+"You may be sure he has them hidden in a safe place. When the whole
+elopement had passed into history, he would suddenly discover them and
+announce that the guilty couple had relented and sent back the plunder
+or had dropped it on the way."
+
+"You certainly seem to have met every difficulty," said the inspector.
+"Of course, he was bound to call us in, but why he should have gone to
+you I can't understand."
+
+"Pure swank!" Holmes answered. "He felt so clever and so sure of
+himself that he imagined no one could touch him. He could say to any
+suspicious neighbour, 'Look at the steps I have taken. I have consulted
+not only the police but even Sherlock Holmes.'"
+
+The inspector laughed.
+
+"We must forgive you your 'even,' Mr. Holmes," said he "it's as
+workmanlike a job as I can remember."
+
+A couple of days later my friend tossed across to me a copy of the
+bi-weekly North Surrey Observer. Under a series of flaming headlines,
+which began with "The Haven Horror" and ended with "Brilliant Police
+Investigation," there was a packed column of print which gave the first
+consecutive account of the affair. The concluding paragraph is typical
+of the whole. It ran thus:
+
+
+The remarkable acumen by which Inspector MacKinnon
+deduced from the smell of paint that some other smell, that
+of gas, for example, might be concealed; the bold deduction
+that the strong-room might also be the death-chamber, and
+the subsequent inquiry which led to the discovery of the
+bodies in a disused well, cleverly concealed by a dogkennel, should
+live in the history of crime as a standing
+example of the intelligence of our professional detectives.
+
+
+"Well, well, MacKinnon is a good fellow," said Holmes with a tolerant
+smile. "You can file it in our archives, Watson. Some day the true
+story may be told."
+
+
+
+THE END
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Champdoce Mystery, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Champdoce Mystery
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2006 [EBook #2736]
+Last Updated: September 23, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAMPDOCE MYSTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; Emma Dudding; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHAMPDOCE MYSTERY
+
+
+by Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+This novel is a sequel to Caught in the Net. [Etext #2451]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A DUCAL MONOMANIAC.
+
+The traveller who wishes to go from Poitiers to London by the shortest
+route will find that the simplest way is to take a seat in the
+stage-coach which runs to Saumur; and when you book your place, the
+polite clerk tells you that you must take your seat punctually at six
+o’clock. The next morning, therefore, the traveller has to rise from his
+bed at a very early hour, and make a hurried and incomplete toilet, and
+on arriving, flushed and panting, at the office, discover that there was
+no occasion for such extreme haste.
+
+In the hotel from whence the coach starts every one seems to be asleep,
+and a waiter, whose eyes are scarcely open, wanders languidly about.
+There is not the slightest good in losing your temper, or in pouring out
+a string of violent remonstrances. In a small restaurant opposite a cup
+of hot coffee can be procured, and it is there that the disappointed
+travellers congregate, to await the hour when the coach really makes a
+start.
+
+At length, however, all is ready, the conductor utters a tremendous
+execration, the coachman cracks his whip, the horses spring forward, the
+wheels rattle, and the coach is off at last. Whilst the conductor smokes
+his pipe tranquilly, the passengers gaze out of the windows and admire
+the beautiful aspect of the surrounding country. On each side stretch
+the woods and fields of Bevron. The covers are full of game, which has
+increased enormously, as the owner of the property has never allowed a
+shot to be fired since he had the misfortune, some twenty years ago, to
+kill one of his dependents whilst out shooting. On the right hand side
+some distance off rise the tower and battlements of the Chateau de
+Mussidan. It is two years ago since the Dowager Countess of Chevanche
+died, leaving all her fortune to her niece, Mademoiselle Sabine de
+Mussidan. She was a kind-hearted woman, rough and ready in her manner,
+but very popular amongst the peasantry. Farther off, on the top of some
+rising ground, appears an imposing structure, of an ancient style of
+architecture; this is the ancient residence of the Dukes of Champdoce.
+The left wing is a picturesque mass of ruins; the roof has fallen
+in, and the mullions of the windows are dotted with a thick growth of
+clustering ivy. Rain, storm, and sunshine have all done their work, and
+painted the mouldering walls with a hundred varied tints. In 1840 the
+inheritor of one of the noblest names of France resided here with
+his only son. The name of the present proprietor was Caesar Guillaume
+Duepair de Champdoce. He was looked upon both by the gentry and
+peasantry of the country side as a most eccentric individual. He could
+be seen any day wandering about, dressed in the most shabby manner, and
+wearing a coat that was frequently in urgent need of repair, a leathern
+cap on his head, wooden shoes, and a stout oaken cudgel in his hand. In
+winter he supplemented to these an ancient sheepskin coat. He was sixty
+years of age, very powerfully built, and possessing enormous strength.
+The expression upon his face showed that his will was as strong as
+his thews and sinews. Beneath his shaggy eyebrows twinkled a pair of
+light-gray eyes, which darkened when a fit of passion overtook him, and
+this was no unusual occurrence.
+
+During his military career in the army of the Conde, he had received
+a sabre cut across his cheek, and the cicatrice imparted a strange and
+unpleasant expression to his face. He was not a bad-hearted man, but
+headstrong, violent, and tyrannical to a degree. The peasants saluted
+him with a mixture of respect and dread as he walked to the chapel, to
+which he was a regular attendant on Sundays, with his son. During the
+Mass he made the responses in an audible voice, and at its conclusion
+invariably put a five-franc piece into the plate. This, his subscription
+to the newspaper, and the sum he paid for being shaved twice each week,
+constituted the whole of his outlay upon himself. He kept an excellent
+table, however; plump fowls, vegetables of all kinds, and the most
+delicious fruit were never absent from it. Everything, however, that
+appeared upon his well-plenished board was the produce of his fields,
+gardens, or woods. The nobility and gentry of the neighborhood
+frequently invited him to their hospitable tables, for they looked upon
+him as the head and chief of the nobility of the county; but he always
+refused their invitations, saying plainly, “No man who has the slightest
+respect for himself will accept hospitalities which he is not in a
+position to return.” It was not the grinding clutch of poverty that
+drove the Duke to this exercise of severe economy, for his income from
+his estates brought him in fifty thousand francs per annum; and it was
+reported that his investments brought him in as much more. As a matter
+of course, therefore, he was looked upon as a miser, and a victim to the
+sordid vice of avarice.
+
+His past life might, in some degree, offer an explanation of this
+conduct. Born in 1780, the Duke de Champdoce had joined the band of
+emigrants which swelled the ranks of Conde’s army. An implacable opposer
+of the Revolution, he resided, during the glorious days of the Empire,
+in London, where dire poverty compelled him to gain a livelihood as a
+fencing master at the Restoration. He came back with the Bourbons to
+his native land, and, by an almost miraculous chance, was put again in
+possession of his ancestral domains. But in his opinion he was living
+in a state of utter destitution as compared to the enormous revenues
+enjoyed by the dead-and-gone members of the Champdoce family; and what
+pained him more was to see rise up by the side of the old aristocracy a
+new race which had attached itself to commerce and entered into business
+transactions. As he gazed upon the new order of things, the man whose
+pride of birth and position almost amounted to insanity, conceived the
+project to which he determined to devote the remainder of his life. He
+imagined that he had discovered a means by which he could restore the
+ancient house of Champdoce to all its former splendor and position. “I
+can,” said he, “by living like a peasant and resorting to no unnecessary
+expense, treble my capital in twenty years; and if my son and my
+grandson will only follow my example, the race of Champdoce will again
+recover the proud position that it formerly held.” Faithful to this idea,
+he wedded, in 1820, although his heart was entirely untouched, a young
+girl of noble birth but utterly devoid of beauty, though possessed of
+a magnificent dowry. Their union was an extremely unhappy one, and many
+persons did not hesitate to accuse the Duke of treating with harshness
+and severity a young girl, who, having brought her husband five hundred
+thousand francs, could not understand why she should be refused a new
+dress when she urgently needed it. After twelve months of inconceivable
+unhappiness, she gave birth to a son who was baptized Louis Norbert, and
+six months afterwards she sank into an untimely grave.
+
+The Duke did not seem to regret his loss very deeply. The boy appeared
+to be of a strong and robust constitution, and his mother’s dowry would
+go to swell the revenues of the Champdoce family. He made his recent
+loss, too, the pretext for further retrenchments and economies.
+
+Norbert was brought up exactly as a farmer’s son would have been. Every
+morning he started off to work, carrying his day’s provisions in a
+basket slung upon his back. As he grew older, he was taught to sow and
+reap, to estimate the value of a standing crop at a glance, and, last
+but not least, to drive a hard bargain. For a long time the Duke debated
+the expediency of permitting his son to be taught to read or write; and
+if he did so at last, it was owing to some severe remarks by the parish
+priest upon the day on which Norbert took the sacrament for the first
+time.
+
+All went on well and smoothly until the day when Norbert, on his
+sixteenth birthday, accompanied his father to Poitiers for the first
+time.
+
+At sixteen years of age, Louis Norbert de Champdoce looked fully twenty,
+and was as handsome a youth as could be seen for miles round. The sun
+had given a bronzed tint to his features which was exceedingly becoming.
+He had black hair, with a slight curl running through it, and large
+melancholy blue eyes, which he inherited from his mother. Poor girl! it
+was the sole beauty that she had possessed. He was utterly uncultured,
+and had been ruled with such a rod of iron by his father that he had
+never been a league from the Chateau. His ideas were barred by the
+little town of Bevron, with its sixty houses, its town hall, its small
+chapel, and principal river; and to him it seemed a spot full of noise
+and confusion. In the whole course of his life he had never spoken
+to three persons who did not belong to the district. Bred up in this
+secluded manner, it was almost impossible for him to understand that
+any one could lead a different existence to that of his own. His only
+pleasure was in procuring an abundant harvest, and his sole idea of
+excitement was High Mass on Sunday.
+
+For more than a year the village girls had cast sly glances at him, but
+he was far too simple and innocent to notice this. When Mass was over,
+he generally walked over the farm with his father to inspect the work
+of the past week, or to set snares for the birds. His father at last
+determined to give him a wider experience, and one day said that he was
+to accompany him to Poitiers.
+
+At a very early hour in the morning they started in one of the low
+country carts of the district, and under the seat were small sacks,
+containing over forty thousand francs in silver money. Norbert had
+long wished to visit Poitiers, but had never done so, though it was
+but fifteen miles off. Poitiers is a quaint old town, with dilapidated
+pavements and tall, gloomy houses, the architecture of which dates from
+the tenth century; but Norbert thought that it must be one of the most
+magnificent cities in the world. It was market day when they drove in,
+and he was absolutely stupefied with surprise and excitement. He had
+never believed there could be so many people in one place, and hardly
+noticed that the cart had pulled up opposite a lawyer’s office. His
+father shook him roughly by the shoulder.
+
+“Come, Norbert, lad, we are there,” said he.
+
+The young man jumped to the ground, and assisted mechanically to remove
+the sacks. The servile manner of the lawyer did not strike him, nor did
+he listen to the conversation between him and his father. Finally, the
+business being concluded, they took their departure, and, driving to the
+Market Place, put up the horse and cart at an old-fashioned, dingy inn,
+where they took their breakfast in the public room at a table where
+the wagoners were having a violent quarrel over their meal. The Duke,
+however, had other business to transact than the investment of his
+money, for he wanted to find the whereabouts of a miller who was
+somewhat in his debt. Norbert waited for him in front of the inn, and
+could not help feeling rather uncomfortable at finding himself alone.
+All at once some one came up and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He
+turned round sharply, and found himself face to face with a young man,
+who, seeing his look of surprise, said,--
+
+“What! have you entirely forgotten your old friend Montlouis?”
+
+Montlouis was the son of one of the Duke’s farmers, and he and Norbert
+had often played together in past years. They had driven their cows
+to the meadows together, and had spent long days together fishing or
+searching for birds’ nests. The dress now worn by Montlouis had at
+first prevented Norbert from recognizing him, for he was attired in
+the uniform of the college at which his father had placed him, being
+desirous of making something more than a mere farmer of his son.
+
+“What are you doing here?” asked Norbert.
+
+“I am waiting for my father.”
+
+“So am I. Let us have a cup of coffee together.”
+
+Montlouis led his playmate into a small wine shop near at hand. He
+seemed a little disposed to presume upon the superior knowledge of the
+world which he had recently acquired.
+
+“If there was a billiard-table here,” said he, “we could pass away the
+time with a game, though, to be sure, it runs into money.”
+
+Norbert never had had more than a few pence in his pocket at one
+time, and at this remark the color rose to his face, and he felt much
+humiliated.
+
+“My father,” added the young collegian, “gives me all I ask for. I am
+certain of getting one, if not two prizes at the next examination; and
+when I have taken my degree, the Count de Mussidan has promised to make
+me his steward. What do you think that you will do?”
+
+“I--I don’t know,” stammered Norbert.
+
+“You will, I suppose, dig and toil in the fields, as your father has
+done before you. You are the son of the noblest and the richest man for
+miles round, and yet you are not so happy as I am.”
+
+Upon the return of the Duke de Champdoce some little time after this
+conversation, he did not detect any change in his son’s manner; but the
+words spoken by Montlouis had fallen into Norbert’s brain like a subtle
+poison, and a few careless sentences uttered by an inconsiderate lad had
+annihilated the education of sixteen years, and a complete change had
+taken place in Norbert’s mind, a change which was utterly unsuspected by
+those around him, for his manner of bringing up had taught him to keep
+his own counsel.
+
+The fixed smile on his features entirely masked the angry feelings that
+were working in his breast. He went through his daily tasks, which had
+once been a pleasure to him, with utter disgust and loathing. His eyes
+had been suddenly opened, and he now understood a host of things which
+he had never before even endeavored to comprehend. He saw now that his
+proper position was among the nobles, whom he never saw except when they
+attended Mass at the little chapel in Bevron. The Count de Mussidan, so
+haughty and imposing, with his snow-white hair; the aristocratic-looking
+Marquis de Laurebourg, of whom the peasants stood in the greatest awe,
+were always courteous and even cordial in their salutations, while the
+noble dames smiled graciously upon him. Proud and haughty as they were,
+they evidently looked upon his father and himself as their equals, in
+spite of the coarse garments that they wore. The realization of these
+facts effected a great change in Norbert. He was the equal of all these
+people, and yet how great a gulf separated him from them. While he and
+his father tramped to Mass in heavy shoes, the others drove up in
+their carriages with powdered footmen to open the doors. Why was this
+extraordinary difference? He knew enough of the value of crops and land
+to know that his father was as wealthy as any of these gentlemen. The
+laborers on the farm said that his father was a miser, and the villagers
+asserted that he got up at night and gazed with rapture upon the
+treasure that was hidden away from men’s eyes.
+
+“Norbert is an unhappy lad,” they would say. “He who ought to be able to
+command all the pleasures of life is worse off than our own children.”
+
+He also recollected that one day, as his father was talking to the
+Marquis de Laurebourg, an old lady, who was doubtless the Marchioness,
+had said, “Poor boy! he was so early deprived of a mother’s care!” What
+did that mean unless it was a reflection upon the arbitrary behavior of
+his father? Norbert saw that these people always had their children with
+them, and the sight of this filled him with jealousy, and brought tears
+of anguish to his eyes. Sometimes, as he trudged wearily behind his yoke
+of oxen, goad in hand, he would see some of these young scions of the
+aristocracy canter by on horseback, and the friendly wave of the hand
+with which they greeted him almost appeared to his jaundiced mind a
+premeditated insult. What could they find to do in Paris, to which they
+all took wing at the first breath of winter? This was a question which
+he found himself utterly unable to solve. To drink to intoxication
+offered no charms to him, and yet this was the only pleasure which the
+villagers seemed to enjoy. Those young men must have some higher class
+of entertainment, but in what could it consist? Norbert could hardly
+read a line without spelling every word; but these new thoughts running
+through his mind caused him to study, so as to improve his education.
+His father had often told him that he did not like lads who where always
+poring over books; and so Norbert did not discontinue his studies, but
+simply avoided bringing them under his father’s notice. He knew that
+there was a large collection of books in one of the upstairs rooms of
+the Chateau. He managed to force the lock of the door, and he found some
+thousands of volumes, of which at least two hundred were novels, which
+had been the solace of his mother’s unhappy life. With all the eagerness
+of a man who is at the point of starvation and finds an unexpected
+store of provisions, Norbert seized upon them. At first he had great
+difficulty in dividing fact from fiction.
+
+He arrived at two conclusions from perusing this heterogeneous mass of
+literature--one was, that he was most unhappy; and the other was, that
+he hated his father with a cold and determined loathing. Had he dared,
+he would have shown this feeling openly, but the Duke de Champdoce
+inspired him with an unconquerable feeling of terror. This state of
+affairs continued for some months, and at the end of that time the Duke
+felt that he ought to make his son acquainted with his projects. One
+Sunday, after supper, he commenced this task. Norbert had never seen
+his father so animated as he was at this moment, when all his ancestral
+pride blazed in his eyes. He explained at length the acts and deeds of
+those heroes who had been the ornament of their house, and enumerated
+the influential marriages which had been made by them in the days when
+their very name was a power in the land. And what remained of all their
+power and rank, save their Parisian domicile, their old Chateau, and
+some two hundred thousand francs of income?
+
+Norbert could hardly credit what he heard; he had never believed that
+his father possessed such enormous wealth. “Why, it is inconceivable!”
+ he muttered. And yet, as he looked round, he saw that the surroundings
+were those of a peasant’s cottage. How could he endure so many
+discomforts and wounds to his pride? In his anger he absolutely started
+to his feet with the intention of reproaching his father, but his
+courage failed him, and he fell back into a chair, quivering with
+emotion.
+
+The Duke de Champdoce was pacing up and down the room.
+
+“Do you think it so little?” asked he angrily.
+
+Norbert knew that not one of the neighboring nobility who had the
+reputation of being wealthy possessed half this annual income, and it
+was with a feeling of bitter anger in his heart that he listened to the
+broken words which fell from his father’s lips. All at once the Duke
+halted in front of his son’s chair.
+
+“What fortune I have now,” said he in a hoarse voice, “is little or
+nothing in times like these, when the tradesman contrives to make an
+almost unlimited income, and, setting up as a gentleman, imitates, not
+our virtues, but our vices; while the nobles, not understanding the
+present hour, are in poverty and want. Without money, nothing can be
+done. To hold his own against these mushroom fortunes, a Champdoce
+should possess millions. Neither you nor I, my son, will see our coffers
+overflowing with millions, but our descendants will reap the benefit
+of our toil. Our ancestors gained their name and glory by their
+determination; let us show that we are their worthy offspring.”
+
+As he approached the subject which had occupied his mind entirely for
+years, the old noble’s voice quivered and shook.
+
+“I have done my duty,” said he, calming himself by a mighty effort, “and
+it is now your turn to do yours. You shall marry some wealthy heiress,
+and you shall bring up your son as I have reared and nurtured you. You
+will be able to leave him fifteen millions; and if he will only follow
+in our footsteps, he will be able to bequeath to his heir a fortune that
+a monarch might envy. And this shall and will come to pass, because it
+is my fixed determination.”
+
+The strange outburst of confidence petrified Norbert.
+
+“The task is heavy and painful,” continued the Duke, “but it is one that
+several scores of illustrious houses have accomplished. He who wishes
+to revive the fallen fortunes of some mighty house must live only in the
+future, and have no thought but for the prosperity of his descendants.
+More than once I have faltered and hesitated, but I have conquered
+my weakness, and now only live to make the line of Champdoce the most
+wealthy in France. You have seen me haggle for an hour over a wretched
+louis, but it was for the reason that at a future day one of our
+descendants might fling it to a beggar from the window of his
+magnificent equipage. Next year I will take you to Paris and show
+you our house there. You will see in it the most wonderful tapestry,
+pictures by the best masters, for I have ornamented and embellished
+it as a lover adorns a house for a beloved mistress, and that house,
+Norbert, is the home that your grandchildren will dwell in.”
+
+The Duke uttered these words in a tone of jubilant triumph.
+
+“I have spoken to you thus,” resumed he, after a short pause, “because
+you are now of an age to listen to the truth, and because I wished you
+to understand the rules by which you are to regulate your life. You have
+now arrived at years of discretion, and must do of your own free will
+what you have up to this time done at my bidding. This is all that I
+have to say. To-morrow you will take twenty-five sacks of wheat to the
+miller at Bevron.”
+
+Like all tyrannical despots, the Duke never contemplated for a moment
+the possibility of any one disobeying his commands; yet at this very
+moment Norbert was registering a solemn mental oath that he would never
+carry out his father’s wishes. His anger, which his fears had so long
+restrained, now burst all bounds, and it was in the broad chestnut tree
+avenue, behind the Chateau, far from any listening ear, that he gave way
+to his despair. So long as he had only looked upon his father as a
+mere miser, he had permitted himself to indulge in hope; but now he
+understood him better, and saw that life-long plans, such as the Duke
+had framed, were not to be easily overruled.
+
+“My father is mad,” said he; “yes; decidedly mad.”
+
+He had made up his mind that for the present he would yield to his
+despotism, but afterwards, in the future, what was he to do?
+
+It is an easy thing to find persons to give you bad advice, and the
+very next day Norbert found one at Bevron in the shape of a certain man
+called Daumon, a bitter enemy of the Duke.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A DANGEROUS ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+Daumon was not a native of this part of the country, and no one knew
+from whence he came. He said that he had been an attorney’s clerk, and
+had certainly resided for a long time in Paris. He was a little man
+of fifty years of age, clean shaved, and with a sharp and cunning
+expression of countenance. His long nose, sharp, restless eyes, and thin
+lips, attracted attention at first sight. His whole aspect aroused a
+feeling of distrust. He had come to Bevron, some fifteen years before,
+with all his provisions in a cotton handkerchief slung over his
+shoulder. He was willing to make money in any way, and he prospered
+and rose. He owned fields, vineyards, and a cottage, which is at the
+juncture of the highway to Poitiers and the cross road that leads
+to Bevron. His aim and object were to be seen everywhere, to know
+everybody, and to have a finger in every pie in the neighborhood around.
+If any of the farmers or the laborers wanted small advances, they went
+to him, and he granted them loans at exorbitant rates of interest. He
+gave most disputants counsel, and had every point of law at his
+fingers’ ends. He could teach people how to sail as close to the wind as
+possible, and yet to be beyond the reach of the law. He affected to be
+only too anxious to ameliorate the lot of the peasant class, and yet he
+was drawing heavy sums from them by way of interest. He endeavored by
+every means in his power to rouse their feelings of animosity against
+both the priesthood and the gentry. His artful way of talking, and
+the long black coat which he wore, had given him the nickname of the
+“Counsellor” in the district. The reason why he disliked the Duke was
+because the latter had more than once shown himself hostile to him,
+and had taken him before the court of justice, from which Daumon only
+escaped by means of bribery of suborned witnesses. He vowed that he
+would be revenged for this, and for five years had been watching his
+opportunity, and this was the man whom Norbert met when he went to
+deliver his corn to the miller. As he was coming back with his empty
+wagon, Daumon asked for a lift back as far as the cross road that led to
+his cottage.
+
+“I trust, sir,” said he with the most servile courtesy, “that you will
+excuse the liberty I take, but I am so utterly crippled with rheumatism
+that I can hardly walk, Marquis.”
+
+Daumon had read somewhere that the eldest son of a Duke was entitled
+to be styled _Marquis_, and it was the first time that Norbert had been
+thus addressed. Before this he would have laughed at the appellation,
+but now his wounded vanity, and his exasperation at the unhappy
+condition in which he found himself, tempted him to accept the title
+without remonstrance.
+
+“All right, I can give you a lift,” said he, and the Counsellor
+clambered into the cart.
+
+All the time that he was showering thanks upon Norbert for his courtesy
+he was watching the young man’s face carefully.
+
+“Evidently,” thought the Counsellor to himself, “something unusual has
+taken place at the Chateau de Champdoce. Was not the opportunity for
+revenge here?”
+
+Long since he had decided that through the son he could strike the
+father. But he must be cautious.
+
+“You must have been up very early, Marquis,” said he.
+
+The young man made no reply.
+
+“The Duke,” resumed Daumon, “is most fortunate in having such a son as
+you. I know more than one father who says to his children, ‘See what an
+excellent example the young Marquis de Champdoce sets to you all. He
+is not afraid of hard work, though he is noble by birth, and should not
+soil his hands by labor.’”
+
+A sudden lurch brought the Counsellor’s eloquence to a sudden close, but
+he speedily resumed again.
+
+“I was watching you as you hefted the sacks. Heavens! what muscles! what
+a pair of shoulders!”
+
+At any other moment Norbert would have gloried in such laudation, but
+now he felt displeased and annoyed, and vented his anger by a sharp cut
+at his team.
+
+“When people say that you are as innocent as a girl,” continued Daumon,
+“I always say that you are a sensible young fellow after all, and that
+if you choose to lead a regular life, it is far better than wasting your
+future fortune in wine, billiards, cards, or women.”
+
+“I don’t know that I might not do something of the kind,” returned
+Norbert.
+
+“What did you say?” answered his wily companion.
+
+“I said that if I were my own master, I would live as other young men.”
+
+The lad paused abruptly, and Daumon’s eyes gleamed with joy.
+
+“Aha,” murmured he to himself; “I have the game in my own hands. I will
+teach his Grace to interfere with me.”
+
+Then, in a voice which could reach Norbert’s ears, he continued,--
+
+“Of course some parents are far too strict.”
+
+An impatient gesture from Norbert showed him that he had wounded him
+deeply.
+
+“Yes, yes,” put in the wily Counsellor, “as the head grows bald, and the
+blood begins to stagnate, they forget,--they forget the days when all
+was so different. They forget the time when they were young, and when
+they sowed their wild oats with so lavish a hand. When your father
+was twenty-five, he was precious wild. Ask your father, if you do not
+believe me.”
+
+At this moment the wagon passed the cross road, and Norbert pulled up.
+
+“I cannot thank you enough, Marquis,” said the Counsellor as he alighted
+with difficulty; “but if you would condescend to come and taste my
+brandy, I would esteem it a great honor.”
+
+Norbert hesitated for an instant: his reasoning powers urged him to
+decline the offer, but he refused to listen to them, and, fastening his
+horses to a tree, he followed Daumon down the by-road. The cottage was
+an excellent one, and extremely well furnished. A woman, who acted as
+Daumon’s housekeeper, served the refreshments. The office--for he
+called his room an office, just as if he was a professional man--was
+a strange-looking place. On one side was a desk covered with account
+books, and against the wall were sacks of seed. A number of books on
+legal matters crowded the shelves, and from the ceiling hung a quantity
+of dried herbs. The Counsellor welcomed the heir to the dukedom of
+Champdoce with the greatest deference, seated him in his own capacious
+leathern arm-chair, and pressed the brandy which he had refused upon
+him.
+
+“I got this brandy from a man down Arcachon way in return for a kindness
+that I did him; for, without boasting, I may say that I have done
+kindnesses for many people in my time.” He raised his glass to his lips
+as he spoke. “It is good, is it not?” said he. “You can’t get stuff with
+an aroma like that hereabouts.”
+
+The extreme deference of the man, coupled with the excellence of the
+spirit, opened Norbert’s heart in a very short space of time. Up to the
+present the conduct of poor Norbert had been blameless, but now, without
+knowing anything of the Counsellor’s character or reputation, he poured
+out all the secret sorrows of his heart, while Daumon chuckled secretly,
+preserving all the time the imperturbable face of a physician called in
+to visit a patient.
+
+“Dear me! dear me!” said he; “this is really too bad. Poor fellow! I
+really pity you. Were it not for the deep respect that I have for the
+Duke, your father, I should feel inclined to say that he was not quite
+in his right senses.”
+
+“Yes,” continued Norbert, the tears starting to his eyes, “this is
+just how I am situated. My destiny has been marked out for me, and I am
+helpless to alter it. I had better a thousand times be lying under the
+cold greensward, than vegetate thus above ground.”
+
+The peculiar smile on Daumon’s lips caused him to pause in his
+complaint.
+
+“Perhaps,” he went on, “you think that I am childish in talking thus?”
+
+“Not at all, Marquis, you have suffered too deeply; but forgive me if
+I say that you are foolish to despond so much over the future that lies
+before you.”
+
+“Future!” repeated Norbert angrily, “what is the use of speaking to me
+of the future, when I may be kept in this horrible servitude for the
+next thirty years? My father is still hale and hearty.”
+
+“What of that? You will be of age soon, and then you will have full
+right to claim your mother’s fortune.”
+
+The extreme surprise displayed by Norbert at this intelligence convinced
+the Counsellor that he was much more unsophisticated than he had
+supposed him to be.
+
+“A man,” continued he, “can, when he attains his majority, dispose of
+his inheritance as he thinks fit, and your mother’s fortune will render
+you independent of your father.”
+
+“But I should never dare to claim it; how could I venture to do so?”
+
+“You need not make the application personally; your solicitor would
+manage all that for you; but, of course, you must wait until you are of
+age.”
+
+“But I cannot wait until then,” said Norbert; “I must at once free
+myself from this tyranny.”
+
+“Luckily there are ways.”
+
+“Do you really think so, Daumon?”
+
+“Yes, and I will show you what is done every day. Nothing is more common
+in noble families. Would you like to be a soldier?”
+
+“No, I do not care for that, and yet----”
+
+“That is your last resource, Marquis. First, then, we could lay a plaint
+before the court.”
+
+“A plaint?”
+
+“Certainly. Do you suppose that our laws do not provide for such a case
+as a father exceeding the proper bounds of parental authority? Tell me,
+has the Duke, your father, ever struck you?”
+
+“Never once.”
+
+“Well, that is almost a pity. We will say that your father’s property
+is worth two millions, and yet you derive so slight a benefit from this
+that you are known everywhere as the ‘Young Savage of Champdoce’!”
+
+Norbert started to his feet.
+
+“Who dares speak of me like that?” said he furiously. “Tell me his
+name.”
+
+This outburst of passion did not in the smallest degree discompose
+Daumon.
+
+“Your father has many enemies, Marquis,” he resumed, “for his manners
+are overbearing and exacting; but you have many friends, and among
+them all you will find none more devoted than myself, humble though my
+position may be. Many ladies of high rank take a great interest in you.
+Only a day or two ago some persons were speaking of you in the presence
+of Mademoiselle de Laurebourg, and she blushed crimson at your name. Do
+you know Mademoiselle Diana?”
+
+Norbert colored.
+
+“Ah, I understand,” replied Daumon. “And when you have broken the
+fetters that now bind you, we shall see something one of these days. And
+now--”
+
+But at this moment Norbert’s eyes caught a glimpse of the old-fashioned
+cuckoo clock that hung on the wall in one corner of the room. He started
+to his feet.
+
+“Why, it is dinner-time!” said he. “What upon earth will my father say?”
+
+“What, does he keep you in such order as that?”
+
+But, never heeding the sarcastic question of the Counsellor, Norbert had
+regained his cart, and was driving off at full speed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A BOLD ADVENTURE.
+
+Daumon had in no way exaggerated when he said that Norbert was spoken of
+as the “Young Savage of Champdoce,” though no one used this appellation
+in an insulting form. Public opinion had changed considerably regarding
+the Duke of Champdoce. The first time that he had made his appearance,
+wearing wooden shoes and a leathern jacket, every one had laughed, but
+this did not affect him at all, and in the end people began to term his
+dogged obstinacy indomitable perseverance. The gleam that shone from his
+hoarded millions imparted a brilliant lustre to his shabby garments. Why
+should they waste their pity upon a man who would eventually come into a
+gigantic fortune, and have the means of gratifying all his desires?
+
+Mothers, with daughters especially, took a great interest in the young
+man, for to get a girl married to the “Young Savage of Champdoce” would
+be a feat to be proud of; but unluckily his father watched him with all
+the vigilance of a Spanish duenna. But there was a young girl who had
+long since secretly formed a design of her own, and this bold-hearted
+beauty was Diana de Laurebourg. It was with perfect justice that she
+had received the name of the “Belle of Poitiers.” She was tall and very
+fair, with a dazzling complexion and masses of lustrous hair; but
+her eyes gleamed with a suppressed fire, which plainly showed the
+constitution of her nature. She had been brought up in a convent, and
+her parents, who had wished her to take the veil, had only been induced
+to remove her owing to her obstinate refusal to pronounce the vows,
+coupled with the earnest entreaties of the lady superior, who was kept
+in a constant state of ferment owing to the mutinous conduct of her
+pupil. Her father was wealthy, but all the property went over to her
+brother, ten years older than herself; and so Diana was portionless,
+with the exception of a paltry sum of forty thousand francs.
+
+“My child!” said her father to her the first day of her return, “you
+have come back to us once more, and now all you have to do is to
+fascinate some gentleman who is your equal in position and who has
+plenty of money. If you fail in that, back you go to the convent.”
+
+“Time enough to talk about that some years hence,” answered the girl
+with a smile; “at present I am quite contented with being at home with
+you.”
+
+M. de Laurebourg had commented with some severity upon the conduct of
+the Duke de Champdoce towards his son, but he was perfectly willing to
+sacrifice his daughter’s heart for a suitable marriage.
+
+“I shall gain my end,” murmured the girl, “I am sure of it.”
+
+She had heard a friend of her father’s speaking of Norbert and his
+colossal expectations.
+
+“Why should I not marry him?” she asked of her own heart; and, with the
+utmost skill, she applied herself to the execution of her design; for
+the idea of being a duchess, with an income of two hundred thousand
+francs, was a most fascinating one. But how was she to meet Norbert? And
+how bring over the money-raking Duke to her side? Before, however, she
+could decide on any plan, she felt that she must see Norbert. He was
+pointed out to her one day at Mass, and she was struck by his beauty and
+by an ease of manner which even his shabby dress could not conceal. By
+the quick perception which many women possess, she dived into Norbert’s
+inmost soul; she felt that he had suffered, and her sympathy for him
+brought with it the dawn of love, and by the time she had left the
+chapel she had registered a solemn vow that she would one day be
+Norbert’s wife. But she did not acquaint her parents with this
+determination on her part, preferring to carry out her plans without
+any aid or advice. Mademoiselle Diana was shrewd and practical, and not
+likely to err from want of judgment. The frank and open expression of
+her features concealed a mind of superior calibre, and one which well
+knew how to weigh the advantages of social rank and position. She
+affected a sudden sympathy with the poor, and visited them constantly,
+and might be frequently met in the lanes carrying soup and other
+comforts to them. Her father declared, with a laugh, that she ought
+to have been a Sister of Charity, and did not notice the fact that all
+Diana’s pensioners resided in the vicinity of Champdoce. But it was
+in vain that she wandered about, continually changing the hour of her
+visits. The “Savage of Champdoce” was not to be seen, nor was he even
+a regular attendant at Mass. At last a mere trifle changed the whole
+current of the young man’s existence; for, a week after the conversation
+in which the Duke had laid bare his scheme to his son, he again referred
+to it, after their dinner, which they had partaken of at the same table
+with forty laborers, who had been hired to get in the harvest.
+
+“You need not, my son,” began the old gentleman, “go back with the
+laborers to-day.”
+
+“But, sir--”
+
+“Allow me to continue, if you please. My confidential conversation with
+you the other night was merely a preliminary to my telling you that
+for the future I did not expect you to toil as hard as you had hitherto
+done, for I wish you to perform a duty less laborious, but more
+responsible; you will for the future act as farm-bailiff.”
+
+Norbert looked up suddenly into his father’s face.
+
+“For I wish you to become accustomed to independent action, so that at
+my death your sudden liberty may not intoxicate you.”
+
+The Duke then rose from his seat, and took a highly finished gun from a
+cupboard.
+
+“I have been very much pleased with you for some time past,” said he,
+“and this is a sign of my satisfaction. The gamekeeper has brought in a
+thoroughly trained dog, which will also be yours. Shoot as much as you
+like, and, as you cannot go about without money in your pocket, take
+this, but be careful of it; for remember that extravagance on your part
+will procrastinate the day upon which our descendants will resume their
+proper station in the world.”
+
+The Duke spoke for some time longer, but his son paid no heed to his
+words, and was too much astonished to accept the six five-franc pieces
+which his father tendered to him.
+
+“I suppose,” said the Duke at last in angry accents, “that you will have
+the grace to thank me.”
+
+“You will find that I am not ungrateful,” stammered Norbert, aroused by
+this reproach.
+
+The Duke turned away impatiently.
+
+“What has the boy got into his head now?” muttered he.
+
+It was owing to the advice of the priest of Bevron that the Duke had
+acted as he had done; but this indulgence came too late, for Norbert’s
+detestation of his tyrant was too deeply buried in his heart to be
+easily eradicated.
+
+A gun was not such a wonderful present after all--a matter of a
+few francs, perhaps. Had the Duke offered him the means of a better
+education, it would be a different matter; but as it was, he would still
+remain the “Young Savage of Champdoce.”
+
+However, Norbert took advantage of the permission accorded to him, and
+rambled daily over the estate with his gun and his dog Bruno, to which
+he had become very much attached. His thoughts often wandered to Daumon;
+but he had made inquiries, and had heard that the Counsellor was a most
+dangerous man, who would stick at nothing; but for all that, he had
+made up his mind to go back to him again for further advice, though his
+better nature warned him of the precipice on the brink of which he was
+standing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION.
+
+Daumon was expecting a visit from the young man, and had been waiting
+for him with the cool complacency of a bird-catcher, who, having
+arranged all his lines and snares, stands with folded arms until his
+feathered victims fall into his net. The line that he had displayed
+before the young man’s eyes was the sight of liberty. Daumon had
+emissaries everywhere, and knew perfectly well what was going on at the
+Chateau de Champdoce, and could have repeated the exact words made use
+of by the Duke in his last conversation with his son, and was aware
+of the leave of liberty that had been granted to Norbert, and was as
+certain as possible that this small concession would only hasten the
+rebellion of the young Marquis.
+
+He often took his evening stroll in the direction of Champdoce, and,
+pipe in mouth, would meditate over his schemes. Pausing on the brow of a
+hill that overlooked the Chateau, he would shake his fist, and mutter,--
+
+“He will come; ah, yes, he must come to me!”
+
+And he was in the right, for, after a week spent in indecision, Norbert
+knocked at the door of his father’s bitterest enemy. Daumon, concealed
+behind the window curtain, had watched his approach, and it was with the
+same air of deference that he had welcomed the Marquis, as he took care
+to call him; but he affected to be so overcome by the honor of this
+visit that he could only falter out,--
+
+“Marquis, I am your most humble servant.”
+
+And Norbert, who had expected a very warm greeting, was much
+disconcerted. For a moment he thought of going away again, but his pride
+would not permit him to do so, for he had said to himself that it would
+be an act of a fool to go away this time without having accomplished
+anything.
+
+“I want to have a bit of advice from you, Counsellor,” said he; “for as
+I have but little experience in a certain matter, I should like to avail
+myself of your knowledge.”
+
+“You do me too much honor, Marquis,” murmured the Counsellor with a low
+bow.
+
+“But surely,” said the young man, “you must feel that you are bound to
+assist me after all you told me a day or two back. You mentioned two
+means by which I could regain my freedom, and hinted that there was a
+third one. I have come to you to-day to ask you what it was.”
+
+Never did any man more successfully assume an air of astonishment than
+did Daumon at this moment.
+
+“What,” said he, “do you absolutely remember those idle words I made use
+of then?”
+
+“I do most decidedly.”
+
+The villain’s heart of Daumon was filled with delight, but he replied,--
+
+“Oh, Marquis! you must remember that we say many things that really have
+no special meaning, for between act and intention there is a tremendous
+difference. I often speak too freely, and that has more than once got me
+into trouble.”
+
+Norbert was no fool, in spite of his want of education, and the hot
+blood of his ancestors coursed freely through his veins. He now struck
+the butt-end of his gun heavily upon the floor.
+
+“You treated me like a simpleton, then, it appears?” remarked he
+angrily.
+
+“My dear Marquis--”
+
+“And imagined that you could trifle with me. You managed to learn my
+real feelings for your own amusement; but, take care; this may cost you
+more than you think.”
+
+“Ah, Marquis, can you believe that I would act so basely?”
+
+“What else can I think?”
+
+Daumon paused for a moment, and then said,--
+
+“You will be angry when you hear what I have to say, but I cannot help
+speaking the truth.”
+
+“I shall not be angry, and you can speak freely.”
+
+“I am but a very poor and humble man. What have I to gain by securing
+any note, and by encouraging you to brave your father’s anger? Just
+think what must happen if I opposed the all-powerful Duke de Champdoce;
+why, I might find myself in prison in next to no time.”
+
+“And for what reason, if you please?” asked Norbert.
+
+“Have you never studied law in the slightest degree, Marquis? Dear me,
+how neglectful some parents are! You are not of age, and there is a
+certain article, 354 in the code, that could be so worked that a poor
+humble creature like me could be locked up for perhaps five years. The
+law deals very hardly when any one has dealings with a minor, the more
+especially when the father is a man of untold wealth. If the Duke should
+ever discover----”
+
+“But how could he ever do so?”
+
+Daumon made no reply, and his silence so plainly showed Norbert that the
+Counsellor did not trust him, that he repeated the question in an angry
+voice.
+
+“Your blind subservience to your father is too well known.”
+
+“You believe that I should confess everything to him?”
+
+“You yourself told me that when his eyes were fixed on yours you could
+not avoid yielding to his will.”
+
+Norbert’s anger gradually died away, as he replied in accents of intense
+bitterness,--
+
+“I may be a savage, but I am not likely to become a traitor. If I once
+promised to keep a secret, no measures or tortures would tear it from
+me. I may fear my father, but I am a Champdoce, and fear no other mortal
+man. Do you understand me?”
+
+“But, Marquis--”
+
+“No other mortal man,” interrupted Norbert sternly, “will ever know from
+me that we have ever exchanged words together.”
+
+An expression passed over the features of the Counsellor which cast a
+ray of hope upon the young man’s heart.
+
+“Upon my word,” said he, “any one would judge from my hesitation that
+I had some wrong motive in acting as I am doing, but I never give bad
+advice, and any one will tell you the same about me, and this is the
+breviary by which I regulate all my actions.”
+
+As he spoke, he took a book from his desk, and waved it aloft.
+
+Norbert looked puzzled and angry.
+
+“What do you mean?” asked he.
+
+“Nothing, Marquis, nothing; have patience; your majority is not far off,
+and you have only a few years to wait. Remember that your father is an
+old man; let him carry out his plan for a few years longer, and----”
+
+Norbert struck his fist savagely upon the table, crying out furiously.
+“It was not worth my coming here if this was all that you had to say;”
+ and, whistling to Bruno, the young man prepared to quit the room.
+
+“Ah, Marquis! you are far too hasty,” said the Counsellor humbly.
+
+Norbert paused. “Speak then,” answered he roughly.
+
+In a low, impressive voice, Daumon went on.
+
+“Remember, Marquis, that though I should like to see you have a better
+understanding with your father, yet, at the same time, I should like
+to work for the happiness of you both. I am like a judge in court, who
+endeavors to bring about a compromise between the litigants. Can you
+not, while affecting perfect submission, live in a manner more suited
+to you? There are many young men of your age in a precisely similar
+position.”
+
+Norbert took a step forward and began to listen earnestly.
+
+“You have more liberty now,” continued Daumon. “Pray, does your father
+know how you employ your time?”
+
+“He knows that I can do nothing but shoot.”
+
+“Well, I know what I would do if I were your age.”
+
+“And what would that be?”
+
+“First of all, I would stay at home sufficiently often not to arouse
+papa’s suspicions, and the rest of my leisure I would spend in Poitiers,
+which is a very pleasant town. I could take nice rooms in which I could
+be my own master. At Champdoce I could keep to my peasant’s clothes, but
+in Poitiers I would be dressed by the best tailor. I should pick up
+a few boon companions amongst the jolly students, and have plenty of
+friends, ladies as well as gentlemen. I would dance, sing, and drink,
+and would dip into every kind of life, so that----”
+
+He paused for a second and then said, “There ought to be a fast horse or
+so in your father’s stables, eh? Well then, if there are, why not take
+one for your own riding? Then at night, when you are supposed to be
+snug between the sheets, creep down to the stable, clap a bridle on
+the horse, and, hey, presto! you are in Poitiers. Put on the clothes
+suitable to the handsome young noble you are, and have a joyous carouse
+with your many companions; and if you do, next day, not choose to go
+back until the morning, the servants will only tell your father that you
+are out shooting.”
+
+Norbert was a thoroughly strong, honest youth, and the idea of meanness
+and duplicity were most repugnant to his feelings in general; and yet he
+listened eagerly to this proposition, for oppression had utterly changed
+his nature. The career of dissipation and pleasure proposed so adroitly
+by Daumon dazzled his imagination and his eyes began to sparkle.
+
+“Well,” asked the Counsellor invidiously, “and, pray, what is there to
+prevent you doing all this?”
+
+“Want of funds,” returned Norbert, with a deep sigh; “I should want a
+great deal, and I have hardly any; if I were to ask my father for any,
+he would refuse me, and wonder----”
+
+“Have you no friends who would find you such a sum as you would require
+until you came of age?”
+
+“None at all;” and, overwhelmed with the sense of his utter
+helplessness, Norbert sank back upon a chair.
+
+After a brief period of reflection, Daumon spoke with apparent
+reluctance,--
+
+“No, Marquis, I cannot see you so miserably unhappy without doing my
+best to help you. A man is a fool who puts out his hand to interfere
+between father and son, but I will find money to lend you what you
+want.”
+
+“Will you do so, Counsellor?”
+
+“Unluckily I cannot, I am only a poor fellow, but some of the
+neighboring farmers intrust me with their savings for investment. Why
+should I not use them to make you comfortable and happy?”
+
+Norbert was almost choked with emotion. “Can this be done?” asked he
+eagerly.
+
+“Yes, Marquis; but you understand that you will have to pay very heavy
+interest on account of the risk incurred in lending money to a minor.
+For the law does not recognize such transactions, and I myself do not
+like them. If I were in your place, I would not borrow money on these
+terms, but wait until some friend could help me.”
+
+“I have no friends,” again answered the young man.
+
+Daumon shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who says: “Well, I
+suppose I must give in, but at any rate I have done my duty.” Then
+he began aloud, “I am perfectly aware, Marquis, that, considering the
+wealth that must one day be yours, this transaction is a most paltry
+one.”
+
+He then went on to enumerate the conditions of the loan, and at each
+clause he would stop and say, “Do you understand this?”
+
+Norbert understood him so well that at the end of the conversation,
+in exchange for the thousand francs, he handed to the Counsellor the
+promissory notes for four thousand francs each, which were made payable
+to two farmers, who were entirely in Daumon’s clutches. The young
+man, in addition, pledged his solemn word of honor that he would never
+disclose that the Counsellor had anything to do with the transaction.
+
+“Remember, Marquis, prudence must be strictly observed. Come here to me
+only after the night has set in.”
+
+This was the last piece of advice that Daumon gave his client; and
+when he was again left alone, he perused with feelings of intense
+gratification, the two notes that Norbert had signed. They were entirely
+correct and binding, and drawn up in proper legal form. He had made up
+his mind to let the young man have all his savings, amounting to some
+forty thousand francs, and not to press for payment until the young man
+come into his fortune.
+
+All this, however, hinged upon Norbert’s silence and discretion, for, at
+the first inkling of the matter, the Duke would scatter all the edifice
+to the winds; but of this happening Daumon had no fear.
+
+As Norbert walked along, followed by his dog, he could not resist
+putting his hands into his pockets and fingering the tempting, crisp
+banknotes which lurked there, and making sure that it was a reality and
+not a dream. That night seemed interminable; and the next morning, with
+his gun on his shoulder and his dog at his heels, he walked briskly
+along the road to Poitiers. He had determined to follow Daumon’s
+advice,--to have suitable rooms, and to make the acquaintance of some of
+the students. On his arrival at Poitiers, which he had only once before
+visited, Norbert felt like a half-fledged bird who knows not how to use
+its wings. He wandered about the streets, not knowing how to commence
+what he wanted. Finally, after a sojourn in the town of a very brief
+duration, he went to the inn where he had breakfasted with his father
+on his former visit, and, after an unsatisfactory meal, returned to
+Champdoce, as wretched as he had been joyful and hopeful at his early
+start in the morning. But later on he went to Daumon, who put him
+in communication with a friend who, for a commission, took the
+unsophisticated lad about, hired some furnished rooms, and finally
+introduced him to the best ladies in the town, while Norbert ordered
+clothes to the tune of five hundred francs. He now thought himself on
+the high road to the full gratification of his desires; but, alas! the
+reality, compared with what his imagination had pictured, appeared rank
+and chilling. His timidity and shyness arrested all his progress; he
+required an intimate friend, and where could he hit upon one?
+
+One evening he entered the Café Castille. He found a large number of
+students collected there, and was a little disgusted at their turbulent
+gayety, and, hastily withdrawing, he spent the rest of the weary
+evening in his own rooms with Bruno, who, for his part, would have much
+preferred the open country. He had really only enjoyed the four evenings
+on which he had visited the Martre; but these limited hours of happiness
+did not make up for the web of falsehood in which he had enmeshed
+himself, or the daily dread of detection in which he lived.
+
+The Duke had noticed his son’s absence, but his suspicions were very
+wide of the truth. One morning he laughed at Norbert on the continued
+non-success of his shooting.
+
+“Do your best to-day, my boy,” said he, “and try and bring home some
+game, for we shall have a guest to dinner.”
+
+“To dinner, here?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the Duke suppressing a smile. “Yes, actually here; M.
+Puymandour is coming, and the dining-room must be opened and put into
+proper order.”
+
+“I will try and kill some game,” answered Norbert to himself as he
+started on his errand.
+
+This, however, was more easily resolved on than executed. At last he
+caught sight of an impudent rabbit near a hedge; he raised his gun and
+fired. A shriek of anguish followed the report, and Bruno dashed into
+the hedge, barking furiously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A BAD START.
+
+Diana de Laurebourg was a strange compound; under an appearance of the
+most artless simplicity she concealed an iron will, and had hidden from
+every one of her family, and even from her most intimate friends, her
+firm resolve to become the Duchess of Champdoce. All her rambles in the
+neighborhood had turned out of no avail; and as the weather was now very
+uncertain, it seemed as if her long strolls in the country roads and
+fields would soon come to an end. “The day must eventually come,”
+ murmured she, “when this invisible prince must make his appearance.” And
+at last the long-expected day arrived.
+
+It was in the middle of the month of November, and the weather was
+exceedingly soft and balmy for the time of year. The sky was blue,
+the few remaining leaves rustled on the trees, and an occasional bird
+whistled in the hedgerows. Diana de Laurebourg was walking slowly along
+the path leading to Mussidan, when all at once she heard a rustling of
+branches. She turned round sharply, and all the blood in her body seemed
+to rush suddenly to her heart, for through an opening in the hedge she
+caught sight of the man who for the past two months had occupied all
+her waking thoughts. Norbert was waiting for something with all the
+eagerness of a sportsman, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
+
+Here was the opportunity for which she had waited so long, and with such
+ill-concealed impatience; and yet she could derive no advantage from it,
+for what would happen? Simply this: Norbert would bow to her, and she
+would reply with a slight inclination of her head, and perhaps two
+months might pass away before she met him again. Just as she was about
+to take some bold and decisive step she saw Norbert raise his gun and
+point it in her direction. She endeavored to call out to him, but her
+voice failed her, and in another moment the report rang out, and she
+felt a sharp pang, like the touch of a red-hot iron upon her ankle. With
+a wild shriek she threw up her arms and fell upon the pathway. She did
+not lose her senses, for she heard a cry in response to her own, and the
+crashing of something forcing its way through the hedge. Then she felt
+a hot breath upon her face, and then something cold and wet touched her
+cheek. She opened her eyes languidly, and saw Bruno licking her face and
+hands.
+
+At the same moment Norbert dashed through the hedge and stood before
+her. At once she realized the advantage of her position and closed her
+eyes once more. Norbert, as he hung over the seemingly unconscious form
+of this fair young creature, felt that his senses were deserting him,
+for he greatly feared that he had killed Mademoiselle de Laurebourg. His
+first impulse was to fly precipitately, and his second to give what
+aid he could to his victim. He knelt down by her, and, to his infinite
+relief, found that life was not extinct. He raised her beautiful head.
+
+“Speak to me, mademoiselle, I entreat you,” cried he.
+
+All this time Diana was returning thanks to kind Providence for the
+fulfillment of her wishes. After a time she made a slight move, and
+Norbert uttered an exclamation of joy. Then, opening her beautiful eyes,
+she gazed upon the young man with the air of a person just awaking from
+a dream.
+
+“It is I,” faltered the distracted young man. “Norbert de Champdoce. But
+forgive me, and tell me if you are in pain?”
+
+Pity came over the wounded girl. She gently drew herself away from the
+arm that encircled her, and said softly,--
+
+“It is I who ought to apologize for my foolish weakness; for I am really
+more frightened than hurt.”
+
+Norbert felt that heaven had opened before his very eyes. “Let me go for
+help,” exclaimed he.
+
+“No, no; it was a mere scratch.” And, raising her skirt, she displayed a
+foot that might have turned a steadier head than Norbert’s. “See,” said
+she, “it is there that I am in pain.”
+
+And she pointed to a spot of blood upon the delicate white stocking. At
+the sight of this the young man’s terror increased, and he started to
+his feet.
+
+“Let me run to the Chateau,” said he, “and in less than an hour--”
+
+“Do nothing of the kind,” interrupted the girl; “it is a mere nothing.
+Look, I can move my foot with ease.”
+
+“But let me entreat you--”
+
+“Hush! we shall soon see what it is that has happened.” And she
+inspected what she laughingly termed his terrible wound.
+
+It was, as she had supposed, a mere nothing. One pellet had grazed the
+skin, another had lodged in the flesh, but it was quite on the surface.
+
+“A surgeon must see to this,” said Norbert.
+
+“No, no.” And with the point of a penknife she pulled out the little
+leaden shot. The young man remained still, holding his breath, as a
+child does when he is putting the topmost story on a house of cards. He
+had never heard so soft a voice, never gazed on so perfectly lovely a
+face. In the meantime Diana had torn up her handkerchief and bandaged
+the wound. “Now that is over,” exclaimed she, with a light laugh, as she
+extended her slender fingers to Norbert, so that he might assist her to
+rise.
+
+As soon as she was on her feet, she took a few steps with the prettiest
+limp imaginable.
+
+“Are you in pain?” said he anxiously.
+
+“No, I am not indeed; and by this evening I shall have forgotten all
+about it. But confess, Marquis,” she added, with a coquettish laugh,
+“that this is a droll way of making an acquaintance.”
+
+Norbert started at the word Marquis, for no one but Daumon had ever
+addressed him thus.
+
+“She does not despise me,” thought he.
+
+“This little incident will be a lesson to me,” continued she. “Mamma
+always has told me to keep to the highroad; but I preferred the by-paths
+because of the lovely scenery.”
+
+Norbert, for the first time in his life, realized that the view was a
+beautiful one.
+
+“I am this way nearly every day,” pursued Diana, “though I am very
+wicked to disobey my mother. I go to see poor La Berven. She is dying of
+consumption, poor thing, and I take her a little soup and wine every now
+and then.”
+
+She spoke like a real Sister of Mercy, and, in Norbert’s opinion, wings
+only were lacking to transform her into a perfect angel.
+
+“The poor woman has three children, and their father does nothing for
+them, for he drinks what he earns,” the young girl went on.
+
+Berven was one of the identical men to whom Norbert had given his
+promissory note for four thousand francs, for he was one of the two
+men who had intrusted Daumon with their savings for investment; but
+the young man was not in a condition to notice this. Diana had meantime
+slung her basket on her arm.
+
+“Before I leave you to-day,” said she, “I should so much like to ask a
+favor of you.”
+
+“A favor of me, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Yes; oblige me by saying nothing of what has occurred to-day to any
+one; for should it come to my parents’ ears, they would undoubtedly
+deprive me of the little liberty that they now grant me.”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” answered Norbert, “be sure that I will never mention the
+terrible accident that my awkwardness has caused.”
+
+“Thank you, Marquis,” answered the girl, with a half-mocking courtesy.
+“Another time let me advise you, before you shoot, to look that no one
+is behind a hedge.”
+
+With these words she tripped away, without her tiny feet showing any
+signs of lameness. She had read Norbert’s heart like the pages of a
+book, and felt that there was every chance of her winning the game. “I
+am sure of it now,” said she; “I shall be the Duchess of Champdoce.” How
+grateful she felt for that untimely shot! And she felt sure that Norbert
+had understood what she meant when she had said that she went along that
+path. She felt certain that the young man had not lost one word. She
+believed that the only opposition would come from his father. As she
+looked round for a moment, she saw Norbert standing fixed and motionless
+as the trees around him.
+
+After Diana had departed, the unhappy lad felt as if she had taken
+half his life with her. Was it all a dream? He knelt down, and, after
+a slight search, discovered the little pellet, the cause of all the
+mischief; and, taking it up carefully, returned home. To his extreme
+surprise, he found the main gateway wide open, and from a window he
+heard his father’s voice calling out in kindly accents,--
+
+“Come up quickly, my boy, for our guest has arrived.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE COUNT DE PUYMANDOUR.
+
+Since the death of the Duchess of Champdoce the greater portion of the
+Chateau had been closed, but the reception rooms were always ready to be
+used at a very short notice.
+
+The dining-room was a really magnificent apartment. There were massive
+buffets of carved oak, black with age, ornamented with brass mountings.
+The shelves groaned beneath their load of goblets and salvers of the
+brightest silver, engraved with the haughty armorial bearings of the
+house of Champdoce.
+
+Standing near one of the windows, Norbert saw a man, stout, robust, bald
+and red-faced, wearing a mustache and slight beard. His clothes were
+evidently made by a first-rate tailor, but his appearance was utterly
+commonplace.
+
+“This is my son,” said the Duke, “the Marquis de Champdoce. Marquis, let
+me introduce you to the Count de Puymandour.”
+
+This was the first time that his father had ever addressed Norbert by
+his title, and he was greatly surprised. The great clock in the outer
+hall, which had not been going for fifteen years, now struck, and
+instantly a butler appeared, bearing a massive silver soup tureen, which
+he placed on the table, announcing solemnly that his Grace was served,
+and the little party at once seated themselves. A dinner in such a vast
+chamber would have been rather dull had it not been enlivened by the
+amusing tales and witty anecdotes of the Count de Puymandour, which he
+narrated in a jovial but rather vulgar manner, seasoned with bursts of
+laughter. He ate with an excellent appetite, and praised the quality of
+the wine, which the Duke himself had chosen from the cellar, which he
+had filled with an immense stock for the benefit of his descendants.
+The Duke, who was generally so silent and morose, smiled buoyantly, and
+appeared to enjoy the pleasantries of his guest. Was this only the duty
+of the host, or did his geniality conceal some hidden scheme? Norbert
+was utterly unable to settle this question, for though not gifted with
+much penetration, he had studied his father’s every look as a slave
+studies his master, and knew exactly what annoyed and what pleased him.
+
+The Count de Puymandour lived in a magnificent house, with his daughter
+Marie, about three miles from Champdoce, and he was exceedingly fond of
+entertaining; but the gentry, who did not for a moment decline to accept
+his grand dinners, did not hesitate to say that Puymandour was a thief
+and a rogue. Had he been convicted of larceny, he could not have been
+spoken of with more disdainful contempt. But he was very wealthy,
+and possessed at least five millions of francs. Of course this was an
+excellent reason for hating him, but the fact was, that Puymandour was
+a very worthy man, and had made his money by speculation in wool on the
+Spanish frontier. For a long period he had lived happy and respected
+in his native town of Orthez, when all at once he was tempted by the
+thought of titular rank, and from that time his life was one long
+misery. He took the name of one of his estates, he bought his title in
+Italy, and ordered his coat-of-arms from a heraldic agent in Paris, and
+now his ambition was to be treated as a real nobleman. The mere fact of
+dining with the eccentric Duke de Champdoce, who never invited any one
+to his table, was to him, as it were, a real patent of nobility.
+
+At ten o’clock he rose and declared he must leave, and the Duke escorted
+him the length of the avenue to the great gates opening on the main
+road, and Norbert, who walked a few paces in the rear, caught now and
+then a few words of their conversation.
+
+“Yes,” remarked Puymandour, “I will give a million down.”
+
+Then came a few words from the Duke, of which Norbert could only catch
+the words, “thousands and millions.”
+
+He paid, however, but little attention, for his mind was many miles
+away. Since the unlooked-for meeting with that fair young face, he had
+thought of nothing else, and he mechanically shook hands with, and bade
+his guest “Good-night” when his father did.
+
+When the Duke was sure that M. de Puymandour could not hear his voice,
+he took his son by the arm, and the bitterness of feeling which he had
+so long repressed burst forth in words.
+
+“This,” said he, “is a specimen of the mushroom aristocracy that has
+sprung up, and not a bad sample either; for though he is puffed up by
+ridiculous vanity, the man is shrewd and intelligent enough, and his
+descendants, who will have the advantages of a better education than
+their progenitors, will form a new class, with more wealth and as much
+influence as the old one.”
+
+For more than an hour the Duke de Champdoce enlarged on his favorite
+topic; but he might as well have been alone, for his son paid no
+attention to what he said, for his mind was still dwelling upon his
+adventures of the morning. Again that sweet, soft laugh, and that
+modulated voice rang in his ears. How foolish he must have seemed to
+her! and what a ridiculous figure he must have cut in her eyes! He had
+by no means omitted to engrave on the tablet of his memory the fact that
+Diana passed daily down the little path on her errand of bounty, and
+that there he had the chance of again seeing her. He fancied that he
+had so much to say to her; but as he found that his bashfulness would
+deprive him of the power of utterance, he determined to commit his
+sentiments to paper. That night he composed and destroyed some fifty
+letters. He did not dare to say openly, “I love you,” and yet that was
+exactly what he wanted to express, and he strove, but in vain, to
+find words which would veil its abruptness and yet disclose the whole
+strength of his feelings. At last, however, one of his efforts satisfied
+him. Rising early, he snatched up his gun, and whistling to Bruno, made
+his way to the spot where he had the day before seen Diana stretched
+upon the ground. But he waited in vain, and hour after hour passed away,
+as he paced up and down in an agony of suspense. Diana did not come. The
+young lady had considered her plans thoroughly and kept away. The next
+day he might have been again disappointed but for a lucky circumstance.
+Norbert was seated on the turf, awaiting with fond expectation the young
+girl’s approach and as Diana passed the opening to the pathway Bruno
+scented her, and rushed forward with a joyous bark. She had then no
+option but to walk up to the spot where Norbert was seated. Both the
+young people were for the moment equally embarrassed, and Norbert stood
+silent, holding in his hand the letter which had caused him so much
+labor to indite.
+
+“I have ventured to wait for you here, mademoiselle,” said he in a voice
+which trembled with suppressed emotion, “because I was full of anxiety
+to know how you have been. How did you contrive to return home with your
+wounded foot?”
+
+He paused, awaiting a word of encouragement, but the girl made no reply,
+and he continued,--
+
+“I was tempted to call and make inquiries at your father’s house, but
+you had forbidden me to speak of the accident, and I did not dare to
+disobey you.”
+
+“I thank you sincerely,” faltered Diana.
+
+“Yesterday,” the young man went on, “I passed the whole day here. Are
+you angry with me for my stupidity? I had thought that perhaps you had
+noticed my anxiety, and might have deigned to----”
+
+He stopped short, terrified at his own audacity.
+
+“Yesterday,” returned Diana with the most ingenuous air in the world,
+and not appearing to perceive the young man’s embarrassment, “I was
+detained at home by my mother.”
+
+“Yes,” replied he, “for the past two days your form, lying senseless and
+bleeding on the ground, has ever been before my eyes, for I felt as if I
+were a murderer. I shall always see your pale, white face, and how,
+when I raised up your head it rested on my arm for a moment, and all the
+rapture--”
+
+“You must not talk like that, Marquis,” interrupted Diana, but she spoke
+in such a low tone that Norbert did not hear her and went on,--
+
+“When I saw you yesterday my feelings so overpowered me that I could not
+put them into words; but as soon as you had left me, it appeared as if
+all grew dark around me, and throwing myself on my knees, I searched
+for the tiny leaden pellet that might have caused your death. I at last
+found it, and no treasure upon earth will ever be more prized by me.”
+
+To avoid showing the gleam of joy that flashed from her eyes, Diana was
+compelled to turn her head on one side.
+
+“Forgive me, mademoiselle,” said Norbert, in despair, as he noticed this
+movement; “forgive me if I have offended you. Could you but know how
+dreary my past life has been, you would pardon me. It seemed to me,
+the very moment that I saw you, I had found a woman who would feel some
+slight interest in me, and that for her sweet compassion I would devote
+my whole life to her. But now I see how mad and foolish I have been, and
+I am plunged into the depths ‘of despair.’”
+
+She accompanied these words with a glance sufficiently tender to restore
+all Norbert’s courage.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” said he; “do not trifle with me, for that would be
+too cruel.”
+
+She let her head droop on her bosom, and, falling upon his knees, he
+poured a stream of impassioned kisses upon her hands. Diana felt herself
+swept away by this stream of passion; she gasped, and her fingers
+trembled, as she found that she was trapped in the same snare that she
+had set for another. Her reason warned her that she must bring this
+dangerous interview to a conclusion.
+
+“I am forgetting all about my poor pensioners,” said she.
+
+“Ah, if I might but accompany you!”
+
+“And so you may, but you must walk fast.”
+
+It is quite true that great events spring from very trivial sources; and
+had Diana gone to visit La Besson, Norbert might have heard something
+concerning Daumon that would have put him on his guard; but,
+unfortunately, to-day Diana was bound on a visit to an old woman in
+another part of the parish.
+
+Norbert looked on whilst this fair young creature busied herself in her
+work of charity, and then he silently placed two louis from the money
+he had borrowed, on the table, and left the cottage. Diana followed
+him, and, laying her finger upon her lips with the significant word
+“to-morrow,” turned down the path that led to her father’s house.
+Norbert could hardly believe his senses when he found himself again
+alone. Yes, this lovely girl had almost confessed her affection for
+him, and he was ready to pour out his life blood for her. He tore up the
+letter which had cost him so much trouble to compose, for he felt
+that he could make no use of it. He had now no anxieties regarding the
+future, and he thanked Providence for having caused him to meet Diana
+de Laurebourg. It never entered his brain that this apparently frank and
+open-hearted girl had materially furthered the acts of Providence. At
+supper that night he was so gay, and in such excellent spirits, that
+even his father’s attention was at last attracted.
+
+“I would lay a wager, my boy,” remarked the Duke, “that you have had a
+good day’s sport.”
+
+“You would win your wager,” answered the young man boldly.
+
+His father did not pursue the subject; but as Norbert felt that he must
+give some color to his assertion, he stopped the next day, and purchased
+some quails and a hare. He waited fully half an hour for Diana; and when
+she did appear, her pale face and the dark marks under her eyes showed
+that anxiety had caused her to pass a sleepless night.
+
+No sooner had she parted from Norbert than she saw the risk that she was
+running by her imprudent conduct. She was endangering her whole future
+and her reputation,--all indeed that is most precious to a young girl.
+For an instant the thought of confiding all to her parents entered her
+brain; but she rejected the idea almost as soon as she had conceived it,
+for she felt that her father would believe that the parsimonious Duke
+de Champdoce would never consent to such a marriage, and that her entire
+liberty would be taken from her, and that she might even be sent back to
+the convent.
+
+“I cannot stop now,” she murmured, “and must be content to run all risks
+to effect an object in which I am now doubly interested.”
+
+Diana and Norbert had a long conversation together on this day in a spot
+which had become so dear to them both, and it was only the approach of a
+peasant that recalled the girl to the sense of her rash imprudence, and
+she insisted on going on her ostensible errand of charity. Norbert, as
+before, escorted her, and even went so far as to offer his arm, upon
+which she pressed when the road was steep or uneven.
+
+These meetings took place daily, and after a few short minutes spent in
+conversation, the young lovers would set off on a ramble. More than once
+they were met by the villagers, and a little scandal began to arise.
+This was very imprudent on Diana’s side; but it had been a part of her
+plan to permit her actions to be talked of by the tongue of scandal.
+Unfortunately the end of November was approaching, and the weather
+growing extremely cold. One morning, as Norbert arose from his couch, he
+found that a sharp icy blast was swaying the bare branches of the trees,
+and that the rain was descending in torrents. On such a day as this
+he knew that it was vain to expect Diana, and, with his heart full of
+sadness, he took up a book and sat himself down by the huge fire that
+blazed in the great hall.
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg had, however, gone out, but it was in a
+carriage, and she had driven to a cottage to see a poor woman who had
+broken her leg, and who had nothing but the scanty earnings of her
+daughter Francoise upon which to exist. As soon as Diana entered the
+cottage she saw that something had gone wrong.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked she.
+
+The poor creature, with garrulous volubility, exhibited a summons which
+she had just received, and said that she owed three hundred francs, and
+that as she could no longer pay the interest, she had been summoned,
+and that her little property would be seized, and so a finishing stroke
+would be put to her troubles.
+
+“It is the Counsellor,” said she, “that rogue Daumon, who has done all
+this.”
+
+The poor woman went on to say that when she went to her creditor to
+implore a little delay, he had scoffingly told her to send her pretty
+daughter to him to plead her cause.
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was disgusted at this narrative, and her eyes
+gleamed with anger.
+
+“I will see this wicked man,” said she, “and will come back to you at
+once.”
+
+She drove straight to the Counsellor’s house. Daumon was engaged in
+writing when the housekeeper ushered Diana into the office. He rose to
+his feet, and, taking off his velvet skull cap, made a profound bow,
+advancing at the same time a chair for his visitor’s accommodation.
+
+Though Diana knew nothing of this man, she was not so unsophisticated as
+Norbert, and was not imposed upon by the air of servile obsequiousness
+that he assumed. With a gesture of contempt, she declined the proffered
+seat, and this act made Daumon her bitter enemy.
+
+“I have come,” said she in the cold, disdainful words in which young
+girls of high birth address their inferiors,--“I have come to you from
+Widow Rouleau.”
+
+“Ah! you know the poor creature then?”
+
+“Yes, and I take a great interest in her.”
+
+“You are a very kind young lady,” answered the Counsellor with a
+sinister smile.
+
+“The poor woman is in the most terrible distress both of mind and body.
+She is confined to her bed with a fractured limb, and without any means
+of support.”
+
+“Yes, I heard of her accident.”
+
+“And yet you sent her a summons, and are ready to seize all she
+possesses in the world.”
+
+Daumon put on an air of sympathy.
+
+“Poor thing!” said he. “How true it is that misfortunes never come
+singly!”
+
+Diana was disgusted at the man’s cool effrontery.
+
+“It seems to me,” answered she, “that her last trouble is of your
+making.”
+
+“Is it possible?”
+
+“Why, who is it but you who are the persecutor of this poor lone
+creature?”
+
+“I!” answered he in extreme astonishment; “do you really think that
+it is I? Ah! mademoiselle, why do you listen to the cruel tongues of
+scandal-mongers? To make a long story short, this poor woman bought
+barley, corn, potatoes, and three sheep from a man in the neighborhood,
+who gave her credit to the extent of I daresay three hundred francs.
+Well, in time, the man asked--most naturally--for his money, and failing
+to get it, came to me. I urged him to wait, but he would not listen to
+me, and vowed that if I did not do as he wished he would go to some one
+else. What was I to do? He had the law on his side too. Ah!” continued
+he, as though speaking to himself, “if I could only see a way of getting
+this poor creature out of her trouble! But that cannot be done without
+money.”
+
+He opened a drawer and pulled out about fifty francs.
+
+“This is all my worldly wealth,” said he sadly. “But how foolish I am!
+For, of course, when poor Widow Rouleau has a wealthy young lady to take
+an interest in her, she must have no further fear.”
+
+“I will speak to my father on the matter,” answered Diana in a voice
+which showed that she had but little hope of interesting him in the
+widow’s misfortunes.
+
+Daumon’s face fell.
+
+“You will go to the Marquis de Laurebourg?” asked he. “Now, if you
+would take my advice, I should say, go to some intimate friend,--to the
+Marquis de Champdoce, for instance. I know,” he went on, “that the Duke
+does not make his son a very handsome allowance; but the young gentleman
+will find no difficulty in raising whatever he may desire--as it will
+not be long before he is of age--without counting his marriage, which
+will put an enormous sum at his disposal even before that.”
+
+Diana fell in an instant into the trap the wily Daumon had laid for her.
+
+“A marriage!” exclaimed she.
+
+“I know very little about it; only I know that if the young man wishes
+to marry without his father’s consent, he will have to wait at least
+five years.”
+
+“Five years?”
+
+“Yes; the law requires that a young man who marries against his father’s
+desire should be twenty-five years of age.”
+
+This last stroke was so totally unexpected, that the girl lost her head.
+
+“Impossible!” cried she. “Are you not making a mistake?”
+
+The Counsellor gave a quiet smile of triumph.
+
+“I am not mistaken,” said he, and calmly pointed out in the code the
+provision to which he had alluded. As Diana read the passage to which
+his finger pointed, he watched her as a cat watches a mouse.
+
+“After all, what does it matter to me?” remarked Diana, making an effort
+to recover herself. “I will speak about this poor woman’s case to my
+father;” and, with her limbs bending under her, she left the room.
+
+As Daumon returned from accompanying her to the door, the Counsellor
+rubbed his hands.
+
+“Things are getting decidedly warm,” muttered he.
+
+He felt that he must gain some further information, and this he could
+not get from Norbert. It would be also as well, he thought, to tell the
+sheriff to stay proceedings relative to the Widow Rouleau. By this means
+he might secure another interview with Mademoiselle de Laurebourg, and
+perhaps win the poor girl’s confidence.
+
+As Diana rode home, she abandoned herself to the grief which the
+intelligence that she had just heard had caused her, for the foresight
+of the framers of the law had rendered all her deeply laid plans of no
+avail.
+
+“The Duke of Champdoce,” murmured she to herself, “will never consent to
+his son’s marriage with so scantily a dowered woman as I am; but as
+soon as Norbert is of age he can marry me, in spite of all his father’s
+opposition; but, oh! ‘tis a dreary time to wait.”
+
+For a moment she dared to think of the possible death of the old man;
+but she shuddered as she remembered how strong and healthy he was,
+and felt that the frail edifice of her hope had been crushed into ten
+thousand atoms. For all this, however, she did not lose courage. She was
+not one of those women who, at the first check, beat a retreat. She had
+not yet decided upon a fresh point of departure, but she had fully made
+up her mind that she would gain the victory. The first thing was to see
+Norbert with as little delay as possible. Just then the carriage pulled
+up at the widow’s cottage, which she entered hastily.
+
+“I have seen Daumon,” said she. “Do not be alarmed; all matters will be
+arranged shortly.”
+
+Then, without listening to the thanks and blessings which the poor woman
+showered upon her, she said,--
+
+“Give me a piece of paper to write on,” and, standing near the casement,
+she wrote in pencil on a soiled scrap of paper the following words:--
+
+“Diana would, perhaps, have been at the usual meeting place to-day, in
+spite of the weather, had she not been compelled to visit a poor woman
+in a contrary direction. Upon the same business, she will have to call
+to-morrow at the house of a man called Daumon.”
+
+She folded the note and said,--
+
+“This letter must be taken at once to M. Norbert de Champdoce. Who will
+carry it?”
+
+Francoise had made a smock frock for one of the farm servants at
+Champdoce, and the delivery of it formed a good excuse for going up to
+the Chateau, and she willingly undertook the errand.
+
+The next day, in the midst of a heavy shower of rain, Norbert made his
+appearance at Daumon’s office, saying, as a pretext for his visit, that
+he had exhausted his stock of money, and required a fresh supply. He too
+was feeling very unhappy, for he feared that this father might entertain
+matrimonial designs for him which would be utterly opposed to his
+passion for Mademoiselle de Laurebourg.
+
+Had not the inexorable old man once said, “You will marry a woman of
+wealth?” But in the event of this matter being brought up, Norbert swore
+that he would no longer be obedient, but would resist to the last; and
+he calculated on receiving assistance from Daumon. He was on the point
+of referring to this matter, when a carriage drew up at the door of the
+cottage, and Mademoiselle de Laurebourg descended from it. Daumon at
+once saw how matters stood, and wasted no time in addressing Diana.
+
+“The sheriff will stop proceedings,” said he. “I can show you his letter
+to that effect.”
+
+He turned away, and searched as diligently for the letter as if it had
+existed anywhere except in his own imagination.
+
+“Dear me,” said he at length. “I cannot find it. I must have left it in
+the other room. I have so much to do, that really there are times when
+I forget everything. I must find it, however. Excuse me, I will be back
+immediately.”
+
+His sudden departure from the room had been a mere matter of
+calculation; for, guessing that an assignation had been planned,
+he thought that he might know what took place at it by a little
+eavesdropping. He therefore applied first his ear and then his eye to
+the keyhole, and by these means acquired all the information he desired.
+
+A moment of privacy with the object of his affections seemed to Norbert
+an inestimable boon. When Diana had first entered, he was horrified at
+the terrible alteration that had taken place in the expression of her
+face. He seized her hand, which she made no effort to withdraw, and
+gazed fixedly into her eyes.
+
+“Tell me,” murmured he in accents of love and tenderness, “what it is
+that has gone wrong.”
+
+Diana sighed, then a tear coursed slowly down her cheek. Norbert was in
+the deepest despair at these signs of grief.
+
+“Great heavens!” cried he. “Will you not trust me? Am not I your truest
+and most devoted friend?”
+
+At first she refused to answer him, but at length she yielded to
+his entreaties, and confessed that the evening before her father had
+informed her that a young man had sought her hand in marriage, and one
+who was a perfectly eligible suitor.
+
+Norbert listened to this avowal, trembling from head to foot, with a
+sudden access of jealousy.
+
+“And did you make no objections?” asked he.
+
+“How could I?” retorted she. “What can a girl do in opposition to the
+will of all her family, when she has to choose between the alternative
+that she loathes, or a life-long seclusion in a convent?”
+
+Daumon shook with laughter, as he kept his ear closely to the keyhole.
+
+“Good business,” muttered he. “Not so bad. Here’s a little girl from a
+convent. She has a clever brain and a glib tongue, and under my tuition
+would be a perfect wonder. If this country booby does not make an open
+declaration at once, I wonder what her next move will be?”
+
+“And you hesitated,” said Norbert reproachfully. “Remember you may
+escape from the walls of the convent, but not from the bonds of an
+ill-assorted marriage.”
+
+Diana, who looked more beautiful than ever in her despair, wrung her
+hands.
+
+“What reason can I give to my father for declining this offer?” said
+she. “Every one knows that I am almost portionless, and that I am
+sacrificed to my brother, immolated upon the altar erected before the
+cruel idol of family pride; and how dare I refuse a suitable offer when
+one is made for my hand?”
+
+“Have you forgotten me?” cried Norbert. “Have you no love for me?
+
+“Ah, my poor friend, you are no more free than I am.”
+
+“Then you look on me as a mere weak boy?” asked he, biting his lips.
+
+“Your father is very powerful,” answered she in tones of the deepest
+resignation; “his determination is inflexible, and his will inexorable.
+You are completely in his power.”
+
+“What do I care for my father?” cried the young man fiercely. “Am not
+I a Champdoce too? Woe be to any one, father or stranger, who comes
+between me and the woman I love devotedly; for I do love you, Diana, and
+no mortal man shall take you from me.”
+
+He clasped Diana to his breast, and pressed a loving kiss upon her lips.
+
+“Aha,” muttered Daumon, who had lost nothing from his post of espial,
+“this is worth fifty thousand francs at least to me.”
+
+For a moment Diana remained clasped in her lover’s embrace, and then,
+with a faint cry, released herself from him. She then felt that she
+loved him, and his kiss and caresses sent a thrill like liquid fire
+through her veins. She was half pleased and half terrified. She feared
+him, but she feared herself more.
+
+“What, Diana! Would you refuse me?” asked he, after a moment’s pause.
+“Do you refuse me, when I implore you to be my wife, and to share my
+name with me? Will you not be the Duchess of Champdoce?”
+
+Diana only replied with a glance; but if her eyes spoke plainly, that
+look said “Yes.”
+
+“Why, then,” returned Norbert, “should we alarm ourselves with empty
+phantoms? Do you not trust me? My father may certainly oppose my plans,
+but before long I shall escape from his tyrannical sway, for I shall be
+of age.”
+
+“Ah, Norbert,” returned she sadly, “you are feeding upon vain hopes.
+You must be twenty-five years of age before you can marry and give the
+shelter of your name to the woman whom you have chosen for your wife.”
+
+This was exactly the explanation for which Daumon had been waiting.
+
+“Good again, my young lady,” cried he. “And so this is why she came
+here. There is some credit in giving a lesson to so apt a pupil.”
+
+“It is impossible,” cried Norbert, violently agitated; “such an
+iniquitous thing cannot be.”
+
+“You are mistaken,” answered Diana calmly. “Unfortunately I am telling
+you exactly how matters stand. The law clearly fixes the age
+at twenty-five. During all this time will you remember that a
+broken-hearted girl--”
+
+“Why talk to me of law? When I am of age, I shall have plenty of money,”
+ broke in Norbert; “and do you think that I will tamely submit to my
+father’s oppression? No, I will wrest his consent from him.”
+
+During this conversation the Counsellor was carefully removing the dust
+from the knees of his trousers.
+
+“I will pop in suddenly,” thought he, “and catch a word or two which
+will do away with the necessity of all lengthy explanations.”
+
+He suited the action to the word, and appeared suddenly before the
+lovers. He was not at all disconcerted at the effect his entrance
+produced upon them, and remarked placidly, “I could not find the
+sheriff’s letter, but I assure you that Widow Rouleau’s matter shall be
+speedily and satisfactorily arranged.”
+
+Diana and Norbert exchanged glances of annoyance at finding their secret
+at the mercy of such a man. This evident distrust appeared to wound
+Daumon deeply.
+
+“You have a perfect right,” remarked he dejectedly, “to say, ‘Mind your
+own business;’ but the fact is, that I hate all kinds of injustice so
+much that I always take the side of the weakest, and so, when I come in
+and find you deploring your troubles, I say to myself, ‘Doubtless here
+are two young people made for each other.’”
+
+“You forget yourself,” broke in Diana haughtily.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” stammered Daumon. “I am but a poor peasant, and
+sometimes I speak out too plainly. I meant no harm, and I only hope that
+you will forgive me.”
+
+Daumon looked at Diana; and as she made no reply, he went on: “‘Well,’
+says I to myself, ‘here are two young folks that have fallen in
+love, and have every right to do so, and yet they are kept apart by
+unreasonable and cruel-minded parents. They are young and know nothing
+of the law, and without help they would most certainly get into a
+muddle. Now, suppose I take their matter in hand, knowing the law
+thoroughly as I do, and being up to its weak as well as its strong
+points.’”
+
+He spoke on in this strain for some minutes, and did not notice that
+they had withdrawn a little apart, and were whispering to each other.
+
+“Why should we not trust him?” asked Norbert. “He has plenty of
+experience.”
+
+“He would betray us; he would do anything for money.”
+
+“That is all the better for us then; for if we promise him a handsome
+sum, he will not say a word of what has passed to-day.”
+
+“Do as you think best, Norbert.”
+
+Having thus gained Diana’s assent, the young man turned to Daumon. “I
+put every faith in you, and so does Mademoiselle de Laurebourg. You know
+our exact situation. What do you advise?”
+
+“Wait and hope,” answered the Counsellor. “The slightest step taken
+before you are of age will be fatal to your prospects, but the day you
+are twenty-one I will undertake to show you several methods of bringing
+the Duke on his knees.”
+
+Nothing could make this speech more explicit; but he was so cheerful and
+confident, that when Diana left the office, she felt a fountain of fresh
+hope well up in her heart.
+
+This was nearly their last interview that year, for the winter came on
+rapidly and with increased severity, so that it was impossible for the
+lovers to meet out of doors, and the fear of spying eyes prevented them
+from taking advantage of Daumon’s hospitality. Each day, however, the
+widow’s daughter, Francoise, carried a letter to Laurebourg, and brought
+back a reply to Champdoce. The inhabitants of the various country houses
+had fled to more genial climates, and only the Marquis de Laurebourg,
+who was an inveterate sportsman, still lingered; but at the first heavy
+fall of snow he too determined to take refuge in the magnificent house
+that he owned in the town of Poitiers. Norbert had foreseen this, and
+had taken his measures accordingly. Two or three times in the week he
+mounted his horse and rode to the town. After changing his dress, he
+made haste to a certain garden wall in which there was a small door.
+At an agreed hour this door would gently open, and as Norbert slipped
+through he would find Diana ready to welcome him, looking more
+bewitching than ever. This great passion, which now enthralled his whole
+life, and the certainty that his love was returned, had done away with
+a great deal of his bashfulness and timidity. He had resumed his
+acquaintanceship with Montlouis, and had often been with him to the Café
+Castille. Montlouis was only for a short time at Poitiers, for as soon
+as spring began he was to join the young Count de Mussidan, who had
+promised to find some employment for him. The approaching departure was
+not at all to Montlouis’ taste, as he was madly in love with a young
+girl who resided in the town. He told all to Norbert; and as confidence
+begets confidence, he more than once accompanied the young Marquis to
+the door in the garden wall of the Count de Laurebourg’s town house.
+
+April came at last. The gentry returned to their country houses, and in
+time the happy day arrived when Diana de Laurebourg was to return to her
+father’s country mansion. The lovers had now every opportunity to meet,
+and would exhort each other to have patience, and a week after Diana’s
+return they spent a long day together in the woods. After this delicious
+day, Norbert, happy and light-hearted, returned to his father’s house.
+
+“Marquis,” said the Duke, plunging at once into the topic nearest his
+heart, “I have found a wife for you, and in two months you will marry
+her.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+AN UNLUCKY BLOW.
+
+The falling of a thunderbolt at his feet would have startled Norbert
+less than these words did. The Duke took, or affected to take, no notice
+of his son’s extreme agitation, and in a careless manner he continued,--
+
+“I suppose, my son, that it is hardly necessary for me to tell you
+the young lady’s name. Mademoiselle Marie de Puymandour cannot fail
+to please you. She is excessively pretty, tall, dark, and with a fine
+figure. You saw her at Mass one day. What do you think of her?”
+
+“Think!” stammered Norbert. “Really I----”
+
+“Pshaw,” replied the old gentleman; “I thought that you had begun to use
+your eyes. And look here, Marquis, you must adopt a different style of
+dress. You can go over with me to Poitiers to-morrow, and one of the
+tailors there will make you some clothes suitable to your rank, for I
+don’t suppose that you wish to alarm your future wife by the uncouthness
+of your appearance.”
+
+“But, father--”
+
+“Wait a moment, if you please. I shall have a suite of apartments
+reserved for you and your bride, and you can pass your honeymoon here.
+Take care you do not prolong it for too lengthened a period; and when it
+is all over, we can break the young woman into all our ways.”
+
+“But,” interrupted Norbert hastily, “suppose I do not fancy this young
+lady?”
+
+“Well, what then?”
+
+“Suppose I should beg you to save me from a marriage which will render
+me most unhappy?”
+
+The Duke shrugged his shoulders. “Why this is mere childishness,” said
+he. “The marriage is a most suitable one, and it is my desire that it
+should take place.”
+
+“But, father,” again commenced Norbert.
+
+“What! Are you opposing my will?” asked his father angrily. “Pray, do
+you hesitate?”
+
+“No,” answered his son coldly, “I do not hesitate.”
+
+“Very good, then. A man of no position can consult the dictates of his
+heart when he takes a wife, but with a nobleman of rank and station it
+is certainly a different matter, for with the latter, marriage should
+be looked upon as a mere business transaction. I have made excellent
+arrangements. Let me repeat to you the conditions. The Count will give
+two-thirds of his fortune, which is estimated at five millions--just
+think of that!--and when we get that, we shall be able to screw and
+save with better heart. Think of the restoration of our house, and the
+colossal fortune that our descendants will one day inherit, and realize
+all the beauties of a life of self-denial.”
+
+While the Duke was uttering this string of incoherent sentences, he was
+pacing up and down the room, and now he halted immediately in front of
+his son. “You understand,” said he; “to-morrow you will go to Poitiers,
+and on Sunday we will dine at the house of your future father-in-law.”
+
+In this fearful crisis Norbert did not know what to say or how to act.
+
+“Father,” he once more commenced, “I have no wish to go to Poitiers
+to-morrow.”
+
+“What are you saying? What in heaven’s name do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that as I shall never love Mademoiselle de Puymandour, she will
+never be my wife.”
+
+The Duke had never foreseen the chance of rebellion on the part of his
+son, and he could not bring his mind to receive such an unlooked-for
+event.
+
+“You are mad,” said he at last, “and do not know what you are saying.”
+
+“I know very well.”
+
+“Think of what you are doing.”
+
+“I have reflected.”
+
+The Duke was making a violent effort to compose his ordinarily violent
+temper.
+
+“Do you imagine,” answered he disdainfully, “that I shall be satisfied
+with an answer of this kind? I hope that you will submit to my wishes,
+for I think that, as the head of the family, I have conceived a splendid
+plan for its future aggrandizement; and do you think that, for the mere
+whim of a boy, I will be turned aside from my fixed determination?”
+
+“No, father,” answered Norbert, “it is no boyish whim that makes me
+oppose your wishes. Tell me, have I not ever been a dutiful son to you?
+Have I ever refused to do what I was ordered? No; I have obeyed you
+implicitly. I am the son of the wealthiest man in Poitiers, and I have
+lived like a laborer’s child. Whatever your mandates were, I have never
+complained or murmured at them.”
+
+“Well, and now I order you to marry Mademoiselle de Puymandour.”
+
+“Anything but that; I do not love her, and I shall never do so. Do
+you wish my whole life to be blighted? I entreat you to spare me this
+sacrifice!”
+
+“My orders are given, and you must comply with them.”
+
+“No,” answered Norbert quietly, “I will not comply with them.”
+
+A purple flush passed across the Duke’s face, then it faded away,
+leaving every feature of a livid whiteness.
+
+“Great heavens!” said he in a voice before which Norbert, at one time,
+would have quailed. “Whence comes the audacity that makes you venture to
+dispute my orders?”
+
+“From the feeling that I am acting rightly.”
+
+“How long is it that it has been right for children to disobey their
+parents’ commands?”
+
+“Ever since parents began to issue unjust commands.”
+
+This speech put the finishing stroke to the Duke’s rage. He made a step
+across the room, towards his son, raising the stick that he usually
+carried high in the air. For a moment he stood thus, and then, casting
+it aside, he exclaimed,--
+
+“No, I cannot strike a Champdoce.”
+
+Perhaps it was Norbert’s intrepid attitude that restrained the Duke’s
+frenzy, for he had not moved a muscle, but stood still, with his arms
+folded, and his head thrown haughtily back.
+
+“No, this is an act of disobedience that I will not put up with,”
+ exclaimed the old man in a voice of thunder, and, springing upon his
+son, he grasped him by the collar and dragged him up to a room on the
+second floor, and thrust him violently through the doorway.
+
+“You have twenty-four hours in which to reflect whether you will be
+willing to accept the wife that I have chosen for you,” said he.
+
+“I have already decided on that point,” answered Norbert quietly.
+
+The Duke made no reply, but slammed the door, which was of massive oak,
+and secured by a lock of enormous proportions.
+
+Norbert gazed round; the only other exit from the room was by means of a
+window some forty feet from the ground. The young man, however, imagined
+that some one would surely come to make up his bed for the night; that
+would give him two sheets; these he could knot together and thus secure
+a means of escape. He might not be able to see Diana at once, but he
+could easily send her a message by Daumon, warning her of what had taken
+place. Having arranged his plans, he threw himself into an armchair
+with a more easy mind than he had experienced for many months past. The
+decisive step had been taken, and the relations between his father and
+himself clearly defined, and thus he naturally considered great progress
+had been made, and the task before him seemed as nothing to what he had
+already performed.
+
+“My father,” thought he, “must be half mad with passion.”
+
+And Norbert was not wrong in his opinion. When the Duke, as usual, took
+his place at the table, at which the farm laborers ate their meals, not
+one of them had the courage to make a single observation. Every one knew
+what a serious altercation had taken place between father and son, and
+each one was devoured by the pangs of ungratified curiosity.
+
+As soon as the meal was concluded, the Duke called an old and
+trustworthy servant, who had been in his employment for over thirty
+years.
+
+“Jean,” said he, “your young master is locked in the yellow room. Here
+is the key. Take him something to eat.”
+
+“Very good, your Grace.”
+
+“Wait a little. You will spend the night in his room and keep a strict
+watch upon him. He may design to make his escape. If he attempts it,
+restrain him, if necessary, by physical force. Should he prove too
+strong for you, call to me; I shall be near, and will come to your aid.”
+
+This unexpected precaution upon the Duke’s part upset all Norbert’s
+plans of escape. He endeavored to persuade Jean to allow him to go out
+for a couple of hours, giving his word of honor that he would return
+at the expiration of that time. Prayers and menaces, however, had no
+effect. Had the young man gazed from the window, he would have seen
+his father striding moodily up and down the courtyard, with the thought
+gnawing at his heart that perhaps after all these many years of waiting
+his plans might yet be frustrated.
+
+“There is a woman at the bottom of all this,” said he to himself. “It
+is only woman’s wiles that in this brief space of time would effect so
+complete a change in a young man’s disposition. Besides, he would not
+have so obstinately declined to listen to the proposal I made him had
+not his affections been engaged elsewhere. Who can she be? and by what
+means shall I find her out?”
+
+It would be absurd to question Norbert, and the Duke was excessively
+unwilling to institute any regular inquiry into the matter. He passed
+the whole night in gloomy indecision, but towards morning an inspiration
+came to him which he looked upon as a special interposition of
+Providence.
+
+“Bruno,” he exclaimed with a mighty oath. “The dog will show me the
+place that his master frequents and perhaps lead me to the very woman
+who had bewitched him.”
+
+The brilliant idea soothed him a great deal, and at one o’clock he took
+his seat as usual at the head of the table, and ordered food to be taken
+up to Norbert, but that none of the measures for his safe custody were
+to be relaxed.
+
+When he thought the moment was a favorable one, he whistled to Bruno,
+and, though the dog rarely followed him, yet in the absence of his
+master, he condescended to accompany the Duke down the avenue to the
+front gates. Three roads branched off from here, but the dog did not
+hesitate for a moment, and took the one to the left, like an animal who
+knew his destination perfectly well. Bruno went ahead for nearly half
+an hour, until he reached the exact spot where Diana had met with her
+accident. He made a cast round, but finding nothing, sat down, clearly
+saying,--
+
+“Let us wait.”
+
+“This, then,” muttered the Duke, “is the place where the lovers have
+been in the habit of meeting each other.”
+
+The place was a very lonely one, and, standing on the rising ground,
+commanded a view of the country for a long way round.
+
+The Duke noticed this, and took up a position where the trunk of a
+giant oak almost concealed him from observation. He was delighted at his
+sagacity, and was almost in a good humor; for now that he had reflected,
+the danger did not seem by any means so great, for to whom could Norbert
+have lost his heart? To some little peasant girl, perhaps, who, thinking
+that the lad was an easy dupe, had tried to induce him to marry her.
+As these thoughts passed through the Duke’s brain, Bruno gave a joyous
+bark.
+
+“Here she is,’ muttered he, as he emerged from his hiding place, and at
+that moment Diana de Laurebourg made her appearance; but as soon as she
+saw the Duke she uttered a faint cry of alarm. She was inclined to turn
+and fly, but her strength failed her, and, extending her hands, she
+grasped the boughs of a slender birch tree that grew close by, to
+prevent herself from falling. The Duke was quite as much astonished as
+the young lady. He had expected to see a peasant girl, and here was
+the daughter of the Marquis de Laurebourg. But anger soon succeeded to
+surprise; for though he might have had nothing to fear from the peasant,
+the daughter of the Marquis de Laurebourg was an utterly different
+antagonist. He could not rely upon aid from her family, as, for all he
+knew, they might be aiding and abetting her.
+
+“Well, my child,” began he, “you do not seem very glad to see me.”
+
+“Your Grace.”
+
+“Yes, when you come out to meet the son, it is annoying to meet the
+father; but do not blame poor Norbert, for I assure you he is not in
+fault.”
+
+Though Mademoiselle de Laurebourg had been startled at first, she
+was possessed of too strong a will to give in, and soon recovered her
+self-possession.
+
+She never thought to screen herself by a denial of her reasons for being
+on the spot, for such a course she would have looked on as an act of
+treacherous cowardice.
+
+“You are quite right,” answered she. “I came here to meet your son, and
+therefore you will pardon me if I take my leave of you.”
+
+With a deep courtesy she was about to move away, when the Duke laid a
+restraining grip upon her arm.
+
+“Permit me, my child,” said he, endeavoring to put on a kind and
+paternal tone,--“let me say a few words to you. Do you know why Norbert
+did not come to meet you?”
+
+“He has doubtless some very good reason.”
+
+“My son is locked up in a room, and my servants have my orders to
+prevent his making his escape by force, if necessary.”
+
+“Poor fellow! He deserves the deepest commiseration.”
+
+The Duke was much surprised at this piece of impertinence, as he
+considered it.
+
+“I will tell you,” returned he in tones of rising anger, “how it comes
+that I treat my son, the heir to my rank and fortune, in this manner.”
+
+He looked savagely angry as he spoke, but Diana answered negligently,
+“Pray go on; you quite interest me.”
+
+“Well then, listen to me. I have chosen a wife for Norbert; she is as
+young as you are--beautiful, clever, and wealthy.”
+
+“And of noble birth, of course.”
+
+The sarcasm conveyed in this reply roused the Duke to fury.
+
+“Fifteen hundred thousand francs as a marriage portion will outweigh a
+coat of arms, even though it should be a tower argent on a field azure.”
+ The Duke paused as he made this allusion to the Laurebourg arms, and
+then continued, “In addition to this, she has great expectations; and
+yet my son is mad enough to refuse the hand of this wealthy heiress.”
+
+“If you think that this marriage will cause your son’s happiness, you
+are quite right in acting as you have done.”
+
+“Happiness! What has that to do with the matter, as long as it adds to
+the aggrandizement of our house and name? I have made up my mind that
+Norbert shall marry this girl; I have sworn it, and I never break my
+oath. I told him this myself.”
+
+Diana suffered acutely, but her pride supported her, whilst her
+confidence in Norbert was so great that she had the boldness to inquire,
+“And what did he say to that?”
+
+“Norbert will become a dutiful son once more when he is removed from the
+malignant influence which has been so injurious to him,” returned the
+Duke fiercely.
+
+“Indeed.”
+
+“He will obey me, when I show him that though he may not value his name
+and position, there are others who do so; and that many a woman would
+fight a brave battle for the honor of being the Duchess of Champdoce.
+Young lady, my son is a mere boy; but I have known the world, and when I
+prove to the poor fool that it was only grasping ambition which assumed
+the garb of love, he will renounce his folly and resume his
+allegiance to me. I will tell him what I think of the poverty-stricken
+adventuresses of high birth, whose only weapons are their youth and
+beauty, and with which they think that they can win a wealthy husband in
+the battle of life.”
+
+“Continue, sir,” broke in Diana haughtily. “Insult a defenceless girl
+with her poverty! It is a noble act, and one worthy of a high-born
+gentleman like yourself!”
+
+“I believed,” said the Duke, “that I was addressing the woman whose
+advice had led my son to break into open rebellion against my authority.
+Am I right or wrong? You can prove me to be mistaken by urging upon
+Norbert the necessity for submission.”
+
+She made no reply, but bent her head upon her bosom.
+
+“You see,” continued the Duke, “that I am correct, and that if you
+continue to act as you have done, I shall be justified in retaliating in
+any manner that I may deem fit. You have now been warned. Carry on this
+intrigue at your peril.”
+
+He placed such an insulting emphasis upon the word “intrigue” that
+Diana’s anger rose to boiling point. At that instant, for the sake of
+vengeance, she would have risked her honor, her ambition, her very life
+itself.
+
+Forgetting all prudence, she cast aside her mask of affected
+indifference, and, with her eyes flashing angry gleams of fire, and her
+cheeks burning, she said,--
+
+“Listen to me. I, too, have sworn an oath, and it is that Norbert
+shall be my husband; and I tell you that he shall be so! Shut him up in
+prison, subject him to every indignity at the hands of your menials, but
+you will never break his spirit, or make him go back from his plighted
+word. If I bid him, he will resist your will even unto the bitter end.
+He and I will never yield. Believe me when I tell you, that before you
+attack a young girl’s honor, you had better pause; for one day she will
+be a member of your family. Farewell.”
+
+Before the Duke could recover his senses, Diana was far down the path
+on her way homewards; and then he burst into a wild storm of menaces,
+oaths, and insults. He fancied that he was alone, but he was mistaken;
+for the whole of that strange scene had a hidden witness, and that
+witness was Daumon. He had heard of the treatment of the young Marquis
+from one of his servants at the Chateau, and his first thought had been
+to acquaint Diana with it. Unfortunately he saw no means of doing this.
+He dared not go to Laurebourg, and he would have died sooner than put
+pen to paper. He was in a position of the deepest embarrassment when the
+idea struck him of going to the lovers’ trysting place. The little cry
+that Diana had uttered upon perceiving the Duke had put him upon his
+guard. Bruno had found him out; but, as he knew him, merely fawned upon
+him. He was delighted at the fury of the Duke, whom he hated with
+cold and steady malignity; but the courage of Diana filled him with
+admiration. Her sublime audacity won his warmest praises, and he longed
+for her as an ally to aid him in his scheme of revenge. He knew that the
+girl would find herself in a terribly embarrassing position, and thus
+she would be sure to call upon him for advice before returning home.
+
+“Now,” thought he, “if I wish to profit by her anger, I ought to strike
+while the iron is hot; and to do so, I should be at home to meet her.”
+
+Without a moment’s delay, he dashed through the woods, striving to
+get home without the young girl’s perceiving him. His movements in the
+underwood caught the Duke’s eye.
+
+“Who is there?” exclaimed he, moving towards the spot from whence the
+rustling came. There was no reply. Surely he had not been mistaken.
+Calling to Bruno, he strove to put him on the scent, but the dog showed
+no signs of eagerness. He sniffed about for a time, and seemed to linger
+near one special spot. The Duke moved towards it, and distinctly saw the
+impression of two knees upon the grass.
+
+“Some one has been eavesdropping,” muttered he, much enraged at his
+discovery. “Who can it be? Has Norbert escaped from his prison?”
+
+As he returned through the courtyard, he called one of the grooms to
+him.
+
+“Where is my son?” asked he.
+
+“Upstairs, your Grace,” was the answer.
+
+The Duke breathed more freely. Norbert was still in security, and
+therefore could not have been the person who had been listening.
+
+“But,” added the lad, “the young master is half frantic.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Well, he declared that he would not remain in his room an instant
+longer; so old Jean called for help. He is awfully strong, and it took
+six of us to hold him. He said that if we would let him go, he would
+return in two hours, and that his honor and life were involved.”
+
+The Duke listened with a sarcastic smile. He cared nothing about the
+frantic struggles of his son, for his heart had grown cold and hard from
+the presence of the fixed idea which had actuated his conduct for so
+many years, and it was with the solemn face of a man who was fulfilling
+a sacred duty that he ascended to the room in which his son was
+imprisoned. Jean threw open the door, and the Duke paused for a moment
+on the threshold. The furniture had been overturned, some of it broken,
+and there were evident signs of a furious struggle having taken place.
+
+A powerful laborer stood near the window, and Norbert was lying on the
+bed, with his face turned to the wall.
+
+“Leave us,” said the Duke, and the man withdrew at once.
+
+“Get up, Norbert,” he added; “I wish to speak to you.”
+
+His son obeyed him. Any one but the Duke would have been alarmed by the
+expression of the young man’s face.
+
+“What is the meaning of all this?” asked the old nobleman in his most
+severe voice. “Are not my orders sufficient to insure obedience? I hear
+that absolute force has had to be used towards you during my absence.
+Tell me, my son, what plans you have devised during these hours of
+solitude, and what hopes you still venture to cherish.”
+
+“I intend to be free, and I will be so.”
+
+The Duke affected not to hear the reply, uttered as it was in a tone of
+derision.
+
+“It was very easy for me to discover, from your obstinacy, that some
+woman had endeavored to entrap you, and by her insidious counsels
+inducing you to disobey your best friend.”
+
+He paused, but there was no reply.
+
+“This woman--this dangerous woman--I have been in search of, and as you
+can conceive, I easily found her. I went to the Forest of Bevron, and
+there I need not tell you I found Mademoiselle de Laurebourg.”
+
+“Did you speak to her?”
+
+“I did so, certainly. I told her my opinion of those manoeuvring women
+who fascinate the dupes they intend to take advantage of--”
+
+“Father!”
+
+“Can it be possible that you, simple boy even as you are, could have
+been deceived by the pretended love of this wily young woman? It is not
+you, Marquis, that she loves, but our name and fortune; but _I_ know if
+_she_ does not that the law will imprison women who contrive to entrap
+young men who are under age.”
+
+Norbert turned deadly pale.
+
+“Did you really say that to her?” asked he, in a low, hoarse voice,
+utterly unlike his own. “You dare to insult the woman I love, when you
+knew that I was far away and unable to protect her! Take care, or I
+shall forget that you are my father.”
+
+“He actually threatens me,” said the Duke, “my son threatens me;” and,
+raising the heavy stick he held in his hand, he struck Norbert a violent
+blow. By a fortunate movement the unhappy boy drew back, and so avoided
+the full force of the stroke, but the end of the stick struck him across
+the temple, inflicting a long though not a serious wound. In his blind
+rage Norbert was about to throw himself upon his father, when his eyes
+caught sight of the open door. Liberty and safety lay before him, and,
+with a bound, he was on the stairs, and before the Duke could shout for
+aid from the window, his son was tearing across the park with all the
+appearance and gesture of a madman.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE LITTLE GLASS BOTTLE.
+
+In order to avoid being seen by Mademoiselle de Laurebourg, Daumon had
+to take a much longer route to regain his home than the one that Diana
+had followed. This, however, he could not help. As soon as he arrived
+at his home he ran hastily upstairs and took from a cleverly concealed
+hiding-place in the wainscoting of his bedroom a small bottle of dark
+green glass, which he hastily slipped into his pocket. When he had
+once more descended to his office, he again took it out and examined it
+carefully to see that it had in no way been tampered with; then, with
+a hard, cruel smile, he placed it upon his desk among his ledgers and
+account books. Diana de Laurebourg might pay him a visit as soon as
+she liked, for he was quite prepared for her, for he had slipped on his
+dressing-gown and placed his velvet skull cap upon his head, as if he
+had not quitted the house that day.
+
+“Why on earth does she not come?” muttered he.
+
+He began to be uneasy. He went to the window and glanced eagerly down
+the road; then he drew out his watch and examined the face of it,
+when all at once his ears detected a gentle tapping at the door of the
+office.
+
+“Come in,” said he.
+
+The door opened, and Diana entered slowly, without uttering a word, and
+took no notice of the servile obsequiousness of the Counsellor; indeed,
+she hardly seemed to notice his presence, and with a deep sigh she threw
+herself into a chair.
+
+In his inmost heart Daumon was filled with the utmost delight; he now
+understood why Diana had taken so long in reaching his house; it was
+because her interview with the Duke had almost overcome her.
+
+She soon, however, recovered her energy, and shook off the languor
+that seemed to cling to her limbs, and turning towards her host, said
+abruptly,--
+
+“Counsellor, I have come to you for advice, which I sorely need. About
+an hour ago--”
+
+With a gesture of sympathy Daumon interrupted her,--
+
+“Alas!” said he; “spare me the recital, I know all.”
+
+“You know----”
+
+“Yes, I know that M. Norbert is a prisoner at the Chateau. Yes,
+mademoiselle, I know this, and I know, too, that you have just met the
+Duke de Champdoce in the Forest of Bevron. I know, moreover, all that
+you said to the old nobleman, for I have heard every word from a person
+who has just left.”
+
+In spite of her strong nerves, Diana was unable to restrain a movement
+of dismay and terror.
+
+“But who told you of this?” murmured she.
+
+“A man who was out cutting wood. Ah! my dear young lady, the forest is
+not a safe place to tell secrets in, for you never know whether watchful
+eyes and listening ears are not concealed behind every tree. This
+man, and I am afraid some of his companions, heard every word that was
+spoken, and as soon as you left the Duke the man scampered off to tell
+the story. I made him promise not to say a word, but he is a married man
+and is sure to tell it to his wife. Then there are his companions; dear
+me! it is most annoying.”
+
+“Then all is lost, and I am ruined,” murmured she.
+
+But her despair did not last long, for she was by no means the woman
+to throw down her arms and sue for mercy. She grasped the arm of the
+Counsellor.
+
+“The end has not come yet, surely? Speak! What is to be done? You must
+have some plan. I am ready for anything, now that I have nothing to
+lose. No one shall ever say that that cowardly villain, the Duke de
+Champdoce, insulted me with impunity. Tell me, will you help me?”
+
+“In the name of heaven!” cried he, “do not speak so loud. You do not
+know the adversary that you have to contend with.”
+
+“Are you afraid of him?”
+
+“Yes, I do fear him; and what is more, I fear him very much. He is a
+determined man, and will gain his object at any cost or risk. Do you
+know that he did his best to crush me because I summoned him to court on
+behalf of one of my clients? So that now, when any one comes to me and
+wishes to proceed against the Duke, I am glad to decline to take up the
+matter.”
+
+“And so,” returned the young girl in a tone of cold contempt, “after
+leading us to this compromising position, you are ready to abandon us at
+the most critical moment?”
+
+“Can you think such a thing, mademoiselle?”
+
+“You can act as you please, Counsellor; Norbert is still left to me; he
+will protect me.”
+
+Daumon shook his head with an air of deep sorrow.
+
+“How can we be sure that at this very moment the Marquis has not given
+in to all his father’s wishes?”
+
+“No,” exclaimed the girl; “such a supposition is an insult to Norbert.
+He would sooner die than give in. He may be timid, but he is not
+a coward; the thoughts of me will give him the power to resist his
+father’s tyranny.”
+
+Daumon allowed himself to fall into his great armchair as though
+overcome by the excitement of this interview.
+
+“We can talk coolly enough here and with no one to threaten us; but the
+Marquis, on the other hand, is exposed to all his father’s violence and
+ill treatment, moral as well as physical, without any defence for aid
+from a soul in the world, and in such times as these the strongest will
+may give way.”
+
+“Yes, I see it all; Norbert may give in, he may marry another woman, and
+I shall be left alone, with my reputation gone, and the scorn and scoff
+of all the neighborhood.”
+
+“But, mademoiselle, you still have--”
+
+“All I have left is life, and that life I would gladly give for
+vengeance.”
+
+There was something so terribly determined in the young girl’s voice
+that again Daumon started, and this time his start was sincere and not
+simulated.
+
+“Yes, you are right,” said he, “and there are many besides myself who
+have vowed to have revenge on the Duke, and their time will come, have
+no fear. A quiet shot in the woods in the dusk of the evening would
+settle many a long account. It has been tried, but the old man seems
+to have the luck of the evil one; and if the gun did not miss fire, the
+bullets flew wide of the mark. A judge might take a very serious view of
+such a matter, and term a crime what was merely an act of justice. Who
+can say whether the death of the Duke de Champdoce might not save him
+from the commission of many acts of tyranny and oppression and render
+many deserving persons happy?”
+
+The face of Diana de Laurebourg turned deadly pale as she listened to
+these specious arguments.
+
+“As things go,” continued Daumon, “the Duke may go on living to a
+hundred; he is wealthy and influential, and to a certain degree looked
+up to. He will die peacefully in his bed, there will be a magnificent
+funeral, and masses will be sung for the repose of his soul.”
+
+While he spoke the Counsellor had taken the little bottle from beside
+his account books and was turning it over and over between his fingers.
+
+“Yes,” murmured he, thoughtfully; “the Duke is quite likely to outlive
+us all, unless, indeed----”
+
+He took the cork from the bottle, and poured a little of the contents
+into the palm of his hand. A few grains of fine white powder, glittering
+like crystal, appeared on the brown skin of the Counsellor.
+
+“And yet,” he went on, in cold, sinister accents, “let him take but
+a small pinch of this, and no one need fear his tyranny again in this
+world. No one is much afraid of a man who lies some six feet under
+ground, shut up in a strong oak coffin, with a finely carved gravestone
+over his head.”
+
+He stopped short, and fixed his keen eyes upon the agitated girl, who
+stood in front of him. For at least two minutes the man and the girl
+stood face to face, motionless, and without exchanging a word. Through
+the dead, weird silence, the pulsations of their hearts were plainly
+audible. It seemed as if before speaking again each wished to fathom the
+depths of guilt that lay in the other’s heart. It was a compact entered
+into by look and not by speech; and Daumon so well understood this, that
+at length, when he did speak, his voice sank to a hoarse whisper, as
+though he himself feared to listen to the utterance of his own thoughts.
+
+“A man taking this feels no pain. It is like a heavy, stunning blow on
+the forehead--in ten seconds all is over, no gasp, no cry, but the heart
+ceases to beat forever; and, best of all, it leaves no trace behind it.
+A little of this, such a little, in wine or coffee, would be enough. It
+is tasteless, colorless, and scentless, its presence is impossible to be
+detected.”
+
+“But in the event of a _post-mortem_ examination?”
+
+“By skilful analysts in Paris or the larger towns, there would be a
+chance; but in a place like this, never! Never, in fact, anywhere,
+unless there had been previous grounds for suspicion. Otherwise only
+apoplectic symptoms would be observed; and even if it was traced there
+comes the question, By whom was it administered?”
+
+He stopped short, for a word rose to his lips which he did not dare
+utter; he raised his hands to his mouth, coughed slightly, and went
+on,--
+
+“This substance is not sold by chemists; it is very rarely met with,
+difficult to prepare, and terribly expensive. The smallest quantity
+might be met with in the first-class laboratories for scientific
+purposes, but it is most unlikely for any one in these parts to possess
+any of this drug, or even to know of its existence.”
+
+“And yet you----”
+
+“That is quite another matter. Years ago, when I was far away from here,
+it was in my power to render a great service to a distinguished chemist,
+and he made me a present of this combination of his skill. It would be
+impossible to trace this bottle; I have had it ten years, and the man
+who gave it to me is dead. Ten years? No, I am wrong, it is now twelve.”
+
+“And in all these years has not this substance lost any of its
+destructive powers?”
+
+“I tried it only a month ago. I threw a pinch of it into a basin of milk
+and gave it to a powerful mastiff. He drank the milk and in ten seconds
+fell stark and dead.”
+
+“Horrible!” exclaimed Diana, covering her face with her hand, and
+recoiling from the tempter.
+
+A sinister smile quivered upon the thin lips of the Counsellor.
+
+“Why do you say horrible?” asked he; “the dog had shown symptoms of
+_rabies_, and had he bitten me, I might have expired in frightful
+torture. Was it not fair self-defence? Sometimes, however, a man is more
+dangerous than a dog. A man blights the whole of my life; I strike him
+down openly, and the law convicts me and puts me to death; but I do not
+contemplate doing so, for I would suppress such a man secretly.”
+
+Diana placed her hands on the man’s mouth and stopped a further
+exposition of his ideas.
+
+“Listen to me,” said she. But at this moment a heavy step was heard
+outside. “It is Norbert,” gasped she.
+
+“Impossible! It is more likely his father.”
+
+“It is Norbert,” cried Mademoiselle de Laurebourg, and snatching the
+little bottle from the Counsellor’s hands, she thrust it into her bosom.
+The door flew open, and Norbert appeared on the threshold. Diana and the
+Counsellor both uttered a shriek of terror. His livid countenance seemed
+to indicate that he had passed through some terrible scene; his gait
+was unsteady, his clothes torn and disordered, and his face stained with
+blood, which had flowed from a cut over his temple. Daumon imagined that
+some outrage had taken place.
+
+“You have been wounded, Marquis?” said he.
+
+“Yes, my father struck me.”
+
+“Can it be possible?”
+
+“Yes, he struck me.”
+
+Mademoiselle Diana had feared this, and she trembled with the terror of
+her vague conjectures as she made a step towards her lover.
+
+“Permit me to examine your wound,” said she.
+
+She placed both her hands at the side of his head and stood on tip-toe,
+the better to inspect the cut. As she did so, she shuddered; an inch
+lower, and the consequences might have been fatal.
+
+“Quick,” she said, “give me some rags and water.”
+
+Norbert gently disengaged himself. “It is a mere nothing,” said he, “and
+can be looked after later on. Fortunately I did not receive the whole
+weight of the blow, which would otherwise have brought me senseless to
+the ground, and perhaps I should have been slain by my father’s hand.”
+
+“By the Duke? and for what reason did he strike you?”
+
+“Diana, he had grossly insulted you, and he dared to tell me of it. Had
+he forgotten that the blood of the race of Champdoce ran in my veins as
+well as in his?”
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg burst into a passion of tears.
+
+“I,” sobbed she, “I have brought all this upon you.”
+
+“You? Why, it is to you that he owes his life. He dared to strike me as
+if I had been a lackey, but the thoughts of you stayed my hand. I turned
+and fled, and never again will I enter that accursed house. I renounce
+the Duke de Champdoce, he is no longer my father, and I will never look
+upon his face again. Would that I could forget that such a man existed;
+but, no, I would rather that I remembered him for the sake of revenge.”
+
+Again the heart of Daumon overflowed with joy. All his deeply malignant
+spirit thrilled pleasantly as he heard these words.
+
+“Marquis,” said he, “perhaps you will now believe with me that in all
+misfortunes there is an element of luck, for your father has committed
+an act of imprudence which will yet cost him dear. It is very strange
+that so astute a man as the Duke de Champdoce should have allowed his
+passion to carry him away.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Simply that you can be freed from the tyranny of your father whenever
+you like now. We now have all that is necessary for lodging a formal
+plaint in court. We have sequestration of the person, threats and bodily
+violence by the aid of third parties, and words and blows which have
+endangered life; our case is entirely complete. A surgeon will examine
+your wound, and give a written deposition. We can produce plenty of
+evidence, and the wound on the head will tell its own story. As a
+commencement we will petition that we may not be ordered back to our
+father’s custody, and it will further be set forth that our reason for
+this is that a father has assaulted a son with undue and unnecessary
+violence. We shall be sure to gain the day, and--”
+
+“Enough,” broke in Norbert; “will the decision give me the right to
+marry whom I please without my father’s consent?”
+
+Daumon hesitated. Under the circumstances, it seemed to him very likely
+that the court would grant Norbert the liberty he desired; he, however,
+thought it advisable not to say so, and answered boldly, “No, Marquis,
+it will not do so.”
+
+“Well, then, the Champdoce family have never exposed their differences
+to the public, nor will I begin to do so,” said Norbert decisively.
+
+The Counsellor seemed surprised at this determination.
+
+“If, Marquis,” he began, “I might venture to advise you--”
+
+“No advice is necessary, my mind is entirely made up, but I need some
+help, and in twenty-four hours I require a large sum of money--twenty
+thousand francs.”
+
+“You can have them, Marquis, but I warn you that you will have to pay
+heavily for the accommodation.”
+
+“That I care nothing for.”
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was about to speak, but with a gesture of his
+hand Norbert arrested her.
+
+“Do you not comprehend me, Diana?” said he; “we must fly, and that at
+once. We can find some safe retreat where we can live happily, where no
+one will harm us.”
+
+“But this is mere madness!” cried Diana.
+
+“You will be pursued,” remarked the Counsellor; “and most likely
+overtaken.”
+
+“Can you not trust your life to me?” asked Norbert reproachfully. “I
+swear that I will devote everything to you, life, thought, and will. On
+my knees I entreat you to fly with me.”
+
+“I cannot,” murmured she; “it is impossible.”
+
+“Then you do not love me,” said he in desponding accents. “I have been
+a thrice-besotted fool to believe that your heart was mine, for you can
+never have loved me.”
+
+“Hear him, merciful powers! he says that I, who am all his, do not love
+him.”
+
+“Then why cast aside our only chance of safety?”
+
+“Norbert, dearest Norbert!”
+
+“I understand you too well; you are alarmed at the idea of the world’s
+censure, and----”
+
+He paused, checked by the gleam of reproach that shone in Diana’s eyes.
+
+“Must it be so?” said she; “must I condescend to justify myself? You
+talk to me of the world’s censure? Have I not already defied it, and has
+it not sat in judgment upon me? And what have I done, after all? Every
+act and word that has passed between us I can repeat to my mother
+without a blush rising to my cheek; but would any one credit my words?
+No, not a living soul. Most likely the world has come to a decision. My
+reputation is gone, is utterly lost, and yet I am spotless as the driven
+snow.”
+
+Norbert was half-mad with anger.
+
+“Who would dare to treat you with anything save the most profound
+respect?” said he.
+
+“Alas! my dear Norbert,” replied she, “to-morrow the scandal will be
+even greater. While your father was talking to me with such brutal
+violence and contempt, he was overheard by a woodcutter and perhaps by
+some of his companions.”
+
+“It cannot be.”
+
+“No, it is quite true,” returned Daumon. “I had it from the man myself.”
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg shot one glance at the Counsellor; it was
+only a glance, but he comprehended at once that she wished to be left
+alone with her lover.
+
+“Pardon me,” said he, “but I think I have a visitor, and I must hinder
+any one from coming in here.”
+
+He left the room as he spoke, closing the door noisily behind him.
+
+“And so,” resumed Norbert when alone, “it seems that the Duke de
+Champdoce did not even take the ordinary precaution of assuring himself
+that you were in privacy before he spoke as he did, and was so carried
+away by his fury that he never thought that in casting dishonor upon
+you, he was heaping infamy on me. Does he think by these means to compel
+me to marry the heiress whom he has chose for me, the Mademoiselle de
+Puymandour?”
+
+For the first time Diana learned the name of her rival.
+
+“Ah!” moaned she between her sobs, “so it is Mademoiselle de Puymandour
+that he wants you to marry?”
+
+“Yes, the same, or rather her enormous wealth; but may my hand wither
+before it clasps hers. Do you hear me, Diana?”
+
+She gave a sad smile and murmured, “Poor Norbert!”
+
+The heart of the young man sank; so melancholy was the tone of her
+voice.
+
+“You are very cruel,” said he. “What have I done to deserve this want of
+confidence?”
+
+Diana made no reply, and Norbert, believing that he understood the
+reason why she refused to fly with him, said, “Is it because you have no
+faith in me, that you will not accompany me in my flight?”
+
+“No; I have perfect faith in you.”
+
+“What is it, then? Do I not offer you fortune and happiness? Tell me
+what it is then.”
+
+She drew herself up, and said proudly, “Up to this time, my conscience
+has enabled me to hold my own against all the scandalous gossip that has
+been flying about, but now it says, ‘Halt, Diana de Laurebourg! You have
+gone far enough.’ My burden is heavy, my heart is breaking, but I must
+draw back now. No, Norbert; I cannot fly with you.”
+
+She paused for a moment, as though unable to proceed, and then went on
+with more firmness, “Were I alone and solitary in the world, I might act
+differently; but I have a family, whose honor I must guard as I would my
+own.”
+
+“A family indeed, which sacrifices you to your elder brother.”
+
+“It may be so, and therefore my task is all the greater. Whoever heard
+of virtue as something easy to practise?”
+
+Norbert never remembered what an example of rebellion she had set.
+
+“My heart and my conscience dictate the same course to me. The result
+must ever be fatal, when a young girl sets at defiance the rules and
+laws of society; and you would never care to look with respect on one
+upon whom others gazed with the eye of contempt.”
+
+“What sort of an opinion have you of me, then?”
+
+“I believe you to be a man, Norbert. Let us suppose that I fly with you,
+and that the next day I should hear that my father has been killed in a
+duel fought on my account; what then? Believe me, that when I tell you
+to fly by yourself, I give you the best advice in my power. You will
+forget me, I know; but what else can I hope for?”
+
+“Forget you!” said Norbert angrily. “Can you forget me?”
+
+His face was so close to hers that she felt the hot breath upon her
+cheek.
+
+“Yes,” stammered she, with a violent effort, “I can.”
+
+Norbert drew a pace back, that he might read her meaning more fully in
+her eyes.
+
+“And if I go away,” asked he, “what will become of you?”
+
+A sob burst from the young girl’s breast, and her strength seemed to
+desert her limbs.
+
+“I,” answered she, in the calm, resigned voice of a Christian virgin
+about to be cast to the lions that roared in the arena, “I have my
+destiny. To-day is the last time that we shall ever meet. I shall return
+to my home, where everything will shortly be known. I shall find my
+father angry and menacing. He will place me in a carriage, and the next
+day I shall find myself within the walls of the hated convent.”
+
+“But that life would be one long, slow agony to you. You have told me
+this before.”
+
+“Yes,” answered she, “it would be an agony, but it would also be an
+expiation; and when the burden grows too heavy, I have this.”
+
+And as she spoke, she drew the little bottle from its hiding-place in
+her bosom, and Norbert too well understood her meaning. The young man
+endeavored to take it from her, but she resisted. This contest seemed
+to exhaust her little strength, her beautiful eyes closed, and she sank
+senseless into Norbert’s arms. In an agony of despair, the young man
+asked himself if she was dying; and yet there was sufficient life in
+her to enable her to whisper, soft and low, these words, “My only
+friend--let me have it back, dear Norbert.” And then, with perfect
+clearness, she repeated all the deadly properties of the drug, and the
+directions for its use that the Counsellor had given to her.
+
+On hearing the woman whom he loved with such intense passion confess
+that she would sooner die than live apart from him, Norbert’s brain
+reeled.
+
+“Diana, my own Diana!” repeated he, as he hung over her.
+
+But she went on, as though speaking through the promptings of delirium.
+
+“The very day after such a fair prospect! Ah, Duke de Champdoce! You are
+a hard and pitiless man. You have robbed me of all I held dear in the
+world, blackened my reputation, and tarnished my honor, and now you want
+my life.”
+
+Norbert uttered such a cry of anger, that even Daumon in the passage was
+startled by it. He placed Diana tenderly in the Counsellor’s arm-chair,
+saying,--
+
+“No, you shall not kill yourself, nor shall you leave me.”
+
+She smiled faintly, and held out her arms to him. Her magic spells were
+deftly woven.
+
+“No,” cried he; “the poison which you had intended to use on yourself
+shall become my weapon of vengeance, and the instrument of punishment of
+the one who has wronged you.”
+
+And with the gait of a man walking in his sleep, he left the
+Counsellor’s office.
+
+Hardly had the young man’s footsteps died away, than Daumon entered the
+room. He had not lost a word or action in the foregoing scene, and he
+was terribly agitated; and he could scarcely believe his eyes when
+he saw Diana, whom he had supposed to be lying half-sensible in the
+arm-chair, standing at the window, gazing after Norbert, as he walked
+along the road leading from the Counsellor’s cottage.
+
+“Ah! what a woman!” muttered he. “Gracious powers, what a wonderful
+woman!”
+
+When Diana had lost sight of her lover, she turned round to Daumon. Her
+face was pale, and her eyelids swollen, but her eyes flashed with the
+conviction of success.
+
+“To-morrow, Counsellor,” said she, “to-morrow I shall be the Duchess de
+Champdoce.”
+
+Daumon was so overwhelmed that, accustomed as he was to startling events
+and underhand trickery, he could find no words to express his feelings.
+
+“That is to say,” added Diana thoughtfully, “if all goes as it should
+to-night.”
+
+Daumon felt a cold shiver creep over him, but summoning up all his
+self-possession, he said, “I do not understand you. What is this that
+you hope will be accomplished to-night?”
+
+She turned so contemptuous and sarcastic a look on him, that the words
+died away in his mouth, and he at once saw his mistake in thinking that
+he could sport with the girl’s feelings as a cat plays with a mouse; for
+it was she who was playing with him, and she, a simple girl, had made
+this wily man of the world her dupe.
+
+“Success is, of course, a certainty,” answered she coldly; “but Norbert
+is impetuous, and impetuous people are often awkward. But I must return
+home at once. Ah, me!” she added, as her self-control gave way for a
+moment, “will this cruel night never pass away, and give way to the
+gentle light of dawn? Farewell, Counsellor. When we meet again, all
+matters will be settled, one way or other.”
+
+The Parthian dart which Mademoiselle de Laurebourg had cast behind
+her went true to the mark; the allusion to Norbert’s impetuosity and
+awkwardness rendered the Counsellor very unhappy. He sat down in his
+arm-chair, and, resting his head on his hands, and his elbows on his
+desk, he strove to review the position thoroughly. Perhaps by now
+all might be over. Where was Norbert, and what was he doing? he asked
+himself.
+
+At the time that Daumon was reflecting, Norbert was on the road leading
+to Champdoce. He had entirely lost his head, but he found that his
+reason was clear and distinct. Those who have been accustomed to the
+treatment of maniacs know with what startling rapidity they form a chain
+of action, and the cloud that veiled Norbert’s brain appeared to throw
+out into stronger relief the murderous determination he had formed. He
+had already decided how the deed was to be done. The common wine of the
+country was always served to the laborers at the table, but the Duke
+kept a better quality for his own drinking, and the bottle containing
+this was after meals placed on a shelf in a cupboard in the dining-room.
+It was thus within every one’s reach, but not a soul in the household
+would have ventured to lay a finger upon it. Norbert’s thoughts fell
+upon this bottle, and in his mind’s eye he could see it standing in its
+accustomed place. He crossed the courtyard, and the laborers, engaged
+in their tasks, gazed at him curiously. He passed them, and entered the
+dining-room, which was untenanted. With a caution that was not to
+be expected from the agitation of his mind, he opened each door
+successively, in order to be certain that no eyes were gazing upon him.
+Then, with the greatest rapidity, he took down the bottle, drew the cork
+with his teeth, and dropped into the wine, not one, but two or three
+pinches of the contents of the little vial. He shook the bottle gently,
+to facilitate the dissolution of the powder. A few particles of the
+poison clung to the lip of the bottle; he wiped off these, not with a
+napkin, a pile of which lay on the shelf beside him, but with his
+own handkerchief. He replaced the bottle in its accustomed place, and
+seating himself by the fire, awaited the course of events.
+
+At this moment the Duke de Champdoce was coming up the avenue at a rapid
+pace. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, this man perceived that
+one of his last acts had been insensate and foolish in the extreme. All
+the possibilities of the law to which Daumon had alluded struck the Duke
+with over-whelming force, and he at once saw that his violent conduct
+had given ample grounds upon which to base a plaint, with results which
+he greatly feared. If the court entertained the matter, his son would
+most likely be removed from his control. He knew that such an idea would
+never cross Norbert’s brain, but there were plenty of persons to suggest
+it to him. The danger of his position occurred to him, and at the
+same time he felt that he must frame his future conduct with extreme
+prudence. He had not given up his views regarding his son’s marriage
+with Mademoiselle de Puymandour. No; he would sooner have resigned life
+itself, but he felt that he must renounce violence, and gain his ends by
+diplomacy. The first thing to be done was to get Norbert to return
+home, and the father greatly doubted whether the son would do so. While
+thinking over these things, with a settled gloom upon his face, one of
+the servants came running up to him with the news of Norbert’s return.
+
+“I hold him at last,” muttered he, and hastened on to the Chateau.
+
+When the Duke entered the dining-room, Norbert did not rise from his
+seat, and the Duke was disagreeably impressed by this breach of the
+rules of domestic etiquette.
+
+“On my word,” thought he, “it would appear that the young booby thinks
+that he owes me no kind of duty whatever.”
+
+He did not, however, allow his anger to be manifest in his features;
+besides, the sight of the blood, with which his son’s face was still
+smeared, caused him to feel excessively uncomfortable.
+
+“Norbert, my son,” said he, “are you suffering? Why have you not had
+that cut attended to?”
+
+The young man made no reply, and the Duke continued,--
+
+“Why have you not washed the blood away? Is it left there as a reproach
+to me? There is no need for that, I assure you; for deeply do I deplore
+my violence.”
+
+Norbert still made no answer, and the Duke became more and more
+embarrassed. To give himself time for reflection, more than because he
+was thirsty, he took a glass, and filled it from his own special bottle.
+
+Norbert trembled from head to foot as he saw this act.
+
+“Come, my son,” continued the Duke, “just try if you cannot find some
+palliation for what your old father has done. I am ready to ask your
+forgiveness, and to apologize, for a man of honor is never ashamed to
+acknowledge when he has been in the wrong.”
+
+He raised his glass, and raised it up to the light half mechanically.
+Norbert held his breath; the whole world seemed turning round.
+
+“It is hard, very hard,” continued the Duke, “for a father thus to
+humiliate himself in vain before his son.”
+
+It was useless for Norbert to turn away his head; he saw the Duke place
+the glass to his lips. He was about to drink, but the young man could
+endure it no longer, and with a bound he sprang forward, snatched the
+glass from his father’s hand, and hurled it from the window, shouting in
+a voice utterly unlike his own,--
+
+“Do not drink.”
+
+The Duke read the whole hideous truth in the face and manner of his son.
+His features quivered, his face grew purple, and his eyes filled with
+blood. He strove to speak, but only an inarticulate rattle could be
+heard; he then clasped his hands convulsively, swayed backwards and
+forwards, and then fell helplessly backwards, striking his head against
+an oaken sideboard that stood near. Norbert tore open the door.
+
+“Quick, help!” cried he. “I have killed my father.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE HONOR OF THE NAME.
+
+The account that the Duke of Champdoce had given of M. de Puymandour’s
+mad longing for rank and title was true, and afforded a melancholy
+instance of that peculiar kind of foolish vanity. He was a much happier
+man in his younger days, when he was known simply as Palouzet, which was
+his father’s name, whose only wish for distinction was to be looked upon
+as an honest man. In those days he was much looked up to and respected,
+as a man who had possessed brains enough to amass a very large fortune
+by strictly honest means. All this vanished, however, when the unhappy
+idea occurred to him to affix the title of Count to the name of an
+estate that he had recently purchased.
+
+From that moment, all his tribulations in life may have been said to
+have commenced. The nobility laughed at his assumption of hereditary
+rank, while the middle classes frowned at his pretensions to be superior
+to them, so that he passed the existence of a shuttlecock, continually
+suspended in the air, and struck at and dismissed from either side.
+
+It may, therefore, be easily imagined how excessively anxious he was to
+bring about the marriage between his daughter Marie and the son of that
+mighty nobleman, the Duke of Champdoce. He had offered to sacrifice
+one-third of his fortune for the honor of forming this connection, and
+would have given up the whole of it, could he but have seen a child in
+whose veins ran the united blood of Palouzet and the Champdoce seated
+upon his knee. A marriage of this kind would have given him a real
+position; for to have a Champdoce for a son-in-law would compel all
+scoffers to bridle their tongues.
+
+The day after he had received a favorable reply from the Duke, M.
+de Puymandour thought that it was time to inform his daughter of his
+intentions. He never thought that she would make any opposition, and, of
+course, supposed that she would be as delighted as he was at the honor
+that awaited her. He was seated in a magnificently furnished room which
+he called his library when he arrived at this conclusion, and ringing
+the bell, ordered the servant to inquire of mademoiselle’s maid if her
+mistress could grant him an interview. He gave this curious message,
+which did not appear to surprise the servant in the least, with an
+air of the utmost importance. The communication between the father and
+daughter was always carried on upon this basis; and scoffers wickedly
+asserted that M. de Puymandour had modelled it upon a book of etiquette,
+for the guidance of her household, written by a venerable arch-duchess.
+
+Shortly after the man had departed on his errand, a little tap came to
+the door.
+
+“Come in,” exclaimed M. de Puymandour.
+
+And Mademoiselle Marie ran in and gave her father a kiss upon each
+cheek. He frowned slightly, and extricated himself from her embrace.
+
+“I thought it better to come to you, my dear father,” said she, “than to
+give you the trouble of coming all the way to me.”
+
+“You always forget that there are certain forms and ceremonies necessary
+for a young lady of your position.”
+
+Marie gave a little gentle smile, for she was no stranger to her
+father’s absurd whims; but she never thwarted them, for she was very
+fond of him. She was a very charming young lady, and in the description
+that the Duke had given of her to his son, he had not flattered her
+at all. Though she differed greatly in appearance from Mademoiselle de
+Laurebourg, Marie’s beauty was perfect in a style of its own. She was
+tall and well proportioned, and had all that easy grace of movement,
+characteristic of women of Southern parentage. Her large soft dark eyes
+offered a vivid contrast to her creamy complexion; her hair, in utter
+disregard of the fashionable mode of dressing, was loosely knotted at
+the back of her head. Her nature was soft and affectionate, capable of
+the deepest devotion, while she had the most equable temper that can be
+imagined.
+
+“Come, my dear papa,” said she; “do not scold me any more. You know
+that the Marchioness of Arlanges has promised to teach me how to behave
+myself according to all the rules of fashionable society next winter,
+and I declare to you that I will so practise them up in secret, that you
+will be astonished when you behold them.”
+
+“How woman-like!” muttered her father. “She only scoffs at matters of
+the most vital importance.”
+
+He rose from his seat, and, placing his back to the fireplace, took up
+an imposing position, one hand buried in his waistcoat, and the other
+ready to gesticulate as occasion required.
+
+“Oblige me with your deepest attention,” commenced he. “You were
+eighteen years of age last month, and I have an important piece of
+intelligence to convey to you. I have had an offer of marriage for you.”
+
+Marie looked down, and endeavored to hide her confusion at these
+tidings.
+
+“Before coming to a conclusion upon a matter of such importance,”
+ continued he, “it was, of course, necessary for me to go into the
+question most thoroughly. I spared no means of obtaining information,
+and I am quite certain that the proposed connection would be conducive
+to your future happiness. The suitor for your hand is but little older
+than yourself; he is very handsome, very wealthy, and is a Marquis by
+hereditary right.”
+
+“Has he spoken to you then?” inquired Marie in tones of extreme
+agitation.
+
+“He! Whom do you mean by he?” asked M. de Puymandour; and as his
+daughter did not reply, he repeated his question.
+
+“Who? Why, George de Croisenois.”
+
+“Pray, what have you to do with Croisenois? Who is he, pray? Not that
+dandy with a mustache, that I have seen hanging about you this winter?”
+
+“Yes,” faltered Marie; “that is he.”
+
+“And why should you presume that he had asked me for your hand? Did he
+tell you that he was going to do so?”
+
+“Father, I declare----”
+
+“What, the daughter of a Puymandour has listened to a declaration of
+love unknown to her father? Ten thousand furies! Has he written to you?
+Where are those letters?”
+
+“My dear father--”
+
+“Silence; have you those letters? Let me see them. Come, no delay; I
+will have those bits of paper, if I turn the whole house upside down.”
+
+With a sigh Marie gave the much prized missives to her father; there
+were four only, fastened together with a morsel of blue ribbon.
+
+He took one out at random, and read it aloud, with a running fire of
+oaths and invectives as a commentary upon its contents.
+
+“MADEMOISELLE,--
+
+“Though there is nothing upon earth that I dread so much as your anger,
+I dare, in spite of your commands to the contrary, to write to you
+once again. I have learned that you are about to quit Paris for several
+months. I am twenty-four years of age. I have neither father nor mother,
+and am entirely my own master. I belong to an ancient and honorable
+family. My fortune is a large one, and my love for you is of the most
+honorable and devoted kind. My uncle, M. de Saumeuse, knows your father
+well; and will convey my proposals to him upon his return from Italy, in
+about two or three weeks’ time. Once more intreating you to forgive me,
+
+“I remain,
+
+“Yours respectfully,
+
+“GEORGE DE CROISENOIS.”
+
+
+“Very pretty indeed,” said M. de Puymandour, as he replaced the letter
+in its envelope. “This is sufficient, and I need not read the others;
+but pray, what answer did you give?”
+
+“That I must refer him to you, my dear father.”
+
+“Indeed, on my word, you do me too much honor; and did you really think
+that I would listen to such proposals? Perhaps you love him?”
+
+She turned her lovely face towards her father, with the great tears
+rolling down her cheeks for her sole reply.
+
+This mute confession, for as such he regarded it, put the finishing
+touch to M. de Puymandour’s exasperation.
+
+“You absolutely love him, and have the impudence to tell me so?”
+
+Marie glanced at her father, and answered,--
+
+“The Marquis de Croisenois is of good family.”
+
+“Pooh! you know nothing about it. Why, the first Croisenois was one of
+Richelieu’s minions, and Louis XIII. conferred the title for some shady
+piece of business which he carried out for him. Has this fine Marquis
+any means of livelihood?”
+
+“Certainly; about sixty thousand francs a year.”
+
+“Humbug! What did he mean by addressing you secretly? Only to compromise
+your name, and so to secure your fortune, and perhaps to break off your
+marriage with another.”
+
+“But why suppose this?”
+
+“I suppose nothing; I am merely going upon facts. What does a man of
+honor do when he falls in love?”
+
+“My dear father--”
+
+“He goes to his solicitor, acquaints him with his intentions, and
+explains what his means are; the solicitor goes to the family solicitor
+of the young lady, and when these men of the law have found out that all
+is satisfactory, then love is permitted to make his appearance upon the
+scene. And now you may as well attend to me. Forget De Croisenois
+as soon as you can, for I have chosen a husband for you, and, having
+pledged my word of honor, I will abide by it. On Sunday the eligible
+suitor will be introduced to you, and on Monday we will visit the
+Bishop, asking him to be good enough to perform the ceremony. On Tuesday
+you will show yourself in public with him, in order to announce the
+betrothal. Wednesday the marriage contract will be read. Thursday a
+grand dinner-party. Friday an exhibition of the marriage presents;
+Saturday a day of rest; Sunday the publication of the banns, and at the
+end of the following week the marriage will take place.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marie listened to her father’s determination with intense
+horror.
+
+“For pity’s sake, my dear father, be serious,” cried she.
+
+M. de Puymandour paid no attention to her entreaty, but added, as an
+afterthought:
+
+“Perhaps you would wish to know the name of the gentleman I have
+selected as a husband for you. He is the Marquis Norbert, the son and
+heir of the Duke de Champdoce.”
+
+Marie turned deadly pale.
+
+“But I do not know him; I have never seen him,” faltered she.
+
+“_I_ know him, and that is quite sufficient. I have often told you that
+you should be a duchess, and I mean to keep my word.”
+
+Marie’s affection for George de Croisenois was much deeper than she
+had told her father, much deeper even than she had dared to confess to
+herself, and she resented this disposal of her with more obstinacy than
+any one knowing her gentle nature would have supposed her capable of;
+but M. de Puymandour was not the man to give up for an instant the
+object which he had sworn to attain. He never gave his daughter an
+instant’s peace, he argued, insisted, and bullied until, after three
+days’ contest, Marie gave her assent with a flood of tears. The word had
+scarcely passed her lips, before her father, without even thanking her
+for her terrible sacrifice, exclaimed in a voice of triumph:
+
+“I must take these tidings to Champdoce without a moment’s delay.”
+
+He started at once, and as he passed through the doorway said:
+
+“Good-by, my little duchess, good-by.”
+
+He was most desirous of seeing the Duke, for, on taking leave of him,
+the old nobleman had said, “You shall hear from me to-morrow;” but no
+letter had as yet reached him from Champdoce. This delay however, had
+suited M. de Puymandour’s plans, for it had enabled him to wring the
+consent from his daughter; but now that this had been done, he began to
+feel very anxious, and to fear that there might be some unforeseen hitch
+in the affair.
+
+When he reached Bevron, he saw Daumon talking earnestly with Francoise,
+the daughter of the Widow Rouleau. M. de Puymandour bowed graciously,
+and stopped to talk with the man, for he was just now seeking for
+popularity, as he was a candidate, and the elections would shortly take
+place; and, besides, he never failed to talk to persons who exercised
+any degree of influence, and he knew that Daumon was a most useful man
+in electioneering.
+
+“Good morning, Counsellor,” said he gayly. “What is the news to-day?”
+
+Daumon bowed profoundly.
+
+“Bad news, Count,” answered he. “I hear that the Duke de Champdoce is
+seriously indisposed.”
+
+“The Duke ill--impossible!”
+
+“This girl has just given me the information. Tell us all about it,
+Francoise.”
+
+“I heard to-day at the Chateau that the doctors had quite given him
+over.”
+
+“But what is the matter with him?”
+
+“I did not hear.”
+
+M. de Puymandour stood perfectly aghast.
+
+“It is always the way in this world,” Daumon philosophically said. “In
+the midst of life we are in death!”
+
+“Good morning, Counsellor,” said De Puymandour; “I must try and find out
+something more about this.”
+
+Breathless, and with his mind filled with anxiety, he hurried on.
+
+All the servants and laborers on the Champdoce estate were gathered
+together in a group, talking eagerly to each other, and as soon as M. de
+Puymandour appeared, one of the servants, disengaging himself from his
+fellows, came towards him. This was the Duke’s old, trustworthy servant.
+
+“Well?” exclaimed M. de Puymandour.
+
+“Oh, sir,” cried the old man, “this is too horrible; my poor master will
+certainly die.”
+
+“But I do not know what is the matter with him; no one has told me
+anything, in fact.”
+
+“It was terribly sudden,” answered the man. “It was about this time
+the day before yesterday that the Duke was alone with M. Norbert in the
+dining-room. All at once we heard a great outcry. We ran in and saw
+my poor master lying senseless on the ground, his face purple and
+distorted.”
+
+“He must have had a fit of apoplexy.”
+
+“Not exactly; the doctor called it a rush of blood to the brain; at
+least, I think that is what he said, and he added that the reason he
+did not die on the spot was because in falling he had cut open his head
+against the oaken sideboard, and the wound bled profusely. We carried
+him up to his bed; he showed no signs of life, and now----”
+
+“Well, how is he now?”
+
+“No one dare give an opinion; my poor master is quite unconscious, and
+should he recover--and I do not think for a moment that he will--the
+doctor says his mind will have entirely gone.”
+
+“Horrible! Too horrible! And a man of such intellectual power, too. I
+shall not ask you to let me look at him, for I could do no good, and the
+sight would upset me. But can I not see M. Norbert?”
+
+“Pray, do not attempt to do so, sir.”
+
+“I was his father’s intimate friend, and if the condolences of such a
+one could assuage the affliction under which--”
+
+“Impossible!” answered the man in a quick, eager manner. “M. Norbert was
+with his father at the time of his seizure, and has given strict orders
+that he is not to be disturbed on any account; but I must go to him at
+once, for we are expecting the physicians who are coming from Poitiers.”
+
+“Very well, then I will go now, but to-night I will send up one of my
+people for news.”
+
+With these words, M. de Puymandour walked slowly away, absorbed in
+thought. The manner and expression of the servant had struck him as
+extremely strange. He noted the fact that Norbert was alone with his
+father at the time of the seizure, and, recalling to mind the opposition
+he had met with from his daughter, he began to imagine that the Duke had
+found his son rebellious, and that the apoplectic fit had been brought
+on by a sudden access of passion. Interest and ambition working together
+brought him singularly near the truth.
+
+“If the Duke dies, or becomes a maniac,” thought he to himself, “the end
+as regards us will be the same for Norbert will break off the match to a
+certainty.”
+
+He felt that such a proceeding would cause him to be more jeered at and
+ridiculed than ever, and that the only path of escape left open to him
+was to marry his daughter to the Marquis de Croisenois, which was a
+most desirable alliance, in spite of all he had said against it. A
+voice close to his ear aroused him from his reflections: it was that of
+Daumon, who had come up unperceived.
+
+“Was the girl’s information correct, Count?” asked he. “How are the Duke
+and M. Norbert, for of course you have seen them both?”
+
+“M. Norbert is too much agitated by the sad event to see any one.”
+
+“Of course that was to be looked for,” returned the wily Counsellor;
+“for the seizure was terribly sudden.”
+
+M. de Puymandour was too much occupied with his own thoughts to spare
+much pity for Norbert. He would have given a great deal to have known
+what the young man was doing, and especially what he was thinking of at
+the present moment.
+
+The poor lad was standing by the bedside of his dying father, watching
+eagerly for some indication, however slight, of returning life or
+reason. The hours of horror and self-reproach had entirely changed
+his feelings and ideas; for it was only at the instant when he saw his
+father raise the poisoned wine to his lips that he saw his crime in all
+its hideous enormity. His soul rose up in rebellion against his crime,
+and the words, “Parricide! murderer!” seemed to ring in his ears like a
+trumpet call. When his father fell to the ground, his instinct made him
+shout for aid; but an instant afterwards terror took possession of
+him, and, rushing from the house, he sought the open country, as though
+striving to escape from himself.
+
+Jean, the old servant, who had noticed Norbert’s strange look, was
+seized with a terrible fear. Trusted as he was by both the Duke and
+his son, he had many means of knowing all that was going on in the
+household, and was no stranger to the differences that had arisen
+recently between father and son. He knew how violent the tempers of both
+were, and he also knew that some woman was urging on Norbert to a course
+of open rebellion. He had seen the cruel blow dealt by the Duke, and had
+wondered greatly when he saw Norbert return to the Chateau. Why had he
+done so? He had been in the courtyard when Norbert threw the glass from
+the window. Putting all these circumstances together, as soon as the
+inanimate body of the Duke had been laid upon a bed, Jean went into the
+dining-room, feeling sure that he should make some discovery which would
+confirm his suspicions. The bottle from which the Duke had filled his
+glass stood half emptied upon the table. With the greatest care, he
+poured a few drops of its contents into the hollow of his hand, and
+tasted it with the utmost caution. The wine still retained its customary
+taste and scent. Not trusting, however, to this, Jean, after making
+sure that he was not observed, carried the bottle to his own room, and
+concealed it. After taking this precaution, he ordered one of the other
+servants to remain by the side of the Duke until the arrival of the
+doctor, and then went in search of Norbert.
+
+For two hours his efforts were fruitless. Giving up his search in
+despair, he turned once more to regain the Chateau, and, taking the path
+through the wood, suddenly perceived a human form stretched on the turf
+beneath a tree. He moved cautiously towards the figure, and at once
+recognized Norbert. The faithful servant bent over his young master,
+and shook him by the arm to arouse him from his state of stupor. At the
+first touch, Norbert started to his feet with a shriek of terror. With
+mingled fear and pity, Jean noticed the look that shone in the young
+man’s eyes, more like that of some hunted animal than a human being.
+
+“Do not be alarmed, M. Norbert; it is only I,” said he.
+
+“And what do you want?”
+
+“I came to look for you, and to entreat you to come back with me to
+Champdoce.”
+
+“Back to Champdoce?” repeated Norbert hoarsely; “no, never!”
+
+“You must, Master Norbert; for your absence now would cause a terrible
+scandal. Your place at this critical time is by the bedside of your
+father.”
+
+“Never! never!” repeated the poor boy; but he yielded passively when
+Jean passed his arm through his, and led him away towards the Chateau.
+Supported thus by the old man’s arm, he crossed the courtyard, and
+ascended the staircase; but at his father’s door he withdrew his hand,
+and struggled to get away.
+
+“I will not; no, no, I cannot,” gasped he.
+
+“You must and you shall,” returned the old man firmly. “Whatever your
+feelings may be, no stain shall rest on the family honor.”
+
+These words roused Norbert; he stepped across the room, and dropped on
+his knees by the bed, placing his forehead upon his father’s icy hand.
+He burst into a passion of tears and sobs, and the simple peasants, who
+surrounded the couch of the insensible nobleman, breathed a sigh; for,
+from his pallid face and burning eyes, they believed he must be mad.
+They were not far out in this surmise; but the tears relieved his
+over-wrought brain, and with this relief came the sense of intense
+suffering. When the physician arrived, he was able to appear before him
+merely as a deeply anxious son.
+
+“There is no hope for the Duke, I regret to say,” said the medical man,
+who felt that it was useless to keep Norbert in suspense. “There is a
+feeble chance of saving his life; but even should we succeed in doing
+so, his intellect will be irretrievably gone. This is a sad truth, but I
+feel it my duty to inform you of it. I will come again to-morrow.”
+
+As the doctor left the room, Norbert threw himself into a chair, and
+clasped his hands round his head, which throbbed until it seemed as if
+it would burst. For more than half an hour he sat motionless, and then
+started to his feet with a stifled cry; for he remembered the bottle
+into which he had poured the poison, and which had been left on the
+table. Had any one drunk from it? What had become of it? The agony of
+his mind gave him the necessary strength to descend to the dining-room;
+but the bottle was not on the table, nor was it in its customary place
+in the cupboard. The unhappy boy was looking for it everywhere, when the
+door silently opened, and Jean appeared on the threshold. The expression
+upon his young master’s face so startled the faithful old man that he
+nearly dropped the lighted candle that he carried in his hand.
+
+“Why are you here, Master Norbert?” asked he in a voice that trembled
+with emotion.
+
+“I was looking for----I wanted to find----,” faltered Norbert.
+
+Jean’s suspicions at once became certainties; he walked up to his young
+master, and whispered in his ear,--
+
+“You are looking for the Duke’s bottle of wine, are you not? It is quite
+safe; for I have taken it to my room. To-morrow the contents shall be
+emptied away, and there will be no proof existing.”
+
+Jean spoke in such a low voice that Norbert guessed rather than heard
+his words, and yet it seemed that the accusing whisper resounded like
+thunder through the Chateau, filling the old house from cellar to
+roof-tree.
+
+“Be quiet,” said he, laying his hand on the old man’s lips, and gazing
+around him with wild and affrighted glances.
+
+A more complete confession could hardly have been made.
+
+“Fear nothing, Master Norbert,” answered Jean; “we are quite alone. I
+know that there are words which should never be even breathed; and if I
+have ventured to speak, it was because it was my duty to warn you, and
+to inculcate on you the necessity of caution.”
+
+Norbert was filled with horror when he saw that the old man believed him
+to be really guilty.
+
+“Jean,” cried he, “you are wrong in your suspicions. I tell you that my
+father never tasted that wine. I snatched the glass from him before
+his lips had touched it. I flung it out into the courtyard, and, if you
+search, you will find its scattered fragments there still.”
+
+“I am not sitting in judgment upon you; what you tell me to believe I am
+ready to accept.”
+
+“Ah!” cried Norbert passionately, “he does not believe me; he thinks
+that I am guilty. I swear to you by all that I hold most sacred in this
+world, that I am innocent of this deed.”
+
+The attached servant shook his head with a melancholy air.
+
+“Of course, of course,” said he; “but it is for us two to save the honor
+of the house of Champdoce. Should it happen that any suspicions should
+be aroused, put all the guilt upon my shoulders. I will defend myself in
+a manner which will only fix the crime more firmly upon me. I will not
+throw away the bottle, but will retain it in my room, so that it may be
+found there, and its contents will be a damnatory evidence against me.
+What matters it how a poor man like me is sent out of the world? but
+with you it is different. You--”
+
+Norbert wrung his hands in abject despair; the sublime devotion of the
+old servant showed how firmly Jean believed in his criminality. He was
+about to assert his innocence further, when the loud sound of a closing
+door was heard above stairs.
+
+“Hush!” said the old man; “some one approaches; we must not be seen
+whispering together like two plotters, for their suspicions would be
+certainly awakened; and I fear that my face or your eyes will reveal the
+secret. Quick, go upstairs, and endeavor, as soon as possible, to resume
+your calmness. I beg you not to compromise the honor of your name, which
+is in deadly peril.”
+
+Without another word Norbert obeyed. His father was alone, and only
+the man to whom Jean had delegated the task of watcher remained by his
+bedside. At the sight of his young master he rose.
+
+“The prescription which the doctor ordered to be made up has arrived,”
+ said he. “I have administered a dose to the Duke, and it seems to me
+that the result has been favorable.”
+
+Norbert drew up a heavy arm-chair to the foot of the bed, and took his
+seat upon it. From this position he could see his father’s face. His
+brain was dazed, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he could
+recall the chain of events which had drawn him towards the abyss into
+which he had so nearly been precipitated.
+
+The veil had been taken from his eyes, and he now saw with perfect
+clearness and seemed again to hear his father’s voice as it roughly
+warned him that the woman he loved was a mere plotter, who cared not
+for him, but was scheming for his fortune and his name. Then he had been
+furiously indignant and looked upon the words as almost blasphemous, but
+now he saw that his father was right. How was it that he had not before
+seen that Diana was flinging herself in his way, and that all her
+affected openness and simplicity were merely the perfections of art, and
+that step by step she had led him to the brink of the terrible precipice
+which yawned before him? The whole hideous part as played by Daumon was
+no longer a sealed book to him. She whom he had looked on as a pure and
+innocent girl was merely the accomplice of a scheming villain like the
+Counsellor, and after exciting his hatred and anger almost to madness,
+had placed the poison which was to take his father’s life in his hands.
+A cold shiver ran through him as he realized this, and all his ardent
+love for Diana de Laurebourg was changed into a feeling of loathing and
+disgust.
+
+At last the first pale rays of dawn broke through the casement, but
+before that Norbert, worn out with conflicting emotions, had fallen into
+a restless and uneasy sleep, and when he awoke the doctor was standing
+by the bedside of the sick man. At the first sound made by Norbert as
+he stirred in the chair, the doctor came towards him, saying, “We shall
+preserve his life.”
+
+This prognostication was complete, for that very evening the Duke de
+Champdoce was able to move in his bed, the next day he uttered some
+incoherent words, and later on asked for food; but the will of iron had
+passed away, the features had lost their expression of determination,
+and the eye the glitter of pride and power. Never again would the Duke
+be able to exert that keen, stern intellect which had enabled him to
+influence all those around him; and in this terrible state of imbecility
+the haughty nobleman would ever remain, fed and looked after like a
+child, with no thought beyond his desires and his warm fire, and without
+a care for anything that was going on in the world around him.
+
+After the enormity of his crime had been brought before him, the
+greatness of the punishment that he must endure now came across
+Norbert’s mind. It was only now that Jean had ventured to tell him of M.
+de Puymandour’s visit; and such a change had taken place in Norbert that
+he looked upon this visit as a special arrangement made by Providence.
+
+“My father’s will shall be carried out in every respect,” said he to
+himself, and without an hour’s delay he wrote to M. de Puymandour,
+begging him to call, and hoping that the grief which had fallen upon him
+had in no way altered the plan which had already been arranged.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A THUNDERBOLT.
+
+As the miner, who sets fire to the fuse and seeks shelter from the
+coming explosion, so did Diana de Laurebourg return to her father’s
+house after her visit to Daumon. During dinner it was impossible for
+her to utter a word, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she
+succeeded in swallowing a mouthful. Fortunately neither her father
+nor mother took any notice of her. They had that day received a letter
+announcing the news that their son, for whose future prosperity they
+had sacrificed Diana, was lying dangerously ill in Paris, where he was
+living in great style. They were in terrible affliction, and spoke of
+starting at once, so as to be with him. They therefore expressed no
+surprise when, on leaving the table, Diana pleaded a severe headache as
+an excuse for retiring to her own room. When once she was alone, having
+dismissed her maid, she heaved a deep sigh of relief. She never thought
+of retiring to bed, but throwing open her window, leaned out with her
+elbow on the window-sill.
+
+It seemed to her that Norbert would certainly make some effort to
+see her, or at any rate by some means to let her know whether he had
+succeeded or failed.
+
+“But I must be patient,” murmured she, “for I can’t hear anything until
+the afternoon of to-morrow.”
+
+In spite, however, of her resolutions, patience fled from her mind, and
+as soon as the servants had begun moving about, she went out into the
+garden and took up a position which commanded a view of the highroad,
+but no one appeared. The bell rang for breakfast. Again she had to seat
+herself at table with her parents, and the terrible penance of the
+past evening had to be repeated. At three o’clock she could endure the
+suspense no longer, and making her escape from the Chateau, she went
+over to Daumon, who, she felt, must have obtained some intelligence.
+Even if she found that he knew nothing, it would be a relief to speak to
+him and to ask him when he thought that this terrible delay would come
+to an end. But she got no comfort at Daumon’s, for he had passed as
+miserable a night as herself, and was nearly dead with affright. He had
+remained in his office all the morning, starting at the slightest sound,
+and though he was as anxious as Diana for information, he had only gone
+out a little before her arrival. He met Mademoiselle Laurebourg on his
+return at the door of his cottage, and taking her inside, he informed
+her that at a late hour the night before the doctor had been sent for
+to Champdoce to attend the Duke, who was supposed to be dying. Then he
+reproved her bitterly for her imprudence in visiting him.
+
+“Do you wish,” said he, “to show all Bevron that you and I are Norbert’s
+accomplices?”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked she.
+
+“I mean that if the Duke does not die, we are lost. When I say we, I
+mean myself, for you, as the daughter of a noble family, will be sure to
+escape scot free, and I shall be left to pay for all.”
+
+“You said that the effect was immediate.”
+
+“I did say so, and I thought so too. Ah, if I had but reflected a
+little! You will however see that I do not intend to give in without
+a fight. I will defend myself by accusing you. I am an honest man, and
+have been your dupe. You have thought to make me a mere tool; your fine
+Norbert is a fool, but he will pay for his doings with his head all the
+same.”
+
+At these gross insults Mademoiselle de Laurebourg rose to her feet and
+attempted to speak, but he cut her short.
+
+“I can’t stop to pick and choose my words, for I feel at the present
+moment as if the axe of the guillotine were suspended over my head. Now
+just oblige me by getting out of this, and never show your face here
+again.”
+
+“As you like. I will communicate with Champdoce.”
+
+“You shall not,” exclaimed Daumon with a gesture of menace. “You might
+as well go and ask how the Duke enjoyed the taste of the poison.”
+
+His words, however, did not deter Diana, for any risk seemed preferable
+to her than the present state of suspense.
+
+With a glance of contempt at the Counsellor she left the cottage,
+determined to act as she thought fit.
+
+After Diana’s departure, Daumon felt too that he must learn how matters
+were going on, and going over to the Widow Rouleau’s, he despatched her
+daughter Francoise to the Chateau de Champdoce, under the pretext that
+he wanted some money which he had lent to one of the Duke’s servants.
+He had instructed the girl so cunningly that she had no suspicion of
+the real end and object of her mission, and set out on it with the most
+implicit confidence. He had not long to wait for her return, for in
+about half an hour his messenger returned.
+
+“Well,” said he anxiously, “has the scamp sent my money?”
+
+“No, sir, I am sorry to say that I could not even get to speak to him.”
+
+“How was that? Was he not at Champdoce?”
+
+“I cannot even tell you that. Ever since the Duke has been ill, the
+great gates of the Chateau have been bolted, for it seems that the poor
+old gentleman is at his last gasp.”
+
+“Did you not hear what was the matter with him?”
+
+“No, sir, the little I have told you I got from a stable boy, who spoke
+to me through a grating in the gate, but before he could say ten words
+Jean came up and sent him off.”
+
+“Do you mean Jean, the Duke’s confidential man?”
+
+“Just so,” returned the girl, “and very angry he was. He abused the lad
+and told him to be off to the stables, and then asked, ‘Well, my girl,
+and pray what do you want?’ I told him that I had come with a message
+to the man Mechenit; but before I could say any more he broke in with,
+‘Well, he isn’t here, you can call again in a month.’”
+
+“You silly little fool, was that all you said?”
+
+“Not quite, for I said that I must see Mechenit. Then, looking at me
+very suspiciously, he said, ‘And who sent you here, you little spy?’”
+
+The Counsellor started.
+
+“Indeed! and what did you say in return?” asked he.
+
+“Why, of course I said that you had sent me.”
+
+“Yes, yes, that was right.”
+
+“And then Jean rubbed his hand over his chin, and looking at me very
+curiously, said sternly,--
+
+“‘So you have come from the Counsellor, have you? Ah, I see it all, and
+so shall he one of these days.’”
+
+At these words Daumon felt his knees give way under him; but all further
+questioning was stopped by the appearance of M. de Puymandour on his way
+to Champdoce. He therefore dismissed Francoise, and awaited the return
+of this gentleman, from whom he hoped to gain the fullest information
+regarding the Duke’s malady. The intelligence which he received calmed
+him a little, and repenting of his treatment of Diana, he went and hung
+about the gates of the Chateau de Laurebourg, until he was lucky enough
+to catch sight of the girl in the garden, for her anxiety would not
+permit her to remain in the house. He beckoned to her, and then said,--
+
+“M. Norbert did not make the dose strong enough. The Duke is as strong
+as a horse; but it is all right, for should he live, he will be an
+idiot, and so our end is as much gained as if he had died.”
+
+“But why does not Norbert write to me?” asked Diana seriously.
+
+“Why, because he has some faint glimmerings of common sense. How do you
+know that he may not have half a dozen spies about him? You must wait.”
+
+Diana and the Counsellor waited for a week, but Norbert made no sign.
+Diana suffered agonies, and the days seemed to pass with leaden feet.
+Sunday came at last. The Marchioness de Laurebourg had attended early
+Mass, and had given orders that her daughter should go to high Mass
+under the escort of her maid. Diana was highly pleased with this
+arrangement, for she hoped to have a chance of seeing Norbert, but she
+was disappointed. The Mass had commenced when she entered, but the spot
+occupied by the Duke and his son was vacant. She followed the service
+in a purely mechanical manner, and at last noticed that the priest had
+taken his place in the pulpit.
+
+This was generally an exciting moment for the inhabitants of Bevron,
+for it was immediately before the sermon that the banns of marriage
+were published. The priest gazed blandly down upon the expectant crowd,
+coughed slightly, used his handkerchief, and finally took from his
+breviary a sheet of paper.
+
+“I have,” said he, “to publish the banns of marriage between----” here
+he made a little pause, and all the congregation were on the tenterhooks
+of expectation; “between,” he continued, “Monsieur Louis Norbert,
+Marquis de Champdoce, a minor, and only legitimate son of Guillaume
+Caesar, Duke de Champdoce, and of his wife Isabella de Barnaville, now
+deceased, but who both formerly resided in this parish, and Desiree
+Anne Marie Palouzet, minor, and legitimate daughter of Rene Augustus
+Palouzet, Count de Puymandour, and of Zoe Staplet, his wife, but now
+deceased, also residents of this parish.”
+
+This was the thunderbolt launched from the pulpit, which seemed to crush
+Diana into the earth, and her heart almost ceased to beat.
+
+“Let any one,” continued the priest, “who knows of any impediment to
+this marriage, take warning that he or she must acquaint us with it,
+under the penalty of excommunication. At the same time let him be warned
+under the same penalty to bring forward nothing in malice or without
+some foundation.”
+
+An impediment! What irony lay veiled beneath that word. Mademoiselle
+de Laurebourg knew of more than one. A wild desire filled her heart to
+start from her seat and cry out,--
+
+“It is impossible for this marriage to take place, for that Norbert was
+her affianced husband in the sight of Heaven, and that he was bound to
+her by the strongest of all links, that of crime.”
+
+But by a gigantic effort she controlled herself, and remained
+motionless, pallid as a spectre, but with a forced smile on her lips,
+and with unparalleled audacity made a little sign to one of her female
+friends, which plainly meant, “This is, indeed, something unexpected.”
+ All her mind was concentrated to preserve a calm and unmoved aspect. The
+singing of the choir seemed to die away, the strong odor of the incense
+almost overpowered her, and she felt that unless the service soon came
+to an end, she must fall insensible from her chair. At last the priest
+turned again to the congregation and droned out the _Ita missa est_,
+and all was over. Diana grasped the arm of her maid and forced her away,
+without saying a word. As she reached home, a servant ran up to her with
+a face upon which agitation was strongly painted.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” gasped he, “such a frightful calamity. Your father
+and mother are expecting you; it is really too terrible.”
+
+Diana hastened to obey the summons. Her father and mother were seated
+near each other, evidently in deep distress. She went towards them, and
+the Marquis, drawing her to him, pressed her against his heart.
+
+“Poor child! My dear daughter!” murmured he, “you are all that is left
+to us now.”
+
+Their son had died, and the sad news had been brought to the Chateau
+while Diana was at Mass. By her brother’s death she had succeeded to a
+princely fortune, and would now be one of the richest heiresses for many
+a mile round. Had this event happened but a week before, her marriage to
+Norbert would have met with no opposition from his father, and she would
+never have plunged into this abyss of crime. It was more than the irony
+of fate; it was the manifest punishment of an angry Divinity. She shed
+no tear for her brother’s death. Her thoughts were all firmly fixed on
+Norbert, and that fearful announcement made in the house of God rang
+still in her ears. What could be the meaning of this sudden arrangement,
+and why had the marriage been so suddenly decided on?
+
+She felt that some mystery lay beneath it all, and vowed that she would
+fathom it to its nethermost depths. What was it that had taken place
+at Champdoce? Had the Duke, contrary to Daumon’s prognostications,
+recovered? Had he discovered his son’ insidious attack upon his life,
+and only pardoned it upon a blind compliance being given to his will?
+She passed away the whole day in these vain suppositions, and tried to
+think of every plan to stay the celebration of this union, for she had
+not given up her hopes, nor did she yet despair of ultimate success. Her
+new and unlooked-for fortune placed a fresh weapon at her disposal, and
+she felt that the victory would yet be hers if she could but see Norbert
+again, were it but for a single instant. Was she not certain of the
+absolute power that she exercised over him, for had she not by a few
+words induced him to enter upon the terrible path of crime? She must see
+him, and that without a moment’s delay, for the danger was imminent. A
+day now would be worth a year hereafter. She determined that, upon that
+very night, she would visit Champdoce. A little after midnight, when the
+inhabitants of the Chateau were wrapped in slumber, she crept on tiptoe
+down the grand staircase, and made her exit by a side door. She had
+arranged her plan as to how she would find Norbert, for he had often
+described the interior arrangements of the Chateau to her. She knew that
+his room was on the ground floor, with two windows looking on to the
+courtyard. When, however, she reached the old Chateau, she hesitated.
+Suppose that she should go to the wrong window. But she had gone too far
+to recede, and determined that if any one else than Norbert should open
+the window, she would turn and fly. She tapped at the window softly,
+and then more loudly. She had made no mistake. Norbert threw open the
+window, with the words,--
+
+“Who is there?”
+
+“It is I, Norbert; I, Diana.”
+
+“What do you want?” asked Norbert in an agitated tone of voice. “What do
+you want to do here?”
+
+She looked at him anxiously and hardly recognized his face, so great was
+the change that had come over it. It absolutely terrified her.
+
+“Are you going to marry Mademoiselle de Puymandour?” asked she.
+
+“Yes I am.”
+
+“And yet you pretended to love me?”
+
+“Yes, I loved you ardently, devotedly, with a love that drove me to
+crime; but you had no love; you cared but for rank and fortune.”
+
+Diana raised her hands to heaven in an agony of despair.
+
+“Should I be here at this hour if what you say is true?” asked she
+wildly. “My brother is dead, and I am as wealthy as you are, Norbert,
+and yet I am here. You accuse me of being mercenary, and for what
+reason? Was it because I refused to fly with you from my father’s house?
+Oh, Norbert, it was but the happiness of our future life that I strove
+to protect. It was----”
+
+Her speech failed her, and her eyes dilated with horror, for the door
+behind Norbert opened, and the Duke de Champdoce entered the room,
+uttering a string of meaningless words, and laughing with that mirthless
+laugh which is so sure a sign of idiotcy.
+
+“Can you understand now,” exclaimed Norbert, pointing to his
+father, “why the remembrance of my love for you has become a hateful
+reminiscence? Do you dare to talk of happiness to me, when this spectre
+of a meditated crime will ever rise between us?” and with a meaning
+gesture he pointed to the open gate of the courtyard.
+
+She turned; but before passing away, she cast a glance upon him full
+of the deepest fury and jealousy. She could not forgive Norbert for his
+share in the crime that she herself prompted,--for the crime which had
+blighted all her hopes of happiness. Her farewell was a menace.
+
+“Norbert,” she said, as she glided through the gate like a spectre of
+the night, “I will have revenge, and that right soon.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MARRIAGE BELLS; FUNERAL KNELLS.
+
+Three days of hard work had completed all the arrangements necessary
+for the marriage of Norbert and Mademoiselle de Puymandour. He had been
+presented to the lady, and neither had received a favorable impression
+of the other. At the very first glance each one felt that inevitable
+repugnance which the lapse of years can never efface. While dreading the
+anger of her obdurate father, Marie had at one time thought of confiding
+the secret of her attachment to George de Croisenois to Norbert, for she
+had the idea that if she told him that her heart was another’s, he
+might withdraw his pretensions to her hand; but several times, when
+the opportunity occurred, fear restrained her tongue, and she let the
+propitious moment pass away. Had she done so, Norbert would at once have
+eagerly grasped at a pretext for absolving himself from a promise which
+he had made mentally of obeying in all things a father who now, alas!
+had no means of enforcing his commands.
+
+Each day he paid his visit to Puymandour as an accepted suitor, bearing
+a large bouquet with him, which he regularly presented to his betrothed
+upon his entrance into the drawing-room, which she accepted with a
+painful flush rising to her cheek. The pair conversed upon indifferent
+topics, while an aged female connection sat in the room to play
+propriety. For many hours they would remain thus, the girl bending over
+her fancy work, and he vainly striving to find topics of conversation,
+and, consequently, saying hardly anything, in spite of Marie’s feeble
+efforts to assist in the conversation. It was a slight relief when M.
+de Puymandour proposed a walk; but this was a rare occurrence, for that
+gentleman usually declared that he never had a moment’s leisure. Never
+had he seemed so gay and busy since the approaching marriage of
+his daughter had been the theme of every tongue. He took all the
+preparations for the ceremony into his own hands, for he had determined
+that everything should be conducted on a scale of unparalleled
+magnificence. The Chateau was refurnished, and all the carriages
+repainted and varnished, while the Champdoce and the Puymandour arms
+were quartered together on their panels. This coat of arms was to be
+seen everywhere--over the doors, on the walls, and engraved on the
+silver, and it was believed that M. de Puymandour would have made no
+objection to their being branded on his breast.
+
+In the midst of all this turmoil and bustle Norbert and Marie grew
+sadder and sadder as each day passed on. One day M. de Puymandour
+heard so astounding a piece of intelligence that he hurried into the
+drawing-room, where he knew that he should find the lovers (as he styled
+them) together.
+
+“Well, my children,” exclaimed he, “you have set such an excellent
+example, that everybody seems disposed to copy you, and the mayor and
+the priest will be kept to their work rather tightly this year.”
+
+His daughter tried to put on an appearance of interest at this speech.
+
+“Yes,” continued M. de Puymandour, “I have just heard of a marriage that
+will come off almost directly after yours has been celebrated, and will
+make a stir, I can assure you.”
+
+“And whose is that, pray?”
+
+“You are acquainted, I presume,” returned the father, addressing himself
+to Norbert, “with the son of the Count de Mussidan?”
+
+“What, the Viscount Octave?”
+
+“The same.”
+
+“He lives in Paris, does he not?”
+
+“Yes, generally; but he has been staying at Mussidan, and in the short
+space of a week has managed to lose his heart here; and to whom do you
+think? Come, give a guess.”
+
+“We cannot think who it can be, my dear father,” said Marie, “and we are
+devoured with curiosity.”
+
+“It is reported that the Viscount de Mussidan has proposed for the hand
+of Mademoiselle de Laurebourg.”
+
+“Why,” remarked Marie, “it is only three weeks since her brother died!”
+
+Norbert flushed scarlet, and then turned a livid white; so great was his
+agitation at hearing this news, that he nearly dropped the album which
+he held in his hand.
+
+“I like the Viscount,” continued M. de Puymandour, “while Mademoiselle
+Diana is a charming girl. She is very handsome, and, I believe, has many
+talents; and she is a good model for you to copy, Marie, as you are so
+soon to become a duchess.”
+
+When he got upon his favorite hobby, it was very difficult to check M.
+de Puymandour. His daughter, therefore, waited until he had concluded,
+and then left the room, under the pretext of giving an order to the
+servants. The Count hardly noticed her absence, as he had still Norbert
+at his mercy.
+
+“Reverting again to Mademoiselle Diana,” said he: “she looks charming
+in black, for women should look upon a death in the family as a most
+fortunate occurrence; but I ought not to be praising her to you, who are
+so well acquainted with her.”
+
+“I?” exclaimed Norbert.
+
+“Yes, you. I do not suppose that you intend to deny that you have had a
+little flirtation with her?”
+
+“I do not understand you.”
+
+“Well, _I_ do then, my boy; I heard all about your making love to her.
+Why, you are really blushing! What is up now?”
+
+“I can assure you----”
+
+De Puymandour burst into a loud laugh.
+
+“I have heard a good deal of your little country walks, and all the
+pretty things that you used to say to each other.”
+
+In vain did Norbert deny the whole thing, for his intended father-in-law
+would not believe him; and at last he got so annoyed that he refused to
+remain and dine with the Count, alleging anxiety for his father as an
+excuse. He returned home as soon as he possibly could, much agitated by
+what he had heard; and as he was walking rapidly on, he heard his name
+called by some one who was running after him: Norbert turned round, and
+found himself face to face with Montlouis.
+
+“I have been here a week,” said the young man. “I am here with my
+patron, for I have one now. I am now with the Viscount de Mussidan, as
+his private secretary. M. Octave is not the most agreeable man in the
+world to get on with, as he gets into the most violent passions on very
+trivial occasions; but he has a good heart, after all, and I am very
+pleased with the position I have gained.”
+
+“I am very glad to hear it, Montlouis, very much pleased indeed.”
+
+“And you, Marquis, I hear, are to marry Mademoiselle de Puymandour; I
+could scarcely credit the news.”
+
+“And why, pray?”
+
+“Because I remembered when we used to wait outside a certain garden
+wall, until we saw a certain door open discreetly.”
+
+“But you must efface all this from your memory, Montlouis.”
+
+“Do not be alarmed; save to you, my lips would never utter a word of
+this. No one else would ever make me speak.”
+
+“Stop!” said Norbert, with an angry gesture. “Do you venture to say--”
+
+“To say what?”
+
+“I wish you to understand that Mademoiselle Diana is as free from blame
+to-day as she was when first I met her. She has been indiscreet, but
+nothing more, I swear it before heaven!”
+
+“I believe you perfectly.”
+
+In reality Montlouis did not believe one word of Norbert’s assertion,
+and the young Marquis could read this in his companion’s face.
+
+“The more so,” continued the secretary, “as the young lady is about to
+be married to my friend and patron.”
+
+“But where,” asked Norbert, “did the Viscount meet with Mademoiselle de
+Laurebourg?”
+
+“In Paris; the Viscount and her brother were very intimate, and nursed
+him during his last illness, and as soon as the scheming parents heard
+of the Viscount being in the neighborhood they asked him to call on
+them. Of course he did so, and saw Mademoiselle Diana, and returned home
+in a perfect frenzy of love.”
+
+Norbert seemed so incensed at this that Montlouis broke off his recital,
+feeling confident that the Marquis still loved Diana, and was consumed
+with the flame of jealousy.
+
+“But, of course,” he added carelessly, “nothing is yet settled.”
+
+Norbert, however, was too agitated to listen to the idle gossip of
+Montlouis any longer, so he pressed his hand and left him rather
+abruptly, walking away at the top of his speed, leaving his friend
+silent with astonishment. It seemed to Norbert as if he was imprisoned
+in one of those iron dungeons he had read of, which slowly contracted
+day by day, and at last crushed their victims to atoms. He saw Diana
+married to the Viscount de Mussidan, and compelled to meet daily the man
+who knew all about her illicit meetings with her former lover, and who
+had more than once, when Norbert was unable to leave Champdoce, been
+intrusted with a letter or a message for her. And how would Montlouis
+behave under the circumstances? Would he possess the necessary tact and
+coolness to carry him through so difficult a position? What would be the
+end of this cruel concatenation of circumstances? Would Diana be able to
+endure the compromising witness of her youthful error? She would eagerly
+seek out some pretext for his dismissal; he could easily detect this,
+and in his anger at the loss of a position which he had long desired,
+would turn on her and repeat the whole story. Should Montlouis let loose
+his tongue, the Viscount, indignant at the imposition that had been
+practised upon him, would separate from his wife. What would be Diana’s
+conduct when she found herself left thus alone, and despised by the
+society of which she had hoped to be a queen? Would she not, in her
+turn, seek to revenge herself on Norbert? He had just asked himself
+whether at this juncture death would not be a blessing to him, when he
+caught sight of Francoise, the daughter of the Widow Rouleau, close by
+him. For two hours she had been awaiting his coming, concealed behind a
+hedge.
+
+“I have something to give you, my lord Marquis,” said she.
+
+He took the letter that she held out to him, and, opening it, he read,--
+
+“You said that I did not love you--perhaps this was but a test to prove
+my love. I am ready to fly with you to-night. I shall lose all, but
+it will be for your sake. Reflect, Norbert; there is yet time, but
+to-morrow it will be too late.”
+
+These were the words that Mademoiselle de Laurebourg had had the courage
+to pen, which to the former lover were full of the most thrilling
+eloquence. The usually bold, firm writing of Diana was, in the letter
+before him, confused and almost illegible, showing the writer’s frame of
+mind. There were blurs and blisters upon the paper as though tears had
+fallen upon it, perhaps because the writing had been made purposely
+irregular and drops of water are an excellent substitute for tears.
+
+“Does she really love me?” murmured he.
+
+He hesitated; yes, he absolutely hesitated, impressed by the idea that
+for him she was ready to sacrifice position and honor, that he had but
+to raise his finger and she was his, and that in the space of a couple
+of hours she might be the companion of his flight to some far-distant
+land. His pulse throbbed madly, and he could scarcely draw his breath,
+when some fifty paces down the road he caught sight of the figure of a
+man; it was his father. This was the second time that the Duke by his
+mere presence had spread the web of Diana’s temptations and allurements.
+
+“Never!” exclaimed Norbert, with such fire and energy that the girl fell
+back a pace. “Never! no, never!” and crushing up the letter, he dashed
+it upon the ground, from whence Francoise picked it up as he ran forward
+to meet his father. The Duke had recovered from his attack as far as the
+mere fact of his life not having been sacrificed; he could walk, sleep,
+eat and drink as he had formerly done. He could look at the laborers in
+the fields or the horses in the stables, but five minutes afterwards
+he had no recollection of what he heard or saw. The sudden loss of his
+father’s aid would have caused Norbert much embarrassment had it not
+been for the shrewdness and sagacity of M. de Puymandour, who had
+assisted him greatly. But all these arrangements which had to be
+made had necessarily delayed the wedding. But it came at last; M. de
+Puymandour took absolute possession of him, and after the unhappy young
+man had passed a sleepless night, he was allowed no time for reflection.
+At eleven o’clock he entered the carriage, and was driven fast to the
+Mayor’s office, and from thence to the chapel, and by twelve o’clock
+all was finished and he fettered for life. A little before dinner the
+Viscount de Mussidan came to offer his congratulations, and gained
+them at the same time for himself by announcing his speedy union with
+Mademoiselle Diana de Laurebourg.
+
+Five days later the newly married pair took possession of their mansion
+at Champdoce. Hampered with a wife whom he had never affected to love,
+and whose tearful face was a constant reproach to him, and with a
+father who was an utter imbecile, the thoughts of suicide more than once
+crossed Norbert’s brain. One day a servant informed Norbert that his
+father refused to get up. A doctor was sent for, and he declared that
+the Duke was in a highly critical condition. A violent reaction
+had taken place, and all day the invalid was in a state of intense
+excitement. The power of speech, which he had almost entirely lost,
+seemed to have returned to him in a miraculous manner; at length,
+however, he became delirious, and Norbert dismissed the servants who had
+been watching by his father’s bed, lest in the incoherent ravings of the
+invalid, the words “Parricide” or “Poison” should break forth. At eleven
+o’clock he grew calmer, and slept a little, when all at once he started
+up in bed, exclaiming: “Come here, Norbert,” and Jean, who had remained
+by his old master’s side, ran up to the bed and was much startled at the
+sight. The Duke had entirely recovered his former appearance. His eyes
+flashed, and his lips trembled, as they always did when he was greatly
+excited.
+
+“Pardon, father; pardon,” cried Norbert, falling upon his knees.
+
+The Duke softly stretched out his hand. “I was mad with family pride,”
+ said he; “and God punished me. My son, I forgive you.”
+
+Norbert’s sobs broke the stillness of the chamber.
+
+“My son, I renounce my ideas,” continued the Duke. “I do not desire you
+to wed Mademoiselle de Puymandour if you feel that you cannot love her.”
+
+“Father,” answered Norbert, “I have obeyed your wishes, and she is now
+my wife.”
+
+A gleam of terrible anguish passed over the Duke’s countenance; he
+raised his hands as though to shield his eyes from some grizzly spectre,
+and in tones of heartrending agony exclaimed: “Too late! Too late!”
+
+He fell back in terrible convulsions, and in a moment was dead. If, as
+has been often asserted, the veil of the hereafter is torn asunder, then
+the Duke de Champdoce had a glimpse into a terrible future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+“RASH WORD, RASH DEED.”
+
+After her repulse by Norbert, Diana, with the cold chill of death in her
+heart, made her way back to the Chateau of the De Laurebourgs, over
+the same road which but a short time before she had traveled full of
+expectation and hope. The sudden appearance of the Duke de Champdoce
+had filled her with alarm, but her imagination was not of that kind upon
+which unpleasant impressions remain for any long period; for after she
+had regained her room, and thrown aside her out-door attire, and removed
+all signs of mud-stains, she once more became herself, and even laughed
+a little rippling laugh at all her own past alarms. Overwhelmed with the
+shame of her repulse, she had threatened Norbert; but as she reasoned
+calmly, she felt that it was not he for whom she felt the most violent
+animosity. All her hatred was reserved for that woman who had come
+between her and her lover--for Marie de Puymandour. Some hidden feeling
+warned her that she must look into Marie’s past life for some reason for
+the rupture of her engagement with Norbert, though the banns had already
+been published. This was the frame of mind in which Diana was when the
+Viscount de Mussidan was introduced to her, the friend of the brother
+whose untimely death had left her such a wealthy heiress. He was tall
+and well made, with handsomely chiseled features; and, endowed with
+physical strength and health, Octave de Mussidan had the additional
+advantages of noble descent and princely fortune. Two women, both
+renowned for their wit and beauty, his aunt and his mother, had been
+intrusted with the education which would but enable him to shine in
+society.
+
+Dispatched to Paris, with an ample allowance, at the age of twenty, he
+found himself, thanks to his birth and connections, in the very center
+of the world of fashion. At the sight of Mademoiselle de Laurebourg
+his heart was touched for the first time. Diana had never been more
+charmingly fascinating than she was at this period. Octave de Mussidan
+did not suit her fancy; there was too great a difference between him and
+Norbert, and nothing would ever efface from her memory the recollection
+of the young Marquis as he had appeared before her on the first day of
+their meeting in the Forest of Bevron, clad in his rustic garb, with
+the game he had shot dangling from his hand. She delighted to feast her
+recollection, and thought fondly of his shyness and diffidence when
+he hardly ventured to raise his eyes to hers. Octave, however, fell a
+victim at the first glance he caught of Diana, and permitted himself
+to be swept away by the tide of his private emotions, which upon every
+visit that he paid to Laurebourg became more powerful and resistless.
+Like a true knight, who wishes that he himself should gain the love of
+his lady fair, Octave addressed himself directly to Diana, and after
+many attempts succeeded in finding himself alone with her, and then he
+asked her if she could permit him to crave of her father, the Marquis
+de Laurebourg, the honor of her hand. This appeal surprised her, for
+she had been so much absorbed in her own troubles that she had not
+even suspected his love for her. She was not even frightened at his
+declaration, as is the patient when the surgeon informs him that he
+must use the knife. She glanced at De Mussidan strangely as he put this
+question to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, replied that she would
+give him a reply the next day. After thinking the matter over, she wrote
+and dispatched the letter which Francoise had carried to Norbert. The
+prisoner in the dock as he anxiously awaits the sentence of his judge,
+can alone appreciate Diana’s state of agonized suspense as she stood at
+the end of the park at Laurebourg awaiting the return of the girl. Her
+anxiety of mind lasted nearly three hours, when Francoise hurried up
+breathless.
+
+“What did the Marquis say?” asked Diana.
+
+“He said nothing; that is, he cried out very angrily, ‘Never! no,
+never!’”
+
+In order to prevent any suspicions arising in the girl’s mind,
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg contrived to force a laugh, exclaiming: “Ah!
+indeed, that is just what I expected.”
+
+Francoise seemed as if she had something to say on the tip of her
+tongue, but Diana hurriedly dismissed her, pressing a coin into her
+hand. All anxiety was now at an end; for her there was no longer any
+suspense or anguish; all her struggles were now futile, and she felt
+grateful to Octave for having given her his love. “Once married,”
+ thought she, “I shall be free, and shall be able to follow the Duke and
+Duchess to Paris.”
+
+Upon her return to the Chateau, she found Octave awaiting her. His eyes
+put the question that his lips did not dare to utter; and, placing her
+hand in his with a gentle inclination of her head, she assented to his
+prayer.
+
+This act on her part would, she believed, free her from the past; but
+she was in error. Upon hearing that his dastardly attempt at murder had
+failed, the Counsellor was for the time utterly overwhelmed with terror,
+but the news that he had gained from M. de Puymandour calmed his mind
+in a great measure. He was not, however, completely reassured until he
+heard for certain that the Duke had become a helpless maniac, and that
+the doctor, having given up all hopes of his patient’s recovery, had
+discontinued his visits to the Chateau. As soon as he had heard that
+Norbert’s marriage had been so soon followed by his father’s death, he
+imagined that every cloud had disappeared from the sky. All danger now
+seemed at an end, and he recalled with glee that he had in his strong
+box the promissory notes, signed by Norbert, to the amount of twenty
+thousand francs, which he could demand at any moment, now that Norbert
+was the reigning lord of Champdoce. The first step he took was to hang
+about the neighborhood of Laurebourg, for he thought that some
+lucky chance would surely favor him with an opportunity for a little
+conversation with Mademoiselle Diana. For several days in succession
+he was unsuccessful, but at last he was delighted at seeing her alone,
+walking in the direction of Bevron. Without her suspecting it, he
+followed her until the road passed through a small plantation, when he
+came up and addressed her.
+
+“What do you want with me?” asked she angrily.
+
+He made no direct reply; but after apologizing for his boldness, he
+began to offer his congratulations upon her approaching marriage, which
+was now the talk of the whole neighborhood, and which pleased him much,
+as M. de Mussidan was in every way superior to--
+
+“Is that all you have to say to me?” asked Diana, interrupting his
+string of words.
+
+As she turned from him, he had the audacity to lay his hand upon the
+edge of her jacket.
+
+“I have more to say,” said he, “if you will honor me with your
+attention. Something about--you can guess what.”
+
+“About whom or what?” asked she, making no effort to hide her supreme
+contempt.
+
+He smiled, glanced around to see that no one was within hearing, and
+then said in a low voice,--
+
+“It is about the bottle of poison.”
+
+She recoiled, as though some venomous reptile had started up in front of
+her.
+
+“What do you mean?” cried she. “How dare you speak to me thus?”
+
+All his servile manner had now returned to him, and he uttered a string
+of complaints in a whining tone of voice. She had played him a most
+unfair trick, and had stolen a certain little glass bottle from his
+office; and if anything had leaked out, his head would have paid the
+penalty of a crime in which he had no hand. He was quite ill, owing to
+the suspense and anxiety he had endured; sleep would not come to his
+bed, and the pangs of remorse tortured him continually.
+
+“Enough,” cried Diana, stamping her foot angrily on the ground. “Enough,
+I say.”
+
+“Well, mademoiselle, I can no longer remain here. I am far too nervous,
+and I wish to go to some foreign country.”
+
+“Come, let me hear the real meaning of this long preface.”
+
+Thus adjured, Daumon spoke. He only wished for some little memento
+to cheer his days and nights of exile, some little recognition of his
+services; in fact, such a sum as would bring him in an income of three
+thousand francs.
+
+“I understand you,” replied Diana. “You wish to be paid for what you
+call your kindness.”
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle!”
+
+“And you put a value of sixty thousand francs upon it; that is rather a
+high price, is it not?”
+
+“Alas! it is not half what this unhappy business has cost me.”
+
+“Nonsense; your demand is preposterous.”
+
+“Demand!” returned he; “I make no demand. I come to you respectfully
+and with a little charity. If I were to demand, I should come to you in
+quite a different manner. I should say, ‘Pay me such and such a sum,
+or I tell everything.’ What have I to lose if the whole story comes to
+light? A mere nothing. I am a poor man, and am growing old. You and M.
+Norbert are the ones that have something to fear. You are noble, rich,
+and young, and a happy future lies before you.”
+
+Diana paused and thought for an instant.
+
+“You are speaking,” answered she at last, “in a most foolish manner.
+When charges are made against people, proofs must be forthcoming.”
+
+“Quite right, mademoiselle; but can you say that these proofs are not in
+my hands? Should you, however, desire to buy them, you are at liberty to
+do so. I give you the first option, and yet you grumble.”
+
+As he spoke, he drew a battered leather pocket-book from his breast,
+and took from it a paper, which, after having been crumpled, had been
+carefully smoothed out again. Diana glanced at it, and then uttered a
+stifled cry of rage and fear, for she at once recognized her last letter
+to Norbert.
+
+“That wretch, Francoise, has betrayed me,” exclaimed she, “and I saved
+her mother from a death by hunger and cold.”
+
+The Counsellor held out the letter to her. She thought that he had no
+suspicion of her, and made an attempt to snatch it from him; but he was
+on his guard, and drew back with a sarcastic smile on his face.
+
+“No, mademoiselle,” said he; “this is not the little bottle of poison;
+however, I will give it to you, together with another one, when I have
+obtained what I ask. Nothing for nothing, however; and if I must go to
+the scaffold, I will do so in good company.”
+
+Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was in utter despair.
+
+“But I have no money,” said she. “Where is a girl to find such a sum?”
+
+“M. Norbert can find it.”
+
+“Go to him, then.”
+
+Daumon made a negative sign with his head.
+
+“I am not quite such a fool,” answered he; “I know M. Norbert too
+well. He is the very image of his father. But you can manage him,
+mademoiselle; besides, you have much interest in having the matter
+settled.”
+
+“Counsellor!”
+
+“There is no use in beating about the bush. I come to you humbly enough,
+and you treat me like so much dirt. I will not submit to this, as you
+will find to your cost. _I_ never poisoned any one; but enough of this
+kind of thing. To-day is Tuesday; if on Friday, by six o’clock, I do not
+have what I have asked for, your father and the Count Octave will have a
+letter from me, and perhaps your fine marriage may come to nothing after
+all.”
+
+This insolence absolutely struck Diana dumb, and Daumon had disappeared
+round a turning of the road before she could find words to crush him for
+his vile attempt at extortion. She felt that he was capable of keeping
+his word, even if by so doing he seriously injured himself without
+gaining any advantage.
+
+A nature like Diana’s always looks danger boldly in the face. She had,
+however, but little choice how she would act--for to apply to Norbert
+was the only resource left to her--for she knew that he would do all
+in his power to ward off the danger which threatened both of them so
+nearly. The idea, however, of applying to him for aid was repugnant to
+her pride. To what depths of meanness and infamy had she descended! and
+to what avail had been all her aspirations of ambition and grandeur?
+
+She was at the mercy of a wretch--of Daumon, in fact. She was forced to
+go as a suppliant to a man whom she had loved so well that she now hated
+him with a deadly hatred. But she did not hesitate for a moment. She
+went straight to the cottage of Widow Rouleau, and despatched Francoise
+in quest of Norbert.
+
+She ordered the girl to tell him that he must without fail be at the
+wicket gate in the park wall at Laurebourg on the coming night, where
+she would meet him, and that the matter was one of life and death.
+
+As Diana gave these orders to Francoise, the woman’s nervous air
+and flushed features plainly showed that she was a mere creature of
+Daumon’s; but Mademoiselle de Laurebourg felt it would be unwise to
+take any notice of her discovery, but to abstain from employing her in
+confidential communications for the future.
+
+As the hour of the meeting drew near a host of doubts assailed her.
+Would Norbert come to the meeting? Had Francoise contrived to see him?
+Might he not be absent from home? It was now growing dark, and the
+servants brought candles into the dining-room, and Diana, contriving to
+slip away, gained the appointed spot. Norbert was waiting, and when he
+caught sight of her, rushed forward, but stopped as though restrained by
+a sudden thought, and remained still, as if rooted to the ground.
+
+“You sent for me, mademoiselle?” said he.
+
+“I did.”
+
+After a pause, in which she succeeded in mastering her emotion, Diana
+began with the utmost volubility to explain the extortion that Daumon
+was endeavoring to practise upon her, magnifying, though there was but
+little need to do so, all the threats and menaces that he had made use
+of. She had imagined that this last piece of roguery on the part of
+Daumon would drive Norbert into a furious passion, but to her surprise
+it had no such effect. He had suffered so much and so deeply, that his
+heart was almost dead against any further emotion.
+
+“Do not let this trouble you,” answered he apathetically; “I will see
+Daumon and settle with him.”
+
+“Can you leave me thus, at our last meeting, without even a word?” asked
+she.
+
+“What have I to say? My father forgave me on his death-bed, and I pardon
+you.”
+
+“Farewell, Norbert; we shall see no more of each other. I am going to
+marry, as you have doubtless been informed. Can I oppose my parent’s
+will? Besides, what does it signify? Farewell; remember no one wishes
+more sincerely for your future happiness than I do.”
+
+“Happy!” exclaimed Norbert. “How can I ever be happy again? If you know
+the secret, for pity’s sake break it to me. Tell me how to forget and
+how to annihilate thought. Do you not know that I had planned a life of
+perfect happiness with you by my side? I had visions; and now plans and
+visions are alike hateful to me. And as they ever and anon recur to my
+memory, they will fill me with terror and despair.”
+
+As Diana heard these words of agony, a wild gleam of triumph shot from
+her eyes, but it faded away quickly, and left her cold and emotionless
+as a marble statue; and when she reappeared in the drawing-room, after
+taking leave of Norbert, her face wore so satisfied an expression, that
+the Viscount complimented her upon her apparent happiness.
+
+She made some jesting retort, but there was a shade of earnestness mixed
+with her playfulness, for to her future husband she only wished to show
+the amiable side of her character; but all the time she was thinking.
+Will Norbert see Daumon in time?
+
+The Duke kept his word, and the next day the faithful Jean discreetly
+handed her a packet. She opened it and found that besides the two
+letters of which the Counsellor had spoken, it contained all her
+correspondence with Norbert--more than a hundred letters in all, some
+of great length, and all of them compromising to a certain extent. Her
+first thought was to destroy them, but on reflection she decided not
+to do so, and hid the packet in the same place as she had concealed the
+letters written by Norbert to her.
+
+Norbert had given Daumon sixty thousand francs, and in addition owed him
+twenty thousand on his promissory notes. This sum, in addition to what
+he had already saved, would form such a snug little fortune that it
+would enable the Counsellor to quit Bevron, and take up his abode in
+Paris, where his peculiar talents would have more scope for development.
+And eight days later the village was thrown into a state of intense
+excitement by the fact becoming known that Daumon had shut up his house
+and departed for Paris, taking Francoise, the Widow Rouleau’s daughter,
+with him. The Widow Rouleau was furious, and openly accused Mademoiselle
+de Laurebourg of having aided in the committal of the act which had
+deprived her of her daughter’s services in her declining years; and the
+old woman who had acted as housekeeper, who on Daumon’s departure had
+thrown open the place, did not hesitate to assert that all her late
+master’s legal lore had been acquired in prison, where he had undergone
+a sentence of ten years’ penal servitude.
+
+In spite of all this, however, Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was secretly
+delighted at the departure of Daumon and Francoise; for she experienced
+an intense feeling of relief at knowing that she no longer was in any
+risk of meeting her accomplice in her daily walks. Norbert, too, was
+going to Paris with his wife; and M. de Puymandour was going about
+saying that his daughter, the Duchess of Champdoce, would not return to
+this part of the country for some time to come.
+
+Diana drew a long breath of relief, for it seemed to her as if all the
+threatening clouds, which had darkened the horizon, were fast breaking
+up and drifting away. Her future seemed clear, and she could continue
+the preparations for her marriage, which was to be celebrated in a
+fortnight’s time; and the friend of Octave who had been asked to act as
+his best man had answered in the affirmative.
+
+Diana had taken accurate measurement of the love that Octave lavished
+upon her, and did her utmost to increase it. She had another cruel idea,
+and that was that the bewitching manner which she had assumed towards
+her betrothed was excellent practice, and by it she might judge of her
+future success in society when she resided in Paris. Octave was utterly
+conquered, as any other man would have been under similar circumstances.
+
+Upon the day of her wedding she was dazzling in her beauty, and her face
+was radiant with happiness; but it was a mere mask, which she had put on
+to conceal her real feelings. She knew that many curious eyes were fixed
+on her as she left the chapel; and the crowd formed a line for her to
+pass through. She saw many a glance of dislike cast upon her; but a more
+severe blow awaited her, for on her arrival at the Chateau de Mussidan,
+to which she was driven directly after the ceremony, the first person
+she met was Montlouis, who came forward to welcome her. Bold and
+self-possessed as she was, the slight of this man startled her, and a
+bright flush passed across her face. Fortunately Montlouis had had time
+to prepare himself for this meeting, and his face showed no token
+of recognition. But though his salutation was of the most respectful
+description, Madame de Mussidan thought she saw in his eyes that
+ironical expression of contempt which she had more than once seen in
+Daumon’s face.
+
+“That man must not, shall not, stay here,” she murmured to herself.
+
+It was easy enough for her to ask her husband to dismiss Montlouis from
+his employ, but it was a dangerous step to take; and her easiest course
+was to defer the dismissal of the secretary until some really good
+pretext offered itself. Nor was this pretext long in presenting itself;
+for Octave was by no means satisfied with the young man’s conduct.
+Montlouis who had been full of zeal while in Paris, had renewed his
+_liaison_, on his return to Mussidan, with the girl with whom he had
+been formerly entangled at Poitiers. This, of course, could not be
+permitted to go on, and an explosion was clearly to be expected; but
+what Diana dreaded most was the accidental development of some unseen
+chance.
+
+After she had been married some two weeks, when Octave proposed in the
+afternoon that they should go for a walk, she agreed. Her preparations
+were soon completed, and they started off, blithe and lively as children
+on a holiday ramble. As they loitered in a wooded path, they heard a dog
+barking in the cover. It was Bruno, who rushed out, and, standing on his
+hind legs, endeavored to lick Diana’s face.
+
+“Help, help, Octave!” she exclaimed, and her husband, springing to her
+side, drove away the animal.
+
+“Were you very much alarmed, dearest?” asked he.
+
+“Yes,” answered she faintly; “I was almost frightened to death.”
+
+“I do not think that he would do you any harm,” remarked Octave.
+
+“No matter; make him go away;” and as she spoke she struck at him with
+her parasol. But the dog never for a moment supposed that Diana was in
+earnest, and, supposing that she intended to play with him, as she had
+often done before, began to gambol round her, barking joyously the whole
+time.
+
+“But this dog evidently knows you, Diana,” observed the Viscount.
+
+“Know me? Impossible!” and as she spoke Bruno ran up and licked her
+hand. “If he does, his memory is better than mine; at any rate, I am
+half afraid of him. Come, Octave, let us go.”
+
+They turned away, and Octave would have forgotten all about the
+occurrence had not Bruno, delighted at having found an old acquaintance,
+persisted in following them.
+
+“This is strange,” exclaimed the Viscount, “very strange indeed.
+Look here, my man,” said he, addressing a peasant, who was engaged in
+clipping a hedge by the roadside, “do you know whose dog this is?”
+
+“Yes, my lord, it belongs to the young Duke of Champdoce.”
+
+“Of course,” answered Diana, “I have often seen the dog at the Widow
+Rouleau’s, and have occasionally given it a piece of bread. He was
+always with Francoise, who ran off with that man Daumon. Oh, yes, I know
+him now; here, Bruno, here!”
+
+The dog rushed to her, and, stooping down, she caressed him, thus hoping
+to conceal her tell-tale face.
+
+Octave drew his wife’s arm within his without another word. A strange
+feeling of doubt had arisen in his mind. Diana, too, was much disturbed,
+and abused herself mentally for having been so weak and cowardly. Why
+had she not at once confessed that she knew the dog? Had she said at
+once, “Why, that is Bruno, the Duke of Champdoce’s dog,” her husband
+would have thought no more about the matter; but her own folly had made
+much of a merely trivial incident.
+
+Ever since that fatal walk the Viscount’s manner appeared to have
+changed, and more than once Diana fancied that she caught a look of
+suspicion in his eyes. How could she best manage to make him forget this
+unlucky event? She saw that for the rest of her life she must affect a
+terror of dogs; and, for the future, whenever she saw one, she uttered
+a little cry of alarm, and insisted upon all Octave’s being chained
+up. But for all this she lived in a perfect atmosphere of suspicion and
+anxiety, while the very ground upon which she walked seemed to have been
+mined beneath her feet. Her sole wish now was to fly from Mussidan, and
+leave Bevron and its environs, she cared not for what spot. It has been
+first arranged that immediately after the marriage they should make a
+short tour; but in spite of this, they still lingered at Mussidan; and
+all that Diana could do was to keep this previous determination before
+her husband, without making any direct attack.
+
+The blow came at last, and was more unexpected and terrible than she
+had anticipated. On the afternoon of the 26th of October, as Diana was
+gazing from her window, an excited crowd rushed into the courtyard of
+the Chateau, followed by four men bearing a litter covered with a sheet,
+under which could be distinguished the rigid limbs of a dead body, while
+a cruel crimson stain upon one side of the white covering too plainly
+showed that some one had met with a violent death.
+
+The hideous sight froze Diana with terror, and it was impossible for her
+to leave the window or quit the object on the litter, which seemed to
+have a terrible fascination for her. That very morning her husband,
+accompanied by his friend the Baron de Clinchain, Montlouis, and a
+servant named Ludovic, had gone out for a day’s shooting. It was evident
+that something had happened to one of the party; which of them could
+it be? The doubt was not of very long duration; for at that moment her
+husband entered the courtyard, supported by M. de Clinchain and Ludovic.
+His face was deadly pale, and he seemed scarcely able to drag one leg
+after the other. The dead man therefore must be Montlouis. She need
+no longer plot and scheme for the dismissal of the secretary, for his
+tongue had been silenced for ever.
+
+A ray of comfort dawned in Diana’s heart at this idea, and gave her the
+strength to descend the staircase. Halfway down she met M. de Clinchain,
+who was ascending. He seized her by the arm, and said hoarsely,--
+
+“Go back, madame, go back!”
+
+“But tell me what has happened.”
+
+“A terrible calamity. Go back to your room, I beg of you. Your husband
+will be here presently;” and, as Octave appeared, he absolutely pushed
+her into her own room.
+
+Octave followed, and, extending his arms, pressed his wife closely to
+his breast, bursting as he did so into a passion of sobs.
+
+“Ah!” cried M. de Clinchain joyously, “he is saved. See, he weeps; I had
+feared for his reason.”
+
+After many questions and incoherent answers, Madame de Mussidan at last
+arrived at the fact that her husband had shot Montlouis by accident.
+Diana believed this story, but it was far from the truth. Montlouis had
+met his death at her hands quite as much as the Duke de Champdoce had
+done. He had died because he was the possessor of a fatal secret.
+
+This was what had really occurred. After lunch, Octave, who had drunk
+rather freely, began to rally Montlouis regarding his mysterious
+movements, and to assert that some woman must be at the bottom of them.
+At first Montlouis joined in the laugh; but at length M. de Mussidan
+became too personal in remarks regarding the woman his secretary loved,
+and Montlouis responded angrily. This influenced his master’s temper,
+and he went on to say that he could no longer permit such doings, and he
+reproached his secretary for risking his present and future for a woman
+who was worthy neither of love nor respect, and who was notoriously
+unfaithful to him. Montlouis heard this last taunt with compressed lips
+and a deep cloud upon his brow.
+
+“Do not utter a word more, Count,” said he; “I forbid you to do so.”
+
+He spoke so disrespectfully that Octave was about to strike him, but
+Montlouis drew back and avoided the blow; but he was so intoxicated with
+fury that this last insult roused him beyond all bounds.
+
+“By what right do you speak thus,” said he, “who have married another
+man’s mistress? It well becomes you to talk of woman’s virtue, when your
+wife is a--”
+
+He had no time to finish his sentence, for Octave, levelling his gun,
+shot him through the heart.
+
+M. de Mussidan kept these facts from his wife because he really loved
+her, and true love is capable of any extreme; and he felt that, however
+strong the cause might be, he should never have the courage to separate
+from Diana; that whatever she might do in the future, or had already
+done in the past, he could not choose but forgive her.
+
+Acquitted of all blame, thanks to Clinchain’s and Ludovic’s
+evidence--for they had mutually agreed that the tragical occurrence
+should be represented to have been the result of an accident--the
+conscience of M. de Mussidan left him but little peace. The girl whom
+Montlouis had loved had been driven from her home in disgrace, owing to
+having given birth to a son. Octave sought her out, and, without giving
+any reason for his generosity, told her that her son, whom she had named
+Paul, after his father, Montlouis, should never come to want.
+
+Shortly after this sad occurrence, M. de Mussidan and his wife quitted
+Poitiers, for Diana had more than once determined that she would make
+Paris her residence for the future. She had taken into her service a
+woman who had been in the service of Marie de Puymandour, and through
+her had discovered that, previous to her marriage with Norbert, Marie
+had loved George de Croisenois; and she intended to use this knowledge
+at some future date as a weapon with which to deal the Duke de Champdoce
+a deadly blow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A SCHEME OF VENGEANCE.
+
+The marriage between Norbert and Mademoiselle de Puymandour was entirely
+deficient in that brief, ephemeral light that shines over the honeymoon.
+The icy wall that stood between them became each day stronger and
+taller. There was no one to smooth away inequalities, no one to exercise
+a kindly influence over two characters, both haughty and determined.
+After his father’s death, when Norbert announced his intention of
+residing in Paris, M. de Puymandour highly approved of this resolution,
+for he fancied that if he were to remain alone in the country, he could
+to a certain extent take the place and position of the late Duke, and,
+with the permission of his son-in-law, at once take up his residence at
+Champdoce.
+
+Almost as soon as the young Duchess arrived in Paris she realized the
+fact that she was the most unfortunate woman in the world. As Champdoce
+was almost like her own home, her eyes lighted on familiar scenes;
+and if she went out, she was sure of being greeted by kindly words and
+friendly features; but in Paris she only found solitude, for everything
+there was strange and hostile. The late Duke, pinching and parsimonious
+as he had been towards himself and his son, launched out into the
+wildest extravagances when he imagined he was working for his coming
+race, and the home which he had prepared for his great-grandchildren was
+the incarnation of splendor and luxury.
+
+Upon the arrival of Norbert and his wife, they could almost fancy that
+they had only quitted their town house a few days before, so perfect
+were all the arrangements. Had Norbert been left to act for himself, he
+might have felt a little embarrassed, but his trusty servant Jean aided
+him with his advice, and the establishment was kept on a footing to do
+honor to the traditions of the house of Champdoce. Everything can be
+procured in Paris for money, and Jean had filled the ante-rooms with
+lackeys, the kitchens and offices with cooks and scullions, and the
+stables with grooms, coachmen, and horses, while every description of
+carriage stood in the place appointed for their reception.
+
+But all this bustle and excitement did not seem in the eyes of the young
+Duchess to impart life to the house. It appeared to her dead and empty
+as a sepulchre. It seemed as if she were living beneath the weight of
+some vague and indefinable terror, some hideous and hidden spectre which
+might at any moment start from its hiding place and drive her mad with
+the alarm it excited. She had not a soul in whom she could confide. She
+had been forbidden by Norbert to renew her acquaintance with her old
+Parisian friends, for Norbert did not consider them of sufficiently good
+family, and in addition he had used the pretext of the deep mourning
+they were in to put off receiving visitors for a twelvemonth at least.
+She felt herself alone and solitary, and, in this frame of mind, how was
+it possible for her not to let her thoughts wander once again to George
+de Croisenois. Had her father been willing, she might have been his
+wife now, and have been wandering hand in hand in some sequestered
+spot beneath the clear blue sky of Italy. _He_ had loved her, while
+Norbert----.
+
+Norbert was leading one of those mad, headstrong lives which have but
+two conclusions--ruin or suicide. His name had been put up for election
+at a fashionable club by his uncle, the Chevalier de Septraor, as soon
+as he arrived in Paris. He had been elected at once, being looked on as
+a decided acquisition to the list of members. He bore one of the oldest
+names to be found among the French nobility, while his fortune--gigantic
+as it was--had been magnified threefold by the tongue of common report.
+He was received with open arms everywhere, and lived in a perfect
+atmosphere of flattery. Not being able to shine by means of cultivation
+or polish, he sought to gain a position in his club by a certain
+roughness of demeanor and a cynical mode of speech. He flung away his
+money in every direction, kept racers, and was uniformly fortunate in
+his betting transactions. He frequented the world of gallantry, and was
+constantly to be seen in the company of women whose reputations were
+exceedingly equivocal. His days were spent on horseback, or in the
+fencing room, and his nights in drinking, gambling, and all kinds of
+debauchery. His wife scarcely ever saw him, for when he returned home
+it was usually with the first beams of day, either half intoxicated or
+savage from having lost large sums at the gambling table. Jean, the old
+and trusty retainer of the house of Champdoce, was deeply grieved, not
+so much at seeing his master so rapidly pursuing the path to ruin as
+at the fact that he was ever surrounded by dissolute and disreputable
+acquaintances.
+
+“Think of your name,” he would urge; “of the honor of your name.”
+
+“And what does that matter,” sneered Norbert, “provided that I live a
+jolly life, and shuffle out of the world rapidly?”
+
+There was one fixed star in all the dark clouds that surrounded him,
+which now seemed to blaze brightly, and this star was Diana de Mussidan.
+Do what he would, it was impossible to efface her image from his memory.
+Even amidst the fumes of wine and the debauched revelry of the supper
+table he could see the form that he had once so passionately loved
+standing out like a pillar of light, clear and distinct against the
+darkness. He had led this demoralizing existence for fully six months,
+when one day, as he was riding down the Avenue des Champs Elysees, he
+saw a lady give him a friendly bow. She was seated in a magnificent open
+carriage, wrapped in the richest and most costly furs. Thinking that she
+might be one of the many actresses with whom he was acquainted, Norbert
+turned his horse’s head towards the carriage; but as he got nearer he
+saw, to his extreme amazement and almost terror, that it was Diana de
+Mussidan who was seated in it. He did not turn back, however; and as
+the carriage had just drawn up, he reined in his horse alongside of it.
+Diana was as much agitated as he was, and for a moment neither of them
+spoke, but their eyes were firmly fixed upon each other, and they sat
+pale and breathless, as if each had some sad presentiment which fate
+was preparing for them both. At last Norbert felt that he must break
+the silence, for the servants were beginning to gaze upon them with eyes
+full of curiosity.
+
+“What, madame, you here, in Paris?” said he with an effort.
+
+She had drawn out a slender hand from the mass of furs in which she was
+enveloped, and extended it to him, as she replied in a tone which had a
+ring of tenderness beneath its commonplace tone,--
+
+“Yes, we are established here, and I hope that we shall be as good
+friends as we were once before. Farewell, until we meet again.”
+
+As if her words had been a signal, the coachman struck his horses
+lightly with his whip, and the magnificent equipage rolled swiftly
+away. Norbert had not accepted Diana’s proffered hand, but presently he
+realized the whole scene, and plunging his spurs into his horse dashed
+furiously up the Avenue in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe.
+
+“Ah!” said he, as a bitter pang of despair shot through his heart, “I
+still love her, and can never care for any one else; but I will see her
+again. She has not forgotten me. I could read it in her eyes, and detect
+it all in the tones of her voice.” Here a momentary gleam of reason
+crossed his brain. “But will a woman like Diana ever forgive an offence
+like mine? and when she seems most friendly the danger is the more
+near.”
+
+Unfortunately he thrust aside this idea, and refused to listen to
+the voice of reason. That evening he went down to his club with the
+intention of asking a few questions regarding the Mussidans. He heard
+enough to satisfy himself, and the next day he met Madame de Mussidan
+in the Champs Elysees, and for many days afterwards in rapid succession.
+Each day they exchanged a few words, and at last Diana, with much
+simulated hesitation, promised to alight from her carriage when next
+they met in the Bois, and talk to Norbert unhampered by the presence of
+the domestics.
+
+Madame de Mussidan had made the appointment for three o’clock, but
+before two Norbert was on the spot, in a fever of expectation and doubt.
+
+“Is it I,” asked he of himself, “waiting once more for Diana, as I have
+so often waited for her at Bevron?”
+
+Ah, how many changes had taken place since then! He was now no longer
+waiting for Diana de Laurebourg, but for the Countess de Mussidan,
+another man’s wife, while he also was a married man. It was no longer
+the whim of a monomaniac that kept them apart, but the dictates of law,
+honor, and the world.
+
+“Why,” said he, in a mad burst of passion, “why should we not set at
+defiance all the cold social rules framed by an artificial state of
+society; why should not the woman leave her husband and the man his
+wife?” Norbert had consulted his watch times without number before the
+appointed hour came. “Ah,” sighed he, “suppose that she should not come
+after all.”
+
+As he said these words a cab stopped, and the Countess de Mussidan
+alighted from it. She came rapidly along towards him, crossing an
+open space without heeding the irregularities of the ground, as that
+diminished the distance which separated her from Norbert. He advanced
+to meet her, and taking his arm, they plunged into the recesses of the
+Bois. There had been heavy rain on the day previous, and the pathway was
+wet and muddy, but Madame de Mussidan did not seem to notice this.
+
+“Let us go on,” said she, “until we are certain of not being seen from
+the road. I have taken every precaution. My carriage and servants are
+waiting for me in front of St. Philippe du Roule; but for all that I may
+have been watched.”
+
+“You were not so timid in bygone days.”
+
+“Then I was my own mistress; and if I lost my reputation, the loss
+affected me only; but on my wedding day I had a sacred trust confided
+to me--the honor of the man who has given me his name, and that I must
+guard with jealous care.”
+
+“Then you love me no longer.”
+
+She stopped suddenly, and overwhelming Norbert with one of those glacial
+glances which she knew so well how to assume, answered in measured
+accents,--
+
+“Your memory fails you; all that has remained to me of the past is the
+rejection of a proposal conveyed in a certain letter that I wrote.”
+
+Norbert interrupted her by a piteous gesture of entreaty.
+
+“Mercy!” said he. “You would pardon me if you knew all the horrors of
+the punishment that I am enduring. I was mad, blind, besotted, nor did I
+love you as I do at this moment.”
+
+A smile played round Diana’s beautiful mouth, for Norbert had told her
+nothing that she did not know before, but she wished to hear it from his
+own lips.
+
+“Alas!” murmured she; “I can only frame my reply with the fatal words,
+‘_Too late_!’”
+
+“Diana!”
+
+He endeavored to seize her hand, but she drew it away with a rapid
+movement.
+
+“Do not use that name,” said she; “you have no right to do so. Is it not
+sufficient to have blighted the young girl’s life? and yet you seek to
+compromise the honor of the wife. You must forget me; do you understand?
+It is to tell you this that I am here. The other day, when I saw you
+again, I lost my self-command. My heart leapt up at the sight of you,
+and, fool that I was, I permitted you to see this; but base no hopes
+on my weakness. I said to you, Let us be friends. It was a mere act of
+madness. We can never be friends, and had better, therefore, treat each
+other as strangers. Do you forget that lying tongues at Bevron accused
+me of being your mistress? Do you think that this falsehood has not
+reached my husband’s ears? One day, when your name was mentioned in
+his presence, I saw a gleam of hatred and jealousy in his eye. Great
+heavens! should he, on my return, suspect that my hand had rested in
+yours, he would expel me from his house like some guilty wretch! The
+door of our house must remain for ever closed to you. I am miserable
+indeed. Be a man; and if your heart still holds one atom of the love you
+once bore for me, prove it by never seeking me again.”
+
+As she concluded she hurried away, leaving in Norbert’s heart a more
+deadly poison than the one she had endeavored to persuade the son to
+administer to his father, the Duke de Champdoce. She knew each chord
+that vibrated in his heart, and could play on it at will. She felt sure
+that in a month he would again be her slave, and that she could exercise
+over him a sway more despotic than she had yet done, and, in addition to
+this, that he would assist her in executing a cruel scheme of revenge,
+which she had long been plotting.
+
+After having followed Diana about like her very shadow for several days,
+Norbert at last ventured to approach her in the Champs Elysees. She was
+angry, but not to such an extent that he feared to repeat his offence.
+Then she wept, but her tears could not force him to avoid her. At first
+her system of defence was very strong, then it gradually grew weaker.
+She granted him another interview, and then two others followed. But
+what were these meetings worth to him? They took place in a church or a
+public gallery, in places where they could scarcely exchange a grasp of
+the hand. At length she told him that she had thought of a place which
+would render their interviews less perilous, but that she hardly dared
+tell him where it was. He pressed her to tell him, and, by degrees, she
+permitted herself to be persuaded. Her idea was to become the friend of
+the Duchess of Champdoce.
+
+Norbert now felt that she was more an angel than a woman, and it was
+agreed that on the next day he himself would introduce her to his wife.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FALSE FRIEND, OLD LOVER.
+
+It was on a Wednesday morning that the Duke de Champdoce, instead of, as
+usual, going to his own or one of his friends’ clubs to breakfast, took
+his seat at the table where his wife was partaking of her morning meal.
+He was in excellent spirits, gay, and full of pleasant talk, a mood in
+which his wife had never seen him since their ill-fated marriage. The
+Duchess could not understand this sudden change in her husband; it
+terrified and alarmed her, for she felt that it was the forerunner of
+some serious event, which would change the current of her life entirely.
+
+Norbert waited until the domestics had completed their duty and retired,
+and as soon as he was alone with his wife he took her hand and kissed it
+with an air of gallantry.
+
+“It has been a long time, my dear Marie, since I had resolved to open
+my heart to you entirely, and now a full and open explanation has become
+absolutely necessary.”
+
+“An explanation!” faltered Marie.
+
+“Yes, certainly; but do not let the word alarm you. I fear that I must
+have appeared in your eyes the most morose and disagreeable of husbands.
+Permit me to explain. Since we came here, I have gone about my own
+affairs, I have gone out early and returned extremely late, and
+sometimes three days have elapsed without our even setting eyes on each
+other.”
+
+The young Duchess listened to him like a woman who could not believe her
+ears. Could this be her husband who was heaping reproaches upon himself
+in this manner?
+
+“I have made no complaint,” stammered she.
+
+“I know that, Marie; you have a noble and forgiving nature; but,
+however, it is impossible, as a woman, that you should not have
+condemned me.”
+
+“Indeed, but I have not done so.”
+
+“So much the better for me. On this I shall not have to find either
+defence or excuse for my conduct; you must know, however, that you are
+ever foremost in my thoughts, even when I am away from you.”
+
+He was evidently doing his best to put on an air of tenderness and
+affection, but he failed; for though his words were kind, the tone of
+his voice was neither tender nor sympathetic.
+
+“I hope I know my duty,” said the Duchess.
+
+“Pray, Marie,” broke in he, “do not let the word duty be uttered between
+us. You know that you have been much alone, because it was impossible
+for the friends of Mademoiselle de Puymandour to be those of the Duchess
+de Champdoce!”
+
+“Have I made any opposition to your orders?”
+
+“Then, too, our mourning prevents us going out into the world for five
+months longer at least.”
+
+“Have I asked to go out?”
+
+“All the more reason that I should endeavor to make your home less dull
+for you. I should like you to have with you some person in whose society
+you could find pleasure and distraction. Not one of those foolish girls
+who have no thought save for balls and dress, but a sensible woman of
+the world, and, above all, one of your own age and rank,--a woman, in
+short, of whom you could make a friend. But where can such a one be
+found? It is a perilous quest to venture on, and upon such a friend
+often depends the happiness and misery of a home.
+
+“But,” continued he, after a brief pause, “I think that I have
+discovered the very one that will suit you. I met her at the house of
+Madame d’Ailange, who spoke eloquently of her charms of mind and body,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of presenting her to you to-day.”
+
+“Here, at our house?”
+
+“Certainly; there is nothing odd in this. Besides, the lady is no
+stranger to us; she comes from our own part of the country, and you know
+her.”
+
+A flush came over his face, and he busied himself with the fire to
+conceal it as he added,--
+
+“You recollect Mademoiselle de Laurebourg?”
+
+“Do you mean Diana de Laurebourg?”
+
+“Exactly so.”
+
+“I saw very little of her, for my father and hers did not get on
+very well together. The Marquis de Laurebourg looked on us as too
+insignificant to--”
+
+“Ah, well,” interrupted he, “I trust that the daughter will make up for
+the father’s shortcomings. She married just after our wedding had been
+celebrated, and her husband is the Count de Mussidan. She will call on
+you to-day, and I have told your servants to say that you are at home.”
+
+The silence that followed this speech lasted for nearly a couple of
+minutes, and became exceedingly embarrassing, when suddenly the sound
+of wheels was heard on the gravel of the courtyard, and in a moment
+afterwards a servant came and announced that the Countess de Mussidan
+was in the drawing-room. Norbert rose, and, taking his wife’s arm, led
+her away.
+
+“Come, Marie, come,” said he; “she has arrived.”
+
+Diana had reflected deeply before she had taken this extraordinarily
+bold step. In paying a visit so contrary to all the usual rules of
+etiquette, she exposed herself to the chance of receiving a severe
+rebuff. The few seconds that elapsed while she was still alone in the
+drawing-room seemed like so many centuries; but the door was opened, and
+Norbert and his wife appeared. Then, with a charming smile, Madame de
+Mussidan rose and bowed gracefully to the Duchess de Champdoce, making a
+series of half-jesting apologies for her intrusion. She had been utterly
+unable, she said, to resist the pleasure she should experience in seeing
+an old country neighbor, the more so as they were now separated by
+so short a distance. She had, therefore, disregarded all the rules of
+etiquette so that they might have a cozy chat about Poitiers, Bevron,
+Champdoce, and all the country where she had been born, and which she so
+dearly loved.
+
+The Duchess listened in silence to this torrent of words, and the
+expression of her face showed how surprised she was at this unexpected
+visit. A less perfectly self-possessed woman than Diana de Mussidan
+might have felt abashed, but the slight annoyance was not to be compared
+to the prospective advantages that she hoped to gain, and she brought
+all the mettle of her talent and diplomacy into play.
+
+Norbert was moving about the room, half ashamed of the ignoble part that
+he was playing. As soon as he thought that the welcome between the
+two ladies had been partially got over, and imagined that they were
+conversing more amicably together, he slipped out of the room, not
+knowing whether to be pleased or angry at the success of the trick.
+
+The trick was rather a more difficult one than Diana had, from Norbert’s
+account, anticipated, as she had thought that she would have been
+received by the Duchess like some ministering angel sent down to earth
+to console an unhappy captive. She had expected to find a simple,
+guileless woman, who, upon her first visit, would throw her arms round
+her visitor’s neck and yield herself entirely to her influence.
+Far, however, from being dismayed, Diana was rather pleased at
+this unexpected difficulty, and so fully exerted all her powers of
+fascination, that when she took her leave, she believed that she had
+made a little progress.
+
+On that very evening the Duchess remarked to her husband,--
+
+“I think that I shall like Madame de Mussidan; she seems an excellent
+kind of woman.”
+
+“Excellent is just the proper word,” returned Norbert. “All Bevron was
+in tears when she was married and had to leave, for she was a real angel
+among the poor.”
+
+Norbert was intensely gratified by Diana’s success; for was it not for
+him that she had displayed all her skill, and was not this a proof that
+she still cherished a passion for him?
+
+He was not, however, quite so much pleased when he met Madame de
+Mussidan the next day in the Champs Elysees. She looked sad and
+thoughtful.
+
+“What has gone wrong?” asked he.
+
+“I am very angry with myself for having listened to the voice of my own
+heart and to your entreaties,” answered she, “and I think that both of
+us have committed a grave error.”
+
+“Indeed, and what have we done?”
+
+“Norbert, your wife suspects something.”
+
+“Impossible! Why, she was praising you after you had left.”
+
+“If that is the case, then she is indeed a much more clever woman than
+I had imagined, for she knows how to conceal her suspicions until she is
+in a position to prove them.”
+
+Diana spoke with such a serious air of conviction, that Norbert became
+quite alarmed.
+
+“What shall we do?” asked he.
+
+“The best thing would be to give up meeting each other, I think.”
+
+“Never; I tell you, never!”
+
+“Let me reflect; in the meantime be prudent; for both our sakes, be
+prudent.”
+
+To further his ends, Norbert entirely changed his mode of life. He
+gave up going to his clubs, refused invitations to fast suppers, and no
+longer spent his nights in gambling and drinking. He drove out with his
+wife, and frequently spent his evenings with her, and at the club began
+to be looked on as quite a model husband. This great change, however,
+was not effected without many a severe inward struggle. He felt deeply
+humiliated at the life of deception that he was forced to lead, but
+Diana’s hand, apparently so slight and frail, held him with a grip of
+steel.
+
+“We must live in this way,” said she, in answer to his expostulations,
+“first, because it must be so; and, secondly, because it is my will. On
+our present mode of conduct depends all our future safety, and I wish
+the Duchess to believe that with me happiness and content must have come
+to her fireside.”
+
+Norbert could not gainsay this very reasonable proposition on the
+part of Madame de Mussidan, for he was more in love than ever, and the
+terrible fear that if he went in any way contrary to her wishes that
+she would refuse to see him any more, stayed the words of objection that
+rose to his lips.
+
+After hesitating for a little longer, the Duchess made up her mind to
+accept the offer of friendship which Diana had so ingenuously offered to
+her, and finished by giving herself up to the bitterest enemy that she
+had in the world. By degrees she had no secrets from her new friend, and
+one day, after a long and confidential conversation, she acknowledged to
+Diana the whole secret of the early love of her girlish days, the memory
+of which had never faded from the inmost recesses of her heart, and was
+rash enough to mention George de Croisenois by name. Madame de Mussidan
+was overjoyed at what she considered so signal a victory.
+
+“Now I have her,” thought she, “and vengeance is within my grasp.”
+
+Marie and Diana were now like two sisters, and were almost constantly
+together; but this intimacy had not given to Norbert the facile means
+of meeting Diana which he had so ardently hoped for. Though Madame de
+Mussidan visited his house nearly every day, he absolutely saw less of
+her than he had done before, and sometimes weeks elapsed without his
+catching a glimpse of her face. She played her game with such consummate
+skill, that Marie was always placed as a barrier between Norbert and
+herself, as in the farce, when the lover wishes to embrace his mistress,
+he finds the wrinkled visage of the duenna offered to his lips.
+Sometimes he grew angry, but Diana always had some excellent reason
+with which to close his mouth. Sometimes she held up his pretensions
+to ridicule, and at others assumed a haughty air, which always quelled
+incipient rebellion upon his part.
+
+“What did you expect of me?” she would say, “and of what base act did
+you do me the honor to consider me capable?”
+
+He was treated exactly like a child, or more cruel still, like a person
+deficient in intellect, and this he was thoroughly aware of. He could
+not meet Madame de Mussidan as he had formerly done, for now in the
+Bois, at Longchamps, or at any place of public amusement she was
+invariably surrounded by a band of fashionable admirers, among whom
+George de Croisenois was always to be found. Norbert disliked all these
+men, but he had a special antipathy to George de Croisenois, whom he
+regarded as a supercilious fool; but in this opinion he was entirely
+wrong, for the Marquis de Croisenois was looked upon as one of the most
+talented and witty men in Parisian society, and in this case the opinion
+of the world was a well-founded one. Many men envied him, but he had
+no enemies, and his honest and straightforward conduct was beyond all
+doubt. He had the noble instincts of a knight of the days of chivalry.
+
+“Pray,” asked Norbert, “what is it that you can see in this sneering
+dandy who is always hanging about you?”
+
+But Diana, with a meaning smile, always made the same reply,--
+
+“You ask too much; but some time you will learn all.”
+
+Every day she contrived, when with the Duchess, to turn the conversation
+skilfully upon George de Croisenois, and she had in a manner accustomed
+Marie to look certain possibilities straight in the face, from the very
+idea of which she would a few months back have recoiled with horror.
+This point once gained, Madame de Mussidan believed that the moment had
+arrived to bring the former lovers together again, and fancied that one
+sudden and unexpected encounter would advance matters much more quickly
+than all her half-veiled insinuations. One day, therefore, when the
+Duchess had called on her friend, on entering the drawing-room, she
+found it only tenanted by George de Croisenois. An exclamation of
+astonishment fell from the lips of both as their eyes met; the cheek
+of each grew pale. The Duchess, overcome by her feelings, sank
+half-fainting into a chair near the door.
+
+“Ah,” murmured he, scarcely knowing the meaning of the words he uttered,
+“I had every confidence in you, and you have forgotten me.”
+
+“You do not believe the words you have just spoken,” returned the
+Duchess haughtily; “but,” she added in softer accents, “what could I do?
+I may have been weak in obeying my father, but for all that I have never
+forgotten the past.”
+
+Madame de Mussidan, who had stationed herself behind the closed door,
+caught every word, and a gleam of diabolical triumph flashed from her
+eyes. She felt sure that an interview which began in this manner would
+be certain to be repeated, and she was not in error. She soon saw that
+by some tacit understanding the Duchess and George contrived to meet
+constantly at her house, and this she carefully abstained from noticing.
+Things were working exactly as she desired and she waited, for she could
+well afford to do so, knowing that the impending crash could not long be
+delayed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A STAB IN THE DARK.
+
+September had now arrived; and though the weather was very bad, the Duke
+de Champdoce, accompanied by his faithful old servant, Jean, left Paris
+on a visit to his training stables. Having had a serious difference with
+Diana, he had made up his mind to try whether a long absence on his part
+would not have the effect of reducing her to submission, and at the
+same time remembering the proverb, that “absence makes the heart grow
+fonder.”
+
+He had already been away two whole days, and was growing extremely
+anxious at not having heard from Madame de Mussidan, when one evening,
+as he was returning from a late inspection of his stud, he was informed
+that there was a man waiting to see him. The man was a poor old fellow
+belonging to the place, who eked out a wretched subsistence by begging,
+and executing occasional commissions.
+
+“Do you want me?” asked the Duke.
+
+With a sly look, the man drew from his pocket a letter.
+
+“This is for you,” muttered he.
+
+“All right; give it to me, then.”
+
+“I was told to give it to you only in private.”
+
+“Never mind that; hand it over.”
+
+“Well, if I must, I must.”
+
+Norbert’s sole thought was that this letter must have come from Diana,
+and throwing the man a coin, hurried to a spot where it was light enough
+to read the missive. He did not, however, recognize Diana’s firm, bold
+hand on the envelope.
+
+“Who the devil can this be from?” thought Norbert, as he tore open
+the outer covering. The paper within was soiled and greasy, and the
+handwriting was of the vilest description, it was full of bad spelling,
+and ran thus:--
+
+“Sir,--
+
+“I hardly dare tell you the truth, and yet my conscience will give me
+no relief until I do so. I can no longer bear to see a gentleman such as
+you are deceived by a woman who has no heart or honorable feeling. Your
+wife is unfaithful to you, and will soon make you a laughing stock to
+all. You may trust to this being true, for I am a respectable woman,
+and you can easily find out if I am lying to you. Hide yourself this
+evening, so that you may command a view of the side-door in the wall
+of your garden, and between half-past ten and eleven you will see your
+wife’s lover enter. It is a long time since he has been furnished with
+a key. The hour for the meeting has been judiciously fixed, for all the
+servants will be out; but I implore you not to be violent, for I would
+not do your wife any harm, but I feel that you ought to be warned.
+
+“From one
+
+“WHO KNOWS.”
+
+
+Norbert ran through the contents of this infamous anonymous letter in an
+instant. The blood surged madly through his brain, and he uttered a howl
+of fury. His servants ran in to see what was the matter.
+
+“Where is the fellow who brought this letter?” said he. “Run after him
+and bring him back to me.”
+
+In a few minutes the sturdy grooms made their appearance, pushing in the
+messenger, who seemed over-powered with tears.
+
+“I am not a thief,” exclaimed he. “It was given to me, but I will give
+it back.”
+
+He was alluding to the louis given to him by Norbert, for the largeness
+of the sum made him think that the donor had made a mistake.
+
+“Keep the money,” said the Duke; “I meant it for you; but tell me who
+gave this letter to you.”
+
+“I can’t tell you,” answered the man. “If I ever saw him before, may my
+next glass of wine choke me. He got out of a cab just as I was passing
+near the bridge, and calling to me, said, ‘Look at this letter; at
+half-past seven take it to the Duke de Champdoce, who lives by his
+stables in the road to the Forest. Do you know the place?’ ‘Yes,’ I
+says, and then he slips the letter and a five-franc piece into my hand,
+got back into the cab, and off he went.”
+
+“What was the man like?” asked he.
+
+“Well, I can hardly say. He wasn’t young or old, or short or tall.
+I recollect he had a gold watch-chain on, but that was about all I
+noticed.”
+
+“Very well; you can be off.”
+
+At this moment Norbert’s anger was turned against the writer of
+the letter only, for he did not place the smallest credence in the
+accusations against his wife. If he did not love her, he at any rate
+respected her. “My wife,” said he to himself, “is an honorable and
+virtuous woman, and it is some discharged menial who has taken this
+cowardly mode of revenge.” A closer inspection of the letter seemed to
+show him that the faults in caligraphy were intentional. The concluding
+portion of the letter excited his attention, and, calling Jean, he asked
+him if it was true that all the servants would be absent from the house
+to-day.
+
+“There will be none there this evening; not until late at night,”
+ answered the old man.
+
+“And why, pray?”
+
+“Have you forgotten, your Grace, that the first coachman is going to be
+married, and the Duchess was good enough to say that all might go to the
+wedding dinner and ball, as long as some one remained at the porter’s
+lodge?”
+
+After the first outburst, Norbert affected an air of calmness, and
+laughed at the idea of having permitted himself to be disturbed for so
+trivial a cause. But this was mere pretence, for doubt and suspicion had
+entered his soul, and no power on earth could expel them. “Why should
+not my wife be unfaithful to me?” thought Norbert. “I give her credit
+for being honorable and right-minded, but then all deceived husbands
+have the same idea. Why should I not take advantage of this information,
+and judge for myself? But no. I will not stoop to such an act of
+baseness. I should be as infamous as the writer of this letter if I
+was to play the spy, as she recommends me to do.” He glanced round,
+and perceived that his servants were looking at him with undisguised
+curiosity.
+
+“Go to your work,” said he. “Extinguish the lights, and see that all the
+doors and windows are carefully closed.”
+
+He had made up his mind now, and taking out his watch, saw that it was
+just eight o’clock. “I have time to reach Paris,” muttered he, “by the
+appointed time.” Then he called Jean to him again. There was no need to
+conceal anything from this trusty adherent of the house of Champdoce. “I
+must start for Paris,” said the Duke, “without an instant’s delay.”
+
+“On account of that letter?” asked the old man with an expression of the
+deepest sorrow upon his features.
+
+“Yes, for that reason only.”
+
+“Some one has been making false charges against the Duchess.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“It was easy enough to guess.”
+
+“Have the carriage got ready, and tell the coachman to wait for me in
+front of the club. I myself will go on foot.”
+
+“You must not do that,” answered Jean gravely. “The servants may have
+conceived the same suspicions as I have. You ought to creep away without
+any one being a bit the wiser. The other domestics need not even suppose
+that you have left the house. I can get you a horse out of the little
+stables without any one being the wiser. I will wait for you on the
+other side of the bridge.”
+
+“Good; but remember that I have not a moment to lose.”
+
+Jean left the room, and as he reached the passage Norbert heard him say
+to one of the servants, “Put some cold supper on the table; the Duke
+says that he is starving.”
+
+Norbert went into his bedroom, put on a great coat and a pair of high
+boots, and slipped into his pocket a revolver, the charges of which he
+had examined with the greatest care. The night was exceedingly dark, a
+fine, icy rain was falling, and the roads were very heavy. Norbert found
+Jean with the horse at the appointed spot, and as he leaped into the
+saddle the Duke exclaimed, “Not a soul saw me leave the house.”
+
+“Nor I either,” returned the attached domestic. “I shall go back and
+act as if you were at supper. At three in the morning I will be in the
+wine-shop on the left-hand side of the road. When you return, give a
+gentle tap on the window-pane with the handle of your whip.” Norbert
+sprang into the saddle, and sped away through the darkness like a
+phantom of the night. Jean had made an excellent choice in the horse he
+had brought for his master’s use, and the animal made its way rapidly
+through the mud and rain; but Norbert by this time was half mad with
+excitement, and spurred him madly on. As he neared home a new idea
+crossed his brain. Suppose it was a practical joke on the part of
+some of the members of the club? In that case, they would doubtless
+be watching for his arrival, and, after talking to him on indifferent
+subjects, would, when he betrayed any symptoms of impatience, overwhelm
+him with ridicule. The fear of this made him cautious. What should he do
+with the horse he was riding? The wine-shops were open, and perhaps he
+might pick up some man there who would take charge of it for him. As he
+was debating this point, his eyes fell upon a soldier, probably on his
+way to barracks.
+
+“My man,” asked the Duke, “would you like to earn twenty francs?”
+
+“I should think so, if it is nothing contrary to the rules and
+regulations of the army.”
+
+“It is only to take my horse and walk him up and down while I pay a
+visit close by.”
+
+“I can stay out of the barracks a couple of hours longer, but no more,”
+ returned the soldier.
+
+Norbert told the soldier where he was to wait for him, and then went on
+rapidly to his own house, and reached the side street along which ran
+the garden belonging to his magnificent residence. On the opposite side
+of the street the houses all had porticoes, and Norbert took up his
+position in one of these, and peered out carefully. He had studied the
+whole street, which was not a long one, from beginning to end, and was
+convinced that he was the only person in it. He made up his mind that he
+would wait until midnight; and if by that time no one appeared, he would
+feel confident that the Duchess was innocent, and return without any one
+but Jean having known of his expedition. From his position he could see
+that three windows on the second floor of his house were lighted up, and
+those windows were in his wife’s sleeping apartment. “She is the last
+woman in the world to permit a lover to visit her,” thought he. “No, no;
+the whole thing is a hoax.” He began to think of the way in which he
+had treated his wife. Had he nothing to reproach himself with? Ten days
+after their marriage he had deserted her entirely; and if during the
+last few weeks he had paid her any attention, it was because he was
+acting in obedience to the whims of another woman. Suppose a lover was
+with her now, what right had he to interfere? The law gave him leave,
+but what did his conscience say? He leaned against the chill stone until
+he almost became as cold as it was. It seemed to him at that moment that
+life and hope were rapidly drifting away from him. He had lost all count
+of how long he had been on guard. He pulled out his watch, but it was
+too dark to distinguish the hands or the figures on the dial-plate. A
+neighboring clock struck the half-hour, but this gave him no clue as
+to the time. He had almost made up his mind to leave, when he heard the
+sound of a quick step coming down the street. It was the light, quick
+step of a sportsman,--of a man more accustomed to the woods and fields
+than the pavement and asphalt of Paris. Then a shadow fell upon the
+opposite wall, and almost immediately disappeared. Then Norbert knew
+that the door had opened and closed, and that the man had entered the
+garden. There could be no doubt upon this point, and yet the Duke would
+have given worlds to be able to disbelieve the evidence of his senses.
+It might be a burglar, but burglars seldom work alone; or it might be
+a visitor to one of the servants, but all the servants were absent. He
+again raised his eyes to the windows of his wife’s room. All of a sudden
+the light grew brighter; either the lamp had been turned up, or fresh
+candles lighted. Yes, it was a candle, for he saw it borne across the
+room in the direction of the great staircase, and now he saw that the
+anonymous letter had spoken the truth, and that he was on the brink of a
+discovery. A lover had entered the garden, and the lighted candle was a
+signal to him. Norbert shuddered; the blood seemed to course through
+his veins like streams of molten fire, and the misty atmosphere that
+surrounded him appeared to stifle him. He ran across the street, forced
+the lock, and rushed wildly into the garden.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+HUSBAND AND LOVER.
+
+The writer of the anonymous communication had only known the secret too
+well, for the Duchess de Champdoce was awaiting a visit that evening
+from George de Croisenois; this was, however, the first time. Step by
+step she had yielded, and at length had fallen into the snare laid for
+her by the treacherous woman whom she believed to be her truest friend.
+The evening before this eventful night she had been alone in Madame
+de Mussidan’s drawing-room with George de Croisenois. She had been
+impressed by his ardent passion, and had listened with pleasure to his
+loving entreaties.
+
+“I yield,” said she. “Come to-morrow night, at half-past ten, to the
+little door in the garden wall; it will only be kept closed by a stone
+being placed against it inside; push it, and it will open; and when
+you have entered the garden, acquaint me with your presence by clapping
+yours hands gently once or twice.”
+
+Diana had, from a secure hiding-place, overheard these words, and
+feeling certain that the Duchess would repent her rash promise, she kept
+close to her side until George’s departure, to give her no chance of
+retracting her promise. The next day she was constantly with her victim,
+and made an excuse for dining with her, so as not to quit her until the
+hour for the meeting had almost arrived.
+
+It was not until she was left alone that the Duchess saw the full extent
+of her folly and rashness. She was terrified at the promise that she had
+given in a weak moment, and would have given worlds had she been able to
+retract.
+
+There was yet, however, one means of safety left her--she could
+hurry downstairs and secure the garden gate. She started to her
+feet, determined to execute her project; but she was too late for the
+appointed signal was heard through the chill gloom of the night. Unhappy
+woman! The light sound of George de Croisenois’ palms striking one upon
+the other resounded in her ears like the dismal tolling of the funereal
+bell. She stooped to light a candle at the fire, but her hand trembled
+so that she could scarcely effect her object. She felt sure that George
+was still in the garden, though she had made no answer to his signal.
+She had never thought that he would have had the audacity to open a door
+that led into the house from the garden, but this is what he had done.
+In the most innocent manner imaginable, and so that her listener in
+no way suspected the special reason that she had for making this
+communication, Diana de Mussidan had informed George de Croisenois that
+upon this night all the domestics of the Champdoce household would be
+attending the coachman’s wedding, and that consequently the mansion
+would be deserted. George knew also that the Duke was away at his
+training establishment, and he therefore opened the door, and walked
+boldly up the main staircase, so that when the Duchess, with the lighted
+candle in her hand, came to the top steps she found herself face to
+face with George de Croisenois, pallid with emotion and quivering with
+excitement.
+
+At the sight of the man she loved she started backwards with a low cry
+of anguish and despair.
+
+“Fly!” she said “fly, or we are lost!”
+
+He did not, however, seem to hear her, and the Duchess recoiled slowly,
+step by step, through the open door of her chamber, across the carpeted
+floor, until she reached the opposite wall of her room, and could go no
+farther.
+
+George followed her, and pushed to the door of the room as he entered
+it. This brief delay, however, had sufficed to restore Marie to the full
+possession of her senses. “If I permit him to speak,” thought she,--“if
+he once suspects that my love for him is still as strong as ever, I am
+lost.”
+
+Then she said aloud,--
+
+“You must leave this house, and that instantly. I was mad when I said
+what I did yesterday. You are too noble and too generous not to listen
+to me when I tell you that the moment of infatuation is over, and that
+all my reason has returned to me, and my openness will convince you of
+the truth of what I say--George de Croisenois, I love you.”
+
+The young man uttered an exclamation of delight upon hearing this news.
+
+“Yes,” continued Marie, “I would give half the years of my remaining
+life to be your wife. Yes, George, I love you; but the voice of duty
+speaks louder than the whispers of the heart. I may die of grief, but
+there will be no stain upon my marriage robe, no remorse eating out my
+heart. Farewell!”
+
+But the Marquis would not consent to this immediate dismissal, and
+appeared to be about to speak.
+
+“Go!” said the Duchess, with an air of command. “Leave me at once!”
+ Then, as he made no effort to obey her, she went on, “If you really love
+me, let my honor be as dear to you as your own, and never try to see
+me again. The peril we are now in shows how necessary this last
+determination of mine is. I am the Duchess de Champdoce, and I will keep
+the name that has been intrusted to me pure and unsullied, nor will I
+stoop to treachery or deception.”
+
+“Why do you use the word deception?” asked he. “I do, it is true,
+despise the woman who smiles upon the husband she is betraying, but I
+respect and honor the woman who risks all to follow the fortunes of the
+man she loves. Lay aside, Marie, name, title, fortune, and fly with me.”
+
+“I love you too much, George,” answered she gently, “to ruin your
+future, for the day would surely come when you would regret all your
+self-denial, for a woman weighed down with a sense of her dishonor is a
+heavy burden for a man to bear.”
+
+George de Croisenois did not understand her thoroughly.
+
+“You do not trust me,” said he. “You would be dishonored. Shall I not
+share a portion of the world’s censure? And, if you wish me, I will be
+a dishonored man also. To-night I will cheat at play at the club,
+be detected, and leave the room an outcast from the society of all
+honorable men for the future. Fly with me to some distant land, and we
+will live happily under whatever name you may choose.”
+
+“I must not listen to you,” cried she wildly. “It is impossible now.”
+
+“Impossible!--and why? Tell me, I entreat you.”
+
+“Ah, George,” sobbed she, “if you only knew----”
+
+He placed his arm around her waist, and was about to press his lips on
+that fair brow, when all at once he felt Marie shiver in his clasp,
+and, raising one of her arms, point towards the door, which had opened
+silently during their conversation, and upon the threshold of which
+stood Norbert de Champdoce, gloomy and threatening.
+
+The Marquis saw in an instant the terrible position in which his
+insensate folly had placed the woman he loved.
+
+“Do not come any nearer,” said he, addressing Norbert; “remain where you
+are.”
+
+A bitter laugh from the Duke made him realize the folly of his command.
+He supported the Duchess to a couch, and seated her upon it. She
+recovered consciousness almost immediately, and, as she opened her eyes,
+George read in them the most perfect forgiveness for the man who had
+ruined her life and hopes.
+
+This look, and the fond assurance conveyed in it, restored all George’s
+coolness and self-possession, and he turned towards Norbert.
+
+“However compromising appearances may seem, I am the only one deserving
+punishment; the Duchess has nothing to reproach herself with in any way;
+it was without her knowledge, and without any encouragement from her,
+that I dared to enter this house, knowing as I did that the servants
+were all absent.”
+
+Norbert, however, still maintained the same gloomy silence. He too had
+need to collect his thoughts. As he ascended the stairs he knew that
+he should find the Duchess with a lover, but he had not calculated
+upon that lover being George de Croisenois, a man whom he loathed
+and detested more than any one that he was in the habit of meeting in
+society. When he recognized George, it was with the utmost difficulty
+that he restrained himself from springing upon him and endeavoring
+to strangle him. He had suspected this man of having gained Diana’s
+affections, and now he found him in the character of the lover of his
+wife, and he was silent simply because he had not yet made up his mind
+what he would say. If his face was outwardly calm and rigid as marble,
+while the flames of hell were raging in his heart, it was because his
+limbs for the moment refused to obey his will; but, in spite of this,
+Norbert was, for the time, literally insane.
+
+Croisenois folded his arms, and continued,--
+
+“I had only just come here at the moment of your arrival. Why were you
+not here to listen to all that passed between us? Would to heaven
+that you had been! Then you would have understood all the grandeur and
+nobility of your wife’s soul. I admit the magnitude of my fault, but I
+am at your service, and am prepared to give you the satisfaction that
+you will doubtless demand.”
+
+“From your words,” answered Norbert slowly, “I presume that you allude
+to a duel; that is to say, that having effected my dishonor to-night,
+you purpose to kill me to-morrow morning. In the game that you have been
+playing a man stakes his life, and you, I think, have lost.”
+
+Croisenois bowed. “I am a dead man,” thought he as he glanced towards
+the Duchess, “and not for your sake, but on account of quite another
+woman.”
+
+The sound of his own voice excited Norbert, and he went on more rapidly:
+“What need have I to risk my life in a duel? I come to my own home,
+I find you with my wife, I blow out your brains, and the law will
+exonerate me.” As he said these last words, he drew a revolver from his
+pocket and levelled it at George. The moment was an intensely exciting
+one, but Croisenois did not show any sign of emotion, Norbert did not
+press the trigger, and the suspense became more than could be borne.
+
+“Fire!” cried George, “fire!”
+
+“No,” returned Norbert coldly; “on reflection I have come to
+the conclusion that your dead body would be a source of extreme
+inconvenience to me.”
+
+“You try my forbearance too far. What are your intentions?”
+
+“I mean to kill you,” answered Norbert in such a voice of concentrated
+ferocity that George shuddered in spite of all his courage, “but it
+shall not be with a pistol shot. It is said that blood will wash out
+any stain, but it is false; for even if all yours is shed, it will not
+remove the stain from my escutcheon. One of us must vanish from the face
+of the earth in such a manner that no trace of him may remain.”
+
+“I agree. Show me how this is to be done.”
+
+“I know a method,” answered Norbert. “If I was certain that no human
+being was aware of your presence here to-night----”
+
+“No one can possibly know it.”
+
+“Then,” answered the Duke, “instead of taking advantage of the rights
+that the law gives me and shooting you down on the spot, I will consent
+to risk my life against yours.”
+
+George de Croisenois breathed a sigh of relief. “I am ready,” replied
+he, “as I before told you.”
+
+“I heard you; but remember that this will be no ordinary duel, in the
+light of day, with seconds to regulate the manner of our conduct.”
+
+“We will fight exactly as you wish.”
+
+“In that case, I name swords as the weapons, the garden as the spot, and
+this instant as the hour.”
+
+The Marquis cast a glance at the window.
+
+“You think,” observed Norbert, comprehending his look, “that the night
+is so dark that we cannot see the blades of our swords?”
+
+“Quite so.”
+
+“You need not fear; there will be light enough for this death struggle
+of the one who remains in the garden, for you understand that one _will_
+remain.”
+
+“I understand you; shall we go down at once?”
+
+Norbert shook his head in the negative.
+
+“You are in too great a hurry,” said he, “and have not given me time to
+fix my conditions.”
+
+“I am listening.”
+
+“At the end of the garden there is a small plot of ground, so damp that
+nothing will grow there, and consequently is almost unfrequented; but
+for all that it is thither that you must follow me. We will each take
+spade and pick-axe, and in a very brief period we can hollow out
+a receptacle for the body of the one who falls. When this work is
+completed, we will take to our swords and fight to the death, and the
+one who can keep his feet shall finish his fallen adversary, drag his
+body to the hole, and shovel the earth over his remains.”
+
+“Never!” exclaimed Croisenois. “Never will I agree to such barbarous
+terms.”
+
+“Have a care then,” returned Norbert; “for I shall use my rights. That
+clock points to five minutes to eleven. If, when it strikes, you have
+not decided to accept my terms, I shall fire.”
+
+The barrel of the revolver was but a few inches from George de
+Croisenois’ heart, and the finger of his most inveterate enemy was
+curved round the trigger; but his feelings had been so highly wrought up
+that he thought not of this danger. He only remembered that he had four
+minutes in which to make up his mind. The events of the last thirty
+minutes had pressed upon each other’s heels with such surprising
+alacrity that he could hardly believe that they had really occurred, and
+it seemed to him as if it might not, after all, be only a hideous vision
+of the night.
+
+“You have only two minutes more,” remarked the Duke.
+
+Croisenois started; his soul was far away from the terrible present. He
+glanced at the clock, then at his enemy, and lastly at Marie, who lay
+upon the couch, and from her ashen complexion might have been regarded
+as dead, save for the hysterical sobs which convulsed her frame. He felt
+that it was impossible to leave her in such a condition without aid of
+any kind, but he saw well that any show of pity on his part would only
+aggravate his offence. “Heaven have mercy on us!” muttered he. “We are
+at the mercy of a maniac,” and with a feeling of deadly fear he
+asked himself what would be the fate of this woman, whom he loved so
+devotedly, were he to die. “For her sake,” he thought, “I must slay this
+man, or her life will be one endless existence of torture--and slay him
+I will.”
+
+“I accept your terms,” said he aloud.
+
+He spoke just in time, for as the words were uttered came the whirr of
+the machinery and then the first clear stroke of the bell.
+
+“I thank you,” answered Norbert coldly as he lowered the muzzle of his
+revolver.
+
+The icy frigidity of manner in a period of extreme danger, which is the
+marked characteristic of a certain type of education, had now vanished
+from the Marquis’s tone and behavior.
+
+“But that is not all,” he continued; “I, too, have certain conditions to
+propose.”
+
+“But we agreed--”
+
+“Let me explain; we are going to fight in the dark in your garden
+without seconds. We are to dig a grave and the survivor is to bury his
+dead antagonist. Tell me, am I right?”
+
+Norbert bowed.
+
+“But,” went on the Marquis, “how can you be certain that all will end
+here, and that the earth will be content to retain our secret? You do
+not know, and you do not seem to care, that if one day the secret will
+be disclosed and the survivor accused of being the murderer of the
+other, arrested, dragged before a tribunal, condemned, and sent to a
+life-long prison----”
+
+“There is a chance of that, of course.”
+
+“And do you think that I will consent to run such a risk as that?”
+
+“There is such a risk, of course,” answered Norbert phlegmatically;
+“but that will be an incentive for you to conceal my death as I should
+conceal yours.”
+
+“That will not be sufficient for me,” returned De Croisenois.
+
+“Ah! take care,” sneered Norbert, “or I shall begin to think that you
+are afraid.”
+
+“I _am_ afraid; that is, afraid of being called a murderer.”
+
+“That is a danger to which I am equally liable with yourself.”
+
+Croisenois, however, was fully determined to carry his point. “You say,”
+ continued he, “that our chances are equal; but if I fall, who would
+dream of searching here for my remains? You are in your own house and
+can take every precaution; but suppose, on the other hand, I kill
+you. Shall I look to the Duchess to assist me? Will not the finger of
+suspicion be pointed at her? Shall she say to her gardener when all
+Paris is hunting for you, ‘Mind that you do not meddle with the piece of
+land at the end of the garden.’”
+
+The thought of the anonymous letter crossed Norbert’s mind, and he
+remembered that the writer of it must be acquainted with the coming of
+George de Croisenois. “What do you propose then?” asked he.
+
+“Merely that each of us, without stating the grounds of our quarrel,
+write down the conditions and sign our names as having accepted them.”
+
+“I agree; but use dispatch.”
+
+The two men, after the conditions had been described, wrote two letters,
+dated from a foreign country, and the survivor of the combat was to post
+his dead adversary’s letter, which would not fail to stop any search
+after the vanished man. When this talk was concluded, Norbert rose to
+his feet.
+
+“One word in conclusion,” said he: “a soldier is leading the horse on
+which I rode here up and down in the Place des Invalides. If you kill
+me, go and take the horse from the man, giving him the twenty francs I
+promised him.”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“Now let us go down.”
+
+They left the room together. Norbert was stepping aside to permit
+Croisenois to descend the stairs first, when he felt his coat gently
+pulled, and, turning round, saw that the Duchess, too weak to rise to
+her feet, had crawled to him on her knees. The unhappy woman had heard
+everything, and in an almost inaudible voice she uttered an agonized
+prayer:
+
+“Mercy, Norbert! Have mercy! I swear to you that I am guiltless. You
+never loved me, why should you fight for me. Have pity! To-morrow, by
+all that I hold sacred, I swear to you that I will enter a convent, and
+you shall never see my face again. Have pity!”
+
+“Pray heaven, madame, that it may be your lover’s sword that pierces my
+heart. It is your only hope, for then you will be free.”
+
+He tore his coat from her fingers with brutal violence, and the unhappy
+woman fell to the floor with a shriek as he closed the door upon her,
+and followed his antagonist downstairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+BLADE TO BLADE.
+
+Several times in the course of this interview Norbert de Champdoce had
+been on the point of bursting into a furious passion, but he restrained
+himself from a motive of self-pride; but now that his wife was no
+longer present, he showed a savage intensity of purpose and a deadly
+earnestness that was absolutely appalling. As he followed Croisenois
+down the great staircase, he kept repeating the words, “Quick! quick!
+we have lost too much time already;” for he saw that a mere trifle might
+upset all his plans--such as a servant returning home before the others.
+When they reached the ground-floor, he led George into a by-room which
+looked like an armory, so filled was it with arms of all kinds and
+nations.
+
+“Here,” said he, with a bitter sneer, “we can find, I think, what we
+want;” and placing the candle he carried on the mantelpiece, he leaped
+upon the cushioned seat that ran round the room, and took down from
+the wall several pairs of duelling swords, and, throwing them upon the
+floor, exclaimed, “Choose your own weapon.”
+
+George was an anxious as Norbert to bring this painful scene to a close,
+for anything was preferable to this hideous state of suspense. The last
+despairing glance of the Duchess had pierced his heart like a dagger
+thrust, and when he saw Norbert thrust aside his trembling wife with
+such brutality, it was all he could do to refrain from striking him
+down. He made no choice of weapons, but grasped the nearest, saying,--
+
+“One will do as well as another.”
+
+“We cannot fight in this darkness,” said Norbert, “but I have a means to
+remedy that. Come with me this way, so that we may avoid the observation
+of the porter.”
+
+They went into the stables, where he took up a large lantern, which he
+lighted.
+
+“This,” said he, “will afford ample light for our work.”
+
+“Ah, but the neighbors will see it, too; and at this hour a light in the
+garden is sure to attract attention,” observed George.
+
+“Don’t be afraid; my grounds are not overlooked.”
+
+They entered the garden, and soon reached the spot to which the Duke had
+alluded. Norbert hung the lantern on the bough of a tree, and it gave
+the same amount of light as an ordinary street lamp.
+
+“We will dig the grave in that corner,” observed he; “and when it is
+filled in, we can cover it with that heap of stones over there.”
+
+He threw off his great coat, and, handing a spade to Croisenois, took
+another himself, repeating firmly the words,--
+
+“To work! To work!”
+
+Croisenois would have toiled all night before he could have completed
+the task, but the muscles of the Duke were hardened by his former
+laborious life, and in forty minutes all was ready.
+
+“That will do,” said Norbert, exchanging his spade for a sword. “Take
+your guard.”
+
+Croisenois, however, did not immediately obey. Impressible by nature, he
+felt a cold shiver run through his frame; the dark night, the flickering
+lantern, and all these preparations, made in so cold-blooded a manner,
+affected his nerves. The grave, with its yawning mouth, fascinated him.
+
+“Well,” said Norbert impatiently, “are you not ready?”
+
+“I will speak,” exclaimed De Croisenois, driven to desperation. “In a
+few minutes one of us will be lying dead on this spot. In the presence
+of death a man’s words are to be relied on. Listen to me. I swear to
+you, on my honor and by all my hopes of future salvation, that the
+Duchess de Champdoce is entirely free from guilt.”
+
+“You have said that before; why repeat it again?”
+
+“Because it is my duty; because I am thinking that, if I die, it will
+be my insane passions that have caused the ruin of one of the best and
+purest women in the world. I entreat you to believe that she has nothing
+to repent of. See, I am not ashamed to descend to entreaty. Let my
+death, if you kill me, be an expiation for everything. Be gentle with
+your wife; and if you survive me, do not make her life one prolonged
+existence of agony.”
+
+“Silence, or I shall look upon you as a dastard,” returned Norbert
+fiercely.
+
+“Miserable fool!” said De Croisenois. “On guard, then, and may heaven
+decide the issue!”
+
+There was a sharp clash as their swords crossed, and the combat began
+with intense vigor.
+
+The space upon which the rays of the lantern cast a glimmering and
+uncertain light was but a small one; and while one of the combatants
+was in complete shade the other was in the light, and exposed to thrusts
+which he could not see. This was fatal to Croisenois, and, as he took
+a step forward, Norbert made a fierce lunge which pierced him to the
+heart.
+
+The unfortunate man threw up his arms above his head; his sword escaping
+from his nerveless fingers and his knees bending under him, he fell
+heavily backwards without a word escaping from his lips. Thrice he
+endeavored to regain his feet, and thrice he failed in his attempts. He
+strove to speak, but he could only utter a few unintelligible words,
+for his life blood was suffocating him. A violent convulsion shook every
+limb, then arose a long, deep-drawn sigh, and then silence--George de
+Croisenois was dead.
+
+Yes, he was dead, and Norbert de Champdoce stood over him with a wild
+look of terror in his eyes, and his hair bristling upon his head, as
+a shudder of horror convulsed his body. Then, for the first time, he
+realized the horror of seeing a man slain by his own hand; and yet
+what affected Norbert most was not that he had killed George de
+Croisenois--for he believed that justice was on his side and that he
+could not have acted otherwise--but the perspiration stood in thick
+beads upon his forehead, as he thought that he must raise up that still
+warm and quivering body, and place it in its unhallowed grave.
+
+He hesitated and reasoned with himself for some time, going over all
+the reasons that made dispatch so absolutely necessary--the risk of
+detection, and the honor of his name.
+
+He stooped and prepared to raise it, but recoiled again before his hands
+had touched the body. His heart failed him, and once more he assumed an
+erect position. At last he nerved himself, grasped the body, and, with
+an immense exertion of strength, hurled it into the gaping grave. It
+fell with a dull, heavy sound which seemed to Norbert like the roar of
+an earthquake. The violent emotions which he had endured had ended
+by acting on his brain, and, snatching up the spade which his late
+antagonist had used with so unpracticed a hand, shovelled the earth upon
+the body, flattened down the ground, and finally covered it with straw
+and dead leaves.
+
+“And this is the end of a man who wronged a Champdoce; yes, his life has
+paid the penalty of his deed.”
+
+All at once, a few paces off, in the deep shadow of the trees, he
+thought that he detected the outline of a human head with a pair of
+glittering eyes fixed upon him. The shock was so terrible that for an
+instant he stopped and nearly fell, but he quickly recovered himself,
+and, snatching up his blood-stained sword, he dashed to the spot where
+he fancied he had seen this terrible witness of his deed.
+
+At this rapid movement on the part of the Duke, a figure started up with
+a faint cry for mercy. It was a woman.
+
+She fled with inconceivable swiftness towards the house, but he caught
+her just as she had gained the steps.
+
+“Have mercy on me!” cried she. “Do not murder me!”
+
+He dragged her back to where the lantern was hanging. She was a girl
+of about eighteen years of age, ugly, badly clothed, and dirty looking.
+Norbert looked earnestly at her, but could not say who she was, though
+he was certain that he had seen her face somewhere.
+
+“Who are you?” asked he.
+
+She burst into a flood of tears, but made no other reply.
+
+“Come,” resumed he, in more soothing accents; “you shall not be hurt.
+Tell me who you are.”
+
+“Caroline Schimmel.”
+
+“Caroline?” repeated he.
+
+“Yes. I have been in your service as scullery maid for the last three
+months.”
+
+“How is it that you did not go to the wedding with the rest of them?”
+
+“It was not my fault. I was asked, and I did so long to go, but I was
+too shabby; I had no finery to put on. I am very poor now, for I have
+only fifteen francs a month, and none of the other maids would lend me
+anything to wear.”
+
+“How did you come into the garden?” asked Norbert.
+
+“I was very miserable, and was sitting in the garden crying, when I
+suddenly saw a light down there. I thought it was theirs, and crept down
+the back stairs.”
+
+“And what did you see?”
+
+“I saw it all.”
+
+“All what?”
+
+“When I got down here, you and the other were digging. I thought you
+were looking for money! but ah, dear me! I was wrong. Then the other
+began to say something, but I couldn’t catch a word; then you fought.
+Oh, it was awful! I was so frightened, I could not take my eyes off you.
+Then the other fell down on his back.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Then,” she faltered, “you buried him, and then----”
+
+“Could you recognize this--this other?”
+
+“Yes, my lord duke, I did.”
+
+“Had you ever seen him before? Do you know who he was?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Listen to me, my girl. If you know how to hold your tongue, if you can
+forget all you have seen to-night, it will be the greatest piece of luck
+for you in the world that you did not go to this wedding.”
+
+“I won’t open my lips to a soul, my lord duke. Hear me swear, I won’t.
+Oh, do believe me!”
+
+“Very well; keep your oath, and your fortune is made. To-morrow I will
+give you a fine, large sum of money, and you can go back to your village
+and marry some honest fellow to whom you have taken a fancy.”
+
+“Are you not making game of me?”
+
+“No; go to your room and go to bed, as if nothing had happened. Jean
+will tell you what to do to-morrow, and you must obey him as you would
+me.”
+
+“Oh, my lord! Oh, my lord duke!”
+
+Unable to contain her delight, she mingled her laughter and her tears.
+
+And Norbert knew that his name, his honor, and perhaps his life were in
+the hands of a wretched girl like this. All the peace and happiness of
+his life were gone, and he felt like some unhappy prisoner who through
+the bars of his dungeon sees his jailer’s children sporting with lighted
+matches and a barrel of gunpowder. He was at her mercy, for well he knew
+that it would resolve into this--that the smallest wish of this girl
+would become an imperative command that he dared not disobey. However
+absurd might be her whims and caprices, she had but to express them, and
+he dared not resist. What means could he adopt to free himself from this
+odious state of servitude? He knew but of one--the dead tell no tales.
+There were four persons who were the sharer of Norbert’s secret. First,
+the writer of the anonymous letter; then the Duchess; then Caroline
+Schimmel; and, finally, Jean, to whom he must confide all. With these
+thoughts ringing through his brain, Norbert carefully effaced the last
+traces of the duel, and then bent his steps towards his wife’s chamber.
+
+He had expected to find her still unconscious on the spot where he had
+left her lying. Marie was seated in an armchair by the side of the fire;
+her face was terribly pale, and her eyes sparkling with the inward flame
+that consumed her.
+
+“My honor has been vindicated; the Marquis de Croisenois is no more; I
+have slain your lover, madame.”
+
+Marie did not start; she had evidently prepared herself for this blow.
+Her face assumed a more proud and disdainful expression, and the light
+in her dark eyes grew brighter and brighter.
+
+“You are wrong,” said she, “M. de Croisenois was not my lover.”
+
+“You need no longer take the pains to lie; I ask nothing now.”
+
+Marie’s utter calmness jarred inexpressibly upon Norbert’s exasperated
+frame of mind. He would have given much to change this mood of hers,
+which he could not at all understand. But in vain did he say the most
+cutting things, and coupled them with bitter taunts, for she had reached
+a pitch of exaltation far above his sarcasms and abuse.
+
+“I am not lying,” answered she frigidly. “What should I gain by it? What
+more have I to gain in this world? You desire to learn the truth; here
+it is then: It was with my knowledge and permission that George was here
+to-night. He came because I had asked him to do so, and I left the gate
+in the garden wall open, so as to facilitate his entrance. He had not
+been more than five minutes in the room, when you arrived, and he had
+never been there before. It would have been easy for me to have left
+you; but as I bear your name, I could not dishonor it. As you entered,
+he was entreating me to fly with him; both his life and his honor were
+in my hands. Ah, why did I pause for an instant? Had I consented, he
+would still have been alive, and in some far distant country he and
+I might have learned that this world has something more to offer than
+unhappiness and misery. Yes, as you will have it, you shall have all. I
+loved him ere I knew that you even existed. I have only my own folly to
+blame, only my own unhappy weakness to deplore. Why did I not steadily
+refuse to become your wife? You say that you have slain George. Not so,
+for in my heart his memory will ever remain bright and ineffaceable.”
+
+“Beware!” said Norbert furiously, “beware if----”
+
+“Ah, would you kill me too? Do not fear resistance; my life is a blank
+without him. He is dead; let death come to me; it would be a welcome
+visitant. The only kindness that you could now bestow upon me would
+be my death-blow. Strike then, and end it all! In death we should be
+united, George and I; and as my limbs grew stiff and my breath passed
+away, my whitening lips would murmur words of thanks.”
+
+Norbert listened to her, overwhelmed by the intensity of her passion,
+and marvelling that he had any power to feel after the terrible event
+which had fallen upon his devoted head.
+
+Could this be Marie, the soft and gentle woman, who spoke with such
+passionate vehemence and boldly braved his anger? How could he have so
+misunderstood her? He forgot all his anger in his admiration. She seemed
+to him to have undergone a complete change. There was an unearthly style
+of beauty around her--her eyes blazed and shone with the lurid light of
+a far-distant planet, while her wealth of raven hair fell in disordered
+masses on her shoulders. It was passion, real passion, that he beheld
+to-night, not that mere empty delusion which he had so long followed
+blindly. Marie was really capable of a deep-rooted feeling of adoration
+for the man she loved, while with Diana de Mussidan, the woman with her
+fair hair and the steel-blue eyes, love was but the lust of conquest, or
+the desire to jeer at a suitor’s earnestness. Ah, what a revelation had
+been made to him now! And what would he not have given to have wiped out
+the past! He advanced towards her with outstretched arms.
+
+“Marie!” said he, “Marie!”
+
+“I forbid you to call me Marie!” shrieked she wildly.
+
+He made no reply, but still advanced towards her, when, with a terrible
+cry, she recoiled from him.
+
+“Blood!” she screamed, “ah, heavens! he has blood upon his hands!”
+
+Norbert glanced downwards; upon the wristband of his shirt there was a
+tell-tale crimson stain.
+
+The Duchess raised her hand, and pointed towards the door.
+
+“Leave me,” said she, with an extraordinary assumption of energy, “leave
+me; the secret of your crime is safe; I will not betray you or hand you
+over to justice. But remember that a murdered man stands between us, and
+that I loathe and execrate you.”
+
+Rage and jealousy tortured Norbert’s soul. Though George de Croisenois
+was no more, he was still his successful rival in Marie’s love.
+
+“You forget,” said he in a voice hoarse with passion, “that you are
+mine, and that, as your husband, I can make your existence one long
+scene of agony and misery. Keep this fact in your memory. To-morrow, at
+six o’clock, I shall be here.”
+
+The clock was striking two as he left the house and hastened to the spot
+where he had left his horse.
+
+The soldier was still pacing backwards and forwards, leading the Duke’s
+horse.
+
+“My faith!” said the man, as soon as he perceived Norbert, “you pay
+precious long visits. I had only leave to go to the theatre, and I shall
+get into trouble over this.”
+
+“Pshaw! I promised you twenty francs. Here are two louis.”
+
+The soldier pocketed the money with an air of delighted surprise, and
+Norbert sprang into the saddle.
+
+An hour later he gave the appointed signal upon the window pane, behind
+which the trusty Jean was waiting.
+
+“Take care that no one sees you as you take the horse to the stable,”
+ said the Duke hastily, “and then come to me, for I want your assistance
+and advice.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE HEIR OF CHAMPDOCE.
+
+As long as she was in Norbert’s presence, anger and indignation gave
+the Duchess de Champdoce strength; but as soon as she was left alone her
+energy gave way, and with an outburst of tears she sank, half fainting,
+upon a couch. Her despair was augmented from the fact that she felt that
+had it not been for her, George de Croisenois would never have met with
+his death.
+
+“Had I not made that fatal appointment,” she sobbed, “he would be alive
+and well now; my love has slain him as surely as if my hand had held the
+steel that has pierced his heart!”
+
+She at first thought of seeking refuge with her father, but abandoned
+the idea almost immediately, for she felt that he would refuse to
+enter into her grievance, or would say, “You are a duchess; you have an
+enormous fortune. You must be happy; and if you are not, it must be your
+own fault.”
+
+In terrible anguish the night passed away; and when her maids entered
+the room, they found her lying on the floor, dressed as she had been the
+night before. No one knew what to do, and messengers were dispatched in
+all directions to summon medical advice.
+
+Norbert’s return was eagerly welcomed by the terrified domestics, and a
+general feeling of relief pervaded the establishment.
+
+The Duke had grown very uneasy as to what might have happened during his
+absence. He questioned the servants as diplomatically as he could; and
+while he was thus engaged, the doctors who had been summoned arrived.
+
+After seeing their patient, they did not for a moment conceal their
+opinion that the case was a very serious one, and that it was possible
+that she might not survive this mysterious seizure. They impressed upon
+Norbert the necessity of the Duchess being kept perfectly quiet and
+never left alone, and then departed, promising to call again in the
+afternoon.
+
+Their injunctions were unnecessary, for Norbert had established himself
+by his wife’s bedside, resolved not to quit her until her health was
+re-established or death had intervened to release her from suffering.
+Fever had claimed her for its own, and in her delusion she uttered
+many incoherent ravings, the key to which Norbert alone held, and which
+filled his soul with dread and terror.
+
+This was the second time that Norbert had been compelled to watch over
+a sick-bed, guarding within his heart a terrible secret. At Champdoce
+he had sat by his father’s side, who could have revealed the terrible
+attempt against his life; and now it was his wife that he was keeping a
+watch on, lest her lips should utter the horrible secret of the death of
+George de Croisenois.
+
+Compelled to remain by his wife’s side, the thoughts of his past life
+forced themselves upon him, and he shuddered to think that, at the age
+of twenty-five he had only to look back upon scenes of misery and crime,
+which cast a cloud of gloom and horror over the rest of his days. What a
+terrible future to come after so hideous a past!
+
+He had another source of anxiety, and frequently rang the bell to
+inquire for Jean.
+
+“Send him to me as soon as he comes,” was his order.
+
+At last Jean made his appearance, and his master led him into a
+deeply-recessed window.
+
+“Well?” asked he.
+
+“All is settled, my lord; be easy.”
+
+“And Caroline?”
+
+“Has left. I gave her twenty thousand francs, and saw her into the train
+myself. She is going to the States, where she hopes to find a cousin who
+will marry her; at least, that is her intention.”
+
+Norbert heaved a deep sigh of relief, for the thought of Caroline
+Schimmel had laid like a heavy burden upon his heart.
+
+“And how about the other matter?” asked he.
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+“What has been done?”
+
+“I have got hold of a young fellow who believes that I wish to send him
+to Egypt, to purchase cotton. He will start to-morrow, and will post the
+two letters written by the Marquis de Croisenois, one at Marseilles, and
+the other at Cairo.”
+
+“Do you not think that these letters will insure my perfect security?”
+
+“I see that any indiscretion on our agent’s part, or a mere act of
+carelessness, may ruin us.”
+
+“And yet it must be done.”
+
+After consulting together, the doctors had given some slight hope, but
+the position of the patient was still very precarious. It was suggested
+that her intellect might be permanently affected; and during all these
+long and anxious hours Norbert did not even dare to close his eyes, and
+it was with feelings of secret terror that he permitted the maids to
+perform their duties around their invalid mistress.
+
+Upon the fourth day the fever took a favorable turn, and Marie slept,
+giving Norbert time to review his position.
+
+How was it that Madame de Mussidan, who was a daily visitor, had
+not appeared at the house since that eventful night? He was so much
+surprised at this that he ventured to dispatch a short note, acquainting
+her of the sudden illness of his wife.
+
+In an hour he received a reply, merely containing these words:--
+
+“Can you account for M. de Mussidan’s sudden determination to spend the
+winter in Italy? We leave this evening. Farewell.--D.”
+
+And so she, too, had abandoned him, taking with her all the hopes he had
+in the world. Still, however, his infatuation held its sway over him,
+and he forced himself to believe that she felt this separation as keenly
+as he did.
+
+Some five days afterwards, when the Duchess de Champdoce had been
+pronounced out of immediate danger, one of the doctors took him
+mysteriously aside. He said that he wanted to inform the Duke of a
+startling, but he hoped a welcome piece of intelligence--that the
+Duchess de Champdoce was in the way to present the Duke with an heir to
+his title and estates.
+
+It was the knowledge of this that had decided her not to leave her
+husband’s roof, and had steeled her heart against George’s entreaties.
+She had hesitated, and had almost yielded to the feelings of her heart,
+when this thought troubled her.
+
+Unfortunately for herself, she had not disclosed her condition to her
+husband, and, at the news, all Norbert’s former suspicions revived, and
+his wrath rose once more to an extraordinary height. His lips grew pale,
+and his eyes blazed with fury.
+
+“Thank you, doctor!” exclaimed he. “Of course, the news is very welcome.
+Good-by. I must go to the Duchess at once.”
+
+Instead of going to his wife, Norbert went and locked himself up in his
+own private apartment. He had need to be alone, in order to look this
+fresh complication more fully in the face, and the more he reflected,
+the more convinced was he that he had been the dupe of a guilty woman.
+He had begun by doubting, and he ended by being convinced that the child
+was not his. Was he to accept this degraded position, and rear up as his
+own the child of George de Croisenois? The child would grow up under his
+own roof-tree, bear his name, and finally inherit his title and gigantic
+fortune. “Never,” muttered he. “No, never; for sooner than that, I will
+crush the life out of it with my own hands!”
+
+The more he thought how he should have to deceive the world by feigning
+love and lavishing caresses upon this interloping child, the more he
+felt that it would be impossible to perform his task. He had, however,
+much to do at present. The sudden and mysterious disappearance of George
+de Croisenois had created much stir and excitement in Paris, and the
+letter which had been posed by the agent dispatched by Jean, instead
+of explaining matters, had only deepened the mystery and caused fresh
+grounds of surprise to arise in the minds of the friends of the Marquis
+and the police authorities. But the disappearance of the Marquis was
+only a nine days’ wonder after all. Some other strange event excited the
+attention of the fickle public, and George de Croisenois’ name was no
+longer in every one’s mouth.
+
+Norbert breathed freely once more, for he felt his secret was safe.
+
+Diana de Mussidan had now been absent for three months and had not
+vouchsafed him a single line. A river of blood flowed between him and
+his wife. Among all his acquaintances he had not one friend on whom he
+could rely, and his reckless life of debauchery and dissipation began
+to weary him. His thoughts were always fixed upon this coming child. How
+could he ever bear to bring it up as if it were his own? He had thought
+over many plans, but always trusted to the first one he had conceived.
+This was to procure an infant, it mattered not where or by what means,
+and substitute it for the new-born child of his wife. As time rolled on,
+he became more imbued with this idea, and at length he summoned Jean
+to him, that faithful old man, who served his master so truly out of
+affection to the house of Champdoce.
+
+For the first time Jean raised an objection to his master’s proposal,
+declaring that such an act would bring shame and misery upon all
+concerned in it; but when he found that Norbert was determined, and
+that, if he refused, his master would employ some less scrupulous
+agent, he, with tears in his eyes and a tremor in his voice, promised
+obedience.
+
+About a month later, Jean came to his master and suggested that it would
+be best the _accouchement_ of the Duchess should take place at a chateau
+belonging to the Champdoce family near Montroire, and that this once
+done, he, Jean would arrange everything. The removal was effected almost
+at once, and the Duchess, who was a mere shadow of her former self,
+made no opposition. She and Norbert lived together as perfect strangers.
+Sometimes a week would elapse without their meeting; and if they had
+occasion to communicate, it was done by letter.
+
+The estate to which Norbert had conducted the Duchess was admirably
+adapted for his purpose. The unhappy woman was entirely alone in the
+world, and had no one to whom she could apply for protection or advice.
+Her father, the Count de Puymandour, had died suddenly a month before,
+owing to chagrin caused by his defeat when a candidate for a seat in the
+Chamber. The brief note from the despairing mother, in which followed
+the words, “Have mercy! Give me back my child!” hardly describes the
+terrible events that occurred in the lonely Chateau to which Norbert had
+conducted his innocent victim.
+
+The child of the Duchess de Champdoce had been placed by Jean in the
+Foundling Hospital at Vendome, while the infant that was baptized with
+the grandiloquent names of Anne Rene, Gontran de Duepair, Marquis de
+Champdoce, was the bastard child of a girl living near Montroire, who
+was known in the neighborhood as “The Witch.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+MASCARIN SPEAKS.
+
+This was the conclusion of the manuscript handed by Mascarin to Paul
+Violaine, and the young man laid down the roll of paper with the remark,
+“And that is all.”
+
+He had consumed six hours in reading this sad account of the follies and
+crimes of the owners of illustrious names.
+
+Mascarin had listened with the complacency of an author who hears his
+own work read aloud to him, but all the while he was keenly watching him
+beneath his spectacles and the faces of his companions. The effect that
+was produced was immense, and exactly what he had anticipated. Paul,
+Hortebise, and Catenac gazed upon each other with faces in which
+astonishment at the strange recital, and then at the power of the man
+who had collected these facts together, were mingled, and Catenac was
+the first who spoke. The sound of his own voice seemed gradually to
+dispel the vague sense of apprehension that hung about the office.
+
+“Aha!” cried he, “I always said that our old friend Mascarin would
+make his mark in literature. As soon as his pen touches the paper the
+business man vanishes; we have no longer a collection of dry facts and
+proofs, but the stirring pages of a sensational novel.”
+
+“Do you really consider that as a mere romance?” asked Hortebise.
+
+“It reads like one certainly; you must allow that.”
+
+“Catenac,” remarked Mascarin in his bitterly sarcastic tone, “is best
+able to pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of this narrative, as he
+is the professional adviser of this same Duke de Champdoce, the very
+Norbert whose life has just been read to you.”
+
+“I do not deny that there is some slight foundation to it,” returned the
+lawyer.
+
+“Then what is it that you do deny?”
+
+“Nothing, nothing; I merely objected, more in jest than otherwise, to
+the sentimental manner in which you have set forward your case.”
+
+“Catenac,” remarked Mascarin, addressing the others, “has received many
+confidential communications from his noble client, which he has not
+thought fit to communicate to us; and though he fancied that we were
+drifting into quicksands and among breakers, he displayed no signal of
+warning to save us from our danger, hoping, like a true friend, that, by
+this means, he might get rid of us.”
+
+Catenac began to utter protestations and denials, but Mascarin cut him
+short with an imperative gesture, and, after a long pause, he again
+commenced,--
+
+“You must understand that my inquisitors have had but little to do in
+this affair, for my work has chiefly consisted in putting fragments
+together. It is not to me that you are indebted for the sensational
+(I think that that was the term used) part of my story, but rather to
+Madame de Mussidan and Norbert de Champdoce. I am sure that some of the
+phrases must have struck you considerably.”
+
+“It seems to me,” objected Catenac--
+
+“Perhaps,” broke in Mascarin, “you have forgotten the correspondence
+which the Countess de Mussidan preserved so carefully--both his letters
+and her own, which Norbert returned to her.”
+
+“And we have those?”
+
+“Of course we have, only there is a perfect romance contained in these
+letters. What I have read is a mere bald extract from them; and this
+is not all. The man who assisted me in the unravelling of this dark
+intrigue was the original promoter--Daumon.”
+
+“What, is the Counsellor still alive?”
+
+“Certainly, and you know him. He is not quite in his first youth, and
+has aged somewhat, but his intellect is as brilliant as ever.”
+
+Catenac grew serious. “You tell me a great deal,” said he.
+
+“I can tell you even more. I can tell you that the account of the
+deed was written under the dictation of Caroline Schimmel,” broke in
+Mascarin. “This unlucky woman started for Havre, intending to sail for
+the United States, but she got no further than that seaport town, for
+the good looks and the persuasive tongue of a sailor induced her to
+alter her plans. As long as her money lasted he remained an ardent
+lover, but vanished with the disappearance of her last thousand-franc
+note. Starving and poverty-stricken, Caroline returned to Paris and to
+the Duke de Champdoce, who accepted her constant demands for money as a
+penitent expiation of his crime. But she remained faithful to her oath;
+and had it not been for her terrible propensity for drink, Tantaine
+would never have succeeded in extracting her secret from her. If, on
+her recovery from her fit of drunk coma, she recollects what has taken
+place, she will, if I read her character right, go straight to the Duke
+de Champdoce and tell him that his secret has passed into better hands.”
+
+At this idea being promulgated, Catenac started from his chair with a
+loud oath.
+
+“Did you think,” asked Mascarin, “that I should feel so much at my ease
+if I found that there was the slightest risk? Let us consider what it
+is that Caroline can say. Who is it that she can accuse of having stolen
+her secret from her? Why, only a poor old wretch named Tantaine. How can
+the Duke possibly trace any connection between this miserable writer and
+Catenac?”
+
+“Yes, I think that it would be a difficult task.”
+
+“Besides,” pursued Mascarin, “what have we to fear from the Duke de
+Champdoce? Nothing, as far as I can see. Is he not as much in our power
+as the woman he formerly loved--Diana de Mussidan? Do we not hold the
+letters of both of them, and do we not know in what corner of his garden
+to dig to discover a damning piece of evidence? Remember that there will
+be no difficulty in identifying the skeleton, for at the time of his
+disappearance, Croisenois had about him several Spanish doubloons, a
+fact which was given to the police.”
+
+“Well,” said Catenac, “I will act faithfully. Tell me your plans, and I
+will let you know all that I hear from the Duke.”
+
+For a moment a smile hovered upon Mascarin’s lips, for this time he
+placed firm reliance upon the good faith of the lawyer.
+
+“Before we go further,” said he, “let me conclude this narrative which
+Paul has just read. It is sad and simple. The united ages of the Duke
+and Duchess did not exceed fifty years; they had unlimited wealth, and
+bore one of the grandest historic names of France; they were surrounded
+with every appliance of luxury, and yet their lives were a perfect
+wreck. They simply dragged on an existence and had lost all hopes of
+happiness, but they made up their minds to conceal the skeleton of their
+house in the darkest cupboard, and the world knew nothing of their inner
+life. The Duchess suffered much in health, and merely went out to visit
+the sick and poor. The Duke worked hard to make up for the deficiencies
+of his early education, and made a name and reputation throughout
+Europe.”
+
+“And how about Madame de Mussidan?” asked Catenac.
+
+“I am coming to that,” returned Mascarin. “With that strange
+determination that fills the hearts of our women, she did not consider
+her revenge complete until Norbert learned that she was the sole
+instrument in heaping the crowning sorrow of his life on his head; and
+on her return from Italy, she sent for him and told him everything. Yes,
+she absolutely had the audacity to tell him that it was she who had done
+her best to throw his wife into De Croisenois’ arms. She told him that
+it was she who had worked the arrangements for the meeting, and had
+written the anonymous letter.”
+
+“Why did he not kill her?” cried Hortebise. “Had she not all his
+letters, and taunted him with the production of them? Ah, my dear
+friends, do not let us flatter ourselves that we have the sole monopoly
+of blackmailing. The high-born Countess plunged her hand into the Duke’s
+coffers just as if she had been a mere adventuress. It is only ten days
+ago that she borrowed--you will observe the entry of it as a loan--a
+large sum to settle an account of Van Klopen’s. But let us now speak of
+the child who took the place of the boy whom the Duchess brought into
+the world. You know him, doctor?”
+
+“Yes, I have often seen him. He was a good-looking young fellow.”
+
+“He was, but he was a degraded scoundrel, after all. He was educated
+and brought up without regard to expense, but he always displayed low
+tastes, and, had he lived, would have brought discredit on the name he
+bore. He was a thorn in the side of the Duke and Duchess, and I believe
+that they felt great relief when he died of brain fever, brought on by a
+drunken debauch. His parents, or those whom he supposed to be such, were
+present at his death-bed, for they had learned to consider their sorrows
+as the just chastisement of heaven. The boy having died, the family of
+Champdoce seemed likely to become extinct, and then it was that Norbert
+decided to do what his wife had long urged upon him, to seek for and
+reclaim the child which he had caused to be placed in the Foundling
+Hospital at Vendome. It went against his pride to diverge from the
+course he had determined on as best, but doubts had arisen in his mind
+as to his wife’s guilt, and Diana’s confessions had reassured him as to
+the paternity of the missing boy. It was thus with hope in his heart,
+and furnished with every necessary document, that he started for
+Vendome; but there a terrible disappointment awaited him. The
+authorities of the hospital, on consulting the register, found that a
+child had been admitted on the day and hour mentioned by Norbert, and
+that his description of the infant’s clothing tallied exactly with the
+entries. But the child was no longer in the hospital, and there was no
+clue to his whereabouts. He had, at the age of twelve, been apprenticed
+to a tanner, but he had run away from his master, and the most active
+and energetic search had failed to arrest the fugitive.”
+
+Catenac listened to all these exact details with an unpleasant feeling
+gnawing at his heart, for he saw that his associates knew everything,
+and he had relied upon again securing their confidence by furnishing
+them with those details which were evidently already known to them.
+Mascarin, however, affected not to notice his surprise, and went on with
+his narrative.
+
+“This terrible disappointment will certainly kill the Duke de Champdoce.
+It seemed to him that after having so bitterly expiated the crimes and
+follies of his youth, he might hope to have his old age in peace
+and quiet, with a son who might cheer the loneliness of his desolate
+fireside. His countenance, as soon as he appeared before the Duchess,
+who had been expecting his return in an agony of anguish and suspense,
+told her at once that all hope had fled. In a few days, however, the
+Duke had perfectly recovered from the shock, and had decided that to
+give up the search would be an act of madness. The world is wide, and
+a friendless boy, without a name, difficult to trace; but, with ample
+funds, almost anything can be done, and he was willing to sacrifice both
+life and fortune to attain his object. So immense were his resources,
+that it was easy for him to employ the most skilful detectives; and
+whatever the result might be, he had come to look upon this task as a
+sacred duty to which he ought to devote all the remaining years of his
+life. He swore that he would never rest or cease from his search until
+he had been furnished with the indisputable proofs of the existence
+or the death of his son. He did not confide all this project to the
+Duchess; for he feared--and he had by this time learned to have some
+consideration for her enfeebled frame--her health had given way so
+completely that any extra degree of excitement might prove fatal to her.
+He, therefore, as a preliminary, applied to that element which in the
+Rue de Jerusalem acts as the terrestrial guardians of society. But the
+police could do nothing for the Duke. They heard what he had to say
+gravely, took notes, told him to call again later on, and there was an
+end to their proceedings. It can easily be understood that the rank and
+position of the Duke prevented him from making his name known in his
+inquiries; and as he dared not divulge the whole truth, he gave such a
+bald version of the case, that it excited no deep feelings of interest.
+At last he was sent to a certain M. Lecoq.”
+
+To Paul’s utter astonishment, the name produced a sudden and terrible
+effect upon Doctor Hortebise, who started to his feet as if propelled
+from his chair by the unexpected application of some hidden motive
+power, and, fingering the locket that hung from his chain, gazed round
+upon his associates with wild and excited eyes.
+
+“Stop!” cried he. “If that fellow Lecoq is to put his nose into your
+case, I withdraw; I will have nothing to do with it, for it is certain
+to be a failure.”
+
+He appeared to be so thoroughly frightened, that Catenac condescended to
+smile.
+
+“Yes, yes,” said he, “I can understand your alarm; but be at ease; Lecoq
+has nothing to do with us.”
+
+But Hortebise was not satisfied with Catenac’s assurance, and looked for
+confirmation from Mascarin.
+
+“Lecoq has nothing to do with us,” repeated his friend. “The fool
+said that his position prevented him from giving his time to any
+investigation of a private nature, which, by the way, is quite true.
+The Duke offered him a heavy sum to throw up his appointment, but
+he refused, saying he did not work for money, but from love for his
+profession.”
+
+“Which is quite true,” interrupted Catenac.
+
+“However,” continued Mascarin, “to cut short my narrative, the Duke, on
+the refusal of Lecoq to act, applied to Catenac.”
+
+“Yes,” answered the lawyer, “and the Duke has placed the conduct of the
+search in my hands.”
+
+“Have you formed any plan of action?”
+
+“Not at present. The Duke said, ‘Ask every living soul in the world,
+if you can succeed in no other way’; this is all the instruction he has
+given me; and,” added he, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, “I am
+almost of Perpignan’s opinion, that the search will be a fruitless one.”
+
+“Lecoq did not think so.”
+
+“He only said that he believed he should succeed if he were to take it
+in hand.”
+
+“Well,” answered Mascarin coldly, “I have been certain of success from
+the very commencement.”
+
+“Have you been to Vendome?” asked Catenac.
+
+“Never mind, I have been somewhere, and at this very moment could place
+my hand upon the shoulder of the heir to the dukedom of Champdoce.”
+
+“Are you in earnest?”
+
+“I was never more in earnest in my life. I have found him; only as it is
+impossible for me to appear in the matter, I shall delegate to you and
+Perpignan the happiness of restoring the lost son to his father’s arms.”
+
+Catenac glanced from Mascarin to Hortebise, and from them to Paul, and
+seemed to wish to be certain that he was not being made an object of
+ridicule.
+
+“And why do you not wish to appear in the matter?” asked he at last, in
+a suspicious tone of voice. “Do you foresee some risk, and want me to
+bear the brunt?”
+
+Mascarin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“First,” said he, “I am not a traitor, as you know well enough; and
+then the interests of all of us depend on your safety. Can one of us be
+compromised without endangering his associates? You know that this
+is impossible. All you have to do is to point out where the traces
+commence; others will follow them at their own risk, and all you will
+have to do will be to look calmly on.”
+
+“But--”
+
+Mascarin lost his patience, and with a deep frown, replied,--
+
+“That is enough. We require no more argument, I am the master, and it is
+for you to obey.”
+
+When Mascarin adopted this tone, resistance was out of the question; and
+as he invariably made all yield to him, it was best to obey with a good
+grace, and Catenac relapsed into silence, completely subjugated and very
+much puzzled.
+
+“Sit down at my desk,” continued Mascarin, “and take careful notes of
+what I now say. Success is, as I have told you, inevitable, but I must
+be ably backed. All now depends upon your exactitude in obeying my
+orders; one false step may ruin us all. You have heard this, and cannot
+say that you are not fully warned.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A SUDDEN CHECK.
+
+Catenac seated himself at the writing-table without a word, concealing
+his anger and jealousy beneath a careless smile. Mascarin was no longer
+the plotter consulting with his confederates; he was the master issuing
+his orders to his subordinates. He had now taken from a box some of
+those square pieces of pasteboard, which he spent his time in reading
+over.
+
+“Try and not miss one word of what I am saying,” remarked he, bending
+his keen glance upon Paul; then, turning to Catenac, he continued, “Can
+you persuade the Duke de Champdoce and Perpignan to start for Vendome on
+Saturday?”
+
+“Perhaps I may be able to do so.”
+
+“I want a Yes or No. Can you or can you not make these people go there?”
+
+“Well, yes, then.”
+
+“Very well. Then, on going to Vendome, you will stop at the Hotel de
+Porte.”
+
+“Hotel de Porte,” repeated Catenac, as he made a note of the name.
+
+“Upon the day of your arrival at Vendome,” continued Mascarin, “you
+could do very little. Your time would be taken up in resting after your
+journey, and perhaps you may make a few preliminary inquiries. It will
+be on Sunday that you will go to the hospital together, and make the
+same inquires which the Duke formerly made by himself. The lady superior
+is a woman of excellent taste and education, and she will do all that
+she can to be useful to you. Through her you will be able to obtain
+the boy’s description, and the date on which he left the hospital to
+be apprenticed to a tanner. She will tell you that, disliking the
+employment, he ran away from them at the age of twelve and a half years,
+and that since then no trace of him has been found. You will hear from
+her that he was a tall, well-built lad, looking two years older than he
+really was, with an intelligent cast of feature, and keen, bright
+eyes, full of health and good looks. He had on, on the day of his
+disappearance, blue and white striped trousers, a gray blouse, a cap
+with no peak, and a spotted silk cravat. Then to assist you still
+further in your researches she will add that he carried in a bundle,
+enveloped in a red plaid cotton handkerchief, a white blouse, a pair of
+gray cloth trousers, and a pair of new shoes.”
+
+Catenac watched Mascarin as he was speaking with an expression of
+ill-concealed enmity.
+
+“You are well informed, on my word,” muttered he.
+
+“I think I am,” returned Mascarin. “After this you will go back to the
+hotel, and not until then--do you understand?--and you will consult as
+to the first steps to be taken. The plan proposed by Perpignan is an
+excellent one.”
+
+“What! you know it then?”
+
+“Of course I do. He proposed to divide Vendome and its suburbs into a
+certain number of circles, and to make a house-to-house visitation in
+each of them. Let him go to work in this manner. Of course, to do so,
+you will require a guide.”
+
+“Of course we should require such a person.”
+
+“Here, Catenac, I must leave a little to chance, for I am not quite
+omnipotent. But there are nine chances out of ten that your host will
+advise you to avail yourself of the services of a man called Frejot,
+who acts as commissioner to the hotel. It may be, however, that he may
+designate some one else; but in that case you must, by some means or
+other, manage to employ the services of one other man.”
+
+“What am I to say to him?”
+
+“He understands what he is to do completely. Well, these preliminaries
+being settled, you will commence on Monday morning to search the
+suburb called Areines, under the guidance of Frejot. Leave all the
+responsibility to Perpignan, but make sure that the Duke comes with
+you. Ask the denizens a series of questions which you have prepared
+beforehand, such as ‘My friends, we are in search of a boy. A reward of
+ten thousand francs is offered to any one who will put us on his track.
+He must have left these parts in August, 1856, and some of you may have
+seen him.’”
+
+Here Catenac stopped Mascarin.
+
+“Wait a moment. Your own words are excellent; I will write them down.”
+
+“All Monday,” continued Mascarin, “you will not make much progress,
+and for the next few days it will be the same, but on Saturday prepare
+yourself for a great surprise; for on that day Frejot will take you to a
+large, lonely farmhouse, on the shores of a lake. This farm is held by
+a man named Lorgelin, who cultivates it with the assistance of his wife
+and his two sons. You will find these worthy people at dinner. They will
+offer you some refreshment, and you will accept. At the next word you
+utter you will find that they will glance at each other in a meaning
+manner, and the wife will exclaim, ‘Blessed Virgin! Surely the gentleman
+is speaking of the poor lad we have so often talked about.’”
+
+As Mascarin went on describing his arrangements, his whole form seemed
+to dilate, and his face shone with the knowledge of mastery and power.
+His voice was so clear and his manner so full of authority and command,
+that it carried conviction to the minds of all those who were seated
+listening to him. He spoke of what would happen as if he was dealing
+with an absolute certainty, and went on with such wonderful lucidity and
+force of reasoning that they seemed to be absolutely real.
+
+“Oh! the farmer’s wife will say this, will she?” demanded Catenac, in a
+tone of the utmost surprise.
+
+“Yes, this, and nothing more. Then the husband will explain that they
+found the poor lad half dead in a ditch by the side of the road, and
+that they took him home, and did what they could for him; and will add,
+this was in the beginning of September, 1856. You will offer to read him
+your description of the lad, but he will volunteer his own, which you
+will find exactly to tally with the one you have. Then Lorgelin will
+tell you what an excellent lad he was, and how the farm seemed quite
+another place as long as he remained there. All the family will join
+in singing his praises--he was so good-tempered, so obliging, and
+at thirteen he could write like a lawyer’s clerk. And then they will
+produce some of his writing in an old copy book. But after all the old
+woman, with a tear in her eye, will say that she found the lad had
+not much gratitude in his composition, for at the end of the following
+September he left the farm where he had received so much kindness. Yes,
+he left them to go away with some strolling performers. You will be
+absolutely affected by the words of these worthy people, and before you
+leave they will show you the clothes the lad left behind him.”
+
+Catenac was waiting for the conclusion, and then exclaimed, in rather a
+disappointed tone,--
+
+“But I do not see what we have gained when Lorgelin’s story has been
+repeated to us.”
+
+Mascarin raised his hand, as though to deprecate immediate criticism,
+and to ask for further patience on the part of his audience.
+
+“Permit me to go on,” said he. “You would now not know what to do, but
+Perpignan will not hesitate for a moment. He will tell you that he holds
+the end of the clue, and that all that remains to be done is to follow
+it up carefully.”
+
+“I think that you overrate Perpignan’s talents.”
+
+“Not a bit; each man to his own line of business. Besides, if he wanders
+off the course, you must get him back to it. In this you must act
+diplomatically. His first move will naturally be to take you to the
+office of the mayor of the township, where a register of licenses is
+kept. There you will find that in September, 1857, there passed through
+the place a troupe of travelling performers, consisting of nine persons,
+with the caravans, under the management of a man known as Vigoureux,
+nicknamed the Grasshopper.”
+
+Catenac rapidly jotted down these items. “Not so fast,” said he; “I
+cannot follow you.”
+
+After a short pause, Mascarin continued.
+
+“An attentive examination of the book will prove to you that no other
+troupe of itinerant performers passed through the place during that
+month; and it is clear that it must have been the Grasshopper with
+whom the lad went away. You will then peruse the man’s description.
+Vigoureux, born at Bourgogne, Vosges. Age, forty-seven. Height, six feet
+two inches. Eyes, small and gray, rather near-sighted. Complexion dark.
+Third finger of left hand cut off at first joint. If you confound him,
+after reading this, with any other man of his profession, you must
+certainly be rather foolish.”
+
+“I shall now be able to find him,” muttered Catenac.
+
+“But that is Perpignan’s business. You will see him put on an air of
+the greatest importance, and appear quite overjoyed at the news he has
+obtained at the office of the mayor. He will say that the inquiry at
+Vendome is over, and that it will be best to return to Paris at once. Of
+course, you will make no objection. You will permit the Duke to make a
+handsome present to Lorgelin and Frejot; but take care not to leave him
+behind you. I advise you to regain Paris without a moment’s delay. The
+wily Perpignan, on your return, will at once take you to the head police
+office, where Vigoureux will have left his papers, like other men of his
+profession. If there is any difficulty in obtaining a sight of them, the
+Duke de Champdoce will act as a talisman. You will then discover that
+in 1864, the man Vigoureux was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for
+disorderly conduct, and that he now keeps a wine-shop at the corner of
+the Rue Depleux.”
+
+“Stop a bit,” said Catenac, “and let me take down the address.”
+
+“When you go there, you will recognize Vigoureux by the loss of his
+finger. He will at once admit that the lad followed him, and remained in
+the troupe for ten months. He was a good enough lad, but as grand as a
+peacock, and as lazy as a dormouse. He made great friends with an old
+Alsatian, called Fritz, who was the conductor of the orchestra, and
+by-and-by both were so fond of each other, that one day they went off in
+each other’s company. Now you want to know what has become of Fritz? I
+know Vigoureux will get tired of this prolonged string of questions, and
+behave violently; then you will threaten him for having carried off
+a youth of tender years, and he will calm down, and become as mild as
+mother’s milk, and will promise to gain information for you. In a week
+he will give the information that Fritz is to be found at the Hospital
+Magloire.”
+
+Absolutely dumb with surprise, the audience listened to these strange
+assertions, which dovetailed so exactly into each other, and seemed to
+have been the work of years of research.
+
+“Fritz,” continued Mascarin, “is a sly old dog. You will find an old,
+rickety, blue-eyed man at the hospital, and remember to tell the Duke
+de Champdoce that he must not put too much faith in him. This wily old
+Alsatian will tell you of all the sacrifices he made for the dear lad.
+He will tell you that he often went without his beer and tobacco in
+order to pay for the music lessons that he forced the boy to take. He
+will tell you that he wanted to get him into the Government School of
+Music, for that he possessed great vocal and instrumental talent, and he
+cherished the hope of one day seeing him a great composer, like Weber
+or Mozart. I expect that this flow of self-praise will melt the heart of
+your client, for he will see that his son had made an effort to rise out
+of the mire by his own exertions, and will, in this energy, recognize
+one of the characteristics of the Champdoce family; and on the strength
+of this testimony he will almost be ready to accept the young man as his
+son.”
+
+Catenac had for some time past been striving to decipher the meaning
+hidden behind the inscrutable countenance of Mascarin, but in vain.
+
+“Let us get on,” said the lawyer impatiently. “All that you have told me
+I shall hear later on in the course of the inquiry.”
+
+“If your sagacity requires no further explanation from me,” rejoined
+Mascarin, “you will, I trust, permit me to continue them for the benefit
+of our young friend, Paul Violaine. You will feel compassion when the
+Alsatian tells you of his sufferings, at the boys’ description of him,
+and his subsequent prosperity in the Rue d’Arras. You had better listen
+to the old man as long as he continues to grumble on, the more so as you
+will detect in the rancor and bitterness of his remarks all the vexation
+of a disappointed speculator. He will confess to you besides that he
+subsists entirely on the bounty of the lad, whom he had stigmatized as
+an ungrateful villain. Of course, the Duke will have to leave behind
+him some testimonial of his pleasure, and you will hurry off to the Rue
+d’Arras. The proprietor of the house will tell you that some four years
+ago he got rid of his musician, the only one of his class who had
+dared to establish himself there, and a small present and a few adroit
+questions will obtain for you the address of one of the young man’s
+pupils, Madame Grandorge, a widow lady, residing in the Rue St. Louis.
+This lady will tell you that she does not know the address of her former
+master, but that he used to live at 57, Rue de la Harpe. From the Rue de
+la Harpe you will be sent to the Rue Jacob, and from thence to the Rue
+Montmartre, at the corner of the Rue Joquelet.”
+
+Mascarin paused, drew a long breath, and chuckled inwardly, as though at
+some excellent joke.
+
+“Be comforted, Catenac,” said he. “You have nearly reached the end of
+your journey. The portress at the house in the Rue Montmartre is the
+most obliging woman in the world. She will tell you that the musician
+still retains his rooms in the house, but that he resides there no
+longer, for he has made a lucky hit, and last month he married
+the daughter of a wealthy banker living close by. The young lady,
+Mademoiselle Rigal, saw him, and fell in love with him.”
+
+A clever man like Catenac should have foreseen what was coming, but
+he had not, and at this conclusion he uttered a loud exclamation of
+surprise.
+
+“Yes, just so,” said Mascarin, with an air of bland triumph. “The Duke
+de Champdoce will then drag you off to our mutual friend Martin Rigal,
+and there you will find our young _protégé_, the happy husband of the
+beautiful Flavia.”
+
+Mascarin drew himself up, and adjusted his glasses firmly on his nose.
+
+“Now, my dear Catenac, show the liberality and amiability of your
+disposition by congratulating our friend Paul as Gontran, Marquis de
+Champdoce.”
+
+Hortebise, of course, knew what was coming; he knew the lines of the
+plot of the play as if he had been a joint author of it, and was as much
+excited as if he were assisting at a first rehearsal.
+
+“Bravo!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Bravo, my dear
+Mascarin, you have excelled yourself to-day!”
+
+Worried and perplexed as Paul had been, as Mascarin concluded he sank
+back in his chair, sick and giddy with emotion.
+
+“Yes,” said Mascarin in a clear and ringing voice, “I accept your praise
+without any affectation of false modesty. We have no reason to fear the
+intervention of that grain of sand which sometimes stops the working of
+the machine. Perpignan, poor fool though he is, will be our best friend,
+and will do our work quite unconsciously. Can the Duke retain any atom
+of suspicion after these minute investigations? Impossible. But to
+remove the slightest element of doubt, I have another and an additional
+plan. I will make him retrace the path upon which he has started. He
+shall take Paul to all these various places, and at all of them the
+statements will be even more fully confirmed. Paul, the son-in-law
+of Martin Rigal, the husband of Flavia, will be recognized in the Rue
+Montmartre, the Rue Jacob, and the Rue de la Harpe. He will be joyfully
+welcomed in the Rue d’Arras; Fritz will embrace his ungrateful pupil;
+Vigoureux will remind him of his skillful feats on the trapeze; the
+Lorgelin family will press the lad whom they gave shelter to, to their
+hearts, and this will happen, Catenac, because I will it, and because
+all the people from the portress in the Rue Montmartre to the Lorgelins
+are my slaves, and dare not disobey one single command which I may
+issue.”
+
+Catenac rose slowly and solemnly from his seat.
+
+“I recognize your patience and ingenuity thoroughly, only I am going
+with one word to crush the fabric of hope that you have so carefully
+erected.”
+
+Catenac might be a coward, he might also be a traitor but he was a
+clever and clear-sighted man too. Consequently Hortebise shivered as
+he heard these words, but Mascarin smiled disdainfully, basking in his
+dream of success.
+
+“Go on then,” said he.
+
+“Well, then, let me tell you that you will not overreach and deceive the
+Duke.”
+
+“And why not, pray?” asked Mascarin. “But are you sure that I wish to
+deceive him? You have not been open with me, why should I be frank
+with you? Am I in the habit of confiding in those who do not repose
+confidence in me? Does Perpignan for a moment suspect the part that he
+is to play? Why may I not have judged it best to keep from you the fact
+that Paul is really the child you are seeking?”
+
+Mascarin spoke so confidently that Catenac gazed upon him, hardly
+knowing to what conclusion to come, for his conscience was by no means
+clear. His intellect quickly dived into the depths of all probabilities,
+and yet he could not see in all these combinations any possible peril to
+himself.
+
+“I only hope,” said he, “that Paul is all that you represent him to
+be; but why all these precautions? Only, mark my words, the Duke has
+an infallible way of detecting, or rather of preventing, any attempt at
+imposition. It is ever thus, the most trivial circumstance will overset
+the best laid plans, and the inevitable destroy the combinations of the
+most astute intellect.”
+
+Mascarin interrupted his associate.
+
+“Paul is the son of the Duke de Champdoce,” said he decisively.
+
+What was the meaning of this? Catenac felt that he was being played
+with, and grew angry.
+
+“As you please; but you will, I presume, permit me to convince myself of
+the truth of this assertion.”
+
+Then, advancing towards Paul, the lawyer said,--
+
+“Have the goodness to remove your coat.”
+
+Paul took it off, and threw it upon the back of a chair.
+
+“Now,” added Catenac, “roll up your right shirt sleeve to the shoulder.”
+
+Scarcely had the young man obeyed, and the lawyer cast a rapid glance at
+the bare flesh, than he turned to his associates and observed,--
+
+“No, he is not the right man.”
+
+To his extreme surprise, Mascarin and Hortebise burst into a fit of
+unrestrained laughter.
+
+“No,” pursued the lawyer, “this is not the child who was sent to the
+Hospital of Vendome, and the Duke will recognize this better than I can.
+You laugh, but it is because you do not know all.”
+
+“Enough,” returned Mascarin, and then, turning to the doctor, he
+remarked, “Tell him, my friends, that we know more than he thinks.”
+
+“And so,” said Hortebise, taking Paul’s hand, “you are certain that this
+is not the lost child because he has not certain marks about him; but
+these will be seen upon the day on which Paul is introduced to the Duke,
+and legibly enough to satisfy the most unbelieving.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Let me explain in my own way. If in early childhood Paul had been
+scalded on his shoulder by boiling water, he would have a scar whose
+appearance would denote its origin?”
+
+Catenac nodded, “You are quite accurate,” said he.
+
+“Well, then listen. Paul is coming home with me. I shall take him into
+my consulting-room; he will lie on a couch. I shall give him chloroform,
+for I do not wish him to suffer any pain. Mascarin will help me. Then I
+shall apply, on the proper part, a piece of flannel steeped in a certain
+liquid which is an invention of my own. I am not a fool, as you may have
+discovered before this; and in a drawer at home is a piece of flannel
+cut so as exactly to resemble the irregular outline of a scar of the
+kind you describe, and a few little bits here and there will do the rest
+of the work artistically. When the liquid has effected its work, which
+will be in ten minutes, I shall remove it, and apply an ointment,
+another invention of my own, to the wound; then I shall restore Paul to
+his senses, and go to dinner.”
+
+Mascarin rubbed his hands with delight.
+
+“But you forget that a certain space of time is required to give a scar
+the appearance of not having been recent,” objected Catenac.
+
+“Let me speak,” broke in the doctor. “If we only needed time--six
+months, say, or a year--we should postpone our concluding act until
+then; but I, Hortebise, assure you that in two months, thanks to another
+discovery of my own--will show you a scar that will pass muster, not
+perhaps before a fellow-practitioner, but certainly before the Duke.”
+
+Catenac’s sunken eyes blazed as he thought of the prospective millions.
+
+“May the devil fly away with all scruples!” cried he. “My friends, I am
+yours soul and body; you may rely on your devoted Catenac.”
+
+The doctor and Mascarin exchanged a look of triumph.
+
+“Of course we share and share alike,” observed the lawyer. “It is true
+that I come in rather late; but the part I play is a delicate and an
+important one, and you can do nothing without me.”
+
+“You shall have your share,” answered Mascarin evasively.
+
+“One word more,” said the lawyer. “Do you think that the Duke has kept
+nothing back? The infant was hardly seen by him or the Duchess; but Jean
+saw it, and he, though very old and infirm, would come forward at any
+moment to defend the name and honor of the Champdoce family.”
+
+“Well, and what then?”
+
+“Jean, you know, was against the substitution of another child. May he
+not have foreseen the chance of such a case as this arising?”
+
+Mascarin looked grave. “I have thought of that before,” returned he;
+“but what can be done?”
+
+“I will find out,” said Catenac. “Jean has the most implicit confidence
+in me, and I will question him.”
+
+The cold calmness of the lawyer had vanished, and Catenac only displayed
+the zealous eagerness of the man who, admitted at a late hour into an
+enterprise which he imagines will be lucrative, burns to do as much as
+he can to further it.
+
+“But,” added he, as an after-thought, “how can we be certain that there
+is no one to recognize Paul?”
+
+“I can answer for that; his poverty had isolated him from all but a
+woman named Rose, and I took care that she should be sent to the prison
+of St. Lazare. At one time I was a little anxious, as I heard that Paul
+had a patron; but he, as I have found out, was the Count de Mussidan,
+the murderer of Montlouis, who, as you may have guessed, was Paul’s
+father.”
+
+“We have nothing, then, to fear from that quarter,” said the doctor.
+
+“Nothing; and while you get on with your work, I will hurry on Paul’s
+marriage with Rigal’s daughter. But this will not prevent my busying
+myself in another quarter; for before a month Henri de Croisenois will
+have floated his Company, and become the husband of Sabine de Mussidan.”
+
+“I think that it is about time for dinner,” remarked Hortebise, and,
+turning to the _protégé_ of the association, he added, “Come, Paul.”
+
+But Paul made no movement, and then for the first time it was seen that
+the poor boy had fainted, and they had to sprinkle cold water upon him
+before he regained consciousness.
+
+“Surely,” remarked the doctor, “it is not the idea of a trifling
+operation that you will not feel which has so frightened you?”
+
+Paul shook his head. “It is not that,” said he.
+
+“What, then, is it?”
+
+“Simply that the real man exists; I know him, and know where he lives.”
+
+“What do you mean?” they cried.
+
+“I know him, I tell you--the son of the Duke de Champdoce.”
+
+“Let us hear all!” cried Mascarin, who was the first to come to his
+senses. “Explain yourself.”
+
+“Simply this. I know such a young man, and it was the thought of this
+that made me feel so ill. He is thirty-three. He was at the Foundling
+Hospital; he left it at the age of twelve and a half years; and he has
+just such a scald on his shoulder, which he got when he was apprenticed
+to a tanner.”
+
+“And where,” asked Mascarin quickly, “is this same young man? What is
+his name, and what does he do for a living?”
+
+“He is a painter; his name is Andre, and he lives--”
+
+A blasphemous oath from Mascarin interrupted him. “This is the third
+time,” said he fiercely, “that this cursed fellow has crossed our path;
+but I swear that it shall be the last.”
+
+Hortebise and Catenac were livid with alarm.
+
+“What do you intend to do?” asked they.
+
+“I shall do nothing,” answered he; “but you know that this Andre,
+in addition to being a painter, is an ornamental sculptor and house
+decorator, and so is often on lofty scaffolds. Have you never heard that
+accidents frequently happen to that class of people?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A MELANCHOLY MASHER.
+
+When Mascarin spoke of suppressing the man who stood in his way as
+easily as if he was alluding to extinguishing a candle, he was not
+aware that there was one circumstance which considerably enhanced the
+difficulty of his task, for Andre had been forewarned, and this note of
+warning had been sounded on the day on which he had received that
+letter from Sabine, in which she spoke in such despairing terms of her
+approaching marriage, which she had been compelled to agree to to
+save the honor of her family. This feeling was strengthened by a long
+conversation he had had with M. de Breulh-Faverlay and the Viscountess
+de Bois Arden, in which it was unanimously decided that the Count
+and Countess de Mussidan were victims of some plot of which Henri de
+Croisenois was certainly one of the promoters. He had no conception on
+what side to look for the danger, but he had an instinctive feeling that
+it was impending. He prepared, therefore, to act on the defensive. It
+was not only his life that was in danger, but his love and his future
+happiness. M. de Breulh-Faverlay had also serious apprehensions for the
+safety of a man for whom he entertained so great a respect and regard.
+
+“I would lay a heavy wager,” said he, “that we have to do with some
+villainous blackmailers, and the difficulty of the business is, that
+we must do the work ourselves, for we dare not invite the aid of the
+police. We have no proof to offer, and the police will not stir a foot
+on mere suppositions, and we should not earn the thanks of those we are
+desirous of assisting if we called the attention of the law to certain
+acts in their past lives; for who can say what the terrible secret is,
+that some vile wretch holds over the heads of M. and Madame de Mussidan?
+And it is quite on the cards that the Count and the Countess might be
+compelled to join the blackmailers and oppose us. We must act with the
+greatest prudence and caution. Remember, that if you are out at night,
+you must avoid dark corners, for it would be the easiest thing in the
+world to put a knife into your back.”
+
+The conclusion that was arrived at, at this interview, was that for
+the present Andre and De Breulh should cease to see each other so
+frequently. They felt convinced that a watch had been set on them, and
+that their intimacy would certainly be notified to De Croisenois; and of
+course they had every desire to cause him to imagine that they were
+not acting in any way together. The arrangement, therefore, that they
+entered into was that each should act from his own point of vantage
+against Henri de Croisenois, and that when necessary they should meet
+in the evening to compare notes in a small _café_ in the Champs Elysees,
+not far from the house in which Andre was at work.
+
+His courage was still as high as ever, but the first symptoms of
+rashness had vanished. He was a born diplomatist, and fully realized
+that cunning and treachery must be met by similar weapons. He must not
+break his engagement to M. Gandelu; but how could he superintend the
+workmen and keep an eye on Croisenois at the same time? Money was
+absolutely necessary, and yet he felt a strange disinclination to accept
+a loan from M. de Breulh. If he were to throw up his work, it would
+naturally create suspicion.
+
+M. Gandelu had a shrewd head, and Andre, remembering the old man’s
+kindness to him on all occasions, determined to confide the matter to
+him, and with this object he called on him the next morning as the
+clock was striking nine. His surprise was extreme when he saw Gaston de
+Gandelu in the courtyard. He was just the same looking Gaston, the lover
+of Madame de Chantemille, to the outward eye, but some grave calamity
+had evidently entirely changed the inner man. He was smoking his cigar
+with an air of desperation, and seemed to be utterly weary of the world
+and its belongings.
+
+At the moment Andre entered the young man caught sight of him.
+
+“Halloo!” said he; “here is my artistic friend. I lay ten to one that
+you have come to ask my father to do you a favor.”
+
+“You are quite right; is he at home?”
+
+“The governor is in the sulks; he has shut himself up, and will not see
+me.”
+
+“You are joking.”
+
+“Not I; the old man is a regular despot, and I am sick of everything.”
+
+Noticing that one of the grooms was listening, Gaston had sufficient
+sense to draw Andre a little on one side.
+
+“Do you know,” asked he, “that the governor has docked my screw and vows
+that he will advertise himself as not responsible for the debts of yours
+truly; but I cannot think he will do so, for that would be a regular
+smash-up for me. You haven’t such a trifle as ten thousand francs about
+you that you could lend me, have you? I’d give twenty thousand for the
+accommodation when I came of age.”
+
+“I must say--,” began Andre.
+
+“All right; never mind; I understand. If you had the ready, you wouldn’t
+be hanging about here; but for all that, I must have the cash. Hang it
+all, I signed bills to that amount payable to Verminet. Do you know the
+fellow?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“Where were you dragged up? Why, he is the head of the Mutual Loan
+Society. The only nuisance is, that to make matters run a bit smooth, I
+wrote down the wrong name. Do you tumble, eh?”
+
+“But, great heavens! that is forgery,” said Andre, aghast.
+
+“Not a bit, for I always intended to pay; besides, I wanted the money to
+square Van Klopen. You know _him_, I suppose?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, he is the chap to dress a girl. I had those costumes for Zora
+from him; but it is out and out the governor’s fault. Why did he
+drive me to desperation? Yes, it is all the old man’s doing. He wasn’t
+satisfied with pitching into me, but he collared that poor, helpless
+lamb and shut her up. She never did him any harm, and I call it a right
+down cowardly and despicable act to hurt Zora.”
+
+“Zora,” repeated Andre, who did not recognize the name.
+
+“Yes, Zora; you know; you had a feed with us one day.”
+
+“Yes, yes; you mean Rose.”
+
+“That’s it; but I don’t like any one to call her by that ugly, common
+name. Well, the governor has gone mad about her, and filed a complaint
+against her of decoying a minor, as if I was a fellow any one could
+decoy. Well, the end of it was, that she is now in the prison of St.
+Lazare.”
+
+The tears started to the young man’s eyes as he related this grievance.
+
+“Poor Zora,” he added; “I was never mashed on a woman like I was on her.
+And then what a splendid form she has! Why, the hairdresser said he had
+never seen such hair in his life; and she is at St. Lazare. As soon as
+the police came for her, her first thoughts were of me, and she shrieked
+out, ‘Poor Gaston will kill himself when he hears of this.’ The cook
+told me this, and added that her mistress’s sufferings were terrible.
+And she is at St. Lazare. I tried to see her, but it was no go;” and
+here the boy’s voice broke into a sob.
+
+“Come,” said Andre, “keep up your spirits.”
+
+“Ah! you shall see if, as soon as I am twenty-one, I don’t marry her.
+I don’t put all the blame on the old man. He has been advised by his
+lawyer, a beast by the name of Catenac. Do you know _him_?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You don’t seem to know any one. Well, I shall send him a challenge
+to-morrow. I have got my seconds all ready. By the way, would you like
+to act for me? I can easily get rid of one of the others.”
+
+“I have had no experience in such matters.”
+
+“Ah, then you would be of no use. My seconds must put him into a regular
+blue funk.”
+
+“In that case--”
+
+“No; I know what you are going to say: you mean that I had best look out
+for a military swell; but, after all, the matter lies in a nutshell. I
+am the insulted party, and draw pistols at ten paces. If that frightens
+him, he will make the governor drop all this rubbish.”
+
+Had his mind not been so much occupied, this rhodomontade on Gaston’s
+part would have amused Andre very much, but now he asked himself what
+would be the quickest way to escape from him.
+
+Just at this moment a servant emerged from the house.
+
+“Sir,” said he, addressing Andre, “my master has seen you from his
+window, and begs that you will go up to him at once.”
+
+“I will be with him immediately,” answered Andre; and, holding out his
+hand to Gaston, he took leave of him with a few words of encouragement.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A GENTLEMAN IN DIFFICULTIES.
+
+When Andre had got rid of the young man, and had been ushered into M.
+Gandelu’s presence, the change in the gentleman’s appearance struck him
+with horror. His eyes were red and swollen as if he had been weeping,
+but as soon as he caught sight of Andre his face brightened, and he
+welcomed him warmly.
+
+“Oh, it does me good to see you, and I bless the fortunate chance that
+has brought you here to-day.”
+
+“It is not a very fortunate chance,” answered Andre, as he shook his
+head sadly.
+
+For the first time Gandelu noticed the air of gravity which marked the
+young man, and the shade of sorrow upon his brow.
+
+“What ails you, Andre?” asked he.
+
+“A great misfortune is hanging over me.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“The naked truth and this misfortune may bring death and despair to me.”
+
+“I am your friend, my dear boy,” said the old man, “and would gladly be
+of service to you. Tell me if I can be of any use?”
+
+“I come to you to-day to ask a favor at your hands.”
+
+“And you thought of the old man, then? I thank you for doing so. Give me
+your hand; I like to feel the grasp of an honest man’s hand; it warms my
+heart.”
+
+“It is the secret of my life that I am going to confide to you,” said
+he, with some solemnity.
+
+M. Gandelu made no reply, but struck his clenched fist upon his breast,
+as though to show that any secret confided to him would be locked up in
+the safe security of his heart.
+
+Then Andre hesitated no longer, and, with the exception of giving names,
+told the whole story of his love, his ambitions, and his hopes, and gave
+a clear account of how matters stood.
+
+“How can I help you?” asked M. Gandelu.
+
+“Allow me,” said Andre, “to hand over the work with which you have
+intrusted me to one of my friends. I will retain the responsibility, but
+will merely act as one of the workmen. This, to a certain extent, will
+give me my liberty, while at the same time I shall be earning a little
+money, which is just now of vast importance to me.”
+
+“Is that what you call a favor?”
+
+“Certainly, and a very great one, too.”
+
+Gandelu rose hastily, and, opening an iron safe which stood in one
+corner of the room, and taking from it a bundle of banknotes, he placed
+them on the table before Andre with an expressive look, which meant,
+“Take what you desire.”
+
+The unlooked-for kindness of this man, who forgot all his own sorrows
+in his anxiety to relieve the necessities of another, affected Andre
+deeply.
+
+“I do not need money,” began he.
+
+With a wave of his hand Gandelu inspired silence. “Take these twenty
+thousand francs,” said he, “and then I can tell you why I asked you to
+come upstairs.”
+
+A refusal would have wounded the old man deeply, and so Andre took the
+proffered loan.
+
+Gandelu resumed his seat, and remained in gloomy silence for some time.
+
+“My dear boy,” said he, in a voice broken by emotion, “a day or two back
+you saw something of the trouble that I am laboring under. I have no
+longer any respect or esteem for that wretched fool, my son, Pierre.”
+
+Andre had already guessed that he had been incensed with reference to
+something connected with Gaston.
+
+“Your son has behaved very foolishly,” said he; “but remember he is very
+young.”
+
+A sad smile passed over the old man’s face.
+
+“My son is old in vice,” replied he. “I have thought the matter over
+only too plainly. Yesterday he declared that he would kill himself. An
+absurd threat. Up to this time I have been culpably weak, and it is no
+use now to act in an opposite direction. The unhappy boy is infatuated
+with a degraded woman named Rose, and I have had her locked up; but I
+have made up my mind to let her out again, and also to pay his debts. It
+is weak folly, I allow; but what am I to do? I am his father after all;
+and while I cannot respect her, I must love him. He has almost broken my
+heart, but it was his to do as he liked with.”
+
+Andre made no reply, and Gandelu went on.
+
+“I have not deceived myself; my son is ruined. I can but stand by
+and wait for the end. If this Rose is not everything that is bad, her
+influence may be of some use to him. But I want some one to undertake
+these negotiations, and I had hopes, Andre, that you would have been
+able to do so.”
+
+Andre felt that all his efforts ought to be devoted to the interests of
+Sabine, but at the same time he could not leave the kind old man to the
+mercy of others, and by a display of absolute heroism he determined to
+accede to the broken-hearted father’s desires and briefly told him that
+he was at his service. Gandelu thanked him warmly, and Andre seating
+himself at the table, the two men entered into a long discussion as to
+the best means to be adopted. It was finally decided that Andre should
+act with freedom and according to his own instincts, and that M. Gandelu
+should, to actual appearance, remain firm in the course he had entered
+upon, and should only be induced, by Andre’s intercession, to adopt
+milder measures. The result justified their anticipations, for Gaston
+was even more crushed and downcast than Andre had imagined, and it was
+in an agony of suspense that he awaited the return of the young painter.
+As soon as he saw him descending the steps he sprang forward to greet
+him.
+
+“Well,” said he, in a tone of eager inquiry.
+
+“Your father,” returned Andre, “is terribly angry with you, but I hope
+to be able to induce him to do something for you.”
+
+“Will he set Zora at liberty?”
+
+“Perhaps he will; but first he must have something more from you than
+promises--he must have stable guarantees.”
+
+At these words Gaston’s face fell. “Guarantees,” answered he sulkily.
+“Is not my word of honor enough? What sort of guarantees does he
+require?”
+
+“That I cannot tell you, and you must find out for yourself; but I will
+do all I can for you.”
+
+Gaston gazed upon Andre in surprise.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” asked he, “that you can do pretty well what
+you like with the governor?”
+
+“Not exactly; but surely you can see that I have a good deal of
+influence over him. If you want a proof of this, see, here is the money
+to take up these bills you told me of.”
+
+“What, Verminet’s?”
+
+“I suppose so. I am speaking of those to which you were mad enough to
+forge another man’s name.”
+
+Foolish as the boy was, this act of his had caused him many a sleepless
+night, and he had reflected very often how he could possibly escape from
+the consequence of his act of rashness.
+
+“Give me the money,” cried he.
+
+Andre shook his head, however. “Forgive me,” said he, “but this money
+does not quit my hand until the bills are handed over to me. Your
+father’s orders on this point are decided; but the sooner we settle the
+affair the better.”
+
+“That is too bad; the governor is as sly as a fox; but he must have his
+own way, I suppose, so come on. Only just wait till I slip on a coat
+more suitable to my position than this lounging suit.”
+
+He rushed away, and was back again in ten minutes as neat as a new pin,
+and full of gayety and good spirits.
+
+“We can walk,” said he, putting his arm through Andre’s. “We have to go
+to the Rue St. Anne.”
+
+Verminet had his office in this street--the office of the Mutual Loan
+Society, of which he was the managing director. The house, in spite of
+its grandiloquent title, was of excessively shabby exterior. The Mutual
+Loan Society was frequented by those who, having lost their credit,
+wished to obtain a fresh amount, and who, having no money, wanted to
+borrow some.
+
+Verminet’s plan of financial operations was perfectly simple. A
+tradesman on the verge of bankruptcy would come to him, Verminet would
+look into his case and make him sign bills for the sum he required,
+handing him in exchange bills drawn by other tradesman in quite as
+serious a predicament as himself, and pocketed a commission of two per
+cent. upon both the transactions. Verminet obtained clients from the
+simple fact that an embarrassed tradesman is utterly reckless, cares not
+what he signs, and will clutch at a straw to keep his head above water.
+But there were many other transactions carried on at the office of the
+Mutual Loan Society, for its largest means of income was drawn from even
+less respectable sources, and it was alleged that many of these bogus
+bills which are occasionally cashed by some respectable bankers were
+manufactured there. At any rate, Verminet managed to make money somehow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+RINGING THE CHANGES.
+
+Andre, who was gifted with plenty of intelligence, at once judged of the
+kind of business done by the Mutual Loan Society by the dinginess of
+the brass plate on the door and the generally dilapidated aspect of the
+house.
+
+“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said he.
+
+“It does not go in for show,” answered Gaston, affecting an air of
+wisdom, “but it is deemed handy sometimes. It does all sorts of business
+that you would never think of. A real downy card is Verminet.”
+
+Andre could easily believe this, for, of course, there could be but one
+opinion concerning the character of a man who could have induced a mere
+simpleton like Gaston to affix a forged signature to the bills which he
+had discounted. He made no remark, however, but entered the house,
+with the interior arrangements of which Gaston appeared to be perfectly
+familiar. They passed through a dirty, ill-smelling passage, went across
+a courtyard, cold and damp as a cell, and ascended a flight of stairs
+with a grimy balustrade. On the second floor Gaston made a halt before
+a door upon which several names were painted. They passed through into a
+large and lofty room. The paper on the walls of this delectable chamber
+was torn and spotted, and a light railing ran along it, behind which sat
+two or three clerks, whose chief occupation appeared to be consuming the
+breakfast which they had brought with them to the office. The heat of
+the stove, which was burning in one corner of the room, the general
+mouldiness of the atmosphere, and the smell of the coarse food, were
+sufficient to turn the stomach of any one coming in from the fresh air.
+
+“Where is M. Verminet?” asked Gaston authoritatively.
+
+“Engaged,” replied one of the clerks, without pausing to empty his mouth
+before he replied.
+
+“Don’t you talk to me like that. What do I care whether he is engaged or
+not? Tell him that Gaston de Gandelu desires to see him at once.”
+
+The clerk was evidently impressed by his visitor’s manner, and, taking
+the card which was handed to him, made his exit through a door at the
+other end of the room.
+
+Gaston was delighted at this first victory, and glanced at Andre with a
+triumphant smile.
+
+The clerk came back almost at once. “M. Verminet,” cried he, “has a
+client with him just now. He begs that you will excuse him for a few
+minutes, when he will see you;” and evidently anxious to be civil to the
+gorgeously attired youths before him, he added, “My master is just now
+engaged with M. de Croisenois.”
+
+“Aha,” cried Gaston; “I will lay you ten to one that the dear Marquis
+will be delighted to see me.”
+
+Andre started on hearing this name, and his cheek crimsoned. The man
+whom he most hated in this world; the wretch who, by his possession of
+some compromising secret, was forcing Sabine into a detested marriage;
+the villain whom he, M. de Breulh, and Madame de Bois Arden had sworn to
+overreach, was within a few paces of him, and that now he should see him
+face to face. Their eyes would meet, and he would hear the tones of the
+scoundrel’s voice. His rage and agitation were so intense that it was
+with the utmost difficulty that he concealed it. Luckily for him, Gaston
+was not paying the slightest attention to his companion; for having, at
+the clerk’s invitation, taken a chair, he assumed an imposing attitude,
+which struck the shabby young man behind the railing with the deepest
+admiration.
+
+“I suppose,” said he, in a loud voice, “that you know my dear friend,
+the Marquis?”
+
+Andre made some reply, which Gaston interpreted as a negative.
+
+“Really,” said he, “you know _no_ one, as I told you before. Where have
+you lived? But you must have heard of him? Henri de Croisenois is one of
+my most intimate friends. He owes me over fifty louis that I won of him
+one night at baccarat.”
+
+Andre was now certain that he had estimated Verminet’s character
+correctly, and the relations of the Marquis de Croisenois with this very
+equivocal personage assumed a meaning of great significance to him. He
+felt now that he had gained a clue, a beacon blazed out before him,
+and he saw his way more clearly into the difficult windings of this
+labyrinth of iniquity which he knew that he must penetrate before he
+gained the secret he longed for.
+
+He felt like a child playing the game called “Magic Music,” when, as the
+seeker nears the hiding place of the article of which he is in search,
+the strains of the piano swell higher and higher. He now found that the
+boy whose master he had become, knew, or said he knew, a good deal of
+this marquis. Why should he not gain some information from him?
+
+“Are you really intimate with the Marquis de Croisenois?” asked he.
+
+“I should rather think I was,” returned Gandelu the younger. “You will
+see that precious sharp. I know all about him, and who the girl is that
+he is ruining himself for, but I mustn’t talk about that; mum’s the
+word, you know.”
+
+At that moment the door opened, and the Marquis appeared, followed by
+Verminet.
+
+Henri de Croisenois was attired in the most fashionable manner, and
+formed an utter contrast to the flashy dress of Gaston. He was smoking a
+cigar, and mechanically tapping his boots with an elegant walking cane.
+In a moment the features and figure of the Viscount were indelibly
+photographed upon Andre’s brain. He particularly noticed his eyes,
+which had in them a half-concealed look of terror, and his face bore the
+haunted expression of a person who expects some terrible blow to fall
+upon him at any moment.
+
+At a little distance the Marquis still seemed young, but a closer
+inspection showed that the man looked even older than he really was, so
+worn and haggard were his mouth and eyes. Nights at the gaming-table and
+the anxiety as to where the fresh supplies should come from to furnish
+the means to prolong his life of debauchery had told heavily upon him.
+To-day, however, he seemed to be in the best temper imaginable, and
+in the most cheerful manner he addressed a few words to Verminet, in
+conclusion of the conversation that had been going on in the inner
+office.
+
+“It is settled then,” remarked he, “that I am to have nothing more to do
+with a business with which neither of us has any real concern?”
+
+“Just so,” answered Verminet.
+
+“Very well, then; but remember that any mistake you may make in the
+other affair will be attended with the most serious results.”
+
+This caution seemed to suggest some new idea to Verminet, for he said
+something in a low voice to his client at which they both laughed.
+
+Gaston was fidgeting about, very uneasy at the Marquis having paid no
+attention to him, and he now advanced with a magnificent salutation
+and a friendly wave of the hand. If the Marquis was charmed at meeting
+Gandelu, he concealed his delight in a most wonderful manner. He seemed
+surprised, but not agreeably so; he bent his head, and he extended his
+gloved hand with a negligent, “Ah, pleased to see you.” Then without
+taking any more notice of Gaston, he turned on his heel and continued
+his conversation with Verminet.
+
+“The worst part is over,” said he, “and therefore no time is to be lost.
+You must see Mascarin and Martin Rigal, the banker, to-day.”
+
+At these words Andre started. Were these people Croisenois’ accomplices?
+Certainly he had accomplices on the brain just now, and their names
+remained deeply engraved on the tablets of his memory.
+
+“Tantaine was here this morning,” observed Verminet, “and told me that
+his master wanted to see me at four this afternoon. Van Klopen will be
+there also. Shall I say a word to him about your fine friend?”
+
+“‘Pon my soul,” remarked the Marquis, shrugging his shoulders, “I had
+nearly forgotten her. There will be a tremendous fuss made, for she will
+be wanting all sorts of things. Speak to Van Klopen certainly, but do
+not bind yourself. Remember that I do not care a bit for the fair Sara.”
+
+“Quite so; I understand,” answered Verminet; “but keep things quiet, and
+do not have any open disturbances.”
+
+“Of course not. Good morning,” and with a bow to the managing director
+and a nod to Gaston, he lunged out of the office, not condescending to
+take the slightest notice of Andre. Verminet invited Andre and Gaston
+into his sanctum, and, taking a seat, motioned to them to do the same.
+Verminet was a decided contrast to his office, which was shabby and
+dirty, for his dress did his tailor credit, and he appeared to be clean.
+He was neither old nor young, and carried his years well. He was fresh
+and plump, wore his whiskers and hair cut in the English fashion, while
+his sunken eyes had no more expression in them than those of a fish.
+
+Gandelu was in a hurry to begin.
+
+“Let us get to business,” said he. “Last week you lent me some money.”
+
+“Just so. Do you want any more?”
+
+“No; I want to return my bills.”
+
+A cloud passed over Verminet’s face.
+
+“The first does not fall due until the 15th,” remarked he.
+
+“No matter; I have the money with me, and I will pay it on you handing
+over the bills to me.”
+
+“I can’t do it.”
+
+“And why so, pray?”
+
+“The bills have passed out of my hands.”
+
+Gaston could scarcely credit his ears, nor believe in the truth of this
+last statement, and was certainly upset, now knowing what to do.
+
+“But,” stammered he, “you promised, when I signed those bills, that they
+should never go out of your hands.”
+
+“I don’t say I did not; but one can’t always keep to one’s promise. I
+was forced to part with them. I wanted money, and so had to discount
+them.”
+
+Andre was not at all surprised, for he had anticipated some such
+difficulty; and seeing that Gaston had entirely lost his head, he broke
+in on the conversation.
+
+“Excuse me, sir,” remarked he; “but it seems to me that there are
+certain circumstances in this case which should have made you keep your
+promise.”
+
+Verminet stared at him.
+
+“Who have I the honor of speaking to?” asked he, instead of making a
+direct reply.
+
+“I am a friend of M. de Gandelu’s,” returned Andre, thinking it best not
+to give any name.
+
+“A confidential friend?”
+
+“Entirely so. He had, I think, ten thousand francs from you.”
+
+“Pardon me, five thousand.”
+
+Andre turned toward his companion in some surprise.
+
+Gaston grew crimson.
+
+“What is the meaning of this?” asked the artist.
+
+“Can’t you see?” whispered Gaston. “I had ten because I wanted the other
+five for Zora.”
+
+“Oh, indeed,” returned Andre, with a slight uplifting of his eyebrows.
+“Well, then, M. Verminet, it was five thousand francs that you lent
+to my young friend here. That was right enough; but what do you say to
+inducing him to forge a signature?”
+
+“I! I do such a thing?” answered Verminet. “Why, I did not know that the
+signature was not genuine.”
+
+This insolent denial aroused the unhappy Gaston from his state of
+stupor.
+
+“This is too much, a deuced deal too much,” cried he. “Did you not
+yourself tell me that, for your own security, you must insist upon
+another name in addition to mine? Did you not give me a letter, and say,
+‘Write a signature like the one at the bottom of this, it is that of
+Martin Rigal, the banker in the Rue Montmartre’?”
+
+“An utterly false accusation, without a shadow of proof; and remember
+that a libel uttered in the presence of a third party is punishable by
+law.”
+
+“And yet, sir,” continued Andre, “you did not hesitate for a moment in
+discounting these bills. Have you calculated what terrible results may
+come of this breach of faith on your part?--what will happen if this
+forged signature is presented to M. Martin Rigal?”
+
+“Very unlikely. Gandelu is the drawer, Rigal merely the endorser.
+Bills, when due, are always presented to the drawer,” returned Verminet
+laconically.
+
+Evidently a trap had been laid for Gaston, but the reason was still
+buried in obscurity.
+
+“Then,” remarked Andre, “we have but one course to pursue: we must trace
+those notes to the hands in which they now are, and take them up.”
+
+“Quite right.”
+
+“But to enable us to do so, you must first let us know the name of the
+party who discounted them.”
+
+“I don’t know; I have forgotten,” answered Verminet, with a careless
+wave of his hand.
+
+“Then,” returned Andre, in a low, deep voice of concentrated fury, “let
+me advise you, for your own sake, to make an immediate call upon your
+powers of memory.”
+
+“Do you threaten me?”
+
+“And if you do not succeed in remembering the name or names, the
+consequences may be more serious than you seem to anticipate.”
+
+Verminet saw that the young painter was in dangerous earnest, and rose
+from his chair, but Andre was too quick for him.
+
+“No,” said he, placing his back against the door; “you will not leave
+this room until you have done what I require.”
+
+For fully ten minutes the men stood gazing at each other. Verminet
+was green with terror, while Andre’s face, though pale, was firm and
+determined.
+
+“If the scoundrel makes any resistance,” said he to himself, “I will
+fling him out of the window.”
+
+“The man is a perfect athlete,” thought Verminet, “and looks as if he
+would stick at nothing.”
+
+Seeing that he had better give in, the managing director took up a bulky
+ledger, and began to turn over the leaves with trembling fingers.
+
+Andre saw that he was holding it upside-down.
+
+“There it is,” cried Verminet at last.
+
+“Bills for five thousand francs. Gandelu and Rigal, booked for discount
+to Van Klopen, ladies’ tailor.”
+
+Andre was silent.
+
+Why was it that Verminet had suggested Rigal’s signature as the one he
+ought to imitate? And why had he handed the bills over to Van Klopen?
+Was it mere chance that had arranged it all? He did not believe it, but
+felt sure that some secret tie united them all together, Verminet, Van
+Klopen, Rigal, and the Marquis de Croisenois.
+
+“Do you want anything more?” asked the manager of the Mutual Loan
+Society.
+
+“Are the bills in Van Klopen’s hands?”
+
+“I can’t say.”
+
+“Never mind, he will have to tell me where they are, if he has not got
+them,” returned Andre.
+
+They left the house, and as soon as they were again in the street Andre
+took his companion’s arm, and hurried him off in the direction of the
+Rue de Grammont.
+
+“I don’t want to give this thief, Verminet, time to warn Van Klopen of
+what has taken place; I had rather fall upon him with the suddenness of
+an earthquake. Come, let us go to his establishment at once.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE VANISHING BILLS.
+
+Had Andre known a little more of the man he had to deal with, he would
+have learned that no one could fall like an earthquake upon Van Klopen.
+Shut up in the sanctum where he composed the numberless costumes
+that were the wonder and delight of Paris, Van Klopen made as careful
+arrangements to secure himself from the interview as the Turk does to
+guard the approaches to his seraglio; and so Andre and Gandelu were
+accosted in the entrance hall by his stately footmen, clad in gorgeous
+liveries, glittering with gold.
+
+“M. van Klopen is of the utmost importance,” asserted Andre.
+
+“Our master is composing.”
+
+Entreaties, threats, and even a bribe of one hundred francs were alike
+useless; and Andre, seeing that he was about to be checkmated, was half
+tempted to take the men by the collar and hurl them on one side, but he
+calmed himself, and, already repenting of his violence at Verminet’s, he
+determined on a course of submission, and so meekly followed the footmen
+into the famous waiting-room, styled by Van Klopen his purgatory.
+The footmen, however, had spoken the truth, for several ladies of the
+highest rank and standing were awaiting the return of this _arbiter
+elegantiarum_. All of them turned as the young men entered--all save
+one, who was gazing out of the window, drawing with her pretty fingers
+on the window panes. Andre recognized her in an instant as Madame de
+Bois Arden.
+
+“Is it possible?” thought he. “Can the Countess have returned here after
+what has occurred?”
+
+Gaston felt that five charming pairs of eyes were fixed upon him, and
+studied to assume his most graceful posture.
+
+After a brief time given to arrangement, Andre grew disgusted.
+
+“I wish that she would look round,” said he to himself. “I think she
+would feel rather ashamed. I will say a word to her.”
+
+He rose from his chair, and, without thinking how terribly he might
+compromise the lady, he took up a position at her side. She was,
+however, intently watching something that was going on in the street,
+and did not turn her head.
+
+“Madame,” said he.
+
+She started, and, as she turned and recognized Andre, she uttered a
+little cry of surprise.
+
+“Great heavens! is that you?”
+
+“Yes, it is I.”
+
+“And here? I dare say that my presence in this place surprises you,” she
+went on, “and that I have a short memory, and no feelings of pride.”
+
+Andre made no reply, and his silence was a sufficient rejoinder to the
+question.
+
+“You do me a great injustice,” muttered the Countess. “I am here because
+De Breulh told me that in your interests I ought to pardon Van Klopen,
+and go to him again as I used to do; so you see, M. Andre, that it is
+never safe to judge by appearance, and a woman more than anything else.”
+
+“Will you forgive me?” asked Andre earnestly.
+
+The lady interrupted him by a little wave of her hand, invisible to all
+save to him, which clearly said,--
+
+“Take care; we are not alone.”
+
+She once more turned her eyes towards the street, and he mechanically
+did the same. By this means their faces were hidden from observation.
+
+“De Breulh,” went on the lady, “has heard a good deal about De
+Croisenois, and, as no doubt you can guess, but very little to his
+credit, and quite enough to justify any father in refusing him his
+daughter’s hand; but in this case it is evident to me that De Mussidan
+is yielding to a secret pressure. We must ferret out some hidden crime
+in De Croisenois’ past which will force him to withdraw his proposal.”
+
+“I shall find one,” muttered Andre.
+
+“But remember there is no time to be lost. According to our agreement, I
+treat him in the most charming manner, and he thinks that I am entirely
+devoted to his interests, and to-morrow I have arranged to introduce him
+to the Count and Countess at the Hotel de Mussidan, where the Count and
+Countess have agreed to receive him.”
+
+Andre started at this news.
+
+“I saw,” continued the lady, “that you were quite right in the opinion
+you had formed, for in the first place the common danger has almost
+reconciled the Count and Countess affectionately to each other, though
+it is notorious that they have always lived in the most unhappy manner.
+Their faces are careworn and full of anxiety, and they watch every
+movement of Sabine with eager eyes. I think that they look upon her as
+a means of safety, but shudder at the sacrifice she is making on their
+account.”
+
+“And Sabine?”
+
+“Her conduct is perfectly sublime, and she is ready to consummate the
+sacrifice without a murmur. Her self-sacrificing devotion is perfectly
+admirable; but what is more admirable still is the way in which she
+conceals the suffering that she endures from her parents. Noble-hearted
+girl! she is calm and silent, but she has always been so. She has grown
+thinner, and perhaps her cheek is a trifle paler, but her forehead
+was burning and seemed to scorch my lips as I kissed her. With this
+exception, however, there was nothing else about her that would betray
+her tortures. Modeste, her maid, told me, moreover, that when night came
+she seemed utterly worn out, and the poor girl, with tears in her eyes,
+declared ‘that her dear mistress was killing herself.’”
+
+Andre’s eyes overflowed with tears.
+
+“What have I done to deserve such love?” asked he.
+
+A door suddenly opened, and Andre and the Viscountess turned hastily at
+the sound. It was Van Klopen who came in, crying, according to his usual
+custom,--
+
+“Well, and whose turn is it next?”
+
+When, however, he saw Gaston, his face grew white, and it was with a
+smile that he stepped towards him, motioning back the lady whose turn it
+was, and who protested loudly against this injustice.
+
+“Ah, M. de Gandelu,” said he, “you have come, I suppose, to bespeak some
+fresh toilettes for that exquisite creature, Zora de Chantemille?”
+
+“Not to-day,” returned Gaston. “Zora is a little indisposed.”
+
+Andre, however, who had arranged the narrative that he was about to pour
+into the ears of the famous Van Klopen, was in too much haste to permit
+of any unnecessary delay.
+
+“We have come here,” said he hurriedly, “upon a matter of some moment.
+My friend, M. Gaston de Gandelu, is about to leave Paris for some
+months, and, before doing so, is anxious to settle all outstanding
+accounts, and retire all his bills, which may not yet have fallen due.”
+
+“Have I any bills of M. de Gandelu?” said Van Klopen slowly. “Ah, yes,
+I remember that I had some now. Yes, five bills of one thousand francs
+each, drawn by Gandelu, and accepted by Martin Rigal. I received them
+from the Mutual Loan Society, but they are no longer in my hands.”
+
+“Is that the case?” murmured Gaston, growing sick with apprehension.
+
+“Yes, I sent them to my cloth merchants at St. Etienne, Rollon and
+Company.”
+
+Van Klopen was a clever scoundrel, but he sometimes lacked the necessary
+perception of when he had said enough; and this was proved to-day, for,
+agitated by the steady gaze that Andre kept upon him, he added,--
+
+“If you do not believe my word, I can show you the acknowledgment that I
+received from that firm.”
+
+“It is unnecessary,” replied Andre. “Your statement is quite
+sufficient.”
+
+“I should prefer to let you see the letter.”
+
+“No, thank you,” replied Andre, not for a moment duped by the game that
+was being played. “Pray take no more trouble. We shall, I presume, find
+that the bills are at St. Etienne. There is no use in taking any more
+trouble about them, and we will wait until they arrive at maturity. I
+have the honor to wish you good morning.”
+
+And with these words he dragged away Gaston, who was actually about to
+consult Van Klopen as to the most becoming costume for Zora to appear in
+on leaving the prison of St. Lazare. When they were a few doors from the
+man-milliner’s, Andre stopped and wrote down the names of Van Klopen’s
+cloth merchants. Gaston was now quite at his ease.
+
+“I think,” remarked he, “that Van Klopen is a sharp fellow; he knows
+that I am to be relied on.”
+
+“Where do you think your bills are?”
+
+“At St. Etienne’s, of course.”
+
+The perfect innocence of the boy elicited from Andre a gesture of
+impatient commiseration.
+
+“Listen to me,” said he, “and see if you can comprehend the awful
+position in which you have placed yourself.”
+
+“I am listening, my dear fellow; pray go on.”
+
+“You drew these bills through Verminet because Van Klopen would not give
+you credit.”
+
+“Exactly so.”
+
+“How, then, do you account for the fact that this man, who was at first
+disinclined to trust you, should without rhyme or reason, offer to
+supply you now as he did to-day?”
+
+“The deuce! That never struck me. It does seem queer. Does he want to
+play me a nasty trick? But which of them is it--Verminet or Van Klopen?”
+
+“It is plain to me that the pair of them have entered into a pleasant
+little plot to blackmail you.”
+
+Young Gandelu did not at all like this turn, and he exclaimed,--
+
+“Blackmail me, indeed! why, I know my way about better than that. They
+won’t get much out of me, I can tell you.”
+
+Andre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Then,” said he, “just tell me what you intend to say to Verminet when
+he comes to you upon the day your bills fall due, and says to you, ‘Give
+me one hundred thousand francs for these five little bits of paper, or I
+go straight to your father with them’?”
+
+“I should say, of course--ah, well, I really do not know what I should
+say.”
+
+“You could say nothing, except that you had been imposed on in the most
+infamous way. You would plead for time, and Verminet would give it to
+you if you would execute a deed insuring him one hundred thousand francs
+on the day you came of age.”
+
+“A hundred thousand devils are all the rogue would get from me. That’s
+the way I do things, do you see? If people try and ride roughshod over
+me, I merely hit out, and then just look out for broken bones. Pay this
+chap? Not I! I know the governor would make an almighty shine, but I’ll
+choose that sooner than be had like that.”
+
+He was quite serious but could only put his feelings into the language
+he usually spoke.
+
+“I think,” answered Andre, “that your father would forgive this
+imprudence, but that it will be even harder for him to do so than it was
+to send a doctor to number the hours he had to live. He will forgive you
+because he is your father, and because he loves you; but Verminet, when
+he finds that the threat to go to your father does not appall you, will
+menace you with criminal proceedings.”
+
+“Hulloo!” said Gandelu, stopping short. “I say, that is very poor fun,”
+ gasped he.
+
+“There is no fun in it, for such fun, when brought to the notice of a
+court of justice, goes by the ugly name of forgery, and forgery means a
+swinging heavy sentence.”
+
+Gaston turned pale, and trembled from head to foot.
+
+“Tried and sentenced,” faltered he. “No, I don’t believe you, but I hold
+no honors and will turn up my cards.” He quite forgot that he was in the
+public street, and was talking at the top of his shrill falsetto voice,
+and gesticulating violently.
+
+“The poor old governor, I might have made him so happy, and, after all,
+I have only been a torment to him. Ah, could I but begin once more; but
+then the cards are dealt, and I must go on with the game, and I have
+made a nice muddle of the whole thing before I am twenty years of age;
+but no criminal courts for me, no, the easiest way out of it is a pistol
+shot, for I am an honest man’s son, and I will not bring more disgrace
+on him than I have already done.”
+
+“Do you really mean what you say?” asked Andre.
+
+“Of course I do. I can be firm enough sometimes.”
+
+“Then we will not despair yet,” answered the young painter. “I think
+that we shall be able to settle this ugly business, but you cannot be
+too cautious. Keep indoors, and remember that I may have urgent need of
+you at almost any time of day or night.”
+
+“I agree, but remember this, Zora is not to be forgotten.”
+
+“Don’t fret over that; I will call and see her to-morrow. And now,
+farewell for to-day, as I have not an instant to lose,” and with these
+words Andre hurried off.
+
+Andre’s reason for haste was that he had caught a few words addressed by
+Verminet to Croisenois--“I shall see Mascarin at four o’clock.” And
+he determined to loiter about the Rue St. Anne, and watch the Managing
+Director when he came out, and so find out who this Mascarin was, who he
+was certain was mixed up in the plot. He darted down the Rue de Grammont
+like an arrow from a bow, and as the clock in a neighboring belfry
+chimed half-past three, he was in the Rue St. Anne. There was a small
+wine-shop almost opposite to the office of the Mutual Loan Society,
+and there Andre ensconced himself and made a frugal meal, while he was
+waiting for Verminet’s appearance, and just as he had finished his light
+refreshment he saw the man he wanted come out of the office, and crept
+cautiously after him like a Red Indian on the trail of his enemy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE SPY.
+
+As Verminet swaggered down the street he had the air of a successful
+man, of a capitalist, in short, and the Managing Director of a highly
+lucrative concern. Andre had no difficulty in following his man, though
+detective’s business was quite new to him, which is no such easy matter,
+although every one thinks that he can become one. Andre kept his man in
+sight, and was astonished at the numerous acquaintances that Verminet
+seemed to have. Occasionally he said to himself, “Perhaps I am mistaken
+after all, for fancy is a bad pair of spectacles to see through. This
+man may be honest, and I have let my imagination lead me astray.”
+
+Meanwhile, Verminet who had reached the Boulevard Poisonniere, assumed
+a totally different air, throwing off his old manner as he cast away his
+cigar. When he had reached the Rue Montorgueil he turned underneath a
+large archway. Verminet had gone into the office of M. B. Mascarin, and
+that person simply kept a Servants’ Registry Office for domestics of
+both sexes. In spite of his surprise, however, he determined to wait
+for Verminet to come out; and, not to give himself the air of loitering
+about the place, he crossed the road and appeared to be interested in
+watching three workmen who were engaged in fixing the revolving shutters
+to a new shop window. Luckily for the young painter he had not to wait
+a very long while, for in less than a quarter of an hour Verminet came
+out, accompanied by two men. The one was tall and thin, and wore a pair
+of spectacles with colored glasses, while the other was stout and ruddy,
+with the unmistakable air of a man of the world about him. Andre would
+have given the twenty thousand francs which he still had in his pocket
+if he could have heard a single word of their conversation. He was
+moving skilfully forward so as to place himself within earshot, when not
+two feet from him he heard a shrill whistle twice repeated. There was
+something so strange and curious in the sound of this whistle that Andre
+looked round and noticed that the three men whom he was watching had
+been also attracted by it. The tall man with the colored glasses glanced
+suspiciously around him, and then after a nod to his companions turned
+and re-entered the office, while Verminet and the other walked away arm
+in arm. Andre was undecided; should he try and discover who these two
+men were? Near the entrance he saw a lad selling hot chestnuts. “Ah!”
+ said he, “the little chestnut seller will always be there; but I may
+lose the others if I stay here.” He followed the two men as quickly as
+possible. They did not go very far, and speedily entered a fine house in
+the Rue Montmartre. Here Andre was for a moment puzzled, as he did not
+know to whom they were paying a visit, but noticing an inscription on
+the wall of “Cashier’s Office on the first floor,” he exclaimed,--
+
+“Ah! it is to the banker’s they have gone!”
+
+He questioned a man coming downstairs and heard that M. Martin Rigal,
+the banker, had his offices and residence there.
+
+“I have struck a vein of good luck to-day,” thought he; “and now if my
+little friend the chestnut seller can only tell me the names of these
+men, I have done a good day’s work. I _do_ hope that he has not gone.”
+
+The boy was still there, and he had two customers standing by the
+chafing-dish which contained the glowing charcoal, and a working lad
+in cap and blouse was arguing so hotly with the lad that they did not
+notice Andre’s appearance.
+
+“You can stow that chat,” said the boy; “I have told your father the
+price I would take. You want my station and stock-in-trade. Hand over
+two hundred and fifty francs, and they are yours.”
+
+“But my dad will only give two hundred,” returned the other.
+
+“Then he don’t need give nothing, for he won’t get ‘em,” answered the
+chestnut vender sharply. “Two hundred francs for a pitch like this! Why,
+I have sometimes taken ten francs and more, and that ain’t a lie, on the
+word of Toto Chupin.”
+
+Andre was tickled with this strange designation, and addressed himself
+to the lad who bore it.
+
+“My good boy,” said he, “I think you were here an hour ago. Did you see
+anything of three gentlemen who came out of the house and stood talking
+together for a short time?”
+
+The lad turned sharply round and examined his questioner from tip to toe
+with an air of the most supreme impertinence; and then, in a tone which
+matched his look, replied,--
+
+“What does it signify to you who they are? Mind your own business, and
+be off!”
+
+Andre had had some little experience of this delightful class of street
+arab, of which Toto Chupin was so favorable a specimen, and knew their
+habits, customs, and language.
+
+“Come, my chicken,” said he, “spit it out, it won’t blister your tongue,
+to answer a man who asks a civil question.”
+
+“Well, then, I saw ‘em, sharp enough, and what then?”
+
+“Why, that I should like to have their names if they have such an
+article belonging to ‘em!”
+
+Toto raised his cap and scratched his head, as if to stimulate his
+brains, and as he brushed up his thick head of dirty yellow hair, he
+eyed Andre cunningly.
+
+“And suppose I know the blokes’ names and tells ‘em out to you, what
+will you stand?” asked he.
+
+“Ten sous.”
+
+The delightful youth puffed out his cheeks, then expelled the pent-up
+wind by a sudden slap, as a mark of his disgust at the meanness of the
+offer.
+
+“Pull up your braces, my lord,” said he sarcastically, “or you’ll be
+losing the contents of your breeches pockets. Ten sous, indeed! Perhaps
+you’d like me to lend ‘em to yer?”
+
+Andre smiled pleasantly.
+
+“Did you think, my little man, that I was going to offer you twenty
+thousand shiners?” asked he.
+
+“Won again!” cried Toto; “I laid myself a new hat that you weren’t a
+fool, and I have collared the stakes.”
+
+“Why do you think I am not a fool?”
+
+“Because a fool would have begun by offering me five francs and gone up
+slick to ten, while you began at a modest figure.”
+
+The painter smiled.
+
+“But you were too old a bird to be caught like that,” continued the
+lad; and as he spoke, he stopped, and contracted his brow as if in deep
+perplexity. Of course he was acquainted with the names, but ought he
+to give them? Instantly he scented an enemy. Harmless people did not
+usually ask questions of itinerant chestnut venders, and to open
+his mouth might be to injure Mascarin, Beaumarchef, or the guileless
+Tantaine.
+
+This last thought determined the lad.
+
+“Keep your ten sous, my pippin,” said the boy; “I’ll tell you what you
+want to know all gratis and for nothing, because I’ve taken a real fancy
+to the cut of your mug. The tall chap was Mascarin, the fat un Doctor
+Hortebise, and t’other--stop, let me think it out in my knowledge box;
+ah! I have it, he was Verminet.”
+
+Andre was so delighted that, drawing from his pocket a five-franc piece,
+he tossed it to the boy.
+
+“Thanks, my noble lord,” said Chupin, and was about to add something
+more in a similar vein, when he glanced down the street. His look
+changed in an instant, and he fixed his eyes upon the painter’s face
+with a very strange expression.
+
+“What is the matter, my lad?” asked Andre, surprised at this sudden
+change.
+
+“Nothing,” answered Chupin; “nothing at all; only as you seem a
+decentish sort of chap, I should recommend you to keep your wits about
+you, and to look out for squalls.”
+
+“Eh, what do you mean?”
+
+“I mean--why--be careful, of course. Hang me if I exactly know what I
+do mean. It is just an idea that came to me all of a jump. But there, be
+off; I ain’t going to say another word.”
+
+With much difficulty Andre repressed his astonishment. He saw that
+this young scamp was the possessor of many secrets which might be of
+inestimable value to him; but he also saw that he was determined to hold
+his tongue, and that it would at present be a waste of time to try and
+get anything out of him; and an empty cab passing at this moment, Andre
+hailed it, and told the coachman to drive fast to the Champs Elysees. In
+obedience to the warning that he had just received from Toto, he did not
+give the name of the _café_ where he was to meet De Breulh, for he made
+up his mind to be careful, yes, extremely careful. He recollected the
+two odd whistles which had seemed to make Mascarin wince, and which
+certainly broke off the conference of the three men, and he remembered
+that it was after a glance down the street that Toto had become less
+communicative and had given him that curt warning. “By heaven,” said he,
+as the recollection of a story he had read not long ago dawned on
+him, “I am being followed.” He lowered the front glass of the cab, and
+attracted the coachman’s attention by pulling him by the sleeve.
+
+“Listen to me,” said he, as the man turned, “and do not slacken your
+speed. Here, take your five francs in advance.”
+
+“But look here----”
+
+“Listen to me. Go as sharp as you can to the Rue de Matignon; turn down
+it, and, as you do, go a bit slower; then drive on like lightning, and
+when you are in the Champs Elysees do what you like, for your cab will
+be empty.”
+
+The driver chuckled.
+
+“Aha,” said he; “I see you are being followed, and you want to give ‘em
+leg bail.”
+
+“Yes, yes; you are right.”
+
+“Then listen to me. Take care when you jump, and don’t do it on the
+pavement, for t’other is the safest.”
+
+Andre succeeded in alighting safely, and turned down a narrow court
+before his pursuer had entered the street; but it was vain for the young
+painter to lurk in a doorway, for after five minutes had elapsed there
+was nothing to be seen, and no spy had made his appearance.
+
+“I have been over-cautious,” muttered he.
+
+More than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and Andre felt that he
+might leave his hiding-place, and go in quest of De Breulh; and as he
+approached the spot chosen for their meeting-place, he saw his friend’s
+carriage, and near it was the owner, smoking a cigar. The two men caught
+sight of each other almost at the same moment. De Breulh advanced to
+greet the young man with extended hand.
+
+“I have been waiting for you for the last twenty minutes,” said he.
+
+Andre commenced to apologize, but his friend checked him.
+
+“Never mind,” returned he; “I know that you must have had some excellent
+reasons; but, to tell you the honest truth, I had become rather nervous
+about you.”
+
+“Nervous! and why, pray?”
+
+“Do you not recollect what I said the other evening? De Croisenois is a
+double-dyed scoundrel.”
+
+Andre remained silent, and his friend, putting his arm affectionately
+through his, continued,--
+
+“Let us walk,” said he; “it is better than sitting down in the _café_.
+I believe De Croisenois capable of anything. He had the prospect before
+him of a large fortune,--that of his brother George; but this he has
+already anticipated. A man in a position like this is not to be trifled
+with.”
+
+“I do not fear him.”
+
+“But I do. I am, however, a little relieved by the fact that he has
+never seen you.”
+
+The painter shook his head.
+
+“Not only has he seen me, but I half believe that he suspects my
+designs.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“But I am sure that I have been followed to-day. I have no actual proof,
+but still I am fully convinced that it was so.”
+
+And Andre recounted all that had occurred during the day.
+
+“You are certainly being watched,” answered De Breulh, “and every step
+that you take will be known to your enemies, and at this very moment
+perhaps eyes are upon us.”
+
+As he spoke he glanced uneasily around; but it was quite dark, and he
+could see no one.
+
+“We will give the spies a little gentle exercise,” said he, “and if we
+dine together they will find it hard to discover the place.”
+
+De Breulh’s coachman was dozing on the driving-seat. His master aroused
+him, and whispered some order in his ear. The two young men then got in,
+and the carriage started at a quick pace.
+
+“What do you think of this expedient?” asked De Breulh. “We shall go at
+this pace for the next hour. We will then alight at the corner of the
+Chaussee d’Autin, and be free for the rest of the night, and those who
+wish to follow us to-night must have good eyes and legs.”
+
+All came to pass as De Breulh had arranged; but as he jumped out he saw
+a dark form slip from behind the carriage and mingle with the crowd on
+the Boulevard.
+
+“By heavens,” said he; “that was a man. I thought that I was throwing a
+spy off the track, and I was in reality only treating him to a drive.”
+
+To make sure, he took off his glove and felt the springs of the
+carriage.
+
+“See,” said he, “they are still warm from the contact with a human
+body.”
+
+The young painter was silent, but all was now explained: while he jumped
+from the cab, his tracker had been carried away upon it. This discovery
+saddened the dinner, and a little after ten Andre left his friend and
+returned home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+MASCARIN MOVES.
+
+The Viscountess de Bois Arden had not been wrong when she told Andre
+in Van Klopen’s establishment that community of sorrow had brought the
+Count and Countess of Mussidan nearer together, and that Sabine had
+made up her mind to sacrifice herself for the honor of the family.
+Unfortunately, however, this change in the relations of husband and wife
+had not taken place immediately; for after her interview with Doctor
+Hortebise, Diana’s first impulse had not been to go to her husband, but
+to write to Norbert, who was as much compromised by the correspondence
+as she herself. Her first letter did not elicit a reply. She wrote a
+second, and then a third, in which, though she did not go into details,
+she let the Duke know that she was the victim of a dark intrigue, and
+that a deadly peril was hanging over her daughter’s head. This last
+letter was brought back to her by the messenger, without any envelope,
+and across it Norbert had written,--
+
+“The weapon which you have used against me has now been turned against
+yourself. Heaven is just.”
+
+These words started up in letters of fire before her eyes as the presage
+of coming misfortune, and telling her that the hour of retribution had
+now come, and that she must be prepared to suffer, as an atonement for
+her crimes. Then it was that she felt all was lost, and she must go
+to her husband for aid, unless she desired that copies of the stolen
+letters should be sent to him; and in a little boudoir, adjoining
+Sabine’s own room, she opened her heart and told her husband all. She
+performed it with all the skill of a woman who, without descending to
+falsehood, contrives to conceal the truth. But she could not hide
+the share that she had taken, both in the death of the late Duke of
+Champdoce and the disappearance of George de Croisenois.
+
+The Count’s brain reeled. He called up to his memory what Diana had been
+when he first saw and loved her at Laurebourg: how pure and modest she
+looked! what virginal candor sat upon her brow! and yet she was even
+then doing her best to urge on a son to murder his father.
+
+De Mussidan had had hideous doubts concerning the relations of Norbert
+and Diana, both before and after marriage; but his wife firmly denied
+this at the moment when she was revealing the other guilty secrets of
+her past life. He had believed that Sabine was not his child, and now he
+had to reproach himself with the indifference he had displayed towards
+her.
+
+He made no answer to the terrible revelation that was poured into his
+ears; but when the Countess had concluded, he rose and left the room,
+stretching out his hands and grasping the walls for support, like a
+drunken man.
+
+The Count and Countess believed that Sabine had slept through this
+interview, but they were mistaken, for Sabine had heard all those fatal
+words--“ruin, dishonor, and despair!” At first she scarcely understood.
+Were not these words merely the offspring of her delirium? She strove
+to shake it off, but too soon she knew that the whispered words were
+sad realities, and she lay on her bed quivering with terror. Much of the
+conversation escaped her, but she heard enough. Her mother’s past sins
+were to be exposed if the daughter did not marry a man entirely unknown
+to her--the Marquis de Croisenois. She knew that her torments would not
+be of very long duration, for to part with her love for Andre would be
+to part with life itself. She made up her mind to live until she had
+saved her parents’ honor by the sacrifice of herself, and then she would
+be free to accept the calm repose of the grave.
+
+But the terrible revelation bore its fruits, for her fever came back,
+and a relapse was the result. But youth and a sound constitution gained
+the day, and when she was convalescent her will was as strong as ever.
+
+Her first act was to write the letter to her lover which had driven him
+to the verge of distraction; and then, fearing lest her father might, in
+his agony and remorse, be driven to some rash act, she went to him and
+told him that she knew all.
+
+“I never loved M. de Breulh,” said she with a pitiful smile, “and
+therefore the sacrifice is not so great after all.”
+
+The Count was not for a moment the dupe of the generous-souled girl,
+but he did not dare to brave the scandal of the death of Montlouis,
+and still less the exposure of his wife’s conduct. Time was passing,
+however, and the miscreants in whose power they were made no signs of
+life. Hortebise did not appear any more, and there were moments when
+the miserable Diana actually ventured to hope. “Have they forgotten us?”
+ thought she.
+
+Alas! no; they were people who never forgot.
+
+The Champdoce affair had been satisfactorily arranged, and every
+precaution had been taken to prevent the detection of Paul as an
+impostor, and engaged as he had been, Mascarin had no time to turn
+his attention to the marriage of Sabine and De Croisenois. The famous
+Limited Company, with the Marquis as chairman, had, too, to be started,
+the shares of which were to be taken up by the unhappy victims of
+the blackmailers; but first some decided steps must be taken with the
+Mussidans, and Tantaine was dispatched on this errand.
+
+This amiable individual, though he was going into such very excellent
+society, did not consider it necessary to make any improvement in his
+attire. This was the reason why the footman, upon seeing such a shabby
+visitor and hearing him ask for the Count or Countess, did not hesitate
+to reply, with a sneer, that his master and mistress had been out for
+some months, and were not likely to return for a week or two. This fact
+did not disconcert the wily man, for drawing one of Mascarin’s cards
+from his pocket, he begged the kind gentleman to take it upstairs, when
+he was sure that he would at once be sent for.
+
+De Mussidan, when he read the name on the card, turned ghastly pale.
+
+“Show him into the library,” said he curtly.
+
+Florestan left the room, and the Count mutely handed the card to his
+wife, but she had no need to read it.
+
+“I can tell what it is,” gasped she.
+
+“The day for settling accounts has come,” said the Count, “and this name
+is the fatal sign.”
+
+The Countess flung herself upon her knees, and taking the hand that hung
+placidly by his side, pressed her lips tenderly to it.
+
+“Forgive me, Octave!” she muttered. “Will you not forgive me? I am a
+miserable wretch, and why did not Heaven punish me for the sins that I
+have committed, and not make others expiate my offences?”
+
+The Count put her gently aside. He suffered intensely, and yet no word
+of reproach escaped his lips against the woman who had ruined his whole
+life.
+
+“And Sabine,” she went on, “must she, a De Mussidan, marry one of these
+wretched scoundrels?”
+
+Sabine was the only one in the room who preserved her calmness; she had
+so schooled herself that her distress of mind was not apparent to the
+outward eye.
+
+“Do not make yourselves miserable,” said she, with a faint smile; “how
+do we know that M. de Croisenois may not make me an excellent husband
+after all?”
+
+The Count gazed upon his daughter with a look of the fondest affection
+and gratitude.
+
+“Dearest Sabine!” murmured he. Her fortitude had restored his
+self-command. “Let us be outwardly resigned,” said he, “whatever our
+feelings may be. Time may do much for us, and at the very church door we
+may find means of escape.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A CRUEL SLUR.
+
+Florestan had conducted Tantaine to the sumptuous library, in which the
+Count had received Mascarin’s visit; and, to pass away the time, the old
+man took a mental inventory of the contents of the room. He tried the
+texture of the curtains, looked at the handsome bindings of the books,
+and admired the magnificent bronzes on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Aha,” muttered he, as he tried the springs of a luxurious armchair,
+“everything is of the best, and when matters are settled, I half think
+that I should like a resting-place just like this----”
+
+He checked himself, for the door opened, and the Count made his
+appearance, calm and dignified, but very pale. Tantaine made a low bow,
+pressing his greasy hat against his breast.
+
+“Your humble servant to command,” said he.
+
+The Count had come to a sudden halt.
+
+“Excuse me,” said he, “but did you send up a card asking for an
+interview?”
+
+“I am not Mascarin certainly, but I used that highly respectable
+gentleman’s name, because I knew that my own was totally unknown to you.
+I am Tantaine, Adrien Tantaine.”
+
+M. de Mussidan gazed with extreme surprise upon the squalid individual
+before him. His mild and benevolent face inspired confidence, and yet he
+doubted him.
+
+“I have come on the same business,” pursued the old man. “I have been
+ordered to tell you that it must be hurried on.”
+
+The Count hastily closed the door and locked it; the manner of this man
+made him feel even too plainly the ignominy of his position.
+
+“I understand,” answered he. “But how is it that you have come, and not
+the other one?”
+
+“He intended to come; but at the last moment he drew back; Mascarin, you
+see, has a great deal to lose, while I----” He paused, and holding up
+the tattered tails of his coat, turned round, as though to exhibit his
+shabby attire. “All my property is on my back,” continued he.
+
+“Then I can treat with you?” asked the Count.
+
+Tantaine nodded his head. “Yes, Count, I have the missing leaves from
+the Baron’s journal, and also, well--I suppose you know everything, all
+of your wife’s correspondence.”
+
+“Enough,” answered the Count, unable to hide his disgust. “Sit down.”
+
+“Now, Count, I will go to the point--are you going to put the police on
+us?”
+
+“I have said that I would do nothing of the kind.”
+
+“Then we can get to business.”
+
+“Yes, if----”
+
+The old man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“There is no ‘if’ in the case,” returned he. “We state our conditions,
+for acceptance or rejection.”
+
+These words were uttered in a tone of such extreme insolence that the
+Count was strongly tempted to hurl the extortionate scoundrel from the
+window, but he contrived to restrain his passion.
+
+“Let us hear the conditions then,” said he impatiently.
+
+Tantaine extracted from some hidden recess of his coat a much-worn
+pocketbook, and drew from it a paper.
+
+“Here are our conditions,” returned he slowly. “The Count de Mussidan
+promises to give the hand of his daughter to Henri Marquis de
+Croisenois. He will give his daughter a wedding portion of six hundred
+thousand francs, and promises that the marriage shall take place without
+delay. The Marquis de Croisenois will be formally introduced at your
+house, and he must be cordially received. Four days afterwards he must
+be asked to dinner. On the fifteenth day from that M. de Mussidan will
+give a grand ball in honor of the signing of the marriage contract. The
+leaves from the diary and the whole of the correspondence will be handed
+to M. de Mussidan as soon as the civil ceremony is completed.”
+
+With firmly compressed lips and clenched hands, the Count sat listening
+to these conditions.
+
+“And who can tell me,” said he, “that you will keep your engagements,
+and that these papers will be restored to me at all?”
+
+Tantaine looked at him with a air of pity.
+
+“Your own good sense,” answered he. “What more could we expect to get
+out of you than your daughter and your money?”
+
+The Count did not answer, but paced up and down the room, eyeing the
+ambassador keenly, and endeavoring to detect some weak point in his
+manner of cynicism and audacity. Then speaking in the calm tone of a man
+who had made up his mind, he said,--
+
+“You hold me as in a vice, and I admit myself vanquished. Stringent as
+your conditions are, I accept them.”
+
+“That is the right style of way to talk in,” remarked Tantaine
+cheerfully.
+
+“Then,” continued the Count, with a ray of hope gleaming in his face,
+“why should I give my daughter to De Croisenois at all?--surely this
+is utterly unnecessary. What you want is simply six hundred thousand
+francs; well, you can have them, and leave me Sabine.”
+
+He paused and waited for the reply, believing that the day was his; but
+he was wrong.
+
+“That would not be the same thing at all,” answered Tantaine. “We should
+not gain our ends by such means.”
+
+“I can do more,” said the Count. “Give me six months, and I will add a
+million to the sum I have already offered.”
+
+Tantaine did not appear impressed by the magnitude of this offer. “I
+think,” remarked he, “that it will be better to close this interview,
+which, I confess, is becoming a little annoying. You agreed to accept
+the conditions. Are you still in that mind?”
+
+The Count bowed. He could not trust himself to speak.
+
+“Then,” went on Tantaine, “I will take my leave. Remember, that as you
+fulfil your engagement, so we will keep to ours.”
+
+He had laid his hand on the handle of the door, when the Count said,--
+
+“Another word, if you please. I can answer for myself and Madame de
+Mussidan, but how about my daughter?”
+
+Tantaine’s face changed. “What do you mean?” asked he.
+
+“My daughter may refuse to accept M. de Croisenois.”
+
+“Why should she? He is good-looking, pleasant, and agreeable.”
+
+“Still she may refuse him.”
+
+“If mademoiselle makes any objection,” said the old man in peremptory
+accents, “you must let me see her for a few minutes, and after that you
+will have no further difficulty with her.”
+
+“Why, what could you have to say to my daughter?”
+
+“I should say----”
+
+“Well, what would you say?”
+
+“I should say that if she loves any one, it is not M. de Breulh.” He
+endeavored to pass through the half-opened door, but the Count closed it
+violently.
+
+“You shall not leave this room,” cried he, “until you have explained
+this insulting remark.”
+
+“I had no intention of offending you,” answered Tantaine humbly.
+“I only----” He paused, and then, with an air of sarcasm which sat
+strangely upon a person of his appearance, went on, “I am aware that
+the heiress of a noble family may do many things without having her
+reputation compromised, when girls in a lower social grade would be
+forever lost by the commission of any one of them; and I am sure if the
+family of M. de Breulh knew that the young lady to whom he was engaged
+had been in the habit of passing her afternoons alone with a young man
+in his studio----”
+
+He paused, and hastily drew a revolver, for it seemed to him as if the
+Count were about to throw himself upon him. “Softly, softly, if you
+please,” cried he. “Blows and insults are fatal mistakes. I have better
+information than yourself, that is all. I have more than ten times seen
+your daughter enter a house in the Rue Tour d’Auvergne, and asking for
+M. Andre, creep silently up the staircase.”
+
+The Count felt that he was choking. He tore off his cravat, and cried
+wildly, “Proofs! Give me proofs!”
+
+During the last five minutes Tantaine had shifted his ground so
+skilfully that the heavy library table now stood between himself and the
+Count, and he was comparatively safe behind this extemporized defence.
+
+“Proofs?” answered he. “Do you think that I carry them about with me? In
+a week I could give you the lovers’ correspondence. That, you will say,
+is too long to wait; but you can set your doubts at rest at once. If you
+go to the address I will give you before eight to-morrow morning, and
+enter the rooms occupied by M. Andre, you will find the portrait
+of Mademoiselle Sabine carefully concealed from view behind a green
+curtain, and a very good portrait it is. I presume you will admit that
+it could not have been executed without a sitting.”
+
+“Leave this,” cried the Count, “without a moment’s delay.”
+
+Tantaine did not wait for a repetition of these words. He passed through
+the doorway, and as soon as he was outside he called out in cheerful
+accents. “Do not forget the address, Number 45, Rue Tour d’Auvergne,
+name of Andre, and mind and be there before eight a.m.”
+
+The Count made a rush at him on hearing this last insult, but he was
+too late, for Tantaine slammed the door, and was in the hall before the
+infuriated master of the house could open it. Tantaine had resumed
+all his airs of humility, and took off his hat to the footmen as he
+descended the steps. “Yes,” muttered he, as he walked along, “the idea
+was a happy one. Andre knows that he is watched, and will be careful;
+and now that M. de Mussidan is aware that his sweet, pure daughter
+has had a lover, he will be only too happy to accept the Marquis de
+Croisenois as his son-in-law.” Tantaine believed that Sabine was more
+culpable than she really had been, for the idea of pure and honorable
+love had never entered his brain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE TEMPTER.
+
+By this time Tantaine was in the Champs Elysees, and stared anxiously
+around. “If my Toto makes no mistake,” muttered he, “surely my order was
+plain enough.”
+
+The old man got very cross as he at last perceived the missing lad
+conversing with the proprietor of a pie-stall, having evidently been
+doing a little jawing with him.
+
+“Toto,” he called, “Toto, come here.”
+
+Toto Chupin heard him, for he looked round, but he did not move, for he
+was certainly much interested in the conversation he was carrying on.
+Tantaine shouted again, and this time more angrily than before, and
+Toto, reluctantly leaving his companion, came slowly up to his patron.
+
+“You have been a nice time getting here,” said the lad sulkily. “I was
+just going to cut it. Ain’t you well that you make such a row? If you
+ain’t, I’d better go for a doctor.
+
+“I am in a tremendous hurry, Toto.”
+
+“Yes, and so is the postman when he is behind time. I’m busy too.”
+
+“What, with the man you have just left?”
+
+“Yes; he is a sharper chap than I am. How much do you earn every day,
+Daddy Tantaine? Well, that chap makes his thirty or forty francs every
+night, and does precious little for it. I should like a business like
+that, and I think that I shall secure one soon.”
+
+“Have patience. I thought that you were going into business with those
+two young men you were drinking beer with at the Grand Turk?”
+
+Toto uttered a shrill cry of anger at these words. “Business with them?”
+ shrieked he; “they are regular clever night thieves.”
+
+“Have they done you any harm, my poor lad?”
+
+“Yes; they have utterly ruined me. Luckily, I saw Mascarin yesterday,
+and he set me up in the hot-chestnut line. He ain’t a bad one, is
+Mascarin.”
+
+Tantaine curled his lip disdainfully. “Not a bad fellow, I dare say, as
+long as you don’t ask him for anything.”
+
+Toto was so surprised at hearing Tantaine abuse Mascarin, that he was
+unable to utter a word.
+
+“Ah, you may look surprised,” continued the old man, “but when a man is
+rolling in riches, and leaves an old friend to starve, then he is not
+what I call a real good fellow. Now, Toto, you are a bright lad, and so
+I don’t mind letting you know that I am only waiting for a good chance
+to drop Mascarin, and set up on my own account. Work for yourself, my
+boy.”
+
+“I know that; but it is a good deal easier to say than to do.”
+
+“You have tried then?”
+
+“Yes, I have; but I came to grief over it. You know all about it as well
+as I do, for don’t tell me you didn’t hear every word I said that night
+you were hunting up Caroline Schimmel. However, I’ll tell you. One day
+when I saw a lady who looked rather nervous get out of a cab, I followed
+her. I was decently togged out, so I rang at the door. I was so sure
+that I was going to make a haul that I would not have taken ninety-nine
+francs for the hundred that I expected to make. Well, I rang, a girl
+opened the door, and in I went. What an ass I made of myself! I found a
+great brute of a man there, who thrashed me within an inch of my life,
+and then kicked me downstairs. See, he made his mark rather more plainly
+than I liked.” And removing his cap, the boy showed several bruises
+about his forehead.
+
+During this conversation Tantaine and the lad had been walking slowly
+up the Champs Elysees, and had by this time arrived just opposite M.
+Gandelu’s house, where Andre was at work. Tantaine sat down on a bench.
+
+“Let us rest a bit,” said he; “I am tired out; and now let me tell you,
+my lad, that your tale only shows me that it is experience you want.
+Now, I have any amount of that, and I was really the prime mover in most
+of Mascarin’s schemes. If I were to start on my own account, I should
+be driving in my carriage in twelve months. The only thing against my
+success is my age, for I am getting to be an old man. Why, even now I
+have a matter in my hands that is simply splendid. I have had half the
+money down, but I want a smart young fellow to pull it through.”
+
+“Why couldn’t I be the smart young fellow?” asked Toto.
+
+Tantaine shook his head. “You are as much too young as I am too old,”
+ answered he. “At your age you are too apt to be frightened, and would
+shrink back at the critical time. Besides, I have a conscience.”
+
+“And so have I,” exclaimed Toto; “and it’s grown like your own, old man;
+it can be stretched for miles and folded up into nothing.”
+
+“Well, we may be able to do something,” returned Tantaine, as, drawing
+out a ragged check pocket-handkerchief, he wiped his glasses.
+
+“Listen to me, my lad; I’ll put what we call a supposititious case to
+you. You hate those two fellows who have robbed you, for I suppose that
+is what you meant; well, suppose you knew that they were at work all day
+on a high scaffold like that one opposite to us, what would you do?”
+
+Toto scratched his head, and remarked after a pause,--
+
+“If that crack-jawed idea you talk of was true,” answered he, “those gay
+lads might as well make their wills, for I’d step up the scaffolding
+at night and just saw the planks that they are in the habit of clapping
+their toes on, half through, and when one of the mates stepped on it,
+why, there would be a bit of a smash, eh, Daddy Tantaine?”
+
+“Not so bad, not so bad for a lad of your years,” said the old man with
+an approving smile.
+
+Toto’s bosom swelled with pride.
+
+“Besides,” he continued, “I would arrange matters so well that not a
+soul would think that I had done the trick.”
+
+“The more I hear you speak, Chupin,” answered Tantaine, “the more I
+believe you are the lad I want, and I am sure that we shall make heaps
+of money together.”
+
+“I am cock sure of that too.”
+
+“You can use carpenters’ tools, I think you once told me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well,” continued Tantaine, “let me tell you then that I know an old
+man with any amount of money, and there is a fellow whom he hates and
+detests, a young chap who ran off with the girl he loved.”
+
+“The old bloke must have been jolly wild.”
+
+“Well, to tell the truth, he wasn’t a bit pleased. Now it so happens
+that this gay young dog spends ten hours a day at least on that very
+scaffolding opposite to us. The old fellow, who has his head screwed on
+the right way, had the very same idea as yours, but he is too old and
+too stout to do the trick for himself; and, to cut the matter short, he
+would give five thousand francs to the persons who would carry out his
+idea. Just think, two thousand francs for a few cuts of a saw!”
+
+The boy was violently agitated, but Tantaine pretended not to notice it.
+
+“First, my lad,” said he, “I must explain to you in what measure the
+old gentleman’s plans are different from yours. If we did not take care,
+some other poor devil might break his neck, but I have hit on a dodge to
+avoid all this.”
+
+“I ain’t curious, but I should like to hear it.”
+
+Tantaine smiled blandly.
+
+“Listen! Do you see high up; that little shed built of planks? That is
+used by the carvers and stone-cutters. Well, this little house, a couple
+of hundred feet above us, has a kind of a window; well, if this window
+and the planks below it were cut nearly through, any one leaning against
+it would be very likely to fall into the street and perhaps to hurt
+himself.”
+
+Chupin nodded.
+
+“Now, suppose,” went on Tantaine, “that the enemy of our old gentleman
+was in that little shed, all at once he hears a woman shriek, ‘Help! It
+is I you love; help me!’ what would this young fellow do? Why, he would
+recognize the voice, rush to the window, lean out, and as the woodwork
+and supports had been cut away, he would----Well, do you see now?”
+
+Chupin hesitated for a moment.
+
+“I don’t say I won’t,” muttered he; “but, look here, will the old chap
+pay down smart?”
+
+“Yes, and besides, did I not tell you that he had given half down?”
+
+The boy’s eyes glistened as the old man unpinned the tattered lining
+of his pocket, and holding the pin between his teeth, pulled out the
+banknotes, each one for a thousand francs. Chupin’s heart rose at the
+sight of this wealth.
+
+“Is one of those for me?” asked he. Tantaine held the note towards
+the boy, who shuddered at the touch of the crisp paper and kissed the
+precious object in a paroxysm of pleasure. He then started from his
+seat, and regardless of the astonishment of the passers-by, executed a
+wild dance of triumph.
+
+All was soon settled. Toto was to creep into the unfinished building by
+night, and not to leave it until he had completed his work. Tantaine,
+who had a thought for everything, told the boy what sort of a saw to
+employ, and gave him the address of a man who supplied the best class
+instruments.
+
+“You must remember, my dear lad,” said he, “not to leave behind you any
+traces of your work which may cause suspicion. One grain of sawdust
+on the floor might spoil the whole game. Take a dark lantern with you,
+grease your saw, and rasp out the tooth-nicks of the saw when you have
+finished your work.”
+
+Toto listened to the old man in surprise; he had never thought that he
+was of so practical a turn. He promised that he would be careful, and
+imagining that he had received all his directions, rose to leave; but
+the old man still detained him.
+
+“Here,” said he, “suppose you tell me a little about Caroline Schimmel.
+You told Beaumarchef that she said I had made her scream, and that when
+she caught me, I should have a bad time of it, eh?”
+
+“You weren’t my partner then,” returned the lad with an impudent laugh;
+“and I wanted to give you a bit of a fright. The truth is, that you made
+the poor old girl so drunk that she has had to go to the hospital.”
+
+Tantaine was overjoyed at this news, and, rising from his seat, said,
+“Where are you living now?”
+
+“Nowhere in particular. Yesterday I slept in a stable, but there isn’t
+room for all my furniture there, so I must shift.”
+
+“Would you like to have my room for a day or two?” asked Tantaine,
+chuckling at the boy’s jest. “I have moved from there, but the attic is
+mine for another fortnight yet.”
+
+“I’m gone; where is it?”
+
+“You know well enough, in the Hotel de Perou, Rue de la Hachette. Then
+I will send a line to the landlady;” and tearing a leaf from his
+pocketbook, he scrawled on it a few words, saying that young relative of
+his, M. Chupin, was to have his room.
+
+This letter, together with his banknote, Toto carefully tied up in the
+corner of his neckerchief, and as he crossed the street the old man
+watched him for a moment, and then stood gazing at the workmen on the
+scaffolding. Just then Gandelu and his son came out, and the contractor
+paused to give a few instructions. For a few seconds Gaston and Chupin
+stood side by side, and a strange smile flitted across Tantaine’s face
+as he noted this. “Both children of Paris,” muttered he, “and both
+striking examples of the boasted civilization. The dandy struts along
+the pavement, while the street arab plays in the gutter.”
+
+But he had no time to spend in philosophical speculations, as the
+omnibus that he required appeared, and entering it, in another half-hour
+he entered Paul Violaine’s lodgings in the Rue Montmartre.
+
+The portress, Mother Brigaut, was at her post as Tantaine entered the
+courtyard and asked,--
+
+“And how is our young gentleman to-day?”
+
+“Better, sir, ever so much better; I made him a lovely bowl of soup
+yesterday, and he drank up every drop of it. He looks like a real king
+this morning, and the doctor sent in a dozen of wine to-day, which will,
+I am sure, effect a perfect cure.”
+
+With a smile and a nod Tantaine was making his way to the stairs, when
+Mother Brigaut prevented his progress.
+
+“Some one was here yesterday,” remarked she, “asking about M. Paul.”
+
+“What sort of a looking person was it?”
+
+“Oh, a man like any other, nothing in particular about him, but he
+wasn’t a gentleman, for after keeping me for fully fifteen minutes
+talking and talking, he only gave me a five-franc piece.”
+
+The description was not one that would lead to a recognition of the
+person, and Tantaine asked in tones of extreme annoyance,--
+
+“Did you not notice anything particular about the man?”
+
+“Yes, he had on gold spectacles with the mountings as fine as a hair,
+and a watch chain as thick and heavy as I have ever seen.”
+
+“And is that all?”
+
+“Yes,” answered she. “Oh! there was one thing more--the person knows
+that you come here.”
+
+“Does he? Why do you think so?”
+
+“Because all the time he was talking to me he was in a rare fidget, and
+always kept his eyes on the door.”
+
+“Thanks, Mother Brigaut; mind and keep a sharp lookout,” returned
+Tantaine, as he slowly ascended the stairs.
+
+Every now and then he paused to think. “Who upon earth can this fellow
+be?” asked he of himself. He reviewed the whole question--chances,
+probabilities, and risks, not one was neglected, but all in vain.
+
+“A thousand devils!” growled he; “are the police at my heels?”
+
+His nerves were terribly shaken, and he strove in vain to regain his
+customary audacity. By this time he had reached the door of Paul’s room,
+and, on his ringing, the door was at once opened; but at the sight of
+this woman he started back, with a cry of angry surprise; for it was a
+female figure that stood before him, a young girl--Flavia, the daughter
+of Martin Rigal, the banker.
+
+The keen eyes of Tantaine showed him that Flavia’s visit had not been
+of long duration. She had removed her hat and jacket, and was holding in
+her hand a piece of fancy work.
+
+“Whom do you wish to see, sir?” asked she.
+
+The old man strove to speak, but his lips would not frame a single
+sentence. A band of steel seemed to be compressing his throat, and he
+appeared like a man about to be seized with an apoplectic fit.
+
+Flavia gazed upon the shabby-looking visitor with an expression of
+intense disgust. It seemed to her that she had seen him somewhere; in
+fact, there was an inexplicable manner about him which entirely puzzled
+her.
+
+“I want to speak to M. Paul,” said the old man in a low, hoarse whisper;
+“he is expecting me.”
+
+“Then come in; but just now his doctor is with him.”
+
+She threw open the door more widely, and stepped back, so that the
+greasy garments of the visitor might not touch her dress. He passed her
+with an abject bow, and crossed the little sitting-room with the air of
+a man who perfectly understands his way. He did not knock at the door
+of the bedroom, but went straight in; there a singular spectacle at once
+arrested his attention. Paul, with a very pale face, was seated on the
+bed, while Hortebise was attentively examining his bare shoulder. The
+whole of Paul’s right arm and shoulder was a large open wound, which
+seemed to have been caused by a burn or scald, and must have been
+extremely painful. The doctor was bending over him, applying a cooling
+lotion to the injured place with a small piece of sponge. He turned
+sharply round on Daddy Tantaine’s entrance; and so accustomed were these
+men to read each other’s faces at a glance that Hortebise saw at once
+what had happened; for Tantaine’s expression plainly said, “Is Flavia
+mad to be here?” while the eyes of Hortebise answered, “She may be, but
+I could not help it.”
+
+Paul turned, too, and greeted the old man with an exclamation of
+delight.
+
+“Come here,” said he merrily, “and just see to what a wretched state I
+have been reduced between the doctor and M. Mascarin.”
+
+Tantaine examined the wound carefully. “Are you quite sure,” asked he,
+“that not only will it deceive the Duke, who will see but with our eyes,
+but also those of his wife, and perhaps of his medical man?”
+
+“We will hoodwink the lot of them.”
+
+“And how long must we wait,” asked the old man, “until the place skins
+over, and assumes the appearance of having been there from childhood?”
+
+“In a month’s time Paul can be introduced to the Duke de Champdoce.”
+
+“Are you speaking seriously?”
+
+“Listen to me. The scar will not be quite natural then, but I intend to
+subject it to various other modes of treatment.”
+
+The dressing was now over, and Paul’s shirt being readjusted, he was
+permitted to lie down again.
+
+“I am quite willing to remain here forever,” said he, “as long as I
+am allowed to retain the services of the nurse that I have in the next
+room, and who, I am sure, is waiting with the greatest eagerness for
+your departure.”
+
+Hortebise fumed, and cast a glance at Paul which seemed to say, “Be
+silent;” but the conceited young man paid no heed to it.
+
+“How long has this charming nurse been with you?” asked Tantaine in an
+unnatural voice.
+
+“Ever since I have been in bed,” returned Paul with the air of a gay
+young fellow. “I wrote a note that I was unable to go over to her, so
+she came to me. I sent my letter at nine o’clock, and at ten minutes
+past she was with me.”
+
+The diplomatic doctor slipped behind Tantaine, and made violent gestures
+to endeavor to persuade Paul to keep silence, but all was in vain.
+
+“M. Martin Rigal,” continued the vain young fool, “passes the greater
+part of his life in his private office. As soon as he gets up he goes
+there, and is not seen for the rest of the day. Flavia can therefore do
+entirely as she likes. As soon as she knows that her worthy father is
+deep in his ledgers, she puts on her hat and runs round to me, and no
+one could have a kinder and a prettier visitor than she is.”
+
+The doctor was hard at work at his danger signals, but it was useless.
+Paul saw them, but did not comprehend their meaning; and Tantaine rubbed
+his glasses savagely.
+
+“You are perhaps deceiving yourself a little,” said he at last.
+
+“And why? You know that Flavia loves me, poor girl. I ought to marry
+her, and of course I shall; but still, if I do not do so--well, you
+know, I need say no more.”
+
+“You wretched scoundrel!” exclaimed the usually placid Tantaine. His
+manner was so fierce and threatening that Paul shifted his position to
+one nearer the wall.
+
+It was impossible for Tantaine to say another word, for Hortebise placed
+his hand upon his lips, and dragged him from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE TAFILA COPPER MINES, LIMITED.
+
+Paul could not for the life of him imagine why Tantaine had left the
+room in apparently so angry a mood. He had certainly spoken of Flavia
+in a most improper manner; for the very weakness of which she had been
+guilty should have caused him to treat her with tender deference and
+respect. He could understand the anger of Hortebise, who was Rigal’s
+friend; but what on earth had Tantaine in common with the wealthy banker
+and his daughter? Forgetful of the pain which the smallest movement upon
+his part produced, Paul sat up in his bed, and listened with intense
+eagerness, hoping to catch what was going on in the next room; but he
+could hear nothing through the thick walls and the closed door.
+
+“What can they be doing?” asked he. “What fresh plot are they
+contriving?”
+
+Daddy Tantaine and Hortebise passed out of the room hastily, but when
+they reached the staircase they stood still. The doctor wore the same
+smiling expression of face, and he endeavored to calm his companion, who
+appeared to be on the verge of desperation.
+
+“Have courage,” whispered he; “what is the use of giving way to passion?
+You cannot help this; it is too late now. Besides, even if you could,
+you would not, as you know very well, indeed!”
+
+The old man was moving his spectacles, not to wipe his glasses, but his
+eyes.
+
+“Ah!” moaned he, “now I can enter into the feelings of M. de Mussidan
+when I proved to him that his daughter had a lover. I have been hard and
+pitiless, and I am cruelly punished.”
+
+“My old friend, you must not attach too much importance to what you have
+heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster.”
+
+“Paul is a miserably cowardly dog,” answered the old man in a fierce
+undertone. “Paul does not love the girl as she loves him; but what he
+says is true, only too true, I can feel. Between her father and her
+lover she would not hesitate for a moment. Ah! unhappy girl, what a
+terrible future lies before her.”
+
+He stopped himself abruptly.
+
+“I cannot speak to her myself,” resumed he; “do you, doctor, strive and
+make her have reason.”
+
+Hortebise shrugged his shoulders. “I will see what my powers of oratory
+can do,” answered he; “but you are not quite yourself to-day. Remember
+that a chance word will betray the secret of our lives.”
+
+“Go at once, and I swear to you that, happen what may, I will be calm.”
+
+The doctor went back into Paul’s room, while Tantaine sat down on the
+topmost stair, his face buried in his hands.
+
+Mademoiselle Flavia was just going to Paul, when the doctor again
+appeared.
+
+“What, back again?” asked she petulantly. “I thought that you had been
+far away by this time.”
+
+“I want to say something to you,” answered he, “and something of a
+rather serious nature. You must not elevate those charming eyebrows. I
+see you guess what I am going to say, and you are right. I am come to
+tell you that this is not the proper place for Mademoiselle Rigal.”
+
+“I know that.”
+
+This unexpected reply, made with the calmest air in the world, utterly
+disconcerted the smiling doctor.
+
+“It seems to me----” began he.
+
+“That I ought not to be here; but then, you see, I place duty before
+cold, worldly dictates. Paul is very ill, and has no one to take care of
+him except his affianced bride; for has not my father given his consent
+to our union?”
+
+“Flavia, listen to the experience of a man of the world. The nature
+of men is such that they never forgive a woman for compromising her
+reputation, even though it be in their own favor. Do you know what
+people will say twenty-four hours after your marriage? Why, that you had
+been his mistress for weeks before, and that it was only the knowledge
+of that fact that inclined your father to consent to the alliance.”
+
+Flavia’s face grew crimson. “Very well,” said she, “I will obey, and
+never say again that I was obstinate; but let me say one word to Paul,
+and then I will leave him.”
+
+The doctor retired, not guessing that this obedience arose from the
+sudden suspicion which had arisen in Flavia’s mind. “It is done,” said
+he, as he rejoined Tantaine on the stairs; “let us hasten, for she will
+follow us at once.”
+
+By the time that Tantaine got into the street, he seemed to have
+recovered a certain amount of his self-command. “We have succeeded,”
+ said he, “but we shall have to work hard, and this marriage must be
+hastened by every means in our power. It can be celebrated now without
+any risk, for in twelve hours the only obstacle that stands between that
+youth there and the colossal fortune of the Champdoce will have vanished
+away.”
+
+Though he had expected something of the kind, the face of the doctor
+grew very pale.
+
+“What, Andre?” faltered he.
+
+“Andre is in great danger, doctor, and may not survive to-morrow, and a
+portion of the work necessary to this end will be done to-night by our
+young friend Toto Chupin.”
+
+“By that young scamp? Why, only the other day you laughed when I
+suggested employing him.”
+
+“I shall this time kill two birds with one stone. Once an investigation
+is made--let us speak plainly--into Andre’s death, there will be some
+inquiry made as to a certain window frame that has been sawed through,
+and suspicion will fall upon Toto Chupin, who will have been seen
+lurking about the spot. It will be proved that he purchased a saw, and
+that he changed just before a note for one thousand francs; he will be
+found hiding in a garret in the Hotel de Perou.”
+
+The doctor looked aghast. “Are you mad?” cried he. “Toto will accuse
+you.”
+
+“Very likely, but by that time poor old Tantaine will be dead and
+buried. Then Mascarin will disappear, our faithful Beaumarchef will be
+in the United States, and we can afford to laugh at the police.”
+
+“It seems like a success,” said the doctor, “but push on for mercy’s
+sake; all these delays and fluctuations will make me seriously ill.”
+
+The two worthy associates held this conversation in a doorway, anxious
+to be sure that Flavia had kept her promise. In a brief space of time
+they saw her come out of the house and move in the direction of her
+father’s bank.
+
+“Now,” said Tantaine, “I can go in peace, doctor; farewell for the
+present;” and without waiting for a reply he was walking rapidly away
+when he was stopped by Beaumarchef, who came up breathless and barred
+his passage.
+
+“I was looking for you,” cried he; “the Marquis de Croisenois is in the
+office and is swearing at me like anything.”
+
+“Go back to the office and tell the Marquis that the master will soon be
+with him;” and thus speaking, Tantaine disappeared down a court by the
+side of Martin Rigal’s house.
+
+The Marquis was striding up and down the office, every now and then
+discharging a rumbling cannonade of oaths. “Fine business people,”
+ remarked he, “to make an appointment and then not to keep it!” He
+checked himself; for the door of the inner office slowly opened, and
+Mascarin appeared on the threshold. “Punctuality,” said he, “does not
+consist in coming _before_, but _at_ the time appointed.”
+
+The Marquis was cowed at once, and followed Mascarin into the sanctum
+and watched him with curious gaze as the redoubtable head of the
+association seemed to be searching for something among the papers on his
+desk. When Mascarin had found what he was in search of, he turned and
+addressed the Marquis.
+
+“I desired to see you,” said he, “with reference to the great financial
+enterprise which you are to launch almost immediately.”
+
+“Yes; I understand that we must discuss it, fully understand it, and
+feel our way.”
+
+Mascarin uttered a contemptuous whistle.
+
+“Do you think,” asked he, “that I am the kind of person to stand
+and wait while you feel your way? Because if you do, the sooner you
+undeceive yourself the better. Things that I take in hand are carried
+out like a flash of lightning. You have been playing while I and Catenac
+have been working, and nothing remains to be done but to act.”
+
+“Act! What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that offices have been taken in the Rue Vivienne, that the
+articles of association have been drawn up, the directors chosen,
+and the Company registered. The printer brought the prospectus here
+yesterday; you can begin sending them out to-morrow.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Read it for yourself,” said Mascarin, handing a printed paper to him.
+“Read, and then, perhaps, you will be convinced.”
+
+Croisenois, in a dazed sort of manner, accepted the paper and read it
+aloud.
+
+COPPER MINES OF TAFILA, ALGERIA.
+
+Chairman: THE MARQUIS HENRI DE CROISENOIS.
+
+Capital: Four Million Francs.
+
+This company does not appeal to that rash class of speculators who are
+willing to incur great risks for the sake of obtaining for a time heavy
+dividends.
+
+The shareholders in the Tafila Copper Mining Company, Limited, must not
+look for a dividend of more than six, or at the utmost seven, per cent.
+
+“Well,” interrupted Mascarin, “what do you think of this for a
+beginning?”
+
+“It seems fair enough,” answered De Croisenois, “but suppose others than
+those whose names you have in your black list take shares, what do you
+say we are to do then?”
+
+“We should simply decline to allot shares to them, that is all. See the
+Article XX. in the Articles of Association. ‘The Board of Directors may
+decline to allot shares to applicants without giving any reason for so
+doing.’”
+
+“And suppose,” continued the Marquis, “that one of our own people
+dispose of his share, may we not find our new shareholder a thorn in our
+side?”
+
+“Article XXI. ‘No transfer of stock is valid, unless passed by the Board
+of Directors, and recorded in the books of the Company,’” read out
+Mascarin.
+
+“And how will the game be brought to a conclusion?”
+
+“Easily enough. You will advertise one morning that two-thirds of the
+capital having been unsuccessfully sunk in the enterprise, you are
+compelled to apply for a winding-up of the Company under Article XVII.
+Six months afterwards you will announce that the liquidation of
+the Company has, after all expenses have been paid, left no balance
+whatsoever. Then you wash your hands of the whole thing, and the matter
+is at an end.”
+
+Croisenois felt that he had no ground to stand upon, but he ventured on
+one more objection.
+
+“It seems rather a strange thing to launch this enterprise at the
+present moment. May it not interfere with my marriage prospects? and may
+not the Count de Mussidan decline to give me his daughter and risk her
+dowry in this manner? One moment, I--”
+
+The agent sneered and cut short the tergiversations of the Marquis.
+
+“You mean, I suppose,” said he, “that when once you are safely married
+and have received Mademoiselle Sabine’s dowry, you will take leave
+of us. Not so, my dear young friend; and if this is your idea, put it
+aside, for it is utter nonsense. I should hold you then as I do now.”
+
+The Marquis saw that any further struggle would be of no avail, and gave
+in.
+
+* * * * *
+
+That evening, when M. Martin Rigal emerged from his private office, his
+daughter Flavia was more than usually demonstrative in her tokens of
+affection. “How fondly I love you, my dearest father!” said she, as
+she rained kisses on his cheeks. “How good you are to me!” but on this
+occasion the banker was too much preoccupied to ask his daughter the
+reason for this extreme tenderness on her part.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE VEILED PORTRAIT.
+
+The danger with which Andre was menaced was most terrible, and the
+importance of the game he was playing made him feel that he had
+everything to fear from the boldness and audacity of his enemies. He
+knew this, and he also knew that spies dogged all his movements. What
+could be wanted but a favorable opportunity to assassinate him. But even
+this knowledge did not make him hesitate for an instant, and all his
+caution was fully exercised, for he felt that should he perish, Sabine
+would be inevitably lost. On her account he acted with a prudence which
+was certainly not one of his general characteristics. He was quite aware
+that he might put himself under the protection of the police, but this
+he knew would be to imperil the honor of the Mussidan family. He was
+sure that with time and patience he should be able to unravel the
+plots of the villains who were at work. But he had not time to do so by
+degrees. No, he must make a bold dash at once. The hideous sacrifice of
+which Sabine was to be the victim was being hurried on, and it seemed to
+him as if his very existence was being carried away by the hours as
+they flitted by. He went over recent events carefully one by one, and
+he strove to piece them together as a child does the portions of a
+dissected map. He wanted to find out the one common interest that bound
+all these plotters together--Verminet, Van Klopen, Mascarin, Hortebise,
+and Martin Rigal. As he submitted all this strange combination of
+persons to the test, the thought of Gaston de Gandelu came across his
+mind.
+
+“Is it not curious,” thought he, “that this unhappy boy should be the
+victim of the cruel band of miscreants who are trying to destroy us? It
+is strange, very strange.”
+
+Suddenly he started to his feet, for a fresh idea had flashed across
+his brain--a thought that was as yet but crude and undefined, but which
+seemed to bear the promise of hope and deliverance. It seemed to him
+that the affair of young Gandelu was closely connected with his own,
+that they were part and parcel of the same dark plot, and that these
+bills with their forged acceptance had more to do with him than he had
+ever imagined. How it was that he and Gaston could be connected he could
+not for a moment guess; yet now he would have cheerfully sworn that
+such was the case. Who was it that had informed the father of the son’s
+conduct? Why, Catenac. Who had advised that proceedings should be taken
+against Rose, _alias_ Zora? Why, Catenac again; and this same man, in
+addition to acting for Gandelu, it seems, was also the confidential
+solicitor of the Marquis de Croisenois and Verminet. Perhaps he had only
+obeyed their instructions. All this was very vague and unsatisfactory,
+but it might be something to go upon, and who could say what conclusion
+careful inquiry might not lead him to? and Andre determined to carry on
+his investigations, and endeavor to find the hidden links that connected
+this chain of rascality together. He had taken up a pencil with the view
+of making a few notes, when he heard a knock at his door. He glanced at
+the clock; it was not yet nine.
+
+“Come in,” cried he as he rose.
+
+The door was thrown open, and the young artist started as he recognized
+in his early visitor the father of Sabine. It was after a sleepless
+night that the Count had decided to take the present step. He was
+terribly agitated, but had had time to prepare himself for this
+all-important interview.
+
+“You will, I trust, pardon me, sir,” said he, “for making such an early
+call upon you, but I thought that I should be sure to find you at this
+hour, and much wanted to see you.”
+
+Andre bowed.
+
+In the space of one brief instant a thousand suppositions, each one more
+unlikely than the other, coursed through his brain. Why had the Count
+called? Who could have given him his address? And was the visit friendly
+or hostile?
+
+“I am a great admirer of paintings,” began the Count, “and one of my
+friends upon whose taste I can rely has spoken to me in the warmest
+terms of your talent. This I trust will explain the liberty I have
+taken. Curiosity drove me to----”
+
+He paused for a moment, and then added,--
+
+“My name is the Marquis de Bevron.”
+
+The concealment of the Count’s real name showed Andre that the visit was
+not entirely a friendly one, and Andre replied,--
+
+“I am only too pleased to receive your visit. Unfortunately just now I
+have nothing ready, only a few rough sketches in short. Would you like
+to see them?”
+
+The Count replied eagerly in the affirmative. He was terribly
+embarrassed under his fictitious name, and shrank before the honest,
+open gaze of the young artist, and his mental disturbance was completed
+by seeing in one corner of the room the picture covered with a green
+cloth, which Tantaine had alluded to. It was evident that the old
+villain had told the truth, and that his daughter’s portrait was
+concealed behind this wrapper. She had evidently been here--had spent
+hours here, and whose fault was it? She had but listened to the voice of
+her heart, and had sought that affection abroad which she was unable to
+obtain at home. As the Count gazed upon the young man before him, he was
+forced to admit that Mademoiselle Sabine had not fixed her affections on
+an unworthy object, for at the very first glance he had been struck with
+the manly beauty of the young artist, and the clear intelligence of his
+face.
+
+“Ah,” thought Andre, “you come to me under a name that is not your
+own, and I will respect your wish to remain unknown, but I will take
+advantage of it by letting you know things which I should not dare say
+to your face.”
+
+Great as was Andre’s preoccupation, he could not fail to notice that his
+visitor’s eyes sought the veiled picture with strange persistency. While
+M. de Mussidan was looking at the various sketches on the walls, Andre
+had time to recover all his self-command.
+
+“Let me congratulate you, sir,” remarked the Count, as he returned to
+the spot where the painter was standing. “My friend’s admiration was
+well founded. I am sorry, however, that you have nothing finished to
+show me. You say that you have nothing, I believe?”
+
+“Nothing, Marquis.”
+
+“Not even that picture whose frame I can distinguish through the serge
+curtain that covers it?”
+
+Andre blushed, though he had been expecting the question from the
+commencement.
+
+“Excuse me,” answered he; “that picture is certainly finished, but it is
+not on view.”
+
+The Count was now sure that Tantaine’s statement was correct.
+
+“I suppose that it is some woman’s portrait,” remarked the false
+Marquis.
+
+“You are quite correct.”
+
+Both men were much agitated at this moment, and avoided meeting each
+other’s eyes.
+
+The Count, however, had made up his mind that he would go on to the end.
+
+“Ah, you are in love, I see!” remarked he with a forced laugh. “All
+great artists have depicted the charms of their mistresses on canvas.”
+
+“Stop,” cried Andre with an angry glance in his eyes. “The picture you
+refer to is the portrait of the purest and most innocent girl in the
+world. I shall love her all my life; but, if possible, my respect for
+her is greater than my love. I should consider myself a most degraded
+wretch, had I ever whispered in her ear a word that her mother might not
+have listened to.”
+
+A feeling of the most instantaneous relief thrilled through M. de
+Mussidan’s heart.
+
+“You will pardon me,” suggested he blandly, “but when one sees a
+portrait in a studio, the inference is that a sitting or two has taken
+place?”
+
+“You are right. She came here secretly, and without the knowledge of her
+family, at the risk of her honor and reputation, thus affording me the
+strongest proof of her love. It was cruel of me,” continued the young
+artist, “to accept this proof of her entire devotion, and yet not only
+did I accept it, but I pleaded for it on my bended knee, for how else
+was I to hear the music of her voice, or gladden my eyes with her
+beauty? We love each other, but a gulf wider than the stormy sea divides
+us. She is an heiress, come of a proud and haughty line of nobles, while
+I----”
+
+Andre paused, waiting for some words wither of encouragement or censure;
+but the Count remained silent, and the young man continued,--
+
+“Do you know who I am? A poor foundling, placed in the Hospital of
+Vendome, the illicit offspring of some poor betrayed girl. I started in
+the world with twenty francs in my pocket, and found my way to Paris;
+since then I have earned my bread by my daily work. You only see here
+the more brilliant side of my life; for an artist here--I am a common
+work-man elsewhere.”
+
+If M. de Mussidan remained silent, it was from extreme admiration of the
+noble character, which was so unexpectedly revealed to him, and he was
+endeavoring to conceal it.
+
+“She knows all this,” pursued Andre, “and yet she loves me. It was here,
+in this very room, that she vowed that she could never be the wife
+of another. Not a month ago, a gentleman, well born, wealthy, and
+fascinating, with every characteristic that a woman could love, was a
+suitor for her hand. She went boldly to him, told him the story of our
+love, and, like a noble-hearted gentleman, he withdrew at once, and
+to-day is my best and kindest friend. Now, Marquis, would you like to
+see this young girl’s picture?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the Count, “and I shall feel deeply grateful to you for
+such a mark of confidence.”
+
+Andre went to the picture, but as he touched the curtain he turned
+quickly towards his visitor.
+
+“No,” said he, “I can no longer continue this farce; it is unworthy of
+me.”
+
+M. de Mussidan turned pale.
+
+“I am about to see Sabine de Mussidan’s portrait. Draw the curtain.”
+
+Andre obeyed, and for a moment the Count stood entranced before the work
+of genius that met his eyes.
+
+“It is she!” said the father. “Her very smile; the same soft light in
+her eyes. It is exquisite!”
+
+Misfortune is a harsh teacher; some weeks ago he would have smiled
+superciliously at the mere idea of granting his daughter’s hand to a
+struggling artist, for then he thought only of M. de Breulh, but now
+he would have esteemed it a precious boon had he been allowed to choose
+Andre as Sabine’s husband. But Henri de Croisenois stood in the way,
+and as this idea flashed across the Count’s mind he gave a perceptible
+start. He was sure from the excessive calmness of the young man that he
+must be well acquainted with all recent events. He asked the question,
+and Andre, in the most open manner, told him all he knew. The generosity
+of M. de Breulh, the kindness of Madame Bois Arden, his suspicions, his
+inquiries, his projects, and his hopes. M. de Mussidan gazed once more
+upon his daughter’s portrait, and then taking the hand of the young
+painter, said,--
+
+“M. Andre, if ever we can free ourselves from those miscreants, whose
+daggers are pointed at our hearts, Sabine shall be your wife.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+GASTON’S DILEMMA.
+
+Yes, Sabine might yet be his, but between the lovers stood the forms of
+Croisenois and his associates. But now he felt strong enough to contend
+with them all.
+
+“To work!” said he, “to work!”
+
+Just then, however, he heard a sound of ringing laughter outside his
+door. He could distinguish a woman’s voice, and also a man’s, speaking
+in high, shrill tones. All at once his door burst open, and a hurricane
+of silks, velvets, feathers, and lace whirled in. With extreme surprise,
+the young artist recognized the beautiful features of Rose, _alias_ Zora
+de Chantemille. Gaston de Gandelu followed her, and at once began,--
+
+“Here we are,” said he, “all right again. Did you expect to see us?”
+
+“Not in the least.”
+
+“Ah! well, it is a little surprise of the governor’s. On my word, I
+really will be a dutiful son for the future. To-day, the good old boy
+came into my room, and said, ‘This morning I took the necessary steps to
+release the person in whom you are interested. Go and meet her.’ What do
+you think of that? So off I ran to find Zora, and here we are.”
+
+Andre did not pay much attention to Gaston, but was engaged in watching
+Zora, who was looking round the studio. She went up to Sabine’s
+portrait, and was about to draw the curtain, when Andre exclaimed,--
+
+“Excuse me,” said he; “I must put this picture to dry.” And as the
+portrait stood on a moveable easel, he wheeled it into the adjoining
+room.
+
+“And now,” said Gaston, “I want you to come and breakfast with us to
+celebrate Zora’s happy release.”
+
+“I am much obliged to you, but it is impossible. I must get on with my
+work.”
+
+“Yes, yes; work is an excellent thing, but just now you must go and
+dress.”
+
+“I assure you that it is quite out of the question. I cannot leave the
+studio yet.”
+
+Gaston paused for a moment in deep thought.
+
+“I have it,” said he triumphantly. “You will not come to breakfast; then
+breakfast shall come to you. I am off to order it.”
+
+Andre ran after him, but Gaston was too quick, and he returned to the
+studio in anything but an amiable temper. Zora noticed his evident
+annoyance.
+
+“He always goes on in this absurd way,” said she, with a shrug of her
+pretty shoulders, “and thinks himself so clever and witty, bah!”
+
+Her tone disclosed such contempt for Gaston that Andre looked at her in
+perplexed surprise.
+
+“What do you look so astonished at? It is easy to see you do not know
+much of him. All his friends are just like him; if you listen to them
+for half an hour at a stretch, you get regularly sick. When I think of
+the terrible evenings that I have spent in their company, I feel ready
+to die with yawning;” and as she spoke, she suited the action to the
+word. “Ah! if he really loved me!” added she.
+
+“Love you! Why, he adores you.”
+
+Zora made a little gesture of contempt which Toto Chupin might have
+envied.
+
+“Do you think so?” said she. “Do you know what it is he loves in me?
+When people pass me they cry out, ‘Isn’t she good style?’ and then the
+idiot is as pleased as Punch; but if I had on a cotton gown, he would
+think nothing of me.”
+
+Rose had evidently learned a good ideal, as her beauty had never been so
+radiant. She was one glow of health and strength.
+
+“Then my name was not good enough for him,” she went on. “His
+aristocratic lips could not bring themselves to utter such a common name
+as Rose, so he christened me Zora, a regular puppy dog’s name. He has
+plenty of money, but money is not everything after all. Paul had no
+money, and yet I loved him a thousand times better. On my word, I have
+almost forgotten how to laugh, and yet I used to be as merry as the day
+was long.”
+
+“Why did you leave Paul then?”
+
+“Well, you see, I wanted to experience what a woman feels when she has
+a Cashmere shawl on, so one fine morning I took wing. But there, who
+knows? Paul would very likely have left me one day. There was some
+one who was doing his best to separate us, an old blackguard called
+Tantaine, who lived in the same house.”
+
+“Ah!” answered he cautiously. “What interest could he have had in
+separating you?”
+
+“I don’t know,” answered the girl, assuming a serious air; “but I am
+sure he was trying it on. A fellow doesn’t hand over banknotes for
+nothing, and I saw him give one for five hundred francs to Paul; and
+more than that, he promised him that he should make a great fortune
+through a friend of his called Mascarin.”
+
+Andre started. He remembered the visit that Paul had made him, on the
+pretext of restoring the twenty francs he had borrowed, and at which
+he had boasted that he had an income of a thousand francs a month, and
+might make more, though he had not said how this was to be done. “I
+think that Paul has forgotten me. I saw him once at Van Klopen’s, and he
+never attempted to say a word to me. He was certainly with that Mascarin
+at the time.”
+
+Andre could only draw one conclusion from this, either that Paul was
+protected by the band of conspirators, or else that he formed one of it.
+In that case he was useful to them; while Rose, who was in their way,
+was persecuted by them. Andre’s mind came to this conclusion in
+an instant. It seemed to him that if Catenac had been desirous of
+imprisoning Rose, it was because she was in the way, and her presence
+disturbed certain combinations. Before, however, he could work out his
+line of deduction, Gaston’s shrill voice was heard upon the stairs, and
+in another moment he made his appearance.
+
+“Place for the banquet,” said he; “make way for the lordly feast.”
+
+Two waiters followed him, bearing a number of covered dishes on trays.
+At another time Andre would have been very angry at this invasion, and
+at the prospect of a breakfast that would last two or three hours and
+utterly change everything; but now he was inclined to bless Gaston for
+his happy idea, and, with the assistance of Rose, he speedily cleared a
+large table for the reception of the viands.
+
+Gaston did nothing, but talked continually.
+
+“And now I must tell you the joke of the day. Henri de Croisenois, one
+of my dearest friends, has absolutely launched a Company.”
+
+Andre nearly let fall a bottle, which he was about to place upon the
+table.
+
+“Who told you this?” asked he quickly.
+
+“Who told me? Why, a great big flaming poster. Tafila Copper Mines;
+capital, four millions. And my esteemed friend, Henri, has not a
+five-franc piece to keep the devil out of his pocket.”
+
+The face of the young artist expressed such blank surprise that Gaston
+burst into a loud laugh.
+
+“You look just as I did when I read it. Henri de Croisenois, the
+chairman of a Company! Why, if you had been elected Pope, I should not
+have been more surprised. Tafila Copper Mines! What a joke! The shares
+are five hundred francs.”
+
+The waiters had now retired, and Gaston urged his friends to take their
+places at the table, and all seemed merry as a marriage bell; but many a
+gay commencement has a stormy ending.
+
+Gaston, whose shallow brain could not stand the copious draughts of wine
+with which he washed down his repast, began all at once to overwhelm
+Zora with bitter reproaches at her not being able to comprehend how a
+man like him, who was destined to play a serious part in society, could
+have been led away, as he had been, by a person like her.
+
+Gaston had a tongue which was never at a loss either to praise or blame,
+and Zora was equally ready to retort, and defended herself with such
+acrimony that the lad, knowing himself to be in fault, entirely lost the
+small remnant of temper which he still possessed, and dashed out of the
+room, declaring that he never wished to set eyes upon Zora again, and
+that she might keep all the presents that he had lavished upon her for
+all he cared.
+
+His departure was hailed with delight by Andre, who, now that he was
+left alone with Zora, hoped to derive some further information from her,
+and especially a distinct description of Paul, whom he felt that he
+must now reckon among his adversaries. But his hopes were destined to
+be frustrated, for Zora was so filled with anger and excitement that she
+refused to listen to another word; and putting on her hat and mantle,
+with scarcely a glance at the mirror, rushed out of the studio with
+the utmost speed, declaring that she would seek out Paul, and make him
+revenge the insults that Gaston had put on her.
+
+All this passed so rapidly that the young painter felt as if a tornado
+had passed through his humble dwelling; but as peace and calm returned,
+he began to see that Providence had directly interposed in his favor,
+and had sent Rose and Gaston to his place to furnish him with fresh and
+important facts. All that Rose had said, incomplete as her statement
+was, had thrown a ray of light upon an intrigue which, up till now, had
+been shaded in the thickest gloom. The relations of Paul with Mascarin
+explained why Catenac had been so anxious to have Rose imprisoned, and
+also seemed to hint vaguely at the reason for the extraction of the
+forged signatures from the simple Gaston. What could be the meaning
+of the Company started by De Croisenois at the very moment when he was
+about to celebrate his union with Sabine?
+
+Andre desired to see the advertisement of the Company for himself; and
+without stopping to change his blouse, ran downstairs to the corner
+of the street, where Gaston had told him that the announcement of the
+Company was placarded up. He found it there, in a most conspicuous
+position, with all its advantages most temptingly set forth. Nothing
+was wanting; and there was even a woodcut of Tafila, in Algiers, which
+represented the copper mines in full working operation; while at the
+top, the name of the chairman, the Marquis de Croisenois, stood out in
+letters some six inches in height.
+
+Andre stood gazing at this wonderful production for fully five minutes,
+when all at once a gleam of prudence flashed across his mind.
+
+“I am a fool,” said he to himself. “How do I know how many watchful eyes
+are now fixed on me, reading on my countenance my designs regarding this
+matter and its leading spirit?”
+
+Upon his return to his room, he sat for more than an hour, turning over
+the whole affair in his mind, and at length he flattered himself that
+he had hit upon an expedient. Behind the house in which he lodged was a
+large garden, belonging to some public institution, the front of which
+was in the Rue Laval. A wall of about seven feet in height divided these
+grounds from the premises in the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne. Why should
+he not go out by the way of these ornamental grounds and so elude the
+vigilance of the spies who might be in waiting at the front of the
+house?
+
+“I can,” thought he, “alter my appearance so much that I shall not
+be recognized. I need not return here to sleep. I can ask a bed from
+Vignol, who will help me in every possible way.”
+
+This Vignol was the friend to whom, at Andre’s request, M. Gandelu had
+given the superintendence of the works at his new house in the Champs
+Elysees.
+
+“I shall,” continued he, “by this means escape entirely from De
+Croisenois and his emissaries, and can watch their game without their
+having any suspicion of my doing so. For the time being, of course, I
+must give up seeing those who have been helping me,--De Breulh, Gandelu,
+Madame de Bois Arden, and M. de Mussidan; that, however, cannot be
+avoided. I can use the post, and by it will inform them all of the step
+that I have taken.”
+
+It was dark before he had finished his letters, and, of course, it was
+too late to try anything that day; consequently he went out, posted his
+letters, and dined at the nearest restaurant.
+
+On his return home, he proceeded to arrange his disguise. He had it
+ready, among his clothes: a blue blouse, a pair of check trousers,
+well-worn shoes, and a shabby cap, were all that he required, and he
+then applied himself to the task of altering his face. He first shaved
+off his beard. Then he twisted down two locks of hair, which he managed
+to make rest on his forehead. Then he commenced applying some coloring
+to his face with a paint-brush; but this he found to be an extremely
+difficult business, and it was not for a long while that he was
+satisfied with the results that he had produced. He then knotted an old
+handkerchief round his neck, and clapped his cap on one side, with the
+peak slanting over one eye. Then he took a last glance in the glass,
+and felt that he had rendered himself absolutely unrecognizable. He was
+about to impart a few finishing touches, when a knock came at his door.
+He was not expecting any one at such an hour, nine o’clock; for the
+waiters from the restaurant had already removed the remains of the
+feast.
+
+“Who is there?” cried he.
+
+“It is I,” replied a weak voice; “I, Gaston de Gandelu.”
+
+Andre decided that he had no cause to distrust the lad, and so he opened
+his door.
+
+“Has M. Andre gone out?” asked the poor boy faintly. “I though I heard
+his voice.”
+
+Gaston had not penetrated his disguise, and this was Andre’s first
+triumph; but he saw now that he must alter his voice, as well as his
+face.
+
+“Don’t you know me?” asked he.
+
+It was evident that young Gaston had received some terrible shock; for
+it could not have been the quarrel in the morning that had reduced him
+to this abject state of prostration.
+
+“What has gone wrong with you?” asked Andre kindly.
+
+“I have come to bid you farewell; I am going to shoot myself in half an
+hour.”
+
+“Have you gone mad?”
+
+“Not in the least,” answered Gaston, passing his hand across his
+forehead in a distracted manner; “but those infernal bills have turned
+up. I was just leaving the dining-room, after having treated the
+governor to my company, when the butler whispered in my ear that
+there was a man outside who wanted to see me. I went out and found a
+dirty-looking old scamp, with his coat collar turned up round the nape
+of his neck.”
+
+“Did he say that his name was Tantaine?” exclaimed Andre.
+
+“Ah! was that his name? Well, it doesn’t matter. He told me in the most
+friendly manner that the holder of my bills had determined to place them
+in the hands of the police to-morrow at twelve o’clock, but that there
+was still a way for me to escape.”
+
+“And this was to take Rose out of France with you,” said Andre quickly.
+
+Gaston was overwhelmed with surprise.
+
+“Who the deuce told you that?” asked he.
+
+“No one; I guessed it; for it was only the conclusion of the plan
+which they had initiated when you were induced to forge Martin Rigal’s
+signature. Well, what did you say?”
+
+“That the idea was a ridiculous one, and that I would not stir a yard.
+They shall find out that I can be obstinate, too; besides, I can see
+their little game. As soon as I am out of the way they will go to the
+governor and bleed him.”
+
+But Andre was not listening to him. What was best to be done? To advise
+Gaston to go and take Rose with him was to deprive himself of a great
+element of success; and to permit him to kill himself was, of course,
+out of the question.
+
+“Just attend to me,” said he at last; “I have an idea which I will tell
+you as soon as we are out of this house; but for reasons which are too
+long to go into at present it is necessary for me to get into the street
+without going through the door. You will, therefore, go away, and as the
+clock strikes twelve you will ring at the gateway of 29, Rue de Laval.
+When it is opened, ask some trivial question of the porter; and when
+you leave, take care that you do not close the gate. I shall be in the
+garden of the house and will slip out and join you.”
+
+The plan succeeded admirably, and in ten minutes Gaston and Andre were
+walking along the boulevards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+M. LECOQ.
+
+The Marquis de Croisenois lived in a fine new house on the Boulevard
+Malesherbes near the church of St. Augustine, and in a suite of rooms
+the rental of which was four thousand francs per annum. He had collected
+together sufficient relics of his former splendor to dazzle the eyes of
+the superficial observer. The apartment and the furniture stood in the
+name of his body-servant, while his horse and brougham were by the same
+fiction supposed to be the property of his coachman, for even in the
+midst of his ruin the Marquis de Croisenois could not go on foot like
+common people.
+
+The Marquis had two servants only in his modest establishment--a
+coachman, who did a certain amount of indoor work, and a valet, who knew
+enough of cookery to prepare a bachelor breakfast. This valet Mascarin
+had seen once, and the man had then produced so unpleasant an impression
+on the astute proprietor of the Servants’ Registry Office that he had
+set every means at work to discover who he was and from whence he
+came. Croisenois said that he had taken him into his service on the
+recommendation of an English baronet of his acquaintance, a certain Sir
+Richard Wakefield. The man was a Frenchman, but he had resided for some
+time in England, for he spoke that language with tolerable fluency.
+Andre knew nothing of these details, but he had heard of the existence
+of the valet from M. de Breulh, when he had asked where the Marquis
+lived.
+
+At eight o’clock on the morning after he had surreptitiously left his
+home in the manner described, Andre took up his position in a small
+wine-shop not far from the abode of the Marquis de Croisenois. He had
+done this designedly, for he knew enough of the manner and customs of
+Parisian society to know that this was the hour usually selected by
+domestics in fashionable quarters to come out for a gossip while their
+masters were still in bed. Andre had more confidence in himself than
+heretofore, for he had succeeded in saving Gaston; and these were
+the means he had employed. After much trouble, and even by the use of
+threats, he had persuaded the boy to return to his father’s house. He
+had gone with him; and though it was two in the morning, he had not
+hesitated to arouse M. Gandelu, senior, and tell him how his son had
+been led on to commit the forgery, and how he threatened to commit
+suicide.
+
+The poor old man was much moved.
+
+“Tell him to come to me at once,” said he, “and let him know that we two
+will save him.”
+
+Andre had not far to go, for Gaston was waiting in the next room in an
+agony of suspense.
+
+As soon as he came into the old man’s presence he fell upon his knees,
+with many promises of amendment for the future.
+
+“I do not believe,” remarked old Gandelu, “that these miscreants will
+venture to carry their threats into execution and place the matter in
+the hands of the police; but for all that, my son must not remain in
+a state of suspense. I will file a complaint against the Mutual Loan
+Society before twelve to-day, and we will see how an association will be
+dealt with that lends money to minors and urges them to forge signatures
+as security. It will, however, be as well for my son to leave for
+Belgium by the first train this morning; but, as you will see, he will
+not remain very many days.”
+
+Andre remained for the rest of the hours of darkness at the kind old
+man’s house, and it was in Gaston’s room that he renewed his “make-up”
+ before leaving. The future looked very bright to him as he walked gayly
+up the Boulevard Malesherbes. The wine-shop in which he had taken up his
+position was admirably adapted for keeping watch on De Croisenois, for
+he could not avoid seeing all who came in and went out of the house;
+and as there was no other wine-shop in the neighborhood, Andre felt
+sure that all the servants in the vicinity, and those of the Marquis, of
+course, among the number, would come there in the course of the morning;
+so that here he could get into conversation with them, offer them a
+glass of wine, and, perhaps, get some information from them. The
+room was large and airy, and was full of customers, most of whom were
+servants. Andre was racking his brain for a means of getting into
+conversation with the proprietor, when two new-comers entered the room.
+These men were in full livery, while all the other servants had on
+morning jackets. As soon as they entered, an old man, with a calm
+expression of face, who was struggling perseveringly with a tough
+beefsteak at the same table as that by which Andre was seated,
+observed,--
+
+“Ah! here comes the De Croisenois’ lot.”
+
+“If they would only sit here,” thought Andre, “by the side of this
+fellow, who evidently knows them, I could hear all they said.”
+
+By good luck they did so, begging that they might be served at once, as
+they were in a tremendous hurry.
+
+“What is the haste this morning?” asked the old man who had recognized
+them.
+
+“I have to drive the master to his office, for he has one now. He is
+chairman of a Copper Mining Company, and a fine thing it is, too. If you
+have any money laid by, M. Benoit, this is a grand chance for you.”
+
+Benoit shook his head gravely.
+
+“All is not gold that glitters,” said he sententiously; “nor, on the
+other hand, are things as bad as they are painted.”
+
+Benoit was evidently a prudent man, and was not likely to commit
+himself.
+
+“But if your master is going out, you, M. Mouret, will be free, and we
+can have a game at cards together.”
+
+“No, sir,” answered the valet.
+
+“What! are you engaged too?”
+
+“Yes; I have to carry a bouquet of flowers to the young lady my master
+is engaged to. I have seen the young lady; she seems to be rather
+haughty.”
+
+The man, who wore an enormously high and stiff collar, was absolutely
+speaking of Sabine, and Andre could have twisted his neck with pleasure.
+
+“Let us hope,” remarked the coachman, as he hastily swallowed his
+breakfast, “that the Marquis does not intend to invest his wife’s dowry
+in this new venture of his.”
+
+The men then ceased to speak of their master, and began to busy
+themselves with their own affairs, and went out again without alluding
+to him any further, leaving Andre to reflect what a difficult business
+the detective line was.
+
+The customers looked upon him with distrustful eyes, for it must be
+confessed that his appearance was decidedly against him, and he had not
+yet acquired the necessary art of seeing and hearing while affecting to
+be doing neither; and it was easy for the dullest observer to be certain
+that it was not for the sake of obtaining a breakfast that he had
+entered the establishment. Andre had penetration enough to see the
+effect he had produced, and he became more and more embarrassed. He had
+finished his meal now and had lighted a cigar, and had ordered a small
+glass of brandy. Nearly all the customers had withdrawn, leaving only
+five or six, who were playing cards at a table near the door. Andre
+was anxious to see Croisenois enter his carriage, and so he lingered,
+ordering another glass of brandy as an excuse.
+
+He had just been served, when a man, whose dress very much resembled his
+own, lounged into the wine-shop. He was a tall, clumsily built fellow,
+with an insolent expression upon his beardless face. His coat and cap
+were in an equally dilapidated condition; and in the squeaky voice of
+the rough, he ordered a plate of beef and half a bottle of wine, and,
+as he brushed past Andre, upset his glass of brandy. The artist made no
+remark, though he felt quite sure that this act was intentional, as the
+fellow laughed impudently when he saw the damage that he had done. When
+his breakfast was served, he carelessly spit upon Andre’s boots. The
+insult was so apparent that Andre began to reflect.
+
+“Had he not succeeded in eluding his spies, as he thought that he had
+done? And was it not quite possible that this man had been sent to pick
+a quarrel with him, and deal him a disabling, or even a fatal blow?”
+
+Prudence counselled him to leave the place at once, but he felt that he
+could not go until he had found out the real truth. There seemed to be
+but little doubt on the matter, however; for as the fellow cut up his
+meat, he jerked every bit of skin and gristle into his neighbor’s lap;
+then, after finishing up his wine, he managed to upset the few drops
+remaining on to Andre’s arm and shoulder. This was the finishing stroke.
+
+“Please, remember,” remarked Andre calmly, “that there is some one at
+the table besides yourself.”
+
+“Do you think I’m blind, mate?” returned the fellow brutally. “Mind your
+own business, or----” And to conclude the sentence, he shook his fist
+threateningly in the young man’s face.
+
+Andre started to his feet, and, with a well-directed blow in the chest,
+sent the fellow rolling under the table.
+
+At the sound of the scuffle, the card-players turned round, and saw
+Andre standing erect, with quivering lips and eyes flashing with rage,
+while his antagonist was lying on the floor among the overturned chairs.
+
+“Come, come! No squabbling here!” remarked one of the players.
+
+The fellow scrambled to his feet, and made a savage rush at the young
+man, who, using his right foot skilfully, tripped his antagonist up,
+and sent him again rolling on the ground. It was most adroitly done, and
+secured the applause of the lookers-on, who now complained no longer,
+and were evidently interested in the scene.
+
+Again the rough came up, but Andre contented himself with standing on
+the defensive. Some tables, a stool, and a glass were injured, and at
+last the proprietor came upon the scene of action.
+
+“Get out of this,” cried he, “and take care that I don’t see your faces
+here again.”
+
+At these words, the rough burst out into a torrent of foul language.
+
+“Don’t put up with his cheek,” said one of the customers; “give him in
+charge at once.”
+
+Hardly, however, had the manager started to summon the police, than, as
+if by magic, a body of them appeared; and Andre found himself walking
+down the boulevard between a couple, while his late antagonist followed
+in the safe custody of two more. To have attempted any resistance would
+have been utter folly, and the young man resigned himself to what he
+felt he could not help. But as he went on, he reflected on the strange
+scene through which he had just passed. All had gone on so rapidly that
+he could hardly recall the events to his memory. He was, however, quite
+sure that this unprovoked assault concealed some motive with which at
+present he was unacquainted.
+
+The police led their prisoners through the doorway of a dingy-looking
+old house, and then Andre saw that he was not at the regular
+police-station. The whole party entered an office, where a
+superintendent and two clerks were at work. The ruffian who had
+assaulted Andre changed his manner directly he entered the office; he
+threw his tattered cap upon a bench, passed his fingers through his
+hair, and shook hands with the superintendent; he then turned to Andre.
+
+“Permit me, sir,” said he, “to compliment you on being so handy with
+your fists. You precious nearly did for me, I can tell you.”
+
+At that moment a door opened at the other end of the room, and a voice
+was heard to say, “Send them in.”
+
+Andre and his late antagonist soon found themselves in an office
+evidently sacred to some one high up in the police. At a desk near the
+window was seated a man, with a rather distinguished air, wearing a
+white necktie and a pair of gold glasses.
+
+“Have the goodness to take a seat,” said this gentleman, addressing
+Andre with the most perfect urbanity.
+
+He took a chair, half stupefied by the strangeness of the whole affair,
+and waited. Could he be awake, or was he dreaming? He could hardly tell.
+
+“Before I say anything,” remarked the gentleman in the gold spectacles,
+“I ought to apologize for a proceeding which is--well, what shall I call
+it?--a little rough, perhaps; but it was necessary to make use of it to
+obtain this interview with you. Really, however, I had no choice. You
+are closely watched, and I did not wish the persons who had set spies on
+you to have any knowledge of this conference.”
+
+“Do you say I am watched?” stammered Andre.
+
+“Yes, by a certain La Candele, as sharp a fellow at that kind of work as
+you could find in Paris. Are you surprised at this?”
+
+“Yes, for I had thought----”
+
+The gentleman’s features softened into a benevolent smile.
+
+“You thought,” he said, “that you had succeeded in throwing them off the
+scent. So I had imagined this morning, when I saw you in your present
+disguise. But permit me, my dear M. Andre, to assure you that there is
+great room for improvement in it. I admit that a first attempt is always
+to be looked on leniently; but it did not deceive La Candele, and even
+at this distance I can plainly see your whole makeup; and what I can
+see, of course, is patent to others.”
+
+He rose from his seat, and came closer to Andre.
+
+“Why on earth,” asked he, “should you daub all this color on your face,
+which makes you look like an Indian warrior in his war-paint? Only two
+colors are necessary to change the whole face--red and black--at the
+eyebrows, the nostrils, and the corners of the mouth. Look here;” and
+taking from his pocket a gold pencil-case, he corrected the faults in
+the young artist’s work.
+
+As soon as he had finished, Andre went up to the mirror over the
+chimney-piece, and was surprised at the result.
+
+“Now,” said the strange gentleman, “you see the futility of your
+attempts. La Candele knew you at once. I wished to speak to you; so I
+sent for Palot, one of my men, and instructed him to pick a quarrel with
+you. The policemen arrested you, and we have met without any one being
+at all the wiser. Be kind enough to efface my little corrections, as
+they will be noticed in the street.”
+
+Andre obeyed, and as he rubbed away with the corner of his handkerchief,
+he vainly sought for some elucidation of this mystery.
+
+The man with the gold spectacles had resumed his seat, and was
+refreshing himself with a pinch of snuff.
+
+“And now,” resumed he, “we will, if you please, have a little talk
+together. As you see, I know you. Doctor Loulleux tells me that he knows
+no one so high-minded and amiable as yourself. He declares that your
+honor is without a stain, and your courage undoubted.”
+
+“Ah! my dear sir!” interposed the painter, with a deep blush.
+
+“Pray let me go on. M. Gandelu says that he would trust you with all he
+possessed, while all your comrades, with Vignol at their head, have the
+greatest respect and regard for you. So much for the present. As for
+your future, two of the greatest ornaments of the artistic world say
+that you will one day occupy a very high place in the profession. You
+gain now about fifteen francs a day. Am I correct?”
+
+“Certainly,” answered Andre, more bewildered than ever.
+
+The gentleman smiled.
+
+“Unfortunately,” he went on, “my information ends here, for the means of
+inquiry possessed by the police are, of course, very limited. They can
+only act upon facts, not on intentions, and so long as these are not
+displayed in open acts, the hands of the police are tied. It is only
+forty-eight hours since I heard of you for the first time, and I
+have already your biography in my pocket. I hear that the day before
+yesterday you were dining with M. de Breulh-Faverlay, and that this
+morning you were walking with young Gandelu, and that La Candele was
+following you like a shadow. These are all facts, but----”
+
+He paused, and cast a keen glance upon Andre, then, in a slow and
+measured voice, he continued,--
+
+“But no one has been able to tell me why you dogged Verminet’s
+footsteps, or why you went to Mascarin’s house, or why, finally,
+you disguised yourself to keep a watch on the movements of the most
+honorable the Marquis de Croisenois. It is the motive that we cannot
+arrive at, for the facts are perfectly clear.”
+
+Andre fidgeted uneasily in his chair beneath the spell of those magnetic
+glasses, which seemed to draw the truth from him.
+
+“I cannot tell you, sir,” faltered he at last, “for the secret is not
+mine to divulge.”
+
+“You will not trust me? Well, then, I must speak. Remember, all that
+I have told you was the account of what I knew positively; but, in
+addition to this, I have drawn my own inferences. You are watching De
+Croisenois because he is going to marry a wealthy heiress.”
+
+Andre blushed crimson.
+
+“We assume, therefore, that you wish to prevent this marriage; and why,
+pray? I have heard that Mademoiselle de Mussidan was formerly engaged
+to M. de Breulh-Faverlay. How comes it that the Count and Countess de
+Mussidan prefer a ruined spendthrift to a wealthy and strictly honorable
+man? It is for you to answer this question. It is perfectly plain to me
+that they hand over their daughter to De Croisenois under pressure
+of some kind, and that means that a terrible secret exists with which
+Croisenois threatens them.”
+
+“Your deduction is wrong, sir,” exclaimed Andre eagerly, “and you are
+quite wrong.”
+
+“Very good,” was the calm reply. “Your emphatic denial shows that I am
+in the right. I want no further proofs. M. de Mussidan paid you a visit
+yesterday, and one of my agents reported that his face was much happier
+on leaving you than when he was on his way to your house. I therefore
+infer that you promised to release him from Croisenois’ persecutions,
+and in return he promised you his daughter’s hand in marriage. This, of
+course, explains your present disguise, and now tell me again that I am
+wrong, if you dare.”
+
+Andre would not lie, and therefore kept silence.
+
+“And now,” continued the gentleman, “how about the secret? Did not the
+Count tell it you? I do not know it; and yet I think that if I were to
+search for it, I could find it. I can call to my mind certain crimes
+which three generations of detective have striven to find out. Did you
+ever hear that De Croisenois had an elder brother named George, who
+disappeared in a most wonderful manner? What became of him? This very
+George, twenty-three years back, was a friend of Madame de Mussidan’s.
+Might not his disappearance have something to do with this marriage?”
+
+“Are you the fiend himself?” cried the young man.
+
+“I am M. Lecoq.”
+
+Andre started back in absolute dread at the name of this celebrated
+detective.
+
+“M. Lecoq!” repeated he.
+
+The vanity of the great detective was much flattered when he saw the
+impression that his name had produced.
+
+“And now, my dear M. Andre,” said he blandly, “now that you know who I
+am, may I not hope that you will be more communicative?”
+
+M. de Mussidan had not told his secret to the young artist, but he
+had said enough for him to feel that the detective was correct in his
+inference.
+
+“Surely,” continued Lecoq, “we ought to be able to come to a more
+definite understanding, and I think that my openness should elicit some
+frankness on your side. I saw that you were watched by the very person
+that I was watching. For three days my men have followed you, and to-day
+I made up my mind that you could furnish me with the clue I am seeking.”
+
+“I, sir?”
+
+“For many years,” continued Lecoq, “I have been certain that an
+organized association of blackmailers exists in Paris; family
+differences, sin, shame, and sorrow are worked by these wretches like
+veritable gold mines, and bring them in enormous annual revenues.”
+
+“Ah,” returned Andre, “I expected something of this kind.”
+
+“Of course, when I was quite sure of these facts,” continued Lecoq, “I
+said to myself, ‘I will break up this gang;’ but it was easier said than
+done. There is one very peculiar thing about blackmailing. Those who
+carry it on are almost certain of doing so with impunity, for the
+victims will pay and not complain. Yes, I tell you that I have often
+found out these unhappy pigeons, but never could get one to speak.”
+
+The detective was so indignant and acrimonious withal in his
+indignation, that Andre could not repress a smile.
+
+“Very soon,” continued Lecoq, “I recognized the futility of my attempts,
+and the impossibility of reaching these scoundrels through their
+victims, and then I determined to strike at the plunderers themselves,
+but this was a scheme that took patience and time. I have waited my
+chance for three years, and for eighteen months one of my men has been
+in the service of the Marquis de Croisenois, and up to now this band
+of villains has cost the government over ten thousand francs. That
+superlative scoundrel, Mascarin, has put several white threads in my
+hair. I believe him to be Tantaine; yes, and Martin Rigal too. The idea
+of there being a means of communication between the banker’s house
+in the Rue Montmartre and the Servants’ Registry Office in the Rue
+Montorgueil only came into my head this morning. But this time they
+have gone too far, and I have them. I know them all, from the chief,
+Mascarin-Tantaine-Rigal, down to their lowest agent, Toto Chupin, and
+Paul Violaine, the docile puppet of their will. We will get hold of the
+whole gang, and neither Van Klopen nor Catenac will escape. Just now the
+latter is travelling about with the Duke de Champdoce and a fellow named
+Perpignan, and two of my sweet lads are close upon them, and send in
+almost hourly reports of what is going on. My trap has a tempting bait,
+the spring is strong, and we shall catch every one of them. And now do
+you still hesitate to confide all you know to me? I swear on my honor
+that I will respect as sacred what you tell me, no matter what may
+occur.”
+
+Andre yielded, as did every person who came under the influence of this
+remarkable man and his strange and inexplicable fascination. If he
+hid anything from him to-day, would not Lecoq be acquainted with it
+to-morrow? And so, with the most perfect frankness, he told his story
+and everything that he knew.
+
+“Now,” cried Lecoq, “I see it all clearly. Aha, they want to force young
+Gandelu to disappear with Rose, do they?”
+
+Beneath his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes flashed fiercely. He seemed
+to be occupied in drawing out his plan of campaign.
+
+“From this moment,” said he, “be at ease. In another month Mademoiselle
+de Mussidan shall be your wife; this I promise you, and the promises of
+Lecoq are never broken.”
+
+He paused for an instant, as though to collect his thoughts, and then
+continued,--
+
+“I can answer for all, except for your life. So many are interested in
+your disappearance from this world, that every effort will be made to
+get rid of you. Do not cease your caution for an instant. Never eat
+twice running at the same restaurant, throw away food that has the
+slightest strange taste. Avoid crowds in the street; do not get into a
+cab; never lean from a window before ascertaining that its supports are
+solid; in a word, fear and suspect everything.”
+
+For a moment longer Lecoq detained the young artist.
+
+“Tell me,” said he, “have you the mark of a wound on your shoulder or
+arm?”
+
+“I have, sir; the scar of a very severe scald.”
+
+“I thought so; yes, I was almost certain of it,” said Lecoq
+thoughtfully; and as he conducted the young man to the door, he took
+leave of him with the same words that Mascarin had often used to Paul,--
+
+“Farewell for the present, Duke de Champdoce.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THROUGH THE AIR.
+
+At these last words Andre turned round, but the door closed, and he
+heard the key grate in the lock. He passed through the outer office,
+where the superintendent, his two clerks, and his late adversary all
+seemed to gaze upon him with a glance of admiration and esteem.
+
+He gained the open street.
+
+What did those last words of Lecoq mean? He was a foundling, it is true;
+but what foundling has not had lofty aspirations, and felt that, for all
+he knew, he might be the scion of some noble house.
+
+As soon as Lecoq thought that the coast was clear, he opened the door,
+and called the agent, Palot.
+
+“My lad,” said the great man, “you saw that young man who went out just
+now? He is a noble fellow, full of good feeling and honor. I look upon
+him as my friend.”
+
+Palot made a gesture signifying that henceforth his late antagonist was
+as something sacred in his eyes.
+
+“You will be his shadow,” pursued Lecoq, “and keep near enough to him to
+rush to his aid at a moment of danger. That gang, of which Mascarin is
+the head, want his life. You are my right-hand man, and I trust him to
+you. I have warned him, but youth is rash; and you will scent danger
+where he would never dream that it lurked. If there is any peril, dash
+boldly forward, but endeavor to let no one find out who you are. If you
+must speak to him--but only do so at the last extremity--whisper my name
+in his ear, and he will know you have come from me. Remember, you are
+answerable for him; but change your face. La Candele and the others must
+not recognize in you the wine-shop bully; that would spoil all. What
+have you on under that blouse, a _commissionaire’s_ dress?
+
+“That will do; now change the face.”
+
+Palot pulled out a small parcel from his pocket, from which he extracted
+a red beard and wig, and, going to the mirror, adjusted them with
+dexterous activity; and, in a few minutes, went up to his master, who
+was waiting, saying,--
+
+“How will this do?”
+
+“Not bad, not bad,” returned Lecoq; “and now to your work.”
+
+“Where shall I find him?” asked Palot.
+
+“Somewhere near Mascarin’s den, for I advised him not to give up playing
+the spy too suddenly.”
+
+Palot was off like the wind, and when he reached the Rue Montmartre, he
+caught sight of the person who had been intrusted to his care.
+
+Andre was walking slowly along, thinking of Lecoq’s cautions, when a
+young man, with his arm in a sling, overtook him, going in the same
+direction as he was. Andre was sure that it was Paul, and as he knew
+that he could not be recognized, he passed him in his turn, and saw that
+it was indeed the Paul so much regretted by Zora.
+
+“I will find out where he goes to,” thought Andre.
+
+He followed, and saw him enter the house of M. Rigal. Two women were
+gossiping near the door, and Andre heard one of them say,--
+
+“That is the young fellow who is going to marry Flavia, the banker’s
+daughter.”
+
+Paul, therefore, was to marry the daughter of the chief of the gang.
+Should he tell Lecoq this? But, of course, the detective knew it.
+
+Time was passing, and Andre felt that he had but little space to gain
+the house that Gandelu was building in the Champs Elysees, if he wished
+to ask hospitality from his friend Vignol.
+
+He found all the workmen there, and not one of them recognized him when
+he asked for Vignol.
+
+“He is engaged up there,” said one. “Take the staircase to the left.”
+
+The chief part of the ornamental work was in front, and it was there
+that the little hut which Tantaine had pointed out to Toto Chupin was
+erected. Vignol was in it, and was utterly surprised when Andre made
+himself known, for he did not recognize him under his strange disguise.
+
+“It is nothing,” returned the young man cautiously, as Vignol paused for
+an explanation; “only a little love affair.”
+
+“Do you expect to win a girl’s heart by making such a guy of yourself?”
+ asked his friend with a laugh.
+
+“Hush! I will explain matters later on. Can you give me shelter for a
+night or two?”
+
+He stopped himself, turned terribly pale, and listened intently. He
+fancied he had heard a woman’s scream, and his own name uttered.
+
+“Andre, it is I--your Sabine; help!”
+
+Quick as lightning Andre rushed to the window, opened it, and leaned out
+to discover from whence those sounds came.
+
+The young miscreant, Toto Chupin, had too fatally earned the note with
+which Tantaine had bribed him. The whole of the front of the window gave
+way with a loud crash, and Andre was hurled into space.
+
+The hut was at least sixty feet from the pavement, and the fall was the
+more appalling because the body of Andre struck some of the intervening
+scaffolding first, and thence bounced off, until the unhappy young man
+fell with a dull thud, bleeding and senseless in the street.
+
+Nearly three hundred persons in the Champs Elysees witnessed this
+hideous sight; for, at Vignol’s cry, every one had stopped, and, frozen
+with horror, had not missed one detail of the grim tragedy.
+
+In an instant a crowd was collected round the poor, inert mass of
+humanity which lay motionless in a pool of blood. But two workmen,
+roused by Vignol’s shrieks, were soon on the spot, and pushed their way
+through the crowd of persons who were gazing with a morbid curiosity on
+the man who had fallen from a height of sixty feet.
+
+Andre gave no sign of life. His face was dreadfully bruised, his eyes
+were closed, and a stream of blood poured from his mouth, as Vignol
+raised his friend’s head upon his knee.
+
+“He is dead!” cried the lookers on. “No one could survive such a fall.”
+
+“Let us take him to the Hospital Beaujon!” exclaimed Vignol. “We are
+close by there.”
+
+An ambulance was speedily procured, and the workmen, placing their
+insensible friend carefully in it, asked permission to carry him to the
+hospital.
+
+One curious event had excited the attention of some of the lookers on.
+Just as Andre fell, a _commissaire_ had rushed forward and seized a
+woman. She was one of the class of unfortunates who frequent the Champs
+Elysees, and she it was who had uttered the cry that had lured Andre to
+destruction. The woman made an effort to escape, but Palot, for it was
+he, caught her arm.
+
+“Not a word,” said he sternly. The wretched creature seemed in abject
+terror, and obeyed him.
+
+“Why did you cry out?” asked he.
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“It is a lie!”
+
+“No, it is true; a gentleman came up to me, and said, ‘Madame, if you
+will cry out now, Andre, it is I--your Sabine; help! I will give you two
+louis.’ Of course I agreed. He gave me the fifty francs, and I did as he
+asked me.”
+
+“What was this man like?”
+
+“He was tall, old, and very shabby and dirty, with glasses on. I never
+set eyes on him before.”
+
+“Do you know,” returned the _commissaire_ sternly, “that the words
+you have uttered have caused the death of the poor fellow who has just
+fallen from the house?”
+
+“Why did he not take more care?” asked she indifferently.
+
+Palot, with an angry gesture, handed her over to a police-constable.
+
+“Take her to the station-house,” said he, “and do not lose sight of her,
+for she will be a most important witness at a trial that must soon come
+on.”
+
+“What the woman says is true,” muttered Palot. “She did not know what
+she was doing, and it was Tantaine that gave her the two coins. He shall
+pay for this; but certainly, if the whole gang are collared, it won’t
+bring the poor young fellow to life.”
+
+He had, however, not much time for reflection, for he had to gather up
+every link of evidence. How was it that this accident had occurred? The
+frame of the window had fallen out with Andre, and lay in fragments on
+the pavement. He picked up one of the pieces, and at once saw what had
+been done; the woodwork had been sawed almost in two, and the putty with
+which the marks of the cuts had been concealed still clung to the wood.
+Palot called one of the workmen, who appeared to be more intelligent
+than his fellows, pointed out the marks to him, and bade him gather up
+the fragments and put them in some place of security. This duty being
+accomplished, Palot joined the crowd; but he was too late, for Andre had
+been taken away to the hospital. He looked around to see if there was
+any one from whom he could gain information, and suddenly perceived on a
+bench some one whom he had often followed. It was Toto Chupin, no
+longer clad in the squalid rags of a day or two back. He was dressed in
+gorgeous array, but his face was livid, his eyes wild, and his lips kept
+moving convulsively, for he was a victim to a novel sensation--the pangs
+of remorse--and was meditating whether he should not go to the nearest
+police-station and give himself up, so that he might revenge himself
+on Tantaine, who had made him a murderer. For a moment the idea of
+arresting Toto passed through Palot’s mind, but he, after a moment’s
+thought, muttered,--
+
+“No; that would never do. We should risk losing the whole gang. Besides,
+he can’t get away. I may even have committed an error in arresting that
+woman. My master will say that I am not to be trusted. He placed one of
+his friends in my charge, and this is what has happened. I knew that the
+young man’s life was in deadly peril, and yet I let him enter a house
+in the course of erection; why, I might as well have cut his throat
+myself.”
+
+In a terrible state of anxiety, Palot presented himself at the hospital,
+and asked for the young man who had just been brought in.
+
+“You mean Number 17?” returned one of the assistant-surgeons. “He is in
+a most critical state; we fear internal injuries, fracture of the skull,
+and--in fact, we fear everything.”
+
+It was two days before Andre recovered consciousness. It was midnight
+when he first woke again to the realities of life. At a glance he
+guessed where he was. He felt pain when he endeavored to turn over, but
+he could move his legs and one arm.
+
+“How long have I been here, I wonder?” he thought.
+
+He tried to think, but he was weak, and thoughts would not come at his
+command, and in a few seconds he dropped off to sleep again; and when
+he awoke, it was broad day; the ward was full of life and motion, for
+it was the hour of the house surgeon’s visit. He was a young man still,
+with a cheerful face, followed by the band of students. He went from bed
+to bed, explaining cases, and cheering up the sufferers. When Andre’s
+turn came, the surgeon told him that his shoulder was put out, his arm
+broken in two places, a bad cut on his head, while his body was one mass
+of bruises; but, for all that, he was in luck to have got off so easily.
+Andre listened to him with but a vague understanding of his meaning,
+for, with the return of reason, the remembrance of Sabine had come, and
+he asked himself what would become of her while he was confined to his
+bed in the hospital. As this thought passed through his mind, he uttered
+a faint groan. One of the students, a stout person, with red whiskers, a
+white tie, and a rather shabby hat, who looked as if he had just arrived
+from the country, stepped up to his bed, and leaning over the patient,
+murmured, “Lecoq.” Andre opened his eyes wide at the name.
+
+“M. Lecoq,” gasped he, wondering at the excellence of the disguise.
+
+“Hush, who knows who is watching us? I come to give your mind ease,
+which will do you more good than all the doctor’s stuff. Without in any
+way committing you, I have seen M. de Mussidan, and have furnished him
+with a valid excuse for postponing his daughter’s marriage for another
+month. You must remain here; you could not be in a place of greater
+security; but even here you cannot be too cautious. Eat nothing that is
+no given you by some one who utters the word ‘Lecoq.’ M. Gandelu will
+certainly call to see you. If you want to see or write to me, the
+patient on your right will manage that; he is one of my men. You shall
+have news every day; but be patient and prudent.”
+
+“I can wait now,” answered the young man, “because I have hope.”
+
+“Ah,” murmured Lecoq, as he moved softly away, “is not hope the true
+secret of life and happiness?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE DAY OF RECKONING.
+
+M. Lecoq enjoined prudence and caution on Andre, and the utmost care
+on the part of his agents, because he was fully aware of the skill and
+cunning of the adversary with whom he had to cope.
+
+“You should not talk or make a noise,” he would say, “when you are
+fighting.”
+
+He could now prove that the head of this association, the man who
+concealed his identity under a threefold personality, was the instigator
+of a murder. But he did not intend to make use of this discovery at
+once, for he had sworn that he would take the whole gang, and his
+proceedings had been so carefully conducted that his victims did not for
+a moment suspect the net that was closing around them. The day after the
+accident to Andre, Mascarin sent an anonymous communication to the head
+of the police, giving up Toto as the author of the crime, and saying
+where he could be found.
+
+“Of course,” thought this wily plotter, “Toto will denounce Tantaine,
+but that worthy man is dead and buried, and I think that even
+the sharpest agents of the police will be unable to effect his
+resurrection.”
+
+Mascarin had carefully consumed in a large fire every particle of the
+tattered garments that Tantaine had been in the habit of wearing, and
+laughed merrily as he watched the columns of sombre smoke roll upwards.
+
+“Look for him as much as you please,” laughed he. “Old Daddy Tantaine
+has flown up the chimney.”
+
+The next business was to suppress Mascarin; this was a more difficult
+operation. Few would care to inquire about Tantaine, but Mascarin was
+well known as the head of a prosperous business; his disappearance would
+create a sensation, and the police would take up the matter. His best
+course would be to conduct matters openly, and sell his business on
+the plea of family affairs causing him to retire. He easily found a
+purchaser, and in twenty-four hours the matter had been arranged.
+
+The night before handing over the business to his successor Mascarin
+had much to do. Assisted by Beaumarchef, he carried into Martin Rigal’s
+private office the papers with which the Registry Office was crammed.
+This removal was effected by means of a door marked by a panel between
+Mascarin’s office and the banker’s private room; and when the last scrap
+of paper had been removed, Mascarin pointed out a heap of bricks and a
+supply of mortar to his faithful adherent.
+
+“Wall up this door,” said he.
+
+It was a long and wearisome task, but it was at length completed, and
+by rubbing soot and dust over the new work it lost its appearance of
+freshness. The evening before Beaumarchef had received twelve thousand
+francs on the express condition that he would start at once for America,
+and the leave-taking between him and the master he had so faithfully
+served was a most affecting one. He knew hardly anything of the
+diabolical plots going on around him, and was the only innocent person
+in that house of crime.
+
+Mascarin was in haste to depart; he had annihilated Tantaine in order
+to free himself from Toto. Mascarin was about to disappear, and he
+contemplated retaining his third personality, and in it to pass away the
+remainder of his life honored and respected; but he must first induct
+his successor into his business; and he went through the books with him,
+and explained all the practical working of the machinery. This took him
+nearly all day, and it was getting late when his luggage was put on a
+cab which he had in waiting. A new plate had already been placed on the
+door: “J. Robinet, late B. Mascarin.”
+
+Knowing that he must carry out the deception completely, Mascarin drove
+to the western railway station, and took a ticket for Rouen. He felt
+rather uncomfortable, for he feared that he was being watched, and he
+made up his mind not to leave a single trace behind him. At Rouen he
+abandoned his luggage, which he had taken care should afford no clue
+as to ownership, he also relinquished his beard and spectacles, and
+returned to Paris as the well-known banker, Martin Rigal, the pretty
+Flavia’s father, having, as he thought, obliterated Mascarin as
+completely as he had done Tantaine; but he had not noticed in the train
+with him a very dark young man with piercing eyes, who looked like the
+traveller of some respectable commercial firm. As soon as he reached
+his home, and had tenderly embraced his daughter, he went to the private
+room of Martin Rigal, and opened it with the key that never left
+his person, and then gazed at a large rough mass of brickwork which
+disfigured one side of the room, and which was the remains of the wall
+that erewhile had been so hastily erected in the Office of the Servants’
+Registry.
+
+“This won’t do,” muttered he; “it must be plastered, and then
+repapered.”
+
+He picked up the bits of brick and plaster that lay on the floor, and
+threw them into the fire, and then pushed a large screen in front of the
+rough brickwork. He had just finished his work when Hortebise entered
+the room, with his perpetually smiling face.
+
+“Now, you unbeliever,” cried Mascarin gaily, “is not fortune within our
+grasp? Tantaine and Mascarin are dead, or rather, they never existed.
+Beaumarchef is on his way to America, La Candele will be in London in a
+week, and now we may enjoy our millions.”
+
+“Heaven grant it,” said the doctor piously.
+
+“Pooh, pooh! we have nothing more to fear, as you would have known had
+you gone into the case as thoroughly as I have done. Who was the enemy
+whom we had most need to dread? Why, Andre. He certainly is not dead,
+but he is laid up for some weeks, and that is enough. Besides, he
+has given up the game, for one of my men who managed to get into the
+hospital says that he has not received a visitor or dispatched a letter
+for the last fifteen days.”
+
+“But he had friends.”
+
+“Pshaw! friends always forget you! Why, where was M. de
+Breulh-Faverlay?”
+
+“It is the racing season, and he is a fixture in his stables.”
+
+“Madame de Bois Arden?”
+
+“The new fashions are sufficient for her giddy head.”
+
+“M. Gandelu?”
+
+“He has his son’s affairs to look after and there is no one else of any
+consequence.”
+
+“And how about young Gandelu?”
+
+“Oh! he has yielded to Tantaine’s winning power, and has made it up with
+Rose, and the turtle doves have taken wing for Florence.”
+
+But the doctor was still dissatisfied. “I am uneasy about the
+Mussidans,” said he.
+
+“And pray why? De Croisenois has been very well received. I don’t say
+that Mademoiselle Sabine has exactly jumped into his arms, but she
+thanks him every evening for the flowers he sends in the morning, and
+you can’t expect more than that.”
+
+“I wish the Count had not put off the marriage. Why did he do so?”
+
+“It annoys me, too; but we can’t have everything; set your mind at
+rest.”
+
+By this time the banker had contrived to reassure the doctor.
+
+“Besides,” he added, “everything is going on well, even our Tafila
+mines. I have taxed our people, according to their means, from one to
+twenty thousand francs, and we are certain of a million.”
+
+The doctor rubbed his hands, and a delicious prospect of enjoyments
+stretched out before him.
+
+“I have seen Catenac,” continued Martin Rigal. “He has returned from
+Vendome, and the Duke de Champdoce is wild with hope and expectation,
+and is on the path which he thinks will take him to his son.”
+
+“And how about Perpignan?”
+
+Mascarin laughed.
+
+“Perpignan is just as much a dupe as the Duke is; he thinks absolutely
+that he has discovered all the clues that I myself placed on his road.
+Before, however, they have quite concluded their investigations,
+Paul will be my daughter’s husband and Flavia the future Duchess of
+Champdoce, with an income that a monarch might envy.”
+
+He paused, for there was a light tap on the door, and Flavia entered.
+She bowed to the doctor, and, with the graceful movement of a bird,
+perched herself upon her father’s knee, and, throwing her arms round his
+neck, kissed him again and again.
+
+“This is a very nice little preface,” said the banker with a forced
+smile. “The favor is granted in advance, for, of course, this means that
+you have come to ask one.”
+
+The girl shook her head, and returned in the tone of one addressing a
+naughty child,--
+
+“Oh, you bad papa! Am I in the habit of selling my kisses? I am sure
+that I have only to ask and to have.”
+
+“Of course not, only----”
+
+“I came to tell you that dinner was ready, and that Paul and I are both
+very hungry; and I only kissed you because I loved you; and if I had to
+choose a father again, out of the whole it would be you.”
+
+He smiled fondly.
+
+“But for the last six weeks,” said he, “you have not loved me so well.”
+
+“No,” returned she with charming simplicity, “not for so long--nearly
+for fifteen days perhaps.”
+
+“And yet it is more than a month since the good doctor brought a certain
+young man to dinner.”
+
+Flavia uttered a frank, girlish laugh.
+
+“I love you dearly,” said she, “but especially for one thing.”
+
+“And what is that, pray?”
+
+“Ah! that is the secret; but I will tell it you for all that. It is only
+within the last fortnight that I have found out how really good you have
+been, and how much trouble you took in bringing Paul to me; but to think
+that you should have to put on those ugly old clothes, that nasty beard
+and those spectacles.”
+
+At these words the banker started so abruptly to his feet that Flavia
+nearly fell to the ground.
+
+“What do you mean by this?” said he.
+
+“Do you suppose a daughter does not know her father? You might deceive
+others, but I--”
+
+“Flavia, I do not comprehend your meaning.”
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” asked she, “that you did not come to Paul’s
+rooms the day I was there?”
+
+“Are you crazy? Listen to me.”
+
+“No, I will not; you must not tell me fibs. I am not a fool; and when
+you went out with the doctor, I listened at the door, and I heard a few
+words you said; and that isn’t all, for when I got here, I hid myself
+and I saw you come into this room.”
+
+“But you said nothing to any one, Flavia?”
+
+“No, certainly not.”
+
+Rigal breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+“Of course I do not count Paul,” continued the girl, “for he is the same
+as myself.”
+
+“Unhappy child!” exclaimed the banker in so furious a voice, and with
+such a threatening gesture of the hand, that for the first time in her
+life Flavia was afraid of her father.
+
+“What have I done?” asked she, the tears springing to her eyes. “I only
+said to Paul that we should be terribly ungrateful if we did not worship
+him; for you don’t know what he does for us. Why, he even dresses up in
+rags, and goes to see you.”
+
+Hortebise, who up to this time had not said a word, now interfered.
+
+“And what did Paul say?” asked he.
+
+“Paul? Oh, nothing for a moment. Then he cried out, ‘I see it all now,’
+and laughed as if he would have gone into a fit.”
+
+“Did you not understand, my poor child, what this laugh means? Paul
+thinks that you have been my accomplice, and believes that it was in
+obedience to your orders that I went to look for him.”
+
+“Well, and suppose he does?”
+
+“A man like Paul never loves a woman who has run after him; and no
+matter how great her beauty may be, will always consider that she has
+thrown herself in his path. He will accept all her devotion, and make no
+more return than a stone or a wooden idol would do. You cannot see this,
+and God grant that it may be long before the bandage is removed from
+your eyes. Can you not read the quality of this foolish boy, who has not
+a manly instinct in him?”
+
+“Enough!” she cried, “enough! I am not such a coward as to allow you to
+insult my husband.”
+
+He shuddered at the thought that his words might cost him his daughter’s
+love, but Hortebise interposed by putting his arm round Flavia’s waist
+and leading her from the room. When he returned, he observed,--
+
+“I cannot understand your anger. It seems to me that all recrimination
+is most indiscreet, for you can at any moment break off this marriage.”
+
+“Do you think it is nothing for me to be at the mercy of that cowardly
+wretch, Paul?”
+
+“Not more so than you are by the foolish weakness of your daughter. Is
+not Paul our accomplice? And are we any more compromised because he has
+discovered the secret of your triple personality?”
+
+“Ah! you have not a father’s feelings. Up till now Paul did not know
+that I was Mascarin, and believed me to be the victim of blackmailers.
+As a dupe he respected me, as an accomplice he will scorn me. This
+disastrous marriage must be hastened.”
+
+Paul and Flavia’s marriage took place at the end of the next week,
+and Paul left his simple bachelor abode to take possession of the
+magnificent suite of rooms prepared for him by the banker in his house
+in the Rue Montmartre. The change was great, but Paul was no longer
+surprised at anything. He did not feel the faintest tinge of remorse;
+he only feared one thing, and that was that by some blunder he might
+compromise his future, when the eventful day arrived which would give
+him the social position and standing of heir to a dukedom.
+
+When, however, the Duke de Champdoce came, accompanied by Perpignan,
+the young imposter rose to the level of his masters, and played his part
+with most consummate skill. The Duke, whose life had been one long scene
+of misery, and who had so cruelly expiated the sins of his youth, seemed
+to have become suddenly lenient; and had Paul obeyed him, he would
+at once have established himself with his young wife at the Hotel de
+Champdoce, but Martin Rigal put a veto upon this, for he was not quite
+satisfied that his son-in-law was really the heir to the Champdoce
+dukedom; and finally it was agreed that the Duke should come to
+breakfast the next morning and take away Paul. Eleven was the hour
+fixed, but the Duke appeared at the banker’s house at ten, where he,
+Catenac, Hortebise, and Paul were assembled together in solemn conclave.
+
+“Now, papa,” said Flavia, who kept her father on thorns by her gay and
+frolicsome criticisms, “you will no longer blame me for falling in love
+with a poor Bohemian, for you see that he is a Champdoce, and that his
+father possesses millions.”
+
+The Duke was now seated on the sofa, holding the hand of the young man
+whom he believed to be his son tightly in his. The Duchess, to whom he
+had given a hint of what was going on, had been taken seriously ill from
+over-excitement, but had recovered herself a little, and the Duke was
+describing this when he was suddenly interrupted by a series of full
+and heavy blows struck upon the other side of the wall of the room.
+A pickaxe was evidently at work. The whole house was shaken by the
+violence of the attack, and a screen, which stood near the spot, was
+thrown down.
+
+The plotters gazed upon each other with pale and terror-stricken faces,
+for it was evident that the fresh brick wall, the work of Mascarin and
+Beaumarchef, was being destroyed. The Duke sat in perfect amazement, for
+the alarm of his host and his friends was plainly evident. He could feel
+Paul’s hand tremble in his, but could not understand why work evidently
+going on in the next house could cause such feelings of alarm. Flavia
+was the only one who had no suspicion, and she remarked, “Dear me! I
+should like to know the meaning of this disturbance.”
+
+“I will send and inquire,” said her father; but scarcely had he opened
+the door than he retreated with a wild expression of terror in his
+face, and his arms stretched out in front of him, as though to bar the
+approach of some terrible spectre. In the doorway stood an eminently
+respectable-looking gentleman, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles,
+and behind him a commissary of police, girt with his official scarf,
+while farther back still were half a dozen police officers.
+
+“M. Lecoq,” cried the three confederates in one breath, while through
+their minds flashed the same terrible idea--“We are lost.”
+
+The celebrated detective advanced slowly into the room, curiously
+watching the group collected there. There was an air of entire
+satisfaction visible on his countenance.
+
+“Aha!” he said, “I was right, it seems. I was sure that I was making no
+mistake in rapping at the other side of the wall. I knew that it would
+be heard in here.”
+
+By this time, however, the banker had, to all outward appearance,
+regained his self-command.
+
+“What do you want here?” asked he insolently. “What is the meaning of
+this intrusion?”
+
+“This gentleman will explain,” returned Lecoq, stepping aside to make
+way for the commissary of police to come forward. “But, to shorten
+matters, I may tell you that I have obtained a warrant for your arrest,
+Martin Rigal, _alias_ Tantaine, _alias_ Mascarin.”
+
+“I don’t understand you!”
+
+“Indeed. Do you think that Tantaine has cleaned his hands so completely
+that not a drop of Andre’s blood clings to the fingers of Martin Rigal?”
+
+“On my word, you are speaking in riddles.”
+
+A bland smile passed over Lecoq’s face as, drawing a folded letter from
+his pocket, he answered,--
+
+“Perhaps you are acquainted with the handwriting of your daughter. Well,
+then, listen to what she wrote not so very long ago to the very Paul who
+is sitting on the sofa there.
+
+“‘MY DEAREST PAUL,--
+
+“‘We should be guilty of the deepest ingratitude if----’”
+
+“Enough! Enough!” cried the banker in a hoarse voice. “Lost, lost, lost!
+My own child has been my ruin!”
+
+The calmest of the conspirators was now the one who was generally the
+first to take alarm, and this was the genial Doctor Hortebise. When he
+recognized Lecoq, he had gently opened his locket and taken from it
+a small pellet of grayish-colored paste, and, holding it between his
+fingers, had waited until his leader should declare that all hope was
+gone.
+
+In the meantime Lecoq turned towards Catenac.
+
+“And you too are included in this warrant,” said he.
+
+Catenac, perhaps owing to his legal training, made no reply to Lecoq,
+but addressing the commissary, observed,--
+
+“I am the victim of a most unpleasant mistake, but my position----”
+
+“The warrant is quite regular,” returned the commissary. “You can see it
+if you desire.”
+
+“No, it is not necessary. I will only ask you to conduct me to the
+magistrate who issued it, and in five minutes all will be explained.”
+
+“Do you think so?” asked Lecoq in a quiet tone of sarcasm. “You have not
+heard, I can see, of what took place yesterday. A laborer, in the course
+of his work, discovers the remains of a newly-born infant, wrapped in
+a silk handkerchief and a shawl. The police soon set inquiries on foot,
+and have found the mother--a girl named Clarisse.”
+
+Had not Lecoq suddenly grasped Catenac’s arm, the lawyer would have
+flown at Martin Rigal’s throat.
+
+“Villain, traitor!” panted he, “you have sold me!”
+
+“My papers have been stolen,” faltered the banker.
+
+He now saw that the blows struck upon the other side of the wall were
+merely a trick, for Lecoq had thought that a little preliminary fright
+would render them more amenable to reason.
+
+Hortebise still looked on calmly; he knew that the game was lost.
+
+“I belong to a respectable family,” thought he, “and I will not bring
+dishonor upon it. I have no time to lose.”
+
+As he spoke he placed the contents of the locket between his lips and
+swallowed them.
+
+“Ah,” murmured he, as he did so, “with my constitution and digestion, it
+is really hard to end thus.”
+
+No one had noticed the doctor’s movements, for Lecoq had moved the
+screen, and was showing the commissary a hole which had been made in the
+wall large enough for the body of a man to pass through. But a sudden
+sound cut these investigations short, for Hortebise had fallen to the
+ground, and was struggling in a series of terrible convulsions.
+
+“How stupid of me not to have foreseen this,” exclaimed Lecoq. “He has
+poisoned himself; let some one run for a doctor. Take him into another
+room and lay him on a bed.”
+
+While these orders were being carried out, Catenac was removed to a
+cab which was in waiting, and Martin Rigal seemed to have lapsed into a
+state of moody imbecility. Suddenly he started to his feet, crying,--
+
+“My daughter Flavia! yes, her name is Flavia, what is to become of her?
+She has no fortune, and she is married to a man who can never provide
+for her. My child will perhaps starve. Oh, horrible thought!”
+
+The man’s strong mind had evidently given way, and his love for his
+child and the hideous future that lay before her had broken down
+the barrier that divides reason from insanity. He was secured by the
+officers, raving and struggling. When Lecoq was left alone with the
+Duke, Paul and Flavia, he cast a glimpse of pity at the young girl,
+who had crouched down in a corner, and evidently hardly understood the
+terrible scene that had just passed.
+
+“Your Grace,” said he, turning to the Duke, “you have been the victim of
+a foul conspiracy; this young man is not your son; he is Paul Violaine,
+and is the son of a poor woman who kept a petty haberdashery shop in the
+provinces.”
+
+The miserable young fool began to bluster, and attempted to deny this
+statement; but Lecoq opened the door, and Rose appeared in a most
+becoming costume. Paul now made no effort to continue his protestations,
+but throwing himself on his knees, in whining accents confessed the
+whole fraud and pleaded for mercy, promising to give evidence against
+his accomplices.
+
+“Do not despair, your Grace,” said Lecoq, as he conducted the Duke to
+his carriage; “this certainly is not your son; but _I_ have found him,
+and to-morrow, if you like, you shall be introduced to him.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+“EVERY MAN TO HIS OWN PLACE.”
+
+Obedient to the wishes of M. Lecoq, Andre resigned himself to a lengthy
+sojourn at the Hospital de Beaujon, and had even the courage to affect
+that state of profound indifference that had deceived Mascarin. The
+pretended sick man in the next bed to his told him all that had taken
+place, but the days seemed to be interminable, and he was beginning
+to lose patience, when one morning he received a letter which caused
+a gleam of joy to pass through his heart. “All is right,” wrote Lecoq.
+“Danger is at an end. Ask the house surgeon for leave to quit the
+hospital. Dress yourself smartly. You will find me waiting at the
+doors.--L.”
+
+Andre was not quite convalescent, for he might have to wear his arm in a
+sling for many weeks longer; but these considerations did not deter him.
+He now dressed himself in a suit which he had sent for to his rooms, and
+about nine o’clock he left the hospital.
+
+He stood upon the steps inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air, and
+then began to wonder where the strange personage was to whom he owed
+his life. While he was deliberating what to do, an open carriage drew up
+before the door of the hospital.
+
+“You have come at last,” exclaimed Andre, rushing up to the gentleman
+who alighted from it. “I was getting quite anxious.”
+
+“I am about five minutes late,” returned Lecoq; “but I was detained,”
+ and then, as Andre began to pour out his thanks, he added, “Get into the
+carriage; I have a great deal to say to you.”
+
+Andre obeyed, and as he did so, he detected something strange in the
+expression of his companion’s face.
+
+“What!” remarked Lecoq, “do you see by my face that I have something to
+tell you? You are getting quite a keen observer. Well, I have, indeed,
+for I have passed the night going through Mascarin’s papers, and I have
+just gone through a painful scene--I may say, one of the most painful
+that I have ever witnessed. The intellect of Mascarin,” said he, “has
+given way under the tremendous pressure put upon it. The ruling passion
+of the villain’s life was his love for his daughter. He imagines that
+Flavia and Paul are without a franc and in want of bread; he thinks that
+he continually hears his daughter crying to him for help. Then, on
+his knees, he entreats the warder to let him out, if only for a day,
+swearing that he will return as soon as he has succored his child. Then,
+when his prayer is refused, he bursts into a frenzied rage and tears at
+his door, howling like an infuriated animal; and this state may last to
+the end of his life, and every minute in it be a space of intolerable
+torture. Doctor Hortebise is dead; but the poison upon which he relied
+betrayed him, and he suffered agonies for twenty-four hours. Catenac
+will fight to the bitter end, but the proofs are against him, and
+he will be convicted of infanticide. In Rigal’s papers I have found
+evidence against Perpignan, Verminet and Van Klopen, who will all
+certainly hear something about penal servitude. Nothing has been settled
+yet about Toto Chupin, for it must be remembered that he came and gave
+himself up.”
+
+“And what about Croisenois?”
+
+“His Company will be treated like any other attempt to extort money by
+swindling, and the Marquis will be sent to prison for two months, and
+the money paid for shares returned to the dupes, and that, I think, is
+all that I have to tell you, except that by to-morrow M. Gandelu will
+receive back the bills to which his son affixed a forged signature. And
+now,” continued Lecoq, after a short pause, “the time has come for me to
+tell you why, at our first interview, I saluted you as the heir of the
+Duke de Champdoce. I had guessed your history, but it was only last
+night I heard all the details.”
+
+Then the detective gave a brief but concise account of the manuscript
+that Paul had read aloud. He did not tell much, however, but passed
+lightly over the acts of the Duke de Champdoce and Madame de Mussidan,
+for he did not wish Andre to cease to respect either his father or the
+mother of Sabine. The story was just concluded as the carriage drew up
+at the corner of the Rue de Matignon.
+
+“Get down here,” said Lecoq, “and mind and don’t hurt your arm.”
+
+Andre obeyed mechanically.
+
+“And now,” went on Lecoq, “listen to me. The Count and Countess de
+Mussidan expect you to breakfast and here is the note they handed to
+me for you. Come back to your studio by four o’clock, and I will
+then introduce you to your father; but till then, remember, absolute
+silence.”
+
+Andre was completely bewildered with his unexpected happiness. He walked
+instinctively to the Hotel de Mussidan and rang the bell. The intense
+civility of the footmen removed any misgivings that he might have left,
+and, as he entered the dining-room, he darted back, for face to face
+with him was the portrait of Sabine which he had himself painted. At
+that moment the Count came forward to meet him with extended hands.
+
+“Diana,” said he to his wife, “this is our daughter’s future husband.”
+ He then took Sabine’s hand, which he laid in Andre’s.
+
+The young artist hardly dared raise his eyes to Sabine’s face; when he
+did so, his heart grew very sad, for the poor girl was but a shadow of
+her former self.
+
+“You have suffered terribly,” said he tenderly.
+
+“Yes,” answered she, “and I should have died had it lasted much longer.”
+
+Andre had the greatest difficulty in refraining from telling his secret
+to his beloved, and it was with even more difficulty that he tore
+himself away at half-past three.
+
+He had not been five minutes in his studio when there was a knock at
+the door, and Lecoq entered, followed by an elderly gentleman of
+aristocratic and haughty appearance. It was the Duke of Champdoce.
+
+“This gentleman,” said the Duke, with a gesture of his hand towards
+Lecoq, “will have told you that certain circumstances rendered it
+expedient, according to my ideas, that I should not acknowledge you as
+my heir, but my son. The fault that I then committed has been cruelly
+expiated. I am not forty-eight; look at me.”
+
+The Duke looked at least sixty.
+
+“My sins,” continued the Duke, “still pursue me. To-day, in spite of all
+my desires, I cannot claim you as my legitimate son, for the law only
+permits me to give you my name and fortune by exercising the right of
+adoption.”
+
+Andre made no reply, and the Duke went on with evident hesitation,--
+
+“You can certainly institute proceedings against me for the recovery of
+your rights, but--”
+
+“Ah!” interrupted the young man, “really, what sort of person do you
+think I am? Do you believe me capable of dishonoring your name before I
+assumed it?”
+
+The Duke drew a deep breath of relief. Andre’s manner had checked
+and restrained him, for it was frigid and glacial to a degree. What a
+difference there was between the haughty mien of Andre and the gushing
+effusiveness of Paul!
+
+“Will you permit me,” asked Andre, “to address a few words to you?”
+
+“A few words?”
+
+“Yes. I do not like to use the word ‘conditions,’ but I think that you
+will understand what I mean. My daily toil for bread gave me neither the
+means nor the leisure which I required to cultivate my art, for that is
+a profession that I could never give up.”
+
+“You will be certainly your own master.”
+
+Andre paused, as if to reflect.
+
+“This is not all I had to say,” he continued at last. “I love and am
+loved by a pure and beautiful girl; our marriage is arranged, and I
+think--”
+
+“I think,” broke in the Duke, “that you could not love any one who was
+not a fit bride for a member of our family.”
+
+“But I did not belong to this family yesterday. Be at ease, however, for
+she is worthy of a Champdoce. I am engaged to Sabine de Mussidan.”
+
+A deadly paleness overspread the Duke’s face as he heard this name.
+
+“Never,” said he. “Never; I would rather see you dead at my feet.”
+
+“And I would gladly suffer ten thousand deaths than give her up.”
+
+“Suppose I refuse my consent? Suppose that I forbid----”
+
+“You have no claim to exercise paternal authority over me; this can
+only be purchased by years of tender care. Duke de Champdoce, I owe you
+nothing. Leave me to myself, as you have hitherto done, and all will be
+simplified.”
+
+The Duke reflected. Must he give up his son, who had been restored to
+him by such a series of almost miraculous chances, or must he see him
+married to Diana’s daughter? Either alternative appeared to him to be
+equally disagreeable.
+
+“I will not yield on the point,” said he. “Besides, the Countess would
+never give her consent. She hates me as much as I hate her.”
+
+M. Lecoq, who had up to this moment looked on in silence, now thought it
+time to interpose.
+
+“I think,” remarked he blandly, “that I shall have no difficulty in
+obtaining the consent of Madame de Mussidan.”
+
+The Duke, at these words, threw open his arms.
+
+“Come, my son!” said he. “All shall be as you desire.”
+
+That night, Marie, Duchess de Champdoce, experienced happiness for the
+first time in the affection and caresses of a son who had been so
+long lost to her, and seemed to throw off the heavy burden that had so
+heavily pressed her down beneath its own weight.
+
+When Madame de Mussidan heard that Andre was Norbert’s son, she declared
+that nothing could induce her to give her consent to his marriage with
+her daughter; but among Mascarin’s papers Lecoq had discovered the
+packet containing the compromising correspondence between the Duke de
+Champdoce and herself. The detective handed this over to her, and, in
+her gratitude, she promised to give up all further opposition to the
+match.
+
+Lecoq always denied that this act came under the head of blackmailing.
+
+Andre and Sabine took up their residence after marriage at the Chateau
+de Mussidan, which had been magnificently restored and decorated. They
+seldom leave it, for they love it for its vicinity to the leafy groves,
+in which they first learned that they had given their hearts to each
+other. And Andre frequently points out the unfinished work on the
+balcony, which was the occasion of his first visit to the Chateau de
+Mussidan. He says that he will complete it as soon as he has time, but
+it is doubtful whether he will ever find leisure to do this for a long
+time, for before the new year comes there is every chance of there being
+a baptism at the little chapel at Bevron.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Champdoce Mystery, by Emile Gaboriau
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theconfessionsofarsenelupin b/files/books/unrelated/theconfessionsofarsenelupin
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theconfessionsofarsenelupin
@@ -0,0 +1,9756 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of Arsène Lupin, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confessions of Arsène Lupin
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2009 [EBook #28093]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Meredith Bach, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "_Suddenly he rushed at her and caught her by the arm_"]
+
+
+
+
+    THE INTERNATIONAL
+    ADVENTURE LIBRARY
+
+
+    THREE OWLS EDITION
+
+     THE CONFESSIONS
+     OF ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+    An Adventure Story
+
+           BY
+     MAURICE LEBLANC
+ Author of "Arsène Lupin"
+
+   W. R. CALDWELL & CO.
+         NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+ _Copyright, 1912, 1913, by_
+ Maurice Leblanc
+
+ _All rights reserved, including that of
+ translation into foreign languages,
+ including the Scandinavian_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                               PAGE
+
+    I. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD!               1
+
+    II. THE WEDDING-RING                                36
+
+    III. THE SIGN OF THE SHADOW                         66
+
+    IV. THE INFERNAL TRAP                              101
+
+    V. THE RED SILK SCARF                              138
+
+    VI. SHADOWED BY DEATH                              177
+
+    VII. A TRAGEDY IN THE FOREST OF MORGUES            210
+
+    VIII. LUPIN'S MARRIAGE                             228
+
+    IX. THE INVISIBLE PRISONER                         266
+
+    X. EDITH SWAN-NECK                                 291
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD!...
+
+
+"Lupin," I said, "tell me something about yourself."
+
+"Why, what would you have me tell you? Everybody knows my life!" replied
+Lupin, who lay drowsing on the sofa in my study.
+
+"Nobody knows it!" I protested. "People know from your letters in the
+newspapers that you were mixed up in this case, that you started that
+case. But the part which you played in it all, the plain facts of the
+story, the upshot of the mystery: these are things of which they know
+nothing."
+
+"Pooh! A heap of uninteresting twaddle!"
+
+"What! Your present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival's wife!
+Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you
+solved the puzzle of the three pictures?"
+
+Lupin laughed:
+
+"Yes, that was a queer puzzle, certainly. I can suggest a title for you
+if you like: what do you say to _The Sign of the Shadow_?"
+
+"And your successes in society and with the fair sex?" I continued. "The
+dashing Arsène's love-affairs!... And the clue to your good actions?
+Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the
+names of _The Wedding-ring_, _Shadowed by Death_, and so on!... Why
+delay these confidences and confessions, my dear Lupin?... Come, do what
+I ask you!..."
+
+It was at the time when Lupin, though already famous, had not yet fought
+his biggest battles; the time that preceded the great adventures of _The
+Hollow Needle_ and _813_. He had not yet dreamt of annexing the
+accumulated treasures of the French Royal House[A] nor of changing the
+map of Europe under the Kaiser's nose[B]: he contented himself with
+milder surprises and humbler profits, making his daily effort, doing
+evil from day to day and doing a little good as well, naturally and for
+the love of the thing, like a whimsical and compassionate Don Quixote.
+
+
+  [A] _The Hollow Needle._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander
+  Teixeira de Mattos (Eveleigh Nash).
+
+  [B] _813._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de
+  Mattos (Mills & Boon).
+
+
+He was silent; and I insisted:
+
+"Lupin, I wish you would!"
+
+To my astonishment, he replied:
+
+"Take a sheet of paper, old fellow, and a pencil."
+
+I obeyed with alacrity, delighted at the thought that he at last meant
+to dictate to me some of those pages which he knows how to clothe with
+such vigour and fancy, pages which I, unfortunately, am obliged to spoil
+with tedious explanations and boring developments.
+
+"Are you ready?" he asked.
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Write down, 20, 1, 11, 5, 14, 15."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Write it down, I tell you."
+
+He was now sitting up, with his eyes turned to the open window and his
+fingers rolling a Turkish cigarette. He continued:
+
+"Write down, 21, 14, 14, 5...."
+
+He stopped. Then he went on:
+
+"3, 5, 19, 19 ..."
+
+And, after a pause:
+
+"5, 18, 25 ..."
+
+Was he mad? I looked at him hard and, presently, I saw that his eyes
+were no longer listless, as they had been a little before, but keen and
+attentive and that they seemed to be watching, somewhere, in space, a
+sight that apparently captivated them.
+
+Meanwhile, he dictated, with intervals between each number:
+
+"18, 9, 19, 11, 19 ..."
+
+There was hardly anything to be seen through the window but a patch of
+blue sky on the right and the front of the building opposite, an old
+private house, whose shutters were closed as usual. There was nothing
+particular about all this, no detail that struck me as new among those
+which I had had before my eyes for years....
+
+"1, 2...."
+
+And suddenly I understood ... or rather I thought I understood, for how
+could I admit that Lupin, a man so essentially level-headed under his
+mask of frivolity, could waste his time upon such childish nonsense?
+What he was counting was the intermittent flashes of a ray of sunlight
+playing on the dingy front of the opposite house, at the height of the
+second floor!
+
+"15, 22 ..." said Lupin.
+
+The flash disappeared for a few seconds and then struck the house again,
+successively, at regular intervals, and disappeared once more.
+
+I had instinctively counted the flashes and I said, aloud:
+
+"5...."
+
+"Caught the idea? I congratulate you!" he replied, sarcastically.
+
+He went to the window and leant out, as though to discover the exact
+direction followed by the ray of light. Then he came and lay on the sofa
+again, saying:
+
+"It's your turn now. Count away!"
+
+The fellow seemed so positive that I did as he told me. Besides, I could
+not help confessing that there was something rather curious about the
+ordered frequency of those gleams on the front of the house opposite,
+those appearances and disappearances, turn and turn about, like so many
+flash signals.
+
+They obviously came from a house on our side of the street, for the sun
+was entering my windows slantwise. It was as though some one were
+alternately opening and shutting a casement, or, more likely, amusing
+himself by making sunlight flashes with a pocket-mirror.
+
+"It's a child having a game!" I cried, after a moment or two, feeling a
+little irritated by the trivial occupation that had been thrust upon me.
+
+"Never mind, go on!"
+
+And I counted away.... And I put down rows of figures.... And the sun
+continued to play in front of me, with mathematical precision.
+
+"Well?" said Lupin, after a longer pause than usual.
+
+"Why, it seems finished.... There has been nothing for some
+minutes...."
+
+We waited and, as no more light flashed through space, I said,
+jestingly:
+
+"My idea is that we have been wasting our time. A few figures on paper:
+a poor result!"
+
+Lupin, without stirring from his sofa, rejoined:
+
+"Oblige me, old chap, by putting in the place of each of those numbers
+the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Count A as 1, B as 2 and so
+on. Do you follow me?"
+
+"But it's idiotic!"
+
+"Absolutely idiotic, but we do such a lot of idiotic things in this
+life.... One more or less, you know!..."
+
+I sat down to this silly work and wrote out the first letters:
+
+
+    "_Take no...._"
+
+
+I broke off in surprise:
+
+"Words!" I exclaimed. "Two English words meaning...."
+
+"Go on, old chap."
+
+And I went on and the next letters formed two more words, which I
+separated as they appeared. And, to my great amazement, a complete
+English sentence lay before my eyes.
+
+"Done?" asked Lupin, after a time.
+
+"Done!... By the way, there are mistakes in the spelling...."
+
+"Never mind those and read it out, please.... Read slowly."
+
+Thereupon I read out the following unfinished communication, which I
+will set down as it appeared on the paper in front of me:
+
+
+    "_Take no unnecessery risks. Above all, avoid atacks, approach
+    ennemy with great prudance and...._"
+
+
+I began to laugh:
+
+"And there you are! _Fiat lux!_ We're simply dazed with light! But,
+after all, Lupin, confess that this advice, dribbled out by a
+kitchen-maid, doesn't help you much!"
+
+Lupin rose, without breaking his contemptuous silence, and took the
+sheet of paper.
+
+I remembered soon after that, at this moment, I happened to look at the
+clock. It was eighteen minutes past five.
+
+Lupin was standing with the paper in his hand; and I was able at my ease
+to watch, on his youthful features, that extraordinary mobility of
+expression which baffles all observers and constitutes his great
+strength and his chief safeguard. By what signs can one hope to identify
+a face which changes at pleasure, even without the help of make-up, and
+whose every transient expression seems to be the final, definite
+expression?... By what signs? There was one which I knew well, an
+invariable sign: Two little crossed wrinkles that marked his forehead
+whenever he made a powerful effort of concentration. And I saw it at
+that moment, saw the tiny tell-tale cross, plainly and deeply scored.
+
+He put down the sheet of paper and muttered:
+
+"Child's play!"
+
+The clock struck half-past five.
+
+"What!" I cried. "Have you succeeded?... In twelve minutes?..."
+
+He took a few steps up and down the room, lit a cigarette and said:
+
+"You might ring up Baron Repstein, if you don't mind, and tell him I
+shall be with him at ten o'clock this evening."
+
+"Baron Repstein?" I asked. "The husband of the famous baroness?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you serious?"
+
+"Quite serious."
+
+Feeling absolutely at a loss, but incapable of resisting him, I opened
+the telephone-directory and unhooked the receiver. But, at that moment,
+Lupin stopped me with a peremptory gesture and said, with his eyes on
+the paper, which he had taken up again:
+
+"No, don't say anything.... It's no use letting him know.... There's
+something more urgent ... a queer thing that puzzles me.... Why on
+earth wasn't the last sentence finished? Why is the sentence...."
+
+He snatched up his hat and stick:
+
+"Let's be off. If I'm not mistaken, this is a business that requires
+immediate solution; and I don't believe I _am_ mistaken."
+
+He put his arm through mine, as we went down the stairs, and said:
+
+"I know what everybody knows. Baron Repstein, the company-promoter and
+racing-man, whose colt Etna won the Derby and the Grand Prix this year,
+has been victimized by his wife. The wife, who was well known for her
+fair hair, her dress and her extravagance, ran away a fortnight ago,
+taking with her a sum of three million francs, stolen from her husband,
+and quite a collection of diamonds, pearls and jewellery which the
+Princesse de Berny had placed in her hands and which she was supposed to
+buy. For two weeks the police have been pursuing the baroness across
+France and the continent: an easy job, as she scatters gold and jewels
+wherever she goes. They think they have her every moment. Two days ago,
+our champion detective, the egregious Ganimard, arrested a visitor at a
+big hotel in Belgium, a woman against whom the most positive evidence
+seemed to be heaped up. On enquiry, the lady turned out to be a
+notorious chorus-girl called Nelly Darbal. As for the baroness, she has
+vanished. The baron, on his side, has offered a reward of two hundred
+thousand francs to whosoever finds his wife. The money is in the hands
+of a solicitor. Moreover, he has sold his racing-stud, his house on the
+Boulevard Haussmann and his country-seat of Roquencourt in one lump, so
+that he may indemnify the Princesse de Berny for her loss."
+
+"And the proceeds of the sale," I added, "are to be paid over at once.
+The papers say that the princess will have her money to-morrow. Only,
+frankly, I fail to see the connection between this story, which you have
+told very well, and the puzzling sentence...."
+
+Lupin did not condescend to reply.
+
+We had been walking down the street in which I live and had passed some
+four or five houses, when he stepped off the pavement and began to
+examine a block of flats, not of the latest construction, which looked
+as if it contained a large number of tenants:
+
+"According to my calculations," he said, "this is where the signals came
+from, probably from that open window."
+
+"On the third floor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He went to the portress and asked her:
+
+"Does one of your tenants happen to be acquainted with Baron Repstein?"
+
+"Why, of course!" replied the woman. "We have M. Lavernoux here, such a
+nice gentleman; he is the baron's secretary and agent. I look after his
+flat."
+
+"And can we see him?"
+
+"See him?... The poor gentleman is very ill."
+
+"Ill?"
+
+"He's been ill a fortnight ... ever since the trouble with the
+baroness.... He came home the next day with a temperature and took to
+his bed."
+
+"But he gets up, surely?"
+
+"Ah, that I can't say!"
+
+"How do you mean, you can't say?"
+
+"No, his doctor won't let any one into his room. He took my key from
+me."
+
+"Who did?"
+
+"The doctor. He comes and sees to his wants, two or three times a day.
+He left the house only twenty minutes ago ... an old gentleman with a
+grey beard and spectacles.... Walks quite bent.... But where are you
+going sir?"
+
+"I'm going up, show me the way," said Lupin, with his foot on the
+stairs. "It's the third floor, isn't it, on the left?"
+
+"But I mustn't!" moaned the portress, running after him. "Besides, I
+haven't the key ... the doctor...."
+
+They climbed the three flights, one behind the other. On the landing,
+Lupin took a tool from his pocket and, disregarding the woman's
+protests, inserted it in the lock. The door yielded almost immediately.
+We went in.
+
+At the back of a small dark room we saw a streak of light filtering
+through a door that had been left ajar. Lupin ran across the room and,
+on reaching the threshold, gave a cry:
+
+"Too late! Oh, hang it all!"
+
+The portress fell on her knees, as though fainting.
+
+I entered the bedroom, in my turn, and saw a man lying half-dressed on
+the carpet, with his legs drawn up under him, his arms contorted and his
+face quite white, an emaciated, fleshless face, with the eyes still
+staring in terror and the mouth twisted into a hideous grin.
+
+"He's dead," said Lupin, after a rapid examination.
+
+"But why?" I exclaimed. "There's not a trace of blood!"
+
+"Yes, yes, there is," replied Lupin, pointing to two or three drops that
+showed on the chest, through the open shirt. "Look, they must have taken
+him by the throat with one hand and pricked him to the heart with the
+other. I say, 'pricked,' because really the wound can't be seen. It
+suggests a hole made by a very long needle."
+
+
+[Illustration: "_Lupin took a tool from his pocket ... and inserted it
+in the lock_"]
+
+
+He looked on the floor, all round the corpse. There was nothing to
+attract his attention, except a little pocket-mirror, the little mirror
+with which M. Lavernoux had amused himself by making the sunbeams dance
+through space.
+
+But, suddenly, as the portress was breaking into lamentations and
+calling for help, Lupin flung himself on her and shook her:
+
+"Stop that!... Listen to me ... you can call out later.... Listen to me
+and answer me. It is most important. M. Lavernoux had a friend living in
+this street, had he not? On the same side, to the right? An intimate
+friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A friend whom he used to meet at the café in the evening and with whom
+he exchanged the illustrated papers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was the friend an Englishman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"At No. 92 in this street."
+
+"One word more: had that old doctor been attending him long?"
+
+"No. I did not know him. He came on the evening when M. Lavernoux was
+taken ill."
+
+Without another word, Lupin dragged me away once more, ran down the
+stairs and, once in the street, turned to the right, which took us past
+my flat again. Four doors further, he stopped at No. 92, a small,
+low-storied house, of which the ground-floor was occupied by the
+proprietor of a dram-shop, who stood smoking in his doorway, next to the
+entrance-passage. Lupin asked if Mr. Hargrove was at home.
+
+"Mr. Hargrove went out about half-an-hour ago," said the publican. "He
+seemed very much excited and took a taxi-cab, a thing he doesn't often
+do."
+
+"And you don't know...."
+
+"Where he was going? Well, there's no secret about it He shouted it loud
+enough! 'Prefecture of Police' is what he said to the driver...."
+
+Lupin was himself just hailing a taxi, when he changed his mind; and I
+heard him mutter:
+
+"What's the good? He's got too much start of us...."
+
+He asked if any one called after Mr. Hargrove had gone.
+
+"Yes, an old gentleman with a grey beard and spectacles. He went up to
+Mr. Hargrove's, rang the bell, and went away again."
+
+"I am much obliged," said Lupin, touching his hat.
+
+He walked away slowly without speaking to me, wearing a thoughtful air.
+There was no doubt that the problem struck him as very difficult, and
+that he saw none too clearly in the darkness through which he seemed to
+be moving with such certainty.
+
+He himself, for that matter, confessed to me:
+
+"These are cases that require much more intuition than reflection. But
+this one, I may tell you, is well worth taking pains about."
+
+We had now reached the boulevards. Lupin entered a public reading-room
+and spent a long time consulting the last fortnight's newspapers. Now
+and again, he mumbled:
+
+"Yes ... yes ... of course ... it's only a guess, but it explains
+everything.... Well, a guess that answers every question is not far from
+being the truth...."
+
+It was now dark. We dined at a little restaurant and I noticed that
+Lupin's face became gradually more animated. His gestures were more
+decided. He recovered his spirits, his liveliness. When we left, during
+the walk which he made me take along the Boulevard Haussmann, towards
+Baron Repstein's house, he was the real Lupin of the great occasions,
+the Lupin who had made up his mind to go in and win.
+
+We slackened our pace just short of the Rue de Courcelles. Baron
+Repstein lived on the left-hand side, between this street and the
+Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in a three-storied private house of which we
+could see the front, decorated with columns and caryatides.
+
+"Stop!" said Lupin, suddenly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Another proof to confirm my supposition...."
+
+"What proof? I see nothing."
+
+"I do.... That's enough...."
+
+He turned up the collar of his coat, lowered the brim of his soft hat
+and said:
+
+"By Jove, it'll be a stiff fight! Go to bed, my friend. I'll tell you
+about my expedition to-morrow ... if it doesn't cost me my life."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Oh, I know what I'm saying! I'm risking a lot. First of all, getting
+arrested, which isn't much. Next, getting killed, which is worse.
+But...." He gripped my shoulder. "But there's a third thing I'm risking,
+which is getting hold of two millions.... And, once I possess a capital
+of two millions, I'll show people what I can do! Good-night, old chap,
+and, if you never see me again...." He spouted Musset's lines:
+
+
+    "Plant a willow by my grave,
+      The weeping willow that I love...."
+
+
+I walked away. Three minutes later--I am continuing the narrative as he
+told it to me next day--three minutes later, Lupin rang at the door of
+the Hôtel Repstein.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Is monsieur le baron at home?"
+
+"Yes," replied the butler, examining the intruder with an air of
+surprise, "but monsieur le baron does not see people as late as this."
+
+"Does monsieur le baron know of the murder of M. Lavernoux, his
+land-agent?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, please tell monsieur le baron that I have come about the murder
+and that there is not a moment to lose."
+
+A voice called from above:
+
+"Show the gentleman up, Antoine."
+
+In obedience to this peremptory order, the butler led the way to the
+first floor. In an open doorway stood a gentleman whom Lupin recognized
+from his photograph in the papers as Baron Repstein, husband of the
+famous baroness and owner of Etna, the horse of the year.
+
+He was an exceedingly tall, square-shouldered man. His clean-shaven face
+wore a pleasant, almost smiling expression, which was not affected by
+the sadness of his eyes. He was dressed in a well-cut morning-coat, with
+a tan waistcoat and a dark tie fastened with a pearl pin, the value of
+which struck Lupin as considerable.
+
+He took Lupin into his study, a large, three-windowed room, lined with
+book-cases, sets of pigeonholes, an American desk and a safe. And he at
+once asked, with ill-concealed eagerness:
+
+"Do you know anything?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur le baron."
+
+"About the murder of that poor Lavernoux?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur le baron, and about madame le baronne also."
+
+"Do you really mean it? Quick, I entreat you...."
+
+He pushed forward a chair. Lupin sat down and began:
+
+"Monsieur le baron, the circumstances are very serious. I will be
+brief."
+
+"Yes, do, please."
+
+"Well, monsieur le baron, in a few words, it amounts to this: five or
+six hours ago, Lavernoux, who, for the last fortnight, had been kept in
+a sort of enforced confinement by his doctor, Lavernoux--how shall I put
+it?--telegraphed certain revelations by means of signals which were
+partly taken down by me and which put me on the track of this case. He
+himself was surprised in the act of making this communication and was
+murdered."
+
+"But by whom? By whom?"
+
+"By his doctor."
+
+"Who is this doctor?"
+
+"I don't know. But one of M. Lavernoux's friends, an Englishman called
+Hargrove, the friend, in fact, with whom he was communicating, is bound
+to know and is also bound to know the exact and complete meaning of the
+communication, because, without waiting for the end, he jumped into a
+motor-cab and drove to the Prefecture of Police."
+
+"Why? Why?... And what is the result of that step?"
+
+"The result, monsieur le baron, is that your house is surrounded. There
+are twelve detectives under your windows. The moment the sun rises, they
+will enter in the name of the law and arrest the criminal."
+
+"Then is Lavernoux's murderer concealed in my house? Who is he? One of
+the servants? But no, for you were speaking of a doctor!..."
+
+"I would remark, monsieur le baron, that when this Mr. Hargrove went to
+the police to tell them of the revelations made by his friend Lavernoux,
+he was not aware that his friend Lavernoux was going to be murdered. The
+step taken by Mr Hargrove had to do with something else...."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"With the disappearance of madame la baronne, of which he knew the
+secret, thanks to the communication made by Lavernoux."
+
+"What! They know at last! They have found the baroness! Where is she?
+And the jewels? And the money she robbed me of?"
+
+Baron Repstein was talking in a great state of excitement. He rose and,
+almost shouting at Lupin, cried:
+
+"Finish your story, sir! I can't endure this suspense!"
+
+Lupin continued, in a slow and hesitating voice:
+
+"The fact is ... you see ... it is rather difficult to explain ... for
+you and I are looking at the thing from a totally different point of
+view."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"And yet you ought to understand, monsieur le baron.... We begin by
+saying--I am quoting the newspapers--by saying, do we not, that Baroness
+Repstein knew all the secrets of your business and that she was able to
+open not only that safe over there, but also the one at the Crédit
+Lyonnais in which you kept your securities locked up?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, one evening, a fortnight ago, while you were at your club,
+Baroness Repstein, who, unknown to yourself, had converted all those
+securities into cash, left this house with a travelling-bag, containing
+your money and all the Princesse de Berny's jewels?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And, since then, she has not been seen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, there is an excellent reason why she has not been seen."
+
+"What reason?"
+
+"This, that Baroness Repstein has been murdered...."
+
+"Murdered!... The baroness!... But you're mad!"
+
+"Murdered ... and probably that same evening."
+
+"I tell you again, you are mad! How can the baroness have been murdered,
+when the police are following her tracks, so to speak, step by step?"
+
+"They are following the tracks of another woman."
+
+"What woman?"
+
+"The murderer's accomplice."
+
+"And who is the murderer?"
+
+"The same man who, for the last fortnight, knowing that Lavernoux,
+through the situation which he occupied in this house, had discovered
+the truth, kept him imprisoned, forced him to silence, threatened him,
+terrorized him; the same man who, finding Lavernoux in the act of
+communicating with a friend, made away with him in cold blood by
+stabbing him to the heart."
+
+"The doctor, therefore?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But who is this doctor? Who is this malevolent genius, this infernal
+being who appears and disappears, who slays in the dark and whom nobody
+suspects?"
+
+"Can't you guess?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And do you want to know?"
+
+"Do I want to know?... Why, speak, man, speak!... You know where he is
+hiding?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In this house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And it is he whom the police are after?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I know him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"You!"
+
+"I!..."
+
+Lupin had not been more than ten minutes with the baron; and the duel
+was commencing. The accusation was hurled, definitely, violently,
+implacably.
+
+Lupin repeated:
+
+"You yourself, got up in a false beard and a pair of spectacles, bent in
+two, like an old man. In short, you, Baron Repstein; and it is you for
+a very good reason, of which nobody has thought, which is that, if it
+was not you who contrived the whole plot, the case becomes inexplicable.
+Whereas, taking you as the criminal, you as murdering the baroness in
+order to get rid of her and run through those millions with another
+woman, you as murdering Lavernoux, your agent, in order to suppress an
+unimpeachable witness, oh, then the whole case is explained! Well, is it
+pretty clear? And are not you yourself convinced?"
+
+The baron, who, throughout this conversation, had stood bending over his
+visitor, waiting for each of his words with feverish avidity, now drew
+himself up and looked at Lupin as though he undoubtedly had to do with a
+madman. When Lupin had finished speaking, the baron stepped back two or
+three paces, seemed on the point of uttering words which he ended by not
+saying, and then, without taking his eyes from his strange visitor, went
+to the fireplace and rang the bell.
+
+Lupin did not make a movement. He waited smiling.
+
+The butler entered. His master said:
+
+"You can go to bed, Antoine. I will let this gentleman out."
+
+"Shall I put out the lights, sir?"
+
+"Leave a light in the hall."
+
+Antoine left the room and the baron, after taking a revolver from his
+desk, at once came back to Lupin, put the weapon in his pocket and said,
+very calmly:
+
+"You must excuse this little precaution, sir. I am obliged to take it in
+case you should be mad, though that does not seem likely. No, you are
+not mad. But you have come here with an object which I fail to grasp;
+and you have sprung upon me an accusation of so astounding a character
+that I am curious to know the reason. I have experienced so much
+disappointment and undergone so much suffering that an outrage of this
+kind leaves me indifferent. Continue, please."
+
+His voice shook with emotion and his sad eyes seemed moist with tears.
+
+Lupin shuddered. Had he made a mistake? Was the surmise which his
+intuition had suggested to him and which was based upon a frail
+groundwork of slight facts, was this surmise wrong?
+
+His attention was caught by a detail: through the opening in the baron's
+waistcoat he saw the point of the pin fixed in the tie and was thus able
+to realize the unusual length of the pin. Moreover, the gold stem was
+triangular and formed a sort of miniature dagger, very thin and very
+delicate, yet formidable in an expert hand.
+
+And Lupin had no doubt but that the pin attached to that magnificent
+pearl was the weapon which had pierced the heart of the unfortunate M.
+Lavernoux.
+
+He muttered:
+
+"You're jolly clever, monsieur le baron!"
+
+The other, maintaining a rather scornful gravity, kept silence, as
+though he did not understand and as though waiting for the explanation
+to which he felt himself entitled. And, in spite of everything, this
+impassive attitude worried Arsène Lupin. Nevertheless, his conviction
+was so profound and, besides, he had staked so much on the adventure
+that he repeated:
+
+"Yes, jolly clever, for it is evident that the baroness only obeyed your
+orders in realizing your securities and also in borrowing the princess's
+jewels on the pretence of buying them. And it is evident that the person
+who walked out of your house with a bag was not your wife, but an
+accomplice, that chorus-girl probably, and that it is your chorus-girl
+who is deliberately allowing herself to be chased across the continent
+by our worthy Ganimard. And I look upon the trick as marvellous. What
+does the woman risk, seeing that it is the baroness who is being looked
+for? And how could they look for any other woman than the baroness,
+seeing that you have promised a reward of two hundred thousand francs to
+the person who finds the baroness?... Oh, that two hundred thousand
+francs lodged with a solicitor: what a stroke of genius! It has dazzled
+the police! It has thrown dust in the eyes of the most clear-sighted! A
+gentleman who lodges two hundred thousand francs with a solicitor is a
+gentleman who speaks the truth.... So they go on hunting the baroness!
+And they leave you quietly to settle your affairs, to sell your stud and
+your two houses to the highest bidder and to prepare your flight!
+Heavens, what a joke!"
+
+The baron did not wince. He walked up to Lupin and asked, without
+abandoning his imperturbable coolness:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+Lupin burst out laughing.
+
+"What can it matter who I am? Take it that I am an emissary of fate,
+looming out of the darkness for your destruction!"
+
+He sprang from his chair, seized the baron by the shoulder and jerked
+out:
+
+"Yes, for your destruction, my bold baron! Listen to me! Your wife's
+three millions, almost all the princess's jewels, the money you received
+to-day from the sale of your stud and your real estate: it's all there,
+in your pocket, or in that safe. Your flight is prepared. Look, I can
+see the leather of your portmanteau behind that hanging. The papers on
+your desk are in order. This very night, you would have done a guy.
+This very night, disguised beyond recognition, after taking all your
+precautions, you would have joined your chorus-girl, the creature for
+whose sake you have committed murder, that same Nelly Darbal, no doubt,
+whom Ganimard arrested in Belgium. But for one sudden, unforeseen
+obstacle: the police, the twelve detectives who, thanks to Lavernoux's
+revelations, have been posted under your windows. They've cooked your
+goose, old chap!... Well, I'll save you. A word through the telephone;
+and, by three or four o'clock in the morning, twenty of my friends will
+have removed the obstacle, polished off the twelve detectives, and you
+and I will slip away quietly. My conditions? Almost nothing; a trifle to
+you: we share the millions and the jewels. Is it a bargain?"
+
+He was leaning over the baron, thundering at him with irresistible
+energy. The baron whispered:
+
+"I'm beginning to understand. It's blackmail...."
+
+"Blackmail or not, call it what you please, my boy, but you've got to go
+through with it and do as I say. And don't imagine that I shall give way
+at the last moment. Don't say to yourself, 'Here's a gentleman whom the
+fear of the police will cause to think twice. If I run a big risk in
+refusing, he also will be risking the handcuffs, the cells and the rest
+of it, seeing that we are both being hunted down like wild beasts.' That
+would be a mistake, monsieur le baron. I can always get out of it. It's
+a question of yourself, of yourself alone.... Your money or your life,
+my lord! Share and share alike ... if not, the scaffold! Is it a
+bargain?"
+
+A quick movement. The baron released himself, grasped his revolver and
+fired.
+
+But Lupin was prepared for the attack, the more so as the baron's face
+had lost its assurance and gradually, under the slow impulse of rage and
+fear, acquired an expression of almost bestial ferocity that heralded
+the rebellion so long kept under control.
+
+He fired twice. Lupin first flung himself to one side and then dived at
+the baron's knees, seized him by both legs and brought him to the
+ground. The baron freed himself with an effort. The two enemies rolled
+over in each other's grip; and a stubborn, crafty, brutal, savage
+struggle followed.
+
+Suddenly, Lupin felt a pain at his chest:
+
+"You villain!" he yelled. "That's your Lavernoux trick; the tie-pin!"
+
+Stiffening his muscles with a desperate effort, he overpowered the baron
+and clutched him by the throat victorious at last and omnipotent.
+
+"You ass!" he cried. "If you hadn't shown your cards, I might have
+thrown up the game! You have such a look of the honest man about you!
+But what a biceps, my lord!... I thought for a moment.... But it's all
+over, now!... Come, my friend, hand us the pin and look cheerful.... No,
+that's what I call pulling a face.... I'm holding you too tight,
+perhaps? My lord's at his last gasp?... Come, be good!... That's it,
+just a wee bit of string round the wrists; do you allow me?... Why, you
+and I are agreeing like two brothers! It's touching!... At heart, you
+know, I'm rather fond of you.... And now, my bonnie lad, mind yourself!
+And a thousand apologies!..."
+
+Half raising himself, with all his strength he caught the other a
+terrible blow in the pit of the stomach. The baron gave a gurgle and lay
+stunned and unconscious.
+
+"That comes of having a deficient sense of logic, my friend," said
+Lupin. "I offered you half your money. Now I'll give you none at all ...
+provided I know where to find any of it. For that's the main thing.
+Where has the beggar hidden his dust? In the safe? By George, it'll be a
+tough job! Luckily, I have all the night before me...."
+
+He began to feel in the baron's pockets, came upon a bunch of keys,
+first made sure that the portmanteau behind the curtain held no papers
+or jewels, and then went to the safe.
+
+But, at that moment, he stopped short: he heard a noise somewhere. The
+servants? Impossible. Their attics were on the top floor. He listened.
+The noise came from below. And, suddenly, he understood: the detectives,
+who had heard the two shots, were banging at the front door, as was
+their duty, without waiting for daybreak. Then an electric bell rang,
+which Lupin recognized as that in the hall:
+
+"By Jupiter!" he said. "Pretty work! Here are these jokers coming ...
+and just as we were about to gather the fruits of our laborious efforts!
+Tut, tut, Lupin, keep cool! What's expected of you? To open a safe, of
+which you don't know the secret, in thirty seconds. That's a mere trifle
+to lose your head about! Come, all you have to do is to discover the
+secret! How many letters are there in the word? Four?"
+
+He went on thinking, while talking and listening to the noise outside.
+He double-locked the door of the outer room and then came back to the
+safe:
+
+"Four ciphers.... Four letters ... four letters.... Who can lend me a
+hand?... Who can give me just a tiny hint?... Who? Why, Lavernoux, of
+course! That good Lavernoux, seeing that he took the trouble to indulge
+in optical telegraphy at the risk of his life.... Lord, what a fool I
+am!... Why, of course, why, of course, that's it!... By Jove, this is
+too exciting!... Lupin, you must count ten and suppress that distracted
+beating of your heart. If not, it means bad work."
+
+He counted ten and, now quite calm, knelt in front of the safe. He
+turned the four knobs with careful attention. Next, he examined the
+bunch of keys, selected one of them, then another, and attempted, in
+vain, to insert them in the lock:
+
+"There's luck in odd numbers," he muttered, trying a third key.
+"Victory! This is the right one! Open Sesame, good old Sesame, open!"
+
+The lock turned. The door moved on its hinges. Lupin pulled it to him,
+after taking out the bunch of keys:
+
+"The millions are ours," he said. "Baron, I forgive you!"
+
+And then he gave a single bound backward, hiccoughing with fright. His
+legs staggered beneath him. The keys jingled together in his fevered
+hand with a sinister sound. And, for twenty, for thirty seconds, despite
+the din that was being raised and the electric bells that kept ringing
+through the house, he stood there, wild-eyed, gazing at the most
+horrible, the most abominable sight: a woman's body, half-dressed, bent
+in two in the safe, crammed in, like an over-large parcel ... and fair
+hair hanging down ... and blood ... clots of blood ... and livid flesh,
+blue in places, decomposing, flaccid.
+
+"The baroness!" he gasped. "The baroness!... Oh, the monster!..."
+
+He roused himself from his torpor, suddenly, to spit in the murderer's
+face and pound him with his heels:
+
+"Take that, you wretch!... Take that, you villain!... And, with it, the
+scaffold, the bran-basket!..."
+
+Meanwhile, shouts came from the upper floors in reply to the detectives'
+ringing. Lupin heard footsteps scurrying down the stairs. It was time to
+think of beating a retreat.
+
+In reality, this did not trouble him greatly. During his conversation
+with the baron, the enemy's extraordinary coolness had given him the
+feeling that there must be a private outlet. Besides, how could the
+baron have begun the fight, if he were not sure of escaping the police?
+
+Lupin went into the next room. It looked out on the garden. At the
+moment when the detectives were entering the house, he flung his legs
+over the balcony and let himself down by a rain-pipe. He walked round
+the building. On the opposite side was a wall lined with shrubs. He
+slipped in between the shrubs and the wall and at once found a little
+door which he easily opened with one of the keys on the bunch. All that
+remained for him to do was to walk across a yard and pass through the
+empty rooms of a lodge; and in a few moments he found himself in the Rue
+du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Of course--and this he had reckoned on--the
+police had not provided for this secret outlet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, what do you think of Baron Repstein?" cried Lupin, after giving
+me all the details of that tragic night. "What a dirty scoundrel! And
+how it teaches one to distrust appearances! I swear to you, the fellow
+looked a thoroughly honest man!"
+
+"But what about the millions?" I asked. "The princess's jewels?"
+
+"They were in the safe. I remember seeing the parcel."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They are there still."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"They are, upon my word! I might tell you that I was afraid of the
+detectives, or else plead a sudden attack of delicacy. But the truth is
+simpler ... and more prosaic: the smell was too awful!..."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow, the smell that came from that safe ... from that
+coffin.... No, I couldn't do it ... my head swam.... Another second and
+I should have been ill.... Isn't it silly?... Look, this is all I got
+from my expedition: the tie-pin.... The bed-rock value of the pearl is
+thirty thousand francs.... But all the same, I feel jolly well annoyed.
+What a sell!"
+
+"One more question," I said. "The word that opened the safe!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"How did you guess it?"
+
+"Oh, quite easily! In fact, I am surprised that I didn't think of it
+sooner."
+
+"Well, tell me."
+
+"It was contained in the revelations telegraphed by that poor
+Lavernoux."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Just think, my dear chap, the mistakes in spelling...."
+
+"The mistakes in spelling?"
+
+"Why, of course! They were deliberate. Surely, you don't imagine that
+the agent, the private secretary of the baron--who was a
+company-promoter, mind you, and a racing-man--did not know English
+better than to spell 'necessery' with an 'e,' 'atack' with one 't,'
+'ennemy' with two 'n's' and 'prudance' with an 'a'! The thing struck me
+at once. I put the four letters together and got 'Etna,' the name of the
+famous horse."
+
+"And was that one word enough?"
+
+"Of course! It was enough to start with, to put me on the scent of the
+Repstein case, of which all the papers were full, and, next, to make me
+guess that it was the key-word of the safe, because, on the one hand,
+Lavernoux knew the gruesome contents of the safe and, on the other, he
+was denouncing the baron. And it was in the same way that I was led to
+suppose that Lavernoux had a friend in the street, that they both
+frequented the same café, that they amused themselves by working out the
+problems and cryptograms in the illustrated papers and that they had
+contrived a way of exchanging telegrams from window to window."
+
+"That makes it all quite simple!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Very simple. And the incident once more shows that, in the discovery of
+crimes, there is something much more valuable than the examination of
+facts, than observations, deductions, inferences and all that stuff and
+nonsense. What I mean is, as I said before, intuition ... intuition and
+intelligence.... And Arsène Lupin, without boasting, is deficient in
+neither one nor the other!..."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE WEDDING-RING
+
+
+Yvonne d'Origny kissed her son and told him to be good:
+
+"You know your grandmother d'Origny is not very found of children. Now
+that she has sent for you to come and see her, you must show her what a
+sensible little boy you are." And, turning to the governess, "Don't
+forget, Fräulein, to bring him home immediately after dinner.... Is
+monsieur still in the house?"
+
+"Yes, madame, monsieur le comte is in his study."
+
+As soon as she was alone, Yvonne d'Origny walked to the window to catch
+a glimpse of her son as he left the house. He was out in the street in a
+moment, raised his head and blew her a kiss, as was his custom every
+day. Then the governess took his hand with, as Yvonne remarked to her
+surprise, a movement of unusual violence. Yvonne leant further out of
+the window and, when the boy reached the corner of the boulevard, she
+suddenly saw a man step out of a motor-car and go up to him. The man, in
+whom she recognized Bernard, her husband's confidential servant, took
+the child by the arm, made both him and the governess get into the car,
+and ordered the chauffeur to drive off.
+
+The whole incident did not take ten seconds.
+
+Yvonne, in her trepidation, ran to her bedroom, seized a wrap and went
+to the door. The door was locked; and there was no key in the lock.
+
+She hurried back to the boudoir. The door of the boudoir also was
+locked.
+
+Then, suddenly, the image of her husband appeared before her, that
+gloomy face which no smile ever lit up, those pitiless eyes in which,
+for years, she had felt so much hatred and malice.
+
+"It's he ... it's he!" she said to herself. "He has taken the child....
+Oh, it's horrible!"
+
+She beat against the door with her fists, with her feet, then flew to
+the mantelpiece and pressed the bell fiercely.
+
+The shrill sound rang through the house from top to bottom. The servants
+would be sure to come. Perhaps a crowd would gather in the street. And,
+impelled by a sort of despairing hope, she kept her finger on the
+button.
+
+A key turned in the lock.... The door was flung wide open. The count
+appeared on the threshold of the boudoir. And the expression of his
+face was so terrible that Yvonne began to tremble.
+
+He entered the room. Five or six steps separated him from her. With a
+supreme effort, she tried to stir, but all movement was impossible; and,
+when she attempted to speak, she could only flutter her lips and emit
+incoherent sounds. She felt herself lost. The thought of death unhinged
+her. Her knees gave way beneath her and she sank into a huddled heap,
+with a moan.
+
+The count rushed at her and seized her by the throat:
+
+"Hold your tongue ... don't call out!" he said, in a low voice. "That
+will be best for you!..."
+
+Seeing that she was not attempting to defend herself, he loosened his
+hold of her and took from his pocket some strips of canvas ready rolled
+and of different lengths. In a few minutes, Yvonne was lying on a sofa,
+with her wrists and ankles bound and her arms fastened close to her
+body.
+
+It was now dark in the boudoir. The count switched on the electric light
+and went to a little writing-desk where Yvonne was accustomed to keep
+her letters. Not succeeding in opening it, he picked the lock with a
+bent wire, emptied the drawers and collected all the contents into a
+bundle, which he carried off in a cardboard file:
+
+"Waste of time, eh?" he grinned. "Nothing but bills and letters of no
+importance.... No proof against you.... Tah! I'll keep my son for all
+that; and I swear before Heaven that I will not let him go!"
+
+As he was leaving the room, he was joined, near the door, by his man
+Bernard. The two stopped and talked, in a low voice; but Yvonne heard
+these words spoken by the servant:
+
+"I have had an answer from the working jeweller. He says he holds
+himself at my disposal."
+
+And the count replied:
+
+"The thing is put off until twelve o'clock midday, to-morrow. My mother
+has just telephoned to say that she could not come before."
+
+Then Yvonne heard the key turn in the lock and the sound of steps going
+down to the ground-floor, where her husband's study was.
+
+She long lay inert, her brain reeling with vague, swift ideas that burnt
+her in passing, like flames. She remembered her husband's infamous
+behaviour, his humiliating conduct to her, his threats, his plans for a
+divorce; and she gradually came to understand that she was the victim of
+a regular conspiracy, that the servants had been sent away until the
+following evening by their master's orders, that the governess had
+carried off her son by the count's instructions and with Bernard's
+assistance, that her son would not come back and that she would never
+see him again.
+
+"My son!" she cried. "My son!..."
+
+Exasperated by her grief, she stiffened herself, with every nerve, with
+every muscle tense, to make a violent effort. And she was astonished to
+find that her right hand, which the count had fastened too hurriedly,
+still retained a certain freedom.
+
+Then a mad hope invaded her; and, slowly, patiently, she began the work
+of self-deliverance.
+
+It was long in the doing. She needed a deal of time to widen the knot
+sufficiently and a deal of time afterward, when the hand was released,
+to undo those other bonds which tied her arms to her body and those
+which fastened her ankles.
+
+Still, the thought of her son sustained her; and the last shackle fell
+as the clock struck eight. She was free!
+
+She was no sooner on her feet than she flew to the window and flung back
+the latch, with the intention of calling the first passer-by. At that
+moment a policeman came walking along the pavement. She leant out. But
+the brisk evening air, striking her face, calmed her. She thought of the
+scandal, of the judicial investigation, of the cross-examination, of her
+son. O Heaven! What could she do to get him back? How could she escape?
+The count might appear at the least sound. And who knew but that, in a
+moment of fury ...?
+
+She shivered from head to foot, seized with a sudden terror. The horror
+of death mingled, in her poor brain, with the thought of her son; and
+she stammered, with a choking throat:
+
+"Help!... Help!..."
+
+She stopped and said to herself, several times over, in a low voice,
+"Help!... Help!..." as though the word awakened an idea, a memory within
+her, and as though the hope of assistance no longer seemed to her
+impossible. For some minutes she remained absorbed in deep meditation,
+broken by fears and starts. Then, with an almost mechanical series of
+movements, she put out her arm to a little set of shelves hanging over
+the writing-desk, took down four books, one after the other, turned the
+pages with a distraught air, replaced them and ended by finding, between
+the pages of the fifth, a visiting-card on which her eyes spelt the
+name:
+
+
+                 HORACE VELMONT,
+
+
+followed by an address written in pencil:
+
+
+            CERCLE DE LA RUE ROYALE.
+
+
+And her memory conjured up the strange thing which that man had said to
+her, a few years before, in that same house, on a day when she was at
+home to her friends:
+
+"If ever a danger threatens you, if you need help, do not hesitate; post
+this card, which you see me put into this book; and, whatever the hour,
+whatever the obstacles, I will come."
+
+With what a curious air he had spoken these words and how well he had
+conveyed the impression of certainty, of strength, of unlimited power,
+of indomitable daring!
+
+Abruptly, unconsciously, acting under the impulse of an irresistible
+determination, the consequences of which she refused to anticipate,
+Yvonne, with the same automatic gestures, took a pneumatic-delivery
+envelope, slipped in the card, sealed it, directed it to "Horace
+Velmont, Cercle de la Rue Royale" and went to the open window. The
+policeman was walking up and down outside. She flung out the envelope,
+trusting to fate. Perhaps it would be picked up, treated as a lost
+letter and posted.
+
+She had hardly completed this act when she realized its absurdity. It
+was mad to suppose that the message would reach the address and madder
+still to hope that the man to whom she was sending could come to her
+assistance, "whatever the hour, whatever the obstacles."
+
+A reaction followed which was all the greater inasmuch as the effort had
+been swift and violent. Yvonne staggered, leant against a chair and,
+losing all energy, let herself fall.
+
+The hours passed by, the dreary hours of winter evenings when nothing
+but the sound of carriages interrupts the silence of the street. The
+clock struck, pitilessly. In the half-sleep that numbed her limbs,
+Yvonne counted the strokes. She also heard certain noises, on different
+floors of the house, which told her that her husband had dined, that he
+was going up to his room, that he was going down again to his study. But
+all this seemed very shadowy to her; and her torpor was such that she
+did not even think of lying down on the sofa, in case he should come
+in....
+
+The twelve strokes of midnight.... Then half-past twelve ... then
+one.... Yvonne thought of nothing, awaiting the events which were
+preparing and against which rebellion was useless. She pictured her son
+and herself as one pictures those beings who have suffered much and who
+suffer no more and who take each other in their loving arms. But a
+nightmare shattered this dream. For now those two beings were to be torn
+asunder; and she had the awful feeling, in her delirium, that she was
+crying and choking....
+
+She leapt from her seat. The key had turned in the lock. The count was
+coming, attracted by her cries. Yvonne glanced round for a weapon with
+which to defend herself. But the door was pushed back quickly and,
+astounded, as though the sight that presented itself before her eyes
+seemed to her the most inexplicable prodigy, she stammered:
+
+"You!... You!..."
+
+A man was walking up to her, in dress-clothes, with his opera-hat and
+cape under his arm, and this man, young, slender and elegant, she had
+recognized as Horace Velmont.
+
+"You!" she repeated.
+
+He said, with a bow:
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame, but I did not receive your letter until very
+late."
+
+"Is it possible? Is it possible that this is you ... that you were able
+to ...?"
+
+He seemed greatly surprised:
+
+"Did I not promise to come in answer to your call?"
+
+"Yes ... but ..."
+
+"Well, here I am," he said, with a smile.
+
+He examined the strips of canvas from which Yvonne had succeeded in
+freeing herself and nodded his head, while continuing his inspection:
+
+"So those are the means employed? The Comte d'Origny, I presume?... I
+also saw that he locked you in.... But then the pneumatic letter?... Ah,
+through the window!... How careless of you not to close it!"
+
+He pushed both sides to. Yvonne took fright:
+
+"Suppose they hear!"
+
+"There is no one in the house. I have been over it."
+
+"Still ..."
+
+"Your husband went out ten minutes ago."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"With his mother, the Comtesse d'Origny."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Oh, it's very simple! He was rung up by telephone and I awaited the
+result at the corner of this street and the boulevard. As I expected,
+the count came out hurriedly, followed by his man. I at once entered,
+with the aid of special keys."
+
+He told this in the most natural way, just as one tells a meaningless
+anecdote in a drawing-room. But Yvonne, suddenly seized with fresh
+alarm, asked:
+
+"Then it's not true?... His mother is not ill?... In that case, my
+husband will be coming back...."
+
+"Certainly, the count will see that a trick has been played on him and
+in three quarters of an hour at the latest...."
+
+"Let us go.... I don't want him to find me here.... I must go to my
+son...."
+
+"One moment...."
+
+"One moment!... But don't you know that they have taken him from me?...
+That they are hurting him, perhaps?..."
+
+With set face and feverish gestures, she tried to push Velmont back. He,
+with great gentleness, compelled her to sit down and, leaning over her
+in a respectful attitude, said, in a serious voice:
+
+"Listen, madame, and let us not waste time, when every minute is
+valuable. First of all, remember this: we met four times, six years
+ago.... And, on the fourth occasion, when I was speaking to you, in the
+drawing-room of this house, with too much--what shall I say?--with too
+much feeling, you gave me to understand that my visits were no longer
+welcome. Since that day I have not seen you. And, nevertheless, in spite
+of all, your faith in me was such that you kept the card which I put
+between the pages of that book and, six years later, you send for me and
+none other. That faith in me I ask you to continue. You must obey me
+blindly. Just as I surmounted every obstacle to come to you, so I will
+save you, whatever the position may be."
+
+Horace Velmont's calmness, his masterful voice, with the friendly
+intonation, gradually quieted the countess. Though still very weak, she
+gained a fresh sense of ease and security in that man's presence.
+
+"Have no fear," he went on. "The Comtesse d'Origny lives at the other
+end of the Bois de Vincennes. Allowing that your husband finds a
+motor-cab, it is impossible for him to be back before a quarter-past
+three. Well, it is twenty-five to three now. I swear to take you away at
+three o'clock exactly and to take you to your son. But I will not go
+before I know everything."
+
+"What am I to do?" she asked.
+
+"Answer me and very plainly. We have twenty minutes. It is enough. But
+it is not too much."
+
+"Ask me what you want to know."
+
+"Do you think that the count had any ... any murderous intentions?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then it concerns your son?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is taking him away, I suppose, because he wants to divorce you and
+marry another woman, a former friend of yours, whom you have turned out
+of your house. Is that it? Oh, I entreat you, answer me frankly! These
+are facts of public notoriety; and your hesitation, your scruples, must
+all cease, now that the matter concerns your son. So your husband wished
+to marry another woman?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The woman has no money. Your husband, on his side, has gambled away
+all his property and has no means beyond the allowance which he receives
+from his mother, the Comtesse d'Origny, and the income of a large
+fortune which your son inherited from two of your uncles. It is this
+fortune which your husband covets and which he would appropriate more
+easily if the child were placed in his hands. There is only one way:
+divorce. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what has prevented him until now is your refusal?"
+
+"Yes, mine and that of my mother-in-law, whose religious feelings are
+opposed to divorce. The Comtesse d'Origny would only yield in case ..."
+
+"In case ...?"
+
+"In case they could prove me guilty of shameful conduct."
+
+Velmont shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Therefore he is powerless to do anything against you or against your
+son. Both from the legal point of view and from that of his own
+interests, he stumbles against an obstacle which is the most
+insurmountable of all: the virtue of an honest woman. And yet, in spite
+of everything, he suddenly shows fight."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that, if a man like the count, after so many hesitations and
+in the face of so many difficulties, risks so doubtful an adventure, it
+must be because he thinks he has command of weapons ..."
+
+"What weapons?"
+
+"I don't know. But they exist ... or else he would not have begun by
+taking away your son."
+
+Yvonne gave way to her despair:
+
+"Oh, this is horrible!... How do I know what he may have done, what he
+may have invented?"
+
+"Try and think.... Recall your memories.... Tell me, in this desk which
+he has broken open, was there any sort of letter which he could possibly
+turn against you?"
+
+"No ... only bills and addresses...."
+
+"And, in the words he used to you, in his threats, is there nothing that
+allows you to guess?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Still ... still," Velmont insisted, "there must be something." And he
+continued, "Has the count a particularly intimate friend ... in whom he
+confides?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did anybody come to see him yesterday?"
+
+"No, nobody."
+
+"Was he alone when he bound you and locked you in?"
+
+"At that moment, yes."
+
+"But afterward?"
+
+"His man, Bernard, joined him near the door and I heard them talking
+about a working jeweller...."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"And about something that was to happen the next day, that is, to-day,
+at twelve o'clock, because the Comtesse d'Origny could not come
+earlier."
+
+Velmont reflected:
+
+"Has that conversation any meaning that throws a light upon your
+husband's plans?"
+
+"I don't see any."
+
+"Where are your jewels?"
+
+"My husband has sold them all."
+
+"You have nothing at all left?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not even a ring?"
+
+"No," she said, showing her hands, "none except this."
+
+"Which is your wedding-ring?"
+
+"Which is my ... wedding--..."
+
+She stopped, nonplussed. Velmont saw her flush as she stammered:
+
+"Could it be possible?... But no ... no ... he doesn't know...."
+
+Velmont at once pressed her with questions and Yvonne stood silent,
+motionless, anxious-faced. At last, she replied, in a low voice:
+
+"This is not my wedding-ring. One day, long ago, it dropped from the
+mantelpiece in my bedroom, where I had put it a minute before and, hunt
+for it as I might, I could not find it again. So I ordered another,
+without saying anything about it ... and this is the one, on my
+hand...."
+
+"Did the real ring bear the date of your wedding?"
+
+"Yes ... the 23rd of October."
+
+"And the second?"
+
+"This one has no date."
+
+He perceived a slight hesitation in her and a confusion which, in point
+of fact, she did not try to conceal.
+
+"I implore you," he exclaimed, "don't hide anything from me.... You see
+how far we have gone in a few minutes, with a little logic and
+calmness.... Let us go on, I ask you as a favour."
+
+"Are you sure," she said, "that it is necessary?"
+
+"I am sure that the least detail is of importance and that we are nearly
+attaining our object. But we must hurry. This is a crucial moment."
+
+"I have nothing to conceal," she said, proudly raising her head. "It was
+the most wretched and the most dangerous period of my life. While
+suffering humiliation at home, outside I was surrounded with attentions,
+with temptations, with pitfalls, like any woman who is seen to be
+neglected by her husband. Then I remembered: before my marriage, a man
+had been in love with me. I had guessed his unspoken love; and he has
+died since. I had the name of that man engraved inside the ring; and I
+wore it as a talisman. There was no love in me, because I was the wife
+of another. But, in my secret heart, there was a memory, a sad dream,
+something sweet and gentle that protected me...."
+
+She had spoken slowly, without embarrassment, and Velmont did not doubt
+for a second that she was telling the absolute truth. He kept silent;
+and she, becoming anxious again, asked:
+
+"Do you suppose ... that my husband ...?"
+
+He took her hand and, while examining the plain gold ring, said:
+
+"The puzzle lies here. Your husband, I don't know how, knows of the
+substitution of one ring for the other. His mother will be here at
+twelve o'clock. In the presence of witnesses, he will compel you to take
+off your ring; and, in this way, he will obtain the approval of his
+mother and, at the same time, will be able to obtain his divorce,
+because he will have the proof for which he was seeking."
+
+"I am lost!" she moaned. "I am lost!"
+
+"On the contrary, you are saved! Give me that ring ... and presently he
+will find another there, another which I will send you, to reach you
+before twelve, and which will bear the date of the 23rd of October. So
+..."
+
+He suddenly broke off. While he was speaking, Yvonne's hand had turned
+ice-cold in his; and, raising his eyes, he saw that the young woman was
+pale, terribly pale:
+
+"What's the matter? I beseech you ..."
+
+She yielded to a fit of mad despair:
+
+"This is the matter, that I am lost!... This is the matter, that I can't
+get the ring off! It has grown too small for me!... Do you
+understand?... It made no difference and I did not give it a thought....
+But to-day ... this proof ... this accusation.... Oh, what torture!...
+Look ... it forms part of my finger ... it has grown into my flesh ...
+and I can't ... I can't...."
+
+She pulled at the ring, vainly, with all her might, at the risk of
+injuring herself. But the flesh swelled up around the ring; and the ring
+did not budge.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, seized with an idea that terrified her. "I remember ...
+the other night ... a nightmare I had.... It seemed to me that some one
+entered my room and caught hold of my hand.... And I could not wake
+up.... It was he! It was he! He had put me to sleep, I was sure of it
+... and he was looking at the ring.... And presently he will pull it off
+before his mother's eyes.... Ah, I understand everything: that working
+jeweller!... He will cut it from my hand to-morrow.... You see, you
+see.... I am lost!..."
+
+She hid her face in her hands and began to weep. But, amid the silence,
+the clock struck once ... and twice ... and yet once more. And Yvonne
+drew herself up with a jerk:
+
+"There he is!" she cried. "He is coming!... It is three o'clock!... Let
+us go!..."
+
+She grabbed at her cloak and ran to the door ... Velmont barred the way
+and, in a masterful tone:
+
+"You shall not go!"
+
+"My son.... I want to see him, to take him back...."
+
+"You don't even know where he is!"
+
+"I want to go."
+
+"You shall not go!... It would be madness...."
+
+He took her by the wrists. She tried to release herself; and Velmont had
+to employ a little force to overcome her resistance. In the end, he
+succeeded in getting her back to the sofa, then in laying her at full
+length and, at once, without heeding her lamentations, he took the
+canvas strips and fastened her wrists and ankles:
+
+"Yes," he said, "It would be madness! Who would have set you free? Who
+would have opened that door for you? An accomplice? What an argument
+against you and what a pretty use your husband would make of it with his
+mother!... And, besides, what's the good? To run away means accepting
+divorce ... and what might that not lead to?... You must stay here...."
+
+She sobbed:
+
+"I'm frightened.... I'm frightened ... this ring burns me.... Break
+it.... Take it away.... Don't let him find it!"
+
+"And if it is not found on your finger, who will have broken it? Again
+an accomplice.... No, you must face the music ... and face it boldly,
+for I answer for everything.... Believe me ... I answer for
+everything.... If I have to tackle the Comtesse d'Origny bodily and thus
+delay the interview.... If I had to come myself before noon ... it is
+the real wedding-ring that shall be taken from your finger--that I
+swear!--and your son shall be restored to you."
+
+Swayed and subdued, Yvonne instinctively held out her hands to the
+bonds. When he stood up, she was bound as she had been before.
+
+He looked round the room to make sure that no trace of his visit
+remained. Then he stooped over the countess again and whispered:
+
+"Think of your son and, whatever happens, fear nothing.... I am watching
+over you."
+
+She heard him open and shut the door of the boudoir and, a few minutes
+later, the hall-door.
+
+At half-past three, a motor-cab drew up. The door downstairs was slammed
+again; and, almost immediately after, Yvonne saw her husband hurry in,
+with a furious look in his eyes. He ran up to her, felt to see if she
+was still fastened and, snatching her hand, examined the ring. Yvonne
+fainted....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She could not tell, when she woke, how long she had slept. But the broad
+light of day was filling the boudoir; and she perceived, at the first
+movement which she made, that her bonds were cut. Then she turned her
+head and saw her husband standing beside her, looking at her:
+
+"My son ... my son ..." she moaned. "I want my son...."
+
+He replied, in a voice of which she felt the jeering insolence:
+
+"Our son is in a safe place. And, for the moment, it's a question not of
+him, but of you. We are face to face with each other, probably for the
+last time, and the explanation between us will be a very serious one. I
+must warn you that it will take place before my mother. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+Yvonne tried to hide her agitation and answered:
+
+"None at all."
+
+"Can I send for her?"
+
+"Yes. Leave me, in the meantime. I shall be ready when she comes."
+
+"My mother is here."
+
+"Your mother is here?" cried Yvonne, in dismay, remembering Horace
+Velmont's promise.
+
+"What is there to astonish you in that?"
+
+"And is it now ... is it at once that you want to ...?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?... Why not this evening?... Why not to-morrow?"
+
+"To-day and now," declared the count. "A rather curious incident
+happened in the course of last night, an incident which I cannot account
+for and which decided me to hasten the explanation. Don't you want
+something to eat first?"
+
+"No ... no...."
+
+"Then I will go and fetch my mother."
+
+He turned to Yvonne's bedroom. Yvonne glanced at the clock. It marked
+twenty-five minutes to eleven!
+
+"Ah!" she said, with a shiver of fright.
+
+Twenty-five minutes to eleven! Horace Velmont would not save her and
+nobody in the world and nothing in the world would save her, for there
+was no miracle that could place the wedding-ring upon her finger.
+
+The count, returning with the Comtesse d'Origny, asked her to sit down.
+She was a tall, lank, angular woman, who had always displayed a hostile
+feeling to Yvonne. She did not even bid her daughter-in-law
+good-morning, showing that her mind was made up as regards the
+accusation:
+
+"I don't think," she said, "that we need speak at length. In two words,
+my son maintains...."
+
+"I don't maintain, mother," said the count, "I declare. I declare on my
+oath that, three months ago, during the holidays, the upholsterer, when
+laying the carpet in this room and the boudoir, found the wedding-ring
+which I gave my wife lying in a crack in the floor. Here is the ring.
+The date of the 23rd of October is engraved inside."
+
+"Then," said the countess, "the ring which your wife carries...."
+
+"That is another ring, which she ordered in exchange for the real one.
+Acting on my instructions, Bernard, my man, after long searching, ended
+by discovering in the outskirts of Paris, where he now lives, the little
+jeweller to whom she went. This man remembers perfectly and is willing
+to bear witness that his customer did not tell him to engrave a date,
+but a name. He has forgotten the name, but the man who used to work with
+him in his shop may be able to remember it. This working jeweller has
+been informed by letter that I required his services and he replied
+yesterday, placing himself at my disposal. Bernard went to fetch him at
+nine o'clock this morning. They are both waiting in my study."
+
+He turned to his wife:
+
+"Will you give me that ring of your own free will?"
+
+"You know," she said, "from the other night, that it won't come off my
+finger."
+
+"In that case, can I have the man up? He has the necessary implements
+with him."
+
+"Yes," she said, in a voice faint as a whisper.
+
+She was resigned. She conjured up the future as in a vision: the
+scandal, the decree of divorce pronounced against herself, the custody
+of the child awarded to the father; and she accepted this, thinking that
+she would carry off her son, that she would go with him to the ends of
+the earth and that the two of them would live alone together and
+happy....
+
+Her mother-in-law said:
+
+"You have been very thoughtless, Yvonne."
+
+Yvonne was on the point of confessing to her and asking for her
+protection. But what was the good? How could the Comtesse d'Origny
+possibly believe her innocent? She made no reply.
+
+Besides, the count at once returned, followed by his servant and by a
+man carrying a bag of tools under his arm.
+
+And the count said to the man:
+
+"You know what you have to do?"
+
+"Yes," said the workman. "It's to cut a ring that's grown too
+small.... That's easily done.... A touch of the nippers...."
+
+"And then you will see," said the count, "if the inscription inside the
+ring was the one you engraved."
+
+Yvonne looked at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven. She seemed to
+hear, somewhere in the house, a sound of voices raised in argument; and,
+in spite of herself, she felt a thrill of hope. Perhaps Velmont has
+succeeded.... But the sound was renewed; and she perceived that it was
+produced by some costermongers passing under her window and moving
+farther on.
+
+It was all over. Horace Velmont had been unable to assist her. And she
+understood that, to recover her child, she must rely upon her own
+strength, for the promises of others are vain.
+
+She made a movement of recoil. She had felt the workman's heavy hand on
+her hand; and that hateful touch revolted her.
+
+The man apologized, awkwardly. The count said to his wife:
+
+"You must make up your mind, you know."
+
+Then she put out her slim and trembling hand to the workman, who took
+it, turned it over and rested it on the table, with the palm upward.
+Yvonne felt the cold steel. She longed to die, then and there; and, at
+once attracted by that idea of death, she thought of the poisons which
+she would buy and which would send her to sleep almost without her
+knowing it.
+
+The operation did not take long. Inserted on the slant, the little steel
+pliers pushed back the flesh, made room for themselves and bit the ring.
+A strong effort ... and the ring broke. The two ends had only to be
+separated to remove the ring from the finger. The workman did so.
+
+The count exclaimed, in triumph:
+
+"At last! Now we shall see!... The proof is there! And we are all
+witnesses...."
+
+He snatched up the ring and looked at the inscription. A cry of
+amazement escaped him. The ring bore the date of his marriage to Yvonne:
+"23rd of October"!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were sitting on the terrace at Monte Carlo. Lupin finished his story,
+lit a cigarette and calmly puffed the smoke into the blue air.
+
+I said:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well what?"
+
+"Why, the end of the story...."
+
+"The end of the story? But what other end could there be?"
+
+"Come ... you're joking ..."
+
+"Not at all. Isn't that enough for you? The countess is saved. The
+count, not possessing the least proof against her, is compelled by his
+mother to forego the divorce and to give up the child. That is all.
+Since then, he has left his wife, who is living happily with her son, a
+fine lad of sixteen."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... but the way in which the countess was saved?"
+
+Lupin burst out laughing:
+
+"My dear old chap"--Lupin sometimes condescends to address me in this
+affectionate manner--"my dear old chap, you may be rather smart at
+relating my exploits, but, by Jove, you do want to have the i's dotted
+for you! I assure you, the countess did not ask for explanations!"
+
+"Very likely. But there's no pride about me," I added, laughing. "Dot
+those i's for me, will you?"
+
+He took out a five-franc piece and closed his hand over it.
+
+"What's in my hand?"
+
+"A five-franc piece."
+
+He opened his hand. The five-franc piece was gone.
+
+"You see how easy it is! A working jeweller, with his nippers, cuts a
+ring with a date engraved upon it: 23rd of October. It's a simple little
+trick of sleight-of-hand, one of many which I have in my bag. By Jove,
+I didn't spend six months with Dickson, the conjurer,[C] for nothing!"
+
+
+  [C] _The Exploits of Arsène Lupin._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by
+  Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (Cassell). IV. _The Escape of Arsène
+  Lupin._
+
+
+"But then ...?"
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+"The working jeweller?"
+
+"Was Horace Velmont! Was good old Lupin! Leaving the countess at three
+o'clock in the morning, I employed the few remaining minutes before the
+husband's return to have a look round his study. On the table I found
+the letter from the working jeweller. The letter gave me the address. A
+bribe of a few louis enabled me to take the workman's place; and I
+arrived with a wedding-ring ready cut and engraved. Hocus-pocus!
+Pass!... The count couldn't make head or tail of it."
+
+"Splendid!" I cried. And I added, a little chaffingly, in my turn, "But
+don't you think that you were humbugged a bit yourself, on this
+occasion?"
+
+"Oh! And by whom, pray?"
+
+"By the countess?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Hang it all, that name engraved as a talisman!... The mysterious Adonis
+who loved her and suffered for her sake!... All that story seems very
+unlikely; and I wonder whether, Lupin though you be, you did not just
+drop upon a pretty love-story, absolutely genuine and ... none too
+innocent."
+
+Lupin looked at me out of the corner of his eye:
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"If the countess made a misstatement in telling me that she knew that
+man before her marriage--and that he was dead--and if she really did
+love him in her secret heart, I, at least, have a positive proof that it
+was an ideal love and that he did not suspect it."
+
+"And where is the proof?"
+
+"It is inscribed inside the ring which I myself broke on the countess's
+finger ... and which I carry on me. Here it is. You can read the name
+she had engraved on it."
+
+He handed me the ring. I read:
+
+"Horace Velmont."
+
+There was a moment of silence between Lupin and myself; and, noticing
+it, I also observed on his face a certain emotion, a tinge of
+melancholy.
+
+I resumed:
+
+"What made you tell me this story ... to which you have often alluded in
+my presence?"
+
+"What made me ...?"
+
+He drew my attention to a woman, still exceedingly handsome, who was
+passing on a young man's arm. She saw Lupin and bowed.
+
+"It's she," he whispered. "She and her son."
+
+"Then she recognized you?"
+
+"She always recognizes me, whatever my disguise."
+
+"But since the burglary at the Château de Thibermesnil,[D] the police
+have identified the two names of Arsène Lupin and Horace Velmont."
+
+
+  [D] _The Exploits of Arsène Lupin. IX. Holmlock Shears arrives too
+  late._
+
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Therefore she knows who you are."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And she bows to you?" I exclaimed, in spite of myself.
+
+He caught me by the arm and, fiercely:
+
+"Do you think that I am Lupin to her? Do you think that I am a burglar
+in her eyes, a rogue, a cheat?... Why, I might be the lowest of
+miscreants, I might be a murderer even ... and still she would bow to
+me!"
+
+"Why? Because she loved you once?"
+
+"Rot! That would be an additional reason, on the contrary, why she
+should now despise me."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I am the man who gave her back her son!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE SIGN OF THE SHADOW
+
+
+"I received your telegram and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey
+moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and
+a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+Had I not been expecting Arsène Lupin, I should certainly never have
+recognized him in the person of this old half-pay officer:
+
+"What's the matter?" I echoed. "Oh, nothing much: a rather curious
+coincidence, that's all. And, as I know that you would just as soon
+clear up a mystery as plan one...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You seem in a great hurry!"
+
+"I am ... unless the mystery in question is worth putting myself out
+for. So let us get to the point."
+
+"Very well. Just begin by casting your eye on this little picture, which
+I picked up, a week or two ago, in a grimy old shop on the other side
+of the river. I bought it for the sake of its Empire frame, with the
+palm-leaf ornaments on the mouldings ... for the painting is execrable."
+
+"Execrable, as you say," said Lupin, after he had examined it, "but the
+subject itself is rather nice. That corner of an old courtyard, with its
+rotunda of Greek columns, its sun-dial and its fish-pond and that ruined
+well with the Renascence roof and those stone steps and stone benches:
+all very picturesque."
+
+"And genuine," I added. "The picture, good or bad, has never been taken
+out of its Empire frame. Besides, it is dated.... There, in the
+left-hand bottom corner: those red figures, 15. 4. 2, which obviously
+stand for 15 April, 1802."
+
+"I dare say ... I dare say.... But you were speaking of a coincidence
+and, so far, I fail to see...."
+
+I went to a corner of my study, took a telescope, fixed it on its stand
+and pointed it, through the open window, at the open window of a little
+room facing my flat, on the other side of the street. And I asked Lupin
+to look through it.
+
+He stooped forward. The slanting rays of the morning sun lit up the room
+opposite, revealing a set of mahogany furniture, all very simple, a
+large bed and a child's bed hung with cretonne curtains.
+
+"Ah!" cried Lupin, suddenly. "The same picture!"
+
+"Exactly the same!" I said. "And the date: do you see the date, in red?
+15. 4. 2."
+
+"Yes, I see.... And who lives in that room?"
+
+"A lady ... or, rather, a workwoman, for she has to work for her living
+... needlework, hardly enough to keep herself and her child."
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+"Louise d'Ernemont.... From what I hear, she is the great-granddaughter
+of a farmer-general who was guillotined during the Terror."
+
+"Yes, on the same day as André Chénier," said Lupin. "According to the
+memoirs of the time, this d'Ernemont was supposed to be a very rich
+man." He raised his head and said, "It's an interesting story.... Why
+did you wait before telling me?"
+
+"Because this is the 15th of April."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I discovered yesterday--I heard them talking about it in the
+porter's box--that the 15th of April plays an important part in the life
+of Louise d'Ernemont."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Contrary to her usual habits, this woman who works every day of her
+life, who keeps her two rooms tidy, who cooks the lunch which her
+little girl eats when she comes home from the parish school ... this
+woman, on the 15th of April, goes out with the child at ten o'clock in
+the morning and does not return until nightfall. And this has happened
+for years and in all weathers. You must admit that there is something
+queer about this date which I find on an old picture, which is inscribed
+on another, similar picture and which controls the annual movements of
+the descendant of d'Ernemont the farmer-general."
+
+"Yes, it's curious ... you're quite right," said Lupin, slowly. "And
+don't you know where she goes to?"
+
+"Nobody knows. She does not confide in a soul. As a matter of fact, she
+talks very little."
+
+"Are you sure of your information?"
+
+"Absolutely. And the best proof of its accuracy is that here she comes."
+
+A door had opened at the back of the room opposite, admitting a little
+girl of seven or eight, who came and looked out of the window. A lady
+appeared behind her, tall, good-looking still and wearing a sad and
+gentle air. Both of them were ready and dressed, in clothes which were
+simple in themselves, but which pointed to a love of neatness and a
+certain elegance on the part of the mother.
+
+"You see," I whispered, "they are going out."
+
+And presently the mother took the child by the hand and they left the
+room together.
+
+Lupin caught up his hat:
+
+"Are you coming?"
+
+My curiosity was too great for me to raise the least objection. I went
+downstairs with Lupin.
+
+As we stepped into the street, we saw my neighbour enter a baker's shop.
+She bought two rolls and placed them in a little basket which her
+daughter was carrying and which seemed already to contain some other
+provisions. Then they went in the direction of the outer boulevards and
+followed them as far as the Place de l'Étoile, where they turned down
+the Avenue Kléber to walk toward Passy.
+
+Lupin strolled silently along, evidently obsessed by a train of thought
+which I was glad to have provoked. From time to time, he uttered a
+sentence which showed me the thread of his reflections; and I was able
+to see that the riddle remained as much a mystery to him as to myself.
+
+Louise d'Ernemont, meanwhile, had branched off to the left, along the
+Rue Raynouard, a quiet old street in which Franklin and Balzac once
+lived, one of those streets which, lined with old-fashioned houses and
+walled gardens, give you the impression of being in a country-town. The
+Seine flows at the foot of the slope which the street crowns; and a
+number of lanes run down to the river.
+
+My neighbour took one of these narrow, winding, deserted lanes. The
+first building, on the right, was a house the front of which faced the
+Rue Raynouard. Next came a moss-grown wall, of a height above the
+ordinary, supported by buttresses and bristling with broken glass.
+
+Half-way along the wall was a low, arched door. Louise d'Ernemont
+stopped in front of this door and opened it with a key which seemed to
+us enormous. Mother and child entered and closed the door.
+
+"In any case," said Lupin, "she has nothing to conceal, for she has not
+looked round once...."
+
+He had hardly finished his sentence when we heard the sound of footsteps
+behind us. It was two old beggars, a man and a woman, tattered, dirty,
+squalid, covered in rags. They passed us without paying the least
+attention to our presence. The man took from his wallet a key similar to
+my neighbour's and put it into the lock. The door closed behind them.
+
+And, suddenly, at the top of the lane, came the noise of a motor-car
+stopping.... Lupin dragged me fifty yards lower down, to a corner in
+which we were able to hide. And we saw coming down the lane, carrying a
+little dog under her arm, a young and very much over-dressed woman,
+wearing a quantity of jewellery, a young woman whose eyes were too dark,
+her lips too red, her hair too fair. In front of the door, the same
+performance, with the same key.... The lady and the dog disappeared from
+view.
+
+"This promises to be most amusing," said Lupin, chuckling. "What earthly
+connection can there be between those different people?"
+
+There hove in sight successively two elderly ladies, lean and rather
+poverty-stricken in appearance, very much alike, evidently sisters; a
+footman in livery; an infantry corporal; a fat gentleman in a soiled and
+patched jacket-suit; and, lastly, a workman's family, father, mother,
+and four children, all six of them pale and sickly, looking like people
+who never eat their fill. And each of the newcomers carried a basket or
+string-bag filled with provisions.
+
+"It's a picnic!" I cried.
+
+"It grows more and more surprising," said Lupin, "and I sha'n't be
+satisfied till I know what is happening behind that wall."
+
+To climb it was out of the question. We also saw that it finished, at
+the lower as well as at the upper end, at a house none of whose windows
+overlooked the enclosure which the wall contained.
+
+During the next hour, no one else came along. We vainly cast about for
+a stratagem; and Lupin, whose fertile brain had exhausted every possible
+expedient, was about to go in search of a ladder, when, suddenly, the
+little door opened and one of the workman's children came out.
+
+The boy ran up the lane to the Rue Raynouard. A few minutes later he
+returned, carrying two bottles of water, which he set down on the
+pavement to take the big key from his pocket.
+
+By that time Lupin had left me and was strolling slowly along the wall.
+When the child, after entering the enclosure, pushed back the door Lupin
+sprang forward and stuck the point of his knife into the staple of the
+lock. The bolt failed to catch; and it became an easy matter to push the
+door ajar.
+
+"That's done the trick!" said Lupin.
+
+He cautiously put his hand through the doorway and then, to my great
+surprise, entered boldly. But, on following his example, I saw that, ten
+yards behind the wall, a clump of laurels formed a sort of curtain which
+allowed us to come up unobserved.
+
+Lupin took his stand right in the middle of the clump. I joined him and,
+like him, pushed aside the branches of one of the shrubs. And the sight
+which presented itself to my eyes was so unexpected that I was unable to
+suppress an exclamation, while Lupin, on his side, muttered, between
+his teeth:
+
+"By Jupiter! This is a funny job!"
+
+We saw before us, within the confined space that lay between the two
+windowless houses, the identical scene represented in the old picture
+which I had bought at a second-hand dealer's!
+
+The identical scene! At the back, against the opposite wall, the same
+Greek rotunda displayed its slender columns. In the middle, the same
+stone benches topped a circle of four steps that ran down to a fish-pond
+with moss-grown flags. On the left, the same well raised its
+wrought-iron roof; and, close at hand, the same sun-dial showed its
+slanting gnomon and its marble face.
+
+The identical scene! And what added to the strangeness of the sight was
+the memory, obsessing Lupin and myself, of that date of the 15th of
+April, inscribed in a corner of the picture, and the thought that this
+very day was the 15th of April and that sixteen or seventeen people, so
+different in age, condition and manners, had chosen the 15th of April to
+come together in this forgotten corner of Paris!
+
+All of them, at the moment when we caught sight of them, were sitting in
+separate groups on the benches and steps; and all were eating. Not very
+far from my neighbour and her daughter, the workman's family and the
+beggar couple were sharing their provisions; while the footman, the
+gentleman in the soiled suit, the infantry corporal and the two lean
+sisters were making a common stock of their sliced ham, their tins of
+sardines and their gruyère cheese.
+
+The lady with the little dog alone, who had brought no food with her,
+sat apart from the others, who made a show of turning their backs upon
+her. But Louise d'Ernemont offered her a sandwich, whereupon her example
+was followed by the two sisters; and the corporal at once began to make
+himself as agreeable to the young person as he could.
+
+It was now half-past one. The beggar-man took out his pipe, as did the
+fat gentleman; and, when they found that one had no tobacco and the
+other no matches, their needs soon brought them together. The men went
+and smoked by the rotunda and the women joined them. For that matter,
+all these people seemed to know one another quite well.
+
+They were at some distance from where we were standing, so that we could
+not hear what they said. However, we gradually perceived that the
+conversation was becoming animated. The young person with the dog, in
+particular, who by this time appeared to be in great request, indulged
+in much voluble talk, accompanying her words with many gestures, which
+set the little dog barking furiously.
+
+But, suddenly, there was an outcry, promptly followed by shouts of rage;
+and one and all, men and women alike, rushed in disorder toward the
+well. One of the workman's brats was at that moment coming out of it,
+fastened by his belt to the hook at the end of the rope; and the three
+other urchins were drawing him up by turning the handle. More active
+than the rest, the corporal flung himself upon him; and forthwith the
+footman and the fat gentleman seized hold of him also, while the beggars
+and the lean sisters came to blows with the workman and his family.
+
+In a few seconds the little boy had not a stitch left on him beyond his
+shirt. The footman, who had taken possession of the rest of the clothes,
+ran away, pursued by the corporal, who snatched away the boy's breeches,
+which were next torn from the corporal by one of the lean sisters.
+
+"They are mad!" I muttered, feeling absolutely at sea.
+
+"Not at all, not at all," said Lupin.
+
+"What! Do you mean to say that you can make head or tail of what is
+going on?"
+
+He did not reply. The young lady with the little dog, tucking her pet
+under her arm, had started running after the child in the shirt, who
+uttered loud yells. The two of them raced round the laurel-clump in
+which we stood hidden; and the brat flung himself into his mother's
+arms.
+
+At long last, Louise d'Ernemont, who had played a conciliatory part from
+the beginning, succeeded in allaying the tumult. Everybody sat down
+again; but there was a reaction in all those exasperated people and they
+remained motionless and silent, as though worn out with their exertions.
+
+And time went by. Losing patience and beginning to feel the pangs of
+hunger, I went to the Rue Raynouard to fetch something to eat, which we
+divided while watching the actors in the incomprehensible comedy that
+was being performed before our eyes. They hardly stirred. Each minute
+that passed seemed to load them with increasing melancholy; and they
+sank into attitudes of discouragement, bent their backs more and more
+and sat absorbed in their meditations.
+
+The afternoon wore on in this way, under a grey sky that shed a dreary
+light over the enclosure.
+
+"Are they going to spend the night here?" I asked, in a bored voice.
+
+But, at five o'clock or so, the fat gentleman in the soiled jacket-suit
+took out his watch. The others did the same and all, watch in hand,
+seemed to be anxiously awaiting an event of no little importance to
+themselves. The event did not take place, for, in fifteen or twenty
+minutes, the fat gentleman gave a gesture of despair, stood up and put
+on his hat.
+
+Then lamentations broke forth. The two lean sisters and the workman's
+wife fell upon their knees and made the sign of the cross. The lady with
+the little dog and the beggar-woman kissed each other and sobbed; and we
+saw Louise d'Ernemont pressing her daughter sadly to her.
+
+"Let's go," said Lupin.
+
+"You think it's over?"
+
+"Yes; and we have only just time to make ourselves scarce."
+
+We went out unmolested. At the top of the lane, Lupin turned to the left
+and, leaving me outside, entered the first house in the Rue Raynouard,
+the one that backed on to the enclosure.
+
+After talking for a few seconds to the porter, he joined me and we
+stopped a passing taxi-cab:
+
+"No. 34 Rue de Turin," he said to the driver.
+
+The ground-floor of No. 34 was occupied by a notary's office; and we
+were shown in, almost without waiting, to Maître Valandier, a smiling,
+pleasant-spoken man of a certain age.
+
+Lupin introduced himself by the name of Captain Jeanniot, retired from
+the army. He said that he wanted to build a house to his own liking
+and that some one had suggested to him a plot of ground situated near
+the Rue Raynouard.
+
+"But that plot is not for sale," said Maître Valandier.
+
+"Oh, I was told...."
+
+"You have been misinformed, I fear."
+
+The lawyer rose, went to a cupboard and returned with a picture which he
+showed us. I was petrified. It was the same picture which I had bought,
+the same picture that hung in Louise d'Ernemont's room.
+
+"This is a painting," he said, "of the plot of ground to which you
+refer. It is known as the Clos d'Ernemont."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Well, this close," continued the notary, "once formed part of a large
+garden belonging to d'Ernemont, the farmer-general, who was executed
+during the Terror. All that could be sold has been sold, piecemeal, by
+the heirs. But this last plot has remained and will remain in their
+joint possession ... unless...."
+
+The notary began to laugh.
+
+"Unless what?" asked Lupin.
+
+"Well, it's quite a romance, a rather curious romance, in fact. I often
+amuse myself by looking through the voluminous documents of the case."
+
+"Would it be indiscreet, if I asked ...?"
+
+"Not at all, not at all," declared Maître Valandier, who seemed
+delighted, on the contrary, to have found a listener for his story. And,
+without waiting to be pressed, he began: "At the outbreak of the
+Revolution, Louis Agrippa d'Ernemont, on the pretence of joining his
+wife, who was staying at Geneva with their daughter Pauline, shut up his
+mansion in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, dismissed his servants and, with
+his son Charles, came and took up his abode in his pleasure-house at
+Passy, where he was known to nobody except an old and devoted
+serving-woman. He remained there in hiding for three years and he had
+every reason to hope that his retreat would not be discovered, when, one
+day, after luncheon, as he was having a nap, the old servant burst into
+his room. She had seen, at the end of the street, a patrol of armed men
+who seemed to be making for the house. Louis d'Ernemont got ready
+quickly and, at the moment when the men were knocking at the front door,
+disappeared through the door that led to the garden, shouting to his
+son, in a scared voice, to keep them talking, if only for five minutes.
+He may have intended to escape and found the outlets through the garden
+watched. In any case, he returned in six or seven minutes, replied very
+calmly to the questions put to him and raised no difficulty about
+accompanying the men. His son Charles, although only eighteen years of
+age, was arrested also."
+
+"When did this happen?" asked Lupin.
+
+"It happened on the 26th day of Germinal, Year II, that is to say, on
+the...."
+
+Maître Valandier stopped, with his eyes fixed on a calendar that hung on
+the wall, and exclaimed:
+
+"Why, it was on this very day! This is the 15th of April, the
+anniversary of the farmer-general's arrest."
+
+"What an odd coincidence!" said Lupin. "And considering the period at
+which it took place, the arrest, no doubt, had serious consequences?"
+
+"Oh, most serious!" said the notary, laughing. "Three months later, at
+the beginning of Thermidor, the farmer-general mounted the scaffold. His
+son Charles was forgotten in prison and their property was confiscated."
+
+"The property was immense, I suppose?" said Lupin.
+
+"Well, there you are! That's just where the thing becomes complicated.
+The property, which was, in fact, immense, could never be traced. It was
+discovered that the Faubourg Saint-Germain mansion had been sold, before
+the Revolution, to an Englishman, together with all the country-seats
+and estates and all the jewels, securities and collections belonging to
+the farmer-general. The Convention instituted minute inquiries, as did
+the Directory afterward. But the inquiries led to no result."
+
+"There remained, at any rate, the Passy house," said Lupin.
+
+"The house at Passy was bought, for a mere song, by a delegate of the
+Commune, the very man who had arrested d'Ernemont, one Citizen Broquet.
+Citizen Broquet shut himself up in the house, barricaded the doors,
+fortified the walls and, when Charles d'Ernemont was at last set free
+and appeared outside, received him by firing a musket at him. Charles
+instituted one law-suit after another, lost them all and then proceeded
+to offer large sums of money. But Citizen Broquet proved intractable. He
+had bought the house and he stuck to the house; and he would have stuck
+to it until his death, if Charles had not obtained the support of
+Bonaparte. Citizen Broquet cleared out on the 12th of February, 1803;
+but Charles d'Ernemont's joy was so great and his brain, no doubt, had
+been so violently unhinged by all that he had gone through, that, on
+reaching the threshold of the house of which he had at last recovered
+the ownership, even before opening the door he began to dance and sing
+in the street. He had gone clean off his head."
+
+"By Jove!" said Lupin. "And what became of him?"
+
+"His mother and his sister Pauline, who had ended by marrying a cousin
+of the same name at Geneva, were both dead. The old servant-woman took
+care of him and they lived together in the Passy house. Years passed
+without any notable event; but, suddenly, in 1812, an unexpected
+incident happened. The old servant made a series of strange revelations
+on her death-bed, in the presence of two witnesses whom she sent for.
+She declared that the farmer-general had carried to his house at Passy a
+number of bags filled with gold and silver and that those bags had
+disappeared a few days before the arrest. According to earlier
+confidences made by Charles d'Ernemont, who had them from his father,
+the treasures were hidden in the garden, between the rotunda, the
+sun-dial and the well. In proof of her statement, she produced three
+pictures, or rather, for they were not yet framed, three canvases, which
+the farmer-general had painted during his captivity and which he had
+succeeded in conveying to her, with instructions to hand them to his
+wife, his son and his daughter. Tempted by the lure of wealth, Charles
+and the old servant had kept silence. Then came the law-suits, the
+recovery of the house, Charles's madness, the servant's own useless
+searches; and the treasures were still there."
+
+"And they are there now," chuckled Lupin.
+
+"And they will be there always," exclaimed Maître Valandier. "Unless ...
+unless Citizen Broquet, who no doubt smelt a rat, succeeded in ferreting
+them out. But this is an unlikely supposition, for Citizen Broquet died
+in extreme poverty."
+
+"So then ...?"
+
+"So then everybody began to hunt. The children of Pauline, the sister,
+hastened from Geneva. It was discovered that Charles had been secretly
+married and that he had sons. All these heirs set to work."
+
+"But Charles himself?"
+
+"Charles lived in the most absolute retirement. He did not leave his
+room."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Well, that is the most extraordinary, the most astounding part of the
+story. Once a year, Charles d'Ernemont, impelled by a sort of
+subconscious will-power, came downstairs, took the exact road which his
+father had taken, walked across the garden and sat down either on the
+steps of the rotunda, which you see here, in the picture, or on the kerb
+of the well. At twenty-seven minutes past five, he rose and went indoors
+again; and until his death, which occurred in 1820, he never once failed
+to perform this incomprehensible pilgrimage. Well, the day on which this
+happened was invariably the 15th of April, the anniversary of the
+arrest."
+
+Maître Valandier was no longer smiling and himself seemed impressed by
+the amazing story which he was telling us.
+
+"And, since Charles's death?" asked Lupin, after a moment's reflection.
+
+"Since that time," replied the lawyer, with a certain solemnity of
+manner, "for nearly a hundred years, the heirs of Charles and Pauline
+d'Ernemont have kept up the pilgrimage of the 15th of April. During the
+first few years they made the most thorough excavations. Every inch of
+the garden was searched, every clod of ground dug up. All this is now
+over. They take hardly any pains. All they do is, from time to time, for
+no particular reason, to turn over a stone or explore the well. For the
+most part, they are content to sit down on the steps of the rotunda,
+like the poor madman; and, like him, they wait. And that, you see, is
+the sad part of their destiny. In those hundred years, all these people
+who have succeeded one another, from father to son, have lost--what
+shall I say?--the energy of life. They have no courage left, no
+initiative. They wait. They wait for the 15th of April; and, when the
+15th of April comes, they wait for a miracle to take place. Poverty has
+ended by overtaking every one of them. My predecessors and I have sold
+first the house, in order to build another which yields a better rent,
+followed by bits of the garden and further bits. But, as to that corner
+over there," pointing to the picture, "they would rather die than sell
+it. On this they are all agreed: Louise d'Ernemont, who is the direct
+heiress of Pauline, as well as the beggars, the workman, the footman,
+the circus-rider and so on, who represent the unfortunate Charles."
+
+There was a fresh pause; and Lupin asked:
+
+"What is your own opinion, Maître Valandier?"
+
+"My private opinion is that there's nothing in it. What credit can we
+give to the statements of an old servant enfeebled by age? What
+importance can we attach to the crotchets of a madman? Besides, if the
+farmer-general had realized his fortune, don't you think that that
+fortune would have been found? One could manage to hide a paper, a
+document, in a confined space like that, but not treasures."
+
+"Still, the pictures?..."
+
+"Yes, of course. But, after all, are they a sufficient proof?"
+
+Lupin bent over the copy which the solicitor had taken from the cupboard
+and, after examining it at length, said:
+
+"You spoke of three pictures."
+
+"Yes, the one which you see was handed to my predecessor by the heirs of
+Charles. Louise d'Ernemont possesses another. As for the third, no one
+knows what became of it."
+
+Lupin looked at me and continued:
+
+"And do they all bear the same date?"
+
+"Yes, the date inscribed by Charles d'Ernemont when he had them framed,
+not long before his death.... The same date, that is to say the 15th of
+April, Year II, according to the revolutionary calendar, as the arrest
+took place in April, 1794."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Lupin. "The figure 2 means...."
+
+He thought for a few moments and resumed:
+
+"One more question, if I may. Did no one ever come forward to solve the
+problem?"
+
+Maître Valandier threw up his arms:
+
+"Goodness gracious me!" he cried. "Why, it was the plague of the office!
+One of my predecessors, Maître Turbon, was summoned to Passy no fewer
+than eighteen times, between 1820 and 1843, by the groups of heirs, whom
+fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, visionaries, impostors of all sorts had
+promised that they would discover the farmer-general's treasures. At
+last, we laid down a rule: any outsider applying to institute a search
+was to begin by depositing a certain sum."
+
+"What sum?"
+
+"A thousand francs."
+
+"And did this have the effect of frightening them off?"
+
+"No. Four years ago, an Hungarian hypnotist tried the experiment and
+made me waste a whole day. After that, we fixed the deposit at five
+thousand francs. In case of success, a third of the treasure goes to the
+finder. In case of failure, the deposit is forfeited to the heirs. Since
+then, I have been left in peace."
+
+"Here are your five thousand francs."
+
+The lawyer gave a start:
+
+"Eh? What do you say?"
+
+"I say," repeated Lupin, taking five bank-notes from his pocket and
+calmly spreading them on the table, "I say that here is the deposit of
+five thousand francs. Please give me a receipt and invite all the
+d'Ernemont heirs to meet me at Passy on the 15th of April next year."
+
+The notary could not believe his senses. I myself, although Lupin had
+accustomed me to these surprises, was utterly taken back.
+
+"Are you serious?" asked Maître Valandier.
+
+"Perfectly serious."
+
+"But, you know, I told you my opinion. All these improbable stories rest
+upon no evidence of any kind."
+
+"I don't agree with you," said Lupin.
+
+The notary gave him the look which we give to a person who is not quite
+right in his head. Then, accepting the situation, he took his pen and
+drew up a contract on stamped paper, acknowledging the payment of the
+deposit by Captain Jeanniot and promising him a third of such moneys as
+he should discover:
+
+"If you change your mind," he added, "you might let me know a week
+before the time comes. I shall not inform the d'Ernemont family until
+the last moment, so as not to give those poor people too long a spell of
+hope."
+
+"You can inform them this very day, Maître Valandier. It will make them
+spend a happier year."
+
+We said good-bye. Outside, in the street, I cried:
+
+"So you have hit upon something?"
+
+"I?" replied Lupin. "Not a bit of it! And that's just what amuses me."
+
+"But they have been searching for a hundred years!"
+
+"It is not so much a matter of searching as of thinking. Now I have
+three hundred and sixty-five days to think in. It is a great deal more
+than I want; and I am afraid that I shall forget all about the business,
+interesting though it may be. Oblige me by reminding me, will you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I reminded him of it several times during the following months, though
+he never seemed to attach much importance to the matter. Then came a
+long period during which I had no opportunity of seeing him. It was the
+period, as I afterward learnt, of his visit to Armenia and of the
+terrible struggle on which he embarked against Abdul the Damned, a
+struggle which ended in the tyrant's downfall.
+
+I used to write to him, however, at the address which he gave me and I
+was thus able to send him certain particulars which I had succeeded in
+gathering, here and there, about my neighbour Louise d'Ernemont, such as
+the love which she had conceived, a few years earlier, for a very rich
+young man, who still loved her, but who had been compelled by his family
+to throw her over; the young widow's despair, and the plucky life which
+she led with her little daughter.
+
+Lupin replied to none of my letters. I did not know whether they reached
+him; and, meantime, the date was drawing near and I could not help
+wondering whether his numerous undertakings would not prevent him from
+keeping the appointment which he himself had fixed.
+
+As a matter of fact, the morning of the 15th of April arrived and Lupin
+was not with me by the time I had finished lunch. It was a quarter-past
+twelve. I left my flat and took a cab to Passy.
+
+I had no sooner entered the lane than I saw the workman's four brats
+standing outside the door in the wall. Maître Valandier, informed by
+them of my arrival, hastened in my direction:
+
+"Well?" he cried. "Where's Captain Jeanniot?"
+
+"Hasn't he come?"
+
+"No; and I can assure you that everybody is very impatient to see him."
+
+The different groups began to crowd round the lawyer; and I noticed that
+all those faces which I recognized had thrown off the gloomy and
+despondent expression which they wore a year ago.
+
+"They are full of hope," said Maître Valandier, "and it is my fault. But
+what could I do? Your friend made such an impression upon me that I
+spoke to these good people with a confidence ... which I cannot say I
+feel. However, he seems a queer sort of fellow, this Captain Jeanniot of
+yours...."
+
+He asked me many questions and I gave him a number of more or less
+fanciful details about the captain, to which the heirs listened, nodding
+their heads in appreciation of my remarks.
+
+"Of course, the truth was bound to be discovered sooner or later," said
+the fat gentleman, in a tone of conviction.
+
+The infantry corporal, dazzled by the captain's rank, did not entertain
+a doubt in his mind.
+
+The lady with the little dog wanted to know if Captain Jeanniot was
+young.
+
+But Louise d'Ernemont said:
+
+"And suppose he does not come?"
+
+"We shall still have the five thousand francs to divide," said the
+beggar-man.
+
+For all that, Louise d'Ernemont's words had damped their enthusiasm.
+Their faces began to look sullen and I felt an atmosphere as of anguish
+weighing upon us.
+
+At half-past one, the two lean sisters felt faint and sat down. Then the
+fat gentleman in the soiled suit suddenly rounded on the notary:
+
+"It's you, Maître Valandier, who are to blame.... You ought to have
+brought the captain here by main force.... He's a humbug, that's quite
+clear."
+
+He gave me a savage look, and the footman, in his turn, flung muttered
+curses at me.
+
+I confess that their reproaches seemed to me well-founded and that
+Lupin's absence annoyed me greatly:
+
+"He won't come now," I whispered to the lawyer.
+
+And I was thinking of beating a retreat, when the eldest of the brats
+appeared at the door, yelling:
+
+"There's some one coming!... A motor-cycle!..."
+
+A motor was throbbing on the other side of the wall. A man on a
+motor-bicycle came tearing down the lane at the risk of breaking his
+neck. Suddenly, he put on his brakes, outside the door, and sprang from
+his machine.
+
+Under the layer of dust which covered him from head to foot, we could
+see that his navy-blue reefer-suit, his carefully creased trousers, his
+black felt hat and patent-leather boots were not the clothes in which a
+man usually goes cycling.
+
+"But that's not Captain Jeanniot!" shouted the notary, who failed to
+recognize him.
+
+"Yes, it is," said Lupin, shaking hands with us. "I'm Captain Jeanniot
+right enough ... only I've shaved off my moustache.... Besides, Maître
+Valandier, here's your receipt."
+
+He caught one of the workman's children by the arm and said:
+
+"Run to the cab-rank and fetch a taxi to the corner of the Rue
+Raynouard. Look sharp! I have an urgent appointment to keep at two
+o'clock, or a quarter-past at the latest."
+
+There was a murmur of protest. Captain Jeanniot took out his watch:
+
+"Well! It's only twelve minutes to two! I have a good quarter of an hour
+before me. But, by Jingo, how tired I feel! And how hungry into the
+bargain!"
+
+The corporal thrust his ammunition-bread into Lupin's hand; and he
+munched away at it as he sat down and said:
+
+"You must forgive me. I was in the Marseilles express, which left the
+rails between Dijon and Laroche. There were twelve people killed and any
+number injured, whom I had to help. Then I found this motor-cycle in the
+luggage-van.... Maître Valandier, you must be good enough to restore it
+to the owner. You will find the label fastened to the handle-bar. Ah,
+you're back, my boy! Is the taxi there? At the corner of the Rue
+Raynouard? Capital!"
+
+He looked at his watch again:
+
+"Hullo! No time to lose!"
+
+I stared at him with eager curiosity. But how great must the excitement
+of the d'Ernemont heirs have been! True, they had not the same faith in
+Captain Jeanniot that I had in Lupin. Nevertheless, their faces were
+pale and drawn. Captain Jeanniot turned slowly to the left and walked up
+to the sun-dial. The pedestal represented the figure of a man with a
+powerful torso, who bore on his shoulders a marble slab the surface of
+which had been so much worn by time that we could hardly distinguish the
+engraved lines that marked the hours. Above the slab, a Cupid, with
+outspread wings, held an arrow that served as a gnomon.
+
+The captain stood leaning forward for a minute, with attentive eyes.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"Somebody lend me a knife, please."
+
+A clock in the neighbourhood struck two. At that exact moment, the
+shadow of the arrow was thrown upon the sunlit dial along the line of a
+crack in the marble which divided the slab very nearly in half.
+
+The captain took the knife handed to him. And with the point, very
+gently, he began to scratch the mixture of earth and moss that filled
+the narrow cleft.
+
+Almost immediately, at a couple of inches from the edge, he stopped, as
+though his knife had encountered an obstacle, inserted his thumb and
+forefinger and withdrew a small object which he rubbed between the palms
+of his hands and gave to the lawyer:
+
+"Here, Maître Valandier. Something to go on with."
+
+It was an enormous diamond, the size of a hazelnut and beautifully cut.
+
+The captain resumed his work. The next moment, a fresh stop. A second
+diamond, magnificent and brilliant as the first, appeared in sight.
+
+And then came a third and a fourth.
+
+In a minute's time, following the crack from one edge to the other and
+certainly without digging deeper than half an inch, the captain had
+taken out eighteen diamonds of the same size.
+
+During this minute, there was not a cry, not a movement around the
+sun-dial. The heirs seemed paralyzed with a sort of stupor. Then the fat
+gentleman muttered:
+
+"Geminy!"
+
+And the corporal moaned:
+
+"Oh, captain!... Oh, captain!..."
+
+The two sisters fell in a dead faint. The lady with the little dog
+dropped on her knees and prayed, while the footman, staggering like a
+drunken man, held his head in his two hands, and Louise d'Ernemont wept.
+
+When calm was restored and all became eager to thank Captain Jeanniot,
+they saw that he was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some years passed before I had an opportunity of talking to Lupin about
+this business. He was in a confidential vein and answered:
+
+"The business of the eighteen diamonds? By Jove, when I think that three
+or four generations of my fellow-men had been hunting for the solution!
+And the eighteen diamonds were there all the time, under a little mud
+and dust!"
+
+"But how did you guess?..."
+
+"I did not guess. I reflected. I doubt if I need even have reflected.
+I was struck, from the beginning, by the fact that the whole
+circumstance was governed by one primary question: the question of time.
+When Charles d'Ernemont was still in possession of his wits, he wrote a
+date upon the three pictures. Later, in the gloom in which he was
+struggling, a faint glimmer of intelligence led him every year to the
+centre of the old garden; and the same faint glimmer led him away from
+it every year at the same moment, that is to say, at twenty-seven
+minutes past five. Something must have acted on the disordered machinery
+of his brain in this way. What was the superior force that controlled
+the poor madman's movements? Obviously, the instinctive notion of time
+represented by the sun-dial in the farmer-general's pictures. It was the
+annual revolution of the earth around the sun that brought Charles
+d'Ernemont back to the garden at a fixed date. And it was the earth's
+daily revolution upon its own axis that took him from it at a fixed
+hour, that is to say, at the hour, most likely, when the sun, concealed
+by objects different from those of to-day, ceased to light the Passy
+garden. Now of all this the sun-dial was the symbol. And that is why I
+at once knew where to look."
+
+"But how did you settle the hour at which to begin looking?"
+
+"Simply by the pictures. A man living at that time, such as Charles
+d'Ernemont, would have written either 26 Germinal, Year II, or else 15
+April, 1794, but not 15 April, Year II. I was astounded that no one had
+thought of that."
+
+"Then the figure 2 stood for two o'clock?"
+
+"Evidently. And what must have happened was this: the farmer-general
+began by turning his fortune into solid gold and silver money. Then, by
+way of additional precaution, with this gold and silver he bought
+eighteen wonderful diamonds. When he was surprised by the arrival of the
+patrol, he fled into his garden. Which was the best place to hide the
+diamonds? Chance caused his eyes to light upon the sun-dial. It was two
+o'clock. The shadow of the arrow was then falling along the crack in the
+marble. He obeyed this sign of the shadow, rammed his eighteen diamonds
+into the dust and calmly went back and surrendered to the soldiers."
+
+"But the shadow of the arrow coincides with the crack in the marble
+every day of the year and not only on the 15th of April."
+
+"You forget, my dear chap, that we are dealing with a lunatic and that
+he remembered only this date of the 15th of April."
+
+"Very well; but you, once you had solved the riddle, could easily have
+made your way into the enclosure and taken the diamonds."
+
+"Quite true; and I should not have hesitated, if I had had to do with
+people of another description. But I really felt sorry for those poor
+wretches. And then you know the sort of idiot that Lupin is. The idea of
+appearing suddenly as a benevolent genius and amazing his kind would be
+enough to make him commit any sort of folly."
+
+"Tah!" I cried. "The folly was not so great as all that. Six magnificent
+diamonds! How delighted the d'Ernemont heirs must have been to fulfil
+their part of the contract!"
+
+Lupin looked at me and burst into uncontrollable laughter:
+
+"So you haven't heard? Oh, what a joke! The delight of the d'Ernemont
+heirs!.... Why, my dear fellow, on the next day, that worthy Captain
+Jeanniot had so many mortal enemies! On the very next day, the two lean
+sisters and the fat gentleman organized an opposition. A contract? Not
+worth the paper it was written on, because, as could easily be proved,
+there was no such person as Captain Jeanniot. Where did that adventurer
+spring from? Just let him sue them and they'd soon show him what was
+what!"
+
+"Louise d'Ernemont too?"
+
+"No, Louise d'Ernemont protested against that piece of rascality. But
+what could she do against so many? Besides, now that she was rich, she
+got back her young man. I haven't heard of her since."
+
+"So ...?"
+
+"So, my dear fellow, I was caught in a trap, with not a leg to stand on,
+and I had to compromise and accept one modest diamond as my share, the
+smallest and the least handsome of the lot. That comes of doing one's
+best to help people!"
+
+And Lupin grumbled between his teeth:
+
+"Oh, gratitude!... All humbug!... Where should we honest men be if we
+had not our conscience and the satisfaction of duty performed to reward
+us?"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE INFERNAL TRAP
+
+
+When the race was over, a crowd of people, streaming toward the exit
+from the grand stand, pushed against Nicolas Dugrival. He brought his
+hand smartly to the inside pocket of his jacket.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked his wife.
+
+"I still feel nervous ... with that money on me! I'm afraid of some
+nasty accident."
+
+She muttered:
+
+"And I can't understand you. How can you think of carrying such a sum
+about with you? Every farthing we possess! Lord knows, it cost us
+trouble enough to earn!"
+
+"Pooh!" he said. "No one would guess that it is here, in my
+pocket-book."
+
+"Yes, yes," she grumbled. "That young man-servant whom we discharged
+last week knew all about it, didn't he, Gabriel?"
+
+"Yes, aunt," said a youth standing beside her.
+
+Nicolas Dugrival, his wife and his nephew Gabriel were well-known
+figures at the race-meetings, where the regular frequenters saw them
+almost every day: Dugrival, a big, fat, red-faced man, who looked as if
+he knew how to enjoy life; his wife, also built on heavy lines, with a
+coarse, vulgar face, and always dressed in a plum-coloured silk much the
+worse for wear; the nephew, quite young, slender, with pale features,
+dark eyes and fair and rather curly hair.
+
+As a rule, the couple remained seated throughout the afternoon. It was
+Gabriel who betted for his uncle, watching the horses in the paddock,
+picking up tips to right and left among the jockeys and stable-lads,
+running backward and forward between the stands and the _pari-mutuel_.
+
+Luck had favoured them that day, for, three times, Dugrival's neighbours
+saw the young man come back and hand him money.
+
+The fifth race was just finishing. Dugrival lit a cigar. At that moment,
+a gentleman in a tight-fitting brown suit, with a face ending in a
+peaked grey beard, came up to him and asked, in a confidential whisper:
+
+"Does this happen to belong to you, sir?"
+
+And he displayed a gold watch and chain.
+
+Dugrival gave a start:
+
+"Why, yes ... it's mine.... Look, here are my initials, N. G.: Nicolas
+Dugrival!"
+
+And he at once, with a movement of terror, clapped his hand to his
+jacket-pocket. The note-case was still there.
+
+"Ah," he said, greatly relieved, "that's a piece of luck!... But, all
+the same, how on earth was it done?... Do you know the scoundrel?"
+
+"Yes, we've got him locked up. Pray come with me and we'll soon look
+into the matter."
+
+"Whom have I the honour ...?"
+
+"M. Delangle, detective-inspector. I have sent to let M. Marquenne, the
+magistrate, know."
+
+Nicolas Dugrival went out with the inspector; and the two of them
+started for the commissary's office, some distance behind the grand
+stand. They were within fifty yards of it, when the inspector was
+accosted by a man who said to him, hurriedly:
+
+"The fellow with the watch has blabbed; we are on the tracks of a whole
+gang. M. Marquenne wants you to wait for him at the _pari-mutuel_ and to
+keep a look-out near the fourth booth."
+
+There was a crowd outside the betting-booths and Inspector Delangle
+muttered:
+
+"It's an absurd arrangement.... Whom am I to look out for?... That's
+just like M. Marquenne!..."
+
+He pushed aside a group of people who were crowding too close upon him:
+
+"By Jove, one has to use one's elbows here and keep a tight hold on
+one's purse. That's the way you got your watch pinched, M. Dugrival!"
+
+"I can't understand...."
+
+"Oh, if you knew how those gentry go to work! One never guesses what
+they're up to next. One of them treads on your foot, another gives you a
+poke in the eye with his stick and the third picks your pocket before
+you know where you are.... I've been had that way myself." He stopped
+and then continued, angrily. "But, bother it, what's the use of hanging
+about here! What a mob! It's unbearable!... Ah, there's M. Marquenne
+making signs to us!... One moment, please ... and be sure and wait for
+me here."
+
+He shouldered his way through the crowd. Nicolas Dugrival followed him
+for a moment with his eyes. Once the inspector was out of sight, he
+stood a little to one side, to avoid being hustled.
+
+A few minutes passed. The sixth race was about to start, when Dugrival
+saw his wife and nephew looking for him. He explained to them that
+Inspector Delangle was arranging matters with the magistrate.
+
+"Have you your money still?" asked his wife.
+
+"Why, of course I have!" he replied. "The inspector and I took good
+care, I assure you, not to let the crowd jostle us."
+
+He felt his jacket, gave a stifled cry, thrust his hand into his pocket
+and began to stammer inarticulate syllables, while Mme. Dugrival gasped,
+in dismay:
+
+"What is it? What's the matter?"
+
+"Stolen!" he moaned. "The pocket-book ... the fifty notes!..."
+
+"It's not true!" she screamed. "It's not true!"
+
+"Yes, the inspector ... a common sharper ... he's the man...."
+
+She uttered absolute yells:
+
+"Thief! Thief! Stop thief!... My husband's been robbed!... Fifty
+thousand francs!... We are ruined!... Thief! Thief ..."
+
+In a moment they were surrounded by policemen and taken to the
+commissary's office. Dugrival went like a lamb, absolutely bewildered.
+His wife continued to shriek at the top of her voice, piling up
+explanations, railing against the inspector:
+
+"Have him looked for!... Have him found!... A brown suit.... A pointed
+beard.... Oh, the villain, to think what he's robbed us of!... Fifty
+thousand francs!... Why ... why, Dugrival, what are you doing?"
+
+With one bound, she flung herself upon her husband. Too late! He had
+pressed the barrel of a revolver against his temple. A shot rang out.
+Dugrival fell. He was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reader cannot have forgotten the commotion made by the newspapers in
+connection with this case, nor how they jumped at the opportunity once
+more to accuse the police of carelessness and blundering. Was it
+conceivable that a pick-pocket could play the part of an inspector like
+that, in broad daylight and in a public place, and rob a respectable man
+with impunity?
+
+Nicolas Dugrival's widow kept the controversy alive, thanks to her
+jeremiads and to the interviews which she granted on every hand. A
+reporter had secured a snapshot of her in front of her husband's body,
+holding up her hand and swearing to revenge his death. Her nephew
+Gabriel was standing beside her, with hatred pictured in his face. He,
+too, it appeared, in a few words uttered in a whisper, but in a tone of
+fierce determination, had taken an oath to pursue and catch the
+murderer.
+
+The accounts described the humble apartment which they occupied at the
+Batignolles; and, as they had been robbed of all their means, a
+sporting-paper opened a subscription on their behalf.
+
+As for the mysterious Delangle, he remained undiscovered. Two men were
+arrested, but had to be released forthwith. The police took up a number
+of clues, which were at once abandoned; more than one name was
+mentioned; and, lastly, they accused Arsène Lupin, an action which
+provoked the famous burglar's celebrated cable, dispatched from New York
+six days after the incident:
+
+
+    "Protest indignantly against calumny invented by baffled police.
+    Send my condolences to unhappy victims. Instructing my bankers to
+    remit them fifty thousand francs.
+
+                                                             "LUPIN."
+
+
+True enough, on the day after the publication of the cable, a stranger
+rang at Mme. Dugrival's door and handed her an envelope. The envelope
+contained fifty thousand-franc notes.
+
+This theatrical stroke was not at all calculated to allay the universal
+comment. But an event soon occurred which provided any amount of
+additional excitement. Two days later, the people living in the same
+house as Mme. Dugrival and her nephew were awakened, at four o'clock in
+the morning, by horrible cries and shrill calls for help. They rushed to
+the flat. The porter succeeded in opening the door. By the light of a
+lantern carried by one of the neighbours, he found Gabriel stretched at
+full-length in his bedroom, with his wrists and ankles bound and a gag
+forced into his mouth, while, in the next room, Mme. Dugrival lay with
+her life's blood ebbing away through a great gash in her breast.
+
+She whispered:
+
+"The money.... I've been robbed.... All the notes gone...."
+
+And she fainted away.
+
+What had happened? Gabriel said--and, as soon as she was able to speak,
+Mme. Dugrival completed her nephew's story--that he was startled from
+his sleep by finding himself attacked by two men, one of whom gagged
+him, while the other fastened him down. He was unable to see the men in
+the dark, but he heard the noise of the struggle between them and his
+aunt. It was a terrible struggle, Mme. Dugrival declared. The ruffians,
+who obviously knew their way about, guided by some intuition, made
+straight for the little cupboard containing the money and, in spite of
+her resistance and outcries, laid hands upon the bundle of bank-notes.
+As they left, one of them, whom she had bitten in the arm, stabbed her
+with a knife, whereupon the men had both fled.
+
+"Which way?" she was asked.
+
+"Through the door of my bedroom and afterward, I suppose, through the
+hall-door."
+
+"Impossible! The porter would have noticed them."
+
+For the whole mystery lay in this: how had the ruffians entered the
+house and how did they manage to leave it? There was no outlet open to
+them. Was it one of the tenants? A careful inquiry proved the absurdity
+of such a supposition.
+
+What then?
+
+Chief-inspector Ganimard, who was placed in special charge of the case,
+confessed that he had never known anything more bewildering:
+
+"It's very like Lupin," he said, "and yet it's not Lupin.... No, there's
+more in it than meets the eye, something very doubtful and
+suspicious.... Besides, if it were Lupin, why should he take back the
+fifty thousand francs which he sent? There's another question that
+puzzles me: what is the connection between the second robbery and the
+first, the one on the race-course? The whole thing is incomprehensible
+and I have a sort of feeling--which is very rare with me--that it is no
+use hunting. For my part, I give it up."
+
+The examining-magistrate threw himself into the case with heart and
+soul. The reporters united their efforts with those of the police. A
+famous English sleuth-hound crossed the Channel. A wealthy American,
+whose head had been turned by detective-stories, offered a big reward to
+whosoever should supply the first information leading to the discovery
+of the truth. Six weeks later, no one was any the wiser. The public
+adopted Ganimard's view; and the examining-magistrate himself grew tired
+of struggling in a darkness which only became denser as time went on.
+
+And life continued as usual with Dugrival's widow. Nursed by her nephew,
+she soon recovered from her wound. In the mornings, Gabriel settled her
+in an easy-chair at the dining-room window, did the rooms and then went
+out marketing. He cooked their lunch without even accepting the
+proffered assistance of the porter's wife.
+
+Worried by the police investigations and especially by the requests for
+interviews, the aunt and nephew refused to see anybody. Not even the
+portress, whose chatter disturbed and wearied Mme. Dugrival, was
+admitted. She fell back upon Gabriel, whom she accosted each time that
+he passed her room:
+
+"Take care, M. Gabriel, you're both of you being spied upon. There are
+men watching you. Why, only last night, my husband caught a fellow
+staring up at your windows."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Gabriel. "It's all right. That's the police, protecting
+us."
+
+One afternoon, at about four o'clock, there was a violent altercation
+between two costermongers at the bottom of the street. The porter's wife
+at once left her room to listen to the invectives which the adversaries
+were hurling at each other's heads. Her back was no sooner turned than
+a man, young, of medium height and dressed in a grey suit of
+irreproachable cut, slipped into the house and ran up the staircase.
+
+When he came to the third floor, he rang the bell. Receiving no answer,
+he rang again. At the third summons, the door opened.
+
+"Mme. Dugrival?" he asked, taking off his hat.
+
+"Mme. Dugrival is still an invalid and unable to see any one," said
+Gabriel, who stood in the hall.
+
+"It's most important that I should speak to her."
+
+"I am her nephew and perhaps I could take her a message...."
+
+"Very well," said the man. "Please tell Mme. Dugrival that an accident
+has supplied me with valuable information concerning the robbery from
+which she has suffered and that I should like to go over the flat and
+ascertain certain particulars for myself. I am accustomed to this sort
+of inquiry; and my call is sure to be of use to her."
+
+Gabriel examined the visitor for a moment, reflected and said:
+
+"In that case, I suppose my aunt will consent ... Pray come in."
+
+He opened the door of the dining-room and stepped back to allow the
+other to pass. The stranger walked to the threshold, but, at the moment
+when he was crossing it, Gabriel raised his arm and, with a swift
+movement, struck him with a dagger over the right shoulder.
+
+A burst of laughter rang through the room:
+
+"Got him!" cried Mme. Dugrival, darting up from her chair. "Well done,
+Gabriel! But, I say, you haven't killed the scoundrel, have you?"
+
+"I don't think so, aunt. It's a small blade and I didn't strike him too
+hard."
+
+The man was staggering, with his hands stretched in front of him and his
+face deathly pale.
+
+"You fool!" sneered the widow. "So you've fallen into the trap ... and a
+good job too! We've been looking out for you a long time. Come, my fine
+fellow, down with you! You don't care about it, do you? But you can't
+help yourself, you see. That's right: one knee on the ground, before the
+missus ... now the other knee.... How well we've been brought up!...
+Crash, there we go on the floor! Lord, if my poor Dugrival could only
+see him like that!... And now, Gabriel, to work!"
+
+She went to her bedroom and opened one of the doors of a hanging
+wardrobe filled with dresses. Pulling these aside, she pushed open
+another door which formed the back of the wardrobe and led to a room in
+the next house:
+
+"Help me carry him, Gabriel. And you'll nurse him as well as you can,
+won't you? For the present, he's worth his weight in gold to us, the
+artist!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hours succeeded one another. Days passed.
+
+One morning, the wounded man regained a moment's consciousness. He
+raised his eyelids and looked around him.
+
+He was lying in a room larger than that in which he had been stabbed, a
+room sparsely furnished, with thick curtains hanging before the windows
+from top to bottom. There was light enough, however, to enable him to
+see young Gabriel Dugrival seated on a chair beside him and watching
+him.
+
+"Ah, it's you, youngster!" he murmured. "I congratulate you, my lad. You
+have a sure and pretty touch with the dagger."
+
+And he fell asleep again.
+
+That day and the following days, he woke up several times and, each
+time, he saw the stripling's pale face, his thin lips and his dark eyes,
+with the hard look in them:
+
+"You frighten me," he said. "If you have sworn to do for me, don't stand
+on ceremony. But cheer up, for goodness' sake. The thought of death has
+always struck me as the most humorous thing in the world. Whereas, with
+you, old chap, it simply becomes lugubrious. I prefer to go to sleep.
+Good-night!"
+
+Still, Gabriel, in obedience to Mme. Dugrival's orders, continued to
+nurse him with the utmost care and attention. The patient was almost
+free from fever and was beginning to take beef-tea and milk. He gained a
+little strength and jested:
+
+"When will the convalescent be allowed his first drive? Is the
+bath-chair there? Why, cheer up, stupid! You look like a weeping-willow
+contemplating a crime. Come, just one little smile for daddy!"
+
+One day, on waking, he had a very unpleasant feeling of constraint.
+After a few efforts, he perceived that, during his sleep, his legs,
+chest and arms had been fastened to the bedstead with thin wire strands
+that cut into his flesh at the least movements.
+
+"Ah," he said to his keeper, "this time it's the great performance! The
+chicken's going to be bled. Are you operating, Angel Gabriel? If so, see
+that your razor's nice and clean, old chap! The antiseptic treatment,
+_if_ you please!"
+
+But he was interrupted by the sound of a key grating in the lock. The
+door opposite opened and Mme. Dugrival appeared.
+
+She approached slowly, took a chair and, producing a revolver from her
+pocket, cocked it and laid it on the table by the bedside.
+
+"Brrrrr!" said the prisoner. "We might be at the Ambigu!... Fourth act:
+the Traitor's Doom. And the fair sex to do the deed.... The hand of the
+Graces.... What an honour!... Mme. Dugrival, I rely on you not to
+disfigure me."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Lupin."
+
+"Ah, so you know?... By Jove, how clever we are!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Lupin."
+
+There was a solemn note in her voice that impressed the captive and
+compelled him to silence. He watched his two gaolers in turns. The
+bloated features and red complexion of Mme. Dugrival formed a striking
+contrast with her nephew's refined face; but they both wore the same air
+of implacable resolve.
+
+The widow leant forward and said:
+
+"Are you prepared to answer my questions?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Then listen to me. How did you know that Dugrival carried all his money
+in his pocket?"
+
+"Servants' gossip...."
+
+"A young man-servant whom we had in our employ: was that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And did you steal Dugrival's watch in order to give it back to him and
+inspire him with confidence?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She suppressed a movement of fury:
+
+"You fool! You fool!... What! You rob my man, you drive him to kill
+himself and, instead of making tracks to the uttermost ends of the earth
+and hiding yourself, you go on playing Lupin in the heart of Paris!...
+Did you forget that I swore, on my dead husband's head, to find his
+murderer?"
+
+"That's what staggers me," said Lupin. "How did you come to suspect me?"
+
+"How? Why, you gave yourself away!"
+
+"I did?..."
+
+"Of course.... The fifty thousand francs...."
+
+"Well, what about it? A present...."
+
+"Yes, a present which you gave cabled instructions to have sent to me,
+so as to make believe that you were in America on the day of the races.
+A present, indeed! What humbug! The fact is, you didn't like to think of
+the poor fellow whom you had murdered. So you restored the money to the
+widow, publicly, of course, because you love playing to the gallery and
+ranting and posing, like the mountebank that you are. That was all very
+nicely thought out. Only, my fine fellow, you ought not to have sent me
+the selfsame notes that were stolen from Dugrival! Yes, you silly fool,
+the selfsame notes and no others! We knew the numbers, Dugrival and I
+did. And you were stupid enough to send the bundle to me. Now do you
+understand your folly?"
+
+Lupin began to laugh:
+
+"It was a pretty blunder, I confess. I'm not responsible; I gave
+different orders. But, all the same I can't blame any one except
+myself."
+
+"Ah, so you admit it! You signed your theft and you signed your ruin at
+the same time. There was nothing left to be done but to find you. Find
+you? No, better than that. Sensible people don't find Lupin: they make
+him come to them! That was a masterly notion. It belongs to my young
+nephew, who loathes you as much as I do, if possible, and who knows you
+thoroughly, through reading all the books that have been written about
+you. He knows your prying nature, your need to be always plotting, your
+mania for hunting in the dark and unravelling what others have failed to
+unravel. He also knows that sort of sham kindness of yours, the
+drivelling sentimentality that makes you shed crocodile tears over the
+people you victimize; And he planned the whole farce! He invented the
+story of the two burglars, the second theft of fifty thousand francs!
+Oh, I swear to you, before Heaven, that the stab which I gave myself
+with my own hands never hurt me! And I swear to you, before Heaven, that
+we spent a glorious time waiting for you, the boy and I, peeping out at
+your confederates who prowled under our windows, taking their bearings!
+And there was no mistake about it: you were bound to come! Seeing that
+you had restored the Widow Dugrival's fifty thousand francs, it was out
+of the question that you should allow the Widow Dugrival to be robbed of
+her fifty thousand francs! You were bound to come, attracted by the
+scent of the mystery. You were bound to come, for swagger, out of
+vanity! And you come!"
+
+The widow gave a strident laugh:
+
+"Well played, wasn't it? The Lupin of Lupins, the master of masters,
+inaccessible and invisible, caught in a trap by a woman and a boy!...
+Here he is in flesh and bone ... here he is with hands and feet tied, no
+more dangerous than a sparrow ... here is he ... here he is!..."
+
+She shook with joy and began to pace the room, throwing sidelong glances
+at the bed, like a wild beast that does not for a moment take its eyes
+from its victim. And never had Lupin beheld greater hatred and savagery
+in any human being.
+
+"Enough of this prattle," she said.
+
+Suddenly restraining herself, she stalked back to him and, in a quite
+different tone, in a hollow voice, laying stress on every syllable:
+
+"Thanks to the papers in your pocket, Lupin, I have made good use of the
+last twelve days. I know all your affairs, all your schemes, all your
+assumed names, all the organization of your band, all the lodgings which
+you possess in Paris and elsewhere. I have even visited one of them, the
+most secret, the one where you hide your papers, your ledgers and the
+whole story of your financial operations. The result of my
+investigations is very satisfactory. Here are four cheques, taken from
+four cheque-books and corresponding with four accounts which you keep at
+four different banks under four different names. I have filled in each
+of them for ten thousand francs. A larger figure would have been too
+risky. And, now, sign."
+
+"By Jove!" said Lupin, sarcastically. "This is blackmail, my worthy Mme.
+Dugrival."
+
+"That takes your breath away, what?"
+
+"It takes my breath away, as you say."
+
+"And you find an adversary who is a match for you?"
+
+"The adversary is far beyond me. So the trap--let us call it
+infernal--the infernal trap into which I have fallen was laid not merely
+by a widow thirsting for revenge, but also by a first-rate business
+woman anxious to increase her capital?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"My congratulations. And, while I think of it, used M. Dugrival perhaps
+to ...?"
+
+"You have hit it, Lupin. After all, why conceal the fact? It will
+relieve your conscience. Yes, Lupin, Dugrival used to work on the same
+lines as yourself. Oh, not on the same scale!... We were modest people:
+a louis here, a louis there ... a purse or two which we trained Gabriel
+to pick up at the races.... And, in this way, we had made our little
+pile ... just enough to buy a small place in the country."
+
+"I prefer it that way," said Lupin.
+
+"That's all right! I'm only telling you, so that you may know that I am
+not a beginner and that you have nothing to hope for. A rescue? No. The
+room in which we now are communicates with my bedroom. It has a private
+outlet of which nobody knows. It was Dugrival's special apartment. He
+used to see his friends here. He kept his implements and tools here, his
+disguises ... his telephone even, as you perceive. So there's no hope,
+you see. Your accomplices have given up looking for you here. I have
+sent them off on another track. Your goose is cooked. Do you begin to
+realize the position?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then sign the cheques."
+
+"And, when I have signed them, shall I be free?"
+
+"I must cash them first."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"After that, on my soul, as I hope to be saved, you will be free."
+
+"I don't trust you."
+
+"Have you any choice?"
+
+"That's true. Hand me the cheques."
+
+She unfastened Lupin's right hand, gave him a pen and said:
+
+"Don't forget that the four cheques require four different signatures
+and that the handwriting has to be altered in each case."
+
+"Never fear."
+
+He signed the cheques.
+
+"Gabriel," said the widow, "it is ten o'clock. If I am not back by
+twelve, it will mean that this scoundrel has played me one of his
+tricks. At twelve o'clock, blow out his brains. I am leaving you the
+revolver with which your uncle shot himself. There are five bullets left
+out of the six. That will be ample."
+
+She left the room, humming a tune as she went.
+
+Lupin mumbled:
+
+"I wouldn't give twopence for my life."
+
+He shut his eyes for an instant and then, suddenly, said to Gabriel:
+
+"How much?"
+
+And, when the other did not appear to understand, he grew irritated:
+
+"I mean what I say. How much? Answer me, can't you? We drive the same
+trade, you and I. I steal, thou stealest, we steal. So we ought to come
+to terms: that's what we are here for. Well? Is it a bargain? Shall we
+clear out together. I will give you a post in my gang, an easy,
+well-paid post. How much do you want for yourself? Ten thousand? Twenty
+thousand? Fix your own price; don't be shy. There's plenty to be had for
+the asking."
+
+An angry shiver passed through his frame as he saw the impassive face of
+his keeper:
+
+"Oh, the beggar won't even answer! Why, you can't have been so fond of
+old Dugrival as all that! Listen to me: if you consent to release
+me...."
+
+But he interrupted himself. The young man's eyes wore the cruel
+expression which he knew so well. What was the use of trying to move
+him?
+
+"Hang it all!" he snarled. "I'm not going to croak here, like a dog! Oh,
+if I could only...."
+
+Stiffening all his muscles, he tried to burst his bonds, making a
+violent effort that drew a cry of pain from him; and he fell back upon
+his bed, exhausted.
+
+"Well, well," he muttered, after a moment, "it's as the widow said: my
+goose is cooked. Nothing to be done. _De profundis_, Lupin."
+
+A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour....
+
+Gabriel, moving closer to Lupin, saw that his eyes were shut and that
+his breath came evenly, like that of a man sleeping. But Lupin said:
+
+"Don't imagine that I'm asleep, youngster. No, people don't sleep at a
+moment like this. Only I am consoling myself. Needs must, eh?... And
+then I am thinking of what is to come after.... Exactly. I have a little
+theory of my own about that. You wouldn't think it, to look at me, but I
+believe in metempsychosis, in the transmigration of souls. It would take
+too long to explain, however.... I say, boy ... suppose we shook hands
+before we part? You won't? Then good-bye. Good health and a long life to
+you, Gabriel!..."
+
+He closed his eyelids and did not stir again before Mme. Dugrival's
+return.
+
+The widow entered with a lively step, at a few minutes before twelve.
+She seemed greatly excited:
+
+"I have the money," she said to her nephew. "Run away. I'll join you in
+the motor down below."
+
+"But...."
+
+"I don't want your help to finish him off. I can do that alone. Still,
+if you feel like seeing the sort of a face a rogue can pull.... Pass me
+the weapon."
+
+Gabriel handed her the revolver and the widow continued:
+
+"Have you burnt our papers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then to work. And, as soon as he's done for, be off. The shots may
+bring the neighbours. They must find both the flats empty."
+
+She went up to the bed:
+
+"Are you ready, Lupin?"
+
+"Ready's not the word: I'm burning with impatience."
+
+"Have you any request to make of me?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Then...."
+
+"One word, though."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If I meet Dugrival in the next world, what message am I to give him
+from you?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and put the barrel of the revolver to Lupin's
+temple.
+
+"That's it," he said, "and be sure your hand doesn't shake, my dear
+lady. It won't hurt you, I swear. Are you ready? At the word of command,
+eh? One ... two ... three...."
+
+The widow pulled the trigger. A shot rang out.
+
+"Is this death?" said Lupin. "That's funny! I should have thought it was
+something much more different from life!"
+
+There was a second shot. Gabriel snatched the weapon from his aunt's
+hands and examined it:
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "the bullets have been removed!... There are only
+the percussion-caps left!..."
+
+His aunt and he stood motionless, for a moment, and confused:
+
+"Impossible!" she blurted out. "Who could have done it?... An
+inspector?... The examining-magistrate?..."
+
+She stopped and, in a low voice:
+
+"Hark.... I hear a noise...."
+
+They listened and the widow went into the hall. She returned, furious,
+exasperated by her failure and by the scare which she had received:
+
+"There's nobody there.... It must have been the neighbours going out....
+We have plenty of time.... Ah, Lupin, you were beginning to make
+merry!... The knife, Gabriel."
+
+"It's in my room."
+
+"Go and fetch it."
+
+Gabriel hurried away. The widow stamped with rage:
+
+"I've sworn to do it!... You've got to suffer, my fine fellow!... I
+swore to Dugrival that I would do it and I have repeated my oath every
+morning and evening since.... I have taken it on my knees, yes, on my
+knees, before Heaven that listens to me! It's my duty and my right to
+revenge my dead husband!... By the way, Lupin, you don't look quite as
+merry as you did!... Lord, one would almost think you were afraid!...
+He's afraid! He's afraid! I can see it in his eyes!... Come along,
+Gabriel, my boy!... Look at his eyes!... Look at his lips!... He's
+trembling!... Give me the knife, so that I may dig it into his heart
+while he's shivering.... Oh, you coward!... Quick, quick, Gabriel, the
+knife!..."
+
+"I can't find it anywhere," said the young man, running back in dismay.
+"It has gone from my room! I can't make it out!"
+
+"Never mind!" cried the Widow Dugrival, half demented. "All the better!
+I will do the business myself."
+
+She seized Lupin by the throat, clutched him with her ten fingers,
+digging her nails into his flesh, and began to squeeze with all her
+might. Lupin uttered a hoarse rattle and gave himself up for lost.
+
+Suddenly, there was a crash at the window. One of the panes was smashed
+to pieces.
+
+"What's that? What is it?" stammered the widow, drawing herself erect,
+in alarm.
+
+Gabriel, who had turned even paler than usual, murmured:
+
+"I don't know.... I can't think...."
+
+"Who can have done it?" said the widow.
+
+She dared not move, waiting for what would come next. And one thing
+above all terrified her, the fact that there was no missile on the floor
+around them, although the pane of glass, as was clearly visible, had
+given way before the crash of a heavy and fairly large object, a stone,
+probably.
+
+After a while, she looked under the bed, under the chest of drawers:
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"No," said her nephew, who was also looking. And, resuming her seat, she
+said:
+
+"I feel frightened ... my arms fail me ... you finish him off...."
+
+Gabriel confessed:
+
+"I'm frightened also."
+
+"Still ... still," she stammered, "it's got to be done.... I swore
+it...."
+
+Making one last effort, she returned to Lupin and gasped his neck with
+her stiff fingers. But Lupin, who was watching her pallid face, received
+a very clear sensation that she would not have the courage to kill him.
+To her he was becoming something sacred, invulnerable. A mysterious
+power was protecting him against every attack, a power which had already
+saved him three times by inexplicable means and which would find other
+means to protect him against the wiles of death.
+
+She said to him, in a hoarse voice:
+
+"How you must be laughing at me!"
+
+"Not at all, upon my word. I should feel frightened myself, in your
+place."
+
+"Nonsense, you scum of the earth! You imagine that you will be rescued
+... that your friends are waiting outside? It's out of the question, my
+fine fellow."
+
+"I know. It's not they defending me ... nobody's defending me...."
+
+"Well, then?..."
+
+"Well, all the same, there's something strange at the bottom of it,
+something fantastic and miraculous that makes your flesh creep, my fine
+lady."
+
+"You villain!... You'll be laughing on the other side of your mouth
+before long."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"You wait and see."
+
+She reflected once more and said to her nephew:
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"Fasten his arm again and let's be off," he replied.
+
+A hideous suggestion! It meant condemning Lupin to the most horrible of
+all deaths, death by starvation.
+
+"No," said the widow. "He might still find a means of escape. I know
+something better than that."
+
+She took down the receiver of the telephone, waited and asked:
+
+"Number 82248, please."
+
+And, after a second or two:
+
+"Hullo!... Is that the Criminal Investigation Department?... Is
+Chief-inspector Ganimard there?... In twenty minutes, you say?... I'm
+sorry!... However!... When he comes, give him this message from Mme.
+Dugrival.... Yes, Mme. Nicolas Dugrival.... Ask him to come to my flat.
+Tell him to open the looking-glass door of my wardrobe; and, when he has
+done so, he will see that the wardrobe hides an outlet which makes my
+bedroom communicate with two other rooms. In one of these, he will find
+a man bound hand and foot. It is the thief, Dugrival's murderer.... You
+don't believe me?... Tell M. Ganimard; he'll believe me right enough....
+Oh, I was almost forgetting to give you the man's name: Arsène Lupin!"
+
+And, without another word, she replaced the receiver.
+
+"There, Lupin, that's done. After all, I would just as soon have my
+revenge this way. How I shall hold my sides when I read the reports of
+the Lupin trial!... Are you coming, Gabriel?"
+
+"Yes, aunt."
+
+"Good-bye, Lupin. You and I sha'n't see each other again, I expect, for
+we are going abroad. But I promise to send you some sweets while you're
+in prison."
+
+"Chocolates, mother! We'll eat them together!"
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"_Au revoir._"
+
+The widow went out with her nephew, leaving Lupin fastened down to the
+bed.
+
+He at once moved his free arm and tried to release himself; but he
+realized, at the first attempt, that he would never have the strength to
+break the wire strands that bound him. Exhausted with fever and pain,
+what could he do in the twenty minutes or so that were left to him
+before Ganimard's arrival?
+
+Nor did he count upon his friends. True, he had been thrice saved from
+death; but this was evidently due to an astounding series of accidents
+and not to any interference on the part of his allies. Otherwise they
+would not have contented themselves with these extraordinary
+manifestations, but would have rescued him for good and all.
+
+No, he must abandon all hope. Ganimard was coming. Ganimard would find
+him there. It was inevitable. There was no getting away from the fact.
+
+And the prospect of what was coming irritated him singularly. He already
+heard his old enemy's gibes ringing in his ears. He foresaw the roars of
+laughter with which the incredible news would be greeted on the morrow.
+To be arrested in action, so to speak, on the battlefield, by an
+imposing detachment of adversaries, was one thing: but to be arrested,
+or rather picked up, scraped up, gathered up, in such condition, was
+really too silly. And Lupin, who had so often scoffed at others, felt
+all the ridicule that was falling to his share in this ending of the
+Dugrival business, all the bathos of allowing himself to be caught in
+the widow's infernal trap and finally of being "served up" to the police
+like a dish of game, roasted to a turn and nicely seasoned.
+
+"Blow the widow!" he growled. "I had rather she had cut my throat and
+done with it."
+
+He pricked up his ears. Some one was moving in the next room. Ganimard!
+No. Great as his eagerness would be, he could not be there yet. Besides,
+Ganimard would not have acted like that, would not have opened the door
+as gently as that other person was doing. What other person? Lupin
+remembered the three miraculous interventions to which he owed his life.
+Was it possible that there was really somebody who had protected him
+against the widow, and that that somebody was now attempting to rescue
+him? But, if so, who?
+
+Unseen by Lupin, the stranger stooped behind the bed. Lupin heard the
+sound of the pliers attacking the wire strands and releasing him little
+by little. First his chest was freed, then his arms, then his legs.
+
+And a voice said to him:
+
+"You must get up and dress."
+
+Feeling very weak, he half-raised himself in bed at the moment when the
+stranger rose from her stooping posture.
+
+"Who are you?" he whispered. "Who are you?"
+
+And a great surprise over came him.
+
+By his side stood a woman, a woman dressed in black, with a lace shawl
+over her head, covering part of her face. And the woman, as far as he
+could judge, was young and of a graceful and slender stature.
+
+"Who are you?" he repeated.
+
+"You must come now," said the woman. "There's no time to lose."
+
+"Can I?" asked Lupin, making a desperate effort. "I doubt if I have the
+strength."
+
+"Drink this."
+
+She poured some milk into a cup; and, as she handed it to him, her lace
+opened, leaving the face uncovered.
+
+"You!" he stammered. "It's you!... It's you who ... it was you who
+were...."
+
+He stared in amazement at this woman whose features presented so
+striking a resemblance to Gabriel's, whose delicate, regular face had
+the same pallor, whose mouth wore the same hard and forbidding
+expression. No sister could have borne so great a likeness to her
+brother. There was not a doubt possible: it was the identical person.
+And, without believing for a moment that Gabriel had concealed himself
+in a woman's clothes, Lupin, on the contrary, received the distinct
+impression that it was a woman standing beside him and that the
+stripling who had pursued him with his hatred and struck him with the
+dagger was in very deed a woman. In order to follow their trade with
+greater ease, the Dugrival pair had accustomed her to disguise herself
+as a boy.
+
+"You ... you ...!" he repeated. "Who would have suspected ...?"
+
+She emptied the contents of a phial into the cup:
+
+"Drink this cordial," she said.
+
+He hesitated, thinking of poison.
+
+She added:
+
+"It was I who saved you."
+
+"Of course, of course," he said. "It was you who removed the bullets
+from the revolver?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you who hid the knife?"
+
+"Here it is, in my pocket."
+
+"And you who smashed the window-pane while your aunt was throttling me?"
+
+"Yes, it was I, with the paper-weight on the table: I threw it into the
+street."
+
+"But why? Why?" he asked, in utter amazement.
+
+"Drink the cordial."
+
+"Didn't you want me to die? But then why did you stab me to begin with?"
+
+"Drink the cordial."
+
+He emptied the cup at a draught, without quite knowing the reason of his
+sudden confidence.
+
+"Dress yourself ... quickly," she commanded, retiring to the window.
+
+He obeyed and she came back to him, for he had dropped into a chair,
+exhausted.
+
+"We must go now, we must, we have only just time.... Collect your
+strength."
+
+She bent forward a little, so that he might lean on her shoulder, and
+turned toward the door and the staircase.
+
+And Lupin walked as one walks in a dream, one of those queer dreams in
+which the most inconsequent things occur, a dream that was the happy
+sequel of the terrible nightmare in which he had lived for the past
+fortnight.
+
+A thought struck him, however. He began to laugh:
+
+"Poor Ganimard! Upon my word, the fellow has no luck, I would give
+twopence to see him coming to arrest me."
+
+After descending the staircase with the aid of his companion, who
+supported him with incredible vigour, he found himself in the street,
+opposite a motor-car into which she helped him to mount.
+
+"Right away," she said to the driver.
+
+Lupin, dazed by the open air and the speed at which they were
+travelling, hardly took stock of the drive and of the incidents on the
+road. He recovered all his consciousness when he found himself at home
+in one of the flats which he occupied, looked after by his servant, to
+whom the girl gave a few rapid instructions.
+
+"You can go," he said to the man.
+
+But, when the girl turned to go as well, he held her back by a fold of
+her dress.
+
+"No ... no ... you must first explain.... Why did you save me? Did you
+return unknown to your aunt? But why did you save me? Was it from pity?"
+
+She did not answer. With her figure drawn up and her head flung back a
+little, she retained her hard and impenetrable air. Nevertheless, he
+thought he noticed that the lines of her mouth showed not so much
+cruelty as bitterness. Her eyes, her beautiful dark eyes, revealed
+melancholy. And Lupin, without as yet understanding, received a vague
+intuition of what was passing within her. He seized her hand. She pushed
+him away, with a start of revolt in which he felt hatred, almost
+repulsion. And, when he insisted, she cried:
+
+"Let me be, will you?... Let me be!... Can't you see that I detest you?"
+
+They looked at each other for a moment, Lupin disconcerted, she
+quivering and full of uneasiness, her pale face all flushed with
+unwonted colour.
+
+He said to her, gently:
+
+"If you detested me, you should have let me die.... It was simple
+enough.... Why didn't you?"
+
+"Why?... Why?... How do I know?..."
+
+Her face contracted. With a sudden movement, she hid it in her two
+hands; and he saw tears trickle between her fingers.
+
+Greatly touched, he thought of addressing her in fond words, such as one
+would use to a little girl whom one wished to console, and of giving her
+good advice and saving her, in his turn, and snatching her from the bad
+life which she was leading, perhaps against her better nature.
+
+But such words would have sounded ridiculous, coming from his lips, and
+he did not know what to say, now that he understood the whole story and
+was able to picture the young woman sitting beside his sick-bed,
+nursing the man whom she had wounded, admiring his pluck and gaiety,
+becoming attached to him, falling in love with him and thrice over,
+probably in spite of herself, under a sort of instinctive impulse, amid
+fits of spite and rage, saving him from death.
+
+And all this was so strange, so unforeseen; Lupin was so much unmanned
+by his astonishment, that, this time, he did not try to retain her when
+she made for the door, backward, without taking her eyes from him.
+
+She lowered her head, smiled for an instant and disappeared.
+
+He rang the bell, quickly:
+
+"Follow that woman," he said to his man. "Or no, stay where you are....
+After all, it is better so...."
+
+He sat brooding for a while, possessed by the girl's image. Then he
+revolved in his mind all that curious, stirring and tragic adventure, in
+which he had been so very near succumbing; and, taking a hand-glass from
+the table, he gazed for a long time and with a certain self-complacency
+at his features, which illness and pain had not succeeded in impairing
+to any great extent:
+
+"Good looks count for something, after all!" he muttered.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE RED SILK SCARF
+
+
+On leaving his house one morning, at his usual early hour for going to
+the Law Courts, Chief-inspector Ganimard noticed the curious behaviour
+of an individual who was walking along the Rue Pergolèse in front of
+him. Shabbily dressed and wearing a straw hat, though the day was the
+first of December, the man stooped at every thirty or forty yards to
+fasten his boot-lace, or pick up his stick, or for some other reason.
+And, each time, he took a little piece of orange-peel from his pocket
+and laid it stealthily on the kerb of the pavement. It was probably a
+mere display of eccentricity, a childish amusement to which no one else
+would have paid attention; but Ganimard was one of those shrewd
+observers who are indifferent to nothing that strikes their eyes and who
+are never satisfied until they know the secret cause of things. He
+therefore began to follow the man.
+
+Now, at the moment when the fellow was turning to the right, into the
+Avenue de la Grande-Armée, the inspector caught him exchanging signals
+with a boy of twelve or thirteen, who was walking along the houses on
+the left-hand side. Twenty yards farther, the man stooped and turned up
+the bottom of his trousers legs. A bit of orange-peel marked the place.
+At the same moment, the boy stopped and, with a piece of chalk, drew a
+white cross, surrounded by a circle, on the wall of the house next to
+him.
+
+The two continued on their way. A minute later, a fresh halt. The
+strange individual picked up a pin and dropped a piece of orange-peel;
+and the boy at once made a second cross on the wall and again drew a
+white circle round it.
+
+"By Jove!" thought the chief-inspector, with a grunt of satisfaction.
+"This is rather promising.... What on earth can those two merchants be
+plotting?"
+
+The two "merchants" went down the Avenue Friedland and the Rue du
+Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, but nothing occurred that was worthy of special
+mention. The double performance was repeated at almost regular intervals
+and, so to speak, mechanically. Nevertheless, it was obvious, on the one
+hand, that the man with the orange-peel did not do his part of the
+business until after he had picked out with a glance the house that was
+to be marked and, on the other hand, that the boy did not mark that
+particular house until after he had observed his companion's signal. It
+was certain, therefore, that there was an agreement between the two; and
+the proceedings presented no small interest in the chief-inspector's
+eyes.
+
+At the Place Beauveau the man hesitated. Then, apparently making up his
+mind, he twice turned up and twice turned down the bottom of his
+trousers legs. Hereupon, the boy sat down on the kerb, opposite the
+sentry who was mounting guard outside the Ministry of the Interior, and
+marked the flagstone with two little crosses contained within two
+circles. The same ceremony was gone through a little further on, when
+they reached the Elysée. Only, on the pavement where the President's
+sentry was marching up and down, there were three signs instead of two.
+
+"Hang it all!" muttered Ganimard, pale with excitement and thinking, in
+spite of himself, of his inveterate enemy, Lupin, whose name came to his
+mind whenever a mysterious circumstance presented itself. "Hang it all,
+what does it mean?"
+
+He was nearly collaring and questioning the two "merchants." But he was
+too clever to commit so gross a blunder. The man with the orange-peel
+had now lit a cigarette; and the boy, also placing a cigarette-end
+between his lips, had gone up to him, apparently with the object of
+asking for a light.
+
+They exchanged a few words. Quick as thought, the boy handed his
+companion an object which looked--at least, so the inspector
+believed--like a revolver. They both bent over this object; and the man,
+standing with his face to the wall, put his hand six times in his pocket
+and made a movement as though he were loading a weapon.
+
+As soon as this was done, they walked briskly to the Rue de Surène; and
+the inspector, who followed them as closely as he was able to do without
+attracting their attention, saw them enter the gateway of an old house
+of which all the shutters were closed, with the exception of those on
+the third or top floor.
+
+He hurried in after them. At the end of the carriage-entrance he saw a
+large courtyard, with a house-painter's sign at the back and a staircase
+on the left.
+
+He went up the stairs and, as soon as he reached the first floor, ran
+still faster, because he heard, right up at the top, a din as of a
+free-fight.
+
+When he came to the last landing he found the door open. He entered,
+listened for a second, caught the sound of a struggle, rushed to the
+room from which the sound appeared to proceed and remained standing on
+the threshold, very much out of breath and greatly surprised to see
+the man of the orange-peel and the boy banging the floor with chairs.
+
+At that moment a third person walked out of an adjoining room. It was a
+young man of twenty-eight or thirty, wearing a pair of short whiskers in
+addition to his moustache, spectacles, and a smoking-jacket with an
+astrakhan collar and looking like a foreigner, a Russian.
+
+"Good morning, Ganimard," he said. And turning to the two companions,
+"Thank you, my friends, and all my congratulations on the successful
+result. Here's the reward I promised you."
+
+He gave them a hundred-franc note, pushed them outside and shut both
+doors.
+
+"I am sorry, old chap," he said to Ganimard. "I wanted to talk to you
+... wanted to talk to you badly."
+
+He offered him his hand and, seeing that the inspector remained
+flabbergasted and that his face was still distorted with anger, he
+exclaimed:
+
+"Why, you don't seem to understand!... And yet it's clear enough.... I
+wanted to see you particularly.... So what could I do?" And, pretending
+to reply to an objection, "No, no, old chap," he continued. "You're
+quite wrong. If I had written or telephoned, you would not have come
+... or else you would have come with a regiment. Now I wanted to see you
+all alone; and I thought the best thing was to send those two decent
+fellows to meet you, with orders to scatter bits of orange-peel and draw
+crosses and circles, in short, to mark out your road to this place....
+Why, you look quite bewildered! What is it? Perhaps you don't recognize
+me? Lupin.... Arsène Lupin.... Ransack your memory.... Doesn't the name
+remind you of anything?"
+
+"You dirty scoundrel!" Ganimard snarled between his teeth.
+
+Lupin seemed greatly distressed and, in an affectionate voice:
+
+"Are you vexed? Yes, I can see it in your eyes.... The Dugrival
+business, I suppose? I ought to have waited for you to come and take me
+in charge?... There now, the thought never occurred to me! I promise
+you, next time...."
+
+"You scum of the earth!" growled Ganimard.
+
+"And I thinking I was giving you a treat! Upon my word, I did. I said to
+myself, 'That dear old Ganimard! We haven't met for an age. He'll simply
+rush at me when he sees me!'"
+
+Ganimard, who had not yet stirred a limb, seemed to be waking from his
+stupor. He looked around him, looked at Lupin, visibly asked himself
+whether he would not do well to rush at him in reality and then,
+controlling himself, took hold of a chair and settled himself in it, as
+though he had suddenly made up his mind to listen to his enemy:
+
+"Speak," he said. "And don't waste my time with any nonsense. I'm in a
+hurry."
+
+"That's it," said Lupin, "let's talk. You can't imagine a quieter place
+than this. It's an old manor-house, which once stood in the open
+country, and it belongs to the Duc de Rochelaure. The duke, who has
+never lived in it, lets this floor to me and the outhouses to a painter
+and decorator. I always keep up a few establishments of this kind: it's
+a sound, practical plan. Here, in spite of my looking like a Russian
+nobleman, I am M. Daubreuil, an ex-cabinet-minister.... You understand,
+I had to select a rather overstocked profession, so as not to attract
+attention...."
+
+"Do you think I care a hang about all this?" said Ganimard, interrupting
+him.
+
+"Quite right, I'm wasting words and you're in a hurry. Forgive me. I
+sha'n't be long now.... Five minutes, that's all.... I'll start at
+once.... Have a cigar? No? Very well, no more will I."
+
+He sat down also, drummed his fingers on the table, while thinking, and
+began in this fashion:
+
+"On the 17th of October, 1599, on a warm and sunny autumn day ... Do
+you follow me?... But, now that I come to think of it, is it really
+necessary to go back to the reign of Henry IV, and tell you all about
+the building of the Pont-Neuf? No, I don't suppose you are very well up
+in French history; and I should only end by muddling you. Suffice it,
+then, for you to know that, last night, at one o'clock in the morning, a
+boatman passing under the last arch of the Pont-Neuf aforesaid, along
+the left bank of the river, heard something drop into the front part of
+his barge. The thing had been flung from the bridge and its evident
+destination was the bottom of the Seine. The bargee's dog rushed
+forward, barking, and, when the man reached the end of his craft, he saw
+the animal worrying a piece of newspaper that had served to wrap up a
+number of objects. He took from the dog such of the contents as had not
+fallen into the water, went to his cabin and examined them carefully.
+The result struck him as interesting; and, as the man is connected with
+one of my friends, he sent to let me know. This morning I was waked up
+and placed in possession of the facts and of the objects which the man
+had collected. Here they are."
+
+He pointed to them, spread out on a table. There were, first of all, the
+torn pieces of a newspaper. Next came a large cut-glass inkstand, with a
+long piece of string fastened to the lid. There was a bit of broken
+glass and a sort of flexible cardboard, reduced to shreds. Lastly, there
+was a piece of bright scarlet silk, ending in a tassel of the same
+material and colour.
+
+"You see our exhibits, friend of my youth," said Lupin. "No doubt, the
+problem would be more easily solved if we had the other objects which
+went overboard owing to the stupidity of the dog. But it seems to me,
+all the same, that we ought to be able to manage, with a little
+reflection and intelligence. And those are just your great qualities.
+How does the business strike you?"
+
+Ganimard did not move a muscle. He was willing to stand Lupin's chaff,
+but his dignity commanded him not to speak a single word in answer nor
+even to give a nod or shake of the head that might have been taken to
+express approval or or criticism.
+
+"I see that we are entirely of one mind," continued Lupin, without
+appearing to remark the chief-inspector's silence. "And I can sum up the
+matter briefly, as told us by these exhibits. Yesterday evening, between
+nine and twelve o'clock, a showily dressed young woman was wounded with
+a knife and then caught round the throat and choked to death by a
+well-dressed gentleman, wearing a single eyeglass and interested in
+racing, with whom the aforesaid showily dressed young lady had been
+eating three meringues and a coffee éclair."
+
+Lupin lit a cigarette and, taking Ganimard by the sleeve:
+
+"Aha, that's up against you, chief-inspector! You thought that, in the
+domain of police deductions, such feats as those were prohibited to
+outsiders! Wrong, sir! Lupin juggles with inferences and deductions for
+all the world like a detective in a novel. My proofs are dazzling and
+absolutely simple."
+
+And, pointing to the objects one by one, as he demonstrated his
+statement, he resumed:
+
+"I said, after nine o'clock yesterday evening. This scrap of newspaper
+bears yesterday's date, with the words, 'Evening edition.' Also, you
+will see here, pasted to the paper, a bit of one of those yellow
+wrappers in which the subscribers' copies are sent out. These copies are
+always delivered by the nine o'clock post. Therefore, it was after nine
+o'clock. I said, a well-dressed man. Please observe that this tiny piece
+of glass has the round hole of a single eyeglass at one of the edges and
+that the single eyeglass is an essentially aristocratic article of wear.
+This well-dressed man walked into a pastry-cook's shop. Here is the very
+thin cardboard, shaped like a box, and still showing a little of the
+cream of the meringues and éclairs which were packed in it in the usual
+way. Having got his parcel, the gentleman with the eyeglass joined a
+young person whose eccentricity in the matter of dress is pretty clearly
+indicated by this bright-red silk scarf. Having joined her, for some
+reason as yet unknown he first stabbed her with a knife and then
+strangled her with the help of this same scarf. Take your magnifying
+glass, chief-inspector, and you will see, on the silk, stains of a
+darker red which are, here, the marks of a knife wiped on the scarf and,
+there, the marks of a hand, covered with blood, clutching the material.
+Having committed the murder, his next business is to leave no trace
+behind him. So he takes from his pocket, first, the newspaper to which
+he subscribes--a racing-paper, as you will see by glancing at the
+contents of this scrap; and you will have no difficulty in discovering
+the title--and, secondly, a cord, which, on inspection, turns out to be
+a length of whip-cord. These two details prove--do they not?--that our
+man is interested in racing and that he himself rides. Next, he picks up
+the fragments of his eyeglass, the cord of which has been broken in the
+struggle. He takes a pair of scissors--observe the hacking of the
+scissors--and cuts off the stained part of the scarf, leaving the other
+end, no doubt, in his victim's clenched hands. He makes a ball of the
+confectioner's cardboard box. He also puts in certain things that would
+have betrayed him, such as the knife, which must have slipped into the
+Seine. He wraps everything in the newspaper, ties it with the cord and
+fastens this cut-glass inkstand to it, as a make-weight. Then he makes
+himself scarce. A little later, the parcel falls into the waterman's
+barge. And there you are. Oof, it's hot work!... What do you say to the
+story?"
+
+He looked at Ganimard to see what impression his speech had produced on
+the inspector. Ganimard did not depart from his attitude of silence.
+
+Lupin began to laugh:
+
+"As a matter of fact, you're annoyed and surprised. But you're
+suspicious as well: 'Why should that confounded Lupin hand the business
+over to me,' say you, 'instead of keeping it for himself, hunting down
+the murderer and rifling his pockets, if there was a robbery?' The
+question is quite logical, of course. But--there is a 'but'--I have no
+time, you see. I am full up with work at the present moment: a burglary
+in London, another at Lausanne, an exchange of children at Marseilles,
+to say nothing of having to save a young girl who is at this moment
+shadowed by death. That's always the way: it never rains but it pours.
+So I said to myself, 'Suppose I handed the business over to my dear old
+Ganimard? Now that it is half-solved for him, he is quite capable of
+succeeding. And what a service I shall be doing him! How magnificently
+he will be able to distinguish himself!' No sooner said than done. At
+eight o'clock in the morning, I sent the joker with the orange-peel to
+meet you. You swallowed the bait; and you were here by nine, all on edge
+and eager for the fray."
+
+Lupin rose from his chair. He went over to the inspector and, with his
+eyes in Ganimard's, said:
+
+"That's all. You now know the whole story. Presently, you will know the
+victim: some ballet-dancer, probably, some singer at a music-hall. On
+the other hand, the chances are that the criminal lives near the
+Pont-Neuf, most likely on the left bank. Lastly, here are all the
+exhibits. I make you a present of them. Set to work. I shall only keep
+this end of the scarf. If ever you want to piece the scarf together,
+bring me the other end, the one which the police will find round the
+victim's neck. Bring it me in four weeks from now to the day, that is to
+say, on the 29th of December, at ten o'clock in the morning. You can be
+sure of finding me here. And don't be afraid: this is all perfectly
+serious, friend of my youth; I swear it is. No humbug, honour bright.
+You can go straight ahead. Oh, by the way, when you arrest the fellow
+with the eyeglass, be a bit careful: he is left-handed! Good-bye, old
+dear, and good luck to you!"
+
+Lupin spun round on his heel, went to the door, opened it and
+disappeared before Ganimard had even thought of taking a decision. The
+inspector rushed after him, but at once found that the handle of the
+door, by some trick of mechanism which he did not know, refused to turn.
+It took him ten minutes to unscrew the lock and ten minutes more to
+unscrew the lock of the hall-door. By the time that he had scrambled
+down the three flights of stairs, Ganimard had given up all hope of
+catching Arsène Lupin.
+
+Besides, he was not thinking of it. Lupin inspired him with a queer,
+complex feeling, made up of fear, hatred, involuntary admiration and
+also the vague instinct that he, Ganimard, in spite of all his efforts,
+in spite of the persistency of his endeavours, would never get the
+better of this particular adversary. He pursued him from a sense of duty
+and pride, but with the continual dread of being taken in by that
+formidable hoaxer and scouted and fooled in the face of a public that
+was always only too willing to laugh at the chief-inspector's mishaps.
+
+This business of the red scarf, in particular, struck him as most
+suspicious. It was interesting, certainly, in more ways than one, but
+so very improbable! And Lupin's explanation, apparently so logical,
+would never stand the test of a severe examination!
+
+"No," said Ganimard, "this is all swank: a parcel of suppositions and
+guesswork based upon nothing at all. I'm not to be caught with chaff."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he reached the headquarters of police, at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, he
+had quite made up his mind to treat the incident as though it had never
+happened.
+
+He went up to the Criminal Investigation Department. Here, one of his
+fellow-inspectors said:
+
+"Seen the chief?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He was asking for you just now."
+
+"Oh, was he?"
+
+"Yes, you had better go after him."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Rue de Berne ... there was a murder there last night."
+
+"Oh! Who's the victim?"
+
+"I don't know exactly ... a music-hall singer, I believe."
+
+Ganimard simply muttered:
+
+"By Jove!"
+
+Twenty minutes later he stepped out of the underground railway-station
+and made for the Rue de Berne.
+
+The victim, who was known in the theatrical world by her stage-name of
+Jenny Saphir, occupied a small flat on the second floor of one of the
+houses. A policeman took the chief-inspector upstairs and showed him the
+way, through two sitting-rooms, to a bedroom, where he found the
+magistrates in charge of the inquiry, together with the divisional
+surgeon and M. Dudouis, the head of the detective-service.
+
+Ganimard started at the first glance which he gave into the room. He
+saw, lying on a sofa, the corpse of a young woman whose hands clutched a
+strip of red silk! One of the shoulders, which appeared above the
+low-cut bodice, bore the marks of two wounds surrounded with clotted
+blood. The distorted and almost blackened features still bore an
+expression of frenzied terror.
+
+The divisional surgeon, who had just finished his examination, said:
+
+"My first conclusions are very clear. The victim was twice stabbed with
+a dagger and afterward strangled. The immediate cause of death was
+asphyxia."
+
+"By Jove!" thought Ganimard again, remembering Lupin's words and the
+picture which he had drawn of the crime.
+
+The examining-magistrate objected:
+
+"But the neck shows no discoloration."
+
+"She may have been strangled with a napkin or a handkerchief," said the
+doctor.
+
+"Most probably," said the chief detective, "with this silk scarf, which
+the victim was wearing and a piece of which remains, as though she had
+clung to it with her two hands to protect herself."
+
+"But why does only that piece remain?" asked the magistrate. "What has
+become of the other?"
+
+"The other may have been stained with blood and carried off by the
+murderer. You can plainly distinguish the hurried slashing of the
+scissors."
+
+"By Jove!" said Ganimard, between his teeth, for the third time. "That
+brute of a Lupin saw everything without seeing a thing!"
+
+"And what about the motive of the murder?" asked the magistrate. "The
+locks have been forced, the cupboards turned upside down. Have you
+anything to tell me, M. Dudouis?"
+
+The chief of the detective-service replied:
+
+"I can at least suggest a supposition, derived from the statements made
+by the servant. The victim, who enjoyed a greater reputation on account
+of her looks than through her talent as a singer, went to Russia, two
+years ago, and brought back with her a magnificent sapphire, which she
+appears to have received from some person of importance at the court.
+Since then, she went by the name of Jenny Saphir and seems generally to
+have been very proud of that present, although, for prudence sake, she
+never wore it. I daresay that we shall not be far out if we presume the
+theft of the sapphire to have been the cause of the crime."
+
+"But did the maid know where the stone was?"
+
+"No, nobody did. And the disorder of the room would tend to prove that
+the murderer did not know either."
+
+"We will question the maid," said the examining-magistrate.
+
+M. Dudouis took the chief-inspector aside and said:
+
+"You're looking very old-fashioned, Ganimard. What's the matter? Do you
+suspect anything?"
+
+"Nothing at all, chief."
+
+"That's a pity. We could do with a bit of showy work in the department.
+This is one of a number of crimes, all of the same class, of which we
+have failed to discover the perpetrator. This time we want the criminal
+... and quickly!"
+
+"A difficult job, chief."
+
+"It's got to be done. Listen to me, Ganimard. According to what the maid
+says, Jenny Saphir led a very regular life. For a month past she was in
+the habit of frequently receiving visits, on her return from the
+music-hall, that is to say, at about half-past ten, from a man who would
+stay until midnight or so. 'He's a society man,' Jenny Saphir used to
+say, 'and he wants to marry me.' This society man took every precaution
+to avoid being seen, such as turning up his coat-collar and lowering the
+brim of his hat when he passed the porter's box. And Jenny Saphir always
+made a point of sending away her maid, even before he came. This is the
+man whom we have to find."
+
+"Has he left no traces?"
+
+"None at all. It is obvious that we have to deal with a very clever
+scoundrel, who prepared his crime beforehand and committed it with every
+possible chance of escaping unpunished. His arrest would be a great
+feather in our cap. I rely on you, Ganimard."
+
+"Ah, you rely on me, chief?" replied the inspector. "Well, we shall see
+... we shall see.... I don't say no.... Only...."
+
+He seemed in a very nervous condition, and his agitation struck M.
+Dudouis.
+
+"Only," continued Ganimard, "only I swear ... do you hear, chief? I
+swear...."
+
+"What do you swear?"
+
+"Nothing.... We shall see, chief ... we shall see...."
+
+Ganimard did not finish his sentence until he was outside, alone. And
+he finished it aloud, stamping his foot, in a tone of the most violent
+anger:
+
+"Only, I swear to Heaven that the arrest shall be effected by my own
+means, without my employing a single one of the clues with which that
+villain has supplied me. Ah, no! Ah, no!..."
+
+Railing against Lupin, furious at being mixed up in this business and
+resolved, nevertheless, to get to the bottom of it, he wandered
+aimlessly about the streets. His brain was seething with irritation; and
+he tried to adjust his ideas a little and to discover, among the chaotic
+facts, some trifling detail, unperceived by all, unsuspected by Lupin
+himself, that might lead him to success.
+
+He lunched hurriedly at a bar, resumed his stroll and suddenly stopped,
+petrified, astounded and confused. He was walking under the gateway of
+the very house in the Rue de Surène to which Lupin had enticed him a few
+hours earlier! A force stronger than his own will was drawing him there
+once more. The solution of the problem lay there. There and there alone
+were all the elements of the truth. Do and say what he would, Lupin's
+assertions were so precise, his calculations so accurate, that, worried
+to the innermost recesses of his being by so prodigious a display of
+perspicacity, he could not do other than take up the work at the point
+where his enemy had left it.
+
+Abandoning all further resistance, he climbed the three flights of
+stairs. The door of the flat was open. No one had touched the exhibits.
+He put them in his pocket and walked away.
+
+From that moment, he reasoned and acted, so to speak, mechanically,
+under the influence of the master whom he could not choose but obey.
+
+Admitting that the unknown person whom he was seeking lived in the
+neighbourhood of the Pont-Neuf, it became necessary to discover,
+somewhere between that bridge and the Rue de Berne, the first-class
+confectioner's shop, open in the evenings, at which the cakes were
+bought. This did not take long to find. A pastry-cook near the Gare
+Saint-Lazare showed him some little cardboard boxes, identical in
+material and shape with the one in Ganimard's possession. Moreover, one
+of the shop-girls remembered having served, on the previous evening, a
+gentleman whose face was almost concealed in the collar of his fur coat,
+but whose eyeglass she had happened to notice.
+
+"That's one clue checked," thought the inspector. "Our man wears an
+eyeglass."
+
+He next collected the pieces of the racing-paper and showed them to a
+newsvendor, who easily recognized the _Turf Illustré_. Ganimard at once
+went to the offices of the _Turf_ and asked to see the list of
+subscribers. Going through the list, he jotted down the names and
+addresses of all those who lived anywhere near the Pont-Neuf and
+principally--because Lupin had said so--those on the left bank of the
+river.
+
+He then went back to the Criminal Investigation Department, took half a
+dozen men and packed them off with the necessary instructions.
+
+At seven o'clock in the evening, the last of these men returned and
+brought good news with him. A certain M. Prévailles, a subscriber to the
+_Turf_, occupied an entresol flat on the Quai des Augustins. On the
+previous evening, he left his place, wearing a fur coat, took his
+letters and his paper, the _Turf Illustré_, from the porter's wife,
+walked away and returned home at midnight. This M. Prévailles wore a
+single eyeglass. He was a regular race-goer and himself owned several
+hacks which he either rode himself or jobbed out.
+
+The inquiry had taken so short a time and the results obtained were so
+exactly in accordance with Lupin's predictions that Ganimard felt quite
+overcome on hearing the detective's report. Once more he was measuring
+the prodigious extent of the resources at Lupin's disposal. Never in the
+course of his life--and Ganimard was already well-advanced in years--had
+he come across such perspicacity, such a quick and far-seeing mind.
+
+He went in search of M. Dudouis.
+
+"Everything's ready, chief. Have you a warrant?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I said, everything is ready for the arrest, chief."
+
+"You know the name of Jenny Saphir's murderer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But how? Explain yourself."
+
+Ganimard had a sort of scruple of conscience, blushed a little and
+nevertheless replied:
+
+"An accident, chief. The murderer threw everything that was likely to
+compromise him into the Seine. Part of the parcel was picked up and
+handed to me."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"A boatman who refused to give his name, for fear of getting into
+trouble. But I had all the clues I wanted. It was not so difficult as I
+expected."
+
+And the inspector described how he had gone to work.
+
+"And you call that an accident!" cried M. Dudouis. "And you say that it
+was not difficult! Why, it's one of your finest performances! Finish it
+yourself, Ganimard, and be prudent."
+
+Ganimard was eager to get the business done. He went to the Quai des
+Augustins with his men and distributed them around the house. He
+questioned the portress, who said that her tenant took his meals out of
+doors, but made a point of looking in after dinner.
+
+A little before nine o'clock, in fact, leaning out of her window, she
+warned Ganimard, who at once gave a low whistle. A gentleman in a tall
+hat and a fur coat was coming along the pavement beside the Seine. He
+crossed the road and walked up to the house.
+
+Ganimard stepped forward:
+
+"M. Prévailles, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, but who are you?"
+
+"I have a commission to...."
+
+He had not time to finish his sentence. At the sight of the men
+appearing out of the shadow, Prévailles quickly retreated to the wall
+and faced his adversaries, with his back to the door of a shop on the
+ground-floor, the shutters of which were closed.
+
+"Stand back!" he cried. "I don't know you!"
+
+His right hand brandished a heavy stick, while his left was slipped
+behind him and seemed to be trying to open the door.
+
+Ganimard had an impression that the man might escape through this way
+and through some secret outlet:
+
+"None of this nonsense," he said, moving closer to him. "You're
+caught.... You had better come quietly."
+
+But, just as he was laying hold of Prévailles' stick, Ganimard
+remembered the warning which Lupin gave him: Prévailles was left-handed;
+and it was his revolver for which he was feeling behind his back.
+
+The inspector ducked his head. He had noticed the man's sudden movement.
+Two reports rang out. No one was hit.
+
+A second later, Prévailles received a blow under the chin from the
+butt-end of a revolver, which brought him down where he stood. He was
+entered at the Dépôt soon after nine o'clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ganimard enjoyed a great reputation even at that time. But this capture,
+so quickly effected, by such very simple means, and at once made public
+by the police, won him a sudden celebrity. Prévailles was forthwith
+saddled with all the murders that had remained unpunished; and the
+newspapers vied with one another in extolling Ganimard's prowess.
+
+The case was conducted briskly at the start. It was first of all
+ascertained that Prévailles, whose real name was Thomas Derocq, had
+already been in trouble. Moreover, the search instituted in his rooms,
+while not supplying any fresh proofs, at least led to the discovery of a
+ball of whip-cord similar to the cord used for doing up the parcel and
+also to the discovery of daggers which would have produced a wound
+similar to the wounds on the victim.
+
+But, on the eighth day, everything was changed. Until then Prévailles
+had refused to reply to the questions put to him; but now, assisted by
+his counsel, he pleaded a circumstantial alibi and maintained that he
+was at the Folies-Bergère on the night of the murder.
+
+As a matter of fact, the pockets of his dinner-jacket contained the
+counterfoil of a stall-ticket and a programme of the performance, both
+bearing the date of that evening.
+
+"An alibi prepared in advance," objected the examining-magistrate.
+
+"Prove it," said Prévailles.
+
+The prisoner was confronted with the witnesses for the prosecution. The
+young lady from the confectioner's "thought she knew" the gentleman with
+the eyeglass. The hall-porter in the Rue de Berne "thought he knew" the
+gentleman who used to come to see Jenny Saphir. But nobody dared to make
+a more definite statement.
+
+The examination, therefore, led to nothing of a precise character,
+provided no solid basis whereon to found a serious accusation.
+
+The judge sent for Ganimard and told him of his difficulty.
+
+"I can't possibly persist, at this rate. There is no evidence to support
+the charge."
+
+"But surely you are convinced in your own mind, monsieur le juge
+d'instruction! Prévailles would never have resisted his arrest unless he
+was guilty."
+
+"He says that he thought he was being assaulted. He also says that he
+never set eyes on Jenny Saphir; and, as a matter of fact, we can find no
+one to contradict his assertion. Then again, admitting that the sapphire
+has been stolen, we have not been able to find it at his flat."
+
+"Nor anywhere else," suggested Ganimard.
+
+"Quite true, but that is no evidence against him. I'll tell you what we
+shall want, M. Ganimard, and that very soon: the other end of this red
+scarf."
+
+"The other end?"
+
+"Yes, for it is obvious that, if the murderer took it away with him, the
+reason was that the stuff is stained with the marks of the blood on his
+fingers."
+
+Ganimard made no reply. For several days he had felt that the
+whole business was tending to this conclusion. There was no
+other proof possible. Given the silk scarf--and in no other
+circumstances--Prévailles' guilt was certain. Now Ganimard's position
+required that Prévailles' guilt should be established. He was
+responsible for the arrest, it had cast a glamour around him, he had
+been praised to the skies as the most formidable adversary of criminals;
+and he would look absolutely ridiculous if Prévailles were released.
+
+Unfortunately, the one and only indispensable proof was in Lupin's
+pocket. How was he to get hold of it?
+
+Ganimard cast about, exhausted himself with fresh investigations, went
+over the inquiry from start to finish, spent sleepless nights in turning
+over the mystery of the Rue de Berne, studied the records of Prévailles'
+life, sent ten men hunting after the invisible sapphire. Everything was
+useless.
+
+On the 28th of December, the examining-magistrate stopped him in one of
+the passages of the Law Courts:
+
+"Well, M. Ganimard, any news?"
+
+"No, monsieur le juge d'instruction."
+
+"Then I shall dismiss the case."
+
+"Wait one day longer."
+
+"What's the use? We want the other end of the scarf; have you got it?"
+
+"I shall have it to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"Yes, but please lend me the piece in your possession."
+
+"What if I do?"
+
+"If you do, I promise to let you have the whole scarf complete."
+
+"Very well, that's understood."
+
+Ganimard followed the examining-magistrate to his room and came out with
+the piece of silk:
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled. "Yes, I will go and fetch the proof and I
+shall have it too ... always presuming that Master Lupin has the courage
+to keep the appointment."
+
+In point of fact, he did not doubt for a moment that Master Lupin would
+have this courage, and that was just what exasperated him. Why had Lupin
+insisted on this meeting? What was his object, in the circumstances?
+
+Anxious, furious and full of hatred, he resolved to take every
+precaution necessary not only to prevent his falling into a trap
+himself, but to make his enemy fall into one, now that the opportunity
+offered. And, on the next day, which was the 29th of December, the date
+fixed by Lupin, after spending the night in studying the old manor-house
+in the Rue de Surène and convincing himself that there was no other
+outlet than the front door, he warned his men that he was going on a
+dangerous expedition and arrived with them on the field of battle.
+
+He posted them in a café and gave them formal instructions: if he showed
+himself at one of the third-floor windows, or if he failed to return
+within an hour, the detectives were to enter the house and arrest any
+one who tried to leave it.
+
+The chief-inspector made sure that his revolver was in working order and
+that he could take it from his pocket easily. Then he went upstairs.
+
+He was surprised to find things as he had left them, the doors open and
+the locks broken. After ascertaining that the windows of the principal
+room looked out on the street, he visited the three other rooms that
+made up the flat. There was no one there.
+
+"Master Lupin was afraid," he muttered, not without a certain
+satisfaction.
+
+"Don't be silly," said a voice behind him.
+
+Turning round, he saw an old workman, wearing a house-painter's long
+smock, standing in the doorway.
+
+"You needn't bother your head," said the man. "It's I, Lupin. I have
+been working in the painter's shop since early morning. This is when we
+knock off for breakfast. So I came upstairs."
+
+He looked at Ganimard with a quizzing smile and cried:
+
+"'Pon my word, this is a gorgeous moment I owe you, old chap! I wouldn't
+sell it for ten years of your life; and yet you know how I love you!
+What do you think of it, artist? Wasn't it well thought out and well
+foreseen? Foreseen from alpha to omega? Did I understand the business?
+Did I penetrate the mystery of the scarf? I'm not saying that there were
+no holes in my argument, no links missing in the chain.... But what a
+masterpiece of intelligence! Ganimard, what a reconstruction of events!
+What an intuition of everything that had taken place and of everything
+that was going to take place, from the discovery of the crime to your
+arrival here in search of a proof! What really marvellous divination!
+Have you the scarf?"
+
+"Yes, half of it. Have you the other?"
+
+"Here it is. Let's compare."
+
+They spread the two pieces of silk on the table. The cuts made by the
+scissors corresponded exactly. Moreover, the colours were identical.
+
+"But I presume," said Lupin, "that this was not the only thing you came
+for. What you are interested in seeing is the marks of the blood. Come
+with me, Ganimard: it's rather dark in here."
+
+They moved into the next room, which, though it overlooked the
+courtyard, was lighter; and Lupin held his piece of silk against the
+window-pane:
+
+"Look," he said, making room for Ganimard.
+
+The inspector gave a start of delight. The marks of the five fingers and
+the print of the palm were distinctly visible. The evidence was
+undeniable. The murderer had seized the stuff in his bloodstained hand,
+in the same hand that had stabbed Jenny Saphir, and tied the scarf round
+her neck.
+
+"And it is the print of a left hand," observed Lupin. "Hence my warning,
+which had nothing miraculous about it, you see. For, though I admit,
+friend of my youth, that you may look upon me as a superior
+intelligence, I won't have you treat me as a wizard."
+
+Ganimard had quickly pocketed the piece of silk. Lupin nodded his head
+in approval:
+
+"Quite right, old boy, it's for you. I'm so glad you're glad! And, you
+see, there was no trap about all this ... only the wish to oblige ... a
+service between friends, between pals.... And also, I confess, a little
+curiosity.... Yes, I wanted to examine this other piece of silk, the one
+the police had.... Don't be afraid: I'll give it back to you.... Just a
+second...."
+
+Lupin, with a careless movement, played with the tassel at the end of
+this half of the scarf, while Ganimard listened to him in spite of
+himself:
+
+"How ingenious these little bits of women's work are! Did you notice one
+detail in the maid's evidence? Jenny Saphir was very handy with her
+needle and used to make all her own hats and frocks. It is obvious that
+she made this scarf herself.... Besides, I noticed that from the first.
+I am naturally curious, as I have already told you, and I made a
+thorough examination of the piece of silk which you have just put in
+your pocket. Inside the tassel, I found a little sacred medal, which the
+poor girl had stitched into it to bring her luck. Touching, isn't it,
+Ganimard? A little medal of Our Lady of Good Succour."
+
+The inspector felt greatly puzzled and did not take his eyes off the
+other. And Lupin continued:
+
+"Then I said to myself, 'How interesting it would be to explore the
+other half of the scarf, the one which the police will find round the
+victim's neck!' For this other half, which I hold in my hands at last,
+is finished off in the same way ... so I shall be able to see if it has
+a hiding-place too and what's inside it.... But look, my friend, isn't
+it cleverly made? And so simple! All you have to do is to take a skein
+of red cord and braid it round a wooden cup, leaving a little recess, a
+little empty space in the middle, very small, of course, but large
+enough to hold a medal of a saint ... or anything.... A precious stone,
+for instance.... Such as a sapphire...."
+
+At that moment he finished pushing back the silk cord and, from the
+hollow of a cup he took between his thumb and forefinger a wonderful
+blue stone, perfect in respect of size and purity.
+
+"Ha! What did I tell you, friend of my youth?"
+
+He raised his head. The inspector had turned livid and was staring
+wild-eyed, as though fascinated by the stone that sparkled before him.
+He at last realized the whole plot:
+
+"You dirty scoundrel!" he muttered, repeating the insults which he had
+used at the first interview. "You scum of the earth!"
+
+The two men were standing one against the other.
+
+"Give me back that," said the inspector.
+
+Lupin held out the piece of silk.
+
+"And the sapphire," said Ganimard, in a peremptory tone.
+
+"Don't be silly."
+
+"Give it back, or...."
+
+"Or what, you idiot!" cried Lupin. "Look here, do you think I put you on
+to this soft thing for nothing?"
+
+"Give it back!"
+
+"You haven't noticed what I've been about, that's plain! What! For four
+weeks I've kept you on the move like a deer; and you want to ...! Come,
+Ganimard, old chap, pull yourself together!... Don't you see that you've
+been playing the good dog for four weeks on end?... Fetch it, Rover!...
+There's a nice blue pebble over there, which master can't get at. Hunt
+it, Ganimard, fetch it ... bring it to master.... Ah, he's his master's
+own good little dog!... Sit up! Beg!... Does'ms want a bit of sugar,
+then?..."
+
+Ganimard, containing the anger that seethed within him, thought only of
+one thing, summoning his detectives. And, as the room in which he now
+was looked out on the courtyard, he tried gradually to work his way
+round to the communicating door. He would then run to the window and
+break one of the panes.
+
+"All the same," continued Lupin, "what a pack of dunderheads you and the
+rest must be! You've had the silk all this time and not one of you ever
+thought of feeling it, not one of you ever asked himself the reason why
+the poor girl hung on to her scarf. Not one of you! You just acted at
+haphazard, without reflecting, without foreseeing anything...."
+
+The inspector had attained his object. Taking advantage of a second when
+Lupin had turned away from him, he suddenly wheeled round and grasped
+the door-handle. But an oath escaped him: the handle did not budge.
+
+Lupin burst into a fit of laughing:
+
+"Not even that! You did not even foresee that! You lay a trap for me and
+you won't admit that I may perhaps smell the thing out beforehand....
+And you allow yourself to be brought into this room without asking
+whether I am not bringing you here for a particular reason and without
+remembering that the locks are fitted with a special mechanism. Come
+now, speaking frankly, what do you think of it yourself?"
+
+"What do I think of it?" roared Ganimard, beside himself with rage.
+
+He had drawn his revolver and was pointing it straight at Lupin's face.
+
+"Hands up!" he cried. "That's what I think of it!"
+
+Lupin placed himself in front of him and shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Sold again!" he said.
+
+"Hands up, I say, once more!"
+
+"And sold again, say I. Your deadly weapon won't go off."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Old Catherine, your housekeeper, is in my service. She damped the
+charges this morning while you were having your breakfast coffee."
+
+Ganimard made a furious gesture, pocketed the revolver and rushed at
+Lupin.
+
+"Well?" said Lupin, stopping him short with a well-aimed kick on the
+shin.
+
+Their clothes were almost touching. They exchanged defiant glances, the
+glances of two adversaries who mean to come to blows. Nevertheless,
+there was no fight. The recollection of the earlier struggles made any
+present struggle useless. And Ganimard, who remembered all his past
+failures, his vain attacks, Lupin's crushing reprisals, did not lift a
+limb. There was nothing to be done. He felt it. Lupin had forces at his
+command against which any individual force simply broke to pieces. So
+what was the good?
+
+"I agree," said Lupin, in a friendly voice, as though answering
+Ganimard's unspoken thought, "you would do better to let things be as
+they are. Besides, friend of my youth, think of all that this incident
+has brought you: fame, the certainty of quick promotion and, thanks to
+that, the prospect of a happy and comfortable old age! Surely, you don't
+want the discovery of the sapphire and the head of poor Arsène Lupin in
+addition! It wouldn't be fair. To say nothing of the fact that poor
+Arsène Lupin saved your life.... Yes, sir! Who warned you, at this very
+spot, that Prévailles was left-handed?... And is this the way you thank
+me? It's not pretty of you, Ganimard. Upon my word, you make me blush
+for you!"
+
+While chattering, Lupin had gone through the same performance as
+Ganimard and was now near the door. Ganimard saw that his foe was about
+to escape him. Forgetting all prudence, he tried to block his way and
+received a tremendous butt in the stomach, which sent him rolling to
+the opposite wall.
+
+Lupin dexterously touched a spring, turned the handle, opened the door
+and slipped away, roaring with laughter as he went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twenty minutes later, when Ganimard at last succeeded in joining his
+men, one of them said to him:
+
+"A house-painter left the house, as his mates were coming back from
+breakfast, and put a letter in my hand. 'Give that to your governor,' he
+said. 'Which governor?' I asked; but he was gone. I suppose it's meant
+for you."
+
+"Let's have it."
+
+Ganimard opened the letter. It was hurriedly scribbled in pencil and
+contained these words:
+
+
+    "This is to warn you, friend of my youth, against excessive
+    credulity. When a fellow tells you that the cartridges in your
+    revolver are damp, however great your confidence in that fellow may
+    be, even though his name be Arsène Lupin, never allow yourself to
+    be taken in. Fire first; and, if the fellow hops the twig, you will
+    have acquired the proof (1) that the cartridges are not damp; and
+    (2) that old Catherine is the most honest and respectable of
+    housekeepers.
+
+    "One of these days, I hope to have the pleasure of making her
+    acquaintance.
+
+    "Meanwhile, friend of my youth, believe me always affectionately
+    and sincerely yours,
+
+                                                   "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SHADOWED BY DEATH
+
+
+After he had been round the walls of the property, Arsène Lupin returned
+to the spot from which he started. It was perfectly clear to him that
+there was no breach in the walls; and the only way of entering the
+extensive grounds of the Château de Maupertuis was through a little low
+door, firmly bolted on the inside, or through the principal gate, which
+was overlooked by the lodge.
+
+"Very well," he said. "We must employ heroic methods."
+
+Pushing his way into the copsewood where he had hidden his
+motor-bicycle, he unwound a length of twine from under the saddle and
+went to a place which he had noticed in the course of his exploration.
+At this place, which was situated far from the road, on the edge of a
+wood, a number of large trees, standing inside the park, overlapped the
+wall.
+
+Lupin fastened a stone to the end of the string, threw it up and caught
+a thick branch, which he drew down to him and bestraddled. The branch,
+in recovering its position, raised him from the ground. He climbed over
+the wall, slipped down the tree, and sprang lightly on the grass.
+
+It was winter; and, through the leafless boughs, across the undulating
+lawns, he could see the little Château de Maupertuis in the distance.
+Fearing lest he should be perceived, he concealed himself behind a clump
+of fir-trees. From there, with the aid of a field-glass, he studied the
+dark and melancholy front of the manor-house. All the windows were
+closed and, as it were, barricaded with solid shutters. The house might
+easily have been uninhabited.
+
+"By Jove!" muttered Lupin. "It's not the liveliest of residences. I
+shall certainly not come here to end my days!"
+
+But the clock struck three; one of the doors on the ground-floor opened;
+and the figure of a woman appeared, a very slender figure wrapped in a
+brown cloak.
+
+The woman walked up and down for a few minutes and was at once
+surrounded by birds, to which she scattered crumbs of bread. Then she
+went down the stone steps that led to the middle lawn and skirted it,
+taking the path on the right.
+
+With his field-glass, Lupin could distinctly see her coming in his
+direction. She was tall, fair-haired, graceful in appearance, and
+seemed to be quite a young girl. She walked with a sprightly step,
+looking at the pale December sun and amusing herself by breaking the
+little dead twigs on the shrubs along the road.
+
+She had gone nearly two thirds of the distance that separated her from
+Lupin when there came a furious sound of barking and a huge dog, a
+colossal Danish boarhound, sprang from a neighbouring kennel and stood
+erect at the end of the chain by which it was fastened.
+
+The girl moved a little to one side, without paying further attention to
+what was doubtless a daily incident. The dog grew angrier than ever,
+standing on its legs and dragging at its collar, at the risk of
+strangling itself.
+
+Thirty or forty steps farther, yielding probably to an impulse of
+impatience, the girl turned round and made a gesture with her hand. The
+great Dane gave a start of rage, retreated to the back of its kennel and
+rushed out again, this time unfettered. The girl uttered a cry of mad
+terror. The dog was covering the space between them, trailing its broken
+chain behind it.
+
+She began to run, to run with all her might, and screamed out
+desperately for help. But the dog came up with her in a few bounds.
+
+She fell, at once exhausted, giving herself up for lost. The animal was
+already upon her, almost touching her.
+
+At that exact moment a shot rang out. The dog turned a complete
+somersault, recovered its feet, tore the ground and then lay down,
+giving a number of hoarse, breathless howls, which ended in a dull moan
+and an indistinct gurgling. And that was all.
+
+"Dead," said Lupin, who had hastened up at once, prepared, if necessary,
+to fire his revolver a second time.
+
+The girl had risen and stood pale, still staggering. She looked in great
+surprise at this man whom she did not know and who had saved her life;
+and she whispered:
+
+"Thank you.... I have had a great fright.... You were in the nick of
+time.... I thank you, monsieur."
+
+Lupin took off his hat:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself, mademoiselle.... My name is Paul
+Daubreuil.... But before entering into any explanations, I must ask for
+one moment...."
+
+He stooped over the dog's dead body and examined the chain at the part
+where the brute's effort had snapped it:
+
+"That's it," he said, between his teeth. "It's just as I suspected. By
+Jupiter, things are moving rapidly!... I ought to have come earlier."
+
+Returning to the girl's side, he said to her, speaking very quickly:
+
+"Mademoiselle, we have not a minute to lose. My presence in these
+grounds is quite irregular. I do not wish to be surprised here; and this
+for reasons that concern yourself alone. Do you think that the report
+can have been heard at the house?"
+
+The girl seemed already to have recovered from her emotion; and she
+replied, with a calmness that revealed all her pluck:
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"Is your father in the house to-day?"
+
+"My father is ill and has been in bed for months. Besides, his room
+looks out on the other front."
+
+"And the servants?"
+
+"Their quarters and the kitchen are also on the other side. No one ever
+comes to this part. I walk here myself, but nobody else does."
+
+"It is probable, therefore, that I have not been seen either, especially
+as the trees hide us?"
+
+"It is most probable."
+
+"Then I can speak to you freely?"
+
+"Certainly, but I don't understand...."
+
+"You will, presently. Permit me to be brief. The point is this: four
+days ago, Mlle. Jeanne Darcieux...."
+
+"That is my name," she said, smiling.
+
+"Mlle. Jeanne Darcieux," continued Lupin, "wrote a letter to one of her
+friends, called Marceline, who lives at Versailles...."
+
+"How do you know all that?" asked the girl, in astonishment. "I tore up
+the letter before I had finished it."
+
+"And you flung the pieces on the edge of the road that runs from the
+house to Vendôme."
+
+"That's true.... I had gone out walking...."
+
+"The pieces were picked up and they came into my hands next day."
+
+"Then ... you must have read them," said Jeanne Darcieux, betraying a
+certain annoyance by her manner.
+
+"Yes, I committed that indiscretion; and I do not regret it, because I
+can save you."
+
+"Save me? From what?"
+
+"From death."
+
+Lupin spoke this little sentence in a very distinct voice. The girl gave
+a shudder. Then she said:
+
+"I am not threatened with death."
+
+"Yes, you are, mademoiselle. At the end of October, you were reading on
+a bench on the terrace where you were accustomed to sit at the same hour
+every day, when a block of stone fell from the cornice above your head
+and you were within a few inches of being crushed."
+
+"An accident...."
+
+"One fine evening in November, you were walking in the kitchen-garden,
+by moonlight. A shot was fired, The bullet whizzed past your ear."
+
+"At least, I thought so."
+
+"Lastly, less than a week ago, the little wooden bridge that crosses the
+river in the park, two yards from the waterfall, gave way while you were
+on it. You were just able, by a miracle, to catch hold of the root of a
+tree."
+
+Jeanne Darcieux tried to smile.
+
+"Very well. But, as I wrote to Marceline, these are only a series of
+coincidences, of accidents...."
+
+"No, mademoiselle, no. One accident of this sort is allowable.... So are
+two ... and even then!... But we have no right to suppose that the
+chapter of accidents, repeating the same act three times in such
+different and extraordinary circumstances, is a mere amusing
+coincidence. That is why I thought that I might presume to come to your
+assistance. And, as my intervention can be of no use unless it remains
+secret, I did not hesitate to make my way in here ... without walking
+through the gate. I came in the nick of time, as you said. Your enemy
+was attacking you once more."
+
+"What!... Do you think?... No, it is impossible.... I refuse to
+believe...."
+
+Lupin picked up the chain and, showing it to her:
+
+"Look at the last link. There is no question but that it has been filed.
+Otherwise, so powerful a chain as this would never have yielded.
+Besides, you can see the mark of the file here."
+
+Jeanne turned pale and her pretty features were distorted with terror:
+
+"But who can bear me such a grudge?" she gasped. "It is terrible.... I
+have never done any one harm.... And yet you are certainly right....
+Worse still...."
+
+She finished her sentence in a lower voice:
+
+"Worse still, I am wondering whether the same danger does not threaten
+my father."
+
+"Has he been attacked also?"
+
+"No, for he never stirs from his room. But his is such a mysterious
+illness!... He has no strength ... he cannot walk at all.... In addition
+to that, he is subject to fits of suffocation, as though his heart
+stopped beating.... Oh, what an awful thing!"
+
+Lupin realized all the authority which he was able to assert at such a
+moment, and he said:
+
+"Have no fear, mademoiselle. If you obey me blindly, I shall be sure to
+succeed."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... I am quite willing ... but all this is so terrible...."
+
+"Trust me, I beg of you. And please listen to me, I shall want a few
+particulars."
+
+He rapped out a number of questions, which Jeanne Darcieux answered
+hurriedly:
+
+"That animal was never let loose, was he?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Who used to feed him?"
+
+"The lodge-keeper. He brought him his food every evening."
+
+"Consequently, he could go near him without being bitten?"
+
+"Yes; and he only, for the dog was very savage."
+
+"You don't suspect the man?"
+
+"Oh, no!... Baptiste?... Never!"
+
+"And you can't think of anybody?"
+
+"No. Our servants are quite devoted to us. They are very fond of me."
+
+"You have no friends staying in the house?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No brother?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then your father is your only protector?"
+
+"Yes; and I have told you the condition he is in."
+
+"Have you told him of the different attempts?"
+
+"Yes; and it was wrong of me to do so. Our doctor, old Dr. Guéroult,
+forbade me to cause him the least excitement."
+
+"Your mother?..."
+
+"I don't remember her. She died sixteen years ago ... just sixteen years
+ago."
+
+"How old were you then?"
+
+"I was not quite five years old."
+
+"And were you living here?"
+
+"We were living in Paris. My father only bought this place the year
+after."
+
+Lupin was silent for a few moments. Then he concluded:
+
+"Very well, mademoiselle, I am obliged to you. Those particulars are all
+I need for the present. Besides, it would not be wise for us to remain
+together longer."
+
+"But," she said, "the lodge-keeper will find the dog soon.... Who will
+have killed him?"
+
+"You, mademoiselle, to defend yourself against an attack."
+
+"I never carry firearms."
+
+"I am afraid you do," said Lupin, smiling, "because you killed the dog
+and there is no one but you who could have killed him. For that matter,
+let them think what they please. The great thing is that I shall not be
+suspected when I come to the house."
+
+"To the house? Do you intend to?"
+
+"Yes. I don't yet know how ... But I shall come.... This very
+evening.... So, once more, be easy in your mind. I will answer for
+everything."
+
+Jeanne looked at him and, dominated by him, conquered by his air of
+assurance and good faith, she said, simply:
+
+"I am quite easy."
+
+"Then all will go well. Till this evening, mademoiselle."
+
+"Till this evening."
+
+She walked away; and Lupin, following her with his eyes until the moment
+when she disappeared round the corner of the house, murmured:
+
+"What a pretty creature! It would be a pity if any harm were to come to
+her. Luckily, Arsène Lupin is keeping his weather-eye open."
+
+Taking care not to be seen, with eyes and ears attentive to the least
+sight or sound, he inspected every nook and corner of the grounds,
+looked for the little low door which he had noticed outside and which
+was the door of the kitchen garden, drew the bolt, took the key and then
+skirted the walls and found himself once more near the tree which he had
+climbed. Two minutes later, he was mounting his motor-cycle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The village of Maupertuis lay quite close to the estate. Lupin inquired
+and learnt that Dr. Guéroult lived next door to the church.
+
+He rang, was shown into the consulting-room and introduced himself by
+his name of Paul Daubreuil, of the Rue de Surène, Paris, adding that he
+had official relations with the detective-service, a fact which he
+requested might be kept secret. He had become acquainted, by means of a
+torn letter, with the incidents that had endangered Mlle. Darcieux's
+life; and he had come to that young lady's assistance.
+
+Dr. Guéroult, an old country practitioner, who idolized Jeanne, on
+hearing Lupin's explanations at once admitted that those incidents
+constituted undeniable proofs of a plot. He showed great concern,
+offered his visitor hospitality and kept him to dinner.
+
+The two men talked at length. In the evening, they walked round to the
+manor-house together.
+
+The doctor went to the sick man's room, which was on the first floor,
+and asked leave to bring up a young colleague, to whom he intended soon
+to make over his practice, when he retired.
+
+Lupin, on entering, saw Jeanne Darcieux seated by her father's bedside.
+She suppressed a movement of surprise and, at a sign from the doctor,
+left the room.
+
+The consultation thereupon took place in Lupin's presence. M. Darcieux's
+face was worn, with much suffering and his eyes were bright with fever.
+He complained particularly, that day, of his heart. After the
+auscultation, he questioned the doctor with obvious anxiety; and each
+reply seemed to give him relief. He also spoke of Jeanne and expressed
+his conviction that they were deceiving him and that his daughter had
+escaped yet more accidents. He continued perturbed, in spite of the
+doctor's denials. He wanted to have the police informed and inquiries
+set on foot.
+
+But his excitement tired him and he gradually dropped off to sleep.
+
+Lupin stopped the doctor in the passage:
+
+"Come, doctor, give me your exact opinion. Do you think that M.
+Darcieux's illness can be attributed to an outside cause?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, suppose that the same enemy should be interested in removing both
+father and daughter."
+
+The doctor seemed struck by the suggestion.
+
+"Upon my word, there is something in what you say.... The father's
+illness at times adopts such a very unusual character!... For instance,
+the paralysis of the legs, which is almost complete, ought to be
+accompanied by...."
+
+The doctor reflected for a moment and then said in a low voice:
+
+"You think it's poison, of course ... but what poison?... Besides, I see
+no toxic symptoms.... It would have to be.... But what are you doing?
+What's the matter?..."
+
+The two men were talking outside a little sitting-room on the first
+floor, where Jeanne, seizing the opportunity while the doctor was with
+her father, had begun her evening meal. Lupin, who was watching her
+through the open door, saw her lift a cup to her lips and take a few
+sups.
+
+Suddenly, he rushed at her and caught her by the arm:
+
+"What are you drinking there?"
+
+"Why," she said, taken aback, "only tea!"
+
+"You pulled a face of disgust ... what made you do that?"
+
+"I don't know ... I thought...."
+
+"You thought what?"
+
+"That ... that it tasted rather bitter.... But I expect that comes from
+the medicine I mixed with it."
+
+"What medicine?"
+
+"Some drops which I take at dinner ... the drops which you prescribed
+for me, you know, doctor."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Guéroult, "but that medicine has no taste of any
+kind.... You know it hasn't, Jeanne, for you have been taking it for a
+fortnight and this is the first time...."
+
+"Quite right," said the girl, "and this does have a taste....
+There--oh!--my mouth is still burning."
+
+Dr. Guéroult now took a sip from the cup;
+
+"Faugh!" he exclaimed, spitting it out again. "There's no mistake about
+it...."
+
+Lupin, on his side, was examining the bottle containing the medicine;
+and he asked:
+
+"Where is this bottle kept in the daytime?"
+
+But Jeanne was unable to answer. She had put her hand to her heart and,
+wan-faced, with staring eyes, seemed to be suffering great pain:
+
+"It hurts ... it hurts," she stammered.
+
+The two men quickly carried her to her room and laid her on the bed:
+
+"She ought to have an emetic," said Lupin.
+
+"Open the cupboard," said the doctor. "You'll see a medicine-case....
+Have you got it?... Take out one of those little tubes.... Yes, that
+one.... And now some hot water.... You'll find some on the tea-tray in
+the other room."
+
+Jeanne's own maid came running up in answer to the bell. Lupin told her
+that Mlle. Darcieux had been taken unwell, for some unknown reason.
+
+He next returned to the little dining-room, inspected the sideboard and
+the cupboards, went down to the kitchen and pretended that the doctor
+had sent him to ask about M. Darcieux's diet. Without appearing to do
+so, he catechized the cook, the butler, and Baptiste, the lodge-keeper,
+who had his meals at the manor-house with the servants. Then he went
+back to the doctor:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She's asleep."
+
+"Any danger?"
+
+"No. Fortunately, she had only taken two or three sips. But this is the
+second time to-day that you have saved her life, as the analysis of this
+bottle will show."
+
+"Quite superfluous to make an analysis, doctor. There is no doubt about
+the fact that there has been an attempt at poisoning."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"I can't say. But the demon who is engineering all this business clearly
+knows the ways of the house. He comes and goes as he pleases, walks
+about in the park, files the dog's chain, mixes poison with the food
+and, in short, moves and acts precisely as though he were living the
+very life of her--or rather of those--whom he wants to put away."
+
+"Ah! You really believe that M. Darcieux is threatened with the same
+danger?"
+
+"I have not a doubt of it."
+
+"Then it must be one of the servants? But that is most unlikely! Do you
+think ...?"
+
+"I think nothing, doctor. I know nothing. All I can say is that the
+situation is most tragic and that we must be prepared for the worst.
+Death is here, doctor, shadowing the people in this house; and it will
+soon strike at those whom it is pursuing."
+
+"What's to be done?"
+
+"Watch, doctor. Let us pretend that we are alarmed about M. Darcieux's
+health and spend the night in here. The bedrooms of both the father and
+daughter are close by. If anything happens, we are sure to hear."
+
+There was an easy-chair in the room. They arranged to sleep in it turn
+and turn about.
+
+In reality, Lupin slept for only two or three hours. In the middle of
+the night he left the room, without disturbing his companion, carefully
+looked round the whole of the house and walked out through the principal
+gate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reached Paris on his motor-cycle at nine o'clock in the morning. Two
+of his friends, to whom he telephoned on the road, met him there. They
+all three spent the day in making searches which Lupin had planned out
+beforehand.
+
+He set out again hurriedly at six o'clock; and never, perhaps, as he
+told me subsequently, did he risk his life with greater temerity than in
+his breakneck ride, at a mad rate of speed, on a foggy December evening,
+with the light of his lamp hardly able to pierce through the darkness.
+
+He sprang from his bicycle outside the gate, which was still open, ran
+to the house and reached the first floor in a few bounds.
+
+There was no one in the little dining-room.
+
+Without hesitating, without knocking, he walked into Jeanne's bedroom:
+
+"Ah, here you are!" he said, with a sigh of relief, seeing Jeanne and
+the doctor sitting side by side, talking.
+
+"What? Any news?" asked the doctor, alarmed at seeing such a state of
+agitation in a man whose coolness he had had occasion to observe.
+
+"No," said Lupin. "No news. And here?"
+
+"None here, either. We have just left M. Darcieux. He has had an
+excellent day and he ate his dinner with a good appetite. As for Jeanne,
+you can see for yourself, she has all her pretty colour back again."
+
+"Then she must go."
+
+"Go? But it's out of the question!" protested the girl.
+
+"You must go, you must!" cried Lupin, with real violence, stamping his
+foot on the floor.
+
+He at once mastered himself, spoke a few words of apology and then, for
+three or four minutes, preserved a complete silence, which the doctor
+and Jeanne were careful not to disturb.
+
+At last, he said to the young girl:
+
+"You shall go to-morrow morning, mademoiselle. It will be only for one
+or two weeks. I will take you to your friend at Versailles, the one to
+whom you were writing. I entreat you to get everything ready to-night
+... without concealment of any kind. Let the servants know that you are
+going.... On the other hand, the doctor will be good enough to tell M.
+Darcieux and give him to understand, with every possible precaution,
+that this journey is essential to your safety. Besides, he can join you
+as soon as his strength permits.... That's settled, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," she said, absolutely dominated by Lupin's gentle and imperious
+voice.
+
+"In that case," he said, "be as quick as you can ... and do not stir
+from your room...."
+
+"But," said the girl, with a shudder, "am I to stay alone to-night?"
+
+"Fear nothing. Should there be the least danger, the doctor and I will
+come back. Do not open your door unless you hear three very light taps."
+
+Jeanne at once rang for her maid. The doctor went to M. Darcieux, while
+Lupin had some supper brought to him in the little dining-room.
+
+"That's done," said the doctor, returning to him in twenty minutes'
+time. "M. Darcieux did not raise any great difficulty. As a matter of
+fact, he himself thinks it just as well that we should send Jeanne
+away."
+
+They then went downstairs together and left the house.
+
+On reaching the lodge, Lupin called the keeper.
+
+"You can shut the gate, my man. If M. Darcieux should want us, send for
+us at once."
+
+The clock of Maupertuis church struck ten. The sky was overcast with
+black clouds, through which the moon broke at moments.
+
+The two men walked on for sixty or seventy yards.
+
+They were nearing the village, when Lupin gripped his companion by the
+arm:
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"What on earth's the matter?" exclaimed the doctor.
+
+"The matter is this," Lupin jerked out, "that, if my calculations turn
+out right, if I have not misjudged the business from start to finish,
+Mlle. Darcieux will be murdered before the night is out."
+
+"Eh? What's that?" gasped the doctor, in dismay. "But then why did we
+go?"
+
+"With the precise object that the miscreant, who is watching all our
+movements in the dark, may not postpone his crime and may perpetrate it,
+not at the hour chosen by himself, but at the hour which I have decided
+upon."
+
+"Then we are returning to the manor-house?"
+
+"Yes, of course we are, but separately."
+
+"In that case, let us go at once."
+
+"Listen to me, doctor," said Lupin, in a steady voice, "and let us
+waste no time in useless words. Above all, we must defeat any attempt to
+watch us. You will therefore go straight home and not come out again
+until you are quite certain that you have not been followed. You will
+then make for the walls of the property, keeping to the left, till you
+come to the little door of the kitchen-garden. Here is the key. When the
+church clock strikes eleven, open the door very gently and walk right up
+to the terrace at the back of the house. The fifth window is badly
+fastened. You have only to climb over the balcony. As soon as you are
+inside Mlle. Darcieux's room, bolt the door and don't budge. You quite
+understand, don't budge, either of you, whatever happens. I have noticed
+that Mlle. Darcieux leaves her dressing-room window ajar, isn't that
+so?"
+
+"Yes, it's a habit which I taught her."
+
+"That's the way they'll come."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"That's the way I shall come also."
+
+"And do you know who the villain is?"
+
+Lupin hesitated and then replied:
+
+"No, I don't know.... And that is just how we shall find out. But, I
+implore you, keep cool. Not a word, not a movement, _whatever happens_!"
+
+"I promise you."
+
+"I want more than that, doctor. You must give me your word of honour."
+
+"I give you my word of honour."
+
+The doctor went away. Lupin at once climbed a neighbouring mound from
+which he could see the windows of the first and second floor. Several of
+them were lighted.
+
+He waited for some little time. The lights went out one by one. Then,
+taking a direction opposite to that in which the doctor had gone, he
+branched off to the right and skirted the wall until he came to the
+clump of trees near which he had hidden his motor-cycle on the day
+before.
+
+Eleven o'clock struck. He calculated the time which it would take the
+doctor to cross the kitchen-garden and make his way into the house.
+
+"That's one point scored!" he muttered. "Everything's all right on that
+side. And now, Lupin to the rescue? The enemy won't be long before he
+plays his last trump ... and, by all the gods, I must be there!..."
+
+He went through the same performance as on the first occasion, pulled
+down the branch and hoisted himself to the top of the wall, from which
+he was able to reach the bigger boughs of the tree.
+
+Just then he pricked up his ears. He seemed to hear a rustling of dead
+leaves. And he actually perceived a dark form moving on the level thirty
+yards away:
+
+"Hang it all!" he said to himself. "I'm done: the scoundrel has smelt a
+rat."
+
+A moonbeam pierced through the clouds. Lupin distinctly saw the man take
+aim. He tried to jump to the ground and turned his head. But he felt
+something hit him in the chest, heard the sound of a report, uttered an
+angry oath and came crashing down from branch to branch, like a corpse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, Doctor Guéroult, following Arsène Lupin's instructions, had
+climbed the ledge of the fifth window and groped his way to the first
+floor. On reaching Jeanne's room, he tapped lightly, three times, at the
+door and, immediately on entering, pushed the bolt:
+
+"Lie down at once," he whispered to the girl, who had not taken off her
+things. "You must appear to have gone to bed. Brrrr, it's cold in here!
+Is the window open in your dressing-room?"
+
+"Yes ... would you like me to ...?"
+
+"No, leave it as it is. They are coming."
+
+"They are coming!" spluttered Jeanne, in affright.
+
+"Yes, beyond a doubt."
+
+"But who? Do you suspect any one?"
+
+"I don't know who.... I expect that there is some one hidden in the
+house ... or in the park."
+
+"Oh, I feel so frightened!"
+
+"Don't be frightened. The sportsman who's looking after you seems jolly
+clever and makes a point of playing a safe game. I expect he's on the
+look-out in the court."
+
+The doctor put out the night-light, went to the window and raised the
+blind. A narrow cornice, running along the first story, prevented him
+from seeing more than a distant part of the courtyard; and he came back
+and sat down by the bed.
+
+Some very painful minutes passed, minutes that appeared to them
+interminably long. The clock in the village struck; but, taken up as
+they were with all the little noises of the night, they hardly noticed
+the sound. They listened, listened, with all their nerves on edge:
+
+"Did you hear?" whispered the doctor.
+
+"Yes ... yes," said Jeanne, sitting up in bed.
+
+"Lie down ... lie down," he said, presently. "There's some one coming."
+
+There was a little tapping sound outside, against the cornice. Next came
+a series of indistinct noises, the nature of which they could not make
+out for certain. But they had a feeling that the window in the
+dressing-room was being opened wider, for they were buffeted by gusts of
+cold air.
+
+Suddenly, it became quite clear: there was some one next door.
+
+The doctor, whose hand was trembling a little, seized his revolver.
+Nevertheless, he did not move, remembering the formal orders which he
+had received and fearing to act against them.
+
+The room was in absolute darkness; and they were unable to see where the
+adversary was. But they felt his presence.
+
+They followed his invisible movements, the sound of his footsteps
+deadened by the carpet; and they did not doubt but that he had already
+crossed the threshold of the room.
+
+And the adversary stopped. Of that they were certain. He was standing
+six steps away from the bed, motionless, undecided perhaps, seeking to
+pierce the darkness with his keen eyes.
+
+Jeanne's hand, icy-cold and clammy, trembled in the doctor's grasp.
+
+With his other hand, the doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger
+on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If
+the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired at a
+venture.
+
+The adversary took another step and then stopped again. And there was
+something awful about that silence, that impassive silence, that
+darkness in which those human beings were peering at one another,
+wildly.
+
+Who was it looming in the murky darkness? Who was the man? What horrible
+enmity was it that turned his hand against the girl and what abominable
+aim was he pursuing?
+
+Terrified though they were, Jeanne and the doctor thought only of that
+one thing: to see, to learn the truth, to gaze upon the adversary's
+face.
+
+He took one more step and did not move again. It seemed to them that his
+figure stood out, darker, against the dark space and that his arm rose
+slowly, slowly....
+
+A minute passed and then another minute....
+
+And, suddenly, beyond the man, on the right a sharp click.... A bright
+light flashed, was flung upon the man, lit him full in the face,
+remorselessly.
+
+Jeanne gave a cry of affright. She had seen--standing over her, with a
+dagger in his hand--she had seen ... her father!
+
+Almost at the same time, though the light was already turned off, there
+came a report: the doctor had fired.
+
+"Dash it all, don't shoot!" roared Lupin.
+
+He threw his arms round the doctor, who choked out:
+
+"Didn't you see?... Didn't you see?... Listen!... He's escaping!..."
+
+"Let him escape: it's the best thing that could happen."
+
+He pressed the spring of his electric lantern again, ran to the
+dressing-room, made certain that the man had disappeared and, returning
+quietly to the table, lit the lamp.
+
+Jeanne lay on her bed, pallid, in a dead faint.
+
+The doctor, huddled in his chair, emitted inarticulate sounds.
+
+"Come," said Lupin, laughing, "pull yourself together. There is nothing
+to excite ourselves about: it's all over."
+
+"Her father!... Her father!" moaned the old doctor.
+
+"If you please, doctor, Mlle. Darcieux is ill. Look after her."
+
+Without more words, Lupin went back to the dressing-room and stepped out
+on the window-ledge. A ladder stood against the ledge. He ran down it.
+Skirting the wall of the house, twenty steps farther, he tripped over
+the rungs of a rope-ladder, which he climbed and found himself in M.
+Darcieux's bedroom. The room was empty.
+
+"Just so," he said. "My gentleman did not like the position and has
+cleared out. Here's wishing him a good journey.... And, of course, the
+door is bolted?... Exactly!... That is how our sick man, tricking his
+worthy medical attendant, used to get up at night in full security,
+fasten his rope-ladder to the balcony and prepare his little games. He's
+no fool, is friend Darcieux!"
+
+He drew the bolts and returned to Jeanne's room. The doctor, who was
+just coming out of the doorway, drew him to the little dining-room:
+
+"She's asleep, don't let us disturb her. She has had a bad shock and
+will take some time to recover."
+
+Lupin poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. Then he
+took a chair and, calmly:
+
+"Pooh! She'll be all right by to-morrow."
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"I say that she'll be all right by to-morrow."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"In the first place, because it did not strike me that Mlle. Darcieux
+felt any very great affection for her father."
+
+"Never mind! Think of it: a father who tries to kill his daughter! A
+father who, for months on end, repeats his monstrous attempt four, five,
+six times over again!... Well, isn't that enough to blight a less
+sensitive soul than Jeanne's for good and all? What a hateful memory!"
+
+"She will forget."
+
+"One does not forget such a thing as that."
+
+"She will forget, doctor, and for a very simple reason...."
+
+"Explain yourself!"
+
+"She is not M. Darcieux's daughter!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I repeat, she is not that villain's daughter."
+
+"What do you mean? M. Darcieux...."
+
+"M. Darcieux is only her step-father. She had just been born when her
+father, her real father, died. Jeanne's mother then married a cousin of
+her husband's, a man bearing the same name, and she died within a year
+of her second wedding. She left Jeanne in M. Darcieux's charge. He first
+took her abroad and then bought this country-house; and, as nobody knew
+him in the neighbourhood, he represented the child as being his
+daughter. She herself did not know the truth about her birth."
+
+The doctor sat confounded. He asked:
+
+"Are you sure of your facts?"
+
+"I spent my day in the town-halls of the Paris municipalities. I
+searched the registers, I interviewed two solicitors, I have seen all
+the documents. There is no doubt possible."
+
+"But that does not explain the crime, or rather the series of crimes."
+
+"Yes, it does," declared Lupin. "And, from the start, from the first
+hour when I meddled in this business, some words which Mlle. Darcieux
+used made me suspect that direction which my investigations must take.
+'I was not quite five years old when my mother died,' she said. 'That
+was sixteen years ago.' Mlle. Darcieux, therefore, was nearly
+twenty-one, that is to say, she was on the verge of attaining her
+majority. I at once saw that this was an important detail. The day on
+which you reach your majority is the day on which your accounts are
+rendered. What was the financial position of Mlle. Darcieux, who was her
+mother's natural heiress? Of course, I did not think of the father for a
+second. To begin with, one can't imagine a thing like that; and then the
+farce which M. Darcieux was playing ... helpless, bedridden, ill...."
+
+"Really ill," interrupted the doctor.
+
+"All this diverted suspicion from him ... the more so as I believe that
+he himself was exposed to criminal attacks. But was there not in the
+family some person who would be interested in their removal? My journey
+to Paris revealed the truth to me: Mlle. Darcieux inherits a large
+fortune from her mother, of which her step-father draws the income. The
+solicitor was to have called a meeting of the family in Paris next
+month. The truth would have been out. It meant ruin to M. Darcieux."
+
+"Then he had put no money by?"
+
+"Yes, but he had lost a great deal as the result of unfortunate
+speculations."
+
+"But, after all, Jeanne would not have taken the management of her
+fortune out of his hands!"
+
+"There is one detail which you do not know, doctor, and which I learnt
+from reading the torn letter. Mlle. Darcieux is in love with the brother
+of Marceline, her Versailles friend; M. Darcieux was opposed to the
+marriage; and--you now see the reason--she was waiting until she came of
+age to be married."
+
+"You're right," said the doctor, "you're right.... It meant his ruin."
+
+"His absolute ruin. One chance of saving himself remained, the death of
+his step-daughter, of whom he is the next heir."
+
+"Certainly, but on condition that no one suspected him."
+
+"Of course; and that is why he contrived the series of accidents, so
+that the death might appear to be due to misadventure. And that is why
+I, on my side, wishing to bring things to a head, asked you to tell him
+of Mlle. Darcieux's impending departure. From that moment, it was no
+longer enough for the would-be sick man to wander about the grounds and
+the passages, in the dark, and execute some leisurely thought-out plan.
+No, he had to act, to act at once, without preparation, violently,
+dagger in hand. I had no doubt that he would decide to do it. And he
+did."
+
+"Then he had no suspicions?"
+
+"Of me, yes. He felt that I would return to-night, and he kept a watch
+at the place where I had already climbed the wall."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well," said Lupin, laughing, "I received a bullet full in the chest
+... or rather my pocket-book received a bullet.... Here, you can see the
+hole.... So I tumbled from the tree, like a dead man. Thinking that he
+was rid of his only adversary, he went back to the house. I saw him
+prowl about for two hours. Then, making up his mind, he went to the
+coach-house, took a ladder and set it against the window. I had only to
+follow him."
+
+The doctor reflected and said:
+
+"You could have collared him earlier. Why did you let him come up? It
+was a sore trial for Jeanne ... and unnecessary."
+
+"On the contrary, it was indispensable! Mlle. Darcieux would never have
+accepted the truth. It was essential that she should see the murderer's
+very face. You must tell her all the circumstances when she wakes. She
+will soon be well again."
+
+"But ... M. Darcieux?"
+
+"You can explain his disappearance as you think best ... a sudden
+journey ... a fit of madness.... There will be a few inquiries.... And
+you may be sure that he will never be heard of again."
+
+The doctor nodded his head:
+
+"Yes ... that is so ... that is so ... you are right. You have managed
+all this business with extraordinary skill; and Jeanne owes you her
+life. She will thank you in person.... But now, can I be of use to you
+in any way? You told me that you were connected with the
+detective-service.... Will you allow me to write and praise your
+conduct, your courage?"
+
+Lupin began to laugh:
+
+"Certainly! A letter of that kind will do me a world of good. You might
+write to my immediate superior, Chief-inspector Ganimard. He will be
+glad to hear that his favourite officer, Paul Daubreuil, of the Rue de
+Surène, has once again distinguished himself by a brilliant action. As
+it happens, I have an appointment to meet him about a case of which you
+may have heard: the case of the red scarf.... How pleased my dear M.
+Ganimard will be!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+A TRAGEDY IN THE FOREST OF MORGUES
+
+
+The village was terror-stricken.
+
+It was on a Sunday morning. The peasants of Saint-Nicolas and the
+neighbourhood were coming out of church and spreading across the square,
+when, suddenly, the women who were walking ahead and who had already
+turned into the high-road fell back with loud cries of dismay.
+
+At the same moment, an enormous motor-car, looking like some appalling
+monster, came tearing into sight at a headlong rate of speed. Amid the
+shouts of the madly scattering people, it made straight for the church,
+swerved, just as it seemed about to dash itself to pieces against the
+steps, grazed the wall of the presbytery, regained the continuation of
+the national road, dashed along, turned the corner and disappeared,
+without, by some incomprehensible miracle, having so much as brushed
+against any of the persons crowding the square.
+
+But they had seen! They had seen a man in the driver's seat, wrapped in
+a goat-skin coat, with a fur cap on his head and his face disguised in a
+pair of large goggles, and, with him, on the front of that seat, flung
+back, bent in two, a woman whose head, all covered with blood, hung down
+over the bonnet....
+
+And they had heard! They had heard the woman's screams, screams of
+horror, screams of agony....
+
+And it was all such a vision of hell and carnage that the people stood,
+for some seconds, motionless, stupefied.
+
+"Blood!" roared somebody.
+
+There was blood everywhere, on the cobblestones of the square, on the
+ground hardened by the first frosts of autumn; and, when a number of men
+and boys rushed off in pursuit of the motor, they had but to take those
+sinister marks for their guide.
+
+The marks, on their part, followed the high-road, but in a very strange
+manner, going from one side to the other and leaving a zigzag track, in
+the wake of the tires, that made those who saw it shudder. How was it
+that the car had not bumped against that tree? How had it been righted,
+instead of smashing into that bank? What novice, what madman, what
+drunkard, what frightened criminal was driving that motor-car with such
+astounding bounds and swerves?
+
+One of the peasants declared:
+
+"They will never do the turn in the forest."
+
+And another said:
+
+"Of course they won't! She's bound to upset!"
+
+The Forest of Morgues began at half a mile beyond Saint-Nicolas; and the
+road, which was straight up to that point, except for a slight bend
+where it left the village, started climbing, immediately after entering
+the forest, and made an abrupt turn among the rocks and trees. No
+motor-car was able to take this turn without first slackening speed.
+There were posts to give notice of the danger.
+
+The breathless peasants reached the quincunx of beeches that formed the
+edge of the forest. And one of them at once cried:
+
+"There you are!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Upset!"
+
+The car, a limousine, had turned turtle and lay smashed, twisted and
+shapeless. Beside it, the woman's dead body. But the most horrible,
+sordid, stupefying thing was the woman's head, crushed, flattened,
+invisible under a block of stone, a huge block of stone lodged there by
+some unknown and prodigious agency. As for the man in the goat-skin
+coat he was nowhere to be found.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was not found on the scene of the accident. He was not found either
+in the neighbourhood. Moreover, some workmen coming down the Côte de
+Morgues declared that they had not seen anybody.
+
+The man, therefore, had taken refuge in the woods.
+
+The gendarmes, who were at once sent for, made a minute search, assisted
+by the peasants, but discovered nothing. In the same way, the
+examining-magistrates, after a close inquiry lasting for several days,
+found no clue capable of throwing the least light upon this inscrutable
+tragedy. On the contrary, the investigations only led to further
+mysteries and further improbabilities.
+
+Thus it was ascertained that the block of stone came from where there
+had been a landslip, at least forty yards away. And the murderer, in a
+few minutes, had carried it all that distance and flung it on his
+victim's head.
+
+On the other hand, the murderer, who was most certainly not hiding in
+the forest--for, if so, he must inevitably have been discovered, the
+forest being of limited extent--had the audacity, eight days after the
+crime, to come back to the turn on the hill and leave his goat-skin coat
+there. Why? With what object? There was nothing in the pockets of the
+coat, except a corkscrew and a napkin. What did it all mean?
+
+Inquiries were made of the builder of the motor-car, who recognized the
+limousine as one which he had sold, three years ago, to a Russian. The
+said Russian, declared the manufacturer, had sold it again at once. To
+whom? No one knew. The car bore no number.
+
+Then again, it was impossible to identify the dead woman's body. Her
+clothes and underclothing were not marked in any way. And the face was
+quite unknown.
+
+Meanwhile, detectives were going along the national road in the
+direction opposite to that taken by the actors in this mysterious
+tragedy. But who was to prove that the car had followed that particular
+road on the previous night?
+
+They examined every yard of the ground, they questioned everybody. At
+last, they succeeded in learning that, on the Saturday evening, a
+limousine had stopped outside a grocer's shop in a small town situated
+about two hundred miles from Saint-Nicolas, on a highway branching out
+of the national road. The driver had first filled his tank, bought some
+spare cans of petrol and lastly taken away a small stock of provisions:
+a ham, fruit, biscuits, wine and a half-bottle of Three Star brandy.
+
+There was a lady on the driver's seat. She did not get down. The blinds
+of the limousine were drawn. One of these blinds was seen to move
+several times. The shopman was positive that there was somebody inside.
+
+Presuming the shopman's evidence to be correct, then the problem became
+even more complicated, for, so far, no clue had revealed the presence of
+a third person.
+
+Meanwhile, as the travellers had supplied themselves with provisions, it
+remained to be discovered what they had done with them and what had
+become of the remains.
+
+The detectives retraced their steps. It was not until they came to the
+fork of the two roads, at a spot eleven or twelve miles from
+Saint-Nicolas, that they met a shepherd who, in answer to their
+questions, directed them to a neighbouring field, hidden from view
+behind the screen of bushes, where he had seen an empty bottle and other
+things.
+
+The detectives were convinced at the first examination. The motor-car
+had stopped there; and the unknown travellers, probably after a night's
+rest in their car, had breakfasted and resumed their journey in the
+course of the morning.
+
+One unmistakable proof was the half-bottle of Three Star brandy sold by
+the grocer. This bottle had its neck broken clean off with a stone. The
+stone employed for the purpose was picked up, as was the neck of the
+bottle, with its cork, covered with a tin-foil seal. The seal showed
+marks of attempts that had been made to uncork the bottle in the
+ordinary manner.
+
+The detectives continued their search and followed a ditch that ran
+along the field at right angles to the road. It ended in a little
+spring, hidden under brambles, which seemed to emit an offensive smell.
+On lifting the brambles, they perceived a corpse, the corpse of a man
+whose head had been smashed in, so that it formed little more than a
+sort of pulp, swarming with vermin. The body was dressed in jacket and
+trousers of dark-brown leather. The pockets were empty: no papers, no
+pocket-book, no watch.
+
+The grocer and his shopman were summoned and, two days later, formally
+identified, by his dress and figure, the traveller who had bought the
+petrol and provisions on the Saturday evening.
+
+The whole case, therefore, had to be reopened on a fresh basis. The
+authorities were confronted with a tragedy no longer enacted by two
+persons, a man and a woman, of whom one had killed the other, but by
+three persons, including two victims, of whom one was the very man who
+was accused of killing his companion.
+
+As to the murderer, there was no doubt: he was the person who travelled
+inside the motor-car and who took the precaution to remain concealed
+behind the curtains. He had first got rid of the driver and rifled his
+pockets and then, after wounding the woman, carried her off in a mad
+dash for death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Given a fresh case, unexpected discoveries, unforeseen evidence, one
+might have hoped that the mystery would be cleared up, or, at least,
+that the inquiry would point a few steps along the road to the truth.
+But not at all. The corpse was simply placed beside the first corpse.
+New problems were added to the old. The accusation of murder was shifted
+from the one to the other. And there it ended. Outside those tangible,
+obvious facts there was nothing but darkness. The name of the woman, the
+name of the man, the name of the murderer were so many riddles. And then
+what had become of the murderer? If he had disappeared from one moment
+to the other, that in itself would have been a tolerably curious
+phenomenon. But the phenomenon was actually something very like a
+miracle, inasmuch as the murderer had not absolutely disappeared. He was
+there! He made a practice of returning to the scene of the catastrophe!
+In addition to the goat-skin coat, a fur cap was picked up one day; and,
+by way of an unparalleled prodigy, one morning, after a whole night
+spent on guard in the rock, beside the famous turning, the detectives
+found, on the grass of the turning itself, a pair of motor-goggles,
+broken, rusty, dirty, done for. How had the murderer managed to bring
+back those goggles unseen by the detectives? And, above all, why had he
+brought them back?
+
+Men's brains reeled in the presence of such abnormalities. They were
+almost afraid to pursue the ambiguous adventure. They received the
+impression of a heavy, stifling, breathless atmosphere, which dimmed the
+eyes and baffled the most clear-sighted.
+
+The magistrate in charge of the case fell ill. Four days later, his
+successor confessed that the matter was beyond him.
+
+Two tramps were arrested and at once released. Another was pursued, but
+not caught; moreover, there was no evidence of any sort or kind against
+him. In short, it was nothing but one helpless muddle of mist and
+contradiction.
+
+An accident, the merest accident led to the solution, or rather produced
+a series of circumstances that ended by leading to the solution. A
+reporter on the staff of an important Paris paper, who had been sent to
+make investigations on the spot, concluded his article with the
+following words:
+
+"I repeat, therefore, that we must wait for fresh events, fresh facts;
+we must wait for some lucky accident. As things stand, we are simply
+wasting our time. The elements of truth are not even sufficient to
+suggest a plausible theory. We are in the midst of the most absolute,
+painful, impenetrable darkness. There is nothing to be done. All the
+Sherlock Holmeses in the world would not know what to make of the
+mystery, and Arsène Lupin himself, if he will allow me to say so, would
+have to pay forfeit here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the day after the appearance of that article, the newspaper in
+question printed this telegram:
+
+
+    "Have sometimes paid forfeit, but never over such a silly thing as
+    this. The Saint-Nicolas tragedy is a mystery for babies.
+
+                                                      "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+
+And the editor added:
+
+
+    "We insert this telegram as a matter of curiosity, for it is
+    obviously the work of a wag. Arsène Lupin, past-master though he be
+    in the art of practical joking, would be the last man to display
+    such childish flippancy."
+
+
+Two days elapsed; and then the paper published the famous letter, so
+precise and categorical in its conclusions, in which Arsène Lupin
+furnished the solution of the problem. I quote it in full:
+
+
+    "Sir:
+
+    "You have taken me on my weak side by defying me. You challenge me,
+    and I accept the challenge. And I will begin by declaring once more
+    that the Saint-Nicolas tragedy is a mystery for babies. I know
+    nothing so simple, so natural; and the proof of the simplicity
+    shall lie in the succinctness of my demonstration. It is contained
+    in these few words: when a crime seems to go beyond the ordinary
+    scope of things, when it seems unusual and stupid, then there are
+    many chances that its explanation is to be found in superordinary,
+    supernatural, superhuman motives.
+
+    "I say that there are many chances, for we must always allow for
+    the part played by absurdity in the most logical and commonplace
+    events. But, of course, it is impossible to see things as they are
+    and not to take account of the absurd and the disproportionate.
+
+    "I was struck from the very beginning by that very evident
+    character of unusualness. We have, first of all, the awkward,
+    zigzag course of the motor-car, which would give one the impression
+    that the car was driven by a novice. People have spoken of a
+    drunkard or a madman, a justifiable supposition in itself. But
+    neither madness nor drunkenness would account for the incredible
+    strength required to transport, especially in so short a space of
+    time, the stone with which the unfortunate woman's head was
+    crushed. That proceeding called for a muscular power so great that
+    I do not hesitate to look upon it as a second sign of the
+    unusualness that marks the whole tragedy. And why move that
+    enormous stone, to finish off the victim, when a mere pebble would
+    have done the work? Why again was the murderer not killed, or at
+    least reduced to a temporary state of helplessness, in the terrible
+    somersault turned by the car? How did he disappear? And why, having
+    disappeared, did he return to the scene of the accident? Why did he
+    throw his fur coat there; then, on another day, his cap; then, on
+    another day, his goggles?
+
+    "Unusual, useless, stupid acts.
+
+    "Why, besides, convey that wounded, dying woman on the driver's
+    seat of the car, where everybody could see her? Why do that,
+    instead of putting her inside, or flinging her into some corner,
+    dead, just as the man was flung under the brambles in the ditch?
+
+    "Unusualness, stupidity.
+
+    "Everything in the whole story is absurd. Everything points to
+    hesitation, incoherency, awkwardness, the silliness of a child or
+    rather of a mad, blundering savage, of a brute.
+
+    "Look at the bottle of brandy. There was a corkscrew: it was found
+    in the pocket of the great coat. Did the murderer use it? Yes, the
+    marks of the corkscrew can be seen on the seal. But the operation
+    was too complicated for him. He broke the neck with a stone. Always
+    stones: observe that detail. They are the only weapon, the only
+    implement which the creature employs. It is his customary weapon,
+    his familiar implement. He kills the man with a stone, he kills the
+    woman with a stone and he opens bottles with a stone!
+
+    "A brute, I repeat, a savage; disordered, unhinged, suddenly driven
+    mad. By what? Why, of course, by that same brandy, which he
+    swallowed at a draught while the driver and his companion were
+    having breakfast in the field. He got out of the limousine, in
+    which he was travelling, in his goat-skin coat and his fur cap,
+    took the bottle, broke off the neck and drank. There is the whole
+    story. Having drunk, he went raving mad and hit out at random,
+    without reason. Then, seized with instinctive fear, dreading the
+    inevitable punishment, he hid the body of the man. Then, like an
+    idiot, he took up the wounded woman and ran away. He ran away in
+    that motor-car which he did not know how to work, but which to him
+    represented safety, escape from capture.
+
+    "But the money, you will ask, the stolen pocket-book? Why, who says
+    that he was the thief? Who says that it was not some passing tramp,
+    some labourer, guided by the stench of the corpse?
+
+    "Very well, you object, but the brute would have been found, as he
+    is hiding somewhere near the turn, and as, after all, he must eat
+    and drink.
+
+    "Well, well, I see that you have not yet understood. The simplest
+    way, I suppose, to have done and to answer your objections is to
+    make straight for the mark. Then let the gentlemen of the police
+    and the gendarmerie themselves make straight for the mark. Let them
+    take firearms. Let them explore the forest within a radius of two
+    or three hundred yards from the turn, no more. But, instead of
+    exploring with their heads down and their eyes fixed on the ground,
+    let them look up into the air, yes, into the air, among the leaves
+    and branches of the tallest oaks and the most unlikely beeches.
+    And, believe me, they will see him. For he is there. He is there,
+    bewildered, piteously at a loss, seeking for the man and woman whom
+    he has killed, looking for them and waiting for them and not daring
+    to go away and quite unable to understand.
+
+    "I myself am exceedingly sorry that I am kept in town by urgent
+    private affairs and by some complicated matters of business which I
+    have to set going, for I should much have liked to see the end of
+    this rather curious adventure.
+
+    "Pray, therefore excuse me to my kind friends in the police and
+    permit me to be, sir,
+
+                             "Your obedient servant,
+
+                                        "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The upshot will be remembered. The "gentlemen of the police and the
+gendarmerie" shrugged their shoulders and paid no attention to this
+lucubration. But four of the local country gentry took their rifles and
+went shooting, with their eyes fixed skyward, as though they meant to
+pot a few rooks. In half an hour they had caught sight of the murderer.
+Two shots, and he came tumbling from bough to bough. He was only
+wounded, and they took him alive.
+
+That evening, a Paris paper, which did not yet know of the capture,
+printed the following paragraphs:
+
+
+    "Enquiries are being made after a M. and Mme. Bragoff, who landed
+    at Marseilles six weeks ago and there hired a motor-car. They had
+    been living in Australia for many years, during which time they had
+    not visited Europe; and they wrote to the director of the Jardin
+    d'Acclimatation, with whom they were in the habit of corresponding,
+    that they were bringing with them a curious creature, of an
+    entirely unknown species, of which it was difficult to say whether
+    it was a man or a monkey.
+
+    "According to M. Bragoff, who is an eminent archæologist, the
+    specimen in question is the anthropoid ape, or rather the ape-man,
+    the existence of which had not hitherto been definitely proved. The
+    structure is said to be exactly similar to that of _Pithecanthropus
+    erectus_, discovered by Dr. Dubois in Java in 1891.
+
+    "This curious, intelligent and observant animal acted as its
+    owner's servant on their property in Australia and used to clean
+    their motor-car and even attempt to drive it.
+
+    "The question that is being asked is where are M. and Mme. Bragoff?
+    Where is the strange primate that landed with them at Marseilles?"
+
+
+The answer to this question was now made easy. Thanks to the hints
+supplied by Arsène Lupin, all the elements of the tragedy were known.
+Thanks to him, the culprit was in the hands of the law.
+
+You can see him at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, where he is locked up
+under the name of "Three Stars." He is, in point of fact, a monkey; but
+he is also a man. He has the gentleness and the wisdom of the domestic
+animals and the sadness which they feel when their master dies. But he
+has many other qualities that bring him much closer to humanity: he is
+treacherous, cruel, idle, greedy and quarrelsome; and, above all, he is
+immoderately fond of brandy.
+
+Apart from that, he is a monkey. Unless indeed ...!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days after Three Stars' arrest, I saw Arsène Lupin standing in
+front of his cage. Lupin was manifestly trying to solve this interesting
+problem for himself. I at once said, for I had set my heart upon having
+the matter out with him:
+
+"You know, Lupin, that intervention of yours, your argument, your
+letter, in short, did not surprise me so much as you might think!"
+
+"Oh, really?" he said, calmly. "And why?"
+
+"Why? Because the incident has occurred before, seventy or eighty years
+ago. Edgar Allan Poe made it the subject of one of his finest tales. In
+those circumstances, the key to the riddle was easy enough to find."
+
+Arsène Lupin took my arm, and walking away with me, said:
+
+"When did you guess it, yourself?"
+
+"On reading your letter," I confessed.
+
+"And at what part of my letter?"
+
+"At the end."
+
+"At the end, eh? After I had dotted all the i's. So here is a crime
+which accident causes to be repeated, under quite different conditions,
+it is true, but still with the same sort of hero; and your eyes had to
+be opened, as well as other people's. It needed the assistance of my
+letter, the letter in which I amused myself--apart from the exigencies
+of the facts--by employing the argument and sometimes the identical
+words used by the American poet in a story which everybody has read. So
+you see that my letter was not absolutely useless and that one may
+safely venture to repeat to people things which they have learnt only to
+forget them."
+
+Wherewith Lupin turned on his heel and burst out laughing in the face of
+an old monkey, who sat with the air of a philosopher, gravely
+meditating.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+LUPIN'S MARRIAGE
+
+
+    "Monsieur Arsène Lupin has the honour to inform you of his
+    approaching marriage with Mademoiselle Angélique de
+    Sarzeau-Vendôme, Princesse de Bourbon-Condé, and to request the
+    pleasure of your company at the wedding, which will take place at
+    the church of Sainte-Clotilde...."
+
+    "The Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme has the honour to inform you of the
+    approaching marriage of his daughter Angélique, Princesse de
+    Bourbon-Condé, with Monsieur Arsène Lupin, and to request...."
+
+
+Jean Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme could not finish reading the invitations
+which he held in his trembling hand. Pale with anger, his long, lean
+body shaking with tremors:
+
+"There!" he gasped, handing the two communications to his daughter.
+"This is what our friends have received! This has been the talk of Paris
+since yesterday! What do you say to that dastardly insult, Angélique?
+What would your poor mother say to it, if she were alive?"
+
+Angélique was tall and thin like her father, skinny and angular like
+him. She was thirty-three years of age, always dressed in black stuff,
+shy and retiring in manner, with a head too small in proportion to her
+height and narrowed on either side until the nose seemed to jut forth in
+protest against such parsimony. And yet it would be impossible to say
+that she was ugly, for her eyes were extremely beautiful, soft and
+grave, proud and a little sad: pathetic eyes which to see once was to
+remember.
+
+She flushed with shame at hearing her father's words, which told her the
+scandal of which she was the victim. But, as she loved him,
+notwithstanding his harshness to her, his injustice and despotism, she
+said:
+
+"Oh, I think it must be meant for a joke, father, to which we need pay
+no attention!"
+
+"A joke? Why, every one is gossiping about it! A dozen papers have
+printed the confounded notice this morning, with satirical comments.
+They quote our pedigree, our ancestors, our illustrious dead. They
+pretend to take the thing seriously...."
+
+"Still, no one could believe...."
+
+"Of course not. But that doesn't prevent us from being the by-word of
+Paris."
+
+"It will all be forgotten by to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow, my girl, people will remember that the name of Angélique de
+Sarzeau-Vendôme has been bandied about as it should not be. Oh, if I
+could find out the name of the scoundrel who has dared...."
+
+At that moment, Hyacinthe, the duke's valet, came in and said that
+monsieur le duc was wanted on the telephone. Still fuming, he took down
+the receiver and growled:
+
+"Well? Who is it? Yes, it's the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme speaking."
+
+A voice replied:
+
+"I want to apologize to you, monsieur le duc, and to Mlle. Angélique.
+It's my secretary's fault."
+
+"Your secretary?"
+
+"Yes, the invitations were only a rough draft which I meant to submit to
+you. Unfortunately my secretary thought...."
+
+"But, tell me, monsieur, who are you?"
+
+"What, monsieur le duc, don't you know my voice? The voice of your
+future son-in-law?"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Arsène Lupin."
+
+The duke dropped into a chair. His face was livid.
+
+"Arsène Lupin ... it's he ... Arsène Lupin...."
+
+Angélique gave a smile:
+
+"You see, father, it's only a joke, a hoax."
+
+But the duke's rage broke out afresh and he began to walk up and down,
+moving his arms:
+
+"I shall go to the police!... The fellow can't be allowed to make a fool
+of me in this way!... If there's any law left in the land, it must be
+stopped!"
+
+Hyacinthe entered the room again. He brought two visiting-cards.
+
+"Chotois? Lepetit? Don't know them."
+
+"They are both journalists, monsieur le duc."
+
+"What do they want?"
+
+"They would like to speak to monsieur le duc with regard to ... the
+marriage...."
+
+"Turn them out!" exclaimed the duke. "Kick them out! And tell the porter
+not to admit scum of that sort to my house in future."
+
+"Please, father ..." Angélique ventured to say.
+
+"As for you, shut up! If you had consented to marry one of your cousins
+when I wanted you to this wouldn't have happened."
+
+The same evening, one of the two reporters printed, on the front page of
+his paper, a somewhat fanciful story of his expedition to the family
+mansion of the Sarzeau-Vendômes, in the Rue de Varennes, and expatiated
+pleasantly upon the old nobleman's wrathful protests.
+
+The next morning, another newspaper published an interview with Arsène
+Lupin which was supposed to have taken place in a lobby at the Opera.
+Arsène Lupin retorted in a letter to the editor:
+
+
+    "I share my prospective father-in-law's indignation to the full.
+    The sending out of the invitations was a gross breach of etiquette
+    for which I am not responsible, but for which I wish to make a
+    public apology. Why, sir, the date of the marriage is not yet
+    fixed. My bride's father suggests early in May. She and I think
+    that six weeks is really too long to wait!..."
+
+
+That which gave a special piquancy to the affair and added immensely to
+the enjoyment of the friends of the family was the duke's well-known
+character: his pride and the uncompromising nature of his ideas and
+principles. Duc Jean was the last descendant of the Barons de Sarzeau,
+the most ancient family in Brittany; he was the lineal descendant of
+that Sarzeau who, upon marrying a Vendôme, refused to bear the new title
+which Louis XV forced upon him until after he had been imprisoned for
+ten years in the Bastille; and he had abandoned none of the prejudices
+of the old régime. In his youth, he followed the Comte de Chambord into
+exile. In his old age, he refused a seat in the Chamber on the pretext
+that a Sarzeau could only sit with his peers.
+
+The incident stung him to the quick. Nothing could pacify him. He cursed
+Lupin in good round terms, threatened him with every sort of punishment
+and rounded on his daughter:
+
+"There, if you had only married!... After all you had plenty of chances.
+Your three cousins, Mussy, d'Emboise and Caorches, are noblemen of good
+descent, allied to the best families, fairly well-off; and they are
+still anxious to marry you. Why do you refuse them? Ah, because miss is
+a dreamer, a sentimentalist; and because her cousins are too fat, or too
+thin, or too coarse for her...."
+
+She was, in fact, a dreamer. Left to her own devices from childhood, she
+had read all the books of chivalry, all the colourless romances of
+olden-time that littered the ancestral presses; and she looked upon life
+as a fairy-tale in which the beauteous maidens are always happy, while
+the others wait till death for the bridegroom who does not come. Why
+should she marry one of her cousins when they were only after her money,
+the millions which she had inherited from her mother? She might as well
+remain an old maid and go on dreaming....
+
+She answered, gently:
+
+"You will end by making yourself ill, father. Forget this silly
+business."
+
+But how could he forget it? Every morning, some pin-prick renewed his
+wound. Three days running, Angélique received a wonderful sheaf of
+flowers, with Arsène Lupin's card peeping from it. The duke could not go
+to his club but a friend accosted him:
+
+"That was a good one to-day!"
+
+"What was?"
+
+"Why, your son-in-law's latest! Haven't you seen it? Here, read it for
+yourself: 'M. Arsène Lupin is petitioning the Council of State for
+permission to add his wife's name to his own and to be known henceforth
+as Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendôme.'"
+
+And, the next day, he read:
+
+
+    "As the young bride, by virtue of an unrepealed decree of Charles
+    X, bears the title and arms of the Bourbon-Condés, of whom she is
+    the heiress-of-line, the eldest son of the Lupins de
+    Sarzeau-Vendôme will be styled Prince de Bourbon-Condé."
+
+
+And, the day after, an advertisement.
+
+
+    "Exhibition of Mlle. de Sarzeau-Vendôme's trousseau at Messrs.
+    ----'s Great Linen Warehouse. Each article marked with initials L.
+    S. V."
+
+
+Then an illustrated paper published a photographic scene: the duke, his
+daughter and his son-in-law sitting at a table playing three-handed
+auction-bridge.
+
+And the date also was announced with a great flourish of trumpets: the
+4th of May.
+
+And particulars were given of the marriage-settlement. Lupin showed
+himself wonderfully disinterested. He was prepared to sign, the
+newspapers said, with his eyes closed, without knowing the figure of the
+dowry.
+
+All these things drove the old duke crazy. His hatred of Lupin assumed
+morbid proportions. Much as it went against the grain, he called on the
+prefect of police, who advised him to be on his guard:
+
+"We know the gentleman's ways; he is employing one of his favourite
+dodges. Forgive the expression, monsieur le duc, but he is 'nursing'
+you. Don't fall into the trap."
+
+"What dodge? What trap?" asked the duke, anxiously.
+
+"He is trying to make you lose your head and to lead you, by
+intimidation, to do something which you would refuse to do in cold
+blood."
+
+"Still, M. Arsène Lupin can hardly hope that I will offer him my
+daughter's hand!"
+
+"No, but he hopes that you will commit, to put it mildly, a blunder."
+
+"What blunder?"
+
+"Exactly that blunder which he wants you to commit."
+
+"Then you think, monsieur le préfet ...?"
+
+"I think the best thing you can do, monsieur le duc, is to go home, or,
+if all this excitement worries you, to run down to the country and stay
+there quietly, without upsetting yourself."
+
+This conversation only increased the old duke's fears. Lupin appeared to
+him in the light of a terrible person, who employed diabolical methods
+and kept accomplices in every sphere of society. Prudence was the
+watchword.
+
+And life, from that moment, became intolerable. The duke grew more
+crabbed and silent than ever and denied his door to all his old friends
+and even to Angélique's three suitors, her Cousins de Mussy, d'Emboise
+and de Caorches, who were none of them on speaking terms with the
+others, in consequence of their rivalry, and who were in the habit of
+calling, turn and turn about, every week.
+
+For no earthly reason, he dismissed his butler and his coachman. But he
+dared not fill their places, for fear of engaging creatures of Arsène
+Lupin's; and his own man, Hyacinthe, in whom he had every confidence,
+having had him in his service for over forty years, had to take upon
+himself the laborious duties of the stables and the pantry.
+
+"Come, father," said Angélique, trying to make him listen to
+common-sense. "I really can't see what you are afraid of. No one can
+force me into this ridiculous marriage."
+
+"Well, of course, that's not what I'm afraid of."
+
+"What then, father?"
+
+"How can I tell? An abduction! A burglary! An act of violence! There is
+no doubt that the villain is scheming something; and there is also no
+doubt that we are surrounded by spies."
+
+One afternoon, he received a newspaper in which the following paragraph
+was marked in red pencil:
+
+
+    "The signing of the marriage-contract is fixed for this evening, at
+    the Sarzeau-Vendôme town-house. It will be quite a private ceremony
+    and only a few privileged friends will be present to congratulate
+    the happy pair. The witnesses to the contract on behalf of Mlle. de
+    Sarzeau-Vendôme, the Prince de la Rochefoucauld-Limours and the
+    Comte de Chartres, will be introduced by M. Arsène Lupin to the two
+    gentlemen who have claimed the honour of acting as his groomsmen,
+    namely, the prefect of police and the governor of the Santé
+    Prison."
+
+
+Ten minutes later, the duke sent his servant Hyacinthe to the post with
+three express messages. At four o'clock, in Angélique's presence, he saw
+the three cousins: Mussy, fat, heavy, pasty-faced; d'Emboise, slender,
+fresh-coloured and shy: Caorches, short, thin and unhealthy-looking: all
+three, old bachelors by this time, lacking distinction in dress or
+appearance.
+
+The meeting was a short one. The duke had worked out his whole plan of
+campaign, a defensive campaign, of which he set forth the first stage in
+explicit terms:
+
+"Angélique and I will leave Paris to-night for our place in Brittany. I
+rely on you, my three nephews, to help us get away. You, d'Emboise, will
+come and fetch us in your car, with the hood up. You, Mussy, will bring
+your big motor and kindly see to the luggage with Hyacinthe, my man.
+You, Caorches, will go to the Gare d'Orléans and book our berths in the
+sleeping-car for Vannes by the 10.40 train. Is that settled?"
+
+The rest of the day passed without incident. The duke, to avoid any
+accidental indiscretion, waited until after dinner to tell Hyacinthe to
+pack a trunk and a portmanteau. Hyacinthe was to accompany them, as well
+as Angélique's maid.
+
+At nine o'clock, all the other servants went to bed, by their master's
+order. At ten minutes to ten, the duke, who was completing his
+preparations, heard the sound of a motor-horn. The porter opened the
+gates of the courtyard. The duke, standing at the window, recognized
+d'Emboise's landaulette:
+
+"Tell him I shall be down presently," he said to Hyacinthe, "and let
+mademoiselle know."
+
+In a few minutes, as Hyacinthe did not return, he left his room. But he
+was attacked on the landing by two masked men, who gagged and bound him
+before he could utter a cry. And one of the men said to him, in a low
+voice:
+
+"Take this as a first warning, monsieur le duc. If you persist in
+leaving Paris and refusing your consent, it will be a more serious
+matter."
+
+And the same man said to his companion:
+
+"Keep an eye on him. I will see to the young lady."
+
+By that time, two other confederates had secured the lady's maid; and
+Angélique, herself gagged, lay fainting on a couch in her boudoir.
+
+She came to almost immediately, under the stimulus of a bottle of salts
+held to her nostrils; and, when she opened her eyes, she saw bending
+over her a young man, in evening-clothes, with a smiling and friendly
+face, who said:
+
+"I implore your forgiveness, mademoiselle. All these happenings are a
+trifle sudden and this behaviour rather out of the way. But
+circumstances often compel us to deeds of which our conscience does not
+approve. Pray pardon me."
+
+He took her hand very gently and slipped a broad gold ring on the girl's
+finger, saying:
+
+"There, now we are engaged. Never forget the man who gave you this ring.
+He entreats you not to run away from him ... and to stay in Paris and
+await the proofs of his devotion. Have faith in him."
+
+He said all this in so serious and respectful a voice, with so much
+authority and deference, that she had not the strength to resist. Their
+eyes met. He whispered:
+
+"The exquisite purity of your eyes! It would be heavenly to live with
+those eyes upon one. Now close them...."
+
+He withdrew. His accomplices followed suit. The car drove off, and the
+house in the Rue de Varennes remained still and silent until the moment
+when Angélique, regaining complete consciousness, called out for the
+servants.
+
+They found the duke, Hyacinthe, the lady's maid and the porter and his
+wife all tightly bound. A few priceless ornaments had disappeared, as
+well as the duke's pocket-book and all his jewellery; tie pins, pearl
+studs, watch and so on.
+
+The police were advised without delay. In the morning it appeared that,
+on the evening before, d'Emboise, when leaving his house in the
+motor-car, was stabbed by his own chauffeur and thrown, half-dead, into
+a deserted street. Mussy and Caorches had each received a
+telephone-message, purporting to come from the duke, countermanding
+their attendance.
+
+Next week, without troubling further about the police investigation,
+without obeying the summons of the examining-magistrate, without even
+reading Arsène Lupin's letters to the papers on "the Varennes Flight,"
+the duke, his daughter and his valet stealthily took a slow train for
+Vannes and arrived one evening, at the old feudal castle that towers
+over the headland of Sarzeau. The duke at once organized a defence with
+the aid of the Breton peasants, true mediæval vassals to a man. On the
+fourth day, Mussy arrived; on the fifth, Caorches; and, on the seventh,
+d'Emboise, whose wound was not as severe as had been feared.
+
+The duke waited two days longer before communicating to those about him
+what, now that his escape had succeeded in spite of Lupin, he called the
+second part of his plan. He did so, in the presence of the three
+cousins, by a dictatorial order to Angélique, expressed in these
+peremptory terms:
+
+"All this bother is upsetting me terribly. I have entered on a struggle
+with this man whose daring you have seen for yourself; and the struggle
+is killing me. I want to end it at all costs. There is only one way of
+doing so, Angélique, and that is for you to release me from all
+responsibility by accepting the hand of one of your cousins. Before a
+month is out, you must be the wife of Mussy, Caorches or d'Emboise. You
+have a free choice. Make your decision."
+
+For four whole days Angélique wept and entreated her father, but in
+vain. She felt that he would be inflexible and that she must end by
+submitting to his wishes. She accepted:
+
+"Whichever you please, father. I love none of them. So I may as well be
+unhappy with one as with the other."
+
+Thereupon a fresh discussion ensued, as the duke wanted to compel her to
+make her own choice. She stood firm. Reluctantly and for financial
+considerations, he named d'Emboise.
+
+The banns were published without delay.
+
+From that moment, the watch in and around the castle was increased
+twofold, all the more inasmuch as Lupin's silence and the sudden
+cessation of the campaign which he had been conducting in the press
+could not but alarm the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme. It was obvious that the
+enemy was getting ready to strike and would endeavour to oppose the
+marriage by one of his characteristic moves.
+
+Nevertheless, nothing happened: nothing two days before the ceremony,
+nothing on the day before, nothing on the morning itself. The marriage
+took place in the mayor's office, followed by the religious celebration
+in church; and the thing was done.
+
+Then and not till then, the duke breathed freely. Notwithstanding his
+daughter's sadness, notwithstanding the embarrassed silence of his
+son-in-law, who found the situation a little trying, he rubbed his hands
+with an air of pleasure, as though he had achieved a brilliant victory:
+
+"Tell them to lower the drawbridge," he said to Hyacinthe, "and to admit
+everybody. We have nothing more to fear from that scoundrel."
+
+After the wedding-breakfast, he had wine served out to the peasants and
+clinked glasses with them. They danced and sang.
+
+At three o'clock, he returned to the ground-floor rooms. It was the hour
+for his afternoon nap. He walked to the guard-room at the end of the
+suite. But he had no sooner placed his foot on the threshold than he
+stopped suddenly and exclaimed:
+
+"What are you doing here, d'Emboise? Is this a joke?"
+
+D'Emboise was standing before him, dressed as a Breton fisherman, in a
+dirty jacket and breeches, torn, patched and many sizes too large for
+him.
+
+The duke seemed dumbfounded. He stared with eyes of amazement at that
+face which he knew and which, at the same time, roused memories of a
+very distant past within his brain. Then he strode abruptly to one of
+the windows overlooking the castle-terrace and called:
+
+"Angélique!"
+
+"What is it, father?" she asked, coming forward.
+
+"Where's your husband?"
+
+"Over there, father," said Angélique, pointing to d'Emboise, who was
+smoking a cigarette and reading, some way off.
+
+The duke stumbled and fell into a chair, with a great shudder of fright:
+
+"Oh, I shall go mad!"
+
+But the man in the fisherman's garb knelt down before him and said:
+
+"Look at me, uncle. You know me, don't you? I'm your nephew, the one who
+used to play here in the old days, the one whom you called Jacquot....
+Just think a minute.... Here, look at this scar...."
+
+"Yes, yes," stammered the duke, "I recognize you. It's Jacques. But the
+other one...."
+
+He put his hands to his head:
+
+"And yet, no, it can't be ... Explain yourself.... I don't
+understand.... I don't want to understand...."
+
+There was a pause, during which the newcomer shut the window and closed
+the door leading to the next room. Then he came up to the old duke,
+touched him gently on the shoulder, to wake him from his torpor, and
+without further preface, as though to cut short any explanation that was
+not absolutely necessary, spoke as follows:
+
+"Four years ago, that is to say, in the eleventh year of my voluntary
+exile, when I settled in the extreme south of Algeria, I made the
+acquaintance, in the course of a hunting-expedition arranged by a big
+Arab chief, of a man whose geniality, whose charm of manner, whose
+consummate prowess, whose indomitable pluck, whose combined humour and
+depth of mind fascinated me in the highest degree. The Comte d'Andrésy
+spent six weeks as my guest. After he left, we kept up a correspondence
+at regular intervals. I also often saw his name in the papers, in the
+society and sporting columns. He was to come back and I was preparing to
+receive him, three months ago, when, one evening as I was out riding, my
+two Arab attendants flung themselves upon me, bound me, blindfolded me
+and took me, travelling day and night, for a week, along deserted roads,
+to a bay on the coast, where five men awaited them. I was at once
+carried on board a small steam-yacht, which weighed anchor without
+delay. There was nothing to tell me who the men were nor what their
+object was in kidnapping me. They had locked me into a narrow cabin,
+secured by a massive door and lighted by a port-hole protected by two
+iron cross-bars. Every morning, a hand was inserted through a hatch
+between the next cabin and my own and placed on my bunk two or three
+pounds of bread, a good helping of food and a flagon of wine and removed
+the remains of yesterday's meals, which I put there for the purpose.
+From time to time, at night, the yacht stopped and I heard the sound of
+the boat rowing to some harbour and then returning, doubtless with
+provisions. Then we set out once more, without hurrying, as though on a
+cruise of people of our class, who travel for pleasure and are not
+pressed for time. Sometimes, standing on a chair, I would see the
+coastline, through my port-hole, too indistinctly, however, to locate
+it. And this lasted for weeks. One morning, in the ninth week, I
+perceived that the hatch had been left unfastened and I pushed it open.
+The cabin was empty at the time. With an effort, I was able to take a
+nail-file from a dressing-table. Two weeks after that, by dint of
+patient perseverance, I had succeeded in filing through the bars of my
+port-hole and I could have escaped that way, only, though I am a good
+swimmer, I soon grow tired. I had therefore to choose a moment when the
+yacht was not too far from the land. It was not until yesterday that,
+perched on my chair, I caught sight of the coast; and, in the evening,
+at sunset, I recognized, to my astonishment, the outlines of the
+Château de Sarzeau, with its pointed turrets and its square keep. I
+wondered if this was the goal of my mysterious voyage. All night long,
+we cruised in the offing. The same all day yesterday. At last, this
+morning, we put in at a distance which I considered favourable, all the
+more so as we were steaming through rocks under cover of which I could
+swim unobserved. But, just as I was about to make my escape, I noticed
+that the shutter of the hatch, which they thought they had closed, had
+once more opened of itself and was flapping against the partition. I
+again pushed it ajar from curiosity. Within arm's length was a little
+cupboard which I managed to open and in which my hand, groping at
+random, laid hold of a bundle of papers. This consisted of letters,
+letters containing instructions addressed to the pirates who held me
+prisoner. An hour later, when I wriggled through the port-hole and
+slipped into the sea, I knew all: the reasons for my abduction, the
+means employed, the object in view and the infamous scheme plotted
+during the last three months against the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme and his
+daughter. Unfortunately, it was too late. I was obliged, in order not to
+be seen from the yacht, to crouch in the cleft of a rock and did not
+reach land until mid-day. By the time that I had been to a fisherman's
+cabin, exchanged my clothes for his and come on here, it was three
+o'clock. On my arrival. I learnt that Angélique's marriage was
+celebrated this morning."
+
+The old duke had not spoken a word. With his eyes riveted on the
+stranger's, he was listening in ever-increasing dismay. At times, the
+thought of the warnings given him by the prefect of police returned to
+his mind:
+
+"They're nursing you, monsieur le duc, they are nursing you."
+
+He said, in a hollow voice:
+
+"Speak on ... finish your story.... All this is ghastly.... I don't
+understand it yet ... and I feel nervous...."
+
+The stranger resumed:
+
+"I am sorry to say, the story is easily pieced together and is summed up
+in a few sentences. It is like this: the Comte d'Andrésy remembered
+several things from his stay with me and from the confidences which I
+was foolish enough to make to him. First of all, I was your nephew and
+yet you had seen comparatively little of me, because I left Sarzeau when
+I was quite a child, and since then our intercourse was limited to the
+few weeks which I spent here, fifteen years ago, when I proposed for the
+hand of my Cousin Angélique; secondly, having broken with the past, I
+received no letters; lastly, there was a certain physical resemblance
+between d'Andrésy and myself which could be accentuated to such an
+extent as to become striking. His scheme was built up on those three
+points. He bribed my Arab servants to give him warning in case I left
+Algeria. Then he went back to Paris, bearing my name and made up to look
+exactly like me, came to see you, was invited to your house once a
+fortnight and lived under my name, which thus became one of the many
+aliases beneath which he conceals his real identity. Three months ago,
+when 'the apple was ripe,' as he says in his letters, he began the
+attack by a series of communications to the press; and, at the same
+time, fearing no doubt that some newspaper would tell me in Algeria the
+part that was being played under my name in Paris, he had me assaulted
+by my servants and kidnapped by his confederates. I need not explain any
+more in so far as you are concerned, uncle."
+
+The Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme was shaken with a fit of nervous trembling.
+The awful truth to which he refused to open his eyes appeared to him in
+its nakedness and assumed the hateful countenance of the enemy. He
+clutched his nephew's hands and said to him, fiercely, despairingly:
+
+"It's Lupin, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, uncle."
+
+"And it's to him ... it's to him that I have given my daughter!"
+
+"Yes, uncle, to him, who has stolen my name of Jacques d'Emboise from me
+and stolen your daughter from you. Angélique is the wedded wife of
+Arsène Lupin; and that in accordance with your orders. This letter in
+his handwriting bears witness to it. He has upset your whole life,
+thrown you off your balance, besieging your hours of waking and your
+nights of dreaming, rifling your town-house, until the moment when,
+seized with terror, you took refuge here, where, thinking that you would
+escape his artifices and his rapacity, you told your daughter to choose
+one of her three cousins, Mussy, d'Emboise or Caorches, as her husband.
+
+"But why did she select that one rather than the others?"
+
+"It was you who selected him, uncle."
+
+"At random ... because he had the biggest income...."
+
+"No, not at random, but on the insidious, persistent and very clever
+advice of your servant Hyacinthe."
+
+The duke gave a start:
+
+"What! Is Hyacinthe an accomplice?"
+
+"No, not of Arsène Lupin, but of the man whom he believes to be
+d'Emboise and who promised to give him a hundred thousand francs within
+a week after the marriage."
+
+"Oh, the villain!... He planned everything, foresaw everything...."
+
+"Foresaw everything, uncle, down to shamming an attempt upon his life so
+as to avert suspicion, down to shamming a wound received in your
+service."
+
+"But with what object? Why all these dastardly tricks?"
+
+"Angélique has a fortune of eleven million francs. Your solicitor in
+Paris was to hand the securities next week to the counterfeit d'Emboise,
+who had only to realize them forthwith and disappear. But, this very
+morning, you yourself were to hand your son-in-law, as a personal
+wedding-present, five hundred thousand francs' worth of bearer-stock,
+which he has arranged to deliver to one of his accomplices at nine
+o'clock this evening, outside the castle, near the Great Oak, so that
+they may be negotiated to-morrow morning in Brussels."
+
+The Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme had risen from his seat and was stamping
+furiously up and down the room:
+
+"At nine o'clock this evening?" he said. "We'll see about that.... We'll
+see about that.... I'll have the gendarmes here before then...."
+
+"Arsène Lupin laughs at gendarmes."
+
+"Let's telegraph to Paris."
+
+"Yes, but how about the five hundred thousand francs?... And, still
+worse, uncle, the scandal?... Think of this: your daughter, Angélique de
+Sarzeau-Vendôme, married to that swindler, that thief.... No, no, it
+would never do...."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"What?..."
+
+The nephew now rose and, stepping to a gun-rack, took down a rifle and
+laid it on the table, in front of the duke:
+
+"Away in Algeria, uncle, on the verge of the desert, when we find
+ourselves face to face with a wild beast, we do not send for the
+gendarmes. We take our rifle and we shoot the wild beast. Otherwise, the
+beast would tear us to pieces with its claws."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that, over there, I acquired the habit of dispensing with the
+gendarmes. It is a rather summary way of doing justice, but it is the
+best way, believe me, and to-day, in the present case, it is the only
+way. Once the beast is killed, you and I will bury it in some corner,
+unseen and unknown."
+
+"And Angélique?"
+
+"We will tell her later."
+
+"What will become of her?"
+
+"She will be my wife, the wife of the real d'Emboise. I desert her
+to-morrow and return to Algeria. The divorce will be granted in two
+months' time."
+
+The duke listened, pale and staring, with set jaws. He whispered:
+
+"Are you sure that his accomplices on the yacht will not inform him of
+your escape?"
+
+"Not before to-morrow."
+
+"So that ...?"
+
+"So that inevitably, at nine o'clock this evening, Arsène Lupin, on his
+way to the Great Oak, will take the patrol-path that follows the old
+ramparts and skirts the ruins of the chapel. I shall be there, in the
+ruins."
+
+"I shall be there too," said the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme, quietly, taking
+down a gun.
+
+It was now five o'clock. The duke talked some time longer to his nephew,
+examined the weapons, loaded them with fresh cartridges. Then, when
+night came, he took d'Emboise through the dark passages to his bedroom
+and hid him in an adjoining closet.
+
+Nothing further happened until dinner. The duke forced himself to keep
+calm during the meal. From time to time, he stole a glance at his
+son-in-law and was surprised at the likeness between him and the real
+d'Emboise. It was the same complexion, the same cast of features, the
+same cut of hair. Nevertheless, the look of the eye was different,
+keener in this case and brighter; and gradually the duke discovered
+minor details which had passed unperceived till then and which proved
+the fellow's imposture.
+
+The party broke up after dinner. It was eight o'clock. The duke went to
+his room and released his nephew. Ten minutes later, under cover of the
+darkness, they slipped into the ruins, gun in hand.
+
+Meanwhile, Angélique, accompanied by her husband, had gone to the suite
+of rooms which she occupied on the ground-floor of a tower that flanked
+the left wing. Her husband stopped at the entrance to the rooms and
+said:
+
+"I am going for a short stroll, Angélique. May I come to you here, when
+I return?"
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+He left her and went up to the first floor, which had been assigned to
+him as his quarters. The moment he was alone, he locked the door,
+noiselessly opened a window that looked over the landscape and leant
+out. He saw a shadow at the foot of the tower, some hundred feet or more
+below him. He whistled and received a faint whistle in reply.
+
+He then took from a cupboard a thick leather satchel, crammed with
+papers, wrapped it in a piece of black cloth and tied it up. Then he
+sat down at the table and wrote:
+
+
+    "Glad you got my message, for I think it unsafe to walk out of the
+    castle with that large bundle of securities. Here they are. You
+    will be in Paris, on your motor-cycle, in time to catch the morning
+    train to Brussels, where you will hand over the bonds to Z.; and he
+    will negotiate them at once.
+
+                                                                 "A. L.
+
+    "P. S.--As you pass by the Great Oak, tell our chaps that I'm
+    coming. I have some instructions to give them. But everything is
+    going well. No one here has the least suspicion."
+
+
+He fastened the letter to the parcel and lowered both through the window
+with a length of string:
+
+"Good," he said. "That's all right. It's a weight off my mind."
+
+He waited a few minutes longer, stalking up and down the room and
+smiling at the portraits of two gallant gentlemen hanging on the wall:
+
+"Horace de Sarzeau-Vendôme, marshal of France.... And you, the Great
+Condé ... I salute you, my ancestors both. Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendôme will
+show himself worthy of you."
+
+At last, when the time came, he took his hat and went down. But, when he
+reached the ground-floor, Angélique burst from her rooms and exclaimed,
+with a distraught air:
+
+"I say ... if you don't mind ... I think you had better...."
+
+And then, without saying more, she went in again, leaving a vision of
+irresponsible terror in her husband's mind.
+
+"She's out of sorts," he said to himself. "Marriage doesn't suit her."
+
+He lit a cigarette and went out, without attaching importance to an
+incident that ought to have impressed him:
+
+"Poor Angélique! This will all end in a divorce...."
+
+The night outside was dark, with a cloudy sky.
+
+The servants were closing the shutters of the castle. There was no light
+in the windows, it being the duke's habit to go to bed soon after
+dinner.
+
+Lupin passed the gate-keeper's lodge and, as he put his foot on the
+drawbridge, said:
+
+"Leave the gate open. I am going for a breath of air; I shall be back
+soon."
+
+The patrol-path was on the right and ran along one of the old ramparts,
+which used to surround the castle with a second and much larger
+enclosure, until it ended at an almost demolished postern-gate. The
+park, which skirted a hillock and afterward followed the side of a deep
+valley, was bordered on the left by thick coppices.
+
+"What a wonderful place for an ambush!" he said. "A regular cut-throat
+spot!"
+
+He stopped, thinking that he heard a noise. But no, it was a rustling of
+the leaves. And yet a stone went rattling down the slopes, bounding
+against the rugged projections of the rock. But, strange to say, nothing
+seemed to disquiet him. The crisp sea-breeze came blowing over the
+plains of the headland; and he eagerly filled his lungs with it:
+
+"What a thing it is to be alive!" he thought. "Still young, a member of
+the old nobility, a multi-millionaire: what could a man want more?"
+
+At a short distance, he saw against the darkness the yet darker outline
+of the chapel, the ruins of which towered above the path. A few drops of
+rain began to fall; and he heard a clock strike nine. He quickened his
+pace. There was a short descent; then the path rose again. And suddenly,
+he stopped once more.
+
+A hand had seized his.
+
+He drew back, tried to release himself.
+
+But some one stepped from the clump of trees against which he was
+brushing; and a voice said; "Ssh!... Not a word!..."
+
+He recognized his wife, Angélique:
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+She whispered, so low that he could hardly catch the words:
+
+"They are lying in wait for you ... they are in there, in the ruins,
+with their guns...."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Keep quiet.... Listen...."
+
+They stood for a moment without stirring; then she said:
+
+"They are not moving.... Perhaps they never heard me.... Let's go
+back...."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Come with me."
+
+Her accent was so imperious that he obeyed without further question. But
+suddenly she took fright:
+
+"Run!... They are coming!... I am sure of it!..."
+
+True enough, they heard a sound of footsteps.
+
+Then, swiftly, still holding him by the hand, she dragged him, with
+irresistible energy, along a shortcut, following its turns without
+hesitation in spite of the darkness and the brambles. And they very soon
+arrived at the drawbridge.
+
+She put her arm in his. The gate-keeper touched his cap. They crossed
+the courtyard and entered the castle; and she led him to the corner
+tower in which both of them had their apartments:
+
+"Come in here," she said.
+
+"To your rooms?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Two maids were sitting up for her. Their mistress ordered them to retire
+to their bedrooms, on the third floor.
+
+Almost immediately after, there was a knock at the door of the outer
+room; and a voice called:
+
+"Angélique!"
+
+"Is that you, father?" she asked, suppressing her agitation.
+
+"Yes. Is your husband here?"
+
+"We have just come in."
+
+"Tell him I want to speak to him. Ask him to come to my room. It's
+important."
+
+"Very well, father, I'll send him to you."
+
+She listened for a few seconds, then returned to the boudoir where her
+husband was and said:
+
+"I am sure my father is still there."
+
+He moved as though to go out:
+
+"In that case, if he wants to speak to me...."
+
+"My father is not alone," she said, quickly, blocking his way.
+
+"Who is with him?"
+
+"His nephew, Jacques d'Emboise."
+
+There was a moment's silence. He looked at her with a certain
+astonishment, failing quite to understand his wife's attitude. But,
+without pausing to go into the matter:
+
+"Ah, so that dear old d'Emboise is there?" he chuckled. "Then the fat's
+in the fire? Unless, indeed...."
+
+"My father knows everything," she said. "I overheard a conversation
+between them just now. His nephew has read certain letters.... I
+hesitated at first about telling you.... Then I thought that my
+duty...."
+
+He studied her afresh. But, at once conquered by the queerness of the
+situation, he burst out laughing:
+
+"What? Don't my friends on board ship burn my letters? And they have let
+their prisoner escape? The idiots! Oh, when you don't see to everything
+yourself!... No matter, its distinctly humorous.... D'Emboise versus
+d'Emboise.... Oh, but suppose I were no longer recognized? Suppose
+d'Emboise himself were to confuse me with himself?"
+
+He turned to a wash-hand-stand, took a towel, dipped it in the basin and
+soaped it and, in the twinkling of an eye, wiped the make-up from his
+face and altered the set of his hair:
+
+"That's it," he said, showing himself to Angélique under the aspect in
+which she had seen him on the night of the burglary in Paris. "I feel
+more comfortable like this for a discussion with my father-in-law."
+
+"Where are you going?" she cried, flinging herself in front of the door.
+
+"Why, to join the gentlemen."
+
+"You shall not pass!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Suppose they kill you?"
+
+"Kill me?"
+
+"That's what they mean to do, to kill you ... to hide your body
+somewhere.... Who would know of it?"
+
+"Very well," he said, "from their point of view, they are quite right.
+But, if I don't go to them, they will come here. That door won't stop
+them.... Nor you, I'm thinking. Therefore, it's better to have done with
+it."
+
+"Follow me," commanded Angélique.
+
+She took up the lamp that lit the room, went into her bedroom, pushed
+aside the wardrobe, which slid easily on hidden castors, pulled back an
+old tapestry-hanging, and said:
+
+"Here is a door that has not been used for years. My father believes the
+key to be lost. I have it here. Unlock the door with it. A staircase in
+the wall will take you to the bottom of the tower. You need only draw
+the bolts of another door and you will be free."
+
+He could hardly believe his ears. Suddenly, he grasped the meaning of
+Angélique's whole behaviour. In front of that sad, plain, but
+wonderfully gentle face, he stood for a moment discountenanced, almost
+abashed. He no longer thought of laughing. A feeling of respect, mingled
+with remorse and kindness, overcame him.
+
+"Why are you saving me?" he whispered.
+
+"You are my husband."
+
+He protested:
+
+"No, no ... I have stolen that title. The law will never recognize my
+marriage."
+
+"My father does not want a scandal," she said.
+
+"Just so," he replied, sharply, "just so. I foresaw that; and that was
+why I had your cousin d'Emboise near at hand. Once I disappear, he
+becomes your husband. He is the man you have married in the eyes of
+men."
+
+"You are the man I have married in the eyes of the Church."
+
+"The Church! The Church! There are means of arranging matters with the
+Church.... Your marriage can be annulled."
+
+"On what pretext that we can admit?"
+
+He remained silent, thinking over all those points which he had not
+considered, all those points which were trivial and absurd for him, but
+which were serious for her, and he repeated several times:
+
+"This is terrible ... this is terrible.... I should have
+anticipated...."
+
+And, suddenly, seized with an idea, he clapped his hands and cried:
+
+"There, I have it! I'm hand in glove with one of the chief figures at
+the Vatican. The Pope never refuses me anything. I shall obtain an
+audience and I have no doubt that the Holy Father, moved by my
+entreaties...."
+
+His plan was so humorous and his delight so artless that Angélique could
+not help smiling; and she said:
+
+"I am your wife in the eyes of God."
+
+She gave him a look that showed neither scorn nor animosity, nor even
+anger; and he realized that she omitted to see in him the outlaw and the
+evil-doer and remembered only the man who was her husband and to whom
+the priest had bound her until the hour of death.
+
+He took a step toward her and observed her more attentively. She did not
+lower her eyes at first. But she blushed. And never had he seen so
+pathetic a face, marked with such modesty and such dignity. He said to
+her, as on that first evening in Paris:
+
+"Oh, your eyes ... the calm and sadness of your eyes ... the beauty of
+your eyes!"
+
+She dropped her head and stammered:
+
+"Go away ... go ..."
+
+In the presence of her confusion, he received a quick intuition of the
+deeper feelings that stirred her, unknown to herself. To that spinster
+soul, of which he recognized the romantic power of imagination, the
+unsatisfied yearnings, the poring over old-world books, he suddenly
+represented, in that exceptional moment and in consequence of the
+unconventional circumstances of their meetings, somebody special, a
+Byronic hero, a chivalrous brigand of romance. One evening, in spite of
+all obstacles, he, the world-famed adventurer, already ennobled in song
+and story and exalted by his own audacity, had come to her and slipped
+the magic ring upon her finger: a mystic and passionate betrothal, as in
+the days of the _Corsair_ and _Hernani_.... Greatly moved and touched,
+he was on the verge of giving way to an enthusiastic impulse and
+exclaiming:
+
+"Let us go away together!... Let us fly!... You are my bride ... my
+wife.... Share my dangers, my sorrows and my joys.... It will be a
+strange and vigorous, a proud and magnificent life...."
+
+But Angélique's eyes were raised to his again; and they were so pure and
+so noble that he blushed in his turn. This was not the woman to whom
+such words could be addressed.
+
+He whispered:
+
+"Forgive me.... I am a contemptible wretch.... I have wrecked your
+life...."
+
+"No," she replied, softly. "On the contrary, you have shown me where my
+real life lies."
+
+He was about to ask her to explain. But she had opened the door and was
+pointing the way to him. Nothing more could be spoken between them. He
+went out without a word, bowing very low as he passed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later, Angélique de Sarzeau-Vendôme, Princesse de Bourbon-Condé,
+lawful wife of Arsène Lupin, took the veil and, under the name of Sister
+Marie-Auguste, buried herself within the walls of the Visitation
+Convent.
+
+On the day of the ceremony, the mother superior of the convent received
+a heavy sealed envelope containing a letter with the following words:
+
+
+    "For Sister Marie-Auguste's poor."
+
+
+Enclosed with the letter were five hundred bank-notes of a thousand
+francs each.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE INVISIBLE PRISONER
+
+
+One day, at about four o'clock, as evening was drawing in, Farmer
+Goussot, with his four sons, returned from a day's shooting. They were
+stalwart men, all five of them, long of limb, broad-chested, with faces
+tanned by sun and wind. And all five displayed, planted on an enormous
+neck and shoulders, the same small head with the low forehead, thin
+lips, beaked nose and hard and repellent cast of countenance. They were
+feared and disliked by all around them. They were a money-grubbing,
+crafty family; and their word was not to be trusted.
+
+On reaching the old barbican-wall that surrounds the Héberville
+property, the farmer opened a narrow, massive door, putting the big key
+back in his pocket after his sons had passed in. And he walked behind
+them, along the path that led through the orchards. Here and there stood
+great trees, stripped by the autumn winds, and clumps of pines, the last
+survivors of the ancient park now covered by old Goussot's farm.
+
+One of the sons said:
+
+"I hope mother has lit a log or two."
+
+"There's smoke coming from the chimney," said the father.
+
+The outhouses and the homestead showed at the end of a lawn; and, above
+them, the village church, whose steeple seemed to prick the clouds that
+trailed along the sky.
+
+"All the guns unloaded?" asked old Goussot.
+
+"Mine isn't," said the eldest. "I slipped in a bullet to blow a
+kestrel's head off...."
+
+He was the one who was proudest of his skill. And he said to his
+brothers:
+
+"Look at that bough, at the top of the cherry tree. See me snap it off."
+
+On the bough sat a scarecrow, which had been there since spring and
+which protected the leafless branches with its idiot arms.
+
+He raised his gun and fired.
+
+The figure came tumbling down with large, comic gestures, and was caught
+on a big, lower branch, where it remained lying stiff on its stomach,
+with a great top hat on its head of rags and its hay-stuffed legs
+swaying from right to left above some water that flowed past the cherry
+tree through a wooden trough.
+
+They all laughed. The father approved:
+
+"A fine shot, my lad. Besides, the old boy was beginning to annoy me. I
+couldn't take my eyes from my plate at meals without catching sight of
+that oaf...."
+
+They went a few steps farther. They were not more than thirty yards from
+the house, when the father stopped suddenly and said:
+
+"Hullo! What's up?"
+
+The sons also had stopped and stood listening. One of them said, under
+his breath:
+
+"It comes from the house ... from the linen-room...."
+
+And another spluttered:
+
+"Sounds like moans.... And mother's alone!"
+
+Suddenly, a frightful scream rang out. All five rushed forward. Another
+scream, followed by cries of despair.
+
+"We're here! We're coming!" shouted the eldest, who was leading.
+
+And, as it was a roundabout way to the door, he smashed in a window with
+his fist and sprang into the old people's bedroom. The room next to it
+was the linen-room, in which Mother Goussot spent most of her time.
+
+"Damnation!" he said, seeing her lying on the floor, with blood all over
+her face. "Dad! Dad!"
+
+"What? Where is she?" roared old Goussot, appearing on the scene. "Good
+lord, what's this?... What have they done to your mother?"
+
+She pulled herself together and, with outstretched arm, stammered:
+
+"Run after him!... This way!... This way!... I'm all right ... only a
+scratch or two.... But run, you! He's taken the money."
+
+The father and sons gave a bound:
+
+"He's taken the money!" bellowed old Goussot, rushing to the door to
+which his wife was pointing. "He's taken the money! Stop thief!"
+
+But a sound of several voices rose at the end of the passage through
+which the other three sons were coming:
+
+"I saw him! I saw him!"
+
+"So did I! He ran up the stairs."
+
+"No, there he is, he's coming down again!"
+
+A mad steeplechase shook every floor in the house. Farmer Goussot, on
+reaching the end of the passage, caught sight of a man standing by the
+front door trying to open it. If he succeeded, it meant safety, escape
+through the market square and the back lanes of the village.
+
+Interrupted as he was fumbling at the bolts, the man turning stupid,
+lost his head, charged at old Goussot and sent him spinning, dodged the
+eldest brother and, pursued by the four sons, doubled back down the long
+passage, ran into the old couple's bedroom, flung his legs through the
+broken window and disappeared.
+
+The sons rushed after him across the lawns and orchards, now darkened by
+the falling night.
+
+"The villain's done for," chuckled old Goussot. "There's no way out for
+him. The walls are too high. He's done for, the scoundrel!"
+
+The two farm-hands returned, at that moment, from the village; and he
+told them what had happened and gave each of them a gun:
+
+"If the swine shows his nose anywhere near the house," he said, "let fly
+at him. Give him no mercy!"
+
+He told them where to stand, went to make sure that the farm-gates,
+which were only used for the carts, were locked, and, not till then,
+remembered that his wife might perhaps be in need of aid:
+
+"Well, mother, how goes it?"
+
+"Where is he? Have you got him?" she asked, in a breath.
+
+"Yes, we're after him. The lads must have collared him by now."
+
+The news quite restored her; and a nip of rum gave her the strength to
+drag herself to the bed, with old Goussot's assistance, and to tell her
+story. For that matter, there was not much to tell. She had just lit the
+fire in the living-hall; and she was knitting quietly at her bedroom
+window, waiting for the men to return, when she thought that she heard
+a slight grating sound in the linen-room next door:
+
+"I must have left the cat in there," she thought to herself.
+
+She went in, suspecting nothing, and was astonished to see the two doors
+of one of the linen-cupboards, the one in which they hid their money,
+wide open. She walked up to it, still without suspicion. There was a man
+there, hiding, with his back to the shelves.
+
+"But how did he get in?" asked old Goussot.
+
+"Through the passage, I suppose. We never keep the back door shut."
+
+"And then did he go for you?"
+
+"No, I went for him. He tried to get away."
+
+"You should have let him."
+
+"And what about the money?"
+
+"Had he taken it by then?"
+
+"Had he taken it! I saw the bundle of bank-notes in his hands, the
+sweep! I would have let him kill me sooner.... Oh, we had a sharp
+tussle, I give you my word!"
+
+"Then he had no weapon?'
+
+"No more than I did. We had our fingers, our nails and our teeth. Look
+here, where he bit me. And I yelled and screamed! Only, I'm an old woman
+you see.... I had to let go of him...."
+
+"Do you know the man?"
+
+"I'm pretty sure it was old Trainard."
+
+"The tramp? Why, of course it's old Trainard!" cried the farmer. "I
+thought I knew him too.... Besides, he's been hanging round the house
+these last three days. The old vagabond must have smelt the money. Aha,
+Trainard, my man, we shall see some fun! A number-one hiding in the
+first place; and then the police.... I say, mother, you can get up now,
+can't you? Then go and fetch the neighbours.... Ask them to run for the
+gendarmes.... By the by, the attorney's youngster has a bicycle.... How
+that damned old Trainard scooted! He's got good legs for his age, he
+has. He can run like a hare!"
+
+Goussot was holding his sides, revelling in the occurrence. He risked
+nothing by waiting. No power on earth could help the tramp escape or
+keep him from the sound thrashing which he had earned and from being
+conveyed, under safe escort, to the town gaol.
+
+The farmer took a gun and went out to his two labourers:
+
+"Anything fresh?"
+
+"No, Farmer Goussot, not yet."
+
+"We sha'n't have long to wait. Unless old Nick carries him over the
+walls...."
+
+From time to time, they heard the four brothers hailing one another in
+the distance. The old bird was evidently making a fight for it, was
+more active than they would have thought. Still, with sturdy fellows
+like the Goussot brothers....
+
+However, one of them returned, looking rather crestfallen, and made no
+secret of his opinion:
+
+"It's no use keeping on at it for the present. It's pitch dark. The old
+chap must have crept into some hole. We'll hunt him out to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow! Why, lad, you're off your chump!" protested the farmer.
+
+The eldest son now appeared, quite out of breath, and was of the same
+opinion as his brother. Why not wait till next day, seeing that the
+ruffian was as safe within the demesne as between the walls of a prison?
+
+"Well, I'll go myself," cried old Goussot. "Light me a lantern,
+somebody!"
+
+But, at that moment, three gendarmes arrived; and a number of village
+lads also came up to hear the latest.
+
+The sergeant of gendarmes was a man of method. He first insisted on
+hearing the whole story, in full detail; then he stopped to think; then
+he questioned the four brothers, separately, and took his time for
+reflection after each deposition. When he had learnt from them that the
+tramp had fled toward the back of the estate, that he had been lost
+sight of repeatedly and that he had finally disappeared near a place
+known as the Crows' Knoll, he meditated once more and announced his
+conclusion:
+
+"Better wait. Old Trainard might slip through our hands, amidst all the
+confusion of a pursuit in the dark, and then good-night, everybody!"
+
+The farmer shrugged his shoulders and, cursing under his breath, yielded
+to the sergeant's arguments. That worthy organized a strict watch,
+distributed the brothers Goussot and the lads from the village under his
+men's eyes, made sure that the ladders were locked away and established
+his headquarters in the dining-room, where he and Farmer Goussot sat and
+nodded over a decanter of old brandy.
+
+The night passed quietly. Every two hours, the sergeant went his rounds
+and inspected the posts. There were no alarms. Old Trainard did not
+budge from his hole.
+
+The battle began at break of day.
+
+It lasted four hours.
+
+In those four hours, the thirteen acres of land within the walls were
+searched, explored, gone over in every direction by a score of men who
+beat the bushes with sticks, trampled over the tall grass, rummaged in
+the hollows of the trees and scattered the heaps of dry leaves. And old
+Trainard remained invisible.
+
+"Well, this is a bit thick!" growled Goussot.
+
+"Beats me altogether," retorted the sergeant.
+
+And indeed there was no explaining the phenomenon. For, after all, apart
+from a few old clumps of laurels and spindle-trees, which were
+thoroughly beaten, all the trees were bare. There was no building, no
+shed, no stack, nothing, in short, that could serve as a hiding-place.
+
+As for the wall, a careful inspection convinced even the sergeant that
+it was physically impossible to scale it.
+
+In the afternoon, the investigations were begun all over again in the
+presence of the examining-magistrate and the public-prosecutor's deputy.
+The results were no more successful. Nay, worse, the officials looked
+upon the matter as so suspicious that they could not restrain their
+ill-humour and asked:
+
+"Are you quite sure, Farmer Goussot, that you and your sons haven't been
+seeing double?"
+
+"And what about my wife?" retorted the farmer, red with anger. "Did she
+see double when the scamp had her by the throat? Go and look at the
+marks, if you doubt me!"
+
+"Very well. But then where is the scamp?"
+
+"Here, between those four walls."
+
+"Very well. Then ferret him out. We give it up. It's quite clear, that
+if a man were hidden within the precincts of this farm, we should have
+found him by now."
+
+"I swear I'll lay hands on him, true as I stand here!" shouted Farmer
+Goussot. "It shall not be said that I've been robbed of six thousand
+francs. Yes, six thousand! There were three cows I sold; and then the
+wheat-crop; and then the apples. Six thousand-franc notes, which I was
+just going to take to the bank. Well, I swear to Heaven that the money's
+as good as in my pocket!"
+
+"That's all right and I wish you luck," said the examining-magistrate,
+as he went away, followed by the deputy and the gendarmes.
+
+The neighbours also walked off in a more or less facetious mood. And, by
+the end of the afternoon, none remained but the Goussots and the two
+farm-labourers.
+
+Old Goussot at once explained his plan. By day, they were to search. At
+night, they were to keep an incessant watch. It would last as long as it
+had to. Hang it, old Trainard was a man like other men; and men have to
+eat and drink! Old Trainard must needs, therefore, come out of his earth
+to eat and drink.
+
+"At most," said Goussot, "he can have a few crusts of bread in his
+pocket, or even pull up a root or two at night. But, as far as drink's
+concerned, no go. There's only the spring. And he'll be a clever dog if
+he gets near that."
+
+He himself, that evening, took up his stand near the spring. Three
+hours later, his eldest son relieved him. The other brothers and the
+farm-hands slept in the house, each taking his turn of the watch and
+keeping all the lamps and candles lit, so that there might be no
+surprise.
+
+So it went on for fourteen consecutive nights. And for fourteen days,
+while two of the men and Mother Goussot remained on guard, the five
+others explored the Héberville ground.
+
+At the end of that fortnight, not a sign.
+
+The farmer never ceased storming. He sent for a retired
+detective-inspector who lived in the neighbouring town. The inspector
+stayed with him for a whole week. He found neither old Trainard nor the
+least clue that could give them any hope of finding old Trainard.
+
+"It's a bit thick!" repeated Farmer Goussot. "For he's there, the
+rascal! As far as being anywhere goes, he's there. So...."
+
+Planting himself on the threshold, he railed at the enemy at the top of
+his voice:
+
+"You blithering idiot, would you rather croak in your hole than fork out
+the money? Then croak, you pig!"
+
+And Mother Goussot, in her turn, yelped, in her shrill voice:
+
+"Is it prison you're afraid of? Hand over the notes and you can hook
+it!"
+
+But old Trainard did not breathe a word; and the husband and wife tired
+their lungs in vain.
+
+Shocking days passed. Farmer Goussot could no longer sleep, lay
+shivering with fever. The sons became morose and quarrelsome and never
+let their guns out of their hands, having no other idea but to shoot the
+tramp.
+
+It was the one topic of conversation in the village; and the Goussot
+story, from being local at first, soon went the round of the press.
+Newspaper-reporters came from the assize-town, from Paris itself, and
+were rudely shown the door by Farmer Goussot.
+
+"Each man his own house," he said. "You mind your business. I mind mine.
+It's nothing to do with any one."
+
+"Still, Farmer Goussot...."
+
+"Go to blazes!"
+
+And he slammed the door in their face.
+
+Old Trainard had now been hidden within the walls of Héberville for
+something like four weeks. The Goussots continued their search as
+doggedly and confidently as ever, but with daily decreasing hope, as
+though they were confronted with one of those mysterious obstacles which
+discourage human effort. And the idea that they would never see their
+money again began to take root in them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One fine morning, at about ten o'clock, a motor-car, crossing the
+village square at full speed, broke down and came to a dead stop.
+
+The driver, after a careful inspection, declared that the repairs would
+take some little time, whereupon the owner of the car resolved to wait
+at the inn and lunch. He was a gentleman on the right side of forty,
+with close-cropped side-whiskers and a pleasant expression of face; and
+he soon made himself at home with the people at the inn.
+
+Of course, they told him the story of the Goussots. He had not heard it
+before, as he had been abroad; but it seemed to interest him greatly. He
+made them give him all the details, raised objections, discussed various
+theories with a number of people who were eating at the same table and
+ended by exclaiming:
+
+"Nonsense! It can't be so intricate as all that. I have had some
+experience of this sort of thing. And, if I were on the premises...."
+
+"That's easily arranged," said the inn-keeper. "I know Farmer
+Goussot.... He won't object...."
+
+The request was soon made and granted. Old Goussot was in one of those
+frames of mind when we are less disposed to protest against outside
+interference. His wife, at any rate, was very firm:
+
+"Let the gentleman come, if he wants to."
+
+The gentleman paid his bill and instructed his driver to try the car on
+the high-road as soon as the repairs were finished:
+
+"I shall want an hour," he said, "no more. Be ready in an hour's time."
+
+Then he went to Farmer Goussot's.
+
+He did not say much at the farm. Old Goussot, hoping against hope, was
+lavish with information, took his visitor along the walls down to the
+little door opening on the fields, produced the key and gave minute
+details of all the searches that had been made so far.
+
+Oddly enough, the stranger, who hardly spoke, seemed not to listen
+either. He merely looked, with a rather vacant gaze. When they had been
+round the estate, old Goussot asked, anxiously:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well what?"
+
+"Do you think you know?"
+
+The visitor stood for a moment without answering. Then he said:
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"Why, of course not!" cried the farmer, throwing up his arms. "How
+should you know! It's all hanky-panky. Shall I tell you what I think?
+Well, that old Trainard has been so jolly clever that he's lying dead in
+his hole ... and the bank-notes are rotting with him. Do you hear? You
+can take my word for it."
+
+The gentleman said, very calmly:
+
+"There's only one thing that interests me. The tramp, all said and done,
+was free at night and able to feed on what he could pick up. But how
+about drinking?"
+
+"Out of the question!" shouted the farmer. "Quite out of the question!
+There's no water except this; and we have kept watch beside it every
+night."
+
+"It's a spring. Where does it rise?"
+
+"Here, where we stand."
+
+"Is there enough pressure to bring it into the pool of itself?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And where does the water go when it runs out of the pool?"
+
+"Into this pipe here, which goes under ground and carries it to the
+house, for use in the kitchen. So there's no way of drinking, seeing
+that we were there and that the spring is twenty yards from the house."
+
+"Hasn't it rained during the last four weeks?"
+
+"Not once: I've told you that already."
+
+The stranger went to the spring and examined it. The trough was formed
+of a few boards of wood joined together just above the ground; and the
+water ran through it, slow and clear.
+
+"The water's not more than a foot deep, is it?" he asked.
+
+In order to measure it, he picked up from the grass a straw which he
+dipped into the pool. But, as he was stooping, he suddenly broke off and
+looked around him.
+
+"Oh, how funny!" he said, bursting into a peal of laughter.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" spluttered old Goussot, rushing toward the
+pool, as though a man could have lain hidden between those narrow
+boards.
+
+And Mother Goussot clasped her hands.
+
+"What is it? Have you seen him? Where is he?"
+
+"Neither in it nor under it," replied the stranger, who was still
+laughing.
+
+He made for the house, eagerly followed by the farmer, the old woman and
+the four sons. The inn-keeper was there also, as were the people from
+the inn who had been watching the stranger's movements. And there was a
+dead silence, while they waited for the extraordinary disclosure.
+
+"It's as I thought," he said, with an amused expression. "The old chap
+had to quench his thirst somewhere; and, as there was only the
+spring...."
+
+"Oh, but look here," growled Farmer Goussot, "we should have seen him!"
+
+"It was at night."
+
+"We should have heard him ... and seen him too, as we were close by."
+
+"So was he."
+
+"And he drank the water from the pool?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How?"
+
+"From a little way off."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"With this."
+
+And the stranger showed the straw which he had picked up:
+
+"There, here's the straw for the customer's long drink. You will see,
+there's more of it than usual: in fact, it is made of three straws stuck
+into one another. That was the first thing I noticed: those three straws
+fastened together. The proof is conclusive."
+
+"But, hang it all, the proof of what?" cried Farmer Goussot, irritably.
+
+The stranger took a shotgun from the rack.
+
+"Is it loaded?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said the youngest of the brothers. "I use it to kill the sparrows
+with, for fun. It's small shot."
+
+"Capital! A peppering where it won't hurt him will do the trick."
+
+His face suddenly assumed a masterful look. He gripped the farmer by the
+arm and rapped out, in an imperious tone:
+
+"Listen to me, Farmer Goussot. I'm not here to do policeman's work; and
+I won't have the poor beggar locked up at any price. Four weeks of
+starvation and fright is good enough for anybody. So you've got to swear
+to me, you and your sons, that you'll let him off without hurting him."
+
+"He must hand over the money!"
+
+"Well, of course. Do you swear?"
+
+"I swear."
+
+The gentleman walked back to the door-sill, at the entrance to the
+orchard. He took a quick aim, pointing his gun a little in the air, in
+the direction of the cherry tree which overhung the spring. He fired. A
+hoarse cry rang from the tree; and the scarecrow which had been
+straddling the main branch for a month past came tumbling to the ground,
+only to jump up at once and make off as fast as its legs could carry it.
+
+There was a moment's amazement, followed by outcries. The sons darted in
+pursuit and were not long in coming up with the runaway, hampered as he
+was by his rags and weakened by privation. But the stranger was already
+protecting him against their wrath:
+
+"Hands off there! This man belongs to me. I won't have him touched.... I
+hope I haven't stung you up too much, Trainard?"
+
+Standing on his straw legs wrapped round with strips of tattered cloth,
+with his arms and his whole body clad in the same materials, his head
+swathed in linen, tightly packed like a sausage, the old chap still had
+the stiff appearance of a lay-figure. And the whole effect was so
+ludicrous and so unexpected that the onlookers screamed with laughter.
+
+The stranger unbound his head; and they saw a veiled mask of tangled
+grey beard encroaching on every side upon a skeleton face lit up by two
+eyes burning with fever.
+
+The laughter was louder than ever.
+
+"The money! The six notes!" roared the farmer.
+
+The stranger kept him at a distance:
+
+"One moment ... we'll give you that back, sha'n't we, Trainard?"
+
+And, taking his knife and cutting away the straw and cloth, he jested,
+cheerily:
+
+"You poor old beggar, what a guy you look! But how on earth did you
+manage to pull off that trick? You must be confoundedly clever, or else
+you had the devil's own luck.... So, on the first night, you used the
+breathing-time they left you to rig yourself in these togs! Not a bad
+idea. Who could ever suspect a scarecrow?... They were so accustomed to
+seeing it stuck up in its tree! But, poor old daddy, how uncomfortable
+you must have felt, lying flat up there on your stomach, with your arms
+and legs dangling down! All day long, like that! The deuce of an
+attitude! And how you must have been put to it, when you ventured to
+move a limb, eh? And how you must have funked going to sleep!... And
+then you had to eat! And drink! And you heard the sentry and felt the
+barrel of his gun within a yard of your nose! Brrrr!... But the
+trickiest of all, you know, was your bit of straw!... Upon my word, when
+I think that, without a sound, without a movement so to speak, you had
+to fish out lengths of straw from your toggery, fix them end to end, let
+your apparatus down to the water and suck up the heavenly moisture drop
+by drop.... Upon my word, one could scream with admiration.... Well
+done, Trainard...." And he added, between his teeth, "Only you're in a
+very unappetizing state, my man. Haven't you washed yourself all this
+month, you old pig? After all, you had as much water as you wanted!...
+Here, you people, I hand him over to you. I'm going to wash my hands,
+that's what I'm going to do."
+
+Farmer Goussot and his four sons grabbed at the prey which he was
+abandoning to them:
+
+"Now then, come along, fork out the money."
+
+Dazed as he was, the tramp still managed to simulate astonishment.
+
+"Don't put on that idiot look," growled the farmer. "Come on. Out with
+the six notes...."
+
+"What?... What do you want of me?" stammered old Trainard.
+
+"The money ... on the nail...."
+
+"What money?"
+
+"The bank-notes."
+
+"The bank-notes?"
+
+"Oh, I'm getting sick of you! Here, lads...."
+
+They laid the old fellow flat, tore off the rags that composed his
+clothes, felt and searched him all over.
+
+There was nothing on him.
+
+"You thief and you robber!" yelled old Goussot. "What have you done with
+it?"
+
+The old beggar seemed more dazed than ever. Too cunning to confess, he
+kept on whining:
+
+"What do you want of me?... Money? I haven't three sous to call my
+own...."
+
+But his eyes, wide with wonder, remained fixed upon his clothes; and he
+himself seemed not to understand.
+
+The Goussots' rage could no longer be restrained. They rained blows upon
+him, which did not improve matters. But the farmer was convinced that
+Trainard had hidden the money before turning himself into the scarecrow:
+
+"Where have you put it, you scum? Out with it! In what part of the
+orchard have you hidden it?"
+
+"The money?" repeated the tramp with a stupid look.
+
+"Yes, the money! The money which you've buried somewhere.... Oh, if we
+don't find it, your goose is cooked!... We have witnesses, haven't
+we?... All of you, friends, eh? And then the gentleman...."
+
+He turned, with the intention of addressing the stranger, in the
+direction of the spring, which was thirty or forty steps to the left.
+And he was quite surprised not to see him washing his hands there:
+
+"Has he gone?" he asked.
+
+Some one answered:
+
+"No, he lit a cigarette and went for a stroll in the orchard."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said the farmer. "He's the sort to find the
+notes for us, just as he found the man."
+
+"Unless ..." said a voice.
+
+"Unless what?" echoed the farmer. "What do you mean? Have you something
+in your head? Out with it, then! What is it?"
+
+But he interrupted himself suddenly, seized with a doubt; and there was
+a moment's silence. The same idea dawned on all the country-folk. The
+stranger's arrival at Héberville, the breakdown of his motor, his
+manner of questioning the people at the inn and of gaining admission to
+the farm: were not all these part and parcel of a put-up job, the trick
+of a cracksman who had learnt the story from the papers and who had come
+to try his luck on the spot?...
+
+"Jolly smart of him!" said the inn-keeper. "He must have taken the money
+from old Trainard's pocket, before our eyes, while he was searching
+him."
+
+"Impossible!" spluttered Farmer Goussot. "He would have been seen going
+out that way ... by the house ... whereas he's strolling in the
+orchard."
+
+Mother Goussot, all of a heap, suggested:
+
+"The little door at the end, down there?..."
+
+"The key never leaves me."
+
+"But you showed it to him."
+
+"Yes; and I took it back again.... Look, here it is."
+
+He clapped his hand to his pocket and uttered a cry:
+
+"Oh, dash it all, it's gone!... He's sneaked it!..."
+
+He at once rushed away, followed and escorted by his sons and a number
+of the villagers.
+
+When they were halfway down the orchard, they heard the throb of a
+motor-car, obviously the one belonging to the stranger, who had given
+orders to his chauffeur to wait for him at that lower entrance.
+
+When the Goussots reached the door, they saw scrawled with a brick, on
+the worm-eaten panel, the two words:
+
+
+                          "ARSÈNE LUPIN."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stick to it as the angry Goussots might, they found it impossible to
+prove that old Trainard had stolen any money. Twenty persons had to bear
+witness that, when all was said, nothing was discovered on his person.
+He escaped with a few months' imprisonment for the assault.
+
+He did not regret them. As soon as he was released, he was secretly
+informed that, every quarter, on a given date, at a given hour, under a
+given milestone on a given road, he would find three gold louis.
+
+To a man like old Trainard that means wealth.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+EDITH SWAN-NECK
+
+
+"Arsène Lupin, what's your real opinion of Inspector Ganimard?"
+
+"A very high one, my dear fellow."
+
+"A very high one? Then why do you never miss a chance of turning him
+into ridicule?"
+
+"It's a bad habit; and I'm sorry for it. But what can I say? It's the
+way of the world. Here's a decent detective-chap, here's a whole pack of
+decent men, who stand for law and order, who protect us against the
+apaches, who risk their lives for honest people like you and me; and we
+have nothing to give them in return but flouts and gibes. It's
+preposterous!"
+
+"Bravo, Lupin! you're talking like a respectable ratepayer!"
+
+"What else am I? I may have peculiar views about other people's
+property; but I assure you that it's very different when my own's at
+stake. By Jove, it doesn't do to lay hands on what belongs to me! Then
+I'm out for blood! Aha! It's _my_ pocket, _my_ money, _my_ watch ...
+hands off! I have the soul of a conservative, my dear fellow, the
+instincts of a retired tradesman and a due respect for every sort of
+tradition and authority. And that is why Ganimard inspires me with no
+little gratitude and esteem."
+
+"But not much admiration?"
+
+"Plenty of admiration too. Over and above the dauntless courage which
+comes natural to all those gentry at the Criminal Investigation
+Department, Ganimard possesses very sterling qualities: decision,
+insight and judgment. I have watched him at work. He's somebody, when
+all's said. Do you know the Edith Swan-neck story, as it was called?"
+
+"I know as much as everybody knows."
+
+"That means that you don't know it at all. Well, that job was, I
+daresay, the one which I thought out most cleverly, with the utmost care
+and the utmost precaution, the one which I shrouded in the greatest
+darkness and mystery, the one which it took the biggest generalship to
+carry through. It was a regular game of chess, played according to
+strict scientific and mathematical rules. And yet Ganimard ended by
+unravelling the knot. Thanks to him, they know the truth to-day on the
+Quai des Orfèvres. And it is a truth quite out of the common, I assure
+you."
+
+"May I hope to hear it?"
+
+"Certainly ... one of these days ... when I have time.... But the
+Brunelli is dancing at the Opera to-night; and, if she were not to see
+me in my stall ...!"
+
+I do not meet Lupin often. He confesses with difficulty, when it suits
+him. It was only gradually, by snatches, by odds and ends of
+confidences, that I was able to obtain the different incidents and to
+piece the story together in all its details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The main features are well known and I will merely mention the facts.
+
+Three years ago, when the train from Brest arrived at Rennes, the door
+of one of the luggage vans was found smashed in. This van had been
+booked by Colonel Sparmiento, a rich Brazilian, who was travelling with
+his wife in the same train. It contained a complete set of
+tapestry-hangings. The case in which one of these was packed had been
+broken open and the tapestry had disappeared.
+
+Colonel Sparmiento started proceedings against the railway-company,
+claiming heavy damages, not only for the stolen tapestry, but also for
+the loss in value which the whole collection suffered in consequence of
+the theft.
+
+The police instituted inquiries. The company offered a large reward. A
+fortnight later, a letter which had come undone in the post was opened
+by the authorities and revealed the fact that the theft had been
+carried out under the direction of Arsène Lupin and that a package was
+to leave next day for the United States. That same evening, the tapestry
+was discovered in a trunk deposited in the cloak-room at the Gare
+Saint-Lazare.
+
+The scheme, therefore, had miscarried. Lupin felt the disappointment so
+much that he vented his ill-humour in a communication to Colonel
+Sparmiento, ending with the following words, which were clear enough for
+anybody:
+
+
+    "It was very considerate of me to take only one. Next time, I shall
+    take the twelve. _Verbum sap._
+
+                                                 "A. L."
+
+
+Colonel Sparmiento had been living for some months in a house standing
+at the end of a small garden at the corner of the Rue de la Faisanderie
+and the Rue Dufresnoy. He was a rather thick-set, broad-shouldered man,
+with black hair and a swarthy skin, always well and quietly dressed. He
+was married to an extremely pretty but delicate Englishwoman, who was
+much upset by the business of the tapestries. From the first she
+implored her husband to sell them for what they would fetch. The Colonel
+had much too forcible and dogged a nature to yield to what he had every
+right to describe as a woman's fancies. He sold nothing, but he
+redoubled his precautions and adopted every measure that was likely to
+make an attempt at burglary impossible.
+
+To begin with, so that he might confine his watch to the garden-front,
+he walled up all the windows on the ground-floor and the first floor
+overlooking the Rue Dufresnoy. Next, he enlisted the services of a firm
+which made a speciality of protecting private houses against robberies.
+Every window of the gallery in which the tapestries were hung was fitted
+with invisible burglar alarms, the position of which was known, to none
+but himself. These, at the least touch, switched on all the electric
+lights and set a whole system of bells and gongs ringing.
+
+In addition to this, the insurance companies to which he applied refused
+to grant policies to any considerable amount unless he consented to let
+three men, supplied by the companies and paid by himself, occupy the
+ground-floor of his house every night. They selected for the purpose
+three ex-detectives, tried and trustworthy men, all of whom hated Lupin
+like poison. As for the servants, the colonel had known them for years
+and was ready to vouch for them.
+
+After taking these steps and organizing the defence of the house as
+though it were a fortress, the colonel gave a great house-warming, a
+sort of private view, to which he invited the members of both his
+clubs, as well as a certain number of ladies, journalists, art-patrons
+and critics.
+
+They felt, as they passed through the garden-gate, much as if they were
+walking into a prison. The three private detectives, posted at the foot
+of the stairs, asked for each visitor's invitation card and eyed him up
+and down suspiciously, making him feel as though they were going to
+search his pockets or take his finger-prints.
+
+The colonel, who received his guests on the first floor, made laughing
+apologies and seemed delighted at the opportunity of explaining the
+arrangements which he had invented to secure the safety of his hangings.
+His wife stood by him, looking charmingly young and pretty, fair-haired,
+pale and sinuous, with a sad and gentle expression, the expression of
+resignation often worn by those who are threatened by fate.
+
+When all the guests had come, the garden-gates and the hall-doors were
+closed. Then everybody filed into the middle gallery, which was reached
+through two steel doors, while its windows, with their huge shutters,
+were protected by iron bars. This was where the twelve tapestries were
+kept.
+
+They were matchless works of art and, taking their inspiration from the
+famous Bayeux Tapestry, attributed to Queen Matilda, they represented
+the story of the Norman Conquest. They had been ordered in the
+fourteenth century by the descendant of a man-at-arms in William the
+Conqueror's train; were executed by Jehan Gosset, a famous Arras weaver;
+and were discovered, five hundred years later, in an old Breton
+manor-house. On hearing of this, the colonel had struck a bargain for
+fifty thousand francs. They were worth ten times the money.
+
+But the finest of the twelve hangings composing the set, the most
+uncommon because the subject had not been treated by Queen Matilda, was
+the one which Arsène Lupin had stolen and which had been so fortunately
+recovered. It portrayed Edith Swan-neck on the battlefield of Hastings,
+seeking among the dead for the body of her sweetheart Harold, last of
+the Saxon kings.
+
+The guests were lost in enthusiasm over this tapestry, over the
+unsophisticated beauty of the design, over the faded colours, over the
+life-like grouping of the figures and the pitiful sadness of the scene.
+Poor Edith Swan-neck stood drooping like an overweighted lily. Her white
+gown revealed the lines of her languid figure. Her long, tapering hands
+were outstretched in a gesture of terror and entreaty. And nothing could
+be more mournful than her profile, over which flickered the most
+dejected and despairing of smiles.
+
+"A harrowing smile," remarked one of the critics, to whom the others
+listened with deference. "A very charming smile, besides; and it reminds
+me, Colonel, of the smile of Mme. Sparmiento."
+
+And seeing that the observation seemed to meet with approval, he
+enlarged upon his idea:
+
+"There are other points of resemblance that struck me at once, such as
+the very graceful curve of the neck and the delicacy of the hands ...
+and also something about the figure, about the general attitude...."
+
+"What you say is so true," said the colonel, "that I confess that it was
+this likeness that decided me to buy the hangings. And there was another
+reason, which was that, by a really curious chance, my wife's name
+happens to be Edith. I have called her Edith Swan-neck ever since." And
+the colonel added, with a laugh, "I hope that the coincidence will stop
+at this and that my dear Edith will never have to go in search of her
+true-love's body, like her prototype."
+
+He laughed as he uttered these words, but his laugh met with no echo;
+and we find the same impression of awkward silence in all the accounts
+of the evening that appeared during the next few days. The people
+standing near him did not know what to say. One of them tried to jest:
+
+"Your name isn't Harold, Colonel?"
+
+"No, thank you," he declared, with continued merriment. "No, that's not
+my name; nor am I in the least like the Saxon king."
+
+All have since agreed in stating that, at that moment, as the colonel
+finished speaking, the first alarm rang from the windows--the right or
+the middle window: opinions differ on this point--rang short and shrill
+on a single note. The peal of the alarm-bell was followed by an
+exclamation of terror uttered by Mme. Sparmiento, who caught hold of her
+husband's arm. He cried:
+
+"What's the matter? What does this mean?"
+
+The guests stood motionless, with their eyes staring at the windows. The
+colonel repeated:
+
+"What does it mean? I don't understand. No one but myself knows where
+that bell is fixed...."
+
+And, at that moment--here again the evidence is unanimous--at that
+moment came sudden, absolute darkness, followed immediately by the
+maddening din of all the bells and all the gongs, from top to bottom of
+the house, in every room and at every window.
+
+For a few seconds, a stupid disorder, an insane terror, reigned. The
+women screamed. The men banged with their fists on the closed doors.
+They hustled and fought. People fell to the floor and were trampled
+under foot. It was like a panic-stricken crowd, scared by threatening
+flames or by a bursting shell. And, above the uproar, rose the colonel's
+voice, shouting:
+
+"Silence!... Don't move!... It's all right!... The switch is over there,
+in the corner.... Wait a bit.... Here!"
+
+He had pushed his way through his guests and reached a corner of the
+gallery; and, all at once, the electric light blazed up again, while the
+pandemonium of bells stopped.
+
+Then, in the sudden light, a strange sight met the eyes. Two ladies had
+fainted. Mme. Sparmiento, hanging to her husband's arm, with her knees
+dragging on the floor, and livid in the face, appeared half dead. The
+men, pale, with their neckties awry, looked as if they had all been in
+the wars.
+
+"The tapestries are there!" cried some one.
+
+There was a great surprise, as though the disappearance of those
+hangings ought to have been the natural result and the only plausible
+explanation of the incident. But nothing had been moved. A few valuable
+pictures, hanging on the walls, were there still. And, though the same
+din had reverberated all over the house, though all the rooms had been
+thrown into darkness, the detectives had seen no one entering or trying
+to enter.
+
+"Besides," said the colonel, "it's only the windows of the gallery that
+have alarms. Nobody but myself understands how they work; and I had not
+set them yet."
+
+People laughed loudly at the way in which they had been frightened, but
+they laughed without conviction and in a more or less shamefaced
+fashion, for each of them was keenly alive to the absurdity of his
+conduct. And they had but one thought--to get out of that house where,
+say what you would, the atmosphere was one of agonizing anxiety.
+
+Two journalists stayed behind, however; and the colonel joined them,
+after attending to Edith and handing her over to her maids. The three of
+them, together with the detectives, made a search that did not lead to
+the discovery of anything of the least interest. Then the colonel sent
+for some champagne; and the result was that it was not until a late
+hour--to be exact, a quarter to three in the morning--that the
+journalists took their leave, the colonel retired to his quarters, and
+the detectives withdrew to the room which had been set aside for them on
+the ground-floor.
+
+They took the watch by turns, a watch consisting, in the first place, in
+keeping awake and, next, in looking round the garden and visiting the
+gallery at intervals.
+
+These orders were scrupulously carried out, except between five and
+seven in the morning, when sleep gained the mastery and the men ceased
+to go their rounds. But it was broad daylight out of doors. Besides, if
+there had been the least sound of bells, would they not have woke up?
+
+Nevertheless, when one of them, at twenty minutes past seven, opened the
+door of the gallery and flung back the shutters, he saw that the twelve
+tapestries were gone.
+
+This man and the others were blamed afterward for not giving the alarm
+at once and for starting their own investigations before informing the
+colonel and telephoning to the local commissary. Yet this very excusable
+delay can hardly be said to have hampered the action of the police. In
+any case, the colonel was not told until half-past eight. He was dressed
+and ready to go out. The news did not seem to upset him beyond measure,
+or, at least, he managed to control his emotion. But the effort must
+have been too much for him, for he suddenly dropped into a chair and,
+for some moments, gave way to a regular fit of despair and anguish, most
+painful to behold in a man of his resolute appearance.
+
+Recovering and mastering himself, he went to the gallery, stared at the
+bare walls and then sat down at a table and hastily scribbled a letter,
+which he put into an envelope and sealed.
+
+"There," he said. "I'm in a hurry.... I have an important engagement....
+Here is a letter for the commissary of police." And, seeing the
+detectives' eyes upon him, he added, "I am giving the commissary my
+views ... telling him of a suspicion that occurs to me.... He must
+follow it up.... I will do what I can...."
+
+He left the house at a run, with excited gestures which the detectives
+were subsequently to remember.
+
+A few minutes later, the commissary of police arrived. He was handed the
+letter, which contained the following words:
+
+
+    "I am at the end of my tether. The theft of those tapestries
+    completes the crash which I have been trying to conceal for the
+    past year. I bought them as a speculation and was hoping to get a
+    million francs for them, thanks to the fuss that was made about
+    them. As it was, an American offered me six hundred thousand. It
+    meant my salvation. This means utter destruction.
+
+    "I hope that my dear wife will forgive the sorrow which I am
+    bringing upon her. Her name will be on my lips at the last moment."
+
+
+Mme. Sparmiento was informed. She remained aghast with horror, while
+inquiries were instituted and attempts made to trace the colonel's
+movements.
+
+Late in the afternoon, a telephone-message came from Ville d'Avray. A
+gang of railway-men had found a man's body lying at the entrance to a
+tunnel after a train had passed. The body was hideously mutilated; the
+face had lost all resemblance to anything human. There were no papers in
+the pockets. But the description answered to that of the colonel.
+
+Mme. Sparmiento arrived at Ville d'Avray, by motor-car, at seven o'clock
+in the evening. She was taken to a room at the railway-station. When the
+sheet that covered it was removed, Edith, Edith Swan-neck, recognized
+her husband's body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In these circumstances, Lupin did not receive his usual good notices in
+the press:
+
+
+    "Let him look to himself," jeered one leader-writer, summing up the
+    general opinion. "It would not take many exploits of this kind for
+    him to forfeit the popularity which has not been grudged him
+    hitherto. We have no use for Lupin, except when his rogueries are
+    perpetrated at the expense of shady company-promoters, foreign
+    adventurers, German barons, banks and financial companies. And,
+    above all, no murders! A burglar we can put up with; but a
+    murderer, no! If he is not directly guilty, he is at least
+    responsible for this death. There is blood upon his hands; the
+    arms on his escutcheon are stained gules...."
+
+
+The public anger and disgust were increased by the pity which Edith's
+pale face aroused. The guests of the night before gave their version of
+what had happened, omitting none of the impressive details; and a legend
+formed straightway around the fair-haired Englishwoman, a legend that
+assumed a really tragic character, owing to the popular story of the
+swan-necked heroine.
+
+And yet the public could not withhold its admiration of the
+extraordinary skill with which the theft had been effected. The police
+explained it, after a fashion. The detectives had noticed from the first
+and subsequently stated that one of the three windows of the gallery was
+wide open. There could be no doubt that Lupin and his confederates had
+entered through this window. It seemed a very plausible suggestion.
+Still, in that case, how were they able, first, to climb the garden
+railings, in coming and going, without being seen; secondly, to cross
+the garden and put up a ladder on the flower-border, without leaving the
+least trace behind; thirdly, to open the shutters and the window,
+without starting the bells and switching on the lights in the house?
+
+The police accused the three detectives of complicity. The magistrate
+in charge of the case examined them at length, made minute inquiries
+into their private lives and stated formally that they were above all
+suspicion. As for the tapestries, there seemed to be no hope that they
+would be recovered.
+
+It was at this moment that Chief-inspector Ganimard returned from India,
+where he had been hunting for Lupin on the strength of a number of most
+convincing proofs supplied by former confederates of Lupin himself.
+Feeling that he had once more been tricked by his everlasting adversary,
+fully believing that Lupin had dispatched him on this wild-goose chase
+so as to be rid of him during the business of the tapestries, he asked
+for a fortnight's leave of absence, called on Mme. Sparmiento and
+promised to avenge her husband.
+
+Edith had reached the point at which not even the thought of vengeance
+relieves the sufferer's pain. She had dismissed the three detectives on
+the day of the funeral and engaged just one man and an old
+cook-housekeeper to take the place of the large staff of servants the
+sight of whom reminded her too cruelly of the past. Not caring what
+happened, she kept her room and left Ganimard free to act as he pleased.
+
+He took up his quarters on the ground-floor and at once instituted a
+series of the most minute investigations. He started the inquiry
+afresh, questioned the people in the neighbourhood, studied the
+distribution of the rooms and set each of the burglar-alarms going
+thirty and forty times over.
+
+At the end of the fortnight, he asked for an extension of leave. The
+chief of the detective-service, who was at that time M. Dudouis, came to
+see him and found him perched on the top of a ladder, in the gallery.
+That day, the chief-inspector admitted that all his searches had proved
+useless.
+
+Two days later, however, M. Dudouis called again and discovered Ganimard
+in a very thoughtful frame of mind. A bundle of newspapers lay spread in
+front of him. At last, in reply to his superior's urgent questions, the
+chief-inspector muttered:
+
+"I know nothing, chief, absolutely nothing; but there's a confounded
+notion worrying me.... Only it seems so absurd.... And then it doesn't
+explain things.... On the contrary, it confuses them rather...."
+
+"Then ...?"
+
+"Then I implore you, chief, to have a little patience ... to let me go
+my own way. But if I telephone to you, some day or other, suddenly, you
+must jump into a taxi, without losing a minute. It will mean that I have
+discovered the secret."
+
+Forty-eight hours passed. Then, one morning, M. Dudouis received a
+telegram:
+
+
+"Going to Lille.
+
+                     "GANIMARD."
+
+
+"What the dickens can he want to go to Lille for?" wondered the
+chief-detective.
+
+The day passed without news, followed by another day. But M. Dudouis had
+every confidence in Ganimard. He knew his man, knew that the old
+detective was not one of those people who excite themselves for nothing.
+When Ganimard "got a move on him," it meant that he had sound reasons
+for doing so.
+
+As a matter of fact, on the evening of that second day, M. Dudouis was
+called to the telephone.
+
+"Is that you, chief?"
+
+"Is it Ganimard speaking?"
+
+Cautious men both, they began by making sure of each other's identity.
+As soon as his mind was eased on this point, Ganimard continued,
+hurriedly:
+
+"Ten men, chief, at once. And please come yourself."
+
+"Where are you?"
+
+"In the house, on the ground-floor. But I will wait for you just inside
+the garden-gate."
+
+"I'll come at once. In a taxi, of course?"
+
+"Yes, chief. Stop the taxi fifty yards from the house. I'll let you in
+when you whistle."
+
+Things took place as Ganimard had arranged. Shortly after midnight, when
+all the lights were out on the upper floors, he slipped into the street
+and went to meet M. Dudouis. There was a hurried consultation. The
+officers distributed themselves as Ganimard ordered. Then the chief and
+the chief-inspector walked back together, noiselessly crossed the garden
+and closeted themselves with every precaution:
+
+"Well, what's it all about?" asked M. Dudouis. "What does all this mean?
+Upon my word, we look like a pair of conspirators!"
+
+But Ganimard was not laughing. His chief had never seen him in such a
+state of perturbation, nor heard him speak in a voice denoting such
+excitement:
+
+"Any news, Ganimard?"
+
+"Yes, chief, and ... this time ...! But I can hardly believe it
+myself.... And yet I'm not mistaken: I know the real truth.... It may be
+as unlikely as you please, but it is the truth, the whole truth and
+nothing but the truth."
+
+He wiped away the drops of perspiration that trickled down his forehead
+and, after a further question from M. Dudouis, pulled himself together,
+swallowed a glass of water and began:
+
+"Lupin has often got the better of me...."
+
+"Look here, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, interrupting him. "Why can't you
+come straight to the point? Tell me, in two words, what's happened."
+
+"No, chief," retorted the chief-inspector, "it is essential that you
+should know the different stages which I have passed through. Excuse me,
+but I consider it indispensable." And he repeated: "I was saying, chief,
+that Lupin has often got the better of me and led me many a dance. But,
+in this contest in which I have always come out worst ... so far ... I
+have at least gained experience of his manner of play and learnt to know
+his tactics. Now, in the matter of the tapestries, it occurred to me
+almost from the start to set myself two problems. In the first place,
+Lupin, who never makes a move without knowing what he is after, was
+obviously aware that Colonel Sparmiento had come to the end of his money
+and that the loss of the tapestries might drive him to suicide.
+Nevertheless, Lupin, who hates the very thought of bloodshed, stole the
+tapestries."
+
+"There was the inducement," said M. Dudouis, "of the five or six hundred
+thousand francs which they are worth."
+
+"No, chief, I tell you once more, whatever the occasion might be, Lupin
+would not take life, nor be the cause of another person's death, for
+anything in this world, for millions and millions. That's the first
+point. In the second place, what was the object of all that disturbance,
+in the evening, during the house-warming party? Obviously, don't you
+think, to surround the business with an atmosphere of anxiety and
+terror, in the shortest possible time, and also to divert suspicion from
+the truth, which, otherwise, might easily have been suspected?... You
+seem not to understand, chief?"
+
+"Upon my word, I do not!"
+
+"As a matter of fact," said Ganimard, "as a matter of fact, it is not
+particularly plain. And I myself, when I put the problem before my mind
+in those same words, did not understand it very clearly.... And yet I
+felt that I was on the right track.... Yes, there was no doubt about it
+that Lupin wanted to divert suspicions ... to divert them to himself,
+Lupin, mark you ... so that the real person who was working the business
+might remain unknown...."
+
+"A confederate," suggested M. Dudouis. "A confederate, moving among the
+visitors, who set the alarms going ... and who managed to hide in the
+house after the party had broken up."
+
+"You're getting warm, chief, you're getting warm! It is certain that the
+tapestries, as they cannot have been stolen by any one making his way
+surreptitiously into the house, were stolen by somebody who remained in
+the house; and it is equally certain that, by taking the list of the
+people invited and inquiring into the antecedents of each of them, one
+might...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, chief, there's a 'but,' namely, that the three detectives had
+this list in their hands when the guests arrived and that they still had
+it when the guests left. Now sixty-three came in and sixty-three went
+away. So you see...."
+
+"Then do you suppose a servant?..."
+
+"No."
+
+"The detectives?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But, still ... but, still," said the chief, impatiently, "if the
+robbery was committed from the inside...."
+
+"That is beyond dispute," declared the inspector, whose excitement
+seemed to be nearing fever-point. "There is no question about it. All my
+investigations led to the same certainty. And my conviction gradually
+became so positive that I ended, one day, by drawing up this startling
+axiom: in theory and in fact, the robbery can only have been committed
+with the assistance of an accomplice staying in the house. Whereas there
+was no accomplice!"
+
+"That's absurd," said Dudouis.
+
+"Quite absurd," said Ganimard. "But, at the very moment when I uttered
+that absurd sentence, the truth flashed upon me."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Oh, a very dim, very incomplete, but still sufficient truth! With that
+clue to guide me, I was bound to find the way. Do you follow me, chief?"
+
+M. Dudouis sat silent. The same phenomenon that had taken place in
+Ganimard was evidently taking place in him. He muttered:
+
+"If it's not one of the guests, nor the servants, nor the private
+detectives, then there's no one left...."
+
+"Yes, chief, there's one left...."
+
+M. Dudouis started as though he had received a shock; and, in a voice
+that betrayed his excitement:
+
+"But, look here, that's preposterous."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Come, think for yourself!"
+
+"Go on, chief: say what's in your mind."
+
+"Nonsense! What do you mean?"
+
+"Go on, chief."
+
+"It's impossible! How can Sparmiento have been Lupin's accomplice?"
+
+Ganimard gave a little chuckle.
+
+"Exactly, Arsène Lupin's accomplice!... That explains everything. During
+the night, while the three detectives were downstairs watching, or
+sleeping rather, for Colonel Sparmiento had given them champagne to
+drink and perhaps doctored it beforehand, the said colonel took down the
+hangings and passed them out through the window of his bedroom. The room
+is on the second floor and looks out on another street, which was not
+watched, because the lower windows are walled up."
+
+M. Dudouis reflected and then shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"It's preposterous!" he repeated.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why? Because, if the colonel had been Arsène Lupin's accomplice, he
+would not have committed suicide after achieving his success."
+
+"Who says that he committed suicide?"
+
+"Why, he was found dead on the line!"
+
+"I told you, there is no such thing as death with Lupin."
+
+"Still, this was genuine enough. Besides, Mme. Sparmiento identified the
+body."
+
+"I thought you would say that, chief. The argument worried me too. There
+was I, all of a sudden, with three people in front of me instead of one:
+first, Arsène Lupin, cracksman; secondly, Colonel Sparmiento, his
+accomplice; thirdly, a dead man. Spare us! It was too much of a good
+thing!"
+
+Ganimard took a bundle of newspapers, untied it and handed one of them
+to Mr. Dudouis:
+
+"You remember, chief, last time you were here, I was looking through the
+papers.... I wanted to see if something had not happened, at that
+period, that might bear upon the case and confirm my supposition. Please
+read this paragraph."
+
+M. Dudouis took the paper and read aloud:
+
+
+    "Our Lille correspondent informs us that a curious incident has
+    occurred in that town. A corpse has disappeared from the local
+    morgue, the corpse of a man unknown who threw himself under the
+    wheels of a steam tram-car on the day before. No one is able to
+    suggest a reason for this disappearance."
+
+
+M. Dudouis sat thinking and then asked:
+
+"So ... you believe ...?"
+
+"I have just come from Lille," replied Ganimard, "and my inquiries leave
+not a doubt in my mind. The corpse was removed on the same night on
+which Colonel Sparmiento gave his house-warming. It was taken straight
+to Ville d'Avray by motor-car; and the car remained near the
+railway-line until the evening."
+
+"Near the tunnel, therefore," said M. Dudouis.
+
+"Next to it, chief."
+
+"So that the body which was found is merely that body, dressed in
+Colonel Sparmiento's clothes."
+
+"Precisely, chief."
+
+"Then Colonel Sparmiento is not dead?"
+
+"No more dead than you or I, chief."
+
+"But then why all these complications? Why the theft of one tapestry,
+followed by its recovery, followed by the theft of the twelve? Why that
+house-warming? Why that disturbance? Why everything? Your story won't
+hold water, Ganimard."
+
+"Only because you, chief, like myself, have stopped halfway; because,
+strange as this story already sounds, we must go still farther, very
+much farther, in the direction of the improbable and the astounding. And
+why not, after all? Remember that we are dealing with Arsène Lupin. With
+him, is it not always just the improbable and the astounding that we
+must look for? Must we not always go straight for the maddest
+suppositions? And, when I say the maddest, I am using the wrong word. On
+the contrary, the whole thing is wonderfully logical and so simple that
+a child could understand it. Confederates only betray you. Why employ
+confederates, when it is so easy and so natural to act for yourself, by
+yourself, with your own hands and by the means within your own reach?"
+
+"What are you saying?... What are you saying?... What are you saying?"
+cried M. Dudouis, in a sort of sing-song voice and a tone of
+bewilderment that increased with each separate exclamation.
+
+Ganimard gave a fresh chuckle.
+
+"Takes your breath away, chief, doesn't it? So it did mine, on the day
+when you came to see me here and when the notion was beginning to grow
+upon me. I was flabbergasted with astonishment. And yet I've had
+experience of my customer. I know what he's capable of.... But this, no,
+this was really a bit too stiff!"
+
+"It's impossible! It's impossible!" said M. Dudouis, in a low voice.
+
+"On the contrary, chief, it's quite possible and quite logical and quite
+normal. It's the threefold incarnation of one and the same individual. A
+schoolboy would solve the problem in a minute, by a simple process of
+elimination. Take away the dead man: there remains Sparmiento and Lupin.
+Take away Sparmiento...."
+
+"There remains Lupin," muttered the chief-detective.
+
+"Yes, chief, Lupin simply, Lupin in five letters and two syllables,
+Lupin taken out of his Brazilian skin, Lupin revived from the dead,
+Lupin translated, for the past six months, into Colonel Sparmiento,
+travelling in Brittany, hearing of the discovery of the twelve
+tapestries, buying them, planning the theft of the best of them, so as
+to draw attention to himself, Lupin, and divert it from himself,
+Sparmiento. Next, he brings about, in full view of the gaping public, a
+noisy contest between Lupin and Sparmiento or Sparmiento and Lupin,
+plots and gives the house-warming party, terrifies his guests and, when
+everything is ready, arranges for Lupin to steal Sparmiento's tapestries
+and for Sparmiento, Lupin's victim, to disappear from sight and die
+unsuspected, unsuspectable, regretted by his friends, pitied by the
+public and leaving behind him, to pocket the profits of the swindle...."
+
+Ganimard stopped, looked the chief in the eyes and, in a voice that
+emphasized the importance of his words, concluded:
+
+"Leaving behind him a disconsolate widow."
+
+"Mme. Sparmiento! You really believe....?
+
+"Hang it all!" said the chief-inspector. "People don't work up a whole
+business of this sort, without seeing something ahead of them ... solid
+profits."
+
+"But the profits, it seems to me, lie in the sale of the tapestries
+which Lupin will effect in America or elsewhere."
+
+"First of all, yes. But Colonel Sparmiento could effect that sale just
+as well. And even better. So there's something more."
+
+"Something more?"
+
+"Come, chief, you're forgetting that Colonel Sparmiento has been the
+victim of an important robbery and that, though he may be dead, at least
+his widow remains. So it's his widow who will get the money."
+
+"What money?"
+
+"What money? Why, the money due to her! The insurance-money, of course!"
+
+M. Dudouis was staggered. The whole business suddenly became clear to
+him, with its real meaning. He muttered:
+
+"That's true!... That's true!... The colonel had insured his
+tapestries...."
+
+"Rather! And for no trifle either."
+
+"For how much?"
+
+"Eight hundred thousand francs."
+
+"Eight hundred thousand?"
+
+"Just so. In five different companies."
+
+"And has Mme. Sparmiento had the money?"
+
+"She got a hundred and fifty thousand francs yesterday and two hundred
+thousand to-day, while I was away. The remaining payments are to be made
+in the course of this week."
+
+"But this is terrible! You ought to have...."
+
+"What, chief? To begin with, they took advantage of my absence to
+settle up accounts with the companies. I only heard about it on my
+return when I ran up against an insurance-manager whom I happen to know
+and took the opportunity of drawing him out."
+
+The chief-detective was silent for some time, not knowing what to say.
+Then he mumbled:
+
+"What a fellow, though!"
+
+Ganimard nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, chief, a blackguard, but, I can't help saying, a devil of a clever
+fellow. For his plan to succeed, he must have managed in such a way
+that, for four or five weeks, no one could express or even conceive the
+least suspicion of the part played by Colonel Sparmiento. All the
+indignation and all the inquiries had to be concentrated upon Lupin
+alone. In the last resort, people had to find themselves faced simply
+with a mournful, pitiful, penniless widow, poor Edith Swan-neck, a
+beautiful and legendary vision, a creature so pathetic that the
+gentlemen of the insurance-companies were almost glad to place something
+in her hands to relieve her poverty and her grief. That's what was
+wanted and that's what happened."
+
+The two men were close together and did not take their eyes from each
+other's faces.
+
+The chief asked:
+
+"Who is that woman?"
+
+"Sonia Kritchnoff."
+
+"Sonia Kritchnoff?"
+
+"Yes, the Russian girl whom I arrested last year at the time of the
+theft of the coronet, and whom Lupin helped to escape."[E]
+
+
+  [E] _Arsène Lupin._ The Novel of the Play. By Edgar Jepson and Maurice
+  Leblanc (Mills & Boon).
+
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Absolutely. I was put off the scent, like everybody else, by Lupin's
+machinations, and had paid no particular attention to her. But, when I
+knew the part which she was playing, I remembered. She is certainly
+Sonia, metamorphosed into an Englishwoman; Sonia, the most
+innocent-looking and the trickiest of actresses; Sonia, who would not
+hesitate to face death for love of Lupin."
+
+"A good capture, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, approvingly.
+
+"I've something better still for you, chief!"
+
+"Really? What?"
+
+"Lupin's old foster-mother."
+
+"Victoire?"[F]
+
+
+  [F] _The Hollow Needle._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander
+  Teixeira de Mattos (Nash). _813_ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by
+  Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (Mills & Boon).
+
+
+"She has been here since Mme. Sparmiento began playing the widow; she's
+the cook."
+
+"Oho!" said M. Dudouis. "My congratulations, Ganimard!"
+
+"I've something for you, chief, that's even better than that!"
+
+M. Dudouis gave a start. The inspector's hand clutched his and was
+shaking with excitement.
+
+"What do you mean, Ganimard?"
+
+"Do you think, chief, that I would have brought you here, at this late
+hour, if I had had nothing more attractive to offer you than Sonia and
+Victoire? Pah! They'd have kept!"
+
+"You mean to say ...?" whispered M. Dudouis, at last, understanding the
+chief-inspector's agitation.
+
+"You've guessed it, chief!"
+
+"Is he here?"
+
+"He's here."
+
+"In hiding?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. Simply in disguise. He's the man-servant."
+
+This time, M. Dudouis did not utter a word nor make a gesture. Lupin's
+audacity confounded him.
+
+Ganimard chuckled.
+
+"It's no longer a threefold, but a fourfold incarnation. Edith Swan-neck
+might have blundered. The master's presence was necessary; and he had
+the cheek to return. For three weeks, he has been beside me during my
+inquiry, calmly following the progress made."
+
+"Did you recognize him?"
+
+"One doesn't recognize him. He has a knack of making-up his face and
+altering the proportions of his body so as to prevent any one from
+knowing him. Besides, I was miles from suspecting.... But, this evening,
+as I was watching Sonia in the shadow of the stairs, I heard Victoire
+speak to the man-servant and call him, 'Dearie.' A light flashed in upon
+me. 'Dearie!' That was what she always used to call him. And I knew
+where I was."
+
+M. Dudouis seemed flustered, in his turn, by the presence of the enemy,
+so often pursued and always so intangible:
+
+"We've got him, this time," he said, between his teeth. "We've got him;
+and he can't escape us."
+
+"No, chief, he can't: neither he nor the two women."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"Sonia and Victoire are on the second floor; Lupin is on the third."
+
+M. Dudouis suddenly became anxious:
+
+"Why, it was through the windows of one of those floors that the
+tapestries were passed when they disappeared!"
+
+"That's so, chief."
+
+"In that case, Lupin can get away too. The windows look out on the Rue
+Dufresnoy."
+
+"Of course they do, chief; but I have taken my precautions. The moment
+you arrived, I sent four of our men to keep watch under the windows in
+the Rue Dufresnoy. They have strict instructions to shoot, if any one
+appears at the windows and looks like coming down. Blank cartridges for
+the first shot, ball-cartridges for the next."
+
+"Good, Ganimard! You have thought of everything. We'll wait here; and,
+immediately after sunrise...."
+
+"Wait, chief? Stand on ceremony with that rascal? Bother about rules and
+regulations, legal hours and all that rot? And suppose he's not quite so
+polite to us and gives us the slip meanwhile? Suppose he plays us one of
+his Lupin tricks? No, no, we must have no nonsense! We've got him: let's
+collar him; and that without delay!"
+
+And Ganimard, all a-quiver with indignant impatience, went out, walked
+across the garden and presently returned with half-a-dozen men:
+
+"It's all right, chief. I've told them, in the Rue Dufresnoy, to get
+their revolvers out and aim at the windows. Come along."
+
+These alarums and excursions had not been effected without a certain
+amount of noise, which was bound to be heard by the inhabitants of the
+house. M. Dudouis felt that his hand was forced. He made up his mind to
+act:
+
+"Come on, then," he said.
+
+The thing did not take long. The eight of them, Browning pistols in
+hand, went up the stairs without overmuch precaution, eager to surprise
+Lupin before he had time to organize his defences.
+
+"Open the door!" roared Ganimard, rushing at the door of Mme.
+Sparmiento's bedroom.
+
+A policeman smashed it in with his shoulder.
+
+There was no one in the room; and no one in Victoire's bedroom either.
+
+"They're all upstairs!" shouted Ganimard. "They've gone up to Lupin in
+his attic. Be careful now!"
+
+All the eight ran up the third flight of stairs. To his great
+astonishment, Ganimard found the door of the attic open and the attic
+empty. And the other rooms were empty too.
+
+"Blast them!" he cursed. "What's become of them?"
+
+But the chief called him. M. Dudouis, who had gone down again to the
+second floor, noticed that one of the windows was not latched, but just
+pushed to:
+
+"There," he said, to Ganimard, "that's the road they took, the road of
+the tapestries. I told you as much: the Rue Dufresnoy...."
+
+"But our men would have fired on them," protested Ganimard, grinding his
+teeth with rage. "The street's guarded."
+
+"They must have gone before the street was guarded."
+
+"They were all three of them in their rooms when I rang you up, chief!"
+
+"They must have gone while you were waiting for me in the garden."
+
+"But why? Why? There was no reason why they should go to-day rather than
+to-morrow, or the next day, or next week, for that matter, when they had
+pocketed all the insurance-money!"
+
+Yes, there was a reason; and Ganimard knew it when he saw, on the table,
+a letter addressed to himself and opened it and read it. The letter was
+worded in the style of the testimonials which we hand to people in our
+service who have given satisfaction:
+
+
+    "I, the undersigned, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, ex-colonel,
+    ex-man-of-all-work, ex-corpse, hereby certify that the person of
+    the name of Ganimard gave proof of the most remarkable qualities
+    during his stay in this house. He was exemplary in his behaviour,
+    thoroughly devoted and attentive; and, unaided by the least clue,
+    he foiled a part of my plans and saved the insurance-companies four
+    hundred and fifty thousand francs. I congratulate him; and I am
+    quite willing to overlook his blunder in not anticipating that the
+    downstairs telephone communicates with the telephone in Sonia
+    Kritchnoff's bedroom and that, when telephoning to Mr.
+    Chief-detective, he was at the same time telephoning to me to clear
+    out as fast as I could. It was a pardonable slip, which must not be
+    allowed to dim the glamour of his services nor to detract from the
+    merits of his victory.
+
+    "Having said this, I beg him to accept the homage of my admiration
+    and of my sincere friendship.
+
+                                         "ARSÈNE LUPIN"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of Arsène Lupin, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN ***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thecountsmillions b/files/books/unrelated/thecountsmillions
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..915454e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thecountsmillions
@@ -0,0 +1,12315 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Count’s Millions, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Count’s Millions
+       Volume 1 (of 2)
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2008 [EBook #305]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNT’S MILLIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hamm
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNT’S MILLIONS
+
+By Emile Gaboriau
+
+Translated from the French
+
+
+A novel in two parts. Part Two of this novel is found in the volume:
+Baron Trigault’s Vengeance
+
+
+
+
+
+PASCAL AND MARGUERITE.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+It was a Thursday evening, the fifteenth of October; and although only
+half-past six o’clock, it had been dark for some time already. The
+weather was cold, and the sky was as black as ink, while the wind blew
+tempestuously, and the rain fell in torrents.
+
+The servants at the Hotel de Chalusse, one of the most magnificent
+mansions in the Rue de Courcelles in Paris, were assembled in the
+porter’s lodge, a little building comprising a couple of rooms standing
+on the right hand side of the great gateway. Here, as in all large
+mansions, the “concierge” or porter, M. Bourigeau, was a person of
+immense importance, always able and disposed to make any one who was
+inclined to doubt his authority, feel it in cruel fashion. As could be
+easily seen, he held all the other servants in his power. He could
+let them absent themselves without leave, if he chose, and conceal all
+returns late at night after the closing of public balls and wine-shops.
+Thus, it is needless to say that M. Bourigeau and his wife were treated
+by their fellow-servants with the most servile adulation.
+
+The owner of the house was not at home that evening, so that M. Casimir,
+the count’s head valet, was serving coffee for the benefit of all the
+retainers. And while the company sipped the fragrant beverage which had
+been generously tinctured with cognac, provided by the butler, they all
+united in abusing their common enemy, the master of the house. For the
+time being, a pert little waiting-maid, with an odious turn-up nose, had
+the floor. She was addressing her remarks to a big, burly, and rather
+insolent-looking fellow, who had been added only the evening before to
+the corps of footmen. “The place is really intolerable,” she was saying.
+“The wages are high, the food of the very best, the livery just such
+as would show off a good-looking man to the best advantage, and Madame
+Leon, the housekeeper, who has entire charge of everything, is not too
+lynx-eyed.”
+
+“And the work?”
+
+“A mere nothing. Think, there are eighteen of us to serve only two
+persons, the count and Mademoiselle Marguerite. But then there is never
+any pleasure, never any amusement here.”
+
+“What! is one bored then?”
+
+“Bored to death. This grand house is worse than a tomb. No receptions,
+no dinners--nothing. Would you believe it, I have never seen the
+reception-rooms! They are always closed; and the furniture is dropping
+to pieces under its coverings. There are not three visitors in the
+course of a month.”
+
+She was evidently incensed, and the new footman seemed to share her
+indignation. “Why, how is it?” he exclaimed. “Is the count an owl? A
+man who’s not yet fifty years old, and who’s said to be worth several
+millions.”
+
+“Yes, millions; you may safely say it--and perhaps ten, perhaps twenty
+millions too.”
+
+“Then all the more reason why there should be something going on here.
+What does he do with himself alone, all the blessed day?”
+
+“Nothing. He reads in the library, or wanders about the garden.
+Sometimes, in the evening, he drives with Mademoiselle Marguerite to the
+Bois de Boulogne in a closed carriage; but that seldom happens. Besides,
+there is no such thing as teasing the poor man. I’ve been in the house
+for six months, and I’ve never heard him say anything but: ‘yes’; ‘no’;
+‘do this’; ‘very well’; ‘retire.’ You would think these are the only
+words he knows. Ask M. Casimir if I’m not right.”
+
+“Our guv’nor isn’t very gay, that’s a fact,” responded the valet.
+
+The footman was listening with a serious air, as if greatly interested
+in the character of the people whom he was to serve. “And mademoiselle,”
+ he asked, “what does she say to such an existence?”
+
+“Bless me! during the six months she has been here, she has never once
+complained.”
+
+“If she is bored,” added M. Casimir, “she conceals it bravely.”
+
+“Naturally enough,” sneered the waiting-maid, with an ironical gesture;
+“each month that mademoiselle remains here, brings her too much money
+for her to complain.”
+
+By the laugh that greeted this reply, and by the looks the older
+servants exchanged, the new-comer must have realized that he had
+discovered the secret skeleton hidden in every house. “What! what!” he
+exclaimed, on fire with curiosity; “is there really anything in that? To
+tell the truth, I was inclined to doubt it.”
+
+His companions were evidently about to tell him all they knew, or rather
+all they thought they knew, when the front-door bell rang vigorously.
+
+“There he comes!” exclaimed the concierge; “but he’s in too much of a
+hurry; hell have to wait awhile.”
+
+He sullenly pulled the cord, however; the heavy door swayed on its
+hinges, and a cab-driver, breathless and hatless, burst into the room,
+crying, “Help! help!”
+
+The servants sprang to their feet.
+
+“Make haste!” continued the driver. “I was bringing a gentleman
+here--you must know him. He’s outside, in my vehicle----”
+
+Without pausing to listen any longer, the servants rushed out, and the
+driver’s incoherent explanation at once became intelligible. At the
+bottom of the cab, a roomy four-wheeler, a man was lying all of a heap,
+speechless and motionless. He must have fallen forward, face downward,
+and owing to the jolting of the vehicle his head had slipped under the
+front seat.
+
+“Poor devil!” muttered M. Casimir, “he must have had a stroke of
+apoplexy.” The valet was peering into the vehicle as he spoke, and his
+comrades were approaching, when suddenly he drew back, uttering a cry of
+horror. “Ah, my God! it is the count!”
+
+Whenever there is an accident in Paris, a throng of inquisitive
+spectators seems to spring up from the very pavement, and indeed more
+than fifty persons had already congregated round about the vehicle. This
+circumstance restored M. Casimir’s composure; or, at least, some portion
+of it. “You must drive into the courtyard,” he said, addressing the
+cabman. “M. Bourigeau, open the gate, if you please.” And then, turning
+to another servant, he added:
+
+“And you must make haste and fetch a physician--no matter who. Run to
+the nearest doctor, and don’t return until you bring one with you.”
+
+The concierge had opened the gate, but the driver had disappeared; they
+called him, and on receiving no reply the valet seized the reins and
+skilfully guided the cab through the gateway.
+
+Having escaped the scrutiny of the crowd, it now remained to remove the
+count from the vehicle, and this was a difficult task, on account of the
+singular position of his body; still, they succeeded at last, by opening
+both doors of the cab, the three strongest men uniting in their efforts.
+Then they placed him in a large arm-chair, carried him to his own room,
+and speedily had him undressed and in bed.
+
+He had so far given no sign of life; and as he lay there with his head
+weighing heavily on the pillow, you might have thought that all was
+over. His most intimate friend would scarcely have recognized him. His
+features were swollen and discolored; his eyes were closed, and a dark
+purple circle, looking almost like a terrible bruise, extended round
+them. A spasm had twisted his lips, and his distorted mouth, which was
+drawn on one side and hung half open imparted a most sinister expression
+to his face. In spite of every precaution, he had been wounded as he was
+removed from the cab. His forehead had been grazed by a piece of iron,
+and a tiny stream of blood was trickling down upon his face. However,
+he still breathed; and by listening attentively, one could distinguish a
+faint rattling in his throat.
+
+The servants, who had been so garrulous a few moments before, were
+silent now. They lingered in the room, exchanging glances of mute
+consternation. Their faces were pale and sad, and there were tears in
+the eyes of some of them. What was passing in their minds? Perhaps they
+were overcome by that unconquerable fear which sudden and unexpected
+death always provokes. Perhaps they unconsciously loved this master,
+whose bread they ate. Perhaps their grief was only selfishness, and they
+were merely wondering what would become of them, where they should find
+another situation, and if it would prove a good one. Not knowing what to
+do, they talked together in subdued voices, each suggesting some remedy
+he had heard spoken of for such cases. The more sensible among them were
+proposing to go and inform mademoiselle or Madame Leon, whose rooms
+were on the floor above, when the rustling of a skirt against the door
+suddenly made them turn. The person whom they called “mademoiselle” was
+standing on the threshold.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was a beautiful young girl, about twenty years
+of age. She was a brunette of medium height, with big gloomy eyes shaded
+by thick eyebrows. Heavy masses of jet-black hair wreathed her lofty but
+rather sad and thoughtful forehead. There was something peculiar in
+her face--an expression of concentrated suffering, and a sort of proud
+resignation, mingled with timidity.
+
+“What has happened?” she asked, gently. “What is the cause of all
+the noise I have heard? I have rung three times and the bell was not
+answered.”
+
+No one ventured to reply, and in her surprise she cast a hasty glance
+around. From where she stood, she could not see the bed stationed in an
+alcove; but she instantly noted the dejected attitude of the servants,
+the clothing scattered about the floor, and the disorder that pervaded
+this magnificent but severely furnished chamber, which was only lighted
+by the lamp which M. Bourigeau, the concierge, carried. A sudden dread
+seized her; she shuddered, and in a faltering voice she added: “Why are
+you all here? Speak, tell me what has happened.”
+
+M. Casimir stepped forward. “A great misfortune, mademoiselle, a
+terrible misfortune. The count----”
+
+And he paused, frightened by what he was about to say.
+
+But Mademoiselle Marguerite had understood him. She clasped both hands
+to her heart, as if she had received a fatal wound, and uttered the
+single word: “Lost!”
+
+The next moment she turned as pale as death, her head drooped, her eyes
+closed, and she staggered as if about to fall. Two maids sprang forward
+to support her, but she gently repulsed them, murmuring, “Thanks!
+thanks! I am strong now.”
+
+She was, in fact, sufficiently strong to conquer her weakness. She
+summoned all her resolution, and, paler than a statue, with set teeth
+and dry, glittering eyes, she approached the alcove. She stood there for
+a moment perfectly motionless, murmuring a few unintelligible words; but
+at last, crushed by her sorrow, she sank upon her knees beside the bed,
+buried her face in the counterpane and wept.
+
+Deeply moved by the sight of this despair, the servants held their
+breath, wondering how it would all end. It ended suddenly. The girl
+sprang from her knees, as if a gleam of hope had darted through her
+heart. “A physician!” she said, eagerly.
+
+“I have sent for one, mademoiselle,” replied M. Casimir. And hearing
+a voice and a sound of footsteps on the staircase, he added: “And
+fortunately, here he comes.”
+
+The doctor entered. He was a young man, although his head was almost
+quite bald. He was short, very thin, clean-shaven, and clad in black
+from head to foot. Without a word, without a bow, he walked straight to
+the bedside, lifted the unconscious man’s eyelids, felt his pulse, and
+uncovered his chest, applying his ear to it. “This is a serious case,”
+ he said at the close of his examination.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, who had followed his movements with the most
+poignant anxiety, could not repress a sob. “But all hope is not lost,
+is it, monsieur?” she asked in a beseeching voice, with hands clasped
+in passionate entreaty. “You will save him, will you not--you will save
+him?”
+
+“One may always hope for the best.”
+
+This was the doctor’s only answer. He had drawn his case of instruments
+from his pocket, and was testing the points of his lancets on the tip
+of his finger. When he had found one to his liking: “I must ask you,
+mademoiselle,” said he, “to order these women to retire, and to retire
+yourself. The men will remain to assist me, if I require help.”
+
+She obeyed submissively, but instead of returning to her own room,
+she remained in the hall, seating herself upon the lower step of the
+staircase near the door, counting the seconds, and drawing a thousand
+conjectures from the slightest sound.
+
+Meanwhile, inside the room, the physician was proceeding slowly, not
+from temperament however, but from principle. Dr. Jodon--for such was
+his name--was an ambitious man who played a part. Educated by a “prince
+of science,” more celebrated for the money he gained than for the cures
+he effected, he copied his master’s method, his gestures, and even the
+inflections of his voice. By casting in people’s eyes the same powder as
+his teacher had employed, he hoped to obtain the same results: a large
+practice and an immense fortune. In his secret heart he was by no means
+disconcerted by his patient’s condition; on the contrary, he did not
+consider the count’s state nearly as precarious as it really was.
+
+But bleeding and cupping alike failed to bring the sick man to
+consciousness. He remained speechless and motionless; the only result
+obtained, was that his breathing became a trifle easier. Finding his
+endeavors fruitless, the doctor at last declared that all immediate
+remedies were exhausted, that “the women” might be allowed to return,
+and that nothing now remained but to wait for the effect of the remedies
+he was about to prescribe, and which they must procure from the nearest
+chemist.
+
+Any other man would have been touched by the agony of entreaty contained
+in the glance that Mademoiselle Marguerite cast upon the physician as
+she returned into the room; but it did not affect him in the least. He
+calmly said, “I cannot give my decision as yet.”
+
+“My God!” murmured the unhappy girl; “oh, my God, have mercy upon me!”
+
+But the doctor, copying his model, had stationed himself near the
+fireplace, with his elbow leaning on the mantel-shelf, in a graceful,
+though rather pompous attitude. “Now,” he said, addressing his remarks
+to M. Casimir, “I desire to make a few inquiries. Is this the first time
+the Count de Chalusse has had such an attack?”
+
+“Yes, sir--at least since I have been in attendance upon him.”
+
+“Very good. That is a chance in our favor. Tell me--have you ever heard
+him complain of vertigo, or of a buzzing in his ears?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite seemed inclined to volunteer some remark, but
+the doctor imposed silence upon her by a gesture, and continued his
+examination. “Is the count a great eater?” he inquired. “Does he drink
+heavily?”
+
+“The count is moderation itself, monsieur, and he always takes a great
+deal of water with his wine.”
+
+The doctor listened with an air of intent thoughtfulness, his head
+slightly inclined forward, his brow contracted, and his under lip puffed
+out, while from time to time he stroked his beardless chin. He was
+copying his master. “The devil!” he said, sotto voce. “There must
+be some cause for such an attack, however. Nothing in the count’s
+constitution predisposes him to such an accident----” Then, suddenly
+turning toward Mademoiselle Marguerite: “Do you know, mademoiselle,
+whether the count has experienced any very violent emotion during the
+past few days?”
+
+“Something occurred this very morning, which seemed to annoy him very
+much.”
+
+“Ah! now we have it,” said the doctor, with the air of an oracle. “Why
+did you not tell me all this at first? It will be necessary for you to
+give me the particulars, mademoiselle.”
+
+The young girl hesitated. The servants were dazed by the doctor’s
+manner; but Mademoiselle Marguerite was far from sharing their awe
+and admiration. She would have given anything to have had the regular
+physician of the household there instead of him! As for this coarse
+examination in the presence of all these servants, and by the bedside of
+a man who, in spite of his apparent unconsciousness, was, perhaps, able
+to hear and to comprehend, she looked upon it as a breach of delicacy,
+even of propriety.
+
+“It is of the most urgent importance that I should be fully informed of
+these particulars,” repeated the physician peremptorily.
+
+After such an assertion, further hesitation was out of the question.
+Mademoiselle Marguerite seemed to collect her thoughts, and then she
+sadly said: “Just as we sat down to breakfast this morning, a letter
+was handed to the count. No sooner had his eyes fallen upon it, than he
+turned as white as his napkin. He rose from his seat and began to walk
+hastily up and down the dining-room, uttering exclamations of anger and
+sorrow. I spoke to him, but he did not seem to hear me. However, after a
+few moments, he resumed his seat at the table, and began to eat----”
+
+“As usual?”
+
+“He ate more than usual, monsieur. Only I must tell you that it seemed
+to me he was scarcely conscious of what he was doing. Four or five times
+he left the table, and then came back again. At last, after quite a
+struggle, he seemed to come to some decision. He tore the letter to
+pieces, and threw the pieces out of the window that opens upon the
+garden.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite expressed herself with the utmost simplicity,
+and there was certainly nothing particularly extraordinary in her story.
+Still, those around her listened with breathless curiosity, as though
+they were expecting some startling revelation, so much does the
+human mind abhor that which is natural and incline to that which is
+mysterious.
+
+Without seeming to notice the effect she had produced, and addressing
+herself to the physician alone, the girl continued: “After the letter
+was destroyed, M. de Chalusse seemed himself again. Coffee was served,
+and he afterward lighted a cigar as usual. However, he soon let it go
+out. I dared not disturb him by any remarks; but suddenly he said to me:
+‘It’s strange, but I feel very uncomfortable.’ A moment passed, without
+either of us speaking, and then he added: ‘I am certainly not well.
+Will you do me the favor to go to my room for me? Here is the key of my
+escritoire; open it, and on the upper shelf you will find a small bottle
+which please bring to me.’ I noticed with some surprise that M. de
+Chalusse, who usually speaks very distinctly, stammered and hesitated
+considerably in making this request, but, unfortunately, I did not think
+much about it at the time. I did as he requested, and he poured eight
+or ten drops of the contents of the vial into a glass of water, and
+swallowed it.”
+
+So intense was Dr. Jodon’s interest that he became himself again. He
+forgot to attitudinize. “And after that?” he asked, eagerly.
+
+“After that, M. de Chalusse seemed to feel much better, and retired to
+his study as usual. I fancied that any annoyance the letter had caused
+him was forgotten; but I was wrong, for in the afternoon he sent a
+message, through Madame Leon, requesting me to join him in the garden.
+I hastened there, very much surprised, for the weather was extremely
+disagreeable. ‘Dear Marguerite,’ he said, on seeing me, ‘help me to find
+the fragments of that letter which I flung from the window this morning.
+I would give half my fortune for an address which it must certainly have
+contained, but which I quite overlooked in my anger.’ I helped him as
+he asked. He might have reasonably hoped to succeed, for it was raining
+when the scraps of paper were thrown out, and instead of flying through
+the air, they fell directly on to the ground. We succeeded in finding
+a large number of the scraps, but what M. de Chalusse so particularly
+wanted was not to be read on any one of them. Several times he spoke of
+his regret, and cursed his precipitation.”
+
+M. Bourigeau, the concierge, and M. Casimir exchanged a significant
+smile. They had seen the count searching for the remnants of this
+letter, and had thought him little better than an idiot. But now
+everything was explained.
+
+“I was much grieved at the count’s disappointment,” continued
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, “but suddenly he exclaimed, joyfully: ‘That
+address--why, such a person will give it to me--what a fool I am!’”
+
+The physician evinced such absorbing interest in this narrative that he
+forgot to retain his usual impassive attitude. “Such a person! Who--who
+was this person?” he inquired eagerly, without apparently realizing the
+impropriety of his question.
+
+But the girl felt indignant. She silenced her indiscreet questioner
+with a haughty glance, and in the driest possible tone, replied: “I have
+forgotten the name.”
+
+Cut to the quick, the doctor suddenly resumed his master’s pose; but all
+the same his imperturbable sang-froid was sensibly impaired. “Believe
+me, mademoiselle, that interest alone--a most respectful interest--”
+
+She did not even seem to hear his excuse, but resumed: “I know, however,
+monsieur, that M. de Chalusse intended applying to the police if he
+failed to obtain this address from the person in question. After this he
+appeared to be entirely at ease. At three o’clock he rang for his valet,
+and ordered dinner two hours earlier than usual. We sat down to table
+at about half-past four. At five he rose, kissed me gayly, and left the
+house on foot, telling me that he was confident of success, and that he
+did not expect to return before midnight.” The poor child’s firmness now
+gave way; her eyes filled with tears, and it was in a voice choked with
+sobs that she added, pointing to M. de Chalusse: “But at half-past six
+they brought him back as you see him now----”
+
+An interval of silence ensued, so deep that one could hear the faint
+breathing of the unconscious man still lying motionless on his bed.
+However, the particulars of the attack were yet to be learned; and it
+was M. Casimir whom the physician next addressed. “What did the driver
+who brought your master home say to you?”
+
+“Oh! almost nothing, sir; not ten words.”
+
+“You must find this man and bring him to me.”
+
+Two servants rushed out in search of him. He could not be far away, for
+his vehicle was still standing in the courtyard. They found him in
+a wine-shop near by. Some of the inquisitive spectators who had been
+disappointed in their curiosity by Casimir’s thoughtfulness had treated
+him to some liquor, and in exchange he had told them all he knew about
+the affair. He had quite recovered from his fright, and was cheerful,
+even gay.
+
+“Come make haste, you are wanted,” said the servants.
+
+He emptied his glass and followed them with very bad grace, muttering
+and swearing between his set teeth. The doctor, strange to say, was
+considerate enough to go out into the hall to question him; but no
+information of value was gained by the man’s answers. He declared that
+the gentleman had hired him at twelve o’clock, hoping by this means
+to extort pay for five hours’ driving, which, joined to the liberal
+gratuity he could not fail to obtain, would remunerate him handsomely
+for his day’s work. Living is dear, it should be remembered, and a
+fellow makes as much as he can.
+
+When the cabby had gone off, still growling, although a couple of louis
+had been placed in his hand, the doctor returned to his patient. He
+involuntarily assumed his accustomed attitude, with crossed arms, a
+gloomy expression of countenance, and his forehead furrowed as if with
+thought and anxiety. But this time he was not acting a part. In spite,
+or rather by reason of, the full explanation that had been given him,
+he found something suspicious and mysterious in the whole affair. A
+thousand vague and undefinable suspicions crossed his mind. Was he in
+presence of a crime? Certainly, evidently not. But what was the cause
+then of the mystery and reticence he detected? Was he upon the track of
+some lamentable family secret--one of those terrible scandals, concealed
+for a long time, but which at last burst forth with startling effect?
+The prospect of being mixed up in such an affair caused him infinite
+pleasure. It would bring him into notice; he would be mentioned in the
+papers; and his increased practice would fill his hands with gold.
+
+But what could he do to ingratiate himself with these people, impose
+himself upon them if needs be? He reflected for some time, and finally
+what he thought an excellent plan occurred to him. He approached
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, who was weeping in an arm-chair, and touched
+her gently on the shoulder. She sprang to her feet at once. “One more
+question, mademoiselle,” said he, imparting as much solemnity to his
+tone as he could. “Do you know what liquid it was that M. de Chalusse
+took this morning?”
+
+“Alas! no, monsieur.”
+
+“It is very important that I should know. The accuracy of my diagnosis
+is dependent upon it. What has become of the vial?”
+
+“I think M. de Chalusse replaced it in his escritoire.”
+
+The physician pointed to an article of furniture to the left of the
+fireplace: “There?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+He deliberated, but at last conquering his hesitation, he said: “Could
+we not obtain this vial?”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite blushed. “I haven’t the key,” she faltered, in
+evident embarrassment.
+
+M. Casimir approached: “It must be in the count’s pocket, and if
+mademoiselle will allow me----”
+
+But she stepped back with outstretched arms as if to protect the
+escritoire. “No,” she exclaimed, “no--the escritoire shall not be
+touched. I will not permit it----”
+
+“But, mademoiselle,” insisted the doctor, “your father----”
+
+“The Count de Chalusse is not my father!”
+
+Dr. Jodon was greatly disconcerted by Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+vehemence. “Ah!” said he, in three different tones, “ah! ah!”
+
+In less than a second, a thousand strange and contradictory suppositions
+darted through his brain. Who, then, could this girl be, if she were not
+Mademoiselle de Chalusse? What right had she in that house? How was
+it that she reigned as a sovereign there? Above all, why this angry
+outburst for no other apparent cause than a very natural and exceedingly
+insignificant request on his part?
+
+However, she had regained her self-possession, and it was easy to see
+by her manner that she was seeking some means of escape from threatened
+danger. At last she found it. “Casimir,” she said, authoritatively,
+“search M. de Chalusse’s pocket for the key of his escritoire.”
+
+Astonished by what he regarded as a new caprice, the valet obeyed. He
+gathered up the garments strewn over the floor, and eventually drew a
+key from one of the waistcoat pockets. Mademoiselle Marguerite took it
+from him, and then in a determined tone, exclaimed: “A hammer.”
+
+It was brought; whereupon, to the profound amazement of the physician,
+she knelt down beside the fireplace, laid the key upon one of the
+andirons, and with a heavy blow of the hammer, broke it into fragments.
+“Now,” said she, quietly, “my mind will be at rest. I am certain,” she
+added, turning toward the servants, “that M. de Chalusse would approve
+what I have done. When he recovers, he will have another key made.”
+
+The explanation was superfluous. All the servants understood the motive
+that had influenced her, and were saying to themselves, “Mademoiselle is
+right. It would not do to touch the escritoire of a dying man. Who knows
+but what there are millions in it? If anything were missed, why any of
+us might be accused. But if the key is destroyed, it will be impossible
+to suspect any one.”
+
+However, the physician’s conjectures were of an entirely different
+nature. “What can there be in that escritoire which she desires to
+conceal?” he thought.
+
+But there was no excuse for prolonging his visit. Once more he examined
+the sick man, whose condition remained unchanged; and then, after
+explaining what was to be done in his absence, he declared that he must
+leave at once, as he had a number of important visits to make; he added,
+however, that he would return about midnight.
+
+“Madame Leon and I will watch over M. de Chalusse,” replied Mademoiselle
+Marguerite; “that is sufficient assurance, monsieur, that your orders
+will be obeyed to the letter. Only--you will not take offence, I trust,
+if I ask the count’s regular physician to meet you in consultation.”
+
+Such a proposal was anything but pleasing to M. Jodon, who had met with
+the same misfortune in this aristocratic neighborhood several times
+before. When an accident happened, he was summoned because he chanced
+to be close at hand, but just as he was flattering himself that he
+had gained a desirable patient, he found himself in presence of some
+celebrated physician, who had come from a distance in his carriage.
+Accustomed to such disappointments, he knew how to conceal his
+dissatisfaction.
+
+“Were I in your place, mademoiselle, I should do precisely what you
+suggest,” he answered, “and should you think it unnecessary for me to
+call, I----”
+
+“Oh! monsieur, on the contrary, I shall certainly expect you.”
+
+“In that case, very well.” Thereupon he bowed and left the room.
+
+But Mademoiselle Marguerite followed him on to the landing. “You know,
+monsieur,” she said, speaking rapidly in an undertone, “that I am not
+M. de Chalusse’s daughter. You may, therefore, tell me the truth. Is his
+condition hopeless?”
+
+“Alarming--yes; hopeless--no.”
+
+“But, monsieur, this terrible unconsciousness----”
+
+“It usually follows such an attack as he has been the victim of. Still
+we may hope that the paralysis will gradually disappear, and the power
+of motion return after a time.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was listening, pale, agitated, and embarrassed.
+It was evident that she had a question on her lips which she scarcely
+dared to ask. At last, however, summoning all her courage, she
+exclaimed: “And if M. de Chalusse should not recover, will he die
+without regaining consciousness--without being able to speak?”
+
+“I am unable to say, mademoiselle--the count’s malady is one of those
+which set at naught all the hypotheses of science.”
+
+She thanked him sadly, sent a servant to summon Madame Leon, and
+returned to the count’s room.
+
+As for the doctor, he said to himself as he went downstairs, “What a
+strange girl! Is she afraid that the count will regain consciousness?
+or, on the contrary, does she wish him to speak? Is there any question
+of a will under all this? What else can it be? What is at stake?” His
+preoccupation was so intense that he almost forgot where he was going,
+and he paused on every step. It was not until the fresh air of the
+courtyard blew upon his face, reminding him of the realities of life,
+that the charlatanesque element in his nature regained the ascendency.
+“My friend,” he said, addressing M. Casimir, who was lighting him out,
+“you must at once have some straw spread over the street so as to deaden
+the sound of the vehicles. And to-morrow, you must inform the commissary
+of police.”
+
+Ten minutes later a thick bed of straw had been strewed across the
+thoroughfare, and the drivers of passing vehicles involuntarily
+slackened their speed, for every one in Paris knows what this signifies.
+M. Casimir personally superintended the work which was intrusted to the
+grooms, and he was about to return indoors again, when a young man, who
+had been walking up and down in front of the mansion for more than an
+hour, hastily approached him. He was a beardless fellow with a strangely
+wrinkled face, as leaden-tinted as that of a confirmed absinthe-drinker.
+His general expression was shrewd, and at the same time impudent, and
+surprising audacity gleamed in his eyes. “What do you want?” asked M.
+Casimir.
+
+The young fellow bowed humbly, and replied, “Ah, don’t you recognize
+me, monsieur? I’m Toto--excuse me--Victor Chupin, employed by M. Isidore
+Fortunat.”
+
+“Oh, yes. I recollect.”
+
+“I came, in obedience to my employer’s orders, to inquire if you had
+obtained the information you promised him; but seeing that something had
+happened at your house, I didn’t dare go in, but decided to watch for
+you----”
+
+“And you did quite right, my lad. I have no information to give you--ah,
+yes! stop! The Marquis de Valorsay was closeted with the count for two
+hours yesterday. But what good will that do? The count has been taken
+suddenly ill, and he will scarcely live through the night.”
+
+Victor Chupin was thunderstruck. “Impossible!” he cried. “Is it for him
+that the straw has been strewed in the street?”
+
+“It’s for him.”
+
+“What a lucky fellow! No one would go to such expense for me! But I have
+an idea that my guv’nor will hardly laugh when I tell him this. Still,
+thank you all the same, m’sieur, and au revoir.” He was darting off when
+a sudden thought detained him. “Excuse me,” said he, with conjuror
+like volubility; “I was so horrified that I forgot business. Tell
+me, m’sieur, if the count dies, you’ll take charge of the funeral
+arrangements, won’t you? Very well; a word of advice then. Don’t go to
+the regular undertakers, but come to me: here’s my address”--proffering
+a card--“I will treat with the undertakers for you, and take charge of
+everything. It will be much better and far cheaper for you, on account
+of certain arrangements I’ve made with these parties. Everything, to the
+very last plume, is warranted to give perfect satisfaction. Each item
+will be specified in the bill, and can be verified during the ceremony,
+no payment exacted until after delivery. Well, is it understood?”
+
+The valet shrugged his shoulders. “Nonsense!” said he, carelessly; “what
+is all that to me?”
+
+“Ah! I forgot to mention that there would be a commission of two hundred
+francs to divide between us.”
+
+“That’s consideration. Give me your card, and rely on me. My compliments
+to M. Fortunat, please.” And so saying, he re-entered the house.
+
+Victor Chupin drew a huge silver watch from his pocket and consulted
+it. “Five minutes to eight,” he growled, “and the guv’nor expects me at
+eight precisely. I shall have to stretch out my legs.”
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+M. Isidore Fortunat resided at No. 27 Place de la Bourse, on the
+third floor. He had a handsome suite of apartments: a drawing-room, a
+dining-room, a bed-room, a large outer office where his clerks
+worked, and a private one, which was the sanctuary of his thoughts and
+meditations. The whole cost him only six thousand francs a year, a mere
+trifle as rents go nowadays. His lease entitled him, moreover, to the
+use of a room ten feet square, up under the eaves, where he lodged his
+servant, Madame Dodelin, a woman of forty-six or thereabouts, who had
+met with reverses of fortune, and who now took such good charge of his
+establishment, that his table--for he ate at home--was truly fit for a
+sybarite.
+
+Having been established here for five years or more, M. Fortunat was
+very well known in the neighborhood, and, as he paid his rent promptly,
+and met all his obligations without demur, he was generally respected.
+Besides, people knew very well from what source M. Fortunat derived his
+income. He gave his attention to contested claims, liquidations, the
+recovery of legacies, and so on, as was shown by the inscription in
+large letters which figured on the elegant brass plate adorning his
+door. He must have had a prosperous business, for he employed six
+collectors in addition to the clerks who wrote all day long in his
+office; and his clients were so numerous that the concierge was often
+heard to complain of the way they ran up and down the stairs, declaring
+that it was worse than a procession.
+
+To be just, we must add that M. Fortunat’s appearance, manners
+and conduct were of a nature to quiet all suspicions. He was some
+thirty-eight years of age, extremely methodical in his habits, gentle
+and refined in his manner, intelligent, very good-looking, and always
+dressed in perfect taste. He was accused of being, in business matters,
+as cold, as polished, and as hard as one of the marble slabs of the
+Morgue; but then, no one was obliged to employ him unless they chose
+to do so. This much is certain: he did not frequent cafes or places of
+amusement. If he went out at all after dinner, it was only to pass
+the evening at the house of some rich client in the neighborhood. He
+detested the smell of tobacco, and was inclined to be devout--never
+failing to attend eight o’clock mass on Sunday mornings. His housekeeper
+suspected him of matrimonial designs, and perhaps she was right.
+
+On the evening that the Count de Chalusse was struck with apoplexy M.
+Isidore Fortunat had been dining alone and was sipping a cup of tea when
+the door-bell rang, announcing the arrival of a visitor. Madame Dodelin
+hastened to open the door, and in walked Victor Chupin, breathless from
+his hurried walk. It had not taken him twenty-five minutes to cover
+the distance which separates the Rue de Courcelles from the Place de la
+Bourse.
+
+“You are late, Victor,” said M. Fortunat, quietly.
+
+“That’s true, monsieur, but it isn’t my fault. Everything was in
+confusion down there, and I was obliged to wait.”
+
+“How is that? Why?”
+
+“The Count de Chalusse was stricken with apoplexy this evening, and he
+is probably dead by this time.”
+
+M. Fortunat sprang from his chair with a livid face and trembling lips.
+“Stricken with apoplexy!” he exclaimed in a husky voice. “I am ruined!”
+
+Then, fearing Madame Dodelin’s curiosity, he seized the lamp and rushed
+into his office, crying to Chupin: “Follow me.”
+
+Chupin obeyed without a word, for he was a shrewd fellow, and knew how
+to make the best of a trying situation. He was not usually allowed
+to enter this private room, the floor of which was covered with a
+magnificent carpet; and so, after carefully closing the door, he
+remained standing, hat in hand, and looking somewhat intimidated. But
+M. Fortunat seemed to have forgotten his presence. After depositing the
+lamp on the mantel-shelf, he walked several times round and round the
+room like a hunted beast seeking for some means of egress.
+
+“If the count is dead,” he muttered, “the Marquis de Valorsay is lost!
+Farewell to the millions!”
+
+The blow was so cruel, and so entirely unexpected, that he could not,
+would not believe in its reality. He walked straight to Chupin, and
+caught him by the collar, as if the young fellow had been the cause
+of this misfortune. “It isn’t possible,” said he; “the count CANNOT
+be dead. You are deceiving me, or they deceived you. You must have
+misunderstood--you only wished to give some excuse for your delay
+perhaps. Speak, say something!”
+
+As a rule, Chupin was not easily impressed, but he felt almost
+frightened by his employer’s agitation. “I only repeated what M. Casimir
+told me, monsieur,” was his reply.
+
+He then wished to furnish some particulars, but M. Fortunat had already
+resumed his furious tramp to and fro, giving vent to his wrath and
+despair in incoherent exclamations. “Forty thousand francs lost!” he
+exclaimed. “Forty thousand francs, counted out there on my desk! I see
+them yet, counted and placed in the hand of the Marquis de Valorsay in
+exchange for his signature. My savings for a number of years, and I have
+only a worthless scrap of paper to show for them. That cursed marquis!
+And he was to come here this evening, and I was to give him ten thousand
+francs more. They are lying there in that drawer. Let him come, the
+wretch, let him come!”
+
+Anger had positively brought foam to M. Fortunat’s lips, and any one
+seeing him then would subsequently have had but little confidence in his
+customary good-natured air and unctuous politeness. “And yet the marquis
+is as much to be pitied as I am,” he continued. “He loses as much,
+even more! And such a sure thing it seemed, too! What speculation can a
+fellow engage in after this? And a man must put his money somewhere; he
+can’t bury it in the ground!”
+
+Chupin listened with an air of profound commiseration; but it was only
+assumed. He was inwardly jubilant, for his interest in the affair was in
+direct opposition to that of his employer. Indeed, if M. Fortunat lost
+forty thousand francs by the Count de Chalusse’s death, Chupin expected
+to make a hundred francs commission on the funeral.
+
+“Still, he may have made a will!” pursued M. Fortunat. “But no, I’m
+sure he hasn’t. A poor devil who has only a few sous to leave behind him
+always takes this precaution. He thinks he may be run over by an omnibus
+and suddenly killed, and he always writes and signs his last wishes.
+But millionaires don’t think of such things; they believe themselves
+immortal!” He paused to reflect for a moment, for power of reflection
+had returned to him. His excitement had quickly spent itself by reason
+of its very violence. “This much is certain,” he resumed, slowly, and
+in a more composed voice, “whether the count has made a will or not,
+Valorsay will lose the millions he expected from Chalusse. If there
+is no will, Mademoiselle Marguerite won’t have a sou, and then, good
+evening! If there is one, this devil of a girl, suddenly becoming
+her own mistress, and wealthy into the bargain, will send Monsieur de
+Valorsay about his business, especially if she loves another, as he
+himself admits--and in that case, again good evening!”
+
+M. Fortunat drew out his handkerchief, and, pausing in front of the
+looking-glass, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and arranged his
+disordered hair. He was one of those men who may be stunned, but never
+crushed, by a catastrophe. “In conclusion,” he muttered, “I must enter
+my forty thousand francs as an item in the profit and loss account. It
+only remains to be seen if it would not be possible to regain them in
+the same affair.” He was again master of himself, and never had his mind
+been more clear. He seated himself at his desk, leant his elbows upon
+it, rested his head on his hands, and remained for some time perfectly
+motionless; but there was triumph in his gesture when he at last looked
+up again.
+
+“I am safe,” he muttered, so low that Chupin could not hear him. “What a
+fool I was! If there is no will a fourth of the millions shall be mine!
+Ah, when a man knows his ground, he never need lose the battle! But I
+must act quickly,” he added, “very quickly.” And so speaking, he rose
+and glanced at the clock. “Nine o’clock,” said he. “I must open the
+campaign this very evening.”
+
+Motionless in his dark corner, Chupin still retained his commiserating
+attitude; but he was so oppressed with curiosity that he could scarcely
+breathe. He opened his eyes and ears to the utmost, and watched his
+employer’s slightest movements with intense interest.
+
+Prompt to act when he had once decided upon his course, M. Fortunat now
+drew from his desk a large portfolio, crammed full of letters, receipts,
+bills, deeds of property, and old parchments. “I can certainly discover
+the necessary pretext here,” he murmured, rummaging through the mass of
+papers. But he did not at once find what he sought, and he was growing
+impatient, as could be seen by his feverish haste, when all at once he
+paused with a sigh of relief. “At last!”
+
+He held in his hand a soiled and crumpled note of hand, affixed by a
+pin to a huissier’s protest, thus proving conclusively that it had been
+dishonored. M. Fortunat waved these strips of paper triumphantly, and
+with a satisfied air exclaimed: “It is here that I must strike; it is
+here--if Casimir hasn’t deceived me--that I shall find the indispensable
+information I need.”
+
+He was in such haste that he did not wait to put his portfolio in order.
+He threw it with the papers it had contained into the drawer of his
+desk again, and, approaching Chupin, he asked, “It was you, was it not,
+Victor, who obtained that information respecting the solvency of the
+Vantrassons, husband and wife, who let out furnished rooms?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, and I gave you the answer: nothing to hope for----”
+
+“I know; but that doesn’t matter. Do you remember their address?”
+
+“Perfectly. They are now living on the Asnieres Road, beyond the
+fortifications, on the right hand side.”
+
+“What is the number?”
+
+Chupin hesitated, reflected for a moment, and then began to scratch
+his head furiously, as he was in the habit of doing whenever his memory
+failed him and he wished to recall it to duty. “I’m not sure whether the
+number is eighteen or forty-six,” he said, at last; “that is----”
+
+“Never mind,” interrupted M. Fortunat. “If I sent you to the house could
+you find it?”
+
+“Oh--yes, m’sieur--at once--with my eyes shut. I can see the place
+perfectly--a rickety old barrack. There is a tract of unoccupied land on
+one side, and a kitchen-garden in the rear.”
+
+“Very well; you shall accompany me there.”
+
+Chupin seemed astonished by this strange proposal. “What, m’sieur,” said
+he, “do you think of going there at this time of night?”
+
+“Why not? Shall we find the establishment closed?”
+
+“No; certainly not. Vantrasson doesn’t merely keep furnished rooms; he’s
+a grocer, and sells liquor too. His place is open until eleven o’clock
+at least. But if you are going there to present a bill, it’s perhaps
+a little late. If I were in your place, m’sieur, I should wait
+till to-morrow. It’s raining, and the streets are deserted. It’s an
+out-of-the-way place too; and in such cases, a man has been known to
+settle his account with whatever came handiest--with a cudgel, or a
+bullet, for instance.”
+
+“Are you afraid?”
+
+This question seemed so utterly absurd to Chupin that he was not in
+the least offended by it; his only answer was a disdainful shrug of the
+shoulders.
+
+“Then we will go,” remarked M. Fortunat. “While I’m getting ready, go
+and hire a cab, and see that you get a good horse.”
+
+Chupin was off in an instant, tearing down the staircase like a tempest.
+There was a cab-stand only a few steps from the house, but he preferred
+to run to the jobmaster’s stables in the Rue Feydeau.
+
+“Cab, sir!” shouted several men, as they saw him approaching.
+
+He made no reply, but began to examine the horses with the air of a
+connoisseur, until at last he found an animal that suited him. Thereupon
+he beckoned to the driver, and going to the little office where a woman
+sat reading: “My five sous, if you please,” he said, authoritatively.
+
+The woman looked at him. Most jobmasters are in the habit of giving five
+sous to any servant who comes in search of a cab for his master; and
+this was the custom here. But the keeper of the office, who felt sure
+that Chupin was not a servant, hesitated; and this made the young fellow
+angry. “Make haste,” he cried, imperiously. “If you don’t, I shall run
+to the nearest stand.”
+
+The woman at once threw him five sous, which he pocketed with a
+satisfied grin. They were his--rightfully his--since he had taken the
+trouble to gain them. He then hastily returned to the office to inform
+his employer that the cab was waiting at the door, and found himself
+face to face with a sight which made him open his eyes to their widest
+extent.
+
+M. Fortunat had profited by his clerk’s absence, not to disguise
+himself--that would be saying too much--but to make some changes in his
+appearance. He had arrayed himself in a long overcoat, shiny with grease
+and wear, and falling below his knees; in place of his elegant satin
+cravat he had knotted a gaudy silk neckerchief about his throat; his
+boots were worn, and out of shape; and his hat would have been treated
+with contempt even by a dealer in old clothes. Of the prosperous
+Fortunat, so favorably known round about the Place de la Bourse, naught
+remained save his face and his hands. Another Fortunat had taken his
+place, more than needy in aspect--wretched, famished, gaunt with hunger,
+ready for any desperate deed. And, yet, he seemed at ease in this garb;
+it yielded to his every movement, as if he had worn it for a long time.
+The butterfly had become a chrysalis again. Chupin’s admiring smile must
+have repaid him for his trouble. Since the young clerk evinced approval,
+M. Fortunat felt sure that Vantrasson would take him for what he wished
+to appear--a poor devil of an agent, who was acting on some other
+person’s behalf. “Let us start at once,” said he.
+
+But just as he was leaving the ante-room, he remembered an order of
+great importance which he wished to give. He called Madame Dodelin, and
+without paying the slightest heed to her astonishment at seeing him thus
+attired: “If the Marquis de Valorsay comes, in my absence,” said
+he--“and he WILL come--ask him to wait for me. I shall return
+before midnight. Don’t take him into my office--he can wait in the
+drawing-room.”
+
+This last order was certainly unnecessary, since M. Fortunat had closed
+and double-locked his office door and placed the key carefully in his
+own pocket. But perhaps he had forgotten this circumstance. There
+were now no traces of his recent anger and disappointment. He was in
+excellent humor; and you might have supposed that he was starting on an
+enterprise from which he expected to derive both pleasure and profit.
+
+Chupin was climbing to a place on the box beside the driver when his
+employer bade him take a seat inside the vehicle. They were not long in
+reaching their destination, for the horse was really a good one, and the
+driver had been stimulated by the promise of a magnificent gratuity. In
+fact, M. Fortunat and his companion reached the Asnieres Road in less
+than forty minutes.
+
+In obedience to the orders he had received before starting, the cabman
+drew up on the right hand side of the road, at about a hundred paces
+from the city gate, beyond the fortifications. “Well, sir, here you are!
+Are you satisfied?” he inquired, as he opened the door.
+
+“Perfectly satisfied,” replied M. Fortunat. “Here is your promised
+gratuity. Now, you have only to wait for us. Don’t stir from this place.
+Do you understand?”
+
+But the driver shook his head. “Excuse me,” he said, “but if it’s all
+the same to you, I will station myself over there near the gate. Here,
+you see, I should be afraid to go to sleep, while over there----”
+
+“Very well; suit yourself,” M. Fortunat replied.
+
+This precaution on the driver’s part convinced him that Chupin had not
+exaggerated the evil reputation of this quarter of the Parisian suburbs.
+And, indeed, there was little of a reassuring character in the aspect
+of this broad road, quite deserted at this hour, and shrouded in the
+darkness of a tempestuous night. The rain had ceased falling, but the
+wind blew with increased violence, twisting the branches off the trees,
+tearing slates from the roofs, and shaking the street-lamps so furiously
+as to extinguish the gas. They could not see a step before them; the mud
+was ankle-deep, and not a person, not a solitary soul was visible.
+
+“Are we almost there?” M. Fortunat asked every ten paces.
+
+“Almost there, m’sieur.”
+
+Chupin said this; but to tell the truth, he knew nothing about it.
+He tried to discover where he was, but did not succeed. Houses were
+becoming scanty, and vacant plots of building ground more numerous;
+it was only with the greatest difficulty that one could occasionally
+discern a light. At last, however, after a quarter of an hour’s hard
+struggling, Chupin uttered a joyful cry. “Here we are, m’sieur--look!”
+ said he.
+
+A large building, five stories high, sinister of aspect, and standing
+quite alone, could just be distinguished in the darkness. It was already
+falling to pieces, and yet it was not entirely completed. Plainly
+enough, the speculator who had undertaken the enterprise had not been
+rich enough to complete it. On seeing the many closely pierced windows
+of the facade, a passer-by could not fail to divine for what purpose
+the building had been erected; and in order that no one should remain in
+ignorance of it, this inscription: “Furnished Rooms,” figured in
+letters three feet high, between the third and fourth floors. The inside
+arrangements could be easily divined: innumerable rooms, all small and
+inconvenient, and let out at exorbitant rentals.
+
+However, Victor Chupin’s memory had misled him. This establishment was
+not on the right, but on the left-hand side of the road, a perfect mire
+through which M. Fortunat and his companion were obliged to cross. Their
+eyes having become accustomed to the darkness, they could discern sundry
+details as they approached the building. The ground floor comprised
+two shops, one of which was closed, but the other was still open, and a
+faint light gleamed through the soiled red curtains. Over the frontage
+appeared the shop-keeper’s name, Vantrasson, while on either side, in
+smaller letters, were the words: “Groceries and Provisions--Foreign and
+French Wines.” Everything about this den denoted abject poverty and low
+debauchery.
+
+M. Fortunat certainly did not recoil, but before entering the shop
+he was not sorry to have an opportunity to reconnoitre. He approached
+cautiously, and peered through the window at a place where a rent in
+the curtain allowed him some view of the interior. Behind the counter
+a woman who looked some fifty years of age was seated, mending a soiled
+dress by the light of a smoking lamp. She was short and very stout.
+She seemed literally weighed down, and puffed out by an unwholesome
+and unnatural mass of superfluous flesh; and she was as white as if her
+veins had been filled with water, instead of blood. Her hanging
+cheeks, her receding forehead, and her thin lips, imparted an alarming
+expression of wickedness and cunning to her countenance. At the farther
+end of the store Fortunat could vaguely discern the figure of a man
+seated on a stool. He seemed to be asleep, for his crossed arms rested
+on a table, with his head leaning on them.
+
+“Good luck!” whispered Chupin in his employer’s ear; “there is not
+a customer in the place. Vantrasson and his wife are alone.” This
+circumstance was by no means displeasing to M. Fortunat, as could be
+seen by his expression of face. “So, m’sieur,” continued Chupin, “you
+need have no fears. I’ll remain here and watch, while you go in.”
+
+M. Fortunat did so. On hearing the door open and shut, the woman laid
+down her work. “What can I do for monsieur?” she asked, in a wheedling
+voice.
+
+M. Fortunat did not reply at once; but he drew the note with which
+he had provided himself from his pocket, and displayed it. “I am a
+huissier’s clerk,” he then exclaimed; “and I called in reference to this
+little matter--a note of hand for five hundred and eighty-three francs,
+value received in goods, signed Vantrasson, and made payable to the
+order of a person named Barutin.”
+
+“An execution!” said the woman, whose voice suddenly soured.
+“Vantrasson, wake up, and come and see about this.”
+
+This summons was unnecessary. On hearing the words “note of hand,”
+ the man had lifted his head; and at the name of Barutin, he rose and
+approached with a heavy, uncertain step, as if he had not yet slept
+off his intoxication. He was younger than his wife, tall, with a
+well-proportioned and athletic form. His features were regular, but the
+abuse of alcohol and all sorts of excesses had greatly marred them, and
+their present expression was one of ferocious brutishness. “What’s that
+you are talking about?” he asked in a harsh, grating voice. “Is it to
+mock people that you come and ask for money on the 15th of October--rent
+day? Where have you seen any money left after the landlord has made his
+round? Besides, what is this bill? Give it me to look at.”
+
+M. Fortunat was not guilty of such folly; he did not intrust the paper
+to Vantrasson’s hand, but held it a little distance from him, and then
+read it aloud.
+
+When he had finished: “That note fell due eighteen months ago,” declared
+Vantrasson. “It is worth nothing now.”
+
+“You are mistaken--a note of this kind is of value any time within five
+years after the day it goes to protest.”
+
+“Possibly; but as Barutin has failed, and gone no one knows where, I am
+released----”
+
+“Another mistake on your part. You owe these five hundred and
+eighty-three francs to the person who bought this note at Barutin’s
+sale, and who has given my employer orders to prosecute----”
+
+The blood had risen to Vantrasson’s face. “And what of that? Do you
+suppose I’ve never been sued for debts before? Even the king can’t take
+anything from a person who possesses nothing; and I own nothing. My
+furniture is all pawned or mortgaged, and my stock is not worth a
+hundred francs. When your employer finds it useless to waste money in
+worrying me, he’ll let me alone. You can’t injure a man like me.”
+
+“Do you really think so?”
+
+“I’m sure of it.”
+
+“Unfortunately you are again mistaken, for although the holder of the
+note doesn’t care so very much about obtaining his dues, he’ll spend his
+own money like water to make trouble for you.” And thereupon M. Fortunat
+began to draw a vivid and frightful picture of a poor debtor pursued
+by a rich creditor who harassed him, and tortured him, and hounded him
+everywhere, until not even a change of clothing was left him.
+
+Vantrasson rolled his eyes and brandished his formidable fist in the
+most defiant manner; but his wife was evidently much alarmed. At last
+she could bear it no longer, and rising hastily she led her husband to
+the rear of the shop, saying: “Come, I must speak with you.”
+
+He followed her, and they remained for some little time conversing
+together in a low tone, but with excited gestures. When they returned,
+the woman opened the conversation. “Alas! sir,” she said to M. Fortunat,
+“we have no money just now; business is so very bad, and if you
+prosecute us, we are lost. What can be done? You look like an honest
+man; give us your advice.”
+
+M. Fortunat did not reply at once; he was apparently absorbed in
+thought, but suddenly he exclaimed: “One owes a duty to unfortunate
+folks, and I’m going to tell you the exact truth. My employer, who isn’t
+a bad man at heart, hasn’t the slightest desire for revenge. He said to
+me: ‘Go and see these Vantrassons, and if they seem to be worthy people,
+propose a compromise. If they choose to accept it, I shall be quite
+satisfied.’”
+
+“And what is this compromise?”
+
+“It is this: you must write an acknowledgment of the debt on a sheet of
+stamped paper, together with a promise to pay a little on account each
+month. In exchange I will give you this note of hand.”
+
+The husband and wife exchanged glances, and it was the woman who said:
+“We accept.”
+
+But to carry out this arrangement it was necessary to have a sheet of
+stamped paper, and the spurious clerk had neglected to provide himself
+with some. This circumstance seemed to annoy him greatly, and you might
+almost have sworn that he regretted the concession he had promised. Did
+he think of going? Madame Vantrasson feared so, and turning eagerly
+to her husband, she exclaimed: “Run to the tobacco shop in the Rue de
+Levis; you will find some paper there!”
+
+He started off at once, and M. Fortunat breathed freely again. He had
+certainly retained his composure admirably during the interview, but
+more than once he had fancied that Vantrasson was about to spring on
+him, crush him with his brawny hands, tear the note from him, burn it,
+and then throw him, Fortunat, out into the street, helpless and nearly
+dead. But now that danger had passed and Madame Vantrasson, fearing he
+might tire of waiting, was prodigal in her attentions. She brought
+him the only unbroken chair in the establishment, and insisted that he
+should partake of some refreshment--a glass of wine at the very least.
+While rummaging among the bottles, she alternately thanked him and
+complained, declaring she had a right to repine, since she had known
+better days--but fate had been against her ever since her marriage,
+though she had little thought she would end her days in such misery,
+after having been so happy in the Count de Chalusse’s household many
+years before.
+
+To all appearance, M. Fortunat listened with the mere superficial
+interest which ordinary politeness requires one to show, but in reality
+his heart was filled with intense delight. Coming here without any
+clearly-defined plan, circumstances had served him a thousand times
+better than he could reasonably have hoped. He had preserved his
+power over the Vantrassons, had won their confidence, had succeeded
+in obtaining a tete-a-tete with the wife, and to crown all, this woman
+alluded, of her own accord, to the very subject upon which he was
+longing to question her.
+
+“Ah! if I were only back in the Count’s household again,” she exclaimed.
+“Six hundred francs a year, and gifts worth double that amount. Those
+were good times for me. But you know how it is--one is never content
+with one’s lot, and then the heart is weak----”
+
+She had not succeeded in finding the sweet wine which she proposed to
+her guest; so in its place she substituted a mixture of ratafia and
+brandy in two large glasses which she placed upon the counter. “One
+evening, to my sorrow,” she resumed, “I met Vantrasson at a ball. It was
+the 13th day of the month. I might have known no good would come of it.
+Ah, you should have seen him at that time, in full uniform. He belonged
+to the Paris Guards then. All the women were crazy about soldiers, and
+my head was turned, too----” Her tone, her gestures, and the compression
+of her thin lips, revealed the bitterness of her disappointment and her
+unavailing regret. “Ah, these handsome men!” she continued; “don’t
+talk to me about them! This one had heard of my savings. I had nineteen
+thousand francs, so he begged me to marry him, and I was fool enough
+to consent. Yes, fool--for I was forty, and he was only thirty. I might
+have known it was my money that he wanted, and not me. However, I gave
+up my situation, and even purchased a substitute for him, in order that
+I might have him all to myself.”
+
+She had gradually warmed with her theme, as she described her confidence
+and blind credulity, and then, with a tragic gesture, as if she desired
+to drive away these cruel memories, she suddenly seized her glass and
+emptied it at a draught.
+
+Chupin, who was still at his post outside, experienced a thrill of
+envy, and involuntarily licked his lips. “A mixed ratafia,” he said,
+longingly. “I shouldn’t object to one myself.”
+
+However, this choice compound seemed to inspire Madame Vantrasson with
+renewed energy, for, with still greater earnestness, she resumed: “At
+first, all went well. We employed my savings in purchasing the Hotel des
+Espagnes, in the Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, and business prospered;
+there was never a vacant room. But any person who has drank, sir, will
+drink again. Vantrasson kept sober for a few months, but gradually he
+fell into his old habits. He was in such a condition most of the time
+that he was scarcely able to ask for food. And if that had been all!
+But, unfortunately, he was too handsome a man to be a good husband. One
+night he didn’t come home, and the next day, when I ventured to reproach
+him--very gently, I assure you--he answered me with an oath and a blow.
+All our happiness was over! Monsieur declared that he was master, and
+would do as he liked. He drank and carried away all the wine from the
+cellar--he took all the money--he remained away for weeks together; and
+if I complained--more blows!”
+
+Her voice trembled, and a tear gathered in her eye; but, wiping it away
+with the back of her hand, she resumed: “Vantrasson was always drunk,
+and I spent my time in crying my very eyes out. Business became very
+bad, and soon everybody left the house. We were obliged to sell it.
+We did so, and bought a small cafe. But by the end of the year we lost
+that. Fortunately, I still had a little money left, and so I bought a
+stock of groceries in my own name; but in less than six months the stock
+was eaten up, and we were cast into the street. What was to be done?
+Vantrasson drank worse than ever; he demanded money when he knew that I
+had none to give him, and he treated me even more cruelly than before.
+I lost courage--and yet one must live! Oh, you wouldn’t believe it if
+I told you how we have lived for the past four years.” She did not tell
+him, but contented herself with adding, “When you begin to go down hill,
+there is no such thing as stopping; you roll lower and lower, until you
+reach the bottom, as we have done. Here we live, no one knows how; we
+have to pay our rent each week, and if we are driven from this place, I
+see no refuge but the river.”
+
+“If I had been in your position, I should have left my husband,” M.
+Fortunat ventured to remark.
+
+“Yes--it would have been better, no doubt. People advised me to do
+so, and I tried. Three or four times I went away, and yet I always
+returned--it was stronger than myself. Besides, I’m his wife; I’ve paid
+dearly for him; he’s mine--I won’t yield him to any one else. He beats
+me, no doubt; I despise him, I hate him, and yet I----” She poured out
+part of a glass of brandy, and swallowed it; then, with a gesture of
+rage, she added: “I can’t give him up! It’s fate! As it is now, it will
+be until the end, until he starves, or I----”
+
+M. Fortunat’s countenance wore an expression of profound commiseration.
+A looker-on would have supposed him interested and sympathetic to the
+last degree; but in reality, he was furious. Time was passing, and the
+conversation was wandering farther and farther from the object of his
+visit. “I am surprised, madame,” said he, “that you never applied to
+your former employer, the Count de Chalusse.”
+
+“Alas! I did apply to him for assistance several times----”
+
+“With what result?”
+
+“The first time I went to him he received me; I told him my troubles,
+and he gave me bank-notes to the amount of five thousand francs.”
+
+M. Fortunat raised his hands to the ceiling. “Five thousand francs!” he
+repeated, in a tone of astonishment; “this count must be very rich----”
+
+“So rich, monsieur, that he doesn’t know how much he’s worth. He owns,
+nobody knows how many houses in Paris, chateaux in every part of the
+country, entire villages, forests--his gold comes in by the shovelful.”
+
+The spurious clerk closed his eyes, as if he were dazzled by this vision
+of wealth.
+
+“The second time I went to the count’s house,” resumed Madame
+Vantrasson, “I didn’t see him, but he sent me a thousand francs. The
+third and last time they gave me twenty francs at the door, and told me
+that the count had gone on a journey. I understood that I could hope for
+no further help from him. Besides, all the servants had been changed.
+One morning, without any apparent reason, M. de Chalusse dismissed all
+the old servants, so they told me. He even sent away the concierge and
+the housekeeper.”
+
+“Why didn’t you apply to his wife?”
+
+“M. de Chalusse isn’t married. He never has been married.”
+
+From the expression of solicitude upon her guest’s features, Madame
+Vantrasson supposed he was racking his brain to discover some mode of
+escape from her present difficulties. “If I were in your place,” he
+said, “I should try to interest his relatives and family in my case----”
+
+“The count has no relatives.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“He hasn’t, indeed. During the ten years I was in his service, I heard
+him say more than a dozen times that he alone was left of all his
+family--that all the others were dead. People pretend that this is the
+reason why he is so immensely rich.”
+
+M. Fortunat’s interest was no longer assumed; he was rapidly approaching
+the real object of his visit. “No relatives!” he muttered. “Who, then,
+will inherit his millions when he dies?”
+
+Madame Vantrasson jerked her head. “Who can say?” she replied.
+“Everything will go to the government, probably, unless---- But no,
+that’s impossible.”
+
+“What’s impossible?”
+
+“Nothing. I was thinking of the count’s sister, Mademoiselle Hermine.”
+
+“His sister! Why, you said just now that he had no relatives.”
+
+“It’s the same as if he hadn’t; no one knows what has become of her,
+poor creature! Some say that she married; others declare that she died.
+It’s quite a romance.”
+
+M. Isidore Fortunat was literally upon the rack; and to make his
+sufferings still more horrible, he dared not ask any direct question,
+nor allow his curiosity to become manifest, for fear of alarming the
+woman. “Let me see,” said he; “I think--I am sure that I have heard--or
+that I have read--I cannot say which--some story about a Mademoiselle de
+Chalusse. It was something terrible, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Terrible, indeed. But what I was speaking of happened a long time
+ago--twenty-five or twenty-six years ago, at the very least. I was still
+in my own part of the country--at Besancon. No one knows the exact truth
+about the affair.”
+
+“What! not even you?”
+
+“Oh! I--that’s an entirely different thing. When I entered the count’s
+service, six years later, there was still an old gardener who knew the
+whole story, and who told it to me, making me swear that I would never
+betray his confidence.”
+
+Lavish of details as she had been in telling her own story, it was
+evident that she was determined to exercise a prudent reserve in
+everything connected with the De Chalusse family; and M. Fortunat
+inwardly cursed this, to him, most unseasonable discretion. But he was
+experienced in these examinations, and he had at his command little
+tricks for loosening tongues, which even an investigating magistrate
+might have envied. Without seeming to attach the slightest importance to
+Madame Vantrasson’s narrative, he rose with a startled air, like a
+man who suddenly realizes that he has forgotten himself. “Zounds!” he
+exclaimed, “we sit here gossiping, and it’s growing late. I really can’t
+wait for your husband. If I remain here any longer, I shall miss the
+last omnibus; and I live on the other side of the river, near the
+Luxembourg.”
+
+“But our agreement, monsieur?”
+
+“We will draw that up at some future time. I shall be passing again, or
+I will send one of my colleagues to see you.”
+
+It was Madame Vantrasson’s turn to tremble now. She feared, if she
+allowed this supposed clerk to go without signing the agreement, that
+the person who came in his stead might not prove so accommodating; and
+even if he called again himself, he might not be so kindly disposed.
+“Wait just a moment longer, monsieur,” she pleaded; “my husband will
+soon be back, and the last omnibus doesn’t leave the Rue de Levis until
+midnight.”
+
+“I wouldn’t refuse, but this part of the suburbs is so lonely.”
+
+“Vantrasson will see you on your way.” And, resolved to detain him at
+any cost, she poured out a fresh glass of liquor for him, and said:
+“Where were we? Oh, yes! I was about to tell you Mademoiselle Hermine’s
+story.”
+
+Concealing his delight with an assumed air of resignation, M. Fortunat
+reseated himself, to the intense disgust of Chupin, who was thoroughly
+tired of waiting outside in the cold.
+
+“I must tell you,” began Madame Vantrasson, “that when this happened--at
+least twenty-five years ago--the De Chalusse family lived in the Rue
+Saint-Dominique. They occupied a superb mansion, with extensive grounds,
+full of splendid trees like those in the Tuileries gardens. Mademoiselle
+Hermine, who was then about eighteen or nineteen years old, was,
+according to all accounts, the prettiest young creature ever seen. Her
+skin was as white as milk, she had a profusion of golden hair, and her
+eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots. She was very kind and generous,
+they say, only, like all the rest of the family, she was very haughty
+and obstinate--oh, obstinate enough to allow herself to be roasted alive
+over a slow fire rather than yield an inch. That’s the count’s nature
+exactly. Having served him, I know something about it, to be sure,
+and----”
+
+“Excuse me,” interrupted M. Fortunat, who was determined to prevent
+these digressions, “and Mademoiselle Hermine?”
+
+“I was coming to her. Although she was very beautiful and immensely
+rich, she had no suitors--for it was generally understood that she was
+to marry a marquis, whose father was a particular friend of the family.
+The parents had arranged the matter between them years before, and
+nothing was wanting but the young lady’s consent; but Mademoiselle
+Hermine absolutely refused to hear the marquis’s name mentioned.
+
+“They did everything to persuade her to consent to this marriage; they
+employed prayers and threats alike, but they might as well have talked
+to a stone. When they asked her why she refused to marry the marquis,
+she replied, ‘Because’--and that was all. In fact, at last she declared
+she would leave home and take refuge in a convent, if they didn’t cease
+to torment her. Her relatives were certain there must be some reason
+for her refusal. It isn’t natural for a girl to reject a suitor who
+is young, handsome, rich, and a marquis besides. Her friends suspected
+there was something she wouldn’t confess; and M. Raymond swore that he
+would watch his sister, and discover her secret.”
+
+“M. Raymond is the present Count de Chalusse, I suppose?” inquired M.
+Fortunat.
+
+“Yes, monsieur. Such was the state of matters when, one night, the
+gardener thought he heard a noise in the pavilion, at the end of the
+garden. This pavilion was very large. I have seen it. It contained
+a sitting-room, a billiard-room, and a large fencing-hall. Naturally
+enough, the gardener got up to go and see what was the matter. As he
+left the house, he fancied he saw two persons moving about among the
+trees. He ran after them, but could find nothing. They had made their
+escape through a small gate leading from the garden into the street.
+When the gardener was telling me this story, he declared again and
+again that he had fancied the noise he had heard was made by some of
+the servants trying to leave the house secretly, and for this reason
+he didn’t give the alarm. However, he hurried to the pavilion, but on
+seeing no light there, he went back to bed with an easy mind.”
+
+“And it was Mademoiselle Hermine eloping with a lover?” asked M.
+Fortunat.
+
+Madame Vantrasson seemed as disappointed as an actor who has been
+deprived of an opportunity of producing a grand effect. “Wait a moment,”
+ she replied, “and you’ll see. The night passed, morning came, and
+then the breakfast hour. But Mademoiselle Hermine did not make her
+appearance. Some one was sent to rap at her door--there was no answer.
+The door was opened--the young lady was not in her room, and the bed had
+not even been disturbed. In a few moments the whole household was in
+the wildest commotion; the mother weeping, and the father half wild
+with rage and sorrow. Of course, the next thought was of Mademoiselle
+Hermine’s brother, and he was sent for. But, he, too, was not in his
+room, and his bed had not been touched. The excitement was becoming
+frenzy, when it occurred to the gardener to mention what he had heard
+and seen on the previous night. They hastened to the pavilion, and
+discovered what? Why, M. Raymond stretched upon the ground, stiff, cold,
+and motionless, weltering in his own blood. One of his rigid hands still
+grasped a sword. They lifted him up, carried him to the house, laid him
+upon his bed, and sent for a physician. He had received two dangerous
+wounds; one in the throat, the other in the breast. For more than a
+month he hung between life and death, and six weeks elapsed before he
+had strength to relate what had happened. He was lighting a cigar at his
+window when he thought he saw a woman’s form flit through the garden.
+A suspicion that it might be his sister flashed through his mind; so he
+hastened down, stole noiselessly into the pavilion, and there he found
+his sister and a young man who was absolutely unknown to him. He might
+have killed the intruder, but instead of doing so, he told him they
+would fight then and there. Weapons were within reach, and they fought,
+with the result that Raymond was wounded twice, in quick succession, and
+fell. His adversary, supposing him dead, thereupon fled from the spot,
+taking Mademoiselle Hermine with him.”
+
+At this point in her narrative Madame Vantrasson evinced a desire to
+pause and draw a breath, and perhaps partake of some slight refreshment;
+but M. Fortunat was impatient. The woman’s husband might return at any
+moment. “And, after that?” he inquired.
+
+“After that--well--M. Raymond recovered, and in about three months’
+time he was out again; but the parents, who were old folks, had received
+their death-blow. They never rallied from the shock. Perhaps they felt
+that it was their own hard-heartedness and obstinacy that had caused
+their daughter’s ruin--and remorse is hard to bear. They waned
+perceptibly from day to day, and during the following year they were
+borne to the cemetery within two months of each other.”
+
+From the spurious clerk’s demeanor it was easy to see that he had ceased
+thinking about his omnibus, and his hostess felt both reassured and
+flattered. “And Mademoiselle Hermine?” he inquired, eagerly.
+
+“Alas! monsieur, no one ever knew where she went, or what became of
+her.”
+
+“Didn’t they try to find her?”
+
+“They searched for her everywhere, for I don’t know how long; all the
+ablest detectives in France and in foreign countries tried to find her,
+but not one of them succeeded in discovering the slightest trace of her
+whereabouts. M. Raymond promised an enormous sum to the man who would
+find his sister’s betrayer. He wished to kill him, and he sought for him
+for years; but all in vain.”
+
+“And did they never receive any tidings of this unfortunate girl?”
+
+“I was told that they heard from her twice. On the morning following
+her flight her parents received a letter, in which she implored their
+forgiveness. Five or six months later, she wrote again to say that she
+knew her brother was not dead. She confessed that she was a wicked,
+ungrateful girl--that she had been mad; but she said that her punishment
+had come, and it was terrible. She added that every link was severed
+between herself and her friends, and she hoped they would forget her as
+completely as if she had never existed. She went so far as to say that
+her children should never know who their mother was, and that never in
+her life again would she utter the name which she had so disgraced.”
+
+It was the old, sad story of a ruined girl paying for a moment’s madness
+with her happiness and all her after life. A terrible drama, no doubt;
+but one that is of such frequent occurrence that it seems as commonplace
+as life itself. Thus any one who was acquainted with M. Isidore Fortunat
+would have been surprised to see how greatly he was moved by such a
+trifle. “Poor girl!” said he, in view of saying something. And then, in
+a tone of assumed carelessness, he inquired: “Did they never discover
+what scoundrel carried Mademoiselle de Chalusse away?”
+
+“Never. Who he was, whence he came, whether he was young or old, how he
+became acquainted with Mademoiselle Hermine--these questions were never
+answered. It was rumored at one time that he was an American, a captain
+in the navy; but that was only a rumor. To tell the truth, they never
+even discovered his name.”
+
+“What, not even his name?”
+
+“Not even his name.”
+
+Unable to master his emotion, M. Fortunat had at least the presence of
+mind to rise and step back into the darker part of the shop. But his
+gesture of disappointment and the muttered oath that fell from his lips
+did not escape Madame Vantrasson. She was startled, and from that moment
+she looked upon the supposed clerk with evident distrust. It was not
+long before he again resumed his seat nearer the counter, still a
+trifle pale, perhaps, but apparently calm. Two questions more seemed
+indispensable to him, and yet either one of them would be sure to arouse
+suspicion. Nevertheless, he resolved to incur the risk of betraying
+himself. And, after all, what would it matter now? Did he not possess
+the information he had wished for, at least as much of it as it was in
+this woman’s power to impart? “I can scarcely tell you, my dear madame,
+how much your narrative has interested me,” he began. “I can confess
+now that I am slightly acquainted with the Count de Chalusse, and that I
+have frequently visited the house in the Rue de Courcelles, where he now
+resides.”
+
+“You!” exclaimed the woman, taking a hasty inventory of M. Fortunat’s
+toilette.
+
+“Yes, I--on the part of my employer, understand. Each time I’ve been
+to visit M. de Chalusse’s I’ve seen a young lady whom I took for his
+daughter there. I was wrong, no doubt, since he isn’t a married man--”
+
+He paused. Astonishment and anger seemed to be almost suffocating his
+hostess. Without understanding how or why, she felt convinced that she
+had been duped; and if she had obeyed her first impulse she would have
+attacked M. Isidore then and there. If she restrained this impulse, if
+she made an effort to control herself, it was only because she thought
+she held a better revenge in reserve.
+
+“A young lady in the count’s house!” she said, thoughtfully. “That’s
+scarcely possible. I’ve never seen her; I’ve never heard her spoken of.
+How long has she been there?”
+
+“For six or seven months?”
+
+“In that case, I can’t absolutely deny it. It’s two years since I set
+foot in the count’s house.”
+
+“I fancied this young lady might be the count’s niece Mademoiselle
+Hermine’s daughter.”
+
+Madame Vantrasson shook her head. “Put that fancy out of your head,”
+ she remarked. “The count said that his sister was dead to him from the
+evening of her flight.”
+
+“Who CAN this young girl be, then?”
+
+“Bless me! I don’t know. What sort of a looking person is she?”
+
+“Very tall; a brunette.”
+
+“How old is she?”
+
+“Eighteen or nineteen.”
+
+The woman made a rapid calculation on her fingers. “Nine and four are
+thirteen,” she muttered, “and five are eighteen. Ah, ha!--why not? I
+must look into this.”
+
+“What did you say?”
+
+“Nothing; a little reflection I was making to myself. Do you know this
+young lady’s name?”
+
+“It’s Marguerite.”
+
+The woman’s face clouded. “No; it can’t be then,” she muttered, in a
+scarcely audible voice.
+
+M. Fortunat was on coals of fire. It was evident that this frightful
+creature, even if she knew nothing definite, had some idea, some vague
+suspicion of the truth. How could he compel her to speak now that she
+was on her guard? He had not time to ascertain, for the door suddenly
+opened, and Vantrasson appeared on the threshold. He was scarcely sober
+when he left the shop, but now he was fairly drunk; his heavy shamble
+had become a stagger. “Oh, you wretch, you brigand!” howled his wife;
+“you’ve been drinking again!”
+
+He succeeded in maintaining his equilibrium, and, gazing at her with the
+phlegmatic stare peculiar to intoxicated men, he replied: “Well, what
+of that! Can’t I have a little pleasure with my friends? I came across
+a couple of men who were just taking their fifteenth glass; why should I
+refuse a compliment?”
+
+“You can’t hold yourself up.”
+
+“That’s true.” And to prove it he tumbled on to a chair.
+
+A torrent of abuse now flowed from Madame Vantrasson’s lips! M.
+Fortunat only imperfectly distinguished the words “thief,” “spy,” and
+“detective;” but he could not mistake the meaning of the looks which she
+alternately gave her husband and himself. “It’s a fortunate thing for
+you that my husband is in this condition,” her glances plainly implied,
+“otherwise there would be an explanation, and then we should see--”
+
+“I’ve had a lucky escape,” thought the spurious clerk. But as matters
+stood there was nothing to fear. It was a case where one could show a
+brave front to the enemy without incurring the slightest danger. “Let
+your husband alone,” said he. “If he has only brought the paper that he
+was sent to fetch, I sha’n’t have lost my evening to oblige you.”
+
+Vantrasson had brought not one sheet of stamped paper, but two. A bad
+pen and some muddy ink were produced, and M. Fortunat began to draw up
+an acknowledgment according to the established formula. However, it was
+necessary to mention the name of the creditor of whom he had spoken, and
+not wishing to state his own, he used that of poor Victor Chupin, who
+was at that very moment shivering at the door, little suspecting what
+liberty was being taken with his cognomen.
+
+“Chupin!” repeated the vixen, as if to engrave the name on her memory;
+“Victor Chupin! I should just like to see him,” she added, viciously.
+
+When the document was finished, it became necessary to wake Vantrasson,
+so that he might sign it. He did so with very good grace, and his wife
+appended her signature beside her husband’s. Thereupon M. Fortunat gave
+them in exchange the note which had served as a pretext for his visit.
+“And above all,” he remarked, as he opened the door to go, “don’t forget
+that you are to pay something on account each month.”
+
+“Go to the devil, and your account with you!” growled Madame Vantrasson.
+
+But Fortunat did not hear this. He was already walking down the road
+by the side of Chupin, who was saying: “Well, here you are, at last,
+m’sieur! I thought you had taken a lease of that old barrack. If ever I
+come here again, I’ll bring a foot-warmer with me.”
+
+But one of those fits of profound abstraction to which determined
+seekers after truth are subject had taken possession of M. Fortunat, and
+made him oblivious of all surrounding circumstances. His heart had been
+full of hope when he reached the Asnieres Road, but he went away gloomy
+and despondent; and quite unconscious of the darkness, the mud, and the
+rain, which was again falling, he silently plodded along in the middle
+of the highway. Chupin was obliged to stop him at the city gate, and
+remind him that the cab was waiting.
+
+“That’s true,” was M. Fortunat’s only answer. He entered the vehicle,
+certainly without knowing it; and as they rolled homeward, the thoughts
+that filled his brain to overflowing found vent in a sort of monologue,
+of which Chupin now and then caught a few words. “What a piece of
+business!” he muttered--“what a piece of business! I’ve had seven years’
+experience in such matters, and yet I’ve never met with an affair
+so shrouded in mystery. My forty thousand francs are in a precarious
+condition. Certainly I’ve lost money before through heirs whose
+existence I hadn’t even suspected; but by reinstating these same heirs
+in their rights, I’ve regained my lost money, and received a handsome
+reward in addition; but in this case all is darkness; there isn’t a
+single gleam of light--not the slightest clew. If I could only find
+them! But how can I search for people whose names I don’t even know--for
+people who have escaped all the inquiries of the police? And where shall
+I look for them--in Europe, in America? It would be sheer madness! To
+whom, then, will the count’s millions go?”
+
+It was only the sudden stoppage of the cab in front of his own door that
+recalled M. Fortunat to the realities of life. “Here are twenty
+francs, Victor,” he said to Chupin. “Pay the driver, and keep the rest
+yourself.”
+
+As he spoke, he sprang nimbly to the ground. A handsome brougham, drawn
+by two horses, was standing before the house. “The Marquis de Valorsay’s
+carriage,” muttered M. Fortunat. “He has been very patient; he has
+waited for me--or, rather, he has waited for my ten thousand francs.
+Well, we shall see.”
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+M. Fortunat had scarcely started off on his visit to the Vantrassons
+when the Marquis de Valorsay reached the Place de la Bourse.
+
+“Monsieur has gone out,” said Madame Dodelin, as she opened the door.
+
+“You must be mistaken, my good woman.”
+
+“No, no; my master said you would, perhaps, wait for him.”
+
+“Very well; I will do so.”
+
+Faithful to the orders she had received, the servant conducted the
+visitor to the drawing-room, lit the tapers in the candelabra, and
+retired. “This is very strange!” growled the marquis. “Monsieur Fortunat
+makes an appointment, Monsieur Fortunat expects me to wait for him! What
+will happen next?” However, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, threw
+himself into an arm-chair, and waited.
+
+By his habits and tastes, the Marquis de Valorsay belonged to that
+section of the aristocracy which has coined the term “high life” in view
+of describing its own manners and customs. The matters that engrossed
+the marquis’s frivolous mind were club-life and first performances at
+the opera and the leading theatres, social duties and visits to the
+fashionable watering-places, racing and the shooting and hunting
+seasons, together with his mistress and his tailor.
+
+He considered that to ride in a steeple-chase was an act of prowess
+worthy of his ancestors; and when he galloped past the stand, clad as
+a jockey, in top-boots and a violet silk jacket, he believed he read
+admiration in every eye. This was his every-day life, which had been
+enlivened by a few salient episodes: two duels, an elopement with a
+married woman, a twenty-six hours’ seance at the gaming table, and a
+fall from his horse, while hunting, which nearly cost him his life.
+These acts of valor had raised him considerably in the estimation of
+his friends, and procured him a celebrity of which he was not a little
+proud. The newspaper reporters were constantly mentioning his name, and
+the sporting journals never failed to chronicle his departure from Paris
+or his arrival in the city.
+
+Unfortunately, such a life of busy idleness has its trials and its
+vicissitudes, and M. de Valorsay was a living proof of this. He was only
+thirty-three, but in spite of the care he expended upon his toilette,
+he looked at least forty. Wrinkles were beginning to show themselves;
+it required all the skill of his valet to conceal the bald spots on his
+cranium; and since his fall from his horse, he had been troubled by
+a slight stiffness in his right leg, which stiffness became perfect
+lameness in threatening weather. Premature lassitude pervaded his
+entire person, and when he relaxed in vigilance even his eyes betrayed
+a distaste for everything--weariness, satiety as it were. All the same,
+however, he bore himself with an undeniable air of distinction, albeit
+the haughtiness of his manner indicated an exaggerated idea of his own
+importance. He was indeed in the habit of treating all those whom he
+considered his inferiors with supercilious sufficiency.
+
+The clock on M. Fortunat’s mantel-shelf struck eleven at last and the
+marquis rose to his feet with a muttered oath. “This is too much!” he
+growled, angrily.
+
+He looked about for a bell, and seeing none, he was reduced to the dire
+necessity of opening the door himself, and calling some one. Madame
+Dodelin answered the summons. “Monsieur said he would return before
+midnight,” she replied; “so he will certainly be here. There is no one
+like him for punctuality. Won’t monsieur have patience a little longer?”
+
+“Well, I will wait a few moments; but, my good woman, light the fire; my
+feet are frozen!”
+
+M. Fortunat’s drawing-room being used but seldom, was really as frigid
+as an iceberg; and to make matters still worse, M. de Valorsay was in
+evening dress, with only a light overcoat. The servant hesitated for an
+instant, thinking this visitor difficult to please, and inclined to make
+himself very much at home, still she obeyed.
+
+“I think I ought to go,” muttered the marquis. “I really think I
+ought to go.” And yet he remained. Necessity, it should be remembered,
+effectually quiets the revolts of pride.
+
+Left an orphan in his early childhood, placed in possession of an
+immense fortune at the age of twenty-three, M. de Valorsay had entered
+life like a famished man enters a dining-room. His name entitled him to
+a high position in the social world; and he installed himself at table
+without asking how much the banquet might cost him. It cost him dear,
+as he discovered at the end of the first year, on noting that his
+disbursements had considerably exceeded his large income. It was very
+evident that if he went on in this way, each twelvemonth would deepen
+an abyss where in the one hundred and sixty thousand francs a year, left
+him by his father, would finally be swallowed up. But he had plenty of
+time to reflect upon this unpleasant possibility ere it could come to
+pass! And, besides, he found his present life so delightful, and he
+obtained so much gratification for his money, that he was unwilling to
+make any change. He possessed several fine estates, and he found plenty
+of men who were only too glad to lend him money on such excellent
+security. He borrowed timidly at first, but more boldly when he
+discovered what a mere trifle a mortgage is. Moreover, his wants
+increased in proportion to his vanity. Occupying a certain position in
+the opinion of his acquaintances, he did not wish to descend from the
+heights to which they had exalted him; and the very fact that he had
+been foolishly extravagant one year made it necessary for him to be
+guilty of similar folly during the succeeding twelvemonth. He failed to
+pay his creditors the interest that was due on his loans. They did not
+ask him for it; and perhaps he forgot that it was slowly but surely
+accumulating, and that at the end of a certain number of years the
+amount of his indebtedness would be doubled. He never thought what the
+end would be. He became absolutely ignorant of the condition of his
+affairs, and really arrived at the conclusion that his resources were
+inexhaustible. He believed this until one day when on going to his
+lawyer for some money, that gentleman coldly said: “You requested me to
+obtain one hundred thousand francs for you, Monsieur le Marquis--but I
+have only been able to procure fifty thousand--here they are. And do not
+hope for more. All your real estate is encumbered beyond its value. Your
+creditors will probably leave you in undisturbed possession for another
+year--it will be to their interest--but when it has elapsed they will
+take possession of their own, as they have a perfect right to do.” Then,
+with a meaning smile, the smile of a wily prime minister, he added: “If
+I were in your place, Monsieur le Marquis, I would profit by this year
+of grace. You undoubtedly understand what I mean. I have the honor to
+wish you good-morning.”
+
+What an awakening--after a glorious dream that had lasted for ten years.
+M. de Valorsay was stunned--crushed. For three days he remained immured
+in his own room, obstinately refusing to receive any one. “The marquis
+is ill,” was his valet’s answer to every visitor.
+
+M. de Valorsay felt that he must have time to regain his mental
+equilibrium--to look his situation calmly in the face. It was a
+frightful one, for his ruin was complete, absolute. He could save
+nothing from the wreck. What was to become of him? What could he do? He
+set his wits to work; but he found that he was incapable of plying any
+kind of avocation. All the energy he had been endowed with by nature had
+been squandered--exhausted in pandering to his self-conceit. If he had
+been younger he might have turned soldier; but at his age he had not
+even this resource. Then it was that his notary’s smile recurred to
+his mind. “His advice was decidedly good,” he muttered. “All is not yet
+lost; one way of escape still remains--marriage.”
+
+And why, indeed, shouldn’t he marry, and marry a rich wife too? No one
+knew anything about his misfortune; for a year at least, he would retain
+all the advantages that wealth bestows upon its possessor. His name
+alone was a great advantage. It would be very strange if he could not
+find some manufacturer’s or banker’s daughter who would be only too
+delighted to have a marquisial coronet emblazoned on her carriage
+panels.
+
+Having arrived at this conclusion, M. de Valorsay began his search, and
+it was not long before he thought he had found what he was seeking.
+But something was still necessary. The bestowers of large dowers are
+inclined to be suspicious; they like to have a clear understanding as to
+the financial position of the suitors who present themselves, and they
+not unfrequently ask for information. Accordingly, before committing
+himself, M. de Valorsay understood that it was necessary he should
+provide himself with an intelligent and devoted adviser. There must be
+some one to hold his creditors in check, to silence them, and obtain
+sundry concessions from them--in a word, some one to interest them in
+his success. With this object in view, M. de Valorsay applied to his
+notary; but the latter utterly refused to mix himself up in any such
+affair, and declared that the marquis’s suggestion was almost an insult.
+Then touched, perhaps, by his client’s apparent despair, he said, “But
+I can mention a person who might be of service to you. Go to M. Isidore
+Fortunat, No. 27 Place de la Bourse. If you succeed in interesting him
+in your marriage, it is an accomplished fact.”
+
+It was under these circumstances that the marquis became acquainted with
+M. Fortunat. M. de Valorsay was a man of no little penetration, and on
+his first visit he carefully weighed his new acquaintance. He found
+him to be the very counsellor he desired--prudent, and at the same
+time courageous; fertile in expedients; a thorough master of the art
+of evading the law, and not at all troubled by scruples. With such
+an adviser, it would be mere child’s play to conceal his financial
+embarrassments and deceive the most suspicious father-in-law. So M. de
+Valorsay did not hesitate a moment. He frankly disclosed his pecuniary
+condition and his matrimonial hopes, and concluded by promising M.
+Fortunat a certain percentage on the bride’s dowry, to be paid on the
+day following the marriage.
+
+After a prolonged conference, the agreement was drawn up and signed,
+and that very day M. Fortunat took the nobleman’s interests in hand. How
+heartily, and with what confidence in his success, is shown by the fact
+that he had advanced forty thousand francs for his client’s use, out
+of his own private purse. After such a proof of confidence the marquis
+could hardly have been dissatisfied with his adviser; in point of fact,
+he was delighted with him, and all the more so, as this invaluable man
+always treated him with extreme deference, verging on servility. And
+in M. de Valorsay’s eyes this was a great consideration; for he was
+becoming more arrogant and more irascible in proportion as his right to
+be so diminished. Secretly disgusted with himself, and deeply humiliated
+by the shameful intrigue to which he had stooped, he took a secret
+satisfaction in crushing his accomplice with his imaginary superiority
+and lordly disdain. According as his humor was good or bad, he
+called him “my dear extortioner,” “Mons. Fortunat,” or “Master
+Twenty-per-cent.” But though these sneers and insults drove the
+obsequious smile from M. Fortunat’s lips, he was quite capable of
+including them in the bill under the head of sundries.
+
+The unvarying deference and submission which M. de Valorsay’s adviser
+displayed made his failure to keep the present appointment all the
+more remarkable. Such neglect of the commonest rules of courtesy was
+inconceivable on the part of so polite a man; and the marquis’s anger
+gradually changed to anxiety. “What can have happened?” he thought.
+
+He was trying to decide whether he should leave or stay, when he heard a
+key grate in the lock of the outer door, and then some quick steps
+along the ante-room. “At last--here he is!” he muttered, with a sigh of
+relief.
+
+He expected to see M. Fortunat enter the room at once, but he was
+disappointed. The agent had no desire to show himself in the garb which
+he had assumed for his excursion with Chupin; and so he had hastened to
+his room to don his wonted habiliments. He also desired a few moments
+for deliberation.
+
+If--as was most probably the case--M. de Valorsay were ignorant of the
+Count de Chalusse’s critical condition, was it advisable to tell him of
+it? M. Fortunat thought not, judging with reason that this would lead
+to a discussion and very possibly to a rupture, and he wished to avoid
+anything of the kind until he was quite certain of the count’s death.
+
+Meanwhile the marquis was thinking--he was a trifle late about it--that
+he had done wrong to wait in that drawing-room for three mortal hours.
+Was such conduct worthy of him? Had he shown himself proper respect?
+Would not M. Fortunat construe this as an acknowledgment of the
+importance of his services and his client’s urgent need? Would he not
+become more exacting, more exorbitant in his demands? If the marquis
+could have made his escape unheard, he would, no doubt, have done so;
+but this was out of the question. So he resorted to a stratagem which
+seemed to him likely to save his compromised dignity. He stretched
+himself out in his arm-chair, closed his eyes, and pretended to doze.
+Then, when M. Fortunat at last entered the drawing-room he sprang up
+as if he were suddenly aroused from slumber, rubbed his eyes, and
+exclaimed: “Eh! what’s that? Upon my word I must have been asleep!”
+
+But M. Fortunat was not deceived. He noticed, on the floor, a torn and
+crumpled newspaper, which betrayed the impatience and anger his client
+had experienced during his long waiting. “Well,” resumed the marquis,
+“what time is it? Half-past twelve? This is a pretty time to keep an
+appointment fixed for ten o’clock. This is presuming on my good-nature,
+M. Fortunat! Do you know that my carriage has been waiting below ever
+since half-past nine, and that my horses have, perhaps, taken cold? A
+pair of horses worth six hundred louis!”
+
+M. Fortunat listened to these reproaches with the deepest humility. “You
+must excuse me, Monsieur le Marquis,” said he. “If I remained out so
+much later than usual, it was only because your business interests
+detained me.”
+
+“Zounds! that is about the same as if it had been your own business that
+detained you!” And well pleased with this joke, he added, “Ah well! How
+are affairs progressing?”
+
+“On my side as well as could be desired.”
+
+The marquis had resumed his seat in the chimney-corner, and was poking
+the fire with a haughty, but poorly assumed air of indifference. “I am
+listening,” he said carelessly.
+
+“In that case, Monsieur le Marquis, I will state the facts in a few
+words, without going into particulars. Thanks to an expedient devised
+by me, we shall obtain for twenty hours a release from all the mortgages
+that now encumber your estates. On that very day we will request a
+certificate from the recorder. This certificate will declare that your
+estates are free from all encumbrances; you will show this statement to
+M. de Chalusse, and all his doubts--that is, if he has any--will vanish.
+The plan was very simple; the only difficulty was about raising the
+money, but I have succeeded in doing so. All your creditors but two lent
+themselves very readily to the arrangement. I have now won the consent
+of the two who at first refused, but we shall have to pay dearly for it.
+It will cost you about twenty-six thousand francs.”
+
+M. de Valorsay was so delighted that he could not refrain from clapping
+his hands. “Then the affair is virtually concluded,” he exclaimed.
+“In less than a month Mademoiselle Marguerite will be the Marquise de
+Valorsay, and I shall have a hundred thousand francs a year again.”
+ Then, noting how gravely M. Fortunat shook his head: “Ah! so you doubt
+it!” he cried. “Very well; now it is your turn to listen. Yesterday I
+had a long conference with the Count de Chalusse, and everything has
+been settled. We exchanged our word of honor, Master Twenty-per-cent.
+The count does things in a princely fashion; he gives Mademoiselle
+Marguerite two millions.”
+
+“Two millions!” the other repeated like an echo.
+
+“Yes, my dear miser, neither more nor less. Only for private reasons,
+which he did not explain, the count stipulates that only two hundred
+thousand francs shall appear in the marriage contract. The remaining
+eighteen hundred thousand francs, he gives to me unreservedly and
+unconditionally. Upon my word, I think this very charming. How does it
+strike you?”
+
+M. Fortunat made no reply. M. de Valorsay’s gayety, instead of cheering,
+saddened him. “Ah! my fine fellow,” he thought, “you would sing a
+different song if you knew that by this time M. de Chalusse is probably
+dead, and that most likely Mademoiselle Marguerite has only her
+beautiful eyes left her, and will dim them in weeping for her vanished
+millions.”
+
+But this brilliant scion of the aristocracy had no suspicion of the
+real state of affairs, for he continued: “You will say, perhaps, it is
+strange, that I, Ange-Marie Robert Dalbou, Marquis de Valorsay, should
+marry a girl whose father and mother no one knows, and whose only name
+is Marguerite. In this respect it is true that the match is not exactly
+a brilliant one. Still, as it will appear that she merely has a fortune
+of two hundred thousand francs, no one will accuse me of marrying for
+money on the strength of my name. On the contrary, it will seem to be a
+love-match, and people will suppose that I have grown young again.” He
+paused, incensed by M. Fortunat’s lack of enthusiasm. “Judging from
+your long face, Master Twenty-per-cent, one would fancy you doubted my
+success,” he said.
+
+“It is always best to doubt,” replied his adviser, philosophically.
+
+The marquis shrugged his shoulders. “Even when one has triumphed over
+all obstacles?” he asked sneeringly.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then, tell me, if you please, what prevents this marriage from being a
+foregone conclusion?”
+
+“Mademoiselle Marguerite’s consent, Monsieur le Marquis.”
+
+It was as if a glass of ice-water had been thrown in M. de Valorsay’s
+face. He started, turned as pale as death, and then exclaimed: “I shall
+have that; I am sure of it.”
+
+You could not say that M. Fortunat was angry. Such a man, as cold and
+as smooth as a hundred franc piece, has no useless passions. But he was
+intensely irritated to hear his client foolishly chanting the paeons of
+victory, while he was compelled to conceal his grief at the loss of his
+forty thousand francs, deep in the recesses of his heart. So, far from
+being touched by the marquis’s evident alarm, it pleased him to be able
+to turn the dagger in the wound he had just inflicted. “You must
+excuse my incredulity,” said he. “It comes entirely from something you,
+yourself, told me about a week ago.”
+
+“What did I tell you?”
+
+“That you suspected Mademoiselle Marguerite of a--how shall I express
+it?--of a secret preference for some other person.”
+
+The gloomiest despondency had now followed the marquis’s enthusiasm and
+exultation. He was evidently in torture. “I more than suspected it,”
+ said he.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“I was certain of it, thanks to the count’s house-keeper, Madame Leon,
+a miserable old woman whom I have hired to look after my interests. She
+has been watching Mademoiselle Marguerite, and saw a letter written by
+her----”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Certainly nothing has passed that Mademoiselle Marguerite has any
+cause to blush for. The letter, which is now in my possession, contains
+unmistakable proofs of that. She might proudly avow the love she has
+inspired, and which she undoubtedly returns. Yet----”
+
+M. Fortunat’s gaze was so intent that it became unbearable. “You see,
+then,” he began, “that I had good cause to fear.”
+
+Exasperated beyond endurance, M. de Valorsay sprang up so violently that
+he overturned his chair. “No!” he exclaimed, “no, a thousand times no!
+You are wrong--for the man who loves Mademoiselle Marguerite is now
+ruined. Yes, such is really the case. While we are sitting here, at this
+very moment, he is lost--irredeemably lost. Between him and the woman
+whom I wish to marry--whom I SHALL marry--I have dug so broad and deep
+an abyss that the strongest love cannot overleap it. It is better
+and worse than if I had killed him. Dead, he would have been mourned,
+perhaps; while now, the lowest and most degraded woman would turn from
+him in disgust, or, even if she loved him, she would not dare to confess
+it.”
+
+M. Fortunat seemed greatly disturbed. “Have you then put into execution
+the project--the plan you spoke of?” he faltered. “I thought you were
+only jesting.”
+
+The marquis lowered his head. “Yes,” he answered.
+
+His companion stood for a moment as if petrified, and then suddenly
+exclaimed: “What! You have done that--you--a gentleman?”
+
+M. de Valorsay paced the floor in a state of intense agitation. Had he
+caught a glimpse of his own face in the looking-glass, it would have
+frightened him. “A gentleman!” he repeated, in a tone of suppressed
+rage; “a gentleman! That word is in everybody’s mouth, nowadays. Pray,
+what do you understand by a gentleman, Mons. Fortunat? No doubt, you
+mean a heroic idiot who passed through life with a lofty mien, clad in
+all the virtues, as stoical as Job, and as resigned as a martyr--a sort
+of moral Don Quixote, preaching the austerest virtue, and practising
+it? But, unfortunately, nobility of soul and of purpose are expensive
+luxuries, and I am a ruined man. I am no saint! I love life and all that
+makes life beautiful and desirable--and to procure its pleasures I must
+fight with the weapons of the age. No doubt, it is grand to be honest;
+but in my case it is so impossible, that I prefer to be dishonest--to
+commit an act of shameful infamy which will yield a hundred thousand
+francs a year. This man is in my way--I suppress him--so much the worse
+for him--he has no business to be in my way. If I could have met him
+openly, I would have dispatched him according to the accepted code of
+honor; but, then, I should have had to renounce all idea of marrying
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, so I was obliged to find some other way. I
+could not choose my means. The drowning man does not reject the plank,
+which is his only chance of salvation, because it chances to be dirty.”
+
+His gestures were even more forcible than his words; and when he
+concluded, he threw himself on to the sofa, holding his head tightly
+between his hands, as if he felt that it was bursting. Anger choked
+his utterance--not anger so much as something he would not confess,
+the quickening of his own conscience and the revolt of every honorable
+instinct; for, in spite of his sins of omission, and of commission,
+never, until this day, had he actually violated any clause of the code
+acknowledged by men of honor.
+
+“You have been guilty of a most infamous act, Monsieur le Marquis,” said
+M. Fortunat, coldly.
+
+“Oh! no moralizing, if you please.”
+
+“Only evil will come of it.”
+
+The marquis shrugged his shoulders, and in a tone of bitter scorn,
+retorted: “Come, Mons. Fortunat, if you wish to lose the forty thousand
+francs you advanced to me, it’s easy enough to do so. Run to Madame
+d’Argeles’s house, ask for M. de Coralth, and tell him I countermand my
+order. My rival will be saved, and will marry Mademoiselle Marguerite
+and her millions.”
+
+M. Fortunat remained silent. He could not tell the marquis: “My
+forty thousand francs are lost already. I know that only too well.
+Mademoiselle Marguerite is no longer the possessor of millions, and you
+have committed a useless crime.” However, it was this conviction which
+imparted such an accent of eagerness to his words as he continued to
+plead the cause of virtue and of honesty. Would he have said as much
+if he had entertained any great hope of the success of the marquis’s
+matrimonial enterprise? It is doubtful, still we must do M. Fortunat the
+justice to admit that he was really and sincerely horrified by what he
+had unhesitatingly styled an “infamous act.”
+
+The marquis listened to his agent for a few moments in silence, and then
+rose to his feet again. “All this is very true,” he interrupted; “but
+I am, nevertheless, anxious to learn the result of my little plot. For
+this reason, Monsieur Fortunat, give me at once the five hundred louis
+you promised me, and I will then bid you good-evening.”
+
+The agent had been preparing himself for this moment, and yet he
+trembled. “I am deeply grieved, monsieur,” he replied, with a doleful
+smile; “it was this matter that kept me out so much later than usual
+this evening. I hoped to have obtained the money from a banker, who
+has always accommodated me before--M. Prosper Bertomy, you know him: he
+married M. Andre Fauvel’s niece----”
+
+“Yes, I know; proceed, if you please.”
+
+“Ah, well! it was impossible for me to procure the money.”
+
+The marquis had hitherto been pale, but now his face flushed crimson.
+“This is a jest, I suppose,” said he.
+
+“Alas!--unfortunately--no.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, which the marquis probably spent in
+reflecting upon the probable consequences of this disappointment, for
+it was in an almost threatening tone that he eventually exclaimed: “You
+know that I must have this money at once--that I must have it.”
+
+M. Fortunat would certainly have preferred to lose a good pound of flesh
+rather than the sum of money mentioned; but, on the other hand, he felt
+that it would not do for him to sever his connection with his client
+until the death of the Count de Chalusse was certain; and being anxious
+to save his money and to keep his client, his embarrassment was extreme.
+“It was the most unfortunate thing in the world,” he stammered; “I
+apprehended no difficulty whatever--” Then, suddenly clapping his hand
+to his forehead, he exclaimed: “But, Monsieur le Marquis, couldn’t you
+borrow this amount from one of your friends, the Duke de Champdoce or
+the Count de Commarin?--that would be a good idea.”
+
+M. de Valorsay was anything but unsophisticated, and his natural
+shrewdness had been rendered much more acute by the difficulties with
+which he had recently been obliged to contend. M. Fortunat’s confusion
+had not escaped his keen glance; and this last suggestion aroused his
+suspicions at once. “What!” he said, slowly, and with an air of evident
+distrust. “YOU give me this advice, Master Twenty-per-cent. This is
+wonderful! How long is it since your opinions have undergone such a
+change?”
+
+“My opinions?”
+
+“Yes. Didn’t you say to me during our first interview; ‘The thing that
+will save you, is that you have never in your whole life borrowed
+a louis from a friend. An ordinary creditor only thinks of a large
+interest; and if that is paid him he holds his peace. A friend is never
+satisfied until everybody knows that he has generously obliged you. It
+is far better to apply to a usurer.’ I thought all that very sensible,
+and I quite agreed with you when you added: ‘So, Monsieur le Marquis,
+no borrowing of this kind until after your marriage--not on any pretext
+whatever. Go without eating rather than do it. Your credit is still
+good; but it is being slowly undermined--and the indiscretion of a
+friend who chanced to say: “I think Valorsay is hard up,” might fire the
+train, and then you’d explode.’”
+
+M. Fortunat’s embarrassment was really painful to witness. He was not
+usually wanting in courage, but the events of the evening had shaken his
+confidence and his composure. The hope of gain and the fear of loss had
+deprived him of his wonted clearness of mind. Feeling that he had just
+committed a terrible blunder, he racked his brain to find some way of
+repairing it, and finding none, his confusion increased.
+
+“Did you, or didn’t you, use that language?” insisted M. de Valorsay.
+“What have you to say in reply?”
+
+“Circumstances----”
+
+“What circumstances?”
+
+“Urgent need--necessity. There is no rule without its exceptions. I did
+not imagine you would be so rash. I have advanced you forty thousand
+francs in less than five months--it is outrageous. If I were in your
+place, I would be more reasonable--I would economize----”
+
+He paused! in fact, he was compelled to pause by the piercing glance
+which M. de Valorsay turned upon him. He was furious with himself. “I am
+losing my wits,” he thought.
+
+“Still more wise counsel,” remarked the ruined nobleman ironically.
+“While you are about it, why don’t you advise me to sell my horses and
+carriages, and establish myself in a garret in the Rue Amelot? Such a
+course would seem very natural, wouldn’t it? and, of course, it would
+inspire M. de Chalusse with boundless confidence!”
+
+“But without going to such extremes----”
+
+“Hold your tongue!” interrupted the marquis, violently. “Better than any
+one else you know that I cannot retrench, although the reality no longer
+exists. I am condemned, cost what it may, to keep up appearances. That
+is my only hope of salvation. I have gambled, given expensive suppers,
+indulged in dissipation of every kind, and I must continue to do so.
+I have come to hate Ninette Simplon, for whom I have committed so many
+acts of folly, and yet I still keep her--to show that I am rolling in
+wealth. I have thrown thousand-franc notes out of the window, and I
+mustn’t stop throwing them. Indeed, what would people say if I stopped!
+Why, ‘Valorsay is a ruined man!’ Then, farewell to my hopes of marrying
+an heiress. And so I am always gay and smiling; that is part of my role.
+What would my servants--the twenty spies that I pay--what would they
+think if they saw me thoughtful or disturbed? You would scarcely believe
+it, M. Fortunat, but I have positively been reduced to dining on credit
+at my club, because I had paid, that morning, for a month’s provender
+for my horses! It is true I have many valuable articles in my house, but
+I cannot dispose of them. People would recognize them at once; besides,
+they form a part of my stock-in-trade. An actor doesn’t sell his
+costumes because he’s hungry--he goes without food--and when it’s time
+for the curtain to rise, he dons his satin and velvet garments, and,
+despite his empty stomach, he chants the praises of a bountiful table
+and rare old wine. That is what I am doing--I, Robert Dalbou, Marquis
+de Valorsay! At the races at Vincennes, about a fortnight ago, I was
+bowling along the boulevard behind my four-in-hand, when I heard a
+laborer say, ‘How happy those rich people must be!’ Happy, indeed! Why,
+I envied him his lot. He was sure that the morrow would be like the
+day that preceded it. On that occasion my entire fortune consisted of
+a single louis, which I had won at baccarat the evening before. As I
+entered the enclosure, Isabelle, the flower-girl, handed me a rose for
+my button-hole. I gave her my louis--but I longed to strangle her!”
+
+He paused for a moment, and then, in a frenzy of passion, he advanced
+toward M. Fortunat, who instinctively retreated into the protecting
+embrasure of a window. “And for eight months I have lived this horrible
+life!” he resumed. “For eight months each moment has been so much
+torture. Ah! better poverty, prison, and shame! And now, when the prize
+is almost won, actuated either by treason or caprice, you try to make
+all my toil and all my suffering unavailing. You try to thwart me on the
+very threshold of success! No! I swear, by God’s sacred name, it shall
+not be! I will rather crush you, you miserable scoundrel--crush you like
+a venomous reptile!”
+
+There was such a ring of fury in his voice that the crystals of the
+candelabra vibrated; and Madame Dodelin, in her kitchen, heard it, and
+shuddered. “Some one will certainly do M. Fortunat an injury one of
+these days,” she thought.
+
+It was not by any means the first time that M. Fortunat had found
+himself at variance with clients of a sanguine temperament; but he
+had always escaped safe and sound, so that, after all, he was not
+particularly alarmed in the present instance, as was proved by the fact
+that he was still calm enough to reflect and plan. “In forty-eight hours
+I shall be certain of the count’s fate,” he thought; “he will be dead,
+or he will be in a fair way to recovery--so by promising to give this
+frenzied man what he desires on the day after to-morrow, I shall incur
+no risk.”
+
+Taking advantage of an opportunity which M. de Valorsay furnished,
+on pausing to draw breath, he hastily exclaimed, “Really, Monsieur le
+Marquis, I cannot understand your anger.”
+
+“What! scoundrel!”
+
+“Excuse me. Before insulting me, permit me to explain----”
+
+“No explanation--five hundred louis!”
+
+“Have the kindness to allow me to finish. Yes, I know that you are in
+urgent need of money--not by-and-by, but now. To-day I was unable
+to procure it, nor can I promise it to-morrow; but on the day after
+to-morrow, Saturday, I shall certainly have it ready for you.”
+
+The marquis seemed to be trying to read his agent’s very soul. “Are you
+in earnest?” he asked. “Show your hand. If you don’t intend to help me
+out of my embarrassment, say so.”
+
+“Ah, Monsieur le Marquis, am I not as much interested in your success
+as you yourself can be? Have you not received abundant proofs of my
+devotion?”
+
+“Then I can rely upon you.”
+
+“Absolutely.” And seeing a lingering doubt in his client’s eyes, M.
+Fortunat added, “You have my word of honor!”
+
+The clock struck three. The marquis took his hat and started toward
+the door. But M. Fortunat, in whose heart the word scoundrel was still
+rankling, stopped him. “Are you going to that lady’s house now? What
+is she called? I’ve forgotten her name. Ah, yes, I remember now. Madame
+d’Argeles, isn’t she called? It’s at her place, I believe, that the
+reputation of Mademoiselle Marguerite’s favored lover is to be ruined.”
+
+The marquis turned angrily. “What do you take me for, Master
+Twenty-per-cent?” he rudely asked. “That is one of those things no
+well-bred gentleman will do himself. But in Paris people can be found to
+do any kind of dirty work, if you are willing to pay them for it.”
+
+“Then how will you know the result?”
+
+“Why, twenty minutes after the affair is over, M. de Coralth will be
+at my house. He is there even now, perhaps.” And as this subject was
+anything but pleasant, he hastened away, exclaiming, “Get to bed, my
+dear extortioner. Au revoir. And, above all, remember your promise.”
+
+“My respects, Monsieur le Marquis.”
+
+But when the door closed, M. Fortunat’s expression immediately changed.
+“Ah! you insult me!” he muttered sullenly. “You rob me, and you call
+me a scoundrel into the bargain. You shall pay dearly for it, my fine
+fellow, no matter what may happen!”
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+It is in vain that the law has endeavored to shield private life from
+prying eyes. The scribes who pander to Parisian curiosity surmount all
+obstacles and brave every danger. Thanks to the “High Life” reporters,
+every newspaper reader is aware that twice a week--Mondays and
+Thursdays--Madame Lia d’Argeles holds a reception at her charming
+mansion in the Rue de Berry. Her guests find plenty of amusement there.
+They seldom dance; but card-playing begins at midnight, and a dainty
+supper is served before the departure of the guests.
+
+It was on leaving one of these little entertainments that that
+unfortunate young man, Jules Chazel, a cashier in a large banking-house,
+committed suicide by blowing out his brains. The brilliant frequenters
+of Madame d’Argeles’s entertainments considered this act proof of
+exceeding bad taste and deplorable weakness on his part. “The fellow was
+a coward,” they declared. “Why, he had lost hardly a thousand louis!”
+
+He had lost only that, it is true--a mere trifle as times go. Only the
+money was not his; he had taken it from the safe which was confided
+to his keeping, expecting, probably, to double the amount in a single
+night. In the morning, when he found himself alone, without a penny, and
+the deficit staring him in the face, the voice of conscience cried, “You
+are a thief!” and he lost his reason.
+
+The event created a great sensation at the time, and the Petit Journal
+published a curious story concerning this unfortunate young man’s
+mother. The poor woman--she was a widow--sold all she possessed, even
+the bed on which she slept, and when she had succeeded in gathering
+together twenty thousand francs--the ransom of her son’s honor--she
+carried them to the banker by whom her boy had been employed. He took
+them, without even asking the mother if she had enough left to purchase
+her dinner that evening; and the fine gentleman, who had won and
+pocketed Jules Chazel’s stolen gold, thought the banker’s conduct
+perfectly natural and just. It is true that Madame d’Argeles was in
+despair during forty-eight hours or so; for the police had begun a sort
+of investigation, and she feared this might frighten her visitors and
+empty her drawing-rooms. Not at all, however; on the contrary, she had
+good cause to congratulate herself upon the notoriety she gained through
+this suicide. For five days she was the talk of Paris, and Alfred
+d’Aunay even published her portrait in the Illustrated Chronicle.
+
+Still, no one was able to say exactly who Madame Lia d’Argeles was. Who
+was she, and whence did she come? How had she lived until she sprang up,
+full grown, in the sunshine of the fashionable world? Did the splendid
+mansion in the Rue de Berry really belong to her? Was she as rich as she
+was supposed to be? Where had she acquired such manners, the manners of
+a thorough woman of the world, with her many accomplishments, as well as
+her remarkable skill as a musician? Everything connected with her was
+a subject of conjecture, even to the name inscribed upon her visiting
+cards--“Lia d’Argeles.”
+
+But no matter. Her house was always filled to over-flowing; and at the
+very moment when the Marquis de Valorsay and M. Fortunat were speaking
+of her, a dozen coroneted carriages stood before her door, and her
+rooms were thronged with guests. It was a little past midnight, and the
+bi-weekly card party had just been made up, when a footman announced,
+“Monsieur le Vicomte de Coralth! Monsieur Pascal Ferailleur!”
+
+Few of the players deigned to raise their heads. But one man growled,
+“Good--two more players!” And four or five young men exclaimed, “Ah!
+here’s Ferdinand! Good evening, my dear fellow!”
+
+M. de Coralth was very young and remarkably good-looking, almost too
+good-looking, indeed; for his handsomeness was somewhat startling and
+unnatural. He had an exceedingly fair complexion, and large, melting
+black eyes, while a woman might have envied him his wavy brown hair
+and the exquisite delicacy of his skin. He dressed with great care and
+taste, and even coquettishly; his turn-down collar left his firm white
+throat uncovered, and his rose-tinted gloves fitted as perfectly as the
+skin upon his soft, delicate hands. He bowed familiarly on entering,
+and with a rather complacent smile on his lips, he approached Madame
+d’Argeles, who, half reclining in an easy chair near the fire-place,
+was conversing with two elderly gentlemen of grave and distinguished
+bearing. “How late you are, viscount,” she remarked carelessly. “What
+have you been doing to-day? I fancied I saw you in the Bois, in the
+Marquis de Valorsay’s dog-cart.”
+
+A slight flush suffused M. de Coralth’s cheeks, and to hide it, perhaps,
+he turned toward the visitor who had entered with him, and drew him
+toward Madame d’Argeles, saying, “Allow me, madame, to present to you
+one of my great friends, M. Pascal Ferailleur, an advocate whose name
+will be known to fame some day.”
+
+“Your friends are always welcome at my house, my dear viscount,” replied
+Madame d’Argeles. And before Pascal had concluded his bow, she averted
+her head, and resumed her interrupted conversation.
+
+The new-comer, however, was worthy of more than that cursory notice. He
+was a young man of five or six-and-twenty, dark-complexioned and tall;
+each movement of his person was imbued with that natural grace which is
+the result of perfect harmony of the muscles, and of more than common
+vigor. His features were irregular, but they gave evidence of energy,
+kindness of heart, and honesty of purpose. A man possessing such a
+proud, intelligent, and open brow, such a clear, straightforward gaze,
+and such finely-cut lips, could be no ordinary one. Deserted by his
+sponsor, who was shaking hands right and left, he seated himself on a
+sofa a little in the background; not because he was embarrassed, but
+because he felt that instinctive distrust of self which frequently
+seizes hold of a person on entering a crowd of strangers. He did his
+best to conceal his curiosity, but nevertheless he looked and listened
+with all his might.
+
+The salon, was an immense apartment, divided into two rooms by sliding
+doors and hangings. When Madame d’Argeles gave a ball, the rooms were
+thrown into one; but, as a general rule, one room was occupied by the
+card-players, and the other served as a refuge for those who wished
+to chat. The card-room, into which Pascal had been ushered, was an
+apartment of noble proportions, furnished in a style of tasteful
+magnificence. The tints of the carpet were subdued; there was not too
+much gilding on the cornices; the clock upon the mantel-shelf was chaste
+and elegant in design. The only thing at all peculiar about the room
+and its appointments was a reflector, ingeniously arranged above the
+chandelier in such a way as to throw the full glare of the candles upon
+the card-table which stood directly beneath it. The table itself was
+adorned with a rich tapestry cover, but this was visible only at
+the corners, for it was covered, in turn, with a green baize cloth
+considerably the worse for wear. Madame d’Argeles’s guests were probably
+not over fifty in number, but they all seemed to belong to the very best
+society. The majority of them were men of forty or thereabouts; several
+wore decorations, and two or three of the eldest were treated with
+marked deference. Certain well-known names which Pascal overheard
+surprised him greatly. “What! these men here?” he said to himself; “and
+I--I regarded my visit as a sort of clandestine frolic.”
+
+There were only seven or eight ladies present, none of them being
+especially attractive. Their toilettes were very costly, but in rather
+doubtful taste, and they wore a profusion of diamonds. Pascal noticed
+that these ladies were treated with perfect indifference, and that,
+whenever the gentlemen spoke to them, they assumed an air of politeness
+which was too exaggerated not to be ironical.
+
+A score of persons were seated at the card-table, and the guests who had
+retired into the adjoining salon were silently watching the progress of
+the game, or quietly chatting in the corners of the room. It surprised
+him to note that every one spoke in very low tones; there was something
+very like respect, even awe, in this subdued murmur. One might
+have supposed that those present were celebrating the rites of some
+mysterious worship. And is not gaming a species of idolatry, symbolized
+by cards, and which has its images, its fetishes, its miracles, its
+fanatics, and its martyrs?
+
+Occasionally, above the accompaniment of whispers, rose the strange and
+incoherent exclamations of the players: “Here are twenty louis! I take
+it--I pass! The play is made! Banco!”
+
+“What a strange gathering!” thought Pascal Ferailleur. “What singular
+people!” And he turned his attention to the mistress of the house, as if
+he hoped to decipher the solution of the enigma on her face.
+
+But Madame Lia d’Argeles defied all analysis. She was one of those women
+whose uncertain age varies according to their mood, between the thirties
+and the fifties; one who did not look over thirty in the evening, but
+who would have been charged with being more than fifty the next morning.
+In her youth she must have been very beautiful, and she was still
+good-looking, though she had grown somewhat stout, and her face had
+become a trifle heavy, thus marring the symmetry of her very delicate
+features. A perfect blonde, she had eyes of so clear a blue that they
+seemed almost faded. The whiteness of her skin was so unnatural that it
+almost startled one. It was the dull, lifeless white which suggests an
+excessive use of cosmetics and rice powder, and long baths, late hours,
+and sleep at day-time, in a darkened room. Her face was utterly devoid
+of expression. One might have fancied that its muscles had become
+relaxed after terrible efforts to feign or to conceal some violent
+emotions; and there was something melancholy, almost terrifying in the
+eternal, and perhaps involuntary smile, which curved her lips. She wore
+a dress of black velvet, with slashed sleeves and bodice, a new design
+of the famous man-milliner, Van Klopen.
+
+Pascal was engaged in these observations when M. de Coralth, having made
+his round, came and sat down on the sofa beside him. “Well, what do you
+think of it?” he inquired.
+
+“Upon my word!” replied the young advocate, “I am infinitely obliged to
+you for inviting me to accompany you here. I am intensely amused.”
+
+“Good! My philosopher is captivated.”
+
+“Not captivated, but interested, I confess.” Then, in the tone of
+good-humor which was habitual to him, he added: “As for being the sage
+you call me, that’s all nonsense. And to prove it, I’m going to risk my
+louis with the rest.”
+
+M. de Coralth seemed amazed, but a close observer might have detected a
+gleam of triumph in his eyes. “You are going to play--you?”
+
+“Yes. Why not?”
+
+“Take care!”
+
+“Of what, pray? The worst I can do is to lose what I have in my
+pocket--something over two hundred francs.”
+
+The viscount shook his head thoughtfully. “It isn’t that which one has
+cause to fear. The devil always has a hand in this business, and the
+first time a man plays he’s sure to win.”
+
+“And is that a misfortune?”
+
+“Yes, because the recollection of these first winnings is sure to lure
+you back to the gaming-table again. You go back, you lose, you try to
+recover your money, and that’s the end of it--you become a gambler.”
+
+Pascal Ferailleur’s smile was the smile of a man who has full confidence
+in himself. “My brain is not so easily turned, I hope,” said he. “I have
+the thought of my name, and the fortune I must make, as ballast for it.”
+
+“I beseech you not to play,” insisted the viscount. “Listen to me; you
+don’t know what this passion for play is; the strongest and the coldest
+natures succumb--don’t play.”
+
+He had raised his voice, as if he intended to be overheard by two guests
+who had just approached the sofa. They did indeed hear him. “Can I
+believe my own eyes and ears!” exclaimed one of them, an elderly man.
+“Can this really be Ferdinand who is trying to shake the allegiance of
+the votaries of our noble lady--the Queen of Spades?”
+
+M. de Coralth turned quickly round: “Yes, it is indeed I,” he answered.
+“I have purchased with my patrimony the right of saying: ‘Distrust
+yourself, and don’t do as I’ve done,’ to an inexperienced friend.”
+
+The wisest counsels, given in a certain fashion, never fail to produce
+an effect diametrically opposed to that which they seemingly aim at.
+M. de Coralth’s persistence, and the importance he attached to a mere
+trifle, could not fail to annoy the most patient man in the world, and
+in fact his patronizing tone really irritated Pascal. “You are free, my
+friend, to do as you please,” said he; “but I----”
+
+“Are you resolved?” interrupted the viscount.
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“So be it, then. You are no longer a child, and I have warned you. Let
+us play, then.” Thereupon they approached the table; room was made
+for them, and they seated themselves, Pascal being on M. Ferdinand de
+Coralth’s right-hand side.
+
+The guests were playing “Baccarat tournant,” a game of terrible and
+infantile simplicity. There are no such things as skill or combination
+possible in it; science and calculation are useless. Chance alone
+decides, and decides with the rapidity of lightning. Amateurs certainly
+assert that, with great coolness and long practice, one can, in a
+measure at least, avert prolonged ill-luck. Maybe they are right, but
+it is not conclusively proved. Each person takes the cards in his turn,
+risks what he chooses, and when his stakes are covered, deals. If he
+wins, he is free to follow up his vein of good-luck, or to pass the
+deal. When he loses, the deal passes at once to the next player on the
+right.
+
+A moment sufficed for Pascal Ferailleur to learn the rules of the game.
+It was already Ferdinand’s deal. M. de Coralth staked a hundred francs;
+the bet was taken; he dealt, lost, and handed the cards to Pascal.
+
+The play, which had been rather timid at first--since it was necessary,
+as they say, to try the luck--had now become bolder. Several players
+had large piles of gold before them, and the heavy artillery--that is to
+say, bank-notes--were beginning to put in appearance. But Pascal had no
+false pride. “I stake a louis!” said he
+
+The smallness of the sum attracted instant attention, and two or three
+voices replied: “Taken!”
+
+He dealt, and won. “Two louis!” he said again. This wager was also
+taken; he won, and his run of luck was so remarkable that, in a
+wonderfully short space of time, he won six hundred francs.
+
+“Pass the deal,” whispered Ferdinand, and Pascal followed this advice.
+“Not because I desire to keep my winnings,” he whispered in M. de
+Coralth’s ear, “but because I wish to have enough to play until the end
+of the evening without risking anything.”
+
+But such prudence was unnecessary so far as he was concerned. When the
+deal came to him again, fortune favored him even more than before.
+He started with a hundred francs, and doubling them each time in six
+successive deals, he won more than three thousand francs.
+
+“The devil! Monsieur is in luck.”--“Zounds! And he is playing for the
+first time.”--“That accounts for it. The inexperienced always win.”
+
+Pascal could not fail to hear these comments. The blood mantled over
+his cheeks, and, conscious that he was flushing, he, as usually happens,
+flushed still more. His good fortune embarrassed him, as was evident,
+and he played most recklessly. Still his good luck did not desert him;
+and do what he would he won--won continually. In fact, by four o’clock
+in the morning he had thirty-five thousand francs before him.
+
+For some time he had been the object of close attention. “Do you know
+this gentleman?” inquired one of the guests.
+
+“No. He came with Coralth.”
+
+“He is an advocate, I understand.”
+
+And all these whispered doubts and suspicions, these questions fraught
+with an evil significance, these uncharitable replies, grew into a
+malevolent murmur, which resounded in Pascal’s ears and bewildered
+him. He was really becoming most uncomfortable, when Madame d’Argeles
+approached the card-table and exclaimed: “This is the third time,
+gentlemen, that you have been told that supper is ready. What gentleman
+will offer me his arm?”
+
+There was an evident unwillingness to leave the table, but an old
+gentleman who had been losing heavily rose to his feet. “Yes, let us go
+to supper!” he exclaimed; “perhaps that will change the luck.”
+
+This was a decisive consideration. The room emptied as if by magic; and
+no one was left at the table but Pascal, who scarcely knew what to
+do with all the gold piled up before him. He succeeded, however, in
+distributing it in his pockets, and was about to join the other guests
+in the dining-room, when Madame d’Argeles abruptly barred his passage.
+
+“I desire a word with you, monsieur,” she said. Her face still retained
+its strange immobility, and the same stereotyped smile played about her
+lips. And yet her agitation was so evident that Pascal, in spite of his
+own uneasiness, noticed it, and was astonished by it.
+
+“I am at your service, madame,” he stammered, bowing.
+
+She at once took his arm, and led him to the embrasure of a window. “I
+am a stranger to you, monsieur,” she said, very hurriedly, and in very
+low tones, “and yet I must ask, and you must grant me, a great favor.”
+
+“Speak, madame.”
+
+She hesitated, as if at a loss for words, and then all of a sudden she
+said, eagerly: “You will leave this house at once, without warning any
+one, and while the other guests are at supper.”
+
+Pascal’s astonishment changed into stupor.
+
+“Why am I to go?” he asked.
+
+“Because--but, no; I cannot tell you. Consider it only a caprice on my
+part--it is so; but I entreat you, don’t refuse me. Do me this favor,
+and I shall be eternally grateful.”
+
+There was such an agony of supplication in her voice and her attitude,
+that Pascal was touched. A vague presentiment of some terrible,
+irreparable misfortune disturbed his own heart. Nevertheless, he sadly
+shook his head, and bitterly exclaimed: “You are, perhaps, not aware
+that I have just won over thirty thousand francs.”
+
+“Yes, I am aware of it. And this is only another, and still stronger
+reason why you should protect yourself against possible loss. It is well
+to pattern after Charlemagne [1] in this house. The other night, the
+Count d’Antas quietly made his escape bareheaded. He took a thousand
+louis away with him, and left his hat in exchange. The count is a brave
+man; and far from indulging in blame, every one applauded him the next
+day. Come, you have decided, I see--you will go; and to be still more
+safe, I will show you out through the servants’ hall, then no one can
+possibly see you.”
+
+Pascal had almost decided to yield to her entreaties; but this proposed
+retreat through the back-door was too revolting to his pride to be
+thought of for a moment. “I will never consent to such a thing,” he
+declared. “What would they think of me? Besides I owe them their revenge
+and I shall give it to them.”
+
+Neither Madame d’Argeles nor Pascal had noticed M. de Coralth, who in
+the meantime had stolen into the room on tiptoe, and had been listening
+to their conversation, concealed behind the folds of a heavy curtain. He
+now suddenly revealed his presence. “Ah! my dear friend,” he exclaimed,
+in a winning tone. “While I honor your scruples, I must say that I think
+madame is a hundred times right. If I were in your place, if I had won
+what you have won, I shouldn’t hesitate. Others might think what they
+pleased; you have the money, that is the main thing.”
+
+For the second time, the viscount’s intervention decided Pascal. “I
+shall remain,” he said, resolutely.
+
+But Madame d’Argeles laid her hand imploringly on his arm. “I entreat
+you, monsieur,” said she. “Go now, there is still time.”
+
+“Yes, go,” said the viscount, approvingly, “it would be a most excellent
+move. Retreat and save the cash.”
+
+These words were like the drop which makes the cup overflow. Crimson
+with anger and assailed by the strangest suspicions, Pascal turned from
+Madame d’Argeles and hastened into the dining-room. The conversation
+ceased entirely on his arrival there. He could not fail to understand
+that he had been the subject of it. A secret instinct warned him that
+all the men around him were his enemies--though he knew not why--and
+that they were plotting against him. He also perceived that his
+slightest movements were watched and commented upon. However he was a
+brave man; his conscience did not reproach him in the least, and he was
+one of those persons who, rather than wait for danger, provoke it.
+
+So, with an almost defiant air, he seated himself beside a young
+lady dressed in pink tulle, and began to laugh and chat with her. He
+possessed a ready wit, and what is even better, tact; and for a quarter
+of an hour astonished those around him by his brilliant sallies.
+Champagne was flowing freely; and he drank four or five glasses in quick
+succession. Was he really conscious of what he was doing and saying? He
+subsequently declared that he was not, that he acted under the influence
+of a sort of hallucination similar to that produced by the inhalation of
+carbonic gas.
+
+However, the guests did not linger long at the supper-table. “Let us go
+back!” cried the old gentleman, who had insisted upon the suspension of
+the game; “we are wasting a deal of precious time here!”
+
+Pascal rose with the others, and in his haste to enter the adjoining
+room he jostled two men who were talking together near the door. “So it
+is understood,” said one of them.
+
+“Yes, yes, leave it to me; I will act as executioner.”
+
+This word sent all Pascal’s blood bounding to his heart. “Who is to be
+executed?” he thought? “I am evidently to be the victim. But what does it
+all mean?”
+
+Meanwhile the players at the green table had changed places, and Pascal
+found himself seated not on Ferdinand’s right, but directly opposite
+him, and between two men about his own age--one of them being the person
+who had announced his intention of acting as executioner. All eyes were
+fixed upon the unfortunate advocate when it came his turn to deal. He
+staked two hundred louis, and lost them. There was a slight commotion
+round the table; and one of the players who had lost most heavily,
+remarked in an undertone: “Don’t look so hard at the gentleman--he won’t
+have any more luck.”
+
+As Pascal heard this ironical remark, uttered in a tone which made it as
+insulting as a blow, a gleam of light darted through his puzzled brain.
+He suspected at last, what any person less honest than himself would
+have long before understood. He thought of rising and demanding an
+apology; but he was stunned, almost overcome by the horrors of his
+situation. His ears tingled, and it seemed to him as if the beating of
+his heart were suspended.
+
+However the game proceeded; but no one paid any attention to it. The
+stakes were insignificant, and loss or gain drew no exclamation from any
+one. The attention of the entire party was concentrated on Pascal; and
+he, with despair in his heart, followed the movements of the cards,
+which were passing from hand to hand, and fast approaching him again.
+When they reached him the silence became breathless, menacing, even
+sinister. The ladies, and the guests who were not playing, approached
+and leaned over the table in evident anxiety. “My God!” thought Pascal,
+“my God, if I can only lose!”
+
+He was as pale as death; the perspiration trickled down from his hair
+upon his temples, and his hands trembled so much that he could scarcely
+hold the cards. “I will stake four thousand francs,” he faltered.
+
+“I take your bet,” answered a voice.
+
+Alas! the unfortunate fellow’s wish was not gratified; he won. Then
+in the midst of the wildest confusion, he exclaimed: “Here are eight
+thousand francs!”
+
+“Taken!”
+
+But as he began to deal the cards, his neighbor sprang up, seized him
+roughly by the hands and cried: “This time I’m sure of it--you are a
+thief!”
+
+With a bound, Pascal was on his feet. While his peril had been vague and
+undetermined, his energy had been paralyzed. But it was restored to him
+intact when his danger declared itself in all its horror. He pushed away
+the man who had caught his hands, with such violence that he sent him
+reeling under a sofa; then he stepped back and surveyed the excited
+throng with an air of menace and defiance. Useless! Seven or eight
+players sprang upon him and overpowered him, as if he had been the
+vilest criminal.
+
+Meanwhile, the executioner, as he had styled himself, had risen to his
+feet with his cravat untied, and his clothes in wild disorder. “Yes,”
+ he said, addressing Pascal, “you are a thief! I saw you slip other cards
+among those which were handed to you.”
+
+“Wretch!” gasped Pascal.
+
+“I saw you--and I am going to prove it.” So saying he turned to
+the mistress of the house, who had dropped into an arm-chair, and
+imperiously asked, “How many packs have we used?”
+
+“Five.”
+
+“Then there ought to be two hundred and sixty cards upon the table.”
+
+Thereupon he counted them slowly and with particular care, and he found
+no fewer than three hundred and seven. “Well, scoundrel!” he cried; “are
+you still bold enough to deny it?”
+
+Pascal had no desire to deny it. He knew that words would weigh as
+nothing against this material, tangible, incontrovertible proof.
+Forty-seven cards had been fraudulently inserted among the others.
+Certainly not by him! But by whom? Still he, alone, had been the gainer
+through the deception.
+
+“You see that the coward will not even defend himself!” exclaimed one of
+the women.
+
+He did not deign to turn his head. What did the insult matter to him? He
+knew himself to be innocent, and yet he felt that he was sinking to the
+lowest depths of infamy--he beheld himself disgraced, branded, ruined.
+And realizing that he must meet facts with facts, he besought God to
+grant him an idea, an inspiration, that would unmask the real culprit.
+
+But another person came to his aid. With a boldness which no one would
+have expected on his part, M. de Coralth placed himself in front of
+Pascal, and in a voice which betokened more indignation than sorrow, he
+exclaimed: “This is a terrible mistake, gentlemen. Pascal Ferailleur
+is my friend; and his past vouches for his present. Go to the Palais de
+Justice, and make inquiries respecting his character there. They will
+tell you how utterly impossible it is that this man can be guilty of the
+ignoble act he is accused of.”
+
+No one made any reply. In the opinion of all his listeners, Ferdinand
+was simply fulfilling a duty which it would have been difficult for
+him to escape. The old gentleman who had decided the suspension and
+the resumption of the game, gave audible expression to the prevailing
+sentiment of the party. He was a portly man, who puffed like a porpoise
+when he talked, and whom his companions called the baron. “Your words do
+you honor--really do you honor,” he said, addressing Ferdinand--“and no
+possible blame can attach to you. That your friend is not an honest
+man is no fault of yours. There is no outward sign to distinguish
+scoundrels.”
+
+Pascal had so far not opened his lips. After struggling for a moment in
+the hands of his captors, he now stood perfectly motionless, glancing
+furiously around him as if hoping to discover the coward who had
+prepared the trap into which he had fallen. For he felt certain that he
+was the victim of some atrocious conspiracy, though it was impossible
+for him to divine what motive had actuated his enemies. Suddenly those
+who were holding him felt him tremble. He raised his head; he fancied
+he could detect a ray of hope. “Shall I be allowed to speak in my own
+defence?” he asked.
+
+“Speak!”
+
+He tried to free himself; but those beside him would not relax their
+hold, so he desisted, and then, in a voice husky with emotion, he
+exclaimed: “I am innocent! I am the victim of an infamous plot. Who
+the author of it is I do not know. But there is some one here who must
+know.” Angry exclamations and sneering laughs interrupted him. “Would
+you condemn me unheard?” he resumed, raising his voice. “Listen to me.
+About an hour ago, while you were at supper, Madame d’Argeles almost
+threw herself at my feet as she entreated me to leave this house. Her
+agitation astonished me. Now I understand it.”
+
+The gentleman known as the baron turned toward Madame d’Argeles: “Is
+what this man says true?”
+
+She was greatly agitated, but she answered: “Yes.”
+
+“Why were you so anxious for him to go?”
+
+“I don’t know--a presentiment--it seemed to me that something was going
+to happen.”
+
+The least observant of the party could not fail to notice Madame
+d’Argeles’s hesitation and confusion; but even the shrewdest were
+deceived. They supposed that she had seen the act committed, and had
+tried to induce the culprit to make his escape, in order to avoid a
+scandal.
+
+Pascal saw he could expect no assistance from this source. “M. de
+Coralth could assure you,” he began.
+
+“Oh, enough of that,” interrupted a player. “I myself heard M. de
+Coralth do his best to persuade you not to play.”
+
+So the unfortunate fellow’s last and only hope had vanished. Still he
+made a supreme effort, and addressing Madame d’Argeles: “Madame,” he
+said, in a voice trembling with anguish? “I entreat you, tell what you
+know. Will you allow an honorable man to be ruined before your very
+eyes? Will you abandon an innocent man whom you could save by a single
+word?” But she remained silent; and Pascal staggered as if some one had
+dealt him a terrible blow. “It is all over!” he muttered.
+
+No one heard him; everybody was listening to the baron, who seemed to
+be very much put out. “We are wasting precious time with all this,” said
+he. “We should have made at least five rounds while this absurd scene
+has been going on. We must put an end to it. What are you going to do
+with this fellow? I am in favor of sending for a commissary of police.”
+
+Such was not at all the opinion of the majority of the guests. Four
+or five of the ladies took flight at the bare suggestion and several
+men--the most aristocratic of the company--became angry at once. “Are
+you mad?” said one of them. “Do you want to see us all summoned as
+witnesses? You have probably forgotten that Garcia affair, and that
+rumpus at Jenny Fancy’s house. A fine thing it would be to see, no one
+knows how many great names mixed up with those of sharpers and notorious
+women!”
+
+Naturally of a florid complexion, the baron’s face now became scarlet.
+“So it’s fear of scandal that deters you! Zounds, sir! a man’s courage
+should equal his vices. Look at me.”
+
+Celebrated for his income of eight hundred thousand francs a year, for
+his estates in Burgundy, for his passion for gaming, his horses, and his
+cook, the baron wielded a mighty influence. Still, on this occasion he
+did not carry the day, for it was decided that the “sharper” should
+be allowed to depart unmolested. “Make him at least return the money,”
+ growled a loser; “compel him to disgorge.”
+
+“His winnings are there upon the table.”
+
+“Don’t believe it,” cried the baron. “All these scoundrels have secret
+pockets in which they stow away their plunder. Search him by all means.”
+
+“That’s it--search him!”
+
+Crushed by this unexpected, undeserved and incomprehensible misfortune,
+Pascal had almost yielded to his fate. But the shameful cry: “Search
+him!” kindled terrible wrath in his brain. He shook off his assailants
+as a lion shakes off the hounds that have attacked him, and, reaching
+the fireplace with a single bound, he snatched up a heavy bronze
+candelabrum and brandished it in the air, crying: “The first who
+approaches is a dead man!”
+
+He was ready to strike, there was no doubt about it; and such a weapon
+in the hands of a determined man, becomes positively terrible. The
+danger seemed so great and so certain that his enemies paused--each
+encouraging his neighbor with his glance; but no one was inclined to
+engage in this struggle, by which the victor would merely gain a
+few bank-notes. “Stand back, and allow me to retire?” said Pascal,
+imperiously. They still hesitated; but finally made way. And, formidable
+in his indignation and audacity, he reached the door of the room
+unmolested, and disappeared.
+
+This superb outburst of outraged honor, this marvellous
+energy--succeeding, as it did, the most complete mental prostration--and
+these terrible threats, had proved so prompt and awe-inspiring that
+no one had thought of cutting off Pascal’s retreat. The guests had
+not recovered from their stupor, but were still standing silent and
+intimidated when they heard the outer door close after him.
+
+It was a woman who at last broke the spell. “Ah, well!” she exclaimed,
+in a tone of intense admiration, “that handsome fellow is level-headed!”
+
+“He naturally desired to save his plunder!”
+
+It was the same expression that M. de Coralth had employed; and which
+had, perhaps, prevented Pascal from yielding to Madame d’Argeles’s
+entreaties. Everybody applauded the sentiment--everybody, the baron
+excepted. This rich man, whose passions had dragged him into the vilest
+dens of Europe, was thoroughly acquainted with sharpers and scoundrels
+of every type, from those who ride in their carriages down to the
+bare-footed vagabond. He knew the thief who grovels at his victim’s
+feet, humbly confessing his crime, the desperate knave who swallows the
+notes he has stolen, the abject wretch who bares his back to receive the
+blows he deserves, and the rascal who boldly confronts his accusers and
+protests his innocence with the indignation of an honest man. But never,
+in any of these scoundrels, had the baron seen the proud, steadfast
+glance with which this man had awed his accusers.
+
+With this thought uppermost in his mind he drew the person who had
+seized Pascal’s hands at the card-table a little aside. “Tell me,” said
+he, “did you actually see that young man slip the cards into the pack?”
+
+“No, not exactly. But you know what we agreed at supper? We were sure
+that he was cheating; and it was necessary to find some pretext for
+counting the cards.”
+
+“What if he shouldn’t be guilty, after all?”
+
+“Who else could be guilty then? He was the only winner.”
+
+To this terrible argument--the same which had silenced Pascal--the baron
+made no reply. Indeed his intervention became necessary elsewhere, for
+the other guests were beginning to talk loudly and excitedly around the
+pile of gold and bank-notes which Pascal had left on the table. They
+had counted it, and found it to amount to the sum of thirty-six thousand
+three hundred and twenty francs; and it was the question of dividing it
+properly among the losers which was causing all this uproar. Among these
+guests, who belonged to the highest society--among these judges who had
+so summarily convicted an innocent man, and suggested the searching of
+a supposed sharper only a moment before--there were several who
+unblushingly misrepresented their losses. This was undeniable; for on
+adding the various amounts that were claimed together a grand total of
+ninety-one thousand francs was reached. Had this man who had just fled
+taken the difference between the two sums away with him? A difference
+amounting almost to fifty-five thousand francs? No, this was impossible;
+the supposition could not be entertained for a moment. However, the
+discussion might have taken an unfortunate turn, had it not been for the
+baron. In all matters relating to cards, his word was law. He quietly
+said, “It is all right;” and they submitted.
+
+Nevertheless, he absolutely refused to take his share of the money; and
+after the division, rubbing his hands as if he were delighted to see
+this disagreeable affair concluded, he exclaimed: “It is only six
+o’clock; we have still time for a few rounds.”
+
+But the other guests, pale, disturbed, and secretly ashamed of
+themselves, were eager to depart, and in fact they were already
+hastening to the cloak-room. “At least play a game of ecarte,” cried the
+baron, “a simple game of ecarte, at twenty louis a point.”
+
+But no one listened, and he reluctantly prepared to follow his departing
+friends, who bowed to Madame d’Argeles on the landing, as they filed by,
+M. de Coralth, who was among the last to retire, had already reached
+the staircase, and descended two or three steps, when Madame d’Argeles
+called to him. “Remain,” said she; “I want to speak with you.”
+
+“You will excuse me,” he began; “I----”
+
+But she again bade him “remain” in such an imperious tone that he dared
+not resist. He reascended the stairs, very much after the manner of a
+man who is being dragged into a dentist’s office, and followed Madame
+d’Argeles into a small boudoir at the end of the gambling-room. As soon
+as the door was closed and locked, the mistress of the house turned to
+her prisoner. “Now you will explain,” said she. “It was you who brought
+M. Pascal Ferailleur here.”
+
+“Alas! I know only too well that I ought to beg your forgiveness.
+However, this affair will cost me dear myself. It has already embroiled
+me in a difficulty with that fool of a Rochecote, with whom I shall have
+to fight in less than a couple of hours.”
+
+“Where did you make his acquaintance?”
+
+“Whose--Rochecote’s?”
+
+Madame d’Argeles’s sempiternal smile had altogether disappeared. “I am
+speaking seriously,” said she, with a threatening ring in her voice.
+“How did you happen to become acquainted with M. Ferailleur?”
+
+“That can be very easily explained. Seven or eight months ago I had need
+of an advocate’s services, and he was recommended to me. He managed my
+case very cleverly, and we kept up the acquaintance.”
+
+“What is his position?”
+
+M. de Coralth’s features wore an expression of exceeding weariness as if
+he greatly longed to go to sleep. He had indeed installed himself in a
+large arm-chair, in a semi-recumbent position. “Upon my word, I
+don’t know,” he replied. “Pascal had always seemed to be the most
+irreproachable man in the world--a man you might call a philosopher! He
+lives in a retired part of the city, near the Pantheon, with his mother,
+who is a widow, a very respectable woman, always dressed in black. When
+she opened the door for me, on the occasion of my first visit, I thought
+some old family portrait had stepped down from its frame to receive
+me. I judge them to be in comfortable circumstances. Pascal has the
+reputation of being a remarkable man, and people supposed he would rise
+very high in his profession.”
+
+“But now he is ruined; his career is finished.”
+
+“Certainly! You can be quite sure that by this evening all Paris will
+know what occurred here last night.”
+
+He paused, meeting Madame Argeles’s look of withering scorn with a
+cleverly assumed air of astonishment. “You are a villain! Monsieur de
+Coralth,” she said, indignantly.
+
+“I--and why?”
+
+“Because it was you who slipped those cards, which made M. Ferailleur
+win, into the pack; I saw you do it! And yielding to my entreaties,
+the young fellow was about to leave the house when you, intentionally,
+prevented him from saving himself. Oh! don’t deny it.”
+
+M. de Coralth rose in the coolest possible manner. “I deny nothing, my
+dear lady,” he replied, “absolutely nothing. You and I understand each
+other.”
+
+Confounded by his unblushing impudence, Madame d’Argeles remained
+speechless for a moment. “You confess it!” she cried, at last. “You dare
+to confess it! Were you not afraid that I might speak and state what I
+had seen?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. “No one would have believed you,” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, I should have been believed, Monsieur de Coralth, for I could have
+given proofs. You must have forgotten that I know you, that your past
+life is no secret to me, that I know who you are, and what dishonored
+name you hide beneath your borrowed title! I could have told my guests
+that you are married--that you have abandoned your wife and child,
+leaving them to perish in want and misery--I could have told them where
+you obtain the thirty or forty thousand francs you spend each year. You
+must have forgotten that Rose told me everything, Monsieur--Paul!”
+
+She had struck the right place this time, and with such precision that
+M. de Coralth turned livid, and made a furious gesture, as if he were
+about to fell her to the ground. “Ah, take care!” he exclaimed; “take
+care!”
+
+But his rage speedily subsided, and with his usual indifferent manner,
+and in a bantering tone, he said: “Well, what of that? Do you fancy that
+the world doesn’t already suspect what you could reveal? People have
+suspected me of being even worse than I am. When you proclaim on the
+housetops that I am an adventurer, folks will only laugh at you, and I
+shall be none the worse for it. A matter that would crush a dozen men
+like Pascal Ferailleur would not injure me in the least. I am accustomed
+to it. I must have luxury and enjoyment, everything that is pleasant and
+beautiful--and to procure all this, I do my very best. It is true that
+I don’t derive my income from my estate in Brie; but I have plenty of
+money, and that is the essential thing. Besides, it is so difficult to
+earn a livelihood nowadays, and the love of luxury is so intense that
+no one knows at night what he may do--or, rather, what he won’t do--the
+next day. And last, but not least, the people who ought to be despised
+are so numerous that contempt is an impossibility. A Parisian who
+happened to be so absurdly pretentious as to refuse to shake hands with
+such of his acquaintances as were not irreproachable characters, might
+walk for hours on the Boulevards without finding an occasion to take his
+hands out of his pockets.”
+
+M. de Coralth talked well enough, and yet, in point of fact, all this
+was sheer bravado on his part. He knew better than any one else, on what
+a frail and uncertain basis his brilliant existence was established.
+Certainly, society does show great indulgence to people of doubtful
+reputation. It shuts its eyes and refuses to look or listen. But this is
+all the more reason why it should be pitiless when a person’s guilt is
+positively established. Thus, although he assumed an air of insolent
+security, the “viscount” anxiously watched the effect of his words upon
+Madame d’Argeles. Fortunately for himself, he saw that she was abashed
+by his cynicism; and so he resumed: “Besides, as our friend, the baron,
+would say, we are wasting precious time in discussing improbable, and
+even impossible, suppositions. I was sufficiently well acquainted with
+your heart and your intelligence, my dear madame, to be sure that you
+would not speak a word to my disparagement.”
+
+“Indeed! What prevented me from doing so?”
+
+“I did; or perhaps I ought rather to say, your own good sense, which
+closed your mouth when Monsieur Pascal entreated you to speak in his
+defence. I am entitled to considerable indulgence, madame, and a great
+deal ought to be forgiven me. My mother, unfortunately, was an honest
+woman, who did not furnish me with the means of gratifying every whim.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles recoiled as if a serpent had suddenly crossed her path.
+
+“What do you mean?” she faltered.
+
+“You know as well as I do.”
+
+“I don’t understand you--explain yourself.”
+
+With the impatient gesture of a man who finds himself compelled
+to answer an idle question, and assuming an air of hypocritical
+commiseration, he replied: “Well, since you insist upon it, I know,
+in Paris--in the Rue de Helder, to be more exact--a nice young fellow,
+whose lot I have often envied. He has wanted for nothing since the day
+he came into the world. At school, he had three times as much money
+as his richest playfellow. When his studies were finished, a tutor was
+provided--with his pockets full of gold--to conduct this favored youth
+to Italy, Egypt, and Greece. He is now studying law; and four times
+a year, with unvarying punctuality, he receives a letter from London
+containing five thousand francs. This is all the more remarkable, as
+this young man has neither a father nor a mother. He is alone in the
+world with his income of twenty thousand francs. I have heard him say,
+jestingly, that some good fairy must be watching over him; but I know
+that he believes himself to be the illegitimate son of some great
+English nobleman. Sometimes, when he has drunk a little too much, he
+talks of going in search of my lord, his father.”
+
+The effect M. de Coralth had created by these words must have been
+extremely gratifying to him, for Madame d’Argeles had fallen back in her
+chair, almost fainting. “So, my dear madame,” he continued, “if I ever
+had any reason to fancy that you intended causing me any trouble, I
+should go to this charming youth and say: ‘My good fellow, you are
+strangely deceived. Your money doesn’t come from the treasure-box of an
+English peer, but from a small gambling den with which I am very well
+acquainted, having often had occasion to swell its revenues with my
+franc-pieces.’ And if he mourned his vanished dreams, I should tell
+him: ‘You are wrong; for, if the great nobleman is lost, the good fairy
+remains. She is none other than your mother, a very worthy person, whose
+only object in life is your comfort and advancement.’ And if he doubted
+my word, I should bring him to his mother’s house some baccarat night;
+and there would be a scene of recognition worthy of Fargueil’s genius.”
+
+Any man but M. de Coralth would have had some compassion, for Madame
+d’Argeles was evidently suffering agony. “It is as I feared!” she
+moaned, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+However, he heard her. “What!” he exclaimed in a tone of intense
+astonishment; “did you really doubt it? No; I can’t believe it; it would
+be doing injustice to your intelligence and experience. Are people like
+ourselves obliged to talk in order to understand each other? Should I
+ever have ventured to do what I have done, in your house, if I had not
+known the secret of your maternal tenderness, delicacy of feeling, and
+devotion?”
+
+She was weeping; big tears were rolling down her face, tracing a broad
+furrow through the powder on her cheeks. “He knows everything!” she
+murmured; “he knows everything!”
+
+“By the merest chance, I assure you. As I don’t like folks to meddle
+with my affairs, I never meddle with theirs. As I have just said, it was
+entirely the work of chance. One April afternoon I came to invite you
+to a drive in the Bois. I was ushered into this very room where we
+are sitting now, and found you writing. I said I would wait until you
+finished your letter; but some one called you, and you hastily left the
+room. How it was that I happened to approach your writing-table I cannot
+explain; but I did approach it, and read your unfinished letter. Upon my
+word it touched me deeply. I can give no better proof of the truth of my
+assertion than the fact that I can repeat it, almost word for word, even
+now. ‘DEAR SIR,’--you wrote to your London correspondent--‘I send you
+three thousand francs, in addition to the five thousand for the regular
+quarterly payment. Forward the money without delay. I fear the poor boy
+is greatly annoyed by his creditors. Yesterday I had the happiness
+of seeing him in the Rue de Helder, and I found him looking pale and
+careworn. When you send him this money, forward at the same time a
+letter of fatherly advice. It is true, he ought to work and win an
+honorable position for himself; but think of the dangers and temptation
+that beset him, alone and friendless, in this corrupt city.’ There, my
+dear lady, your letter ended; but the name and address were given, and
+it was easy enough to understand it. You remember, perhaps, a little
+incident that occurred after your return. On perceiving that you had
+forgotten your letter, you turned pale and glanced at me. ‘Have you
+read it, and do you understand it?’ your eyes asked; while mine replied:
+‘Yes, but I shall be silent.’”
+
+“And I shall be silent too,” said Madame d’Argeles.
+
+M. de Coralth took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I knew we should
+understand each other,” he remarked, gravely. “I am not bad at heart,
+believe me; and if I had possessed money of my own, or a mother like
+you----”
+
+She averted her face, fearing perhaps that M. de Coralth might read
+her opinion of him in her eyes; but after a short pause she exclaimed
+beseechingly: “Now that I am your accomplice, let me entreat you to do
+all you possibly can to prevent last night’s affair from being noised
+abroad.”
+
+“Impossible.”
+
+“If not for M. Ferailleur’s sake, for the sake of his poor widowed
+mother.”
+
+“Pascal must be put out of the way!”
+
+“Why do you say that? Do you hate him so much then? What has he done to
+you?”
+
+“To me, personally? Nothing--I even feel actual sympathy for him.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles was confounded. “What!” she stammered; “it wasn’t on
+your own account that you did this?”
+
+“Why, no.”
+
+She sprang to her feet, and quivering with scorn and indignation, cried:
+“Ah! then the deed is even more infamous--even more cowardly!” But
+alarmed by the threatening gleam in M. de Coralth’s eyes, she went no
+further.
+
+“A truce to these disagreeable truths,” said he, coldly. “If we
+expressed our opinions of each other without reserve, in this world,
+we should soon come to hard words. Do you think I acted for my own
+pleasure? Suppose some one had seen me when I slipped the cards into the
+pack. If that had happened, I should have been ruined.”
+
+“And you think that no one suspects you?”
+
+“No one. I lost more than a hundred louis myself. If Pascal belonged to
+our set, people might investigate the matter, perhaps; but to-morrow it
+will be forgotten.”
+
+“And will he have no suspicions?”
+
+“He will have no proofs to offer, in any case.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles seemed to resign herself to the inevitable. “I hope you
+will, at least, tell me on whose behalf you acted,” she remarked.
+
+“Impossible,” replied M. de Coralth. And, consulting his watch, he
+added, “But I am forgetting myself; I am forgetting that that idiot of
+a Rochecote is waiting for a sword-thrust. So go to sleep, my dear lady,
+and--till we meet again.”
+
+She accompanied him so far as the landing. “It is quite certain that he
+is hastening to the house of M. Ferailleur’s enemy,” she thought. And,
+calling her confidential servant, “Quick, Job,” she said; “follow M.
+de Coralth. I want to know where he is going. And, above all, take care
+that he doesn’t see you.”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+If through the length and breadth of Paris there is a really quiet,
+peaceful street, a refuge for the thoughtfully inclined, it is surely
+the broad Rue d’Ulm, which starts from the Place du Pantheon,
+and finishes abruptly at the Rue des Feuillantines. The shops are
+unassuming, and so few that one can easily count them. There is
+a wine-shop on the left-hand side, at the corner of the Rue de la
+Vieille-Estrapade; then a little toy-shop, then a washerwoman’s and then
+a book-binder’s establishment; while on the right-hand you will find
+the office of the Bulletin, with a locksmith’s, a fruiterer’s, and a
+baker’s--that is all. Along the rest of the street run several spacious
+buildings, somewhat austere in appearance, though some of them are
+surrounded by large gardens. Here stands the Convent of the Sisters of
+the Cross, with the House of Our Lady of Adoration; while further on,
+near the Rue des Feuillantines, you find the Normal School, with the
+office of the General Omnibus Company hard by. At day-time you mostly
+meet grave and thoughtful faces in the street: priests, savants,
+professors, and clerks employed in the adjacent public libraries. The
+only stir is round about the omnibus office; and if occasional bursts of
+laughter are heard they are sure to come from the Normal School. After
+nightfall, a person might suppose himself to be at least a hundred
+leagues from the Boulevard Montmartre and the Opera-House, in some
+quiet old provincial town, at Poitiers, for instance. And it is only on
+listening attentively that you can catch even a faint echo of the tumult
+of Paris.
+
+It was in this street--“out of the world,” as M. de Coralth expressed
+it--that Pascal Ferailleur resided with his mother. They occupied a
+second floor, a pretty suite of five rooms, looking out upon a garden.
+Their rent was high. Indeed, they paid fourteen hundred francs a year.
+But this was a burden which Pascal’s profession imposed upon him; for
+he, of course, required a private office and a little waiting-room for
+his clients. With this exception, the mother and son led a straightened,
+simple life. Their only servant was a woman who came at seven o’clock to
+do the heavy work, went home again at twelve, and did not return again
+until the evening, to serve dinner. Madame Ferailleur attended to
+everything, not blushing in the least when she was compelled to open the
+door for some client. Besides, she could do this without the least risk
+of encountering disrespect, so imposing and dignified were her manners
+and her person.
+
+M. de Coralth had shown excellent judgment when he compared her to a
+family portrait. She was, in fact, exactly the person a painter would
+select to represent some old burgher’s wife--a chaste and loving spouse,
+a devoted mother, an incomparable housewife--in one phrase, the faithful
+guardian of her husband’s domestic happiness. She had just passed her
+fiftieth birthday, and looked fully her age. She had suffered. A close
+observer would have detected traces of weeping about her wrinkled
+eyelids; and the twinge of her lips was expressive of cruel anguish,
+heroically endured. Still, she was not severe, nor even too sedate; and
+the few friends who visited her were often really astonished at her wit.
+Besides, she was one of those women who have no history, and who find
+happiness in what others would call duty. Her life could be summed up in
+a single sentence: she had loved; she had mourned.
+
+The daughter of a petty clerk in one of the government departments, and
+merely dowered with a modest portion of three thousand francs, she had
+married a young man as poor as herself, but intelligent and industrious,
+whom she loved, and who adored her. This young man on marrying had sworn
+that he would make a fortune; not that he cared for money for himself,
+but he wished to provide his idol with every luxury. His love, enhancing
+his energy, no doubt hastened his success. Attached as a chemist to
+a large manufacturing establishment, his services soon became so
+invaluable to his employers that they gave him a considerable interest
+in the business. His name even obtained an honorable place among modern
+inventors; and we are indebted to him for the discovery of one of those
+brilliant colors that are extracted from common coal. At the end of ten
+years he had become a man of means. He loved his wife as fondly as on
+the day of their marriage, and he had a son--Pascal.
+
+Unfortunate fellow! One day, in the full sunshine of happiness and
+success, while he was engaged in a series of experiments for the purpose
+of obtaining a durable, and at the same time perfectly harmless, green,
+the chemicals exploded, smashing the mortar which he held, and wounding
+him horribly about the head and chest. A fortnight later he died,
+apparently calm, but in reality a prey to bitter regrets. It was a
+terrible blow for his poor wife, and the thought of her son alone
+reconciled her to life. Pascal was now everything to her--her present
+and her future; and she solemnly vowed that she would make a noble man
+of him. But alas! misfortunes never come singly. One of her husband’s
+friends, who acted as administrator to the estate, took a contemptible
+advantage of her inexperience. She went to sleep one night possessing
+an income of fifteen thousand francs, but she awoke to find herself
+ruined--so completely ruined that she did not know where to obtain her
+dinner for that same evening. Had she been alone in the world, she would
+not have grieved much over the catastrophe, but she was sadly affected
+by the thought that her son’s future was, perhaps, irrevocably blighted,
+and that, in any case, this disaster would condemn him to enter life
+through the cramped and gloomy portals of poverty.
+
+However, Madame Ferailleur was of too courageous and too proud a nature
+not to meet this danger with virile energy. She wasted no time in
+useless lamentations. She determined to repair the harm as far as it
+was in her power to repair it, resolving that her son’s studies at the
+college of Louis-the-Great should not be interrupted, even if she had to
+labor with her own hands. And when she spoke of manual toil, it was
+no wild, unmeaning exaggeration born of sorrow and a passing flash of
+courage. She found employment as a day-servant and in sewing for
+large shops, until she at last obtained a situation as clerk in the
+establishment where her husband had been a partner. To obtain this she
+was obliged to acquire a knowledge of bookkeeping, but she was amply
+repaid for her trouble; for the situation was worth eighteen hundred
+francs a year, besides food and lodging. Then only did her efforts
+momentarily abate; she felt that her arduous task was drawing to a happy
+close. Pascal’s expenses at school amounted to about nine hundred francs
+a year; she did not spend more than one hundred on herself; and thus she
+was able to save nearly eight hundred francs a year.
+
+It must be admitted that she was admirably seconded in her efforts by
+her son. Pascal was only twelve years old when his mother said to him:
+“I have ruined you, my son. Nothing remains of the fortune which your
+father accumulated by dint of toil and self-sacrifice. You will be
+obliged to rely upon yourself, my boy. God grant that in years to come
+you will not reproach me for my imprudence.”
+
+The child did not throw himself into her arms, but holding his head
+proudly erect, he answered: “I shall love you even more, dear mother,
+if that be possible. As for the fortune which my father left you, I will
+restore it to you again. I am no longer a school-boy, I am a man--as you
+shall see.”
+
+One could not fail to perceive that he had taken a solemn vow. Although
+he possessed a remarkable mind, and the power of acquiring knowledge
+rapidly, he had, so far, worked indifferently, and then only by fits and
+starts, whenever examination time drew near. But from that day forward
+he did not lose a moment. His remarks, which were at once comical and
+touching, were those of the head of a family, deeply impressed by a
+sense of his own responsibility. “You see,” he said to his companions,
+who were astonished at his sudden thirst for knowledge, “I can’t afford
+to wear out my breeches on the college forms, now that my poor mother
+has to pay for them with her work.”
+
+His good-humor was not in the least impaired by his resolve not to spend
+a single penny of his pocket money. With a tact unusual at his age, or
+indeed at any other, he bore his misfortunes simply and proudly, without
+any of the servile humility or sullen envy which so often accompanies
+poverty. For three years in succession the highest prizes at the
+competitions rewarded him for his efforts; but these successes, far from
+elating him unduly, seemed to afford him but little satisfaction.
+“This is only glory,” he thought; and his great ambition was to support
+himself.
+
+He was soon able to do so, thanks to the kindness of the head-master,
+who offered him his tuition gratis if he would assist in superintending
+some of the lower classes. Thus one day when Madame Ferailleur presented
+herself as usual to make her quarterly payment, the steward replied:
+“You owe us nothing, madame; everything has been paid by your son.”
+
+She almost fainted; after bearing adversity so bravely, this happiness
+proved too much for her. She could scarcely believe it. A long
+explanation was necessary to convince her of the truth, and then big
+tears, tears of joy this time, gushed from her eyes.
+
+In this way, Pascal Ferailleur paid all the expenses of his education
+until he had won his degree, arming himself so as to resist the trials
+that awaited him, and giving abundant proof of energy and ability.
+He wished to be a lawyer; and the law, he was forced to admit, is a
+profession which is almost beyond the reach of penniless young men. But
+there are no insurmountable obstacles for those whose hearts are really
+set on an object. On the very day that Pascal inscribed his name as a
+student at the law school, he entered an advocate’s office as a clerk.
+His duties, which were extremely tiresome at first, had the two-fold
+advantage of familiarizing him with the forms of legal procedure, and of
+furnishing him with the means of prosecuting his studies. After he had
+been in the office six months, his employer agreed to pay him eight
+hundred francs a year, which were increased to fifteen hundred at the
+end of the second twelvemonth. In three years, when he had passed his
+final examination qualifying him to practise, his patron raised him
+to the position of head-clerk, with a salary of three thousand francs,
+which Pascal was moreover able to increase considerably by drawing up
+documents for busy attorneys, and assisting them in the preparation of
+their least important cases.
+
+It was certainly something wonderful to have achieved such a result in
+so short a time; but the most difficult part of his task had still to
+be accomplished. It was a perilous undertaking to abandon an assured
+position, to cast a certainty aside for the chances of life at the bar.
+It was a grave step--so grave, indeed, that Pascal hesitated for a
+long time. He was threatened with the danger that always threatens
+subordinates who are useful to their superiors. He felt that his
+employer, who was in the habit of relieving himself of his heaviest
+duties by intrusting them to him, would not be likely to forgive him
+for leaving. And on starting on his own account, he could ill afford to
+dispense with this lawyer’s good-will. The patronage that could scarcely
+fail to follow him from an office where he had served for four years
+was the most substantial basis of his calculations for the future.
+Eventually he succeeded to his satisfaction, though not without some
+difficulty, and only by employing that supreme finesse which consists in
+absolute frankness.
+
+Before his office had been open a fortnight, he had seven or eight
+briefs waiting their turn upon his desk, and his first efforts were
+such as win the approving smile of old judges, and draw from them the
+prediction: “That young man will rise in his profession.” He had not
+desired to make any display of his knowledge or talent, but merely to
+win the cases confided to him; and, unlike many beginners, he evinced
+no inclination to shine at his clients’ expense. Rare modesty, and it
+served him well. His first ten months of practice brought him about
+eight thousand francs, absorbed in part by the expense attaching to a
+suitable office. The second year his fees increased by about one-half,
+and, feeling that his position was now assured, he insisted that his
+mother should resign her clerkship. He proved to her what was indeed
+the truth--that by superintending his establishment, she would save more
+than she made in her present position.
+
+From that time the mother and the son had good reason to believe that
+their heroic energy had conquered fate. Clients became so numerous that
+Pascal found it necessary to draw nearer the business centre, and
+his rent was consequently doubled; but the income he derived from his
+profession increased so rapidly that he soon had twelve thousand francs
+safely invested as a resource against any emergency. Madame Ferailleur
+now laid aside the mourning she had worn since her husband’s death. She
+felt that she owed it to Pascal; and, besides, after believing there was
+no more happiness left for her on earth, her heart rejoiced at her son’s
+success.
+
+Pascal was thus on the high-road to fame, when a complication in M.
+Ferdinand de Coralth’s affair, brought that young nobleman to his
+office. The trouble arose from a little stock exchange operation
+which M. Ferdinand had engaged in--an affair which savored a trifle
+of knavery. It was strange, but Pascal rather took a liking to M. de
+Coralth. The honest worker felt interested in this dashing adventurer;
+he was almost dazzled by his brilliant vices, his wit, his hardihood,
+conceit, marvellous assurance, and careless impudence; and he studied
+this specimen of the Parisian flora with no little curiosity. M.
+de Coralth certainly did not confide the secret of his life and his
+resources to Pascal but the latter’s intelligence should have told him
+to distrust a man who treated the requirements of morality even more
+than cavalierly, and who had infinitely more wants than scruples.
+However, the young advocate seemed to have no suspicions; they exchanged
+visits occasionally, and it was Pascal himself who one day requested the
+viscount to take him to one of those “Reunions in High Life” which the
+newspapers describe in such glowing terms.
+
+Madame Ferailleur was playing a game of whist with a party of old
+friends, according to her custom every Thursday evening, when M. de
+Coralth called to invite the young advocate to accompany him to Madame
+d’Argeles’s reception. Pascal considered his friend’s invitation
+exceedingly well timed. He dressed himself with more than ordinary care,
+and, as usual before going out, he approached his mother to kiss her and
+wish her good-bye. “How fine you are!” she said, smiling.
+
+“I am going to a soiree, my dear mother,” he replied; “and it is
+probable that I shall not return until very late. So don’t wait for me,
+I beg of you; promise me to go to bed at your usual hour.”
+
+“Have you the night-key?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Very well, then; I will not wait for you. When you come in you will
+find your candle and some matches on the buffet in the ante-room. And
+wrap yourself up well, for it is very cold.” Then raising her forehead
+to her son’s lips, she gayly added: “A pleasant evening to you, my boy!”
+
+Faithful to her promise, Madame Ferailleur retired at the usual hour;
+but she could not sleep. She certainly had no cause for anxiety, and
+yet the thought that her son was not at home filled her heart with
+vague misgivings such as she had never previously felt under similar
+circumstances. Possibly it was because she did not know where Pascal was
+going. Possibly M. de Coralth was the cause of her strange disquietude,
+for she utterly disliked the viscount. Her woman’s instinct warned her
+that there was something unwholesome about this young man’s peculiar
+handsomeness, and that it was not safe to trust to his professions of
+friendship. At all events, she lay awake and heard the clock of the
+neighboring Normal School strike each successive hour--two, three, and
+four. “How late Pascal stays,” she said to herself.
+
+And suddenly a fear more poignant even than her presentiments darted
+through her mind. She sprang out of bed and rushed to the window. She
+fancied she had heard a terrible cry of distress in the deserted street.
+At that very moment, the insulting word “thief” was being hurled in her
+son’s face. But the street was silent, and deciding that she had been
+mistaken, she went back to bed laughing at herself for her fears; and
+at last she fell asleep. But judge of her terror in the morning when, on
+rising to let the servant in, she saw Pascal’s candle still standing on
+the buffet. Was it possible that he had not returned? She hastened to
+his room--he was not there. And it was nearly eight o’clock.
+
+This was the first time that Pascal had spent a night from home without
+warning his mother in advance; and such an act on the part of a man
+of his character was sufficient proof that something extraordinary
+had occurred. In an instant all the dangers that lurk in Paris after
+nightfall flashed through her mind. She remembered all the stories she
+had read of men decoyed into dark corners, of men stabbed at the turn of
+some deserted street, or thrown into the Seine while crossing one of
+the bridges. What should she do? Her first impulse was to run to the
+Commissary of Police’s office or to the house of Pascal’s friend; but
+on the other hand, she dared not go out, for fear he might return in her
+absence. Thus, in an agony of suspense, she waited--counting the seconds
+by the quick throbbings of her temples, and straining her ears to catch
+the slightest sound.
+
+At last, about half-past eight o’clock, she heard a heavy, uncertain
+footfall on the stairs. She flew to the door and beheld her son. His
+clothes were torn and disordered; his cravat was missing, he wore no
+overcoat, and he was bareheaded. He looked very pale, and his teeth were
+chattering. His eyes stared vacantly, and his features had an almost
+idiotic expression. “Pascal, what has happened to you?” she asked.
+
+He trembled from head to foot as the sound of her voice suddenly roused
+him from his stupor. “Nothing,” he stammered; “nothing at all.” And as
+his mother pressed him with questions, he pushed her gently aside and
+went on to his room.
+
+“Poor child!” murmured Madame Ferailleur, at once grieved and reassured;
+“and he is always so temperate. Some one must have forced him to drink.”
+
+She was entirely wrong in her surmise, and yet Pascal’s sensations were
+exactly like those of an intoxicated man. How he had returned home, by
+what road, and what had happened on the way, he could not tell. He had
+found his way back mechanically, merely by force of habit--physical
+memory, as it might be called. He had a vague impression, however, that
+he had sat down for some time on a bench in the Champs-Elysees, that he
+had felt extremely cold, and that he had been accosted by a policeman,
+who threatened him with arrest if he did not move on. The last thing he
+could clearly recollect was rushing from Madame d’Argeles’s house in
+the Rue de Berry. He knew that he had descended the staircase slowly
+and deliberately; that the servants in the vestibule had stood aside to
+allow him to pass; and that, while crossing the courtyard, he had thrown
+away the candelabrum with which he had defended himself. After that,
+he remembered nothing distinctly. On reaching the street he had been
+overcome by the fresh air, just as a carouser is overcome on emerging
+from a heated dining-room. Perhaps the champagne which he had drank had
+contributed to this cerebral disorder. At all events, even now, in
+his own room, seated in his own arm-chair, and surrounded by familiar
+objects, he did not succeed in regaining the possession of his
+faculties.
+
+He had barely strength enough to throw himself on to the bed, and in
+a moment he was sleeping with that heavy slumber which so often
+seizes hold of one on the occasion of a great crisis, and which has so
+frequently been observed among persons condemned to death, on the night
+preceding their execution. Four or five times his mother came to listen
+at the door. Once she entered, and seeing her son sleeping soundly, she
+could not repress a smile of satisfaction. “Poor Pascal!” she thought;
+“he can bear no excess but excess of work. Heavens! how surprised and
+mortified he will be when he awakes!”
+
+Alas! it was not a trifling mortification, but despair, which awaited
+the sleeper on his wakening; for the past, the present, and the future
+were presented simultaneously and visionlike to his imagination.
+Although he had scarcely regained the full use of his faculties, he was,
+to some extent, at least capable of reflection and deliberation, and he
+tried to look the situation bravely in the face. First, as to the past,
+he had not the shadow of a doubt. He realized that he had fallen into a
+vile trap, and the person who had laid it for him was undoubtedly M. de
+Coralth, who, seated at his right, had prepared the “hands” with which
+he had won. This was evident. It seemed equally proven that Madame
+d’Argeles knew the real culprit--possibly she had detected him in the
+act, possibly he had taken her into his confidence. But what he could
+not fathom was M. de Coralth’s motive. What could have prompted the
+viscount to commit such an atrocious act? The incentive must have been
+very powerful, since he had naturally incurred the danger of detection
+and of being considered an accomplice at the least. And then what
+influence had closed Madame d’Argeles’s lips? But after all, what
+was the use of these conjectures? It was an actual, unanswerable, and
+terrible fact that this infamous plot had been successful, and
+that Pascal was dishonored. He was honesty itself, and yet he was
+accused--more than that, CONVICTED--of cheating at cards! He was
+innocent, and yet he could furnish no proofs of his innocence. He knew
+the real culprit, and yet he could see no way of unmasking him or even
+of accusing him. Do what he would, this atrocious, incomprehensive
+calumny would crush him. The bar was closed against him; his career was
+ended. And the terrible conviction that there was no escape from the
+abyss into which he had fallen made his reason totter--he felt that he
+was incapable of deciding on the best course, and that he must have a
+friend’s advice.
+
+Full of this idea, he hastily changed his clothes, and hurried from
+his room. His mother was watching for him--inclined to laugh at him
+a little; but a single glance warned her that her son was in terrible
+trouble, and that some dire misfortune had certainly befallen him.
+“Pascal, in heaven’s name, what has happened?” she cried.
+
+“A slight difficulty--a mere trifle,” he replied.
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“To the Palais de Justice.” And such was really the case, for he hoped
+to meet his most intimate friend there.
+
+Contrary to his usual custom, he took the little staircase on the right,
+leading to the grand vestibule, where several lawyers were assembled,
+earnestly engaged in conversation. They were evidently astonished to
+see Pascal, and their conversation abruptly ceased on his approach.
+They assumed a grave look and turned away their heads in disgust. The
+unfortunate man at once realized the truth, and pressed his hand to
+his forehead, with a despairing gesture, as he murmured:
+“Already!--already!”
+
+However, he passed on, and not seeing his friend, he hurried to the
+little conference hall, where he found five of his fellow-advocates. On
+Pascal’s entrance, two of them at once left the hall, while two of the
+others pretended to be very busily engaged in examining a brief which
+lay open on the table. The fifth, who did not move, was not the friend
+Pascal sought, but an old college comrade named Dartelle. Pascal walked
+straight toward him. “Well?” he asked.
+
+Dartelle handed him a Figaro, still damp from the printing-press, but
+crumpled and worn, as if it had already passed through more than a
+hundred hands. “Read!” said he.
+
+Pascal read as follows: “There was great sensation and a terrible
+scandal last night at the residence of Madame d’A----, a well-known star
+of the first magnitude. A score of gentlemen of high rank and immense
+wealth were enjoying a quiet game of baccarat, when it was observed that
+M. F---- was winning in a most extraordinary manner. He was watched and
+detected in the very act of dexterously slipping some cards into the
+pack he held. Crushed by the overpowering evidence against him, he
+allowed himself to be searched, and without much demur consented to
+refund the fruit of his knavery, to the amount of two thousand louis.
+The strangest thing connected with this scandal is, that M. F----, who
+is an advocate by profession, has always enjoyed an enviable reputation
+for integrity; and, unfortunately, this prank cannot be attributed to a
+momentary fit of madness, for the fact that he had provided himself with
+these cards in advance proves the act to have been premeditated. One of
+the persons present was especially displeased. This was the Viscount de
+C----, who had introduced M. F---- to Madame d’A----. Extremely annoyed
+by this contretemps, he took umbrage at an offensive remark made by M.
+de R----, and it was rumored that these gentlemen would cross swords at
+daybreak this morning.
+
+“LATER INTELLIGENCE.--We learn at the moment of going to press that an
+encounter has just taken place between M. de R---- and M. de C----.
+M. de R---- received a slight wound in the side, but his condition is
+sufficiently satisfactory not to alarm his friends.”
+
+
+The paper slipped from Pascal’s hand. His features were almost
+unrecognizable in his passion and despair. “It is an infamous lie!”
+ he said, hoarsely. “I am innocent; I swear it upon my honor!” Dartelle
+averted his face, but not quickly enough to prevent Pascal from noticing
+the look of withering scorn in his eyes. Then, feeling that he was
+condemned, that his sentence was irrevocable, and that there was no
+longer any hope: “I know the only thing that remains for me to do!” he
+murmured.
+
+Dartelle turned, his eyes glistening with tears. He seized Pascal’s
+hands and pressed them with sorrowful tenderness, as if taking leave of
+a friend who is about to die. “Courage!” he whispered.
+
+Pascal fled like a madman. “Yes,” he repeated, as he rushed along the
+Boulevard Saint-Michel, “that is the only thing left me to do.”
+
+When he reached home he entered his office, double-locked the door, and
+wrote two letters--one to his mother, the other to the president of the
+order of Advocates. After a moment’s thought he began a third, but tore
+it into pieces before he had completed it. Then, without an instant’s
+hesitation, and like a man who had fully decided upon his course, he
+took a revolver and a box of cartridges from a drawer in his desk. “Poor
+mother!” he murmured; “it will kill her--but my disgrace would kill her
+too. Better shorten the agony.”
+
+He little fancied at that supreme moment that each of his gestures, each
+contraction of his features, were viewed by the mother whose name he
+faltered. Since her son had left her to go to the Palais de Justice, the
+poor woman had remained almost crazy with anxiety; and when she heard
+him return and lock himself in his office--a thing he had never done
+before--a fearful presentiment was aroused in her mind. Gliding into her
+son’s bedroom, she at once approached the door communicating with his
+office. The upper part of this portal was of glass; it was possible to
+see what was occurring in the adjoining room. When Madame Ferailleur
+perceived Pascal seat himself at his desk and begin to write, she felt
+a trifle reassured, and almost thought of going away. But a vague dread,
+stronger than reason or will, riveted her to the spot. A few moments
+later, when she saw the revolver in her son’s hand, she understood
+everything. Her blood froze in her veins; and yet she had sufficient
+self-control to repress the cry of terror which sprang to her lips. She
+realized that the danger was terrible, imminent, extreme. Her heart,
+rather than her bewildered reason, told her that her son’s life hung on
+a single thread. The slightest sound, a word, a rap on the door might
+hasten the unfortunate man’s deed.
+
+An inspiration from heaven came to the poor mother. Pascal had contented
+himself with locking the door leading to the ante-room. He had forgotten
+this one, or neglected it, not thinking that anybody would approach
+his office through his bedroom. But his mother perceived that this door
+opened toward her. So, turning the knob with the utmost caution, she
+flung it suddenly open, and reaching her son’s side with a single bound,
+she clasped him closely in her arms. “Pascal, wretched boy! what would
+you do?”
+
+He was so surprised that his weapon fell from his hand, and he sank
+back almost fainting in his arm-chair. The idea of denying his intention
+never once occurred to him; besides, he was unable to articulate a word.
+But on his desk there lay a letter addressed to his mother which would
+speak for him.
+
+Madame Ferailleur took it, tore the envelope open, and read: “Forgive
+me--I’m about to die. It must be so. I cannot survive dishonor; and I am
+dishonored.”
+
+“Dishonored!--you!” exclaimed the heartbroken mother. “My God! what does
+this mean? Speak. I implore you: tell me all--you must. I command you to
+do so. I command you!”
+
+He complied with this at once supplicating and imperious behest, and
+related in a despairing voice the events which had wrought his woe. He
+did not omit a single particular, but tried rather to exaggerate than
+palliate the horrors of his situation. Perhaps he found a strange
+satisfaction in proving to himself that there was no hope left; possibly
+he believed his mother would say: “Yes, you are right; and death is your
+only refuge!”
+
+As Madame Ferailleur listened, however, her eyes dilated with fear and
+horror, and she scarcely realized whether she were awake or in the
+midst of some frightful dream. For this was one of those unexpected
+catastrophes which are beyond the range of human foresight or even
+imagination, and which her mind could scarcely conceive or admit. But
+SHE did not doubt him, even though his friends had doubted him. Indeed,
+if he had himself told her that he was guilty of cheating at cards,
+she would have refused to believe him. When his story was ended,
+she exclaimed: “And you wished to kill yourself? Did you not think,
+senseless boy, that your death would give an appearance of truth to this
+vile calumny?”
+
+With a mother’s wonderful, sublime instinct, she had found the most
+powerful reason that could be urged to induce Pascal to live. “Did you
+not feel, my son, that it showed a lack of courage on your part to brand
+yourself and your name with eternal infamy, in order to escape your
+present sufferings? This thought ought to have stayed your hand. An
+honest name is a sacred trust which no one has a right to abuse. Your
+father bequeathed it to you, pure and untarnished, and so you must
+preserve it. If others try to cover it with opprobrium, you must live to
+defend it.”
+
+He lowered his head despondently, and in a tone of profound
+discouragement, he replied: “But what can I do? How can I escape from
+the web which has been woven around me with such fiendish cunning? If I
+had possessed my usual presence of mind at the moment of the accusation,
+I might have defended and justified myself, perhaps. But now the
+misfortune is irreparable. How can I unmask the traitor, and what proofs
+of his guilt can I cast in his face?”
+
+“All the same, you ought not to yield without a struggle,” interrupted
+Madame Ferailleur, sternly. “It is wrong to abandon a task because it is
+difficult; it must be accepted, and, even if one perish in the struggle,
+there is, at least, the satisfaction of feeling that one has not failed
+in duty.”
+
+“But, mother----”
+
+“I must not keep the truth from you, Pascal! What! are you lacking in
+energy? Come, my son, rise and raise your head. I shall not let you
+fight alone. I will fight with you.”
+
+Without speaking a word, Pascal caught hold of his mother’s hands and
+pressed them to his lips. His face was wet with tears. His overstrained
+nerves relaxed under the soothing influence of maternal tenderness and
+devotion. Reason, too, had regained her ascendency. His mother’s noble
+words found an echo in his own heart, and he now looked upon suicide as
+an act of madness and cowardice. Madame Ferailleur felt that the victory
+was assured, but this did not suffice; she wished to enlist Pascal in
+her plans. “It is evident,” she resumed, “that M. de Coralth is the
+author of this abominable plot. But what could have been his object? Has
+he any reason to fear you, Pascal? Has he confided to you, or have you
+discovered, any secret that might ruin him if it were divulged?”
+
+“No, mother.”
+
+“Then he must be the vile instrument of some even more despicable being.
+Reflect, my son. Have you wounded any of your friends? Are you sure that
+you are in nobody’s way? Consider carefully. Your profession has its
+dangers; and those who adopt it must expect to make bitter enemies.”
+
+Pascal trembled. It seemed to him as if a ray of light at last illumined
+the darkness--a dim and uncertain ray, it is true, but still a gleam of
+light.
+
+“Who knows!” he muttered; “who knows!”
+
+Madame Ferailleur reflected a few moments, and the nature of her
+reflections brought a flush to her brow. “This is one of those cases
+in which a mother should overstep reserve,” said she. “If you had a
+mistress, my son----”
+
+“I have none,” he answered, promptly. Then his own face flushed, and
+after an instant’s hesitation, he added: “But I entertain the most
+profound and reverent love for a young girl, the most beautiful and
+chaste being on earth--a girl who, in intelligence and heart, is worthy
+of you, my own mother.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur nodded her head gravely, as much as to say that she
+had expected to find a woman at the bottom of the mystery. “And who is
+this young girl?” she inquired. “What is her name?”
+
+“Marguerite.”
+
+“Marguerite who?”
+
+Pascal’s embarrassment increased. “She has no other name,” he replied,
+hurriedly, “and she does not know her parents. She formerly lived in our
+street with her companion, Madame Leon, and an old female servant. It
+was there that I saw her for the first time. She now lives in the house
+of the Count de Chalusse, in the Rue de Courcelles.”
+
+“In what capacity?”
+
+“The count has always taken care of her--she owes her education to him.
+He acts as her guardian; and although she has never spoken to me on the
+subject, I fancy that the Count de Chalusse is her father.”
+
+“And does this girl love you, Pascal?”
+
+“I believe so, mother. She has promised me that she will have no other
+husband than myself.”
+
+“And the count?”
+
+“He doesn’t know--he doesn’t even suspect anything about it. Day after
+day I have been trying to gather courage to tell you everything, and to
+ask you to go to the Count de Chalusse. But my position is so modest as
+yet. The count is immensely rich, and he intends to give Marguerite an
+enormous fortune--two millions, I believe----”
+
+Madame Ferailleur interrupted him with a gesture. “Look no further,” she
+said; “you have found the explanation.”
+
+Pascal sprang to his feet with crimson cheeks, flaming eyes, and
+quivering lips. “It may be so,” he exclaimed; “it may be so! The count’s
+immense fortune may have tempted some miserable scoundrel. Who knows but
+some one may have been watching Marguerite, and have discovered that I
+am an obstacle?”
+
+“Something told me that my suspicions were correct,” said Madame
+Ferailleur. “I had no proofs, and yet I felt sure of it.”
+
+Pascal was absorbed in thought. “And what a strange coincidence,” he
+eventually remarked. “Do you know, the last time I saw Marguerite,
+a week ago, she seemed so sad and anxious that I felt alarmed. I
+questioned her, but at first she would not answer. After a little
+while, however, as I insisted, she said: ‘Ah, well, I fear the count is
+planning a marriage for me. M. de Chalusse has not said a word to me on
+the subject, but he has recently had several long conferences in private
+with a young man whose father rendered him a great service in former
+years. And this young man, whenever I meet him, looks at me in such a
+peculiar manner.’”
+
+“What is his name?” asked Madame Ferailleur.
+
+“I don’t know--she didn’t mention it; and her words so disturbed me
+that I did not think of asking. But she will tell me. This evening, if
+I don’t succeed in obtaining an interview, I will write to her. If your
+suspicions are correct, mother, our secret is in the hands of three
+persons, and so it is a secret no longer----”
+
+He paused suddenly to listen. The noise of a spirited altercation
+between the servant and some visitor, came from the ante-room. “I tell
+you that he IS at home,” said some one in a panting voice, “and I must
+see him and speak with him at once. It is such an urgent matter that I
+left a card-party just at the most critical moment to come here.”
+
+“I assure you, monsieur, that M. Ferailleur has gone out.”
+
+“Very well; I will wait for him, then. Take me to a room where I can sit
+down.”
+
+Pascal turned pale, for he recognized the voice of the individual who
+had suggested searching him at Madame d’Argeles’s house. Nevertheless,
+he opened the door; and a man, with a face like a full moon, and who was
+puffing and panting like a locomotive, came forward with the assurance
+of a person who thinks he may do anything he chooses by reason of his
+wealth. “Zounds!” he exclaimed. “I knew perfectly well that you
+were here. You don’t recognize me, perhaps, my dear sir. I am Baron
+Trigault--I came to----”
+
+The words died away on his lips, and he became as embarrassed as if he
+had not possessed an income of eight hundred thousand francs a year. The
+fact is he had just perceived Madame Ferailleur. He bowed to her, and
+then, with a significant glance at Pascal he said: “I should like to
+speak to you in private, monsieur, in reference to a matter--”
+
+Great as was Pascal’s astonishment, he showed none of it on his face.
+“You can speak in my mother’s presence,” he replied, coldly; “she knows
+everything.”
+
+The baron’s surprise found vent in a positive distortion of his
+features. “Ah!” said he, in three different tones; “ah! ah!” And as
+no one had offered him a seat, he approached an arm-chair and took
+possession of it, exclaiming, “You will allow me, I trust? Those stairs
+have put me in such a state!”
+
+In spite of his unwieldy appearance, this wealthy man was endowed with
+great natural shrewdness and an unusually active mind. And while he
+pretended to be engaged in recovering his breath he studied the room
+and its occupants. A revolver was lying on the floor beside a torn and
+crumpled letter, and tears were still glittering in the eyes of Madame
+Ferailleur and her son. A keen observer needed no further explanation of
+the scene.
+
+“I will not conceal from you, monsieur,” began the baron, “that I
+have been led here by certain compunctions of conscience.” And,
+misinterpreting a gesture which Pascal made, “I mean what I say,” he
+continued; “compunctions of conscience. I have them occasionally. Your
+departure this morning, after that deplorable scene, caused certain
+doubts and suspicions to arise in my mind; and I said to myself, ‘We
+have been too hasty; perhaps this young man may not be guilty.’”
+
+“Monsieur!” interrupted Pascal, in a threatening tone.
+
+“Excuse me, allow me to finish, if you please. Reflection, I must
+confess, only confirmed this impression, and increased my doubts. ‘The
+devil!’ I said to myself again; ‘if this young man is innocent, the
+culprit must be one of the habitues of Madame d’Argeles’s house--that is
+to say, a man with whom I play twice a week, and whom I shall play with
+again next Monday.’ And then I became uneasy, and here I am!” Was the
+absurd reason which the baron gave for his visit the true one? It was
+difficult to decide. “I came,” he continued, “thinking that a look at
+your home would teach me something; and now I have seen it, I am ready
+to take my oath that you are the victim of a vile conspiracy.”
+
+So saying he noisily blew his nose, but this did not prevent him from
+observing the quiet joy of Pascal and his mother. They were amazed. But
+although these words were calculated to make them feel intensely happy,
+they still looked at their visitor with distrust. It is not natural for
+a person to interest himself in other people’s misfortunes, unless he
+has some special motive for doing so; and what could this singular man’s
+object be?
+
+However, he did not seem in the slightest degree disconcerted by the
+glacial reserve with which his advances were received. “It is clear
+that you are in some one’s way,” he resumed, “and that this some one has
+invented this method of ruining you. There can be no question about it.
+The intention became manifest to my mind the moment I read the paragraph
+concerning you in the Figaro. Have you seen it? Yes? Well, what do you
+think of it? I would be willing to swear that it was written from notes
+furnished by your enemy. Moreover, the particulars are incorrect, and I
+am going to write a line of correction which I shall take to the office
+myself.” So saying he transported his unwieldy person to Pascal’s desk,
+and hastily wrote as follows:
+
+
+   “MR. EDITOR,
+
+   “As a witness of the scene that took place at Madame d’A----s’s
+   house last night, allow me to make an important correction.  It is
+   only too true that extra cards were introduced into the pack, but
+   that they were introduced by M. F---- is not proven, since he was
+   NOT SEEN to do it.  I know that appearances are against him, but
+   he nevertheless possesses my entire confidence and esteem.
+
+                                   “BARON TRIGAULT.”
+
+
+Meanwhile Madame Ferailleur and her son had exchanged significant
+glances. Their impressions were the same. This man could not be an
+enemy. When the baron had finished his letter, and had read it aloud,
+Pascal, who was deeply moved, exclaimed: “I do not know how to express
+my gratitude to you, monsieur; but if you really wish to serve me, pray
+don’t send that note. It would cause you a great deal of trouble and
+annoyance, and I should none the less be obliged to relinquish the
+practice of my profession--besides, I am especially anxious to be
+forgotten for a time.”
+
+“So be it--I understand you; you hope to discover the traitor, and you
+do not wish to put him on his guard. I approve of your prudence. But
+remember my words: if you ever need a helping hand, rap at my door; and
+when you hold the necessary proofs, I will furnish you with the means of
+rendering your justification even more startling than the affront.” He
+prepared to go, but before crossing the threshold, he turned and said:
+“In future I shall watch the fingers of the player who sits on my left
+hand. And if I were in your place, I would obtain the notes from which
+that newspaper article was written. One never knows the benefit that may
+be derived, at a certain moment, from a page of writing.”
+
+As he started off, Madame Ferailleur sprang from her chair. “Pascal,”
+ she exclaimed, “that man knows something, and your enemies are his; I
+read it in his eyes. He, too, distrusts M. de Coralth.”
+
+“I understood him, mother, and my mind is made up. I must disappear.
+From this moment Pascal Ferailleur no longer exists.”
+
+
+
+That same evening two large vans were standing outside Madame
+Ferailleur’s house. She had sold her furniture without reserve, and was
+starting to join her son, who had already left for Le Havre, she said,
+in view of sailing to America.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+“There are a number of patients waiting for me. I will drop in again
+about midnight. I still have several urgent visits to make.” Thus had
+Dr. Jodon spoken to Mademoiselle Marguerite; and yet, when he left the
+Hotel de Chalusse, after assuring himself that Casimir would have some
+straw spread over the street, the doctor quietly walked home. The visits
+he had spoken of merely existed in his imagination; but it was a part of
+his role to appear to be overrun with patients. To tell the truth,
+the only patient he had had to attend to that week was a superannuated
+porter, living in the Rue de la Pepiniere, and whom he visited twice a
+day, for want of something better to do. The remainder of his time
+was spent in waiting for patients who never came, and in cursing the
+profession of medicine, which was ruined, he declared, by excessive
+competition, combined with certain rules of decorum which hampered young
+practitioners beyond endurance.
+
+However, if Dr. Jodon had devoted one-half of the time he spent in
+cursing and building castles in the air to study, he might have,
+perhaps, raised his little skill to the height of his immense ambition.
+But neither work nor patience formed any part of his system. He was
+a man of the present age, and wished to rise speedily with as little
+trouble as possible. A certain amount of display and assurance, a little
+luck, and a good deal of advertising would, in his opinion, suffice to
+bring about this result. It was with this conviction, indeed, that he
+had taken up his abode in the Rue de Courcelles, situated in one of the
+most aristocratic quarters of Paris. But so far, events had shown his
+theory to be incorrect. In spite of the greatest economy, very cleverly
+concealed, he had seen the little capital which constituted his entire
+fortune dwindle away. He had originally possessed but twenty thousand
+francs, a sum which in no wise corresponded with his lofty pretensions.
+He had paid his rent that very morning; and he could not close his eyes
+to the fact that the time was near at hand when he would be unable to
+pay it. What should he do then? When he thought of this contingency,
+and it was a subject that filled his mind to the exclusion of all other
+matters, he felt the fires of wrath and hatred kindle in his soul. He
+utterly refused to regard himself as the cause of his own misfortunes;
+on the contrary, following the example of many other disappointed
+individuals, he railed at mankind and everything in general--at
+circumstances, envious acquaintances, and enemies, whom he certainly did
+not possess.
+
+At times he was capable of doing almost anything to gratify his lust for
+gold, for the privations which he had endured so long were like oil cast
+upon the flame of covetousness which was ever burning in his breast. In
+calmer moments he asked himself at what other door he could knock,
+in view of hastening the arrival of Fortune. Sometimes he thought of
+turning dentist, or of trying to find some capitalist who would join him
+in manufacturing one of those patent medicines which are warranted
+to yield their promoters a hundred thousand francs a year. On other
+occasions he dreamed of establishing a monster pharmacy, or of opening
+a private hospital. But money was needed to carry out any one of these
+plans, and he had no money. There was the rub. However the time was fast
+approaching when he must decide upon his course; he could not possibly
+hold out much longer.
+
+His third year of practice in the Rue de Courcelles had not yielded him
+enough to pay his servant’s wages. For he had a servant, of course.
+He had a valet for the same reason as he had a suite of rooms of a
+superficially sumptuous aspect. Faithful to his system, or, rather, to
+his master’s system, he had sacrificed everything to show. The display
+of gilding in his apartments was such as to make a man of taste shut
+his eyes to escape the sight of it. There were gorgeous carpets and
+hangings, frescoed ceilings, spurious objects of virtu, and pier-tables
+loaded with ornaments. An unsophisticated youth from the country would
+certainly have been dazzled; but it would not do to examine these things
+too closely. There was more cotton than silk in the velvet covering of
+the furniture; and if various statuettes placed on brackets at a certain
+height had been closely inspected, it would have been found that they
+were of mere plaster, hidden beneath a coating of green paint, sprinkled
+with copper filings. This plaster, playing the part of bronze, was in
+perfect keeping with the man, his system, and the present age.
+
+When the doctor reached home, his first question to his servant was as
+usual: “Has any one called?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+The doctor sighed, and passing through his superb waiting-room, he
+entered his consulting sanctum, and seated himself in the chimney corner
+beside an infinitesimal fire. He was even more thoughtful than usual.
+The scene which he had just witnessed at the Count de Chalusse’s house
+recurred to his mind, and he turned it over and over again in his brain,
+striving to find some way by which he might derive an advantage from the
+mystery. For he was more than ever convinced that there was a mystery.
+He had been engrossed in these thoughts for some time, when his
+meditations were disturbed by a ring at the bell. Who could be calling
+at this hour?
+
+The question was answered by his servant, who appeared and informed
+him that a lady, who was in a great hurry, was waiting in the
+reception-room. “Very well,” was his reply; “but it is best to let her
+wait a few moments.” For he had at least this merit: he never deviated
+from his system. Under no circumstances whatever would he have admitted
+a patient immediately; he wished him to wait so that he might have an
+opportunity of reflecting on the advantages of consulting a physician
+whose time was constantly occupied.
+
+However, when ten minutes or so had elapsed, he opened the door, and
+a tall lady came quickly forward, throwing back the veil which had
+concealed her face. She must have been over forty-five; and if she had
+ever been handsome, there was nothing to indicate it now. She had brown
+hair, thickly sprinkled with gray, but very coarse and abundant, and
+growing low over her forehead; her nose was broad and flat; her lips
+were thick, and her eyes were dull and expressionless. However, her
+manners were gentle and rather melancholy; and one would have judged her
+to be somewhat of a devotee. Still for the time being she seemed greatly
+agitated. She seated herself at the doctor’s invitation; and without
+waiting for him to ask any questions: “I ought to tell you at once,
+monsieur,” she began, “that I am the Count de Chalusse’s house-keeper.”
+
+In spite of his self-control, the doctor bounded from his chair. “Madame
+Leon?” he asked, in a tone of intense surprise.
+
+She bowed, compressing her thick lips. “I am known by that name--yes,
+monsieur. But it is only my Christian name. The one I have a right to
+bear would not accord with my present position. Reverses of fortune are
+not rare in these days; and were it not for the consoling influences of
+religion, one would not have strength to endure them.”
+
+The physician was greatly puzzled. “What can she want of me?” he
+thought.
+
+Meanwhile, she had resumed speaking: “I was much reduced in
+circumstances--at the end of my resources, indeed--when M. de
+Chalusse--a family friend--requested me to act as companion to a young
+girl in whom he was interested--Mademoiselle Marguerite. I accepted the
+position; and I thank God every day that I did so, for I feel a mother’s
+affection for this young girl, and she loves me as fondly as if she were
+my own daughter.” In support of her assertion, she drew a handkerchief
+from her pocket, and succeeded in forcing a few tears to her eyes.
+“Under these circumstances, doctor,” she continued, “you cannot fail to
+understand that the interests of my dearly beloved Marguerite bring me
+to you. I was shut up in my own room when M. de Chalusse was brought
+home, and I did not hear of his illness until after your departure.
+Perhaps you might say that I ought to have waited until your next visit;
+but I had not sufficient patience to do so. One cannot submit without
+a struggle to the torture of suspense, when the future of a beloved
+daughter is at stake. So here I am.” She paused to take breath, and then
+added, “I have come, monsieur, to ask you to tell me the exact truth
+respecting the count’s condition.”
+
+The doctor was expecting something very different, but nevertheless he
+replied with all due gravity and self-possession. “It is my painful duty
+to tell you, madame, that there is scarcely any hope, and that I expect
+a fatal termination within twenty-four hours, unless the patient should
+regain consciousness.”
+
+The housekeeper turned pale. “Then all is lost,” she faltered, “all
+is lost!” And unable to articulate another word she rose to her feet,
+bowed, and abruptly left the room.
+
+Before the grate, with his mouth half open, and his right arm extended
+in an interrupted gesture, the doctor stood speechless and disconcerted.
+It was only when the outer door closed with a bang that he seemed
+restored to consciousness. And as he heard the noise he sprang forward
+as if to recall his visitor. “Ah!” he exclaimed, with an oath, “the
+miserable old woman was mocking me!” And urged on by a wild, irrational
+impulse, he caught up his hat and darted out in pursuit. Madame Leon was
+considerably in advance of him, and was walking very quickly; still, by
+quickening his pace, he might have overtaken her. However, he did not
+join her, for he scarcely knew what excuse to offer for such a strange
+proceeding; he contented himself by cautiously following her at a little
+distance. Suddenly she stopped short. It was in front of a tobacconist’s
+shop, where there was a post-office letter-box. The shop was closed, but
+the box was there with its little slit for letters to be dropped into
+it. Madame Leon evidently hesitated. She paused, as one always does
+before venturing upon a decisive act, from which there will be no
+return, whatever may be the consequences. An observer never remains
+twenty minutes before a letter-box without witnessing this pantomime so
+expressive of irresolution. At last, however, she shrugged her
+shoulders with a gesture which eloquently expressed the result of her
+deliberations; and drawing a letter from her bosom, she dropped it into
+the box, and then hastened on more quickly than before.
+
+“There is not the slightest doubt,” thought the doctor, “that letter had
+been prepared in advance, and whether it should be sent or not depended
+on the answer I gave.”
+
+We have already said that M. Jodon was not a wealthy man, and yet
+he would willingly have given a hundred-franc note to have known the
+contents of this letter, or even the name of the person to whom it was
+addressed. But his chase was almost ended. Madame Leon had reached the
+Hotel de Chalusse, and now went in. Should he follow her? His curiosity
+was torturing him to such a degree that he had an idea of doing so;
+and it required an heroic effort of will to resist the temptation
+successfully. But a gleam of common sense warned him that this would
+be a terrible blunder. Once already during the evening his conduct had
+attracted attention; and he began to realize that there was a better
+way of winning confidence than by intruding almost forcibly into other
+people’s affairs. Accordingly he thoughtfully retraced his steps,
+feeling intensely disgusted with himself. “What a fool I am!” he
+grumbled. “If I had kept the old woman in suspense, instead of blurting
+out the truth, I might have learned the real object of her visit; for
+she had an object. But what was it?”
+
+The doctor spent the two hours that remained to him before making his
+second visit in trying to discover it. But, although nothing prevented
+him from exploring the boundless fields of improbable possibilities, he
+could think of nothing satisfactory. There was only one certain point,
+that Madame Leon and Mademoiselle Marguerite were equally interested in
+the question as to whether the count would regain consciousness or not.
+As to their interests in the matter, the doctor felt confident that
+they were not identical; he was persuaded that a secret enmity
+existed between them, and that the housekeeper had visited him without
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s knowledge. For he was not deceived by Madame
+Leon, or by her pretended devotion to Mademoiselle Marguerite. Her
+manner, her smooth words, her tone of pious resignation, and the
+allusion to the grand name she had the right to bear, were all
+calculated to impose upon one; but she had been too much disconcerted
+toward the last to remember her part. Dr. Jodon lacked the courage to
+return to his sumptuous rooms, and it was in a little cafe that he thus
+reflected upon the situation, while drinking some execrable beer brewed
+in Paris out of a glass manufactured in Bavaria.
+
+At last midnight sounded--the hour had come. Still the doctor did not
+move. Having been obliged to wait himself, he wished, in revenge, to
+make the others wait, and it was not until the cafe closed that he again
+walked up the Rue de Courcelles. Madame Leon had left the gate ajar, and
+the doctor had no difficulty in making his way into the courtyard. As
+in the earlier part of the evening, the servants were assembled in the
+concierge’s lodge; but the careless gayety which shone upon their faces
+a few hours before had given place to evident anxiety respecting their
+future prospects. Through the windows of the lodge they could be seen
+standing round the two choice spirits of the household, M. Bourigeau,
+the concierge, and M. Casimir, the valet, who were engaged in earnest
+conversation. And if the doctor had listened, he would have heard
+such words as “wages,” and “legacies,” and “remuneration for faithful
+service,” and “annuities” repeated over and over again.
+
+But M. Jodon did not listen. Thinking he should find some servant
+inside, he entered the house. However, there was nobody to announce his
+presence; the door closed noiselessly behind him, the heavy carpet which
+covered the marble steps stifled the sound of his footsteps, and he
+ascended the first flight without seeing any one. The door opening into
+the count’s room was open, the room itself being brilliantly lighted by
+a large fire, and a lamp which stood on a corner of the mantel-shelf.
+Instinctively the doctor paused and looked in. There had been no change
+since his first visit. The count was still lying motionless on his
+pillows; his face was swollen, his eyelids were closed, but he still
+breathed, as was shown by the regular movement of the covering over his
+chest. Madame Leon and Mademoiselle Marguerite were his only attendants.
+The housekeeper, who sat back a little in the shade, was half reclining
+in an arm-chair with her hands clasped in her lap, her lips firmly
+compressed, and her eyes fixed upon vacancy. Pale but calm, and more
+imposing and more beautiful than ever, Mademoiselle Marguerite was
+kneeling beside the bed, eagerly watching for some sign of renewed life
+and intelligence on the count’s face.
+
+A little ashamed of his indiscretion, the doctor retreated seven or
+eight steps down the stairs, and then ascended them again, coughing
+slightly, so as to announce his approach. This time he was heard.
+for Mademoiselle Marguerite came to the door to meet him. “Well?” he
+inquired.
+
+“Alas!”
+
+He advanced toward the bed, but before he had time to examine his
+patient Mademoiselle Marguerite handed him a scrap of paper. “The
+physician who usually attends M. de Chalusse has been here in your
+absence, monsieur,” said she. “This is his prescription, and we have
+already administered a few drops of the potion.”
+
+M. Jodon, who was expecting this blow, bowed coldly.
+
+“I must add,” continued Mademoiselle Marguerite, “that the doctor
+approved of all that had been done; and I beg you will unite your skill
+with his in treating the case.”
+
+Unfortunately all the medical skill of the faculty would have availed
+nothing here. After another examination, Dr. Jodon declared that it
+would be necessary to wait for the action of nature, but that he must
+be informed of the slightest change in the sick man’s condition. “And I
+will tell my servant to wake me at once if I am sent for,” he added.
+
+He was already leaving the room, when Madame Leon barred his passage.
+“Isn’t it true, doctor, that one attentive person would suffice to watch
+over the count?” she asked.
+
+“Most assuredly,” he answered.
+
+The housekeeper turned toward Mademoiselle Marguerite. “Ah, you see, my
+dear young lady,” she said, “what did I tell you? Listen to me; take a
+little rest. Watching is not suitable work for one of your age----”
+
+“It is useless to insist,” interrupted the young girl, resolutely. “I
+shall remain here. I shall watch over him myself.”
+
+The housekeeper made no reply; but it seemed to the doctor that the two
+women exchanged singular glances. “The devil!” he muttered, as he took
+his departure; “one might think that they distrusted each other!”
+
+Perhaps he was right; but at all events he had scarcely left the house
+before Madame Leon again urged her dear young lady to take a few
+hours’ rest. “What can you fear?” she insisted, in her wheedling voice.
+“Sha’n’t I be here? Do you suppose your old Leon capable of losing
+herself in sleep, when your future depends upon a word from that poor
+man lying there?”
+
+“Pray, cease.”
+
+“Ah, no! my dear young lady; my love for you compels me.”
+
+“Oh, enough!” interrupted Mademoiselle Marguerite; “enough, Leon!”
+
+Her tone was so determined that the housekeeper was compelled to yield;
+but not without a deep sigh, not without an imploring glance to Heaven,
+as if calling upon Providence to witness the purity of her motives and
+the usefulness of her praiseworthy efforts. “At least, my dear lady,
+wrap yourself up warmly. Shall I go and bring you your heavy travelling
+shawl?”
+
+“Thanks, my dear Leon--Annette will bring it.”
+
+“Then, pray, send for it. But we are not going to watch alone? What
+should we do if we needed anything?”
+
+“I will call,” replied Marguerite.
+
+This was unnecessary, for Dr. Jodon’s departure from the house had put
+an abrupt termination to the servants’ conference; and they were now
+assembled on the landing, anxious and breathless, and peering eagerly
+into the sick-room.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite went toward them. “Madame Leon and myself will
+remain with the count,” she said. “Annette”--this was the woman whom
+she liked best of all the servants “Casimir and a footman will spend the
+night in the little side salon. The others may retire.”
+
+Her orders were obeyed. Two o’clock sounded from the church-tower near
+by, and then the solemn and terrible silence was only broken by the
+hard breathing of the unconscious man and the implacable ticktack of the
+clock on the mantel-shelf, numbering the seconds which were left for
+him to live. From the streets outside, not a sound reached this princely
+abode, which stood between a vast courtyard and a garden as large as a
+park. Moreover, the straw which had been spread over the paving-stones
+effectually deadened the rumble of the few vehicles that passed.
+Enveloped in a soft, warm shawl, Madame Leon had again taken possession
+of her arm-chair, and while she pretended to be reading a prayer-book,
+she kept a close watch over her dear young lady, as if she were striving
+to discover her in-most thoughts. Mademoiselle Marguerite did not
+suspect this affectionate espionage. Besides, what would it have
+mattered to her? She had rolled a low arm-chair near the bedside, seated
+herself in it, and her eyes were fixed upon M. de Chalusse. Two or three
+times she started violently, and once even she said to Madame Leon:
+“Come--come and see!”
+
+It seemed to her that there was a faint change in the patient’s face;
+but it was only a fancy--she had been deceived by the shadows that
+played about the room, caused by the capricious flame in the grate. The
+hours were creeping on, and the housekeeper, wearying at last of her
+fruitless watch, dropped asleep; her head fell forward on to her breast,
+her prayer-book slipped from her hands, and finally she began to snore.
+But Mademoiselle Marguerite did not perceive this, absorbed as she was
+in thoughts which, by reason of their very profundity, had ceased to
+be sorrowful. Perhaps she felt she was keeping a last vigil over her
+happiness, and that with the final breath of this dying man all her
+girlhood’s dreams and all her dearest hopes would take flight for
+evermore. Undoubtedly her thoughts flew to the man to whom she had
+promised her life--to Pascal, to the unfortunate fellow whose honor
+was being stolen from him at that very moment, in a fashionable
+gaming-house.
+
+About five o’clock the air became so close that she felt a sudden
+faintness, and opened the window to obtain a breath of fresh air. The
+noise aroused Madame Leon from her slumbers. She rose, yawned, and
+rather sullenly declared that she felt very queer, and would certainly
+fall ill if she did not take some refreshment. It became necessary to
+summon M. Casimir, who brought her a glass of Madeira and some biscuits.
+“Now I feel better,” she murmured, after her repast. “My excessive
+sensibility will be the death of me.” And so saying, she dropped asleep
+again.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite had meanwhile returned to her seat; but her
+thoughts gradually became confused, her eyelids grew heavy, and although
+she struggled, she at last fell asleep in her turn, with her head
+resting on the count’s bed. It was daylight when a strange and terrible
+shock awoke her. It seemed to her as if an icy hand, some dead person’s
+hand, was gently stroking her head, and tenderly caressing her hair. She
+at once sprang to her feet. The sick man had regained consciousness;
+his eyes were open and his right arm was moving. Mademoiselle Marguerite
+darted to the bell-rope and pulled it violently, and as a servant
+appeared in answer to the summons, she cried: “Run for the physician who
+lives near here--quick!--and tell him that the count is conscious.”
+
+In an instant, almost, the sick-room was full of servants, but the girl
+did not perceive it. She had approached M. de Chalusse, and taking his
+hand, she tenderly asked: “You hear me, do you not, monsieur? Do you
+understand me?”
+
+His lips moved; but only a hollow, rattling sound, which was absolutely
+unintelligible, came from his throat. Still, he understood her; as
+it was easy to see by his gestures--despairing and painful ones, for
+paralysis had not released its hold on its victim, and it was only with
+great difficulty that he could slightly move his right arm. He evidently
+desired something. But what?
+
+They mentioned the different articles in the room--everything indeed
+that they could think of. But in vain, until the housekeeper suddenly
+exclaimed: “He wishes to write.”
+
+That was, indeed, what he desired. With the hand that was comparatively
+free, with the hoarse rattle that was his only voice, M. de Chalusse
+answered, “Yes, yes!” and his eyes even turned to Madame Leon with an
+expression of joy and gratitude. They raised him on his pillows, and
+brought him a small writing-desk, with some paper, and a pen that
+had been dipped in ink. But like those around him, he had himself
+over-estimated his strength; if he could move his hand, he could not
+CONTROL its movements. After a terrible effort and intense suffering,
+however, he succeeded in tracing a few words, the meaning of which it
+was impossible to understand. It was only with the greatest
+difficulty that these words could be deciphered--“My entire
+fortune--give--friends--against----” This signified nothing.
+
+In despair, he dropped the pen, and his glance and his hand turned to
+that part of the room opposite his bed. “Monsieur means his escritoire,
+perhaps?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” the sick man hoarsely answered.
+
+“Perhaps the count wishes that it should be opened?”
+
+“Yes, yes!” was the reply again.
+
+“My God!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Marguerite, with a gesture of despair;
+“what have I done? I have broken the key. I feared the responsibility
+which would fall upon us all.”
+
+The expression of the count’s face had become absolutely frightful.
+It indicated utter discouragement, the most bitter suffering, the most
+horrible despair. His soul was writhing in a body from which life had
+fled. Intelligence, mind, and will were fast bound in a corpse which
+they could not electrify. The consciousness of his own powerlessness
+caused him a paroxysm of frantic rage; his hands clinched, the veins in
+his throat swelled, his eyes almost started from their sockets, and in
+a harsh, shrill voice that had nothing human in it, he exclaimed:
+“Marguerite!--despoiled!--take care!--your mother!” And this was all--it
+was the supreme effort that broke the last link that bound the soul to
+earth.
+
+“A priest!” cried Madame Leon! “A priest! In the name of Heaven, go for
+a priest!”
+
+“Rather for a notary,” suggested M. Casimir. “You see he wishes to make
+a will.”
+
+But at that moment the physician entered, pale and breathless. He walked
+straight to the bedside, glanced at the motionless form, and solemnly
+exclaimed: “The Count de Chalusse is dead!”
+
+There was a moment’s stupor--the stupor which always follows death,
+especially when death comes suddenly and unexpectedly. A feeling of
+mingled wonder, selfishness, and fear pervaded the group of servants.
+“Yes, it is over!” muttered the doctor; “it is all over!”
+
+And as he was familiar with these painful scenes, and had lost none
+of his self-possession, he furtively studied Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+features and attitude. She seemed thunderstruck. With dry, fixed eyes
+and contracted features, she stood rooted to her place, gazing at the
+lifeless form as if she were expecting some miracle--as if she still
+hoped to hear those rigid lips reveal the secret which he had tried in
+vain to disclose, and which he had carried with him to the grave.
+
+The physician was the only person who observed this. The other occupants
+of the room were exchanging looks of distress. Some of the women had
+fallen upon their knees, and were sobbing and praying in the same
+breath. But Madame Leon’s sobs could be heard above the rest. They were
+at first inarticulate moans, but suddenly she sprang toward Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, and clasping her in her arms, she cried: “What a misfortune!
+My dearest child, what a loss!” Utterly incapable of uttering a word,
+the poor girl tried to free herself from this close embrace, but the
+housekeeper would not be repulsed, and continued: “Weep, my dear young
+lady, weep! Do not refuse to give vent to your sorrow.”
+
+She herself displayed so little self-control that the physician
+reprimanded her with considerable severity, whereat her emotion
+increased, and with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, she sobbed:
+“Yes, doctor, yes; you are right; I ought to moderate my grief. But
+pray, doctor, remove my beloved Marguerite from this scene, which is too
+terrible for her young and tender heart. Persuade her to retire to her
+own room, so that she may ask God for strength to bear the misfortune
+which has befallen her.”
+
+The poor girl had certainly no intention of leaving the room, but
+before she could say so, M. Casimir stepped forward. “I think,” he dryly
+observed, “that mademoiselle had better remain here.”
+
+“Eh?” said Madame Leon, looking up suddenly. “And why, if you please?”
+
+“Because--because----”
+
+Anger had dried the housekeeper’s tears. “What do you mean?” she asked.
+“Do you pretend to prevent mademoiselle from doing as she chooses in her
+own house?”
+
+M. Casimir gave vent to a contemptuous whistle, which, twenty-four hours
+earlier, would have been punished with a heavy blow from the man who
+was now lying there--dead. “Her own house!” he answered; “her own house!
+Yesterday I shouldn’t have denied it; but to-day it’s quite another
+thing. Is she a relative? No, she isn’t. What are you talking about,
+then? We are all equals here.”
+
+He spoke so impudently that even the doctor felt indignant. “Scoundrel!”
+ said he.
+
+But the valet turned toward him with an air which proved that he was
+well acquainted with the doctor’s servant, and, consequently, with all
+the secrets of the master’s life. “Call your own valet a scoundrel, if
+you choose,” he retorted, “but not me. Your duties here are over, aren’t
+they? So leave us to manage our own affairs. Thank heaven, I know what
+I’m talking about. Everybody knows that caution must be exercised in a
+dead man’s house, especially when that house is full of money, and when,
+instead of relatives, there are--persons who--who are there nobody knows
+how or why. In case any valuables were missed, who would be accused
+of taking them? Why, the poor servants, of course. Ah, they have broad
+shoulders! Their trunks would be searched; and even if nothing were
+found, they would be sent to prison all the same. In the meantime other
+people would escape with the booty. No, Lisette! No one will stir from
+this room until the arrival of the justice----”
+
+Madame Leon was bursting with rage. “All right!” she interrupted; “I’m
+going to send for the count’s particular friend, General----”
+
+“I don’t care a fig for your general.”
+
+“Wretch!”
+
+It was Mademoiselle Marguerite who put an end to this indecent dispute.
+Its increasing violence had aroused her from her stupor. Casimir’s
+impudence brought a flush to her forehead, and stepping forward with
+haughty resolution, she exclaimed: “You forget that one never raises
+one’s voice in the chamber of death.” Her words were so true, and her
+manner so majestic, that M. Casimir was silenced. Then, pointing to the
+door, she coldly added: “Go for the justice of the peace, and don’t set
+foot here again, except in his company.”
+
+He bowed, stammered an unintelligible apology, and left the room. “She
+always gets the best of me,” he growled, as he went downstairs. “But
+seals shall be put on everything.”
+
+When he entered the porter’s lodge, M. Bourigeau was just getting up,
+having slept all night, while his wife watched. “Quick,” ordered M.
+Casimir; “make haste and finish dressing, and run for the justice of the
+peace--we must have him here at once. Everything must be done regularly
+and in order, upstairs.”
+
+The concierge was in despair. “Heavens!” he exclaimed; “so the master’s
+dead! What a misfortune!”
+
+“You may well say so; and this is the second time such a thing has
+happened to me. I remember now what a shrewd fellow named Chupin once
+said to me. ‘If I were a servant,’ he remarked, ‘before entering a man’s
+service, I’d make him insure his life for my benefit in one of those
+new-fangled companies, so that I might step into a handsome fortune if
+he took it into his head to die.’ But make haste, Bourigeau.”
+
+“That’s a famous idea, but scarcely practicable,” growled the concierge.
+
+“I don’t know whether it is or not. But at all events I’m terribly
+annoyed. The count was giving me enormous wages, and I had got him
+nicely into my ways. Well, after all, I shall only have to begin again!”
+
+M. Bourigeau had not yet attained to the heights of such serene
+philosophy, and as he buttoned his overcoat, he groaned: “Ah! you’re not
+situated as I am, Casimir. You’ve only yourself to look out for. I have
+my furniture; and if I don’t succeed in finding a position where I can
+have two rooms, I shall be obliged to sell part of it. What a blessed
+nuisance!”
+
+As soon as he was dressed he started off on his mission; and M. Casimir,
+who dared not return to the house, began walking slowly to and fro
+in front of the lodge. He had made some thirty turns or so, and was
+beginning to feel impatient, when he saw Victor Chupin approaching. “You
+are always on hand at the right moment,” remarked M. Casimir. “It’s all
+over!”
+
+Chupin turned eagerly. “Then our bargain holds?” he exclaimed. “You
+understand what I mean--the funeral, you know.”
+
+“It isn’t certain that I shall have anything to do with it; but call
+again in three hours from now.”
+
+“All right, I’ll be here.”
+
+“And M. Fortunat?” asked Casimir.
+
+“He received what he called a ‘violent shock’ last evening, but he’s
+better this morning. He instructed me to tell you that he should look
+for you between twelve and one--you know where.”
+
+“I’ll endeavor to be there, although it may be difficult for me to get
+away. If I go, however, I’ll show him the letter that caused the count’s
+illness; for the count threw it away, after tearing it into several
+pieces, and I found some of the bits which escaped his notice as well as
+mademoiselle’s. It’s a strange letter, upon my word!”
+
+Chupin gazed at the valet with a look of mingled wonder and admiration.
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “how fortunate a man must be to secure a valet
+like you!”
+
+His companion smiled complacently, but all of a sudden he remarked:
+“Make haste and go. I see Bourigeau in the distance, bringing the
+justice of the peace.”
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+The magistrate who was now approaching the Chalusse mansion in the
+concierge’s company, exemplified in a remarkable manner all the ideas
+that are awakened in one’s mind by the grand yet simple title of
+“Justice of the Peace.” He was the very person you would like to think
+of as the family magistrate; as the promoter of friendly feeling; as the
+guardian of the rights of the absent, the young, and the weak; as the
+just arbiter in unfortunate differences between those who are closely
+related; a sage of wide experience and boundless benevolence; a judge
+whose paternal justice dispenses with all pomp and display, and who
+is allowed by French statutes to hold his court by his own fireside,
+providing the doors stand open. He was considerably over fifty,
+tall, and very thin, with bent shoulders. His clothes were rather
+old-fashioned in cut, but by no means ridiculous. The expression of his
+face was gentleness itself; but it would not have done to presume upon
+this gentleness, for his glance was keen and piercing--like the glance
+of all who are expert in diving into consciences, and discovering the
+secrets hidden there. Moreover, like all men who are accustomed to
+deliberate in public, his features were expressionless. He could see and
+hear everything, suspect and understand everything, without letting a
+muscle of his face move. And yet the habitues of his audience-chamber,
+and his clerks, pretended that they could always detect the nature of
+his impressions. A ring which he wore upon one of his fingers served
+as a barometer for those who knew him. If a difficult case, or one that
+embarrassed his conscience, presented itself, his eyes fixed themselves
+obstinately upon this ring. If he were satisfied that everything was
+right, he looked up again, and began playing with the ring, slipping it
+up and down between the first and second joint of his finger; but if he
+were displeased, he abruptly turned the bezel inside.
+
+In appearance, he was sufficiently imposing to intimidate even M.
+Casimir. The proud valet bowed low as the magistrate approached, and
+with his heart in his mouth, and in an obsequious voice he said: “It was
+I who took the liberty of sending for you, monsieur.”
+
+“Ah!” said the magistrate, who already knew as much about the Hotel
+de Chalusse, and the events of the past twelve hours, as M. Casimir
+himself; for on his way to the house, he had turned Bourigeau inside out
+like a glove, by means of a dozen gentle questions.
+
+“If monsieur wishes I will explain,” resumed M. Casimir.
+
+“Nothing! It is quite unnecessary. Usher us in.”
+
+This “us” astonished the valet; but before they reached the house it
+was explained to him. He discovered a man of flourishing and even jovial
+mien who was walking along in the magistrate’s shadow carrying a large
+black portfolio under his arm. This was evidently the clerk. He seemed
+to be as pleased with his employment as he was with himself; and as
+he followed M. Casimir, he examined the adornments of the mansion, the
+mosaics in the vestibule, the statuary and the frescoed walls with an
+appraiser’s eye. Perhaps he was calculating how many years’ salary it
+would require to pay for the decorating of this one staircase.
+
+On the threshold of the death room the magistrate paused. There had been
+some change during M. Casimir’s absence. The doctor had left. The bed
+had been rearranged, and several candles were burning on a table covered
+with a white cloth. Madame Leon had gone to her own room, accompanied by
+two servants, to fetch a vessel of holy water and a branch of withered
+palm. She was now engaged in repeating the prayers for the dead, pausing
+from time to time to dip the palm branch in the holy water, and sprinkle
+the bed. Both windows had been opened in spite of the cold. On the
+marble hearth stood a chafing-dish full of embers from which rose spiral
+rings of smoke, filling the room with a pungent odor as a servant poured
+some vinegar and sugar on to the coals.
+
+As the magistrate appeared, every one rose up. Then, after bestowing
+prolonged scrutiny upon the room and its occupants, he respectfully
+removed his hat, and walked in. “Why are so many people here?” he
+inquired.
+
+“I suggested that they should remain,” replied M. Casimir, “because--”
+
+“You are--suspicious,” interrupted the magistrate.
+
+His clerk had already drawn a pen and some paper from his portfolio, and
+was engaged in reading the decision, rendered by the magistrate at the
+request of one Bourigeau, and in virtue of which, seals were about to
+be affixed to the deceased nobleman’s personal effects. Since the
+magistrate had entered the room, his eyes had not once wandered from
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, who was standing near the fireplace, looking
+pale but composed. At last he approached her, and in a tone of deep
+sympathy: “Are you Mademoiselle Marguerite?” he asked.
+
+She raised her clear eyes, rendered more beautiful than ever, by the
+tears that trembled on her lashes, and in a faltering voice, replied:
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“Are you a relative? Are you connected in any way with the Count de
+Chalusse? Have you any right to his property?”
+
+“No, monsieur.”
+
+“Excuse me, mademoiselle, but these questions are indispensable. Who
+intrusted you to the care of M. de Chalusse, and by what right? Was it
+your father or your mother?”
+
+“I have neither father nor mother, monsieur. I am alone in the
+world--utterly alone.”
+
+The magistrate glanced keenly round the room. “Ah! I understand,” said
+he, at last; “advantage has been taken of your isolation to treat you
+with disrespect, to insult you, perhaps.”
+
+Every head drooped, and M. Casimir bitterly regretted that he had not
+remained below in the courtyard. Mademoiselle Marguerite looked at the
+magistrate in astonishment, for she was amazed by his penetration. She
+was ignorant of his conversation with Bourigeau on the road, and did not
+know that through the concierge’s ridiculous statements and accusations,
+the magistrate had succeeded in discovering at least a portion of the
+truth.
+
+“I shall have the honor of asking for a few moments’ conversation with
+you presently, mademoiselle,” he said. “But first, one question. I am
+told that the Count de Chalusse entertained a very lively affection for
+you. Are you sure that he has not taken care to provide for your future?
+Are you sure that he has not left a will?”
+
+The girl shook her head. “He made one in my favor some time ago,” she
+replied. “I saw it; he gave it to me to read; but it was destroyed a
+fortnight after my arrival here, and in compliance with my request.”
+
+Madame Leon had hitherto been dumb with fear, but, conquering
+her weakness, she now decided to draw near and take part in the
+conversation. “How can you say that, my dear young lady?” she exclaimed.
+“You know that the count--God rest his soul!--was an extremely cautious
+man. I am certain that there is a will somewhere.”
+
+The magistrate’s eyes were fixed on his ring. “It would be well to look,
+perhaps, before affixing the seals. You have a right to require this;
+so, if you wish----”
+
+But she made no reply.
+
+“Oh, yes!” insisted Madame Leon; “pray look, monsieur.”
+
+“But where should we be likely to find a will?”
+
+“Certainly in this room--in this escritoire, or in one of the deceased
+count’s cabinets.”
+
+The magistrate had learnt the story of the key from Bourigeau, but all
+the same he asked: “Where is the key to this escritoire?”
+
+“Alas! monsieur,” replied Mademoiselle Marguerite, “I broke it last
+night when M. de Chalusse was brought home unconscious. I hoped to avert
+what has, nevertheless, happened. Besides, I knew that his escritoire
+contained something over two millions in gold and bank-notes.”
+
+Two millions--there! The occupants of the room stood aghast. Even
+the clerk was so startled that he let a blot fall upon his paper. Two
+millions! The magistrate was evidently reflecting. “Hum!” he murmured,
+meditatively. Then, as if deciding on his course, he exclaimed:
+
+“Let a locksmith be sent for.”
+
+A servant went in search of one; and while they were waiting for his
+return, the magistrate sat down beside his clerk and talked to him in a
+low voice. At last the locksmith appeared, with his bag of tools
+hanging over his shoulder, and set to work at once. He found his task
+a difficult one. His pick-locks would not catch, and he was talking of
+filing the bolt, when, by chance, he found the joint, and the door flew
+open. But the escritoire was empty. There were only a few papers, and a
+bottle about three-quarters full of a crimson liquid on the shelf. Had
+M. de Chalusse rose and shook off his winding sheet, the consternation
+would not have been greater. The same instinctive fear thrilled the
+hearts of everybody present. An enormous fortune had disappeared. The
+same suspicions would rest upon them all. And each servant already saw
+himself arrested, imprisoned, and dragged before a law court.
+
+However, anger speedily followed bewilderment, and a furious clamor
+arose. “A robbery has been committed!” cried the servants, in concert.
+“Mademoiselle had the key. It is wrong to suspect the innocent!”
+
+Revolting as this exhibition was, it did not modify the magistrate’s
+calmness. He had witnessed too many such scenes in the course of
+his career, and, at least, a score of times he had been compelled to
+interpose between children who had come to blows over their inheritance
+before their father’s body was even cold. “Silence!” he commanded
+sternly. And as the tumult did not cease, as the servants continued
+to cry, “The thief must be found. We shall have no difficulty in
+discovering the culprit,” the magistrate exclaimed, still more
+imperiously: “Another word, and you all leave the room.”
+
+They were silenced; but there was a mute eloquence about their looks and
+gestures which it was impossible to misunderstand. Every eye was fixed
+upon Mademoiselle Marguerite with an almost ferocious expression. She
+knew it only too well; but, sublime in her energy, she stood, with her
+head proudly erect, facing the storm, and disdaining to answer these
+vile imputations. However she had a protector near by--the magistrate in
+person. “If this treasure has been diverted from the inheritance,” said
+he, “the thief will be discovered and punished. But I wish to have one
+point explained--who said that Mademoiselle Marguerite had the key of
+the escritoire?”
+
+“I did,” replied a footman. “I was in the dining-room yesterday morning
+when the count gave it to her.”
+
+“For what purpose did he give it to her?”
+
+“That she might obtain this vial--I recognized it at once. She brought
+it down to him.”
+
+“Did she return the key?”
+
+“Yes; she gave it to him when she handed him the vial, and I saw him put
+it in his pocket.”
+
+The magistrate pointed to the bottle which was standing on the shelf.
+“Then the count himself must have put the vial back in its place,” said
+he. “Further comment is unnecessary; for, if the money had then been
+missing, he could not have failed to discover the fact.” No one had
+any reply to make to this quiet defence, which was, at the same time,
+a complete vindication. “And, besides,” continued the magistrate, “who
+told you that this immense sum would be found here? Did you know it?
+Which one of you knew it?” And as nobody still ventured any remark,
+he added in an even more severe tone, and without seeming to notice
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s look of gratitude, “It is by no means a proof
+of honesty to be so extremely suspicious. Would it not have been easier
+to suppose that the deceased had placed the money somewhere else, and
+that it will yet be found?”
+
+The clerk had been even less disturbed than the magistrate. He also was
+blase, having witnessed too many of those frightful and shameless dramas
+which are enacted at a dead man’s bedside, to be surprised at anything.
+If he had deigned to glance at the escritoire, it was only because
+he was curious to see how small a space would suffice to contain two
+millions; and then he had begun to calculate how many years he would
+be obliged to remain a clerk before he could succeed in amassing such
+a fabulous sum. However, hearing his superior express the intention
+of continuing the search for the will, and the missing treasure, he
+abruptly abandoned his calculation, and exclaimed, “Then, I suppose, I
+can commence my report, monsieur?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the magistrate, “write as follows:” And in a monotonous
+voice he began to dictate the prescribed formula, an unnecessary
+proceeding, for the clerk was quite as familiar with it as the
+magistrate himself:--“On the 16th of October, 186-, at nine o’clock
+in the morning, in compliance with the request of the servants of the
+deceased Louis-Henri-Raymond de Durtal, Count de Chalusse, and in the
+interest of his presumptive heirs, and all others connected with him,
+and in accordance with the requirements of clauses 819 (Code Napoleon)
+and 909 (Code of Procedure), we, justice of the peace, accompanied by
+our clerk, visited the residence of the deceased aforesaid, in the
+Rue de Courcelles, where, having entered a bedroom opening on to the
+courtyard, and lighted by two windows looking toward the south, we found
+the body of the deceased aforesaid, lying on his bed, and covered with a
+sheet. In this room were----” He paused in his dictation, and addressing
+the clerk, “Take down the names of all present,” said he. “That will
+require some little time, and, meanwhile, I will continue my search.”
+
+They had, in fact, only examined the shelf of the escritoire, and the
+drawers were still to be inspected. In the first which he opened, the
+magistrate found ample proofs of the accuracy of the information which
+had been furnished him by Mademoiselle Marguerite. The drawer contained
+a memorandum which established the fact that the Credit Foncier had lent
+M. de Chalusse the sum of eight hundred and fifty thousand francs, which
+had been remitted to him on the Saturday preceding his death. Beside
+this document lay a second memorandum, signed by a stockbroker named
+Pell, setting forth that the latter had sold for the count securities of
+various descriptions to the amount of fourteen hundred and twenty-three
+thousand francs, which sum had been paid to the count on the preceding
+Tuesday, partly in bank-notes and partly in gold. It was thus evident
+that M. de Chalusse had received a grand total of two million two
+hundred and seventy-three thousand francs within the past six days.
+
+In the drawer which was next opened, the magistrate only found a number
+of deeds, bonds, leases, and mortgages; but they proved that public
+rumor, far from exaggerating the figures of the count’s fortune,
+had diminished it, and this made it difficult to explain why he had
+contracted a loan. The third and last drawer contained twenty-eight
+thousand francs, in packages of twenty-franc pieces. Finally, in a small
+casket, the magistrate found a packet of letters, yellow with age and
+bound together with a broad piece of blue velvet; as well as three or
+four withered bouquets, and a woman’s glove, which had been worn by a
+hand of marvellous smallness. These were evidently the relics of some
+great passion of many years before; and the magistrate looked at them
+for a moment with a sigh.
+
+His own interest prevented him from noticing Mademoiselle Marguerite’s
+agitation. She had almost fainted on perceiving these souvenirs of the
+count’s past life so suddenly exhumed. However, the examination of
+the escritoire being over, and the clerk having completed his task of
+recording the names of all the servants, the magistrate said, in a loud
+voice, “I shall now proceed to affix the seals; but, before doing so, I
+shall take a portion of the money found in this desk, and set it apart
+for the expenses of the household, in accordance with the law. Who will
+take charge of this money?”
+
+“Oh, not I!” exclaimed Madame Leon.
+
+“I will take charge of it,” said M. Casimir.
+
+“Then here are eight thousand francs, for which you will be held
+accountable.”
+
+M. Casimir being a prudent man, counted the money himself, and after
+doing so, “Who will attend to the count’s obsequies?” he inquired.
+
+“You, and without loss of time.”
+
+Proud of his new importance, the valet hastily left the room, his
+self-complacency increased by the thought that he was to breakfast with
+M. Isidore Fortunat, and would afterward share a fat commission with
+Victor Chupin.
+
+However, the magistrate had already resumed his dictation: “And at this
+moment we have affixed bands of white tape, sealed at either end with
+red wax, bearing the impress of our seal as justice of the peace, to
+wit: In the aforesaid chamber of the deceased: First, A band of tape,
+covering the keyhole of the lock of the escritoire, which had been
+previously opened by a locksmith summoned by us, and closed again by the
+said locksmith----” And so the magistrate and his clerk went from
+one piece of furniture to another, duly specifying in the report each
+instance in which the seals were affixed.
+
+From the count’s bedroom they passed into his study, followed by
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, Madame Leon, and the servants. By noon every
+article of furniture in which M. de Chalusse would have been likely
+to deposit his valuables or a will, had been searched, and nothing,
+absolutely nothing, had been found. The magistrate had pursued his
+investigation with the feverish energy which the most self-possessed
+of men are apt to display under such circumstances, especially when
+influenced by the conviction that the object they are seeking is
+somewhere within their reach, perhaps under their very hand. Indeed, he
+was persuaded--he was sure--he would, in fact, have sworn that the Count
+de Chalusse had taken all the precautions natural in childless men,
+who have no near relatives to inherit their fortune, or who have placed
+their interest and affections beyond their family circle. And when he
+was obliged to abandon his search, his gesture indicated anger rather
+than discouragement; for apparent evidence had not shaken his conviction
+in the least. So he stood motionless, with his eyes riveted on his ring,
+as if waiting some miraculous inspiration from it. “For the count’s
+only fault, I am sure, was in being too cautious,” he muttered. “This is
+frequently the case, and it would be quite in keeping with the character
+of this man, judging from what I know of him.”
+
+Madame Leon lifted her hands to heaven. “Ah, yes! such was, indeed, his
+nature,” she remarked, approvingly. “Never, no never, have I seen such
+a suspicious and distrustful person as he was. Not in reference to
+money--no, indeed--for he left that lying about everywhere; but about
+his papers. He locked them up with the greatest care, as if he feared
+that some terrible secret might evaporate from them. It was a mania with
+him. If he had a letter to write, he barricaded his door, as if he were
+about to commit some horrible crime. More than once have I seen him----”
+ The words died away on her lips, and she remained motionless and
+abashed, like a person who has just escaped some great peril. One
+word more, and involuntarily, without even knowing it, she would
+have confessed her besetting sin, which was listening at, and peering
+through, the keyholes of the doors that were closed against her. Still,
+she deluded herself with the belief that this slight indiscretion of her
+overready tongue had escaped the magistrate’s notice.
+
+He certainly did not seem to be conscious of it, for he was giving
+his attention entirely to Mademoiselle Marguerite, who seemed to have
+regained the cold reserve and melancholy resignation habitual to her.
+“You see, mademoiselle,” he remarked, “that I have done all that is
+in my power to do. We must now leave the search to chance, and to the
+person who takes the inventory. Who knows what surprise may be in store
+for us in this immense house, of which we have only explored three
+rooms?”
+
+She shook her head gently and replied: “I can never be sufficiently
+grateful for your kindness, monsieur, and for the great service you
+rendered me in crushing that infamous accusation. As regards the rest, I
+have never expected anything--I do not expect anything now.”
+
+She believed what she said, and her tone of voice proved this so
+unmistakably that the magistrate was surprised and somewhat disturbed.
+“Come, come, my young lady,” he said, with almost paternal kindness of
+manner, “you ought not to despond. Still, you must have certain reasons
+for speaking as you do; and as I am free for an hour, we are going to
+have a plain talk, as if we were father and daughter.”
+
+On hearing these words, the clerk rose with a cloud on his jovial
+face. He impatiently jingled his bunch of keys; for as the seals are
+successively affixed, each key is confided to the clerk, to remain in
+his hands until the seals are removed.
+
+“I understand,” said the magistrate. “Your stomach, which is more
+exacting in its demands than mine, is not satisfied with a cup of
+chocolate till dinner-time. So, go and get your lunch; on your return,
+you will find me here. You may now conclude the report, and request
+these parties to sign it.”
+
+Urged on by hunger, the clerk hastily mumbled over the remainder of the
+formula, called all the names that he had inserted in the report, and
+each of the servants advanced in turn, signed his or her name, or made
+a cross, and then retired. Madame Leon read in the judge’s face that she
+also was expected to withdraw; and she was reluctantly leaving the room,
+when Mademoiselle Marguerite detained her to ask: “Are you quite sure
+that nothing has come for me to-day?”
+
+“Nothing, mademoiselle; I went in person to inquire of the concierge.”
+
+“Did you post my letter last night?”
+
+“Oh! my dear young lady, can you doubt it?”
+
+The young girl stifled a sigh, and then, with a gesture of dismissal,
+she remarked, “M. de Fondege must be sent for.”
+
+“The General?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I will send for him at once,” replied the housekeeper; and thereupon
+she left the room, closing the door behind her with a vicious slam.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+The justice of the peace and Mademoiselle Marguerite were at last alone
+in M. de Chalusse’s study. This room, which the count had preferred
+above all others, was a spacious, magnificent, but rather gloomy
+apartment, with lofty walls and dark, richly carved furniture. Its
+present aspect was more than ever solemn and lugubrious, for it gave
+one a chill to see the bands of white tape affixed to the locks of the
+cabinets and bookcases. When the magistrate had installed himself in the
+count’s arm-chair, and the girl had taken a seat near him, they remained
+looking at each other in silence for a few moments. The magistrate
+was asking himself how he should begin. Having fathomed Mademoiselle
+Marguerite’s extreme sensitiveness and reserve, he said to himself that
+if he offended or alarmed her, she would refuse him her confidence, in
+which case he would be powerless to serve her as he wished to do. He
+had, in fact, an almost passionate desire to be of service to her,
+feeling himself drawn toward her by an inexplicable feeling of sympathy,
+in which esteem, respect, and admiration alike were blended, though he
+had only known her for a few hours. Still, he must make a beginning.
+“Mademoiselle,” he said, at last, “I abstained from questioning you
+before the servants--and if I take the liberty of doing so now, it
+is not, believe me, out of any idle curiosity; moreover, you are not
+compelled to answer me. But you are young--and I am an old man; and it
+is my duty--even if my heart did not urge me to do so--to offer you the
+aid of my experience----”
+
+“Speak, monsieur,” interrupted Marguerite. “I will answer your questions
+frankly, or else not answer them at all.”
+
+“To resume, then,” said he, “I am told that M. de Chalusse has no
+relatives, near or remote. Is this the truth?”
+
+“So far as I know--yes, monsieur. Still, I have heard it said that a
+sister of his, Mademoiselle Hermine de Chalusse, abandoned her home
+twenty-five or thirty years ago, when she was about my age, and that
+she has never received her share of the enormous fortune left by her
+parents.”
+
+“And has this sister never given any sign of life?”
+
+“Never! Still, monsieur, I have promised you to be perfectly frank. That
+letter which the Count de Chalusse received yesterday, that letter which
+I regard as the cause of his death--well, I have a presentiment that it
+came from his sister. It could only have been written by her or--by that
+other person whose letters--and souvenirs--you found in the escritoire.”
+
+“And--this other person--who can she be?” As the young girl made no
+reply, the magistrate did not insist, but continued: “And you, my child,
+who are you?”
+
+She made a gesture of sorrowful resignation, and then, in a voice
+faltering with emotion, she answered: “I do not know, monsieur. Perhaps
+I am the count’s daughter. I should be telling an untruth if I said that
+was not my belief. Yes, I believe it, but I have never been certain of
+it. Sometimes I have believed, sometimes I have doubted it. On certain
+days I have said to myself, ‘Yes, it must be so!’ and I have longed to
+throw my arms around his neck. But at other times I have exclaimed: ‘No,
+it isn’t possible!’ and I have almost hated him. Besides, he never said
+a word on the subject--never a decisive word, at least. When I saw him
+for the first time, six years ago, I judged by the manner in which he
+forbade me to call him ‘father,’ that he would never answer any question
+I might ask on the subject.”
+
+If there was a man in the world inaccessible to idle curiosity, it was
+certainly this magistrate, whose profession condemned him to listen
+every day to family grievances, neighborly quarrels, complaints,
+accusations, and slander. And yet as he listened to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, he experienced that strange disquietude which seizes hold of
+a person when a puzzling problem is presented. “Allow me to believe that
+many decisive proofs may have escaped your notice on account of your
+inexperience,” he said.
+
+But interrupting him with a gesture, she sadly remarked: “You are
+mistaken; I am not inexperienced.”
+
+He could not help smiling at what he considered her self-conceit. “Poor
+child!” said he; “how old are you? Eighteen?”
+
+She shook her head. “Yes, by my certificate of birth I am only eighteen;
+but by the sufferings I have endured I am, perhaps, older than you are,
+monsieur, despite your white hair. Those who have lived such a life as
+I have, are never young; they are old in suffering, even in their
+childhood. And if by experience you mean lack of confidence, a knowledge
+of good and evil, distrust of everything and everybody, mine, young girl
+though I be, will no doubt equal yours.” She paused, hesitated for a
+moment, and then continued: “But why should I wait for you to question
+me? It is neither sincere nor dignified on my part to do so. The person
+who claims counsel owes absolute frankness to his adviser. I will speak
+to you as if I were communing with my own soul. I will tell you what no
+person has ever known--no one, not even Pascal. And believe me, my
+past life was full of bitter misery, although you find me here in this
+splendid house. But I have nothing to conceal; and if I have cause to
+blush, it is for others, not for myself.”
+
+Perhaps she was impelled by an irresistible desire to relieve her
+overburdened heart, after long years of self-restraint; perhaps she
+no longer felt sure of herself, and desired some other advice than
+the dictates of her conscience, in presence of the calamity which had
+befallen her. At all events, too much engrossed in her own thoughts to
+heed the magistrate’s surprise, or hear the words he faltered, she rose
+from her seat, and, with her hands pressed tightly on her throbbing
+brow, she began to tell the story of her life.
+
+“My first recollections,” she said, “are of a narrow, cheerless
+courtyard, surrounded by grim and massive walls, so high that I could
+scarcely see the top of them. At noontime in summer the sun visited one
+little corner, where there was a stone bench; but in winter it never
+showed itself at all. There were five or six small, scrubby trees, with
+moss-grown trunks and feeble branches, which put forth a few yellow
+leaves at springtime. We were some thirty children who assembled in
+this courtyard--children from five to eight years old, all clad alike in
+brown dresses, with a little blue handkerchief tied about our shoulders.
+We all wore blue caps on week-days, and white ones on Sundays, with
+woollen stockings, thick shoes, and a black ribbon, with a large metal
+cross dangling from our necks. Among us moved the good sisters, silent
+and sad, with their hands crossed in their large sleeves, their faces as
+white as their snowy caps, and their long strings of beads, set off
+with numerous copper medals, clanking when they walked like prisoners’
+chains. As a rule, each face wore the same expression of resignation,
+unvarying gentleness, and inexhaustible patience. But there were some
+who wore it only as one wears a mask--some whose eyes gleamed at
+times with passion, and who vented their cold, bitter anger upon us
+defenceless children. However, there was one sister, still young and
+very fair, whose manner was so gentle and so sad that even I, with
+my mere infantile intelligence, felt that she must have some terrible
+sorrow. During play-time she often took me on her knee and embraced me
+with convulsive tenderness, murmuring: ‘Dear little one! darling little
+one!’ Sometimes her endearments were irksome to me, but I never allowed
+her to see it, for fear of making her still more sad; and in my heart I
+was content and proud to suffer for and with her. Poor sister! I owe her
+the only happy hours of my infancy. She was called Sister Calliste. I
+do not know what has become of her, but often, when my heart fails me, I
+think of her, and even now I cannot mention her name without tears.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was indeed weeping--big tears which she made no
+attempt to conceal were coursing down her cheeks. It cost her a great
+effort to continue: “You have already understood, monsieur, what I
+myself did not know for several years. I was in a foundling asylum, and
+I was a foundling myself. I cannot say that we lacked anything; and I
+should be ungrateful if I did not say and feel that these good sisters
+were charity personified. But, alas! their hearts had only a certain
+amount of tenderness to distribute between thirty poor little girls, and
+so each child’s portion was small; the caresses were the same for all,
+and I longed to be loved differently, to have kind words and caresses
+for myself alone. We slept in little white beds with snowy curtains,
+in a clean, well-ventilated dormitory, in the centre of which stood a
+statue of the Virgin, who seemed to smile on us all alike. In winter we
+had a fire. Our clothes were warm and neat; our food was excellent.
+We were taught to read and write, to sew and embroider. There was a
+recreation hour between all the exercises. Those who were studious and
+good were rewarded; and twice a week we were taken into the country for
+a long walk. It was during one of these excursions that I learned from
+the talk of the passers-by, what we were, and what we were called.
+Sometimes, in the afternoon, we were visited by elegantly-attired
+ladies, who were accompanied by their own children, radiant with health
+and happiness. The good sisters told us that these were ‘pious ladies,’
+or ‘charitable ladies,’ whom we must love and respect, and whom we must
+never forget to mention in our prayers. They always brought us toys and
+cakes. Sometimes the establishment was visited by priests and grave old
+gentlemen, whose sternness of manner alarmed us. They peered into every
+nook and corner, asked questions about everything, assured themselves
+that everything was in its place, and some of them even tasted our soup.
+They were always satisfied; and the lady superior led them through the
+building, and bowed to them, exclaiming: ‘We love them so much, the poor
+little dears! ‘And the gentlemen replied: ‘Yes, yes, my dear sister,
+they are very fortunate.’ And the gentlemen were right. Poor laborers’
+children are often obliged to endure privations which we knew nothing
+of; they are often obliged to make their supper off a piece of dry
+bread--but, then, the crust is given them by their mother, with a kiss.”
+
+The magistrate, who was extremely ill at ease, had not yet succeeded in
+finding a syllable to offer in reply. Indeed, Mademoiselle Marguerite
+had not given him an opportunity to speak, so rapidly had this
+long-repressed flood of recollections poured from her lips. When she
+spoke the word “mother,” the magistrate fancied she would show some sign
+of emotion.
+
+But he was mistaken. On the contrary, her voice became harsher, and a
+flash of anger, as it were, darted from her eyes.
+
+“I suffered exceedingly in that asylum,” she resumed. “Sister Calliste
+left the establishment, and all the surroundings chilled and repelled
+me. My only few hours of happiness were on Sundays, when we attended
+church. As the great organ pealed, and as I watched the priests
+officiating at the altar in their gorgeous vestments, I forgot my own
+sorrows. It seemed to me that I was ascending on the clouds of incense
+to the celestial sphere which the sisters so often talked to us about,
+and where they said each little girl would find her mother.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite hesitated for an instant, as if she were
+somewhat unwilling to give utterance to her thoughts; but at last,
+forcing herself to continue, she said: “Yes, I suffered exceedingly in
+that foundling asylum. Almost all my little companions were spiteful,
+unattractive in person, sallow, thin, and afflicted with all kinds of
+diseases, as if they were not unfortunate enough in being abandoned
+by their parents. And--to my shame, monsieur, I must confess it--these
+unfortunate little beings inspired me with unconquerable repugnance,
+with disgust bordering on aversion. I would rather have pressed my lips
+to a red-hot iron than to the forehead of one of these children. I did
+not reason on the subject, alas! I was only eight or nine years old;
+but I felt this antipathy in every fibre of my being. The others knew it
+too; and, in revenge, they ironically styled me ‘the lady,’ and left me
+severely alone. But sometimes, during playtime, when the good sisters’
+backs were turned, the children attacked me, beat me, and scratched my
+face and tore my clothes. I endured these onslaughts uncomplainingly,
+for I was conscious that I deserved them. But how many reprimands my
+torn clothes cost me! How many times I received only a dry crust for my
+supper, after being soundly scolded and called ‘little careless.’ But
+as I was quiet, studious, and industrious, a quicker learner than the
+majority of my companions, the sisters were fond of me. They said that I
+was a promising girl, and that they would have no difficulty in finding
+me a nice home with some of the rich and pious ladies who have a share
+in managing institutions of this kind. The only fault the sisters found
+with me was that I was sullen. But such was not really the case; I was
+only sad and resigned. Everything around me so depressed and saddened me
+that I withdrew into myself, and buried all my thoughts and aspirations
+deep in my heart. If I had naturally been a bad child, I scarcely know
+what would have been the result of this. I have often asked myself the
+question in all sincerity, but I have been unable to reply, for one
+cannot be an impartial judge respecting one’s self. However, this much
+is certain, although childhood generally leaves a train of pleasant
+recollections in a young girl’s life, mine was only fraught with torture
+and misery, desperate struggles, and humiliation. I was unwilling to
+be confirmed because I did not wish to wear a certain dress, which a
+‘benevolent lady’ had presented for the use of the asylum, and which had
+belonged to a little girl of my own age who had died of consumption.
+The thought of arraying myself in this dress to approach the holy table
+frightened and revolted me as much as if I had been sentenced to
+drape myself in a winding-sheet. And yet it was the prettiest dress of
+all--white muslin beautifully embroidered. It had been ardently coveted
+by the other children, and had been given to me as a sort of reward of
+merit. And I dared not explain the cause of my unconquerable repugnance.
+Who would have understood me? I should only have been accused of undue
+sensitiveness and pride, absurd in one of my humble position. I was then
+only twelve years old; but no one knew the struggle in my mind save
+the old priest, my confessor. I could confess everything to him; he
+understood me, and did not reproach me. Still he answered: ‘You must
+wear this dress, my child, for your pride must be broken. Go--I shall
+impose no other penance on you.’ I obeyed him, full of superstitious
+terror; for it seemed to me that this was a frightful omen which would
+bring me misfortune, my whole life through. And I was confirmed in the
+dead girl’s embroidered dress.”
+
+During the five-and-twenty years that he had held the position of
+justice of the peace, the magistrate had listened to many confessions,
+wrung from wretched souls by stern necessity, or sorrow, but never had
+his heart been moved as it now was, by this narrative, told with such
+uncomplaining anguish, and in a tone of such sincerity. However she
+resumed her story. “The confirmation over, our life became as gloomily
+monotonous as before; we read the same pious books and did the same work
+at the same hours as formerly. It seemed to me that I was stifling in
+this atmosphere. I gasped for breath, and thought that anything would
+be preferable to this semblance of existence, which was not real life.
+I was thinking of applying for the ‘good situation,’ which had so often
+been mentioned to me, when one morning I was summoned into the steward’s
+office--a mysterious and frightful place to us children. He himself
+was a stout, dirty man, wearing large blue spectacles and a black
+silk skullcap; and from morning until night, summer and winter, he sat
+writing at a desk behind a little grating, hung with green curtains.
+Round the room were ranged the registers, in which our names were
+recorded and our appearances described, together with the boxes
+containing the articles found upon us, which were carefully preserved
+to assist in identifying us should occasion arise. I entered this office
+with a throbbing heart. In addition to the stout gentleman and the
+Lady Superior, I found there a thin, wiry man, with cunning eyes, and a
+portly woman, with a coarse but rather good-natured face. The superior
+at once informed me that I was in the presence of M. and Madame Greloux,
+bookbinders, who had come to the asylum in search of two apprentices,
+and she asked me if I should like to be one of them. Ah! monsieur, it
+seemed to me that heaven had opened before me and I boldly replied:
+‘Yes.’ The gentleman in the black skullcap immediately emerged from his
+place behind the grating to explain my obligations and duties to me
+at length, especially insisting upon the point, that I ought to be
+grateful--I, a miserable foundling, reared by public charity--for the
+generosity which this good gentleman and lady showed in offering to
+take charge of me and employ me in their workshop. I must confess that
+I could not clearly realize in what this great generosity which he so
+highly praised consisted, nor did I perceive any reason why I should be
+particularly grateful. Still, to all the conditions imposed upon me,
+I answered, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ so heartily that Madame Greloux seemed
+greatly pleased. ‘It is evident that the child will be glad to get
+away,’ she said to herself. Then the superior began to enumerate the
+obligations my employers would incur, repeating again and again that
+I was one of the very best girls in the asylum--pious, obedient, and
+industrious, reading and writing to perfection, and knowing how to sew
+and embroider as only those who are taught in such institutions can. She
+made Madame Greloux promise to watch over me as she would have watched
+over her own daughter; never to leave me alone; to take me to church,
+and allow me an occasional Sunday afternoon, so that I might pay a visit
+to the asylum. The gentleman with the spectacles and the skullcap
+then reminded the bookbinder of the duties of an employer toward his
+apprentices, and turning to a bookcase behind him, he even took down a
+large volume from which he read extract after extract, which I listened
+to without understanding a word, though I was quite sure that the book
+was written in French. At last, when the man and his wife had said
+‘Amen’ to everything, the gentleman with the spectacles drew up a
+document which we all signed in turn. I belonged to a master.”
+
+She paused. Here her childhood ended. But almost immediately she
+resumed: “My recollections of these people are not altogether
+unpleasant. They were harassed and wearied by their efforts to support
+their son in a style of living far above their position; but, despite
+their sacrifices, their son had no affection for them, and on this
+account I pitied them. However, not only was the husband gloomy and
+quick-tempered, but his wife also was subject to fits of passion, so
+that the apprentices often had a hard time of it. Still, between Madame
+Greloux’s tempests of wrath there were occasional gleams of sunshine.
+After beating us for nothing, she would exclaim, with quite as little
+reason, ‘Come and kiss me, and don’t pout any more. Here are four sous;
+go and buy yourself some cakes.’”
+
+The justice started in his arm-chair. Was it, indeed, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite who was speaking, the proud young girl with a queenlike
+bearing, whose voice rang out like crystal? Was it she indeed, who
+imitated the harsh, coarse dialect of the lower classes with such
+accuracy of intonation? Ah! at that moment, as her past life rose so
+vividly before her, it seemed to her as if she were still in the
+years gone by, and she fancied she could still hear the voice of the
+bookbinder’s wife.
+
+She did not even notice the magistrate’s astonishment. “I had left the
+asylum,” she continued, “and that was everything to me. I felt that a
+new and different life was beginning, and that was enough. I flattered
+myself that I might win a more earnest and sincere affection among these
+honest, industrious toilers, than I had found in the asylum; and to win
+it and deserve it, I neglected nothing that good-will could suggest, or
+strength allow. My patrons no doubt fathomed my desire, and naturally
+enough, perhaps unconsciously, they took advantage of my wish to please.
+I can scarcely blame them. I had entered their home under certain
+conditions in view of learning a profession; they gradually made me
+their servant--it was praiseworthy economy on their part. What I had at
+first done of my own freewill and from a wish to please, at last became
+my daily task, which I was rigidly required to fulfil. Compelled to rise
+long before any one else in the house, I was expected to have everything
+in order by the time the others made their appearance with their eyes
+still heavy with sleep. It is true that my benefactors rewarded me after
+their fashion. On Sundays they took me with them on their excursions
+into the country, so as to give me a rest, they said, after the week’s
+work. And I followed them along the dusty highways in the hot sunshine,
+panting, perspiring, and tottering under the weight of a heavy basket
+of provisions, which were eaten on the grass or in the woods, and
+the remnants of which fell to me. Madame Greloux’s brother generally
+accompanied us; and his name would have lingered in my memory, even if
+it had not been a peculiar one. He was called Vantrasson. He was a tall,
+robust man, with eyes that made me tremble whenever he fixed them upon
+me. He was a soldier; intensely proud of his uniform; a great talker,
+and enchanted with himself. He evidently thought himself irresistible.
+It was from that man’s mouth that I heard the first coarse word at which
+my unsophisticated heart took offence. It was not to be the last one.
+He finally told me that he had taken a fancy to me, and I was obliged to
+complain to Madame Greloux of her brother’s persecutions. But she only
+laughed at me, and said: ‘Nonsense! He’s merely talking to hear himself
+talk.’ Yes, that was her answer. And yet she was an honest woman, a
+devoted wife, and a fond mother. Ah! if she had had a daughter. But with
+a poor apprentice, who has neither father nor mother, one need not
+be over-fastidious. She had made a great many promises to the lady
+superior, but she fancied that the utterance of a few commonplace words
+of warning relieved her of all further obligations. ‘And so much the
+worse for those who allow themselves to be fooled,’ she always added in
+conclusion.
+
+“Fortunately, my pride, which I had so often been reproached with,
+shielded me. My condition might be humble, but my spirit was lofty.
+It was a blessing from God, this pride of mine, for it saved me from
+temptation, while so many fell around me. I slept, with the other
+apprentices, in the attic, where we were entirely beyond the control of
+those who should have been our guardians. That is to say, when the day’s
+toil was over, and the work-shop closed, we were free--abandoned to
+our own instincts, and the most pernicious influences. And neither evil
+advice nor bad example was wanting. The women employed in the bindery
+in nowise restrained themselves in our presence, and we heard them tell
+marvellous stories that dazzled many a poor girl. They did not talk as
+they did from any evil design, or out of a spirit of calculation, but
+from pure thoughtlessness, and because they were quite devoid of moral
+sense. And they never tired of telling us of the pleasures of life, of
+fine dinners at restaurants, gay excursions to Joinville-le-Pont, and
+masked balls at Montparnasse or the Elysee Montmartre. Ah! experience
+is quickly gained in these work-shops. Sometimes those who went off at
+night with ragged dresses and worn-out shoes, returned the next morning
+in superb toilettes to say that they resigned their situations, as they
+were not made for work, and intended to live like ladies. They departed
+radiant, but often before a month was over they came back, emaciated,
+hollow-eyed, and despairing, and humbly begged for a little work.”
+
+She paused, so crushed by the weight of these sad memories as to lose
+consciousness of the present. And the judge also remained silent, not
+daring to question her. And, besides, what good would it do? What could
+she tell him about these poor little apprentices that he did not know
+already? If he was surprised at anything, it was that this beautiful
+young girl, who had been left alone and defenceless, had possessed
+sufficient strength of character to escape the horrible dangers that
+threatened her.
+
+However, it was not long before Mademoiselle Marguerite shook off the
+torpor which had stolen over her. “I ought not to boast of my strength,
+sir,” she resumed. “Besides my pride, I had a hope to sustain me--a hope
+which I clung to with the tenacity of despair. I wished to become expert
+at my profession, for I had learned that skilled workers were always in
+demand, and could always command good wages. So when my household duties
+were over, I still found time to learn the business, and made such rapid
+progress that I astonished even my employer. I knew that I should soon
+be able to make five or six francs a day; and this prospect was pleasant
+enough to make me forget the present, well-nigh intolerable as it
+sometimes was. During the last winter that I spent with my employers,
+their orders were so numerous and pressing that they worked on Sundays
+as well as on week days, and it was with difficulty that I obtained an
+hour twice a month to pay a visit to the good sisters who had cared for
+me in my childhood. I had never failed in this duty, and indeed it had
+now become my only pleasure. My employer’s conscience compelled him to
+pay me a trifle occasionally for the additional toil he imposed upon me,
+and the few francs I thus received I carried to the poor children at the
+asylum. After living all my life on public charity, I was able to
+give in my turn; and this thought gratified my pride, and increased
+my importance in my own eyes. I was nearly fifteen, and my term of
+apprenticeship had almost expired, when one bright day in March, I saw
+one of the lay sisters of the asylum enter the work-room. She was in a
+flutter of excitement; her face was crimson, and she was so breathless
+from her hurried ascent of the stairs that she gasped rather than
+said to me: ‘Quick! come--follow me! Some one is waiting for you!’
+‘Who?--where?’--‘Make haste! Ah! my dear child, if you only knew----’ I
+hesitated; but Madame Greloux pushed me toward the door, exclaiming:
+‘Be off, you little stupid!’ I followed the sister without thinking
+of changing my dress--without even removing the kitchen apron I wore.
+Downstairs, at the front door, stood the most magnificent carriage I had
+ever seen in my life. Its rich silk cushions were so beautiful that
+I scarcely dared to enter it; and I was all the more intimidated by
+a footman in gorgeous livery, who respectfully opened the door at our
+approach. ‘You must get into the carriage,’ said the sister; ‘it
+was sent for you.’ I obeyed her, and before I had recovered from my
+astonishment we had reached the asylum, and I was ushered into the
+office where the contract which bound me as an apprentice had been
+signed. As soon as I entered, the superior took me by the hand and led
+me toward a gentleman who was sitting near the window. ‘Marguerite,’
+said she, ‘salute Monsieur le Comte de Chalusse.’”
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+For some little time there had been a noise of footsteps and a subdued
+murmur of voices in the vestibule. Annoyed by this interruption,
+although he perfectly understood its cause, the magistrate rose and
+hastily opened the door. He was not mistaken. His clerk had returned
+from lunch, and the time of waiting seemed extremely long to him. “Ah!
+it’s you,” said the magistrate. “Very well! begin your inventory. It
+won’t be long before I join you.” And closing the door he resumed his
+seat again. Mademoiselle Marguerite was so absorbed in her narrative
+that she scarcely noticed this incident, and he had not seated himself
+before she resumed. “In all my life, I had never seen such an imposing
+looking person as the Count de Chalusse. His manner, attire, and
+features could not fail to inspire a child like me with fear and
+respect. I was so awed that I had scarcely enough presence of mind to
+bow to him. He glanced at me coldly, and exclaimed: ‘Ah! is this
+the young girl you were speaking of?’ The count’s tone betrayed such
+disagreeable surprise that the superior was dismayed. She looked at me,
+and seemed indignant at my more than modest attire. ‘It’s a shame
+to allow a child to leave home dressed in this fashion,’ she angrily
+exclaimed. And she almost tore my huge apron off me, and then with
+her own hands began to arrange my hair as if to display me to better
+advantage. ‘Ah! these employers,’ she exclaimed, ‘the best of them are
+bad. How they do deceive you. It’s impossible to place any confidence in
+their promises. Still, one can’t always be at their heels.’
+
+“But the superior’s efforts were wasted, for M. de Chalusse had turned
+away and had begun talking with some gentlemen near by. For the office
+was full that morning. Five or six gentlemen, whom I recognized as the
+directors of the asylum, were standing round the steward in the black
+skullcap. They were evidently talking about me. I was certain of this by
+the glances they gave me, glances which, however, were full of kindness.
+The superior joined the group and began speaking with unusual vivacity,
+while standing in the recess of a window, I listened with all my might.
+But I must have overestimated my intelligence, for I could gain no
+meaning whatever from the phrases which followed each other in rapid
+succession; though the words ‘adoption,’ ‘emancipation,’ ‘dowry,’
+‘compensation,’ ‘reimbursement for sums expended,’ recurred again and
+again. I was only certain of one point: the Count de Chalusse wished
+something, and these gentlemen were specifying other things in exchange.
+To each of their demands he answered: ‘Yes, yes--it’s granted. That’s
+understood.’ But at last he began to grow impatient, and in a voice
+which impressed one with the idea that he was accustomed to command, he
+exclaimed, ‘I will do whatever you wish. Do you desire anything more?’
+The gentlemen at once became silent, and the superior hastily declared
+that M. de Chalusse was a thousand times too good, but that one could
+expect no less of him, the last representative of one of the greatest
+and oldest families of France.
+
+“I cannot describe the surprise and indignation that were raging in my
+soul. I divined--I felt that it was MY fate, MY future, MY life that
+were being decided, and I was not even consulted on the matter. They
+were disposing of me as if they were sure in advance of my consent. My
+pride revolted at the thought, but I could not find a word to say in
+protest. Crimson with shame, confused and furious, I was wondering how I
+could interfere, when suddenly the consultation ceased and the gentlemen
+at once surrounded me. One of them, a little old man with a vapid smile
+and twinkling eyes, tapped me on the cheek, and said: ‘So she is as good
+as she is pretty!’ I could have struck him; but all the others laughed
+approvingly, with the exception of M. de Chalusse, whose manner became
+more and more frigid, and whose lips wore a constrained smile, as if he
+had resolved to keep his temper despite all provocation. It seemed to me
+that he was suffering terribly, and I afterward learned that I had not
+been mistaken. Far from imitating the old gentleman’s manner, he bowed
+to me very gravely, with an air of deference that quite abashed me, and
+went away after saying that he would return the next day to conclude the
+arrangements.
+
+“I was at last left alone with the superior, whom I longed to question,
+but she gave me no time to do so, for with extreme volubility she began
+to tell me of my surprising good fortune, which was an unanswerable
+and conclusive proof of the kindness and protection of Providence. ‘The
+count,’ she said, ‘was to become my guardian. He would certainly give me
+a dowry; and by and by, if I were grateful to him for his goodness, he
+would adopt me, a poor, fatherless and motherless girl, and I should
+bear the great name of Durtal de Chalusse, and inherit an immense
+fortune.’ In conclusion, she said that there was no limit to the count’s
+generosity, that he had consented to reimburse the asylum the money that
+had been spent on me, that he had offered to dower, I do not know how
+many poor girls, and that he had promised to build a chapel for the use
+of the establishment. This was all true, incredible as it might seem.
+That very morning, M. de Chalusse had called at the asylum, declared
+that he was old and childless, a bachelor without any near relatives,
+and that he wished to adopt a poor orphan. They had given him a list
+of all the children in the institution, and he had chosen me. ‘A mere
+chance, my dear Marguerite,’ repeated the superior. ‘A mere chance--or
+rather a true miracle.’ It did, indeed, seem a miracle, but I was more
+surprised than elated. I longed to be alone, so as to deliberate and
+reflect, for I knew that I was free to accept or decline this dazzling
+offer.
+
+“I timidly asked permission to return to my employers to inform them of
+what had happened and consult with them; but my request was refused. The
+superior told me that I must deliberate and decide alone; and that when
+once my decision was taken, there could be no change. So I remained at
+the asylum, and dined at the superior’s table; and during the night I
+occupied the room of a sister who was absent. What surprised me most of
+all was the deference with which I was treated. The sisters all seemed
+to consider me a person of great importance. And yet I hesitated.
+
+“My indecision may seem absurd and hypocritical; but it was really
+sincere. My present situation was certainly by no means an enviable one.
+But the worst was over; my term as an apprentice had nearly expired, and
+my future seemed assured. My future! What could it be with the Count de
+Chalusse? It was painted in such brilliant colors that it frightened me.
+Why had the count chosen me in preference to any of the other girls? Was
+it really chance which had decided him in his choice? On reflecting,
+the miracle seemed to me to have been prepared in advance, and I fancied
+that it must conceal some mystery. More than this, the thought of
+yielding myself up to a stranger terrified me. Forty-eight hours had
+been granted me to consider my decision, and till the very last instant
+I remained in doubt. Who knows? Perhaps it would have been better for me
+if I had returned to my humble life. At all events, I should have been
+spared a great deal of sorrow and humiliation. But I lacked the courage;
+and when the time expired, I consented to the new arrangement.
+
+“Should I live a thousand years I shall never forget the day I left
+the foundling asylum to become the Count de Chalusse’s ward. It was
+a Saturday, and I had given my answer to the superior on the evening
+before. The next morning I received a visit from my former employers,
+who, having been informed of the great change in my prospects, had come
+to bid me good-bye. The cancelling of my apprenticeship had at first
+caused some trouble, but eventually the count’s gold silenced their
+objections. Still, they were sorry to part with me, as I plainly saw.
+Their eyes were moist with tears. They were sorry to lose the poor
+little servant who had served them so faithfully. At the same time,
+however, I noticed evident constraint in their manner. They no longer
+said ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ to me; they no longer spoke roughly; but they
+said ‘you,’ and addressed me as ‘mademoiselle.’ Poor people! they
+awkwardly apologized for having ventured to accept my services,
+declaring in the same breath that they should never be able to replace
+me at the same price. Madame Greloux, moreover, declared that she should
+never forgive herself for not having sharply reproved her brother for
+his abominable conduct. He was a good-for-nothing fellow, she said, as
+was proved by the fact that he had dared to raise his eyes to me. For
+the first time in my life, I felt that I was sincerely loved; and I was
+so deeply touched that if my decision had not been written and signed, I
+should certainly have returned to live with these worthy people. But it
+was too late. A sister came to tell me that the superior wished to see
+me. I bade Father and Mother Greloux farewell and went downstairs.
+
+“In the superior’s room, a lady and two shop-girls, laden with boxes and
+parcels, were waiting for me. It was a dressmaker who had come with some
+clothes suited to my new station in life. I was told that she had
+been sent by the Count de Chalusse. This great nobleman thought of
+everything; and, although he had thirty servants to do his bidding, he
+never disdained to occupy himself with the pettiest details. So, for
+the first time, I was arrayed in rustling silk and clinging cashmere.
+My toilette was no trifling affair. All the good sisters clustered round
+me, and tried to beautify me with the same care and patience as they
+would have displayed in adorning the Virgin’s statue for a fete-day. A
+secret instinct warned me that they were overdoing the matter, and that
+they were making me look ridiculous; but I did not mind. I allowed them
+to please themselves I could still feel Madame Greloux’s tears on my
+hand, and the scene seemed to me as lugubrious as the last toilette of a
+prisoner under sentence of death. When they had completed their task,
+I heard a buzz of admiration round me. If the sisters were worthy of
+belief, they had never seen such a wonderful transformation. Those who
+were in the class-rooms or the sewing-room, were summoned to view and
+admire me, and some of the elder children were also admitted. Perhaps I
+was intended as an example for the latter, for I heard the lady superior
+say to them, ‘You see, my dear children, the result of good behavior. Be
+diligent and dutiful, like our dear Marguerite, and God will reward
+you as He has rewarded her.’ And, meantime, miserable in my finery, I
+waited--waited for M. de Chalusse, who was coming to take me away.
+
+“At the appointed hour he appeared, with the same air of haughty
+reserve, that had so awed me on the occasion of our first meeting. He
+scarcely deigned to look at me, and although I watched him with poignant
+anxiety, I could read neither blame nor approval on his face. ‘You see
+that your wishes have been scrupulously obeyed, Monsieur le Comte,’ said
+the superior. ‘I thank you,’ he replied; ‘and I shall prove the extent
+of my gratitude to the poor children under your charge.’ Then, turning
+to me: ‘Marguerite,’ he said, ‘take leave of--your mothers, and tell
+them that you will never forget their kindness.’”
+
+The girl paused, for her emotion had rendered her words almost
+unintelligible. But, with an effort, she speedily conquered her
+weakness.
+
+“It was only then,” she continued, “that I realized how much I loved
+these poor nuns, whom I had sometimes almost cursed. I felt now how
+close the ties were, that bound me to this hospitable roof, and to these
+unfortunate children, my companions in misery and loneliness. It seemed
+to me as if my heart were breaking; and the superior, who was generally
+so impassible, appeared scarcely less moved than myself. At last, M. de
+Chalusse took me by the hand and led me away. In the street there was a
+carriage waiting for us, not such a beautiful one as that which had been
+sent to fetch me from my workshop, but a much larger one, with trunks
+and boxes piled on its roof. It was drawn by four gray horses. I felt
+more dead than alive, as I entered the carriage and took the seat which
+the count pointed out. He sat down opposite to me. All the sisters had
+assembled at the door of the asylum, and even the superior wept without
+making any attempt to hide her tears. ‘Farewell!’ they all cried;
+‘farewell, farewell, dear child! Don’t forget your old friends. We shall
+pray for your happiness.’ Alas! God could not have heard their prayers.
+At a sign from M. de Chalusse, a footman closed the door, the postilions
+cracked their whips, and the heavy vehicle rolled away.
+
+“The die was cast. Henceforth, an impassable gulf was to separate me
+from this asylum, whither I had been carried in my infancy half dead,
+and wrapped in swaddling clothes, from which every mark that could
+possibly lead to identification had been carefully cut away. Whatever my
+future might prove, I felt that my past was gone forever. But I was
+too greatly agitated even to think; and crouching in a corner of the
+carriage, I watched M. de Chalusse with the poignant anxiety a slave
+displays as he studies his new master. Ah! monsieur, what a wondrous
+change! A mask seemed to have fallen from the count’s face; his lips
+quivered, a tender light beamed in his eyes, and he drew me to him,
+exclaiming: ‘Oh, Marguerite! my beloved Marguerite! At last--at last!’
+He sobbed--this old man, whom I had thought as cold and as insensible as
+marble; he crushed me in his close embrace, he almost smothered me
+with kisses. And I was frightfully agitated by the strange, indefinable
+feeling, kindled in my heart; but I no longer trembled with fear.
+An inward voice whispered that this was but the renewal of a former
+tie--one which had somehow been mysteriously broken. However, as I
+remembered the superior’s assertion that it was a miracle in my favor--a
+wonderful interposition of Providence, I had courage enough to ask: ‘So
+it was not chance that guided you in your choice?’
+
+“My question seemed to take him by surprise. ‘Poor Marguerite!’ he
+murmured, ‘dearly beloved child! for years I have been laboring to bring
+about this chance!’ Instantly all the romantic stories I had heard in
+the asylum recurred to my mind. And Heaven knows there are plenty of
+these stories transmitted by the sisters from generation to generation,
+till they have become a sort of Golden Legend for poor foundlings. That
+sad formula, ‘Father and mother unknown,’ which figures on certificates
+of birth, acts as a dangerous stimulant for unhealthy imaginations, and
+leaves an open door for the most extravagant hopes. And thus influenced,
+I fixed my eyes on the face of the Count de Chalusse, striving to
+discover some resemblance in his features to my own. But he did not
+seem to notice my intent gaze, and following his train of thought, he
+muttered: ‘Chance! It was necessary that they should think so, and
+they did think so. And yet the cleverest detectives in Paris, from old
+Tabaret to Fortunat, both masters in the art of following up a clue, had
+exhausted their resources in helping me in my despairing search.’ The
+agony of suspense I was enduring had become intolerable; and unable
+to restrain myself longer, I exclaimed, with a wildly throbbing heart:
+‘Then, you are my father, Monsieur le Comte?’ He pressed his hand to my
+lips with such violence that he hurt me, and then, in a voice quivering
+with excitement, he replied: ‘Imprudent girl! What can you mean?
+Forget that unfortunate idea. Never utter the name of father--you hear
+me--never! I forbid it!’ He had become extremely pale, and he looked
+anxiously around him, as if he feared that some one had overheard me--as
+if he had forgotten that we were alone in a carriage which was dashing
+onward at full speed!
+
+“I was stupefied and alarmed by the sudden terror which M. de Chalusse
+had displayed and could not control. What could it all mean? What
+sorrowful recollections, what mysterious apprehensions, had my words
+aroused in the count’s mind? I could not understand or imagine why he
+should regard my question as strange or unnatural. On the contrary, I
+thought it perfectly natural, dictated as it had been by circumstances,
+and by the count’s own words and manner. And, in spite of my confusion
+and agitation, the inexplicable voice which we call presentiment
+whispered in my heart: ‘He has forbidden you to CALL him father, but
+he has not said that he is not your father.’ However, I had not time to
+reflect or to question M. de Chalusse any more, though at that moment I
+should have had the courage to do so; afterward I did not dare.
+
+“Our carriage had drawn up outside the railway station, and the next
+instant we alighted. Then, for the first time, I learned the magical
+power of money, I, a poor girl--reared by public charity--and who for
+three years had worked for my daily bread. M. de Chalusse found the
+servants, who were to accompany us, awaiting him. They had thought of
+everything, and made every possible arrangement for our comfort. I had
+scarcely time to glance round me before we were on the platform in front
+of a train, which was ready to start. I perceived the very carriage that
+had brought us to the station already fastened on a low open truck, and
+I was advancing to climb into it, when M. de Chalusse stopped me. ‘Not
+there,’ said he, ‘come with me.’ I followed him, and he led me to a
+magnificent saloon carriage, much higher and roomier than the others,
+and emblazoned with the Chalusse coat-of-arms. ‘This is our carriage,
+dear Marguerite, he said. I got in. The whistle sounded; and the train
+started off.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was growing very tired. Big drops of
+perspiration stood out on her forehead, she panted for breath, and her
+voice began to fail her.
+
+The magistrate was almost frightened. “Pray rest a little,
+mademoiselle,” he entreated, “there is no hurry.”
+
+But she shook her head and replied: “It is better to go on. I should
+never have courage to begin again if I paused.” And thereupon she
+continued: “I had never gone farther than Versailles. This journey was
+at first as delightful as a glimpse into fairy-land. Our carriage
+was one of those costly whims which some millionaires indulge in. It
+consisted of a central saloon--a perfect chef-d’oeuvre of taste and
+luxury--with two compartments at either end, furnished with comfortable
+sleeping accommodation. And all this, the count seemed never weary of
+repeating, was mine--mine alone. Leaning back on the velvet cushions, I
+gazed at the changing landscape, as the train rushed madly on. Leaning
+over me, M. de Chalusse named all the towns and villages we passed:
+Brunoy, Melun, Fontainebleau, Villeneuve, Sens, Laroche. And each time
+the train stopped the servants came to ask if we wished for anything.
+When we reached Lyons, in the middle of the night, we found a delicious
+supper awaiting us. It was served as soon as we alighted, and in due
+time we were warned that the train was ready to start, and then we
+resumed our journey. You can imagine, perhaps, how marvellous all this
+seemed to a poor little apprentice, whose only ambition a week before
+was to earn five francs a day. What a change indeed! At last the count
+made me retire to one of the compartments, where I soon fell asleep,
+abandoning my efforts to distinguish what was dreamlike in my situation
+from reality. However, when I woke up I became terribly anxious. I
+asked myself what was awaiting me at the end of this long journey. M.
+de Chalusse’s manner continued kind, and even affectionate; but he had
+regained his accustomed reserve and self-control, and I realized that
+it would be useless on my part to question him. At last, after a thirty
+hours’ journey by rail, we again entered the count’s berline, drawn
+by post-horses, and eventually M. de Chalusse said to me: ‘Here is
+Cannes--we are at our journey’s end.’
+
+“In this town, which is one of the most charming that overlook the blue
+waters of the Mediterranean, the count owned a palace embowered among
+lovely orange-trees, only a few steps from the sea, and in full view of
+the myrtle and laurel groves which deck the isles of Sainte Marguerite.
+He told me that he proposed spending a few months here in seclusion, so
+as to give me time to accustom myself to my new position and the luxury
+that surrounded me. I was, indeed, extremely awkward, and my excessive
+timidity was increased by my pride. I did not know what to say, or what
+to do. I did not know how to use my hands, nor how to walk, nor how
+to carry myself. Everything embarrassed and frightened me; and I was
+conscious of my awkwardness, without being able to remedy it. I saw my
+blunders, and knew that I spoke a different language to that which was
+spoken around me. And yet the memory of Cannes will ever be dear to me.
+For there I first met the only friend I have now left in this world. I
+did not exchange a word with him, but by the quickened throbbings of
+my heart, when our eyes met, I felt that he would exert a powerful
+influence over my life, and events have since proved that I was not
+deceived. At that time, however, he was a stranger to me; and nothing
+on earth would have induced me to make inquiries concerning him. It
+was only by chance I learned that he lived in Paris, that his name was
+Pascal, and that he had come south as a companion to a sick friend.
+
+“By a single word the count could have insured the happiness of my
+life and his own, but he did not speak it. He was the kindest and
+most indulgent of guardians, and I was often affected to tears by his
+tenderness. But, although my slightest wish was law, he did not grant me
+his confidence. The secret--the mystery that stood between us--was like
+a wall of ice. Still, I was gradually becoming accustomed to my new
+life, and my mind was regaining its equilibrium, when one evening the
+count returned home more agitated and excited, if possible, than on the
+day of my departure from the asylum. He summoned his valet, and, in a
+tone that admitted no reply, he exclaimed, ‘I wish to leave Cannes at
+once--I must start in less than an hour--so procure some post-horses
+instantly.’ And in answer to my inquiring glance, he said: ‘It must
+be. It would be folly to hesitate. Each moment increases the peril that
+threatens us.’
+
+“I was very young, inexperienced, and totally ignorant of life; but my
+sufferings, my loneliness, and the prospect of being compelled to rely
+upon myself, had imparted to my mind that precocious maturity which is
+so often observed among the children of the poor. Knowing from the very
+first that there was some mystery connected with the count’s life, I had
+studied him with a child’s patient sagacity--a sagacity which is all the
+more dangerous, as it is unsuspected--and I had come to the conclusion
+that a constant dread rendered his life a burden. Could it be for
+himself that he trembled, this great nobleman, who was so powerful by
+reason of his exalted rank, his connections, and his wealth? Certainly
+not. Was it for me, then? Undoubtedly it was. But why? It had not taken
+me long to discover that he was concealing me, or, at least, that he
+endeavored by all means in his power to prevent my presence in his house
+from being known beyond a very limited circle of friends. Our hurried
+departure from Cannes confirmed me in my impression.
+
+“It might have been truly called a flight. We left that same evening at
+eleven o’clock, in a pouring rain, with the first horses that could be
+procured. Our only attendant was the count’s valet--not Casimir, the man
+who insulted me a little while ago--but another man, an old and valued
+servant, who has since died, unfortunately, and who possessed his
+master’s entire confidence. The other servants were dismissed with a
+princely gratuity, and told to disperse two days after our departure. We
+did not return to Paris, but journeyed toward the Italian frontier, and
+on arriving at Nice in the dead of night, we drove directly to the quay.
+The postilions unharnessed the horses, and we remained in the carriage.
+The valet, however, hastened off, and more than two hours elapsed before
+he returned. He declared that he had found it very difficult to procure
+what he wished for, but that at last, by a prodigal outlay of money, he
+had succeeded in overcoming all obstacles. What M. de Chalusse desired
+was a vessel ready for sea, and the bark which the valet had chartered
+now came up to the quay. Our carriage was put on board, we went below,
+and before daybreak we were under way.
+
+“Three days later we were in Genoa, registered under a false name in a
+second class hotel. While we were on the open sea, the count had seemed
+to be less agitated, but now he was far from calm, and the precautions
+he took proved that he still feared pursuit. A malefactor flying from
+justice could not have taken greater pains to mislead the detectives on
+his track. And facts proved conclusively that I was the sole cause of
+the count’s apprehension. On one occasion I even heard him discussing
+with his valet the feasibility of clothing me in masculine attire.
+And it was only the difficulty of obtaining a suitable costume that
+prevented him from carrying this project into execution. I ought to
+mention, however, that the servant did not share his master’s anxiety,
+for three or four times I overheard him saying: ‘The count is too
+good to worry himself so much about such bad stock. Besides, she won’t
+overtake us. It isn’t certain that she has even followed us. How can
+she know anything about it?’ She! Who was she? This is what I racked my
+brain to discover, but without success. I must confess, monsieur, that
+being of a practical nature, and not in the least degree romantic, I
+arrived at the conclusion that the peril chiefly existed in the count’s
+imagination, or that he greatly exaggerated it. Still he suffered none
+the less on that account, as was shown by the fact that the following
+month was spent in hurried journeys from one Italian city to another.
+
+“It was the end of May before M. de Chalusse would consent to return to
+France; and then we went direct to Lyons. We had spent a couple of days
+there, when the count informed me that prudence required us to separate
+for a time--that our safety demanded this sacrifice. And without giving
+me time to say a word, he began to explain the advantages that would
+accrue from such an arrangement. I was extremely ignorant, and he wished
+me to profit by our temporary separation to raise my knowledge to
+a level with my new social position. He had, accordingly, made
+arrangements for me to enter the convent of Sainte-Marthe, an
+educational establishment which is as celebrated in the department of
+the Rhone as the Convent des Oiseaux is in Paris. He added that it would
+not be prudent for him to visit me; and he made me solemnly promise that
+I would never mention his name to any of my schoolmates. I was to send
+any letters I might write to an address which he would give me, and he
+would sign his answers with a fictitious name. He also told me that the
+lady superior of Sainte-Marthe knew his secret, and that I could confide
+in her. He was so restless and so miserably unhappy on the day when
+he acquainted me with these plans, that I really believed him insane.
+Nevertheless, I replied that I would obey him, and to tell the truth,
+I was not ill pleased at the thought of the change. My life with M.
+de Chalusse was a monotonous and cheerless one. I was almost dying of
+ennui, for I had been accustomed to work, bustle, and confusion with the
+Greloux, and I felt delighted at the prospect of finding myself among
+companions of my own age.
+
+“Unfortunately, M. de Chalusse had forgotten one circumstance, which
+made my two years’ sojourn at Sainte-Marthe a lingering and cruel agony.
+At first I was kindly treated by my schoolmates. A new pupil is always
+welcome, for her arrival relieves the monotony of convent-life. But it
+was not long before my companions wished to know my name; and I had none
+other than Marguerite to give them. They were astonished and wished to
+know who my parents were. I could not tell an untruth; and I was obliged
+to confess that I knew nothing at all respecting my father or my mother.
+After that ‘the bastard’--for such was the name they gave me--was soon
+condemned to isolation. No one would associate with me during play-time.
+No one would sit beside me in the school-room. At the piano lesson, the
+girl who played after me pretended to wipe the keyboard carefully
+before commencing her exercises. I struggled bravely against this
+unjust ostracism; but all in vain. I was so unlike these other girls in
+character and disposition, and I had, moreover, been guilty of a great
+imprudence. I had been silly enough to show my companions the costly
+jewels which M. de Chalusse had given me, but which I never wore. And on
+two occasions I had proved to them that I had more money at my disposal
+than all the other pupils together. If I had been poor, they would,
+perhaps, have treated me with affected sympathy; but as I was rich,
+I became an enemy. It was war; and one of those merciless wars which
+sometimes rage so furiously in convents, despite their seeming quiet.
+
+“I should surprise you, monsieur, if I told you what refined torture
+these daughters of noblemen invented to gratify their petty spite. I
+might have complained to the superior, but I scorned to do so. I buried
+my sorrow deep in my heart, as I had done years before; and I firmly
+resolved never to show ought but a smiling, placid face, so as to prove
+to my enemies that they were powerless to disturb my peace of mind.
+Study became my refuge and consolation; and I plunged into work with the
+energy of despair. I should probably still live at Sainte-Marthe now,
+had it not been for a trivial circumstance. One day I had a quarrel
+with my most determined enemy, a girl named Anais de Rochecote. I was a
+thousand times right; and I would not yield. The superior dared not
+tell me I was wrong. Anais was furious, and wrote I don’t know what
+falsehoods to her mother. Madame de Rochecote thereupon interested the
+mothers of five or six other pupils in her daughter’s quarrel, and one
+evening these ladies came in a body, and nobly and courageously demanded
+that the ‘bastard’ should be expelled. It was impossible, outrageous,
+monstrous, they declared, that their daughters should be compelled to
+associate with a girl like me--a nameless girl, who humiliated the other
+girls with her ill-gotten wealth. The superior tried to take my part;
+but these ladies declared they would take their daughters from the
+convent if I were not sent away. There was no help for it: I was
+sacrificed. Summoned by telegraph, M. de Chalusse hastened to Lyons, and
+two days later I left Sainte-Marthe with jeers and opprobrious epithets
+ringing in my ears.”
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+Once before, that very morning, the magistrate had witnessed a display
+of the virile energy with which misfortune and suffering had endowed
+this proud but naturally timid girl. But he was none the less surprised
+at the sudden explosion of hatred which he now beheld; for it was
+hatred. The way in which Mademoiselle Marguerite’s voice had quivered as
+she pronounced the name of Anais de Rochecote proved, unmistakably, that
+hers was one of those haughty natures that never forget an insult. All
+signs of fatigue had now disappeared. She had sprung from her chair,
+and remembrance of the shameful, cowardly affront she had received had
+brought a vivid flush to her cheeks and a bright gleam to her eyes.
+
+“This atrocious humiliation happened scarcely a year ago, monsieur,” she
+resumed; “and there is but little left for me to tell you. My expulsion
+from Sainte-Marthe made M. de Chalusse frantic with indignation. He knew
+something that I was ignorant of--that Madame de Rochecote, who enacted
+the part of a severe and implacable censor, was famed for the laxity
+of her morals. The count’s first impulse was to wreak vengeance on my
+persecutors; for, in spite of his usual coolness, M. de Chalusse had a
+furious temper at times. It was only with the greatest difficulty that
+I dissuaded him from challenging General de Rochecote, who was living
+at the time. However, it now became necessary to make some other
+arrangements for me. M. de Chalusse offered to find another school,
+promising to take such precautions as would insure my peace of mind. But
+I interrupted him before he had spoken a dozen words, declaring I would
+rather return to the book-binders than chance another such experiment.
+And what I said I meant. A subterfuge--a fictitious name, for
+instance--could alone shield me from persecution similar to what I had
+endured at Sainte-Marthe. But I knew that I was incapable of playing
+such a part--I felt that I should somehow confess everything. My
+firmness imparted some resolution to M. de Chalusse. He exclaimed, with
+an oath, that I was right--that he was weary of all this deception and
+concealment, and that he would make arrangements to have me near him.
+‘Yes,’ he concluded, embracing me, ‘the die is cast, come what may!’
+
+“However, these measures required a certain delay; and, in the meantime,
+he decided to install me in Paris, which is the only place where one can
+successfully hide from prying eyes. He purchased a small but convenient
+house, surrounded by a garden, in the neighborhood of the Luxembourg
+Palace, and here he installed me, with two old women and a trusty
+man-servant. As I needed a chaperon, he went in quest of one, and found
+Madame Leon.”
+
+On hearing this name, the magistrate gave the young girl a searching
+look, as if he hoped to discover what estimate she had formed of the
+housekeeper’s character, as well as what degree of confidence she had
+granted her. But Mademoiselle Marguerite’s face remained unaltered in
+expression.
+
+“After so many trials,” she resumed, “I thought I should now find rest
+and peace. Yes, I believed so; and the few months I spent in that quiet
+house will be the happiest of my life--I am sure of it. Judge of my
+surprise when, on going down into the little garden on the second day
+after my arrival, I saw the young man whom I had met at Cannes, and
+whose face had lingered in my memory for more than two years as the
+type of all that was best and noblest in the human countenance. He was
+standing near the gate. A cloud passed before my eyes. What mysterious
+freak of fate had caused him to pause there at that particular moment?
+This much is certain, he recognized me as I had recognized him. He
+bowed, smiling somewhat, and I fled indoors again, indignant with myself
+for not being angry at his audacity. I made many plans that day, but the
+next morning, at the same hour, I hid myself behind a Venetian blind,
+and saw him pause at the gate, and gaze at the garden with evident
+anxiety. I soon learned that he lived near by, with his widowed mother;
+and twice a day, when he went to the Palais de Justice and returned, he
+passed my home.”
+
+Her cheeks were crimson now, her eyes were lowered, and she was
+evidently embarrassed. But suddenly, as if ashamed of her blushes, she
+proudly raised her head, and said, in a firmer voice: “Shall I tell you
+our simple story? Is it necessary? I should not have concealed anything
+that has passed from my mother, if I had been so happy as to possess a
+mother. A few moments’ conversation now and then, the exchange of a few
+letters, the pressure of a hand through the garden gate, and that is
+all. Still, I have been guilty of a grave and irreparable fault: I have
+disobeyed the one rule of my life--frankness; and I am cruelly punished
+for doing so. I did not tell all this to M. de Chalusse--in fact, I
+dared not. I was ashamed of my cowardice; from day to day I vowed that
+I would confess everything, and yet I procrastinated. I said to myself
+every night, ‘It shall be done to-morrow; but when the morrow came I
+said, ‘I will give myself another day--just one more day.’ Indeed, my
+courage failed me when I thought of the count’s aristocratic prejudices;
+and besides, I knew how ambitious he was for my future. On the other
+hand, moreover, Pascal was always pleading: ‘Don’t speak now. My
+circumstances are constantly improving. The day is not far off when I
+shall be able to offer you wealth and fame. When that day comes I will
+go to your guardian and ask him for your hand; but in Heaven’s name
+don’t speak now.’ I understood Pascal’s motives well enough. The count’s
+immense fortune frightened him, and he feared that he would be accused
+of being a fortune-hunter. So I waited, with that secret anguish which
+still haunts those who have been unhappy even when their present is
+peaceful, and their future seems bright. I kept my secret, saying to
+myself that such happiness was not meant for me, that it would soon take
+flight.
+
+“It took flight all too soon. One morning I heard a carriage draw up
+outside our door, and the next moment the Count de Chalusse entered
+the sitting-room. ‘Everything is ready to receive you at the Hotel de
+Chalusse, Marguerite,’ said he, ‘come!’ He ceremoniously offered me his
+arm, and I accompanied him. I could not even leave a message for Pascal,
+for I had never made a confidante of Madame Leon. Still, a faint hope
+sustained me. I thought that the precautions taken by M. de Chalusse
+would somewhat dispel the uncertainty of my position, and furnish me at
+least with some idea of the vague danger which threatened me. But no.
+His efforts, so far as I could discover, had been confined to changing
+his servants. Our life in this grand house was the same as it had been
+at Cannes--even more secluded, if that were possible. The count had aged
+considerably. It was evident that he was sinking beneath the burden
+of some ever-present sorrow. ‘I am condemning you to a cheerless and
+melancholy youth,’ he sometimes said to me, ‘but it will not last
+forever--patience, patience!’ Did he really love me? I think so. But his
+affection showed itself in a strange manner. Sometimes his voice was so
+tender that my heart was touched. At others there was a look of hatred
+in his eyes which terrified me. Occasionally he was severe almost to
+brutality, and then the next moment he would implore me to forgive him,
+order the carriage, take me with him to his jewellers’, and insist upon
+me accepting some costly ornaments. Madame Leon declares that my jewels
+are worth more than twenty thousand francs. At times I wondered if his
+capricious affection and sternness were really intended for myself. It
+often seemed to me that I was only a shadow--the phantom of some absent
+person, in his eyes. It is certain that he often requested me to dress
+myself or to arrange my hair in a certain fashion, to wear such and such
+a color, or to use a particular perfume which he gave me. Frequently,
+when I was moving about the house, he suddenly exclaimed: ‘Marguerite! I
+entreat you, remain just where you are!’
+
+“I obeyed him, but the illusion had already vanished. A sob or an oath
+would come from his lips, and then in an angry voice he would bid me
+leave the room.”
+
+The magistrate did not raise his eyes from his talismanic ring; it might
+have been supposed that it had fascinated him. Still, his expression
+denoted profound commiseration, and he shook his head thoughtfully. The
+idea had occurred to him that this unfortunate young girl had been the
+victim, not precisely of a madman, but of one of those maniacs who have
+just enough reason left to invent the tortures they inflict upon those
+around them.
+
+Speaking more slowly than before, as if she were desirous of attracting
+increased attention on the magistrate’s part, Mademoiselle Marguerite
+now continued: “If I reminded M. de Chalusse of a person whom he had
+formerly loved, that person may have been my mother. I say, MAY HAVE
+BEEN, because I am not certain of it. All my efforts to discover
+the truth were unavailing. M. de Chalusse seemed to take a malicious
+pleasure in destroying all my carefully-arranged theories, and
+in upsetting the conjectures which he had encouraged himself only
+twenty-four hours previously. Heaven only knows how anxiously I listened
+to his slightest word! And it can be easily understood why I did so. My
+strange and compromising connection with him drove me nearly frantic.
+It was not strange that people’s suspicions were aroused. True, he had
+changed all his servants before my arrival here; but he had requested
+Madame Leon to remain with me, and who can tell what reports she may
+have circulated? It has often happened that when returning from mass
+on Sundays, I have overheard persons say, ‘Look! there is the Count
+de Chalusse’s mistress!’ Oh! not a single humiliation has been spared
+me--not a single one! However, on one point I did not feel the shadow
+of a doubt. The count had known my mother. He frequently alluded to her,
+sometimes with an outburst of passion which made me think that he had
+once adored, and still loved her; sometimes, with insults and curses
+which impressed me with the idea that she had cruelly injured him. But
+most frequently he reproached her for having unhesitatingly sacrificed
+me to insure her own safety. He said she could have had no heart; and
+that it was an unheard of, incomprehensible, and monstrous thing that
+a woman could enjoy luxury and wealth, undisturbed by remorse, knowing
+that her innocent and defenceless child was exposed all the while to the
+hardships and temptations of abject poverty. I was also certain that my
+mother was a married woman, for M. de Chalusse alluded to her husband
+more than once. He hated him with a terrible hatred. One evening, when
+he was more communicative than usual, he gave me to understand that
+the great danger he dreaded for me came either from my mother or her
+husband. He afterward did his best to counteract this impression; but
+he did not succeed in convincing me that his previous assertion was
+untrue.”
+
+The magistrate looked searchingly at Mademoiselle Marguerite. “Then
+those letters which we found just now in the escritoire are from your
+mother, mademoiselle?” he remarked.
+
+The girl blushed. She had previously been questioned respecting these
+letters, and she had then made no reply. Now, she hesitated for a
+moment, and then quietly said: “Your opinion coincides with mine,
+monsieur.”
+
+Thereupon, as if she wished to avoid any further questioning on the
+subject, she hurriedly continued: “At last a new and even greater
+trouble came--a positive calamity, which made me forget the disgrace
+attached to my birth. One morning at breakfast, about a month ago, the
+count informed me that he expected two guests to dinner that evening.
+This was such an unusual occurrence that I was struck speechless with
+astonishment. ‘It is extraordinary, I admit,’ he added, gayly; ‘but it
+is nevertheless true. M. de Fondege and the Marquis de Valorsay will
+dine here this evening. So, my dear Marguerite, look your prettiest
+in honor of our old friend.’ At six o’clock the two gentlemen arrived
+together. I was well acquainted with M. de Fondege--the general, as he
+was commonly called. He was the count’s only intimate friend, and often
+visited us. But I had never before seen the Marquis de Valorsay, nor had
+I ever heard his name until M. de Chalusse mentioned it that morning. I
+don’t pretend to judge him. I will only say that as soon as I saw him,
+the dislike I felt for him bordered on aversion. My false position
+rendered his close scrutiny actually painful to me, and his attentions
+and compliments pleased me no better. At dinner he addressed his
+conversation exclusively to me, and I particularly remember a certain
+picture he drew of a model household, which positively disgusted me. In
+his opinion, a husband ought to content himself with being his wife’s
+prime minister--the slave of her slightest caprice. He intended, if
+he married, to allow the Marquise de Valorsay perfect freedom, with
+an unlimited amount of money, the handsomest carriages, and the most
+magnificent diamonds in Paris--everything, indeed, that could gratify
+her vanity, and render her existence a fairylike dream. ‘With such ideas
+on her husband’s part the marchioness will be very difficult to please
+if she is not contented with her lot,’ he added, glancing covertly at
+me. This exasperated me beyond endurance, and I dryly replied: ‘The mere
+thought of such a husband would drive me to the shelter of a convent.’
+He seemed considerably disconcerted; and I noticed that the general, I
+mean M. de Fondege, gave him a mischievous look.
+
+“However, when the gentlemen had gone, M. de Chalusse scolded me
+severely. He said that my sentimental philosophy was quite out of place
+in a drawing-room, and that my ideas of life, marriage, and duty could
+only have been gained in a foundling asylum. As I attempted to reply, he
+interrupted me to sound the praises of the Marquis de Valorsay, who
+not only came of an ancient family, and possessed immense, unencumbered
+estates, but was a talented, handsome man into the bargain; in short,
+one of those favored mortals whom all young girls sigh for. The scales
+fell from my eyes. I instantly understood that M. de Chalusse had
+selected the Marquis de Valorsay to be my husband, and thus the marquis
+had designedly explained his matrimonial programme for my benefit. It
+was a snare to catch the bird. I felt indignant that he should suppose
+me so wanting in delicacy of feeling and nobility of character as to
+be dazzled by the life of display and facile pleasure which he had
+depicted. I had disliked him at first, and now I despised him; for it
+was impossible to misunderstand the shameless proposal concealed beneath
+his half-jesting words. He offered me my liberty in exchange for my
+fortune. That is only a fair contract, one might say. Perhaps so; but if
+he were willing to do this for a certain amount of money, what would
+he not do for a sum twice or thrice as large? Such were my impressions,
+though I asked myself again and again if I were not mistaken. No; the
+events that followed only confirmed my suspicions. Three days later the
+marquis came again. His visit was to the count, and they held a long
+conference in this study. Having occasion to enter the room, after the
+marquis’s departure, I noticed on the table a number of title deeds
+which he had probably brought for the count’s inspection. On the
+following week there was another conference, and this time a lawyer was
+present. Any further doubts I might have felt were dispelled by Madame
+Leon, who was always well informed--thanks to her habit of listening
+at the keyholes. ‘They are talking of marrying you to the Marquis de
+Valorsay--I heard them,’ she remarked to me.
+
+“However, the information did not terrify me. I had profited by the time
+allowed me for reflection, and I had decided upon the course I should
+pursue. I am timid, but I am not weak; and I was determined to resist M.
+de Chalusse’s will in this matter, even if it became necessary for me
+to leave his house, and renounce all hopes of the wealth he had promised
+me. Still I said nothing to Pascal of my mental struggle and final
+determination. I did not wish to bind him by the advice which he would
+certainly have given me. I had his troth, and that sufficed. And it was
+with a thrill of joy that I said to myself: ‘What does it matter if M.
+de Chalusse should be so angered by my refusal to obey him as to drive
+me from his house? It will rather be so much the better; Pascal will
+protect me.’
+
+“But resistance is only possible when you are attacked; and M. de
+Chalusse did not even allude to the subject--perhaps because affairs
+had not yet been satisfactorily arranged between the marquis and
+himself--possibly because he wished to deprive me of the power to oppose
+him by taking me unawares. It would have been great imprudence on
+my part to broach the subject myself, and so I waited calmly and
+resignedly, storing up all my energy for the decisive hour. I willingly
+confess that I am not a heroine of romance--I do not look upon
+money with the contempt it deserves. I was resolved to wed solely in
+accordance with the dictates of my heart; but I wished, and HOPED, that
+M. de Chalusse would give me, not a fortune, but a modest dowry. He had
+become more communicative than usual on money matters, and took no pains
+to conceal the fact that he was engaged in raising the largest possible
+amount of ready cash. He received frequent visits from his stockbroker,
+and sometimes when the latter had left him, he showed me rolls of
+bank-notes and packages of bonds, saying, as he did so: ‘You see that
+your future is assured, my dear Marguerite.’
+
+“I am only doing the count justice when I say that my future was a
+subject of constant anxiety to him during the last few months of his
+life. Less than a fortnight after he had taken me from the asylum, he
+drew up a will, in which he adopted me and made me his sole legatee. But
+he afterward destroyed this document on the plea that it did not afford
+me sufficient security; and a dozen others shared the same fate. For his
+mind was constantly occupied with the subject, and he seemed to have a
+presentiment that his death would be a sudden one. I am forced to
+admit that he seemed less anxious to endow me with his fortune than to
+frustrate the hopes of some persons I did not know. When he burned his
+last will in my presence, he remarked: ‘This document is useless: they
+would contest it, and probably succeed in having it set aside. I have
+thought of a better way; I have found an expedient which will provide
+for all emergencies.’ And as I ventured some timid objection--for it was
+repugnant to my sense of honor to act as an instrument of vengeance or
+injustice, or assist, even passively, in despoiling any person of his
+rightful inheritance--he harshly, almost brutally, replied: ‘Mind
+your own business! I will disappoint the folks who are waiting for my
+property as they deserve to be disappointed. They covet my estates do
+they! Very well, they shall have them. I will leave them my property,
+but they shall find it mortgaged to its full value.’
+
+“Unfortunate man! all his plans have failed. The heirs whom he hated so
+bitterly, and whom I don’t even know, whose existence people have not
+even suspected, can now come, and they will find the wealth he was
+determined to deprive them of intact. He dreamed of a brilliant destiny
+for me--a proud name, and the rank of a marchioness--and he has not even
+succeeded in protecting me from the most shameful insults. I have been
+accused of theft before his body was even cold. He wished to make
+me rich, frightfully rich, and he has not left me enough to buy my
+bread--literally, not enough to buy bread. He was in constant terror
+concerning my safety, and he died without even telling me what were
+the mysterious dangers which threatened me; without even telling me
+something which I am morally certain of--that he was my father. He
+raised me against my will to the highest social position--he placed that
+wonderful talisman, gold, in my hand; he showed me the world at my feet;
+and suddenly he allowed me to fall even to lower depths of misery than
+those in which he found me. Ah! M. de Chalusse, it would have been far
+better for me if you had left me in the foundling asylum to have earned
+my own bread. And yet, I freely forgive you.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite reflected for a moment, questioning her memory
+to ascertain if she had told everything--if she had forgotten any
+particulars of importance. And as it seemed to her that she had nothing
+more to add, she approached the magistrate, and, with impressive
+solemnity of tone and manner, exclaimed: “My life up to the present hour
+is now as well known to you as it is to myself. You know what even the
+friend, who is my only hope, does not know as yet. And now, when I tell
+him what I really am, will he think me unworthy of him?”
+
+The magistrate sprang to his feet, impelled by an irresistible force.
+Two big tears, the first he had shed for years, trembled on his
+eyelashes, and coursed down his furrowed cheeks. “You are a noble
+creature, my child,” he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion; “and
+if I had a son, I should deem myself fortunate if he chose a wife like
+you.”
+
+She clasped her hands, with a gesture of intense joy and relief, and
+then sank into an arm-chair, murmuring: “Oh, thanks, monsieur, thanks!”
+ For she was thinking of Pascal; and she had feared he might shrink from
+her when she fully revealed to him her wretched, sorrowful past, of
+which he was entirely ignorant. But the magistrate’s words had reassured
+her.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+The clock on the mantel-shelf struck half-past four. The magistrate and
+Mademoiselle Marguerite could hear stealthy footsteps in the hall, and
+a rustling near the door. The servants were prowling round about the
+study, wondering what was the reason of this prolonged conference. “I
+must see how the clerk is progressing with the inventory.” said the
+magistrate. “Excuse me if I absent myself for a moment; I will soon
+return.” And so saying he rose and left the room.
+
+But it was only a pretext. He really wished to conceal his emotion
+and regain his composure, for he had been deeply affected by the young
+girl’s narrative. He also needed time for reflection, for the situation
+had become extremely complicated since Mademoiselle Marguerite had
+informed him of the existence of heirs--of those mysterious enemies who
+had poisoned the count’s peace. These persons would, of course, require
+to know what had become of the millions deposited in the escritoire,
+and who would be held accountable for the missing treasure? Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, unquestionably. Such were the thoughts that flitted through
+the magistrate’s mind as he listened to his clerk’s report. Nor was this
+all; for having solicited Mademoiselle Marguerite’s confidence, he must
+now advise her. And this was a matter of some difficulty.
+
+However, when he returned to the study he was quite self-possessed
+and impassive again, and he was pleased to see that on her side the
+unfortunate girl had, to some extent, at least, recovered her wonted
+composure. “Let us now discuss the situation calmly,” he began. “I shall
+convince you that your prospects are not so frightful as you imagine.
+But before speaking of the future, will you allow me to refer to the
+past?” The girl bowed her consent. “Let us first of all consider the
+subject of the missing millions. They were certainly in the escritoire
+when M. de Chalusse replaced the vial; but now they are not to be found,
+so that the count must have taken them away with him.”
+
+“That thought occurred to me also.”
+
+“Did the treasure form a large package?”
+
+“Yes, it was large; but it could have been easily concealed under the
+cloak which M. de Chalusse wore.”
+
+“Very good! What was the time when he left the house?”
+
+“About five o’clock.”
+
+“When was he brought back?”
+
+“At about half-past six.”
+
+“Where did the cabman pick him up?”
+
+“Near the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, so he told me.”
+
+“Do you know the driver’s number?”
+
+“Casimir asked him for it, I believe.”
+
+Had any one inquired the reason of this semi-official examination, the
+magistrate would have replied that Mademoiselle Marguerite’s interests
+alone influenced him in the course he was taking. This was quite true;
+and yet, without being altogether conscious of the fact, he was also
+impelled by another motive. This affair interested, almost fascinated,
+him on account of its mysterious surroundings, and influenced by the
+desire for arriving at the truth which is inherent in every human heart,
+he was anxious to solve the riddle. After a few moments’ thoughtful
+silence, he remarked: “So the point of departure in our investigation,
+if there is an investigation, will be this: M. de Chalusse left the
+house with two millions in his possession; and while he was absent, he
+either disposed of that enormous sum--or else it was stolen from him.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite shuddered. “Oh! stolen,” she faltered.
+
+“Yes, my child--anything is possible. We must consider the situation in
+every possible light. But to continue. Where was M. de Chalusse going?”
+
+“To the house of a gentleman who would, he thought, be able to furnish
+the address given in the letter he had torn up.”
+
+“What was this gentleman’s name?”
+
+“Fortunat.”
+
+The magistrate wrote the name down on his tablets, and then, resuming
+his examination, he said: “Now, in reference to this unfortunate letter
+which, in your opinion, was the cause of the count’s death, what did it
+say?”
+
+“I don’t know, monsieur. It is true that I helped the count in
+collecting the fragments, but I did not read what was written on them.”
+
+“That is of little account. The main thing is to ascertain who wrote
+the letter. You told me that it could only have come from the sister who
+disappeared thirty years ago, or else from your mother.”
+
+“That was, and still is, my opinion.”
+
+The magistrate toyed with his ring; and a smile of satisfaction stole
+over his face. “Very well!” he exclaimed, “in less than five minutes
+I shall be able to tell you whether the letter was from your mother
+or not. My method is perfectly simple. I have only to compare the
+handwriting with that of the letters found in the escritoire.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite sprang up, exclaiming: “What a happy idea!”
+
+But without seeming to notice the girl’s surprise, he added: “Where are
+the remnants of this letter which you and the count picked up in the
+garden?”
+
+“M. de Chalusse placed them in his pocket.”
+
+“They must be found. Tell the count’s valet to look for them.”
+
+The girl rang; but M. Casimir, who was supposed to be engaged in making
+preparations for the funeral, was not in the house. However, another
+servant and Madame Leon offered their services, and certainly displayed
+the most laudable zeal, but their search was fruitless; the fragments
+of the letter could not be found. “How unfortunate!” muttered the
+magistrate, as he watched them turn the pockets of the count’s clothes
+inside out. “What a fatality! That letter would probably have solved the
+mystery.”
+
+Compelled to submit to this disappointment, he returned to the study;
+but he was evidently discouraged. Although he did not consider the
+mystery insoluble, far from it, he realized that time and research
+would be required to arrive at a solution, and that the affair was quite
+beyond his province. One hope alone remained.
+
+By carefully studying the last words which M. de Chalusse had written
+and spoken he might arrive at the intention which had dictated them.
+Experience had wonderfully sharpened his penetration, and perhaps he
+might discover a hidden meaning which would throw light upon all this
+doubt and uncertainty. Accordingly, he asked Mademoiselle Marguerite for
+the paper upon which the count had endeavored to pen his last wishes;
+and in addition he requested her to write on a card the dying man’s last
+words in the order they had been uttered. But on combining the written
+and the spoken words the only result obtained was as follows:--“My
+entire fortune--give--friends--against--Marguerite--despoiled--your
+mother--take care.” These twelve incoherent words revealed the count’s
+absorbing and poignant anxiety concerning his fortune and Marguerite’s
+future, and also the fear and aversion with which Marguerite’s mother
+inspired him. But that was all; the sense was not precise enough for any
+practical purpose. Certainly the word “give” needed no explanation.
+It was plain that the count had endeavored to write, “I give my entire
+fortune.” The meaning of the word “despoiled” was also clear. It had
+evidently been wrung from the half-unconscious man by the horrible
+thought that Marguerite--his own daughter, unquestionably--would not
+have a penny of all the millions he had intended for her. “Take care”
+ also explained itself. But there were two words which seemed absolutely
+incomprehensible to the magistrate, and which he vainly strove to
+connect with the others in an intelligible manner. These were the words
+“friends” and “against,” and they were the most legibly written of
+all. For the thirtieth time the magistrate was repeating them in an
+undertone, when a rap came at the door, and almost immediately Madame
+Leon entered the room.
+
+“What is it?” inquired Mademoiselle Marguerite.
+
+Laying a package of letters, addressed to M. de Chalusse, on the desk,
+the housekeeper replied: “These have just come by the post for the
+poor count. Heaven rest his soul!” And then handing a newspaper to
+Mademoiselle Marguerite, she added, in an unctuous tone: “And some one
+left this paper for mademoiselle at the same time.”
+
+“This paper--for me? You must be mistaken.”
+
+“Not at all. I was in the concierge’s lodge when the messenger brought
+it; and he said it was for Mademoiselle Marguerite, from one of her
+friends.” And with these words she made one of her very best courtesies,
+and withdrew.
+
+The girl had taken the newspaper, and now, with an air of astonishment
+and apprehension, she slowly unfolded it. What first attracted her
+attention was a paragraph on the first page marked round with red chalk.
+The paper had evidently been sent in order that she might read this
+particular passage, and accordingly she began to peruse it. “There was a
+great sensation and a terrible scandal last evening at the residence of
+Madame d’A----, a well known star of the first magnitude----”
+
+It was the shameful article which described the events that had robbed
+Pascal of his honor. And to make assurance doubly sure, to prevent the
+least mistake concerning the printed initials, the coward who sent the
+paper had appended the names of the persons mixed up in the affair, at
+full length, in pencil. He had written d’Argeles, Pascal Ferailleur,
+Ferdinand de Coralth, Rochecote. And yet, in spite of these precautions,
+the girl did not at first seize the full meaning of the article; and
+she was obliged to read it over again. But when she finally understood
+it--when the horrible truth burst upon her--the paper fell from her
+nerveless hands, she turned as pale as death, and, gasping for breath,
+leaned heavily against the wall for support.
+
+Her features expressed such terrible suffering that the magistrate
+sprang from his chair with a bound. “What has happened?” he eagerly
+asked.
+
+She tried to reply, but finding herself unable to do so, she pointed to
+the paper lying upon the floor, and gasped: “There! there!”
+
+The magistrate understood everything at the first glance; and this man,
+who had witnessed so much misery--who had been the confidant of so many
+martyrs--was filled with consternation at thought of the misfortunes
+which destiny was heaping upon this defenceless girl. He approached her,
+and led her gently to an arm-chair, upon which she sank, half fainting.
+“Poor child!” he murmured. “The man you had chosen--the man whom you
+would have sacrificed everything for--is Pascal Ferailleur, is he not?”
+
+“Yes, it is he.”
+
+“He is an advocate?”
+
+“As I have already told you, monsieur.”
+
+“Does he live in the Rue d’Ulm?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The magistrate shook his head sadly. “It is the same,” said he. “I also
+know him, my poor child; and I loved and honored him. Yesterday I should
+have told you that he was worthy of you. He was above slander. But now,
+see what depths love of play has brought him to. He is a thief!”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s weakness vanished. She sprang from her
+chair, and indignantly faced the magistrate. “It is false!” she cried,
+vehemently; “and what that paper says is false as well!”
+
+Had her reason been affected by so many successive blows? It seemed
+likely; for, livid a moment before, her face had now turned scarlet. She
+trembled nervously from head to foot, and there was a gleam of insanity
+in her big black eyes.
+
+“If she doesn’t weep, she is lost,” thought the magistrate. And, instead
+of encouraging her to hope, he deemed it best to try and destroy what he
+considered a dangerous illusion. “Alas! my poor child,” he said sadly,
+“you must not deceive yourself. The newspapers are often hasty in their
+judgment; but an article like that is only published when proof of its
+truth is furnished by witnesses of unimpeachable veracity.”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders as if she were listening to some monstrous
+absurdities, and then thoughtfully muttered: “Ah! now Pascal’s silence
+is explained: now I understand why he has not yet replied to the letter
+I wrote him last night.”
+
+The magistrate persevered, however, and added: “So, after the article
+you have just read, no one can entertain the shadow of a doubt.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite hastily interrupted him. “But I have not doubted
+him for a second!” she exclaimed. “Doubt Pascal! I doubt Pascal! I would
+sooner doubt myself. I might commit a dishonorable act; I am only a
+poor, weak, ignorant girl, while he--he----You don’t know, then, that
+he was my conscience? Before undertaking anything, before deciding upon
+anything, if ever I felt any doubt, I asked myself, ‘What would he do?’
+And the mere thought of him is sufficient to banish any unworthy idea
+from my heart.” Her tone and manner betokened complete and unwavering
+confidence; and her faith imparted an almost sublime expression to her
+face. “If I was overcome, monsieur,” she continued, “it was only because
+I was appalled by the audacity of the accusation. How was it possible to
+make Pascal even SEEM to be guilty of a dishonorable act? This is beyond
+my powers of comprehension. I am only certain of one thing--that he is
+innocent. If the whole world rose to testify against him, it would not
+shake my faith in him, and even if he confessed that he was guilty I
+should be more likely to believe that he was crazed than culpable!”
+
+A bitter smile curved her lips, she was beginning to judge the situation
+more correctly, and in a calmer tone she resumed: “Moreover, what does
+circumstantial evidence prove? Did you not this morning hear all our
+servants declaring that I was accountable for M. de Chalusse’s
+millions? Who knows what might have happened if it had not been for your
+intervention? Perhaps, by this time, I should have been in prison.”
+
+“This is not a parallel case, my child.”
+
+“It IS a parallel case, monsieur. Suppose, for one moment, that I had
+been formally accused--what do you think Pascal would have replied if
+people had gone to him, and said, ‘Marguerite is a thief?’ He would have
+laughed them to scorn, and have exclaimed, ‘Impossible!”’
+
+The magistrate’s mind was made up. In his opinion, Pascal Ferailleur was
+guilty. Still it was useless to argue with the girl, for he felt that he
+should not be able to convince her. However, he determined, if possible,
+to ascertain her plans in order to oppose them, if they seemed to him at
+all dangerous. “Perhaps you are right, my child,” he conceded, “still,
+this unfortunate affair must change all your arrangements.”
+
+“Rather, it modifies them.” Surprised by her calmness, he looked at her
+inquiringly. “An hour ago,” she added, “I had resolved to go to Pascal
+and claim his aid and protection as one claims an undeniable right or
+the fulfilment of a solemn promise; but now--”
+
+“Well?” eagerly asked the magistrate.
+
+“I am still resolved to go to him--but as an humble suppliant. And I
+shall say to him, ‘You are suffering, but no sorrow is intolerable when
+there are two to bear the burden; and so, here I am. Everything else
+may fail you--your dearest friends may basely desert you; but here am I.
+Whatever your plans may be--whether you have decided to leave Europe or
+to remain in Paris to watch for your hour of vengeance, you will need
+a faithful, trusty companion--a confidant--and here I am! Wife,
+friend, sister--I will be which ever you desire. I am yours--yours
+unconditionally.’” And as if in reply to a gesture of surprise which
+escaped the magistrate, she added: “He is unhappy--I am free--I love
+him!”
+
+The magistrate was struck dumb with astonishment. He knew that she
+would surely do what she said; he had realized that she was one of those
+generous, heroic women who are capable of any sacrifice for the man they
+love--a woman who would never shrink from what she considered to be
+her duty, who was utterly incapable of weak hesitancy or selfish
+calculation.
+
+“Fortunately, my dear young lady, your devotion will no doubt be
+useless,” he said at last.
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Because M. Ferailleur owes it to you, and, what is more, he owes it
+to himself, not to accept such a sacrifice.” Failing to understand his
+meaning, she looked at him inquiringly. “You will forgive me, I trust,”
+ he continued, “if I warn you to prepare for a disappointment. Innocent
+or guilty, M. Ferailleur is--disgraced. Unless something little short of
+a miracle comes to help him, his career is ended. This is one of those
+charges--one of those slanders, if you prefer that term, which a man can
+never shake off. So how can you hope that he will consent to link your
+destiny to his?”
+
+She had not thought of this objection, and it seemed to her a terrible
+one. Tears came to her dark eyes, and in a despondent voice she
+murmured: “God grant that he will not evince such cruel generosity. The
+only great and true misfortune that could strike me now would be to have
+him repel me. M. de Chalusse’s death leaves me without means--without
+bread; but now I can almost bless my poverty since it enables me to ask
+him what would become of me if he abandoned me, and who would protect me
+if he refused to do so. The brilliant career he dreamed of is ended, you
+say. Ah, well! I will console him, and though we are unfortunate, we
+may yet be happy. Our enemies are triumphant--so be it: we should only
+tarnish our honor by stooping to contend against such villainy. But in
+some new land, in America, perhaps, we shall be able to find some
+quiet spot where we can begin a new and better career.” It was almost
+impossible to believe that it was Mademoiselle Marguerite, usually so
+haughtily reserved, who was now speaking with such passionate vehemence.
+And to whom was she talking in this fashion? To a stranger, whom she saw
+for the first time. But she was urged on by circumstances, the influence
+of which was stronger than her own will. They had led her to reveal her
+dearest and most sacred feelings and to display her real nature free
+from any kind of disguise.
+
+However, the magistrate concealed the emotion and sympathy which filled
+his heart and refused to admit that the girl’s hopes were likely to be
+realized. “And if M. Ferailleur refused to accept your sacrifice?” he
+asked.
+
+“It is not a sacrifice, monsieur.”
+
+“No matter; but supposing he refused it, what should you do?”
+
+“What should I do?” she muttered. “I don’t know. Still I should have
+no difficulty in earning a livelihood. I have been told that I have a
+remarkable voice. I might, perhaps, go upon the stage.”
+
+The magistrate sprang from his arm-chair. “You become an actress, YOU?”
+
+“Under such circumstances it would little matter what became of me!”
+
+“But you don’t suspect--you cannot imagine----”
+
+He was at a loss for words to explain the nature of his objections to
+such a career; and it was Mademoiselle Marguerite who found them for
+him. “I suspect that theatrical life is an abominable life for a woman,”
+ she said, gravely; “but I know that there are many noble and chaste
+women who have adopted the profession. That is enough for me. My pride
+is a sufficient protection. It preserved me as an apprentice; it would
+preserve me as an actress. I might be slandered; but that is not an
+irremediable misfortune. I despise the world too much to be troubled by
+its opinion so long as I have the approval of my own conscience. And
+why should I not become a great artiste if I consecrated all the
+intelligence, passion, energy, and will I might possess, to my art?”
+
+Hearing a knock at the door she paused; and a moment later a footman
+entered with lights, for night was falling. He was closely followed by
+another servant, who said: “Mademoiselle, the Marquis de Valorsay is
+below, and wishes to know if mademoiselle will grant him the honor of an
+interview.”
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+On hearing M. de Valorsay’s name, Mademoiselle Marguerite and the
+magistrate exchanged glances full of wondering conjecture. The girl was
+undecided what course to pursue; but the magistrate put an end to her
+perplexity. “Ask the marquis to come up,” he said to the servant.
+
+The footman left the room; and, as soon as he had disappeared,
+Mademoiselle Marguerite exclaimed: “What, monsieur! after all I have
+told you, you still wish me to receive him?”
+
+“It is absolutely necessary that you should do so. You must know what
+he wishes and what hope brings him here. Calm yourself, and submit to
+necessity.”
+
+In a sort of bewilderment, the girl hastily arranged her disordered
+dress, and caught up her wavy hair which had fallen over her shoulders.
+“Ah! monsieur,” she remarked, “don’t you understand that he still
+believes me to be the count’s heiress? In his eyes, I am still
+surrounded by the glamor of the millions which are mine no longer.”
+
+“Hush! here he comes!”
+
+The Marquis de Valorsay was indeed upon the threshold, and a moment
+later he entered the room. He was clad with the exquisite taste of
+those intelligent gentlemen to whom the color of a pair of trousers is
+a momentous matter, and whose ambition is satisfied if they are regarded
+as a sovereign authority respecting the cut of a waistcoat. As a rule,
+his expression of face merely denoted supreme contentment with himself
+and indifference as to others, but now, strange to say, he looked grave
+and almost solemn. His right leg--the unfortunate limb which had been
+broken when he fell from his horse in Ireland--seemed stiff, and dragged
+a trifle more than usual, but this was probably solely due to the
+influence of the atmosphere. He bowed to Mademoiselle Marguerite with
+every mark of profound respect, and without seeming to notice the
+magistrate’s presence.
+
+“You will excuse me, I trust, mademoiselle,” said he, “in having
+insisted upon seeing you, so that I might express my deep sympathy. I
+have just heard of the terrible misfortune which has befallen you--the
+sudden death of your father.”
+
+She drew back as if she were terrified, and repeated: “My father!”
+
+The marquis did not evince the slightest surprise. “I know,” said he, in
+a voice which he tried to make as feeling as possible, “I know that
+M. de Chalusse kept this fact concealed from you; but he confided his
+secret to me.”
+
+“To you?” interrupted the magistrate, who was unable to restrain himself
+any longer.
+
+The marquis turned haughtily to this old man dressed in black, and in
+the dry tone one uses in speaking to an indiscreet inferior, he replied:
+“To me, yes, monsieur; and he acquainted me not only by word of mouth,
+but in writing also, with the motives which influenced him, expressing
+his fixed intention, not only of recognizing Mademoiselle Marguerite as
+his daughter, but also of adopting her in order to insure her undisputed
+right to his fortune and his name.”
+
+“Ah!” said the magistrate as if suddenly enlightened; “ah! ah!”
+
+But without noticing this exclamation which was, at least, remarkable
+in tone, M. de Valorsay again turned to Mademoiselle Marguerite, and
+continued: “Your ignorance on this subject, mademoiselle, convinces
+me that your servants have not deceived me in telling me that M. de
+Chalusse was struck down without the slightest warning. But they have
+told me one thing which I cannot believe. They have told me that the
+count made no provision for you, that he left no will, and that--excuse
+a liberty which is prompted only by the most respectful interest--and
+that, the result of this incomprehensible and culpable neglect is that
+you are ruined and almost without means. Can this be possible?”
+
+“It is the exact truth, monsieur,” replied Mademoiselle Marguerite. “I
+am reduced to the necessity of working for my daily bread.”
+
+She spoke these words with a sort of satisfaction, expecting that the
+marquis would betray his disappointed covetousness by some significant
+gesture or exclamation, and she was already prepared to rejoice at his
+confusion. But her expectations were not realized. Instead of evincing
+the slightest dismay or even regret, M. de Valorsay drew a long breath,
+as if a great burden had been lifted from his heart, and his eyes
+sparkled with apparent delight. “Then I may venture to speak,” he
+exclaimed, with unconcealed satisfaction, “I will speak, mademoiselle,
+if you will deign to allow me.”
+
+She looked at him with anxious curiosity, wondering what was to come.
+“Speak, monsieur,” she faltered.
+
+“I will obey you, mademoiselle,” he said, bowing again. “But first,
+allow me to tell you how great my hopes have been. M. de Chalusse’s
+death is an irreparable misfortune for me as for yourself. He had
+allowed me, mademoiselle, to aspire to the honor of becoming a suitor
+for your hand. If he did not speak to you on the subject, it was only
+because he wished to leave you absolutely free, and impose upon me
+the difficult task of winning your consent. But between him and me
+everything had been arranged in principle, and he was to give a dowry
+of three millions of francs to Mademoiselle Marguerite de Chalusse, his
+daughter.”
+
+“I am no longer Mademoiselle de Chalusse, Monsieur le Marquis, and I am
+no longer the possessor of a fortune.”
+
+He felt the sharp sting of this retort, for the blood rose to his
+cheeks, still he did not lose his composure. “If you were still rich,
+mademoiselle,” he replied, in the reproachful tone of an honest man who
+feels that he is misunderstood, “I should, perhaps, have strength to
+keep the sentiments with which you have inspired me a secret in my own
+heart; but--” He rose, and with a gesture which was not devoid of
+grace, and in a full ringing voice he added: “But you are no longer the
+possessor of millions; and so I may tell you, Mademoiselle Marguerite,
+that I love you. Will you be my wife?”
+
+The poor girl was obliged to exercise all her powers of self-control to
+restrain an exclamation of dismay. It was indeed more than dismay;
+she was absolutely terrified by the Marquis de Valorsay’s unexpected
+declaration, and she could only falter: “Monsieur! monsieur!”
+
+But with an air of winning frankness he continued: “Need I tell you who
+I am, mademoiselle? No; that is unnecessary. The fact that my suit was
+approved of by M. de Chalusse is the best recommendation I can offer
+you. The pure and stainless name I bear is one of the proudest in
+France; and though my fortune may have been somewhat impaired by
+youthful folly, it is still more than sufficient to maintain an
+establishment in keeping with my rank.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was still powerless to reply. Her presence of
+mind had entirely deserted her, and her tongue seemed to cleave to her
+palate. She glanced entreatingly at the old magistrate, as if imploring
+his intervention, but he was so absorbed in contemplating his wonderful
+ring, that one might have imagined he was oblivious of all that was
+going on around him.
+
+“I am aware that I have so far not been fortunate enough to please you,
+mademoiselle,” continued the marquis. “M. de Chalusse did not conceal it
+from me--I remember, alas! that I advocated in your presence a number
+of stupid theories, which must have given you a very poor opinion of me.
+But you will forgive me, I trust. My ideas have entirely changed since
+I have learned to understand and appreciate your vigorous intellect and
+nobility of soul. I thoughtlessly spoke to you in the language which
+is usually addressed to young ladies of our rank of life--frivolous
+beauties, who are spoiled by vanity and luxury, and who look upon
+marriage only as a means of enfranchisement.”
+
+His words were disjointed as if emotion choked his utterance. At times,
+it seemed as if he could scarcely command his feelings; and then his
+voice became so faint and trembling that it was scarcely intelligible.
+
+However, by allowing him to continue, by listening to what he said,
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was encouraging him, even more--virtually
+binding herself. She understood that this was the case, and making a
+powerful effort, she interrupted him, saying: “I assure you, Monsieur
+le Marquis, that I am deeply touched--and grateful--but I am no longer
+free.”
+
+“Pray, mademoiselle, pray do not reply to-day. Grant me a little time to
+overcome your prejudices.”
+
+She shook her head, and in a firmer voice, replied: “I have no
+prejudices; but for some time past already, my future has been decided,
+irrevocably decided.”
+
+He seemed thunderstruck, and his manner apparently indicated that the
+possibility of a repulse had never entered his mind. His eyes wandered
+restlessly from Mademoiselle Marguerite to the countenance of the old
+magistrate, who remained as impassive as a sphinx, and at last they
+lighted on a newspaper which was lying on the floor at the young girl’s
+feet. “Do not deprive me of all hope,” he murmured.
+
+She made no answer, and understanding her silence, he was about to
+retire when the door suddenly opened and a servant announced: “Monsieur
+de Fondege.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite touched the magistrate on the shoulder to
+attract his attention. “This gentleman is M. de Chalusse’s friend whom I
+sent for this morning.”
+
+At the same moment a man who looked some sixty years of age entered the
+room. He was very tall, and as straight as the letter I, being arrayed
+in a long blue frock-coat, while his neck, which was as red and as
+wrinkled as that of a turkey-cock, was encased in a very high and stiff
+satin cravat. On seeing his ruddy face, his closely cropped hair, his
+little eyes twinkling under his bushy eyebrows, and his formidable
+mustaches a la Victor Emmanuel, you would have immediately exclaimed:
+“That man is an old soldier!”
+
+A great mistake! M. de Fondege had never been in the service, and it was
+only in mockery of his somewhat bellicose manners and appearance that
+some twenty years previously his friends had dubbed him “the General.”
+ However, the appellation had clung to him. The nickname had been changed
+to a title, and now M. de Fondege was known as “the General” everywhere.
+He was invited and announced as “the General.” Many people believed that
+he had really been one, and perhaps he fancied so himself, for he had
+long been in the habit of inscribing “General A. de Fondege” on his
+visiting cards. The nickname had had a decisive influence on his life.
+He had endeavored to show himself worthy of it, and the manners he had
+at first assumed, eventually became natural ones. He seemed to be the
+conventional old soldier--irascible and jovial at the same time; brusk
+and kind; at once frank, sensible and brutal; as simple as a child, and
+yet as true as steel. He swore the most tremendous oaths in a deep bass
+voice, and whenever he talked his arms revolved like the sails of a
+windmill. However, Madame de Fondege, who was a very angular lady, with
+a sharp nose and very thin lips, assured people that her husband was not
+so terrible as he appeared. He was not considered very shrewd, and he
+pretended to have an intense dislike for business matters. No one knew
+anything precise about his fortune, but he had a great many friends
+who invited him to dinner, and they all declared that he was in very
+comfortable circumstances.
+
+On entering the study this worthy man did not pay the slightest
+attention to the Marquis de Valorsay, although they were intimate
+friends. He walked straight up to Mademoiselle Marguerite, caught her in
+his long arms, and pressed her to his heart, brushing her face with
+his huge mustaches as he pretended to kiss her. “Courage, my dear,” he
+growled; “courage. Don’t give way. Follow my example. Look at me!”
+ So saying he stepped back, and it was really amusing to see the
+extraordinary effort he made to combine a soldier’s stoicism with a
+friend’s sorrow. “You must wonder at my delay, my dear,” he resumed,
+“but it was not my fault. I was at Madame de Rochecote’s when I was
+informed that your messenger was at home waiting for me. I returned,
+and heard the frightful news. It was a thunderbolt. A friend of thirty
+years’ standing! A thousand thunderclaps! I acted as his second when he
+fought his first duel. Poor Chalusse! A man as sturdy as an oak, and who
+ought to have outlived us all. But it is always so; the best soldiers
+always file by first at dress-parade.”
+
+The Marquis de Valorsay had beaten a retreat, the magistrate was hidden
+in a dark corner, and Mademoiselle Marguerite, who was accustomed to the
+General’s manner, remained silent, being well aware that there was no
+chance of putting in a word as long as he had possession of the floor.
+“Fortunately, poor Chalusse was a prudent man,” continued M. de Fondege.
+“He loved you devotedly, my dear, as his testamentary provisions must
+have shown you.”
+
+“His provisions?”
+
+“Yes, most certainly. Surely you don’t mean to try and conceal anything
+from one who knows all. Ah! you will be one of the greatest catches in
+Europe, and you will have plenty of suitors.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite sadly shook her head. “You are mistaken,
+General; the count left no will, and has made no provision whatever for
+me.”
+
+M. de Fondege trembled, turned a trifle pale, and in a faltering voice,
+exclaimed: “What! You tell me that? Chalusse! A thousand thunderclaps!
+It isn’t possible.”
+
+“The count was stricken with apoplexy in a cab. He went out about
+five o’clock, on foot, and a little before seven he was brought home
+unconscious. Where he had been we don’t know.”
+
+“You don’t know? you don’t know?”
+
+“Alas! no; and he was only able to utter a few incoherent words before
+he died.” Thereupon the poor girl began a brief account of what had
+taken place during the last four-and-twenty hours. Had she been less
+absorbed in her narrative she would have noticed that the General was
+not listening to her. He was sitting at the count’s desk and was toying
+with the letters which Madame Leon had brought into the room a short
+time previously. One of them especially seemed to attract his attention,
+to exercise a sort of fascination over him as it were. He looked at
+it with hungry eyes, and whenever he touched it, his hand trembled, or
+involuntarily clinched. His face, moreover, had become livid; his eyes
+twitched nervously; he seemed to have a difficulty in breathing, and big
+drops of perspiration trickled down his forehead. If the magistrate were
+able to see the General’s face, he must certainly have been of opinion
+that a terrible conflict was raging in his mind. The struggle lasted
+indeed for fully five minutes, and then suddenly, certain that no one
+saw him, he caught up the letter in question and slipped it into his
+pocket.
+
+Poor Marguerite was now finishing her story: “You see, monsieur, that,
+far from being an heiress, as you suppose, I am homeless and penniless,”
+ she said.
+
+The General had risen from his chair, and was striding up and down
+the room with every token of intense agitation. “It’s true,” he said
+apparently unconscious of his words. “She’s ruined--lost--the misfortune
+is complete!” Then, suddenly pausing with folded arms in front of
+Mademoiselle Marguerite: “What are you going to do?” he asked.
+
+“God will not forsake me, General,” she replied.
+
+He turned on his heel and resumed his promenade, wildly gesticulating
+and indulging in a furious monologue which was certainly not very easy
+to follow. “Frightful! terrible!” he growled. “The daughter of an old
+comrade--zounds!--of a friend of thirty years’ standing--to be left in
+such a plight! Never, a thousand thunderclaps!--never! Poor child!--a
+heart of gold, and as pretty as an angel! This horrible Paris would
+devour her at a single mouthful! It would be a crime--an abomination! It
+sha’n’t be!--the old veterans are here, firm as rocks!”
+
+Thereupon, approaching the poor girl again, he exclaimed in a coarse but
+seemingly feeling voice: “Mademoiselle Marguerite.”
+
+“General?”
+
+“You are acquainted with my son, Gustave Fondege, are you not?”
+
+“I think I have heard you speak of him to M. de Chalusse several times.”
+
+The General tugged furiously at his mustaches as was his wont whenever
+he was perplexed or embarrassed. “My son,” he resumed, “is twenty-seven.
+He’s now a lieutenant of hussars, and will soon be promoted to the rank
+of captain. He’s a handsome fellow, sure to make his way in the world,
+for he’s not wanting in spirit. As I never attempt to hide the truth, I
+must confess that he’s a trifle dissipated; but his heart is all right,
+and a charming little wife would soon turn him from the error of his
+ways, and he’d become the pearl of husbands.” He paused, passed his
+forefinger three or four times between his collar and his neck, and
+then, in a half-strangled voice, he added: “Mademoiselle Marguerite, I
+have the honor to ask for your hand in marriage on behalf of Lieutenant
+Gustave de Fondege, my son.”
+
+There was a dangerous gleam of anger in Mademoiselle Marguerite’s eyes,
+as she coldly replied: “I am honored by your request, monsieur; but my
+future is already decided.”
+
+Some seconds elapsed before M. de Fondege could recover his powers of
+speech. “This is a piece of foolishness,” he faltered, at last with
+singular agitation. “Let me hope that you will reconsider the matter.
+And if Gustave doesn’t please you, we will find some one better. But
+under no circumstances will Chalusse’s old comrade ever desert you. I
+shall send Madame de Fondege to see you this evening. She’s a good woman
+and you will understand each other. Come, answer me, what do you say to
+it?”
+
+His persistence irritated the poor girl beyond endurance, and to put
+an end to the painful scene, she at last asked: “Would you not like to
+look--for the last time--at M. de Chalusse?”
+
+“Ah! yes, certainly--an old friend of thirty years’ standing.” So saying
+he advanced toward the door leading into the death-room, but on reaching
+the threshold, he cried in sudden terror: “Oh! no, no, I could not.” And
+with these words he withdrew or rather he fled from the room down the
+stairs.
+
+As long as the General had been there, the magistrate had given no sign
+of life. But seated beyond the circle of light cast by the lamps, he
+had remained an attentive spectator of the scene, and now that he found
+himself once more alone with Mademoiselle Marguerite he came forward,
+and leaning against the mantelpiece and looking her full in the face he
+exclaimed: “Well, my child?”
+
+The girl trembled like a culprit awaiting sentence of death, and it was
+in a hollow voice that she replied: “I understood--”
+
+“What?” insisted the pitiless magistrate.
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes, in which angry tears were still
+glittering, and then answered in a voice which quivered with suppressed
+passion, “I have fathomed the infamy of those two men who have just left
+the house. I understood the insult their apparent generosity conceals.
+They had questioned the servants, and had ascertained that two millions
+were missing. Ah, the scoundrels! They believe that I have stolen those
+millions; and they came to ask me to share the ill-gotten wealth with
+them. What an insult! and to think that I am powerless to avenge it! Ah!
+the servants’ suspicions were nothing in comparison with this. At
+least, they did not ask for a share of the booty as the price of their
+silence!”
+
+The magistrate shook his head as if this explanation scarcely satisfied
+him. “There is something else, there is certainly something else,” he
+repeated. But the doors were still open, so he closed them carefully,
+and then returned to the girl he was so desirous of advising. “I wish
+to tell you,” he said, “that you have mistaken the motives which induced
+these gentlemen to ask for your hand in marriage.”
+
+“Do you believe, then, that you have fathomed them?”
+
+“I could almost swear that I had. Didn’t you remark a great difference
+in their manner? Didn’t one of them, the marquis, behave with all
+the calmness and composure which are the result of reflection and
+calculation? The other, on the contrary, acted most precipitately, as
+if he had suddenly come to a determination, and formed a plan on the
+impulse of the moment.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite reflected.
+
+“That’s true,” she said, “that’s indeed true. Now I recollect the
+difference.”
+
+“And this is my explanation of it,” resumed the magistrate. “‘The
+Marquis de Valorsay,’ I said to myself, ‘must have proofs in his
+possession that Mademoiselle Marguerite is the count’s daughter--written
+and conclusive proofs, that is certain--probably a voluntary admission
+of the fact from the father. Who can prove that M. de Valorsay does not
+possess this acknowledgment? In fact, he must possess it. He hinted it
+himself.’ Accordingly on hearing of the count’s sudden death, he said to
+himself, ‘If Marguerite was my wife, and if I could prove her to be M.
+de Chalusse’s daughter, I should obtain several millions.’ Whereupon he
+consulted his legal adviser who assured him that it would be the best
+course he could pursue; and so he came here. You repulsed him, but he
+will soon make another assault, you may rest assured of that. And some
+day or other he will come to you and say, ‘Whether we marry or not, let
+us divide.’”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was amazed. The magistrate’s words seemed to
+dispel the mist which had hitherto hidden the truth from view. “Yes,”
+ she exclaimed, “yes, you are right, monsieur.”
+
+He was silent for a moment, and then he resumed: “I understand M. de
+Fondege’s motive less clearly; but still I have some clue. He had not
+questioned the servants. That is evident from the fact that on his
+arrival here he believed you to be the sole legatee. He was also aware
+that M. de Chalusse had taken certain precautions we are ignorant of,
+but which he is no doubt fully acquainted with. What you told him about
+your poverty amazed him, and he immediately evinced a desire to atone
+for the count’s neglect with as much eagerness as if he were the cause
+of this negligence himself. And, indeed, judging by the agitation he
+displayed when he was imploring you to become his son’s wife, one might
+almost imagine that the sight of your misery awakened a remorse which he
+was endeavoring to quiet. Now, draw your own conclusions.”
+
+The wretched girl looked questioningly at the magistrate as if she
+hesitated to trust the thoughts which his words had awakened in her
+mind. “Then you think, monsieur,” she said, with evident reluctance,
+“you think, you suppose, that the General is acquainted with the
+whereabouts of the missing millions?”
+
+“Quite correct,” answered the magistrate, and then as if he feared that
+he had gone too far, he added: “but draw your own conclusions respecting
+the matter. You have the whole night before you. We will talk it over
+again to-morrow, and if I can be of service to you in any way, I shall
+be only too glad.”
+
+“But, monsieur--”
+
+“Oh--to-morrow, to-morrow--I must go to dinner now; besides, my clerk
+must be getting terribly impatient.”
+
+The clerk was, indeed, out of temper. Not that he had finished taking
+an inventory of the appurtenances of this immense house, but because he
+considered that he had done quite enough work for one day. And yet his
+discontent was sensibly diminished when he calculated the amount he
+would receive for his pains. During the nine years he had held this
+office he had never made such an extensive inventory before. He seemed
+somewhat dazzled, and as he followed his superior out of the house, he
+remarked: “Do you know, monsieur, that as nearly as I can discover the
+deceased’s fortune must amount to more than twenty millions--an income
+of a million a year! And to think that the poor young lady shouldn’t
+have a penny of it. I suspect she’s crying her eyes out.”
+
+But the clerk was mistaken. Mademoiselle Marguerite was then questioning
+M. Casimir respecting the arrangements which he had made for the
+funeral, and when this sad duty was concluded, she consented to take a
+little food standing in front of the sideboard in the dining-room.
+Then she went to kneel in the count’s room, where four members of the
+parochial clergy were reciting the prayers for the dead.
+
+She was so exhausted with fatigue that she could scarcely speak, and
+her eyelids were heavy with sleep. But she had another task to fulfil, a
+task which she deemed a sacred duty. She sent a servant for a cab, threw
+a shawl over her shoulders, and left the house accompanied by Madame
+Leon. The cabman drove as fast as possible to the house where Pascal and
+his mother resided in the Rue d’Ulm; but on arriving there, the
+front door was found to be closed, and the light in the vestibule was
+extinguished. Marguerite was obliged to ring five or six times before
+the concierge made his appearance.
+
+“I wish to see Monsieur Ferailleur,” she quietly said.
+
+The man glanced at her scornfully, and then replied: “He no longer lives
+here. The landlord doesn’t want any thieves in his house. He’s sold his
+rubbish and started for America, with his old witch of a mother.”
+
+So saying he closed the door again, and Marguerite was so overwhelmed by
+this last and unexpected misfortune, that she could hardly stagger back
+to the vehicle. “Gone!” she murmured; “gone! without a thought of me! Or
+does he believe me to be like all the rest? But I will find him again.
+That man Fortunat, who ascertained addresses for M. de Chalusse, will
+find Pascal for me.”
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+Few people have any idea of the great number of estates which, in
+default of heirs to claim them, annually revert to the government. The
+treasury derives large sums from this source every year. And this is
+easily explained, for nowadays family ties are becoming less and less
+binding. Brothers cease to meet; their children no longer know each
+other; and the members of the second generation are as perfect strangers
+as though they were not united by a bond of consanguinity. The young man
+whom love of adventure lures to a far-off country, and the young girl
+who marries against her parents’ wishes, soon cease to exist for their
+relatives. No one even inquires what has become of them. Those who
+remain at home are afraid to ask whether they are prosperous or
+unfortunate, lest they should be called upon to assist the wanderers.
+Forgotten themselves, the adventurers in their turn soon forget.
+If fortune smiles upon them, they are careful not to inform their
+relatives. Poor--they have been cast off; wealthy--they themselves deny
+their kindred. Having become rich unaided, they find an egotistical
+satisfaction in spending their money alone in accordance with their own
+fancies. Now when a man of this class dies what happens? The servants
+and people around him profit of his loneliness and isolation, and the
+justice of the peace is only summoned to affix the seals, after they
+have removed all the portable property. An inventory is taken, and after
+a few formalities, as no heirs present themselves, the court declares
+the inheritance to be in abeyance, and appoints a trustee.
+
+This trustee’s duties are very simple. He manages the property and
+remits the income to the Treasury until a legal judgment declares the
+estate the property of the country, regardless of any heirs who may
+present themselves in future.
+
+“If I only had a twentieth part of the money that is lost in this way,
+my fortune would be made,” exclaimed a shrewd man, some thirty years
+ago.
+
+The person who spoke was Antoine Vaudore. For six months he secretly
+nursed the idea, studying it, examining it in all respects, weighing its
+advantages and disadvantages, and at last he decided that it was a good
+one. That same year, indeed, assisted by a little capital which he
+had obtained no one knew how, he created a new, strange, and untried
+profession to supply a new demand.
+
+Thus Vaudore was the first man who made heir-hunting a profession.
+As will be generally admitted, it is not a profession that can be
+successfully followed by a craven. It requires the exercise of unusual
+shrewdness, untiring activity, extraordinary energy and courage, as
+well as great tact and varied knowledge. The man who would follow it
+successfully must possess the boldness of a gambler, the sang-froid of a
+duelist, the keen perceptive powers and patience of a detective, and the
+resources and quick wit of the shrewdest attorney.
+
+It is easier to decry the profession than to exercise it. To begin with,
+the heir-hunter must be posted up with information respecting unclaimed
+inheritances, and he must have sufficient acquaintance with the legal
+world to be able to obtain information from the clerks of the different
+courts, notaries, and so on. When he learns that a man has died without
+any known heirs, his first care is to ascertain the amount of unclaimed
+property, to see if it will pay him to take up the case. If he finds
+that the inheritance is a valuable one, he begins operations without
+delay. He must first ascertain the deceased’s full name and age. It is
+easy to procure this information; but it is more difficult to discover
+the name of the place where the deceased was born, his profession,
+what countries he lived in, his tastes and mode of life--in a word,
+everything that constitutes a complete biography.
+
+However, when he has armed himself with the more indispensable facts,
+our agent opens the campaign with extreme prudence, for it would be
+ruinous to awake suspicion. It is curious to observe the incomparable
+address which the agent displays in his efforts to learn the particulars
+of the deceased’s life, by consulting his friends, his enemies, his
+debtors, and all who ever knew him, until at last some one is found who
+says: “Such and such a man--why, he came from our part of the country.
+I never knew HIM, but I am acquainted with one of his brothers--with one
+of his uncles--or with one of his nephews.”
+
+Very often years of constant research, a large outlay of money, and
+costly and skilful advertising in all the European journals, are
+necessary before this result is reached. And it is only when it has been
+attained that the agent can take time to breathe. But now the chances
+are greatly in his favor. The worst is over. The portion of his task
+which depended on chance alone is concluded. The rest is a matter of
+skill, tact, and shrewdness. The detective must give place to the crafty
+lawyer. The agent must confer with this heir, who has been discovered at
+the cost of so much time and trouble and induce him to bestow a portion
+of this prospective wealth on the person who is able to establish
+his claim. There must be an agreement in writing clearly stating what
+proportion--a tenth, a third, or a half--the agent will be entitled
+to. The negotiation is a very delicate and difficult one, requiring
+prodigious presence of mind, and an amount of duplicity which would make
+the most astute diplomatist turn pale with envy. Occasionally, the heir
+suspects the truth, sneers at the proposition, and hurries off to claim
+the whole of the inheritance that belongs to him. The agent may then bid
+his hopes farewell. He has worked and spent money for nothing.
+
+However, such a misfortune is of rare occurrence. On hearing of the
+unexpected good fortune that has befallen him, the heir is generally
+unsuspicious, and willingly promises to pay the amount demanded of him.
+A contract is drawn up and signed; and then, but only then, does the
+agent take his client into his confidence. “You are the relative of such
+a person, are you not?” “Yes.” “Very well. He is dead, and you are his
+heir. Thank Providence, and make haste to claim your money.”
+
+As a rule, the heir loyally fulfils his obligation. But sometimes
+it happens that, when he has obtained undisputed possession of the
+property, he declares that he has been swindled, and refuses to fulfil
+his part of the contract. Then the case must go to the courts. It is
+true, however, that the judgment of the tribunals generally recalls the
+refractory client to a sense of gratitude and humility.
+
+Now our friend M. Isidore Fortunat was a hunter of missing heirs.
+Undoubtedly he often engaged in other business which was a trifle less
+respectable; but heir-hunting was one of the best and most substantial
+sources of his income. So we can readily understand why he so quickly
+left off lamenting that forty thousand francs lent to the Marquis de
+Valorsay.
+
+Changing his tactics, he said to himself that, even if he had lost this
+amount through M. de Chalusse’s sudden death, it was much less than he
+might obtain if he succeeded in discovering the unknown heirs to so many
+millions. And he had some reason to hope that he would be able to do
+so. Having been employed by M. de Chalusse when the latter was
+seeking Mademoiselle Marguerite, M. Fortunat had gained some valuable
+information respecting his client, and the additional particulars which
+he had obtained from Madame Vantrasson elated him to such an extent that
+more than once he exclaimed: “Ah, well! it is, perhaps, a blessing in
+disguise, after all.”
+
+Still, M. Isidore Fortunat slept but little after his stormy interview
+with the Marquis de Valorsay. A loss of forty thousand francs is not
+likely to impart a roseate hue to one’s dreams--and M. Fortunat prized
+his money as if it had been the very marrow of his bones. By way of
+consolation, he assured himself that he would not merely regain the sum,
+but triple it; and yet this encouragement did not entirely restore
+his peace of mind. The gain was only a possibility, and the loss was a
+certainty. So he twisted, and turned, and tossed on his bed as if it had
+been a hot gridiron, exhausting himself in surmises, and preparing his
+mind for the difficulties which he would be obliged to overcome.
+
+His plan was a simple one, but its execution was fraught with
+difficulties. “I must discover M. de Chalusse’s sister, if she is
+still living--I must discover her children, if she is dead,” he said to
+himself. It was easy to SAY this; but how was he to do it? How could he
+hope to find this unfortunate girl, who had abandoned her home thirty
+years previously, to fly, no one knew where, or with whom? How was he to
+gain any idea of the life she had lived, or the fate that had befallen
+her? At what point on the social scale, and in what country, should he
+begin his investigations? These daughters of noble houses, who desert
+the paternal roof in a moment of madness, generally die most miserably
+after a wretched life. The girl of the lower classes is armed against
+misfortune, and has been trained for the conflict. She can measure
+and calculate the force of her fall, and regulate and control it to a
+certain extent. But the others cannot. They have never known privation
+and hardship, and are, therefore, defenceless. And for the very reason
+that they have been hurled from a great height, they often fall down
+into the lowest depths of infamy.
+
+“If morning would only come,” sighed M. Isidore Fortunat, as he tossed
+restlessly to and fro. “As soon as morning comes I will set to work!”
+
+But just before daybreak he fell asleep; and at nine o’clock he was
+still slumbering so soundly that Madame Dodelin, his housekeeper, had
+considerable difficulty in waking him. “Your clerks have come,” she
+exclaimed, shaking him vigorously; “and two clients are waiting for you
+in the reception-room.”
+
+He sprang up, hastily dressed himself, and went into his office. It cost
+him no little effort to receive his visitors that morning; but it would
+have been folly to neglect all his other business for the uncertain
+Chalusse affair. The first client who entered was a man still young, of
+common, even vulgar appearance. Not being acquainted with M. Fortunat,
+he deemed it proper to introduce himself without delay. “My name is
+Leplaintre, and I am a coal merchant,” said he. “I was recommended to
+call on you by my friend Bouscat, who was formerly in the wine trade.”
+
+M. Fortunat bowed. “Pray be seated,” was his reply. “I remember your
+friend very well. If I am not mistaken I gave him some advice with
+reference to his third failure.”
+
+“Precisely; and it is because I find myself in the same fix as Bouscat
+that I have called on you. Business is very bad, and I have notes to a
+large amount overdue, so that--”
+
+“You will be obliged to go into bankruptcy.”
+
+“Alas! I fear so.”
+
+M. Fortunat already knew what his client desired, but it was against
+his principles to meet these propositions more than half way. “Will you
+state your case?” said he.
+
+The coal merchant blushed. It was hard to confess the truth; but the
+effort had to be made. “This is my case,” he replied, at last. “Among
+my creditors I have several enemies, who will refuse me a release. They
+would like to deprive me of everything I possess. And in that case, what
+would become of me? Is it right that I should be compelled to starve?”
+
+“It is a bad outlook.”
+
+“It is, indeed, monsieur; and for this reason, I desire--if possible, if
+I can do so without danger--for I am an honest man, monsieur--I wish to
+retain a little property--secretly, of course, not for myself, by any
+means, but I have a young wife and----”
+
+M. Fortunat took compassion on the man’s embarrassment. “In short,”
+ he interrupted, “you wish to conceal a part of your capital from your
+creditors?”
+
+On hearing this precise and formal statement of his honorable
+intentions, the coal-merchant trembled. His feelings of integrity would
+not have been alarmed by a periphrasis, but this plain speaking shocked
+him. “Oh, monsieur!” he protested, “I would rather blow my brains out
+than defraud my creditors of a single penny that was rightfully theirs.
+What I am doing is for their interest, you understand. I shall begin
+business again under my wife’s name; and if I succeed, they shall be
+paid--yes, monsieur, every sou, with interest. Ah! if I had only myself
+to think of, it would be quite different; but I have two children, two
+little girls, so that----”
+
+“Very well,” replied M. Fortunat. “I should suggest to you the same
+expedient as I suggested to your friend Bouscat. But you must gather a
+little ready money together before going into bankruptcy.”
+
+“I can do that by secretly disposing of a part of my stock, so----”
+
+“In that case, you are saved. Sell it and put the money beyond your
+creditors’ reach.”
+
+The worthy merchant scratched his ear in evident perplexity.
+“Excuse me,” said he. “I had thought of this plan; but it seemed to
+me--dishonorable--and--also very dangerous. How could I explain this
+decrease in my stock? My creditors hate me. If they suspected anything,
+they would accuse me of fraud, and perhaps throw me into prison; and
+then----”
+
+M. Fortunat shrugged his shoulders. “When I give advice,” he roughly
+replied, “I furnish the means of following it without danger. Listen
+to me attentively. Let us suppose, for a moment, that some time ago you
+purchased, at a very high figure, a quantity of stocks and shares,
+which are to-day almost worthless, could not this unfortunate investment
+account for the absence of the sum which you wish to set aside? Your
+creditors would be obliged to value these securities, not at their
+present, but at their former value.”
+
+“Evidently; but, unfortunately, I do not possess any such securities.”
+
+“You can purchase them.”
+
+The coal-merchant opened his eyes in astonishment. “Excuse me,” he
+muttered, “I don’t exactly understand you.”
+
+He did not understand in the least; but M. Fortunat enlightened him by
+opening his safe, and displaying an enormous bundle of stocks and shares
+which had flooded the country a few years previously, and ruined a great
+many poor, ignorant fools which were hungering for wealth; among them
+were shares in the Tifila Mining Company, the Berchem Coal Mines, the
+Greenland Fisheries, the Mutual Trust and Loan Association, and so on.
+There had been a time when each of these securities would have fetched
+five hundred or a thousand francs at the Bourse, but now they were not
+worth the paper on which they were printed.
+
+“Let us suppose, my dear sir,” resumed M. Fortunat, “that you had a
+drawer full of these securities----”
+
+But the other did not allow him to finish. “I see,” he exclaimed; “I
+see--I can sell my stock, and put the proceeds in my pocket with perfect
+safety. There is enough to represent my capital a thousand times over.”
+
+And, in a paroxysm of delight, he added:
+
+“Give me enough of these shares to represent a capital of one hundred
+and twenty thousand francs; and give me some of each kind. I should like
+my creditors to have a variety.”
+
+Thereupon M. Fortunat counted out a pile of these worthless securities
+as carefully as if he had been handling bank-notes; and his client at
+the same time drew out his pocketbook.
+
+“How much do I owe you?” he inquired.
+
+“Three thousand francs.”
+
+The honest merchant bounded from his chair. “Three thousand francs!” he
+repeated. “You must be jesting. That trash is not worth a louis.”
+
+“I would not even give five francs for it,” rejoined M. Fortunat,
+coldly; “but it is true that I don’t desire to purchase these shares in
+my creditors’ interest. With you it is quite a different matter--this
+trash, as you very justly call it, will save you at least a hundred
+thousand francs. I ask only three per cent., which is certainly not
+dear. Still, you know, I don’t force any one to purchase them.” And, in
+a terribly significant tone, he added: “You can undoubtedly buy
+similar securities on better terms; but take care you don’t arouse your
+creditors’ suspicions by applying elsewhere.”
+
+“He would betray me, the scoundrel!” thought the merchant. And,
+realizing that he had fallen into a trap, “Here are three thousand
+francs,” he sighed; “but at least, my dear sir, give me good measure,
+and throw in a few thousand francs more.”
+
+The coal-merchant smiled the ghastly smile of a man who sees no way of
+escape from imposition, and has, therefore, resolved to submit with the
+best grace possible. But M. Fortunat’s gravity did not relax. He
+gave what he had promised--neither more nor less--in exchange for the
+bank-notes, and even gravely exclaimed: “See if the amount is correct.”
+
+His client pocketed the shares without counting them: but before leaving
+the room he made his estimable adviser promise to assist him at the
+decisive moment, and help him to prepare one of those clear financial
+statements which make creditors say: “This is an honest man who has been
+extremely unfortunate.”
+
+M. Fortunat was admirably fitted to render this little service; for he
+devoted such part of his time as was not spent in hunting for missing
+heirs to difficult liquidations, and he had indeed made bankruptcy
+a specialty in which he was without a rival. The business was a
+remunerative one, thanks to the expedient he had revealed to the
+coal-merchant--an expedient which is common enough nowadays, but of
+which he might almost be called the inventor. It consisted in compelling
+the persons who asked for his advice to purchase worthless shares
+at whatever price he chose to set upon them, and they were forced to
+submit, under penalty of denunciation and exposure.
+
+The client who followed the coal-merchant proved to be a simple
+creature, who had called to ask for some advice respecting a slight
+difficulty between himself and his landlord. M. Fortunat speedily
+disposed of him, and then, opening the door leading into the outer
+office, he called: “Cashier!”
+
+A shabbily-dressed man, some thirty-five years of age, at once entered
+the private sanctum, carrying a money-bag in one hand and a ledger in
+the other.
+
+“How many debtors were visited yesterday?” inquired M. Fortunat.
+
+“Two hundred and thirty-seven.”
+
+“What was the amount collected?”
+
+“Eighty-nine francs.”
+
+M. Isidore Fortunat’s grimace was expressive of satisfaction. “Not bad,”
+ said he, “not at all bad.”
+
+Then a singular performance began. M. Fortunat called over the names of
+his debtors, one by one, and the cashier answered each name by reading
+a memorandum written against it on the margin of a list he held. “Such
+a one,” said the agent, “and such a one--and such----” Whereupon the
+cashier replied: “Has paid two francs--was not at home--paid twenty
+sous--would not pay anything.”
+
+How did it happen that M. Fortunat had so many debtors? This question
+can be easily answered. In settling bankrupts’ estates it was easy for
+him to purchase a large number of debts which were considered worthless,
+at a trifling cost, and he reaped a bountiful harvest on a field which
+would have yielded nothing to another person. It was not because he
+was rigorous in his demands; he conquered by patience, gentleness, and
+politeness, but also by unwearying perseverance and tenacity. When he
+decided that a debtor was to pay him a certain sum, it was paid. He
+never relaxed in his efforts. Every other day some one was sent to
+visit the debtor, to follow him, and harass him; he was surrounded by
+M. Fortunat’s agents; they pursued him to his office, shop, or
+cafe--everywhere, continually, incessantly--and always with the most
+perfect urbanity. At last even the most determined succumbed; to escape
+this frightful persecution, they, somehow or other, found the money to
+satisfy M. Fortunat’s claim. Besides Victor Chupin, he had five other
+agents whose business it was to visit these poor wretches. A list was
+assigned to each man every morning; and when evening came, he made his
+report to the cashier, who in turn reported to his employer. This branch
+of industry added considerably to the profits of M. Fortunat’s other
+business, and was the third and last string to his bow.
+
+The report proceeded as usual, but it was quite evident that M.
+Fortunat’s thoughts were elsewhere. He paused each moment to listen
+eagerly for the slightest sound outside, for before receiving the
+coal-merchant he had told Victor Chupin to run to the Rue de Courcelles
+and ask M. Casimir for news of the Count de Chalusse. He had done this
+more than an hour before; and Victor Chupin, who was usually so prompt,
+had not yet made his appearance.
+
+At last, however, he returned, whereupon M. Fortunat dismissed the
+cashier, and addressed his messenger: “Well?” he asked.
+
+“He is no longer living. They think he died without a will, and that the
+pretty young lady will be turned out of the house.”
+
+This information agreed so perfectly with M. Fortunat’s presentiments
+that he did not even wince, but calmly asked: “Will Casimir keep his
+appointment?”
+
+“He told me that he would endeavor to come, and I’d wager a hundred to
+one that he will be there; he would travel ten leagues to put something
+good into his stomach.”
+
+M. Fortunat’s opinion coincided with Chupin’s. “Very well,” said he.
+“Only you were a long time on the road, Victor.”
+
+“That’s true, m’sieur; but I had a little matter of my own to attend
+to--a matter of a hundred francs, if you please.”
+
+M. Fortunat knit his brows angrily. “It’s only right to attend to
+business,” said he; “but you think too much of money, Victor--altogether
+too much. You are insatiable.”
+
+The young man proudly lifted his head, and with an air of importance,
+replied: “I have so many responsibilities----”
+
+“Responsibilities!--you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, m’sieur. And why not? My poor, good mother hasn’t been
+able to work for a year, and who would care for her if I didn’t?
+Certainly not my father, the good-for-nothing scamp, who squandered all
+the Duke de Sairmeuse’s money without giving us a sou of it. Besides,
+I’m like other men, I’m anxious to be rich, and enjoy myself. I should
+like to ride in my carriage like other people do. And whenever a gamin,
+such as I was once, opened the door for ME, I should put a five-franc
+piece in his hand----”
+
+He was interrupted by Madame Dodelin, the worthy housekeeper, who rushed
+into the room without knocking, in a terrible state of excitement.
+“Monsieur!” she exclaimed, in the same tone as if she would have called
+“Fire!” “here is Monsieur de Valorsay.”
+
+M. Fortunat sprang up and turned extremely pale. “What to the devil
+brings him here?” he anxiously stammered. “Tell him that I’ve gone
+out--tell him--”
+
+But it was useless, for the marquis at that very moment entered the
+room, and the agent could only dismiss his housekeeper and Chupin.
+
+M. de Valorsay seemed to be very angry, and it looked as if he meant
+to give vent to his passion. Indeed, as soon as he was alone with M.
+Fortunat, he began: “So this is the way you betray your friends,
+Master Twenty-per-Cent! Why did you deceive me last night about the ten
+thousand francs you had promised me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?
+You knew of the misfortune that had befallen M. de Chalusse. I heard of
+it first scarcely an hour ago through a letter from Madame Leon.”
+
+M. Fortunat hesitated somewhat. He was a quiet man, opposed to violence
+of any kind; and it seemed to him that M. de Valorsay was twisting and
+turning his cane in a most ominous manner. “I must confess, Monsieur le
+Marquis,” he at last replied, “that I had not the courage to tell you of
+the dreadful misfortune which had befallen us.”
+
+“How--US?”
+
+“Certainly. If you lose the hope of several millions, I also lose the
+amount I advanced to you, forty thousand francs--my entire fortune. And
+yet, you see that I don’t complain. Do as I do--confess that the game is
+lost.”
+
+The marquis was listening with an air of suppressed wrath; his face
+was crimson, there was a dark frown on his brow, and his hands were
+clinched. He was apparently furious with passion, but in reality he
+was perfectly self-possessed. The best proof that can be given of his
+coolness is that he was carefully studying M. Fortunat’s face, and
+trying to discover the agent’s real intentions under his meaningless
+words. He had expected to find “his dear extortioner” exasperated by his
+loss, cursing and swearing, and demanding his money--but not at all.
+He found him more gentle and calm, colder and more reserved than
+ever; brimful of resignation indeed, and preaching submission to the
+inevitable. “What can this mean?” he thought, with an anxious heart.
+“What mischief is the scoundrel plotting now? I’d wager a thousand to
+one that he’s forging some thunderbolt to crush me.” And, in a haughty
+tone, he said aloud:
+
+“In a word, you desert me.”
+
+With a deprecatory gesture, M. Fortunat exclaimed: “I desert you,
+Monsieur le Marquis! What have I done that you should think so ill
+of me? Alas! circumstances are the only traitors. I shouldn’t like to
+deprive you of the courage you so much need, but, honestly, it would be
+folly to struggle against destiny. How can you hope to succeed in your
+plans? Have you not resorted to every possible expedient to prolong your
+apparently brilliant existence until the present time? Are you not at
+such a point that you must marry Mademoiselle Marguerite in a month’s
+time, or perish? And now the count’s millions are lost! If I might
+be allowed to give you some advice, I should say, ‘The shipwreck is
+inevitable; think only of saving yourself.’ By tact and shrewdness, you
+might yet save something from your creditors. Compromise with them. And
+if you need my services, here I am. Go to Nice, and give me a power
+of attorney to act for you. From the debris of your fortune, I will
+undertake to guarantee you a competence which would satisfy many an
+ambitious man.”
+
+The marquis laughed sneeringly. “Excellent!” he exclaimed. “You would
+rid yourself of me and recover your forty thousand francs at the same
+time. A very clever arrangement.”
+
+M. Fortunat realized that his client understood him; but what did it
+matter? “I assure you----” he began.
+
+But the marquis silenced him with a contemptuous gesture. “Let us stop
+this nonsense,” said he. “We understand each other better than that.
+I have never made any attempt to deceive you, nor have I ever supposed
+that I had succeeded in doing so, and pray do me the honor to consider
+me as shrewd as yourself.” And still refusing to listen to the agent, he
+continued: “If I have come to you, it is only because the case is not so
+desperate as you suppose. I still hold some valuable cards which you
+are ignorant of. In your opinion, and every one else’s, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite is ruined. But I know that she is still worth three millions,
+at the very least.”
+
+“Mademoiselle Marguerite?”
+
+“Yes, Monsieur Twenty-per-Cent. Let her become my wife, and the very
+next day I will place her in possession of an income of a hundred and
+fifty thousand francs. But she must marry me first; and this scornful
+maiden will not grant me her hand unless I can convince her of my love
+and disinterestedness.”
+
+“But your rival?”
+
+M. de Valorsay gave a nervous start, but quickly controlled himself.
+“He no longer exists. Read this day’s Figaro, and you will be edified.
+I have no rival now. If I can only conceal my financial embarrassment a
+little longer, she is mine. A friendless and homeless girl cannot defend
+herself long in Paris--especially when she has an adviser like Madame
+Leon. Oh! I shall win her! I shall have her!--she is a necessity to me.
+Now you can judge if it would be wise on your part to deprive me of your
+assistance. Would you like to know what I want? Simply this--the means
+to sustain me two or three months longer--some thirty thousand francs.
+You can procure the money--will you? It would make, in all, seventy
+thousand francs that I should owe you, and I will promise to pay you
+two hundred and fifty thousand if I succeed--and I shall succeed! Such
+profit is worth some risk. Reflect, and decide. But no more subterfuges,
+if you please. Let your answer be plain yes or no.”
+
+Without a second’s hesitation, M. Fortunat replied, “No.”
+
+The flush on the marquis’s face deepened, and his voice became a trifle
+harsher; but that was all. “Confess, then, that you have resolved to
+ruin me,” he said. “You refuse before you have heard me to the end.
+Wait, at least, until I have told you my plans, and shown you the solid
+foundation which my hopes rest upon.”
+
+But M. Fortunat had resolved to listen to nothing. He wished for no
+explanations, so distrustful was he of himself--so much did he fear
+that his adventurous nature would urge him to incur further risk. He was
+positively afraid of the Marquis de Valorsay’s eloquence; besides, he
+knew well enough that the person who consents to listen is at least half
+convinced. “Tell me nothing, monsieur,” he hastily answered; “it would
+be useless. I haven’t the money. If I had given you ten thousand francs
+last night, I should have been compelled to borrow them of M. Prosper
+Bertomy. And even if I had the money, I should still say ‘Impossible.’
+Every man has his system--his theory, you know. Mine is, never to run
+after my money. With me, whatever I may lose, I regard it as finally
+lost; I think no more about it, and turn to something else. So your
+forty thousand francs have already been entered on my profit and loss
+account. And yet it would be easy enough for you to repay me, if you
+would follow my advice and go quietly into bankruptcy.”
+
+“Never!” interrupted M. de Valorsay; “never! I do not wish to
+temporize,” he continued. “I will save all, or save nothing. If you
+refuse me your help, I shall apply elsewhere. I will never give my
+good friends, who detest me, and whom I cordially hate in return, the
+delicious joy of seeing the Marquis de Valorsay fall step by step from
+the high position he has occupied. I will never truckle to the men whom
+I have eclipsed for fifteen years. No, never! I would rather die, or
+even commit the greatest crime!”
+
+He suddenly checked himself, a trifle astonished, perhaps, by his own
+plain-speaking; and, for a moment, he and M. Fortunat looked into each
+other’s eyes, striving to divine their respective secret thoughts.
+
+The marquis was the first to speak. “And so,” said he, in a tone which
+he strove to make persuasive, but which was threatening instead, “it is
+settled--your decision is final?”
+
+“Final.”
+
+“You will not even condescend to listen to my explanation?”
+
+“It would be a loss of time.”
+
+On receiving this cruel reply, M. de Valorsay struck the desk such a
+formidable blow with his clenched fist that several bundles of papers
+fell to the floor. His anger was not feigned now. “What are you
+plotting, then?” he exclaimed; “and what do you intend to do? What is
+your object in betraying me? Take care! It is my life that I am going
+to defend, and as truly as there is a God in heaven, I shall defend it
+well. A man who is determined to blow his brains out if he is defeated,
+is a terribly dangerous adversary. Woe to you, if I ever find you
+standing between me and the Count de Chalusse’s millions!”
+
+Every drop of blood had fled from M. Fortunat’s face, still his mien was
+composed and dignified. “You do wrong to threaten me,” said he. “I don’t
+fear you in the least. If I were your enemy, I should bring suit against
+you for the forty thousand francs you owe me. I should not obtain my
+money, of course, but I could shatter the tottering edifice of your
+fortune by a single blow. Besides, you forget that I possess a copy of
+our agreement, signed by your own hand, and that I have only to show
+it to Mademoiselle Marguerite to give her a just opinion of your
+disinterestedness. Let us sever our connection now, monsieur, and each
+go his own way without reference to the other. If you should succeed you
+will repay me.”
+
+Victory perched upon the agent’s banner, and it was with a feeling of
+pride that he saw his noble client depart, white and speechless with
+rage. “What a rascal that marquis is,” he muttered. “I would certainly
+warn Mademoiselle Marguerite, poor girl, if I were not so much afraid of
+him.”
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+M. Casimir, the deceased Count de Chalusse’s valet, was neither better
+nor worse than most of his fellows. Old men tell us that there formerly
+existed a race of faithful servants, who considered themselves a part
+of the family that employed them, and who unhesitatingly embraced its
+interests and its ideas. At the same time their masters requited their
+devotion by efficacious protection and provision for the future. But
+such masters and such servants are nowadays only found in the old
+melodramas performed at the Ambigu, in “The Emigre,” for instance, or
+in “The Last of the Chateauvieux.” At present servants wander from one
+house to another, looking on their abode as a mere inn where they may
+find shelter till they are disposed for another journey. And families
+receive them as transient, and not unfrequently as dangerous,
+guests, whom it is always wise to treat with distrust. The key of
+the wine-cellar is not confided to these unreliable inmates; they are
+intrusted with the charge of little else than the children--a practice
+which is often productive of terrible results.
+
+M. Casimir was no doubt honest, in the strict sense of the word. He
+would have scorned to rob his master of a ten-sous piece; and yet
+he would not have hesitated in the least to defraud him of a hundred
+francs, if an opportunity had presented itself. Vain and rapacious in
+disposition, he consoled himself by refusing to obey any one save his
+employer, by envying him with his whole heart, and by cursing fate
+for not having made him the Count de Chalusse instead of the Count de
+Chalusse’s servant. As he received high wages, he served passably well;
+but he employed the best part of his energy in watching the count. He
+scented some great family secret in the household, and he felt angry and
+humiliated that this secret had not been intrusted to his discretion.
+And if he had discovered nothing, it was because M. de Chalusse had been
+caution personified, as Madame Leon had declared.
+
+Thus it happened that when M. Casimir saw Mademoiselle Marguerite
+and the count searching in the garden for the fragments of a letter
+destroyed in a paroxysm of rage which he had personally witnessed,
+his natural curiosity was heightened to such a degree as to become
+unendurable. He would have given a month’s wages, and something over,
+to have known the contents of that letter, the fragments of which were
+being so carefully collected by the count. And when he heard M. de
+Chalusse tell Mademoiselle Marguerite that the most important part
+of the letter was still lacking, and saw his master relinquish his
+fruitless search, the worthy valet vowed that he would be more skilful
+or more fortunate than his master; and after diligent effort, he
+actually succeeded in recovering five tiny scraps of paper, which had
+been blown into the shrubbery.
+
+They were covered with delicate handwriting, a lady’s unquestionably;
+but he was utterly unable to extract the slightest meaning from them.
+Nevertheless, he preserved them with jealous care, and was careful
+not to say that he had found them. The incoherent words which he had
+deciphered on these scraps of paper mixed strangely in his brain, and
+he grew more and more anxious to learn what connection there was between
+this letter and the count’s attack. This explains his extreme readiness
+to search the count’s clothes when Mademoiselle Marguerite told him to
+look for the key of the escritoire. And fortune favored him, for he not
+only found the key, but he also discovered the torn fragments of
+the letter, and having crumpled them up in the palm of his hand, he
+contrived to slip them into his pocket. Fruitless dexterity! M. Casimir
+had joined these scraps to the fragments he had found himself, he had
+read and re-read the epistle, but it told him nothing; or, at least, the
+information it conveyed was so vague and incomplete that it heightened
+his curiosity all the more. Once he almost decided to give the letter
+to Mademoiselle Marguerite, but he resisted this impulse, saying to
+himself: “Ah, no; I’m not such a fool! It might be of use to her.”
+
+And M. Casimir had no desire to be of service to this unhappy girl, who
+had always treated him with kindness. He hated her, under the pretence
+that she was not in her proper place, that no one knew who or what she
+was, and that it was absurd that he--he, Casimir--should be compelled
+to receive orders from her. The infamous slander which Mademoiselle
+Marguerite had overheard on her way home from church, “There goes the
+rich Count de Chalusse’s mistress,” was M. Casimir’s work. He had sworn
+to be avenged on this haughty creature; and no one can say what he
+might have attempted, if it had not been for the intervention of the
+magistrate. Imperatively called to order, M. Casimir consoled himself
+by the thought that the magistrate had intrusted him with eight thousand
+francs and the charge of the establishment. Nothing could have
+pleased him better. First and foremost, it afforded him a magnificent
+opportunity to display his authority and act the master, and it also
+enabled him to carry out his compact with Victor Chupin, and repair to
+the rendezvous which M. Isidore Fortunat had appointed.
+
+Leaving his comrades to watch the magistrate’s operations, he sent M.
+Bourigeau to report the count’s death at the district mayor’s office,
+and then lighting a cigar he walked out of the house, and strolled
+leisurely up the Rue de Courcelles. The place appointed for his meeting
+with M. Fortunat was on the Boulevard Haussmann, almost opposite
+Binder’s, the famous carriage builder. Although it was rather a
+wine-shop than a restaurant, a capital breakfast could be obtained there
+as M. Casimir had ascertained to his satisfaction several times before.
+“Has no one called for me?” he asked, as he went in.
+
+“No one.”
+
+He consulted his watch, and evinced considerable surprise. “Not yet
+noon!” he exclaimed. “I’m in advance; and as that is the case, give me a
+glass of absinthe and a newspaper.”
+
+He was obeyed with far more alacrity than his deceased master had ever
+required him to show, and he forthwith plunged into the report of
+the doings at the Bourse, with the eagerness of a man who has an
+all-sufficient reason for his anxiety in a drawer at home. Having
+emptied one glass of absinthe, he was about to order a second, when he
+felt a tap on the shoulder, and on turning round he beheld M. Isidore
+Fortunat.
+
+In accordance with his wont, the agent was attired in a style of severe
+elegance--with gloves and boots fitting him to perfection--but an
+unusually winning smile played upon his lips. “You see I have been
+waiting for you,” exclaimed M. Casimir.
+
+“I am late, it’s true,” replied M. Fortunat, “but we will do our best
+to make up for lost time; for, I trust, you will do me the honor of
+breakfasting with me?”
+
+“Really, I don’t know that I ought.”
+
+“Yes, yes, you must. They will give us a private room; we must have a
+talk.”
+
+It was certainly not for the pleasure of the thing that M. Fortunat
+cultivated M. Casimir’s acquaintance, and entertained him at breakfast.
+M. Fortunat, who was a very proud man, considered this connection
+somewhat beneath his dignity; but at first, circumstances, and afterward
+interest, had required him to overcome his repugnance. It was through
+the Count de Chalusse that he had made M. Casimir’s acquaintance. While
+the count was employing the agent he had frequently sent his valet to
+him with messages and letters. Naturally, M. Casimir had talked on these
+occasions, and the agent had listened to him; hence this superficial
+friendship. Subsequently when the marriage contemplated by the Marquis
+de Valorsay was in course of preparation, M. Fortunat had profited of
+the opportunity to make the count’s servant his spy; and it had been
+easy to find a pretext for continuing the acquaintance, as M. Casimir
+was a speculator, or rather a dabbler in stocks and shares. So, whenever
+he needed information, M. Fortunat invited M. Casimir to breakfast,
+knowing the potent influence of a good bottle of wine offered at the
+right moment. It is needless to say that he exercised uncommon care in
+the composition of the menu on a day like this when his future course
+depended, perhaps, on a word more or less.
+
+M. Casimir’s eye sparkled as he took his seat at the table opposite his
+entertainer. The crafty agent had chosen a little room looking out on to
+the boulevard. Not that it was more spacious or elegant than the others,
+but it was isolated, and this was a very great advantage; for every one
+knows how unsafe and perfidious are those so-called private rooms which
+are merely separated from each other by a thin partition, scarcely
+thicker than a sheet of paper. It was not long before M. Fortunat had
+reason to congratulate himself on his foresight, for the breakfast began
+with a dish of shrimps, and M. Casimir had not finished his twelfth,
+washed down by a glass of chablis, before he declared that he could see
+no impropriety in confiding certain things to a friend.
+
+The events of the morning had completely turned his head; and gratified
+vanity and good cheer excited him to such a degree that he discoursed
+with unwonted volubility. With total disregard of prudence, he talked
+with inexcusable freedom of the Count de Chalusse, and M. de Valorsay,
+and especially of his enemy, Mademoiselle Marguerite. “For it is she,”
+ he exclaimed, rapping on the table with his knife--“it is she who has
+taken the missing millions! How she did it, no one will ever know, for
+she has not an equal in craftiness; but it’s she who has stolen them,
+I’m sure of it! I would have taken my oath to that effect before the
+magistrate, and I would have proved it, too, if he hadn’t taken her part
+because she’s pretty--for she is devilishly pretty.”
+
+Even if M. Fortunat had wished to put in a word or two, he could have
+found no opportunity. But his guest’s loquacity did not displease him;
+it gave him an opportunity for reflection. Strange thoughts arose in his
+mind, and connecting M. Casimir’s affirmations with the assurances of
+the Marquis de Valorsay, he was amazed at the coincidence. “It’s very
+singular!” he thought. “Has this girl really stolen the money? and has
+the marquis discovered the fact through Madame Leon, and determined to
+profit by the theft? In that case, I may get my money back, after all! I
+must look into the matter.”
+
+A partridge and a bottle of Pomard followed the shrimps and chablis; and
+M. Casimir’s loquacity increased, and his voice rose higher and higher.
+He wandered from one absurd story to another, and from slander to
+slander, until suddenly, and without the slightest warning, he began to
+speak of the mysterious letter which he considered the undoubted cause
+of the count’s illness.
+
+At the first word respecting this missive, M. Fortunat started
+violently. “Nonsense!” said he, with an incredulous air. “Why the devil
+should this letter have had such an influence?”
+
+“I don’t know. But it is certain--it had.” And, in support of his
+assertion, he told M. Fortunat how the count had destroyed the letter
+almost without reading it, and how he had afterward searched for the
+fragments, in order to find an address it had contained. “And I’m quite
+sure,” said the valet, “that the count intended to apply to you for the
+address of the person who wrote the letter.”
+
+“Are you sure of that?”
+
+“As sure as I am of drinking Pomard!” exclaimed M. Casimir, draining his
+glass.
+
+Rarely had the agent experienced such emotion. He did not doubt but what
+this missive contained the solution of the mystery. “Were the scraps of
+this letter found?” he asked.
+
+“I have them,” cried the valet, triumphantly. “I have them in my pocket,
+and, what’s more, I have the whole of them!”
+
+This declaration made M. Fortunat turn pale with delight.
+“Indeed--indeed!” said he; “it must be a strange production.”
+
+His companion pursed up his lips disdainfully. “May be so, may be not,”
+ he retorted. “It’s impossible to understand a word of it. The only thing
+certain about it is that it was written by a woman.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, by a former mistress, undoubtedly. And, naturally, she asks for
+money for a child. Women of that class always do so. They’ve tried the
+game with me more than a dozen times, but I’m not so easily caught.” And
+bursting with vanity, he related three or four love affairs in which,
+according to his own account, he must have played a most ignoble part.
+
+If M. Fortunat’s chair had been a gridiron, heated by an excellent fire,
+he could not have felt more uncomfortable. After pouring out bumper
+after bumper for his guest, he perceived that he had gone too far,
+and that it would not be easy to check him. “And this letter?” he
+interrupted, at last.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You promised to let me read it.”
+
+“That’s true--that’s quite true; but it would be as well to have some
+mocha first, would it not? What if we ordered some mocha, eh?”
+
+Coffee was served, and when the waiter had closed the door, M. Casimir
+drew the letter, the scraps of which were fixed together, from his
+pocket, and unfolded it, saying: “Attention; I’m going to read.”
+
+This did not suit M. Fortunat’s fancy. He would infinitely have
+preferred perusing it himself; but it is impossible to argue with an
+intoxicated man, and so M. Casimir with a more and more indistinct
+enunciation read as follows: “‘Paris, October 14, 186--.’ So the lady
+lives in Paris, as usual. After this she puts neither ‘monsieur,’ nor
+‘my friend,’ nor ‘dear count,’ nothing at all. She begins abruptly:
+‘Once before, many years ago, I came to you as a suppliant. You were
+pitiless, and did not even deign to answer me. And yet, as I told you, I
+was on the verge of a terrible precipice; my brain was reeling, vertigo
+had seized hold of me. Deserted, I was wandering about Paris, homeless
+and penniless, and my child was starving!’”
+
+M. Casimir paused to laugh. “That’s like all the rest of them,” he
+exclaimed; “that is exactly like all the rest! I’ve ten such letters in
+my drawer, even more imperative in their demands. If you’ll come home
+with me after breakfast, I’ll show them to you. We’ll have a hearty
+laugh over them!”
+
+“Let us finish this first.”
+
+“Of course.” And he resumed: “‘If I had been alone. I should not have
+hesitated. I was so wretched that death seemed a refuge to me. But
+what was to become of my child? Should I kill him, and destroy myself
+afterward? I thought of doing so, but I lacked the courage. And what
+I implored you in pity to give me, was rightfully mine. I had only to
+present myself at your house and demand it. Alas! I did not know that
+then. I believed myself bound by a solemn oath, and you inspired me
+with inexpressible terror. And still I could not see my child die of
+starvation before my very eyes. So I abandoned myself to my fate, and
+I have sunk so low that I have been obliged to separate from my son.
+He must not know the shame to which he owes his livelihood. And he is
+ignorant even of my existence.’”
+
+M. Fortunat was as motionless as if he had been turned to stone. After
+the information he had obtained respecting the count’s past, and after
+the story told him by Madame Vantrasson, he could scarcely doubt.
+“This letter,” he thought, “can only be from Mademoiselle Hermine de
+Chalusse.”
+
+However, M. Casimir resumed his reading: “‘If I apply to you again, if
+from the depth of infamy into which I have fallen, I again call upon you
+for help, it is because I am at the end of my resources--because, before
+I die, I must see my son’s future assured. It is not a fortune that I
+ask for him, but sufficient to live upon, and I expect to receive it
+from you.’”
+
+Once more the valet paused in his perusal of the letter to remark:
+“There it is again sufficient to live upon, and I expect to receive it
+from you!--Excellent! Women are remarkable creatures, upon my word! But
+listen to the rest! ‘It is absolutely necessary that I should see you
+as soon as possible. Oblige me, therefore, by calling to-morrow, October
+15th, at the Hotel de Homburg, in the Rue du Helder. You will ask for
+Madame Lucy Huntley, and they will conduct you to me. I shall expect you
+from three o’clock to six. Come. I implore you, come. It is painful to
+me to add that if I do not hear from you, I am resolved to demand and
+OBTAIN--no matter what may be the consequences--the means which I have,
+so far, asked of you on my bended knees and with clasped hands.’”
+
+Having finished the letter, M. Casimir laid it on the table, and poured
+out a glassful of brandy, which he drained at a single draught. “And
+that’s all,” he remarked. “No signature--not even an initial. It was a
+so-called respectable woman who wrote that. They never sign their notes,
+the hussies! for fear of compromising themselves, as I’ve reason to
+know.” And so saying, he laughed the idiotic laugh of a man who has been
+drinking immoderately. “If I had time,” he resumed, “I should make some
+inquiries about this Madame Lucy Huntley--a feigned name, evidently.
+I should like to know---- But what’s the matter with you, Monsieur
+Fortunat? You are as pale as death. Are you ill?”
+
+To tell the truth, the agent did look as if he were indisposed.
+“Thanks,” he stammered. “I’m very well, only I just remembered that some
+one is waiting for me.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“A client.”
+
+“Nonsense!” rejoined the valet; “make some excuse; let him go about his
+business. Aren’t you rich enough? Pour us out another glass of wine; it
+will make you all right again.”
+
+M. Fortunat complied, but he performed the task so awkwardly, or,
+rather, so skilfully, that he drew toward him, with his sleeve, the
+letter which was lying beside M. Casimir’s plate. “To your health,” said
+the valet. “To yours,” replied M. Fortunat. And in drawing back the arm
+he had extended to chink glasses with his guest, he caused the letter to
+fall on his knees.
+
+M. Casimir, who had not observed this successful manoeuvre, was trying
+to light his cigar; and while vainly consuming a large quantity of
+matches in the attempt, he exclaimed: “What you just said, my friend,
+means that you would like to desert me. That won’t do, my dear fellow!
+You are going home with me; and I will read you some love-letters from
+a woman of the world. Then we will go to Mourloup’s, and play a game of
+billiards. That’s the place to enjoy one’s self. You’ll see Joseph, of
+the Commarin household, a splendid comedian.”
+
+“Very well; but first I must settle the score here.”
+
+“Yes, pay.”
+
+M. Fortunat rang for his bill. He had obtained more information than
+he expected; he had the letter in his pocket, and he had now only one
+desire, to rid himself of M. Casimir. But this was no easy task. Drunken
+men cling tenaciously to their friends; and M. Fortunat was asking
+himself what strategy he could employ, when the waiter entered, and
+said: “There’s a very light-complexioned man here, who looks as if he
+were a huissier’s clerk. He wishes to speak with you, gentlemen.”
+
+“Ah! it’s Chupin!” exclaimed the valet. “He is a friend. Let him come
+in, and bring us another glass. ‘The more the merrier,’ as the saying
+goes.”
+
+What could Chupin want? M. Fortunat had no idea, but he was none the
+less grateful for his coming, being determined to hand this troublesome
+Casimir over to his keeping. On entering the room Chupin realized the
+valet’s condition at the first glance, and his face clouded. He
+bowed politely to M. Fortunat, but addressed Casimir in an extremely
+discontented tone. “It’s three o’clock,” said he, “and I’ve come, as we
+agreed, to arrange with you about the count’s funeral.”
+
+These words had the effect of a cold shower-bath on M. Casimir. “Upon
+my word, I had forgotten--forgotten entirely, upon my word!” And the
+thought of his condition, and the responsibility he had accepted, coming
+upon him at the same time, he continued: “Good Heavens! I’m in a nice
+state! It is all I can do to stand. What will they think at the house?
+What will they say?”
+
+M. Fortunat had drawn his clerk a little on one side. “Victor,” said he,
+quickly and earnestly, “I must go at once. Everything has been paid for;
+but in case you need some money for a cab or anything of the sort, here
+are ten francs. If there’s any you don’t use, keep it for yourself. I
+leave this fool in your charge, take care of him.”
+
+The sight of the ten-franc piece made Chupin’s face brighten a little.
+“Very well,” he replied. “I understand the business. I served my
+apprenticeship as a ‘guardian angel’ when my grandmother kept the
+Poivriere.” [2]
+
+“Above all, don’t let him return home in his present state.”
+
+“Have no fears, monsieur, I must talk business with him, and so I shall
+have him all right in a jiffy.” And as M. Fortunat made his escape,
+Chupin beckoned to the waiter, and said:
+
+“Fetch me some very strong coffee, a handful of salt, and a lemon.
+There’s nothing better for bringing a drunken man to his senses.”
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+
+M. Fortunat left the restaurant, almost on the run, for he feared that
+he might be pursued and overtaken by M. Casimir. But after he had gone
+a couple of hundred paces, he paused, not so much to take breath, as to
+collect his scattered wits; and though the weather was cold, he seated
+himself on a bench to reflect.
+
+Never in all his changeful life had he known such intense anxiety and
+torturing suspense as he had just experienced in that little room in the
+restaurant. He had longed for positive information and he had obtained
+it; but it had upset all his plans and annihilated all his hopes.
+Imagining that the count’s heirs had been lost sight of, he had
+determined to find them and make a bargain with them, before they
+learned that they were worth their millions. But on the contrary, these
+heirs were close at hand, watching M. de Chalusse, and knowing their
+rights so well that they were ready to fight for them. “For it was
+certainly the count’s sister who wrote the letter which I have in my
+pocket,” he murmured. “Not wishing to receive him at her own home, she
+prudently appointed a meeting at a hotel. But what about this name of
+Huntley? Is it really hers, or is it only assumed for the occasion?
+Is it the name of the man who enticed her from home, or is it the name
+given to the son from whom she has separated herself?”
+
+But after all what was the use of all these conjectures? There was
+but one certain and positive thing, and this was that the money he had
+counted upon had escaped him; and he experienced as acute a pang as
+if he had lost forty thousand francs a second time. Perhaps, at that
+moment, he was sorry that he had severed his connection with the
+marquis. Still, he was not the man to despond, however desperate his
+plight might appear, without an attempt to better his situation. He
+knew how many surprising and sudden changes in fortune have been brought
+about by some apparently trivial action. “I must discover this sister,”
+ he said to himself--“I must ascertain her position and her plans.
+If she has no one to advise her, I will offer my services; and who
+knows----”
+
+A cab was passing; M. Fortunat hailed it, and ordered the Jehu to drive
+him to the Rue du Helder, No. 43, Hotel de Homburg.
+
+Was it by chance or premeditation that this establishment had received
+the name of one of the gambling dens of Europe? Perhaps the following
+information may serve to answer the question. The Hotel de Homburg was
+one of those flash hostelries frequented by adventurers of distinction,
+who are attracted to Paris by the millions that are annually squandered
+there. Spurious counts and questionable Russian princesses were sure
+to find a cordial welcome there with princely luxury, moderate prices,
+and--but very little confidence. Each person was called by the title
+which it pleased him to give on his arrival--Excellency or Prince,
+according to his fancy. He could also find numerous servants carefully
+drilled to play the part of old family retainers, and carriages upon
+which the most elaborate coat-of-arms could be painted at an hour’s
+notice. Nor was there any difficulty whatever in immediately procuring
+all the accessories of a life of grandeur--all that is needful to dazzle
+the unsuspecting, to throw dust in people’s eyes, and to dupe one’s
+chance acquaintances. All these things were provided without delay, by
+the month, by the day or by the hour, just as the applicant pleased.
+But there was no such thing as credit there. Bills were presented every
+evening, to those lodgers who did not pay in advance: and he who could
+not, or would not, settle the score, even if he were Excellency or
+Prince, was requested to depart at once, and his trunks were held as
+security.
+
+When M. Fortunat entered the office of the hotel, a woman, with a crafty
+looking face, was holding a conference with an elderly gentleman, who
+had a black velvet skullcap on his head, and a magnifying glass in his
+hand. They applied their eyes to the glass in turn, and were engaged in
+examining some very handsome diamonds, which had no doubt been offered
+in lieu of money by some noble but impecunious foreigner. On hearing M.
+Fortunat enter, the woman looked up.
+
+“What do you desire, monsieur?” she inquired, politely.
+
+“I wish to see Madame Lucy Huntley.”
+
+The woman did not reply at first, but raised her eyes to the ceiling, as
+if she were reading there the list of all the foreigners of distinction
+who honored the Hotel de Homburg by their presence at that moment. “Lucy
+Huntley!” she repeated. “I don’t recollect that name! I don’t think
+there’s such a person in the house--Lucy Huntley! What kind of a person
+is she?”
+
+For many reasons M. Fortunat could not answer. First of all, he did
+not know. But he was not in the least disconcerted, and he avoided the
+question without the slightest embarrassment, at the same time trying to
+quicken the woman’s faulty memory. “The person I wished to see was here
+on Friday, between three and six in the afternoon; and she was waiting
+for a visitor with an anxiety which could not possibly have escaped your
+notice.”
+
+This detail quickened the memory of the man with the magnifying
+glass--none other than the woman’s husband and landlord of the hotel.
+“Ah! the gentleman is speaking of the lady of No. 2--you remember--the
+same who insisted upon having the large private room.”
+
+“To be sure,” replied the wife; “where could my wits have been!” And
+turning to M. Fortunat: “Excuse my forgetfulness,” she added. “The lady
+is no longer in the house; she only remained here for a few hours.”
+
+This reply did not surprise M. Fortunat--he had expected it; and yet
+he assumed an air of the utmost consternation. “Only a few hours!” he
+repeated, like a despairing echo.
+
+“Yes, monsieur. She arrived here about eleven o’clock in the morning,
+with only a large valise by way of luggage, and she left that same
+evening at eight o’clock.”
+
+“Alas! and where was she going?”
+
+“She didn’t tell me.”
+
+You might have sworn that M. Fortunat was about to burst into tears.
+“Poor Lucy!” said he, in a tragical tone; “it was for me, madame, that
+she was waiting. But it was only this morning that I received her letter
+appointing a meeting here. She must have been in despair. The post can’t
+be depended on!”
+
+The husband and wife simultaneously shrugged their shoulders, and the
+expression of their faces unmistakably implied: “What can we do about
+it? It is no business of ours. Don’t trouble us.”
+
+But M. Fortunat was not the man to be dismayed by such a trifle.
+
+“She was taken to the railway station, no doubt,” he insisted.
+
+“Really, I know nothing about it.”
+
+“You told me just now that she had a large valise, so she could not have
+left your hotel on foot. She must have asked for a vehicle. Who was
+sent to fetch it? One of your boys? If I could find the driver I should,
+perhaps, be able to obtain some valuable information from him.”
+
+The husband and wife exchanged a whole volume of suspicions in a single
+glance. M. Isidore Fortunat’s appearance was incontestably respectable,
+but they were well aware that those strange men styled detectives are
+perfectly conversant with the art of dressing to perfection. So the
+hotelkeeper quickly decided on his course. “Your idea is an excellent
+one,” he said to M. Fortunat. “This lady must certainly have taken
+a vehicle on leaving; and what is more, it must have been a vehicle
+belonging to the hotel. If you will follow me, we will make some
+inquiries on the subject.”
+
+And rising with a willingness that augured well for their success,
+he led the agent into the courtyard, where five or six vehicles were
+stationed, while the drivers lounged on a bench, chatting and smoking
+their pipes “Which of you was employed by a lady yesterday evening at
+about eight o’clock?”
+
+“What sort of a person was she?”
+
+“She was a handsome woman, between thirty and forty years’ old, very
+fair, rather stout, and dressed in black. She had a large Russia-leather
+travelling-bag.”
+
+“I took her,” answered one of the drivers promptly. M. Fortunat advanced
+toward the man with open arms, and with such eagerness that it might
+have been supposed he meant to embrace him. “Ah, my worthy fellow!” he
+exclaimed, “you can save my life!”
+
+The driver looked exceedingly pleased. He was thinking that this
+gentleman would certainly requite his salvation by a magnificent
+gratuity. “What do you want of me?” he asked.
+
+“Tell me where you drove this lady?”
+
+“I took her to the Rue de Berry.”
+
+“To what number?”
+
+“Ah, I can’t tell. I’ve forgotten it.”
+
+But M. Fortunat no longer felt any anxiety. “Very good,” said he.
+“You’ve forgotten it--that’s not at all strange. But you would know the
+house again, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Undoubtedly I should.”
+
+“Will you take me there?”
+
+“Certainly, sir. This is my vehicle.”
+
+The hunter of missing heirs at once climbed inside; but it was not until
+the carriage had left the courtyard that the landlord returned to his
+office. “That man must be a detective,” he remarked to his wife.
+
+“So I fancy.”
+
+“It’s strange we’re not acquainted with him. He must be a new member of
+the force.”
+
+But M. Fortunat was quite indifferent as to what impression he had left
+behind him at the Hotel de Homburg, for he never expected to set foot
+there again. The one essential thing was that he had obtained the
+information he wished for, and even a description of the lady, and he
+felt that he was now really on the track. The vehicle soon reached the
+Rue de Berry, and drew up in front of a charming little private house.
+“Here we are, monsieur,” said the driver, bowing at the door.
+
+M. Fortunat sprang nimbly on to the pavement, and handed five francs
+to the coachman, who went off growling and swearing, for he thought the
+reward a contemptibly small one, coming as it did from a man whose life
+had been saved, according to his own confession. However, the person the
+Jehu anathematized certainly did not hear him. Standing motionless where
+he had alighted, M. Fortunat scrutinized the house in front of him with
+close attention. “So she lives here,” he muttered. “This is the place;
+but I can’t present myself without knowing her name. I must make some
+inquiries.”
+
+There was a wine-shop some fifty paces distant, and thither M. Fortunat
+hastened, and ordered a glass of currant syrup. As he slowly sipped
+the beverage, he pointed to the house in question, with an air of
+well-assumed indifference, and asked: “Whom does that pretty dwelling
+belong to?”
+
+“To Madame Lia d’Argeles,” answered the landlady.
+
+M. Fortunat started. He well remembered that this was the name the
+Marquis de Valorsay had mentioned when speaking of the vile conspiracy
+he had planned. It was at this woman’s house that the man whom
+Mademoiselle Marguerite loved had been disgraced! Still he managed to
+master his surprise, and in a light, frank tone he resumed: “What a
+pretty name! And what does this lady do?”
+
+“What does she do? Why, she amuses herself.”
+
+M. Fortunat seemed astonished. “Dash it!” said he. “She must amuse
+herself to good purpose to have a house like that. Is she pretty?”
+
+“That depends on taste. She’s no longer young, at any rate; but she
+has superb golden hair. And, oh! how white she is--as white as snow,
+monsieur--as white as snow! She has a fine figure as well, and a most
+distinguished bearing--pays cash, too, to the very last farthing.”
+
+There could no longer be any doubt. The portrait sketched by the
+wine-vendor fully corresponded with the description given by the
+hotelkeeper in the Rue de Helder. Accordingly, M. Fortunat drained
+his glass, and threw fifty centimes on the counter. Then, crossing the
+street, he boldly rang at the door of Madame d’Argeles’s house. If any
+one had asked him what he proposed doing and saying if he succeeded in
+effecting an entrance, he might have replied with perfect sincerity, “I
+don’t know.” The fact is, he had but one aim, one settled purpose in
+his mind. He was obstinately, FURIOUSLY resolved to derive some benefit,
+small or great, from this mysterious affair. As for the means of
+execution, he relied entirely on his audacity and sang-froid, convinced
+that they would not fail him when the decisive moment came. “First of
+all, I must see this lady,” he said to himself. “The first words will
+depend solely upon my first impressions. After that, I shall be guided
+by circumstances.”
+
+An old serving-man, in a quiet, tasteful livery, opened the door,
+whereupon M. Fortunat, in a tone of authority, asked: “Madame Lia
+d’Argeles?”
+
+“Madame does not receive on Friday,” was the reply.
+
+With a petulant gesture, M. Fortunat rejoined: “All the same I must
+speak with her to-day. It is on a matter of the greatest importance.
+Give her my card.” So saying, he held out a bit of pasteboard, on which,
+below his name, were inscribed the words: “Liquidations. Settlements
+effected for insolvent parties.”
+
+“Ah! that’s a different thing,” said the servant. “Will monsieur take
+the trouble to follow me?”
+
+M. Fortunat did take the trouble; and he was conducted into a large
+drawing-room where he was requested to sit down and await madame’s
+coming. Left to himself, he began an inventory of the apartment, as a
+general studies the ground on which he is about to give battle. No trace
+remained of the unfortunate scene of the previous night, save a broken
+candelabrum on the chimney-piece. It was the one which Pascal Ferailleur
+had armed himself with, when they talked of searching him, and which he
+had thrown down in the courtyard, as he left the house. But this detail
+did not attract M. Fortunat’s attention. The only thing that puzzled
+him was the large reflector placed above the chandelier, and it took
+him some time to fathom with what object it was placed there. Without
+precisely intimidating him, the luxurious appointments of the house
+aroused his astonishment. “Everything here is in princely style,” he
+muttered, “and this shows that all the lunatics are not at Charenton
+yet. If Madame d’Argeles lacked bread in days gone by, she does so no
+longer--that’s evident.”
+
+Naturally enough this reflection led him to wonder why such a rich woman
+should become the Marquis de Valorsay’s accomplice, and lend a hand in
+so vile and cowardly a plot, which horrified even him--Fortunat. “For
+she must be an accomplice,” he thought.
+
+And he marvelled at the freak of fate which had connected the
+unfortunate man who had been sacrificed with the unacknowledged
+daughter, and the cast-off sister, of the Count de Chalusse. A vague
+presentiment, the mysterious voice of instinct, warned him, moreover,
+that his profit in the affair would depend upon the antagonism, or
+alliance, of Mademoiselle Marguerite and Madame d’Argeles. But his
+meditations were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a discussion in
+an adjoining room. He stepped eagerly forward, hoping to hear something,
+and he did hear a man saying in a coarse voice: “What! I leave an
+interesting game, and lose precious time in coming to offer you my
+services, and you receive me like this! Zounds! madame, this will teach
+me not to meddle with what doesn’t concern me, in future. So, good-bye,
+my dear lady. You’ll learn some day, to your cost, the real nature of
+this villain of a Coralth whom you now defend so warmly.”
+
+This name of Coralth was also one of those which were engraven upon
+M. Fortunat’s memory; and yet he did not notice it at the moment. His
+attention was so absorbed by what he had just heard that he could not
+fix his mind upon the object of his mission; and he only abandoned his
+conjectures on hearing a rustling of skirts against the panels of the
+door leading into the hall.
+
+The next moment Madame Lia d’Argeles entered the room. She was arrayed
+in a very elegant dressing-gown of gray cashmere, with blue satin
+trimmings, her hair was beautifully arranged, and she had neglected none
+of the usual artifices of the toilette-table; still any one would have
+considered her to be over forty years of age. Her sad face wore an
+expression of melancholy resignation; and there were signs of recent
+tears in her swollen eyes, surrounded by bluish circles. She glanced at
+her visitor, and, in anything but an encouraging tone exclaimed: “You
+desired to speak with me, I believe?”
+
+M. Fortunat bowed, almost disconcerted. He had expected to meet one of
+those stupid, ignorant young women, who make themselves conspicuous at
+the afternoon promenade in the Bois de Boulogne; and he found himself in
+the presence of an evidently cultivated and imperious woman, who,
+even in her degradation, retained all her pride of race, and awed him,
+despite all his coolness and assurance. “I do, indeed, madame, wish to
+confer with you respecting some important interests,” he answered.
+
+She sank on to a chair; and, without asking her visitor to take a seat:
+“Explain yourself,” she said, briefly.
+
+M. Fortunat’s knowledge of the importance of the game in which he had
+already risked so much had already restored his presence of mind. He
+had only needed a glance to form a true estimate of Madame d’Argeles’s
+character; and he realized that it would require a sudden, powerful, and
+well-directed blow to shatter her composure. “I have the unpleasant duty
+of informing you of a great misfortune, madame,” he began. “A person who
+is very dear to you, and who is nearly related to you, was a victim of a
+frightful accident yesterday evening and died this morning.”
+
+This gloomy preamble did not seem to produce the slightest effect on
+Madame d’Argeles. “Whom are you speaking of?” she coldly asked.
+
+M. Fortunat assumed his most solemn manner as he replied: “Of your
+brother, madame--of the Count de Chalusse.”
+
+She sprang up, and a convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot.
+“Raymond is dead!” she faltered.
+
+“Alas! yes, madame. Struck with death at the very moment he was
+repairing to the appointment you had given him at the Hotel de Homburg.”
+
+This clever falsehood, which was not entirely one, would, so the agent
+thought, be of advantage to him, since it would prove he was acquainted
+with previous events. But Madame d’Argeles did not seem to notice, or
+even to hear the remark. She had fallen back in her arm-chair, paler
+than death. “How did he die?” she asked.
+
+“From an attack of apoplexy.”
+
+“My God!” exclaimed the wretched woman, who now suspected the truth; “my
+God, forgive me. It was my letter that killed him!” and she wept as if
+her heart were breaking--this woman who had suffered and wept so much.
+
+It is needless to say that M. Fortunat was moved with sympathy; he
+always evinced a respectful sympathy for the woes of others; but in the
+present instance, his emotion was greatly mitigated by the satisfaction
+he felt at having succeeded so quickly and so completely. Madame
+d’Argeles had confessed everything! This was indeed a victory, for it
+must be admitted that he had trembled lest she should deny all, and bid
+him leave the house. He still saw many difficulties between his pocket
+and the Count de Chalusse’s money; but he did not despair of conquering
+them after such a successful beginning. And he was muttering some words
+of consolation, when Madame d’Argeles suddenly looked up and said: “I
+must see him--I will see him once more! Come, monsieur!” But a terrible
+memory rooted her to the spot and with a despairing gesture, and in a
+voice quivering with anguish she exclaimed:
+
+“No, no--I cannot even do that.”
+
+M. Fortunat was not a little disturbed; and it was with a look of
+something very like consternation that he glanced at Madame d’Argeles,
+who had reseated herself and was now sobbing violently, with her face
+hidden on the arm of her chair. “What prevents her?” he thought. “Why
+this sudden terror now that her brother is dead? Is she unwilling
+to confess that she is a Chalusse? She must make up her mind to it,
+however, if she wishes to receive the count’s property--and she must
+make up her mind to it, for my sake, if not for her own.”
+
+He remained silent, until it seemed to him that Madame d’Argeles was
+calmer, then: “Excuse me, madame,” he began, “for breaking in upon
+your very natural grief, but duty requires me to remind you of your
+interests.”
+
+With the passive docility of those who are wretched, she wiped away her
+tears, and replied, gently: “I am listening, monsieur.”
+
+He had had time to prepare his discourse. “First of all, madame,” he
+remarked, “I must tell you that I was the count’s confidential agent. In
+him I lose a protector. Respect alone prevents me from saying a friend.
+He had no secrets from me.” M. Fortunat saw so plainly that Madame
+d’Argeles did not understand a word of this sentimental exordium that he
+thought it necessary to add: “I tell you this, not so much to gain
+your consideration and good-will, as to explain to you how I became
+acquainted with these matters relating to your family--how I became
+aware of your existence, for instance, which no one else suspected.” He
+paused, hoping for some reply, a word, a sign, but not receiving this
+encouragement, he continued: “I must, first of all, call your attention
+to the peculiar situation of M. de Chalusse, and to the circumstances
+which immediately preceded and attended his departure from life. His
+death was so unexpected that he was unable to make any disposition of
+his property by will, or even to indicate his last wishes. This, madame,
+is fortunate for you. M. de Chalusse had certain prejudices against you,
+as you are aware. Poor count. He certainly had the best heart in the
+world, and yet hatred with him was almost barbaric in its intensity.
+There can be no doubt whatever, that he had determined to deprive you
+of your inheritance. With this intention he had already begun to convert
+his estates into ready money, and had he lived six months longer you
+would not have received a penny.”
+
+With a gesture of indifference, which was difficult to explain after
+the vehemence and the threatening tone of her letter, Madame d’Argeles
+murmured:
+
+“Ah, well! what does it matter?”
+
+“What does it matter?” repeated M. Fortunat. “I see, madame, that your
+grief prevents you from realizing the extent of the peril you have
+escaped. M. de Chalusse had other, and more powerful reasons even than
+his hatred for wishing to deprive you of your share of his property.
+He had sworn that he would give a princely fortune to his beloved
+daughter.”
+
+For the first time, Madame d’Argeles’s features assumed an expression of
+surprise. “What, my brother had a child?”
+
+“Yes, madame, an illegitimate daughter, Mademoiselle Marguerite, a
+lovely and charming girl whom I had the pleasure of restoring to his
+care some years ago. She has been living with him for six months or so;
+and he was about to marry her, with an enormous dowry, to a nobleman
+bearing one of the proudest names in France, the Marquis de Valorsay.”
+
+The name shook Madame d’Argeles as if she had experienced the shock of
+an electric battery, and springing to her feet, with flashing eyes: “You
+say that my brother’s daughter was to marry M. de Valorsay?” she asked.
+
+“It was decided--the marquis adored her.”
+
+“But she--she did not love him--confess that she did not love him.”
+
+M. Fortunat did not know what to reply. The question took him completely
+by surprise; and feeling that his answer would have a very considerable
+influence upon what might follow, he hesitated.
+
+“Will you answer me?” insisted Madame d’Argeles, imperiously. “She loved
+another, did she not?”
+
+“To tell the truth, I believe she did,” the agent stammered. “But I have
+no proof of it, madame.”
+
+“Ah! the wretch!” she exclaimed with a threatening gesture; “the
+traitor! the infamous scoundrel! Now I understand it all. And to think
+that it occurred in my house. But no; it was best so, I can still repair
+everything.” And darting to the bell-rope, she pulled it violently.
+
+A servant at once appeared. “Job,” she said, “hasten after Baron
+Trigault--he left the house a moment ago and bring him back. I must
+speak with him. If you do not overtake him, go to his club, to his
+house, to the houses of his friends, go to every place where there is
+any chance of finding him. Make haste, and do not return without him.”
+
+And as the man turned to obey, she added: “My carriage must be in the
+courtyard. Take it.”
+
+Meanwhile M. Fortunat’s expression of countenance had undergone a marked
+change. “Well!” thought he, “I have just made a mess of it! M. Valorsay
+is unmasked; and now, may I be hung, if he ever marries Mademoiselle
+Marguerite. Certainly, I do not owe much to the scoundrel, for he has
+defrauded me of forty thousand francs, but what will he say when he
+discovers what I’ve done? He will never believe me if I tell him that it
+was an involuntary blunder, and Heaven only knows what revenge he will
+plan! A man of his disposition, knowing that he is ruined, is capable
+of anything! So much the worse for me. Before night I shall warn the
+commissary of police in my district, and I shall not go out unarmed!”
+
+The servant went off, and Madame d’Argeles then turned to her visitor
+again. But she seemed literally transfigured by the storm of passion
+which was raging in her heart and mind; her cheeks were crimson, and an
+unwonted energy sparkled in her eyes. “Let us finish this business,” she
+said, curtly; “I am expecting some one.”
+
+M. Fortunat bowed with a rather pompous, but at the same time obsequious
+air. “I have only a few more words to say,” he declared. “M. de Chalusse
+having no other heir, I have come to acquaint you with your rights.”
+
+“Very good; continue, if you please.”
+
+“You have only to present yourself, and establish your identity, to be
+put in possession of your brother’s property.”
+
+Madame d’Argeles gave the agent a look of mingled irony and distrust;
+and after a moment’s reflection, she replied: “I am very grateful
+for your interest, monsieur; but if I have any rights, it is not my
+intention to urge them.”
+
+It seemed to M. Fortunat as if he were suddenly falling from some
+immense height. “You are not in earnest,” he exclaimed, “or you are
+ignorant of the fact that M. de Chalusse leaves perhaps twenty millions
+behind him.”
+
+“My course is decided on, monsieur; irrevocably decided on.”
+
+“Very well, madame; but it often happens that the court institutes
+inquiries for the heirs of large fortunes, and this may happen in your
+case.”
+
+“I should reply that I was not a member of the Chalusse family, and that
+would end it. Startled by the news of my brother’s death, I allowed my
+secret to escape me. I shall know how to keep it in future.”
+
+Anger succeeded astonishment in M. Fortunat’s mind. “Madame, madame,
+what can you be thinking of?” he cried, impetuously. “Accept--in
+Heaven’s name--accept this inheritance; if not for yourself, for the
+sake of----”
+
+In his excitement, he was about to commit a terrible blunder. He saw it
+in time, and checked himself.
+
+“For the sake of whom?” asked Madame d’Argeles, in an altered voice.
+
+“For the sake of Mademoiselle Marguerite, madame; for the sake of this
+poor child, who is your niece. The count never having acknowledged her
+as his daughter, she will be left actually without bread, while her
+father’s millions go to enrich the state.”
+
+“That will suffice, monsieur; I will think of it. And now, enough!”
+
+The dismissal was so imperious that M. Fortunat bowed and went off,
+completely bewildered by this denouement. “She’s crazy!” he said to
+himself. “Crazy in the fullest sense of the word. She refuses the
+count’s millions from a silly fear of telling people that she belongs
+to the Chalusse family. She threatened her brother, but she would never
+have carried her threats into execution. And she prefers her present
+position to such a fortune. What lunacy!” But, although he was
+disappointed and angry, he did not by any means despair. “Fortunately
+for me,” he thought, “this proud and haughty lady has a son somewhere
+in the world. And she’ll do for him what she would not consent to do for
+herself. Through her, with a little patience and Victor Chupin’s aid,
+I shall succeed in discovering this boy. He must be an intelligent
+youth--and we’ll see if he surrenders his millions as easily as his
+mamma does.”
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+
+It is a terrible task to break suddenly with one’s past, without even
+having had time for preparation; to renounce the life one has so far
+lived, to return to the starting point, and begin existence anew; to
+abandon everything--the position one has gained, the work one has become
+familiar with, every fondly cherished hope, and friend, and habit; to
+forsake the known to plunge into the unknown, to leave the certain for
+the uncertain, and desert light for darkness; to cast one’s identity
+aside, assume a strange individuality, become a living lie, change name,
+position, face, and clothes--in one phrase, to cease to be one’s self,
+in order to become some one else.
+
+This is indeed, a terrible ordeal, and requires an amount of resolution
+and energy which few human beings possess. The boldest hesitate before
+such a sacrifice, and many a man has surrendered himself to justice
+rather than resort to this last extremity. And yet this was what
+Pascal Ferailleur had the courage to do, on the morrow of the shameful
+conspiracy that had deprived him of his good name. When his mother’s
+exhortations and Baron Trigault’s encouraging words had restored his
+wonted clearness of perception, the only course he felt disposed to
+pursue was to disappear and fly from the storm of slander and
+contempt; and then, in a secure hiding-place, to watch for the time and
+opportunity of rehabilitation and revenge.
+
+Madame Ferailleur and her son made all needful arrangements. “I shall
+start out at once,” said Pascal, “and before two hours have elapsed I
+shall have found a modest lodging, where we must conceal ourselves for
+the present. I know a locality that will suit us, and where no one will
+certainly ever think of looking for us.”
+
+“And I,” asked Madame Ferailleur, “what shall I do in the meantime?”
+
+“You, mother; you must, at once, sell all that we possess
+here--everything--even my books. You will only keep such of our linen
+and clothes as you can pack in three or four trunks. We are undoubtedly
+watched; and so it is of the utmost importance that every one should
+imagine I have left Paris, and that you are going to join me.”
+
+“And when everything is sold, and my trunks are ready?”
+
+“Then, mother, you must send some one for a cab, and order the driver to
+take you to the Western Railway Station, where you will have the trunks
+removed from the cab and placed in the baggage-room, as if you did not
+intend to leave Paris till the next day.”
+
+“Very good, I will do so; even if any one is watching us, he won’t be
+likely to suspect this ruse. But afterward?”
+
+“Afterward, mother, you must go to the waiting-room upstairs, and you
+will find me there. I will then take you to the rooms I shall have
+rented, and to-morrow we’ll send a messenger with the receipt the
+railway people will give you, to fetch our luggage for us.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur approved of this plan, deeming herself fortunate in
+this great calamity that despair had not destroyed her son’s energy and
+resources of mind. “Shall we retain our name, Pascal?”
+
+“Oh, no. That would be an unpardonable imprudence.”
+
+“What name shall we take, then? I must know, for they may ask me at the
+station.”
+
+He reflected for a moment and then said: “We’ll take your maiden name,
+mother. It will bring us good luck. Our new lodgings shall be hired in
+the name of the Widow Maumejan.”
+
+They talked for some time longer, anxious to take every precaution
+that prudence could suggest. And when they were convinced that they had
+forgotten nothing, Madame Ferailleur suggested that Pascal should start
+off. But before doing so he had a sacred duty to perform. “I must warn
+Marguerite,” he muttered. And seating himself at his desk, he wrote his
+beloved a concise and exact account of the events which had taken place.
+He told her of the course he intended to pursue; and promised her
+that she should know his new abode as soon as he knew it himself. In
+conclusion, he entreated her to grant him an interview, in which he
+could give her the full particulars of the affair and acquaint her
+with his hopes. As for exculpating himself, even by so much as a single
+word--as for explaining the snare he had been the victim of, the idea
+never once occurred to him. He was worthy of Mademoiselle Marguerite;
+he knew that not a doubt would disturb the perfect faith she had in his
+honor.
+
+Leaning over her son’s shoulder, Madame Ferailleur read what he had
+written. “Do you intend to trust this letter to the post?” she
+inquired. “Are you sure, perfectly sure, that it will reach Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, and not some one else who might use it against you?”
+
+Pascal shook his head. “I know how to insure its safe receipt,” he
+replied. “Some time ago, Marguerite told me that if ever any great peril
+threatened us, I might call for the housekeeper at the Chalusse mansion
+and intrust my message to her. The danger is sufficiently great to
+justify such a course in the present instance. So I shall pass down the
+Rue de Courcelles, ask to see Madame Leon, and give her this letter.
+Have no fear, my dear mother.”
+
+As he spoke, he began to pack all the legal documents which had been
+confided to him into a large box, which was to be carried to one of his
+former friends, who would distribute the papers among the people they
+belonged to. He next made a small bundle of the few important private
+papers and valuables he possessed; and then, ready for the sacrifice,
+he took a last survey of the pleasant home where success had smiled so
+favorably upon his efforts, where he had been so happy, and where he
+had cherished such bright dreams of the future. Overcome by a flood of
+recollections, the tears sprang to his eyes. He embraced his mother, and
+fled precipitately from the house.
+
+“Poor child!” murmured Madame Ferailleur; “poor Pascal!”
+
+Was she not also to be pitied? This was the second time within twenty
+years that a thunderbolt had fallen on her in the full sunlight of
+happiness. And yet now, as on the day following her husband’s death, she
+found in her heart the robust energy and heroic maternal constancy which
+enable one to rise above every misfortune. It was in a firm voice that
+she ordered her servant to go in search of the nearest furniture dealer,
+no matter which, provided he would pay cash. And when the man arrived
+she showed him through the rooms with stoical calmness. God alone knew
+how intensely she was suffering. And yet while she was waiting for the
+dealer, each piece of furniture had acquired an extraordinary value in
+her eyes. It seemed to her as if each object were a part of herself, and
+when the man turned and twisted a chair or a table she almost considered
+it a personal affront.
+
+The rich, who are accustomed from birth to the luxury that surrounds
+them, are ignorant of the terrible sufferings which attend such cases
+as these. The persons who do suffer are those of the middle classes, not
+the parvenus, but those who bid fair to become parvenus when misfortune
+overtook them. Their hearts bleed when inexorable necessity deprives
+them of all the little comforts with which they had gradually surrounded
+themselves, for there is not an object that does not recall a long
+ungratified desire, and the almost infantile joy of possession. What
+happiness they felt on the day when they purchased that large arm-chair!
+How many times they had gone to admire those velvet curtains in the
+shop windows before buying them! Those carpets represented months of
+self-denial. And that pretty clock--ah! they had fancied it would only
+herald the flight of prosperous and pleasant hours. And all these things
+the dealer handles, and shakes, and jeers at, and depreciates. He will
+scarcely condescend to purchase. Who would care to buy such trash?
+He knows that the owner is in need of money, and he profits by this
+knowledge. It is his business. “How much did this cost you?” he asks, as
+he inspects one piece of furniture after another.
+
+“So much.”
+
+“Well, you must have been terribly cheated.”
+
+You know very well that if there is a cheat in the world, it is this
+same man; but what can you say? Any other dealer you might send for
+would act in the same way. Now, Madame Ferailleur’s furniture had cost
+some ten thousand francs; and, although it was no longer new, it was
+worth at least a third of that sum. But she obtained only seven hundred
+and sixty francs for it. It is true, however, that she was in haste, and
+that she was paid cash.
+
+Nine o’clock was striking when her trunks were at last piled on a cab,
+and she called out to the driver: “Take me to the Place du Havre--to the
+railway station.” Once before, when defrauded by a scoundrel, she had
+been obliged to part with all her household treasures. Once before she
+had left her home, taking merely the wreck of her fortune with her. But
+what a difference between then and now!
+
+Then, the esteem and sympathy of all who knew her was hers, and the
+admiring praise she received divested the sacrifice of much of its
+bitterness, and increased her courage two-fold. Now, she was flying
+secretly, and alone, under an assumed name, trembling at the thought
+of pursuit or recognition--flying as a criminal flies at thought of his
+crime, and fear of punishment. She had far less suffered on the day,
+when, with her son upon her knees, she journeyed to the cemetery,
+following all that was mortal of the man who had been her only thought,
+her love, her pride, her happiness, and hope. Though crushed by the
+sense of her irreparable loss, she had not rebelled against the hand
+that struck her; but now it was human wickedness that assailed her
+through her son, and her suffering was like that of the innocent man who
+perishes for want of power to prove his innocence. Her husband’s death
+had not caused her such bitter tears as her son’s dishonor. She who was
+so proud, and who had such good reason to be proud, she could note the
+glances of scorn she was favored with as she left her home. She heard
+the insulting remarks made by some of her neighbors, who, like so many
+folks, found their chief delight in other people’s misfortunes.
+
+“Crocodile tears,” some had exclaimed. “She is going to meet her son;
+and with what he has stolen they will live like princes in America.”
+ Rumor, which enlarges and misrepresents everything, had, indeed,
+absurdly exaggerated the affair at Madame d’Argeles’s house. It was
+reported in the Rue d’Ulm that Pascal had spent every night at the
+gaming table for more than five years; and that, being an incomparable
+trickster, he had stolen millions.
+
+Meanwhile, Madame Ferailleur was approaching the station. The cab horse
+soon slackened its pace to climb the acclivity of the Rue d’Amsterdam;
+and shortly afterward the vehicle drew up in the courtyard of the
+railway station. Faithfully observing the directions which had been
+given her, the worthy woman had her trunks taken to the baggage-room,
+declaring that she should not leave Paris until the next day, whereupon
+she received a receipt from the man in charge of the room. She was
+oppressed by vague apprehensions, and looked closely at every one who
+passed her; fearing the presence of spies, and knowing full well that
+the most profound secrecy could alone insure the success of Pascal’s
+plans. However, she did not see a single suspicious looking person.
+Some Englishmen--those strange travellers, who are at the same time so
+foolishly prodigal and so ridiculously miserly--were making a great hue
+and cry over the four sous gratuity claimed by a poor commissionaire;
+but these were the only persons in sight.
+
+Partially reassured, Madame Ferailleur hastily ascended the staircase,
+and entered the large waiting-room. It was here that Pascal had promised
+to meet her; but, though she looked round on all sides, she did not
+perceive him. Still, this delay did not alarm her much; nor was it at
+all strange, since Pascal had scarcely known what he would have to do
+when he left the house. She seated herself on a bench, as far back in
+the shade as possible and gazed sadly at the ever-changing throng, when
+all of a sudden she was startled by a man, who abruptly paused in front
+of her. This man proved to be Pascal. But his hair had been closely cut,
+and he had shaved off his beard. And thus shorn, with his smooth face,
+and with a brown silk neckerchief in lieu of the white muslin tie he
+usually wore, he was so greatly changed that for an instant his own
+mother did not recognize him. “Well?” asked Madame Ferailleur, as she
+realized his identity.
+
+“I have succeeded. We have secured such rooms as I wished for.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Ah!--a long way off, my poor mother--many a league from those we have
+known and loved--in a thinly populated part of the suburbs, on the Route
+de la Revolte, just outside the fortifications, and almost at the point
+where it intersects the Asnieres road. You will not be very comfortable
+there, but you will have the pleasure of a little garden.”
+
+She rose, summoning all her energy. “What does it matter where or what
+our abode is?” she interrupted, with forced gayety. “I am confident that
+we shall not remain there long.”
+
+But it seemed as if her son did not share her hopes, for he remained
+silent and dejected; and as his mother observed him closely, she fancied
+by the expression of his eyes, that some new anxiety had been added to
+all his other troubles.
+
+“What is the matter?” she inquired, unable to master her alarm--“what
+has happened?”
+
+“Ah! a great misfortune!”
+
+“My God! still another?”
+
+“I have been to the Rue de Courcelles; and I have spoken to Madame
+Leon.”
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+“The Count de Chalusse died this morning.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur drew a long breath, as if greatly relieved. She was
+certainly expecting to hear something very different, and she did
+not understand why this death should be a great misfortune to them
+personally. One point, however, she did realize, that it was imprudent,
+and even dangerous, to carry on this conversation in a hall where a
+hundred persons were passing and repassing every minute. So she took her
+son’s arm, and led him away, saying: “Come, let us go.”
+
+Pascal had kept the cab which he had been using during the afternoon;
+and having installed his mother inside, he got in himself, and gave his
+new address to the driver. “Now tell me all,” said Madame Ferailleur.
+
+Poor Pascal was in that state of mind in which it costs one actual
+suffering to talk; but he wished to mitigate his mother’s anxiety as
+much as possible; and moreover, he did not like her to suppose him
+wanting in endurance. So, with a powerful effort, he shook off the
+lethargy that was creeping over him, and in a voice loud enough to be
+heard above the noise of the carriage wheels, he began: “This is what
+I have done, mother, since I left you. I remembered that some time ago,
+while I was appraising some property, I had seen three or four houses
+on the Route de la Revolte, admirably suited to our present wants.
+Naturally I went there first. A suite of rooms was vacant in one of
+these houses. I have taken it; and in order that nothing may interfere
+with the liberty of my movements, I have paid six months’ rent in
+advance. Here is the receipt, drawn up in the name we shall henceforth
+bear.” So saying, he showed his mother a document in which the landlord
+declared that he had received from M. Maumejan the sum of three hundred
+and fifty francs for two quarters’ rent, etc. “My bargain concluded,” he
+resumed, “I returned into Paris, and entered the first furniture shop
+I saw. I meant to hire the necessary things to furnish our little
+home, but the dealer made all sorts of objections. He trembled for his
+furniture, he wanted a sum of money to be deposited as security, or the
+guarantee of three responsible business men. Seeing this, and knowing
+that I had no time to lose, I preferred to purchase such articles as
+were absolutely necessary. One of the conditions of the purchase was
+that everything should be in the house and in its place by eleven
+o’clock to-night. As I stipulated in writing that the dealer should
+forfeit three hundred francs in case he failed to fulfil his agreement,
+I can rely upon his punctuality; I confided the key of our lodgings to
+him, and he must now be there waiting for us.”
+
+So, before thinking of his love, and Mademoiselle Marguerite, Pascal had
+taken the necessary measures for the execution of his plan to regain his
+lost honor. Madame Ferailleur had scarcely supposed him capable of so
+much courage and firmness, and she rewarded him with a warm pressure of
+the hand. Then, as he was silent: “When did you see Madame Leon, then?”
+ she asked.
+
+“When all the household arrangements were completed, mother. On leaving
+the furniture-shop, I found that I had still an hour and a quarter
+before me. I could defer no longer, and at the risk of obliging you to
+wait for me, I hastened to the Rue de Courcelles.”
+
+It was evident that Pascal felt extreme embarrassment in speaking of
+Mademoiselle Marguerite. There is an instinctive delicacy and dislike of
+publicity in all deep passion, and true and chaste love is ever
+averse to laying aside the veil with which it conceals itself from the
+inquisitive. Madame Ferailleur understood this feeling; but she was a
+mother, and as such, jealous of her son’s tenderness, and anxious for
+particulars concerning this rival who had suddenly usurped her place in
+the heart where she had long reigned supreme. She was also a woman--that
+is to say, distrustful and suspicious in reference to all other women.
+So, without taking pity on Pascal’s embarrassment, she urged him to
+continue.
+
+“I gave the driver five francs on condition that he would hurry his
+horses,” he resumed, “and we were rattling along at a rapid rate, when,
+suddenly, near the Hotel de Chalusse, I noticed a change in the motion
+of the vehicle. I looked out and saw that we were driving over a thick
+layer of straw which had been spread across the street. I can scarcely
+describe my feelings on seeing this. A cold perspiration came over me--I
+fancied I saw Marguerite in agony, dying--far from me, and calling me in
+vain. Without waiting for the vehicle to stop, I sprang to the ground,
+and was obliged to exercise all my self-control to prevent myself from
+rushing into the concierge’s lodge, and wildly asking: ‘Who is dying
+here?’ But an unforeseen difficulty presented itself. It was evident
+that I ought not to go in person to inquire for Madame Leon. Whom could
+I send? There were no commissionaires at the street corners, and nothing
+would have induced me to confide the message to any of the lads in the
+neighboring wine-shops. Fortunately, my driver--the same who is driving
+us now--is an obliging fellow, and I intrusted him with the commission,
+while I stood guard over his horses. Ten minutes later, Madame Leon left
+the house and came to meet me. I knew her at once, for I had seen her a
+hundred times with Marguerite when they lived near the Luxembourg; and
+having seen me pass and repass so often, she recognized me in spite
+of my changed appearance. Her first words, ‘M. de Chalusse is dead,’
+relieved my heart of a terrible weight. I could breathe again. But she
+was in such haste that she could not stop to tell me any particulars.
+Still I gave her my letter, and she promised me a prompt reply from
+Marguerite. Everybody will be up and moving about the house to-night,
+and she said she could easily make her escape for a few moments. So, at
+half-past twelve to-night she will be at the little garden gate, and if
+I am promptly at hand, I shall have a reply from Marguerite.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur seemed to be expecting something more, and as Pascal
+remained silent, she remarked: “You spoke of a great misfortune. In what
+does it consist? I do not perceive it.”
+
+With an almost threatening gesture, and in a gloomy voice, he answered:
+“The misfortune is this: if it had not been for this abominable
+conspiracy, which has dishonored me, Marguerite would have been my wife
+before a month had elapsed, for now she is free, absolutely free to obey
+the dictates of her own will and heart.”
+
+“Then why do you complain?”
+
+“Oh, mother! don’t you understand? How can I marry her? Would it be
+right for me to think of offering her a dishonored name? It seems to me
+that I should be guilty of a most contemptible act--of something even
+worse than a crime--if I dared speak to her of my love and our future
+before I have crushed the villains who have ruined me.”
+
+Regret, anger, and the consciousness of his present powerlessness drew
+from him tears which fell upon Madame Ferailleur’s heart like molten
+lead; but she succeeded in concealing her agony. “All the more reason,”
+ she answered, almost coldly, “why you should not lose a second, but
+devote all your energy and intelligence to the work of justification.”
+
+“Oh, I shall have my revenge, never fear. But in the meantime, what is
+to become of HER? Think, mother, she is alone in the world, without a
+single friend. It is enough to drive one mad!”
+
+“She loves you, you tell me. What have you to fear? Now she will be
+freed from the persecutions of the suitor they intended to force upon
+her, whom she has spoken to you about--the Marquis de Valorsay, is it
+not?”
+
+This name sent Pascal’s blood to his brain. “Ah, the scoundrel!” he
+exclaimed. “If there was a God in heaven----”
+
+“Wretched boy!” interrupted Madame Ferailleur; “you blaspheme when
+Providence has already interposed on your behalf. And who suffers most
+at this moment, do you think?--you, strong in your innocence, or the
+marquis, who realizes that he has committed an infamous crime in vain?”
+
+The sudden stopping of the cab put an end to their conversation.
+Leaving the Route d’Asnieres, the driver had turned into the Route de la
+Revolte, and had drawn up in front of an unpretentious two-storied house
+which stood entirely alone. “We have arrived, mother,” said Pascal.
+
+A man, who was standing on the threshold, stepped forward to open
+the cab door. It was the furniture-dealer. “Here you are at last,
+M. Maumejan,” said he. “Come in, and you’ll see that I’ve strictly
+fulfilled the conditions of our contract.” His words proved true. He was
+paid the sum stipulated, and went away satisfied.
+
+“Now, my dear mother,” said Pascal, “allow me to do the honors of the
+poor abode I have selected.”
+
+He had taken only the ground floor of this humble dwelling. The story
+above, which had an independent entrance and staircase, was occupied
+by the quiet family of the owner. Although the space was small, the
+architect had made the most of it. He had divided it into four small
+rooms, separated by a corridor; and the kitchen looked out upon a little
+garden about four times as large as an ordinary sheet. The furniture
+which Pascal had purchased was more than plain; but it was well suited
+to this humble abode. It had just been brought in, but any one would
+have supposed it had been in its place for a couple of years.
+
+“We shall be very comfortable here,” declared Madame Ferailleur. “Yes,
+very comfortable. By to-morrow evening you won’t recognize the place.
+I have saved a few trifles from the wreck--some curtains, a couple of
+lamps, a clock--you’ll see. It’s wonderful how much four trunks can be
+made to hold.”
+
+When his mother set him such a noble example Pascal would have blushed
+to allow himself to be outdone. He very quietly explained the reasons
+which had influenced him in choosing these rooms, the principal one
+being that there was no concierge, and he was therefore assured absolute
+liberty in his movements, as well as entire immunity from indiscreet
+gossip. “Certainly, my dear mother,” he added, “it is a lonely and
+unattractive neighborhood; but you will find all the necessaries of life
+near at hand. The owner of the house lives on the floor above. I have
+talked with the wife--they seem to be honest, quiet people--and she will
+pilot you about. I inquired for some one to do the heavy work, and she
+mentioned a poor woman named Vantrasson, who lives in the neighborhood,
+and who is anxious to obtain employment. They were to inform her this
+evening, and you will see her to-morrow. And above all, don’t forget
+that you are henceforth Madame Maumejan.”
+
+Occupied with these arrangements for the future, he was still talking,
+when Madame Ferailleur, drawing out her watch, gently remarked: “And
+your appointment? You forget that the cab is waiting at the door.”
+
+It was true; he had forgotten it. He caught up his hat, hastily
+embraced his mother, and sprang into the vehicle. The horses were almost
+exhausted, but the driver was so willing that he found a means of making
+them trot as far as the Rue de Courcelles. However, on arriving there,
+he declared that his animals and himself could endure no more, and after
+receiving the amount due to him, he departed.
+
+The air was chilly, the night dark, and the street deserted. The gloomy
+silence was only disturbed at long intervals by the opening or shutting
+of a door, or by the distant tread of some belated pedestrian. Having at
+least twenty minutes to wait, Pascal sat down on the curbstone opposite
+the Hotel de Chalusse, and fixed his eyes upon the building as if he
+were striving to penetrate the massive walls, and see what was passing
+within. Only one window--that of the room where the dead man was
+lying--was lighted up, and he could vaguely distinguish the motionless
+form of a woman standing with her forehead pressed against the pane
+of glass. A prey to the indescribable agony which seizes a man when
+he feels that his life is at stake--that his future is about to be
+irrevocably decided--Pascal counted the seconds as they passed by. He
+found it impossible to reflect, to deliberate, to decide on any plan
+of action. He forgot the tortures he had endured during the last
+twenty-four hours; Coralth, Valorsay, Madame d’Argeles, the baron, no
+longer existed for him. He forgot his loss of honor and position, and
+the disgrace attached to his name. The past was annihilated, as it
+were, and he could think of no future beyond the next few moments. His
+physical condition undoubtedly contributed to his mental weakness. He
+had taken no food that day, and he was faint from want of nourishment.
+He had come without an overcoat, moreover, and the cold night air
+chilled him to the bone. There was a strange ringing in his ears, and
+a mist swam before his eyes. At last the bell at the Beaujon Hospital
+tolled the appointed hour, and roused him from his lethargy. He seemed
+to hear a voice crying to him in the darkness, “Up! the hour has come!”
+
+Trembling, and with tottering limbs, he dragged himself to the little
+gate opening into the gardens of the Chalusse mansion. Soon it softly
+opened, and Madame Leon appeared. Ah! it was not she that Pascal had
+hoped to see. Unfortunate man! He had been listening to that mysterious
+echo of our own desires which we so often mistake for a presentiment;
+and it had whispered in his heart: “Marguerite herself will come!”
+
+With the candor of wretchedness, he could not refrain from telling
+Madame Leon the hope he had entertained. But, on hearing him, the
+housekeeper recoiled with a gesture of outraged propriety, and
+reproachfully exclaimed: “What are you thinking of, monsieur? What!
+could you suppose that Mademoiselle Marguerite would abandon her place
+by her dead father’s bedside to come to a rendezvous? Ah! you should
+think better of her than that, the dear child!”
+
+He sighed deeply, and in a scarcely audible voice, he asked: “Hasn’t she
+even sent me a reply?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, she has; and although it is a great indiscretion on my
+part, I bring you the letter. Here it is. Now, good-evening. I must go
+at once. What would become of me if the servants discovered my absence,
+and found that I had gone out alone----”
+
+She was hurrying away, but Pascal detained her. “Pray wait until I see
+what she has written,” he said, imploringly. “I shall perhaps be obliged
+to send her some message in reply.”
+
+Madame Leon obeyed, though with rather bad grace, and not without
+several times repeating: “Make haste!”--while Pascal ran to a street
+lamp near by. It was not a letter that Marguerite had sent him, but
+a short note, written on a scrap of crumpled paper, folded, and not
+sealed. It was written in pencil; and the handwriting was irregular and
+indistinct. Still, by the flickering light of the gas, Pascal deciphered
+the word “Monsieur.” It made him shudder. “Monsieur!” What did this
+mean? In writing to him of recent times, Marguerite had always said, “My
+dear Pascal,” or, “My friend.”
+
+Nevertheless, he continued: “I have not had the courage to resist the
+entreaties made to me by the Count de Chalusse, my father, in his last
+agony. I have solemnly pledged myself to become the wife of the Marquis
+de Valorsay.
+
+“One cannot break a promise made to the dying. I shall keep mine, even
+though my heart break. I shall do my duty. God will give me strength and
+courage. Forget her whom you loved. She is now the betrothed of another,
+and honor commands her to forget your very name. Once more, and for the
+last time, farewell! If you love me, you will not try to see me again.
+It would only add to my misery.
+
+“Think as though she were dead--she who signs herself--MARGUERITE.”
+
+The commonplace wording of this letter, and the mistakes in spelling
+that marred it, entirely escaped Pascal’s notice. He only understood one
+thing, that Marguerite was lost to him, and that she was on the point of
+becoming the wife of the vile scoundrel who had planned the snare which
+had ruined him at the Hotel d’Argeles. Breathless, despairing, and half
+crazed with rage, he sprang toward Madame Leon. “Marguerite, where is
+she?” he demanded, in a hoarse, unnatural voice; “I must see her!”
+
+“Oh! monsieur, what do you ask? Is it possible? Allow me to explain
+to you----” But the housekeeper was unable to finish her sentence, for
+Pascal had caught her by the hands, and holding them in a vicelike grip,
+he repeated: “I must see Marguerite, and speak to her. I must tell her
+that she has been deceived; I will unmask the scoundrel who----”
+
+The frightened housekeeper struggled with all her might, trying her best
+to reach the little gate which was standing open. “You hurt me!” she
+cried. “Are you mad? Let me go or I shall call for help?” And twice
+indeed she shouted in a loud voice, “Help! murder!”
+
+But her cries were lost in the stillness of the night. If any one
+heard them, no one came; still they recalled Pascal to a sense of the
+situation, and he was ashamed of his violence. He released Madame Leon,
+and his manner suddenly became as humble as it had been threatening.
+“Excuse me,” he said, entreatingly. “I am suffering so much that I
+don’t know what I’m doing. I beseech you to take me to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite, or else run and beg her to come here. I ask but a moment.”
+
+Madame Leon pretended to be listening attentively; but, in reality, she
+was quietly manoeuvring to gain the garden gate. Soon she succeeded in
+doing so, whereupon, with marvellous strength and agility, she pushed
+Pascal away, and sprang inside the garden, closing the gate after her,
+and saying as she did so, “Begone, you scoundrel!”
+
+This was the final blow; and for more than a minute Pascal stood
+motionless in front of the gate, stupefied with mingled rage and sorrow.
+His condition was not unlike that of a man who, after falling to the
+bottom of a precipice, is dragging himself up, all mangled and bleeding,
+swearing that he will yet save himself, when suddenly a heavy stone
+which he had loosened in his descent, falls forward and crushes him. All
+that he had so far endured was nothing in comparison with the thought
+that Valorsay would wed Marguerite. Was such a thing possible? Would
+God permit such a monstrous iniquity? “No, that shall never be,” he
+muttered. “I will murder the scoundrel rather; and afterward justice may
+do whatever it likes with me.”
+
+He experienced that implacable, merciless thirsting for vengeance
+which does not even recoil before the commission of a crime to secure
+satisfaction, and this longing inflamed him with such energy that,
+although he had been so utterly exhausted a few moments before--he was
+not half an hour in making his way back to his new home. His mother, who
+was waiting for him with an anxious heart, was surprised by the flush
+on his cheeks, and the light glittering in his eyes. “Ah, you bring good
+news,” she exclaimed.
+
+His only answer was to hand her the letter which Madame Leon had given
+him, saying as he did so, “Read.”
+
+Madame Ferailleur’s eyes fell upon the words: “Once more, and for the
+last time, farewell!” She understood everything, turned very pale, and
+in a trembling voice exclaimed: “Don’t grieve, my son; the girl did not
+love you.”
+
+“Oh, mother! if you knew----”
+
+But she checked him with a gesture, and lifting her head proudly, she
+said: “I know what it is to love, Pascal--it is to have perfect faith.
+If the whole world had accused your father of a crime, would a single
+doubt of his innocence have ever entered my mind? This girl has doubted
+you. They have told her that you cheated at cards--and she has believed
+it. You have failed to see that this oath at the bedside of the dying
+count is only an excuse.”
+
+It was true; the thought had not occurred to Pascal. “My God!” he cried
+in agony; “are you the only one who believes in my innocence?”
+
+“Without proofs--yes. It must be your task to obtain these proofs.”
+
+“And I shall obtain them,” he rejoined, in a tone of determination. “I
+am strong now that I have Marguerite’s life to defend--for they have
+deceived her, mother, or she would never have given me up. Oh! don’t
+shake your head. I love her, and so I trust her.”
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+
+M. Isidore Fortunat was not the man to go to sleep over a plan when it
+was once formed. Whenever he said to himself, “I’ll do this, or that,”
+ he did it as soon as possible--that very evening, rather than the next
+day. Having sworn that he would find out Madame d’Argeles’s son, the
+heir to the Count de Chalusse’s millions, it did not take him long
+to decide which of his agents he would select to assist him in this
+difficult task. Thus his first care, on returning home, was to ask his
+bookkeeper for Victor Chupin’s address.
+
+“He lives in the Faubourg Saint-Denis,” replied the bookkeeper, “at
+No.--.”
+
+“Very well,” muttered M. Fortunat; “I’ll go there as soon as I have
+eaten my dinner.” And, indeed, as soon as he had swallowed his coffee,
+he requested Madame Dodelin to bring him his overcoat, and half an hour
+later he reached the door of the house where his clerk resided.
+
+The house was one of those huge, ungainly structures, large enough
+to shelter the population of a small village, with three or four
+courtyards, as many staircases as there are letters in the alphabet,
+and a concierge who seldom remembers the names of the tenants except on
+quarter-days when he goes to collect the rent, and at New Year, when he
+expects a gratuity. But, by one of those lucky chances made expressly
+for M. Fortunat, the porter did recollect Chupin, knew him and was
+kindly disposed toward him, and so he told the visitor exactly how and
+where to find him. It was very simple. He had only to cross the first
+courtyard, take staircase D, on the left-hand side, ascend to the sixth
+floor, go straight ahead, etc., etc.
+
+Thanks to this unusual civility, M. Fortunat did not lose his way more
+than five times before reaching the door upon which was fastened a bit
+of pasteboard bearing Victor Chupin’s name. Noticing that a bell-rope
+hung beside the door, M. Fortunat pulled it, whereupon there was a
+tinkling, and a voice called out, “Come in!” He complied, and found
+himself in a small and cheaply furnished room, which was, however,
+radiant with the cleanliness which is in itself a luxury. The waxed
+floor shone like a mirror; the furniture was brilliantly polished, and
+the counterpane and curtains of the bed were as white as snow. What
+first attracted the agent’s attention was the number of superfluous
+articles scattered about the apartment--some plaster statuettes on
+either side of a gilt clock, an etagere crowded with knickknacks, and
+five or six passable engravings. When he entered, Victor Chupin was
+sitting, in his shirt-sleeves, at a little table, where, by the light of
+a small lamp, and with a zeal that brought a flush to his cheeks, he was
+copying, in a very fair hand a page from a French dictionary. Near the
+bed, in the shade, sat a poorly but neatly clad woman about forty years
+of age, who was knitting industriously with some long wooden needles.
+
+“M. Victor Chupin?” inquired M. Fortunat.
+
+The sound of his voice made the young man spring to his feet. He quickly
+lifted the shade from his lamp, and, without attempting to conceal his
+astonishment, exclaimed: “M’sieur Fortunat!--at this hour! Where’s
+the fire?” Then, in a grave manner that contrasted strangely with
+his accustomed levity: “Mother,” said he, “this is one of my patrons,
+M’sieur Fortunat--you know--the gentleman whom I collect for.”
+
+The knitter rose, bowed respectfully, and said: “I hope, sir, that you
+are pleased with my son, and that he’s honest.”
+
+“Certainly, madame,” replied the agent; “certainly. Victor is one of my
+best and most reliable clerks.”
+
+“Then I’m content,” said the woman, reseating herself.
+
+Chupin also seemed delighted “This is my good mother, sir,” said he.
+“She’s almost blind now; but, in less than six months she will be able
+to stand at her window and see a pin in the middle of the street, so
+the physician who is treating her eyes promised me; then we shall be
+all right again. But take a seat, sir. May we venture to offer you
+anything?”
+
+Although his clerk had more than once alluded to his responsibilities,
+M. Fortunat was amazed. He marvelled at the perfume of honesty which
+exhaled from these poor people, at the dignity of this humble woman, and
+at the protecting and respectful affection evinced by her son--a young
+man, whose usual tone of voice and general behavior had seemed to
+indicate that he was decidedly a scapegrace. “Thanks, Victor,” he
+replied, “I won’t take any refreshment. I’ve just left the dinner-table.
+I’ve come to give you my instructions respecting a very important and
+very urgent matter.”
+
+Chupin at once understood that his employer wished for a private
+interview. Accordingly, he took up the lamp, opened a door, and, in the
+pompous tone of a rich banker who is inviting some important personage
+to enter his private room, he said: “Will you be kind enough to step
+into my chamber, m’sieur?”
+
+The room which Chupin so emphatically denominated his “chamber” was a
+tiny nook, extraordinarily clean, it is true, but scantily furnished
+with a small iron bedstead, a trunk, and a chair. He offered the chair
+to his visitor, placed the lamp on the trunk, and seated himself on the
+bed, saying as he did so: “This is scarcely on so grand a scale as your
+establishment, m’sieur; but I am going to ask the landlord to gild the
+window of my snuff-box.”
+
+M. Fortunat was positively touched. He held out his hand to his clerk
+and exclaimed: “You’re a worthy fellow, Chupin.”
+
+“Nonsense, m’sieur, one does what one can; but, zounds! how hard it is
+to make money honestly! If my good mother could only see, she would
+help me famously, for there is no one like her for work! But you see one
+can’t become a millionaire by knitting!”
+
+“Doesn’t your father live with you?”
+
+Chupin’s eyes gleamed angrily. “Ah! don’t speak of that man to me,
+m’sieur!” he exclaimed, “or I shall hurt somebody.” And then, as if he
+felt it necessary to explain and excuse his vindictive exclamation, he
+added: “My father, Polyte Chupin, is a good-for-nothing scamp. And yet
+he’s had his opportunities. First, he was fortunate enough to find a
+wife like my mother, who is honesty itself--so much so that she was
+called Toinon the Virtuous when she was young. She idolized him, and
+nearly killed herself by working to earn money for him. And yet he
+abused her so much, and made her weep so much, that she has become
+blind. But that’s not all. One morning there came to him--I don’t know
+whence or how--enough money for him to have lived like a gentleman. I
+believe it was a munificent reward for some service he had rendered a
+great nobleman at the time when my grandmother, who is now dead, kept a
+dramshop called the Poivriere. Any other man would have treasured that
+money, but not he. What he did was to carouse day and night, and all the
+while my poor mother was working her fingers to the bone to earn food
+for me. She never saw a penny of all his money; and, indeed, once when
+she asked him to pay the rent, he beat her so cruelly that she was laid
+up in bed for a week. However, monsieur, you can very readily understand
+that when a man leads that kind of life, he speedily comes to the end of
+his banking account. So my father was soon without a penny in his purse,
+and then he was obliged to work in order to get something to eat, and
+this didn’t suit him at all. But when he didn’t know where to find a
+crust he remembered us; he sought us out, and found us. Once I lent him
+a hundred sous; the next day he came for forty more, and the next for
+three francs; then for five francs again. And so it was every day: ‘Give
+me this, or give me that!’ At last I said, ‘Enough of this, the bank’s
+closed!’ Then, what do you think he did? He watched the house until he
+saw me go out; then he came in with a second-hand furniture-dealer,
+and tried to sell everything, pretending that he was the master. And
+my poor, dear mother would have allowed him to do it. Fortunately, I
+happened to come in again. Let him sell my furniture? Not I. I would
+sooner have been chopped in pieces! I went and complained to the
+commissary of police, who made my father leave the house, and since then
+we’ve lived in peace.”
+
+Certainly this was more than sufficient to explain and excuse Victor
+Chupin’s indignation. And yet he had prudently withheld the most serious
+and important cause of his dislike. What he refrained from telling
+was that years before, when he was still a mere child, without will or
+discernment, his father had taken him from his mother, and had started
+him down that terrible descent, which inevitably leads one to prison or
+the gallows, unless there be an almost miraculous interposition on one’s
+behalf. This miracle had occurred in Chupin’s case; but he did not boast
+of it.
+
+“Come, come!” said M. Fortunat, “don’t worry too much about it. A
+father’s a father after all, and yours will undoubtedly reform by and
+by.”
+
+He said this as he would have said anything else, out of politeness and
+for the sake of testifying a friendly interest; but he really cared no
+more for this information concerning the Chupin family than the grand
+Turk. His first emotion had quickly vanished; and he was beginning to
+find these confidential disclosures rather wearisome. “Let us get back
+to business,” he remarked; “that is to say, to Casimir. What did you do
+with the fool after my departure?”
+
+“First, monsieur, I sobered him; which was no easy task. The greedy
+idiot had converted himself into a wine-cask! At last, however, when he
+could talk as well as you and I, and walk straight, I took him back to
+the Hotel de Chalusse.”
+
+“That was right. But didn’t you have some business to transact with
+him?”
+
+“That’s been arranged, monsieur; the agreement has been signed. The
+count will have the best of funerals--the finest hearse out, with six
+horses, twenty-four mourning coaches--a grand display, in fact. It will
+be worth seeing.”
+
+M. Fortunat smiled graciously. “That ought to bring you a handsome
+commission,” he said, benignly.
+
+Employed by the job, Chupin was the master of his own time, free to
+utilize his intelligence and industry as he chose, but M. Fortunat did
+not like his subordinates to make any money except through him. Hence
+his approval, in the present instance, was so remarkable that it
+awakened Chupin’s suspicions. “I shall make a few sous, probably,” he
+modestly replied, “a trifle to aid my good mother in keeping the pot
+boiling.”
+
+“So much the better, my boy,” said M. Fortunat. “I like to see money
+gained by those who make a good use of it. And to prove this, I’m
+about to employ you in an affair which will pay you handsomely if you
+prosecute it successfully.”
+
+Chupin’s eyes brightened at first but grew dark a moment afterward, for
+delight had been quickly followed by a feeling of distrust. He thought
+it exceedingly strange that an employer should take the trouble to climb
+to a sixth floor merely for the purpose of conferring a favor on his
+clerk. There must be something behind all this; and so it behove him to
+keep his eyes open. However, he knew how to conceal his real feelings;
+and it was with a joyous air that he exclaimed: “Eh! What? Money? Now?
+What must I do to earn it?”
+
+“Oh! a mere trifle,” replied the agent; “almost nothing, indeed.” And
+drawing his chair nearer to the bed on which his employee was seated,
+he added: “But first, one question, Victor. By the way in which a woman
+looks at a young man in the street, at the theatre or anywhere--would
+you know if she were watching her son?”
+
+Chupin shrugged his shoulders. “What a question!” he retorted.
+“Nonsense! monsieur, it would be impossible to deceive me. I should only
+have to remember my mother’s eyes when I return home in the evening.
+Poor woman! although she’s half blind, she sees me--and if you wish
+to make her happy, you’ve only to tell her I’m the handsomest and most
+amiable youth in Paris.”
+
+M. Fortunat could not refrain from rubbing his hands, so delighted was
+he to see his idea so perfectly understood and so admirably expressed.
+“Good!” he declared; “very good! That’s intelligence, if I am any judge.
+I have not been deceived in you, Victor.”
+
+Victor was on fire with curiosity. “What am I to do, monsieur?” he asked
+eagerly.
+
+“This: you must follow a woman whom I shall point out to you, follow her
+everywhere without once losing sight of her, and so skilfully as not to
+let her suspect it. You must watch her every glance, and when her eyes
+tell you that she is looking at her son, your task will be nearly over.
+You will then only have to follow this son, and find out his name and
+address, what he does, and how he lives. I don’t know if I explain what
+I mean very clearly.”
+
+This doubt was awakened in M. Fortunat’s mind by Chupin’s features,
+which were expressive of lively astonishment and discontent. “Excuse me,
+monsieur,” he said, at last, “I do not understand at all.”
+
+“It’s very simple, however. The lady in question has a son about twenty.
+I know it--I’m sure of it. But she denies it; she conceals the fact, and
+he doesn’t even know her. She secretly watches over him, however--she
+provides him with money, and every day she finds some way of seeing him.
+Now, it is to my interest to find this son.”
+
+Chupin’s mobile face became actually threatening in its expression; he
+frowned darkly, and his lips quivered. Still this did not prevent M.
+Fortunat from adding, with the assurance of a man who does not even
+suspect the possibility of a refusal: “Now, when shall we set about our
+task?”
+
+“Never!” cried Chupin, violently; and, rising, he continued: “No! I
+wouldn’t let my good mother eat bread earned in that way--it would
+strangle her! Turn spy! I? Thanks--some one else may have the job!” He
+had become as red as a turkey-cock, and such was his indignation that he
+forgot his accustomed reserve and the caution with which he had so far
+concealed his antecedents. “I know this game--I’ve tried it!” he went
+on, vehemently. “One might as well take one’s ticket to prison by a
+direct road. I should be there now if it hadn’t been for Monsieur Andre.
+I was thirsting for gold, and, like the brigand that I was, I should
+have killed the man; but in revenge he drew me from the mire and placed
+my feet on solid ground once more. And now, shall I go back to my vile
+tricks again? Why, I’d rather cut my leg off! I’m to hunt down this poor
+woman--I’m to discover her secret so that you may extort money from her,
+am I? No, not I! I should like to be rich, and I shall be rich; but I’ll
+make my money honestly. I hope to touch my hundred-franc pieces without
+being obliged to wash my hands afterward. So, a very good evening to
+your establishment.”
+
+M. Fortunat was amazed, and at the same time much annoyed, to find
+himself forsaken on account of such a trifle. He feared, too, that
+Chupin might let his tongue wag if he left his employment. So, since he
+had confided this project to Chupin, he was determined that Chupin alone
+should carry it into execution. Assuming his most severe and injured
+manner, he sternly exclaimed: “I think you have lost your senses.”
+ His demeanor and intonation were so perfectly cool that Chupin seemed
+slightly abashed. “It seems that you think me capable of urging you to
+commit some dangerous and dishonorable act,” continued M. Fortunat.
+
+“Why--no--m’sieur--I assure you.”
+
+There was such evident hesitation in the utterance of this “no” that the
+agent at once resumed: “Come, you are not ignorant of the fact that
+in addition to my business as a collector, I give my attention to the
+discovery of the heirs of unclaimed estates? You are aware of this?
+Very well then: pray tell me how I am to find them without searching for
+them? If I wish this lady to be watched, it is only in view of reaching
+a poor lad who is likely to be defrauded of the wealth that rightfully
+belongs to him. And when I give you a chance to make forty or fifty
+francs in a couple of days, you receive my proposition in this style!
+You are an ingrate and a fool, Victor!”
+
+Chupin’s nature combined, in a remarkable degree, the vices and
+peculiarities of the dweller in the Paris faubourgs, who is born old,
+but who, when aged in years, still remains a gamin. In his youth he had
+seen many strange things, and acquired a knowledge of life that would
+have put the experience of a philosopher to shame. But he was not fit to
+cope with M. Fortunat, who had an immense advantage over him, by reason
+of his position of employer, as well as by his fortune and education.
+So Chupin was both bewildered and disconcerted by the cool arguments his
+patron brought forward; and what most effectually allayed his suspicions
+was the small compensation offered for the work--merely forty or fifty
+francs. “Small potatoes, upon my word!” he thought. “Just the price of
+an honest service; he would have offered more for a piece of rascality.”
+ So, after considering a moment, he said, aloud: “Very well; I’m your
+man, m’sieur.”
+
+M. Fortunat was secretly laughing at the success of his ruse. Having
+come with the intention of offering his agent a handsome sum, he was
+agreeably surprised to find that Chupin’s scruples would enable him to
+save his money. “If I hadn’t found you engaged in study, Victor,” he
+said, “I should have thought you had been drinking. What venomous insect
+stung you so suddenly? Haven’t I confided similar undertakings to you
+twenty times since you have been in my employment? Who ransacked Paris
+to find certain debtors who were concealing themselves? Who discovered
+the Vantrassons for me? Victor Chupin. Very well. Then allow me to say
+that I see nothing in this case in any way differing from the others,
+nor can I understand why this should be wrong, if the others were not.”
+
+Chupin could only have answered this remark by saying that there had
+been no mystery about the previous affairs, that they had not been
+proposed to him late at night at his own home, and that he had acted
+openly, as a person who represents a creditor has a recognized right
+to act. But, though he felt that there WAS a difference in the present
+case, it would have been very difficult for him to explain in what this
+difference consisted. Hence, in his most resolute tone: “I’m only a
+fool, m’sieur,” he declared; “but I shall know how to make amends for my
+folly.”
+
+“That means you have recovered your senses,” said M. Fortunat,
+ironically. “Really, that’s fortunate. But let me give you one bit
+of advice: watch yourself, and learn to bridle your tongue. You won’t
+always find me in such a good humor as I am this evening.”
+
+So saying, he rose, passed out into the adjoining room, bowed civilly
+to his clerk’s mother, and went off. His last words, as he crossed the
+threshold, were, “So I shall rely upon you. Be at the office to-morrow a
+little before noon.”
+
+“It’s agreed m’sieur.”
+
+The blind woman had risen, and had bowed respectfully; but, as soon as
+she was alone with her son, she asked: “What is this business he bids
+you undertake in such a high and mighty tone?”
+
+“Oh! an every-day matter, mother.”
+
+The old woman shook her head. “Why were you talking so loud then?” she
+inquired. “Weren’t you quarrelling? It must be something very grave when
+it’s necessary to conceal it from me. I couldn’t see your employer’s
+face, my son; but I heard his voice, and it didn’t please me. It isn’t
+the voice of an honest, straightforward man. Take care, Toto, and don’t
+allow yourself to be cajoled--be prudent.”
+
+However, it was quite unnecessary to recommend prudence to Victor
+Chupin. He had promised his assistance, but not without a mental
+reservation. “No need to see danger till it comes,” he had said to
+himself. “If the thing proves to be of questionable propriety after all,
+then good-evening; I desert.”
+
+It remains to know what he meant by questionable propriety; the meaning
+of the expression is rather vague. He had returned in all honesty and
+sincerity of purpose to an honest life, and nothing in the world would
+have induced him, avaricious though he was, to commit an act that was
+positively wrong. Only the line that separates good from evil was not
+very clearly defined in his mind. This was due in a great measure to his
+education, and to the fact that it had been long before he realized that
+police regulations do not constitute the highest moral law. It was due
+also to chance, and, since he had no decided calling, to the necessity
+of depending for a livelihood upon the many strange professions which
+impecunious and untrained individuals, both of the higher and lower
+classes, adopt in Paris.
+
+However, on the following morning he arrayed himself in his best
+apparel, and at exactly half-past eleven o’clock he rang at his
+employer’s door. M. Fortunat had made quick work with his clients that
+morning, and was ready, dressed to go out. He took up his hat and said
+only the one word, “Come.” The place where the agent conducted his
+clerk was the wine-shop in the Rue de Berry, where he had made inquiries
+respecting Madame d’Argeles the evening before; and on arriving there,
+he generously offered him a breakfast. Before entering, however, he
+pointed out Madame d’Argeles’s pretty house on the opposite side of the
+street, and said to him: “The woman whom you are to follow, and whose
+son you are to discover, will emerge from that house.”
+
+At that moment, after a night passed in meditating upon his mother’s
+prophetic warnings, Chupin was again beset by the same scruples which
+had so greatly disturbed him on the previous evening. However, they
+soon vanished when he heard the wine-vendor, in reply to M. Fortunat’s
+skilful questions, begin to relate all he knew concerning Madame Lia
+d’Argeles, and the scandalous doings at her house. The seeker after lost
+heirs and his clerk were served at a little table near the door;
+and while they partook of the classical beef-steak and; potatoes--M.
+Fortunat eating daintily, and Chupin bolting his food with the appetite
+of a ship-wrecked mariner--they watched the house opposite.
+
+Madame d’Argeles received on Saturdays, and, as Chupin remarked, “there
+was a regular procession of visitors.”
+
+Standing beside M. Fortunat, and flattered by the attention which such
+a well-dressed gentleman paid to his chatter, the landlord of the house
+mentioned the names of all the visitors he knew. And he knew a good
+number of them, for the coachmen came to his shop for refreshments when
+their masters were spending the night in play at Madame d’Argeles’s
+house. So he was able to name the Viscount de Coralth, who dashed up to
+the door in a two-horse phaeton, as well as Baron Trigault, who came on
+foot, for exercise, puffing and blowing like a seal. The wine-vendor,
+moreover, told his customers that Madame d’Argeles never went out before
+half-past two or three o’clock, and then always in a carriage--a piece
+of information which must have troubled Chupin; for, as soon as the
+landlord had left them to serve some other customers, he leant forward
+and said to M. Fortunat: “Did you hear that? How is it possible to track
+a person who’s in a carriage?”
+
+“By following in another vehicle, of course.”
+
+“Certainly, m’sieur; that’s as clear as daylight. But that isn’t the
+question. The point is this: How can one watch the face of a person who
+turns her back to you? I must see this woman’s face to know whom she
+looks at, and how.”
+
+This objection, grave as it appeared, did not seem to disturb M.
+Fortunat. “Don’t worry about that, Victor,” he replied. “Under such
+circumstances, a mother wouldn’t try to see her son from a rapidly
+moving carriage. She will undoubtedly alight, and contrive some means of
+passing and repassing him--of touching him, if possible. Your task will
+only consist in following her closely enough to be on the ground as soon
+as she is. Confine your efforts to that; and if you fail to-day,
+you’ll succeed to-morrow or the day after--the essential thing is to be
+patient.”
+
+He did better than to preach patience--he practised it. The hours wore
+away, and yet he did not stir from his post, though nothing could have
+been more disagreeable to him than to remain on exhibition, as it were,
+at the door of a wine-shop. At last, at a little before three o’clock,
+the gates over the way turned upon their hinges, and a dark-blue
+victoria, in which a woman was seated, rolled forth into the street.
+“Look!” said M. Fortunat, eagerly. “There she is!”
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+The woman in the carriage was none other than Madame Lia d’Argeles.
+She was attired in one of those startling costumes which are the rage
+nowadays, and which impart the same bold and brazen appearance to all
+who wear them: so much so, that the most experienced observers are
+no longer able to distinguish the honest mother of a family from a
+notorious character. A Dutchman, named Van Klopen, who was originally a
+tailor at Rotterdam, rightfully ascribes the honor of this progress to
+himself. One can scarcely explain how it happens that this individual,
+who calls himself “the dressmaker of the queens of Europe,” has become
+the arbiter of Parisian elegance; but it is an undeniable fact that
+he does reign over fashion. He decrees the colors that shall be worn,
+decides whether dresses shall be short or long, whether paniers shall
+be adopted or discarded, whether ruches and puffs and flowers shall be
+allowed, and in what form; and his subjects, the so-called elegant women
+of Paris, obey him implicitly.
+
+Madame d’Argeles would personally have preferred less finery, perhaps,
+but it would not have done for her to be out of the fashion. She wore an
+imperceptible hat, balanced on an immense pyramidal chignon, from which
+escaped a torrent of wavy hair. “What a beautiful woman!” exclaimed the
+dazzled Chupin, and indeed, seen from this distance, she did not look a
+day more than thirty-five--an age when beauty possesses all the alluring
+charm of the luscious fruit of autumn. She was giving orders for the
+drive, and her coachman, with a rose in his buttonhole, listened while
+he reined in the spirited horse. “The weather’s superb,” added Chupin.
+“She’ll no doubt drive round the lakes in the Bois de Boulogne----”
+
+“Ah, she’s off!” interrupted M. Fortunat. “Run, Victor, run! and
+don’t be miserly as regards carriage hire; all your expenses shall be
+liberally refunded you.”
+
+Chupin was already far away. Madame d’Argeles’s horse went swiftly
+enough, but the agent’s emissary had the limbs and the endurance of a
+stag, and he kept pace with the victoria without much difficulty. And
+as he ran along, his brain was busy. “If I don’t take a cab,” he said to
+himself, “if I follow the woman on foot, I shall have a perfect right to
+pocket the forty-five sous an hour--fifty, counting the gratuity--that a
+cab would cost.”
+
+But on reaching the Champ Elysees, he discovered, to his regret,
+that this plan was impracticable, for on running down the Avenue de
+l’Imperatrice after the rapidly driven carriage, he could not fail to
+attract attention. Stifling a sigh of regret, and seeing a cab at a
+stand near by, he hastily hailed it. “Where do you want to go, sir?”
+ inquired the driver.
+
+“Just follow that blue victoria, in which a handsome lady is seated, my
+good fellow.”
+
+The order did not surprise the cabman, but rather the person who gave
+it; for in spite of his fine apparel, Chupin did not seem quite the
+man for such an adventure. “Excuse me,” said the Jehu, in a slightly
+ironical tone, “I----”
+
+“I said exactly what I mean,” retorted Chupin, whose pride was severely
+wounded. “And no more talk--hurry on, or we shall miss the track.”
+
+This last remark was correct, for if Madame d’Argeles’s coachman had not
+slackened his horse’s speed on passing round the Arc de Triomphe, the
+woman would have escaped Chupin, for that day at least. However, this
+circumstance gave the cabman an opportunity to overtake the victoria;
+and after that the two vehicles kept close together as they proceeded
+down the Avenue de l’Imperatrice. But at the entrance of the Bois de
+Boulogne Chupin ordered his driver to stop. “Halt!” he exclaimed; “I
+shall get out. Pay the extra cab charges for passing beyond the limits
+of Paris!--never! I’ll crawl on my hands and knees first. Here are forty
+sous for your fare--and good-evening to you.”
+
+And, as the blue victoria was already some distance in advance, he
+started off at the top of his speed to overtake it. This manoeuvre was
+the result of his meditations while riding along. “What will this fine
+lady do when she gets to the Bois?” he asked himself. “Why, her coachman
+will take his place in the procession, and drive her slowly round and
+round the lakes. Meantime I can trot along beside her without attracting
+attention--and it will be good for my health.”
+
+His expectations were realized in every respect. The victoria soon
+turned to the left, and took its place in the long line of equipages
+which were slowly winding round the lake. Having gained the foot-path
+which borders the sheet of water, Chupin followed the carriage easily
+enough, with his hands in his pockets, and his heart jubilant at the
+thought that he would gain the sum supposed to have been spent in cab
+hire, in addition to the compensation which had been promised him. “This
+is a strange way of enjoying one’s self,” he muttered, as he trotted
+along. “There can’t be much pleasure in going round and round this lake.
+If ever I’m rich, I’ll find some other way of amusing myself.”
+
+Poor Chupin did not know that people do not go to the Bois to enjoy
+themselves, but rather to torment others. This broad drive is in reality
+only a field for the airing of vanity--a sort of open-air bazaar for
+the display of dresses and equipages. People come here to see and to
+be seen; and, moreover, this is neutral ground, where so-called honest
+women can meet those notorious characters from whom they are elsewhere
+separated by an impassable abyss. What exquisite pleasure it must be to
+the dames of society to find themselves beside Jenny Fancy or Ninette
+Simplon, or any other of those young ladies whom they habitually
+call “creatures,” but whom they are continually talking of, and whose
+toilettes, make-up, and jargon, they assiduously copy!
+
+However, Chupin indulged in none of these reflections. He was engaged in
+noting Madame d’Argeles’s evident anxiety and restlessness. She looked
+eagerly on all sides, sometimes half leaning out of her carriage, and
+immediately turning her head whenever she heard the gallop of a horseman
+behind her. She was evidently looking or waiting for some one, but the
+person did not make his appearance, and so, growing weary of waiting,
+after driving three times round the lake, she made a sign to her
+coachman, who at once drew out of line, and turned his horse into a
+side-path. Chupin hastened after the victoria, keeping it in sight until
+he was fortunate enough to meet an empty cab, which he at once hired.
+Madame d’Argeles’s coachman, who had received his orders, now drove down
+the Champs Elysees, again crossed the Place de la Concorde, turned into
+the boulevards, and stopped short at the corner of the Chaussee d’Antin,
+where, having tied a thick veil over her face, Madame Lia abruptly
+alighted and walked away.
+
+This was done so quickly that Chupin barely had time to fling two francs
+to his driver and rush after her. She had already turned round the
+corner of the Rue du Helder, and was walking rapidly up the street.
+It was a little after five o’clock, and dusk was setting in. Madame
+d’Argeles had taken the side of the street allotted to the uneven
+numbers. After she had passed the Hotel de Homburg, she slackened her
+pace, and eagerly scrutinized one of the houses opposite--No. 48. Her
+examination lasted but a moment, and seemed to be satisfactory. She then
+turned, and rapidly retraced her steps as far as the boulevard, when,
+crossing the street to the side of the even numbers, she walked up it
+again very slowly, stopping before every shop-window.
+
+Convinced that he had almost reached the goal, Chupin also crossed,
+and followed closely at her heels. He soon saw her start and resume her
+rapid gait. A young man was coming toward her so quickly indeed that she
+had not time to avoid him, and a collision ensued, whereupon the young
+man gave vent to an oath, and hurling an opprobrious epithet in her
+face, passed on.
+
+Chupin shuddered. “What if that should be her son?” he thought. And
+while he pretended to be gazing into a shop window, he stealthily
+watched the poor woman. She had paused, and he was so near that he
+could almost have touched her. He saw her raise her veil and follow her
+insulter with a look which it was impossible to misunderstand. “Oh! oh!
+It was her son that called her that----” said Chupin to himself, quite
+horrified. And without more ado, he hastened after the young man.
+
+He was between two and four-and-twenty years of age, rather above the
+medium height, with very light hair and an extremely pale complexion.
+His slight mustache would have been almost imperceptible if it had not
+been dyed several shades darker than his hair. He was attired with that
+studied carelessness which many consider to be the height of elegance,
+but which is just the reverse. And his bearing, his mustache, and
+his low hat, tipped rakishly over one ear, gave him an arrogant,
+pretentious, rowdyish appearance. “Zounds! that fellow doesn’t suit my
+fancy,” growled Chupin, as he trotted along. For he was almost running
+in his efforts to keep pace with Madame d’Argeles’s insulter. The
+latter’s haste was soon explained. He was carrying a letter which he
+wished to have delivered, and no doubt he feared he would not be able
+to find a commissionaire. Having discovered one at last, he called him,
+gave him the missive, and then pursued his way more leisurely.
+
+He had reached the boulevard, when a florid-faced youth, remarkably
+short and stout, rushed toward him with both hands amicably extended,
+at the same time crying, loud enough to attract the attention of the
+passers-by: “Is it possible that this is my dear Wilkie?”
+
+“Yes--alive and in the flesh,” replied the young man.
+
+“Well, and what the devil have you been doing with yourself? Last
+Sunday, at the races, I looked for you everywhere, and not a vestige
+of Wilkie was to be found. However, you were wise not to go. I am three
+hundred louis out of pocket. I staked everything on Domingo, the Marquis
+de Valorsay’s horse. I thought I was sure to win--yes, sure. Well,
+Domingo came in third. Can you understand that? If every one didn’t know
+that Valorsay was a millionaire, it might be supposed there had been
+some foul play--yes, upon my word--that he had bet against his own
+horse, and forbidden his jockey to win the race.” But the speaker did
+not really believe this, so he continued, more gayly: “Fortunately,
+I shall retrieve my losses to-morrow, at Vincennes. Shall we see you
+there?”
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“Then good-by, until to-morrow.”
+
+“Until to-morrow.”
+
+Thereupon they shook hands, and each departed on his way.
+
+Chupin had not lost a word of this conversation. “Valorsay a
+millionaire!” he said to himself. “That’s good! Ah, well! now I know
+my little gamecock’s name, and I also know that he goes to the races.
+Wilkie that must be an English name; I like the name of d’Argeles
+better. But where the devil is he going now?”
+
+M. Wilkie had simply paused to replenish his cigar-case at the tobacco
+office of the Grand Hotel; and, after lighting a cigar, he came out
+again, and walked up the boulevard in the direction of the Faubourg
+Montmartre. He was no longer in a hurry now; he strolled along in view
+of killing time, displaying his charms, and staring impudently at every
+woman who passed. With his shoulders drawn up on a level with his ears,
+and his chest thrown back, he dragged his feet after him as if his
+limbs were half paralyzed; he was indeed doing his best to create the
+impression that he was used up, exhausted, broken down by excesses and
+dissipation. For that is the fashion--the latest fancy--chic!
+
+“Will you never have done?” growled Chupin.
+
+“You shall pay for this, you little wretch!” He was so indignant that
+the gamin element in his nature stirred again under his fine broadcloth,
+and he had a wild longing to throw stones at M. Wilkie. He would
+certainly have trodden on his heels, and have picked a quarrel with him,
+had it not been for a fear of failing in his mission, and thereby losing
+his promised reward.
+
+He followed his man closely, for the crowd was very great. Light was
+coming on, and the gas was lit on all sides. The weather was very mild,
+and there was not an unoccupied table in front of the cafes, for it was
+now the absinthe hour. How does it happen that every evening, between
+five and seven o’clock, every one in Paris who is known--who is somebody
+or something--can be found between the Passage de l’Opera and the
+Passage Jouffroy? Hereabout you may hear all the latest news and gossip
+of the fashionable world, the last political canards--all the incidents
+of Parisian life which will be recorded by the papers on the following
+morning. You may learn the price of stocks, and obtain tips for
+to-morrow’s Bourse; ascertain how much Mademoiselle A’s necklace cost,
+and who gave it to her; with the latest news from Prussia; and the name
+of the bank chairman or cashier who has absconded during the day, and
+the amount he has taken with him.
+
+The crowd became more dense as the Faubourg Montmartre was approached,
+but Wilkie made his way through the throng with the ease of an old
+boulevardier. He must have had a large circle of acquaintances, for
+he distributed bows right and left, and was spoken to by five or six
+promenaders. He did not pass the Terrasse Jouffroy, but, pausing there,
+he purchased an evening paper, retraced his steps, and about seven
+o’clock reached the Cafe Riche, which he entered triumphantly. He did
+not even touch the rim of his hat on going in--that would have been
+excessively BAD form; but he called a waiter, in a very loud voice,
+and imperiously ordered him to serve dinner on a table near the window,
+where he could see the boulevard--and be seen.
+
+“And now my little fighting-cock is going to feed,” thought Chupin. He,
+too, was hungry; and he was trying to think of some modest restaurant
+in the neighborhood, when two young men passed near him and glanced into
+the cafe.
+
+“Look, there’s Wilkie!” observed one of them.
+
+“That’s so, upon my word!” responded the other. “And he has money, too;
+fortune has smiled upon him.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Why, by watching the fellow; one can tell the condition of his purse
+as correctly as he could himself. If his funds are low, he has his meals
+brought to his room from a cook-shop where he has credit; his mustache
+droops despondingly; he is humble even to servility with his friends,
+and he brushes his hair over his forehead. When he is in average
+circumstances, he dines at Launay’s, waxes his mustache, and brushes his
+hair back from his face. But when he dines at the Cafe Riche, my boy,
+when he has dyed his mustache, and tips his hat over his ear, and
+deports himself in that arrogant fashion, why, he has at least five or
+six thousand francs in his pocket, and all is well with him.”
+
+“Where does he get his money from?”
+
+“Who can tell?”
+
+“Is he rich?”
+
+“He must have plenty of money--I lent him ten louis once, and he paid me
+back.”
+
+“Zounds! He’s a very honorable fellow, then.” Thereupon the two young
+men laughed, and passed on.
+
+Chupin had been greatly edified. “Now I know you as well as if I were
+your concierge,” he muttered, addressing the unconscious Wilkie; “and
+when I’ve followed you home, and learned your number, I shall have
+richly earned the fifty francs M. Fortunat promised me.” As well as he
+could judge through the windowpane, M. Wilkie was eating his dinner
+with an excellent appetite. “Ah!” he exclaimed, not without envy, “these
+fighting-cocks take good care of their stomachs. He’s there for an hour
+at least, and I shall have time to run and swallow a mouthful myself.”
+
+So saying, Chupin hastened to a small restaurant in a neighboring
+street, and magnificently disbursed the sum of thirty-nine sous. Such
+extravagance was unusual on his part, for he had lived very frugally
+since he had taken a vow to become rich. Formerly, when he lived from
+hand to mouth--to use his own expression--he indulged in cigars and in
+absinthe; but now he contented himself with the fare of an anchorite,
+drank nothing but water, and only smoked when some one gave him a cigar.
+Nor was this any great privation to him, since he gained a penny by
+it--and a penny was another grain of sand added to the foundation of his
+future wealth. However, this evening he indulged in the extravagance of
+a glass of wine, deciding in his own mind that he had fairly earned it.
+
+When he returned to his post in front of the Cafe Riche, M. Wilkie was
+no longer alone at his table. He was finishing his coffee in the company
+of a man of his own age, who was remarkably good-looking--almost too
+good-looking, in fact--and a glance at whom caused Chupin to exclaim:
+“What! what! I’ve seen that face somewhere before--“. But he racked his
+brain in vain in trying to remember who this newcomer was, in trying to
+set a name on this face, which was positively annoying in its classical
+beauty, and which he felt convinced had occupied a place among the
+phantoms of his past. Irritated beyond endurance by what he termed his
+stupidity, he was trying to decide whether he should enter the cafe or
+not, when he saw M. Wilkie take his bill from the hands of a waiter,
+glance at it, and throw a louis on the table. His companion had drawn
+out his pocketbook for the ostensible purpose of paying for the coffee
+he had taken; but Wilkie, with a cordial gesture, forbade it, and
+made that magnificent, imperious sign to the waiter, which so clearly
+implies: “Take nothing! All is paid! Keep the change.” Thereupon the
+servant gravely retired, more than ever convinced of the fact that
+vanity increases the fabulous total of Parisian gratuities by more than
+a million francs a year.
+
+“My gallant youths are coming out,” thought Chupin. “I must keep my ears
+open.” And approaching the door, he dropped on one knee, and pretended
+to be engaged in tying his shoestrings. This is one of the thousand
+expedients adopted by spies and inquisitive people. And when a man is
+foolish enough to tell his secrets in the street, he should at least be
+wise enough to distrust the people near him who pretend to be absorbed
+in something else; for in nine cases out of ten these persons are
+listening to him, possibly for pay, or possibly from curiosity.
+
+However, the young men whom Chupin was watching were far from suspecting
+that they were under surveillance. M. Wilkie came out first, talking
+very loud, as often happens when a man has just partaken of a good
+dinner, and is blessed with an excellent digestion. “Come, Coralth,
+my good fellow, you won’t desert me in this way? I have a box for the
+Varietes, and you must go with me. We’ll see if Silly imitates Theresa
+as perfectly as they say.”
+
+“But I have an appointment.”
+
+“Oh, well, let it wait. Come, viscount, is it agreed?”
+
+“Ah, you do with me just as you like.”
+
+“Good! But, first of all let us take a glass of beer to finish our
+cigars. And do you know whom you will find in my box?”
+
+At this moment they passed, and Chupin rose to his feet. “Coralth,” he
+muttered, “Viscount de Coralth. He’s not one of our clients. Let me see,
+Coralth. This is certainly the first time I have ever heard the name.
+Can it be that I’m mistaken? Impossible!”
+
+The more he reflected, the more thoroughly he became convinced of the
+accuracy of his first impression, consoling himself with the thought
+that a name has but a slight significance after all. His preoccupation
+had at least the advantage of shortening the time which he spent in
+promenading to and fro, while the friends sat outside a cafe smoking and
+drinking. It was still M. Wilkie who monopolized the conversation, while
+his companion listened with his elbow resting on the table, occasionally
+nodding his head in token of approbation. One thing that incensed Chupin
+was that they loitered there, when one of them had a ticket for a box at
+the theatre in his pocket.
+
+“Idiots!” he growled; “they’ll wait till the play’s half over before
+they go in. And then they’ll let the doors slam behind them for the
+express purpose of disturbing everybody. Fools, go!”
+
+As if they had heard the command, they rose suddenly, and an instant
+after they entered the Varietes. They entered, but Chupin remained on
+the pavement, scratching his head furiously, in accordance with his
+habit whenever he wished to develop his powers of imagination. He was
+trying to think how he might procure admission to the theatre without
+paying for it. For several years he had seen every play put upon the
+stage in Paris, without spending a sou, and he felt that it would be
+actually degrading to purchase a ticket at the office now. “Pay to see a
+farce!” he thought. “Not I. I must know some one here--I’ll wait for the
+entr’acte.”
+
+The wisdom of this course became apparent when among those who left the
+theatre at the close of the first act he recognized an old acquaintance,
+who was now working on the claque, [3] and who at once procured him
+a ticket of admission for nothing. “Well, it is a good thing to have
+friends everywhere,” he muttered, as he took the seat assigned him.
+
+It was a very good place they had given him--a seat in the second
+gallery commanding an excellent view of the house. The first glance
+around told him that his “customers,” as he styled them, were in a
+box exactly opposite. They were now in the company of two damsels in
+startling toilettes, with exceedingly dishevelled yellow hair, who moved
+restlessly about, and giggled and stared, and tried in every possible
+way to attract attention. And their stratagem succeeded. However, this
+did not seem to please the Viscount de Coralth, who kept himself as far
+back in the shade as he possibly could. But young Wilkie was evidently
+delighted, and seemed manifestly proud of the attention which the public
+was compelled to bestow upon his box. He offered himself as much as
+possible to the gaze of the audience; moved about, leaned forward, and
+made himself fully as conspicuous as his fair companions. Less than ever
+did Chupin now forgive Wilkie for the insult he had cast in the face of
+Madame Lia d’Argeles, who was probably his mother.
+
+As for the play, M. Fortunat’s emissary did not hear twenty words of it.
+He was so overcome with fatigue that he soon fell asleep. The noise and
+bustle of each entr’acte aroused him a little, but he did not thoroughly
+wake up until the close of the performance. His “customers” were still
+in their box, and M. Wilkie was gallantly wrapping the ladies in their
+cloaks and shawls. In the vestibule, he and M. de Coralth were joined by
+several other young men, and the whole party adjourned to a neighboring
+cafe. “These people are certainly afflicted with an unquenchable
+thirst,” growled Chupin. “I wonder if this is their everyday life?”
+
+He, too, was thirsty after his hastily eaten dinner; and necessity
+prevailing over economy, he seated himself at a table outside the cafe,
+and called for a glass of beer, in which he moistened his parched lips
+with a sigh of intense satisfaction. He sipped the beverage slowly, in
+order to make it last the longer, but this did not prevent his glass
+from becoming dry long before M. Wilkie and his friends were ready to
+leave. “It seems to me we are going to stay here all night,” he thought,
+angrily.
+
+His ill-humor was not strange under the circumstances, for it was one
+o’clock in the morning; and after carrying all the tables and chairs
+round about, inside, a waiter came to ask Chupin to go away. All the
+other cafes were closing too, and the fastening of bolts or the clanking
+of shutter chains could be heard on every side. On the pavement stood
+groups of waiters in their shirt-sleeves, stretching and yawning,
+and inhaling the fresh night air with delight. The boulevard was fast
+becoming deserted--the men were going off in little groups, and female
+forms could be seen gliding along in the dark shadow cast by the houses.
+The police were watching everywhere, with a word of menace ever ready
+on their lips; and soon the only means of egress from the cafes were
+the narrow, low doorways cut in the shutters through which the last
+customers--the insatiable, who are always ordering one thimbleful more
+to finish--passed out.
+
+It was through a portal of this sort that M. Wilkie and his companions
+at last emerged, and on perceiving them, Chupin gave a grunt of
+satisfaction. “At last,” he thought, “I can follow the man to his door,
+take his number, and go home.”
+
+But his joy was short-lived, for M. Wilkie proposed that the whole party
+should go and take supper. M. de Coralth demurred to the idea, but the
+others over-ruled his objections, and dragged him away with them.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+
+“Ah! this is a bad job!” growled Chupin. “Go, go, and never stop!”
+
+What exasperated him even more than his want of sleep was the thought
+that his good mother must be waiting for him at home in an agony of
+anxiety; for since his reformation he had become remarkably regular in
+his habits. What should he do? “Go home,” said Reason; “it will be easy
+enough to find this Wilkie again. There can be little doubt that he
+lives at No. 48, in the Rue du Helder.” “Remain,” whispered Avarice;
+“and, since you have accomplished so much, finish your work. M. Fortunat
+won’t pay for conjectures, but for a certainty.”
+
+Love of money carried the day; so, weaving an interminable chaplet of
+oaths, he followed the party until they entered Brebant’s restaurant,
+one of the best known establishments which remain open at night-time. It
+was nearly two o’clock in the morning now; the boulevard was silent and
+deserted, and yet this restaurant was brilliantly lighted from top to
+bottom, and snatches of song and shouts of laughter, with the clatter
+of knives and forks and the clink of glasses, could be heard through the
+half opened windows.
+
+“Eight dozen Marennes for No. 6,” shouted a waiter to the man who opened
+oysters near the restaurant door.
+
+On hearing this order, Chupin shook his clenched fist at the stars. “The
+wretches!” he muttered through his set teeth; “bad luck to them! Those
+oysters are for their mouths, plainly enough, for there are eight of
+them in all, counting those yellow-haired women. They will, no doubt,
+remain at table until six o’clock in the morning. And they call this
+enjoying themselves. And meanwhile, poor little Chupin must wear out his
+shoe-leather on the pavement. Ah! they shall pay for this!”
+
+It ought to have been some consolation to him to see that he was not
+alone in his misery, for in front of the restaurant stood a dozen cabs
+with sleepy drivers, who were waiting for chance to send them one of
+those half-intoxicated passengers who refuse to pay more than fifteen
+sous for their fare, but give their Jehu a gratuity of a louis. All
+these vehicles belonged to the peculiar category known as “night
+cabs”--dilapidated conveyances with soiled, ragged linings, and drawn by
+half-starved, jaded horses.
+
+However, Chupin neither thought of these vehicles, nor of the poor
+horses, nor, indeed, of the drivers themselves. His wrath had been
+succeeded by philosophical resignation; he accepted with good grace what
+he could not avoid. As the night air had become very cool, he turned up
+the collar of his overcoat, and began to pace to and fro on the pavement
+in front of the restaurant. He had made a hundred turns perhaps, passing
+the events of the day in review, when suddenly such a strange and
+startling idea flashed across his mind that he stood motionless, lost
+in astonishment. Reflecting on the manner in which M. Wilkie and the
+Viscount de Coralth had behaved during the evening, a singular suspicion
+assailed him. While M. Wilkie gradually lost his wits, M. de Coralth
+had become remarkably cold and reserved. He had seemed to oppose all M.
+Wilkie’s propositions; but he had agreed to them at last, so that his
+objections had produced much the same effect as a stimulant. It seemed
+then as if M. de Coralth had some strange interest in wishing to gain
+ascendency over his friend. At least such was Chupin’s opinion. “Oh,
+oh!” he murmured. “What if HE should be working up the same little
+scheme? What if he were acquainted with Madame Lia d’Argeles? What if he
+knew that there’s a fortune waiting for a claimant? I shouldn’t at all
+be surprised if I found that he wanted to cook his bread in our oven.
+But father Fortunat wouldn’t be pleased with the news. Ah! no--he
+wouldn’t even smile----”
+
+While carrying on this little conversation with himself, he stood just
+in front of the restaurant, looking up into the air, when all of a
+sudden a window was thrown noisily open, and the figures of two men
+became plainly visible. They were engaged in a friendly struggle; one of
+them seemed to be trying to seize hold of something which the other had
+in his hand, and which he refused to part with. One of these men was M.
+Wilkie as Chupin at once perceived. “Good!” he said to himself; “this is
+the beginning of the end!”
+
+As he spoke, M. Wilkie’s hat fell on the window-sill, slipped off, and
+dropped on to the pavement below. With a natural impulse Chupin picked
+it up, and he was turning it over and over in his hands, when M. Wilkie
+leant out of the window and shouted in a voice that was thick with wine:
+“Halloo! Eh, there! Who picked up my hat? Honesty shall be rewarded. A
+glass of champagne and a cigar for the fellow who’ll bring it me in room
+No. 6.”
+
+Chupin hesitated. By going up, he might, perhaps, compromise the success
+of his mission. But on the other hand his curiosity was aroused, and
+he very much wished to see, with his own eyes, how these young men were
+amusing themselves. Besides, he would have an opportunity of examining
+this handsome viscount, whom he was certain he had met before, though he
+could not tell when or where. In the meantime, M. Wilkie had perceived
+him.
+
+“Come, you simpleton!” he cried; “make haste. You can’t be very
+thirsty.”
+
+The thought of the viscount decided Chupin. Entering the restaurant
+and climbing the staircase, he had just reached the landing when a
+pale-looking man, who had a smoothly-shaven face and was dressed in
+black, barred his way and asked: “What do you want?”
+
+“M’sieur, here’s a hat which fell from one of your windows and----”
+
+“All right, hand it here.”
+
+But Chupin did not seem to hear this order. He was beginning a long
+explanation, when a curtain near by was pushed aside, and M. Wilkie
+called out: “Philippe! eh, Philippe!--bring me the man who picked up my
+hat.”
+
+“Ah!” said Chupin, “you see, m’sieur, that he asks for me.”
+
+“Very well,” said Philippe. “Go on, then.” And raising the portiere he
+pushed Chupin into room No. 6.
+
+It was a small, square apartment, with a very low ceiling. The
+temperature was like that of a furnace, and the glare of the gaslights
+almost blinded one. The supper was over, but the table had not yet been
+cleared, and plates full of leavings showed that the guests had fairly
+exhausted their appetites. Still, with the exception of M. Wilkie, every
+one present seemed to be terribly bored. In one corner, with her head
+resting on a piano, sat one of the yellow-haired damsels, fast asleep,
+while, beside the window, M. de Coralth was smoking with his elbows
+propped upon the table. The four other young men were looking on
+phlegmatically. “Ah! here’s my hat,” exclaimed M. Wilkie, as soon as
+Chupin appeared. “Wait and receive your promised reward.” And
+thereupon he rang the bell, crying at the top of his voice: “Henry,
+you sleepy-head--a clean glass and some more of the widow Cliquot’s
+champagne!”
+
+Several bottles were standing upon the table, only half empty, and
+one of M. Wilkie’s friends called his attention to this fact, but he
+shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. “You must take me for a fool,” he
+said, contemptuously. “A man doesn’t drink stale wine when he has the
+prospect of such an inheritance as is coming to me.”
+
+“Wilkie!” interrupted M. de Coralth, quickly; “Wilkie!”
+
+But he was too late; Chupin had heard and understood everything. His
+conjectures had proved correct. M. Wilkie knew his right to the estate;
+M. Fortunat had been forestalled by the viscount, and would merely
+have his labor for his pains. “No chance for the guv’nor!” thought the
+agent’s emissary. “And what a blow after the De Valorsay affair! It’s
+enough to give him the jaundice!”
+
+For a youth of his age, Chupin controlled his feelings admirably; but
+the revelation came so suddenly that he had started despite himself, and
+changed color a trifle. M. de Coralth saw this; and, though he was far
+from suspecting the truth, his long repressed anger burst forth. He rose
+abruptly, took up a bottle, and filling the nearest glass, he rudely
+exclaimed: “Come, drink that--make haste--and clear out!”
+
+Victor Chupin must have become very sensitive since his conversion. In
+former times he was not wont to be so susceptible as to lose his temper
+when some one chanced to address him in a rather peremptory manner, or
+to offer him wine out of the first available glass. But M. de Coralth
+inspired him with one of those inexplicable aversions which cannot be
+restrained “Eh! tell me if it’s because we’ve drank champagne together
+before that you talk to me like that?” the young fellow retorted,
+savagely.
+
+It was only a random shot, but it reached home. The viscount seemed
+touched to the quick. “You hear that, Wilkie,” said he. “This will teach
+you that the time of your compatriot, Lord Seymour, has passed by. The
+good-humored race of plebeians who respectfully submitted to the blows
+with which noblemen honored them after drinking, has died out. This
+ought to cure you of your unfortunate habit of placing yourself on terms
+of equality with all the vagabonds you meet.”
+
+Chupin’s hair fairly bristled with anger. “What! what!” he exclaimed;
+“I’ll teach you to call me a vagabond, you scoundrel!”
+
+His gesture, his attitude, and his eyes were so expressive of defiance
+and menace that two of the guests sprang up and caught him by the arm.
+“Go, go,” they said.
+
+But he freed himself from their grasp. “Go!” he replied. “Never! He
+called me a vagabond. Am I to pocket the insult quietly and walk off
+with it? You can scarcely expect that. First, I demand an apology.”
+
+This was asking too much of the Viscount de Coralth. “Let the fool
+alone,” he remarked, with affected coolness, “and ring for the waiters
+to kick him out.”
+
+It did not require this new insult to put Chupin in a furious passion.
+“Come on!” he exclaimed. “Ah, ha! Where’s the fellow who’ll turn me out?
+Let him come. I’ll teach him a lesson!” And as he spoke he squared his
+shoulders, inflated his chest, and threw the weight of his entire body
+on his left leg, after the most approved method of sparring-masters.
+
+“Go, go!” insisted Wilkie’s friends.
+
+“Yes, I’ll go with pleasure, but your friend must go, too. Is he a man?
+Then let him come, and we’ll settle this outside.” And seeing that they
+were again trying to seize him: “Hands off!” he thundered, “or I’ll
+strike. You were not obliged to invite me here. It isn’t my business to
+furnish amusement to parties who’ve drunk too much wine. And why
+should you despise me? It’s true I haven’t any money while you have
+plenty--that I work and you carouse. Still that’s no reason why
+you should scorn me. Besides, those who are poor in the morning are
+sometimes rich in the evening. Every dog has his day. I have an idea
+that I shall have some coin when yours is all gone. Then it will be
+my turn to laugh; and as I’m a good-natured fellow, I will give you my
+half-smoked cigars.”
+
+M. Wilkie seemed delighted. He had climbed on to the piano and seated
+himself, with his feet on the keyboard; and there, as on a judgment
+seat, he listened and applauded, alternately taking Chupin’s part, and
+then the viscount’s. “Bravo, gamin!” or, “Give it to him, Coralth!” he
+shouted in turn.
+
+This irritated the viscount exceedingly. “I see that we shall be obliged
+to call in the police to settle the affair,” he said, sneeringly.
+
+“The police!” roared Chupin. “Ah! that won’t do, you scamp--” But his
+voice died away in his throat, and he stood motionless, speechless, with
+his arm raised as if he were about to strike, and his eyes dilated with
+astonishment.
+
+For a change of expression in M. de Coralth’s face had enlightened him;
+and he suddenly recollected when and under what circumstances he had
+known this so-called viscount. He remembered, too, the name he had borne
+when he first met him. “Oh!” he stammered; “oh! oh!”
+
+However, the effect of this discovery was to dispel his anger, or rather
+to restore his calmness, and, addressing M. de Coralth, he exclaimed:
+“Don’t be angry at what I’ve said, m’sieur; it was only a jest--I
+know that there’s a wide difference between a poor devil like me and a
+viscount like you--I haven’t a sou, you see, and that maddens me. But
+I’m not so very bad-looking, fortunately, and I’m always hoping that
+the daughter of some rich banker will fall in love with me and marry me.
+Some people have such luck, you know. If I meet with any you may be sure
+I shall pass myself off as the lost child of some great personage--of
+a duke, for instance--and if the real son exists, and troubles me, why
+I’ll quietly put him out of the way, if possible.”
+
+With but one exception the persons present did not understand a single
+word of this apparent nonsense; and indeed the yellow-haired damsels
+stared at the speaker in amazement. Still it was evident that each of
+these words had a meaning, and a terrible meaning for M. de Coralth.
+Accustomed for years to control his features, he remained apparently
+unmoved--he even smiled; but a close observer could have detected
+anguish in his eyes, and he had become very pale. At last, unable to
+endure the scene any longer, he drew a hundred-franc bank-note from
+his pocketbook, crumpled it in his hand and threw it at Chupin, saying:
+“That’s a very pretty story you are telling, my boy; but we’ve had
+enough of it. Take your pay and leave us.”
+
+Unfortunately, the note struck Chupin full in the face. He uttered a
+hoarse cry of rage, and, by the way in which he seized and brandished an
+empty bottle, it might have been imagined that M. de Coralth was about
+to have his head broken. But no. Thanks to a supreme effort of will,
+Chupin conquered this mad fury; and, dropping the bottle, he remarked
+to the young women who were uttering panic-stricken shrieks: “Be quiet;
+don’t you see that I was only in fun.”
+
+But even M. Wilkie had found the fun a little rough, and even dangerous.
+Several of the young fellows present sprang up, with the evident
+intention of pushing Chupin out of the room, but he checked them with
+a gesture. “Don’t disturb yourselves, gentlemen,” he said. “I’m going,
+only let me find the bank-note which this gentleman threw at me.”
+
+“That’s quite proper,” replied M. Wilkie, approvingly; “look for it.”
+
+Chupin did so, and at last found it lying almost under the piano. “Now,”
+ he remarked, “I should like a cigar.”
+
+A score or so were lying in a dish. He gravely selected one of them
+and coolly cut off the end of it before placing it in his mouth.
+Those around watched him with an air of profound astonishment, not
+understanding this ironical calmness following so closely upon such a
+storm of passion. Then he, Victor Chupin, who had, it seems to me, but
+one aim in life--to become rich--Victor Chupin, who loved money above
+anything else, and had stifled all other passions in his soul--he who
+often worked two whole days to earn five francs--he who did not disdain
+to claim his five sous when he went to hire a cab for his employer--he,
+Chupin, twisted the bank-note in his fingers, lit it at the gas, and
+used it to light his cigar.
+
+“Ah! he’s crazy!” murmured the yellow-haired damsels, with despair in
+their voices.
+
+But M. Wilkie was enthusiastic. “There’s form!” said he. “Fine form and
+no mistake!”
+
+But Chupin did not even deign to turn his head. He opened the door, and
+standing on the threshold, he bowed to M. de Coralth with an ironical
+smile. “Until we meet again, Monsieur Paul,” said he. “And kindly
+remember me to Madame Paul, if you please.”
+
+If the others had been less astonished, they would have no doubt have
+remarked the prodigious effect of this name upon their brilliant friend.
+He became ghastly pale and fell back in his chair. Then, suddenly,
+he bounded up as if he wished to attack his enemy. But pursuit seemed
+likely to yield no result, for Chupin was already on the boulevard.
+
+It was daybreak. Paris was waking up; the bakers were standing at their
+doors, and boys in their shirt-sleeves, with their eyes swollen with
+sleep, were taking down the shutters of the wine-shops. A cloud of dust,
+raised by the street-sweepers, hung in the distance; the rag-pickers
+wandered about, peering among the rubbish; the noisy milk-carts jolted
+along at a gallop, and workmen were proceeding to their daily toil,
+with hunches of bread in their hands. The morning air was very chilly;
+nevertheless, Chupin seated himself on a bench across the boulevard, at
+a spot where he could watch the entrance of the restaurant without
+being seen. He had just experienced one of those sudden shocks which so
+disturb the mind, that one becomes insensible to outward circumstances,
+whatever they may be. He had recognized in the so-called Viscount de
+Coralth, the man whom he had hated above all others in the world,
+or, rather, the only man whom he hated, for his was not a bad heart.
+Impressionable to excess like a true child of the faubourgs, he had the
+Parisian’s strange mobility of feeling. If his anger was kindled by
+a trifle, the merest nothing usually sufficed to extinguish it. But
+matters were different respecting this handsome viscount! “God! how I
+hate him!” he hissed through his set teeth. “God! how I hate him!”
+
+For once, years before, as he had confessed to M. Fortunat, Chupin had
+been guilty of a cowardly and abominable act, which had nearly cost
+a man his life. And this crime, if it had been successful, would have
+benefited the very fellow who concealed his sinful, shameful past
+under the high-sounding name of Coralth. How was it that Chupin had not
+recognized him at once? Because he had worked for this fellow without
+knowing him, receiving his orders through the miserable wretches who
+pandered to his vices. He had only seen him personally once or twice,
+and had never spoken to him. Later--too late--he discovered what
+vile intrigue it was that he had served. And when he became sincerely
+repentant he loathed this Coralth who had caused his crime.
+
+Nor was this all. The recognition of Coralth had inspired him with
+remorse. It had aroused in the recesses of his conscience a threatening
+voice which cried: “What are you doing here? You are acting as a spy for
+a man you distrust, and whose real designs you are ignorant of. It was
+in this way you began before. Have you forgotten what it led to? Have
+you not sin enough already upon your conscience? Blood enough upon your
+hands? It is folly to pretend that one may serve as a tool for villains,
+and still remain an honest man!”
+
+It was this voice which had given Chupin the courage to light his cigar
+with the bank-note. And this voice still tortured him, as seated on the
+bench he now tried to review the situation. Where, indeed, was he? With
+rare good luck he had discovered the son whom Madame Lia d’Argeles had
+so long and successfully concealed. But contrary to all expectations,
+this young fellow already knew of the inheritance which he was entitled
+to. M. de Coralth had already achieved what M. Fortunat had meant to do;
+and so the plan was a failure, and it was useless to persist in it.
+
+This would have ended the matter if Chupin had not chanced to know
+the Viscount de Coralth’s shameful past. And this knowledge changed
+everything, for it gave him the power to interfere in a most effectual
+manner. Armed with this secret, he could bestow the victory on M.
+Fortunat, and force M. de Coralth to capitulate. And he could do this
+all the more easily, as he was sure that Coralth had not recognized
+him, and that he was perhaps ignorant of his very existence. Chupin had
+allowed himself to be carried away by a sudden impulse of anger which
+he regretted; he had made an ironical illusion to his enemy’s past life,
+but after all this had done no particular harm. So nothing prevented him
+from lending M. Fortunat his assistance, and thus killing two birds with
+one stone. He could have his revenge on Coralth, and at the same time
+insure his patron a large fee, of which he could claim a considerable
+share for himself. But no! The idea of deriving any profit whatever from
+this affair inspired him with a feeling of disgust--honor triumphed over
+his naturally crafty and avaricious nature. It seemed to him that any
+money made in this way would soil his fingers; for he realized there
+must be some deep villainy under all this plotting and planning; he was
+sure of it, since Coralth was mixed up in the affair. “I will serve
+my guv’nor for nothing,” he decided. “When a man is avenged, he’s well
+paid.”
+
+Chupin decided upon this course because he could think of no better
+plan. Still, if he had been master of events he would have acted
+otherwise. He would have quietly presented the government with this
+inheritance which he found M. Wilkie so unworthy of. “The devil only
+knows what he’ll do with it,” he thought. “He’ll squander it as my
+father squandered the fortune that was given him. It is only fools who
+meet with such luck as that.”
+
+However, his meditations did not prevent him from keeping a close watch
+over the restaurant, for it was of the utmost importance that M. Wilkie
+should not escape him. It was now broad daylight, and customers were
+leaving the establishment; for, after passing what is generally conceded
+to be a joyous night, they felt the need of returning home to rest and
+sleep. Chupin watched them as they emerged. There were some who came out
+with drooping heads, mumbling incoherent phrases; while others who were
+equally intoxicated, but more nervous, evinced considerable animation,
+and sang snatches of songs, or jested loudly with the street-sweepers as
+they passed on. The more sober, surprised by the sunlight, and blushing
+at themselves, slunk hastily and quietly away. There was one man,
+moreover, whom the waiters were obliged to carry to his cab, for he
+could no longer stand on his feet.
+
+At last Chupin saw the individual clad in black whom Wilkie had
+addressed as Philippe, and who had endeavored to prevent him from
+entering the restaurant, come out, and walk rapidly away. He was warmly
+clad in a thick overcoat, but he shivered, and his pale, wan face
+betrayed the man who is a martyr to the pleasures of others--the man who
+is condemned to be up all night and sleep only in the daytime--the man
+who can tell you how much folly and beastliness lurk in the depths of
+the wine-cup, and who knows exactly how many yawns are expressed by the
+verb “to amuse one’s self.” Chupin was beginning to feel uneasy. “Can M.
+Wilkie and his friends have made their escape?” he wondered.
+
+But at that very moment they made their appearance. They lingered awhile
+on the pavement to chat, and Chupin had an opportunity of observing
+the effect of their night’s dissipation on their faces. The brilliant
+sunlight made their eyes blink, and the cold sent purple blotches to
+their bloated cheeks. As for the young women with yellow hair, they
+appeared as they really were--hideous. They entered the only cab that
+remained, the most dilapidated one of all, and the driver of which
+had no little difficulty in setting his horse in motion; whereupon the
+gentlemen went off on foot.
+
+Many persons would have been vexed and even humiliated by the necessity
+of appearing at this hour on the boulevard in disorderly attire, which
+plainly indicated that they had spent the night in debauchery. But
+with the exception of the Viscount de Coralth, who was evidently out of
+humor, the party seemed delighted with themselves, as it was easy to
+see by the way they met the glances of the passers-by. They considered
+themselves first-class form--they were producing an effect--they were
+astonishing people. And what more could they desire?
+
+One thing is certain--they were irritating Chupin terribly. He was
+following them on the opposite side of the boulevard, at some little
+distance in the rear, for he was afraid of being recognized. “The
+wretches!” he growled. “One couldn’t draw a pint of manly blood from the
+veins of all six of them. Ah, if they knew how I hate them!”
+
+But he had not long to nurse his wrath. On reaching the Rue Drouot,
+two of the gentlemen left the party, and two more went down the Rue
+Lepelletier. M. Wilkie and the viscount were left to walk down the
+boulevard alone. They linked their arms and carried on an animated
+conversation until they reached the Rue du Helder, where they shook
+hands and separated. What had they said at parting? What agreement had
+been made between them? Chupin would willingly have given a hundred sous
+from his private purse to have known. He would have given as much more
+to have been able to double himself, in order to pursue the viscount,
+who had started off in the direction of the Madeleine, without having to
+give up watching and following his friend. But the days of miracles are
+over. So Chupin sighed, and, following Wilkie, he soon saw him enter
+No. 48 of the Rue du Helder. The concierge, who was at the door busily
+engaged in polishing the bell-handle, bowed respectfully. “So there it
+is!” grumbled Chupin. “I knew he lived there--I knew it by the way that
+Madame d’Argeles looked at the windows yesterday evening. Poor woman!
+Ah! her son’s a fine fellow and no mistake!”
+
+His compassion for the unhappy mother seemed to recall him to a sense
+of duty. “Scoundrel that I am!” he exclaimed, striking his forehead with
+his clenched fist. “Why, I’m forgetting my own good mother!” And as his
+task was now ended, he started off on the run, taking the shortest cut
+to the Faubourg Saint-Denis. “Poor mother!” he said to himself as he
+tore along, “what a night she must have had! She must have cried her
+eyes out!”
+
+He spoke the truth. The poor woman had passed a night of agony--counting
+the hours, and trembling each time the door of the house opened,
+announcing some tenant’s return. And as morning approached, her anxiety
+increased. “For her son would not have allowed her to remain in such
+suspense,” she said to herself, “unless he had met with some accident or
+encountered some of his former friends--those detestable scamps who had
+tried to make him as vile as themselves.” Perhaps he had met his father,
+Polyte Chupin, the man whom she still loved in spite of everything,
+because he was her husband, but whom she judged, and whom indeed she
+knew, to be capable of any crime. And of all misfortunes, it was an
+accident, even a fatal accident, that she dreaded least. In her heroic
+soul the voice of honor spoke even more loudly than the imperious
+instinct of maternity; and she would rather have found her son lying
+dead on the marble slabs of the Morgue than seated in the dock at the
+Assize Court.
+
+Her poor eyes were weary of weeping when she at last recognized Victor’s
+familiar step approaching down the passage. She hastily opened the door,
+and as soon as she FELT that he was near her, for she could not see him,
+she asked: “Where have you spent the night? Where have you come from?
+What has happened?”
+
+His only answer was to fling his arms round her neck, following alike
+the impulse of his heart and the advice of experience, which told him
+that this would be the best explanation he could give. Still it did not
+prevent him from trying to justify himself, although he was careful not
+to confess the truth, for he dreaded his mother’s censure, knowing well
+enough that she would be less indulgent than his own conscience.
+
+“I believe you, my son,” said the good woman, gravely; “you wouldn’t
+deceive me, I’m sure.” And she added: “What reassured me, when you
+kissed me, was that you hadn’t been drinking.”
+
+Chupin did not speak a word; this confidence made him strangely uneasy.
+“May I be hung,” he thought, “if after this I ever do anything that I
+can’t confess to this poor good woman!”
+
+But he hadn’t time for sentimental reflections. He had gone too far
+to draw back, and it was necessary for him to report the result of his
+researches as soon as possible. Accordingly, he hastily ate a morsel,
+for he was faint with hunger, and started out again, promising to return
+to dinner. He was in all the greater haste as it was Sunday. M. Fortunat
+was in the habit of passing these days in the country, and Chupin feared
+he might fail to see him if he was not expeditious in his movements. And
+while running to the Place de la Bourse, he carefully prepared the story
+he meant to relate, deeply impressed by the wisdom of the popular maxim
+which says: “It is not always well to tell the whole truth.” Ought he
+to describe the scene at the restaurant, mention Coralth, and say that
+there was nothing more to be done respecting M. Wilkie? After mature
+deliberation he decided in the negative. If he revealed everything, M.
+Fortunat might become discouraged and abandon the affair. It would be
+better to let him discover the truth himself, and profit by his anger to
+indicate a means of vengeance.
+
+It happened that M. Fortunat had decided not to go to the country
+that Sunday. He had slept later than usual, and was still in his
+dressing-gown when Chupin made his appearance. He uttered a joyful cry
+on seeing his emissary, feeling assured that he must be the bearer
+of good news, since he came so early. “You have succeeded, then?” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“You have discovered Madame d’Argeles’s son?”
+
+“I have him.”
+
+“Ah! I knew that you were a clever fellow. Quick, tell me everything.
+But no, wait a moment.”
+
+He rang the bell, and Madame Dodelin at once made her appearance. “Put
+another plate on the table,” said the agent. “M. Chupin will breakfast
+with me--and serve us at once. You agree, don’t you, Victor? It’s ten
+o’clock; I’m hungry; and we can talk better over a bottle of wine.”
+
+This was a great honor; and it gave Chupin a fitting idea of the value
+of the service he had rendered. He was not too much elated, however;
+though he felt very sorry that he had eaten before he came. On his side,
+M. Fortunat by no means regretted having conferred this favor on his
+clerk, for the story which the latter related, caused him intense
+delight. “Very good!--well done,” he exclaimed every other minute. “I
+could not have done better myself. You shall be abundantly rewarded,
+Victor, if this affair is successful.” And at this thought his
+satisfaction overflowed in a complacent monologue: “Why shouldn’t it
+succeed?” he asked himself. “Could anything be more simple and certain?
+I can make any demand I please--one, two, three hundred thousand francs.
+Ah, it was a good thing that the Count de Chalusse died! Now, I can
+forgive Valorsay. Let him keep my forty thousand francs; he’s quite
+welcome to them! Let him marry Mademoiselle Marguerite; I wish them
+a large and flourishing family! And Madame d’Argeles, too, has my
+benediction!”
+
+He was so confident his fortune was made that at noon he could restrain
+himself no longer. He hired a cab and accompanied by Chupin he set out
+for M. Wilkie’s abode, declaring that he would wake that young gentleman
+up if needs be, but at all events he must see him without delay. When he
+reached the Rue du Helder, he told Chupin to wait in the cab, and then
+entering the house, he asked: “Monsieur Wilkie?”
+
+“On the second floor, the door to the right,” replied the concierge.
+
+M. Fortunat ascended the stairs very slowly, for he felt the necessity
+of regaining all his composure, and it was not until he had brought
+himself to a proper frame of mind that he rang the bell. A small
+servant, M. Wilkie’s fag, who took his revenge in robbing his employer
+most outrageously, came to the door, and began by declaring that his
+master was out of town. But M. Fortunat understood how to force doors
+open, and his manoeuvres succeeded so well that he was finally allowed
+to enter a small sitting-room, while the servant went off, saying: “I
+will go and inform monsieur.”
+
+Instead of wasting time in congratulating himself on this first
+achievement the agent began to inspect the room in which he found
+himself, as well as another apartment, the door of which stood open. For
+he was of the opinion that a dwelling-place indicates the character of
+its inmate, as surely as a shell indicates the form of the creature that
+inhabits it. M. Wilkie was comfortably lodged; but his rooms were
+most pretentiously ornamented. They were indeed decorated in more
+than doubtful taste. There were very few books lying about, but costly
+riding-whips, spurs, rifles, cartridge-boxes, and all the paraphernalia
+of a fashionable sporting man, were here in abundance.
+
+The only pictures on the wall were a few portraits of celebrated horses,
+which foreshadowed the fact that M. Wilkie must have, at least, an
+eighth share in some well-known racer. After this inspection, M.
+Fortunat smiled complacently. “This young fellow has expensive tastes,”
+ he thought. “It will be very easy to manage him.”
+
+However his reflections were interrupted by the return of the servant,
+who exclaimed: “My master is in the dining-room, and if monsieur will
+enter----”
+
+The heir-hunter did enter, and found himself face to face with M.
+Wilkie, who was partaking of a cup of chocolate. He was not only up,
+but he was dressed to go out--dressed in such a style that he would have
+been taken for a respectable groom. A couple of hours’ sleep had made
+him himself again; and he had regained the arrogance of manner which was
+the distinguishing trait of his character, and a sure sign that he was
+in prosperous circumstances. As his unknown visitor entered he looked
+up, and bruskly asked: “What do you want?”
+
+“I called on business, monsieur.”
+
+“Ah, well! this isn’t a favorable moment. I must be at Vincennes for the
+races. I’m interested in a horse. So, you understand----”
+
+M. Fortunat was secretly amused by M. Wilkie’s nonchalance. “The young
+fellow won’t be in so much of a hurry when he learns my business,” he
+thought. And he replied aloud: “I can explain what brings me in a few
+words, monsieur.”
+
+“Proceed, then.”
+
+M. Fortunat began by closing the door which had been intentionally left
+open by the servant; and then, returning to M. Wilkie’s side, he began
+with an air of the greatest mystery: “What would you give a shrewd
+man if he suddenly placed you in undisputed possession of an immense
+fortune--of a million--two millions, perhaps?”
+
+He had prepared this little effect most carefully, and he fully expected
+to see Wilkie fall on his knees before him. But not at all; the young
+gentleman’s face never moved a muscle; and it was in the calmest
+possible tone, and with his mouth half full that he replied: “I know
+the rest. You come, don’t you, to sell me the secret of an unclaimed
+inheritance, which belongs to me? Very well, you have come too late.”
+
+If the ceiling had fallen and crushed M. Fortunat there and then he
+would, mentally at least, have not been in a more pitiable condition. He
+stood silent, motionless, utterly confounded, with his mouth wide open,
+and such an expression of consternation in his eyes that M. Wilkie
+burst into a hearty laugh. Still the agent struggled against fate, and
+ultimately faltered: “Let me explain--permit me----”
+
+“Oh, it would be useless. I know my rights. I have already arranged with
+a party to prosecute my claims; the agreement will be signed on the day
+after to-morrow.”
+
+“With whom?”
+
+“Ah, excuse me; that’s my affair.”
+
+He had finished his chocolate, and he now poured out a glass of
+ice-water, drank it, wiped his mouth, and rose from the table. “You will
+excuse me, my dear sir, if I leave you,” he remarked. “As I said before,
+I am going to Vincennes. I have staked a thousand louis on ‘Pompier de
+Nanterre,’ my horse, and my friends have ventured ten times as much. Who
+knows what may happen if I’m not there at the start?” And then, ignoring
+M. Fortunat as completely as if he had not existed, M. Wilkie exclaimed:
+“Toby, you fool! where are you? Is my carriage below? Quick, bring me my
+cane, my gloves, and my glasses. Take down that basket of champagne. Run
+and put on your new livery. Make haste, you little beast, I shall be too
+late.”
+
+M. Fortunat left the room. The frightful anger that had followed his
+idiotic stupor sent his blood rushing madly to his brain. A purple mist
+swam before his eyes; there was a loud ringing in his ears, and with
+each pulsation of his heart his head seemed to receive a blow from
+a heavy hammer. His feelings were so terrible that he was really
+frightened. “Am I about to have an attack of apoplexy?” he wondered.
+And, as every surrounding object seemed to whirl around him, the very
+floor itself apparently rising and falling under his feet, he remained
+on the landing waiting for this horrible vertigo to subside and doing
+his best to reason with himself. It was fully five minutes before he
+dared to risk the descent; and even when he reached the street, his
+features were so frightfully distorted that Chupin trembled.
+
+He sprang out, assisted his employer into the cab, and bade the driver
+return to the Place de la Bourse. It was really pitiful to see the
+despair which had succeeded M. Fortunat’s joyful confidence. “This is
+the end of everything,” he groaned. “I’m robbed, despoiled, ruined! And
+such a sure thing as it seemed. These misfortunes happen to no one but
+me! Some one in advance of me! Some one else will capture the prize! Oh,
+if I knew the wretch, if I only knew him!”
+
+“One moment,” interrupted Chupin; “I think know the man.”
+
+M. Fortunat gave a violent start. “Impossible!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur--it must be a vile rascal named Coralth.”
+
+It was a bellow rather than a cry of rage that escaped M. Fortunat’s
+lips. To a man of his experience, only a glimmer of light was required
+to reveal the whole situation. “Ah! I understand!--I see!” he exclaimed.
+“Yes, you are right, Victor; it’s he--Coralth--Valorsay’s tool! Coralth
+was the traitor who, in obedience to Valorsay’s orders, ruined the
+man who loved Mademoiselle Marguerite. The deed was done at Madame
+d’Argeles’s house. So Coralth knows her, and knows her secret. It’s he
+who has outwitted me.” He reflected for a moment, and then, in a very
+different tone, he said: “I shall never see a penny of the count’s
+millions, and my forty thousand francs are gone forever; but, as Heaven
+hears me, I will have some satisfaction for my money. Ah!--so Coralth
+and Valorsay combine to ruin me! Very well!--since this is the case,
+I shall espouse the cause of Mademoiselle Marguerite and of the
+unfortunate man they’ve ruined. Ah, my cherubs, you don’t know Fortunat
+yet! Now well see if the innocent don’t get the best of you, and if they
+don’t unmask you. I shall do my best, since you have forced me to do
+it--and gratis too!”
+
+Chupin was radiant; his vengeance was assured. “And I, monsieur,” said
+he, “will give you some information about this Coralth. First of all,
+the scoundrel’s married and his wife keeps a tobacco-shop somewhere near
+the Route d’Asnieres. I’ll find her for you--see if I don’t.”
+
+The sudden stopping of the vehicle which had reached the Place de la
+Bourse, cut his words short. M. Fortunat ordered him to pay the
+driver, while he himself rushed upstairs, eager to arrange his plan of
+campaign--to use his own expression. In his absence a commissionaire had
+brought a letter for him which Madame Dodelin now produced. He broke the
+seal, and read to his intense surprise: “Monsieur--I am the ward of
+the late Count de Chalusse. I must speak to you. Will you grant me an
+interview on Wednesday next, at a quarter-past three o’clock? Yours
+respectfully,
+
+                                    “MARGUERITE.”
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+
+When Mademoiselle Marguerite left the dead count’s bedside at ten
+o’clock at night to repair to Pascal Ferailleur’s house, she did not yet
+despair of the future. Father, friend, rank, security, fortune--she had
+lost all these in a single moment--but she could still see a promise of
+happiness in the distance.
+
+She suffered undoubtedly, and yet she experienced a sort of bitter
+pleasure at the thought of uniting her life to the man who was as
+unfortunate as herself, who was slandered as she herself had been
+slandered, branded with the most cruel and unjust imputations, and had
+neither fortune nor friends. Others might scorn them; but what did they
+care for the world’s disdain so long as they had the approval of their
+consciences? Would not their mutual esteem suffice since they loved each
+other? It seemed to Marguerite that their very misfortunes would bind
+them more closely to each other, and cement the bonds of their love
+more strongly. And if it were absolutely necessary for them to leave
+France--ah, well! they would leave it. To them Fatherland would always
+be the spot where they lived together.
+
+As the cab approached the Rue d’Ulm she pictured Pascal’s sorrow, and
+the joy and surprise he would feel when she suddenly appeared before
+him, and faltered: “They accuse you--here I am! I know that you are
+innocent, and I love you!”
+
+But the brutal voice of the concierge, informing her of Pascal’s secret
+departure, in the most insulting terms, abruptly dispelled her dreams.
+If Pascal had failed her, everything had failed her. If she had lost
+him, she had lost her all. The world seemed empty--struggling would be
+folly--happiness was only an empty name. She indeed longed for death!
+
+Madame Leon who had a set of formulas adapted to all circumstances,
+undertook to console her. “Weep, my dear young lady, weep; it will do
+you good. Ah! this is certainly a horrible catastrophe. You are young,
+fortunately, and Time is a great consoler. M. Ferailleur isn’t the
+only man on earth. Others will love you. There are others who love you
+already!”
+
+“Silence!” interrupted Marguerite, more revolted than if she had heard
+a libertine whispering shameful proposals in her ear. “Silence! I forbid
+you to add another word.” To speak of another--what sacrilege! Poor
+girl. She was one of those whose life is bound up in one love alone, and
+if that fails them--it is death!
+
+The thought that she was utterly alone added to the horror of her
+situation. Whom could she depend upon? Not on Madame Leon. She
+distrusted her; she had no confidence whatever in her. Should she
+ask for the advice of either of her suitors? The Marquis de Valorsay
+inspired her with unconquerable aversion, and she despised the so-called
+General de Fondege. So her only friend, her only protector was a
+stranger, the old justice of the peace who had taken her defence, by
+crushing the slander of the servants, and whom she had opened her heart
+to. But he would soon forget her, she thought; and the future, such as
+it was presented to her imagination, seemed a terrible one. However, she
+was too courageous to remain for long in despair--she struggled against
+her sorrow; and the thought that she might, perhaps, reach Pascal
+through M. Fortunat at last occurred to her mind. This hope was her sole
+chance of salvation. She clung to it as a shipwrecked mariner clings to
+the plank which is his only hope of life.
+
+When she returned to the mansion her mind was made up, and she had
+regained her usual composure. For ten minutes or so she had been praying
+by the count’s bedside, when M. Bourigeau, the concierge, appeared and
+handed her a letter which had just been brought to the house. It was
+addressed to “Mademoiselle Marguerite de Durtal de Chalusse, at the
+Hotel de Chalusse, Rue de Courcelles.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite blushed. Who was it that addressed her by
+this name which she no longer had the right to bear? She studied the
+handwriting for a moment, but she did not remember ever having seen it
+before. At last, however, she opened the letter and read: “My dear,
+dear child.” “Dear child!” indeed. What could this mean? Was there any
+one in the world sufficiently interested in her welfare, or loving her
+enough, to address her in this style? She quickly turned the sheet to
+see the signature; and when her eyes fell on it she turned pale. “Ah!”
+ she exclaimed, involuntarily, “ah! ah!”
+
+The letter was signed: “Athenais de Fondege.” It had been written by
+the General’s wife. She resumed her perusal of it, and this is what she
+read: “I this instant hear of the cruel loss you have sustained, and
+also learn that, for want of testamentary provisions, the poor Count de
+Chalusse leaves you, his idolized daughter, almost without resources. I
+will not attempt to offer you consolation, God alone can assuage certain
+sorrows. I should come and weep with you if I were not kept in bed by
+illness. But to-morrow, whatever happens, I shall be with you before
+breakfast. It is at such a time as this, my poor dear afflicted child,
+that one can tell one’s true friends; and we are yours as I hope to
+prove. The General feels that he should be insulting and betraying the
+memory of a man who was his dearest friend for thirty years, if he did
+not take the count’s place, if he did not become your second father.
+He has offered you our modest home; you have refused. Why? With the
+authority conferred upon me by my age and my position as the mother of
+a family, I tell you that you ought to accept. What other course can you
+possibly think of? Where would you go, my poor, dear child? But we will
+discuss this matter to-morrow. I shall find a way to persuade you to
+love us, and to allow yourself to be loved. In MY heart you will fill
+the place of the beloved and lamented daughter I have lost--my beautiful
+and gentle Bathilde. Once more I say farewell until to-morrow--trusting
+that you will accept the sympathy and affection of your best friend,
+
+                             “ATHENAIS DE FONDEGE.”
+
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was thunderstruck, for the writer of this
+epistle was a lady whom she had only met five or six times, who had
+never visited her, and with whom she had scarcely exchanged twenty
+words. Moreover, she well remembered certain glances with which Madame
+de Fondege had, on one occasion, tried to crush her--glances so full of
+cruel contempt that they had drawn bitter tears of sorrow, shame, and
+anger, from the poor girl. The count himself had said to her at the
+time: “Don’t be so childish, Marguerite, as to trouble yourself about
+this foolish and impudent woman.”
+
+And now this same woman sent her a letter overflowing with sympathy,
+and claimed her affection and confidence in the tone of an old and tried
+friend. Was such a change natural? Not being what is called a credulous
+person, Mademoiselle Marguerite was unable to believe it. She divined
+that Madame de Fondege must have had some hidden motive in writing such
+a letter--but what motive was it? Alas! she divined this also only too
+well. The General, suspecting that she had stolen the missing money, had
+imparted his suspicions to his wife; and she, being as avaricious and as
+unscrupulous as himself, was doing her best to secure the booty for her
+son. Such a calculation is a common one nowadays. Steal yourself? Fie.
+never! You would not dare. Besides, you are honest. But it is quite a
+different thing to profit by other people’s rascality. Besides, there
+are no risks to be encountered.
+
+On perusing the letter a second time, it seemed to Mademoiselle
+Marguerite that she could hear the General and his wife discussing the
+means of obtaining a share of the two millions. She could hear Madame de
+Fondege saying to her husband: “You are a block-head! You frightened the
+girl by your precipitancy and roughness. But fortunately, I’m here. Let
+me manage the affair; and I’ll prove that women are far more clever than
+men.” And, thereupon, she had seized her pen, and commenced this letter.
+In Mademoiselle Marguerite’s opinion, the epistle betrayed the joint
+efforts of the pair. She could have sworn that the husband had dictated
+the sentence: “The General feels that he should be insulting and
+betraying the memory of a man who was his dearest friend for thirty
+years, if he did not become your second father.” On the other hand, the
+phrase, “I shall find a way to persuade you to love us, and to allow
+yourself to be loved,” was unmistakably the wife’s work. The writer’s
+insincerity was fully revealed by one passage of the letter. “You will
+fill the place of the beloved daughter I have lost,” wrote Madame de
+Fondege. It is true that she had once had a daughter; but the child had
+died of croup when only six months old, and more than twenty-five years
+previously.
+
+It was strange, moreover, that this letter had not been sent until ten
+o’clock in the evening; but, on reflection, Mademoiselle Marguerite
+was able to explain this circumstance satisfactorily to herself. Before
+taking any decided step, M. and Madame de Fondege had wished to consult
+their son; and they had been unable to see him until late in the
+evening. However, as soon as the brilliant hussar had approved the noble
+scheme concocted by his parents, a servant had been dispatched with
+the letter. All these surmises were surely very plausible; but it
+was difficult to reconcile them with the opinion advanced by the
+magistrate--that M. de Fondege must know what had become of the missing
+millions.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite did not think of this, however. She was losing
+her presence of mind at thought of the odious suspicions which rested
+on her, suspicions which she had seemed to read in the eyes of all who
+approached her, from Dr. Jodon to the Marquis de Valorsay. It is true
+that the magistrate had taken her defence; he had silenced the servants,
+but would that suffice? Would she not remain branded by an abominable
+accusation? And even the consciousness of her innocence did not reassure
+her, for Pascal’s case warned her that innocence is not a sufficient
+safeguard against slander.
+
+Could she hope to escape when he had succumbed? She could tell by the
+agony that was torturing her own heart, how much he must have suffered.
+Where was he now? Beyond the frontiers of France? They had told her so,
+but she did not, could not believe it. Knowing him as she knew him, it
+seemed to her impossible that he had accepted his fate so quickly and
+without a struggle. A secret presentiment told her that his absence was
+only feigned, that he was only biding his time, and that M. Fortunat
+would not have far to go in search of him. It was in M. de Chalusse’s
+bedroom that she thus reflected, but a few steps from the bed on which
+reposed all that was mortal of the man whose weakness had made her life
+one long martyrdom, whose want of foresight had ruined her future, but
+whom she had not the heart to censure. She was standing in front of the
+window with her burning forehead resting against the glass. At that very
+moment Pascal was waiting, seated on the curbstone opposite the mansion.
+At that very moment he was watching the shadow on the window-curtain,
+wondering if it were not Marguerite’s. If the night had been clear she
+might have discerned the motionless watcher in the street below, and
+divined that it was Pascal. But how could she suspect his presence? How
+could she suspect that he had hastened to the Rue de Courcelles as she
+had hastened to the Rue d’Ulm?
+
+It was almost midnight when a slight noise, a sound of stealthy
+footsteps, made her turn. Madame Leon was leaving the room, and a moment
+later Marguerite heard the house-door leading into the garden open and
+shut again. There was nothing extraordinary about such an occurrence,
+and yet a strange misgiving assailed her. Why, she could not explain;
+but many trivial circumstances, suddenly invested with a new and
+alarming significance, recurred to her mind. She remembered that Madame
+Leon had been restless and nervous all the evening. The housekeeper,
+who was usually so inactive, who lounged in her arm-chair for hours
+together, had been moving uneasily about, going up and down stairs at
+least a dozen times, and continually glancing at her watch or the clock.
+Twice, moreover, had the concierge come to tell her that some one
+wished to see her. “Where can she be going now, at midnight?” thought
+Mademoiselle Marguerite; “she who is usually so timid?”
+
+At first, the girl resisted her desire to solve the question; her
+suspicions seemed absurd to her, and, besides, it was distasteful to
+her to play the spy. Still, she listened, waiting to hear Madame Leon
+re-enter the house. But more than a quarter of an hour elapsed, and yet
+the door did not open or close again. Either Madame Leon had not left
+the house at all, or else she was still outside. “This is very strange!”
+ thought Mademoiselle Marguerite. “Was I mistaken? I must convince
+myself.” And, obeying a mysterious influence, stronger than her own
+will, she left the room and went down the stairs. She had reached the
+hall, when the garden door suddenly opened, and Madame Leon came in. The
+lights in the hall were burning brightly, so that it was easy to observe
+the housekeeper’s manner and countenance. She was panting for breath,
+like a person who had been running. She was very pale, and her dress was
+disordered. Her cap-strings were untied, and her cap had slipped from
+her head and was hanging over her shoulders. “What is the matter with
+you?” asked Mademoiselle Marguerite in astonishment. “Where have you
+been?”
+
+On seeing the girl Madame Leon recoiled. Should she fly off or remain?
+She hesitated for an instant; and it was easy to read her hesitation in
+her eyes. She decided to remain; but it was with a constrained smile
+and in an unnatural voice that she replied: “Why do you speak to me like
+that, my dear young lady? One might suppose you were angry with me. You
+must know very well that I’ve been in the garden!”
+
+“At this hour of the night?”
+
+“MON DIEU! yes--and not for pleasure, I assure you--not by any
+means--I--I----” She was evidently seeking for some excuse; and, for
+a moment or two, she stammered forth one incoherent sentence after
+another, trying to gain time and imploring Heaven to grant her an
+inspiration.
+
+“Well?” insisted Mademoiselle Marguerite, impatiently. “Why did you go
+out?”
+
+“Ah! I--I--thought I heard Mirza barking in the garden. I thought she
+had been forgotten in all the confusion, and that the poor creature had
+been shut out, so I summoned all my courage, and----”
+
+Mirza was an old spaniel that M. de Chalusse had been very fond of, and
+the animal’s caprices were respected by all the inmates of the house.
+
+“That’s very strange,” remarked Mademoiselle Marguerite, “for when you
+rose to leave the room, half an hour ago, Mirza was sleeping at your
+feet.”
+
+“What--really--is it possible?”
+
+“It’s certain.”
+
+But the worthy woman had already recovered her self-possession and her
+accustomed loquacity at the same time. “Ah! my dear young lady,” she
+said, bravely, “I’m in such sorrow that I’m losing my senses completely.
+Still, it was only from the kindest of motives that I ventured into the
+garden, and I had scarcely entered it before I saw something white run
+away from me--I felt sure it was Mirza--and so I ran after it. But
+I could find nothing. I called ‘Mirza! Mirza!’ and still nothing. I
+searched under all the trees, and yet I could not find her. It was as
+dark as pitch, and suddenly a terrible fear seized hold of me--such a
+terrible fright that I really believe I called for help, and I ran back
+to the house half crazed.”
+
+Any one hearing her would have sworn that she was telling the truth.
+But, unfortunately, her earlier manner had proved her guilt.
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite was not deceived when she said to herself: “I
+am on the track of some abominable act.” However, she had sufficient
+self-control to conceal her suspicions; and she pretended to be
+perfectly satisfied with the explanation which the house-keeper had
+concocted. “Ah, my dear Leon, you are altogether too timid; it’s
+absurd,” she said, kindly.
+
+The housekeeper hung her head. “I know that I make myself ridiculous,”
+ she said, humbly. “But how can I help it? When a person’s frightened,
+she can’t reason. And that white object which I saw, as plainly as I
+see you, what could it have been?” And, convinced that her fable was
+believed, she grew bolder, and ventured to add: “Oh, my dear young lady,
+I shall tremble all night if the garden isn’t searched. Pray send the
+servants out to look. There are so many thieves and rascals in Paris!”
+
+Under any other circumstances Mademoiselle Marguerite would have refused
+to listen to this ridiculous request; but, determined to repay the
+hypocrite in her own coin, she replied. “Very well; it shall be done.”
+ And calling M. Casimir and Bourigeau, the concierge, she ordered them to
+take a lantern and explore the garden carefully.
+
+They obeyed, though with rather bad grace, not being particularly
+courageous, either of them, and, of course, they found nothing.
+
+“No matter,” said Madame Leon, “I feel safe now.” And she did indeed
+feel more tranquil in mind. “I had a lucky escape!” she said to herself.
+“What would have become of me, if Mademoiselle Marguerite had discovered
+the truth?”
+
+But the housekeeper congratulated herself on her victory too soon.
+Mademoiselle Marguerite not only suspected her of treason, but she was
+endeavoring to procure proofs of it. She felt certain that the plausible
+housekeeper had deceived her, and cruelly wronged her as well. But what
+she could not understand was, how Madame Leon had been able to do so.
+She had spent a long time in fruitless conjectures, when suddenly she
+remembered the little garden gate. “The deceitful creature must have
+used that gate,” she thought.
+
+It was easy for her to verify her suspicion. The little gate had not
+been exactly condemned, but many months had elapsed since it had been
+used; so it would be a very simple matter to ascertain whether it had
+been recently opened or not. “And I will know for certain before an hour
+has passed,” said Mademoiselle Marguerite to herself.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, she feigned sleep, keeping a sharp watch
+over Madame Leon from between her half-closed eyelids. The housekeeper,
+after twisting uneasily in her arm-chair, at last became quiet again;
+and it was soon evident that she was sleeping soundly. Thereupon
+Mademoiselle Marguerite rose to her feet and stole noiselessly from the
+room downstairs into the garden. She had provided herself with a candle
+and some matches, and as soon as she struck a light, she saw that her
+surmises were correct. The little gate had just been opened and closed
+again. The cobwebs round about the bolts were torn and broken; the rust
+which had filled the keyhole had been removed, and on the dust covering
+the lock the impress of a hand could be detected. “And I have confided
+my most precious secrets to this wicked woman!” thought Mademoiselle
+Marguerite. “Fool that I was!”
+
+Already thoroughly convinced, she extinguished her candle. Still, having
+discovered so much, she wished to pursue her investigation to the end,
+and so she opened the little gate. The ground outside had been soaked
+by the recent rains, and had not yet dried, and by the light of
+the neighboring street-lamp, she plainly distinguished a number of
+well-defined footprints on the muddy soil. An experienced observer would
+have realized by the disposition of these footprints that something like
+a struggle had taken place here; but Mademoiselle Marguerite was not
+sufficiently expert for that. She only understood what a child would
+have understood--that two people had been standing here for some time.
+Poor girl! She had not seen Pascal when he was sitting in front of the
+mansion some hours before! And now no presentiment warned her that these
+footprints were his. In her opinion, the man who had been talking with
+Madame Leon was either M. de Fondege, or the Marquis de Valorsay--that
+is to say, Madame Leon was hired to watch her and to render an account
+of all she said and did.
+
+Her first impulse was to denounce and dismiss this miserable hypocrite;
+but as she was returning to the house, an idea which an old diplomatist
+need not have been ashamed of entered her mind. She said to herself
+that as Madame Leon was unmasked she was no longer to be feared; so
+why should she be sent away? “A known spy can undoubtedly be made a most
+valuable auxiliary. Why shouldn’t I make use of this wicked woman?”
+ thought Mademoiselle Marguerite. “I can conceal from her what I don’t
+wish her to know, and with a little skill I can make her carry to her
+employers such information as will serve my plans. By watching her, I
+shall soon discover my enemy; and who knows if, by this means, I may not
+succeed in finding an explanation of the fatality that pursues me?”
+
+When Mademoiselle Marguerite returned to her place beside the count’s
+bedside, she had calmly and irrevocably made up her mind. She would
+not only retain Madame Leon in her service, but she would display even
+greater confidence in her than before. Such a course was most repugnant
+to Marguerite’s loyal, truthful nature; but reason whispered to her that
+in fighting with villains, it is often necessary to use their weapons;
+and she had her honor, her life, and her future to defend. A strange and
+but imperfectly defined suspicion had entered her mind. To-night, for
+the first time, she thought she could discover a mysterious connection
+between Pascal’s misfortunes and her own. Was it mere chance which had
+struck them at the same time, and in much the same manner? Who would
+have profited by the abominable crime which had dishonored her lover,
+had it not been for M. de Chalusse’s death and her own firmness?
+Evidently the Marquis de Valorsay, for whom Pascal’s flight had left the
+field clear.
+
+All these thoughts were well calculated to drive away sleep; but the
+poor girl was only twenty, and it was the second night she had watched
+by the count’s bedside. Thus at last fatigue overcame her, and she fell
+asleep.
+
+In the morning, about seven o’clock, Madame Leon was obliged to shake
+her to rouse her from the kind of lethargy into which she had fallen.
+“Mademoiselle,” said the housekeeper, in her honeyed voice; “dear
+mademoiselle, wake up at once!”
+
+“What is the matter? What is it?”
+
+“Ah! how can I explain? My dear young lady, the undertaker’s men have
+come to make arrangements for the ceremony.”
+
+Those in charge of the last rites had indeed arrived, and their heavy
+tread could be heard in the hall and in the courtyard. M. Casimir, who
+was bursting with self-sufficiency, hurried here, there? and everywhere,
+indicating, with an imperious gesture, where he wished the black
+hangings, embroidered with silver and emblazoned with the De Chalusse
+arms, to be suspended. As the magistrate had given him carte-blanche,
+he deemed it proper, as he remarked to Concierge Bourigeau, to have
+everything done in grand style. But he took good care not to reveal the
+fact that he had exacted a very handsome commission from all the people
+he employed. The hundred francs derived from Chupin had only whetted his
+appetite for more. At all events, he had certainly spared no pains in
+view of having everything as magnificent as possible; and it was not
+until he considered the display thoroughly satisfactory that he went to
+warn Mademoiselle Marguerite. “I come to beg mademoiselle to retire to
+her own room,” he said.
+
+“Retire--why?”
+
+He did not reply by words, but pointed to the bed on which the body was
+lying, and the poor girl realized that the moment of eternal separation
+had come. She rose, and dragged herself to the bedside. Death had
+now effaced all traces of the count’s last agony. His face wore its
+accustomed expression again, and it might have been fancied that he was
+asleep. For a long time Mademoiselle Marguerite stood looking at him, as
+if to engrave the features she would never behold again upon her memory.
+“Mademoiselle,” insisted M. Casimir; “mademoiselle, do not remain here.”
+
+She heard him, and summoning all her strength, she leaned over the
+bed, kissed M. de Chalusse, and went away. But she was too late, for in
+passing through the hall she encountered the undertakers, who carried on
+their shoulders a long metallic case enclosed in two oaken ones. And she
+had scarcely reached her own room before a smell of resin told her that
+the men were closing the coffin which contained all that was mortal of
+M. de Chalusse, her father.
+
+So, none of those terrible details, which so increase one’s grief, were
+spared her. But she had already suffered so much that she had reached
+a state of gloomy apathy, almost insensibility; and the exercise of her
+faculties was virtually suspended. Whiter than marble, she fell, rather
+than seated herself, on a chair, scarcely perceiving Madame Leon, who
+had followed her.
+
+The worthy housekeeper was greatly excited, and not without cause. As
+there were no relations, it had been decided that M. de Fondege, the
+count’s oldest friend, should do the honors of the mansion to the
+persons invited to attend the funeral; and he had sworn that he would be
+under arms at daybreak, and that they might positively depend upon him.
+But the hour fixed for the ceremony was approaching, several persons had
+already arrived, and yet M. de Fondege had not put in an appearance.
+“It is incomprehensible,” exclaimed Madame Leon. “The General is usually
+punctuality personified. He must have met with some accident.” And
+in her anxiety she stationed herself at the window, whence she could
+command a view of the courtyard, carefully scrutinizing every fresh
+arrival.
+
+At last, about half-past nine o’clock, she suddenly exclaimed: “Here he
+is! Do you hear, mademoiselle, here’s the General!”
+
+A moment later, indeed, there was a gentle rap at the door, and M. de
+Fondege entered. “Ah, I’m late!” he exclaimed; “but, dash it all! it’s
+not my fault!” And, struck by Mademoiselle Marguerite’s immobility, he
+advanced and took her hand. “And you, my dear little one, what is the
+matter with you?” he asked. “Have you been ill? You are frightfully
+pale.”
+
+She succeeded in shaking off the torpor which was stealing over her, and
+replied in a faint voice; “I am not ill, monsieur.”
+
+“So much the better, my dear child, so much the better. It is our little
+heart that is suffering, is it not? Yes--yes--I understand. But your old
+friends will console you. You received my wife’s letter, did you not?
+Ah, well! what she told you, she will do--she will do it. And to prove
+it, in spite of her illness, she followed me--in fact, she is here!”
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite sprang to her feet, quivering with indignation.
+Her eyes sparkled and her lips trembled as she threw back her head with
+a superb gesture of scorn, which loosened her beautiful dark hair, and
+caused it to fall in rippling masses over her shoulders. “Ah! Madame de
+Fondege is here!” she repeated, in a tone of crushing contempt--“Madame
+de Fondege, your wife, here!”
+
+It seemed to her an impossibility to receive the hypocrite who had
+written the letter of the previous evening--the accomplice of the
+scoundrels who took advantage of her wretchedness and isolation. Her
+heart revolted at the thought of meeting this woman, who had neither
+conscience nor shame, who could stoop so low as to intrigue for the
+millions which she fancied had been stolen. Mademoiselle Marguerite was
+about to forbid her to enter, or to retire herself, when the thought
+of her determination to act stealthily restrained her. She instantly
+realized her imprudence, and, mastering herself with a great effort,
+she murmured: “Madame de Fondege is too kind! How can I ever express my
+gratitude?”
+
+Madame de Fondege must have heard this, for at the same moment she
+entered the room. She was short, and very stout--a faded blonde, with
+her complexion spoilt by a multitude of freckles. She had very large
+hands, broad, thick feet, and a shrill voice; and the vulgarity of her
+appearance was all the more noticeable on account of her pretensions to
+elegance. For although her father had been a wood-merchant, she
+boasted of her exalted birth, and endeavored to impress people with
+the magnificence of her style of living, though her fortune was
+problematical, and her household conducted in the most frugal style.
+Her attire suggested a continual conflict between elegance and
+economy--between real poverty and feigned prodigality. She wore
+a corsage and overskirt of black satin; but the upper part of the
+underskirt, which was not visible, was made of lute-string costing
+thirty sous a yard, and her laces were Chantilly only in appearance.
+Still, her love of finery had never carried her so far as shop-lifting,
+or induced her to part with her honor for gewgaws--irregularities which
+are so common nowadays, even among wives and mothers of families, that
+people are no longer astonished to hear of them.
+
+No--Madame de Fondege was a faithful wife, in the strict and legal sense
+of the word. But how she revenged herself! She was “virtuous;” but so
+dangerously virtuous that one might have supposed she was so against her
+will, and that she bitterly regretted it. She ruled her husband with a
+rod of iron. And he who was so terrible in appearance, he who twirled
+his ferocious mustaches in such a threatening manner, he who swore
+horribly enough to make an old hussar blush, became more submissive
+than a child, and more timid than a lamb when he was beside his wife.
+He trembled when she turned her pale blue eyes upon him in a certain
+fashion. And woe to him if he ventured to rebel. She suppressed his
+pocket-money, and during these penitential seasons he was reduced to the
+necessity of asking his friends to lend him twenty-franc pieces, which
+he generally forgot to return.
+
+Madame de Fondege was, as a rule, most imperious, envious, and spiteful
+in disposition; but on coming to the Hotel de Chalusse she had provided
+herself with any amount of sweetness and sensibility, and when she
+entered the room, she held her handkerchief to her lips as if to stifle
+her sobs. The General led her toward Mademoiselle Marguerite, and, in a
+semi-solemn, semi-sentimental tone, he exclaimed: “Dear Athenais, this
+is the daughter of my best and oldest friend. I know your heart--I know
+that she will find in you a second mother.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite stood speechless and rigid. Persuaded that
+Madame de Fondege was about to throw her arms round her neck and kiss
+her, she was imposing the most terrible constraint upon herself, in
+order to conceal her horror and aversion. But she was unnecessarily
+alarmed. The hypocrisy of the General’s wife was superior to that
+of Madame Leon. Madame de Fondege contented herself with pressing
+Mademoiselle Marguerite’s hands and faltering: “What a misfortune! So
+young--so sudden! It is frightful!” And, as she received no reply,
+she added, with an air of sorrowful dignity: “I dare not ask your full
+confidence, my dear unfortunate child. Confidence can be born only of
+long acquaintance and mutual esteem. But you will learn to know me. You
+will give me that sweet name of mother when I shall have deserved it.”
+
+Standing at a little distance off, the General listened with the air of
+a man who has a profound respect for his wife’s ability. “Now the ice is
+broken,” he thought, “it will be strange if Athenais doesn’t do whatever
+she pleases with that little savage.”
+
+His hopes were so brightly reflected upon his countenance, that Madame
+Leon, who was furtively watching him, became alarmed. “Ah! what do these
+people want?” she said to herself; “and what do all these endearments
+mean? Upon my word, I must warn my patron at once.” And, fancying that
+no one noticed her, she slipped quietly and noiselessly from the room.
+
+But Mademoiselle Marguerite was on the watch. Determined to fathom the
+plotting that was going on around her, and frustrate it, she realized
+that everything depended upon her watchfulness and her ability to
+profit even by the most futile incidents. She had noticed the General’s
+triumphant smile, and the look of anxiety that had suddenly clouded
+Madame Leon’s face. So, without troubling herself about “the
+proprieties,” she asked M. and Madame de Fondege to excuse her for a
+second, and darted alter the housekeeper. Ah! she did not need to go
+far. Leaning over the banisters, she saw Madame Leon and the Marquis
+de Valorsay in earnest conversation in the hall below; the marquis as
+phlegmatic and as haughty as usual, but the house-keeper fairly excited.
+Marguerite at once understood that as Madame Leon knew that the marquis
+was among the funeral guests, she had gone to warn him of Madame
+de Fondege’s presence. This trivial circumstance proved that M. de
+Fondege’s interests were opposed to those of M. de Valorsay; that they
+must, therefore, hate each other, and that, with a little patience and
+skill, she might utilize them, one against the other. It also proved
+that Madame Leon was the Marquis de Valorsay’s paid spy and that he must
+therefore have long been aware of Pascal’s existence. But she lacked the
+time to follow out this train of thought. Her absence might awaken the
+Fondeges’ suspicions; and her success depended on letting them suppose
+that she was their dupe. She therefore returned to them as soon as
+possible, excusing herself for her abrupt departure as well as she
+could; but she was not accustomed to deceive, and her embarrassment
+might have betrayed her had it not been for the General, who fortunately
+interrupted her by saying: “I, too, must excuse myself, my dear child;
+but Madame de Fondege will remain with you. I must fulfil a sacred
+duty. They are waiting for me downstairs, and they are no doubt becoming
+impatient. It is the first time in my life that I was ever behind time.”
+
+The General was right in losing no more time. At least a hundred and
+fifty guests had assembled in the reception-rooms on the ground floor,
+and they were beginning to think it very strange that they should be
+kept waiting in this style. And yet curiosity somewhat tempered their
+impatience. Some of the strange circumstances attending the count’s
+death had been noised abroad; and some well-informed persons declared
+that a fabulous sum of money had been stolen by a young girl. It
+is true, they did not think this embezzlement a positive crime. It
+certainly proved that the young lady in question possessed a strong and
+determined character; and many of the proudest among the guests would
+gladly have taken the place of De Valorsay, who, it was rumored, was
+about to marry the pretty thief and her millions.
+
+The person who was most disturbed by the delay was the master of the
+ceremonies. Arrayed in his best uniform, his thin legs encased in black
+silk stockings, his mantle thrown gracefully over his shoulders, and his
+cocked hat under his arm, he was looking anxiously about for some one in
+the assembled crowd to whom he could give the signal for departure. He
+was already talking of starting off when M. de Fondege appeared. The
+friends of M. de Chalusse who were to hold the cords of the pall came
+forward. There was a moment’s confusion, then the hearse started, and
+the whole cortege filed out of the courtyard.
+
+Deep silence followed, so deep that the noise made in closing the
+heavy gates came upon one with startling effect. “Ah!” moaned Madame de
+Fondege, “it is over.”
+
+Marguerite’s only reply was a despairing gesture. It would have been
+impossible for her to articulate a syllable--her tears were choking her.
+What would she not have given to be alone at this moment--to have
+been able to abandon herself without constraint to her emotions! Alas!
+prudence condemned her to play a part even now. The thought of her
+future and her honor lent her strength to submit to the deceitful
+consolations of a woman whom she knew to be a dangerous enemy. And the
+General’s wife was by no means sparing of her consolatory phrases; in
+fact, it was only after a long homily on the uncertainty of life below
+that she ventured to approach the subject of her letter of the previous
+evening. “For it is necessary to face the inevitable,” she pursued. “The
+troublesome realities of life have no respect for our grief. So it is
+with you, my dear child; you would find a bitter pleasure in giving vent
+to your sorrow, but you are compelled to think of your future. As M. de
+Chalusse has no heirs, this house will be closed--you can remain here no
+longer.”
+
+“I know it, madame.”
+
+“Where will you go?”
+
+“Alas! I don’t know.”
+
+Madame de Fondege raised her handkerchief to her eyes as if to wipe a
+furtive tear away, and then, almost roughly, she exclaimed: “I must tell
+you the truth, my child. Listen to me. I see only two courses for you
+to adopt. Either to ask the protection of some respectable family, or to
+enter a convent. This is your only hope of safety.”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite bowed her head, without replying. To learn the
+plans which the General’s wife had formed she must let her disclose
+them. However, the girl’s silence seemed to make Madame de Fondege
+uncomfortable, and at last she resumed: “Is it possible that you think
+of braving the perils of life alone? I cannot believe it! It would be
+madness. Young, beautiful, and attractive as you are, it is impossible
+for you to live unprotected. Even if you had sufficient strength of
+character to lead a pure and honest life, the world would none the less
+refuse you its esteem. Mere prejudice, you say? You are quite right; but
+it is nevertheless true that a young girl who braves public opinion is
+lost.”
+
+It was easy to see by Madame de Fondege’s earnestness that she feared
+Mademoiselle Marguerite would avail herself of this opportunity of
+recovering her liberty. “What shall I do, then?” asked the girl.
+
+“There is the convent.”
+
+“But I love life.”
+
+“Then ask the protection of some respectable family.”
+
+“The idea of being in any one’s charge is disagreeable to me.”
+
+Strange to say, Madame de Fondege did not protest, did not speak of her
+own house. She was too proud for that. Having once offered hospitality,
+she thought it would arouse suspicion if she insisted. So she contented
+herself with enumerating the arguments for and against the two
+propositions, remarking from time to time: “Come, you must decide! Don’t
+wait until the last moment!”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite had already decided but before announcing
+her decision she wished to confer with the only friend she had in the
+world--the old justice of the peace. On the previous evening he had said
+to her: “Farewell until to-morrow,” and knowing that his work in the
+house had not been concluded, she was extremely surprised that he had
+not yet put in an appearance.
+
+While conversing with Madame de Fondege she had dexterously avoided
+compromising herself in any way when suddenly a servant appeared and
+announced the magistrate’s arrival. He entered the room, with his usual
+benevolent smile upon his lips, but his searching eyes were never once
+taken off Madame de Fondege’s face. He bowed, made a few polite remarks,
+and then addressing Marguerite, he said: “I must speak with you,
+mademoiselle, at once. You may tell madame, however, that you will
+certainly return in less than a quarter of an hour.”
+
+Marguerite followed him, and when they were alone in the count’s study
+and the doors had been carefully closed, the magistrate exclaimed: “I
+have been thinking a great deal of you, my child, a great deal; and
+it seems to me that I can explain certain things which worried you
+yesterday. But first of all, what has happened since I left you?”
+
+Briefly, but with remarkable precision, Marguerite recounted the various
+incidents which had occurred--her useless journey to the Rue d’Ulm,
+Madame Leon’s strange midnight ramble and conversation with the Marquis
+de Valorsay, Madame de Fondege’s letter, and lastly, her visit and all
+that she had said.
+
+The magistrate listened with his eyes fixed on his ring “This is very
+serious, very serious,” he said at last. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps
+M. Ferailleur is innocent. And yet, why should he abscond? why should he
+leave the country?”
+
+“Ah! monsieur, Pascal’s flight is only feigned. He is in
+Paris--concealed somewhere--I’m sure of it; and I know a man who will
+find him for me. Only one thing puzzles me--his silence. To disappear
+without a word, without giving me any sign of life----”
+
+The magistrate interrupted her by a gesture. “I see nothing surprising
+in that since your companion is the Marquis de Valorsay’s spy. How do
+you know that she has not intercepted or destroyed some letter from M.
+Pascal?”
+
+Mademoiselle Marguerite turned pale. “Great Heavens! how blind I have
+been!” she exclaimed. “I did not think of that. Oh, the wretch! if one
+could only question her and make her confess her crime. It is horrible
+to think that if I wish to arrive at the truth, I must remain with her
+and treat her in the future just as I have treated her till now.”
+
+But the magistrate was not the man to wander from the subject he was
+investigating. “Let us return to Madame de Fondege,” said he. “She
+is extremely unwilling to see you go out into the world alone.
+Why?--through affection? No. Why, then? This is what we must ascertain.
+Secondly, she seems indifferent as to whether you accept her hospitality
+or enter a convent.”
+
+“She seems to prefer that I should enter a convent.”
+
+“Very well. What conclusion can we draw from that? Simply, that the
+Fondege family don’t particularly care about keeping you with them, or
+marrying you to their son. If they don’t desire this, it is because they
+are perfectly sure that the missing money was not taken by you. Now, let
+me ask, how can they be so certain? Simply because they know where the
+missing millions are--and if they know----”
+
+“Ah! monsieur, it is because they’ve stolen them!”
+
+The magistrate was silent. He had turned the bezel of his ring inside, a
+sure sign of stormy weather, so his clerk would have said--and though he
+had his features under excellent control he could not entirely conceal
+some signs of a severe mental conflict he was undergoing. “Well, yes,
+my child,” he said, at last. “Yes, it is my conviction that the Fondeges
+possess the millions you saw in the count’s escritoire, and which we
+have been unable to find. How they obtained possession of the money I
+can’t conceive--but they have it, or else logic is no longer logic.”
+ He paused again for a moment, and then he resumed, more slowly: “In
+acquainting you with my opinion on this subject, I have given you, a
+young girl, almost a child, a proof of esteem and confidence which,
+it seems to me, few men are worthy of; for I may be deceived, and a
+magistrate ought not to accuse a person unless he is absolutely certain
+of his guilt. So you must forget what I have just told you, Mademoiselle
+Marguerite.”
+
+She looked at him with an air of utter astonishment. “You advise me to
+forget,” she murmured, “you wish me to forget.”
+
+“Yes; you must conceal these suspicions in the deepest recesses of your
+heart, until the time comes when you have sufficient proof to convict
+the culprits. It is true that it will be a difficult task to collect
+such proofs; but it is not impossible, with the aid of time, which
+divulges so many crimes. And you may count upon me; I will give you the
+benefit of all my influence and experience. It shall never be said that
+I allowed a defenceless girl to be crushed while I saw any chance of
+saving her.”
+
+Tears came to Mademoiselle Marguerite’s eyes. So the world was not
+composed entirely of scoundrels! “Ah! how kind you are, monsieur,” she
+said; “how kind you are!”
+
+“To be sure!” he interrupted, in a benevolent tone. “But, my child,
+you must help yourself. Remember this: if the Fondeges suspect our
+suspicions, all is lost. Repeat this to yourself at every moment in the
+day--and be discreet, impenetrable; for people with unclean consciences
+and hands are always distrustful of others.”
+
+There was no necessity to say anything more on this point; and so, with
+a sudden change of tone he asked: “Have you any plan?”
+
+She felt that she could, and ought, to confide everything to this
+worthy old man, and so rising to her feet, with a look of energy and
+determination on her face, she replied in a firm voice: “My decision
+is taken, monsieur, subject, of course, to your approval. In the first
+place I shall keep Madame Leon with me, in whatever capacity she likes,
+it doesn’t matter what. Through her I shall no doubt be able to watch
+the Marquis de Valorsay, and perhaps eventually discover his hopes and
+his aim. In the second place, I shall accept the hospitality offered me
+by the General and his wife. With them, I shall be in the very centre of
+the intrigue, and in a position to collect proofs of their infamy.”
+
+The magistrate gave vent to an exclamation of delight. “You are a brave
+girl, Mademoiselle Marguerite,” he said, “and at the same time a prudent
+one. Yes; that is the proper course to pursue.”
+
+Nothing now remained save to make arrangements for her departure. She
+possessed some very handsome diamonds and other costly jewels; should
+she keep them? “They are undoubtedly mine,” said she; “but after the
+infamous accusations levelled at me, I can’t consent to take them away
+with me. They are worth a very handsome amount. I shall leave them with
+you, monsieur. If the courts restore them to me later--well--I shall
+take them--and not without pleasure, I frankly confess.” Then as the
+magistrate questioned her anxiously as to her resources, she replied:
+“Oh! I’m not without money. M. de Chalusse was generosity itself, and my
+tastes are very simple. From the money he gave me for my clothes I saved
+more than eight thousand francs in less than six months. That is more
+than sufficient to maintain me for a year.”
+
+The magistrate then explained that when the court took possession
+of this immense estate, it would surely allow her a certain sum.
+For whether the count was her father or not, he was at any rate her
+officially appointed guardian, and she would be considered a minor. And
+in support of his assertion, he quoted Article 367 of the Civil Code,
+which says: “In the event of the officially appointed guardian dying
+without adopting, his ward, the said ward shall be furnished during her
+minority with the means of subsistence from the said guardian’s estate,”
+ etc., etc.
+
+“An additional reason why I should give up my jewels,” said Mademoiselle
+Marguerite.
+
+The only point that now remained was to decide upon some plan by which
+she could communicate with her friend, the magistrate, without the
+knowledge of the General or his wife. The magistrate accordingly
+explained a system of correspondence which would defy the closest
+surveillance, and then added: “Now, make haste back to your visitor. Who
+knows what suspicions your absence may have caused her?”
+
+But Mademoiselle Marguerite had one more request to make. She had often
+seen in M. de Chalusse’s possession a little note-book, in which he
+entered the names and addresses of the persons with whom he had business
+transactions. M. Fortunat’s address must be there, so she asked and
+obtained permission to examine this note-book, and to her great joy,
+under the letter “F,” she found the entry: “Fortunat (Isidore), No. 28
+Place de la Bourse.” “Ah! I’m sure that I shall find Pascal now!” she
+exclaimed. And after once more thanking the magistrate, she returned to
+her room again.
+
+Madame de Fondege was awaiting her with feverish impatience. “How long
+you stayed!” she cried.
+
+“I had so many explanations to give, madame.”
+
+“How you are tormented, my poor child!”
+
+“Oh, shamefully!”
+
+This furnished Madame de Fondege with another excuse for proffering
+her advice. But Mademoiselle Marguerite would not allow herself to be
+convinced at once. She raised a great many objections, and parleyed for
+a long time before telling Madame de Fondege that she would be happy to
+accept the hospitality which had been offered her. And her consent
+was by no means unconditional. She insisted on paying her board, and
+expressed the wish to retain the services of Madame Leon to whom she was
+so much attached. The worthy housekeeper was present at this conference.
+For an instant she had feared that Mademoiselle Marguerite suspected her
+manoeuvres but her fears were now dispelled, and she even congratulated
+herself on her skilfulness. Everything was arranged, and the agreement
+had been sealed with a kiss, when the General returned about four
+o’clock. “Ah, my dear!” cried his wife, “what happiness! We have a
+daughter!”
+
+But even this intelligence was scarcely sufficient to revive her
+husband’s drooping spirits. He had almost fainted when he heard the
+earth falling on M. de Chalusse’s coffin; and this display of weakness
+on the part of a man adorned with such terrible and ferocious mustaches
+had excited no little comment. “Yes, it is a great happiness!” he now
+replied. “But thunder and lightning! I never doubted the dear girl’s
+heart!”
+
+Still both he and his wife could scarcely conceal their disappointment
+when the magistrate informed them that their beloved daughter would
+not take her diamonds. “Dash it!” growled the General. “I recognize her
+father in this! What delicacy! almost too much, perhaps!”
+
+However, when the magistrate informed him that the court would
+undoubtedly order the restitution of the jewels, his face brightened
+again, and he went down to superintend the removal of Mademoiselle
+Marguerite’s trunks, which were being loaded on one of the vehicles of
+the establishment.
+
+Then the moment of departure came. Mademoiselle Marguerite acknowledged
+the parting remarks of the servants, who were secretly delighted to be
+freed from her presence, and then, before entering the carriage, she
+cast a long, sad look upon this princely mansion which she had once had
+the right to believe her own, but which she was, alas! now leaving, in
+all probability, for ever.
+
+
+
+The conclusion of this narrative will be found in the volume called
+“Baron Trigault’s Vengeance.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Footnote 1: French gamblers use this expression which they explain by the fact
+that Charlemagne departed this life with all his possessions intact,
+having always added to his dominions without ever experiencing a
+loss. Historically this is no doubt incorrect, but none the less, the
+expression prevails in France.--TRANS.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See “Lecoq the Detective” by Emile Gaboriau]
+
+[Footnote 3: The body of hired applauders who are employed at most Parisian
+theatres to stimulate the enthusiasm of the audience.--Trans.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Count’s Millions, by Emile Gaboriau
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thecrystalstopper b/files/books/unrelated/thecrystalstopper
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5db4f1f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thecrystalstopper
@@ -0,0 +1,10702 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crystal Stopper, by Maurice LeBlanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Crystal Stopper
+
+Author: Maurice LeBlanc
+
+Posting Date: August 16, 2008 [EBook #1563]
+Release Date: December, 1998
+Last Updated: November 10, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRYSTAL STOPPER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CRYSTAL STOPPER
+
+by Maurice LeBlanc
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE ARRESTS
+
+The two boats fastened to the little pier that jutted out from the
+garden lay rocking in its shadow. Here and there lighted windows showed
+through the thick mist on the margins of the lake. The Enghien Casino
+opposite blazed with light, though it was late in the season, the end
+of September. A few stars appeared through the clouds. A light breeze
+ruffled the surface of the water.
+
+Arsene Lupin left the summer-house where he was smoking a cigar and,
+bending forward at the end of the pier:
+
+“Growler?” he asked. “Masher?... Are you there?”
+
+A man rose from each of the boats, and one of them answered:
+
+“Yes, governor.”
+
+“Get ready. I hear the car coming with Gilbert and Vaucheray.”
+
+He crossed the garden, walked round a house in process of construction,
+the scaffolding of which loomed overhead, and cautiously opened the door
+on the Avenue de Ceinture. He was not mistaken: a bright light flashed
+round the bend and a large, open motor-car drew up, whence sprang two
+men in great-coats, with the collars turned up, and caps.
+
+It was Gilbert and Vaucheray: Gilbert, a young fellow of twenty or
+twenty-two, with an attractive cast of features and a supple and sinewy
+frame; Vaucheray, older, shorter, with grizzled hair and a pale, sickly
+face.
+
+“Well,” asked Lupin, “did you see him, the deputy?”
+
+“Yes, governor,” said Gilbert, “we saw him take the 7.40 tram for Paris,
+as we knew he would.”
+
+“Then we are free to act?”
+
+“Absolutely. The Villa Marie-Therese is ours to do as we please with.”
+
+The chauffeur had kept his seat. Lupin gave him his orders:
+
+“Don’t wait here. It might attract attention. Be back at half-past
+nine exactly, in time to load the car unless the whole business falls
+through.”
+
+“Why should it fall through?” observed Gilbert.
+
+The motor drove away; and Lupin, taking the road to the lake with his
+two companions, replied:
+
+“Why? Because I didn’t prepare the plan; and, when I don’t do a thing
+myself, I am only half-confident.”
+
+“Nonsense, governor! I’ve been working with you for three years now...
+I’m beginning to know the ropes!”
+
+“Yes, my lad, you’re beginning,” said Lupin, “and that’s just why I’m
+afraid of blunders... Here, get in with me... And you, Vaucheray, take
+the other boat... That’s it... And now push off, boys... and make as
+little noise as you can.”
+
+Growler and Masher, the two oarsmen, made straight for the opposite
+bank, a little to the left of the casino.
+
+They met a boat containing a couple locked in each other’s arms,
+floating at random, and another in which a number of people were singing
+at the top of their voices. And that was all.
+
+Lupin shifted closer to his companion and said, under his breath:
+
+“Tell me, Gilbert, did you think of this job, or was it Vaucheray’s
+idea?”
+
+“Upon my word, I couldn’t tell you: we’ve both of us been discussing it
+for weeks.”
+
+“The thing is, I don’t trust Vaucheray: he’s a low ruffian when one gets
+to know him... I can’t make out why I don’t get rid of him...”
+
+“Oh, governor!”
+
+“Yes, yes, I mean what I say: he’s a dangerous fellow, to say nothing
+of the fact that he has some rather serious peccadilloes on his
+conscience.”
+
+He sat silent for a moment and continued:
+
+“So you’re quite sure that you saw Daubrecq the deputy?”
+
+“Saw him with my own eyes, governor.”
+
+“And you know that he has an appointment in Paris?”
+
+“He’s going to the theatre.”
+
+“Very well; but his servants have remained behind at the Enghien
+villa....”
+
+“The cook has been sent away. As for the valet, Leonard, who is
+Daubrecq’s confidential man, he’ll wait for his master in Paris. They
+can’t get back from town before one o’clock in the morning. But...”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“We must reckon with a possible freak of fancy on Daubrecq’s part, a
+change of mind, an unexpected return, and so arrange to have everything
+finished and done with in an hour.”
+
+“And when did you get these details?”
+
+“This morning. Vaucheray and I at once thought that it was a favourable
+moment. I selected the garden of the unfinished house which we have just
+left as the best place to start from; for the house is not watched at
+night. I sent for two mates to row the boats; and I telephoned to you.
+That’s the whole story.”
+
+“Have you the keys?”
+
+“The keys of the front-door.”
+
+“Is that the villa which I see from here, standing in its own grounds?”
+
+“Yes, the Villa Marie-Therese; and as the two others, with the gardens
+touching it on either side, have been unoccupied since this day week,
+we shall be able to remove what we please at our leisure; and I swear to
+you, governor, it’s well worth while.”
+
+“The job’s much too simple,” mumbled Lupin. “No charm about it!”
+
+They landed in a little creek whence rose a few stone steps, under cover
+of a mouldering roof. Lupin reflected that shipping the furniture would
+be easy work. But, suddenly, he said:
+
+“There are people at the villa. Look... a light.”
+
+“It’s a gas-jet, governor. The light’s not moving.”
+
+The Growler stayed by the boats, with instructions to keep watch, while
+the Masher, the other rower, went to the gate on the Avenue de Ceinture,
+and Lupin and his two companions crept in the shadow to the foot of the
+steps.
+
+Gilbert went up first. Groping in the dark, he inserted first the big
+door-key and then the latch-key. Both turned easily in their locks, the
+door opened and the three men walked in.
+
+A gas-jet was flaring in the hall.
+
+“You see, governor...” said Gilbert.
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Lupin, in a low voice, “but it seems to me that the
+light which I saw shining did not come from here...”
+
+“Where did it come from then?”
+
+“I can’t say... Is this the drawing-room?”
+
+“No,” replied Gilbert, who was not afraid to speak pretty loudly, “no.
+By way of precaution, he keeps everything on the first floor, in his
+bedroom and in the two rooms on either side of it.”
+
+“And where is the staircase?”
+
+“On the right, behind the curtain.”
+
+Lupin moved to the curtain and was drawing the hanging aside when,
+suddenly, at four steps on the left, a door opened and a head appeared,
+a pallid man’s head, with terrified eyes.
+
+“Help! Murder!” shouted the man.
+
+And he rushed back into the room.
+
+“It’s Leonard, the valet!” cried Gilbert.
+
+“If he makes a fuss, I’ll out him,” growled Vaucheray.
+
+“You’ll jolly well do nothing of the sort, do you hear, Vaucheray?” said
+Lupin, peremptorily. And he darted off in pursuit of the servant. He
+first went through a dining-room, where he saw a lamp still lit, with
+plates and a bottle around it, and he found Leonard at the further end
+of a pantry, making vain efforts to open the window:
+
+“Don’t move, sportie! No kid! Ah, the brute!”
+
+He had thrown himself flat on the floor, on seeing Leonard raise his arm
+at him. Three shots were fired in the dusk of the pantry; and then the
+valet came tumbling to the ground, seized by the legs by Lupin, who
+snatched his weapon from him and gripped him by the throat:
+
+“Get out, you dirty brute!” he growled. “He very nearly did for me...
+Here, Vaucheray, secure this gentleman!”
+
+He threw the light of his pocket-lantern on the servant’s face and
+chuckled:
+
+“He’s not a pretty gentleman either... You can’t have a very clear
+conscience, Leonard; besides, to play flunkey to Daubrecq the deputy...!
+Have you finished, Vaucheray? I don’t want to hang about here for ever!”
+
+“There’s no danger, governor,” said Gilbert.
+
+“Oh, really?... So you think that shots can’t be heard?...”
+
+“Quite impossible.”
+
+“No matter, we must look sharp. Vaucheray, take the lamp and let’s go
+upstairs.”
+
+He took Gilbert by the arm and, as he dragged him to the first floor:
+
+“You ass,” he said, “is that the way you make inquiries? Wasn’t I right
+to have my doubts?”
+
+“Look here, governor, I couldn’t know that he would change his mind and
+come back to dinner.”
+
+“One’s got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking into
+people’s houses. You numskull! I’ll remember you and Vaucheray... a nice
+pair of gossoons!...”
+
+The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and he
+started on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who has
+looked in to treat himself to a few works of art:
+
+“By Jingo! There’s not much of it, but what there is is pucka! There’s
+nothing the matter with this representative of the people in
+the question of taste. Four Aubusson chairs... A bureau signed
+‘Percier-Fontaine,’ for a wager... Two inlays by Gouttieres... A genuine
+Fragonard and a sham Nattier which any American millionaire will swallow
+for the asking: in short, a fortune... And there are curmudgeons who
+pretend that there’s nothing but faked stuff left. Dash it all, why
+don’t they do as I do? They should look about!”
+
+Gilbert and Vaucheray, following Lupin’s orders and instructions, at
+once proceeded methodically to remove the bulkier pieces. The first boat
+was filled in half an hour; and it was decided that the Growler and the
+Masher should go on ahead and begin to load the motor-car.
+
+Lupin went to see them start. On returning to the house, it struck him,
+as he passed through the hall, that he heard a voice in the pantry. He
+went there and found Leonard lying flat on his stomach, quite alone,
+with his hands tied behind his back:
+
+“So it’s you growling, my confidential flunkey? Don’t get excited: it’s
+almost finished. Only, if you make too much noise, you’ll oblige us to
+take severer measures... Do you like pears? We might give you one, you
+know: a choke-pear!...”
+
+As he went upstairs, he again heard the same sound and, stopping to
+listen, he caught these words, uttered in a hoarse, groaning voice,
+which came, beyond a doubt, from the pantry:
+
+“Help!... Murder!... Help!... I shall be killed!... Inform the
+commissary!”
+
+“The fellow’s clean off his chump!” muttered Lupin. “By Jove!... To
+disturb the police at nine o’clock in the evening: there’s a notion for
+you!”
+
+He set to work again. It took longer than he expected, for they
+discovered in the cupboards all sorts of valuable knick-knacks which it
+would have been very wrong to disdain and, on the other hand, Vaucheray
+and Gilbert were going about their investigations with signs of laboured
+concentration that nonplussed him.
+
+At long last, he lost his patience:
+
+“That will do!” he said. “We’re not going to spoil the whole job and
+keep the motor waiting for the sake of the few odd bits that remain. I’m
+taking the boat.”
+
+They were now by the waterside and Lupin went down the steps. Gilbert
+held him back:
+
+“I say, governor, we want one more look round five minutes, no longer.”
+
+“But what for, dash it all?”
+
+“Well, it’s like this: we were told of an old reliquary, something
+stunning...”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“We can’t lay our hands on it. And I was thinking... There’s a cupboard
+with a big lock to it in the pantry... You see, we can’t very well...”
+ He was already on his way to the villa. Vaucheray ran back too.
+
+“I’ll give you ten minutes, not a second longer!” cried Lupin. “In ten
+minutes, I’m off.”
+
+But the ten minutes passed and he was still waiting.
+
+He looked at his watch:
+
+“A quarter-past nine,” he said to himself. “This is madness.”
+
+And he also remembered that Gilbert and Vaucheray had behaved rather
+queerly throughout the removal of the things, keeping close together and
+apparently watching each other. What could be happening?
+
+Lupin mechanically returned to the house, urged by a feeling of anxiety
+which he was unable to explain; and, at the same time, he listened to
+a dull sound which rose in the distance, from the direction of Enghien,
+and which seemed to be coming nearer... People strolling about, no
+doubt...
+
+He gave a sharp whistle and then went to the main gate, to take a glance
+down the avenue. But, suddenly, as he was opening the gate, a shot rang
+out, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at a run, went round the
+house, leapt up the steps and rushed to the dining-room:
+
+“Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?”
+
+Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on the
+floor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with blood.
+Lupin flew at them to separate them. But already Gilbert had got his
+adversary down and was wrenching out of his hand something which Lupin
+had no time to see. And Vaucheray, who was losing blood through a wound
+in the shoulder, fainted.
+
+“Who hurt him? You, Gilbert?” asked Lupin, furiously.
+
+“No, Leonard.”
+
+“Leonard? Why, he was tied up!”
+
+“He undid his fastenings and got hold of his revolver.”
+
+“The scoundrel! Where is he?”
+
+Lupin took the lamp and went into the pantry.
+
+The man-servant was lying on his back, with his arms outstretched, a
+dagger stuck in his throat and a livid face. A red stream trickled from
+his mouth.
+
+“Ah,” gasped Lupin, after examining him, “he’s dead!”
+
+“Do you think so?... Do you think so?” stammered Gilbert, in a trembling
+voice.
+
+“He’s dead, I tell you.”
+
+“It was Vaucheray... it was Vaucheray who did it...”
+
+Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him:
+
+“It was Vaucheray, was it?... And you too, you blackguard, since you
+were there and didn’t stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won’t have
+it... Well, it’s a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows... You’ll have
+to pay the damage! And you won’t get off cheaply either... Mind the
+guillotine!” And, shaking him violently, “What was it? Why did he kill
+him?”
+
+“He wanted to go through his pockets and take the key of the cupboard
+from him. When he stooped over him, he saw that the man unloosed his
+arms. He got frightened... and he stabbed him...”
+
+“But the revolver-shot?”
+
+“It was Leonard... he had his revolver in his hand... he just had
+strength to take aim before he died...”
+
+“And the key of the cupboard?”
+
+“Vaucheray took it....”
+
+“Did he open it?”
+
+“And did he find what he was after?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing was
+it? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.... Then what was it?
+Answer me, will you?...”
+
+Lupin gathered from Gilbert’s silence and the determined expression on
+his face that he would not obtain a reply. With a threatening gesture,
+“I’ll make you talk, my man. Sure as my name’s Lupin, you shall come out
+with it. But, for the moment, we must see about decamping. Here, help
+me. We must get Vaucheray into the boat...”
+
+They had returned to the dining-room and Gilbert was bending over the
+wounded man, when Lupin stopped him:
+
+“Listen.”
+
+They exchanged one look of alarm... Some one was speaking in the pantry
+... a very low, strange, very distant voice... Nevertheless, as they at
+once made certain, there was no one in the room, no one except the dead
+man, whose dark outline lay stretched upon the floor.
+
+And the voice spake anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating,
+stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered indistinct words, broken
+syllables.
+
+Lupin felt the top of his head covering with perspiration. What was this
+incoherent voice, mysterious as a voice from beyond the grave?
+
+He had knelt down by the man-servant’s side. The voice was silent and
+then began again:
+
+“Give us a better light,” he said to Gilbert.
+
+He was trembling a little, shaken with a nervous dread which he was
+unable to master, for there was no doubt possible: when Gilbert had
+removed the shade from the lamp, Lupin realized that the voice issued
+from the corpse itself, without a movement of the lifeless mass, without
+a quiver of the bleeding mouth.
+
+“Governor, I’ve got the shivers,” stammered Gilbert.
+
+Again the same voice, the same snuffling whisper.
+
+Suddenly, Lupin burst out laughing, seized the corpse and pulled it
+aside:
+
+“Exactly!” he said, catching sight of an object made of polished metal.
+“Exactly! That’s it!... Well, upon my word, it took me long enough!”
+
+On the spot on the floor which he had uncovered lay the receiver of a
+telephone, the cord of which ran up to the apparatus fixed on the wall,
+at the usual height.
+
+Lupin put the receiver to his ear. The noise began again at once, but
+it was a mixed noise, made up of different calls, exclamations, confused
+cries, the noise produced by a number of persons questioning one another
+at the same time.
+
+“Are you there?... He won’t answer. It’s awful... They must have killed
+him. What is it?... Keep up your courage. There’s help on the way...
+police... soldiers...”
+
+“Dash it!” said Lupin, dropping the receiver.
+
+The truth appeared to him in a terrifying vision. Quite at the
+beginning, while the things upstairs were being moved, Leonard, whose
+bonds were not securely fastened, had contrived to scramble to his
+feet, to unhook the receiver, probably with his teeth, to drop it and to
+appeal for assistance to the Enghien telephone-exchange.
+
+And those were the words which Lupin had overheard, after the first boat
+started:
+
+“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!”
+
+And this was the reply of the exchange. The police were hurrying to
+the spot. And Lupin remembered the sounds which he had heard from the
+garden, four or five minutes earlier, at most:
+
+“The police! Take to your heels!” he shouted, darting across the dining
+room.
+
+“What about Vaucheray?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“Sorry, can’t be helped!”
+
+But Vaucheray, waking from his torpor, entreated him as he passed:
+
+“Governor, you wouldn’t leave me like this!”
+
+Lupin stopped, in spite of the danger, and was lifting the wounded man,
+with Gilbert’s assistance, when a loud din arose outside:
+
+“Too late!” he said.
+
+At that moment, blows shook the hall-door at the back of the house. He
+ran to the front steps: a number of men had already turned the corner of
+the house at a rush. He might have managed to keep ahead of them, with
+Gilbert, and reach the waterside. But what chance was there of embarking
+and escaping under the enemy’s fire?
+
+He locked and bolted the door.
+
+“We are surrounded... and done for,” spluttered Gilbert.
+
+“Hold your tongue,” said Lupin.
+
+“But they’ve seen us, governor. There, they’re knocking.”
+
+“Hold your tongue,” Lupin repeated. “Not a word. Not a movement.”
+
+He himself remained unperturbed, with an utterly calm face and the
+pensive attitude of one who has all the time that he needs to examine a
+delicate situation from every point of view. He had reached one of those
+minutes which he called the “superior moments of existence,” those
+which alone give a value and a price to life. On such occasions,
+however threatening the danger, he always began by counting to himself,
+slowly--“One... Two... Three... Four.... Five... Six”--until the beating
+of his heart became normal and regular. Then and not till then, he
+reflected, but with what intensity, with what perspicacity, with what a
+profound intuition of possibilities! All the factors of the problem were
+present in his mind. He foresaw everything. He admitted everything. And
+he took his resolution in all logic and in all certainty.
+
+After thirty or forty seconds, while the men outside were banging at the
+doors and picking the locks, he said to his companion:
+
+“Follow me.”
+
+Returning to the dining-room, he softly opened the sash and drew the
+Venetian blinds of a window in the side-wall. People were coming and
+going, rendering flight out of the question.
+
+Thereupon he began to shout with all his might, in a breathless voice:
+
+“This way!... Help!... I’ve got them!... This way!”
+
+He pointed his revolver and fired two shots into the tree-tops. Then
+he went back to Vaucheray, bent over him and smeared his face and hands
+with the wounded man’s blood. Lastly, turning upon Gilbert, he took him
+violently by the shoulders and threw him to the floor.
+
+“What do you want, governor? There’s a nice thing to do!”
+
+“Let me do as I please,” said Lupin, laying an imperative stress on
+every syllable. “I’ll answer for everything... I’ll answer for the
+two of you... Let me do as I like with you... I’ll get you both out of
+prison ... But I can only do that if I’m free.”
+
+Excited cries rose through the open window.
+
+“This way!” he shouted. “I’ve got them! Help!”
+
+And, quietly, in a whisper:
+
+“Just think for a moment... Have you anything to say to me?... Something
+that can be of use to us?”
+
+Gilbert was too much taken aback to understand Lupin’s plan and he
+struggled furiously. Vaucheray showed more intelligence; moreover, he
+had given up all hope of escape, because of his wound; and he snarled:
+
+“Let the governor have his way, you ass!... As long as he gets off,
+isn’t that the great thing?”
+
+Suddenly, Lupin remembered the article which Gilbert had put in his
+pocket, after capturing it from Vaucheray. He now tried to take it in
+his turn.
+
+“No, not that! Not if I know it!” growled Gilbert, managing to release
+himself.
+
+Lupin floored him once more. But two men suddenly appeared at the
+window; and Gilbert yielded and, handing the thing to Lupin, who
+pocketed it without looking at it, whispered:
+
+“Here you are, governor... I’ll explain. You can be sure that...”
+
+He did not have time to finish... Two policemen and others after them
+and soldiers who entered through every door and window came to Lupin’s
+assistance.
+
+Gilbert was at once seized and firmly bound. Lupin withdrew:
+
+“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “The beggar’s given me a lot of
+trouble. I wounded the other; but this one...”
+
+The commissary of police asked him, hurriedly:
+
+“Have you seen the man-servant? Have they killed him?”
+
+“I don’t know,” he answered.
+
+“You don’t know?...”
+
+“Why, I came with you from Enghien, on hearing of the murder! Only,
+while you were going round the left of the house, I went round the
+right. There was a window open. I climbed up just as these two ruffians
+were about to jump down. I fired at this one,” pointing to Vaucheray,
+“and seized hold of his pal.”
+
+How could he have been suspected? He was covered with blood. He had
+handed over the valet’s murderers. Half a score of people had witnessed
+the end of the heroic combat which he had delivered. Besides, the uproar
+was too great for any one to take the trouble to argue or to waste time
+in entertaining doubts. In the height of the first confusion, the people
+of the neighbourhood invaded the villa. One and all lost their heads.
+They ran to every side, upstairs, downstairs, to the very cellar. They
+asked one another questions, yelled and shouted; and no one dreamt of
+checking Lupin’s statements, which sounded so plausible.
+
+However, the discovery of the body in the pantry restored the commissary
+to a sense of his responsibility. He issued orders, had the house
+cleared and placed policemen at the gate to prevent any one from passing
+in or out. Then, without further delay, he examined the spot and began
+his inquiry. Vaucheray gave his name; Gilbert refused to give his, on
+the plea that he would only speak in the presence of a lawyer. But,
+when he was accused of the murder, he informed against Vaucheray,
+who defended himself by denouncing the other; and the two of them
+vociferated at the same time, with the evident wish to monopolize the
+commissary’s attention. When the commissary turned to Lupin, to request
+his evidence, he perceived that the stranger was no longer there.
+
+Without the least suspicion, he said to one of the policemen:
+
+“Go and tell that gentleman that I should like to ask him a few
+questions.”
+
+They looked about for the gentleman. Some one had seen him standing on
+the steps, lighting a cigarette. The next news was that he had given
+cigarettes to a group of soldiers and strolled toward the lake, saying
+that they were to call him if he was wanted.
+
+They called him. No one replied.
+
+But a soldier came running up. The gentleman had just got into a boat
+and was rowing away for all he was worth. The commissary looked at
+Gilbert and realized that he had been tricked:
+
+“Stop him!” he shouted. “Fire on him! He’s an accomplice!...”
+
+He himself rushed out, followed by two policemen, while the others
+remained with the prisoners. On reaching the bank, he saw the gentleman,
+a hundred yards away, taking off his hat to him in the dusk.
+
+One of the policemen discharged his revolver, without thinking.
+
+The wind carried the sound of words across the water. The gentleman was
+singing as he rowed:
+
+  “Go, little bark,
+   Float in the dark...”
+
+But the commissary saw a skiff fastened to the landing-stage of the
+adjoining property. He scrambled over the hedge separating the two
+gardens and, after ordering the soldiers to watch the banks of the lake
+and to seize the fugitive if he tried to put ashore, the commissary and
+two of his men pulled off in pursuit of Lupin.
+
+It was not a difficult matter, for they were able to follow his
+movements by the intermittent light of the moon and to see that he was
+trying to cross the lakes while bearing toward the right--that is to
+say, toward the village of Saint-Gratien. Moreover, the commissary
+soon perceived that, with the aid of his men and thanks perhaps to the
+comparative lightness of his craft, he was rapidly gaining on the other.
+In ten minutes he had decreased the interval between them by one half.
+
+“That’s it!” he cried. “We shan’t even need the soldiers to keep him
+from landing. I very much want to make the fellow’s acquaintance. He’s a
+cool hand and no mistake!”
+
+The funny thing was that the distance was now diminishing at an abnormal
+rate, as though the fugitive had lost heart at realizing the futility
+of the struggle. The policemen redoubled their efforts. The boat shot
+across the water with the swiftness of a swallow. Another hundred yards
+at most and they would reach the man.
+
+“Halt!” cried the commissary.
+
+The enemy, whose huddled shape they could make out in the boat, no
+longer moved. The sculls drifted with the stream. And this absence of
+all motion had something alarming about it. A ruffian of that stamp
+might easily lie in wait for his aggressors, sell his life dearly and
+even shoot them dead before they had a chance of attacking him.
+
+“Surrender!” shouted the commissary.
+
+The sky, at that moment, was dark. The three men lay flat at the bottom
+of their skiff, for they thought they perceived a threatening gesture.
+
+The boat, carried by its own impetus, was approaching the other.
+
+The commissary growled:
+
+“We won’t let ourselves be sniped. Let’s fire at him. Are you ready?”
+ And he roared, once more, “Surrender... if not...!”
+
+No reply.
+
+The enemy did not budge.
+
+“Surrender!... Hands up!... You refuse?... So much the worse for you...
+I’m counting... One... Two...”
+
+The policemen did not wait for the word of command. They fired and, at
+once, bending over their oars, gave the boat so powerful an impulse that
+it reached the goal in a few strokes.
+
+The commissary watched, revolver in hand, ready for the least movement.
+He raised his arm:
+
+“If you stir, I’ll blow out your brains!”
+
+But the enemy did not stir for a moment; and, when the boat was bumped
+and the two men, letting go their oars, prepared for the formidable
+assault, the commissary understood the reason of this passive attitude:
+there was no one in the boat. The enemy had escaped by swimming, leaving
+in the hands of the victor a certain number of the stolen articles,
+which, heaped up and surmounted by a jacket and a bowler hat, might be
+taken, at a pinch, in the semi-darkness, vaguely to represent the figure
+of a man.
+
+They struck matches and examined the enemy’s cast clothes. There were no
+initials in the hat. The jacket contained neither papers nor pocketbook.
+Nevertheless, they made a discovery which was destined to give the case
+no little celebrity and which had a terrible influence on the fate of
+Gilbert and Vaucheray: in one of the pockets was a visiting-card which
+the fugitive had left behind... the card of Arsene Lupin.
+
+At almost the same moment, while the police, towing the captured skiff
+behind them, continued their empty search and while the soldiers
+stood drawn up on the bank, straining their eyes to try and follow the
+fortunes of the naval combat, the aforesaid Arsene Lupin was quietly
+landing at the very spot which he had left two hours earlier.
+
+He was there met by his two other accomplices, the Growler and the
+Masher, flung them a few sentences by way of explanation, jumped
+into the motor-car, among Daubrecq the deputy’s armchairs and other
+valuables, wrapped himself in his furs and drove, by deserted roads,
+to his repository at Neuilly, where he left the chauffeur. A
+taxicab brought him back to Paris and put him down by the church of
+Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, not far from which, in the Rue Matignon, he
+had a flat, on the entresol-floor, of which none of his gang, excepting
+Gilbert, knew, a flat with a private entrance. He was glad to take
+off his clothes and rub himself down; for, in spite of his strong
+constitution, he felt chilled to the bone. On retiring to bed, he
+emptied the contents of his pockets, as usual, on the mantelpiece. It
+was not till then that he noticed, near his pocketbook and his keys, the
+object which Gilbert had put into his hand at the last moment.
+
+And he was very much surprised. It was a decanter-stopper, a little
+crystal stopper, like those used for the bottles in a liqueur-stand.
+And this crystal stopper had nothing particular about it. The most that
+Lupin observed was that the knob, with its many facets, was gilded right
+down to the indent. But, to tell the truth, this detail did not seem to
+him of a nature to attract special notice.
+
+“And it was this bit of glass to which Gilbert and Vaucheray attached
+such stubborn importance!” he said to himself. “It was for this that
+they killed the valet, fought each other, wasted their time, risked
+prison... trial... the scaffold!...”
+
+Too tired to linger further upon this matter, exciting though it
+appeared to him, he replaced the stopper on the chimney-piece and got
+into bed.
+
+He had bad dreams. Gilbert and Vaucheray were kneeling on the flags of
+their cells, wildly stretching out their hands to him and yelling with
+fright:
+
+“Help!... Help!” they cried.
+
+But, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was unable to move. He himself
+was fastened by invisible bonds. And, trembling, obsessed by a monstrous
+vision, he watched the dismal preparations, the cutting of the condemned
+men’s hair and shirt-collars, the squalid tragedy.
+
+“By Jove!” he said, when he woke after a series of nightmares.
+“There’s a lot of bad omens! Fortunately, we don’t err on the side of
+superstition. Otherwise...!” And he added, “For that matter, we have a
+talisman which, to judge by Gilbert and Vaucheray’s behaviour, should be
+enough, with Lupin’s help, to frustrate bad luck and secure the triumph
+of the good cause. Let’s have a look at that crystal stopper!”
+
+He sprang out of bed to take the thing and examine it more closely. An
+exclamation escaped him. The crystal stopper had disappeared...
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. EIGHT FROM NINE LEAVES ONE
+
+Notwithstanding my friendly relations with Lupin and the many flattering
+proofs of his confidence which he has given me, there is one thing which
+I have never been quite able to fathom, and that is the organization of
+his gang.
+
+The existence of the gang is an undoubted fact. Certain adventures can
+be explained only by countless acts of devotion, invincible efforts of
+energy and powerful cases of complicity, representing so many forces
+which all obey one mighty will. But how is this will exerted? Through
+what intermediaries, through what subordinates? That is what I do not
+know. Lupin keeps his secret; and the secrets which Lupin chooses to
+keep are, so to speak, impenetrable.
+
+The only supposition which I can allow myself to make is that this gang,
+which, in my opinion, is very limited in numbers and therefore all the
+more formidable, is completed and extended indefinitely by the addition
+of independent units, provisional associates, picked up in every class
+of society and in every country of the world, who are the executive
+agents of an authority with which, in many cases, they are not even
+acquainted. The companions, the initiates, the faithful adherents--men
+who play the leading parts under the direct command of Lupin--move to
+and fro between these secondary agents and the master.
+
+Gilbert and Vaucheray evidently belonged to the main gang. And that is
+why the law showed itself so implacable in their regard. For the first
+time, it held accomplices of Lupin in its clutches--declared, undisputed
+accomplices--and those accomplices had committed a murder. If the murder
+was premeditated, if the accusation of deliberate homicide could be
+supported by substantial proofs, it meant the scaffold. Now there was,
+at the very least, one self-evident proof, the cry for assistance which
+Leonard had sent over the telephone a few minutes before his death:
+
+“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!...”
+
+The desperate appeal had been heard by two men, the operator on duty
+and one of his fellow-clerks, who swore to it positively. And it was
+in consequence of this appeal that the commissary of police, who was at
+once informed, had proceeded to the Villa Marie-Therese, escorted by his
+men and a number of soldiers off duty.
+
+Lupin had a very clear notion of the danger from the first. The fierce
+struggle in which he had engaged against society was entering upon a new
+and terrible phase. His luck was turning. It was no longer a matter of
+attacking others, but of defending himself and saving the heads of his
+two companions.
+
+A little memorandum, which I have copied from one of the note-books in
+which he often jots down a summary of the situations that perplex him,
+will show us the workings of his brain:
+
+“One definite fact, to begin with, is that Gilbert and Vaucheray
+humbugged me. The Enghien expedition, undertaken ostensibly with the
+object of robbing the Villa Marie-Therese, had a secret purpose. This
+purpose obsessed their minds throughout the operations; and what they
+were looking for, under the furniture and in the cupboards, was one
+thing and one thing alone: the crystal stopper. Therefore, if I want to
+see clear ahead, I must first of all know what this means. It is certain
+that, for some hidden reason, that mysterious piece of glass possesses
+an incalculable value in their eyes. And not only in theirs, for, last
+night, some one was bold enough and clever enough to enter my flat and
+steal the object in question from me.”
+
+This theft of which he was the victim puzzled Lupin curiously.
+
+Two problems, both equally difficult of solution, presented themselves
+to his mind. First, who was the mysterious visitor? Gilbert, who enjoyed
+his entire confidence and acted as his private secretary, was the only
+one who knew of the retreat in the Rue Matignon. Now Gilbert was in
+prison. Was Lupin to suppose that Gilbert had betrayed him and put the
+police on his tracks? In that case, why were they content with taking
+the crystal stopper, instead of arresting him, Lupin?
+
+But there was something much stranger still. Admitting that they had
+been able to force the doors of his flat--and this he was compelled to
+admit, though there was no mark to show it--how had they succeeded in
+entering the bedroom? He turned the key and pushed the bolt as he did
+every evening, in accordance with a habit from which he never departed.
+And, nevertheless--the fact was undeniable--the crystal stopper had
+disappeared without the lock or the bolt having been touched. And,
+although Lupin flattered himself that he had sharp ears, even when
+asleep, not a sound had waked him!
+
+He took no great pains to probe the mystery. He knew those problems too
+well to hope that this one could be solved other than in the course of
+events. But, feeling very much put out and exceedingly uneasy, he then
+and there locked up his entresol flat in the Rue Matignon and swore that
+he would never set foot in it again.
+
+And he applied himself forthwith to the question of corresponding with
+Vaucheray or Gilbert.
+
+Here a fresh disappointment awaited him. It was so clearly understood,
+both at the Sante Prison and at the Law Courts, that all communication
+between Lupin and the prisoners must be absolutely prevented, that a
+multitude of minute precautions were ordered by the prefect of police
+and minutely observed by the lowest subordinates. Tried policemen,
+always the same men, watched Gilbert and Vaucheray, day and night, and
+never let them out of their sight.
+
+Lupin, at this time, had not yet promoted himself to the crowning honour
+of his career, the post of chief of the detective-service, [*] and,
+consequently, was not able to take steps at the Law Courts to insure the
+execution of his plans. After a fortnight of fruitless endeavours, he
+was obliged to bow.
+
+     * See 813, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander
+     Teixeira de Mattos.
+
+He did so with a raging heart and a growing sense of anxiety.
+
+“The difficult part of a business,” he often says, “is not the finish,
+but the start.”
+
+Where was he to start in the present circumstances? What road was he to
+follow?
+
+His thoughts recurred to Daubrecq the deputy, the original owner of the
+crystal stopper, who probably knew its importance. On the other hand,
+how was Gilbert aware of the doings and mode of life of Daubrecq the
+deputy? What means had he employed to keep him under observation? Who
+had told him of the place where Daubrecq spent the evening of that day?
+These were all interesting questions to solve.
+
+Daubrecq had moved to his winter quarters in Paris immediately after the
+burglary at the Villa Marie-Therese and was now living in his own house,
+on the left-hand side of the little Square Lamartine that opens out at
+the end of the Avenue Victor-Hugo.
+
+First disguising himself as an old gentleman of private means, strolling
+about, cane in hand, Lupin spent his time in the neighbourhood, on the
+benches of the square and the avenue. He made a discovery on the first
+day. Two men, dressed as workmen, but behaving in a manner that left no
+doubt as to their aims, were watching the deputy’s house. When Daubrecq
+went out, they set off in pursuit of him; and they were immediately
+behind him when he came home again. At night, as soon as the lights were
+out, they went away.
+
+Lupin shadowed them in his turn. They were detective-officers.
+
+“Hullo, hullo!” he said to himself. “This is hardly what I expected. So
+the Daubrecq bird is under suspicion?”
+
+But, on the fourth day, at nightfall, the two men were joined by six
+others, who conversed with them in the darkest part of the Square
+Lamartine. And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly astonished
+to recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous Prasville, the
+erstwhile barrister, sportsman and explorer, now favourite at the
+Elysee, who, for some mysterious reason, had been pitchforked into the
+headquarters of police as secretary-general, with the reversion of the
+prefecture.
+
+And, suddenly, Lupin remembered: two years ago, Prasville and Daubrecq
+the deputy had had a personal encounter on the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
+The incident made a great stir at the time. No one knew the cause of it.
+Prasville had sent his seconds to Daubrecq on the same day; but Daubrecq
+refused to fight.
+
+A little while later, Prasville was appointed secretary-general.
+
+“Very odd, very odd,” said Lupin, who remained plunged in thought, while
+continuing to observe Prasville’s movements.
+
+At seven o’clock Prasville’s group of men moved away a few yards, in the
+direction of the Avenue Henri-Martin. The door of a small garden on
+the right of the house opened and Daubrecq appeared. The two detectives
+followed close behind him and, when he took the Rue-Taitbout train,
+jumped on after him.
+
+Prasville at once walked across the square and rang the bell. The
+garden-gate was between the house and the porter’s lodge. The portress
+came and opened it. There was a brief conversation, after which
+Prasville and his companions were admitted.
+
+“A domiciliary visit,” said Lupin. “Secret and illegal. By the
+strict rules of politeness, I ought to be invited. My presence is
+indispensable.”
+
+Without the least hesitation he went up to the house, the door of which
+had not been closed, and, passing in front of the portress, who was
+casting her eyes outside, he asked, in the hurried tones of a person who
+is late for an appointment:
+
+“Have the gentlemen come?”
+
+“Yes, you will find them in the study.”
+
+His plan was quite simple: if any one met him, he would pretend to be a
+tradesman. But there was no need for this subterfuge. He was able, after
+crossing an empty hall, to enter a dining-room which also had no one in
+it, but which, through the panes of a glass partition that separated
+the dining-room from the study, afforded him a view of Prasville and his
+five companions.
+
+Prasville opened all the drawers with the aid of false keys. Next, he
+examined all the papers, while his companions took down the books from
+the shelves, shook the pages of each separately and felt inside the
+bindings.
+
+“Of course, it’s a paper they’re looking for,” said Lupin. “Bank-notes,
+perhaps...”
+
+Prasville exclaimed:
+
+“What rot! We shan’t find a thing!”
+
+Yet he obviously did not abandon all hope of discovering what he wanted,
+for he suddenly seized the four bottles in a liqueur-stand, took out the
+four stoppers and inspected them.
+
+“Hullo!” thought Lupin. “Now he’s going for decanter-stoppers! Then it’s
+not a question of a paper? Well, I give it up.”
+
+Prasville next lifted and examined different objects; and he asked:
+
+“How often have you been here?”
+
+“Six times last winter,” was the reply.
+
+“And you have searched the house thoroughly?”
+
+“Every one of the rooms, for days at a time, while he was visiting his
+constituency.”
+
+“Still... still...” And he added, “Has he no servant at present?”
+
+“No, he is looking for one. He has his meals out and the portress keeps
+the house as best she can. The woman is devoted to us...”
+
+Prasville persisted in his investigations for nearly an hour and a half,
+shifting and fingering all the knick-knacks, but taking care to put
+everything back exactly where he found it. At nine o’clock, however, the
+two detectives who had followed Daubrecq burst into the study:
+
+“He’s coming back!”
+
+“On foot?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have we time?”
+
+“Oh, dear, yes!”
+
+Prasville and the men from the police-office withdrew, without undue
+haste, after taking a last glance round the room to make sure that there
+was nothing to betray their visit.
+
+The position was becoming critical for Lupin. He ran the risk of
+knocking up against Daubrecq, if he went away, or of not being able
+to get out, if he remained. But, on ascertaining that the dining-room
+windows afforded a direct means of exit to the square, he resolved to
+stay. Besides, the opportunity of obtaining a close view of Daubrecq was
+too good to refuse; and, as Daubrecq had been out to dinner, there was
+not much chance of his entering the dining-room.
+
+Lupin, therefore, waited, holding himself ready to hide behind a velvet
+curtain that could be drawn across the glazed partition in case of need.
+
+He heard the sound of doors opening and shutting. Some one walked into
+the study and switched on the light. He recognized Daubrecq.
+
+The deputy was a stout, thickset, bull-necked man, very nearly bald,
+with a fringe of gray whiskers round his chin and wearing a pair of
+black eye-glasses under his spectacles, for his eyes were weak and
+strained. Lupin noticed the powerful features, the square chin, the
+prominent cheek-bones. The hands were brawny and covered with hair, the
+legs bowed; and he walked with a stoop, bearing first on one hip and
+then on the other, which gave him something of the gait of a gorilla.
+But the face was topped by an enormous, lined forehead, indented with
+hollows and dotted with bumps.
+
+There was something bestial, something savage, something repulsive about
+the man’s whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the Chamber of
+Deputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed “The Wild Man of the Woods” and that
+he was so labelled not only because he stood aloof and hardly ever
+mixed with his fellow-members, but also because of his appearance, his
+behaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable muscular development.
+
+He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum pipe from his pocket,
+selected a packet of caporal among several packets of tobacco which lay
+drying in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and lit it.
+Then he began to write letters.
+
+Presently he ceased his work and sat thinking, with his attention fixed
+on a spot on his desk.
+
+He lifted a little stamp-box and examined it. Next, he verified the
+position of different articles which Prasville had touched and replaced;
+and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with his hands, bending
+over them as though certain signs, known to himself alone, were able to
+tell him what he wished to know.
+
+Lastly, he grasped the knob on an electric bell-push and rang. The
+portress appeared a minute later.
+
+He asked:
+
+“They’ve been, haven’t they?”
+
+And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted:
+
+“Come, come, Clemence, did you open this stampbox?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Well, I fastened the lid down with a little strip of gummed paper. The
+strip has been broken.”
+
+“But I assure you,...” the woman began.
+
+“Why tell lies,” he said, “considering that I myself instructed you to
+lend yourself to those visits?”
+
+“The fact is...”
+
+“The fact is that you want to keep on good terms with both sides... Very
+well!” He handed her a fifty-franc note and repeated, “Have they been?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The same men as in the spring?”
+
+“Yes, all five of them... with another one, who ordered them about.”
+
+“A tall, dark man?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Lupin saw Daubrecq’s mouth hardening; and Daubrecq continued:
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“There was one more, who came after they did and joined them... and
+then, just now, two more, the pair who usually keep watch outside the
+house.”
+
+“Did they remain in the study?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And they went away when I came back? A few minutes before, perhaps?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“That will do.”
+
+The woman left the room. Daubrecq returned to his letter-writing. Then,
+stretching out his arm, he made some marks on a white writing-tablet, at
+the end of his desk, and rested it against the desk, as though he wished
+to keep it in sight. The marks were figures; and Lupin was able to read
+the following subtraction-sum:
+
+   “9 - 8 = 1”
+
+And Daubrecq, speaking between his teeth, thoughtfully uttered the
+syllables:
+
+“Eight from nine leaves one... There’s not a doubt about that,” he
+added, aloud. He wrote one more letter, a very short one, and addressed
+the envelope with an inscription which Lupin was able to decipher when
+the letter was placed beside the writing-tablet:
+
+“To Monsieur Prasville, Secretary-general of the Prefecture of Police.”
+
+Then he rang the bell again:
+
+“Clemence,” he said, to the portress, “did you go to school as a child?”
+
+“Yes, sir, of course I did.”
+
+“And were you taught arithmetic?”
+
+“Why, sir...”
+
+“Well, you’re not very good at subtraction.”
+
+“What makes you say that?”
+
+“Because you don’t know that nine minus eight equals one. And that, you
+see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes impossible if you
+are ignorant of that fundamental truth.”
+
+He rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands behind
+his back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then, stopping at
+the dining-room, he opened the door:
+
+“For that matter, there’s another way of putting the problem. Take
+eight from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here, eh?
+Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does he not?”
+
+He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrapped
+himself:
+
+“Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say that
+I might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the curtain.
+Remember Hamlet’s madness and Polonius’ death: ‘How now! A rat? Dead,
+for a ducat, dead!’ Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out of your hole.”
+
+It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed and
+which he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was all
+very well; but it was a very different thing to have people teasing him
+and roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what could he answer back?
+
+“You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius... Hullo! Why, it’s the
+respectable old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for some
+days! So you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There, there, pull
+yourself together, I sha’n’t hurt you!... But you see, Clemence, how
+right my calculation was. You told me that nine spies had been to the
+house. I counted a troop of eight, as I came along, eight of them in the
+distance, down the avenue. Take eight from nine and one remains: the one
+who evidently remained behind to see what he could see. Ecce homo!”
+
+“Well? And then?” said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the
+fellow and reduce him to silence.
+
+“And then? Nothing at all, my good man... What more do you want? The
+farce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to Master
+Prasville, your employer. Clemence, please show Mr. Polonius out. And,
+if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to him. Pray look upon
+this as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant, sir!...”
+
+Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out with
+a farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making a showy exit
+from the stage, and at least to disappear with the honours of war. But
+his defeat was so pitiable that he could think of nothing better than to
+bang his hat on his head and stamp his feet as he followed the portress
+down the hall. It was a poor revenge.
+
+“You rascally beggar!” he shouted, once he was outside the door, shaking
+his fist at Daubrecq’s windows. “Wretch, scum of the earth, deputy, you
+shall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he has the cheek
+to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that, one of these days...”
+
+He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart, he
+recognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the masterly
+fashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq’s coolness, the
+assurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials, the contempt with
+which he lent himself to their visits at his house and, above all, his
+wonderful self-possession, his easy bearing and the impertinence of his
+conduct in the presence of the ninth person who was spying on him: all
+this denoted a man of character, a strong man, with a well-balanced
+mind, lucid, bold, sure of himself and of the cards in his hand.
+
+But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held the
+stakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could not
+tell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick of the
+fray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he himself was in
+total ignorance of their positions, their weapons, their resources and
+their secret plans. For, when all was said, he could not admit that
+the object of all those efforts was to obtain possession of a crystal
+stopper!
+
+One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his disguise.
+Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police. Neither
+Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion of a third
+thief in the business. This was his one and only trump, a trump
+that gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the greatest
+importance.
+
+Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had handed
+him for the secretary-general of police. It contained these few lines:
+
+ “Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of your
+ hand!  You touched it!  A little more and the trick was done... But
+ you’re too big a fool.  And to think that they couldn’t hit upon
+ any one better than you to make me bite the dust.  Poor old France!
+
+ “Good-bye, Prasville.  But, if I catch you in the act, it will be a
+ bad lookout for you: my maxim is to shoot at sight.
+
+         “DAUBRECQ”
+
+“Within reach of your hand,” repeated Lupin, after reading the note.
+“And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The most
+elementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into this, all
+the same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is the object of
+such strict supervision and obtain a few particulars about the fellow
+generally.”
+
+The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office consisted
+of the following details:
+
+      “ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhone for the past two
+ years; sits among the independent members.  Political opinions not
+ very clearly defined, but electoral position exceedingly strong,
+ because of the enormous sums which he spends in nursing his
+ constituency.  No private income.  Nevertheless, has a house in
+ Paris, a villa at Enghien and another at Nice and loses heavily at
+ play, though no one knows where the money comes from.  Has great
+ influence and obtains all he wants without making up to ministers
+ or, apparently, having either friends or connections in political
+ circles.”
+
+“That’s a trade docket,” said Lupin to himself. “What I want is
+a domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about the
+gentleman’s private life and enable me to work more easily in this
+darkness and to know if I’m not getting myself into a tangle by
+bothering about the Daubrecq bird. And time’s getting short, hang it!”
+
+One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and which he
+used oftener than any of the others was in the Rue Chateaubriand, near
+the Arc de l’Etoile. He was known there by the name of Michel Beaumont.
+He had a snug flat here and was looked after by a manservant, Achille,
+who was utterly devoted to his interests and whose chief duty was to
+receive and repeat the telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his
+followers.
+
+Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a woman
+had been waiting to see him for over an hour:
+
+“What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?”
+
+“No... I don’t think so.”
+
+“You don’t think so!”
+
+“She’s wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and you
+can’t see her face... She’s more like a clerk... or a woman employed in
+a shop. She’s not well-dressed...”
+
+“Whom did she ask for?”
+
+“M. Michel Beaumont,” replied the servant.
+
+“Queer. And why has she called?”
+
+“All she said was that it was about the Enghien business... So I thought
+that...”
+
+“What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in that
+business... She knows that, by applying here...”
+
+“I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same, that
+I had better let her in.”
+
+“Quite right. Where is she?”
+
+“In the drawing-room. I’ve put on the lights.”
+
+Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of the
+drawing-room:
+
+“What are you talking about?” he said, to his man. “There’s no one
+here.”
+
+“No one here?” said Achille, running up.
+
+And the room, in fact, was empty.
+
+“Well, on my word, this takes the cake!” cried the servant. “It wasn’t
+twenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure. She was
+sitting over there. And there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight, you
+know.”
+
+“Look here, look here,” said Lupin, irritably. “Where were you while the
+woman was waiting?”
+
+“In the hall, governor! I never left the hall for a second! I should
+have seen her go out, blow it!”
+
+“Still, she’s not here now...”
+
+“So I see,” moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.
+
+“She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it all, I
+should like to know how she got out!”
+
+“How she got out?” said Lupin. “It doesn’t take a wizard to tell that.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“She got out through the window. Look, it’s still ajar. We are on the
+ground-floor... The street is almost always deserted, in the evenings.
+There’s no doubt about it.”
+
+He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had been
+taken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained no knick-knack
+of any value, no important paper that might have explained the
+woman’s visit, followed by her sudden disappearance. And yet why that
+inexplicable flight?
+
+“Has any one telephoned?” he asked.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Any letters?”
+
+“Yes, one letter by the last post.”
+
+“Where is it?”
+
+“I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual.”
+
+Lupin’s bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had permanently
+bolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to go through the
+hall again.
+
+Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said:
+
+“I don’t see it...”
+
+“Yes... I put it next to the flower-bowl.”
+
+“There’s nothing here at all.”
+
+“You must be looking in the wrong place, governor.”
+
+But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the grate, in
+vain: the letter was not there.
+
+“Oh blast it, blast it!” he muttered. “She’s done it... she’s taken
+it... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out... Oh, the
+slut!...”
+
+Lupin said:
+
+“You’re mad! There’s no way through between the two rooms.”
+
+“Then who did take it, governor?”
+
+They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger and
+collect his ideas. He asked:
+
+“Did you look at the envelope?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Anything particular about it?”
+
+“Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled,
+rather.”
+
+“How was the address worded?... Do you remember?” asked Lupin, in a
+voice strained with anxiety.
+
+“Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny...”
+
+“But speak, will you? Speak!”
+
+“It said, ‘Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.’”
+
+Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him:
+
+“It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure? And ‘Michel’ after ‘Beaumont’?”
+
+“Quite certain.”
+
+“Ah!” muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. “It was a letter from
+Gilbert!”
+
+He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was no
+doubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of address
+which, by Lupin’s orders, Gilbert had used for years in corresponding
+with him. Gilbert had at last--after long waiting and by dint of endless
+artifices--found a means of getting a letter posted from his prison and
+had hastily written to him. And now the letter was intercepted! What did
+it say? What instructions had the unhappy prisoner given? What help was
+he praying for? What stratagem did he suggest?
+
+Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room,
+contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced; and
+he was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object than to get
+hold of Gilbert’s letter.
+
+Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:
+
+“Did the letter come while the woman was here?”
+
+“At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment.”
+
+“Could she see the envelope?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor had
+been able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to the other,
+outside the flat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of his room shut.
+By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin found it locked and
+barred with its two inner bolts.
+
+Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere operation of
+will. To go in or out of a room requires a passage; and, as the act was
+accomplished in the space of a few minutes, it was necessary, in the
+circumstances, that the passage should be previously in existence, that
+it should already have been contrived in the wall and, of course, known
+to the woman. This hypothesis simplified the search by concentrating
+it upon the door; for the wall was quite bare, without a cupboard,
+chimney-piece or hangings of any kind, and unable to conceal the least
+outlet.
+
+Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study of the
+door. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the first glance,
+that the left lower panel of the six small panels contained within the
+cross-bars of the door no longer occupied its normal position and that
+the light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning forward, he saw two
+little tin tacks sticking out on either side and holding the panel in
+place, similar to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had only to
+shift these. The panel at once came out.
+
+Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:
+
+“Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an empty
+oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high. You’re not
+going to pretend that a woman can slip through an opening which would
+not admit the thinnest child of ten years old!”
+
+“No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts.”
+
+“The bottom bolt, yes,” said Lupin. “But the top bolt, no: the distance
+is far too great. Try for yourself and see.”
+
+Achille tried and had to give up the attempt.
+
+Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly,
+he said:
+
+“Give me my hat... my coat...”
+
+He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he reached
+the street, he sprang into a taxi:
+
+“Rue Matignon, quick!...”
+
+As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of the
+crystal stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private entrance,
+went upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the light and crouched
+at the foot of the door leading to his bedroom.
+
+He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the same
+manner.
+
+And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the opening was
+large enough to admit a man’s arm and shoulder, but not to allow him to
+draw the upper bolt.
+
+“Hang!” he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had been
+seething within him for the last two hours. “Blast! Shall I never have
+finished with this confounded business?”
+
+In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, compelling
+him to grope about at random, without permitting him to use the elements
+of success which his own persistency or the very force of things placed
+within his grasp. Gilbert gave him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent him
+a letter. And both had disappeared at that very moment.
+
+And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of fortuitous
+and independent circumstances. No, it was manifestly the effect of an
+adverse will pursuing a definite object with prodigious ability and
+incredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin, in the recesses of his safest
+retreats and baffling him with blows so severe and so unexpected that he
+did not even know against whom he had to defend himself. Never, in the
+course of his adventures, had he encountered such obstacles as now.
+
+And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a haunting
+dread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the terrible date
+which he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform its work of
+vengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan April morning, two
+men would mount the scaffold, two men who had stood by him, two comrades
+whom he had been unable to save from paying the awful penalty...
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE HOME LIFE OF ALEXIS DAUBRECQ
+
+When Daubrecq the deputy came in from lunch on the day after the police
+had searched his house he was stopped by Clemence, his portress, who
+told him that she had found a cook who could be thoroughly relied on.
+
+The cook arrived a few minutes later and produced first-rate characters,
+signed by people with whom it was easy to take up her references. She
+was a very active woman, although of a certain age, and agreed to do the
+work of the house by herself, without the help of a man-servant, this
+being a condition upon which Daubrecq insisted.
+
+Her last place was with a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Comte
+Saulevat, to whom Daubrecq at once telephoned. The count’s steward gave
+her a perfect character, and she was engaged.
+
+As soon as she had fetched her trunk, she set to work and cleaned and
+scrubbed until it was time to cook the dinner.
+
+Daubrecq dined and went out.
+
+At eleven o’clock, after the portress had gone to bed, the cook
+cautiously opened the garden-gate. A man came up.
+
+“Is that you?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, it’s I, Lupin.”
+
+She took him to her bedroom on the third floor, overlooking the garden,
+and at once burst into lamentations:
+
+“More of your tricks and nothing but tricks! Why can’t you leave me
+alone, instead of sending me to do your dirty work?”
+
+“How can I help it, you dear old Victoire? [*] When I want a person of
+respectable appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you. You
+ought to be flattered.”
+
+
+     * See The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc, translated by
+     Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, and later volumes of the Lupin
+     series.
+
+“That’s all you care about me!” she cried. “You run me into danger once
+more; and you think it’s funny!”
+
+“What are you risking?”
+
+“How do you mean, what am I risking? All my characters are false.”
+
+“Characters are always false.”
+
+“And suppose M. Daubrecq finds out? Suppose he makes inquiries?”
+
+“He has made inquiries.”
+
+“Eh? What’s that?”
+
+“He has telephoned to the steward of Comte Saulevat, in whose service
+you say that you have had the honour of being.”
+
+“There, you see, I’m done for!”
+
+“The count’s steward could not say enough in your praise.”
+
+“He does not know me.”
+
+“But I know him. I got him his situation with Comte Saulevat. So you
+understand...”
+
+Victoire seemed to calm down a little:
+
+“Well,” she said, “God’s will be done... or rather yours. And what do
+you expect me to do in all this?”
+
+“First, to put me up. You were my wet-nurse once. You can very well give
+me half your room now. I’ll sleep in the armchair.”
+
+“And next?”
+
+“Next? To supply me with such food as I want.”
+
+“And next?”
+
+“Next? To undertake, with me and under my direction, a regular series of
+searches with a view...”
+
+“To what?”
+
+“To discovering the precious object of which I spoke to you.”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“A crystal stopper.”
+
+“A crystal stopper... Saints above! A nice business! And, if we don’t
+find your confounded stopper, what then?”
+
+Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious voice:
+
+“If we don’t find it, Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and love,
+will stand every chance of losing his head; and so will Vaucheray.”
+
+“Vaucheray I don’t mind... a dirty rascal like him! But Gilbert...”
+
+“Have you seen the papers this evening? Things are looking worse than
+ever. Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert of stabbing the
+valet; and it so happens that the knife which Vaucheray used belonged
+to Gilbert. That came out this morning. Whereupon Gilbert, who is
+intelligent in his way, but easily frightened, blithered and launched
+forth into stories and lies which will end in his undoing. That’s how
+the matter stands. Will you help me?”
+
+Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin moulded his existence upon
+Daubrecq’s, beginning his investigations the moment the deputy left the
+house. He pursued them methodically, dividing each room into sections
+which he did not abandon until he had been through the tiniest nooks and
+corners and, so to speak, exhausted every possible device.
+
+Victoire searched also. And nothing was forgotten. Table-legs,
+chair-rungs, floor-boards, mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames,
+clocks, plinths, curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric
+fittings: everything that an ingenious imagination could have selected
+as a hiding-place was overhauled.
+
+And they also watched the deputy’s least actions, his most unconscious
+movements, the expression of his face, the books which he read and the
+letters which he wrote.
+
+It was easy enough. He seemed to live his life in the light of day. No
+door was ever shut. He received no visits. And his existence worked with
+mechanical regularity. He went to the Chamber in the afternoon, to the
+club in the evening.
+
+“Still,” said Lupin, “there must be something that’s not orthodox behind
+all this.”
+
+“There’s nothing of the sort,” moaned Victoire. “You’re wasting your
+time and we shall be bowled out.”
+
+The presence of the detectives and their habit of walking up and down
+outside the windows drove her mad. She refused to admit that they were
+there for any other purpose than to trap her, Victoire. And, each time
+that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that one of those men
+did not lay his hand upon her shoulder.
+
+One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was shaking on
+her arm.
+
+“What’s the matter, my dear Victoire?” said Lupin. “You’re looking
+green.”
+
+“Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green...”
+
+She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts that
+she succeeded in stuttering:
+
+“A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer’s.”
+
+“By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?”
+
+“No, he gave me a letter...”
+
+“Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of course!”
+
+“No. ‘It’s for your governor,’ said he. ‘My governor?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he
+said, ‘for the gentleman who’s staying in your room.’”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+This time, Lupin had started:
+
+“Give it here,” he said, snatching the letter from her. The envelope
+bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on which he read:
+
+   “Monsieur Arsene Lupin,
+     c/o Victoire.”
+
+“The devil!” he said. “This is a bit thick!” He tore open the second
+envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following words,
+written in large capitals:
+
+     “Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it up.”
+
+Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt himself
+blush up to his eyes, as though he had been grossly insulted. He
+experienced all the humiliation which a duellist would undergo if he
+heard the most secret advice which he had received from his seconds
+repeated aloud by a mocking adversary.
+
+However, he held his tongue. Victoire went back to her work. As for him,
+he remained in his room all day, thinking.
+
+That night he did not sleep.
+
+And he kept saying to himself:
+
+“What is the good of thinking? I am up against one of those problems
+which are not solved by any amount of thought. It is certain that I am
+not alone in the matter and that, between Daubrecq and the police, there
+is, in addition to the third thief that I am, a fourth thief who is
+working on his own account, who knows me and who reads my game clearly.
+But who is this fourth thief? And am I mistaken, by any chance? And...
+oh, rot!... Let’s get to sleep!...”
+
+But he could not sleep; and a good part of the night went in this way.
+
+At four o’clock in the morning he seemed to hear a noise in the house.
+He jumped up quickly and, from the top of the staircase, saw Daubrecq go
+down the first flight and turn toward the garden.
+
+A minute later, after opening the gate, the deputy returned with a man
+whose head was buried in an enormous fur collar and showed him into his
+study.
+
+Lupin had taken his precautions in view of any such contingency. As the
+windows of the study and those of his bedroom, both of which were at the
+back of the house, overlooked the garden, he fastened a rope-ladder to
+his balcony, unrolled it softly and let himself down by it until it was
+level with the top of the study windows.
+
+These windows were closed by shutters; but, as they were bowed, there
+remained a semi-circular space at the top; and Lupin, though he could
+not hear, was able to see all that went on inside.
+
+He then realized that the person whom he had taken for a man was a
+woman: a woman who was still young, though her dark hair was mingled
+with gray; a tall woman, elegantly but quite unobtrusively dressed,
+whose handsome features bore the expression of weariness and melancholy
+which long suffering gives.
+
+“Where the deuce have I seen her before?” Lupin asked himself. “For I
+certainly know that face, that look, that expression.”
+
+She stood leaning against the table, listening impassively to Daubrecq,
+who was also standing and who was talking very excitedly. He had his
+back turned to Lupin; but Lupin, leaning forward, caught sight of a
+glass in which the deputy’s image was reflected. And he was startled to
+see the strange look in his eyes, the air of fierce and brutal desire
+with which Daubrecq was staring at his visitor.
+
+It seemed to embarrass her too, for she sat down with lowered lids. Then
+Daubrecq leant over her and it appeared as though he were ready to fling
+his long arms, with their huge hands, around her. And, suddenly, Lupin
+perceived great tears rolling down the woman’s sad face.
+
+Whether or not it was the sight of those tears that made Daubrecq lose
+his head, with a brusque movement he clutched the woman and drew her
+to him. She repelled him, with a violence full of hatred. And, after a
+brief struggle, during which Lupin caught a glimpse of the man’s bestial
+and contorted features, the two of them stood face to face, railing at
+each other like mortal enemies.
+
+Then they stopped. Daubrecq sat down. There was mischief in his face,
+and sarcasm as well. And he began to talk again, with sharp taps on the
+table, as though he were dictating terms.
+
+She no longer stirred. She sat haughtily in her chair and towered
+over him, absent-minded, with roaming eyes. Lupin, captivated by that
+powerful and sorrowful countenance, continued to watch her; and he was
+vainly seeking to remember of what or of whom she reminded him, when
+he noticed that she had turned her head slightly and that she was
+imperceptibly moving her arm.
+
+And her arm strayed farther and farther and her hand crept along
+the table and Lupin saw that, at the end of the table, there stood
+a water-bottle with a gold-topped stopper. The hand reached the
+water-bottle, felt it, rose gently and seized the stopper. A quick
+movement of the head, a glance, and the stopper was put back in its
+place. Obviously, it was not what the woman hoped to find.
+
+“Dash it!” said Lupin. “She’s after the crystal stopper too! The matter
+is becoming more complicated daily; there’s no doubt about it.”
+
+But, on renewing his observation of the visitor, he was astounded
+to note the sudden and unexpected expression of her countenance, a
+terrible, implacable, ferocious expression. And he saw that her hand
+was continuing its stealthy progress round the table and that, with an
+uninterrupted and crafty sliding movement, it was pushing back books
+and, slowly and surely, approaching a dagger whose blade gleamed among
+the scattered papers.
+
+It gripped the handle.
+
+Daubrecq went on talking. Behind his back, the hand rose steadily,
+little by little; and Lupin saw the woman’s desperate and furious eyes
+fixed upon the spot in the neck where she intended to plant the knife:
+
+“You’re doing a very silly thing, fair lady,” thought Lupin.
+
+And he already began to turn over in his mind the best means of escaping
+and of taking Victoire with him.
+
+She hesitated, however, with uplifted arm. But it was only a momentary
+weakness. She clenched her teeth. Her whole face, contracted with
+hatred, became yet further convulsed. And she made the dread movement.
+
+At the same instant Daubrecq crouched and, springing from his seat,
+turned and seized the woman’s frail wrist in mid-air.
+
+Oddly enough, he addressed no reproach to her, as though the deed which
+she had attempted surprised him no more than any ordinary, very natural
+and simple act. He shrugged his shoulders, like a man accustomed to that
+sort of danger, and strode up and down in silence.
+
+She had dropped the weapon and was now crying, holding her head between
+her hands, with sobs that shook her whole frame.
+
+He next came up to her and said a few words, once more tapping the table
+as he spoke.
+
+She made a sign in the negative and, when he insisted, she, in her turn,
+stamped her foot on the floor and exclaimed, loud enough for Lupin to
+hear:
+
+“Never!... Never!...”
+
+Thereupon, without another word, Daubrecq fetched the fur cloak which
+she had brought with her and hung it over the woman’s shoulders, while
+she shrouded her face in a lace wrap.
+
+And he showed her out.
+
+Two minutes later, the garden-gate was locked again. “Pity I can’t run
+after that strange person,” thought Lupin, “and have a chat with her
+about the Daubrecq bird. Seems to me that we two could do a good stroke
+of business together.”
+
+In any case, there was one point to be cleared up: Daubrecq the deputy,
+whose life was so orderly, so apparently respectable, was in the habit
+of receiving visits at night, when his house was no longer watched by
+the police.
+
+He sent Victoire to arrange with two members of his gang to keep watch
+for several days. And he himself remained awake next night.
+
+As on the previous morning, he heard a noise at four o’clock. As on the
+previous morning, the deputy let some one in.
+
+Lupin ran down his ladder and, when he came to the free space above the
+shutters, saw a man crawling at Daubrecq’s feet, flinging his arms round
+Daubrecq’s knees in frenzied despair and weeping, weeping convulsively.
+
+Daubrecq, laughing, pushed him away repeatedly, but the man clung to
+him. He behaved almost like one out of his mind and, at last, in a
+genuine fit of madness, half rose to his feet, took the deputy by the
+throat and flung him back in a chair. Daubrecq struggled, powerless at
+first, while his veins swelled in his temples. But soon, with a strength
+far beyond the ordinary, he regained the mastery and deprived his
+adversary of all power of movement. Then, holding him with one hand,
+with the other he gave him two great smacks in the face.
+
+The man got up, slowly. He was livid and could hardly stand on his legs.
+He waited for a moment, as though to recover his self-possession. Then,
+with a terrifying calmness, he drew a revolver from his pocket and
+levelled it at Daubrecq.
+
+Daubrecq did not flinch. He even smiled, with a defiant air and without
+displaying more excitement than if he had been aimed at with a toy
+pistol.
+
+The man stood for perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, facing his
+enemy, with outstretched arm. Then, with the same deliberate slowness,
+revealing a self-control which was all the more impressive because it
+followed upon a fit of extreme excitement, he put up his revolver and,
+from another pocket, produced his note-case.
+
+Daubrecq took a step forward.
+
+The man opened the pocketbook. A sheaf of banknotes appeared in sight.
+
+Daubrecq seized and counted them. They were thousand-franc notes, and
+there were thirty of them.
+
+The man looked on, without a movement of revolt, without a protest. He
+obviously understood the futility of words. Daubrecq was one of those
+who do not relent. Why should his visitor waste time in beseeching
+him or even in revenging himself upon him by uttering vain threats
+and insults? He had no hope of striking that unassailable enemy. Even
+Daubrecq’s death would not deliver him from Daubrecq.
+
+He took his hat and went away.
+
+At eleven o’clock in the morning Victoire, on returning from her
+shopping, handed Lupin a note from his accomplices.
+
+He opened it and read:
+
+“The man who came to see Daubrecq last night is Langeroux the deputy,
+leader of the independent left. A poor man, with a large family.”
+
+“Come,” said Lupin, “Daubrecq is nothing more nor less than a
+blackmailer; but, by Jupiter, he has jolly effective ways of going to
+work!”
+
+Events tended to confirm Lupin’s supposition. Three days later he saw
+another visitor hand Daubrecq an important sum of money. And, two days
+after that, one came and left a pearl necklace behind him.
+
+The first was called Dachaumont, a senator and ex-cabinet-minister. The
+second was the Marquis d’Albufex, a Bonapartist deputy, formerly chief
+political agent in France of Prince Napoleon.
+
+The scene, in each of these cases, was very similar to Langeroux
+the deputy’s interview, a violent tragic scene, ending in Daubrecq’s
+victory.
+
+“And so on and so forth,” thought Lupin, when he received these
+particulars. “I have been present at four visits. I shall know no more
+if there are ten, or twenty, or thirty... It is enough for me to learn
+the names of the visitors from my friends on sentry-go outside. Shall
+I go and call on them?... What for? They have no reason to confide in
+me... On the other hand, am I to stay on here, delayed by investigations
+which lead to nothing and which Victoire can continue just as well
+without me?”
+
+He was very much perplexed. The news of the inquiry into the case
+of Gilbert and Vaucheray was becoming worse and worse, the days were
+slipping by, and not an hour passed without his asking himself, in
+anguish, whether all his efforts--granting that he succeeded--would
+not end in farcical results, absolutely foreign to the aim which he was
+pursuing.
+
+For, after all, supposing that he did fathom Daubrecq’s underhand
+dealings, would that give him the means of rescuing Gilbert and
+Vaucheray?
+
+That day an incident occurred which put an end to his indecision. After
+lunch Victoire heard snatches of a conversation which Daubrecq held with
+some one on the telephone. Lupin gathered, from what Victoire reported,
+that the deputy had an appointment with a lady for half-past eight and
+that he was going to take her to a theatre:
+
+“I shall get a pit-tier box, like the one we had six weeks ago,”
+ Daubrecq had said. And he added, with a laugh, “I hope that I shall not
+have the burglars in during that time.”
+
+There was not a doubt in Lupin’s mind. Daubrecq was about to spend his
+evening in the same manner in which he had spent the evening six weeks
+ago, while they were breaking into his villa at Enghien. To know the
+person whom he was to meet and perhaps thus to discover how Gilbert and
+Vaucheray had learnt that Daubrecq would be away from eight o’clock in
+the evening until one o’clock in the morning: these were matters of the
+utmost importance.
+
+Lupin left the house in the afternoon, with Victoire’s assistance. He
+knew through her that Daubrecq was coming home for dinner earlier than
+usual.
+
+He went to his flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, telephoned for three of
+his friends, dressed and made himself up in his favourite character of a
+Russian prince, with fair hair and moustache and short-cut whiskers.
+
+The accomplices arrived in a motor-car.
+
+At that moment, Achille, his man, brought him a telegram, addressed to
+M. Michel Beaumont, Rue Chateaubriand, which ran:
+
+ “Do not come to theatre this evening.  Danger of your
+  intervention spoiling everything.”
+
+There was a flower-vase on the chimney-piece beside him. Lupin took it
+and smashed it to pieces.
+
+“That’s it, that’s it,” he snarled. “They are playing with me as I
+usually play with others. Same behaviour. Same tricks. Only there’s this
+difference...”
+
+What difference? He hardly knew. The truth was that he too was baffled
+and disconcerted to the inmost recesses of his being and that he was
+continuing to act only from obstinacy, from a sense of duty, so to
+speak, and without putting his ordinary good humour and high spirits
+into the work.
+
+“Come along,” he said to his accomplices.
+
+By his instructions, the chauffeur set them down near the Square
+Lamartine, but kept the motor going. Lupin foresaw that Daubrecq, in
+order to escape the detectives watching the house, would jump into the
+first taxi; and he did not intend to be outdistanced.
+
+He had not allowed for Daubrecq’s cleverness.
+
+At half-past seven both leaves of the garden-gate were flung open, a
+bright light flashed and a motor-cycle darted across the road, skirted
+the square, turned in front of the motor-car and shot away toward the
+Bois at a speed so great that they would have been mad to go in pursuit
+of it.
+
+“Good-bye, Daisy!” said Lupin, trying to jest, but really overcome with
+rage.
+
+He eyed his accomplices in the hope that one of them would venture to
+give a mocking smile. How pleased he would have been to vent his nerves
+on them!
+
+“Let’s go home,” he said to his companions.
+
+He gave them some dinner; then he smoked a cigar and they set off again
+in the car and went the round of the theatres, beginning with those
+which were giving light operas and musical comedies, for which he
+presumed that Daubrecq and his lady would have a preference. He took a
+stall, inspected the lower-tier boxes and went away again.
+
+He next drove to the more serious theatres: the Renaissance, the
+Gymnase.
+
+At last, at ten o’clock in the evening, he saw a pit-tier box at the
+Vaudeville almost entirely protected from inspection by its two screens;
+and, on tipping the boxkeeper, was told that it contained a short,
+stout, elderly gentleman and a lady who was wearing a thick lace veil.
+
+The next box was free. He took it, went back to his friends to give them
+their instructions and sat down near the couple.
+
+During the entr’acte, when the lights went up, he perceived Daubrecq’s
+profile. The lady remained at the back of the box, invisible. The two
+were speaking in a low voice; and, when the curtain rose again, they
+went on speaking, but in such a way that Lupin could not distinguish a
+word.
+
+Ten minutes passed. Some one tapped at their door. It was one of the men
+from the box-office.
+
+“Are you M. le Depute Daubrecq, sir?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” said Daubrecq, in a voice of surprise. “But how do you know my
+name?”
+
+“There’s a gentleman asking for you on the telephone. He told me to go
+to Box 22.”
+
+“But who is it?”
+
+“M. le Marquis d’Albufex.”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“What am I to say, sir?”
+
+“I’m coming... I’m coming...”
+
+Daubrecq rose hurriedly from his seat and followed the clerk to the
+box-office.
+
+He was not yet out of sight when Lupin sprang from his box, worked the
+lock of the next door and sat down beside the lady.
+
+She gave a stifled cry.
+
+“Hush!” he said. “I have to speak to you. It is most important.”
+
+“Ah!” she said, between her teeth. “Arsene Lupin!” He was dumbfounded.
+For a moment he sat quiet, open-mouthed. The woman knew him! And not
+only did she know him, but she had recognized him through his disguise!
+Accustomed though he was to the most extraordinary and unusual events,
+this disconcerted him.
+
+He did not even dream of protesting and stammered:
+
+“So you know?... So you know?...”
+
+He snatched at the lady’s veil and pulled it aside before she had time
+to defend herself:
+
+“What!” he muttered, with increased amazement. “Is it possible?”
+
+It was the woman whom he had seen at Daubrecq’s a few days earlier, the
+woman who had raised her dagger against Daubrecq and who had intended to
+stab him with all the strength of her hatred.
+
+It was her turn to be taken aback:
+
+“What! Have you seen me before?...”
+
+“Yes, the other night, at his house... I saw what you tried to do...”
+
+She made a movement to escape. He held her back and, speaking with great
+eagerness:
+
+“I must know who you are,” he said. “That was why I had Daubrecq
+telephoned for.”
+
+She looked aghast:
+
+“Do you mean to say it was not the Marquis d’Albufex?”
+
+“No, it was one of my assistants.”
+
+“Then Daubrecq will come back?...”
+
+“Yes, but we have time... Listen to me... We must meet again... He is
+your enemy... I will save you from him...”
+
+“Why should you? What is your object?”
+
+“Do not distrust me... it is quite certain that our interests are
+identical... Where can I see you? To-morrow, surely? At what time? And
+where?”
+
+“Well...”
+
+She looked at him with obvious hesitation, not knowing what to do, on
+the point of speaking and yet full of uneasiness and doubt.
+
+He pressed her:
+
+“Oh, I entreat you... answer me just one word... and at once... It would
+be a pity for him to find me here... I entreat you...”
+
+She answered sharply:
+
+“My name doesn’t matter... We will see each other first and you shall
+explain to me... Yes, we will meet... Listen, to-morrow, at three
+o’clock, at the corner of the Boulevard...”
+
+At that exact moment, the door of the box opened, so to speak, with a
+bang, and Daubrecq appeared.
+
+“Rats!” Lupin mumbled, under his breath, furious at being caught before
+obtaining what he wanted.
+
+Daubrecq gave a chuckle:
+
+“So that’s it... I thought something was up... Ah, the telephone-trick:
+a little out of date, sir! I had not gone half-way when I turned back.”
+
+He pushed Lupin to the front of the box and, sitting down beside the
+lady, said:
+
+“And, now my lord, who are we? A servant at the police-office, probably?
+There’s a professional look about that mug of yours.”
+
+He stared hard at Lupin, who did not move a muscle, and tried to put
+a name to the face, but failed to recognize the man whom he had called
+Polonius.
+
+Lupin, without taking his eyes from Daubrecq either, reflected. He would
+not for anything in the world have thrown up the game at that point or
+neglected this favourable opportunity of coming to an understanding with
+his mortal enemy.
+
+The woman sat in her corner, motionless, and watched them both.
+
+Lupin said:
+
+“Let us go outside, sir. That will make our interview easier.”
+
+“No, my lord, here,” grinned the deputy. “It will take place here,
+presently, during the entr’acte. Then we shall not be disturbing
+anybody.”
+
+“But...”
+
+“Save your breath, my man; you sha’n’t budge.”
+
+And he took Lupin by the coat-collar, with the obvious intention of not
+letting go of him before the interval.
+
+A rash move! Was it likely that Lupin would consent to remain in such an
+attitude, especially before a woman, a woman to whom he had offered his
+alliance, a woman--and he now thought of it for the first time--who was
+distinctly good-looking and whose grave beauty attracted him. His whole
+pride as a man rose at the thought.
+
+However, he said nothing. He accepted the heavy weight of the hand on
+his shoulder and even sat bent in two, as though beaten, powerless,
+almost frightened.
+
+“Eh, clever!” said the deputy, scoffingly. “We don’t seem to be
+swaggering quite so much.”
+
+The stage was full of actors who were arguing and making a noise.
+
+Daubrecq had loosened his grasp slightly and Lupin felt that the moment
+had come. With the edge of his hand, he gave him a violent blow in the
+hollow of the arm, as he might have done with a hatchet.
+
+The pain took Daubrecq off his guard. Lupin now released himself
+entirely and sprang at the other to clutch him by the throat. But
+Daubrecq had at once put himself on the defensive and stepped back and
+their four hands seized one another.
+
+They gripped with superhuman energy, the whole force of the two
+adversaries concentrating in those hands. Daubrecq’s were of monstrous
+size; and Lupin, caught in that iron vise, felt as though he were
+fighting not with a man, but with some terrible beast, a huge gorilla.
+
+They held each other against the door, bending low, like a pair of
+wrestlers groping and trying to lay hold of each other. Their bones
+creaked. Whichever gave way first was bound to be caught by the throat
+and strangled. And all this happened amid a sudden silence, for the
+actors on the stage were now listening to one of their number, who was
+speaking in a low voice.
+
+The woman stood back flat against the partition, looking at them in
+terror. Had she taken sides with either of them, with a single movement,
+the victory would at once have been decided in that one’s favour. But
+which of them should she assist? What could Lupin represent in her eyes?
+A friend? An enemy?
+
+She briskly made for the front of the box, forced back the screen and,
+leaning forward, seemed to give a signal. Then she returned and tried to
+slip to the door.
+
+Lupin, as though wishing to help her, said:
+
+“Why don’t you move the chair?”
+
+He was speaking of a heavy chair which had fallen down between him and
+Daubrecq and across which they were struggling.
+
+The woman stooped and pulled away the chair. That was what Lupin was
+waiting for. Once rid of the obstacle, he caught Daubrecq a smart kick
+on the shin with the tip of his patent-leather boot. The result was the
+same as with the blow which he had given him on the arm. The pain
+caused a second’s apprehension and distraction, of which he at once took
+advantage to beat down Daubrecq’s outstretched hands and to dig his ten
+fingers into his adversary’s throat and neck.
+
+Daubrecq struggled. Daubrecq tried to pull away the hands that were
+throttling him; but he was beginning to choke and felt his strength
+decreasing.
+
+“Aha, you old monkey!” growled Lupin, forcing him to the floor. “Why
+don’t you shout for help? How frightened you must be of a scandal!”
+
+At the sound of the fall there came a knocking at the partition, on the
+other side.
+
+“Knock away, knock away,” said Lupin, under his breath. “The play is on
+the stage. This is my business and, until I’ve mastered this gorilla...”
+
+It did not take him long. The deputy was choking. Lupin stunned him with
+a blow on the jaw; and all that remained for him to do was to take the
+woman away and make his escape with her before the alarm was given.
+
+But, when he turned round, he saw that the woman was gone.
+
+She could not be far. Darting from the box, he set off at a run,
+regardless of the programme-sellers and check-takers.
+
+On reaching the entrance-lobby, he saw her through an open door,
+crossing the pavement of the Chaussee d’Antin.
+
+She was stepping into a motor-car when he came up with her.
+
+The door closed behind her.
+
+He seized the handle and tried to pull at it.
+
+But a man jumped up inside and sent his fist flying into Lupin’s
+face, with less skill but no less force than Lupin had sent his into
+Daubrecq’s face.
+
+Stunned though he was by the blow, he nevertheless had ample time to
+recognize the man, in a sudden, startled vision, and also to recognize,
+under his chauffeur’s disguise, the man who was driving the car. It was
+the Growler and the Masher, the two men in charge of the boats on the
+Enghien night, two friends of Gilbert and Vaucheray: in short, two of
+Lupin’s own accomplices.
+
+When he reached his rooms in the Rue Chateaubriand, Lupin, after washing
+the blood from his face, sat for over an hour in a chair, as though
+overwhelmed. For the first time in his life he was experiencing the pain
+of treachery. For the first time his comrades in the fight were turning
+against their chief.
+
+Mechanically, to divert his thoughts, he turned to his correspondence
+and tore the wrapper from an evening paper. Among the late news he found
+the following paragraphs:
+
+   “THE VILLA MARIE-THERESE CASE”
+
+      “The real identity of Vaucheray, one of the alleged
+ murderers of Leonard the valet, has at last been ascertained.
+ He is a miscreant of the worst type, a hardened criminal who
+ has already twice been sentenced for murder, in default, under
+ another name.
+
+ “No doubt, the police will end by also discovering the real name
+ of his accomplice, Gilbert.  In any event, the examining-magistrate
+ is determined to commit the prisoners for trial as soon as possible.
+
+ “The public will have no reason to complain of the delays of the law.”
+
+In between other newspapers and prospectuses lay a letter.
+
+Lupin jumped when he saw it. It was addressed:
+
+   “Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.”
+
+“Oh,” he gasped, “a letter from Gilbert!”
+
+It contained these few words:
+
+ “Help, governor!... I am frightened. I am frightened...”
+
+Once again, Lupin spent a night alternating between sleeplessness and
+nightmares. Once again, he was tormented by atrocious and terrifying
+visions.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHIEF OF THE ENEMIES
+
+“Poor boy!” murmured Lupin, when his eyes fell on Gilbert’s letter next
+morning. “How he must feel it!”
+
+On the very first day when he saw him, he had taken a liking to that
+well-set-up youngster, so careless, gay and fond of life. Gilbert was
+devoted to him, would have accepted death at a sign from his master.
+And Lupin also loved his frankness, his good humour, his simplicity, his
+bright, open face.
+
+“Gilbert,” he often used to say, “you are an honest man. Do you know,
+if I were you, I should chuck the business and become an honest man for
+good.”
+
+“After you, governor,” Gilbert would reply, with a laugh.
+
+“Won’t you, though?”
+
+“No, governor. An honest man is a chap who works and grinds. It’s a
+taste which I may have had as a nipper; but they’ve made me lose it
+since.”
+
+“Who’s they?”
+
+Gilbert was silent. He was always silent when questioned about his
+early life; and all that Lupin knew was that he had been an orphan since
+childhood and that he had lived all over the place, changing his name
+and taking up the queerest jobs. The whole thing was a mystery which no
+one had been able to fathom; and it did not look as though the police
+would make much of it either.
+
+Nor, on the other hand, did it look as though the police would consider
+that mystery a reason for delaying proceedings. They would send
+Vaucheray’s accomplice for trial--under his name of Gilbert or any other
+name--and visit him with the same inevitable punishment.
+
+“Poor boy!” repeated Lupin. “They’re persecuting him like this only
+because of me. They are afraid of his escaping and they are in a hurry
+to finish the business: the verdict first and then... the execution.
+
+“Oh, the butchers!... A lad of twenty, who has committed no murder, who
+is not even an accomplice in the murder...”
+
+Alas, Lupin well knew that this was a thing impossible to prove and that
+he must concentrate his efforts upon another point. But upon which? Was
+he to abandon the trail of the crystal stopper?
+
+He could not make up his mind to that. His one and only diversion from
+the search was to go to Enghien, where the Growler and the Masher lived,
+and make sure that nothing had been seen of them since the murder at the
+Villa Marie-Therese. Apart from this, he applied himself to the question
+of Daubrecq and nothing else.
+
+He refused even to trouble his head about the problems set before him:
+the treachery of the Growler and the Masher; their connection with the
+gray-haired lady; the spying of which he himself was the object.
+
+“Steady, Lupin,” he said. “One only argues falsely in a fever. So hold
+your tongue. No inferences, above all things! Nothing is more
+foolish than to infer one fact from another before finding a certain
+starting-point. That’s where you get up a tree. Listen to your instinct.
+Act according to your instinct. And as you are persuaded, outside all
+argument, outside all logic, one might say, that this business turns
+upon that confounded stopper, go for it boldly. Have at Daubrecq and his
+bit of crystal!”
+
+Lupin did not wait to arrive at these conclusions before settling his
+actions accordingly. At the moment when he was stating them in his mind,
+three days after the scene at the Vaudeville, he was sitting, dressed
+like a retired tradesman, in an old overcoat, with a muffler round his
+neck, on a bench in the Avenue Victor-Hugo, at some distance from the
+Square Lamartine. Victoire had his instructions to pass by that bench at
+the same hour every morning.
+
+“Yes,” he repeated to himself, “the crystal stopper: everything turns on
+that... Once I get hold of it...”
+
+Victoire arrived, with her shopping-basket on her arm. He at once
+noticed her extraordinary agitation and pallor:
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked Lupin, walking beside his old nurse.
+
+She went into a big grocer’s, which was crowded with people, and,
+turning to him:
+
+“Here,” she said, in a voice torn with excitement. “Here’s what you’ve
+been hunting for.”
+
+And, taking something from her basket, she gave it to him.
+
+Lupin stood astounded: in his hand lay the crystal stopper.
+
+“Can it be true? Can it be true?” he muttered, as though the ease of the
+solution had thrown him off his balance.
+
+But the fact remained, visible and palpable. He recognized by its shape,
+by its size, by the worn gilding of its facets, recognized beyond any
+possible doubt the crystal stopper which he had seen before. He even
+remarked a tiny, hardly noticeable little scratch on the stem which he
+remembered perfectly.
+
+However, while the thing presented all the same characteristics, it
+possessed no other that seemed out of the way. It was a crystal stopper,
+that was all. There was no really special mark to distinguish it from
+other stoppers. There was no sign upon it, no stamp; and, being cut from
+a single piece, it contained no foreign object.
+
+“What then?”
+
+And Lupin received a quick insight into the depth of his mistake. What
+good could the possession of that crystal stopper do him so long as he
+was ignorant of its value? That bit of glass had no existence in itself;
+it counted only through the meaning that attached to it. Before taking
+it, the thing was to be certain. And how could he tell that, in taking
+it, in robbing Daubrecq of it, he was not committing an act of folly?
+
+It was a question which was impossible of solution, but which forced
+itself upon him with singular directness.
+
+“No blunders!” he said to himself, as he pocketed the stopper. “In this
+confounded business, blunders are fatal.”
+
+He had not taken his eyes off Victoire. Accompanied by a shopman, she
+went from counter to counter, among the throng of customers. She next
+stood for some little while at the pay-desk and passed in front of
+Lupin.
+
+He whispered her instructions:
+
+“Meet me behind the Lycee Janson.”
+
+She joined him in an unfrequented street:
+
+“And suppose I’m followed?” she said.
+
+“No,” he declared. “I looked carefully. Listen to me. Where did you find
+the stopper?”
+
+“In the drawer of the table by his bed.”
+
+“But we had felt there already.”
+
+“Yes; and I did so again this morning. I expect he put it there last
+night.”
+
+“And I expect he’ll want to take it from there again,” said Lupin.
+
+“Very likely.”
+
+“And suppose he finds it gone?”
+
+Victoire looked frightened.
+
+“Answer me,” said Lupin. “If he finds it gone, he’ll accuse you of
+taking it, won’t he?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then go and put it back, as fast as you can.”
+
+“Oh dear, oh dear!” she moaned. “I hope he won’t have had time to find
+out. Give it to me, quick.”
+
+“Here you are,” said Lupin.
+
+He felt in the pocket of his overcoat.
+
+“Well?” said Victoire, holding out her hand.
+
+“Well,” he said, after a moment, “it’s gone.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Yes, upon my word, it’s gone... somebody’s taken it from me.”
+
+He burst into a peal of laughter, a laughter which, this time, was free
+from all bitterness.
+
+Victoire flew out at him:
+
+“Laugh away!... Putting me in such a predicament!...”
+
+“How can I help laughing? You must confess that it’s funny. It’s
+no longer a tragedy that we’re acting, but a fairy-tale, as much a
+fairy-tale as Puss in Boots or Jack and the Beanstalk. I must write it
+when I get a few weeks to myself: The Magic Stopper; or, The Mishaps of
+Poor Arsene.”
+
+“Well... who has taken it from you?”
+
+“What are you talking about?... It has flown away... vanished from my
+pocket: hey presto, begone!”
+
+He gave the old servant a gentle push and, in a more serious tone:
+
+“Go home, Victoire, and don’t upset yourself. Of course, some one saw
+you give me the stopper and took advantage of the crowd in the shop to
+pick my pocket of it. That only shows that we are watched more closely
+than I thought and by adversaries of the first rank. But, once more, be
+easy. Honest men always come by their own... Have you anything else to
+tell me?”
+
+“Yes. Some one came yesterday evening, while M. Daubrecq was out. I saw
+lights reflected upon the trees in the garden.”
+
+“The portress’ bedroom?”
+
+“The portress was up.”
+
+“Then it was some of those detective-fellows; they are still hunting.
+I’ll see you later, Victoire. You must let me in again.”
+
+“What! You want to...”
+
+“What do I risk? Your room is on the third floor. Daubrecq suspects
+nothing.”
+
+“But the others!”
+
+“The others? If it was to their interest to play me a trick, they’d have
+tried before now. I’m in their way, that’s all. They’re not afraid of
+me. So till later, Victoire, at five o’clock exactly.”
+
+One further surprise awaited Lupin. In the evening his old nurse told
+him that, having opened the drawer of the bedside table from curiosity,
+she had found the crystal stopper there again.
+
+Lupin was no longer to be excited by these miraculous incidents. He
+simply said to himself:
+
+“So it’s been brought back. And the person who brought it back and who
+enters this house by some unexplained means considered, as I did, that
+the stopper ought not to disappear. And yet Daubrecq, who knows that he
+is being spied upon to his very bedroom, has once more left the stopper
+in a drawer, as though he attached no importance to it at all! Now what
+is one to make of that?”
+
+Though Lupin did not make anything of it, nevertheless he could not
+escape certain arguments, certain associations of ideas that gave him
+the same vague foretaste of light which one receives on approaching the
+outlet of a tunnel.
+
+“It is inevitable, as the case stands,” he thought, “that there must
+soon be an encounter between myself and the others. From that moment I
+shall be master of the situation.”
+
+Five days passed, during which Lupin did not glean the slightest
+particular. On the sixth day Daubrecq received a visit, in the small
+hours, from a gentleman, Laybach the deputy, who, like his colleagues,
+dragged himself at his feet in despair and, when all was done, handed
+him twenty thousand francs.
+
+Two more days; and then, one night, posted on the landing of the
+second floor, Lupin heard the creaking of a door, the front-door, as he
+perceived, which led from the hall into the garden. In the darkness
+he distinguished, or rather divined, the presence of two persons, who
+climbed the stairs and stopped on the first floor, outside Daubrecq’s
+bedroom.
+
+What were they doing there? It was not possible to enter the room,
+because Daubrecq bolted his door every night. Then what were they
+hoping?
+
+Manifestly, a handiwork of some kind was being performed, as Lupin
+discovered from the dull sounds of rubbing against the door. Then words,
+uttered almost beneath a whisper, reached him:
+
+“Is it all right?”
+
+“Yes, quite, but, all the same, we’d better put it off till to-morrow,
+because...”
+
+Lupin did not hear the end of the sentence. The men were already groping
+their way downstairs. The hall-door was closed, very gently, and then
+the gate.
+
+“It’s curious, say what one likes,” thought Lupin. “Here is a house in
+which Daubrecq carefully conceals his rascalities and is on his guard,
+not without good reason, against spies; and everybody walks in and out
+as in a booth at a fair. Victoire lets me in, the portress admits the
+emissaries of the police: that’s well and good; but who is playing false
+in these people’s favour? Are we to suppose that they are acting alone?
+But what fearlessness! And how well they know their way about!”
+
+In the afternoon, during Daubrecq’s absence, he examined the door of the
+first-floor bedroom. And, at the first glance, he understood: one of the
+lower panels had been skilfully cut out and was only held in place by
+invisible tacks. The people, therefore, who had done this work were the
+same who had acted at his two places, in the Rue Matignon and the Rue
+Chateaubriand.
+
+He also found that the work dated back to an earlier period and that, as
+in his case, the opening had been prepared beforehand, in anticipation
+of favourable circumstances or of some immediate need.
+
+The day did not seem long to Lupin. Knowledge was at hand. Not only
+would he discover the manner in which his adversaries employed those
+little openings, which were apparently unemployable, since they did
+not allow a person to reach the upper bolts, but he would learn who the
+ingenious and energetic adversaries were with whom he repeatedly and
+inevitably found himself confronted.
+
+One incident annoyed him. In the evening Daubrecq, who had complained of
+feeling tired at dinner, came home at ten o’clock and, contrary to his
+usual custom, pushed the bolts of the hall-door. In that case, how would
+the others be able to carry out their plan and go to Daubrecq’s room?
+Lupin waited for an hour after Daubrecq put out his light. Then he went
+down to the deputy’s study, opened one of the windows ajar and returned
+to the third floor and fixed his rope-ladder so that, in case of need,
+he could reach the study without passing though the house. Lastly, he
+resumed his post on the second-floor landing.
+
+He did not have to wait long. An hour earlier than on the previous night
+some one tried to open the hall-door. When the attempt failed, a few
+minutes of absolute silence followed. And Lupin was beginning to think
+that the men had abandoned the idea, when he gave a sudden start. Some
+one had passed, without the least sound to interrupt the silence. He
+would not have known it, so utterly were the thing’s steps deadened by
+the stair-carpet, if the baluster-rail, which he himself held in his
+hand, had not shaken slightly. Some one was coming upstairs.
+
+And, as the ascent continued, Lupin became aware of the uncanny feeling
+that he heard nothing more than before. He knew, because of the rail,
+that a thing was coming and he could count the number of steps climbed
+by noting each vibration of the rail; but no other indication gave him
+that dim sensation of presence which we feel in distinguishing movements
+which we do not see, in perceiving sounds which we do not hear. And yet
+a blacker darkness ought to have taken shape within the darkness and
+something ought, at least, to modify the quality of the silence. No, he
+might well have believed that there was no one there.
+
+And Lupin, in spite of himself and against the evidence of his reason,
+ended by believing it, for the rail no longer moved and he thought that
+he might have been the sport of an illusion.
+
+And this lasted a long time. He hesitated, not knowing what to do, not
+knowing what to suppose. But an odd circumstance impressed him. A clock
+struck two. He recognized the chime of Daubrecq’s clock. And the chime
+was that of a clock from which one is not separated by the obstacle of a
+door.
+
+Lupin slipped down the stairs and went to the door. It was closed,
+but there was a space on the left, at the bottom, a space left by the
+removal of the little panel.
+
+He listened. Daubrecq, at that moment, turned in his bed; and his
+breathing was resumed, evenly and a little stertorously. And Lupin
+plainly heard the sound of rumpling garments. Beyond a doubt, the thing
+was there, fumbling and feeling through the clothes which Daubrecq had
+laid beside his bed.
+
+“Now,” thought Lupin, “we shall learn something. But how the deuce did
+the beggar get in? Has he managed to draw the bolts and open the door?
+But, if so, why did he make the mistake of shutting it again?”
+
+Not for a second--a curious anomaly in a man like Lupin, an anomaly
+to be explained only by the uncanny feeling which the whole adventure
+produced in him--not for a second did he suspect the very simple truth
+which was about to be revealed to him. Continuing his way down, he
+crouched on one of the bottom steps of the staircase, thus placing
+himself between the door of the bedroom and the hall-door, on the
+road which Daubrecq’s enemy must inevitably take in order to join his
+accomplices.
+
+He questioned the darkness with an unspeakable anguish. He was on
+the point of unmasking that enemy of Daubrecq’s, who was also his
+own adversary. He would thwart his plans. And the booty captured from
+Daubrecq he would capture in his turn, while Daubrecq slept and while
+the accomplices lurking behind the hall-door or outside the garden-gate
+vainly awaited their leader’s return.
+
+And that return took place. Lupin knew it by the renewed vibration of
+the balusters. And, once more, with every sense strained and every
+nerve on edge, he strove to discern the mysterious thing that was coming
+toward him. He suddenly realized it when only a few yards away. He
+himself, hidden in a still darker recess, could not be seen. And what
+he saw--in the very vaguest manner--was approaching stair by stair, with
+infinite precautions, holding on to each separate baluster.
+
+“Whom the devil have I to do with?” said Lupin to himself, while his
+heart thumped inside his chest.
+
+The catastrophe was hastened. A careless movement on Lupin’s part was
+observed by the stranger, who stopped short. Lupin was afraid lest the
+other should turn back and take to flight. He sprang at the adversary
+and was stupefied at encountering nothing but space and knocking against
+the stair-rail without seizing the form which he saw. But he at once
+rushed forward, crossed the best part of the hall and caught up his
+antagonist just as he was reaching the door opening on the garden.
+
+There was a cry of fright, answered by other cries on the further side
+of the door.
+
+“Oh, hang it, what’s this?” muttered Lupin, whose arms had closed, in
+the dark, round a little, tiny, trembling, whimpering thing.
+
+Suddenly understanding, he stood for a moment motionless and dismayed,
+at a loss what to do with his conquered prey. But the others were
+shouting and stamping outside the door. Thereupon, dreading lest
+Daubrecq should wake up, he slipped the little thing under his jacket,
+against his chest, stopped the crying with his handkerchief rolled into
+a ball and hurried up the three flights of stairs.
+
+“Here,” he said to Victoire, who woke with a start. “I’ve brought you
+the indomitable chief of our enemies, the Hercules of the gang. Have you
+a feeding-bottle about you?”
+
+He put down in the easy-chair a child of six or seven years of age, the
+tiniest little fellow in a gray jersey and a knitted woollen cap, whose
+pale and exquisitely pretty features were streaked with the tears that
+streamed from the terrified eyes.
+
+“Where did you pick that up?” asked Victoire, aghast.
+
+“At the foot of the stairs, as it was coming out of Daubrecq’s bedroom,”
+ replied Lupin, feeling the jersey in the hope that the child had brought
+a booty of some kind from that room.
+
+Victoire was stirred to pity:
+
+“Poor little dear! Look, he’s trying not to cry!... Oh, saints above,
+his hands are like ice! Don’t be afraid, sonnie, we sha’n’t hurt you:
+the gentleman’s all right.”
+
+“Yes,” said Lupin, “the gentleman’s quite all right, but there’s another
+very wicked gentleman who’ll wake up if they go on making such a rumpus
+outside the hall-door. Do you hear them, Victoire?”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“The satellites of our young Hercules, the indomitable leader’s gang.”
+
+“Well...?” stammered Victoire, utterly unnerved.
+
+“Well, as I don’t want to be caught in the trap, I shall start by
+clearing out. Are you coming, Hercules?”
+
+He rolled the child in a blanket, so that only its head remained
+outside, gagged its mouth as gently as possible and made Victoire fasten
+it to his shoulders:
+
+“See, Hercules? We’re having a game. You never thought you’d find
+gentlemen to play pick-a-back with you at three o’clock in the morning!
+Come, whoosh, let’s fly away! You don’t get giddy, I hope?”
+
+He stepped across the window-ledge and set foot on one of the rungs of
+the ladder. He was in the garden in a minute.
+
+He had never ceased hearing and now heard more plainly still the blows
+that were being struck upon the front-door. He was astounded that
+Daubrecq was not awakened by so violent a din:
+
+“If I don’t put a stop to this, they’ll spoil everything,” he said to
+himself.
+
+He stood in an angle of the house, invisible in the darkness, and
+measured the distance between himself and the gate. The gate was open.
+To his right, he saw the steps, on the top of which the people were
+flinging themselves about; to his left, the building occupied by the
+portress.
+
+The woman had come out of her lodge and was standing near the people,
+entreating them:
+
+“Oh, do be quiet, do be quiet! He’ll come!”
+
+“Capital!” said Lupin. “The good woman is an accomplice of these as
+well. By Jingo, what a pluralist!”
+
+He rushed across to her and, taking her by the scruff of the neck,
+hissed:
+
+“Go and tell them I’ve got the child... They can come and fetch it at my
+place, Rue Chateaubriand.”
+
+A little way off, in the avenue, stood a taxi which Lupin presumed to be
+engaged by the gang. Speaking authoritatively, as though he were one of
+the accomplices, he stepped into the cab and told the man to drive him
+home.
+
+“Well,” he said to the child, “that wasn’t much of a shake-up, was
+it?... What do you say to going to bye-bye on the gentleman’s bed?”
+
+As his servant, Achille, was asleep, Lupin made the little chap
+comfortable and stroked his hair for him. The child seemed numbed. His
+poor face was as though petrified into a stiff expression made up, at
+one and the same time, of fear and the wish not to show fear, of the
+longing to scream and a pitiful effort not to scream.
+
+“Cry, my pet, cry,” said Lupin. “It’ll do you good to cry.”
+
+The child did not cry, but the voice was so gentle and so kind that he
+relaxed his tense muscles; and, now that his eyes were calmer and
+his mouth less contorted, Lupin, who was examining him closely, found
+something that he recognized, an undoubted resemblance.
+
+This again confirmed certain facts which he suspected and which he had
+for some time been linking in his mind. Indeed, unless he was mistaken,
+the position was becoming very different and he would soon assume the
+direction of events. After that...
+
+A ring at the bell followed, at once, by two others, sharp ones.
+
+“Hullo!” said Lupin to the child. “Here’s mummy come to fetch you. Don’t
+move.”
+
+He ran and opened the door.
+
+A woman entered, wildly:
+
+“My son!” she screamed. “My son! Where is he?”
+
+“In my room,” said Lupin.
+
+Without asking more, thus proving that she knew the way, she rushed to
+the bedroom.
+
+“As I thought,” muttered Lupin. “The youngish woman with the gray hair:
+Daubrecq’s friend and enemy.”
+
+He walked to the window and looked through the curtains. Two men were
+striding up and down the opposite pavement: the Growler and the Masher.
+
+“And they’re not even hiding themselves,” he said to himself. “That’s
+a good sign. They consider that they can’t do without me any longer and
+that they’ve got to obey the governor. There remains the pretty lady
+with the gray hair. That will be more difficult. It’s you and I now,
+mummy.”
+
+He found the mother and the boy clasped in each other’s arms; and
+the mother, in a great state of alarm, her eyes moist with tears, was
+saying:
+
+“You’re not hurt? You’re sure? Oh, how frightened you must have been, my
+poor little Jacques!”
+
+“A fine little fellow,” said Lupin.
+
+She did not reply. She was feeling the child’s jersey, as Lupin had
+done, no doubt to see if he had succeeded in his nocturnal mission; and
+she questioned him in a whisper.
+
+“No, mummy,” said the child. “No, really.”
+
+She kissed him fondly and petted him, until, in a little while, the
+child, worn out with fatigue and excitement, fell asleep. She remained
+leaning over him for a long time. She herself seemed very much worn out
+and in need of rest.
+
+Lupin did not disturb her contemplation. He looked at her anxiously,
+with an attention which she did not perceive, and he noticed the wider
+rings round her eyes and the deeper marks of wrinkles. Yet he considered
+her handsomer than he had thought, with that touching beauty which
+habitual suffering gives to certain faces that are more human, more
+sensitive than others.
+
+She wore so sad an expression that, in a burst of instinctive sympathy,
+he went up to her and said: “I do not know what your plans are, but,
+whatever they may be, you stand in need of help. You cannot succeed
+alone.”
+
+“I am not alone.”
+
+“The two men outside? I know them. They’re no good. I beseech you,
+make use of me. You remember the other evening, at the theatre, in the
+private box? You were on the point of speaking. Do not hesitate to-day.”
+
+She turned her eyes on him, looked at him long and fixedly and, as
+though unable to escape that opposing will, she said:
+
+“What do you know exactly? What do you know about me?”
+
+“There are many things that I do not know. I do not know your name. But
+I know...”
+
+She interrupted him with a gesture; and, resolutely, in her turn,
+dominating the man who was compelling her to speak:
+
+“It doesn’t matter,” she exclaimed. “What you know, after all, is not
+much and is of no importance. But what are your plans? You offer me your
+help: with what view? For what work? You have flung yourself headlong
+into this business; I have been unable to undertake anything without
+meeting you on my path: you must be contemplating some aim... What aim?”
+
+“What aim? Upon my word, it seems to me that my conduct...”
+
+“No, no,” she said, emphatically, “no phrases! What you and I want is
+certainties; and, to achieve them, absolute frankness. I will set you
+the example. M. Daubrecq possesses a thing of unparalleled value, not in
+itself, but for what it represents. That thing you know. You have
+twice held it in your hands. I have twice taken it from you. Well, I am
+entitled to believe that, when you tried to obtain possession of it, you
+meant to use the power which you attribute to it and to use it to your
+own advantage...”
+
+“What makes you say that?”
+
+“Yes, you meant to use it to forward your schemes, in the interest of
+your own affairs, in accordance with your habits as a...”
+
+“As a burglar and a swindler,” said Lupin, completing the sentence for
+her.
+
+She did not protest. He tried to read her secret thoughts in the depths
+of her eyes. What did she want with him? What was she afraid of? If she
+mistrusted him, had he not also reasons to mistrust that woman who had
+twice taken the crystal stopper from him to restore it to Daubrecq?
+Mortal enemy of Daubrecq’s though she were, up to what point did she
+remain subject to that man’s will? By surrendering himself to her,
+did he not risk surrendering himself to Daubrecq? And yet he had never
+looked upon graver eyes nor a more honest face.
+
+Without further hesitation, he stated:
+
+“My object is simple enough. It is the release of my friends Gilbert and
+Vaucheray.”
+
+“Is that true? Is that true?” she exclaimed, quivering all over and
+questioning him with an anxious glance.
+
+“If you knew me...”
+
+“I do know you... I know who you are. For months, I have taken part in
+your life, without your suspecting it... and yet, for certain reasons, I
+still doubt...”
+
+He said, in a more decisive tone:
+
+“You do not know me. If you knew me, you would know that there can be no
+peace for me before my two companions have escaped the awful fate that
+awaits them.”
+
+She rushed at him, took him by the shoulders and positively distraught,
+said:
+
+“What? What did you say? The awful fate?... Then you believe... you
+believe...”
+
+“I really believe,” said Lupin, who felt how greatly this threat upset
+her, “I really believe that, if I am not in time, Gilbert and Vaucheray
+are done for.”
+
+“Be quiet!... Be quiet!” she cried, clutching him fiercely. “Be
+quiet!... You mustn’t say that... There is no reason... It’s just you
+who suppose...”
+
+“It’s not only I, it’s Gilbert as well...”
+
+“What? Gilbert? How do you know?”
+
+“From himself?”
+
+“From him?”
+
+“Yes, from Gilbert, who has no hope left but in me; from Gilbert, who
+knows that only one man in the world can save him and who, a few days
+ago, sent me a despairing appeal from prison. Here is his letter.”
+
+She snatched the paper greedily and read in stammering accents:
+
+“Help, governor!... I am frightened!... I am frightened!...”
+
+She dropped the letter. Her hands fluttered in space. It was as though
+her staring eyes beheld the sinister vision which had already so often
+terrified Lupin. She gave a scream of horror, tried to rise and fainted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+The child was sleeping peacefully on the bed. The mother did not move
+from the sofa on which Lupin had laid her; but her easier breathing and
+the blood which was now returning to her face announced her impending
+recovery from her swoon.
+
+He observed that she wore a wedding-ring. Seeing a locket hanging from
+her bodice, he stooped and, turning it, found a miniature photograph
+representing a man of about forty and a lad--a stripling rather--in a
+schoolboy’s uniform. He studied the fresh, young face set in curly hair:
+
+“It’s as I thought,” he said. “Ah, poor woman!”
+
+The hand which he took between his grew warmer by degrees. The eyes
+opened, then closed again. She murmured:
+
+“Jacques...”
+
+“Do not distress yourself... it’s all right he’s asleep.”
+
+She recovered consciousness entirely. But, as she did not speak, Lupin
+put questions to her, to make her feel a gradual need of unbosoming
+herself. And he said, pointing to the locket:
+
+“The schoolboy is Gilbert, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes,” she said.
+
+“And Gilbert is your son?”
+
+She gave a shiver and whispered:
+
+“Yes, Gilbert is my son, my eldest son.”
+
+So she was the mother of Gilbert, of Gilbert the prisoner at the Sante,
+relentlessly pursued by the authorities and now awaiting his trial for
+murder!
+
+Lupin continued:
+
+“And the other portrait?”
+
+“My husband.”
+
+“Your husband?”
+
+“Yes, he died three years ago.”
+
+She was now sitting up. Life quivered in her veins once more, together
+with the horror of living and the horror of all the ghastly things that
+threatened her. Lupin went on to ask:
+
+“What was your husband’s name?”
+
+She hesitated a moment and answered:
+
+“Mergy.”
+
+He exclaimed:
+
+“Victorien Mergy the deputy?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+There was a long pause. Lupin remembered the incident and the stir
+which it had caused. Three years ago, Mergy the deputy had blown out
+his brains in the lobby of the Chamber, without leaving a word of
+explanation behind him; and no one had ever discovered the slightest
+reason for that suicide.
+
+“Do you know the reason?” asked Lupin, completing his thought aloud.
+
+“Yes, I know it.”
+
+“Gilbert, perhaps?”
+
+“No, Gilbert had disappeared for some years, turned out of doors and
+cursed by my husband. It was a very great sorrow, but there was another
+motive.”
+
+“What was that?” asked Lupin.
+
+But it was not necessary for Lupin to put further questions. Madame
+Mergy could keep silent no longer and, slowly at first, with all the
+anguish of that past which had to be called up, she told her story:
+
+“Twenty-five years ago, when my name was Clarisse Darcel and my parents
+living, I knew three young men at Nice. Their names will at once give
+you an insight into the present tragedy: they were Alexis Daubrecq,
+Victorien Mergy and Louis Prasville. The three were old acquaintances,
+had gone to college in the same year and served in the same regiment.
+Prasville, at that time, was in love with a singer at the opera-house at
+Nice. The two others, Mergy and Daubrecq, were in love with me. I shall
+be brief as regards all this and, for the rest, as regards the whole
+story, for the facts tell their own tale. I fell in love with Victorien
+Mergy from the first. Perhaps I was wrong not to declare myself at
+once. But true love is always timid, hesitating and shy; and I did
+not announce my choice until I felt quite certain and quite free.
+Unfortunately, that period of waiting, so delightful for those who
+cherish a secret passion, had permitted Daubrecq to hope. His anger was
+something horrible.”
+
+Clarisse Mergy stopped for a few seconds and resumed, in a stifled
+voice:
+
+“I shall never forget it... The three of us were in the drawing-room.
+Oh, I can hear even now the terrible words of threat and hatred which
+he uttered! Victorien was absolutely astounded. He had never seen his
+friend like this, with that repugnant face, that bestial expression:
+yes, the expression of a wild beast... Daubrecq ground his teeth. He
+stamped his feet. His bloodshot eyes--he did not wear spectacles in
+those days--rolled in their sockets; and he kept on saying, ‘I shall be
+revenged ... I shall be revenged... Oh, you don’t know what I am capable
+of!... I shall wait ten years, twenty years, if necessary... But it will
+come like a thunderbolt... Ah, you don’t know!... To be revenged... To
+do harm... for harm’s sake... what joy! I was born to do harm... And you
+will both beseech my mercy on your knees, on your knees, yes, on your
+knees...’ At that moment, my father entered the room; and, with his
+assistance and the footman’s, Victorien Mergy flung the loathsome
+creature out of doors. Six weeks later, I married Victorien.”
+
+“And Daubrecq?” asked Lupin, interrupting her. “Did he not try...”
+
+“No, but on our wedding-day, Louis Prasville, who acted as my husband’s
+best man in defiance of Danbrecq’s opposition, went home to find the
+girl he loved, the opera-singer, dead, strangled...”
+
+“What!” said Lupin, with a start. “Had Daubrecq...”
+
+“It was known that Daubrecq had been persecuting her with his attentions
+for some days; but nothing more was known. It was impossible to discover
+who had gone in or out during Prasville’s absence. There was not a trace
+found of any kind: nothing, absolutely nothing.”
+
+“But Prasville...”
+
+“There was no doubt of the truth in Prasville’s mind or ours. Daubrecq
+had tried to run away with the girl, perhaps tried to force her, to
+hustle her and, in the course of the struggle, maddened, losing his
+head, caught her by the throat and killed her, perhaps without knowing
+what he was doing. But there was no evidence of all this; and Daubrecq
+was not even molested.”
+
+“And what became of him next?”
+
+“For some years we heard nothing of him. We knew only that he had lost
+all his money gambling and that he was travelling in America. And, in
+spite of myself, I forgot his anger and his threats and was only too
+ready to believe that he had ceased to love me and no longer harboured
+his schemes of revenge. Besides, I was so happy that I did not care
+to think of anything but my happiness, my love, my husband’s political
+career, the health of my son Antoine.”
+
+“Antoine?”
+
+“Yes, Antoine is Gilbert’s real name. The unhappy boy has at least
+succeeded in concealing his identity.”
+
+Lupin asked, with some hesitation:
+
+“At what period did... Gilbert... begin?”
+
+“I cannot tell you exactly. Gilbert--I prefer to call him that and not
+to pronounce his real name--Gilbert, as a child, was what he is to-day:
+lovable, liked by everybody, charming, but lazy and unruly. When he was
+fifteen, we put him to a boarding-school in one of the suburbs, with the
+deliberate object of not having him too much at home. After two years’
+time he was expelled from school and sent back to us.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because of his conduct. The masters had discovered that he used to slip
+out at night and also that he would disappear for weeks at a time, while
+pretending to be at home with us.”
+
+“What used he to do?”
+
+“Amuse himself backing horses, spending his time in cafes and public
+dancing-rooms.”
+
+“Then he had money?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Who gave it him?”
+
+“His evil genius, the man who, secretly, unknown to his parents, enticed
+him away from school, the man who led him astray, who corrupted him, who
+took him from us, who taught him to lie, to waste his substance and to
+steal.”
+
+“Daubrecq?”
+
+“Daubrecq.”
+
+Clarisse Mergy put her hands together to hide the blushes on her
+forehead. She continued, in her tired voice:
+
+“Daubrecq had taken his revenge. On the day after my husband turned our
+unhappy child out of the house, Daubrecq sent us a most cynical letter
+in which he revealed the odious part which he had played and the
+machinations by which he had succeeded in depraving our son. And he
+went on to say, ‘The reformatory, one of these days... Later on, the
+assize-court ... And then, let us hope and trust, the scaffold!’”
+
+Lupin exclaimed:
+
+“What! Did Daubrecq plot the present business?”
+
+“No, no, that is only an accident. The hateful prophecy was just a wish
+which he expressed. But oh, how it terrified me! I was ailing at the
+time; my other son, my little Jacques, had just been born. And every
+day we heard of some fresh misdeed of Gilbert’s--forgeries, swindles--so
+much so that we spread the news, in our immediate surroundings, of his
+departure for abroad, followed by his death. Life was a misery; and it
+became still more so when the political storm burst in which my husband
+was to meet his death.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“A word will be enough: my husband’s name was on the list of the
+Twenty-seven.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+The veil was suddenly lifted from Lupin’s eyes and he saw, as in a
+flash of lightning, a whole legion of things which, until then, had been
+hidden in the darkness.
+
+Clarisse Mergy continued, in a firmer voice:
+
+“Yes, his name was on it, but by mistake, by a piece of incredible
+ill-luck of which he was the victim. It is true that Victorien Mergy
+was a member of the committee appointed to consider the question of the
+Two-Seas Canal. It is true that he voted with the members who were in
+favour of the company’s scheme. He was even paid--yes, I tell you so
+plainly and I will mention the sum--he was paid fifteen thousand francs.
+But he was paid on behalf of another, of one of his political friends,
+a man in whom he had absolute confidence and of whom he was the blind,
+unconscious tool. He thought he was showing his friend a kindness; and
+it proved his own undoing. It was not until the day after the suicide of
+the chairman of the company and the disappearance of the secretary, the
+day on which the affair of the canal was published in the papers, with
+its whole series of swindles and abominations, that my husband knew
+that a number of his fellow-members had been bribed and learnt that the
+mysterious list, of which people suddenly began to speak, mentioned
+his name with theirs and with the names of other deputies, leaders of
+parties and influential politicians. Oh, what awful days those were!
+Would the list be published? Would his name come out? The torture of it!
+You remember the mad excitement in the Chamber, the atmosphere of terror
+and denunciation that prevailed. Who owned the list? Nobody could
+say. It was known to be in existence and that was all. Two names were
+sacrificed to public odium. Two men were swept away by the storm. And it
+remained unknown where the denunciation came from and in whose hands the
+incriminating documents were.”
+
+“Daubrecq,” suggested Lupin.
+
+“No, no!” cried Madame Mergy. “Daubrecq was nothing at that time: he had
+not yet appeared upon the scene. No, don’t you remember, the truth came
+out suddenly through the very man who was keeping it back: Germineaux,
+the ex-minister of justice, a cousin of the chairman of the Canal
+Company. As he lay dying of consumption, he wrote from his sick-bed to
+the prefect of police, bequeathing him that list of names, which, he
+said, would be found, after his death, in an iron chest in the corner of
+his room. The house was surrounded by police and the prefect took up
+his quarters by the sick man’s bedside. Germineaux died. The chest was
+opened and found to be empty.”
+
+“Daubrecq, this time,” Lupin declared.
+
+“Yes, Daubrecq,” said Madame Mergy, whose excitement was momentarily
+increasing. “Alexis Daubrecq, who, for six months, disguised beyond
+recognition, had acted as Germineaux’s secretary. It does not matter
+how he discovered that Germineaux was the possessor of the paper in
+question. The fact remains that he broke open the chest on the night
+before the death. So much was proved at the inquiry; and Daubrecq’s
+identity was established.”
+
+“But he was not arrested?”
+
+“What would have been the use? They knew well enough that he must have
+deposited the list in a place of safety. His arrest would have involved
+a scandal, the reopening of the whole case...”
+
+“So...”
+
+“So they made terms.”
+
+Lupin laughed:
+
+“That’s funny, making terms with Daubrecq!”
+
+“Yes, very funny,” said Madame Mergy, bitterly. “During this time he
+acted and without delay, shamelessly, making straight for the goal. A
+week after the theft, he went to the Chamber of Deputies, asked for my
+husband and bluntly demanded thirty thousand francs of him, to be paid
+within twenty-four hours. If not, he threatened him with exposure and
+disgrace. My husband knew the man he was dealing with, knew him to be
+implacable and filled with relentless hatred. He lost his head and shot
+himself.”
+
+“How absurd!” Lupin could not help saying. “How absurd! Daubrecq
+possesses a list of twenty-seven names. To give up any one of those
+names he is obliged, if he would have his accusation believed, to
+publish the list itself--that is to say, to part with the document, or
+at least a photograph of it. Well, in so doing, he creates a scandal, it
+is true, but he deprives himself, at the same time, of all further means
+of levying blackmail.”
+
+“Yes and no,” she said.
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Through Daubrecq himself. The villain came to see me and cynically
+told me of his interview with my husband and the words that had passed
+between them. Well, there is more than that list, more than that famous
+bit of paper on which the secretary put down the names and the amounts
+paid and to which, you will remember, the chairman of the company,
+before dying, affixed his signature in letters of blood. There is more
+than that. There are certain less positive proofs, which the people
+interested do not know of: the correspondence between the chairman
+and the secretary, between the chairman and his counsel, and so on. Of
+course, the list scribbled on the bit of paper is the only evidence
+that counts; it is the one incontestable proof which it would be no good
+copying or even photographing, for its genuineness can be tested most
+absolutely. But, all the same, the other proofs are dangerous. They
+have already been enough to do away with two deputies. And Daubrecq
+is marvelously clever at turning this fact to account. He selects
+his victim, frightens him out of his senses, points out to him the
+inevitable scandal; and the victim pays the required sum. Or else he
+kills himself, as my husband did. Do you understand now?”
+
+“Yes,” said Lupin.
+
+And, in the silence that followed, he drew a mental picture of
+Daubrecq’s life. He saw him the owner of that list, using his power,
+gradually emerging from the shadow, lavishly squandering the money
+which he extorted from his victims, securing his election as a
+district-councillor and deputy, holding sway by dint of threats
+and terror, unpunished, invulnerable, unattackable, feared by the
+government, which would rather submit to his orders than declare war
+upon him, respected by the judicial authorities: so powerful, in a word,
+that Prasville had been appointed secretary-general of police, over the
+heads of all who had prior claims, for the sole reason that he hated
+Daubrecq with a personal hatred.
+
+“And you saw him again?” he asked.
+
+“I saw him again. I had to. My husband was dead, but his honour remained
+untouched. Nobody suspected the truth. In order at least to defend the
+name which he left me, I accepted my first interview with Daubrecq.”
+
+“Your first, yes, for there have been others.”
+
+“Many others,” she said, in a strained voice, “yes, many others... at
+the theatre... or in the evening, at Enghien... or else in Paris, at
+night ... for I was ashamed to meet that man and I did not want people
+to know it... But it was necessary... A duty more imperative than any
+other commanded it: the duty of avenging my husband...”
+
+She bent over Lupin and, eagerly:
+
+“Yes, revenge has been the motive of my conduct and the sole
+preoccupation of my life. To avenge my husband, to avenge my ruined son,
+to avenge myself for all the harm that he has done me: I had no other
+dream, no other object in life. That is what I wanted: to see that man
+crushed, reduced to poverty, to tears--as though he still knew how to
+cry!--sobbing in the throes of despair...”
+
+“You wanted his death,” said Lupin, remembering the scene between them
+in Daubrecq’s study.
+
+“No, not his death. I have often thought of it, I have even raised my
+arm to strike him, but what would have been the good? He must have taken
+his precautions. The paper would remain. And then there is no revenge
+in killing a man... My hatred went further than that... It demanded his
+ruin, his downfall; and, to achieve that, there was but one way: to cut
+his claws. Daubrecq, deprived of the document that gives him his immense
+power, ceases to exist. It means immediate bankruptcy and disaster...
+under the most wretched conditions. That is what I have sought.”
+
+“But Daubrecq must have been aware of your intentions?”
+
+“Certainly. And, I assure you, those were strange meetings of ours: I
+watching him closely, trying to guess his secret behind his actions and
+his words, and he... he...”
+
+“And he,” said Lupin, finishing Clarisse’s thought, “lying in wait for
+the prey which he desires... for the woman whom he has never ceased to
+love... whom he loves... and whom he covets with all his might and with
+all his furious passion...”
+
+She lowered her head and said, simply:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+A strange duel indeed was that which brought face to face those two
+beings separated by so many implacable things! How unbridled must
+Daubrecq’s passion be for him to risk that perpetual threat of death and
+to introduce to the privacy of his house this woman whose life he had
+shattered! But also how absolutely safe he must feel himself!
+
+“And your search ended... how?” asked Lupin.
+
+“My search,” she replied, “long remained without fruit. You know the
+methods of investigation which you have followed and which the police
+have followed on their side. Well, I myself employed them, years before
+either of you did, and in vain. I was beginning to despair. Then, one
+day, when I had gone to see Daubrecq in his villa at Enghien, I picked
+up under his writing-table a letter which he had begun to write,
+crumpled up and thrown into the waste-paper-basket. It consisted of
+a few lines in bad English; and I was able to read this: ‘Empty
+the crystal within, so as to leave a void which it is impossible to
+suspect.’ Perhaps I should not have attached to this sentence all the
+importance which it deserved, if Daubrecq, who was out in the garden,
+had not come running in and begun to turn out the waste-paper-basket,
+with an eagerness which was very significant. He gave me a suspicious
+look: ‘There was a letter there,’ he said. I pretended not to
+understand. He did not insist, but his agitation did not escape me; and
+I continued my quest in this direction. A month later, I discovered,
+among the ashes in the drawing-room fireplace, the torn half of an
+English invoice. I gathered that a Stourbridge glass-blower, of the name
+of John Howard, had supplied Daubrecq with a crystal bottle made after a
+model. The word ‘crystal’ struck me at once. I went to Stourbridge, got
+round the foreman of the glass-works and learnt that the stopper of this
+bottle had been hollowed out inside, in accordance with the instruction
+in the order, so as to leave a cavity, the existence of which would
+escape observation.”
+
+Lupin nodded his head:
+
+“The thing tallies beyond a doubt. Nevertheless, it did not seem to me,
+that, even under the gilt layer... And then the hiding-place would be
+very tiny!”
+
+“Tiny, but large enough,” she said. “On my return from England, I went
+to the police-office to see Prasville, whose friendship for me had
+remained unchanged. I did not hesitate to tell him, first, the reasons
+which had driven my husband to suicide and, secondly, the object of
+revenge which I was pursuing. When I informed him of my discoveries, he
+jumped for joy; and I felt that his hatred for Daubrecq was as strong
+as ever. I learnt from him that the list was written on a slip of
+exceedingly thin foreign-post-paper, which, when rolled up into a sort
+of pellet, would easily fit into an exceedingly limited space. Neither
+he nor I had the least hesitation. We knew the hiding-place. We agreed
+to act independently of each other, while continuing to correspond in
+secret. I put him in touch with Clemence, the portress in the Square
+Lamartine, who was entirely devoted to me...”
+
+“But less so to Prasville,” said Lupin, “for I can prove that she
+betrays him.”
+
+“Now perhaps, but not at the start; and the police searches were
+numerous. It was at that time, ten months ago, that Gilbert came into my
+life again. A mother never loses her love for her son, whatever he may
+do, whatever he may have done. And then Gilbert has such a way with
+him... well, you know him. He cried, kissed my little Jacques, his
+brother and I forgave him.”
+
+She stopped and, weary-voiced, with her eyes fixed on the floor,
+continued:
+
+“Would to Heaven that I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour could but
+return, how readily I should find the horrible courage to turn him away!
+My poor child... it was I who ruined him!...” And, pensively, “I should
+have had that or any sort of courage, if he had been as I pictured him
+to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the
+marks of vice and dissipation, coarse, deteriorated.
+
+“But, though he was utterly changed in appearance, so much so that I
+could hardly recognize him, there was, from the point of view of--how
+shall I put it?--from the moral point of view, an undoubted improvement.
+You had helped him, lifted him; and, though his mode of life was hateful
+to me, nevertheless he retained a certain self-respect... a sort of
+underlying decency that showed itself on the surface once more... He was
+gay, careless, happy... And he used to talk of you with such affection!”
+
+She picked her words, betraying her embarrassment, not daring, in
+Lupin’s presence, to condemn the line of life which Gilbert had selected
+and yet unable to speak in favour of it.
+
+“What happened next?” asked Lupin.
+
+“I saw him very often. He would come to me by stealth, or else I went
+to him and we would go for walks in the country. In this way, I was
+gradually induced to tell him our story, of his father’s suicide and
+the object which I was pursuing. He at once took fire. He too wanted
+to avenge his father and, by stealing the crystal stopper, to avenge
+himself on Daubrecq for the harm which he had done him. His first
+idea--from which, I am bound to tell you, he never swerved--was to
+arrange with you.”
+
+“Well, then,” cried Lupin, “he ought to have...!”
+
+“Yes, I know... and I was of the same opinion. Unfortunately, my poor
+Gilbert--you know how weak he is!--was under the influence of one of his
+comrades.”
+
+“Vaucheray?”
+
+“Yes, Vaucheray, a saturnine spirit, full of bitterness and envy, an
+ambitious, unscrupulous, gloomy, crafty man, who had acquired a great
+empire over my son. Gilbert made the mistake of confiding in him and
+asking his advice. That was the origin of all the mischief. Vaucheray
+convinced him and convinced me as well that it would be better if we
+acted by ourselves. He studied the business, took the lead and finally
+organized the Enghien expedition and, under your direction, the burglary
+at the Villa Marie-Therese, which Prasville and his detectives had been
+unable to search thoroughly, because of the active watch maintained by
+Leonard the valet. It was a mad scheme. We ought either to have trusted
+in your experience entirely, or else to have left you out altogether,
+taking the risk of fatal mistakes and dangerous hesitations. But we
+could not help ourselves. Vaucheray ruled us. I agreed to meet Daubrecq
+at the theatre. During this time the thing took place. When I came
+home, at twelve o’clock at night, I heard the terrible result: Leonard
+murdered, my son arrested. I at once received an intuition of the
+future. Daubrecq’s appalling prophecy was being realized: it meant trial
+and sentence. And this through my fault, through the fault of me, the
+mother, who had driven my son toward the abyss from which nothing could
+extricate him now.”
+
+Clarisse wrung her hands and shivered from head to foot. What suffering
+can compare with that of a mother trembling for the head of her son?
+Stirred with pity, Lupin said:
+
+“We shall save him. Of that there is not the shadow of a doubt. But,
+it is necessary that I should know all the details. Finish your story,
+please. How did you know, on the same night, what had happened at
+Enghien?”
+
+She mastered herself and, with a face wrung with fevered anguish,
+replied:
+
+“Through two of your accomplices, or rather two accomplices of
+Vaucheray, to whom they were wholly devoted and who had chosen them to
+row the boats.”
+
+“The two men outside: the Growler and the Masher?”
+
+“Yes. On your return from the villa, when you landed after being pursued
+on the lake by the commissary of police, you said a few words to them,
+by way of explanation, as you went to your car. Mad with fright, they
+rushed to my place, where they had been before, and told me the hideous
+news. Gilbert was in prison! Oh, what an awful night! What was I to do?
+Look for you? Certainly; and implore your assistance. But where was I to
+find you?... It was then that the two whom you call the Growler and the
+Masher, driven into a corner by circumstances, decided to tell me of the
+part played by Vaucheray, his ambitions, his plan, which had long been
+ripening...”
+
+“To get rid of me, I suppose?” said Lupin, with a grin.
+
+“Yes. As Gilbert possessed your complete confidence, Vaucheray watched
+him and, in this way, got to know all the places which you live at. A
+few days more and, owning the crystal stopper, holding the list of the
+Twenty-seven, inheriting all Daubrecq’s power, he would have delivered
+you to the police, without compromising a single member of your gang,
+which he looked upon as thenceforth his.”
+
+“The ass!” muttered Lupin. “A muddler like that!” And he added, “So the
+panels of the doors...”
+
+“Were cut out by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest on
+which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at whose house
+he did the same thing. He had under his orders a sort of acrobat,
+an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to wriggle through those
+apertures and who thus detected all your correspondence and all
+your secrets. That is what his two friends revealed to me. I at once
+conceived the idea of saving my elder son by making use of his brother,
+my little Jacques, who is himself so slight and so intelligent,
+so plucky, as you have seen. We set out that night. Acting on the
+information of my companions, I went to Gilbert’s rooms and found the
+keys of your flat in the Rue Matignon, where it appeared that you were
+to sleep. Unfortunately, I changed my mind on the way and thought much
+less of asking for your help than of recovering the crystal stopper,
+which, if it had been discovered at Enghien, must obviously be at
+your flat. I was right in my calculations. In a few minutes, my little
+Jacques, who had slipped into your bedroom, brought it to me. I went
+away quivering with hope. Mistress in my turn of the talisman, keeping
+it to myself, without telling Prasville, I had absolute power over
+Daubrecq. I could make him do all that I wanted; he would become
+the slave of my will and, instructed by me, would take every step in
+Gilbert’s favour and obtain that he should be given the means of escape
+or else that he should not be sentenced. It meant my boy’s safety.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+Clarisse rose from her seat, with a passionate movement of her whole
+being, leant over Lupin and said, in a hollow voice:
+
+“There was nothing in that piece of crystal, nothing, do you understand?
+No paper, no hiding-place! The whole expedition to Enghien was futile!
+The murder of Leonard was useless! The arrest of my son was useless! All
+my efforts were useless!”
+
+“But why? Why?”
+
+“Why? Because what you stole from Daubrecq was not the stopper made by
+his instructions, but the stopper which was sent to John Howard, the
+Stourbridge glassworker, to serve as a model.”
+
+If Lupin had not been in the presence of so deep a grief, he could not
+have refrained from one of those satirical outbursts with which the
+mischievous tricks of fate are wont to inspire him. As it was, he
+muttered between his teeth:
+
+“How stupid! And still more stupid as Daubrecq had been given the
+warning.”
+
+“No,” she said. “I went to Enghien on the same day. In all that business
+Daubrecq saw and sees nothing but an ordinary burglary, an annexation of
+his treasures. The fact that you took part in it put him off the scent.”
+
+“Still, the disappearance of the stopper...”
+
+“To begin with, the thing can have had but a secondary importance for
+him, as it is only the model.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“There is a scratch at the bottom of the stem; and I have made inquiries
+in England since.”
+
+“Very well; but why did the key of the cupboard from which it was stolen
+never leave the man-servant’s possession? And why, in the second place,
+was it found afterward in the drawer of a table in Daubrecq’s house in
+Paris?”
+
+“Of course, Daubrecq takes care of it and clings to it in the way in
+which one clings to the model of any valuable thing. And that is why I
+replaced the stopper in the cupboard before its absence was noticed. And
+that also is why, on the second occasion, I made my little Jacques take
+the stopper from your overcoat-pocket and told the portress to put it
+back in the drawer.”
+
+“Then he suspects nothing?”
+
+“Nothing. He knows that the list is being looked for, but he does not
+know that Prasville and I are aware of the thing in which he hides it.”
+
+Lupin had risen from his seat and was walking up and down the room,
+thinking. Then he stood still beside Clarisse and asked:
+
+“When all is said, since the Enghien incident, you have not advanced a
+single step?”
+
+“Not one. I have acted from day to day, led by those two men or leading
+them, without any definite plan.”
+
+“Or, at least,” he said, “without any other plan than that of getting
+the list of the Twenty-seven from Daubrecq.”
+
+“Yes, but how? Besides, your tactics made things more difficult for
+me. It did not take us long to recognize your old servant Victoire in
+Daubrecq’s new cook and to discover, from what the portress told us,
+that Victoire was putting you up in her room; and I was afraid of your
+schemes.”
+
+“It was you, was it not, who wrote to me to retire from the contest?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You also asked me not to go to the theatre on the Vaudeville night?”
+
+“Yes, the portress caught Victoire listening to Daubrecq’s conversation
+with me on the telephone; and the Masher, who was watching the house,
+saw you go out. I suspected, therefore, that you would follow Daubrecq
+that evening.”
+
+“And the woman who came here, late one afternoon...”
+
+“Was myself. I felt disheartened and wanted to see you.”
+
+“And you intercepted Gilbert’s letter?”
+
+“Yes, I recognized his writing on the envelope.”
+
+“But your little Jacques was not with you?”
+
+“No, he was outside, in a motor-car, with the Masher, who lifted him up
+to me through the drawing-room window; and he slipped into your bedroom
+through the opening in the panel.”
+
+“What was in the letter?”
+
+“As ill-luck would have it, reproaches. Gilbert accused you of forsaking
+him, of taking over the business on your own account. In short, it
+confirmed me in my distrust; and I ran away.”
+
+Lupin shrugged his shoulders with irritation:
+
+“What a shocking waste of time! And what a fatality that we were not
+able to come to an understanding earlier! You and I have been playing at
+hide-and-seek, laying absurd traps for each other, while the days were
+passing, precious days beyond repair.”
+
+“You see, you see,” she said, shivering, “you too are afraid of the
+future!”
+
+“No, I am not afraid,” cried Lupin. “But I am thinking of all the useful
+work that we could have done by this time, if we had united our efforts.
+I am thinking of all the mistakes and all the acts of imprudence
+which we should have been saved, if we had been working together. I am
+thinking that your attempt to-night to search the clothes which Daubrecq
+was wearing was as vain as the others and that, at this moment, thanks
+to our foolish duel, thanks to the din which we raised in his house,
+Daubrecq is warned and will be more on his guard than ever.”
+
+Clarisse Mergy shook her head:
+
+“No, no, I don’t think that; the noise will not have roused him, for we
+postponed the attempt for twenty-four hours so that the portress might
+put a narcotic in his wine.” And she added, slowly, “And then, you see,
+nothing can make Daubrecq be more on his guard than he is already. His
+life is nothing but one mass of precautions against danger. He leaves
+nothing to chance... Besides, has he not all the trumps in his hand?”
+
+Lupin went up to her and asked:
+
+“What do you mean to convey? According to you, is there nothing to hope
+for on that side? Is there not a single means of attaining our end?”
+
+“Yes,” she murmured, “there is one, one only...”
+
+He noticed her pallor before she had time to hide her face between her
+hands again. And again a feverish shiver shook her frame.
+
+He seemed to understand the reason of her dismay; and, bending toward
+her, touched by her grief:
+
+“Please,” he said, “please answer me openly and frankly. It’s for
+Gilbert’s sake, is it not? Though the police, fortunately, have not
+been able to solve the riddle of his past, though the real name of
+Vaucheray’s accomplice has not leaked out, there is one man, at least,
+who knows it: isn’t that so? Daubrecq has recognized your son Antoine,
+through the alias of Gilbert, has he not?”
+
+“Yes, yes...”
+
+“And he promises to save him, doesn’t he? He offers you his freedom, his
+release, his escape, his life: that was what he offered you, was it not,
+on the night in his study, when you tried to stab him?”
+
+“Yes... yes... that was it...”
+
+“And he makes one condition, does he not? An abominable condition, such
+as would suggest itself to a wretch like that? I am right, am I not?”
+
+Clarisse did not reply. She seemed exhausted by her protracted struggle
+with a man who was gaining ground daily and against whom it was
+impossible for her to fight. Lupin saw in her the prey conquered in
+advance, delivered to the victor’s whim. Clarisse Mergy, the loving wife
+of that Mergy whom Daubrecq had really murdered, the terrified mother of
+that Gilbert whom Daubrecq had led astray, Clarisse Mergy, to save her
+son from the scaffold, must, come what may and however ignominious the
+position, yield to Daubrecq’s wishes. She would be the mistress,
+the wife, the obedient slave of Daubrecq, of that monster with the
+appearance and the ways of a wild beast, that unspeakable person of whom
+Lupin could not think without revulsion and disgust.
+
+Sitting down beside her, gently, with gestures of pity, he made her lift
+her head and, with his eyes on hers, said:
+
+“Listen to me. I swear that I will save your son: I swear it... Your son
+shall not die, do you understand?... There is not a power on earth that
+can allow your son’s head to be touched as long as I am alive.”
+
+“I believe you... I trust your word.”
+
+“Do. It is the word of a man who does not know defeat. I shall succeed.
+Only, I entreat you to make me an irrevocable promise.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“You must not see Daubrecq again.”
+
+“I swear it.”
+
+“You must put from your mind any idea, any fear, however obscure, of an
+understanding between yourself and him... of any sort of bargain...”
+
+“I swear it.”
+
+She looked at him with an expression of absolute security and reliance;
+and he, under her gaze, felt the joy of devotion and an ardent longing
+to restore that woman’s happiness, or, at least, to give her the peace
+and oblivion that heal the worst wounds:
+
+“Come,” he said, in a cheerful tone, rising from his chair, “all will
+yet be well. We have two months, three months before us. It is more than
+I need... on condition, of course, that I am unhampered in my movements.
+And, for that, you will have to withdraw from the contest, you know.”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“Yes, you must disappear for a time; go and live in the country. Have
+you no pity for your little Jacques? This sort of thing would end by
+shattering the poor little man’s nerves... And he has certainly earned
+his rest, haven’t you, Hercules?”
+
+The next day Clarisse Mergy, who was nearly breaking down under the
+strain of events and who herself needed repose, lest she should fall
+seriously ill, went, with her son, to board with a friend who had a
+house on the skirt of the Forest of Saint-Germain. She felt very weak,
+her brain was haunted by visions and her nerves were upset by troubles
+which the least excitement aggravated. She lived there for some days
+in a state of physical and mental inertia, thinking of nothing and
+forbidden to see the papers.
+
+One afternoon, while Lupin, changing his tactics, was working out a
+scheme for kidnapping and confining Daubrecq; while the Growler and the
+Masher, whom he had promised to forgive if he succeeded, were watching
+the enemy’s movements; while the newspapers were announcing the
+forthcoming trial for murder of Arsene Lupin’s two accomplices, one
+afternoon, at four o’clock, the telephone-bell rang suddenly in the flat
+in the Rue Chateaubriand.
+
+Lupin took down the receiver:
+
+“Hullo!”
+
+A woman’s voice, a breathless voice, said:
+
+“M. Michel Beaumont?”
+
+“You are speaking to him, madame. To whom have I the honour...”
+
+“Quick, monsieur, come at once; Madame Mergy has taken poison.”
+
+Lupin did not wait to hear details. He rushed out, sprang into his
+motor-car and drove to Saint-Germain.
+
+Clarisse’s friend was waiting for him at the door of the bedroom.
+
+“Dead?” he asked.
+
+“No,” she replied, “she did not take sufficient. The doctor has just
+gone. He says she will get over it.”
+
+“And why did she make the attempt?”
+
+“Her son Jacques has disappeared.”
+
+“Carried off?”
+
+“Yes, he was playing just inside the forest. A motor-car was seen
+pulling up. Then there were screams. Clarisse tried to run, but her
+strength failed and she fell to the ground, moaning, ‘It’s he... it’s
+that man... all is lost!’ She looked like a madwoman.”
+
+“Suddenly, she put a little bottle to her lips and swallowed the
+contents.”
+
+“What happened next?”
+
+“My husband and I carried her to her room. She was in great pain.”
+
+“How did you know my address, my name?”
+
+“From herself, while the doctor was attending to her. Then I telephoned
+to you.”
+
+“Has any one else been told?”
+
+“No, nobody. I know that Clarisse has had terrible things to bear... and
+that she prefers not to be talked about.”
+
+“Can I see her?”
+
+“She is asleep just now. And the doctor has forbidden all excitement.”
+
+“Is the doctor anxious about her?”
+
+“He is afraid of a fit of fever, any nervous strain, an attack of some
+kind which might cause her to make a fresh attempt on her life. And that
+would be...”
+
+“What is needed to avoid it?”
+
+“A week or a fortnight of absolute quiet, which is impossible as long as
+her little Jacques...”
+
+Lupin interrupted her:
+
+“You think that, if she got her son back...”
+
+“Oh, certainly, there would be nothing more to fear!”
+
+“You’re sure? You’re sure?... Yes, of course you are!... Well, when
+Madame Mergy wakes, tell her from me that I will bring her back her son
+this evening, before midnight. This evening, before midnight: it’s a
+solemn promise.”
+
+With these words, Lupin hurried out of the house and, stepping into his
+car, shouted to the driver:
+
+“Go to Paris, Square Lamartine, Daubrecq the deputy’s!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE DEATH-SENTENCE
+
+Lupin’s motor-car was not only an office, a writing-room furnished
+with books, stationery, pens and ink, but also a regular actor’s
+dressing-room, containing a complete make-up box, a trunk filled
+with every variety of wearing-apparel, another crammed with
+“properties”--umbrellas, walking-sticks, scarves, eye-glasses and so
+on--in short, a complete set of paraphernalia which enabled him to alter
+his appearance from top to toe in the course of a drive.
+
+The man who rang at Daubrecq the deputy’s gate, at six o-clock that
+evening, was a stout, elderly gentleman, in a black frock-coat, a bowler
+hat, spectacles and whiskers.
+
+The portress took him to the front-door of the house and rang the bell.
+Victoire appeared.
+
+Lupin asked:
+
+“Can M. Daubrecq see Dr. Vernes?”
+
+“M. Daubrecq is in his bedroom; and it is rather late...”
+
+“Give him my card, please.”
+
+He wrote the words, “From Mme. Mergy,” in the margin and added:
+
+“There, he is sure to see me.”
+
+“But...” Victoire began.
+
+“Oh, drop your buts, old dear, do as I say, and don’t make such a fuss
+about it!”
+
+She was utterly taken aback and stammered:
+
+“You!... is it you?”
+
+“No, it’s Louis XIV!” And, pushing her into a corner of the hall,
+“Listen... The moment I’m done with him, go up to your room, put your
+things together anyhow and clear out.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Do as I tell you. You’ll find my car waiting down the avenue. Come,
+stir your stumps! Announce me. I’ll wait in the study.”
+
+“But it’s dark in there.”
+
+“Turn on the light.”
+
+She switched on the electric light and left Lupin alone.
+
+“It’s here,” he reflected, as he took a seat, “it’s here that the
+crystal stopper lives... Unless Daubrecq always keeps it by him... But
+no, when people have a good hiding-place, they make use of it. And this
+is a capital one; for none of us... so far...”
+
+Concentrating all his attention, he examined the objects in the room;
+and he remembered the note which Daubrecq wrote to Prasville:
+
+ “Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville!...
+  You touched it!  A little more and the trick was done...”
+
+Nothing seemed to have moved since that day. The same things were lying
+about on the desk: books, account-books, a bottle of ink, a stamp-box,
+pipes, tobacco, things that had been searched and probed over and over
+again.
+
+“The bounder!” thought Lupin. “He’s organized his business jolly
+cleverly. It’s all dove-tailed like a well-made play.”
+
+In his heart of hearts, though he knew exactly what he had come to do
+and how he meant to act, Lupin was thoroughly aware of the danger and
+uncertainty attending his visit to so powerful an adversary. It was
+quite within the bounds of possibility that Daubrecq, armed as he was,
+would remain master of the field and that the conversation would take an
+absolutely different turn from that which Lupin anticipated.
+
+And this prospect angered him somewhat.
+
+He drew himself up, as he heard a sound of footsteps approaching.
+
+Daubrecq entered.
+
+He entered without a word, made a sign to Lupin, who had risen from
+his chair, to resume his seat and himself sat down at the writing-desk.
+Glancing at the card which he held in his hand:
+
+“Dr. Vernes?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur le depute, Dr. Vernes, of Saint-Germain.”
+
+“And I see that you come from Mme. Mergy. A patient of yours?”
+
+“A recent patient. I did not know her until I was called in to see her,
+the other day, in particularly tragic circumstances.”
+
+“Is she ill?”
+
+“Mme. Mergy has taken poison.”
+
+“What!”
+
+Daubrecq gave a start and he continued, without concealing his distress:
+
+“What’s that you say? Poison! Is she dead?”
+
+“No, the dose was not large enough. If no complications ensue, I
+consider that Mme. Mergy’s life is saved.”
+
+Daubrecq said nothing and sat silent, with his head turned to Lupin.
+
+“Is he looking at me? Are his eyes open or shut?” Lupin asked himself.
+
+It worried Lupin terribly not to see his adversary’s eyes, those eyes
+hidden by the double obstacle of spectacles and black glasses: weak,
+bloodshot eyes, Mme. Mergy had told him. How could he follow the secret
+train of the man’s thought without seeing the expression of his face? It
+was almost like fighting an enemy who wielded an invisible sword.
+
+Presently, Daubrecq spoke:
+
+“So Mme. Mergy’s life is saved... And she has sent you to me... I don’t
+quite understand... I hardly know the lady.”
+
+“Now for the ticklish moment,” thought Lupin. “Have at him!”
+
+And, in a genial, good-natured and rather shy tone, he said:
+
+“No, monsieur le depute, there are cases in which a doctor’s duty
+becomes very complex... very puzzling... And you may think that, in
+taking this step... However, to cut a long story short, while I was
+attending Mme. Mergy, she made a second attempt to poison herself...
+Yes; the bottle, unfortunately, had been left within her reach. I
+snatched it from her. We had a struggle. And, railing in her fever, she
+said to me, in broken words, ‘He’s the man... He’s the man... Daubrecq
+the deputy... Make him give me back my son. Tell him to... or else
+I would rather die... Yes, now, to-night... I would rather die.’
+That’s what she said, monsieur le depute... So I thought that I ought
+to let you know. It is quite certain that, in the lady’s highly nervous
+state of mind... Of course, I don’t know the exact meaning of her
+words... I asked no questions of anybody... obeyed a spontaneous impulse
+and came straight to you.”
+
+Daubrecq reflected for a little while and said:
+
+“It amounts to this, doctor, that you have come to ask me if I know the
+whereabouts of this child whom I presume to have disappeared. Is that
+it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And, if I did happen to know, you would take him back to his mother?”
+
+There was a longer pause. Lupin asked himself:
+
+“Can he by chance have swallowed the story? Is the threat of that death
+enough? Oh, nonsense it’s out of the question!... And yet... and yet...
+he seems to be hesitating.”
+
+“Will you excuse me?” asked Daubrecq, drawing the telephone, on his
+writing-desk, toward him. “I have an urgent message.”
+
+“Certainly, monsieur le depute.”
+
+Daubrecq called out:
+
+“Hullo!... 822.19, please, 822.19.”
+
+Having repeated the number, he sat without moving.
+
+Lupin smiled:
+
+“The headquarters of police, isn’t it? The secretary-general’s
+office...”
+
+“Yes, doctor... How do you know?”
+
+“Oh, as a divisional surgeon, I sometimes have to ring them up.”
+
+And, within himself, Lupin asked:
+
+“What the devil does all this mean? The secretary-general is
+Prasville... Then, what?...”
+
+Daubrecq put both receivers to his ears and said:
+
+“Are you 822.19? I want to speak to M. Prasville, the secretary-general
+... Do you say he’s not there?... Yes, yes, he is: he’s always in his
+office at this time... Tell him it’s M. Daubrecq... M. Daubrecq the
+deputy... a most important communication.”
+
+“Perhaps I’m in the way?” Lupin suggested.
+
+“Not at all, doctor, not at all,” said Daubrecq. “Besides, what I have
+to say has a certain bearing on your errand.” And, into the telephone,
+“Hullo! M. Prasville?... Ah, it’s you, Prasville, old cock!... Why, you
+seem quite staggered! Yes, you’re right, it’s an age since you and I
+met. But, after all, we’ve never been far away in thought... And I’ve
+had plenty of visits from you and your henchmen... In my absence, it’s
+true. Hullo!... What?... Oh, you’re in a hurry? I beg your pardon!...
+So am I, for that matter... Well, to come to the point, there’s a little
+service I want to do you... Wait, can’t you, you brute?... You won’t
+regret it... It concerns your renown... Hullo!... Are you listening?...
+Well, take half-a-dozen men with you... plain-clothes detectives, by
+preference: you’ll find them at the night-office... Jump into a taxi,
+two taxis, and come along here as fast as you can... I’ve got a rare
+quarry for you, old chap. One of the upper ten... a lord, a marquis
+Napoleon himself... in a word, Arsene Lupin!”
+
+Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for everything but this. Yet
+something within him stronger than astonishment, an impulse of his whole
+nature, made him say, with a laugh:
+
+“Oh, well done, well done!”
+
+Daubrecq bowed his head, by way of thanks, and muttered:
+
+“I haven’t quite finished... A little patience, if you don’t mind.”
+ And he continued, “Hullo! Prasville!... No, no, old chap, I’m not
+humbugging... You’ll find Lupin here, with me, in my study... Lupin,
+who’s worrying me like the rest of you... Oh, one more or less makes no
+difference to me! But, all the same, this one’s a bit too pushing. And
+I am appealing to your sense of kindness. Rid me of the fellow, do...
+Half-a-dozen of your satellites and the two who are pacing up and down
+outside my house will be enough... Oh, while you’re about it, go up
+to the third floor and rope in my cook as well... She’s the famous
+Victoire: you know, Master Lupin’s old nurse... And, look here, one
+more tip, to show you how I love you: send a squad of men to the Rue
+Chateaubriand, at the corner of the Rue Balzac... That’s where our
+national hero lives, under the name of Michel Beaumont... Do you twig,
+old cockalorum? And now to business. Hustle!”
+
+When Daubrecq turned his head, Lupin was standing up, with clenched
+fists. His burst of admiration had not survived the rest of the speech
+and the revelations which Daubrecq had made about Victoire and the flat
+in the Rue Chateaubriand. The humiliation was too great; and Lupin no
+longer bothered to play the part of the small general practitioner. He
+had but one idea in his head: not to give way to the tremendous fit of
+rage that was urging him to rush at Daubrecq like a bull.
+
+Daubrecq gave the sort of little cluck which, with him, did duty for a
+laugh. He came waddling up, with his hands in his trouser-pockets, and
+said, incisively:
+
+“Don’t you think that this is all for the best? I’ve cleared the ground,
+relieved the situation... At least, we now know where we stand. Lupin
+versus Daubrecq; and that’s all about it. Besides, think of the time
+saved! Dr. Vernes, the divisional surgeon, would have taken two hours to
+spin his yarn! Whereas, like this, Master Lupin will be compelled to
+get his little story told in thirty minutes... unless he wants to get
+himself collared and his accomplices nabbed. What a shock! What a bolt
+from the blue! Thirty minutes and not a minute more. In thirty minutes
+from now, you’ll have to clear out, scud away like a hare and beat a
+disordered retreat. Ha, ha, ha, what fun! I say, Polonius, you really
+are unlucky, each time you come up against Bibi Daubrecq! For it was
+you who were hiding behind that curtain, wasn’t it, my ill-starred
+Polonius?”
+
+Lupin did not stir a muscle. The one and only solution that would have
+calmed his feelings, that is to say, for him to throttle his adversary
+then and there, was so absurd that he preferred to accept Daubrecq’s
+gibes without attempting to retort, though each of them cut him like the
+lash of a whip. It was the second time, in the same room and in similar
+circumstances, that he had to bow before that Daubrecq of misfortune and
+maintain the most ridiculous attitude in silence. And he felt convinced
+in his innermost being that, if he opened his mouth, it would be to spit
+words of anger and insult in his victor’s face. What was the good? Was
+it not essential that he should keep cool and do the things which the
+new situation called for?
+
+“Well, M. Lupin, well?” resumed the deputy. “You look as if your nose
+were out of joint. Come, console yourself and admit that one sometimes
+comes across a joker who’s not quite such a mug as his fellows. So you
+thought that, because I wear spectacles and eye-glasses, I was blind?
+Bless my soul, I don’t say that I at once suspected Lupin behind
+Polonius and Polonius behind the gentleman who came and bored me in the
+box at the Vaudeville. No, no! But, all the same, it worried me. I could
+see that, between the police and Mme. Mergy, there was a third bounder
+trying to get a finger in the pie. And, gradually, what with the words
+let fall by the portress, what with watching the movements of my
+cook and making inquiries about her in the proper quarter, I began to
+understand. Then, the other night, came the lightning-flash. I heard the
+row in the house, in spite of my being asleep. I managed to reconstruct
+the incident, to follow up Mme. Mergy’s traces, first, to the Rue
+Chateaubriand and, afterward, to Saint-Germain... And then... what
+then? I put different facts together: the Enghien burglary... Gilbert’s
+arrest... the inevitable treaty of alliance between the weeping mother
+and the leader of the gang... the old nurse installed as cook...
+all these people entering my house through the doors or through the
+windows... And I knew what I had to do. Master Lupin was sniffing at the
+secret. The scent of the Twenty-seven attracted him. I had only to wait
+for his visit. The hour has arrived. Good-evening, Master Lupin.”
+
+Daubrecq paused. He had delivered his speech with the evident
+satisfaction of a man entitled to claim the appreciation of the most
+captious critics.
+
+As Lupin did not speak, he took out his watch: “I say! Only twenty-three
+minutes! How time flies! At this rate, we sha’n’t have time to come to
+an explanation.” And, stepping still closer to Lupin, “I’m bound to
+say, I’m disappointed. I thought that Lupin was a different sort of
+gentleman. So, the moment he meets a more or less serious adversary,
+the colossus falls to pieces? Poor young man! Have a glass of water, to
+bring you round!” Lupin did not utter a word, did not betray a gesture
+of irritation. With absolute composure, with a precision of movement
+that showed his perfect self-control and the clear plan of conduct which
+he had adopted, he gently pushed Daubrecq aside, went to the table and,
+in his turn, took down the receiver of the telephone:
+
+“I want 565.34, please,” he said.
+
+He waited until he was through; and then, speaking in a slow voice and
+picking out every syllable, he said:
+
+“Hullo!... Rue Chateaubriand?... Is that you, Achille?... Yes, it’s the
+governor. Listen to me carefully, Achille... You must leave the flat!
+Hullo!... Yes, at once. The police are coming in a few minutes. No, no,
+don’t lose your head... You’ve got time. Only, do what I tell you. Is
+your bag still packed?... Good. And is one of the sides empty, as I told
+you?... Good. Well, go to my bedroom and stand with your face to the
+chimney-piece. Press with your left hand on the little carved rosette in
+front of the marble slab, in the middle, and with your right hand on the
+top of the mantel-shelf. You’ll see a sort of drawer, with two little
+boxes in it. Be careful. One of them contains all our papers; the other,
+bank-notes and jewellery. Put them both in the empty compartment of the
+bag. Take the bag in your hand and go as fast as you can, on foot, to
+the corner of the Avenue Victor-Hugo and the Avenue de Montespan. You’ll
+find the car waiting, with Victoire. I’ll join you there... What?... My
+clothes? My knickknacks?... Never mind about all that... You be off. See
+you presently.”
+
+Lupin quietly pushed away the telephone. Then, taking Daubrecq by the
+arm, he made him sit in a chair by his side and said:
+
+“And now listen to me, Daubrecq.”
+
+“Oho!” grinned the deputy. “Calling each other by our surnames, are we?”
+
+“Yes,” said Lupin, “I allowed you to.” And, when Daubrecq released his
+arm with a certain misgiving, he said, “No, don’t be afraid. We sha’n’t
+come to blows. Neither of us has anything to gain by doing away with the
+other. A stab with a knife? What’s the good? No, sir! Words, nothing but
+words. Words that strike home, though. Here are mine: they are plain and
+to the point. Answer me in the same way, without reflecting: that’s far
+better. The boy?”
+
+“I have him.”
+
+“Give him back.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Mme. Mergy will kill herself.”
+
+“No, she won’t.”
+
+“I tell you she will.”
+
+“And I tell you she will not.”
+
+“But she’s tried to, once.”
+
+“That’s just the reason why she won’t try again.”
+
+“Well, then...”
+
+“No.”
+
+Lupin, after a moment, went on:
+
+“I expected that. Also, I thought, on my way here, that you would hardly
+tumble to the story of Dr. Vernes and that I should have to use other
+methods.”
+
+“Lupin’s methods.”
+
+“As you say. I had made up my mind to throw off the mask. You pulled it
+off for me. Well done you! But that doesn’t change my plans.”
+
+“Speak.”
+
+Lupin took from a pocketbook a double sheet of foolscap paper, unfolded
+it and handed it to Daubrecq, saying:
+
+“Here is an exact, detailed inventory, with consecutive numbers, of the
+things removed by my friends and myself from your Villa Marie-Therese on
+the Lac d’Enghien. As you see, there are one hundred and thirteen items.
+Of those one hundred and thirteen items, sixty-eight, which have a red
+cross against them, have been sold and sent to America. The remainder,
+numbering forty-five, are in my possession... until further orders. They
+happen to be the pick of the bunch. I offer you them in return for the
+immediate surrender of the child.”
+
+Daubrecq could not suppress a movement of surprise:
+
+“Oho!” he said. “You seem very much bent upon it.”
+
+“Infinitely,” said Lupin, “for I am persuaded that a longer separation
+from her son will mean death to Mme. Mergy.”
+
+“And that upsets you, does it... Lothario?”
+
+“What!”
+
+Lupin planted himself in front of the other and repeated:
+
+“What! What do you mean?”
+
+“Nothing... Nothing... Something that crossed my mind... Clarisse Mergy
+is a young woman still and a pretty woman at that.”
+
+Lupin shrugged his shoulders:
+
+“You brute!” he mumbled. “You imagine that everybody is like yourself,
+heartless and pitiless. It takes your breath away, what, to think that a
+shark like me can waste his time playing the Don Quixote? And you wonder
+what dirty motive I can have? Don’t try to find out: it’s beyond your
+powers of perception. Answer me, instead: do you accept?”
+
+“So you’re serious?” asked Daubrecq, who seemed but little disturbed by
+Lupin’s contemptuous tone.
+
+“Absolutely. The forty-five pieces are in a shed, of which I will give
+you the address, and they will be handed over to you, if you call there,
+at nine o’clock this evening, with the child.”
+
+There was no doubt about Daubrecq’s reply. To him, the kidnapping of
+little Jacques had represented only a means of working upon Clarisse
+Mergy’s feelings and perhaps also a warning for her to cease the contest
+upon which she had engaged. But the threat of a suicide must needs show
+Daubrecq that he was on the wrong track. That being so, why refuse the
+favourable bargain which Arsene Lupin was now offering him?
+
+“I accept,” he said.
+
+“Here’s the address of my shed: 99, Rue Charles-Lafitte, Neuilly. You
+have only to ring the bell.”
+
+“And suppose I send Prasville, the secretary-general, instead?”
+
+“If you send Prasville,” Lupin declared, “the place is so arranged
+that I shall see him coming and that I shall have time to escape, after
+setting fire to the trusses of hay and straw which surround and conceal
+your credence-tables, clocks and Gothic virgins.”
+
+“But your shed will be burnt down...”
+
+“I don’t mind that: the police have their eye on it already. I am
+leaving it in any case.”
+
+“And how am I to know that this is not a trap?”
+
+“Begin by receiving the goods and don’t give up the child till
+afterward. I trust you, you see.”
+
+“Good,” said Daubrecq; “you’ve foreseen everything. Very well, you shall
+have the nipper; the fair Clarisse shall live; and we will all be happy.
+And now, if I may give you a word of advice, it is to pack off as fast
+as you can.”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“I said, not yet.”
+
+“But you’re mad! Prasville’s on his way!”
+
+“He can wait. I’ve not done.”
+
+“Why, what more do you want? Clarisse shall have her brat. Isn’t that
+enough for you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“There is another son.”
+
+“Gilbert.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I want you to save Gilbert.”
+
+“What are you saying? I save Gilbert!”
+
+“You can, if you like; it only means taking a little trouble.” Until
+that moment Daubrecq had remained quite calm. He now suddenly blazed out
+and, striking the table with his fist:
+
+“No,” he cried, “not that! Never! Don’t reckon on me!... No, that would
+be too idiotic!”
+
+He walked up and down, in a state of intense excitement, with that queer
+step of his, which swayed him from right to left on each of his legs,
+like a wild beast, a heavy, clumsy bear. And, with a hoarse voice and
+distorted features, he shouted:
+
+“Let her come here! Let her come and beg for her son’s pardon! But let
+her come unarmed, not with criminal intentions, like last time! Let
+her come as a supplicant, as a tamed woman, as a submissive woman, who
+understands and accepts the situation... Gilbert? Gilbert’s sentence?
+The scaffold? Why, that is where my strength lies! What! For more than
+twenty years have I awaited my hour; and, when that hour strikes, when
+fortune brings me this unhoped-for chance, when I am at last about to
+know the joy of a full revenge--and such a revenge!--you think that I
+will give it up, give up the thing which I have been pursuing for twenty
+years? I save Gilbert? I? For nothing? For love? I, Daubrecq?... No, no,
+you can’t have studied my features!”
+
+He laughed, with a fierce and hateful laugh. Visibly, he saw before him,
+within reach of his hand, the prey which he had been hunting down so
+long. And Lupin also summoned up the vision of Clarisse, as he had seen
+her several days before, fainting, already beaten, fatally conquered,
+because all the hostile powers were in league against her.
+
+He contained himself and said:
+
+“Listen to me.”
+
+And, when Daubrecq moved away impatiently, he took him by the two
+shoulders, with that superhuman strength which Daubrecq knew, from
+having felt it in the box at the Vaudeville, and, holding him motionless
+in his grip, he said:
+
+“One last word.”
+
+“You’re wasting your breath,” growled the deputy.
+
+“One last word. Listen, Daubrecq: forget Mme. Mergy, give up all the
+nonsensical and imprudent acts which your pride and your passions are
+making you commit; put all that on one side and think only of your
+interest...”
+
+“My interest,” said Daubrecq, jestingly, “always coincides with my pride
+and with what you call my passions.”
+
+“Up to the present, perhaps. But not now, not now that I have taken a
+hand in the business. That constitutes a new factor, which you choose
+to ignore. You are wrong. Gilbert is my pal. Gilbert is my chum. Gilbert
+has to be saved from the scaffold. Use your influence to that end, and
+I swear to you, do you hear, I swear that we will leave you in peace.
+Gilbert’s safety, that’s all I ask. You will have no more battles to
+wage with Mme. Mergy, with me; there will be no more traps laid for you.
+You will be the master, free to act as you please. Gilbert’s safety,
+Daubrecq! If you refuse...”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“If you refuse, it will be war, relentless war; in other words, a
+certain defeat for you.”
+
+“Meaning thereby...”
+
+“Meaning thereby that I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from
+you.”
+
+“Rot! You think so, do you?”
+
+“I swear it.”
+
+“What Prasville and all his men, what Clarisse Mergy, what nobody has
+been able to do, you think that you will do!”
+
+“I shall!”
+
+“And why? By favour of what saint will you succeed where everybody else
+has failed? There must be a reason?”
+
+“There is.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“My name is Arsene Lupin.”
+
+He had let go of Daubrecq, but held him for a time under the dominion
+of his authoritative glance and will. At last, Daubrecq drew himself up,
+gave him a couple of sharp taps on the shoulder and, with the same calm,
+the same intense obstinacy, said:
+
+“And my name’s Daubrecq. My whole life has been one desperate battle,
+one long series of catastrophes and routs in which I spent all my
+energies until victory came: complete, decisive, crushing, irrevocable
+victory. I have against me the police, the government, France, the
+world. What difference do you expect it to make to me if I have M.
+Arsene Lupin against me into the bargain? I will go further: the more
+numerous and skilful my enemies, the more cautiously I am obliged to
+play. And that is why, my dear sir, instead of having you arrested, as
+I might have done--yes, as I might have done and very easily--I let you
+remain at large and beg charitably to remind you that you must quit in
+less than three minutes.”
+
+“Then the answer is no?”
+
+“The answer is no.”
+
+“You won’t do anything for Gilbert?”
+
+“Yes, I shall continue to do what I have been doing since his
+arrest--that is to say, to exercise indirect influence with the minister
+of justice, so that the trial may be hurried on and end in the way in
+which I want to see it end.”
+
+“What!” cried Lupin, beside himself with indignation. “It’s because of
+you, it’s for you...”
+
+“Yes, it’s for me, Daubrecq; yes, by Jove! I have a trump card, the
+son’s head, and I am playing it. When I have procured a nice little
+death-sentence for Gilbert, when the days go by and Gilbert’s petition
+for a reprieve is rejected by my good offices, you shall see, M. Lupin,
+that his mummy will drop all her objections to calling herself
+Mme. Alexis Daubrecq and giving me an unexceptionable pledge of her
+good-will. That fortunate issue is inevitable, whether you like it or
+not. It is foredoomed. All I can do for you is to invite you to the
+wedding and the breakfast. Does that suit you? No? You persist in your
+sinister designs? Well, good luck, lay your traps, spread your nets,
+rub up your weapons and grind away at the Complete Foreign-post-paper
+Burglar’s Handbook. You’ll need it. And now, good-night. The rules of
+open-handed and disinterested hospitality demand that I should turn you
+out of doors. Hop it!”
+
+Lupin remained silent for some time. With his eyes fixed on Daubrecq, he
+seemed to be taking his adversary’s size, gauging his weight, estimating
+his physical strength, discussing, in fine, in which exact part to
+attack him. Daubrecq clenched his fists and worked out his plan of
+defence to meet the attack when it came.
+
+Half a minute passed. Lupin put his hand to his hip-pocket. Daubrecq did
+the same and grasped the handle of his revolver.
+
+A few seconds more. Coolly, Lupin produced a little gold box of the kind
+that ladies use for holding sweets, opened it and handed it to Daubrecq:
+
+“A lozenge?”
+
+“What’s that?” asked the other, in surprise.
+
+“Cough-drops.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“For the draught you’re going to feel!”
+
+And, taking advantage of the momentary fluster into which Daubrecq was
+thrown by his sally, he quickly took his hat and slipped away.
+
+“Of course,” he said, as he crossed the hall, “I am knocked into fits.
+But all the same, that bit of commercial-traveller’s waggery was rather
+novel, in the circumstances. To expect a pill and receive a cough-drop
+is by way of being a sort of disappointment. It left the old chimpanzee
+quite flummoxed.”
+
+As he closed the gate, a motor-car drove up and a man sprang out
+briskly, followed by several others.
+
+Lupin recognized Prasville:
+
+“Monsieur le secretaire-general,” he muttered, “your humble servant. I
+have an idea that, some day, fate will bring us face to face: and I
+am sorry, for your sake; for you do not inspire me with any particular
+esteem and you have a bad time before you, on that day. Meanwhile, if
+I were not in such a hurry, I should wait till you leave and I should
+follow Daubrecq to find out in whose charge he has placed the child whom
+he is going to hand back to me. But I am in a hurry. Besides, I can’t
+tell that Daubrecq won’t act by telephone. So let us not waste ourselves
+in vain efforts, but rather join Victoire, Achille and our precious
+bag.”
+
+Two hours later, Lupin, after taking all his measures, was on the
+lookout in his shed at Neuilly and saw Daubrecq turn out of an adjoining
+street and walk along with a distrustful air.
+
+Lupin himself opened the double doors:
+
+“Your things are in here, monsieur le depute,” he said. “You can go
+round and look. There is a job-master’s yard next door: you have only to
+ask for a van and a few men. Where is the child?”
+
+Daubrecq first inspected the articles and then took Lupin to the Avenue
+de Neuilly, where two closely veiled old ladies stood waiting with
+little Jacques.
+
+Lupin carried the child to his car, where Victoire was waiting for him.
+
+All this was done swiftly, without useless words and as though the parts
+had been got by heart and the various movements settled in advance, like
+so many stage entrances and exits.
+
+At ten o’clock in the evening Lupin kept his promise and handed little
+Jacques to his mother. But the doctor had to be hurriedly called in,
+for the child, upset by all those happenings, showed great signs of
+excitement and terror. It was more than a fortnight before he was
+sufficiently recovered to bear the strain of the removal which Lupin
+considered necessary. Mme. Mergy herself was only just fit to travel
+when the time came. The journey took place at night, with every possible
+precaution and under Lupin’s escort.
+
+He took the mother and son to a little seaside place in Brittany and
+entrusted them to Victoire’s care and vigilance.
+
+“At last,” he reflected, when he had seen them settled, “there is no one
+between the Daubrecq bird and me. He can do nothing more to Mme. Mergy
+and the kid; and she no longer runs the risk of diverting the struggle
+through her intervention. By Jingo, we have made blunders enough! First,
+I have had to disclose myself to Daubrecq. Secondly, I have had to
+surrender my share of the Enghien movables. True, I shall get those
+back, sooner or later; of that there is not the least doubt. But, all
+the same, we are not getting on; and, in a week from now, Gilbert and
+Vaucheray will be up for trial.”
+
+What Lupin felt most in the whole business was Daubrecq’s revelation of
+the whereabouts of the flat. The police had entered his place in the
+Rue Chateaubriand. The identity of Lupin and Michel Beaumont had been
+recognized and certain papers discovered; and Lupin, while pursuing his
+aim, while, at the same time, managing various enterprises on which
+he had embarked, while avoiding the searches of the police, which were
+becoming more zealous and persistent than ever, had to set to work and
+reorganize his affairs throughout on a fresh basis.
+
+His rage with Daubrecq, therefore, increased in proportion to the worry
+which the deputy caused him. He had but one longing, to pocket him, as
+he put it, to have him at his bidding by fair means or foul, to extract
+his secret from him. He dreamt of tortures fit to unloose the tongue
+of the most silent of men. The boot, the rack, red-hot pincers, nailed
+planks: no form of suffering, he thought, was more than the enemy
+deserved; and the end to be attained justified every means.
+
+“Oh,” he said to himself, “oh, for a decent bench of inquisitors and a
+couple of bold executioners!... What a time we should have!”
+
+Every afternoon the Growler and the Masher watched the road which
+Daubrecq took between the Square Lamartine, the Chamber of Deputies and
+his club. Their instructions were to choose the most deserted street
+and the most favourable moment and, one evening, to hustle him into a
+motor-car.
+
+Lupin, on his side, got ready an old building, standing in the middle
+of a large garden, not far from Paris, which presented all the necessary
+conditions of safety and isolation and which he called the Monkey’s
+Cage.
+
+Unfortunately, Daubrecq must have suspected something, for every time,
+so to speak, he changed his route, or took the underground or a tram;
+and the cage remained unoccupied.
+
+Lupin devised another plan. He sent to Marseilles for one of his
+associates, an elderly retired grocer called Brindebois, who happened
+to live in Daubrecq’s electoral district and interested himself in
+politics. Old Brindebois wrote to Daubrecq from Marseilles, announcing
+his visit. Daubrecq gave this important constituent a hearty welcome,
+and a dinner was arranged for the following week.
+
+The elector suggested a little restaurant on the left bank of the Seine,
+where the food, he said, was something wonderful. Daubrecq accepted.
+
+This was what Lupin wanted. The proprietor of the restaurant was one
+of his friends. The attempt, which was to take place on the following
+Thursday, was this time bound to succeed.
+
+Meanwhile, on the Monday of the same week, the trial of Gilbert and
+Vaucheray opened.
+
+The reader will remember--and the case took place too recently for me to
+recapitulate its details--the really incomprehensible partiality which
+the presiding judge showed in his cross-examination of Gilbert. The
+thing was noticed and severely criticised at the time. Lupin recognized
+Daubrecq’s hateful influence.
+
+The attitude observed by the two prisoners differed greatly. Vaucheray
+was gloomy, silent, hard-faced. He cynically, in curt, sneering, almost
+defiant phrases, admitted the crimes of which he had formerly been
+guilty. But, with an inconsistency which puzzled everybody except Lupin,
+he denied any participation in the murder of Leonard the valet and
+violently accused Gilbert. His object, in thus linking his fate with
+Gilbert’s, was to force Lupin to take identical measures for the rescue
+of both his accomplices.
+
+Gilbert, on the other hand, whose frank countenance and dreamy,
+melancholy eyes won every sympathy, was unable to protect himself
+against the traps laid for him by the judge or to counteract Vaucheray’s
+lies. He burst into tears, talked too much, or else did not talk when
+he should have talked. Moreover, his counsel, one of the Leaders of the
+bar, was taken ill at the last moment--and here again Lupin saw the hand
+of Daubrecq--and he was replaced by a junior who spoke badly, muddied
+the whole case, set the jury against him and failed to wipe out the
+impression produced by the speeches of the advocate-general and of
+Vaucheray’s counsel.
+
+Lupin, who had the inconceivable audacity to be present on the last day
+of the trial, the Thursday, had no doubt as to the result. A verdict of
+guilty was certain in both cases.
+
+It was certain because all the efforts of the prosecution, thus
+supporting Vaucheray’s tactics, had tended to link the two prisoners
+closely together. It was certain, also and above all, because it
+concerned two of Lupin’s accomplices. From the opening of the inquiry
+before the magistrate until the delivery of the verdict, all the
+proceedings had been directed against Lupin; and this in spite of the
+fact that the prosecution, for want of sufficient evidence and also in
+order not to scatter its efforts over too wide an area, had decided not
+to include Lupin in the indictment. He was the adversary aimed at, the
+leader who must be punished in the person of his friends, the famous
+and popular scoundrel whose fascination in the eyes of the crowd must be
+destroyed for good and all. With Gilbert and Vaucheray executed, Lupin’s
+halo would fade away and the legend would be exploded.
+
+Lupin... Lupin... Arsene Lupin: it was the one name heard throughout
+the four days. The advocate-general, the presiding judge, the jury, the
+counsel, the witnesses had no other words on their lips. Every moment,
+Lupin was mentioned and cursed at, scoffed at, insulted and held
+responsible for all the crimes committed. It was as though Gilbert
+and Vaucheray figured only as supernumeraries, while the real criminal
+undergoing trial was he, Lupin, Master Lupin, Lupin the burglar, the
+leader of a gang of thieves, the forger, the incendiary, the hardened
+offender, the ex-convict, Lupin the murderer, Lupin stained with the
+blood of his victim, Lupin lurking in the shade, like a coward, after
+sending his friends to the foot of the scaffold.
+
+“Oh, the rascals know what they’re about!” he muttered. “It’s my debt
+which they are making my poor old Gilbert pay.”
+
+And the terrible tragedy went on.
+
+At seven o’clock in the evening, after a long deliberation, the jury
+returned to court and the foreman read out the answers to the questions
+put from the bench. The answer was “Yes” to every count of the
+indictment, a verdict of guilty without extenuating circumstances.
+
+The prisoners were brought in. Standing up, but staggering and
+white-faced, they received their sentence of death.
+
+And, amid the great, solemn silence, in which the anxiety of the
+onlookers was mingled with pity, the assize-president asked:
+
+“Have you anything more to say, Vaucheray?”
+
+“Nothing, monsieur le president. Now that my mate is sentenced as well
+as myself, I am easy... We are both on the same footing... The governor
+must find a way to save the two of us.”
+
+“The governor?”
+
+“Yes, Arsene Lupin.”
+
+There was a laugh among the crowd.
+
+The president asked:
+
+“And you, Gilbert?”
+
+Tears streamed down the poor lad’s cheeks and he stammered a few
+inarticulate sentences. But, when the judge repeated his question, he
+succeeded in mastering himself and replied, in a trembling voice:
+
+“I wish to say, monsieur le president, that I am guilty of many things,
+that’s true... I have done a lot of harm... But, all the same, not this.
+No, I have not committed murder... I have never committed murder... And
+I don’t want to die... it would be too horrible...”
+
+He swayed from side to side, supported by the warders, and he was heard
+to cry, like a child calling for help:
+
+“Governor... save me!... Save me!... I don’t want to die!”
+
+Then, in the crowd, amid the general excitement, a voice rose above the
+surrounding clamour:
+
+“Don’t be afraid, little ‘un!... The governor’s here!”
+
+A tumult and hustling followed. The municipal guards and the policemen
+rushed into court and laid hold of a big, red-faced man, who was stated
+by his neighbours to be the author of that outburst and who struggled
+hand and foot.
+
+Questioned without delay, he gave his name, Philippe Bonel, an
+undertaker’s man, and declared that some one sitting beside him had
+offered him a hundred-franc note if he would consent, at the proper
+moment, to shout a few words which his neighbour scribbled on a bit of
+paper. How could he refuse?
+
+In proof of his statements, he produced the hundred-franc note and the
+scrap of paper.
+
+Philippe Bonel was let go.
+
+Meanwhile, Lupin, who of course had assisted energetically in the
+individual’s arrest and handed him over to the guards, left the
+law-courts, his heart heavy with anguish. His car was waiting for him on
+the quay. He flung himself into it, in despair, seized with so great a
+sorrow that he had to make an effort to restrain his tears. Gilbert’s
+cry, his voice wrung with affliction, his distorted features, his
+tottering frame: all this haunted his brain; and he felt as if he would
+never, for a single second, forget those impressions.
+
+He drove home to the new place which he had selected among his different
+residences and which occupied a corner of the Place de Clichy. He
+expected to find the Growler and the Masher, with whom he was to kidnap
+Daubrecq that evening. But he had hardly opened the door of his flat,
+when a cry escaped him: Clarisse stood before him; Clarisse, who had
+returned from Brittany at the moment of the verdict.
+
+He at once gathered from her attitude and her pallor that she knew. And,
+at once, recovering his courage in her presence, without giving her time
+to speak, he exclaimed:
+
+“Yes, yes, yes... but it doesn’t matter. We foresaw that. We couldn’t
+prevent it. What we have to do is to stop the mischief. And to-night,
+you understand, to-night, the thing will be done.”
+
+Motionless and tragic in her sorrow, she stammered:
+
+“To-night?”
+
+“Yes. I have prepared everything. In two hours, Daubrecq will be in my
+hands. To-night, whatever means I have to employ, he shall speak.”
+
+“Do you mean that?” she asked, faintly, while a ray of hope began to
+light up her face.
+
+“He shall speak. I shall have his secret. I shall tear the list of the
+Twenty-seven from him. And that list will set your son free.”
+
+“Too late,” Clarisse murmured.
+
+“Too late? Why? Do you think that, in exchange for such a document, I
+shall not obtain Gilbert’s pretended escape?... Why, Gilbert will be at
+liberty in three days! In three days...”
+
+He was interrupted by a ring at the bell:
+
+“Listen, here are our friends. Trust me. Remember that I keep my
+promises. I gave you back your little Jacques. I shall give you back
+Gilbert.”
+
+He went to let the Growler and the Masher in and said:
+
+“Is everything ready? Is old Brindebois at the restaurant? Quick, let us
+be off!”
+
+“It’s no use, governor,” replied the Masher.
+
+“No use? What do you mean?”
+
+“There’s news.”
+
+“What news? Speak, man!”
+
+“Daubrecq has disappeared.”
+
+“Eh? What’s that? Daubrecq disappeared?”
+
+“Yes, carried off from his house, in broad daylight.”
+
+“The devil! By whom?”
+
+“Nobody knows... four men... there were pistols fired... The police are
+on the spot. Prasville is directing the investigations.”
+
+Lupin did not move a limb. He looked at Clarisse Mergy, who lay huddled
+in a chair.
+
+He himself had to bow his head. Daubrecq carried off meant one more
+chance of success lost...
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PROFILE OF NAPOLEON
+
+Soon as the prefect of police, the chief of the criminal-investigation
+department and the examining-magistrates had left Daubrecq’s house,
+after a preliminary and entirely fruitless inquiry, Prasville resumed
+his personal search.
+
+He was examining the study and the traces of the struggle which had
+taken place there, when the portress brought him a visiting-card, with a
+few words in pencil scribbled upon it.
+
+“Show the lady in,” he said.
+
+“The lady has some one with her,” said the portress.
+
+“Oh? Well, show the other person in as well.”
+
+Clarisse Mergy entered at once and introduced the gentleman with her, a
+gentleman in a black frock-coat, which was too tight for him and which
+looked as though it had not been brushed for ages. He was shy in his
+manner and seemed greatly embarrassed how to dispose of his old, rusty
+top-hat, his gingham umbrella, his one and only glove and his body
+generally.
+
+“M. Nicole,” said Clarisse, “a private teacher, who is acting as tutor
+to my little Jacques. M. Nicole has been of the greatest help to me with
+his advice during the past year. He worked out the whole story of the
+crystal stopper. I should like him, as well as myself--if you see
+no objection to telling me--to know the details of this kidnapping
+business, which alarms me and upsets my plans; yours too, I expect?”
+
+Prasville had every confidence in Clarisse Mergy. He knew her relentless
+hatred of Daubrecq and appreciated the assistance which she had rendered
+in the case. He therefore made no difficulties about telling her what
+he knew, thanks to certain clues and especially to the evidence of the
+portress.
+
+For that matter, the thing was exceedingly simple. Daubrecq, who had
+attended the trial of Gilbert and Vaucheray as a witness and who was
+seen in court during the speeches, returned home at six o’clock. The
+portress affirmed that he came in alone and that there was nobody in the
+house at the time. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, she heard shouts,
+followed by the sound of a struggle and two pistol-shots; and from her
+lodge she saw four masked men scuttle down the front steps, carrying
+Daubrecq the deputy, and hurry toward the gate. They opened the gate.
+At the same moment, a motor-car arrived outside the house. The four men
+bundled themselves into it; and the motor-car, which had hardly had time
+to stop, set off at full speed.
+
+“Were there not always two policemen on duty?” asked Clarisse.
+
+“They were there,” said Prasville, “but at a hundred and fifty yards’
+distance; and Daubrecq was carried off so quickly that they were unable
+to interfere, although they hastened up as fast as they could.”
+
+“And did they discover nothing, find nothing?”
+
+“Nothing, or hardly anything... Merely this.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“A little piece of ivory, which they picked up on the ground. There was
+a fifth party in the car; and the portress saw him get down while the
+others were hoisting Daubrecq in. As he was stepping back into the car,
+he dropped something and picked it up again at once. But the thing,
+whatever it was, must have been broken on the pavement; for this is the
+bit of ivory which my men found.”
+
+“But how did the four men manage to enter the house?” asked Clarisse.
+
+“By means of false keys, evidently, while the portress was doing her
+shopping, in the course of the afternoon; and they had no difficulty in
+secreting themselves, as Daubrecq keeps no other servants. I have every
+reason to believe that they hid in the room next door, which is the
+dining-room, and afterward attacked Daubrecq here, in the study. The
+disturbance of the furniture and other articles proves how violent the
+struggle was. We found a large-bore revolver, belonging to Daubrecq,
+on the carpet. One of the bullets had smashed the glass over the
+mantel-piece, as you see.”
+
+Clarisse turned to her companion for him to express an opinion. But M.
+Nicole, with his eyes obstinately lowered, had not budged from his chair
+and sat fumbling at the rim of his hat, as though he had not yet found a
+proper place for it.
+
+Prasville gave a smile. It was evident that he did not look upon
+Clarisse’s adviser as a man of first-rate intelligence:
+
+“The case is somewhat puzzling, monsieur,” he said, “is it not?”
+
+“Yes... yes,” M. Nicole confessed, “most puzzling.”
+
+“Then you have no little theory of your own upon the matter?”
+
+“Well, monsieur le secretaire-general, I’m thinking that Daubrecq has
+many enemies.”
+
+“Ah, capital!”
+
+“And that several of those enemies, who are interested in his
+disappearance, must have banded themselves against him.”
+
+“Capital, capital!” said Prasville, with satirical approval. “Capital!
+Everything is becoming clear as daylight. It only remains for you to
+furnish us with a little suggestion that will enable us to turn our
+search in the right direction.”
+
+“Don’t you think, monsieur le secretaire-general, that this broken bit
+of ivory which was picked up on the ground...”
+
+“No, M. Nicole, no. That bit of ivory belongs to something which we
+do not know and which its owner will at once make it his business to
+conceal. In order to trace the owner, we should at least be able to
+define the nature of the thing itself.”
+
+M. Nicole reflected and then began:
+
+“Monsieur le secretaire-general, when Napoleon I fell from power...”
+
+“Oh, M. Nicole, oh, a lesson in French history!”
+
+“Only a sentence, monsieur le secretaire-general, just one sentence
+which I will ask your leave to complete. When Napoleon I fell from
+power, the Restoration placed a certain number of officers on half-pay.
+These officers were suspected by the authorities and kept under
+observation by the police. They remained faithful to the emperor’s
+memory; and they contrived to reproduce the features of their idol on
+all sorts of objects of everyday use; snuff-boxes, rings, breast-pins,
+pen-knives and so on.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, this bit comes from a walking-stick, or rather a sort of loaded
+cane, or life-preserver, the knob of which is formed of a piece of
+carved ivory. When you look at the knob in a certain way, you end by
+seeing that the outline represents the profile of the Little Corporal.
+What you have in your hand, monsieur le secretaire-general, is a bit of
+the ivory knob at the top of a half-pay officer’s life-preserver.”
+
+“Yes,” said Prasville, examining the exhibit, “yes, I can make out a
+profile... but I don’t see the inference...”
+
+“The inference is very simple. Among Daubrecq’s victims, among those
+whose names are inscribed on the famous list, is the descendant of a
+Corsican family in Napoleon’s service, which derived its wealth and
+title from the emperor and was afterward ruined under the Restoration.
+It is ten to one that this descendant, who was the leader of the
+Bonapartist party a few years ago, was the fifth person hiding in the
+motor-car. Need I state his name?”
+
+“The Marquis d’Albufex?” said Prasville.
+
+“The Marquis d’Albufex,” said M. Nicole.
+
+M. Nicole, who no longer seemed in the least worried with his hat, his
+glove and his umbrella, rose and said to Prasville:
+
+“Monsieur le secretaire-general, I might have kept my discovery to
+myself, and not told you of it until after the final victory, that is,
+after bringing you the list of the Twenty-seven. But matters are urgent.
+Daubrecq’s disappearance, contrary to what his kidnappers expect, may
+hasten on the catastrophe which you wish to avert. We must therefore act
+with all speed. Monsieur le secretaire-general, I ask for your immediate
+and practical assistance.”
+
+“In what way can I help you?” asked Prasville, who was beginning to be
+impressed by his quaint visitor.
+
+“By giving me, to-morrow, those particulars about the Marquis d’Albufex
+which it would take me personally several days to collect.”
+
+Prasville seemed to hesitate and turned his head toward Mme. Mergy.
+Clarisse said:
+
+“I beg of you to accept M. Nicole’s services. He is an invaluable and
+devoted ally. I will answer for him as I would for myself.”
+
+“What particulars do you require, monsieur?” asked Prasville.
+
+“Everything that concerns the Marquis d’Albufex: the position of his
+family, the way in which he spends his time, his family connections, the
+properties which he owns in Paris and in the country.”
+
+Prasville objected:
+
+“After all, whether it’s the marquis or another, Daubrecq’s kidnapper
+is working on our behalf, seeing that, by capturing the list, he disarms
+Daubrecq.”
+
+“And who says, monsieur le secretaire-general, that he is not working on
+his own behalf?”
+
+“That is not possible, as his name is on the list.”
+
+“And suppose he erases it? Suppose you then find yourself dealing with a
+second blackmailer, even more grasping and more powerful than the first
+and one who, as a political adversary, is in a better position than
+Daubrecq to maintain the contest?”
+
+The secretary-general was struck by the argument. After a moment’s
+thought, he said:
+
+“Come and see me in my office at four o’clock tomorrow. I will give you
+the particulars. What is your address, in case I should want you?”
+
+“M. Nicole, 25, Place de Clichy. I am staying at a friend’s flat, which
+he has lent me during his absence.”
+
+The interview was at an end. M. Nicole thanked the secretary-general,
+with a very low bow, and walked out, accompanied by Mme. Mergy:
+
+“That’s an excellent piece of work,” he said, outside, rubbing his
+hands. “I can march into the police-office whenever I like, and set the
+whole lot to work.”
+
+Mme. Mergy, who was less hopefully inclined, said:
+
+“Alas, will you be in time? What terrifies me is the thought that the
+list may be destroyed.”
+
+“Goodness gracious me, by whom? By Daubrecq?”
+
+“No, but by the marquis, when he gets hold of it.”
+
+“He hasn’t got it yet! Daubrecq will resist long enough, at any rate,
+for us to reach him. Just think! Prasville is at my orders!”
+
+“Suppose he discovers who you are? The least inquiry will prove that
+there is no such person as M. Nicole.”
+
+“But it will not prove that M. Nicole is the same person as Arsene
+Lupin. Besides, make yourself easy. Prasville is not only beneath
+contempt as a detective: he has but one aim in life, which is to destroy
+his old enemy, Daubrecq. To achieve that aim, all means are equally
+good; and he will not waste time in verifying the identity of a M.
+Nicole who promises him Daubrecq. Not to mention that I was brought by
+you and that, when all is said, my little gifts did dazzle him to some
+extent. So let us go ahead boldly.”
+
+Clarisse always recovered confidence in Lupin’s presence. The future
+seemed less appalling to her; and she admitted, she forced herself to
+admit, that the chances of saving Gilbert were not lessened by that
+hideous death-sentence. But he could not prevail upon her to return to
+Brittany. She wanted to fight by his side. She wanted to be there and
+share all his hopes and all his disappointments.
+
+The next day the inquiries of the police confirmed what Prasville and
+Lupin already knew. The Marquis d’Albufex had been very deeply involved
+in the business of the canal, so deeply that Prince Napoleon was obliged
+to remove him from the management of his political campaign in France;
+and he kept up his very extravagant style of living only by dint of
+constant loans and makeshifts. On the other hand, in so far as concerned
+the kidnapping of Daubrecq, it was ascertained that, contrary to his
+usual custom, the marquis had not appeared in his club between six and
+seven that evening and had not dined at home. He did not come back until
+midnight; and then he came on foot.
+
+M. Nicole’s accusation, therefore, was receiving an early proof.
+Unfortunately--and Lupin was no more successful in his own attempts--it
+was impossible to obtain the least clue as to the motor-car, the
+chauffeur and the four people who had entered Daubrecq’s house. Were
+they associates of the marquis, compromised in the canal affair like
+himself? Were they men in his pay? Nobody knew.
+
+The whole search, consequently, had to be concentrated upon the marquis
+and the country-seats and houses which he might possess at a certain
+distance from Paris, a distance which, allowing for the average speed
+of a motor-car and the inevitable stoppages, could be put at sixty to
+ninety miles.
+
+Now d’Albufex, having sold everything that he ever had, possessed
+neither country-houses nor landed estates.
+
+They turned their attention to the marquis’ relations and intimate
+friends. Was he able on this side to dispose of some safe retreat in
+which to imprison Daubrecq?
+
+The result was equally fruitless.
+
+And the days passed. And what days for Clarisse Mergy! Each of them
+brought Gilbert nearer to the terrible day of reckoning. Each of
+them meant twenty-four hours less from the date which Clarisse had
+instinctively fixed in her mind. And she said to Lupin, who was racked
+with the same anxiety:
+
+“Fifty-five days more... Fifty days more... What can one do in so few
+days?... Oh, I beg of you... I beg of you...”
+
+What could they do indeed? Lupin, who would not leave the task of
+watching the marquis to any one but himself, practically lived without
+sleeping. But the marquis had resumed his regular life; and, doubtless
+suspecting something, did not risk going away.
+
+Once alone, he went down to the Duc de Montmaur’s, in the daytime. The
+duke kept a pack of boar-hounds, with which he hunted the Forest of
+Durlaine. D’Albufex maintained no relations with him outside the hunt.
+
+“It is hardly likely,” said Prasville, “that the Duc de Montmaur, an
+exceedingly wealthy man, who is interested only in his estates and
+his hunting and takes no part in politics, should lend himself to the
+illegal detention of Daubrecq the deputy in his chateau.”
+
+Lupin agreed; but, as he did not wish to leave anything to chance,
+the next week, seeing d’Albufex go out one morning in riding-dress, he
+followed him to the Gare du Nord and took the same train.
+
+He got out at Aumale, where d’Albufex found a carriage at the station
+which took him to the Chateau de Montmaur.
+
+Lupin lunched quietly, hired a bicycle and came in view of the house at
+the moment when the guests were going into the park, in motor-cars or
+mounted. The Marquis d’Albufex was one of the horsemen.
+
+Thrice, in the course of the day, Lupin saw him cantering along. And
+he found him, in the evening, at the station, where d’Albufex rode up,
+followed by a huntsman.
+
+The proof, therefore, was conclusive; and there was nothing suspicious
+on that side. Why did Lupin, nevertheless, resolve not to be satisfied
+with appearances? And why, next day, did he send the Masher to find
+out things in the neighbourhood of Montmaur? It was an additional
+precaution, based upon no logical reason, but agreeing with his
+methodical and careful manner of acting.
+
+Two days later he received from the Masher, among other information of
+less importance, a list of the house-party at Montmaur and of all the
+servants and keepers.
+
+One name struck him, among those of the huntsmen. He at once wired:
+
+“Inquire about huntsman Sebastiani.”
+
+The Masher’s answer was received the next day:
+
+“Sebastiani, a Corsican, was recommended to the Duc de Montmaur by the
+Marquis d’Albufex. He lives at two or three miles from the house, in a
+hunting-lodge built among the ruins of the feudal stronghold which was
+the cradle of the Montmaur family.”
+
+“That’s it,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, showing her the Masher’s
+letter. “That name, Sebastiani, at once reminded me that d’Albufex is of
+Corsican descent. There was a connection...”
+
+“Then what do you intend to do?”
+
+“If Daubrecq is imprisoned in those ruins, I intend to enter into
+communication with him.”
+
+“He will distrust you.”
+
+“No. Lately, acting on the information of the police, I ended by
+discovering the two old ladies who carried off your little Jacques at
+Saint-Germain and who brought him, the same evening, to Neuilly. They
+are two old maids, cousins of Daubrecq, who makes them a small monthly
+allowance. I have been to call on those Demoiselles Rousselot; remember
+the name and the address: 134 bis, Rue du Bac. I inspired them with
+confidence, promised them to find their cousin and benefactor; and the
+elder sister, Euphrasie Rousselot, gave me a letter in which she begs
+Daubrecq to trust M. Nicole entirely. So you see, I have taken every
+precaution. I shall leave to-night.”
+
+“We, you mean,” said Clarisse.
+
+“You!”
+
+“Can I go on living like this, in feverish inaction?” And she whispered,
+“I am no longer counting the days, the thirty-eight or forty days that
+remain to us: I am counting the hours.”
+
+Lupin felt that her resolution was too strong for him to try to combat
+it. They both started at five o’clock in the morning, by motor-car. The
+Growler went with them.
+
+So as not to arouse suspicion, Lupin chose a large town as his
+headquarters. At Amiens, where he installed Clarisse, he was only
+eighteen miles from Montmaur.
+
+At eight o’clock he met the Masher not far from the old fortress,
+which was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mortepierre, and he
+examined the locality under his guidance.
+
+On the confines of the forest, the little river Ligier, which has dug
+itself a deep valley at this spot, forms a loop which is overhung by the
+enormous cliff of Mortepierre.
+
+“Nothing to be done on this side,” said Lupin. “The cliff is steep, over
+two hundred feet high, and the river hugs it all round.”
+
+Not far away they found a bridge that led to the foot of a path which
+wound, through the oaks and pines, up to a little esplanade, where stood
+a massive, iron-bound gate, studded with nails and flanked on either
+side by a large tower.
+
+“Is this where Sebastiani the huntsman lives?” asked Lupin.
+
+“Yes,” said the Masher, “with his wife, in a lodge standing in the midst
+of the ruins. I also learnt that he has three tall sons and that all the
+four were supposed to be away for a holiday on the day when Daubrecq was
+carried off.”
+
+“Oho!” said Lupin. “The coincidence is worth remembering. It seems
+likely enough that the business was done by those chaps and their
+father.”
+
+Toward the end of the afternoon Lupin availed himself of a breach to the
+right of the towers to scale the curtain. From there he was able to see
+the huntsman’s lodge and the few remains of the old fortress: here,
+a bit of wall, suggesting the mantel of a chimney; further away, a
+water-tank; on this side, the arches of a chapel; on the other, a heap
+of fallen stones.
+
+A patrol-path edged the cliff in front; and, at one of the ends of this
+patrol-path, there were the remains of a formidable donjon-keep razed
+almost level with the ground.
+
+Lupin returned to Clarisse Mergy in the evening. And from that time he
+went backward and forward between Amiens and Mortepierre, leaving the
+Growler and the Masher permanently on the watch.
+
+And six days passed. Sebastiani’s habits seemed to be subject solely
+to the duties of his post. He used to go up to the Chateau de Montmaur,
+walk about in the forest, note the tracks of the game and go his rounds
+at night.
+
+But, on the seventh day, learning that there was to be a meet and that
+a carriage had been sent to Aumale Station in the morning, Lupin took
+up his post in a cluster of box and laurels which surrounded the little
+esplanade in front of the gate.
+
+At two o’clock he heard the pack give tongue. They approached,
+accompanied by hunting-cries, and then drew farther away. He heard them
+again, about the middle of the afternoon, not quite so distinctly; and
+that was all. But suddenly, amid the silence, the sound of galloping
+horses reached his ears; and, a few minutes later, he saw two riders
+climbing the river-path.
+
+He recognized the Marquis d’Albufex and Sebastiani. On reaching the
+esplanade, they both alighted; and a woman--the huntsman’s wife, no
+doubt--opened the gate. Sebastiani fastened the horses’ bridles to rings
+fixed on a post at a few yards from Lupin and ran to join the marquis.
+The gate closed behind them.
+
+Lupin did not hesitate; and, though it was still broad daylight, relying
+upon the solitude of the place, he hoisted himself to the hollow of
+the breach. Passing his head through cautiously, he saw the two men and
+Sebastiani’s wife hurrying toward the ruins of the keep.
+
+The huntsman drew aside a hanging screen of ivy and revealed the
+entrance to a stairway, which he went down, as did d’Albufex, leaving
+his wife on guard on the terrace.
+
+There was no question of going in after them; and Lupin returned to his
+hiding-place. He did not wait long before the gate opened again.
+
+The Marquis d’Albufex seemed in a great rage. He was striking the leg of
+his boot with his whip and mumbling angry words which Lupin was able to
+distinguish when the distance became less great:
+
+“Ah, the hound!... I’ll make him speak... I’ll come back to-night...
+to-night, at ten o’clock, do you hear, Sebastiani?... And we shall do
+what’s necessary... Oh, the brute!”
+
+Sebastiani unfastened the horses. D’Albufex turned to the woman:
+
+“See that your sons keep a good watch... If any one attempts to deliver
+him, so much the worse for him. The trapdoor is there. Can I rely upon
+them?”
+
+“As thoroughly as on myself, monsieur le marquis,” declared the
+huntsman. “They know what monsieur le marquis has done for me and what
+he means to do for them. They will shrink at nothing.”
+
+“Let us mount and get back to the hounds,” said d’Albufex.
+
+So things were going as Lupin had supposed. During these runs,
+d’Albufex, taking a line of his own, would push off to Mortepierre,
+without anybody’s suspecting his trick. Sebastiani, who was devoted to
+him body and soul, for reasons connected with the past into which it was
+not worth while to inquire, accompanied him; and together they went to
+see the captive, who was closely watched by the huntsman’s wife and his
+three sons.
+
+“That’s where we stand,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, when he joined
+her at a neighbouring inn. “This evening the marquis will put Daubrecq
+to the question--a little brutally, but indispensably--as I intended to
+do myself.”
+
+“And Daubrecq will give up his secret,” said Clarisse, already quite
+upset.
+
+“I’m afraid so.”
+
+“Then...”
+
+“I am hesitating between two plans,” said Lupin, who seemed very calm.
+“Either to prevent the interview...”
+
+“How?”
+
+“By forestalling d’Albufex. At nine o’clock, the Growler, the Masher and
+I climb the ramparts, burst into the fortress, attack the keep, disarm
+the garrison... and the thing’s done: Daubrecq is ours.”
+
+“Unless Sebastiani’s sons fling him through the trapdoor to which the
+marquis alluded...”
+
+“For that reason,” said Lupin, “I intend to risk that violent
+measure only as a last resort and in case my other plan should not be
+practicable.”
+
+“What is the other plan?”
+
+“To witness the interview. If Daubrecq does not speak, it will give us
+the time to prepare to carry him off under more favourable conditions.
+If he speaks, if they compel him to reveal the place where the list of
+the Twenty-seven is hidden, I shall know the truth at the same time as
+d’Albufex, and I swear to God that I shall turn it to account before he
+does.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Clarisse. “But how do you propose to be present?”
+
+“I don’t know yet,” Lupin confessed. “It depends on certain particulars
+which the Masher is to bring me and on some which I shall find out for
+myself.”
+
+He left the inn and did not return until an hour later as night was
+falling. The Masher joined him.
+
+“Have you the little book?” asked Lupin.
+
+“Yes, governor. It was what I saw at the Aumale newspaper-shop. I got it
+for ten sous.”
+
+“Give it me.”
+
+The Masher handed him an old, soiled, torn pamphlet, entitled, on the
+cover, A Visit to Mortepierre, 1824, with plans and illustrations.
+
+Lupin at once looked for the plan of the donjon-keep.
+
+“That’s it,” he said. “Above the ground were three stories, which have
+been razed, and below the ground, dug out of the rock, two stories, one
+of which was blocked up by the rubbish, while the other... There,
+that’s where our friend Daubrecq lies. The name is significant: the
+torture-chamber... Poor, dear friend!... Between the staircase and the
+torture-chamber, two doors. Between those two doors, a recess in which
+the three brothers obviously sit, gun in hand.”
+
+“So it is impossible for you to get in that way without being seen.”
+
+“Impossible... unless I come from above, by the story that has fallen
+in, and look for a means of entrance through the ceiling... But that is
+very risky...”
+
+He continued to turn the pages of the book. Clarisse asked:
+
+“Is there no window to the room?”
+
+“Yes,” he said. “From below, from the river--I have just been there--you
+can see a little opening, which is also marked on the plan. But it is
+fifty yards up, sheer; and even then the rock overhangs the water. So
+that again is out of the question.”
+
+He glanced through a few pages of the book. The title of one chapter
+struck him: The Lovers’ Towers. He read the opening lines:
+
+ “In the old days, the donjon was known to the people of the
+ neighbourhood as the Lovers’ Tower, in memory of a fatal tragedy
+ that marked it in the Middle Ages.  The Comte de Mortepierre,
+ having received proofs of his wife’s faithlessness, imprisoned
+ her in the torture-chamber, where she spent twenty years.  One
+ night, her lover, the Sire de Tancarville, with reckless courage,
+ set up a ladder in the river and then clambered up the face of
+ the cliff till he came to the window of the room.  After filing
+ the bars, he succeeded in releasing the woman he loved and
+ bringing her down with him by means of a rope.  They both reached
+ the top of the ladder, which was watched by his friends, when a
+ shot was fired from the patrol-path and hit the man in the
+ shoulder.  The two lovers were hurled into space....”
+
+There was a pause, after he had read this, a long pause during which
+each of them drew a mental picture of the tragic escape. So, three or
+four centuries earlier, a man, risking his life, had attempted that
+surprising feat and would have succeeded but for the vigilance of some
+sentry who heard the noise. A man had ventured! A man had dared! A man
+done it!
+
+Lupin raised his eyes to Clarisse. She was looking at him... with such a
+desperate, such a beseeching look! The look of a mother who demanded the
+impossible and who would have sacrificed anything to save her son.
+
+“Masher,” he said, “get a strong rope, but very slender, so that I
+can roll it round my waist, and very long: fifty or sixty yards. You,
+Growler, go and look for three or four ladders and fasten them end to
+end.”
+
+“Why, what are you thinking of, governor?” cried the two accomplices.
+“What, you mean to... But it’s madness!”
+
+“Madness? Why? What another has done I can do.”
+
+“But it’s a hundred chances to one that you break your neck.”
+
+“Well, you see, Masher, there’s one chance that I don’t.”
+
+“But, governor...”
+
+“That’s enough, my friends. Meet me in an hour on the river-bank.”
+
+The preparations took long in the making. It was difficult to find the
+material for a fifty-foot ladder that would reach the first ledge of the
+cliff; and it required an endless effort and care to join the different
+sections.
+
+At last, a little after nine o’clock, it was set up in the middle of
+the river and held in position by a boat, the bows of which were wedged
+between two of the rungs, while the stern was rammed into the bank.
+
+The road through the river-valley was little used, and nobody came to
+interrupt the work. The night was dark, the sky heavy with moveless
+clouds.
+
+Lupin gave the Masher and the Growler their final instructions and said,
+with a laugh:
+
+“I can’t tell you how amused I am at the thought of seeing Daubrecq’s
+face when they proceed to take his scalp or slice his skin into ribbons.
+Upon my word, it’s worth the journey.”
+
+Clarisse also had taken a seat in the boat. He said to her:
+
+“Until we meet again. And, above all, don’t stir. Whatever happens, not
+a movement, not a cry.”
+
+“Can anything happen?” she asked.
+
+“Why, remember the Sire de Tancarville! It was at the very moment when
+he was achieving his object, with his true love in his arms, that an
+accident betrayed him. But be easy: I shall be all right.”
+
+She made no reply. She seized his hand and grasped it warmly between her
+own.
+
+He put his foot on the ladder and made sure that it did not sway too
+much. Then he went up.
+
+He soon reached the top rung.
+
+This was where the dangerous ascent began, a difficult ascent at the
+start, because of the excessive steepness, and developing, mid-way, into
+an absolute escalade.
+
+Fortunately, here and there were little hollows, in which his feet found
+a resting-place, and projecting stones, to which his hands clung. But
+twice those stones gave way and he slipped; and twice he firmly believed
+that all was lost. Finding a deeper hollow, he took a rest. He was worn
+out, felt quite ready to throw up the enterprise, asked himself if it
+was really worth while for him to expose himself to such danger:
+
+“I say!” he thought. “Seems to me you’re showing the white feather,
+Lupin, old boy. Throw up the enterprise? Then Daubrecq will babble his
+secret, the marquis will possess himself of the list, Lupin will return
+empty-handed, and Gilbert...”
+
+The long rope which he had fastened round his waist caused him needless
+inconvenience and fatigue. He fixed one of the ends to the strap of his
+trousers and let the rope uncoil all the way down the ascent, so that he
+could use it, on returning, as a hand-rail.
+
+Then he once more clutched at the rough surface of the cliff and
+continued the climb, with bruised nails and bleeding fingers. At every
+moment he expected the inevitable fall. And what discouraged him
+most was to hear the murmur of voices rising from the boat, murmur so
+distinct that it seemed as though he were not increasing the distance
+between his companions and himself.
+
+And he remembered the Sire de Tancarville, alone, he too, amid the
+darkness, who must have shivered at the noise of the stones which
+he loosened and sent bounding down the cliff. How the least sound
+reverberated through the silence! If one of Daubrecq’s guards was
+peering into the gloom from the Lovers’ Tower, it meant a shot... and
+death.
+
+And he climbed... he climbed... He had climbed so long that he ended
+by imagining that the goal was passed. Beyond a doubt, he had slanted
+unawares to the right or left and he would finish at the patrol-path.
+What a stupid upshot! And what other upshot could there be to an
+attempt which the swift force of events had not allowed him to study and
+prepare?
+
+Madly, he redoubled his efforts, raised himself by a number of yards,
+slipped, recovered the lost ground, clutched a bunch of roots that came
+loose in his hand, slipped once more and was abandoning the game in
+despair when, suddenly, stiffening himself and contracting his whole
+frame, his muscles and his will, he stopped still: a sound of voices
+seemed to issue from the very rock which he was grasping.
+
+He listened. It came from the right. Turning his head, he thought that
+he saw a ray of light penetrating the darkness of space. By what effort
+of energy, by what imperceptible movements he succeeded in dragging
+himself to the spot he was never able exactly to realize. But suddenly
+he found himself on the ledge of a fairly wide opening, at least three
+yards deep, which dug into the wall of the cliff like a passage, while
+its other end, much narrower, was closed by three bars.
+
+Lupin crawled along. His head reached the bars. And he saw...
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE LOVERS’ TOWER
+
+The torture-chamber showed beneath him. It was a large, irregular room,
+divided into unequal portions by the four wide, massive pillars that
+supported its arched roof. A smell of damp and mildew came from its
+walls and from its flags moistened by the water that trickled from
+without. Its appearance at any time must have been gruesome. But, at
+that moment, with the tall figures of Sebastiani and his sons, with the
+slanting gleams of light that fell between the pillars, with the vision
+of the captive chained down upon the truckle-bed, it assumed a sinister
+and barbarous aspect.
+
+Daubrecq was in the front part of the room, four or five yards down from
+the window at which Lupin lurked. In addition to the ancient chains that
+had been used to fasten him to his bed and to fasten the bed to an iron
+hook in the wall, his wrists and ankles were girt with leather thongs;
+and an ingenious arrangement caused his least movement to set in motion
+a bell hung to the nearest pillar.
+
+A lamp placed on a stool lit him full in the face.
+
+The Marquis d’Albufex was standing beside him. Lupin could see his pale
+features, his grizzled moustache, his long, lean form as he looked at
+his prisoner with an expression of content and of gratified hatred.
+
+A few minutes passed in profound silence. Then the marquis gave an
+order:
+
+“Light those three candles, Sebastiani, so that I can see him better.”
+
+And, when the three candles were lit and he had taken a long look at
+Daubrecq, he stooped over him and said, almost gently:
+
+“I can’t say what will be the end of you and me. But at any rate I shall
+have had some deuced happy moments in this room. You have done me so
+much harm, Daubrecq! The tears you have made me shed! Yes, real tears,
+real sobs of despair... The money you have robbed me of! A fortune!...
+And my terror at the thought that you might give me away! You had but
+to utter my name to complete my ruin and bring about my disgrace!... Oh,
+you villain!...”
+
+Daubrecq did not budge. He had been deprived of his black glasses, but
+still kept his spectacles, which reflected the light from the candles.
+He had lost a good deal of flesh; and the bones stood out above his
+sunken cheeks.
+
+“Come along,” said d’Albufex. “The time has come to act. It seems that
+there are rogues prowling about the neighbourhood. Heaven forbid that
+they are here on your account and try to release you; for that would
+mean your immediate death, as you know... Is the trapdoor still in
+working order, Sebastiani?”
+
+Sebastiani came nearer, knelt on one knee and lifted and turned a
+ring, at the foot of the bed, which Lupin had not noticed. One of the
+flagstones moved on a pivot, disclosing a black hole.
+
+“You see,” the marquis continued, “everything is provided for; and I
+have all that I want at hand, including dungeons: bottomless dungeons,
+says the legend of the castle. So there is nothing to hope for, no help
+of any kind. Will you speak?”
+
+Daubrecq did not reply; and he went on:
+
+“This is the fourth time that I am questioning you, Daubrecq. It is the
+fourth time that I have troubled to ask you for the document which you
+possess, in order that I may escape your blackmailing proceedings. It is
+the fourth time and the last. Will you speak?”
+
+The same silence as before. D’Albufex made a sign to Sebastiani. The
+huntsman stepped forward, followed by two of his sons. One of them held
+a stick in his hand.
+
+“Go ahead,” said d’Albufex, after waiting a few seconds.
+
+Sebastiani slackened the thongs that bound Daubrecq’s wrists and
+inserted and fixed the stick between the thongs.
+
+“Shall I turn, monsieur le marquis?”
+
+A further silence. The marquis waited. Seeing that Daubrecq did not
+flinch, he whispered:
+
+“Can’t you speak? Why expose yourself to physical suffering?”
+
+No reply.
+
+“Turn away, Sebastiani.”
+
+Sebastiani made the stick turn a complete circle. The thongs stretched
+and tightened. Daubrecq gave a groan.
+
+“You won’t speak? Still, you know that I won’t give way, that I can’t
+give way, that I hold you and that, if necessary, I shall torture you
+till you die of it. You won’t speak? You won’t?... Sebastiani, once
+more.”
+
+The huntsman obeyed. Daubrecq gave a violent start of pain and fell back
+on his bed with a rattle in his throat.
+
+“You fool!” cried the marquis, shaking with rage. “Why don’t you speak?
+What, haven’t you had enough of that list? Surely it’s somebody else’s
+turn! Come, speak... Where is it? One word. One word only... and we will
+leave you in peace... And, to-morrow, when I have the list, you shall be
+free. Free, do you understand? But, in Heaven’s name, speak!... Oh, the
+brute! Sebastiani, one more turn.”
+
+Sebastiani made a fresh effort. The bones cracked.
+
+“Help! Help!” cried Daubrecq, in a hoarse voice, vainly struggling to
+release himself. And, in a spluttering whisper, “Mercy... mercy.”
+
+It was a dreadful sight... The faces of the three sons were
+horror-struck. Lupin shuddered, sick at heart, and realized that he
+himself could never have accomplished that abominable thing. He
+listened for the words that were bound to come. He must learn the truth.
+Daubrecq’s secret was about to be expressed in syllables, in words wrung
+from him by pain. And Lupin began to think of his retreat, of the car
+which was waiting for him, of the wild rush to Paris, of the victory at
+hand.
+
+“Speak,” whispered d’Albufex. “Speak and it will be over.”
+
+“Yes... yes...” gasped Daubrecq.
+
+“Well...?”
+
+“Later... to-morrow...”
+
+“Oh, you’re mad!... What are you talking about: to-morrow?...
+Sebastiani, another turn!”
+
+“No, no!” yelled Daubrecq. “Stop!”
+
+“Speak!”
+
+“Well, then... the paper... I have hidden the paper...”
+
+But his pain was too great. He raised his head with a last effort,
+uttered incoherent words, succeeded in twice saying, “Marie... Marie...”
+ and fell back, exhausted and lifeless.
+
+“Let go at once!” said d’Albufex to Sebastiani. “Hang it all, can we
+have overdone it?”
+
+But a rapid examination showed him that Daubrecq had only fainted.
+Thereupon, he himself, worn out with the excitement, dropped on the
+foot of the bed and, wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead,
+stammered:
+
+“Oh, what a dirty business!”
+
+“Perhaps that’s enough for to-day,” said the huntsman, whose rough face
+betrayed a certain emotion. “We might try again to-morrow or the next
+day...”
+
+The marquis was silent. One of the sons handed him a flask of brandy. He
+poured out half a glass and drank it down at a draught:
+
+“To-morrow?” he said. “No. Here and now. One little effort more. At
+the stage which he has reached, it won’t be difficult.” And, taking the
+huntsman aside, “Did you hear what he said? What did he mean by that
+word, ‘Marie’? He repeated it twice.”
+
+“Yes, twice,” said the huntsman. “Perhaps he entrusted the document to a
+person called Marie.”
+
+“Not he!” protested d’Albufex. “He never entrusts anything to anybody.
+It means something different.”
+
+“But what, monsieur le marquis?”
+
+“We’ll soon find out, I’ll answer for it.”
+
+At that moment, Daubrecq drew a long breath and stirred on his couch.
+
+D’Albufex, who had now recovered all his composure and who did not take
+his eyes off the enemy, went up to him and said:
+
+“You see, Daubrecq, it’s madness to resist... Once you’re beaten,
+there’s nothing for it but to submit to your conqueror, instead of
+allowing yourself to be tortured like an idiot... Come, be sensible.”
+
+He turned to Sebastiani:
+
+“Tighten the rope... let him feel it a little that will wake him up...
+He’s shamming death...” Sebastiani took hold of the stick again and
+turned until the cord touched the swollen flesh. Daubrecq gave a start.
+
+“That’ll do, Sebastiani,” said the marquis. “Our friend seems favourably
+disposed and understands the need for coming to terms. That’s so,
+Daubrecq, is it not? You prefer to have done with it? And you’re quite
+right!”
+
+The two men were leaning over the sufferer, Sebastiani with his hand
+on the stick, d’Albufex holding the lamp so as to throw the light on
+Daubrecq’s face: “His lips are moving... he’s going to speak. Loosen
+the rope a little, Sebastiani: I don’t want our friend to be hurt... No,
+tighten it: I believe our friend is hesitating... One turn more... stop!
+... That’s done it! Oh, my dear Daubrecq, if you can’t speak plainer
+than that, it’s no use! What? What did you say?”
+
+Arsene Lupin muttered an oath. Daubrecq was speaking and he, Lupin,
+could not hear a word of what he said! In vain, he pricked up his ears,
+suppressed the beating of his heart and the throbbing of his temples:
+not a sound reached him.
+
+“Confound it!” he thought. “I never expected this. What am I to do?”
+
+He was within an ace of covering Daubrecq with his revolver and
+putting a bullet into him which would cut short any explanation. But he
+reflected that he himself would then be none the wiser and that it was
+better to trust to events in the hope of making the most of them.
+
+Meanwhile the confession continued beneath him, indistinctly,
+interrupted by silences and mingled with moans. D’Albufex clung to his
+prey:
+
+“Go on!... Finish, can’t you?...”
+
+And he punctuated the sentences with exclamations of approval:
+
+“Good!... Capital!... Oh, how funny!... And no one suspected?... Not
+even Prasville?... What an ass!... Loosen a bit, Sebastiani: don’t you
+see that our friend is out of breath?... Keep calm, Daubrecq... don’t
+tire yourself... And so, my dear fellow, you were saying...”
+
+That was the last. There was a long whispering to which d’Albufex
+listened without further interruption and of which Arsene Lupin could
+not catch the least syllable. Then the marquis drew himself up and
+exclaimed, joyfully:
+
+“That’s it!... Thank you, Daubrecq. And, believe me, I shall never
+forget what you have just done. If ever you’re in need, you have only
+to knock at my door and there will always be a crust of bread for you in
+the kitchen and a glass of water from the filter. Sebastiani, look after
+monsieur le depute as if he were one of your sons. And, first of all,
+release him from his bonds. It’s a heartless thing to truss one’s
+fellow-man like that, like a chicken on the spit!”
+
+“Shall we give him something to drink?” suggested the huntsman.
+
+“Yes, that’s it, give him a drink.”
+
+Sebastiani and his sons undid the leather straps, rubbed the bruised
+wrists, dressed them with an ointment and bandaged them. Then Daubrecq
+swallowed a few drops of brandy.
+
+“Feeling better?” said the marquis. “Pooh, it’s nothing much! In a
+few hours, it won’t show; and you’ll be able to boast of having been
+tortured, as in the good old days of the Inquisition. You lucky dog!”
+
+He took out his watch. “Enough said! Sebastiani, let your sons watch him
+in turns. You, take me to the station for the last train.”
+
+“Then are we to leave him like that, monsieur le marquis, free to move
+as he pleases?”
+
+“Why not? You don’t imagine that we are going to keep him here to the
+day of his death? No, Daubrecq, sleep quietly. I shall go to your
+place tomorrow afternoon; and, if the document is where you told me,
+a telegram shall be sent off at once and you shall be set free. You
+haven’t told me a lie, I suppose?”
+
+He went back to Daubrecq and, stooping over him again:
+
+“No humbug, eh? That would be very silly of you. I should lose a day,
+that’s all. Whereas you would lose all the days that remain to you to
+live. But no, the hiding-place is too good. A fellow doesn’t invent
+a thing like that for fun. Come on, Sebastiani. You shall have the
+telegram to-morrow.”
+
+“And suppose they don’t let you into the house, monsieur le marquis?”
+
+“Why shouldn’t they?”
+
+“The house in the Square Lamartine is occupied by Prasville’s men.”
+
+“Don’t worry, Sebastiani. I shall get in. If they don’t open the door,
+there’s always the window. And, if the window won’t open, I shall
+arrange with one of Prasville’s men. It’s a question of money, that’s
+all. And, thank goodness, I shan’t be short of that, henceforth!
+Good-night, Daubrecq.”
+
+He went out, accompanied by Sebastiani, and the heavy door closed after
+them.
+
+Lupin at once effected his retreat, in accordance with a plan which he
+had worked out during this scene.
+
+The plan was simple enough: to scramble, by means of his rope, to the
+bottom of the cliff, take his friends with him, jump into the motor-car
+and attack d’Albufex and Sebastiani on the deserted road that leads to
+Aumale Station. There could be no doubt about the issue of the contest.
+With d’Albufex and Sebastiani prisoners; it would be an easy matter to
+make one of them speak. D’Albufex had shown him how to set about it; and
+Clarisse Mergy would be inflexible where it was a question of saving her
+son.
+
+He took the rope with which he had provided himself and groped about to
+find a jagged piece of rock round which to pass it, so as to leave two
+equal lengths hanging, by which he could let himself down. But, when he
+found what he wanted, instead of acting swiftly--for the business was
+urgent--he stood motionless, thinking. His scheme failed to satisfy him
+at the last moment.
+
+“It’s absurd, what I’m proposing,” he said to himself. “Absurd and
+illogical. How can I tell that d’Albufex and Sebastiani will not escape
+me? How can I even tell that, once they are in my power, they will
+speak? No, I shall stay. There are better things to try... much better
+things. It’s not those two I must be at, but Daubrecq. He’s done for; he
+has not a kick left in him. If he has told the marquis his secret, there
+is no reason why he shouldn’t tell it to Clarisse and me, when we employ
+the same methods. That’s settled! We’ll kidnap the Daubrecq bird.”
+ And he continued, “Besides, what do I risk? If the scheme miscarries,
+Clarisse and I will rush off to Paris and, together with Prasville,
+organize a careful watch in the Square Lamartine to prevent d’Albufex
+from benefiting by Daubrecq’s revelations. The great thing is for
+Prasville to be warned of the danger. He shall be.”
+
+The church-clock in a neighbouring village struck twelve. That gave
+Lupin six or seven hours to put his new plan into execution. He set to
+work forthwith.
+
+When moving away from the embrasure which had the window at the bottom
+of it, he had come upon a clump of small shrubs in one of the hollows
+of the cliff. He cut away a dozen of these, with his knife, and whittled
+them all down to the same size. Then he cut off two equal lengths from
+his rope. These were the uprights of the ladder. He fastened the twelve
+little sticks between the uprights and thus contrived a rope-ladder
+about six yards long.
+
+When he returned to this post, there was only one of the three sons
+beside Daubrecq’s bed in the torture-chamber. He was smoking his pipe by
+the lamp. Daubrecq was asleep.
+
+“Hang it!” thought Lupin. “Is the fellow going to sit there all night?
+In that case, there’s nothing for me to do but to slip off...”
+
+The idea that d’Albufex was in possession of the secret vexed him
+mightily. The interview at which he had assisted had left the clear
+impression in his mind that the marquis was working “on his own” and
+that, in securing the list, he intended not only to escape Daubrecq’s
+activity, but also to gain Daubrecq’s power and build up his fortune
+anew by the identical means which Daubrecq had employed.
+
+That would have meant, for Lupin, a fresh battle to wage against a fresh
+enemy. The rapid march of events did not allow of the contemplation of
+such a possibility. He must at all costs spike the Marquis d’Albufex’
+guns by warning Prasville.
+
+However, Lupin remained held back by the stubborn hope of some incident
+that would give him the opportunity of acting.
+
+The clock struck half-past twelve.
+
+It struck one.
+
+The waiting became terrible, all the more so as an icy mist rose from
+the valley and Lupin felt the cold penetrate to his very marrow.
+
+He heard the trot of a horse in the distance:
+
+“Sebastiani returning from the station,” he thought.
+
+But the son who was watching in the torture-chamber, having finished his
+packet of tobacco, opened the door and asked his brothers if they had
+a pipeful for him. They made some reply; and he went out to go to the
+lodge.
+
+And Lupin was astounded. No sooner was the door closed than Daubrecq,
+who had been so sound asleep, sat up on his couch, listened, put one
+foot to the ground, followed by the other, and, standing up, tottering
+a little, but firmer on his legs than one would have expected, tried his
+strength.
+
+“Well” said Lupin, “the beggar doesn’t take long recovering. He can very
+well help in his own escape. There’s just one point that ruffles me:
+will he allow himself to be convinced? Will he consent to go with me?
+Will he not think that this miraculous assistance which comes to him
+straight from heaven is a trap laid by the marquis?”
+
+But suddenly Lupin remembered the letter which he had made Daubrecq’s
+old cousins write, the letter of recommendation, so to speak, which the
+elder of the two sisters Rousselot had signed with her Christian name,
+Euphrasie.
+
+It was in his pocket. He took it and listened. Not a sound, except the
+faint noise of Daubrecq’s footsteps on the flagstones. Lupin considered
+that the moment had come. He thrust his arm through the bars and threw
+the letter in.
+
+Daubrecq seemed thunderstruck.
+
+The letter had fluttered through the room and lay on the floor, at three
+steps from him. Where did it come from? He raised his head toward the
+window and tried to pierce the darkness that hid all the upper part
+of the room from his eyes. Then he looked at the envelope, without yet
+daring to touch it, as though he dreaded a snare. Then, suddenly, after
+a glance at the door, he stooped briskly, seized the envelope and opened
+it.
+
+“Ah,” he said, with a sigh of delight, when he saw the signature.
+
+He read the letter half-aloud:
+
+ “Rely implicitly on the bearer of this note.  He has succeeded
+ in discovering the marquis’ secret, with the money which we gave
+ him, and has contrived a plan of escape.  Everything is prepared
+ for your flight.
+
+       “EUPHRASIE ROUSSELOT”
+
+He read the letter again, repeated, “Euphrasie... Euphrasie...” and
+raised his head once more.
+
+Lupin whispered:
+
+“It will take me two or three hours to file through one of the bars. Are
+Sebastiani and his sons coming back?”
+
+“Yes, they are sure to,” replied Daubrecq, in the same low voice, “but I
+expect they will leave me to myself.”
+
+“But they sleep next door?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Won’t they hear?”
+
+“No, the door is too thick.”
+
+“Very well. In that case, it will soon be done. I have a rope-ladder.
+Will you be able to climb up alone, without my assistance?”
+
+“I think so... I’ll try... It’s my wrists that they’ve broken... Oh, the
+brutes! I can hardly move my hands... and I have very little strength
+left. But I’ll try all the same... needs must...”
+
+He stopped, listened and, with his finger to his mouth, whispered:
+
+“Hush!”
+
+When Sebastiani and his sons entered the room, Daubrecq, who had hidden
+the letter and lain down on his bed, pretended to wake with a start.
+
+The huntsman brought him a bottle of wine, a glass and some food:
+
+“How goes it, monsieur le depute?” he cried. “Well, perhaps we did
+squeeze a little hard... It’s very painful, that thumbscrewing. Seems
+they often did it at the time of the Great Revolution and Bonaparte...
+in the days of the chauffeurs. [*] A pretty invention! Nice and clean...
+no bloodshed... And it didn’t last long either! In twenty minutes, you
+came out with the missing word!” Sebastiani burst out laughing. “By the
+way, monsieur le depute, my congratulations! A capital hiding-place. Who
+would ever suspect it?... You see, what put us off, monsieur le marquis
+and me, was that name of Marie which you let out at first. You
+weren’t telling a lie; but there you are, you know: the word was only
+half-finished. We had to know the rest. Say what you like, it’s amusing!
+Just think, on your study-table! Upon my word, what a joke!”
+
+
+     * The name given to the brigands in the Vendee, who tortured
+     their victims with fire to make them confess where their
+     money was hidden.--Translator’s Note.
+
+
+The huntsman rose and walked up and down the room, rubbing his hands:
+
+“Monsieur le marquis is jolly well pleased, so pleased, in fact, that he
+himself is coming to-morrow evening to let you out. Yes, he has thought
+it over; there will be a few formalities: you may have to sign a cheque
+or two, stump up, what, and make good monsieur le marquis’ expense and
+trouble. But what’s that to you? A trifle! Not to mention that, from now
+on, there will be no more chains, no more straps round your wrists; in
+short, you will be treated like a king! And I’ve even been told--look
+here!--to allow you a good bottle of old wine and a flask of brandy.”
+
+Sebastiani let fly a few more jests, then took the lamp, made a last
+examination of the room and said to his sons:
+
+“Let’s leave him to sleep. You also, take a rest, all three of you. But
+sleep with one eye open. One never can tell...” They withdrew.
+
+Lupin waited a little longer and asked, in a low voice:
+
+“Can I begin?”
+
+“Yes, but be careful. It’s not impossible that they may go on a round in
+an hour or two.”
+
+Lupin set to work. He had a very powerful file; and the iron of the
+bars, rusted and gnawed away by time, was, in places, almost reduced to
+dust. Twice Lupin stopped to listen, with ears pricked up. But it was
+only the patter of a rat over the rubbish in the upper story, or the
+flight of some night-bird; and he continued his task, encouraged by
+Daubrecq, who stood by the door, ready to warn him at the least alarm.
+
+“Oof!” he said, giving a last stroke of the file. “I’m glad that’s over,
+for, on my word, I’ve been a bit cramped in this cursed tunnel... to say
+nothing of the cold...”
+
+He bore with all his strength upon the bar, which he had sawn from
+below, and succeeded in forcing it down sufficiently for a man’s body to
+slip between the two remaining bars. Next, he had to go back to the end
+of the embrasure, the wider part, where he had left the rope-ladder.
+After fixing it to the bars, he called Daubrecq:
+
+“Psst!... It’s all right... Are you ready?”
+
+“Yes... coming... One more second, while I listen... All right...
+They’re asleep... give me the ladder.”
+
+Lupin lowered it and asked:
+
+“Must I come down?”
+
+“No... I feel a little weak... but I shall manage.”
+
+Indeed, he reached the window of the embrasure pretty quickly and crept
+along the passage in the wake of his rescuer. The open air, however,
+seemed to make him giddy. Also, to give himself strength, he had drunk
+half the bottle of wine; and he had a fainting-fit that kept him lying
+on the stones of the embrasure for half an hour. Lupin, losing patience,
+was fastening him to one end of the rope, of which the other end was
+knotted round the bars and was preparing to let him down like a bale of
+goods, when Daubrecq woke up, in better condition:
+
+“That’s over,” he said. “I feel fit now. Will it take long?”
+
+“Pretty long. We are a hundred and fifty yards up.”
+
+“How was it that d’Albufex did not foresee that it was possible to
+escape this way?”
+
+“The cliff is perpendicular.”
+
+“And you were able to...”
+
+“Well, your cousins insisted... And then one has to live, you know, and
+they were free with their money.”
+
+“The dear, good souls!” said Daubrecq. “Where are they?”
+
+“Down below, in a boat.”
+
+“Is there a river, then?”
+
+“Yes, but we won’t talk, if you don’t mind. It’s dangerous.”
+
+“One word more. Had you been there long when you threw me the letter?”
+
+“No, no. A quarter of an hour or so. I’ll tell you all about it...
+Meanwhile, we must hurry.”
+
+Lupin went first, after recommending Daubrecq to hold tight to the rope
+and to come down backward. He would give him a hand at the difficult
+places.
+
+It took them over forty minutes to reach the platform of the ledge
+formed by the cliff; and Lupin had several times to help his companion,
+whose wrists, still bruised from the torture, had lost all their
+strength and suppleness.
+
+Over and over again, he groaned:
+
+“Oh, the swine, they’ve done for me!... The swine!... Ah, d’Albufex,
+I’ll make you pay dear for this!...”
+
+“Ssh!” said Lupin.
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+“A noise... up above...”
+
+Standing motionless on the platform, they listened. Lupin thought of the
+Sire de Tancarville and the sentry who had killed him with a shot from
+his harquebus. He shivered, feeling all the anguish of the silence and
+the darkness.
+
+“No,” he said, “I was mistaken... Besides, it’s absurd... They can’t hit
+us here.”
+
+“Who would hit us?”
+
+“No one... no one... it was a silly notion...”
+
+He groped about till he found the uprights of the ladder; then he said:
+
+“There, here’s the ladder. It is fixed in the bed of the river. A friend
+of mine is looking after it, as well as your cousins.”
+
+He whistled:
+
+“Here I am,” he said, in a low voice. “Hold the ladder fast.” And, to
+Daubrecq, “I’ll go first.”
+
+Daubrecq objected:
+
+“Perhaps it would be better for me to go down first.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I am very tired. You can tie your rope round my waist and hold me...
+Otherwise, there is a danger that I might...”
+
+“Yes, you are right,” said Lupin. “Come nearer.”
+
+Daubrecq came nearer and knelt down on the rock. Lupin fastened the
+rope to him and then, stooping over, grasped one of the uprights in both
+hands to keep the ladder from shaking:
+
+“Off you go,” he said.
+
+At the same moment, he felt a violent pain in the shoulder:
+
+“Blast it!” he said, sinking to the ground.
+
+Daubrecq had stabbed him with a knife below the nape of the neck, a
+little to the right.
+
+“You blackguard! You blackguard!”
+
+He half-saw Daubrecq, in the dark, ridding himself of his rope, and
+heard him whisper:
+
+“You’re a bit of a fool, you know!... You bring me a letter from my
+Rousselot cousins, in which I recognize the writing of the elder,
+Adelaide, but which that sly puss of an Adelaide, suspecting something
+and meaning to put me on my guard, if necessary, took care to sign with
+the name of the younger sister, Euphrasie Rousselot. You see, I tumbled
+to it! So, with a little reflection... you are Master Arsene Lupin, are
+you not? Clarisse’s protector, Gilbert’s saviour... Poor Lupin, I fear
+you’re in a bad way... I don’t use the knife often; but, when I do, I
+use it with a vengeance.”
+
+He bent over the wounded man and felt in his pockets:
+
+“Give me your revolver, can’t you? You see, your friends will know at
+once that it is not their governor; and they will try to secure me...
+And, as I have not much strength left, a bullet or two... Good-bye,
+Lupin. We shall meet in the next world, eh? Book me a nice flat, with
+all the latest conveniences.
+
+“Good-bye, Lupin. And my best thanks. For really I don’t know what I
+should have done without you. By Jove, d’Albufex was hitting me hard!
+It’ll be a joke to meet the beggar again!”
+
+Daubrecq had completed his preparations. He whistled once more. A reply
+came from the boat.
+
+“Here I am,” he said.
+
+With a last effort, Lupin put out his arm to stop him. But his
+hand touched nothing but space. He tried to call out, to warn his
+accomplices: his voice choked in his throat.
+
+He felt a terrible numbness creep over his whole being. His temples
+buzzed.
+
+Suddenly, shouts below. Then a shot. Then another, followed by a
+triumphant chuckle. And a woman’s wail and moans. And, soon after, two
+more shots.
+
+Lupin thought of Clarisse, wounded, dead perhaps; of Daubrecq, fleeing
+victoriously; of d’Albufex; of the crystal stopper, which one or other
+of the two adversaries would recover unresisted. Then a sudden vision
+showed him the Sire de Tancarville falling with the woman he loved. Then
+he murmured, time after time:
+
+“Clarisse... Clarisse... Gilbert...” A great silence overcame him;
+an infinite peace entered into him; and, without the least revolt, he
+received the impression that his exhausted body, with nothing now to
+hold it back, was rolling to the very edge of the rock, toward the
+abyss.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. IN THE DARK
+
+An hotel bedroom at Amiens.
+
+Lupin was recovering a little consciousness for the first time. Clarisse
+and the Masher were seated by his bedside.
+
+Both were talking; and Lupin listened to them, without opening his eyes.
+He learned that they had feared for his life, but that all danger was
+now removed. Next, in the course of the conversation, he caught certain
+words that revealed to him what had happened in the tragic night at
+Mortepierre: Daubrecq’s descent; the dismay of the accomplices, when
+they saw that it was not the governor; then the short struggle: Clarisse
+flinging herself on Daubrecq and receiving a wound in the shoulder;
+Daubrecq leaping to the bank; the Growler firing two revolver-shots and
+darting off in pursuit of him; the Masher clambering up the ladder and
+finding the governor in a swoon:
+
+“True as I live,” said the Masher, “I can’t make out even now how he did
+not roll over. There was a sort of hollow at that place, but it was a
+sloping hollow; and, half dead as he was, he must have hung on with his
+ten fingers. Crikey, it was time I came!”
+
+Lupin listened, listened in despair. He collected his strength to grasp
+and understand the words. But suddenly a terrible sentence was uttered:
+Clarisse, weeping, spoke of the eighteen days that had elapsed, eighteen
+more days lost to Gilbert’s safety.
+
+Eighteen days! The figure terrified Lupin. He felt that all was over,
+that he would never be able to recover his strength and resume the
+struggle and that Gilbert and Vaucheray were doomed... His brain slipped
+away from him. The fever returned and the delirium.
+
+And more days came and went. It was perhaps the time of his life of
+which Lupin speaks with the greatest horror. He retained just enough
+consciousness and had sufficiently lucid moments to realize the position
+exactly. But he was not able to coordinate his ideas, to follow a line
+of argument nor to instruct or forbid his friends to adopt this or that
+line of conduct.
+
+Often, when he emerged from his torpor, he found his hand in Clarisse’s
+and, in that half-slumbering condition in which a fever keeps you, he
+would address strange words to her, words of love and passion, imploring
+her and thanking her and blessing her for all the light and joy which
+she had brought into his darkness.
+
+Then, growing calmer and not fully understanding what he had said, he
+tried to jest:
+
+“I have been delirious, have I not? What a heap of nonsense I must have
+talked!”
+
+But Lupin felt by Clarisse’s silence that he could safely talk as much
+nonsense as ever his fever suggested to him. She did not hear. The
+care and attention which she lavished on the patient, her devotion, her
+vigilance, her alarm at the least relapse: all this was meant not for
+him, but for the possible saviour of Gilbert. She anxiously watched the
+progress of his convalescence. How soon would he be fit to resume the
+campaign? Was it not madness to linger by his side, when every day
+carried away a little hope?
+
+Lupin never ceased repeating to himself, with the inward belief that, by
+so doing, he could influence the course of his illness:
+
+“I will get well... I will get well...”
+
+And he lay for days on end without moving, so as not to disturb the
+dressing of his wound nor increase the excitement of his nerves in the
+smallest degree.
+
+He also strove not to think of Daubrecq. But the image of his dire
+adversary haunted him; and he reconstituted the various phases of the
+escape, the descent of the cliff.... One day, struck by a terrible
+memory, he exclaimed:
+
+“The list! The list of the Twenty-seven! Daubrecq must have it by now...
+or else d’Albufex. It was on the table!”
+
+Clarisse reassured him:
+
+“No one can have taken it,” she declared. “The Growler was in Paris that
+same day, with a note from me for Prasville, entreating him to redouble
+his watch in the Square Lamartine, so that no one should enter,
+especially d’Albufex...”
+
+“But Daubrecq?”
+
+“He is wounded. He cannot have gone home.”
+
+“Ah, well,” he said, “that’s all right!... But you too were wounded...”
+
+“A mere scratch on the shoulder.”
+
+Lupin was easier in his mind after these revelations. Nevertheless, he
+was pursued by stubborn notions which he was unable either to drive from
+his brain or to put into words. Above all, he thought incessantly of
+that name of “Marie” which Daubrecq’s sufferings had drawn from him.
+What did the name refer to? Was it the title of one of the books on the
+shelves, or a part of the title? Would the book in question supply the
+key to the mystery? Or was it the combination word of a safe? Was it a
+series of letters written somewhere: on a wall, on a paper, on a wooden
+panel, on the mount of a drawing, on an invoice?
+
+These questions, to which he was unable to find a reply, obsessed and
+exhausted him.
+
+One morning Arsene Lupin woke feeling a great deal better. The wound was
+closed, the temperature almost normal. The doctor, a personal friend,
+who came every day from Paris, promised that he might get up two days
+later. And, on that day, in the absence of his accomplices and of
+Mme. Mergy, all three of whom had left two days before, in quest of
+information, he had himself moved to the open window.
+
+He felt life return to him with the sunlight, with the balmy air that
+announced the approach of spring. He recovered the concatenation of
+his ideas; and facts once more took their place in his brain in their
+logical sequence and in accordance with their relations one to the
+other.
+
+In the evening he received a telegram from Clarisse to say that things
+were going badly and that she, the Growler and the Masher were all
+staying in Paris. He was much disturbed by this wire and had a less
+quiet night. What could the news be that had given rise to Clarisse’s
+telegram?
+
+But, the next day, she arrived in his room looking very pale, her eyes
+red with weeping, and, utterly worn out, dropped into a chair:
+
+“The appeal has been rejected,” she stammered.
+
+He mastered his emotion and asked, in a voice of surprise:
+
+“Were you relying on that?”
+
+“No, no,” she said, “but, all the same... one hopes in spite of one’s
+self.”
+
+“Was it rejected yesterday?”
+
+“A week ago. The Masher kept it from me; and I have not dared to read
+the papers lately.”
+
+“There is always the commutation of sentence,” he suggested.
+
+“The commutation? Do you imagine that they will commute the sentence of
+Arsene Lupin’s accomplices?”
+
+She ejaculated the words with a violence and a bitterness which he
+pretended not to notice; and he said:
+
+“Vaucheray perhaps not... But they will take pity on Gilbert, on his
+youth...”
+
+“They will do nothing of the sort.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“I have seen his counsel.”
+
+“You have seen his counsel! And you told him...”
+
+“I told him that I was Gilbert’s mother and I asked him whether, by
+proclaiming my son’s identity, we could not influence the result... or
+at least delay it.”
+
+“You would do that?” he whispered. “You would admit...”
+
+“Gilbert’s life comes before everything. What do I care about my name!
+What do I care about my husband’s name!”
+
+“And your little Jacques?” he objected. “Have you the right to ruin
+Jacques, to make him the brother of a man condemned to death?”
+
+She hung her head. And he resumed:
+
+“What did the counsel say?”
+
+“He said that an act of that sort would not help Gilbert in the remotest
+degree. And, in spite of all his protests, I could see that, as far
+as he was concerned, he had no illusions left and that the pardoning
+commission are bound to find in favour of the execution.”
+
+“The commission, I grant you; but what of the president of the
+Republic?”
+
+“The president always goes by the advice of the commission.”
+
+“He will not do so this time.”
+
+“And why not?”
+
+“Because we shall bring influence to bear upon him.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“By the conditional surrender of the list of the Twenty-seven!”
+
+“Have you it?”
+
+“No, but I shall have it.”
+
+His certainty had not wavered. He made the statement with equal calmness
+and faith in the infinite power of his will.
+
+She had lost some part of her confidence in him and she shrugged her
+shoulders lightly:
+
+“If d’Albufex has not purloined the list, one man alone can exercise any
+influence; one man alone: Daubrecq.”
+
+She spoke these words in a low and absent voice that made him shudder.
+Was she still thinking, as he had often seemed to feel, of going back to
+Daubrecq and paying him for Gilbert’s life?
+
+“You have sworn an oath to me,” he said. “I’m reminding you of it. It
+was agreed that the struggle with Daubrecq should be directed by me and
+that there would never be a possibility of any arrangement between you
+and him.”
+
+She retorted:
+
+“I don’t even know where he is. If I knew, wouldn’t you know?”
+
+It was an evasive answer. But he did not insist, resolving to watch her
+at the opportune time; and he asked her, for he had not yet been told
+all the details:
+
+“Then it’s not known what became of Daubrecq?”
+
+“No. Of course, one of the Growler’s bullets struck him. For, next day,
+we picked up, in a coppice, a handkerchief covered with blood. Also,
+it seems that a man was seen at Aumale Station, looking very tired and
+walking with great difficulty. He took a ticket for Paris, stepped into
+the first train and that is all...”
+
+“He must be seriously wounded,” said Lupin, “and he is nursing himself
+in some safe retreat. Perhaps, also, he considers it wise to lie low for
+a few weeks and avoid any traps on the part of the police, d’Albufex,
+you, myself and all his other enemies.”
+
+He stopped to think and continued:
+
+“What has happened at Mortepierre since Daubrecq’s escape? Has there
+been no talk in the neighbourhood?”
+
+“No, the rope was removed before daybreak, which proves that Sebastiani
+or his sons discovered Daubrecq’s flight on the same night. Sebastiani
+was away the whole of the next day.”
+
+“Yes, he will have informed the marquis. And where is the marquis
+himself?”
+
+“At home. And, from what the Growler has heard, there is nothing
+suspicious there either.”
+
+“Are they certain that he has not been inside Daubrecq’s house?”
+
+“As certain as they can be.”
+
+“Nor Daubrecq?”
+
+“Nor Daubrecq.”
+
+“Have you seen Prasville?”
+
+“Prasville is away on leave. But Chief-inspector Blanchon, who has
+charge of the case, and the detectives who are guarding the house
+declare that, in accordance with Prasville’s instructions, their watch
+is not relaxed for a moment, even at night; that one of them, turn and
+turn about, is always on duty in the study; and that no one, therefore,
+can have gone in.”
+
+“So, on principle,” Arsene Lupin concluded, “the crystal stopper must
+still be in Daubrecq’s study?”
+
+“If it was there before Daubrecq’s disappearance, it should be there
+now.”
+
+“And on the study-table.”
+
+“On the study-table? Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because I know,” said Lupin, who had not forgotten Sebastiani’s words.
+
+“But you don’t know the article in which the stopper is hidden?”
+
+“No. But a study-table, a writing-desk, is a limited space. One can
+explore it in twenty minutes. One can demolish it, if necessary, in
+ten.”
+
+The conversation had tired Arsene Lupin a little. As he did not wish to
+commit the least imprudence, he said to Clarisse:
+
+“Listen. I will ask you to give me two or three days more. This is
+Monday, the 4th of March. On Wednesday or Thursday, at latest, I shall
+be up and about. And you can be sure that we shall succeed.”
+
+“And, in the meantime...”
+
+“In the meantime, go back to Paris. Take rooms, with the Growler and the
+Masher, in the Hotel Franklin, near the Trocadero, and keep a watch on
+Daubrecq’s house. You are free to go in and out as you please. Stimulate
+the zeal of the detectives on duty.”
+
+“Suppose Daubrecq returns?”
+
+“If he returns, that will be so much the better: we shall have him.”
+
+“And, if he only passes?”
+
+“In that case, the Growler and the Masher must follow him.”
+
+“And if they lose sight of him?”
+
+Lupin did not reply. No one felt more than he how fatal it was to remain
+inactive in a hotel bedroom and how useful his presence would have been
+on the battlefield! Perhaps even this vague idea had already prolonged
+his illness beyond the ordinary limits.
+
+He murmured:
+
+“Go now, please.”
+
+There was a constraint between them which increased as the awful day
+drew nigh. In her injustice, forgetting or wishing to forget that it was
+she who had forced her son into the Enghien enterprise, Mme. Mergy did
+not forget that the law was pursuing Gilbert with such rigour not so
+much because he was a criminal as because he was an accomplice of Arsene
+Lupin’s. And then, notwithstanding all his efforts, notwithstanding his
+prodigious expenditure of energy, what result had Lupin achieved, when
+all was said? How far had his intervention benefited Gilbert?
+
+After a pause, she rose and left him alone.
+
+The next day he was feeling rather low. But on the day after, the
+Wednesday, when his doctor wanted him to keep quiet until the end of the
+week, he said:
+
+“If not, what have I to fear?”
+
+“A return of the fever.”
+
+“Nothing worse?”
+
+“No. The wound is pretty well healed.”
+
+“Then I don’t care. I’ll go back with you in your car. We shall be in
+Paris by mid-day.”
+
+What decided Lupin to start at once was, first, a letter in which
+Clarisse told him that she had found Daubrecq’s traces, and, also, a
+telegram, published in the Amiens papers, which stated that the Marquis
+d’Albufex had been arrested for his complicity in the affair of the
+canal.
+
+Daubrecq was taking his revenge.
+
+Now the fact that Daubrecq was taking his revenge proved that the
+marquis had not been able to prevent that revenge by seizing the
+document which was on the writing-desk in the study. It proved that
+Chief-inspector Blanchon and the detectives had kept a good watch. It
+proved that the crystal stopper was still in the Square Lamartine.
+
+It was still there; and this showed either that Daubrecq had not
+ventured to go home, or else that his state of health hindered him
+from doing so, or else again that he had sufficient confidence in the
+hiding-place not to trouble to put himself out.
+
+In any case, there was no doubt as to the course to be pursued: Lupin
+must act and he must act smartly. He must forestall Daubrecq and get
+hold of the crystal stopper.
+
+When they had crossed the Bois de Boulogne and were nearing the Square
+Lamartine, Lupin took leave of the doctor and stopped the car. The
+Growler and the Masher, to whom he had wired, met him.
+
+“Where’s Mme. Mergy?” he asked.
+
+“She has not been back since yesterday; she sent us an express message
+to say that she saw Daubrecq leaving his cousins’ place and getting into
+a cab. She knows the number of the cab and will keep us informed.”
+
+“Nothing further?”
+
+“Nothing further.”
+
+“No other news?”
+
+“Yes, the Paris-Midi says that d’Albufex opened his veins last night,
+with a piece of broken glass, in his cell at the Sante. He seems to
+have left a long letter behind him, confessing his fault, but accusing
+Daubrecq of his death and exposing the part played by Daubrecq in the
+canal affair.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“No. The same paper stated that it has reason to believe that the
+pardoning commission, after examining the record, has rejected Vaucheray
+and Gilbert’s petition and that their counsel will probably be received
+in audience by the president on Friday.”
+
+Lupin gave a shudder.
+
+“They’re losing no time,” he said. “I can see that Daubrecq, on the very
+first day, put the screw on the old judicial machine. One short week
+more... and the knife falls. My poor Gilbert! If, on Friday next, the
+papers which your counsel submits to the president of the Republic do
+not contain the conditional offer of the list of the Twenty-seven, then,
+my poor Gilbert, you are done for!”
+
+“Come, come, governor, are you losing courage?”
+
+“I? Rot! I shall have the crystal stopper in an hour. In two hours, I
+shall see Gilbert’s counsel. And the nightmare will be over.”
+
+“Well done, governor! That’s like your old self. Shall we wait for you
+here?”
+
+“No, go back to your hotel. I’ll join you later.”
+
+They parted. Lupin walked straight to the house and rang the bell.
+
+A detective opened the door and recognized him:
+
+“M. Nicole, I believe?”
+
+“Yes,” he said. “Is Chief-inspector Blanchon here?”
+
+“He is.”
+
+“Can I speak to him?”
+
+The man took him to the study, where Chief-inspector Blanchon welcomed
+him with obvious pleasure.
+
+“Well, chief-inspector, one would say there was something new?”
+
+“M. Nicole, my orders are to place myself entirely at your disposal; and
+I may say that I am very glad to see you to-day.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Because there is something new.”
+
+“Something serious?”
+
+“Something very serious.”
+
+“Quick, speak.”
+
+“Daubrecq has returned.”
+
+“Eh, what!” exclaimed Lupin, with a start. “Daubrecq returned? Is he
+here?”
+
+“No, he has gone.”
+
+“And did he come in here, in the study?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“This morning.”
+
+“And you did not prevent him?”
+
+“What right had I?”
+
+“And you left him alone?”
+
+“By his positive orders, yes, we left him alone.”
+
+Lupin felt himself turn pale. Daubrecq had come back to fetch the
+crystal stopper!
+
+He was silent for some time and repeated to himself:
+
+“He came back to fetch it... He was afraid that it would be found and he
+has taken it... Of course, it was inevitable... with d’Albufex arrested,
+with d’Albufex accused and accusing him, Daubrecq was bound to defend
+himself. It’s a difficult game for him. After months and months of
+mystery, the public is at last learning that the infernal being who
+contrived the whole tragedy of the Twenty-Seven and who ruins and kills
+his adversaries is he, Daubrecq. What would become of him if, by a
+miracle, his talisman did not protect him? He has taken it back.”
+
+And, trying to make his voice sound firm, he asked:
+
+“Did he stay long?”
+
+“Twenty seconds, perhaps.”
+
+“What! Twenty seconds? No longer?”
+
+“No longer.”
+
+“What time was it?”
+
+“Ten o’clock.”
+
+“Could he have known of the Marquis d’Albufex’ suicide by then?”
+
+“Yes. I saw the special edition of the Paris-Midi in his pocket.”
+
+“That’s it, that’s it,” said Lupin. And he asked, “Did M. Prasville give
+you no special instructions in case Daubrecq should return?”
+
+“No. So, in M. Prasville’s absence, I telephoned to the police-office
+and I am waiting. The disappearance of Daubrecq the deputy caused a
+great stir, as you know, and our presence here has a reason, in the eyes
+of the public, as long as that disappearance continues. But, now that
+Daubrecq has returned, now that we have proofs that he is neither under
+restraint nor dead, how can we stay in the house?”
+
+“It doesn’t matter,” said Lupin, absently. “It doesn’t matter whether
+the house is guarded or not. Daubrecq has been; therefore the crystal
+stopper is no longer here.”
+
+He had not finished the sentence, when a question quite naturally forced
+itself upon his mind. If the crystal stopper was no longer there, would
+this not be obvious from some material sign? Had the removal of that
+object, doubtless contained within another object, left no trace, no
+void?
+
+It was easy to ascertain. Lupin had simply to examine the writing-desk,
+for he knew, from Sebastiani’s chaff, that this was the spot of the
+hiding-place. And the hiding-place could not be a complicated one,
+seeing that Daubrecq had not remained in the study for more than twenty
+seconds, just long enough, so to speak, to walk in and walk out again.
+
+Lupin looked. And the result was immediate. His memory had so faithfully
+recorded the picture of the desk, with all the articles lying on it,
+that the absence of one of them struck him instantaneously, as
+though that article and that alone were the characteristic sign which
+distinguished this particular writing-table from every other table in
+the world.
+
+“Oh,” he thought, quivering with delight, “everything fits in!
+Everything! ... Down to that half-word which the torture drew from
+Daubrecq in the tower at Mortepierre! The riddle is solved. There
+need be no more hesitation, no more groping in the dark. The end is in
+sight.”
+
+And, without answering the inspector’s questions, he thought of
+the simplicity of the hiding-place and remembered Edgar Allan Poe’s
+wonderful story in which the stolen letter, so eagerly sought for, is,
+in a manner of speaking, displayed to all eyes. People do not suspect
+what does not appear to be hidden.
+
+“Well, well,” said Lupin, as he went out, greatly excited by his
+discovery, “I seem doomed, in this confounded adventure, to knock up
+against disappointments to the finish. Everything that I build crumbles
+to pieces at once. Every victory ends in disaster.”
+
+Nevertheless, he did not allow himself to be cast down. On the one hand,
+he now knew where Daubrecq the deputy hid the crystal stopper. On the
+other hand, he would soon learn from Clarisse Mergy where Daubrecq
+himself was lurking. The rest, to him, would be child’s play.
+
+The Growler and the Masher were waiting for him in the drawing-room of
+the Hotel Franklin, a small family-hotel near the Trocadero. Mme. Mergy
+had not yet written to him.
+
+“Oh,” he said, “I can trust her! She will hang on to Daubrecq until she
+is certain.”
+
+However, toward the end of the afternoon, he began to grow impatient and
+anxious. He was fighting one of those battles--the last, he hoped--in
+which the least delay might jeopardize everything. If Daubrecq threw
+Mme. Mergy off the scent, how was he to be caught again? They no longer
+had weeks or days, but only a few hours, a terribly limited number of
+hours, in which to repair any mistakes that they might commit.
+
+He saw the proprietor of the hotel and asked him:
+
+“Are you sure that there is no express letter for my two friends?”
+
+“Quite sure, sir.”
+
+“Nor for me, M. Nicole?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“That’s curious,” said Lupin. “We were certain that we should hear from
+Mme. Audran.”
+
+Audran was the name under which Clarisse was staying at the hotel.
+
+“But the lady has been,” said the proprietor.
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“She came some time ago and, as the gentlemen were not there, left a
+letter in her room. Didn’t the porter tell you?”
+
+Lupin and his friends hurried upstairs. There was a letter on the table.
+
+“Hullo!” said Lupin. “It’s been opened! How is that? And why has it been
+cut about with scissors?”
+
+The letter contained the following lines:
+
+ “Daubrecq has spent the week at the Hotel Central.  This morning
+ he had his luggage taken to the Gare de ---  and telephoned to
+ reserve a berth in the sleeping-car --- for ---
+
+ “I do not know when the train starts.  But I shall be at the
+ station all the afternoon.  Come as soon as you can, all three
+ of you.  We will arrange to kidnap him.”
+
+“What next?” said the Masher. “At which station? And where’s the
+sleeping-car for? She has cut out just the words we wanted!”
+
+“Yes,” said the Growler. “Two snips with the scissors in each place; and
+the words which we most want are gone. Who ever saw such a thing? Has
+Mme. Mergy lost her head?”
+
+Lupin did not move. A rush of blood was beating at his temples with such
+violence that he glued his fists to them and pressed with all his might.
+His fever returned, burning and riotous, and his will, incensed to the
+verge of physical suffering, concentrated itself upon that stealthy
+enemy, which must be controlled then and there, if he himself did not
+wish to be irretrievably beaten.
+
+He muttered, very calmly:
+
+“Daubrecq has been here.”
+
+“Daubrecq!”
+
+“We can’t suppose that Mme. Mergy has been amusing herself by cutting
+out those two words. Daubrecq has been here. Mme. Mergy thought that she
+was watching him. He was watching her instead.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Doubtless through that hall-porter who did not tell us that Mme. Mergy
+had been to the hotel, but who must have told Daubrecq. He came. He
+read the letter. And, by way of getting at us, he contented himself with
+cutting out the essential words.”
+
+“We can find out... we can ask...”
+
+“What’s the good? What’s the use of finding out how he came, when we
+know that he did come?”
+
+He examined the letter for some time, turned it over and over, then
+stood up and said:
+
+“Come along.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“Gare de Lyon.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“I am sure of nothing with Daubrecq. But, as we have to choose,
+according to the contents of the letter, between the Gare de l’Est and
+the Gare de Lyon, [*] I am presuming that his business, his pleasure
+and his health are more likely to take Daubrecq in the direction of
+Marseilles and the Riviera than to the Gare de l’Est.”
+
+     * These are the only two main-line stations in Paris with the
+     word de in their name.  The others have du, as the Gare du
+     Nord or the Gare du Luxembourg, d’ as the Gare d’Orleans, or
+     no participle at all, as the Gare Saint-Lazare or the Gare
+     Montparnasse.--Translator’s Note.
+
+It was past seven when Lupin and his companions left the Hotel Franklin.
+A motor-car took them across Paris at full speed, but they soon saw that
+Clarisse Mergy was not outside the station, nor in the waiting-rooms,
+nor on any of the platforms.
+
+“Still,” muttered Lupin, whose agitation grew as the obstacles
+increased, “still, if Daubrecq booked a berth in a sleeping-car, it can
+only have been in an evening train. And it is barely half-past seven!”
+
+A train was starting, the night express. They had time to rush along the
+corridor. Nobody... neither Mme. Mergy nor Daubrecq...
+
+But, as they were all three going, a porter accosted them near the
+refreshment-room:
+
+“Is one of you gentlemen looking for a lady?”
+
+“Yes, yes,... I am,” said Lupin. “Quick, what is it?”
+
+“Oh, it’s you, sir! The lady told me there might be three of you or two
+of you.... And I didn’t know...”
+
+“But, in heaven’s name, speak, man! What lady?”
+
+“The lady who spent the whole day on the pavement, with the luggage,
+waiting.”
+
+“Well, out with it! Has she taken a train?”
+
+“Yes, the train-de-luxe, at six-thirty: she made up her mind at the last
+moment, she told me to say. And I was also to say that the gentleman was
+in the same train and that they were going to Monte Carlo.”
+
+“Damn it!” muttered Lupin. “We ought to have taken the express just now!
+There’s nothing left but the evening trains, and they crawl! We’ve lost
+over three hours.”
+
+The wait seemed interminable. They booked their seats. They telephoned
+to the proprietor of the Hotel Franklin to send on their letters to
+Monte Carlo. They dined. They read the papers. At last, at half-past
+nine, the train started.
+
+And so, by a really tragic series of circumstances, at the most critical
+moment of the contest, Lupin was turning his back on the battlefield and
+going away, at haphazard, to seek, he knew not where, and beat, he knew
+not how, the most formidable and elusive enemy that he had ever fought.
+
+And this was happening four days, five days at most, before the
+inevitable execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray.
+
+It was a bad and painful night for Lupin. The more he studied the
+situation the more terrible it appeared to him. On every side he was
+faced with uncertainty, darkness, confusion, helplessness.
+
+True, he knew the secret of the crystal stopper. But how was he to know
+that Daubrecq would not change or had not already changed his tactics?
+How was he to know that the list of the Twenty-seven was still inside
+that crystal stopper or that the crystal stopper was still inside the
+object where Daubrecq had first hidden it?
+
+And there was a further serious reason for alarm in the fact that
+Clarisse Mergy thought that she was shadowing and watching Daubrecq at
+a time when, on the contrary, Daubrecq was watching her, having her
+shadowed and dragging her, with diabolical cleverness, toward the places
+selected by himself, far from all help or hope of help.
+
+Oh, Daubrecq’s game was clear as daylight! Did not Lupin know the
+unhappy woman’s hesitations? Did he not know--and the Growler and the
+Masher confirmed it most positively--that Clarisse looked upon the
+infamous bargain planned by Daubrecq in the light of a possible, an
+acceptable thing? In that case, how could he, Lupin, succeed? The logic
+of events, so powerfully moulded by Daubrecq, led to a fatal result: the
+mother must sacrifice herself and, to save her son, throw her scruples,
+her repugnance, her very honour, to the winds!
+
+“Oh, you scoundrel!” snarled Lupin, in a fit of rage. “If I get hold of
+you, I’ll make you dance to a pretty tune! I wouldn’t be in your shoes
+for a great deal, when that happens.”
+
+They reached Monte Carlo at three o’clock in the afternoon. Lupin was at
+once disappointed not to see Clarisse on the platform at the station.
+
+He waited. No messenger came up to him.
+
+He asked the porters and ticket-collectors if they had noticed, among
+the crowd, two travellers answering to the description of Daubrecq and
+Clarisse. They had not.
+
+He had, therefore, to set to work and hunt through all the hotels and
+lodging-houses in the principality. Oh, the time wasted!
+
+By the following evening, Lupin knew, beyond a doubt, that Daubrecq and
+Clarisse were not at Monte Carlo, nor at Monaco, nor at the Cap d’Ail,
+nor at La Turbie, nor at Cap Martin.
+
+“Where can they be then?” he wondered, trembling with rage.
+
+At last, on the Saturday, he received, at the poste restante, a telegram
+which had been readdressed from the Hotel Franklin and which said:
+
+ “He got out at Cannes and is going on to San Remo, Hotel Palace
+ des Ambassadeurs.
+
+         “CLARISSE.”
+
+The telegram was dated the day before.
+
+“Hang it!” exclaimed Lupin. “They passed through Monte Carlo. One of us
+ought to have remained at the station. I did think of it; but, in the
+midst of all that bustle...”
+
+Lupin and his friends took the first train for Italy.
+
+They crossed the frontier at twelve o’clock. The train entered the
+station at San Remo at twelve-forty.
+
+They at once saw an hotel-porter, with “Ambassadeurs-Palace” on his
+braided cap, who seemed to be looking for some one among the arrivals.
+
+Lupin went up to him:
+
+“Are you looking for M. Nicole?”
+
+“Yes, M. Nicole and two gentlemen.”
+
+“From a lady?”
+
+“Yes, Mme. Mergy.”
+
+“Is she staying at your hotel?”
+
+“No. She did not get out. She beckoned to me, described you three
+gentlemen and told me to say that she was going on to Genoa, to the
+Hotel Continental.”
+
+“Was she by herself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Lupin tipped the man, dismissed him and turned to his friends:
+
+“This is Saturday. If the execution takes place on Monday, there’s
+nothing to be done. But Monday is not a likely day... What I have to do
+is to lay hands on Daubrecq to-night and to be in Paris on Monday, with
+the document. It’s our last chance. Let’s take it.”
+
+The Growler went to the booking-office and returned with three tickets
+for Genoa.
+
+The engine whistled.
+
+Lupin had a last hesitation:
+
+“No, really, it’s too childish! What are we doing? We ought to be in
+Paris, not here!... Just think!...”
+
+He was on the point of opening the door and jumping out on the permanent
+way. But his companions held him back. The train started. He sat down
+again.
+
+And they continued their mad pursuit, travelling at random, toward the
+unknown...
+
+And this happened two days before the inevitable execution of Gilbert
+and Vaucheray.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. EXTRA-DRY?
+
+On one of the hills that girdle Nice with the finest scenery in the
+world, between the Vallon de Saint-Silvestre and the Vallon de La
+Mantega, stands a huge hotel which overlooks the town and the wonderful
+Baie des Anges. A crowd flocks to it from all parts, forming a medley of
+every class and nation.
+
+On the evening of the same Saturday when Lupin, the Growler and the
+Masher were plunging into Italy, Clarisse Mergy entered this hotel,
+asked for a bedroom facing south and selected No. 130, on the second
+floor, a room which had been vacant since that morning.
+
+The room was separated from No. 129 by two partition-doors. As soon as
+she was alone, Clarisse pulled back the curtain that concealed the first
+door, noiselessly drew the bolt and put her ear to the second door:
+
+“He is here,” she thought. “He is dressing to go to the club... as he
+did yesterday.”
+
+When her neighbour had gone, she went into the passage and, availing
+herself of a moment when there was no one in sight, walked up to the
+door of No. 129. The door was locked.
+
+She waited all the evening for her neighbour’s return and did not go to
+bed until two o’clock. On Sunday morning, she resumed her watch.
+
+The neighbour went out at eleven. This time he left the key in the door.
+
+Hurriedly turning the key, Clarisse entered boldly, went to the
+partition-door, raised the curtain, drew the bolt and found herself in
+her own room.
+
+In a few minutes, she heard two chambermaids doing the room in No. 129.
+
+She waited until they were gone. Then, feeling sure that she would not
+be disturbed, she once more slipped into the other room.
+
+Her excitement made her lean against a chair. After days and nights of
+stubborn pursuit, after alternate hopes and disappointments, she had at
+last succeeded in entering a room occupied by Daubrecq. She could look
+about at her ease; and, if she did not discover the crystal stopper, she
+could at least hide in the space between the partition-doors, behind the
+hanging, see Daubrecq, spy upon his movements and surprise his secret.
+
+She looked around her. A travelling-bag at once caught her attention.
+She managed to open it; but her search was useless.
+
+She ransacked the trays of a trunk and the compartments of a
+portmanteau. She searched the wardrobe, the writing-table, the chest
+of drawers, the bathroom, all the tables, all the furniture. She found
+nothing.
+
+She gave a start when she saw a scrap of paper on the balcony, lying as
+though flung there by accident:
+
+“Can it be a trick of Daubrecq’s?” she thought, out loud. “Can that
+scrap of paper contain...”
+
+“No,” said a voice behind her, as she put her hand on the latch.
+
+She turned and saw Daubrecq.
+
+She felt neither astonishment nor alarm, nor even any embarrassment at
+finding herself face to face with him. She had suffered too deeply for
+months to trouble about what Daubrecq could think of her or say, at
+catching her in the act of spying.
+
+She sat down wearily.
+
+He grinned:
+
+“No, you’re out of it, dear friend. As the children say, you’re not
+‘burning’ at all. Oh, not a bit of it! And it’s so easy! Shall I help
+you? It’s next to you, dear friend, on that little table... And yet,
+by Jove, there’s not much on that little table! Something to read,
+something to write with, something to smoke, something to eat... and
+that’s all... Will you have one of these candied fruits?... Or perhaps
+you would rather wait for the more substantial meal which I have
+ordered?”
+
+Clarisse made no reply. She did not even seem to listen to what he was
+saying, as though she expected other words, more serious words, which he
+could not fail to utter.
+
+He cleared the table of all the things that lay upon it and put them on
+the mantel-piece. Then he rang the bell.
+
+A head-waiter appeared. Daubrecq asked:
+
+“Is the lunch which I ordered ready?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“It’s for two, isn’t it?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And the champagne?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Extra-dry?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Another waiter brought a tray and laid two covers on the table: a cold
+lunch, some fruit and a bottle of champagne in an ice-pail.
+
+Then the two waiters withdrew.
+
+“Sit down, dear lady. As you see, I was thinking of you and your cover
+is laid.”
+
+And, without seeming to observe that Clarisse was not at all prepared to
+do honour to his invitation, he sat down, began to eat and continued:
+
+“Yes, upon my word, I hoped that you would end by consenting to this
+little private meeting. During the past week, while you were keeping so
+assiduous a watch upon me, I did nothing but say to myself, ‘I wonder
+which she prefers: sweet champagne, dry champagne, or extra-dry?’ I was
+really puzzled. Especially after our departure from Paris. I had
+lost your tracks, that is to say, I feared that you had lost mine and
+abandoned the pursuit which was so gratifying to me. When I went for a
+walk, I missed your beautiful dark eyes, gleaming with hatred under your
+hair just touched with gray. But, this morning, I understood: the room
+next to mine was empty at last; and my friend Clarisse was able to take
+up her quarters, so to speak, by my bedside. From that moment I was
+reassured. I felt certain that, on coming back--instead of lunching in
+the restaurant as usual--I should find you arranging my things to your
+convenience and suiting your own taste. That was why I ordered two
+covers: one for your humble servant, the other for his fair friend.”
+
+She was listening to him now and in the greatest terror. So Daubrecq
+knew that he was spied upon! For a whole week he had seen through her
+and all her schemes!
+
+In a low voice, anxious-eyed, she asked:
+
+“You did it on purpose, did you not? You only went away to drag me with
+you?”
+
+“Yes,” he said.
+
+“But why? Why?”
+
+“Do you mean to say that you don’t know?” retorted Daubrecq, laughing
+with a little cluck of delight.
+
+She half-rose from her chair and, bending toward him, thought, as she
+thought each time, of the murder which she could commit, of the murder
+which she would commit. One revolver-shot and the odious brute was done
+for.
+
+Slowly her hand glided to the weapon concealed in her bodice.
+
+Daubrecq said:
+
+“One second, dear friend... You can shoot presently; but I beg you first
+to read this wire which I have just received.”
+
+She hesitated, not knowing what trap he was laying for her; but he went
+on, as he produced a telegram:
+
+“It’s about your son.”
+
+“Gilbert?” she asked, greatly concerned.
+
+“Yes, Gilbert... Here, read it.”
+
+She gave a yell of dismay. She had read:
+
+ “Execution on Tuesday morning.”
+
+And she at once flung herself on Daubrecq, crying:
+
+“It’s not true!... It’s a lie... to madden me... Oh, I know you: you are
+capable of anything! Confess! It won’t be on Tuesday, will it? In two
+days! No, no... I tell you, we have four days yet, five days, in which
+to save him... Confess it, confess it!”
+
+She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and her
+voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds.
+
+He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of
+champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and down
+the room, came back to her and said:
+
+“Listen to me, darling...”
+
+The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew herself
+up and, panting with indignation, said:
+
+“I forbid you... I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not
+accept such an outrage. You wretch!...”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and resumed:
+
+“Pah, I see you’re not quite alive to the position. That comes,
+of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter.
+Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you are...
+My dear friend, a forlorn hope... You must know that Prasville is mixed
+up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is to say, his name is not on
+the list of the Twenty-seven; but it is there under the name of one of
+his friends, an ex-deputy called Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his
+man of straw, apparently: a penniless individual whom I left alone and
+rightly. I knew nothing of all that until this morning, when, lo and
+behold, I received a letter informing me of the existence of a bundle of
+documents which prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville!
+And who is my informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of
+living in poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of
+being arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And
+Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that
+he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he’s annoyed me long
+enough! Prasville, old boy, you’ve deserved it...”
+
+He rubbed his hands together, revelling in his coming revenge. And he
+continued:
+
+“You see, my dear Clarisse... there’s nothing to be done in that
+direction. What then? What straw will you cling to? Why, I was
+forgetting: M. Arsene Lupin! Mr. Growler! Mr. Masher!... Pah, you’ll
+admit that those gentlemen have not shone and that all their feats of
+prowess have not prevented me from going my own little way. It was bound
+to be. Those fellows imagine that there’s no one to equal them. When
+they meet an adversary like myself, one who is not to be bounced, it
+upsets them and they make blunder after blunder, while still believing
+that they are hoodwinking him like mad. Schoolboys, that’s what
+they are! However, as you seem to have some illusions left about the
+aforesaid Lupin, as you are counting on that poor devil to crush me and
+to work a miracle in favour of your innocent Gilbert, come, let’s dispel
+that illusion. Oh! Lupin! Lord above, she believes in Lupin! She
+places her last hopes in Lupin! Lupin! Just wait till I prick you, my
+illustrious windbag!”
+
+He took up the receiver of the telephone which communicated with the
+hall of the hotel and said:
+
+“I’m No. 129, mademoiselle. Would you kindly ask the person sitting
+opposite your office to come up to me?... Huh!... Yes, mademoiselle, the
+gentleman in a gray felt hat. He knows. Thank you, mademoiselle.”
+
+Hanging up the receiver, he turned to Clarisse:
+
+“Don’t be afraid. The man is discretion itself. Besides, it’s the motto
+of his trade: ‘Discretion and dispatch.’ As a retired detective, he has
+done me a number of services, including that of following you while you
+were following me. Since our arrival in the south, he has been less
+busy with you; but that was because he was more busy elsewhere. Come in,
+Jacob.”
+
+He himself opened the door, and a short, thin man, with a red moustache,
+entered the room.
+
+“Please tell this lady, Jacob, in a few brief words, what you have
+done since Wednesday evening, when, after letting her get into the
+train-de-luxe which was taking me from the Gare de Lyon to the south,
+you yourself remained on the platform at the station. Of course, I am
+not asking how you spent your time, except in so far as concerns the
+lady and the business with which I entrusted you.”
+
+Jacob dived into the inside-pocket of his jacket and produced a little
+note-book of which he turned over the pages and read them aloud in the
+voice of a man reading a report:
+
+“Wednesday evening, 8.15. Gare de Lyon. Wait for two gents, Growler and
+Masher. They come with another whom I don’t know yet, but who can only
+be M. Nicole. Give a porter ten francs for the loan of his cap and
+blouse. Accost the gents and tell them, from a lady, ‘that they were
+gone to Monte Carlo.’ Next, telephone to the porter at the Hotel
+Franklin. All telegrams sent to his boss and dispatched by said boss
+will be read by said hotel-porter and, if necessary, intercepted.
+
+“Thursday. Monte Carlo. The three gents search the hotels.
+
+“Friday. Flying visits to La Turbie, the Cap d’Ail, Cap Martin. M.
+Daubrecq rings me up. Thinks it wiser to send the gents to Italy. Make
+the porter of the Hotel Franklin send them a telegram appointing a
+meeting at San Remo.
+
+“Saturday. San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of the
+Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap. The three gents
+arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that a lady traveller,
+Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the Hotel Continental. The gents
+hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get out. The others hold him back. The
+train starts. Good luck, gents! An hour later, I take the train for
+France and get out at Nice, to await fresh orders.”
+
+Jacob closed his note-book and concluded:
+
+“That’s all. To-day’s doings will be entered this evening.”
+
+“You can enter them now, M. Jacob. ‘12 noon. M. Daubrecq sends me to the
+Wagon-Lits Co. I book two berths in the Paris sleeping-car, by the 2.48
+train, and send them to M. Daubrecq by express messenger. Then I take
+the 12.58 train for Vintimille, the frontier-station, where I spend
+the day on the platform watching all the travellers who come to France.
+Should Messrs. Nicole, Growler and Masher take it into their heads to
+leave Italy and return to Paris by way of Nice, my instructions are to
+telegraph to the headquarters of police that Master Arsene Lupin and two
+of his accomplices are in train number so-and-so.”
+
+While speaking, Daubrecq led Jacob to the door. He closed it after him,
+turned the key, pushed the bolt and, going up to Clarisse, said:
+
+“And now, darling, listen to me.”
+
+This time, she uttered no protest. What could she do against such an
+enemy, so powerful, so resourceful, who provided for everything, down to
+the minutest details, and who toyed with his adversaries in such an airy
+fashion? Even if she had hoped till then for Lupin’s interference, how
+could she do so now, when he was wandering through Italy in pursuit of a
+shadow?
+
+She understood at last why three telegrams which she had sent to the
+Hotel Franklin had remained unanswered. Daubrecq was there, lurking in
+the dark, watching, establishing a void around her, separating her from
+her comrades in the fight, bringing her gradually, a beaten prisoner,
+within the four walls of that room.
+
+She felt her weakness. She was at the monster’s mercy. She must be
+silent and resigned.
+
+He repeated, with an evil delight:
+
+“Listen to me, darling. Listen to the irrevocable words which I am about
+to speak. Listen to them well. It is now 12 o’clock. The last train
+starts at 2.48: you understand, the last train that can bring me to
+Paris to-morrow, Monday, in time to save your son. The evening-trains
+would arrive too late. The trains-de-luxe are full up. Therefore I shall
+have to start at 2.48. Am I to start?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Our berths are booked. Will you come with me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You know my conditions for interfering?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Do you accept them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You will marry me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a sort of
+awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was promising. Let
+him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the engine of death whose
+vision haunted her day and night... And then... and then... let what
+must come come...
+
+He burst out laughing:
+
+“Oh, you rogue, it’s easily said!... You’re ready to pledge yourself to
+anything, eh? The great thing is to save Gilbert, isn’t it? Afterward,
+when that noodle of a Daubrecq comes with his engagement-ring, not a
+bit of it! Nothing doing! We’ll laugh in his face!... No, no, enough
+of empty words. I don’t want promises that won’t be kept: I want facts,
+immediate facts.”
+
+He came and sat close beside her and stated, plainly:
+
+“This is what I propose... what must be... what shall be... I will ask,
+or rather I will demand, not Gilbert’s pardon, to begin with, but a
+reprieve, a postponement of the execution, a postponement of three
+or four weeks. They will invent a pretext of some sort: that’s not my
+affair. And, when Mme. Mergy has become Mme. Daubrecq, then and not till
+then will I ask for his pardon, that is to say, the commutation of his
+sentence. And make yourself quite easy: they’ll grant it.”
+
+“I accept... I accept,” she stammered.
+
+He laughed once more:
+
+“Yes, you accept, because that will happen in a month’s time... and
+meanwhile you reckon on finding some trick, an assistance of some kind
+or another... M. Arsene Lupin...”
+
+“I swear it on the head of my son.”
+
+“The head of your son!... Why, my poor pet, you would sell yourself to
+the devil to save it from falling!...”
+
+“Oh, yes,” she whispered, shuddering. “I would gladly sell my soul!”
+
+He sidled up against her and, in a low voice:
+
+“Clarisse, it’s not your soul I ask for... It’s something else... For
+more than twenty years my life has spun around that longing. You are the
+only woman I have ever loved... Loathe me, hate me--I don’t care--but do
+not spurn me... Am I to wait? To wait another month?... No, Clarisse, I
+have waited too many years already...”
+
+He ventured to touch her hand. Clarisse shrank back with such disgust
+that he was seized with fury and cried:
+
+“Oh, I swear to heaven, my beauty, the executioner won’t stand on such
+ceremony when he catches hold of your son!... And you give yourself
+airs! Why, think, it’ll happen in forty hours! Forty hours, no more, and
+you hesitate... and you have scruples, when your son’s life is at stake!
+Come, come, no whimpering, no silly sentimentality... Look things in
+the face. By your own oath, you are my wife, you are my bride from this
+moment... Clarisse, Clarisse, give me your lips...”
+
+Half-fainting, she had hardly the strength to put out her arm and push
+him away; and, with a cynicism in which all his abominable nature stood
+revealed, Daubrecq, mingling words of cruelty and words of passion,
+continued:
+
+“Save your son!... Think of the last morning: the preparations for the
+scaffold, when they snip away his shirt and cut his hair... Clarisse,
+Clarisse, I will save him... Be sure of it... All my life shall be yours
+... Clarisse...”
+
+She no longer resisted. It was over. The loathsome brute’s lips were
+about to touch hers; and it had to be, and nothing could prevent it.
+It was her duty to obey the decree of fate. She had long known it. She
+understood it; and, closing her eyes, so as not to see the foul face
+that was slowly raised to hers, she repeated to herself:
+
+“My son... my poor son.”
+
+A few seconds passed: ten, twenty perhaps. Daubrecq did not move.
+Daubrecq did not speak. And she was astounded at that great silence and
+that sudden quiet. Did the monster, at the last moment, feel a scruple
+of remorse?
+
+She raised her eyelids.
+
+The sight which she beheld struck her with stupefaction. Instead of
+the grinning features which she expected to see, she saw a motionless,
+unrecognizable face, contorted by an expression of unspeakable terror:
+and the eyes, invisible under the double impediment of the spectacles,
+seemed to be staring above her head, above the chair in which she lay
+prostrate.
+
+Clarisse turned her face. Two revolver-barrels, pointed at Daubrecq,
+showed on the right, a little above the chair. She saw only that: those
+two huge, formidable revolvers, gripped in two clenched hands. She saw
+only that and also Daubrecq’s face, which fear was discolouring little
+by little, until it turned livid. And, almost at the same time, some one
+slipped behind Daubrecq, sprang up fiercely, flung one of his arms round
+Daubrecq’s neck, threw him to the ground with incredible violence and
+applied a pad of cotton-wool to his face. A sudden smell of chloroform
+filled the room.
+
+Clarisse had recognized M. Nicole.
+
+“Come along, Growler!” he cried. “Come along, Masher! Drop your
+shooters: I’ve got him! He’s a limp rag... Tie him up.”
+
+Daubrecq, in fact, was bending in two and falling on his knees like a
+disjointed doll. Under the action of the chloroform, the fearsome brute
+sank into impotence, became harmless and grotesque.
+
+The Growler and the Masher rolled him in one of the blankets of the bed
+and tied him up securely.
+
+“That’s it! That’s it!” shouted Lupin, leaping to his feet.
+
+And, in a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig
+in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the
+contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the
+acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a drunken
+man. And he announced, as though they were the numbers in a music-hall
+performance:
+
+“The prisoner’s dance!... The captive’s hornpipe!... A fantasia on the
+corpse of a representative of the people!... The chloroform polka!...
+The two-step of the conquered goggles! Olle! Olle! The blackmailer’s
+fandango! Hoot! Hoot! The McDaubrecq’s fling!... The turkey trot!...
+And the bunny hug!... And the grizzly bear!... The Tyrolean dance:
+tra-la-liety!... Allons, enfants de la partie!... Zing, boum, boum!
+Zing, boum, boum!...”
+
+All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of gaiety, so long
+suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and
+betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits and a
+picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot.
+
+He gave a last high kick, turned a series of cartwheels round the
+room and ended by standing with his hands on his hips and one foot on
+Daubrecq’s lifeless body.
+
+“An allegorical tableau!” he announced. “The angel of virtue destroying
+the hydra of vice!”
+
+And the humour of the scene was twice as great because Lupin was
+appearing under the aspect of M. Nicole, in the clothes and figure of
+that wizened, awkward, nervous private tutor.
+
+A sad smile flickered across Mme. Mergy’s face, her first smile for
+many a long month. But, at once returning to the reality of things, she
+besought him:
+
+“Please, please... think of Gilbert!”
+
+He ran up to her, caught her in his arms and, obeying a spontaneous
+impulse, so frank that she could but laugh at it, gave her a resounding
+kiss on either cheek:
+
+“There, lady, that’s the kiss of a decent man! Instead of Daubrecq, it’s
+I kissing you... Another word and I’ll do it again... and I’ll call you
+darling next... Be angry with me, if you dare. Oh, how happy I am!”
+
+He knelt before her on one knee. And, respectfully:
+
+“I beg your pardon, madame. The fit is over.”
+
+And, getting up again, resuming his whimsical manner, he continued,
+while Clarisse wondered what he was driving at:
+
+“What’s the next article, madame? Your son’s pardon, perhaps? Certainly!
+Madame, I have the honour to grant you the pardon of your son, the
+commutation of his sentence to penal servitude for life and, to wind
+up with, his early escape. It’s settled, eh, Growler? Settled, Masher,
+what? You’ll both go with the boy to New Caledonia and arrange for
+everything. Oh, my dear Daubrecq, we owe you a great debt! But I’m not
+forgetting you, believe me! What would you like? A last pipe? Coming,
+coming!”
+
+He took one of the pipes from the mantel-piece, stooped over the
+prisoner, shifted his pad and thrust the amber mouth-piece between his
+teeth:
+
+“Draw, old chap, draw. Lord, how funny you look, with your plug over
+your nose and your cutty in your mouth. Come, puff away. By Jove, I
+forgot to fill your pipe! Where’s your tobacco, your favourite Maryland?
+... Oh, here we are!...”
+
+He took from the chimney an unopened yellow packet and tore off the
+government band:
+
+“His lordship’s tobacco! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on me!
+This is a great moment. I am about to fill his lordship’s pipe: by
+Jupiter, what an honour! Observe my movements! You see, I have nothing
+in my hands, nothing up my sleeves!...”
+
+He turned back his cuffs and stuck out his elbows. Then he opened the
+packet and inserted his thumb and fore-finger, slowly, gingerly, like a
+conjurer performing a sleight-of-hand trick before a puzzled audience,
+and, beaming all over his face, extracted from the tobacco a glittering
+object which he held out before the spectators.
+
+Clarisse uttered a cry.
+
+It was the crystal stopper.
+
+She rushed at Lupin and snatched it from him:
+
+“That’s it; that’s the one!” she exclaimed, feverishly. “There’s no
+scratch on the stem! And look at this line running down the middle,
+where the gilt finishes... That’s it; it unscrews!... Oh, dear, my
+strength’s going!...” She trembled so violently that Lupin took back the
+stopper and unscrewed it himself.
+
+The inside of the knob was hollow; and in the hollow space was a piece
+of paper rolled into a tiny pellet.
+
+“The foreign-post-paper,” he whispered, himself greatly excited, with
+quivering hands.
+
+There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were ready to
+burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was coming.
+
+“Please, please...” stammered Clarisse.
+
+Lupin unfolded the paper.
+
+There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven of
+them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux, Dechaumont,
+Vorenglade, d’Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest.
+
+And, at the foot, the signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas Canal
+Company, the signature written in letters of blood.
+
+Lupin looked at his watch:
+
+“A quarter to one,” he said. “We have twenty minutes to spare. Let’s
+have some lunch.”
+
+“But,” said Clarisse, who was already beginning to lose her head, “don’t
+forget...”
+
+He simply said:
+
+“All I know is that I’m dying of hunger.”
+
+He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and said
+to his accomplices:
+
+“Growler? A bite? You, Masher?”
+
+“I could do with a mouthful, governor.”
+
+“Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champage to wash it down with: it’s
+the chloroform-patient’s treat. Your health, Daubrecq! Sweet champagne?
+Dry champagne? Extra-dry?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE CROSS OF LORRAINE
+
+The moment Lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak,
+without transition, recovered all his mastery and authority. The
+time for joking was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of
+astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks. Now that he had
+discovered the crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he had
+guessed with absolute certainty, now that he possessed the list of the
+Twenty-seven, it became a question of playing off the last game of the
+rubber without delay.
+
+It was child’s play, no doubt, and what remained to be done presented no
+difficulty. Nevertheless, it was essential that he should perform these
+final actions with promptness, decision and infallible perspicacity. The
+smallest blunder was irretrievable. Lupin knew this; but his strangely
+lucid brain had allowed for every contingency. And the movements and
+words which he was now about to make and utter were all fully prepared
+and matured:
+
+“Growler, the commissionaire is waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta with
+his barrow and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here and have the
+trunk carried up. If the people of the hotel ask any questions, say it’s
+for the lady in No. 130.”
+
+Then, addressing his other companion:
+
+“Masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. The price
+is arranged: ten thousand francs. Buy a chauffeur’s cap and overcoat and
+bring the car to the hotel.”
+
+“The money, governor.”
+
+Lupin opened a pocketbook which had been removed from Daubrecq’s jacket
+and produced a huge bundle of bank-notes. He separated ten of them:
+
+“Here you are. Our friend appears to have been doing well at the club.
+Off with you, Masher!”
+
+The two men went out through Clarisse’s room. Lupin availed himself of
+a moment when Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the pocketbook
+with the greatest satisfaction:
+
+“I shall have done a fair stroke of business,” he said to himself. “When
+all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; and it’s
+not over yet.”
+
+Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:
+
+“Have you a bag?”
+
+“Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few
+necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared.”
+
+“Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are
+expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station
+cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your
+room; and tell them that you are leaving.”
+
+When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets
+and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.
+
+The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker hamper
+covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse’s room. Assisted by
+Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put him in the trunk,
+in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid
+being fastened:
+
+“I don’t say that it’s as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car,
+my dear deputy,” Lupin observed. “But, all the same, it’s better than a
+coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little holes in each side. You
+have nothing to complain of!”
+
+Then, unstopping a flask:
+
+“A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!...”
+
+He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the
+Growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they
+had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.
+
+“Capital!” said Lupin. “That trunk is fit to go round the world. Lock it
+and strap it.”
+
+The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur’s livery:
+
+“The car’s below, governor.”
+
+“Good,” he said. “Take the trunk down between you. It would be dangerous
+to give it to the hotel-servants.”
+
+“But if any one meets us?”
+
+“Well, what then, Masher? Aren’t you a chauffeur? You’re carrying the
+trunk of your employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who will
+also go down, step into her motor... and wait for me two hundred yards
+farther on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first lock the
+partition-door!”
+
+Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt,
+walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.
+
+In the office, he said:
+
+“M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me
+to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were to keep
+his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the key.”
+
+He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found Clarisse
+lamenting:
+
+“We shall never be in Paris to-morrow! It’s madness! The least
+breakdown...”
+
+“That’s why you and I are going to take the train. It’s safer...”
+
+He put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two men:
+
+“Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You’re to
+drive and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you ought to be in
+Paris between six and seven to-morrow evening. But don’t force the pace.
+I’m keeping Daubrecq, not because I want him for my plans, but as a
+hostage... and then by way of precaution... I like to feel that I can
+lay my hands on him during the next few days. So look after the dear
+fellow... Give him a few drops of chloroform every three or four hours:
+it’s his one weakness... Off with you, Masher... And you, Daubrecq,
+don’t get excited up there. The roof’ll bear you all right... If you
+feel at all sick, don’t mind... Off you go, Masher!”
+
+He watched the car move into the distance and then told the cabman to
+drive to a post-office, where he dispatched a telegram in these words:
+
+ “M. Prasville, Prefecture de Police, Paris:
+
+ “Person found.  Will bring you document eleven o’clock
+ to-morrow morning.  Urgent communication.
+
+        “CLARISSE.”
+
+Clarisse and Lupin reached the station by half-past two.
+
+“If only there’s room!” said Clarisse, who was alarmed at the least
+thing.
+
+“Room? Why, our berths are booked!”
+
+“By whom?”
+
+“By Jacob... by Daubrecq.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Why, at the office of the hotel they gave me a letter which had come
+for Daubrecq by express. It was the two berths which Jacob had sent him.
+Also, I have his deputy’s pass. So we shall travel under the name of M.
+and Mme. Daubrecq and we shall receive all the attention due to our rank
+and station. You see, my dear madam, that everything’s arranged.”
+
+The journey, this time, seemed short to Lupin. Clarisse told him what
+she had done during the past few days. He himself explained the miracle
+of his sudden appearance in Daubrecq’s bedroom at the moment when his
+adversary believed him in Italy:
+
+“A miracle, no,” he said. “But still a remarkable phenomenon took
+place in me when I left San Remo, a sort of mysterious intuition which
+prompted me first to try and jump out of the train--and the Masher
+prevented me--and next to rush to the window, let down the glass and
+follow the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace, who had given me your
+message, with my eyes. Well, at that very minute, the porter aforesaid
+was rubbing his hands with an air of such satisfaction that, for no
+other reason, suddenly, I understood everything: I had been diddled,
+taken in by Daubrecq, as you yourself were. Heaps of little details
+flashed across my mind. My adversary’s scheme became clear to me from
+start to finish. Another minute... and the disaster would have been
+beyond remedy. I had, I confess, a few moments of real despair, at the
+thought that I should not be able to repair all the mistakes that had
+been made. It depended simply on the time-table of the trains, which
+would either allow me or would not allow me to find Daubrecq’s emissary
+on the railway-platform at San Remo. This time, at last, chance favoured
+me. We had hardly alighted at the first station when a train passed, for
+France. When we arrived at San Remo, the man was there. I had guessed
+right. He no longer wore his hotel-porter’s cap and frock-coat, but a
+jacket and bowler. He stepped into a second-class compartment. From that
+moment, victory was assured.”
+
+“But... how...?” asked Clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts that
+obsessed her, was interested in Lupin’s story.
+
+“How did I find you? Lord, simply by not losing sight of Master Jacob,
+while leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing that he was
+bound to account for his actions to Daubrecq. In point of fact, this
+morning, after spending the night in a small hotel at Nice, he met
+Daubrecq on the Promenade des Anglais. They talked for some time. I
+followed them. Daubrecq went back to the hotel, planted Jacob in one
+of the passages on the ground-floor, opposite the telephone-office, and
+went up in the lift. Ten minutes later I knew the number of his room and
+knew that a lady had been occupying the next room, No. 130, since the
+day before. ‘I believe we’ve done it,’ I said to the Growler and the
+Masher. I tapped lightly at your door. No answer. And the door was
+locked.”
+
+“Well?” asked Clarisse.
+
+“Well, we opened it. Do you think there’s only one key in the world
+that will work a lock? So I walked in. Nobody in your room. But the
+partition-door was ajar. I slipped through it. Thenceforth, a mere
+hanging separated me from you, from Daubrecq and from the packet of
+tobacco which I saw on the chimney-slab.”
+
+“Then you knew the hiding-place?”
+
+“A look round Daubrecq’s study in Paris showed me that that packet of
+tobacco had disappeared. Besides...”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I knew, from certain confessions wrung from Daubrecq in the Lovers’
+Tower, that the word Marie held the key to the riddle. Since then I had
+certainly thought of this word, but with the preconceived notion that
+it was spelt M A R I E. Well, it was really the first two syllables of
+another word, which I guessed, so to speak, only at the moment when I
+was struck by the absence of the packet of tobacco.”
+
+“What word do you mean?”
+
+“Maryland, Maryland tobacco, the only tobacco that Daubrecq smokes.”
+
+And Lupin began to laugh:
+
+“Wasn’t it silly? And, at the same time, wasn’t it clever of Daubrecq?
+We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. Didn’t I unscrew the
+brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal
+stopper? But how could I have thought, how could any one, however great
+his perspicacity, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet
+of Maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the
+State, under the control of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The
+State the accomplice of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue
+Awfice lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no!
+The Regie [*] is not perfect. It makes matches that won’t light and
+cigarettes filled with hay. But there’s all the difference in the world
+between recognizing that fact and believing the Inland Revenue to be
+in league with Daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of the
+Twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government and the
+enterprising efforts of Arsene Lupin! Observe that all Daubrecq had to
+do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band
+a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove the
+tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe also that all we had to do, in
+Paris, was to take the packet in our hands and examine it, in order to
+discover the hiding-place. No matter! The packet itself, the plug of
+Maryland made up and passed by the State and by the Inland Revenue
+Office, was a sacred, intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! And
+nobody opened it. That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed that
+untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among
+his pipes and among other unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on
+earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into
+that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides...” Lupin
+went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of Maryland and the
+crystal stopper. His adversary’s ingenuity and shrewdness interested him
+all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him.
+But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as
+to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped
+in her own thoughts and hardly listened to him.
+
+     * The department of the French excise which holds the
+     monopoly for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars,
+     cigarettes and matches--Translator’s Note.
+
+
+“Are you sure,” she kept on repeating, “that you will succeed?”
+
+“Absolutely sure.”
+
+“But Prasville is not in Paris.”
+
+“If he’s not there, he’s at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday.
+In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once.”
+
+“And do you think that he has enough influence?”
+
+“To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he
+had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent
+enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act
+without a moment’s delay.”
+
+“But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?”
+
+“Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than
+any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have twenty
+proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of all that he
+was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the
+list. They knew it; and that was all. He did not use the list, but he
+had it. And, having it, he killed your husband. He built up his fortune
+on the ruin and the disgrace of the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of
+the gamest of the lot, d’Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take
+it from me, as the price of handing over that list, we could ask for
+anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less
+than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they
+will take us for idiots. What! We have in our hands...”
+
+He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast asleep
+in front of him.
+
+They reached Paris at eight o’clock in the morning.
+
+Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the Place de
+Clichy.
+
+One was from the Masher, dispatched from Avignon on the previous day
+and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to keep their
+appointment punctually that evening. The other was from Prasville, dated
+from the Havre and addressed to Clarisse:
+
+ “Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning.  Come to my office
+ five o’clock.  Reckon on you absolutely.”
+
+“Five o’clock!” said Clarisse. “How late!”
+
+“It’s a first-rate hour,” declared Lupin.
+
+“Still, if...”
+
+“If the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what you
+mean to say?... Don’t be afraid to speak out, for the execution will not
+take place.”
+
+“The newspapers...”
+
+“You haven’t read the newspapers and you are not to read them. Nothing
+that they can say matters in the least. One thing alone matters: our
+interview with Prasville. Besides...”
+
+He took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on
+Clarisse’s shoulder, said:
+
+“Lie down here, on the sofa, and take a few drops of this mixture.”
+
+“What’s it for?”
+
+“It will make you sleep for a few hours... and forget. That’s always so
+much gained.”
+
+“No, no,” protested Clarisse, “I don’t want to. Gilbert is not asleep.
+He is not forgetting.”
+
+“Drink it,” said Lupin, with gentle insistence. She yielded all of a
+sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she was
+told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. In a few minutes she was
+asleep.
+
+Lupin rang for his servant:
+
+“The newspapers... quick!... Have you bought them?”
+
+“Here they are, governor.”
+
+Lupin opened one of them and at once read the following lines:
+
+   “ARSENE LUPIN’S ACCOMPLICES”
+
+  “We know from a positive source that Arsene Lupin’s
+  accomplices, Gilbert and Vaucheray, will be executed
+  to-morrow, Tuesday, morning. M. Deibler has inspected
+  the scaffold.  Everything is ready.”
+
+He raised his head with a defiant look.
+
+“Arsene Lupin’s accomplices! The execution of Arsene Lupin’s
+accomplices! What a fine spectacle! And what a crowd there will be to
+witness it! Sorry, gentlemen, but the curtain will not rise. Theatre
+closed by order of the authorities. And the authorities are myself!”
+
+He struck his chest violently, with an arrogant gesture:
+
+“The authorities are myself!”
+
+At twelve o’clock Lupin received a telegram which the Masher had sent
+from Lyons:
+
+“All well. Goods will arrive without damage.”
+
+At three o’clock Clarisse woke. Her first words were:
+
+“Is it to be to-morrow?”
+
+He did not answer. But she saw him look so calm and smiling that she
+felt herself permeated with an immense sense of peace and received the
+impression that everything was finished, disentangled, settled according
+to her companion’s will.
+
+They left the house at ten minutes past four. Prasville’s secretary, who
+had received his chief’s instructions by telephone, showed them into the
+office and asked them to wait. It was a quarter to five.
+
+Prasville came running in at five o’clock exactly and, at once, cried:
+
+“Have you the list?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Give it me.”
+
+He put out his hand. Clarisse, who had risen from her chair, did not
+stir.
+
+Prasville looked at her for a moment, hesitated and sat down. He
+understood. In pursuing Daubrecq, Clarisse Mergy had not acted only
+from hatred and the desire for revenge. Another motive prompted her. The
+paper would not be handed over except upon conditions.
+
+“Sit down, please,” he said, thus showing that he accepted the
+discussion.
+
+Clarisse resumed her seat and, when she remained silent, Prasville said:
+
+“Speak, my friend, and speak quite frankly. I do not scruple to say that
+we wish to have that paper.”
+
+“If it is only a wish,” remarked Clarisse, whom Lupin had coached in
+her part down to the least detail, “if it is only a wish, I fear that we
+shall not be able to come to an arrangement.”
+
+Prasville smiled:
+
+“The wish, obviously, would lead us to make certain sacrifices.”
+
+“Every sacrifice,” said Mme. Mergy, correcting him.
+
+“Every sacrifice, provided, of course, that we keep within the bounds of
+acceptable requirements.”
+
+“And even if we go beyond those bounds,” said Clarisse, inflexibly.
+
+Prasville began to lose patience:
+
+“Come, what is it all about? Explain yourself.”
+
+“Forgive me, my friend, but I wanted above all to mark the great
+importance which you attach to that paper and, in view of the immediate
+transaction which we are about to conclude, to specify--what shall I
+say?--the value of my share in it. That value, which has no limits,
+must, I repeat, be exchanged for an unlimited value.”
+
+“Agreed,” said Prasville, querulously.
+
+“I presume, therefore, that it is unnecessary for me to trace the whole
+story of the business or to enumerate, on the one hand, the disasters
+which the possession of that paper would have allowed you to avert and,
+on the other hand, the incalculable advantages which you will be able to
+derive from its possession?”
+
+Prasville had to make an effort to contain himself and to answer in a
+tone that was civil, or nearly so:
+
+“I admit everything. Is that enough?”
+
+“I beg your pardon, but we cannot explain ourselves too plainly. And
+there is one point that remains to be cleared up. Are you in a position
+to treat, personally?”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“I want to know not, of course, if you are empowered to settle this
+business here and now, but if, in dealing with me, you represent the
+views of those who know the business and who are qualified to settle
+it.”
+
+“Yes,” declared Prasville, forcibly.
+
+“So that I can have your answer within an hour after I have told you my
+conditions?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Will the answer be that of the government?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Clarisse bent forward and, sinking her voice:
+
+“Will the answer be that of the Elysee?”
+
+Prasville appeared surprised. He reflected for a moment and then said:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It only remains for me to ask you to give me your word of honour that,
+however incomprehensible my conditions may appear to you, you will not
+insist on my revealing the reason. They are what they are. Your answer
+must be yes or no.”
+
+“I give you my word of honour,” said Prasville, formally.
+
+Clarisse underwent a momentary agitation that made her turn paler still.
+Then, mastering herself, with her eyes fixed on Prasville’s eyes, she
+said:
+
+“You shall have the list of the Twenty-seven in exchange for the pardon
+of Gilbert and Vaucheray.”
+
+“Eh? What?”
+
+Prasville leapt from his chair, looking absolutely dumbfounded:
+
+“The pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray? Of Arsene Lupin’s accomplices?”
+
+“Yes,” she said.
+
+“The murderers of the Villa Marie-Therese? The two who are due to die
+to-morrow?”
+
+“Yes, those two,” she said, in a loud voice. “I ask? I demand their
+pardon.”
+
+“But this is madness! Why? Why should you?”
+
+“I must remind you, Prasville, that you gave me your word...”
+
+“Yes... yes... I know... But the thing is so unexpected...”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Why? For all sorts of reasons!”
+
+“What reasons?”
+
+“Well... well, but... think! Gilbert and Vaucheray have been sentenced
+to death!”
+
+“Send them to penal servitude: that’s all you have to do.”
+
+“Impossible! The case has created an enormous sensation. They are Arsene
+Lupin’s accomplices. The whole world knows about the verdict.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, we cannot, no, we cannot go against the decrees of justice.”
+
+“You are not asked to do that. You are asked for a commutation of
+punishment as an act of mercy. Mercy is a legal thing.”
+
+“The pardoning-commission has given its finding...”
+
+“True, but there remains the president of the Republic.”
+
+“He has refused.”
+
+“He can reconsider his refusal.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“There’s no excuse for it.”
+
+“He needs no excuse. The right of mercy is absolute. It is exercised
+without control, without reason, without excuse or explanation. It is a
+royal prerogative; the president of the Republic can wield it according
+to his good pleasure, or rather according to his conscience, in the best
+interests of the State.”
+
+“But it is too late! Everything is ready. The execution is to take place
+in a few hours.”
+
+“One hour is long enough to obtain your answer; you have just told us
+so.”
+
+“But this is confounded madness! There are insuperable obstacles to your
+conditions. I tell you again, it’s impossible, physically impossible.”
+
+“Then the answer is no?”
+
+“No! No! A thousand times no!”
+
+“In that case, there is nothing left for us to do but to go.”
+
+She moved toward the door. M. Nicole followed her. Prasville bounded
+across the room and barred their way:
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“Well, my friend, it seems to me that our conversation is at an end. As
+you appear to think, as, in fact, you are certain that the president of
+the Republic will not consider the famous list of the Twenty-seven to be
+worth...”
+
+“Stay where you are,” said Prasville.
+
+He turned the key in the door and began to pace the room, with his hands
+behind his back and his eyes fixed on the floor.
+
+And Lupin, who had not breathed a word during the whole of this scene
+and who had prudently contented himself with playing a colourless part,
+said to himself:
+
+“What a fuss! What a lot of affectation to arrive at the inevitable
+result! As though Prasville, who is not a genius, but not an absolute
+blockhead either, would be likely to lose the chance of revenging
+himself on his mortal enemy! There, what did I say? The idea of hurling
+Daubrecq into the bottomless pit appeals to him. Come, we’ve won the
+rubber.”
+
+Prasville was opening a small inner door which led to the office of his
+private secretary.
+
+He gave an order aloud:
+
+“M. Lartigue, telephone to the Elysee and say that I request the favour
+of an audience for a communication of the utmost importance.”
+
+He closed the door, came back to Clarisse and said:
+
+“In any case, my intervention is limited to submitting your proposal.”
+
+“Once you submit it, it will be accepted.”
+
+A long silence followed. Clarisse’s features expressed so profound a
+delight that Prasville was struck by it and looked at her with attentive
+curiosity. For what mysterious reason did Clarisse wish to save Gilbert
+and Vaucheray? What was the incomprehensible link that bound her to
+those two men? What tragedy connected those three lives and, no doubt,
+Daubrecq’s in addition?
+
+“Go ahead, old boy,” thought Lupin, “cudgel your brains: you’ll never
+spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert’s pardon only, as Clarisse
+wished, you might have twigged the secret! But Vaucheray, that brute of
+a Vaucheray, there really could not be the least bond between Mme. Mergy
+and him.... Aha, by Jingo, it’s my turn now!... He’s watching me ... The
+inward soliloquy is turning upon myself... ‘I wonder who that M. Nicole
+can be? Why has that little provincial usher devoted himself body and
+soul to Clarisse Mergy? Who is that old bore, if the truth were known? I
+made a mistake in not inquiring... I must look into this.... I must
+rip off the beggar’s mask. For, after all, it’s not natural that a man
+should take so much trouble about a matter in which he is not directly
+interested. Why should he also wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray?
+Why? Why should he?...” Lupin turned his head away. “Look out!... Look
+out!... There’s a notion passing through that red-tape-merchant’s skull:
+a confused notion which he can’t put into words. Hang it all, he mustn’t
+suspect M. Lupin under M. Nicole! The thing’s complicated enough as it
+is, in all conscience!...”
+
+But there was a welcome interruption. Prasville’s secretary came to say
+that the audience would take place in an hour’s time.
+
+“Very well. Thank you,” said Prasville. “That will do.”
+
+And, resuming the interview, with no further circumlocution, speaking
+like a man who means to put a thing through, he declared:
+
+“I think that we shall be able to manage it. But, first of all, so that
+I may do what I have undertaken to do, I want more precise information,
+fuller details. Where was the paper?”
+
+“In the crystal stopper, as we thought,” said Mme. Mergy.
+
+“And where was the crystal stopper?”
+
+“In an object which Daubrecq came and fetched, a few days ago, from the
+writing-desk in his study in the Square Lamartine, an object which I
+took from him yesterday.”
+
+“What sort of object?”
+
+“Simply a packet of tobacco, Maryland tobacco, which used to lie about
+on the desk.”
+
+Prasville was petrified. He muttered, guilelessly:
+
+“Oh, if I had only known! I’ve had my hand on that packet of Maryland a
+dozen times! How stupid of me!”
+
+“What does it matter?” said Clarisse. “The great thing is that the
+discovery is made.”
+
+Prasville pulled a face which implied that the discovery would have been
+much pleasanter if he himself had made it. Then he asked:
+
+“So you have the list?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Show it to me.”
+
+And, when Clarisse hesitated, he added:
+
+“Oh, please, don’t be afraid! The list belongs to you, and I will give
+it back to you. But you must understand that I cannot take the step in
+question without making certain.”
+
+Clarisse consulted M. Nicole with a glance which did not escape
+Prasville. Then she said:
+
+“Here it is.”
+
+He seized the scrap of paper with a certain excitement, examined it and
+almost immediately said:
+
+“Yes, yes... the secretary’s writing: I recognize it.... And the
+signature of the chairman of the company: the signature in red....
+Besides, I have other proofs.... For instance, the torn piece which
+completes the left-hand top corner of this sheet...”
+
+He opened his safe and, from a special cash-box, produced a tiny piece
+of paper which he put against the top left corner:
+
+“That’s right. The torn edges fit exactly. The proof is undeniable. All
+that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper.”
+
+Clarisse was radiant with delight. No one would have believed that the
+most terrible torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and that she
+was still bleeding and quivering from its effects.
+
+While Prasville was holding the paper against a window-pane, she said to
+Lupin:
+
+“I insist upon having Gilbert informed this evening. He must be so
+awfully unhappy!”
+
+“Yes,” said Lupin. “Besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him.”
+
+She continued:
+
+“And then I must see Gilbert to-morrow. Prasville can think what he
+likes.”
+
+“Of course. But he must first gain his cause at the Elysee.”
+
+“There can’t be any difficulty, can there?”
+
+“No. You saw that he gave way at once.”
+
+Prasville continued his examination with the aid of a magnifying-glass
+and compared the sheet with the scrap of torn paper. Next, he took from
+the cash-box some other sheets of letter-paper and examined one of these
+by holding it up to the light:
+
+“That’s done,” he said. “My mind is made up. Forgive me, dear friend: it
+was a very difficult piece of work.... I passed through various stages.
+When all is said, I had my suspicions... and not without cause...”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Clarisse.
+
+“One second.... I must give an order first.”
+
+He called his secretary:
+
+“Please telephone at once to the Elysee, make my apologies and say
+that I shall not require the audience, for reasons which I will explain
+later.”
+
+He closed the door and returned to his desk. Clarisse and Lupin stood
+choking, looking at him in stupefaction, failing to understand this
+sudden change. Was he mad? Was it a trick on his part? A breach of
+faith? And was he refusing to keep his promise, now that he possessed
+the list?
+
+He held it out to Clarisse:
+
+“You can have it back.”
+
+“Have it back?”
+
+“And return it to Daubrecq.”
+
+“To Daubrecq?”
+
+“Unless you prefer to burn it.”
+
+“What do you say?”
+
+“I say that, if I were in your place, I would burn it.”
+
+“Why do you say that? It’s ridiculous!”
+
+“On the contrary, it is very sensible.”
+
+“But why? Why?”
+
+“Why? I will tell you. The list of the Twenty-seven, as we know for
+absolutely certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper belonging to
+the chairman of the Canal Company, of which there are a few samples in
+this cash-box. Now all these samples have as a water-mark a little cross
+of Lorraine which is almost invisible, but which can just be seen in the
+thickness of the paper when you hold it up to the light. The sheet which
+you have brought me does not contain that little cross of Lorraine.” [*]
+
+     * The Cross of Lorraine is a cross with two horizontal lines
+     or bars across the upper half of the perpendicular beam.
+     --Translator’s Note.
+
+Lupin felt a nervous trembling shake him from head to foot and he dared
+not turn his eyes on Clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow this was
+to her. He heard her stammer:
+
+“Then are we to suppose... that Daubrecq was taken in?”
+
+“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Prasville. “It is you who have been taken
+in, my poor friend. Daubrecq has the real list, the list which he stole
+from the dying man’s safe.”
+
+“But this one...”
+
+“This one is a forgery.”
+
+“A forgery?”
+
+“An undoubted forgery. It was an admirable piece of cunning on
+Daubrecq’s part. Dazzled by the crystal stopper which he flashed before
+your eyes, you did nothing but look for that stopper in which he had
+stowed away no matter what, the first bit of paper that came to hand,
+while he quietly kept...”
+
+Prasville interrupted himself. Clarisse was walking up to him with
+short, stiff steps, like an automaton. She said:
+
+“Then...”
+
+“Then what, dear friend?”
+
+“You refuse?”
+
+“Certainly, I am obliged to; I have no choice.”
+
+“You refuse to take that step?”
+
+“Look here, how can I do what you ask? It’s not possible, on the
+strength of a valueless document...”
+
+“You won’t do it?... You won’t do it?... And, to-morrow morning... in a
+few hours... Gilbert...”
+
+She was frightfully pale, her face sunk, like the face of one dying. Her
+eyes opened wider and wider and her teeth chattered...
+
+Lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous words which she was about to
+utter, seized her by the shoulders and tried to drag her away. But she
+thrust him back with indomitable strength, took two or three more steps,
+staggered, as though on the point of falling, and, suddenly, in a burst
+of energy and despair, laid hold of Prasville and screamed:
+
+“You shall go to the Elysee!... You shall go at once!... You must!...
+You must save Gilbert!”
+
+“Please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself...”
+
+She gave a strident laugh:
+
+“Calm myself!... When, to-morrow morning, Gilbert... Ah, no, no, I am
+terrified... it’s appalling.... Oh, run, you wretch, run! Obtain his
+pardon!... Don’t you understand? Gilbert... Gilbert is my son! My son!
+My son!”
+
+Prasville gave a cry. The blade of a knife flashed in Clarisse’s hand
+and she raised her arm to strike herself. But the movement was not
+completed. M. Nicole caught her arm in its descent and, taking the knife
+from Clarisse, reducing her to helplessness, he said, in a voice that
+rang through the room like steel:
+
+“What you are doing is madness!... When I gave you my oath that I would
+save him! You must... live for him... Gilbert shall not die.... How can
+he die, when... I gave you my oath?...”
+
+“Gilbert... my son...” moaned Clarisse.
+
+He clasped her fiercely, drew her against himself and put his hand over
+her mouth:
+
+“Enough! Be quiet!... I entreat you to be quiet.... Gilbert shall not
+die...”
+
+With irresistible authority, he dragged her away like a subdued child
+that suddenly becomes obedient; but, at the moment of opening the door,
+he turned to Prasville:
+
+“Wait for me here, monsieur,” he commanded, in an imperative tone. “If
+you care about that list of the Twenty-seven, the real list, wait for
+me. I shall be back in an hour, in two hours, at most; and then we will
+talk business.”
+
+And abruptly, to Clarisse:
+
+“And you, madame, a little courage yet. I command you to show courage,
+in Gilbert’s name.”
+
+He went away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky step,
+holding Clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure,
+supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard, another court-yard,
+then the street.
+
+Meanwhile, Prasville, surprised at first, bewildered by the course of
+events, was gradually recovering his composure and thinking. He thought
+of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who played beside
+Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the
+serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor,
+appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome,
+brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that
+fate placed on his path.
+
+Who was there that was capable of acting thus?
+
+Prasville started. The question had no sooner occurred to his mind than
+the answer flashed on him, with absolute certainty. All the proofs rose
+up, each more exact, each more convincing than the last.
+
+Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly he sent for the chief detective-inspector
+on duty. And, feverishly:
+
+“Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general.”
+
+“Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Would you know the man again?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then don’t lose a moment, chief-inspector. Take six inspectors with
+you. Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about a man called Nicole
+and watch the house. The Nicole man is on his way back there.”
+
+“And if he comes out, monsieur le secretaire-general?”
+
+“Arrest him. Here’s a warrant.”
+
+He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:
+
+“Here you are, chief-inspector. I will let the chief-detective know.”
+
+The chief-inspector seemed staggered:
+
+“But you spoke to me of a man called Nicole, monsieur le
+secretaire-general.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The warrant is in the name of Arsene Lupin.”
+
+“Arsene Lupin and the Nicole man are one and the same individual.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE SCAFFOLD
+
+“I will save him, I will save him,” Lupin repeated, without ceasing, in
+the taxicab in which he and Clarisse drove away. “I swear that I will
+save him.”
+
+Clarisse did not listen, sat as though numbed, as though possessed by
+some great nightmare of death, which left her ignorant of all that was
+happening outside her. And Lupin set forth his plans, perhaps more to
+reassure himself than to convince Clarisse. “No, no, the game is not
+lost yet. There is one trump left, a huge trump, in the shape of the
+letters and documents which Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to
+sell to Daubrecq and of which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice.
+I shall buy those letters and documents of Stanislas Vorenglade
+at whatever price he chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the
+police-office and I shall say to Prasville, ‘Go to the Elysee at once
+... Use the list as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and
+be content to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the
+list is forged.
+
+“‘Be off, quickly!... If you refuse, well, if you refuse, the Vorenglade
+letters and documents shall be reproduced to-morrow, Tuesday, morning
+in one of the leading newspapers.’ Vorenglade will be arrested. And M.
+Prasville will find himself in prison before night.”
+
+Lupin rubbed his hands:
+
+“He’ll do as he’s told!... He’ll do as he’s told!... I felt that at
+once, when I was with him. The thing appeared to me as a dead certainty.
+And I found Vorenglade’s address in Daubrecq’s pocket-books, so...
+driver, Boulevard Raspail!”
+
+They went to the address given. Lupin sprang from the cab, ran up three
+flights of stairs.
+
+The servant said that M. Vorenglade was away and would not be back until
+dinner-time next evening.
+
+“And don’t you know where he is?”
+
+“M. Vorenglade is in London, sir.”
+
+Lupin did not utter a word on returning to the cab. Clarisse, on her
+side, did not even ask him any questions, so indifferent had she become
+to everything, so absolutely did she look upon her son’s death as an
+accomplished fact.
+
+They drove to the Place de Cichy. As Lupin entered the house he
+passed two men who were just leaving the porter’s box. He was too much
+engrossed to notice them. They were Prasville’s inspectors.
+
+“No telegram?” he asked his servant.
+
+“No, governor,” replied Achille.
+
+“No news of the Masher and the Growler?”
+
+“No, governor, none.”
+
+“That’s all right,” he said to Clarisse, in a casual tone. “It’s only
+seven o’clock and we mustn’t reckon on seeing them before eight or nine.
+Prasville will have to wait, that’s all. I will telephone to him to
+wait.”
+
+He did so and was hanging up the receiver, when he heard a moan behind
+him. Clarisse was standing by the table, reading an evening-paper. She
+put her hand to her heart, staggered and fell.
+
+“Achille, Achille!” cried Lupin, calling his man. “Help me put her on my
+bed... And then go to the cupboard and get me the medicine-bottle marked
+number four, the bottle with the sleeping-draught.”
+
+He forced open her teeth with the point of a knife and compelled her to
+swallow half the bottle:
+
+“Good,” he said. “Now the poor thing won’t wake till to-morrow...
+after.”
+
+He glanced through the paper, which was still clutched in Clarisse’
+hand, and read the following lines:
+
+ “The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at the
+ execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest Arsene Lupin should make
+ an attempt to rescue his accomplices from the last penalty. At
+ twelve o’clock to-night a cordon of troops will be drawn across
+ all the approaches to the Sante Prison.  As already stated, the
+ execution will take place outside the prison-walls, in the square
+ formed by the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Sante.
+
+ “We have succeeded in obtaining some details of the attitude of
+ the two condemned men.  Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness and
+ is awaiting the fatal event with no little courage:
+
+ “‘Crikey,’ he says, ‘I can’t say I’m delighted; but I’ve got to
+ go through it and I shall keep my end up.’  And he adds, ‘Death
+ I don’t care a hang about!  What worries me is the thought that
+ they’re going to cut my head off.  Ah, if the governor could only
+ hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world before
+ I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, governor, if you
+ please!’
+
+ “Gilbert’s calmness is even more impressive, especially when we
+ remember how he broke down at the trial.  He retains an unshaken
+ confidence in the omnipotence of Arsene Lupin:
+
+ “‘The governor shouted to me before everybody not to be afraid,
+ that he was there, that he answered for everything.  Well, I’m not
+ afraid.  I shall rely on him until the last day, until the last
+ minute, at the very foot of the scaffold.  I know the governor!
+ There’s no danger with him.  He has promised and he will keep his
+ word.  If my head were off, he’d come and clap it on my shoulders
+ and firmly!  Arsene Lupin allow his chum Gilbert to die?  Not he!
+ Excuse my humour!’
+
+ “There is a certain touching frankness in all this enthusiasm
+ which is not without a dignity of its own.  We shall see if Arsene
+ Lupin deserves the confidence so blindly placed in him.”
+
+Lupin was hardly able to finish reading the article for the tears that
+dimmed his eyes: tears of affection, tears of pity, tears of distress.
+
+No, he did not deserve the confidence of his chum Gilbert. Certainly, he
+had performed impossibilities; but there are circumstances in which we
+must perform more than impossibilities, in which we must show ourselves
+stronger than fate; and, this time, fate had been stronger than he. Ever
+since the first day and throughout this lamentable adventure, events had
+gone contrary to his anticipations, contrary to logic itself. Clarisse
+and he, though pursuing an identical aim, had wasted weeks in fighting
+each other. Then, at the moment when they were uniting their efforts, a
+series of ghastly disasters had come one after the other: the kidnapping
+of little Jacques, Daubrecq’s disappearance, his imprisonment in the
+Lovers’ Tower, Lupin’s wound, his enforced inactivity, followed by the
+cunning manoeuvres that dragged Clarisse--and Lupin after her--to
+the south, to Italy. And then, as a crowning catastrophe, when, after
+prodigies of will-power, after miracles of perseverance, they were
+entitled to think that the Golden Fleece was won, it all came to
+nothing. The list of the Twenty-seven had no more value than the most
+insignificant scrap of paper.
+
+“The game’s up!” said Lupin. “It’s an absolute defeat. What if I do
+revenge myself on Daubrecq, ruin him and destroy him? He is the real
+victor, once Gilbert is going to die.”
+
+He wept anew, not with spite or rage, but with despair. Gilbert was
+going to die! The lad whom he called his chum, the best of his pals
+would be gone for ever, in a few hours. He could not save him. He was at
+the end of his tether. He did not even look round for a last expedient.
+What was the use?
+
+And his persuasion of his own helplessness was so deep, so definite that
+he felt no shock of any kind on receiving a telegram from the Masher
+that said:
+
+ “Motor accident.  Essential part broken.  Long repair.
+  Arrive to-morrow morning.”
+
+It was a last proof to show that fate had uttered its decree. He no
+longer thought of rebelling against the decision.
+
+He looked at Clarisse. She was peacefully sleeping; and this total
+oblivion, this absence of all consciousness, seemed to him so enviable
+that, suddenly yielding to a fit of cowardice, he seized the bottle,
+still half-filled with the sleeping-draught, and drank it down.
+
+Then he stretched himself on a couch and rang for his man:
+
+“Go to bed, Achille, and don’t wake me on any pretence whatever.”
+
+“Then there’s nothing to be done for Gilbert and Vaucheray, governor?”
+ said Achille.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Are they going through it?”
+
+“They are going through it.”
+
+Twenty minutes later Lupin fell into a heavy sleep. It was ten o’clock
+in the evening.
+
+The night was full of incident and noise around the prison. At one
+o’clock in the morning the Rue de la Sante, the Boulevard Arago and all
+the streets abutting on the gaol were guarded by police, who allowed no
+one to pass without a regular cross-examination.
+
+For that matter, it was raining in torrents; and it seemed as though
+the lovers of this sort of show would not be very numerous. The
+public-houses were all closed by special order. At four o’clock three
+companies of infantry came and took up their positions along the
+pavements, while a battalion occupied the Boulevard Arago in case of
+a surprise. Municipal guards cantered up and down between the lines; a
+whole staff of police-magistrates, officers and functionaries, brought
+together for the occasion, moved about among the troops.
+
+The guillotine was set up in silence, in the middle of the square formed
+by the boulevard and the street; and the sinister sound of hammering was
+heard.
+
+But, at five o’clock, the crowd gathered, notwithstanding the rain, and
+people began to sing. They shouted for the footlights, called for the
+curtain to rise, were exasperated to see that, at the distance at which
+the barriers had been fixed, they could hardly distinguish the uprights
+of the guillotine.
+
+Several carriages drove up, bringing official persons dressed in black.
+There were cheers and hoots, whereupon a troop of mounted municipal
+guards scattered the groups and cleared the space to a distance of three
+hundred yards from the square. Two fresh companies of soldiers lined up.
+
+And suddenly there was a great silence. A vague white light fell from
+the dark sky. The rain ceased abruptly.
+
+Inside the prison, at the end of the passage containing the condemned
+cells, the men in black were conversing in low voices. Prasville was
+talking to the public prosecutor, who expressed his fears:
+
+“No, no,” declared Prasville, “I assure you, it will pass without an
+incident of any kind.”
+
+“Do your reports mention nothing at all suspicious, monsieur le
+secretaire-general?”
+
+“Nothing. And they can’t mention anything, for the simple reason that we
+have Lupin.”
+
+“Do you mean that?”
+
+“Yes, we know his hiding-place. The house where he lives, on the Place
+de Clichy, and where he went at seven o’clock last night, is surrounded.
+Moreover, I know the scheme which he had contrived to save his two
+accomplices. The scheme miscarried at the last moment. We have nothing
+to fear, therefore. The law will take its course.”
+
+Meanwhile, the hour had struck.
+
+They took Vaucheray first; and the governor of the prison ordered the
+door of his cell to be opened. Vaucheray leapt out of bed and cast eyes
+dilated with terror upon the men who entered.
+
+“Vaucheray, we have come to tell you...”
+
+“Stow that, stow that,” he muttered. “No words. I know all about it. Get
+on with the business.”
+
+One would have thought that he was in a hurry for it to be over as fast
+as possible, so readily did he submit to the usual preparations. But he
+would not allow any of them to speak to him:
+
+“No words,” he repeated. “What? Confess to the priest? Not worth while.
+I have shed blood. The law sheds my blood. It’s the good old rule. We’re
+quits.”
+
+Nevertheless, he stopped short for a moment:
+
+“I say, is my mate going through it too?”
+
+And, when he heard that Gilbert would go to the scaffold at the same
+time as himself, he had two or three seconds of hesitation, glanced
+at the bystanders, seemed about to speak, was silent and, at last,
+muttered:
+
+“It’s better so.... They’ll pull us through together... we’ll clink
+glasses together.”
+
+Gilbert was not asleep either, when the men entered his cell.
+
+Sitting on his bed, he listened to the terrible words, tried to stand
+up, began to tremble frightfully, from head to foot, like a skeleton
+when shaken, and then fell back, sobbing:
+
+“Oh, my poor mummy, poor mummy!” he stammered.
+
+They tried to question him about that mother, of whom he had never
+spoken; but his tears were interrupted by a sudden fit of rebellion and
+he cried:
+
+“I have done no murder... I won’t die. I have done no murder...”
+
+“Gilbert,” they said, “show yourself a man.”
+
+“Yes, yes... but I have done no murder... Why should I die?”
+
+His teeth chattered so loudly that words which he uttered became
+unintelligible. He let the men do their work, made his confession, heard
+mass and then, growing calmer and almost docile, with the voice of a
+little child resigning itself, murmured:
+
+“Tell my mother that I beg her forgiveness.”
+
+“Your mother?”
+
+“Yes... Put what I say in the papers... She will understand... And
+then...”
+
+“What, Gilbert?”
+
+“Well, I want the governor to know that I have not lost confidence.”
+
+He gazed at the bystanders, one after the other, as though he
+entertained the mad hope that “the governor” was one of them, disguised
+beyond recognition and ready to carry him off in his arms:
+
+“Yes,” he said, gently and with a sort of religious piety, “yes, I still
+have confidence, even at this moment... Be sure and let him know, won’t
+you?... I am positive that he will not let me die. I am certain of
+it...”
+
+They guessed, from the fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, that
+he felt Lupin’s shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet through
+which to get to him. And never was anything more touching than the sight
+of that stripling--clad in the strait-jacket, with his arms and legs
+bound, guarded by thousands of men--whom the executioner already held in
+his inexorable hand and who, nevertheless, hoped on.
+
+Anguish wrung the hearts of all the beholders. Their eyes were dimmed
+with tears:
+
+“Poor little chap!” stammered some one.
+
+Prasville, touched like the rest and thinking of Clarisse, repeated, in
+a whisper:
+
+“Poor little chap!”
+
+But the hour struck, the preparations were finished. They set out.
+
+The two processions met in the passage. Vaurheray, on seeing Gilbert,
+snapped out:
+
+“I say, kiddie, the governor’s chucked us!”
+
+And he added a sentence which nobody, save Prasville, was able to
+understand:
+
+“Expect he prefers to pocket the proceeds of the crystal stopper.”
+
+They went down the staircases. They crossed the prison-yards. An
+endless, horrible distance.
+
+And, suddenly, in the frame of the great doorway, the wan light of day,
+the rain, the street, the outlines of houses, while far-off sounds came
+through the awful silence.
+
+They walked along the wall, to the corner of the boulevard.
+
+A few steps farther Vaucheray started back: he had seen!
+
+Gilbert crept along, with lowered head, supported by an executioner’s
+assistant and by the chaplain, who made him kiss the crucifix as he
+went.
+
+There stood the guillotine.
+
+“No, no,” shouted Gilbert, “I won’t... I won’t... Help! Help!”
+
+A last appeal, lost in space.
+
+The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted,
+dragged along, almost at a run.
+
+And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the other
+side, from one of the houses opposite.
+
+The assistants stopped short.
+
+The burden which they were dragging had collapsed in their arms.
+
+“What is it? What’s happened?” asked everybody.
+
+“He’s wounded...”
+
+Blood spurted from Vaucheray’s forehead and covered his face.
+
+He spluttered:
+
+“That’s done it... one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank you.”
+
+“Finish him off! Carry him there!” said a voice, amid the general
+confusion.
+
+“But he’s dead!”
+
+“Get on with it... finish him off!”
+
+Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials
+and policemen. Every one was giving orders:
+
+“Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right to
+delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!”
+
+“But the man’s dead!”
+
+“That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute him!”
+
+The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes
+on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse
+again and were carrying it to the guillotine.
+
+“Hurry up!” cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. “Hurry up!
+... And the other one to follow... Waste no time...”
+
+He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun
+round on his heels and fell, groaning:
+
+“It’s nothing... a wound in the shoulder... Go on... The next one’s
+turn!”
+
+But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space
+around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying
+his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a
+disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man,
+the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three
+minutes before.
+
+In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were
+rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied house,
+with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty.
+Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of
+the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and
+surrounded with a cloud of smoke.
+
+Revolver-shots were fired at him, but missed him. He, standing calmly on
+a table, took aim a second time, fired from the shoulder; and the crack
+of the second report was heard. Then he withdrew into the room.
+
+Down below, as nobody answered the peal at the bell, the assailants
+demolished the door, which gave way almost immediately. They made for
+the staircase, but their onrush was at once stopped, on the first
+floor, by an accumulation of beds, chairs and other furniture, forming
+a regular barricade and so close-entangled that it took the aggressors
+four or five minutes to clear themselves a passage.
+
+Those four or five minutes lost were enough to render all pursuit
+hopeless. When they reached the second floor they heard a voice shouting
+from above:
+
+“This way, friends! Eighteen stairs more. A thousand apologies for
+giving you so much trouble!”
+
+They ran up those eighteen stairs and nimbly at that! But, at the top,
+above the third story, was the garret, which was reached by a ladder and
+a trapdoor. And the fugitive had taken away the ladder and bolted the
+trapdoor.
+
+The reader will not have forgotten the sensation created by this amazing
+action, the editions of the papers issued in quick succession, the
+newsboys tearing and shouting through the streets, the whole metropolis
+on edge with indignation and, we may say, with anxious curiosity.
+
+But it was at the headquarters of police that the excitement developed
+into a paroxysm. Men flung themselves about on every side. Messages,
+telegrams, telephone calls followed one upon the other.
+
+At last, at eleven o’clock in the morning, there was a meeting in
+the office of the prefect of police, and Prasville was there. The
+chief-detective read a report of his inquiry, the results of which
+amounted to this: shortly before midnight yesterday some one had rung
+at the house on the Boulevard Arago. The portress, who slept in a small
+room on the ground-floor, behind one of the shops pulled the rope. A man
+came and tapped at her door. He said that he had come from the police on
+an urgent matter concerning to-morrow’s execution. The portress opened
+the door and was at once attacked, gagged and bound.
+
+Ten minutes later a lady and gentleman who lived on the first floor and
+who had just come home were also reduced to helplessness by the same
+individual and locked up, each in one of the two empty shops. The
+third-floor tenant underwent a similar fate, but in his own flat and his
+own bedroom, which the man was able to enter without being heard. The
+second floor was unoccupied, and the man took up his quarters there. He
+was now master of the house.
+
+“And there we are!” said the prefect of police, beginning to laugh, with
+a certain bitterness. “There we are! It’s as simple as shelling peas.
+Only, what surprises me is that he was able to get away so easily.”
+
+“I will ask you to observe, monsieur le prefet, that, being absolute
+master of the house from one o’clock in the morning, he had until five
+o’clock to prepare his flight.”
+
+“And that flight took place...?”
+
+“Over the roofs. At that spot the houses in the next street, the Rue de
+la Glaciere, are quite near and there is only one break in the roofs,
+about three yards wide, with a drop of one yard in height.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, our man had taken away the ladder leading to the garret and used
+it as a foot-bridge. After crossing to the next block of buildings, all
+he had to do was to look through the windows until he found an empty
+attic, enter one of the houses in the Rue de la Glaciere and walk out
+quietly with his hands in his pockets. In this way his flight, duly
+prepared beforehand, was effected very simply and without the least
+obstacle.”
+
+“But you had taken the necessary measures.”
+
+“Those which you ordered, monsieur le prefet. My men spent three hours
+last evening visiting all the houses, so as to make sure that there was
+no stranger hiding there. At the moment when they were leaving the last
+house I had the street barred. Our man must have slipped through during
+that few minutes’ interval.”
+
+“Capital! Capital! And there is no doubt in your minds, of course: it’s
+Arsene Lupin?”
+
+“Not a doubt. In the first place, it was all a question of his
+accomplices. And then... and then... no one but Arsene Lupin was
+capable of contriving such a master-stroke and carrying it out with that
+inconceivable boldness.”
+
+“But, in that case,” muttered the prefect of police--and, turning to
+Prasville, he continued--“but, in that case, my dear Prasville,
+the fellow of whom you spoke to me, the fellow whom you and the
+chief-detective have had watched since yesterday evening, in his flat in
+the Place de Clichy, that fellow is not Arsene Lupin?”
+
+“Yes, he is, monsieur le prefet. There is no doubt about that either.”
+
+“Then why wasn’t he arrested when he went out last night?”
+
+“He did not go out.”
+
+“I say, this is getting complicated!”
+
+“It’s quite simple, monsieur le prefet. Like all the houses in which
+traces of Arsene Lupin are to be found, the house in the Place de Cichy
+has two outlets.”
+
+“And you didn’t know it?”
+
+“I didn’t know it. I only discovered it this morning, on inspecting the
+flat.”
+
+“Was there no one in the flat?”
+
+“No. The servant, a man called Achille, went away this morning, taking
+with him a lady who was staying with Lupin.”
+
+“What was the lady’s name?”
+
+“I don’t know,” replied Prasville, after an imperceptible hesitation.
+
+“But you know the name under which Arsene Lupin passed?”
+
+“Yes. M. Nicole, a private tutor, master of arts and so on. Here is his
+card.”
+
+As Prasville finished speaking, an office-messenger came to tell the
+prefect of police that he was wanted immediately at the Elysee. The
+prime minister was there already.
+
+“I’m coming,” he said. And he added, between his teeth, “It’s to decide
+upon Gilbert’s fate.”
+
+Prasville ventured:
+
+“Do you think they will pardon him, monsieur le prefet?”
+
+“Never! After last night’s affair, it would make a most deplorable
+impression. Gilbert must pay his debt to-morrow morning.”
+
+The messenger had, at the same time, handed Prasville a visiting-card.
+Prasville now looked at it, gave a start and muttered:
+
+“Well, I’m hanged! What a nerve!”
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked the prefect of police.
+
+“Nothing, nothing, monsieur le prefet,” declared Prasville, who did not
+wish to share with another the honour of seeing this business through.
+“Nothing... an unexpected visit... I hope soon to have the pleasure of
+telling you the result.”
+
+And he walked away, mumbling, with an air of amazement:
+
+“Well, upon my word! What a nerve the beggar has! What a nerve!”
+
+The visiting-card which he held in his hand bore these words:
+
+     M. Nicole,
+
+      Master of Arts, Private Tutor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE LAST BATTLE
+
+When Prasville returned to his office he saw M. Nicole sitting on a
+bench in the waiting-room, with his bent back, his ailing air, his
+gingham umbrella, his rusty hat and his single glove:
+
+“It’s he all right,” said Prasville, who had feared for a moment that
+Lupin might have sent another M. Nicole to see him. “And the fact that
+he has come in person proves that he does not suspect that I have seen
+through him.” And, for the third time, he said, “All the same, what a
+nerve!”
+
+He shut the door of his office and called his secretary:
+
+“M. Lartigue, I am having a rather dangerous person shown in here. The
+chances are that he will have to leave my office with the bracelets on.
+As soon as he is in my room, make all the necessary arrangements: send
+for a dozen inspectors and have them posted in the waiting-room and in
+your office. And take this as a definite instruction: the moment I ring,
+you are all to come in, revolvers in hand, and surround the fellow. Do
+you quite understand?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general.”
+
+“Above all, no hesitation. A sudden entrance, in a body, revolvers in
+hand. Send M. Nicole in, please.”
+
+As soon as he was alone, Prasville covered the push of an electric bell
+on his desk with some papers and placed two revolvers of respectable
+dimensions behind a rampart of books.
+
+“And now,” he said to himself, “to sit tight. If he has the list, let’s
+collar it. If he hasn’t, let’s collar him. And, if possible, let’s
+collar both. Lupin and the list of the Twenty-seven, on the same day,
+especially after the scandal of this morning, would be a scoop in a
+thousand.”
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+“Come in!” said Prasville.
+
+And, rising from his seat:
+
+“Come in, M. Nicole, come in.”
+
+M. Nicole crept timidly into the room, sat down on the extreme edge of
+the chair to which Prasville pointed and said:
+
+“I have come...to resume... our conversation of yesterday... Please
+excuse the delay, monsieur.”
+
+“One second,” said Prasville. “Will you allow me?”
+
+He stepped briskly to the outer room and, seeing his secretary:
+
+“I was forgetting, M. Lartigue. Have the staircases and passages
+searched... in case of accomplices.”
+
+He returned, settled himself comfortably, as though for a long and
+interesting conversation, and began:
+
+“You were saying, M. Nicole?”
+
+“I was saying, monsieur le secretaire-general, that I must apologize
+for keeping you waiting yesterday evening. I was detained by different
+matters. First of all, Mme. Mergy....”
+
+“Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home.”
+
+“Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor thing’s
+despair... Her son Gilbert so near death... And such a death!... At that
+time we could only hope for a miracle... an impossible miracle. I myself
+was resigned to the inevitable... You know as well as I do, when fate
+shows itself implacable, one ends by despairing.”
+
+“But I thought,” observed Prasville, “that your intention, on leaving
+me, was to drag Daubrecq’s secret from him at all costs.”
+
+“Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris.”
+
+“Oh?”
+
+“No. He was on his way to Paris in a motor-car.”
+
+“Have you a motor-car, M. Nicole?”
+
+“Yes, when I need it: an out-of-date concern, an old tin kettle of
+sorts. Well, he was on his way to Paris in a motor-car, or rather on
+the roof of a motor-car, inside a trunk in which I packed him. But,
+unfortunately, the motor was unable to reach Paris until after the
+execution. Thereupon...”
+
+Prasville stared at M. Nicole with an air of stupefaction. If he had
+retained the least doubt of the individual’s real identity, this manner
+of dealing with Daubrecq would have removed it. By Jingo! To pack a man
+in a trunk and pitch him on the top of a motorcar!... No one but Lupin
+would indulge in such a freak, no one but Lupin would confess it with
+that ingenuous coolness!
+
+“Thereupon,” echoed Prasville, “you decided what?”
+
+“I cast about for another method.”
+
+“What method?”
+
+“Why, surely, monsieur le secretaire-general, you know as well as I do!”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“Why, weren’t you at the execution?”
+
+“I was.”
+
+“In that case, you saw both Vaucheray and the executioner hit, one
+mortally, the other with a slight wound. And you can’t fail to see...”
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed Prasville, dumbfounded, “you confess it? It was you who
+fired the shots, this morning?”
+
+“Come, monsieur le secretaire-general, think! What choice had I? The
+list of the Twenty-seven which you examined was a forgery. Daubrecq, who
+possessed the genuine one, would not arrive until a few hours after the
+execution. There was therefore but one way for me to save Gilbert and
+obtain his pardon; and that was to delay the execution by a few hours.”
+
+“Obviously.”
+
+“Well, of course. By killing that infamous brute, that hardened
+criminal, Vaucheray, and wounding the executioner, I spread disorder and
+panic; I made Gilbert’s execution physically and morally impossible; and
+I thus gained the few hours which were indispensable for my purpose.”
+
+“Obviously,” repeated Prasville.
+
+“Well, of course,” repeated Lupin, “it gives us all--the government,
+the president and myself--time to reflect and to see the question in a
+clearer light. What do you think of it, monsieur le secretaire-general?”
+
+Prasville thought a number of things, especially that this Nicole was
+giving proof, to use a vulgar phrase, of the most infernal cheek, of
+a cheek so great that Prasville felt inclined to ask himself if he was
+really right in identifying Nicole with Lupin and Lupin with Nicole.
+
+“I think, M. Nicole, that a man has to be a jolly good shot to kill a
+person whom he wants to kill, at a distance of a hundred yards, and to
+wound another person whom he only wants to wound.”
+
+“I have had some little practice,” said M. Nicole, with modest air.
+
+“And I also think that your plan can only be the fruit of a long
+preparation.”
+
+“Not at all! That’s where you’re wrong! It was absolutely spontaneous!
+If my servant, or rather the servant of the friend who lent me his flat
+in the Place de Clichy, had not shaken me out of my sleep, to tell
+me that he had once served as a shopman in that little house on the
+Boulevard Arago, that it did not hold many tenants and that there might
+be something to be done there, our poor Gilbert would have had his head
+cut off by now... and Mme. Mergy would most likely be dead.”
+
+“Oh, you think so?”
+
+“I am sure of it. And that was why I jumped at that faithful
+retainer’s suggestion. Only, you interfered with my plans, monsieur le
+secretaire-general.”
+
+“I did?”
+
+“Yes. You must needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of
+posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five flights
+of back stairs and go out through the servants’ corridor and the next
+house. Such useless fatigue!”
+
+“I am very sorry, M. Nicole. Another time...”
+
+“It was the same thing at eight o’clock this morning, when I was waiting
+for the motor which was bringing Daubrecq to me in his trunk: I had to
+march up and down the Place de Clichy, so as to prevent the car from
+stopping outside the door of my place and your men from interfering in
+my private affairs. Otherwise, once again, Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy
+would have been lost.”
+
+“But,” said Prasville, “those painful events, it seems to me, are only
+delayed for a day, two days, three days at most. To avert them for good
+and all we should want...”
+
+“The real list, I suppose?”
+
+“Exactly. And I daresay you haven’t got it.”
+
+“Yes, I have.”
+
+“The genuine list?”
+
+“The genuine, the undoubtedly genuine list.”
+
+“With the cross of Lorraine?”
+
+“With the cross of Lorraine.”
+
+Prasville was silent. He was labouring under violent emotion, now
+that the duel was commencing with that adversary of whose terrifying
+superiority he was well aware; and he shuddered at the idea that Arsene
+Lupin, the formidable Arsene Lupin, was there, in front of him, calm and
+placid, pursuing his aims with as much coolness as though he had all the
+weapons in his hands and were face to face with a disarmed enemy.
+
+Not yet daring to deliver a frontal attack, feeling almost intimidated,
+Prasville said:
+
+“So Daubrecq gave it up to you?”
+
+“Daubrecq gives nothing up. I took it.”
+
+“By main force, therefore?”
+
+“Oh, dear, no!” said M. Nicole, laughing. “Of course, I was ready to go
+to all lengths; and, when that worthy Daubrecq was dug out of the basket
+in which he had been travelling express, with an occasional dose of
+chloroform to keep his strength up, I had prepared things so that the
+fun might begin at once. Oh, no useless tortures... no vain sufferings!
+No... Death, simply... You press the point of a long needle on the
+chest, where the heart is, and insert it gradually, softly and gently.
+That’s all but the point would have been driven by Mme. Mergy. You
+understand: a mother is pitiless, a mother whose son is about to die!...
+‘Speak, Daubrecq, or I’ll go deeper.... You won’t speak?... Then I’ll
+push another quarter of an inch... and another still.’ And the patient’s
+heart stops beating, the heart that feels the needle coming... And
+another quarter of an inch... and one more... I swear before Heaven that
+the villain would have spoken!... We leant over him and waited for him
+to wake, trembling with impatience, so urgent was our hurry... Can’t you
+picture the scene, monsieur le secretaire-general? The scoundrel lying
+on a sofa, well bound, bare-chested, making efforts to throw off the
+fumes of chloroform that dazed him. He breathes quicker... He gasps...
+He recovers consciousness...his lips move.... Already, Clarisse Mergy
+whispers, ‘It’s I... it’s I, Clarisse... Will you answer, you wretch?’
+She has put her finger on Daubrecq’s chest, at the spot where the heart
+stirs like a little animal hidden under the skin. But she says to me,
+‘His eyes... his eyes... I can’t see them under the spectacles... I want
+to see them... ‘And I also want to see those eyes which I do not know,
+I want to see their anguish and I want to read in them, before I hear a
+word, the secret which is about to burst from the inmost recesses of
+the terrified body. I want to see. I long to see. The action which I am
+about to accomplish excites me beyond measure. It seems to me that,
+when I have seen the eyes, the veil will be rent asunder. I shall know
+things. It is a presentiment. It is the profound intuition of the truth
+that keeps me on tenterhooks. The eye-glasses are gone. But the thick
+opaque spectacles are there still. And I snatch them off, suddenly. And,
+suddenly, startled by a disconcerting vision, dazzled by the quick light
+that breaks in upon me and laughing, oh, but laughing fit to break my
+jaws, with my thumb--do you understand? with my thumb--hop, I force out
+the left eye!”
+
+M. Nicole was really laughing, as he said, fit to break his jaws. And he
+was no longer the timid little unctuous and obsequious provincial usher,
+but a well-set-up fellow, who, after reciting and mimicking the whole
+scene with impressive ardour, was now laughing with a shrill laughter
+the sound of which made Prasville’s flesh creep:
+
+“Hop! Jump, Marquis! Out of your kennel, Towzer! What’s the use of two
+eyes? It’s one more than you want. Hop! I say, Clarisse, look at it
+rolling over the carpet! Mind Daubrecq’s eye! Be careful with the
+grate!”
+
+M. Nicole, who had risen and pretended to be hunting after something
+across the room, now sat down again, took from his pocket a thing shaped
+like a marble, rolled it in the hollow of his hand, chucked it in the
+air, like a ball, put it back in his fob and said, coolly:
+
+“Daubrecq’s left eye.”
+
+Prasville was utterly bewildered. What was his strange visitor driving
+at? What did all this story mean? Pale with excitement, he said:
+
+“Explain yourself.”
+
+“But it’s all explained, it seems to me. And it fits in so well with
+things as they were, fits in with all the conjectures which I had been
+making in spite of myself and which would inevitably have led to my
+solving the mystery, if that damned Daubrecq had not so cleverly sent me
+astray! Yes, think, follow the trend of my suppositions: ‘As the list is
+not to be discovered away from Daubrecq,’ I said to myself, ‘it cannot
+exist away from Daubrecq. And, as it is not to be discovered in the
+clothes he wears, it must be hidden deeper still, in himself, to speak
+plainly, in his flesh, under his skin...”
+
+“In his eye, perhaps?” suggested Prasville, by way of a joke...
+
+“In his eye? Monsieur le secretaire-general, you have said the word.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I repeat, in his eye. And it is a truth that ought to have occurred to
+my mind logically, instead of being revealed to me by accident. And I
+will tell you why. Daubrecq knew that Clarisse had seen a letter from
+him instructing an English manufacturer to ‘empty the crystal within,
+so as to leave a void which it was unpossible to suspect.’ Daubrecq was
+bound, in prudence, to divert any attempt at search. And it was for this
+reason that he had a crystal stopper made, ‘emptied within,’ after a
+model supplied by himself. And it is this crystal stopper which you and
+I have been after for months; and it is this crystal stopper which I dug
+out of a packet of tobacco. Whereas all I had to do...”
+
+“Was what?” asked Prasville, greatly puzzled.
+
+M. Nicole burst into a fresh fit of laughter:
+
+“Was simply to go for Daubrecq’s eye, that eye ‘emptied within so as to
+leave a void which it is impossible to suspect,’ the eye which you see
+before you.”
+
+And M. Nicole once more took the thing from his pocket and rapped the
+table with it, producing the sound of a hard body with each rap.
+
+Prasville whispered, in astonishment:
+
+“A glass eye!”
+
+“Why, of course!” cried M. Nicole, laughing gaily. “A glass eye! A
+common or garden decanter-stopper, which the rascal stuck into his
+eyesocket in the place of an eye which he had lost--a decanter-stopper,
+or, if you prefer, a crystal stopper, but the real one, this time, which
+he faked, which he hid behind the double bulwark of his spectacles
+and eye-glasses, which contained and still contains the talisman that
+enabled Daubrecq to work as he pleased in safety.”
+
+Prasville lowered his head and put his hand to his forehead to hide his
+flushed face: he was almost possessing the list of the Twenty-seven. It
+lay before him, on the table.
+
+Mastering his emotion, he said, in a casual tone:
+
+“So it is there still?”
+
+“At least, I suppose so,” declared M. Nicole.
+
+“What! You suppose so?”
+
+“I have not opened the hiding-place. I thought, monsieur le
+secretaire-general, I would reserve that honour for you.”
+
+Prasville put out his hand, took the thing up and inspected it. It was
+a block of crystal, imitating nature to perfection, with all the details
+of the eyeball, the iris, the pupil, the cornea.
+
+He at once saw a movable part at the back, which slid in a groove. He
+pushed it. The eye was hollow.
+
+There was a tiny ball of paper inside. He unfolded it, smoothed it out
+and, quickly, without delaying to make a preliminary examination of the
+names, the hand-writing or the signatures, he raised his arms and turned
+the paper to the light from the windows.
+
+“Is the cross of Lorraine there?” asked M. Nicole.
+
+“Yes, it is there,” replied Prasville. “This is the genuine list.”
+
+He hesitated a few seconds and remained with his arms raised, while
+reflecting what he would do. Then he folded up the paper again, replaced
+it in its little crystal sheath and put the whole thing in his pocket.
+M. Nicole, who was looking at him, asked:
+
+“Are you convinced?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“Then we are agreed?”
+
+“We are agreed.”
+
+There was a pause, during which the two men watched each other without
+appearing to. M. Nicole seemed to be waiting for the conversation to be
+resumed. Prasville, sheltered behind the piles of books on the table,
+sat with one hand grasping his revolver and the other touching the push
+of the electric bell. He felt the whole strength of his position with a
+keen zest. He held the list. He held Lupin:
+
+“If he moves,” he thought, “I cover him with my revolver and I ring. If
+he attacks me, I shoot.”
+
+And the situation appeared to him so pleasant that he prolonged it, with
+the exquisite relish of an epicure.
+
+In the end, M. Nicole took up the threads:
+
+“As we are agreed, monsieur le secretaire-general, I think there is
+nothing left for you to do but to hurry. Is the execution to take place
+to-morrow?”
+
+“Yes, to-morrow.”
+
+“In that case, I shall wait here.”
+
+“Wait for what?”
+
+“The answer from the Elysee.”
+
+“Oh, is some one to bring you an answer?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You, monsieur le secretaire-general.”
+
+Prasville shook his head:
+
+“You must not count on me, M. Nicole.”
+
+“Really?” said M. Nicole, with an air of surprise. “May I ask the
+reason?”
+
+“I have changed my mind.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“That’s all. I have come to the conclusion that, as things stand, after
+this last scandal, it is impossible to try to do anything in Gilbert’s
+favour. Besides, an attempt in this direction at the Elysee, under
+present conditions, would constitute a regular case of blackmail, to
+which I absolutely decline to lend myself.”
+
+“You are free to do as you please, monsieur. Your scruples do you
+honour, though they come rather late, for they did not trouble you
+yesterday. But, in that case, monsieur le secretaire-general, as
+the compact between us is destroyed, give me back the list of the
+Twenty-seven.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“So that I may apply to another spokesman.”
+
+“What’s the good? Gilbert is lost.”
+
+“Not at all, not at all. On the contrary, I consider that, now that his
+accomplice is dead, it will be much easier to grant him a pardon which
+everybody will look upon as fair and humane. Give me back the list.”
+
+“Upon my word, monsieur, you have a short memory and none too nice a
+conscience. Have you forgotten your promise of yesterday?”
+
+“Yesterday, I made a promise to a M. Nicole.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You are not M. Nicole.”
+
+“Indeed! Then, pray, who am I?”
+
+“Need I tell you?”
+
+M. Nicole made no reply, but began to laugh softly, as though pleased at
+the curious turn which the conversation was taking; and Prasville felt
+a vague misgiving at observing that fit of merriment. He grasped the
+butt-end of his revolver and wondered whether he ought not to ring for
+help.
+
+M. Nicole drew his chair close to the desk, put his two elbows on the
+table, looked Prasville straight in the face and jeered:
+
+“So, M. Prasville, you know who I am and you have the assurance to play
+this game with me?”
+
+“I have that assurance,” said Prasville, accepting the sneer without
+flinching.
+
+“Which proves that you consider me, Arsene Lupin--we may as well use the
+name: yes, Arsene Lupin--which proves that you consider me fool enough,
+dolt enough to deliver myself like this, bound hand and foot into your
+hands.”
+
+“Upon my word,” said Prasville, airily, patting the waistcoat-pocket in
+which he had secreted the crystal ball, “I don’t quite see what you can
+do, M. Nicole, now that Daubrecq’s eye is here, with the list of the
+Twenty-seven inside it.”
+
+“What I can do?” echoed M. Nicole, ironically.
+
+“Yes! The talisman no longer protects you; and you are now no better
+off than any other man who might venture into the very heart of the
+police-office, among some dozens of stalwart fellows posted behind each
+of those doors and some hundreds of others who will hasten up at the
+first signal.”
+
+M. Nicole shrugged his shoulders and gave Prasville a look of great
+commiseration:
+
+“Shall I tell you what is happening, monsieur le secretaire-general?
+Well, you too are having your head turned by all this business. Now that
+you possess the list, your state of mind has suddenly sunk to that of
+a Daubrecq or a d’Albufex. There is no longer even a question, in
+your thoughts, of taking it to your superiors, so that this ferment
+of disgrace and discord may be ended. No, no; a sodden temptation has
+seized upon you and intoxicated you; and, losing your head, you say to
+yourself, ‘It is here, in my pocket. With its aid, I am omnipotent. It
+means wealth, absolute, unbounded power. Why not benefit by it? Why
+not let Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy die? Why not lock up that idiot of
+a Lupin? Why not seize this unparalleled piece of fortune by the
+forelock?’”
+
+He bent toward Prasville and, very softly, in a friendly and
+confidential tone, said:
+
+“Don’t do that, my dear sir, don’t do it.”
+
+“And why not?”
+
+“It is not to your interest, believe me.”
+
+“Really!”
+
+“No. Or, if you absolutely insist on doing it, have the kindness first
+to consult the twenty-seven names on the list of which you have just
+robbed me and reflect, for a moment, on the name of the third person on
+it.”
+
+“Oh? And what is the name of that third person?”
+
+“It is the name of a friend of yours.”
+
+“What friend?”
+
+“Stanislas Vorenglade, the ex-deputy.”
+
+“And then?” said Prasville, who seemed to be losing some of his
+self-confidence.
+
+“Then? Ask yourself if an inquiry, however summary, would not end by
+discovering, behind that Stanislas Vorenglade, the name of one who
+shared certain little profits with him.”
+
+“And whose name is?”
+
+“Louis Prasville.”
+
+M. Nicole banged the table with his fist.
+
+“Enough of this humbug, monsieur! For twenty minutes, you and I have
+been beating about the bush. That will do. Let us understand each other.
+And, to begin with, drop your pistols. You can’t imagine that I am
+frightened of those playthings! Stand up, sir, stand up, as I am doing,
+and finish the business: I am in a hurry.”
+
+He put his hand on Prasville’s shoulder and, speaking with great
+deliberation, said:
+
+“If, within an hour from now, you are not back from the Elysee, bringing
+with you a line to say that the decree of pardon has been signed; if,
+within one hour and ten minutes, I, Arsene Lupin, do not walk out of
+this building safe and sound and absolutely free, this evening
+four Paris newspapers will receive four letters selected from the
+correspondence exchanged between Stanislas Vorenglade and yourself, the
+correspondence which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me this morning. Here’s
+your hat, here’s your overcoat, here’s your stick. Be off. I will wait
+for you.”
+
+Then happened this extraordinary and yet easily understood thing, that
+Prasville did not raise the slightest protest nor make the least show
+of fight. He received the sudden, far-reaching, utter conviction of
+what the personality known as Arsene Lupin meant, in all its breadth and
+fulness. He did not so much as think of carping, of pretending--as
+he had until then believed--that the letters had been destroyed by
+Vorenglade the deputy or, at any rate, that Vorenglade would not dare
+to hand them over, because, in so doing, Vorenglade was also working
+his own destruction. No, Prasville did not speak a word. He felt
+himself caught in a vise of which no human strength could force the jaws
+asunder. There was nothing to do but yield. He yielded.
+
+“Here, in an hour,” repeated M. Nicole.
+
+“In an hour,” said Prasville, tamely. Nevertheless, in order to know
+exactly where he stood, he added, “The letters, of course, will be
+restored to me against Gilbert’s pardon?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“How do you mean, no? In that case, there is no object in...”
+
+“They will be restored to you, intact, two months after the day when my
+friends and I have brought about Gilbert’s escape... thanks to the
+very slack watch which will be kept upon him, in accordance with your
+orders.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“No, there are two further conditions: first, the immediate payment of a
+cheque for forty thousand francs.”
+
+“Forty thousand francs?”
+
+“The sum for which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me the letters. It is only
+fair...”
+
+“And next?”
+
+“Secondly, your resignation, within six months, of your present
+position.”
+
+“My resignation? But why?”
+
+M. Nicole made a very dignified gesture:
+
+“Because it is against public morals that one of the highest positions
+in the police-service should be occupied by a man whose hands are not
+absolutely clean. Make them send you to parliament or appoint you a
+minister, a councillor of State, an ambassador, in short, any post
+which your success in the Daubrecq case entitles you to demand. But not
+secretary-general of police; anything but that! The very thought of it
+disgusts me.”
+
+Prasville reflected for a moment. He would have rejoiced in the sudden
+destruction of his adversary and he racked his brain for the means to
+effect it. But he was helpless.
+
+He went to the door and called:
+
+“M. Lartigue.” And, sinking his voice, but not very low, for he wished
+M. Nicole to hear, “M. Lartigue, dismiss your men. It’s a mistake. And
+let no one come into my office while I am gone. This gentleman will wait
+for me here.”
+
+He came back, took the hat, stick and overcoat which M. Nicole handed
+him and went out.
+
+“Well done, sir,” said Lupin, between his teeth, when the door was
+closed. “You have behaved like a sportsman and a gentleman... So did I,
+for that matter... perhaps with too obvious a touch of contempt... and
+a little too bluntly. But, tush, this sort of business has to be carried
+through with a high hand! The enemy’s got to be staggered! Besides, when
+one’s own conscience is clear, one can’t take up too bullying a tone
+with that sort of individual. Lift your head, Lupin. You have been the
+champion of outraged morality. Be proud of your work. And now take a
+chair, stretch out your legs and have a rest. You’ve deserved it.”
+
+When Prasville returned, he found Lupin sound asleep and had to tap him
+on the shoulder to wake him.
+
+“Is it done?” asked Lupin.
+
+“It’s done. The pardon will be signed presently. Here is the written
+promise.”
+
+“The forty thousand francs?”
+
+“Here’s your cheque.”
+
+“Good. It but remains for me to thank you, monsieur.”
+
+“So the correspondence...”
+
+“The Stanislas Vorenglade correspondence will be handed to you on the
+conditions stated. However, I am glad to be able to give you, here and
+now, as a sign of my gratitude, the four letters which I meant to send
+to the papers this evening.”
+
+“Oh, so you had them on you?” said Prasville.
+
+“I felt so certain, monsieur le secretaire-general, that we should end
+by coming to an understanding.”
+
+He took from his hat a fat envelope, sealed with five red seals, which
+was pinned inside the lining, and handed it to Prasville, who thrust it
+into his pocket. Then he said:
+
+“Monsieur le secretaire-general, I don’t know when I shall have the
+pleasure of seeing you again. If you have the least communication
+to make to me, one line in the agony column of the Journal will be
+sufficient. Just head it, ‘M. Nicole.’ Good-day to you.”
+
+And he withdrew.
+
+Prasville, when he was alone, felt as if he were waking from a nightmare
+during which he had performed incoherent actions over which his
+conscious mind had no control. He was almost thinking of ringing and
+causing a stir in the passages; but, just then, there was a tap at the
+door and one of the office-messengers came hurrying in.
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked Prasville.
+
+“Monsieur le secretaire-general, it’s Monsieur le Depute Daubrecq asking
+to see you... on a matter of the highest importance.”
+
+“Daubrecq!” exclaimed Prasville, in bewilderment. “Daubrecq here! Show
+him in.”
+
+Daubrecq had not waited for the order. He ran up to Prasville, out of
+breath, with his clothes in disorder, a bandage over his left eye, no
+tie, no collar, looking like an escaped lunatic; and the door was not
+closed before he caught hold of Prasville with his two enormous hands:
+
+“Have you the list?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have you bought it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“At the price of Gilbert’s pardon?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Is it signed?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Daubrecq made a furious gesture:
+
+“You fool! You fool! You’ve been trapped! For hatred of me, I expect?
+And now you’re going to take your revenge?”
+
+“With a certain satisfaction, Daubrecq. Remember my little friend, the
+opera-dancer, at Nice... It’s your turn now to dance.”
+
+“So it means prison?”
+
+“I should think so,” said Prasville. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. You’re
+done for, anyhow. Deprived of the list, without defence of any kind,
+you’re bound to fall to pieces of your own weight. And I shall be
+present at the break-up. That’s my revenge.”
+
+“And you believe that!” yelled Daubrecq, furiously. “You believe that
+they will wring my neck like a chicken’s and that I shall not know how
+to defend myself and that I have no claws left and no teeth to bite
+with! Well, my boy, if I do come to grief, there’s always one who will
+fall with me and that is Master Prasville, the partner of Stanislas
+Vorenglade, who is going to hand me every proof in existence against
+him, so that I may get him sent to gaol without delay. Aha, I’ve got you
+fixed, old chap! With those letters, you’ll go as I please, hang it all,
+and there will be fine days yet for Daubrecq the deputy! What! You’re
+laughing, are you? Perhaps those letters don’t exist?”
+
+Prasville shrugged his shoulders:
+
+“Yes, they exist. But Vorenglade no longer has them in his possession.”
+
+“Since when?”
+
+“Since this morning. Vorenglade sold them, two hours ago, for the sum of
+forty thousand francs; and I have bought them back at the same price.”
+
+Daubrecq burst into a great roar of laughter:
+
+“Lord, how funny! Forty thousand francs! You’ve paid forty thousand
+francs! To M. Nicole, I suppose, who sold you the list of the
+Twenty-seven? Well, would you like me to tell you the real name of M.
+Nicole? It’s Arsene Lupin!”
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“Very likely. But what you don’t know, you silly ass, is that I have
+come straight from Stanislas Vorenglade’s and that Stanislas Vorenglade
+left Paris four days ago! Oh, what a joke! They’ve sold you waste paper!
+And your forty thousand francs! What an ass! What an ass!”
+
+He walked out of the room, screaming with laughter and leaving Prasville
+absolutely dumbfounded.
+
+So Arsene Lupin possessed no proof at all; and, when he was threatening
+and commanding and treating Prasville with that airy insolence, it was
+all a farce, all bluff!
+
+“No, no, it’s impossible,” thought the secretary-general. “I have the
+sealed envelope.... It’s here.... I have only to open it.”
+
+He dared not open it. He handled it, weighed it, examined it... And
+doubt made its way so swiftly into his mind that he was not in the least
+surprised, when he did open it, to find that it contained four blank
+sheets of note-paper.
+
+“Well, well,” he said, “I am no match for those rascals. But all is not
+over yet.”
+
+And, in point of fact, all was not over. If Lupin had acted so daringly,
+it showed that the letters existed and that he relied upon buying them
+from Stanislas Vorenglade. But, as, on the other hand, Vorenglade was
+not in Paris, Prasville’s business was simply to forestall Lupin’s steps
+with regard to Vorenglade and obtain the restitution of those dangerous
+letters from Vorenglade at all costs. The first to arrive would be the
+victor.
+
+Prasville once more took his hat, coat and stick, went downstairs,
+stepped into a taxi and drove to Vorenglade’s flat.
+
+Here he was told that the ex-deputy was expected home from London at six
+o’clock that evening.
+
+It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Prasville therefore had plenty of
+time to prepare his plan.
+
+He arrived at the Gare du Nord at five o’clock and posted all around,
+in the waiting-rooms and in the railway-offices, the three or four dozen
+detectives whom he had brought with him.
+
+This made him feel easy. If M. Nicole tried to speak to Vorenglade,
+they would arrest Lupin. And, to make assurance doubly sure, they would
+arrest whosoever could be suspected of being either Lupin or one of
+Lupin’s emissaries.
+
+Moreover, Prasville made a close inspection of the whole station.
+He discovered nothing suspicious. But, at ten minutes to six,
+Chief-inspector Blanchon, who was with him, said:
+
+“Look, there’s Daubrecq.”
+
+Daubrecq it was; and the sight of his enemy exasperated the
+secretary-general to such a pitch that he was on the verge of having him
+arrested. But he reflected that he had no excuse, no right, no warrant
+for the arrest.
+
+Besides, Daubrecq’s presence proved, with still greater force, that
+everything now depended on Stanislas Vorenglade. Vorenglade possessed
+the letters: who would end by having them? Daubrecq? Lupin? Or he,
+Prasville?
+
+Lupin was not there and could not be there. Daubrecq was not in a
+position to fight. There could be no doubt, therefore, about the result:
+Prasville would reenter into possession of his letters and, through
+this very fact, would escape Daubrecq’s threats and Lupin’s threats and
+recover all his freedom of action against them.
+
+The train arrived.
+
+In accordance with orders, the stationmaster had issued instructions
+that no one was to be admitted to the platform. Prasville, therefore,
+walked on alone, in front of a number of his men, with Chief-inspector
+Blanchon at their head.
+
+The train drew up.
+
+Prasville almost at once saw Stanislas Vorenglade at the window of a
+first-class compartment, in the middle of the train.
+
+The ex-deputy alighted and then held out his hand to assist an old
+gentleman who was travelling with him.
+
+Prasville ran up to him and said, eagerly:
+
+“Vorenglade... I want to speak to you...”
+
+At the same moment, Daubrecq, who had managed to pass the barrier,
+appeared and exclaimed:
+
+“M. Vorenglade, I have had your letter. I am at your disposal.”
+
+Vorenglade looked at the two men, recognized Prasville, recognized
+Daubrecq, and smiled:
+
+“Oho, it seems that my return was awaited with some impatience! What’s
+it all about? Certain letters, I expect?”
+
+“Yes... yes...” replied the two men, fussing around him.
+
+“You’re too late,” he declared.
+
+“Eh? What? What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that the letters are sold.”
+
+“Sold! To whom?”
+
+“To this gentleman,” said Vorenglade, pointing to his
+travelling-companion, “to this gentleman, who thought that the business
+was worth going out of his way for and who came to Amiens to meet me.”
+
+The old gentleman, a very old man wrapped in furs and leaning on his
+stick, took off his hat and bowed.
+
+“It’s Lupin,” thought Prasville, “it’s Lupin, beyond a doubt.”
+
+And he glanced toward the detectives, was nearly calling them, but the
+old gentleman explained:
+
+“Yes, I thought the letters were good enough to warrant a few hours’
+railway journey and the cost of two return tickets.”
+
+“Two tickets?”
+
+“One for me and the other for one of my friends.”
+
+“One of your friends?”
+
+“Yes, he left us a few minutes ago and reached the front part of the
+train through the corridor. He was in a great hurry.”
+
+Prasville understood: Lupin had taken the precaution to bring an
+accomplice, and the accomplice was carrying off the letters. The game
+was lost, to a certainty. Lupin had a firm grip on his victim. There was
+nothing to do but submit and accept the conqueror’s conditions.
+
+“Very well, sir,” said Prasville. “We shall see each other when the time
+comes. Good-bye for the present, Daubrecq: you shall hear from me.” And,
+drawing Vorenglade aside, “As for you, Vorenglade, you are playing a
+dangerous game.”
+
+“Dear me!” said the ex-deputy. “And why?”
+
+The two men moved away.
+
+Daubrecq had not uttered a word and stood motionless, as though rooted
+to the ground.
+
+The old gentleman went up to him and whispered:
+
+“I say, Daubrecq, wake up, old chap... It’s the chloroform, I expect...”
+
+Daubrecq clenched his fists and gave a muttered growl.
+
+“Ah, I see you know me!” said the old gentleman. “Then you will remember
+our interview, some months ago, when I came to see you in the Square
+Lamartine and asked you to intercede in Gilbert’s favour. I said to
+you that day, ‘Lay down your arms, save Gilbert and I will leave you in
+peace. If not, I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from you; and
+then you’re done for.’ Well, I have a strong suspicion that done for is
+what you are. That comes of not making terms with kind M. Lupin. Sooner
+or later, you’re bound to lose your boots by it. However, let it be a
+lesson to you.
+
+“By the way, here’s your pocketbook which I forgot to give you. Excuse
+me if you find it lightened of its contents. There were not only
+a decent number of bank-notes in it, but also the receipt from the
+warehouse where you stored the Enghien things which you took back from
+me. I thought I might as well save you the trouble of taking them out
+yourself. It ought to be done by now. No, don’t thank me: it’s not worth
+mentioning. Good-bye, Daubrecq. And, if you should want a louis or
+two, to buy yourself a new decanter-stopper, drop me a line. Good-bye,
+Daubrecq.”
+
+He walked away.
+
+He had not gone fifty steps when he heard the sound of a shot.
+
+He turned round.
+
+Daubrecq had blown his brains out.
+
+“De profundis,” murmured Lupin, taking off his hat.
+
+Two months later, Gilbert, whose sentence had been commuted to one of
+penal servitude for life, made his escape from the Ile de Re, on the day
+before that on which he was to have been transported to New Caledonia.
+
+It was a strange escape. Its least details remained difficult to
+understand; and, like the two shots on the Boulevard Arago, it greatly
+enhanced Arsene Lupin’s prestige.
+
+“Taken all round,” said Lupin to me, one day, after telling me the
+different episodes of the story, “taken all around, no enterprise
+has ever given me more trouble or cost me greater exertions than that
+confounded adventure which, if you don’t mind, we will call, The Crystal
+Stopper; or, Never Say Die. In twelve hours, between six o’clock in the
+morning and six o’clock in the evening, I made up for six months of bad
+luck, blunders, gropings in the dark and reverses. I certainly count
+those twelve hours among the finest and the most glorious of my life.”
+
+“And Gilbert?” I asked. “What became of him?”
+
+“He is farming his own land, way down in Algeria, under his real name,
+his only name of Antoine Mergy. He is married to an Englishwoman, and
+they have a son whom he insisted on calling Arsene. I often receive a
+bright, chatty, warm-hearted letter from him.”
+
+“And Mme. Mergy?”
+
+“She and her little Jacques are living with them.”
+
+“Did you see her again?”
+
+“I did not.”
+
+“Really!”
+
+Lupin hesitated for a few moments and then said with a smile:
+
+“My dear fellow, I will let you into a secret that will make me seem
+ridiculous in your eyes. But you know that I have always been as
+sentimental as a schoolboy and as silly as a goose. Well, on the
+evening when I went back to Clarisse Mergy and told her the news of the
+day--part of which, for that matter, she already knew--I felt two
+things very thoroughly. One was that I entertained for her a much deeper
+feeling than I thought; the other that she, on the contrary, entertained
+for me a feeling which was not without contempt, not without a rankling
+grudge nor even a certain aversion.”
+
+“Nonsense! Why?”
+
+“Why? Because Clarisse Mergy is an exceedingly honest woman and because
+I am... just Arsene Lupin.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Dear me, yes, an attractive bandit, a romantic and chivalrous
+cracksman, anything you please. For all that, in the eyes of a really
+honest woman, with an upright nature and a well-balanced mind, I am only
+the merest riff-raff.”
+
+I saw that the wound was sharper than he was willing to admit, and I
+said:
+
+“So you really loved her?”
+
+“I even believe,” he said, in a jesting tone, “that I asked her to marry
+me. After all, I had saved her son, had I not?... So... I thought. What
+a rebuff!... It produced a coolness between us... Since then...”
+
+“You have forgotten her?”
+
+“Oh, certainly! But it required the consolations of one Italian, two
+Americans, three Russians, a German grand-duchess and a Chinawoman to do
+it!”
+
+“And, after that...?”
+
+“After that, so as to place an insuperable barrier between myself and
+her, I got married.”
+
+“Nonsense! You got married, you, Arsene Lupin?”
+
+“Married, wedded, spliced, in the most lawful fashion. One of the
+greatest names in France. An only daughter. A colossal fortune... What!
+You don’t know the story? Well, it’s worth hearing.”
+
+And, straightway, Lupin, who was in a confidential vein, began to tell
+me the story of his marriage to Angelique de Sarzeau-Vendome, Princesse
+de Bourbon-Conde, to-day Sister Marie-Auguste, a humble nun in the
+Visitation Convent... [*]
+
+     * See The Confessions of Arsene Lupin By Maurice Leblanc
+     Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+But, after the first few words, he stopped, as though his narrative had
+suddenly ceased to interest him, and he remained pensive.
+
+“What’s the matter, Lupin?”
+
+“The matter? Nothing.”
+
+“Yes, yes... There... now you’re smiling... Is it Daubrecq’s secret
+receptacle, his glass eye, that’s making you laugh?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“Nothing, I tell you... only a memory.”
+
+“A pleasant memory?”
+
+“Yes!... Yes, a delightful memory even. It was at night, off the Ile
+de Re, on the fishing-smack in which Clarisse and I were taking Gilbert
+away.... We were alone, the two of us, in the stern of the boat... And
+I remember ... I talked... I spoke words and more words... I said all
+that I had on my heart... And then... then came silence, a perturbing
+and disarming silence.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, I swear to you that the woman whom I took in my arms that night
+and kissed on the lips--oh, not for long: a few seconds only, but
+no matter!--I swear before heaven that she was something more than a
+grateful mother, something more than a friend yielding to a moment
+of susceptibility, that she was a woman also, a woman quivering with
+emotion ...” And he continued, with a bitter laugh, “Who ran away next
+day, never to see me again.”
+
+He was silent once more. Then he whispered:
+
+“Clarisse... Clarisse... On the day when I am tired and disappointed and
+weary of life, I will come to you down there, in your little Arab house
+... in that little white house, Clarisse, where you are waiting for
+me...”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crystal Stopper, by Maurice LeBlanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theeightstrokesoftheclock b/files/books/unrelated/theeightstrokesoftheclock
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..afbf713
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theeightstrokesoftheclock
@@ -0,0 +1,8678 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Eight Strokes of the Clock
+
+Author: Maurice Le Blanc
+
+Posting Date: March 26, 2014 [EBook #7896]
+Release Date: April, 2005
+First Posted: May 31, 2003
+Last Updated: November 16, 2004
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The girl gasped as Renine (Arsene Lupin) drew forth the
+mysterious telescope.]
+
+
+              THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK
+
+                           BY
+
+                    MAURICE LE BLANC
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+These adventures were told to me in the old days by Arsène Lupin, as
+though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince Rénine. As for
+me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the actions, the
+behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it very difficult not
+to identify the two friends as one and the same person. Arsène Lupin is
+gifted with a powerful imagination and is quite capable of attributing to
+himself adventures which are not his at all and of disowning those which
+are really his. The reader will judge for himself.
+
+M. L.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+II THE WATER BOTTLE
+
+III THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+IV THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+V THÉRÈSE AND GERMAINE
+
+VI THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+VII FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+VIII AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+
+Hortense Daniel pushed her window ajar and whispered:
+
+"Are you there, Rossigny?"
+
+"I am here," replied a voice from the shrubbery at the front of the house.
+
+Leaning forward, she saw a rather fat man looking up at her out of a gross
+red face with its cheeks and chin set in unpleasantly fair whiskers.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I had a great argument with my uncle and aunt last night. They
+absolutely refuse to sign the document of which my lawyer sent them the
+draft, or to restore the dowry squandered by my husband."
+
+"But your uncle is responsible by the terms of the marriage-settlement."
+
+"No matter. He refuses."
+
+"Well, what do you propose to do?"
+
+"Are you still determined to run away with me?" she asked, with a laugh.
+
+"More so than ever."
+
+"Your intentions are strictly honourable, remember!"
+
+"Just as you please. You know that I am madly in love with you."
+
+"Unfortunately I am not madly in love with you!"
+
+"Then what made you choose me?"
+
+"Chance. I was bored. I was growing tired of my humdrum existence. So I'm
+ready to run risks.... Here's my luggage: catch!"
+
+She let down from the window a couple of large leather kit-bags. Rossigny
+caught them in his arms.
+
+"The die is cast," she whispered. "Go and wait for me with your car at the
+If cross-roads. I shall come on horseback."
+
+"Hang it, I can't run off with your horse!"
+
+"He will go home by himself."
+
+"Capital!... Oh, by the way...."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Who is this Prince Rénine, who's been here the last three days and whom
+nobody seems to know?"
+
+"I don't know much about him. My uncle met him at a friend's shoot and
+asked him here to stay."
+
+"You seem to have made a great impression on him. You went for a long ride
+with him yesterday. He's a man I don't care for."
+
+"In two hours I shall have left the house in your company. The scandal will
+cool him off.... Well, we've talked long enough. We have no time to lose."
+
+For a few minutes she stood watching the fat man bending under the weight
+of her traps as he moved away in the shelter of an empty avenue. Then she
+closed the window.
+
+Outside, in the park, the huntsmen's horns were sounding the reveille. The
+hounds burst into frantic baying. It was the opening day of the hunt that
+morning at the Château de la Marèze, where, every year, in the first week
+in September, the Comte d'Aigleroche, a mighty hunter before the Lord,
+and his countess were accustomed to invite a few personal friends and the
+neighbouring landowners.
+
+Hortense slowly finished dressing, put on a riding-habit, which
+revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat,
+which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her
+writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a farewell
+letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult letter to
+word; and, after beginning it several times, she ended by giving up the
+idea.
+
+"I will write to him later," she said to herself, "when his anger has
+cooled down."
+
+And she went downstairs to the dining-room.
+
+Enormous logs were blazing in the hearth of the lofty room. The walls were
+hung with trophies of rifles and shotguns. The guests were flocking in from
+every side, shaking hands with the Comte d'Aigleroche, one of those typical
+country squires, heavily and powerfully built, who lives only for hunting
+and shooting. He was standing before the fire, with a large glass of old
+brandy in his hand, drinking the health of each new arrival.
+
+Hortense kissed him absently:
+
+"What, uncle! You who are usually so sober!"
+
+"Pooh!" he said. "A man may surely indulge himself a little once a
+year!..."
+
+"Aunt will give you a scolding!"
+
+"Your aunt has one of her sick headaches and is not coming down. Besides,"
+he added, gruffly, "it is not her business ... and still less is it yours,
+my dear child."
+
+Prince Rénine came up to Hortense. He was a young man, very smartly
+dressed, with a narrow and rather pale face, whose eyes held by turns
+the gentlest and the harshest, the most friendly and the most satirical
+expression. He bowed to her, kissed her hand and said:
+
+"May I remind you of your kind promise, dear madame?"
+
+"My promise?"
+
+"Yes, we agreed that we should repeat our delightful excursion of yesterday
+and try to go over that old boarded-up place the look of which made us so
+curious. It seems to be known as the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+She answered a little curtly:
+
+"I'm extremely sorry, monsieur, but it would be rather far and I'm feeling
+a little done up. I shall go for a canter in the park and come indoors
+again."
+
+There was a pause. Then Serge Rénine said, smiling, with his eyes fixed on
+hers and in a voice which she alone could hear:
+
+"I am sure that you'll keep your promise and that you'll let me come with
+you. It would be better."
+
+"For whom? For you, you mean?"
+
+"For you, too, I assure you."
+
+She coloured slightly, but did not reply, shook hands with a few people
+around her and left the room.
+
+A groom was holding the horse at the foot of the steps. She mounted and set
+off towards the woods beyond the park.
+
+It was a cool, still morning. Through the leaves, which barely quivered,
+the sky showed crystalline blue. Hortense rode at a walk down winding
+avenues which in half an hour brought her to a country-side of ravines and
+bluffs intersected by the high-road.
+
+She stopped. There was not a sound. Rossigny must have stopped his engine
+and concealed the car in the thickets around the If cross-roads.
+
+She was five hundred yards at most from that circular space. After
+hesitating for a few seconds, she dismounted, tied her horse carelessly, so
+that he could release himself by the least effort and return to the house,
+shrouded her face in the long brown veil that hung over her shoulders and
+walked on.
+
+As she expected, she saw Rossigny directly she reached the first turn in
+the road. He ran up to her and drew her into the coppice!
+
+"Quick, quick! Oh, I was so afraid that you would be late ... or even
+change your mind! And here you are! It seems too good to be true!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"You appear to be quite happy to do an idiotic thing!"
+
+"I should think I _am_ happy! And so will you be, I swear you will!
+Your life will be one long fairy-tale. You shall have every luxury, and all
+the money you can wish for."
+
+"I want neither money nor luxuries."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Happiness."
+
+"You can safely leave your happiness to me."
+
+She replied, jestingly:
+
+"I rather doubt the quality of the happiness which you would give me."
+
+"Wait! You'll see! You'll see!"
+
+They had reached the motor. Rossigny, still stammering expressions of
+delight, started the engine. Hortense stepped in and wrapped herself in a
+wide cloak. The car followed the narrow, grassy path which led back to the
+cross-roads and Rossigny was accelerating the speed, when he was suddenly
+forced to pull up. A shot had rung out from the neighbouring wood, on the
+right. The car was swerving from side to side.
+
+"A front tire burst," shouted Rossigny, leaping to the ground.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" cried Hortense. "Somebody fired!"
+
+"Impossible, my dear! Don't be so absurd!"
+
+At that moment, two slight shocks were felt and two more reports were
+heard, one after the other, some way off and still in the wood.
+
+Rossigny snarled:
+
+"The back tires burst now ... both of them.... But who, in the devil's
+name, can the ruffian be?... Just let me get hold of him, that's all!..."
+
+He clambered up the road-side slope. There was no one there. Moreover, the
+leaves of the coppice blocked the view.
+
+"Damn it! Damn it!" he swore. "You were right: somebody was firing at the
+car! Oh, this is a bit thick! We shall be held up for hours! Three tires to
+mend!... But what are you doing, dear girl?"
+
+Hortense herself had alighted from the car. She ran to him, greatly
+excited:
+
+"I'm going."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I want to know. Some one fired. I want to know who it was."
+
+"Don't let us separate, please!"
+
+"Do you think I'm going to wait here for you for hours?"
+
+"What about your running away?... All our plans ...?"
+
+"We'll discuss that to-morrow. Go back to the house. Take back my things
+with you.... And good-bye for the present."
+
+She hurried, left him, had the good luck to find her horse and set off at a
+gallop in a direction leading away from La Marèze.
+
+There was not the least doubt in her mind that the three shots had been
+fired by Prince Rénine.
+
+"It was he," she muttered, angrily, "it was he. No one else would be
+capable of such behaviour."
+
+Besides, he had warned her, in his smiling, masterful way, that he would
+expect her.
+
+She was weeping with rage and humiliation. At that moment, had she found
+herself face to face with Prince Rénine, she could have struck him with her
+riding-whip.
+
+Before her was the rugged and picturesque stretch of country which lies
+between the Orne and the Sarthe, above Alençon, and which is known as
+Little Switzerland. Steep hills compelled her frequently to moderate her
+pace, the more so as she had to cover some six miles before reaching her
+destination. But, though the speed at which she rode became less headlong,
+though her physical effort gradually slackened, she nevertheless persisted
+in her indignation against Prince Rénine. She bore him a grudge not only
+for the unspeakable action of which he had been guilty, but also for his
+behaviour to her during the last three days, his persistent attentions, his
+assurance, his air of excessive politeness.
+
+She was nearly there. In the bottom of a valley, an old park-wall, full
+of cracks and covered with moss and weeds, revealed the ball-turret of a
+château and a few windows with closed shutters. This was the Domaine de
+Halingre.
+
+She followed the wall and turned a corner. In the middle of the
+crescent-shaped space before which lay the entrance-gates, Serge Rénine
+stood waiting beside his horse.
+
+She sprang to the ground, and, as he stepped forward, hat in hand, thanking
+her for coming, she cried:
+
+"One word, monsieur, to begin with. Something quite inexplicable happened
+just now. Three shots were fired at a motor-car in which I was sitting. Did
+you fire those shots?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She seemed dumbfounded:
+
+"Then you confess it?"
+
+"You have asked a question, madame, and I have answered it."
+
+"But how dared you? What gave you the right?"
+
+"I was not exercising a right, madame; I was performing a duty!"
+
+"Indeed! And what duty, pray?"
+
+"The duty of protecting you against a man who is trying to profit by your
+troubles."
+
+"I forbid you to speak like that. I am responsible for my own actions, and
+I decided upon them in perfect liberty."
+
+"Madame, I overheard your conversation with M. Rossigny this morning and it
+did not appear to me that you were accompanying him with a light heart. I
+admit the ruthlessness and bad taste of my interference and I apologise for
+it humbly; but I risked being taken for a ruffian in order to give you a
+few hours for reflection."
+
+"I have reflected fully, monsieur. When I have once made up my mind to a
+thing, I do not change it."
+
+"Yes, madame, you do, sometimes. If not, why are you here instead of
+there?"
+
+Hortense was confused for a moment. All her anger had subsided. She looked
+at Rénine with the surprise which one experiences when confronted with
+certain persons who are unlike their fellows, more capable of performing
+unusual actions, more generous and disinterested. She realised perfectly
+that he was acting without any ulterior motive or calculation, that he was,
+as he had said, merely fulfilling his duty as a gentleman to a woman who
+has taken the wrong turning.
+
+Speaking very gently, he said:
+
+"I know very little about you, madame, but enough to make me wish to be of
+use to you. You are twenty-six years old and have lost both your parents.
+Seven years ago, you became the wife of the Comte d'Aigleroche's nephew by
+marriage, who proved to be of unsound mind, half insane indeed, and had
+to be confined. This made it impossible for you to obtain a divorce and
+compelled you, since your dowry had been squandered, to live with your
+uncle and at his expense. It's a depressing environment. The count and
+countess do not agree. Years ago, the count was deserted by his first wife,
+who ran away with the countess' first husband. The abandoned husband and
+wife decided out of spite to unite their fortunes, but found nothing but
+disappointment and ill-will in this second marriage. And you suffer the
+consequences. They lead a monotonous, narrow, lonely life for eleven months
+or more out of the year. One day, you met M. Rossigny, who fell in love
+with you and suggested an elopement. You did not care for him. But you were
+bored, your youth was being wasted, you longed for the unexpected, for
+adventure ... in a word, you accepted with the very definite intention of
+keeping your admirer at arm's length, but also with the rather ingenuous
+hope that the scandal would force your uncle's hand and make him account
+for his trusteeship and assure you of an independent existence. That is how
+you stand. At present you have to choose between placing yourself in M.
+Rossigny's hands ... or trusting yourself to me."
+
+She raised her eyes to his. What did he mean? What was the purport of this
+offer which he made so seriously, like a friend who asks nothing but to
+prove his devotion?
+
+After a moment's silence, he took the two horses by the bridle and tied
+them up. Then he examined the heavy gates, each of which was strengthened
+by two planks nailed cross-wise. An electoral poster, dated twenty years
+earlier, showed that no one had entered the domain since that time.
+
+Rénine tore up one of the iron posts which supported a railing that ran
+round the crescent and used it as a lever. The rotten planks gave way. One
+of them uncovered the lock, which he attacked with a big knife, containing
+a number of blades and implements. A minute later, the gate opened on a
+waste of bracken which led up to a long, dilapidated building, with a
+turret at each corner and a sort of a belvedere, built on a taller tower,
+in the middle.
+
+The Prince turned to Hortense:
+
+"You are in no hurry," he said. "You will form your decision this evening;
+and, if M. Rossigny succeeds in persuading you for the second time, I give
+you my word of honour that I shall not cross your path. Until then, grant
+me the privilege of your company. We made up our minds yesterday to inspect
+the château. Let us do so. Will you? It is as good a way as any of passing
+the time and I have a notion that it will not be uninteresting."
+
+He had a way of talking which compelled obedience. He seemed to be
+commanding and entreating at the same time. Hortense did not even seek
+to shake off the enervation into which her will was slowly sinking. She
+followed him to a half-demolished flight of steps at the top of which was
+a door likewise strengthened by planks nailed in the form of a cross.
+
+Rénine went to work in the same way as before. They entered a spacious
+hall paved with white and black flagstones, furnished with old sideboards
+and choir-stalls and adorned with a carved escutcheon which displayed the
+remains of armorial bearings, representing an eagle standing on a block of
+stone, all half-hidden behind a veil of cobwebs which hung down over a pair
+of folding-doors.
+
+"The door of the drawing-room, evidently," said Rénine.
+
+He found this more difficult to open; and it was only by repeatedly
+charging it with his shoulder that he was able to move one of the doors.
+
+Hortense had not spoken a word. She watched not without surprise this
+series of forcible entries, which were accomplished with a really masterly
+skill. He guessed her thoughts and, turning round, said in a serious voice:
+
+"It's child's-play to me. I was a locksmith once."
+
+She seized his arm and whispered:
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"To what?" he asked.
+
+She increased the pressure of her hand, to demand silence. The next moment,
+he murmured:
+
+"It's really very strange."
+
+"Listen, listen!" Hortense repeated, in bewilderment. "Can it be possible?"
+
+They heard, not far from where they were standing, a sharp sound, the sound
+of a light tap recurring at regular intervals; and they had only to listen
+attentively to recognise the ticking of a clock. Yes, it was this and
+nothing else that broke the profound silence of the dark room; it was
+indeed the deliberate ticking, rhythmical as the beat of a metronome,
+produced by a heavy brass pendulum. That was it! And nothing could be more
+impressive than the measured pulsation of this trivial mechanism, which by
+some miracle, some inexplicable phenomenon, had continued to live in the
+heart of the dead château.
+
+"And yet," stammered Hortense, without daring to raise her voice, "no one
+has entered the house?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"And it is quite impossible for that clock to have kept going for twenty
+years without being wound up?"
+
+"Quite impossible."
+
+"Then ...?"
+
+Serge Rénine opened the three windows and threw back the shutters.
+
+He and Hortense were in a drawing-room, as he had thought; and the room
+showed not the least sign of disorder. The chairs were in their places. Not
+a piece of furniture was missing. The people who had lived there and who
+had made it the most individual room in their house had gone away leaving
+everything just as it was, the books which they used to read, the
+knick-knacks on the tables and consoles.
+
+Rénine examined the old grandfather's clock, contained in its tall carved
+case which showed the disk of the pendulum through an oval pane of glass.
+He opened the door of the clock. The weights hanging from the cords were at
+their lowest point.
+
+At that moment there was a click. The clock struck eight with a serious
+note which Hortense was never to forget.
+
+"How extraordinary!" she said.
+
+"Extraordinary indeed," said he, "for the works are exceedingly simple and
+would hardly keep going for a week."
+
+"And do you see nothing out of the common?"
+
+"No, nothing ... or, at least...."
+
+He stooped and, from the back of the case, drew a metal tube which was
+concealed by the weights. Holding it up to the light:
+
+"A telescope," he said, thoughtfully. "Why did they hide it?... And they
+left it drawn out to its full length.... That's odd.... What does it mean?"
+
+The clock, as is sometimes usual, began to strike a second time, sounding
+eight strokes. Rénine closed the case and continued his inspection without
+putting his telescope down. A wide arch led from the drawing-room to a
+smaller apartment, a sort of smoking-room. This also was furnished, but
+contained a glass case for guns of which the rack was empty. Hanging on
+a panel near by was a calendar with the date of the 5th of September.
+
+"Oh," cried Hortense, in astonishment, "the same date as to-day!... They
+tore off the leaves until the 5th of September.... And this is the
+anniversary! What an astonishing coincidence!"
+
+"Astonishing," he echoed. "It's the anniversary of their departure ...
+twenty years ago to-day."
+
+"You must admit," she said, "that all this is incomprehensible.
+
+"Yes, of course ... but, all the same ... perhaps not."
+
+"Have you any idea?"
+
+He waited a few seconds before replying:
+
+"What puzzles me is this telescope hidden, dropped in that corner, at
+the last moment. I wonder what it was used for.... From the ground-floor
+windows you see nothing but the trees in the garden ... and the same, I
+expect, from all the windows.... We are in a valley, without the least open
+horizon.... To use the telescope, one would have to go up to the top of the
+house.... Shall we go up?"
+
+She did not hesitate. The mystery surrounding the whole adventure excited
+her curiosity so keenly that she could think of nothing but accompanying
+Rénine and assisting him in his investigations.
+
+They went upstairs accordingly, and, on the second floor, came to a landing
+where they found the spiral staircase leading to the belvedere.
+
+At the top of this was a platform in the open air, but surrounded by a
+parapet over six feet high.
+
+"There must have been battlements which have been filled in since,"
+observed Prince Rénine. "Look here, there were loop-holes at one time. They
+may have been blocked."
+
+"In any case," she said, "the telescope was of no use up here either and we
+may as well go down again."
+
+"I don't agree," he said. "Logic tells us that there must have been some
+gap through which the country could be seen and this was the spot where the
+telescope was used."
+
+He hoisted himself by his wrists to the top of the parapet and then saw
+that this point of vantage commanded the whole of the valley, including the
+park, with its tall trees marking the horizon; and, beyond, a depression
+in a wood surmounting a hill, at a distance of some seven or eight hundred
+yards, stood another tower, squat and in ruins, covered with ivy from top
+to bottom.
+
+Rénine resumed his inspection. He seemed to consider that the key to the
+problem lay in the use to which the telescope was put and that the problem
+would be solved if only they could discover this use.
+
+He studied the loop-holes one after the other. One of them, or rather the
+place which it had occupied, attracted his attention above the rest. In
+the middle of the layer of plaster, which had served to block it, there
+was a hollow filled with earth in which plants had grown. He pulled out
+the plants and removed the earth, thus clearing the mouth of a hole some
+five inches in diameter, which completely penetrated the wall. On bending
+forward, Rénine perceived that this deep and narrow opening inevitably
+carried the eye, above the dense tops of the trees and through the
+depression in the hill, to the ivy-clad tower.
+
+At the bottom of this channel, in a sort of groove which ran through it
+like a gutter, the telescope fitted so exactly that it was quite impossible
+to shift it, however little, either to the right or to the left.
+
+Rénine, after wiping the outside of the lenses, while taking care not to
+disturb the lie of the instrument by a hair's breadth, put his eye to the
+small end.
+
+He remained for thirty or forty seconds, gazing attentively and silently.
+Then he drew himself up and said, in a husky voice:
+
+"It's terrible ... it's really terrible."
+
+"What is?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"Look."
+
+She bent down but the image was not clear to her and the telescope had to
+be focussed to suit her sight. The next moment she shuddered and said:
+
+"It's two scarecrows, isn't it, both stuck up on the top? But why?"
+
+"Look again," he said. "Look more carefully under the hats ... the
+faces...."
+
+"Oh!" she cried, turning faint with horror, "how awful!"
+
+The field of the telescope, like the circular picture shown by a magic
+lantern, presented this spectacle: the platform of a broken tower, the
+walls of which were higher in the more distant part and formed as it were
+a back-drop, over which surged waves of ivy. In front, amid a cluster of
+bushes, were two human beings, a man and a woman, leaning back against a
+heap of fallen stones.
+
+But the words man and woman could hardly be applied to these two forms,
+these two sinister puppets, which, it is true, wore clothes and hats--or
+rather shreds of clothes and remnants of hats--but had lost their eyes,
+their cheeks, their chins, every particle of flesh, until they were
+actually and positively nothing more than two skeletons.
+
+"Two skeletons," stammered Hortense. "Two skeletons with clothes on. Who
+carried them up there?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"But still...."
+
+"That man and that woman must have died at the top of the tower, years and
+years ago ... and their flesh rotted under their clothes and the ravens ate
+them."
+
+"But it's hideous, hideous!" cried Hortense, pale as death, her face drawn
+with horror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later, Hortense Daniel and Rénine left the Château de
+Halingre. Before their departure, they had gone as far as the ivy-grown
+tower, the remains of an old donjon-keep more than half demolished. The
+inside was empty. There seemed to have been a way of climbing to the top,
+at a comparatively recent period, by means of wooden stairs and ladders
+which now lay broken and scattered over the ground. The tower backed
+against the wall which marked the end of the park.
+
+A curious fact, which surprised Hortense, was that Prince Rénine had
+neglected to pursue a more minute enquiry, as though the matter had lost
+all interest for him. He did not even speak of it any longer; and, in the
+inn at which they stopped and took a light meal in the nearest village, it
+was she who asked the landlord about the abandoned château. But she learnt
+nothing from him, for the man was new to the district and could give her no
+particulars. He did not even know the name of the owner.
+
+They turned their horses' heads towards La Marèze. Again and again Hortense
+recalled the squalid sight which had met their eyes. But Rénine, who was
+in a lively mood and full of attentions to his companion, seemed utterly
+indifferent to those questions.
+
+"But, after all," she exclaimed, impatiently, "we can't leave the matter
+there! It calls for a solution."
+
+"As you say," he replied, "a solution is called for. M. Rossigny has to
+know where he stands and you have to decide what to do about him."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders: "He's of no importance for the moment. The
+thing to-day...."
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"Is to know what those two dead bodies are."
+
+"Still, Rossigny...."
+
+"Rossigny can wait. But I can't. You have shown me a mystery which is now
+the only thing that matters. What do you intend to do?"
+
+"To do?"
+
+"Yes. There are two bodies.... You'll inform the police, I suppose."
+
+"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, laughing. "What for?"
+
+"Well, there's a riddle that has to be cleared up at all costs, a terrible
+tragedy."
+
+"We don't need any one to do that."
+
+"What! Do you mean to say that you understand it?"
+
+"Almost as plainly as though I had read it in a book, told in full detail,
+with explanatory illustrations. It's all so simple!"
+
+She looked at him askance, wondering if he was making fun of her. But he
+seemed quite serious.
+
+"Well?" she asked, quivering with curiosity.
+
+The light was beginning to wane. They had trotted at a good pace; and the
+hunt was returning as they neared La Marèze.
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall get the rest of our information from people
+living round about ... from your uncle, for instance; and you will see how
+logically all the facts fit in. When you hold the first link of a chain,
+you are bound, whether you like it or not, to reach the last. It's the
+greatest fun in the world."
+
+Once in the house, they separated. On going to her room, Hortense found her
+luggage and a furious letter from Rossigny in which he bade her good-bye
+and announced his departure.
+
+Then Rénine knocked at her door:
+
+"Your uncle is in the library," he said. "Will you go down with me? I've
+sent word that I am coming."
+
+She went with him. He added:
+
+"One word more. This morning, when I thwarted your plans and begged you to
+trust me, I naturally undertook an obligation towards you which I mean to
+fulfill without delay. I want to give you a positive proof of this."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"The only obligation which you took upon yourself was to satisfy my
+curiosity."
+
+"It shall be satisfied," he assured her, gravely, "and more fully than you
+can possibly imagine."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche was alone. He was smoking his pipe and drinking sherry. He
+offered a glass to Rénine, who refused.
+
+"Well, Hortense!" he said, in a rather thick voice. "You know that it's
+pretty dull here, except in these September days. You must make the most
+of them. Have you had a pleasant ride with Rénine?"
+
+"That's just what I wanted to talk about, my dear sir," interrupted the
+prince.
+
+"You must excuse me, but I have to go to the station in ten minutes, to
+meet a friend of my wife's."
+
+"Oh, ten minutes will be ample!"
+
+"Just the time to smoke a cigarette?"
+
+"No longer."
+
+He took a cigarette from the case which M. d'Aigleroche handed to him, lit
+it and said:
+
+"I must tell you that our ride happened to take us to an old domain which
+you are sure to know, the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+"Certainly I know it. But it has been closed, boarded up for twenty-five
+years or so. You weren't able to get in, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, we were."
+
+"Really? Was it interesting?"
+
+"Extremely. We discovered the strangest things."
+
+"What things?" asked the count, looking at his watch.
+
+Rénine described what they had seen:
+
+"On a tower some way from the house there were two dead bodies, two
+skeletons rather ... a man and a woman still wearing the clothes which
+they had on when they were murdered."
+
+"Come, come, now! Murdered?"
+
+"Yes; and that is what we have come to trouble you about. The tragedy must
+date back to some twenty years ago. Was nothing known of it at the time?"
+
+"Certainly not," declared the count. "I never heard of any such crime or
+disappearance."
+
+"Oh, really!" said Rénine, looking a little disappointed. "I hoped to
+obtain a few particulars."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"In that case, I apologise."
+
+He consulted Hortense with a glance and moved towards the door. But on
+second thought:
+
+"Could you not at least, my dear sir, bring me into touch with some persons
+in the neighbourhood, some members of your family, who might know more
+about it?"
+
+"Of my family? And why?"
+
+"Because the Domaine de Halingre used to belong and no doubt still belongs
+to the d'Aigleroches. The arms are an eagle on a heap of stones, on a rock.
+This at once suggested the connection."
+
+This time the count appeared surprised. He pushed back his decanter and his
+glass of sherry and said:
+
+"What's this you're telling me? I had no idea that we had any such
+neighbours."
+
+Rénine shook his head and smiled:
+
+"I should be more inclined to believe, sir, that you were not very eager to
+admit any relationship between yourself ... and the unknown owner of the
+property."
+
+"Then he's not a respectable man?"
+
+"The man, to put it plainly, is a murderer."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+The count had risen from his chair. Hortense, greatly excited, said:
+
+"Are you really sure that there has been a murder and that the murder was
+done by some one belonging to the house?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"But why are you so certain?"
+
+"Because I know who the two victims were and what caused them to be
+killed."
+
+Prince Rénine was making none but positive statements and his method
+suggested the belief that he supported by the strongest proofs.
+
+M. d'Aigleroche strode up and down the room, with his hands behind his
+back. He ended by saying:
+
+"I always had an instinctive feeling that something had happened, but I
+never tried to find out.... Now, as a matter of fact, twenty years ago,
+a relation of mine, a distant cousin, used to live at the Domaine de
+Halingre. I hoped, because of the name I bear, that this story, which,
+as I say, I never knew but suspected, would remain hidden for ever."
+
+"So this cousin killed somebody?"
+
+"Yes, he was obliged to."
+
+Rénine shook his head:
+
+"I am sorry to have to amend that phrase, my dear sir. The truth, on the
+contrary, is that your cousin took his victims' lives in cold blood and in
+a cowardly manner. I never heard of a crime more deliberately and craftily
+planned."
+
+"What is it that you know?"
+
+The moment had come for Rénine to explain himself, a solemn and
+anguish-stricken moment, the full gravity of which Hortense understood,
+though she had not yet divined any part of the tragedy which the prince
+unfolded step by step."
+
+"It's a very simple story," he said. "There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Aigleroche was married and that there was another couple living in
+the neighbourhood with whom the owner of the Domaine de Halingre were on
+friendly terms. What happened one day, which of these four persons first
+disturbed the relations between the two households, I am unable to say. But
+a likely version, which at once occurs to the mind, is that your cousin's
+wife, Madame d'Aigleroche, was in the habit of meeting the other husband
+in the ivy-covered tower, which had a door opening outside the estate. On
+discovering the intrigue, your cousin d'Aigleroche resolved to be revenged,
+but in such a manner that there should be no scandal and that no one
+even should ever know that the guilty pair had been killed. Now he had
+ascertained--as I did just now--that there was a part of the house, the
+belvedere, from which you can see, over the trees and the undulations of
+the park, the tower standing eight hundred yards away, and that this was
+the only place that overlooked the top of the tower. He therefore pierced
+a hole in the parapet, through one of the former loopholes, and from
+there, by using a telescope which fitted exactly in the grove which he
+had hollowed out, he watched the meetings of the two lovers. And it was
+from there, also, that, after carefully taking all his measurements, and
+calculating all his distances, on a Sunday, the 5th of September, when the
+house was empty, he killed them with two shots."
+
+The truth was becoming apparent. The light of day was breaking. The count
+muttered:
+
+"Yes, that's what must have happened. I expect that my cousin
+d'Aigleroche...."
+
+"The murderer," Rénine continued, "stopped up the loophole neatly with a
+clod of earth. No one would ever know that two dead bodies were decaying
+on the top of that tower which was never visited and of which he took the
+precaution to demolish the wooden stairs. Nothing therefore remained for
+him to do but to explain the disappearance of his wife and his friend. This
+presented no difficulty. He accused them of having eloped together."
+
+Hortense gave a start. Suddenly, as though the last sentence were a
+complete and to her an absolutely unexpected revelation, she understood
+what Rénine was trying to convey:
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I mean that M. d'Aigleroche accused his wife and his friend of eloping
+together."
+
+"No, no!" she cried. "I can't allow that!... You are speaking of a cousin
+of my uncle's? Why mix up the two stories?"
+
+"Why mix up this story with another which took place at that time?" said
+the prince. "But I am not mixing them up, my dear madame; there is only one
+story and I am telling it as it happened."
+
+Hortense turned to her uncle. He sat silent, with his arms folded; and
+his head remained in the shadow cast by the lamp-shade. Why had he not
+protested?
+
+Rénine repeated in a firm tone:
+
+"There is only one story. On the evening of that very day, the 5th of
+September at eight o'clock, M. d'Aigleroche, doubtless alleging as his
+reason that he was going in pursuit of the runaway couple, left his house
+after boarding up the entrance. He went away, leaving all the rooms as
+they were and removing only the firearms from their glass case. At the
+last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been justified to-day, that
+the discovery of the telescope which had played so great a part in the
+preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an enquiry; and he threw
+it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have it, it interrupted
+the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action, one of those which
+every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray him twenty years later.
+Just now, the blows which I struck to force the door of the drawing-room
+released the pendulum. The clock was set going, struck eight o'clock ...
+and I possessed the clue of thread which was to lead me through the
+labyrinth."
+
+"Proofs!" stammered Hortense. "Proofs!"
+
+"Proofs?" replied Rénine, in a loud voice. "Why, there are any number
+of proofs; and you know them as well as I do. Who could have killed at
+that distance of eight hundred yards, except an expert shot, an ardent
+sportsman? You agree, M. d'Aigleroche, do you not?... Proofs? Why was
+nothing removed from the house, nothing except the guns, those guns
+which an ardent sportsman cannot afford to leave behind--you agree, M.
+d'Aigleroche--those guns which we find here, hanging in trophies on the
+walls!... Proofs? What about that date, the 5th of September, which was
+the date of the crime and which has left such a horrible memory in the
+criminal's mind that every year at this time--at this time alone--he
+surrounds himself with distractions and that every year, on this same 5th
+of September, he forgets his habits of temperance? Well, to-day, is the 5th
+of September.... Proofs? Why, if there weren't any others, would that not
+be enough for you?"
+
+And Rénine, flinging out his arm, pointed to the Comte d'Aigleroche, who,
+terrified by this evocation of the past, had sunk huddled into a chair and
+was hiding his head in his hands.
+
+Hortense did not attempt to argue with him. She had never liked her uncle,
+or rather her husband's uncle. She now accepted the accusation laid against
+him.
+
+Sixty seconds passed. Then M. d'Aigleroche walked up to them and said:
+
+"Whether the story be true or not, you can't call a husband a criminal for
+avenging his honour and killing his faithless wife."
+
+"No," replied Rénine, "but I have told only the first version of the story.
+There is another which is infinitely more serious ... and more probable,
+one to which a more thorough investigation would be sure to lead."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this. It may not be a matter of a husband taking the law into his
+own hands, as I charitably supposed. It may be a matter of a ruined man who
+covets his friend's money and his friend's wife and who, with this object
+in view, to secure his freedom, to get rid of his friend and of his own
+wife, draws them into a trap, suggests to them that they should visit that
+lonely tower and kills them by shooting them from a distance safely under
+cover."
+
+"No, no," the count protested. "No, all that is untrue."
+
+"I don't say it isn't. I am basing my accusation on proofs, but also on
+intuitions and arguments which up to now have been extremely accurate. All
+the same, I admit that the second version may be incorrect. But, if so, why
+feel any remorse? One does not feel remorse for punishing guilty people."
+
+"One does for taking life. It is a crushing burden to bear."
+
+"Was it to give himself greater strength to bear this burden that M.
+d'Aigleroche afterwards married his victim's widow? For that, sir, is
+the crux of the question. What was the motive of that marriage? Was M.
+d'Aigleroche penniless? Was the woman he was taking as his second wife
+rich? Or were they both in love with each other and did M. d'Aigleroche
+plan with her to kill his first wife and the husband of his second wife?
+These are problems to which I do not know the answer. They have no interest
+for the moment; but the police, with all the means at their disposal, would
+have no great difficulty in elucidating them."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche staggered and had to steady himself against the back of a
+chair. Livid in the face, he spluttered:
+
+"Are you going to inform the police?"
+
+"No, no," said Rénine. "To begin with, there is the statute of limitations.
+Then there are twenty years of remorse and dread, a memory which will
+pursue the criminal to his dying hour, accompanied no doubt by domestic
+discord, hatred, a daily hell ... and, in the end, the necessity of
+returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the
+frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons,
+of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask
+for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a
+scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us leave
+this disgraceful business alone."
+
+The count resumed his seat at the table, with his hands clutching his
+forehead, and asked:
+
+"Then why ...?"
+
+"Why do I interfere?" said Rénine. "What you mean is that I must have
+had some object in speaking. That is so. There must indeed be a penalty,
+however slight, and our interview must lead to some practical result. But
+have no fear: M. d'Aigleroche will be let off lightly."
+
+The contest was ended. The count felt that he had only a small formality to
+fulfil, a sacrifice to accept; and, recovering some of his self-assurance,
+he said, in an almost sarcastic tone:
+
+"What's your price?"
+
+Rénine burst out laughing:
+
+"Splendid! You see the position. Only, you make a mistake in drawing me
+into the business. I'm working for the glory of the thing."
+
+"In that case?"
+
+"You will be called upon at most to make restitution."
+
+"Restitution?"
+
+Rénine leant over the table and said:
+
+"In one of those drawers is a deed awaiting your signature. It is a draft
+agreement between you and your niece Hortense Daniel, relating to her
+private fortune, which fortune was squandered and for which you are
+responsible. Sign the deed."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche gave a start:
+
+"Do you know the amount?"
+
+"I don't wish to know it."
+
+"And if I refuse?..."
+
+"I shall ask to see the Comtesse d'Aigleroche."
+
+Without further hesitation, the count opened a drawer, produced a document
+on stamped paper and quickly signed it:
+
+"Here you are," he said, "and I hope...."
+
+"You hope, as I do, that you and I may never have any future dealings? I'm
+convinced of it. I shall leave this evening; your niece, no doubt,
+tomorrow. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the drawing-room, which was still empty, while the guests at the
+house were dressing for dinner, Rénine handed the deed to Hortense. She
+seemed dazed by all that she had heard; and the thing that bewildered her
+even more than the relentless light shed upon her uncle's past was the
+miraculous insight and amazing lucidity displayed by this man: the man who
+for some hours had controlled events and conjured up before her eyes the
+actual scenes of a tragedy which no one had beheld.
+
+"Are you satisfied with me?" he asked.
+
+She gave him both her hands:
+
+"You have saved me from Rossigny. You have given me back my freedom and my
+independence. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Oh, that's not what I am asking you to say!" he answered. "My first and
+main object was to amuse you. Your life seemed so humdrum and lacking in
+the unexpected. Has it been so to-day?"
+
+"How can you ask such a question? I have had the strangest and most
+stirring experiences."
+
+"That is life," he said. "When one knows how to use one's eyes. Adventure
+exists everywhere, in the meanest hovel, under the mask of the wisest of
+men. Everywhere, if you are only willing, you will find an excuse for
+excitement, for doing good, for saving a victim, for ending an injustice."
+
+Impressed by his power and authority, she murmured:
+
+"Who are you exactly?"
+
+"An adventurer. Nothing more. A lover of adventures. Life is not worth
+living except in moments of adventure, the adventures of others or personal
+adventures. To-day's has upset you because it affected the innermost depths
+of your being. But those of others are no less stimulating. Would you like
+to make the experiment?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Become the companion of my adventures. If any one calls on me for help,
+help him with me. If chance or instinct puts me on the track of a crime or
+the trace of a sorrow, let us both set out together. Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but...."
+
+She hesitated, as though trying to guess Rénine's secret intentions.
+
+"But," he said, expressing her thoughts for her, with a smile, "you are a
+trifle sceptical. What you are saying to yourself is, 'How far does that
+lover of adventures want to make me go? It is quite obvious that I attract
+him; and sooner or later he would not be sorry to receive payment for his
+services.' You are quite right. We must have a formal contract."
+
+"Very formal," said Hortense, preferring to give a jesting tone to the
+conversation. "Let me hear your proposals."
+
+He reflected for a moment and continued:
+
+"Well, we'll say this. The clock at Halingre gave eight strokes this
+afternoon, the day of the first adventure. Will you accept its decree and
+agree to carry out seven more of these delightful enterprises with me,
+during a period, for instance, of three months? And shall we say that, at
+the eighth, you will be pledged to grant me...."
+
+"What?"
+
+He deferred his answer:
+
+"Observe that you will always be at liberty to leave me on the road if I
+do not succeed in interesting you. But, if you accompany me to the end, if
+you allow me to begin and complete the eighth enterprise with you, in three
+months, on the 5th of December, at the very moment when the eighth stroke
+of that clock sounds--and it will sound, you may be sure of that, for the
+old brass pendulum will not stop swinging again--you will be pledged to
+grant me...."
+
+"What?" she repeated, a little unnerved by waiting.
+
+He was silent. He looked at the beautiful lips which he had meant to claim
+as his reward. He felt perfectly certain that Hortense had understood and
+he thought it unnecessary to speak more plainly:
+
+"The mere delight of seeing you will be enough to satisfy me. It is not for
+me but for you to impose conditions. Name them: what do you demand?"
+
+She was grateful for his respect and said, laughingly:
+
+"What do I demand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I demand anything I like, however difficult and impossible?"
+
+"Everything is easy and everything is possible to the man who is bent on
+winning you."
+
+Then she said:
+
+"I demand that you shall restore to me a small, antique clasp, made of a
+cornelian set in a silver mount. It came to me from my mother and everyone
+knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too. Since the day when it
+vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but unhappiness. Restore it
+to me, my good genius."
+
+"When was the clasp stolen?"
+
+She answered gaily:
+
+"Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine; I don't know exactly ... I don't
+know where ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it...."
+
+"I will find it," Rénine declared, "and you shall be happy."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE WATER-BOTTLE
+
+
+Four days after she had settled down in Paris, Hortense Daniel agreed to
+meet Prince Rénine in the Bois. It was a glorious morning and they sat down
+on the terrace of the Restaurant Impérial, a little to one side.
+
+Hortense, feeling glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of
+attractive grace. Rénine, lest he should startle her, refrained from
+alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion.
+She told him how she had left La Marèze and said that she had not heard
+of Rossigny.
+
+"I have," said Rénine. "I've heard of him."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes, he sent me a challenge. We fought a duel this morning. Rossigny got
+a scratch in the shoulder. That finished the duel. Let's talk of something
+else."
+
+There was no further mention of Rossigny. Rénine at once expounded to
+Hortense the plan of two enterprises which he had in view and in which he
+offered, with no great enthusiasm, to let her share:
+
+"The finest adventure," he declared, "is that which we do not foresee. It
+comes unexpectedly, unannounced; and no one, save the initiated, realizes
+that an opportunity to act and to expend one's energies is close at hand.
+It has to be seized at once. A moment's hesitation may mean that we are too
+late. We are warned by a special sense, like that of a sleuth-hound which
+distinguishes the right scent from all the others that cross it."
+
+The terrace was beginning to fill up around them. At the next table sat
+a young man reading a newspaper. They were able to see his insignificant
+profile and his long, dark moustache. From behind them, through an open
+window of the restaurant, came the distant strains of a band; in one of
+the rooms a few couples were dancing.
+
+As Rénine was paying for the refreshments, the young man with the long
+moustache stifled a cry and, in a choking voice, called one of the waiters:
+
+"What do I owe you?... No change? Oh, good Lord, hurry up!"
+
+Rénine, without a moment's hesitation, had picked up the paper. After
+casting a swift glance down the page, he read, under his breath:
+
+    "Maître Dourdens, the counsel for the defence in the trial of Jacques
+    Aubrieux, has been received at the Élysée. We are informed that the
+    President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man
+    and that the execution will take place to-morrow morning."
+
+After crossing the terrace, the young man found himself faced, at the
+entrance to the garden, by a lady and gentleman who blocked his way; and
+the latter said:
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I noticed your agitation. It's about Jacques Aubrieux,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Jacques Aubrieux," the young man stammered. "Jacques, the friend
+of my childhood. I'm hurrying to see his wife. She must be beside herself
+with grief."
+
+"Can I offer you my assistance? I am Prince Rénine. This lady and I would
+be happy to call on Madame Aubrieux and to place our services at her
+disposal."
+
+The young man, upset by the news which he had read, seemed not to
+understand. He introduced himself awkwardly:
+
+"My name is Dutreuil, Gaston Dutreuil."
+
+Rénine beckoned to his chauffeur, who was waiting at some little distance,
+and pushed Gaston Dutreuil into the car, asking:
+
+"What address? Where does Madame Aubrieux live?"
+
+"23 _bis_, Avenue du Roule."
+
+After helping Hortense in, Rénine repeated the address to the chauffeur
+and, as soon as they drove off, tried to question Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I know very little of the case," he said. "Tell it to me as briefly as you
+can. Jacques Aubrieux killed one of his near relations, didn't he?"
+
+"He is innocent, sir," replied the young man, who seemed incapable of
+giving the least explanation. "Innocent, I swear it. I've been Jacques'
+friend for twenty years ... He is innocent ... and it would be
+monstrous...."
+
+There was nothing to be got out of him. Besides, it was only a short drive.
+They entered Neuilly through the Porte des Sablons and, two minutes later,
+stopped before a long, narrow passage between high walls which led them to
+a small, one-storeyed house.
+
+Gaston Dutreuil rang.
+
+"Madame is in the drawing-room, with her mother," said the maid who opened
+the door.
+
+"I'll go in to the ladies," he said, taking Rénine and Hortense with him.
+
+It was a fair-sized, prettily-furnished room, which, in ordinary times,
+must have been used also as a study. Two women sat weeping, one of whom,
+elderly and grey-haired, came up to Gaston Dutreuil. He explained the
+reason for Rénine's presence and she at once cried, amid her sobs:
+
+"My daughter's husband is innocent, sir. Jacques? A better man never lived.
+He was so good-hearted! Murder his cousin? But he worshipped his cousin! I
+swear that he's not guilty, sir! And they are going to commit the infamy of
+putting him to death? Oh, sir, it will kill my daughter!"
+
+Rénine realized that all these people had been living for months under the
+obsession of that innocence and in the certainty that an innocent man could
+never be executed. The news of the execution, which was now inevitable, was
+driving them mad.
+
+He went up to a poor creature bent in two whose face, a quite young face,
+framed in pretty, flaxen hair, was convulsed with desperate grief.
+Hortense, who had already taken a seat beside her, gently drew her head
+against her shoulder. Rénine said to her:
+
+"Madame, I do not know what I can do for you. But I give you my word of
+honour that, if any one in this world can be of use to you, it is myself.
+I therefore implore you to answer my questions as though the clear and
+definite wording of your replies were able to alter the aspect of things
+and as though you wished to make me share your opinion of Jacques Aubrieux.
+For he is innocent, is he not?"
+
+"Oh, sir, indeed he is!" she exclaimed; and the woman's whole soul was in
+the words.
+
+"You are certain of it. But you were unable to communicate your certainty
+to the court. Well, you must now compel me to share it. I am not asking you
+to go into details and to live again through the hideous torment which you
+have suffered, but merely to answer certain questions. Will you do this?"
+
+"I will."
+
+Rénine's influence over her was complete. With a few sentences Rénine had
+succeeded in subduing her and inspiring her with the will to obey. And once
+more Hortense realized all the man's power, authority and persuasion.
+
+"What was your husband?" he asked, after begging the mother and Gaston
+Dutreuil to preserve absolute silence.
+
+"An insurance-broker."
+
+"Lucky in business?"
+
+"Until last year, yes."
+
+"So there have been financial difficulties during the past few months?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the murder was committed when?"
+
+"Last March, on a Sunday."
+
+"Who was the victim?"
+
+"A distant cousin, M. Guillaume, who lived at Suresnes."
+
+"What was the sum stolen?"
+
+"Sixty thousand-franc notes, which this cousin had received the day before,
+in payment of a long-outstanding debt."
+
+"Did your husband know that?"
+
+"Yes. His cousin told him of it on the Sunday, in the course of a
+conversation on the telephone, and Jacques insisted that his cousin ought
+not to keep so large a sum in the house and that he ought to pay it into a
+bank next day."
+
+"Was this in the morning?"
+
+"At one o'clock in the afternoon. Jacques was to have gone to M. Guillaume
+on his motor-cycle. But he felt tired and told him that he would not go
+out. So he remained here all day."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes. The two servants were out. I went to the Cinéma des Ternes with my
+mother and our friend Dutreuil. In the evening, we learnt that M. Guillaume
+had been murdered. Next morning, Jacques was arrested."
+
+"On what evidence?"
+
+The poor creature hesitated to reply: the evidence of guilt had evidently
+been overwhelming. Then, obeying a sign from Rénine, she answered without
+a pause:
+
+"The murderer went to Suresnes on a motorcycle and the tracks discovered
+were those of my husband's machine. They found a handkerchief with my
+husband's initials; and the revolver which was used belonged to him.
+Lastly, one of our neighbours maintains that he saw my husband go out
+on his bicycle at three o'clock and another that he saw him come in at
+half-past four. The murder was committed at four o'clock."
+
+"And what does Jacques Aubrieux say in his defence?"
+
+"He declares that he slept all the afternoon. During that time, some one
+came who managed to unlock the cycle-shed and take the motor-cycle to go
+to Suresnes. As for the handkerchief and the revolver, they were in the
+tool-bag. There would be nothing surprising in the murderer's using them."
+
+"It seems a plausible explanation."
+
+"Yes, but the prosecution raised two objections. In the first place,
+nobody, absolutely nobody, knew that my husband was going to stay at
+home all day, because, on the contrary, it was his habit to go out on
+his motor-cycle every Sunday afternoon."
+
+"And the second objection?"
+
+She flushed and murmured:
+
+"The murderer went to the pantry at M. Guillaume's and drank half a bottle
+of wine straight out of the bottle, which shows my husband's fingerprints."
+
+It seemed as though her strength was exhausted and as though, at the same
+time, the unconscious hope which Rénine's intervention had awakened in her
+had suddenly vanished before the accumulation of adverse facts. Again she
+collapsed, withdrawn into a sort of silent meditation from which Hortense's
+affectionate attentions were unable to distract her.
+
+The mother stammered:
+
+"He's not guilty, is he, sir? And they can't punish an innocent man. They
+haven't the right to kill my daughter. Oh dear, oh dear, what have we done
+to be tortured like this? My poor little Madeleine!"
+
+"She will kill herself," said Dutreuil, in a scared voice. "She will never
+be able to endure the idea that they are guillotining Jacques. She will
+kill herself presently ... this very night...."
+
+Rénine was striding up and down the room.
+
+"You can do nothing for her, can you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"It's half-past eleven now," he replied, in an anxious tone, "and it's to
+happen to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do you think he's guilty?"
+
+"I don't know.... I don't know.... The poor woman's conviction is too
+impressive to be neglected. When two people have lived together for years,
+they can hardly be mistaken about each other to that degree. And yet...."
+
+He stretched himself out on a sofa and lit a cigarette. He smoked three in
+succession, without a word from any one to interrupt his train of thought.
+From time to time he looked at his watch. Every minute was of such
+importance!
+
+At last he went back to Madeleine Aubrieux, took her hands and said, very
+gently:
+
+"You must not kill yourself. There is hope left until the last minute has
+come; and I promise you that, for my part, I will not be disheartened until
+that last minute. But I need your calmness and your confidence."
+
+"I will be calm," she said, with a pitiable air.
+
+"And confident?"
+
+"And confident."
+
+"Well, wait for me. I shall be back in two hours from now. Will you come
+with us, M. Dutreuil?"
+
+As they were stepping into his car, he asked the young man:
+
+"Do you know any small, unfrequented restaurant, not too far inside Paris?"
+
+"There's the Brasserie Lutetia, on the ground-floor of the house in which I
+live, on the Place des Ternes."
+
+"Capital. That will be very handy."
+
+They scarcely spoke on the way. Rénine, however, said to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"So far as I remember, the numbers of the notes are known, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes. M. Guillaume had entered the sixty numbers in his pocket-book."
+
+Rénine muttered, a moment later:
+
+"That's where the whole problem lies. Where are the notes? If we could lay
+our hands on them, we should know everything."
+
+At the Brasserie Lutetia there was a telephone in the private room where
+he asked to have lunch served. When the waiter had left him alone with
+Hortense and Dutreuil, he took down the receiver with a resolute air:
+
+"Hullo!... Prefecture of police, please.... Hullo! Hullo!... Is that the
+Prefecture of police? Please put me on to the criminal investigation
+department. I have a very important communication to make. You can say it's
+Prince Rénine."
+
+Holding the receiver in his hand, he turned to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I can ask some one to come here, I suppose? We shall be quite
+undisturbed?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+He listened again:
+
+"The secretary to the head of the criminal investigation department? Oh,
+excellent! Mr. Secretary, I have on several occasions been in communication
+with M. Dudouis and have given him information which has been of great use
+to him. He is sure to remember Prince Rénine. I may be able to-day to show
+him where the sixty thousand-franc notes are hidden which Aubrieux the
+murderer stole from his cousin. If he's interested in the proposal, beg him
+to send an inspector to the Brasserie Lutetia, Place des Ternes. I shall
+be there with a lady and M. Dutreuil, Aubrieux's friend. Good day, Mr.
+Secretary."
+
+When Rénine hung up the instrument, he saw the amazed faces of Hortense and
+of Gaston Dutreuil confronting him.
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Then you know? You've discovered ...?"
+
+"Nothing," he said, laughing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I'm acting as though I knew. It's not a bad method. Let's have some
+lunch, shall we?"
+
+The clock marked a quarter to one.
+
+"The man from the prefecture will be here," he said, "in twenty minutes at
+latest."
+
+"And if no one comes?" Hortense objected.
+
+"That would surprise me. Of course, if I had sent a message to M. Dudouis
+saying, 'Aubrieux is innocent,' I should have failed to make any
+impression. It's not the least use, on the eve of an execution, to attempt
+to convince the gentry of the police or of the law that a man condemned
+to death is innocent. No. From henceforth Jacques Aubrieux belongs to
+the executioner. But the prospect of securing the sixty bank-notes is a
+windfall worth taking a little trouble over. Just think: that was the
+weak point in the indictment, those sixty notes which they were unable
+to trace."
+
+"But, as you know nothing of their whereabouts...."
+
+"My dear girl--I hope you don't mind my calling you so?--my dear girl, when
+a man can't explain this or that physical phenomenon, he adopts some sort
+of theory which explains the various manifestations of the phenomenon and
+says that everything happened as though the theory were correct. That's
+what I am doing."
+
+"That amounts to saying that you are going upon a supposition?"
+
+Rénine did not reply. Not until some time later, when lunch was over, did
+he say:
+
+"Obviously I am going upon a supposition. If I had several days before me,
+I should take the trouble of first verifying my theory, which is based upon
+intuition quite as much as upon a few scattered facts. But I have only two
+hours; and I am embarking on the unknown path as though I were certain that
+it would lead me to the truth."
+
+"And suppose you are wrong?"
+
+"I have no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word
+more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor you, M. Dutreuil."
+
+He opened the door. A thin man, with a red imperial, entered:
+
+"Prince Rénine?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You, of course, are from M. Dudouis?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And the newcomer gave his name:
+
+"Chief-inspector Morisseau."
+
+"I am obliged to you for coming so promptly, Mr. Chief-inspector," said
+Prince Rénine, "and I hope that M. Dudouis will not regret having placed
+you at my disposal."
+
+"At your entire disposal, in addition to two inspectors whom I have left in
+the square outside and who have been in the case, with me, from the first."
+
+"I shall not detain you for any length of time," said Rénine, "and I will
+not even ask you to sit down. We have only a few minutes in which to settle
+everything. You know what it's all about?"
+
+"The sixty thousand-franc notes stolen from M. Guillaume. I have the
+numbers here."
+
+Rénine ran his eyes down the slip of paper which the chief-inspector handed
+him and said:
+
+"That's right. The two lists agree."
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed greatly excited:
+
+"The chief attaches the greatest importance to your discovery. So you will
+be able to show me?..."
+
+Rénine was silent for a moment and then declared:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, a personal investigation--and a most exhaustive
+investigation it was, as I will explain to you presently--has revealed
+the fact that, on his return from Suresnes, the murderer, after replacing
+the motor-cycle in the shed in the Avenue du Roule, ran to the Ternes and
+entered this house."
+
+"This house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But what did he come here for?"
+
+"To hide the proceeds of his theft, the sixty bank-notes."
+
+"How do you mean? Where?"
+
+"In a flat of which he had the key, on the fifth floor."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil exclaimed, in amazement:
+
+"But there's only one flat on the fifth floor and that's the one I live
+in!"
+
+"Exactly; and, as you were at the cinema with Madame Aubrieux and her
+mother, advantage was taken of your absence...."
+
+"Impossible! No one has the key except myself."
+
+"One can get in without a key."
+
+"But I have seen no marks of any kind."
+
+Morisseau intervened:
+
+"Come, let us understand one another. You say the bank-notes were hidden in
+M. Dutreuil's flat?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, as Jacques Aubrieux was arrested the next morning, the notes ought
+to be there still?"
+
+"That's my opinion."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil could not help laughing:
+
+"But that's absurd! I should have found them!"
+
+"Did you look for them?"
+
+"No. But I should have come across them at any moment. The place isn't big
+enough to swing a cat in. Would you care to see it?"
+
+"However small it may be, it's large enough to hold sixty bits of paper."
+
+"Of course, everything is possible," said Dutreuil. "Still, I must repeat
+that nobody, to my knowledge, has been to my rooms; that there is only one
+key; that I am my own housekeeper; and that I can't quite understand...."
+
+Hortense too could not understand. With her eyes fixed on Prince Rénine's,
+she was trying to read his innermost thoughts. What game was he playing?
+Was it her duty to support his statements? She ended by saying:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, since Prince Rénine maintains that the notes have
+been put away upstairs, wouldn't the simplest thing be to go and look? M.
+Dutreuil will take us up, won't you?"
+
+"This minute," said the young man. "As you say, that will be simplest."
+
+They all four climbed the five storys of the house and, after Dutreuil
+had opened the door, entered a tiny set of chambers consisting of a
+sitting-room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, all arranged with fastidious
+neatness. It was easy to see that every chair in the sitting-room occupied
+a definite place. The pipes had a rack to themselves; so had the matches.
+Three walking-sticks, arranged according to their length, hung from
+three nails. On a little table before the window a hat-box, filled with
+tissue-paper, awaited the felt hat which Dutreuil carefully placed in it.
+He laid his gloves beside it, on the lid.
+
+He did all this with sedate and mechanical movements, like a man who loves
+to see things in the places which he has chosen for them. Indeed, no sooner
+did Rénine shift something than Dutreuil made a slight gesture of protest,
+took out his hat again, stuck it on his head, opened the window and rested
+his elbows on the sill, with his back turned to the room, as though he were
+unable to bear the sight of such vandalism.
+
+"You're positive, are you not?" the inspector asked Rénine.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm positive that the sixty notes were brought here after the
+murder."
+
+"Let's look for them."
+
+This was easy and soon done. In half an hour, not a corner remained
+unexplored, not a knick-knack unlifted.
+
+"Nothing," said Inspector Morisseau. "Shall we continue?"
+
+"No," replied Rénine, "The notes are no longer here."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that they have been removed."
+
+"By whom? Can't you make a more definite accusation?"
+
+Rénine did not reply. But Gaston Dutreuil wheeled round. He was choking
+and spluttered:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, would you like _me_ to make the accusation more
+definite, as conveyed by this gentleman's remarks? It all means that
+there's a dishonest man here, that the notes hidden by the murderer were
+discovered and stolen by that dishonest man and deposited in another and
+safer place. That is your idea, sir, is it not? And you accuse me of
+committing this theft don't you?"
+
+He came forward, drumming his chest with his fists: "Me! Me! I found the
+notes, did I, and kept them for myself? You dare to suggest that!"
+
+Rénine still made no reply. Dutreuil flew into a rage and, taking Inspector
+Morisseau aside, exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, I strongly protest against all this farce and against
+the part which you are unconsciously playing in it. Before your arrival,
+Prince Rénine told this lady and myself that he knew nothing, that he was
+venturing into this affair at random and that he was following the first
+road that offered, trusting to luck. Do you deny it, sir?"
+
+Rénine did not open his lips.
+
+"Answer me, will you? Explain yourself; for, really, you are putting
+forward the most improbable facts without any proof whatever. It's easy
+enough to say that I stole the notes. And how were you to know that they
+were here at all? Who brought them here? Why should the murderer choose
+this flat to hide them in? It's all so stupid, so illogical and absurd!...
+Give us your proofs, sir ... one single proof!"
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed perplexed. He questioned Rénine with a glance.
+Rénine said:
+
+"Since you want specific details, we will get them from Madame Aubrieux
+herself. She's on the telephone. Let's go downstairs. We shall know all
+about it in a minute."
+
+Dutreuil shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"As you please; but what a waste of time!"
+
+He seemed greatly irritated. His long wait at the window, under a blazing
+sun, had thrown him into a sweat. He went to his bedroom and returned with
+a bottle of water, of which he took a few sips, afterwards placing the
+bottle on the window-sill:
+
+"Come along," he said.
+
+Prince Rénine chuckled.
+
+"You seem to be in a hurry to leave the place."
+
+"I'm in a hurry to show you up," retorted Dutreuil, slamming the door.
+
+They went downstairs to the private room containing the telephone. The room
+was empty. Rénine asked Gaston Dutreuil for the Aubrieuxs' number, took
+down the instrument and was put through.
+
+The maid who came to the telephone answered that Madame Aubrieux had
+fainted, after giving way to an access of despair, and that she was now
+asleep.
+
+"Fetch her mother, please. Prince Rénine speaking. It's urgent."
+
+He handed the second receiver to Morisseau. For that matter, the voices
+were so distinct that Dutreuil and Hortense were able to hear every word
+exchanged.
+
+"Is that you, madame?"
+
+"Yes. Prince Rénine, I believe?"
+
+"Prince Rénine."
+
+"Oh, sir, what news have you for me? Is there any hope?" asked the old
+lady, in a tone of entreaty.
+
+"The enquiry is proceeding very satisfactorily," said Rénine, "and you
+may hope for the best. For the moment, I want you to give me some very
+important particulars. On the day of the murder, did Gaston Dutreuil come
+to your house?"
+
+"Yes, he came to fetch my daughter and myself, after lunch."
+
+"Did he know at the time that M. Guillaume had sixty thousand francs at his
+place?"
+
+"Yes, I told him."
+
+"And that Jacques Aubrieux was not feeling very well and was proposing not
+to take his usual cycle-ride but to stay at home and sleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Absolutely certain."
+
+"And you all three went to the cinema together?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were all sitting together?"
+
+"Oh, no! There was no room. He took a seat farther away."
+
+"A seat where you could see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But he came to you during the interval?"
+
+"No, we did not see him until we were going out."
+
+"There is no doubt of that?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"Very well, madame. I will tell you the result of my efforts in an hour's
+time. But above all, don't wake up Madame Aubrieux."
+
+"And suppose she wakes of her own accord?"
+
+"Reassure her and give her confidence. Everything is going well, very well
+indeed."
+
+He hung up the receiver and turned to Dutreuil, laughing:
+
+"Ha, ha, my boy! Things are beginning to look clearer. What do you say?"
+
+It was difficult to tell what these words meant or what conclusions Rénine
+had drawn from his conversation. The silence was painful and oppressive.
+
+"Mr. Chief-Inspector, you have some of your men outside, haven't you?"
+
+"Two detective-sergeants."
+
+"It's important that they should be there. Please also ask the manager not
+to disturb us on any account."
+
+And, when Morisseau returned, Rénine closed the door, took his stand in
+front of Dutreuil and, speaking in a good-humoured but emphatic tone, said:
+
+"It amounts to this, young man, that the ladies saw nothing of you between
+three and five o'clock on that Sunday. That's rather a curious detail."
+
+"A perfectly natural detail," Dutreuil retorted, "and one, moreover, which
+proves nothing at all."
+
+"It proves, young man, that you had a good two hours at your disposal."
+
+"Obviously. Two hours which I spent at the cinema."
+
+"Or somewhere else."
+
+Dutreuil looked at him:
+
+"Somewhere else?"
+
+"Yes. As you were free, you had plenty of time to go wherever you liked ...
+to Suresnes, for instance."
+
+"Oh!" said the young man, jesting in his turn. "Suresnes is a long way
+off!"
+
+"It's quite close! Hadn't you your friend Jacques Aubrieux's motor-cycle?"
+
+A fresh pause followed these words. Dutreuil had knitted his brows as
+though he were trying to understand. At last he was heard to whisper:
+
+"So that is what he was trying to lead up to!... The brute!..."
+
+Rénine brought down his hand on Dutreuil's shoulder:
+
+"No more talk! Facts! Gaston Dutreuil, you are the only person who on that
+day knew two essential things: first, that Cousin Guillaume had sixty
+thousand francs in his house; secondly, that Jacques Aubrieux was not
+going out. You at once saw your chance. The motor-cycle was available. You
+slipped out during the performance. You went to Suresnes. You killed Cousin
+Guillaume. You took the sixty bank-notes and left them at your rooms. And
+at five o'clock you went back to fetch the ladies."
+
+Dutreuil had listened with an expression at once mocking and flurried,
+casting an occasional glance at Inspector Morisseau as though to enlist
+him as a witness:
+
+"The man's mad," it seemed to say. "It's no use being angry with him."
+
+When Rénine had finished, he began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny!... A capital joke!... So it was I whom the neighbours saw
+going and returning on the motor-cycle?"
+
+"It was you disguised in Jacques Aubrieux's clothes."
+
+"And it was my finger-prints that were found on the bottle in M.
+Guillaume's pantry?"
+
+"The bottle had been opened by Jacques Aubrieux at lunch, in his own house,
+and it was you who took it with you to serve as evidence."
+
+"Funnier and funnier!" cried Dutreuil, who had the air of being frankly
+amused. "Then I contrived the whole affair so that Jacques Aubrieux might
+be accused of the crime?"
+
+"It was the safest means of not being accused yourself."
+
+"Yes, but Jacques is a friend whom I have known from childhood."
+
+"You're in love with his wife."
+
+The young man gave a sudden, infuriated start:
+
+"You dare!... What! You dare make such an infamous suggestion?"
+
+"I have proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie! I have always respected Madeleine Aubrieux and revered
+her...."
+
+"Apparently. But you're in love with her. You desire her. Don't contradict
+me. I have abundant proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie, I tell you! You have only known me a few hours!"
+
+"Come, come! I've been quietly watching you for days, waiting for the
+moment to pounce upon you."
+
+He took the young man by the shoulders and shook him:
+
+"Come, Dutreuil, confess! I hold all the proofs in my hand. I have
+witnesses whom we shall meet presently at the criminal investigation
+department. Confess, can't you? In spite of everything, you're tortured
+by remorse. Remember your dismay, at the restaurant, when you had seen
+the newspaper. What? Jacques Aubrieux condemned to die? That's more than
+you bargained for! Penal servitude would have suited your book; but the
+scaffold!... Jacques Aubrieux executed to-morrow, an innocent man!...
+Confess, won't you? Confess to save your own skin! Own up!"
+
+Bending over the other, he was trying with all his might to extort a
+confession from him. But Dutreuil drew himself up and coldly, with a sort
+of scorn in his voice, said:
+
+"Sir, you are a madman. Not a word that you have said has any sense in it.
+All your accusations are false. What about the bank-notes? Did you find
+them at my place as you said you would?"
+
+Rénine, exasperated, clenched his fist in his face:
+
+"Oh, you swine, I'll dish you yet, I swear I will!"
+
+He drew the inspector aside:
+
+"Well, what do you say to it? An arrant rogue, isn't he?"
+
+The inspector nodded his head:
+
+"It may be.... But, all the same ... so far there's no real evidence."
+
+"Wait, M. Morisseau," said Rénine. "Wait until we've had our interview with
+M. Dudouis. For we shall see M. Dudouis at the prefecture, shall we not?"
+
+"Yes, he'll be there at three o'clock."
+
+"Well, you'll be convinced, Mr. Inspector! I tell you here and now that you
+will be convinced."
+
+Rénine was chuckling like a man who feels certain of the course of events.
+Hortense, who was standing near him and was able to speak to him without
+being heard by the others, asked, in a low voice:
+
+"You've got him, haven't you?"
+
+He nodded his head in assent:
+
+"Got him? I should think I have! All the same, I'm no farther forward than
+I was at the beginning."
+
+"But this is awful! And your proofs?"
+
+"Not the shadow of a proof ... I was hoping to trip him up. But he's kept
+his feet, the rascal!"
+
+"Still, you're certain it's he?"
+
+"It can't be any one else. I had an intuition at the very outset; and I've
+not taken my eyes off him since. I have seen his anxiety increasing as my
+investigations seemed to centre on him and concern him more closely. Now I
+know."
+
+"And he's in love with Madame Aubrieux?"
+
+"In logic, he's bound to be. But so far we have only hypothetical
+suppositions, or rather certainties which are personal to myself. We shall
+never intercept the guillotine with those. Ah, if we could only find the
+bank-notes! Given the bank-notes, M. Dudouis would act. Without them, he
+will laugh in my face."
+
+"What then?" murmured Hortense, in anguished accents.
+
+He did not reply. He walked up and down the room, assuming an air of gaiety
+and rubbing his hands. All was going so well! It was really a treat to take
+up a case which, so to speak, worked itself out automatically.
+
+"Suppose we went on to the prefecture, M. Morisseau? The chief must be
+there by now. And, having gone so far, we may as well finish. Will M.
+Dutreuil come with us?"
+
+"Why not?" said Dutreuil, arrogantly.
+
+But, just as Rénine was opening the door, there was a noise in the passage
+and the manager ran up, waving his arms:
+
+"Is M. Dutreuil still here?... M. Dutreuil, your flat is on fire!... A man
+outside told us. He saw it from the square."
+
+The young man's eyes lit up. For perhaps half a second his mouth was
+twisted by a smile which Rénine noticed:
+
+"Oh, you ruffian!" he cried. "You've given yourself away, my beauty! It was
+you who set fire to the place upstairs; and now the notes are burning."
+
+He blocked his exit.
+
+"Let me pass," shouted Dutreuil. "There's a fire and no one can get in,
+because no one else has a key. Here it is. Let me pass, damn it!"
+
+Rénine snatched the key from his hand and, holding him by the collar of his
+coat:
+
+"Don't you move, my fine fellow! The game's up! You precious blackguard! M.
+Morisseau, will you give orders to the sergeant not to let him out of his
+sight and to blow out his brains if he tries to get away? Sergeant, we rely
+on you! Put a bullet into him, if necessary!..."
+
+He hurried up the stairs, followed by Hortense and the chief inspector, who
+was protesting rather peevishly:
+
+"But, I say, look here, it wasn't he who set the place on fire! How do you
+make out that he set it on fire, seeing that he never left us?"
+
+"Why, he set it on fire beforehand, to be sure!"
+
+"How? I ask you, how?"
+
+"How do I know? But a fire doesn't break out like that, for no reason at
+all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers."
+
+They heard a commotion upstairs. It was the waiters of the restaurant
+trying to burst the door open. An acrid smell filled the well of the
+stair-case.
+
+Rénine reached the top floor:
+
+"By your leave, friends. I have the key."
+
+He inserted it in the lock and opened the door.
+
+He was met by a gust of smoke so dense that one might well have supposed
+the whole floor to be ablaze. Rénine at once saw that the fire had gone out
+of its own accord, for lack of fuel, and that there were no more flames:
+
+"M. Morisseau, you won't let any one come in with us, will you? An intruder
+might spoil everything. Bolt the door, that will be best."
+
+He stepped into the front room, where the fire had obviously had its chief
+centre. The furniture, the walls and the ceiling, though blackened by the
+smoke, had not been touched. As a matter of fact, the fire was confined to
+a blaze of papers which was still burning in the middle of the room, in
+front of the window.
+
+Rénine struck his forehead:
+
+"What a fool I am! What an unspeakable ass!"
+
+"Why?" asked the inspector.
+
+"The hat-box, of course! The cardboard hat-box which was standing on the
+table. That's where he hid the notes. They were there all through our
+search."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why, yes, we always overlook that particular hiding-place, the one just
+under our eyes, within reach of our hands! How could one imagine that a
+thief would leave sixty thousand francs in an open cardboard box, in which
+he places his hat when he comes in, with an absent-minded air? That's just
+the one place we don't look in.... Well played, M. Dutreuil!"
+
+The inspector, who remained incredulous, repeated:
+
+"No, no, impossible! We were with him and he could not have started the
+fire himself."
+
+"Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be
+an alarm.... The hat-box ... the tissue paper ... the bank-notes: they must
+all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a
+match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving."
+
+"But we should have seen him, hang it all! And then is it credible that
+a man who has committed a murder for the sake of sixty thousand francs
+should do away with the money in this way? If the hiding-place was such
+a good one--and it was, because we never discovered it--why this useless
+destruction?"
+
+"He got frightened, M. Morisseau. Remember that his head is at stake
+and he knows it. Anything rather than the guillotine; and they--the
+bank-notes--were the only proof which we had against him. How could he
+have left them where they were?"
+
+Morisseau was flabbergasted:
+
+"What! The only proof?"
+
+"Why, obviously!"
+
+"But your witnesses? Your evidence? All that you were going to tell the
+chief?"
+
+"Mere bluff."
+
+"Well, upon my word," growled the bewildered inspector, "you're a cool
+customer!"
+
+"Would you have taken action without my bluff?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what more do you want?"
+
+Rénine stooped to stir the ashes. But there was nothing left, not even
+those remnants of stiff paper which still retain their shape.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "It's queer, all the same! How the deuce did he manage
+to set the thing alight?"
+
+He stood up, looking attentively about him. Hortense had a feeling that he
+was making his supreme effort and that, after this last struggle in the
+dark, he would either have devised his plan of victory or admit that he was
+beaten.
+
+Faltering with anxiety, she asked:
+
+"It's all up, isn't it?"
+
+"No, no," he said, thoughtfully, "it's not all up. It was, a few seconds
+ago. But now there is a gleam of light ... and one that gives me hope."
+
+"God grant that it may be justified!"
+
+"We must go slowly," he said. "It is only an attempt, but a fine, a very
+fine attempt; and it may succeed."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then, with an amused smile and a click of the
+tongue, he said:
+
+"An infernally clever fellow, that Dutreuil! His trick of burning the
+notes: what a fertile imagination! And what coolness! A pretty dance the
+beggar has led me! He's a master!"
+
+He fetched a broom from the kitchen and swept a part of the ashes into the
+next room, returning with a hat-box of the same size and appearance as the
+one which had been burnt. After crumpling the tissue paper with which it
+was filled, he placed the hat-box on the little table and set fire to it
+with a match.
+
+It burst into flames, which he extinguished when they had consumed half
+the cardboard and nearly all the paper. Then he took from an inner pocket
+of his waistcoat a bundle of bank-notes and selected six, which he burnt
+almost completely, arranging the remains and hiding the rest of the notes
+at the bottom of the box, among the ashes and the blackened bits of paper:
+
+"M. Morisseau," he said, when he had done, "I am asking for your assistance
+for the last time. Go and fetch Dutreuil. Tell him just this: 'You are
+unmasked. The notes did not catch fire. Come with me.' And bring him up
+here."
+
+Despite his hesitation and his fear of exceeding his instructions from the
+head of the detective service, the chief-inspector was powerless to throw
+off the ascendancy which Rénine had acquired over him. He left the room.
+
+Rénine turned to Hortense:
+
+"Do you understand my plan of battle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but it's a dangerous experiment. Do you think that
+Dutreuil will fall into the trap?"
+
+"Everything depends on the state of his nerves and the degree of
+demoralization to which he is reduced. A surprise attack may very well do
+for him."
+
+"Nevertheless, suppose he recognizes by some sign that the box has been
+changed?"
+
+"Oh, of course, he has a few chances in his favour! The fellow is much more
+cunning than I thought and quite capable of wriggling out of the trap.
+On the other hand, however, how uneasy he must be! How the blood must be
+buzzing in his ears and obscuring his sight! No, I don't think that he will
+avoid the trap.... He will give in.... He will give in...."
+
+They exchanged no more words. Rénine did not move. Hortense was stirred to
+the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in
+the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck ... and, twelve hours
+later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible
+anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity.
+What was Prince Rénine going to do? What would be the outcome of the
+experiment on which he was venturing? What resistance would Gaston Dutreuil
+offer? She lived through one of those minutes of superhuman tension in
+which life becomes intensified until it reaches its utmost value.
+
+They heard footsteps on the stairs, the footsteps of men in a hurry. The
+sound drew nearer. They were reaching the top floor.
+
+Hortense looked at her companion. He had stood up and was listening, his
+features already transfigured by action. The footsteps were now echoing in
+the passage. Then, suddenly, he ran to the door and cried:
+
+"Quick! Let's make an end of it!"
+
+Two or three detectives and a couple of waiters entered. He caught hold of
+Dutreuil in the midst of the detectives and pulled him by the arm, gaily
+exclaiming:
+
+"Well done, old man! That trick of yours with the table and the
+water-bottle was really splendid! A masterpiece, on my word! Only, it
+didn't come off!"
+
+"What do you mean? What's the matter?" mumbled Gaston Dutreuil, staggering.
+
+"What I say: the fire burnt only half the tissue-paper and the hat-box;
+and, though some of the bank-notes were destroyed, like the tissue-paper,
+the others are there, at the bottom.... You understand? The long-sought
+notes, the great proof of the murder: they're there, where you hid them....
+As chance would have it, they've escaped burning.... Here, look: there
+are the numbers; you can check them.... Oh, you're done for, done for, my
+beauty!"
+
+The young man drew himself up stiffly. His eyelids quivered. He did not
+accept Rénine's invitation to look; he examined neither the hat-box nor
+the bank-notes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect
+and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and
+collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping.
+
+The surprise attack, to use Rénine's expression, had succeeded. On seeing
+all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man
+had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself.
+He threw up the sponge.
+
+Rénine gave him no time to breathe:
+
+"Capital! You're saving your head; and that's all, my good youth! Write
+down your confession and get it off your chest. Here's a fountain-pen....
+The luck has been against you, I admit. It was devilishly well thought
+out, your trick of the last moment. You had the bank-notes which were in
+your way and which you wanted to destroy. Nothing simpler. You take a big,
+round-bellied water-bottle and stand it on the window-sill. It acts as
+a burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun on the cardboard and
+tissue-paper, all nicely prepared. Ten minutes later, it bursts into
+flames. A splendid idea! And, like all great discoveries, it came quite
+by chance, what? It reminds one of Newton's apple.... One day, the sun,
+passing through the water in that bottle, must have set fire to a scrap of
+cotton or the head of a match; and, as you had the sun at your disposal
+just now, you said to yourself, 'Now's the time,' and stood the bottle in
+the right position. My congratulations, Gaston!... Look, here's a sheet of
+paper. Write down: 'It was I who murdered M. Guillaume.' Write, I tell
+you!"
+
+Leaning over the young man, with all his implacable force of will he
+compelled him to write, guiding his hand and dictating the sentences.
+Dutreuil, exhausted, at the end of his strength, wrote as he was told.
+
+"Here's the confession, Mr. Chief-inspector," said Rénine. "You will be
+good enough to take it to M. Dudouis. These gentlemen," turning to the
+waiters, from the restaurant, "will, I am sure, consent to serve as
+witnesses."
+
+And, seeing that Dutreuil, overwhelmed by what had happened, did not move,
+he gave him a shake:
+
+"Hi, you, look alive! Now that you've been fool enough to confess, make an
+end of the job, my gentle idiot!"
+
+The other watched him, standing in front of him.
+
+"Obviously," Rénine continued, "you're only a simpleton. The hat-box was
+fairly burnt to ashes: so were the notes. That hat-box, my dear fellow, is
+a different one; and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to
+make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn't make out what had happened.
+What an owl you must be! To furnish me with evidence at the last moment,
+when I hadn't a single proof of my own! And such evidence! A written
+confession! Written before witnesses!... Look here, my man, if they do cut
+off your head--as I sincerely hope they will--upon my word, you'll have
+jolly well deserved it! Good-bye, Dutreuil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Downstairs, in the street, Rénine asked Hortense Daniel to take the car, go
+to Madeleine Aubrieux and tell her what had happened.
+
+"And you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"I have a lot to do ... urgent appointments...."
+
+"And you deny yourself the pleasure of bringing the good news?"
+
+"It's one of the pleasures that pall upon one. The only pleasure that never
+flags is that of the fight itself. Afterwards, things cease to be
+interesting."
+
+She took his hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have
+liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to
+do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But
+she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion
+constricted her throat and brought the tears to her eyes.
+
+Rénine bowed his head, saying:
+
+"Thank you. I have my reward."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+
+"Monsieur," continued the young girl, addressing Serge Rénine, "it was
+while I was spending the Easter holidays at Nice with my father that I made
+the acquaintance of Jean Louis d'Imbleval...."
+
+Rénine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, mademoiselle, but just now you spoke of this young man as Jean
+Louis Vaurois."
+
+"That's his name also," she said.
+
+"Has he two names then?"
+
+"I don't know ... I don't know anything about it," she said, with some
+embarrassment, "and that is why, by Hortense's advice, I came to ask for
+your help."
+
+This conversation was taking place in Rénine's flat on the Boulevard
+Haussmann, to which Hortense had brought her friend Geneviève Aymard, a
+slender, pretty little creature with a face over-shadowed by an expression
+of the greatest melancholy.
+
+"Rénine will be successful, take my word for it, Geneviève. You will,
+Rénine, won't you?"
+
+"Please tell me the rest of the story, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+Geneviève continued:
+
+"I was already engaged at the time to a man whom I loathe and detest. My
+father was trying to force me to marry him and is still trying to do so.
+Jean Louis and I felt the keenest sympathy for each other, a sympathy that
+soon developed into a profound and passionate affection which, I can assure
+you, was equally sincere on both sides. On my return to Paris, Jean Louis,
+who lives in the country with his mother and his aunt, took rooms in our
+part of the town; and, as I am allowed to go out by myself, we used to see
+each other daily. I need not tell you that we were engaged to be married. I
+told my father so. And this is what he said: 'I don't particularly like the
+fellow. But, whether it's he or another, what I want is that you should get
+married. So let him come and ask for your hand. If not, you must do as I
+say.' In the middle of June, Jean Louis went home to arrange matters with
+his mother and aunt. I received some passionate letters; and then just
+these few words:
+
+    'There are too many obstacles in the way of our happiness. I give up.
+    I am mad with despair. I love you more than ever. Good-bye and forgive
+    me.'
+
+"Since then, I have received nothing: no reply to my letters and
+telegrams."
+
+"Perhaps he has fallen in love with somebody else?" asked Rénine. "Or there
+may be some old connection which he is unable to shake off."
+
+Geneviève shook her head:
+
+"Monsieur, believe me, if our engagement had been broken off for an
+ordinary reason, I should not have allowed Hortense to trouble you. But it
+is something quite different, I am absolutely convinced. There's a mystery
+in Jean Louis' life, or rather an endless number of mysteries which hamper
+and pursue him. I never saw such distress in a human face; and, from
+the first moment of our meeting, I was conscious in him of a grief and
+melancholy which have always persisted, even at times when he was giving
+himself to our love with the greatest confidence."
+
+"But your impression must have been confirmed by minor details, by things
+which happened to strike you as peculiar?"
+
+"I don't quite know what to say."
+
+"These two names, for instance?"
+
+"Yes, there was certainly that."
+
+"By what name did he introduce himself to you?"
+
+"Jean Louis d'Imbleval."
+
+"But Jean Louis Vaurois?"
+
+"That's what my father calls him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that was how he was introduced to my father, at Nice, by a
+gentleman who knew him. Besides, he carries visiting-cards which describe
+him under either name."
+
+"Have you never questioned him on this point?"
+
+"Yes, I have, twice. The first time, he said that his aunt's name was
+Vaurois and his mother's d'Imbleval."
+
+"And the second time?"
+
+"He told me the contrary: he spoke of his mother as Vaurois and of his aunt
+as d'Imbleval. I pointed this out. He coloured up and I thought it better
+not to question him any further."
+
+"Does he live far from Paris?"
+
+"Right down in Brittany: at the Manoir d'Elseven, five miles from Carhaix."
+
+Rénine rose and asked the girl, seriously:
+
+"Are you quite certain that he loves you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"I am certain of it and I know too that he represents all my life and all
+my happiness. He alone can save me. If he can't, then I shall be married
+in a week's time to a man whom I hate. I have promised my father; and the
+banns have been published."
+
+"We shall leave for Carhaix, Madame Daniel and I, this evening," said
+Rénine.
+
+That evening he and Hortense took the train for Brittany. They reached
+Carhaix at ten o'clock in the morning; and, after lunch, at half past
+twelve o'clock they stepped into a car borrowed from a leading resident of
+the district.
+
+"You're looking a little pale, my dear," said Rénine, with a laugh, as they
+alighted by the gate of the garden at Elseven.
+
+"I'm very fond of Geneviève," she said. "She's the only friend I have. And
+I'm feeling frightened."
+
+He called her attention to the fact that the central gate was flanked by
+two wickets bearing the names of Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+respectively. Each of these wickets opened on a narrow path which ran among
+the shrubberies of box and aucuba to the left and right of the main avenue.
+The avenue itself led to an old manor-house, long, low and picturesque, but
+provided with two clumsily-built, ugly wings, each in a different style of
+architecture and each forming the destination of one of the side-paths.
+Madame d'Imbleval evidently lived on the left and Madame Vaurois on the
+right.
+
+Hortense and Rénine listened. Shrill, hasty voices were disputing inside
+the house. The sound came through one of the windows of the ground-floor,
+which was level with the garden and covered throughout its length with red
+creepers and white roses.
+
+"We can't go any farther," said Hortense. "It would be indiscreet."
+
+"All the more reason," whispered Rénine. "Look here: if we walk straight
+ahead, we shan't be seen by the people who are quarrelling."
+
+The sounds of conflict were by no means abating; and, when they reached the
+window next to the front-door, through the roses and creepers they could
+both see and hear two old ladies shrieking at the tops of their voices and
+shaking their fists at each other.
+
+The women were standing in the foreground, in a large dining-room where
+the table was not yet cleared; and at the farther side of the table sat a
+young man, doubtless Jean Louis himself, smoking his pipe and reading a
+newspaper, without appearing to trouble about the two old harridans.
+
+One of these, a thin, tall woman, was wearing a purple silk dress; and her
+hair was dressed in a mass of curls much too yellow for the ravaged face
+around which they tumbled. The other, who was still thinner, but quite
+short, was bustling round the room in a cotton dressing-gown and displayed
+a red, painted face blazing with anger:
+
+"A baggage, that's what you are!" she yelped. "The wickedest woman in the
+world and a thief into the bargain!"
+
+"I, a thief!" screamed the other.
+
+"What about that business with the ducks at ten francs apiece: don't you
+call that thieving?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you low creature! Who stole the fifty-franc note from my
+dressing-table? Lord, that I should have to live with such a wretch!"
+
+The other started with fury at the outrage and, addressing the young man,
+cried:
+
+"Jean, are you going to sit there and let me be insulted by your hussy of a
+d'Imbleval?"
+
+And the tall one retorted, furiously:
+
+"Hussy! Do you hear that, Louis? Look at her, your Vaurois! She's got the
+airs of a superannuated barmaid! Make her stop, can't you?"
+
+Suddenly Jean Louis banged his fist upon the table, making the plates and
+dishes jump, and shouted:
+
+"Be quiet, both of you, you old lunatics!"
+
+They turned upon him at once and loaded him with abuse:
+
+"Coward!... Hypocrite!... Liar!... A pretty sort of son you are!... The son
+of a slut and not much better yourself!..."
+
+The insults rained down upon him. He stopped his ears with his fingers and
+writhed as he sat at table like a man who has lost all patience and has
+need to restrain himself lest he should fall upon his enemy.
+
+Rénine whispered:
+
+"Now's the time to go in."
+
+"In among all those infuriated people?" protested Hortense.
+
+"Exactly. We shall see them better with their masks off."
+
+And, with a determined step, he walked to the door, opened it and entered
+the room, followed by Hortense.
+
+His advent gave rise to a feeling of stupefaction. The two women stopped
+yelling, but were still scarlet in the face and trembling with rage. Jean
+Louis, who was very pale, stood up.
+
+Profiting by the general confusion, Rénine said briskly:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Rénine. This is Madame Daniel.
+We are friends of Mlle. Geneviève Aymard and we have come in her name. I
+have a letter from her addressed to you, monsieur."
+
+Jean Louis, already disconcerted by the newcomers' arrival, lost
+countenance entirely on hearing the name of Geneviève. Without quite
+knowing what he was saying and with the intention of responding to Rénine's
+courteous behaviour, he tried in his turn to introduce the two ladies and
+let fall the astounding words:
+
+"My mother, Madame d'Imbleval; my mother, Madame Vaurois."
+
+For some time no one spoke. Rénine bowed. Hortense did not know with whom
+she should shake hands, with Madame d'Imbleval, the mother, or with Madame
+Vaurois, the mother. But what happened was that Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois both at the same time attempted to snatch the letter which
+Rénine was holding out to Jean Louis, while both at the same time mumbled:
+
+"Mlle. Aymard!... She has had the coolness ... she has had the
+audacity...!"
+
+Then Jean Louis, recovering his self-possession, laid hold of his mother
+d'Imbleval and pushed her out of the room by a door on the left and next of
+his mother Vaurois and pushed her out of the room by a door on the right.
+Then, returning to his two visitors, he opened the envelope and read, in an
+undertone:
+
+    "I am to be married in a week, Jean Louis. Come to my rescue, I beseech
+    you. My friend Hortense and Prince Rénine will help you to overcome the
+    obstacles that baffle you. Trust them. I love you.
+
+    "GENEVIÈVE."
+
+He was a rather dull-looking young man, whose very swarthy, lean and bony
+face certainly bore the expression of melancholy and distress described by
+Geneviève. Indeed, the marks of suffering were visible in all his harassed
+features, as well as in his sad and anxious eyes.
+
+He repeated Geneviève's name over and over again, while looking about him
+with a distracted air. He seemed to be seeking a course of conduct.
+
+He seemed on the point of offering an explanation but could find nothing
+to say. The sudden intervention had taken him at a disadvantage, like an
+unforseen attack which he did not know how to meet.
+
+Rénine felt that the adversary would capitulate at the first summons. The
+man had been fighting so desperately during the last few months and had
+suffered so severely in the retirement and obstinate silence in which he
+had taken refuge that he was not thinking of defending himself. Moreover,
+how could he do so, now that they had forced their way into the privacy of
+his odious existence?
+
+"Take my word for it, monsieur," declared Rénine, "that it is in your best
+interests to confide in us. We are Geneviève Aymard's friends. Do not
+hesitate to speak."
+
+"I can hardly hesitate," he said, "after what you have just heard. This is
+the life I lead, monsieur. I will tell you the whole secret, so that you
+may tell it to Geneviève. She will then understand why I have not gone back
+to her ... and why I have not the right to do so."
+
+He pushed a chair forward for Hortense. The two men sat down, and, without
+any need of further persuasion, rather as though he himself felt a certain
+relief in unburdening himself, he said:
+
+"You must not be surprised, monsieur, if I tell my story with a certain
+flippancy, for, as a matter of fact, it is a frankly comical story and
+cannot fail to make you laugh. Fate often amuses itself by playing these
+imbecile tricks, these monstrous farces which seem as though they must have
+been invented by the brain of a madman or a drunkard. Judge for yourself.
+Twenty-seven years ago, the Manoir d'Elseven, which at that time consisted
+only of the main building, was occupied by an old doctor who, to increase
+his modest means, used to receive one or two paying guests. In this way,
+Madame d'Imbleval spent the summer here one year and Madame Vaurois the
+following summer. Now these two ladies did not know each other. One of them
+was married to a Breton of a merchant-vessel and the other to a commercial
+traveller from the Vendée.
+
+"It so happened that they lost their husbands at the same time, at a period
+when each of them was expecting a baby. And, as they both lived in the
+country, at places some distance from any town, they wrote to the old
+doctor that they intended to come to his house for their confinement....
+He agreed. They arrived almost on the same day, in the autumn. Two small
+bedrooms were prepared for them, behind the room in which we are sitting.
+The doctor had engaged a nurse, who slept in this very room. Everything
+was perfectly satisfactory. The ladies were putting the finishing touches
+to their baby-clothes and were getting on together splendidly. They were
+determined that their children should be boys and had chosen the names of
+Jean and Louis respectively.... One evening the doctor was called out to a
+case and drove off in his gig with the man-servant, saying that he would
+not be back till next day. In her master's absence, a little girl who
+served as maid-of-all-work ran out to keep company with her sweetheart.
+These accidents destiny turned to account with diabolical malignity. At
+about midnight, Madame d'Imbleval was seized with the first pains. The
+nurse, Mlle. Boussignol, had had some training as a midwife and did not
+lose her head. But, an hour later, Madame Vaurois' turn came; and the
+tragedy, or I might rather say the tragi-comedy, was enacted amid the
+screams and moans of the two patients and the bewildered agitation of the
+nurse running from one to the other, bewailing her fate, opening the window
+to call out for the doctor or falling on her knees to implore the aid of
+Providence.... Madame Vaurois was the first to bring a son into the world.
+Mlle. Boussignol hurriedly carried him in here, washed and tended him and
+laid him in the cradle prepared for him.... But Madame d'Imbleval was
+screaming with pain; and the nurse had to attend to her while the newborn
+child was yelling like a stuck pig and the terrified mother, unable to stir
+from her bed, fainted.... Add to this all the wretchedness of darkness and
+disorder, the only lamp, without any oil, for the servant had neglected to
+fill it, the candles burning out, the moaning of the wind, the screeching
+of the owls, and you will understand that Mlle. Boussignol was scared
+out of her wits. However, at five o'clock in the morning, after many
+tragic incidents, she came in here with the d'Imbleval baby, likewise a
+boy, washed and tended him, laid him in his cradle and went off to help
+Madame Vaurois, who had come to herself and was crying out, while Madame
+d'Imbleval had fainted in her turn. And, when Mlle. Boussignol, having
+settled the two mothers, but half-crazed with fatigue, her brain in a
+whirl, returned to the new-born children, she realized with horror that she
+had wrapped them in similar binders, thrust their feet into similar woolen
+socks and laid them both, side by side, _in the same cradle_, so that
+it was impossible to tell Louis d'Imbleval from Jean Vaurois!... To make
+matters worse, when she lifted one of them out of the cradle, she found
+that his hands were cold as ice and that he had ceased to breathe. He was
+dead. What was his name and what the survivor's?... Three hours later, the
+doctor found the two women in a condition of frenzied delirium, while the
+nurse was dragging herself from one bed to the other, entreating the two
+mothers to forgive her. She held me out first to one, then to the other,
+to receive their caresses--for I was the surviving child--and they first
+kissed me and then pushed me away; for, after all, who was I? The son of
+the widowed Madame d'Imbleval and the late merchant-captain or the son of
+the widowed Madame Vaurois and the late commercial traveller? There was
+not a clue by which they could tell.... The doctor begged each of the two
+mothers to sacrifice her rights, at least from the legal point of view,
+so that I might be called either Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. They
+refused absolutely. 'Why Jean Vaurois, if he's a d'Imbleval?' protested the
+one. 'Why Louis d'Imbleval, if he's a Vaurois?' retorted the other. And I
+was registered under the name of Jean Louis, the son of an unknown father
+and mother."
+
+Prince Rénine had listened in silence. But Hortense, as the story
+approached its conclusion, had given way to a hilarity which she could no
+longer restrain and suddenly, in spite of all her efforts, she burst into
+a fit of the wildest laughter:
+
+"Forgive me," she said, her eyes filled with tears, "do forgive me; it's
+too much for my nerves...."
+
+"Don't apologize, madame," said the young man, gently, in a voice free
+from resentment. "I warned you that my story was laughable; I, better than
+any one, know how absurd, how nonsensical it is. Yes, the whole thing is
+perfectly grotesque. But believe me when I tell you that it was no fun in
+reality. It seems a humorous situation and it remains humorous by the force
+of circumstances; but it is also horrible. You can see that for yourself,
+can't you? The two mothers, neither of whom was certain of being a mother,
+but neither of whom was certain that she was not one, both clung to Jean
+Louis. He might be a stranger; on the other hand, he might be their own
+flesh and blood. They loved him to excess and fought for him furiously.
+And, above all, they both came to hate each other with a deadly hatred.
+Differing completely in character and education and obliged to live
+together because neither was willing to forego the advantage of her
+possible maternity, they lived the life of irreconcilable enemies who can
+never lay their weapons aside.... I grew up in the midst of this hatred and
+had it instilled into me by both of them. When my childish heart, hungering
+for affection, inclined me to one of them, the other would seek to inspire
+me with loathing and contempt for her. In this manor-house, which they
+bought on the old doctor's death and to which they added the two wings, I
+was the involuntary torturer and their daily victim. Tormented as a child,
+and, as a young man, leading the most hideous of lives, I doubt if any one
+on earth ever suffered more than I did."
+
+"You ought to have left them!" exclaimed Hortense, who had stopped
+laughing.
+
+"One can't leave one's mother; and one of those two women was my mother.
+And a woman can't abandon her son; and each of them was entitled to believe
+that I was her son. We were all three chained together like convicts, with
+chains of sorrow, compassion, doubt and also of hope that the truth might
+one day become apparent. And here we still are, all three, insulting one
+another and blaming one another for our wasted lives. Oh, what a hell! And
+there was no escaping it. I tried often enough ... but in vain. The broken
+bonds became tied again. Only this summer, under the stimulus of my love
+for Geneviève, I tried to free myself and did my utmost to persuade the two
+women whom I call mother. And then ... and then! I was up against their
+complaints, their immediate hatred of the wife, of the stranger, whom I
+was proposing to force upon them.... I gave way. What sort of a life would
+Geneviève have had here, between Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois? I
+had no right to victimize her."
+
+Jean Louis, who had been gradually becoming excited, uttered these last
+words in a firm voice, as though he would have wished his conduct to
+be ascribed to conscientious motives and a sense of duty. In reality,
+as Rénine and Hortense clearly saw, his was an unusually weak nature,
+incapable of reacting against a ridiculous position from which he had
+suffered ever since he was a child and which he had come to look upon as
+final and irremediable. He endured it as a man bears a cross which he has
+no right to cast aside; and at the same time he was ashamed of it. He had
+never spoken of it to Geneviève, from dread of ridicule; and afterwards, on
+returning to his prison, he had remained there out of habit and weakness.
+
+He sat down to a writing-table and quickly wrote a letter which he handed
+to Rénine:
+
+"Would you be kind enough to give this note to Mlle. Aymard and beg her
+once more to forgive me?"
+
+Rénine did not move and, when the other pressed the letter upon him, he
+took it and tore it up.
+
+"What does this mean?" asked the young man.
+
+"It means that I will not charge myself with any message."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are coming with us."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You will see Mlle. Aymard to-morrow and ask for her hand in
+marriage."
+
+Jean Louis looked at Rénine with a rather disdainful air, as though he were
+thinking:
+
+"Here's a man who has not understood a word of what I've been explaining to
+him."
+
+But Hortense went up to Rénine:
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be as I say."
+
+"But you must have your reasons?"
+
+"One only; but it will be enough, provided this gentleman is so kind as to
+help me in my enquiries."
+
+"Enquiries? With what object?" asked the young man.
+
+"With the object of proving that your story is not quite accurate."
+
+Jean Louis took umbrage at this:
+
+"I must ask you to believe, monsieur, that I have not said a word which is
+not the exact truth."
+
+"I expressed myself badly," said Rénine, with great kindliness. "Certainly
+you have not said a word that does not agree with what you believe to be
+the exact truth. But the truth is not, cannot be what you believe it to
+be."
+
+The young man folded his arms:
+
+"In any case, monsieur, it seems likely that I should know the truth better
+than you do."
+
+"Why better? What happened on that tragic night can obviously be known to
+you only at secondhand. You have no proofs. Neither have Madame d'Imbleval
+and Madame Vaurois."
+
+"No proofs of what?" exclaimed Jean Louis, losing patience.
+
+"No proofs of the confusion that took place."
+
+"What! Why, it's an absolute certainty! The two children were laid in the
+same cradle, with no marks to distinguish one from the other; and the nurse
+was unable to tell...."
+
+"At least, that's her version of it," interrupted Rénine.
+
+"What's that? Her version? But you're accusing the woman."
+
+"I'm accusing her of nothing."
+
+"Yes, you are: you're accusing her of lying. And why should she lie? She
+had no interest in doing so; and her tears and despair are so much evidence
+of her good faith. For, after all, the two mothers were there ... they saw
+the woman weeping ... they questioned her.... And then, I repeat, what
+interest had she ...?"
+
+Jean Louis was greatly excited. Close beside him, Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois, who had no doubt been listening behind the doors and who
+had stealthily entered the room, stood stammering, in amazement:
+
+"No, no ... it's impossible.... We've questioned her over and over again.
+Why should she tell a lie?..."
+
+"Speak, monsieur, speak," Jean Louis enjoined. "Explain yourself. Give your
+reasons for trying to cast doubt upon an absolute truth!"
+
+"Because that truth is inadmissible," declared Rénine, raising his voice
+and growing excited in turn to the point of punctuating his remarks by
+thumping the table. "No, things don't happen like that. No, fate does not
+display those refinements of cruelty and chance is not added to chance with
+such reckless extravagance! It was already an unprecedented chance that, on
+the very night on which the doctor, his man-servant and his maid were out
+of the house, the two ladies should be seized with labour-pains at the same
+hour and should bring two sons into the world at the same time. Don't let
+us add a still more exceptional event! Enough of the uncanny! Enough of
+lamps that go out and candles that refuse to burn! No and again no, it
+is not admissable that a midwife should become confused in the essential
+details of her trade. However bewildered she may be by the unforeseen
+nature of the circumstances, a remnant of instinct is still on the alert,
+so that there is a place prepared for each child and each is kept distinct
+from the other. The first child is here, the second is there. Even if they
+are lying side by side, one is on the left and the other on the right.
+Even if they are wrapped in the same kind of binders, some little detail
+differs, a trifle which is recorded by the memory and which is inevitably
+recalled to the mind without any need of reflection. Confusion? I refuse
+to believe in it. Impossible to tell one from the other? It isn't true. In
+the world of fiction, yes, one can imagine all sorts of fantastic accidents
+and heap contradiction on contradiction. But, in the world of reality, at
+the very heart of reality, there is always a fixed point, a solid nucleus,
+about which the facts group themselves in accordance with a logical order.
+I therefore declare most positively that Nurse Boussignol could not have
+mixed up the two children."
+
+All this he said decisively, as though he had been present during the night
+in question; and so great was his power of persuasion that from the very
+first he shook the certainty of those who for more than a quarter of a
+century had never doubted.
+
+The two women and their son pressed round him and questioned him with
+breathless anxiety:
+
+"Then you think that she may know ... that she may be able to tell us....?"
+
+He corrected himself:
+
+"I don't say yes and I don't say no. All I say is that there was something
+in her behaviour during those hours that does not tally with her statements
+and with reality. All the vast and intolerable mystery that has weighed
+down upon you three arises not from a momentary lack of attention but from
+something of which we do not know, but of which she does. That is what I
+maintain; and that is what happened."
+
+Jean Louis said, in a husky voice:
+
+"She is alive.... She lives at Carhaix.... We can send for her...."
+
+Hortense at once proposed:
+
+"Would you like me to go for her? I will take the motor and bring her back
+with me. Where does she live?"
+
+"In the middle of the town, at a little draper's shop. The chauffeur will
+show you. Mlle. Boussignol: everybody knows her...."
+
+"And, whatever you do," added Rénine, "don't warn her in any way. If she's
+uneasy, so much the better. But don't let her know what we want with her."
+
+Twenty minutes passed in absolute silence. Rénine paced the room, in which
+the fine old furniture, the handsome tapestries, the well-bound books and
+pretty knick-knacks denoted a love of art and a seeking after style in Jean
+Louis. This room was really his. In the adjoining apartments on either
+side, through the open doors, Rénine was able to note the bad taste of the
+two mothers.
+
+He went up to Jean Louis and, in a low voice, asked:
+
+"Are they well off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"They settled the manor-house upon me, with all the land around it, which
+makes me quite independent."
+
+"Have they any relations?"
+
+"Sisters, both of them."
+
+"With whom they could go to live?"
+
+"Yes; and they have sometimes thought of doing so. But there can't be any
+question of that. Once more, I assure you...."
+
+Meantime the car had returned. The two women jumped up hurriedly, ready to
+speak.
+
+"Leave it to me," said Rénine, "and don't be surprised by anything that I
+say. It's not a matter of asking her questions but of frightening her, of
+flurrying her.... The sudden attack," he added between his teeth.
+
+The car drove round the lawn and drew up outside the windows. Hortense
+sprang out and helped an old woman to alight, dressed in a fluted linen
+cap, a black velvet bodice and a heavy gathered skirt.
+
+The old woman entered in a great state of alarm. She had a pointed face,
+like a weasel's, with a prominent mouth full of protruding teeth.
+
+"What's the matter, Madame d'Imbleval?" she asked, timidly stepping into
+the room from which the doctor had once driven her. "Good day to you,
+Madame Vaurois."
+
+The ladies did not reply. Rénine came forward and said, sternly:
+
+"Mlle. Boussignol, I have been sent by the Paris police to throw light
+upon a tragedy which took place here twenty-seven years ago. I have just
+secured evidence that you have distorted the truth and that, as the result
+of your false declarations, the birth-certificate of one of the children
+born in the course of that night is inaccurate. Now false declarations in
+matters of birth-certificates are misdemeanours punishable by law. I shall
+therefore be obliged to take you to Paris to be interrogated ... unless
+you are prepared here and now to confess everything that might repair the
+consequences of your offence."
+
+The old maid was shaking in every limb. Her teeth were chattering. She was
+evidently incapable of opposing the least resistance to Rénine.
+
+"Are you ready to confess everything?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she panted.
+
+"Without delay? I have to catch a train. The business must be settled
+immediately. If you show the least hesitation, I take you with me. Have
+you made up your mind to speak?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He pointed to Jean Louis:
+
+"Whose son is this gentleman? Madame d'Imbleval's?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Madame Vaurois', therefore?"
+
+"No."
+
+A stupefied silence welcomed the two replies.
+
+"Explain yourself," Rénine commanded, looking at his watch.
+
+Then Madame Boussignol fell on her knees and said, in so low and dull a
+voice that they had to bend over her in order to catch the sense of what
+she was mumbling:
+
+"Some one came in the evening ... a gentleman with a new-born baby wrapped
+in blankets, which he wanted the doctor to look after. As the doctor wasn't
+there, he waited all night and it was he who did it all."
+
+"Did what?" asked Rénine. "What did he do? What happened?"
+
+"Well, what happened was that it was not one child but the two of them that
+died: Madame d'Imbleval's and Madame Vaurois' too, both in convulsions.
+Then the gentleman, seeing this, said, 'This shows me where my duty lies. I
+must seize this opportunity of making sure that my own boy shall be happy
+and well cared for. Put him in the place of one of the dead children.' He
+offered me a big sum of money, saying that this one payment would save him
+the expense of providing for his child every month; and I accepted. Only, I
+did not know in whose place to put him and whether to say that the boy was
+Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. The gentleman thought a moment and said
+neither. Then he explained to me what I was to do and what I was to say
+after he had gone. And, while I was dressing his boy in vest and binders
+the same as one of the dead children, he wrapped the other in the blankets
+he had brought with him and went out into the night."
+
+Mlle. Boussignol bent her head and wept. After a moment, Rénine said:
+
+"Your deposition agrees with the result of my investigations."
+
+"Can I go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is it over, as far as I'm concerned? They won't be talking about this
+all over the district?"
+
+"No. Oh, just one more question: do you know the man's name?"
+
+"No. He didn't tell me his name."
+
+"Have you ever seen him since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you anything more to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you prepared to sign the written text of your confession?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. I shall send for you in a week or two. Till then, not a word to
+anybody."
+
+He saw her to the door and closed it after her. When he returned, Jean
+Louis was between the two old ladies and all three were holding hands. The
+bond of hatred and wretchedness which had bound them had suddenly snapped;
+and this rupture, without requiring them to reflect upon the matter, filled
+them with a gentle tranquillity of which they were hardly conscious, but
+which made them serious and thoughtful.
+
+"Let's rush things," said Rénine to Hortense. "This is the decisive moment
+of the battle. We must get Jean Louis on board."
+
+Hortense seemed preoccupied. She whispered:
+
+"Why did you let the woman go? Were you satisfied with her statement?"
+
+"I don't need to be satisfied. She told us what happened. What more do you
+want?"
+
+"Nothing.... I don't know...."
+
+"We'll talk about it later, my dear. For the moment, I repeat, we must get
+Jean Louis on board. And immediately.... Otherwise...."
+
+He turned to the young man:
+
+"You agree with me, don't you, that, things being as they are, it is best
+for you and Madame Vaurois and Madame d'Imbleval to separate for a time?
+That will enable you all to see matters more clearly and to decide in
+perfect freedom what is to be done. Come with us, monsieur. The most
+pressing thing is to save Geneviève Aymard, your _fiancée_."
+
+Jean Louis stood perplexed and undecided. Rénine turned to the two women:
+
+"That is your opinion too, I am sure, ladies?"
+
+They nodded.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he said to Jean Louis, "we are all agreed. In great
+crises, there is nothing like separation ... a few days' respite. Quickly
+now, monsieur."
+
+And, without giving him time to hesitate, he drove him towards his bedroom
+to pack up.
+
+Half an hour later, Jean Louis left the manor-house with his new friends.
+
+"And he won't go back until he's married," said Rénine to Hortense, as they
+were waiting at Carhaix station, to which the car had taken them, while
+Jean Louis was attending to his luggage. "Everything's for the best. Are
+you satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, Geneviève will be glad," she replied, absently.
+
+When they had taken their seats in the train, Rénine and she repaired to
+the dining-car. Rénine, who had asked Hortense several questions to which
+she had replied only in monosyllables, protested:
+
+"What's the matter with you, my child? You look worried!"
+
+"I? Not at all!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know you. Now, no secrets, no mysteries!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"Well, since you insist on knowing if I am satisfied, I am bound to
+admit that of course I am ... as regards my friend Geneviève, but that,
+in another respect--from the point of view of the adventure--I have an
+uncomfortable sort of feeling...."
+
+"To speak frankly, I haven't 'staggered' you this time?"
+
+"Not very much."
+
+"I seem to you to have played a secondary part. For, after all, what have I
+done? We arrived. We listened to Jean Louis' tale of woe. I had a midwife
+fetched. And that was all."
+
+"Exactly. I want to know if that _was_ all; and I'm not quite sure.
+To tell you the truth, our other adventures left behind them an impression
+which was--how shall I put it?--more definite, clearer."
+
+"And this one strikes you as obscure?"
+
+"Obscure, yes, and incomplete."
+
+"But in what way?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with that woman's confession.
+Yes, very likely that is it. It was all so unexpected and so short."
+
+"Well, of course, I cut it short, as you can readily imagine!" said Rénine,
+laughing. "We didn't want too many explanations."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should
+have ended by doubting what she was telling us."
+
+"By doubting it?"
+
+"Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle far-fetched! That fellow arriving
+at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one:
+the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn't much time to
+coach the unfortunate woman in her part."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement:
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I
+had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and
+she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror,
+_tremolo_, tears...."
+
+"Is it possible?" murmured Hortense. "Is it possible? You had seen her
+beforehand?"
+
+"I had to, of course."
+
+"But when?"
+
+"This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at
+the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I
+could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the
+d'Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife,
+Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes
+to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to
+induce her to repeat that ... more or less credible ... version to the
+people at the manor-house."
+
+"A quite incredible version!"
+
+"Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it ... and
+the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to
+demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence
+and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on
+actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it
+by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny
+it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the
+victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear
+up!' 'That's easily done,' says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once
+shaken. 'Let's send for Mlle. Boussignol.' 'Right! Let's send for her.'
+Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which
+I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction ... of which I take
+advantage to carry off our young man!"
+
+Hortense shook her head:
+
+"But they'll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!"
+
+"Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will
+never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your
+imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in
+which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think
+they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a
+false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they
+won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense!
+Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that
+which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no
+more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole!
+Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite
+affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other."
+
+"But what about Jean Louis?"
+
+"Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can't
+do with two mothers in a life-time! What a situation! And when one has the
+luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why,
+bless me, one doesn't hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with
+Geneviève." He laughed. "And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust,
+not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your
+mind. Your friend's happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for.
+All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less
+peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures
+are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding
+cigarette-ends, or incendiary water-bottles and blazing hat-boxes as on our
+last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological
+solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent."
+
+"Silent?"
+
+"Yes, there's a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying
+something uncommonly interesting."
+
+"But they're talking in whispers."
+
+"Just so. When people talk in whispers, it's always about something shady."
+
+He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. Hortense listened, but in
+vain. As for him, he was emitting little slow puffs of smoke.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, the train stopped and the man and woman got out.
+
+"Pity," said Rénine, "that I don't know their names or where they're going.
+But I know where to find them. My dear, we have a new adventure before us."
+
+Hortense protested:
+
+"Oh, no, please, not yet!... Give me a little rest!... And oughtn't we to
+think of Geneviève?"
+
+He seemed greatly surprised:
+
+"Why, all that's over and done with! Do you mean to say you want to waste
+any more time over that old story? Well, I for my part confess that I've
+lost all interest in the man with the two mammas."
+
+And this was said in such a comical tone and with such diverting sincerity
+that Hortense was once more seized with a fit of giggling. Laughter alone
+was able to relax her exasperated nerves and to distract her from so many
+contradictory emotions.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+
+"Do look at the man who's playing the butler," said Serge Rénine.
+
+"What is there peculiar about him?" asked Hortense.
+
+They were sitting in the balcony at a picture-palace, to which Hortense had
+asked to be taken so that she might see on the screen the daughter of a
+lady, now dead, who used to give her piano-lessons. Rose Andrée, a lovely
+girl with lissome movements and a smiling face, was that evening figuring
+in a new film, _The Happy Princess_, which she lit up with her high
+spirits and her warm, glowing beauty.
+
+Rénine made no direct reply, but, during a pause in the performance,
+continued:
+
+"I sometimes console myself for an indifferent film by watching the
+subordinate characters. It seems to me that those poor devils, who are made
+to rehearse certain scenes ten or twenty times over, must often be thinking
+of other things than their parts at the time of the final exposure. And
+it's great fun noting those little moments of distraction which reveal
+something of their temperament, of their instinct self. As, for instance,
+in the case of that butler: look!"
+
+The screen now showed a luxuriously served table. The Happy Princess sat at
+the head, surrounded by all her suitors. Half-a-dozen footmen moved about
+the room, under the orders of the butler, a big fellow with a dull, coarse
+face, a common appearance and a pair of enormous eyebrows which met across
+his forehead in a single line.
+
+"He looks a brute," said Hortense, "but what do you see in him that's
+peculiar?"
+
+"Just note how he gazes at the princess and tell me if he doesn't stare at
+her oftener than he ought to."
+
+"I really haven't noticed anything, so far," said Hortense.
+
+"Why, of course he does!" Serge Rénine declared. "It is quite obvious that
+in actual life he entertains for Rose Andrée personal feelings which are
+quite out of place in a nameless servant. It is possible that, in real
+life, no one has any idea of such a thing; but, on the screen, when he is
+not watching himself, or when he thinks that the actors at rehearsal cannot
+see him, his secret escapes him. Look...."
+
+The man was standing still. It was the end of dinner. The princess was
+drinking a glass of champagne and he was gloating over her with his
+glittering eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids.
+
+Twice again they surprised in his face those strange expressions to which
+Rénine ascribed an emotional meaning which Hortense refused to see:
+
+"It's just his way of looking at people," she said.
+
+The first part of the film ended. There were two parts, divided by an
+_entr'acte_. The notice on the programme stated that "a year had
+elapsed and that the Happy Princess was living in a pretty Norman cottage,
+all hung with creepers, together with her husband, a poor musician."
+
+The princess was still happy, as was evident on the screen, still as
+attractive as ever and still besieged by the greatest variety of suitors.
+Nobles and commoners, peasants and financiers, men of all kinds fell
+swooning at her feet; and prominent among them was a sort of boorish
+solitary, a shaggy, half-wild woodcutter, whom she met whenever she went
+out for a walk. Armed with his axe, a formidable, crafty being, he prowled
+around the cottage; and the spectators felt with a sense of dismay that a
+peril was hanging over the Happy Princess' head.
+
+"Look at that!" whispered Rénine. "Do you realise who the man of the woods
+is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Simply the butler. The same actor is doubling the two parts."
+
+In fact, notwithstanding the new figure which he cut, the butler's
+movements and postures were apparent under the heavy gait and rounded
+shoulders of the woodcutter, even as under the unkempt beard and long,
+thick hair the once clean-shaven face was visible with the cruel expression
+and the bushy line of the eyebrows.
+
+The princess, in the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched
+cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time,
+the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling
+eyes or his murderous hands with their huge thumbs.
+
+"The man frightens me," said Hortense. "He is really terrifying."
+
+"Because he's acting on his own account," said Rénine. "You must understand
+that, in the space of three or four months that appears to separate the
+dates at which the two films were made, his passion has made progress; and
+to him it is not the princess who is coming but Rose Andrée."
+
+The man crouched low. The victim approached, gaily and unsuspectingly. She
+passed, heard a sound, stopped and looked about her with a smiling air
+which became attentive, then uneasy, and then more and more anxious. The
+woodcutter had pushed aside the branches and was coming through the copse.
+
+They were now standing face to face. He opened his arms as though to seize
+her. She tried to scream, to call out for help; but the arms closed around
+her before she could offer the slightest resistance. Then he threw her over
+his shoulder and began to run.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" whispered Rénine. "Do you think that this fourth-rate
+actor would have had all that strength and energy if it had been any other
+woman than Rose Andrée?"
+
+Meanwhile the woodcutter was crossing the skirt of a forest and plunging
+through great trees and masses of rocks. After setting the princess down,
+he cleared the entrance to a cave which the daylight entered by a slanting
+crevice.
+
+A succession of views displayed the husband's despair, the search and the
+discovery of some small branches which had been broken by the princess
+and which showed the path that had been taken. Then came the final scene,
+with the terrible struggle between the man and the woman when the woman,
+vanquished and exhausted, is flung to the ground, the sudden arrival of the
+husband and the shot that puts an end to the brute's life....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well," said Rénine, when they had left the picture-palace--and he
+spoke with a certain gravity--"I maintain that the daughter of your old
+piano-teacher has been in danger ever since the day when that last scene
+was filmed. I maintain that this scene represents not so much an assault by
+the man of the woods on the Happy Princess as a violent and frantic attack
+by an actor on the woman he desires. Certainly it all happened within the
+bounds prescribed by the part and nobody saw anything in it--nobody except
+perhaps Rose Andrée herself--but I, for my part, have detected flashes
+of passion which leave not a doubt in my mind. I have seen glances that
+betrayed the wish and even the intention to commit murder. I have seen
+clenched hands, ready to strangle, in short, a score of details which prove
+to me that, at that time, the man's instinct was urging him to kill the
+woman who could never be his."
+
+"And it all amounts to what?"
+
+"We must protect Rose Andrée if she is still in danger and if it is not too
+late."
+
+"And to do this?"
+
+"We must get hold of further information."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From the World's Cinema Company, which made the film. I will go to them
+to-morrow morning. Will you wait for me in your flat about lunch-time?"
+
+At heart, Hortense was still sceptical. All these manifestations of
+passion, of which she denied neither the ardour nor the ferocity, seemed
+to her to be the rational behaviour of a good actor. She had seen nothing
+of the terrible tragedy which Rénine contended that he had divined; and
+she wondered whether he was not erring through an excess of imagination.
+
+"Well," she asked, next day, not without a touch of irony, "how far have
+you got? Have you made a good bag? Anything mysterious? Anything
+thrilling?"
+
+"Pretty good."
+
+"Oh, really? And your so-called lover...."
+
+"Is one Dalbrèque, originally a scene-painter, who played the butler in the
+first part of the film and the man of the woods in the second and was so
+much appreciated that they engaged him for a new film. Consequently, he has
+been acting lately. He was acting near Paris. But, on the morning of Friday
+the 18th of September, he broke into the garage of the World's Cinema
+Company and made off with a magnificent car and forty thousand francs
+in money. Information was lodged with the police; and on the Sunday the
+car was found a little way outside Dreux. And up to now the enquiry has
+revealed two things, which will appear in the papers to-morrow: first,
+Dalbrèque is alleged to have committed a murder which created a great stir
+last year, the murder of Bourguet, the jeweller; secondly, on the day after
+his two robberies, Dalbrèque was driving through Le Havre in a motor-car
+with two men who helped him to carry off, in broad daylight and in a
+crowded street, a lady whose identity has not yet been discovered."
+
+"Rose Andrée?" asked Hortense, uneasily.
+
+"I have just been to Rose Andrée's: the World's Cinema Company gave me her
+address. Rose Andrée spent this summer travelling and then stayed for a
+fortnight in the Seine-inférieure, where she has a small place of her own,
+the actual cottage in _The Happy Princess_. On receiving an invitation
+from America to do a film there, she came back to Paris, registered her
+luggage at the Gare Saint-Lazare and left on Friday the 18th of September,
+intending to sleep at Le Havre and take Saturday's boat."
+
+"Friday the 18th," muttered Hortense, "the same day on which that man...."
+
+"And it was on the Saturday that a woman was carried off by him at
+Le Havre. I looked in at the Compagnie Transatlantique and a brief
+investigation showed that Rose Andrée had booked a cabin but that the
+cabin remained unoccupied. The passenger did not turn up."
+
+"This is frightful. She has been carried off. You were right."
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"What have you decided to do?"
+
+"Adolphe, my chauffeur, is outside with the car. Let us go to Le Havre. Up
+to the present, Rose Andrée's disappearance does not seem to have become
+known. Before it does and before the police identify the woman carried off
+by Dalbrèque with the woman who did not turn up to claim her cabin, we will
+get on Rose Andrée's track."
+
+There was not much said on the journey. At four o'clock Hortense and Rénine
+reached Rouen. But here Rénine changed his road.
+
+"Adolphe, take the left bank of the Seine."
+
+He unfolded a motoring-map on his knees and, tracing the route with his
+finger, showed Hortense that, if you draw a line from Le Havre, or rather
+from Quillebeuf, where the road crosses the Seine, to Dreux, where the
+stolen car was found, this line passes through Routot, a market-town lying
+west of the forest of Brotonne:
+
+"Now it was in the forest of Brotonne," he continued, "according to what I
+heard, that the second part of _The Happy Princess_ was filmed. And
+the question that arises is this: having got hold of Rose Andrée, would it
+not occur to Dalbrèque, when passing near the forest on the Saturday night,
+to hide his prey there, while his two accomplices went on to Dreux and from
+there returned to Paris? The cave was quite near. Was he not bound to go to
+it? How should he do otherwise? Wasn't it while running to this cave, a few
+months ago, that he held in his arms, against his breast, within reach of
+his lips, the woman whom he loved and whom he has now conquered? By every
+rule of fate and logic, the adventure is being repeated all over again ...
+but this time in reality. Rose Andrée is a captive. There is no hope
+of rescue. The forest is vast and lonely. That night, or on one of the
+following nights, Rose Andrée must surrender ... or die."
+
+Hortense gave a shudder:
+
+"We shall be too late. Besides, you don't suppose that he's keeping her a
+prisoner?"
+
+"Certainly not. The place I have in mind is at a cross-roads and is not a
+safe retreat. But we may discover some clue or other."
+
+The shades of night were falling from the tall trees when they entered the
+ancient forest of Brotonne, full of Roman remains and mediaeval relics.
+Rénine knew the forest well and remembered that near a famous oak, known
+as the Wine-cask, there was a cave which must be the cave of the Happy
+Princess. He found it easily, switched on his electric torch, rummaged in
+the dark corners and brought Hortense back to the entrance:
+
+"There's nothing inside," he said, "but here is the evidence which I was
+looking for. Dalbrèque was obsessed by the recollection of the film, but so
+was Rose Andrée. The Happy Princess had broken off the tips of the branches
+on the way through the forest. Rose Andrée has managed to break off some to
+the right of this opening, in the hope that she would be discovered as on
+the first occasion."
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "it's a proof that she has been here; but the proof
+is three weeks old. Since that time...."
+
+"Since that time, she is either dead and buried under a heap of leaves or
+else alive in some hole even lonelier than this."
+
+"If so, where is he?"
+
+Rénine pricked up his ears. Repeated blows of the axe were sounding from
+some distance, no doubt coming from a part of the forest that was being
+cleared.
+
+"He?" said Rénine, "I wonder whether he may not have continued to behave
+under the influence of the film and whether the man of the woods in _The
+Happy Princess_ has not quite naturally resumed his calling. For how is
+the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will
+have found a job."
+
+"We can't make sure of that."
+
+"We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear."
+
+The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they
+entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by waggon-wheels. The sound
+of axes ceased. After walking for a quarter of an hour, they met a dozen
+men who, having finished work for the day, were returning to the villages
+near by.
+
+"Will this path take us to Routot?" ask Rénine, in order to open a
+conversation with them.
+
+"No, you're turning your backs on it," said one of the men, gruffly.
+
+And he went on, accompanied by his mates.
+
+Hortense and Rénine stood rooted to the spot. They had recognized the
+butler. His cheeks and chin were shaved, but his upper lip was covered by
+a black moustache, evidently dyed. The eyebrows no longer met and were
+reduced to normal dimensions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, in less than twenty hours, acting on the vague hints supplied by the
+bearing of a film-actor, Serge Rénine had touched the very heart of the
+tragedy by means of purely psychological arguments.
+
+"Rose Andrée is alive," he said. "Otherwise Dalbrèque would have left the
+country. The poor thing must be imprisoned and bound up; and he takes her
+some food at night."
+
+"We will save her, won't we?"
+
+"Certainly, by keeping a watch on him and, if necessary, but in the last
+resort, compelling him by force to give up his secret."
+
+They followed the woodcutter at a distance and, on the pretext that the car
+needed overhauling, engaged rooms in the principal inn at Routot.
+
+Attached to the inn was a small café from which they were separated by the
+entrance to the yard and above which were two rooms, reached by a wooden
+outer staircase, at one side. Dalbrèque occupied one of these rooms and
+Rénine took the other for his chauffeur.
+
+Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbrèque, on the previous
+evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his
+room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise.
+
+The bicycle tracks led Rénine to the uninhabited Château des Landes, five
+miles from the village. They disappeared in a rocky path which ran beside
+the park down to the Seine, opposite the Jumièges peninsula.
+
+Next night, he took up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbrèque
+climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the
+branches and moved away. It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy
+darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Rénine did
+not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and
+hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered
+the side of a hill and was bounded below by the river, was not very large,
+he found no clue which gave him any reason to suppose that Rose Andrée was
+imprisoned there.
+
+He therefore went back to the village, with the firm intention of taking
+action that evening and employing force:
+
+"This state of things cannot go on," he said to Hortense. "I must rescue
+Rose Andrée at all costs and save her from that ruffian's clutches. He must
+be made to speak. He must. Otherwise there's a danger that we may be too
+late."
+
+That day was Sunday; and Dalbrèque did not go to work. He did not leave his
+room except for lunch and went upstairs again immediately afterwards. But
+at three o'clock Rénine and Hortense, who were keeping a watch on him from
+the inn, saw him come down the wooden staircase, with his bicycle on his
+shoulder. Leaning it against the bottom step, he inflated the tires and
+fastened to the handle-bar a rather bulky object wrapped in a newspaper.
+
+"By Jove!" muttered Rénine.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+In front of the café was a small terrace bordered on the right and left by
+spindle-trees planted in boxes, which were connected by a paling. Behind
+the shrubs, sitting on a bank but stooping forward so that they could see
+Dalbrèque through the branches, were four men.
+
+"Police!" said Rénine. "What bad luck! If those fellows take a hand, they
+will spoil everything."
+
+"Why? On the contrary, I should have thought...."
+
+"Yes, they will. They will put Dalbrèque out of the way ... and then? Will
+that give us Rose Andrée?"
+
+Dalbrèque had finished his preparations. Just as he was mounting his
+bicycle, the detectives rose in a body, ready to make a dash for him. But
+Dalbrèque, though quite unconscious of their presence, changed his mind and
+went back to his room as though he had forgotten something.
+
+"Now's the time!" said Rénine. "I'm going to risk it. But it's a difficult
+situation and I've no great hopes."
+
+He went out into the yard and, at a moment when the detectives were not
+looking, ran up the staircase, as was only natural if he wished to give an
+order to his chauffeur. But he had no sooner reached the rustic balcony at
+the back of the house, which gave admission to the two bedrooms than he
+stopped. Dalbrèque's door was open. Rénine walked in.
+
+Dalbrèque stepped back, at once assuming the defensive:
+
+"What do you want? Who said you could...."
+
+"Silence!" whispered Rénine, with an imperious gesture. "It's all up with
+you!"
+
+"What are you talking about?" growled the man, angrily.
+
+"Lean out of your window. There are four men below on the watch for you to
+leave, four detectives."
+
+Dalbrèque leant over the terrace and muttered an oath:
+
+"On the watch for me?" he said, turning round. "What do I care?"
+
+"They have a warrant."
+
+He folded his arms:
+
+"Shut up with your piffle! A warrant! What's that to me?"
+
+"Listen," said Rénine, "and let us waste no time. It's urgent. Your name's
+Dalbrèque, or, at least, that's the name under which you acted in _The
+Happy Princess_ and under which the police are looking for you as being
+the murderer of Bourguet the jeweller, the man who stole a motor-car and
+forty thousand francs from the World's Cinema Company and the man who
+abducted a woman at Le Havre. All this is known and proved ... and here's
+the upshot. Four men downstairs. Myself here, my chauffeur in the next
+room. You're done for. Do you want me to save you?"
+
+Dalbrèque gave his adversary a long look:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A friend of Rose Andrée's," said Rénine.
+
+The other started and, to some extent dropping his mask, retorted:
+
+"What are your conditions?"
+
+"Rose Andrée, whom you have abducted and tormented, is dying in some hole
+or corner. Where is she?"
+
+A strange thing occurred and impressed Rénine. Dalbrèque's face, usually so
+common, was lit up by a smile that made it almost attractive. But this was
+only a flashing vision: the man immediately resumed his hard and impassive
+expression.
+
+"And suppose I refuse to speak?" he said.
+
+"So much the worse for you. It means your arrest."
+
+"I dare say; but it means the death of Rose Andrée. Who will release her?"
+
+"You. You will speak now, or in an hour, or two hours hence at least. You
+will never have the heart to keep silent and let her die."
+
+Dalbrèque shrugged his shoulders. Then, raising his hand, he said:
+
+"I swear on my life that, if they arrest me, not a word will leave my
+lips."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then save me. We will meet this evening at the entrance to the Parc des
+Landes and say what we have to say."
+
+"Why not at once?"
+
+"I have spoken."
+
+"Will you be there?"
+
+"I shall be there."
+
+Rénine reflected. There was something in all this that he failed to grasp.
+In any case, the frightful danger that threatened Rose Andrée dominated the
+whole situation; and Rénine was not the man to despise this threat and to
+persist out of vanity in a perilous course. Rose Andrée's life came before
+everything.
+
+He struck several blows on the wall of the next bedroom and called his
+chauffeur.
+
+"Adolphe, is the car ready?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Set her going and pull her up in front of the terrace outside the café,
+right against the boxes so as to block the exit. As for you," he continued,
+addressing Dalbrèque, "you're to jump on your machine and, instead of
+making off along the road, cross the yard. At the end of the yard is a
+passage leading into a lane. There you will be free. But no hesitation and
+no blundering ... else you'll get yourself nabbed. Good luck to you."
+
+He waited till the car was drawn up in accordance with his instructions
+and, when he reached it, he began to question his chauffeur, in order to
+attract the detectives' attention.
+
+One of them, however, having cast a glance through the spindle-trees,
+caught sight of Dalbrèque just as he reached the bottom of the staircase.
+He gave the alarm and darted forward, followed by his comrades, but had
+to run round the car and bumped into the chauffeur, which gave Dalbrèque
+time to mount his bicycle and cross the yard unimpeded. He thus had some
+seconds' start. Unfortunately for him as he was about to enter the passage
+at the back, a troop of boys and girls appeared, returning from vespers. On
+hearing the shouts of the detectives, they spread their arms in front of
+the fugitive, who gave two or three lurches and ended by falling.
+
+Cries of triumph were raised:
+
+"Lay hold of him! Stop him!" roared the detectives as they rushed forward.
+
+Rénine, seeing that the game was up, ran after the others and called out:
+
+"Stop him!"
+
+He came up with them just as Dalbrèque, after regaining his feet, knocked
+one of the policemen down and levelled his revolver. Rénine snatched it out
+of his hands. But the two other detectives, startled, had also produced
+their weapons. They fired. Dalbrèque, hit in the leg and the chest, pitched
+forward and fell.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the inspector to Rénine introducing himself. "We owe
+a lot to you."
+
+"It seems to me that you've done for the fellow," said Rénine. "Who is he?"
+
+"One Dalbrèque, a scoundrel for whom we were looking."
+
+Rénine was beside himself. Hortense had joined him by this time; and he
+growled:
+
+"The silly fools! Now they've killed him!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't possible!"
+
+"We shall see. But, whether he's dead or alive, it's death to Rose Andrée.
+How are we to trace her? And what chance have we of finding the place--some
+inaccessible retreat--where the poor thing is dying of misery and
+starvation?"
+
+The detectives and peasants had moved away, bearing Dalbrèque with them on
+an improvised stretcher. Rénine, who had at first followed them, in order
+to find out what was going to happen, changed his mind and was now standing
+with his eyes fixed on the ground. The fall of the bicycle had unfastened
+the parcel which Dalbrèque had tied to the handle-bar; and the newspaper
+had burst, revealing its contents, a tin saucepan, rusty, dented, battered
+and useless.
+
+"What's the meaning of this?" he muttered. "What was the idea?..."
+
+He picked it up examined it. Then he gave a grin and a click of the tongue
+and chuckled, slowly:
+
+"Don't move an eyelash, my dear. Let all these people clear off. All this
+is no business of ours, is it? The troubles of police don't concern us. We
+are two motorists travelling for our pleasure and collecting old saucepans
+if we feel so inclined."
+
+He called his chauffeur:
+
+"Adolphe, take us to the Parc des Landes by a roundabout road."
+
+Half an hour later they reached the sunken track and began to scramble down
+it on foot beside the wooded slopes. The Seine, which was very low at this
+time of day, was lapping against a little jetty near which lay a
+worm-eaten, mouldering boat, full of puddles of water.
+
+Rénine stepped into the boat and at once began to bale out the puddles with
+his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense
+in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern to work her
+into midstream:
+
+"I believe I'm there!" he said, with a laugh. "The worst that can happen
+to us is to get our feet wet, for our craft leaks a trifle. But haven't we
+a saucepan? Oh, blessings on that useful utensil! Almost as soon as I set
+eyes upon it, I remembered that people use those articles to bale out the
+bottoms of leaky boats. Why, there was bound to be a boat in the Landes
+woods! How was it I never thought of that? But of course Dalbrèque made use
+of her to cross the Seine! And, as she made water, he brought a saucepan."
+
+"Then Rose Andrée ...?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Is a prisoner on the other bank, on the Jumièges peninsula. You see the
+famous abbey from here."
+
+They ran aground on a beach of big pebbles covered with slime.
+
+"And it can't be very far away," he added. "Dalbrèque did not spend the
+whole night running about."
+
+A tow-path followed the deserted bank. Another path led away from it. They
+chose the second and, passing between orchards enclosed by hedges, came to
+a landscape that seemed strangely familiar to them. Where had they seen
+that pool before, with the willows overhanging it? And where had they seen
+that abandoned hovel?
+
+Suddenly both of them stopped with one accord:
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "I can hardly believe my eyes!"
+
+Opposite them was the white gate of a large orchard, at the back of which,
+among groups of old, gnarled apple-trees, appeared a cottage with blue
+shutters, the cottage of the Happy Princess.
+
+"Of course!" cried Rénine. "And I ought to have known it, considering
+that the film showed both this cottage and the forest close by. And isn't
+everything happening exactly as in _The Happy Princess_? Isn't
+Dalbrèque dominated by the memory of it? The house, which is certainly the
+one in which Rose Andrée spent the summer, was empty. He has shut her up
+there."
+
+"But the house, you told me, was in the Seine-inférieure."
+
+"Well, so are we! To the left of the river, the Eure and the forest of
+Brotonne; to the right, the Seine-inférieure. But between them is the
+obstacle of the river, which is why I didn't connect the two. A hundred and
+fifty yards of water form a more effective division than dozens of miles."
+
+The gate was locked. They got through the hedge a little lower down and
+walked towards the house, which was screened on one side by an old wall
+shaggy with ivy and roofed with thatch.
+
+"It seems as if there was somebody there," said Hortense. "Didn't I hear
+the sound of a window?"
+
+"Listen."
+
+Some one struck a few chords on a piano. Then a voice arose, a woman's
+voice softly and solemnly singing a ballad that thrilled with restrained
+passion. The woman's whole soul seemed to breathe itself into the melodious
+notes.
+
+They walked on. The wall concealed them from view, but they saw a
+sitting-room furnished with bright wall-paper and a blue Roman carpet. The
+throbbing voice ceased. The piano ended with a last chord; and the singer
+rose and appeared framed in the window.
+
+"Rose Andrée!" whispered Hortense.
+
+"Well!" said Rénine, admitting his astonishment. "This is the last thing
+that I expected! Rose Andrée! Rose Andrée at liberty! And singing Massenet
+in the sitting room of her cottage!"
+
+"What does it all mean? Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, but it has taken me long enough! But how could we have guessed ...?"
+
+Although they had never seen her except on the screen, they had not the
+least doubt that this was she. It was really Rose Andrée, or rather,
+the Happy Princess, whom they had admired a few days before, amidst the
+furniture of that very sitting-room or on the threshold of that very
+cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way;
+she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in _The Happy Princess_;
+and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same
+look of joy and serenity.
+
+Some sound must have caught her ear, for she leant over towards a clump of
+shrubs beside the cottage and whispered into the silent garden:
+
+"Georges ... Georges ... Is that you, my darling?"
+
+Receiving no reply, she drew herself up and stood smiling at the happy
+thoughts that seemed to flood her being.
+
+But a door opened at the back of the room and an old peasant woman entered
+with a tray laden with bread, butter and milk:
+
+"Here, Rose, my pretty one, I've brought you your supper. Milk fresh from
+the cow...."
+
+And, putting down the tray, she continued:
+
+"Aren't you afraid, Rose, of the chill of the night air? Perhaps you're
+expecting your sweetheart?"
+
+"I haven't a sweetheart, my dear old Catherine."
+
+"What next!" said the old woman, laughing. "Only this morning there were
+footprints under the window that didn't look at all proper!"
+
+"A burglar's footprints perhaps, Catherine."
+
+"Well, I don't say they weren't, Rose dear, especially as in your calling
+you have a lot of people round you whom it's well to be careful of. For
+instance, your friend Dalbrèque, eh? Nice goings on his are! You saw the
+paper yesterday. A fellow who has robbed and murdered people and carried
+off a woman at Le Havre ...!"
+
+Hortense and Rénine would have much liked to know what Rose Andrée thought
+of the revelations, but she had turned her back to them and was sitting at
+her supper; and the window was now closed, so that they could neither hear
+her reply nor see the expression of her features.
+
+They waited for a moment. Hortense was listening with an anxious face. But
+Rénine began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny, really funny! And such an unexpected ending! And we who were
+hunting for her in some cave or damp cellar, a horrible tomb where the poor
+thing was dying of hunger! It's a fact, she knew the terrors of that first
+night of captivity; and I maintain that, on that first night, she was
+flung, half-dead, into the cave. Only, there you are: the next morning
+she was alive! One night was enough to tame the little rogue and to
+make Dalbrèque as handsome as Prince Charming in her eyes! For see the
+difference. On the films or in novels, the Happy Princesses resist or
+commit suicide. But in real life ... oh, woman, woman!"
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "but the man she loves is almost certainly dead."
+
+"And a good thing too! It would be the best solution. What would be the
+outcome of this criminal love for a thief and murderer?"
+
+A few minutes passed. Then, amid the peaceful silence of the waning day,
+mingled with the first shadows of the twilight, they again heard the
+grating of the window, which was cautiously opened. Rose Andrée leant over
+the garden and waited, with her eyes turned to the wall, as though she saw
+something there.
+
+Presently, Rénine shook the ivy-branches.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "This time I know you're there! Yes, the ivy's moving.
+Georges, Georges darling, why do you keep me waiting? Catherine has gone.
+I am all alone...."
+
+She had knelt down and was distractedly stretching out her shapely arms
+covered with bangles which clashed with a metallic sound:
+
+"Georges!... Georges!..."
+
+Her every movement, the thrill of her voice, her whole being expressed
+desire and love. Hortense, deeply touched, could not help saying:
+
+"How the poor thing loves him! If she but knew...."
+
+"Ah!" cried the girl. "You've spoken. You're there, and you want me to come
+to you, don't you? Here I am, Georges!..."
+
+She climbed over the window-ledge and began to run, while Rénine went round
+the wall and advanced to meet her.
+
+She stopped short in front of him and stood choking at the sight of this
+man and woman whom she did not know and who were stepping out of the very
+shadow from which her beloved appeared to her each night.
+
+Rénine bowed, gave his name and introduced his companion:
+
+"Madame Hortense Daniel, a pupil and friend of your mother's."
+
+Still motionless with stupefaction, her features drawn, she stammered:
+
+"You know who I am?... And you were there just now?... You heard what I
+was saying ...?"
+
+Rénine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:
+
+"You are Rose Andrée, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other
+evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you ... to Le
+Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for
+America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."
+
+She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:
+
+"What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here.
+Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off
+some branches to the right of the cave."
+
+"But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy."
+
+"There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just
+now."
+
+"Yes, my lover," she said, proudly. "Have I not the right to receive whom I
+like?"
+
+"You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you
+every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbrèque. He
+killed Bourguet the jeweller."
+
+The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:
+
+"It's a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers! Georges was in
+Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it."
+
+"He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes."
+
+She retorted vehemently:
+
+"The motor-car was taken back by his friends and the notes will be
+restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose
+his head."
+
+"Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the
+police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence."
+
+She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:
+
+"The police.... There's nothing to fear from them.... They won't know...."
+
+"Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He's working as a
+woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne."
+
+"Yes, but ... you ... that was an accident ... whereas the police...."
+
+The words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was
+trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Rénine, stammering:
+
+"He is arrested?... I am sure of it!... And you have come to tell me....
+Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps?... Oh, please, please!..."
+
+She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great
+love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out.
+
+"No, he's not dead, is he? No, I feel that he's not dead. Oh, sir, how
+unjust it all is! He's the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has
+changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him.
+And I love him so! I love him! I want to go to him. Take me to him. I want
+them to arrest me too. I love him.... I could not live without him...."
+
+An impulse of sympathy made Hortense put her arms around the girl's neck
+and say warmly:
+
+"Yes, come. He is not dead, I am sure, only wounded; and Prince Rénine will
+save him. You will, won't you, Rénine?... Come. Make up a story for your
+servant: say that you're going somewhere by train and that she is not to
+tell anybody. Be quick. Put on a wrap. We will save him, I swear we will."
+
+Rose Andrée went indoors and returned almost at once, disguised beyond
+recognition in a long cloak and a veil that shrouded her face; and they all
+took the road back to Routot. At the inn, Rose Andrée passed as a friend
+whom they had been to fetch in the neighbourhood and were taking to Paris
+with them. Rénine ran out to make enquiries and came back to the two women.
+
+"It's all right. Dalbrèque is alive. They have put him to bed in a private
+room at the mayor's offices. He has a broken leg and a rather high
+temperature; but all the same they expect to move him to Rouen to-morrow
+and they have telephoned there for a motor-car."
+
+"And then?" asked Rose Andrée, anxiously.
+
+Rénine smiled:
+
+"Why, then we shall leave at daybreak. We shall take up our positions in a
+sunken road, rifle in hand, attack the motor-coach and carry off Georges!"
+
+"Oh, don't laugh!" she said, plaintively. "I am so unhappy!"
+
+But the adventure seemed to amuse Rénine; and, when he was alone with
+Hortense, he exclaimed:
+
+"You see what comes of preferring dishonour to death! But hang it all, who
+could have expected this? It isn't a bit the way in which things happen
+in the pictures! Once the man of the woods had carried off his victim and
+considering that for three weeks there was no one to defend her, how could
+we imagine--we who had been proceeding all along under the influence of
+the pictures--that in the space of a few hours the victim would become a
+princess in love? Confound that Georges! I now understand the sly, humorous
+look which I surprised on his mobile features! He remembered, Georges did,
+and he didn't care a hang for me! Oh, he tricked me nicely! And you, my
+dear, he tricked you too! And it was all the influence of the film. They
+show us, at the cinema, a brute beast, a sort of long-haired, ape-faced
+savage. What can a man like that be in real life? A brute, inevitably,
+don't you agree? Well, he's nothing of the kind; he's a Don Juan! The
+humbug!"
+
+"You will save him, won't you?" said Hortense, in a beseeching tone.
+
+"Are you very anxious that I should?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"In that case, promise to give me your hand to kiss."
+
+"You can have both hands, Rénine, and gladly."
+
+The night was uneventful. Rénine had given orders for the two ladies to
+be waked at an early hour. When they came down, the motor was leaving the
+yard and pulling up in front of the inn. It was raining; and Adolphe, the
+chauffeur, had fixed up the long, low hood and packed the luggage inside.
+
+Rénine called for his bill. They all three took a cup of coffee. But, just
+as they were leaving the room, one of the inspector's men came rushing in:
+
+"Have you seen him?" he asked. "Isn't he here?"
+
+The inspector himself arrived at a run, greatly excited:
+
+"The prisoner has escaped! He ran back through the inn! He can't be far
+away!"
+
+A dozen rustics appeared like a whirlwind. They ransacked the lofts, the
+stables, the sheds. They scattered over the neighbourhood. But the search
+led to no discovery.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" said Rénine, who had taken his part in the hunt. "How
+can it have happened?"
+
+"How do I know?" spluttered the inspector in despair. "I left my three men
+watching in the next room. I found them this morning fast asleep, stupefied
+by some narcotic which had been mixed with their wine! And the Dalbrèque
+bird had flown!"
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Through the window. There were evidently accomplices, with ropes and a
+ladder. And, as Dalbrèque had a broken leg, they carried him off on the
+stretcher itself."
+
+"They left no traces?"
+
+"No traces of footsteps, true. The rain has messed everything up. But they
+went through the yard, because the stretcher's there."
+
+"You'll find him, Mr. Inspector, there's no doubt of that. In any case, you
+may be sure that you won't have any trouble over the affair. I shall be in
+Paris this evening and shall go straight to the prefecture, where I have
+influential friends."
+
+Rénine went back to the two women in the coffee-room and Hortense at once
+said:
+
+"It was you who carried him off, wasn't it? Please put Rose Andrée's mind
+at rest. She is so terrified!"
+
+He gave Rose Andrée his arm and led her to the car. She was staggering and
+very pale; and she said, in a faint voice:
+
+"Are we going? And he: is he safe? Won't they catch him again?"
+
+Looking deep into her eyes, he said:
+
+"Swear to me, Rose Andrée, that in two months, when he is well and when
+I have proved his innocence, swear that you will go away with him to
+America."
+
+"I swear."
+
+"And that, once there, you will marry him."
+
+"I swear."
+
+He spoke a few words in her ear.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "May Heaven bless you for it!"
+
+Hortense took her seat in front, with Rénine, who sat at the wheel. The
+inspector, hat in hand, fussed around the car until it moved off.
+
+They drove through the forest, crossed the Seine at La Mailleraie and
+struck into the Havre-Rouen road.
+
+"Take off your glove and give me your hand to kiss," Rénine ordered. "You
+promised that you would."
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "But it was to be when Dalbrèque was saved."
+
+"He is saved."
+
+"Not yet. The police are after him. They may catch him again. He will not
+be really saved until he is with Rose Andrée."
+
+"He is with Rose Andrée," he declared.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Turn round."
+
+She did so.
+
+In the shadow of the hood, right at the back, behind the chauffeur, Rose
+Andrée was kneeling beside a man lying on the seat.
+
+"Oh," stammered Hortense, "it's incredible! Then it was you who hid him
+last night? And he was there, in front of the inn, when the inspector was
+seeing us off?"
+
+"Lord, yes! He was there, under the cushions and rugs!"
+
+"It's incredible!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "It's incredible! How
+were you able to manage it all?"
+
+"I wanted to kiss your hand," he said.
+
+She removed her glove, as he bade her, and raised her hand to his lips.
+
+The car was speeding between the peaceful Seine and the white cliffs that
+border it. They sat silent for a long while. Then he said:
+
+"I had a talk with Dalbrèque last night. He's a fine fellow and is ready
+to do anything for Rose Andrée. He's right. A man must do anything for
+the woman he loves. He must devote himself to her, offer her all that is
+beautiful in this world: joy and happiness ... and, if she should be bored,
+stirring adventures to distract her, to excite her and to make her smile
+... or even weep."
+
+Hortense shivered; and her eyes were not quite free from tears. For the
+first time he was alluding to the sentimental adventure that bound them by
+a tie which as yet was frail, but which became stronger and more enduring
+with each of the ventures on which they entered together, pursuing them
+feverishly and anxiously to their close. Already she felt powerless and
+uneasy with this extraordinary man, who subjected events to his will and
+seemed to play with the destinies of those whom he fought or protected. He
+filled her with dread and at the same time he attracted her. She thought of
+him sometimes as her master, sometimes as an enemy against whom she must
+defend herself, but oftenest as a perturbing friend, full of charm and
+fascination....
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THÉRÈSE AND GERMAINE
+
+
+The weather was so mild that autumn that, on the 12th of October, in the
+morning, several families still lingering in their villas at Étretat had
+gone down to the beach. The sea, lying between the cliffs and the clouds on
+the horizon, might have suggested a mountain-lake slumbering in the hollow
+of the enclosing rocks, were it not for that crispness in the air and those
+pale, soft and indefinite colours in the sky which give a special charm to
+certain days in Normandy.
+
+"It's delicious," murmured Hortense. But the next moment she added: "All
+the same, we did not come here to enjoy the spectacle of nature or to
+wonder whether that huge stone Needle on our left was really at one time
+the home of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"We came here," said Prince Rénine, "because of the conversation which I
+overheard, a fortnight ago, in a dining-car, between a man and a woman."
+
+"A conversation of which I was unable to catch a single word."
+
+"If those two people could have guessed for an instant that it was possible
+to hear a single word of what they were saying, they would not have spoken,
+for their conversation was one of extraordinary gravity and importance. But
+I have very sharp ears; and though I could not follow every sentence, I
+insist that we may be certain of two things. First, that man and woman, who
+are brother and sister, have an appointment at a quarter to twelve this
+morning, the 12th of October, at the spot known as the Trois Mathildes,
+with a third person, who is married and who wishes at all costs to recover
+his or her liberty. Secondly, this appointment, at which they will come
+to a final agreement, is to be followed this evening by a walk along the
+cliffs, when the third person will bring with him or her the man or woman,
+I can't definitely say which, whom they want to get rid of. That is the
+gist of the whole thing. Now, as I know a spot called the Trois Mathildes
+some way above Étretat and as this is not an everyday name, we came down
+yesterday to thwart the plan of these objectionable persons."
+
+"What plan?" asked Hortense. "For, after all, it's only your assumption
+that there's to be a victim and that the victim is to be flung off the
+top of the cliffs. You yourself told me that you heard no allusion to a
+possible murder."
+
+"That is so. But I heard some very plain words relating to the marriage of
+the brother or the sister with the wife or the husband of the third person,
+which implies the need for a crime."
+
+They were sitting on the terrace of the casino, facing the stairs which run
+down to the beach. They therefore overlooked the few privately-owned cabins
+on the shingle, where a party of four men were playing bridge, while a
+group of ladies sat talking and knitting.
+
+A short distance away and nearer to the sea was another cabin, standing by
+itself and closed.
+
+Half-a-dozen bare-legged children were paddling in the water.
+
+"No," said Hortense, "all this autumnal sweetness and charm fails to
+attract me. I have so much faith in all your theories that I can't help
+thinking, in spite of everything, of this dreadful problem. Which of those
+people yonder is threatened? Death has already selected its victim. Who is
+it? Is it that young, fair-haired woman, rocking herself and laughing? Is
+it that tall man over there, smoking his cigar? And which of them has the
+thought of murder hidden in his heart? All the people we see are quietly
+enjoying themselves. Yet death is prowling among them."
+
+"Capital!" said Rénine. "You too are becoming enthusiastic. What did I tell
+you? The whole of life's an adventure; and nothing but adventure is worth
+while. At the first breath of coming events, there you are, quivering in
+every nerve. You share in all the tragedies stirring around you; and the
+feeling of mystery awakens in the depths of your being. See, how closely
+you are observing that couple who have just arrived. You never can tell:
+that may be the gentleman who proposes to do away with his wife? Or perhaps
+the lady contemplates making away with her husband?"
+
+"The d'Ormevals? Never! A perfectly happy couple! Yesterday, at the hotel,
+I had a long talk with the wife. And you yourself...."
+
+"Oh, I played a round of golf with Jacques d'Ormeval, who rather fancies
+himself as an athlete, and I played at dolls with their two charming little
+girls!"
+
+The d'Ormevals came up and exchanged a few words with them. Madame
+d'Ormeval said that her two daughters had gone back to Paris that morning
+with their governess. Her husband, a great tall fellow with a yellow beard,
+carrying his blazer over his arm and puffing out his chest under a cellular
+shirt, complained of the heat:
+
+"Have you the key of the cabin, Thérèse?" he asked his wife, when they had
+left Rénine and Hortense and stopped at the top of the stairs, a few yards
+away.
+
+"Here it is," said the wife. "Are you going to read your papers?"
+
+"Yes. Unless we go for a stroll?..."
+
+"I had rather wait till the afternoon: do you mind? I have a lot of letters
+to write this morning."
+
+"Very well. We'll go on the cliff."
+
+Hortense and Rénine exchanged a glance of surprise. Was this suggestion
+accidental? Or had they before them, contrary to their expectations, the
+very couple of whom they were in search?
+
+Hortense tried to laugh:
+
+"My heart is thumping," she said. "Nevertheless, I absolutely refuse to
+believe in anything so improbable. 'My husband and I have never had the
+slightest quarrel,' she said to me. No, it's quite clear that those two get
+on admirably."
+
+"We shall see presently, at the Trois Mathildes, if one of them comes to
+meet the brother and sister."
+
+M. d'Ormeval had gone down the stairs, while his wife stood leaning on the
+balustrade of the terrace. She had a beautiful, slender, supple figure. Her
+clear-cut profile was emphasized by a rather too prominent chin when at
+rest; and, when it was not smiling, the face gave an expression of sadness
+and suffering.
+
+"Have you lost something, Jacques?" she called out to her husband, who was
+stooping over the shingle.
+
+"Yes, the key," he said. "It slipped out of my hand."
+
+She went down to him and began to look also. For two or three minutes,
+as they sheered off to the right and remained close to the bottom of the
+under-cliff, they were invisible to Hortense and Rénine. Their voices were
+covered by the noise of a dispute which had arisen among the
+bridge-players.
+
+They reappeared almost simultaneously. Madame d'Ormeval slowly climbed a
+few steps of the stairs and then stopped and turned her face towards the
+sea. Her husband had thrown his blazer over his shoulders and was making
+for the isolated cabin. As he passed the bridge-players, they asked him for
+a decision, pointing to their cards spread out upon the table. But, with a
+wave of the hand, he refused to give an opinion and walked on, covered the
+thirty yards which divided them from the cabin, opened the door and went
+in.
+
+Thérèse d'Ormeval came back to the terrace and remained for ten minutes
+sitting on a bench. Then she came out through the casino. Hortense, on
+leaning forward, saw her entering one of the chalets annexed to the Hôtel
+Hauville and, a moment later, caught sight of her again on the balcony.
+
+"Eleven o'clock," said Rénine. "Whoever it is, he or she, or one of the
+card-players, or one of their wives, it won't be long before some one goes
+to the appointed place."
+
+Nevertheless, twenty minutes passed and twenty-five; and no one stirred.
+
+"Perhaps Madame d'Ormeval has gone." Hortense suggested, anxiously. "She is
+no longer on her balcony."
+
+"If she is at the Trois Mathildes," said Rénine, "we will go and catch her
+there."
+
+He was rising to his feet, when a fresh discussion broke out among the
+bridge-players and one of them exclaimed:
+
+"Let's put it to d'Ormeval."
+
+"Very well," said his adversary. "I'll accept his decision ... if he
+consents to act as umpire. He was rather huffy just now."
+
+They called out:
+
+"D'Ormeval! D'Ormeval!"
+
+They then saw that d'Ormeval must have shut the door behind him, which kept
+him in the half dark, the cabin being one of the sort that has no window.
+
+"He's asleep," cried one. "Let's wake him up."
+
+All four went to the cabin, began by calling to him and, on receiving no
+answer, thumped on the door:
+
+"Hi! D'Ormeval! Are you asleep?"
+
+On the terrace Serge Rénine suddenly leapt to his feet with so uneasy an
+air that Hortense was astonished. He muttered:
+
+"If only it's not too late!"
+
+And, when Hortense asked him what he meant, he tore down the steps and
+started running to the cabin. He reached it just as the bridge-players were
+trying to break in the door:
+
+"Stop!" he ordered. "Things must be done in the regular fashion."
+
+"What things?" they asked.
+
+He examined the Venetian shutters at the top of each of the folding-doors
+and, on finding that one of the upper slats was partly broken, hung on as
+best he could to the roof of the cabin and cast a glance inside. Then he
+said to the four men:
+
+"I was right in thinking that, if M. d'Ormeval did not reply, he must have
+been prevented by some serious cause. There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Ormeval is wounded ... or dead."
+
+"Dead!" they cried. "What do you mean? He has only just left us."
+
+Rénine took out his knife, prized open the lock and pulled back the two
+doors.
+
+There were shouts of dismay. M. d'Ormeval was lying flat on his face,
+clutching his jacket and his newspaper in his hands. Blood was flowing
+from his back and staining his shirt.
+
+"Oh!" said some one. "He has killed himself!"
+
+"How can he have killed himself?" said Rénine. "The wound is right in the
+middle of the back, at a place which the hand can't reach. And, besides,
+there's not a knife in the cabin."
+
+The others protested:
+
+"If so, he has been murdered. But that's impossible! There has been nobody
+here. We should have seen, if there had been. Nobody could have passed us
+without our seeing...."
+
+The other men, all the ladies and the children paddling in the sea had come
+running up. Rénine allowed no one to enter the cabin, except a doctor who
+was present. But the doctor could only say that M. d'Ormeval was dead,
+stabbed with a dagger.
+
+At that moment, the mayor and the policeman arrived, together with some
+people of the village. After the usual enquiries, they carried away the
+body.
+
+A few persons went on ahead to break the news to Thérèse d'Ormeval, who was
+once more to be seen on her balcony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the tragedy had taken place without any clue to explain how a man,
+protected by a closed door with an uninjured lock, could have been murdered
+in the space of a few minutes and in front of twenty witnesses, one might
+almost say, twenty spectators. No one had entered the cabin. No one had
+come out of it. As for the dagger with which M. d'Ormeval had been stabbed
+between the shoulders, it could not be traced. And all this would have
+suggested the idea of a trick of sleight-of-hand performed by a clever
+conjuror, had it not concerned a terrible murder, committed under the most
+mysterious conditions.
+
+Hortense was unable to follow, as Rénine would have liked, the small party
+who were making for Madame d'Ormeval; she was paralysed with excitement and
+incapable of moving. It was the first time that her adventures with Rénine
+had taken her into the very heart of the action and that, instead of noting
+the consequences of a murder, or assisting in the pursuit of the criminals,
+she found herself confronted with the murder itself.
+
+It left her trembling all over; and she stammered: "How horrible!... The
+poor fellow!... Ah, Rénine, you couldn't save him this time!... And that's
+what upsets me more than anything, that we could and should have saved him,
+since we knew of the plot...."
+
+Rénine made her sniff at a bottle of salts; and when she had quite
+recovered her composure, he said, while observing her attentively:
+
+"So you think that there is some connection between the murder and the
+plot which we were trying to frustrate?"
+
+"Certainly," said she, astonished at the question.
+
+"Then, as that plot was hatched by a husband against his wife or by a wife
+against her husband, you admit that Madame d'Ormeval ...?"
+
+"Oh, no, impossible!" she said. "To begin with, Madame d'Ormeval did not
+leave her rooms ... and then I shall never believe that pretty woman
+capable.... No, no, of course there was something else...."
+
+"What else?"
+
+"I don't know.... You may have misunderstood what the brother and sister
+were saying to each other.... You see, the murder has been committed under
+quite different conditions ... at another hour and another place...."
+
+"And therefore," concluded Rénine, "the two cases are not in any way
+related?"
+
+"Oh," she said, "there's no making it out! It's all so strange!"
+
+Rénine became a little satirical:
+
+"My pupil is doing me no credit to-day," he said. "Why, here is a perfectly
+simple story, unfolded before your eyes. You have seen it reeled off like
+a scene in the cinema; and it all remains as obscure to you as though you
+were hearing of an affair that happened in a cave a hundred miles away!"
+
+Hortense was confounded:
+
+"What are you saying? Do you mean that you have understood it? What clues
+have you to go by?"
+
+Rénine looked at his watch:
+
+"I have not understood everything," he said. "The murder itself, the mere
+brutal murder, yes. But the essential thing, that is to say, the psychology
+of the crime: I've no clue to that. Only, it is twelve o'clock. The brother
+and sister, seeing no one come to the appointment at the Trois Mathildes,
+will go down to the beach. Don't you think that we shall learn something
+then of the accomplice whom I accuse them of having and of the connection
+between the two cases?"
+
+They reached the esplanade in front of the Hauville chalets, with the
+capstans by which the fishermen haul up their boats to the beach. A number
+of inquisitive persons were standing outside the door of one of the
+chalets. Two coastguards, posted at the door, prevented them from entering.
+
+The mayor shouldered his way eagerly through the crowd. He was back from
+the post-office, where he had been telephoning to Le Havre, to the office
+of the procurator-general, and had been told that the public prosecutor
+and an examining-magistrate would come on to Étretat in the course of the
+afternoon.
+
+"That leaves us plenty of time for lunch," said Rénine. "The tragedy will
+not be enacted before two or three o'clock. And I have an idea that it will
+be sensational."
+
+They hurried nevertheless. Hortense, overwrought by fatigue and her desire
+to know what was happening, continually questioned Rénine, who replied
+evasively, with his eyes turned to the esplanade, which they could see
+through the windows of the coffee-room.
+
+"Are you watching for those two?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Yes, the brother and sister."
+
+"Are you sure that they will venture?..."
+
+"Look out! Here they come!"
+
+He went out quickly.
+
+Where the main street opened on the sea-front, a lady and gentleman were
+advancing with hesitating steps, as though unfamiliar with the place. The
+brother was a puny little man, with a sallow complexion. He was wearing a
+motoring-cap. The sister too was short, but rather stout, and was wrapped
+in a large cloak. She struck them as a woman of a certain age, but still
+good-looking under the thin veil that covered her face.
+
+They saw the groups of bystanders and drew nearer. Their gait betrayed
+uneasiness and hesitation.
+
+The sister asked a question of a seaman. At the first words of his answer,
+which no doubt conveyed the news of d'Ormeval's death, she uttered a cry
+and tried to force her way through the crowd. The brother, learning in his
+turn what had happened, made great play with his elbows and shouted to the
+coast-guards:
+
+"I'm a friend of d'Ormeval's!... Here's my card! Frédéric Astaing.... My
+sister, Germaine Astaing, knows Madame d'Ormeval intimately!... They were
+expecting us.... We had an appointment!..."
+
+They were allowed to pass. Rénine, who had slipped behind them, followed
+them in without a word, accompanied by Hortense.
+
+The d'Ormevals had four bedrooms and a sitting-room on the second floor.
+The sister rushed into one of the rooms and threw herself on her knees
+beside the bed on which the corpse lay stretched. Thérèse d'Ormeval was in
+the sitting-room and was sobbing in the midst of a small company of silent
+persons. The brother sat down beside her, eagerly seized her hands and
+said, in a trembling voice:
+
+"My poor friend!... My poor friend!..."
+
+Rénine and Hortense gazed at the pair of them: and Hortense whispered:
+
+"And she's supposed to have killed him for that? Impossible!"
+
+"Nevertheless," observed Rénine, "they are acquaintances; and we know that
+Astaing and his sister were also acquainted with a third person who was
+their accomplice. So that...."
+
+"It's impossible!" Hortense repeated.
+
+And, in spite of all presumption, she felt so much attracted by Thérèse
+that, when Frédéric Astaing stood up, she proceeded straightway to sit down
+beside her and consoled her in a gentle voice. The unhappy woman's tears
+distressed her profoundly.
+
+Rénine, on the other hand, applied himself from the outset to watching
+the brother and sister, as though this were the only thing that mattered,
+and did not take his eyes off Frédéric Astaing, who, with an air of
+indifference, began to make a minute inspection of the premises, examining
+the sitting-room, going into all the bedrooms, mingling with the various
+groups of persons present and asking questions about the manner in which
+the murder had been committed. Twice his sister came up and spoke to him.
+Then he went back to Madame d'Ormeval and again sat down beside her, full
+of earnest sympathy. Lastly, in the lobby, he had a long conversation with
+his sister, after which they parted, like people who have come to a perfect
+understanding. Frédéric then left. These manoeuvers had lasted quite thirty
+or forty minutes.
+
+It was at this moment that the motor-car containing the
+examining-magistrate and the public prosecutor pulled up outside the
+chalets. Rénine, who did not expect them until later, said to Hortense:
+
+"We must be quick. On no account leave Madame d'Ormeval."
+
+Word was sent up to the persons whose evidence might be of any service
+that they were to go to the beach, where the magistrate was beginning a
+preliminary investigation. He would call on Madame d'Ormeval afterwards.
+Accordingly, all who were present left the chalet. No one remained behind
+except the two guards and Germaine Astaing.
+
+Germaine knelt down for the last time beside the dead man and, bending low,
+with her face in her hands, prayed for a long time. Then she rose and was
+opening the door on the landing, when Rénine came forward:
+
+"I should like a few words with you, madame."
+
+She seemed surprised and replied:
+
+"What is it, monsieur? I am listening."
+
+"Not here."
+
+"Where then, monsieur?"
+
+"Next door, in the sitting-room."
+
+"No," she said, sharply.
+
+"Why not? Though you did not even shake hands with her, I presume that
+Madame d'Ormeval is your friend?"
+
+He gave her no time to reflect, drew her into the next room, closed the
+door and, at once pouncing upon Madame d'Ormeval, who was trying to go out
+and return to her own room, said:
+
+"No, madame, listen, I implore you. Madame Astaing's presence need not
+drive you away. We have very serious matters to discuss, without losing a
+minute."
+
+The two women, standing face to face, were looking at each other with the
+same expression of implacable hatred, in which might be read the same
+confusion of spirit and the same restrained anger. Hortense, who believed
+them to be friends and who might, up to a certain point, have believed them
+to be accomplices, foresaw with terror the hostile encounter which she felt
+to be inevitable. She compelled Madame d'Ormeval to resume her seat, while
+Rénine took up his position in the middle of the room and spoke in resolute
+tones:
+
+"Chance, which has placed me in possession of part of the truth, will
+enable me to save you both, if you are willing to assist me with a frank
+explanation that will give me the particulars which I still need. Each of
+you knows the danger in which she stands, because each of you is conscious
+in her heart of the evil for which she is responsible. But you are
+carried away by hatred; and it is for me to see clearly and to act. The
+examining-magistrate will be here in half-an-hour. By that time, you must
+have come to an agreement."
+
+They both started, as though offended by such a word.
+
+"Yes, an agreement," he repeated, in a more imperious tone. "Whether you
+like it or not, you will come to an agreement. You are not the only ones to
+be considered. There are your two little daughters, Madame d'Ormeval. Since
+circumstances have set me in their path, I am intervening in their defence
+and for their safety. A blunder, a word too much; and they are ruined. That
+must not happen."
+
+At the mention of her children, Madame d'Ormeval broke down and sobbed.
+Germaine Astaing shrugged her shoulders and made a movement towards the
+door. Rénine once more blocked the way:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have been summoned by the examining-magistrate."
+
+"No, you have not."
+
+"Yes, I have. Just as all those have been who have any evidence to give."
+
+"You were not on the spot. You know nothing of what happened. Nobody knows
+anything of the murder."
+
+"I know who committed it."
+
+"That's impossible."
+
+"It was Thérèse d'Ormeval."
+
+The accusation was hurled forth in an outburst of rage and with a fiercely
+threatening gesture.
+
+"You wretched creature!" exclaimed madame d'Ormeval, rushing at her. "Go!
+Leave the room! Oh, what a wretch the woman is!"
+
+Hortense was trying to restrain her, but Rénine whispered:
+
+"Let them be. It's what I wanted ... to pitch them one against the other
+and so to let in the day-light."
+
+Madame Astaing had made a convulsive effort to ward off the insult with a
+jest; and she sniggered:
+
+"A wretched creature? Why? Because I have accused you?"
+
+"Why? For every reason! You're a wretched creature! You hear what I say,
+Germaine: you're a wretch!"
+
+Thérèse d'Ormeval was repeating the insult as though it afforded her some
+relief. Her anger was abating. Very likely also she no longer had the
+strength to keep up the struggle; and it was Madame Astaing who returned
+to the attack, with her fists clenched and her face distorted and suddenly
+aged by fully twenty years:
+
+"You! You dare to insult me, you! You after the murder you have committed!
+You dare to lift up your head when the man whom you killed is lying in
+there on his death-bed! Ah, if one of us is a wretched creature, it's you,
+Thérèse, and you know it! You have killed your husband! You have killed
+your husband!"
+
+She leapt forward, in the excitement of the terrible words which she was
+uttering; and her finger-nails were almost touching her friend's face.
+
+"Oh, don't tell me you didn't kill him!" she cried. "Don't say
+that: I won't let you. Don't say it. The dagger is there, in your
+bag. My brother felt it, while he was talking to you; and his hand
+came out with stains of blood upon it: your husband's blood, Thérèse. And
+then, even if I had not discovered anything, do you think that I should not
+have guessed, in the first few minutes? Why, I knew the truth at once,
+Thérèse! When a sailor down there answered, 'M. d'Ormeval? He has been
+murdered,' I said to myself then and there, 'It's she, it's Thérèse, she
+killed him.'"
+
+Thérèse did not reply. She had abandoned her attitude of protest. Hortense,
+who was watching her with anguish, thought that she could perceive in her
+the despondency of those who know themselves to be lost. Her cheeks had
+fallen in and she wore such an expression of despair that Hortense, moved
+to compassion, implored her to defend herself:
+
+"Please, please, explain things. When the murder was committed, you were
+here, on the balcony.... But then the dagger ... how did you come to have
+it ...? How do you explain it?..."
+
+"Explanations!" sneered Germaine Astaing. "How could she possibly explain?
+What do outward appearances matter? What does it matter what any one saw
+or did not see? The proof is the thing that tells.... The dagger is there,
+in your bag, Thérèse: that's a fact.... Yes, yes, it was you who did it!
+You killed him! You killed him in the end!... Ah, how often I've told my
+brother, 'She will kill him yet!' Frédéric used to try to defend you. He
+always had a weakness for you. But in his innermost heart he foresaw what
+would happen.... And now the horrible thing has been done. A stab in the
+back! Coward! Coward!... And you would have me say nothing? Why, I didn't
+hesitate a moment! Nor did Frédéric. We looked for proofs at once.... And
+I've denounced you of my own free will, perfectly well aware of what I was
+doing.... And it's over, Thérèse. You're done for. Nothing can save you
+now. The dagger is in that bag which you are clutching in your hand. The
+magistrate is coming; and the dagger will be found, stained with the blood
+of your husband. So will your pocket-book. They're both there. And they
+will be found...."
+
+Her rage had incensed her so vehemently that she was unable to continue and
+stood with her hand outstretched and her chin twitching with nervous
+tremors.
+
+Rénine gently took hold of Madame d'Ormeval's bag. She clung to it, but he
+insisted and said:
+
+"Please allow me, madame. Your friend Germaine is right. The
+examining-magistrate will be here presently; and the fact that the dagger
+and the pocket-book are in your possession will lead to your immediate
+arrest. This must not happen. Please allow me."
+
+His insinuating voice diminished Thérèse d'Ormeval's resistance. She
+released her fingers, one by one. He took the bag, opened it, produced
+a little dagger with an ebony handle and a grey leather pocket-book and
+quietly slipped the two into the inside pocket of his jacket.
+
+Germaine Astaing gazed at him in amazement: "You're mad, monsieur! What
+right have you ...?"
+
+"These things must not be left lying about. I sha'n't worry now. The
+magistrate will never look for them in my pocket."
+
+"But I shall denounce you to the police," she exclaimed, indignantly.
+"They shall be told!"
+
+"No, no," he said, laughing, "you won't say anything! The police have
+nothing to do with this. The quarrel between you must be settled in
+private. What an idea, to go dragging the police into every incident of
+one's life!"
+
+Madame Astaing was choking with fury:
+
+"But you have no right to talk like this, monsieur! Who are you, after all?
+A friend of that woman's?"
+
+"Since you have been attacking her, yes."
+
+"But I'm only attacking her because she's guilty. For you can't deny it:
+she has killed her husband."
+
+"I don't deny it," said Rénine, calmly. "We are all agreed on that point.
+Jacques d'Ormeval was killed by his wife. But, I repeat, the police must
+not know the truth."
+
+"They shall know it through me, monsieur, I swear they shall. That woman
+must be punished: she has committed murder."
+
+Rénine went up to her and, touching her on the shoulder:
+
+"You asked me just now by what right I was interfering. And you yourself,
+madame?"
+
+"I was a friend of Jacques d'Ormeval."
+
+"Only a friend?"
+
+She was a little taken aback, but at once pulled herself together and
+replied:
+
+"I was his friend and it is my duty to avenge his death."
+
+"Nevertheless, you will remain silent, as he did."
+
+"He did not know, when he died."
+
+"That's where you are wrong. He could have accused his wife, if he had
+wished. He had ample time to accuse her; and he said nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because of his children."
+
+Madame Astaing was not appeased; and her attitude displayed the same
+longing for revenge and the same detestation. But she was influenced by
+Rénine in spite of herself. In the small, closed room, where there was
+such a clash of hatred, he was gradually becoming the master; and Germaine
+Astaing understood that it was against him that she had to struggle, while
+Madame d'Ormeval felt all the comfort of that unexpected support which was
+offering itself on the brink of the abyss:
+
+"Thank you, monsieur," she said. "As you have seen all this so clearly, you
+also know that it was for my children's sake that I did not give myself up.
+But for that ... I am so tired ...!"
+
+And so the scene was changing and things assuming a different aspect.
+Thanks to a few words let fall in the midst of the dispute, the culprit was
+lifting her head and taking heart, whereas her accuser was hesitating and
+seemed to be uneasy. And it also came about that the accuser dared not say
+anything further and that the culprit was nearing the moment at which the
+need is felt of breaking silence and of speaking, quite naturally, words
+that are at once a confession and a relief.
+
+"The time, I think, has come," said Rénine to Thérèse, with the same
+unvarying gentleness, "when you can and ought to explain yourself."
+
+She was again weeping, lying huddled in a chair. She too revealed a face
+aged and ravaged by sorrow; and, in a very low voice, with no display of
+anger, she spoke, in short, broken sentences:
+
+"She has been his mistress for the last four years.... I can't tell you how
+I suffered.... She herself told me of it ... out of sheer wickedness ...
+Her loathing for me was even greater than her love for Jacques ... and
+every day I had some fresh injury to bear ... She would ring me up to tell
+me of her appointments with my husband ... she hoped to make me suffer so
+much I should end by killing myself.... I did think of it sometimes, but I
+held out, for the children's sake ... Jacques was weakening. She wanted him
+to get a divorce ... and little by little he began to consent ... dominated
+by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous
+... I felt all this ... Jacques was becoming harsh to me.... He had not the
+courage to leave me, but I was the obstacle and he bore me a grudge....
+Heavens, the tortures I suffered!..."
+
+"You should have given him his liberty," cried Germaine Astaing. "A woman
+doesn't kill her husband for wanting a divorce."
+
+Thérèse shook her head and answered:
+
+"I did not kill him because he wanted a divorce. If he had really wanted
+it, he would have left me; and what could I have done? But your plans had
+changed, Germaine; divorce was not enough for you; and it was something
+else that you would have obtained from him, another, much more serious
+thing which you and your brother had insisted on ... and to which he had
+consented ... out of cowardice ... in spite of himself...."
+
+"What do you mean?" spluttered Germaine. "What other thing?"
+
+"My death."
+
+"You lie!" cried Madame Astaing.
+
+Thérèse did not raise her voice. She made not a movement of aversion or
+indignation and simply repeated:
+
+"My death, Germaine. I have read your latest letters, six letters from you
+which he was foolish enough to leave about in his pocket-book and which I
+read last night, six letters in which the terrible word is not set down,
+but in which it appears between every line. I trembled as I read it! That
+Jacques should come to this!... Nevertheless the idea of stabbing him did
+not occur to me for a second. A woman like myself, Germaine, does not
+readily commit murder.... If I lost my head, it was after that ... and it
+was your fault...."
+
+She turned her eyes to Rénine as if to ask him if there was no danger in
+her speaking and revealing the truth.
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said. "I will be answerable for everything."
+
+She drew her hand across her forehead. The horrible scene was being
+reenacted within her and was torturing her. Germaine Astaing did not move,
+but stood with folded arms and anxious eyes, while Hortense Daniel sat
+distractedly awaiting the confession of the crime and the explanation of
+the unfathomable mystery.
+
+"It was after that and it was through your fault Germaine ... I had put
+back the pocket-book in the drawer where it was hidden; and I said nothing
+to Jacques this morning ... I did not want to tell him what I knew....
+It was too horrible.... All the same, I had to act quickly; your letters
+announced your secret arrival to-day.... I thought at first of running
+away, of taking the train.... I had mechanically picked up that dagger,
+to defend myself.... But when Jacques and I went down to the beach, I was
+resigned.... Yes, I had accepted death: 'I will die,' I thought, 'and put
+an end to all this nightmare!'... Only, for the children's sake, I was
+anxious that my death should look like an accident and that Jacques should
+have no part in it. That was why your plan of a walk on the cliff suited
+me.... A fall from the top of a cliff seems quite natural ... Jacques
+therefore left me to go to his cabin, from which he was to join you later
+at the Trois Mathildes. On the way, below the terrace, he dropped the key
+of the cabin. I went down and began to look for it with him ... And it
+happened then ... through your fault ... yes, Germaine, through your fault
+... Jacques' pocket-book had slipped from his jacket, without his noticing
+it, and, together with the pocket-book, a photograph which I recognized
+at once: a photograph, taken this year, of myself and my two children. I
+picked it up ... and I saw.... You know what I saw, Germaine. Instead of my
+face, the face in the photograph was _yours_!... You had put in your
+likeness, Germaine, and blotted me out! It was your face! One of your arms
+was round my elder daughter's neck; and the younger was sitting on your
+knees.... It was you, Germaine, the wife of my husband, the future mother
+of my children, you, who were going to bring them up ... you, you! ... Then
+I lost my head. I had the dagger ... Jacques was stooping ... I stabbed
+him...."
+
+Every word of her confession was strictly true. Those who listened to her
+felt this profoundly; and nothing could have given Hortense and Rénine a
+keener impression of tragedy.
+
+She had fallen back into her chair, utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, she
+went on speaking unintelligible words; and it was only gradually by leaning
+over her, that they were able to make out:
+
+"I thought that there would be an outcry and that I should be arrested. But
+no. It happened in such a way and under such conditions that no one had
+seen anything. Further, Jacques had drawn himself up at the same time as
+myself; and he actually did not fall. No, he did not fall! I had stabbed
+him; and he remained standing! I saw him from the terrace, to which I had
+returned. He had hung his jacket over his shoulders, evidently to hide his
+wound, and he moved away without staggering ... or staggering so little
+that I alone was able to perceive it. He even spoke to some friends who
+were playing cards. Then he went to his cabin and disappeared.... In a few
+moments, I came back indoors. I was persuaded that all of this was only a
+bad dream ... that I had not killed him ... or that at the worst the wound
+was a slight one. Jacques would come out again. I was certain of it.... I
+watched from my balcony.... If I had thought for a moment that he needed
+assistance, I should have flown to him.... But truly I didn't know ... I
+didn't guess.... People speak of presentiments: there are no such things. I
+was perfectly calm, just as one is after a nightmare of which the memory is
+fading away.... No, I swear to you, I knew nothing ... until the moment..."
+
+She interrupted herself, stifled by sobs.
+
+Rénine finished her sentence for her,
+
+"Until the moment when they came and told you, I suppose?"
+
+Thérèse stammered:
+
+"Yes. It was not till then that I was conscious of what I had done ... and
+I felt that I was going mad and that I should cry out to all those people,
+'Why, it was I who did it! Don't search! Here is the dagger ... I am the
+culprit!' Yes, I was going to say that, when suddenly I caught sight of
+my poor Jacques.... They were carrying him along.... His face was very
+peaceful, very gentle.... And, in his presence, I understood my duty, as he
+had understood his.... He had kept silent, for the sake of the children.
+I would be silent too. We were both guilty of the murder of which he was
+the victim; and we must both do all we could to prevent the crime from
+recoiling upon them.... He had seen this clearly in his dying agony. He
+had had the amazing courage to keep his feet, to answer the people who
+spoke to him and to lock himself up to die. He had done this, wiping out
+all his faults with a single action, and in so doing had granted me his
+forgiveness, because he was not accusing me ... and was ordering me to hold
+my peace ... and to defend myself ... against everybody ... especially
+against you, Germaine."
+
+She uttered these last words more firmly. At first wholly overwhelmed by
+the unconscious act which she had committed in killing her husband, she
+had recovered her strength a little in thinking of what she had done and
+in defending herself with such energy. Faced by the intriguing woman whose
+hatred had driven both of them to death and crime, she clenched her fists,
+ready for the struggle, all quivering with resolution.
+
+Germaine Astaing did not flinch. She had listened without a word, with a
+relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Thérèse's confessions
+became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate
+her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a
+faint smile. She was holding her prey in her clutches.
+
+Slowly, with her eyes raised to a mirror, she adjusted her hat and powdered
+her face. Then she walked to the door.
+
+Thérèse darted forward:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Where I choose."
+
+"To see the examining-magistrate?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"You sha'n't pass!"
+
+"As you please. I'll wait for him here."
+
+"And you'll tell him what?"
+
+"Why, all that you've said, of course, all that you've been silly enough
+to say. How could he doubt the story? You have explained it all to me so
+fully."
+
+Thérèse took her by the shoulders:
+
+"Yes, but I'll explain other things to him at the same time, Germaine,
+things that concern you. If I'm ruined, so shall you be."
+
+"You can't touch me."
+
+"I can expose you, show your letters."
+
+"What letters?"
+
+"Those in which my death was decided on."
+
+"Lies, Thérèse! You know that famous plot exists only in your imagination.
+Neither Jacques nor I wished for your death."
+
+"You did, at any rate. Your letters condemn you."
+
+"Lies! They were the letters of a friend to a friend."
+
+"Letters of a mistress to her paramour."
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"They are there, in Jacques' pocket-book."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"I say that those letters belonged to me. I've taken them back, or rather
+my brother has."
+
+"You've stolen them, you wretch! And you shall give them back again," cried
+Thérèse, shaking her.
+
+"I haven't them. My brother kept them. He has gone."
+
+Thérèse staggered and stretched out her hands to Rénine with an expression
+of despair. Rénine said:
+
+"What she says is true. I watched the brother's proceedings while he was
+feeling in your bag. He took out the pocket-book, looked through it with
+his sister, came and put it back again and went off with the letters."
+
+Rénine paused and added,
+
+"Or, at least, with five of them."
+
+The two women moved closer to him. What did he intend to convey? If
+Frédéric Astaing had taken away only five letters, what had become of the
+sixth?
+
+"I suppose," said Rénine, "that, when the pocket-book fell on the shingle,
+that sixth letter slipped out at the same time as the photograph and that
+M. d'Ormeval must have picked it up, for I found it in the pocket of his
+blazer, which had been hung up near the bed. Here it is. It's signed
+Germaine Astaing and it is quite enough to prove the writer's intentions
+and the murderous counsels which she was pressing upon her lover."
+
+Madame Astaing had turned grey in the face and was so much disconcerted
+that she did not try to defend herself. Rénine continued, addressing his
+remarks to her:
+
+"To my mind, madame, you are responsible for all that happened. Penniless,
+no doubt, and at the end of your resources, you tried to profit by the
+passion with which you inspired M. d'Ormeval in order to make him marry
+you, in spite of all the obstacles, and to lay your hands upon his fortune.
+I have proofs of this greed for money and these abominable calculations and
+can supply them if need be. A few minutes after I had felt in the pocket of
+that jacket, you did the same. I had removed the sixth letter, but had left
+a slip of paper which you looked for eagerly and which also must have
+dropped out of the pocket-book. It was an uncrossed cheque for a hundred
+thousand francs, drawn by M. d'Ormeval in your brother's name ... just a
+little wedding-present ... what we might call pin-money. Acting on your
+instructions, your brother dashed off by motor to Le Havre to reach the
+bank before four o'clock. I may as well tell you that he will not have
+cashed the cheque, for I had a telephone-message sent to the bank to
+announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot
+of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge,
+will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and
+your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of
+the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a
+dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I
+feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these extreme measures and
+that we understand each other. Isn't that so?"
+
+Natures like Madame Astaing's, which are violent and headstrong so long as
+a fight is possible and while a gleam of hope remains, are easily swayed in
+defeat. Germaine was too intelligent not to grasp the fact that the least
+attempt at resistance would be shattered by such an adversary as this. She
+was in his hands. She could but yield.
+
+She therefore did not indulge in any play-acting, nor in any demonstration
+such as threats, outbursts of fury or hysterics. She bowed:
+
+"We are agreed," she said. "What are your terms?"
+
+"Go away. If ever you are called upon for your evidence, say that you know
+nothing."
+
+She walked away. At the door, she hesitated and then, between her teeth,
+said:
+
+"The cheque."
+
+Rénine looked at Madame d'Ormeval, who declared:
+
+"Let her keep it. I would not touch that money."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Rénine had given Thérèse d'Ormeval precise instructions as to how she
+was to behave at the enquiry and to answer the questions put to her, he
+left the chalet, accompanied by Hortense Daniel.
+
+On the beach below, the magistrate and the public prosecutor were
+continuing their investigations, taking measurements, examining the
+witnesses and generally laying their heads together.
+
+"When I think," said Hortense, "that you have the dagger and M. d'Ormeval's
+pocket-book on you!"
+
+"And it strikes you as awfully dangerous, I suppose?" he said, laughing.
+"It strikes _me_ as awfully comic."
+
+"Aren't you afraid?"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"That they may suspect something?"
+
+"Lord, they won't suspect a thing! We shall tell those good people what
+we saw and our evidence will only increase their perplexity, for we saw
+nothing at all. For prudence sake we will stay a day or two, to see which
+way the wind is blowing. But it's quite settled: they will never be able to
+make head or tail of the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless, _you_ guessed the secret and from the first. Why?"
+
+"Because, instead of seeking difficulties where none exist, as people
+generally do, I always put the question as it should be put; and the
+solution comes quite naturally. A man goes to his cabin and locks himself
+in. Half an hour later, he is found inside, dead. No one has gone in. What
+has happened? To my mind there is only one answer. There is no need to
+think about it. As the murder was not committed in the cabin, it must have
+been committed beforehand and the man was already mortally wounded when
+he entered his cabin. And forthwith the truth in this particular case
+appeared to me. Madame d'Ormeval, who was to have been killed this evening,
+forestalled her murderers and while her husband was stooping to the ground,
+in a moment of frenzy stabbed him in the back. There was nothing left to do
+but look for the reasons that prompted her action. When I knew them, I took
+her part unreservedly. That's the whole story."
+
+The day was beginning to wane. The blue of the sky was becoming darker and
+the sea, even more peaceful than before.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Rénine, after a moment.
+
+"I am thinking," she said, "that if I too were the victim of some
+machination, I should trust you whatever happened, trust you through and
+against all. I know, as certainly as I know that I exist, that you would
+save me, whatever the obstacles might be. There is no limit to the power
+of your will."
+
+He said, very softly:
+
+"There is no limit to my wish to please you."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+
+One of the most incomprehensible incidents that preceded the great war
+was certainly the one which was known as the episode of the lady with the
+hatchet. The solution of the mystery was unknown and would never have
+been known, had not circumstances in the cruellest fashion obliged Prince
+Rénine--or should I say, Arsène Lupin?--to take up the matter and had I not
+been able to-day to tell the true story from the details supplied by him.
+
+Let me recite the facts. In a space of eighteen months, five women
+disappeared, five women of different stations in life, all between twenty
+and thirty years of age and living in Paris or the Paris district.
+
+I will give their names: Madame Ladoue, the wife of a doctor; Mlle. Ardant,
+the daughter of a banker; Mlle. Covereau, a washer-woman of Courbevoie;
+Mlle. Honorine Vernisset, a dressmaker; and Madame Grollinger, an artist.
+These five women disappeared without the possibility of discovering a
+single particular to explain why they had left their homes, why they did
+not return to them, who had enticed them away, and where and how they were
+detained.
+
+Each of these women, a week after her departure, was found somewhere or
+other in the western outskirts of Paris; and each time it was a dead body
+that was found, the dead body of a woman who had been killed by a blow on
+the head from a hatchet. And each time, not far from the woman, who was
+firmly bound, her face covered with blood and her body emaciated by lack of
+food, the marks of carriage-wheels proved that the corpse had been driven
+to the spot.
+
+The five murders were so much alike that there was only a single
+investigation, embracing all the five enquiries and, for that matter,
+leading to no result. A woman disappeared; a week later, to a day, her body
+was discovered; and that was all. The bonds that fastened her were similar
+in each case; so were the tracks left by the wheels; so were the blows of
+the hatchet, all of which were struck vertically at the top and right in
+the middle of the forehead.
+
+The motive of the crime? The five women had been completely stripped of
+their jewels, purses and other objects of value. But the robberies might
+well have been attributed to marauders or any passersby, since the bodies
+were lying in deserted spots. Were the authorities to believe in the
+execution of a plan of revenge or of a plan intended to do away with the
+series of persons mutually connected, persons, for instance, likely to
+benefit by a future inheritance? Here again the same obscurity prevailed.
+Theories were built up, only to be demolished forthwith by an examination
+of the facts. Trails were followed and at once abandoned.
+
+And suddenly there was a sensation. A woman engaged in sweeping the roads
+picked up on the pavement a little note-book which she brought to the local
+police-station. The leaves of this note-book were all blank, excepting
+one, on which was written a list of the murdered women, with their names
+set down in order of date and accompanied by three figures: Ladoue, 132;
+Vernisset, 118; and so on.
+
+Certainly no importance would have been attached to these entries, which
+anybody might have written, since every one was acquainted with the
+sinister list. But, instead of five names, it included six! Yes, below
+the words "Grollinger, 128," there appeared "Williamson, 114." Did this
+indicate a sixth murder?
+
+The obviously English origin of the name limited the field of the
+investigations, which did not in fact take long. It was ascertained that,
+a fortnight ago, a Miss Hermione Williamson, a governess in a family at
+Auteuil, had left her place to go back to England and that, since then, her
+sisters, though she had written to tell them that she was coming over, had
+heard no more of her.
+
+A fresh enquiry was instituted. A postman found the body in the Meudon
+woods. Miss Williamson's skull was split down the middle.
+
+I need not describe the public excitement at this stage nor the shudder
+of horror which passed through the crowd when it read this list, written
+without a doubt in the murderer's own hand. What could be more frightful
+than such a record, kept up to date like a careful tradesman's ledger:
+
+"On such a day, I killed so-and-so; on such a day so-and-so!"
+
+And the sum total was six dead bodies.
+
+Against all expectation, the experts in handwriting had no difficulty in
+agreeing and unanimously declared that the writing was "that of a woman, an
+educated woman, possessing artistic tastes, imagination and an extremely
+sensitive nature." The "lady with the hatchet," as the journalists
+christened her, was decidedly no ordinary person; and scores of
+newspaper-articles made a special study of her case, exposing her mental
+condition and losing themselves in far-fetched explanations.
+
+Nevertheless it was the writer of one of these articles, a young journalist
+whose chance discovery made him the centre of public attention, who
+supplied the one element of truth and shed upon the darkness the only ray
+of light that was to penetrate it. In casting about for the meaning of the
+figures which followed the six names, he had come to ask himself whether
+those figures did not simply represent the number of the days separating
+one crime from the next. All that he had to do was to check the dates. He
+at once found that his theory was correct. Mlle. Vernisset had been carried
+off one hundred and thirty-two days after Madame Ladoue; Mlle. Covereau one
+hundred and eighteen days after Honorine Vernisset; and so on.
+
+There was therefore no room for doubt; and the police had no choice but to
+accept a solution which so precisely fitted the circumstances: the figures
+corresponded with the intervals. There was no mistake in the records of the
+lady with the hatchet.
+
+But then one deduction became inevitable. Miss Williamson, the latest
+victim, had been carried off on the 26th of June last, and her name was
+followed by the figures 114: was it not to be presumed that a fresh crime
+would be committed a hundred and fourteen days later, that is to say, on
+the 18th of October? Was it not probable that the horrible business would
+be repeated in accordance with the murderer's secret intentions? Were they
+not bound to pursue to its logical conclusion the argument which ascribed
+to the figures--to all the figures, to the last as well as to the
+others--their value as eventual dates?
+
+Now it was precisely this deduction which was drawn and was being weighed
+and discussed during the few days that preceded the 18th of October,
+when logic demanded the performance of yet another act of the abominable
+tragedy. And it was only natural that, on the morning of that day, Prince
+Rénine and Hortense, when making an appointment by telephone for the
+evening, should allude to the newspaper-articles which they had both been
+reading:
+
+"Look out!" said Rénine, laughing. "If you meet the lady with the hatchet,
+take the other side of the road!"
+
+"And, if the good lady carries me off, what am I to do?"
+
+"Strew your path with little white pebbles and say, until the very moment
+when the hatchet flashes in the air, 'I have nothing to fear; _he_
+will save me.' _He_ is myself ... and I kiss your hands. Till this
+evening, my dear."
+
+That afternoon, Rénine had an appointment with Rose Andrée and Dalbrèque to
+arrange for their departure for the States. [Footnote: See _The Tell-tale
+Film_.] Before four and seven o'clock, he bought the different editions
+of the evening papers. None of them reported an abduction.
+
+At nine o'clock he went to the Gymnase, where he had taken a private box.
+
+At half-past nine, as Hortense had not arrived, he rang her up, though
+without thought of anxiety. The maid replied that Madame Daniel had not
+come in yet.
+
+Seized with a sudden fear, Rénine hurried to the furnished flat which
+Hortense was occupying for the time being, near the Parc Monceau, and
+questioned the maid, whom he had engaged for her and who was completely
+devoted to him. The woman said that her mistress had gone out at two
+o'clock, with a stamped letter in her hand, saying that she was going to
+the post and that she would come back to dress. This was the last that had
+been seen of her.
+
+"To whom was the letter addressed?"
+
+"To you, sir. I saw the writing on the envelope: Prince Serge Rénine."
+
+He waited until midnight, but in vain. Hortense did not return; nor did she
+return next day.
+
+"Not a word to any one," said Rénine to the maid. "Say that your mistress
+is in the country and that you are going to join her."
+
+For his own part, he had not a doubt: Hortense's disappearance was
+explained by the very fact of the date, the 18th of October. She was the
+seventh victim of the lady with the hatchet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The abduction," said Rénine to himself, "precedes the blow of the hatchet
+by a week. I have, therefore, at the present moment, seven full days before
+me. Let us say six, to avoid any surprise. This is Saturday: Hortense must
+be set free by mid-day on Friday; and, to make sure of this, I must know
+her hiding-place by nine o'clock on Thursday evening at latest."
+
+Rénine wrote, "THURSDAY EVENING, NINE O'CLOCK," in big letters, on a card
+which he nailed above the mantelpiece in his study. Then at midday on
+Saturday, the day after the disappearance, he locked himself into the
+study, after telling his man not to disturb him except for meals and
+letters.
+
+He spent four days there, almost without moving. He had immediately sent
+for a set of all the leading newspapers which had spoken in detail of the
+first six crimes. When he had read and reread them, he closed the shutters,
+drew the curtains and lay down on the sofa in the dark, with the door
+bolted, thinking.
+
+By Tuesday evening he was no further advanced than on the Saturday. The
+darkness was as dense as ever. He had not discovered the smallest clue for
+his guidance, nor could he see the slightest reason to hope.
+
+At times, notwithstanding his immense power of self-control and his
+unlimited confidence in the resources at his disposal, at times he would
+quake with anguish. Would he arrive in time? There was no reason why he
+should see more clearly during the last few days than during those which
+had already elapsed. And this meant that Hortense Daniel would inevitably
+be murdered.
+
+The thought tortured him. He was attached to Hortense by a much stronger
+and deeper feeling than the appearance of the relations between them would
+have led an onlooker to believe. The curiosity at the beginning, the first
+desire, the impulse to protect Hortense, to distract her, to inspire her
+with a relish for existence: all this had simply turned to love. Neither of
+them was aware of it, because they barely saw each other save at critical
+times when they were occupied with the adventures of others and not with
+their own. But, at the first onslaught of danger, Rénine realized the place
+which Hortense had taken in his life and he was in despair at knowing her
+to be a prisoner and a martyr and at being unable to save her.
+
+He spent a feverish, agitated night, turning the case over and over from
+every point of view. The Wednesday morning was also a terrible time for
+him. He was losing ground. Giving up his hermit-like seclusion, he threw
+open the windows and paced to and fro through his rooms, ran out into the
+street and came in again, as though fleeing before the thought that
+obsessed him:
+
+"Hortense is suffering.... Hortense is in the depths.... She sees the
+hatchet.... She is calling to me.... She is entreating me.... And I can do
+nothing...."
+
+It was at five o'clock in the afternoon that, on examining the list of the
+six names, he received that little inward shock which is a sort of signal
+of the truth that is being sought for. A light shot through his mind. It
+was not, to be sure, that brilliant light in which every detail is made
+plain, but it was enough to tell him in which direction to move.
+
+His plan of campaign was formed at once. He sent Adolphe, his chauffeur,
+to the principal newspapers, with a few lines which were to appear in type
+among the next morning's advertisements. Adolphe was also told to go to the
+laundry at Courbevoie, where Mlle. Covereau, the second of the six victims,
+had been employed.
+
+On the Thursday, Rénine did not stir out of doors. In the afternoon, he
+received several letters in reply to his advertisement. Then two telegrams
+arrived. Lastly, at three o'clock, there came a pneumatic letter, bearing
+the Trocadéro postmark, which seemed to be what he was expecting.
+
+He turned up a directory, noted an address--"M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, retired
+colonial governor, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kléber"--and ran down to his car:
+
+"Adolphe, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kléber."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was shown into a large study furnished with magnificent book-cases
+containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man
+still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his
+affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence and liking.
+
+"M. de Lourtier," said Rénine, "I have ventured to call on your excellency
+because I read in last year's newspapers that you used to know one of the
+victims of the lady with the hatchet, Honorine Vernisset."
+
+"Why, of course we knew her!" cried M. de Lourtier. "My wife used to employ
+her as a dressmaker by the day. Poor girl!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, a lady of my acquaintance has disappeared as the other six
+victims disappeared."
+
+"What!" exclaimed M. de Lourtier, with a start. "But I have followed the
+newspapers carefully. There was nothing on the 18th of October."
+
+"Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted
+on the 17th of October."
+
+"And this is the 22nd!"
+
+"Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th."
+
+"Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs...."
+
+"And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency's
+assistance."
+
+"But have you been to the police?"
+
+"No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and
+compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and
+which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as
+inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for
+finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good
+purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them
+in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety
+would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first
+things that a professional detective seizes upon."
+
+"Then what have you done?"
+
+"Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking
+the matter over."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of
+irony, asked:
+
+"And the result of your meditations ...?"
+
+"To begin with," said Rénine, refusing to be put out of countenance, "I
+have submitted all these cases to a comprehensive survey, which hitherto
+no one else had done. This enabled me to discover their general meaning,
+to put aside all the tangle of embarrassing theories and, since no one was
+able to agree as to the motives of all this filthy business, to attribute
+it to the only class of persons capable of it."
+
+"That is to say?"
+
+"Lunatics, your excellency."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau started:
+
+"Lunatics? What an idea!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, the woman known as the lady with the hatchet is a
+madwoman."
+
+"But she would be locked up!"
+
+"We don't know that she's not. We don't know that she is not one of those
+half-mad people, apparently harmless, who are watched so slightly that they
+have full scope to indulge their little manias, their wild-beast instincts.
+Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be
+more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same
+time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All
+these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady
+with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition
+of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea
+by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do know the act that
+results from it; and it is always the same. The victim is bound with
+precisely similar ropes. She is killed after the same number of days. She
+is struck by an identical blow, with the same instrument, in the same
+place, the middle of the forehead, producing an absolutely vertical wound.
+An ordinary murderer displays some variety. His trembling hand swerves
+aside and strikes awry. The lady with the hatchet does not tremble. It is
+as though she had taken measurements; and the edge of her weapon does not
+swerve by a hair's breadth. Need I give you any further proofs or examine
+all the other details with you? Surely not. You now possess the key to the
+riddle; and you know as I do that only a lunatic can behave in this way,
+stupidly, savagely, mechanically, like a striking clock or the blade of the
+guillotine...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, that is so. One can see the whole affair from that angle ... and I
+am beginning to believe that this is how one ought to see it. But, if we
+admit that this madwoman has the sort of mathematical logic which governed
+the murders of the six victims, I see no connection between the victims
+themselves. She struck at random. Why this victim rather than that?"
+
+"Ah," said Rénine. "Your excellency is asking me a question which I asked
+myself from the first moment, the question which sums up the whole problem
+and which cost me so much trouble to solve! Why Hortense Daniel rather than
+another? Among two millions of women who might have been selected, why
+Hortense? Why little Vernisset? Why Miss Williamson? If the affair is such
+as I conceived it, as a whole, that is to say, based upon the blind and
+fantastic logic of a madwoman, a choice was inevitably exercised. Now in
+what did that choice consist? What was the quality, or the defect, or the
+sign needed to induce the lady with the hatchet to strike? In a word, if
+she chose--and she must have chosen--what directed her choice?"
+
+"Have you found the answer?"
+
+Rénine paused and replied:
+
+"Yes, your excellency, I have. And I could have found it at the very
+outset, since all that I had to do was to make a careful examination of the
+list of victims. But these flashes of truth are never kindled save in a
+brain overstimulated by effort and reflection. I stared at the list twenty
+times over, before that little detail took a definite shape."
+
+"I don't follow you," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+"M. de Lourtier, it may be noted that, if a number of persons are brought
+together in any transaction, or crime, or public scandal or what not, they
+are almost invariably described in the same way. On this occasion, the
+newspapers never mentioned anything more than their surnames in speaking
+of Madame Ladoue, Mlle. Ardent or Mlle. Covereau. On the other hand, Mlle.
+Vernisset and Miss Williamson were always described by their Christian
+names as well: Honorine and Hermione. If the same thing had been done in
+the case of all the six victims, there would have been no mystery."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because we should at once have realized the relation existing between the
+six unfortunate women, as I myself suddenly realized it on comparing those
+two Christian names with that of Hortense Daniel. You understand now, don't
+you? You see the three Christian names before your eyes...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau seemed to be perturbed. Turning a little pale, he
+said:
+
+"What do you mean? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," continued Rénine, in a clear voice, sounding each syllable
+separately, "I mean that you see before your eyes three Christian names
+which all three begin with the same initial and which all three, by a
+remarkable coincidence, consist of the same number of letters, as you may
+prove. If you enquire at the Courbevoie laundry, where Mlle. Covereau
+used to work, you will find that her name was Hilairie. Here again we
+have the same initial and the same number of letters. There is no need
+to seek any farther. We are sure, are we not, that the Christian names
+of all the victims offer the same peculiarities? And this gives us, with
+absolute certainty, the key to the problem which was set us. It explains
+the madwoman's choice. We now know the connection between the unfortunate
+victims. There can be no mistake about it. It's that and nothing else. And
+how this method of choosing confirms my theory! What proof of madness! Why
+kill these women rather than any others? Because their names begin with
+an H and consist of eight letters! You understand me, M. de Lourtier, do
+you not? The number of letters is eight. The initial letter is the eighth
+letter of the alphabet; and the word _huit_, eight, begins with an H.
+Always the letter H. _And the implement used to commit the crime was a
+hatchet_. Is your excellency prepared to tell me that the lady with the
+hatchet is not a madwoman?"
+
+Rénine interrupted himself and went up to M. de Lourtier-Vaneau:
+
+"What's the matter, your excellency? Are you unwell?"
+
+"No, no," said M. de Lourtier, with the perspiration streaming down his
+forehead. "No ... but all this story is so upsetting! Only think, I knew
+one of the victims! And then...."
+
+Rénine took a water-bottle and tumbler from a small table, filled the glass
+and handed it to M. de Lourtier, who sipped a few mouthfuls from it and
+then, pulling himself together, continued, in a voice which he strove to
+make firmer than it had been:
+
+"Very well. We'll admit your supposition. Even so, it is necessary that it
+should lead to tangible results. What have you done?"
+
+"This morning I published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as
+follows: 'Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie,
+Boulevard Haussmann, etc.' You continue to follow me, don't you, M. de
+Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight
+letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie,
+Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not
+understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To
+find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only
+she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection
+and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait.
+She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain
+details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not
+doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, printed in large type, would
+attract her attention and that she would be caught to-day in the trap of my
+advertisement."
+
+"Did she write?" asked M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, anxiously.
+
+"Several ladies," Rénine continued, "wrote the letters which are usual in
+such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an
+express letter which struck me as interesting."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Read it, M. de Lourtier."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Rénine's hands and cast a
+glance at the signature. His first movement was one of surprise, as though
+he had expected something different. Then he gave a long, loud laugh of
+something like joy and relief.
+
+"Why do you laugh, M. de Lourtier? You seem pleased."
+
+"Pleased, no. But this letter is signed by my wife."
+
+"And you were afraid of finding something else?"
+
+"Oh no! But since it's my wife...."
+
+He did not finish his sentence and said to Rénine:
+
+"Come this way."
+
+He led him through a passage to a little drawing-room where a fair-haired
+lady, with a happy and tender expression on her comely face, was sitting in
+the midst of three children and helping them with their lessons.
+
+She rose. M. de Lourtier briefly presented his visitor and asked his wife:
+
+"Suzanne, is this express message from you?"
+
+"To Mlle. Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann? Yes," she said, "I sent it. As you
+know, our parlour-maid's leaving and I'm looking out for a new one."
+
+Rénine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, madame. Just one question: where did you get the woman's
+address?"
+
+She flushed. Her husband insisted:
+
+"Tell us, Suzanne. Who gave you the address?"
+
+"I was rung up."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+She hesitated and then said:
+
+"Your old nurse."
+
+"Félicienne?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+M. de Lourtier cut short the conversation and, without permitting Rénine to
+ask any more questions, took him back to the study:
+
+"You see, monsieur, that pneumatic letter came from a quite natural source.
+Félicienne, my old nurse, who lives not far from Paris on an allowance
+which I make her, read your advertisement and told Madame de Lourtier of
+it. For, after all," he added laughing, "I don't suppose that you suspect
+my wife of being the lady with the hatchet."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the incident is closed ... at least on my side. I have done what I
+could, I have listened to your arguments and I am very sorry that I can be
+of no more use to you...."
+
+He drank another glass of water and sat down. His face was distorted.
+Rénine looked at him for a few seconds, as a man will look at a failing
+adversary who has only to receive the knock-out blow, and, sitting down
+beside him, suddenly gripped his arm:
+
+"Your excellency, if you do not speak, Hortense Daniel will be the seventh
+victim."
+
+"I have nothing to say, monsieur! What do you think I know?"
+
+"The truth! My explanations have made it plain to you. Your distress, your
+terror are positive proofs."
+
+"But, after all, monsieur, if I knew, why should I be silent?"
+
+"For fear of scandal. There is in your life, so a profound intuition
+assures me, something that you are constrained to hide. The truth about
+this monstrous tragedy, which suddenly flashed upon you, this truth, if
+it were known, would spell dishonour to you, disgrace ... and you are
+shrinking from your duty."
+
+M. de Lourtier did not reply. Rénine leant over him and, looking him in
+the eyes, whispered:
+
+"There will be no scandal. I shall be the only person in the world to
+know what has happened. And I am as much interested as yourself in not
+attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her
+name to be mixed up in your horrible story."
+
+They remained face to face during a long interval. Rénine's expression was
+harsh and unyielding. M. de Lourtier felt that nothing would bend him if
+the necessary words remained unspoken; but he could not bring himself to
+utter them:
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "You think you have seen things that don't
+exist."
+
+Rénine received a sudden and terrifying conviction that, if this man took
+refuge in a stolid silence, there was no hope for Hortense Daniel; and he
+was so much infuriated by the thought that the key to the riddle lay there,
+within reach of his hand, that he clutched M. de Lourtier by the throat and
+forced him backwards:
+
+"I'll have no more lies! A woman's life is at stake! Speak ... and speak at
+once! If not ...!"
+
+M. de Lourtier had no strength left in him. All resistance was impossible.
+It was not that Rénine's attack alarmed him, or that he was yielding to
+this act of violence, but he felt crushed by that indomitable will, which
+seemed to admit no obstacle, and he stammered:
+
+"You are right. It is my duty to tell everything, whatever comes of it."
+
+"Nothing will come of it, I pledge my word, on condition that you save
+Hortense Daniel. A moment's hesitation may undo us all. Speak. No details,
+but the actual facts."
+
+"Madame de Lourtier is not my wife. The only woman who has the right to
+bear my name is one whom I married when I was a young colonial official.
+She was a rather eccentric woman, of feeble mentality and incredibly
+subject to impulses that amounted to monomania. We had two children, twins,
+whom she worshipped and in whose company she would no doubt have recovered
+her mental balance and moral health, when, by a stupid accident--a
+passing carriage--they were killed before her eyes. The poor thing went
+mad ... with the silent, secretive madness which you imagined. Some time
+afterwards, when I was appointed to an Algerian station, I brought her to
+France and put her in the charge of a worthy creature who had nursed me and
+brought me up. Two years later, I made the acquaintance of the woman who
+was to become the joy of my life. You saw her just now. She is the mother
+of my children and she passes as my wife. Are we to sacrifice her? Is our
+whole existence to be shipwrecked in horror and must our name be coupled
+with this tragedy of madness and blood?"
+
+Rénine thought for a moment and asked:
+
+"What is the other one's name?"
+
+"Hermance."
+
+"Hermance! Still that initial ... still those eight letters!"
+
+"That was what made me realize everything just now," said M. de Lourtier.
+"When you compared the different names, I at once reflected that my unhappy
+wife was called Hermance and that she was mad ... and all the proofs leapt
+to my mind."
+
+"But, though we understand the selection of the victims, how are we to
+explain the murders? What are the symptoms of her madness? Does she suffer
+at all?"
+
+"She does not suffer very much at present. But she has suffered in the
+past, the most terrible suffering that you can imagine: since the moment
+when her two children were run over before her eyes, night and day she had
+the horrible spectacle of their death before her eyes, without a moment's
+interruption, for she never slept for a single second. Think of the torture
+of it! To see her children dying through all the hours of the long day and
+all the hours of the interminable night!"
+
+"Nevertheless," Rénine objected, "it is not to drive away that picture that
+she commits murder?"
+
+"Yes, possibly," said M. de Lourtier, thoughtfully, "to drive it away by
+sleep."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You don't understand, because we are talking of a madwoman ... and because
+all that happens in that disordered brain is necessarily incoherent and
+abnormal?"
+
+"Obviously. But, all the same, is your supposition based on facts that
+justify it?"
+
+"Yes, on facts which I had, in a way, overlooked but which to-day assume
+their true significance. The first of these facts dates a few years back,
+to a morning when my old nurse for the first time found Hermance fast
+asleep. Now she was holding her hands clutched around a puppy which she had
+strangled. And the same thing was repeated on three other occasions."
+
+"And she slept?"
+
+"Yes, each time she slept a sleep which lasted for several nights."
+
+"And what conclusion did you draw?"
+
+"I concluded that the relaxation of the nerves provoked by taking life
+exhausted her and predisposed her for sleep."
+
+Rénine shuddered:
+
+"That's it! There's not a doubt of it! The taking life, the effort of
+killing makes her sleep. And she began with women what had served her so
+well with animals. All her madness has become concentrated on that one
+point: she kills them to rob them of their sleep! She wanted sleep; and she
+steals the sleep of others! That's it, isn't it? For the past two years,
+she has been sleeping?"
+
+"For the past two years, she has been sleeping," stammered M. de Lourtier.
+
+Rénine gripped him by the shoulder:
+
+"And it never occurred to you that her madness might go farther, that she
+would stop at nothing to win the blessing of sleep! Let us make haste,
+monsieur! All this is horrible!"
+
+They were both making for the door, when M. de Lourtier hesitated. The
+telephone-bell was ringing.
+
+"It's from there," he said.
+
+"From there?"
+
+"Yes, my old nurse gives me the news at the same time every day."
+
+He unhooked the receivers and handed one to Rénine, who whispered in his
+ear the questions which he was to put.
+
+"Is that you, Félicienne? How is she?"
+
+"Not so bad, sir."
+
+"Is she sleeping well?"
+
+"Not very well, lately. Last night, indeed, she never closed her eyes. So
+she's very gloomy just now."
+
+"What is she doing at the moment?"
+
+"She is in her room."
+
+"Go to her, Félicienne, and don't leave her."
+
+"I can't. She's locked herself in."
+
+"You must, Félicienne. Break open the door. I'm coming straight on....
+Hullo! Hullo!... Oh, damnation, they've cut us off!"
+
+Without a word, the two men left the flat and ran down to the avenue.
+Rénine hustled M. de Lourtier into the car:
+
+"What address?"
+
+"Ville d'Avray."
+
+"Of course! In the very center of her operations ... like a spider in the
+middle of her web! Oh, the shame of it!"
+
+He was profoundly agitated. He saw the whole adventure in its monstrous
+reality.
+
+"Yes, she kills them to steal their sleep, as she used to kill the animals.
+It is the same obsession, but complicated by a whole array of utterly
+incomprehensible practices and superstitions. She evidently fancies that
+the similarity of the Christian names to her own is indispensable and that
+she will not sleep unless her victim is an Hortense or an Honorine. It's
+a madwoman's argument; its logic escapes us and we know nothing of its
+origin; but we can't get away from it. She has to hunt and has to find. And
+she finds and carries off her prey beforehand and watches over it for the
+appointed number of days, until the moment when, crazily, through the hole
+which she digs with a hatchet in the middle of the skull, she absorbs the
+sleep which stupefies her and grants her oblivion for a given period. And
+here again we see absurdity and madness. Why does she fix that period at so
+many days? Why should one victim ensure her a hundred and twenty days of
+sleep and another a hundred and twenty-five? What insanity! The calculation
+is mysterious and of course mad; but the fact remains that, at the end of
+a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five days, as the case may be, a fresh
+victim is sacrificed; and there have been six already and the seventh is
+awaiting her turn. Ah, monsieur, what a terrible responsibility for you!
+Such a monster as that! She should never have been allowed out of sight!"
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau made no protest. His air of dejection, his pallor,
+his trembling hands, all proved his remorse and his despair: "She deceived
+me," he murmured. "She was outwardly so quiet, so docile! And, after all,
+she's in a lunatic asylum."
+
+"Then how can she ...?"
+
+"The asylum," explained M. de Lourtier, "is made up of a number of separate
+buildings scattered over extensive grounds. The sort of cottage in which
+Hermance lives stands quite apart. There is first a room occupied by
+Félicienne, then Hermance's bedroom and two separate rooms, one of which
+has its windows overlooking the open country. I suppose it is there that
+she locks up her victims."
+
+"But the carriage that conveys the dead bodies?"
+
+"The stables of the asylum are quite close to the cottage. There's a horse
+and carriage there for station work. Hermance no doubt gets up at night,
+harnesses the horse and slips the body through the window."
+
+"And the nurse who watches her?"
+
+"Félicienne is very old and rather deaf."
+
+"But by day she sees her mistress moving to and fro, doing this and that.
+Must we not admit a certain complicity?"
+
+"Never! Félicienne herself has been deceived by Hermance's hypocrisy."
+
+"All the same, it was she who telephoned to Madame de Lourtier first, about
+that advertisement...."
+
+"Very naturally. Hermance, who talks now and then, who argues, who buries
+herself in the newspapers, which she does not understand, as you were
+saying just now, but reads through them attentively, must have seen the
+advertisement and, having heard that we were looking for a servant, must
+have asked Félicienne to ring me up."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... that is what I felt," said Rénine, slowly. "She marks down
+her victims.... With Hortense dead, she would have known, once she had used
+up her allowance of sleep, where to find an eighth victim.... But how did
+she entice the unfortunate women? How did she entice Hortense?"
+
+The car was rushing along, but not fast enough to please Rénine, who rated
+the chauffeur:
+
+"Push her along, Adolphe, can't you?... We're losing time, my man."
+
+Suddenly the fear of arriving too late began to torture him. The logic of
+the insane is subject to sudden changes of mood, to any perilous idea that
+may enter the mind. The madwoman might easily mistake the date and hasten
+the catastrophe, like a clock out of order which strikes an hour too soon.
+
+On the other hand, as her sleep was once more disturbed, might she not be
+tempted to take action without waiting for the appointed moment? Was this
+not the reason why she had locked herself into her room? Heavens, what
+agonies her prisoner must be suffering! What shudders of terror at the
+executioner's least movement!
+
+"Faster, Adolphe, or I'll take the wheel myself! Faster, hang it."
+
+At last they reached Ville d'Avray. There was a steep, sloping road on the
+right and walls interrupted by a long railing.
+
+"Drive round the grounds, Adolphe. We mustn't give warning of our presence,
+must we, M. de Lourtier? Where is the cottage?"
+
+"Just opposite," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+They got out a little farther on. Rénine began to run along a bank at the
+side of an ill-kept sunken road. It was almost dark. M. de Lourtier said:
+
+"Here, this building standing a little way back.... Look at that window on
+the ground-floor. It belongs to one of the separate rooms ... and that is
+obviously how she slips out."
+
+"But the window seems to be barred."
+
+"Yes; and that is why no one suspected anything. But she must have found
+some way to get through."
+
+The ground-floor was built over deep cellars. Rénine quickly clambered up,
+finding a foothold on a projecting ledge of stone.
+
+Sure enough, one of the bars was missing.
+
+He pressed his face to the window-pane and looked in.
+
+The room was dark inside. Nevertheless he was able to distinguish at the
+back a woman seated beside another woman, who was lying on a mattress. The
+woman seated was holding her forehead in her hands and gazing at the woman
+who was lying down.
+
+"It's she," whispered M. de Lourtier, who had also climbed the wall. "The
+other one is bound."
+
+Rénine took from his pocket a glazier's diamond and cut out one of the
+panes without making enough noise to arouse the madwoman's attention. He
+next slid his hand to the window-fastening and turned it softly, while with
+his left hand he levelled a revolver.
+
+"You're not going to fire, surely!" M. de Lourtier-Vaneau entreated.
+
+"If I must, I shall."
+
+Rénine pushed open the window gently. But there was an obstacle of which he
+was not aware, a chair which toppled over and fell.
+
+He leapt into the room and threw away his revolver in order to seize the
+madwoman. But she did not wait for him. She rushed to the door, opened it
+and fled, with a hoarse cry.
+
+M. de Lourtier made as though to run after her.
+
+"What's the use?" said Rénine, kneeling down, "Let's save the victim
+first."
+
+He was instantly reassured: Hortense was alive.
+
+The first thing that he did was to cut the cords and remove the gag that
+was stifling her. Attracted by the noise, the old nurse had hastened to
+the room with a lamp, which Rénine took from her, casting its light on
+Hortense.
+
+He was astounded: though livid and exhausted, with emaciated features and
+eyes blazing with fever, Hortense was trying to smile. She whispered:
+
+"I was expecting you ... I did not despair for a moment ... I was sure of
+you...."
+
+She fainted.
+
+An hour later, after much useless searching around the cottage, they found
+the madwoman locked into a large cupboard in the loft. She had hanged
+herself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense refused to stay another night. Besides, it was better that the
+cottage should be empty when the old nurse announced the madwoman's
+suicide. Rénine gave Félicienne minute directions as to what she should do
+and say; and then, assisted by the chauffeur and M. de Lourtier, carried
+Hortense to the car and brought her home.
+
+She was soon convalescent. Two days later, Rénine carefully questioned her
+and asked her how she had come to know the madwoman.
+
+"It was very simple," she said. "My husband, who is not quite sane, as I
+have told you, is being looked after at Ville d'Avray; and I sometimes go
+to see him, without telling anybody, I admit. That was how I came to speak
+to that poor madwoman and how, the other day, she made signs that she
+wanted me to visit her. We were alone. I went into the cottage. She threw
+herself upon me and overpowered me before I had time to cry for help. I
+thought it was a jest; and so it was, wasn't it: a madwoman's jest? She was
+quite gentle with me.... All the same, she let me starve. But I was so sure
+of you!"
+
+"And weren't you frightened?"
+
+"Of starving? No. Besides, she gave me some food, now and then, when the
+fancy took her.... And then I was sure of you!"
+
+"Yes, but there was something else: that other peril...."
+
+"What other peril?" she asked, ingenuously.
+
+Rénine gave a start. He suddenly understood--it seemed strange at first,
+though it was quite natural--that Hortense had not for a moment suspected
+and did not yet suspect the terrible danger which she had run. Her mind had
+not connected with her own adventure the murders committed by the lady with
+the hatchet.
+
+He thought that it would always be time enough to tell her the truth. For
+that matter, a few days later her husband, who had been locked up for
+years, died in the asylum at Ville d'Avray, and Hortense, who had been
+recommended by her doctor a short period of rest and solitude, went to stay
+with a relation living near the village of Bassicourt, in the centre of
+France.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+
+_To Prince Serge Rénine,
+  Boulevard Haussmann,
+    Paris_
+
+LA RONCIÈRE
+  NEAR BASSICOURT,
+    14 NOVEMBER.
+
+"MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+"You must be thinking me very ungrateful. I have been here three weeks; and
+you have had not one letter from me! Not a word of thanks! And yet I ended
+by realizing from what terrible death you saved me and understanding the
+secret of that terrible business! But indeed, indeed I couldn't help it! I
+was in such a state of prostration after it all! I needed rest and solitude
+so badly! Was I to stay in Paris? Was I to continue my expeditions with
+you? No, no, no! I had had enough adventures! Other people's are very
+interesting, I admit. But when one is one's self the victim and barely
+escapes with one's life?... Oh, my dear friend, how horrible it was! Shall
+I ever forget it?...
+
+"Here, at la Roncière, I enjoy the greatest peace. My old spinster cousin
+Ermelin pets and coddles me like an invalid. I am getting back my colour
+and am very well, physically ... so much so, in fact, that I no longer
+ever think of interesting myself in other people's business. Never again!
+For instance (I am only telling you this because you are incorrigible, as
+inquisitive as any old charwoman, and always ready to busy yourself with
+things that don't concern you), yesterday I was present at a rather curious
+meeting. Antoinette had taken me to the inn at Bassicourt, where we were
+having tea in the public room, among the peasants (it was market-day), when
+the arrival of three people, two men and a woman, caused a sudden pause in
+the conversation.
+
+"One of the men was a fat farmer in a long blouse, with a jovial, red face,
+framed in white whiskers. The other was younger, was dressed in corduroy
+and had lean, yellow, cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun
+slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in
+a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was
+surprisingly delicate and distinguished-looking.
+
+"'Father, son and daughter-in-law,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"'What! Can that charming creature be the wife of that clod-hopper?'
+
+"'And the daughter-in-law of Baron de Gorne.'
+
+"'Is the old fellow over there a baron?'
+
+"'Yes, descended from a very ancient, noble family which used to own the
+château in the old days. He has always lived like a peasant: a great
+hunter, a great drinker, a great litigant, always at law with somebody, now
+very nearly ruined. His son Mathias was more ambitious and less attached to
+the soil and studied for the bar. Then he went to America. Next, the lack
+of money brought him back to the village, whereupon he fell in love with a
+young girl in the nearest town. The poor girl consented, no one knows why,
+to marry him; and for five years past she has been leading the life of a
+hermit, or rather of a prisoner, in a little manor-house close by, the
+Manoir-au-Puits, the Well Manor.'
+
+"'With the father and the son?' I asked.
+
+"'No, the father lives at the far end of the village, on a lonely farm.'
+
+"'And is Master Mathias jealous?'
+
+"'A perfect tiger!'
+
+"'Without reason?'
+
+"'Without reason, for Natalie de Gorne is the straightest woman in the
+world and it is not her fault if a handsome young man has been hanging
+around the manor-house for the past few months. However, the de Gornes
+can't get over it.'
+
+"'What, the father neither?'
+
+"'The handsome young man is the last descendant of the people who bought
+the château long ago. This explains old de Gorne's hatred. Jérôme
+Vignal--I know him and am very fond of him--is a good-looking fellow and
+very well off; and he has sworn to run off with Natalie de Gorne. It's
+the old man who says so, whenever he has had a drop too much. There,
+listen!'
+
+"The old chap was sitting among a group of men who were amusing themselves
+by making him drink and plying him with questions. He was already a little
+bit 'on' and was holding forth with a tone of indignation and a mocking
+smile which formed the most comic contrast:
+
+"'He's wasting his time, I tell you, the coxcomb! It's no manner of use his
+poaching round our way and making sheep's-eyes at the wench.... The coverts
+are watched! If he comes too near, it means a bullet, eh, Mathias?'
+
+"He gripped his daughter-in-law's hand:
+
+"'And then the little wench knows how to defend herself too,' he chuckled.
+'Eh, you don't want any admirers, do you Natalie?'
+
+"The young wife blushed, in her confusion at being addressed in these
+terms, while her husband growled:
+
+"'You'd do better to hold your tongue, father. There are things one doesn't
+talk about in public.'
+
+"'Things that affect one's honour are best settled in public,' retorted the
+old one. 'Where I'm concerned, the honour of the de Gornes comes before
+everything; and that fine spark, with his Paris airs, sha'n't....'
+
+"He stopped short. Before him stood a man who had just come in and who
+seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence. The newcomer was a
+tall, powerfully-built young fellow, in riding-kit, with a hunting-crop in
+his hand. His strong and rather stern face was lighted up by a pair of fine
+eyes in which shone an ironical smile.
+
+"'Jérôme Vignal,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"The young man seemed not at all embarrassed. On seeing Natalie, he made a
+low bow; and, when Mathias de Gorne took a step forward, he eyed him from
+head to foot, as though to say:
+
+"'Well, what about it?'
+
+"And his attitude was so haughty and contemptuous that the de Gornes
+unslung their guns and took them in both hands, like sportsmen about to
+shoot. The son's expression was very fierce.
+
+"Jérôme was quite unmoved by the threat. After a few seconds, turning to
+the inn-keeper, he remarked:
+
+"'Oh, I say! I came to see old Vasseur. But his shop is shut. Would you
+mind giving him the holster of my revolver? It wants a stitch or two.'
+
+"He handed the holster to the inn-keeper and added, laughing:
+
+"'I'm keeping the revolver, in case I need it. You never can tell!'
+
+"Then, still very calmly, he took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it
+and walked out. We saw him through the window vaulting on his horse and
+riding off at a slow trot.
+
+"Old de Gorne tossed off a glass of brandy, swearing most horribly.
+
+"His son clapped his hand to the old man's mouth and forced him to sit
+down. Natalie de Gorne was weeping beside them....
+
+"That's my story, dear friend. As you see, it's not tremendously
+interesting and does not deserve your attention. There's no mystery in it
+and no part for you to play. Indeed, I particularly insist that you should
+not seek a pretext for any untimely interference. Of course, I should be
+glad to see the poor thing protected: she appears to be a perfect martyr.
+But, as I said before, let us leave other people to get out of their own
+troubles and go no farther with our little experiments...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rénine finished reading the letter, read it over again and ended by saying:
+
+"That's it. Everything's right as right can be. She doesn't want to
+continue our little experiments, because this would make the seventh and
+because she's afraid of the eighth, which under the terms of our agreement
+has a very particular significance. She doesn't want to ... and she does
+want to ... without seeming to want to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rubbed his hands. The letter was an invaluable witness to the influence
+which he had gradually, gently and patiently gained over Hortense Daniel.
+It betrayed a rather complex feeling, composed of admiration, unbounded
+confidence, uneasiness at times, fear and almost terror, but also love:
+he was convinced of that. His companion in adventures which she shared
+with a good fellowship that excluded any awkwardness between them, she
+had suddenly taken fright; and a sort of modesty, mingled with a certain
+coquetry; was impelling her to hold back.
+
+That very evening, Sunday, Rénine took the train.
+
+And, at break of day, after covering by diligence, on a road white with
+snow, the five miles between the little town of Pompignat, where he
+alighted, and the village of Bassicourt, he learnt that his journey might
+prove of some use: three shots had been heard during the night in the
+direction of the Manoir-au-Puits.
+
+"Three shots, sergeant. I heard them as plainly as I see you standing
+before me," said a peasant whom the gendarmes were questioning in the
+parlour of the inn which Rénine had entered.
+
+"So did I," said the waiter. "Three shots. It may have been twelve o'clock
+at night. The snow, which had been falling since nine, had stopped ...
+and the shots sounded across the fields, one after the other: bang, bang,
+bang."
+
+Five more peasants gave their evidence. The sergeant and his men had
+heard nothing, because the police-station backed on the fields. But a
+farm-labourer and a woman arrived, who said that they were in Mathias
+de Gorne's service, that they had been away for two days because of the
+intervening Sunday and that they had come straight from the manor-house,
+where they were unable to obtain admission:
+
+"The gate of the grounds is locked, sergeant," said the man. "It's the
+first time I've known this to happen. M. Mathias comes out to open it
+himself, every morning at the stroke of six, winter and summer. Well, it's
+past eight now. I called and shouted. Nobody answered. So we came on here."
+
+"You might have enquired at old M. de Gorne's," said the sergeant. "He
+lives on the high-road."
+
+"On my word, so I might! I never thought of that."
+
+"We'd better go there now," the sergeant decided. Two of his men went with
+him, as well as the peasants and a locksmith whose services were called
+into requisition. Rénine joined the party.
+
+Soon, at the end of the village, they reached old de Gorne's farmyard,
+which Rénine recognized by Hortense's description of its position.
+
+The old fellow was harnessing his horse and trap. When they told him what
+had happened, he burst out laughing:
+
+"Three shots? Bang, bang, bang? Why, my dear sergeant, there are only two
+barrels to Mathias' gun!"
+
+"What about the locked gate?"
+
+"It means that the lad's asleep, that's all. Last night, he came and
+cracked a bottle with me ... perhaps two ... or even three; and he'll be
+sleeping it off, I expect ... he and Natalie."
+
+He climbed on to the box of his trap--an old cart with a patched tilt--and
+cracked his whip:
+
+"Good-bye, gentlemen all. Those three shots of yours won't stop me from
+going to market at Pompignat, as I do every Monday. I've a couple of calves
+under the tilt; and they're just fit for the butcher. Good-day to you!"
+
+The others walked on. Rénine went up to the sergeant and gave him his name:
+
+"I'm a friend of Mlle. Ermelin, of La Roncière; and, as it's too early to
+call on her yet, I shall be glad if you'll allow me to go round by the
+manor with you. Mlle. Ermelin knows Madame de Gorne; and it will be a
+satisfaction to me to relieve her mind, for there's nothing wrong at the
+manor-house, I hope?"
+
+"If there is," replied the sergeant, "we shall read all about it as plainly
+as on a map, because of the snow."
+
+He was a likable young man and seemed smart and intelligent. From the very
+first he had shown great acuteness in observing the tracks which Mathias
+had left behind him, the evening before, on returning home, tracks which
+soon became confused with the footprints made in going and coming by the
+farm-labourer and the woman. Meanwhile they came to the walls of a property
+of which the locksmith readily opened the gate.
+
+From here onward, a single trail appeared upon the spotless snow, that of
+Mathias; and it was easy to perceive that the son must have shared largely
+in the father's libations, as the line of footprints described sudden
+curves which made it swerve right up to the trees of the avenue.
+
+Two hundred yards farther stood the dilapidated two-storeyed building of
+the Manoir-au-Puits. The principal door was open.
+
+"Let's go in," said the sergeant.
+
+And, the moment he had crossed the threshold, he muttered:
+
+"Oho! Old de Gorne made a mistake in not coming. They've been fighting in
+here."
+
+The big room was in disorder. Two shattered chairs, the overturned table
+and much broken glass and china bore witness to the violence of the
+struggle. The tall clock, lying on the ground, had stopped at twenty past
+eleven.
+
+With the farm-girl showing them the way, they ran up to the first floor.
+Neither Mathias nor his wife was there. But the door of their bedroom had
+been broken down with a hammer which they discovered under the bed.
+
+Rénine and the sergeant went downstairs again. The living-room had a
+passage communicating with the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house
+and opened on a small yard fenced off from the orchard. At the end of this
+enclosure was a well near which one was bound to pass.
+
+Now, from the door of the kitchen to the well, the snow, which was not
+very thick, had been pressed down to this side and that, as though a body
+had been dragged over it. And all around the well were tangled traces of
+trampling feet, showing that the struggle must have been resumed at this
+spot. The sergeant again discovered Mathias' footprints, together with
+others which were shapelier and lighter.
+
+These latter went straight into the orchard, by themselves. And, thirty
+yards on, near the footprints, a revolver was picked up and recognized by
+one of the peasants as resembling that which Jérôme Vignal had produced in
+the inn two days before.
+
+The sergeant examined the cylinder. Three of the seven bullets had been
+fired.
+
+And so the tragedy was little by little reconstructed in its main outlines;
+and the sergeant, who had ordered everybody to stand aside and not to step
+on the site of the footprints, came back to the well, leant over, put a few
+questions to the farm-girl and, going up to Rénine, whispered:
+
+"It all seems fairly clear to me."
+
+Rénine took his arm:
+
+"Let's speak out plainly, sergeant. I understand the business pretty
+well, for, as I told you, I know Mlle. Ermelin, who is a friend of Jérôme
+Vignal's and also knows Madame de Gorne. Do you suppose ...?"
+
+"I don't want to suppose anything. I simply declare that some one came
+there last night...."
+
+"By which way? The only tracks of a person coming towards the manor are
+those of M. de Gorne."
+
+"That's because the other person arrived before the snowfall, that is to
+say, before nine o'clock."
+
+"Then he must have hidden in a corner of the living-room and waited for the
+return of M. de Gorne, who came after the snow?"
+
+"Just so. As soon as Mathias came in, the man went for him. There was a
+fight. Mathias made his escape through the kitchen. The man ran after him
+to the well and fired three revolver-shots."
+
+"And where's the body?"
+
+"Down the well."
+
+Rénine protested:
+
+"Oh, I say! Aren't you taking a lot for granted?"
+
+"Why, sir, the snow's there, to tell the story; and the snow plainly says
+that, after the struggle, after the three shots, one man alone walked
+away and left the farm, one man only, and his footprints are not those
+of Mathias de Gorne. Then where can Mathias de Gorne be?"
+
+"But the well ... can be dragged?"
+
+"No. The well is practically bottomless. It is known all over the district
+and gives its name to the manor."
+
+"So you really believe ...?"
+
+"I repeat what I said. Before the snowfall, a single arrival, Mathias, and
+a single departure, the stranger."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne? Was she too killed and thrown down the well like her
+husband?"
+
+"No, carried off."
+
+"Carried off?"
+
+"Remember that her bedroom was broken down with a hammer."
+
+"Come, come, sergeant! You yourself declare that there was only one
+departure, the stranger's."
+
+"Stoop down. Look at the man's footprints. See how they sink into the snow,
+until they actually touch the ground. Those are the footprints of a man,
+laden with a heavy burden. The stranger was carrying Madame de Gorne on his
+shoulder."
+
+"Then there's an outlet this way?"
+
+"Yes, a little door of which Mathias de Gorne always had the key on him.
+The man must have taken it from him."
+
+"A way out into the open fields?"
+
+"Yes, a road which joins the departmental highway three quarters of a mile
+from here.... And do you know where?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the château."
+
+"Jérôme Vignal's château?"
+
+"By Jove, this is beginning to look serious! If the trail leads to the
+château and stops there, we shall know where we stand."
+
+The trail did continue to the château, as they were able to perceive after
+following it across the undulating fields, on which the snow lay heaped in
+places. The approach to the main gates had been swept, but they saw that
+another trail, formed by the two wheels of a vehicle, was running in the
+opposite direction to the village.
+
+The sergeant rang the bell. The porter, who had also been sweeping the
+drive, came to the gates, with a broom in his hand. In answer to a
+question, the man said that M. Vignal had gone away that morning before
+anyone else was up and that he himself had harnessed the horse to the trap.
+
+"In that case," said Rénine, when they had moved away, "all we have to do
+is to follow the tracks of the wheels."
+
+"That will be no use," said the sergeant. "They have taken the railway."
+
+"At Pompignat station, where I came from? But they would have passed
+through the village."
+
+"They have gone just the other way, because it leads to the town, where the
+express trains stop. The procurator-general has an office in the town. I'll
+telephone; and, as there's no train before eleven o'clock, all that they
+need do is to keep a watch at the station."
+
+"I think you're doing the right thing, sergeant," said Rénine, "and I
+congratulate you on the way in which you have carried out your
+investigation."
+
+They parted. Rénine went back to the inn in the village and sent a note to
+Hortense Daniel by hand:
+
+    "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+    "I seemed to gather from your letter that, touched as always by
+    anything that concerns the heart, you were anxious to protect the
+    love-affair of Jérôme and Natalie. Now there is every reason to
+    suppose that these two, without consulting their fair protectress,
+    have run away, after throwing Mathias de Gorne down a well.
+
+    "Forgive me for not coming to see you. The whole thing is extremely
+    obscure; and, if I were with you, I should not have the detachment
+    of mind which is needed to think the case over."
+
+It was then half-past ten. Rénine went for a walk into the country, with
+his hands clasped behind his back and without vouchsafing a glance at the
+exquisite spectacle of the white meadows. He came back for lunch, still
+absorbed in his thoughts and indifferent to the talk of the customers of
+the inn, who on all sides were discussing recent events.
+
+He went up to his room and had been asleep some time when he was awakened
+by a tapping at the door. He got up and opened it:
+
+"Is it you?... Is it you?" he whispered.
+
+Hortense and he stood gazing at each other for some seconds in silence,
+holding each other's hands, as though nothing, no irrelevant thought and no
+utterance, must be allowed to interfere with the joy of their meeting. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Was I right in coming?"
+
+"Yes," she said, gently, "I expected you."
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better if you had sent for me sooner, instead
+of waiting.... Events did not wait, you see, and I don't quite know what's
+to become of Jérôme Vignal and Natalie de Gorne."
+
+"What, haven't you heard?" she said, quickly. "They've been arrested. They
+were going to travel by the express."
+
+"Arrested? No." Rénine objected. "People are not arrested like that. They
+have to be questioned first."
+
+"That's what's being done now. The authorities are making a search."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the château. And, as they are innocent.... For they are innocent,
+aren't they? You don't admit that they are guilty, any more than I do?"
+
+He replied:
+
+"I admit nothing, I can admit nothing, my dear. Nevertheless, I am bound
+to say that everything is against them ... except one fact, which is that
+everything is too much against them. It is not normal for so many proofs to
+be heaped up one on top of the other and for the man who commits a murder
+to tell his story so frankly. Apart from this, there's nothing but mystery
+and discrepancy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I am greatly puzzled."
+
+"But you have a plan?"
+
+"None at all, so far. Ah, if I could see him, Jérôme Vignal, and her,
+Natalie de Gorne, and hear them and know what they are saying in their own
+defence! But you can understand that I sha'n't be permitted either to ask
+them any questions or to be present at their examination. Besides, it must
+be finished by this time."
+
+"It's finished at the château," she said, "but it's going to be continued
+at the manor-house."
+
+"Are they taking them to the manor-house?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes ... at least, judging by what was said to the chauffeur of one of the
+procurator's two cars."
+
+"Oh, in that case," exclaimed Rénine, "the thing's done! The manor-house!
+Why, we shall be in the front row of the stalls! We shall see and hear
+everything; and, as a word, a tone of the voice, a quiver of the eyelids
+will be enough to give me the tiny clue I need, we may entertain some hope.
+Come along."
+
+He took her by the direct route which he had followed that morning, leading
+to the gate which the locksmith had opened. The gendarmes on duty at
+the manor-house had made a passage through the snow, beside the line of
+footprints and around the house. Chance enabled Rénine and Hortense to
+approach unseen and through a side-window to enter a corridor near a
+back-staircase. A few steps up was a little chamber which received its
+only light through a sort of bull's-eye, from the large room on the
+ground-floor. Rénine, during the morning visit, had noticed the bull's-eye,
+which was covered on the inside with a piece of cloth. He removed the cloth
+and cut out one of the panes.
+
+A few minutes later, a sound of voices rose from the other side of the
+house, no doubt near the well. The sound grew more distinct. A number of
+people flocked into the house. Some of them went up stairs to the first
+floor, while the sergeant arrived with a young man of whom Rénine and
+Hortense were able to distinguish only the tall figure:
+
+"Jérôme Vignal," said she.
+
+"Yes," said Rénine. "They are examining Madame de Gorne first, upstairs,
+in her bedroom."
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. Then the persons on the first floor came
+downstairs and went in. They were the procurator's deputy, his clerk, a
+commissary of police and two detectives.
+
+Madame de Gorne was shown in and the deputy asked Jérôme Vignal to step
+forward.
+
+Jérôme Vignal's face was certainly that of the strong man whom Hortense had
+depicted in her letter. He displayed no uneasiness, but rather decision and
+a resolute will. Natalie, who was short and very slight, with a feverish
+light in her eyes, nevertheless produced the same impression of quiet
+confidence.
+
+The deputy, who was examining the disordered furniture and the traces of
+the struggle, invited her to sit down and said to Jérôme:
+
+"Monsieur, I have not asked you many questions so far. This is a summary
+enquiry which I am conducting in your presence and which will be continued
+later by the examining-magistrate; and I wished above all to explain to you
+the very serious reasons for which I asked you to interrupt your journey
+and to come back here with Madame de Gorne. You are now in a position to
+refute the truly distressing charges that are hanging over you. I therefore
+ask you to tell me the exact truth."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," replied Jérôme, "the charges in question trouble me very
+little. The truth for which you are asking will defeat all the lies which
+chance has accumulated against me. It is this."
+
+He reflected for an instant and then, in clear, frank tones, said:
+
+"I love Madame de Gorne. The first time I met her, I conceived the greatest
+sympathy and admiration for her. But my affection has always been directed
+by the sole thought of her happiness. I love her, but I respect her even
+more. Madame de Gorne must have told you and I tell you again that she and
+I exchanged our first few words last night."
+
+He continued, in a lower voice:
+
+"I respect her the more inasmuch as she is exceedingly unhappy. All the
+world knows that every minute of her life was a martyrdom. Her husband
+persecuted her with ferocious hatred and frantic jealousy. Ask the
+servants. They will tell you of the long suffering of Natalie de Gorne, of
+the blows which she received and the insults which she had to endure. I
+tried to stop this torture by restoring to the rights of appeal which the
+merest stranger may claim when unhappiness and injustice pass a certain
+limit. I went three times to old de Gorne and begged him to interfere; but
+I found in him an almost equal hatred towards his daughter-in-law, the
+hatred which many people feel for anything beautiful and noble. At last
+I resolved on direct action and last night I took a step with regard to
+Mathias de Gorne which was ... a little unusual, I admit, but which seemed
+likely to succeed, considering the man's character. I swear, Mr. Deputy,
+that I had no other intention than to talk to Mathias de Gorne. Knowing
+certain particulars of his life which enabled me to bring effective
+pressure to bear upon him, I wished to make use of this advantage in order
+to achieve my purpose. If things turned out differently, I am not wholly
+to blame.... So I went there a little before nine o'clock. The servants, I
+knew, were out. He opened the door himself. He was alone."
+
+"Monsieur," said the deputy, interrupting him, "you are saying
+something--as Madame de Gorne, for that matter, did just now--which is
+manifestly opposed to the truth. Mathias de Gorne did not come home last
+night until eleven o'clock. We have two definite proofs of this: his
+father's evidence and the prints of his feet in the snow, which fell from
+a quarter past nine o'clock to eleven."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," Jérôme Vignal declared, without heeding the bad effect which
+his obstinacy was producing, "I am relating things as they were and not as
+they may be interpreted. But to continue. That clock marked ten minutes to
+nine when I entered this room. M. de Gorne, believing that he was about to
+be attacked, had taken down his gun. I placed my revolver on the table, out
+of reach of my hand, and sat down: 'I want to speak to you, monsieur,' I
+said. 'Please listen to me.' He did not stir and did not utter a single
+syllable. So I spoke. And straightway, crudely, without any previous
+explanations which might have softened the bluntness of my proposal, I
+spoke the few words which I had prepared beforehand: 'I have spent some
+months, monsieur,' I said, 'in making careful enquiries into your financial
+position. You have mortgaged every foot of your land. You have signed
+bills which will shortly be falling due and which it will be absolutely
+impossible for you to honour. You have nothing to hope for from your
+father, whose own affairs are in a very bad condition. So you are ruined. I
+have come to save you.'... He watched me, still without speaking, and sat
+down, which I took to mean that my suggestion was not entirely displeasing.
+Then I took a sheaf of bank-notes from my pocket, placed it before him
+and continued: 'Here is sixty thousand francs, monsieur. I will buy the
+Manoir-au-Puits, its lands and dependencies and take over the mortgages.
+The sum named is exactly twice what they are worth.'... I saw his eyes
+glittering. He asked my conditions. 'Only one,' I said, 'that you go to
+America.'... Mr. Deputy, we sat discussing for two hours. It was not that
+my offer roused his indignation--I should not have risked it if I had not
+known with whom I was dealing--but he wanted more and haggled greedily,
+though he refrained from mentioning the name of Madame de Gorne, to whom I
+myself had not once alluded. We might have been two men engaged in a
+dispute and seeking an agreement on common ground, whereas it was the
+happiness and the whole destiny of a woman that were at stake. At last,
+weary of the discussion, I accepted a compromise and we came to terms,
+which I resolved to make definite then and there. Two letters were
+exchanged between us: one in which he made the Manoir-au-Puits over to me
+for the sum which I had paid him; and one, which he pocketed immediately,
+by which I was to send him as much more in America on the day on which the
+decree of divorce was pronounced.... So the affair was settled. I am sure
+that at that moment he was accepting in good faith. He looked upon me less
+as an enemy and a rival than as a man who was doing him a service. He even
+went so far as to give me the key of the little door which opens on the
+fields, so that I might go home by the short cut. Unfortunately, while I
+was picking up my cap and greatcoat, I made the mistake of leaving on the
+table the letter of sale which he had signed. In a moment, Mathias de Gorne
+had seen the advantage which he could take of my slip: he could keep his
+property, keep his wife ... and keep the money. Quick as lightning, he
+tucked away the paper, hit me over the head with the butt-end of his gun,
+threw the gun on the floor and seized me by the throat with both hands. He
+had reckoned without his host. I was the stronger of the two; and after a
+sharp but short struggle, I mastered him and tied him up with a cord which
+I found lying in a corner ... Mr. Deputy, if my enemy's resolve was sudden,
+mine was no less so. Since, when all was said, he had accepted the bargain,
+I would force him to keep it, at least in so far as I was interested. A
+very few steps brought me to the first floor ... I had not a doubt that
+Madame de Gorne was there and had heard the sound of our discussion.
+Switching on the light of my pocket-torch, I looked into three bedrooms.
+The fourth was locked. I knocked at the door. There was no reply. But this
+was one of the moments in which a man allows no obstacle to stand in his
+way. I had seen a hammer in one of the rooms. I picked it up and smashed in
+the door.... Yes, Natalie was lying there, on the floor, in a dead faint. I
+took her in my arms, carried her downstairs and went through the kitchen.
+On seeing the snow outside, I at once realized that my footprints would be
+easily traced. But what did it matter? Was there any reason why I should
+put Mathias de Gorne off the scent? Not at all. With the sixty thousand
+francs in his possession, as well as the paper in which I undertook to pay
+him a like sum on the day of his divorce, to say nothing of his house and
+land, he would go away, leaving Natalie de Gorne to me. Nothing was changed
+between us, except one thing: instead of awaiting his good pleasure, I
+had at once seized the precious pledge which I coveted. What I feared,
+therefore, was not so much any subsequent attack on the part of Mathias
+de Gorne, but rather the indignant reproaches of his wife. What would she
+say when she realized that she was a prisoner in my hands?... The reasons
+why I escaped reproach Madame de Gorne has, I believe, had the frankness
+to tell you. Love calls forth love. That night, in my house, broken by
+emotion, she confessed her feeling for me. She loved me as I loved her.
+Our destinies were henceforth mingled. She and I set out at five o'clock
+this morning ... not foreseeing for an instant that we were amenable to
+the law."
+
+Jérôme Vignal's story was finished. He had told it straight off the reel,
+like a story learnt by heart and incapable of revision in any detail.
+
+There was a brief pause, during which Hortense whispered:
+
+"It all sounds quite possible and, in any case, very logical."
+
+"There are the objections to come," said Rénine. "Wait till you hear them.
+They are very serious. There's one in particular...."
+
+The deputy-procurator stated it at once:
+
+"And what became of M. de Gorne in all this?"
+
+"Mathias de Gorne?" asked Jérôme.
+
+"Yes. You have related, with an accent of great sincerity, a series of
+facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten
+a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied
+him up here, in this room. Well, this morning he was gone."
+
+"Of course, Mr. Deputy, Mathias de Gorne accepted the bargain in the end
+and went away."
+
+"By what road?"
+
+"No doubt by the road that leads to his father's house."
+
+"Where are his footprints? The expanse of snow is an impartial witness.
+After your fight with him, we see you, on the snow, moving away. Why don't
+we see him? He came and did not go away again. Where is he? There is not a
+trace of him ... or rather...."
+
+The deputy lowered his voice:
+
+"Or rather, yes, there are some traces on the way to the well and around
+the well ... traces which prove that the last struggle of all took place
+there.... And after that there is nothing ... not a thing...."
+
+Jérôme shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You have already mentioned this, Mr. Deputy, and it implies a charge of
+homicide against me. I have nothing to say to it."
+
+"Have you anything to say to the fact that your revolver was picked up
+within fifteen yards of the well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or to the strange coincidence between the three shots heard in the night
+and the three cartridges missing from your revolver?"
+
+"No, Mr. Deputy, there was not, as you believe, a last struggle by the
+well, because I left M. de Gorne tied up, in this room, and because I also
+left my revolver here. On the other hand, if shots were heard, they were
+not fired by me."
+
+"A casual coincidence, therefore?"
+
+"That's a matter for the police to explain. My only duty is to tell the
+truth and you are not entitled to ask more of me."
+
+"And if that truth conflicts with the facts observed?"
+
+"It means that the facts are wrong, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"As you please. But, until the day when the police are able to make them
+agree with your statements, you will understand that I am obliged to keep
+you under arrest."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne?" asked Jérôme, greatly distressed.
+
+The deputy did not reply. He exchanged a few words with the commissary of
+police and then, beckoning to a detective, ordered him to bring up one of
+the two motor-cars. Then he turned to Natalie:
+
+"Madame, you have heard M. Vignal's evidence. It agrees word for word with
+your own. M. Vignal declares in particular that you had fainted when he
+carried you away. But did you remain unconscious all the way?"
+
+It seemed as though Jérôme's composure had increased Madame de Gorne's
+assurance. She replied:
+
+"I did not come to, monsieur, until I was at the château."
+
+"It's most extraordinary. Didn't you hear the three shots which were heard
+by almost every one in the village?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"And did you see nothing of what happened beside the well?"
+
+"Nothing did happen. M. Vignal has told you so."
+
+"Then what has become of your husband?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Come, madame, you really must assist the officers of the law and at least
+tell us what you think. Do you believe that there may have been an accident
+and that possibly M. de Gorne, who had been to see his father and had more
+to drink than usual, lost his balance and fell into the well?"
+
+"When my husband came back from seeing his father, he was not in the least
+intoxicated."
+
+"His father, however, has stated that he was. His father and he had drunk
+two or three bottles of wine."
+
+"His father is not telling the truth."
+
+"But the snow tells the truth, madame," said the deputy, irritably. "And
+the line of his footprints wavers from side to side."
+
+"My husband came in at half-past-eight, monsieur, before the snow had begun
+to fall."
+
+The deputy struck the table with his fist:
+
+"But, really, madame, you're going right against the evidence!... That
+sheet of snow cannot speak false!... I may accept your denial of matters
+that cannot be verified. But these footprints in the snow ... in the
+snow...."
+
+He controlled himself.
+
+The motor-car drew up outside the windows. Forming a sudden resolve, he
+said to Natalie:
+
+"You will be good enough to hold yourself at the disposal of the
+authorities, madame, and to remain here, in the manor-house...."
+
+And he made a sign to the sergeant to remove Jérôme Vignal in the car.
+
+The game was lost for the two lovers. Barely united, they had to separate
+and to fight, far away from each other, against the most grievous
+accusations.
+
+Jérôme took a step towards Natalie. They exchanged a long, sorrowful look.
+Then he bowed to her and walked to the door, in the wake of the sergeant of
+gendarmes.
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice. "Sergeant, right about ... turn!... Jérôme Vignal,
+stay where you are!"
+
+The ruffled deputy raised his head, as did the other people present. The
+voice came from the ceiling. The bulls-eye window had opened and Rénine,
+leaning through it, was waving his arms:
+
+"I wish to be heard!... I have several remarks to make ... especially in
+respect of the zigzag footprints!... It all lies in that!... Mathias had
+not been drinking!..."
+
+He had turned round and put his two legs through the opening, saying to
+Hortense, who tried to prevent him:
+
+"Don't move.... No one will disturb you."
+
+And, releasing his hold, he dropped into the room.
+
+The deputy appeared dumfounded:
+
+"But, really, monsieur, who are you? Where do you come from?"
+
+Rénine brushed the dust from his clothes and replied:
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Deputy. I ought to have come the same way as everybody
+else. But I was in a hurry. Besides, if I had come in by the door instead
+of falling from the ceiling, my words would not have made the same
+impression."
+
+The infuriated deputy advanced to meet him:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Prince Rénine. I was with the sergeant this morning when he was pursuing
+his investigations, wasn't I, sergeant? Since then I have been hunting
+about for information. That's why, wishing to be present at the hearing,
+I found a corner in a little private room...."
+
+"You were there? You had the audacity?..."
+
+"One must needs be audacious, when the truth's at stake. If I had not
+been there, I should not have discovered just the one little clue which I
+missed. I should not have known that Mathias de Gorne was not the least bit
+drunk. Now that's the key to the riddle. When we know that, we know the
+solution."
+
+The deputy found himself in a rather ridiculous position. Since he
+had failed to take the necessary precautions to ensure the secrecy of
+his enquiry, it was difficult for him to take any steps against this
+interloper. He growled:
+
+"Let's have done with this. What are you asking?"
+
+"A few minutes of your kind attention."
+
+"And with what object?"
+
+"To establish the innocence of M. Vignal and Madame de Gorne."
+
+He was wearing that calm air, that sort of indifferent look which was
+peculiar to him in moments of actions when the crisis of the drama depended
+solely upon himself. Hortense felt a thrill pass through her and at once
+became full of confidence:
+
+"They're saved," she thought, with sudden emotion. "I asked him to protect
+that young creature; and he is saving her from prison and despair."
+
+Jérôme and Natalie must have experienced the same impression of sudden
+hope, for they had drawn nearer to each other, as though this stranger,
+descended from the clouds, had already given them the right to clasp hands.
+
+The deputy shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"The prosecution will have every means, when the time comes, of
+establishing their innocence for itself. You will be called."
+
+"It would be better to establish it here and now. Any delay might lead to
+grievous consequences."
+
+"I happen to be in a hurry."
+
+"Two or three minutes will do."
+
+"Two or three minutes to explain a case like this!"
+
+"No longer, I assure you."
+
+"Are you as certain of it as all that?"
+
+"I am now. I have been thinking hard since this morning."
+
+The deputy realized that this was one of those gentry who stick to you
+like a leech and that there was nothing for it but to submit. In a rather
+bantering tone, he asked:
+
+"Does your thinking enable you to tell us the exact spot where M. Mathias
+de Gorne is at this moment?"
+
+Rénine took out his watch and answered:
+
+"In Paris, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"In Paris? Alive then?"
+
+"Alive and, what is more, in the pink of health."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it. But then what's the meaning of the footprints
+around the well and the presence of that revolver and those three shots?"
+
+"Simply camouflage."
+
+"Oh, really? Camouflage contrived by whom?"
+
+"By Mathias de Gorne himself."
+
+"That's curious! And with what object?"
+
+"With the object of passing himself off for dead and of arranging
+subsequent matters in such a way that M. Vignal was bound to be accused of
+the death, the murder."
+
+"An ingenious theory," the deputy agreed, still in a satirical tone. "What
+do you think of it, M. Vignal?"
+
+"It is a theory which flashed through my own mind. Mr. Deputy," replied
+Jérôme. "It is quite likely that, after our struggle and after I had gone,
+Mathias de Gorne conceived a new plan by which, this time, his hatred would
+be fully gratified. He both loved and detested his wife. He held me in the
+greatest loathing. This must be his revenge."
+
+"His revenge would cost him dear, considering that, according to your
+statement, Mathias de Gorne was to receive a second sum of sixty thousand
+francs from you."
+
+"He would receive that sum in another quarter, Mr. Deputy. My examination
+of the financial position of the de Gorne family revealed to me the fact
+that the father and son had taken out a life-insurance policy in each
+other's favour. With the son dead, or passing for dead, the father would
+receive the insurance-money and indemnify his son."
+
+"You mean to say," asked the deputy, with a smile, "that in all this
+camouflage, as you call it, M. de Gorne the elder would act as his son's
+accomplice?"
+
+Rénine took up the challenge:
+
+"Just so, Mr. Deputy. The father and son are accomplices.
+
+"Then we shall find the son at the father's?"
+
+"You would have found him there last night."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"He took the train at Pompignat."
+
+"That's a mere supposition."
+
+"No, a certainty."
+
+"A moral certainty, perhaps, but you'll admit there's not the slightest
+proof."
+
+The deputy did not wait for a reply. He considered that he had displayed an
+excessive goodwill and that patience has its limits and he put an end to
+the interview:
+
+"Not the slightest proof," he repeated, taking up his hat. "And, above
+all, ... above all, there's nothing in what you've said that can contradict
+in the very least the evidence of that relentless witness, the snow. To go
+to his father, Mathias de Gorne must have left this house. Which way did he
+go?"
+
+"Hang it all, M. Vignal told you: by the road which leads from here to his
+father's!"
+
+"There are no tracks in the snow."
+
+"Yes, there are."
+
+"But they show him coming here and not going away from here."
+
+"It's the same thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Of course it is. There's more than one way of walking. One doesn't always
+go ahead by following one's nose."
+
+"In what other way can one go ahead?"
+
+"By walking backwards, Mr. Deputy."
+
+These few words, spoken very simply, but in a clear tone which gave full
+value to every syllable, produced a profound silence. Those present at
+once grasped their extreme significance and, by adapting it to the actual
+happenings, perceived in a flash the impenetrable truth, which suddenly
+appeared to be the most natural thing in the world.
+
+Rénine continued his argument. Stepping backwards in the direction of the
+window, he said:
+
+"If I want to get to that window, I can of course walk straight up to it;
+but I can just as easily turn my back to it and walk that way. In either
+case I reach my goal."
+
+And he at once proceeded in a vigorous tone:
+
+"Here's the gist of it all. At half-past eight, before the snow fell, M. de
+Gorne comes home from his father's house. M. Vignal arrives twenty minutes
+later. There is a long discussion and a struggle, taking up three hours in
+all. It is then, after M. Vignal has carried off Madame de Gorne and made
+his escape, that Mathias de Gorne, foaming at the mouth, wild with rage,
+but suddenly seeing his chance of taking the most terrible revenge, hits
+upon the ingenious idea of using against his enemy the very snowfall upon
+whose evidence you are now relying. He therefore plans his own murder, or
+rather the appearance of his murder and of his fall to the bottom of the
+well and makes off backwards, step by step, thus recording his arrival
+instead of his departure on the white page."
+
+The deputy sneered no longer. This eccentric intruder suddenly appeared to
+him in the light of a person worthy of attention, whom it would not do to
+make fun of. He asked:
+
+"And how could he have left his father's house?"
+
+"In a trap, quite simply."
+
+"Who drove it?"
+
+"The father. This morning the sergeant and I saw the trap and spoke to the
+father, who was going to market as usual. The son was hidden under the
+tilt. He took the train at Pompignat and is in Paris by now."
+
+Rénine's explanation, as promised, had taken hardly five minutes. He had
+based it solely on logic and the probabilities of the case. And yet not a
+jot was left of the distressing mystery in which they were floundering. The
+darkness was dispelled. The whole truth appeared.
+
+Madame de Gorne wept for joy and Jérôme Vignal thanked the good genius who
+was changing the course of events with a stroke of his magic wand.
+
+"Shall we examine those footprints together, Mr. Deputy?" asked Rénine. "Do
+you mind? The mistake which the sergeant and I made this morning was to
+investigate only the footprints left by the alleged murderer and to neglect
+Mathias de Gorne's. Why indeed should they have attracted our attention?
+Yet it was precisely there that the crux of the whole affair was to be
+found."
+
+They stepped into the orchard and went to the well. It did not need a
+long examination to observe that many of the footprints were awkward,
+hesitating, too deeply sunk at the heel and toe and differing from one
+another in the angle at which the feet were turned.
+
+"This clumsiness was unavoidable," said Rénine. "Mathias de Gorne would
+have needed a regular apprenticeship before his backward progress could
+have equalled his ordinary gait; and both his father and he must have been
+aware of this, at least as regards the zigzags which you see here since old
+de Gorne went out of his way to tell the sergeant that his son had had too
+much drink." And he added "Indeed it was the detection of this falsehood
+that suddenly enlightened me. When Madame de Gorne stated that her husband
+was not drunk, I thought of the footprints and guessed the truth."
+
+The deputy frankly accepted his part in the matter and began to laugh:
+
+"There's nothing left for it but to send detectives after the bogus
+corpse."
+
+"On what grounds, Mr. Deputy?" asked Rénine. "Mathias de Gorne has
+committed no offence against the law. There's nothing criminal in trampling
+the soil around a well, in shifting the position of a revolver that doesn't
+belong to you, in firing three shots or in walking backwards to one's
+father's house. What can we ask of him? The sixty thousand francs? I
+presume that this is not M. Vignal's intention and that he does not mean to
+bring a charge against him?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Jérôme.
+
+"Well, what then? The insurance-policy in favour of the survivor? But there
+would be no misdemeanour unless the father claimed payment. And I should be
+greatly surprised if he did.... Hullo, here the old chap is! You'll soon
+know all about it."
+
+Old de Gorne was coming along, gesticulating as he walked. His easy-going
+features were screwed up to express sorrow and anger.
+
+"Where's my son?" he cried. "It seems the brute's killed him!... My poor
+Mathias dead! Oh, that scoundrel of a Vignal!"
+
+And he shook his fist at Jérôme.
+
+The deputy said, bluntly:
+
+"A word with you, M. de Gorne. Do you intend to claim your rights under a
+certain insurance-policy?"
+
+"Well, what do _you_ think?" said the old man, off his guard.
+
+"The fact is ... your son's not dead. People are even saying that you were
+a partner in his little schemes and that you stuffed him under the tilt of
+your trap and drove him to the station."
+
+The old fellow spat on the ground, stretched out his hand as though he
+were going to take a solemn oath, stood for an instant without moving and
+then, suddenly, changing his mind and his tactics with ingenuous cynicism,
+he relaxed his features, assumed a conciliatory attitude and burst out
+laughing:
+
+"That blackguard Mathias! So he tried to pass himself off as dead? What a
+rascal! And he reckoned on me to collect the insurance-money and send it
+to him? As if I should be capable of such a low, dirty trick!... You don't
+know me, my boy!"
+
+And, without waiting for more, shaking with merriment like a jolly old
+fellow amused by a funny story, he took his departure, not forgetting,
+however, to set his great hob-nail boots on each of the compromising
+footprints which his son had left behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, when Rénine went back to the manor to let Hortense out, he found
+that she had disappeared.
+
+He called and asked for her at her cousin Ermelin's. Hortense sent down
+word asking him to excuse her: she was feeling a little tired and was lying
+down.
+
+"Capital!" thought Rénine. "Capital! She avoids me, therefore she loves me.
+The end is not far off."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+_To Madame Daniel,
+  La Roncière,
+    near Bassicourt._
+
+"PARIS 30 NOVEMBER
+
+"My Dearest Friend,--
+
+"There has been no letter from you for a fortnight; so I don't expect now
+to receive one for that troublesome date of the 5th of December, which we
+fixed as the last day of our partnership. I rather wish it would come,
+because you will then be released from a contract which no longer seems to
+give you pleasure. To me the seven battles which we fought and won together
+were a time of endless delight and enthusiasm. I was living beside you. I
+was conscious of all the good which that more active and stirring existence
+was doing you. My happiness was so great that I dared not speak of it to
+you or let you see anything of my secret feelings except my desire to
+please you and my passionate devotion. To-day you have had enough of your
+brother in arms. Your will shall be law.
+
+"But, though I bow to your decree, may I remind you what it was that I
+always believed our final adventure would be? May I repeat your words, not
+one of which I have forgotten?
+
+"'I demand,' you said, 'that you shall restore to me a small, antique
+clasp, made of a cornelian set in a filigree mount. It came to me from my
+mother; and every one knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too.
+Since the day when it vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but
+unhappiness. Restore it to me, my good genius.'
+
+"And, when I asked you when the clasp had disappeared, you answered, with a
+laugh:
+
+"'Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine: I don't know exactly.... I
+don't know when ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it....'
+
+"You were challenging me, were you not, and you set me that condition
+because it was one which I could not fulfil? Nevertheless, I promised and I
+should like to keep my promise. What I have tried to do, in order to place
+life before you in a more favourable light, would seem purposeless, if your
+confidence feels the lack of this talisman to which you attach so great a
+value. We must not laugh at these little superstitions. They are often the
+mainspring of our best actions.
+
+"Dear friend, if you had helped me, I should have achieved yet one more
+victory. Alone and hard pushed by the proximity of the date, I have failed,
+not however without placing things on such a footing that the undertaking
+if you care to follow it up, has the greatest chance of success.
+
+"And you will follow it up, won't you? We have entered into a mutual
+agreement which we are bound to honour. It behooves us, within a fixed
+time, to inscribe in the book of our common life eight good stories, to
+which we shall have brought energy, logic, perseverance, some subtlety and
+occasionally a little heroism. This is the eighth of them. It is for you to
+act so that it may be written in its proper place on the 5th of December,
+before the clock strikes eight in the evening.
+
+"And, on that day, you will act as I shall now tell you.
+
+"First of all--and above all, my dear, do not complain that my instructions
+are fanciful: each of them is an indispensable condition of success--first
+of all, cut in your cousin's garden three slender lengths of rush. Plait
+them together and bind up the two ends so as to make a rude switch, like a
+child's whip-lash.
+
+"When you get to Paris, buy a long necklace of jet beads, cut into facets,
+and shorten it so that it consists of seventy-five beads, of almost equal
+size.
+
+"Under your winter cloak, wear a blue woollen gown. On your head, a toque
+with red leaves on it. Round your neck, a feather boa. No gloves. No rings.
+
+"In the afternoon, take a cab along the left bank of the river to the
+church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. At four o'clock exactly, there will be,
+near the holy-water basin, just inside the church, an old woman dressed
+in black, saying her prayers on a silver rosary. She will offer you holy
+water. Give her your necklace. She will count the beads and hand it back
+to you. After this, you will walk behind her, you will cross an arm of the
+Seine and she will lead you, down a lonely street in the Ile Saint-Louis,
+to a house which you will enter by yourself.
+
+"On the ground-floor of this house, you will find a youngish man with a
+very pasty complexion. Take off your cloak and then say to him:
+
+"'I have come to fetch my clasp.'
+
+"Do not be astonished by his agitation or dismay. Keep calm in his
+presence. If he questions you, if he wants to know your reason for applying
+to him or what impels you to make that request, give him no explanation.
+Your replies must be confined to these brief formulas:
+
+"'I have come to fetch what belongs to me. I don't know you, I don't know
+your name; but I am obliged to come to you like this. I must have my clasp
+returned to me. I must.'
+
+"I honestly believe that, if you have the firmness not to swerve from
+that attitude, whatever farce the man may play, you will be completely
+successful. But the contest must be a short one and the issue will depend
+solely on your confidence in yourself and your certainty of success. It
+will be a sort of match in which you must defeat your opponent in the first
+round. If you remain impassive, you will win. If you show hesitation or
+uneasiness, you can do nothing against him. He will escape you and regain
+the upper hand after a first moment of distress; and the game will be lost
+in a few minutes. There is no midway house between victory or ... defeat.
+
+"In the latter event, you would be obliged--I beg you to pardon me for
+saying so--again to accept my collaboration. I offer it you in advance, my
+dear, and without any conditions, while stating quite plainly that all that
+I have been able to do for you and all that I may yet do gives me no other
+right than that of thanking you and devoting myself more than ever to the
+woman who represents my joy, my whole life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense, after reading the letter, folded it up and put it away at the
+back of a drawer, saying, in a resolute voice:
+
+"I sha'n't go."
+
+To begin with, although she had formerly attached some slight importance
+to this trinket, which she had regarded as a mascot, she felt very little
+interest in it now that the period of her trials was apparently at an end.
+She could not forget that figure eight, which was the serial number of the
+next adventure. To launch herself upon it meant taking up the interrupted
+chain, going back to Rénine and giving him a pledge which, with his powers
+of suggestion, he would know how to turn to account.
+
+Two days before the 5th of December, she was still in the same frame of
+mind. So she was on the morning of the 4th; but suddenly, without even
+having to contend against preliminary subterfuges, she ran out into the
+garden, cut three lengths of rush, plaited them as she used to do in her
+childhood and at twelve o'clock had herself driven to the station. She was
+uplifted by an eager curiosity. She was unable to resist all the amusing
+and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Rénine, promised her.
+It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn
+leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their
+mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing
+Rénine what she was capable of doing?
+
+"And then, after all," she said to herself, laughing, "he's summoning me to
+Paris. Now eight o'clock is dangerous to me at a spot three hundred miles
+from Paris, in that old deserted Château de Halingre, but nowhere else. The
+only clock that can strike the threatening hour is down there, under lock
+and key, a prisoner!"
+
+She reached Paris that evening. On the morning of the 5th she went out and
+bought a jet necklace, which she reduced to seventy-five beads, put on
+a blue gown and a toque with red leaves and, at four o'clock precisely,
+entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
+
+Her heart was throbbing violently. This time she was alone; and how acutely
+she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear
+rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around
+her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there ... no one except
+an old lady in black, standing beside the holy water basin.
+
+Hortense went up to her. The old lady, who held a silver rosary in her
+hands, offered her holy water and then began to count the beads of the
+necklace which Hortense gave her.
+
+She whispered:
+
+"Seventy-five. That's right. Come."
+
+Without another word, she toddled along under the light of the
+street-lamps, crossed the Pont des Tournelles to the Ile Saint-Louis and
+went down an empty street leading to a cross-roads, where she stopped in
+front of an old house with wrought-iron balconies:
+
+"Go in," she said.
+
+And the old lady went away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the
+whole of the ground-floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light,
+displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there
+for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A sign-board bore the words "The
+Mercury," together with the name of the owner of the shop, "Pancaldi."
+Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first
+floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot,
+with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense
+noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight
+and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the
+street.
+
+"Now!" she said, under her breath.
+
+She turned the handle of the door and walked in.
+
+Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came
+to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there
+was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed
+with furniture and knick-knacks, many of which looked very valuable.
+Hortense followed a narrow gangway which twisted and turned between two
+walls built up of cupboards, cabinets and console-tables, went up two steps
+and found herself in the last room of all.
+
+A man was sitting at a writing-desk and looking through some account-books.
+Without turning his head, he said:
+
+"I am at your service, madam.... Please look round you...."
+
+This room contained nothing but articles of a special character which
+gave it the appearance of some alchemist's laboratory in the middle ages:
+stuffed owls, skeletons, skulls, copper alembics, astrolabes and all
+around, hanging on the walls, amulets of every description, mainly hands
+of ivory or coral with two fingers pointing to ward off ill-luck.
+
+"Are you wanting anything in particular, madam?" asked M. Pancaldi, closing
+his desk and rising from his chair.
+
+"It's the man," thought Hortense.
+
+He had in fact an uncommonly pasty complexion. A little forked beard,
+flecked with grey, lengthened his face, which was surmounted by a bald,
+pallid forehead, beneath which gleamed a pair of small, prominent,
+restless, shifty eyes.
+
+Hortense, who had not removed her veil or cloak, replied:
+
+"I want a clasp."
+
+"They're in this show-case," he said, leading the way to the connecting
+room.
+
+Hortense glanced over the glass case and said:
+
+"No, no, ... I don't see what I'm looking for. I don't want just any clasp,
+but a clasp which I lost out of a jewel-case some years ago and which I
+have to look for here."
+
+She was astounded to see the commotion displayed on his features. His eyes
+became haggard.
+
+"Here?... I don't think you are in the least likely.... What sort of clasp
+is it?..."
+
+"A cornelian, mounted in gold filigree ... of the 1830 period."
+
+"I don't understand," he stammered. "Why do you come to me?"
+
+She now removed her veil and laid aside her cloak.
+
+He stepped back, as though terrified by the sight of her, and whispered:
+
+"The blue gown!... The toque!... And--can I believe my eyes?--the jet
+necklace!..."
+
+It was perhaps the whip-lash formed of three rushes that excited him most
+violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and
+ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting
+away in a chair.
+
+Hortense did not move.
+
+"Whatever farce he may play," Rénine had written, "have the courage to
+remain impassive."
+
+Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be
+calm and indifferent.
+
+This lasted for a minute or two, after which M. Pancaldi recovered from
+his swoon, wiped away the perspiration streaming down his forehead and,
+striving to control himself, resumed, in a trembling voice:
+
+"Why do you apply to me?"
+
+"Because the clasp is in your possession."
+
+"Who told you that?" he said, without denying the accusation. "How do you
+know?"
+
+"I know because it is so. Nobody has told me anything. I came here positive
+that I should find my clasp and with the immovable determination to take it
+away with me."
+
+"But do you know me? Do you know my name?"
+
+"I don't know you. I did not know your name before I read it over your
+shop. To me you are simply the man who is going to give me back what
+belongs to me."
+
+He was greatly agitated. He kept on walking to and fro in a small empty
+space surrounded by a circle of piled-up furniture, at which he hit out
+idiotically, at the risk of bringing it down.
+
+Hortense felt that she had the whip hand of him; and, profiting by his
+confusion, she said, suddenly, in a commanding and threatening tone:
+
+"Where is the thing? You must give it back to me. I insist upon it."
+
+Pancaldi gave way to a moment of despair. He folded his hands and mumbled a
+few words of entreaty. Then, defeated and suddenly resigned, he said, more
+distinctly:
+
+"You insist?..."
+
+"I do. You must give it to me."
+
+"Yes, yes, I must ... I agree."
+
+"Speak!" she ordered, more harshly still.
+
+"Speak, no, but write: I will write my secret.... And that will be the end
+of me."
+
+He turned to his desk and feverishly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper,
+which he put into an envelope and sealed it:
+
+"See," he said, "here's my secret.... It was my whole life...."
+
+And, so saying, he suddenly pressed against his temple a revolver which he
+had produced from under a pile of papers and fired.
+
+With a quick movement, Hortense struck up his arm. The bullet struck the
+mirror of a cheval-glass. But Pancaldi collapsed and began to groan, as
+though he were wounded.
+
+Hortense made a great effort not to lose her composure:
+
+"Rénine warned me," she reflected. "The man's a play-actor. He has kept the
+envelope. He has kept his revolver, I won't be taken in by him."
+
+Nevertheless, she realized that, despite his apparent calmness, the attempt
+at suicide and the revolver-shot had completely unnerved her. All her
+energies were dispersed, like the sticks of a bundle whose string has been
+cut; and she had a painful impression that the man, who was grovelling at
+her feet, was in reality slowly getting the better of her.
+
+She sat down, exhausted. As Rénine had foretold, the duel had not lasted
+longer than a few minutes but it was she who had succumbed, thanks to her
+feminine nerves and at the very moment when she felt entitled to believe
+that she had won.
+
+The man Pancaldi was fully aware of this; and, without troubling to invent
+a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of
+agile caper before Hortense' eyes and cried, in a jeering tone:
+
+"Now we are going to have a little chat; but it would be a nuisance to be
+at the mercy of the first passing customer, wouldn't it?"
+
+He ran to the street-door, opened it and pulled down the iron shutter which
+closed the shop. Then, still hopping and skipping, he came back to
+Hortense:
+
+"Oof! I really thought I was done for! One more effort, madam, and you
+would have pulled it off. But then I'm such a simple chap! It seemed to me
+that you had come from the back of beyond, as an emissary of Providence,
+to call me to account; and, like a fool, I was about to give the thing
+back.... Ah, Mlle. Hortense--let me call you so: I used to know you by that
+name--Mlle. Hortense, what you lack, to use a vulgar expression, is gut."
+
+He sat down beside her and, with a malicious look, said, savagely:
+
+"The time has come to speak out. Who contrived this business? Not you; eh?
+It's not in your style. Then who?... I have always been honest in my life,
+scrupulously honest ... except once ... in the matter of that clasp. And,
+whereas I thought the story was buried and forgotten, here it is suddenly
+raked up again. Why? That's what I want to know."
+
+Hortense was no longer even attempting to fight. He was bringing to bear
+upon her all his virile strength, all his spite, all his fears, all the
+threats expressed in his furious gestures and on his features, which were
+both ridiculous and evil:
+
+"Speak, I want to know. If I have a secret foe, let me defend myself
+against him! Who is he? Who sent you here? Who urged you to take action? Is
+it a rival incensed by my good luck, who wants in his turn to benefit by
+the clasp? Speak, can't you, damn it all ... or, I swear by Heaven, I'll
+make you!..."
+
+She had an idea that he was reaching out for his revolver and stepped back,
+holding her arms before her, in the hope of escaping.
+
+They thus struggled against each other; and Hortense, who was becoming
+more and more frightened, not so much of the attack as of her assailant's
+distorted face, was beginning to scream, when Pancaldi suddenly stood
+motionless, with his arms before him, his fingers outstretched and his eyes
+staring above Hortense's head:
+
+"Who's there? How did you get in?" he asked, in a stifled voice.
+
+Hortense did not even need to turn round to feel assured that Rénine was
+coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that
+was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure
+stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas: and Rénine came forward with
+a tranquil step.
+
+"Who are you?" repeated Pancaldi. "Where do you come from?"
+
+"From up there," he said, very amiably, pointing to the ceiling.
+
+"From up there?"
+
+"Yes, from the first floor. I have been the tenant of the floor above this
+for the past three months. I heard a noise just now. Some one was calling
+out for help. So I came down."
+
+"But how did you get in here?"
+
+"By the staircase."
+
+"What staircase?"
+
+"The iron staircase, at the end of the shop. The man who owned it before
+you had a flat on my floor and used to go up and down by that hidden
+staircase. You had the door shut off. I opened it."
+
+"But by what right, sir? It amounts to breaking in."
+
+"Breaking in is allowed, when there's a fellow-creature to be rescued."
+
+"Once more, who are you?"
+
+"Prince Rénine ... and a friend of this lady's," said Rénine, bending over
+Hortense and kissing her hand.
+
+Pancaldi seemed to be choking, and mumbled:
+
+"Oh, I understand!... You instigated the plot ... it was you who sent the
+lady...."
+
+"It was, M. Pancaldi, it was!"
+
+"And what are your intentions?"
+
+"My intentions are irreproachable. No violence. Simply a little interview.
+When that is over, you will hand over what I in my turn have come to
+fetch."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The clasp."
+
+"That, never!" shouted the dealer.
+
+"Don't say no. It's a foregone conclusion."
+
+"No power on earth, sir, can compel me to do such a thing!"
+
+"Shall we send for your wife? Madame Pancaldi will perhaps realize the
+position better than you do."
+
+The idea of no longer being alone with this unexpected adversary seemed to
+appeal to Pancaldi. There was a bell on the table beside him. He struck it
+three times.
+
+"Capital!" exclaimed Rénine "You see, my dear, M. Pancaldi is becoming
+quite amiable. Not a trace left of the devil broken loose who was going for
+you just now. No, M. Pancaldi only has to find himself dealing with a man
+to recover his qualities of courtesy and kindness. A perfect sheep! Which
+does not mean that things will go quite of themselves. Far from it! There's
+no more obstinate animal than a sheep...."
+
+Right at the end of the shop, between the dealer's writing-desk and the
+winding staircase, a curtain was raised, admitting a woman who was holding
+a door open. She might have been thirty years of age. Very simply dressed,
+she looked, with the apron on her, more like a cook than like the mistress
+of a household. But she had an attractive face and a pleasing figure.
+
+Hortense, who had followed Rénine, was surprised to recognize her as a maid
+whom she had had in her service when a girl:
+
+"What! Is that you, Lucienne? Are you Madame Pancaldi?"
+
+The newcomer looked at her, recognized her also and seemed embarrassed.
+Rénine said to her:
+
+"Your husband and I need your assistance, Madame Pancaldi, to settle a
+rather complicated matter a matter in which you played an important
+part...."
+
+She came forward without a word, obviously ill at ease, asking her husband,
+who did not take his eyes off her:
+
+"What is it?... What do they want with me?... What is he referring to?"
+
+"It's about the clasp!" Pancaldi whispered, under his breath.
+
+These few words were enough to make Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the
+seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or
+to retort with futile protests. She sank into a chair, sighing:
+
+"Oh, that's it!... I understand.... Mlle. Hortense has found the track....
+Oh, it's all up with us!"
+
+There was a moment's respite. The struggle between the adversaries had
+hardly begun, before the husband and wife adopted the attitude of defeated
+persons whose only hope lay in the victor's clemency. Staring motionless
+before her, Madame Pancaldi began to cry. Rénine bent over her and said:
+
+"Do you mind if we go over the case from the beginning? We shall then
+see things more clearly; and I am sure that our interview will lead to a
+perfectly natural solution.... This is how things happened: nine years ago,
+when you were lady's maid to Mlle. Hortense in the country, you made the
+acquaintance of M. Pancaldi, who soon became your lover. You were both of
+you Corsicans, in other words, you came from a country where superstitions
+are very strong and where questions of good and bad luck, the evil eye, and
+spells and charms exert a profound influence over the lives of one and all.
+Now it was said that your young mistress' clasp had always brought luck to
+its owners. That was why, in a weak moment prompted by M. Pancaldi, you
+stole the clasp. Six months afterwards, you became Madame Pancaldi.... That
+is your whole story, is it not, told in a few sentences? The whole story
+of two people who would have remained honest members of society, if they
+had been able to resist that casual temptation?... I need not tell you how
+you both succeeded in life and how, possessing the talisman, believing
+its powers and trusting in yourselves, you rose to the first rank of
+antiquarians. To-day, well-off, owning this shop, "The Mercury," you
+attribute the success of your undertakings to that clasp. To lose it would
+to your eyes spell bankruptcy and poverty. Your whole life has been centred
+upon it. It is your fetish. It is the little household god who watches over
+you and guides your steps. It is there, somewhere, hidden in this jungle;
+and no one of course would ever have suspected anything--for I repeat, you
+are decent people, but for this one lapse--if an accident had not led me to
+look into your affairs."
+
+Rénine paused and continued:
+
+"That was two months ago, two months of minute investigations, which
+presented no difficulty to me, because, having discovered your trail, I
+hired the flat overhead and was able to use that staircase ... but, all
+the same, two months wasted to a certain extent because I have not yet
+succeeded. And Heaven knows how I have ransacked this shop of yours! There
+is not a piece of furniture that I have left unsearched, not a plank in
+the floor that I have not inspected. All to no purpose. Yes, there was one
+thing, an incidental discovery. In a secret recess in your writing-table,
+Pancaldi, I turned up a little account-book in which you have set down your
+remorse, your uneasiness, your fear of punishment and your dread of God's
+wrath.... It was highly imprudent of you, Pancaldi! People don't write
+such confessions! And, above all, they don't leave them lying about! Be
+this as it may, I read them and I noted one passage, which struck me
+as particularly important and was of use to me in preparing my plan of
+campaign: 'Should she come to me, the woman whom I robbed, should she come
+to me as I saw her in her garden, while Lucienne was taking the clasp;
+should she appear to me wearing the blue gown and the toque of red leaves,
+with the jet necklace and the whip of three plaited rushes which she was
+carrying that day; should she appear to me thus and say: "I have come to
+claim my property," then I shall understand that her conduct is inspired
+from on high and that I must obey the decree of Providence.' That is what
+is written in your book, Pancaldi, and it explains the conduct of the lady
+whom you call Mlle. Hortense. Acting on my instructions and in accordance
+with the setting thought out by yourself, she came to you, from the back of
+beyond, to use your own expression. A little more self-possession on her
+part; and you know that she would have won the day. Unfortunately, you are
+a wonderful actor; your sham suicide put her out; and you understood that
+this was not a decree of Providence, but simply an offensive on the part of
+your former victim. I had no choice, therefore, but to intervene. Here I
+am.... And now let's finish the business. Pancaldi, that clasp!"
+
+"No," said the dealer, who seemed to recover all his energy at the very
+thought of restoring the clasp.
+
+"And you, Madame Pancaldi."
+
+"I don't know where it is," the wife declared.
+
+"Very well. Then let us come to deeds. Madame Pancaldi, you have a son of
+seven whom you love with all your heart. This is Thursday and, as on every
+Thursday, your little boy is to come home alone from his aunt's. Two of my
+friends are posted on the road by which he returns and, in the absence of
+instructions to the contrary, will kidnap him as he passes."
+
+Madame Pancaldi lost her head at once:
+
+"My son! Oh, please, please ... not that!... I swear that I know nothing.
+My husband would never consent to confide in me."
+
+Rénine continued:
+
+"Next point. This evening, I shall lodge an information with the public
+prosecutor. Evidence: the confessions in the account-book. Consequences:
+action by the police, search of the premises and the rest."
+
+Pancaldi was silent. The others had a feeling that all these threats did
+not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself
+to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at Rénine's feet and
+stammered:
+
+"No, no ... I entreat you!... It would mean going to prison and I don't
+want to go!... And then my son!... Oh, I entreat you!..."
+
+Hortense, seized with compassion, took Rénine to one side:
+
+"Poor woman! Let me intercede for her."
+
+"Set your mind at rest," he said. "Nothing is going to happen to her son."
+
+"But your two friends?"
+
+"Sheer bluff."
+
+"Your application to the public prosecutor?"
+
+"A mere threat."
+
+"Then what are you trying to do?"
+
+"To frighten them out of their wits, in the hope of making them drop a
+remark, a word, which will tell us what we want to know. We've tried every
+other means. This is the last; and it is a method which, I find, nearly
+always succeeds. Remember our adventures."
+
+"But if the word which you expect to hear is not spoken?"
+
+"It must be spoken," said Rénine, in a low voice. "We must finish the
+matter. The hour is at hand."
+
+His eyes met hers; and she blushed crimson at the thought that the hour to
+which he was alluding was the eighth and that he had no other object than
+to finish the matter before that eighth hour struck.
+
+"So you see, on the one hand, what you are risking," he said to the
+Pancaldi pair. "The disappearance of your child ... and prison: prison for
+certain, since there is the book with its confessions. And now, on the
+other hand, here's my offer: twenty thousand francs if you hand over the
+clasp immediately, this minute. Remember, it isn't worth three louis."
+
+No reply. Madame Pancaldi was crying.
+
+Rénine resumed, pausing between each proposal:
+
+"I'll double my offer.... I'll treble it.... Hang it all, Pancaldi, you're
+unreasonable!... I suppose you want me to make it a round sum? All right: a
+hundred thousand francs."
+
+He held out his hand as if there was no doubt that they would give him the
+clasp.
+
+Madame Pancaldi was the first to yield and did so with a sudden outburst of
+rage against her husband:
+
+"Well, confess, can't you?... Speak up!... Where have you hidden it?...
+Look here, you aren't going to be obstinate, what? If you are, it means
+ruin ... and poverty.... And then there's our boy!... Speak out, do!"
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Rénine, this is madness; the clasp has no value...."
+
+"Never fear," said Rénine, "he's not going to accept.... But look at
+him.... How excited he is! Exactly what I wanted.... Ah, this, you know,
+is really exciting!... To make people lose their heads! To rob them of all
+control over what they are thinking and saying!... And, in the midst of
+this confusion, in the storm that tosses them to and fro, to catch sight of
+the tiny spark which will flash forth somewhere or other!... Look at him!
+Look at the fellow! A hundred thousand francs for a valueless pebble ... if
+not, prison: it's enough to turn any man's head!"
+
+Pancaldi, in fact, was grey in the face; his lips were trembling and a
+drop of saliva was trickling from their corners. It was easy to guess the
+seething turmoil of his whole being, shaken by conflicting emotions, by the
+clash between greed and fear. Suddenly he burst out; and it was obvious
+that his words were pouring forth at random, without his knowing in the
+least what he was saying:
+
+"A hundred thousand francs! Two hundred thousand! Five hundred thousand! A
+million! A two fig for your millions! What's the use of millions? One loses
+them. They disappear.... They go.... There's only one thing that counts:
+luck. It's on your side or else against you. And luck has been on my side
+these last nine years. It has never betrayed me; and you expect me to
+betray it? Why? Out of fear? Prison? My son? Bosh!... No harm will come to
+me so long as I compel luck to work on my behalf. It's my servant, it's my
+friend. It clings to the clasp. How? How can I tell? It's the cornelian,
+no doubt.... There are magic stones, which hold happiness, as others hold
+fire, or sulphur, or gold...."
+
+Rénine kept his eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least
+modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a
+nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of
+himself: and he walked up to Rénine with jerky movements that revealed an
+increasing resolution:
+
+"Millions? My dear sir, I wouldn't have them as a gift. The little bit of
+stone which I possess is worth much more than that. And the proof of it
+lies in all the pains which you are at to take it from me. Aha! Months
+devoted to looking for it, as you yourself confess! Months in which you
+turned everything topsy-turvy, while I, who suspected nothing, did not even
+defend myself! Why should I? The little thing defended itself all alone....
+It does not want to be discovered and it sha'n't be.... It likes being
+here.... It presides over a good, honest business that satisfies it....
+Pancaldi's luck! Why, it's known to all the neighbourhood, among all the
+dealers! I proclaim it from the house-tops: 'I'm a lucky man!' I even made
+so bold as to take the god of luck, Mercury, as my patron! He too protects
+me. See, I've got Mercuries all over my shop! Look up there, on that shelf,
+a whole row of statuettes, like the one over the front-door, proofs signed
+by a great sculptor who went smash and sold them to me.... Would you like
+one, my dear sir? It will bring you luck too. Take your pick! A present
+from Pancaldi, to make up to you for your defeat! Does that suit you?"
+
+He put a stool against the wall, under the shelf, took down a statuette and
+plumped it into Rénine's arms. And, laughing heartily, growing more and
+more excited as his enemy seemed to yield ground and to fall back before
+his spirited attack, he explained:
+
+"Well done! He accepts! And the fact that he accepts shows that we are all
+agreed! Madame Pancaldi, don't distress yourself. Your son's coming back
+and nobody's going to prison! Good-bye, Mlle. Hortense! Good-day, sir!
+Hope to see you again! If you want to speak to me at any time, just give
+three thumps on the ceiling. Good-bye ... don't forget your present ...
+and may Mercury be kind to you! Good-bye, my dear Prince! Good-bye, Mlle.
+Hortense!..."
+
+He hustled them to the iron staircase, gripped each of them by the arm in
+turn and pushed them up to the little door hidden at the top of the stairs.
+
+And the strange thing was that Rénine made no protest. He did not attempt
+to resist. He allowed himself to be led along like a naughty child that is
+taken up to bed.
+
+Less than five minutes had elapsed between the moment when he made his
+offer to Pancaldi and the moment when Pancaldi turned him out of the shop
+with a statuette in his arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dining-room and drawing-room of the flat which Rénine had taken on the
+first floor looked out upon the street. The table in the dining-room was
+laid for two.
+
+"Forgive me, won't you?" said Rénine, as he opened the door of the
+drawing-room for Hortense. "I thought that, whatever happened, I should
+most likely see you this evening and that we might as well dine together.
+Don't refuse me this kindness, which will be the last favour granted in our
+last adventure."
+
+Hortense did not refuse him. The manner in which the battle had ended was
+so different from everything that she had seen hitherto that she felt
+disconcerted. At any rate, why should she refuse, seeing that the terms of
+the contract had not been fulfilled?
+
+Rénine left the room to give an order to his manservant. Two minutes later,
+he came back for Hortense. It was then a little past seven.
+
+There were flowers on the table; and the statue of Mercury, Pancaldi's
+present, stood overtopping them.
+
+"May the god of luck preside over our repast," said Rénine.
+
+He was full of animation and expressed his great delight at having her
+sitting opposite him:
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "I had to resort to powerful means and attract you by
+the bait of the most fabulous enterprises. You must confess that my letter
+was jolly smart! The three rushes, the blue gown; simply irresistible!
+And, when I had thrown in a few puzzles of my own invention, such as the
+seventy-five beads of the necklace and the old woman with the silver
+rosary, I knew that you were bound to succumb to the temptation. Don't be
+angry with me. I wanted to see you and I wanted it to be today. You have
+come and I thank you."
+
+He next told her how he had got on the track of the stolen trinket:
+
+"You hoped, didn't you, in laying down that condition, that I shouldn't be
+able to fulfil it? You made a mistake, my dear. The test, at least at the
+beginning, was easy enough, because it was based upon an undoubted fact:
+the talismanic character attributed to the clasp. I had only to hunt about
+and see whether among the people around you, among your servants, there was
+ever any one upon whom that character may have exercised some attraction.
+Now, on the list of persons which I succeeded in drawing up. I at once
+noticed the name of Mlle. Lucienne, as coming from Corsica. This was my
+starting-point. The rest was a mere concatenation of events."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement. How was it that he was accepting his
+defeat with such a careless air and even talking in a tone of triumph,
+whereas really he had been soundly beaten by Pancaldi and even made to look
+just a trifle ridiculous?
+
+She could not help letting him feel this; and the fashion in which she did
+so betrayed a certain disappointment, a certain humiliation:
+
+"Everything is a concatenation of events: very well. But the chain is
+broken, because, when all is said, though you know the thief, you did not
+succeed in laying hands upon the stolen clasp."
+
+The reproach was obvious. Rénine had not accustomed her to failure. And
+furthermore she was irritated to see how heedlessly he was accepting a
+blow which, after all, entailed the ruin of any hopes that he might have
+entertained.
+
+He did not reply. He had filled their two glasses with champagne and was
+slowly emptying his own, with his eyes fixed on the statuette of Mercury.
+He turned it about on its pedestal and examined it with the eye of a
+delighted connoisseur:
+
+"What a beautiful thing is a harmonious line! Colour does not uplift me
+so much as outline, proportion, symmetry and all the wonderful properties
+of form. Look at this little statue. Pancaldi's right: it's the work of
+a great artist. The legs are both slender and muscular; the whole figure
+gives an impression of buoyancy and speed. It is very well done. There's
+only one fault, a very slight one: perhaps you've not noticed it?"
+
+"Yes, I have," said Hortense. "It struck me the moment I saw the sign,
+outside. You mean, don't you, a certain lack of balance? The god is leaning
+over too far on the leg that carries him. He looks as though he were going
+to pitch forward."
+
+"That's very clever of you," said Rénine. "The fault is almost
+imperceptible and it needs a trained eye to see it. Really, however, as
+a matter of logic, the weight of the body ought to have its way and, in
+accordance with natural laws, the little god ought to take a header."
+
+After a pause he continued:
+
+"I noticed that flaw on the first day. How was it that I did not draw an
+inference at once? I was shocked because the artist had sinned against
+an aesthetic law, whereas I ought to have been shocked because he had
+overlooked a physical law. As though art and nature were not blended
+together! And as though the laws of gravity could be disturbed without
+some fundamental reason!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Hortense, puzzled by these reflections, which
+seemed so far removed from their secret thoughts. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" he said. "I am only surprised that I didn't understand
+sooner why Mercury did not plump forward, as he should have done."
+
+"And what is the reason?"
+
+"The reason? I imagine that Pancaldi, when pulling the statuette about to
+make it serve his purpose, must have disturbed its balance, but that this
+balance was restored by something which holds the little god back and which
+makes up for his really too dangerous posture."
+
+"Something, you say?"
+
+"Yes, a counterweight."
+
+Hortense gave a start. She too was beginning to see a little light. She
+murmured:
+
+"A counterweight?... Are you thinking that it might be ... in the
+pedestal?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Is that possible? But, if so, how did Pancaldi come to give you this
+statuette?"
+
+"He never gave me _this_ one," Rénine declared. "I took this one
+myself."
+
+"But where? And when?"
+
+"Just now, while you were in the drawing-room. I got out of that window,
+which is just over the signboard and beside the niche containing the little
+god. And I exchanged the two, that is to say, I took the statue which was
+outside and put the one which Pancaldi gave me in its place."
+
+"But doesn't that one lean forward?"
+
+"No, no more than the others do, on the shelf in his shop. But Pancaldi
+is not an artist. A lack of equilibrium does not impress him; he will see
+nothing wrong; and he will continue to think himself favoured by luck,
+which is another way of saying that luck will continue to favour him.
+Meanwhile, here's the statuette, the one used for the sign. Am I to break
+the pedestal and take your clasp out of the leaden sheath, soldered to the
+back of the pedestal, which keeps Mercury steady?"
+
+"No, no, there's no need for that," Hortense hurriedly murmured.
+
+Rénine's intuition, his subtlety, the skill with which he had managed the
+whole business: to her, for the moment, all these things remained in the
+background. But she suddenly remembered that the eighth adventure was
+completed, that Rénine had surmounted every obstacle, that the test had
+turned to his advantage and that the extreme limit of time fixed for the
+last of the adventures was not yet reached.
+
+He had the cruelty to call attention to the fact:
+
+"A quarter to eight," he said.
+
+An oppressive silence fell between them. Both felt its discomfort to such
+a degree that they hesitated to make the least movement. In order to break
+it, Rénine jested:
+
+"That worthy M. Pancaldi, how good it was of him to tell me what I wished
+to know! I knew, however, that by exasperating him, I should end by picking
+up the missing clue in what he said. It was just as though one were to hand
+some one a flint and steel and suggest to him that he was to use it. In the
+end, the spark is obtained. In my case, what produced the spark was the
+unconscious but inevitable comparison which he drew between the cornelian
+clasp, the element of luck, and Mercury, the god of luck. That was enough.
+I understood that this association of ideas arose from his having actually
+associated the two factors of luck by embodying one in the other, or, to
+speak more plainly, by hiding the trinket in the statuette. And I at once
+remembered the Mercury outside the door and its defective poise...."
+
+Rénine suddenly interrupted himself. It seemed to him that all his remarks
+were falling on deaf ears. Hortense had put her hand to her forehead and,
+thus veiling her eyes, sat motionless and remote.
+
+She was indeed not listening. The end of this particular adventure and the
+manner in which Rénine had acted on this occasion no longer interested her.
+What she was thinking of was the complex series of adventures amid which
+she had been living for the past three months and the wonderful behaviour
+of the man who had offered her his devotion. She saw, as in a magic
+picture, the fabulous deeds performed by him, all the good that he had
+done, the lives saved, the sorrows assuaged, the order restored wherever
+his masterly will had been brought to bear. Nothing was impossible to
+him. What he undertook to do he did. Every aim that he set before him
+was attained in advance. And all this without excessive effort, with the
+calmness of one who knows his own strength and knows that nothing can
+resist it.
+
+Then what could she do against him? Why should she defend herself and how?
+If he demanded that she should yield, would he not know how to make her do
+so and would this last adventure be any more difficult for him than the
+others? Supposing that she ran away: did the wide world contain a retreat
+in which she would be safe from his pursuit? From the first moment of their
+first meeting, the end was certain, since Rénine had decreed that it should
+be so.
+
+However, she still cast about for weapons, for protection of some sort; and
+she said to herself that, though he had fulfilled the eight conditions and
+restored the cornelian clasp to her before the eighth hour had struck, she
+was nevertheless protected by the fact that this eighth hour was to strike
+on the clock of the Château de Halingre and not elsewhere. It was a formal
+compact. Rénine had said that day, gazing on the lips which he longed to
+kiss:
+
+"The old brass pendulum will start swinging again; and, when, on the fixed
+date, the clock once more strikes eight, then...."
+
+She looked up. He was not moving either, but sat solemnly, patiently
+waiting.
+
+She was on the point of saying, she was even preparing her words:
+
+"You know, our agreement says it must be the Halingre clock. All the other
+conditions have been fulfilled ... but not this one. So I am free, am I
+not? I am entitled not to keep my promise, which, moreover, I never made,
+but which in any case falls to the ground?... And I am perfectly free ...
+released from any scruple of conscience?..."
+
+She had not time to speak. At that precise moment, there was a click behind
+her, like that of a clock about to strike.
+
+A first stroke sounded, then a second, then a third.
+
+Hortense moaned. She had recognized the very sound of the old clock, the
+Halingre clock, which three months ago, by breaking in a supernatural
+manner the silence of the deserted château, had set both of them on the
+road of the eight adventures.
+
+She counted the strokes. The clock struck eight.
+
+"Ah!" she murmured, half swooning and hiding her face in her hands. "The
+clock ... the clock is here ... the one from over there ... I recognize its
+voice...."
+
+She said no more. She felt that Rénine had his eyes fixed upon her and this
+sapped all her energies. Besides, had she been able to recover them, she
+would have been no better off nor sought to offer him the least resistance,
+for the reason that she did not wish to resist. All the adventures were
+over, but one remained to be undertaken, the anticipation of which wiped
+out the memory of all the rest. It was the adventure of love, the most
+delightful, the most bewildering, the most adorable of all adventures. She
+accepted fate's decree, rejoicing in all that might come, because she was
+in love. She smiled in spite of herself, as she reflected that happiness
+was again to enter her life at the very moment when her well-beloved was
+bringing her the cornelian clasp.
+
+The clock struck the hour for the second time.
+
+Hortense raised her eyes to Rénine. She struggled a few seconds longer. But
+she was like a charmed bird, incapable of any movement of revolt; and at
+the eighth stroke she fell upon his breast and offered him her lips....
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theextraordinaryadventuresofarsenelupin b/files/books/unrelated/theextraordinaryadventuresofarsenelupin
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@@ -0,0 +1,7834 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene
+Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Posting Date: March 18, 2009 [EBook #6133]
+Release Date: July, 2004
+Last Updated: November 10, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nathan J. Miller
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ARSÈNE LUPIN, GENTLEMAN-BURGLAR
+
+By Maurice Leblanc
+
+
+
+     Table of Contents:
+
+     I.      The Arrest of Arsène Lupin
+     II.     Arsène Lupin in Prison
+     III.    The Escape of Arsène Lupin
+     IV.     The Mysterious Traveller
+     V.      The Queen’s Necklace
+     VI.     The Seven of Hearts
+     VII.    Madame Imbert’s Safe
+     VIII.   The Black Pearl
+     IX.     Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late
+
+
+
+
+
+I. The Arrest of Arsène Lupin
+
+
+It was a strange ending to a voyage that had commenced in a most
+auspicious manner. The transatlantic steamship ‘La Provence’ was a swift
+and comfortable vessel, under the command of a most affable man. The
+passengers constituted a select and delightful society. The charm of
+new acquaintances and improvised amusements served to make the time pass
+agreeably. We enjoyed the pleasant sensation of being separated from
+the world, living, as it were, upon an unknown island, and consequently
+obliged to be sociable with each other.
+
+Have you ever stopped to consider how much originality and spontaneity
+emanate from these various individuals who, on the preceding evening,
+did not even know each other, and who are now, for several days,
+condemned to lead a life of extreme intimacy, jointly defying the anger
+of the ocean, the terrible onslaught of the waves, the violence of the
+tempest and the agonizing monotony of the calm and sleepy water? Such
+a life becomes a sort of tragic existence, with its storms and its
+grandeurs, its monotony and its diversity; and that is why, perhaps,
+we embark upon that short voyage with mingled feelings of pleasure and
+fear.
+
+But, during the past few years, a new sensation had been added to the
+life of the transatlantic traveler. The little floating island is now
+attached to the world from which it was once quite free. A bond united
+them, even in the very heart of the watery wastes of the Atlantic. That
+bond is the wireless telegraph, by means of which we receive news in
+the most mysterious manner. We know full well that the message is not
+transported by the medium of a hollow wire. No, the mystery is even more
+inexplicable, more romantic, and we must have recourse to the wings of
+the air in order to explain this new miracle. During the first day of
+the voyage, we felt that we were being followed, escorted, preceded
+even, by that distant voice, which, from time to time, whispered to one
+of us a few words from the receding world. Two friends spoke to me. Ten,
+twenty others sent gay or somber words of parting to other passengers.
+
+On the second day, at a distance of five hundred miles from the French
+coast, in the midst of a violent storm, we received the following
+message by means of the wireless telegraph:
+
+“Arsène Lupin is on your vessel, first cabin, blonde hair, wound right
+fore-arm, traveling alone under name of R........”
+
+At that moment, a terrible flash of lightning rent the stormy skies.
+The electric waves were interrupted. The remainder of the dispatch never
+reached us. Of the name under which Arsène Lupin was concealing himself,
+we knew only the initial.
+
+If the news had been of some other character, I have no doubt that the
+secret would have been carefully guarded by the telegraphic operator as
+well as by the officers of the vessel. But it was one of those events
+calculated to escape from the most rigorous discretion. The same day, no
+one knew how, the incident became a matter of current gossip and every
+passenger was aware that the famous Arsène Lupin was hiding in our
+midst.
+
+Arsène Lupin in our midst! the irresponsible burglar whose exploits
+had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the
+mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective,
+had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and
+picturesque surroundings. Arsène Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who
+operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered
+the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving,
+however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: “Arsène Lupin,
+gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine.” Arsène
+Lupin, the man of a thousand disguises: in turn a chauffer, detective,
+bookmaker, Russian physician, Spanish bull-fighter, commercial traveler,
+robust youth, or decrepit old man.
+
+Then consider this startling situation: Arsène Lupin was wandering about
+within the limited bounds of a transatlantic steamer; in that very small
+corner of the world, in that dining saloon, in that smoking room, in
+that music room! Arsène Lupin was, perhaps, this gentleman.... or that
+one.... my neighbor at the table.... the sharer of my stateroom....
+
+“And this condition of affairs will last for five days!” exclaimed Miss
+Nelly Underdown, next morning. “It is unbearable! I hope he will be
+arrested.”
+
+Then, addressing me, she added:
+
+“And you, Monsieur d’Andrézy, you are on intimate terms with the
+captain; surely you know something?”
+
+I should have been delighted had I possessed any information that would
+interest Miss Nelly. She was one of those magnificent creatures who
+inevitably attract attention in every assembly. Wealth and beauty form
+an irresistible combination, and Nelly possessed both.
+
+Educated in Paris under the care of a French mother, she was now going
+to visit her father, the millionaire Underdown of Chicago. She was
+accompanied by one of her friends, Lady Jerland.
+
+At first, I had decided to open a flirtation with her; but, in the
+rapidly growing intimacy of the voyage, I was soon impressed by her
+charming manner and my feelings became too deep and reverential for a
+mere flirtation. Moreover, she accepted my attentions with a certain
+degree of favor. She condescended to laugh at my witticisms and display
+an interest in my stories. Yet I felt that I had a rival in the person
+of a young man with quiet and refined tastes; and it struck me, at
+times, that she preferred his taciturn humor to my Parisian frivolity.
+He formed one in the circle of admirers that surrounded Miss Nelly
+at the time she addressed to me the foregoing question. We were all
+comfortably seated in our deck-chairs. The storm of the preceding
+evening had cleared the sky. The weather was now delightful.
+
+“I have no definite knowledge, mademoiselle,” I replied, “but can not
+we, ourselves, investigate the mystery quite as well as the detective
+Ganimard, the personal enemy of Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“Oh! oh! you are progressing very fast, monsieur.”
+
+“Not at all, mademoiselle. In the first place, let me ask, do you find
+the problem a complicated one?”
+
+“Very complicated.”
+
+“Have you forgotten the key we hold for the solution to the problem?”
+
+“What key?”
+
+“In the first place, Lupin calls himself Monsieur R-------.”
+
+“Rather vague information,” she replied.
+
+“Secondly, he is traveling alone.”
+
+“Does that help you?” she asked.
+
+“Thirdly, he is blonde.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Then we have only to peruse the passenger-list, and proceed by process
+of elimination.”
+
+I had that list in my pocket. I took it out and glanced through it. Then
+I remarked:
+
+“I find that there are only thirteen men on the passenger-list whose
+names begin with the letter R.”
+
+“Only thirteen?”
+
+“Yes, in the first cabin. And of those thirteen, I find that nine of
+them are accompanied by women, children or servants. That leaves only
+four who are traveling alone. First, the Marquis de Raverdan----”
+
+“Secretary to the American Ambassador,” interrupted Miss Nelly. “I know
+him.”
+
+“Major Rawson,” I continued.
+
+“He is my uncle,” some one said.
+
+“Mon. Rivolta.”
+
+“Here!” exclaimed an Italian, whose face was concealed beneath a heavy
+black beard.
+
+Miss Nelly burst into laughter, and exclaimed: “That gentleman can
+scarcely be called a blonde.”
+
+“Very well, then,” I said, “we are forced to the conclusion that the
+guilty party is the last one on the list.”
+
+“What is his name?”
+
+“Mon. Rozaine. Does anyone know him?”
+
+No one answered. But Miss Nelly turned to the taciturn young man, whose
+attentions to her had annoyed me, and said:
+
+“Well, Monsieur Rozaine, why do you not answer?”
+
+All eyes were now turned upon him. He was a blonde. I must confess
+that I myself felt a shock of surprise, and the profound silence that
+followed her question indicated that the others present also viewed
+the situation with a feeling of sudden alarm. However, the idea was an
+absurd one, because the gentleman in question presented an air of the
+most perfect innocence.
+
+“Why do I not answer?” he said. “Because, considering my name, my
+position as a solitary traveler and the color of my hair, I have already
+reached the same conclusion, and now think that I should be arrested.”
+
+He presented a strange appearance as he uttered these words. His thin
+lips were drawn closer than usual and his face was ghastly pale, whilst
+his eyes were streaked with blood. Of course, he was joking, yet his
+appearance and attitude impressed us strangely.
+
+“But you have not the wound?” said Miss Nelly, naively.
+
+“That is true,” he replied, “I lack the wound.”
+
+Then he pulled up his sleeve, removing his cuff, and showed us his arm.
+But that action did not deceive me. He had shown us his left arm, and
+I was on the point of calling his attention to the fact, when another
+incident diverted our attention. Lady Jerland, Miss Nelly’s friend, came
+running towards us in a state of great excitement, exclaiming:
+
+“My jewels, my pearls! Some one has stolen them all!”
+
+No, they were not all gone, as we soon found out. The thief had taken
+only part of them; a very curious thing. Of the diamond sunbursts,
+jeweled pendants, bracelets and necklaces, the thief had taken, not
+the largest but the finest and most valuable stones. The mountings were
+lying upon the table. I saw them there, despoiled of their jewels, like
+flowers from which the beautiful colored petals had been ruthlessly
+plucked. And this theft must have been committed at the time Lady
+Jerland was taking her tea; in broad daylight, in a stateroom opening
+on a much frequented corridor; moreover, the thief had been obliged to
+force open the door of the stateroom, search for the jewel-case, which
+was hidden at the bottom of a hat-box, open it, select his booty and
+remove it from the mountings.
+
+Of course, all the passengers instantly reached the same conclusion; it
+was the work of Arsène Lupin.
+
+That day, at the dinner table, the seats to the right and left of
+Rozaine remained vacant; and, during the evening, it was rumored that
+the captain had placed him under arrest, which information produced a
+feeling of safety and relief. We breathed once more. That evening, we
+resumed our games and dances. Miss Nelly, especially, displayed a spirit
+of thoughtless gayety which convinced me that if Rozaine’s attentions
+had been agreeable to her in the beginning, she had already forgotten
+them. Her charm and good-humor completed my conquest. At midnight, under
+a bright moon, I declared my devotion with an ardor that did not seem to
+displease her.
+
+But, next day, to our general amazement, Rozaine was at liberty.
+We learned that the evidence against him was not sufficient. He had
+produced documents that were perfectly regular, which showed that he
+was the son of a wealthy merchant of Bordeaux. Besides, his arms did not
+bear the slightest trace of a wound.
+
+“Documents! Certificates of birth!” exclaimed the enemies of Rozaine,
+“of course, Arsène Lupin will furnish you as many as you desire. And as
+to the wound, he never had it, or he has removed it.”
+
+Then it was proven that, at the time of the theft, Rozaine was
+promenading on the deck. To which fact, his enemies replied that a man
+like Arsène Lupin could commit a crime without being actually present.
+And then, apart from all other circumstances, there remained one point
+which even the most skeptical could not answer: Who except Rozaine, was
+traveling alone, was a blonde, and bore a name beginning with R? To whom
+did the telegram point, if it were not Rozaine?
+
+And when Rozaine, a few minutes before breakfast, came boldly toward our
+group, Miss Nelly and Lady Jerland arose and walked away.
+
+An hour later, a manuscript circular was passed from hand to hand
+amongst the sailors, the stewards, and the passengers of all classes.
+It announced that Mon. Louis Rozaine offered a reward of ten thousand
+francs for the discovery of Arsène Lupin or other person in possession
+of the stolen jewels.
+
+“And if no one assists me, I will unmask the scoundrel myself,” declared
+Rozaine.
+
+Rozaine against Arsène Lupin, or rather, according to current opinion,
+Arsène Lupin himself against Arsène Lupin; the contest promised to be
+interesting.
+
+Nothing developed during the next two days. We saw Rozaine wandering
+about, day and night, searching, questioning, investigating. The
+captain, also, displayed commendable activity. He caused the vessel to
+be searched from stern to stern; ransacked every stateroom under the
+plausible theory that the jewels might be concealed anywhere, except in
+the thief’s own room.
+
+“I suppose they will find out something soon,” remarked Miss Nelly to
+me. “He may be a wizard, but he cannot make diamonds and pearls become
+invisible.”
+
+“Certainly not,” I replied, “but he should examine the lining of our
+hats and vests and everything we carry with us.”
+
+Then, exhibiting my Kodak, a 9x12 with which I had been photographing
+her in various poses, I added: “In an apparatus no larger than that, a
+person could hide all of Lady Jerland’s jewels. He could pretend to take
+pictures and no one would suspect the game.”
+
+“But I have heard it said that every thief leaves some clue behind him.”
+
+“That may be generally true,” I replied, “but there is one exception:
+Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because he concentrates his thoughts not only on the theft, but on all
+the circumstances connected with it that could serve as a clue to his
+identity.”
+
+“A few days ago, you were more confident.”
+
+“Yes, but since I have seen him at work.”
+
+“And what do you think about it now?” she asked.
+
+“Well, in my opinion, we are wasting our time.”
+
+And, as a matter of fact, the investigation had produced no result. But,
+in the meantime, the captain’s watch had been stolen. He was furious. He
+quickened his efforts and watched Rozaine more closely than before. But,
+on the following day, the watch was found in the second officer’s collar
+box.
+
+This incident caused considerable astonishment, and displayed the
+humorous side of Arsène Lupin, burglar though he was, but dilettante as
+well. He combined business with pleasure. He reminded us of the
+author who almost died in a fit of laughter provoked by his own play.
+Certainly, he was an artist in his particular line of work, and whenever
+I saw Rozaine, gloomy and reserved, and thought of the double role that
+he was playing, I accorded him a certain measure of admiration.
+
+On the following evening, the officer on deck duty heard groans
+emanating from the darkest corner of the ship. He approached and found a
+man lying there, his head enveloped in a thick gray scarf and his hands
+tied together with a heavy cord. It was Rozaine. He had been assaulted,
+thrown down and robbed. A card, pinned to his coat, bore these words:
+“Arsène Lupin accepts with pleasure the ten thousand francs offered by
+Mon. Rozaine.” As a matter of fact, the stolen pocket-book contained
+twenty thousand francs.
+
+Of course, some accused the unfortunate man of having simulated this
+attack on himself. But, apart from the fact that he could not have bound
+himself in that manner, it was established that the writing on the
+card was entirely different from that of Rozaine, but, on the contrary,
+resembled the handwriting of Arsène Lupin as it was reproduced in an old
+newspaper found on board.
+
+Thus it appeared that Rozaine was not Arsène Lupin; but was Rozaine, the
+son of a Bordeaux merchant. And the presence of Arsène Lupin was once
+more affirmed, and that in a most alarming manner.
+
+Such was the state of terror amongst the passengers that none would
+remain alone in a stateroom or wander singly in unfrequented parts of
+the vessel. We clung together as a matter of safety. And yet the most
+intimate acquaintances were estranged by a mutual feeling of distrust.
+Arsène Lupin was, now, anybody and everybody. Our excited imaginations
+attributed to him miraculous and unlimited power. We supposed him
+capable of assuming the most unexpected disguises; of being, by turns,
+the highly respectable Major Rawson or the noble Marquis de Raverdan,
+or even--for we no longer stopped with the accusing letter of R--or even
+such or such a person well known to all of us, and having wife, children
+and servants.
+
+The first wireless dispatches from America brought no news; at
+least, the captain did not communicate any to us. The silence was not
+reassuring.
+
+Our last day on the steamer seemed interminable. We lived in constant
+fear of some disaster. This time, it would not be a simple theft or a
+comparatively harmless assault; it would be a crime, a murder. No one
+imagined that Arsène Lupin would confine himself to those two trifling
+offenses. Absolute master of the ship, the authorities powerless, he
+could do whatever he pleased; our property and lives were at his mercy.
+
+Yet those were delightful hours for me, since they secured to me the
+confidence of Miss Nelly. Deeply moved by those startling events and
+being of a highly nervous nature, she spontaneously sought at my side
+a protection and security that I was pleased to give her. Inwardly, I
+blessed Arsène Lupin. Had he not been the means of bringing me and
+Miss Nelly closer to each other? Thanks to him, I could now indulge in
+delicious dreams of love and happiness--dreams that, I felt, were not
+unwelcome to Miss Nelly. Her smiling eyes authorized me to make them;
+the softness of her voice bade me hope.
+
+As we approached the American shore, the active search for the thief was
+apparently abandoned, and we were anxiously awaiting the supreme moment
+in which the mysterious enigma would be explained. Who was Arsène
+Lupin? Under what name, under what disguise was the famous Arsène Lupin
+concealing himself? And, at last, that supreme moment arrived. If I live
+one hundred years, I shall not forget the slightest details of it.
+
+“How pale you are, Miss Nelly,” I said to my companion, as she leaned
+upon my arm, almost fainting.
+
+“And you!” she replied, “ah! you are so changed.”
+
+“Just think! this is a most exciting moment, and I am delighted to
+spend it with you, Miss Nelly. I hope that your memory will sometimes
+revert---”
+
+But she was not listening. She was nervous and excited. The gangway was
+placed in position, but, before we could use it, the uniformed customs
+officers came on board. Miss Nelly murmured:
+
+“I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that Arsène Lupin escaped from the
+vessel during the voyage.”
+
+“Perhaps he preferred death to dishonor, and plunged into the Atlantic
+rather than be arrested.”
+
+“Oh, do not laugh,” she said.
+
+Suddenly I started, and, in answer to her question, I said:
+
+“Do you see that little old man standing at the bottom of the gangway?”
+
+“With an umbrella and an olive-green coat?”
+
+“It is Ganimard.”
+
+“Ganimard?”
+
+“Yes, the celebrated detective who has sworn to capture Arsène Lupin.
+Ah! I can understand now why we did not receive any news from this side
+of the Atlantic. Ganimard was here! and he always keeps his business
+secret.”
+
+“Then you think he will arrest Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“Who can tell? The unexpected always happens when Arsène Lupin is
+concerned in the affair.”
+
+“Oh!” she exclaimed, with that morbid curiosity peculiar to women, “I
+should like to see him arrested.”
+
+“You will have to be patient. No doubt, Arsène Lupin has already seen
+his enemy and will not be in a hurry to leave the steamer.”
+
+The passengers were now leaving the steamer. Leaning on his umbrella,
+with an air of careless indifference, Ganimard appeared to be paying no
+attention to the crowd that was hurrying down the gangway. The Marquis
+de Raverdan, Major Rawson, the Italian Rivolta, and many others had
+already left the vessel before Rozaine appeared. Poor Rozaine!
+
+“Perhaps it is he, after all,” said Miss Nelly to me. “What do you
+think?”
+
+“I think it would be very interesting to have Ganimard and Rozaine in
+the same picture. You take the camera. I am loaded down.”
+
+I gave her the camera, but too late for her to use it. Rozaine was
+already passing the detective. An American officer, standing behind
+Ganimard, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. The French detective
+shrugged his shoulders and Rozaine passed on. Then, my God, who was
+Arsène Lupin?
+
+“Yes,” said Miss Nelly, aloud, “who can it be?”
+
+Not more than twenty people now remained on board. She scrutinized them
+one by one, fearful that Arsène Lupin was not amongst them.
+
+“We cannot wait much longer,” I said to her.
+
+She started toward the gangway. I followed. But we had not taken ten
+steps when Ganimard barred our passage.
+
+“Well, what is it?” I exclaimed.
+
+“One moment, monsieur. What’s your hurry?”
+
+“I am escorting mademoiselle.”
+
+“One moment,” he repeated, in a tone of authority. Then, gazing into my
+eyes, he said:
+
+“Arsène Lupin, is it not?”
+
+I laughed, and replied: “No, simply Bernard d’Andrézy.”
+
+“Bernard d’Andrézy died in Macedonia three years ago.”
+
+“If Bernard d’Andrézy were dead, I should not be here. But you are
+mistaken. Here are my papers.”
+
+“They are his; and I can tell you exactly how they came into your
+possession.”
+
+“You are a fool!” I exclaimed. “Arsène Lupin sailed under the name of
+R---”
+
+“Yes, another of your tricks; a false scent that deceived them at Havre.
+You play a good game, my boy, but this time luck is against you.”
+
+I hesitated a moment. Then he hit me a sharp blow on the right arm,
+which caused me to utter a cry of pain. He had struck the wound, yet
+unhealed, referred to in the telegram.
+
+I was obliged to surrender. There was no alternative. I turned to Miss
+Nelly, who had heard everything. Our eyes met; then she glanced at the
+Kodak I had placed in her hands, and made a gesture that conveyed to me
+the impression that she understood everything. Yes, there, between the
+narrow folds of black leather, in the hollow centre of the small object
+that I had taken the precaution to place in her hands before Ganimard
+arrested me, it was there I had deposited Rozaine’s twenty thousand
+francs and Lady Jerland’s pearls and diamonds.
+
+Oh! I pledge my oath that, at that solemn moment, when I was in the
+grasp of Ganimard and his two assistants, I was perfectly indifferent to
+everything, to my arrest, the hostility of the people, everything
+except this one question: what will Miss Nelly do with the things I had
+confided to her?
+
+In the absence of that material and conclusive proof, I had nothing
+to fear; but would Miss Nelly decide to furnish that proof? Would she
+betray me? Would she act the part of an enemy who cannot forgive, or
+that of a woman whose scorn is softened by feelings of indulgence and
+involuntary sympathy?
+
+She passed in front of me. I said nothing, but bowed very low. Mingled
+with the other passengers, she advanced to the gangway with my Kodak
+in her hand. It occurred to me that she would not dare to expose me
+publicly, but she might do so when she reached a more private place.
+However, when she had passed only a few feet down the gangway, with
+a movement of simulated awkwardness, she let the camera fall into the
+water between the vessel and the pier. Then she walked down the gangway,
+and was quickly lost to sight in the crowd. She had passed out of my
+life forever.
+
+For a moment, I stood motionless. Then, to Ganimard’s great
+astonishment, I muttered:
+
+“What a pity that I am not an honest man!”
+
+Such was the story of his arrest as narrated to me by Arsène Lupin
+himself. The various incidents, which I shall record in writing at a
+later day, have established between us certain ties.... shall I say of
+friendship? Yes, I venture to believe that Arsène Lupin honors me with
+his friendship, and that it is through friendship that he occasionally
+calls on me, and brings, into the silence of my library, his youthful
+exuberance of spirits, the contagion of his enthusiasm, and the mirth of
+a man for whom destiny has naught but favors and smiles.
+
+His portrait? How can I describe him? I have seen him twenty times and
+each time he was a different person; even he himself said to me on one
+occasion: “I no longer know who I am. I cannot recognize myself in the
+mirror.” Certainly, he was a great actor, and possessed a marvelous
+faculty for disguising himself. Without the slightest effort, he could
+adopt the voice, gestures and mannerisms of another person.
+
+“Why,” said he, “why should I retain a definite form and feature? Why
+not avoid the danger of a personality that is ever the same? My actions
+will serve to identify me.”
+
+Then he added, with a touch of pride:
+
+“So much the better if no one can ever say with absolute certainty:
+There is Arsène Lupin! The essential point is that the public may be
+able to refer to my work and say, without fear of mistake: Arsène Lupin
+did that!”
+
+
+
+
+II. Arsène Lupin in Prison
+
+
+There is no tourist worthy of the name who does not know the banks of
+the Seine, and has not noticed, in passing, the little feudal castle of
+the Malaquis, built upon a rock in the centre of the river. An arched
+bridge connects it with the shore. All around it, the calm waters of the
+great river play peacefully amongst the reeds, and the wagtails flutter
+over the moist crests of the stones.
+
+The history of the Malaquis castle is stormy like its name, harsh like
+its outlines. It has passed through a long series of combats, sieges,
+assaults, rapines and massacres. A recital of the crimes that have been
+committed there would cause the stoutest heart to tremble. There are
+many mysterious legends connected with the castle, and they tell us of
+a famous subterranean tunnel that formerly led to the abbey of Jumieges
+and to the manor of Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII.
+
+In that ancient habitation of heroes and brigands, the Baron Nathan
+Cahorn now lived; or Baron Satan as he was formerly called on the
+Bourse, where he had acquired a fortune with incredible rapidity. The
+lords of Malaquis, absolutely ruined, had been obliged to sell
+the ancient castle at a great sacrifice. It contained an admirable
+collection of furniture, pictures, wood carvings, and faience. The Baron
+lived there alone, attended by three old servants. No one ever enters
+the place. No one had ever beheld the three Rubens that he possessed,
+his two Watteau, his Jean Goujon pulpit, and the many other treasures
+that he had acquired by a vast expenditure of money at public sales.
+
+Baron Satan lived in constant fear, not for himself, but for the
+treasures that he had accumulated with such an earnest devotion and with
+so much perspicacity that the shrewdest merchant could not say that
+the Baron had ever erred in his taste or judgment. He loved them--his
+bibelots. He loved them intensely, like a miser; jealously, like a
+lover. Every day, at sunset, the iron gates at either end of the bridge
+and at the entrance to the court of honor are closed and barred. At
+the least touch on these gates, electric bells will ring throughout the
+castle.
+
+One Thursday in September, a letter-carrier presented himself at the
+gate at the head of the bridge, and, as usual, it was the Baron himself
+who partially opened the heavy portal. He scrutinized the man as
+minutely as if he were a stranger, although the honest face and
+twinkling eyes of the postman had been familiar to the Baron for many
+years. The man laughed, as he said:
+
+“It is only I, Monsieur le Baron. It is not another man wearing my cap
+and blouse.”
+
+“One can never tell,” muttered the Baron.
+
+The man handed him a number of newspapers, and then said:
+
+“And now, Monsieur le Baron, here is something new.”
+
+“Something new?”
+
+“Yes, a letter. A registered letter.”
+
+Living as a recluse, without friends or business relations, the baron
+never received any letters, and the one now presented to him immediately
+aroused within him a feeling of suspicion and distrust. It was like an
+evil omen. Who was this mysterious correspondent that dared to disturb
+the tranquility of his retreat?
+
+“You must sign for it, Monsieur le Baron.”
+
+He signed; then took the letter, waited until the postman had
+disappeared beyond the bend in the road, and, after walking nervously to
+and fro for a few minutes, he leaned against the parapet of the bridge
+and opened the envelope. It contained a sheet of paper, bearing this
+heading: Prison de la Santé, Paris. He looked at the signature: Arsène
+Lupin. Then he read:
+
+  “Monsieur le Baron:
+
+  “There is, in the gallery in your castle, a picture of Philippe
+  de Champaigne, of exquisite finish, which pleases me beyond
+  measure.  Your Rubens are also to my taste, as well as your
+  smallest Watteau.  In the salon to the right, I have noticed the
+  Louis XIII cadence-table, the tapestries of Beauvais, the Empire
+  gueridon signed ‘Jacob,’ and the Renaissance chest.  In the salon
+  to the left, all the cabinet full of jewels and miniatures.
+
+  “For the present, I will content myself with those articles that
+  can be conveniently removed.  I will therefore ask you to pack
+  them carefully and ship them to me, charges prepaid, to the
+  station at Batignolles, within eight days, otherwise I shall be
+  obliged to remove them myself during the night of 27 September;
+  but, under those circumstances, I shall not content myself with
+  the articles above mentioned.
+
+  “Accept my apologies for any inconvenience I may cause you, and
+  believe me to be your humble servant,
+
+                                            “Arsène Lupin.”
+
+  “P. S.--Please do not send the largest Watteau.  Although you
+  paid thirty thousand francs for it, it is only a copy, the
+  original having been burned, under the Directoire by Barras,
+  during a night of debauchery.  Consult the memoirs of Garat.
+
+  “I do not care for the Louis XV chatelaine, as I doubt its
+  authenticity.”
+
+That letter completely upset the baron. Had it borne any other
+signature, he would have been greatly alarmed--but signed by Arsène
+Lupin!
+
+As an habitual reader of the newspapers, he was versed in the history
+of recent crimes, and was therefore well acquainted with the exploits of
+the mysterious burglar. Of course, he knew that Lupin had been arrested
+in America by his enemy Ganimard and was at present incarcerated in the
+Prison de la Santé. But he knew also that any miracle might be expected
+from Arsène Lupin. Moreover, that exact knowledge of the castle, the
+location of the pictures and furniture, gave the affair an alarming
+aspect. How could he have acquired that information concerning things
+that no one had ever seen?
+
+The baron raised his eyes and contemplated the stern outlines of the
+castle, its steep rocky pedestal, the depth of the surrounding water,
+and shrugged his shoulders. Certainly, there was no danger. No one in
+the world could force an entrance to the sanctuary that contained his
+priceless treasures.
+
+No one, perhaps, but Arsène Lupin! For him, gates, walls and drawbridges
+did not exist. What use were the most formidable obstacles or the most
+careful precautions, if Arsène Lupin had decided to effect an entrance?
+
+That evening, he wrote to the Procurer of the Republique at Rouen. He
+enclosed the threatening letter and solicited aid and protection.
+
+The reply came at once to the effect that Arsène Lupin was in custody in
+the Prison de la Santé, under close surveillance, with no opportunity
+to write such a letter, which was, no doubt, the work of some imposter.
+But, as an act of precaution, the Procurer had submitted the letter
+to an expert in handwriting, who declared that, in spite of certain
+resemblances, the writing was not that of the prisoner.
+
+But the words “in spite of certain resemblances” caught the attention of
+the baron; in them, he read the possibility of a doubt which appeared to
+him quite sufficient to warrant the intervention of the law. His fears
+increased. He read Lupin’s letter over and over again. “I shall be
+obliged to remove them myself.” And then there was the fixed date: the
+night of 27 September.
+
+To confide in his servants was a proceeding repugnant to his nature; but
+now, for the first time in many years, he experienced the necessity of
+seeking counsel with some one. Abandoned by the legal official of
+his own district, and feeling unable to defend himself with his own
+resources, he was on the point of going to Paris to engage the services
+of a detective.
+
+Two days passed; on the third day, he was filled with hope and joy as
+he read the following item in the ‘Reveil de Caudebec’, a newspaper
+published in a neighboring town:
+
+“We have the pleasure of entertaining in our city, at the present time,
+the veteran detective Mon. Ganimard who acquired a world-wide reputation
+by his clever capture of Arsène Lupin. He has come here for rest and
+recreation, and, being an enthusiastic fisherman, he threatens to
+capture all the fish in our river.”
+
+Ganimard! Ah, here is the assistance desired by Baron Cahorn! Who could
+baffle the schemes of Arsène Lupin better than Ganimard, the patient and
+astute detective? He was the man for the place.
+
+The baron did not hesitate. The town of Caudebec was only six kilometers
+from the castle, a short distance to a man whose step was accelerated by
+the hope of safety.
+
+After several fruitless attempts to ascertain the detective’s address,
+the baron visited the office of the ‘Reveil,’ situated on the quai.
+There he found the writer of the article who, approaching the window,
+exclaimed:
+
+“Ganimard? Why, you are sure to see him somewhere on the quai with his
+fishing-pole. I met him there and chanced to read his name engraved on
+his rod. Ah, there he is now, under the trees.”
+
+“That little man, wearing a straw hat?”
+
+“Exactly. He is a gruff fellow, with little to say.”
+
+Five minutes later, the baron approached the celebrated Ganimard,
+introduced himself, and sought to commence a conversation, but that
+was a failure. Then he broached the real object of his interview,
+and briefly stated his case. The other listened, motionless, with his
+attention riveted on his fishing-rod. When the baron had finished his
+story, the fisherman turned, with an air of profound pity, and said:
+
+“Monsieur, it is not customary for thieves to warn people they are about
+to rob. Arsène Lupin, especially, would not commit such a folly.”
+
+“But---”
+
+“Monsieur, if I had the least doubt, believe me, the pleasure of
+again capturing Arsène Lupin would place me at your disposal. But,
+unfortunately, that young man is already under lock and key.”
+
+“He may have escaped.”
+
+“No one ever escaped from the Santé.”
+
+“But, he---”
+
+“He, no more than any other.”
+
+“Yet---”
+
+“Well, if he escapes, so much the better. I will catch him again.
+Meanwhile, you go home and sleep soundly. That will do for the present.
+You frighten the fish.”
+
+The conversation was ended. The baron returned to the castle, reassured
+to some extent by Ganimard’s indifference. He examined the bolts,
+watched the servants, and, during the next forty-eight hours, he became
+almost persuaded that his fears were groundless. Certainly, as Ganimard
+had said, thieves do not warn people they are about to rob.
+
+The fateful day was close at hand. It was now the twenty-sixth of
+September and nothing had happened. But at three o’clock the bell rang.
+A boy brought this telegram:
+
+“No goods at Batignolles station. Prepare everything for tomorrow night.
+Arsène.”
+
+This telegram threw the baron into such a state of excitement that he
+even considered the advisability of yielding to Lupin’s demands.
+
+However, he hastened to Caudebec. Ganimard was fishing at the same
+place, seated on a campstool. Without a word, he handed him the
+telegram.
+
+“Well, what of it?” said the detective.
+
+“What of it? But it is tomorrow.”
+
+“What is tomorrow?”
+
+“The robbery! The pillage of my collections!”
+
+Ganimard laid down his fishing-rod, turned to the baron, and exclaimed,
+in a tone of impatience:
+
+“Ah! Do you think I am going to bother myself about such a silly story
+as that!”
+
+“How much do you ask to pass tomorrow night in the castle?”
+
+“Not a sou. Now, leave me alone.”
+
+“Name your own price. I am rich and can pay it.”
+
+This offer disconcerted Ganimard, who replied, calmly:
+
+“I am here on a vacation. I have no right to undertake such work.”
+
+“No one will know. I promise to keep it secret.”
+
+“Oh! nothing will happen.”
+
+“Come! three thousand francs. Will that be enough?”
+
+The detective, after a moment’s reflection, said:
+
+“Very well. But I must warn you that you are throwing your money out of
+the window.”
+
+“I do not care.”
+
+“In that case... but, after all, what do we know about this devil Lupin!
+He may have quite a numerous band of robbers with him. Are you sure of
+your servants?”
+
+“My faith---”
+
+“Better not count on them. I will telegraph for two of my men to help
+me. And now, go! It is better for us not to be seen together. Tomorrow
+evening about nine o’clock.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+The following day--the date fixed by Arsène Lupin--Baron Cahorn arranged
+all his panoply of war, furbished his weapons, and, like a sentinel,
+paced to and fro in front of the castle. He saw nothing, heard nothing.
+At half-past eight o’clock in the evening, he dismissed his servants.
+They occupied rooms in a wing of the building, in a retired spot, well
+removed from the main portion of the castle. Shortly thereafter, the
+baron heard the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Ganimard and his
+two assistants--great, powerful fellows with immense hands, and necks
+like bulls. After asking a few questions relating to the location of the
+various entrances and rooms, Ganimard carefully closed and barricaded
+all the doors and windows through which one could gain access to the
+threatened rooms. He inspected the walls, raised the tapestries, and
+finally installed his assistants in the central gallery which was
+located between the two salons.
+
+“No nonsense! We are not here to sleep. At the slightest sound, open the
+windows of the court and call me. Pay attention also to the water-side.
+Ten metres of perpendicular rock is no obstacle to those devils.”
+
+Ganimard locked his assistants in the gallery, carried away the keys,
+and said to the baron:
+
+“And now, to our post.”
+
+He had chosen for himself a small room located in the thick outer wall,
+between the two principal doors, and which, in former years, had been
+the watchman’s quarters. A peep-hole opened upon the bridge; another on
+the court. In one corner, there was an opening to a tunnel.
+
+“I believe you told me, Monsieur le Baron, that this tunnel is the only
+subterranean entrance to the castle and that it has been closed up for
+time immemorial?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then, unless there is some other entrance, known only to Arsène Lupin,
+we are quite safe.”
+
+He placed three chairs together, stretched himself upon them, lighted
+his pipe and sighed:
+
+“Really, Monsieur le Baron, I feel ashamed to accept your money for such
+a sinecure as this. I will tell the story to my friend Lupin. He will
+enjoy it immensely.”
+
+The baron did not laugh. He was anxiously listening, but heard nothing
+save the beating of his own heart. From time to time, he leaned over the
+tunnel and cast a fearful eye into its depths. He heard the clock strike
+eleven, twelve, one.
+
+Suddenly, he seized Ganimard’s arm. The latter leaped up, awakened from
+his sleep.
+
+“Do you hear?” asked the baron, in a whisper.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“I was snoring, I suppose.”
+
+“No, no, listen.”
+
+“Ah! yes, it is the horn of an automobile.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well! it is very improbable that Lupin would use an automobile like a
+battering-ram to demolish your castle. Come, Monsieur le Baron, return
+to your post. I am going to sleep. Good-night.”
+
+That was the only alarm. Ganimard resumed his interrupted slumbers, and
+the baron heard nothing except the regular snoring of his companion. At
+break of day, they left the room. The castle was enveloped in a profound
+calm; it was a peaceful dawn on the bosom of a tranquil river. They
+mounted the stairs, Cahorn radiant with joy, Ganimard calm as usual.
+They heard no sound; they saw nothing to arouse suspicion.
+
+“What did I tell you, Monsieur le Baron? Really, I should not have
+accepted your offer. I am ashamed.”
+
+He unlocked the door and entered the gallery. Upon two chairs, with
+drooping heads and pendent arms, the detective’s two assistants were
+asleep.
+
+“Tonnerre de nom d’un chien!” exclaimed Ganimard. At the same moment,
+the baron cried out:
+
+“The pictures! The credence!”
+
+He stammered, choked, with arms outstretched toward the empty places,
+toward the denuded walls where naught remained but the useless nails
+and cords. The Watteau, disappeared! The Rubens, carried away! The
+tapestries taken down! The cabinets, despoiled of their jewels!
+
+“And my Louis XVI candelabra! And the Regent chandelier!...And my
+twelfth-century Virgin!”
+
+He ran from one spot to another in wildest despair. He recalled the
+purchase price of each article, added up the figures, counted his
+losses, pell-mell, in confused words and unfinished phrases. He stamped
+with rage; he groaned with grief. He acted like a ruined man whose only
+hope is suicide.
+
+If anything could have consoled him, it would have been the stupefaction
+displayed by Ganimard. The famous detective did not move. He appeared
+to be petrified; he examined the room in a listless manner. The
+windows?.... closed. The locks on the doors?.... intact. Not a break in
+the ceiling; not a hole in the floor. Everything was in perfect order.
+The theft had been carried out methodically, according to a logical and
+inexorable plan.
+
+“Arsène Lupin....Arsène Lupin,” he muttered.
+
+Suddenly, as if moved by anger, he rushed upon his two assistants and
+shook them violently. They did not awaken.
+
+“The devil!” he cried. “Can it be possible?”
+
+He leaned over them and, in turn, examined them closely. They were
+asleep; but their response was unnatural.
+
+“They have been drugged,” he said to the baron.
+
+“By whom?”
+
+“By him, of course, or his men under his discretion. That work bears his
+stamp.”
+
+“In that case, I am lost--nothing can be done.”
+
+“Nothing,” assented Ganimard.
+
+“It is dreadful; it is monstrous.”
+
+“Lodge a complaint.”
+
+“What good will that do?”
+
+“Oh; it is well to try it. The law has some resources.”
+
+“The law! Bah! it is useless. You represent the law, and, at this
+moment, when you should be looking for a clue and trying to discover
+something, you do not even stir.”
+
+“Discover something with Arsène Lupin! Why, my dear monsieur, Arsène
+Lupin never leaves any clue behind him. He leaves nothing to chance.
+Sometimes I think he put himself in my way and simply allowed me to
+arrest him in America.”
+
+“Then, I must renounce my pictures! He has taken the gems of my
+collection. I would give a fortune to recover them. If there is no other
+way, let him name his own price.”
+
+Ganimard regarded the baron attentively, as he said:
+
+“Now, that is sensible. Will you stick to it?”
+
+“Yes, yes. But why?”
+
+“An idea that I have.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“We will discuss it later--if the official examination does not succeed.
+But, not one word about me, if you wish my assistance.”
+
+He added, between his teeth:
+
+“It is true I have nothing to boast of in this affair.”
+
+The assistants were gradually regaining consciousness with the
+bewildered air of people who come out of an hypnotic sleep. They opened
+their eyes and looked about them in astonishment. Ganimard questioned
+them; they remembered nothing.
+
+“But you must have seen some one?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Can’t you remember?”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“Did you drink anything?”
+
+They considered a moment, and then one of them replied:
+
+“Yes, I drank a little water.”
+
+“Out of that carafe?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“So did I,” declared the other.
+
+Ganimard smelled and tasted it. It had no particular taste and no odor.
+
+“Come,” he said, “we are wasting our time here. One can’t decide an
+Arsène Lupin problem in five minutes. But, morbleau! I swear I will
+catch him again.”
+
+The same day, a charge of burglary was duly performed by Baron Cahorn
+against Arsène Lupin, a prisoner in the Prison de la Santé.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The baron afterwards regretted making the charge against Lupin when he
+saw his castle delivered over to the gendarmes, the procureur, the judge
+d’instruction, the newspaper reporters and photographers, and a throng
+of idle curiosity-seekers.
+
+The affair soon became a topic of general discussion, and the name of
+Arsène Lupin excited the public imagination to such an extent that the
+newspapers filled their columns with the most fantastic stories of his
+exploits which found ready credence amongst their readers.
+
+But the letter of Arsène Lupin that was published in the ‘Echo de
+France’ (no once ever knew how the newspaper obtained it), that letter
+in which Baron Cahorn was impudently warned of the coming theft, caused
+considerable excitement. The most fabulous theories were advanced. Some
+recalled the existence of the famous subterranean tunnels, and that was
+the line of research pursued by the officers of the law, who searched
+the house from top to bottom, questioned every stone, studied the
+wainscoting and the chimneys, the window-frames and the girders in the
+ceilings. By the light of torches, they examined the immense cellars
+where the lords of Malaquis were wont to store their munitions and
+provisions. They sounded the rocky foundation to its very centre. But it
+was all in vain. They discovered no trace of a subterranean tunnel. No
+secret passage existed.
+
+But the eager public declared that the pictures and furniture could not
+vanish like so many ghosts. They are substantial, material things and
+require doors and windows for their exits and their entrances, and so
+do the people that remove them. Who were those people? How did they gain
+access to the castle? And how did they leave it?
+
+The police officers of Rouen, convinced of their own impotence,
+solicited the assistance of the Parisian detective force. Mon. Dudouis,
+chief of the Sûreté, sent the best sleuths of the iron brigade. He
+himself spent forty-eight hours at the castle, but met with no success.
+Then he sent for Ganimard, whose past services had proved so useful when
+all else failed.
+
+Ganimard listened, in silence, to the instructions of his superior;
+then, shaking his head, he said:
+
+“In my opinion, it is useless to ransack the castle. The solution of the
+problem lies elsewhere.”
+
+“Where, then?”
+
+“With Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“With Arsène Lupin! To support that theory, we must admit his
+intervention.”
+
+“I do admit it. In fact, I consider it quite certain.”
+
+“Come, Ganimard, that is absurd. Arsène Lupin is in prison.”
+
+“I grant you that Arsène Lupin is in prison, closely guarded; but he
+must have fetters on his feet, manacles on his wrists, and gag in his
+mouth before I change my opinion.”
+
+“Why so obstinate, Ganimard?”
+
+“Because Arsène Lupin is the only man in France of sufficient calibre to
+invent and carry out a scheme of that magnitude.”
+
+“Mere words, Ganimard.”
+
+“But true ones. Look! What are they doing? Searching for subterranean
+passages, stones swinging on pivots, and other nonsense of that kind.
+But Lupin doesn’t employ such old-fashioned methods. He is a modern
+cracksman, right up to date.”
+
+“And how would you proceed?”
+
+“I should ask your permission to spend an hour with him.”
+
+“In his cell?”
+
+“Yes. During the return trip from America we became very friendly, and
+I venture to say that if he can give me any information without
+compromising himself he will not hesitate to save me from incurring
+useless trouble.”
+
+It was shortly after noon when Ganimard entered the cell of Arsène
+Lupin. The latter, who was lying on his bed, raised his head and uttered
+a cry of apparent joy.
+
+“Ah! This is a real surprise. My dear Ganimard, here!”
+
+“Ganimard himself.”
+
+“In my chosen retreat, I have felt a desire for many things, but my
+fondest wish was to receive you here.”
+
+“Very kind of you, I am sure.”
+
+“Not at all. You know I hold you in the highest regard.”
+
+“I am proud of it.”
+
+“I have always said: Ganimard is our best detective. He is almost,--you
+see how candid I am!--he is almost as clever as Sherlock Holmes. But I
+am sorry that I cannot offer you anything better than this hard stool.
+And no refreshments! Not even a glass of beer! Of course, you will
+excuse me, as I am here only temporarily.”
+
+Ganimard smiled, and accepted the proffered seat. Then the prisoner
+continued:
+
+“Mon Dieu, how pleased I am to see the face of an honest man. I am so
+tired of those devils of spies who come here ten times a day to ransack
+my pockets and my cell to satisfy themselves that I am not preparing to
+escape. The government is very solicitous on my account.”
+
+“It is quite right.”
+
+“Why so? I should be quite contented if they would allow me to live in
+my own quiet way.”
+
+“On other people’s money.”
+
+“Quite so. That would be so simple. But here, I am joking, and you are,
+no doubt, in a hurry. So let us come to business, Ganimard. To what do I
+owe the honor of this visit?
+
+“The Cahorn affair,” declared Ganimard, frankly.
+
+“Ah! Wait, one moment. You see I have had so many affairs! First, let me
+fix in my mind the circumstances of this particular case....Ah! yes, now
+I have it. The Cahorn affair, Malaquis castle, Seine-Inférieure....Two
+Rubens, a Watteau, and a few trifling articles.”
+
+“Trifling!”
+
+“Oh! ma foi, all that is of slight importance. But it suffices to know
+that the affair interests you. How can I serve you, Ganimard?”
+
+“Must I explain to you what steps the authorities have taken in the
+matter?”
+
+“Not at all. I have read the newspapers and I will frankly state that
+you have made very little progress.”
+
+“And that is the reason I have come to see you.”
+
+“I am entirely at your service.”
+
+“In the first place, the Cahorn affair was managed by you?”
+
+“From A to Z.”
+
+“The letter of warning? the telegram?”
+
+“All mine. I ought to have the receipts somewhere.”
+
+Arsène opened the drawer of a small table of plain white wood which,
+with the bed and stool, constituted all the furniture in his cell, and
+took therefrom two scraps of paper which he handed to Ganimard.
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the detective, in surprise, “I though you were closely
+guarded and searched, and I find that you read the newspapers and
+collect postal receipts.”
+
+“Bah! these people are so stupid! They open the lining of my vest, they
+examine the soles of my shoes, they sound the walls of my cell, but they
+never imagine that Arsène Lupin would be foolish enough to choose such a
+simple hiding place.”
+
+Ganimard laughed, as he said:
+
+“What a droll fellow you are! Really, you bewilder me. But, come now,
+tell me about the Cahorn affair.”
+
+“Oh! oh! not quite so fast! You would rob me of all my secrets; expose
+all my little tricks. That is a very serious matter.”
+
+“Was I wrong to count on your complaisance?”
+
+“No, Ganimard, and since you insist---”
+
+Arsène Lupin paced his cell two or three times, then, stopping before
+Ganimard, he asked:
+
+“What do you think of my letter to the baron?”
+
+“I think you were amusing yourself by playing to the gallery.”
+
+“Ah! playing to the gallery! Come, Ganimard, I thought you knew me
+better. Do I, Arsène Lupin, ever waste my time on such puerilities?
+Would I have written that letter if I could have robbed the baron
+without writing to him? I want you to understand that the letter was
+indispensable; it was the motor that set the whole machine in motion.
+Now, let us discuss together a scheme for the robbery of the Malaquis
+castle. Are you willing?”
+
+“Yes, proceed.”
+
+“Well, let us suppose a castle carefully closed and barricaded like
+that of the Baron Cahorn. Am I to abandon my scheme and renounce the
+treasures that I covet, upon the pretext that the castle which holds
+them is inaccessible?”
+
+“Evidently not.”
+
+“Should I make an assault upon the castle at the head of a band of
+adventurers as they did in ancient times?”
+
+“That would be foolish.”
+
+“Can I gain admittance by stealth or cunning?”
+
+“Impossible.”
+
+“Then there is only one way open to me. I must have the owner of the
+castle invite me to it.”
+
+“That is surely an original method.”
+
+“And how easy! Let us suppose that one day the owner receives a letter
+warning him that a notorious burglar known as Arsène Lupin is plotting
+to rob him. What will he do?”
+
+“Send a letter to the Procureur.”
+
+“Who will laugh at him, because the said Arsène Lupin is actually in
+prison. Then, in his anxiety and fear, the simple man will ask the
+assistance of the first-comer, will he not?”
+
+“Very likely.”
+
+“And if he happens to read in a country newspaper that a celebrated
+detective is spending his vacation in a neighboring town---”
+
+“He will seek that detective.”
+
+“Of course. But, on the other hand, let us presume that, having foreseen
+that state of affairs, the said Arsène Lupin has requested one of his
+friends to visit Caudebec, make the acquaintance of the editor of the
+‘Réveil,’ a newspaper to which the baron is a subscriber, and let said
+editor understand that such person is the celebrated detective--then,
+what will happen?”
+
+“The editor will announce in the ‘Réveil’ the presence in Caudebec of
+said detective.”
+
+“Exactly; and one of two things will happen: either the fish--I mean
+Cahorn--will not bite, and nothing will happen; or, what is more likely,
+he will run and greedily swallow the bait. Thus, behold my Baron Cahorn
+imploring the assistance of one of my friends against me.”
+
+“Original, indeed!”
+
+“Of course, the pseudo-detective at first refuses to give any
+assistance. On top of that comes the telegram from Arsène Lupin. The
+frightened baron rushes once more to my friend and offers him a definite
+sum of money for his services. My friend accepts and summons two members
+of our band, who, during the night, whilst Cahorn is under the watchful
+eye of his protector, removes certain articles by way of the window
+and lowers them with ropes into a nice little launch chartered for the
+occasion. Simple, isn’t it?”
+
+“Marvelous! Marvelous!” exclaimed Ganimard. “The boldness of the scheme
+and the ingenuity of all its details are beyond criticism. But who is
+the detective whose name and fame served as a magnet to attract the
+baron and draw him into your net?”
+
+“There is only one name could do it--only one.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“Arsène Lupin’s personal enemy--the most illustrious Ganimard.”
+
+“I?”
+
+“Yourself, Ganimard. And, really, it is very funny. If you go there, and
+the baron decides to talk, you will find that it will be your duty to
+arrest yourself, just as you arrested me in America. Hein! the revenge
+is really amusing: I cause Ganimard to arrest Ganimard.”
+
+Arsène Lupin laughed heartily. The detective, greatly vexed, bit his
+lips; to him the joke was quite devoid of humor. The arrival of a prison
+guard gave Ganimard an opportunity to recover himself. The man brought
+Arsène Lupin’s luncheon, furnished by a neighboring restaurant. After
+depositing the tray upon the table, the guard retired. Lupin broke his
+bread, ate a few morsels, and continued:
+
+“But, rest easy, my dear Ganimard, you will not go to Malaquis. I can
+tell you something that will astonish you: the Cahorn affair is on the
+point of being settled.”
+
+“Excuse me; I have just seen the Chief of the Sureté.”
+
+“What of that? Does Mon. Dudouis know my business better than I
+do myself? You will learn that Ganimard--excuse me--that the
+pseudo-Ganimard still remains on very good terms with the baron. The
+latter has authorized him to negotiate a very delicate transaction with
+me, and, at the present moment, in consideration of a certain sum, it
+is probable that the baron has recovered possession of his pictures and
+other treasures. And on their return, he will withdraw his complaint.
+Thus, there is no longer any theft, and the law must abandon the case.”
+
+Ganimard regarded the prisoner with a bewildered air.
+
+“And how do you know all that?”
+
+“I have just received the telegram I was expecting.”
+
+“You have just received a telegram?”
+
+“This very moment, my dear friend. Out of politeness, I did not wish to
+read it in your presence. But if you will permit me---”
+
+“You are joking, Lupin.”
+
+“My dear friend, if you will be so kind as to break that egg, you will
+learn for yourself that I am not joking.”
+
+Mechanically, Ganimard obeyed, and cracked the egg-shell with the blade
+of a knife. He uttered a cry of surprise. The shell contained nothing
+but a small piece of blue paper. At the request of Arsène he unfolded
+it. It was a telegram, or rather a portion of a telegram from which the
+post-marks had been removed. It read as follows:
+
+“Contract closed. Hundred thousand balls delivered. All well.”
+
+“One hundred thousand balls?” said Ganimard.
+
+“Yes, one hundred thousand francs. Very little, but then, you know,
+these are hard times....And I have some heavy bills to meet. If you only
+knew my budget.... living in the city comes very high.”
+
+Ganimard arose. His ill humor had disappeared. He reflected for a
+moment, glancing over the whole affair in an effort to discover a weak
+point; then, in a tone and manner that betrayed his admiration of the
+prisoner, he said:
+
+“Fortunately, we do not have a dozen such as you to deal with; if we
+did, we would have to close up shop.”
+
+Arsène Lupin assumed a modest air, as he replied:
+
+“Bah! a person must have some diversion to occupy his leisure hours,
+especially when he is in prison.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Ganimard, “your trial, your defense, the
+examination--isn’t that sufficient to occupy your mind?”
+
+“No, because I have decided not to be present at my trial.”
+
+“Oh! oh!”
+
+Arsène Lupin repeated, positively:
+
+“I shall not be present at my trial.”
+
+“Really!”
+
+“Ah! my dear monsieur, do you suppose I am going to rot upon the wet
+straw? You insult me. Arsène Lupin remains in prison just as long as it
+pleases him, and not one minute more.”
+
+“Perhaps it would have been more prudent if you had avoided getting
+there,” said the detective, ironically.
+
+“Ah! monsieur jests? Monsieur must remember that he had the honor to
+effect my arrest. Know then, my worthy friend, that no one, not even
+you, could have placed a hand upon me if a much more important event had
+not occupied my attention at that critical moment.”
+
+“You astonish me.”
+
+“A woman was looking at me, Ganimard, and I loved her. Do you fully
+understand what that means: to be under the eyes of a woman that one
+loves? I cared for nothing in the world but that. And that is why I am
+here.”
+
+“Permit me to say: you have been here a long time.”
+
+“In the first place, I wished to forget. Do not laugh; it was a
+delightful adventure and it is still a tender memory. Besides, I have
+been suffering from neurasthenia. Life is so feverish these days that it
+is necessary to take the ‘rest cure’ occasionally, and I find this spot
+a sovereign remedy for my tired nerves.”
+
+“Arsène Lupin, you are not a bad fellow, after all.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Lupin. “Ganimard, this is Friday. On Wednesday next,
+at four o’clock in the afternoon, I will smoke my cigar at your house in
+the rue Pergolese.”
+
+“Arsène Lupin, I will expect you.”
+
+They shook hands like two old friends who valued each other at their
+true worth; then the detective stepped to the door.
+
+“Ganimard!”
+
+“What is it?” asked Ganimard, as he turned back.
+
+“You have forgotten your watch.”
+
+“My watch?”
+
+“Yes, it strayed into my pocket.”
+
+He returned the watch, excusing himself.
+
+“Pardon me.... a bad habit. Because they have taken mine is no reason why
+I should take yours. Besides, I have a chronometer here that satisfies
+me fairly well.”
+
+He took from the drawer a large gold watch and heavy chain.
+
+“From whose pocket did that come?” asked Ganimard.
+
+Arsène Lupin gave a hasty glance at the initials engraved on the watch.
+
+“J.B.....Who the devil can that be?....Ah! yes, I remember. Jules
+Bouvier, the judge who conducted my examination. A charming fellow!....”
+
+
+
+
+III. The Escape of Arsène Lupin
+
+
+Arsène Lupin had just finished his repast and taken from his pocket an
+excellent cigar, with a gold band, which he was examining with unusual
+care, when the door of his cell was opened. He had barely time to
+throw the cigar into the drawer and move away from the table. The guard
+entered. It was the hour for exercise.
+
+“I was waiting for you, my dear boy,” exclaimed Lupin, in his accustomed
+good humor.
+
+They went out together. As soon as they had disappeared at a turn in the
+corridor, two men entered the cell and commenced a minute examination
+of it. One was Inspector Dieuzy; the other was Inspector Folenfant. They
+wished to verify their suspicion that Arsène Lupin was in communication
+with his accomplices outside of the prison. On the preceding evening,
+the ‘Grand Journal’ had published these lines addressed to its court
+reporter:
+
+“Monsieur:
+
+“In a recent article you referred to me in most unjustifiable
+terms. Some days before the opening of my trial I will call you to
+account. Arsène Lupin.”
+
+The handwriting was certainly that of Arsène Lupin. Consequently, he
+sent letters; and, no doubt, received letters. It was certain that he
+was preparing for that escape thus arrogantly announced by him.
+
+The situation had become intolerable. Acting in conjunction with the
+examining judge, the chief of the Sûreté, Mon. Dudouis, had visited the
+prison and instructed the gaoler in regard to the precautions necessary
+to insure Lupin’s safety. At the same time, he sent the two men to
+examine the prisoner’s cell. They raised every stone, ransacked the bed,
+did everything customary in such a case, but they discovered nothing,
+and were about to abandon their investigation when the guard entered
+hastily and said:
+
+“The drawer.... look in the table-drawer. When I entered just now he was
+closing it.”
+
+They opened the drawer, and Dieuzy exclaimed:
+
+“Ah! we have him this time.”
+
+Folenfant stopped him.
+
+“Wait a moment. The chief will want to make an inventory.”
+
+“This is a very choice cigar.”
+
+“Leave it there, and notify the chief.”
+
+Two minutes later Mon. Dudouis examined the contents of the drawer.
+First he discovered a bundle of newspaper clippings relating to Arsène
+Lupin taken from the ‘Argus de la Presse,’ then a tobacco-box, a pipe,
+some paper called “onion-peel,” and two books. He read the titles of the
+books. One was an English edition of Carlyle’s “Hero-worship”; the other
+was a charming elzevir, in modern binding, the “Manual of Epictetus,” a
+German translation published at Leyden in 1634. On examining the books,
+he found that all the pages were underlined and annotated. Were they
+prepared as a code for correspondence, or did they simply express the
+studious character of the reader? Then he examined the tobacco-box and
+the pipe. Finally, he took up the famous cigar with its gold band.
+
+“Fichtre!” he exclaimed. “Our friend smokes a good cigar. It’s a Henry
+Clay.”
+
+With the mechanical action of an habitual smoker, he placed the cigar
+close to his ear and squeezed it to make it crack. Immediately he
+uttered a cry of surprise. The cigar had yielded under the pressure
+of his fingers. He examined it more closely, and quickly discovered
+something white between the leaves of tobacco. Delicately, with the aid
+of a pin, he withdrew a roll of very thin paper, scarcely larger than
+a toothpick. It was a letter. He unrolled it, and found these words,
+written in a feminine handwriting:
+
+“The basket has taken the place of the others. Eight out of ten are
+ready. On pressing the outer foot the plate goes downward. From twelve
+to sixteen every day, H-P will wait. But where? Reply at once. Rest
+easy; your friend is watching over you.”
+
+Mon. Dudouis reflected a moment, then said:
+
+“It is quite clear.... the basket.... the eight compartments.... From
+twelve to sixteen means from twelve to four o’clock.”
+
+“But this H-P, that will wait?”
+
+“H-P must mean automobile. H-P, horsepower, is the way they indicate
+strength of the motor. A twenty-four H-P is an automobile of twenty-four
+horsepower.”
+
+Then he rose, and asked:
+
+“Had the prisoner finished his breakfast?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And as he has not yet read the message, which is proved by the
+condition of the cigar, it is probable that he had just received it.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“In his food. Concealed in his bread or in a potato, perhaps.”
+
+“Impossible. His food was allowed to be brought in simply to trap him,
+but we have never found anything in it.”
+
+“We will look for Lupin’s reply this evening. Detain him outside for a
+few minutes. I shall take this to the examining judge, and, if he agrees
+with me, we will have the letter photographed at once, and in an hour
+you can replace the letter in the drawer in a cigar similar to this. The
+prisoner must have no cause for suspicion.”
+
+It was not without a certain curiosity that Mon. Dudouis returned to
+the prison in the evening, accompanied by Inspector Dieuzy. Three empty
+plates were sitting on the stove in the corner.
+
+“He has eaten?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the guard.
+
+“Dieuzy, please cut that macaroni into very small pieces, and open that
+bread-roll....Nothing?”
+
+“No, chief.”
+
+Mon. Dudouis examined the plates, the fork, the spoon, and the knife--an
+ordinary knife with a rounded blade. He turned the handle to the left;
+then to the right. It yielded and unscrewed. The knife was hollow, and
+served as a hiding-place for a sheet of paper.
+
+“Peuh!” he said, “that is not very clever for a man like Arsène. But we
+mustn’t lose any time. You, Dieuzy, go and search the restaurant.”
+
+Then he read the note:
+
+“I trust to you, H-P will follow at a distance every day. I will go
+ahead. Au revoir, dear friend.”
+
+“At last,” cried Mon. Dudouis, rubbing his hands gleefully, “I think we
+have the affair in our own hands. A little strategy on our part, and the
+escape will be a success in so far as the arrest of his confederates are
+concerned.”
+
+“But if Arsène Lupin slips through your fingers?” suggested the guard.
+
+“We will have a sufficient number of men to prevent that. If, however,
+he displays too much cleverness, ma foi, so much the worse for him! As
+to his band of robbers, since the chief refuses to speak, the others
+must.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+And, as a matter of fact, Arsène Lupin had very little to say. For
+several months, Mon. Jules Bouvier, the examining judge, had
+exerted himself in vain. The investigation had been reduced to a few
+uninteresting arguments between the judge and the advocate, Maître
+Danval, one of the leaders of the bar. From time to time, through
+courtesy, Arsène Lupin would speak. One day he said:
+
+“Yes, monsieur, le judge, I quite agree with you: the robbery of the
+Crédit Lyonnais, the theft in the rue de Babylone, the issue of
+the counterfeit bank-notes, the burglaries at the various châteaux,
+Armesnil, Gouret, Imblevain, Groseillers, Malaquis, all my work,
+monsieur, I did it all.”
+
+“Then will you explain to me---”
+
+“It is useless. I confess everything in a lump, everything and even ten
+times more than you know nothing about.”
+
+Wearied by his fruitless task, the judge had suspended his examinations,
+but he resumed them after the two intercepted messages were brought to
+his attention; and regularly, at mid-day, Arsène Lupin was taken from
+the prison to the Dépôt in the prison-van with a certain number of other
+prisoners. They returned about three or four o’clock.
+
+Now, one afternoon, this return trip was made under unusual conditions.
+The other prisoners not having been examined, it was decided to take
+back Arsène Lupin first, thus he found himself alone in the vehicle.
+
+These prison-vans, vulgarly called “panniers à salade”--or
+salad-baskets--are divided lengthwise by a central corridor from which
+open ten compartments, five on either side. Each compartment is so
+arranged that the occupant must assume and retain a sitting posture,
+and, consequently, the five prisoners are seated one upon the other,
+and yet separated one from the other by partitions. A municipal guard,
+standing at one end, watches over the corridor.
+
+Arsène was placed in the third cell on the right, and the heavy vehicle
+started. He carefully calculated when they left the quai de l’Horloge,
+and when they passed the Palais de Justice. Then, about the centre of
+the bridge Saint Michel, with his outer foot, that is to say, his right
+foot, he pressed upon the metal plate that closed his cell. Immediately
+something clicked, and the metal plate moved. He was able to ascertain
+that he was located between the two wheels.
+
+He waited, keeping a sharp look-out. The vehicle was proceeding slowly
+along the boulevard Saint Michel. At the corner of Saint Germain it
+stopped. A truck horse had fallen. The traffic having been interrupted,
+a vast throng of fiacres and omnibuses had gathered there. Arsène Lupin
+looked out. Another prison-van had stopped close to the one he occupied.
+He moved the plate still farther, put his foot on one of the spokes
+of the wheel and leaped to the ground. A coachman saw him, roared with
+laughter, then tried to raise an outcry, but his voice was lost in the
+noise of the traffic that had commenced to move again. Moreover, Arsène
+Lupin was already far away.
+
+He had run for a few steps; but, once upon the sidewalk, he turned
+and looked around; he seemed to scent the wind like a person who is
+uncertain which direction to take. Then, having decided, he put his
+hands in his pockets, and, with the careless air of an idle stroller,
+he proceeded up the boulevard. It was a warm, bright autumn day, and
+the cafés were full. He took a seat on the terrace of one of them. He
+ordered a bock and a package of cigarettes. He emptied his glass slowly,
+smoked one cigarette and lighted a second. Then he asked the waiter to
+send the proprietor to him. When the proprietor came, Arsène spoke to
+him in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone:
+
+“I regret to say, monsieur, I have forgotten my pocketbook. Perhaps, on
+the strength of my name, you will be pleased to give me credit for a few
+days. I am Arsène Lupin.”
+
+The proprietor looked at him, thinking he was joking. But Arsène
+repeated:
+
+“Lupin, prisoner at the Santé, but now a fugitive. I venture to assume
+that the name inspires you with perfect confidence in me.”
+
+And he walked away, amidst shouts of laughter, whilst the proprietor
+stood amazed.
+
+Lupin strolled along the rue Soufflot, and turned into the rue Saint
+Jacques. He pursued his way slowly, smoking his cigarettes and looking
+into the shop-windows. At the Boulevard de Port Royal he took his
+bearings, discovered where he was, and then walked in the direction of
+the rue de la Santé. The high forbidding walls of the prison were
+now before him. He pulled his hat forward to shade his face; then,
+approaching the sentinel, he asked:
+
+“Is this the prison de la Santé?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I wish to regain my cell. The van left me on the way, and I would not
+abuse--”
+
+“Now, young man, move along--quick!” growled the sentinel.
+
+“Pardon me, but I must pass through that gate. And if you prevent Arsène
+Lupin from entering the prison it will cost you dear, my friend.”
+
+“Arsène Lupin! What are you talking about!”
+
+“I am sorry I haven’t a card with me,” said Arsène, fumbling in his
+pockets.
+
+The sentinel eyed him from head to foot, in astonishment. Then, without
+a word, he rang a bell. The iron gate was partly opened, and Arsène
+stepped inside. Almost immediately he encountered the keeper of the
+prison, gesticulating and feigning a violent anger. Arsène smiled and
+said:
+
+“Come, monsieur, don’t play that game with me. What! they take
+the precaution to carry me alone in the van, prepare a nice little
+obstruction, and imagine I am going to take to my heels and rejoin
+my friends. Well, and what about the twenty agents of the Sûreté who
+accompanied us on foot, in fiacres and on bicycles? No, the arrangement
+did not please me. I should not have got away alive. Tell me, monsieur,
+did they count on that?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and added:
+
+“I beg of you, monsieur, not to worry about me. When I wish to escape I
+shall not require any assistance.”
+
+On the second day thereafter, the ‘Echo de France,’ which had apparently
+become the official reporter of the exploits of Arsène Lupin,--it was
+said that he was one of its principal shareholders--published a most
+complete account of this attempted escape. The exact wording of the
+messages exchanged between the prisoner and his mysterious friend, the
+means by which correspondence was constructed, the complicity of the
+police, the promenade on the Boulevard Saint Michel, the incident at the
+café Soufflot, everything was disclosed. It was known that the search of
+the restaurant and its waiters by Inspector Dieuzy had been fruitless.
+And the public also learned an extraordinary thing which demonstrated
+the infinite variety of resources that Lupin possessed: the prison-van,
+in which he was being carried, was prepared for the occasion and
+substituted by his accomplices for one of the six vans which did service
+at the prison.
+
+The next escape of Arsène Lupin was not doubted by anyone. He announced
+it himself, in categorical terms, in a reply to Mon. Bouvier on the day
+following his attempted escape. The judge having made a jest about
+the affair, Arsène was annoyed, and, firmly eyeing the judge, he said,
+emphatically:
+
+“Listen to me, monsieur! I give you my word of honor that this attempted
+flight was simply preliminary to my general plan of escape.”
+
+“I do not understand,” said the judge.
+
+“It is not necessary that you should understand.”
+
+And when the judge, in the course of that examination which was reported
+at length in the columns of the ‘Echo de France,’ when the judge sought
+to resume his investigation, Arsène Lupin exclaimed, with an assumed air
+of lassitude:
+
+“Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, what’s the use! All these questions are of no
+importance!”
+
+“What! No importance?” cried the judge.
+
+“No; because I shall not be present at the trial.”
+
+“You will not be present?”
+
+“No; I have fully decided on that, and nothing will change my mind.”
+
+Such assurance combined with the inexplicable indiscretions that Arsène
+committed every day served to annoy and mystify the officers of the law.
+There were secrets known only to Arsène Lupin; secrets that he alone
+could divulge. But for what purpose did he reveal them? And how?
+
+Arsène Lupin was changed to another cell. The judge closed his
+preliminary investigation. No further proceedings were taken in his case
+for a period of two months, during which time Arsène was seen almost
+constantly lying on his bed with his face turned toward the wall. The
+changing of his cell seemed to discourage him. He refused to see his
+advocate. He exchanged only a few necessary words with his keepers.
+
+During the fortnight preceding his trial, he resumed his vigorous life.
+He complained of want of air. Consequently, early every morning he was
+allowed to exercise in the courtyard, guarded by two men.
+
+Public curiosity had not died out; every day it expected to be regaled
+with news of his escape; and, it is true, he had gained a considerable
+amount of public sympathy by reason of his verve, his gayety, his
+diversity, his inventive genius and the mystery of his life. Arsène
+Lupin must escape. It was his inevitable fate. The public expected it,
+and was surprised that the event had been delayed so long. Every morning
+the Préfect of Police asked his secretary:
+
+“Well, has he escaped yet?”
+
+“No, Monsieur le Préfect.”
+
+“To-morrow, probably.”
+
+And, on the day before the trial, a gentleman called at the office of
+the ‘Grand Journal,’ asked to see the court reporter, threw his card in
+the reporter’s face, and walked rapidly away. These words were written
+on the card: “Arsène Lupin always keeps his promises.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+It was under these conditions that the trial commenced. An enormous
+crowd gathered at the court. Everybody wished to see the famous Arsène
+Lupin. They had a gleeful anticipation that the prisoner would play some
+audacious pranks upon the judge. Advocates and magistrates, reporters
+and men of the world, actresses and society women were crowded together
+on the benches provided for the public.
+
+It was a dark, sombre day, with a steady downpour of rain. Only a
+dim light pervaded the courtroom, and the spectators caught a very
+indistinct view of the prisoner when the guards brought him in. But his
+heavy, shambling walk, the manner in which he dropped into his seat, and
+his passive, stupid appearance were not at all prepossessing. Several
+times his advocate--one of Mon. Danval’s assistants--spoke to him, but
+he simply shook his head and said nothing.
+
+The clerk read the indictment, then the judge spoke:
+
+“Prisoner at the bar, stand up. Your name, age, and occupation?”
+
+Not receiving any reply, the judge repeated:
+
+“Your name? I ask you your name?”
+
+A thick, slow voice muttered:
+
+“Baudru, Désiré.”
+
+A murmur of surprise pervaded the courtroom. But the judge proceeded:
+
+“Baudru, Désiré? Ah! a new alias! Well, as you have already assumed a
+dozen different names and this one is, no doubt, as imaginary as the
+others, we will adhere to the name of Arsène Lupin, by which you are
+more generally known.”
+
+The judge referred to his notes, and continued:
+
+“For, despite the most diligent search, your past history remains
+unknown. Your case is unique in the annals of crime. We know not whom
+you are, whence you came, your birth and breeding--all is a mystery
+to us. Three years ago you appeared in our midst as Arsène Lupin,
+presenting to us a strange combination of intelligence and perversion,
+immorality and generosity. Our knowledge of your life prior to that date
+is vague and problematical. It may be that the man called Rostat who,
+eight years ago, worked with Dickson, the prestidigitator, was none
+other than Arsène Lupin. It is probable that the Russian student who,
+six years ago, attended the laboratory of Doctor Altier at the Saint
+Louis Hospital, and who often astonished the doctor by the ingenuity
+of his hypotheses on subjects of bacteriology and the boldness of his
+experiments in diseases of the skin, was none other than Arsène Lupin.
+It is probable, also, that Arsène Lupin was the professor who introduced
+the Japanese art of jiu-jitsu to the Parisian public. We have some
+reason to believe that Arsène Lupin was the bicyclist who won the Grand
+Prix de l’Exposition, received his ten thousand francs, and was never
+heard of again. Arsène Lupin may have been, also, the person who saved
+so many lives through the little dormer-window at the Charity Bazaar;
+and, at the same time, picked their pockets.”
+
+The judge paused for a moment, then continued:
+
+“Such is that epoch which seems to have been utilized by you in a
+thorough preparation for the warfare you have since waged against
+society; a methodical apprenticeship in which you developed your
+strength, energy and skill to the highest point possible. Do you
+acknowledge the accuracy of these facts?”
+
+During this discourse the prisoner had stood balancing himself, first
+on one foot, then on the other, with shoulders stooped and arms inert.
+Under the strongest light one could observe his extreme thinness, his
+hollow cheeks, his projecting cheek-bones, his earthen-colored face
+dotted with small red spots and framed in a rough, straggling beard.
+Prison life had caused him to age and wither. He had lost the
+youthful face and elegant figure we had seen portrayed so often in the
+newspapers.
+
+It appeared as if he had not heard the question propounded by the
+judge. Twice it was repeated to him. Then he raised his eyes, seemed to
+reflect, then, making a desperate effort, he murmured:
+
+“Baudru, Désiré.”
+
+The judge smiled, as he said:
+
+“I do not understand the theory of your defense, Arsène Lupin. If you
+are seeking to avoid responsibility for your crimes on the ground of
+imbecility, such a line of defense is open to you. But I shall proceed
+with the trial and pay no heed to your vagaries.”
+
+He then narrated at length the various thefts, swindles and forgeries
+charged against Lupin. Sometimes he questioned the prisoner, but the
+latter simply grunted or remained silent. The examination of witnesses
+commenced. Some of the evidence given was immaterial; other portions
+of it seemed more important, but through all of it there ran a vein of
+contradictions and inconsistencies. A wearisome obscurity enveloped
+the proceedings, until Detective Ganimard was called as a witness; then
+interest was revived.
+
+From the beginning the actions of the veteran detective appeared strange
+and unaccountable. He was nervous and ill at ease. Several times he
+looked at the prisoner, with obvious doubt and anxiety. Then, with his
+hands resting on the rail in front of him, he recounted the events in
+which he had participated, including his pursuit of the prisoner
+across Europe and his arrival in America. He was listened to with great
+avidity, as his capture of Arsène Lupin was well known to everyone
+through the medium of the press. Toward the close of his testimony,
+after referring to his conversations with Arsène Lupin, he stopped,
+twice, embarrassed and undecided. It was apparent that he was possessed
+of some thought which he feared to utter. The judge said to him,
+sympathetically:
+
+“If you are ill, you may retire for the present.”
+
+“No, no, but---”
+
+He stopped, looked sharply at the prisoner, and said:
+
+“I ask permission to scrutinize the prisoner at closer range. There is
+some mystery about him that I must solve.”
+
+He approached the accused man, examined him attentively for several
+minutes, then returned to the witness-stand, and, in an almost solemn
+voice, he said:
+
+“I declare, on oath, that the prisoner now before me is not Arsène
+Lupin.”
+
+A profound silence followed the statement. The judge, nonplused for a
+moment, exclaimed:
+
+“Ah! What do you mean? That is absurd!”
+
+The detective continued:
+
+“At first sight there is a certain resemblance, but if you carefully
+consider the nose, the mouth, the hair, the color of skin, you will
+see that it is not Arsène Lupin. And the eyes! Did he ever have those
+alcoholic eyes!”
+
+“Come, come, witness! What do you mean? Do you pretend to say that we
+are trying the wrong man?”
+
+“In my opinion, yes. Arsène Lupin has, in some manner, contrived to put
+this poor devil in his place, unless this man is a willing accomplice.”
+
+This dramatic dénouement caused much laughter and excitement amongst the
+spectators. The judge adjourned the trial, and sent for Mon. Bouvier,
+the gaoler, and guards employed in the prison.
+
+When the trial was resumed, Mon. Bouvier and the gaoler examined the
+accused and declared that there was only a very slight resemblance
+between the prisoner and Arsène Lupin.
+
+“Well, then!” exclaimed the judge, “who is this man? Where does he come
+from? What is he in prison for?”
+
+Two of the prison-guards were called and both of them declared that the
+prisoner was Arsène Lupin. The judged breathed once more.
+
+But one of the guards then said:
+
+“Yes, yes, I think it is he.”
+
+“What!” cried the judge, impatiently, “you *think* it is he! What do you
+mean by that?”
+
+“Well, I saw very little of the prisoner. He was placed in my charge in
+the evening and, for two months, he seldom stirred, but laid on his bed
+with his face to the wall.”
+
+“What about the time prior to those two months?”
+
+“Before that he occupied a cell in another part of the prison. He was
+not in cell 24.”
+
+Here the head gaoler interrupted, and said:
+
+“We changed him to another cell after his attempted escape.”
+
+“But you, monsieur, you have seen him during those two months?”
+
+“I had no occasion to see him. He was always quiet and orderly.”
+
+“And this prisoner is not Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then who is he?” demanded the judge.
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“Then we have before us a man who was substituted for Arsène Lupin, two
+months ago. How do you explain that?”
+
+“I cannot.”
+
+In absolute despair, the judge turned to the accused and addressed him
+in a conciliatory tone:
+
+“Prisoner, can you tell me how, and since when, you became an inmate of
+the Prison de la Santé?”
+
+The engaging manner of the judge was calculated to disarm the mistrust
+and awaken the understanding of the accused man. He tried to reply.
+Finally, under clever and gentle questioning, he succeeded in framing a
+few phrases from which the following story was gleaned: Two months ago
+he had been taken to the Dépôt, examined and released. As he was leaving
+the building, a free man, he was seized by two guards and placed in the
+prison-van. Since then he had occupied cell 24. He was contented there,
+plenty to eat, and he slept well--so he did not complain.
+
+All that seemed probable; and, amidst the mirth and excitement of the
+spectators, the judge adjourned the trial until the story could be
+investigated and verified.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The following facts were at once established by an examination of the
+prison records: Eight weeks before a man named Baudru Désiré had slept
+at the Dépôt. He was released the next day, and left the Dépôt at two
+o’clock in the afternoon. On the same day at two o’clock, having been
+examined for the last time, Arsène Lupin left the Dépôt in a prison-van.
+
+Had the guards made a mistake? Had they been deceived by the resemblance
+and carelessly substituted this man for their prisoner?
+
+Another question suggested itself: Had the substitution been arranged in
+advance? In that event Baudru must have been an accomplice and must have
+caused his own arrest for the express purpose of taking Lupin’s
+place. But then, by what miracle had such a plan, based on a series of
+improbable chances, been carried to success?
+
+Baudru Désiré was turned over to the anthropological service; they
+had never seen anything like him. However, they easily traced his past
+history. He was known at Courbevois, at Asnières and at Levallois.
+He lived on alms and slept in one of those rag-picker’s huts near the
+barrier de Ternes. He had disappeared from there a year ago.
+
+Had he been enticed away by Arsène Lupin? There was no evidence to that
+effect. And even if that was so, it did not explain the flight of the
+prisoner. That still remained a mystery. Amongst twenty theories which
+sought to explain it, not one was satisfactory. Of the escape itself,
+there was no doubt; an escape that was incomprehensible, sensational,
+in which the public, as well as the officers of the law, could detect
+a carefully prepared plan, a combination of circumstances marvelously
+dove-tailed, whereof the dénouement fully justified the confident
+prediction of Arsène Lupin: “I shall not be present at my trial.”
+
+After a month of patient investigation, the problem remained unsolved.
+The poor devil of a Baudru could not be kept in prison indefinitely, and
+to place him on trial would be ridiculous. There was no charge against
+him. Consequently, he was released; but the chief of the Sûrété resolved
+to keep him under surveillance. This idea originated with Ganimard. From
+his point of view there was neither complicity nor chance. Baudru was
+an instrument upon which Arsène Lupin had played with his extraordinary
+skill. Baudru, when set at liberty, would lead them to Arsène Lupin or,
+at least, to some of his accomplices. The two inspectors, Folenfant and
+Dieuzy, were assigned to assist Ganimard.
+
+One foggy morning in January the prison gates opened and Baudru Désiré
+stepped forth--a free man. At first he appeared to be quite embarrassed,
+and walked like a person who has no precise idea whither he is going.
+He followed the rue de la Santé and the rue Saint Jacques. He stopped in
+front of an old-clothes shop, removed his jacket and his vest, sold his
+vest on which he realized a few sous; then, replacing his jacket, he
+proceeded on his way. He crossed the Seine. At the Châtelet an
+omnibus passed him. He wished to enter it, but there was no place.
+The controller advised him to secure a number, so he entered the
+waiting-room.
+
+Ganimard called to his two assistants, and, without removing his eyes
+from the waiting room, he said to them:
+
+“Stop a carriage.... no, two. That will be better. I will go with one of
+you, and we will follow him.”
+
+The men obeyed. Yet Baudru did not appear. Ganimard entered the
+waiting-room. It was empty.
+
+“Idiot that I am!” he muttered, “I forgot there was another exit.”
+
+There was an interior corridor extending from the waiting-room to the
+rue Saint Martin. Ganimard rushed through it and arrived just in time to
+observe Baudru upon the top of the Batignolles-Jardin de Plates omnibus
+as it was turning the corner of the rue de Rivoli. He ran and caught
+the omnibus. But he had lost his two assistants. He must continue the
+pursuit alone. In his anger he was inclined to seize the man by the
+collar without ceremony. Was it not with premeditation and by means of
+an ingenious ruse that his pretended imbecile had separated him from his
+assistants?
+
+He looked at Baudru. The latter was asleep on the bench, his head
+rolling from side to side, his mouth half-opened, and an incredible
+expression of stupidity on his blotched face. No, such an adversary was
+incapable of deceiving old Ganimard. It was a stroke of luck--nothing
+more.
+
+At the Galleries-Lafayette, the man leaped from the omnibus and took
+the La Muette tramway, following the boulevard Haussmann and the
+avenue Victor Hugo. Baudru alighted at La Muette station; and, with a
+nonchalant air, strolled into the Bois de Boulogne.
+
+He wandered through one path after another, and sometimes retraced his
+steps. What was he seeking? Had he any definite object? At the end of
+an hour, he appeared to be faint from fatigue, and, noticing a bench, he
+sat down. The spot, not far from Auteuil, on the edge of a pond hidden
+amongst the trees, was absolutely deserted. After the lapse of another
+half-hour, Ganimard became impatient and resolved to speak to the man.
+He approached and took a seat beside Baudru, lighted a cigarette, traced
+some figures in the sand with the end of his cane, and said:
+
+“It’s a pleasant day.”
+
+No response. But, suddenly the man burst into laughter, a happy,
+mirthful laugh, spontaneous and irresistible. Ganimard felt his hair
+stand on end in horror and surprise. It was that laugh, that infernal
+laugh he knew so well!
+
+With a sudden movement, he seized the man by the collar and looked at
+him with a keen, penetrating gaze; and found that he no longer saw the
+man Baudru. To be sure, he saw Baudru; but, at the same time, he saw the
+other, the real man, Lupin. He discovered the intense life in the eyes,
+he filled up the shrunken features, he perceived the real flesh beneath
+the flabby skin, the real mouth through the grimaces that deformed it.
+Those were the eyes and mouth of the other, and especially his keen,
+alert, mocking expression, so clear and youthful!
+
+“Arsène Lupin, Arsène Lupin,” he stammered.
+
+Then, in a sudden fit of rage, he seized Lupin by the throat and tried
+to hold him down. In spite of his fifty years, he still possessed
+unusual strength, whilst his adversary was apparently in a weak
+condition. But the struggle was a brief one. Arsène Lupin made only a
+slight movement, and, as suddenly as he had made the attack, Ganimard
+released his hold. His right arm fell inert, useless.
+
+“If you had taken lessons in jiu-jitsu at the quai des Orfèvres,” said
+Lupin, “you would know that that blow is called udi-shi-ghi in Japanese.
+A second more, and I would have broken your arm and that would have been
+just what you deserve. I am surprised that you, an old friend whom I
+respect and before whom I voluntarily expose my incognito, should abuse
+my confidence in that violent manner. It is unworthy--Ah! What’s the
+matter?”
+
+Ganimard did not reply. That escape for which he deemed himself
+responsible--was it not he, Ganimard, who, by his sensational evidence,
+had led the court into serious error? That escape appeared to him like
+a dark cloud on his professional career. A tear rolled down his cheek to
+his gray moustache.
+
+“Oh! mon Dieu, Ganimard, don’t take it to heart. If you had not spoken,
+I would have arranged for some one else to do it. I couldn’t allow poor
+Baudru Désiré to be convicted.”
+
+“Then,” murmured Ganimard, “it was you that was there? And now you are
+here?”
+
+“It is I, always I, only I.”
+
+“Can it be possible?”
+
+“Oh, it is not the work of a sorcerer. Simply, as the judge remarked at
+the trial, the apprenticeship of a dozen years that equips a man to cope
+successfully with all the obstacles in life.”
+
+“But your face? Your eyes?”
+
+“You can understand that if I worked eighteen months with Doctor Altier
+at the Saint-Louis hospital, it was not out of love for the work. I
+considered that he, who would one day have the honor of calling himself
+Arsène Lupin, ought to be exempt from the ordinary laws governing
+appearance and identity. Appearance? That can be modified at will. For
+instance, a hypodermic injection of paraffine will puff up the skin at
+the desired spot. Pyrogallic acid will change your skin to that of an
+Indian. The juice of the greater celandine will adorn you with the most
+beautiful eruptions and tumors. Another chemical affects the growth of
+your beard and hair; another changes the tone of your voice. Add to that
+two months of dieting in cell 24; exercises repeated a thousand times to
+enable me to hold my features in a certain grimace, to carry my head
+at a certain inclination, and adapt my back and shoulders to a stooping
+posture. Then five drops of atropine in the eyes to make them haggard
+and wild, and the trick is done.”
+
+“I do not understand how you deceived the guards.”
+
+“The change was progressive. The evolution was so gradual that they
+failed to notice it.”
+
+“But Baudru Désiré?”
+
+“Baudru exists. He is a poor, harmless fellow whom
+I met last year; and, really, he bears a certain resemblance to me.
+Considering my arrest as a possible event, I took charge of Baudru and
+studied the points wherein we differed in appearance with a view to
+correct them in my own person. My friends caused him to remain at the
+Dépôt overnight, and to leave there next day about the same hour as I
+did--a coincidence easily arranged. Of course, it was necessary to have
+a record of his detention at the Dépôt in order to establish the fact
+that such a person was a reality; otherwise, the police would have
+sought elsewhere to find out my identity. But, in offering to them this
+excellent Baudru, it was inevitable, you understand, inevitable that
+they would seize upon him, and, despite the insurmountable difficulties
+of a substitution, they would prefer to believe in a substitution than
+confess their ignorance.”
+
+“Yes, yes, of course,” said Ganimard.
+
+“And then,” exclaimed Arsène Lupin, “I held in my hands a trump-card: an
+anxious public watching and waiting for my escape. And that is the fatal
+error into which you fell, you and the others, in the course of that
+fascinating game pending between me and the officers of the law wherein
+the stake was my liberty. And you supposed that I was playing to the
+gallery; that I was intoxicated with my success. I, Arsène Lupin, guilty
+of such weakness! Oh, no! And, no longer ago than the Cahorn affair, you
+said: “When Arsène Lupin cries from the housetops that he will escape,
+he has some object in view.” But, sapristi, you must understand that
+in order to escape I must create, in advance, a public belief in
+that escape, a belief amounting to an article of faith, an absolute
+conviction, a reality as glittering as the sun. And I did create that
+belief that Arsène Lupin would escape, that Arsène Lupin would not be
+present at his trial. And when you gave your evidence and said: “That
+man is not Arsène Lupin,” everybody was prepared to believe you. Had one
+person doubted it, had any one uttered this simple restriction: Suppose
+it is Arsène Lupin?--from that moment, I was lost. If anyone had
+scrutinized my face, not imbued with the idea that I was not Arsène
+Lupin, as you and the others did at my trial, but with the idea that I
+might be Arsène Lupin; then, despite all my precautions, I should have
+been recognized. But I had no fear. Logically, psychologically, no once
+could entertain the idea that I was Arsène Lupin.”
+
+He grasped Ganimard’s hand.
+
+“Come, Ganimard, confess that on the Wednesday after our conversation in
+the prison de la Santé, you expected me at your house at four o’clock,
+exactly as I said I would go.”
+
+“And your prison-van?” said Ganimard, evading the question.
+
+“A bluff! Some of my friends secured that old unused van and wished
+to make the attempt. But I considered it impractical without the
+concurrence of a number of unusual circumstances. However, I found
+it useful to carry out that attempted escape and give it the widest
+publicity. An audaciously planned escape, though not completed, gave to
+the succeeding one the character of reality simply by anticipation.”
+
+“So that the cigar....”
+
+“Hollowed by myself, as well as the knife.”
+
+“And the letters?”
+
+“Written by me.”
+
+“And the mysterious correspondent?”
+
+“Did not exist.”
+
+Ganimard reflected a moment, then said:
+
+“When the anthropological service had Baudru’s case under consideration,
+why did they not perceive that his measurements coincided with those of
+Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“My measurements are not in existence.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“At least, they are false. I have given considerable attention to
+that question. In the first place, the Bertillon system of records the
+visible marks of identification--and you have seen that they are not
+infallible--and, after that, the measurements of the head, the
+fingers, the ears, etc. Of course, such measurements are more or less
+infallible.”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“No; but it costs money to get around them. Before we left America, one
+of the employees of the service there accepted so much money to insert
+false figures in my measurements. Consequently, Baudru’s measurements
+should not agree with those of Arsène Lupin.”
+
+After a short silence, Ganimard asked:
+
+“What are you going to do now?”
+
+“Now,” replied Lupin, “I am going to take a rest, enjoy the best of food
+and drink and gradually recover my former healthy condition. It is all
+very well to become Baudru or some other person, on occasion, and to
+change your personality as you do your shirt, but you soon grow weary of
+the change. I feel exactly as I imagine the man who lost his shadow must
+have felt, and I shall be glad to be Arsène Lupin once more.”
+
+He walked to and fro for a few minutes, then, stopping in front of
+Ganimard, he said:
+
+“You have nothing more to say, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes. I should like to know if you intend to reveal the true state of
+facts connected with your escape. The mistake that I made---”
+
+“Oh! no one will ever know that it was Arsène Lupin who was discharged.
+It is to my own interest to surround myself with mystery, and therefore
+I shall permit my escape to retain its almost miraculous character. So,
+have no fear on that score, my dear friend. I shall say nothing. And
+now, good-bye. I am going out to dinner this evening, and have only
+sufficient time to dress.”
+
+“I though you wanted a rest.”
+
+“Ah! there are duties to society that one cannot avoid. To-morrow, I
+shall rest.”
+
+“Where do you dine to-night?”
+
+“With the British Ambassador!”
+
+
+
+
+IV. The Mysterious Traveller
+
+
+The evening before, I had sent my automobile to Rouen by the highway.
+I was to travel to Rouen by rail, on my way to visit some friends that
+live on the banks of the Seine.
+
+At Paris, a few minutes before the train started, seven gentlemen
+entered my compartment; five of them were smoking. No matter that the
+journey was a short one, the thought of traveling with such a company
+was not agreeable to me, especially as the car was built on the old
+model, without a corridor. I picked up my overcoat, my newspapers and my
+time-table, and sought refuge in a neighboring compartment.
+
+It was occupied by a lady, who, at sight of me, made a gesture of
+annoyance that did not escape my notice, and she leaned toward a
+gentleman who was standing on the step and was, no doubt, her husband.
+The gentleman scrutinized me closely, and, apparently, my appearance did
+not displease him, for he smiled as he spoke to his wife with the air
+of one who reassures a frightened child. She smiled also, and gave me a
+friendly glance as if she now understood that I was one of those gallant
+men with whom a woman can remain shut up for two hours in a little box,
+six feet square, and have nothing to fear.
+
+Her husband said to her:
+
+“I have an important appointment, my dear, and cannot wait any longer.
+Adieu.”
+
+He kissed her affectionately and went away. His wife threw him a few
+kisses and waved her handkerchief. The whistle sounded, and the train
+started.
+
+At that precise moment, and despite the protests of the guards, the door
+was opened, and a man rushed into our compartment. My companion, who
+was standing and arranging her luggage, uttered a cry of terror and fell
+upon the seat. I am not a coward--far from it--but I confess that such
+intrusions at the last minute are always disconcerting. They have a
+suspicious, unnatural aspect.
+
+However, the appearance of the new arrival greatly modified the
+unfavorable impression produced by his precipitant action. He was
+correctly and elegantly dressed, wore a tasteful cravat, correct gloves,
+and his face was refined and intelligent. But, where the devil had I
+seen that face before? Because, beyond all possible doubt, I had seen
+it. And yet the memory of it was so vague and indistinct that I felt it
+would be useless to try to recall it at that time.
+
+Then, directing my attention to the lady, I was amazed at the pallor
+and anxiety I saw in her face. She was looking at her neighbor--they
+occupied seats on the same side of the compartment--with an expression
+of intense alarm, and I perceived that one of her trembling hands was
+slowly gliding toward a little traveling bag that was lying on the seat
+about twenty inches from her. She finished by seizing it and nervously
+drawing it to her. Our eyes met, and I read in hers so much anxiety and
+fear that I could not refrain from speaking to her:
+
+“Are you ill, madame? Shall I open the window?”
+
+Her only reply was a gesture indicating that she was afraid of our
+companion. I smiled, as her husband had done, shrugged my shoulders, and
+explained to her, in pantomime, that she had nothing to fear, that I
+was there, and, besides, the gentleman appeared to be a very harmless
+individual. At that moment, he turned toward us, scrutinized both of us
+from head to foot, then settled down in his corner and paid us no more
+attention.
+
+After a short silence, the lady, as if she had mustered all her energy
+to perform a desperate act, said to me, in an almost inaudible voice:
+
+“Do you know who is on our train?”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“He.... he....I assure you....”
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“Arsène Lupin!”
+
+She had not taken her eyes off our companion, and it was to him rather
+than to me that she uttered the syllables of that disquieting name.
+He drew his hat over his face. Was that to conceal his agitation or,
+simply, to arrange himself for sleep? Then I said to her:
+
+“Yesterday, through contumacy, Arsène Lupin was sentenced to twenty
+years’ imprisonment at hard labor. Therefore it is improbable that he
+would be so imprudent, to-day, as to show himself in public. Moreover,
+the newspapers have announced his appearance in Turkey since his escape
+from the Santé.”
+
+“But he is on this train at the present moment,” the lady proclaimed,
+with the obvious intention of being heard by our companion; “my husband
+is one of the directors in the penitentiary service, and it was the
+stationmaster himself who told us that a search was being made for
+Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“They may have been mistaken---”
+
+“No; he was seen in the waiting-room. He bought a first-class ticket for
+Rouen.”
+
+“He has disappeared. The guard at the waiting-room door did not see him
+pass, and it is supposed that he had got into the express that leaves
+ten minutes after us.”
+
+“In that case, they will be sure to catch him.”
+
+“Unless, at the last moment, he leaped from that train to come here,
+into our train.... which is quite probable.... which is almost certain.”
+
+“If so, he will be arrested just the same; for the employees and guards
+would no doubt observe his passage from one train to the other, and,
+when we arrive at Rouen, they will arrest him there.”
+
+“Him--never! He will find some means of escape.”
+
+“In that case, I wish him ‘bon voyage.’”
+
+“But, in the meantime, think what he may do!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I don’t know. He may do anything.”
+
+She was greatly agitated, and, truly, the situation justified, to some
+extent, her nervous excitement. I was impelled to say to her:
+
+“Of course, there are many strange coincidences, but you need have no
+fear. Admitting that Arsène Lupin is on this train, he will not commit
+any indiscretion; he will be only too happy to escape the peril that
+already threatens him.”
+
+My words did not reassure her, but she remained silent for a time. I
+unfolded my newspapers and read reports of Arsène Lupin’s trial, but, as
+they contained nothing that was new to me, I was not greatly interested.
+Moreover, I was tired and sleepy. I felt my eyelids close and my head
+drop.
+
+“But, monsieur, you are not going to sleep!”
+
+She seized my newspaper, and looked at me with indignation.
+
+“Certainly not,” I said.
+
+“That would be very imprudent.”
+
+“Of course,” I assented.
+
+I struggled to keep awake. I looked through the window at the landscape
+and the fleeting clouds, but in a short time all that became confused
+and indistinct; the image of the nervous lady and the drowsy gentleman
+were effaced from my memory, and I was buried in the soothing depths of
+a profound sleep. The tranquility of my response was soon disturbed by
+disquieting dreams, wherein a creature that had played the part and bore
+the name of Arsène Lupin held an important place. He appeared to me
+with his back laden with articles of value; he leaped over walls, and
+plundered castles. But the outlines of that creature, who was no longer
+Arsène Lupin, assumed a more definite form. He came toward me, growing
+larger and larger, leaped into the compartment with incredible agility,
+and landed squarely on my chest. With a cry of fright and pain, I awoke.
+The man, the traveller, our companion, with his knee on my breast, held
+me by the throat.
+
+My sight was very indistinct, for my eyes were suffused with blood.
+I could see the lady, in a corner of the compartment, convulsed
+with fright. I tried even not to resist. Besides, I did not have the
+strength. My temples throbbed; I was almost strangled. One minute more,
+and I would have breathed my last. The man must have realized it, for he
+relaxed his grip, but did not remove his hand. Then he took a cord, in
+which he had prepared a slip-knot, and tied my wrists together. In an
+instant, I was bound, gagged, and helpless.
+
+Certainly, he accomplished the trick with an ease and skill that
+revealed the hand of a master; he was, no doubt, a professional thief.
+Not a word, not a nervous movement; only coolness and audacity. And I
+was there, lying on the bench, bound like a mummy, I--Arsène Lupin!
+
+It was anything but a laughing matter, and yet, despite the gravity
+of the situation, I keenly appreciated the humor and irony that it
+involved. Arsène Lupin seized and bound like a novice! robbed as if I
+were an unsophisticated rustic--for, you must understand, the scoundrel
+had deprived me of my purse and wallet! Arsène Lupin, a victim, duped,
+vanquished....What an adventure!
+
+The lady did not move. He did not even notice her. He contented himself
+with picking up her traveling-bag that had fallen to the floor and
+taking from it the jewels, purse, and gold and silver trinkets that it
+contained. The lady opened her eyes, trembled with fear, drew the rings
+from her fingers and handed them to the man as if she wished to spare
+him unnecessary trouble. He took the rings and looked at her. She
+swooned.
+
+Then, quite unruffled, he resumed his seat, lighted a cigarette, and
+proceeded to examine the treasure that he had acquired. The examination
+appeared to give him perfect satisfaction.
+
+But I was not so well satisfied. I do not speak of the twelve thousand
+francs of which I had been unduly deprived: that was only a temporary
+loss, because I was certain that I would recover possession of that
+money after a very brief delay, together with the important papers
+contained in my wallet: plans, specifications, addresses, lists of
+correspondents, and compromising letters. But, for the moment, a more
+immediate and more serious question troubled me: How would this affair
+end? What would be the outcome of this adventure?
+
+As you can imagine, the disturbance created by my passage through the
+Saint-Lazare station has not escaped my notice. Going to visit friends
+who knew me under the name of Guillaume Berlat, and amongst whom my
+resemblance to Arsène Lupin was a subject of many innocent jests, I
+could not assume a disguise, and my presence had been remarked.
+So, beyond question, the commissary of police at Rouen, notified by
+telegraph, and assisted by numerous agents, would be awaiting the train,
+would question all suspicious passengers, and proceed to search the
+cars.
+
+Of course, I had foreseen all that, but it had not disturbed me, as I
+was certain that the police of Rouen would not be any shrewder than the
+police of Paris and that I could escape recognition; would it not be
+sufficient for me to carelessly display my card as “député,” thanks
+to which I had inspired complete confidence in the gate-keeper at
+Saint-Lazare?--But the situation was greatly changed. I was no longer
+free. It was impossible to attempt one of my usual tricks. In one of
+the compartments, the commissary of police would find Mon. Arsène Lupin,
+bound hand and foot, as docile as a lamb, packed up, all ready to be
+dumped into a prison-van. He would have simply to accept delivery of the
+parcel, the same as if it were so much merchandise or a basket of fruit
+and vegetables. Yet, to avoid that shameful dénouement, what could I
+do?--bound and gagged, as I was? And the train was rushing on toward
+Rouen, the next and only station.
+
+Another problem was presented, in which I was less interested, but
+the solution of which aroused my professional curiosity. What were the
+intentions of my rascally companion? Of course, if I had been alone, he
+could, on our arrival at Rouen, leave the car slowly and fearlessly. But
+the lady? As soon as the door of the compartment should be opened, the
+lady, now so quiet and humble, would scream and call for help. That was
+the dilemma that perplexed me! Why had he not reduced her to a helpless
+condition similar to mine? That would have given him ample time to
+disappear before his double crime was discovered.
+
+He was still smoking, with his eyes fixed upon the window that was
+now being streaked with drops of rain. Once he turned, picked up my
+time-table, and consulted it.
+
+The lady had to feign a continued lack of consciousness in order to
+deceive the enemy. But fits of coughing, provoked by the smoke, exposed
+her true condition. As to me, I was very uncomfortable, and very tired.
+And I meditated; I plotted.
+
+The train was rushing on, joyously, intoxicated with its own speed.
+
+Saint Etienne!....At that moment, the man arose and took two steps
+toward us, which caused the lady to utter a cry of alarm and fall into
+a genuine swoon. What was the man about to do? He lowered the window
+on our side. A heavy rain was now falling, and, by a gesture, the man
+expressed his annoyance at his not having an umbrella or an overcoat. He
+glanced at the rack. The lady’s umbrella was there. He took it. He also
+took my overcoat and put it on.
+
+We were now crossing the Seine. He turned up the bottoms of his
+trousers, then leaned over and raised the exterior latch of the door.
+Was he going to throw himself upon the track? At that speed, it would
+have been instant death. We now entered a tunnel. The man opened the
+door half-way and stood on the upper step. What folly! The darkness, the
+smoke, the noise, all gave a fantastic appearance to his actions. But
+suddenly, the train diminished its speed. A moment later it increased
+its speed, then slowed up again. Probably, some repairs were being made
+in that part of the tunnel which obliged the trains to diminish their
+speed, and the man was aware of the fact. He immediately stepped down to
+the lower step, closed the door behind him, and leaped to the ground. He
+was gone.
+
+The lady immediately recovered her wits, and her first act was to lament
+the loss of her jewels. I gave her an imploring look. She understood,
+and quickly removed the gag that stifled me. She wished to untie the
+cords that bound me, but I prevented her.
+
+“No, no, the police must see everything exactly as it stands. I want
+them to see what the rascal did to us.”
+
+“Suppose I pull the alarm-bell?”
+
+“Too late. You should have done that when he made the attack on me.”
+
+“But he would have killed me. Ah! monsieur, didn’t I tell you that he
+was on this train. I recognized him from his portrait. And now he has
+gone off with my jewels.”
+
+“Don’t worry. The police will catch him.”
+
+“Catch Arsène Lupin! Never.”
+
+“That depends on you, madame. Listen. When we arrive at Rouen, be at the
+door and call. Make a noise. The police and the railway employees will
+come. Tell what you have seen: the assault made on me and the flight of
+Arsène Lupin. Give a description of him--soft hat, umbrella--yours--gray
+overcoat....”
+
+“Yours,” said she.
+
+“What! mine? Not at all. It was his. I didn’t have any.”
+
+“It seems to me he didn’t have one when he came in.”
+
+“Yes, yes.... unless the coat was one that some one had forgotten and
+left in the rack. At all events, he had it when he went away, and that
+is the essential point. A gray overcoat--remember!....Ah! I forgot.
+You must tell your name, first thing you do. Your husband’s official
+position will stimulate the zeal of the police.”
+
+We arrived at the station. I gave her some further instructions in a
+rather imperious tone:
+
+“Tell them my name--Guillaume Berlat. If necessary, say that you know
+me. That will save time. We must expedite the preliminary investigation.
+The important thing is the pursuit of Arsène Lupin. Your jewels,
+remember! Let there be no mistake. Guillaume Berlat, a friend of your
+husband.”
+
+“I understand....Guillaume Berlat.”
+
+She was already calling and gesticulating. As soon as the train stopped,
+several men entered the compartment. The critical moment had come.
+
+Panting for breath, the lady exclaimed:
+
+“Arsène Lupin.... he attacked us.... he stole my jewels....I am Madame
+Renaud.... my husband is a director of the penitentiary service....Ah!
+here is my brother, Georges Ardelle, director of the Crédit
+Rouennais.... you must know....”
+
+She embraced a young man who had just joined us, and whom the commissary
+saluted. Then she continued, weeping:
+
+“Yes, Arsène Lupin.... while monsieur was sleeping, he seized him by the
+throat....Mon. Berlat, a friend of my husband.”
+
+The commissary asked:
+
+“But where is Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“He leaped from the train, when passing through the tunnel.”
+
+“Are you sure that it was he?”
+
+“Am I sure! I recognized him perfectly. Besides, he was seen at the
+Saint-Lazare station. He wore a soft hat---”
+
+“No, a hard felt, like that,” said the commissary, pointing to my hat.
+
+“He had a soft hat, I am sure,” repeated Madame Renaud, “and a gray
+overcoat.”
+
+“Yes, that is right,” replied the commissary, “the telegram says he wore
+a gray overcoat with a black velvet collar.”
+
+“Exactly, a black velvet collar,” exclaimed Madame Renaud, triumphantly.
+
+I breathed freely. Ah! the excellent friend I had in that little woman.
+
+The police agents had now released me. I bit my lips until they ran
+blood. Stooping over, with my handkerchief over my mouth, an attitude
+quite natural in a person who has remained for a long time in an
+uncomfortable position, and whose mouth shows the bloody marks of the
+gag, I addressed the commissary, in a weak voice:
+
+“Monsieur, it was Arsène Lupin. There is no doubt about that. If we make
+haste, he can be caught yet. I think I may be of some service to you.”
+
+The railway car, in which the crime occurred, was detached from the
+train to serve as a mute witness at the official investigation. The
+train continued on its way to Havre. We were then conducted to the
+station-master’s office through a crowd of curious spectators.
+
+Then, I had a sudden access of doubt and discretion. Under some pretext
+or other, I must gain my automobile, and escape. To remain there was
+dangerous. Something might happen; for instance, a telegram from Paris,
+and I would be lost.
+
+Yes, but what about my thief? Abandoned to my own resources, in an
+unfamiliar country, I could not hope to catch him.
+
+“Bah! I must make the attempt,” I said to myself. “It may be a difficult
+game, but an amusing one, and the stake is well worth the trouble.”
+
+And when the commissary asked us to repeat the story of the robbery, I
+exclaimed:
+
+“Monsieur, really, Arsène Lupin is getting the start of us. My
+automobile is waiting in the courtyard. If you will be so kind as to use
+it, we can try....”
+
+The commissary smiled, and replied:
+
+“The idea is a good one; so good, indeed, that it is already being
+carried out. Two of my men have set out on bicycles. They have been gone
+for some time.”
+
+“Where did they go?”
+
+“To the entrance of the tunnel. There, they will gather evidence, secure
+witnesses, and follow on the track of Arsène Lupin.”
+
+I could not refrain from shrugging my shoulders, as I replied:
+
+“Your men will not secure any evidence or any witnesses.”
+
+“Really!”
+
+“Arsène Lupin will not allow anyone to see him emerge from the tunnel.
+He will take the first road---”
+
+“To Rouen, where we will arrest him.”
+
+“He will not go to Rouen.”
+
+“Then he will remain in the vicinity, where his capture will be even
+more certain.”
+
+“He will not remain in the vicinity.”
+
+“Oh! oh! And where will he hide?”
+
+I looked at my watch, and said:
+
+“At the present moment, Arsène Lupin is prowling around the station at
+Darnétal. At ten fifty, that is, in twenty-two minutes from now, he will
+take the train that goes from Rouen to Amiens.”
+
+“Do you think so? How do you know it?”
+
+“Oh! it is quite simple. While we were in the car, Arsène Lupin
+consulted my railway guide. Why did he do it? Was there, not far from
+the spot where he disappeared, another line of railway, a station
+upon that line, and a train stopping at that station? On consulting my
+railway guide, I found such to be the case.”
+
+“Really, monsieur,” said the commissary, “that is a marvelous deduction.
+I congratulate you on your skill.”
+
+I was now convinced that I had made a mistake in displaying so much
+cleverness. The commissary regarded me with astonishment, and I thought
+a slight suspicion entered his official mind....Oh! scarcely that, for
+the photographs distributed broadcast by the police department were too
+imperfect; they presented an Arsène Lupin so different from the one he
+had before him, that he could not possibly recognize me by it. But, all
+the same, he was troubled, confused and ill-at-ease.
+
+“Mon Dieu! nothing stimulates the comprehension so much as the loss of a
+pocketbook and the desire to recover it. And it seems to me that if you
+will give me two of your men, we may be able....”
+
+“Oh! I beg of you, monsieur le commissaire,” cried Madame Renaud,
+“listen to Mon. Berlat.”
+
+The intervention of my excellent friend was decisive. Pronounced by her,
+the wife of an influential official, the name of Berlat became really
+my own, and gave me an identity that no mere suspicion could affect. The
+commissary arose, and said:
+
+“Believe me, Monsieur Berlat, I shall be delighted to see you succeed. I
+am as much interested as you are in the arrest of Arsène Lupin.”
+
+He accompanied me to the automobile, and introduced two of his men,
+Honoré Massol and Gaston Delivet, who were assigned to assist me. My
+chauffer cranked up the car and I took my place at the wheel. A few
+seconds later, we left the station. I was saved.
+
+Ah! I must confess that in rolling over the boulevards that surrounded
+the old Norman city, in my swift thirty-five horse-power Moreau-Lepton,
+I experienced a deep feeling of pride, and the motor responded,
+sympathetically to my desires. At right and left, the trees flew past
+us with startling rapidity, and I, free, out of danger, had simply to
+arrange my little personal affairs with the two honest representatives
+of the Rouen police who were sitting behind me. Arsène Lupin was going
+in search of Arsène Lupin!
+
+Modest guardians of social order--Gaston Delivet and Honoré Massol--how
+valuable was your assistance! What would I have done without you?
+Without you, many times, at the cross-roads, I might have taken the
+wrong route! Without you, Arsène Lupin would have made a mistake, and
+the other would have escaped!
+
+But the end was not yet. Far from it. I had yet to capture the thief and
+recover the stolen papers. Under no circumstances must my two acolytes
+be permitted to see those papers, much less to seize them. That was a
+point that might give me some difficulty.
+
+We arrived at Darnétal three minutes after the departure of the train.
+True, I had the consolation of learning that a man wearing a gray
+overcoat with a black velvet collar had taken the train at the station.
+He had bought a second-class ticket for Amiens. Certainly, my début as
+detective was a promising one.
+
+Delivet said to me:
+
+“The train is express, and the next stop is Montérolier-Buchy in
+nineteen minutes. If we do not reach there before Arsène Lupin, he can
+proceed to Amiens, or change for the train going to Clères, and, from
+that point, reach Dieppe or Paris.”
+
+“How far to Montérolier?”
+
+“Twenty-three kilometres.”
+
+“Twenty-three kilometres in nineteen minutes....We will be there ahead
+of him.”
+
+We were off again! Never had my faithful Moreau-Repton responded to
+my impatience with such ardor and regularity. It participated in my
+anxiety. It indorsed my determination. It comprehended my animosity
+against that rascally Arsène Lupin. The knave! The traitor!
+
+“Turn to the right,” cried Delivet, “then to the left.”
+
+We fairly flew, scarcely touching the ground. The mile-stones looked
+like little timid beasts that vanished at our approach. Suddenly, at a
+turn of the road, we saw a vortex of smoke. It was the Northern Express.
+For a kilometre, it was a struggle, side by side, but an unequal
+struggle in which the issue was certain. We won the race by twenty
+lengths.
+
+In three seconds we were on the platform standing before the
+second-class carriages. The doors were opened, and some passengers
+alighted, but not my thief. We made a search through the compartments.
+No sign of Arsène Lupin.
+
+“Sapristi!” I cried, “he must have recognized me in the automobile as we
+were racing, side by side, and he leaped from the train.”
+
+“Ah! there he is now! crossing the track.”
+
+I started in pursuit of the man, followed by my two acolytes, or rather
+followed by one of them, for the other, Massol, proved himself to be a
+runner of exceptional speed and endurance. In a few moments, he had made
+an appreciable gain upon the fugitive. The man noticed it, leaped over
+a hedge, scampered across a meadow, and entered a thick grove. When we
+reached this grove, Massol was waiting for us. He went no farther, for
+fear of losing us.
+
+“Quite right, my dear friend,” I said. “After such a run, our victim
+must be out of wind. We will catch him now.”
+
+I examined the surroundings with the idea of proceeding alone in the
+arrest of the fugitive, in order to recover my papers, concerning which
+the authorities would doubtless ask many disagreeable questions. Then I
+returned to my companions, and said:
+
+“It is all quite easy. You, Massol, take your place at the left; you,
+Delivet, at the right. From there, you can observe the entire posterior
+line of the bush, and he cannot escape without you seeing him, except by
+that ravine, and I shall watch it. If he does not come out voluntarily,
+I will enter and drive him out toward one or the other of you. You have
+simply to wait. Ah! I forgot: in case I need you, a pistol shot.”
+
+Massol and Delivet walked away to their respective posts. As soon as
+they had disappeared, I entered the grove with the greatest precaution
+so as to be neither seen nor heard. I encountered dense thickets,
+through which narrow paths had been cut, but the overhanging boughs
+compelled me to adopt a stooping posture. One of these paths led to a
+clearing in which I found footsteps upon the wet grass. I followed them;
+they led me to the foot of a mound which was surmounted by a deserted,
+dilapidated hovel.
+
+“He must be there,” I said to myself. “It is a well-chosen retreat.”
+
+I crept cautiously to the side of the building. A slight noise informed
+me that he was there; and, then, through an opening, I saw him. His back
+was turned toward me. In two bounds, I was upon him. He tried to fire
+a revolver that he held in his hand. But he had no time. I threw him to
+the ground, in such a manner that his arms were beneath him, twisted and
+helpless, whilst I held him down with my knee on his breast.
+
+“Listen, my boy,” I whispered in his ear. “I am Arsène Lupin. You are
+to deliver over to me, immediately and gracefully, my pocketbook and the
+lady’s jewels, and, in return therefore, I will save you from the police
+and enroll you amongst my friends. One word: yes or no?”
+
+“Yes,” he murmured.
+
+“Very good. Your escape, this morning, was well planned. I congratulate
+you.”
+
+I arose. He fumbled in his pocket, drew out a large knife and tried to
+strike me with it.
+
+“Imbecile!” I exclaimed.
+
+With one hand, I parried the attack; with the other, I gave him a sharp
+blow on the carotid artery. He fell--stunned!
+
+In my pocketbook, I recovered my papers and bank-notes. Out of
+curiosity, I took his. Upon an envelope, addressed to him, I read his
+name: Pierre Onfrey. It startled me. Pierre Onfrey, the assassin of the
+rue Lafontaine at Auteuil! Pierre Onfrey, he who had cut the throats of
+Madame Delbois and her two daughters. I leaned over him. Yes, those were
+the features which, in the compartment, had evoked in me the memory of a
+face I could not then recall.
+
+But time was passing. I placed in an envelope two bank-notes of one
+hundred francs each, with a card bearing these words: “Arsène Lupin
+to his worthy colleagues Honoré Massol and Gaston Delivet, as a slight
+token of his gratitude.” I placed it in a prominent spot in the room,
+where they would be sure to find it. Beside it, I placed Madame Renaud’s
+handbag. Why could I not return it to the lady who had befriended me?
+I must confess that I had taken from it everything that possessed any
+interest or value, leaving there only a shell comb, a stick of rouge
+Dorin for the lips, and an empty purse. But, you know, business
+is business. And then, really, her husband is engaged in such a
+dishonorable vocation!
+
+The man was becoming conscious. What was I to do? I was unable to save
+him or condemn him. So I took his revolver and fired a shot in the air.
+
+“My two acolytes will come and attend to his case,” I said to myself, as
+I hastened away by the road through the ravine. Twenty minutes later, I
+was seated in my automobile.
+
+At four o’clock, I telegraphed to my friends at Rouen that an unexpected
+event would prevent me from making my promised visit. Between ourselves,
+considering what my friends must now know, my visit is postponed
+indefinitely. A cruel disillusion for them!
+
+At six o’clock I was in Paris. The evening newspapers informed me that
+Pierre Onfrey had been captured at last.
+
+Next day,--let us not despise the advantages of judicious
+advertising,--the ‘Echo de France’ published this sensational item:
+
+“Yesterday, near Buchy, after numerous exciting incidents, Arsène Lupin
+effected the arrest of Pierre Onfrey. The assassin of the rue Lafontaine
+had robbed Madame Renaud, wife of the director in the penitentiary
+service, in a railway carriage on the Paris-Havre line. Arsène Lupin
+restored to Madame Renaud the hand-bag that contained her jewels, and
+gave a generous recompense to the two detectives who had assisted him in
+making that dramatic arrest.”
+
+
+
+
+V. The Queen’s Necklace
+
+
+Two or three times each year, on occasions of unusual importance,
+such as the balls at the Austrian Embassy or the soirées of Lady
+Billingstone, the Countess de Dreux-Soubise wore upon her white
+shoulders “The Queen’s Necklace.”
+
+It was, indeed, the famous necklace, the legendary necklace that
+Bohmer and Bassenge, court jewelers, had made for Madame Du Barry; the
+veritable necklace that the Cardinal de Rohan-Soubise intended to give
+to Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France; and the same that the adventuress
+Jeanne de Valois, Countess de la Motte, had pulled to pieces one evening
+in February, 1785, with the aid of her husband and their accomplice,
+Rétaux de Villette.
+
+To tell the truth, the mounting alone was genuine. Rétaux de Villette
+had kept it, whilst the Count de la Motte and his wife scattered to the
+four winds of heaven the beautiful stones so carefully chosen by Bohmer.
+Later, he sold the mounting to Gaston de Dreux-Soubise, nephew and heir
+of the Cardinal, who re-purchased the few diamonds that remained in
+the possession of the English jeweler, Jeffreys; supplemented them with
+other stones of the same size but of much inferior quality, and thus
+restored the marvelous necklace to the form in which it had come from
+the hands of Bohmer and Bassenge.
+
+For nearly a century, the house of Dreux-Soubise had prided itself upon
+the possession of this historic jewel. Although adverse circumstances
+had greatly reduced their fortune, they preferred to curtail their
+household expenses rather than part with this relic of royalty. More
+particularly, the present count clung to it as a man clings to the
+home of his ancestors. As a matter of prudence, he had rented a
+safety-deposit box at the Crédit Lyonnais in which to keep it. He went
+for it himself on the afternoon of the day on which his wife wished to
+wear it, and he, himself, carried it back next morning.
+
+On this particular evening, at the reception given at the Palais
+de Castille, the Countess achieved a remarkable success; and King
+Christian, in whose honor the fête was given, commented on her grace
+and beauty. The thousand facets of the diamond sparkled and shone like
+flames of fire about her shapely neck and shoulders, and it is safe to
+say that none but she could have borne the weight of such an ornament
+with so much ease and grace.
+
+This was a double triumph, and the Count de Dreux was highly elated
+when they returned to their chamber in the old house of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain. He was proud of his wife, and quite as proud, perhaps,
+of the necklace that had conferred added luster to his noble house
+for generations. His wife, also, regarded the necklace with an almost
+childish vanity, and it was not without regret that she removed it
+from her shoulders and handed it to her husband who admired it as
+passionately as if he had never seen it before. Then, having placed it
+in its case of red leather, stamped with the Cardinal’s arms, he passed
+into an adjoining room which was simply an alcove or cabinet that had
+been cut off from their chamber, and which could be entered only by
+means of a door at the foot of their bed. As he had done on previous
+occasions, he hid it on a high shelf amongst hat-boxes and piles of
+linen. He closed the door, and retired.
+
+Next morning, he arose about nine o’clock, intending to go to the Crédit
+Lyonnais before breakfast. He dressed, drank a cup of coffee, and went
+to the stables to give his orders. The condition of one of the horses
+worried him. He caused it to be exercised in his presence. Then he
+returned to his wife, who had not yet left the chamber. Her maid was
+dressing her hair. When her husband entered, she asked:
+
+“Are you going out?”
+
+“Yes, as far as the bank.”
+
+“Of course. That is wise.”
+
+He entered the cabinet; but, after a few seconds, and without any sign
+of astonishment, he asked:
+
+“Did you take it, my dear?”
+
+“What?....No, I have not taken anything.”
+
+“You must have moved it.”
+
+“Not at all. I have not even opened that door.”
+
+He appeared at the door, disconcerted, and stammered, in a scarcely
+intelligible voice:
+
+“You haven’t....It wasn’t you?....Then....”
+
+She hastened to his assistance, and, together, they made a thorough
+search, throwing the boxes to the floor and overturning the piles of
+linen. Then the count said, quite discouraged:
+
+“It is useless to look any more. I put it here, on this shelf.”
+
+“You must be mistaken.”
+
+“No, no, it was on this shelf--nowhere else.”
+
+They lighted a candle, as the room was quite dark, and then carried out
+all the linen and other articles that the room contained. And, when the
+room was emptied, they confessed, in despair, that the famous necklace
+had disappeared. Without losing time in vain lamentations, the countess
+notified the commissary of police, Mon. Valorbe, who came at once, and,
+after hearing their story, inquired of the count:
+
+“Are you sure that no one passed through your chamber during the night?”
+
+“Absolutely sure, as I am a very light sleeper. Besides, the chamber
+door was bolted, and I remember unbolting it this morning when my wife
+rang for her maid.”
+
+“And there is no other entrance to the cabinet?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“No windows?”
+
+“Yes, but it is closed up.”
+
+“I will look at it.”
+
+Candles were lighted, and Mon. Valorbe observed at once that the lower
+half of the window was covered by a large press which was, however, so
+narrow that it did not touch the casement on either side.
+
+“On what does this window open?”
+
+“A small inner court.”
+
+“And you have a floor above this?”
+
+“Two; but, on a level with the servant’s floor, there is a close grating
+over the court. That is why this room is so dark.”
+
+When the press was moved, they found that the window was fastened, which
+would not have been the case if anyone had entered that way.
+
+“Unless,” said the count, “they went out through our chamber.”
+
+“In that case, you would have found the door unbolted.”
+
+The commissary considered the situation for a moment, then asked the
+countess:
+
+“Did any of your servants know that you wore the necklace last evening?”
+
+“Certainly; I didn’t conceal the fact. But nobody knew that it was
+hidden in that cabinet.”
+
+“No one?”
+
+“No one.... unless....”
+
+“Be quite sure, madam, as it is a very important point.”
+
+She turned to her husband, and said:
+
+“I was thinking of Henriette.”
+
+“Henriette? She didn’t know where we kept it.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Who is this woman Henriette?” asked Mon. Valorbe.
+
+“A school-mate, who was disowned by her family for marrying beneath her.
+After her husband’s death, I furnished an apartment in this house for
+her and her son. She is clever with her needle and has done some work
+for me.”
+
+“What floor is she on?”
+
+“Same as ours.... at the end of the corridor.... and I think.... the
+window of her kitchen....”
+
+“Opens on this little court, does it not?”
+
+“Yes, just opposite ours.”
+
+Mon. Valorbe then asked to see Henriette. They went to her apartment;
+she was sewing, whilst her son Raoul, about six years old, was sitting
+beside her, reading. The commissary was surprised to see the wretched
+apartment that had been provided for the woman. It consisted of one room
+without a fireplace, and a very small room that served as a kitchen. The
+commissary proceeded to question her. She appeared to be overwhelmed on
+learning of the theft. Last evening she had herself dressed the countess
+and placed the necklace upon her shoulders.
+
+“Good God!” she exclaimed, “it can’t be possible!”
+
+“And you have no idea? Not the least suspicion? Is it possible that the
+thief may have passed through your room?”
+
+She laughed heartily, never supposing that she could be an object of
+suspicion.
+
+“But I have not left my room. I never go out. And, perhaps, you have not
+seen?”
+
+She opened the kitchen window, and said:
+
+“See, it is at least three metres to the ledge of the opposite window.”
+
+“Who told you that we supposed the theft might have been committed in
+that way?”
+
+“But.... the necklace was in the cabinet, wasn’t it?”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Why, I have always known that it was kept there at night. It had been
+mentioned in my presence.”
+
+Her face, though still young, bore unmistakable traces of sorrow and
+resignation. And it now assumed an expression of anxiety as if some
+danger threatened her. She drew her son toward her. The child took her
+hand, and kissed it affectionately.
+
+When they were alone again, the count said to the commissary:
+
+“I do not suppose you suspect Henriette. I can answer for her. She is
+honesty itself.”
+
+“I quite agree with you,” replied Mon. Valorbe. “At most, I thought
+there might have been an unconscious complicity. But I confess that even
+that theory must be abandoned, as it does not help solve the problem now
+before us.”
+
+The commissary of police abandoned the investigation, which was now
+taken up and completed by the examining judge. He questioned the
+servants, examined the condition of the bolt, experimented with the
+opening and closing of the cabinet window, and explored the little court
+from top to bottom. All was in vain. The bolt was intact. The window
+could not be opened or closed from the outside.
+
+The inquiries especially concerned Henriette, for, in spite of
+everything, they always turned in her direction. They made a thorough
+investigation of her past life, and ascertained that, during the last
+three years, she had left the house only four times, and her business,
+on those occasions, was satisfactorily explained. As a matter of fact,
+she acted as chambermaid and seamstress to the countess, who treated her
+with great strictness and even severity.
+
+At the end of a week, the examining judge had secured no more definite
+information than the commissary of police. The judge said:
+
+“Admitting that we know the guilty party, which we do not, we are
+confronted by the fact that we do not know how the theft was
+committed. We are brought face to face with two obstacles: a door and a
+window--both closed and fastened. It is thus a double mystery. How could
+anyone enter, and, moreover, how could any one escape, leaving behind
+him a bolted door and a fastened window?”
+
+At the end of four months, the secret opinion of the judge was that the
+count and countess, being hard pressed for money, which was their normal
+condition, had sold the Queen’s Necklace. He closed the investigation.
+
+The loss of the famous jewel was a severe blow to the Dreux-Soubise.
+Their credit being no longer propped up by the reserve fund that such a
+treasure constituted, they found themselves confronted by more exacting
+creditors and money-lenders. They were obliged to cut down to the quick,
+to sell or mortgage every article that possessed any commercial value.
+In brief, it would have been their ruin, if two large legacies from some
+distant relatives had not saved them.
+
+Their pride also suffered a downfall, as if they had lost a quartering
+from their escutcheon. And, strange to relate, it was upon her former
+schoolmate, Henriette, that the countess vented her spleen. Toward
+her, the countess displayed the most spiteful feelings, and even openly
+accused her. First, Henriette was relegated to the servants’ quarters,
+and, next day, discharged.
+
+For some time, the count and countess passed an uneventful life. They
+traveled a great deal. Only one incident of record occurred during that
+period. Some months after the departure of Henriette, the countess was
+surprised when she received and read the following letter, signed by
+Henriette:
+
+“Madame,”
+
+“I do not know how to thank you; for it was you, was it not,
+who sent me that? It could not have been anyone else. No one but you
+knows where I live. If I am wrong, excuse me, and accept my sincere
+thanks for your past favors....”
+
+What did the letter mean? The present or past favors of the countess
+consisted principally of injustice and neglect. Why, then, this letter
+of thanks?
+
+When asked for an explanation, Henriette replied that she had received
+a letter, through the mails, enclosing two bank-notes of one thousand
+francs each. The envelope, which she enclosed with her reply, bore the
+Paris post-mark, and was addressed in a handwriting that was obviously
+disguised. Now, whence came those two thousand francs? Who had sent
+them? And why had they sent them?
+
+Henriette received a similar letter and a like sum of money twelve
+months later. And a third time; and a fourth; and each year for a period
+of six years, with this difference, that in the fifth and sixth years
+the sum was doubled. There was another difference: the post-office
+authorities having seized one of the letters under the pretext that it
+was not registered, the last two letters were duly sent according to the
+postal regulations, the first dated from Saint-Germain, the other from
+Suresnes. The writer signed the first one, “Anquety”; and the other,
+“Péchard.” The addresses that he gave were false.
+
+At the end of six years, Henriette died, and the mystery remained
+unsolved.
+
+* * * * *
+
+All these events are known to the public. The case was one of those
+which excite public interest, and it was a strange coincidence that this
+necklace, which had caused such a great commotion in France at the close
+of the eighteenth century, should create a similar commotion a century
+later. But what I am about to relate is known only to the parties
+directly interested and a few others from whom the count exacted a
+promise of secrecy. As it is probable that some day or other that
+promise will be broken, I have no hesitation in rending the veil and
+thus disclosing the key to the mystery, the explanation of the letter
+published in the morning papers two days ago; an extraordinary letter
+which increased, if possible, the mists and shadows that envelope this
+inscrutable drama.
+
+Five days ago, a number of guests were dining with the Count de
+Dreux-Soubise. There were several ladies present, including his two
+nieces and his cousin, and the following gentlemen: the president of
+Essaville, the deputy Bochas, the chevalier Floriani, whom the count had
+known in Sicily, and General Marquis de Rouzières, and old club friend.
+
+After the repast, coffee was served by the ladies, who gave the
+gentlemen permission to smoke their cigarettes, provided they would not
+desert the salon. The conversation was general, and finally one of the
+guests chanced to speak of celebrated crimes. And that gave the Marquis
+de Rouzières, who delighted to tease the count, an opportunity to
+mention the affair of the Queen’s Necklace, a subject that the count
+detested.
+
+Each one expressed his own opinion of the affair; and, of course, their
+various theories were not only contradictory but impossible.
+
+“And you, monsieur,” said the countess to the chevalier Floriani, “what
+is your opinion?”
+
+“Oh! I--I have no opinion, madame.”
+
+All the guests protested; for the chevalier had just related in an
+entertaining manner various adventures in which he had participated with
+his father, a magistrate at Palermo, and which established his judgment
+and taste in such manners.
+
+“I confess,” said he, “I have sometimes succeeded in unraveling
+mysteries that the cleverest detectives have renounced; yet I do not
+claim to be Sherlock Holmes. Moreover, I know very little about the
+affair of the Queen’s Necklace.”
+
+Everybody now turned to the count, who was thus obliged, quite
+unwillingly, to narrate all the circumstances connected with the theft.
+The chevalier listened, reflected, asked a few questions, and said:
+
+“It is very strange.... at first sight, the problem appears to be a very
+simple one.”
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders. The others drew closer to the
+chevalier, who continued, in a dogmatic tone:
+
+“As a general rule, in order to find the author of a crime or a theft,
+it is necessary to determine how that crime or theft was committed, or,
+at least, how it could have been committed. In the present case, nothing
+is more simple, because we are face to face, not with several theories,
+but with one positive fact, that is to say: the thief could only enter
+by the chamber door or the window of the cabinet. Now, a person cannot
+open a bolted door from the outside. Therefore, he must have entered
+through the window.”
+
+“But it was closed and fastened, and we found it fastened afterward,”
+ declared the count.
+
+“In order to do that,” continued Floriani, without heeding the
+interruption, “he had simply to construct a bridge, a plank or a ladder,
+between the balcony of the kitchen and the ledge of the window, and as
+the jewel-case---”
+
+“But I repeat that the window was fastened,” exclaimed the count,
+impatiently.
+
+This time, Floriani was obliged to reply. He did so with the greatest
+tranquility, as if the objection was the most insignificant affair in
+the world.
+
+“I will admit that it was; but is there not a transom in the upper part
+of the window?”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“In the first place, that was customary in houses of that date; and,
+in the second place, without such a transom, the theft cannot be
+explained.”
+
+“Yes, there is one, but it was closed, the same as the window.
+Consequently, we did not pay attention to it.”
+
+“That was a mistake; for, if you had examined it, you would have found
+that it had been opened.”
+
+“But how?”
+
+“I presume that, like all others, it opens by means of a wire with a
+ring on the lower end.”
+
+“Yes, but I do not see---”
+
+“Now, through a hole in the window, a person could, by the aid of some
+instrument, let us say a poker with a hook at the end, grip the ring,
+pull down, and open the transom.”
+
+The count laughed and said:
+
+“Excellent! excellent! Your scheme is very cleverly constructed, but you
+overlook one thing, monsieur, there is no hole in the window.”
+
+“There was a hole.”
+
+“Nonsense, we would have seen it.”
+
+“In order to see it, you must look for it, and no one has looked. The
+hole is there; it must be there, at the side of the window, in the
+putty. In a vertical direction, of course.”
+
+The count arose. He was greatly excited. He paced up and down the room,
+two or three times, in a nervous manner; then, approaching Floriani,
+said:
+
+“Nobody has been in that room since; nothing has been changed.”
+
+“Very well, monsieur, you can easily satisfy yourself that my
+explanation is correct.”
+
+“It does not agree with the facts established by the examining judge.
+You have seen nothing, and yet you contradict all that we have seen and
+all that we know.”
+
+Floriani paid no attention to the count’s petulance. He simply smiled
+and said:
+
+“Mon Dieu, monsieur, I submit my theory; that is all. If I am mistaken,
+you can easily prove it.”
+
+“I will do so at once....I confess that your assurance---”
+
+The count muttered a few more words; then suddenly rushed to the door
+and passed out. Not a word was uttered in his absence; and this profound
+silence gave the situation an air of almost tragic importance. Finally,
+the count returned. He was pale and nervous. He said to his friends, in
+a trembling voice:
+
+“I beg your pardon.... the revelations of the chevalier were so
+unexpected....I should never have thought....”
+
+His wife questioned him, eagerly:
+
+“Speak.... what is it?”
+
+He stammered: “The hole is there, at the very spot, at the side of the
+window---”
+
+He seized the chevalier’s arm, and said to him in an imperious tone:
+
+“Now, monsieur, proceed. I admit that you are right so far, but
+now.... that is not all.... go on.... tell us the rest of it.”
+
+Floriani disengaged his arm gently, and, after a moment, continued:
+
+“Well, in my opinion, this is what happened. The thief, knowing that the
+countess was going to wear the necklace that evening, had prepared his
+gangway or bridge during your absence. He watched you through the window
+and saw you hide the necklace. Afterward, he cut the glass and pulled
+the ring.”
+
+“Ah! but the distance was so great that it would be impossible for him
+to reach the window-fastening through the transom.”
+
+“Well, then, if he could not open the window by reaching through the
+transom, he must have crawled through the transom.”
+
+“Impossible; it is too small. No man could crawl through it.”
+
+“Then it was not a man,” declared Floriani.
+
+“What!”
+
+“If the transom is too small to admit a man, it must have been a child.”
+
+“A child!”
+
+“Did you not say that your friend Henriette had a son?”
+
+“Yes; a son named Raoul.”
+
+“Then, in all probability, it was Raoul who committed the theft.”
+
+“What proof have you of that?”
+
+“What proof! Plenty of it....For instance---”
+
+He stopped, and reflected for a moment, then continued:
+
+“For instance, that gangway or bridge. It is improbable that the child
+could have brought it in from outside the house and carried it away
+again without being observed. He must have used something close at hand.
+In the little room used by Henriette as a kitchen, were there not some
+shelves against the wall on which she placed her pans and dishes?”
+
+“Two shelves, to the best of my memory.”
+
+“Are you sure that those shelves are really fastened to the wooden
+brackets that support them? For, if they are not, we could be justified
+in presuming that the child removed them, fastened them together, and
+thus formed his bridge. Perhaps, also, since there was a stove, we might
+find the bent poker that he used to open the transom.”
+
+Without saying a word, the count left the room; and, this time, those
+present did not feel the nervous anxiety they had experienced the
+first time. They were confident that Floriani was right, and no one was
+surprised when the count returned and declared:
+
+“It was the child. Everything proves it.”
+
+“You have seen the shelves and the poker?”
+
+“Yes. The shelves have been unnailed, and the poker is there yet.”
+
+But the countess exclaimed:
+
+“You had better say it was his mother. Henriette is the guilty party.
+She must have compelled her son---”
+
+“No,” declared the chevalier, “the mother had nothing to do with it.”
+
+“Nonsense! they occupied the same room. The child could not have done it
+without the mother’s knowledge.”
+
+“True, they lived in the same room, but all this happened in the
+adjoining room, during the night, while the mother was asleep.”
+
+“And the necklace?” said the count. “It would have been found amongst
+the child’s things.”
+
+“Pardon me! He had been out. That morning, on which you found him
+reading, he had just come from school, and perhaps the commissary of
+police, instead of wasting his time on the innocent mother, would
+have been better employed in searching the child’s desk amongst his
+school-books.”
+
+“But how do you explain those two thousand francs that Henriette
+received each year? Are they not evidence of her complicity?”
+
+“If she had been an accomplice, would she have thanked you for that
+money? And then, was she not closely watched? But the child, being free,
+could easily go to a neighboring city, negotiate with some dealer and
+sell him one diamond or two diamonds, as he might wish, upon condition
+that the money should be sent from Paris, and that proceeding could be
+repeated from year to year.”
+
+An indescribable anxiety oppressed the Dreux-Soubise and their guests.
+There was something in the tone and attitude of Floriani--something more
+than the chevalier’s assurance which, from the beginning, had so annoyed
+the count. There was a touch of irony, that seemed rather hostile than
+sympathetic. But the count affected to laugh, as he said:
+
+“All that is very ingenious and interesting, and I congratulate you upon
+your vivid imagination.”
+
+“No, not at all,” replied Floriani, with the utmost gravity, “I imagine
+nothing. I simply describe the events as they must have occurred.”
+
+“But what do you know about them?”
+
+“What you yourself have told me. I picture to myself the life of the
+mother and child down there in the country; the illness of the mother,
+the schemes of and inventions of the child sell the precious stones in
+order to save his mother’s life, or, at least, soothe her dying moments.
+Her illness overcomes her. She dies. Years roll on. The child becomes
+a man; and then--and now I will give my imagination a free rein--let
+us suppose that the man feels a desire to return to the home of his
+childhood, that he does so, and that he meets there certain people who
+suspect and accuse his mother.... do you realize the sorrow and anguish
+of such an interview in the very house wherein the original drama was
+played?”
+
+His words seemed to echo for a few seconds in the ensuing silence,
+and one could read upon the faces of the Count and Countess de Dreux a
+bewildered effort to comprehend his meaning and, at the same time, the
+fear and anguish of such a comprehension. The count spoke at last, and
+said:
+
+“Who are you, monsieur?”
+
+“I? The chevalier Floriani, whom you met at Palermo, and whom you have
+been gracious enough to invite to your house on several occasions.”
+
+“Then what does this story mean?”
+
+“Oh! nothing at all! It is simply a pastime, so far as I am concerned. I
+endeavor to depict the pleasure that Henriette’s son, if he still lives,
+would have in telling you that he was the guilty party, and that he did
+it because his mother was unhappy, as she was on the point of losing
+the place of a.... servant, by which she lived, and because the child
+suffered at sight of his mother’s sorrow.”
+
+He spoke with suppressed emotion, rose partially and inclined toward
+the countess. There could be no doubt that the chevalier Floriani was
+Henriette’s son. His attitude and words proclaimed it. Besides, was it
+not his obvious intention and desire to be recognized as such?
+
+The count hesitated. What action would he take against the audacious
+guest? Ring? Provoke a scandal? Unmask the man who had once robbed him?
+But that was a long time ago! And who would believe that absurd story
+about the guilty child? No; better far to accept the situation, and
+pretend not to comprehend the true meaning of it. So the count, turning
+to Floriani, exclaimed:
+
+“Your story is very curious, very entertaining; I enjoyed it much. But
+what do you think has become of this young man, this model son? I
+hope he has not abandoned the career in which he made such a brilliant
+début.”
+
+“Oh! certainly not.”
+
+“After such a début! To steal the Queen’s Necklace at six years of age;
+the celebrated necklace that was coveted by Marie-Antoinette!”
+
+“And to steal it,” remarked Floriani, falling in with the count’s mood,
+“without costing him the slightest trouble, without anyone thinking to
+examine the condition of the window, or to observe that the window-sill
+was too clean--that window-sill which he had wiped in order to efface
+the marks he had made in the thick dust. We must admit that it was
+sufficient to turn the head of a boy at that age. It was all so easy. He
+had simply to desire the thing, and reach out his hand to get it.”
+
+“And he reached out his hand.”
+
+“Both hands,” replied the chevalier, laughing.
+
+His companions received a shock. What mystery surrounded the life of
+the so-called Floriani? How wonderful must have been the life of that
+adventurer, a thief at six years of age, and who, to-day, in search of
+excitement or, at most, to gratify a feeling of resentment, had come to
+brave his victim in her own house, audaciously, foolishly, and yet with
+all the grace and delicacy of a courteous guest!
+
+He arose and approached the countess to bid her adieu. She recoiled,
+unconsciously. He smiled.
+
+“Oh! Madame, you are afraid of me! Did I pursue my role of
+parlor-magician a step too far?”
+
+She controlled herself, and replied, with her accustomed ease:
+
+“Not at all, monsieur. The legend of that dutiful son interested me very
+much, and I am pleased to know that my necklace had such a brilliant
+destiny. But do you not think that the son of that woman, that
+Henriette, was the victim of hereditary influence in the choice of his
+vocation?”
+
+He shuddered, feeling the point, and replied:
+
+“I am sure of it; and, moreover, his natural tendency to crime must have
+been very strong or he would have been discouraged.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Because, as you must know, the majority of the diamonds were false. The
+only genuine stones were the few purchased from the English jeweler, the
+others having been sold, one by one, to meet the cruel necessities of
+life.”
+
+“It was still the Queen’s Necklace, monsieur,” replied the countess,
+haughtily, “and that is something that he, Henriette’s son, could not
+appreciate.”
+
+“He was able to appreciate, madame, that, whether true or false,
+the necklace was nothing more that an object of parade, an emblem of
+senseless pride.”
+
+The count made a threatening gesture, but his wife stopped him.
+
+“Monsieur,” she said, “if the man to whom you allude has the slightest
+sense of honor---”
+
+She stopped, intimidated by Floriani’s cool manner.
+
+“If that man has the slightest sense of honor,” he repeated.
+
+She felt that she would not gain anything by speaking to him in that
+manner, and in spite of her anger and indignation, trembling as she was
+from humiliated pride, she said to him, almost politely:
+
+“Monsieur, the legend says that Rétaux de Villette, when in possession
+of the Queen’s Necklace, did not disfigure the mounting. He understood
+that the diamonds were simply the ornament, the accessory, and that
+the mounting was the essential work, the creation of the artist, and
+he respected it accordingly. Do you think that this man had the same
+feeling?”
+
+“I have no doubt that the mounting still exists. The child respected
+it.”
+
+“Well, monsieur, if you should happen to meet him, will you tell him
+that he unjustly keeps possession of a relic that is the property and
+pride of a certain family, and that, although the stones have
+been removed, the Queen’s necklace still belongs to the house of
+Dreux-Soubise. It belongs to us as much as our name or our honor.”
+
+The chevalier replied, simply:
+
+“I shall tell him, madame.”
+
+He bowed to her, saluted the count and the other guests, and departed.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Four days later, the countess de Dreux found upon the table in her
+chamber a red leather case bearing the cardinal’s arms. She opened it,
+and found the Queen’s Necklace.
+
+But as all things must, in the life of a man who strives for unity and
+logic, converge toward the same goal--and as a little advertising never
+does any harm--on the following day, the ‘Echo de France’ published
+these sensational lines:
+
+“The Queen’s Necklace, the famous historical jewelry stolen from
+the family of Dreux-Soubise, has been recovered by Arsène Lupin, who
+hastened to restore it to its rightful owner. We cannot too highly
+commend such a delicate and chivalrous act.”
+
+
+
+
+VI. The Seven of Hearts
+
+
+I am frequently asked this question: “How did you make the acquaintance
+of Arsène Lupin?”
+
+My connection with Arsène Lupin was well known. The details that I
+gather concerning that mysterious man, the irrefutable facts that I
+present, the new evidence that I produce, the interpretation that I
+place on certain acts of which the public has seen only the exterior
+manifestations without being able to discover the secret reasons or
+the invisible mechanism, all establish, if not an intimacy, at least
+amicable relations and regular confidences.
+
+But how did I make his acquaintance? Why was I selected to be his
+historiographer? Why I, and not some one else?
+
+The answer is simple: chance alone presided over my choice; my merit was
+not considered. It was chance that put me in his way. It was by chance
+that I was participant in one of his strangest and most mysterious
+adventures; and by chance that I was an actor in a drama of which he was
+the marvelous stage director; an obscure and intricate drama, bristling
+with such thrilling events that I feel a certain embarrassment in
+undertaking to describe it.
+
+The first act takes place during that memorable night of 22 June, of
+which so much has already been said. And, for my part, I attribute the
+anomalous conduct of which I was guilty on that occasion to the unusual
+frame of mind in which I found myself on my return home. I had dined
+with some friends at the Cascade restaurant, and, the entire evening,
+whilst we smoked and the orchestra played melancholy waltzes, we talked
+only of crimes and thefts, and dark and frightful intrigues. That is
+always a poor overture to a night’s sleep.
+
+The Saint-Martins went away in an automobile. Jean Daspry--that
+delightful, heedless Daspry who, six months later, was killed in such a
+tragic manner on the frontier of Morocco--Jean Daspry and I returned
+on foot through the dark, warm night. When we arrived in front of
+the little house in which I had lived for a year at Neuilly, on the
+boulevard Maillot, he said to me:
+
+“Are you afraid?”
+
+“What an idea!”
+
+“But this house is so isolated.... no neighbors.... vacant lots....Really,
+I am not a coward, and yet---”
+
+“Well, you are very cheering, I must say.”
+
+“Oh! I say that as I would say anything else. The Saint-Martins have
+impressed me with their stories of brigands and thieves.”
+
+We shook hands and said good-night. I took out my key and opened the
+door.
+
+“Well, that is good,” I murmured, “Antoine has forgotten to light a
+candle.”
+
+Then I recalled the fact that Antoine was away; I had given him a
+short leave of absence. Forthwith, I was disagreeably oppressed by the
+darkness and silence of the night. I ascended the stairs on tiptoe,
+and reached my room as quickly as possible; then, contrary to my usual
+habit, I turned the key and pushed the bolt.
+
+The light of my candle restored my courage. Yet I was careful to take my
+revolver from its case--a large, powerful weapon--and place it beside
+my bed. That precaution completed my reassurance. I laid down and, as
+usual, took a book from my night-table to read myself to sleep. Then I
+received a great surprise. Instead of the paper-knife with which I had
+marked my place on the preceding, I found an envelope, closed with
+five seals of red wax. I seized it eagerly. It was addressed to me, and
+marked: “Urgent.”
+
+A letter! A letter addressed to me! Who could have put it in that place?
+Nervously, I tore open the envelope, and read:
+
+“From the moment you open this letter, whatever happens, whatever you
+may hear, do not move, do not utter one cry. Otherwise you are doomed.”
+
+I am not a coward, and, quite as well as another, I can face real
+danger, or smile at the visionary perils of imagination. But, let me
+repeat, I was in an anomalous condition of mind, with my nerves set on
+edge by the events of the evening. Besides, was there not, in my present
+situation, something startling and mysterious, calculated to disturb the
+most courageous spirit?
+
+My feverish fingers clutched the sheet of paper, and I read and re-read
+those threatening words: “Do not move, do not utter one cry. Otherwise,
+you are doomed.”
+
+“Nonsense!” I thought. “It is a joke; the work of some cheerful idiot.”
+
+I was about to laugh--a good loud laugh. Who prevented me? What haunting
+fear compressed my throat?
+
+At least, I would blow out the candle. No, I could not do it. “Do not
+move, or you are doomed,” were the words he had written.
+
+These auto-suggestions are frequently more imperious than the most
+positive realities; but why should I struggle against them? I had simply
+to close my eyes. I did so.
+
+At that moment, I heard a slight noise, followed by crackling sounds,
+proceeding from a large room used by me as a library. A small room or
+antechamber was situated between the library and my bedchamber.
+
+The approach of an actual danger greatly excited me, and I felt a desire
+to get up, seize my revolver, and rush into the library. I did not rise;
+I saw one of the curtains of the left window move. There was no doubt
+about it: the curtain had moved. It was still moving. And I saw--oh! I
+saw quite distinctly--in the narrow space between the curtains and the
+window, a human form; a bulky mass that prevented the curtains from
+hanging straight. And it is equally certain that the man saw me through
+the large meshes of the curtain. Then, I understood the situation.
+His mission was to guard me while the others carried away their booty.
+Should I rise and seize my revolver? Impossible! He was there! At the
+least movement, at the least cry, I was doomed.
+
+Then came a terrific noise that shook the house; this was followed
+by lighter sounds, two or three together, like those of a hammer that
+rebounded. At least, that was the impression formed in my confused
+brain. These were mingled with other sounds, thus creating a veritable
+uproar which proved that the intruders were not only bold, but felt
+themselves secure from interruption.
+
+They were right. I did not move. Was it cowardice? No, rather weakness,
+a total inability to move any portion of my body, combined with
+discretion; for why should I struggle? Behind that man, there were ten
+others who would come to his assistance. Should I risk my life to save a
+few tapestries and bibelots?
+
+Throughout the night, my torture endured. Insufferable torture, terrible
+anguish! The noises had stopped, but I was in constant fear of their
+renewal. And the man! The man who was guarding me, weapon in hand. My
+fearful eyes remained cast in his direction. And my heart beat! And a
+profuse perspiration oozed from every pore of my body!
+
+Suddenly, I experienced an immense relief; a milk-wagon, whose sound was
+familiar to me, passed along the boulevard; and, at the same time, I had
+an impression that the light of a new day was trying to steal through
+the closed window-blinds.
+
+At last, daylight penetrated the room; other vehicles passed along the
+boulevard; and all the phantoms of the night vanished. Then I put one
+arm out of the bed, slowly and cautiously. My eyes were fixed upon the
+curtain, locating the exact spot at which I must fire; I made an exact
+calculation of the movements I must make; then, quickly, I seized my
+revolver and fired.
+
+I leaped from my bed with a cry of deliverance, and rushed to the
+window. The bullet had passed through the curtain and the window-glass,
+but it had not touched the man--for the very good reason that there was
+none there. Nobody! Thus, during the entire night, I had been
+hypnotized by a fold of the curtain. And, during that time, the
+malefactors....Furiously, with an enthusiasm that nothing could have
+stopped, I turned the key, opened the door, crossed the antechamber,
+opened another door, and rushed into the library. But amazement stopped
+me on the threshold, panting, astounded, more astonished than I had
+been by the absence of the man. All the things that I supposed had been
+stolen, furniture, books, pictures, old tapestries, everything was in
+its proper place.
+
+It was incredible. I could not believe my eyes. Notwithstanding that
+uproar, those noises of removal....I made a tour, I inspected the walls,
+I made a mental inventory of all the familiar objects. Nothing was
+missing. And, what was more disconcerting, there was no clue to the
+intruders, not a sign, not a chair disturbed, not the trace of a
+footstep.
+
+“Well! Well!” I said to myself, pressing my hands on my bewildered head,
+“surely I am not crazy! I hear something!”
+
+Inch by inch, I made a careful examination of the room. It was in vain.
+Unless I could consider this as a discovery: Under a small Persian rug,
+I found a card--an ordinary playing card. It was the seven of hearts;
+it was like any other seven of hearts in French playing-cards, with this
+slight but curious exception: The extreme point of each of the seven red
+spots or hearts was pierced by a hole, round and regular as if made with
+the point of an awl.
+
+Nothing more. A card and a letter found in a book. But was not that
+sufficient to affirm that I had not been the plaything of a dream?
+
+* * * * *
+
+Throughout the day, I continued my searches in the library. It was a
+large room, much too large for the requirements of such a house, and the
+decoration of which attested the bizarre taste of its founder. The
+floor was a mosaic of multicolored stones, formed into large symmetrical
+designs. The walls were covered with a similar mosaic, arranged in
+panels, Pompeiian allegories, Byzantine compositions, frescoes of the
+Middle Ages. A Bacchus bestriding a cask. An emperor wearing a gold
+crown, a flowing beard, and holding a sword in his right hand.
+
+Quite high, after the style of an artist’s studio, there was a large
+window--the only one in the room. That window being always open at
+night, it was probable that the men had entered through it, by the aid
+of a ladder. But, again, there was no evidence. The bottom of the ladder
+would have left some marks in the soft earth beneath the window; but
+there were none. Nor were there any traces of footsteps in any part of
+the yard.
+
+I had no idea of informing the police, because the facts I had before me
+were so absurd and inconsistent. They would laugh at me. However, as I
+was then a reporter on the staff of the ‘Gil Blas,’ I wrote a lengthy
+account of my adventure and it was published in the paper on the second
+day thereafter. The article attracted some attention, but no one took it
+seriously. They regarded it as a work of fiction rather than a story
+of real life. The Saint-Martins rallied me. But Daspry, who took an
+interest in such matters, came to see me, made a study of the affair,
+but reached no conclusion.
+
+A few mornings later, the door-bell rang, and Antoine came to inform
+me that a gentleman desired to see me. He would not give his name. I
+directed Antoine to show him up. He was a man of about forty years of
+age with a very dark complexion, lively features, and whose correct
+dress, slightly frayed, proclaimed a taste that contrasted strangely
+with his rather vulgar manners. Without any preamble, he said to me--in
+a rough voice that confirmed my suspicion as to his social position:
+
+“Monsieur, whilst in a café, I picked up a copy of the ‘Gil Blas,’ and
+read your article. It interested me very much.
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“And here I am.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, to talk to you. Are all the facts related by you quite correct?”
+
+“Absolutely so.”
+
+“Well, in that case, I can, perhaps, give you some information.”
+
+“Very well; proceed.”
+
+“No, not yet. First, I must be sure that the facts are exactly as you
+have related them.”
+
+“I have given you my word. What further proof do you want?”
+
+“I must remain alone in this room.”
+
+“I do not understand,” I said, with surprise.
+
+“It’s an idea that occurred to me when reading your article. Certain
+details established an extraordinary coincidence with another case that
+came under my notice. If I am mistaken, I shall say nothing more. And
+the only means of ascertaining the truth is by my remaining in the room
+alone.”
+
+What was at the bottom of this proposition? Later, I recalled that the
+man was exceedingly nervous; but, at the same time, although somewhat
+astonished, I found nothing particularly abnormal about the man or the
+request he had made. Moreover, my curiosity was aroused; so I replied:
+
+“Very well. How much time do you require?”
+
+“Oh! three minutes--not longer. Three minutes from now, I will rejoin
+you.”
+
+I left the room, and went downstairs. I took out my watch. One minute
+passed. Two minutes. Why did I feel so depressed? Why did those moments
+seem so solemn and weird? Two minutes and a half....Two minutes and
+three quarters. Then I heard a pistol shot.
+
+I bounded up the stairs and entered the room. A cry of horror escaped
+me. In the middle of the room, the man was lying on his left side,
+motionless. Blood was flowing from a wound in his forehead. Near his
+hand was a revolver, still smoking.
+
+But, in addition to this frightful spectacle, my attention was attracted
+by another object. At two feet from the body, upon the floor, I saw
+a playing-card. It was the seven of hearts. I picked it up. The lower
+extremity of each of the seven spots was pierced with a small round
+hole.
+
+* * * * *
+
+A half-hour later, the commissary of police arrived, then the coroner
+and the chief of the Sûreté, Mon. Dudouis. I had been careful not to
+touch the corpse. The preliminary inquiry was very brief, and disclosed
+nothing. There were no papers in the pockets of the deceased; no name
+upon his clothes; no initial upon his linen; nothing to give any clue
+to his identity. The room was in the same perfect order as before. The
+furniture had not been disturbed. Yet this man had not come to my house
+solely for the purpose of killing himself, or because he considered my
+place the most convenient one for his suicide! There must have been a
+motive for his act of despair, and that motive was, no doubt, the result
+of some new fact ascertained by him during the three minutes he was
+alone.
+
+What was that fact? What had he seen? What frightful secret had been
+revealed to him? There was no answer to these questions. But, at the
+last moment, an incident occurred that appeared to us of considerable
+importance. As two policemen were raising the body to place it on a
+stretcher, the left hand thus being disturbed, a crumpled card fell from
+it. The card bore these words: “Georges Andermatt, 37 Rue de Berry.”
+
+What did that mean? Georges Andermatt was a rich banker in Paris, the
+founder and president of the Metal Exchange which had given such an
+impulse to the metallic industries in France. He lived in princely
+style; was the possessor of numerous automobiles, coaches, and an
+expensive racing-stable. His social affairs were very select, and Madame
+Andermatt was noted for her grace and beauty.
+
+“Can that be the man’s name?” I asked. ---------------
+
+The chief of the Sûreté leaned over him.
+
+“It is not he. Mon. Andermatt is a thin man, and slightly grey.”
+
+“But why this card?”
+
+“Have you a telephone, monsieur?”
+
+“Yes, in the vestibule. Come with me.”
+
+He looked in the directory, and then asked for number 415.21.
+
+“Is Mon. Andermatt at home?....Please tell him that Mon. Dudouis wished
+him to come at once to 102 Boulevard Maillot. Very important.”
+
+Twenty minutes later, Mon. Andermatt arrived in his automobile. After
+the circumstances had been explained to him, he was taken in to see the
+corpse. He displayed considerable emotion, and spoke, in a low tone, and
+apparently unwillingly:
+
+“Etienne Varin,” he said.
+
+“You know him?”
+
+“No.... or, at least, yes.... by sight only. His brother....”
+
+“Ah! he has a brother?”
+
+“Yes, Alfred Varin. He came to see me once on some matter of
+business....I forget what it was.”
+
+“Where does he live?”
+
+“The two brothers live together--rue de Provence, I think.”
+
+“Do you know any reason why he should commit suicide?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“He held a card in his hand. It was your card with your address.”
+
+“I do not understand that. It must have been there by some chance that
+will be disclosed by the investigation.”
+
+A very strange chance, I thought; and I felt that the others entertained
+the same impression.
+
+I discovered the same impression in the papers next day, and amongst
+all my friends with whom I discussed the affair. Amid the mysteries that
+enveloped it, after the double discovery of the seven of hearts pierced
+with seven holes, after the two inscrutable events that had happened in
+my house, that visiting card promised to throw some light on the
+affair. Through it, the truth may be revealed. But, contrary to our
+expectations, Mon. Andermatt furnished no explanation. He said:
+
+“I have told you all I know. What more can I do? I am greatly surprised
+that my card should be found in such a place, and I sincerely hope the
+point will be cleared up.”
+
+It was not. The official investigation established that the Varin
+brothers were of Swiss origin, had led a shifting life under various
+names, frequenting gambling resorts, associating with a band of
+foreigners who had been dispersed by the police after a series of
+robberies in which their participation was established only by their
+flight. At number 24 rue de Provence, where the Varin brothers had lived
+six years before, no one knew what had become of them.
+
+I confess that, for my part, the case seemed to me so complicated and so
+mysterious that I did not think the problem would ever be solved, so
+I concluded to waste no more time upon it. But Jean Daspry, whom I
+frequently met at that period, became more and more interested in it
+each day. It was he who pointed out to me that item from a foreign
+newspaper which was reproduced and commented upon by the entire press.
+It was as follows:
+
+“The first trial of a new model of submarine boat, which is expected
+to revolutionize naval warfare, will be given in presence of the former
+Emperor at a place that will be kept secret until the last minute. An
+indiscretion has revealed its name; it is called ‘The Seven-of-Hearts.’”
+
+The Seven-of-Hearts! That presented a new problem. Could a connection be
+established between the name of the sub-marine and the incidents which
+we have related? But a connection of what nature? What had happened here
+could have no possible relation with the sub-marine.
+
+“What do you know about it?” said Daspry to me. “The most diverse
+effects often proceed from the same cause.”
+
+Two days later, the following foreign news item was received and
+published:
+
+“It is said that the plans of the new sub-marine ‘Seven-of-Hearts’ were
+prepared by French engineers, who, having sought, in vain, the support
+of their compatriots, subsequently entered into negotiations with the
+British Admiralty, without success.”
+
+I do not wish to give undue publicity to certain delicate matters which
+once provoked considerable excitement. Yet, since all danger of injury
+therefrom has now come to an end, I must speak of the article that
+appeared in the ‘Echo de France,’ which aroused so much comment at
+that time, and which threw considerable light upon the mystery of
+the Seven-of-Hearts. This is the article as it was published over the
+signature of Salvator:
+
+  “THE AFFAIR OF THE SEVEN-OF-HEARTS.
+
+  “A CORNER OF THE VEIL RAISED.
+
+ “We will be brief.  Ten years ago, a young mining engineer, Louis
+  Lacombe, wishing to devote his time and fortune to certain studies,
+  resigned his position he then held, and rented number 102 boulevard
+  Maillot, a small house that had been recently built and decorated
+  for an Italian count.  Through the agency of the Varin brothers of
+  Lausanne, one of whom assisted in the preliminary experiments and
+  the other acted as financial agent, the young engineer was
+  introduced to Georges Andermatt, the founder of the Metal Exchange.
+
+  “After several interviews, he succeeded in interesting the banker
+  in a sub-marine boat on which he was working, and it was agreed
+  that as soon as the invention was perfected, Mon. Andermatt would
+  use his influence with the Minister of Marine to obtain a series of
+  trials under the direction of the government.  For two years, Louis
+  Lacombe was a frequent visitor at Andermatt’s house, and he
+  submitted to the banker the various improvements he made upon his
+  original plans, until one day, being satisfied with the perfection
+  of his work, he asked Mon. Andermatt to communicate with the
+  Minister of Marine.  That day, Louis Lacombe dined at Mon.
+  Andermatt’s house.  He left there about half-past eleven at night.
+  He has not been seen since.
+
+  “A perusal of the newspapers of that date will show that the
+  young man’s family caused every possible inquiry to be made, but
+  without success; and it was the general opinion that Louis Lacombe--
+  who was known as an original and visionary youth--had quietly left
+  for parts unknown.
+
+  “Let us accept that theory--improbable, though it be,--and let us
+  consider another question, which is a most important one for our
+  country:  What has become of the plans of the sub-marine? Did Louis
+  Lacombe carry them away?  Are they destroyed?
+
+  “After making a thorough investigation, we are able to assert,
+  positively, that the plans are in existence, and are now in the
+  possession of the two brothers Varin.  How did they acquire such a
+  possession?  That is a question not yet determined; nor do we know
+  why they have not tried to sell them at an earlier date.  Did they
+  fear that their title to them would be called in question?  If so,
+  they have lost that fear, and we can announce definitely, that the
+  plans of Louis Lacombe are now the property of foreign power, and
+  we are in a position to publish the correspondence that passed
+  between the Varin brothers and the representative of that power.
+  The ‘Seven-of-Hearts’ invented by Louis Lacombe has been actually
+  constructed by our neighbor.
+
+  “Will the invention fulfill the optimistic expectations of those
+  who were concerned in that treacherous act?”
+
+And a post-script adds:
+
+  “Later.--Our special correspondent informs us that the preliminary
+  trial of the ‘Seven-of-Hearts’ has not been satisfactory.  It is
+  quite likely that the plans sold and delivered by the Varin
+  brothers did not include the final document carried by Louis
+  Lacombe to Mon. Andermatt on the day of his disappearance, a
+  document that was indispensable to a thorough understanding of the
+  invention.  It contained a summary of the final conclusions of the
+  inventor, and estimates and figures not contained in the other
+  papers.  Without this document, the plans are incomplete; on the
+  other hand, without the plans, the document is worthless.
+
+  “Now is the time to act and recover what belongs to us.  It may
+  be a difficult matter, but we rely upon the assistance of Mon.
+  Andermatt.  It will be to his interest to explain his conduct which
+  has hitherto been so strange and inscrutable.  He will explain not
+  only why he concealed these facts at the time of the suicide of
+  Etienne Varin, but also why he has never revealed the disappearance
+  of the paper--a fact well known to him.  He will tell why, during
+  the last six years, he paid spies to watch the movements of the
+  Varin brothers.  We expect from him, not only words, but acts.  And
+  at once.  Otherwise---”
+
+The threat was plainly expressed. But of what did it consist? What whip
+was Salvator, the anonymous writer of the article, holding over the head
+of Mon. Andermatt?
+
+An army of reporters attacked the banker, and ten interviewers announced
+the scornful manner in which they were treated. Thereupon, the ‘Echo de
+France’ announced its position in these words:
+
+“Whether Mon. Andermatt is willing or not, he will be, henceforth, our
+collaborator in the work we have undertaken.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+Daspry and I were dining together on the day on which that announcement
+appeared. That evening, with the newspapers spread over my table, we
+discussed the affair and examined it from every point of view with that
+exasperation that a person feels when walking in the dark and finding
+himself constantly falling over the same obstacles. Suddenly, without
+any warning whatsoever, the door opened and a lady entered. Her face was
+hidden behind a thick veil. I rose at once and approached her.
+
+“Is it you, monsieur, who lives here?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, madame, but I do not understand---”
+
+“The gate was not locked,” she explained.
+
+“But the vestibule door?”
+
+She did not reply, and it occurred to me that she had used the servants’
+entrance. How did she know the way? Then there was a silence that was
+quite embarrassing. She looked at Daspry, and I was obliged to introduce
+him. I asked her to be seated and explain the object of her visit. She
+raised her veil, and I saw that she was a brunette with regular features
+and, though not handsome, she was attractive--principally, on account of
+her sad, dark eyes.
+
+“I am Madame Andermatt,” she said.
+
+“Madame Andermatt!” I repeated, with astonishment.
+
+After a brief pause, she continued with a voice and manner that were
+quite easy and natural:
+
+“I have come to see you about that affair--you know. I thought I might
+be able to obtain some information---”
+
+“Mon Dieu, madame, I know nothing but what has already appeared in the
+papers. But if you will point out in what way I can help you....”
+
+“I do not know....I do not know.”
+
+Not until then did I suspect that her calm demeanor was assumed, and
+that some poignant grief was concealed beneath that air of tranquility.
+For a moment, we were silent and embarrassed. Then Daspry stepped
+forward, and said:
+
+“Will you permit me to ask you a few questions?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” she cried. “I will answer.”
+
+“You will answer.... whatever those questions may be?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you know Louis Lacombe?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, through my husband.”
+
+“When did you see him for the last time?”
+
+“The evening he dined with us.”
+
+“At that time, was there anything to lead you to believe that you would
+never see him again?”
+
+“No. But he had spoken of a trip to Russia--in a vague way.”
+
+“Then you expected to see him again?”
+
+“Yes. He was to dine with us, two days later.”
+
+“How do you explain his disappearance?”
+
+“I cannot explain it.”
+
+“And Mon. Andermatt?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“Yet the article published in the ‘Echo de France’ indicates---”
+
+“Yes, that the Varin brothers had something to do with his
+disappearance.”
+
+“Is that your opinion?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“On what do you base your opinion?”
+
+“When he left our house, Louis Lacombe carried a satchel containing all
+the papers relating to his invention. Two days later, my husband, in
+a conversation with one of the Varin brothers, learned that the papers
+were in their possession.”
+
+“And he did not denounce them?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because there was something else in the satchel--something besides the
+papers of Louis Lacombe.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+She hesitated; was on the point of speaking, but, finally, remained
+silent. Daspry continued:
+
+“I presume that is why your husband has kept a close watch over their
+movements instead of informing the police. He hoped to recover the
+papers and, at the same time, that compromising article which has
+enabled the two brothers to hold over him threats of exposure and
+blackmail.”
+
+“Over him, and over me.”
+
+“Ah! over you, also?”
+
+“Over me, in particular.”
+
+She uttered the last words in a hollow voice. Daspry observed it; he
+paced to and fro for a moment, then, turning to her, asked:
+
+“Had you written to Louis Lacombe?”
+
+“Of course. My husband had business with him--”
+
+“Apart from those business letters, had you written to Louis
+Lacombe.... other letters? Excuse my insistence, but it is absolutely
+necessary that I should know the truth. Did you write other letters?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied, blushing.
+
+“And those letters came into the possession of the Varin brothers?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Does Mon. Andermatt know it?”
+
+“He has not seen them, but Alfred Varin has told him of their existence
+and threatened to publish them if my husband should take any steps
+against him. My husband was afraid.... of a scandal.”
+
+“But he has tried to recover the letters?”
+
+“I think so; but I do not know. You see, after that last interview with
+Alfred Varin, and after some harsh words between me and my husband in
+which he called me to account--we live as strangers.”
+
+“In that case, as you have nothing to lose, what do you fear?”
+
+“I may be indifferent to him now, but I am the woman that he has loved,
+the one he would still love--oh! I am quite sure of that,” she murmured,
+in a fervent voice, “he would still love me if he had not got hold of
+those cursed letters----”
+
+“What! Did he succeed?....But the two brothers still defied him?”
+
+“Yes, and they boasted of having a secure hiding-place.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I believe my husband discovered that hiding-place.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I believe my husband has discovered that hiding-place.”
+
+“Ah! where was it?”
+
+“Here.”
+
+“Here!” I cried in alarm.
+
+“Yes. I always had that suspicion. Louis Lacombe was very ingenious
+and amused himself in his leisure hours, by making safes and locks. No
+doubt, the Varin brothers were aware of that fact and utilized one of
+Lacombe’s safes in which to conceal the letters.... and other things,
+perhaps.”
+
+“But they did not live here,” I said.
+
+“Before you came, four months ago, the house had been vacant for some
+time. And they may have thought that your presence here would not
+interfere with them when they wanted to get the papers. But they did not
+count on my husband, who came here on the night of 22 June, forced the
+safe, took what he was seeking, and left his card to inform the two
+brothers that he feared them no more, and that their positions were now
+reversed. Two days later, after reading the article in the ‘Gil Blas,’
+Etienne Varin came here, remained alone in this room, found the safe
+empty, and.... killed himself.”
+
+After a moment, Daspry said:
+
+“A very simple theory....Has Mon. Andermatt spoken to you since then?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Has his attitude toward you changed in any way? Does he appear more
+gloomy, more anxious?”
+
+“No, I haven’t noticed any change.”
+
+“And yet you think he has secured the letters. Now, in my opinion, he
+has not got those letters, and it was not he who came here on the night
+of 22 June.”
+
+“Who was it, then?”
+
+“The mysterious individual who is managing this affair, who holds all
+the threads in his hands, and whose invisible but far-reaching power we
+have felt from the beginning. It was he and his friends who entered
+this house on 22 June; it was he who discovered the hiding-place of the
+papers; it was he who left Mon. Andermatt’s card; it is he who now
+holds the correspondence and the evidence of the treachery of the Varin
+brothers.”
+
+“Who is he?” I asked, impatiently.
+
+“The man who writes letters to the ‘Echo de France’.... Salvator! Have
+we not convincing evidence of that fact? Does he not mention in his
+letters certain details that no one could know, except the man who had
+thus discovered the secrets of the two brothers?”
+
+“Well, then,” stammered Madame Andermatt, in great alarm, “he has my
+letters also, and it is he who now threatens my husband. Mon Dieu! What
+am I to do?”
+
+“Write to him,” declared Daspry. “Confide in him without reserve. Tell
+him all you know and all you may hereafter learn. Your interest and his
+interest are the same. He is not working against Mon. Andermatt, but
+against Alfred Varin. Help him.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Has your husband the document that completes the plans of Louis
+Lacombe?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Tell that to Salvator, and, if possible, procure the document for him.
+Write to him at once. You risk nothing.”
+
+The advice was bold, dangerous even at first sight, but Madame Andermatt
+had no choice. Besides, as Daspry had said, she ran no risk. If
+the unknown writer were an enemy, that step would not aggravate the
+situation. If he were a stranger seeking to accomplish a particular
+purpose, he would attach to those letters only a secondary importance.
+Whatever might happen, it was the only solution offered to her, and
+she, in her anxiety, was only too glad to act on it. She thanked us
+effusively, and promised to keep us informed.
+
+In fact, two days later, she sent us the following letter that she had
+received from Salvator:
+
+“Have not found the letters, but I will get them. Rest easy. I am
+watching everything. S.”
+
+I looked at the letter. It was in the same handwriting as the note I
+found in my book on the night of 22 June.
+
+Daspry was right. Salvator was, indeed, the originator of that affair.
+
+* * * * *
+
+We were beginning to see a little light coming out of the darkness that
+surrounded us, and an unexpected light was thrown on certain points; but
+other points yet remained obscure--for instance, the finding of the two
+seven-of-hearts. Perhaps I was unnecessarily concerned about those
+two cards whose seven punctured spots had appeared to me under such
+startling circumstances! Yet I could not refrain from asking myself:
+What role will they play in the drama? What importance do they
+bear? What conclusion must be drawn from the fact that the submarine
+constructed from the plans of Louis Lacombe bore the name of
+‘Seven-of-Hearts’?
+
+Daspry gave little thought to the other two cards; he devoted all his
+attention to another problem which he considered more urgent; he was
+seeking the famous hiding-place.
+
+“And who knows,” said he, “I may find the letters that Salvator did not
+find--by inadvertence, perhaps. It is improbable that the Varin brothers
+would have removed from a spot, which they deemed inaccessible, the
+weapon which was so valuable to them.”
+
+And he continued to search. In a short time, the large room held no more
+secrets for him, so he extended his investigations to the other rooms.
+He examined the interior and the exterior, the stones of the foundation,
+the bricks in the walls; he raised the slates of the roof.
+
+One day, he came with a pickaxe and a spade, gave me the spade, kept the
+pickaxe, pointed to the adjacent vacant lots, and said: “Come.”
+
+I followed him, but I lacked his enthusiasm. He divided the vacant land
+into several sections which he examined in turn. At last, in a corner,
+at the angle formed by the walls of two neighboring proprietors, a small
+pile of earth and gravel, covered with briers and grass, attracted his
+attention. He attacked it. I was obliged to help him. For an hour, under
+a hot sun, we labored without success. I was discouraged, but Daspry
+urged me on. His ardor was as strong as ever.
+
+At last, Daspry’s pickaxe unearthed some bones--the remains of a
+skeleton to which some scraps of clothing still hung. Suddenly, I turned
+pale. I had discovered, sticking in the earth, a small piece of iron cut
+in the form of a rectangle, on which I thought I could see red spots. I
+stooped and picked it up. That little iron plate was the exact size of a
+playing-card, and the red spots, made with red lead, were arranged upon
+it in a manner similar to the seven-of-hearts, and each spot was pierced
+with a round hole similar to the perforations in the two playing cards.
+
+“Listen, Daspry, I have had enough of this. You can stay if it interests
+you. But I am going.”
+
+Was that simply the expression of my excited nerves? Or was it the
+result of a laborious task executed under a burning sun? I know that
+I trembled as I walked away, and that I went to bed, where I remained
+forty-eight hours, restless and feverish, haunted by skeletons that
+danced around me and threw their bleeding hearts at my head.
+
+Daspry was faithful to me. He came to my house every day, and remained
+three or four hours, which he spent in the large room, ferreting,
+thumping, tapping.
+
+“The letters are here, in this room,” he said, from time to time, “they
+are here. I will stake my life on it.”
+
+On the morning of the third day I arose--feeble yet, but cured. A
+substantial breakfast cheered me up. But a letter that I received that
+afternoon contributed, more than anything else, to my complete recovery,
+and aroused in me a lively curiosity. This was the letter:
+
+  “Monsieur,
+
+  “The drama, the first act of which transpired on the night of 22
+  June, is now drawing to a close.  Force of circumstances compel me
+  to bring the two principal actors in that drama face to face, and I
+  wish that meeting to take place in your house, if you will be so
+  kind as to give me the use of it for this evening from nine o’clock
+  to eleven.  It will be advisable to give your servant leave of
+  absence for the evening, and, perhaps, you will be so kind as to
+  leave the field open to the two adversaries.  You will remember
+  that when I visited your house on the night of 22 June, I took
+  excellent care of your property.  I feel that I would do you an
+  injustice if I should doubt, for one moment, your absolute
+  discretion in this affair.  Your devoted,
+
+                                 “SALVATOR.”
+
+I was amused at the facetious tone of his letter and also at the
+whimsical nature of his request. There was a charming display of
+confidence and candor in his language, and nothing in the world could
+have induced me to deceive him or repay his confidence with ingratitude.
+
+I gave my servant a theatre ticket, and he left the house at eight
+o’clock. A few minutes later, Daspry arrived. I showed him the letter.
+
+“Well?” said he.
+
+“Well, I have left the garden gate unlocked, so anyone can enter.”
+
+“And you--are you going away?”
+
+“Not at all. I intend to stay right here.”
+
+“But he asks you to go---”
+
+“But I am not going. I will be discreet, but I am resolved to see what
+takes place.”
+
+“Ma foi!” exclaimed Daspry, laughing, “you are right, and I shall stay
+with you. I shouldn’t like to miss it.”
+
+We were interrupted by the sound of the door-bell.
+
+“Here already?” said Daspry, “twenty minutes ahead of time! Incredible!”
+
+I went to the door and ushered in the visitor. It was Madame Andermatt.
+She was faint and nervous, and in a stammering voice, she ejaculated:
+
+“My husband.... is coming.... he has an appointment.... they intend to
+give him the letters....”
+
+“How do you know?” I asked.
+
+“By chance. A message came for my husband while we were at dinner. The
+servant gave it to me by mistake. My husband grabbed it quickly, but he
+was too late. I had read it.”
+
+“You read it?”
+
+“Yes. It was something like this: ‘At nine o’clock this evening, be
+at Boulevard Maillot with the papers connected with the affair. In
+exchange, the letters.’ So, after dinner, I hastened here.”
+
+“Unknown to your husband?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What do you think about it?” asked Daspry, turning to me.
+
+“I think as you do, that Mon. Andermatt is one of the invited guests.”
+
+“Yes, but for what purpose?”
+
+“That is what we are going to find out.”
+
+I led the men to a large room. The three of us could hide comfortably
+behind the velvet chimney-mantle, and observe all that should happen
+in the room. We seated ourselves there, with Madame Andermatt in the
+centre.
+
+The clock struck nine. A few minutes later, the garden gate creaked upon
+its hinges. I confess that I was greatly agitated. I was about to learn
+the key to the mystery. The startling events of the last few weeks were
+about to be explained, and, under my eyes, the last battle was going to
+be fought. Daspry seized the hand of Madame Andermatt, and said to her:
+
+“Not a word, not a movement! Whatever you may see or hear, keep quiet!”
+
+Some one entered. It was Alfred Varin. I recognized him at once, owing
+to the close resemblance he bore to his brother Etienne. There was
+the same slouching gait; the same cadaverous face covered with a black
+beard.
+
+He entered with the nervous air of a man who is accustomed to fear the
+presence of traps and ambushes; who scents and avoids them. He glanced
+about the room, and I had the impression that the chimney, masked with
+a velvet portière, did not please him. He took three steps in our
+direction, when something caused him to turn and walk toward the old
+mosaic king, with the flowing beard and flamboyant sword, which he
+examined minutely, mounting on a chair and following with his fingers
+the outlines of the shoulders and head and feeling certain parts of the
+face. Suddenly, he leaped from the chair and walked away from it. He had
+heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Mon. Andermatt appeared at the
+door.
+
+“You! You!” exclaimed the banker. “Was it you who brought me here?”
+
+“I? By no means,” protested Varin, in a rough, jerky voice that reminded
+me of his brother, “on the contrary, it was your letter that brought me
+here.”
+
+“My letter?”
+
+“A letter signed by you, in which you offered---”
+
+“I never wrote to you,” declared Mon. Andermatt.
+
+“You did not write to me!”
+
+Instinctively, Varin was put on his guard, not against the banker, but
+against the unknown enemy who had drawn him into this trap. A second
+time, he looked in our direction, then walked toward the door. But Mon.
+Andermatt barred his passage.
+
+“Well, where are you going, Varin?”
+
+“There is something about this affair I don’t like. I am going home.
+Good evening.”
+
+“One moment!”
+
+“No need of that, Mon. Andermatt. I have nothing to say to you.”
+
+“But I have something to say to you, and this is a good time to say it.”
+
+“Let me pass.”
+
+“No, you will not pass.”
+
+Varin recoiled before the resolute attitude of the banker, as he
+muttered:
+
+“Well, then, be quick about it.”
+
+One thing astonished me; and I have no doubt my two companions
+experienced a similar feeling. Why was Salvator not there? Was he not a
+necessary party at this conference? Or was he satisfied to let these two
+adversaries fight it out between themselves? At all events, his absence
+was a great disappointment, although it did not detract from the
+dramatic strength of the situation.
+
+After a moment, Mon. Andermatt approached Varin and, face to face, eye
+to eye, said:
+
+“Now, after all these years and when you have nothing more to fear, you
+can answer me candidly: What have you done with Louis Lacombe?”
+
+“What a question! As if I knew anything about him!”
+
+“You do know! You and your brother were his constant companions, almost
+lived with him in this very house. You knew all about his plans and his
+work. And the last night I ever saw Louis Lacombe, when I parted with
+him at my door, I saw two men slinking away in the shadows of the trees.
+That, I am ready to swear to.”
+
+“Well, what has that to do with me?”
+
+“The two men were you and your brother.”
+
+“Prove it.”
+
+“The best proof is that, two days later, you yourself showed me the
+papers and the plans that belonged to Lacombe and offered to sell them.
+How did these papers come into your possession?”
+
+“I have already told you, Mon. Andermatt, that we found them on Louis
+Lacombe’s table, the morning after his disappearance.”
+
+“That is a lie!”
+
+“Prove it.”
+
+“The law will prove it.”
+
+“Why did you not appeal to the law?”
+
+“Why? Ah! Why---,” stammered the banker, with a slight display of
+emotion.
+
+“You know very well, Mon. Andermatt, if you had the least certainty of
+our guilt, our little threat would not have stopped you.”
+
+“What threat? Those letters? Do you suppose I ever gave those letters a
+moment’s thought?”
+
+“If you did not care for the letters, why did you offer me thousands of
+francs for their return? And why did you have my brother and me tracked
+like wild beasts?”
+
+“To recover the plans.”
+
+“Nonsense! You wanted the letters. You knew that as soon as you had the
+letters in your possession, you could denounce us. Oh! no, I couldn’t
+part with them!”
+
+He laughed heartily, but stopped suddenly, and said:
+
+“But, enough of this! We are merely going over old ground. We make no
+headway. We had better let things stand as they are.”
+
+“We will not let them stand as they are,” said the banker, “and since
+you have referred to the letters, let me tell you that you will not
+leave this house until you deliver up those letters.”
+
+“I shall go when I please.”
+
+“You will not.”
+
+“Be careful, Mon. Andermatt. I warn you---”
+
+“I say, you shall not go.”
+
+“We will see about that,” cried Varin, in such a rage that Madame
+Andermatt could not suppress a cry of fear. Varin must have heard it,
+for he now tried to force his way out. Mon. Andermatt pushed him back.
+Then I saw him put his hand into his coat pocket.
+
+“For the last time, let me pass,” he cried.
+
+“The letters, first!”
+
+Varin drew a revolver and, pointing it at Mon. Andermatt, said:
+
+“Yes or no?”
+
+The banker stooped quickly. There was the sound of a pistol-shot. The
+weapon fell from Varin’s hand. I was amazed. The shot was fired close
+to me. It was Daspry who had fired it at Varin, causing him to drop the
+revolver. In a moment, Daspry was standing between the two men, facing
+Varin; he said to him, with a sneer:
+
+“You were lucky, my friend, very lucky. I fired at your hand and struck
+only the revolver.”
+
+Both of them looked at him, surprised. Then he turned to the banker, and
+said:
+
+“I beg your pardon, monsieur, for meddling in your business; but,
+really, you play a very poor game. Let me hold the cards.”
+
+Turning again to Varin, Daspry said:
+
+“It’s between us two, comrade, and play fair, if you please. Hearts are
+trumps, and I play the seven.”
+
+Then Daspry held up, before Varin’s bewildered eyes, the little iron
+plate, marked with the seven red spots. It was a terrible shock to
+Varin. With livid features, staring eyes, and an air of intense agony,
+the man seemed to be hypnotized at the sight of it.
+
+“Who are you?” he gasped.
+
+“One who meddles in other people’s business, down to the very bottom.”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“What you brought here tonight.”
+
+“I brought nothing.”
+
+“Yes, you did, or you wouldn’t have come. This morning, you received
+an invitation to come here at nine o’clock, and bring with you all the
+papers held by you. You are here. Where are the papers?”
+
+There was in Daspry’s voice and manner a tone of authority that I did
+not understand; his manner was usually quite mild and conciliatory.
+Absolutely conquered, Varin placed his hand on one of his pockets, and
+said:
+
+“The papers are here.”
+
+“All of them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“All that you took from Louis Lacombe and afterwards sold to Major von
+Lieben?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Are these the copies or the originals?”
+
+“I have the originals.”
+
+“How much do you want for them?”
+
+“One hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“You are crazy,” said Daspry. “Why, the major gave you only twenty
+thousand, and that was like money thrown into the sea, as the boat was a
+failure at the preliminary trials.”
+
+“They didn’t understand the plans.”
+
+“The plans are not complete.”
+
+“Then, why do you ask me for them?”
+
+“Because I want them. I offer you five thousand francs--not a sou more.”
+
+“Ten thousand. Not a sou less.”
+
+“Agreed,” said Daspry, who now turned to Mon. Andermatt, and said:
+
+“Monsieur will kindly sign a check for the amount.”
+
+“But....I haven’t got---”
+
+“Your check-book? Here it is.”
+
+Astounded, Mon. Andermatt examined the check-book that Daspry handed to
+him.
+
+“It is mine,” he gasped. “How does that happen?”
+
+“No idle words, monsieur, if you please. You have merely to sign.”
+
+The banker took out his fountain pen, filled out the check and signed
+it. Varin held out his hand for it.
+
+“Put down your hand,” said Daspry, “there is something more.” Then, to
+the banker, he said: “You asked for some letters, did you not?”
+
+“Yes, a package of letters.”
+
+“Where are they, Varin?”
+
+“I haven’t got them.”
+
+“Where are they, Varin?”
+
+“I don’t know. My brother had charge of them.”
+
+“They are hidden in this room.”
+
+“In that case, you know where they are.”
+
+“How should I know?”
+
+“Was it not you who found the hiding-place? You appear to be as well
+informed.... as Salvator.”
+
+“The letters are not in the hiding-place.”
+
+“They are.”
+
+“Open it.”
+
+Varin looked at him, defiantly. Were not Daspry and Salvator the same
+person? Everything pointed to that conclusion. If so, Varin risked
+nothing in disclosing a hiding-place already known.
+
+“Open it,” repeated Daspry.
+
+“I have not got the seven of hearts.”
+
+“Yes, here it is,” said Daspry, handing him the iron plate. Varin
+recoiled in terror, and cried:
+
+“No, no, I will not.”
+
+“Never mind,” replied Daspry, as he walked toward the bearded king,
+climbed on a chair and applied the seven of hearts to the lower part of
+the sword in such a manner that the edges of the iron plate coincided
+exactly with the two edges of the sword. Then, with the assistance of
+an awl which he introduced alternately into each of the seven holes, he
+pressed upon seven of the little mosaic stones. As he pressed upon the
+seventh one, a clicking sound was heard, and the entire bust of the King
+turned upon a pivot, disclosing a large opening lined with steel. It was
+really a fire-proof safe.
+
+“You can see, Varin, the safe is empty.”
+
+“So I see. Then, my brother has taken out the letters.”
+
+Daspry stepped down from the chair, approached Varin, and said:
+
+“Now, no more nonsense with me. There is another hiding-place. Where is
+it?”
+
+“There is none.”
+
+“Is it money you want? How much?”
+
+“Ten thousand.”
+
+“Monsieur Andermatt, are those letters worth ten thousand francs to
+you?”
+
+“Yes,” said the banker, firmly.
+
+Varin closed the safe, took the seven of hearts and placed it again on
+the sword at the same spot. He thrust the awl into each of the seven
+holes. There was the same clicking sound, but this time, strange to
+relate, it was only a portion of the safe that revolved on the pivot,
+disclosing quite a small safe that was built within the door of the
+larger one. The packet of letters was here, tied with a tape, and
+sealed. Varin handed the packet to Daspry. The latter turned to the
+banker, and asked:
+
+“Is the check ready, Monsieur Andermatt?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you have also the last document that you received from Louis
+Lacombe--the one that completes the plans of the sub-marine?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The exchange was made. Daspry pocketed the document and the checks, and
+offered the packet of letters to Mon. Andermatt.
+
+“This is what you wanted, Monsieur.”
+
+The banker hesitated a moment, as if he were afraid to touch those
+cursed letters that he had sought so eagerly. Then, with a nervous
+movement, he took them. Close to me, I heard a moan. I grasped Madame
+Andermatt’s hand. It was cold.
+
+“I believe, monsieur,” said Daspry to the banker, “that our business is
+ended. Oh! no thanks. It was only by a mere chance that I have been able
+to do you a good turn. Good-night.”
+
+Mon. Andermatt retired. He carried with him the letters written by his
+wife to Louis Lacombe.
+
+“Marvelous!” exclaimed Daspry, delighted. “Everything is coming our
+way. Now, we have only to close our little affair, comrade. You have the
+papers?”
+
+“Here they are--all of them.”
+
+Daspry examined them carefully, and then placed them in his pocket.
+
+“Quite right. You have kept your word,” he said.
+
+“But---”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“The two checks? The money?” said Varin, eagerly.
+
+“Well, you have a great deal of assurance, my man. How dare you ask such
+a thing?”
+
+“I ask only what is due to me.”
+
+“Can you ask pay for returning papers that you stole? Well, I think
+not!”
+
+Varin was beside himself. He trembled with rage; his eyes were
+bloodshot.
+
+“The money.... the twenty thousand....” he stammered.
+
+“Impossible! I need it myself.”
+
+“The money!”
+
+“Come, be reasonable, and don’t get excited. It won’t do you any good.”
+
+Daspry seized his arm so forcibly, that Varin uttered a cry of pain.
+Daspry continued:
+
+“Now, you can go. The air will do you good. Perhaps you want me to show
+you the way. Ah! yes, we will go together to the vacant lot near here,
+and I will show you a little mound of earth and stones and under it---”
+
+“That is false! That is false!”
+
+“Oh! no, it is true. That little iron plate with the seven spots on it
+came from there. Louis Lacombe always carried it, and you buried it with
+the body--and with some other things that will prove very interesting to
+a judge and jury.”
+
+Varin covered his face with his hands, and muttered:
+
+“All right, I am beaten. Say no more. But I want to ask you one
+question. I should like to know---”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Was there a little casket in the large safe?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Was it there on the night of 22 June?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What did it contain?”
+
+“Everything that the Varin brothers had put in it--a very pretty
+collection of diamonds and pearls picked up here and there by the said
+brothers.”
+
+“And did you take it?”
+
+“Of course I did. Do you blame me?”
+
+“I understand.... it was the disappearance of that casket that caused my
+brother to kill himself.”
+
+“Probably. The disappearance of your correspondence was not a sufficient
+motive. But the disappearance of the casket....Is that all you wish to
+ask me?”
+
+“One thing more: your name?”
+
+“You ask that with an idea of seeking revenge.”
+
+“Parbleu! The tables may be turned. Today, you are on top. To-morrow---”
+
+“It will be you.”
+
+“I hope so. Your name?”
+
+“Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“Arsène Lupin!”
+
+The man staggered, as though stunned by a heavy blow. Those two words
+had deprived him of all hope.
+
+Daspry laughed, and said:
+
+“Ah! did you imagine that a Monsieur Durand or Dupont could manage an
+affair like this? No, it required the skill and cunning of Arsène Lupin.
+And now that you have my name, go and prepare your revenge. Arsène Lupin
+will wait for you.”
+
+Then he pushed the bewildered Varin through the door.
+
+“Daspry! Daspry!” I cried, pushing aside the curtain. He ran to me.
+
+“What? What’s the matter?”
+
+“Madame Andermatt is ill.”
+
+He hastened to her, caused her to inhale some salts, and, while caring
+for her, questioned me:
+
+“Well, what did it?”
+
+“The letters of Louis Lacombe that you gave to her husband.”
+
+He struck his forehead and said:
+
+“Did she think that I could do such a thing!...But, of course she would.
+Imbecile that I am!”
+
+Madame Andermatt was now revived. Daspry took from his pocket a small
+package exactly similar to the one that Mon. Andermatt had carried away.
+
+“Here are your letters, Madame. These are the genuine letters.”
+
+“But.... the others?”
+
+“The others are the same, rewritten by me and carefully worded. Your
+husband will not find anything objectionable in them, and will never
+suspect the substitution since they were taken from the safe in his
+presence.”
+
+“But the handwriting---”
+
+“There is no handwriting that cannot be imitated.”
+
+She thanked him in the same words she might have used to a man in her
+own social circle, so I concluded that she had not witnessed the final
+scene between Varin and Arsène Lupin. But the surprising revelation
+caused me considerable embarrassment. Lupin! My club companion was none
+other than Arsène Lupin. I could not realize it. But he said, quite at
+his ease:
+
+“You can say farewell to Jean Daspry.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, Jean Daspry is going on a long journey. I shall send him to
+Morocco. There, he may find a death worthy of him. I may say that that
+is his expectation.”
+
+“But Arsène Lupin will remain?”
+
+“Oh! Decidedly. Arsène Lupin is simply at the threshold of his career,
+and he expects---”
+
+I was impelled by curiosity to interrupt him, and, leading him away from
+the hearing of Madame Andermatt, I asked:
+
+“Did you discover the smaller safe yourself--the one that held the
+letters?”
+
+“Yes, after a great deal of trouble. I found it yesterday afternoon
+while you were asleep. And yet, God knows it was simple enough! But
+the simplest things are the ones that usually escape our notice.” Then,
+showing me the seven-of-hearts, he added: “Of course I had guessed that,
+in order to open the larger safe, this card must be placed on the sword
+of the mosaic king.”
+
+“How did you guess that?”
+
+“Quite easily. Through private information, I knew that fact when I came
+here on the evening of 22 June---”
+
+“After you left me---”
+
+“Yes, after turning the subject of our conversation to stories of crime
+and robbery which were sure to reduce you to such a nervous condition
+that you would not leave your bed, but would allow me to complete my
+search uninterrupted.”
+
+“The scheme worked perfectly.”
+
+“Well, I knew when I came here that there was a casket concealed in a
+safe with a secret lock, and that the seven-of-hearts was the key
+to that lock. I had merely to place the card upon the spot that was
+obviously intended for it. An hour’s examination showed me where the
+spot was.”
+
+“One hour!”
+
+“Observe the fellow in mosaic.”
+
+“The old emperor?”
+
+“That old emperor is an exact representation of the king of hearts on
+all playing cards.”
+
+“That’s right. But how does the seven of hearts open the larger safe at
+one time and the smaller safe at another time? And why did you open only
+the larger safe in the first instance? I mean on the night of 22 June.”
+
+“Why? Because I always placed the seven of hearts in the same way. I
+never changed the position. But, yesterday, I observed that by reversing
+the card, by turning it upside down, the arrangement of the seven spots
+on the mosaic was changed.”
+
+“Parbleu!”
+
+“Of course, parbleu! But a person has to think of those things.”
+
+“There is something else: you did not know the history of those letters
+until Madame Andermatt---”
+
+“Spoke of them before me? No. Because I found in the safe, besides
+the casket, nothing but the correspondence of the two brothers which
+disclosed their treachery in regard to the plans.”
+
+“Then it was by chance that you were led, first, to investigate the
+history of the two brothers, and then to search for the plans and
+documents relating to the sub-marine?”
+
+“Simply by chance.”
+
+“For what purpose did you make the search?”
+
+“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Daspry, laughing, “how deeply interested you are!”
+
+“The subject fascinates me.”
+
+“Very well, presently, after I have escorted Madame Andermatt to a
+carriage, and dispatched a short story to the ‘Echo de France,’ I will
+return and tell you all about it.”
+
+He sat down and wrote one of those short, clear-cut articles which
+served to amuse and mystify the public. Who does not recall the
+sensation that followed that article produced throughout the entire
+world?
+
+“Arsène Lupin has solved the problem recently submitted by Salvator.
+Having acquired possession of all the documents and original plans
+of the engineer Louis Lacombe, he has placed them in the hands of
+the Minister of Marine, and he has headed a subscription list for the
+purpose of presenting to the nation the first submarine constructed from
+those plans. His subscription is twenty thousand francs.”
+
+“Twenty thousand francs! The checks of Mon. Andermatt?” I exclaimed,
+when he had given me the paper to read.
+
+“Exactly. It was quite right that Varin should redeem his treachery.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+And that is how I made the acquaintance of Arsène Lupin. That is how
+I learned that Jean Daspry, a member of my club, was none other than
+Arsène Lupin, gentleman-thief. That is how I formed very agreeable ties
+of friendship with that famous man, and, thanks to the confidence
+with which he honored me, how I became his very humble and faithful
+historiographer.
+
+
+
+
+VII. Madame Imbert’s Safe
+
+
+At three o’clock in the morning, there were still half a dozen carriages
+in front of one of those small houses which form only the side of the
+boulevard Berthier. The door of that house opened, and a number of
+guests, male and female, emerged. The majority of them entered their
+carriages and were quickly driven away, leaving behind only two men who
+walked down Courcelles, where they parted, as one of them lived in that
+street. The other decided to return on foot as far as the Porte-Maillot.
+It was a beautiful winter’s night, clear and cold; a night on which a
+brisk walk is agreeable and refreshing.
+
+But, at the end of a few minutes, he had the disagreeable impression
+that he was being followed. Turning around, he saw a man skulking amongst
+the trees. He was not a coward; yet he felt it advisable to increase his
+speed. Then his pursuer commenced to run; and he deemed it prudent to
+draw his revolver and face him. But he had no time. The man rushed at
+him and attacked him violently. Immediately, they were engaged in a
+desperate struggle, wherein he felt that his unknown assailant had the
+advantage. He called for help, struggled, and was thrown down on a pile
+of gravel, seized by the throat, and gagged with a handkerchief that his
+assailant forced into his mouth. His eyes closed, and the man who
+was smothering him with his weight arose to defend himself against an
+unexpected attack. A blow from a cane and a kick from a boot; the
+man uttered two cries of pain, and fled, limping and cursing. Without
+deigning to pursue the fugitive, the new arrival stooped over the
+prostrate man and inquired:
+
+“Are you hurt, monsieur?”
+
+He was not injured, but he was dazed and unable to stand. His rescuer
+procured a carriage, placed him in it, and accompanied him to his house
+on the avenue de la Grande-Armée. On his arrival there, quite recovered,
+he overwhelmed his saviour with thanks.
+
+“I owe you my life, monsieur, and I shall not forget it. I do not wish
+to alarm my wife at this time of night, but, to-morrow, she will be
+pleased to thank you personally. Come and breakfast with us. My name is
+Ludovic Imbert. May I ask yours?”
+
+“Certainly, monsieur.”
+
+And he handed Mon. Imbert a card bearing the name: “Arsène Lupin.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+At that time, Arsène Lupin did not enjoy the celebrity which the Cahorn
+affair, his escape from the Prison de la Santé, and other brilliant
+exploits, afterwards gained for him. He had not even used the name of
+Arsène Lupin. The name was specially invented to designate the rescuer
+of Mon. Imbert; that is to say, it was in that affair that Arsène
+Lupin was baptized. Fully armed and ready for the fray, it is true, but
+lacking the resources and authority which command success, Arsène Lupin
+was then merely an apprentice in a profession wherein he soon became a
+master.
+
+With what a thrill of joy he recalled the invitation he received that
+night! At last, he had reached his goal! At last, he had undertaken
+a task worthy of his strength and skill! The Imbert millions! What a
+magnificent feast for an appetite like his!
+
+He prepared a special toilet for the occasion; a shabby frock-coat,
+baggy trousers, a frayed silk hat, well-worn collar and cuffs, all quite
+correct in form, but bearing the unmistakable stamp of poverty. His
+cravat was a black ribbon pinned with a false diamond. Thus accoutred,
+he descended the stairs of the house in which he lived at Montmartre. At
+the third floor, without stopping, he rapped on a closed door with the
+head of his cane. He walked to the exterior boulevards. A tram-car was
+passing. He boarded it, and some one who had been following him took a
+seat beside him. It was the lodger who occupied the room on the third
+floor. A moment later, this man said to Lupin:
+
+“Well, governor?”
+
+“Well, it is all fixed.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I am going there to breakfast.”
+
+“You breakfast--there!”
+
+“Certainly. Why not? I rescued Mon. Ludovic Imbert from certain death
+at your hands. Mon. Imbert is not devoid of gratitude. He invited me to
+breakfast.”
+
+There was a brief silence. Then the other said:
+
+“But you are not going to throw up the scheme?”
+
+“My dear boy,” said Lupin, “When I arranged that little case of assault
+and battery, when I took the trouble at three o’clock in the morning, to
+rap you with my cane and tap you with my boot at the risk of injuring
+my only friend, it was not my intention to forego the advantages to be
+gained from a rescue so well arranged and executed. Oh! no, not at all.”
+
+“But the strange rumors we hear about their fortune?”
+
+“Never mind about that. For six months, I have worked on this affair,
+investigated it, studied it, questioned the servants, the money-lenders
+and men of straw; for six months, I have shadowed the husband and wife.
+Consequently, I know what I am talking about. Whether the fortune came
+to them from old Brawford, as they pretend, or from some other source,
+I do not care. I know that it is a reality; that it exists. And some day
+it will be mine.”
+
+“Bigre! One hundred millions!”
+
+“Let us say ten, or even five--that is enough! They have a safe full
+of bonds, and there will be the devil to pay if I can’t get my hands on
+them.”
+
+The tram-car stopped at the Place de l’Etoile. The man whispered to
+Lupin:
+
+“What am I to do now?”
+
+“Nothing, at present. You will hear from me. There is no hurry.”
+
+Five minutes later, Arsène Lupin was ascending the magnificent flight
+of stairs in the Imbert mansion, and Mon. Imbert introduced him to
+his wife. Madame Gervaise Imbert was a short plump woman, and very
+talkative. She gave Lupin a cordial welcome.
+
+“I desired that we should be alone to entertain our saviour,” she said.
+
+From the outset, they treated “our saviour” as an old and valued friend.
+By the time dessert was served, their friendship was well cemented, and
+private confidences were being exchanged. Arsène related the story of
+his life, the life of his father as a magistrate, the sorrows of his
+childhood, and his present difficulties. Gervaise, in turn, spoke of
+her youth, her marriage, the kindness of the aged Brawford, the hundred
+millions that she had inherited, the obstacles that prevented her from
+obtaining the enjoyment of her inheritance, the moneys she had been
+obliged to borrow at an exorbitant rate of interest, her endless
+contentions with Brawford’s nephews, and the litigation! the
+injunctions! in fact, everything!
+
+“Just think of it, Monsieur Lupin, the bonds are there, in my husband’s
+office, and if we detach a single coupon, we lose everything! They are
+there, in our safe, and we dare not touch them.”
+
+Monsieur Lupin shivered at the bare idea of his proximity to so much
+wealth. Yet he felt quite certain that Monsieur Lupin would never suffer
+from the same difficulty as his fair hostess who declared she dare not
+touch the money.
+
+“Ah! they are there!” he repeated, to himself; “they are there!”
+
+A friendship formed under such circumstances soon led to closer
+relations. When discreetly questioned, Arsène Lupin confessed his
+poverty and distress. Immediately, the unfortunate young man was
+appointed private secretary to the Imberts, husband and wife, at a
+salary of one hundred francs a month. He was to come to the house every
+day and receive orders for his work, and a room on the second floor
+was set apart as his office. This room was directly over Mon. Imbert’s
+office.
+
+Arsène soon realized that his position as secretary was essentially
+a sinecure. During the first two months, he had only four important
+letters to recopy, and was called only once to Mon. Imbert’s office;
+consequently, he had only one opportunity to contemplate, officially,
+the Imbert safe. Moreover, he noticed that the secretary was not invited
+to the social functions of the employer. But he did not complain, as he
+preferred to remain, modestly, in the shade and maintain his peace and
+freedom.
+
+However, he was not wasting any time. From the beginning, he made
+clandestine visits to Mon. Imbert’s office, and paid his respects to the
+safe, which was hermetically closed. It was an immense block of iron and
+steel, cold and stern in appearance, which could not be forced open
+by the ordinary tools of the burglar’s trade. But Arsène Lupin was not
+discouraged.
+
+“Where force fails, cunning prevails,” he said to himself. “The
+essential thing is to be on the spot when the opportunity occurs. In the
+meantime, I must watch and wait.”
+
+He made immediately some preliminary preparations. After careful
+soundings made upon the floor of his room, he introduced a lead pipe
+which penetrated the ceiling of Mon. Imbert’s office at a point between
+the two screeds of the cornice. By means of this pipe, he hoped to see
+and hear what transpired in the room below.
+
+Henceforth, he passed his days stretched at full length upon the floor.
+He frequently saw the Imberts holding a consultation in front of the
+safe, investigating books and papers. When they turned the combination
+lock, he tried to learn the figures and the number of turns they made to
+the right and left. He watched their movements; he sought to catch their
+words. There was also a key necessary to complete the opening of the
+safe. What did they do with it? Did they hide it?
+
+One day, he saw them leave the room without locking the safe. He
+descended the stairs quickly, and boldly entered the room. But they had
+returned.
+
+“Oh! excuse me,” said, “I made a mistake in the door.”
+
+“Come in, Monsieur Lupin, come in,” cried Madame Imbert, “are you not at
+home here? We want your advice. What bonds should we sell? The foreign
+securities or the government annuities?”
+
+“But the injunction?” said Lupin, with surprise.
+
+“Oh! it doesn’t cover all the bonds.”
+
+She opened the door of the safe and withdrew a package of bonds. But her
+husband protested.
+
+“No, no, Gervaise, it would be foolish to sell the foreign bonds. They
+are going up, whilst the annuities are as high as they ever will be.
+What do you think, my dear friend?”
+
+The dear friend had no opinion; yet he advised the sacrifice of the
+annuities. Then she withdrew another package and, from it, she took
+a paper at random. It proved to be a three-per-cent annuity worth two
+thousand francs. Ludovic placed the package of bonds in his pocket.
+That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he sold the annuities to a
+stock-broker and realized forty-six thousand francs.
+
+Whatever Madame Imbert might have said about it, Arsène Lupin did not
+feel at home in the Imbert house. On the contrary, his position there
+was a peculiar one. He learned that the servants did not even know his
+name. They called him “monsieur.” Ludovic always spoke of him in the
+same way: “You will tell monsieur. Has monsieur arrived?” Why that
+mysterious appellation?
+
+Moreover, after their first outburst of enthusiasm, the Imberts seldom
+spoke to him, and, although treating him with the consideration due to
+a benefactor, they gave him little or no attention. They appeared to
+regard him as an eccentric character who did not like to be disturbed,
+and they respected his isolation as if it were a stringent rule on his
+part. On one occasion, while passing through the vestibule, he heard
+Madame Imbert say to the two gentlemen:
+
+“He is such a barbarian!”
+
+“Very well,” he said to himself, “I am a barbarian.”
+
+And, without seeking to solve the question of their strange conduct, he
+proceeded with the execution of his own plans. He had decided that he
+could not depend on chance, nor on the negligence of Madame Imbert, who
+carried the key of the safe, and who, on locking the safe, invariably
+scattered the letters forming the combination of the lock. Consequently,
+he must act for himself.
+
+Finally, an incident precipitated matters; it was the vehement campaign
+instituted against the Imberts by certain newspapers that accused
+the Imberts of swindling. Arsène Lupin was present at certain family
+conferences when this new vicissitude was discussed. He decided that if
+he waited much longer, he would lose everything. During the next five
+days, instead of leaving the house about six o’clock, according to his
+usual habit, he locked himself in his room. It was supposed that he had
+gone out. But he was lying on the floor surveying the office of Mon.
+Imbert. During those five evenings, the favorable opportunity that he
+awaited did not take place. He left the house about midnight by a side
+door to which he held the key.
+
+But on the sixth day, he learned that the Imberts, actuated by the
+malevolent insinuations of their enemies, proposed to make an inventory
+of the contents of the safe.
+
+“They will do it to-night,” thought Lupin.
+
+And truly, after dinner, Imbert and his wife retired to the office and
+commenced to examine the books of account and the securities contained
+in the safe. Thus, one hour after another passed away. He heard the
+servants go upstairs to their rooms. No one now remained on the first
+floor. Midnight! The Imberts were still at work.
+
+“I must get to work,” murmured Lupin.
+
+He opened his window. It opened on a court. Outside, everything was
+dark and quiet. He took from his desk a knotted rope, fastened it to
+the balcony in front of his window, and quietly descended as far as the
+window below, which was that of the of Imbert’s office. He stood upon
+the balcony for a moment, motionless, with attentive ear and watchful
+eye, but the heavy curtains effectually concealed the interior of the
+room. He cautiously pushed on the double window. If no one had examined
+it, it ought to yield to the slightest pressure, for, during the
+afternoon, he had so fixed the bolt that it would not enter the staple.
+
+The window yielded to his touch. Then, with infinite care, he pushed
+it open sufficiently to admit his head. He parted the curtains a few
+inches, looked in, and saw Mon. Imbert and his wife sitting in front
+of the safe, deeply absorbed in their work and speaking softly to each
+other at rare intervals.
+
+He calculated the distance between him and them, considered the exact
+movements he would require to make in order to overcome them, one after
+the other, before they could call for help, and he was about to rush
+upon them, when Madame Imbert said:
+
+“Ah! the room is getting quite cold. I am going to bed. And you, my
+dear?”
+
+“I shall stay and finish.”
+
+“Finish! Why, that will take you all night.”
+
+“Not at all. An hour, at the most.”
+
+She retired. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes passed. Arsène pushed the
+window a little farther open. The curtains shook. He pushed once more.
+Mon. Imbert turned, and, seeing the curtains blown by the wind, he rose
+to close the window.
+
+There was not a cry, not the trace of struggle. With a few precise
+moments, and without causing him the least injury, Arsène stunned him,
+wrapped the curtain about his head, bound him hand and foot, and did it
+all in such a manner that Mon. Imbert had no opportunity to recognize
+his assailant.
+
+Quickly, he approached the safe, seized two packages that he placed
+under his arm, left the office, and opened the servants’ gate. A
+carriage was stationed in the street.
+
+“Take that, first--and follow me,” he said to the coachman. He returned
+to the office, and, in two trips, they emptied the safe. Then Arsène
+went to his own room, removed the rope, and all other traces of his
+clandestine work.
+
+A few hours later, Arsène Lupin and his assistant examined the stolen
+goods. Lupin was not disappointed, as he had foreseen that the wealth of
+the Imberts had been greatly exaggerated. It did not consist of hundreds
+of millions, nor even tens of millions. Yet it amounted to a very
+respectable sum, and Lupin expressed his satisfaction.
+
+“Of course,” he said, “there will be a considerable loss when we come
+to sell the bonds, as we will have to dispose of them surreptitiously
+at reduced prices. In the meantime, they will rest quietly in my desk
+awaiting a propitious moment.”
+
+Arsène saw no reason why he should not go to the Imbert house the next
+day. But a perusal of the morning papers revealed this startling fact:
+Ludovic and Gervaise Imbert had disappeared.
+
+When the officers of the law seized the safe and opened it, they found
+there what Arsène Lupin had left--nothing.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Such are the facts; and I learned the sequel to them, one day, when
+Arsène Lupin was in a confidential mood. He was pacing to and fro in my
+room, with a nervous step and a feverish eye that were unusual to him.
+
+“After all,” I said to him, “it was your most successful venture.”
+
+Without making a direct reply, he said:
+
+“There are some impenetrable secrets connected with that affair; some
+obscure points that escape my comprehension. For instance: What
+caused their flight? Why did they not take advantage of the help I
+unconsciously gave them? It would have been so simple to say: ‘The
+hundred millions were in the safe. They are no longer there, because
+they have been stolen.’”
+
+“They lost their nerve.”
+
+“Yes, that is it--they lost their nerve...On the other hand, it is
+true---”
+
+“What is true?”
+
+“Oh! nothing.”
+
+What was the meaning of Lupin’s reticence? It was quite obvious that he
+had not told me everything; there was something he was loath to tell.
+His conduct puzzled me. It must indeed be a very serious matter to cause
+such a man as Arsène Lupin even a momentary hesitation. I threw out a
+few questions at random.
+
+“Have you seen them since?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And have you never experienced the slightest degree of pity for those
+unfortunate people?”
+
+“I!” he exclaimed, with a start.
+
+His sudden excitement astonished me. Had I touched him on a sore spot? I
+continued:
+
+“Of course. If you had not left them alone, they might have been able to
+face the danger, or, at least, made their escape with full pockets.”
+
+“What do you mean?” he said, indignantly. “I suppose you have an idea
+that my soul should be filled with remorse?”
+
+“Call it remorse or regrets--anything you like---”
+
+“They are not worth it.”
+
+“Have you no regrets or remorse for having stolen their fortune?”
+
+“What fortune?”
+
+“The packages of bonds you took from their safe.”
+
+“Oh! I stole their bonds, did I? I deprived them of a portion of their
+wealth? Is that my crime? Ah! my dear boy, you do not know the truth.
+You never imagined that those bonds were not worth the paper they were
+written on. Those bonds were false--they were counterfeit--every one of
+them--do you understand? THEY WERE COUNTERFEIT!”
+
+I looked at him, astounded.
+
+“Counterfeit! The four or five millions?”
+
+“Yes, counterfeit!” he exclaimed, in a fit of rage. “Only so many scraps
+of paper! I couldn’t raise a sou on the whole of them! And you ask me if
+I have any remorse. THEY are the ones who should have remorse and pity.
+They played me for a simpleton; and I fell into their trap. I was their
+latest victim, their most stupid gull!”
+
+He was affected by genuine anger--the result of malice and wounded
+pride. He continued:
+
+“From start to finish, I got the worst of it. Do you know the part I
+played in that affair, or rather the part they made me play? That of
+André Brawford! Yes, my boy, that is the truth, and I never suspected
+it. It was not until afterwards, on reading the newspapers, that the
+light finally dawned in my stupid brain. Whilst I was posing as his
+“saviour,” as the gentleman who had risked his life to rescue Mon.
+Imbert from the clutches of an assassin, they were passing me off as
+Brawford. Wasn’t that splendid? That eccentric individual who had a
+room on the second floor, that barbarian that was exhibited only at a
+distance, was Brawford, and Brawford was I! Thanks to me, and to the
+confidence that I inspired under the name of Brawford, they were enabled
+to borrow money from the bankers and other money-lenders. Ha! what an
+experience for a novice! And I swear to you that I shall profit by the
+lesson!”
+
+He stopped, seized my arm, and said to me, in a tone of exasperation:
+
+“My dear fellow, at this very moment, Gervaise Imbert owes me fifteen
+hundred francs.”
+
+I could not refrain from laughter, his rage was so grotesque. He was
+making a mountain out of a molehill. In a moment, he laughed himself,
+and said:
+
+“Yes, my boy, fifteen hundred francs. You must know that I had not
+received one sou of my promised salary, and, more than that, she had
+borrowed from me the sum of fifteen hundred francs. All my youthful
+savings! And do you know why? To devote the money to charity! I am
+giving you a straight story. She wanted it for some poor people she was
+assisting--unknown to her husband. And my hard-earned money was wormed
+out of me by that silly pretense! Isn’t it amusing, hein? Arsène Lupin
+done out of fifteen hundred francs by the fair lady from whom he stole
+four millions in counterfeit bonds! And what a vast amount of time and
+patience and cunning I expended to achieve that result! It was the first
+time in my life that I was played for a fool, and I frankly confess that
+I was fooled that time to the queen’s taste!”
+
+
+
+
+VIII. The Black Pearl
+
+
+A violent ringing of the bell awakened the concierge of number nine,
+avenue Hoche. She pulled the doorstring, grumbling:
+
+“I thought everybody was in. It must be three o’clock!”
+
+“Perhaps it is some one for the doctor,” muttered her husband.
+
+“Third floor, left. But the doctor won’t go out at night.”
+
+“He must go to-night.”
+
+The visitor entered the vestibule, ascended to the first floor, the
+second, the third, and, without stopping at the doctor’s door, he
+continued to the fifth floor. There, he tried two keys. One of them
+fitted the lock.
+
+“Ah! good!” he murmured, “that simplifies the business wonderfully.
+But before I commence work I had better arrange for my retreat. Let me
+see.... have I had sufficient time to rouse the doctor and be dismissed
+by him? Not yet.... a few minutes more.”
+
+At the end of ten minutes, he descended the stairs, grumbling noisily
+about the doctor. The concierge opened the door for him and heard it
+click behind him. But the door did not lock, as the man had quickly
+inserted a piece of iron in the lock in such a manner that the bolt
+could not enter. Then, quietly, he entered the house again, unknown to
+the concierge. In case of alarm, his retreat was assured. Noiselessly,
+he ascended to the fifth floor once more. In the antechamber, by the
+light of his electric lantern, he placed his hat and overcoat on one
+of the chairs, took a seat on another, and covered his heavy shoes with
+felt slippers.
+
+“Ouf! Here I am--and how simple it was! I wonder why more people do not
+adopt the profitable and pleasant occupation of burglar. With a little
+care and reflection, it becomes a most delightful profession. Not too
+quiet and monotonous, of course, as it would then become wearisome.”
+
+He unfolded a detailed plan of the apartment.
+
+“Let me commence by locating myself. Here, I see the vestibule in which
+I am sitting. On the street front, the drawing-room, the boudoir and
+dining-room. Useless to waste any time there, as it appears that the
+countess has a deplorable taste.... not a bibelot of any value!...Now,
+let’s get down to business!... Ah! here is a corridor; it must lead to
+the bed chambers. At a distance of three metres, I should come to the
+door of the wardrobe-closet which connects with the chamber of the
+countess.” He folded his plan, extinguished his lantern, and proceeded
+down the corridor, counting his distance, thus:
+
+“One metre.... two metres.... three metres....Here is the door....Mon
+Dieu, how easy it is! Only a small, simple bolt now separates me from
+the chamber, and I know that the bolt is located exactly one metre,
+forty-three centimeters, from the floor. So that, thanks to a small
+incision I am about to make, I can soon get rid of the bolt.”
+
+He drew from his pocket the necessary instruments. Then the following
+idea occurred to him:
+
+“Suppose, by chance, the door is not bolted. I will try it first.”
+
+He turned the knob, and the door opened.
+
+“My brave Lupin, surely fortune favors you....What’s to be done now?
+You know the situation of the rooms; you know the place in which the
+countess hides the black pearl. Therefore, in order to secure the black
+pearl, you have simply to be more silent than silence, more invisible
+than darkness itself.”
+
+Arsène Lupin was employed fully a half-hour in opening the second
+door--a glass door that led to the countess’ bedchamber. But he
+accomplished it with so much skill and precaution, that even had had
+the countess been awake, she would not have heard the slightest sound.
+According to the plan of the rooms, that he holds, he has merely to pass
+around a reclining chair and, beyond that, a small table close to the
+bed. On the table, there was a box of letter-paper, and the black pearl
+was concealed in that box. He stooped and crept cautiously over the
+carpet, following the outlines of the reclining-chair. When he reached
+the extremity of it, he stopped in order to repress the throbbing of
+his heart. Although he was not moved by any sense of fear, he found it
+impossible to overcome the nervous anxiety that one usually feels in the
+midst of profound silence. That circumstance astonished him, because he
+had passed through many more solemn moments without the slightest trace
+of emotion. No danger threatened him. Then why did his heart throb like
+an alarm-bell? Was it that sleeping woman who affected him? Was it the
+proximity of another pulsating heart?
+
+He listened, and thought he could discern the rhythmical breathing of a
+person asleep. It gave him confidence, like the presence of a friend.
+He sought and found the armchair; then, by slow, cautious movements,
+advanced toward the table, feeling ahead of him with outstretched arm.
+His right had touched one of the feet of the table. Ah! now, he had
+simply to rise, take the pearl, and escape. That was fortunate, as his
+heart was leaping in his breast like a wild beast, and made so much
+noise that he feared it would waken the countess. By a powerful effort
+of the will, he subdued the wild throbbing of his heart, and was about
+to rise from the floor when his left hand encountered, lying on the
+floor, an object which he recognized as a candlestick--an overturned
+candlestick. A moment later, his hand encountered another object:
+a clock--one of those small traveling clocks, covered with leather.
+-------
+
+Well! What had happened? He could not understand. That candlestick, that
+clock; why were those articles not in their accustomed places? Ah! what
+had happened in the dread silence of the night?
+
+Suddenly a cry escaped him. He had touched--oh! some strange,
+unutterable thing! “No! no!” he thought, “it cannot be. It is some
+fantasy of my excited brain.” For twenty seconds, thirty seconds, he
+remained motionless, terrified, his forehead bathed with perspiration,
+and his fingers still retained the sensation of that dreadful contact.
+
+Making a desperate effort, he ventured to extend his arm again. Once
+more, his hand encountered that strange, unutterable thing. He felt
+it. He must feel it and find out what it is. He found that it was hair,
+human hair, and a human face; and that face was cold, almost icy.
+
+However frightful the circumstances may be, a man like Arsène Lupin
+controls himself and commands the situation as soon as he learns what it
+is. So, Arsène Lupin quickly brought his lantern into use. A woman
+was lying before him, covered with blood. Her neck and shoulders
+were covered with gaping wounds. He leaned over her and made a closer
+examination. She was dead.
+
+“Dead! Dead!” he repeated, with a bewildered air.
+
+He stared at those fixed eyes, that grim mouth, that livid flesh,
+and that blood--all that blood which had flowed over the carpet and
+congealed there in thick, black spots. He arose and turned on the
+electric lights. Then he beheld all the marks of a desperate struggle.
+The bed was in a state of great disorder. On the floor, the candlestick,
+and the clock, with the hands pointing to twenty minutes after eleven;
+then, further away, an overturned chair; and, everywhere, there was
+blood, spots of blood and pools of blood.
+
+“And the black pearl?” he murmured.
+
+The box of letter-paper was in its place. He opened it, eagerly. The
+jewel-case was there, but it was empty.
+
+“Fichtre!” he muttered. “You boasted of your good fortune much too soon,
+my friend Lupin. With the countess lying cold and dead, and the black
+pearl vanished, the situation is anything but pleasant. Get out of here
+as soon as you can, or you may get into serious trouble.”
+
+Yet, he did not move.
+
+“Get out of here? Yes, of course. Any person would, except Arsène Lupin.
+He has something better to do. Now, to proceed in an orderly way. At
+all events, you have a clear conscience. Let us suppose that you are
+the commissary of police and that you are proceeding to make an inquiry
+concerning this affair----Yes, but in order to do that, I require a
+clearer brain. Mine is muddled like a ragout.”
+
+He tumbled into an armchair, with his clenched hands pressed against his
+burning forehead.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The murder of the avenue Hoche is one of those which have recently
+surprised and puzzled the Parisian public, and, certainly, I should
+never have mentioned the affair if the veil of mystery had not been
+removed by Arsène Lupin himself. No one knew the exact truth of the
+case.
+
+Who did not know--from having met her in the Bois--the fair Léotine
+Zalti, the once-famous cantatrice, wife and widow of the Count
+d’Andillot; the Zalti, whose luxury dazzled all Paris some twenty years
+ago; the Zalti who acquired an European reputation for the magnificence
+of her diamonds and pearls? It was said that she wore upon her shoulders
+the capital of several banking houses and the gold mines of numerous
+Australian companies. Skilful jewelers worked for Zalti as they had
+formerly wrought for kings and queens. And who does not remember the
+catastrophe in which all that wealth was swallowed up? Of all that
+marvelous collection, nothing remained except the famous black pearl.
+The black pearl! That is to say a fortune, if she had wished to part
+with it.
+
+But she preferred to keep it, to live in a commonplace apartment with
+her companion, her cook, and a man-servant, rather than sell that
+inestimable jewel. There was a reason for it; a reason she was not
+afraid to disclose: the black pearl was the gift of an emperor! Almost
+ruined, and reduced to the most mediocre existence, she remained
+faithful to the companion of her happy and brilliant youth. The black
+pearl never left her possession. She wore it during the day, and, at
+night, concealed it in a place known to her alone.
+
+All these facts, being republished in the columns of the public press,
+served to stimulate curiosity; and, strange to say, but quite obvious
+to those who have the key to the mystery, the arrest of the presumed
+assassin only complicated the question and prolonged the excitement. Two
+days later, the newspapers published the following item:
+
+“Information has reached us of the arrest of Victor Danègre, the servant
+of the Countess d’Andillot. The evidence against him is clear and
+convincing. On the silken sleeve of his liveried waistcoat, which chief
+detective Dudouis found in his garret between the mattresses of his bed,
+several spots of blood were discovered. In addition, a cloth-covered
+button was missing from that garment, and this button was found beneath
+the bed of the victim.
+
+“It is supposed that, after dinner, in place of going to his own room,
+Danègre slipped into the wardrobe-closet, and, through the glass door,
+had seen the countess hide the precious black pearl. This is simply
+a theory, as yet unverified by any evidence. There is, also, another
+obscure point. At seven o’clock in the morning, Danègre went to the
+tobacco-shop on the Boulevard de Courcelles; the concierge and the
+shop-keeper both affirm this fact. On the other hand, the countess’
+companion and cook, who sleep at the end of the hall, both declare that,
+when they arose at eight o’clock, the door of the antechamber and the
+door of the kitchen were locked. These two persons have been in the
+service of the countess for twenty years, and are above suspicion. The
+question is: How did Danègre leave the apartment? Did he have another
+key? These are matters that the police will investigate.”
+
+As a matter of fact, the police investigation threw no light on the
+mystery. It was learned that Victor Danègre was a dangerous criminal, a
+drunkard and a debauchee. But, as they proceeded with the investigation,
+the mystery deepened and new complications arose. In the first place,
+a young woman, Mlle. De Sinclèves, the cousin and sole heiress of the
+countess, declared that the countess, a month before her death, had
+written a letter to her and in it described the manner in which the
+black pearl was concealed. The letter disappeared the day after she
+received it. Who had stolen it?
+
+Again, the concierge related how she had opened the door for a person
+who had inquired for Doctor Harel. On being questioned, the doctor
+testified that no one had rung his bell. Then who was that person? And
+accomplice?
+
+The theory of an accomplice was thereupon adopted by the press and
+public, and also by Ganimard, the famous detective.
+
+“Lupin is at the bottom of this affair,” he said to the judge.
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed the judge, “you have Lupin on the brain. You see him
+everywhere.”
+
+“I see him everywhere, because he is everywhere.”
+
+“Say rather that you see him every time you encounter something you
+cannot explain. Besides, you overlook the fact that the crime was
+committed at twenty minutes past eleven in the evening, as is shown
+by the clock, while the nocturnal visit, mentioned by the concierge,
+occurred at three o’clock in the morning.”
+
+Officers of the law frequently form a hasty conviction as to the guilt
+of a suspected person, and then distort all subsequent discoveries
+to conform to their established theory. The deplorable antecedents of
+Victor Danègre, habitual criminal, drunkard and rake, influenced
+the judge, and despite the fact that nothing new was discovered in
+corroboration of the early clues, his official opinion remained firm and
+unshaken. He closed his investigation, and, a few weeks later, the trial
+commenced. It proved to be slow and tedious. The judge was listless,
+and the public prosecutor presented the case in a careless manner. Under
+those circumstances, Danègre’s counsel had an easy task. He pointed out
+the defects and inconsistencies of the case for the prosecution, and
+argued that the evidence was quite insufficient to convict the accused.
+Who had made the key, the indispensable key without which Danègre, on
+leaving the apartment, could not have locked the door behind him? Who
+had ever seen such a key, and what had become of it? Who had seen the
+assassin’s knife, and where is it now?
+
+“In any event,” argued the prisoner’s counsel, “the prosecution must
+prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the prisoner committed the
+murder. The prosecution must show that the mysterious individual who
+entered the house at three o’clock in the morning is not the guilty
+party. To be sure, the clock indicated eleven o’clock. But what of that?
+I contend, that proves nothing. The assassin could turn the hands of the
+clock to any hour he pleased, and thus deceive us in regard to the exact
+hour of the crime.”
+
+Victor Danègre was acquitted.
+
+He left the prison on Friday about dusk in the evening, weak and
+depressed by his six months’ imprisonment. The inquisition, the
+solitude, the trial, the deliberations of the jury, combined to fill
+him with a nervous fear. At night, he had been afflicted with terrible
+nightmares and haunted by weird visions of the scaffold. He was a mental
+and physical wreck.
+
+Under the assumed name of Anatole Dufour, he rented a small room on the
+heights of Montmartre, and lived by doing odd jobs wherever he could
+find them. He led a pitiful existence. Three times, he obtained regular
+employment, only to be recognized and then discharged. Sometimes, he
+had an idea that men were following him--detectives, no doubt, who were
+seeking to trap and denounce him. He could almost feel the strong hand
+of the law clutching him by the collar.
+
+One evening, as he was eating his dinner at a neighboring restaurant,
+a man entered and took a seat at the same table. He was a person about
+forty years of age, and wore a frock-coat of doubtful cleanliness. He
+ordered soup, vegetables, and a bottle of wine. After he had finished
+his soup, he turned his eyes on Danègre, and gazed at him intently.
+Danègre winced. He was certain that this was one of the men who had
+been following him for several weeks. What did he want? Danègre tried
+to rise, but failed. His limbs refused to support him. The man poured
+himself a glass of wine, and then filled Danègre’s glass. The man raised
+his glass, and said:
+
+“To your health, Victor Danègre.”
+
+Victor started in alarm, and stammered:
+
+“I!....I!.... no, no....I swear to you....”
+
+“You will swear what? That you are not yourself? The servant of the
+countess?”
+
+“What servant? My name is Dufour. Ask the proprietor.”
+
+“Yes, Anatole Dufour to the proprietor of this restaurant, but Victor
+Danègre to the officers of the law.”
+
+“That’s not true! Some one has lied to you.”
+
+The new-comer took a card from his pocket and handed it to Victor, who
+read on it: “Grimaudan, ex-inspector of the detective force. Private
+business transacted.” Victor shuddered as he said:
+
+“You are connected with the police?”
+
+“No, not now, but I have a liking for the business and I continue to
+work at it in a manner more--profitable. From time to time I strike upon
+a golden opportunity--such as your case presents.”
+
+“My case?”
+
+“Yes, yours. I assure you it is a most promising affair, provided you
+are inclined to be reasonable.”
+
+“But if I am not reasonable?”
+
+“Oh! my good fellow, you are not in a position to refuse me anything I
+may ask.”
+
+“What is it.... you want?” stammered Victor, fearfully.
+
+“Well, I will inform you in a few words. I am sent by Mademoiselle de
+Sinclèves, the heiress of the Countess d’Andillot.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“To recover the black pearl.”
+
+“Black pearl?”
+
+“That you stole.”
+
+“But I haven’t got it.”
+
+“You have it.”
+
+“If I had, then I would be the assassin.”
+
+“You are the assassin.”
+
+Danègre showed a forced smile.
+
+“Fortunately for me, monsieur, the Assizecourt was not of your opinion.
+The jury returned an unanimous verdict of acquittal. And when a man has
+a clear conscience and twelve good men in his favor--”
+
+The ex-inspector seized him by the arm and said:
+
+“No fine phrases, my boy. Now, listen to me and weigh my words
+carefully. You will find they are worthy of your consideration. Now,
+Danègre, three weeks before the murder, you abstracted the cook’s key
+to the servants’ door, and had a duplicate key made by a locksmith named
+Outard, 244 rue Oberkampf.”
+
+“It’s a lie--it’s a lie!” growled Victor. “No person has seen that key.
+There is no such key.”
+
+“Here it is.”
+
+After a silence, Grimaudan continued:
+
+“You killed the countess with a knife purchased by you at the Bazar de
+la Republique on the same day as you ordered the duplicate key. It has a
+triangular blade with a groove running from end to end.”
+
+“That is all nonsense. You are simply guessing at something you don’t
+know. No one ever saw the knife.”
+
+“Here it is.”
+
+Victor Danègre recoiled. The ex-inspector continued:
+
+“There are some spots of rust upon it. Shall I tell you how they came
+there?”
+
+“Well!.... you have a key and a knife. Who can prove that they belong to
+me?”
+
+“The locksmith, and the clerk from whom you bought the knife. I have
+already refreshed their memories, and, when you confront them, they
+cannot fail to recognize you.”
+
+His speech was dry and hard, with a tone of firmness and precision.
+Danègre was trembling with fear, and yet he struggled desperately to
+maintain an air of indifference.
+
+“Is that all the evidence you have?”
+
+“Oh! no, not at all. I have plenty more. For instance, after the crime,
+you went out the same way you had entered. But, in the centre of the
+wardrobe-room, being seized by some sudden fear, you leaned against the
+wall for support.”
+
+“How do you know that? No one could know such a thing,” argued the
+desperate man.
+
+“The police know nothing about it, of course. They never think of
+lighting a candle and examining the walls. But if they had done so, they
+would have found on the white plaster a faint red spot, quite distinct,
+however, to trace in it the imprint of your thumb which you had pressed
+against the wall while it was wet with blood. Now, as you are well
+aware, under the Bertillon system, thumb-marks are one of the principal
+means of identification.”
+
+Victor Danègre was livid; great drops of perspiration rolled down his
+face and fell upon the table. He gazed, with a wild look, at the strange
+man who had narrated the story of his crime as faithfully as if he had
+been an invisible witness to it. Overcome and powerless, Victor bowed
+his head. He felt that it was useless to struggle against this marvelous
+man. So he said:
+
+“How much will you give me, if I give you the pearl?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Oh! you are joking! Or do you mean that I should give you an article
+worth thousands and hundreds of thousands and get nothing in return?”
+
+“You will get your life. Is that nothing?”
+
+The unfortunate man shuddered. Then Grimaudan added, in a milder tone:
+
+“Come, Danègre, that pearl has no value in your hands. It is quite
+impossible for you to sell it; so what is the use of your keeping it?”
+
+“There are pawnbrokers.... and, some day, I will be able to get something
+for it.”
+
+“But that day may be too late.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because by that time you may be in the hands of the police, and,
+with the evidence that I can furnish--the knife, the key, the
+thumb-mark--what will become of you?”
+
+Victor rested his head on his hands and reflected. He felt that he was
+lost, irremediably lost, and, at the same time, a sense of weariness and
+depression overcame him. He murmured, faintly:
+
+“When must I give it to you?”
+
+“To-night---within an hour.”
+
+“If I refuse?”
+
+“If you refuse, I shall post this letter to the Procureur of the
+Republic; in which letter Mademoiselle de Sinclèves denounces you as the
+assassin.”
+
+Danègre poured out two glasses of wine which he drank in rapid
+succession, then, rising, said:
+
+“Pay the bill, and let us go. I have had enough of the cursed affair.”
+
+Night had fallen. The two men walked down the rue Lepic and followed
+the exterior boulevards in the direction of the Place de l’Etoile.
+They pursued their way in silence; Victor had a stooping carriage and a
+dejected face. When they reached the Parc Monceau, he said:
+
+“We are near the house.”
+
+“Parbleu! You only left the house once, before your arrest, and that was
+to go to the tobacco-shop.”
+
+“Here it is,” said Danègre, in a dull voice.
+
+They passed along the garden wall of the countess’ house, and crossed a
+street on a corner of which stood the tobacco-shop. A few steps further
+on, Danègre stopped; his limbs shook beneath him, and he sank to a
+bench.
+
+“Well! what now?” demanded his companion.
+
+“It is there.”
+
+“Where? Come, now, no nonsense!”
+
+“There--in front of us.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Between two paving-stones.”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“Look for it.”
+
+“Which stones?”
+
+Victor made no reply.
+
+“Ah; I see!” exclaimed Grimaudan, “you want me to pay for the
+information.”
+
+“No.... but....I am afraid I will starve to death.”
+
+“So! that is why you hesitate. Well, I’ll not be hard on you. How much
+do you want?”
+
+“Enough to buy a steerage pass to America.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“And a hundred francs to keep me until I get work there.”
+
+“You shall have two hundred. Now, speak.”
+
+“Count the paving-stones to the right from the sewer-hole. The pearl is
+between the twelfth and thirteenth.”
+
+“In the gutter?”
+
+“Yes, close to the sidewalk.”
+
+Grimaudan glanced around to see if anyone were looking. Some tram-cars
+and pedestrians were passing. But, bah, they will not suspect anything.
+He opened his pocketknife and thrust it between the twelfth and
+thirteenth stones.
+
+“And if it is not there?” he said to Victor.
+
+“It must be there, unless someone saw me stoop down and hide it.”
+
+Could it be possible that the back pearl had been cast into the mud
+and filth of the gutter to be picked up by the first comer? The black
+pearl--a fortune!
+
+“How far down?” he asked.
+
+“About ten centimetres.”
+
+He dug up the wet earth. The point of his knife struck something. He
+enlarged the hole with his finger. Then he abstracted the black pearl
+from its filthy hiding-place.
+
+“Good! Here are your two hundred francs. I will send you the ticket for
+America.”
+
+On the following day, this article was published in the ‘Echo de
+France,’ and was copied by the leading newspapers throughout the world:
+
+  “Yesterday, the famous black pearl came into the possession of
+  Arsène Lupin, who recovered it from the murderer of the Countess
+  d’Andillot.  In a short time, fac-similes of that precious jewel
+  will be exhibited in London, St. Petersburg, Calcutta, Buenos Ayres
+  and New York.
+
+  “Arsène Lupin will be pleased to consider all propositions
+  submitted to him through his agents.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+“And that is how crime is always punished and virtue rewarded,” said
+Arsène Lupin, after he had told me the foregoing history of the black
+pearl.
+
+“And that is how you, under the assumed name of Grimaudan, ex-inspector
+of detectives, were chosen by fate to deprive the criminal of the
+benefit of his crime.”
+
+“Exactly. And I confess that the affair gives me infinite satisfaction
+and pride. The forty minutes that I passed in the apartment of the
+Countess d’Andillot, after learning of her death, were the most
+thrilling and absorbing moments of my life. In those forty minutes,
+involved as I was in a most dangerous plight, I calmly studied the scene
+of the murder and reached the conclusion that the crime must have been
+committed by one of the house servants. I also decided that, in order
+to get the pearl, that servant must be arrested, and so I left the
+wainscoat button; it was necessary, also, for me to hold some convincing
+evidence of his guilt, so I carried away the knife which I found upon
+the floor, and the key which I found in the lock. I closed and
+locked the door, and erased the finger-marks from the plaster in the
+wardrobe-closet. In my opinion, that was one of those flashes--”
+
+“Of genius,” I said, interrupting.
+
+“Of genius, if you wish. But, I flatter myself, it would not have
+occurred to the average mortal. To frame, instantly, the two elements of
+the problem--an arrest and an acquittal; to make use of the formidable
+machinery of the law to crush and humble my victim, and reduce him to a
+condition in which, when free, he would be certain to fall into the trap
+I was laying for him!”
+
+“Poor devil--”
+
+“Poor devil, do you say? Victor Danègre, the assassin! He might have
+descended to the lowest depths of vice and crime, if he had retained the
+black pearl. Now, he lives! Think of that: Victor Danègre is alive!”
+
+“And you have the black pearl.”
+
+He took it out of one of the secret pockets of his wallet, examined it,
+gazed at it tenderly, and caressed it with loving fingers, and sighed,
+as he said:
+
+“What cold Russian prince, what vain and foolish rajah may some day
+possess this priceless treasure! Or, perhaps, some American millionaire
+is destined to become the owner of this morsel of exquisite beauty that
+once adorned the fair bosom of Leontine Zalti, the Countess d’Andillot.”
+
+
+
+
+IX. Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late
+
+
+“It is really remarkable, Velmont, what a close resemblance you bear to
+Arsène Lupin!”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Oh! like everyone else, from photographs, no two of which are alike,
+but each of them leaves the impression of a face.... something like
+yours.”
+
+Horace Velmont displayed some vexation.
+
+“Quite so, my dear Devanne. And, believe me, you are not the first one
+who has noticed it.”
+
+“It is so striking,” persisted Devanne, “that if you had not been
+recommended to me by my cousin d’Estevan, and if you were not the
+celebrated artist whose beautiful marine views I so admire, I have no
+doubt I should have warned the police of your presence in Dieppe.”
+
+This sally was greeted with an outburst of laughter. The large
+dining-hall of the Château de Thibermesnil contained on this occasion,
+besides Velmont, the following guests: Father Gélis, the parish priest,
+and a dozen officers whose regiments were quartered in the vicinity and
+who had accepted the invitation of the banker Georges Devanne and his
+mother. One of the officers then remarked:
+
+“I understand that an exact description of Arsène Lupin has been
+furnished to all the police along this coast since his daring exploit on
+the Paris-Havre express.”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Devanne. “That was three months ago; and a week
+later, I made the acquaintance of our friend Velmont at the casino, and,
+since then, he has honored me with several visits--an agreeable preamble
+to a more serious visit that he will pay me one of these days--or,
+rather, one of these nights.”
+
+This speech evoked another round of laughter, and the guests then passed
+into the ancient “Hall of the Guards,” a vast room with a high ceiling,
+which occupied the entire lower part of the Tour Guillaume--William’s
+Tower--and wherein Georges Devanne had collected the incomparable
+treasures which the lords of Thibermesnil had accumulated through
+many centuries. It contained ancient chests, credences, andirons and
+chandeliers. The stone walls were overhung with magnificent tapestries.
+The deep embrasures of the four windows were furnished with benches, and
+the Gothic windows were composed of small panes of colored glass set
+in a leaden frame. Between the door and the window to the left stood
+an immense bookcase of Renaissance style, on the pediment of which, in
+letters of gold, was the word “Thibermesnil,” and, below it, the proud
+family device: “Fais ce que veulx” (Do what thou wishest). When the
+guests had lighted their cigars, Devanne resumed the conversation.
+
+“And remember, Velmont, you have no time to lose; in fact, to-night is
+the last chance you will have.”
+
+“How so?” asked the painter, who appeared to regard the affair as a
+joke. Devanne was about to reply, when his mother mentioned to him to
+keep silent, but the excitement of the occasion and a desire to interest
+his guests urged him to speak.
+
+“Bah!” he murmured. “I can tell it now. It won’t do any harm.”
+
+The guests drew closer, and he commenced to speak with the satisfied air
+of a man who has an important announcement to make.
+
+“To-morrow afternoon at four o’clock, Sherlock Holmes, the famous
+English detective, for whom such a thing as mystery does not exist;
+Sherlock Holmes, the most remarkable solver of enigmas the world has
+ever known, that marvelous man who would seem to be the creation of a
+romantic novelist--Sherlock Holmes will be my guest!”
+
+Immediately, Devanne was the target of numerous eager questions. “Is
+Sherlock Holmes really coming?” “Is it so serious as that?” “Is Arsène
+Lupin really in this neighborhood?”
+
+“Arsène Lupin and his band are not far away. Besides the robbery of the
+Baron Cahorn, he is credited with the thefts at Montigny, Gruchet and
+Crasville.”
+
+“Has he sent you a warning, as he did to Baron Cahorn?”
+
+“No,” replied Devanne, “he can’t work the same trick twice.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“I will show you.”
+
+He rose, and pointing to a small empty space between the two enormous
+folios on one of the shelves of the bookcase, he said:
+
+“There used to be a book there--a book of the sixteenth century entitled
+‘Chronique de Thibermesnil,’ which contained the history of the castle
+since its construction by Duke Rollo on the site of a former feudal
+fortress. There were three engraved plates in the book; one of which was
+a general view of the whole estate; another, the plan of the buildings;
+and the third--I call your attention to it, particularly--the third was
+the sketch of a subterranean passage, an entrance to which is outside
+the first line of ramparts, while the other end of the passage is here,
+in this very room. Well, that book disappeared a month ago.”
+
+“The deuce!” said Velmont, “that looks bad. But it doesn’t seem to be a
+sufficient reason for sending for Sherlock Holmes.”
+
+“Certainly, that was not sufficient in itself, but another incident
+happened that gives the disappearance of the book a special
+significance. There was another copy of this book in the National
+Library at Paris, and the two books differed in certain details relating
+to the subterranean passage; for instance, each of them contained
+drawings and annotations, not printed, but written in ink and more or
+less effaced. I knew those facts, and I knew that the exact location of
+the passage could be determined only by a comparison of the two books.
+Now, the day after my book disappeared, the book was called for in the
+National Library by a reader who carried it away, and no one knows how
+the theft was effected.”
+
+The guests uttered many exclamations of surprise.
+
+“Certainly, the affair looks serious,” said one.
+
+“Well, the police investigated the matter, and, as usual, discovered no
+clue whatever.”
+
+“They never do, when Arsène Lupin is concerned in it.”
+
+“Exactly; and so I decided to ask the assistance of Sherlock Holmes,
+who replied that he was ready and anxious to enter the lists with Arsène
+Lupin.”
+
+“What glory for Arsène Lupin!” said Velmont. “But if our national thief,
+as they call him, has no evil designs on your castle, Sherlock Holmes
+will have his trip in vain.”
+
+“There are other things that will interest him, such as the discovery of
+the subterranean passage.”
+
+“But you told us that one end of the passage was outside the ramparts
+and the other was in this very room!”
+
+“Yes, but in what part of the room? The line which represents the
+passage on the charts ends here, with a small circle marked with the
+letters ‘T.G.,’ which no doubt stand for ‘Tour Guillaume.’ But the tower
+is round, and who can tell the exact spot at which the passage touches
+the tower?”
+
+Devanne lighted a second cigar and poured himself a glass of
+Benedictine. His guests pressed him with questions and he was pleased to
+observe the interest that his remarks had created. The he continued:
+
+“The secret is lost. No one knows it. The legend is to the effect that
+the former lords of the castle transmitted the secret from father to son
+on their deathbeds, until Geoffroy, the last of the race, was beheaded
+during the Revolution in his nineteenth year.”
+
+“That is over a century ago. Surely, someone has looked for it since
+that time?”
+
+“Yes, but they failed to find it. After I purchased the castle, I made a
+diligent search for it, but without success. You must remember that this
+tower is surrounded by water and connected with the castle only by a
+bridge; consequently, the passage must be underneath the old moat. The
+plan that was in the book in the National Library showed a series of
+stairs with a total of forty-eight steps, which indicates a depth of
+more than ten meters. You see, the mystery lies within the walls of this
+room, and yet I dislike to tear them down.”
+
+“Is there nothing to show where it is?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Mon. Devanne, we should turn our attention to the two quotations,”
+ suggested Father Gélis.
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Mon. Devanne, laughing, “our worthy father is fond
+of reading memoirs and delving into the musty archives of the castle.
+Everything relating to Thibermesnil interests him greatly. But the
+quotations that he mentions only serve to complicate the mystery. He
+has read somewhere that two kings of France have known the key to the
+puzzle.”
+
+“Two kings of France! Who were they?”
+
+“Henry the Fourth and Louis the Sixteenth. And the legend runs like
+this: On the eve of the battle of Arques, Henry the Fourth spent the
+night in this castle. At eleven o’clock in the evening, Louise de
+Tancarville, the prettiest woman in Normandy, was brought into the
+castle through the subterranean passage by Duke Edgard, who, at the
+same time, informed the king of the secret passage. Afterward, the king
+confided the secret to his minister Sully, who, in turn, relates the
+story in his book, “Royales Economies d’Etat,” without making any
+comment upon it, but linking with it this incomprehensible sentence:
+‘Turn one eye on the bee that shakes, the other eye will lead to God!’”
+
+After a brief silence, Velmont laughed and said:
+
+“Certainly, it doesn’t throw a dazzling light upon the subject.”
+
+“No; but Father Gélis claims that Sully concealed the key to the
+mystery in this strange sentence in order to keep the secret from the
+secretaries to whom he dictated his memoirs.”
+
+“That is an ingenious theory,” said Velmont.
+
+“Yes, and it may be nothing more; I cannot see that it throws any light
+on the mysterious riddle.”
+
+“And was it also to receive the visit of a lady that Louis the Sixteenth
+caused the passage to be opened?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Mon. Devanne. “All I can say is that the king
+stopped here one night in 1784, and that the famous Iron Casket found
+in the Louvre contained a paper bearing these words in the king’s own
+writing: ‘Thibermesnil 3-4-11.’”
+
+Horace Velmont laughed heartily, and exclaimed:
+
+“At last! And now that we have the magic key, where is the man who can
+fit it to the invisible lock?”
+
+“Laugh as much as you please, monsieur,” said Father Gèlis, “but I am
+confident the solution is contained in those two sentences, and some day
+we will find a man able to interpret them.”
+
+“Sherlock Holmes is the man,” said Mon. Devanne, “unless Arsène Lupin
+gets ahead of him. What is your opinion, Velmont?”
+
+Velmont arose, placed his hand on Devanne’s shoulder, and declared:
+
+“I think that the information furnished by your book and the book of the
+National Library was deficient in a very important detail which you have
+now supplied. I thank you for it.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“The missing key. Now that I have it, I can go to work at once,” said
+Velmont.
+
+“Of course; without losing a minute,” said Devanne, smiling.
+
+“Not even a second!” replied Velmont. “To-night, before the arrival of
+Sherlock Holmes, I must plunder your castle.”
+
+“You have no time to lose. Oh! by the way, I can drive you over this
+evening.”
+
+“To Dieppe?”
+
+“Yes. I am going to meet Monsieur and Madame d’Androl and a young lady
+of their acquaintance who are to arrive by the midnight train.”
+
+Then addressing the officers, Devanne added:
+
+“Gentlemen, I shall expect to see all of you at breakfast to-morrow.”
+
+The invitation was accepted. The company dispersed, and a few moments
+later Devanne and Velmont were speeding toward Dieppe in an automobile.
+Devanne dropped the artist in front of the Casino, and proceeded to the
+railway station. At twelve o’clock his friends alighted from the train.
+A half hour later the automobile was at the entrance to the castle.
+At one o’clock, after a light supper, they retired. The lights were
+extinguished, and the castle was enveloped in the darkness and silence
+of the night.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The moon appeared through a rift in the clouds, and filled the
+drawing-room with its bright white light. But only for a moment. Then
+the moon again retired behind its ethereal draperies, and darkness and
+silence reigned supreme. No sound could be heard, save the monotonous
+ticking of the clock. It struck two, and then continued its endless
+repetitions of the seconds. Then, three o’clock.
+
+Suddenly, something clicked, like the opening and closing of a
+signal-disc that warns the passing train. A thin stream of light flashed
+to every corner of the room, like an arrow that leaves behind it a
+trail of light. It shot forth from the central fluting of a column that
+supported the pediment of the bookcase. It rested for a moment on
+the panel opposite like a glittering circle of burnished silver, then
+flashed in all directions like a guilty eye that scrutinizes every
+shadow. It disappeared for a short time, but burst forth again as a
+whole section of the bookcase revolved on a pivot and disclosed a large
+opening like a vault.
+
+A man entered, carrying an electric lantern. He was followed by a second
+man, who carried a coil of rope and various tools. The leader inspected
+the room, listened a moment, and said:
+
+“Call the others.”
+
+Then eight men, stout fellows with resolute faces, entered the room,
+and immediately commenced to remove the furnishings. Arsène Lupin passed
+quickly from one piece of furniture to another, examined each, and,
+according to its size or artistic value, he directed his men to take it
+or leave it. If ordered to be taken, it was carried to the gaping mouth
+of the tunnel, and ruthlessly thrust into the bowels of the earth. Such
+was the fate of six armchairs, six small Louis XV chairs, a quantity
+of Aubusson tapestries, some candelabra, paintings by Fragonard and
+Nattier, a bust by Houdon, and some statuettes. Sometimes, Lupin would
+linger before a beautiful chest or a superb picture, and sigh:
+
+“That is too heavy.... too large.... what a pity!”
+
+In forty minutes the room was dismantled; and it had been accomplished
+in such an orderly manner and with as little noise as if the various
+articles had been packed and wadded for the occasion.
+
+Lupin said to the last man who departed by way of the tunnel:
+
+“You need not come back. You understand, that as soon as the auto-van is
+loaded, you are to proceed to the grange at Roquefort.”
+
+“But you, patron?”
+
+“Leave me the motor-cycle.”
+
+When the man had disappeared, Arsène Lupin pushed the section of the
+bookcase back into its place, carefully effaced the traces of the men’s
+footsteps, raised a portière, and entered a gallery, which was the only
+means of communication between the tower and the castle. In the center
+of this gallery there was a glass cabinet which had attracted Lupin’s
+attentions. It contained a valuable collection of watches, snuff-boxes,
+rings, chatelaines and miniatures of rare and beautiful workmanship. He
+forced the lock with a small jimmy, and experienced a great pleasure in
+handling those gold and silver ornaments, those exquisite and delicate
+works of art.
+
+He carried a large linen bag, specially prepared for the removal of
+such knick-knacks. He filled it. Then he filled the pockets of his coat,
+waistcoat and trousers. And he was just placing over his left arm a
+number of pearl reticules when he heard a slight sound. He listened. No,
+he was not deceived. The noise continued. Then he remembered that, at
+one end of the gallery, there was a stairway leading to an unoccupied
+apartment, but which was probably occupied that night by the young lady
+whom Mon. Devanne had brought from Dieppe with his other visitors.
+
+Immediately he extinguished his lantern, and had scarcely gained the
+friendly shelter of a window-embrasure, when the door at the top of the
+stairway was opened and a feeble light illuminated the gallery. He could
+feel--for, concealed by a curtain, he could not see--that a woman was
+cautiously descending the upper steps of the stairs. He hoped she would
+come no closer. Yet, she continued to descend, and even advanced some
+distance into the room. Then she uttered a faint cry. No doubt she had
+discovered the broken and dismantled cabinet.
+
+She advanced again. Now he could smell the perfume, and hear the
+throbbing of her heart as she drew closer to the window where he was
+concealed. She passed so close that her skirt brushed against the
+window-curtain, and Lupin felt that she suspected the presence of
+another, behind her, in the shadow, within reach of her hand. He
+thought: “She is afraid. She will go away.” But she did not go. The
+candle, that she carried in her trembling hand, grew brighter. She
+turned, hesitated a moment, appeared to listen, then suddenly drew aside
+the curtain.
+
+They stood face to face. Arsène was astounded. He murmured,
+involuntarily:
+
+“You--you--mademoiselle.”
+
+It was Miss Nelly. Miss Nelly! his fellow passenger on the transatlantic
+steamer, who had been the subject of his dreams on that memorable
+voyage, who had been a witness to his arrest, and who, rather than
+betray him, had dropped into the water the Kodak in which he had
+concealed the bank-notes and diamonds. Miss Nelly! that charming
+creature, the memory of whose face had sometimes cheered, sometimes
+saddened the long hours of imprisonment.
+
+It was such an unexpected encounter that brought them face to face in
+that castle at that hour of the night, that they could not move,
+nor utter a word; they were amazed, hypnotized, each at the sudden
+apparition of the other. Trembling with emotion, Miss Nelly staggered to
+a seat. He remained standing in front of her.
+
+Gradually, he realized the situation and conceived the impression he
+must have produced at that moment with his arms laden with knick-knacks,
+and his pockets and a linen sack overflowing with plunder. He was
+overcome with confusion, and he actually blushed to find himself in
+the position of a thief caught in the act. To her, henceforth, he was
+a thief, a man who puts his hand in another’s pocket, who steals into
+houses and robs people while they sleep.
+
+A watch fell upon the floor; then another. These were followed by other
+articles which slipped from his grasp one by one. Then, actuated by a
+sudden decision, he dropped the other articles into an armchair, emptied
+his pockets and unpacked his sack. He felt very uncomfortable in Nelly’s
+presence, and stepped toward her with the intention of speaking to her,
+but she shuddered, rose quickly and fled toward the salon. The portière
+closed behind her. He followed her. She was standing trembling and
+amazed at the sight of the devastated room. He said to her, at once:
+
+“To-morrow, at three o’clock, everything will be returned. The furniture
+will be brought back.”
+
+She made no reply, so he repeated:
+
+“I promise it. To-morrow, at three o’clock. Nothing in the world could
+induce me to break that promise....To-morrow, at three o’clock.”
+
+Then followed a long silence that he dared not break, whilst the
+agitation of the young girl caused him a feeling of genuine regret.
+Quietly, without a word, he turned away, thinking: “I hope she will go
+away. I can’t endure her presence.” But the young girl suddenly spoke,
+and stammered:
+
+“Listen.... footsteps....I hear someone....”
+
+He looked at her with astonishment. She seemed to be overwhelmed by the
+thought of approaching peril.
+
+“I don’t hear anything,” he said.
+
+“But you must go--you must escape!”
+
+“Why should I go?”
+
+“Because--you must. Oh! do not remain here another minute. Go!”
+
+She ran, quickly, to the door leading to the gallery and listened. No,
+there was no one there. Perhaps the noise was outside. She waited a
+moment, then returned reassured.
+
+But Arsène Lupin had disappeared.
+
+* * * * *
+
+As soon as Mon. Devanne was informed of the pillage of his castle, he
+said to himself: It was Velmont who did it, and Velmont is Arsène Lupin.
+That theory explained everything, and there was no other plausible
+explanation. And yet the idea seemed preposterous. It was ridiculous to
+suppose that Velmont was anyone else than Velmont, the famous artist,
+and club-fellow of his cousin d’Estevan. So, when the captain of the
+gendarmes arrived to investigate the affair, Devanne did not even think
+of mentioning his absurd theory.
+
+Throughout the forenoon there was a lively commotion at the castle.
+The gendarmes, the local police, the chief of police from Dieppe, the
+villagers, all circulated to and fro in the halls, examining every
+nook and corner that was open to their inspection. The approach of the
+maneuvering troops, the rattling fire of the musketry, added to the
+picturesque character of the scene.
+
+The preliminary search furnished no clue. Neither the doors nor windows
+showed any signs of having been disturbed. Consequently, the removal of
+the goods must have been effected by means of the secret passage. Yet,
+there were no indications of footsteps on the floor, nor any unusual
+marks upon the walls.
+
+Their investigations revealed, however, one curious fact that denoted
+the whimsical character of Arsène Lupin: the famous Chronique of the
+sixteenth century had been restored to its accustomed place in the
+library and, beside it, there was a similar book, which was none other
+than the volume stolen from the National Library.
+
+At eleven o’clock the military officers arrived. Devanne welcomed them
+with his usual gayety; for, no matter how much chagrin he might suffer
+from the loss of his artistic treasures, his great wealth enabled him to
+bear his loss philosophically. His guests, Monsieur and Madame d’Androl
+and Miss Nelly, were introduced; and it was then noticed that one of the
+expected guests had not arrived. It was Horace Velmont. Would he come?
+His absence had awakened the suspicions of Mon. Devanne. But at twelve
+o’clock he arrived. Devanne exclaimed:
+
+“Ah! here you are!”
+
+“Why, am I not punctual?” asked Velmont.
+
+“Yes, and I am surprised that you are.... after such a busy night! I
+suppose you know the news?”
+
+“What news?”
+
+“You have robbed the castle.”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Velmont, smiling.
+
+“Exactly as I predicted. But, first escort Miss Underdown to the
+dining-room. Mademoiselle, allow me--”
+
+He stopped, as he remarked the extreme agitation of the young girl.
+Then, recalling the incident, he said:
+
+“Ah! of course, you met Arsène Lupin on the steamer, before his arrest,
+and you are astonished at the resemblance. Is that it?”
+
+She did not reply. Velmont stood before her, smiling. He bowed. She
+took his proffered arm. He escorted her to her place, and took his seat
+opposite her. During the breakfast, the conversation related exclusively
+to Arsène Lupin, the stolen goods, the secret passage, and Sherlock
+Holmes. It was only at the close of the repast, when the conversation
+had drifted to other subjects, that Velmont took any part in it. Then
+he was, by turns, amusing and grave, talkative and pensive. And all
+his remarks seemed to be directed to the young girl. But she, quite
+absorbed, did not appear to hear them.
+
+Coffee was served on the terrace overlooking the court of honor and
+the flower garden in front of the principal façade. The regimental band
+played on the lawn, and scores of soldiers and peasants wandered through
+the park.
+
+Miss Nelly had not forgotten, for one moment, Lupin’s solemn promise:
+“To-morrow, at three o’clock, everything will be returned.”
+
+At three o’clock! And the hands of the great clock in the right wing of
+the castle now marked twenty minutes to three. In spite of herself, her
+eyes wandered to the clock every minute. She also watched Velmont, who
+was calmly swinging to and fro in a comfortable rocking chair.
+
+Ten minutes to three!....Five minutes to three!....Nelly was impatient
+and anxious. Was it possible that Arsène Lupin would carry out his
+promise at the appointed hour, when the castle, the courtyard, and the
+park were filled with people, and at the very moment when the officers
+of the law were pursuing their investigations? And yet....Arsène Lupin
+had given her his solemn promise. “It will be exactly as he said,”
+ thought she, so deeply was she impressed with the authority, energy and
+assurance of that remarkable man. To her, it no longer assumed the form
+of a miracle, but, on the contrary, a natural incident that must occur
+in the ordinary course of events. She blushed, and turned her head.
+
+Three o’clock! The great clock struck slowly:
+one.... two.... three....Horace Velmont took out his watch, glanced at the
+clock, then returned the watch to his pocket. A few seconds passed in
+silence; and then the crowd in the courtyard parted to give passage
+to two wagons, that had just entered the park-gate, each drawn by two
+horses. They were army-wagons, such as are used for the transportation
+of provisions, tents, and other necessary military stores. They stopped
+in front of the main entrance, and a commissary-sergeant leaped from
+one of the wagons and inquired for Mon. Devanne. A moment later, that
+gentleman emerged from the house, descended the steps, and, under
+the canvas covers of the wagons, beheld his furniture, pictures and
+ornaments carefully packaged and arranged.
+
+When questioned, the sergeant produced an order that he had received
+from the officer of the day. By that order, the second company of the
+fourth battalion were commanded to proceed to the crossroads of Halleux
+in the forest of Arques, gather up the furniture and other articles
+deposited there, and deliver same to Monsieur Georges Devanne, owner of
+the Thibermesnil castle, at three o’clock. Signed: Col. Beauvel.
+
+“At the crossroads,” explained the sergeant, “we found everything ready,
+lying on the grass, guarded by some passers-by. It seemed very strange,
+but the order was imperative.”
+
+One of the officers examined the signature. He declared it a forgery;
+but a clever imitation. The wagons were unloaded, and the goods restored
+to their proper places in the castle.
+
+During this commotion, Nelly had remained alone at the extreme end of
+the terrace, absorbed by confused and distracted thoughts. Suddenly, she
+observed Velmont approaching her. She would have avoided him, but the
+balustrade that surrounded the terrace cut off her retreat. She was
+cornered. She could not move. A gleam of sunshine, passing through the
+scant foliage of a bamboo, lighted up her beautiful golden hair. Some
+one spoke to her in a low voice:
+
+“Have I not kept my promise?”
+
+Arsène Lupin stood close to her. No one else was near. He repeated, in a
+calm, soft voice:
+
+“Have I not kept my promise?”
+
+He expected a word of thanks, or at least some slight movement that
+would betray her interest in the fulfillment of his promise. But she
+remained silent.
+
+Her scornful attitude annoyed Arsène Lupin; and he realized the vast
+distance that separated him from Miss Nelly, now that she had learned
+the truth. He would gladly have justified himself in her eyes, or at
+least pleaded extenuating circumstances, but he perceived the absurdity
+and futility of such an attempt. Finally, dominated by a surging flood
+of memories, he murmured:
+
+“Ah! how long ago that was! You remember the long hours on the deck of
+the ‘Provence.’ Then, you carried a rose in your hand, a white rose like
+the one you carry to-day. I asked you for it. You pretended you did
+not hear me. After you had gone away, I found the rose--forgotten, no
+doubt--and I kept it.”
+
+She made no reply. She seemed to be far away. He continued:
+
+“In memory of those happy hours, forget what you have learned since.
+Separate the past from the present. Do not regard me as the man you saw
+last night, but look at me, if only for a moment, as you did in those
+far-off days when I was Bernard d’Andrezy, for a short time. Will you,
+please?”
+
+She raised her eyes and looked at him as he had requested. Then, without
+saying a word, she pointed to a ring he was wearing on his forefinger.
+Only the ring was visible; but the setting, which was turned toward the
+palm of his hand, consisted of a magnificent ruby. Arsène Lupin blushed.
+The ring belonged to Georges Devanne. He smiled bitterly, and said:
+
+“You are right. Nothing can be changed. Arsène Lupin is now and always
+will be Arsène Lupin. To you, he cannot be even so much as a memory.
+Pardon me....I should have known that any attention I may now offer you
+is simply an insult. Forgive me.”
+
+He stepped aside, hat in hand. Nelly passed before him. He was inclined
+to detain her and beseech her forgiveness. But his courage failed, and
+he contented himself by following her with his eyes, as he had done when
+she descended the gangway to the pier at New York. She mounted the steps
+leading to the door, and disappeared within the house. He saw her no
+more.
+
+A cloud obscured the sun. Arsène Lupin stood watching the imprints of
+her tiny feet in the sand. Suddenly, he gave a start. Upon the box which
+contained the bamboo, beside which Nelly had been standing, he saw
+the rose, the white rose which he had desired but dared not ask
+for. Forgotten, no doubt--it, also! But how--designedly or through
+distraction? He seized it eagerly. Some of its petals fell to the
+ground. He picked them up, one by one, like precious relics.
+
+“Come!” he said to himself, “I have nothing more to do here. I must
+think of my safety, before Sherlock Holmes arrives.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+The park was deserted, but some gendarmes were stationed at the
+park-gate. He entered a grove of pine trees, leaped over the wall,
+and, as a short cut to the railroad station, followed a path across the
+fields. After walking about ten minutes, he arrived at a spot where the
+road grew narrower and ran between two steep banks. In this ravine, he
+met a man traveling in the opposite direction. It was a man about fifty
+years of age, tall, smooth-shaven, and wearing clothes of a foreign cut.
+He carried a heavy cane, and a small satchel was strapped across his
+shoulder. When they met, the stranger spoke, with a slight English
+accent:
+
+“Excuse me, monsieur, is this the way to the castle?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur, straight ahead, and turn to the left when you come to
+the wall. They are expecting you.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, my friend Devanne told us last night that you were coming, and I
+am delighted to be the first to welcome you. Sherlock Holmes has no more
+ardent admirer than.... myself.”
+
+There was a touch of irony in his voice that he quickly regretted, for
+Sherlock Holmes scrutinized him from head to foot with such a keen,
+penetrating eye that Arsène Lupin experienced the sensation of being
+seized, imprisoned and registered by that look more thoroughly and
+precisely than he had ever been by a camera.
+
+“My negative is taken now,” he thought, “and it will be useless to use
+a disguise with that man. He would look right through it. But, I wonder,
+has he recognized me?”
+
+They bowed to each other as if about to part. But, at that moment, they
+heard a sound of horses’ feet, accompanied by a clinking of steel. It
+was the gendarmes. The two men were obliged to draw back against the
+embankment, amongst the brushes, to avoid the horses. The gendarmes
+passed by, but, as they followed each other at a considerable distance,
+they were several minutes in doing so. And Lupin was thinking:
+
+“It all depends on that question: has he recognized me? If so, he will
+probably take advantage of the opportunity. It is a trying situation.”
+
+When the last horseman had passed, Sherlock Holmes stepped forth and
+brushed the dust from his clothes. Then, for a moment, he and Arsène
+Lupin gazed at each other; and, if a person could have seen them at that
+moment, it would have been an interesting sight, and memorable as the
+first meeting of two remarkable men, so strange, so powerfully equipped,
+both of superior quality, and destined by fate, through their peculiar
+attributes, to hurl themselves one at the other like two equal forces
+that nature opposes, one against the other, in the realms of space.
+
+Then the Englishman said: “Thank you, monsieur.”
+
+They parted. Lupin went toward the railway station, and Sherlock Holmes
+continued on his way to the castle.
+
+The local officers had given up the investigation after several hours
+of fruitless efforts, and the people at the castle were awaiting the
+arrival of the English detective with a lively curiosity. At first
+sight, they were a little disappointed on account of his commonplace
+appearance, which differed so greatly from the pictures they had formed
+of him in their own minds. He did not in any way resemble the romantic
+hero, the mysterious and diabolical personage that the name of Sherlock
+Holmes had evoked in their imaginations. However, Mon. Devanne exclaimed
+with much gusto:
+
+“Ah! monsieur, you are here! I am delighted to see you. It is a
+long-deferred pleasure. Really, I scarcely regret what has happened,
+since it affords me the opportunity to meet you. But, how did you come?”
+
+“By the train.”
+
+“But I sent my automobile to meet you at the station.”
+
+“An official reception, eh? with music and fireworks! Oh! no, not for
+me. That is not the way I do business,” grumbled the Englishman.
+
+This speech disconcerted Devanne, who replied, with a forced smile:
+
+“Fortunately, the business has been greatly simplified since I wrote to
+you.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“The robbery took place last night.”
+
+“If you had not announced my intended visit, it is probable the robbery
+would not have been committed last night.”
+
+“When, then?”
+
+“To-morrow, or some other day.”
+
+“And in that case?”
+
+“Lupin would have been trapped,” said the detective.
+
+“And my furniture?”
+
+“Would not have been carried away.”
+
+“Ah! but my goods are here. They were brought back at three o’clock.”
+
+“By Lupin.”
+
+“By two army-wagons.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes put on his cap and adjusted his satchel. Devanne
+exclaimed, anxiously:
+
+“But, monsieur, what are you going to do?”
+
+“I am going home.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Your goods have been returned; Arsène Lupin is far away--there is
+nothing for me to do.”
+
+“Yes, there is. I need your assistance. What happened yesterday, may
+happen again to-morrow, as we do not know how he entered, or how he
+escaped, or why, a few hours later, he returned the goods.”
+
+“Ah! you don’t know--”
+
+The idea of a problem to be solved quickened the interest of Sherlock
+Holmes.
+
+“Very well, let us make a search--at once--and alone, if possible.”
+
+Devanne understood, and conducted the Englishman to the salon. In a dry,
+crisp voice, in sentences that seemed to have been prepared in advance,
+Holmes asked a number of questions about the events of the preceding
+evening, and enquired also concerning the guests and the members of the
+household. Then he examined the two volumes of the “Chronique,” compared
+the plans of the subterranean passage, requested a repetition of the
+sentences discovered by Father Gélis, and then asked:
+
+“Was yesterday the first time you have spoken those two sentences to any
+one?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You had never communicated then to Horace Velmont?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, order the automobile. I must leave in an hour.”
+
+“In an hour?”
+
+“Yes; within that time, Arsène Lupin solved the problem that you placed
+before him.”
+
+“I.... placed before him--”
+
+“Yes, Arsène Lupin or Horace Velmont--same thing.”
+
+“I thought so. Ah! the scoundrel!”
+
+“Now, let us see,” said Holmes, “last night at ten o’clock, you
+furnished Lupin with the information that he lacked, and that he had
+been seeking for many weeks. During the night, he found time to solve
+the problem, collect his men, and rob the castle. I shall be quite as
+expeditious.”
+
+He walked from end to end of the room, in deep thought, then sat down,
+crossed his long legs and closed his eyes.
+
+Devanne waited, quite embarrassed. Thought he: “Is the man asleep? Or is
+he only meditating?” However, he left the room to give some orders, and
+when he returned he found the detective on his knees scrutinizing the
+carpet at the foot of the stairs in the gallery.
+
+“What is it?” he enquired.
+
+“Look.... there.... spots from a candle.”
+
+“You are right--and quite fresh.”
+
+“And you will also find them at the top of the stairs, and around
+the cabinet that Arsène Lupin broke into, and from which he took the
+bibelots that he afterward placed in this armchair.”
+
+“What do you conclude from that?”
+
+“Nothing. These facts would doubtless explain the cause for the
+restitution, but that is a side issue that I cannot wait to investigate.
+The main question is the secret passage. First, tell me, is there a
+chapel some two or three hundred metres from the castle?”
+
+“Yes, a ruined chapel, containing the tomb of Duke Rollo.”
+
+“Tell your chauffer to wait for us near that chapel.”
+
+“My chauffer hasn’t returned. If he had, they would have informed me. Do
+you think the secret passage runs to the chapel? What reason have--”
+
+“I would ask you, monsieur,” interrupted the detective, “to furnish me
+with a ladder and a lantern.”
+
+“What! do you require a ladder and a lantern?”
+
+“Certainly, or I shouldn’t have asked for them.”
+
+Devanne, somewhat disconcerted by this crude logic, rang the bell. The
+two articles were given with the sternness and precision of military
+commands.
+
+“Place the ladder against the bookcase, to the left of the word
+Thibermesnil.”
+
+Devanne placed the ladder as directed, and the Englishman continued:
+
+“More to the left.... to the right....There!....Now, climb up.... All the
+letters are in relief, aren’t they?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“First, turn the letter I one way or the other.”
+
+“Which one? There are two of them.”
+
+“The first one.”
+
+Devanne took hold of the letter, and exclaimed:
+
+“Ah! yes, it turns toward the right. Who told you that?”
+
+Sherlock Holmes did not reply to the question, but continued his
+directions:
+
+“Now, take the letter B. Move it back and forth as you would a bolt.”
+
+Devanne did so, and, to his great surprise, it produced a clicking
+sound.
+
+“Quite right,” said Holmes. “Now, we will go to the other end of the
+word Thibermesnil, try the letter I, and see if it will open like a
+wicket.”
+
+With a certain degree of solemnity, Devanne seized the letter. It
+opened, but Devanne fell from the ladder, for the entire section of the
+bookcase, lying between the first and last letters of the words, turned
+on a pivot and disclosed the subterranean passage.
+
+Sherlock Holmes said, coolly:
+
+“You are not hurt?”
+
+“No, no,” said Devanne, as he rose to his feet, “not hurt, only
+bewildered. I can’t understand now.... those letters turn.... the secret
+passage opens....”
+
+“Certainly. Doesn’t that agree exactly with the formula given by Sully?
+Turn one eye on the bee that shakes, the other eye will lead to God.”
+
+“But Louis the sixteenth?” asked Devanne.
+
+“Louis the sixteenth was a clever locksmith. I have read a book he wrote
+about combination locks. It was a good idea on the part of the owner of
+Thibermesnil to show His Majesty a clever bit of mechanism. As an aid
+to his memory, the king wrote: 3-4-11, that is to say, the third, fourth
+and eleventh letters of the word.”
+
+“Exactly. I understand that. It explains how Lupin got out of the room,
+but it does not explain how he entered. And it is certain he came from
+the outside.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes lighted his lantern, and stepped into the passage.
+
+“Look! All the mechanism is exposed here, like the works of a clock,
+and the reverse side of the letters can be reached. Lupin worked the
+combination from this side--that is all.”
+
+“What proof is there of that?”
+
+“Proof? Why, look at that puddle of oil. Lupin foresaw that the wheels
+would require oiling.”
+
+“Did he know about the other entrance?”
+
+“As well as I know it,” said Holmes. “Follow me.”
+
+“Into that dark passage?”
+
+“Are you afraid?”
+
+“No, but are you sure you can find the way out?”
+
+“With my eyes closed.”
+
+At first, they descended twelve steps, then twelve more, and, farther
+on, two other flights of twelve steps each. Then they walked through a
+long passageway, the brick walls of which showed the marks of successive
+restorations, and, in spots, were dripping with water. The earth, also,
+was very damp.
+
+“We are passing under the pond,” said Devanne, somewhat nervously.
+
+At last, they came to a stairway of twelve steps, followed by three
+others of twelve steps each, which they mounted with difficulty, and
+then found themselves in a small cavity cut in the rock. They could go
+no further.
+
+“The deuce!” muttered Holmes, “nothing but bare walls. This is
+provoking.”
+
+“Let us go back,” said Devanne. “I have seen enough to satisfy me.”
+
+But the Englishman raised his eye and uttered a sigh of relief. There,
+he saw the same mechanism and the same word as before. He had merely to
+work the three letters. He did so, and a block of granite swung out of
+place. On the other side, this granite block formed the tombstone of
+Duke Rollo, and the word “Thibermesnil” was engraved on it in relief.
+Now, they were in the little ruined chapel, and the detective said:
+
+“The other eye leads to God; that means, to the chapel.”
+
+“It is marvelous!” exclaimed Devanne, amazed at the clairvoyance and
+vivacity of the Englishman. “Can it be possible that those few words
+were sufficient for you?”
+
+“Bah!” declared Holmes, “they weren’t even necessary. In the chart in
+the book of the National Library, the drawing terminates at the left, as
+you know, in a circle, and at the right, as you do not know, in a cross.
+Now, that cross must refer to the chapel in which we now stand.”
+
+Poor Devanne could not believe his ears. It was all so new, so novel to
+him. He exclaimed:
+
+“It is incredible, miraculous, and yet of a childish simplicity! How is
+it that no one has ever solved the mystery?”
+
+“Because no one has ever united the essential elements, that is to
+say, the two books and the two sentences. No one, but Arsène Lupin and
+myself.”
+
+“But, Father Gélis and I knew all about those things, and, likewise--”
+
+Holmes smiled, and said:
+
+“Monsieur Devanne, everybody cannot solve riddles.”
+
+“I have been trying for ten years to accomplish what you did in ten
+minutes.”
+
+“Bah! I am used to it.”
+
+They emerged from the chapel, and found an automobile.
+
+“Ah! there’s an auto waiting for us.”
+
+“Yes, it is mine,” said Devanne.
+
+“Yours? You said your chauffeur hadn’t returned.”
+
+They approached the machine, and Mon. Devanne questioned the chauffer:
+
+“Edouard, who gave you orders to come here?”
+
+“Why, it was Monsieur Velmont.”
+
+“Mon. Velmont? Did you meet him?”
+
+“Near the railway station, and he told me to come to the chapel.”
+
+“To come to the chapel! What for?”
+
+“To wait for you, monsieur, and your friend.”
+
+Devanne and Holmes exchanged looks, and Mon. Devanne said:
+
+“He knew the mystery would be a simple one for you. It is a delicate
+compliment.”
+
+A smile of satisfaction lighted up the detective’s serious features for
+a moment. The compliment pleased him. He shook his head, as he said:
+
+“A clever man! I knew that when I saw him.”
+
+“Have you seen him?”
+
+“I met him a short time ago--on my way from the station.”
+
+“And you knew it was Horace Velmont--I mean, Arsène Lupin?”
+
+“That is right. I wonder how it came--”
+
+“No, but I supposed it was--from a certain ironical speech he made.”
+
+“And you allowed him to escape?”
+
+“Of course I did. And yet I had everything on my side, such as five
+gendarmes who passed us.”
+
+“Sacrableu!” cried Devanne. “You should have taken advantage of the
+opportunity.”
+
+“Really, monsieur,” said the Englishman, haughtily, “when I encounter
+an adversary like Arsène Lupin, I do not take advantage of chance
+opportunities, I create them.”
+
+But time pressed, and since Lupin had been so kind as to send the
+automobile, they resolved to profit by it. They seated themselves in
+the comfortable limousine; Edouard took his place at the wheel, and away
+they went toward the railway station. Suddenly, Devanne’s eyes fell upon
+a small package in one of the pockets of the carriage.
+
+“Ah! what is that? A package! Whose is it? Why, it is for you.”
+
+“For me?”
+
+“Yes, it is addressed: Sherlock Holmes, from Arsène Lupin.”
+
+The Englishman took the package, opened it, and found that it contained
+a watch.
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, with an angry gesture.
+
+“A watch,” said Devanne. “How did it come there?”
+
+The detective did not reply.
+
+“Oh! it is your watch! Arsène Lupin returns your watch! But, in order to
+return it, he must have taken it. Ah! I see! He took your watch! That
+is a good one! Sherlock Holmes’ watch stolen by Arsène Lupin! Mon Dieu!
+that is funny! Really.... you must excuse me....I can’t help it.”
+
+He roared with laughter, unable to control himself. After which, he
+said, in a tone of earnest conviction:
+
+“A clever man, indeed!”
+
+The Englishman never moved a muscle. On the way to Dieppe, he never
+spoke a word, but fixed his gaze on the flying landscape. His silence
+was terrible, unfathomable, more violent than the wildest rage. At the
+railway station, he spoke calmly, but in a voice that impressed one with
+the vast energy and will power of that famous man. He said:
+
+“Yes, he is a clever man, but some day I shall have the pleasure of
+placing on his shoulder the hand I now offer to you, Monsieur Devanne.
+And I believe that Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes will meet again
+some day. Yes, the world is too small--we will meet--we must meet--and
+then--”
+
+                      *****
+--The further startling and thrilling adventures of Arsène Lupin will be
+found in the book entitled “Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes.”--
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene
+Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar, by Maurice Leblanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thefellowshipofthering b/files/books/unrelated/thefellowshipofthering
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b24e54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thefellowshipofthering
@@ -0,0 +1,21550 @@
+“THE LORD OF THE RINGS' 
+
+V*art One 
+
+THE FELLOWSHIP 
+OF THE RING 
+
+J.R.R.ToIkien 
+
+
+
+Complete Table of Contents 
+
+
+
+Foreword 
+
+Prologue 
+
+1 . Concerning Hobbits 
+
+2. Concerning Pipe-weed 
+
+3. Of the Ordering of the Shire 
+
+4. Of the Finding of the Ring 
+
+note on the shire records 
+
+
+
+
+Book I 
+
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+Chapter 10 
+Chapter 11 
+Chapter 12 
+
+
+
+A Long-expected Party 
+The Shadow of the Past 
+Three is Company 
+A Short Cut to Mushrooms 
+A Conspiracy Unmasked 
+The Old Forest 
+
+In the House of Tom Bombadil 
+Fog on the Barrow-Downs 
+At the Sign of The Prancing Pony 
+Strider 
+
+A Knife in the Dark 
+Flight to the Ford 
+
+
+
+Book II 
+
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+Chapter 10 
+
+
+
+Many Meetings 
+The Council of Elrond 
+The Ring Goes South 
+A Journey in the Dark 
+The Bridge of Khazad-dym 
+Lothlurien 
+
+The Mirror of Galadriel 
+Farewell to Lurien 
+The Great River 
+The Breaking of the Fellowship 
+
+
+
+
+Book III 
+
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+Chapter 10 
+Chapter 11 
+
+
+
+The Departure of Boromir 
+
+The Riders of Rohan 
+
+The Urak-Hai 
+
+Treebeard 
+
+The White Rider 
+
+The King of the Golden Hall 
+
+Helm's Deep 
+
+The Road to Isengard 
+
+Flotsam and Jetsam 
+
+The Voice of Saruman 
+
+The Palantnr 
+
+
+
+Book IV 
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+Chapter 10 
+
+
+
+The Taming of Smjagol 
+The Passage of the Marshes 
+The Black Gate is Closed 
+Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit 
+The Window on the West 
+The Forbidden Pool 
+Journey to the Cross-roads 
+The Stairs of Cirith Ungol 
+Shelob's Lair 
+
+The Choices of Master Samwise 
+
+
+
+
+Book V 
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+Chapter 10 
+
+
+
+Minas Tirith 
+
+The Passing of the Grey Company 
+
+The Muster of Rohan 
+
+The Siege of Gondor 
+
+The Ride of the Rohirrim 
+
+The Battle of the Pelennor Fields 
+
+The Pyre of Denethor 
+
+The Houses of Healing 
+
+The Last Debate 
+
+The Black Gate Opens 
+
+
+
+Book VI 
+Chapter 1 
+Chapter 2 
+Chapter 3 
+Chapter 4 
+Chapter 5 
+Chapter 6 
+Chapter 7 
+Chapter 8 
+Chapter 9 
+
+
+
+The Tower of Cirith Ungo 
+The Land of Shadow 
+Mount Doom 
+The Field of Cormallen 
+The Steward and the King 
+Many Partings 
+Homeward Bound 
+The Scouring of the Shire 
+The Grey Havens 
+
+
+
+
+Foreword 
+
+
+
+This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great 
+War of the Ring and included many glimpses of the yet more ancient history 
+that preceded it. It was begun soon after The Hobbit was written and before 
+its publication in 1937; but I did not go on with this sequel, for I wished 
+first to complete and set in order the mythology and legends of the Elder 
+Days, which had then been taking shape for some years. I desired to do this 
+for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be 
+interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in 
+inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 
+'history' for Elvish tongues. 
+
+When those whose advice and opinion I sought corrected little hope to 
+no hope, I went back to the sequel, encouraged by requests from readers for 
+more information concerning hobbits and their adventures. But the story was 
+drawn irresistibly towards the older world, and became an account, as it 
+were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been 
+told. The process had begun in the writing of The Hobbit, in which there 
+were already some references to the older matter: Elrond, Gondolin, the 
+High-elves, and the ores, as well as glimpses that had arisen unbidden of 
+things higher or deeper or darker than its surface: Durin, Moria, Gandalf, 
+the Necromancer, the Ring. The discovery of the significance of these 
+glimpses and of their relation to the ancient histories revealed the Third 
+Age and its culmination in the War of the Ring. 
+
+Those who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got 
+it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord of the 
+Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a period in which 
+I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a 
+learner and teacher that often absorbed me. The delay was, of course, also 
+increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale 
+had not yet reached the end of Book One. In spite of the darkness of the 
+next five years I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, 
+and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. 
+There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on 
+and so came to Lothlurien and the Great River late in 1941. In the next year 
+
+
+
+
+I wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book Three, and 
+the beginnings of chapters I and III of Book Five; and there as the beacons 
+flared in Anurien and Thjoden came to Harrowdale I stopped. Foresight had 
+failed and there was no time for thought. 
+
+It was during 1944 that, leaving the loose ends and perplexities of a 
+war which it was my task to conduct, or at least to report, 1 forced myself 
+to tackle the journey of Frodo to Mordor. These chapters, eventually to 
+become Book Four, were written and sent out as a serial to my son, 
+Christopher, then in South Africa with the RAF. Nonetheless it took another 
+five years before the tale was brought to its present end; in that time I 
+changed my house, my chair, and my college, and the days though less dark 
+were no less laborious. Then when the ’end’ had at last been reached the 
+whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards. And 
+it had to be typed, and re-typed: by me; the cost of professional typing by 
+the ten-fingered was beyond my means. 
+
+The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally 
+appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to 
+the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning 
+the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a 
+tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the 
+attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite 
+them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is 
+appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. 
+Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it 
+boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I 
+have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they 
+evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed 
+my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a 
+long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at 
+the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the 
+passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially 
+approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, 
+minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review 
+the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except 
+one that has been noted by others: the book is too short. 
+
+As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the 
+author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put 
+
+
+
+
+down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main 
+theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as 
+the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the 
+Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before 
+the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and 
+from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same 
+lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before 
+in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was 
+modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels. 
+
+The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its 
+conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, 
+then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he 
+would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dyr would not have 
+been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, 
+would m the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the 
+missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would 
+have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled 
+Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits 
+in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves. 
+
+Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of 
+those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike 
+allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old 
+and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or 
+feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of 
+readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the 
+one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed 
+domination of the author. 
+
+An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, 
+but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely 
+complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from 
+evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though 
+naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have 
+overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times 
+common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has 
+indeed 
+
+personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but 
+as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth 
+
+
+
+
+by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and 
+the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or 
+to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that The 
+Scouring of the Shire’ reflects the situation in England at the time when I 
+was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, 
+foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of 
+Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical 
+significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed 
+some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was 
+entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in 
+childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when 
+motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still 
+building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last 
+decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago 
+seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but 
+his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named 
+Sandy man. 
+
+The Lord of the Rings is now issued in a new edition, and the 
+opportunity has been taken of revising it. A number of errors and 
+inconsistencies that still remained in the text have been corrected, and an 
+attempt has been made to provide information on a few points which attentive 
+readers have raised. I have considered all their comments and enquiries, and 
+if some seem to have been passed over that may be because I have failed to 
+keep my notes in order; but many enquiries could only be answered by 
+additional appendices, or indeed by the production of an accessory volume 
+containing much of the material that I did not include in the original 
+edition, in particular more detailed linguistic information. In the meantime 
+this edition offers this Foreword, an addition to the Prologue, some notes, 
+and an index of the names of persons and places. This index is in intention 
+complete in items but not in references, since for the present purpose it 
+has been necessary to reduce its bulk. A complete index, making full use of 
+the material prepared for me by Mrs. N. Smith, belongs rather to the 
+accessory volume. 
+
+
+
+
+* PROLOGUE * 
+
+
+
+1. Concerning Hobbits 
+
+
+
+This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a 
+reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history. 
+Further information will also be found in the selection from the Red Book of 
+Westmarch that has already been published, under the title of The Hobbit. 
+That story was derived from the earlier chapters of the Red Book, composed 
+by Bilbo himself, the first Hobbit to become famous in the world at large, 
+and called by him There and Back Again, since they told of his journey into 
+the East and his return: an adventure which later involved all the Hobbits 
+in the great events of that Age that are here related. 
+
+Many, however, may wish to know more about this remarkable people 
+from 
+
+the outset, while some may not possess the earlier book. For such readers a 
+few notes on the more important points are here collected from Hobbit-lore, 
+and the first adventure is briefly recalled. 
+
+Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous 
+formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled 
+earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. 
+They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a 
+forge -bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with 
+tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as 
+they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to 
+find. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined 
+to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and 
+deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of 
+disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to 
+meet come blundering by; and this an they have developed until to Men it may 
+seem magical. But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind, 
+and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity 
+and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered 
+
+
+
+
+inimitable by bigger and clumsier races. 
+
+For they are a little people, smaller than Dwarves: less tout and 
+stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter. Their height 
+is variable, ranging between two and four feet of our measure. They seldom 
+now reach three feet; but they hive dwindled, they say, and in ancient days 
+they were taller. According to the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), 
+son of Isengrim the Second, was four foot five and able to ride a horse. He 
+was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old; 
+but that curious matter is dealt with in this book. 
+
+As for the Hobbits of the Shire, with whom these tales are concerned, 
+in the days of their peace and prosperity they were a merry folk. They 
+dressed in bright colours, being notably fond of yellow and green; but they 
+seldom wore shoes, since their feet had tough leathery soles and were clad 
+in a thick curling hair, much like the hair of their heads, which was 
+commonly brown. Thus, the only craft little practised among them was 
+shoe-making; but they had long and skilful fingers and could make many other 
+useful and comely things. Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather 
+than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to 
+laughter, and to eating and drinking. And laugh they did, and eat, and 
+drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of 
+six meals a day (when they could get them). They were hospitable and 
+delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely and 
+eagerly accepted. 
+
+It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are 
+relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old 
+they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and 
+disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship 
+is can no longer be discovered. The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in 
+the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still 
+preserve any records of that vanished time, and their traditions are 
+concerned almost entirely with their own history, in which Men appear seldom 
+and Hobbits are not mentioned at all. Yet it is clear that Hobbits had, in 
+fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk 
+became even aware of them. And the world being after all full of strange 
+creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little 
+importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly 
+became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled 
+
+
+
+
+the counsels of the Wise and the Great. 
+
+Those days, the Third Age of Middle -earth, are now long past, and the 
+shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then 
+lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the 
+North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea. Of their original home the 
+Hobbits in Bilbo's time preserved no knowledge. A love of learning (other 
+than genealogical lore) was far from general among them, but there remained 
+still a few in the older families who studied their own books, and even 
+gathered reports of old times and distant lands from Elves, Dwarves, and 
+Men. Their own records began only after the settlement of the Shire, and 
+their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering 
+Days. It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, and from the evidence of 
+their peculiar words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in 
+the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time 
+when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eaves of 
+Greenwood 
+
+the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook the hard and 
+perilous crossing of the mountains into Eriador is no longer certain. Their 
+own accounts speak of the multiplying of Men in the land, and of a shadow 
+that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was 
+Mirkwood. 
+
+Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become 
+divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and 
+Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and 
+they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; 
+and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier 
+in build; their feet and hands were larger, and they preferred flat lands 
+and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and 
+they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and 
+of woodlands. 
+
+The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long 
+lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and 
+roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the 
+Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, 
+and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one 
+place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and 
+holes. 
+
+
+
+
+The Stoors lingered long by the banks of the Great River Anduin, and 
+were less shy of Men. They came west after the Harfoots and followed the 
+course of the Loudwater southwards; and there many of them long dwelt 
+between Tharbad and the borders of Dunland before they moved north again. 
+
+The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were 
+more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in 
+language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to 
+tilling. They crossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the 
+River Hoarwell. In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had 
+preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were 
+often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors. Even 
+in Bilbo's time the strong Fallohidish strain could still be noted among the 
+greater families, such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland. 
+
+In the westlands of Eriador, between the Misty Mountains and the 
+Mountains of Lune, the Hobbits found both Men and Elves. Indeed, a remnant 
+still dwelt there of the D®nedain, the kings of Men that came over the Sea 
+out of Westernesse; but they were dwindling fast and the lands of their 
+North Kingdom were falling far and wide into waste. There was room and to 
+spare for incomers, and ere long the Hobbits began to settle in ordered 
+communities. Most of their earlier settlements had long disappeared and been 
+forgotten in Bilbo's time; but one of the first to become important still 
+endured, though reduced in size; this was at Bree and in the Chetwood that 
+lay round about, some forty miles east of the Shire. 
+
+It was in these early days, doubtless, that the Hobbits learned their 
+letters and began to write after the manner of the D®nedain, who had in 
+their turn long before learned the art from the Elves. And in those days 
+also they forgot whatever languages they had used before, and spoke ever 
+after the Common Speech, the Westron as it was named, that was current 
+through all the lands of the kings from Arnor to Gondor, and about all the 
+coasts of the Sea from B elf alas to Lune. Yet they kept a few words of their 
+own, as well as their own names of months and days, and a great store of 
+personal names out of the past. 
+
+About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history with a 
+reckoning of years. For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first 
+year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set 
+out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at 
+Fornostl, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of 
+
+
+
+
+Hobbits. They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in 
+the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took ail the land 
+beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs. All that was 
+demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and 
+all other bridges and roads, speed the king's messengers, and acknowledge 
+his lordship. 
+
+Thus began the Shire-reckoning, for the year of the crossing of the 
+Brandywine (as the Hobbits turned the name) became Year One of the Shire, 
+and all later dates were reckoned from it. 2 At once the western Hobbits fell 
+in love with their new land, and they remained there, and soon passed once 
+more out of the history of Men and of Elves. While there was still a king 
+they were in name his subjects, but they were, in fact, ruled by their own 
+chieftains and meddled not at all with events in the world outside. To the 
+last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen 
+to the aid of the king, or so they maintained, though no tales of Men record 
+it. But in that war the North Kingdom ended; and then the Hobbits took the 
+land for their own, and they chose from their own chiefs a Thain to hold the 
+authority of the king that was gone. There for a thousand years they were 
+little troubled by wars, and they prospered and multiplied after the Dark 
+Plague (S.R. 37) until the disaster of the Long Winter and the famine that 
+followed it. Many thousands then perished, but the Days of Dearth (1158-60) 
+were at the time of this tale long past and the Hobbits had again become 
+accustomed to plenty. The land was rich and kindly, and though it had long 
+been deserted when they entered it, it had before been well tilled, and 
+there the king had once had many farms, cornlands, vineyards, and woods. 
+
+Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge, 
+and fifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. The Hobbits 
+named it the Shire, as the region of the authority of their Thain, and a 
+district of well-ordered business; and there in that pleasant comer of the 
+world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less 
+and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think 
+that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all 
+sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the 
+Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of 
+the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember 
+it. 
+
+At no time had Hobbits of any kind been warlike, and they had never 
+
+
+
+
+fought among themselves. In olden days they had, of course, been often 
+obliged to fight to maintain themselves in a hard world; but in Bilbo's time 
+that was very ancient history. The last battle, before this story opens, and 
+indeed the only one that had ever been fought within the borders of the 
+Shire, was beyond living memory: the Battle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147, in 
+which Bandobras Took routed an invasion of Ores. Even the weathers had 
+grown 
+
+milder, and the wolves that had once come ravening out of the North in 
+bitter white winters were now only a grandfather's tale. So, though there 
+was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as 
+trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at 
+Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits 
+had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a 
+mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, 
+and 
+
+many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that son. 
+
+Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough. 
+
+They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were, 
+perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, 
+when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief, 
+foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well 
+and looked no further than their bellies and their well-fed faces. Though 
+slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty 
+at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, 
+for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. 
+If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, 
+as all trespassing beasts knew very well. 
+
+All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they 
+believed, and in such dwellings they still felt most at home; but in the 
+course of time they had been obliged to adopt other forms of abode. Actually 
+in the Shire in Bilbo's days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the 
+poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living 
+in burrows of the most primitive kind, mere holes indeed, with only one 
+window or none; while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious 
+versions of the simple diggings of old. But suitable sites for these large 
+and ramifying tunnels (or smicils as they called them) were not everywhere to 
+be found; and in the flats and the low-lying districts the Hobbits, as they 
+
+
+
+
+multiplied, began to build above ground. Indeed, even in the hilly regions 
+and the older villages, such as Hobbiton or Tuckborough, or in the chief 
+township of the Shire, Michel Delving on the White Downs, there were now 
+many houses of wood, brick, or stone. These were specially favoured by 
+millers, smiths, ropers, and Cartwrights, and others of that sort; for even 
+when they had holes to live in. Hobbits had long been accustomed to build 
+sheds and workshops. 
+
+The habit of building farmhouses and barns was said to have begun among 
+the inhabitants of the Marish down by the Brandywine. The Hobbits of that 
+quarter, the Eastfarthing, were rather large and heavy-legged, and they wore 
+dwarf-boots in muddy weather. But they were well known to be Stoors in a 
+large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on 
+their chins. No Harfoot or Fallohide had any trace of a beard. Indeed, the 
+folk of the Marish, and of Buckland, east of the River, which they 
+afterwards occupied, came for the most part later into the Shire up from 
+south-away; and they still had many peculiar names and strange words not 
+found elsewhere in the Shire. 
+
+It is probable that the craft of building, as many other crafts beside, 
+was derived from the D®nedain. But the Hobbits may have learned it direct 
+from the Elves, the teachers of Men in their youth. For the Elves of the 
+High Kindred had not yet forsaken Middle-earth, and they dwelt still at that 
+time at the Grey Havens away to the west, and in other places within reach 
+of the Shire. Three Elf-towers of immemorial age were still to be seen on 
+the Tower Hills beyond the western marches. They shone far off in the 
+moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone upon a green mound. 
+The Hobbits of the Westfarthing said that one could see the Sea from the lop 
+of that tower; but no Hobbit had ever been known to climb it. Indeed, few 
+Hobbits had ever seen or sailed upon the Sea, and fewer still had ever 
+returned to report it. Most Hobbits regarded even rivers and small boats 
+with deep misgivings, and not many of them could swim. And as the days of 
+the Shire lengthened they spoke less and less with the Elves, and grew 
+afraid of them, and distrustful of those that had dealings with them; and 
+the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they 
+turned their faces away from the hills in the west. 
+
+The craft of building may have come from Elves or Men, but the Hobbits 
+used it in their own fashion. They did not go in for towers. Their houses 
+were usually long, low, and comfortable. The oldest kind were, indeed, no 
+
+
+
+
+more than built imitations of smials, thatched with dry grass or straw, or 
+roofed with turves, and having walls somewhat bulged. That stage, however, 
+belonged to the early days of the Shire, and hobbit -building had long since 
+been altered, improved by devices, learned from Dwarves, or discovered by 
+themselves. A preference for round windows, and even round doors, was the 
+chief remaining peculiarity of hobbit-architecture. 
+
+The houses and the holes of Shire-hobbits were often large, and 
+inhabited by large families. (Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were as bachelors very 
+exceptional, as they were also in many other ways, such as their friendship 
+with the Elves.) Sometimes, as in the case of the Tooks of Great Smials, or 
+the Brandybucks of Brandy Hall, many generations of relatives lived in 
+(comparative) peace together in one ancestral and many -tunnelled mansion. 
+All Hobbits were, in any case, clannish and reckoned up their relationships 
+with great care. They drew long and elaborate family -trees with innumerable 
+branches. In dealing with Hobbits it is important to remember who is related 
+to whom, and in what degree. It would be impossible in this book to set out 
+a family -tree that included even the more important members of the more 
+important families at the time which these tales tell of. The genealogical 
+trees at the end of the Red Book of Westmarch are a small book in 
+themselves, and all but Hobbits would find them exceedingly dull. Hobbits 
+delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books 
+filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no 
+contradictions. 
+
+
+
+
+2. Concerning Pipe-weed 
+
+
+
+There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be 
+mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of 
+clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called 
+pipe-weed or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. A great deal of mystery 
+surrounds the origin of this peculiar custom, or 'art' as the Hobbits 
+preferred to call it. All that could be discovered about it in antiquity was 
+put together by Meriadoc Brandybuck (later Master of Buckland), and since he 
+and the tobacco of the Southfarthing play a part in the history that 
+follows, his remarks in the introduction to his Herblore of the Shire may be 
+quoted. 
+
+’This,' he says, 'is the one art that we can certainly claim to be our 
+own invention. When Hobbits first began to smoke is not known, all the 
+legends and family histories take it for granted; for ages folk in the Shire 
+smoked various herbs, some fouler, some sweeter. But all accounts agree that 
+Tobold Hornblower of Longbottom in the Southfarthing first grew the true 
+pipe-weed in his gardens in the days of Isengrim the Second, about the year 
+1070 of Shire-reckoning. The best home-grown still comes from that district, 
+especially the varieties now known as Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and 
+Southern Star. 
+
+'How Old Toby came by the plant is not recorded, for to his dying day 
+he would not tell. He knew much about herbs, but he was no traveller. It is 
+said that in his youth he went often to Bree, though he certainly never went 
+further from the Shire than that. It is thus quite possible that he learned 
+of this plant in Bree, where now, at any rate, it grows well on the south 
+slopes of the hill. The Bree-hobbits claim to have been the first actual 
+smokers of the pipe-weed. They claim, of course, to have done everything 
+before the people of the Shire, whom they refer to as "colonists"; but in 
+this case their claim is, I think, likely to be true. And certainly it was 
+from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in the recent 
+centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, 
+as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and 
+centre of the an is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing 
+
+
+
+
+Pony, that has been kept by the family of Butterbur from time beyond record. 
+
+'All the same, observations that I have made on my own many journeys 
+south have convinced me that the weed itself is not native to our parts of 
+the world, but came northward from the lower Anduin, whither it was, I 
+suspect, originally brought over Sea by the Men of Westernesse. It grows 
+abundantly in Gondor, and there is richer and larger than in the North, 
+where it is never found wild, and flourishes only in warm sheltered places 
+like Longbottom. The Men of Gondor call it sweet galenas, and esteem it only 
+for the fragrance of its flowers. From that land it must have been carried 
+up the Greenway during the long centuries between the coming of Elendil and 
+our own day. But even the D®nedain of Gondor allow us this credit: Hobbits 
+first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before 
+we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became 
+as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to.' 
+
+
+
+
+3. Of the Ordering of the Shire 
+
+
+
+The Shire was divided into four quarters, the Farthings already 
+referred to. North, South, East, and West; and these again each into a 
+number of folklands, which still bore the names of some of the old leading 
+families, although by the time of this history these names were no longer 
+found only in their proper folklands. Nearly all Tooks still lived in the 
+Tookland, but that was not true of many other families, such as the 
+Bagginses or the Boffins. Outside the Farthings were the East and West 
+Marches: the Buckland (see beginning of Chapter V, Book I); and the 
+Westmarch added to the Shire in S.R. 1462. 
+
+The Shire at this time had hardly any 'government'. Families for the 
+most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied 
+most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not 
+greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and 
+small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations. 
+
+There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high 
+king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But 
+there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of 
+Kings' Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild 
+folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. 
+
+For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually 
+they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), 
+both ancient and just. 
+
+It is true that the Took family had long been pre-eminent; for the 
+office of Thain had passed to them (from the Oldbucks) some centuries 
+before, and the chief Took had borne that title ever since. The Thain was 
+the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the 
+Hobbitry-in-arms, but as muster and moot were only held in times of 
+emergency, which no longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more 
+than a nominal dignity. The Took family was still, indeed, accorded a 
+special respect, for it remained both numerous and exceedingly wealthy, and 
+was liable to produce in every generation strong characters of peculiar 
+habits and even adventurous temperament. The latter qualities, however, were 
+
+
+
+
+now rather tolerated (in the rich) than generally approved. The custom 
+endured, nonetheless, of referring to the head of the family as The Took, 
+and of adding to his name, if required, a number: such as Isengrim the 
+Second, for instance. 
+
+The only real official in the Shire at this date was the Mayor of 
+Michel Delving (or of the Shire), who was elected every seven years at the 
+Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Midsummer. As mayor 
+almost his only duty was to preside at banquets, given on the 
+Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals. But the offices of 
+Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he 
+managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only 
+Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the 
+busier of the two. By no means all Hobbits were lettered, but those who were 
+wrote constantly to all their friends (and a selection of their relations) 
+who lived further off than an afternoon's walk. 
+
+The Shirriffs was the name that the Hobbits gave to their police, or 
+the nearest equivalent that they possessed. They had, of course, no uniforms 
+(such things being quite unknown), only a feather in their caps; and they 
+were in practice rather haywards than policemen, more concerned with the 
+strayings of beasts than of people. There were in all the Shire only twelve 
+of them, three in each Farthing, for Inside Work. A rather larger body, 
+varying at need, was employed to 'beat the bounds’, and to see that 
+Outsiders of any kind, great or small, did not make themselves a nuisance. 
+
+At the time when this story begins the Bounders, as they were called, 
+had been greatly increased. There were many reports and complaints of 
+strange persons and creatures prowling about the borders, or over them: the 
+first sign that all was not quite as it should be, and always had been 
+except in tales and legends of long ago. Few heeded the sign, and not even 
+Bilbo yet had any notion of what it portended. Sixty years had passed since 
+he set out on his memorable journey, and he was old even for Hobbits, who 
+reached a hundred as often as not; but much evidently still remained of the 
+considerable wealth that he had brought back. How much or how little he 
+revealed to no one, not even to Frodo his favourite 'nephew'. And he still 
+kept secret the ring that he bad found. 
+
+
+
+
+4. Of the Finding of the Ring 
+
+
+
+As is told in The Hobbit , there came one day to Bilbo's door the great 
+Wizard, Gandalf the Grey, and thirteen dwarves with him: none other, indeed, 
+than Thorin Oakenshield, descendant of kings, and his twelve companions in 
+exile. With them he set out, to his own lasting astonishment, on a morning 
+of April, it being then the year 1341 Shire-reckoning, on a quest of great 
+treasure, the dwarf-hoards of the Kings under the Mountain, beneath Erebor 
+in Dale, far off in the East. The quest was successful, and the Dragon that 
+guarded the hoard was destroyed. Yet, though before all was won the Battle 
+of Five Armies was fought, and Thorin was slain, and many deeds of renown 
+were done, the matter would scarcely have concerned later history, or earned 
+more than a note in the long annals of the Third Age, but for an 'accident' 
+by the way. The party was assailed by Ores in a high pass of the Misty 
+Mountains as they went towards Wilderland; and so it happened that Bilbo was 
+lost for a while in the black ore-mines deep under the mountains, and there, 
+as he groped in vain in the dark, he put his hand on a ring, lying on the 
+floor of a tunnel. Ele put it in his pocket. It seemed then like mere luck. 
+
+Trying to find his way out. Bilbo went on down to the roots of the 
+mountains, until he could go no further. At the bottom of the tunnel lay a 
+cold lake far from the light, and on an island of rock in the water lived 
+Gollum. He was a loathsome little creature: he paddled a small boat with his 
+large flat feet, peering with pale luminous eyes and catching blind fish 
+with his long fingers, and eating them raw. He ate any living thing, even 
+ore, if he could catch it and strangle it without a struggle. He possessed a 
+secret treasure that had come to him long ages ago, when he still lived in 
+the light: a ring of gold that made its wearer invisible. It was the one 
+thing he loved, his 'precious', and he talked to it, even when it was not 
+with him. For he kept it hidden safe in a hole on his island, except when he 
+was hunting or spying on the ores of the mines. 
+
+Maybe he would have attacked Bilbo at once, if the ring had been on him 
+when they met; but it was not, and the hobbit held in his hand an Elvish 
+knife, which served him as a sword. So to gain time Gollum challenged Bilbo 
+to the Riddle-game, saying that if he asked a riddle which Bilbo could not 
+
+
+
+
+guess, then he would kill him and eat him; but if Bilbo defeated him, then 
+he would do as Bilbo wished: he would lead him to a way out of the tunnels. 
+
+Since he was lost in the dark without hope, and could neither go on nor 
+back. Bilbo accepted the challenge; and they asked one another many riddles. 
+In the end Bilbo won the game, more by luck (as it seemed) than by wits; for 
+he was stumped at last for a riddle to ask, and cried out, as his hand came 
+upon the ring he lad picked up and forgotten: What haw I got in my pocket? 
+This Gollum failed to answer, though he demanded three guesses. 
+
+The Authorities, it is true, differ whether this last question was a 
+mere 'question' and not a 'riddle' according to the strict rules of the 
+Game; but all agree that, after accepting it and trying to guess the answer, 
+Gollum was bound by his promise. And Bilbo pressed him to keep his word; 
+for 
+
+the thought came to him that this slimy creature might prove false, even 
+though such promises were held sacred, and of old all but the wickedest 
+things feared to break them. But after ages alone in the dark Gollum's heart 
+was black, and treachery was in it. He slipped away, and returned to the 
+island, of which Bilbo knew nothing, not far off in the dark water. There, 
+he thought, lay his ring. He was hungry now, and angry, and once his 
+'precious' was with him he would not fear any weapon at all. 
+
+But the ring was not on the island; he had lost it, it was gone. His 
+screech sent a shiver down Bilbo's back, though he did not yet understand 
+what had happened. But Gollum had at last leaped to a guess, too late. What 
+has it got in its pocketses? he cried. The light in his eyes was like a 
+green flame as he sped back to murder the hobbit and recover his 'precious'. 
+Just in time Bilbo saw his peril, and he fled blindly up the passage away 
+from the water; and once more he was saved by his luck. For just as he ran 
+he put his hand in his pocket, and the ring slipped quietly on to his 
+finger. So it was that Gollum passed him without seeing him, and went to 
+guard the way out, lest the 'thief should escape. Warily Bilbo followed 
+him, as he went along, cursing, and talking to himself about his 'precious'; 
+from which talk at last even Bilbo guessed the truth, and hope came to him 
+in the darkness: he himself had found the marvellous ring and a chance of 
+escape from the ores and from Gollum. 
+
+At length they came to a halt before an unseen opening that led to the 
+lower gates of the mines, on the eastward side of the mountains. There 
+Gollum crouched at bay, smelling and listening; and Bilbo was tempted to 
+
+
+
+
+slay him with his sword. But pity stayed him, and though he kept the ring, 
+in which his only hope lay, he would not use it to help him kill the 
+wretched creature at a disadvantage. In the end, gathering his courage, he 
+leaped over Gollum in the dark, and fled away down the passage, pursued by 
+his enemy's cries of hate and despair: Thief thief! Baggins! We hates it 
+for ever! 
+
+Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told 
+it to his companions. To them his account was that Gollum had promised to 
+give him a present, if he won the game; but when Gollum went to fetch it 
+from his island he found the treasure was gone: a magic ring, which had been 
+given to him long ago on his birthday. Bilbo guessed that this was the very 
+ring that he had found, and as he had won the game, it was already his by 
+right. But being in a tight place, he said nothing about it, and made Gollum 
+show him the way out, as a reward instead of a present. This account Bilbo 
+set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not 
+even after the Council of Elrond. Evidently it still appeared in the 
+original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts. But 
+many copies contain the true account (as an alternative), derived no doubt 
+from notes by Frodo or Samwise, both of whom learned the truth, though they 
+seem to have been unwilling to delete anything actually written by the old 
+hobbit himself. 
+
+Gandalf, however, disbelieved Bilbo's first story, as soon as he heard 
+it, and he continued to be very curious about the ring. Eventually he got 
+the true tale out of Bilbo after much questioning, which for a while 
+strained their friendship; but the wizard seemed to think the truth 
+important. Though he did not say so to Bilbo, he also thought it important, 
+and disturbing, to find that the good hobbit had not told the truth from the 
+first: quite contrary to his habit. The idea of a 'present' was not mere 
+hobbitlike invention, all the same. It was suggested to Bilbo, as he 
+confessed, by Gollum's talk that he overheard; for Gollum did, in fact, call 
+the ring his 'birthday present', many times. That also Gandalf thought 
+strange and suspicious; but he did not discover the truth in this point for 
+many more years, as will be seen in this book. 
+
+Of Bilbo's later adventures little more need be said here. With the 
+help of the ring he escaped from the ore-guards at the gate and rejoined his 
+companions. He used the ring many times on his quest, chiefly for the help 
+of his friends; but he kept it secret from them as long as he could. After 
+
+
+
+
+his return to his home he never spoke of it again to anyone, save Gandalf 
+and Frodo; and no one else in the Shire knew of its existence, or so he 
+believed. Only to Frodo did he show the account of his Journey that he was 
+writing. 
+
+His sword, Sting, Bilbo hung over his fireplace, and his coat of 
+marvellous mail, the gift of the Dwarves from the Dragon -hoard, he lent to a 
+museum, to the Michel Delving Mathom-house in fact. But he kept in a drawer 
+at Bag End the old cloak and hood that he had worn on his travels; and the 
+ring, secured by a fine chain, remained in his pocket. 
+
+He returned to his home at Bag End on June the 22nd in his fifty-second 
+year (S.R. 1342), and nothing very notable occurred in the Shire until Mr. 
+Baggins began the preparations for the celebration of his 
+hundred-and-eleventh birthday (S.R. 1401). At this point this History 
+begins. 
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ON THE SHIRE RECORDS 
+
+
+
+At the end of the Third Age the part played by the Hobbits in the great 
+events that led to the inclusion of the Shire in the Reunited Kingdom 
+awakened among them a more widespread interest in their own history; and 
+many of their traditions, up to that time still mainly oral, were collected 
+and Written down. The greater families were also concerned with events in 
+the Kingdom at large, and many of their members studied its ancient 
+histories and legends. By the end of the first century of the Fourth Age 
+there were already to be found in the Shire several libraries that contained 
+many historical books and records. 
+
+The largest of these collections were probably at Undertowers, at Great 
+Smials, and at Brandy Hall. This account of the end of the Third Age is 
+drawn mainly from the Red Book of Westmarch. That most important source 
+for 
+
+the history of the War of the Ring was so called because it was long 
+preserved at Undertowers, the home of the Fairbairns, Wardens of the 
+Westmarch. 1 It was in origin Bilbo's private diary, which he took with him 
+to Rivendell. Frodo brought it back to the Shire, together with many loose 
+leaves of notes, and during S.R. 1420-1 he nearly filled its pages with his 
+account of the War. But annexed to it and preserved with it, probably m a 
+single red case, were the three large volumes, bound in red leather, that 
+Bilbo gave to him as a parting gift. To these four volumes there was added 
+in Westmarch a fifth containing commentaries, genealogies, and various other 
+matter concerning the hobbit members of the Fellowship. 
+
+The original Red Book has not been preserved, but many copies were 
+made, especially of the first volume, for the use of the descendants of the 
+children of Master Samwise. The most important copy, however, has a 
+different history. It was kept at Great Smials, but it was written in 
+Condor, probably at the request of the great-grandson of Peregrin, and 
+completed in S.R. 1592 (F.A. 172). Its southern scribe appended this note: 
+Findegil, King's Writer, finished this work in IV 172. It is an exact copy 
+in all details of the Thain's Book m Minas Tirith. That book was a copy, 
+made at the request of King Elessar, of the Red Book of the Periannath, and 
+
+
+
+
+was brought to him by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor in IV 64. 
+
+The Thain’s Book was thus the first copy made of the Red Book and 
+contained much that was later omitted or lost. In Minas Tirith it received 
+much annotation, and many corrections, especially of names, words, and 
+quotations in the Elvish languages; and there was added to it an abbreviated 
+version of those parts of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen which lie outside 
+the account of the War. The full tale is stated to have been written by 
+Barahir, grandson of the Steward Faramir, some time after the passing of the 
+King. But the chief importance of Findegil’s copy is that it alone contains 
+the whole of Bilbo's ’Translations from the Elvish'. These three volumes 
+were found to be a work of great skill and learning in which, between 1403 
+and 1418, he had used all the sources available to him in Rivendell, both 
+living and written. But since they were little used by Frodo, being almost 
+entirely concerned with the Elder Days, no more is said of them here. 
+
+Since Meriadoc and Peregrin became the heads of their great families, 
+and at the same time kept up their connexions with Rohan and Gondor, the 
+libraries at Bucklebury and Tuckborough contained much that did not appear 
+in the Red Book. In Brandy Hall there were many works dealing with Eriador 
+and the history of Rohan. Some of these were composed or begun by 
+Meriadoc 
+
+himself, though in the Shire he was chiefly remembered for his Herhlore of 
+the Shire, and for his Reckoning of Years m which he discussed the relation 
+of the calendars of the Shire and Bree to those of Rivendell, Gondor, and 
+Rohan. He also wrote a short treatise on Old Words and Names in the Shire, 
+having special interest in discovering the kinship with the language of the 
+Rohirrim of such 'shire-words' as mathom and old elements in place names. 
+
+At Great Smials the books were of less interest to Shire-folk, though 
+more important for larger history. None of them was written by Peregrin, but 
+he and his successors collected many manuscripts written by scribes of 
+Gondor: mainly copies or summaries of histories or legends relating to 
+Elendil and his heirs. Only here in the Shire were to be found extensive 
+materials for the history of N®menor and the arising of Sauron. It was 
+probably at Great Smials that The Tale of Years 1 was put together, with the 
+assistance of material collected by Meriadoc. Though the dates given are 
+often conjectural, especially for the Second Age, they deserve attention. It 
+is probable that Meriadoc obtained assistance and information from 
+Rivendell, which he visited more than once. There, though Elrond had 
+
+
+
+
+departed, his sons long remained, together with some of the High-elven folk. 
+It is said that Celeborn went to dwell there after the departure of 
+Galadriel; but there is no record of the day when at last he sought the Grey 
+Havens, and with him went the last living memory of the Elder Days in 
+Middle-earth. 
+
+
+
+
+* BOOK I * 
+
+
+
+Chapter 1 . A Long-expected Party 
+
+When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be 
+celebrating his eleventy -first birthday with a party of special 
+magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. 
+
+Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the 
+Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and 
+unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now 
+become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk 
+might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with 
+treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged 
+vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on 
+Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they 
+began to call him we//-preserved, but unchanged would have been nearer the 
+mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much 
+of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) 
+perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth. 
+
+'It will have to be paid for,' they said. 'It isn't natural, and 
+trouble will come of it!' 
+
+But so far trouble had not come; and as Mr. Baggins was generous with 
+his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good 
+fortune. He remained on visiting terms with his relatives (except, of 
+course, the Sackville-Bagginses), and he had many devoted admirers among 
+the 
+
+hobbits of poor and unimportant families. But he had no close friends, until 
+some of his younger cousins began to grow up. 
+
+The eldest of these, and Bilbo's favourite, was young Frodo Baggins. 
+When Bilbo was ninety-nine, he adopted Frodo as his heir, and brought him to 
+live at Bag End; and the hopes of the Sackville-Bagginses were finally 
+dashed. Bilbo and Frodo happened to have the same birthday, September 
+22nd. 
+
+'You had better come and live here, Frodo my lad,' said Bilbo one day; 'and 
+then we can celebrate our birthday-parties comfortably together.' At that 
+
+
+
+
+time Frodo was still in his tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible 
+twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three. 
+
+Twelve more years passed. Each year the Bagginses had given very lively 
+combined birthday-parties at Bag End; but now it was understood that 
+something quite exceptional was being planned for that autumn. Bilbo was 
+going to be eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number and a very 
+respectable age for a hobbit (the Old Took himself had only reached 130); 
+and Frodo was going to be thirty-three, 33) an important number: the date of 
+his 'coming of age'. 
+
+Tongues began to wag in Flobbiton and By water; and rumour of the coming 
+event travelled all over the Shire. The history and character of Mr. Bilbo 
+Baggins became once again the chief topic of conversation; and the older 
+folk suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand. 
+
+No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly 
+known as the Gaffer. He held forth at The Ivy Bush , a small inn on the 
+Bywater road; and he spoke with some authority, for he had tended the garden 
+at Bag End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same job before 
+that. Now that he was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job 
+was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee. Both father and son 
+were on very friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo. They lived on the Hill 
+itself, in Number 3 Bagshot Row just below Bag End. 
+
+’A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. Bilbo, as I've always 
+said,' the Gaffer declared. With perfect truth: for Bilbo was very polite to 
+him, calling him 'Master Hamfast', and consulting him constantly upon the 
+growing of vegetables - in the matter of 'roots', especially potatoes, the 
+Gaffer was recognized as the leading authority by all in the neighbourhood 
+(including himself). 
+
+'But what about this Frodo that lives with him?' asked Old Noakes of 
+By water. 'Baggins is his name, but he's more than half a Brandybuck, they 
+say. It beats me why any Baggins of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife 
+away there in Buckland, where folks are so queer.' 
+
+'And no wonder they're queer,' put in Daddy Twofoot (the Gaffer's 
+next-door neighbour), 'if they live on the wrong side of the Brandywine 
+River, and right agin the Old Forest. That's a dark bad place, if half the 
+tales be true.' 
+
+'You're right, Dad!' said the Gaffer. 'Not that the Brandybucks of 
+Buck-land live in the Old Forest; but they're a queer breed, seemingly. They 
+
+
+
+
+fool about with boats on that big river - and that isn’t natural. Small 
+wonder that trouble came of it, I say. But be that as it may, Mr. Frodo is 
+as nice a young hobbit as you could wish to meet. Very much like Mr. Bilbo, 
+and in more than looks. After all his father was a Baggins. A decent 
+respectable hobbit was Mr. Drogo Baggins; there was never much to tell of 
+him, till he was drownded.' 
+
+'Drownded?' said several voices. They had heard this and other darker 
+rumours before, of course; but hobbits have a passion for family history, 
+and they were ready to hear it again. 'Well, so they say,' said the Gaffer. 
+
+'You see: Mr. Drogo, he married poor Miss Primula Brandybuck. She was 
+our 
+
+Mr. Bilbo's first cousin on the mother's side (her mother being the youngest 
+of the Old Took's daughters); and Mr. Drogo was his second cousin. So Mr. 
+Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way, as the saying 
+is, if you follow me. And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Flail with his 
+father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc, as he often did after his marriage (him 
+being partial to his vittles, and old Gorbadoc keeping a mighty generous 
+table); and he went out boating on the Brandywine River; and he and his wife 
+were drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and all. ' 
+
+'I've heard they went on the water after dinner in the moonlight,' said 
+Old Noakes; 'and it was Drogo's weight as sunk the boat.' 
+
+'And / heard she pushed him in, and he pulled her in after him,' said 
+Sandy man, the Hobbiton miller. 
+
+'You shouldn't listen to all you hear, Sandyman,' said the Gaffer, who 
+did not much like the miller. 'There isn't no call to go talking of pushing 
+and pulling. Boats are quite tricky enough for those that sit still without 
+looking further for the cause of trouble. Anyway: there was this Mr. Frodo 
+left an orphan and stranded, as you might say, among those queer 
+Bucklanders, being brought up anyhow in Brandy Hall. A regular warren, by 
+all accounts. Old Master Gorbadoc never had fewer than a couple of hundred 
+relations in the place. Mr. Bilbo never did a kinder deed than when he 
+brought the lad back to live among decent folk. 
+
+'But I reckon it was a nasty shock for those Sackville-Bagginses. They 
+thought they were going to get Bag End, that time when he went off and was 
+thought to be dead. And then he comes back and orders them off; and he goes 
+on living and living, and never looking a day older, bless him! And suddenly 
+he produces an heir, and has all the papers made out proper. The 
+
+
+
+
+Sackville-Bagginses won’t never see the inside of Bag End now, or it is to 
+be hoped not.' 
+
+'There's a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear tell,' said a 
+stranger, a visitor on business from Michel Delving in the Westfarthing. 
+
+'All the top of your hill is full of tunnels packed with chests of gold and 
+silver, and jools, by what I've heard. ' 
+
+'Then you've heard more than I can speak to,' answered the Gaffer. I 
+know nothing about jools. Mr. Bilbo is free with his money, and there seems 
+no lack of it; but I know of no tunnel -making. I saw Mr. Bilbo when he came 
+back, a matter of sixty years ago, when I was a lad. I'd not long come 
+prentice to old Holman (him being my dad's cousin), but he had me up at Bag 
+End helping him to keep folks from trampling and trapessing all over the 
+garden while the sale was on. And in the middle of it all Mr. Bilbo comes up 
+the Hill with a pony and some mighty big bags and a couple of chests. I 
+don't doubt they were mostly full of treasure he had picked up in foreign 
+parts, where there be mountains of gold, they say; but there wasn't enough 
+to fill tunnels. But my lad Sam will know more about that. He's in and out 
+of Bag End. Crazy about stories of the old days he is, and he listens to all 
+Mr. Bilbo's tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters - meaning no harm, 
+mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it. 
+
+'Elves and Dragons' Isays to him. 'Cabbages and potatoes are better 
+for me and you. Don 't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, 
+or you'll land in trouble too big for you, ' I says to him. And I might say 
+it to others,' he added with a look at the stranger and the miller. 
+
+But the Gaffer did not convince his audience. The legend of Bilbo's 
+wealth was now too firmly fixed in the minds of the younger generation of 
+hobbits. 
+
+'Ah, but he has likely enough been adding to what he brought at first,' 
+argued the miller, voicing common opinion. 'He's often away from home. And 
+look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and 
+that old wandering conjuror, Gandalf, and all. You can say what you like, 
+Gaffer, but Bag End's a queer place, and its folk are queerer.' 
+
+'And you can say what you like, about what you know no more of than you 
+do of boating, Mr. Sandyman,' retorted the Gaffer, disliking the miller even 
+more than usual. If that's being queer, then we could do with a bit more 
+queerness in these parts. There's some not far away that wouldn't offer a 
+pint of beer to a friend, if they lived in a hole with golden walls. But 
+
+
+
+
+they do things proper at Bag End. Our Sam says that everyone's going to be 
+invited to the party, and there’s going to be presents, mark you, presents 
+for all - this very month as is.' 
+
+That very month was September, and as fine as you could ask. A day or 
+two later a rumour (probably started by the knowledgeable Sam) was spread 
+about that there were going to be fireworks - fireworks, what is more, such 
+as had not been seen in the Shire for nigh on a century, not indeed since 
+the Old Took died. 
+
+Days passed and The Day drew nearer. An odd-looking waggon laden with 
+odd-looking packages rolled into Hobbiton one evening and toiled up the Hill 
+to Bag End. The startled hobbits peered out of lamplit doors to gape at it. 
+
+It was driven by outlandish folk, singing strange songs: dwarves with long 
+beards and deep hoods. A few of them remained at Bag End. At the end of the 
+second week in September a cart came in through Bywater from the direction 
+of the Brandywine Bridge in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all 
+alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver 
+scarf. He had a long white beard and bushy eyebrows that stuck out beyond 
+the brim of his hat. Small hobbit-children ran after the cart all through 
+Hobbiton and right up the hill. It had a cargo of fireworks, as they rightly 
+guessed. At Bilbo's front door the old man began to unload: there were great 
+bundles of fireworks of all sorts and shapes, each labelled with a large red 
+G and the elf-rune, . 
+
+That was Gandalf s mark, of course, and the old man was Gandalf the 
+Wizard, whose fame in the Shire was due mainly to his skill with fires, 
+smokes, and lights. His real business was far more difficult and dangerous, 
+but the Shire-folk knew nothing about it. To them he was just one of the 
+'attractions' at the Party. Hence the excitement of the hobbit-children. 'G 
+for Grand!' they shouted, and the old man smiled. They knew him by sight, 
+though he only appeared in Hobbiton occasionally and never stopped long; but 
+neither they nor any but the oldest of their elders had seen one of his 
+firework displays - they now belonged to the legendary past. 
+
+When the old man, helped by Bilbo and some dwarves, had finished 
+unloading. Bilbo gave a few pennies away; but not a single squib or cracker 
+was forthcoming, to the disappointment of the onlookers. 
+
+'Run away now!' said Gandalf. 'You will get plenty when the time 
+comes.' Then he disappeared inside with Bilbo, and the door was shut. The 
+young hobbits stared at the door in vain for a while, and then made off, 
+
+
+
+
+feeling that the day of the party would never come. 
+
+Inside Bag End, Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open window of a 
+small room looking out west on to the garden. The late afternoon was bright 
+and peaceful. The flowers glowed red and golden: snap-dragons and 
+sun-flowers, and nasturtiums trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in 
+at the round windows. 
+
+'How bright your garden looks!' said Gandalf. 
+
+'Yes,' said Bilbo. I am very fond indeed of it, and of all the dear old 
+Shire; but I think I need a holiday.' 
+
+'You mean to go on with your plan then?' 
+
+'I do. I made up my mind months ago, and I haven't changed it.' 
+
+'Very well. It is no good saying any more. Stick to your plan - your 
+whole plan, mind - and I hope it will turn out for the best, for you, and 
+for all of us.' 
+
+'I hope so. Anyway I mean to enjoy myself on Thursday, and have my 
+little joke.' 
+
+'Who will laugh, I wonder?' said Gandalf, shaking his head. 
+
+'We shall see,' said Bilbo. 
+
+The next day more carts rolled up the Hill, and still more carts. There 
+might have been some grumbling about 'dealing locally', but that very week 
+orders began to pour out of Bag End for every kind of provision, commodity, 
+or luxury that could be obtained in Hobbiton or Bywater or anywhere in the 
+neighbourhood. People became enthusiastic; and they began to tick off the 
+days on the calendar; and they watched eagerly for the postman, hoping for 
+invitations. 
+
+Before long the invitations began pouring out, and the Hobbiton 
+post-office was blocked, and the Bywater post-office was snowed under, and 
+voluntary assistant postmen were called for. There was a constant stream of 
+them going up the Hill, carrying hundreds of polite variations on Thank you, 
+
+I shall certainly come. 
+
+A notice appeared on the gate at Bag End: NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT 
+ON PARTY 
+
+BUSINESS. Even those who had, or pretended to have Party Business were 
+seldom allowed inside. Bilbo was busy: writing invitations, ticking off 
+answers, packing up presents, and making some private preparations of his 
+own. From the time of Gandalf s arrival he remained hidden from view. 
+
+One morning the hobbits woke to find the large field, south of Bilbo's 
+
+
+
+
+front door, covered with ropes and poles for tents and pavilions. A special 
+entrance was cut into the bank leading to the road, and wide steps and a 
+large white gate were built there. The three hobbit-families of Bagshot Row, 
+adjoining the field, were intensely interested and generally envied. Old 
+Gaffer Gamgee stopped even pretending to work in his garden. 
+
+The tents began to go up. There was a specially large pavilion, so big 
+that the tree that grew in the field was right inside it, and stood proudly 
+near one end, at the head of the chief table. Lanterns were hung on all its 
+branches. More promising still (to the hobbits’ mind): an enormous open-air 
+kitchen was erected in the north corner of the field. A draught of cooks, 
+from every inn and eating-house for miles around, arrived to supplement the 
+dwarves and other odd folk that were quartered at Bag End. Excitement rose 
+to its height. 
+
+Then the weather clouded over. That was on Wednesday the eve of the 
+Party. Anxiety was intense. Then Thursday, September the 22nd, actually 
+dawned. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun 
+began. 
+
+Bilbo Baggins called it a party, but it was really a variety of 
+entertainments rolled into one. Practically everybody living near was 
+invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they turned up all 
+the same, that did not matter. Many people from other parts of the Shire 
+were also asked; and there were even a few from outside the borders. Bilbo 
+met the guests (and additions) at the new white gate in person. Ele gave away 
+presents to all and sundry - the latter were those who went out again by a 
+back way and came in again by the gate. Hobbits give presents to other 
+people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not 
+so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system. Actually in 
+Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year it was somebody’s birthday, so 
+that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present 
+at least once a week. But they never got tired of them. 
+
+On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children 
+were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were 
+toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some 
+obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and 
+had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real 
+dwarf-make. 
+
+When every guest had been welcomed and was finally inside the gate, 
+
+
+
+
+there were songs, dances, music, games, and, of course, food and drink. 
+There were three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper). But 
+lunch and tea were marked chiefly by the fact that at those times all the 
+guests were sitting down and eating together. At other times there were 
+merely lots of people eating and drinking - continuously from elevenses 
+until six-thirty, when the fireworks started. 
+
+The fireworks were by Gandalf: they were not only brought by him, but 
+designed and made by him; and the special effects, set pieces, and flights 
+of rockets were let off by him. But there was also a generous distribution 
+of squibs, crackers, backarappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, 
+elf-fountains, goblin -barkers and thunder -claps. They were all superb. The 
+art of Gandalf improved with age. 
+
+There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing with 
+sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves 
+opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches 
+dropped glowing flowers down upon the astonished hobbits, disappearing with 
+a sweet scent just before they touched their upturned faces. There were 
+fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were 
+pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing 
+ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a 
+shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang 
+suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and came down 
+again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes. And there was 
+also one last surprise, in honour of Bilbo, and it startled the hobbits 
+exceedingly, as Gandalf intended. The lights went out. A great smoke went 
+up. It shaped itself like a mountain seen in the distance, and began to glow 
+at the summit. It spouted green and scarlet flames. Out flew a red -golden 
+dragon - not life-size, but terribly life-like: fire came from his jaws, his 
+eyes glared down; there was a roar, and he whizzed three times over the 
+heads of the crowd. They all ducked, and many fell flat on their faces. The 
+dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over 
+Bywater with a deafening explosion. 
+
+That is the signal for supper!' said Bilbo. The pain and alarm 
+vanished at once, and the prostrate hobbits leaped to their feet. There was 
+a splendid supper for everyone; for everyone, that is, except those invited 
+to the special family dinner-party. This was held in the great pavilion with 
+the tree. The invitations were limited to twelve dozen (a number also called 
+
+
+
+
+by the hobbits one Gross, though the word was not considered proper to use 
+of people); and the guests were selected from all the families to which 
+Bilbo and Frodo were related, with the addition of a few special unrelated 
+friends (such as Gandalf). Many young hobbits were included, and present by 
+parental permission; for hobbits were easy-going with their children in the 
+matter of sitting up late, especially when there was a chance of getting 
+them a free meal. Bringing up young hobbits took a lot of provender. 
+
+There were many Bagginses and Boffins, and also many Tooks and 
+Brandybucks; there were various Grubbs (relations of Bilbo Baggins' 
+grandmother), and various Chubbs (connexions of his Took grandfather); and 
+selection of Burrowses, Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Brockhouses, Goodbodies, 
+Hornblowers and Proudfoots. Some of these were only very distantly 
+connected 
+
+with Bilbo, and some of them had hardly ever been in Hobbiton before, as 
+they lived in remote corners of the Shire. The Sackville-Bagginses were not 
+forgotten. Otho and his wife Lobelia were present. They disliked Bilbo and 
+detested Frodo, but so magnificent was the invitation card, written in 
+golden ink, that they had felt it was impossible to refuse. Besides, their 
+cousin, Bilbo, had been specializing in food for many years and his table 
+had a high reputation. 
+
+All the one hundred and forty-four guests expected a pleasant feast; 
+though they rather dreaded the after-dinner speech of their host (an 
+inevitable item). Fie was liable to drag in bits of what he called poetry; 
+and sometimes, after a glass or two, would allude to the absurd adventures 
+of his mysterious journey. The guests were not disappointed: they had a very 
+pleasant feast, in fact an engrossing entertainment: rich, abundant, varied, 
+and prolonged. The purchase of provisions fell almost to nothing throughout 
+the district in the ensuing weeks; but as Bilbo's catering had depleted the 
+stocks of most stores, cellars and warehouses for miles around, that did not 
+matter much. 
+
+After the feast (more or less) came the Speech. Most of the company 
+were, however, now in a tolerant mood, at that delightful stage which they 
+called ’filling up the corners’. They were sipping their favourite drinks, 
+and nibbling at their favourite dainties, and their fears were forgotten. 
+
+They were prepared to listen to anything, and to cheer at every full stop. 
+
+My dear People, began Bilbo, rising in his place. ’Flear! Flear! Hear!’ 
+they shouted, and kept on repeating it in chorus, seeming reluctant to 
+
+
+
+
+follow their own advice. Bilbo left his place and went and stood on a chair 
+under the illuminated tree. The light of the lanterns fell on his beaming 
+face; the golden buttons shone on his embroidered silk waistcoat. They could 
+all see him standing, waving one hand in the air, the other was in his 
+trouser -pocket. 
+
+My dear Bagginses and Boffins, he began again; and my dear Tooks and 
+Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, 
+and 
+
+Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. 
+
+'ProudFEET!' 
+
+shouted an elderly hobbit from the back of the pavilion. His name, of 
+course, was Proudfoot, and well merited; his feet were large, exceptionally 
+furry, and both were on the table. 
+
+Proudfoots, repeated Bilbo. Also my good Sackville-Bagginses that I 
+welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my one hundred and eleventh 
+birthday: I am eleventy -one today!' Hurray! Hurray! Many Happy Returns!' 
+they shouted, and they hammered joyously on the tables. Bilbo was doing 
+splendidly. This was the sort of stuff they liked: short and obvious. 
+
+I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. Deafening 
+cheers. Cries of Yes (and No). Noises of trumpets and horns, pipes and 
+flutes, and other musical instruments. There were, as has been said, many 
+young hobbits present. Hundreds of musical crackers had been pulled. Most of 
+them bore the mark DALE on them; which did not convey much to most of 
+the 
+
+hobbits, but they all agreed they were marvellous crackers. They contained 
+instruments, small, but of perfect make and enchanting tones. Indeed, in one 
+corner some of the young Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Uncle Bilbo to 
+have finished (since he had plainly said all that was necessary), now got up 
+an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance-tune. Master Everard Took 
+and Miss Melilot Brandybuck got on a table and with bells in their hands 
+began to dance the Springle-ring: a pretty dance, but rather vigorous. 
+
+But Bilbo had not finished. Seizing a horn from a youngster near by, he 
+blew three loud hoots. The noise subsided. / shall not keep you long, he 
+cried. Cheers from all the assembly. / have called you all together for a 
+Purpose. Something in the way that he said this made an impression. There 
+was almost silence, and one or two of the Tooks pricked up their ears. 
+
+Indeed, for Three Purposes! First of all, to tell you that I am 
+
+
+
+
+immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time 
+to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. Tremendous outburst of 
+approval. 
+
+/ don 't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less 
+than half of you half as well as you deserve. This was unexpected and rather 
+difficult. There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying 
+to work it out and see if it came to a compliment. 
+
+Secondly, to celebrate my birthday. Cheers again. I should say: OUR 
+birthday. For it is, of course, also the birthday of my heir and nephew, 
+
+Frodo. He comes of age and into his inheritance today. Some perfunctory 
+clapping by the elders; and some loud shouts of ’Frodo! Frodo! Jolly old 
+Frodo,' from the juniors. The Sackville-Bagginses scowled, and wondered what 
+was meant by 'coming into his inheritance'. Together we score one hundred 
+and forty-four. Your numbers were chosen to fit this remarkable total: One 
+Gross, if I may use the expression. No cheers. This was ridiculous. Many of 
+his guests, and especially the Sackville-Bagginses, were insulted, feeling 
+sure they had only been asked to fill up the required number, like goods in 
+a package. 'One Gross, indeed! Vulgar expression.' 
+
+It is also, if I may be allowed to refer to ancient history, the 
+anniversary of my arrival by barrel at Esgaroth on the Long Lake; though the 
+fact that it was my birthday slipped my memory on that occasion. I was only 
+fifty-one then, and birthdays did not seem so important. The banquet was 
+very splendid, however, though I had a bad cold at the time, I remember, and 
+could only say 'thagyou very buch'. I now repeat it more correctly: Thank 
+you very much for coming to my little party. Obstinate silence. They all 
+feared that a song or some poetry was now imminent; and they were getting 
+bored. Why couldn't he stop talking and let them drink his health? But Bilbo 
+did not sing or recite. Fie paused for a moment. 
+
+Thirdly and finally, he said, I wish to make an ANNOUNCEMENT. Fie 
+spoke 
+
+this last word so loudly and suddenly that everyone sat up who still could. 
+
+I regret to announce that - though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too 
+short a time to spend among you - this is the END. I am going. I am leaving 
+NOW. GOOD-BYE 7 
+
+He stepped down and vanished. There was a blinding flash of light, and 
+the guests all blinked. When they opened their eyes Bilbo was nowhere to be 
+seen. One hundred and forty-four flabbergasted hobbits sat back speechless. 
+
+
+
+
+Old Odo Proudfoot removed his feet from the table and stamped. Then there 
+was a dead silence, until suddenly, after several deep breaths, every 
+Baggins, Boffin, Took, Brandybuck, Grubb, Chubb, Burrows, Bolger, 
+Bracegirdle, Brockhouse, Goodbody, Hornblower, and Proudfoot began to 
+talk 
+
+at once. 
+
+It was generally agreed that the joke was in very bad taste, and more 
+food and drink were needed to cure the guests of shock and annoyance. 'He's 
+mad. I always said so,' was probably the most popular comment. Even the 
+Tooks (with a few exceptions) thought Bilbo’s behaviour was absurd. For the 
+moment most of them took it for granted that his disappearance was nothing 
+more than a ridiculous prank. 
+
+But old Rory Brandybuck was not so sure. Neither age nor an enormous 
+dinner had clouded his wits, and he said to his daughter-in-law, Esmeralda: 
+'There's something fishy in this, my dear! I believe that mad Baggins is off 
+again. Silly old fool. But why worry? He hasn't taken the vittles with him.' 
+
+He called loudly to Frodo to send the wine round again. 
+
+Frodo was the only one present who had said nothing. For some time he 
+had sat silent beside Bilbo's empty chair, and ignored all remarks and 
+questions. He had enjoyed the joke, of course, even though he had been in 
+the know. He had difficulty in keeping from laughter at the indignant 
+surprise of the guests. But at the same time he felt deeply troubled: he 
+realized suddenly that he loved the old hobbit dearly. Most of the guests 
+went on eating and drinking and discussing Bilbo Baggins' oddities, past and 
+present; but the Sackville-Bagginses had already departed in wrath. Frodo 
+did not want to have any more to do with the party. He gave orders for more 
+wine to be served; then he got up and drained his own glass silently to the 
+health of Bilbo, and slipped out of the pavilion. 
+
+As for Bilbo Baggins, even while he was making his speech, he had been 
+fingering the golden ring in his pocket: his magic ring that he had kept 
+secret for so many years. As he stepped down he slipped it on his finger, 
+and he was never seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again. 
+
+He walked briskly back to his hole, and stood for a moment listening 
+with a smile to the din in the pavilion and to the sounds of merrymaking in 
+other parts of the field. Then he went in. He took off his party clothes, 
+folded up and wrapped in tissue-paper his embroidered silk waistcoat, and 
+put it away. Then he put on quickly some old untidy garments, and fastened 
+
+
+
+
+round his waist a worn leather belt. On it he hung a short sword in a 
+battered black-leather scabbard. From a locked drawer, smelling of 
+moth-balls, he took out an old cloak and hood. They had been locked up as if 
+they were very precious, but they were so patched and weatherstained that 
+their original colour could hardly be guessed: it might have been dark 
+green. They were rather too large for him. He then went into his study, and 
+from a large strong-box took out a bundle wrapped in old cloths, and a 
+leather -bound manuscript; and also a large bulky envelope. The book and 
+bundle he stuffed into the top of a heavy bag that was standing there, 
+already nearly full. Into the envelope he slipped his golden ring, and its 
+fine chain, and then sealed it, and addressed it to Frodo. At first he put 
+it on the mantelpiece, but suddenly he removed it and stuck it in his 
+pocket. At that moment the door opened and Gandalf came quickly in. 
+
+'Hullo!' said Bilbo. 'I wondered if you would turn up.' 
+
+'I am glad to find you visible,' replied the wizard, sitting down in a 
+chair, 'I wanted to catch you and have a few final words. I suppose you feel 
+that everything has gone off splendidly and according to plan?' 
+
+'Yes, I do,' said Bilbo. "Though that flash was surprising: it quite 
+startled me, let alone the others. A little addition of your own, I 
+suppose?' 
+
+It was. You have wisely kept that ring secret all these years, and it 
+seemed to me necessary to give your guests something else that would seem to 
+explain your sudden vanishment.' 
+
+'And would spoil my joke. You are an interfering old busybody,' laughed 
+Bilbo, 'but I expect you know best, as usual.' 
+
+'I do - when I know anything. But I don't feel too sure about this 
+whole affair. It has now come to the final point. You have had your joke, 
+and alarmed or offended most of your relations, and given the whole Shire 
+something to talk about for nine days, or ninety-nine more likely. Are you 
+going any further?' 
+
+'Yes, I am. I feel I need a holiday, a very long holiday, as I have 
+told you before. Probably a permanent holiday: I don't expect I shall 
+return. In fact, I don't mean to, and I have made all arrangements. 
+
+'I am old, Gandalf. I don't look it, but I am beginning to feel it in 
+my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed!' he snorted. 'Why, I feel all 
+thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been 
+scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or 
+
+
+
+
+something.' 
+
+Gandalf looked curiously and closely at him. 'No, it does not seem 
+right,' he said thoughtfully. 'No, after all I believe your plan is probably 
+the best.' 
+
+'Well, I've made up my mind, anyway. I want to see mountains again, 
+Gandalf, mountains, and then find somewhere where I can rest. In peace and 
+quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and a string of confounded 
+visitors hanging on the bell. I might find somewhere where I can finish my 
+book. I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever 
+after to the end of his days. ' 
+
+Gandalf laughed. I hope he will. But nobody will read the book, however 
+it ends.' 
+
+'Oh, they may, in years to come. Frodo has read some already, as far as 
+it has gone. You'll keep an eye on Frodo, won't you?' 
+
+'Yes, I will - two eyes, as often as I can spare them.' 
+
+'He would come with me, of course, if I asked him. In fact he offered 
+to once, just before the party. But he does not really want to, yet. I want 
+to see the wild country again before I die, and the Mountains; but he is 
+still in love with the Shire, with woods and fields and little rivers. He 
+ought to be comfortable here. I am leaving everything to him, of course, 
+except a few oddments. I hope he will be happy, when he gets used to being 
+on his own. It's time he was his own master now.' 
+
+'Everything?' said Gandalf. 'The ring as well? You agreed to that, you 
+remember.' 
+
+'Well, er, yes, I suppose so,' stammered Bilbo. 
+
+'Where is it?' 
+
+'In an envelope, if you must know,' said Bilbo impatiently. 'There on 
+the mantelpiece. Well, no! Here it is in my pocket!' He hesitated. 'Isn't 
+that odd now?' he said softly to himself. 'Yet after all, why not? Why 
+shouldn't it stay there?' 
+
+Gandalf looked again very hard at Bilbo, and there was a gleam in his 
+eyes. 'I think, Bilbo,' he said quietly, 'I should leave it behind. Don't 
+you want to?' 
+
+'Well yes - and no. Now it comes to it, I don't like parting with it at 
+all, I may say. And I don't really see why I should. Why do you want me to?' 
+he asked, and a curious change came over his voice. It was sharp with 
+
+
+
+
+suspicion and annoyance. 'You are always badgering me about my ring; but 
+you 
+
+have never bothered me about the other things that I got on my journey.' 
+
+'No, but I had to badger you,' said Gandalf. 'I wanted the truth. It 
+was important. Magic rings are - well, magical; and they are rare and 
+curious. I was professionally interested in your ring, you may say; and I 
+still am. I should like to know where it is, if you go wandering again. Also 
+I think you have had it quite long enough. You won't need it any more. 
+Bilbo, unless I am quite mistaken.' 
+
+Bilbo flushed, and there was an angry light in his eyes. His kindly 
+face grew hard. 'Why not?' he cried. 'And what business is it of yours, 
+anyway, to know what I do with my own things? It is my own. I found it. It 
+came to me.' 
+
+'Yes, yes,' said Gandalf. 'But there is no need to get angry.' 
+
+'If I am it is your fault,' said Bilbo. 'It is mine, I tell you. My 
+own. My precious. Yes, my precious.' 
+
+The wizard's face remained grave and attentive, and only a flicker in 
+his deep eyes showed that he was startled and indeed alarmed. 'It has been 
+called that before,' he said, 'but not by you.' 
+
+'But I say it now. And why not? Even if Gollum said the same once. It's 
+not his now, but mine. And I shall keep it, I say.' 
+
+Gandalf stood up. He spoke sternly. 'You will be a fool if you do. 
+
+Bilbo,' he said. 'You make that clearer with every word you say. It has got 
+far too much hold on you. Let it go! And then you can go yourself, and be 
+free.' 
+
+'I'll do as I choose and go as I please,' said Bilbo obstinately. 
+
+'Now, now, my dear hobbit! ' said Gandalf. 'All your long life we have 
+been friends, and you owe me something. Come! Do as you promised: give it 
+up! ' 
+
+'Well, if you want my ring yourself, say so!' cried Bilbo. 'But you 
+won't get it. I won't give my precious away, I tell you.' His hand strayed 
+to the hilt of his small sword. 
+
+Gandalf s eyes flashed. It will be my turn to get angry soon,' he said. 
+
+If you say that again, I shall. Then you will see Gandalf the Grey 
+uncloaked.' He took a step towards the hobbit, and he seemed to grow tall 
+and menacing; his shadow filled the little room. 
+
+Bilbo backed away to the wall, breathing hard, his hand clutching at 
+
+
+
+
+his pocket. They stood for a while facing one another, and the air of the 
+room tingled. Gandalf s eyes remained bent on the hobbit. Slowly his hands 
+relaxed, and he began to tremble. 
+
+'I don’t know what has come over you, Gandalf,' he said. 'You have 
+never been like this before. What is it all about? It is mine isn't it? I 
+found it, and Gollum would have killed me, if I hadn't kept it. I'm not a 
+thief, whatever he said.' 
+
+'I have never called you one,' Gandalf answered. 'And I am not one 
+either. I am not trying to rob you, but to help you. I wish you would trust 
+me, as you used.' He turned away, and the shadow passed. He seemed to 
+dwindle again to an old grey man, bent and troubled. 
+
+Bilbo drew his hand over his eyes. I am sorry,' he said. 'But I felt so 
+queer. And yet it would be a relief in a way not to be bothered with it any 
+more. It has been so growing on my mind lately. Sometimes I have felt it was 
+like an eye looking at me. And I am always wanting to put it on and 
+disappear, don't you know; or wondering if it is safe, and pulling it out to 
+make sure. I tried locking it up, but I found I couldn't rest without it in 
+my pocket. I don't know why. And I don't seem able to make up my mind.' 
+
+'Then trust mine,' said Gandalf. 'It is quite made up. Go away and 
+leave it behind. Stop possessing it. Give it to Frodo, and I will look after 
+him.' 
+
+Bilbo stood for a moment tense and undecided. Presently he sighed. 'All 
+right,' he said with an effort. I will.' Then he shrugged his shoulders, and 
+smiled rather ruefully. 'After all that's what this party business was all 
+about, really: to give away lots of birthday presents, and somehow make it 
+easier to give it away at the same time. It hasn't made it any easier in the 
+end, but it would be a pity to waste all my preparations. It would quite 
+spoil the joke.' 
+
+'Indeed it would take away the only point I ever saw in the affair,' 
+said Gandalf. 
+
+'Very well,' said Bilbo, 'it goes to Frodo with all the rest.' He drew 
+a deep breath. 'And now I really must be starting, or somebody else will 
+catch me. I have said good-bye, and I couldn't bear to do it all over 
+again.' He picked up his bag and moved to the door. 
+
+'You have still got the ring in your pocket,' said the wizard. 'Well, 
+so I have!' cried Bilbo. 'And my will and all the other documents too. You 
+had better take it and deliver it for me. That will be safest.' 
+
+
+
+
+'No, don’t give the ring to me,' said Gandalf. 'Put it on the 
+mantelpiece. It will be safe enough there, till Frodo comes. I shall wait 
+for him.' 
+
+Bilbo took out the envelope, but just as he was about to set it by the 
+clock, his hand jerked back, and the packet fell on the floor. Before he 
+could pick it up, the wizard stooped and seized it and set it in its place. 
+
+A spasm of anger passed swiftly over the hobbit's face again. Suddenly it 
+gave way to a look of relief and a laugh. 'Well, that's that,' he said. 'Now 
+I'm off!' 
+
+They went out into the hall. Bilbo chose his favourite stick from the 
+stand; then he whistled. Three dwarves came out of different rooms where 
+they had been busy. 
+
+'Is everything ready?' asked Bilbo. 'Everything packed and labelled?' 
+
+'Everything,' they answered. 
+
+'Well, let's start then!' He stepped out of the front-door. 
+
+It was a fine night, and the black sky was dotted with stars. He looked 
+up, sniffing the air. 'What fun! What fun to be off again, off on the Road 
+with dwarves ! This is what I have really been longing for, for years ! 
+Good-bye! ' he said, looking at his old home and bowing to the door. 
+'Good-bye, Gandalf!' 
+
+'Good-bye, for the present, Bilbo. Take care of yourself! You are old 
+enough, and perhaps wise enough.' 
+
+'Take care! I don't care. Don't you worry about me! I am as happy now 
+as I have ever been, and that is saying a great deal. But the time has come. 
+
+I am being swept off my feet at last,' he added, and then in a low voice, as 
+if to himself, he sang softly in the dark: 
+
+The Road goes ever on and on 
+
+Down from the door where it began. 
+
+Now far ahead the Road has gone, 
+
+And I must follow, if I can, 
+
+Pursuing it with eager feet, 
+
+Until it joins some larger way 
+
+Where many paths and errands meet. 
+
+And whither then? I cannot say. 
+
+He paused, silent for a moment. Then without another word he turned 
+away from the lights and voices in the fields and tents, and followed by his 
+three companions went round into his garden, and trotted down the long 
+
+
+
+
+sloping path. He jumped over a low place in the hedge at the bottom, and 
+took to the meadows, passing into the night like a rustle of wind in the 
+grass. 
+
+Gandalf remained for a while staring after him into the darkness. 
+’Goodbye, my dear Bilbo - until our next meeting!' he said softly and went 
+back indoors. 
+
+Frodo came in soon afterwards, and found him sitting in the dark, deep 
+in thought. 'Has he gone?' he asked. 
+
+'Yes,' answered Gandalf, 'he has gone at last.' 
+
+' I wish - 1 mean, I hoped until this evening that it was only a joke,' 
+said Frodo. 'But I knew in my heart that he really meant to go. He always 
+used to joke about serious things. I wish I had come back sooner, just to 
+see him off.' 
+
+I think really he preferred slipping off quietly in the end,' said 
+Gandalf. 'Don't be too troubled. He'll be all right - now. He left a packet 
+for you. There it is!' 
+
+Frodo took the envelope from the mantelpiece, and glanced at it, but 
+did not open it. 
+
+'You'll find his will and all the other documents in there, I think,' 
+said the wizard. 'You are the master of Bag End now. And also, I fancy, 
+you'll find a golden ring.' 
+
+'The ring!' exclaimed Frodo. 'Has he left me that? I wonder why. Still, 
+it may be useful.' 
+
+'It may, and it may not,' said Gandalf. 'I should not make use of it, 
+if I were you. But keep it secret, and keep it safe! Now I am going to bed.' 
+
+As master of Bag End Frodo felt it his painful duty to say good-bye to 
+the guests. Rumours of strange events had by now spread all over the field, 
+but Frodo would only say no doubt everything will be cleared up in the 
+morning. About midnight carriages came for the important folk. One by one 
+they rolled away, filled with full but very unsatisfied hobbits. Gardeners 
+came by arrangement, and removed in wheel-barrows those that had 
+inadvertently remained behind. 
+
+Night slowly passed. The sun rose. The hobbits rose rather later. 
+Morning went on. People came and began (by orders) to clear away the 
+pavilions and the tables and the chairs, and the spoons and knives and 
+bottles and plates, and the lanterns, and the flowering shrubs in boxes, and 
+the crumbs and cracker -paper, the forgotten bags and gloves and 
+
+
+
+
+handkerchiefs, and the uneaten food (a very small item). Then a number of 
+other people came (without orders): Bagginses, and Boffins, and Bolgers, and 
+Tooks, and other guests that lived or were staying near. By mid-day, when 
+even the best-fed were out and about again, there was a large crowd at Bag 
+End, uninvited but not unexpected. 
+
+Frodo was waiting on the step, smiling, but looking rather tired and 
+worried. He welcomed all the callers, but he had not much more to say than 
+before. His reply to all inquiries was simply this: 'Mr. Bilbo Baggins has 
+gone away; as far as I know, for good.' Some of the visitors he invited to 
+come inside, as Bilbo had left 'messages' for them. 
+
+Inside in the hall there was piled a large assortment of packages and 
+parcels and small articles of furniture. On every item there was a label 
+tied. There were several labels of this sort: 
+
+For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo, on an umbrella. 
+Adelard 
+
+had carried off many unlabelled ones. 
+
+For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love 
+from 
+
+Bilbo, on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo's sister and the eldest 
+surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had 
+written reams of good advice for more than half a century. 
+
+For MILO BURROWS, hoping it will be useful, from B.B., on a gold pen 
+and ink-bottle. Milo never answered letters. 
+
+For ANGELICA'S use, from Uncle Bilbo, on a round convex mirror. She 
+was 
+
+a young Baggins, and too obviously considered her face shapely. 
+
+For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor, on an 
+(empty) book -case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual 
+at returning them. 
+
+For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT, on a case of 
+silver 
+
+spoons. Bilbo believed that she had acquired a good many of his spoons, 
+while he was away on his former journey. Fobelia knew that quite well. When 
+she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took 
+the spoons. 
+
+This is only a small selection of the assembled presents. Bilbo's 
+residence had got rather cluttered up with things in the course of his long 
+
+
+
+
+life. It was a tendency of hobbit-holes to get cluttered up: for which the 
+custom of giving so many birthday-presents was largely responsible. Not, of 
+course, that the birthday-presents were always new, there were one or two 
+old mathoms of forgotten uses that had circulated all around the district; 
+but Bilbo had usually given new presents, and kept those that he received. 
+The old hole was now being cleared a little. 
+
+Every one of the various parting gifts had labels, written out 
+personally by Bilbo, and several had some point, or some joke. But, of 
+course, most of the things were given where they would be wanted and 
+welcome. The poorer hobbits, and especially those of Bagshot Row, did very 
+well. Old Gaffer Gamgee got two sacks of potatoes, a new spade, a woollen 
+waistcoat, and a bottle of ointment for creaking joints. Old Rory 
+Brandybuck, in return for much hospitality, got a dozen bottles of Old 
+Winyards: a strong red wine from the Southfarthing, and now quite mature, as 
+it had been laid down by Bilbo's father. Rory quite forgave Bilbo, and voted 
+him a capital fellow after the first bottle. 
+
+There was plenty of everything left for Frodo. And, of course, all the 
+chief treasures, as well as the books, pictures, and more than enough 
+furniture, were left in his possession. There was, however, no sign nor 
+mention of money or jewellery: not a penny -piece or a glass bead was given 
+away. 
+
+Frodo had a very trying time that afternoon. A false rumour that the 
+whole household was being distributed free spread like wildfire; and before 
+long the place was packed with people who had no business there, but could 
+not be kept out. Fabels got torn off and mixed, and quarrels broke out. Some 
+people tried to do swaps and deals in the hall; and others tried to make off 
+with minor items not addressed to them, or with anything that seemed 
+unwanted or unwatched. The road to the gate was blocked with barrows and 
+handcarts. 
+
+In the middle of the commotion the Sackville-Bagginses arrived. Frodo 
+had retired for a while and left his friend Merry Brandybuck to keep an eye 
+on things. When Otho loudly demanded to see Frodo, Merry bowed politely. 
+
+'He is indisposed,' he said. 'He is resting.' 
+
+'Hiding, you mean,' said Fobelia. 'Anyway we want to see him and we 
+mean to see him. Just go and tell him so!' 
+
+Merry left them a long while in the hall, and they had time to discover 
+their parting gift of spoons. It did not improve their tempers. Eventually 
+
+
+
+
+they were shown into the study. Frodo was sitting at a table with a lot of 
+papers in front of him. He looked indisposed - to see Sackville-Bagginses at 
+any rate; and he stood up, fidgeting with something in his pocket. But he 
+spoke quite politely. 
+
+The Sackville-Bagginses were rather offensive. They began by offering 
+him bad bargain-prices (as between friends) for various valuable and 
+unlabelled things. When Frodo replied that only the things specially 
+directed by Bilbo were being given away, they said the whole affair was very 
+fishy. 
+
+'Only one thing is clear to me,' said Otho, 'and that is that you are 
+doing exceedingly well out of it. I insist on seeing the will.' 
+
+Otho would have been Bilbo's heir, but for the adoption of Frodo. He 
+read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and 
+correct (according to the legal customs of hobbits, which demand among other 
+things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink). 
+
+'Foiled again!' he said to his wife. 'And after waiting sixty years. 
+
+Spoons? Fiddlesticks!' He snapped his fingers under Frodo's nose and slumped 
+off. But Lobelia was not so easily got rid of. A little later Frodo came out 
+of the study to see how things were going on and found her still about the 
+place, investigating nooks and comers and tapping the floors. He escorted 
+her firmly off the premises, after he had relieved her of several small (but 
+rather valuable) articles that had somehow fallen inside her umbrella. Her 
+face looked as if she was in the throes of thinking out a really crushing 
+parting remark; but all she found to say, turning round on the step, was: 
+
+'You'll live to regret it, young fellow! Why didn't you go too? You 
+don't belong here; you're no Baggins - you - you're a Brandybuck!' 
+
+'Did you hear that, Merry? That was an insult, if you like,' said Frodo 
+as he shut the door on her. 
+
+'It was a compliment,' said Merry Brandybuck, 'and so, of course, not 
+true.' 
+
+Then they went round the hole, and evicted three young hobbits (two 
+Boffins and a Bolger) who were knocking holes in the walls of one of the 
+cellars. Frodo also had a tussle with young Sancho Proudfoot (old Odo 
+Proudfoot's grandson), who had begun an excavation in the larger pantry, 
+where he thought there was an echo. The legend of Bilbo's gold excited both 
+curiosity and hope; for legendary gold (mysteriously obtained, if not 
+positively ill-gotten), is, as every one knows, any one's for the finding 
+
+
+
+
+-unless the search is interrupted. 
+
+When he had overcome Sancho and pushed him out, Frodo collapsed on 
+chair in the hall. It's time to close the shop, Merry,' he said. 'Lock the 
+door, and don’t open it to anyone today, not even if they bring a battering 
+ram.’ Then he went to revive himself with a belated cup of tea. 
+
+He had hardly sat down, when there came a soft knock at the front-door. 
+'Lobelia again most likely,' he thought. 'She must have thought of something 
+really nasty, and have come back again to say it. It can wait.' 
+
+He went on with his tea. The knock was repeated, much louder, but he 
+took no notice. Suddenly the wizard's head appeared at the window. 
+
+'If you don't let me in, Frodo, I shall blow your door right down your 
+hole and out through the hill,' he said. 
+
+'My dear Gandalf! Half a minute!' cried Frodo, running out of the room 
+to the door. 'Come in! Come in! I thought it was Lobelia.' 
+
+'Then I forgive you. But I saw her some time ago, driving a pony-trap 
+towards Bywater with a face that would have curdled new milk.' 
+
+'She had already nearly curdled me. Honestly, I nearly tried on Bilbo's 
+ring. I longed to disappear.' 
+
+'Don't do that!' said Gandalf, sitting down. 'Do be careful of that 
+ring, Frodo ! In fact, it is partly about that that I have come to say a last 
+word.' 
+
+'Well, what about it?' 
+
+'What do you know already?' 
+
+'Only what Bilbo told me. I have heard his story: how he found it, and 
+how he used it: on his journey, I mean.' 
+
+'Which story, I wonder,' said Gandalf. 
+
+'Oh, not what he told the dwarves and put in his book,' said Frodo. 'He 
+told me the true story soon after I came to live here. He said you had 
+pestered him till he told you, so I had better know too. "No secrets between 
+us, Frodo," he said; "but they are not to go any further. It's mine 
+anyway.'" 
+
+'That's interesting,' said Gandalf. 'Well, what did you think of it 
+all?' 
+
+'If you mean, inventing all that about a "present", well, I thought the 
+true story much more likely, and I couldn't see the point of altering it at 
+all. It was very unlike Bilbo to do so, anyway; and I thought it rather 
+odd.' 
+
+
+
+
+'So did I. But odd things may happen to people that have such treasures 
+- if they use them. Let it be a warning to you to be very careful with it. 
+
+It may have other powers than just making you vanish when you wish to.' 
+
+'I don't understand,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Neither do I,' answered the wizard. 'I have merely begun to wonder 
+about the ring, especially since last night. No need to worry. But if you 
+take my advice you will use it very seldom, or not at all. At least I beg 
+you not to use it in any way that will cause talk or rouse suspicion. I say 
+again: keep it safe, and keep it secret!' 
+
+'You are very mysterious! What are you afraid of?' 
+
+'I am not certain, so I will say no more. I may be able to tell you 
+something when I come back. I am going off at once: so this is good-bye for 
+the present.' He got up. 
+
+'At once!' cried Frodo. 'Why, I thought you were staying on for at 
+least a week. I was looking forward to your help.' 
+
+'I did mean to - but I have had to change my mind. I may be away for a 
+good while; but I'll come and see you again, as soon as I can. Expect me 
+when you see me! I shall slip in quietly. I shan't often be visiting the 
+Shire openly again. I find that I have become rather unpopular. They say I 
+am a nuisance and a disturber of the peace. Some people are actually 
+accusing me of spiriting Bilbo away, or worse. If you want to know, there is 
+supposed to be a plot between you and me to get hold of his wealth.' 
+
+'Some people!' exclaimed Frodo. 'You mean Otho and Lobelia. How 
+abominable! I would give them Bag End and everything else, if I could get 
+Bilbo back and go off tramping in the country with him. I love the Shire. 
+But I begin to wish, somehow, that I had gone too. I wonder if I shall ever 
+see him again.' 
+
+'So do I,' said Gandalf. 'And I wonder many other things. Good-bye now! 
+Take care of yourself! Lookout for me, especially at unlikely times ! 
+Good-bye!' 
+
+Frodo saw him to the door. He gave a final wave of his hand, and walked 
+off at a surprising pace; but Frodo thought the old wizard looked unusually 
+bent, almost as if he was carrying a great weight. The evening was closing 
+in, and his cloaked figure quickly vanished into the twilight. Frodo did not 
+see him again for a long time. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2 . The Shadow of the Past 
+
+
+
+The talk did not die down in nine or even ninety -nine days. The second 
+disappearance of Mr. Bilbo Baggins was discussed in Hobbiton, and indeed all 
+over the Shire, for a year and a day, and was remembered much longer than 
+that. It became a fireside -story for young hobbits; and eventually Mad 
+Baggins, who used to vanish with a bang and a flash and reappear with bags 
+of jewels and gold, became a favourite character of legend and lived on long 
+after all the true events were forgotten. 
+
+But in the meantime, the general opinion in the neighbourhood was that 
+Bilbo, who had always been rather cracked, had at last gone quite mad, and 
+had run off into the Blue. There he had undoubtedly fallen into a pool or a 
+river and come to a tragic, but hardly an untimely, end. The blame was 
+mostly laid on Gandalf. 
+
+'If only that dratted wizard will leave young Frodo alone, perhaps 
+he'll settle down and grow some hobbit-sense,' they said. And to all 
+appearance the wizard did leave Frodo alone, and he did settle down, but the 
+growth of hobbit-sense was not very noticeable. Indeed, he at once began to 
+carry on Bilbo's reputation for oddity. He refused to go into mourning; and 
+the next year he gave a party in honour of Bilbo's hundred-and-twelfth 
+birthday, which he called Hundred-weight Feast. But that was short of the 
+mark, for twenty guests were invited and there were several meals at which 
+it snowed food and rained drink, as hobbits say. 
+
+Some people were rather shocked; but Frodo kept up the custom of giving 
+Bilbo's Birthday Party year after year until they got used to it. He said 
+that he did not think Bilbo was dead. When they asked: 'Where is he then?' 
+he shrugged his shoulders. 
+
+He lived alone, as Bilbo had done; but he had a good many friends, 
+especially among the younger hobbits (mostly descendants of the Old Took) 
+who had as children been fond of Bilbo and often in and out of Bag End. 
+Folco Boffin and Fredegar Bolger were two of these; but his closest friends 
+were Peregrin Took (usually called Pippin), and Merry Brandybuck (his real 
+name was Meriadoc, but that was seldom remembered). Frodo went tramping 
+all 
+
+over the Shire with them; but more often he wandered by himself, and to the 
+amazement of sensible folk he was sometimes seen far from home walking in 
+
+
+
+
+the hills and woods under the starlight. Merry and Pippin suspected that he 
+visited the Elves at times, as Bilbo had done. 
+
+As time went on, people began to notice that Frodo also showed signs of 
+good ’preservation': outwardly he retained the appearance of a robust and 
+energetic hobbit just out of his tweens. ’Some folk have all the luck,’ they 
+said; but it was not until Frodo approached the usually more sober age of 
+fifty that they began to think it queer. 
+
+Frodo himself, after the first shock, found that being his own master 
+and the Mr. Baggins of Bag End was rather pleasant. For some years he was 
+quite happy and did not worry much about the future. But half unknown to 
+himself the regret that he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing. He 
+found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild 
+lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his 
+dreams. He began to say to himself: 'Perhaps I shall cross the River myself 
+one day.' To which the other half of his mind always replied: 'Not yet.' 
+
+So it went on, until his forties were running out, and his fiftieth 
+birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that he felt was somehow 
+significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had 
+suddenly befallen Bilbo. Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths 
+seemed too well-trodden. He looked at maps, and wondered what lay beyond 
+their edges: maps made in the Shire showed mostly white spaces beyond its 
+borders. He took to wandering further afield and more often by himself; and 
+Merry and his other friends watched him anxiously. Often he was seen walking 
+and talking with the strange wayfarers that began at this time to appear in 
+the Shire. 
+
+There were rumours of strange things happening in the world outside; 
+and as Gandalf had not at that time appeared or sent any message for several 
+years, Frodo gathered all the news he could. Elves, who seldom walked in the 
+Shire, could now be seen passing westward through the woods in the evening, 
+passing and not returning; but they were leaving Middle-earth and were no 
+longer concerned with its troubles. There were, however, dwarves on the road 
+in unusual numbers. The ancient East -West Road ran through the Shire to its 
+end at the Grey Havens, and dwarves had always used it on their way to their 
+mines in the Blue Mountains. They were the hobbits' chief source of news 
+from distant parts - if they wanted any: as a rule dwarves said little and 
+hobbits asked no more. But now Frodo often met strange dwarves of far 
+countries, seeking refuge in the West. They were troubled, and some spoke in 
+
+
+
+
+whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor. 
+
+That name the hobbits only knew in legends of the dark past, like a 
+shadow in the background of their memories; but it was ominous and 
+disquieting. It seemed that the evil power in Mirkwood had been driven out 
+by the White Council only to reappear in greater strength in the old 
+strongholds of Mordor. The Dark Tower had been rebuilt, it was said. From 
+there the power was spreading far and wide, and away far east and south 
+there were wars and growing fear. Ores were multiplying again in the 
+mountains. Trolls were abroad, no longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed 
+with dreadful weapons. And there were murmured hints of creatures more 
+terrible than all these, but they had no name. 
+
+Little of all this, of course, reached the ears of ordinary hobbits. 
+
+But even the deafest and most stay-at-home began to hear queer tales; and 
+those whose business took them to the borders saw strange things. The 
+conversation in The Green Dragon at Bywater, one evening in the spring of 
+Frodo's fiftieth year, showed that even in the comfortable heart of the 
+Shire rumours had been heard, though most hobbits still laughed at them. 
+
+Sam Gamgee was sitting in one corner near the fire, and opposite him 
+was Ted Sandyman, the miller's son; and there were various other rustic 
+hobbits listening to their talk. 
+
+’Queer things you do hear these days, to be sure,' said Sam. 
+
+'Ah,' said Ted, 'you do, if you listen. But I can hear fireside-tales 
+and children's stories at home, if I want to.' 
+
+'No doubt you can,' retorted Sam, 'and I daresay there's more truth in 
+some of them than you reckon. Who invented the stories anyway? Take 
+dragons 
+now.' 
+
+'No thank 'ee,' said Ted, 'I won't. I heard tell of them when I was a 
+youngster, but there's no call to believe in them now. There's only one 
+Dragon in By water, and that's Green,' he said, getting a general laugh. 
+
+'All right,' said Sam, laughing with the rest. 'But what about these 
+Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger 
+than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.' 
+
+'Who's theyT 
+
+'My cousin Hal for one. He works for Mr. Boffin at Overhill and goes up 
+to the Northfarthing for the hunting. He saw one.' 
+
+'Says he did, perhaps. Your Hal's always saying he's seen things; and 
+
+
+
+
+maybe he sees things that ain't there.' 
+
+'But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking - walking seven 
+yards to a stride, if it was an inch.' 
+
+'Then I bet it wasn't an inch. What he saw was an elm tree, as like as 
+not.' 
+
+'But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on 
+the North Moors.' 
+
+'Then Hal can't have seen one,' said Ted. There was some laughing and 
+clapping: the audience seemed to think that Ted had scored a point. 
+
+'All the same,' said Sam, 'you can't deny that others besides our 
+Halfast have seen queer folk crossing the Shire - crossing it, mind you: 
+there are more that are turned back at the borders. The Bounders have never 
+been so busy before. 
+
+'And I've heard tell that Elves are moving west. They do say they are 
+going to the harbours, out away beyond the White Towers.' Sam waved his 
+arm 
+
+vaguely: neither he nor any of them knew how far it was to the Sea, past the 
+old towers beyond the western borders of the Shire. But it was an old 
+tradition that away over there stood the Grey Havens, from which at times 
+elven-ships set sail, never to return. 
+
+'They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the Sea, they are going into 
+the West and leaving us,' said Sam, half chanting the words, shaking his 
+head sadly and solemnly. But Ted laughed. 
+
+'Well, that isn't anything new, if you believe the old tales. And I 
+don't see what it matters to me or you. Let them sail! But I warrant you 
+haven't seen them doing it; nor any one else in the Shire.' 
+
+'Well I don't know,' said Sam thoughtfully. He believed he had once 
+seen an Elf in the woods, and still hoped to see more one day. Of all the 
+legends that he had heard in his early years such fragments of tales and 
+half-remembered stories about the Elves as the hobbits knew, had always 
+moved him most deeply. 'There are some, even in these parts, as know the 
+Fair Folk and get news of them,' he said. 'There's Mr. Baggins now, that I 
+work for. He told me that they were sailing and he knows a bit about Elves. 
+And old Mr. Bilbo knew more: many's the talk I had with him when I was a 
+little lad.' 
+
+'Oh, they're both cracked,' said Ted. 'Leastways old Bilbo was cracked, 
+and Frodo's cracking. If that's where you get your news from, you'll never 
+
+
+
+
+want for moonshine. Well, friends, I'm off home. Your good health!' He 
+drained his mug and went out noisily. 
+
+Sam sat silent and said no more. He had a good deal to think about. For 
+one thing, there was a lot to do up in the Bag End garden, and he would have 
+a busy day tomorrow, if the weather cleared. The grass was growing fast. But 
+Sam had more on his mind than gardening. After a while he sighed, and got up 
+and went out. 
+
+It was early April and the sky was now clearing after heavy rain. The 
+sun was down, and a cool pale evening was quietly fading into night. He 
+walked home under the early stars through Hobbiton and up the Hill, 
+whistling softly and thoughtfully. 
+
+It was just at this time that Gandalf reappeared after his long 
+absence. For three years after the Party he had been away. Then he paid 
+Frodo a brief visit, and after taking a good look at him he went off again. 
+During the next year or two he had turned up fairly often, coming 
+unexpectedly after dusk, and going off without warning before sunrise. He 
+would not discuss his own business and journeys, and seemed chiefly 
+interested in small news about Frodo's health and doings. 
+
+Then suddenly his visits had ceased. It was over nine years since Frodo 
+had seen or heard of him, and he had begun to think that the wizard would 
+never return and had given up all interest in hobbits. But that evening, as 
+Sam was walking home and twilight was fading, there came the once familiar 
+tap on the study window. 
+
+Frodo welcomed his old friend with surprise and great delight. They 
+looked hard at one another. 
+
+’Ah well eh?' said Gandalf. 'You look the same as ever, Frodo!' 
+
+'So do you,' Frodo replied; but secretly he thought that Gandalf looked 
+older and more careworn. He pressed him for news of himself and of the wide 
+world, and soon they were deep in talk, and they stayed up far into the 
+night. 
+
+Next morning after a late breakfast, the wizard was sitting with Frodo 
+by the open window of the study. A bright fire was on the hearth, but the 
+sun was warm, and the wind was in the South. Everything looked fresh, and 
+the new green of Spring was shimmering in the fields and on the tips of the 
+trees' fingers. 
+
+Gandalf was thinking of a spring, nearly eighty years before, when 
+Bilbo had run out of Bag End without a handkerchief. His hair was perhaps 
+
+
+
+
+whiter than it had been then, and his beard and eyebrows were perhaps 
+longer, and his face more lined with care and wisdom; but his eyes were as 
+bright as ever, and he smoked and blew smoke -rings with the same vigour and 
+delight. 
+
+He was smoking now in silence, for Frodo was sitting still, deep in 
+thought. Even in the light of morning he felt the dark shadow of the tidings 
+that Gandalf had brought. At last he broke the silence. 
+
+'Last night you began to tell me strange things about my ring, 
+
+Gandalf,' he said. 'And then you stopped, because you said that such matters 
+were best left until daylight. Don't you think you had better finish now? 
+
+You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what 
+way?' 
+
+'In many ways,' answered the wizard. It is far more powerful than I 
+ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly 
+overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him. 
+
+'In Eregion long ago many Elven-rings were made, magic rings as you 
+call them, and they were, of course, of various kinds: some more potent and 
+some less. The lesser rings were only essays in the craft before it was 
+full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles - yet still to my 
+mind dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they 
+were perilous. 
+
+'A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but 
+he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last 
+every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself 
+invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks 
+in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, 
+sooner or later - later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but 
+neither strength nor good purpose will last - sooner or later the dark power 
+will devour him.' 
+
+'How terrifying!' said Frodo. There was another long silence. The sound 
+of Sam Gamgee cutting the lawn came in from the garden. 
+
+'How long have you known this?' asked Frodo at length. 'And how much 
+did Bilbo know?' 
+
+'Bilbo knew no more than he told you, I am sure,' said Gandalf. 'He 
+would certainly never have passed on to you anything that he thought would 
+be a danger, even though I promised to look after you. He thought the ring 
+was very beautiful, and very useful at need; and if anything was wrong or 
+
+
+
+
+queer, it was himself. He said that it was "growing on his mind", and he was 
+always worrying about it; but he did not suspect that the ring itself was to 
+blame. Though he had found out that the thing needed looking after; it did 
+not seem always of the same size or weight; it shrank or expanded in an odd 
+way, and might suddenly slip off a finger where it had been tight.' 
+
+'Yes, he warned me of that in his last letter,' said Frodo, 'so I have 
+always kept it on its chain.' 
+
+'Very wise,' said Gandalf. 'But as for his long life, Bilbo never 
+connected it with the ring at all. He took all the credit for that to 
+himself, and he was very proud of it. Though he was getting restless and 
+uneasy. Thin and stretched he said. A sign that the ring was getting 
+control.' 
+
+'How long have you known all this?' asked Frodo again. 
+
+'Known?' said Gandalf. 'I have known much that only the Wise know, 
+Frodo. But if you mean "known about this ring", well, I still do not know, 
+one might say. There is a last test to make. But I no longer doubt my guess. 
+
+'When did I first begin to guess?' he mused, searching back in memory. 
+
+'Let me see - it was in the year that the White Council drove the dark power 
+from Mirkwood, just before the Battle of Five Armies, that Bilbo found his 
+ring. A shadow fell on my heart then, though I did not know yet what I 
+feared. I wondered often how Gollum came by a Great Ring, as plainly it was 
+- that at least was clear from the first. Then I heard Bilbo's strange story 
+of how he had "won" it, and I could not believe it. When I at last got the 
+truth out of him, I saw at once that he had been trying to put his claim to 
+the ring beyond doubt. Much like Gollum with his "birthday present". The 
+lies were too much alike for my comfort. Clearly the ring had an unwholesome 
+power that set to work on its keeper at once. That was the first real 
+warning I had that all was not well. I told Bilbo often that such rings were 
+better left unused; but he resented it, and soon got angry. There was little 
+else that I could do. I could not take it from him without doing greater 
+harm; and I had no right to do so anyway. I could only watch and wait. I 
+might perhaps have consulted Saruman the White, but something always held 
+me 
+back.' 
+
+'Who is he?' asked Frodo. I have never heard of him before.' 
+
+'Maybe not,' answered Gandalf. 'Hobbits are, or were, no concern of 
+his. Yet he is great among the Wise. He is the chief of my order and the 
+
+
+
+
+head of the Council. His knowledge is deep, but his pride has grown with it, 
+and he takes ill any meddling. The lore of the Elven-rings, great and small, 
+is his province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of their 
+making; but when the Rings were debated in the Council, all that he would 
+reveal to us of his ring-lore told against my fears. So my doubt slept - but 
+uneasily. Still I watched and I waited. 
+
+'And all seemed well with Bilbo. And the years passed. Yes, they 
+passed, and they seemed not to touch him. He showed no signs of age. The 
+shadow fell on me again. But I said to myself: "After all he comes of a 
+long-lived family on his mother's side. There is time yet. Wait!" 
+
+'And I waited. Until that night when he left this house. He said and 
+did things then that filled me with a fear that no words of Saruman could 
+allay. I knew at last that something dark and deadly was at work. And I have 
+spent most of the years since then in finding out the truth of it.' 
+
+'There wasn't any permanent harm done, was there?' asked Frodo 
+anxiously. 'He would get all right in time, wouldn't he? Be able to rest in 
+peace, I mean?' 
+
+'He felt better at once,' said Gandalf. 'But there is only one Power in 
+this world that knows all about the Rings and their effects; and as far as I 
+know there is no Power in the world that knows all about hobbits. Among the 
+Wise I am the only one that goes in for hobbit-lore: an obscure branch of 
+knowledge, but full of surprises. Soft as butter they can be, and yet 
+sometimes as tough as old tree-roots. I think it likely that some would 
+resist the Rings far longer than most of the Wise would believe. I don't 
+think you need worry about Bilbo. 
+
+'Of course, he possessed the ring for many years, and used it, so it 
+might take a long while for the influence to wear off - before it was safe 
+for him to see it again, for instance. Otherwise, he might live on for 
+years, quite happily: just stop as he was when he parted with it. For he 
+gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point. No, I was not 
+troubled about dear Bilbo any more, once he had let the thing go. It is for 
+you that I feel responsible. 
+
+'Ever since Bilbo left I have been deeply concerned about you, and 
+about all these charming, absurd, helpless hobbits. It would be a grievous 
+blow to the world, if the Dark Power overcame the Shire; if all your kind, 
+jolly, stupid Bolgers, Hornblowers, Boffins, Bracegirdles, and the rest, not 
+to mention the ridiculous Bagginses, became enslaved.' 
+
+
+
+
+Frodo shuddered. 'But why should we be?' he asked. 'And why should he 
+want such slaves?' 
+
+'To tell you the truth,' replied Gandalf, 'I believe that hitherto - 
+hitherto, mark you - he has entirely overlooked the existence of hobbits. 
+
+You should be thankful. But your safety has passed. He does not need you - 
+he has many more useful servants - but he won't forget you again. And 
+hobbits as miserable slaves would please him far more than hobbits happy and 
+free. There is such a thing as malice and revenge.' 
+
+'Revenge?' said Frodo. 'Revenge for what? I still don't understand what 
+all this has to do with Bilbo and myself, and our ring.' 
+
+'It has everything to do with it,' said Gandalf. 'You do not know the 
+real peril yet; but you shall. I was not sure of it myself when I was last 
+here; but the time has come to speak. Give me the ring for a moment.' 
+
+Frodo took it from his breeches-pocket, where it was clasped to a chain 
+that hung from his belt. He unfastened it and handed it slowly to the 
+wizard. It felt suddenly very heavy, as if either it or Frodo himself was in 
+some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it. 
+
+Gandalf held it up. It looked to be made of pure and solid gold. 'Can 
+you see any markings on it?' he asked. 
+
+'No,' said Frodo. 'There are none. It is quite plain, and it never 
+shows a scratch or sign of wear.' 
+
+'Well then, look!' To Frodo's astonishment and distress the wizard 
+threw it suddenly into the middle of a glowing corner of the fire. Frodo 
+gave a cry and groped for the tongs; but Gandalf held him back. 
+
+'Wait!' he said in a commanding voice, giving Frodo a quick look from 
+under his bristling brows. 
+
+No apparent change came over the ring. After a while Gandalf got up, 
+closed the shutters outside the window, and drew the curtains. The room 
+became dark and silent, though the clack of Sam's shears, now nearer to the 
+windows, could still be heard faintly from the garden. For a moment the 
+wizard stood looking at the fire; then he stooped and removed the ring to 
+the hearth with the tongs, and at once picked it up. Frodo gasped. 
+
+It is quite cool,' said Gandalf. 'Take it!' Frodo received it on his 
+shrinking palm: it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than ever. 
+
+'Hold it up!' said Gandalf. 'And look closely!' 
+
+As Frodo did so, he now saw fine lines, finer than the finest 
+pen-strokes, running along the ring, outside and inside: lines of fire that 
+
+
+
+
+seemed to form the letters of a flowing script. They shone piercingly 
+bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth. 
+
+I cannot read the fiery letters,' said Frodo in a quavering voice. 
+
+'No,' said Gandalf, 'but I can. The letters are Elvish, of an ancient 
+mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. But 
+this in the Common Tongue is what is said, close enough: 
+
+One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, 
+
+One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. 
+
+It is only two lines of a verse long known in Elven-lore: 
+
+Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, 
+
+Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, 
+
+Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, 
+
+One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne 
+In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. 
+
+One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them, 
+
+One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them 
+In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. ' 
+
+He paused, and then said slowly in a deep voice: 'This is the 
+Master -ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he 
+lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires 
+it - but he must not get it.' 
+
+Frodo sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast 
+hand, like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf him. 
+'This ring!' he stammered. 'How, how on earth did it come to me?' 
+
+'Ah!' said Gandalf. 'That is a very long story. The beginnings lie back 
+in the Black Years, which only the lore-masters now remember. If I were to 
+tell you all that tale, we should still be sitting here when Spring had 
+passed into Winter. 
+
+'But last night I told you of Sauron the Great, the Dark Lord. The 
+rumours that you have heard are true: he has indeed arisen again and left 
+his hold in Mirkwood and returned to his ancient fastness in the Dark Tower 
+of Mordor. That name even you hobbits have heard of, like a shadow on the 
+borders of old stories. Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow 
+takes another shape and grows again.' 
+
+'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 
+
+'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But 
+
+
+
+
+that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the 
+time that is given, us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look 
+black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, 
+
+I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it. We should be 
+very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance. 
+
+'The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to 
+beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands 
+in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring. 
+
+'The Three, fairest of all, the Elf-lords hid from him, and his hand 
+never touched them or sullied them. Seven the Dwarf-kings possessed, but 
+three he has recovered, and the others the dragons have consumed. Nine he 
+gave to Mortal Men, proud and great, and so ensnared them. Long ago they 
+fell under the dominion of the One, and they became Ringwraiths, shadows 
+under his great Shadow, his most terrible servants. Long ago. It is many a 
+year since the Nine walked abroad. Yet who knows? As the Shadow grows 
+once 
+
+more, they too may walk again. But come! We will not speak of such things 
+even in the morning of the Shire. 
+
+'So it is now: the Nine he has gathered to himself; the Seven also, or 
+else they are destroyed. The Three are hidden still. But that no longer 
+troubles him. He only needs the One; for he made that Ring himself, it is 
+his, and he let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that 
+he could rule all the others. If he recovers it, then he will command them 
+all again, wherever they be, even the Three, and all that has been wrought 
+with them will be laid bare, and he will be stronger than ever. 
+
+'And this is the dreadful chance, Frodo. He believed that the One had 
+perished; that the Elves had destroyed it, as should have been done. But he 
+knows now that it has not perished, that it has been found. So he is seeking 
+it, seeking it, and all his thought is bent on it. It is his great hope and 
+our great fear.' 
+
+'Why, why wasn't it destroyed?' cried Frodo. 'And how did the Enemy 
+ever come to lose it, if he was so strong, and it was so precious to him?' 
+
+He clutched the Ring in his hand, as if he saw already dark fingers 
+stretching out to seize it. 
+
+'It was taken from him,' said Gandalf. 'The strength of the Elves to 
+resist him was greater long ago; and not all Men were estranged from them. 
+The Men of Westernesse came to their aid. That is a chapter of ancient 
+
+
+
+
+history which it might be good to recall; for there was sorrow then too, and 
+gathering dark, but great valour, and great deeds that were not wholly vain. 
+
+One day, perhaps, I will tell you all the tale, or you shall hear it told in 
+full by one who knows it best. 
+
+'But for the moment, since most of all you need to know how this thing 
+came to you, and that will be tale enough, this is all that I will say. It 
+was Gil-galad, Elven-king and Elendil of Westernesse who overthrew Sauron, 
+though they themselves perished in the deed; and Isildur Elendil's son cut 
+the Ring from Sauron's hand and took it for his own. Then Sauron was 
+vanquished and his spirit fled and was hidden for long years, until his 
+shadow took shape again in Mirkwood. 
+
+'But the Ring was lost. It fell into the Great River, Anduin, and 
+vanished. For Isildur was marching north along the east banks of the River, 
+and near the Gladden Fields he was waylaid by the Ores of the Mountains, and 
+almost all his folk were slain. He leaped into the waters, but the Ring 
+slipped from his finger as he swam, and then the Ores saw him and killed him 
+with arrows.' 
+
+Gandalf paused. 'And there in the dark pools amid the Gladden Fields,' 
+he said, 'the Ring passed out of knowledge and legend; and even so much of 
+its history is known now only to a few, and the Council of the Wise could 
+discover no more. But at last I can carry on the story, I think. 
+
+'Fong after, but still very long ago, there lived by the banks of the 
+Great River on the edge of Wilderland a clever -handed and quiet-footed 
+little people. I guess they were of hobbit -kind; akin to the fathers of the 
+fathers of the Stoors, for they loved the River, and often swam in it, or 
+made little boats of reeds. There was among them a family of high repute, 
+for it was large and wealthier than most, and it was ruled by a grandmother 
+of the folk, stern and wise in old lore, such as they had. The most 
+inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Smjagol. He was 
+interested in roots and beginnings; he dived into deep pools; he burrowed 
+under trees and growing plants; he tunnelled into green mounds; and he 
+ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers 
+opening in the air: his head and his eyes were downward. 
+
+'He had a friend called Djagol, of similar sort, sharper -eyed but not 
+so quick and strong. On a time they took a boat and went down to the Gladden 
+Fields, where there were great beds of iris and flowering reeds. There 
+Smjagol got out and went nosing about the banks but Deal sat in the boat and 
+
+
+
+
+fished. Suddenly a great fish took his hook, and before he knew where he 
+was, he was dragged out and down into the water, to the bottom. Then he let 
+go of his line, for he thought he saw something shining in the river-bed; 
+and holding his breath he grabbed at it. 
+
+'Then up he came spluttering, with weeds in his hair and a handful of 
+mud; and he swam to the bank. And behold! when he washed the mud away, 
+there 
+
+in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring; and it shone and glittered in the 
+sun, so that his heart was glad. But Smjagol had been watching him from 
+behind a tree, and as Deal gloated over the ring, Smjagol came softly up 
+behind. 
+
+"'Give us that, Deal, my love," said Smjagol, over his friend's 
+shoulder. 
+
+'"Why?" said Deal. 
+
+' "Because it's my birthday, my love, and I wants it," said Smjagol. 
+
+'"I don't care," said Deal. "I have given you a present already, more 
+than I could afford. I found this, and I'm going to keep it." 
+
+' "Oh, are you indeed, my love," said Smjagol; and he caught Deal by 
+the throat and strangled him, because the gold looked so bright and 
+beautiful. Then he put the ring on his finger. 
+
+'No one ever found out what had become of Deal; he was murdered far 
+from home, and his body was cunningly hidden. But Smjagol returned alone; 
+and he found that none of his family could see him, when he was wearing the 
+ring. He was very pleased with his discovery and he concealed it; and he 
+used it to find out secrets, and he put his knowledge to crooked and 
+malicious uses. He became sharp-eyed and keen-eared for all that was 
+hurtful. The ring had given him power according to his stature. It is not to 
+be wondered at that he became very unpopular and was shunned (when 
+visible) 
+
+by all his relations. They kicked him, and he bit their feet. He took to 
+thieving, and going about muttering to himself, and gurgling in his throat. 
+
+So they called him Gollum, and cursed him, and told him to go far away; and 
+his grandmother, desiring peace, expelled him from the family and turned him 
+out of her hole. 
+
+'He wandered in loneliness, weeping a little for the hardness of the 
+world, and he journeyed up the River, till he came to a stream that flowed 
+down from the mountains, and he went that way. He caught fish in deep pools 
+
+
+
+
+with invisible fingers and ate them raw. One day it was very hot, and as he 
+was bending over a pool, he felt a burning on the back of his head) and a 
+dazzling light from the water pained his wet eyes. He wondered at it, for he 
+had almost forgotten about the Sun. Then for the last time he looked up and 
+shook his fist at her. 
+
+'But as he lowered his eyes, he saw far above the tops of the Misty 
+Mountains, out of which the stream came. And he thought suddenly: "It would 
+be cool and shady under those mountains. The Sun could not watch me there. 
+The roots of those mountains must be roots indeed; there must be great 
+secrets buried there which have not been discovered since the beginning." 
+
+’So he journeyed by night up into the highlands, and he found a little 
+cave out of which the dark stream ran; and he wormed his way like a maggot 
+into the heart of the hills, and vanished out of all knowledge. The Ring 
+went into the shadows with him, and even the maker, when his power had 
+begun 
+
+to grow again, could learn nothing of it.' 
+
+'Gollum!' cried Frodo. 'Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very 
+Gollum-creature that Bilbo met? How loathsome!' 
+
+'I think it is a sad story,' said the wizard, 'and it might have 
+happened to others, even to some hobbits that I have known.' 
+
+'I can't believe that Gollum was connected with hobbits, however 
+distantly,' said Frodo with some heat. 'What an abominable notion!' 
+
+'It is true all the same,' replied Gandalf. 'About their origins, at 
+any rate, I know more than hobbits do themselves. And even Bilbo's story 
+suggests the kinship. There was a great deal in the background of their 
+minds and memories that was very similar. They understood one another 
+remarkably well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say, a 
+Dwarf, or an Ore, or even an Elf. Think of the riddles they both knew, for 
+one thing.' 
+
+'Yes,' said Frodo. 'Though other folks besides hobbits ask riddles, and 
+of much the same sort. And hobbits don't cheat. Gollum meant to cheat all 
+the time. He was just trying to put poor Bilbo off his guard. And I daresay 
+it amused his wickedness to start a game which might end in providing him 
+with an easy victim, but if he lost would not hurt him.' 
+
+'Only too true, I fear,' said Gandalf. 'But there was something else in 
+it, I think, which you don't see yet. Even Gollum was not wholly ruined. He 
+had proved tougher than even one of the Wise would have guessed -as a hobbit 
+
+
+
+
+might. There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and 
+light came through it, as through a chink in the dark: light out of the 
+past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, 
+bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such 
+forgotten things. 
+
+'But that, of course, would only make the evil part of him angrier in 
+the end - unless it could be conquered. Unless it could be cured.' Gandalf 
+sighed. 'Alas! there is little hope of that for him. Yet not no hope. No, 
+not though he possessed the Ring so long, almost as far back as he can 
+remember. For it was long since he had worn it much: in the black darkness 
+it was seldom needed. Certainly he had never "faded". He is thin and tough 
+still. But the thing was eating up his mind, of course, and the torment had 
+become almost unbearable. 
+
+'All the "great secrets" under the mountains had turned out to be just 
+empty night: there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only 
+nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering. He was altogether wretched. 
+He hated the dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the 
+Ring most of all.' 
+
+'What do you mean?' said Frodo. 'Surely the Ring was his precious and 
+the only thing he cared for? But if he hated it, why didn't he get rid of 
+it, or go away and leave it?' 
+
+'You ought to begin to understand, Frodo, after all you have heard,' 
+said Gandalf. 'He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He 
+could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter. 
+
+'A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off 
+treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the 
+idea of handing it on to someone else's care - and that only at an early 
+stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in 
+history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my 
+help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it 
+aside. It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. 
+
+The Ring left him. ' 
+
+'What, just in time to meet Bilbo?' said Frodo. 'Wouldn't an Ore have 
+suited it better?' 
+
+'It is no laughing matter,' said Gandalf. 'Not for you. It was the 
+strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo's arrival 
+just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark. 
+
+
+
+
+'There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to 
+get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur's hand and betrayed him; 
+then when a chance came it caught poor Deal, and he was murdered; and after 
+that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: 
+he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never 
+leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and 
+sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to 
+be 
+
+picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire! 
+
+'Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the 
+Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to 
+find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to 
+have it. And that maybe an encouraging thought.' 
+
+It is not,' said Frodo. "Though I am not sure that I understand you. 
+
+But how have you learned all this about the Ring, and about Gollum? Do you 
+really know it all, or are you just guessing still?' 
+
+Gandalf looked at Frodo, and his eyes glinted. I knew much and I have 
+learned much,' he answered. 'But I am not going to give an account of all my 
+doings to you. The history of Elendil and Isildur and the One Ring is known 
+to all the Wise. Your ring is shown to be that One Ring by the fire- writing 
+alone, apart from any other evidence.' 'And when did you discover that?' 
+asked Frodo, interrupting. 'Just now in this room, of course,' answered the 
+wizard sharply. 'But I expected to find it. I have come back from dark 
+journeys and long search to make that final test. It is the last proof, and 
+all is now only too clear. Making out Gollum's part, and fitting it into the 
+gap in the history, required some thought. I may have started with guesses 
+about Gollum, but I am not guessing now. I know. I have seen him.' 
+
+'You have seen Gollum?' exclaimed Frodo in amazement. 
+
+'Yes. The obvious thing to do, of course, if one could. I tried long 
+ago; but I have managed it at last.' 
+
+'Then what happened after Bilbo escaped from him? Do you know that?' 
+
+'Not so clearly. What I have told you is what Gollum was willing to 
+tell - though not, of course, in the way I have reported it. Gollum is a 
+liar, and you have to sift his words. For instance, he called the Ring his 
+"birthday present", and he stuck to that. He said it came from his 
+grandmother, who had lots of beautiful things of that kind. A ridiculous 
+story. I have no doubt that Smjagol's grandmother was a matriarch, a great 
+
+
+
+
+person in her way, but to talk of her possessing many Elven-rings was 
+absurd, and as for giving them away, it was a lie. But a lie with a grain of 
+truth. 
+
+'The murder of Deal haunted Gollum, and he had made up a defence, 
+repeating it to his "precious" over and over again, as he gnawed bones in 
+the dark, until he almost believed it. It was his birthday. Deal ought to 
+have given the ring to him. It had previously turned up just so as to be a 
+present. It was his birthday present, and so on, and on. 
+
+I endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately 
+important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, 
+and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit, together with much 
+snivelling and snarling. He thought he was misunderstood and ill-used. But 
+when he had at last told me his history, as far as the end of the 
+Riddle-game and Bilbo's escape, he would not say any more, except in dark 
+hints. Some other fear was on him greater than mine. He muttered that he was 
+going to gel his own back. People would see if he would stand being kicked, 
+and driven into a hole and then robbed. Gollum had good friends now, good 
+friends and very strong. They would help him. Baggins would pay for it. That 
+was his chief thought. He hated Bilbo and cursed his name. What is more, he 
+knew where he came from.' 
+
+'But how did he find that out?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'Well, as for the name, Bilbo very foolishly told Gollum himself; and 
+after that it would not be difficult to discover his country, once Gollum 
+came out. Oh yes, he came out. His longing for the Ring proved stronger than 
+his fear of the Ores, or even of the light. After a year or two he left the 
+mountains. You see, though still bound by desire of it, the Ring was no 
+longer devouring him; he began to revive a little. He felt old, terribly 
+old, yet less timid, and he was mortally hungry. 
+
+'Light, light of Sun and Moon, he still feared and hated, and he always 
+will, I think; but he was cunning. He found he could hide from daylight and 
+moonshine, and make his way swiftly and softly by dead of night with his 
+pale cold eyes, and catch small frightened or unwary things. He grew 
+stronger and bolder with new food and new air. He found his way into 
+Mirkwood, as one would expect.' 
+
+'Is that where you found him?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'I saw him there,' answered Gandalf, 'but before that he had wandered 
+far, following Bilbo's trail. It was difficult to learn anything from him 
+
+
+
+
+for certain, for his talk was constantly interrupted by curses and threats. 
+
+"What had it got in its pocketses?" he said. "It wouldn't say, no precious. 
+
+Little cheat. Not a fair question. It cheated first, it did. It broke the 
+rules. We ought to have squeezed it, yes precious. And we will, precious!" 
+
+’That is a sample of his talk. I don't suppose you want any more. I had 
+weary days of it. But from hints dropped among the snarls I even gathered 
+that his padding feet had taken him at last to Esgaroth, and even to the 
+streets of Dale, listening secretly and peering. Well, the news of the great 
+events went far and wide in Wilderland, and many had heard Bilbo's name and 
+knew where he came from. We had made no secret of our return journey to his 
+home in the West. Gollum's sharp ears would soon learn what he wanted.' 
+
+'Then why didn't he track Bilbo further?' asked Frodo. 'Why didn't he 
+come to the Shire?' 
+
+'Ah,' said Gandalf, 'now we come to it. I think Gollum tried to. He set 
+out and came back westward, as far as the Great River. But then he turned 
+aside. He was not daunted by the distance, I am sure. No, something else 
+drew him away. So my friends think, those that hunted him for me. 
+
+'The Wood -elves tracked him first, an easy task for them, for his trail 
+was still fresh then. Through Mirkwood and back again it led them, though 
+they never caught him. The wood was full of the rumour of him, dreadful 
+tales even among beasts and birds. The Woodmen said that there was some 
+new 
+
+terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests; it 
+crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find 
+cradles. 
+
+'But at the western edge of Mirkwood the trail turned away. It wandered 
+off southwards and passed out of the Wood-elves' ken, and was lost. And then 
+I made a great mistake. Yes, Frodo, and not the first; though I fear it may 
+prove the worst. I let the matter be. I let him go; for I had much else to 
+think of at that time, and I still trusted the lore of Saruman. 
+
+'Well, that was years ago. I have paid for it since with many dark and 
+dangerous days. The trail was long cold when I took it up again, after Bilbo 
+left here. And my search would have been in vain, but for the help that I 
+had from a friend: Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age 
+of the world. Together we sought for Gollum down the whole length of 
+Wilderland, without hope, and without success. But at last, when I had given 
+up the chase and turned to other parts, Gollum was found. My friend returned 
+
+
+
+
+out of the great perils bringing the miserable creature with him. 
+
+’What he had been doing he would not say. He only wept and called us 
+cruel, with many a gollum in his throat; and when we pressed him he whined 
+and cringed, and rubbed his long hands, licking his fingers as if they 
+pained him, as if he remembered some old torture. But I am afraid there is 
+no possible doubt: he had made his slow, sneaking way, step by step, mile by 
+mile, south, down at last to the Land of Mordor.' 
+
+A heavy silence fell in the room. Frodo could hear his heart beating. 
+
+Even outside everything seemed still. No sound of Sam's shears could now be 
+heard. 
+
+’Yes, to Mordor,' said Gandalf. 'Alas! Mordor draws all wicked things, 
+and the Dark Power was bending all its will to gather them there. The Ring 
+of the Enemy would leave its mark, too, leave him open to the summons. And 
+all folk were whispering then of the new Shadow in the South, and its hatred 
+of the West. There were his fine new friends, who would help him in his 
+revenge ! 
+
+'Wretched fool! In that land he would learn much, too much for his 
+comfort. And sooner or later as he lurked and pried on the borders he would 
+be caught, and taken - for examination. That was the way of it, I fear. When 
+he was found he had already been there long, and was on his way back. On 
+some errand of mischief. But that does not matter much now. His worst 
+mischief was done. 
+
+'Yes, alas! through him the Enemy has learned that the One has been 
+found again. He knows where Isildur fell. He knows where Gollum found his 
+ring. He knows that it is a Great Ring, for it gave long life. He knows that 
+it is not one of the Three, for they have never been lost, and they endure 
+no evil. He knows that it is not one of the Seven, or the Nine, for they are 
+accounted for. He knows that it is the One. And he has at last heard, I 
+think, of hobbits and the Shire. 
+
+'The Shire - he may be seeking for it now, if he has not already found 
+out where it lies. Indeed, Frodo, I fear that he may even think that the 
+long -unnoticed name of Baggins has become important.' 
+
+'But this is terrible!' cried Frodo. 'Far worse than the worst that I 
+imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I 
+to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo 
+did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!' 
+
+'Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike 
+
+
+
+
+without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so 
+little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his 
+ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.' 
+
+'I am sorry,' said Frodo. 'But I am frightened; and I do not feel any 
+pity for Gollum.' 
+
+'You have not seen him,' Gandalf broke in. 
+
+'No, and I don't want to,' said Frodo. I can't understand you. Do you 
+mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those 
+horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Ore, and just an enemy. 
+He deserves death.' 
+
+'Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some 
+that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to 
+deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I 
+have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a 
+chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells 
+me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and 
+when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not 
+least. In any case we did not kill him: he is very old and very wretched. 
+
+The Wood-elves have him in prison, but they treat him with such kindness as 
+they can find in their wise hearts.' 
+
+'All the same,' said Frodo, 'even if Bilbo could not kill Gollum, I 
+wish he had not kept the Ring. I wish he had never found it, and that I had 
+not got it! Why did you let me keep it? Why didn't you make me throw it 
+away, or, or destroy it?' 
+
+'Let you? Make you?' said the wizard. 'Haven't you been listening to 
+all that I have said? You are not thinking of what you are saying. But as 
+for throwing it away, that was obviously wrong. These Rings have a way of 
+being found. In evil hands it might have done great evil. Worst of all, it 
+might have fallen into the hands of the Enemy. Indeed it certainly would; 
+for this is the One, and he is exerting all his power to find it or draw it 
+to himself. 
+
+'Of course, my dear Frodo, it was dangerous for you; and that has 
+troubled me deeply. But there was so much at stake that I had to take some 
+risk - though even when I was far away there has never been a day when the 
+Shire has not been guarded by watchful eyes. As long as you never used it, I 
+did not think that the Ring would have any lasting effect on you, not for 
+evil, not at any rate for a very long time. And you must remember that nine 
+
+
+
+
+years ago, when I last saw you, I still knew little for certain.' 
+
+'But why not destroy it, as you say should have been done long ago?' 
+cried Frodo again. If you had warned me, or even sent me a message, I would 
+have done away with it.' 
+
+'Would you? How would you do that? Have you ever tried?' 
+
+'No. But I suppose one could hammer it or melt it.' 
+
+'Try!' said Gandalf. Try now!' 
+
+Frodo drew the Ring out of his pocket again and looked at it. It now 
+appeared plain and smooth, without mark or device that he could see. The 
+gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was 
+its colour, how perfect was its roundness. It was an admirable thing and 
+altogether precious. When he took it out he had intended to fling it from 
+him into the very hottest part of the fire. But he found now that he could 
+not do so, not without a great struggle. He weighed the Ring in his hand, 
+hesitating, and forcing himself to remember all that Gandalf had told him; 
+and then with an effort of will he made a movement, as if to cast it away - 
+but he found that he had put it back in his pocket. 
+
+Gandalf laughed grimly. 'You see? Already you too, Frodo, cannot easily 
+let it go, nor will to damage it. And I could not "make" you - except by 
+force, which would break your mind. But as for breaking the Ring, force is 
+useless. Even if you took it and struck it with a heavy sledge-hammer, it 
+would make no dint in it. It cannot be unmade by your hands, or by mine. 
+
+'Your small fire, of course, would not melt even ordinary gold. This 
+Ring has already passed through it unscathed, and even unheated. But there 
+is no smith's forge in this Shire that could change it at all. Not even the 
+anvils and furnaces of the Dwarves could do that. It has been said that 
+dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now 
+any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there 
+ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the 
+One 
+
+Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself. There is only 
+one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the 
+Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, 
+to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever.' 
+
+'I do really wish to destroy it!' cried Frodo. 'Or, well, to have it 
+destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the 
+Ring ! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?' 
+
+
+
+
+’Such questions cannot be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure 
+that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or 
+wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use 
+such strength and heart and wits as you have.' 
+
+'But I have so little of any of these things! You are wise and 
+powerful. Will you not take the Ring?' 
+
+'No!' cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. 'With that power I should 
+have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power 
+still greater and more deadly.' His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by 
+a fire within. 'Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark 
+Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for 
+weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not 
+take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too 
+great, for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie 
+before me.' 
+
+He went to the window and drew aside the curtains and the shutters. 
+Sunlight streamed back again into the room. Sam passed along the path 
+outside whistling. 'And now,' said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, 'the 
+decision lies with you. But I will always help you.' He laid his hand on 
+Frodo's shoulder. 'I will help you bear this burden, as long as It is yours 
+to bear. But we must do something, soon. The Enemy is moving.' 
+
+There was a long silence. Gandalf sat down again and puffed at his 
+pipe, as if lost in thought. His eyes seemed closed, but under the lids he 
+was watching Frodo intently. Frodo gazed fixedly at the red embers on the 
+hearth, until they filled all his vision, and he seemed to be looking down 
+into profound wells of fire. He was thinking of the fabled Cracks of Doom 
+and the terror of the Fiery Mountain. 
+
+'Well!' said Gandalf at last. 'What are you thinking about? Have you 
+decided what to do?' 
+
+'No!' answered Frodo, coming back to himself out of darkness, and 
+finding to his surprise that it was not dark, and that out of the window he 
+could see the sunlit garden. 'Or perhaps, yes. As far as I understand what 
+you have said, I suppose I must keep the Ring and guard it, at least for the 
+present, whatever it may do to me.' 
+
+'Whatever it may do, it will be slow, slow to evil, if you keep it with 
+that purpose,' said Gandalf. 
+
+'I hope so,' said Frodo. 'But I hope that you may find some other 
+
+
+
+
+better keeper soon. But in the meanwhile it seems that I am a danger, a 
+danger to all that live near me. I cannot keep the Ring and stay here. I 
+ought to leave Bag End, leave the Shire, leave everything and go away.’ He 
+sighed. 
+
+'I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been 
+times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have 
+felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. 
+But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies 
+behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall 
+know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand 
+there again. 
+
+'Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that 
+as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo's or better, ending 
+in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, 
+drawing it after me. And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and 
+save the Shire. But I feel very small, and very uprooted, and well - 
+desperate. The Enemy is so strong and terrible.' 
+
+He did not tell Gandalf, but as he was speaking a great desire to 
+follow Bilbo flamed up in his heart - to follow Bilbo, and even perhaps to 
+find him again. It was so strong that it overcame his fear: he could almost 
+have run out there and then down the road without his hat, as Bilbo had done 
+on a similar morning long ago. 
+
+'My dear Frodo!' exclaimed Gandalf. 'Hobbits really are amazing 
+creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know 
+about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still 
+surprise you at a pinch. I hardly expected to get such an answer, not even 
+from you. But Bilbo made no mistake in choosing his heir, though he little 
+thought how important it would prove. I am afraid you are right. The Ring 
+will not be able to stay hidden in the Shire much longer; and for your own 
+sake, as well as for others, you will have to go, and leave the name of 
+Baggins behind you. That name will not be safe to have, outside the Shire or 
+in the Wild. I will give you a travelling name now. When you go, go as Mr. 
+Underhill. 
+
+'But I don't think you need go alone. Not if you know of anyone you can 
+trust, and who would be willing to go by your side - and that you would be 
+willing to take into unknown perils. But if you look for a companion, be 
+careful in choosing! And be careful of what you say, even to your closest 
+
+
+
+
+friends! The enemy has many spies and many ways of hearing.' 
+
+Suddenly he stopped as if listening. Frodo became aware that all was 
+very quiet, inside and outside. Gandalf crept to one side of the window. 
+Then with a dart he sprang to the sill, and thrust a long arm out and 
+downwards. There was a squawk, and up came Sam Gamgee's curly head 
+hauled by 
+one ear. 
+
+'Well, well, bless my beard!' said Gandalf. 'Sam Gamgee is it? Now what 
+may you be doing?' 
+
+'Lor bless you, Mr. Gandalf, sir!' said Sam. 'Nothing! Leastways I was 
+just trimming the grass-border under the window, if you follow me.' He 
+picked up his shears and exhibited them as evidence. 
+
+'I don't,' said Gandalf grimly. It is some time since I last heard the 
+sound of your shears. How long have you been eavesdropping?' 
+
+'Eavesdropping, sir? I don't follow you, begging your pardon. There 
+ain't no eaves at Bag End, and that's a fact.' 
+
+'Don't be a fool! What have you heard, and why did you listen?' 
+Gandalf s eyes flashed and his brows stuck out like bristles. 
+
+'Mr. Frodo, sir!' cried Sam quaking. 'Don't let him hurt me, sir! Don't 
+let him turn me into anything unnatural! My old dad would take on so. I 
+meant no harm, on my honour, sir!' 
+
+'He won't hurt you,' said Frodo, hardly able to keep from laughing, 
+although he was himself startled and rather puzzled. 'He knows, as well as I 
+do, that you mean no harm. But just you up and answer his questions straight 
+away!' 
+
+'Well, sir,' said Sam dithering a little. 'I heard a deal that I didn't 
+rightly understand, about an enemy, and rings, and Mr. Bilbo, sir, and 
+dragons, and a fiery mountain, and - and Elves, sir. I listened because I 
+couldn't help myself, if you know what I mean. Lor bless me, sir, but I do 
+love tales of that sort. And I believe them too, whatever Ted may say. 
+Elves, sir! I would dearly love to see them. Couldn't you take me to see 
+Elves, sir, when you go?' 
+
+Suddenly Gandalf laughed. 'Come inside!' he shouted, and putting out 
+both his arms he lifted the astonished Sam, shears, grass-clippings and all, 
+right through the window and stood him on the floor. 'Take you to see Elves, 
+eh?' he said, eyeing Sam closely, but with a smile flickering on his face. 
+
+'So you heard that Mr. Frodo is going away?' 
+
+
+
+
+'I did, sir. And that's why I choked: which you heard seemingly. I 
+tried not to, sir, but it burst out of me: I was so upset.' 
+
+'It can't be helped, Sam,' said Frodo sadly. He had suddenly realized 
+that flying from the Shire would mean more painful partings than merely 
+saying farewell to the familiar comforts of Bag End. 'I shall have to go. 
+But' - and here he looked hard at Sam - 'if you really care about me, you 
+will keep that dead secret. See? If you don't, if you even breathe a word of 
+what you've heard here, then I hope Gandalf will turn you into a spotted 
+toad and fill the garden full of grass-snakes.' 
+
+Sam fell on his knees, trembling. 'Get up, Sam!' said Gandalf. I have 
+thought of something better than that. Something to shut your mouth, and 
+punish you properly for listening. You shall go away with Mr. Frodo!' 
+
+'Me, sir!' cried Sam, springing up like a dog invited for a walk. 'Me 
+go and see Elves and all! Hooray!' he shouted, and then burst into tears. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3 . Three is Company 
+
+
+
+'You ought to go quietly, and you ought to go soon,' said Gandalf. Two 
+or three weeks had passed, and still Frodo made no sign of getting ready to 
+
+go- 
+
+'I know. But it is difficult to do both,' he objected. If I just vanish 
+like Bilbo, the tale will be all over the Shire in no time.' 
+
+'Of course you mustn't vanish!' said Gandalf. 'That wouldn't do at all! 
+
+I said soon, not instantly. If you can think of any way of slipping out of 
+the Shire without its being generally known, it will be worth a little 
+delay. But you must not delay too long.' 
+
+'What about the autumn, on or after Our Birthday?' asked Frodo. 'I 
+think I could probably make some arrangements by then.' 
+
+To tell the truth, he was very reluctant to start, now that it had come 
+to the point. Bag End seemed a more desirable residence than it had for 
+years, and he wanted to savour as much as he could of his last summer in the 
+Shire. When autumn came, he knew that part at least of his heart would think 
+more kindly of journeying, as it always did at that season. He had indeed 
+privately made up his mind to leave on his fiftieth birthday: Bilbo's one 
+hundred and twenty-eighth. It seemed somehow the proper day on which to set 
+out and follow him. Following Bilbo was uppermost in his mind, and the one 
+thing that made the thought of leaving bearable. He thought as little as 
+possible about the Ring, and where it might lead him in the end. But he did 
+not tell all his thoughts to Gandalf. What the wizard guessed was always 
+difficult to tell. 
+
+He looked at Frodo and smiled. 'Very well,' he said. 'I think that will 
+do - but it must not be any later. I am getting very anxious. In the 
+mean-while, do take care, and don't let out any hint of where you are going! 
+And see that Sam Gamgee does not talk. If he does, I really shall turn him 
+into a toad.' 
+
+'As for where I am going,' said Frodo, 'it would be difficult to give 
+that away, for I have no clear idea myself, yet.' 
+
+'Don't be absurd!' said Gandalf. 'I am not warning you against leaving 
+an address at the post-office! But you are leaving the Shire - and that 
+should not be known, until you are far away. And you must go, or at least 
+
+
+
+
+set out, either North, South, West or East - and the direction should 
+certainly not be known.' 
+
+'I have been so taken up with the thoughts of leaving Bag End, and of 
+saying farewell, that I have never even considered the direction,' said 
+Frodo. 'For where am I to go? And by what shall I steer? What is to be my 
+quest? Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose 
+one, and not return, as far as I can see.' 
+
+'But you cannot see very far,' said Gandalf. 'Neither can I. It may be 
+your task to find the Cracks of Doom; but that quest may be for others: I do 
+not know. At any rate you are not ready for that long road yet.' 
+
+'No indeed!' said Frodo. 'But in the meantime what course am I to 
+lake?' 
+
+'Towards danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight,' answered the 
+wizard. 'If you want my advice, make for Rivendell. That journey should not 
+prove too perilous, though the Road is less easy than it was, and it will 
+grow worse as the year fails.' 
+
+'Rivendell!' said Frodo. 'Very good: I will go east, and I will make 
+for Rivendell. I will take Sam to visit the Elves; he will be delighted.' He 
+spoke lightly; but his heart was moved suddenly with a desire to see the 
+house of Elrond Halfelven, and breathe the air of that deep valley where 
+many of the Fair Folk still dwelt in peace. 
+
+One summer's evening an astonishing piece of news reached the Ivy Bush 
+and Green Dragon. Giants and other portents on the borders of the Shire were 
+forgotten for more important matters: Mr. Frodo was selling Bag End, indeed 
+he had already sold it - to the Sackville-Bagginses! 
+
+'For a nice bit, loo,' said some. 'At a bargain price,' said others, 
+
+'and that's more likely when Mistress Fobelia's the buyer.' (Otho had died 
+some years before, at the ripe but disappointed age of 102.) 
+
+Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more 
+debatable than the price. A few held the theory - supported by the nods and 
+hints of Mr. Baggins himself - that Frodo's money was running out: he was 
+going to leave Hobbiton and live in a quiet way on the proceeds of the sale 
+down in Buckland among his Brandybuck relations. 'As far from the 
+Sackville-Bagginses as may be,' some added. But so firmly fixed had the 
+notion of the immeasurable wealth of the Bagginses of Bag End become that 
+most found this hard to believe, harder than any other reason or unreason 
+that their fancy could suggest: to most it suggested a dark and yet 
+
+
+
+
+unrevealed plot by Gandalf. Though he kept himself very quiet and did not go 
+about by day, it was well known that he was 'hiding up in the Bag End'. But 
+however a removal might fit in with the designs of his wizardry, there was 
+no doubt about the fact: Frodo Baggins was going back to Buckland. 
+
+'Yes, I shall be moving this autumn,' he said. 'Merry Brandybuck is 
+looking out for a nice little hole for me, or perhaps a small house.' 
+
+As a matter of fact with Merry's help he had already chosen and bought 
+a little house at Crickhollow in the country beyond Bucklebury. To all but 
+Sam he pretended he was going to settle down there permanently. The decision 
+to set out eastwards had suggested the idea to him; for Buckland was on the 
+eastern borders of the Shire, and as he had lived there in childhood his 
+going back would at least seem credible. 
+
+Gandalf stayed in the Shire for over two months. Then one evening, at 
+the end of June, soon after Frodo's plan had been finally arranged, he 
+suddenly announced that he was going off again next morning. 'Only for a 
+short while, I hope,' he said. 'But I am going down beyond the southern 
+borders to get some news, if I can. I have been idle longer than I should.' 
+
+He spoke lightly, but it seemed to Frodo that he looked rather worried. 
+
+'Has anything happened?' he asked. 
+
+'Well no; but I have heard something that has made me anxious and needs 
+looking into. If I think it necessary after all for you to get off at once, 
+
+I shall come back immediately, or at least send word. In the meanwhile stick 
+to your plan; but be more careful than ever, especially of the Ring. Fet me 
+impress on you once more: don't use it!' 
+
+He went off at dawn. 'I may be back any day,' he said. 'At the very 
+latest I shall come back for the farewell party. I think after all you may 
+need my company on the Road.' 
+
+At first Frodo was a good deal disturbed, and wondered often what 
+Gandalf could have heard; but his uneasiness wore off, and in the fine 
+weather he forgot his troubles for a while. The Shire had seldom seen so 
+fair a summer, or so rich an autumn: the trees were laden with apples, honey 
+was dripping in the combs, and the corn was tall and full. 
+
+Autumn was well under way before Frodo began to worry about Gandalf 
+again. September was passing and there was still no news of him. The 
+Birthday, and the removal, drew nearer, and still he did not come, or send 
+word. Bag End began to be busy. Some of Frodo's friends came to stay and 
+help him with the packing: there was Fredegar Bolger and Folco Boffin, and 
+
+
+
+
+of course his special friends Pippin Took and Merry Brandybuck. Between 
+them 
+
+they turned the whole place upside-down. 
+
+On September 20th two covered carts went off laden to Buckland, 
+conveying the furniture and goods that Frodo had not sold to his new home, 
+by way of the Brandywine Bridge. The next day Frodo became really anxious, 
+and kept a constant look-out for Gandalf. Thursday, his birthday morning, 
+dawned as fair and clear as it had long ago for Bilbo's great party. Still 
+Gandalf did not appear. In the evening Frodo gave his farewell feast: it was 
+quite small, just a dinner for himself and his four helpers; but he was 
+troubled and fell in no mood for it. The thought that he would so soon have 
+to part with his young friends weighed on his heart. He wondered how he 
+would break it to them. 
+
+The four younger hobbits were, however, in high spirits, and the party 
+soon became very cheerful in spite of Gandalf s absence. The dining-room was 
+bare except for a table and chairs, but the food was good, and there was 
+good wine: Frodo's wine had not been included in the sale to the 
+Sackville-Bagginses. 
+
+’Whatever happens to the rest of my stuff, when the S.-B.s get their 
+claws on it, at any rate I have found a good home for this!' said Frodo, as 
+he drained his glass. It was the last drop of Old Winyards. 
+
+When they had sung many songs, and talked of many things they had done 
+together, they toasted Bilbo's birthday, and they drank his health and 
+Frodo's together according to Frodo's custom. Then they went out for a sniff 
+of air, and glimpse of the stars, and then they went to bed. Frodo's party 
+was over, and Gandalf had not come. 
+
+The next morning they were busy packing another cart with the remainder 
+of the luggage. Merry took charge of this, and drove off with Fatty (that is 
+Fredegar Bolger). 'Someone must get there and warm the house before you 
+arrive,' said Merry. 'Well, see you later - the day after tomorrow, if you 
+don't go to sleep on the way!' 
+
+Folco went home after lunch, but Pippin remained behind. Frodo was 
+restless and anxious, listening in vain for a sound of Gandalf. He decided 
+to wait until nightfall. After that, if Gandalf wanted him urgently, he 
+would go to Crickhollow, and might even get there first. For Frodo was going 
+on foot. His plan - for pleasure and a last look at the Shire as much as any 
+other reason - was to walk from Hobbiton to Bucklebury Ferry, taking it 
+
+
+
+
+fairly easy. 
+
+'I shall get myself a bit into training, too,' he said, looking at 
+himself in a dusty mirror in the half-empty hall. He had not done any 
+strenuous walking for a long time, and the reflection looked rather flabby, 
+he thought. 
+
+After lunch, the Sackville-Bagginses, Lobelia and her sandy-haired son, 
+Lotho, turned up, much to Frodo's annoyance. 'Ours at last!' said Lobelia, 
+as she stepped inside. It was not polite; nor strictly true, for the sale of 
+Bag End did not take effect until midnight. But Lobelia can perhaps be 
+forgiven: she had been obliged to wait about seventy-seven years longer for 
+Bag End than she once hoped, and she was now a hundred years old. 
+Anyway, 
+
+she had come to see that nothing she had paid for had been carried off; and 
+she wanted the keys. It took a long while to satisfy her, as she had brought 
+a complete inventory with her and went right through it. In the end she 
+departed with Lotho and the spare key and the promise that the other key 
+would be left at the Gamgees' in Bagshot Row. She snorted, and showed 
+plainly that she thought the Gamgees capable of plundering the hole during 
+the night. Frodo did not offer her any tea. 
+
+He took his own tea with Pippin and Sam Gamgee in the kitchen. It had 
+been officially announced that Sam was coming to Buckland 'to do for Mr. 
+Frodo and look after his bit of garden'; an arrangement that was approved by 
+the Gaffer, though it did not console him for the prospect of having Lobelia 
+as a neighbour. 
+
+'Our last meal at Bag End!' said Frodo, pushing back his chair. They 
+left the washing up for Lobelia. Pippin and Sam strapped up their three 
+packs and piled them in the porch. Pippin went out for a last stroll in the 
+garden. Sam disappeared. 
+
+The sun went down. Bag End seemed sad and gloomy and dishevelled. 
+Frodo 
+
+wandered round the familiar rooms, and saw the light of the sunset fade on 
+the walls, and shadows creep out of the corners. It grew slowly dark 
+indoors. He went out and walked down to the gate at the bottom of the path, 
+and then on a short way down the Hill Road. He half expected to see Gandalf 
+come striding up through the dusk. 
+
+The sky was clear and the stars were growing bright. 'It's going to be 
+a fine night,' he said aloud. 'That's good for a beginning. I feel like 
+
+
+
+
+walking. I can't bear any more hanging about. I am going to start, and 
+Gandalf must follow me.' He turned to go back, and then slopped, for he 
+heard voices, just round the corner by the end of Bagshot Row. One voice was 
+certainly the old Gaffer's; the other was strange, and somehow unpleasant. 
+
+He could not make out what it said, but he heard the Gaffer's answers, which 
+were rather shrill. The old man seemed put out. 
+
+'No, Mr. Baggins has gone away. Went this morning, and my Sam went 
+with 
+
+him: anyway all his stuff went. Yes, sold out and gone, I tell'ee. Why? 
+Why's none of my business, or yours. Where to? That ain't no secret. He's 
+moved to Bucklebury or some such place, away down yonder. Yes it is - a tidy 
+way. I've never been so far myself; they're queer folks in Buckland. No, I 
+can't give no message. Good night to you!' 
+
+Footsteps went away down the Hill. Frodo wondered vaguely why the fact 
+that they did not come on up the Hill seemed a great relief. 'I am sick of 
+questions and curiosity about my doings, I suppose,' he thought. 'What an 
+inquisitive lot they all are!' He had half a mind to go and ask the Gaffer 
+who the inquirer was; but he thought better (or worse) of it, and turned and 
+walked quickly back to Bag End. 
+
+Pippin was sitting on his pack in the porch. Sam was not there. Frodo 
+stepped inside the dark door. 'Sam!' he called. 'Sam! Time!' 
+
+'Coming, sir!' came the answer from far within, followed soon by Sam 
+himself, wiping his mouth. He had been saying farewell to the beer -barrel in 
+the cellar. 
+
+'All aboard, Sam?' said Frodo. 
+
+'Yes, sir. I'll last for a bit now, sir.' 
+
+Frodo shut and locked the round door, and gave the key to Sam. 'Run 
+down with this to your home, Sam!' he said. 'Then cut along the Row and meet 
+us as quick as you can at the gate in the lane beyond the meadows. We are 
+not going through the village tonight. Too many ears pricking and eyes 
+prying.' Sam ran off at full speed. 
+
+'Well, now we're off at last!' said Frodo. They shouldered their packs 
+and took up their sticks, and walked round the corner to the west side of 
+Bag End. 'Good-bye!' said Frodo, looking at the dark blank windows. He 
+waved 
+
+his hand, and then turned and (following Bilbo, if he had known it) hurried 
+after Peregrin down the garden-path. They jumped over the low place in the 
+
+
+
+
+hedge at the bottom and took to the fields, passing into the darkness like a 
+rustle in the grasses. 
+
+At the bottom of the Hill on its western side they came to the gate 
+opening on to a narrow lane. There they halted and adjusted the straps of 
+their packs. Presently Sam appeared, trotting quickly and breathing hard; 
+his heavy pack was hoisted high on his shoulders, and he had put on his head 
+a tall shapeless fell bag, which he called a hat. In the gloom he looked 
+very much like a dwarf. 
+
+'I am sure you have given me all the heaviest stuff,' said Frodo. 'I 
+pity snails, and all that carry their homes on their backs.' 
+
+'I could take a lot more yet, sir. My packet is quite light,' said Sam 
+stoutly and untruthfully. 
+
+'No, you don't, Sam!' said Pippin. 'It is good for him. He's got 
+nothing except what he ordered us to pack. He's been slack lately, and he'll 
+feel the weight less when he's walked off some of his own.' 
+
+'Be kind to a poor old hobbit!' laughed Frodo. 'I shall be as thin as a 
+willow-wand, I'm sure, before I get to Buckland. But I was talking nonsense. 
+
+I suspect you have taken more than your share, Sam, and I shall look into it 
+at our next packing.' He picked up his stick again. 'Well, we all like 
+walking in the dark,' he said, 'so let's put some miles behind us before 
+bed.' 
+
+For a short way they followed the lane westwards. Then leaving it they 
+turned left and took quietly to the fields again. They went in single file 
+along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, and night fell dark about them. 
+In their dark cloaks they were as invisible as if they all had magic rings. 
+
+Since they were all hobbits, and were trying to be silent, they made no 
+noise that even hobbits would hear. Even the wild things in the fields and 
+woods hardly noticed their passing. 
+
+After some time they crossed the Water, west of Hobbiton, by a narrow 
+plank -bridge. The stream was there no more than a winding black ribbon, 
+bordered with leaning alder -trees. A mile or two further south they hastily 
+crossed the great road from the Brandywine Bridge; they were now in the 
+Tookland and bending south-eastwards they made for the Green Hill Country. 
+As they began to climb its first slopes they looked back and saw the lamps 
+in Hobbiton far off twinkling in the gentle valley of the Water. Soon it 
+disappeared in the folds of the darkened land, and was followed by By water 
+beside its grey pool. When the light of the last farm was far behind, 
+
+
+
+
+peeping among the trees, Frodo turned and waved a hand in farewell. 
+
+'I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again,' he said 
+quietly. 
+
+When they had walked for about three hours they rested. The night was 
+clear, cool, and starry, but smoke-like wisps of mist were creeping up the 
+hill-sides from the streams and deep meadows. Thin-clad birches, swaying in 
+a light wind above their heads, made a black net against the pale sky. They 
+ate a very frugal supper (for hobbits), and then went on again. Soon they 
+struck a narrow road, that went rolling up and down, fading grey into the 
+darkness ahead: the road to Woodhall, and Stock, and the Bucklebury Ferry. 
+It climbed away from the main road in the Water -valley, and wound over the 
+skirts of the Green Hills towards Woody-End, a wild corner of the 
+Eastfarthing. 
+
+After a while they plunged into a deeply cloven track between tall 
+trees that rustled their dry leaves in the night. It was very dark. At first 
+they talked, or hummed a tune softly together, being now far away from 
+inquisitive ears. Then they marched on in silence, and Pippin began to lag 
+behind. At last, as they began to climb a steep slope, he stopped and 
+yawned. 
+
+'I am so sleepy,' he said, 'that soon I shall fall down on the road. 
+
+Are you going to sleep on your legs? It is nearly midnight.' 
+
+'I thought you liked walking in the dark,' said Frodo. 'But there is no 
+great hurry. Merry expects us some time the day after tomorrow; but that 
+leaves us nearly two days more. We'll halt at the first likely spot.' 
+
+'The wind's in the West,' said Sam. 'If we get to the other side of 
+this hill, we shall find a spot that is sheltered and snug enough, sir. 
+
+There is a dry fir-wood just ahead, if I remember rightly.' Sam knew the 
+land well within twenty miles of Hobbiton, but that was the limit of his 
+geography. 
+
+Just over the top of the hill they came on the patch of fir-wood. 
+
+Leaving the road they went into the deep resin-scented darkness of the 
+trees, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire. Soon they had a 
+merry crackle of flame at the foot of a large fir-tree and they sat round it 
+for a while, until they began to nod. Then, each in an angle of the great 
+tree's roots, they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon 
+fast asleep. They set no watch; even Frodo feared no danger yet, for they 
+were still in the heart of the Shire. A few creatures came and looked at 
+
+
+
+
+them when the fire had died away. A fox passing through the wood on business 
+of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. 
+
+'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings 
+in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors 
+under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He 
+was quite right, but he never found out any more about it. 
+
+The morning came, pale and clammy. Frodo woke up first, and found that 
+a tree-root had made a hole in his back, and that his neck was stiff. 
+
+'Walking for pleasure! Why didn't I drive?' he thought, as he usually 
+did at the beginning of an expedition. 'And all my beautiful feather beds 
+are sold to the Sackville-Bagginses! These tree-roots would do them good.' 
+
+He stretched. 'Wake up, hobbits!' he cried. It's a beautiful morning.' 
+
+'What's beautiful about it?' said Pippin, peering over the edge of his 
+blanket with one eye. 'Sam! Gel breakfast ready for half-past nine! Have you 
+got the bath-water hot?' 
+
+Sam jumped up, looking rather bleary. 'No, sir, I haven't, sir!' he 
+said. 
+
+Frodo stripped the blankets from Pippin and rolled him over, and then 
+walked off to the edge of the wood. Away eastward the sun was rising red out 
+of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the 
+autumn trees seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea. A little below 
+him to the left the road ran down steeply into a hollow and disappeared. 
+
+When he returned Sam and Pippin had got a good fire going. 'Water!' 
+shouted Pippin. 'Where's the water?' 
+
+'I don't keep water in my pockets,' said Frodo. 'We thought you had 
+gone to find some,' said Pippin, busy setting out the food, and cups. 'You 
+had better go now.' 
+
+'You can come too,' said Frodo, 'and bring all the water-bottles.' 
+
+There was a stream at the foot of the hill. They filled their bottles and 
+the small camping kettle at a little fall where the water fell a few feet 
+over an outcrop of grey stone. It was icy cold; and they spluttered and 
+puffed as they bathed their faces and hands. 
+
+When their breakfast was over, and their packs all trussed up again, it 
+was after ten o'clock, and the day was beginning to turn fine and hot. They 
+went down the slope, and across the stream where it dived under the road, 
+and up the next slope, and up and down another shoulder of the hills; and by 
+that time their cloaks, blankets, water, food, and other gear already seemed 
+
+
+
+
+a heavy burden. 
+
+The day's march promised to be warm and tiring work. After some miles, 
+however, the road ceased to roll up and down: it climbed to the top of a 
+steep bank in a weary zig-zagging sort of way, and then prepared to go down 
+for the last time. In front of them they saw the lower lands dotted with 
+small clumps of trees that melted away in the distance to a brown woodland 
+haze. They were looking across the Woody End towards the Brandywine 
+River. 
+
+The road wound away before them like a piece of string. 
+
+’The road goes on for ever,' said Pippin; 'but I can't without a rest. 
+
+It is high time for lunch.' He sat down on the bank at the side of the road 
+and looked away east into the haze, beyond which lay the River, and the end 
+of the Shire in which he had spent all his life. Sam stood by him. His round 
+eyes were wide open - for he was looking across lands he had never seen to a 
+new horizon. 
+
+'Do Elves live in those woods?' he asked. 
+
+'Not that I ever heard,' said Pippin. Frodo was silent. He too was 
+gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly 
+he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly: 
+
+The Road goes ever on and on 
+Down from the door where it began. 
+
+Now far ahead the Road has gone, 
+
+And I must follow, if I can, 
+
+Pursuing it with weary feet, 
+
+Until it joins some larger way, 
+
+Where many paths and errands meet. 
+
+And whither then? I cannot say. 
+
+'That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo's rhyming,' said Pippin. 'Or is it 
+one of your imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging.' 
+
+'I don't know,' said Frodo. It came to me then, as if I was making it 
+up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of 
+Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was 
+only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every 
+doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, 
+Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and 
+if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept 
+off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through 
+
+
+
+
+Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain 
+or even further and to worse places?" He used to say that on the path 
+outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a 
+long walk.' 
+
+'Well, the Road won’t sweep me anywhere for an hour at least,' said 
+Pippin, unslinging his pack. The others followed his example, putting their 
+packs against the bank and their legs out into the road. After a rest they 
+had a good lunch, and then more rest. 
+
+The sun was beginning to get low and the light of afternoon was on the 
+land as they went down the hill. So far they had not met a soul on the road. 
+This way was not much used, being hardly fit for carts, and there was little 
+traffic to the Woody End. They had been jogging along again for an hour or 
+more when Sam stopped a moment as if listening. They were now on level 
+ground, and the road after much winding lay straight ahead through 
+grass-land sprinkled with tall trees, outliers of the approaching woods. 
+
+'I can hear a pony or a horse coming along the road behind,' said Sam. 
+
+They looked back, but the turn of the road prevented them from seeing 
+far. 'I wonder if that is Gandalf coming after us,' said Frodo; but even as 
+he said it, he had a feeling that it was not so, and a sudden desire to hide 
+from the view of the rider came over him. 
+
+'It may not matter much,' he said apologetically, 'but I would rather 
+not be seen on the road - by anyone. I am sick of my doings being noticed 
+and discussed. And if it is Gandalf,' he added as an afterthought, 'we can 
+give him a little surprise, to pay him out for being so late. Let's get out 
+of sight!' 
+
+The other two ran quickly to the left and down into a little hollow not 
+far from the road. There they lay flat. Frodo hesitated for a second: 
+curiosity or some other feeling was struggling with his desire to hide. The 
+sound of hoofs drew nearer. Just in time he threw himself down in a patch of 
+long grass behind a tree that overshadowed the road. Then he lifted his head 
+and peered cautiously above one of the great roots. 
+
+Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized 
+horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, 
+wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high 
+stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible. 
+
+When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. 
+
+The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From 
+
+
+
+
+inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive 
+scent; the head turned from side to side of the road. 
+
+A sudden unreasoning fear of discovery laid hold of Frodo, and he 
+thought of his Ring. He hardly dared to breathe, and yet the desire to get 
+it out of his pocket became so strong that he began slowly to move his hand. 
+
+He felt that he had only to slip it on, and then he would be safe. The 
+advice of Gandalf seemed absurd. Bilbo had used the Ring. 'And I am still in 
+the Shire,' he thought, as his hand touched the chain on which it hung. At 
+that moment the rider sat up, and shook the reins. The horse stepped 
+forward, walking slowly at first, and then breaking into a quick trot. 
+
+Frodo crawled to the edge of the road and watched the rider, until he 
+dwindled into the distance. He could not be quite sure, but it seemed to him 
+that suddenly, before it passed out of sight, the horse turned aside and 
+went into the trees on the right. 
+
+'Well, I call that very queer, and indeed disturbing,' said Frodo to 
+himself, as he walked towards his companions. Pippin and Sam had remained 
+flat in the grass, and had seen nothing; so Frodo described the rider and 
+his strange behaviour. 
+
+'I can't say why, but I felt certain he was looking or smelling for me; 
+and also I felt certain that I did not want him to discover me. I've never 
+seen or fell anything like it in the Shire before.' 
+
+'But what has one of the Big People got to do with us?' said Pippin. 
+
+'And what is he doing in this part of the world?' 
+
+'There are some Men about,' said Frodo. 'Down in the Southfarthing they 
+have had trouble with Big People, I believe. But I have never heard of 
+anything like this rider. I wonder where he comes from.' 
+
+'Begging your pardon,' put in Sam suddenly, 'I know where he comes 
+from. It's from Hobbiton that this here black rider comes, unless there's 
+more than one. And I know where he's going to.' 
+
+'What do you mean?' said Frodo sharply, looking at him in astonishment. 
+'Why didn't you speak up before?' 
+
+'I have only just remembered, sir. It was like this: when I got back to 
+our hole yesterday evening with the key, my dad, he says to me: Hello, Sam! 
+he says. I thought you were away with Mr. Frodo this morning. There's been a 
+strange customer asking for Mr. Baggins of Bag End, and he's only just gone. 
+I've sent him on to Bucklebury. Not that Hiked the sound of him. He seemed 
+mighty put out, when I told him Mr. Baggins had left his old home for good. 
+
+
+
+
+Hissed at me, he did. It gave me quite a shudder. What sort of a fellow was 
+he? says I to the Gaffer. / don 't know, says he; but he wasn 't a hobbit. He 
+was tall and black-like, and he stooped aver me. I reckon it was one of the 
+Big Folk from foreign parts. He spoke funny. 
+
+'I couldn't stay to hear more, sir, since you were waiting; and I 
+didn't give much heed to it myself. The Gaffer is getting old, and more than 
+a bit blind, and it must have been near dark when this fellow come up the 
+Hill and found him taking the air at the end of our Row. I hope he hasn't 
+done no harm, sir, nor me.' 
+
+'The Gaffer can't be blamed anyway,' said Frodo. 'As a matter of fact I 
+heard him talking to a stranger, who seemed to be inquiring for me, and I 
+nearly went and asked him who it was. I wish I had, or you had told me about 
+it before. I might have been more careful on the road.' 
+
+'Still, there may be no connexion between this rider and the Gaffer's 
+stranger,' said Pippin. 'We left Hobbiton secretly enough, and I don't see 
+how he could have followed us.' 
+
+'What about the smelling, sir?' said Sam. 'And the Gaffer said he was a 
+black chap.' 
+
+'I wish I had waited for Gandalf,' Frodo muttered. 'But perhaps it 
+would only have made matters worse.' 
+
+'Then you know or guess something about this rider?' said Pippin, who 
+had caught the muttered words. 
+
+'I don't know, and I would rather not guess,' said Frodo. 'All right, 
+cousin Frodo! You can keep your secret for the present, if you want to be 
+mysterious. In the meanwhile what are we to do? I should like a bite and a 
+sup, but somehow I think we had better move on from here. Your talk of 
+sniffing riders with invisible noses has unsettled me.' 
+
+'Yes, I think we will move on now,' said Frodo; 'but not on the road 
+-in case that rider comes back, or another follows him. We ought to do a 
+good step more today. Buckland is still miles away.' 
+
+The shadows of the trees were long and thin on the grass, as they 
+started off again. They now kept a stone's throw to the left of the road, 
+and kept out of sight of it as much as they could. But this hindered them; 
+for the grass was thick and tussocky, and the ground uneven, and the trees 
+began to draw together into thickets. 
+
+The sun had gone down red behind the hills at their backs, and evening 
+was coming on before they came back to the road at the end of the long level 
+
+
+
+
+over which it had run straight for some miles. At that point it bent left 
+and went down into the lowlands of the Yale making for Stock; but a lane 
+branched right, winding through a wood of ancient oak-trees on its way to 
+Woodhall. 'That is the way for us,' said Frodo. 
+
+Not far from the road-meeting they came on the huge hulk of a tree: it 
+was still alive and had leaves on the small branches that it had put out 
+round the broken stumps of its long-fallen limbs; but it was hollow, and 
+could be entered by a great crack on the side away from the road. The 
+hobbits crept inside, and sat there upon a floor of old leaves and decayed 
+wood. They rested and had a light meal, talking quietly and listening from 
+time to time. 
+
+Twilight was about them as they crept back to the lane. The West wind 
+was sighing in the branches. Leaves were whispering. Soon the road began to 
+fall gently but steadily into the dusk. A star came out above the trees in 
+the darkening East before them. They went abreast and in step, to keep up 
+their spirits. After a time, as the stars grew thicker and brighter, the 
+feeling of disquiet left them, and they no longer listened for the sound of 
+hoofs. They began to hum softly, as hobbits have a way of doing as they walk 
+along, especially when they are drawing near to home at night. With most 
+hobbits it is a supper-song or a bed-song; but these hobbits hummed a 
+walking-song (though not, of course, without any mention of supper and bed). 
+Bilbo Baggins had made the words, to a tune that was as old as the hills, 
+and taught it to Frodo as they walked in the lanes of the Water -valley and 
+talked about Adventure. 
+
+Upon the hearth the fire is red, 
+
+Beneath the roof there is a bed; 
+
+But not yet weary are our feet, 
+
+Still round the corner we may meet 
+A sudden tree or standing stone 
+That none have seen but we alone. 
+
+Tree and flower and leaf and grass, 
+
+Let them pass! Let them pass! 
+
+Hill and water under sky, 
+
+Pass them by! Pass them by! 
+
+
+
+Still round the corner there may wait 
+A new road or a secret gate, 
+
+
+
+
+And though we pass them by today, 
+
+Tomorrow we may come this way 
+And take the hidden paths that run 
+Towards the Moon or to the Sun. 
+
+Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, 
+
+Let them go! Let them go! 
+
+Sand and stone and pool and dell, 
+
+Fare you well! Fare you well! 
+
+Home is behind, the world ahead, 
+
+And there are many paths to tread 
+Through shadows to the edge of night, 
+
+Until the stars are all alight. 
+
+Then world behind and home ahead, 
+
+We'll wander back to home and bed. 
+
+Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, 
+
+Away shall fade! Away shall fade! 
+
+Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, 
+
+And then to bed! And then to bed! 
+
+The song ended. 'And now to bed! And now to bed!' sang Pippin in a high 
+voice. 
+
+'Hush!' said Frodo. 'I think I hear hoofs again.' 
+
+They slopped suddenly and stood as silent as tree-shadows, listening. 
+
+There was a sound of hoofs in the lane, some way behind, but coming slow and 
+clear down the wind. Quickly and quietly they slipped off the path, and ran 
+into the deeper shade under the oak-trees. 
+
+'Don't let us go too far!' said Frodo. 'I don't want to be seen, but I 
+want to see if it is another Black Rider.' 
+
+'Very well!' said Pippin. 'But don't forget the sniffing!' 
+
+The hoofs drew nearer. They had no time to find any hiding-place better 
+than the general darkness under the trees; Sam and Pippin crouched behind a 
+large tree-bole, while Frodo crept back a few yards towards the lane. It 
+showed grey and pale, a line of fading light through the wood. Above it the 
+stars were thick in the dim sky, but there was no moon. 
+
+The sound of hoofs stopped. As Frodo watched he saw something dark pass 
+across the lighter space between two trees, and then halt. It looked like 
+the black shade of a horse led by a smaller black shadow. The black shadow 
+
+
+
+
+stood close to the point where they had left the path, and it swayed from 
+side to side. Frodo thought he heard the sound of snuffling. The shadow bent 
+to the ground, and then began to crawl towards him. 
+
+Once more the desire to slip on the Ring came over Frodo; but this time 
+it was stronger than before. So strong that, almost before he realized what 
+he was doing, his hand was groping in his pocket. But at that moment there 
+came a sound like mingled song and laughter. Clear voices rose and fell in 
+the starlit air. The black shadow straightened up and retreated. It climbed 
+on to the shadowy horse and seemed to vanish across the lane into the 
+darkness on the other side. Frodo breathed again. 
+
+'Elves!' exclaimed Sam in a hoarse whisper. 'Elves, sir!' He would have 
+burst out of the trees and dashed off towards the voices, if they had not 
+pulled him back. 
+
+'Yes, it is Elves,' said Frodo. 'One can meet them sometimes in the 
+Woody End. They don't live in the Shire, but they wander into it in Spring 
+and Autumn, out of their own lands away beyond the Tower Hills. I am 
+thankful that they do! You did not see, but that Black Rider stopped just 
+here and was actually crawling towards us when the song began. As soon as he 
+heard the voices he slipped away.' 
+
+'What about the Elves?' said Sam, too excited to trouble about the 
+rider. 'Can't we go and see them?' 
+
+'Listen! They are coming this way,' said Frodo. 'We have only to wait.' 
+
+The singing drew nearer. One clear voice rose now above the others. It was 
+singing in the fair elven-tongue, of which Frodo knew only a little, and the 
+others knew nothing. Yet the sound blending with the melody seemed to shape 
+itself in their thought into words which they only partly understood. This 
+was the song as Frodo heard it: 
+
+
+
+Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear! 
+O Queen beyond the Western Seas! 
+
+O Light to us that wander here 
+
+
+
+Amid the world of woven trees! 
+
+
+
+Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! 
+
+Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath! 
+Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee 
+In a far land beyond the Sea. 
+
+
+
+
+O stars that in the Sunless Year 
+
+With shining hand by her were sawn, 
+
+In windy fields now bright and clear 
+
+We see your silver blossom blown! 
+
+O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! 
+
+We still remember, we who dwell 
+
+In this far land beneath the trees, 
+
+Thy starlight on the Western Seas. 
+
+The song ended. These are High Elves! They spoke the name of 
+Elbereth!' said Frodo in amazement, 'Few of that fairest folk are ever seen 
+in the Shire. Not many now remain in Middle-earth, east of the Great Sea. 
+This is indeed a strange chance!' 
+
+The hobbits sat in shadow by the wayside. Before long the Elves came 
+down the lane towards the valley. They passed slowly, and the hobbits could 
+see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes. They bore no 
+lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the 
+rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet. They were 
+now silent, and as the last Elf passed he turned and looked towards the 
+hobbits and laughed. 
+
+'Hail, Frodo!' he cried. 'You are abroad late. Or are you perhaps 
+lost?' Then he called aloud to the others, and all the company stopped and 
+gathered round. 
+
+'This is indeed wonderful!' they said. 'Three hobbits in a wood at 
+night! We have not seen such a thing since Bilbo went away. What is the 
+meaning of it?' 
+
+'The meaning of it, fair people,' said Frodo, 'is simply that we seem 
+to be going the same way as you are. I like walking under the stars. But I 
+would welcome your company.' 
+
+'But we have no need of other company, and hobbits are so dull,' they 
+laughed. 'And how do you know that we go the same way as you, for you do 
+not 
+
+know whither we are going?' 
+
+'And how do you know my name?' asked Frodo in return. 
+
+'We know many things,' they said. 'We have seen you often before with 
+Bilbo, though you may not have seen us.' 
+
+'Who are you, and who is your lord?' asked Frodo. 
+
+
+
+
+'I am Gildor,' answered their leader, the Elf who had first hailed him. 
+
+'Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod. We are Exiles, and most of our 
+kindred have long ago departed and we too are now only tarrying here a 
+while, ere we return over the Great Sea. But some of our kinsfolk dwell 
+still in peace in Rivendell. Come now, Frodo, tell us what you are doing? 
+
+For we see that there is some shadow of fear upon you.' 
+
+'O Wise People!' interrupted Pippin eagerly. ’Tell us about the Black 
+Riders!' 
+
+'Black Riders?' they said in low voices. 'Why do you ask about Black 
+Riders?' 
+
+'Because two Black Riders have overtaken us today, or one has done so 
+twice,' said Pippin; 'only a little while ago he slipped away as you drew 
+near.' 
+
+The Elves did not answer at once, but spoke together softly in their 
+own tongue. At length Gildor turned to the hobbits. 'We will not speak of 
+this here,' he said. 'We think you had best come now with us. It is not our 
+custom, but for this time we will lake you on our road, and you shall lodge 
+with us tonight, if you will.' 
+
+'O Fair Folk! This is good fortune beyond my hope,' said Pippin. Sam 
+was speechless. 'I thank you indeed, Gildor Inglorion,' said Frodo bowing. 
+'Elen snla l®menn' omentielvo, a star shines on the hour of our meeting,' he 
+added in the high-elven speech. 
+
+'Be careful, friends!' cried Gildor laughing. 'Speak no secrets! Here 
+is a scholar in the Ancient Tongue. Bilbo was a good master. Hail, 
+Elf-friend!' he said, bowing to Frodo. 'Come now with your friends and join 
+our company! You had best walk in the middle so that you may not stray. You 
+may be weary before we halt.' 
+
+'Why? Where are you going?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'For tonight we go to the woods on the hills above Woodhall. It is some 
+miles, but you shall have rest at the end of it, and it will shorten your 
+journey tomorrow.' 
+
+They now marched on again in silence, and passed like shadows and faint 
+lights: for Elves (even more than hobbits) could walk when they wished 
+without sound or footfall. Pippin soon began to feel sleepy, and staggered 
+once or twice; but each time a tall Elf at his side put out his arm and 
+saved him from a fall. Sam walked along at Frodo's side, as if in a dream, 
+with an expression on his face half of fear and half of astonished joy. 
+
+
+
+
+The woods on either side became denser; the trees were now younger and 
+thicker; and as the lane went lower, running down into a fold of the hills, 
+there were many deep brakes of hazel on the rising slopes at either hand. At 
+last the Elves turned aside from the path. A green ride lay almost unseen 
+through the thickets on the right; and this they followed as it wound away 
+back up the wooded slopes on to the top of a shoulder of the hills that 
+stood out into the lower land of the river -valley. Suddenly they came out of 
+the shadow of the trees, and before them lay a wide space of grass, grey 
+under the night. On three sides the woods pressed upon it; but eastward the 
+ground fell steeply and the tops of the dark trees, growing at the bottom of 
+the slope, were below their feet. Beyond, the low lands lay dim and flat 
+under the stars. Nearer at hand a few lights twinkled in the village of 
+Woodhall. 
+
+The Elves sat on the grass and spoke together in soft voices; they 
+seemed to take no further notice of the hobbits. Frodo and his companions 
+wrapped themselves in cloaks and blankets, and drowsiness stole over them. 
+The night grew on, and the lights in the valley went out. Pippin fell 
+asleep, pillowed on a green hillock. 
+
+Away high in the East swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly 
+above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some 
+shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, 
+as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, 
+Menelvagor with his shining belt. The Elves all burst into song. Suddenly 
+under the trees a fire sprang up with a red light. 
+
+'Come!' the Elves called to the hobbits. 'Come! Now is the time for 
+speech and merriment!' 
+
+Pippin sat up and rubbed his eyes. He shivered. 'There is a fire in the 
+hall, and food for hungry guests,' said an Elf standing before him. 
+
+At the south end of the greensward there was an opening. There the 
+green floor ran on into the wood, and formed a wide space like a hall, 
+roofed by the boughs of trees. Their great trunks ran like pillars down each 
+side. In the middle there was a wood-fire blazing, and upon the tree-pillars 
+torches with lights of gold and silver were burning steadily. The Elves sat 
+round the fire upon the grass or upon the sawn rings of old trunks. Some 
+went to and fro bearing cups and pouring drink; others brought food on 
+heaped plates and dishes. 
+
+'This is poor fare,' they said to the hobbits; 'for we are lodging in 
+
+
+
+
+the greenwood far from our halls. If ever you are our guests at home, we 
+will treat you better.' 
+
+'It seems to me good enough for a birthday-party,' said Frodo. 
+
+Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for his mind 
+was filled with the light upon the elf-faces, and the sound of voices so 
+various and so beautiful that he felt in a waking dream. But he remembered 
+that there was bread, surpassing the savour of a fair white loaf to one who 
+is starving; and fruits sweet as wildberries and richer than the tended 
+fruits of gardens; he drained a cup that was filled with a fragrant draught, 
+cool as a clear fountain, golden as a summer afternoon. 
+
+Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to himself, what 
+he felt or thought that night, though it remained in his memory as one of 
+the chief events of his life. The nearest he ever got was to say: 'Well, 
+sir, if I could grow apples like that, I would call myself a gardener. But 
+it was the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean.' 
+
+Frodo sat, eating, drinking, and talking with delight; but his mind was 
+chiefly on the words spoken. He knew a little of the elf-speech and listened 
+eagerly. Now and again he spoke to those that served him and thanked them in 
+their own language. They smiled at him and said laughing: 'Here is a jewel 
+among hobbits!' 
+
+After a while Pippin fell fast asleep, and was lifted up and borne away 
+to a bower under the trees; there he was laid upon a soft bed and slept the 
+rest of the night away. Sam refused to leave his master. When Pippin had 
+gone, he came and sat curled up at Frodo's feet, where at last he nodded and 
+closed his eyes. Frodo remained long awake, talking with Gildor. 
+
+They spoke of many things, old and new, and Frodo questioned Gildor 
+much about happenings in the wide world outside the Shire. The tidings were 
+mostly sad and ominous: of gathering darkness, the wars of Men, and the 
+flight of the Elves. At last Frodo asked the question that was nearest to 
+his heart: 
+
+'Tell me, Gildor, have you ever seen Bilbo since he left us?' 
+
+Gildor smiled. 'Yes,' he answered. 'Twice. He said farewell to us on 
+this very spot. But I saw him once again, far from here.' He would say no 
+more about Bilbo, and Frodo fell silent. 
+
+'You do not ask me or tell me much that concerns yourself, Frodo,' said 
+Gildor. 'But I already know a little, and I can read more in your face and 
+in the thought behind your questions. You are leaving the Shire, and yet you 
+
+
+
+
+doubt that you will find what you seek, or accomplish what you intend, or 
+that you will ever return. Is not that so?' 
+
+'It is,' said Frodo; 'but I thought my going was a secret known only to 
+Gandalf and my faithful Sam.' He looked down at Sam, who was snoring 
+gently. 
+
+'The secret will not reach the Enemy from us,' said Gildor. 
+
+'The Enemy?' said Frodo. 'Then you know why I am leaving the Shire?' 
+
+'I do not know for what reason the Enemy is pursuing you,' answered 
+Gildor; 'but I perceive that he is - strange indeed though that seems to me. 
+
+And I warn you that peril is now both before you and behind you, and upon 
+either side.' 
+
+'You mean the Riders? I feared that they were servants of the Enemy. 
+What are the Black Riders?' 
+
+'Has Gandalf told you nothing?' 
+
+'Nothing about such creatures.' 
+
+'Then I think it is not for me to say more - lest terror should keep 
+you from your journey. For it seems to me that you have set out only just in 
+time, if indeed you are in time. You must now make haste, and neither stay 
+nor turn back; for the Shire is no longer any protection to you.' 
+
+'I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your 
+hints and warnings,' exclaimed Frodo. 'I knew that danger lay ahead, of 
+course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can't a hobbit 
+walk from the Water to the River in peace?' 
+
+'But it is not your own Shire,' said Gildor. 'Others dwelt here before 
+hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The 
+wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for 
+ever fence it out.' 
+
+'I know - and yet it has always seemed so safe and familiar. What can I 
+do now? My plan was to leave the Shire secretly, and make my way to 
+Rivendell; but now my footsteps are dogged, before ever I get to Buckland.' 
+
+'I think you should still follow that plan,' said Gildor. 'I do not 
+think the Road will prove too hard for your courage. But if you desire 
+clearer counsel, you should ask Gandalf. I do not know the reason for your 
+flight, and therefore I do not know by what means your pursuers will assail 
+you. These things Gandalf must know. I suppose that you will see him before 
+you leave the Shire?' 
+
+'I hope so. But that is another thing that makes me anxious. I have 
+
+
+
+
+been expecting Gandalf for many days. He was to have come to Hobbiton at 
+the 
+
+latest two nights ago; but he has never appeared. Now I am wondering what 
+can have happened. Should I wait for him?’ 
+
+Gildor was silent for a moment. 'I do not like this news,' he said at 
+last. 'That Gandalf should be late, does not bode well. But it is said: Do 
+not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to 
+anger. The choice is yours: to go or wait.' 
+
+'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for 
+counsel, for they will say both no and yes. ' 
+
+'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, 
+for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all 
+courses may run ill. But what would you? You have not told me all concerning 
+yourself; and how then shall I choose better than you? But if you demand 
+advice, I will for friendship's sake give it. I think you should now go at 
+once, without delay; and if Gandalf does not come before you set out, then I 
+also advise this: do not go alone. Take such friends as are trusty and 
+willing. Now you should be grateful, for I do not give this counsel gladly. 
+
+The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little 
+concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth. 
+
+Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose. In this meeting there 
+may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to 
+say too much.' 
+
+'I am deeply grateful,' said Frodo; 'but I wish you would tell me 
+plainly what the Black Riders are. If I take your advice I may not see 
+Gandalf for a long while, and I ought to know what is the danger that 
+pursues me.' 
+
+'Is it not enough to know that they are servants of the Enemy?' 
+answered Gildor. 'Flee them! Speak no words to them! They are deadly. Ask no 
+more of me! But my heart forbodes that, ere all is ended, you, Frodo son of 
+Drogo, will know more of these fell things than Gildor Inglorion. May 
+Elbereth protect you!' 
+
+'But where shall I find courage?' asked Frodo. 'That is what I chiefly 
+need.' 
+
+'Courage is found in unlikely places,' said Gildor. 'Be of good hope! 
+
+Sleep now! In the morning we shall have gone; but we will send our messages 
+
+
+
+
+through the lands. The Wandering Companies shall know of your journey, 
+and 
+
+those that have power for good shall be on the watch. I name you Elf-friend; 
+and may the stars shine upon the end of your road! Seldom have we had such 
+delight in strangers, and it is fair to hear words of the Ancient Speech 
+from the lips of other wanderers in the world.' 
+
+Frodo felt sleep coming upon him, even as Gildor finished speaking. 'I 
+will sleep now,' he said; and the Elf led him to a bower beside Pippin, and 
+he threw himself upon a bed and fell at once into a dreamless slumber. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4 . A Short Cut to Mushrooms 
+
+
+
+In the morning Frodo woke refreshed. He was lying in a bower made by a 
+living tree with branches laced and drooping to the ground; his bed was of 
+fern and grass, deep and soft and strangely fragrant. The sun was shining 
+through the fluttering leaves, which were still green upon the tree. He 
+jumped up and went out. 
+
+Sam was sitting on the grass near the edge of the wood. Pippin was 
+standing studying the sky and weather. There was no sign of the Elves. 
+
+'They have left us fruit and drink, and bread,' said Pippin. 'Come and 
+have your breakfast. The bread tastes almost as good as it did last night. I 
+did not want to leave you any, but Sam insisted.' 
+
+Frodo sat down beside Sam and began to eat. 'What is the plan for 
+today?' asked Pippin. 
+
+'To walk to Bucklebury as quickly as possible,' answered Frodo, and 
+gave his attention to the food. 
+
+'Do you think we shall see anything of those Riders?' asked Pippin 
+cheerfully. Under the morning sun the prospect of seeing a whole troop of 
+them did not seem very alarming to him. 
+
+'Yes, probably,' said Frodo, not liking the reminder. 'But I hope to 
+get across the river without their seeing us.' 
+
+'Did you find out anything about them from Gildor?' 
+
+'Not much - only hints and riddles,' said Frodo evasively. 'Did you ask 
+about the sniffing?' 
+
+'We didn't discuss it,' said Frodo with his mouth full. 
+
+'You should have. I am sure it is very important.' 
+
+'In that case I am sure Gildor would have refused to explain it,' said 
+Frodo sharply. 'And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don't want to answer 
+a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think!' 
+
+'Good heavens!' said Pippin. 'At breakfast?' He walked away towards the 
+edge of the green. 
+
+From Frodo' s mind the bright morning - treacherously bright, he thought 
+- had not banished the fear of pursuit; and he pondered the words of Gildor. 
+The merry voice of Pippin came to him. He was running on the green turf and 
+singing. 
+
+
+
+
+'No! I could not!' he said to himself. 'It is one thing to take my 
+young friends walking over the Shire with me, until we are hungry and weary, 
+and food and bed are sweet. To take them into exile, where hunger and 
+weariness may have no cure, is quite another - even if they are willing to 
+come. The inheritance is mine alone. I don't think I ought even to take 
+Sam.' He looked at Sam Gamgee, and discovered that Sam was watching him. 
+
+'Well, Sam!' he said. 'What about it? I am leaving the Shire as soon as 
+ever I can - in fact I have made up my mind now not even to wait a day at 
+Crickhollow, if it can be helped.' 
+
+'Very good, sir!' 
+
+'You still mean to come with me?' 
+
+'I do.' 
+
+'It is going to be very dangerous, Sam. 'It is already dangerous. Most 
+likely neither of us will come back.' 
+
+'If you don't come back, sir, then I shan't, that's certain,' said Sam. 
+
+'Don't you leave him! they said to me. Leave him! I said. I never mean to. I 
+am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon, and if any of those Black 
+Rulers try to stop him, they'll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They 
+laughed.' 
+
+'Who are they, and what are you talking about?' 
+
+'The Elves, sir. We had some talk last night; and they seemed to know 
+you were going away, so I didn't see the use of denying it. Wonderful folk, 
+Elves, sir! Wonderful!' 
+
+'They are,' said Frodo. 'Do you like them still, now you have had a 
+closer view?' 
+
+'They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak,' answered 
+Sam slowly. 'It don't seem to matter what I think about them. They are quite 
+different from what I expected - so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it 
+were.' 
+
+Frodo looked at Sam rather startled, half expecting to see some outward 
+sign of the odd change that seemed to have come over him. It did not sound 
+like the voice of the old Sam Gamgee that he thought he knew. But it looked 
+like the old Sam Gamgee sitting there, except that his face was unusually 
+thoughtful. 
+
+'Do you feel any need to leave the Shire now - now that your wish to 
+see them has come true already?' he asked. 
+
+'Yes, sir. I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel 
+
+
+
+
+different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to 
+take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't 
+to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - 1 don't rightly 
+know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies 
+ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.' 
+
+'I don't altogether. But I understand that Gandalf chose me a good 
+companion. I am content. We will go together.' 
+
+Frodo finished his breakfast in silence. Then standing up he looked 
+over the land ahead, and called to Pippin. 
+
+'All ready to start?' he said as Pippin ran up. 'We must be getting off 
+at once. We slept late; and there are a good many miles to go.' 
+
+'You slept late, you mean,' said Pippin. 'I was up long before; and we 
+are only waiting for you to finish eating and thinking.' 
+
+'I have finished both now. And I am going to make for Bucklebury Ferry 
+as quickly as possible. I am not going out of the way, back to the road we 
+left last night: I am going to cut straight across country from here.' 
+
+'Then you are going to fly,' said Pippin. 'You won't cut straight on 
+foot anywhere in this country.' 
+
+'We can cut straighter than the road anyway,' answered Frodo. 'The 
+Ferry is east from Woodhall; but the hard road curves away to the left -you 
+can see a bend of it away north over there. It goes round the north end of 
+the Marish so as to strike the causeway from the Bridge above Stock. But 
+that is miles out of the way. We could save a quarter of the distance if we 
+made a line for the Ferry from where we stand.' 
+
+'Short cuts make long delays, ' argued Pippin. 'The country is rough 
+round here, and there are bogs and all kinds of difficulties down in the 
+Marish -I know the land in these parts. And if you are worrying about Black 
+Riders, I can't see that it is any worse meeting them on a road than in a 
+wood or a field.' 
+
+'It is less easy to find people in the woods and fields,' answered 
+Frodo. 'And if you are supposed to be on the road, there is some chance that 
+you will be looked for on the road and not off it.' 
+
+'All right!' said Pippin. 'I will follow you into every bog and ditch. 
+
+But it is hard! I had counted on passing the Golden Perch at Stock before 
+sundown. The best beer in the Eastfarthing, or used to be: it is a long time 
+since I tasted it.' 
+
+'That settles it!' said Frodo. 'Short cuts make delays, but inns make 
+
+
+
+
+longer ones. At all costs we must keep you away from the Golden Perch. We 
+want to get to Bucklebury before dark. What do you say, Sam?' 
+
+'I will go along with you, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam (in spite of private 
+misgiving and a deep regret for the best beer in the Eastfarthing). 
+
+Then if we are going to toil through bog and briar, let's go now!' 
+said Pippin. 
+
+It was already nearly as hot as it had been the day before; but clouds 
+were beginning to come up from the West. It looked likely to turn to rain. 
+
+The hobbits scrambled down a steep green bank and plunged into the thick 
+trees below. Their course had been chosen to leave Woodhall to their left, 
+and to cut slanting through the woods that clustered along the eastern side 
+of the hills, until they reached the flats beyond. Then they could make 
+straight for the Ferry over country that was open, except for a few ditches 
+and fences. Frodo reckoned they had eighteen miles to go in a straight line. 
+
+He soon found that the thicket was closer and more tangled than it had 
+appeared. There were no paths in the undergrowth, and they did not get on 
+very fast. When they had struggled to the bottom of the bank, they found a 
+stream running down from the hills behind in a deeply dug bed with steep 
+slippery sides overhung with brambles. Most inconveniently it cut across the 
+line they had chosen. They could not jump over it, nor indeed get across it 
+at all without getting wet, scratched, and muddy. They halted, wondering 
+what to do. 'First check!' said Pippin, smiling grimly. 
+
+Sam Gamgee looked back. Through an opening in the trees he caught a 
+glimpse of the top of the green bank from which they had climbed down. 
+
+'Look!' he said, clutching Frodo by the arm. They all looked, and on 
+the edge high above them they saw against the sky a horse standing. Beside 
+it stooped a black figure. 
+
+They at once gave up any idea of going back. Frodo led the way, and 
+plunged quickly into the thick bushes beside the stream. 'Whew!' he said to 
+Pippin. 'We were both right! The short cut has gone crooked already; but we 
+got under cover only just in time. You've got sharp ears, Sam: can you hear 
+anything coming?' 
+
+They stood still, almost holding their breath as they listened; but 
+there was no sound of pursuit. 'I don't fancy he would try bringing his 
+horse down that bank,' said Sam. 'But I guess he knows we came down it. We 
+had better be going on.' 
+
+Going on was not altogether easy. They had packs to carry, and the 
+
+
+
+
+bushes and brambles were reluctant to let them through. They were cut off 
+from the wind by the ridge behind, and the air was still and stuffy. When 
+they forced their way at last into more open ground, they were hot and tired 
+and very scratched, and they were also no longer certain of the direction in 
+which they were going. The banks of the stream sank, as it reached the 
+levels and became broader and shallower, wandering off towards the Marish 
+and the River. 
+
+’Why, this is the Stock-brook!' said Pippin. 'If we are going to try 
+and get back on to our course, we must cross at once and bear right.' 
+
+They waded the stream, and hurried over a wide open space, rush-grown 
+and treeless, on the further side. Beyond that they came again to a belt of 
+trees: tall oaks, for the most part, with here and there an elm tree or an 
+ash. The ground was fairly level, and there was little undergrowth; but the 
+trees were loo close for them to see far ahead. The leaves blew upwards in 
+sudden gusts of wind, and spots of rain began to fall from the overcast sky. 
+Then the wind died away and the rain came streaming down. They trudged 
+along 
+
+as fast as they could, over patches of grass, and through thick drifts of 
+old leaves; and all about them the rain pattered and trickled. They did not 
+talk, but kept glancing back, and from side to side. 
+
+After half an hour Pippin said: 'I hope we have not turned too much 
+towards the south, and are not walking longwise through this wood! It is not 
+a very broad belt —I should have said no more than a mile at the widest - 
+and we ought to have been through it by now.' 
+
+'It is no good our starting to go in zig-zags,' said Frodo. 'That won't 
+mend matters. Let us keep on as we are going! I am not sure that I want to 
+come out into the open yet.' 
+
+They went on for perhaps another couple of miles. Then the sun gleamed 
+out of ragged clouds again and the rain lessened. It was now past mid-day, 
+and they felt it was high time for lunch. They halted under an elm tree: its 
+leaves though fast turning yellow were still thick, and the ground at its 
+feel was fairly dry and sheltered. When they came to make their meal, they 
+found that the Elves had filled their bottles with a clear drink, pale 
+golden in colour: it had the scent of a honey made of many flowers, and was 
+wonderfully refreshing. Very soon they were laughing, and snapping their 
+fingers at rain, and at Black Riders. The last few miles, they felt, would 
+soon be behind them. 
+
+
+
+
+Frodo propped his back against the tree-trunk, and closed his eyes. Sam 
+and Pippin sat near, and they began to hum, and then to sing softly: 
+
+Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go 
+
+To heal my heart and drown my woe. 
+
+Rain may fall and wind may blow, 
+
+And many miles be still to go, 
+
+But under a tall tree I will lie, 
+
+And let the clouds go sailing by. 
+
+Ho! Ho! Ho! they began again louder. They stopped short suddenly. Frodo 
+sprang to his feet. A long-drawn wail came down the wind, like the cry of 
+some evil and lonely creature. It rose and fell, and ended on a high 
+piercing note. Even as they sat and stood, as if suddenly frozen, it was 
+answered by another cry, fainter and further off, but no less chilling to 
+the blood. There was then a silence, broken only by the sound of the wind in 
+the leaves. 
+
+'And what do you think that was?' Pippin asked at last, trying to speak 
+lightly, but quavering a little. 'If it was a bird, it was one that I never 
+heard in the Shire before.' 
+
+'It was not bird or beast,' said Frodo. 'It was a call, or a signal — 
+there were words in that cry, though I could not catch them. But no hobbit 
+has such a voice.' 
+
+No more was said about it. They were all thinking of the Riders, but no 
+one spoke of them. They were now reluctant either to stay or go on; but 
+sooner or later they had got to get across the open country to the Ferry, 
+and it was best to go sooner and in daylight. In a few moments they had 
+shouldered their packs again and were off. 
+
+Before long the wood came to a sudden end. Wide grass-lands stretched 
+before them. They now saw that they had, in fact, turned too much to the 
+south. Away over the flats they could glimpse the low hill of Bucklebury 
+across the River, but it was now to their left. Creeping cautiously out from 
+the edge of the trees, they set off across the open as quickly as they 
+could. 
+
+At first they felt afraid, away from the shelter of the wood. Far back 
+behind them stood the high place where they had breakfasted. Frodo half 
+expected to see the small distant figure of a horseman on the ridge dark 
+against the sky; but there was no sign of one. The sun escaping from the 
+breaking clouds, as it sank towards the hills they had left, was now shining 
+
+
+
+
+brightly again. Their fear left them, though they still felt uneasy. But the 
+land became steadily more tame and well-ordered. Soon they came into 
+well-tended fields and meadows: there were hedges and gates and dikes for 
+drainage. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful, just an ordinary corner of 
+the Shire. Their spirits rose with every step. The line of the River grew 
+nearer; and the Black Riders began to seem like phantoms of the woods now 
+left far behind. 
+
+They passed along the edge of a huge turnip-field, and came to a stout 
+gate. Beyond it a rutted lane ran between low well-laid hedges towards a 
+distant clump of trees. Pippin stopped. 
+
+'I know these fields and this gate!' he said. 'This is Bamfurlong, old 
+Farmer Maggot's land. That's his farm away there in the trees.' 
+
+'One trouble after another!' said Frodo, looking nearly as much alarmed 
+as if Pippin had declared the lane was the slot leading to a dragon's den. 
+
+The others looked at him in surprise. 
+
+'What's wrong with old Maggot?' asked Pippin. 'He's a good friend to 
+all the Brandy bucks. Of course he's a terror to trespassers, and keeps 
+ferocious dogs - but after all, folk down here are near the border and have 
+to be more on their guard.' 
+
+'I know,' said Frodo. 'But all the same,' he added with a shamefaced 
+laugh, 'I am terrified of him and his dogs. I have avoided his farm for 
+years and years. He caught me several times trespassing after mushrooms, 
+when I was a youngster at Brandy Hall. On the last occasion he beat me, and 
+then took me and showed me to his dogs. "See, lads," he said, "next time 
+this young varmint sets foot on my land, you can eat him. Now see him off!" 
+They chased me all the way to the Ferry. I have never got over the fright - 
+though I daresay the beasts knew their business and would not really have 
+touched me.' 
+
+Pippin laughed. 'Well, it's time you made it up. Especially if you are 
+coming back to live in Buckland. Old Maggot is really a stout fellow - if 
+you leave his mushrooms alone. Fet's get into the lane and then we shan't be 
+trespassing. If we meet him, I'll do the talking. He is a friend of Merry's, 
+and I used to come here with him a good deal at one time.' 
+
+They went along the lane, until they saw the thatched roofs of a large 
+house and farm-buildings peeping out among the trees ahead. The Maggots, 
+and 
+
+the Puddifoots of Stock, and most of the inhabitants of the Marish, were 
+
+
+
+
+house-dwellers; and this farm was stoutly built of brick and had a high wall 
+all round it. There was a wide wooden gate opening out of the wall into the 
+lane. 
+
+Suddenly as they drew nearer a terrific baying and barking broke out, 
+and a loud voice was heard shouting: ’Grip! Fang! Wolf! Come on, lads!' 
+
+Frodo and Sam stopped dead, but Pippin walked on a few paces. The gate 
+opened and three huge dogs came pelting out into the lane, and dashed 
+towards the travellers, barking fiercely. They took no notice of Pippin; but 
+Sam shrank against the wall, while two wolvish-looking dogs sniffed at him 
+suspiciously, and snarled if he moved. The largest and most ferocious of the 
+three halted in front of Frodo, bristling and growling. 
+
+Through the gate there now appeared a broad thick -set hobbit with a 
+round red face. 'Hallo! Hallo! And who may you be, and what may you be 
+wanting?' he asked. 
+
+'Good afternoon, Mr. Maggot!' said Pippin. 
+
+The farmer looked at him closely. 'Well, if it isn't Master Pippin - 
+Mr. Peregrin Took, I should say!' he cried, changing from a scowl to a grin. 
+'It's a long time since I saw you round here. It's lucky for you that I know 
+you. I was just going out to set my dogs on any strangers. There are some 
+funny things going on today. Of course, we do get queer folk wandering in 
+these parts at times. Too near the River,' he said, shaking his head. 'But 
+this fellow was the most outlandish I have ever set eyes on. He won't cross 
+my land without leave a second time, not if I can stop it.' 
+
+'What fellow do you mean?' asked Pippin. 
+
+'Then you haven't seen him?' said the farmer. 'He went up the lane 
+towards the causeway not a long while back. He was a funny customer and 
+asking funny questions. But perhaps you'll come along inside, and we'll pass 
+the news more comfortable. I've a drop of good ale on tap, if you and your 
+friends are willing, Mr. Took.' 
+
+It seemed plain that the farmer would tell them more, if allowed to do 
+it in his own time and fashion, so they all accepted the invitation. 'What 
+about the dogs?' asked Frodo anxiously. 
+
+The farmer laughed. 'They won't harm you - not unless I tell 'em to. 
+
+Here, Grip! Fang! Heel!' he cried. 'Heel, Wolf!' To the relief of Frodo and 
+Sam, the dogs walked away and let them go free. 
+
+Pippin introduced the other two to the farmer. 'Mr. Frodo Baggins,' he 
+said. 'You may not remember him, but he used to live at Brandy Hall.' At the 
+
+
+
+
+name Baggins the farmer started, and gave Frodo a sharp glance. For a moment 
+Frodo thought that the memory of stolen mushrooms had been aroused, and 
+that 
+
+the dogs would be told to see him off. But Farmer Maggot took him by the 
+arm. 
+
+'Well, if that isn't queerer than ever?' he exclaimed. 'Mr. Baggins is 
+it? Come inside! We must have a talk.' 
+
+They went into the farmer's kitchen, and sat by the wide fire-place. 
+
+Mrs. Maggot brought out beer in a huge jug, and filled four large mugs. It 
+was a good brew, and Pippin found himself more than compensated for 
+missing 
+
+the Golden Perch. Sam sipped his beer suspiciously. He had a natural 
+mistrust of the inhabitants of other parts of the Shire; and also he was not 
+disposed to be quick friends with anyone who had beaten his master, however 
+long ago. 
+
+After a few remarks about the weather and the agricultural prospects 
+(which were no worse than usual), Farmer Maggot put down his mug and 
+looked 
+
+at them all in turn. 
+
+'Now, Mr. Peregrin,' he said, 'where might you be coming from, and 
+where might you be going to? Were you coming to visit' me? For, if so, you 
+had gone past my gate without my seeing you.' 
+
+'Well, no,' answered Pippin. 'To tell you the truth, since you have 
+guessed it, we got into the lane from the other end: we had come over your 
+fields. But that was quite by accident. We lost our way in the woods, back 
+near Woodhall, trying to take a short cut to the Ferry.' 
+
+'If you were in a hurry, the road would have served you better,' said 
+the farmer. 'But I wasn't worrying about that. You have leave to walk over 
+my land, if you have a mind, Mr. Peregrin. And you, Mr. Baggins - though I 
+daresay you still like mushrooms.' He laughed. 'Ah yes, I recognized the 
+name. I recollect the time when young Frodo Baggins was one of the worst 
+young rascals of Buckland. But it wasn't mushrooms I was thinking of. I had 
+just heard the name Baggins before you turned up. What do you think that 
+funny customer asked me?' 
+
+They waited anxiously for him to go on. 'Well,' the farmer continued, 
+approaching his point with slow relish, 'he came riding on a big black horse 
+in at the gate, which happened to be open, and right up to my door. All 
+
+
+
+
+black he was himself, too, and cloaked and hooded up, as if he did not want 
+to be known. "Now what in the Shire can he want?" I thought to myself. We 
+don't see many of the Big Folk over the border; and anyway I had never heard 
+of any like this black fellow. 
+
+' "Good-day to you!" I says, going out to him. "This lane don’t lead 
+anywhere, and wherever you may be going, your quickest way will be back to 
+the road." I didn't like the looks of him; and when Grip came out, he took 
+one sniff and let out a yelp as if he had been slung: he put down his tail 
+and bolted off howling. The black fellow sat quite still. 
+
+' "I come from yonder," he said, slow and stiff-like, pointing back 
+west, over my fields, if you please. "Have you seen Baggins? " he asked in a 
+queer voice, and bent down towards me. I could not see any face, for his 
+hood fell down so low; and I felt a sort of shiver down my back. But I did 
+not see why he should come riding over my land so bold. 
+
+' "Be off!" I said. "There are no Bagginses here. You're in the wrong 
+part of the Shire. You had better go back west to Hobbiton - but you can go 
+by road this time." 
+
+' "Baggins has left," he answered in a whisper. "He is coming. He is 
+not far away. I wish to find him. If he passes will you tell me? I will come 
+back with gold." 
+
+' "No you won't," I said. "You'll go back where you belong, double 
+quick. I give you one minute before I call all my dogs." 
+
+'He gave a sort of hiss. It might have been laughing, and it might not. 
+
+Then he spurred his great horse right at me, and I jumped out of the way 
+only just in time. I called the dogs, but he swung off, and rode through the 
+gate and up the lane towards the causeway like a bolt of thunder. What do 
+you think of that?' 
+
+Frodo sat for a moment looking at the fire, but his only thought was 
+how on earth would they reach the Ferry. 'I don't know what to think,' he 
+said at last. 
+
+'Then I'll tell you what to think,' said Maggot. 'You should never have 
+gone mixing yourself up with Hobbiton folk, Mr. Frodo. Folk are queer up 
+there.' Sam stirred in his chair, and looked at the farmer with an 
+unfriendly eye. 'But you were always a reckless lad. When I heard you had 
+left the Brandybucks and gone off to that old Mr. Bilbo, I said that you 
+were going to find trouble. Mark my words, this all comes of those strange 
+doings of Mr. Bilbo's. His money was got in some strange fashion in foreign 
+
+
+
+
+parts, they say. Maybe there is some that want to know what has become of 
+the gold and jewels that he buried in the hill of Hobbiton, as I hear?' 
+
+Frodo said nothing: the shrewd guesses of the farmer were rather 
+disconcerting. 
+
+'Well, Mr. Frodo,' Maggot went on, 'I'm glad that you've had the sense 
+to come back to Buckland. My advice is: stay there! And don't get mixed up 
+with these outlandish folk. You'll have friends in these parts. If any of 
+these black fellows come after you again, I'll deal with them. I'll say 
+you're dead, or have left the Shire, or anything you like. And that might be 
+true enough; for as like as not it is old Mr. Bilbo they want news of.' 
+
+'Maybe you're right,' said Frodo, avoiding the farmer's eye and staring 
+at the fire. 
+
+Maggot looked at him thoughtfully. 'Well, I see you have ideas of your 
+own,' he said. 'It is as plain as my nose that no accident brought you and 
+that rider here on the same afternoon; and maybe my news was no great news 
+to you, after all. I am not asking you to tell me anything you have a mind 
+to keep to yourself; but I see you are in some kind of trouble. Perhaps you 
+are thinking it won't be too easy to get to the Ferry without being caught?' 
+
+'I was thinking so,' said Frodo. But we have got to try and get there; 
+and it won't be done by sitting and thinking. Sol am afraid we must be 
+going. Thank you very much indeed for your kindness! I've been in terror of 
+you and your dogs for over thirty years, Farmer Maggot, though you may laugh 
+to hear it. It's a pity: for I've missed a good friend. And now I'm sorry to 
+leave so soon. But I'll come back, perhaps, one day - if I get a chance.' 
+
+'You'll be welcome when you come,' said Maggot. 'But now I've a notion. 
+It's near sundown already, and we are going to have our supper; for we 
+mostly go to bed soon after the Sun. If you and Mr. Peregrin and all could 
+stay and have a bite with us, we would be pleased!' 
+
+'And so should we!' said Frodo. 'But we must be going at once, I'm 
+afraid. Even now it will be dark before we can reach the Ferry.' 
+
+'Ah! but wait a minute! I was going to say: after a bit of supper, I'll 
+gel out a small waggon, and I'll drive you all to the Ferry. That will save 
+you a good step, and it might also save you trouble of another sort.' 
+
+Frodo now accepted the invitation gratefully, to the relief of Pippin 
+and Sam. The sun was already behind the western hills, and the light was 
+failing. Two of Maggot's sons and his three daughters came in, and a 
+generous supper was laid on the large table. The kitchen was lit with 
+
+
+
+
+candles and the fire was mended. Mrs. Maggot hustled in and out. One or two 
+other hobbits belonging to the farm-household came in. In a short while 
+fourteen sat down to eat. There was beer in plenty, and a mighty dish of 
+mushrooms and bacon, besides much other solid farmhouse fare. The dogs lay 
+by the fire and gnawed rinds and cracked bones. 
+
+When they had finished, the farmer and his sons went out with a lantern 
+and got the waggon ready. It was dark in the yard, when the guests came out. 
+They threw their packs on board and climbed in. The farmer sat in the 
+driving-seat, and whipped up his two stout ponies. His wife stood in the 
+light of the open door. 
+
+'You be careful of yourself. Maggot!' she called. 'Don't go arguing 
+with any foreigners, and come straight back!' 
+
+'I will!' said he, and drove out of the gate. There was now no breath 
+of wind stirring; the night was still and quiet, and a chill was in the air. 
+
+They went without lights and took it slowly. After a mile or two the lane 
+came to an end, crossing a deep dike, and climbing a short slope up on to 
+the high-banked causeway. 
+
+Maggot got down and took a good look either way, north and south, but 
+nothing could be seen in the darkness, and there was not a sound in the 
+still air. Thin strands of river -mist were hanging above the dikes, and 
+crawling over the fields. 
+
+'It's going to be thick,' said Maggot; 'but I'll not light my lantern 
+till I turn for home. We'll hear anything on the road long before we meet it 
+tonight.' 
+
+It was five miles or more from Maggot's lane to the Ferry. The hobbits 
+wrapped themselves up, but their ears were strained for any sound above the 
+creak of the wheels and the slow clop of the ponies' hoofs. The waggon 
+seemed slower than a snail to Frodo. Beside him Pippin was nodding towards 
+sleep; but Sam was staring forwards into the rising fog. 
+
+They reached the entrance to the Ferry lane at last. It was marked by 
+two tall white posts that suddenly loomed up on their right. Farmer Maggot 
+drew in his ponies and the waggon creaked to a halt. They were just 
+beginning lo scramble out, when suddenly they heard what they had all been 
+dreading: hoofs on the road ahead. The sound was coming towards them. 
+
+Maggot jumped down and stood holding the ponies' heads, and peering 
+forward into the gloom. Clip-clop, clip-clop came the approaching rider. The 
+fall of the hoofs sounded loud in the still, foggy air. 
+
+
+
+
+'You'd better be hidden, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam anxiously. 'You get down 
+in the waggon and cover up with blankets, and we'll send this rider to the 
+rightabouts!' He climbed out and went to the farmer's side. Black Riders 
+would have to ride over him to get near the waggon. 
+
+Clop-clop, clop-clop. The rider was nearly on them. 
+
+'Hallo there!' called Farmer Maggot. The advancing hoofs stopped short. 
+They thought they could dimly guess a dark cloaked shape in the mist, a yard 
+or two ahead. 'Now then!' said the farmer, throwing the reins to Sam and 
+striding forward. 'Don't you come a step nearer! What do you want, and where 
+are you going?' 
+
+'I want Mr. Baggins. Have you seen him?' said a muffled voice - but the 
+voice was the voice of Merry Brandybuck. A dark lantern was uncovered, and 
+its light fell on the astonished face of the farmer. 
+
+'Mr. Merry!' he cried. 
+
+'Yes, of course! Who did you think it was?' said Merry coming forward. 
+
+As he came out of the mist and their fears subsided, he seemed suddenly to 
+diminish to ordinary hobbit-size. He was riding a pony, and a scarf was 
+swathed round his neck and over his chin to keep out the fog. 
+
+Frodo sprang out of the waggon to greet him. 'So there you are at 
+last!' said Merry. 'I was beginning to wonder if you would turn up at all 
+today, and I was just going back to supper. When it grew foggy I came across 
+and rode up towards Stock to see if you had fallen in any ditches. But I'm 
+blest if I know which way you have come. Where did you find them, Mr. 
+Maggot? In your duck-pond?' 
+
+'No, I caught 'em trespassing,' said the farmer, 'and nearly set my 
+dogs on 'em; but they'll tell you all the story, I've no doubt. Now, if 
+you'll excuse me, Mr. Merry and Mr. Frodo and all, I'd best be turning for 
+home. Mrs. Maggot will be worriting with the night getting thick.' 
+
+He backed the waggon into the lane and turned it. 'Well, good night to 
+you all,' he said. 'It's been a queer day, and no mistake. But all's well as 
+ends well; though perhaps we should not say that until we reach our own 
+doors. I'll not deny that I'll be glad now when I do.' He lit his lanterns, 
+and got up. Suddenly he produced a large basket from under the seat. 'I was 
+nearly forgetting,' he said. 'Mrs. Maggot put this up for Mr. Baggins, with 
+her compliments.' He handed it down and moved off, followed by a chorus of 
+thanks and good-nights. 
+
+They watched the pale rings of light round his lanterns as they 
+
+
+
+
+dwindled into the foggy night. Suddenly Frodo laughed: from the covered 
+basket he held, the scent of mushrooms was rising. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5 . A Conspiracy Unmasked 
+
+
+
+'Now we had better get home ourselves,' said Merry. There's something 
+funny about all this, I see; but it must wait till we get in.' 
+
+They turned down the Ferry lane, which was straight and well-kept and 
+edged with large white- washed stones. In a hundred yards or so it brought 
+them to the river -bank, where there was a broad wooden landing-stage. A 
+large flat ferry-boat was moored beside it. The white bollards near the 
+water's edge glimmered in the light of two lamps on high posts. Behind them 
+the mists in the flat fields were now above the hedges; but the water before 
+them was dark, with only a few curling wisps like steam among the reeds by 
+the bank. There seemed to be less fog on the further side. 
+
+Merry led the pony over a gangway on to the ferry, and the others 
+followed. Merry then pushed slowly off with a long pole. The Brandywine 
+flowed slow and broad before them. On the other side the bank was steep, and 
+up it a winding path climbed from the further landing. Lamps were twinkling 
+there. Behind loomed up the Buck Hill; and out of it, through stray shrouds 
+of mist, shone many round windows, yellow and red. They were the windows 
+of 
+
+Brandy Hall, the ancient home of the Brandy bucks. 
+
+Long ago Gorhendad Oldbuck, head of the Oldbuck family, one of the 
+oldest in the Marish or indeed in the Shire, had crossed the river, which 
+was the original boundary of the land eastwards. He built (and excavated) 
+Brandy Hall, changed his name to Brandybuck, and settled down to become 
+master of what was virtually a small independent country. His family grew 
+and grew, and after his days continued to grow, until Brandy Hall occupied 
+the whole of the low hill, and had three large front-doors, many side-doors, 
+and about a hundred windows. The Brandybucks and their numerous 
+dependants 
+
+then began to burrow, and later to build, all round about. That was the 
+origin of Buckland, a thickly inhabited strip between the river and the Old 
+Forest, a sort of colony from the Shire. Its chief village was Bucklebury, 
+clustering in the banks and slopes behind Brandy Hall. 
+
+The people in the Marish were friendly with the Bucklanders, and the 
+authority of the Master of the Hall (as the head of the Brandybuck family 
+
+
+
+
+was called) was still acknowledged by the farmers between Stock and Rushey. 
+But most of the folk of the old Shire regarded the Bucklanders as peculiar, 
+half foreigners as it were. Though, as a matter of fact, they were not very 
+different from the other hobbits of the Four Farthings. Except in one point: 
+they were fond of boats, and some of them could swim. 
+
+Their land was originally unprotected from the East; but on that side 
+they had built a hedge: the High Hay. It had been planted many generations 
+ago, and was now thick and tail, for it was constantly tended. It ran all 
+the way from Brandywine Bridge, in a big loop curving away from the river, 
+to Haysend (where the Withywindle flowed out of the Forest into the 
+Brandywine): well over twenty miles from end to end. But, of course, it was 
+not a complete protection. The Forest drew close to the hedge in many 
+places. The Bucklanders kept their doors locked after dark, and that also 
+was not usual in the Shire. 
+
+The ferry-boat moved slowly across the water. The Buckland shore drew 
+nearer. Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river 
+before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his 
+old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front. He scratched 
+his head, and for a moment had a passing wish that Mr. Frodo could have gone 
+on living quietly at Bag End. 
+
+The four hobbits stepped off the ferry. Merry was tying it up, and 
+Pippin was already leading the pony up the path, when Sam (who had been 
+looking back, as if to take farewell of the Shire) said in a hoarse whisper: 
+
+'Look back, Mr. Frodo! Do you see anything?' 
+
+On the far stage, under the distant lamps, they could just make out a 
+figure: it looked like a dark black bundle left behind. But as they looked 
+it seemed to move and sway this way and that, as if searching the ground. It 
+then crawled, or went crouching, back into the gloom beyond the lamps. 
+
+'What in the Shire is that?' exclaimed Merry. 
+
+'Something that is following us,' said Frodo. 'But don't ask any more 
+now! Let's get away at once!' They hurried up the path to the top of the 
+bank, but when they looked back the far shore was shrouded in mist, and 
+nothing could be seen. 
+
+'Thank goodness you don't keep any boats on the west -bank!' said Frodo. 
+'Can horses cross the river?' 
+
+'They can go twenty miles north to Brandywine Bridge - or they might 
+swim,' answered Merry. 'Though I never heard of any horse swimming the 
+
+
+
+
+Brandywine. But what have horses to do with it?' I'll tell you later. Let's 
+get indoors and then we can talk.' 
+
+'All right! You and Pippin know your way; so I'll just ride on and tell 
+Fatty Bolger that you are coming. We'll see about supper and things.' 
+
+'We had our supper early with Farmer Maggot,' said Frodo; 'but we could 
+do with another.' 
+
+'You shall have it! Give me that basket!' said Merry, and rode ahead 
+into the darkness. 
+
+It was some distance from the Brandywine to Frodo's new house at 
+Crickhollow. They passed Buck Hill and Brandy Hall on their left, and on the 
+outskirts of Bucklebury struck the main road of Buckland that ran south from 
+the Bridge. Half a mile northward along this they came to a lane opening on 
+their right. This they followed for a couple of miles as it climbed up and 
+down into the country. 
+
+At last they came to a narrow gate in a thick hedge. Nothing could be 
+seen of the house in the dark: it stood back from the lane in the middle of 
+a wide circle of lawn surrounded by a belt of low trees inside the outer 
+hedge. Frodo had chosen it, because it stood in an out-of-the-way corner of 
+the country, and there were no other dwellings close by. You could get in 
+and out without being noticed. It had been built a long while before by the 
+Brandybucks, for the use of guests, or members of the family that wished to 
+escape from the crowded life of Brandy Hall for a time. It was an 
+old-fashioned countrified house, as much like a hobbit-hole as possible: it 
+was long and low, with no upper storey; and it had a roof of turf, round 
+windows, and a large round door. 
+
+As they walked lip the green path from the gate no light was visible; 
+the windows were dark and shuttered. Frodo knocked on the door, and Fatty 
+Bolger opened it. A friendly light streamed out. They slipped in quickly and 
+shut themselves and the light inside. They were in a wide hall with doors on 
+either side; in front of them a passage ran back down the middle of the 
+house. 
+
+'Well, what do you think of it?' asked Merry coming up the passage. 'We 
+have done our best in a short time to make it look like home. After all 
+Fatty and I only got here with the last cart-load yesterday.' 
+
+Frodo looked round. It did look like home. Many of his own favourite 
+things - or Bilbo's things (they reminded him sharply of him in their new 
+selling) - were arranged as nearly as possible as they had been at Bag End. 
+
+
+
+
+It was a pleasant, comfortable, welcoming place; and he found himself 
+wishing that he was really coming here to settle down in quiet retirement. 
+
+It seemed unfair to have put his friends to all this trouble; and he 
+wondered again how he was going to break the news to them that he must leave 
+them so soon, indeed at once. Yet that would have to be done that very 
+night, before they all went to bed. 
+
+'It's delightful!' he said with an effort. 'I hardly feel that I have 
+moved at all.' 
+
+The travellers hung up their cloaks, and piled their packs on the 
+floor. Merry led them down the passage and threw open a door at the far end. 
+Firelight came out, and a puff of steam. 
+
+'A bath!' cried Pippin. 'O blessed Meriadoc!' 
+
+'Which order shall we go in?' said Frodo. 'Eldest first, or quickest 
+first? You'll be last either way, Master Peregrin.' 
+
+'Trust me to arrange things better than that!' said Merry. 'We can't 
+begin life at Crickhollow with a quarrel over baths. In that room there are 
+three tubs, and a copper full of boiling water. There are also towels, mats 
+and soap. Get inside, and be quick!' 
+
+Merry and Fatty went into the kitchen on the other side of the passage, 
+and busied themselves with the final preparations for a late supper. 
+Snatches of competing songs came from the bathroom mixed with the sound 
+of 
+
+splashing and wallowing. The voice of Pippin was suddenly lifted up above 
+the others in one of Bilbo's favourite bath-songs. 
+
+Sing hey! for the bath at close of day 
+that washes the weary mud away! 
+
+A loon is he that will not sing: 
+
+O! Water Hot is a noble thing! 
+
+O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, 
+and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; 
+but better than rain or rippling streams 
+is Water Hot that smokes and steams. 
+
+O! Water cold we may pour at need 
+down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed; 
+but better is Beer, if drink we lack, 
+
+
+
+
+and Water Hot poured down the back. 
+
+
+
+O! Water is fair that leaps on high 
+
+in a fountain white beneath the sky; 
+
+but never did fountain sound so sweet 
+
+as splashing Hot Water with my feet! 
+
+There was a terrific splash, and a shout of Whoa! from Frodo. It 
+appeared that a lot of Pippin's bath had imitated a fountain and leaped on 
+high. 
+
+Merry went to the door: 'What about supper and beer in the throat?' he 
+called. Frodo came out drying his hair. 
+
+'There's so much water in the air that I'm coming into the kitchen to 
+finish,' he said. 
+
+'Lawks!' said Merry, looking in. The stone floor was swimming. 'You 
+ought to mop all that up before you get anything to eat. Peregrin,' he said. 
+'Hurry up, or we shan't wait for you.' 
+
+They had supper in the kitchen on a table near the fire. 'I suppose you 
+three won't want mushrooms again?' said Fredegar without much hope. 
+
+'Yes we shall!' cried Pippin. 
+
+'They're mine!' said Frodo. 'Given to me by Mrs. Maggot, a queen among 
+farmers' wives. Take your greedy hands away, and I'll serve them.' 
+
+Hobbits have a passion for mushrooms, surpassing even the greediest 
+likings of Big People. A fact which partly explains young Frodo's long 
+expeditions to the renowned fields of the Marish, and the wrath of the 
+injured Maggot. On this occasion there was plenty for all, even according to 
+hobbit standards. There were also many other things to follow, and when they 
+had finished even Fatty Bolger heaved a sigh of content. They pushed back 
+the table, and drew chairs round the fire. 
+
+'We'll clear up later,' said Merry. 'Now tell me all about it! I guess 
+that you have been having adventures, which was not quite fair without me. I 
+want a full account; and most of all I want to know what was the matter with 
+old Maggot, and why he spoke to me like that. He sounded almost as if he was 
+scared, if that is possible.' 
+
+'We have all been scared,' said Pippin after a pause, in which Frodo 
+stared at the fire and did not speak. 'You would have been, too, if you had 
+been chased for two days by Black Riders.' 
+
+'And what are they?' 
+
+
+
+
+'Black figures riding on black horses,' answered Pippin. 'If Frodo 
+won't talk, I will tell you the whole tale from the beginning.' He then gave 
+a full account of their journey from the time when they left Hobbiton. Sam 
+gave various supporting nods and exclamations. Frodo remained silent. 
+
+'I should think you were making it all up,' said Merry, 'if I had not 
+seen that black shape on the landing-stage - and heard the queer sound in 
+Maggot's voice. What do you make of it all, Frodo?' 
+
+'Cousin Frodo has been very close,' said Pippin. 'But the time has come 
+for him to open out. So far we have been given nothing more to go on than 
+Farmer Maggot's guess that it has something to do with old Bilbo's 
+treasure.' 
+
+'That was only a guess,' said Frodo hastily. 'Maggot does not know 
+anything.' 
+
+'Old Maggot is a shrewd fellow,' said Merry. 'A lot goes on behind his 
+round face that does not come out in his talk. I've heard that he used to go 
+into the Old Forest at one time, and he has the reputation of knowing a good 
+many strange things. But you can at least tell us, Frodo, whether you think 
+his guess good or bad.' 
+
+'I think, ' answered Frodo slowly, 'that it was a good guess, as far as 
+it goes. There is a connexion with Bilbo's old adventures, and the Riders 
+are looking, or perhaps one ought to say searching, for him or for me. I 
+also fear, if you want to know, that it is no joke at all; and that I am not 
+safe here or anywhere else.' He looked round at the windows and walls, as if 
+he was afraid they would suddenly give way. The others looked at him in 
+silence, and exchanged meaning glances among themselves. 
+
+'It's coming out in a minute,' whispered Pippin to Merry. Merry nodded. 
+
+'Well!' said Frodo at last, sitting up and straightening his back, as 
+if he had made a decision. 'I can't keep it dark any longer. I have got 
+something to tell you all. But I don't know quite how to begin.' 
+
+'I think I could help you,' said Merry quietly, 'by telling you some of 
+it myself.' 
+
+'What do you mean?' said Frodo, looking at him anxiously. 'Just this, 
+my dear old Frodo: you are miserable, because you don't know how to say 
+good-bye. You meant to leave the Shire, of course. But danger has come on 
+you sooner than you expected, and now you are making up your mind to go at 
+once. And you don't want to. We are very sorry for you.' 
+
+Frodo opened his mouth and shut it again. His look of surprise was so 
+
+
+
+
+comical that they laughed. 'Dear old Frodo!' said Pippin. 'Did you really 
+think you had thrown dust in all our eyes? You have not been nearly careful 
+or clever enough for that! You have obviously been planning to go and saying 
+farewell to all your haunts all this year since April. We have constantly 
+heard you muttering: "Shall I ever look down into that valley again, I 
+wonder", and things like that. And pretending that you had come to the end 
+of your money, and actually selling your beloved Bag End to those 
+Sackville-Bagginses! And all those close talks with Gandalf.' 
+
+'Good heavens!' said Frodo. 'I thought I had been both careful and 
+clever. I don't know what Gandalf would say. Is all the Shire discussing my 
+departure then?' 
+
+'Oh no!' said Merry. 'Don't worry about that! The secret won't keep for 
+long, of course; but at present it is, I think, only known to us 
+conspirators. After all, you must remember that we know you well, and are 
+often with you. We can usually guess what you are thinking. I knew Bilbo, 
+too. To tell you the truth, I had been watching you rather closely ever 
+since he left. I thought you would go after him sooner or later; indeed I 
+expected you to go sooner, and lately we have been very anxious. We have 
+been terrified that you might give us the slip, and go off suddenly, all on 
+your own like he did. Ever since this spring we have kept our eyes open, and 
+done a good deal of planning on our own account. You are not going to escape 
+so easily!' 
+
+'But I must go,' said Frodo. 'It cannot be helped, dear friends. It is 
+wretched for us all, but it is no use your trying to keep me. Since you have 
+guessed so much, please help me and do not hinder me!' 
+
+'You do not understand!' said Pippin. 'You must go - and therefore we 
+must, too. Merry and I are coming with you. Sam is an excellent fellow, and 
+would jump down a dragon's throat to save you, if he did not trip over his 
+own feet; but you will need more than one companion in your dangerous 
+adventure.' 
+
+'My dear and most beloved hobbits!' said Frodo deeply moved. 'But I 
+could not allow it. I decided that long ago, too. You speak of danger, but 
+you do not understand. This is no treasure-hunt, no there-and -back journey. 
+
+I am flying from deadly peril into deadly peril.' 
+
+'Of course we understand,' said Merry firmly. 'That is why we have 
+decided to come. We know the Ring is no laughing -matter; but we are going to 
+do our best to help you against the Enemy.' 
+
+
+
+
+The Ring!' said Frodo, now completely amazed. 
+
+'Yes, the Ring,' said Merry. 'My dear old hobbit, you don't allow for 
+the inquisitiveness of friends. I have known about the existence of the Ring 
+for years - before Bilbo went away, in fact; but since he obviously regarded 
+it as secret, I kept the knowledge in my head, until we formed our 
+conspiracy. I did not know Bilbo, of course, as well as I know you; I was 
+too young, and he was also more careful - but he was not careful enough. If 
+you want to know how I first found out, I will tell you.' 
+
+'Go on!' said Frodo faintly. 
+
+'It was the Sackville-Bagginses that were his downfall, as you might 
+expect. One day, a year before the Party, I happened to be walking along the 
+road, when I saw Bilbo ahead. Suddenly in the distance the S.-B.s appeared, 
+coming towards us. Bilbo slowed down, and then hey presto! he vanished. I 
+was so startled that I hardly had the wits to hide myself in a more ordinary 
+fashion; but I got through the hedge and walked along the field inside. I 
+was peeping through into the road, after the S.-B.s had passed, and was 
+looking straight at Bilbo when he suddenly reappeared. I caught a glint of 
+gold as he put something back in his trouser -pocket. 
+
+'After that I kept my eyes open. In fact, I confess that I spied. But 
+you must admit that it was very intriguing, and I was only in my teens. I 
+must be the only one in the Shire, besides you Frodo, that has ever seen the 
+old fellow's secret book.' 
+
+'You have read his book!' cried Frodo. 'Good heavens above! Is nothing 
+safe?' 
+
+'Not too safe, I should say,' said Merry. 'But I have only had one 
+rapid glance, and that was difficult to get. He never left the book about. I 
+wonder what became of it. I should like another look. Have you got it, 
+Frodo?' 
+
+'No. It was not at Bag End. He must have taken it away.' 
+
+'Well, as I was saying,' Merry proceeded, 'I kept my knowledge to 
+myself, till this Spring when things got serious. Then we formed our 
+conspiracy; and as we were serious, too, and meant business, we have not 
+been too scrupulous. You are not a very easy nut to crack, and Gandalf is 
+worse. But if you want to be introduced to our chief investigator, I can 
+produce him.' 
+
+'Where is he?' said Frodo, looking round, as if he expected a masked 
+and sinister figure to come out of a cupboard. 
+
+
+
+
+’Step forward, Sam!' said Merry; and Sam stood up with a face scarlet 
+up to the ears. 'Here's our collector of information ! And he collected a 
+lot, I can tell you, before he was finally caught. After which, I may say, 
+he seemed to regard himself as on parole, and dried up.' 
+
+'Sam!' cried Frodo, feeling that amazement could go no further, and 
+quite unable to decide whether he felt angry, amused, relieved, or merely 
+foolish. 
+
+'Yes, sir!' said Sam. 'Begging your pardon, sir! But I meant no wrong 
+to you, Mr. Frodo, nor to Mr. Gandalf for that matter. He has some sense, 
+mind you; and when you said go alone, he said no! lake someone as you can 
+trust. ' 
+
+'But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,' said Frodo. Sam looked 
+at him unhappily. 'It all depends on what you want,' put in Merry. 'You can 
+trust us to stick to you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you 
+can trust us to keep any secret of yours - closer than you keep it yourself. 
+
+But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a 
+word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what 
+Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly 
+afraid - but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.' 
+
+'And after all, sir,' added Sam, 'you did ought to take the Elves' 
+advice. Gildor said you should take them as was willing, and you can't deny 
+it.' 
+
+'I don't deny it,' said Frodo, looking at Sam, who was now grinning. 'I 
+don't deny it, but I'll never believe you are sleeping again, whether you 
+snore or not. I shall kick you hard to make sure. 
+
+'You are a set of deceitful scoundrels!' he said, turning to the 
+others. 'But bless you!' he laughed, getting up and waving his arms, 'I give 
+in. I will take Gildor's advice. If the danger were not so dark, I should 
+dance for joy. Even so, I cannot help feeling happy; happier than I have 
+felt for a long time. I had dreaded this evening.' 
+
+'Good! That's settled. Three cheers for Captain Frodo and company!' 
+they shouted; and they danced round him. Merry and Pippin began a song, 
+which they had apparently got ready for the occasion. 
+
+It was made on the model of the dwarf-song that started Bilbo on his 
+adventure long ago, and went to the same tune: 
+
+Farewell we call to hearth and hall! 
+
+Though wind may blow and rain may fall, 
+
+
+
+
+We must away ere break of day 
+Far over wood and mountain tall. 
+
+
+
+To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell 
+In glades beneath the misty fell, 
+
+Through moor and waste we ride in haste, 
+
+And whither then we cannot tell. 
+
+With foes ahead, behind us dread, 
+
+Beneath the sky shall be our bed, 
+
+Until at last our toil be passed, 
+
+Our journey done, our errand sped. 
+
+We must away! We must away! 
+
+We ride before the break of day! 
+
+'Very good!' said Frodo. 'But in that case there are a lot of things to 
+do before we go to bed - under a roof, for tonight at any rate.' 
+
+'Oh! That was poetry!' said Pippin. 'Do you really mean to start before 
+the break of day?' 
+
+'I don't know,' answered Frodo. 'I fear those Black Riders, and I am 
+sure it is unsafe to stay in one place long, especially in a place to which 
+it is known I was going. Also Gildor advised me not to wait. But I should 
+very much like to see Gandalf. I could see that even Gildor was disturbed 
+when he heard that Gandalf had never appeared. It really depends on two 
+things. Flow soon could the Riders get to Bucklebury? And how soon could 
+we 
+
+get off? It will take a good deal of preparation.' 
+
+'The answer to the second question,' said Merry, 'is that we could get 
+off in an hour. I have prepared practically everything. There are six ponies 
+in a stable across the fields; stores and tackle are all packed, except for 
+a few extra clothes, and the perishable food.' 
+
+'It seems to have been a very efficient conspiracy,' said Frodo. 'But 
+what about the Black Riders? Would it be safe to wait one day for Gandalf?' 
+
+'That all depends on what you think the Riders would do, if they found 
+you here,' answered Merry. 'They could have reached here by now, of course, 
+if they were not stopped at the North-gate, where the Hedge runs down to the 
+river -bank, just this side of the Bridge. The gate-guards would not let them 
+
+
+
+
+through by night, though they might break through. Even in the daylight they 
+would try to keep them out, I think, at any rate until they got a message 
+through to the Master of the Hall - for they would not like the look of the 
+Riders, and would certainly be frightened by them. But, of course, Buckland 
+cannot resist a determined attack for long. And it is possible that in the 
+morning even a Black Rider that rode up and asked for Mr. Baggins would be 
+let through. It is pretty generally known that you are coming back to live 
+at Crickhollow.' 
+
+Frodo sat for a while in thought. 'I have made up my mind,' he said 
+finally. 'I am starting tomorrow, as soon as it is light. But I am not going 
+by road: it would be safer to wait here than that. If I go through the 
+North-gate my departure from Buckland will be known at once, instead of 
+being secret for several days at least, as it might be. And what is more, 
+the Bridge and the East Road near the borders will certainly be watched, 
+whether any Rider gets into Buckland or not. We don't know how many there 
+are; but there are at least two, and possibly more. The only thing to do is 
+to go off in a quite unexpected direction.' 
+
+'But that can only mean going into the Old Forest!' said Fredegar 
+horrified. 'You can't be thinking of doing that. It is quite as dangerous as 
+Black Riders.' 
+
+'Not quite,' said Merry. It sounds very desperate, but I believe Frodo 
+is right. It is the only way of getting off without being followed at once. 
+
+With luck we might gel a considerable start.' 
+
+'But you won't have any luck in the Old Forest,' objected Fredegar. 'No 
+one ever has luck in there. You'll gel lost. People don't go in there.' 
+
+'Oh yes they do!' said Merry. 'The Brandybucks go in - occasionally 
+when the fit takes them. We have a private entrance. Frodo went in once, 
+long ago. I have been in several times: usually in daylight, of course, when 
+the trees are sleepy and fairly quiet.' 
+
+'Well, do as you think best!' said Fredegar. 'I am more afraid of the 
+Old Forest than of anything I know about: the stories about it are a 
+nightmare; but my vote hardly counts, as I am not going on the journey. 
+
+Still, I am very glad someone is stopping behind, who can tell Gandalf what 
+you have done, when he turns up, as I am sure he will before long.' 
+
+Fond as he was of Frodo, Fatty Bolger had no desire to leave the Shire, 
+nor to see what lay outside it. His family came from the Eastfarthing, from 
+Budgeford in Bridgefields in fact, but he had never been over the Brandywine 
+
+
+
+
+Bridge. His task, according to the original plans of the conspirators, was 
+to stay behind and deal with inquisitive folk, and to keep up as long as 
+possible the pretence that Mr. Baggins was still living at Crickhollow. He 
+had even brought along some old clothes of Frodo's to help him in playing 
+the part. They little thought how dangerous that part might prove. 
+
+'Excellent!' said Frodo, when he understood the plan. ’We could not 
+have left any message behind for Gandalf otherwise. I don't know whether 
+these Riders can read or not, of course, but I should not have dared to risk 
+a written message, in case they got in and searched the house. But if Fatty 
+is willing to hold the fort, and I can be sure of Gandalf knowing the way we 
+have gone, that decides me. I am going into the Old Forest first thing 
+tomorrow.’ 
+
+'Well, that's that,' said Pippin. 'On the whole I would rather have our 
+job than Fatty's - waiting here till Black Riders come.' 
+
+'You wait till you are well inside the Forest,' said Fredegar. 'You'll 
+wish you were back here with me before this time tomorrow.' 
+
+'It's no good arguing about it any more,' said Merry. 'We have still 
+got to tidy up and put the finishing touches to the packing, before we get 
+to bed. I shall call you all before the break of day.' 
+
+When at last he had got to bed, Frodo could not sleep for some time. 
+
+His legs ached. He. was glad that he was riding in the morning. Eventually 
+he fell into a vague dream, in which he seemed to be looking out of a high 
+window over a dark sea of tangled trees. Down below among the roots there 
+was the sound of creatures crawling and snuffling. He felt sure they would 
+smell him out sooner or later. 
+
+Then he heard a noise in the distance. At first he thought it was a 
+great wind coming over the leaves of the forest. Then he knew that it was 
+not leaves, but the sound of the Sea far-off; a sound he had never heard in 
+waking life, though it had often troubled his dreams. Suddenly he found he 
+was out in the open. There were no trees after all. He was on a dark heath, 
+and there was a strange salt smell in the air. Looking up he saw before him 
+a tall white tower, standing alone on a high ridge. A great desire came over 
+him to climb the tower and see the Sea. He started to struggle up the ridge 
+towards the tower: but suddenly a light came in the sky, and there was a 
+noise of thunder. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6. The Old Forest 
+
+
+
+Frodo woke suddenly. It was still dark in the room. Merry was standing 
+there with a candle in one hand, and banging on the door with the other. 
+
+'All right! What is it?' said Frodo, still shaken and bewildered. 
+
+'What is it!' cried Merry. 'It is time to get up. It is half past four 
+and very foggy. Come on! Sam is already getting breakfast ready. Even Pippin 
+is up. I am just going to saddle the ponies, and fetch the one that is to be 
+the baggage-carrier. Wake that sluggard Fatty! At least he must get up and 
+see us off.' 
+
+Soon after six o'clock the five hobbits were ready to start. Fatty 
+Bolger was still yawning. They stole quietly out of the house. Merry went in 
+front leading a laden pony, and took his way along a path that went through 
+a spinney behind the house, and then cut across several fields. The leaves 
+of trees were glistening, and every twig was dripping; the grass was grey 
+with cold dew. Everything was still, and far-away noises seemed near and 
+clear: fowls chattering in a yard, someone closing a door of a distant 
+house. 
+
+In their shed they found the ponies; sturdy little beasts of the kind 
+loved by hobbits, not speedy, but good for a long day's work. They mounted, 
+and soon they were riding off into the mist, which seemed to open 
+reluctantly before them and close forbiddingly behind them. After riding for 
+about an hour, slowly and without talking, they saw the Fledge looming 
+suddenly ahead. It was tall and netted over with silver cobwebs. 'How are 
+you going to get through this?' asked Fredegar. 'Follow me!' said Merry, 
+
+'and you will see.' He turned to the left along the Hedge, and soon they 
+came to a point where it bent inwards, running along the lip of a hollow. A 
+cutting had been made, at some distance from the Hedge, and went sloping 
+gently down into the ground. It had walls of brick at the sides, which rose 
+steadily, until suddenly they arched over and formed a tunnel that dived 
+deep under the Hedge and came out in the hollow on the other side. 
+
+Here Fatty Bolger halted. 'Good-bye, Frodo!' he said. 'I wish you were 
+not going into the Forest. I only hope you will not need rescuing before the 
+day is out. But good luck to you - today and every day!' 
+
+'If there are no worse things ahead than the Old Forest, I shall be 
+lucky,' said Frodo. 'Tell Gandalf to hurry along the East Road: we shall 
+
+
+
+
+soon be back on it and going as fast as we can.’ ’Good-bye!' they cried, and 
+rode down the slope and disappeared from Fredegar's sight into the tunnel. 
+
+It was dark and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of 
+thick-set iron bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had 
+all passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the lock 
+clicked. The sound was ominous. 
+
+’There!’ said Merry. 'You have left the Shire, and are now outside, and 
+on the edge of the Old Forest.' 
+
+'Are the stories about it true?' asked Pippin. 
+
+'I don't know what stories you mean,' Merry answered. 'If you mean the 
+old bogey-stories Fatty's nurses used to tell him, about goblins and wolves 
+and things of that sort, I should say no. At any rate I don't believe them. 
+
+But the Forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more 
+aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire. And 
+the trees do not like strangers. They watch you. They are usually content 
+merely to watch you, as long as daylight lasts, and don't do much. 
+Occasionally the most unfriendly ones may drop a branch, or stick a root 
+out, or grasp at you with a long trailer. But at night things can be most 
+alarming, or so I am told. I have only once or twice been in here after 
+dark, and then only near the hedge. I thought all the trees were whispering 
+to each other, passing news and plots along in an unintelligible language; 
+and the branches swayed and groped without any wind. They do say the trees 
+do actually move, and can surround strangers and hem them in. In fact long 
+ago they attacked the Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, 
+and leaned over it. But the hobbits came and cut down hundreds of trees, and 
+made a great bonfire in the Forest, and burned all the ground in a long 
+strip east of the Hedge. After that the trees gave up the attack, but they 
+became very unfriendly. There is still a wide bare space not far inside 
+where the bonfire was made.' 
+
+'Is it only the trees that are dangerous?' asked Pippin. 
+
+'There are various queer things living deep in the Forest, and on the 
+far side,' said Merry, 'or at least I have heard so; but I have never seen 
+any of them. But something makes paths. Whenever one comes inside one 
+finds 
+
+open tracks; but they seem to shift and change from time to time in a queer 
+fashion. Not far from this tunnel there is, or was for a long time, the 
+beginning of quite a broad path leading to the Bonfire Glade, and then on 
+
+
+
+
+more or less in our direction, east and a little north. That is the path I 
+am going to try and find.’ 
+
+The hobbits now left the tunnel-gate and rode across the wide hollow. 
+
+On the far side was a faint path leading up on to the floor of the Forest, a 
+hundred yards and more beyond the Hedge; but it vanished as soon as it 
+brought them under the trees. Looking back they could see the dark line of 
+the Hedge through the stems of trees that were already thick about them. 
+Looking ahead they could see only tree-trunks of innumerable sizes and 
+shapes: straight or bent, twisted, leaning, squat or slender, smooth or 
+gnarled and branched; and all the stems were green or grey with moss and 
+slimy, shaggy growths. 
+
+Merry alone seemed fairly cheerful. 'You had better lead on and find 
+that path,' Frodo said to him. 'Don't let us lose one another, or forget 
+which way the Hedge lies!' 
+
+They picked a way among the trees, and their ponies plodded along, 
+carefully avoiding the many writhing and interlacing roots. There was no 
+undergrowth. The ground was rising steadily, and as they went forward it 
+seemed that the trees became taller, darker, and thicker. There was no 
+sound, except an occasional drip of moisture falling through the still 
+leaves. For the moment there was no whispering or movement among the 
+branches; but they all got an uncomfortable feeling that they were being 
+watched with disapproval, deepening to dislike and even enmity. The feeling 
+steadily grew, until they found themselves looking up quickly, or glancing 
+back over their shoulders, as if they expected a sudden blow. 
+
+There was not as yet any sign of a path, and the trees seemed 
+constantly to bar their way. Pippin suddenly felt that he could not bear it 
+any longer, and without warning let out a shout. 'Oi! Oi !' he cried. 'I am 
+not going to do anything. Just let me pass through, will you!' 
+
+The others halted startled; but the cry fell as if muffled by a heavy 
+curtain. There was no echo or answer though the wood seemed to become 
+more 
+
+crowded and more watchful than before. 
+
+'I should not shout, if I were you,' said Merry. It does more harm than 
+good.' 
+
+Frodo began to wonder if it were possible to find a way through, and if 
+he had been right to make the others come into this abominable wood. Merry 
+was looking from side to side, and seemed already uncertain which way to go. 
+
+
+
+
+Pippin noticed it. 'It has not taken you long to lose us,' he said. But at 
+that moment Merry gave a whistle of relief and pointed ahead. 
+
+'Well, well!' he said. 'These trees do shift. There is the Bonfire 
+Glade in front of us (or I hope so), but the path to it seems to have moved 
+away!' 
+
+The light grew clearer as they went forward. Suddenly they came out of 
+the trees and found themselves in a wide circular space. There was sky above 
+them, blue and clear to their surprise, for down under the Forest -roof they 
+had not been able to see the rising morning and the lifting of the mist. The 
+sun was not, however, high enough yet to shine down into the clearing, 
+though its light was on the tree-tops. The leaves were all thicker and 
+greener about the edges of the glade, enclosing it with an almost solid 
+wall. No tree grew there, only rough grass and many tall plants: stalky and 
+faded hemlocks and wood-parsley, fire-weed seeding into fluffy ashes, and 
+rampant nettles and thistles. A dreary place: but it seemed a charming and 
+cheerful garden after the close Forest. 
+
+The hobbits felt encouraged, and looked up hopefully at the broadening 
+daylight in the sky. At the far side of the glade there was a break in the 
+wall of trees, and a clear path beyond it. They could see it running on into 
+the wood, wide in places and open above, though every now and again the 
+trees drew in and overshadowed it with their dark boughs. Up this path they 
+rode. They were still climbing gently, but they now went much quicker, and 
+with better heart; for it seemed to them that the Forest had relented, and 
+was going to let them pass unhindered after all. 
+
+But after a while the air began to get hot and stuffy. The trees drew 
+close again on either side, and they could no longer see far ahead. Now 
+stronger than ever they felt again the ill will of the wood pressing on 
+them. So silent was it that the fall of their ponies' hoofs, rustling on 
+dead leaves and occasionally stumbling on hidden roots, seemed to thud in 
+their ears. Frodo tried to sing a song to encourage them, but his voice sank 
+to a murmur. 
+
+O! Wanderers in the shadowed land 
+despair not! For though dark they stand, 
+all woods there be must end at last, 
+and see the open sun go past: 
+the setting sun, the rising sun, 
+the day's end, or the day begun. 
+
+
+
+
+For east or west all woods must fail... 
+
+Fail - even as he said the word his voice faded into silence. The air 
+seemed heavy and the making of words wearisome. Just behind them a large 
+branch fell from an old overhanging tree with a crash into the path. The 
+trees seemed to close in before them. 
+
+They do not like all that about ending and failing,' said Merry. 'I 
+should not sing any more at present. Wait till we do get to the edge, and 
+then we'll turn and give them a rousing chorus!' 
+
+He spoke cheerfully, and if he felt any great anxiety, he did not show 
+it. The others did not answer. They were depressed. A heavy weight was 
+settling steadily on Frodo's heart, and he regretted now with every step 
+forward that he had ever thought of challenging the menace of the trees. He 
+was, indeed, just about to stop and propose going back (if that was still 
+possible), when things took a new turn. The path stopped climbing, and 
+became for a while nearly level. The dark trees drew aside, and ahead they 
+could see the path going almost straight forward. Before them, but some 
+distance off, there stood a green hill-top, treeless, rising like a bald 
+head out of the encircling wood. The path seemed to be making directly for 
+it. 
+
+They now hurried forward again, delighted with the thought of climbing 
+out for a while above the roof of the Forest. The path dipped, and then 
+again began to climb upwards, leading them at last to the foot of the steep 
+hillside. There it left the trees and faded into the turf. The wood stood 
+all round the hill like thick hair that ended sharply in a circle round a 
+shaven crown. 
+
+The hobbits led their ponies up, winding round and round until they 
+reached the top. There they stood and gazed about them. The air was gleaming 
+and sunlit, but hazy; and they could not see to any great distance. Near at 
+hand the mist was now almost gone; though here and there it lay in hollows 
+of the wood, and to the south of them, out of a deep fold cutting right 
+across the Forest, the fog still rose like steam or wisps of white smoke. 
+
+'That,' said Merry, pointing with his hand, 'that is the line of the 
+Withywindle. It comes down out of the Downs and flows south-west through 
+the 
+
+midst of the Forest to join the Brandywine below Haysend. We don't want to 
+go that way! The Withywindle valley is said to be the queerest part of the 
+whole wood - the centre from which all the queerness comes, as it were.' 
+
+
+
+
+The others looked in the direction that Merry pointed out, but they 
+could see little but mists over the damp and deep-cut valley; and beyond it 
+the southern half of the Forest faded from view. 
+
+The sun on the hill-lop was now getting hot. It must have been about 
+eleven o'clock; but the autumn haze still prevented them from seeing much in 
+other directions. In the west they could not make out either the line of the 
+Hedge or the valley of the Brandywine beyond it. Northward, where they 
+looked most hopefully, they could see nothing that might be the line of the 
+great East Road, for which they were making. They were on an island in a sea 
+of trees, and the horizon was veiled. 
+
+On the south-eastern side the ground fell very steeply, as if the 
+slopes of the hill were continued far down under the trees, like 
+island-shores that really are the sides of a mountain rising out of deep 
+waters. They sat on the green edge and looked out over the woods below them, 
+while they ate their mid-day meal. As the sun rose and passed noon they 
+glimpsed far off in the east the grey-green lines of the Downs that lay 
+beyond the Old Forest on that side. That cheered them greatly; for it was 
+good to see a sight of anything beyond the wood's borders, though they did 
+not mean to go that way, if they could help it: the Barrow-downs had as 
+sinister a reputation in hobbit-legend as the Forest itself. 
+
+At length they made up their minds to go on again. The path that had 
+brought them to the hill reappeared on the northward side; but they had not 
+followed it far before they became aware that it was bending steadily to the 
+right. Soon it began to descend rapidly and they guessed that it must 
+actually be heading towards the Withy windle valley: not at all the direction 
+they wished lo take. After some discussion they decided to leave this 
+misleading path and strike northward; for although they had not been able to 
+see it from the hill-top, the Road must lie that way, and it could not be 
+many miles off. Also northward, and to the left of the path, the land seemed 
+lo be drier and more open, climbing up to slopes where the trees were 
+thinner, and pines and firs replaced the oaks and ashes and other strange 
+and nameless trees of the denser wood. 
+
+At first their choice seemed to be good: they got along at a fair 
+speed, though whenever they got a glimpse of the sun in an open glade they 
+seemed unaccountably to have veered eastwards. But after a time the trees 
+began to close in again, just where they had appeared from a distance to be 
+thinner and less tangled. Then deep folds in the ground were discovered 
+
+
+
+
+unexpectedly, like the ruts of great giant-wheels or wide moats and sunken 
+roads long disused and choked with brambles. These lay usually right across 
+their line of march, and could only be crossed by scrambling down and out 
+again, which was troublesome and difficult with their ponies. Each time they 
+climbed down they found the hollow filled with thick bushes and matted 
+undergrowth, which somehow would not yield to the left, but only gave way 
+when they turned to the right; and they had to go some distance along the 
+bottom before they could find a way up the further bank. Each time they 
+clambered out, the trees seemed deeper and darker; and always to the left 
+and upwards it was most difficult to find a way, and they were forced to the 
+right and downwards. 
+
+After an hour or two they had lost all clear sense of direction, though 
+they knew well enough that they had long ceased to go northward at all. They 
+were being headed off, and were simply following a course chosen for them - 
+eastwards and southwards, into the heart of the Forest and not out of it. 
+
+The afternoon was wearing away when they scrambled and stumbled into a 
+fold that was wider and deeper than any they had yet met. It was so sleep 
+and overhung that it proved impossible to climb out of it again, either 
+forwards or backwards, without leaving their ponies and their baggage 
+behind. All they could do was to follow the fold - downwards. The ground 
+grew soft, and in places boggy; springs appeared in the banks, and soon they 
+found themselves following a brook that trickled and babbled through a weedy 
+bed. Then the ground began to fall rapidly, and the brook growing strong and 
+noisy, flowed and leaped swiftly downhill. They were in a deep dim-lit gully 
+over-arched by trees high above them. 
+
+After stumbling along for some way along the stream, they came quite 
+suddenly out of the gloom. As if through a gate they saw the sunlight before 
+them. Coming to the opening they found that they had made their way down 
+through a cleft in a high sleep bank, almost a cliff. At its feet was a wide 
+space of grass and reeds; and in the distance could be glimpsed another bank 
+almost as steep. A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy 
+upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark 
+river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with 
+willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded 
+willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the 
+branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the 
+valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking. 
+
+
+
+
+'Well, now I have at least some notion of where we are!' said Merry. 
+
+'We have come almost in the opposite direction to which we intended. This is 
+the River Withy windle! I will go on and explore.' 
+
+He passed out into the sunshine and disappeared into the long grasses. 
+After a while he reappeared, and reported that there was fairly solid ground 
+between the cliff-foot and the river; in some places firm turf went down to 
+the water's edge. 'What's more,' he said, 'there seems to be something like 
+a footpath winding along on this side of the river. If we turn left and 
+follow it, we shall be bound to come out on the east side of the Forest 
+eventually.' 
+
+'I dare say!' said Pippin. 'That is, if the track goes on so far, and 
+does not simply lead us into a bog and leave us there. Who made the track, 
+do you suppose, and why? I am sure it was not for our benefit. I am getting 
+very suspicious of this Forest and everything in it, and I begin to believe 
+all the stories about it. And have you any idea how far eastward we should 
+have to go?' 
+
+'No,' said Merry, 'I haven't. I don't know in the least how far down 
+the Withywindle we are, or who could possibly come here often enough to 
+make 
+
+a path along it. But there is no other way out that I can see or think of.' 
+
+There being nothing else for it, they filed out, and Merry led them to 
+the path that he had discovered. Everywhere the reeds and grasses were lush 
+and tall, in places far above their heads; but once found, the path was easy 
+to follow, as it turned and twisted, picking out the sounder ground among 
+the bogs and pools. Here and there it passed over other rills, running down 
+gullies into the Withywindle out of the higher forest-lands, and at these 
+points there were tree-trunks or bundles of brushwood laid carefully across. 
+
+The hobbits began to feel very hot. There were armies of flies of all 
+kinds buzzing round their ears, and the afternoon sun was burning on their 
+backs. At last they came suddenly into a thin shade; great grey branches 
+reached across the path. Each step forward became more reluctant than the 
+last. Sleepiness seemed to be creeping out of the ground and up their legs, 
+and falling softly out of the air upon their heads and eyes. 
+
+Frodo felt his chin go down and his head nod. Just in front of him 
+Pippin fell forward on to his knees. Frodo halted. 'It's no good,' he heard 
+Merry saying. 'Can't go another step without rest. Must have nap. It's cool 
+under the willows. Less flies!' 
+
+
+
+
+Frodo did not like the sound of this. 'Come on!' he cried. 'We can't 
+have a nap yet. We must get clear of the Forest first.' But the others were 
+too far gone to care. Beside them Sam stood yawning and blinking stupidly. 
+
+Suddenly Frodo himself felt sleep overwhelming him. His head swam. 
+There now seemed hardly a sound in the air. The flies had stopped buzzing. 
+Only a gentle noise on the edge of hearing, a soft fluttering as of a song 
+half whispered, seemed to stir in the boughs above. He lifted his heavy eyes 
+and saw leaning over him a huge willow-tree, old and hoary. Enormous it 
+looked, its sprawling branches going up like reaching arms with many 
+long-fingered hands, its knotted and twisted trunk gaping in wide fissures 
+that creaked faintly as the boughs moved. The leaves fluttering against the 
+bright sky dazzled him, and he toppled over, lying where he fell upon the 
+grass. 
+
+Merry and Pippin dragged themselves forward and lay down with their 
+backs to the willow-trunk. Behind them the great cracks gaped wide to 
+receive them as the tree swayed and creaked. They looked up at the grey and 
+yellow leaves, moving softly against the light, and singing. They shut their 
+eyes, and then it seemed that they could almost hear words, cool words, 
+saying something about water and sleep. They gave themselves up to the spell 
+and fell fast asleep at the foot of the great grey willow. 
+
+Frodo lay for a while fighting with the sleep that was overpowering 
+him; then with an effort he struggled to his feel again. He felt a 
+compelling desire for cool water. 'Wait for me, Sam,' he stammered. 'Must 
+bathe feet a minute.' 
+
+Half in a dream he wandered forward to the riverward side of the tree, 
+where great winding roots grew out into the stream, like gnarled dragonets 
+straining down to drink. He straddled one of these, and paddled his hot feel 
+in the cool brown water; and there he too suddenly fell asleep with his back 
+against the tree. 
+
+Sam sat down and scratched his head, and yawned like a cavern. He was 
+worried. The afternoon was getting late, and he thought this sudden 
+sleepiness uncanny. 'There's more behind this than sun and warm air,' he 
+muttered to himself. 'I don't like this great big tree. I don't trust it. 
+
+Hark at it singing about sleep now! This won't do at all!' 
+
+He pulled himself to his feet, and staggered off to see what had become 
+of the ponies. He found that two had wandered on a good way along the path; 
+and he had just caught them and brought them back towards the others, when 
+
+
+
+
+he heard two noises; one loud, and the other soft but very clear. One was 
+the splash of something heavy falling into the water; the other was a noise 
+like the snick of a lock when a door quietly closes fast. 
+
+He rushed back to the bank. Frodo was in the water close to the edge, 
+and a great tree-root seemed to be over him and holding him down, but he was 
+not struggling. Sam gripped him by the jacket, and dragged him from under 
+the root; and then with difficulty hauled him on to the bank. Almost at once 
+he woke, and coughed and spluttered. 
+
+'Do you know, Sam,' he said at length, 'the beastly tree threw me in! I 
+felt it. The big root just twisted round and tipped me in!' 
+
+'You were dreaming I expect, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam. 'You shouldn't sit 
+in such a place, if you feel sleepy.' 
+
+'What about the others?' Frodo asked. 'I wonder what sort of dreams 
+they are having.' 
+
+They went round to the other side of the tree, and then Sam understood 
+the click that he had heard. Pippin had vanished. The crack by which he had 
+laid himself had closed together, so that not a chink could be seen. Merry 
+was trapped: another crack had closed about his waist; his legs lay outside, 
+but the rest of him was inside a dark opening, the edges of which gripped 
+like a pair of pincers. 
+
+Frodo and Sam beat first upon the tree-trunk where Pippin had lain. 
+
+They then struggled frantically to pull open the jaws of the crack that held 
+poor Merry. It was quite useless. 
+
+'What a foul thing to happen!' cried Frodo wildly. 'Why did we ever 
+come into this dreadful Forest? I wish we were all back at Crickhollow!' He 
+kicked the tree with all his strength, heedless of his own feet. A hardly 
+perceptible shiver ran through the stem and up into the branches; the leaves 
+rustled and whispered, but with a sound now of faint and far-off laughter. 
+
+'I suppose we haven't got an axe among our luggage, Mr. Frodo?' asked 
+Sam. 
+
+'I brought a little hatchet for chopping firewood,' said Frodo. 'That 
+wouldn't be much use.' 
+
+'Wait a minute!' cried Sam, struck by an idea suggested by firewood. 
+
+'We might do something with fire!' 
+
+'We might,' said Frodo doubtfully. 'We might succeed in roasting Pippin 
+alive inside.' 
+
+
+
+
+'We might try to hurt or frighten this tree to begin with,' said Sam 
+fiercely. 'If it don't let them go, I'll have it down, if I have to gnaw 
+it.' He ran to the ponies and before long came back with two tinder-boxes 
+and a hatchet. 
+
+Quickly they gathered dry grass and leaves, and bits of bark; and made 
+a pile of broken twigs and chopped sticks. These they heaped against the 
+trunk on the far side of the tree from the prisoners. As soon as Sam had 
+struck a spark into the tinder, it kindled the dry grass and a flurry of 
+flame and smoke went up. The twigs crackled. Little fingers of fire licked 
+against the dry scored rind of the ancient tree and scorched it. A tremor 
+ran through the whole willow. The leaves seemed to hiss above their heads 
+with a sound of pain and anger. A loud scream came from Merry, and from far 
+inside the tree they heard Pippin give a muffled yell. 
+
+'Put it out! Put it out!' cried Merry. 'He'll squeeze me in two, if you 
+don't. He says so!' 
+
+'Who? What?' shouted Frodo, rushing round to the other side of the 
+tree. 
+
+'Put it out! Put it out!' begged Merry. The branches of the willow 
+began to sway violently. There was a sound as of a wind rising and spreading 
+outwards to the branches of all the other trees round about, as though they 
+had dropped a stone into the quiet slumber of the river -valley and set up 
+ripples of anger that ran out over the whole Forest. Sam kicked at the 
+little fire and stamped out the sparks. But Frodo, without any clear idea of 
+why he did so, or what he hoped for, ran along the path crying help! help! 
+help! It seemed to him that he could hardly hear the sound of his own shrill 
+voice: it was blown away from him by the willow-wind and drowned in a 
+clamour of leaves, as soon as the words left his mouth. He felt desperate: 
+lost and witless. 
+
+Suddenly he slopped. There was an answer, or so he thought; but it 
+seemed to come from behind him, away down the path further back in the 
+Forest. He turned round and listened, and soon there could be no doubt: 
+someone was singing a song; a deep glad voice was singing carelessly and 
+happily, but it was singing nonsense: 
+
+Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! 
+
+Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! 
+
+Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo! 
+
+
+
+
+Half hopeful and half afraid of some new danger, Frodo and Sam now both 
+stood still. Suddenly out of a long string of nonsense-words (or so they 
+seemed) the voice rose up loud and clear and burst into this song: 
+
+Hey! Come merry dot ! derry dol! My darling! 
+
+Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling. 
+
+Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight, 
+
+Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight, 
+
+There my pretty lady is. River-woman's daughter, 
+
+Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water. 
+
+Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing 
+
+Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing? 
+
+Hey! Come merry dol! deny dol! and merry-o, 
+
+Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o! 
+
+Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away! 
+
+Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day. 
+
+Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing. 
+
+Hey! Come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? 
+
+Frodo and Sam stood as if enchanted. The wind puffed out. The leaves 
+hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and 
+then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the 
+reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in 
+the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it 
+seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite 
+tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, 
+slumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging 
+through grass and rushes like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat 
+and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red 
+as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. In his 
+hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white 
+water-lilies. 
+
+'Help!' cried Frodo and Sam running towards him with their hands 
+stretched out. 
+
+'Whoa! Whoa! steady there!’ cried the old man, holding up one hand, and 
+they stopped short, as if they had been struck stiff. 'Now, my little 
+fellows, where be you a-going to, puffing like a bellows? What's the matter 
+here then? Do you know who I am? I'm Tom Bombadil. Tell me what's 
+your 
+
+
+
+
+trouble! Tom's in a hurry now. Don't you crush my lilies!' 
+
+'My friends are caught in the willow-tree,' cried Frodo breathlessly. 
+
+'Master Merry's being squeezed in a crack!' cried Sam. 
+
+'What?' shouted Tom Bombadil, leaping up in the air. 'Old Man Willow? 
+Naught worse than that, eh? That can soon be mended. I know the tune for 
+him. Old grey Willow-man! I'll freeze his marrow cold, if he don't behave 
+himself. I'll sing his roots off. I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and 
+branch away. Old Man Willow!' Setting down his lilies carefully on the 
+grass, he ran to the tree. There he saw Merry's feet still sticking out - 
+the rest had already been drawn further inside. Tom put his mouth to the 
+crack and began singing into it in a low voice. They could not catch the 
+words, but evidently Merry was aroused. His legs began to kick. Tom sprang 
+away, and breaking off a hanging branch smote the side of the willow with 
+it. 'You let them out again, Old Man Willow!' he said. 'What be you 
+a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! 
+Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!' He then seized Merry's feet and drew him 
+out of the suddenly widening crack. 
+
+There was a tearing creak and the other crack split open, and out of it 
+Pippin sprang, as if he had been kicked. Then with a loud snap both cracks 
+closed fast again. A shudder ran through the tree from root to tip, and 
+complete silence fell. 
+
+'Thank you!' said the hobbits, one after the other. 
+
+Tom Bombadil burst out laughing. 'Well, my little fellows!' said he, 
+stooping so that he peered into their faces. 'You shall come home with me! 
+The table is all laden with yellow cream, honeycomb, and white bread and 
+butter. Goldberry is waiting. Time enough for questions around the supper 
+table. You follow after me as quick as you are able!' With that he picked up 
+his lilies, and then with a beckoning wave of his hand went hopping and 
+dancing along the path eastward, still singing loudly and nonsensically. 
+
+Too surprised and too relieved to talk, the hobbits followed after him 
+as fast as they could. But that was not fast enough. Tom soon disappeared in 
+front of them, and the noise of his singing got fainter and further away. 
+Suddenly his voice came floating back to them in a loud halloo! 
+
+Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle! 
+
+Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle. 
+
+Down west sinks the Sun: soon you will be groping. 
+
+When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open, 
+
+
+
+
+Out of the window-panes light will twinkle yellow. 
+
+Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow! 
+
+Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you. 
+
+Hey now! merry dot! We'll be waiting for you! 
+
+After that the hobbits heard no more. Almost at once the sun seemed to 
+sink into the trees behind them. They thought of the slanting light of 
+evening glittering on the Brandywine River, and the windows of Bucklebury 
+beginning to gleam with hundreds of lights. Great shadows fell across them; 
+trunks and branches of trees hung dark and threatening over the path. White 
+mists began to rise and curl on the surface of the river and stray about the 
+roots of the trees upon its borders. Out of the very ground at their feet a 
+shadowy steam arose and mingled with the swiftly falling dusk. 
+
+It became difficult to follow the path, and they were very tired. Their 
+legs seemed leaden. Strange furtive noises ran among the bushes and reeds on 
+either side of them; and if they looked up to the pale sky, they caught 
+sight of queer gnarled and knobbly faces that gloomed dark against the 
+twilight, and leered down at them from the high bank and the edges of the 
+wood. They began to feel that all this country was unreal, and that they 
+were stumbling through an ominous dream that led to no awakening. 
+
+Just as they felt their feet slowing down to a standstill, they noticed 
+that the ground was gently rising. The water began to murmur. In the 
+darkness they caught the white glimmer of foam, where the river flowed over 
+a short fall. Then suddenly the trees came to an end and the mists were left 
+behind. They stepped out from the Forest, and found a wide sweep of grass 
+welling up before them. The river, now small and swift, was leaping merrily 
+down to meet them, glinting here and there in the light of the stars, which 
+were already shining in the sky. 
+
+The grass under their feet was smooth and short, as if it had been mown 
+or shaven. The eaves of the Forest behind were clipped, and trim as a hedge. 
+The path was now plain before them, well -tended and bordered with stone. It 
+wound up on to the top of a grassy knoll, now grey under the pale starry 
+night; and there, still high above them on a further slope, they saw the 
+twinkling lights of a house. Down again the path went, and then up again, up 
+a long smooth hillside of turf, towards the light. Suddenly a wide yellow 
+beam flowed out brightly from a door that was opened. There was Tom 
+Bombadil’s house before them, up, down, under hill. Behind it a steep 
+shoulder of the land lay grey and bare, and beyond that the dark shapes of 
+
+
+
+
+the Barrow-downs stalked away into the eastern night. 
+
+They all hurried forward, hobbits and ponies. Already half their 
+weariness and all their fears had fallen from them. Hey! Come merry dol! 
+rolled out the song to greet them. 
+
+Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! 
+
+Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. 
+
+Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together! 
+
+Then another clear voice, as young and as ancient as Spring, like the 
+song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in 
+the hills, came falling like silver to meet them: 
+
+Now let the song begin! Let us sing together 
+
+Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, 
+
+Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather, 
+
+Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, 
+
+Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: 
+
+Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter! 
+
+And with that song the hobbits stood upon the threshold, and a golden 
+light was all about them. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7 . In the House of Tom Bombadil 
+
+
+
+The four hobbits stepped over the wide stone threshold, and stood 
+still, blinking. They were in a long low room, filled with the light of 
+lamps swinging from the beams of the roof; and on the table of dark polished 
+wood stood many candles, tall and yellow, burning brightly. 
+
+In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a 
+woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was 
+green, 
+
+green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was 
+of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of 
+forget-me-nots. About her feel in wide vessels of green and brown 
+earthenware, white water-lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be 
+enthroned in the midst of a pool. 
+
+’Enter, good guests!' she said, and as she spoke they knew that it was 
+her clear voice they had heard singing. They came a few timid steps further 
+into the room, and began to bow low, feeling strangely surprised and 
+awkward, like folk that, knocking at a cottage door to beg for a drink of 
+water, have been answered by a fair young elf-queen clad in living flowers. 
+But before they could say anything, she sprang lightly up and over the 
+lily -bowls, and ran laughing towards them; and as she ran her gown rustled 
+softly like the wind in the flowering borders of a river. 
+
+’Come dear folk!' she said, taking Frodo by the hand. Faugh and be 
+merry! I am Goldberry, daughter of the River.' Then lightly she passed them 
+and closing the door she turned her back to it, with her white arms spread 
+out across it. 'Let us shut out the night!' she said. 'For you are still 
+afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things. 
+Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil.' 
+
+The hobbits looked at her in wonder; and she looked at each of them and 
+smiled. 'Fair lady Goldberry!' said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved 
+with a joy that he did not understand. He stood as he had at times stood 
+enchanted by fair el ven- voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was 
+different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to 
+mortal heart; marvellous and yet not strange. 'Fair lady Goldberry!' he said 
+again. 'Now the joy that was hidden in the songs we heard is made plain to 
+
+
+
+
+me. 
+
+O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water ! 
+
+O reed by the living pool! Fair River-daughter! 
+
+O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after! 
+
+O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter!' 
+
+Suddenly he stopped and stammered, overcome with surprise to hear 
+himself saying such things. But Goldberry laughed. 
+
+'Welcome!' she said. 'I had not heard that folk of the Shire were so 
+sweet -tongued. But I see you are an elf-friend; the light in your eyes and 
+the ring in your voice tells it. This is a merry meeting! Sit now, and wait 
+for the Master of the house! He will not be long. He is tending your tired 
+beasts.' 
+
+The hobbits sat down gladly in low rush-seated chairs, while Goldberry 
+busied herself about the table; and their eyes followed her, for the slender 
+grace of her movement filled them with quiet delight. From somewhere behind 
+the house came the sound of singing. Every now and again they caught, among 
+many a derry dol and a merry dol and a ring a ding dillo the repeated words: 
+
+Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow; 
+
+Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. 
+
+'Fair lady!' said Frodo again after a while. 'Tell me, if my asking 
+does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?' 
+
+'He is,' said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling. 
+
+Frodo looked at her questioningly. 'He is, as you have seen him,' she 
+said in answer to his look. 'He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.' 
+
+'Then all this strange land belongs to him?' 
+
+'No indeed!' she answered, and her smile faded. 'That would indeed be a 
+burden,' she added in a low voice, as if to herself. 'The trees and the 
+grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to 
+themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom 
+walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under 
+light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.' 
+
+A door opened and in came Tom Bombadil. He had now no hat and his 
+thick 
+
+brown hair was crowned with autumn leaves. He laughed, and going to 
+Goldberry, took her hand. 
+
+'Here's my pretty lady!' he said, bowing to the hobbits. 'Here's my 
+Goldberry clothed all in silver -green with flowers in her girdle! Is the 
+
+
+
+
+table laden? I see yellow cream and honeycomb, and white bread, and butter; 
+milk, cheese, and green herbs and ripe berries gathered. Is that enough for 
+us? Is the supper ready?' 
+
+'It is,' said Goldberry; 'but the guests perhaps are not?' 
+
+Tom clapped his hands and cried: 'Tom, Tom! your guests are tired, and 
+you had near forgotten! Come now, my merry friends, and Tom will refresh 
+you! You shall clean grimy hands, and wash your weary faces; cast off your 
+muddy cloaks and comb out your tangles!' 
+
+He opened the door, and they followed him down a short passage and 
+round a sharp turn. They came to a low room with a sloping roof (a 
+penthouse, it seemed, built on to the north end of the house). Its walls 
+were of clean stone, but they were mostly covered with green hanging mats 
+and yellow curtains. The floor was flagged, and strewn with fresh green 
+rushes. There were four deep mattresses, each piled with white blankets, 
+laid on the floor along one side. Against the opposite wall was a long bench 
+laden with wide earthenware basins, and beside it stood brown ewers filled 
+with water, some cold, some steaming hot. There were soft green slippers set 
+ready beside each bed. 
+
+Before long, washed and refreshed, the hobbits were seated at the 
+table, two on each side, while at either end sat Goldberry and the Master. 
+
+It was a long and merry meal. Though the hobbits ate, as only famished 
+hobbits can eat, there was no lack. The drink in their drinking -bowls seemed 
+to be clear cold water, yet it went to their hearts like wine and set free 
+their voices. The guests became suddenly aware that they were singing 
+merrily, as if it was easier and more natural than talking. 
+
+At last Tom and Goldberry rose and cleared the table swiftly. The 
+guests were commanded to sit quiet, and were set in chairs, each with a 
+footstool to his tired feet. There was a fire in the wide hearth before 
+them, and it was burning with a sweet smell, as if it were built of 
+apple-wood. When everything was set in order, all the lights in the room 
+were put out, except one lamp and a pair of candles at each end of the 
+chimney-shelf. Then Goldberry came and stood before them, holding a candle; 
+and she wished them each a good night and deep sleep. 
+
+'Have peace now,' she said, 'until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! 
+
+For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the 
+wind off the hill-top. Good night!' She passed out of the room with a 
+glimmer and a rustle. The sound of her footsteps was like a stream falling 
+
+
+
+
+gently away downhill over cool stones in the quiet of night. 
+
+Tom sat on a while beside them in silence, while each of them tried to 
+muster the courage to ask one of the many questions he had meant to ask at 
+supper. Sleep gathered on their eyelids. At last Frodo spoke: 
+
+'Did you hear me calling, Master, or was it just chance that brought 
+you at that moment?' 
+
+Tom stirred like a man shaken out of a pleasant dream. 'Eh, what?' said 
+he. 'Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just 
+chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine, 
+though I was waiting for you. We heard news of you, and learned that you 
+were wandering. We guessed you'd come ere long down to the water: all paths 
+lead that way, down to Withywindle. Old grey Willow-man, he's a mighty 
+singer; and it's hard for little folk to escape his cunning mazes. But Tom 
+had an errand there, that he dared not hinder.' Tom nodded as if sleep was 
+taking him again; but he went on in a soft singing voice: 
+
+I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies, 
+green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady, 
+the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter, 
+to flower by her pretty feet tilt the snows are melted. 
+
+Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her, 
+in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle; 
+there they open first in spring and there they linger latest. 
+
+By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter, 
+fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes. 
+
+Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating! 
+
+He opened his eyes and looked at them with a sudden glint of blue: 
+
+And that proved well for you — for now I shall no longer 
+go down deep again along the forest-water, 
+not while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing 
+Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time, 
+not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter 
+dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water. 
+
+He fell silent again; but Frodo could not help asking one more 
+question: the one he most desired to have answered. 'Tell us, Master,' he 
+said, 'about the Willow-man. What is he? I have never heard of him before.' 
+
+'No, don't!' said Merry and Pippin together, sitting suddenly upright. 
+
+'Not now! Not until the morning!' 
+
+
+
+
+That is right!' said the old man. 'Now is the time for resting. Some 
+things are ill to hear when the world's in shadow. Sleep till the 
+morning -light, rest on the pillow ! Heed no nightly noise! Fear no grey 
+willow!' And with that he took down the lamp and blew it out, and grasping a 
+candle in either hand he led them out of the room. 
+
+Their mattresses and pillows were soft as down, and the blankets were 
+of white wool. They had hardly laid themselves on the deep beds and drawn 
+the light covers over them before they were asleep. 
+
+In the dead night, Frodo lay in a dream without light. Then he saw the 
+young moon rising; under its thin light there loomed before him a black wall 
+of rock, pierced by a dark arch like a great gate. It seemed to Frodo that 
+he was lifted up, and passing over he saw that the rock-wall was a circle of 
+hills, and that within it was a plain, and in the midst of the plain stood a 
+pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower but not made by hands. On its top stood 
+the figure of a man. The moon as it rose seemed to hang for a moment above 
+his head and glistened in his white hair as the wind stirred it. Up from the 
+dark plain below came the crying of fell voices, and the howling of many 
+wolves. Suddenly a shadow, like the shape of great wings, passed across the 
+moon. The figure lifted his arms and a light flashed from the staff that he 
+wielded. A mighty eagle swept down and bore him away. The voices wailed 
+and 
+
+the wolves yammered. There was a noise like a strong wind blowing, and on it 
+was borne the sound of hoofs, galloping, galloping, galloping from the East. 
+'Black Riders!' thought Frodo as he wakened, with the sound of the hoofs 
+still echoing in his mind. He wondered if he would ever again have the 
+courage to leave the safety of these stone walls. He lay motionless, still 
+listening; but all was now silent, and at last he turned and fell asleep 
+again or wandered into some other unremembered dream. 
+
+At his side Pippin lay dreaming pleasantly; but a change came over his 
+dreams and he turned and groaned. Suddenly he woke, or thought he had 
+waked, 
+
+and yet still heard in the darkness the sound that had disturbed his dream: 
+tip-tap, squeak : the noise was like branches fretting in the wind, 
+twig-fingers scraping wall and window: creak, creak, creak. He wondered if 
+there were willow-trees close to the house; and then suddenly he had a 
+dreadful feeling that he was not in an ordinary house at all, but inside the 
+willow and listening to that horrible dry creaking voice laughing at him 
+
+
+
+
+again. He sat up, and felt the soft pillows yield to his hands, and he lay 
+down again relieved. He seemed to hear the echo of words in his ears: ’Fear 
+nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!' Then he went 
+to sleep again. 
+
+It was the sound of water that Merry heard falling into his quiet 
+sleep: water streaming down gently, and then spreading, spreading 
+irresistibly all round the house into a dark shoreless pool. It gurgled 
+under the walls, and was rising slowly but surely. 'I shall be drowned!' he 
+thought. It will find its way in, and then I shall drown.' He felt that he 
+was lying in a soft slimy bog, and springing up he set his fool on the 
+corner of a cold hard flagstone. Then he remembered where he was and lay 
+down again. He seemed to hear or remember hearing: 'Nothing passes doors or 
+windows save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top.' A 
+little breath of sweet air moved the curtain. He breathed deep and fell 
+asleep again. 
+
+As far as he could remember, Sam slept through the night in deep 
+content, if logs are contented. 
+
+They woke up, all four at once, in the morning light. Tom was moving 
+about the room whistling like a starling. When he heard them stir he clapped 
+his hands, and cried: 'Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My hearties!' He drew 
+back the yellow curtains, and the hobbits saw that these had covered the 
+windows, at either end of the room, one looking east and the other looking 
+west. 
+
+They leapt up refreshed. Frodo ran to the eastern window, and found 
+himself looking into a kitchen-garden grey with dew. He had half expected to 
+see turf right up to the walls, turf all pocked with hoof-prints. Actually 
+his view was screened by a tall line of beans on poles; but above and far 
+beyond them the grey top of the hill loomed up against the sunrise. It was a 
+pale morning: in the East, behind long clouds like lines of soiled wool 
+stained red at the edges, lay glimmering deeps of yellow. The sky spoke of 
+rain to come; but the light was broadening quickly, and the red flowers on 
+the beans began to glow against the wet green leaves. 
+
+Pippin looked out of the western window, down into a pool of mist. The 
+Forest was hidden under a fog. It was like looking down on to a sloping 
+cloud-roof from above. There was a fold or channel where the mist was broken 
+into many plumes and billows; the valley of the Withywindle. The stream ran 
+down the hill on the left and vanished into the white shadows. Near at hand 
+
+
+
+
+was a flower-garden and a clipped hedge silver -netted, and beyond that grey 
+shaven grass pale with dew-drops. There was no willow-tree to be seen. 
+
+'Good morning, merry friends!' cried Tom, opening the eastern window 
+wide. A cool air flowed in; it had a rainy smell. 'Sun won't show her face 
+much today. I'm thinking. I have been walking wide, leaping on the hilltops, 
+since the grey dawn began, nosing wind and weather, wet grass underfoot, wet 
+sky above me. I wakened Goldberry singing under window; but nought 
+wakes 
+
+hobbit-folk in the early morning. In the night little folk wake up in the 
+darkness, and sleep after light has come! Ring a ding dillo! Wake now, my 
+merry friends! Forget the nightly noises! Ring a ding dillo del! derry del, 
+my hearties! If you come soon you'll find breakfast on the table. If you 
+come late you'll get grass and rain-water!' 
+
+Needless to say - not that Tom's threat sounded very serious - the 
+hobbits came soon, and left the table late and only when it was beginning lo 
+look rather empty. Neither Tom nor Goldberry were there. Tom could be heard 
+about the house, clattering in the kitchen, and up and down the stairs, and 
+singing here and there outside. The room looked westward over the 
+mist-clouded valley, and the window was open. Water dripped down from the 
+thatched eaves above. Before they had finished breakfast the clouds had 
+joined into an unbroken roof, and a straight grey rain came softly and 
+steadily down. Behind its deep curtain the Forest was completely veiled. 
+
+As they looked out of the window there came falling gently as if it was 
+flowing down the rain out of the sky, the clear voice of Goldberry singing 
+up above them. They could hear few words, but it seemed plain to them that 
+the song was a rain-song, as sweet as showers on dry hills, that told the 
+tale of a river from the spring in the highlands to the Sea far below. The 
+hobbits listened with delight; and Frodo was glad in his heart, and blessed 
+the kindly weather, because it delayed them from departing. The thought of 
+going had been heavy upon him from the moment he awoke; but he guessed 
+now 
+
+that they would not go further that day. 
+
+The upper wind settled in the West and deeper and wetter clouds rolled 
+up to spill their laden rain on the bare heads of the Downs. Nothing could 
+be seen all round the house but falling water. Frodo stood near the open 
+door and watched the white chalky path turn into a little river of milk and 
+
+
+
+
+go bubbling away down into the valley. Tom Bombadil came trotting round 
+the 
+
+corner of the house, waving his arms as if he was warding off the rain - and 
+indeed when he sprang over the threshold he seemed quite dry, except for his 
+boots. These he took off and put in the chimney-corner. Then he sat in the 
+largest chair and called the hobbits to gather round him. 
+
+This is Goldberry's washing day,' he said, ’and her autumn-cleaning. 
+
+Too wet for hobbit-folk - let them rest while they are able! It’s a good day 
+for long tales, for questions and for answers, so Tom will start the 
+talking.’ 
+
+He then told them many remarkable stories, sometimes half as if 
+speaking to himself, sometimes looking at them suddenly with a bright blue 
+eye under his deep brows. Often his voice would turn to song, and he would 
+get out of his chair and dance about. He told them tales of bees and 
+flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about 
+the evil things and good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, 
+cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles. 
+
+As they listened, they began to understand the lives of the Forest, 
+apart from themselves, indeed to feel themselves as the strangers where all 
+other things were at home. Moving constantly in and out of his talk was Old 
+Man Willow, and Frodo learned now enough to content him, indeed more 
+than 
+
+enough, for it was not comfortable lore. Tom’s words laid bare the hearts of 
+trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, and filled with 
+a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, 
+hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest 
+without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten 
+woods; and in it there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the hills, the 
+fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords. The 
+countless years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with 
+malice. But none were more dangerous than the Great Willow: his heart was 
+rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of 
+winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the 
+river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like 
+fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till 
+it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge 
+to the Downs. 
+
+
+
+
+Suddenly Tom’s talk left the woods and went leaping up the young 
+stream, over bubbling waterfalls, over pebbles and worn rocks, and among 
+small flowers in close grass and wet crannies, wandering at last up on to 
+the Downs. They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the 
+stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills. Sheep were 
+bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There were fortresses 
+on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun 
+shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was 
+victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went 
+up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and 
+mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over 
+all. Sheep walked for a while biting the grass, but soon the hills were 
+empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were 
+stirred in the mounds. Barrow- wights walked in the hollow places with a 
+clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind.' Stone rings 
+grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight. 
+
+The hobbits shuddered. Even in the Shire the rumour of the 
+Barrow- wights of the Barrow-downs beyond the Forest had been heard. But it 
+was not a tale that any hobbit liked to listen to, even by a comfortable 
+fireside far away. These four now suddenly remembered what the joy of this 
+house had driven from their minds: the house of Tom Bombadil nestled under 
+the very shoulder of those dreaded hills. They lost the thread of his tale 
+and shifted uneasily, looking aside at one another. 
+
+When they caught his words again they found that he had now wandered 
+into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, 
+into limes when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the 
+western Shore; and still on and back Tom went singing out into ancient 
+starlight, when only the Elf-sires were awake. Then suddenly he slopped, and 
+they saw that he nodded as if he was falling asleep. The hobbits sat still 
+before him, enchanted; and it seemed as if, under the spell of his words, 
+the wind had gone, and the clouds had dried up, and the day had been 
+withdrawn, and darkness had come from East and West, and all the sky was 
+filled with the light of white stars. 
+
+Whether the morning and evening of one day or of many days had passed 
+Frodo could not tell. Ele did not feel either hungry or tired, only filled 
+with wonder. The stars shone through the window and the silence of the 
+heavens seemed to be round him. He spoke at last out of his wonder and a 
+
+
+
+
+sudden fear of that silence: 
+
+’Who are you, Master?' he asked. 
+
+’Eh, what?' said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. 
+
+'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, 
+alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's 
+what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the 
+trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths 
+before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here 
+before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow- wights. When the Elves passed 
+westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark 
+under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from 
+Outside.' 
+
+A shadow seemed to pass by the window, and the hobbits glanced hastily 
+through the panes. When they turned again, Goldberry stood in the door 
+behind, framed in light. She held a candle, shielding its flame from the 
+draught with her hand; and the light flowed through it, like sunlight 
+through a white shell. 
+
+'The rain has ended,' she said; 'and new waters are running downhill, 
+under the stars. Let us now laugh and be glad!' 
+
+'And let us have food and drink!' cried Tom. 'Long tales are thirsty. 
+
+And long listening's hungry work, morning, noon, and evening!' With that he 
+jumped out of his chair, and with a bound took a candle from the 
+chimney-shelf and lit it in the flame that Goldberry held; then he danced 
+about the table. Suddenly he hopped through the door and disappeared. 
+
+Quickly he returned, bearing a large and laden tray. Then Tom and 
+Goldberry set the table; and the hobbits sat half in wonder and half in 
+laughter: so fair was the grace of Goldberry and so merry and odd the 
+caperings of Tom. Yet in some fashion they seemed to weave a single dance, 
+neither hindering the other, in and out of the room, and round about the 
+table; and with great speed food and vessels and lights were set in order. 
+
+The boards blazed with candles, white and yellow. Tom bowed to his guests. 
+'Supper is ready,' said Goldberry; and now the hobbits saw that she was 
+clothed all in silver with a white girdle, and her shoes were like fishes' 
+mail. But Tom was all in clean blue, blue as rain-washed forget-me-nots, and 
+he had green stockings. 
+
+It was a supper even better than before. The hobbits under the spell of 
+
+
+
+
+Tom's words may have missed one meal or many, but when the food was 
+before 
+
+them it seemed at least a week since they had eaten. They did not sing or 
+even speak much for a while, and paid close attention to business. But after 
+a time their hearts and spirit rose high again, and their voices rang out in 
+mirth and laughter. 
+
+After they had eaten, Goldberry sang many songs for them, songs that 
+began merrily in the hills and fell softly down into silence; and in the 
+silences they saw in their minds pools and waters wider than any they had 
+known, and looking into them they saw the sky below them and the stars like 
+jewels in the depths. Then once more she wished them each good night and 
+left them by the fireside. But Tom now seemed wide awake and plied them 
+with 
+
+questions. 
+
+He appeared already to know much about them and all their families, and 
+indeed to know much of all the history and doings of the Shire down from 
+days hardly remembered among the hobbits themselves. It no longer surprised 
+them; but he made no secret that he owed his recent knowledge largely to 
+Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance 
+than 
+
+they had imagined. 'There's earth under his old feet, and clay on his 
+fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open,' said Tom. It was 
+also clear that Tom had dealings with the Elves, and it seemed that in some 
+fashion, news had reached him from Gildor concerning the flight of Frodo. 
+
+Indeed so much did Tom know, and so cunning was his questioning, that 
+Frodo found himself telling him more about Bilbo and his own hopes and fears 
+than he had told before even to Gandalf. Tom wagged his head up and down, 
+and there was a glint in his eyes when he heard of the Riders. 
+
+'Show me the precious Ring!' he said suddenly in the midst of the 
+story: and Frodo, to his own astonishment, drew out the chain from his 
+pocket, and unfastening the Ring handed it at once to Tom. 
+
+It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his big 
+brown-skinned hand. Then suddenly he put it to his eye and laughed. For a 
+second the hobbits had a vision, both comical and alarming, of his bright 
+blue eye gleaming through a circle of gold. Then Tom put the Ring round the 
+end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the 
+hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no 
+
+
+
+
+sign of Tom disappearing! 
+
+Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air - and it 
+vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry - and Tom leaned forward and handed 
+it back to him with a smile. 
+
+Frodo looked at it closely, and rather suspiciously (like one who has 
+lent a trinket to a juggler). It was the same Ring, or looked the same and 
+weighed the same: for that Ring had always seemed to Frodo to weigh 
+strangely heavy in the hand. But something prompted him to make sure. He 
+was 
+
+perhaps a trifle annoyed with Tom for seeming to make so light of what even 
+Gandalf thought so perilously important. He waited for an opportunity, when 
+the talk was going again, and Tom was telling an absurd story about badgers 
+and their queer ways - then he slipped the Ring on. 
+
+Merry turned towards him to say something and gave a start, and checked 
+an exclamation. Frodo was delighted (in a way): it was his own ring all 
+right, for Merry was staring blankly at his chair, and obviously could not 
+see him. He got up and crept quietly away from the fireside towards the 
+outer door. 
+
+'Hey there!' cried Tom, glancing towards him with a most seeing look in 
+his shining eyes. 'Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom 
+Bombadil's not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand's 
+more fair without it. Come back! Leave your game and sit down beside me! 
+We 
+
+must talk a while more, and think about the morning. Tom must teach the 
+right road, and keep your feet from wandering.' 
+
+Frodo laughed (trying to feel pleased), and taking off the Ring he came 
+and sat down again. Tom now told them that he reckoned the Sun would shine 
+tomorrow, and it would be a glad morning, and setting out would be hopeful. 
+But they would do well to start early; for weather in that country was a 
+thing that even Tom could not be sure of for long, and it would change 
+sometimes quicker than he could change his jacket. 'I am no weather-master,' 
+he said; 'nor is aught that goes on two legs.' 
+
+By his advice they decided to make nearly due North from his house, 
+over the western and lower slopes of the Downs: they might hope in that way 
+to strike the East Road in a day's journey, and avoid the Barrows. He told 
+them not to be afraid - but to mind their own business. 
+
+'Keep to the green grass. Don't you go a-meddling with old stone or 
+
+
+
+
+cold Wights or prying in their houses, unless you be strong folk with hearts 
+that never falter!' He said this more than once; and he advised them to pass 
+barrows by on the west-side, if they chanced to stray near one. Then he 
+taught them a rhyme to sing, if they should by ill-luck fall into any danger 
+or difficulty the next day. 
+
+Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! 
+
+By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow, 
+
+By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! 
+
+Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! 
+
+When they had sung this altogether after him, he clapped them each on 
+the shoulder with a laugh, and taking candles led them back to their 
+bedroom. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 8 . Fog on the Barrow-Downs 
+
+
+
+That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of 
+them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his 
+mind; a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey 
+rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, 
+until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him 
+under a swift sunrise. 
+
+The vision melted into waking; and there was Tom whistling like a 
+tree-full of birds; and the sun was already slanting down the hill and 
+through the open window. Outside everything was green and pale gold. 
+
+After breakfast, which they again ate alone, they made ready to say 
+farewell, as nearly heavy of heart as was possible on such a morning: cool, 
+bright, and clean under a washed autumn sky of thin blue. The air came fresh 
+from the North-west. Their quiet ponies were almost frisky, sniffing and 
+moving restlessly. Tom came out of the house and waved his hat and danced 
+upon the doorstep, bidding the hobbits to get up and be off and go with good 
+speed. 
+
+They rode off along a path that wound away from behind the house, and 
+went slanting up towards the north end of the hill -brow under which it 
+sheltered. They had just dismounted to lead their ponies up the last steep 
+slope, when suddenly Frodo stopped. 
+
+'Goldberry!' he cried. 'My fair lady, clad all in silver green! We have 
+never said farewell to her, nor seen her since the evening!' He was so 
+distressed that he turned back; but at that moment a clear call came 
+rippling down. There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair 
+was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light 
+like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed from under her feet as she 
+danced. 
+
+They hastened up the last slope, and stood breathless beside her. They 
+bowed, but with a wave of her arm she bade them look round; and they looked 
+out from the hill-top over lands under the morning. It was now as clear and 
+far-seen as it had been veiled and misty when they stood upon the knoll in 
+the Forest, which could now be seen rising pale and green out of the dark 
+trees in the West. In that direction the land rose in wooded ridges, green, 
+
+
+
+
+yellow, russet under the sun, beyond which lay hidden the valley of the 
+Brandywine. To the South, over the line of the Withywindle, there was a 
+distant glint like pale glass where the Brandywine River made a great loop 
+in the lowlands and flowed away out of the knowledge of the hobbits. 
+Northward beyond the dwindling downs the land ran away in flats and 
+swellings of grey and green and pale earth -colours, until it faded into a 
+featureless and shadowy distance. Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge 
+behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess: it 
+was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with 
+the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of 
+the high and distant mountains. 
+
+They took a deep draught of the air, and felt that a skip and a few 
+stout strides would bear them wherever they wished. It seemed fainthearted 
+to go jogging aside over the crumpled skirts of the downs towards the Road, 
+when they should be leaping, as lusty as Tom, over the stepping stones of 
+the hills straight towards the Mountains. 
+
+Goldberry spoke to them and recalled their eyes and thoughts. ’Speed 
+now, fair guests!’ she said. 'And hold to your purpose! North with the wind 
+in the left eye and a blessing on your footsteps! Make haste while the Sun 
+shines!' And to Frodo she said: 'Farewell, Elf-friend, it was a merry 
+meeting!' 
+
+But Frodo found no words to answer. He bowed low, and mounted his pony, 
+and followed by his friends jogged slowly down the gentle slope behind the 
+hill. Tom Bombadil's house and the valley, and the Forest were lost to view. 
+The air grew warmer between the green walls of hillside and hillside, and 
+the scent of turf rose strong and sweet as they breathed. Turning back, when 
+they reached the bottom of the green hollow, they saw Goldberry, now small 
+and slender like a sunlit flower against the sky: she was standing still 
+watching them, and her hands were stretched out towards them. As they looked 
+she gave a clear call, and lifting up her hand she turned and vanished 
+behind the hill . 
+
+Their way wound along the floor of the hollow, and round the green feet 
+of a steep hill into another deeper and broader valley, and then over the 
+shoulder of further hills, and down their long limbs, and up their smooth 
+sides again, up on to new hill-tops and down into new valleys. There was no 
+tree nor any visible water: it was a country of grass and short springy 
+turf, silent except for the whisper of the air over the edges of the land, 
+
+
+
+
+and high lonely cries of strange birds. As they journeyed the sun mounted, 
+and grew hot. Each time they climbed a ridge the breeze seemed to have grown 
+less. When they caught a glimpse of the country westward the distant Forest 
+seemed to be smoking, as if the fallen rain was steaming up again from leaf 
+and root and mould. A shadow now lay round the edge of sight, a dark haze 
+above which the upper sky was like a blue cap, hot and heavy. 
+
+About mid-day they came to a hill whose top was wide and flattened, 
+like a shallow saucer with a green mounded rim. Inside there was no air 
+stirring, and the sky seemed near their heads. They rode across and looked 
+northwards. Then their hearts rose, for it seemed plain that they had come 
+further already than they had expected. Certainly the distances had now all 
+become hazy and deceptive, but there could be no doubt that the Downs were 
+coming to an end. A long valley lay below them winding away northwards, 
+until it came to an opening between two steep shoulders. Beyond, there 
+seemed to be no more hills. Due north they faintly glimpsed a long dark 
+line. That is a line of trees,' said Merry, 'and that must mark the Road. 
+
+All along it for many leagues east of the Bridge there are trees growing. 
+
+Some say they were planted in the old days.' 
+
+'Splendid!' said Frodo. 'If we make as good going this afternoon as we 
+have done this morning, we shall have left the Downs before the Sun sets and 
+be jogging on in search of a camping place.' But even as he spoke he turned 
+his glance eastwards, and he saw that on that side the hills were higher and 
+looked down upon them; and all those hills were crowned with green mounds, 
+and on some were standing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of 
+green gums. 
+
+That view was somehow disquieting; so they turned from the sight and 
+went down into the hollow circle. In the midst of it there stood a single 
+stone, standing tall under the sun above, and at this hour casting no 
+shadow. It was shapeless and yet significant: like a landmark, or a guarding 
+finger, or more like a warning. But they were now hungry, and the sun was 
+still at the fearless noon; so they set their backs against the east side of 
+the stone. It was cool, as if the sun had had no power to warm it; but at 
+that time this seemed pleasant. There they took food and drink, and made as 
+good a noon-meal under the open sky as anyone could wish; for the food came 
+from 'down under Hill'. Tom had provided them with plenty for the comfort of 
+the day. Their ponies unburdened strayed upon the grass. 
+
+Riding over the hills, and eating their fill, the warm sun and the 
+
+
+
+
+scent of turf, lying a little too long, stretching out their legs and 
+looking at the sky above their noses: these things are, perhaps, enough to 
+explain what happened. However, that may be: they woke suddenly and 
+uncomfortably from a sleep they had never meant to take. The standing stone 
+was cold, and it cast a long pale shadow that stretched eastward over them. 
+The sun, a pale and watery yellow, was gleaming through the mist just above 
+the west wall of the hollow in which they lay; north, south, and east, 
+beyond the wall the fog was thick, cold and white. The air was silent, heavy 
+and chill. Their ponies were standing crowded together with their heads 
+down. 
+
+The hobbits sprang to their feet in alarm, and ran to the western rim. 
+
+They found that they were upon an island in the fog. Even as they looked out 
+in dismay towards the setting sun, it sank before their eyes into a white 
+sea, and a cold grey shadow sprang up in the East behind. The fog rolled up 
+to the walls and rose above them, and as it mounted it bent over their heads 
+until it became a roof: they were shut in a hall of mist whose central 
+pillar was the standing stone. 
+
+They felt as if a trap was closing about them; but they did not quite 
+lose heart. They still remembered the hopeful view they had had of the line 
+of the Road ahead, and they still knew in which direction it lay. In any 
+case, they now had so great a dislike for that hollow place about the stone 
+that no thought of remaining there was in their minds. They packed up as 
+quickly as their chilled fingers would work. 
+
+Soon they were leading their ponies in single file over the rim and 
+down the long northward slope of the hill, down into a foggy sea. As they 
+went down the mist became colder and damper, and their hair hung lank and 
+dripping on their foreheads. When they reached the bottom it was so cold 
+that they halted and got out cloaks and hoods, which soon became bedewed 
+with grey drops. Then, mounting their ponies, they went slowly on again, 
+feeling their way by the rise and fall of the ground. They were steering, as 
+well as they could guess, for the gate-like opening at the far northward end 
+of the long valley which they had seen in the morning. Once they were 
+through the gap, they had only lo keep on in anything like a straight line 
+and they were bound in the end to strike the Road. Their thoughts did not go 
+beyond that, except for a vague hope that perhaps away beyond the Downs 
+there might be no fog. 
+
+Their going was very slow. To prevent their getting separated and 
+
+
+
+
+wandering in different directions they went in file, with Frodo leading. Sam 
+was behind him, and after him came Pippin, and then Merry. The valley 
+seemed 
+
+to stretch on endlessly. Suddenly Frodo saw a hopeful sign. On either side 
+ahead a darkness began to loom through the mist; and he guessed that they 
+were at last approaching the gap in the hills, the north-gate of the 
+Barrow-downs. If they could pass that, they would be free. 
+
+'Come on! Follow me!' he called back over his shoulder, and he hurried 
+forward. But his hope soon changed to bewilderment and alarm. The dark 
+patches grew darker, but they shrank; and suddenly he saw, towering ominous 
+before him and leaning slightly towards one another like the pillars of a 
+headless door, two huge standing stones. He could not remember having seen 
+any sign of these in the valley, when he looked out from the hill in the 
+morning. He had passed between them almost before he was aware: and even 
+as 
+
+he did so darkness seemed to fall round him. His pony reared and snorted, 
+and he fell off. When he looked back he found that he was alone: the others 
+had not followed him. 'Sam!' he called. 'Pippin! Merry! Come along! Why 
+don't you keep up?' 
+
+There was no answer. Fear took him, and he ran back past the stones 
+shouting wildly: 'Sam! Sam! Merry! Pippin!' The pony bolted into the mist 
+and vanished. From some way off, or so it seemed, he thought he heard a cry: 
+'Hoy! Frodo! Hoy!' It was away eastward, on his left as he stood under the 
+great stones, staring and straining into the gloom. He plunged off in the 
+direction of the call, and found himself going steeply uphill. 
+
+As he struggled on he called again, and kept on calling more and more 
+frantically; but he heard no answer for some time, and then it seemed faint 
+and far ahead and high above him. 'Frodo! Hoy!' came the thin voices out of 
+the mist: and then a cry that sounded like help, help! often repeated, 
+ending with a last help! that trailed off into a long wail suddenly cut 
+short. He stumbled forward with all the speed he could towards the cries; 
+but the light was now gone, and clinging night had closed about him, so that 
+it was impossible to be sure of any direction. He seemed all the time to be 
+climbing up and up. 
+
+Only the change in the level of the ground at his feet told him when he 
+at last came to the top of a ridge or hill. He was weary, sweating and yet 
+chilled. It was wholly dark. 
+
+
+
+
+'Where are you?' he cried out miserably. 
+
+There was no reply. He stood listening. He was suddenly aware that it 
+was getting very cold, and that up here a wind was beginning to blow, an icy 
+wind. A change was coming in the weather. The mist was flowing past him 
+now 
+
+in shreds and tatters. His breath was smoking, and the darkness was less 
+near and thick. He looked up and saw with surprise that faint stars were 
+appearing overhead amid the strands of hurrying cloud and fog. The wind 
+began to hiss over the grass. 
+
+He imagined suddenly that he caught a muffled cry, and he made towards 
+it; and even as he went forward the mist was rolled up and thrust aside, and 
+the starry sky was unveiled. A glance showed him that he was now facing 
+southwards and was on a round hill-top, which he must have climbed from the 
+north. Out of the east the biting wind was blowing. To his right there 
+loomed against the westward stars a dark black shape. A great barrow stood 
+there. 
+
+’Where are you?' he cried again, both angry and afraid. 
+
+'Here!' said a voice, deep and cold, that seemed to come out of the 
+ground. 'I am waiting for you!' 
+
+'No!' said Frodo; but he did not run away. His knees gave, and he fell 
+on the ground. Nothing happened, and there was no sound. Trembling he 
+looked 
+
+up, in time to see a tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars. It 
+leaned over him. He thought there were two eyes, very cold though lit with a 
+pale light that seemed to come from some remote distance. Then a grip 
+stronger and colder than iron seized him. The icy touch froze his bones, and 
+he remembered no more. 
+
+When he came to himself again, for a moment he could recall nothing 
+except a sense of dread. Then suddenly he knew that he was imprisoned, 
+caught hopelessly; he was in a barrow. A Barrow-wight had taken him, and he 
+was probably already under the dreadful spells of the Barrow- wights about 
+which whispered tales spoke. He dared not move, but lay as he found himself: 
+flat on his back upon a cold stone with his hands on his breast. 
+
+But though his fear was so great that it seemed to be part of the very 
+darkness that was round him, he found himself as he lay thinking about Bilbo 
+Baggins and his stories, of their jogging along together in the lanes of the 
+Shire and talking about roads and adventures. There is a seed of courage 
+
+
+
+
+hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid 
+hobbit, wailing for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo 
+was neither very fat nor very timid; indeed, though he did not know it, 
+
+Bilbo (and Gandalf) had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought 
+he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought 
+hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no 
+longer felt limp like a helpless prey. 
+
+As he lay there, thinking and getting a hold of himself, he noticed all 
+at once that the darkness was slowly giving way: a pale greenish light was 
+growing round him. It did not at first show him what kind of a place he was 
+in, for the light seemed to be coming out of himself, and from the floor 
+beside him, and had not yet reached the roof or wall. He turned, and there 
+in the cold glow he saw lying beside him Sam, Pippin, and Merry. They were 
+on their backs, and their faces looked deathly pale; and they were clad in 
+white. About them lay many treasures, of gold maybe, though in that light 
+they looked cold and unlovely. On their heads were circlets, gold chains 
+were about their waists, and on their fingers were many rings. Swords lay by 
+their sides, and shields were at their feet. But across their three necks 
+lay one long naked sword. 
+
+Suddenly a song began: a cold murmur, rising and falling. The voice 
+seemed far away and immeasurably dreary, sometimes high in the air and thin, 
+sometimes like a low moan from the ground. Out of the formless stream of sad 
+but horrible sounds, strings of words would now and again shape themselves: 
+grim, hard, cold words, heartless and miserable. The night was railing 
+against the morning of which it was bereaved, and the cold was cursing the 
+warmth for which it hungered. Frodo was chilled to the marrow. After a while 
+the song became clearer, and with dread in his heart he perceived that it 
+had changed into an incantation: 
+
+Cold be hand and heart and bone, 
+
+and cold be sleep under stone: 
+
+never mare to wake on stony bed, 
+
+never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. 
+
+In the black wind the stars shall die, 
+and still on gold here let them lie, 
+till the dark lord lifts his hand 
+over dead sea and withered land. 
+
+He heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound. Raising himself 
+
+
+
+
+on one arm he looked, and saw now in the pale light that they were in a kind 
+of passage which behind them turned a corner. Round the corner a long arm 
+was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and 
+towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him. 
+
+At first Frodo felt as if he had indeed been turned into stone by the 
+incantation. Then a wild thought of escape came to him. He wondered if he 
+put on the Ring, whether the Barrow-wight would miss him, and he might find 
+some way out. He thought of himself running free over the grass, grieving 
+for Merry, and Sam, and Pippin, but free and alive himself. Gandalf would 
+admit that there had been nothing else he could do. 
+
+But the courage that had been awakened in him was now too strong: he 
+could not leave his friends so easily. He wavered, groping in his pocket, 
+and then fought with himself again; and as he did so the arm crept nearer. 
+Suddenly resolve hardened in him, and he seized a short sword that lay 
+beside him, and kneeling he stooped low over the bodies of his companions. 
+With what strength he had he hewed at the crawling arm near the wrist, and 
+the hand broke off; but at the same moment the sword splintered up to the 
+hilt. There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a 
+snarling noise. 
+
+Frodo fell forward over Merry, and Merry's face felt cold. All at once 
+back into his mind, from which it had disappeared with the first coming of 
+the fog, came the memory of the house down under the Hill, and of Tom 
+singing. He remembered the rhyme that Tom had taught them. In a small 
+desperate voice he began: Ho! Tom Bombadil! and with that name his voice 
+seemed to grow strong: it had a full and lively sound, and the dark chamber 
+echoed as if to drum and trumpet. 
+
+Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! 
+
+By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow, 
+
+By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! 
+
+Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! 
+
+There was a sudden deep silence, in which Frodo could hear his heart 
+beating. After a long slow moment he heard plain, but far away, as if it was 
+coming down through the ground or through thick walls, an answering voice 
+singing: 
+
+Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, 
+
+Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. 
+
+None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: 
+
+
+
+
+His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster. 
+
+There was a loud rumbling sound, as of stones rolling and falling, and 
+suddenly light streamed in, real light, the plain light of day. A low 
+door -like opening appeared at the end of the chamber beyond Frodo's feet; 
+and there was Tom's head (hat, feather, and all) framed against the light of 
+the sun rising red behind him. The light fell upon the floor, and upon the 
+faces of the three hobbits lying beside Frodo. They did not stir, but the 
+sickly hue had left them. They looked now as if they were only very deeply 
+asleep. 
+
+Tom stooped, removed his hat, and came into the dark chamber, singing: 
+
+Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight! 
+
+Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, 
+
+Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! 
+
+Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty! 
+
+Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, 
+
+Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended. 
+
+At these words there was a cry and part of the inner end of the chamber 
+fell in with a crash. Then there was a long trailing shriek, fading away 
+into an unguessable distance; and after that silence. 
+
+’Come, friend Frodo!' said Tom. 'Let us get out on to clean grass! You 
+must help me bear them.' 
+
+Together they carried out Merry, Pippin, and Sam. As Frodo left the 
+barrow for the last time he thought he saw a severed hand wriggling still, 
+like a wounded spider, in a heap of fallen earth. Tom went back in again, 
+and there was a sound of much thumping and stamping. When he came out he 
+was 
+
+bearing in his arms a great load of treasure: things of gold, silver, 
+copper, and bronze; many beads and chains and jewelled ornaments. He 
+climbed 
+
+the green barrow and laid them all on top in the sunshine. 
+
+There he stood, with his hat in his hand and the wind in his hair, and 
+looked down upon the three hobbits, that had been laid on their backs upon 
+the grass at the west side of the mound. Raising his right hand he said in a 
+clear and commanding voice: 
+
+Wake now my merry tads! Wake and hear me calling! 
+
+Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; 
+
+Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. 
+
+
+
+
+Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! 
+
+To Frodo’s great joy the hobbits stirred, stretched their arms, rubbed 
+their eyes, and then suddenly sprang up. They looked about in amazement, 
+first at Frodo, and then at Tom standing large as life on the barrow-top 
+above them; and then at themselves in their thin white rags, crowned and 
+belted with pale gold, and jingling with trinkets. 
+
+'What in the name of wonder?' began Merry, feeling the golden circlet 
+that had slipped over one eye. Then he stopped, and a shadow came over his 
+face, and he closed his eyes. 'Of course, I remember!' he said. 'The men of 
+Carn Dym came on us at night, and we were worsted. Ah! the spear in my 
+heart!' He clutched at his breast. 'No! No!' he said, opening his eyes. 
+
+'What am I saying? I have been dreaming. Where did you get to, Frodo?' 
+
+'I thought that I was lost,' said Frodo; 'but I don't want to speak of 
+it. Let us think of what we are to do now! Let us go on!' 
+
+'Dressed up like this, sir?' said Sam. 'Where are my clothes?' He flung 
+his circlet, belt, and rings on the grass, and looked round helplessly, as 
+if he expected to find his cloak, jacket, and breeches, and other 
+hobbit-garments lying somewhere to hand. 
+
+'You won't find your clothes again,' said Tom, bounding down from the 
+mound, and laughing as he danced round them in the sunlight. One would have 
+thought that nothing dangerous or dreadful had happened; and indeed the 
+horror faded out of their hearts as they looked at him, and saw the merry 
+glint in his eyes. 
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Pippin, looking at him, half puzzled and half 
+amused. 'Why not?' 
+
+But Tom shook his head, saying: 'You've found yourselves again, out of 
+the deep water. Clothes are but little loss, if you escape from drowning. Be 
+glad, my merry friends, and let the warm sunlight heal now heart and limb! 
+Cast off these cold rags! Run naked on the grass, while Tom goes a-hunting!' 
+
+He sprang away down hill, whistling and calling. Looking down after him 
+Frodo saw him running away southwards along the green hollow between 
+their 
+
+hill and the next, still whistling and crying: 
+
+Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander? 
+
+Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder? 
+
+Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin, 
+
+White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin! 
+
+
+
+
+So he sang, running fast, tossing up his hat and catching it, until he 
+was hidden by a fold of the ground: but for some time his hey now! hoy now! 
+came floating back down the wind, which had shifted round towards the south. 
+
+The air was growing very warm again. The hobbits ran about for a while 
+on the grass, as he told them. Then they lay basking in the sun with the 
+delight of those that have been wafted suddenly from bitter winter to a 
+friendly clime, or of people that, after being long ill and bedridden, wake 
+one day to find that they are unexpectedly well and the day is again full of 
+promise. 
+
+By the time that Tom returned they were feeling strong (and hungry). He 
+reappeared, hat first, over the brow of the hill, and behind him came in an 
+obedient line six ponies: their own five and one more. The last was plainly 
+old Fatty Lumpkin: he was larger, stronger, fatter (and older) than their 
+own ponies. Merry, to whom the others belonged, had not, in fact, given them 
+any such names, but they answered to the new names that Tom had given 
+them 
+
+for the rest of their lives. Tom called them one by one and they climbed 
+over the brow and stood in a line. Then Tom bowed to the hobbits. 
+
+'Here are your ponies, now!' he said. 'They've more sense (in some 
+ways) than you wandering hobbits have - more sense in their noses. For they 
+sniff danger ahead which you walk right into; and if they run to save 
+themselves, then they run the right way. You must forgive them all; for 
+though their hearts are faithful, to face fear of Barrow- wights is not what 
+they were made for. See, here they come again, bringing all their burdens!' 
+
+Merry, Sam, and Pippin now clothed themselves in spare garments from 
+their packs; and they soon felt too hot, for they were obliged to put on 
+some of the thicker and warmer things that they had brought against the 
+oncoming of winter. 
+
+'Where does that other old animal, that Fatty Lumpkin, come from?' 
+asked Frodo. 
+
+'He's mine,' said Tom. 'My four-legged friend; though I seldom ride 
+him, and he wanders often far, free upon the hillsides. When your ponies 
+stayed with me, they got to know my Lumpkin; and they smelt him in the 
+night, and quickly ran to meet him. I thought he'd look for them and with 
+his words of wisdom take all their fear away. But now, my jolly Lumpkin, old 
+Tom's going to ride. Hey! he's coming with you, just to set you on the road; 
+so he needs a pony. For you cannot easily talk to hobbits that are riding, 
+
+
+
+
+when you're on your own legs trying to trot beside them.' 
+
+The hobbits were delighted to hear this, and thanked Tom many times; 
+but he laughed, and said that they were so good at losing themselves that he 
+would not feel happy till he had seen them safe over the borders of his 
+land. Tve got things to do,' he said: 'my making and my singing, my 
+talking and my walking, and my watching of the country. Tom can't be always 
+near to open doors and willow-cracks. Tom has his house to mind, and 
+Goldberry is waiting.' 
+
+It was still fairly early by the sun, something between nine and ten, 
+and the hobbits turned their minds to food. Their last meal had been lunch 
+beside the standing stone the day before. They breakfasted now off the 
+remainder of Tom's provisions, meant for their supper, with additions that 
+Tom had brought with him. It was not a large meal (considering hobbits and 
+the circumstances), but they felt much better for it. While they were eating 
+Tom went up to the mound, and looked through the treasures. Most of these he 
+made into a pile that glistened and sparkled on the grass. He bade them lie 
+there 'free to all finders, birds, beasts. Elves or Men, and all kindly 
+creatures'; for so the spell of the mound should be broken and scattered and 
+no Wight ever come back to it. He chose for himself from the pile a brooch 
+set with blue stones, many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue 
+butterflies. He looked long at it, as if stirred by some memory, shaking his 
+head, and saying at last: 
+
+'Here is a pretty toy for Tom and for his lady! Fair was she who long 
+ago wore this on her shoulder. Goldberry shall wear it now, and we will not 
+forget her!' 
+
+For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, 
+of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. 
+They 
+
+gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange 
+metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some 
+virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the 
+blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun. 
+
+'Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,' he said. 
+
+'Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or 
+far away into dark and danger.' Then he told them that these blades were 
+forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the 
+Dark 
+
+
+
+
+Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dym in the Land of 
+Angmar. 
+
+'Few now remember them,' Tom murmured, 'yet still some go wandering, 
+sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things 
+folk that are heedless.' 
+
+The hobbits did not understand his words, but as he spoke they had a 
+vision as it were of a great expanse of years behind them, like a vast 
+shadowy plain over which there strode shapes of Men, tall and grim with 
+bright swords, and last came one with a star on his brow. Then the vision 
+faded, and they were back in the sunlit world. It was time to start again. 
+
+They made ready, packing their bags and lading their ponies. Their new 
+weapons they hung on their leather belts under their jackets, feeling them 
+very awkward, and wondering if they would be of any use. Fighting had not 
+before occurred to any of them as one of the adventures in which their 
+flight would land them. 
+
+At last they set off. They led their ponies down the hill; and then 
+mounting they trotted quickly along the valley. They looked back and saw the 
+top of the old mound on the hill, and from it the sunlight on the gold went 
+up like a yellow flame. Then they turned a shoulder of the Downs and it was 
+hidden from view. 
+
+Though Frodo looked about him on every side he saw no sign of the great 
+stones standing like a gate, and before long they came to the northern gap 
+and rode swiftly through, and the land fell away before them. It was a merry 
+journey with Tom Bombadil trotting gaily beside them, or before them, on 
+Fatty Lumpkin, who could move much faster than his girth promised. Tom 
+sang 
+
+most of the time, but it was chiefly nonsense, or else perhaps a strange 
+language unknown to the hobbits, an ancient language whose words were 
+mainly 
+
+those of wonder and delight. 
+
+They went forward steadily, but they soon saw that the Road was further 
+away than they had imagined. Even without a fog, their sleep at mid-day 
+would have prevented them from reaching it until after nightfall on the day 
+before. The dark line they had seen was not a line of trees but a line of 
+bushes growing on the edge of a deep dike with a steep wall on the further 
+side. Tom said that it had once been the boundary of a kingdom, but a very 
+long lime ago. He seemed to remember something sad about it, and would not 
+
+
+
+
+say much. 
+
+They climbed down and out of the dike and through a gap in the wall, 
+and then Tom turned due north, for they had been bearing somewhat to the 
+west. The land was now open and fairly level, and they quickened their pace, 
+but the sun was already sinking low when at last they saw a line of tall 
+trees ahead, and they knew that they had come back to the Road after many 
+unexpected adventures. They galloped their ponies over the last furlongs, 
+and halted under the long shadows of the trees. They were on the top of a 
+sloping bank, and the Road, now dim as evening drew on, wound away 
+below 
+
+them. At this point it ran nearly from South-west to North-east, and on 
+their right it fell quickly down into a wide hollow. It was rutted and bore 
+many signs of the recent heavy rain; there were pools and pot-holes full of 
+water. They rode down the bank and looked up and down. There was nothing 
+to 
+
+be seen. 'Well, here we are again at last!' said Frodo. 'I suppose we 
+haven’t lost more than two days by my short cut through the Forest! But 
+perhaps the delay will prove useful - it may have put them off our trail.' 
+
+The others looked at him. The shadow of the fear of the Black Riders 
+came suddenly over them again. Ever since they had entered the Forest they 
+had thought chiefly of getting back to the Road; only now when it lay 
+beneath their feet did they remember the danger which pursued them, and was 
+more than likely to be lying in wait for them upon the Road itself. They 
+looked anxiously back towards the setting sun, but the Road was brown and 
+empty. 
+
+'Do you think,' asked Pippin hesitatingly, 'do you think we may be 
+pursued, tonight?' 
+
+'No, I hope not tonight,' answered Tom Bombadil; 'nor perhaps the next 
+day. But do not trust my guess; for I cannot tell for certain. Out east my 
+knowledge fails. Tom is not master of Riders from the Black Land far beyond 
+his country.' 
+
+All the same the hobbits wished he was coming with them. They felt that 
+he would know how to deal with Black Riders, if anyone did. They would 
+soon 
+
+now be going forward into lands wholly strange to them, and beyond all but 
+the most vague and distant legends of the Shire, and in the gathering 
+twilight they longed for home. A deep loneliness and sense of loss was on 
+
+
+
+
+them. They stood silent, reluctant to make the final parting, and only 
+slowly became aware that Tom was wishing them farewell, and telling them to 
+have good heart and to ride on till dark without halting. 
+
+’Tom will give you good advice, till this day is over (after that your 
+own luck must go with you and guide you): four miles along the Road you'll 
+come upon a village, Bree under Bree-hill, with doors looking westward. 
+There you'll find an old inn that is called The Prancing Pony. Barliman 
+Butterbur is the worthy keeper. There you can stay the night, and afterwards 
+the morning will speed you upon your way. Be bold, but wary! Keep up your 
+merry hearts, and ride to meet your fortune!' 
+
+They begged him to come at least as far as the inn and drink once more 
+with them; but he laughed and refused, saying: 
+
+Tom's country ends here: he will not pass the borders. 
+
+Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting! 
+
+Then he turned, tossed up his hat, leaped on Lumpkin's back, and rode 
+up over the bank and away singing into the dusk. 
+
+The hobbits climbed up and watched him until he was out of sight. 
+
+'I am sorry to take leave of Master Bombadil,' said Sam. 'He's a 
+caution and no mistake. I reckon we may go a good deal further and see 
+naught better, nor queerer. But I won't deny I'll be glad to see this 
+Prancing Pony he spoke of. I hope it'll be like The Green Dragon away back 
+home! What sort of folk are they in Bree?' 
+
+'There are hobbits in Bree,' said Merry, 'as well as Big Folk. I 
+daresay it will be homelike enough. The Pony is a good inn by all accounts. 
+
+My people ride out there now and again.' 
+
+'It may be all we could wish,' said Frodo; 'but it is outside the Shire 
+all the same. Don't make yourselves too much at home ! Please remember -all 
+of you - that the name of Baggins must NOT be mentioned. I am Mr. Underhill, 
+if any name must be given.' 
+
+They now mounted their ponies and rode off silently into the evening. 
+Darkness came down quickly, as they plodded slowly downhill and up again, 
+until at last they saw lights twinkling some distance ahead. 
+
+Before them rose Bree-hill barring the way, a dark mass against misty 
+stars; and under its western flank nestled a large village. Towards it they 
+now hurried desiring only to find a fire, and a door between them and the 
+night. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 9 . At the Sign of 
+
+
+
+The Prancing Pony 
+
+Bree was the chief village of the Bree-land, a small inhabited region, 
+like an island in the empty lands round about. Besides Bree itself, there 
+was Staddle on the other side of the hill, Combe in a deep valley a little 
+further eastward, and Archet on the edge of the Chetwood. Lying round 
+Bree-hill and the villages was a small country of fields and tamed woodland 
+only a few miles broad. 
+
+The Men of Bree were brown-haired, broad, and rather short, cheerful 
+and independent: they belonged to nobody but themselves; but they were more 
+friendly and familiar with Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, and other inhabitants of 
+the world about them than was (or is) usual with Big People. According to 
+their own tales they were the original inhabitants and were the descendants 
+of the first Men that ever wandered into the West of the middle-world. Few 
+had survived the turmoils of the Elder Days; but when the Kings returned 
+again over the Great Sea they had found the Bree-men still there, and they 
+were still there now, when the memory of the old Kings had faded into the 
+grass. 
+
+In those days no other Men had settled dwellings so far west, or within 
+a hundred leagues of the Shire. But in the wild lands beyond Bree there were 
+mysterious wanderers. The Bree-folk called them Rangers, and knew nothing 
+of 
+
+their origin. They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were 
+believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the 
+languages of beasts and birds. They roamed at will southwards, and eastwards 
+even as far as the Misty Mountains; but they were now few and rarely seen. 
+When they appeared they brought news from afar, and told strange forgotten 
+tales which were eagerly listened to; but the Bree-folk did not make friends 
+of them. 
+
+There were also many families of hobbits in the Bree-land and they 
+claimed to be the oldest settlement of Hobbits in the world, one that was 
+founded long before even the Brandywine was crossed and the Shire colonized. 
+They lived mostly in Staddle though there were some in Bree itself, 
+especially on the higher slopes of the hill, above the houses of the Men. 
+
+
+
+
+The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called one another) were on 
+friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both 
+rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere 
+else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found. 
+
+The Bree-folk, Big and Little, did not themselves travel much; and the 
+affairs of the four villages were their chief concern. Occasionally the 
+Hobbits of Bree went as far as Buckland, or the Eastfarthing; but though 
+their link land was not much further than a day's riding east of the 
+Brandywine Bridge, the Hobbits of the Shire now seldom visited it. An 
+occasional Bucklander or adventurous Took would come out to the Inn for a 
+night or two, but even that was becoming less and less usual. The 
+Shire-hobbits referred to those of Bree, and to any others that lived beyond 
+the borders, as Outsiders, and took very little interest in them, 
+considering them dull and uncouth. There were probably many more 
+Outsiders 
+
+scattered about in the West of the World in those days than the people of 
+the Shire imagined. Some, doubtless, were no better than tramps, ready to 
+dig a hole in any bank and stay only as long as it suited them. But in the 
+Bree-land, at any rate, the hobbits were decent and prosperous, and no more 
+rustic than most of their distant relatives Inside. It was not yet forgotten 
+that there had been a time when there was much coming and going between 
+the 
+
+Shire and Bree. There was Bree-blood in the Brandybucks by all accounts. 
+
+The village of Bree had some hundred stone houses of the Big Folk, 
+mostly above the Road, nestling on the hillside with windows looking west. 
+On that side, running in more than half a circle from the hill and back to 
+it, there was a deep dike with a thick hedge on the inner side. Over this 
+the Road crossed by a causeway; but where it pierced the hedge it was barred 
+by a great gate. There was another gate in the southern comer where the Road 
+ran out of the village. The gates were closed at nightfall; but just inside 
+them were small lodges for the gatekeepers. 
+
+Down on the Road, where it swept to the right to go round the foot of 
+the hill, there was a large inn. It had been built long ago when the traffic 
+on the roads had been far greater. For Bree stood at an old meeting of ways; 
+another ancient road crossed the East Road just outside (he dike at the 
+western end of the village, and in former days Men and other folk of various 
+sorts had travelled much on it. Strange as News from Bree was still a saying 
+
+
+
+
+in the Eastfarthing, descending from those days, when news from North, 
+South, and East could be heard in the inn, and when the Shire-hobbits used 
+to go more often to hear it. But the Northern Lands had long been desolate, 
+and the North Road was now seldom used: it was grass-grown, and the 
+Bree-folk called it the Greenway. 
+
+The Inn of Bree was still there, however, and the innkeeper was an 
+important person. His house was a meeting place for the idle, talkative, and 
+inquisitive among the inhabitants, large and small, of the four villages; 
+and a resort of Rangers and other wanderers, and for such travellers (mostly 
+dwarves) as still journeyed on the East Road, to and from the Mountains. 
+
+It was dark, and white stars were shining, when Frodo and his 
+companions came at last to the Greenway-crossing and drew near the village. 
+They came to the West-gate and found it shut, but at the door of the lodge 
+beyond it, there was a man sitting. He jumped up and fetched a lantern and 
+looked over the gate at them in surprise. 
+
+’What do you want, and where do you come from?' he asked gruffly. 
+
+'We are making for the inn here,' answered Frodo. 'We are journeying 
+east and cannot go further tonight.' 
+
+'Hobbits ! Four hobbits ! And what's more, out of the Shire by their 
+talk,' said the gatekeeper, softly as if speaking to himself. He stared at 
+them darkly for a moment, and then slowly opened the gate and let them ride 
+through. 
+
+'We don't often see Shire-folk riding on the Road at night,' he went 
+on, as they halted a moment by his door. 'You'll pardon my wondering what 
+business takes you away east of Bree! What may your names be, might I ask?' 
+
+'Our names and our business are our own, and this does not seem a good 
+place to discuss them,' said Frodo, not liking the look of the man or the 
+tone of his voice. 
+
+'Your business is your own, no doubt,' said the man; 'but it's my 
+business to ask questions after nightfall.' 
+
+'We are hobbits from Buckland, and we have a fancy to travel and to 
+stay at the inn here,' put in Merry. 'I am Mr. Brandybuck. Is that enough 
+for you? The Bree-folk used to be fair-spoken to travellers, or so I had 
+heard.' 
+
+'All right, all right!' said the man. 'I meant no offence. But you'll 
+find maybe that more folk than old Harry at the gate will be asking you 
+questions. There's queer folk about. If you go on to The Pony, you'll find 
+
+
+
+
+you're oat the only guests.' 
+
+He wished them good night, and they said no more; but Frodo could see 
+in the lantern-light that the man was still eyeing them curiously. He was 
+glad to hear the gate clang to behind them, as they rode forward. He 
+wondered why the man was so suspicious, and whether any one had been 
+asking 
+
+for news of a party of hobbits. Could it have been Gandalf? He might have 
+arrived, while they were delayed in the Forest and the Downs. But there was 
+something in the look and the voice of the gatekeeper that made him uneasy. 
+
+The man stared after the hobbits for a moment, and then he went back to 
+his house. As soon as his back was turned, a dark figure climbed quickly in 
+over the gate and melted into the shadows of the village street. 
+
+The hobbits rode on up a gentle slope, passing a few detached houses, 
+and drew up outside the inn. The houses looked large and strange to them. 
+Sam stared up at the inn with its three storeys and many windows, and felt 
+his heart sink. He had imagined himself meeting giants taller than trees, 
+and other creatures even more terrifying, some time or other in the course 
+of his journey; but at the moment he was finding his first sight of Men and 
+their tall houses quite enough, indeed too much for the dark end of a tiring 
+day. He pictured black horses standing all saddled in the shadows of the 
+inn-yard, and Black Riders peering out of dark upper windows. 
+
+'We surely aren't going to stay here for the night, are we, sir?' he 
+exclaimed. 'If there are hobbit-folk in these pans, why don't we look for 
+some that would be willing to take us in? It would be more homelike.' 
+
+'What's wrong with the inn?' said Frodo. 'Tom Bombadil recommended it. 
+I expect it's homelike enough inside.' 
+
+Even from the outside the inn looked a pleasant house to familiar eyes. 
+
+It had a front on the Road, and two wings running back on land partly cut 
+out of the lower slopes of the hill, so that at the rear the second-floor 
+windows were level with the ground. There was a wide arch leading to a 
+courtyard between the two wings, and on the left under the arch there was a 
+large doorway reached by a few broad steps. The door was open and light 
+streamed out of it. Above the arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a 
+large signboard: a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door 
+was painted in white letters: THE PRANCING PONY by BARLIMAN 
+BUTTERBUR. Many 
+
+of the lower windows showed lights behind thick curtains. 
+
+
+
+
+As they hesitated outside in the gloom, someone began singing a merry 
+song inside, and many cheerful voices joined loudly in the chorus. They 
+listened to this encouraging sound for a moment and then got off their 
+ponies. The song ended and there was a burst of laughter and clapping. 
+
+They led their ponies under the arch, and leaving them standing in the 
+yard they climbed up the steps. Frodo went forward and nearly bumped into a 
+short fat man with a bald head and a red face. He had a white apron on, and 
+was bustling out of one door and in through another, carrying a tray laden 
+with full mugs. 
+
+’Can we—' began Frodo. 
+
+'Half a minute, if you please!' shouted the man over his shoulder, and 
+vanished into a babel of voices and a cloud of smoke. In a moment he was out 
+again, wiping his hands on his apron. 
+
+'Good evening, little master!' he said, bending down. 'What may you be 
+wanting?' 
+
+'Beds for four, and stabling for five ponies, if that can be managed. 
+
+Are you Mr. Butterbur?' 
+
+'That's right! Barliman is my name. Barliman Butterbur at your service! 
+You're from the Shire, eh?' he said, and then suddenly he clapped his hand 
+to his forehead, as if trying to remember something. 'Hobbits!' he cried. 
+
+'Now what does that remind me of? Might I ask your names, sir?' 
+
+'Mr. Took and Mr. Brandybuck,' said Frodo; 'and this is Sam Gamgee. My 
+name is Underhill.' 
+
+'There now!' said Mr. Butterbur, snapping his fingers. 'It's gone 
+again! But it'll come back, when I have time to think. I'm run off my feet; 
+but I'll see what I can do for you. We don't often get a party out of the 
+Shire nowadays, and I should be sorry not to make you welcome. But there is 
+such a crowd already in the house tonight as there hasn't been for long 
+enough. It never rains but it pours, we say in Bree. 
+
+'Hi! Nob!' he shouted. 'Where are you, you woolly -footed slow-coach? 
+Nob!' 
+
+'Coming, sir! Coming!' A cheery-looking hobbit bobbed out of a door, 
+and seeing the travellers, stopped short and stared at them with great 
+interest. 
+
+'Where's Bob?' asked the landlord. 'You don't know? Well find him! 
+Double sharp! I haven't got six legs, nor six eyes neither! Tell Bob there's 
+five ponies that have to be stabled. He must find room somehow.' Nob trotted 
+
+
+
+
+off with a grin and a wink. 
+
+'Well, now, what was I going to say?' said Mr. Butterbur, tapping his 
+forehead. 'One thing drives out another, so to speak. I'm that busy tonight, 
+my head is going round. There's a party that came up the Greenway from 
+down 
+
+South last night - and that was strange enough to begin with. Then there's a 
+travelling company of dwarves going West come in this evening. And now 
+there's you. If you weren't hobbits, I doubt if we could house you. But 
+we've got a room or two in the north wing that were made special for 
+hobbits, when this place was built. On the ground floor as they usually 
+prefer; round windows and all as they like it. I hope you'll be comfortable. 
+You'll be wanting supper, I don't doubt. As soon as may be. This way now!' 
+
+He led them a short way down a passage, and opened a door. 'Here is a 
+nice little parlour!' he said. 'I hope it will suit. Excuse me now. I'm that 
+busy. No time for talking. I must be trotting. It's hard work for two legs, 
+but I don't get thinner. I'll look in again later. If you want anything, 
+ring the hand-bell, and Nob will come. If he don't come, ring and shout!' 
+
+Off he went at last, and left them feeling rather breathless. He seemed 
+capable of an endless stream of talk, however busy he might be. They found 
+themselves in a small and cosy room. There was a bit of bright fire burning 
+on the hearth, and in front of it were some low and comfortable chairs. 
+There was a round table, already spread with a white cloth, and on it was a 
+large hand-bell. But Nob, the hobbit servant, came bustling in long before 
+they thought of ringing. He brought candles and a tray full of plates. 
+
+'Will you be wanting anything to drink, masters?' he asked. 'And shall 
+I show you the bedrooms, while your supper is got ready?' 
+
+They were washed and in the middle of good deep mugs of beer when Mr. 
+Butterbur and Nob came in again. In a twinkling the table was laid. There 
+was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, 
+and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, 
+and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam's misgivings (already much 
+relieved by the excellence of the beer). 
+
+The landlord hovered round for a link, and then prepared to leave them. 
+
+'I don't know whether you would care to join the company, when you have 
+supped,' he said, standing at the door. 'Perhaps you would rather go to your 
+beds. Still the company would be very pleased to welcome you, if you had a 
+mind. We don't get Outsiders - travellers from the Shire, I should say, 
+
+
+
+
+begging your pardon - often; and we like to hear a bit of news, or any story 
+or song you may have in mind. But as you please! Ring the bell, if you lack 
+anything!' 
+
+So refreshed and encouraged did they feel at the end of their supper 
+(about three quarters of an hour's steady going, not hindered by unnecessary 
+talk) that Frodo, Pippin, and Sam decided to join the company. Merry said it 
+would be too stuffy. 'I shall sit here quietly by the fire for a bit, and 
+perhaps go out later for a sniff of the air. Mind your Ps and Qs, and don't 
+forget that you are supposed to be escaping in secret, and are still on the 
+high-road and not very far from the Shire!' 
+
+'All right!' said Pippin. 'Mind yourself! Don't get lost, and don't 
+forget that it is safer indoors!' 
+
+The company was in the big common-room of the inn. The gathering was 
+large and mixed, as Frodo discovered, when his eyes got used to the light. 
+
+This came chiefly from a blazing log-fire, for the three lamps hanging from 
+the beams were dim, and half veiled in smoke. Barliman Butterbur was 
+standing near the fire, talking to a couple of dwarves and one or two 
+strange-looking men. On the benches were various folk: men of Bree, a 
+collection of local hobbits (sitting chattering together), a few more 
+dwarves, and other vague figures difficult to make out away in the shadows 
+and comers. 
+
+As soon as the Shire-hobbits entered, there was a chorus of welcome 
+from the Bree-landers. The strangers, especially those that had come up the 
+Greenway, stared at them curiously. The landlord introduced the newcomers to 
+the Bree-folk, so quickly that, though they caught many names, they were 
+seldom sure who the names belonged to. The Men of Bree seemed all to have 
+rather botanical (and to the Shire-folk rather odd) names, like Rushlight, 
+Goatleaf, Heathertoes, Appledore, Thistlewool and Ferny (not to mention 
+Butterbur). Some of the hobbits had similar names. The Mug worts, for 
+instance, seemed numerous. But most of them had natural names, such as 
+Banks, Brockhouse, Longholes, Sandheaver, and Tunnelly, many of which 
+were 
+
+used in the Shire. There were several Underhills from Saddle, and as they 
+could not imagine sharing a name without being related, they took Frodo to 
+their hearts as a long-lost cousin. 
+
+The Bree-hobbits were, in fact, friendly and inquisitive, and Frodo 
+soon found that some explanation of what he was doing would have to be 
+
+
+
+
+given. He gave out that he was interested in history and geography (at which 
+there was much wagging of heads, although neither of these words were much 
+used in the Bree-dialect). He said he was thinking of writing a book (at 
+which there was silent astonishment), and that he and his friends wanted to 
+collect information about hobbits living outside the Shire, especially in 
+the eastern lands. 
+
+At this a chorus of voices broke out. If Frodo had really wanted to 
+write a book, and had had many ears, he would have learned enough for 
+several chapters in a few minutes. And if that was not enough, he was given 
+a whole list of names, beginning with 'Old Barliman here', to whom he could 
+go for further information. But after a time, as Frodo did not show any sign 
+of writing a book on the spot, the hobbits returned to their questions about 
+doings in the Shire. Frodo did not prove very communicative, and he soon 
+found himself sitting alone in a comer, listening and looking around. 
+
+The Men and Dwarves were mostly talking of distant events and telling 
+flews of a kind that was becoming only too familiar. There was trouble away 
+in the South, and it seemed that the Men who had come up the Greenway 
+were 
+
+on the move, looking for lands where they could find some peace. The 
+Bree-folk were sympathetic, but plainly not very ready to take a large 
+number of strangers into their little land. One of the travellers, a 
+squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow, was foretelling that more and more people 
+would be coming north in the near future. 'If room isn't found for them, 
+they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other 
+folk,' he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the 
+prospect. 
+
+The hobbits did not pay much attention to all this, and it did not at 
+the moment seem to concern hobbits. Big Folk could hardly beg for lodgings 
+in hobbit-holes. They were more interested in Sam and Pippin, who were now 
+feeling quite at home, and were chatting gaily about events in the Shire. 
+Pippin roused a good deal of laughter with an account of the collapse of the 
+roof of the Town Hole in Michel Delving: Will Whitfoot, the Mayor, and the 
+fattest hobbit in the Westfarthing, had been buried in chalk, and came out 
+like a floured dumpling. But there were several questions asked that made 
+Frodo a little uneasy. One of the Bree-landers, who seemed to have been in 
+the Shire several times, wanted to know where the Underhills lived and who 
+they were related to. 
+
+
+
+
+Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, 
+sitting in the shadows near the wall, was also listening intently to the 
+hobbit-talk. He had a tall tankard in front of him, and was smoking a 
+long-stemmed pipe curiously carved. His legs were stretched out before him, 
+showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much 
+wear and were now caked with mud. A travel -stained cloak of heavy dark- 
+green 
+
+cloth was drawn close about him, and in spite of the heat of the room he 
+wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be 
+seen as he watched the hobbits. 
+
+’Who is that?' Frodo asked, when he got a chance to whisper to Mr. 
+Butterbur. 'I don't think you introduced him?' 
+
+'Him?' said the landlord in an answering whisper, cocking an eye 
+without turning his head. 'I don't rightly know. He is one of the wandering 
+folk -Rangers we call them. He seldom talks: not but what he can tell a rare 
+tale when he has the mind. He disappears for a month, or a year, and then he 
+pops up again. He was in and out pretty often last spring; but I haven't 
+seen him about lately. What his right name is I've never heard: but he's 
+known round here as Strider. Goes about at a great pace on his long shanks; 
+though he don't tell nobody what cause he has to hurry. But there's no 
+accounting for East and West, as we say in Bree, meaning the Rangers and the 
+Shire-folk, begging your pardon. Funny you should ask about him.' But at 
+that moment Mr. Butterbur was called away by a demand for more ale and his 
+last remark remained unexplained. 
+
+Frodo found that Strider was now looking at him, as if he had heard or 
+guessed all that had been said. Presently, with a wave of his hand and a 
+nod, he invited Frodo to come over and sit by him. As Frodo drew near be 
+threw back his hood, showing a shaggy head of dark hair necked with grey, 
+and in a pale stem face a pair of keen grey eyes. 
+
+'I am called Strider,' he said in a low voice. 'I am very pleased to 
+meet you. Master - Underhill, if old Butterbur got your name right.' 
+
+'He did,' said Frodo stiffly. He felt far from comfortable under the 
+stare of those keen eyes. 
+
+'Well, Master Underhill,' said Strider, 'if I were you, I should stop 
+your young friends from talking too much. Drink, fire, and chance -meeting 
+are pleasant enough, but, well - this isn't the Shire. There are queer folk 
+about. Though I say it as shouldn't, you may think,' he added with a wry 
+
+
+
+
+smile, seeing Frodo's glance. 'And there have been even stranger travellers 
+through Bree lately,' he went on, watching Frodo's face. 
+
+Frodo returned his gaze but said nothing; and Strider made no further 
+sign. His attention seemed suddenly to be fixed on Pippin. To his alarm 
+Frodo became aware that the ridiculous young Took, encouraged by his success 
+with the fat Mayor of Michel Delving, was now actually giving a comic 
+account of Bilbo's farewell party. He was already giving an imitation of the 
+Speech, and was drawing near to the astonishing Disappearance. 
+
+Frodo was annoyed. It was a harmless enough tale for most of the local 
+hobbits, no doubt: just a funny story about those funny people away beyond 
+the River; but some (old Butterbur, for instance) knew a thing or two, and 
+had probably heard rumours long ago about Bilbo's vanishing. It would bring 
+the name of Baggins to their minds, especially if there had been inquiries 
+in Bree after that name. 
+
+Frodo fidgeted, wondering what to do. Pippin was evidently much 
+enjoying the attention he was getting, and had become quite forgetful of 
+their danger. Frodo had a sudden fear that in his present mood he might even 
+mention the Ring; and that might well be disastrous. 
+
+'You had better do something quick!' whispered Strider in his ear. 
+
+Frodo jumped up and stood on a table, and began to talk. The attention 
+of Pippin's audience was disturbed. Some of the hobbits looked at Frodo and 
+laughed and clapped, thinking that Mr. Underhill had taken as much ale as 
+was good for him. 
+
+Frodo suddenly felt very foolish, and found himself (as was his habit 
+when making a speech) fingering the things in his pocket. He felt the Ring 
+on its chain, and quite unaccountably the desire came over him to slip it on 
+and vanish out of the silly situation. It seemed to him, somehow, as if me 
+suggestion came to him from outside, from someone or something a the room. 
+He resisted the temptation firmly, and clasped the Ring in his hand, as if 
+to keep a hold on it and prevent it from escaping or doing any mischief. At 
+any rate it gave him no inspiration. He spoke 'a few suitable words', as 
+they would have said in the Shire: We are all very much gratified by the 
+kindness of your reception, and I venture to hope that my brief visit will 
+help to renew the old ties of friendship between the Shire and Bree; and 
+then he hesitated and coughed. 
+
+Everyone in the room was now looking at him. 'A song!' shouted one of 
+the hobbits. 'A song! A song!' shouted all the others. 'Come on now, master, 
+
+
+
+
+sing us something that we haven’t heard before!' 
+
+For a moment Frodo stood gaping. Then in desperation he began a 
+ridiculous song that Bilbo had been rather fond of (and indeed rather proud 
+of, for he had made up the words himself). It was about an inn; and that is 
+probably why it came into Frodo's mind just then. Here it is in full. Only a 
+few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered. 
+
+There is an inn, a merry old inn 
+beneath an old grey hill, 
+
+And there they brew a beer so brown 
+That the Man in the Moon himself came down 
+one night to drink his fill. 
+
+The ostler has a tipsy cat 
+that plays a five-stringed fiddle; 
+
+And up and down he runs his bow, 
+
+Now squeaking high, now purring low, 
+now sawing in the middle. 
+
+The landlord keeps a little dog 
+that is mighty fond of jokes; 
+
+When there's good cheer among the guests, 
+
+He cocks an ear at all the jests 
+and laughs until he chokes. 
+
+They also keep a horned cow 
+as proud as any queen; 
+
+But music turns her head like ale, 
+
+And makes her wave her tufted tail 
+and dance upon the green. 
+
+And O! the rows of silver dishes 
+and the store of silver spoons! 
+
+For Sunday* there's a special pair, 
+
+And these they polish up with care 
+on Saturday afternoons. 
+
+
+
+The Man in the Moon was drinking deep, 
+
+
+
+
+and the cat began to wail; 
+
+A dish and a spoon on the table danced, 
+
+The cow in the garden madly pranced, 
+and the little dog chased his tail. 
+
+The Man in the Moon took another mug, 
+and then rolled beneath his chair; 
+
+And there he dozed and dreamed of ale, 
+
+Till in the sky the stars were pale, 
+and dawn was in the air. 
+
+Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat: 
+
+'The white horses of the Moon, 
+
+They neigh and champ their silver bits; 
+
+But their master's been and drowned his wits, 
+and the Sun'll be rising soon!' 
+
+So the cat on his fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle, 
+a jig that would wake the dead: 
+
+He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune, 
+While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon: 
+'It's after three!' he said. 
+
+They rolled the Man slowly up the hill 
+and bundled him into the Moon, 
+
+While his horses galloped up in rear, 
+
+And the cow came capering like a deer, 
+and a dish ran up with the spoon. 
+
+Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle; 
+the dog began to roar, 
+
+The cow and the horses stood on their heads; 
+
+The guests all bounded from their beds 
+and danced upon the floor. 
+
+With a ping and a pong the fiddle-strings broke! 
+the cow jumped over the Moon, 
+
+
+
+
+And the little dog laughed to see such fun, 
+
+And the Saturday dish went off at a run 
+with the silver Sunday spoon. 
+
+The round Moon rolled behind the hill 
+as the Sun raised up her head. 
+
+She * hardly believed her fiery eyes; 
+
+For though it was day, to her surprise 
+they all went back to bed! 
+
+There was loud and long applause. Frodo had a good voice, and the song 
+tickled their fancy. 'Where's old Barley?' they cried. 'He ought to hear 
+this. Bob ought to learn his cat the fiddle, and then we'd have a dance.' 
+
+They called for more ale, and began to shout: 'Let's have it again, master! 
+Come on now! Once more!' 
+
+They made Frodo have another drink, and then begin his song again, 
+while many of them joined in; for the tune was well known, and they were 
+quick at picking up words. It was now Frodo's turn to feel pleased with 
+himself. He capered about on the table; and when he came a second time to 
+the cow jumped over the Moon, he leaped in the air. Much too vigorously; for 
+he came down, bang, into a tray full of mugs, and slipped, and rolled off 
+the table with a crash, clatter, and bump! The audience all opened their 
+mouths wide for laughter, and stopped short a gaping silence; for the singer 
+disappeared. He simply vanished, as if he had gone slap through the floor 
+without leaving a hole ! 
+
+The local hobbits stared in amazement, and then sprang to their feet 
+and shouted for Barliman. All the company drew away from Pippin and Sam, 
+who 
+
+found themselves left alone in a comer, and eyed darkly and doubtfully from 
+a distance. It was plain that many people regarded them now as the 
+companions of a travelling magician of unknown powers and purpose. But 
+there 
+
+was one swarthy Bree-lander, who stood looking at them with a knowing and 
+half-mocking expression that made them feel very uncomfortable. Presently he 
+slipped out of the door, followed by the squint-eyed southerner: the two had 
+been whispering together a good deal during the evening. Harry the 
+gatekeeper also went out just behind them.. 
+
+Frodo felt a fool. Not knowing what else to do, he crawled away under 
+
+
+
+
+the tables to the dark comer by Strider, who sat unmoved, giving no sign of 
+his thoughts. Frodo leaned back against the wall and took off the Ring. How 
+it came to be on his finger he could not tell. He could only suppose that he 
+had been handling it in his pocket while he sang, and that somehow it had 
+slipped on when he stuck out his hand with a jerk to save his fall. For a 
+moment he wondered if the Ring itself had not played him a trick; perhaps it 
+had tried to reveal itself in response to some wish or command that was felt 
+in the room. He did not like the looks of the men that had gone out. 
+
+'Well?' said Strider, when he reappeared. ’Why did you do that? Worse 
+than anything your friends could have said! You have put your foot in it! Or 
+should I say your finger?' 
+
+'I don't know what you mean,' said Frodo, annoyed and alarmed. 
+
+'Oh yes, you do,' answered Strider; 'but we had better wait until the 
+uproar has died down. Then, if you please, Mr. Baggins, I should like a 
+quiet word with you.' 
+
+'What about?' asked Frodo, ignoring the sudden use of his proper name. 
+
+'A matter of some importance - to us both,' answered Strider, looking 
+Frodo in the eye. 'You may hear something to your advantage.' 
+
+'Very well,' said Frodo, trying to appear unconcerned. 'I'll talk to 
+you later.' 
+
+Meanwhile an argument was going on by the fireplace. Mr. Butterbur had 
+come trotting in, and he was now trying to listen to several conflicting 
+accounts of the event at the same time. 
+
+'I saw him, Mr. Butterbur,' said a hobbit; 'or leastways I didn't see 
+him, if you take my meaning. He just vanished into thin air, in a manner of 
+speaking.' 
+
+'You don't say, Mr. Mugwort!' said the landlord, looking puzzled. 
+
+'Yes I do!' replied Mugwort. 'And I mean what I say, what's more.' 
+
+'There's some mistake somewhere,' said Butterbur, shaking his head. 
+There was too much of that Mr. Underhill to go vanishing into thin air; or 
+into thick air, as is more likely in this room.' 
+
+'Well, where is he now?' cried several voices. 
+
+'How should I know? He's welcome to go where he will, so long as he 
+pays in the morning. There's Mr. Took, now: he's not vanished.' 
+
+'Well, I saw what I saw, and I saw what I didn't,' said Mugwort 
+obstinately. 
+
+'And I say there's some mistake,' repeated Butterbur, picking up the 
+
+
+
+
+tray and gathering up the broken crockery. 
+
+'Of course there's a mistake!' said Frodo. 'I haven't vanished. Here I 
+am! I've just been having a few words with Strider in the comer.' 
+
+He came forward into the firelight; but most of the company backed 
+away,, even more perturbed than before. They were not in the least satisfied 
+by his explanation that he had crawled away quickly under the tables after 
+he had fallen. Most of the Hobbits and the Men of Bree went off then and 
+there in a huff, having no fancy for further entertainment that evening. One 
+or two gave Frodo a black look and departed muttering among themselves. 
+
+The 
+
+Dwarves and the two or three strange Men that still remained got up and said 
+good night to the landlord, but not to Frodo and his friends. Before long no 
+one was left but Strider, who sat on, unnoticed, by the wall. 
+
+Mr. Butterbur did not seem much put out. He reckoned, very probably, 
+that his house would be full again on many future nights, until the present 
+mystery had been thoroughly discussed. 'Now what have you been doing, Mr. 
+Underhill?' he asked. 'Frightening my customers and breaking up my crocks 
+with your acrobatics!' 
+
+'I am very sorry to have caused any trouble,' said Frodo. 'It was quite 
+unintentional, I assure you. A most unfortunate accident.' 
+
+'All right, Mr. Underhill! But if you're going to do any more tumbling, 
+or conjuring, or whatever it was, you'd best warn folk beforehand - and warn 
+me. We're a bit suspicious round here of anything out of the way -uncanny, 
+if you understand me; and we don't take to it all of a sudden.' 
+
+'I shan't be doing anything of the sort again, Mr. Butterbur, I promise 
+you. And now I think I'll be getting to bed. We shall be making an early 
+start. Will you see that our ponies are ready by eight o'clock?' 
+
+'Very good! But before you go, I should like a word with you in 
+private, Mr. Underhill. Something has just come back to my mind that I ought 
+to tell you. I hope that you'll not take it amiss. When I've seen to a thing 
+or two, I'll come along to your room, if you're willing.' 
+
+'Certainly!' said Frodo; but his heart sank. He wondered how many 
+private talks he would have before he got to bed, and what they would 
+reveal. Were these people all in league against him? He began to suspect 
+even old Butterbur's fat face of concealing dark designs. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 10. Strider 
+
+
+
+Frodo, Pippin, and Sam made their way back to the parlour. There was no 
+light. Merry was not there, and the fire had burned low. It was not until 
+they had puffed up the embers into a blaze and thrown on a couple of faggots 
+that they discovered Strider had come with them. There he was calmly sitting 
+in a chair by the door! 
+
+'Hallo!' said Pippin. 'Who are you, and what do you want?' 
+
+'I am called Strider,' he answered: 'and though he may have forgotten 
+it, your friend promised to have a quiet talk with me.' 
+
+'You said I might hear something to my advantage, I believe,' said 
+Frodo. 'What have you to say?' 
+
+'Several things,' answered Strider. 'But, of course, I have my price.' 
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Frodo sharply. 
+
+'Don't be alarmed! I mean just this: I will tell you what I know, and 
+give you some good advice - but I shall want a reward.' 
+
+'And what will that be, pray?' said Frodo. He suspected now that he had 
+fallen in with a rascal, and he thought uncomfortably that he had brought 
+only a little money with him. All of it would hardly satisfy a rogue, and he 
+could not spare any of it. 
+
+'No more than you can afford,' answered Strider with a slow smile, as 
+if he guessed Frodo's thoughts. 'Just this: you must take me along with you, 
+until I wish to leave you.' 
+
+'Oh, indeed!' replied Frodo, surprised, but not much relieved. 'Even if 
+I wanted another companion, I should not agree to any such thing, until I 
+knew a good deal more about you, and your business.' 
+
+'Excellent!' exclaimed Strider, crossing his legs and sitting back 
+comfortably. 'You seem to be coming to your senses again, and that is all to 
+the good. You have been much too careless so far. Very well! I will tell you 
+what I know, and leave the reward to you. You may be glad to grant it, when 
+you have heard me.' 
+
+'Go on then!' said Frodo. 'What do you know?' 
+
+'Too much; too many dark things,' said Strider grimly. 'But as for your 
+business — ' He got up and went to the door, opened it quickly and looked 
+out. Then he shut it quietly and sat down again. 'I have quick ears,' he 
+went on, lowering his voice, 'and though I cannot disappear, I have hunted 
+
+
+
+
+many wild and wary things and I can usually avoid being seen, if I wish. 
+Now, I was behind the hedge this evening on the Road west of Bree, when four 
+hobbits came out of the Downlands. I need not repeat all that they said to 
+old Bombadil or to one another, but one thing interested me. Please 
+remember, said one of them, that the name Baggins must not be mentioned. I 
+am Mr. Underhill, if any name must be given. That interested me so much that 
+I followed them here. I slipped over the gate just behind them. Maybe Mr. 
+Baggins has an honest reason for leaving his name behind; but if so, I 
+should advise him and his friends to be more careful.' 
+
+'I don't see what interest my name has for any one in Bree,' said Frodo 
+angrily, 'and I have still to learn why it interests you. Mr. Strider may 
+have an honest reason for spying and eavesdropping; but if so, I should 
+advise him to explain it.' 
+
+'Well answered!' said Strider laughing. 'But the explanation is simple: 
+
+I was looking for a Hobbit called Frodo Baggins. I wanted to find him 
+quickly. I had learned that he was carrying out of the Shire, well, a secret 
+that concerned me and my friends. 
+
+'Now, don't mistake me!' he cried, as Frodo rose from his seat, and Sam 
+jumped up with a scowl. 'I shall take more care of the secret than you do. 
+
+And care is needed!' He leaned forward and looked at them. 'Watch every 
+shadow!' he said in a low voice. 'Black horsemen have passed through Bree. 
+On Monday one came down the Greenway, they say; and another appeared 
+later, 
+
+coming up the Greenway from the south.' 
+
+There was a silence. At last Frodo spoke to Pippin and Sam: 'I ought to 
+have guessed it from the way the gatekeeper greeted us,' he said. 'And the 
+landlord seems to have heard something. Why did he press us to join the 
+company? And why on earth did we behave so foolishly: we ought to have 
+stayed quiet in here.' 
+
+'It would have been better,' said Strider. 'I would have stopped your 
+going into the common-room, if I could; but the innkeeper would not let me 
+in to see you, or take a message.' 
+
+'Do you think he ' began Frodo. 
+
+'No, I don't think any harm of old Butterbur. Only he does not 
+altogether like mysterious vagabonds of my sort.' Frodo gave him a puzzled 
+look. 'Well, I have rather a rascally look, have I not?' said Strider with a 
+curl of his lip and a queer gleam in his eye. 'But I hope we shall get to 
+
+
+
+
+know one another better. When we do, I hope you will explain what happened 
+at the end of your song. For that little prank ' 
+
+'It was sheer accident!' interrupted Frodo. 
+
+'I wonder,' said Strider. 'Accident, then. That accident has made your 
+position dangerous.' 
+
+'Hardly more than it was already,' said Frodo. 'I knew these horsemen 
+were pursuing me; but now at any rate they seem to have missed me and to 
+have gone away.' 
+
+'You must not count on that!' said Strider sharply. 'They will return. 
+
+And more are coming. There are others. I know their number. I know these 
+Riders.' He paused, and his eyes were cold and hard. 'And there are some 
+folk in Bree who are not to be trusted,' he went on. 'Bill Ferny, for 
+instance. He has an evil name in the Bree-land, and queer folk call at his 
+house. You must have noticed him among the company: a swarthy sneering 
+fellow. He was very close with one of the Southern strangers, and they 
+slipped out together just after your "accident". Not all of those 
+Southerners mean well; and as for Ferny, he would sell anything to anybody; 
+or make mischief for amusement.' 
+
+'What will Ferny sell, and what has my accident got to do with him?' 
+said Frodo, still determined not to understand Strider's hints. 
+
+'News of you, of course,' answered Strider. 'An account of your 
+performance would be very interesting to certain people. After that they 
+would hardly need to be told your real name. It seems to me only too likely 
+that they will hear of it before this night is over. Is that enough? You can 
+do as you like about my reward: take me as a guide or not. But I may say 
+that I know all the lands between the Shire and the Misty Mountains, for I 
+have wandered over them for many years. I am older than I look. I might 
+prove useful. You will have to leave the open road after tonight; for the 
+horsemen will watch it night and day. You may escape from Bree, and be 
+allowed to go forward while the Sun is up; but you won't go far. They will 
+come on you in the wild, in some dark place where there is no help. Do you 
+wish them to find you? They are terrible!' 
+
+The hobbits looked at him, and saw with surprise that his face was 
+drawn as if with pain, and his hands clenched the arms of his chair. The 
+room was very quiet and still, and the light seemed to have grown dim. For a 
+while he sat with unseeing eyes as if walking in distant memory or listening 
+to sounds in the Night far away. 
+
+
+
+
+'There!' he cried after a moment, drawing his hand across his brow. 
+'Perhaps I know more about these pursuers than you do. You fear them, but 
+you do not fear them enough, yet. Tomorrow you will have to escape, if you 
+can. Strider can take you by paths that are seldom trodden. Will you have 
+him?' 
+
+There was a heavy silence. Frodo made no answer, his mind was confused 
+with doubt and fear. Sam frowned, and looked at his master; and at last he 
+broke out: 
+
+'With your leave, Mr. Frodo, I'd say no! This Strider here, he warns 
+and he says take care; and I say yes to that, and let's begin with him. He 
+comes out of the Wild, and I never heard no good of such folk. He knows 
+something, that's plain, and more than I like; but it's no reason why we 
+should let him go leading us out into some dark place far from help, as he 
+puts it.' 
+
+Pippin fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. Strider did not reply to Sam, 
+but turned his keen eyes on Frodo. Frodo caught his glance and looked away. 
+'No,' he said slowly. 'I don't agree. I think, I think you are not really as 
+you choose to look. You began to talk to me like the Bree-folk, but your 
+voice has changed. Still Sam seems right in this: I don't see why you should 
+warn us to take care, and yet ask us to take you on trust. Why the disguise? 
+Who are you? What do you really know about - about my business; and how 
+do 
+
+you know it?' 
+
+'The lesson in caution has been well learned,' said Strider with a grim 
+smile. 'But caution is one thing and wavering is another. You will never get 
+to Rivendell now on your own, and to trust me is your only chance. You must 
+make up your mind. I will answer some of your questions, if that will help 
+you to do so. But why should you believe my story, if you do not trust me 
+already? Still here it is ' 
+
+At that moment there came a knock at the door. Mr. Butterbur had 
+arrived with candles, and behind him was Nob with cans of hot water. Strider 
+withdrew into a dark corner. 
+
+'I've come to bid you good night,' said the landlord, putting the 
+candles on the table. 'Nob! Take the water to the rooms!' He came in and 
+shut the door. 
+
+'It's like this,' he began, hesitating and looking troubled. 'If I've 
+done any harm, I'm sorry indeed. But one thing drives out another, as you'll 
+
+
+
+
+admit; and I'm a busy man. But first one thing and then another this week 
+have jogged my memory, as the saying goes; and not too late I hope. You see, 
+I was asked to look out for hobbits of the Shire, and for one by the name of 
+Baggins in particular.' 
+
+'And what has that got to do with me?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'Ah! you know best,' said the landlord, knowingly. 'I won't give you 
+away; but I was told that this Baggins would be going by the name of 
+Underhill, and I was given a description that fits you well enough, if I may 
+say so.' 
+
+'Indeed! Let's have it then!' said Frodo, unwisely interrupting. 
+
+'A stout little fellow with red cheeks, ' said Mr. Butterbur solemnly. 
+
+Pippin chuckled, but Sam looked indignant. 'That won't help you much; it 
+goes for most hobbits. Barley, he says to me,' continued Mr. Butterbur with 
+a glance at Pippin. 'But this one is taller than some and fairer than most, 
+and he has a cleft in his chin: perky chap with a bright eye. Begging your 
+pardon, but he said it, not me.' 
+
+'He said it? And who was he?' asked Frodo eagerly. 
+
+'Ah! That was Gandalf, if you know who I mean. A wizard they say he is, 
+but he's a good friend of mine, whether or no. But now I don't know what 
+he'll have to say to me, if I see him again: turn all my ale sour or me into 
+a block of wood, I shouldn't wonder. He's a bit hasty. Still what's done 
+can't be undone. ' 
+
+'Well, what have you done?' said Frodo, getting impatient with the slow 
+unravelling of Butterbur's thoughts. 
+
+'Where was I?' said the landlord, pausing and snapping his fingers. 
+
+'Ah, yes ! Old Gandalf. Three months back he walked right into my room 
+without a knock. Barley, he says, I'm off in the morning. Will you do 
+something for me? You've only to name it, I said. I'm in a hurry, said he, 
+and I've no time myself, but I want a message took to the Shire. Have you 
+anyone you can send, and trust to go? I can find someone, I said, tomorrow, 
+maybe, or the day after. Make it tomorrow, he says, and then he gave me a 
+letter. 
+
+'It's addressed plain enough,' said Mr. Butterbur, producing a letter 
+from his pocket, and reading out the address slowly and proudly (he valued 
+his reputation as a lettered man): 
+
+Mr FRODO BAGGINS, BAG END, HOBBITON in the SHIRE. 
+
+'A letter for me from Gandalf!' cried Frodo. 
+
+
+
+
+'Ah!' said Mr. Butterbur. 'Then your right name is Baggins?' 
+
+'It is,' said Frodo, 'and you had better give me that letter at once, 
+and explain why you never sent it. That's what you came to tell me, I 
+suppose, though you've taken a long time to come to the point.' 
+
+Poor Mr. Butterbur looked troubled. 'You're right, master,' he said, 
+
+'and I beg your pardon. And I'm mortal afraid of what Gandalf will say, if 
+harm comes of it. But I didn't keep it back a-purpose. I put it by safe. 
+
+Then I couldn't find nobody willing to go to the Shire next day, nor the day 
+after, and none of my own folk were to spare; and then one thing after 
+another drove it out of my mind. I'm a busy man. I'll do what I can to set 
+matters right, and if there's any help I can give, you've only to name it. 
+
+'Leaving the letter aside, I promised Gandalf no less. Barley, he says 
+to me, this friend of mine from the Shire, he may be coming out this way 
+before long, him and another. He'll be calling himself Underhill. Mind that! 
+But you need ask no questions. And if I'm not with him, he may be in 
+trouble, and he may need help. Do whatever you can for him, and I'll be 
+grateful, he says. And here you are, and trouble is not far off, seemingly.' 
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'These black men,' said the landlord lowering his voice. 'They're 
+looking for Baggins, and if they mean well, then I'm a hobbit. It was on 
+Monday, and all the dogs were yammering and the geese screaming. Uncanny, 
+
+I 
+
+called it. Nob, he came and told me that two black men were at the door 
+asking for a hobbit called Baggins. Nob's hair was all stood on end. I bid 
+the black fellows be off, and slammed the door on them; but they've been 
+asking the same question all the way to Archet, I hear. And that Ranger, 
+Strider, he's been asking questions, too. Tried to get in here to see you, 
+before you'd had bite or sup, he did.' 
+
+'Fie did!' said Strider suddenly, coming forward into the light. 'And 
+much trouble would have been saved, if you had let him in, Barliman.' 
+
+The landlord jumped with surprise. 'You!' he cried. 'You're always 
+popping up. What do you want now?' 
+
+'He's here with my leave,' said Frodo. 'He came to offer me his help.' 
+
+'Well, you know your own business, maybe,' said Mr. Butterbur, looking 
+suspiciously at Strider. 'But if I was in your plight, I wouldn't take up 
+with a Ranger.' 
+
+'Then who would you take up with?' asked Strider. 'A fat innkeeper who 
+
+
+
+
+only remembers his own name because people shout it at him all day? They 
+cannot stay in The Pony for ever, and they cannot go home. They have a long 
+road before them. Will you go with them and keep the black men off?' 
+
+'Me? Leave Bree! I wouldn't do that for any money,' said Mr. Butterbur, 
+looking really scared. 'But why can't you stay here quiet for a bit, Mr. 
+Underhill? What are all these queer goings on? What are these black men 
+after, and where do they come from, I'd like to know?' 
+
+'I'm sorry I can't explain it all,' answered Frodo. 'I am tired and 
+very worried, and it's a long tale. But if you mean to help me, I ought to 
+warn you that you will be in danger as long as I am in your house. These 
+Black Riders: I am not sure, but I think, I fear they come from ' 
+
+'They come from Mordor,' said Strider in a low voice. 'From Mordor, 
+Barliman, if that means anything to you.' 
+
+'Save us!' cried Mr. Butterbur turning pale; the name evidently was 
+known to him. 'That is the worst news that has come to Bree in my time.' 'It 
+is,' said Frodo. 'Are you still willing to help me?' 'I am,' said Mr. 
+
+Butterbur. 'More than ever. Though I don't know what the likes of me can do 
+against, against ' he faltered. 
+
+'Against the Shadow in the East,' said Strider quietly. 'Not much, 
+Barliman, but every little helps. You can let Mr. Underhill stay here 
+tonight, as Mr. Underhill, and you can forget the name of Baggins, till he 
+is far away.' 
+
+'I'll do that,' said Butterbur. 'But they'll find out he's here without 
+help from me, I'm afraid. It's a pity Mr. Baggins drew attention to himself 
+this evening, to say no more. The story of that Mr. Bilbo's going off has 
+been heard before tonight in Bree. Even our Nob has been doing some guessing 
+in his slow pate: and there are others in Bree quicker in the uptake than he 
+is.' 
+
+'Well, we can only hope the Riders won't come back yet,' said Frodo. 
+
+'I hope not, indeed,' said Butterbur. 'But spooks or no spooks, they 
+won't get in The Pony so easy. Don't you worry till the morning. Nob'll say 
+no word. No black man shall pass my doors, while I can stand on my legs. Me 
+and my folk'll keep watch tonight; but you had best get some sleep, if you 
+can.' 
+
+'In any case we must be called at dawn,' said Frodo. 'We must get off 
+as early as possible. Breakfast at six-thirty, please.' 
+
+'Right! I'll see to the orders,' said the landlord. 'Good night, Mr. 
+
+
+
+
+Baggins - Underhill, I should say! Good night - now, bless me! Where's your 
+Mr. Brandybuck?' 
+
+'I don’t know,' said Frodo with sudden anxiety. They had forgotten all 
+about Merry, and it was getting late. 'I am afraid he is out. He said 
+something about going for a breath of air.' 
+
+'Well, you do want looking after and no mistake: your party might be on 
+a holiday!' said Butterbur. 'I must go and bar the doors quick, but I'll see 
+your friend is let in when he comes. I'd better send Nob to look for him. 
+Good night to you all!' At last Mr. Butterbur went out, with another 
+doubtful look at Strider and a shake of his head. His footsteps retreated 
+down the passage. 
+
+'Well?' said Strider. 'When are you going to open that letter?' Frodo 
+looked carefully at the seal before he broke it. It seemed certainly to be 
+Gandalf s. Inside, written in the wizard's strong but graceful script, was 
+the following message: 
+
+THE PRANCING PONY, BREE. Midyear's Day, Shire Year, 1418. 
+
+Dear Frodo, 
+
+Bad news has reached me here. I must go off at once. You had better 
+leave Bag End soon, and get out of the Shire before the end of July at 
+latest. I will return as soon as I can; and I will follow you, if I find 
+that you are gone. Leave a message for me here, if you pass through Bree. 
+You can trust the landlord (Butterbur). You may meet a friend of mine on the 
+Road: a Man, lean, dark, tall, by some called Strider. He knows our business 
+and will help you. Make for Rivendell. There I hope we may meet again. If I 
+do not come, Elrond will advise you. 
+
+Yours in haste 
+
+GANDALF. 
+
+PS. Do NOT use It again, not far any reason whatever! Do not travel by 
+night! 
+
+PPS. Make sure that it is the real Strider. There are many strange men 
+on the roads. His true name is Aragorn. 
+
+All that is gold does not glitter, 
+
+Not all those who wander are lost; 
+
+The old that is strong does not wither, 
+
+Deep roots are not reached by the frost. 
+
+From the ashes a fire shall be woken, 
+
+A light from the shadows shall spring; 
+
+
+
+
+Renewed shall be blade that was broken, 
+The crownless again shall be king. 
+
+
+
+PPPS. I hope Butterbur sends this promptly. A worthy man, but his 
+memory is like a lumber-roam: thing wanted always buried. If he forgets, I 
+shall roast him. 
+
+Fare Well 7 
+
+Frodo read the letter to himself, and then passed it to Pippin and Sam. 
+'Really old Butterbur has made a mess of things!' he said. 'He deserves 
+roasting. If I had got this at once, we might all have been safe in 
+Rivendell by now. But what can have happened to Gandalf? He writes as if he 
+was going into great danger.' 
+
+'He has been doing that for many years,' said Strider. 
+
+Frodo turned and looked at him thoughtfully, wondering about Gandalf s 
+second postscript. 'Why didn't you tell me that you were Gandalf s friend at 
+once?' he asked. 'It would have saved time.' 
+
+'Would it? Would any of you have believed me till now?' said Strider. 
+
+'I knew nothing of this letter. For all I knew I had to persuade you to 
+trust me without proofs, if I was to help you. In any case, I did not intend 
+to tell you all about myself at once. I had to study you first, and make 
+sure of you. The Enemy has set traps for me before now. As soon as I had 
+made up my mind, I was ready to tell you whatever you asked. But I must 
+admit,' he added with a queer laugh, 'that I hoped you would take to me for 
+my own sake. A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for 
+friendship. But there, I believe my looks are against me.' 
+
+'They are - at first sight at any rate,' laughed Pippin with sudden 
+relief after reading Gandalf's letter. 'But handsome is as handsome does, as 
+we say in the Shire; and I daresay we shall all look much the same after 
+lying for days in hedges and ditches.' 
+
+'It would take more than a few days, or weeks, or years, of wandering 
+in the Wild to make you look like Strider,' he answered. 'And you would die 
+first, unless you are made of sterner stuff than you look to be.' 
+
+Pippin subsided; but Sam was not daunted, and he still eyed Strider 
+dubiously. 'How do we know you are the Strider that Gandalf speaks about?' 
+he demanded. 'You never mentioned Gandalf, till this letter came out. You 
+might be a play-acting spy, for all I can see, trying to get us to go with 
+
+
+
+
+you. You might have done in the real Strider and took his clothes. What have 
+you to say to that?' 
+
+'That you are a stout fellow,' answered Strider; 'but I am afraid my 
+only answer to you, Sam Gamgee, is this. If I had killed the real Strider, I 
+could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. 
+
+If I was after the Ring, I could have it - NOW!' 
+
+He stood up, and seemed suddenly to grow taller. In his eyes gleamed a 
+light, keen and commanding. Throwing back his cloak, he laid his hand on the 
+hilt of a sword that had hung concealed by his side. They did not dare to 
+move. Sam sat wide-mouthed staring at him dumbly. 
+
+'But I am the real Strider, fortunately,' he said, looking down at them 
+with his face softened by a sudden smile. 'I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and 
+if by life or death I can save you, I will.' 
+
+There was a long silence. At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. 'I 
+believed that you were a friend before the letter came,' he said, 'or at 
+least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never 
+in the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of 
+his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.' 
+
+'I see,' laughed Strider. 'I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All 
+that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost ' 
+
+'Did the verses apply to you then?' asked Frodo. 'I could not make out 
+what they were about. But how did you know that they were in Gandalf s 
+letter, if you have never seen it?' 
+
+'I did not know,' he answered. 'But I am Aragorn, and those verses go 
+with that name.' He drew out his sword, and they saw that the blade was 
+indeed broken a foot below the hilt. 'Not much use is it, Sam?' said 
+Strider. 'But the time is near when it shall be forged anew.' 
+
+Sam said nothing. 
+
+'Well,' said Strider, 'with Sam's permission we will call that settled. 
+
+Strider shall be your guide. We shall have a rough road tomorrow. Even if we 
+are allowed to leave Bree unhindered, we can hardly hope now to leave it 
+unnoticed. But I shall try to get lost as soon as possible. I know one or 
+two ways out of Bree-land other than the main road. If once we shake off the 
+pursuit, I shall make for Weathertop.' 
+
+'Weathertop?' said Sam. 'What's that?' 
+
+'It is a hill, just to the north of the Road, about half way from here 
+to Rivendell. It commands a wide view all round; and there we shall have a 
+
+
+
+
+chance to look about us. Gandalf will make for that point, if he follows us. 
+After Weathertop our journey will become more difficult, and we shall have 
+to choose between various dangers.' 
+
+’When did you last see Gandalf?' asked Frodo. 'Do you know where he is, 
+or what he is doing?' 
+
+Strider looked grave. 'I do not know,' he said. 'I came west with him 
+in the spring. I have often kept watch on the borders of the Shire in the 
+last few years, when he was busy elsewhere. He seldom left it unguarded. We 
+last met on the first of May: at Sam Ford down the Brandywine. He told me 
+that his business with you had gone well, and that you would be starting for 
+Rivendell in the last week of September. As I knew he was at your side, I 
+went away on a journey of my own. And that has proved ill; for plainly some 
+news reached him, and I was not at hand to help. 
+
+'I am troubled, for the first time since I have known him. We should 
+have had messages, even if he could not come himself. When I returned, many 
+days ago, I heard the ill news. The tidings had gone far and wide that 
+Gandalf was missing and the horsemen had been seen. It was the Elven-folk of 
+Gildor that told me this; and later they told me that you had left your 
+home; but there was no news of your leaving Buckland. I have been watching 
+the East Road anxiously.' 
+
+'Do you think the Black Riders have anything to do with it - with 
+Gandalf's absence, I mean?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'I do not know of anything else that could have hindered him, except 
+the Enemy himself,' said Strider. 'But do not give up hope ! Gandalf is 
+greater than you Shire-folk know - as a rule you can only see his jokes and 
+toys. But this business of ours will be his greatest task.' 
+
+Pippin yawned. 'I am sorry,' he said, 'but I am dead tired. In spite of 
+all the danger and worry I must go to bed, or sleep where I sit. Where is 
+that silly fellow, Merry? It would be the last straw, if we had to go out in 
+the dark to look for him.' 
+
+At that moment they heard a door slam; then feet came running along the 
+passage. Merry came in with a rush followed by Nob. He shut the door 
+hastily, and leaned against it. He was out of breath. They stared at him in 
+alarm for a moment before he gasped: 'I have seen them, Frodo! I have seen 
+them! Black Riders!' 
+
+'Black Riders!' cried Frodo. 'Where?' 
+
+'Here. In the village. I stayed indoors for an hour. Then as you did 
+
+
+
+
+not come back, I went out for a stroll. I had come back again and was 
+standing just outside the light of the lamp looking at the stars. Suddenly I 
+shivered and felt that something horrible was creeping near: there was a son 
+of deeper shade among the shadows across the road, just beyond the edge of 
+the lamplight. It slid away at once into the dark without a sound. There was 
+no horse.' 
+
+'Which way did it go?' asked Strider, suddenly and sharply. Merry 
+started, noticing the stranger for the first time. 'Go on!' said Frodo. 
+
+'This is a friend of Gandalf's. I will explain later.' 
+
+'It seemed to make off up the Road, eastward,' continued Merry. 'I 
+tried to follow. Of course, it vanished almost at once; but I went round the 
+corner and on as far as the last house on the Road.' 
+
+Strider looked at Merry with wonder. 'You have a stout heart,' he said; 
+
+'but it was foolish.' 
+
+'I don't know,' said Merry. 'Neither brave nor silly, I think. I could 
+hardly help myself. I seemed to be drawn somehow. Anyway, I went, and 
+suddenly I heard voices by the hedge. One was muttering; and the other was 
+whispering, or hissing. I couldn't hear a word that was said. I did not 
+creep any closer, because I began to tremble all over. Then I felt 
+terrified, and I turned back, and was just going to bolt home, when 
+something came behind me and I... I fell over.' 
+
+'I found him, sir,' put in Nob. 'Mr. Butterbur sent me out with a 
+lantern. I went down to West-gate, and then back up towards South-gate. Just 
+nigh Bill Ferny's house I thought I could see something in the Road. I 
+couldn't swear to it, but it looked to me as if two men was stooping over 
+something, lilting it. I gave a shout, but where I got up to the spot there 
+was no signs of them, and only Mr. Brandybuck lying by the roadside. He 
+seemed to be asleep. "I thought I had fallen into deep water," he says to 
+me, when I shook him. Very queer he was, and as soon as I had roused him, he 
+got up and ran back here like a hare.' 
+
+'I am afraid that's true,' said Merry, 'though I don't know what I 
+said. I had an ugly dream, which I can't remember. I went to pieces. I don't 
+know what came over me.' 
+
+'I do,' said Strider. 'The Black Breath. The Riders must have left 
+their horses outside, and passed back through the South-gate in secret. They 
+will know all the news now, for they have visited Bill Ferny; and probably 
+that Southerner was a spy as well. Something may happen in the night, before 
+
+
+
+
+we leave Bree.' 
+
+'What will happen?' said Merry. 'Will they attack the inn?' 'No, I 
+think not,' said Strider. 'They are not all here yet. And in any case that 
+is not their way. In dark and loneliness they are strongest; they will not 
+openly attack a house where there are lights and many people -not until they 
+are desperate, not while all the long leagues of Eriador still lie before 
+us. But their power is in terror, and already some in Bree are in their 
+clutch. They will drive these wretches to some evil work: Ferny, and some of 
+the strangers, and, maybe, the gatekeeper too. They had words with Harry at 
+West-gate on Monday. I was watching them. He was white and shaking when 
+they 
+
+left him.' 
+
+'We seem to have enemies all round,' said Frodo. 'What are we to do?' 
+
+'Stay here, and do not go to your rooms ! They are sure to have found 
+out which those are. The hobbit-rooms have windows looking north and close 
+to the ground. We will all remain together and bar this window and the door. 
+But first Nob and I will fetch your luggage.' 
+
+While Strider was gone, Frodo gave Merry a rapid account of all that 
+had happened since supper. Merry was still reading and pondering Gandalf's 
+letter when Strider and Nob returned. 
+
+'Well Masters,' said Nob, 'I've ruffled up the clothes and put in a 
+bolster down the middle of each bed. And I made a nice imitation of your 
+head with a brown woollen mat, Mr. Bag - Underhill, sir,' he added with a 
+grin. 
+
+Pippin laughed. 'Very life-like!' he said. 'But what will happen when 
+they have penetrated the disguise?' 
+
+'We shall see,' said Strider. 'Fet us hope to hold the fort till 
+morning.' 
+
+'Good night to you,' said Nob, and went off to take his part in the 
+watch on the doors. 
+
+Their bags and gear they piled on the parlour-floor. They pushed a low 
+chair against the door and shut the window. Peering out, Frodo saw that the 
+night was still clear. The Sickle was swinging bright above the shoulders of 
+Bree-hill. He then closed and barred the heavy inside shutters and drew the 
+curtains together. Strider built up the fire and blew out all the candles. 
+
+The hobbits lay down on their blankets with their feet towards the 
+hearth; but Strider settled himself in the chair against the door. They 
+
+
+
+
+talked for a little, for Merry still had several questions to ask. 
+
+'Jumped over the Moon!' chuckled Merry as he rolled himself in his 
+blanket. 'Very ridiculous of you, Frodo! But I wish I had been there to see. 
+The worthies of Bree will be discussing it a hundred years hence.' 
+
+'I hope so,' said Strider. Then they all fell silent, and one by one 
+the hobbits dropped off to sleep. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 11. A Knife in the Dark 
+
+
+
+As they prepared for sleep in the inn at Bree, darkness lay on 
+Buckland; a mist strayed in the dells and along the river -bank. The house at 
+Crickhollow stood silent. Fatty Bolger opened the door cautiously and peered 
+out. A feeling of fear had been growing on him all day, and he was unable to 
+rest or go to bed: there was a brooding threat in the breathless night-air. 
+
+As he stared out into the gloom, a black shadow moved under the trees; the 
+gate seemed to open of its own accord and close again without a sound. 
+Terror seized him. He shrank back, and for a moment he stood trembling in 
+the hall. Then he shut and locked the door. 
+
+The night deepened. There came the soft sound of horses led with 
+stealth along the lane. Outside the gate they stopped, and three black 
+figures entered, like shades of night creeping across the ground. One went 
+to the door, one to the corner of the house on either side; and there they 
+stood, as still as the shadows of stones, while night went slowly on. The 
+house and the quiet trees seemed to be waiting breathlessly. 
+
+There was a faint stir in the leaves, and a cock crowed far away. The 
+cold hour before dawn was passing. The figure by the door moved. In the dark 
+without moon or stars a drawn blade gleamed, as if a chill light had been 
+unsheathed. There was a blow, soft but heavy, and the door shuddered. 
+
+'Open, in the name of Mordor!' said a voice thin and menacing. 
+
+At a second blow the door yielded and fell back, with timbers burst and 
+lock broken. The black figures passed swiftly in. 
+
+At that moment, among the trees nearby, a horn rang out. It rent the 
+night like fire on a hill -top. 
+
+AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE! 
+
+Fatty Bolger had not been idle. As soon as he saw the dark shapes creep 
+from the garden, he knew that he must run for it, or perish. And run he did, 
+out of the back door, through the garden, and over the fields. When he 
+reached the nearest house, more than a mile away, he collapsed on the 
+doorstep. 'No, no, no!' he was crying. 'No, not me! I haven't got it!' It 
+was some time before anyone could make out what he was babbling about. 
+At 
+
+last they got the idea that enemies were in Buckland, some strange invasion 
+
+
+
+
+from the Old Forest. And then they lost no more time. 
+
+FEAR! FIRE! FOES! 
+
+The Brandybucks were blowing the Horn-call of Buckland, that had not 
+been sounded for a hundred years, not since the white wolves came in the 
+Fell Winter, when the Brandywine was frozen over. 
+
+AWAKE! AWAKE! 
+
+Far-away answering horns were heard. The alarm was spreading. The black 
+figures fled from the house. One of them let fall a hobbit-cloak on the 
+step, as he ran. In the lane the noise of hoofs broke out, and gathering to 
+a gallop, went hammering away into the darkness. All about Crickhollow there 
+was the sound of horns blowing, and voices crying and feet running. But the 
+Black Riders rode like a gale to the North-gate. Let the little people blow! 
+Sauron would deal with them later. Meanwhile they had another errand: they 
+knew now that the house was empty and the Ring had gone. They rode down 
+the 
+
+guards at the gate and vanished from the Shire. 
+
+In the early night Frodo woke from deep sleep, suddenly, as if some 
+sound or presence had disturbed him. He saw that Strider was sitting alert 
+in his chair: his eyes gleamed in the light of the fire, which had been 
+tended and was burning brightly; but he made no sign or movement. 
+
+Frodo soon went to sleep again; but his dreams were again troubled with 
+the noise of wind and of galloping hoofs. The wind seemed to be curling 
+round the house and shaking it; and far off he heard a horn blowing wildly. 
+
+He opened his eyes, and heard a cock crowing lustily in the inn-yard. 
+Strider had drawn the curtains and pushed back the shutters with a clang. 
+
+The first grey light of day was in the room, and a cold air was coming 
+through the open window. 
+
+As soon as Strider had roused them all, he led the way to their 
+bedrooms. When they saw them they were glad that they had taken his advice: 
+the windows had been forced open and were swinging, and the curtains were 
+flapping; the beds were tossed about, and the bolsters slashed and flung 
+upon the floor; the brown mat was torn to pieces. 
+
+Strider immediately went to fetch the landlord. Poor Mr. Butterbur 
+looked sleepy and frightened. He had hardly closed his eyes all night (so he 
+said), but he had never heard a sound. 
+
+'Never has such a thing happened in my time!' he cried, raising his 
+hands in horror. ’Guests unable to sleep in their beds, and good bolsters 
+
+
+
+
+ruined and all! What are we coming to?' 
+
+'Dark times,' said Strider. 'But for the present you may be left in 
+peace, when you have got rid of us. We will leave at once. Never mind about 
+breakfast: a drink and a bite standing will have to do. We shall be packed 
+in a few minutes.' 
+
+Mr. Butterbur hurried off to see that their ponies were got ready, and 
+to fetch them a 'bite'. But very soon he came back in dismay. The ponies had 
+vanished! The stable-doors had all been opened in the night, and they were 
+gone: not only Merry's ponies, but every other horse and beast in the place. 
+
+Frodo was crushed by the news. How could they hope to reach Rivendell 
+on foot, pursued by mounted enemies? They might as well set out for the 
+Moon. Strider sat silent for a while, looking at the hobbits, as if he was 
+weighing up their strength and courage. 
+
+'Ponies would not help us to escape horsemen,' he said at last, 
+thoughtfully, as if he guessed what Frodo had in mind. 'We should not go 
+much slower on foot, not on the roads that I mean to take. I was going to 
+walk in any case. It is the food and stores that trouble me. We cannot count 
+on getting anything to eat between here and Rivendell, except what we take 
+with us; and we ought to take plenty to spare; for we may be delayed, or 
+forced to go round-about, far out of the direct way. How much are you 
+prepared to carry on your backs?' 
+
+'As much as we must,' said Pippin with a sinking heart, but trying to 
+show that he was tougher than he looked (or felt). 
+
+'I can carry enough for two,' said Sam defiantly. 
+
+'Can't anything be done, Mr. Butterbur?' asked Frodo. 'Can't we get a 
+couple of ponies in the village, or even one just for the baggage? I don't 
+suppose we could hire them, but we might be able to buy them,' he added, 
+doubtfully, wondering if he could afford it. 
+
+'I doubt it,' said the landlord unhappily. 'The two or three 
+riding-ponies that there were in Bree were stabled in my yard, and they're 
+gone. As for other animals, horses or ponies for draught or what not, there 
+are very few of them in Bree, and they won't be for sale. But I'll do what I 
+can. I'll rout out Bob and send him round as soon as may be.' 
+
+'Yes,' said Strider reluctantly, 'you had better do that. I am afraid 
+we shall have to try to get one pony at least. But so ends all hope of 
+starting early, and slipping away quietly! We might as well have blown a 
+horn to announce our departure. That was part of their plan, no doubt.' 
+
+
+
+
+'There is one crumb of comfort,' said Merry, 'and more than a crumb, I 
+hope: we can have breakfast while we wait - and sit down to it. Let's get 
+hold of Nob!' 
+
+In the end there was more than three hours' delay. Bob came back with 
+the report that no horse or pony was to be got for love or money in the 
+neighbourhood - except one: Bill Ferny had one that he might possibly sell. 
+
+'A poor old half-starved creature it is,' said Bob; 'but he won't part with 
+it for less than thrice its worth, seeing how you're placed, not if I knows 
+Bill Ferny.' 
+
+'Bill Ferny?' said Frodo. 'Isn't there some trick? Wouldn't the beast 
+bolt back to him with all our stuff, or help in tracking us, or something?' 
+
+'I wonder,' said Strider. 'But I cannot imagine any animal running home 
+to him, once it got away. I fancy this is only an afterthought of kind 
+Master Ferny's: just a way of increasing his profits from the affair. The 
+chief danger is that the poor beast is probably at death's door. But there 
+does not seem any choice. What does he want for it?' 
+
+Bill Ferny's price was twelve silver pennies; and that was indeed at 
+least three times the pony's value in those pans. It proved to be a bony, 
+underfed, and dispirited animal; but it did not look like dying just yet. 
+
+Mr. Butterbur paid for it himself, and offered Merry another eighteen pence 
+as some compensation for the lost animals. He was an honest man, and 
+well-off as things were reckoned in Bree; but thirty silver pennies was a 
+sore blow to him, and being cheated by Bill Ferny made it harder to bear. 
+
+Asa matter of fact he came out on the right side in the end. It turned 
+out later that only one horse had been actually stolen. The others had been 
+driven off, or had bolted in terror, and were found wandering in different 
+corners of the Bree-land. Merry's ponies had escaped altogether, and 
+eventually (having a good deal of sense) they made their way to the Downs in 
+search of Fatty Lumpkin. So they came under the care of Tom Bombadil for a 
+while, and were well-off. But when news of the events at Bree came to Tom's 
+ears, he sent them to Mr. Butterbur, who thus got five good beasts at a very 
+fair price. They had to work harder in Bree, but Bob treated them well; so 
+on the whole they were lucky: they missed a dark and dangerous journey. But 
+they never came to Rivendell. 
+
+However, in the meanwhile for all Mr. Butterbur knew his money was gone 
+for good, or for bad. And he had other troubles. For there was a great 
+commotion as soon as the remaining guests were astir and heard news of the 
+
+
+
+
+raid on the inn. The southern travellers had lost several horses and blamed 
+the innkeeper loudly, until it became known that one of their own number had 
+also disappeared in the night, none other than Bill Ferny's squint-eyed 
+companion. Suspicion fell on him at once. 
+
+'If you pick up with a horse-thief, and bring him to my house,' said 
+Butterbur angrily, 'you ought to pay for all the damage yourselves and not 
+come shouting at me. Go and ask Ferny where your handsome friend is!' But it 
+appeared that he was nobody's friend, and nobody could recollect when he had 
+joined their party. 
+
+After their breakfast the hobbits had to re-pack, and get together 
+further supplies for the longer journey they were now expecting. It was 
+close on ten o'clock before they at last got off. By that time the whole of 
+Bree was buzzing with excitement. Frodo's vanishing trick; the appearance of 
+the black horsemen; the robbing of the stables; and not least the news that 
+Strider the Ranger had joined the mysterious hobbits, made such a tale as 
+would last for many uneventful years. Most of the inhabitants of Bree and 
+Staddle, and many even from Combe and Archet, were crowded in the road 
+to 
+
+see the travellers start. The other guests in the inn were at the doors or 
+hanging out of the windows. 
+
+Strider had changed his mind, and he decided to leave Bree by the main 
+road. Any attempt to set off across country at once would only make matters 
+worse: half the inhabitants would follow them, to see what they were up to, 
+and to prevent them from trespassing. 
+
+They said farewell to Nob and Bob, and took leave of Mr. Butterbur with 
+many thanks. 'I hope we shall meet again some day, when things are merry 
+once more,' said Frodo. 'I should like nothing better than to stay in your 
+house in peace for a while.' 
+
+They tramped off, anxious and downhearted, under the eyes of the crowd. 
+Not all the faces were friendly, nor all the words that were shouted. But 
+Strider seemed to be held in awe by most of the Bree-landers, and those that 
+he stared at shut their mouths and drew away. He walked in front with Frodo; 
+next came Merry and Pippin; and last came Sam leading the pony, which was 
+laden with as much of their baggage as they had the heart to give it; but 
+already it looked less dejected, as if it approved of the change in its 
+fortunes. Sam was chewing an apple thoughtfully. He had a pocket full of 
+them: a parting present from Nob and Bob. 'Apples for walking, and a pipe 
+
+
+
+
+for sitting,' he said. 'But I reckon I'll miss them both before long.' 
+
+The hobbits took no notice of the inquisitive heads that peeped out of 
+doors, or popped over walls and fences, as they passed. But as they drew 
+near to the further gate, Frodo saw a dark ill-kept house behind a thick 
+hedge: the last house in the village. In one of the windows he caught a 
+glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once. 
+
+'So that's where that southerner is hiding!' he thought. 'He looks more 
+than half like a goblin.' 
+
+Over the hedge another man was staring boldly. He had heavy black 
+brows, and dark scornful eyes; his large mouth curled in a sneer. He was 
+smoking a short black pipe. As they approached he took it out of his mouth 
+and spat. 
+
+'Morning, Longshanks!' he said. 'Off early? Found some friends at 
+last?' Strider nodded, but did not answer. 'Morning, my little friends!' he 
+said to the others. 'I suppose you know who you've taken up with? That's 
+Stick -at-naught Strider, that is! Though I've heard other names not so 
+pretty. Watch out tonight! And you, Sammie, don't go ill-treating my poor 
+old pony! Pah!' He spat again. 
+
+Sam turned quickly. 'And you. Ferny,' he said, 'put your ugly face out 
+of sight, or it will get hurt.' With a sudden flick, quick as lightning, an 
+apple left his hand and hit Bill square on the nose. He ducked too late, and 
+curses came from behind the hedge. 'Waste of a good apple,' said Sam 
+regretfully, and strode on. 
+
+At last they left the village behind. The escort of children and 
+stragglers that had followed them got tired and turned back at the 
+South-gate. Passing through, they kept on along the Road for some miles. It 
+bent to the left, curving back into its eastward line as it rounded the feet 
+of Bree-hill, and then it began to run swiftly downwards into wooded 
+country. To their left they could see some of the houses and hobbit -holes of 
+Staddle on the gentler south-eastern slopes of the hill; down in a deep 
+hollow away north of the Road there were wisps of rising smoke that showed 
+where Combe lay; 
+
+Archet was hidden in the trees beyond. 
+
+After the Road had run down some way, and had left Bree-hill standing 
+tall and brown behind, they came on a narrow track that led off towards the 
+North. 'This is where we leave the open and take to cover,' said Strider. 
+
+'Not a "short cut", I hope,' said Pippin. 'Our last short cut through 
+
+
+
+
+woods nearly ended in disaster.' 
+
+'Ah, but you had not got me with you then,' laughed Strider. 'My cuts, 
+short or long, don't go wrong.' He took a look up and down the Road. No one 
+was in sight; and he led the way quickly down towards the wooded valley. 
+
+His plan, as far as they could understand it without knowing the 
+country, was to go towards Archet at first, but to bear right and pass it on 
+the east, and then to steer as straight as he could over the wild lands to 
+Weathertop Hill. In that way they would, if all went well, cut off a great 
+loop of the Road, which further on bent southwards to avoid the Midgewater 
+Marshes. But, of course, they would have to pass through the marshes 
+themselves, and Strider's description of them was not encouraging. 
+
+However, in the meanwhile, walking was not unpleasant. Indeed, if it 
+had not been for the disturbing events of the night before, they would have 
+enjoyed this pan of the journey better than any up to that time. The sun was 
+shining, clear but not too hot. The woods in the valley were still leafy and 
+full of colour, and seemed peaceful and wholesome. Strider guided them 
+confidently among the many crossing paths, although left to themselves they 
+would soon have been at a loss. He was taking a wandering course with many 
+turns and doublings, to put off any pursuit. 
+
+'Bill Ferny will have watched where we left the Road, for certain,' he 
+said; 'though I don't think he will follow us himself. He knows the land 
+round here well enough, but he knows he is not a match for me in a wood. It 
+is what he may tell others that I am afraid of. I don't suppose they are far 
+away. If they think we have made for Archet, so much the better.' 
+
+Whether because of Strider's skill or for some other reason, they saw 
+no sign and heard no sound of any other living thing all that day: neither 
+two-footed, except birds; nor four-footed, except one fox and a few 
+squirrels. The next day they began to steer a steady course eastwards; and 
+still all was quiet and peaceful. On the third day out from Bree they came 
+out of the Chetwood. The land had been falling steadily, ever since they 
+turned aside from the Road, and they now entered a wide flat expanse of 
+country, much more difficult to manage. They were far beyond the borders of 
+the Bree-land, out in the pathless wilderness, and drawing near to the 
+Midge- water Marshes. 
+
+The ground now became damp, and in places boggy and here and there they 
+came upon pools, and wide stretches of reeds and rushes filled with the 
+warbling of little hidden birds. They had to pick their way carefully to 
+
+
+
+
+keep both dry-footed and on their proper course. At first they made 
+fan-progress, but as they went on, their passage became slower and more 
+dangerous. The marshes were bewildering and treacherous, and there was no 
+permanent trail even for Rangers to find through their shifting quagmires. 
+
+The flies began to torment them, and the air was full of clouds of tiny 
+midges that crept up their sleeves and breeches and into their hair. 
+
+'I am being eaten alive!' cried Pippin. 'Midgewater! There are more 
+midges than water!' 
+
+'What do they live on when they can't get hobbit?' asked Sam, 
+scratching his neck. 
+
+They spent a miserable day in this lonely and unpleasant country. Their 
+camping-place was damp, cold, and uncomfortable; and the biting insects 
+would not let them sleep. There were also abominable creatures haunting the 
+reeds and tussocks that from the sound of them were evil relatives of the 
+cricket. There were thousands of them, and they squeaked all round, 
+neek-breek, breek-neek, unceasingly all the night, until the hobbits were 
+nearly frantic. 
+
+The next day, the fourth, was little better, and the night almost as 
+comfortless. Though the Neekerbreekers (as Sam called them) had been left 
+behind, the midges still pursued them. 
+
+As Frodo lay, tired but unable to close his eyes, it seemed to him that 
+far away there came a light in the eastern sky: it flashed and faded many 
+times. It was not the dawn, for that was still some hours off. 
+
+'What is the light?' he said to Strider, who had risen, and was 
+standing, gazing ahead into the night. 
+
+'I do not know,' Strider answered. 'It is too distant to make out. It 
+is like lightning that leaps up from the hill-tops.' 
+
+Frodo lay down again, but for a long while he could still see the white 
+flashes, and against them the tall dark figure of Strider, standing silent 
+and watchful. At last he passed into uneasy sleep. 
+
+They had not gone far on the fifth day when they left the last 
+straggling pools and reed-beds of the marshes behind them. The land before 
+them began steadily to rise again. Away in the distance eastward they could 
+now see a line of hills. The highest of them was at the right of the line 
+and a little separated from the others. It had a conical top, slightly 
+flattened at the summit. 
+
+'That is Weathertop,' said Strider. 'The Old Road, which we have left 
+
+
+
+
+far away on our right, runs to the south of it and passes not far from its 
+foot. We might reach it by noon tomorrow, if we go straight towards it. I 
+suppose we had better do so.' 
+
+’What do you mean?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'I mean: when we do get there, it is not certain what we shall find. It 
+is close to the Road.' 
+
+'But surely we were hoping to find Gandalf there?' 
+
+'Yes; but the hope is faint. If he comes this way at all, he may not 
+pass through Bree, and so he may not know what we are doing. And anyway, 
+unless by luck we arrive almost together, we shall miss one another; it will 
+not be safe for him or for us to wait there long. If the Riders fail to find 
+us in the wilderness, they are likely to make for Weathertop themselves. It 
+commands a wide view all round. Indeed, there are many birds and beasts in 
+this country that could see us, as we stand here, from that hill-top. Not 
+all the birds are to be trusted, and there are other spies more evil than 
+they are.' 
+
+The hobbits looked anxiously at the distant hills. Sam looked up into 
+the pale sky, fearing to see hawks or eagles hovering over them with bright 
+unfriendly eyes. 'You do make me feel uncomfortable and lonesome, Strider!' 
+he said. 
+
+'What do you advise us to do?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'I think,' answered Strider slowly, as if he was not quite sure, 'I 
+think the best thing is to go as straight eastward from here as we can, to 
+make for the line of hills, not for Weathertop. There we can strike a path I 
+know that runs at their feet; it will bring us to Weathertop from the north 
+and less openly. Then we shall see what we shall see.' 
+
+All that day they plodded along, until the cold and early evening came 
+down. The land became drier and more barren; but mists and vapours lay 
+behind them on the marshes. A few melancholy birds were piping and wailing, 
+until the round red sun sank slowly into the western shadows; then an empty 
+silence fell. The hobbits thought of the soft light of sunset glancing 
+through the cheerful windows of Bag End far away. 
+
+At the day's end they came to a stream that wandered down from the 
+hills to lose itself in the stagnant marshland, and they went up along its 
+banks while the light lasted. It was already night when at last they halted 
+and made their camp under some stunted alder -trees by the shores of the 
+stream. Ahead there loomed now against the dusky sky the bleak and treeless 
+
+
+
+
+backs of the hills. That night they set a watch, and Strider, it seemed, did 
+not sleep at all. The moon was waxing, and in the early night -hours a cold 
+grey light lay on the land. 
+
+Next morning they set out again soon after sunrise. There was a frost 
+in the air, and the sky was a pale clear blue. The hobbits felt refreshed, 
+as if they had had a night of unbroken sleep. Already they were getting used 
+to much walking on short commons - shorter at any rate than what in the 
+Shire they would have thought barely enough to keep them on their legs. 
+Pippin declared that Frodo was looking twice the hobbit that he had been. 
+
+'Very odd,' said Frodo, tightening his belt, 'considering that there is 
+actually a good deal less of me. I hope the thinning process will not go on 
+indefinitely, or I shall become a wraith.' 
+
+'Do not speak of such things!' said Strider quickly, and with 
+surprising earnestness. 
+
+The hills drew nearer. They made an undulating ridge, often rising 
+almost to a thousand feet, and here and there falling again to low clefts or 
+passes leading into the eastern land beyond. Along the crest of the ridge 
+the hobbits could see what looked to be the remains of green-grown walls and 
+dikes, and in the clefts there still stood the ruins of old works of stone. 
+
+By night they had reached the feet of the westward slopes, and there they 
+camped. It was the night of the fifth of October, and they were six days out 
+from Bree. 
+
+In the morning they found, for the first time since they had left the 
+Chetwood, a track plain to see. They turned right and followed it 
+southwards. It ran cunningly, taking a line that seemed chosen so as to keep 
+as much hidden as possible from the view, both of the hill-tops above and of 
+the flats to the west. It dived into dells, and hugged steep banks; and 
+where it passed over flatter and more open ground on either side of it there 
+were lines of large boulders and hewn stones that screened the travellers 
+almost like a hedge. 
+
+'I wonder who made this path, and what for,' said Merry, as they walked 
+along one of these avenues, where the stones were unusually large and 
+closely set. 'I am not sure that I like it: it has a - well, rather a 
+barrow- wightish look. Is there any barrow on Weathertop?' 
+
+'No. There is no barrow on Weathertop, nor on any of these hills,' 
+answered Strider. 'The Men of the West did not live here; though in their 
+latter days they defended the hills for a while against the evil that came 
+
+
+
+
+out of Angmar. This path was made to serve the forts along the walls. But 
+long before, in the first days of the North Kingdom, they built a great 
+watch-tower on Weathertop, Amon Syl they called it. It was burned and 
+broken, and nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown 
+on the old hill's head. Yet once it was tall and fair. It is told that 
+Elendil stood there watching for the coming of Gil-galad out of the West, in 
+the days of the Last Alliance.' 
+
+The hobbits gazed at Strider. It seemed that he was learned in old 
+lore, as well as in the ways of the wild. 'Who was Gil-galad?' asked Merry; 
+but Strider did not answer, and seemed to be lost in thought. Suddenly a low 
+voice murmured: 
+
+Gil-galad was an Elven-king. 
+
+Of him the harpers sadly sing: 
+
+the last whose realm was fair and free 
+
+between the Mountains and the Sea. 
+
+His sword was long, his lance was keen, 
+his shining helm afar was seen; 
+the countless stars of heaven's field 
+were mirrored in his silver shield. 
+
+But long ago he rode away, 
+and where he dwelleth none can say; 
+for into darkness fell his star 
+in Mordor where the shadows are. 
+
+The others turned in amazement, for the voice was Sam's. 
+
+'Don't stop!' said Merry. 
+
+'That's all I know,' stammered Sam, blushing. 'I learned it from Mr. 
+
+Bilbo when I was a lad. He used to tell me tales like that, knowing how I 
+was always one for hearing about Elves. It was Mr. Bilbo as taught me my 
+letters. He was mighty book -learned was dear old Mr. Bilbo. And he wrote 
+poetry. He wrote what I have just said.' 
+
+'He did not make it up,' said Strider. 'It is pan of the lay that is 
+called The Fall of Gil-galad, which is in an ancient tongue. Bilbo must have 
+translated it. I never knew that.' 
+
+'There was a lot more,' said Sam, 'all about Mordor. I didn't learn 
+that part, it gave me the shivers I never thought I should be going that way 
+
+
+
+
+myself!' 
+
+’Going to Mordor!' cried Pippin. 'I hope it won't come to that!' 
+
+'Do not speak that name so loudly!' said Strider. 
+
+It was already mid-day when they drew near the southern end of the 
+path, and saw before them, in the pale clear light of the October sun, a 
+grey-green bank, leading up like a bridge on to the northward slope of the 
+hill They decided to make for the top at once, while the daylight was broad 
+Concealment was no longer possible, and they could only hope that no enemy 
+or spy was observing them. Nothing was to be seen moving on the hill. If 
+Gandalf was anywhere about, there was no sign of him. 
+
+On the western flank of Weathertop they found a sheltered hollow, at 
+the bottom of which there was a bowl -shaped dell with grassy sides. There 
+they left Sam and Pippin with the pony and their packs and luggage. The 
+other three went on. After half an hour's plodding climb Strider reached the 
+crown of the hill; Frodo and Merry followed, tired and breathless. The last 
+slope had been steep and rocky. 
+
+On the top they found, as Strider had said, a wide ring of ancient 
+stonework, now crumbling or covered with age-long grass. But in the centre a 
+cairn of broken stones had been piled. They were blackened as if with fire. 
+About them the turf was burned to the roots and all within the ring the 
+grass was scorched and shrivelled, as if flames had swept the hill-top; but 
+there was no sign of any living thing. 
+
+Standing upon the rim of the ruined circle, they saw all round below 
+them a wide prospect, for the most pan of lands empty and featureless, 
+except for patches of woodland away to the south, beyond which they caught 
+here and there the glint of distant water. Beneath them on this southern 
+side there ran like a ribbon the Old Road, coming out of the West and 
+winding up and down, until it faded behind a ridge of dark land to the east. 
+Nothing was moving on it. Following its line eastward with their eyes they 
+saw the Mountains: the nearer foothills were brown and sombre; 
+
+behind them stood taller shapes of grey, and behind those again were 
+high white peaks glimmering among the clouds. 
+
+'Well, here we are!' said Merry. 'And very cheerless and uninviting it 
+looks! There is no water and no shelter. And no sign of Gandalf. But I don't 
+blame him for not waiting - if he ever came here.' 
+
+'I wonder,' said Strider, looking round thoughtfully. 'Even if he was a 
+day or two behind us at Bree, he could have arrived here first. He can ride 
+
+
+
+
+very swiftly when need presses.’ Suddenly he stooped and looked at the stone 
+on the top of the cairn; it was flatter than the others, and whiter, as if 
+it had escaped the fire. He picked it up and examined it, turning it in his 
+fingers. "This has been handled recently,' he said. 'What do you think of 
+these marks?' 
+
+On the flat under-side Frodo saw some scratches: 'There seems to he a 
+stroke, a dot, and three more strokes,' he said. 
+
+'The stroke on the left might be a G-rune with thin branches,' said 
+Strider. 'It might be a sign left by Gandalf, though one cannot be sure. The 
+scratches are fine, and they certainly look fresh. But the marks might mean 
+something quite different, and have nothing to do with us. Rangers use 
+runes, and they come here sometimes.' 
+
+'What could they mean, even if Gandalf made them?' asked Merry 
+
+'I should say,' answered Strider, 'that they stood for G3, and were a 
+sign that Gandalf was here on October the third: that is three days ago now. 
+
+It would also show that he was in a hurry and danger was at hand, so that he 
+had no time or did not dare to write anything longer or plainer. If that is 
+so, we must be wary.' 
+
+'I wish we could feel sure that he made the marks, whatever they may 
+mean,' said Frodo 'It would be a great comfort to know that he was on the 
+way, in front of us or behind us.' 
+
+'Perhaps,' said Strider. 'For myself, I believe that he was here, and 
+was in danger. There have been scorching flames here; and now the light that 
+we saw three nights ago in the eastern sky comes back to my mind. I guess 
+that he was attacked on this hill-top, but with what result I cannot tell. 
+
+He is here no longer, and we must now look after ourselves and make our own 
+way to Rivendell, as best we can ' 
+
+'How far is Rivendell?' asked Merry, gazing round wearily. The world 
+looked wild and wide from Weathertop. 
+
+'I don't know if the Road has ever been measured in miles beyond the 
+Forsaken Inn, a day's journey east of Bree,' answered Strider. 'Some say it 
+is so far, and some say otherwise. It is a strange road, and folk are glad 
+to reach their journey's end, whether the time is long or short. But I know 
+how long it would take me on my own feet, with fair weather and no ill 
+fortune twelve days from here to the Ford of Bruinen, where the Road crosses 
+the Loudwater that runs out of Rivendell. We have at least a fortnight's 
+journey before us, for I do not think we shall be able to use the Road.' 
+
+
+
+
+'A fortnight!' said Frodo. 'A lot may happen in that time.' 
+
+'It may,' said Strider. 
+
+They stood for a while silent on the hill -top, near its southward edge. 
+
+In that lonely place Frodo for the first time fully realized his 
+homelessness and danger. He wished bitterly that his fortune had left him in 
+the quiet and beloved Shire. He stared down at the hateful Road, leading 
+back westward - to his home. Suddenly he was aware that two black specks 
+were moving slowly along it, going westward; and looking again he saw that 
+three others were creeping eastward to meet them. He gave a cry and clutched 
+Strider's arm. 
+
+'Look,' he said, pointing downwards. 
+
+At once Strider flung himself on the ground behind the ruined circle, 
+pulling Frodo down beside him. Merry threw himself alongside. 
+
+'What is it?' he whispered. 
+
+'I do not know, but I fear the worst,' answered Strider. 
+
+Slowly they crawled up to the edge of the ring again, and peered 
+through a cleft between two jagged stones. The light was no longer bright, 
+for the clear morning had faded, and clouds creeping out of the East had now 
+overtaken the sun, as it began to go down. They could all see the black 
+specks, but neither Frodo nor Merry could make out their shapes for certain; 
+yet something told them that there, far below, were Black Riders assembling 
+on the Road beyond the foot of the hill. 
+
+'Yes,' said Strider, whose keener sight left him in no doubt. 'The 
+enemy is here!' 
+
+Hastily they crept away and slipped down the north side of the hill to 
+find their companions. 
+
+Sam and Peregrin had not been idle. They had explored the small dell 
+and the surrounding slopes. Not far away they found a spring of clear water 
+in the hillside, and near it footprints not more than a day or two old. In 
+the dell itself they found recent traces of a fire, and other signs of a 
+hasty camp. There were some fallen rocks on the edge of the dell nearest to 
+the hill. Behind them Sam came upon a small store of firewood neatly 
+stacked. 
+
+'I wonder if old Gandalf has been here,' he said to Pippin. 'Whoever it 
+was put this stuff here meant to come back it seems.' 
+
+Strider was greatly interested in these discoveries. 'I wish I had 
+waited and explored the ground down here myself,' he said, hurrying off to 
+
+
+
+
+the spring to examine the footprints. 
+
+'It is just as I feared,' he said, when he came back. 'Sam and Pippin 
+have trampled the soft ground, and the marks are spoilt or confused. Rangers 
+have been here lately. It is they who left the firewood behind. But there 
+are also several newer tracks that were not made by Rangers. At least one 
+set was made, only a day or two ago, by heavy boots. At least one. I cannot 
+now be certain, but I think there were many booted feet.' He paused and 
+stood in anxious thought. 
+
+Each of the hobbits saw in his mind a vision of the cloaked and booted 
+Riders. If the horsemen had already found the dell, the sooner Strider led 
+them somewhere else the better. Sam viewed the hollow with great dislike, 
+now that he had heard news of their enemies on the Road, only a few miles 
+away. 
+
+'Hadn't we better clear out quick, Mr. Strider?' he asked impatiently. 
+
+'It is getting late, and I don't like this hole: it makes my heart sink 
+somehow.' 
+
+'Yes, we certainly must decide what to do at once,' answered Strider, 
+looking up and considering the time and the weather. 'Well, Sam,' he said at 
+last, 'I do not like this place either; but I cannot think of anywhere 
+better that we could reach before nightfall. At least we are out of sight 
+for the moment, and if we moved we should be much more likely to be seen 
+spies. All we could do would be to go right out of our way back north on 
+this side of the line of hills, where the land is all much the same as it is 
+here. The Road is watched, but we should have to cross it, if we tried to 
+take cover in the thickets away to the south. On the north side of the Road 
+beyond the hills the country is bare and flat for miles.' 
+
+'Can the Riders see ?' asked Merry. 'I mean, they seem usually to have 
+used their noses rather than their eyes, smelling for us, if smelling is the 
+right word, at least in the daylight. But you made us lie down flat when you 
+saw them down below; and now you talk of being seen, if we move.' 
+
+'I was too careless on the hill-top,' answered Strider. 'I was very 
+anxious to find some sign of Gandalf; but it was a mistake for three of us 
+to go up and stand there so long. For the black horses can see, and the 
+Riders can use men and other creatures as spies, as we found at Bree. They 
+themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast 
+shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys; and in the dark 
+they perceive many signs and forms that are hidden from us: then they are 
+
+
+
+
+most to be feared. And at all times they smell the blood of living things, 
+desiring and hating it. Senses, too, there are other than sight or smell. We 
+can feel their presence - it troubled our hearts, as soon as we came here, 
+and before we saw them; they feel ours more keenly. Also,' he added, and his 
+voice sank to a whisper, 'the Ring draws them.' 
+
+'Is there no escape then?' said Frodo, looking round wildly. 'If I move 
+I shall be seen and hunted! If I stay, I shall draw them to me!' 
+
+Strider laid his hand on his shoulder. 'There is still hope,' he said. 
+
+'You are not alone. Let us take this wood that is set ready for the fire as 
+a sign. There is little shelter or defence here, but fire shall serve for 
+both. Sauron can put fire to his evil uses, as he can all things, but these 
+Riders do not love it, and fear those who wield it. Fire is our friend in 
+the wilderness.' 
+
+'Maybe,' muttered Sam. 'It is also as good a way of saying "here we 
+are" as I can think of, bar shouting.' 
+
+Down in the lowest and most sheltered corner of the dell they lit a 
+fire, and prepared a meal. The shades of evening began to fall, and it grew 
+cold. They were suddenly aware of great hunger, for they had not eaten 
+anything since breakfast; but they dared not make more than a frugal supper. 
+The lands ahead were empty of all save birds and beasts, unfriendly places 
+deserted by all the races of the world. Rangers passed at times beyond the 
+hills, but they were few and did not stay. Other wanderers were rare, and of 
+evil sort: trolls might stray down at times out of the northern valleys of 
+the Misty Mountains. Only on the Road would travellers be found, most often 
+dwarves, hurrying along on business of their own, and with no help and few 
+words to spare for strangers. 
+
+'I don't see how our food can be made to last,' said Frodo. 'We have 
+been careful enough in the last few days, and this supper is no feast; but 
+we have used more than we ought, if we have two weeks still to go, and 
+perhaps more.' 
+
+'There is food in the wild,' said Strider; 'berry, root, and herb; and 
+I have some skill as a hunter at need. You need not be afraid of starving 
+before winter comes. But gathering and catching food is long and weary work, 
+and we need haste. So tighten your belts, and think with hope of the tables 
+of Elrond's house!' 
+
+The cold increased as darkness came on. Peering out from the edge of 
+the dell they could see nothing but a grey land now vanishing quickly into 
+
+
+
+
+shadow. The sky above had cleared again and was slowly filled with twinkling 
+stars. Frodo and his companions huddled round the fire, wrapped in every 
+garment and blanket they possessed; but Strider was content with a single 
+cloak, and sat a little apart, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe. 
+
+As night fell and the light of the fire began to shine out brightly he 
+began to tell them tales to keep their minds from fear. He knew many 
+histories and legends of long ago, of Elves and Men and the good and evil 
+deeds of the Elder Days. They wondered how old he was, and where he had 
+learned all this lore. 
+
+Tell us of Gil-galad,’ said Merry suddenly, when he paused at the end 
+of a story of the Elf-Kingdoms. 'Do you know any more of that old lay that 
+you spoke of?' 
+
+'I do indeed,' answered Strider. 'So also does Frodo, for it concerns 
+us closely.' Merry and Pippin looked at Frodo, who was staring into the 
+fire. 
+
+'I know only the little that Gandalf has told me,' said Frodo slowly. 
+'Gil-galad was the last of the great Elf-kings of Middle-earth. Gil-galad is 
+Starlight in their tongue. With Elendil, the Elf-friend, he went to the land 
+of ' 
+
+'No!' said Strider interrupting, 'I do not think that tale should be 
+told now with the servants of the Enemy at hand. If we win through to the 
+house of Elrond, you may hear it there, told in full.' 
+
+'Then tell us some other tale of the old days,' begged Sam; 'a tale 
+about the Elves before the fading time. I would dearly like to hear more 
+about Elves; the dark seems to press round so close.' 
+
+'I will tell you the tale of Tin®viel,' said Strider, 'in brief - for 
+it is a long tale of which the end is not known; and there are none now, 
+except Elrond, that remember it aright as it was told of old. It is a fair 
+tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth, and yet it may 
+lift up your hearts.' He was silent for some time, and then he began not to 
+speak but to chant softly: 
+
+The leaves were long, the grass was green, 
+
+The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, 
+
+And in the glade a light was seen 
+
+Of stars in shadow shimmering. 
+
+Tin®viel was dancing there 
+
+To music of a pipe unseen, 
+
+
+
+
+And light of stars was in her hair, 
+
+And in her raiment glimmering. 
+
+There Beren came from mountains cold, 
+And lost he wandered under leaves, 
+
+And where the Elven-river rolled 
+He walked alone and sorrowing. 
+
+He peered between the hemlock-leaves 
+And saw in wander flowers of gold 
+Upon her mantle and her sleeves, 
+
+And her hair like shadow following. 
+
+Enchantment healed his weary feet 
+That over hills were doomed to roam; 
+
+And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, 
+And grasped at moonbeams glistening. 
+Through woven woods in Elvenhome 
+She tightly fled on dancing feet, 
+
+And left him lonely still to roam 
+In the silent forest listening. 
+
+He heard there oft the flying sound 
+Of feet as light as linden-leaves, 
+
+Or music welling underground, 
+
+In hidden hollows quavering. 
+
+Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, 
+And one by one with sighing sound 
+Whispering fell the beechen leaves 
+In the wintry woodland wavering. 
+
+He sought her ever, wandering far 
+Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, 
+By light of moon and ray of star 
+In frosty heavens shivering. 
+
+Her mantle glinted in the moon, 
+
+As on a hill-top high and far 
+
+She danced, and at her feet was strewn 
+
+
+
+
+A mist of silver quivering. 
+
+
+
+When winter passed, she came again, 
+And her song released the sudden spring, 
+Like rising lark, and falling rain, 
+
+And melting water bubbling. 
+
+He saw the elven-flowers spring 
+About her feet, and healed again 
+He longed by her to dance and sing 
+Upon the grass untroubling. 
+
+Again she fled, but swift he came. 
+Tin®viel! Tin®viel! 
+
+He called her by her elvish name; 
+
+And there she halted listening. 
+
+One moment stood she, and a spell 
+His voice laid on her: Beren came, 
+
+And doom fell on Tin®viel 
+That in his arms lay glistening. 
+
+As Beren looked into her eyes 
+Within the shadows of her hair, 
+
+The trembling starlight of the skies 
+He saw there mirrored shimmering. 
+Tin®viel the elven-fair, 
+
+Immortal maiden elven-wise, 
+
+About him cast her shadowy hair 
+And arms like silver glimmering. 
+
+Long was the way that fate them bore, 
+O'er stony mountains cold and grey, 
+Through halls of iron and darkling door, 
+And woods of nightshade morrowless. 
+The Sundering Seas between them lay, 
+And yet at last they met once more, 
+
+And long ago they passed away 
+In the forest singing sorrowless. 
+
+
+
+
+Strider sighed and paused before he spoke again. ’That is a song,' he 
+said, 'in the mode that is called ann-thennath among the Elves, but is hard 
+to render in our Common Speech, and this is but a rough echo of it. It tells 
+of the meeting of Beren son of Barahir and L®thien Tin®viel. Beren was a 
+mortal man, but L®thien was the daughter of Thingol, a King of Elves upon 
+Middle-earth when the world was young; and she was the fairest maiden that 
+has ever been among all the children of this world. As the stars above the 
+mists of the Northern lands was her loveliness, and in her face was a 
+shining light. In those days the Great Enemy, of whom Sauron of Mordor was 
+but a servant, dwelt in Angband in the North, and the Elves of the West 
+coming back to Middle-earth made war upon him to regain the Silmarils which 
+he had stolen; and the fathers of Men aided the Elves. But the Enemy was 
+victorious and Barahir was slain, and Beren escaping through great peril 
+came over the Mountains of Terror into the hidden Kingdom of Thingol in the 
+forest of Neldoreth. There he beheld L®thien singing and dancing in a glade 
+beside the enchanted river Esgalduin; and he named her Tin®viel, that is 
+Nightingale in the language of old. Many sorrows befell them afterwards, and 
+they were parted long. Tin®viel rescued Beren from the dungeons of Sauron, 
+and together they passed through great dangers, and cast down even the Great 
+Enemy from his throne, and took from his iron crown one of the three 
+Silmarils, brightest of all jewels, to be the bride-price of L®thien to 
+Thingol her father. Yet at the last Beren was slain by the Wolf that came 
+from the gates of Angband, and he died in the arms of Tin®viel. But she 
+chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; 
+and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a 
+brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, 
+long ago, beyond the confines of this world. So it is that L®thien Tin®viel 
+alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have 
+lost her whom they most loved. But from her the lineage of the Elf-lords of 
+old descended among Men. There live still those of whom L®thien was the 
+foremother, and it is said that her line shall never fail. Elrond of 
+Rivendell is of that Kin. For of Beren and L®thien was born Dior Thingol’s 
+heir; and of him Elwing the White whom Edrendil wedded, he that sailed his 
+ship out of the mists of the world into the seas of heaven with the Silmaril 
+upon his brow. And of Edrendil came the Kings of N®menor, that is 
+Westernesse.' 
+
+As Strider was speaking they watched his strange eager face, dimly lit 
+
+
+
+
+in the red glow of the wood-fire. His eyes shone, and his voice was rich and 
+deep. Above him was a black starry sky. Suddenly a pale light appeared over 
+the crown of Weathertop behind him. The waxing moon was climbing 
+slowly 
+
+above the hill that overshadowed them, and the stars above the hill-top 
+faded. 
+
+The story ended. The hobbits moved and stretched. 'Look!' said Merry. 
+'The Moon is rising: it must be getting late.' 
+
+The others looked up. Even as they did so, they saw on the top of the 
+hill something small and dark against the glimmer of the moonrise. It was 
+perhaps only a large stone or jutting rock shown up by the pale light. 
+
+Sam and Merry got up and walked away from the fire. Frodo and Pippin 
+remained seated in silence. Strider was watching the moonlight on the hill 
+intently. All seemed quiet and still, but Frodo felt a cold dread creeping 
+over his heart, now that Strider was no longer speaking. He huddled closer 
+to the fire. At that moment Sam came running back from the edge of the dell. 
+
+'I don't know what it is,' he said, 'but I suddenly felt afraid. I 
+durstn't go outside this dell for any money; I felt that something was 
+creeping up the slope.' 
+
+'Did you see anything?' asked Frodo, springing to his feet. 
+
+'No, sir. I saw nothing, but I didn't stop to look.' 
+
+'I saw something,' said Merry; 'or I thought I did - away westwards 
+where the moonlight was falling on the flats beyond the shadow of the 
+hill-tops, I thought there were two or three black shapes. They seemed to be 
+moving this way.' 
+
+'Keep close to the fire, with your faces outward!' cried Strider. 'Get 
+some of the longer sticks ready in your hands!' 
+
+For a breathless time they sat there, silent and alert, with their 
+backs turned to the wood-fire, each gazing into the shadows that encircled 
+them. Nothing happened. There was no sound or movement in the night. 
+Frodo 
+
+stirred, feeling that he must break the silence: he longed to shout out 
+aloud. 
+
+'Hush!' whispered Strider. 'What's that?' gasped Pippin at the same 
+moment. 
+
+Over the lip of the little dell, on the side away from the hill, they 
+felt, rather than saw, a shadow rise, one shadow or more than one. They 
+
+
+
+
+strained their eyes, and the shadows seemed to grow. Soon there could be no 
+doubt: 
+
+three or four tall black figures were standing there on the slope, 
+looking down on them. So black were they that they seemed like black holes 
+in the deep shade behind them. Frodo thought that he heard a faint hiss as 
+of venomous breath and felt a thin piercing chill. Then the shapes slowly 
+advanced. 
+
+Terror overcame Pippin and Merry, and they threw themselves flat on the 
+ground. Sam shrank to Frodo's side. Frodo was hardly less terrified than his 
+companions; he was quaking as if he was bitter cold, but his terror was 
+swallowed up in a sudden temptation to put on the Ring. The desire to do 
+this laid hold of him, and he could think of nothing else. Fie did not forget 
+the Barrow, nor the message of Gandalf; but something seemed to be 
+compelling him to disregard all warnings, and he longed to yield. Not with 
+the hope of escape, or of doing anything, either good or bad: he simply felt 
+that he must take the Ring and put it on his finger. Fie could not speak. Fie 
+felt Sam looking at him, as if he knew that his master was in some great 
+trouble, but he could not turn towards him. He shut his eyes and struggled 
+for a while; but resistance became unbearable, and at last he slowly drew 
+out the chain, and slipped the Ring on the forefinger of his left hand. 
+
+Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, 
+the shapes became terribly clear. He was able to see beneath their black 
+wrappings. There were five tall figures: two standing on the lip of the 
+dell, three advancing. In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; 
+under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms 
+of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel. Their eyes fell on 
+him and pierced him, as they rushed towards him. Desperate, he drew his own 
+sword, and it seemed to him that it flickered red, as if it was a firebrand. 
+
+Two of the figures halted. The third was taller than the others: his hair 
+was long and gleaming and on his helm was a crown. In one hand he held a 
+long sword, and in the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held 
+it glowed with a pale light. He sprang forward and bore down on Frodo. 
+
+At that moment Frodo threw himself forward on the ground, and he heard 
+himself crying aloud: O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! At the same time he struck at 
+the feet of his enemy. A shrill cry rang out in the night; and he felt a 
+pain like a dart of poisoned ice pierce his left shoulder. Even as he 
+swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping 
+
+
+
+
+out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand. With a last 
+effort Frodo, dropping his sword, slipped the Ring from his finger and 
+closed his right hand tight upon it. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 12 . Flight to the Ford 
+
+
+
+When Frodo came to himself he was still clutching the Ring desperately. 
+
+He was lying by the fire, which was now piled high and burning brightly. His 
+three companions were bending over him. 'What has happened? Where is the 
+pale king?' he asked wildly. They were too overjoyed to hear him speak to 
+answer for a while; nor did they understand his question. At length he 
+gathered from Sam that they had seen nothing but the vague shadowy shapes 
+coming towards them. Suddenly to his horror Sam found that his master had 
+vanished; and at that moment a black shadow rushed past him, and he fell. He 
+heard Frodo’s voice, but it seemed to come from a great distance, or from 
+under the earth, crying out strange words. They saw nothing more, until they 
+stumbled over the body of Frodo, lying as if dead, face downwards on the 
+grass with his sword beneath him. Strider ordered them to pick him up and 
+lay him near the fire, and then he disappeared. That was now a good while 
+ago. 
+
+Sam plainly was beginning to have doubts again about Strider; but while 
+they were talking he returned, appearing suddenly out of the shadows. They 
+started, and Sam drew his sword and stood over Frodo; but Strider knelt down 
+swiftly at his side. 
+
+'I am not a Black Rider, Sam,' he said gently, 'nor in league with 
+them. I have been trying to discover something of their movements; but I 
+have found nothing. I cannot think why they have gone and do not attack 
+again. But there is no feeling of their presence anywhere at hand.' 
+
+When he heard what Frodo had to tell, he became full of concern, and 
+shook his head and sighed. Then he ordered Pippin and Merry to heat as much 
+water as they could in their small kettles, and to bathe the wound with it. 
+
+'Keep the fire going well, and keep Frodo warm!' he said. Then he got up and 
+walked away, and called Sam to him. 'I think I understand things better 
+now,' he said in a low voice. 'There seem only to have been five of the 
+enemy. Why they were not all here, I don't know; but I don't think they 
+expected to be resisted. They have drawn off for the time being. But not 
+far, I fear. They will come again another night, if we cannot escape. They 
+are only waiting, because they think that their purpose is almost 
+accomplished, and that the Ring cannot fly much further. I fear, Sam, that 
+
+
+
+
+they believe your master has a deadly wound that will subdue him to their 
+will. We shall see!' Sam choked with tears. 'Don't despair!' said Strider. 
+
+'You must trust me now. Your Frodo is made of sterner stuff than I had 
+guessed, though Gandalf hinted that it might prove so. He is not slain, and 
+I think he will resist the evil power of the wound longer than his enemies 
+expect. I will do all I can to help and heal him. Guard him well, while I am 
+away!' He hurried off and disappeared again into the darkness. 
+
+Frodo dozed, though the pain of his wound was slowly growing, and a 
+deadly chill was spreading from his shoulder to his arm and side. His 
+friends watched over him, warming him, and bathing his wound. The night 
+passed slowly and wearily. Dawn was growing in the sky, and the dell was 
+filling with grey light, when Strider at last returned. 
+
+'Look!' he cried; and stooping he lifted from the ground a black cloak 
+that had lain there hidden by the darkness. A foot above the lower hem there 
+was a slash. 'This was the stroke of Frodo's sword,' he said. 'The only hurt 
+that it did to his enemy, I fear; for it is unharmed, but all blades perish 
+that pierce that dreadful King. More deadly to him was the name of 
+Elbereth.' 
+
+'And more deadly to Frodo was this!' He stooped again and lifted up a 
+long thin knife. There was a cold gleam in it. As Strider raised it they saw 
+that near the end its edge was notched and the point was broken off. But 
+even as he held it up in the growing light, they gazed in astonishment, for 
+the blade seemed to melt, and vanished like a smoke in the air, leaving only 
+the hilt in Strider's hand. 'Alas!' he cried. 'It was this accursed knife 
+that gave the wound. Few now have the skill in healing to match such evil 
+weapons. But I will do what I can.' 
+
+He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger -hilt laid it on his 
+knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it 
+aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could 
+not catch. From the pouch at his belt he drew out the long leaves of a 
+plant. 
+
+'These leaves,' he said, 'I have walked far to find; for this plant 
+does not grow in the bare hills; but in the thickets away south of the Road 
+I found it in the dark by the scent of its leaves.' He crushed a leaf in his 
+fingers, and it gave out a sweet and pungent fragrance. 'It is fortunate 
+that I could find it, for it is a healing plant that the Men of the West 
+brought to Middle-earth. Athelas they named it, and it grows now sparsely 
+
+
+
+
+and only near places where they dwelt or camped of old; and it is not known 
+in the North, except to some of those who wander in the Wild. It has great 
+virtues, but over such a wound as this its healing powers may be small.' 
+
+He threw the leaves into boiling water and bathed Frodo's shoulder. The 
+fragrance of the steam was refreshing, and those that were unhurt felt their 
+minds calmed and cleared. The herb had also some power over the wound, for 
+Frodo felt the pain and also the sense of frozen cold lessen in his side; 
+but the life did not return to his arm, and he could not raise or use his 
+hand. He bitterly regretted his foolishness, and reproached himself for 
+weakness of will; for he now perceived that in putting on the Ring he obeyed 
+not his own desire but the commanding wish of his enemies. He wondered if he 
+would remain maimed for life, and how they would now manage to continue 
+their journey. He fell too weak to stand. 
+
+The others were discussing this very question. They quickly decided to 
+leave Weathertop as soon as possible. 'I think now,' said Strider, 'that the 
+enemy has been watching this place for some days. If Gandalf ever came here, 
+then he must have been forced to ride away, and he will not return. In any 
+case we are in great peril here after dark, since the attack of last night, 
+and we can hardly meet greater danger wherever we go.' 
+
+As soon as the daylight was full, they had some hurried food and 
+packed. It was impossible for Frodo to walk, so they divided the greater 
+part of their baggage among the four of them, and put Frodo on the pony. In 
+the last few days the poor beast had improved wonderfully; it already seemed 
+fatter and stronger, and had begun to show an affection for its new masters, 
+especially for Sam. Bill Ferny's treatment must have been very hard for the 
+journey in the wild to seem so much better than its former life. 
+
+They started off in a southerly direction. This would mean crossing the 
+Road, but. it was the quickest way to more wooded country. And they needed 
+fuel; for Strider said that Frodo must be kept warm, especially at night, 
+while fire would be some protection for them all. It was also his plan to 
+shorten their journey by cutting across another great loop of the Road: east 
+beyond Weathertop it changed its course and took a wide bend northwards. 
+
+They made their way slowly and cautiously round the south-western 
+slopes of the hill, and came in a little while to the edge of the Road. 
+
+There was no sign of the Riders. But even as they were hurrying across they 
+heard far away two cries: a cold voice calling and a cold voice answering. 
+Trembling they sprang forward, and made for the thickets that lay ahead. The 
+
+
+
+
+land before them sloped away southwards, but it was wild and pathless; 
+bushes and stunted trees grew in dense patches with wide barren spaces in 
+between. The grass was scanty, coarse, and grey; and the leaves in the 
+thickets were faded and falling. It was a cheerless land, and their journey 
+was slow and gloomy. They spoke little as they trudged along. Frodo's heart 
+was grieved as he watched them walking beside him with their heads down, 
+and 
+
+their backs bowed under their burdens. Even Strider seemed tired and 
+heavy-hearted. 
+
+Before the first day's march was over Frodo's pain began to grow again, 
+but he did not speak of it for a long time. Four days passed, without the 
+ground or the scene changing much, except that behind them Weathertop 
+slowly 
+
+sank, and before them the distant mountains loomed a little nearer. Yet 
+since that far cry they had seen and heard no sign that the enemy had marked 
+their flight or followed them. They dreaded the dark hours, and kept watch 
+in pairs by night, expecting at any time to see black shapes stalking in the 
+grey night, dimly lit by the cloud- veiled moon; but they saw nothing, and 
+heard no sound but the sigh of withered leaves and grass. Not once did they 
+feel the sense of present evil that had assailed them before the attack in 
+the dell. It seemed too much to hope that the Riders had already lost their 
+trail again. Perhaps they were waiting to make some ambush in a narrow 
+place? 
+
+At the end of the fifth day the ground began once more to rise slowly 
+out of the wide shallow valley into which they had descended. Strider now 
+turned their course again north-eastwards, and on the sixth day they reached 
+the top of a long slow-climbing slope, and saw far ahead a huddle of wooded 
+hills. Away below them they could see the Road sweeping round the feet of 
+the hills; and to their right a grey river gleamed pale in the thin 
+sunshine. In the distance they glimpsed yet another river in a stony valley 
+half-veiled in mist. 
+
+"I am afraid we must go back to the Road here for a while,' said 
+Strider. 'We have now come to the River Hoarwell, that the Elves call 
+Mitheithel. It flows down out of the Ettenmoors, the troll-fells north of 
+Rivendell, and joins the Loud water away in the South. Some call it the 
+Greyflood after that. It is a great water before it finds the Sea. There is 
+no way over it below its sources in the Ettenmoors, except by the Last 
+
+
+
+
+Bridge on which the Road crosses.' 
+
+’What is that other river we can see far away there?' asked Merry. 
+
+'That is Loudwater, the Bruinen of Rivendell,' answered Strider. 'The 
+Road runs along the edge of the hills for many miles from the Bridge to the 
+Ford of Bruinen. But I have not yet thought how we shall cross that water. 
+One river at a time! We shall be fortunate indeed if we do not find the Last 
+Bridge held against us.' 
+
+Next day, early in the morning, they came down again to the borders of 
+the Road. Sam and Strider went forward, but they found no sign of any 
+travellers or riders. Here under the shadow of the hills there had been some 
+rain. Strider judged that it had fallen two days before, and had washed away 
+all footprints. No horseman had passed since then, as far as he could see. 
+
+They hurried along with all the speed they could make, and after a mile 
+or two they saw the Last Bridge ahead, at the bottom of a short steep slope. 
+They dreaded to see black figures waiting there, but they saw none. Strider 
+made them take cover in a thicket at the side of the Road, while he went 
+forward to explore. 
+
+Before long he came hurrying back. 'I can see no sign of the enemy,' he 
+said, 'and I wonder very much what that means. But I have found something 
+very strange.' 
+
+He held out his hand, and showed a single pale-green jewel. 'I found it 
+in the mud in the middle of the Bridge,' he said. 'It is a beryl, an 
+elf-stone. Whether it was set there, or let fall by chance, I cannot say; 
+but it brings hope to me. I will take it as a sign that we may pass the 
+Bridge; but beyond that I dare not keep to the Road, without some clearer 
+token.' 
+
+At once they went on again. They crossed the Bridge in safety, hearing 
+no sound but the water swirling against its three great arches. A mile 
+further on they came to a narrow ravine that led away northwards through the 
+steep lands on the left of the Road. Here Strider turned aside, and soon 
+they were lost in a sombre country of dark trees winding among the feet of 
+sullen hills. 
+
+The hobbits were glad to leave the cheerless lands and the perilous 
+Road behind them; but this new country seemed threatening and unfriendly. As 
+they went forward the hills about them steadily rose. Here and there upon 
+heights and ridges they caught glimpses of ancient walls of stone, and the 
+ruins of towers: they had an ominous look. Frodo, who was not walking, had 
+
+
+
+
+time to gaze ahead and to think. He recalled Bilbo's account of his journey 
+and the threatening towers on the hills north of the Road, in the country 
+near the Troll's wood where his first serious adventure had happened. Frodo 
+guessed that they were now in the same region, and wondered if by chance 
+they would pass near the spot. 
+
+'Who lives in this land?' he asked. 'And who built these towers? Is 
+this troll-country?' 
+
+'No!' said Strider. 'Trolls do not build. No one lives in this land. 
+
+Men once dwelt here, ages ago; but none remain now. They became an evil 
+people, as legends tell, for they fell under the shadow of Angmar. But all 
+were destroyed in the war that brought the North Kingdom to its end. But 
+that is now so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a shadow 
+still lies on the land.' 
+
+'Where did you learn such tales, if all the land is empty and 
+forgetful?' asked Peregrin. 'The birds and beasts do not tell tales of that 
+son.' 
+
+'The heirs of Elendil do not forget all things past,' said Strider; 
+
+'and many more things than I can tell are remembered in Rivendell.' 'Have 
+you often been to Rivendell?' said Frodo. 'I have,' said Strider. 'I dwelt 
+there once, and still I return when I may. 
+
+There my heart is; but it is not my fate to sit in peace, even in the 
+fair house of Elrond.' 
+
+The hills now began to shut them in. The Road behind held on its way to 
+the River Bruinen, but both were now hidden from view. The travellers came 
+into a long valley; narrow, deeply cloven, dark and silent. Trees with old 
+and twisted roots hung over cliffs, and piled up behind into mounting slopes 
+of pine-wood. 
+
+The hobbits grew very weary. They advanced slowly, for they had to pick 
+their way through a pathless country, encumbered by fallen trees and tumbled 
+rocks. As long as they could they avoided climbing for Frodo's sake, and 
+because it was in fact difficult to find any way up out of the narrow dales. 
+
+They had been two days in this country when the weather turned wet. The wind 
+began to blow steadily out of the West and pour the water of the distant 
+seas on the dark heads of the hills in fine drenching rain. By nightfall 
+they were all soaked, and their camp was cheerless, for they could not get 
+any fire to burn. The next day the hills rose still higher and steeper 
+before them, and they were forced to turn away northwards out of their 
+
+
+
+
+course. Strider seemed to be getting anxious: they were nearly ten days out 
+from Weathertop, and their stock of provisions was beginning to run low. It 
+went on raining. 
+
+That night they camped on a stony shelf with a rock -wall behind them, 
+in which there was a shallow cave, a mere scoop in the cliff. Frodo was 
+restless. The cold and wet had made his wound more painful than ever, and 
+the ache and sense of deadly chill took away all sleep. He lay tossing and 
+turning and listening fearfully to the stealthy night-noises: wind in chinks 
+of rock, water dripping, a crack, the sudden rattling fall of a loosened 
+stone. He felt that black shapes were advancing to smother him; but when he 
+sat up he saw nothing but the back of Strider sitting hunched up, smoking 
+his pipe, and watching. He lay down again and passed into an uneasy dream, 
+in which he walked on the grass in his garden in the Shire, but it seemed 
+faint and dim, less clear than the tall black shadows that stood looking 
+over the hedge. 
+
+In the morning he woke to find that the rain had stopped. The clouds 
+were still thick, but they were breaking, and pale strips of blue appeared 
+between them. The wind was shifting again. They did not start early. 
+Immediately after their cold and comfortless breakfast Strider went off 
+alone, telling the others to remain under the shelter of the cliff, until he 
+came back. He was going to climb up, if he could, and get a look at the lie 
+of the land. 
+
+When he returned he was not reassuring. 'We have come too far to the 
+north,' he said, 'and we must find some way to turn back southwards again. 
+
+If we keep on as we are going we shall get up into the Ettendales far north 
+of Rivendell. That is troll-country, and little known to me. We could 
+perhaps find our way through and come round to Rivendell from the north; but 
+it would take too long, for I do not know the way, and our food would not 
+last. So somehow or other we must find the Ford of Bruinen.' 
+
+The rest of that day they spent scrambling over rocky ground. They 
+found a passage between two hills that led them into a valley running 
+south-east, the direction that they wished to take; but towards the end of 
+the day they found their road again barred by a ridge of high land; its dark 
+edge against the sky was broken into many bare points like teeth of a 
+blunted saw. They had a choice between going back or climbing over it. 
+
+They decided to attempt the climb, but it proved very difficult. Before 
+long Frodo was obliged to dismount and struggle along on foot. Even so they 
+
+
+
+
+often despaired of getting their pony up, or indeed of finding a path for 
+themselves, burdened as they were. The light was nearly gone, and they were 
+all exhausted, when at last they reached the top. They had climbed on to a 
+narrow saddle between two higher points, and the land fell steeply away 
+again, only a short distance ahead. Frodo threw himself down, and lay on the 
+ground shivering. His left arm was lifeless, and his side and shoulder felt 
+as if icy claws were laid upon them. The trees and rocks about him seemed 
+shadowy and dim. 
+
+'We cannot go any further,' said Merry to Strider. 'I am afraid this 
+has been too much for Frodo. I am dreadfully anxious about him. What are we 
+to do? Do you think they will be able to cure him in Ri vendell, if we ever 
+get there?' 
+
+'We shall see,' answered Strider. 'There is nothing more that I can do 
+in the wilderness; and it is chiefly because of his wound that I am so 
+anxious to press on. But I agree that we can go no further tonight.' 
+
+'What is the matter with my master?' asked Sam in a low voice, looking 
+appealingly at Strider. 'His wound was small, and it is already closed. 
+
+There's nothing to be seen but a cold white mark on his shoulder.' 
+
+'Frodo has been touched by the weapons of the Enemy,' said Strider, 
+
+'and there is some poison or evil at work that is beyond my skill to drive 
+out. But do not give up hope, Sam!' 
+
+Night was cold up on the high ridge. They lit a small fire down under 
+the gnarled roots of an old pine, that hung over a shallow pit: it looked as 
+if stone had once been quarried there. They sat huddled together. The wind 
+blew chill through the pass, and they heard the tree-tops lower down moaning 
+and sighing. Frodo lay half in a dream, imagining that endless dark wings 
+were sweeping by above him, and that on the wings rode pursuers that sought 
+him in all the hollows of the hill s. 
+
+The morning dawned bright and fair; the air was clean, and the light 
+pale and clear in a rain- washed sky. Their hearts were encouraged, but (hey 
+longed for the sun to warm their cold stiff limbs. As soon as it was light, 
+Strider took Merry with him and went to survey the country from the height 
+to the east of the pass. The sun had risen and was shining brightly when he 
+returned with more comforting news. They were now going more or less in the 
+right direction. If they went on, down the further side of the ridge, they 
+would have the Mountains on their left. Some way ahead Strider had caught a 
+glimpse of the Loudwater again, and he knew that, though it was hidden from 
+
+
+
+
+view, the Road to the Ford was not far from the River and lay on the side 
+nearest to them. 
+
+'We must make for the Road again,' he said. 'We cannot hope to find a 
+path through these hills. Whatever danger may beset it, the Road is our only 
+way to the Ford.' 
+
+As soon as they had eaten they set out again. They climbed slowly down 
+the southern side of the ridge; but the way was much easier than they had 
+expected, for the slope was far less steep on this side, and before long 
+Frodo was able to ride again. Bill Ferny's poor old pony was developing an 
+unexpected talent for picking out a path, and for sparing its rider as many 
+jolts as possible. The spirits of the party rose again. Even Frodo felt 
+better in the morning light, but every now and again a mist seemed to 
+obscure his sight, and he passed his hands over his eyes. 
+
+Pippin was a little ahead of the others. Suddenly he turned round and 
+called to them. 'There is a path here!' he cried. 
+
+When they came up with him, they saw that he had made no mistake: 
+
+there were clearly the beginnings of a path, that climbed with many 
+windings out of the woods below and faded away on the hill-top behind. In 
+places it was now faint and overgrown, or choked with fallen stones and 
+trees; but at one time it seemed to have been much used. It was a path made 
+by strong arms and heavy feet. Here and there old trees had been cut or 
+broken down, and large rocks cloven or heaved aside to make a way. 
+
+They followed the track for some while, for it offered much the easiest 
+way down, but they went cautiously, and their anxiety increased as they came 
+into the dark woods, and the path grew plainer and broader. Suddenly coming 
+out of a belt of fir-trees it ran steeply down a slope, and turned sharply 
+to the left round the comer of a rocky shoulder of the hill. When they came 
+to the comer they looked round and saw that the path ran on over a level 
+strip under the face of a low cliff overhung with trees. In the stony wall 
+there was a door hanging crookedly ajar upon one great hinge. 
+
+Outside the door they all halted. There was a cave or rock-chamber 
+behind, but in the gloom inside nothing could be seen. Strider, Sam, and 
+Merry pushing with all their strength managed to open the door a little 
+wider, and then Strider and Merry went in. They did not go far, for on the 
+floor lay many old bones, and nothing else was to be seen near the entrance 
+except some great empty jars and broken pots. 
+
+'Surely this is a troll-hole, if ever there was one!' said Pippin. 
+
+
+
+
+’Come out, you two, and let us get away. Now we know who made the path - 
+and 
+
+we had better get off it quick.’ 
+
+'There is no need, I think,' said Strider, coining out. 'It is 
+certainly a troll-hole, but it seems to have been long forsaken. I don't 
+think we need be afraid. But let us go on down warily, and we shall see.' 
+
+The path went on again from the door, and turning to the right again 
+across the level space plunged down a thick wooded slope. Pippin, not liking 
+to show Strider that he was still afraid, went on ahead with Merry. Sam and 
+Strider came behind, one on each side of Frodo's pony, for the path was now 
+broad enough for four or five hobbits to walk abreast. But they had not gone 
+very far before Pippin came running back, followed by Merry. They both 
+looked terrified. 
+
+'There are trolls!' Pippin panted. 'Down in a clearing in the woods not 
+far below. We got a sight of them through the tree-trunks. They are very 
+large!' 
+
+'We will come and look at them,' said Strider, picking up a stick. 
+
+Frodo said nothing, but Sam looked scared. 
+
+The sun was now high, and it shone down through the half-stripped 
+branches of the trees, and lit the clearing with bright patches of light. 
+
+They halted suddenly on the edge, and peered through the tree-trunks, 
+holding their breath. There stood the trolls: three large trolls. One was 
+stooping, and the other two stood staring at him. 
+
+Strider walked forward unconcernedly. 'Get up, old stone!' he said, and 
+broke his stick upon the stooping troll. 
+
+Nothing happened. There was a gasp of astonishment from the hobbits, 
+and then even Frodo laughed. 'Well!' he said. 'We are forgetting our family 
+history! These must be the very three that were caught by Gandalf, 
+quarrelling over the right way to cook thirteen dwarves and one hobbit.' 
+
+'I had no idea we were anywhere near the place!' said Pippin. He knew 
+the story well. Bilbo and Frodo had told it often; but as a matter of fact 
+he had never more than half believed it. Even now he looked at the stone 
+trolls with suspicion, wondering if some magic might not suddenly bring them 
+to life again. 
+
+'You are forgetting not only your family history, but all you ever knew 
+about trolls,' said Strider. 'It is broad daylight with a bright sun, and 
+yet you come back trying to scare me with a tale of live trolls waiting for 
+
+
+
+
+us in this glade! In any case you might have noticed that one of them has an 
+old bird's nest behind his ear. That would be a most unusual ornament for a 
+live troll!' 
+
+They all laughed. Frodo felt his spirits reviving: the reminder of 
+Bilbo's first successful adventure was heartening. The sun, too, was warm 
+and comforting, and the mist before his eyes seemed to be lifting a little. 
+They rested for some time in the glade, and took their mid-day meal right 
+under the shadow of the trolls' large legs. 
+
+'Won't somebody give us a bit of a song, while the sun is high?' said 
+Merry, when they had finished. 'We haven't had a song or a tale for days.' 
+
+'Not since Weathertop,' said Frodo. The others looked at him. 'Don't 
+worry about me!' he added. 'I feel much better, but I don't think I could 
+sing. Perhaps Sam could dig something out of his memory.' 
+
+'Come on, Sam!' said Merry. 'There's more stored in your head than you 
+let on about.' 
+
+'I don't know about that,' said Sam. 'But how would this suit? It ain't 
+what I call proper poetry, if you understand me: just a bit of nonsense. But 
+these old images here brought it to my mind.' Standing up, with his hands 
+behind his back, as if he was at school, he began to sing to an old tune. 
+
+Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, 
+
+And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; 
+
+For many a year he had gnawed it near, 
+
+For meat was hard to come by. 
+
+Done by! Gum by! 
+
+In a case in the hills he dwelt alone, 
+
+And meat was hard to come by. 
+
+Up came Tom with his big boots on. 
+
+Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is yon? 
+
+For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, 
+
+As should be a-lyin ' in graveyard. 
+
+Caveyard! Paveyard! 
+
+This many a year has Tim been gone, 
+
+And I thought he were lyin ' in graveyard. ' 
+
+
+
+'My lad, ' said Troll, 'this bone I stole. 
+But what be bones that lie in a hole? 
+
+
+
+
+Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, 
+
+Afore I found his shinbone. 
+
+Tinbone! Thinbone! 
+
+He can spare a share for a poor old troll, 
+
+For he don't need his shinbone. ' 
+
+Said Tom: 7 don't see why the likes o' thee 
+Without axin ' leave should go makin 'free 
+With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; 
+So hand the old bone over! 
+
+Rover! Trover! 
+
+Though dead he be, it belongs to he; 
+
+So hand the old bone over!' 
+
+'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins, 
+'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. 
+
+A bit o' fresh meal will go down sweet! 
+
+I'll try my teeth on thee now. 
+
+Hee now! See now! 
+
+I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; 
+
+I've a mind to dine on thee now. ' 
+
+But just as he thought his dinner was caught, 
+He found his hands had hold of naught. 
+
+Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind 
+And gave him the boot to lam him. 
+
+Warn him! Darn him! 
+
+A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought, 
+Would be the way to lam him. 
+
+But harder than stone is the flesh and bone 
+Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. 
+
+As well set your boot to the mountain's root, 
+For the seat of a troll don 't feel it. 
+
+Peel it! Heal it! 
+
+Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, 
+And he knew his toes could feel it. 
+
+
+
+
+Tom's leg is game, since home he came, 
+
+And his bootless foot is lasting lame; 
+
+But Troll don't care, and he's still there 
+
+With the bone he boned from its owner. 
+
+Doner! Boner! 
+
+Troll's old seat is still the same, 
+
+And the bone he boned from its owner! 
+
+'Well, that's a warning to us all!' laughed Merry. 'It is as well you 
+used a stick, and not your hand, Strider!' 
+
+'Where did you come by that, Sam?' asked Pippin. 'I've never heard 
+those words before.' 
+
+Sam muttered something inaudible. 'It's out of his own head, of 
+course,' said Frodo. 'I am learning a lot about Sam Gamgee on this journey. 
+First he was a conspirator, now he's a jester. He'll end up by becoming a 
+wizard - or a warrior!' 
+
+'I hope not,' said Sam. 'I don't want to be neither!' 
+
+In the afternoon they went on down the woods. They were probably 
+following the very track that Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves had used many 
+years before. After a few miles they came out on the top of a high bank 
+above the Road. At this point the Road had left the Hoarwell far behind in 
+its narrow valley, and now clung close to the feet of the hills, rolling and 
+winding eastward among woods and heather -covered slopes towards the Ford 
+and 
+
+the Mountains. Not far down the bank Strider pointed out a stone in the 
+grass. On it roughly cut and now much weathered could still be seen 
+dwarf-runes and secret marks. 
+
+'There!' said Merry. 'That must be the stone that marked the place 
+where the trolls' gold was hidden. How much is left of Bilbo's share, I 
+wonder, Frodo?' 
+
+Frodo looked at the stone, and wished that Bilbo had brought home no 
+treasure more perilous, nor less easy to pan with. 'None at all,' he said. 
+
+'Bilbo gave it all away. He told me he did not feel it was really his, as it 
+came from robbers.' 
+
+The Road lay quiet under the long shadows of early evening. There was 
+no sign of any other travellers to be seen. As there was now no other 
+possible course for them to take, they climbed down the bank, and turning 
+
+
+
+
+left went off as fast as they could. Soon a shoulder of the hills cut off 
+the light of the fast westering sun. A cold wind flowed down to meet them 
+from the mountains ahead. 
+
+They were beginning to look out for a place off the Road, where they 
+could camp for the night, when they heard a sound that brought sudden fear 
+back into their hearts: the noise of hoofs behind them. They looked back, 
+but they could not see far because of the many windings and rollings of the 
+Road. As quickly as they could they scrambled off the beaten way and up into 
+the deep heather and bilberry brushwood on the slopes above, until they came 
+to a small patch of thick-growing hazels. As they peered out from among the 
+bushes, they could see the Road, faint and grey in the failing light, some 
+thirty feel below them. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. They were going 
+fast, with a light clippety-clippely-clip. Then faintly, as if it was blown 
+away from them by the breeze, they seemed to catch a dim ringing, as of 
+small bells tinkling. 
+
+That does not sound like a Black Rider's horse!' said Frodo, listening 
+intently. The other hobbits agreed hopefully that it did not, but they all 
+remained full of suspicion. They had been in fear of pursuit for so long 
+that any sound from behind seemed ominous and unfriendly. But Strider was 
+now leaning forward, stooped to the ground, with a hand to his ear, and a 
+look of joy on his face. 
+
+The light faded, and the leaves on the bushes rustled softly. Clearer 
+and nearer now the bells jingled, and clippety-clip came the quick trotting 
+feet. Suddenly into view below came a white horse, gleaming in the shadows, 
+running swiftly. In the dusk its headstall flickered and flashed, as if it 
+were studded with gems like living stars. The rider's cloak streamed behind 
+him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the 
+wind of his speed. To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining 
+through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil. 
+
+Strider sprang from hiding and dashed down towards the Road, leaping 
+with a cry through the heather; but even before he had moved or called, the 
+rider had reined in his horse and halted, looking up towards the thicket 
+where they stood. When he saw Strider, he dismounted and ran to meet him 
+calling out: Ai na vedui D®nadan! Mae govannen! His speech and clear 
+ringing 
+
+voice left no doubt in their hearts: the rider was of the Elven-folk. No 
+others that dwelt in the wide world had voices so fair to hear. But there 
+
+
+
+
+seemed to be a note of haste or fear in his call, and they saw that he was 
+now speaking quickly and urgently to Strider. 
+
+Soon Strider beckoned to them, and the hobbits left the bushes and 
+hurried down to the Road. 'This is Glorfindel, who dwells in the house of 
+Elrond,' said Strider. 
+
+'Hail, and well met at last!' said the Elf-lord to Frodo. 'I was sent 
+from Rivendell to look for you. We feared that you were in danger upon the 
+road.' 
+
+'Then Gandalf has reached Rivendell?' cried Frodo joyfully. 
+
+'No. He had not when I departed; but that was nine days ago,' answered 
+Glorfindel. 'Elrond received news that troubled him. Some of my kindred, 
+journeying in your land beyond the Baranduin,* learned that things were 
+amiss, and sent messages as swiftly as they could. They said that the Nine 
+were abroad, and that you were astray bearing a great burden without 
+guidance, for Gandalf had not returned. There are few even in Rivendell that 
+can ride openly against the Nine; but such as there were, Elrond sent out 
+north, west, and south. It was thought that you might turn far aside to 
+avoid pursuit, and become lost in the Wilderness. 
+
+'It was my lot to take the Road, and I came to the Bridge of 
+Mitheithel, and left a token there, nigh on seven days ago. Three of the 
+servants of Sauron were upon the Bridge, but they withdrew and I pursued 
+them westward. I came also upon two others, but they turned away southward. 
+Since then I have searched for your trail. Two days ago I found it, and 
+followed it over the Bridge; and today I marked where you descended from the 
+hills again. But come! There is no time for further news. Since you are here 
+we must risk the peril of the Road and go. There are five behind us, and 
+when they find your trail upon the Road they will ride after us like the 
+wind. And they are not all. Where the other four may be, I do not know. I 
+fear that we may find the Ford is already held against us.' 
+
+While Glorfindel was speaking the shades of evening deepened. Frodo 
+felt a great weariness come over him. Ever since the sun began to sink the 
+mist before his eyes had darkened, and he felt that a shadow was coming 
+between him and the faces of his friends. Now pain assailed him, and he felt 
+cold. He swayed, clutching at Sam's arm. 
+
+'My master is sick and wounded,' said Sam angrily. 'He can't go on 
+riding after nightfall. He needs rest.' 
+
+Glorfindel caught Frodo as he sank to the ground, and taking him gently 
+
+
+
+
+in his arms he looked in his face with grave anxiety. 
+
+Briefly Strider told of the attack on their camp under Weathertop, and 
+of the deadly knife. He drew out the hilt, which he had kept, and handed it 
+to the Elf. Glorfindel shuddered as he took it, but he looked intently at 
+it. 
+
+'There are evil things written on this hilt,' he said; 'though maybe 
+your eyes cannot see them. Keep it, Aragorn, till we reach the house of 
+Elrond! But be wary, and handle it as little as you may! Alas! the wounds of 
+this weapon are beyond my skill to heal. I will do what I can - but all the 
+more do I urge you now to go on without rest.' 
+
+He searched the wound on Frodo's shoulder with his fingers, and his 
+face grew graver, as if what he learned disquieted him. But Frodo felt the 
+chill lessen in his side and arm; a little warmth crept down from his 
+shoulder to his hand, and the pain grew easier. The dusk of evening seemed 
+to grow lighter about him, as if a cloud had been withdrawn. He saw his 
+friends' faces more clearly again, and a measure of new hope and strength 
+returned. 
+
+'You shall ride my horse,' said Glorfindel. 'I will shorten the 
+stirrups up to the saddle-skins, and you must sit as tight as you can. But 
+you need not fear: my horse will not let any rider fall that I command him 
+to bear. His pace is light and smooth; and if danger presses too near, he 
+will bear you away with a speed that even the black steeds of the enemy 
+cannot rival.' 
+
+'No, he will not!' said Frodo. 'I shall not ride him, if I am to be 
+carried off to Rivendell or anywhere else, leaving my friends behind in 
+danger.' 
+
+Glorfindel smiled. 'I doubt very much,' he said, 'if your friends would 
+be in danger if you were not with them! The pursuit would follow you and 
+leave us in peace, I think. It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that 
+brings us all in peril.' 
+
+To that Frodo had no answer, and he was persuaded to mount Glorfindel's 
+white horse. The pony was laden instead with a great part of the others' 
+burdens, so that they now marched lighter, and for a time made good speed; 
+but the hobbits began to find it hard to keep up with the swift tireless 
+feet of the Elf. On he led them, into the mouth of darkness, and still on 
+under the deep clouded night. There was neither star nor moon. Not until the 
+grey of dawn did he allow them to halt. Pippin, Merry, and Sam were by that 
+
+
+
+
+time nearly asleep on their stumbling legs; and even Strider seemed by the 
+sag of his shoulders to be weary. Frodo sat upon the horse in a dark dream. 
+
+They cast themselves down in the heather a few yards from the 
+road-side, and fell asleep immediately. They seemed hardly to have closed 
+their eyes when Glorfindel, who had set himself to watch while they slept, 
+awoke them again. The sun had now climbed far into the morning, and the 
+clouds and mists of the night were gone. 
+
+'Drink this!' said Glorfindel to them, pouring for each in turn a 
+little liquor from his silver-studded flask of leather. It was clear as 
+spring water and had no taste, and it did not feel either cool or warm in 
+the mouth; but strength and vigour seemed to flow into all their limbs as 
+they drank it. Eaten after that draught the stale bread and dried fruit 
+(which was now all that they had left) seemed to satisfy their hunger better 
+than many a good breakfast in the Shire had done. 
+
+They had rested rather less than five hours when they took to the Road 
+again. Glorfindel still urged them on, and only allowed two brief halts 
+during the day's march. In this way they covered almost twenty miles before 
+nightfall, and came to a point where the Road bent right and ran down 
+towards the bottom of the valley, now making straight for the Bruinen. So 
+far there had been no sign or sound of pursuit that the hobbits could see or 
+hear; but often Glorfindel would halt and listen for a moment, if they 
+lagged behind, and a look of anxiety clouded his face. Once or twice he 
+spoke to Strider in the elf-tongue. 
+
+But however anxious their guides might be, it was plain that the 
+hobbits could go no further that night. They were stumbling along dizzy with 
+weariness, and unable to think of anything but their feet and legs. Frodo's 
+pain had redoubled, and during the day things about him faded to shadows of 
+ghostly grey. He almost welcomed the coming of night, for then the world 
+seemed less pale and empty. 
+
+The hobbits were still weary, when they set out again early next 
+morning. There were many miles yet to go between them and the Ford, and 
+they 
+
+hobbled forward at the best pace they could manage. 
+
+'Our peril will be greatest just ere we reach the river,' said 
+Glorfindel; 'for my heart warns me that the pursuit is now swift behind us, 
+and other danger may be waiting by the Ford.' 
+
+The Road was still running steadily downhill, and there was now in 
+
+
+
+
+places much grass at either side, in which the hobbits walked when they 
+could, to ease their tired feet. In the late afternoon they came to a place 
+where the Road went suddenly under the dark shadow of tall pine-trees, and 
+then plunged into a deep cutting with steep moist walls of red stone. Echoes 
+ran along as they hurried forward; and there seemed to be a sound of many 
+footfalls following their own. All at once, as if through a gate of light, 
+the Road ran out again from the end of the tunnel into the open. There at 
+the bottom of a sharp incline they saw before them a long flat mile, and 
+beyond that the Ford of Rivendell. On the further side was a steep brown 
+bank, threaded by a winding path; and behind that the tall mountains 
+climbed, shoulder above shoulder, and peak beyond peak, into the fading sky. 
+
+There was still an echo as of following feet in the cutting behind 
+them; a rushing noise as if a wind were rising and pouring through the 
+branches of the pines. One moment Glorfindel turned and listened, then he 
+sprang forward with a loud cry. 
+
+'Fly!' he called. 'Fly! The enemy is upon us!’ 
+
+The white horse leaped forward. The hobbits ran down the slope. 
+Glorfindel and Strider followed as rear -guard. They were only half way 
+across the flat, when suddenly there was a noise of horses galloping. Out of 
+the gate in the trees that they had just left rode a Black Rider. He reined 
+his horse in, and halted, swaying in his saddle. Another followed him, and 
+then another; then again two more. 
+
+’Ride forward! Ride!' cried Glorfindel to Frodo. 
+
+He did not obey at once, for a strange reluctance seized him. Checking 
+the horse to a walk, he turned and looked back. The Riders seemed to sit 
+upon their great steeds like threatening statues upon a hill, dark and 
+solid, while all the woods and land about them receded as if into a mist. 
+Suddenly he knew in his heart that they were silently commanding him to 
+wait. Then at once fear and hatred awoke in him. His hand left the bridle 
+and gripped the hilt of his sword, and with a red flash he drew it. 
+
+'Ride on! Ride on!' cried Glorfindel, and then loud and clear he called 
+to the horse in the elf-tongue: noro lim, noro lim, Asfaloth! 
+
+At once the white horse sprang away and sped like the wind along the 
+last lap of the Road. At the same moment the black horses leaped down the 
+hill in pursuit, and from the Riders came a terrible cry, such as Frodo had 
+heard filling the woods with horror in the Eastfarthing far away. It was 
+answered; and to the dismay of Frodo and his friends out from the trees and 
+
+
+
+
+rocks away on the left four other Riders came flying. Two rode towards 
+Frodo: two galloped madly towards the Ford to cut off his escape. They 
+seemed to him to run like the wind and to grow swiftly larger and darker, as 
+their courses converged with his. 
+
+Frodo looked back for a moment over his shoulder. He could no longer 
+see his friends. The Riders behind were falling back: even their great 
+steeds were no match in speed for the white elf-horse of Glorfindel. He 
+looked forward again, and hope faded. There seemed no chance of reaching the 
+Ford before he was cut off by the others that had lain in ambush. He could 
+see them clearly now: they appeared to have cast aside their hoods and black 
+cloaks, and they were robed in white and grey. Swords were naked in their 
+pale hands; helms were on their heads. Their cold eyes glittered, and they 
+called to him with fell voices. 
+
+Fear now filled all Frodo's mind. He thought no longer of his sword. No 
+cry came from him. He shut his eyes and clung to the horse's mane. The wind 
+whistled in his ears, and the bells upon the harness rang wild and shrill. A 
+breath of deadly cold pierced him like a spear, as with a last spurt, like a 
+flash of white fire, the elf-horse speeding as if on wings, passed right 
+before the face of the foremost Rider. 
+
+Frodo heard the splash of water. It foamed about his feet. He felt the 
+quick heave and surge as the horse left the river and struggled up the stony 
+path. He was climbing the steep bank. He was across the Ford. 
+
+But the pursuers were close behind. At the top of the bank the horse 
+halted and turned about neighing fiercely. There were Nine Riders at the 
+water's edge below, and Frodo's spirit quailed before the threat of their 
+uplifted faces. He knew of nothing that would prevent them from crossing as 
+easily as he had done; and he felt that it was useless to try to escape over 
+the long uncertain path from the Ford to the edge of Rivendell, if once the 
+Riders crossed. In any case he felt that he was commanded urgently to halt. 
+Hatred again stirred in him, but he had no longer the strength to refuse. 
+
+Suddenly the foremost Rider spurred his horse forward. It checked at 
+the water and reared up. With a great effort Frodo sat upright and 
+brandished his sword. 
+
+'Go back!' he cried. 'Go back to the Land of Mordor, and follow me no 
+more! ' His voice sounded thin and shrill in his own ears. The Riders 
+halted, but Frodo had not the power of Bombadil. His enemies laughed at him 
+with a harsh and chilling laughter. 'Come back! Come back!' they called. 'To 
+
+
+
+
+Mordor we will take you!' 
+
+’Go back!' he whispered. 
+
+The Ring! The Ring!' they cried with deadly voices; and immediately 
+their leader urged his horse forward into the water, followed closely by two 
+others. 
+
+'By Elbereth and L®thien the Fair,' said Frodo with a last effort, 
+lifting up his sword, 'you shall have neither the Ring nor me!' 
+
+Then the leader, who was now half across the Ford, stood up menacing in 
+his stirrups, and raised up his hand. Frodo was stricken dumb. He felt his 
+tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring. His sword broke and 
+fell out of his shaking hand. The elf-horse reared and snorted. The foremost 
+of the black horses had almost set foot upon the shore. 
+
+At that moment there came a roaring and a rushing: a noise of loud 
+waters rolling many stones. Dimly Frodo saw the river below him rise, and 
+down along its course there came a plumed cavalry of waves. White flames 
+seemed to Frodo to flicker on their crests and he half fancied that he saw 
+amid the water white riders upon white horses with frothing manes. The three 
+Riders that were still in the midst of the Ford were overwhelmed: they 
+disappeared, buried suddenly under angry foam. Those that were behind drew 
+back in dismay. 
+
+With his last failing senses Frodo heard cries, and it seemed to him 
+that he saw, beyond the Riders that hesitated on the shore, a shining figure 
+of white light; and behind it ran small shadowy forms waving flames, that 
+flared red in the grey mist that was falling over the world. 
+
+The black horses were filled with madness, and leaping forward in 
+terror they bore their riders into the rushing flood. Their piercing cries 
+were drowned in the roaring of the river as it carried them away. Then Frodo 
+felt himself falling, and the roaring and confusion seemed to rise and 
+engulf him together with his enemies. He heard and saw no more. 
+
+
+
+
+* BOOK II * 
+
+
+
+Chapter 1 . Many Meetings 
+
+Frodo woke and found himself lying in bed. At first he thought that he 
+had slept late, after a long unpleasant dream that still hovered on the edge 
+of memory. Or perhaps he had been ill? But the ceiling looked strange; it 
+was flat, and it had dark beams richly carved. He lay a little while longer 
+looking at patches of sunlight on the wall, and listening to the sound of a 
+waterfall. 
+
+'Where am I, and what is the time?' he said aloud to the ceiling. 'In 
+the House of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning.' said a voice. 
+
+'It is the morning of October the twenty -fourth, if you want to know.' 
+
+'Gandalf!' cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard, sitting 
+in a chair by the open window. 
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'I am here. And you are lucky to be here, too, after 
+all the absurd things you have done since you left home.' Frodo lay down 
+again. He felt too comfortable and peaceful to argue, and in any case he did 
+not think he would get the better of an argument. He was fully awake now, 
+and the memory of his journey was returning: the disastrous 'short cut' 
+through the Old Forest the 'accident' at The Prancing Pony ; and his madness 
+in putting on the Ring in the dell under Weathertop. While he was thinking 
+of all these things and trying in vain to bring his memory down to his 
+arriving in Rivendell, there was a long silence, broken only by the soft 
+puffs of Gandalf s pipe, as he blew white smoke -rings out of the window. 
+
+'Where's Sam?' Frodo asked at length. 'And are the others all right?' 
+
+'Yes, they are all safe and sound,' answered Gandalf. 'Sam was here 
+until I sent him off to get some rest, about half an hour ago.' 
+
+'What happened at the Ford?' said Frodo. 'It all seemed so dim somehow; 
+and it still does.’ 
+
+'Yes, it would. You were beginning to fade,' answered Gandalf. 'The 
+wound was overcoming you at last. A few more hours and you would have 
+been 
+
+beyond our aid. But you have some strength in you, my dear hobbit! As you 
+showed in the Barrow. That was touch and go: perhaps the most dangerous 
+
+
+
+
+moment of all. I wish you could have held out at Weathertop.' 
+
+'You seem to know a great deal already,' said Frodo. 'I have not spoken 
+to the others about the Barrow. At first it was too horrible; and afterwards 
+there were other things to think about. How do you know about it?' 
+
+'You have talked long in your sleep, Frodo,' said Gandalf gently, 'and 
+it has not been hard for me to read your mind and memory. Do not worry! 
+Though I said "absurd" just now, I did not mean it. I think well of you-and 
+of the others. It is no small feat to have come so far, and through such 
+dangers, still bearing the Ring.' 
+
+'We should never have done it without Strider,' said Frodo. 'But we 
+needed you. I did not know what to do without you.' 
+
+'I was delayed,' said Gandalf, 'and that nearly proved our ruin. And 
+yet I am not sure; it may have been better so.' 
+
+'I wish you would tell me what happened!' 
+
+'All in good time! You are not supposed to talk or worry about anything 
+today, by Elrond's orders.' 
+
+'But talking would stop me thinking and wondering, which are quite as 
+tiring,’ said Frodo. ’I am wide awake now, and I remember so many things 
+that want explaining. Why were you delayed? You ought to tell me that at 
+least.' 
+
+'You will soon hear all you wish to know,' said Gandalf. 'We shall have 
+a Council, as soon as you are well enough. At the moment I will only say 
+that I was held captive.' 
+
+'You?' cried Frodo. 
+
+'Yes, I, Gandalf the Grey,' said the wizard solemnly. 'There are many 
+powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. 
+Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming. The 
+Morgul-lord and his Black Riders have come forth. War is preparing!' 
+
+'Then you knew of the Riders already -before I met them?’ 
+
+'Yes, I knew of them. Indeed I spoke of them once to you; for the Black 
+Riders are the Ringwraiths, the Nine Servants of the Lord of the Rings. But 
+I did not know that they had arisen again or I should have fled with you at 
+once. I heard news of them only after I left you in June; but that story 
+must wait. For the moment we have been saved from disaster, by Aragorn.' 
+
+'Yes,' said Frodo, 'it was Strider that saved us. Yet I was afraid of 
+him at first. Sam never quite trusted him. I think, not at any rate until we 
+met Glorfindel.' 
+
+
+
+
+Gandalf smiled. V I have heard all about Sam,' he said. 'He has no more 
+doubts now.' 
+
+'I am glad,' said Frodo. 'For I have become very fond of Strider. Well, 
+fond is not the right word. I mean he is dear to me; though he is strange, 
+and grim at times. In fact, he reminds me often of you. I didn't know that 
+any of the Big People were like that. I thought, well, that they were just 
+big, and rather stupid: kind and stupid like Butterbur; or stupid and wicked 
+like Bill Ferny. But then we don't know much about Men in the Shire, except 
+perhaps the Breelanders.' 
+
+'You don't know much even about them, if you think old Barliman is 
+stupid,' said Gandalf. 'He is wise enough on his own ground. He thinks less 
+than he talks, and slower; yet he can see through a brick wall in time (as 
+they say in Bree). But there are few left in Middle-earth like Aragorn son 
+of Arathorn. The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end. It 
+may be that this War of the Ring will be their last adventure.' 
+
+'Do you really mean that Strider is one of the people of the old 
+Kings?' said Frodo in wonder. 'I thought they had all vanished long ago. I 
+thought he was only a Ranger.' 
+
+'Only a Ranger!' cried Gandalf. 'My dear Frodo, that is just what the 
+Rangers are: the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of 
+the West. They have helped me before; and I shall need their help in the 
+days to come; for we have reached Rivendell, but the Ring is not yet at 
+rest.' 
+
+'I suppose not,' said Frodo. 'But so far my only thought has been to 
+get here; and I hope I shan't have to go any further. It is very pleasant 
+just to rest. I have had a month of exile and adventure, and I find that has 
+been as much as I want.' 
+
+He fell silent and shut his eyes. After a while he spoke again. 'I have 
+been reckoning,' he said, 'and I can't bring the total up to October the 
+twenty-fourth. It ought to be the twenty-first. We must have reached the 
+Ford by the twentieth.' 
+
+'You have talked and reckoned more than is good for you,' said Gandalf. 
+'How do the side and shoulder feel now?’ 
+
+’I don't know.' Frodo answered. 'They don't feel at all: which is an 
+improvement, but'— he made an effort— 'I can move my arm again a little. 
+Yes, it is coming back to life. It is not cold,' he added, touching his left 
+hand with his right. 
+
+
+
+
+'Good!' said Gandalf. "It is mending fast. You will soon be sound 
+again. Elrond has cured you: he has tended you for days, ever since you were 
+brought in.' 
+
+'Days?' said Frodo. 
+
+'Well, four nights and three days, to be exact. The Elves brought you 
+from this where you lost count. We have been terribly anxious, and Sam has 
+hardly left your side, day or night, except to run messages. Elrond is a 
+master of healing, but the weapons of our Enemy are deadly. To tell you the 
+truth, I had very little hope; for I suspected that there was some fragment 
+of the blade still in the closed wound. But it could not be found until last 
+night. Then Elrond removed a splinter. It was deeply buried, and it was 
+working inwards.' 
+
+Frodo shuddered, remembering the cruel knife with notched blade that 
+had vanished in Strider's hands. 'Don't be alarmed!' said Gandalf. 'It is 
+gone now. It has been melted. And it seems that Hobbits fade very 
+reluctantly. I have known strong warriors of the Big People who would 
+quickly have been overcome by that splinter, which you bore for seventeen 
+days.’ 
+
+'What would they have done to me?’ asked Frodo. 'What were the Riders 
+trying to do?’ 
+
+'They tried to pierce your heart with a Morgul-knife which remains in 
+the wound. If they had succeeded, you would have become like they are, only 
+weaker and under their command. You would have became a wraith under 
+the 
+
+dominion of the Dark Lord; and he would have tormented you for trying to 
+keep his Ring, if any greater torment were possible than being robbed of it 
+and seeing it on his hand.' 
+
+'Thank goodness I did not realize the horrible danger!' said Frodo 
+faintly. I was mortally afraid, of course; but if I had known more, I should 
+not have dared even to move. It is a marvel that I escaped!' 
+
+'Yes, fortune or fate have helped you,' said Gandalf, 'not to mention 
+courage. For your heart was not touched, and only your shoulder was pierced; 
+and that was because you resisted to the last. But it was a terribly narrow 
+shave, so to speak. You were in gravest peril while you wore the Ring, for 
+then you were half in the wraith- world yourself, and they might have seized 
+you. You could see them, and they could see you.’ 
+
+'I know,' said Frodo. 'They were terrible to behold! But why could we 
+
+
+
+
+all see their horses?' 
+
+'Because they are real horses; just as the black robes are real robes 
+that they wear to give shape to their nothingness when they have dealings 
+with the living.' 
+
+'Then why do these black horses endure such riders? All other animals 
+are terrified when they draw near, even the elf-horse of Glorfindel. The 
+dogs howl and the geese scream at them.’ 
+
+'Because these horses are born and bred to the service of the Dark Lord 
+in Mordor. Not all his servants and chattels are wraiths! There are ores and 
+trolls, there are wargs and werewolves; and there have been and still are 
+many Men, warriors and kings, that walk alive under the Sun, and yet are 
+under his sway. And their number is growing daily.’ 
+
+'What about Rivendell and the Elves? Is Rivendell safe?’ 
+
+'Yes, at present, until all else is conquered. The Elves may fear the 
+Dark Lord, and they may fly before him, but never again will they listen to 
+him or serve him. And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief 
+foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They 
+do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm 
+live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they 
+have great power.' 
+
+'I thought that I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim 
+like the others. Was that Glorfindel then?' 
+
+'Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the 
+mighty of the Firstborn. Lie is an Elf-lord of a house of princes. Indeed 
+there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: 
+and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind 
+in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if 
+things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his 
+strength. 
+
+'Still,' he said, standing suddenly up and sticking out his chin, while 
+his beard went stiff and straight like bristling wire, 'we must keep up our 
+courage. You will soon be well, if I do not talk you to death. You are in 
+Rivendell, and you need not worry about anything for the present.' 
+
+'I haven't any courage to keep up,' said Frodo, 'but I am not worried 
+at the moment. Just give me news of my friends, and tell me the end of the 
+affair at the Ford, as I keep on asking, and I shall be content for the 
+present. After that I shall have another sleep, I think; but I shan't be 
+
+
+
+
+able to close my eyes until you have finished the story for me.' 
+
+Gandalf moved his chair to the bedside, and took a good look at Frodo. 
+
+The colour had come back to his face, and his eyes were clear, and fully 
+awake and aware. He was smiling, and there seemed to be little wrong with 
+him. But to the wizard's eye there was a faint change just a hint as it were 
+of transparency, about him, and especially about the left hand that lay 
+outside upon the coverlet. 
+
+'Still that must be expected,' said Gandalf to himself. 'He is not half 
+through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can 
+foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a 
+clear light for eyes to see that can.' 
+
+'You look splendid,' he said aloud. 'I will risk a brief tale without 
+consulting Elrond. But quite brief, mind you, and then you must sleep again. 
+This is what happened, as far as I can gather. The Riders made straight for 
+you, as soon as you fled. They did not need the guidance of their horses any 
+longer: you had become visible to them, being already on the threshold of 
+their world. And also the Ring drew them. Your friends sprang aside, off the 
+road, or they would have been ridden down. They knew that nothing could save 
+you, if the white horse could not. The Riders were too swift to overtake, 
+and too many to oppose. On foot even Glorfindel and Aragorn together could 
+not with stand all the Nine at once. 
+
+'When the Ring wraiths swept by, your friends ran up behind. Close to 
+the Ford there is a small hollow beside the road masked by a few stunted 
+trees. There they hastily kindled fire; for Glorfindel knew that a flood 
+would come down, if the Riders tried to cross, and then he would have to 
+deal with any that were left on his side of the river. The moment the flood 
+appeared, he rushed out, followed by Aragorn and the. others with flaming 
+brands. Caught between fire and water, and seeing an Elf-lord revealed in 
+his wrath, they were dismayed, and their horses were stricken with madness. 
+Three were carried away by the first assault of the flood; the others were 
+now hurled into the water by their horses and overwhelmed.' 
+
+'And is that the end of the Black Riders?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'No,' said Gandalf. 'Their horses must have perished, and without them 
+they are crippled. But the Ringwraiths themselves cannot be so easily 
+destroyed. However, there is nothing more to fear from them at present. Your 
+friends crossed after the flood had passed; and they found you lying on your 
+face at the top of the bank, with a broken sword under you. The horse was 
+
+
+
+
+standing guard beside you. You were pale and cold, and they feared that you 
+were dead, or worse. Elrond's folk met them, carrying you slowly towards 
+Ri vendell. ' 
+
+'Who made the flood?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'Elrond commanded it,' answered Gandalf. 'The river of this valley is 
+under his power, and it will rise in anger when he has great need to bar the 
+Ford. As soon as the captain of the Ringwraiths rode into the water the 
+flood was released. If I may say so, I added a few touches of my own: you 
+may not have noticed, but some of the waves took the form of great white 
+horses with shining white riders; and there were many rolling and grinding 
+boulders. For a moment I was afraid that we had let loose too fierce a 
+wrath, and the flood would get out of hand and wash you all away. There is 
+great vigour in the waters that come down from the snows of the Misty 
+Mountains.' 
+
+'Yes, it all comes back to me now,’ said Frodo: 'the tremendous 
+roaring. I thought I was drowning, with my friends and enemies and all. But 
+now we are safe!' 
+
+Gandalf looked quickly at Frodo, but he had shut his eyes. 'Yes, you 
+are all safe for the present. Soon there will be feasting and merrymaking to 
+celebrate the victory at the Ford of Bruinen, and you will all be there in 
+places of honour.' 
+
+'Splendid!' said Frodo. 'It is wonderful that Elrond, and Glorfindel 
+and such great lords, not to mention Strider, should take so much trouble 
+and show me so much kindness.’ 
+
+'Well, there are many reasons why they should,’ said Gandalf, smiling. 
+
+'I am one good reason. The Ring is another: you are the Ring-bearer. And you 
+are the heir of Bilbo, the Ring-finder.’ 
+
+'Dear Bilbo!’ said Frodo sleepily. 'I wonder where he is. I wish he was 
+here and could hear all about it. It would have made him laugh, The cow 
+jumped over the Moon! And the poor old troll!’ With that he fell fast 
+asleep. 
+
+Frodo was now safe in the Fast Homely House east of the Sea. That house 
+was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, 'a perfect house, whether you like food 
+or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or 
+a pleasant mixture of them all'. Merely to be there was a cure for 
+weariness, fear, and sadness. 
+
+As the evening drew on, Frodo woke up again, and he found that he no 
+
+
+
+
+longer felt in need of rest or sleep, but had a mind for food and drink, and 
+probably for singing and story-telling afterwards. He got out of bed and 
+discovered that his arm was already nearly as useful again as it ever had 
+been. He found laid ready clean garments of green cloth that fitted him 
+excellently. Looking in a mirror he was startled to see a much thinner 
+reflection of himself than he remembered: it looked remarkably like the 
+young nephew of Bilbo who used to go tramping with his uncle in the Shire; 
+but the eyes looked out at him thoughtfully. 
+
+'Yes, you have seen a thing or two since you last peeped out of a 
+looking-glass,' he said to his reflection. 'But now for a merry meeting!' 
+
+He stretched out his arms and whistled a tune. 
+
+At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Sam came in. He ran 
+to Frodo and took his left hand, awkwardly and shyly. He stroked it gently 
+and then he blushed and turned hastily away. 
+
+'Hullo, Sam!’ said Frodo. 
+
+'It's warm!' said Sam. 'Meaning your hand, Mr. Frodo. It has felt so 
+cold through the long nights. But glory and trumpets!’ he cried, turning 
+round again with shining eyes and dancing on the floor. ’It's fine to see 
+you up and yourself again, sir! Gandalf asked me to come and see if you were 
+ready to come down, and I thought he was joking.' 
+
+'I am ready,' said Frodo. 'Let's go and look for the rest of the 
+party!' 
+
+'I can take you to them, sir,' said Sam. 'It's a big house this, and 
+very peculiar. Always a bit more to discover, and no knowing what you'll 
+find round a corner. And Elves, sir! Elves here, and Elves there! Some like 
+kings, terrible and splendid; and some as merry as children. And the music 
+and the singing-not that I have had the time or the heart for much listening 
+since we got here. But I'm getting to know some of the ways of the place.' 
+
+'I know what you have been doing, Sam,' said Frodo, taking his arm. 
+'But you shall be merry tonight, and listen to your heart's content. Come 
+on, guide me round the corners!' 
+
+Sam led him along several passages and down many steps and out into a 
+high garden above the steep bank of the river. He found his friends sitting 
+in a porch on the side of the house looking east. Shadows had fallen in the 
+valley below, but there was still a light on the faces of the mountains far 
+above. The air was warm. The sound of running and falling water was loud, 
+and the evening was filled with a faint scent of trees and flowers, as if 
+
+
+
+
+summer still lingered in Elrond's gardens. 
+
+'Hurray!' cried Pippin, springing up. 'Here is our noble cousin! Make 
+way for Frodo, Lord of the Ring!' 
+
+'Hush!' said Gandalf from the shadows at the back of the porch. 'Evil 
+things do not come into this valley; but all the same we should not name 
+them. The Lord of the Ring is not Frodo, but the master of the Dark Tower of 
+Mordor, whose power is again stretching out over the world! We are sitting 
+in a fortress. Outside it is getting dark.’ 
+
+'Gandalf has been saying many cheerful things like that,’ said Pippin. 
+
+'He thinks I need keeping in order. But it seems impossible, somehow, to 
+feel gloomy or depressed in this place. I feel I could sing, if I knew the 
+right song for the occasion.’ 
+
+'I feel like singing myself,' laughed Frodo. 'Though at the moment I 
+feel more like eating and drinking!’ 
+
+'That will soon be cured,’ said Pippin. 'You have shown your usual 
+cunning in getting up just in time for a meal.’ 
+
+'More than meal! A feast!’ said Merry. 'As soon as Gandalf reported 
+that you were recovered, the preparations began.’ He had hardly finished 
+speaking when they were summoned to the hall by the ringing of many bells. 
+
+The hall of Elrond's house was filled with folk: Elves for the most 
+part, though there were a few guests of other sorts. Elrond, as was his 
+custom, sat in a great chair at the end of the long table upon the dais; and 
+next to him on the one side sat Glorfindel, on the other side sat Gandalf. 
+
+Frodo looked at them in wonder, for he had never before seen Elrond, of 
+whom so many tales spoke; and as they sat upon his right hand and his left, 
+Glorfindel, and even Gandalf, whom he thought he knew so well, were 
+revealed 
+
+as lords of dignity and power. Gandalf was shorter in stature than the other 
+two; but his long white hair, his sweeping silver beard, and his broad 
+shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged 
+face under great snowy brows his dark eyes were set like coals that could 
+leap suddenly into fire. 
+
+Glorfindel was tall and straight; his hair was of shining gold, his 
+face fair and young and fearless and full of joy; his eyes were bright and 
+keen, and his voice like music; on his brow sat wisdom, and in his hand was 
+strength. 
+
+The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was 
+
+
+
+
+written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark 
+as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his 
+eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of 
+stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale 
+as a tried warrior in the fulness of his strength. He was the Lord of 
+Rivendell and mighty among both Elves and Men. 
+
+In the middle of the table, against the woven cloths upon the wall, 
+there was a chair under a canopy, and there sat a lady fair to look upon, 
+and so like was she in form of womanhood to Elrond that Frodo guessed that 
+she was one of his close kindred. Young she was and yet not so. The braids 
+of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face 
+were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, 
+grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge 
+were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years 
+bring. Above her brow her head was covered with a cap of silver lace netted 
+with small gems, glittering white; but her soft grey raiment had no ornament 
+save a girdle of leaves wrought in silver. 
+
+So it was that Frodo saw her whom few mortals had yet seen; Arwen, 
+daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said that the likeness of L®thien had 
+come on earth again; and she was called Undumiel, for she was the Evenstar 
+of her people. Long she had been in the land of her mother's kin, in Lurien 
+beyond the mountains, and was but lately returned to Rivendell to her 
+father's house. But her brothers, Elladan and Elrohir, were out upon 
+errantry: for they rode often far afield with the Rangers of the North, 
+forgetting never their mother's torment in the dens of the ores. 
+
+Such loveliness in living thing Frodo had never seen before nor 
+imagined in his mind; and he was both surprised and abashed to find that he 
+had a seat at Elrond' s table among all these folk so high and fair. Though 
+he had a suitable chair, and was raised upon several cushions, he felt very 
+small, and rather out of place; but that feeling quickly passed. The feast 
+was merry and the food all that his hunger could desire. It was some time 
+before he looked about him again or even turned to his neighbours. 
+
+He looked first for his friends. Sam had begged to be allowed to wait 
+on his master, but had been told that for this time he was a guest of 
+honour. Frodo could see him now, sitting with Pippin and Merry at the upper 
+end of one of the side-tables close to the dais. He could see no sign of 
+Strider. 
+
+
+
+
+Next to Frodo on his right sat a dwarf of important appearance, richly 
+dressed. His beard, very long and forked, was white, nearly as white as the 
+snow-white cloth of his garments. He wore a silver belt, and round his neck 
+hung a chain of silver and diamonds. Frodo stopped eating to look at him. 
+
+'Welcome and well met!' said the dwarf, turning towards him. Then he 
+actually rose from his seat and bowed. 'Gluin at your service,' he said, and 
+bowed still lower. 
+
+'Frodo Baggins at your service and your family's,' said Frodo 
+correctly, rising in surprise and scattering his cushions. 'Am I right in 
+guessing that you are the Gluin, one of the twelve companions of the great 
+Thorin Oaken shield?' 
+
+'Quite right,' answered the dwarf, gathering up the cushions and 
+courteously assisting Frodo back into his seat. 'And I do not ask, for I 
+have already been told that you are the kinsman and adopted heir of our 
+friend Bilbo the renowned. Allow me to congratulate you on your recovery.' 
+
+'Thank you very much,’ said Frodo. 
+
+'You have had some very strange adventures, I hear,' said Gluin. 'I 
+wonder greatly what brings four hobbits on so long a journey. Nothing like 
+it has happened since Bilbo came with us. But perhaps I should not inquire 
+too closely, since Elrond and Gandalf do not seem disposed to talk of this?' 
+
+'I think we will not speak of it, at least not yet,' said Frodo 
+politely. 
+
+He guessed that even in Elrond's house the matter of the Ring was not 
+one for casual talk; and in any case he wished to forget his troubles for a 
+time. 'But I am equally curious,' he added, 'to learn what brings so 
+important a dwarf so far from the Lonely Mountain.' 
+
+Gluin looked at him. 'If you have not heard, I think we will not speak 
+yet of that either. Master Elrond will summon us all ere long, I believe, 
+and then we shall all hear many things. But there is much else that may be 
+told.' 
+
+Throughout the rest of the meal they talked together, but Frodo 
+listened more than he spoke; for the news of the Shire, apart from the Ring, 
+seemed small and far-away and unimportant, while Gluin had much to tell of 
+events in the northern regions of Wilderland. Frodo learned that Grimbeorn 
+the Old, son of Beorn, was now the lord of many sturdy men, and to their 
+land between the Mountains and Mirkwood neither ore nor wolf dared to go. 
+
+'Indeed,' said Gluin, 'if it were not for the Beornings, the passage 
+
+
+
+
+from Dale to Rivendell would long ago have become impossible. They are 
+valiant men and keep open the High Pass and the Ford of Carrock. But their 
+tolls are high,' he added with a shake of his head; 'and like Beorn of old 
+they are not over fond of dwarves. Still, they are trusty, and that is much 
+in these days. Nowhere are there any men so friendly to us as the Men of 
+Dale. They are good folk, the Bardings. The grandson of Bard the Bowman 
+rules them, Brand son of Bain son of Bard. He is a strong king, and his 
+realm now reaches far south and east of Esgaroth.' 
+
+'And what of your own people?' asked Frodo. 
+
+'There is much to tell, good and bad,' said Gluin; 'yet it is mostly 
+good: we have so far been fortunate, though we do not escape the shadow of 
+these times. If you really wish to hear of us, I will tell you tidings 
+gladly. But stop me when you are weary! Dwarves' tongues run on when 
+speaking of their handiwork, they say.' 
+
+And with that Gluin embarked on a long account of the doings of the 
+Dwarf-kingdom. He was delighted to have found so polite a listener; for 
+Frodo showed no sign of weariness and made no attempt to change the subject, 
+though actually he soon got rather lost among the strange names of people 
+and places that he had never heard of before. He was interested, however, to 
+hear that Dbin was still King under the Mountain, and was now old (having 
+passed his two hundred and fiftieth year), venerable, and fabulously rich. 
+
+Of the ten companions who had survived the Battle of Five Armies seven were 
+still with him: Dwalin, Gluin, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. Bombur 
+was now so fat that he could not move himself from his couch to his chair at 
+table, and it took six young dwarves to lift him. 
+
+'And what has become of Balin and Ori and Uin?' asked Frodo. 
+
+A shadow passed over Gluin's face. 'We do not know,' he answered. 'It 
+is largely on account of Balin that I have come to ask the advice of those 
+that dwell in Rivendell. But tonight let us speak of merrier things!' 
+
+Gluin began then to talk of the works of his people, telling Frodo 
+about their great labours in Dale and under the Mountain. 'We have done 
+well,' he said. 'But in metalwork we cannot rival our fathers, many of 
+whose, secrets are lost. We make good armour and keen swords, but we cannot 
+again make mail or blade to match those that were made before the dragon 
+came. Only in mining and building have we surpassed the old days. You should 
+see the waterways of Dale, Frodo, and the fountains, and the pools! You 
+should see the stone-paved roads of many colours! And the halls and 
+
+
+
+
+cavernous streets under the earth with arches carved like trees; and the 
+terraces and towers upon the Mountain’s sides! Then you would see that we 
+have not been idle.’ 
+
+'I will come and see them, if ever I can,' said Frodo. 'How surprised 
+Bilbo would have been to see all the changes in the Desolation of Smaug!' 
+
+Gluin looked at Frodo and smiled. 'You were very fond of Bilbo were you 
+not?' he asked. 
+
+'Yes,' answered Frodo. 1 would rather see him than all the towers and 
+palaces in the world.' 
+
+At length the feast came to an end. Elrond and Arwen rose and went down 
+the hall, and the company followed them in due order. The doors were thrown 
+open, and they went across a wide passage and through other doors, and came 
+into a further hall. In it were no tables, but a bright fire was burning in 
+a great hearth between the carven pillars upon either side. 
+
+Frodo found himself walking with Gandalf. 'This is the Hall of Fire' 
+said the wizard. 'Here you will hear many songs and tales-if you can keep 
+awake. But except on high days it usually stands empty and quiet, and people 
+come here who wish for peace, and thought. There is always a fire here, all 
+the year round, but there is little other light.' 
+
+As Elrond entered and went towards the seat prepared for him, elvish 
+minstrels began to make sweet music. Slowly the hall filled, and Frodo 
+looked with delight upon the many fair faces that were gathered together; 
+the golden firelight played upon them and shimmered in their hair. Suddenly 
+he noticed, not far from the further end of the fire, a small dark figure 
+seated on a stool with his back propped against a pillar. Beside him on the 
+ground was a drinking-cup and some bread. Frodo wondered whether he was 
+ill 
+
+(if people were ever ill in Ri vendell), and had been unable to come to the 
+feast. His head seemed sunk in sleep on his breast, and a fold of his dark 
+cloak was drawn over his face. 
+
+Elrond went forward and stood beside the silent figure. 'Awake little 
+master, he said, with a smile. Then, turning to Frodo, he beckoned to him. 
+'Now at last the hour has come that you have wished for, Frodo,' he said. 
+'Here is a friend that you have long missed.' 
+
+The dark figure raised its head and uncovered its face. 
+
+'Bilbo!' cried Frodo with sudden recognition, and he sprang forward. 
+
+'Hullo, Frodo my lad!’ said Bilbo. 'So you have got here at last. I 
+
+
+
+
+hoped you would manage it. Well, well! So all this feasting is in your 
+honour, I hear. I hope you enjoyed yourself?' 
+
+'Why weren't you there?' cried Frodo. 'And why haven't I been allowed 
+to see you before?' 
+
+'Because you were asleep. I have seen a good deal of you. I have sat by 
+your side with Sam each day. But as for the feast' I don't go in for such 
+things much now. And I had something else to do.' 
+
+'What were you doing?’ 
+
+'Why, sitting and thinking. I do a lot of that nowadays, and this is 
+the best place to do it in, as a rule. Wake up, indeed!’ he said, cocking an 
+eye at Elrond. There was a bright twinkle in it and no sign of sleepiness 
+that Frodo could see. 'Wake up! I was not asleep. Master Elrond. If you want 
+to know, you have all come out from your feast too soon, and you have 
+disturbed me-in the middle of making up a song. I was stuck over a line or 
+two, and was thinking about them; but now I don't suppose I shall ever get 
+them right. There will be such a deal of singing that the ideas will be 
+driven clean out of my head. I shall have to get my friend the D®nadan to 
+help me. Where is he?' 
+
+Elrond laughed. 'He shall be found,' he said. 'Then you two shall go 
+into a corner and finish your task, and we will hear it and judge it before 
+we end our merrymaking.' Messengers were sent to find Bilbo's friend, though 
+none knew where he was, or why he had not been present at the feast. 
+
+In the meanwhile Frodo and Bilbo sat side by side, and Sam came quickly 
+and placed himself near them. They talked together in soft voices, oblivious 
+of the mirth and music in the hall about them. Bilbo had not much to say of 
+himself. When he had left Hobbiton he had wandered off aimlessly, along the 
+Road or in the country on either side; but somehow he had steered all the 
+time towards Ri vendell. 'I got here without much adventure,' he said, 'and 
+after a rest I went on with the dwarves to Dale: my last journey. I shan't 
+travel again. Old Balin had gone away. Then I came back here, and here I 
+have been. I have done this and that. I have written some more of my book. 
+And, of course, I make up a few songs. They sing them occasionally: just to 
+please me, I think; for, of course, they aren't really good enough for 
+Rivendell. And I listen and I think. Time doesn't seem to pass here: it just 
+is. A remarkable place altogether. 
+
+'I hear all kinds of news, from over the Mountains, and out of the 
+South, but hardly anything from the Shire. I heard about the Ring, of 
+
+
+
+
+course. Gandalf has been here often. Not that he has told me a great deal, 
+he has become closer than ever these last few years. The D®nadan has told me 
+more. Fancy that ring of mine causing such a disturbance! It is a pity that 
+Gandalf did not find out more sooner. I could have brought the thing here 
+myself long ago without so much trouble. I have thought several times of 
+going back to Hobbiton for it; but I am getting old, and they would not let 
+me: Gandalf and Elrond, I mean. They seemed to think that the Enemy was 
+looking high and low for me, and would make mincemeat of me, if he caught 
+me 
+
+tottering about in the Wild. 
+
+'And Gandalf said: "The Ring has passed on, Bilbo. It would do no good 
+to you or to others, if you tried to meddle with it again." Odd sort of 
+remark, just like Gandalf. But he said he was looking after you, so I let 
+things be. I am frightfully glad to see you safe and sound.' He paused and 
+looked at Frodo doubtfully. 
+
+'Have you got it here?' he asked in a whisper. I can't help feeling 
+curious, you know, after all I've heard. I should very much like just to 
+peep at it again.' 
+
+'Yes, I've got it,' answered Frodo, feeling a strange reluctance. 'It 
+looks just the same as ever it did.' 
+
+'Well, I should just like to see it for a moment,' said Bilbo. 
+
+When he had dressed, Frodo found that while he slept the Ring had been 
+hung about his neck on a new chain, light but strong. Slowly he drew it out. 
+Bilbo put out his hand. But Frodo quickly drew back the Ring. To his 
+distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a 
+shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself 
+eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. 
+He felt a desire to strike him. 
+
+The music and singing round them seemed to falter and a silence fell. 
+Bilbo looked quickly at Frodo's face and passed his hand across his eyes. 'I 
+understand now,' he said. 'Put it away! I am sorry: sorry you have come in 
+for this burden: sorry about everything. Don't adventures ever have an end? 
+
+I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story. Well, it can't 
+be helped. I wonder if it's any good trying to finish my book? But don't 
+let's worry about it now-let's have some real News! Tell me all about the 
+Shire!' 
+
+Frodo hid the Ring away, and the shadow passed leaving hardly a shred 
+
+
+
+
+of memory. The light and music of Rivendell was about him again. Bilbo 
+smiled and laughed happily. Every item of news from the Shire that Frodo 
+could tell-aided and corrected now and again by Sam-was of the greatest 
+interest to him, from the felling of the least tree to the pranks of the 
+smallest child in Hobbiton. They were so deep in the doings of the Four 
+Farthings that they did not notice the arrival of a man clad in dark green 
+cloth. For many minutes he stood looking down at them with a smile. 
+
+Suddenly Bilbo looked up. 'Ah, there you are at last, D®nadan!’ he 
+cried. 
+
+'Strider!' said Frodo. 'You seem to have a lot of names.' 
+
+'Well, Strider is one that I haven't heard before, anyway,' said Bilbo. 
+
+'What do you call him that for?’ 
+
+'They call me that in Bree,’ said Strider laughing, 'and that is how I 
+was introduced to him.' 
+
+'And why do you call him D®nadan?’ asked Frodo. 
+
+' The D®nadan,' said Bilbo. 'Fie is often called that here. But I thought 
+you knew enough Elvish at least to know d®n-udan: Man of the West, 
+N®menorean. But this is not the time for lessons!’ He turned to Strider. 
+
+'Where have you been, my friend? Why weren't you at the feast? The Fady 
+Arwen was there.' 
+
+Strider looked down at Bilbo gravely. 'I know,' he said. 'But often I 
+must put mirth aside. Elladan and Elrohir have returned out of the Wild 
+unlooked-for, and they had tidings that I wished to hear at once.' 
+
+'Well, my dear fellow,' said Bilbo, 'now you've heard the news, can't 
+you spare me a moment? I want your help in something urgent. Elrond says 
+this song of mine is to be finished before the end of the evening, and I am 
+stuck. Fet's go off into a corner and polish it up!' 
+
+Strider smiled. 'Come then!' he said. 'Fet me hear it!’ 
+
+Frodo was left to himself for a while, for Sam had fallen asleep. He 
+was alone and felt rather forlorn' although all about him the folk of 
+Rivendell were gathered. But those near him were silent, intent upon the 
+music of the voices and the instruments, and they gave no heed to anything 
+else. Frodo began to listen. 
+
+At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in 
+elven-tongues, even though he understood them little' held him in a spell, 
+as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took 
+shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet 
+
+
+
+
+imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden 
+mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the 
+enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless 
+river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous 
+for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air 
+about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its 
+shining weight into a deep realm of sleep. 
+
+There he wandered long in a dream of music that turned into running 
+water, and then suddenly into a voice. It seemed to be the voice of Bilbo 
+chanting verses. Faint at first and then clearer ran the words. 
+
+Edrendil was a mariner 
+that tarried in Arvernien; 
+he built a boat of timber felled 
+in Nimbrethil to journey in; 
+her sails he wove of silver fair, 
+of silver were her lanterns made, 
+her prow was fashioned like a swan, 
+and light upon her banners laid. 
+
+In panoply of ancient kings, 
+in chain, d rings he armoured him; 
+his shining shield was scored with runes 
+to ward all wounds and harm from him; 
+his bow was made of dragon-horn, 
+his arrows shorn of ebony, 
+of silver was his habergeon, 
+his scabbard of chalcedony; 
+his sword of steel was valiant, 
+of adamant his helmet tall, 
+an eagle-plume upon his crest, 
+upon his breast an emerald. 
+
+Beneath the Moon and under star 
+he wandered far from northern strands, 
+bewildered on enchanted ways 
+beyond the days of mortal lands. 
+
+From gnashing of the Narrow Ice 
+
+
+
+
+where shadow lies on frozen hills, 
+from nether heats and burning waste 
+he turned in haste, and roving still 
+on starless waters far astray 
+at last he came to Night of Naught, 
+and passed, and never sight he saw 
+of shining shore nor light he sought. 
+
+The winds of wrath came driving him, 
+and blindly in the foam he fled 
+from west to east and errandless, 
+unheralded he homeward sped. 
+
+There flying Elwing came to him, 
+and flame was in the darkness lit; 
+more bright than light of diamond 
+the fire upon her carcanet. 
+
+The Silmaril she bound on him 
+and crowned him with the living light 
+and dauntless then with burning brow 
+he turned his prow; and in the night 
+from Otherworld beyond the Sea 
+there strong and free a storm arose, 
+a wind of power in Tarmenel; 
+by paths that seldom mortal goes 
+his boat it bore with biting breath 
+as might of death across the grey 
+and long-forsaken seas distressed: 
+from east to west he passed away. 
+
+Through Evernight he back was borne 
+on black and roaring waves that ran 
+o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores 
+that drowned before the Days began, 
+until he heard on strands of pearl 
+when ends the world the music long, 
+where ever foaming billows roll 
+
+
+
+
+the yellow gold and jewels wan. 
+
+He saw the Mountain silent rise 
+where twilight lies upon the knees 
+of Valinor, and Eldamar 
+beheld afar beyond the seas. 
+
+A wanderer escaped from night 
+to haven white he came at last, 
+to Elvenhome the green and fair 
+where keen the air, where pale as glass 
+beneath the Hill of Ilmarin 
+a-glimmer in a valley sheer 
+the lamplit towers ofTirion 
+are mirrored on the Shadowmere. 
+
+He tarried there from errantry, 
+and melodies they taught to him, 
+and sages old him marvels told, 
+and harps of gold they brought to him. 
+They clothed him then in elven-white, 
+and seven lights before him sent, 
+as through the Calacirian 
+to hidden land forlorn he went. 
+
+He came unto the timeless halls 
+where shining fall the countless years, 
+and endless reigns the Elder King 
+in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer; 
+and words unheard were spoken then 
+of folk of Men and Elven-kin, 
+beyond the world were visions showed 
+forbid to those that dwell therein. 
+
+A ship then new they built for him 
+of mithril and of elven-glass 
+with shining prow; no shaven oar 
+nor sail she bore on silver mast: 
+the Silmaril as lantern light 
+and banner bright with living flame 
+
+
+
+
+to gleam thereon by Elbereth 
+herself was set, who thither came 
+and wings immortal made for him, 
+and laid on him undying doom, 
+to sail the shoreless skies and come 
+behind the Sun and light of Moon. 
+
+From Evereven's lofty hills 
+where softly silver fountains fall 
+his wings him bore, a wandering light, 
+beyond the mighty Mountain Wall. 
+
+From World's End then he turned away 
+and yearned again to find afar 
+his home through shadows journeying, 
+and burning as an island star 
+on high above the mists he came, 
+a distant flame before the Sun, 
+a wonder ere the waking dawn 
+where grey the Norland waters run. 
+
+And over Middle-earth he passed 
+and heard at last the weeping sore 
+of women and of elven-maids 
+in Elder Days, in years of yore, 
+gut on him mighty doom was laid, 
+till Moon should fade, an orb,d star 
+to pass, and tarry never more 
+on Hither Shores where mortals are; 
+for ever still a herald on 
+an errand that should never rest 
+to bear his shining lamp afar, 
+the Flammifer of Westernesse. 
+
+The chanting ceased. Frodo opened his eyes and saw that Bilbo was 
+seated on his stool in a circle of listeners, who were smiling and 
+applauding. 
+
+'Now we had better have it again,' said an Elf. 
+
+Bilbo got up and bowed. 'I am flattered, Lindir,’ he said. 'But it 
+
+
+
+
+would be too tiring to repeat it all.' 
+
+'Not too tiring for you,' the Elves answered laughing. 'You know you 
+are never tired of reciting your own verses. But really we cannot answer 
+your question at one hearing!' 
+
+'What!' cried Bilbo. 'You can't tell which parts were mine, and which 
+were the D®nadan's?' 
+
+'It is not easy for us to tell the difference between two mortals' said 
+the Elf. 
+
+'Nonsense, Lindir,' snorted Bilbo. 'If you can't distinguish between a 
+Man and a Hobbit, your judgement is poorer than I imagined. They're as 
+different as peas and apples.' 
+
+'Maybe. To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different,' laughed 
+Lindir. 'Or to shepherds. But Mortals have not been our study. We have other 
+business.' 
+
+'I won't argue with you,' said Bilbo. 'I am sleepy after so much music 
+and singing. I'll leave you to guess, if you want to.' 
+
+He got up and came towards Frodo. 'Well, that's over,' he said in a low 
+voice. 'It went off better than I expected. I don't often get asked for a 
+second hearing. What did you think of it?' 
+
+'I am not going to try and guess,' said Frodo smiling. 
+
+'You needn't,’ said Bilbo. 'As a matter of fact it was all mine. Except 
+that Aragorn insisted on my putting in a green stone. He seemed to think it 
+important. I don't know why. Otherwise he obviously thought the whole thing 
+rather above my head, and he said that if I had the cheek to make verses 
+about Edrendil in the house of Elrond, it was my affair. I suppose he was 
+right.' 
+
+'I don't know,' said Frodo. 'It seemed to me to fit somehow, though I 
+can't explain. I was half asleep when you began, and it seemed to follow on 
+from something that I was dreaming about. I didn't understand that it was 
+really you speaking until near the end.' 
+
+'It is difficult to keep awake here, until you get used to it;' said 
+Bilbo. 'Not that hobbits would ever acquire quite the elvish appetite for 
+music and poetry and tales. They seem to like them as much as food, or more. 
+They will be going on for a long time yet. What do you say to slipping off 
+for some more quiet talk?' 
+
+'Can we?’ said Frodo. 
+
+'Of course. This is merrymaking not business. Come and go as you like, 
+
+
+
+
+as long as you don't make a noise.' 
+
+They got up and withdrew quietly into the shadows, and made for the 
+doors. Sam they left behind, fast asleep still with a smile on his face. In 
+spite of his delight in Bilbo's company Frodo felt a tug of regret as they 
+passed out of the Hall of Fire. Even as they stepped over the threshold a 
+single clear voice rose in song. 
+
+A Elbereth Gilthoniel, 
+silivren penna mnriel 
+o menel aglar elenath! 
+
+Na-chaered palan-dnriel 
+o galadhremmin ennorath, 
+
+Fanuilos, le linnathon 
+nef aear, sn nef aearon! 
+
+Frodo halted for a moment, looking back. Elrond was in his chair and 
+the fire was on his face like summer -light upon the trees. Near him sat the 
+Lady Arwen. To his surprise Frodo saw that Aragorn stood beside her; his 
+dark cloak was thrown back, and he seemed to be clad in elven-mail, and a 
+star shone on his breast. They spoke together, and then suddenly it seemed 
+to Frodo that Arwen turned towards him, and the light of her eyes fell on 
+him from afar and pierced his heart. 
+
+He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the elvish song 
+fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody. ' It is a song to 
+Elbereth,' said Bilbo. 'They will sing that, and other songs of the Blessed 
+Realm, many times tonight. Come on!' 
+
+He led Frodo back to his own little room. It opened on to the gar dens 
+and looked south across the ravine of the Bruinen. There they sat for some 
+while, looking through the window at the bright stars above the 
+steep-climbing woods, and talking softly. They spoke no more of the small 
+news of the Shire far away, nor of the dark shadows and perils that 
+encompassed them, but of the fair things they had seen in the world 
+together, of the Elves, of the stars, of trees, and the gentle fall of the 
+bright year in the woods. 
+
+At last there came a knock on the door. 'Begging your pardon,’ said 
+Sam, putting in his head, 'but I was just wondering if you would be wanting 
+anything.' 
+
+'And begging yours, Sam Gamgee,' replied Bilbo. 'I guess you mean that 
+it is time your master went to bed.' 
+
+
+
+
+'Well, sir, there is a Council early tomorrow, I hear and he only got 
+up today for the first time.' 
+
+'Quite right, Sam,' laughed Bilbo. 'You can trot off and tell Gandalf 
+that he has gone to bed. Good night, Frodo! Bless me, but it has been good 
+to see you again! There are no folk like hobbits after all for a real good 
+talk. I am getting very old, and I began to wonder if I should ever live to 
+see your chapters of our story. Good night! I'll take a walk, I think, and 
+look at the stars of Elbereth in the garden. Sleep well!' 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2 . The Council of Elrond 
+
+
+
+Next day Frodo woke early, feeling refreshed and well. He walked along 
+the terraces above the loud-flowing Bruinen and watched the pale, cool sun 
+rise above the far mountains, and shine down. Slanting through the thin 
+silver mist; the dew upon the yellow leaves was glimmering, and the woven 
+nets of gossamer twinkled on every bush. Sam walked beside him, saying 
+nothing, but sniffing the air, and looking every now and again with wonder 
+in his eyes at the great heights in the East. The snow was white upon their 
+peaks. 
+
+On a seat cut in the stone beside a turn in the path they came upon 
+Gandalf and Bilbo deep in talk. 'Hullo! Good morning!' said Bilbo. 'Feel 
+ready for the great council?’ 
+
+'I feel ready for anything,' answered Frodo. 'But most of all I should 
+like to go walking today and explore the valley. I should like to get into 
+those pine- woods up there.' He pointed away far up the side of Rivendell to 
+the north. 
+
+'You may have a chance later,' said Gandalf. 'But we cannot make any 
+plans yet. There is much to hear and decide today.' 
+
+Suddenly as they were talking a single clear bell rang out. 'That is 
+the warning bell for the Council of Elrond,' cried Gandalf. 'Come along now! 
+Both you and Bilbo are wanted.' 
+
+Frodo and Bilbo followed the wizard quickly along the winding path back 
+to the house; behind them, uninvited and for the moment forgotten, trotted 
+Sam. 
+
+Gandalf led them to the porch where Frodo had found his friends the 
+evening before. The light of the clear autumn morning was now glowing in the 
+valley. The noise of bubbling waters came up from the foaming river-bed. 
+Birds were singing, and a wholesome peace lay on the land. To Frodo his 
+dangerous flight, and the rumours of the darkness growing in the world 
+outside, already seemed only the memories of a troubled dream; but the faces 
+that were turned to meet them as they entered were grave. 
+
+Elrond was there, and several others were seated in silence about him. 
+Frodo saw Glorfindel and Gluin; and in a corner alone Strider was sitting, 
+clad in his old travel-worn clothes again. Elrond drew Frodo to a seat by 
+
+
+
+
+his side, and presented him to the company, saying: 
+
+'Here, my friends is the hobbit, Frodo son of Drogo. Few have ever come 
+hither through greater peril or on an errand more urgent.' 
+
+He then pointed out and named those whom Frodo had not met before. 
+There was a younger dwarf at Gluin's side: his son Gimli. Beside Glorfindel 
+there were several other counsellors of Elrond's household, of whom Erestor 
+was the chief; and with him was Galdor, an Elf from the Grey Havens who had 
+come on an errand from Cnrdan the Shipwright. There was also a strange Elf 
+clad in green and brown, Legolas, a messenger from his father, Thranduil, 
+the King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood. And seated a little apart was a 
+tall man with a fair and noble face, dark-haired and grey-eyed, proud and 
+stern of glance. 
+
+He was cloaked and booted as if for a journey on horseback; and indeed 
+though his garments were rich, and his cloak was lined with fur, they were 
+stained with long travel. He had a collar of silver in which a single white 
+stone was set; his locks were shorn about his shoulders. On a baldric he 
+wore a great horn tipped with silver that now was laid upon his knees. He 
+gazed at Frodo and Bilbo with sudden wonder. 
+
+'Here,' said Elrond, turning to Gandalf, 'is Boromir, a man from the 
+South. He arrived in the grey morning, and seeks for counsel. I have bidden 
+him to be present, for here his questions will be answered.' 
+
+Not all that was spoken and debated in the Council need now be told. 
+Much was said of events in the world outside, especially in the South, and 
+in the wide lands east of the Mountains. Of these things Frodo had already 
+heard many rumours; but the tale of Gluin was new to him, and when the dwarf 
+spoke he listened attentively. It appeared that amid the splendour of their 
+works of hand the hearts of the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain were 
+troubled. 
+
+'It is now many years ago,' said Gluin, 'that a shadow of disquiet fell 
+upon our people. Whence it came we did not at first perceive. Words began to 
+be whispered in secret-: it was said that we were hemmed in a narrow place, 
+and that greater wealth and splendour would be found in a wider world. Some 
+spoke of Moria: the mighty works of our fathers that are called in our own 
+tongue Khazad-dym; and they declared that now at last we had the power and 
+numbers to return.' 
+
+Gluin sighed. 'Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we 
+delved there, and woke the nameless fear. Long have its vast mansions lain 
+
+
+
+
+empty since the children of Durin fled. But now we spoke of it again with 
+longing, and yet with dread; for no dwarf has dared to pass the doors of 
+Khazad-dym for many lives of kings, save Thrur only, and he perished. At 
+last, however, Balin listened to the whispers, and resolved to go; and 
+though Dbin did not give leave willingly, he took with him Ori and Uin and 
+many of our folk, and they went away south. 
+
+"That was nigh on thirty years ago. For a while we had news and it 
+seemed good: messages reported that Moria had been entered and a great work 
+begun there. Then there was silence, and no word has ever come from Moria 
+since. 
+
+"Then about a year ago a messenger came to Dbin, but not from 
+Moria -from Mordor: a horseman in the night, who called Dbin to his gate. The 
+Lord Sauron the Great, so he said, wished for our friendship. Rings he would 
+give for it, such as he gave of old. And he asked urgently concerning 
+hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt. "For Sauron knows," 
+said he, "that one of these was known to you on a time." 
+
+'At this we were greatly troubled, and we gave no answer. And then his 
+fell voice was lowered, and he would have sweetened it if he could. "As a 
+small token only of your friendship Sauron asks this," he said: "that you 
+should find this thief," such was his word, "and get from him, willing or 
+no, a little ring, the least of rings, that once he stole. It is but a 
+trifle that Sauron fancies, and an earnest of your good will. Find it, and 
+three rings that the Dwarf sires possessed of old shall be returned to you, 
+and the realm of Moria shall be yours for ever. Find only news of the thief, 
+whether he still lives and where, and you shall have great reward and 
+lasting friendship from the Lord. Refuse, and things will not seem so well. 
+
+Do you refuse?" 
+
+'At that his breath came like the hiss of snakes, and all who stood by 
+shuddered, but Dbin said: "I say neither yea nor nay. I must consider this 
+message and what it means under its fair cloak." 
+
+' "Consider well, but not too long," said he. 
+
+" "The time of my thought is my own to spend," answered Dbin. 
+
+' "For the present," said he, and rode into the darkness. 
+
+'Heavy have the hearts of our chieftains been since that night. We 
+needed not the fell voice of the messenger to warn us that his words held 
+both menace and deceit; for we knew already that the power that has 
+re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it betrayed us of old. Twice the 
+
+
+
+
+messenger has returned, and has gone unanswered. The third and last time, so 
+he says, is soon to come, before the ending of the year. 
+
+'And so I have been sent at last by Dbin to warn Bilbo that he is 
+sought by the Enemy, and to learn, if may be, why he desires this ring, this 
+least of rings. Also we crave the advice of Elrond. For the Shadow grows and 
+draws nearer. We discover that messengers have come also to King Brand in 
+Dale, and that he is afraid. We fear that he may yield. Already war is 
+gathering on his eastern borders. If we make no answer, the Enemy may move 
+Men of his rule to assail King Brand, and Dbin also.' 
+
+'You have done well to come,' said Elrond. 'You will hear today all 
+that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is 
+naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But 
+you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the 
+trouble of all the western world. The Ring ! What shall we do with the Ring, 
+the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we 
+must deem. 
+
+'That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say. 
+though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have 
+come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. 
+
+Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit 
+here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world. 
+
+'Now, therefore, things shall be openly spoken that have been hidden 
+from all but a few until this day. And first, so that all may understand 
+what is the peril, the Tale of the Ring shall be told from the beginning 
+even to this present. And I will begin that tale, though others shall end 
+it.' 
+
+Then all listened while Elrond in his clear voice spoke of Sauron and 
+the Rings of Power, and their forging in the Second Age of the world long 
+ago. A part of his tale was known to some there, but the full tale to none, 
+and many eyes were turned t= Elrond in fear and wonder as he told of the 
+Elven-smiths of Eregion and their friendship with Moria, and their eagerness 
+for knowledge, by which Sauron ensnared them. For in that time he was not 
+yet evil to behold, and they received his aid and grew mighty in craft, 
+whereas he learned all their secrets, and betrayed them, and forged secretly 
+in the Mountain of Fire the One Ring to be their master. But Celebrimbor was 
+aware of him, and hid the Three which he had made; and there was war, and 
+the land was laid waste, and the gate of Moria was shut. 
+
+
+
+
+Then through all the years that followed he traced the Ring; but since 
+that history is elsewhere recounted, even as Elrond himself set it down in 
+his books of lore, it is not here recalled. For it is a long tale, full of 
+deeds great and terrible, and briefly though Elrond spoke, the sun rode up 
+the sky, and the morning was passing ere he ceased. 
+
+Of N®menor he spoke, its glory and its fall, and the return of the 
+Kings of Men to Middle-earth out of the deeps of the Sea, borne upon the 
+wings of storm. Then Elendil the Tall and his mighty sons, Isildur and 
+Anbrion, became great lords; and the North-realm they made in Arnor, and the 
+South-realm in Gondor above the mouths of Anduin. But Sauron of Mordor 
+assailed them, and they made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the 
+hosts of Gil-galad and Elendil were mustered in Arnor. 
+
+Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. 'I remember well the 
+splendour of their banners,' he said. v It recalled to me the glory of the 
+Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains 
+were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was 
+broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not 
+so.' 
+
+'You remember?’ said Frodo, speaking his thought aloud in his 
+astonishment. 'But I thought,' he stammered as Elrond turned towards him, 'I 
+thought that the fall of Gil-galad was a long age ago.' 
+
+'So it was indeed,' answered Elrond gravely. 'But my memory reaches 
+back even to the Elder Days. Edrendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin 
+before its fall; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of L®thien 
+of Doriath. I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many 
+defeats, and many fruitless victories. 
+
+'I was the herald of Gil-galad and marched with his host. I was at the 
+Battle of Dagorlad before the Black Gate of Mordor, where we had the 
+mastery: for the Spear of Gil-galad and the Sword of Elendil, Aiglos and 
+Narsil, none could withstand. I beheld the last combat on the slopes of 
+Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath 
+him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his 
+hand with the hilt-shard of his father's sword, and took it for his own.' 
+
+At this the stranger, Boromir, broke in. 'So that is what became of the 
+Ring!' he cried. 'If ever such a tale was told in the South, it has long 
+been forgotten. I have heard of the Great Ring of him that we do not name; 
+but we believed that it perished from the world in the ruin of his first 
+
+
+
+
+realm. Isildur took it! That is tidings indeed.' 
+
+'Alas! yes,' said Elrond. 'Isildur took it, as should not have been. It 
+should have been cast then into Orodruin's fire nigh at hand where it was 
+made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that 
+last mortal contest; and by Gil-galad only Cnrdan stood, and I. But Isildur 
+would not listen to our counsel. 
+
+’ "This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother," he 
+said; and therefore whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it. But 
+soon he was betrayed by it to his death; and so it is named in the North 
+Isildur's Bane. Yet death maybe was better than what else might have 
+befallen him. 
+
+'Only to the North did these tidings come, and only to a few. Small 
+wonder it is that you have not heard them, Boromir. From the ruin of the 
+Gladden Fields, where Isildur perished, three men only came ever back over 
+the mountains after long wandering. One of these was Ohtar, the esquire of 
+Isildur, who bore the shards of the sword of Elendil; and he brought them to 
+Valandil, the heir of Isildur, who being but a child had remained here in 
+Rivendell. But Narsil was broken and its light extinguished, and it has not 
+yet been forged again. 
+
+'Fruitless did I call the victory of the Fast Alliance? Not wholly so, 
+yet it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. 
+
+His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its 
+foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, 
+and while it remains they will endure. Many Elves and many mighty Men, 
+and 
+
+many of their friends, had perished in the war. Anbrion was slain, and 
+Isildur was slain; and Gil-galad and Elendil were no more. Never again shall 
+there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the 
+Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that 
+day the race of N®menor has decayed, and the span of their years has 
+lessened. 
+
+'In the North after the war and the slaughter of the Gladden Fields the 
+Men of Westernesse were diminished, and their city of Ann®minas beside 
+Fake 
+
+Evendim fell into ruin; and the heirs of Valandil removed and dwelt at 
+Fornost on the high North Downs, and that now too is desolate. Men call it 
+Deadmen's Dike, and they fear to tread there. For the folk of Arnor 
+
+
+
+
+dwindled, and their foes devoured them, and their lordship passed, leaving 
+only green mounds in the grassy hills. 
+
+'In the South the realm of Gondor long endured; and for a while its 
+splendour grew, recalling somewhat of the might of N®menor, ere it fell. 
+High towers that people built, and strong places, and havens of many ships; 
+and the winged crown of the Kings of Men was held in awe by folk of many 
+tongues. Their chief city was Osgiliath, Citadel of the Stars, through the 
+midst of which the River flowed. And Minas Ithil they built, Tower of the 
+Rising Moon, eastward upon a shoulder of the Mountains of Shadow; and 
+westward at the feet of the White Mountains Minas Anor they made, Tower of 
+the Setting Sun. There in the courts of the King grew a white tree, from the 
+seed of that tree which Isildur brought over the deep waters, and the seed 
+of that tree before came from Eressla, and before that out of the Uttermost 
+West in the Day before days when the world was young. 
+
+'But in the wearing of the swift years of Middle-earth the line of 
+Meneldil son of Anbrion failed, and the Tree withered, and the blood of the 
+N®menoreans became mingled with that of lesser men. Then the watch upon 
+the 
+
+walls of Mordor slept, and dark things crept back to Gorgoroth. And on a 
+time evil things came forth, and they took Minas Ithil and abode in it, and 
+they made it into a place of dread; and it is called Minas Morgul, the Tower 
+of Sorcery. Then Minas Anor was named anew Minas Tirith, the Tower of 
+Guard; 
+
+and these two cities were ever at war, but Osgiliath which lay between was 
+deserted and in its ruins shadows walked. 
+
+'So it has been for many lives of men. But the Lords of Minas Tirith 
+still fight on, defying our enemies, keeping the passage of the River from 
+Argonath to the Sea. And now that part of the tale that I shall tell is 
+drawn to its close. For in the days of Isildur the Ruling Ring passed out of 
+all knowledge, and the Three were released from its dominion. But now in 
+this latter day they are in peril once more, for to our sorrow the One has 
+been found. Others shall speak of its finding, for in that I played small 
+part.' 
+
+He ceased, but at once Boromir stood up, tall and proud, before them. 
+
+Give me leave, Master Elrond, said he, first to say more of Gondor; for 
+verily from the land of Gondor I am come. And it would be well for all to 
+know what passes there. For few, I deem, know of our deeds, and therefore 
+
+
+
+
+guess little of their peril, if we should fail at last. 
+
+'Believe not that in the land of Gondor the blood of N®menor is spent, 
+nor all its pride and dignity forgotten. By our valour the wild folk of the 
+East are still restrained, and the terror of Morgul kept at bay; and thus 
+alone are peace and freedom maintained in the lands behind us, bulwark of 
+the West. But if the passages of the River should be won, what then? 
+
+'Yet that hour, maybe, is not now far away. The Nameless Enemy has 
+arisen again. Smoke rises once more from Orodruin that we call Mount 
+Doom. 
+
+The power of the Black Land grows and we are hard beset. When the 
+Enemy 
+
+returned our folk were driven from Ithilien, our fair domain east of the 
+River, though we kept a foothold there and strength of arms. But this very 
+year, in the days of June, sudden war came upon us out of Mordor, and we 
+were swept away. We were outnumbered, for Mordor has allied itself with the 
+Easterlings and the cruel Elaradrim; but it was not by numbers that we were 
+defeated. A power was there that we have not felt before. 
+
+'Some said that it could be seen, like a great black horseman, a dark 
+shadow under the moon. Wherever he came a madness filled our foes, but fear 
+fell on our boldest, so that horse and man gave way and fled. Only a remnant 
+of our eastern force came back, destroying the last bridge that still stood 
+amid the ruins of Osgiliath. 
+
+’I was in the company that held the bridge, until it was cast down 
+behind us. Four only were saved by swimming: my brother and myself and 
+two 
+
+others. But still we fight on, holding all the west shores of Anduin; and 
+those who shelter behind us give us praise, if ever they hear our name: much 
+praise but little help. Only from Rohan now will any men ride to us when we 
+call. 
+
+'In this evil hour I have come on an errand over many dangerous leagues 
+to Elrond: a hundred and ten days I have journeyed all alone. But I do not 
+seek allies in war. The might of Elrond is in wisdom not in weapons, it is 
+said. I come to ask for counsel and the unravelling of hard words. For on 
+the eve of the sudden assault a dream came to my brother in a troubled 
+sleep; and afterwards a like dream came oft to him again, and once to me. 
+
+’In that dream I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a 
+growing thunder, but in the West a pale light lingered, and out of it I 
+
+
+
+
+heard a voice, remote but clear, crying: 
+
+Seek for the Sword that was broken: 
+
+In Imladris it dwells; 
+
+There shall be counsels taken 
+Stronger than Morgul-spells. 
+
+There shall be shown a token 
+That Doom is near at hand, 
+
+For Isildur's Bane shall waken, 
+
+And the Halfling forth shall stand. 
+
+Of these words we could understand little, and we spoke to our father, 
+Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith, wise in the lore of Gondor. This only would 
+he say, that Imladris was of old the name among the Elves of a far northern 
+dale, where Elrond the Halfelven dwelt, greatest of lore-masters. Therefore 
+my brother, seeing how desperate was our need, was eager to heed the dream 
+and seek for Imladris; but since the way was full of doubt and danger, I 
+took the journey upon myself. Loth was my father to give me leave, and long 
+have I wandered by roads forgotten, seeking the house of Elrond, of which 
+many had heard, but few knew where it lay.’ 
+
+'And here in the house of Elrond more shall be made clear to you' said 
+Aragorn, standing up. He cast his sword upon the table that stood before 
+Elrond, and the blade was in two pieces. 'Here is the Sword that was 
+Broken!' he said. 
+
+'And who are you, and what have you to do with Minas Tirith?’ asked 
+Boromir, looking in wonder at the lean face of the Ranger and his 
+weather-stained cloak. 
+
+'He is Aragorn son of Arathorn,' said Elrond; 'and he is descended 
+through many fathers from Isildur Elendil's son of Minas Ithil. He is the 
+Chief of the D®nedain in the North, and few are now left of that folk.’ 
+
+'Then it belongs to you, and not to me at all!' cried Frodo in 
+amazement, springing to his feet, as if he expected the Ring to be demanded 
+at once. 
+
+'It does not belong to either of us,' said Aragorn; 'but it has been 
+ordained that you should hold it for a while.' 
+
+'Bring out the Ring, Frodo!' said Gandalf solemnly. 'The time has come. 
+Hold it up, and then Boromir will understand the remainder of his riddle.' 
+
+There was a hush, and all turned their eyes on Frodo. He was shaken by 
+a sudden shame and fear; and he felt a great reluctance to reveal the Ring, 
+
+
+
+
+and a loathing of its touch. He wished he was far away. The Ring gleamed and 
+flickered as he held it up before them in his trembling hand. 
+
+'Behold Isildur's Bane!' said Elrond. 
+
+Boromir's eyes glinted as he gazed at the golden thing. 'The Halfling!' 
+he muttered. 'Is then the doom of Minas Tirith come at last? But why then 
+should we seek a broken sword?’ 
+
+’The words were not the doom of Minas Tirith ,’ said Aragorn. 'But doom 
+and great deeds are indeed at hand. For the Sword that was Broken is the 
+Sword of Elendil that broke beneath him when he fell. It has been treasured 
+by his heirs when all other heirlooms were lost; for it was spoken of old 
+among us that it should be made again when the Ring, Isildur's Bane, was 
+found. Now you have seen the sword that you have sought, what would you 
+ask? 
+
+Do you wish for the House of Elendil to return to the Land of Gondor?' 
+
+'I was not sent to beg any boon, but to seek only the meaning of a 
+riddle,' answered Boromir proudly. 'Yet we are hard pressed, and the Sword 
+of Elendil would be a help beyond our hope-if such a thing could indeed 
+return out of the shadows of the past.' He looked again at Aragorn, and 
+doubt was in his eyes. 
+
+Frodo felt Bilbo stir impatiently at his side. Evidently he was annoyed 
+on his friend's behalf. Standing suddenly up he burst out: 
+
+All that is gold does not glitter, 
+
+Not all those who wander are lost; 
+
+The old that is strong does not wither, 
+
+Deep roots are not reached by the frost. 
+
+From the ashes a fire shall be woken, 
+
+A light from the shadows shall spring; 
+
+Renewed shall be blade that was broken: 
+
+The crownless again shall be king. 
+
+'Not very good perhaps, but to the point — if you need more beyond the 
+word of Elrond. If that was worth a journey of a hundred and ten days to 
+hear, you had best listen to it.' He sat down with a snort. 
+
+'I made that up myself,' he whispered to Frodo, 'for the D®nadan, a 
+long time ago when he first told me about himself. I almost wish that my 
+adventures were not over, and that I could go with him when his day comes.' 
+
+Aragorn smiled at him; then he turned to Boromir again. 'For my part I 
+
+
+
+
+forgive your doubt,' he said. 'Little do I resemble the figures of Elendil 
+and Isildur as they stand carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. 
+
+I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life 
+and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small 
+part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many 
+rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhyn and 
+Harad where the stars are strange. 
+
+'But my home, such as I have, is in the North. For here the heirs of 
+Valandil have ever dwelt in long line unbroken from father unto son for many 
+generations. Our days have darkened, and we have dwindled; but ever the 
+Sword has passed to a new keeper. And this I will say to you, Boromir, ere I 
+end. Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters— but hunters ever of 
+the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor 
+only. 
+
+'If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played another 
+part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do 
+not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and 
+freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear 
+would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless 
+hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any 
+dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of 
+simple men at night, if the D®nedain were asleep, or were all gone into the 
+grave? 
+
+'And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and 
+countrymen give us scornful names. "Strider" I am to one fat man who lives 
+within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart or lay his little 
+town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it 
+otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, 
+and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, 
+while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown. 
+
+'But now the world is changing once again. A new hour comes. Isildur's 
+Bane is found. Battle is at hand. The Sword shall be reforged. I will come 
+to Minas Tirith.' 
+
+'Isildur's Bane is found, you say,' said Boromir. 'I have seen a bright 
+ring in the Halfling's hand; but Isildur perished ere this age of the world 
+began, they say. How do the Wise know that this ring is his? And how has it 
+passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a 
+
+
+
+
+messenger?' 
+
+'That shall be told,' said Elrond. 
+
+'But not yet, I beg, Master!’ said Bilbo. 'Already the Sun is climbing 
+to noon, and I feel the need of something to strengthen me.’ 
+
+'I had not named you,’ said Elrond smiling. 'But I do so now. Come! 
+
+Tell us your tale. And if you have not yet cast your story into verse, you 
+may tell it in plain words. The briefer, the sooner shall you be refreshed.' 
+
+'Very well,' said Bilbo. 'I will do as you bid. But I will now tell the 
+true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise' — he looked 
+sidelong at Gluin — l ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished 
+to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the 
+name of thief that was put on me. But perhaps I understand things a little 
+better now. Anyway, this is what happened.' 
+
+To some there Bilbo's tale was wholly new, and they listened with 
+amazement while the old hobbit, actually not at all displeased, recounted 
+his adventure with Gollum, at full length. He did not omit a single riddle. 
+
+He would have given also an account of his party and disappearance from the 
+Shire, if he had been allowed; but Elrond raised his hand. 
+
+'Well told, my friend,' he said, 'but that is enough at this time. For 
+the moment it suffices to know that the Ring passed to Frodo, your heir. Let 
+him now speak!' 
+
+Then, less willingly than Bilbo, Frodo told of all his dealings with 
+the Ring from the day that it passed into his keeping. Every step of his 
+journey from Hobbiton to the Ford of Bruinen was questioned and considered, 
+and everything that he could recall concerning the Black Riders was 
+examined. At last he sat down again. 
+
+'Not bad,' Bilbo said to him. 'You would have made a good story of it, 
+if they hadn't kept on interrupting. I tried to make a few notes, but we 
+shall have to go over it all again together some time, if I am to write it 
+up. There are whole chapters of stuff before you ever got here!' 
+
+'Yes, it made quite a long tale,' answered Frodo. 'But the story still 
+does not seem complete to me. I still want to know a good deal, especially 
+about Gandalf.' 
+
+Galdor of the Havens, who sat near by, overheard him. 'You speak for me 
+also,’ he cried, and turning to Elrond he said: 'The Wise may have good 
+reason to believe that the halfling's trove is indeed the Great Ring of long 
+debate, unlikely though that may seem to those who know less. But may we not 
+
+
+
+
+hear the proofs? And I would ask this also. What of Saruman? He is learned 
+in the lore of the Rings, yet he is not among us. What is his counsel-if he 
+knows the things that we have heard?' 
+
+'The questions that you ask, Galdor, are bound together,' said Elrond. 
+
+I had not overlooked them, and they shall be answered. But these things it 
+is the part of Gandalf to make clear; and I call upon him last, for it is 
+the place of honour, and in all this matter he has been the chief.' 
+
+'Some, Galdor,' said Gandalf, 'would think the tidings of Gluin, and 
+the pursuit of Frodo, proof enough that the halfling's trove is a thing of 
+great worth to the Enemy. Yet it is a ring. What then? The Nine the Nazgyl 
+keep. The Seven are taken or destroyed.' At this Gluin stirred, but did not 
+speak. 'The Three we know of. What then is this one that he desires so much? 
+
+'There is indeed a wide waste of time between the River and the 
+Mountain, between the loss and the finding. But the gap in the knowledge of 
+the Wise has been filled at last. Yet too slowly. For the Enemy has been 
+close behind, closer even than I feared. And well is it that not until this 
+year, this very summer, as it seems, did he learn the full truth. 
+
+'Some here will remember that many years ago I myself dared to pass the 
+doors of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, and secretly explored his ways, and 
+found thus that our fears were true: he was none other than Sauron, our 
+Enemy of old, at length taking shape and power again. Some, too, will 
+remember also that Saruman dissuaded us from open deeds against him, and 
+for 
+
+long we watched him only. Yet at last, as his shadow grew, Saruman yielded, 
+and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood 
+and that was in the very year of the finding of this Ring: a strange chance, 
+if chance it was. 
+
+'But we were too late, as Elrond foresaw. Sauron also had watched us, 
+and had long prepared against our stroke, governing Mordor from afar through 
+Minas Morgul, where his Nine servants dwelt, until all was ready. Then he 
+gave way before us, but only feigned to flee, and soon after came to the 
+Dark Tower and openly declared himself. Then for the last time the Council 
+met; for now we learned that he was seeking ever more eagerly for the One. 
+We feared then that he had some news of it that we knew nothing of. But 
+Saruman said nay, and repeated what he had said to us before: that the One 
+would never again be found in Middle-earth. 
+
+"At the worst," said he, "our Enemy knows that we have it not and 
+
+
+
+
+that it still is lost. But what was lost may yet be found, he thinks. Fear 
+not! His hope will cheat him. Have I not earnestly studied this matter? Into 
+Anduin the Great it fell; and long ago, while Sauron slept, it was rolled 
+down the River to the Sea. There let it lie until the End.'" 
+
+Gandalf fell silent, gazing eastward from the porch to the far peaks of 
+the Misty Mountains, at whose great roots the peril of the world had so long 
+lain hidden. He sighed. 
+
+'There I was at fault,' he said. 'I was lulled by the words of Saruman 
+the Wise; but I should have sought for the truth sooner, and our peril would 
+now be less.’ 
+
+'We were all at fault,’ said Elrond, 'and but for your vigilance the 
+Darkness, maybe, would already be upon us. But say on!’ 
+
+'From the first my heart misgave me, against all reason that I knew,' 
+said Gandalf, 'and I desired to know how this thing came to Gollum, and how 
+long he had possessed it. So I set a watch for him, guessing that he would 
+ere long come forth from his darkness to seek for his treasure. He came, but 
+he escaped and was not found. And then alas ! I let the matter rest, watching 
+and waiting only, as we have too often done. 
+
+'Time passed with many cares, until my doubts were awakened again to 
+sudden fear. Whence came the hobbit's ring? What, if my fear was true, 
+should be done with it? Those things I must decide. But I spoke yet of my 
+dread to none, knowing the peril of an untimely whisper, if it went astray. 
+
+In all the long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest 
+foe. 
+
+'That was seventeen years ago. Soon I became aware that spies of many 
+sorts, even beasts and birds, were gathered round the Shire, and my fear 
+grew. I called for the help of the D®nedain, and their watch was doubled; 
+and I opened my heart to Aragorn, the heir of Isildur.' 
+
+'And I,' said Aragorn, 'counselled that we should hunt for Gollum. too 
+late though it may seem. And since it seemed fit that Isildur's heir should 
+labour to repair Isildur's fault, I went with Gandalf on the long and 
+hopeless search.' 
+
+Then Gandalf told how they had explored the whole length of Wilderland, 
+down even to the Mountains of Shadow and the fences of Mordor. 'There we 
+had 
+
+rumour of him, and we guess that he dwelt there long in the dark hills; but 
+we never found him, and at last I despaired. And then in my despair I 
+
+
+
+
+thought again of a test that might make the finding of Gollum unneeded. The 
+ring itself might tell if it were the One. The memory of words at the 
+Council came back to me: words of Saruman, half-heeded at the time. I heard 
+them now clearly in my heart. 
+
+' "The Nine, the Seven, and the Three," he said, "had each their proper 
+gem. Not so the One. It was round and unadorned, as it were one of the 
+lesser rings; but its maker set marks upon it that the skilled, maybe, could 
+still see and read." 
+
+'What those marks were he had not said. Who now would know? The 
+maker. 
+
+And Saruman? But great though his lore may be, it must have a source. What 
+hand save Sauron’s ever held this thing, ere it was lost? The hand of 
+Isildur alone. 
+
+'With that thought, I forsook the chase, and passed swiftly to Gondor. 
+
+In former days the members of my order had been well received there, but 
+Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of 
+the City. Less welcome did the Lord Denethor show me then than of old, and 
+grudgingly he permitted me to search among his hoarded scrolls and books. 
+
+’ "If indeed you look only, as you say, for records of ancient days, 
+and the beginnings of the City, read on! " he said. "For to me what was is 
+less dark than what is to come, and that is my care. But unless you have 
+more skill even than Saruman, who has studied here long, you will find 
+naught that is not well known to me, who am master of the lore of this 
+City." 
+
+'So said Denethor. And yet there lie in his hoards many records that 
+few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues 
+have become dark to later men. And Boromir, there lies in Minas Tirith 
+still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings 
+failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself. For Isildur did not march away 
+straight from the war in Mordor, as some have told the tale.’ 
+
+'Some in the North, maybe,' Boromir broke in. 'All know in Gondor that 
+he went first to Minas Anor and dwelt a while with his nephew Meneldil, 
+instructing him, before he committed to him the rule of the South Kingdom. 
+In that time he planted there the last sapling of the White Tree in memory 
+of his brother.' 
+
+'But in that time also he made this scroll,' said Gandalf; 'and that is 
+not remembered in Gondor, it would seem. For this scroll concerns the Ring, 
+
+
+
+
+and thus wrote Isildur therein: 
+
+The Great Ring shall go now to be an heirloom of the North Kingdom; but 
+records of it shall be left in Gondor, where also dwell the heirs of 
+Elendil, lest a time come when the memory of these great matters shall grow 
+dim. 
+
+'And after these words Isildur described the Ring, such as he found it. 
+
+It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was 
+scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. 
+
+Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it seemeth to shrink, though it loseth 
+neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at 
+first was as clear as red flame, fadeth and is now only barely to be read. 
+
+It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in 
+Mordor for such subtle work; but the language is unknown to me. I deem it to 
+be a tongue of the Black Land, since it is foul and uncouth. What evil it 
+saith I do not know; but I trace here a copy of it, lest it fade beyond 
+recall. The Ring misseth, maybe, the heat of Sauron's hand, which was black 
+and yet burned like fire, and so Gil-galad was destroyed; and maybe were the 
+gold made hot again, the writing would be refreshed, gut for my part I will 
+risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of Sauron the only fair. It is 
+precious to me, though I buy it with great pain. 
+
+’When I read these words, my quest was ended. For the traced writing 
+was indeed as Isildur guessed, in the tongue of Mordor and the servants of 
+the Tower. And what was said therein was already known. For in the day that 
+Sauron first put on the One, Celebrimbor, maker of the Three, was aware of 
+him, and from afar he heard him speak these words, and so his evil purposes 
+were revealed. 
+
+'At once I took my leave of Denethor, but even as I went northwards, 
+messages came to me out of Lurien that Aragorn had passed that way, and that 
+he had found the creature called Gollum. Therefore I went first to meet him 
+and hear his tale. Into what deadly perils he had gone alone I dared not 
+guess.’ 
+
+'There is little need to tell of them,’ said Aragorn. 'If a man must 
+needs walk in sight of the Black Gate, or tread the deadly flowers of Morgul 
+Vale, then perils he will have. I, too, despaired at last, and I began my 
+homeward journey. And then, by fortune, I came suddenly on what I sought: 
+the marks of soft feet beside a muddy pool. But now the trail was fresh and 
+swift, and it led not to Mordor but away. Along the skirts of the Dead 
+
+
+
+
+Marshes I followed it, and then I had him. Lurking by a stagnant mere, 
+peering in the water as the dark eve fell, I caught him, Gollum. He was 
+covered with green slime. He will never love me, I fear; for he bit me, and 
+I was not gentle. Nothing more did I ever get from his mouth than the marks 
+of his teeth. I deemed it the worst part of all my journey, the road back, 
+watching him day and night, making him walk before me with a halter on his 
+neck, gagged, until he was tamed by lack of drink and food, driving him ever 
+towards Mirkwood. I brought him there at last and gave him to the Elves, for 
+we had agreed that this should be done; and I was glad to be rid of his 
+company, for he stank. For my part I hope never to look upon him again; but 
+Gandalf came and endured long speech with him.’ 
+
+'Yes, long and weary,' said Gandalf, 'but not without profit. For one 
+thing, the tale he told of his loss agreed with that which Bilbo has now 
+told openly for the first time; but that mattered little, since I had 
+already guessed it. But I learned then first that Gollum's ring came out of 
+the Great River nigh to the Gladden Fields. And I learned also that he had 
+possessed it long. Many lives of his small kind. The power of the ring had 
+lengthened his years far beyond their span; but that power only the Great 
+Rings wield. 
+
+'And if that is not proof enough, Galdor, there is the other test that 
+I spoke of. Upon this very ring which you have here seen held aloft, round 
+and unadorned, the letters that Isildur reported may still be read, if one 
+has the strength of will to set the golden thing in the fire a while. That I 
+have done, and this I have read: 
+
+Ash nazg durbatulyk, ush nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulyk agh 
+burzum-ishi krimpatul. ' 
+
+The change in the wizard's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became 
+menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high 
+sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves 
+stopped their ears. 
+
+'Never before has any voice dared to utter the words of that tongue in 
+Imladris, Gandalf the Grey,’ said Elrond, as the shadow passed and the 
+company breathed once more. 
+
+'And let us hope that none will ever speak it here again,' answered 
+Gandalf. 'Nonetheless I do not ask your pardon, Master Elrond. For if that 
+tongue is not soon to be heard in every corner of the West, then let all put 
+doubt aside that this thing is indeed what the Wise have declared: the 
+
+
+
+
+treasure of the Enemy, fraught with all his malice; and in it lies a great 
+part of his strength of old. Out of the Black Years come the words that the 
+Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed: 
+
+One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring 
+them all and in the Darkness bind them. 
+
+'Know also, my friends, that I learned more yet from Gollum. He was 
+loth to speak and his tale was unclear, but it is beyond all doubt that he 
+went to Mordor, and there all that he knew was forced from him. Thus the 
+Enemy knows now that the One is found, that it was long in the Shire; and 
+since his servants have pursued it almost to our door, he soon will know, 
+already he may know, even as I speak, that we have it here.' 
+
+All sat silent for a while, until at length Boromir spoke. 'He is a 
+small thing, you say, this Gollum? Small, but great in mischief. What became 
+of him? To what doom did you put him?’ 
+
+'He is in prison, but no worse,' said Aragorn. 'He had suffered much. 
+
+There is no doubt that he was tormented, and the fear of Sauron lies black 
+on his heart. Still I for one am glad that he is safely kept by the watchful 
+Elves of Mirkwood. His malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be 
+believed in one so lean and withered. He could work much mischief still, if 
+he were free. And I do not doubt that he was allowed to leave Mordor on some 
+evil errand.' 
+
+'Alas! alas!’ cried Legolas, and in his fair elvish face there was 
+great distress. 'The tidings that I was sent to bring must now be told. They 
+are not good, but only here have I learned how evil they may seem to this 
+company. Smjagol, who is now called Gollum, has escaped.’ 
+
+'Escaped?' cried Aragorn. 'That is ill news indeed. We shall all rue it 
+bitterly, I fear. How came the folk of Thranduil to fail in their trust?' 
+
+'Not through lack of watchfulness,' said Legolas; 'but perhaps through 
+over -kindliness. And we fear that the prisoner had aid from others, and that 
+more is known of our doings than we could wish. We guarded this creature day 
+and night, at Gandalf s bidding, much though we wearied of the task. But 
+Gandalf bade us hope still for his cure, and we had not the heart to keep 
+him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old 
+black thoughts.' 
+
+'You were less tender to me,' said Gluin with a flash of his eyes as 
+old memories were stirred of his imprisonment in the deep places of the 
+Elven-king's halls. 
+
+
+
+
+'Now come!' said Gandalf. 'Pray do not interrupt, my good Gluin. That 
+was a regrettable misunderstanding, long set right. If all the grievances 
+that stand between Elves and Dwarves are to be brought up here, we may as 
+well abandon this Council.' 
+
+Gluin rose and bowed, and Legolas continued. 'In the days of fair 
+weather we led Gollum through the woods; and there was a high tree standing 
+alone far from the others which he liked to climb. Often we let him mount up 
+to the highest branches, until he felt the free wind; but we set a guard at 
+the tree's foot. One day he refused to come down, and the guards had no mind 
+to climb after him: he had learned the trick of clinging to boughs with his 
+feet as well as with his hands; so they sat by the tree far into the night. 
+
+'It was that very night of summer, yet moonless and starless, that Ores 
+came on us at unawares. We drove them off after some time; they were many 
+and fierce, but they came from over the mountains, and were unused to the 
+woods. When the battle was over, we found that Gollum was gone, and his 
+guards were slain or taken. It then seemed plain to us that the attack had 
+been made for his rescue, and that he knew of it beforehand. How that was 
+contrived we cannot guess; but Gollum is cunning, and the spies of the Enemy 
+are many. The dark things that were driven out in the year of the Dragon's 
+fall have returned in greater numbers, and Mirkwood is again an evil place, 
+save where our realm is maintained. 
+
+'We have failed to recapture Gollum. We came on his trail among those 
+of many Ores, and it plunged deep into the Forest, going south. But ere long 
+it escaped our skill, and we dared not continue the hunt; for we were 
+drawing nigh to Dol Guldur, and that is still a very evil place; we do not 
+go that way.’ 
+
+'Well, well, he is gone,' said Gandalf. 'We have no time to seek for 
+him again. He must do what he will. But he may play a part yet that neither 
+he nor Sauron have foreseen. 
+
+'And now I will answer Galdor's other questions. What of Saruman? What 
+are his counsels to us in this need? This tale I must tell in full, for only 
+Elrond has heard it yet, and that in brief, but it will bear on all that we 
+must resolve. It is the last chapter in the Tale of the Ring, so far as it 
+has yet gone. 
+
+'At the end of June I was in the Shire, but a cloud of anxiety was on 
+my mind, and I rode to the southern borders of the little land; for I had a 
+foreboding of some danger, still hidden from me but drawing near. There 
+
+
+
+
+messages reached me telling me of war and defeat in Gondor, and when I heard 
+of the Black Shadow a chill smote my heart. But I found nothing save a few 
+fugitives from the South; yet it seemed to me that on them sat a fear of 
+which they would not speak. I turned then east and north and journeyed along 
+the Greenway; and not far from Bree I came upon a traveller sitting on a 
+bank beside the road with his grazing horse beside him. It was Radagast the 
+Brown, who at one time dwelt at Rhosgobel, near the borders of Mirkwood. 
+
+He 
+
+is one of my order, but I had not seen him for many a year. 
+
+' "Gandalf ! " he cried. "I was seeking you. But I am a stranger in 
+these parts. All I knew was that you might be found in a wild region with 
+the uncouth name of Shire." 
+
+' "Your information was correct," I said. "But do not put it that way, 
+if you meet any of the inhabitants. You are near the borders of the Shire 
+now. And what do you want with me? It must be pressing. You were never a 
+traveller, unless driven by great need." 
+
+' "I have an urgent errand," he said. "My news is evil." Then he looked 
+about him, as if the hedges might have ears. "Nazgyl," he whispered. "The 
+Nine are abroad again. They have crossed the River secretly and are moving 
+westward. They have taken the guise of riders in black." 
+
+'I knew then what I had dreaded without knowing it. 
+
+" "The enemy must have some great need or purpose," said Radagast; "but 
+what it is that makes him look to these distant and desolate parts, I cannot 
+guess." 
+
+v "What do you mean? " said I. 
+
+v "I have been told that wherever they go the Riders ask for news of a 
+land called Shire." 
+
+' "The Shire," I said; but my heart sank. For even the Wise might fear 
+to withstand the Nine, when they are gathered together under their fell 
+chieftain. A great king and sorcerer he was of old, and now he wields a 
+deadly fear. "Who told you, and who sent you? " I asked. 
+
+' "Saruman the White," answered Radagast. "And he told me to say that 
+if you feel the need, he will help; but you must seek his aid at once, or it 
+will be too late." 
+
+'And that message brought me hope. For Saruman the White is the 
+greatest of my order. Radagast is, of course, a worthy Wizard, a master of 
+shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and 
+
+
+
+
+birds are especially his friends. But Saruman has long studied the arts of 
+the Enemy himself, and thus we have often been able to forestall him. It was 
+by the devices of Saruman that we drove him from Dol Guldur. It might be 
+that he had found some weapons that would drive back the Nine. 
+
+' "I will go to Saruman," I said. 
+
+' "Then you must go now," said Radagast; "for I have wasted time in 
+looking for you, and the days are running short. I was told to find you 
+before Midsummer, and that is now here. Even if you set out from this spot, 
+you will hardly reach him before the Nine discover the land that they seek. 
+
+I myself shall turn back at once." And with that he mounted and would have 
+ridden straight off. 
+
+' "Stay a moment! " I said. "We shall need your help, and the help of 
+all things that will give it. Send out messages to all the beasts and birds 
+that are your friends. Tell them to bring news of anything that bears on 
+this matter to Saruman and Gandalf. Let messages be sent to Orthanc." 
+
+"I will do that," he said, and rode off as if the Nine were after 
+
+him. 
+
+'I could not follow him then and there. I had ridden very far already 
+that day, and I was as weary as my horse; and I needed to consider matters. 
+
+I stayed the night in Bree, and decided that I had no time to return to the 
+Shire. Never did I make a greater mistake! 
+
+'However, I wrote a message to Frodo, and trusted to my friend the 
+innkeeper to send it to him. I rode away at dawn; and I came at long last to 
+the dwelling of Saruman. That is far south in Isengard, in the end of the 
+Misty Mountains, not far from the Gap of Rohan. And Boromir will tell you 
+that that is a great open vale that lies between the Misty Mountains and the 
+northmost foothills of Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains of his home. But 
+Isengard is a circle of sheer rocks that enclose a valley as with a wall, 
+and in the midst of that valley is a tower of stone called Orthanc. It was 
+not made by Saruman, but by the Men of N®menor long ago; and it is very tall 
+and has many secrets; yet it looks not to be a work of craft. It cannot be 
+reached save by passing the circle of Isengard; and in that circle there is 
+only one gate. 
+
+'Late one evening I came to the gate, like a great arch in the wall of 
+rock; and it was strongly guarded. But the keepers of the gate were on the 
+watch for me and told me that Saruman awaited me. I rode under the arch, and 
+the gate closed silently behind me, and suddenly I was afraid, though I knew 
+
+
+
+
+no reason for it. 
+
+'But I rode to the foot of Orthanc, and came to the stair of Saruman 
+and there he met me and led me up to his high chamber. He wore a ring on his 
+finger. 
+
+"So you have come, Gandalf," he said to me gravely; but in his eyes 
+there seemed to be a white light, as if a cold laughter was in his heart. 
+
+v "Yes, I have come," I said. "I have come for your aid, Saruman the 
+White." And that title seemed to anger him. 
+
+' "Have you indeed, Gandalf the Grey l " he scoffed. "For aid? It has 
+seldom been heard of that Gandalf the Grey sought for aid, one so cunning 
+and so wise, wandering about the lands, and concerning himself in every 
+business, whether it belongs to him or not." 
+
+'I looked at him and wondered. "But if I am not deceived," said I, 
+
+"things are now moving which will require the union of all our strength." 
+
+' "That may be so," he said, "but the thought is late in coming to you. 
+
+How long. I wonder, have you concealed from me, the head of the Council, a 
+matter of greatest import? What brings you now from your lurking-place in 
+the Shire? " 
+
+' "The Nine have come forth again," I answered. "They have crossed the 
+River. So Radagast said to me." 
+
+v "Radagast the Brown! " laughed Saruman, and he no longer concealed 
+his scorn. "Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool! 
+Yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set him. For you have come, 
+and that was all the purpose of my message. And here you will stay, Gandalf 
+the Grey, and rest from journeys. For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman 
+Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours! " 
+
+'I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not 
+so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and 
+changed hue so that the eye was bewildered. 
+
+' "I liked white better," I said. 
+
+' "White! " he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be 
+dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken." 
+
+' "In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a 
+thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." 
+
+' "You need not speak to me as to one of the fools that you take for 
+friends," said he. "I have not brought you hither to be instructed by you, 
+but to give you a choice." 
+
+
+
+
+'He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a 
+speech long rehearsed. "The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are 
+passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but 
+our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have 
+power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the 
+Wise can see. 
+
+' "And listen, Gandalf, my old friend and helper! " he said, coming 
+near and speaking now in a softer voice. "I said we, for we it may be, if 
+you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and 
+policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying 
+N®menor. This then is one choice before you. before us. We may join with 
+that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory 
+is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the 
+Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you 
+and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. 
+
+We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring 
+maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: 
+Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain 
+to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. 
+There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only 
+in our means." 
+
+' "Saruman," I said, "I have heard speeches of this kind before, but 
+only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant. I 
+cannot think that you brought me so far only to weary my ears." 
+
+'He looked at me sidelong, and paused a while considering. "Well, I see 
+that this wise course does not commend itself to you," he said. "Not yet? 
+
+Not if some better way can be contrived? " 
+
+'He came and laid his long hand on my arm. "And why not, Gandalf? " he 
+whispered. "Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the 
+Power would pass to us. That is in truth why I brought you here. For I have 
+many eyes in my service, and I believe that you know where this precious 
+thing now lies. Is it not so? Or why do the Nine ask for the Shire, and what 
+is your business there? " As he said this a lust which he could not conceal 
+shone suddenly in his eyes. 
+
+' "Saruman," I said, standing away from him, "only one hand at a time 
+can wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we! But 
+I would not give it, nay, I would not give even news of it to you, now that 
+
+
+
+
+I learn your mind. You were head of the Council, but you have unmasked 
+yourself at last. Well, the choices are, it seems, to submit to Sauron, or 
+to yourself. I will take neither. Have you others to offer? " 
+
+’He was cold now and perilous. "Yes," he said. "I did not expect you to 
+show wisdom, even in your own behalf; but I gave you the chance of aiding me 
+willingly, and so saving yourself much trouble and pain. The third choice is 
+to stay here, until the end." 
+
+' "Until what end? " 
+
+' "Until you reveal to me where the One may be found. I may find means 
+to persuade you. Or until it is found in your despite, and the Ruler has 
+time to turn to lighter matters: to devise, say, a fitting reward for the 
+hindrance and insolence of Gandalf the Grey." 
+
+' "That may not prove to be one of the lighter matters," said I. He 
+laughed at me, for my words were empty, and he knew it. 
+
+'They took me and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc, in the 
+place where Saruman was accustomed to watch the stars. There is no descent 
+save by a narrow stair of many thousand steps, and the valley below seems 
+far away. I looked on it and saw that, whereas it had once been green and 
+fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and ores were housed in 
+Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in 
+rivalry of Sauron and not in his service yet. Over all his works a dark 
+smoke hung and wrapped itself about the sides of Orthanc. I stood alone on 
+an island in the clouds; and I had no chance of escape, and my days were 
+bitter. I was pierced with cold, and I had but little room in which to pace 
+to and fro, brooding on the coming of the Riders to the North. 
+
+'That the Nine had indeed arisen I felt assured, apart from the words 
+of Saruman which might be lies. Long ere I came to Isengard I had heard 
+tidings by the way that could not be mistaken. Fear was ever in my heart for 
+my friends in the Shire; but still I had some hope. I hoped that Frodo had 
+set forth at once, as my letter had urged, and that he had reached Rivendell 
+before the deadly pursuit began. And both my fear and my hope proved 
+ill-founded. For my hope was founded on a fat man in Bree; and my fear was 
+founded on the cunning of Sauron. But fat men who sell ale have many calls 
+to answer; and the power of Sauron is still less than fear makes it. But in 
+the circle of Isengard, trapped and alone, it was not easy to think that the 
+hunters before whom all have fled or fallen would falter in the Shire far 
+away.’ 
+
+
+
+
+'I saw you!' cried Frodo. 'You were walking backwards and forwards. The 
+moon shone in your hair.' 
+
+Gandalf paused astonished and looked at him. 'It was only a dream' said 
+Frodo, 'but it suddenly came back to me. I had quite forgotten it. It came 
+some time ago; after I left the Shire, I think.' 
+
+'Then it was late in coming,' said Gandalf, 'as you will see. I was in 
+an evil plight. And those who know me will agree that I have seldom been in 
+such need, and do not bear such misfortune well. Gandalf the Grey caught 
+like a fly in a spider's treacherous web! Yet even the most subtle spiders 
+may leave a weak thread. 
+
+'At first I feared, as Saruman no doubt intended, that Radagast had 
+also fallen. Yet I had caught no hint of anything wrong in his voice or in 
+his eye at our meeting. If I had, I should never have gone to Isengard, or I 
+should have gone more warily. So Saruman guessed, and he had concealed his 
+mind and deceived his messenger. It would have been useless in any case to 
+try and win over the honest Radagast to treachery. He sought me in good 
+faith, and so persuaded me. 
+
+'That was the undoing of Saruman's plot. For Radagast knew no reason 
+why he should not do as I asked; and he rode away towards Mirkwood where 
+he 
+
+had many friends of old. And the Eagles of the Mountains went far and wide, 
+and they saw many things: the gathering of wolves and the mustering of Ores; 
+and the Nine Riders going hither and thither in the lands; and they heard 
+news of the escape of Gollum. And they sent a messenger to bring these 
+tidings to me. 
+
+'So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and 
+Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to 
+Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and 
+he bore me away, before Saruman was aware. I was far from Isengard, ere the 
+wolves and ores issued from the gate to pursue me. 
+
+' "How far can you bear me? " I said to Gwaihir. 
+
+' "Many leagues," said he, "but not to the ends of the earth. I was 
+sent to bear tidings not burdens." 
+
+' "Then I must have a steed on land," I said, "and a steed surpassingly 
+swift, for I have never had such need of haste before." 
+
+' "Then I will bear you to Edoras, where the Lord of Rohan sits in his 
+halls," he said; "for that is not very far off." And I was glad, for in the 
+
+
+
+
+Riddermark of Rohan the Rohirrim, the Horse-lords, dwell, and there are no 
+horses like those that are bred in that great vale between the Misty 
+Mountains and the White. 
+
+' "Are the Men of Rohan still to be trusted, do you think? " I said to 
+Gwaihir, for the treason of Saruman had shaken my faith. 
+
+' "They pay a tribute of horses," he answered, "and send many yearly to 
+Mordor, or so it is said; but they are not yet under the yoke. But if 
+Saruman has become evil, as you say, then their doom cannot be long 
+delayed." 
+
+'He set me down in the land of Rohan ere dawn; and now I have 
+lengthened my tale over long. The rest must be more brief. In Rohan I found 
+evil already at work: the lies of Saruman; and the king of the land would 
+not listen to my warnings. He bade me take a horse and be gone; and I chose 
+one much to my liking, but little to his. I took the best horse in his land, 
+and I have never seen the like of him.’ 
+
+’Then he must be a noble beast indeed,’ said Aragorn; 'and it grieves 
+me more than many tidings that might seem worse to learn that Sauron levies 
+such tribute. It was not so when last I was in that land.’ 
+
+'Nor is it now, I will swear,’ said Boromir. 'It is a lie that comes 
+from the Enemy. I know the Men of Rohan; true and valiant, our allies, 
+dwelling still in the lands that we gave them long ago.’ 
+
+'The shadow of Mordor lies on distant lands,’ answered Aragorn. 
+’Saruman has fallen under it. Rohan is beset. Who knows what you will find 
+there, if ever you return?’ 
+
+'Not this at least.’ said Boromir, ’that they will buy their lives with 
+horses. They love their horses next to their kin. And not without reason, 
+for the horses of the Riddermark come from the fields of the North, far from 
+the Shadow, and their race, as that of their masters, is descended from the 
+free days of old.’ 
+
+’True indeed!’ said Gandalf. 'And there is one among them that might 
+have been foaled in the morning of the world. The horses of the Nine cannot 
+vie with him; tireless, swift as the flowing wind. Shadowfax they called 
+him. By day his coat glistens like silver; and by night it is like a shade, 
+and he passes unseen. Light is his footfall! Never before had any man 
+mounted him, but I took him and I tamed him, and so speedily he bore me that 
+I reached the Shire when Frodo was on the Barrow-downs, though I set out 
+from Rohan only when he set out from Hobbiton. 
+
+
+
+
+'But fear grew in me as I rode. Ever as I came north I heard tidings of 
+the Riders, and though I gained on them day by day, they were ever before 
+me. They had divided their forces, I learned: some remained on the eastern 
+borders, not far from the Greenway. and some invaded the Shire from the 
+south. I came to Hobbiton and Frodo had gone; but I had words with old 
+Gamgee. Many words and few to the point. He had much to say about the 
+shortcomings of the new owners of Bag End. 
+
+' "I can't abide changes," said he, "not at my time of life, and least 
+of all changes for the worst." "Changes for the worst," he repeated many 
+times. 
+
+' "Worst is a bad word," I said to him, "and I hope you do not live to 
+see it." But amidst his talk I gathered at last that Frodo had left Hobbiton 
+less than a week before, and that a black horseman had come to the Hill the 
+same evening. Then I rode on in fear. I came to Buckland and found it in 
+uproar, as busy as a hive of ants that has been stirred with a stick. I came 
+to the house at Crickhollow, and it was broken open and empty; but on the 
+threshold there lay a cloak that had been Frodo's. Then for a while hope 
+left me, and I did not wait to gather news, or I might have been comforted; 
+but I rode on the trail of the Riders. It was hard to follow, for it went 
+many ways, and I was at a loss. But it seemed to me that one or two had 
+ridden towards Bree; and that way I went, for I thought of words that might 
+be said to the innkeeper. 
+
+' "Butterbur they call him," thought I. "If this delay was his fault, I 
+will melt all the butter in him. I will roast the old fool over a slow 
+fire." He expected no less, and when he saw my face he fell down flat and 
+began to melt on the spot.' 
+
+'What did you do to him?' cried Frodo in alarm. 'He was really very 
+kind to us and did all that he could.' 
+
+Gandalf laughed. 'Don't be afraid!' he said. 'I did not bite, and I 
+barked very little. So overjoyed was I by the news that I got out of him, 
+when he stopped quaking, that I embraced the old fellow. How it happened I 
+could not then guess, but I learned that you had been in Bree the night 
+before, and had gone off that morning with Strider. 
+
+' "Strider! " I cried, shouting for joy. 
+
+"Yes, sir, I am afraid so, sir," said Butterbur, mistaking me. "He 
+got at them, in spite of all that I could do, and they took up with him. 
+
+They behaved very queer all the time they were here: wilful, you might say." 
+
+
+
+
+"Ass! Fool! Thrice worthy and beloved Barliman! " said I. "It's the 
+best news I have had since midsummer: it's worth a gold piece at the least. 
+May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for 
+seven years! " said I. "Now I can take a night's rest, the first since I 
+have forgotten when." 
+
+'Sol stayed there that night, wondering much what had become of the 
+Riders; for only of two had there yet been any news in Bree, it seemed. But 
+in the night we heard more. Five at least came from the west, and they threw 
+down the gates and passed through Bree like a howling wind; and the 
+Bree-folk are still shivering and expecting the end of the world. I got up 
+before dawn and went after them. 
+
+'I do not know, but it seems clear to me that this is what happened. 
+
+Their Captain remained in secret away south of Bree, while two rode ahead 
+through the village, and four more invaded the Shire. But when these were 
+foiled in Bree and at Crickhollow, they returned to their Captain with 
+tidings, and so left the Road unguarded for a while, except by their spies. 
+
+The Captain then sent some eastward straight across country, and he himself 
+with the rest rode along the Road in great wrath. 
+
+'I galloped to Weathertop like a gale, and I reached it before sundown 
+on my second day from Bree-and they were there before me. They drew 
+away 
+
+from me, for they felt the coming of my anger and they dared not face it 
+while the Sun was in the sky. But they closed round at night, and I was 
+besieged on the hill -top, in the old ring of Amon Syl. I was hard put to it 
+indeed: such light and flame cannot have been seen on Weathertop since the 
+war-beacons of old. 
+
+'At sunrise I escaped and fled towards the north. I could not hope to 
+do more. It was impossible to find you, Frodo, in the wilderness, and it 
+would have been folly to try with all the Nine at my heels. Sol had to 
+trust to Aragorn. But I hoped to draw some of them off, and yet reach 
+Rivendell ahead of you and send out help. Four Riders did indeed follow me, 
+but they turned back after a while and made for the Ford, it seems. That 
+helped a little, for there were only five, not nine, when your camp was 
+attacked. 
+
+’I reached here at last by a long hard road, up the Floarwell and 
+through the Ettenmoors, and down from the north. It took me nearly fourteen 
+days from Weathertop, for I could not ride among the rocks of the 
+
+
+
+
+troll-fells, and Shadowfax departed. I sent him back to his master; but a 
+great friendship has grown between us, and if I have need he will come at my 
+call. But so it was that I came to Rivendell only three days before the 
+Ring, and news of its peril had already been brought here-which proved well 
+indeed. 
+
+'And that, Frodo, is the end of my account. May Elrond and the others 
+forgive the length of it. But such a thing has not happened before, that 
+Gandalf broke tryst and did not come when he promised. An account to the 
+Ring-bearer of so strange an event was required, I think. 
+
+'Well, the Tale is now told, from first to last. Here we all are, and 
+here is the Ring. But we have not yet come any nearer to our purpose. What 
+shall we do with it?' 
+
+There was silence. At last Elrond spoke again. 
+
+'This is grievous news concerning Saruman,' he said; 'for we trusted 
+him and he is deep in all our counsels. It is perilous to study too deeply 
+the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill. But such falls and betrayals, 
+alas, have happened before. Of the tales that we have heard this day the 
+tale of Frodo was most strange to me. I have known few hobbits, save Bilbo 
+here; and it seems to me that he is perhaps not so alone and singular as I 
+had thought him. The world has changed much since I last was on the 
+westward 
+roads. 
+
+'The Barrow- wights we know by many names; and of the Old Forest 
+many 
+
+tales have been told: all that now remains is but an outlier of its northern 
+march. Time was when a squirrel could go from tree to tree from what is now 
+the Shire to Dunland west of Isengard. In those lands I journeyed once, and 
+many things wild and strange I knew. But I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed 
+this is still the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even 
+then was older than the old. That was not then his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we 
+called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been 
+given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other 
+names beside. He is a strange creature, but maybe I should have summoned 
+him 
+
+to our Council.' 
+
+'He would not have come,' said Gandalf. 
+
+'Could we not still send messages to him and obtain his help?’ asked 
+
+
+
+
+Erestor. 'It seems that he has a power even over the Ring.' 
+
+'No, I should not put it so,’ said Gandalf. 'Say rather that the Ring 
+has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring 
+itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a 
+little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, 
+waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.' 
+
+'But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him,' said Erestor. 
+'Would he not take the Ring and keep it there, for ever harmless?’ 
+
+'No,’ said Gandalf, 'not willingly. He might do so, if all the free 
+folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if 
+he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it 
+away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe 
+guardian; and that alone is answer enough.’ 
+
+'But in any case,’ said Glorfindel, 'to send the Ring to him would only 
+postpone the day of evil. He is far away. We could not now take it back to 
+him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the 
+Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his 
+power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. 
+
+I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last 
+as he was First; and then Night will come.’ 
+
+'I know little of Iarwain save the name,’ said Galdor; 'but Glorfindel, 
+
+I think, is right. Power to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power 
+is in the earth itself. And yet we see that Sauron can torture and destroy 
+the very hills. What power still remains lies with us, here in Imladris, or 
+with Cirdan at the Havens, or in Lurien. But have they the strength, have we 
+here the strength to withstand the Enemy, the coming of Sauron at the last, 
+when all else is overthrown?’ 
+
+'I have not the strength,’ said Elrond; 'neither have they.’ 
+
+'Then if the Ring cannot be kept from him for ever by strength’ said 
+Glorfindel, 'two things only remain for us to attempt: to send it over the 
+Sea, or to destroy it.’ 
+
+'But Gandalf has revealed to us that we cannot destroy it by any craft 
+that we here possess,’ said Elrond. 'And they who dwell beyond the Sea would 
+not receive it: for good or ill it belongs to Middle-earth; it is for us who 
+still dwell here to deal with it.’ 
+
+’Then, said Glorfindel, ’let us cast it into the deeps, and so make the 
+lies of Saruman come true. For it is clear now that even at the Council his 
+
+
+
+
+feet were already on a crooked path. He knew that the Ring was not lost for 
+ever, but wished us to think so; for he began to lust for it for himself. 
+
+Yet oft in lies truth is hidden: in the Sea it would be safe.' 
+
+'Not safe for ever,' said Gandalf. 'There are many things in the deep 
+waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take 
+thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age 
+of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not 
+hope to make one.’ 
+
+'And that we shall not find on the roads to the Sea,' said Galdor. 'If 
+the return to Iarwain be thought too dangerous, then flight to the S,a is 
+now fraught with gravest peril. My heart tells me that Sauron will expect us 
+to take the western way, when he learns what has befallen. He soon will. The 
+Nine have been unhorsed indeed but that is but a respite, ere they find new 
+steeds and swifter. Only the waning might of Gondor stands now between him 
+and a march in power along the coasts into the North; and if he comes, 
+assailing the White Towers and the Havens, hereafter the Elves may have no 
+escape from the lengthening shadows of Middle-earth.' 
+
+'Long yet will that march be delayed,' said Boromir. 'Gondor wanes, you 
+say. But Gondor stands, and even the end of its strength is still very 
+strong.' 
+
+'And yet its vigilance can no longer keep back the Nine,' said Galdor. 
+
+'And other roads he may find that Gondor does not guard.' 
+
+'Then,' said Erestor, 'there are but two courses, as Glorfindel already 
+has declared: to hide the Ring for ever; or to unmake it. But both are 
+beyond our power. Who will read this riddle for us?’ 
+
+'None here can do so,' said Elrond gravely. 'At least none can foretell 
+what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now 
+clear which is the road that we must take. The westward road seems easiest. 
+Therefore it must be shunned. It will be watched. Too often the Elves have 
+fled that way. Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. 
+There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril-to Mordor. We must 
+send the Ring to the Fire.’ 
+
+Silence fell again. Frodo, even in that fair house, looking out upon a 
+sunlit valley filled with the noise of clear waters, felt a dead darkness in 
+his heart. Boromir stirred, and Frodo looked at him. He was fingering his 
+great horn and frowning. At length he spoke. 
+
+’I do not understand all this,' he said. 'Saruman is a traitor, but did 
+
+
+
+
+he not have a glimpse of wisdom? Why do you speak ever of hiding and 
+destroying? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our 
+hands to serve us in the very hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of 
+the Free may surely defeat the Enemy. That is what he most fears, I deem. 
+
+The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they 
+may be beaten down. Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon. Let the 
+Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth 
+to victory!' 
+
+’Alas, no,’ said Elrond. ’We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now 
+know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is 
+altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at 
+will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for 
+them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the 
+heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow 
+the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on 
+Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another 
+reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it 
+will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. 
+Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take 
+the Ring to wield it.' 
+
+'Nor I,' said Gandalf. 
+
+Boromir looked at them doubtfully, but he bowed his head. 'So be it,’ 
+he said. 'Then in Gondor we must trust to such weapons as we have. And at 
+the least, while the Wise ones guard this Ring, we will fight on. Mayhap the 
+Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide — if the hand that wields it 
+has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men.’ 
+
+'Who can tell?’ said Aragorn. 'But we will put it to the test one day.’ 
+
+'May the day not be too long delayed,' said Boromir. 'For though I do 
+not ask for aid, we need it. It would comfort us to know that others fought 
+also with all the means that they have.' 
+
+'Then be comforted,’ said Elrond. 'For there are other powers and 
+realms that you know not, and they are hidden from you. Anduin the Great 
+flows past many shores, ere it comes to Argonath and the Gates of Gondor.' 
+
+'Still it might be well for all,' said Gluin the Dwarf, 'if all these 
+strengths were joined, and the powers of each were used in league. Other 
+rings there may be, less treacherous, that might be used in our need. The 
+Seven are lost to us — if Balin has not found the ring of Thrur which was 
+
+
+
+
+the last; naught has been heard of it since Thrur perished in Moria. Indeed 
+I may now reveal that it was partly in hope to find that ring that Balin 
+went away.’ 
+
+'Balin will find no ring in Moria,' said Gandalf. 'Thrur gave it to 
+Thrbin his son, but not Thrbin to Thorin. It was taken with torment from 
+Thrbin in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. I came too late.' 
+
+'Ah, alas!' cried Gluin. 'When will the day come of our revenge? But 
+still there are the Three. What of the Three Rings of the Elves? Very mighty 
+Rings, it is said. Do not the Elf-lords keep them? Yet they too were made by 
+the Dark Lord long ago. Are they idle? I see Elf-lords here. Will they not 
+say?' 
+
+The Elves returned no answer. 'Did you not hear me, Gluin?’ said 
+Elrond. 'The Three were not made by Sauron, nor did he ever touch them. But 
+of them it is not permitted to speak. So much only in this' hour of doubt I 
+may now say. They are not idle. But they were not made as weapons of war or 
+conquest: that is not their power. Those who made them did not desire 
+strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and 
+healing, to preserve all things unstained. These things the Elves of 
+Middle-earth have in some measure gained, though with sorrow. But all that 
+has been wrought by those who wield the Three will turn to their undoing, 
+and their minds and hearts will become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the 
+One. It would be better if the Three had never been. That is his purpose.' 
+
+'But what then would happen, if the Ruling Ring were destroyed as you 
+counsel?’ asked Gluin. 
+
+'We know not for certain,' answered Elrond sadly. 'Some hope that the 
+Three Rings, which Sauron has never touched, would then become free, and 
+their rulers might heal the hurts of the world that he has wrought. But 
+maybe when the One has gone, the Three will fail, and many fair things will 
+fade and be forgotten. That is my belief.' 
+
+'Yet all the Elves are willing to endure this chance,' said Glorfindel 
+'if by it the power of Sauron may be broken, and the fear of his dominion be 
+taken away for ever.' 
+
+'Thus we return once more to the destroying of the Ring,' said Erestor, 
+
+'and yet we come no nearer. What strength have we for the finding of the 
+Fire in which it was made? That is the path of despair. Of folly I would 
+say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me.' 
+
+'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is 
+
+
+
+
+only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to 
+recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as 
+folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our 
+cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs 
+all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure 
+that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into 
+his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having 
+the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of 
+reckoning.' 
+
+'At least for a while,' said Elrond. 'The road must be trod, but it 
+will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon 
+it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. 
+Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small 
+hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.' 
+
+'Very well, very well, Master Elrond!' said Bilbo suddenly. 'Say no 
+more! It is plain enough what you are pointing at. Bilbo the silly hobbit 
+started this affair, and Bilbo had better finish it, or himself. I was very 
+comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am 
+just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: and he lived 
+happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and 
+none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: 
+it does not look like coming true; and anyway there will evidently have to 
+be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful 
+nuisance. When ought I to start? 
+
+' Boromir looked in surprise at Bilbo, but the laughter died on his 
+lips when he saw that all the others regarded the old hobbit with grave 
+respect. Only Gluin smiled, but his smile came from old memories. 
+
+'Of course, my dear Bilbo,’ said Gandalf. 'If you had really started 
+this affair, you might be expected to finish it. But you know well enough 
+now that starting is too great a claim for any, and that only a small part 
+is played in great deeds by any hero. You need not bow! Though the word was 
+meant, and we do not doubt that under jest you are making a valiant offer. 
+
+But one beyond your strength, Bilbo. You cannot take this thing back. It has 
+passed on. If you need my advice any longer, I should say that your part is 
+ended, unless as a recorder. Finish your book, and leave the ending 
+unaltered! There is still hope for it. But get ready to write a sequel, when 
+they come back.' 
+
+
+
+
+Bilbo laughed. 'I have never known you give me pleasant advice before.' 
+he said. 'As all your unpleasant advice has been good, I wonder if this 
+advice is not bad. Still, I don't suppose I have the strength or luck left 
+to deal with the Ring. It has grown, and I have not. But tell me: what do 
+you mean by they? 
+
+'The messengers who are sent with the Ring.’ 
+
+'Exactly! And who are they to be? That seems to me what this Council 
+has to decide, and all that it has to decide. Elves may thrive on speech 
+alone, and Dwarves endure great weariness; but I am only an old hobbit, and 
+I miss my meal at noon. Can't you think of some names now? Or put it off 
+till after dinner?' 
+
+No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced 
+at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with 
+downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he 
+was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and 
+vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to 
+rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. 
+
+At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if 
+some other will was using his small voice. 
+
+'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.' 
+
+Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart 
+pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. 'If I understand aright all 
+that I have heard,' he said, 'I think that this task is appointed for you, 
+
+Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of 
+the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers 
+and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, 
+if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has 
+struck? 
+
+'But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. 
+
+I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your 
+choice is right; and though all the mighty elf-friends of old, Hador, and 
+H®rin, and T®rin, and Beren himself were assembled together your seat 
+should 
+
+be among them.' 
+
+'But you won't send him off alone surely, Master?' cried Sam, unable to 
+contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner where he had been 
+quietly sitting on the floor. 
+
+
+
+
+'No indeed!' said Elrond, turning towards him with a smile. 'You at 
+least shall go with him. It is hardly possible to separate you from him, 
+even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not.' 
+
+Sam sat down, blushing and muttering. 'A nice pickle we have landed 
+ourselves in, Mr. Frodo!’ he said, shaking his head. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3 . The Ring Goes South 
+
+
+
+Later that day the hobbits held a meeting of their own in Bilbo's room. 
+Merry and Pippin were indignant when they heard that Sam had crept into the 
+Council, and had been chosen as Frodo's companion. 
+
+'It's most unfair,' said Pippin. 'Instead of throwing him out, and 
+clapping him in chains, Elrond goes and rewards him for his cheek!' 
+
+'Rewards!' said Frodo. 'I can't imagine a more severe punishment. You 
+are not thinking what you are saying: condemned to go on this hopeless 
+journey, a reward? Yesterday I dreamed that my task was done, and I could 
+rest here, a long while, perhaps for good.' 
+
+'I don't wonder,' said Merry, 'and I wish you could. But we are envying 
+Sam, not you. If you have to go, then it will be a punishment for any of us 
+to be left behind, even in Rivendell. We have come a long way with you and 
+been through some stiff times. We want to go on.' 
+
+'That's what I meant,' said Pippin. 'We hobbits ought to stick 
+together, and we will. I shall go, unless they chain me up. There must be 
+someone with intelligence in the party.' 
+
+'Then you certainly will not be chosen, Peregrin Took!' said Gandalf, 
+looking in through the window, which was near the ground. 'But you are all 
+worrying yourselves unnecessarily. Nothing is decided yet.' 
+
+'Nothing decided!’ cried Pippin. ’Then what were you all doing? You 
+were shut up for hours.' 
+
+"Talking,' said Bilbo. 'There was a deal of talk, and everyone had an 
+eye-opener. Even old Gandalf. I think Legolas's bit of news about Gollum 
+caught even him on the hop, though he passed it off.' 
+
+'You were wrong,' said Gandalf. 'You were inattentive. I had already 
+heard of it from Gwaihir. If you want to know, the only real eye-openers, as 
+you put it, were you and Frodo; and I was the only one that was not 
+surprised.' 
+
+'Well, anyway,' said Bilbo, 'nothing was decided beyond choosing poor 
+Frodo and Sam. I was afraid all the time that it might come to that, if I 
+was let off. But if you ask me, Elrond will send out a fair number, when the 
+reports come in. Have they started yet, Gandalf?' 
+
+'Yes,' said the wizard. 'Some of the scouts have been sent out already. 
+
+
+
+
+More will go tomorrow. Elrond is sending Elves, and they will get in touch 
+with the Rangers, and maybe with Thranduil's folk in Mirkwood. And 
+Aragorn 
+
+has gone with Elrond's sons. We shall have to scour the lands all round for 
+many long leagues before any move is made. So cheer up, Frodo! You will 
+probably make quite along stay here.' 
+
+'Ah!' said Sam gloomily. 'We'll just wait long enough for winter to 
+come.' 
+
+'That can't be helped,' said Bilbo. 'It's your fault partly, Frodo my 
+lad: insisting on waiting for my birthday. A funny way of honouring it, I 
+can't help thinking. Not the day I should have chosen for letting the S.-B.s 
+into Bag End. But there it is: you can't wait now fill spring; and you can't 
+go till the reports come back. 
+
+When winter first begins to bite 
+and stones crack in the frosty night, 
+when pools are black and trees are bare, 
+
+'tis evil in the Wild to fare. 
+
+But that I am afraid will be just your luck.' 
+
+'I am afraid it will,' said Gandalf. 'We can't start until we have 
+found out about the Riders.' 
+
+T thought they were all destroyed in the flood,' said Merry. 
+
+'You cannot destroy Ringwraiths like that,' said Gandalf. 'The power of 
+their master is in them, and they stand or fall by him. We hope that they 
+were all unhorsed and unmasked, and so made for a while less dangerous; but 
+we must find out for certain. In the meantime you should try and forget your 
+troubles, Frodo. I do not know if I can do anything to help you; but I will 
+whisper this in your ears. Someone said that intelligence would be needed in 
+the party. He was right. I think I shall come with you.' 
+
+So great was Frodo's delight at this announcement that Gandalf left the 
+window-sill, where he had been sitting, and took off his hat and bowed. 'I 
+only said I think I shall come. Do not count on anything yet. In this matter 
+Elrond will have much to say, and your friend the Strider. Which reminds me, 
+I want to see Elrond. I must be off.' 
+
+'How long do you think I shall have here?’ said Frodo to Bilbo when 
+Gandalf had gone. 
+
+'Oh, I don't know. I can't count days in Rivendell,' said Bilbo. 'But 
+quite long, I should think. We can have many a good talk. What about helping 
+
+
+
+
+me with my book, and making a start on the next? Have you thought of an 
+ending?' 
+
+'Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Oh, that won't do!' said Bilbo. 'Books ought to have good endings. How 
+would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever 
+after?' 
+
+'It will do well, if it ever comes to that,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Ah!' said Sam. 'And where will they live? That's what I often wonder.' 
+
+For a while the hobbits continued to talk and think of the past journey 
+and of the perils that lay ahead; but such was the virtue of the land of 
+Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The 
+future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over 
+the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with 
+each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word 
+and song. 
+
+So the days slipped away, as each morning dawned bright and fair, and 
+each evening followed cool and clear. But autumn was waning fast; slowly the 
+golden light faded to pale silver, and the lingering leaves fell from the 
+naked trees. A wind began to blow chill from the Misty Mountains to the 
+east. The Hunter's Moon waxed round in the night sky, and put to flight all 
+the lesser stars. But low in the South one star shone red. Every night, as 
+the Moon waned again, it shone brighter and brighter. Frodo could see it 
+from his window, deep in the heavens burning like a watchful eye that glared 
+above the trees on the brink of the valley. 
+
+The hobbits had been nearly two months in the House of Elrond, and 
+November had gone by with the last shreds of autumn, and December was 
+passing, when the scouts began to return. Some had gone north beyond the 
+springs of the Hoarwell into the Ettenmoors; and others had gone west, and 
+with the help of Aragorn and the Rangers had searched the lands far down the 
+Greyflood, as far as Tharbad, where the old North Road crossed the river by 
+a ruined town. Many had gone east and south; and some of these had crossed 
+the Mountains and entered Mirkwood, while others had climbed the pass at the 
+source of the Gladden River, and had come down into Wilderland and over the 
+Gladden Fields and so at length had reached the old home of Radagast at 
+Rhosgobel. Radagast was not there; and they had returned over the high pass 
+that was called the Dimrill Stair. The sons of Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir, 
+were the last to return; they had made a great journey, passing down the 
+
+
+
+
+Silverlode into a strange country, but of their errand they would not speak 
+to any save to Elrond. 
+
+In no region had the messengers discovered any signs or tidings of the 
+Riders or other servants of the Enemy. Even from the Eagles of the Misty 
+Mountains they had learned no fresh news. Nothing had been seen or heard of 
+Gollum; but the wild wolves were still gathering, and were hunting again far 
+up the Great River. Three of the black horses had been found at once drowned 
+in the flooded Ford. On the rocks of the rapids below it searchers 
+discovered the bodies of five more, and also a long black cloak, slashed and 
+tattered. Of the Black Riders no other trace was to be seen, and nowhere was 
+their presence to be felt. It seemed that they had vanished from the North. 
+
+’Eight out of the Nine are accounted for at least,' said Gandalf. 'It 
+is rash to be too sure, yet I think that we may hope now that the 
+Ringwraiths were scattered, and have been obliged to return as best they 
+could to their Master in Mordor, empty and shapeless. 
+
+Tf that is so, it will be some time before they can begin the hunt 
+again. Of course the Enemy has other servants, but they will have to journey 
+all the way to the borders of Rivendell before they can pick up our trail. 
+
+And if we are careful that will be hard to find. But we must delay no 
+longer.' 
+
+Elrond summoned the hobbits to him. He looked gravely at Frodo. 'The 
+time has come,' he said. 'If the Ring is to set out, it must go soon. But 
+those who go with it must not count on their errand being aided by war or 
+force. They must pass into the domain of the Enemy far from aid. Do you 
+still hold to your word, Frodo, that you will be the Ring-bearer?' 
+
+'I do,' said Frodo. 'I will go with Sam.' 
+
+'Then I cannot help you much, not even with counsel,' said Elrond. 'I 
+can foresee very little of your road; and how your task is to be achieved I 
+do not know. The Shadow has crept now to the feet of the Mountains, and 
+draws nigh even to the borders of Greyflood; and under the Shadow all is 
+dark to me. You will meet many foes, some open, and some disguised; and 
+you 
+
+may find friends upon your way when you least look for it. I will send out 
+messages, such as I can contrive, to those whom I know in the wide world; 
+but so perilous are the lands now become that some may well miscarry, or 
+come no quicker than you yourself. 
+
+'And I will choose you companions to go with you, as far as they will 
+
+
+
+
+or fortune allows. The number must be few, since your hope is in speed and 
+secrecy. Had I a host of Elves in armour of the Elder Days, it would avail 
+little, save to arouse the power of Mordor. 
+
+'The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be 
+set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful 
+servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the 
+end of his labours. 
+
+'For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the 
+World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli 
+son of Gluin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes 
+of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For men you shall have Aragorn son of 
+Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.' 
+
+'Strider!' said Frodo. 
+
+’Yes,' he said with a smile. 'I ask leave once again to be your 
+companion, Frodo.' 
+
+'I would have begged you to come,’ said Frodo, 'only I thought you were 
+going to Minas Tirith with Boromir.' 
+
+'I am,' said Aragorn. 'And the Sword-that-was-Broken shall be reforged 
+ere I set out to war. But your road and our road lie together for many 
+hundreds of miles. Therefore Boromir will also be in the Company. He is a 
+valiant man.’ 
+
+’There remain two more to be found,' said Elrond. "These I will 
+consider. Of my household I may find some that it seems good to me to send.' 
+
+'But that will leave no place for us!' cried Pippin in dismay. 'We 
+don't want to be left behind. We want to go with Frodo.' 
+
+'That is because you do not understand and cannot imagine what lies 
+ahead,' said Elrond. 
+
+'Neither does Frodo,' said Gandalf, unexpectedly supporting Pippin. 
+
+'Nor do any of us see clearly. It is true that if these hobbits understood 
+the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or 
+wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in 
+this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship than to 
+great wisdom. Even if you chose for us an elf-lord, such as Glorfindel, he 
+could not storm the Dark Tower, nor open the road to the Fire by the power 
+that is in him.' 
+
+'You speak gravely,' said Elrond, 'but I am in doubt. The Shire, I 
+forebode, is not free now from peril; and these two I had thought to send 
+
+
+
+
+back there as messengers, to do what they could, according to the fashion of 
+their country, to warn the people of their danger. In any case, I judge that 
+the younger of these two, Peregrin Took, should remain. My heart is against 
+his going.' 
+
+'Then, Master Elrond, you will have to lock me in prison, or send me 
+home tied in a sack,' said Pippin. 'For otherwise I shall follow the 
+Company.’ 
+
+'Let it be so then. You shall go,’ said Elrond, and he sighed. 'Now the 
+tale of Nine is filled. In seven days the Company must depart.' 
+
+The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade 
+was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and the 
+rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of 
+Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that 
+sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, 
+and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen. And 
+Aragorn gave it a new name and called it And®ril, Flame of the West. 
+
+Aragorn and Gandalf walked together or sat speaking of their road and 
+the perils they would meet; and they pondered the storied and figured maps 
+and books of lore that were in the house of Elrond. Sometimes Frodo was with 
+them; but he was content to lean on their guidance, and he spent as much 
+time as he could with Bilbo. 
+
+In those last days the hobbits sat together in the evening in the Hall 
+of Fire, and there among many tales they heard told in full the lay of Beren 
+and L®thien and the winning of the Great Jewel; but in the day, while Merry 
+and Pippin were out and about, Frodo and Sam were to be found with Bilbo in 
+his own small room. Then Bilbo would read passages from his book (which 
+still seemed very incomplete), or scraps of his verses, or would take notes 
+of Frodo's adventures. 
+
+On the morning of the last day Frodo was alone with Bilbo, and the old 
+hobbit pulled out from under his bed a wooden box. He lifted the lid and 
+fumbled inside. 
+
+'Here is your sword,' he said. 'But it was broken, you know. I took it 
+to keep it safe but I've forgotten to ask if the smiths could mend it. No 
+time now.. So I thought, perhaps, you would care to have this, don't you 
+know?' 
+
+He took from the box a small sword in an old shabby leathern scabbard. 
+Then he drew it, and its polished and well-tended blade glittered suddenly, 
+
+
+
+
+cold and bright. This is Sting,' he said, and thrust it with little effort 
+deep into a wooden beam. 'Take it, if you like. I shan’t want it again, I 
+expect.' 
+
+Frodo accepted it gratefully. 
+
+'Also there is this!' said Bilbo, bringing out a parcel which seemed to 
+be rather heavy for its size. He unwound several folds of old cloth, and 
+held up a small shirt of mail. It was close-woven of many rings, as supple 
+almost as linen, cold as ice, and harder than steel. It shone like moonlit 
+silver, and was studded with white gems. With it was a belt of pearl and 
+crystal. 
+
+'It's a pretty thing, isn't it?' said Bilbo, moving it in the light. 
+
+'And useful. It is my dwarf-mail that Thorin gave me. I got it back from 
+Michel Delving before I started, and packed it with my luggage: I brought 
+all the mementoes of my Journey away with me, except the Ring. But I did not 
+expect to use this, and I don't need it now, except to look at sometimes. 
+
+You hardly feel any weight when you put it on.' 
+
+'I should look — well, I don't think I should look right in it,' said 
+Frodo. 
+
+'Just what I said myself,’ said Bilbo. 'But never mind about looks. You 
+can wear it under your outer clothes. Come on! You must share this secret 
+with me. Don't tell anybody else! But I should feel happier if I knew you 
+were wearing it. I have a fancy it would turn even the knives of the Black 
+Riders,' he ended in a low voice. 
+
+'Very well, I will take it,' said Frodo. Bilbo put it on him, and 
+fastened Sting upon the glittering belt; and then Frodo put over the top his 
+old weather-stained breeches, tunic, and jacket. 
+
+'Just a plain hobbit you look,' said Bilbo. 'But there is more about 
+you now than appears on the surface. Good luck to you!' He turned away and 
+looked out of the window, trying to hum a tune. 
+
+'I cannot thank you as I should, Bilbo, for this, and for all our past 
+kindnesses,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Don't try!' said the old hobbit, turning round and slapping him on the 
+back. 'Ow!' he cried. 'You are too hard now to slap! But there you are: 
+Hobbits must stick together, and especially Bagginses. All I ask in return 
+is: take as much care of yourself as you can. and bring back all the news 
+you can, and any old songs and tales you can come by. I’ll do my best to 
+finish my book before you return. I should like to write the second book, if 
+
+
+
+
+I am spared.' He broke off and turned to the window again, singing softly. 
+
+
+
+I sit beside the fire and think 
+of all that I have seen, 
+of meadow-flowers and butterflies 
+in summers that have been; 
+
+Of yellow leaves and gossamer 
+in autumns that there were, 
+with morning mist and silver sun 
+and wind upon my hair. 
+
+I sit beside the fire and think 
+of how the world will be 
+when winter comes without a spring 
+that I shall ever see. 
+
+For still there are so many things 
+that I have never seen: 
+in every wood in every spring 
+there is a different green. 
+
+I sit beside the fire and think 
+of people long ago, 
+and people who will see a world 
+that I shall never know. 
+
+But all the while I sit and think 
+of times there were before, 
+
+I listen for returning feet 
+and voices at the door. 
+
+It was a cold grey day near the end of December. The East Wind was 
+streaming through the bare branches of the trees, and seething in the dark 
+pines on the hills. Ragged clouds were hurrying overhead, dark and low. As 
+the cheerless shadows of the early evening began to fall the Company made 
+ready to set out. They were to start at dusk, for Elrond counselled them to 
+
+
+
+
+journey under cover of night as often as they could, until they were far 
+from Ri vendell. 
+
+'You should fear the many eyes of the servants of Sauron,' he said. 'I 
+do not doubt that news of the discomfiture of the Riders has already reached 
+him, and he will be filled with wrath. Soon now his spies on foot and wing 
+will be abroad in the northern lands. Even of the sky above you must beware 
+as you go on your way.' 
+
+The Company took little gear of war, for their hope was in secrecy not 
+in battle. Aragorn had And®ril but no other weapon, and he went forth clad 
+only in rusty green and brown, as a Ranger of the wilderness. Boromir had a 
+long sword, in fashion like And®ril but of less lineage and he bore also a 
+shield and his war -horn. 
+
+'Loud and clear it sounds in the valleys of the hills,' he said, 'and 
+then let all the foes of Gondor flee!’ Putting it to his lips he blew a 
+blast, and the echoes leapt from rock to rock, and all that heard that voice 
+in Rivendell sprang to their feet. 
+
+Slow should you be to wind that horn again, Boromir, said Elrond. 
+'until you stand once more on the borders of your land, and dire need is on 
+you.' 
+
+'Maybe,' said Boromir. 'But always I have let my horn cry at setting 
+forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth 
+as a thief in the night.' 
+
+Gimli the dwarf alone wore openly a short shirt of steel-rings, for 
+dwarves make light of burdens; and in his belt was a broad-bladed axe. 
+Legolas had a bow and a quiver, and at his belt a long white knife. The 
+younger hobbits wore the swords that they had taken from the barrow; but 
+Frodo took only Sting; and his mail-coat, as Bilbo wished, remained hidden. 
+Gandalf bore his staff, but girt at his side was the elven-sword Glamdring, 
+the mate of Orcrist that lay now upon the breast of Thorin under the Lonely 
+Mountain. 
+
+All were well furnished by Elrond with thick warm clothes, and they had 
+jackets and cloaks lined with fur. Spare food and clothes and blankets and 
+other needs were laden on a pony, none other than the poor beast that they 
+had brought from Bree. 
+
+?he stay in Rivendell had worked a great wonder of change on him: he 
+was glossy and seemed to have the vigour of youth. It was Sam who had 
+insisted on choosing him, declaring that Bill (as he called him) would pine, 
+
+
+
+
+if he did not come. 
+
+'That animal can nearly talk,' he said, 'and would talk, if he stayed 
+here much longer. He gave me a look as plain as Mr. Pippin could speak it: 
+if you don't let me go with you, Sam, I'll follow on my own.' So Bill was 
+going as the beast of burden, yet he was the only member of the Company that 
+did not seem depressed. 
+
+Their farewells had been said in the great hall by the fire, and they 
+were only waiting now for Gandalf, who had not yet come out of the house. A 
+gleam of firelight came from the open doors, and soft lights were glowing in 
+many windows. Bilbo huddled in a cloak stood silent on the doorstep beside 
+Frodo. Aragorn sat with his head bowed to his knees; only Elrond knew fully 
+what this hour meant to him. The others could be seen as grey shapes in the 
+darkness. 
+
+Sam was standing by the pony, sucking his teeth, and staring moodily 
+into the gloom where the river roared stonily below; his desire for 
+adventure was at its lowest ebb. 
+
+'Bill, my lad,’ he said, 'you oughtn't to have took up with us. You 
+could have stayed here and et the best hay till the new grass comes.' Bill 
+swished his tail and said nothing. 
+
+Sam eased the pack on his shoulders, and went over anxiously in his 
+mind all the things that he had stowed in it, wondering if he had forgotten 
+anything: his chief treasure, his cooking gear; and the little box of salt 
+that he always carried and refilled when he could; a good supply of 
+pipe- weed (but not near enough, I'll warrant); flint and tinder; woollen 
+hose: linen; various small belongings of his master's that Frodo had 
+forgotten and Sam had stowed to bring them out in triumph when they were 
+called for. He went through them all. 
+
+'Rope!' he muttered. 'No rope! And only last night you said to 
+yourself: "Sam, what about a bit of rope? You'll want it, if you haven't got 
+it:" Well, I'll want it. I can't get it now.' 
+
+At that moment Elrond came out with Gandalf, and he called the Company 
+to him. 'This is my last word,' he said in a low voice. 'The Ring-bearer is 
+setting out on the Quest of Mount Doom. On him alone is any charge laid: 
+neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy 
+nor indeed to let any handle it, save members of the Company and the 
+Council, and only then in gravest need. The others go with him as free 
+companions, to help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back, or turn 
+
+
+
+
+aside into other paths, as chance allows. The further you go, the less easy 
+will it be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further 
+than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you 
+cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road.' 
+
+'Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,' said Gimli. 
+
+'Maybe,' said Elrond, 'but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has 
+not seen the nightfall.' 
+
+'Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,' said Gimli. 
+
+'Or break it,' said Elrond. 'Look not too far ahead! But go now with 
+good hearts ! Farewell, and may the blessing of Elves and Men and all Free 
+Folk go with you. May the stars shine upon your faces!’ 
+
+'Good . . . good luck!' cried Bilbo, stuttering with the cold. 'I don't 
+suppose you will be able to keep a diary, Frodo my lad, but I shall expect a 
+full account when you get back. And don't be too long! Farewell!' 
+
+Many others of Elrond's household stood in the shadows and watched them 
+go, bidding them farewell with soft voices. There was no laughter, and no 
+song or music. At last they turned away and faded silently into the dusk. 
+
+They crossed the bridge and wound slowly up the long steep paths that 
+led out of the cloven vale of Rivendell; and they came at length to the high 
+moor where the wind hissed through the heather. Then with one glance at the 
+Last Flomely Flouse twinkling below them they strode away far into the night. 
+
+At the Ford of Bruinen they left the Road and turning southwards went 
+on by narrow paths among the folded lands. Their purpose was to hold this 
+course west of the Mountains for many miles and days. The country was 
+much 
+
+rougher and more barren than in the green vale of the Great River in 
+Wilderland on the other side of the range, and their going would be slow; 
+but they hoped in this way to escape the notice of unfriendly eyes. The 
+spies of Sauron had hitherto seldom been seen in this empty country, and the 
+paths were little known except to the people of Rivendell. 
+
+Gandalf walked in front, and with him went Aragorn, who knew this land 
+even in the dark. The others were in file behind, and Legolas whose eyes 
+were keen was the rearguard. The first part of their journey was hard and 
+dreary, and Frodo remembered little of it, save the wind. For many sunless 
+days an icy blast came from the Mountains in the east, and no garment seemed 
+able to keep out its searching fingers. Though the Company was well clad, 
+they seldom felt warm, either moving or at rest. They slept uneasily during 
+
+
+
+
+the middle of the day, in some hollow of the land, or hidden under the 
+tangled thorn-bushes that grew in thickets in many places. In the late 
+afternoon they were roused by the watch, and took their chief meal: cold and 
+cheerless as a rule, for they could seldom risk the lighting of a fire. In 
+the evening they went on again, always as nearly southward as they could 
+find a way. 
+
+At first it seemed to the hobbits that although they walked and 
+stumbled until they were weary, they were creeping forward like snails, and 
+getting nowhere. Each day the land looked much the same as it had the day 
+before. Yet steadily the mountains were drawing nearer. South of Rivendell 
+they rose ever higher, and bent westwards; and about the feet of the main 
+range there was tumbled an ever wider land of bleak hills, and deep valleys 
+filled with turbulent waters. Paths were few and winding, and led them often 
+only to the edge of some sheer fall, or down into treacherous swamps. 
+
+They had been a fortnight on the way when the weather changed. The wind 
+suddenly fell and then veered round to the south. The swift-flowing clouds 
+lifted and melted away, and the sun came out, pale and bright. There came a 
+cold clear dawn at the end of a long stumbling night-march. The travellers 
+reached a low ridge crowned with ancient holly -trees whose grey-green trunks 
+seemed to have been built out of the very stone of the hills. Their dark 
+leaves shone and their berries glowed red in the light of the rising sun. 
+
+Away in the south Frodo could see the dim shapes of lofty mountains 
+that seemed now to stand across the path that the Company was taking. At the 
+left of this high range rose three peaks; the tallest and nearest stood up 
+like a tooth tipped with snow; its great, bare, northern precipice was still 
+largely in the shadow, but where the sunlight slanted upon it, it glowed 
+red. 
+
+Gandalf stood at Frodo’s side and looked out under his hand. 'We have 
+done well,’ he said. 'We have reached the borders of the country that Men 
+call Hollin; many Elves lived here in happier days, when Eregion was its 
+name. Five-and-forty leagues as the crow flies we have come, though many 
+long miles further our feet have walked. The land and the weather will be 
+milder now, but perhaps all the more dangerous.’ 
+
+'Dangerous or not, a real sunrise is mighty welcome,’ said Frodo, 
+throwing back his hood and letting the morning light fall on his face. 
+
+’But the mountains are ahead of us,’ said Pippin. 'We must have turned 
+eastwards in the night.’ 
+
+
+
+
+'No,' said Gandalf. 'But you see further ahead in the clear light. 
+
+Beyond those peaks the range bends round south-west. There are many maps 
+in 
+
+Elrond's house, but I suppose you never thought to look at them?' 
+
+'Yes I did, sometimes,' said Pippin, 'but I don't remember them. Frodo 
+has a better head for that sort of thing.' 
+
+'I need no map,' said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was 
+gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. 'There is the 
+land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those 
+mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and 
+tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathyr. 
+
+'Only once before have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know 
+them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dym, the Dwarrowdelf, that 
+is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue. Yonder stands 
+Barazinbar, the Redhorn, cruel Caradhras; and beyond him are Silvertine and 
+Cloudyhead: Celebdil the White, and Fanuidhol the Grey, that we call 
+Zirak-zigil and Bundushathyr. 
+
+'There the Misty Mountains divide, and between their arms lies the 
+deep-shadowed valley which we cannot forget: Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale, 
+which the Elves call Nanduhirion.' 
+
+'It is for the Dimrill Dale that we are making,' said Gandalf. 'If we 
+climb the pass that is called the Redhorn Gate, under the far side of 
+Caradhras, we shall come down by the Dimrill Stair into the deep vale of the 
+Dwarves. There lies the Mirrormere, and there the River Silverlode rises in 
+its icy springs.’ 
+
+'Dark is the water of Kheled-zvram,' said Gimli, 'and cold are the 
+springs of Kibil-nvla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them 
+soon.' 
+
+'May you have joy of the sight, my good dwarf f said Gandalf. 'But 
+whatever you may do, we at least cannot stay in that valley. We must go down 
+the Silverlode into the secret woods, and so to the Great River, and then 
+
+f 
+
+He paused. 
+
+'Yes, and where then?' asked Merry. 
+
+'To the end of the journey — in the end,' said Gandalf. 'We cannot 
+look too far ahead. Let us be glad that the first stage is safely over. I 
+think we will rest here, not only today but tonight as well. There is a 
+
+
+
+
+wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly 
+forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.’ 
+
+That is true,' said Legolas. 'But the Elves of this land were of a 
+race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not 
+now remember them: Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, 
+fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are 
+gone. They sought the Elavens long ago.' 
+
+That morning they lit a fire in a deep hollow shrouded by great bushes 
+of holly, and their supper -breakfast was merrier than it had been since they 
+set out. They did not hurry to bed afterwards, for they expected to have all 
+the night to sleep in, and they did not mean to go on again until the 
+evening of the next day. Only Aragorn was silent and restless. After a while 
+he left the Company and wandered on to the ridge; there he stood in the 
+shadow of a tree, looking out southwards and westwards, with his head posed 
+as if he was listening. Then he returned to the brink of the dell and looked 
+down at the others laughing and talking. 
+
+'What is the matter, Strider?’ Merry called up. ’What are you looking 
+for? Do you miss the East Wind?’ 
+
+’No indeed,’ he answered. 'But I miss something. I have been in the 
+country of Hollin in many seasons. No folk dwell here now, but many other 
+creatures live here at all times, especially birds. Yet now all things but 
+you are silent. I can feel it. There is no sound for miles about us, and 
+your voices seem to make the ground echo. I do not understand it.’ 
+
+Gandalf looked up with sudden interest. 'But what do you guess is the 
+reason?’ he asked. 'Is there more in it than surprise at seeing four 
+hobbits, not to mention the rest of us, where people are so seldom seen or 
+heard?’ 
+
+'I hope that is it,’ answered Aragorn. 'But I have a sense of 
+watchfulness, and of fear, that I have never had here before.’ 
+
+"Then we must be more careful,’ said Gandalf. ’If you bring a Ranger 
+with you, it is well to pay attention to him, especially if the Ranger is 
+Aragorn. We must stop talking aloud, rest quietly, and set the watch.’ 
+
+It was Sam’s turn that day to take the first watch, but Aragorn joined 
+him. The others fell asleep. Then the silence grew until even Sam felt it. 
+
+The breathing of the sleepers could be plainly heard. The swish of the 
+pony’s tail and the occasional movements of his feet became loud noises. Sam 
+could hear his own joints creaking, if he stirred. Dead silence was around 
+
+
+
+
+him, and over all hung a clear blue sky, as the Sun rode up from the East. 
+Away in the South a dark patch appeared, and grew, and drove north like 
+flying smoke in the wind. 
+
+'What's that, Strider? It don’t look like a cloud,' said Sam in a 
+whisper to Aragorn. He made no answer, he was gazing intently at the sky; 
+but before long Sam could see for himself what was approaching. Flocks of 
+birds, flying at great speed, were wheeling and circling, and traversing all 
+the land as if they were searching for something; and they were steadily 
+drawing nearer. 
+
+'Lie flat and still!' hissed Aragorn, pulling Sam down into the shade 
+of a holly -bush; for a whole regiment of birds had broken away suddenly from 
+the main host, and came, flying low, straight towards the ridge. Sam thought 
+they were a kind of crow of large size. As they passed overhead, in so dense 
+a throng that their shadow followed them darkly over the ground below, one 
+harsh croak was heard. 
+
+Not until they had dwindled into the distance, north and west, and the 
+sky was again clear would Aragorn rise. Then he sprang up and went and 
+wakened Gandalf. 
+
+'Regiments of black crows are flying over all the land between the 
+Mountains and the Greyflood,' he said, 'and they have passed over Hollin. 
+They are not natives here; they are crebain out of Fangorn and Dunland. I do 
+not know what they are about: possibly there is some trouble away south from 
+which they are fleeing; but I think they are spying out the land. I have 
+also glimpsed many hawks flying high up in the sky. I think we ought to move 
+again this evening. Hollin is no longer wholesome for us: it is being 
+watched.' 
+
+'And in that case so is the Redhorn Gate,' said Gandalf; 'and how we 
+can get over that without being seen, I cannot imagine. But we will think of 
+that when we must. As for moving as soon as it is dark, I am afraid that you 
+are right.' 
+
+'Luckily our fire made little smoke, and had burned low before the 
+crebain came,' said Aragorn. 'It must be put out and not lit again.' 
+
+'Well if that isn't a plague and a nuisance!' said Pippin. The news: no 
+fire, and a move again by night, had been broken to him, as soon as he woke 
+in the late afternoon. 'All because of a pack of crows! I had looked forward 
+to a real good meal tonight: something hot.' 
+
+'Well, you can go on looking forward,' said Gandalf. 'There may be many 
+
+
+
+
+unexpected feasts ahead for you. For myself I should like a pipe to smoke in 
+comfort, and warmer feet. However, we are certain of one thing at any rate: 
+it will get warmer as we get south.' 
+
+'Too warm, I shouldn't wonder,' muttered Sam to Frodo. 'But I'm 
+beginning to think it's time we got a sight of that Fiery Mountain and saw 
+the end of the Road, so to speak. I thought at first that this here Redhorn, 
+or whatever its name is, might be it, till Gimli spoke his piece. A fair 
+jaw-cracker dwarf-language must be!' Maps conveyed nothing to Sam's mind, 
+and all distances in these strange lands seemed so vast that he was quite 
+out of his reckoning. 
+
+All that day the Company remained in hiding. The dark birds passed over 
+now and again; but as the westering Sun grew red they disappeared 
+southwards. At dusk the Company set out, and turning now half east they 
+steered their course towards Caradhras, which far away still glowed faintly 
+red in the last light of the vanished Sun. One by one white stars sprang 
+forth as the sky faded. 
+
+Guided by Aragorn they struck a good path. It looked to Frodo like the 
+remains of an ancient road, that had once been broad and well planned, from 
+Hollin to the mountain-pass. The Moon, now at the full, rose over the 
+mountains, and cast a pale light in which the shadows of stones were black. 
+Many of them looked to have been worked by hands, though now they lay 
+tumbled and ruinous in a bleak, barren land. 
+
+It was the cold chill hour before the first stir of dawn, and the moon 
+was low. Frodo looked up at the sky. Suddenly he saw or felt a shadow pass 
+over the high stars, as if for a moment they faded and then flashed out 
+again. He shivered. 
+
+'Did you see anything pass over?' he whispered to Gandalf, who was just 
+ahead. 
+
+'No, but I felt it, whatever it was,' he answered. 'It may be nothing, 
+only a wisp of thin cloud.' 
+
+'It was moving fast then,' muttered Aragorn, 'and not with the wind.' 
+
+Nothing further happened that night. The next morning dawned even 
+brighter than before. But the air was chill again; already the wind was 
+turning back towards the east. For two more nights they marched on, climbing 
+steadily but ever more slowly as their road wound up into the hills, and the 
+mountains towered up, nearer and nearer. On the third morning Caradhras rose 
+before them, a mighty peak, tipped with snow like silver, but with sheer 
+
+
+
+
+naked sides, dull red as if stained with blood. 
+
+There was a black look in the sky, and the sun was wan. The wind had 
+gone now round to the north-east. Gandalf snuffed the air and looked back. 
+
+'Winter deepens behind us,' he said quietly to Aragorn. 'The heights 
+away north are whiter than they were; snow is lying far down their 
+shoulders. Tonight we shall be on our way high up towards the Redhorn Gate. 
+We may well be seen by watchers on that narrow path, and waylaid by some 
+evil; but the weather may prove a more deadly enemy than any. What do you 
+think of your course now, Aragorn?' 
+
+Frodo overheard these words, and understood that Gandalf and Aragorn 
+were continuing some debate that had begun long before. He listened 
+anxiously. 
+
+'I think no good of our course from beginning to end, as you know well, 
+Gandalf,' answered Aragorn. 'And perils known and unknown will grow as we 
+go 
+
+on. But we must go on; and it is no good our delaying the passage of the 
+mountains. Further south there are no passes, till one comes to the Gap of 
+Rohan. I do not trust that way since your news of Saruman. Who knows 
+which 
+
+side now the marshals of the Horse-lords serve?’ 
+
+'Who knows indeed!' said Gandalf. 'But there is another way, and not by 
+the pass of Caradhras: the dark and secret way that we have spoken of.’ 
+
+'But let us not speak of it again! Not yet. Say nothing to the others I 
+beg, not until it is plain that there is no other way.' 
+
+'We must decide before we go further,' answered Gandalf. 
+
+'Then let us weigh the matter in our minds, while the others rest and 
+sleep,' said Aragorn. 
+
+In the late afternoon, while the others were finishing their breakfast, 
+
+Gandalf and Aragorn went aside together and stood looking at Caradhras. Its 
+sides were now dark and sullen, and its head was in grey cloud. Frodo 
+watched them, wondering which way the debate would go. When they returned 
+to 
+
+the Company Gandalf spoke, and then he knew that it had been decided to face 
+the weather and the high pass. He was relieved. He could not guess what was 
+the other dark and secret way, but the very mention of it had seemed to fill 
+Aragorn with dismay, and Frodo was glad that it had been abandoned. 
+
+'From signs that we have seen lately,’ said Gandalf, ’I fear that the 
+
+
+
+
+Redhorn Gate may be watched; and also I have doubts of the weather that is 
+coming up behind. Snow may come. We must go with all the speed that we 
+can. 
+
+Even so it will take us more than two marches before we reach the top of the 
+pass. Dark will come early this evening. We must leave as soon as you can 
+get ready.' 
+
+'I will add a word of advice, if I may,' said Boromir. 'I was born 
+under the shadow of the White Mountains and know something of journeys 
+in 
+
+the high places. We shall meet bitter cold, if no worse, before we come down 
+on the other side. It will not help us to keep so secret that we are frozen 
+to death. When we leave here, where there are still a few trees and bushes, 
+each of us should carry a faggot of wood, as large as he can bear.' 
+
+'And Bill could take a bit more, couldn't you lad?' said Sam. The pony 
+looked at him mournfully. 
+
+'Very well,' said Gandalf. 'But we must not use the wood — not unless 
+it is a choice between fire and death.' 
+
+The Company set out again with good speed at first; but soon their way 
+became steep and difficult. The twisting and climbing road had in many 
+places almost disappeared, and was blocked with many fallen stones. The 
+night grew deadly dark under great clouds. A bitter wind swirled among the 
+rocks. By midnight they had climbed to the knees of the great mountains. The 
+narrow path now wound under a sheer wall of cliffs to the left, above which 
+the grim flanks of Caradhras towered up invisible in the gloom; on the right 
+was a gulf of darkness where the land fell suddenly into a deep ravine. 
+
+Laboriously they climbed a sharp slope and halted for a moment at the 
+top. Frodo felt a soft touch on his face. He put out his arm and saw the dim 
+white flakes of snow settling on his sleeve. 
+
+They went on. But before long the snow was falling fast, filling all 
+the air, and swirling into Frodo's eyes. The dark bent shapes of Gandalf and 
+Aragorn only a pace or two ahead could hardly be seen. 
+
+'I don't like this at all,' panted Sam just behind. 'Snow's all right 
+on a fine morning, but I like to be in bed while it's falling. I wish this 
+lot would go off to Hobbiton! Folk might welcome it there.' Except on the 
+high moors of the Northfarthing a heavy fall was rare in the Shire, and was 
+regarded as a pleasant event and a chance for fun. No living hobbit (save 
+
+
+
+
+Bilbo) could remember the Fell Winter of 131 1, when the white wolves 
+invaded 
+
+the Shire over the frozen Brandywine. 
+
+Gandalf halted. Snow was thick on his hood and shoulders; it was 
+already ankle-deep about his boots. 
+
+"This is what I feared,' he said. 'What do you say now, Aragorn?' 
+
+'That I feared it too,' Aragorn answered, 'but less than other things. 
+
+I knew the risk of snow, though it seldom falls heavily so far south, save 
+high up in the mountains. But we are not high yet; we are still far down, 
+where the paths are usually open all the winter.' 
+
+'I wonder if this is a contrivance of the Enemy,' said Boromir. "They 
+say in my land that he can govern the storms in the Mountains of Shadow that 
+stand upon the borders of Mordor. He has strange powers and many allies.' 
+
+'His arm has grown long indeed,' said Gimli, 'if he can draw snow down 
+from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.' 
+
+'His arm has grown long,' said Gandalf. 
+
+While they were halted, the wind died down, and the snow slackened 
+until it almost ceased. They tramped on again. But they had not gone more 
+than a furlong when the storm returned with fresh fury. The wind whistled 
+and the snow became a blinding blizzard. Soon even Boromir found it hard to 
+keep going. The hobbits, bent nearly double, toiled along behind the taller 
+folk, but it was plain that they could not go much further, if the snow 
+continued. Frodo's feet felt like lead. Pippin was dragging behind. Even 
+Gimli, as stout as any dwarf could be, was grumbling as he trudged. 
+
+The Company halted suddenly, as if they had come to an agreement 
+without any words being spoken. They heard eerie noises in the darkness 
+round them. It may have been only a trick of the wind in the cracks and 
+gullies of the rocky wall, but the sounds were those of shrill cries, and 
+wild howls of laughter. Stones began to fall from the mountain-side, 
+whistling over their heads, or crashing on the path beside them. Every now 
+and again they heard a dull rumble, as a great boulder rolled down from 
+hidden heights above. 
+
+'We cannot go further tonight,' said Boromir. 'Let those call it the 
+wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed 
+at us.' 
+
+'I do call it the wind,' said Aragorn. 'But that does not make what you 
+say untrue. There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have 
+
+
+
+
+little love for those that go on two legs, and yet are not in league with 
+Sauron, but have purposes of their own. Some have been in this world longer 
+than he.’ 
+
+’Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name, said Gimli, 'long 
+years ago, when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands.' 
+
+'It matters little who is the enemy, if we cannot beat off his attack; 
+said Gandalf. 
+
+'But what can we do?' cried Pippin miserably. He was leaning on Merry 
+and Frodo, and he was shivering. 
+
+'Either stop where we are, or go back,' said Gandalf. ’It is no good 
+going on. Only a little higher, if I remember rightly, this path leaves the 
+cliff and runs into a wide shallow trough at the bottom of a long hard 
+slope. We should have no shelter there from snow, or stones — or anything 
+else.' 
+
+'And it is no good going back while the storm holds,' said Aragorn. 'We 
+have passed no place on the way up that offered more shelter than this 
+cliff-wall we are under now.' 
+
+'Shelter!' muttered Sam. 'If this is shelter, then one wall and no roof 
+make a house.' 
+
+The Company now gathered together as close to the cliff as they could. 
+
+It faced southwards, and near the bottom it leaned out a little, so that 
+they hoped it would give them some protection from the northerly wind and 
+from the falling stones. But eddying blasts swirled round them from every 
+side, and the snow flowed down in ever denser clouds. 
+
+They huddled together with their backs to the wall. Bill the pony stood 
+patiently but dejectedly in front of the hobbits, and screened them a 
+little; but before long the drifting snow was above his hocks, and it went 
+on mounting. If they had had no larger companions the hobbits would soon 
+have been entirely buried. 
+
+A great sleepiness came over Frodo; he felt himself sinking fast into a 
+warm and hazy dream. He thought a fire was heating his toes, and out of the 
+shadows on the other side of the hearth he heard Bilbo's voice speaking. / 
+don 't think much of your diary , he said. Snowstorms on January the twelfth: 
+there was no need to come back to report that! 
+
+But I wanted rest and sleep, Bilbo , Frodo answered with an effort, when 
+he felt himself shaken, and he came back painfully to wakefulness. Boromir 
+had lifted him off the ground out of a nest of snow. 
+
+
+
+
+'This will be the death of the halflings, Gandalf,' said Boromir. 'It 
+is useless to sit here until the snow goes over our heads. We must do 
+something to save ourselves.’ 
+
+'Give them this,’ said Gandalf, searching in his pack and drawing out a 
+leathern flask. 'Just a mouthful each — for all of us. It is very precious. 
+
+It is miruvor, the cordial of Imladris. Elrond gave it to me at our parting. 
+
+Pass it round!’ 
+
+As soon as Frodo had swallowed a little of the warm and fragrant liquor 
+he felt a new strength of heart, and the heavy drowsiness left his limbs. 
+
+The others also revived and found fresh hope and vigour. But the snow did 
+not relent. It whirled about them thicker than ever, and the wind blew 
+louder. 
+
+’What do you say to fire?’ asked Boromir suddenly. ’The choice seems 
+near now between fire and death, Gandalf. Doubtless we shall be hidden from 
+all unfriendly eyes when the snow has covered us, but that will not help 
+us.’ 
+
+’You may make a fire, if you can,’ answered Gandalf. ’If there are any 
+watchers that can endure this storm, then they can see us, fire or no.’ But 
+though they had brought wood and kindlings by the advice of Boromir, it 
+passed the skill of Elf or even Dwarf to strike a flame that would hold amid 
+the swirling wind or catch in the wet fuel. At last reluctantly Gandalf 
+himself took a hand. Picking up a faggot he held it aloft for a moment, and 
+then with a word of command, naur an edraith ammen ! he thrust the end of his 
+staff into the midst of it. At once a great spout of green and blue flame 
+sprang out, and the wood flared and sputtered. 
+
+'If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them,’ he 
+said. ’I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from 
+Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.’ 
+
+But the Company cared no longer for watchers or unfriendly eyes. Their 
+hearts were rejoiced to see the light of the fire. The wood burned merrily; 
+and though all round it the snow hissed, and pools of slush crept under 
+their feet, they warmed their hands gladly at the blaze. There they stood, 
+stooping in a circle round the little dancing and blowing flames. A red 
+light was on their tired and anxious faces; behind them the night was like a 
+black wall. 
+
+But the wood was burning fast, and the snow still fell. 
+
+The fire burned low. and the last faggot was thrown on. 
+
+
+
+
+The night is getting old,' said Aragorn. "The dawn is not far off.' 
+
+'If any dawn can pierce these clouds,' said Gimli. 
+
+Boromir stepped out of the circle and stared up into the blackness. 
+
+'The snow is growing less,' he said, 'and the wind is quieter.' 
+
+Frodo gazed wearily at the flakes still falling out of the dark to be 
+revealed white for a moment in the light of the dying fire; but for a long 
+time he could see no sign of their slackening. Then suddenly, as sleep was 
+beginning to creep over him again, he was aware that the wind had indeed 
+fallen, and the flakes were becoming larger and fewer. Very slowly a dim 
+light began to grow. At last the snow stopped altogether. 
+
+As the light grew stronger it showed a silent shrouded world. Below 
+their refuge were white humps and domes and shapeless deeps beneath which 
+the path that they had trodden was altogether lost; but the heights above 
+were hidden in great clouds still heavy with the threat of snow. 
+
+Gimli looked up and shook his head. 'Caradhras has not forgiven us.' he 
+said. 'He has more snow yet to fling at us, if we go on. The sooner we go 
+back and down the better.' 
+
+To this all agreed, but their retreat was now difficult. It might well 
+prove impossible. Only a few paces from the ashes of their fire the snow lay 
+many feet deep, higher than the heads of the hobbits; in places it had been 
+scooped and piled by the wind into great drifts against the cliff. 
+
+'If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a 
+path for you,' said Legolas. The storm had troubled him little, and he alone 
+of the Company remained still light of heart. 
+
+'If Elves could fly over mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save 
+us,’ answered Gandalf. 'But I must have something to work on. I cannot burn 
+snow.’ 
+
+'Well,' said Boromir, 'when heads are at a loss bodies must serve, as 
+we say in my country. The strongest of us must seek a way. See! Though all 
+is now snow-clad, our path, as we came up, turned about that shoulder of 
+rock down yonder. It was there that the snow first began to burden us. If we 
+could reach that point, maybe it would prove easier beyond. It is no more 
+than a furlong off, I guess.' 
+
+'Then let us force a path thither, you and I!’ said Aragorn. 
+
+Aragorn was the tallest of the Company, but Boromir, little less in 
+height, was broader and heavier in build. He led the way, and Aragorn 
+followed him. Slowly they moved off, and were soon toiling heavily. In 
+
+
+
+
+places the snow was breast-high, and often Boromir seemed to be swimming 
+or 
+
+burrowing with his great arms rather than walking. 
+
+Legolas watched them for a while with a smile upon his lips, and then 
+he turned to the others. 'The strongest must seek a way, say you? But I say: 
+let a ploughman plough, but choose an otter for swimming, and for running 
+light over grass and leaf or over snow-an Elf.' 
+
+With that he sprang forth nimbly, and then Frodo noticed as if for the 
+first time, though he had long known it, that the Elf had no boots, but wore 
+only light shoes, as he always did, and his feet made little imprint in the 
+snow. 
+
+'Farewell!' he said to Gandalf. 'I go to find the Sun!' Then swift as a 
+runner over firm sand he shot away, and quickly overtaking the toiling men, 
+with a wave of his hand he passed them, and sped into the distance, and 
+vanished round the rocky turn. 
+
+The others waited huddled together, watching until Boromir and Aragorn 
+dwindled into black specks in the whiteness. At length they too passed from 
+sight. The time dragged on. The clouds lowered, and now a few flakes of snow 
+came curling down again. 
+
+An hour, maybe, went by, though it seemed far longer, and then at last 
+they saw Legolas coming back. At the same time Boromir and Aragorn 
+reappeared round the bend far behind him and came labouring up the slope. 
+
+'Well,' cried Legolas as he ran up, 'I have not brought the Sun. She is 
+walking in the blue fields of the South, and a little wreath of snow on this 
+Redhorn hillock troubles her not at all. But I have brought back a gleam of 
+good hope for those who are doomed to go on feet. There is the greatest 
+wind-drift of all just beyond the turn, and there our Strong Men were almost 
+buried. They despaired, until I returned and told them that the drift was 
+little wider than a wall. And on the other side the snow suddenly grows 
+less, while further down it is no more than a white coverlet to cool a 
+hobbit's toes.' 
+
+'Ah, it is as I said,' growled Gimli. 'It was no ordinary storm. It is 
+the ill will of Caradhras. He does not love Elves and Dwarves, and that 
+drift was laid to cut off our escape.' 
+
+'But happily your Caradhras has forgotten that you have Men with you,' 
+said Boromir, who came up at that moment. 'And doughty Men too, if I may 
+say 
+
+
+
+
+it; though lesser men with spades might have served you better. Still, we 
+have thrust a lane through the drift; and for that all here may be grateful 
+who cannot run as light as Elves.' 
+
+'But how are we to get down there, even if you have cut through the 
+drift?' said Pippin, voicing the thought of all the hobbits. 
+
+'Have hope!' said Boromir. 'I am weary, but I still have some strength 
+left, and Aragorn too. We will bear the little folk. The others no doubt 
+will make shift to tread the path behind us. Come, Master Peregrin! I will 
+begin with you.' 
+
+He lifted up the hobbit. 'Cling to my back! I shall need my arms' he 
+said and strode forward. Aragorn with Merry came behind. Pippin marvelled at 
+his strength, seeing the passage that he had already forced with no other 
+tool than his great limbs. Even now, burdened as he was, he was widening the 
+track for those who followed, thrusting the snow aside as he went. 
+
+They came at length to the great drift. It was flung across the 
+mountain-path like a sheer and sudden wall, and its crest, sharp as if 
+shaped with knives, reared up more than twice the height of Boromir; but 
+through the middle a passage had been beaten, rising and falling like a 
+bridge. On the far side Merry and Pippin were set down, and there they 
+waited with Legolas for the rest of the Company to arrive. 
+
+After a while Boromir returned carrying Sam. Behind in the narrow but 
+now well-trodden track came Gandalf, leading Bill with Gimli perched among 
+the baggage. Last came Aragorn carrying Frodo. They passed through the lane; 
+but hardly had Frodo touched the ground when with a deep rumble there rolled 
+down a fall of stones and slithering snow. The spray of it half blinded the 
+Company as they crouched against the cliff, and when the air cleared again 
+they saw that the path was blocked behind them. 
+
+'Enough, enough!' cried Gimli. 'We are departing as quickly as we may!' 
+And indeed with that last stroke the malice of the mountain seemed to be 
+expended, as if Caradhras was satisfied that the invaders had been beaten 
+off and would not dare to return. The threat of snow lifted; the clouds 
+began to break and the light grew broader. 
+
+As Legolas had reported, they found that the snow became steadily more 
+shallow as they went down, so that even the hobbits could trudge along. Soon 
+they all stood once more on the flat shelf at the head of the steep slope 
+where they had felt the first flakes of snow the night before. 
+
+The morning was now far advanced. From the high place they looked back 
+
+
+
+
+westwards over the lower lands. Far away in the tumble of country that lay 
+at the foot of the mountain was the dell from which they had started to 
+climb the pass. 
+
+Frodo’s legs ached. He was chilled to the bone and hungry; and his head 
+was dizzy as he thought of the long and painful march downhill. Black specks 
+swam before his eyes. He rubbed them, but the black specks remained. In the 
+distance below him, but still high above the lower foothills, dark dots were 
+circling in the air. 
+
+'The birds again!’ said Aragorn, pointing down. 
+
+That cannot be helped now,’ said Gandalf. 'Whether they are good or 
+evil, or have nothing to do with us at all, we must go down at once. Not 
+even on the knees of Caradhras will we wait for another night-fall!’ 
+
+A cold wind flowed down behind them, as they turned their backs on the 
+Redhorn Gate, and stumbled wearily down the slope. Caradhras had defeated 
+them. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4 . A Journey in the Dark 
+
+
+
+It was evening, and the grey light was again waning fast, when they 
+halted for the night. They were very weary. The mountains were veiled in 
+deepening dusk, and the wind was cold. Gandalf spared them one more 
+mouthful 
+
+each of the miruvor of Rivendell. When they had eaten some food he called a 
+council. 
+
+'We cannot, of course, go on again tonight,' he said. 'The attack on 
+the Redhorn Gate has tired us out, and we must rest here for a while.' 
+
+'And then where are we to go? ’ asked Frodo. 
+
+'We still have our journey and our errand before us,' answered Gandalf. 
+
+'We have no choice but to go on, or to return to Rivendell.' 
+
+Pippin's face brightened visibly at the mere mention of return to 
+Rivendell; Merry and Sam looked up hopefully. But Aragorn and Boromir 
+made 
+
+no sign. Frodo looked troubled. 
+
+'I wish I was back there,’ he said. 'But how can I return without shame 
+— unless there is indeed no other way, and we are already defeated? ’ 
+
+'You are right, Frodo,' said Gandalf: 'to go back is to admit defeat 
+and face worse defeat to come. If we go back now, then the Ring must remain 
+there: we shall not be able to set out again. Then sooner or later Rivendell 
+will be besieged, and after a brief and bitter time it will be destroyed. 
+
+The Ringwraiths are deadly enemies, but they are only shadows yet of the 
+power and terror they would possess if the Ruling Ring was on their master's 
+hand again.' 
+
+'Then we must go on, if there is a way,' said Frodo with a sigh. Sam 
+sank back into gloom. 
+
+'There is a way that we may attempt,' said Gandalf. I thought from the 
+beginning, when first I considered this journey, that we should try it. But 
+it is not a pleasant way, and I have not spoken of it to the Company before. 
+Aragorn was against it, until the pass over the mountains had at least been 
+tried.' 
+
+'If it is a worse road than the Redhorn Gate, then it must be evil 
+
+
+
+
+indeed,' said Merry. 'But you had better tell us about it, and let us know 
+the worst at once.' 
+
+'The road that I speak of leads to the Mines of Moria,' said Gandalf. 
+
+Only Gimli lifted up his head; a smouldering fire was in his eyes. On all 
+the others a dread fell at the mention of that name. Even to the hobbits it 
+was a legend of vague fear: 
+
+'The road may lead to Moria, but how can we hope that it will lead 
+through Moria? ’ said Aragorn darkly. 
+
+'It is a name of ill omen,' said Boromir. 'Nor do I see the need to go 
+there. If we cannot cross the mountains, let us journey southwards, until we 
+come to the Gap of Rohan, where men are friendly to my people, taking the 
+road that I followed on my way hither. Or we might pass by and cross the 
+Isen into Langstrand and Lebennin, and so come to Gondor from the regions 
+nigh to the sea.’ 
+
+'Things have changed since you came north, Boromir,' answered Gandalf. 
+'Did you not hear what I told you of Saruman? With him I may have business 
+of my own ere all is over. But the Ring must not come near Isengard, if that 
+can by any means be prevented. The Gap of Rohan is closed to us while we go 
+with the Bearer. 
+
+'As for the longer road: we cannot afford the time. We might spend a 
+year in such a journey, and we should pass through many lands that are empty 
+and harbourless. Yet they would not be safe. The watchful eyes both of 
+Saruman and of the Enemy are on them. When you came north, Boromir, you 
+were 
+
+in the Enemy's eyes only one stray wanderer from the South and a matter of 
+small concern to him: his mind was busy with the pursuit of the Ring. But 
+you return now as a member of the Ring's Company, and you are in peril as 
+long as you remain with us. The danger will increase with every league that 
+we go south under the naked sky. 
+
+'Since our open attempt on the mountain -pass our plight has become more 
+desperate, I fear. I see now little hope, if we do not soon vanish from 
+sight for a while, and cover our trail. Therefore I advise that we should go 
+neither over the mountains, nor round them, but under them. That is a road 
+at any rate that the Enemy will least expect us to take.’ 
+
+'We do not know what he expects,' said Boromir. 'lie may watch all 
+roads, likely and unlikely. In that case to enter Moria would be to walk 
+into a trap, hardly better than knocking at the gates of the Dark Tower 
+
+
+
+
+itself. The name of Moria is black.' 
+
+'You speak of what you do not know, when you liken Moria to the 
+stronghold of Sauron,' answered Gandalf. 'I alone of you have ever been in 
+the dungeons of the Dark Lord, and only in his older and lesser dwelling in 
+Dol Guldur. Those who pass the gates of Barad-dyr do not return. But I would 
+not lead you into Moria if there were no hope of coming out again. If there 
+are Ores there, it may prove ill for us, that is true. But most of the Ores 
+of the Misty Mountains were scattered or destroyed in the Battle of Five 
+Armies. The Eagles report that Ores are gathering again from afar; but there 
+is a hope that Moria is still free. 
+
+'There is even a chance that Dwarves are there, and that in some deep 
+hall of his fathers, Balin son of Fundin may be found. However it may prove, 
+one must tread the path that need chooses!’ 
+
+’I will tread the path with you, Gandalf! ’ said Gimli. ’I will go and 
+look on the halls of Durin, whatever may wait there-if you can find the 
+doors that are shut.’ 
+
+'Good, Gimli! ' said Gandalf. 'You encourage me. We will seek the 
+hidden doors together. And we will come through. In the ruins of the 
+Dwarves, a dwarfs head will be less easy to bewilder than Elves or Men or 
+Hobbits. Yet it will not be the first time that I have been to Moria. I 
+sought there long for Thrbin son of Thrur after he was lost. I passed 
+through, and I came out again alive! ’ 
+
+'I too once passed the Dimrill Gate,' said Aragorn quietly; 'but though 
+I also came out again, the memory is very evil. I do not wish to enter Moria 
+a second time.' 
+
+'And I don't wish to enter it even once,' said Pippin. 
+
+'Nor me,' muttered Sam. 
+
+'Of course not! ' said Gandalf. 'Who would? But the question is: who 
+will follow me, if I lead you there? ' 
+
+'I will,' said Gimli eagerly. 
+
+'I will,' said Aragorn heavily. 'You followed my lead almost to 
+disaster in the snow, and have said no word of blame. I will follow your 
+lead now — if this last warning does not move you. It is not of the Ring, 
+nor of us others that I am thinking now, but of you, Gandalf. And I say to 
+you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware! ’ 
+
+'I will not go,' said Boromir; 'not unless the vote of the whole 
+company is against me. What do Legolas and the little folk say? The 
+
+
+
+
+Ring-bearer's voice surely should be heard? ’ 
+
+I do not wish to go to Moria,' said Legolas. 
+
+The hobbits said nothing. Sam looked at Frodo. At last Frodo spoke. 'I 
+do not wish to go,' he said; 'but neither do I wish to refuse the advice of 
+Gandalf. I beg that there should be no vote, until we have slept on it. 
+Gandalf will get votes easier in the light of the morning than in this cold 
+gloom. How the wind howls ! ' 
+
+At these words all fell into silent thought. They heard the wind 
+hissing among the rocks and trees, and there was a howling and wailing round 
+them in the empty spaces of the night. 
+
+Suddenly Aragorn leapt to his feet. 'How the wind howls ! ' he cried. 
+
+'It is howling with wolf-voices. The Wargs have come west of the Mountains! 
+
+f 
+
+'Need we wait until morning then? ' said Gandalf. 'It is as I said. The 
+hunt is up! Even if we live to see the dawn, who now will wish to journey 
+south by night with the wild wolves on his trail? ’ 
+
+'How far is Moria? ' asked Boromir. 
+
+'There was a door south-west of Caradhras, some fifteen miles as the 
+crow flies, and maybe twenty as the wolf runs,' answered Gandalf grimly. 
+
+'Then let us start as soon as it is light tomorrow, if we can,' said 
+Boromir. 'The wolf that one hears is worse than the ore that one fears.' 
+
+'True!' said Aragorn, loosening his sword in its sheath. 'But where the 
+warg howls, there also the ore prowls.' 
+
+'I wish I had taken Elrond's advice,' muttered Pippin to Sam. I am no 
+good after all. There is not enough of the breed of Bandobras the Bullroarer 
+in me: these howls freeze my blood. I don't ever remember feeling so 
+wretched.' 
+
+'My heart's right down in my toes, Mr. Pippin,' said Sam. 'But we 
+aren't etten yet, and there are some stout folk here with us. Whatever may 
+be in store for old Gandalf, I'll wager it isn't a wolfs belly.' 
+
+For their defence in the night the Company climbed to the top of the 
+small hill under which they had been sheltering, it was crowned with a knot 
+of old and twisted trees, about which lay a broken circle of boulder stones. 
+
+In the midst of this they lit a fire, for there was no hope that darkness 
+and silence would keep their trail from discovery by the hunting packs. 
+
+Round the fire they sat, and those that were not on guard dozed 
+uneasily. Poor Bill the pony trembled and sweated where he stood. The 
+
+
+
+
+howling of the wolves was now all round them, sometimes nearer and 
+sometimes 
+
+further off. In the dead of the night many shining eyes were seen peering 
+over the brow of the hill. Some advanced almost to the ring of stones. At a 
+gap in the circle a great dark wolf-shape could be seen halted, gazing at 
+them. A shuddering howl broke from him, as if he were a captain summoning 
+his pack to the assault. 
+
+Gandalf stood up and strode forward, holding his staff aloft. 'Listen, 
+
+Hound of Sauron! ’ he cried. 'Gandalf is here. Fly, if you value your foul 
+skin! I will shrivel you from tail to snout, if you come within this ring.' 
+
+The wolf snarled and sprang towards them with a great leap. At that 
+moment there was a sharp twang. Legolas had loosed his bow. There was a 
+hideous yell, and the leaping shape thudded to the ground; the elvish arrow 
+had pierced its throat. The watching eyes were suddenly extinguished. 
+Gandalf and Aragorn strode forward, but the hill was deserted; the hunting 
+packs had fled. All about them the darkness grew silent, and no cry came on 
+the sighing wind. 
+
+The night was old, and westward the waning moon was setting, gleaming 
+fitfully through the breaking clouds. Suddenly Frodo started from sleep. 
+Without warning a storm of howls broke out fierce and wild all about the 
+camp. A great host of Wargs had gathered silently and was now attacking them 
+from every side at once. 
+
+'Fling fuel on the fire!’ cried Gandalf to the hobbits. 'Draw your 
+blades, and stand back to back!’ 
+
+In the leaping light, as the fresh wood blazed up, Frodo saw many grey 
+shapes spring over the ring of stones. More and more followed. Through the 
+throat of one huge leader Aragorn passed his sword with a thrust; with a 
+great sweep Boromir hewed the head off another. Beside them Gimli stood 
+with 
+
+his stout legs apart, wielding his dwarf-axe. The bow of Legolas was 
+singing. 
+
+In the wavering firelight Gandalf seemed suddenly to grow: he rose up, 
+a great menacing shape like the monument of some ancient king of stone set 
+upon a hill. Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to 
+meet the wolves. They gave back before him. High in the air he tossed the 
+blazing brand. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning; and 
+his voice rolled like thunder. 
+
+
+
+
+' Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!' he cried. 
+
+There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a 
+leaf and bloom of blinding flame. The fire leapt from tree-top to tree -top. 
+
+The whole hill was crowned with dazzling light. The swords and knives of the 
+defenders shone and flickered. The last arrow of Legolas kindled in the air 
+as it flew, and plunged burning into the heart of a great wolf-chieftain. 
+
+All the others fled. 
+
+Slowly the fire died till nothing was left but falling ash and sparks; 
+a bitter smoke curled above the burned tree-stumps, and blew darkly from the 
+hill, as the first light of dawn came dimly in the sky. Their enemies were 
+routed and did not return. 
+
+'What did I tell you, Mr. Pippin? ' said Sam, she/thing his sword. 
+
+'Wolves won’t get him. That was an eye-opener, and no mistake! Nearly singed 
+the hair off my head!’ 
+
+When the full light of the morning came no signs of the wolves were to 
+be found, and they looked in vain for the bodies of the dead. No trace of 
+the fight remained but the charred trees and the arrows of Legolas lying on 
+the hill-top. All were undamaged save one of which only the point was left. 
+
+'It is as I feared,’ said Gandalf. 'These were no ordinary wolves 
+hunting for food in the wilderness. Let us eat quickly and go!’ 
+
+That day the weather changed again, almost as if it was at the command 
+of some power that had no longer any use for snow, since they had retreated 
+from the pass, a power that wished now to have a clear light in which things 
+that moved in the wild could be seen from far away. The wind had been 
+turning through north to north-west during the night, and now it failed. The 
+clouds vanished southwards and the sky was opened, high and blue. As they 
+stood upon the hill-side, ready to depart, a pale sunlight gleamed over the 
+mountain-tops. 
+
+'We must reach the doors before sunset,’ said Gandalf, ’or I fear we 
+shall not reach them at all. It is not far, but our path may be winding, for 
+here Aragorn cannot guide us; he has seldom walked in this country, and only 
+once have I been under the west wall of Moria, and that was long ago. 
+
+'There it lies,’ he said, pointing away south-eastwards to where the 
+mountains' sides fell sheer into the shadows at their feet. In the distance 
+could be dimly seen a line of bare cliffs, and in their midst, taller than 
+the rest, one great grey wall. 'When we left the pass I led you southwards, 
+and not back to our starting point, as some of you may have noticed. It is 
+
+
+
+
+well that I did so, for now we have several miles less to cross, and haste 
+is needed. Let us go! ' 
+
+'I do not know which to hope,' said Boromir grimly: 'that Gandalf will 
+find what he seeks, or that coming to the cliff we shall find the gates lost 
+for ever. All choices seem ill, and to be caught between wolves and the wall 
+the likeliest chance. Lead on!’ 
+
+Gimli now walked ahead by the wizard’s side, so eager was he to come to 
+Moria. Together they led the Company back towards the mountains. The only 
+road of old to Moria from the west had lain along the course of a stream, 
+the Sirannon, that ran out from the feet of the cliffs near where the doors 
+had stood. But either Gandalf was astray, or else the land had changed in 
+recent years; for he did not strike the stream where he looked to find it, 
+only a few miles southwards from their start. 
+
+The morning was passing towards noon, and still the Company wandered 
+and scrambled in a barren country of red stones. Nowhere could they see any 
+gleam of water or hear any sound of it. All was bleak and dry. Their hearts 
+sank. They saw no living thing, and not a bird was in the sky; but what the 
+night would bring, if it caught them in that lost land, none of them cared 
+to think. 
+
+Suddenly Gimli, who had pressed on ahead, called back to them. He was 
+standing on a knoll and pointing to the right. Hurrying up they saw below 
+them a deep and narrow channel. It was empty and silent, and hardly a 
+trickle of water flowed among the brown and red-stained stones of its bed; 
+but on the near side there was a path, much broken and decayed, that wound 
+its way among the ruined walls and paving-stones of an ancient highroad. 
+
+’Ah! Here it is at last! ' said Gandalf. 'This is where the stream ran: 
+
+Sirannon, the Gate-stream, they used to call it. But what has happened to 
+the water, I cannot guess; it used to be swift and noisy. Come! We must 
+hurry on. We are late.' 
+
+The Company were footsore and tired; but they trudged doggedly along 
+the rough and winding track for many miles. The sun turned from the noon and 
+began to go west. After a brief halt and a hasty meal they went on again. 
+Before them the mountains frowned, but their path lay in a deep trough of 
+land and they could see only the higher shoulders and the far eastward 
+peaks. 
+
+At length they came to a sharp bend. There the road, which had been 
+veering southwards between the brink of the channel and a steep fall of the 
+
+
+
+
+land to the left, turned and went due east again. Rounding the corner they 
+saw before them a low cliff, some five fathoms high, with a broken and 
+jagged top. Over it a trickling water dripped, through a wide cleft that 
+seemed to have been carved out by a fall that had once been strong and full. 
+
+'Indeed things have changed! ' said Gandalf. 'But there is no mistaking 
+the place. There is all that remains of the Stair Falls. If I remember 
+right, there was a flight of steps cut in the rock at their side, but the 
+main road wound away left and climbed with several loops up to the level 
+ground at the top. There used to be a shallow valley beyond the falls right 
+up to the Walls of Moria, and the Sirannon flowed through it with the road 
+beside it. Let us go and see what things are like now ! ' 
+
+They found the stone steps without difficulty, and Gimli sprang swiftly 
+up them, followed by Gandalf and Frodo. When they reached the top they saw 
+that they could go no further that way, and the reason for the drying up of 
+the Gate-stream was revealed. Behind them the sinking Sun filled the cool 
+western sky with glimmering gold. Before them stretched a dark still lake. 
+Neither sky nor sunset was reflected on its sullen surface. The Sirannon had 
+been dammed and had filled all the valley. Beyond the ominous water were 
+reared vast cliffs, their stern faces pallid in the fading light: final and 
+impassable. No sign of gate or entrance, not a fissure or crack could Frodo 
+see in the frowning stone. 
+
+'There are the Walls of Moria,' said Gandalf, pointing across the 
+water. 'And there the Gate stood once upon a time, the Elven Door at the end 
+of the road from Flollin by which we have come. But this way is blocked. None 
+of the Company, I guess, will wish to swim this gloomy water at the end of 
+the day. It has an unwholesome look.’ 
+
+'We must find a way round the northern edge,' said Gimli. 'The first 
+thing for the Company to do is to climb up by the main path and see where 
+that will lead us. Even if there were no lake, we could not get our 
+baggage-pony up this stair.' 
+
+'But in any case we cannot take the poor beast into the Mines,’ said 
+Gandalf. 'The road under the mountains is a dark road, and there are places 
+narrow and steep which he cannot tread, even if we can.’ 
+
+'Poor old Bill! ' said Frodo. 'I had not thought of that. And poor Sam! 
+
+I wonder what he will say? ’ 
+
+'I am sorry,' said Gandalf. 'Poor Bill has been a useful companion and 
+it goes to my heart to turn him adrift now. I would have travelled lighter 
+
+
+
+
+and brought no animal, least of all this one that Sam is fond of, if I had 
+had my way. I feared all along that we should be obliged to take this road.’ 
+
+The day was drawing to its end, and cold stars were glinting in the sky 
+high above the sunset, when the Company, with all the speed they could, 
+climbed up the slopes and reached the side of the lake. In breadth it looked 
+to be no more than two or three furlongs at the widest point. How far it 
+stretched away southward they could not see in the failing light; but its 
+northern end was no more than half a mile from where they stood, and between 
+the stony ridges that enclosed the valley and the water's edge there was a 
+rim of open ground. They hurried forward, for they had still a mile or two 
+to go before they could reach the point on the far shore that Gandalf was 
+making for; and then he had still to find the doors. 
+
+When they came to the northernmost corner of the lake they found a 
+narrow creek that barred their way. It was green and stagnant, thrust out 
+like a slimy arm towards the enclosing hills. Gimli strode forward 
+undeterred, and found that the water was shallow, no more than ankle-deep at 
+the edge. Behind him they walked in file, threading their way with care, for 
+under the weedy pools were sliding and greasy stones, and footing was 
+treacherous. Frodo shuddered with disgust at the touch of the dark unclean 
+water on his feet. 
+
+As Sam, the last of the Company, led Bill up on to the dry ground on 
+the far side, there came a soft sound: a swish, followed by a plop, as if a 
+fish had disturbed the still surface of the water. Turning quickly they saw 
+ripples, black-edged with shadow in the waning light: great rings were 
+widening outwards from a point far out in the lake. There was a bubbling 
+noise, and then silence. The dusk deepened, and the last gleams of the 
+sunset were veiled in cloud. 
+
+Gandalf now pressed on at a great pace, and the others followed as 
+quickly as they could. They reached the strip of dry land between the lake 
+and the cliffs: it was narrow, often hardly a dozen yards across, and 
+encumbered with fallen rock and stones; but they found a way, hugging the 
+cliff, and keeping as far from the dark water as they might. A mile 
+southwards along the shore they came upon holly trees. Stumps and dead 
+boughs were rotting in the shallows, the remains it seemed of old thickets, 
+or of a hedge that had once lined the road across the drowned valley. But 
+close under the cliff there stood, still strong and living, . two tall 
+trees, larger than any trees of holly that Frodo had ever seen or imagined. 
+
+
+
+
+Their great roots spread from the wall to the water. Under the looming 
+cliffs they had looked like mere bushes, when seen far off from the top of 
+the Stair; but now they towered overhead, stiff, dark, and silent, throwing 
+deep night-shadows about their feet, standing like sentinel pillars at the 
+end of the road. 
+
+'Well, here we are at last! 'said Gandalf. 'Here the Elven-way from 
+Hollin ended. Holly was the token of the people of that land, and they 
+planted it here to mark the end of their domain; for the West -door was made 
+chiefly for their use in their traffic with the Lords of Moria. Those were 
+happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of 
+different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.' 
+
+'It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned,' said 
+Gimli. 
+
+'I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves,' said Legolas. 
+
+'I have heard both,' said Gandalf; 'and I will not give judgement now. 
+
+But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help 
+me. I need you both. The doors are shut and hidden, and the sooner we find 
+them the better. Night is at hand! ' 
+
+Turning to the others he said: 'While I am searching, will you each 
+make ready to enter the Mines? For here I fear we must say farewell to our 
+good beast of burden. You must lay aside much of the stuff that we brought 
+against bitter weather: you will not need it inside, nor, I hope, when we 
+come through and journey on down into the South. Instead each of us must 
+take a share of what the pony carried, especially the food and the 
+water-skins.' 
+
+'But you can't leave poor old Bill behind in this forsaken place, Mr. 
+Gandalf! ' cried Sam, angry and distressed. 'I won't have it, and that's 
+flat. After he has come so far and all ! ' 
+
+'I am sorry, Sam,' said the wizard. 'But when the Door opens I do not 
+think you will be able to drag your Bill inside, into the long dark of 
+Moria. You will have to choose between Bill and your master.’ 
+
+'He'd follow Mr. Frodo into a dragon's den, if I led him,' protested 
+Sam. 'It'd be nothing short of murder to turn him loose with all these 
+wolves about.' 
+
+'It will be short of murder, I hope,' said Gandalf. He laid his hand on 
+the pony's head, and spoke in a low voice. 'Go with words of guard and 
+guiding on you,’ he said. 'You are a wise beast, and have learned much in 
+
+
+
+
+Rivendell. Make your ways to places where you can find grass, and so come in 
+time to Elrond's house, or wherever you wish to go. 
+
+'There, Sam! He will have quite as much chance of escaping wolves and 
+getting home as we have.’ 
+
+Sam stood sullenly by the pony and returned no answer. Bill, seeming to 
+understand well what was going on, nuzzled up to him, putting his nose to 
+Sam's ear. Sam burst into tears, and fumbled with the straps, unlading all 
+the pony's packs and throwing them on the ground. The others sorted out the 
+goods, making a pile of all that could be left behind, and dividing up the 
+rest. 
+
+When this was done they turned to watch Gandalf. He appeared to have 
+done nothing. He was standing between the two trees gazing at the blank wall 
+of the cliff, as if he would bore a hole into it with his eyes. Gimli was 
+wandering about, tapping the stone here and there with his axe. Legolas was 
+pressed against the rock, as if listening. 
+
+'Well, here we are and all ready,' said Merry; 'but where are the 
+Doors? I can't see any sign of them.' 
+
+'Dwarf-doors are not made to be seen when shut,' said Gimli. 'They are 
+invisible, and their own masters cannot find them or open them, if their 
+secret is forgotten.' 
+
+'But this Door was not made to be a secret known only to Dwarves,' said 
+Gandalf, coming suddenly to life and turning round. 'Unless things are 
+altogether changed, eyes that know what to look for may discover the signs.’ 
+
+He walked forward to the wall. Right between the shadow of the trees 
+there was a smooth space, and over this he passed his hands to and fro, 
+muttering words under his breath. Then he stepped back. 
+
+'Look!' he said. 'Can you see anything now?’ 
+
+The Moon now shone upon the grey face of the rock; but they could see 
+nothing else for a while. Then slowly on the surface, where the wizard's 
+hands had passed, faint lines appeared, like slender veins of silver running 
+in the stone. At first they were no more than pale gossamer-threads, so fine 
+that they only twinkled fitfully where the Moon caught them, but steadily 
+they grew broader and clearer, until their design could be guessed. 
+
+At the top, as high as Gandalf could reach, was an arch of interlacing 
+letters in an Elvish character. Below, though the threads were in places 
+blurred or broken, the outline could be seen of an anvil and a hammer 
+
+
+
+
+surmounted by a crown with seven stars. Beneath these again were two trees, 
+each bearing crescent moons. More clearly than all else there shone forth in 
+the middle of the door a single star with many rays. 
+
+'There are the emblems of Dunn!' cried Gimli. 
+
+'And there is the Tree of the High Elves!' said Legolas. 
+
+'And the Star of the House of Flanor,' said Gandalf. 'They are wrought 
+of ithildin that mirrors only starlight and moonlight, and sleeps until it 
+is touched by one who speaks words now long forgotten in Middle-earth. It is 
+long since I heard them, and I thought deeply before I could recall them to 
+my mind.’ 
+
+’What does the writing say?’ asked Frodo, who was trying to decipher 
+the inscription on the arch. ’I thought I knew the elf-letters but I cannot 
+read these.’ 
+
+'The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the 
+Elder Days,’ answered Gandalf. ’But they do not say anything of importance 
+to us. They say only: The Doors ofDurin, Lord ofMoria. Speak, friend, and 
+enter. And underneath small and faint is written: I, Narvi, made them. 
+Celebrimbor ofHollin drew these signs.' 
+
+'What does it mean by speak, friend, and enter!' asked Merry. 
+
+’That is plain enough,’ said Gimli. 'If you are a friend, speak the 
+password, and the doors will open, and you can enter.’ 
+
+’Yes,' said Gandalf, 'these doors are probably governed by words. Some 
+dwarf-gates will open only at special times, or for particular persons; and 
+some have locks and keys that are still needed when all necessary times and 
+words are known. These doors have no key. In the days of Durin they were not 
+secret. They usually stood open and doorwards sat here. But if they were 
+shut, any who knew the opening word could speak it and pass in. At least so 
+it is recorded, is it not, Gimli? ' 
+
+'It is,' said the dwarf. 'But what the word was is not remembered. 
+
+Narvi and his craft and all his kindred have vanished from the earth.’ 
+
+’But do not you know the word, Gandalf? ’ asked Boromir in surprise. 
+
+'No! ’ said the wizard. 
+
+The others looked dismayed; only Aragorn, who knew Gandalf well, 
+remained silent and unmoved. 
+
+’Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot?’ cried 
+Boromir, glancing back with a shudder at the dark water. 'You told us that 
+you had once passed through the Mines. How could that be, if you did not 
+
+
+
+
+know how to enter? ' 
+
+'The answer to your first question, Boromir,’ said the wizard, 'is that 
+I do not know the word-yet. But we shall soon see. And,’ he added, with a 
+glint in his eyes under their bristling brows, 'you may ask what is the use 
+of my deeds when they are proved useless. As for your other question: do you 
+doubt my tale? Or have you no wits left? I did not enter this way. I came 
+from the East. 
+
+'If you wish to know, I will tell you that these doors open outwards. 
+
+From the inside you may thrust them open with your hands. From the outside 
+nothing will move them save the spell of command. They cannot be forced 
+inwards.’ 
+
+'What are you going to do then? ’ asked Pippin, undaunted by the 
+wizard's bristling brows. 
+
+'Knock on the doors with your head, Peregrin Took,' said Gandalf. 'But 
+if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish 
+questions, I will seek for the opening words. 
+
+'I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves or Men or Ores 
+that was ever used for such a purpose. I can still remember ten score of 
+them without searching in my mind. But only a few trials, I think, will be 
+needed; and I shall not have to call on Gimli for words of the secret 
+dwarf-tongue that they teach to none. The opening words were Elvish, like 
+the writing on the arch: that seems certain.' 
+
+Ele stepped up to the rock again, and lightly touched with his staff the 
+silver star in the middle beneath the sign of the anvil. 
+
+Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen! 
+
+Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen! 
+
+he said in a commanding voice. The silver lines faded, but the blank 
+grey stone did not stir. 
+
+Many times he repeated these words in different order, or varied them. 
+Then he tried other spells, one after another, speaking now faster and 
+louder, now soft and slow. Then he spoke many single words of Elvish speech. 
+Nothing happened. The cliff towered into the night, the countless stars were 
+kindled, the wind blew cold, and the doors stood fast. 
+
+Again Gandalf approached the wall, and lifting up his arms he spoke in 
+tones of command and rising wrath. Edro, edro! he cried, and struck the rock 
+with his staff. Open, open! he shouted, and followed it with the same 
+command in every language that had ever been spoken in the West of 
+
+
+
+
+Middle-earth. Then he threw his staff on the ground, and sat down in 
+silence. 
+
+At that moment from far off the wind bore to their listening ears the 
+howling of wolves. Bill the pony started in fear, and Sam sprang to his side 
+and whispered softly to him. 
+
+'Do not let him run away! ' said Boromir. 'It seems that we shall need 
+him still, if the wolves do not find us. How I hate this foul pool! ' He 
+stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into the dark water. 
+
+The stone vanished with a soft slap; but at the same instant there was 
+a swish and a bubble. Great rippling rings formed on the surface out beyond 
+where the stone had fallen, and they moved slowly towards the foot of the 
+cliff. 
+
+’Why did you do that, Boromir? ' said Frodo. V I hate this place, too, 
+and I am afraid. I don't know of what: not of wolves, or the dark behind the 
+doors, but of something else. I am afraid of the pool. Don't disturb it! ' 
+
+'1 wish we could get away! ' said Merry. 
+
+'Why doesn't Gandalf do something quick? ' said Pippin. 
+
+Gandalf took no notice of them. He sat with his head bowed, either in 
+despair or in anxious thought. The mournful howling of the wolves was heard 
+again. The ripples on the water grew and came closer; some were already 
+lapping on the shore. 
+
+With a suddenness that startled them all the wizard sprang to his feet. 
+
+He was laughing! V I have it! ' he cried. 'Of course, of course! Absurdly 
+simple, like most riddles when you see the answer.' 
+
+Picking up his staff he stood before the rock and said in a clear 
+voice: Mellon! 
+
+The star shone out briefly and faded again. Then silently a great 
+doorway was outlined, though not a crack or joint had been visible before. 
+Slowly it divided in the middle and swung outwards inch by inch, until both 
+doors lay back against the wall. Through the opening a shadowy stair could 
+be seen climbing steeply up; but beyond the lower steps the darkness was 
+deeper than the night. The Company stared in wonder. 
+
+V I was wrong after all,' said Gandalf, 'and Gimli too. Merry, of all 
+people, was on the right track. The opening word was inscribed on the 
+archway all the time! The translation should have been: Say "Friend" and 
+enter. I had only to speak the Elvish word for friend and the doors opened. 
+Quite simple. Too simple for a learned lore-master in these suspicious days. 
+
+
+
+
+Those were happier times. Now let us go!' 
+
+He strode forward and set his foot on the lowest step. But at that 
+moment several things happened. Frodo felt something seize him by the ankle, 
+and he fell with a cry. Bill the pony gave a wild neigh of fear, and turned 
+tail and dashed away along the lakeside into the darkness. Sam leaped after 
+him, and then hearing Frodo’s cry he ran back again, weeping and cursing. 
+The others swung round and saw the waters of the lake seething, as if a host 
+of snakes were swimming up from the southern end. 
+
+Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it was 
+pale-green and luminous and wet. Its fingered end had hold of Frodo's foot 
+and was dragging him into the water. Sam on his knees was now slashing at it 
+with a knife. 
+
+The arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out for help. 
+Twenty others arms came rippling out. The dark water boiled, and there was a 
+hideous stench. 
+
+'Into the gateway! Up the stairs! Quick! ' shouted Gandalf leaping 
+back. Rousing them from the horror that seemed to have rooted all but Sam to 
+the ground where they stood, he drove them forward. 
+
+They were just in time. Sam and Frodo were only a few steps up, and 
+Gandalf had just begun to climb, when the groping tentacles writhed across 
+the narrow shore and fingered the cliff- wall and the doors. One came 
+wriggling over the threshold, glistening in the starlight. Gandalf turned 
+and paused. If he was considering what word would close the gate again from 
+within, there was no need. Many coiling arms seized the doors on either 
+side, and with horrible strength, swung them round. With a shattering echo 
+they slammed, and all light was lost. A noise of rending and crashing came 
+dully through the ponderous stone. 
+
+Sam, clinging to Frodo’s arm, collapsed on a step in the black 
+darkness. 'Poor old Bill! ’ he said in a choking voice. 'Poor old Bill! 
+Wolves and snakes! But the snakes were too much for him. I had to choose, 
+Mr. Frodo. I had to come with you.’ 
+
+They heard Gandalf go back down the steps and thrust his staff against 
+the doors. There was a quiver in the stone and the stairs trembled, .but the 
+doors did not open. 'Well, well! ’ said the wizard. 'The passage is blocked 
+behind us now and there is only one way out— on the other side of the 
+mountains. I fear from the sounds that boulders have been piled up, and the 
+trees uprooted and thrown across the gate. I am sorry; for the trees were 
+
+
+
+
+beautiful, and had stood so long.' 
+
+'I felt that something horrible was near from the moment that my foot 
+first touched the water,' said Frodo. 'What was the thing, or were there 
+many of them? ' 
+
+'I do not know,' answered Gandalf, 'but the arms were all guided by one 
+purpose. Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under 
+the mountains. There are older and fouler things than Ores in the deep 
+places of the world.' He did not speak aloud his thought that whatever it 
+was that dwelt in the lake, it had seized on Frodo first among all the 
+Company. 
+
+Boromir muttered under his breath, but the echoing stone magnified the 
+sound to a hoarse whisper that all could hear: 'In the deep places of the 
+world! And thither we are going against my wish. Who will lead us nowin 
+this deadly dark? ' 
+
+'I will,' said Gandalf, 'and Gimli shall walk with me. Follow my staff! 
+
+t 
+
+As the wizard passed on ahead up the great steps, he held his staff 
+aloft, and from its tip there came a faint radiance. The wide stairway was 
+sound and undamaged. Two hundred steps they counted, broad and shallow; 
+and 
+
+at the top they found an arched passage with a level floor leading on into 
+the dark. 
+
+'Let us sit and rest and have something to eat, here on the landing, 
+since we can't find a dining-room! ' said Frodo. He had begun to shake off 
+the terror of the clutching arm, and suddenly he felt extremely hungry. 
+
+The proposal was welcomed by all; and they sat down on the upper steps, 
+dim figures in the gloom. After they had eaten, Gandalf gave them each a 
+third sip of the miruvor of Rivendell. 
+
+'It will not last much longer, I am afraid,’ he said; 'but I think we 
+need it after that horror at the gate. And unless we have great luck, we 
+shall need all that is left before we see the other side! Go carefully with 
+the water, too! There are many streams and wells in the Mines, but they 
+should not be touched. We may not have a chance of filling our skins and 
+bottles till we come down into Dimrill Dale.' 
+
+'How long is that going to take us? ' asked Frodo. 
+
+'I cannot say,' answered Gandalf. 'It depends on many chances. But 
+going straight, without mishap or losing our way, we shall take three or 
+
+
+
+
+four marches, I expect. It cannot be less than forty miles from West -door to 
+East-gate in a direct line, and the road may wind much.' 
+
+After only a brief rest they started on their way again. All were eager 
+to get the journey over as quickly as possible, and were willing, tired as 
+they were, to go on marching still for several hours. Gandalf walked in 
+front as before. In his left hand he held up his glimmering staff, the light 
+of which just showed the ground before his feet; in his right he held his 
+sword Glamdring. Behind him came Gimli, his eyes glinting in the dim light 
+as he turned his head from side to side. Behind the dwarf walked Frodo, and 
+he had drawn the short sword, Sting. No gleam came from the blades of Sting 
+or of Glamdring; and that was some comfort, for being the work of Elvish 
+smiths in the Elder Days these swords shone with a cold light, if any Ores 
+were near at hand. Behind Frodo went Sam, and after him Legolas, and the 
+young hobbits, and Boromir. In the dark at the rear, grim and silent, walked 
+Aragorn. 
+
+The passage twisted round a few turns, and then began to descend. It 
+went steadily down for a long while before it became level once again. The 
+air grew hot and stifling, but it was not foul, and at times they felt 
+currents of cooler air upon their faces, issuing from half-guessed openings 
+in the walls. There were many of these. In the pale ray of the wizard's 
+staff, Frodo caught glimpses of stairs and arches and of other passages and 
+tunnels, sloping up, or running steeply down, or opening blankly dark on 
+either side. It was bewildering beyond hope of remembering. 
+
+Gimli aided Gandalf very little, except by his stout courage. At least 
+he was not, as were most of the others, troubled by the mere darkness in 
+itself. Often the wizard consulted him at points where the choice of way was 
+doubtful; but it was always Gandalf who had the final word. The Mines of 
+Moria were vast and intricate beyond the imagination of Gimli, Gluin's son, 
+dwarf of the mountain-race though he was. To Gandalf the far-off memories of 
+a journey long before were now of little help, but even in the gloom and 
+despite all windings of the road he knew whither he wished to go, and he did 
+not falter, as long as there was a path that led towards his goal. 
+
+'Do not be afraid! ' said Aragorn. There was a pause longer than usual, 
+and Gandalf and Gimli were whispering together; the others were crowded 
+behind, waiting anxiously. 'Do not be afraid! I have been with him on many a 
+journey, if never on one so dark; and there are tales of Rivendell of 
+greater deeds of his than any that I have seen. He will not go astray-if 
+
+
+
+
+there is any path to find. He has led us in here against our fears, but he 
+will lead us out again, at whatever cost to himself. He is surer of finding 
+the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Ber®thiel.' 
+
+It was well for the Company that they had such a guide. They had no 
+fuel nor any means of making torches; in the desperate scramble at the doors 
+many things had been left behind. But without any light they would soon have 
+come to grief. There were not only many roads to choose from, there were 
+also in many places holes and pitfalls, and dark wells beside the path in 
+which their passing feet echoed. There were fissures and chasms in the walls 
+and floor, and every now and then a crack would open right before their 
+feet. The widest was more than seven feet across, and it was long before 
+Pippin could summon enough courage to leap over the dreadful gap. The noise 
+of churning water came up from far below, as if some great mill-wheel was 
+turning in the depths. 
+
+'Rope! ' muttered Sam. 'I knew I'd want it, if I hadn't got it! ' 
+
+As these dangers became more frequent their march became slower. 
+Already they seemed to have been tramping on, on, endlessly to the 
+mountains' roots. They were more than weary, and yet there seemed no comfort 
+in the thought of halting anywhere. Frodo's spirits had risen for a while 
+after his escape, and after food and a draught of the cordial; but now a 
+deep uneasiness, growing to dread, crept over him again. Though he had been 
+healed in Rivendell of the knife-stroke, that grim wound had not been 
+without effect. His senses were sharper and more aware of things that could 
+not be seen. One sign of change that he soon had noticed was that he could 
+see more in the dark than any of his companions, save perhaps Gandalf. And 
+he was in any case the bearer of the Ring: it hung upon its chain against 
+his breast, and at whiles it seemed a heavy weight. He felt the certainty of 
+evil ahead and of evil following; but he said nothing. He gripped tighter on 
+the hilt of his sword and went on doggedly. 
+
+The Company behind him spoke seldom, and then only in hurried whispers. 
+There was no sound but the sound of their own feet; the dull stump of 
+Gimli's dwarf-boots; the heavy tread of Boromir; the light step of Legolas; 
+the soft, scarce-heard patter of hobbit-feet; and in the rear the slow firm 
+footfalls of Aragorn with his long stride. When they halted for a moment 
+they heard nothing at all, unless it were occasionally a faint trickle and 
+drip of unseen water. Yet Frodo began to hear, or to imagine that he heard, 
+something else: like the faint fall of soft bare feet. It was never loud 
+
+
+
+
+enough, or near enough, for him to feel certain that he heard it; but once 
+it had started it never stopped, while the Company was moving. But it was 
+not an echo, for when they halted it pattered on for a little all by itself, 
+and then grew still. 
+
+It was after nightfall when they had entered the Mines. They had been 
+going for several hours with only brief halts, when Gandalf came to his 
+first serious check. Before him stood a wide dark arch opening into three 
+passages: all led in the same general direction, eastwards; but the 
+left-hand passage plunged down, while the right-hand climbed up, and the 
+middle way seemed to run on, smooth and level but very narrow. 
+
+'I have no memory of this place at all!' said Gandalf, standing 
+uncertainly under the arch. He held up his staff in the hope of finding some 
+marks or inscription that might help his choice; but nothing of the kind was 
+to be seen. I am too weary to decide,' he said, shaking his head. 'And I 
+expect that you are all as weary as I am, or wearier. We had better halt 
+here for what is left of the night. You know what I mean! In here it is ever 
+dark; but outside the late Moon is riding westward and the middle-night has 
+passed.' 
+
+'Poor old Bill! ' said Sam. 'I wonder where he is. I hope those wolves 
+haven't got him yet.' 
+
+To the left of the great arch they found a stone door: it was half 
+closed, but swung back easily to a gentle thrust. Beyond there seemed to lie 
+a wide chamber cut in the rock. 
+
+'Steady! Steady! ' cried Gandalf as Merry and Pippin pushed forward, 
+glad to find a place where they could rest with at least more feeling of 
+shelter than in the open passage. 'Steady! You do not know what is inside 
+yet. I will go first.’ 
+
+He went in cautiously, and the others filed behind. 'There! ’ he said, 
+pointing with his staff to the middle of the floor. Before his feet they saw 
+a large round hole like the mouth of a well. Broken and rusty chains lay at 
+the edge and trailed down into the black pit. Fragments of stone lay near. 
+
+'One of you might have fallen in and still be wondering when you were 
+going to strike the bottom,' said Aragorn to Merry. 'Let the guide go first 
+while you have one.' 
+
+'This seems to have been a guardroom, made for the watching of the 
+three passages,' said Gimli. 'That hole was plainly a well for the guards' 
+use, covered with a stone lid. But the lid is broken, and we must all take 
+
+
+
+
+care in the dark.' 
+
+Pippin felt curiously attracted by the well. While the others were 
+unrolling blankets and making beds against the walls of the chamber, as far 
+as possible from the hole in the floor, he crept to the edge and peered 
+over. A chill air seemed to strike his face, rising from invisible depths. 
+Moved by a sudden impulse he groped for a loose stone, and let it drop. He 
+felt his heart beat many times before there was any sound. Then far below, 
+as if the stone had fallen into deep water in some cavernous place, there 
+came a plunk , very distant, but magnified and repeated in the hollow shaft. 
+
+'What's that? ' cried Gandalf. He was relieved when Pippin confessed 
+what he had done; but he was angry, and Pippin could see his eye glinting. 
+’Fool of a Took! ' he growled. 'This is a serious journey, not a hobbit 
+walking -party. Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further 
+nuisance. Now be quiet! ' 
+
+Nothing more was heard for several minutes; but then there came out of 
+the depths faint knocks: tom-tap, tap-tom. They stopped, and when the echoes 
+had died away, they were repeated: tap-tom, tom-tap, tap-tap, tom. They 
+sounded disquietingly like signals of some sort; but after a while the 
+knocking died away and was not heard again. 
+
+'That was the sound of a hammer, or I have never heard one,' said 
+Gimli. 
+
+'Yes,' said Gandalf, 'and I do not like it. It may have nothing to do 
+with Peregrin's foolish stone; but probably something has been disturbed 
+that would have been better left quiet. Pray, do nothing of the kind again! 
+
+Let us hope we shall get some rest without further trouble. You, Pippin, can 
+go on the first watch, as a reward,' he growled, as he rolled himself in a 
+blanket. 
+
+Pippin sat miserably by the door in the pitch dark; but he kept on 
+turning round, fearing that some unknown thing would crawl up out of the 
+well. He wished he could cover the hole, if only with a blanket, but he 
+dared not move or go near it, even though Gandalf seemed to be asleep. 
+
+Actually Gandalf was awake, though lying still and silent. He was deep 
+in thought, trying to recall every memory of his former journey in the 
+Mines, and considering anxiously the next course that he should take; a 
+false turn now might be disastrous. After an hour he rose up and came over 
+to Pippin. 
+
+'Get into a corner and have a sleep, my lad,' he said in a kindly tone. 
+
+
+
+
+'You want to sleep, I expect. I cannot get a wink, so I may as well do the 
+watching.' 
+
+'I know what is the matter with me,' he muttered, as he sat down by the 
+door. 'I need smoke ! I have not tasted it since the morning before the 
+snowstorm.' 
+
+The last thing that Pippin saw, as sleep took him, was a dark glimpse 
+of the old wizard huddled on the floor, shielding a glowing chip in his 
+gnarled hands between his knees. The flicker for a moment showed his sharp 
+nose, and the puff of smoke. 
+
+It was Gandalf who roused them all from sleep. He had sat and watched 
+all alone for about six hours, and had let the others rest. 'And in the 
+watches I have made up my mind,' he said. 'I do not like the feel of the 
+middle way; and I do not like the smell of the left-hand way: there is foul 
+air down there, or I am no guide. I shall take the right-hand passage. It is 
+time we began to climb up again.' 
+
+For eight dark hours, not counting two brief halts, they marched on; 
+and they met no danger, and heard nothing, and saw nothing but the faint 
+gleam of the wizard's light, bobbing like a will-o'-the-wisp in front of 
+them. The passage they had chosen wound steadily upwards. As far as they 
+could judge it went in great mounting curves, and as it rose it grew loftier 
+and wider. There were now no openings to other galleries or tunnels on 
+either side, and the floor was level and sound, without pits or cracks. 
+Evidently they had struck what once had been an important road; and they 
+went forward quicker than they had done on their first march. 
+
+In this way they advanced some fifteen miles, measured in a direct line 
+east, though they must have actually walked twenty miles or more. As the 
+road climbed upwards' Frodo's spirits rose a little; but he still felt 
+oppressed, and still at times he heard, or thought he heard, away behind the 
+Company and beyond the fall and patter of their feet, a following footstep 
+that was not an echo. 
+
+They had marched as far as the hobbits could endure without a rest, and 
+all were thinking of a place where they could sleep, when suddenly the walls 
+to right and left vanished. They seemed to have passed through some arched 
+doorway into a black and empty space. There was a great draught of warmer 
+air behind them, and before them the darkness was cold on their faces. They 
+halted and crowded anxiously together. 
+
+Gandalf seemed pleased. 'I chose the right way,' he said. 'At last we 
+
+
+
+
+are coming to the habitable parts, and I guess that we are not far now from 
+the eastern side. But we are high up, a good deal higher than the Dimrill 
+Gate, unless I am mistaken. From the feeling of the air we must be in a wide 
+hall. I will now risk a little real light.' 
+
+He raised his staff, and for a brief instant there was blaze like a 
+flash of lightning. Great shadows sprang up and fled, and for a second they 
+saw a vast roof far above their heads upheld by many mighty pillars hewn of 
+stone. Before them and on either side stretched a huge empty hall; its black 
+walls, polished and smooth as glass, flashed and glittered. Three other 
+entrances they saw, dark black arches: one straight before them eastwards, 
+and one on either side. Then the light went out. 
+
+'That is all that I shall venture on for the present,' said Gandalf. 
+
+'There used to be great windows on the mountain-side, and shafts leading out 
+to the light in the upper reaches of the Mines. I think we have reached them 
+now, but it is night outside again, and we cannot tell until morning. If I 
+am right, tomorrow we may actually see the morning peeping in. But in the 
+meanwhile we had better go no further. Let us rest, if we can. Things have 
+gone well so far, and the greater part of the dark road is over. But we are 
+not through yet, and it is a long way down to the Gates that open on the 
+world.' 
+
+The Company spent that night in the great cavernous hall, huddled close 
+together in a corner to escape the draught: there seemed to be a steady 
+inflow of chill air through the eastern archway. All about them as they lay 
+hung the darkness, hollow and immense, and they were oppressed by the 
+loneliness and vastness of the dolven halls and endlessly branching stairs 
+and passages. The wildest imaginings that dark rumour had ever suggested to 
+the hobbits fell altogether short of the actual dread and wonder of Moria. 
+
+'There must have been a mighty crowd of dwarves here at one time ' said 
+Sam; 'and every one of them busier than badgers for five hundred years to 
+make all this, and most in hard rock too! What did they do it all for? They 
+didn't live in these darksome holes surely? ' 
+
+'These are not holes,’ said Gimli. 'This is the great realm and city of 
+the Dwarrowdelf. And of old it was not darksome, but full of light and 
+splendour, as is still remembered in our songs.' 
+
+He rose and standing in the dark he began to chant in a deep voice, 
+while the echoes ran away into the roof. 
+
+The world was young, the mountains green, 
+
+
+
+
+No stain yet on the Moon was seen, 
+
+No words were laid on stream or stone 
+When Durin woke and walked alone. 
+
+He named the nameless hills and dells; 
+He drank from yet untasted wells; 
+
+He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, 
+And saw a crown of stars appear, 
+
+As gems upon a silver thread, 
+
+Above the shadow of his head. 
+
+The world was fair, the mountains tall, 
+In Elder Days before the fall 
+Of mighty kings in Nargothrond 
+And Gondolin, who now beyond 
+The Western Seas have passed away: 
+The world was fair in Durin 's Day. 
+
+A king he was on carven throne 
+In many-pillared halls of stone 
+With golden roof and silver floor, 
+
+And runes of power upon the door. 
+
+The light of sun and star and moon 
+In shining lamps of crystal hewn 
+Undimmed by cloud or shade of night 
+There shone for ever fair and bright. 
+
+There hammer on the anvil smote, 
+
+There chisel clove, and graver wrote; 
+There forged was blade, and bound was 
+The delver mined, the mason built. 
+There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, 
+
+And metal wrought like fishes' mail, 
+Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, 
+And shining spears were laid in hoard. 
+
+Unwearied then were Durin 's folk 
+Beneath the mountains music woke: 
+
+
+
+
+The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, 
+And at the gates the trumpets rang. 
+
+
+
+The world is grey, the mountains old, 
+
+The forge's fire is ashen-cold 
+No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: 
+
+The darkness dwells in Durin 's halls 
+The shadow lies upon his tomb 
+In Moria, in Khazad-dym. 
+
+But still the sunken stars appear 
+In dark and windless Mirrormere; 
+
+There lies his crown in water deep, 
+
+Till Durin wakes again from sleep. 
+
+'I like that! ' said Sam. V I should like to learn it. In Moria, in 
+Khazad-dym ! But it makes the darkness seem heavier, thinking of all those 
+lamps. Are there piles of jewels and gold lying about here still? ' 
+
+Gimli was silent. Having sung his song he would say no more. 
+
+'Piles of jewels? ' said Gandalf. 'No. The Ores have often plundered 
+Moria; there is nothing left in the upper halls. And since the dwarves fled, 
+no one dares to seek the shafts and treasuries down in the deep places: they 
+are drowned in water— or in a shadow of fear.' 
+
+'Then what do the dwarves want to come back for? ’ asked Sam. 
+
+’For mithrif answered Gandalf. 'The wealth of Moria was not in gold 
+and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant. Such things 
+they found here, it is true, especially iron; but they did not need to delve 
+for them: all things that they desired they could obtain in traffic. For 
+here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true-silver as some have 
+called it: mithril is the Elvish name. The Dwarves have a name which they do 
+not tell. Its worth was ten times that of gold, and now it is beyond price; 
+for little is left above ground, and even the Ores dare not delve here for 
+it. The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down to darkness. The 
+Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their 
+wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too 
+deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin’s Bane. Of what they 
+brought to light the Ores have gathered nearly all, and given it in tribute 
+to Sauron, who covets it. 
+
+' Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and 
+
+
+
+
+polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet 
+harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, 
+but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim. The Elves dearly 
+loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin , starmoon, which you 
+saw upon the doors. Bilbo had a corslet of mithril-rings that Thorin gave 
+him. I wonder what has become of it? Gathering dust still in Michel Delving 
+Mathom-house, I suppose.' 
+
+'What? ' cried Gimli, startled out of his silence. 'A corslet of 
+Moria- silver? That was a kingly gift! ’ 
+
+'Yes,' said Gandalf. I never told him, but its worth was greater than 
+the value of the whole Shire and everything in it.' 
+
+Frodo said nothing, but he put his hand under his tunic and touched the 
+rings of his mail-shirt. He felt staggered to think that he had been walking 
+about with the price of the Shire under his jacket. Had Bilbo known? He felt 
+no doubt that Bilbo knew quite well. It was indeed a kingly gift. But now 
+his thoughts had been carried away from the dark Mines, to Rivendell, to 
+Bilbo, and to Bag End in the days while Bilbo was still there. He wished 
+with all his heart that he was back there, and in those days, mowing the 
+lawn, or pottering among the flowers, and that he had never heard of Moria, 
+or mithril — or the Ring. 
+
+A deep silence fell. One by one the others fell asleep. Frodo was on 
+guard. As if it were a breath that came in through unseen doors out of deep 
+places, dread came over him. His hands were cold and his brow damp. He 
+listened. All his mind was given to listening and nothing else for two slow 
+hours; but he heard no sound, not even the imagined echo of a footfall. 
+
+His watch was nearly over, when, far off where he guessed that the 
+western archway stood, he fancied that he could see two pale points of 
+light, almost like luminous eyes. He started. His head had nodded. 'I must 
+have nearly fallen asleep on guard,' he thought. 'I was on the edge of a 
+dream.' He stood up and rubbed his eyes, and remained standing, peering into 
+the dark, until he was relieved by Legolas. 
+
+When he lay down he quickly went to sleep, but it seemed to him that 
+the dream went on: he heard whispers, and saw the two pale points of light 
+approaching, slowly. He woke and found that the others were speaking softly 
+near him, and that a dim light was falling on his face. High up above the 
+eastern archway through a shaft near the roof came a long pale gleam; and 
+across the hall through the northern arch light also glimmered faint and 
+
+
+
+
+distantly. 
+
+Frodo sat up. 'Good morning! 'said Gandalf: 'For morning it is again 
+at last. I was right, you see. We are high up on the east side of Moria. 
+Before today is over we ought to find the Great Gates and see the waters of 
+Mirrormere lying in the Dimrill Dale before us.' 
+
+'I shall be glad,' said Gimli. 'I have looked on Moria, and it is very 
+great, but it has become dark and dreadful; and we have found no sign of my 
+kindred. I doubt now that Balin ever came here.' 
+
+After they had breakfasted Gandalf decided to go on again at once. 'We 
+are tired, but we shall rest better when we are outside,’ he said. 'I think 
+that none of us will wish to spend another night in Moria.’ 
+
+'No indeed! ’ said Boromir. 'Which way shall we take? Yonder eastward 
+arch? ’ 
+
+’Maybe,’ said Gandalf. 'But I du not know yet exactly where we are. 
+Unless I am quite astray, I guess that we are above and to the north of the 
+Great Gates; and it may not be easy to find the right road down to them. The 
+eastern arch will probably prove to be the way that we must take; but before 
+we make up our minds we ought to look about us. Let us go towards that light 
+in the north door. If we could find a window it would help, but I fear that 
+the light comes only down deep shafts.’ 
+
+Following his lead the Company passed under the northern arch. They 
+found themselves in a wide corridor. As they went along it the glimmer grew 
+stronger, and they saw that it came through a doorway on their right. It was 
+high and flat-topped, and the stone door was still upon its hinges, standing 
+half open. Beyond it was a large square chamber. It was dimly lit, but to 
+their eyes, after so long a time in the dark, it seemed dazzlingly bright, 
+and they blinked as they entered. 
+
+Their feet disturbed a deep dust upon the floor, and stumbled among 
+things lying in the doorway whose shapes they could not at first make out. 
+The chamber was lit by a wide shaft high in the further eastern wall; it 
+slanted upwards and, far above, a small square patch of blue sky could be 
+seen. The light of the shaft fell directly on a table in the middle of the 
+room: a single oblong block, about two feet high, upon which was laid a 
+great slab of white stone. 
+
+'It looks like a tomb,’ muttered Frodo, and bent forwards with a 
+curious sense of foreboding, to look more closely at it. Gandalf came 
+quickly to his side. On the slab runes were deeply graven: 
+
+
+
+
+These are Daeron's Runes, such as were used of old in Moria,' said 
+Gandalf. 'Here is written in the tongues of Men and Dwarves: 
+balin son of fundin 
+lord of moria.' 
+
+'He is dead then,' said Frodo. T feared it was so.' Gimli cast his 
+hood over his face. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5 . The Bridge of Khazad-dym 
+
+
+
+The Company of the Ring stood silent beside the tomb of Balin. Frodo 
+thought of Bilbo and his long friendship with the dwarf, and of Balin's 
+visit to the Shire long ago. In that dusty chamber in the mountains it 
+seemed a thousand years ago and on the other side of the world. 
+
+At length they stirred and looked up, and began to search for anything 
+that would give them tidings of Balin's fate, or show what had become of his 
+folk. There was another smaller door on the other side of the chamber, under 
+the shaft. By both the doors they could now see that many bones were lying, 
+and among them were broken swords and axe-heads, and cloven shields and 
+helms. Some of the swords were crooked: ore-scimitars with blackened blades. 
+
+There were many recesses cut in the rock of the walls, and in them were 
+large iron-bound chests of wood. All had been broken and plundered; but 
+beside the shattered lid of one there lay the remains of a book. It had been 
+slashed and stabbed and partly burned, and it was so stained with black and 
+other dark marks like old blood that little of it could be read. Gandalf 
+lifted it carefully, but the leaves crackled and broke as he laid it on the 
+slab. He pored over it for some time without speaking. Frodo and Gimli 
+standing at his side could see, as he gingerly turned the leaves, that they 
+were written by many different hands, in runes, both of Moria and of Dale, 
+and here and there in Elvish script. 
+
+At last Gandalf looked up. 'It seems to be a record of the fortunes of 
+Balin's folk,' he said. V I guess that it began with their coming to Dimrill 
+Dale nigh on thirty years ago: the pages seem to have numbers referring to 
+the years after their arrival. The top page is marked one — three, so at 
+least two are missing from the beginning. Listen to this! 
+
+'We drove out ores from the great gate and guard — I think; the next 
+word is blurred and burned; probably room — we slew many in the bright — I 
+think — sun in the dale. Flui was killed by an arrow. He slew the great. 
+
+Then there is a blur followed by Flui under grass near Mirror mere. The next 
+line or two I cannot read. Then comes We have taken the twentyfirst hall of 
+North end to dwell in. There is I cannot read what. A shaft is mentioned. 
+
+Then Balin has set up his seat in the Chamber of Mazarbul.' 
+
+'The Chamber of Records,' said Gimli. V I guess that is where we now 
+
+
+
+
+stand.' 
+
+'Well, I can read no more for a long way,' said Gandalf, ’except the 
+word gold , and Darin 's Axe and something helm. Then Balin is now lord of 
+Morici. That seems to end a chapter. After some stars another hand begins, 
+and I can see we found truesilver, and later the word wellforged and then 
+something, I have it! mithril; and the last two lines Uin to seek for the 
+upper armouries of Third Deep, something go westwards, a blur, to Hollin 
+gate' 
+
+Gandalf paused and set a few leaves aside. 'There are several pages of 
+the same sort, rather hastily written and much damaged, he said; 'but I can 
+make little of them in this light. Now there must be a number of leaves 
+missing, because they begin to be numbered five, the fifth year of the 
+colony, I suppose. Let me see! No, they are too cut and stained; I cannot 
+read them. We might do better in the sunlight. Wait! Here is something: a 
+large bold hand using an Elvish script.’ 
+
+’That would be Ori's hand,' said Gimli, looking over the wizard's arm. 
+
+'He could write well and speedily, and often used the Elvish characters.’ 
+
+'I fear he had ill tidings to record in a fair hand,' said Gandalf. 
+
+'The first clear word is sorrow, but the rest of the line is lost, unless it 
+ends in estre. Yes, it must be yestre followed by day being the tenth of 
+novembre Balin lord of Moria fell in Dimrill Dale. He went alone to look in 
+Mirror mere, an ore shot him from behind a stone, we slew the ore, hut many 
+more ...up from east up the Silverlode. The remainder of the page is so 
+blurred that I can hardly make anything out, but I think I can read we have 
+barred the gates, and then can hold them long if, and then perhaps horrible 
+and suffer. Poor Balin! He seems to have kept the title that he took for 
+less than five years. I wonder what happened afterwards; but there is no 
+time to puzzle out the last few pages. Here is the last page of all.' He 
+paused and sighed. 
+
+'It is grim reading,' he said. 'I fear their end was cruel. Listen! We 
+cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second 
+hall. Frbr and Luni and Nbli fell there. Then there are four lines smeared 
+so that I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run the pool is up 
+to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Uin. We cannot get 
+out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that 
+means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they 
+are coming. There is nothing more.' Gandalf paused and stood in silent 
+
+
+
+
+thought. 
+
+A sudden dread and a horror of the chamber fell on the Company. ' We 
+cannot get out,' muttered Gimli. 'It was well for us that the pool had sunk 
+a little, and that the Watcher was sleeping down at the southern end.' 
+
+Gandalf raised his head and looked round. 'They seem to have made a 
+last stand by both doors,' he said; 'but there were not many left by that 
+time. So ended the attempt to retake Moria! It was valiant but foolish. The 
+time is not come yet. Now, I fear, we must say farewell to Balin son of 
+Fundin. Here he must lie in the halls of his fathers. We will take this 
+book, the Book of Mazarbul, and look at it more closely later. You had 
+better keep it, Gimli, and take it back to Dbin, if you get a chance. It 
+will interest him, though it will grieve him deeply. Come, let us go! The 
+morning is passing.' 
+
+'Which way shall we go? ' asked Boromir. 
+
+'Back to the hall,' answered Gandalf. 'But our visit to this room has 
+not been in vain. I now know where we are. This must be, as Gimli says, the 
+Chamber of Mazarbul; and the hall must be the twenty-first of the North-end. 
+Therefore we should leave by the eastern arch of the hall, and bear right 
+and south, and go downwards. The Twenty-first Hall should be on the Seventh 
+Level, that is six above the level of the Gates. Come now! Back to the hall! 
+
+f 
+
+Gandalf had hardly spoken these words, when there came a great noise: a 
+rolling Boom that seemed to come from depths far below, and to tremble in 
+the stone at their feet. They sprang towards the door in alarm. Doom, doom 
+it rolled again, as if huge hands were turning the very caverns of Moria 
+into a vast drum. Then there came an echoing blast: a great horn was blown 
+in the hall, and answering horns and harsh cries were heard further off. 
+
+There was a hurrying sound of many feet. 
+
+'They are coming! ’ cried Legolas. 
+
+'We cannot get out,' said Gimli. 
+
+'Trapped! ' cried Gandalf. 'Why did I delay? Here we are, caught, just 
+as they were before. But I was not here then. We will see what — ' 
+
+Doom, doom came the drum-beat and the walls shook. 
+
+'Slam the doors and wedge them! ' shouted Aragorn. 'And keep your packs 
+on as long as you can: we may get a chance to cut our way out yet.' 
+
+'No! ' said Gandalf. 'We must not get shut in. Keep the east door ajar! 
+
+We will go that way, if we get a chance.' 
+
+
+
+
+Another harsh horn-call and shrill cries rang out. Feet were coming 
+down the corridor. There was a ring and clatter as the Company drew their 
+swords. Glamdring shone with a pale light, and Sting glinted at the edges. 
+Boromir set his shoulder against the western door. 
+
+'Wait a moment! Do not close it yet! ' said Gandalf. He sprang forward 
+to Boromir's side and drew himself up to his full height. 
+
+'Who comes hither to disturb the rest of Balin Lord of Moria? ' he 
+cried in a loud voice. 
+
+There was a rush of hoarse laughter, like the fall of sliding stones 
+into a pit; amid the clamour a deep voice was raised in command. Doom, 
+boom, 
+
+doom went the drums in the deep. 
+
+With a quick movement Gandalf stepped before the narrow opening of the 
+door and thrust forward his staff: There was a dazzling flash that lit the 
+chamber and the passage outside. For an instant the wizard looked out. 
+Arrows whined and whistled down the corridor as he sprang back. 
+
+'There are Ores, very many of them,' he said. 'And some are large and 
+evil: black Uruks of Mordor. For the moment they are hanging back, but there 
+is something else there. A great cave-troll, I think, or more than one. 
+
+There is no hope of escape that way.' 
+
+'And no hope at all, if they come at the other door as well,' said 
+Boromir. 
+
+'There is no sound outside here yet,' said Aragorn, who was standing by 
+the eastern door listening. 'The passage on this side plunges straight down 
+a stair: it plainly does not lead back towards the hall. But it is no good 
+flying blindly this way with the pursuit just behind. We cannot block the 
+door. Its key is gone and the lock is broken, and it opens inwards. We must 
+do something to delay the enemy first. We will make them fear the Chamber of 
+Mazarbul!’ he said grimly feeling the edge of his sword, And®ril. 
+
+Heavy feet were heard in the corridor. Boromir flung himself against 
+the door and heaved it to; then he wedged it with broken sword-blades and 
+splinters of wood. The Company retreated to the other side of the chamber. 
+But they had no chance to fly yet. There was a blow on the door that made it 
+quiver; and then it began to grind slowly open, driving back the wedges. A 
+huge arm and shoulder, with a dark skin of greenish scales, was thrust 
+through the widening gap. Then a great, flat, toeless foot was forced 
+through below. There was a dead silence outside. 
+
+
+
+
+Boromir leaped forward and hewed at the arm with all his might; but his 
+sword rang, glanced aside, and fell from his shaken hand. The blade was 
+notched. 
+
+Suddenly, and to his own surprise, Frodo felt a hot wrath blaze up in 
+his heart. 'The Shire! ' he cried, and springing beside Boromir, he stooped, 
+and stabbed with Sting at the hideous foot. There was a bellow, and the foot 
+jerked back, nearly wrenching Sting from Frodo's arm. Black drops dripped 
+from the blade and smoked on the floor. Boromir hurled himself against the 
+door and slammed it again. 
+
+'One for the Shire! ' cried Aragorn. 'The hobbit's bite is deep! You 
+have a good blade, Frodo son of Drogo ! ' 
+
+There was a crash on the door, followed by crash after crash. Rams and 
+hammers were beating against it. It cracked and staggered back, and the 
+opening grew suddenly wide. Arrows came whistling in, but struck the 
+northern wall, and fell harmlessly to the floor. There was a horn-blast and 
+a rush of feet, and ores one after another leaped into the chamber. 
+
+How many there were the Company could not count. The affray was sharp, 
+but the ores were dismayed by the fierceness of the defence. Legolas shot 
+two through the throat. Gimli hewed the legs from under another that had 
+sprung up on Balin' s tomb. Boromir and Aragorn slew many. When thirteen 
+had 
+
+fallen the rest fled shrieking, leaving the defenders unharmed, except for 
+Sam who had a scratch along the scalp. A quick duck had saved him; and he 
+had felled his ore: a sturdy thrust with his Barrow-blade. A fire was 
+smouldering in his brown eyes that would have made Ted Sandyman step 
+backwards, if he had seen it. 
+
+'Now is the time! ' cried Gandalf. 'Let us go, before the troll 
+returns!' 
+
+But even as they retreated, and before Pippin and Merry had reached the 
+stair outside, a huge ore-chieftain, almost man-high, clad in black mail 
+from head to foot, leaped into the chamber; behind him his followers 
+clustered in the doorway. His broad flat face was swart, his eyes were like 
+coals, and his tongue was red; he wielded a great spear. With a thrust of 
+his huge hide shield he turned Boromir's sword and bore him backwards, 
+throwing him to the ground. Diving under Aragorn's blow with the speed of a 
+striking snake he charged into the Company and thrust with his spear 
+straight at Frodo. The blow caught him on the right side, and Frodo was 
+
+
+
+
+hurled against the wall and pinned. Sam, with a cry, hacked at the 
+spear- shaft, and it broke. But even as the ore flung down the truncheon and 
+swept out his scimitar, And®ril came down upon his helm. There was a flash 
+like flame and the helm burst asunder. The ore fell with cloven head. His 
+followers fled howling, as Boromir and Aragorn sprang at them. 
+
+Doom, doom went the drums in the deep. The great voice rolled out 
+again. 
+
+'Now! ' shouted Gandalf. 'Now is the last chance. Run for it! ' 
+
+Aragorn picked up Frodo where he lay by the wall and made for the 
+stair, pushing Merry and Pippin in front of him. The others followed; but 
+Gimli had to be dragged away by Legolas: in spite of the peril he lingered 
+by Balin's tomb with his head bowed. Boromir hauled the eastern door to, 
+grinding upon its hinges: it had great iron rings on either side, but could 
+not be fastened. 
+
+'I am all right,' gasped Frodo. 'I can walk. Put me down! ' 
+
+Aragorn nearly dropped him in his amazement. 'I thought you were dead! 
+
+' he cried. 
+
+'Not yet! ' said Gandalf. 'But there is time for wonder. Off you go, 
+all of you, down the stairs! Wait a few minutes for me at the bottom, but if 
+I do not come soon, go on! Go quickly and choose paths leading right and 
+downwards.' 
+
+'We cannot leave you to hold the door alone! ' said Aragorn. 
+
+'Do as I say! ' said Gandalf fiercely. 'Swords are no more use here. 
+
+Go!' 
+
+The passage was lit by no shaft and was utterly dark. They groped their 
+way down a long flight of steps, and then looked back; but they could see 
+nothing, except high above them the faint glimmer of the wizard's staff. He 
+seemed to be still standing on guard by the closed door. Frodo breathed 
+heavily and leaned against Sam, who put his arms about him. They stood 
+peering up the stairs into the darkness. Frodo thought he could hear the 
+voice of Gandalf above, muttering words that ran down the sloping roof with 
+a sighing echo. He could not catch what was said. The walls seemed to be 
+trembling. Every now and again the drum-beats throbbed and rolled: doom, 
+doom. 
+
+Suddenly at the top of the stair there was a stab of white light. Then 
+there was a dull rumble and a heavy thud. The drum-beats broke out wildly: 
+
+
+
+
+doom-boom, doom-boom, and then stopped. Gandalf came flying down the 
+steps 
+
+and fell to the ground in the midst of the Company. 
+
+'Well, well! That's over! ' said the wizard struggling to his feet. 'I 
+have done all that I could. But I have met my match, and have nearly been 
+destroyed. But don't stand here! Go on! You will have to do without light 
+for a while: I am rather shaken. Go on! Go on! Where are you, Gimli? Come 
+ahead with me! Keep close behind, all of you!' 
+
+They stumbled after him wondering what had happened. Doom, doom 
+went 
+
+the drum-beats again: they now sounded muffled and far away, but they were 
+following. There was no other sound of pursuit, neither tramp of feet, nor 
+any voice. Gandalf took no turns, right or left, for the passage seemed to 
+be going in the direction that he desired. Every now and again it descended 
+a flight of steps, fifty or more, to a lower level. At the moment that was 
+their chief danger; for in the dark they could not see a descent, until they 
+came on it, and put their feet out into emptiness. Gandalf felt the ground 
+with his staff like a blind man. 
+
+At the end of an hour they had gone a mile, or maybe a little more, and 
+had descended many flights of stairs. There was still no sound of pursuit. 
+Almost they began to hope that they would escape. At the bottom of the 
+seventh flight Gandalf halted. 
+
+'It is getting hot! ' he gasped. 'We ought to be down at least to the 
+level of the Gates now. Soon I think we should look for a left-hand turn to 
+take us east. I hope it is not far. I am very weary. I must rest here a 
+moment, even if all the ores ever spawned are after us.' 
+
+Gimli took his arm and helped him down to a seat on the step. 'What 
+happened away up there at the door? ’ he asked. 'Did you meet the beater of 
+the drums? ’ 
+
+’I do not know,' answered Gandalf. 'But I found myself suddenly faced 
+by something that I have not met before. I could think of nothing to do but 
+to try and put a shutting -spell on the door. I know many; but to do things 
+of that kind rightly requires time, and even then the door can be broken by 
+strength. 
+
+'As I stood there I could hear ore- voices on the other side: at any 
+moment I thought they would burst it open. I could not hear what was said; 
+they seemed to be talking in their own hideous language. All I caught was 
+
+
+
+
+ghvsh; that is "fire". Then something came into the chamber — I felt it 
+through the door, and the ores themselves were afraid and fell silent. It 
+laid hold of the iron ring, and then it perceived me and my spell. 
+
+’What it was I cannot guess, but I have never felt such a challenge. 
+
+The counter-spell was terrible. It nearly broke me. For an instant the door 
+left my control and began to open ! I had to speak a word of Command. That 
+proved too great a strain. The door burst in pieces. Something dark as a 
+cloud was blocking out all the light inside, and I was thrown backwards down 
+the stairs. All the wall gave way, and the roof of the chamber as well, I 
+think. 
+
+'I am afraid Balin is buried deep, and maybe something else is buried 
+there too. I cannot say. But at least the passage behind us was completely 
+blocked. Ah! I have never felt so spent, but it is passing. And now what 
+about you, Frodo? There was not time to say so, but I have never been more 
+delighted in my life than when you spoke. I feared that it was a brave but 
+dead hobbit that Aragorn was carrying.’ 
+
+'What about me? ' said Frodo. 'I am alive, and whole I think. I am 
+bruised and in pain, but it is not too bad.’ 
+
+'Well,' said Aragorn, 'I can only say that hobbits are made of a stuff 
+so tough that I have never met the like of it. Had I known, I would have 
+spoken softer in the Inn at Bree! That spear -thrust would have skewered a 
+wild boar! ’ 
+
+’Well, it did not skewer me, I am glad to say,’ said Frodo; 'though I 
+feel as if I had been caught between a hammer and an anvil.’ He said no 
+more. He found breathing painful. 
+
+’You take after Bilbo,’ said Gandalf. 'There is more about you than 
+meets the eye, as I said of him long ago.’ Frodo wondered if the remark 
+meant more than it said. 
+
+They now went on again. Before long Gimli spoke. He had keen eyes in 
+the dark. 'I think,’ he said, 'that there is a light ahead. But it is not 
+daylight. It is red. What can it be? ’ 
+
+' Ghvsh !' muttered Gandalf. 'I wonder if that is what they meant: that 
+the lower levels are on fire? Still, we can only go on.’ 
+
+Soon the light became unmistakable, and could be seen by all. It was 
+flickering and glowing on the walls away down the passage before them. They 
+could now see their way: in front the road sloped down swiftly, and some way 
+ahead there stood a low archway; through it the glowing light came. The air 
+
+
+
+
+became very hot. 
+
+When they came to the arch Gandalf went through, signing to them to 
+wait. As he stood just beyond the opening they saw his face lit by a red 
+glow. Quickly he stepped back. 
+
+'There is some new devilry here,' he said, 'devised for our welcome no 
+doubt. But I know now where we are: we have reached the First Deep, the 
+level immediately below the Gates. This is the Second Hall of Old Moria; and 
+the Gates are near: away beyond the eastern end, on the left, not more than 
+a quarter of a mile. Across the Bridge, up a broad stair, along a wide road 
+through the First Hall, and out! But come and look! ' 
+
+They peered out. Before them was another cavernous hall. It was loftier 
+and far longer than the one in which they had slept. They were near its 
+eastern end; westward it ran away into darkness. Down the centre stalked a 
+double line of towering pillars. They were carved like boles of mighty trees 
+whose boughs upheld the roof with a branching tracery of stone. Their stems 
+were smooth and black, but a red glow was darkly mirrored in their sides. 
+Right across the floor, close to the feet of two huge pillars a great 
+fissure had opened. Out of it a fierce red light came, and now and again 
+flames licked at the brink and curled about the bases of the columns. Wisps 
+of dark smoke wavered in the hot air. 
+
+'If we had come by the main road down from the upper halls, we should 
+have been trapped here,' said Gandalf. 'Let us hope that the fire now lies 
+between us and pursuit. Come! There is no time to lose.' 
+
+Even as he spoke they heard again the pursuing drum-beat: Doom, doom, 
+doom. Away beyond the shadows at the western end of the hall there came 
+cries and horn-calls. Doom, doom : the pillars seemed to tremble and the 
+flames to quiver. 
+
+'Now for the last race! ’ said Gandalf. 'If the sun is shining outside 
+we may still escape. After me! ' 
+
+He turned left and sped across the smooth floor of the hall. The 
+distance was greater than it had looked. As they ran they heard the beat and 
+echo of many hurrying feet behind. A shrill yell went up: they had been 
+seen. There was a ring and clash of steel. An arrow whistled over Frodo's 
+head. 
+
+Boromir laughed. 'They did not expect this,’ he said. 'The fire has cut 
+them off. We are on the wrong side! ’ 
+
+'Look ahead! ' called Gandalf. 'The Bridge is near. It is dangerous and 
+
+
+
+
+narrow.’ 
+
+Suddenly Frodo saw before him a black chasm. At the end of the hall the 
+floor vanished and fell to an unknown depth. The outer door could only be 
+reached by a slender bridge of stone, without kerb or rail, that spanned the 
+chasm with one curving spring of fifty feet. It was an ancient defence of 
+the Dwarves against any enemy that might capture the First Hall and the 
+outer passages. They could only pass across it in single file. At the brink 
+Gandalf halted and the others came up in a pack behind. 
+
+'Lead the way, Gimli! ' he said. 'Pippin and Merry next. Straight on 
+and up the stair beyond the door! ' 
+
+Arrows fell among them. One struck Frodo and sprang back. Another 
+pierced Gandalf s hat and stuck there like a black feather. Frodo looked 
+behind. Beyond the fire he saw swarming black figures: there seemed to be 
+hundreds of ores. They brandished spears and scimitars which shone red as 
+blood in the firelight. Doom, doom rolled the drum-beats, growing louder and 
+louder, doom, doom. 
+
+Legolas turned and set an arrow to the string, though it was a long 
+shot for his small bow. He drew, but his hand fell, and the arrow slipped to 
+the ground. He gave a cry of dismay and fear. Two great trolls appeared; 
+they bore great slabs of stone, and flung them down to serve as gangways 
+over the fire. But it was not the trolls that had filled the Elf with 
+terror. The ranks of the ores had opened, and they crowded away, as if they 
+themselves were afraid. Something was coming up behind them. What it was 
+could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a 
+dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to 
+be in it and to go before it. 
+
+It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had 
+bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames 
+roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in 
+the air. Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand 
+was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of 
+many thongs. 
+
+'Ai! ai! ' wailed Legolas. 'A Balrog! A Balrog is come! ' 
+
+Gimli stared with wide eyes. 'Durin's Bane! ' he cried, and letting his 
+axe fall he covered his face. 
+
+'A Balrog,' muttered Gandalf. 'Now I understand.' He faltered and 
+leaned heavily on his staff. 'What an evil fortune! And I am already weary.' 
+
+
+
+
+The dark figure streaming with fire raced towards them. The ores yelled 
+and poured over the stone gangways. Then Boromir raised his horn and blew. 
+Loud the challenge rang and bellowed, like the shout of many throats under 
+the cavernous roof. For a moment the ores quailed and the fiery shadow 
+halted. Then the echoes died as suddenly as a flame blown out by a dark 
+wind, and the enemy advanced again. 
+
+'Over the bridge!' cried Gandalf, recalling his strength. "Fly ! This is 
+a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the narrow way. Fly! ' Aragorn and 
+Boromir did not heed the command, but still held their ground, side by side, 
+behind Gandalf at the far end of the bridge. The others halted just within 
+the doorway at the hall's end, and turned, unable to leave their leader to 
+face the enemy alone. 
+
+The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, 
+leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring 
+gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow 
+about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs 
+whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm. 
+
+'You cannot pass,' he said. The ores stood still, and a dead silence 
+fell. V I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You 
+cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udyn. Go back to the 
+Shadow! You cannot pass.' 
+
+The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the 
+darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it 
+drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to 
+wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed 
+small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the 
+onset of a storm. 
+
+From out of the shadow a red sword leaped flaming. 
+
+Glamdring glittered white in answer. 
+
+There was a ringing clash and a stab of white fire. The Balrog fell 
+back and its sword flew up in molten fragments. The wizard swayed on the 
+bridge, stepped back a pace, and then again stood still. 
+
+'You cannot pass! ' he said. 
+
+With a bound the Balrog leaped full upon the bridge. Its whip whirled 
+and hissed. 
+
+'He cannot stand alone! ' cried Aragorn suddenly and ran back along the 
+bridge. 'Elendil!' he shouted. 'I am with you, Gandalf! ' 
+
+
+
+
+'Gondor! ' cried Boromir and leaped after him. 
+
+At that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud he smote the 
+bridge before him. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. A 
+blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The bridge cracked. Right at the 
+Balrog's feet it broke, and the stone upon which it stood crashed into the 
+gulf, while the rest remained, poised, quivering like a tongue of rock 
+thrust out into emptiness. 
+
+With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged 
+down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs 
+lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He 
+staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 
+
+’Fly, you fools! ' he cried, and was gone. 
+
+The fires went out, and blank darkness fell. The Company stood rooted 
+with horror staring into the pit. Even as Aragorn and Boromir came flying 
+back, the rest of the bridge cracked and fell. With a cry Aragorn roused 
+them. 
+
+’Come! I will lead you now ! ' he called. 'We must obey his last 
+command. Follow me! ' 
+
+They stumbled wildly up the great stairs beyond the door. Aragorn 
+leading, Boromir at the rear. At the top was a wide echoing passage. Along 
+this they fled. Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that 
+he himself was weeping as he ran. Doom, doom, doom the drum-beats rolled 
+behind, mournful now and slow; doom! 
+
+They ran on. The light grew before them; great shafts pierced the roof. 
+
+They ran swifter. They passed into a hall, bright with daylight from its 
+high windows in the east. They fled across it. Through its huge broken doors 
+they passed, and suddenly before them the Great Gates opened, an arch of 
+blazing light. 
+
+There was a guard of ores crouching in the shadows behind the great 
+door posts towering on either side, but the gates were shattered and cast 
+down. Aragorn smote to the ground the captain that stood in his path, and 
+the rest fled in terror of his wrath. The Company swept past them and took 
+no heed of them. Out of the Gates they ran and sprang down the huge and 
+age-worn steps, the threshold of Moria. 
+
+Thus, at last, they came beyond hope under the sky and felt the wind on 
+their faces. 
+
+They did not halt until they were out of bowshot from the walls. 
+
+
+
+
+Dimrill Dale lay about them. The shadow of the Misty Mountains lay upon it, 
+but eastwards there was a golden light on the land. It was but one hour 
+after noon. The sun was shining; the clouds were white and high. 
+
+They looked back. Dark yawned the archway of the Gates under the 
+mountain-shadow. Faint and far beneath the earth rolled the slow drum-beats: 
+doom. A thin black smoke trailed out. Nothing else was to be seen; the dale 
+all around was empty. Doom. Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they 
+wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. 
+The drum-beats faded. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6 . Lothlurien 
+
+
+
+'Alas! I Fear we cannot stay here longer,' said Aragorn. He looked 
+towards the mountains and held up his sword. 'Farewell, Gandalf ! ' he cried. 
+'Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, bewarel Alas that I 
+spoke true! What hope have we without you? ' 
+
+He turned to the Company. 'We must do without hope,' he said. 'At least 
+we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We 
+have 
+
+a long road, and much to do.' 
+
+They rose and looked about them. Northward the dale ran up into a glen 
+of shadows between two great arms of the mountains, above which three white 
+peaks were shining: Celebdil, Fanuidhol, Caradhras. the Mountains of Moria. 
+At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like a white lace over an endless 
+ladder of short falls, and a mist of foam hung in the air about the 
+mountains' feet. 
+
+'Yonder is the Dimrill Stair,' said Aragorn, pointing to the falls. 
+
+'Down the deep-cloven way that climbs beside the torrent we should have 
+come, if fortune had been kinder.' 
+
+'Or Caradhras less cruel,' said Gimli. 'There he stands smiling in the 
+sun! ' He shook his fist at the furthest of the snow-capped peaks and turned 
+away. 
+
+To the east the outflung arm of the mountains marched to a sudden end, 
+and far lands could be descried beyond them, wide and vague. To the south 
+the Misty Mountains receded endlessly as far as sight could reach. Less than 
+a mile away, and a little below them, for they still stood high up on the 
+west side of the dale, there lay a mere. It was long and oval, shaped like a 
+great spear-head thrust deep into the northern glen; but its southern end 
+was beyond the shadows under the sunlit sky. Yet its waters were dark: a 
+deep blue like clear evening sky seen from a lamp-lit room. Its face was 
+still and unruffled. About it lay a smooth sward, shelving down on all sides 
+to its bare unbroken rim. 
+
+'There lies the Mirrormere, deep Kheled-zvram! ' said Gimli sadly. 'I 
+remember that he said: "May you have joy of the sight! But we cannot linger 
+there." Now long shall I journey ere I have joy again. It is I that must 
+
+
+
+
+hasten away, and he that must remain.' 
+
+The Company now went down the road from the Gates. It was rough and 
+broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid 
+the cracking stones. But still it could be seen that once long ago a great 
+paved way had wound upwards from the lowlands of the Dwarf-kingdom. 
+
+In 
+
+places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green 
+topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind. An eastward 
+bend led them hard by the sward of Mirrormere, and there not far from the 
+roadside stood a single column broken at the top. 
+
+'That is Durin's Stone! ' cried Gimli. 'I cannot pass without turning 
+aside for a moment to look at the wonder of the dale ! ' 
+
+'Be swift then! ' said Aragorn, looking back towards the Gates. 'The 
+Sun sinks early. The Ores will not, maybe, come out till after dusk, but we 
+must be far away before nightfall. The Moon is almost spent, and it will be 
+dark tonight.' 
+
+'Come with me, Frodo! ' cried the dwarf, springing from the road. 'I 
+would not have you go without seeing Kheled-zvram.' He ran down the long 
+green slope. Frodo followed slowly, drawn by the still blue water in spite 
+of hurt and weariness; Sam came up behind. 
+
+Beside the standing stone Gimli halted and looked up. It was cracked 
+and weather-worn, and the faint runes upon its side could not be read. 'This 
+pillar marks the spot where Durin first looked in the Mirrormere,' said the 
+dwarf. 'Let us look ourselves once, ere we go!' 
+
+They stooped over the dark water. At first they could see nothing. Then 
+slowly they saw the forms of the encircling mountains mirrored in a profound 
+blue, and the peaks were like plumes of white flame above them; beyond there 
+was a space of sky. There like jewels sunk in the deep shone glinting stars, 
+though sunlight was in the sky above. Of their own stooping forms no shadow 
+could be seen. 
+
+'O Kheled-zvram fair and wonderful! ' said Gimli. 'There lies the Crown 
+of Durin till he wakes. Farewell! ' He bowed, and turned away, and hastened 
+back up the green-sward to the road again. 
+
+'What did you see? ' said Pippin to Sam, but Sam was too deep in 
+thought to answer. 
+
+The road now turned south and went quickly downwards, running out from 
+between the arms of the dale. Some way below the mere they came on a deep 
+
+
+
+
+well of water, clear as crystal, from which a freshet fell over a stone lip 
+and ran glistening and gurgling down a steep rocky channel. 
+
+'Here is the spring from which the Silverlode rises.' said Gimli. 'Do 
+not drink of it! It is icy cold.' 
+
+'Soon it becomes a swift river, and it gathers water from many other 
+mountain- streams,' said Aragorn. 'Our road leads beside it for many miles. 
+For I shall take you by the road that Gandalf chose, and first I hope to 
+come to the woods where the Silverlode flows into the Great River-out 
+yonder.' They looked as he pointed, and before them they could see the 
+stream leaping down to the trough of the valley, and then running on and 
+away into the lower lands, until it was lost in a golden haze. 
+
+'There lie the woods of Lothlurien! ’ said Legolas. 'That is the 
+fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees 
+of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not 
+till the spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and then the 
+boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, 
+and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the 
+trees is smooth and grey. So still our songs in Mirkwood say. My heart would 
+be glad if I were beneath the eaves of that wood, and it were springtime ! ’ 
+
+'My heart will be glad, even in the winter,' said Aragorn. 'But it lies 
+many miles away. Let us hasten! ' 
+
+For some time Frodo and Sam managed to keep up with the others; but 
+Aragorn was leading them at a great pace, and after a while they lagged 
+behind. They had eaten nothing since the early morning. Sam's cut was 
+burning like fire, and his head felt light. In spite of the shining sun the 
+wind seemed chill after the warm darkness of Moria. He shivered. Frodo felt 
+every step more painful and he gasped for breath. 
+
+At last Legolas turned, and seeing them now far behind, he spoke to 
+Aragorn. The others halted, and Aragorn ran back, calling to Boromir to come 
+with him. 
+
+'I am sorry, Frodo! ' he cried, full of concern. 'So much has happened 
+this day and we have such need of haste, that I have forgotten that you were 
+hurt; and Sam too. You should have spoken. We have done nothing to ease 
+you, 
+
+as we ought, though all the ores of Moria were after us. Come now! A little 
+further on there is a place where we can rest for a little. There I will do 
+what I can for you. Come, Boromir! We will carry them.' 
+
+
+
+
+Soon afterwards they came upon another stream that ran down from the 
+west, and joined its bubbling water with the hurrying Silverlode. Together 
+they plunged over a fall of green-hued stone, and foamed down into a dell. 
+About it stood fir-trees, short and bent, and its sides were steep and 
+clothed with harts-tongue and shrubs of whortle -berry. At the bottom there 
+was a level space through which the stream flowed noisily over shining 
+pebbles. Here they rested. It was now nearly three hours after noon, and 
+they had come only a few miles from the Gates. Already the sun was 
+westering. 
+
+While Gimli and the two younger hobbits kindled a fire of brush- and 
+fir-wood, and drew water, Aragorn tended Sam and Frodo. Sam's wound was 
+not 
+
+deep, but it looked ugly, and Aragorn’s face was grave as he examined it. 
+After a moment he looked up with relief. 
+
+’Good luck, Sam! ’ he said. 'Many have received worse than this in 
+payment for the slaying of their first ore. The cut is not poisoned, as the 
+wounds of ore-blades too often are. It should heal well when I have tended 
+it. Bathe it when Gimli has heated water.' 
+
+He opened his pouch and drew out some withered leaves. 'They are dry 
+and some of their virtue has one, he said, but here I have still some of the 
+leaves of athelas that I gathered near Weathertop. Crush one in the water, 
+and wash the wound clean, and I will bind it. Now it is your turn. Frodo! ' 
+
+'I am all right,' said Frodo, reluctant to have his garments touched. 
+
+'All I needed was some food and a little rest.' 
+
+'No! ' said Aragorn. 'We must have a look and see what the hammer and 
+the anvil have done to you. I still marvel that you are alive at all.’ 
+
+Gently he stripped off Frodo's old jacket and worn tunic, and gave a gasp of 
+wonder. Then he laughed. The silver corslet shimmered before his eyes like 
+the light upon a rippling sea. Carefully he took it off and held it up, and 
+the gems on it glittered like stars, and the sound of the shaken rings was 
+like the tinkle of rain in a pool. 
+
+'Look, my friends!’ he called. 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an 
+el ven -princeling in! If it were known that hobbits had such hides, all the 
+hunters of Middle-earth would be riding to the Shire.' 
+
+'And all the arrows of all the hunters in the world would be in vain,' 
+said Gimli, gazing at the mail in wonder. 'It is a mithril-coat. Mithril! I 
+have never seen or heard tell of one so fair. Is this the coat that Gandalf 
+
+
+
+
+spoke of? Then he undervalued it. But it was well given! ' 
+
+'I have often wondered what you and Bilbo were doing, so close in his 
+little room,' said Merry. 'Bless the old hobbit! I love him more than ever. 
+
+I hope we get a chance of telling him about it! ' 
+
+There was a dark and blackened bruise on Frodo's right side and breast. 
+Under the mail there was a shirt of soft leather, but at one point the rings 
+had been driven through it into the flesh. Frodo's left side also was scored 
+and bruised where he had been hurled against the wall. While the others set 
+the food ready. Aragorn bathed the hurts with water in which athelas was 
+steeped. The pungent fragrance filled the dell, and all those who stooped 
+over the steaming water felt refreshed and strengthened. Soon Frodo felt the 
+pain leave him, and his breath grew easy: though he was stiff and sore to 
+the touch for many days. Aragorn bound some soft pads of cloth at his side. 
+
+'The mail is marvellously light,' he said. 'Put it on again, if you can 
+bear it. My heart is glad to know that you have such a coat. Do not lay it 
+aside, even in sleep, unless fortune brings you where you are safe for a 
+while; and that will seldom chance while your quest lasts.’ 
+
+When they had eaten, the Company got ready to go on. They put out the 
+fire and hid all traces of it. Then climbing out of the dell they took to 
+the road again. They had not gone far before the sun sank behind the 
+westward heights and great shadows crept down the mountain-sides. Dusk 
+veiled their feet, and mist rose in the hollows. Away in the east the 
+evening light lay pale upon the dim lands of distant plain and wood. Sam and 
+Frodo now feeling eased and greatly refreshed were able to go at a fair 
+pace, and with only one brief halt Aragorn led the Company on for nearly 
+three more hours. 
+
+It was dark. Deep night had fallen. There were many clear stars, hut 
+the fast- waning moon would not be seen till late. Gimli and Frodo were at 
+the rear, walking softly and not speaking, listening for any sound upon the 
+road behind. At length Gimli broke the silence. 
+
+'Not a sound but the wind,' he said. 'There are no goblins near, or my 
+ears are made of wood. It is to be hoped that the Ores will be content with 
+driving us from Moria. And maybe that was all their purpose, and they had 
+nothing else to do with us-with the Ring. Though Ores will often pursue foes 
+for many leagues into the plain, if they have a fallen captain to avenge.’ 
+
+Frodo did not answer. He looked at Sting, and the blade was dull. Yet 
+he had heard something, or thought he had. As soon as the shadows had fallen 
+
+
+
+
+about them and the road behind was dim, he had heard again the quick patter 
+of feet. Even now he heard it. He turned swiftly. There were two tiny gleams 
+of light behind, or for a moment he thought he saw them, but at once they 
+slipped aside and vanished. 
+
+'What is it? ' said the dwarf. 
+
+'I don't know.' answered Frodo. 'I thought I heard feet, and I thought 
+I saw a light-like eyes. I have thought so often, since we first entered 
+Moria.' 
+
+Gimli halted and stooped to the ground. 'I hear nothing but the 
+night-speech of plant and stone,' he said. 'Come! Let us hurry! The others 
+are out of sight.' 
+
+The night-wind blew chill up the valley to meet them. Before them a 
+wide grey shadow loomed, and they heard an endless rustle of leaves like 
+poplars in the breeze. 
+
+'Lothlurien! ' cried Legolas. 'Lothlurien! We have come to the eaves of 
+the Golden Wood. Alas that it is winter! ' 
+
+Under the night the trees stood tall before them, arched over the road 
+and stream that ran suddenly beneath their spreading boughs. In the dim 
+light of the stars their stems were grey, and their quivering leaves a hint 
+of fallow gold. 
+
+'Lothlurien! ' said Aragorn. 'Glad I am to hear again the wind in the 
+trees! We are still little more than five leagues from the Gates, but we can 
+go no further. Here let us hope that the virtue of the Elves will keep us 
+tonight from the peril that comes behind.' 
+
+'If Elves indeed still dwell here in the darkening world,' said Gimli. 
+
+'It is long since any of my own folk journeyed hither back to the land 
+whence we wandered in ages long ago,' said Legolas, 'but we hear that Lurien 
+is not yet deserted, for there is a secret power here that holds evil from 
+the land. Nevertheless its folk are seldom seen, and maybe they dwell now 
+deep in the woods and far from the northern border.' 
+
+'Indeed deep in the wood they dwell,' said Aragorn, and sighed as if 
+some memory stirred in him. 'We must fend for ourselves tonight. We will go 
+forward a short way, until the trees are all about us, and then we will turn 
+aside from the path and seek a place to rest in.' 
+
+He stepped forward; but Boromir stood irresolute and did not follow. 
+
+'Is there no other way? ' he said. 
+
+'What other fairer way would you desire? ’ said Aragorn. 
+
+
+
+
+'A plain road, though it led through a hedge of swords,' said Boromir. 
+
+'By strange paths has this Company been led, and so far to evil fortune. 
+Against my will we passed under the shades of Moria, to our loss. And now we 
+must enter the Golden Wood, you say. But of that perilous land we have heard 
+in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few 
+none have escaped unscathed.' 
+
+'Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak 
+the truth said Aragorn. But lore wanes in Gondor, Boromir, if in the city of 
+those who once were wise they now speak evil of Lothlurien. Believe what you 
+will, there is no other way for us — unless you would go back to 
+Moria-gate, or scale the pathless mountains, or swim the Great River all 
+alone.’ 
+
+'Then lead on! ' said Boromir. 'But it is perilous.’ 
+
+'Perilous indeed,' said Aragorn, 'fair and perilous; but only evil need 
+fear it, or those who bring some evil with them. Follow me! ' 
+
+They had gone little more than a mile into the forest when they came 
+upon another stream flowing down swiftly from the tree-clad slopes that 
+climbed back westward towards the mountains. They heard it splashing over a 
+fall away among the shadows on their right. Its dark hurrying waters ran 
+across the path before them, and joined the Silverlode in a swirl of dim 
+pools among the roots of trees. 
+
+'Here is Nimrodel! ' said Legolas. 'Of this stream the Silvan Elves 
+made many songs long ago, and still we sing them in the North, remembering 
+the rainbow on its falls, and the golden flowers that floated in its foam. 
+
+All is dark now and the Bridge of Nimrodel is broken down. I will bathe my 
+feet, for it is said that the water is healing to the weary.' He went 
+forward and climbed down the deep-cloven bank and stepped into the stream. 
+
+'Follow me!’ he cried. 'The water is not deep. Let us wade across! On 
+the further bank we can rest, and the sound of the falling water may bring 
+us sleep and forgetfulness of grief.' 
+
+One by one they climbed down and followed Legolas. For a moment Frodo 
+stood near the brink and let the water flow over his tired feet. It was cold 
+but its touch was clean, and as he went on and it mounted to his knees, he 
+felt that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs. 
+
+When all the Company had crossed, they sat and rested and ate a little 
+food; and Legolas told them tales of Lothlurien that the Elves of Mirkwood 
+still kept in their hearts, of sunlight and starlight upon the meadows by 
+
+
+
+
+the Great River before the world was grey. 
+
+At length a silence fell, and they heard the music of the waterfall 
+running sweetly in the shadows. Almost Frodo fancied that he could hear a 
+voice singing, mingled with the sound of the water. 
+
+'Do you hear the voice of Nimrodel? ' asked Legolas. 'I will sing you a 
+song of the maiden Nimrodel, who bore the same name as the stream beside 
+which she lived lung ago. It is a fair song in our woodland tongue; but this 
+is how it runs in the Westron Speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it.' In 
+a soft voice hardly to be heard amid the rustle of the leaves above them he 
+began: 
+
+An Elven-maid there was of old, 
+
+A shining star by day: 
+
+Her mantle white was hemmed with gold, 
+
+Her shoes of silver-grey. 
+
+A star was bound upon her brows, 
+
+A light was on her hair 
+As sun upon the golden boughs 
+In Lurien the fair. 
+
+Her hair was long, her limbs were white, 
+
+And fair she was and free; 
+
+And in the wind she went as light 
+As leaf of linden-tree. 
+
+Beside the falls of Nimrodel, 
+
+By water clear and cool, 
+
+Her voice as falling silver fell 
+Into the shining pool. 
+
+Where now she wanders none can tell, 
+
+In sunlight or in shade; 
+
+For lost of yore was Nimrodel 
+And in the mountains strayed. 
+
+The elven-ship in haven grey 
+Beneath the mountain-lee 
+
+
+
+
+Awaited her for many a day 
+Beside the roaring sea. 
+
+A wind by night in Northern lands 
+Arose, and loud it cried, 
+
+And drove the ship from elven-strands 
+Across the streaming tide. 
+
+When dawn came dim the land was lost, 
+The mountains sinking grey 
+Beyond the heaving waves that tossed 
+Their plumes of blinding spray. 
+
+Amroth beheld the fading shore 
+Now low beyond the swell, 
+
+And cursed the faithless ship that bore 
+Him far from Nimrodel. 
+
+Of old he was an Elven-king, 
+
+A lord of tree and glen, 
+
+When golden were the boughs in spring 
+In fair Lothlurien. 
+
+From helm to sea they saw him leap, 
+
+As arrow from the string, 
+
+And dive into the water deep, 
+
+As mew upon the wing. 
+
+The wind was in his flowing hair, 
+
+The foam about him shone; 
+
+Afar they saw him strong and fair 
+Go riding like a swan. 
+
+But from the West has come no word, 
+And on the Hither Shore 
+No tidings Elven-folk have heard 
+Of Amroth evermore. 
+
+
+
+
+The voice of Legolas faltered, and the song ceased. 'I cannot sing any 
+more,' he said. 'That is but a part, for I have forgotten much. It is long 
+and sad, for it tells how sorrow came upon Lothlurien, Lurien of the 
+Blossom, when the Dwarves awakened evil in the mountains.' 
+
+'But the Dwarves did not make the evil,' said Gimli. 
+
+'I said not so; yet evil came,' answered Legolas sadly. 'Then many of 
+the Elves of Nimrodel's kindred left their dwellings and departed and she 
+was lost far in the South, in the passes of the White Mountains; and she 
+came not to the ship where Amroth her lover waited for her. But in the 
+spring when the wind is in the new leaves the echo of her voice may still be 
+heard by the falls that bear her name. And when the wind is in the South the 
+voice of Amroth comes up from the sea; for Nimrodel flows into Silverlode, 
+that Elves call Celebrant, and Celebrant into Anduin the Great, and Anduin 
+flows into the Bay of B elf alas whence the Elves of Lurien set sail. But 
+neither Nimrodel nor Amroth ever came back. 
+
+'It is told that she had a house built in the branches of a tree that 
+grew near the falls; for that was the custom of the Elves of Lurien, to 
+dwell in the trees, and maybe it is so still. Therefore they were called the 
+Galadhrim, the Tree -people. Deep in their forest the trees are very great. 
+
+The people of the woods did not delve in the ground like Dwarves, nor build 
+strong places of stone before the Shadow came.' 
+
+'And even in these latter days dwelling in the trees might be thought 
+safer than sitting on the ground,' said Gimli. He looked across the stream 
+to the road that led back to Dimrill Dale, and then up into the roof of dark 
+boughs above. 
+
+'Your words bring good counsel, Gimli,' said Aragorn. 'We cannot build 
+a house, but tonight we will do as the Galadhrim and seek refuge in the 
+tree-tops, if we can. We have sat here beside the road already longer than 
+was wise.’ 
+
+The Company now turned aside from the path, and went into the shadow of 
+the deeper woods, westward along the mountain-stream away from 
+Silverlode. 
+
+Not far from the falls of Nimrodel they found a cluster of trees, some of 
+which overhung the stream. Their great grey trunks were of mighty girth, but 
+their height could not be guessed. 
+
+'I will climb up,’ said Legolas. 'I am at home among trees, by root or 
+bough, though these trees are of a kind strange to me, save as a name in 
+
+
+
+
+song. Mellyrn they are called, and are those that bear the yellow blossom, 
+but I have never climbed in one. I will see now what is their shape and way 
+of growth.' 
+
+'Whatever it may be,' said Pippin, 'they will be marvellous trees 
+indeed if they can offer any rest at night, except to birds. I cannot sleep 
+on a perch ! ’ 
+
+'Then dig a hole in the ground,' said Legolas, 'if that is more after 
+the fashion of your kind. But you must dig swift and deep, if you wish to 
+hide from Ores.’ He sprang lightly up from the ground and caught a branch 
+that grew from the trunk high above his head. But even as he swung there for 
+a moment, a voice spoke suddenly from the tree-shadows above him. 
+
+' Daro !' it said in commanding tone, and Legolas dropped back to earth 
+in surprise and fear. He shrank against the bole of the tree. 
+
+'Stand still! ' he whispered to the others. 'Do not move or speak! ’ 
+
+There was a sound of soft laughter over their heads, and then another 
+clear voice spoke in an elven-tongue. Frodo could understand little of what 
+was said, for the speech that the Silvan folk east of the mountains used 
+among themselves was unlike that of the West. Legolas looked up and 
+answered 
+
+in the same language.* 
+
+'Who are they, and what do they say? ’ asked Merry. 
+
+'They're Elves,' said Sam. 'Can't you hear their voices? ' 
+
+'Yes, they are Elves,' said Legolas; 'and they say that you breathe so 
+loud that they could shoot you in the dark.' Sam hastily put his hand over 
+his mouth. 'But they say also that you need have no fear. They have been 
+aware of us for a long while. They heard my voice across the Nimrodel, and 
+knew that I was one of their Northern kindred, and therefore they did not 
+hinder our crossing; and afterwards they heard my song. Now they bid me 
+climb up with Frodo; for they seem to have had some tidings of him and of 
+our journey. The others they ask to wait a little and to keep watch at the 
+foot of the tree, until they have decided what is to be done.' 
+
+Out of the shadows a ladder was let down: it was made of rope, 
+silver-grey and glimmering in the dark, and though it looked slender it 
+proved strong enough to bear many men. Legolas ran lightly up, and Frodo 
+followed slowly; behind came Sam trying not to breathe loudly. The branches 
+of the mallorn-tree grew out nearly straight from the trunk, and then swept 
+upward; but near the top the main stem divided into a crown of many boughs, 
+
+
+
+
+and among these they found that there had been built a wooden platform, or 
+flet as such things were called in those days: the Elves called it a talan. 
+
+It was reached by a round hole in the centre through which the ladder 
+passed. 
+
+When Frodo came at last up on to the flet he found Legolas seated with 
+three other Elves. They were clad in shadowy-grey, and could not be seen 
+among the tree-stems, unless they moved suddenly. They stood up, and one of 
+them uncovered a small lamp that gave out a slender silver beam. He held it 
+up, looking at Frodo's face, and Sam's. Then he shut off the light again, 
+and spoke words of welcome in his elven-tongue. Frodo spoke haltingly in 
+return. 
+
+'Welcome!' the Elf then said again in the Common Fanguage, speaking 
+slowly. 'We seldom use any tongue but our own; for we dwell now in the heart 
+of the forest, and do not willingly have dealings with any other folk. Even 
+our own kindred in the North are sundered from us. But there are some of us 
+still who go abroad for the gathering of news and the watching of our 
+enemies, and they speak the languages of other lands. I am one. Haldir is my 
+name. My brothers, R®mil and Orophin, speak little of your tongue. 
+
+'But we have heard rumours of your coming, for the messengers of Elrond 
+passed by Furien on their way home up the Dimrill Stair. We had not heard of 
+hobbits, or halflings, for many a long year, and did not know that any yet 
+dwelt in Middle-earth. You do not look evil! And since you come with an Elf 
+of our kindred, we are willing to befriend you, as Elrond asked; though it 
+is not our custom to lead strangers through our land. But you must stay here 
+tonight. How many are you? ’ 
+
+'Eight,' said Legolas. 'Myself, four hobbits; and two men, one of whom, 
+Aragorn, is an Elf-friend of the folk of Westernesse.' 
+
+'The name of Aragorn son of Arathorn is known in Lurien,' said Haldir, 
+'and he has the favour of the Lady. All then is well. But you have yet 
+spoken only of seven.' 
+
+'The eighth is a dwarf,' said Legolas. 
+
+'A dwarf! ’ said Haldir. 'That is not well. We have not had dealings 
+with the Dwarves since the Dark Days. They are not permitted in our land. I 
+cannot allow him to pass.' 
+
+'But he is from the Lonely Mountain, one of Dbin's trusty people, and 
+friendly to Elrond,' said Frodo. 'Elrond himself chose him to be one of our 
+companions, and he has been brave and faithful.' 
+
+
+
+
+The Elves spoke together in soft voices, and questioned Legolas in 
+their own tongue. 'Very good,' said Haldir at last. 'We will do this, though 
+it is against our liking. If Aragorn and Legolas will guard him, and answer 
+for him, he shall pass; but he must go blindfold through Lothlurien. 
+
+'But now we must debate no longer. Your folk must not remain on the 
+ground. We have been keeping watch on the rivers, ever since we saw a great 
+troop of Ores going north toward Moria, along the skirts of the mountains, 
+many days ago. Wolves are howling on the wood's borders. If you have indeed 
+come from Moria, the peril cannot be far behind. Tomorrow early you must go 
+on. 
+
+'The four hobbits shall climb up here and stay with us- we do not fear 
+them! There is another ta Ian in the next tree. There the others must take 
+refuge. You, Legolas, must answer to us for them. Call us, if anything is 
+amiss! And have an eye on that dwarf!' 
+
+Legolas at once went down the ladder to take Haldir's message; and soon 
+afterwards Merry and Pippin clambered up on to the high flet. They were out 
+of breath and seemed rather scared. 
+
+'There!' said Merry panting. 'We have lugged up your blankets as well 
+as our own. Strider has hidden all the rest of the baggage in a deep drift 
+of leaves.’ 
+
+'You had no need of your burdens,' said Haldir. 'It is cold in the 
+tree-tops in winter, though the wind tonight is in the South; but we have 
+food and drink to give you that will drive away the night-chill, and we have 
+skins and cloaks to spare.’ 
+
+The hobbits accepted this second (and far better) supper very gladly. 
+
+Then they wrapped themselves warmly, not only in the fur-cloaks of the 
+Elves, but in their own blankets as well, and tried to go to sleep. But 
+weary as they were only Sam found that easy to do. Hobbits do not like 
+heights, and do not sleep upstairs, even when they have any stairs. The flet 
+was not at all to their liking as a bedroom. It had no walls, not even a 
+rail; only on one side was there a light plaited screen, which could be 
+moved and fixed in different places according to the wind. 
+
+Pippin went on talking for a while. 'I hope, if I do go to sleep in 
+this bed-loft, that I shan't roll off,' he said. 
+
+'Once I do get to sleep,’ said Sam, ’i shall go on sleeping, whether I 
+roll off or no. And the less said, the sooner I'll drop off, if you take my 
+meaning.' 
+
+
+
+
+Frodo lay for some time awake, and looked up at the stars glinting 
+through the pale roof of quivering leaves. Sam was snoring at his side long 
+before he himself closed his eyes. He could dimly see the grey forms of two 
+elves sitting motionless with their arms about their knees, speaking in 
+whispers. The other had gone down to take up his watch on one of the lower 
+branches. At last lulled by the wind in the boughs above, and the sweet 
+murmur of the falls of Nimrodel below, Frodo fell asleep with the song of 
+Legolas running in his mind. 
+
+Late in the night he awoke. The other hobbits were asleep. The Elves 
+were gone. The sickle Moon was gleaming dimly among the leaves. The wind 
+was 
+
+still. A little way off he heard a harsh laugh and the tread of many feet on 
+the ground below. There was a ring of metal. The sounds died slowly away, 
+and seemed to go southward, on into the wood. 
+
+A head appeared suddenly through the hole in the flet. Frodo sat up in 
+alarm and saw that it was a grey-hooded Elf. He looked towards the hobbits. 
+
+'What is it? ' said Frodo. 
+
+' Yrch !' said the Elf in a hissing whisper, and cast on to the flet the 
+rope-ladder rolled up. 
+
+'Ores! ' said Frodo. 'What are they doing? ' But the Elf had gone. 
+
+There were no more sounds. Even the leaves were silent, and the very 
+falls seemed to be hushed. Frodo sat and shivered in his wraps. He was 
+thankful that they had not been caught on the ground; but he felt that the 
+trees offered little protection, except concealment. Ores were as keen as 
+hounds on a scent, it was said, but they could also climb. He drew out 
+Sting: it flashed and glittered like a blue flame and then slowly faded 
+again and grew dull. In spite of the fading of his sword the feeling of 
+immediate danger did not leave Frodo, rather it grew stronger. He got up and 
+crawled to the opening and peered down. He was almost certain that he could 
+hear stealthy movements at the tree’s foot far below. 
+
+Not Elves; for the woodland folk were altogether noiseless in their 
+movements. Then he heard faintly a sound like sniffing: and something seemed 
+to be scrabbling on the bark of the tree-trunk. He stared down into the 
+dark, holding his breath. 
+
+Something was now climbing slowly, and its breath came like a soft 
+hissing through closed teeth. Then coming up, close to the stem, Frodo saw 
+
+
+
+
+two pale eyes. They stopped and gazed upward unwinking. Suddenly they 
+turned 
+
+away, and a shadowy figure slipped round the trunk of the tree and vanished. 
+
+Immediately afterwards Haldir came climbing swiftly up through the 
+branches. 'There was something in this tree that I have never seen before,' 
+he said. 'It was not an ore. It fled as soon as I touched the tree -stem. It 
+seemed to be wary, and to have some skill in trees, or I might have thought 
+that it was one of you hobbits. 
+
+I did not shoot, for I dared not arouse any cries: we cannot risk 
+battle. A strong company of Ores has passed. They crossed the Nimrodel-curse 
+their foul feet in its clean water! -and went on down the old road beside the 
+river. They seemed to pick up some scent, and they searched the ground for a 
+while near the place where you halted. The three of us could not challenge a 
+hundred, so we went ahead and spoke with feigned voices, leading them on 
+into the wood. 
+
+'Orophin has now gone in haste back to our dwellings to warn our 
+people. None of the Ores will ever return out of Lurien. And there will be 
+many Elves hidden on the northern border before another night falls. But you 
+must take the road south as soon as it is fully light.’ 
+
+Day came pale from the East. As the light grew it filtered through the 
+yellow leaves of the mallorn, and it seemed to the hobbits that the early 
+sun of a cool summer's morning was shining. Pale-blue sky peeped among the 
+moving branches. Looking through an opening on the south side of the flet 
+Frodo saw all the valley of the Silverlode lying like a sea of fallow gold 
+tossing gently in the breeze. 
+
+The morning was still young and cold when the Company set out again, 
+guided now by Haldir and his brother R®mil. 'Farewell, sweet Nimrodel! ' 
+cried Legolas. Frodo looked back and caught a gleam of white foam among 
+the 
+
+grey tree-stems. 'Farewell,' he said. It seemed to him that he would never 
+hear again a running water so beautiful, for ever blending its innumerable 
+notes in an endless changeful music. 
+
+They went back to the path that still went on along the west side of 
+the Silverlode, and for some way they followed it southward. There were the 
+prints of ore-feet in the earth. But soon Haldir turned aside into the trees 
+and halted on the bank of the river under their shadows. 
+
+'There is one of my people yonder across the stream,' he said 'though 
+
+
+
+
+you may not see him.' He gave a call like the low whistle of a bird, and out 
+of a thicket of young trees an Elf stepped, clad in grey, but with his hood 
+thrown back; his hair glinted like gold in the morning sun. Haldir skilfully 
+cast over the stream a coil of grey rope, and he caught it and bound the end 
+about a tree near the bank. 
+
+'Celebrant is already a strong stream here, as you see,' said Haldir 
+'and it runs both swift and deep, and is very cold. We do not set foot in it 
+so far north, unless we must. But in these days of watchfulness we do not 
+make bridges. This is how we cross! Follow me!' He made his end of the rope 
+fast about another tree, and then ran lightly along it, over the river and 
+back again, as if he were on a road. 
+
+V I can walk this path,' said Legolas; 'but the others have not this 
+skill. Must they swim?’ 
+
+'No!' said Haldir. 'We have two more ropes. We will fasten them above 
+the other, one shoulder-high, and another half-high, and holding these the 
+strangers should be able to cross with care.' 
+
+When this slender bridge had been made, the Company passed over, some 
+cautiously and slowly, others more easily. Of the hobbits Pippin proved the 
+best for he was sure-footed, and he walked over quickly, holding only with 
+one hand; but he kept his eyes on the bank ahead and did not look down. Sam 
+shuffled along, clutching hard, and looking down into the pale eddying water 
+as if it was a chasm in the mountains. 
+
+He breathed with relief when he was safely across. 'Live and learn! as 
+my gaffer used to say. Though he was thinking of gardening, not of roosting 
+like a bird, nor of trying to walk like a spider. Not even my uncle Andy 
+ever did a trick like that! ’ 
+
+When at length all the Company was gathered on the east bank of the 
+Silverlode, the Elves untied the ropes and coiled two of them. R®mil, who 
+had remained on the other side, drew back the last one, slung it on his 
+shoulder, and with a wave of his hand went away, back to Nimrodel to keep 
+watch. 
+
+'Now, friends,' said Haldir, 'you have entered the Naith of Lurien or 
+the Gore, as you would say, for it is the land that lies like a spear -head 
+between the arms of Silverlode and Anduin the Great. We allow no strangers 
+to spy out the secrets of the Naith. Few indeed are permitted even to set 
+foot there. 
+
+'As was agreed, I shall here blindfold the eyes of Gimli the Dwarf. The 
+
+
+
+
+other may walk free for a while, until we come nearer to our dwellings, down 
+in Egladil, in the Angle between the waters.' 
+
+This was not at all to the liking of Gimli. 'The agreement was made 
+without my consent,' he said. 'I will not walk blindfold, like a beggar or a 
+prisoner. And I am no spy. My folk have never had dealings with any of the 
+servants of the Enemy. Neither have we done harm to the Elves. I am no more 
+likely to betray you than Legolas, or any other of my companions.’ 
+
+’I do not doubt you,’ said Haldir. 'Yet this is our law. I am not the 
+master of the law, and cannot set it aside. I have done much in letting you 
+set foot over Celebrant.' 
+
+Gimli was obstinate. He planted his feet firmly apart, and laid his 
+hand upon the haft of his axe. 'I will go forward free,' he said, 'or I will 
+go back and seek my own land, where I am known to be true of word, though I 
+perish alone in the wilderness.' 
+
+'You cannot go back,' said Haldir sternly. 'Now you have come thus far, 
+you must be brought before the Lord and the Lady. They shall judge you, to 
+hold you or to give you leave, as they will. You cannot cross the rivers 
+again, and behind you there are now secret sentinels that you cannot pass. 
+
+You would be slain before you saw them.' 
+
+Gimli drew his axe from his belt. Haldir and his companion bent their 
+bows. 'A plague on Dwarves and their stiff necks! ' said Legolas. 
+
+'Come!' said Aragorn. 'If I am still to lead this Company, you must do 
+as I bid. It is hard upon the Dwarf to be thus singled out. We will all be 
+blindfold, even Legolas. That will be best, though it will make the journey 
+slow and dull.' 
+
+Gimli laughed suddenly. 'A merry troop of fools we shall look! Will 
+Haldir lead us all on a string, like many blind beggars with one dog? But I 
+will be content, if only Legolas here shares my blindness.’ 
+
+'I am an Elf and a kinsman here,’ said Legolas, becoming angry in his 
+turn. 
+
+'Now let us cry: "a plague on the stiff necks of Elves!"' said Aragorn. 
+
+'But the Company shall all fare alike. Come, bind our eyes Haldir! ' 
+
+'I shall claim full amends for every fall and stubbed toe, if you do 
+not lead us well,’ said Gimli as they bound a cloth about his eyes. 
+
+'You will have no claim,' said Haldir. 'I shall lead you well, and the 
+paths are smooth and straight.’ 
+
+'Alas for the folly of these days! ’ said Legolas. 'Here all are 
+
+
+
+
+enemies of the one Enemy, and yet I must walk blind, while the sun is merry 
+in the woodland under leaves of gold! ' 
+
+'Folly it may seem,' said Haldir. ’Indeed in nothing is the power of 
+the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all 
+those who still oppose him. Yet so little faith and trust do we find now in 
+the world beyond Lothlurien, unless maybe in Rivendell, that we dare not by 
+our own trust endanger our land. We live now upon an island amid many 
+perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp. 
+
+'The rivers long defended us, but they are a sure guard no more for the 
+Shadow has crept northward all about us. Some speak of departing, yet for 
+that it already seems too late. The mountains to the west are growing evil; 
+to the east the lands are waste, and full of Sauron’s creatures; and it is 
+rumoured that we cannot now safely pass southward through Rohan, and the 
+mouths of the Great River are watched by the Enemy. Even if we could come 
+to 
+
+the shores of the Sea, we should find no longer any shelter there. It is 
+said that there are still havens of. the High Elves, but they are far north 
+and west, beyond the land of the Halflings. But where that may be, though 
+the Lord and Lady may know, I do not.’ 
+
+'You ought at least to guess, since you have seen us,’ said Merry. 
+
+'There are Elf-havens west of my land, the Shire where Hobbits live.’ 
+
+'Happy folk are Hobbits to dwell near the shores of the sea! ’ said 
+Haldir. ’It is long indeed since any of my folk have looked on it, yet still 
+we remember it in song. Tell me of these havens as we walk.’ 
+
+'I cannot,’ said Merry. 'I have never seen them. I have never been out 
+of my own land before. And if I had known what the world outside was like. I 
+don’t think I should have had the heart to leave it.’ 
+
+'Not even to see fair Lothlurien? ’ said Haldir. ’The world is indeed 
+full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much 
+that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it 
+grows perhaps the greater. 
+
+'Some there are among us who sing that the Shadow will draw back and 
+peace shall come again. Yet I do not believe that the world about us will 
+ever again be as it was of old, or the light of the Sun as it was aforetime. 
+
+For the Elves, I fear, it will prove at best a truce, in which they may pass 
+to the Sea unhindered and leave the Middle-earth for ever. Alas for 
+Lothlurien that I love! It would be a poor life in a land where no mallorn 
+
+
+
+
+grew. But if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea, none have 
+reported it.' 
+
+As they spoke thus, the Company filed slowly along the paths in the 
+wood, led by Haldir, while the other Elf walked behind. They felt the ground 
+beneath their feet smooth and soft, and after a while they walked more 
+freely, without fear of hurt or fall. Being deprived of sight, Frodo found 
+his hearing and other senses sharpened. He could smell the trees and the 
+trodden grass. He could hear many different notes in the rustle of the 
+leaves overhead, the river murmuring away on his right, and the thin clear 
+voices of birds in the sky. He felt the sun upon his face and hands when 
+they passed through an open glade. 
+
+As soon as he set foot upon the far bank of Silverlode a strange 
+feeling had come upon him, and it deepened as he walked on into the Naith: 
+it seemed to him that he had stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of 
+the Elder Days, and was -now walking in a world that was no more. In 
+Rivendell there was memory of ancient things; in Lurien the ancient things 
+still lived on in the waking world. Evil had been seen and heard there, 
+sorrow had been known; the Elves feared and distrusted the world outside: 
+wolves were howling on the wood's borders: but on the land of Lurien no 
+shadow lay. 
+
+All that day the Company marched on, until they felt the cool evening 
+come and heard the early night- wind whispering among many leaves. Then 
+they 
+
+rested and slept without fear upon the ground; for their guides would not 
+permit them to unbind their eyes, and they could not climb. In the morning 
+they went on again, walking without haste. At noon they halted, and Frodo 
+was aware that they had passed out under the shining Sun. Suddenly he heard 
+the sound of many voices all around him. 
+
+A marching host of Elves had come up silently: they were hastening 
+toward the northern borders to guard against any attack from Moria; and they 
+brought news, some of which Haldir reported. The marauding ores had been 
+waylaid and almost all destroyed; the remnant had fled westward towards the 
+mountains, and were being pursued. A strange creature also had been seen, 
+running with bent back and with hands near the ground, like a beast and yet 
+notofbeast-shape.lt had eluded capture, and they had not shot it, not 
+knowing whether it was good or ill, and it had vanished down the Silverlode 
+southward. 
+
+
+
+
+'Also,' said Haldir, "they bring me a message from the Lord and Lady of 
+the Galadhrim. You are all to walk free, even the dwarf Gimli. It seems that 
+the Lady knows who and what is each member of your Company. New 
+messages 
+
+have come from Rivendell perhaps.' 
+
+He removed the bandage first from Gimli' s eyes. 'Your pardon! ' he 
+said, bowing low. "Look on us now with friendly eyes! Look and be glad, for 
+you are the first dwarf to behold the trees of the Naith of Lurien since 
+Durin's Day! ' 
+
+When his eyes were in turn uncovered, Frodo looked up and caught his 
+breath. They were standing in an open space. To the left stood a great 
+mound, covered with a sward of grass as green as Spring-time in the Elder 
+Days. Upon it, as a double crown, grew two circles of trees: the outer had 
+bark of snowy white, and were leafless but beautiful in their shapely 
+nakedness; the inner were mallorn-trees of great height, still arrayed in 
+pale gold. High amid the branches of a towering tree that stood in the 
+centre of all there gleamed a white flet. At the feet of the trees, and all 
+about the green hillsides the grass was studded with small golden flowers 
+shaped like stars. Among them, nodding on slender stalks, were other 
+flowers, white and palest green: they glimmered as a mist amid the rich hue 
+of the grass. Over all the sky was blue, and the sun of afternoon glowed 
+upon the hill and cast long green shadows beneath the trees. 
+
+'Behold! You are come to Cerin Amroth,' said Haldir. "For this is the 
+heart of the ancient realm as it was long ago, and here is the mound of 
+Amroth, where in happier days his high house was built. Here ever bloom the 
+winter flowers in the unfading grass: the yellow elanor, and the pale 
+niphredil. Here we will stay awhile, and come to the city of the Galadhrim 
+at dusk.' 
+
+The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo 
+stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped 
+through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it 
+for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the 
+shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and 
+drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for 
+ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, 
+but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first 
+
+
+
+
+perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here 
+no 
+
+heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or 
+deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of 
+Lurien there was no stain. 
+
+He turned and saw that Sam was now standing beside him, looking round 
+with a puzzled expression, and rubbing his eyes as if he was not sure that 
+he was awake. 'It's sunlight and bright day, right enough,' he said. 'I 
+thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than 
+anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take 
+my meaning.' 
+
+Haldir looked at them, and he seemed indeed to take the meaning of both 
+thought and word. He smiled. 'You feel the power of the Lady of the 
+Galadhrim,' he said. 'Would it please you to climb with me up Cerin Amroth? 
+
+f 
+
+They followed him as he stepped lightly up the grass-clad slopes. 
+Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were 
+stirred by the same cool wind as fanned his face, Frodo felt that he was in 
+a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When 
+he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer 
+from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil 
+in fair Lothlurien. 
+
+They entered the circle of white trees. As they did so the South Wind 
+blew upon Cerin Amroth and sighed among the branches. Frodo stood still, 
+hearing far off_ great seas upon beaches that had long ago been washed away, 
+and sea-birds crying whose race had perished from the earth. 
+
+Haldir had gone on and was now climbing to the high flet. As Frodo 
+prepared to follow him, he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: 
+never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and 
+texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in 
+wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the 
+delight of the living tree itself. 
+
+As he stepped out at last upon the lofty platform, Haldir took his hand 
+and turned him toward the South. 'Look this way first! ’ he said. 
+
+Frodo looked and saw, still at some distance, a hill of many mighty 
+trees, or a city of green towers: which it was he could not tell. Out of it, 
+it seemed to him that the power and light came that held all the land in 
+
+
+
+
+sway. He longed suddenly to fly like a bird to rest in the green city. Then 
+he looked eastward and saw all the land of Lurien running down to the pale 
+gleam of Anduin, the Great River. He lifted his eyes across the river and 
+all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew. Beyond 
+the river the land appeared flat and empty, formless and vague, until far 
+away it rose again like a wall, dark and drear. The sun that lay on 
+Lothlurien had no power to enlighten the shadow of that distant height. 
+
+'There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood,' said Haldir. 'It is 
+clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive one against another and 
+their branches rot and wither. In the midst upon a stony height stands Dol 
+Guldur, where long the hidden Enemy had his dwelling. We fear that now it is 
+inhabited again, and with power sevenfold. A black cloud lies often over it 
+of late. In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one 
+to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light 
+perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been 
+discovered. Not yet.' He turned and climbed swiftly down, and they followed 
+him. 
+
+At the hill's foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a 
+tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in 
+his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he 
+knew that he beheld things as they once had been in this same place. For the 
+grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in 
+white, a young lord tall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue 
+to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, nambril! he said, and then 
+he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and 
+smiled. 
+
+'Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,' he said, 'and here my heart 
+dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still 
+must tread, you and I. Come with me! ' And taking Frodo's hand in his, he 
+left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7 . The Mirror of Galadriel 
+
+
+
+The sun was sinking behind the mountains, and the shadows were 
+deepening in the woods, when they went on again. Their paths now went into 
+thickets where the dusk had already gathered. Night came beneath the trees 
+as they walked, and the Elves uncovered their silver lamps. 
+
+Suddenly they came out into the open again and found themselves under a 
+pale evening sky pricked by a few early stars. There was a wide treeless 
+space before them, running in a great circle and bending away on either 
+hand. Beyond it was a deep fosse lost in soft shadow, but the grass upon its 
+brink was green, as if it glowed still in memory of the sun that had gone. 
+Upon the further side there rose to a great height a green wall encircling a 
+green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they had yet seen in 
+all the land. Their height could not be guessed, but they stood up in the 
+twilight like living towers. In their, many -tiered branches and amid their 
+ever-moving leaves countless lights were gleaming, green and gold and 
+silver. Haldir turned towards the Company. 
+
+'Welcome to Caras Galadhon! ' he said. 'Here is the city of the 
+Galadhrim where dwell the Lord Celeborn and Galadriel the Lady of Lurien. 
+But we cannot enter here, for the gates do not look northward. We must go 
+round to the southern side, and the way is not short, for the city is 
+great.' 
+
+There was a road paved with white stone running on the outer brink of 
+the fosse. Along this they went westward, with the city ever climbing up 
+like a green cloud upon their left; and as the night deepened more lights 
+sprang forth, until all the hill seemed afire with stars. They came at last 
+to a white bridge, and crossing found the great gates of the city: they 
+faced south-west, set between the ends of the encircling wall that here 
+overlapped, and they were tall and strong, and hung with many lamps. 
+
+Haldir knocked and spoke, and the gates opened soundlessly; but of 
+guards Lrodo could see no sign. The travellers passed within, and the gates 
+shut behind them. They were in a deep lane between the ends of the wall, and 
+passing quickly through it they entered the City of the Trees. No folk could 
+they see, nor hear any feet upon the paths; but there were many voices, 
+about them, and in the air above. Ear away up on the hill they could hear 
+
+
+
+
+the sound of singing falling from on high like soft rain upon leaves. 
+
+They went along many paths and climbed many stairs, until they came to 
+the high places and saw before them amid a wide lawn a fountain shimmering. 
+It was lit by silver lamps that swung from the boughs of trees, and it fell 
+into a basin of silver, from which a white stream spilled. Upon the south 
+side of the lawn there stood the mightiest of all the trees; its great 
+smooth bole gleamed like grey silk, and up it towered, until its first 
+branches, far above, opened their huge limbs under shadowy clouds of leaves. 
+Beside it a broad white ladder stood, and at its foot three Elves were 
+seated. They sprang up as the travellers approached, and Frodo saw that they 
+were tall and clad in grey mail, and from their shoulders hung long white 
+cloaks. 
+
+'Here dwell Celeborn and Galadriel,' said Haldir. v It is their wish 
+that you should ascend and speak with them.' 
+
+One of the Elf-wardens then blew a clear note on a small horn, and it 
+was answered three times from far above. V I will go first,' said Haldir. 
+
+'Let Frodo come next and with him Legolas. The others may follow as they 
+wish. It is a long climb for those that are not accustomed to such stairs, 
+but you may rest upon the way.' 
+
+As he climbed slowly up Frodo passed many flets: some on one side, some 
+on another, and some set about the bole of the tree, so that the ladder 
+passed through them. At a great height above the ground he came to a wide 
+talan, like the deck of a great ship. On it was built a house, so large that 
+almost it would have served for a hall of Men upon the earth. He entered 
+behind Haldir, and found that he was in a chamber of oval shape, in the 
+midst of which grew the trunk of the great mallorn, now tapering towards its 
+crown, and yet making still a pillar of wide girth. 
+
+The chamber was filled with a soft light; its walls were green and 
+silver and its roof of gold. Many Elves were seated there. On two chairs 
+beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side 
+by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. They stood up to greet their guests, after 
+the manner of Elves, even those who were accounted mighty kings. Very tall 
+they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and 
+beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of 
+deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; 
+but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their 
+eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the 
+
+
+
+
+wells of deep memory. 
+
+Haldir led Frodo before them, and the Lord welcomed him in his own 
+tongue. The Lady Galadriel said no word but looked long upon his face. 
+
+'Sit now beside my chair, Frodo of the Shire! ' said Celeborn. 'When 
+all have come we will speak together.' 
+
+Each of the companions he greeted courteously by name as they entered. 
+'Welcome Aragorn son of Arathorn! ’ he said. 'It is eight and thirty years 
+of the world outside since you came to this land; and those years lie heavy 
+on you. But the end is near, for good or ill. Here lay aside your burden for 
+a while ! ' 
+
+'Welcome son of Thranduil! Too seldom do my kindred journey hither from 
+the North.' 
+
+'Welcome Gimli son of Gluin! It is long indeed since we saw one of 
+Durin's folk in Caras Galadhon. But today we have broken our long law. May 
+it be a sign that though the world is now dark better days are at hand, and 
+that friendship shall be renewed between our peoples.' Gimli bowed low. 
+
+When all the guests were seated before his chair the Lord looked at 
+them again. 'Here there are eight,' he said. 'Nine were to set out: so said 
+the messages. But maybe there has been some change of counsel that we have 
+not heard. Elrond is far away, and darkness gathers between us, and all this 
+year the shadows have grown longer.’ 
+
+'Nay, there was no change of counsel,' said the Lady Galadriel speaking 
+for the first time. Her voice was clear and musical, but deeper than woman's 
+wont. 'Gandalf the Grey set out with the Company, but he did not pass the 
+borders of this land. Now tell us where he is; for I much desired to speak 
+with him again. But I cannot see him from afar, unless he comes within the 
+fences of Lothlurien: a grey mist is about him, and the ways of his feet and 
+of his mind are hidden from me.’ 
+
+'Alas! ' said Aragorn. 'Gandalf the Grey fell into shadow. He remained 
+in Moria and did not escape.' 
+
+At these words all the Elves in the hall cried aloud in grief and 
+amazement. 'These are evil tidings,' said Celeborn, 'the most evil that have 
+been spoken here in long years full of grievous deeds.' He turned to Haldir. 
+'Why has nothing of this been told to me before? ' he asked in the 
+Elven-tongue. 
+
+'We have not spoken to Haldir of our deeds or our purpose,' said 
+Legolas. 'At first we were weary and danger was too close behind and 
+
+
+
+
+afterwards we almost forgot our grief for a time, as we walked in gladness 
+on the fair paths of Lurien.' 
+
+'Yet our grief is great and our loss cannot be mended,' said Frodo. 
+’Gandalf was our guide, and he led us through Moria; and when our escape 
+seemed beyond hope he saved us, and he fell.’ 
+
+Tell us now the full tale! ' said Celeborn: 
+
+Then Aragorn recounted all that had happened upon the pass of 
+Caradhras, and in the days that followed; and he spoke of Balin and his 
+book, and the fight in the Chamber of Mazarbul, and the fire, and the narrow 
+bridge, and the coming of the Terror. 'An evil of the Ancient World it 
+seemed, such as I have never seen before,' said Aragorn. 'It was both a 
+shadow and a flame, strong and terrible.' 
+
+'It was a Balrog of Morgoth,' said Legolas; 'of all elf-banes the most 
+deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.’ 
+
+'Indeed I saw upon the bridge that which haunts our darkest dreams 1 
+saw Durin's Bane,' said Gimli in a low voice, and dread was in his eyes. 
+
+'Alas! ' said Celeborn. 'We long have feared that under Caradhras a 
+terror slept. But had I known that the Dwarves had stirred up this evil in 
+Moria again, 1 would have forbidden you to pass the northern borders, you 
+and all that went with you. And if it were possible, one would say that at 
+the last Gandalf fell from wisdom into folly, going needlessly into the net 
+of Moria.' 
+
+'He would be rash indeed that said that thing,' said Galadriel gravely. 
+'Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life. Those that followed him 
+knew not his mind and cannot report his full purpose. But however it may be 
+with the guide, the followers are blameless. Do not repent of your welcome 
+to the Dwarf. If our folk had been exiled long and far from Lothlurien, who 
+of the Galadhrim, even Celeborn the Wise, would pass nigh and would not 
+wish 
+
+to look upon their ancient home, though it had become an abode of dragons? 
+
+'Dark is the water of Kheled-zvram, and cold are the springs of 
+Kibil-nvla, and fair were the many -pillared halls of Khazad-dym in Elder 
+Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.' She looked upon 
+Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the 
+names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it 
+seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw 
+there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled 
+
+
+
+
+in answer. 
+
+He rose clumsily and bowed in dwarf-fashion, saying: 'Yet more fair is 
+the living land of Lurien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels 
+that lie beneath the earth! ' 
+
+There was a silence. At length Celeborn spoke again. 'I did not know 
+that your plight was so evil,’ he said. 'Let Gimli forget my harsh words: I 
+spoke in the trouble of my heart. I will do what I can to aid you, each 
+according to his wish and need, but especially that one of the little folk 
+who bears the burden.' 
+
+'Your quest is known to us,' said Galadriel, looking at Frodo. 'But we 
+will not here speak of it more openly. Yet not in vain will it prove, maybe, 
+that you came to this land seeking aid, as Gandalf himself plainly purposed. 
+For the Lord of the Galadhrim is accounted the wisest of the Elves of 
+Middle-earth, and a giver of gifts beyond the power of kings. He has dwelt 
+in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years 
+uncounted; for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the 
+mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long 
+defeat. 
+
+’I it was who first summoned the White Council. And if my designs had 
+not gone amiss, it would have been governed by Gandalf the Grey, and then 
+mayhap things would have gone otherwise. But even now there is hope left. I 
+will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or 
+contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; 
+but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be. But 
+this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray 
+but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while 
+all the Company is true.’ 
+
+And with that word she held them with her eyes, and in silence looked 
+searchingly at each of them in turn. None save Legolas and Aragorn could 
+long endure her glance. Sam quickly blushed and hung his head. 
+
+At length the Lady Galadriel released them from her eyes, and she 
+smiled. 'Do not let your hearts be troubled,' she said. 'Tonight you shall 
+sleep in peace.' Then they sighed and felt suddenly weary, as those who have 
+been questioned long and deeply, though no words had been spoken openly. 
+
+'Go now! ' said Celeborn. 'You are worn with sorrow and much toil. Even 
+if your Quest did not concern us closely, you should have refuge in this 
+City, until you were healed and refreshed. Now you shall rest, and we will 
+
+
+
+
+not speak of your further road for a while.' 
+
+That night the Company slept upon the ground, much to the satisfaction 
+of the hobbits. The Elves spread for them a pavilion among the trees near 
+the fountain, and in it they laid soft couches; then speaking words of peace 
+with fair elvish voices they left them. For a little while the travellers 
+talked of their night before in the tree-tops, and of their day's journey, 
+and of the Lord and Lady; for they had not yet the heart to look further 
+back. 
+
+'What did you blush for, Sam? ’ said Pippin. 'You soon broke down. 
+Anyone would have thought you had a guilty conscience. I hope it was nothing 
+worse than a wicked plot to steal one of my blankets.’ 
+
+'I never thought no such thing,’ answered Sam, in no mood for jest. ’If 
+you want to know, I felt as if I hadn’t got nothing on, and I didn't like 
+it. She seemed to be looking inside me and asking me what I would do if she 
+gave me the chance of flying back home to the Shire to a nice little hole 
+with-with a bit of garden of my own.' 
+
+'That's funny,' said Merry. 'Almost exactly what I felt myself; only, 
+only well, I don't think I'll say any more,' he ended lamely. 
+
+All of them, it seemed, had fared alike: each had felt that he was 
+offered a choice between a shadow full of fear that lay ahead, and something 
+that he greatly desired: clear before his mind it lay, and to get it he had 
+only to turn aside from the road and leave the Quest and the war against 
+Sauron to others. 
+
+'And it seemed to me, too,' said Gimli, 'that my choice would remain 
+secret and known only to myself.’ 
+
+'To me it seemed exceedingly strange,' said Boromir. 'Maybe it was only 
+a test, and she thought to read our thoughts for her own good purpose; but 
+almost I should have said that she was tempting us, and offering what she 
+pretended to have the power to give. It need not be said that I refused to 
+listen. The Men of Minas Tirith are true to their word.’ But what he thought 
+that the Lady had offered him Boromir did not tell. 
+
+And as for Frodo, he would not speak, though Boromir pressed him with 
+questions. 'She held you long in her gaze, Ring -bearer,’ he said. 
+
+'Yes,' said Frodo; 'but whatever came into my mind then I will keep 
+there.' 
+
+'Well, have a care! 'said Boromir. 'I do not feel too sure of this 
+Elvish Lady and her purposes.’ 
+
+
+
+
+'Speak no evil of the Lady Galadriel! ' said Aragorn sternly. 'You know 
+not what you say. There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man 
+bring it hither himself . Then let him beware ! But tonight I shall sleep 
+without fear for the first time since I left Rivendell. And may I sleep 
+deep, and forget for a while my grief! I am weary in body and in heart.' He 
+cast himself down upon his couch and fell at once into a long sleep. 
+
+The others soon did the same, and no sound or dream disturbed their 
+slumber. When they woke they found that the light of day was broad upon the 
+lawn before the pavilion, and the fountain rose and fell glittering in the 
+sun. 
+
+They remained some days in Lothlurien, so far as they could tell or 
+remember. All the while that they dwelt there the sun shone clear, save for 
+a gentle rain that fell at times, and passed away leaving all things fresh 
+and clean. The air was cool and soft, as if it were early spring, yet they 
+felt about them the deep and thoughtful quiet of winter. It seemed to them 
+that they did little but eat and drink and rest, and walk among the trees; 
+and it was enough. 
+
+They had not seen the Lord and Lady again, and they had little speech 
+with the Elven-folk; for few of these knew or would use the Westron tongue. 
+Haldir had bidden them farewell and gone back again to the fences of the 
+North, where great watch was now kept since the tidings of Moria that the 
+Company had brought. Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and 
+after 
+
+the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he 
+returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he 
+went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change. 
+
+Now as the companions sat or walked together they spoke of Gandalf, and 
+all that each had known and seen of him came clear before their minds. As 
+they were healed of hurt and weariness of body the grief of their loss grew 
+more keen. Often they heard nearby Elvish voices singing, and knew that they 
+were making songs of lamentation for his fall, for they caught his name 
+among the sweet sad words that they could not understand. 
+
+Mithrandir, Mithrandir sang the Elves, O Pilgrim Grey! For so they 
+loved to call him. But if Legolas was with the Company, he would not 
+interpret the songs for them, saying that he had not the skill, and that for 
+him the grief was still too near, a matter for tears and not yet for song. 
+
+It was Frodo who first put something of his sorrow into halting words. 
+
+
+
+
+He was seldom moved to make song or rhyme; even in Ri vendell he had 
+listened 
+
+and had not sung himself, though his memory was stored with many things that 
+others had made before him. But now as he sat beside the fountain in Lurien 
+and heard about him the voices of the Elves, his thought took shape in a 
+song that seemed fair to him; yet when he tried to repeat it to Sam only 
+snatches remained, faded as a handful of withered leaves. 
+
+When evening in the Shire was grey 
+his footsteps on the Hill were heard; 
+before the dawn he went away 
+on journey long without a word. 
+
+From Wilderland to Western shore, 
+from northern waste to southern hill, 
+through dragon-lair and hidden door 
+and darkling woods he walked at will. 
+
+With Dwarf and Hobbit, Elves and Men, 
+with mortal and immortal folk, 
+with bird on bough and beast in den, 
+in their own secret tongues he spoke. 
+
+A deadly sword, a healing hand, 
+a back that bent beneath its load; 
+a trumpet-voice, a burning brand, 
+a weary pilgrim on the road. 
+
+A lord of wisdom throned he sat, 
+swift in anger, quick to laugh; 
+an old man in a battered hat 
+who leaned upon a thorny staff. 
+
+He stood upon the bridge alone 
+and Fire and Shadow both defied; 
+his staff was broken on the stone, 
+in Khazad-dym his wisdom died. 
+
+'Why, you'll be beating Mr. Bilbo next! ' said Sam. 
+
+
+
+
+'No, I am afraid not,' said Frodo. 'But that is the best I can do yet.' 
+
+'Well, Mr. Frodo, if you do have another go, I hope you'll say a word 
+about his fireworks,' said Sam. 'Something like this: 
+
+The finest rockets ever seen: 
+they burst in stars of blue and green, 
+or after thunder golden showers 
+came falling like a rain of flowers. 
+
+Though that doesn't do them justice by a long road.' 
+
+'No, I'll leave that to you, Sam. Or perhaps to Bilbo. But-well. I 
+can't talk of it any more. I can't bear to think of bringing the news to 
+him.' 
+
+One evening Frodo and Sam were walking together in the cool twilight. 
+Both of them felt restless again. On Frodo suddenly the shadow of parting 
+had fallen: he knew somehow that the time was very near when he must leave 
+Lothlurien. 
+
+'What do you think of Elves now, Sam? ’ he said. 'I asked you the same 
+question once before-it seems a very long while ago; but you have seen more 
+of them since then.' 
+
+'I have indeed! ' said Sam. 'And I reckon there's Elves and Elves. 
+
+They're all elvish enough, but they're not all the same. Now these folk 
+aren't wanderers or homeless, and seem a bit nearer to the likes of us: they 
+seem to belong here, more even than Flobbits do in the Shire. Whether they've 
+made the land, or the land's made them, it's hard to say, if you take my 
+meaning. It's wonderfully quiet here. Nothing seems to be going on, and 
+nobody seems to want it to. If there's any magic about, it's right down 
+deep, where I can't lay my hands on it, in a manner of speaking.' 
+
+'You can see and feel it everywhere,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Well,' said Sam, 'you can't see nobody working it. No fireworks like 
+poor Gandalf used to show. I wonder we don't see nothing of the Lord and 
+Lady in all these days. I fancy now that she could do some wonderful things, 
+if she had a mind. I'd dearly love to see some Elf-magic, Mr. Frodo! ' 
+
+'I wouldn't,' said Frodo. 'I am content. And I don't miss Gandalf's 
+fireworks, but his bushy eyebrows, and his quick temper, and his voice.' 
+
+'You're right,' said Sam. 'And don't think I'm finding fault. I've 
+often wanted to see a bit of magic like what it tells of in old tales, but 
+I've never heard of a better land than this. It's like being at home and on 
+a holiday at the same time, if you understand me. I don't want to leave. All 
+
+
+
+
+the same, I'm beginning to feel that if we’ve got to go on, then we'd best 
+get it over. 
+
+'It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish, as my 
+old gaffer used to say. And I don't reckon that these folk can do much more 
+to help us, magic or no. It's when we leave this land that we shall miss 
+Gandalf worse, I'm thinking.' 
+
+'I am afraid that's only too true, Sam,' said Frodo. 'Yet I hope very 
+much that before we leave we shall see the Lady of the Elves again.' 
+
+Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, 
+the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath 
+the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them. 
+
+Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of 
+Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an 
+enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The 
+evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western 
+woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, 
+through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain 
+on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching 
+tree, stood a basin of silver, wide and shallow, and beside it stood a 
+silver ewer. 
+
+With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and 
+breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. 'Here is the 
+Mirror of Galadriel,’ she said. ’I have brought you here so that you may 
+look in it, if you will.' 
+
+The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside 
+him was tall and pale. 'What shall we look for, and what shall we see? ' 
+asked Frodo, filled with awe. 
+
+'Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, 'and to 
+some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show 
+things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than 
+things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror 
+free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that 
+are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest 
+cannot always tell. Do you wish to look? ' 
+
+Frodo did not answer. 
+
+'And you? ’ she said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your folk would 
+call magic. I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; 
+
+
+
+
+and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But 
+this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you 
+wished to see Elf-magic? ' 
+
+'I did,' said Sam, trembling a little between fear and curiosity. Til 
+have a peep, Lady, if you're willing.’ 
+
+'And I'd not mind a glimpse of what's going on at home,' he said in an 
+aside to Frodo. 'It seems a terrible long time that I've been away. But 
+there, like as not I'll only see the stars, or something that I won't 
+understand.' 
+
+'Like as not,' said the Lady with a gentle laugh. 'But come, you shall 
+look and see what you may. Do not touch the water! ’ 
+
+Sam climbed up on the foot of the pedestal and leaned over the basin. 
+
+The water looked hard and dark. Stars were reflected in it. 
+
+'There's only stars, as I thought,' he said. Then he gave a low gasp, 
+for the stars went out. As if a dark veil had been withdrawn, the Mirror 
+grew grey, and then clear. There was sun shining, and the branches of trees 
+were waving and tossing in the wind. But before Sam could make up his mind 
+what it was that he saw, the light faded; and now he thought he saw Frodo 
+with a pale face lying fast asleep under a great dark cliff. Then he seemed 
+to see himself going along a dim passage, and climbing an endless winding 
+stair. It came to him suddenly that he was looking urgently for something, 
+but what it was he did not know. Like a dream the vision shifted and went 
+back, and he saw the trees again. But this time they were not so close, and 
+he could see what was going on: they were not waving in the wind, they were 
+falling, crashing to the ground. 
+
+'Hi!' cried Sam in an outraged voice. 'There's that Ted Sandyman 
+a-cutting down trees as he shouldn't. They didn't ought to be felled: it's 
+that avenue beyond the Mill that shades the road to Bywater. I wish I could 
+get at Ted, and I'd fell himV 
+
+But now Sam noticed that the Old Mill had vanished, and a large 
+red-brick building was being put up where it had stood. Lots of folk were 
+busily at work. There was a tall red chimney nearby. Black smoke seemed to 
+cloud the surface of the Mirror. 
+
+'There's some devilry at work in the Shire,' he said. 'Elrond knew what 
+he was about when he wanted to send Mr. Merry back.' Then suddenly Sam 
+gave 
+
+a cry and sprang away. 'I can't stay here,' he said wildly. 'I must go home. 
+
+
+
+
+They’ve dug up Bagshot Row, and there's the poor old gaffer going down the 
+Hill with his bits of things on a barrow. I must go home! ’ 
+
+’You cannot go home alone,’ said the Lady. ’You did not wish to go home 
+without your master before you looked in the Mirror, and yet you knew that 
+evil things might well be happening in the Shire. Remember that the Mirror 
+shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, 
+unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent 
+them. The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds.’ 
+
+Sam sat on the ground and put his head in his hands. 'I wish I had 
+never come here, and I don’t want to see no more magic,’ he said and fell 
+silent. After a moment he spoke again thickly, as if struggling with tears. 
+
+'No, I’ll go home by the long road with Mr. Frodo, or not at all,’ he said. 
+
+'But I hope I do get back some day. If what I’ve seen turns out true, 
+somebody’s going to catch it hot! ’ 
+
+'Do you now wish to look, Frodo? ’ said the Lady Galadriel. 'You did 
+not wish to see Elf-magic and were content.’ 
+
+'Do you advise me to look? ’ asked Frodo. 
+
+’No,’ she said. 'I do not counsel you one way or the other. I am not a 
+counsellor. You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or 
+evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and 
+perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for 
+the venture, or I would not have brought you here. Do as you will! ’ 
+
+'I will look,’ said Frodo, and he climbed on the pedestal and bent over 
+the dark water. At once the Mirror cleared and he saw a twilit land. 
+Mountains loomed dark in the distance against a pale sky. A long grey road 
+wound back out of sight. Far away a figure came slowly down the road, faint 
+and small at first, but growing larger and clearer as it approached. 
+Suddenly Frodo realized that it reminded him of Gandalf. He almost called 
+aloud the wizard’s name, and then he saw that the figure was clothed not in 
+grey but in white, in a white that shone faintly in the dusk; and in its 
+hand there was a white staff. The head was so bowed that he could see no 
+face, and presently the figure turned aside round a bend in the road and 
+went out of the Mirror's view. Doubt came into Frodo's mind: was this a 
+vision of Gandalf on one of his many lonely journeys long ago, or was it 
+Saruman? 
+
+The vision now changed. Brief and small but very vivid he caught a 
+glimpse of Bilbo walking restlessly about his room. The table was littered 
+
+
+
+
+with disordered papers; rain was beating on the windows. 
+
+Then there was a pause, and after it many swift scenes followed that 
+Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become 
+involved. The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before 
+but knew at once: the Sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great 
+storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of 
+clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of 
+the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white 
+fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now 
+it was morning again, and the water rippled with light, and a banner bearing 
+the emblem of a white tree shone in the sun. A smoke as of fire and battle 
+arose, and again the sun went down in a burning red that faded into a grey 
+mist; and into the mist a small ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It 
+vanished, and Frodo sighed and prepared to draw away. 
+
+But suddenly the Mirror went altogether dark, as dark as if a hole had 
+opened in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into emptiness. In the black 
+abyss there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly 
+all the Mirror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry 
+out or to withdraw his gaze. The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself 
+glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its 
+pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing. 
+
+Then the Eye began to rove, searching this way and that; and Frodo knew 
+with certainty and horror that among the many things that it sought he 
+himself was one. But he also knew that it could not see him-not yet, not 
+unless he willed it. The Ring that hung upon its chain about his neck grew 
+heavy, heavier than a great stone, and his head was dragged downwards. The 
+Mirror seemed to be growing hot and curls of steam were rising from the 
+water. He was slipping forward. 
+
+'Do not touch the water!' said the Lady Galadriel softly. The vision 
+faded, and Frodo found that he was looking at the cool stars twinkling in 
+the silver basin. He stepped back shaking all over and looked at the Lady. 
+
+V I know what it was that you last saw,' she said; 'for that is also in 
+my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the 
+trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of 
+Lothlurien maintained and defended against its Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, 
+that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or 
+all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my 
+
+
+
+
+thought. But still the door is closed! ' 
+
+She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East 
+in a gesture of rejection and denial. Edrendil, the Evening Star, most 
+beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of 
+the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring 
+about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver 
+light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come down to 
+rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed 
+to him that he understood. 
+
+'Yes,' she said, divining his thought, 'it is not permitted to speak of 
+it, and Elrond could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the 
+Ring -bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of 
+Lurien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is 
+Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper. 
+
+'He suspects, but he does not know — not yet. Do you not see now 
+wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, 
+then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is 
+diminished, and Lothlurien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it 
+away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and 
+cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.' 
+
+Frodo bent his head. 'And what do you wish? ' he said at last. 
+
+'That what should be shall be,’ she answered. 'The love of the Elves 
+for their land and their works is deeper than the deeps of the Sea, and 
+their regret is undying and cannot ever wholly be assuaged. Yet they will 
+cast all away rather than submit to Sauron: for they know him now. For the 
+fate of Lothlurien you are not answerable but only for the doing of your own 
+task. Yet I could wish, were it of any avail, that the One Ring had never 
+been wrought, or had remained for ever lost.’ 
+
+'You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel,' said Frodo. 'I 
+will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for 
+me.’ 
+
+Galadriel laughed with a sudden clear laugh. 'Wise the Lady Galadriel 
+may be,' she said, 'yet here she has met her match in courtesy. Gently are 
+you revenged for my testing of your heart at our first meeting. You begin to 
+see with a keen eye. I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask 
+what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should 
+the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was brought within my 
+
+
+
+
+grasp. The evil that was devised long ago works on in many ways, whether 
+Sauron himself stands or falls. Would not that have been a noble deed to set 
+to the credit of his Ring, if I had taken it by force or fear from my guest? 
+
+'And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place 
+of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but 
+beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the 
+Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the 
+Lightning ! 
+
+Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! ' 
+
+She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a 
+great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood 
+before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond 
+enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light 
+faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender 
+elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 
+
+'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West and 
+remain Galadriel.' 
+
+They stood for a long while in silence. At length the Lady spoke again. 
+
+'Let us return! ' she said. 'In the morning you must depart for now we have 
+chosen, and the tides of fate are flowing.' 
+
+'I would ask one thing before we go,' said Frodo, 'a thing which I 
+often meant to ask Gandalf in Rivendell. I am permitted to wear the One 
+Ring: why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that 
+wear them? ’ 
+
+'You have not tried,’ she said. 'Only thrice have you set the Ring upon 
+your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy 
+you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the 
+measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need 
+to 
+
+become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others. Yet 
+even so, as Ring-bearer and as one that has borne it on finger and seen that 
+which is hidden, your sight is grown keener. You have perceived my thought 
+more clearly than many that are accounted wise. You saw the Eye of him that 
+holds the Seven and the Nine. And did you not see and recognize the ring 
+upon my finger? Did you see my ring? ’ she asked turning again to Sam. 
+
+'No, Lady,' he answered. 'To tell you the truth, I wondered what you 
+were talking about. I saw a star through your finger. But if you'll pardon 
+
+
+
+
+my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you'd take his Ring. 
+You'd put things to rights. You'd stop them digging up the gaffer and 
+turning him adrift. You'd make some folk pay for their dirty work.' 
+
+'I would,' she said. 'That is how it would begin. But it would not stop 
+with that, alas! We will not speak more of it. Let us go!' 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 8 . Farewell to Lurien 
+
+
+
+That night the Company was again summoned to the chamber of Celeborn, 
+and there the Lord and Lady greeted them with fair words. At length Celeborn 
+spoke of their departure. 
+
+'Now is the time,' he said, 'when those who wish to continue the Quest 
+must harden their hearts to leave this land. Those who no longer wish to go 
+forward may remain here, for a while. But whether they stay or go, none can 
+be sure of peace. For we are come now to the edge of doom. Here those who 
+wish may await the oncoming of the hour till either the ways of the world 
+lie open again, or we summon them to the last need of Lurien. Then they may 
+return to their own lands, or else go to the long home of those that fall in 
+battle.’ 
+
+There was a silence. 'They all resolved to go forward,’ said Galadriel 
+looking in their eyes. 
+
+'As for me,’ said Boromir, 'my way home lies onward and not back.’ 
+
+'That is true,’ said Celeborn, 'but is all this Company going with you 
+to Minas Tirith? ’ 
+
+'We have not decided our course,’ said Aragorn. ’Beyond Lothlurien I do 
+not know what Gandalf intended to do. Indeed I do not think that even he had 
+any clear purpose.’ 
+
+'Maybe not,’ said Celeborn, 'yet when you leave this land, you can no 
+longer forget the Great River. As some of you know well, it cannot be 
+crossed by travellers with baggage between Lurien and Gondor, save by boat. 
+And are not the bridges of Osgiliath broken down and all the landings held 
+now by the Enemy? 
+
+'On which side will you journey? The way to Minas Tirith lies upon this 
+side, upon the west; but the straight road of the Quest lies east of the 
+River, upon the darker shore. Which shore will you now take? ’ 
+
+'If my advice is heeded, it will be the western shore, and the way to 
+Minas Tirith,’ answered Boromir. 'But I am not the leader of the Company.’ 
+The others said nothing, and Aragorn looked doubtful and troubled. 
+
+'I see that you do not yet know what to do,’ said Celeborn. 'It is not 
+my part to choose for you; but I will help you as I may. There are some 
+
+
+
+
+among you who can handle boats: Legolas, whose folk know the swift Forest 
+River; and Boromir of Gondor; and Aragorn the traveller.' 
+
+'And one Hobbit! ' cried Merry. 'Not all of us look on boats as wild 
+horses. My people live by the banks of the Brandywine.' 
+
+'That is well,’ said Celeborn. 'Then I will furnish your Company with 
+boats. They must be small and light, for if you go far by water, there are 
+places where you will be forced to carry them. You will come to the rapids 
+of Sarn Gebir, and maybe at last to the great falls of Rauros where the 
+River thunders down from Nen Hithoel; and there are other perils. Boats may 
+make your journey less toilsome for awhile. Yet they will not give you 
+counsel: in the end you must leave them and the River, and turn west-or 
+east.’ 
+
+Aragorn thanked Celeborn many times. The gift of boats comforted him 
+much, not least because there would now be no need to decide his course for 
+some days. The others, too, looked more hopeful. Whatever perils lay ahead, 
+it seemed better to float down the broad tide of Anduin to meet them than to 
+plod forward with bent backs. Only Sam was doubtful: he at any rate still 
+thought boats as bad as wild horses, or worse, and not all the dangers that 
+he had survived made him think better of them. 
+
+'All shall be prepared for you and await you at the haven before noon 
+tomorrow,' said Celeborn. 'I will send my people to you in the morning to 
+help you make ready for the journey. Now we will wish you all a fair night 
+and untroubled sleep.' 
+
+'Good night, my friends! ' said Galadriel. 'Sleep in peace! Do not 
+trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the 
+paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though 
+you do not see them. Good night! ' 
+
+The Company now took their leave and returned to their pavilion. 
+Legolas went with them, for this was to be their last night in Lothlurien, 
+and in spite of the words of Galadriel they wished to take counsel together. 
+
+For a long time they debated what they should do, and how it would be 
+best to attempt the fulfilling of their purpose with the Ring: but they came 
+to no decision. It was plain that most of them desired to go first to Minas 
+Tirith, and to escape at least for a while from the terror of the Enemy. 
+
+They would have been willing to follow a leader over the River and into the 
+shadow of Mordor; but Frodo spoke no word, and Aragorn was still divided in 
+his mind. 
+
+
+
+
+His own plan, while Gandalf remained with them, had been to go with 
+Boromir, and with his sword help to deliver Gondor. For he believed that the 
+message of the dreams was a summons, and that the hour had come at last 
+when 
+
+the heir of Elendil should come forth and strive with Sauron for the 
+mastery. But in Moria the burden of Gandalf had been laid on him; and he 
+knew that he could not now forsake the Ring, if Frodo refused in the end to 
+go with Boromir. And yet what help could he or any of the Company give to 
+Frodo, save to walk blindly with him into the darkness? 
+
+'I shall go to Minas Tirith, alone if need be, for it is my duty,' said 
+Boromir; and after that he was silent for a while, sitting with his eyes 
+fixed on Frodo, as if he was trying to read the Halfling’s thoughts. At 
+length he spoke again, softly, as if he was debating with himself. 'If you 
+wish only to destroy the Ring,’ he said, "then there is little use in war 
+and weapons; and the Men of Minas Tirith cannot help. But if you wish to 
+destroy the armed might of the Dark Lord, then it is folly to go without 
+force into his domain; and folly to throw away.' He paused suddenly, as if 
+he had become aware that he was speaking his thoughts aloud. 'It would be 
+folly to throw lives away, I mean,' he ended. 'It is a choice between 
+defending a strong place and walking openly into the arms of death. At 
+least, that is how I see it.' 
+
+Frodo caught something new and strange in Boromir's glance, and he 
+looked hard at him. Plainly Boromir's thought was different from his final 
+words. It would be folly to throw away: what? The Ring of Power? He had said 
+something like this at the Council, but then he had accepted the correction 
+of Elrond. Frodo looked at Aragorn, but he seemed deep in his own thought 
+and made no sign that he had heeded Boromir's words. And so their debate 
+ended. Merry and Pippin were already asleep, and Sam was nodding. The 
+night 
+
+was growing old. 
+
+In the morning, as they were beginning to pack their slender goods, 
+
+Elves that could speak their tongue came to them and brought them many gifts 
+of food and clothing for the journey. The food was mostly in the form of 
+very thin cakes, made of a meal that was baked a light brown on the outside, 
+and inside was the colour of cream. Gimli took up one of the cakes and 
+looked at it with a doubtful eye. 
+
+'Cram,' he said under his breath, as he broke off a crisp corner and 
+
+
+
+
+nibbled at it. His expression quickly changed, and he ate all the rest of 
+the cake with relish. 
+
+'No more, no more!' cried the Elves laughing. 'You have eaten enough 
+already for a long day’s march.’ 
+
+'I thought it was only a kind of cram , such as the Dale-men make for 
+journeys in the wild,’ said the Dwarf. 
+
+'So it is,’ they answered. 'But we call it lembas or waybread, and it 
+is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant 
+than cram, by all accounts.’ 
+
+'Indeed it is,’ said Gimli. ’Why it is better than the honey-cakes of 
+the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best 
+bakers that I know of; but they are none too willing to deal out their cakes 
+to travellers in these days. You are kindly hosts! ’ 
+
+’All the same, we bid you spare the food,’ they said. ’Eat little at a 
+time, and only at need. For these things are given to serve you when all 
+else fails. The cakes will keep sweet for many many days, if they are 
+unbroken and left in their leaf- wrappings, as we have brought them. One will 
+keep a traveller on his feet for a day of long labour, even if he be one of 
+the tall Men of Minas Tirith.’ 
+
+The Elves next unwrapped and gave to each of the Company the clothes 
+they had brought. For each they had provided a hood and cloak, made 
+according to his size, of the light but warm silken stuff that the Galadhrim 
+wove. It was hard to say of what colour they were: grey with the hue of 
+twilight under the trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were moved, or 
+set in another light, they were green as shadowed leaves, or brown as fallow 
+fields by night, dusk-silver as water under the stars. Each cloak was 
+fastened about the neck with a brooch like a green leaf veined with silver. 
+
+'Are these magic cloaks? ’ asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder. 
+
+'I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the 
+Elves. 'They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this 
+land. They are elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and 
+branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things 
+under the twilight of Lurien that we love; for we put the thought of all 
+that we love into all that we make. Yet they are garments, not armour, and 
+they will not turn shaft or blade. But they should serve you well: they are 
+light to wear, and warm enough or cool enough at need. And you will find 
+them a great aid in keeping out of the sight of unfriendly eyes, whether you 
+
+
+
+
+walk among the stones or the trees. You are indeed high in the favour of the 
+Lady! For she herself and her maidens wove this stuff; and never before have 
+we clad strangers in the garb of our own people.' 
+
+After their morning meal the Company said farewell to the lawn by the 
+fountain. Their hearts were heavy; for it was a fair place, and it had 
+become like home to them, though they could not count the days and nights 
+that they had passed there. As they stood for a moment looking at the white 
+water in the sunlight, Haldir came walking towards them over the green grass 
+of the glade. Frodo greeted him with delight. 
+
+'I have returned from the Northern Fences,' said the Elf, 'and I am 
+sent now to be your guide again. The Dimrill Dale is full of vapour and 
+clouds of smoke, and the mountains are troubled. There are noises in the 
+deeps of the earth. If any of you had thought of returning northwards to 
+your homes, you would not have been able to pass that way. But come! Your 
+path now goes south.' 
+
+As they walked through Caras Galadhon the green ways were empty; but in 
+the trees above them many voices were murmuring and singing. They 
+themselves 
+
+went silently. At last Haldir led them down the southward slopes of the 
+hill, and they came again to the great gate hung with lamps, and to the 
+white bridge; and so they passed out and left the city of the Elves. Then 
+they turned away from the paved road and took a path that went off into a 
+deep thicket of mallorn-trees, and passed on, winding through rolling 
+woodlands of silver shadow, leading them ever down, southwards and 
+eastwards, towards the shores of the River. 
+
+They had gone some ten miles and noon was at hand when they came on a 
+high green wall. Passing through an opening they came suddenly out of the 
+trees. Before them lay a long lawn of shining grass, studded with golden 
+elanor that glinted in the sun. The lawn ran out into a narrow tongue 
+between bright margins: on the right and west the Silverlode flowed 
+glittering; on the left and east the Great River rolled its broad waters, 
+deep and dark. On the further shores the woodlands still marched on 
+southwards as far as the eye could see, but all the banks were bleak and 
+bare. No mallorn lifted its gold-hung boughs beyond the Land of Lurien. 
+
+On the bank of the Silverlode, at some distance up from the meeting of 
+the streams, there was a hythe of white stones and white wood. By it were 
+moored many boats and barges. Some were brightly painted, and shone with 
+
+
+
+
+silver and gold and green, but most were either white or grey. Three small 
+grey boats had been made ready for the travellers, and in these the Elves 
+stowed their goods. And they added also coils of rope, three to each boat. 
+Slender they looked, but strong, silken to the touch, grey of hue like the 
+elven-cloaks. 
+
+'What are these? ' asked Sam, handling one that lay upon the 
+greensward. 
+
+'Ropes indeed! ' answered an Elf from the boats. 'Never travel far 
+without a rope! And one that is long and strong and light. Such are these. 
+They may be a help in many needs.' 
+
+'You don't need to tell me that! ' said Sam. I came without any and 
+I've been worried ever since. But I was wondering what these were made of, 
+knowing a bit about rope -making: it's in the family as you might say.' 
+
+'They are made of hithlain,' said the Elf, 'but there is no time now to 
+instruct you in the art of their making. Had we known that this craft 
+delighted you, we could have taught you much. But now alas! unless you 
+should at some time return hither, you must be content with our gift. May it 
+serve you well ! ' 
+
+'Come! ' said Haldir. 'All is now ready for you. Enter the boats! But 
+take care at first! ’ 
+
+'Heed the words! ' said the other Elves. 'These boats are light-built, 
+and they are crafty and unlike the boats of other folk. They will not sink, 
+lade them as you will; but they are wayward if mishandled. It would be wise 
+if you accustomed yourselves to stepping in and out, here where there is a 
+landing-place, before you set off downstream.' 
+
+The Company was arranged in this way: Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam were in 
+one boat; Boromir, Merry, and Pippin in another; and in the third were 
+Legolas and Gimli, who had now become fast friends. In this last boat most 
+of the goods and packs were stowed. The boats were moved and steered with 
+short-handled paddles that had broad leaf-shaped blades. When all was ready 
+Aragorn led them on a trial up the Silverlode. The current was swift and 
+they went forward slowly. Sam sat in the bows, clutching the sides, and 
+looking back wistfully to the shore. The sunlight glittering on the water 
+dazzled his eyes. As they passed beyond the green field of the Tongue, the 
+trees drew down to the river's brink. Here and there golden leaves tossed 
+and floated on the rippling stream. The air was very bright and still, and 
+there was a silence, except for the high distant song of larks. 
+
+
+
+
+They turned a sharp bend in the river, and there, sailing proudly down 
+the stream toward them, they saw a swan of great size. The water rippled on 
+either side of the white breast beneath its curving neck. Its beak shone 
+like burnished gold, and its eyes glinted like jet set in yellow stones; its 
+huge white wings were half lifted. A music came down the river as it drew 
+nearer; and suddenly they perceived that it was a ship, wrought and carved 
+with elven-skill in the likeness of a bird. Two elves clad in white steered 
+it with black paddles. In the midst of the vessel sat Celeborn, and behind 
+him stood Galadriel, tall and white; a circlet of golden flowers was in her 
+hair, and in her hand she held a harp, and she sang. Sad and sweet was the 
+sound of her voice in the cool clear air: 
+
+I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew: 
+
+Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew. 
+
+Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea, 
+
+And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree. 
+
+Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone, 
+
+In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion. 
+
+There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years, 
+
+While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears. 
+
+O Lurien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day; 
+
+The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away. 
+
+O Lurien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore 
+And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor. 
+
+But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me, 
+
+What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea? 
+
+Aragorn stayed his boat as the Swan-ship drew alongside. The Lady ended 
+her song and greeted them. 'We have come to bid you our last farewell,' she 
+said, 'and to speed you with blessings from our land.’ 
+
+'Though you have been our guests,’ said Celeborn, 'you have not yet 
+eaten with us, and we bid you, therefore, to a parting feast, here between 
+the flowing waters that will bear you far from Lurien.' 
+
+The Swan passed on slowly to the hythe, and they turned their boats and 
+followed it. There in the last end of Egladil upon the green grass the 
+parting feast was held; but Frodo ate and drank little, heeding only the 
+beauty of the Lady and her voice. She seemed no longer perilous or terrible, 
+nor filled with hidden power. Already she seemed to him, as by men of later 
+days Elves still at times are seen: present and yet remote, a living vision 
+
+
+
+
+of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of 
+Time. 
+
+After they had eaten and drunk, sitting upon the grass, Celeborn spoke 
+to them again of their journey, and lifting his hand he pointed south to the 
+woods beyond the Tongue. 
+
+'As you go down the water,' he said, 'you will find that the trees will 
+fail, and you will come to a barren country. There the River flows in stony 
+vale amid high moors, until at last after many leagues it comes to the tall 
+island of the Tindrock, that we call Tol Brandir. There it casts its arms 
+about the steep shores of the isle, and falls then with a great noise and 
+smoke over the cataracts of Rauros down into the Nindalf, the Wetwang as it 
+is called in your tongue. That is a wide region of sluggish fen where the 
+stream becomes tortuous and much divided. There the Entwash flows in by 
+many 
+
+mouths from the Forest of Fangorn in the west. About that stream, on this 
+side of the Great River, lies Rohan. On the further side are the bleak hills 
+of the Emyn Muil. The wind blows from the East there, for they look out over 
+the Dead Marshes and the Noman-lands to Cirith Gorgor and the black gates of 
+Mordor. 
+
+'Boromir, and any that go with him seeking Minas Tirith, will do well 
+to leave the Great River above Rauros and cross the Entwash before it finds 
+the marshes. Yet they should not go too far up that stream, nor risk 
+becoming entangled in the Forest of Fangorn. That is a strange land, and is 
+now little known. But Boromir and Aragorn doubtless do not need this 
+warning.' 
+
+'Indeed we have heard of Fangorn in Minas Tirith,' said Boromir. 'But 
+what I have heard seems to me for the most part old wives' tales, such as we 
+tell to our children. All that lies north of Rohan is now to us so far away 
+that fancy can wander freely there. Of old Fangorn lay upon the borders of 
+our realm; but it is now many lives of men since any of us visited it, to 
+prove or disprove the legends that have come down from distant years. 
+
+'I have myself been at whiles in Rohan, but I have never crossed it 
+northwards. When I was sent out as a messenger, I passed through the Gap by 
+the skirts of the White Mountains, and crossed the Isen and the Grey flood 
+into Northerland. A long and wearisome journey. Four hundred leagues I 
+reckoned it, and it took me many months; for I lost my horse at Tharbad, at 
+the fording of the Greyflood. After that journey, and the road I have 
+
+
+
+
+trodden with this Company, I do not much doubt that I shall find a way 
+through Rohan, and Fangorn too, if need be.' 
+
+'Then I need say no more,' said Celeborn. 'But do not despise the lore 
+that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives 
+keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.' 
+
+Now Galadriel rose from the grass, and taking a cup from one of her 
+maidens she filled it with white mead and gave it to Celeborn. 
+
+'Now it is time to drink the cup of farewell,' she said. 'Drink, Lord 
+of the Galadhrim! And let not your heart be sad though night must follow 
+noon, and already our evening draweth nigh.’ 
+
+Then she brought the cup to each of the Company, and bade them drink 
+and farewell. But when they had drunk she commanded them to sit again on the 
+grass, and chairs were set for her and for Celeborn. Her maidens stood 
+silent about her, and a while she looked upon her guests. At last she spoke 
+again. 
+
+'We have drunk the cup of parting,' she said, 'and the shadows fall 
+between us. But before you go, I have brought in my ship gifts which the 
+Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim now offer you in memory of Lothlurien.' 
+
+Then 
+
+she called to each in turn. 
+
+'Here is the gift of Celeborn and Galadriel to the leader of your 
+Company,' she said to Aragorn, and she gave him a sheath that had been made 
+to fit his sword. It was overlaid with a tracery of flowers and leaves 
+wrought of silver and gold, and on it were set in elven runes formed of many 
+gems the name And®ril and the lineage of the sword. 
+
+'The blade that is drawn from this sheath shall not be stained or 
+broken even in defeat,' she said. 'But is there aught else that you desire 
+of me at our parting? For darkness will flow between us, and it may be that 
+we shall not meet again, unless it be far hence upon a road that has no 
+returning.’ 
+
+And Aragorn answered: 'Lady, you know all my desire, and long held in 
+keeping the only treasure that I seek. Yet it is not yours to give me, even 
+if you would; and only through darkness shall I come to it.' 
+
+'Yet maybe this will lighten your heart,' said Galadriel; 'for it was 
+left in my care to be given to you, should you pass through this land.’ Then 
+she lifted from her lap a great stone of a clear green, set in a silver 
+brooch that was wrought in the likeness of an eagle with outspread wings; 
+
+
+
+
+and as she held it up the gem flashed like the sun shining through the 
+leaves of spring. 'This stone I gave to Celebrnan my daughter, and she to 
+hers; and now it comes to you as a token of hope. In this hour take the name 
+that was foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil! ’ 
+
+Then Aragorn took the stone and pinned the brooch upon his breast, and 
+those who saw him wondered; for they had not marked before how tall and 
+kingly he stood, and it seemed to them that many years of toil had fallen 
+from his shoulders. 'For the gifts that you have given me I thank you,’ he 
+said, 'O Lady of Lurien of whom were sprung Celebrnan and Arwen 
+Evenstar. 
+
+What praise could I say more? ' 
+
+The Lady bowed her head, and she turned then to Boromir, and to him she 
+gave a belt of gold; and to Merry and Pippin she gave small silver belts, 
+each with a clasp wrought like a golden flower. To Legolas she gave a bow 
+such as the Galadhrim used, longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood, 
+and strung with a string of elf-hair. With it went a quiver of arrows. 
+
+'For you little gardener and lover of trees,' she said to Sam, 'I have 
+only a small gift.’ She put into his hand a little box of plain grey wood, 
+unadorned save for a single silver rune upon the lid. 'Here is set G for 
+Galadriel,' she said; 'but also it may stand for garden in your tongue. In 
+this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has 
+still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend 
+you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, 
+then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid 
+waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your 
+garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, 
+and catch a glimpse far off of Lurien, that you have seen only in our 
+winter. For our spring and our summer are gone by, and they will never be 
+seen on earth again save in memory.' 
+
+Sam went red to the ears and muttered something inaudible, as he 
+clutched the box and bowed as well as he could. 
+
+'And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves? ' said Galadriel turning 
+to Gimli. 
+
+'None, Lady,’ answered Gimli. 'It is enough for me to have seen the 
+Lady of the Galadhrim, and to have heard her gentle words.' 
+
+'Hear all ye Elves! ’ she cried to those about her. 'Let none say again 
+that Dwarves are grasping and ungracious! Yet surely, Gimli son of Gluin, 
+
+
+
+
+you desire something that I could give? Name it, I bid you! You shall not be 
+the only guest without a gift.' 
+
+'There is nothing, Lady Galadriel,' said Gimli, bowing low and 
+stammering. 'Nothing, unless it might be-unless it is permitted to ask. nay, 
+to name a single strand of your hair, which surpasses the gold of the earth 
+as the stars surpass the gems of the mine. I do not ask for such a gift. But 
+you commanded me to name my desire.’ 
+
+The Elves stirred and murmured with astonishment, and Celeborn gazed at 
+the Dwarf in wonder, but the Lady smiled. ’It is said that the skill of the 
+Dwarves is in their hands rather than in their tongues ’ she said; 'yet that 
+is not true of Gimli. For none have ever made to me a request so bold and 
+yet so courteous. And how shall I refuse, since I commanded him to speak? 
+But tell me, what would you do with such a gift? ’ 
+
+'Treasure it, Lady,’ he answered, 'in memory of your words to me at our 
+first meeting. And if ever I return to the smithies of my home, it shall be 
+set in imperishable crystal to be an heirloom of my house, and a pledge of 
+good will between the Mountain and the Wood until the end of days.’ 
+
+Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three 
+golden hairs, and laid them in Gimli’s hand. 'These words shall go with the 
+gift,’ she said. 'I do not foretell, for all foretelling is now vain: on the 
+one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not 
+fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Gluin, that your hands shall flow with 
+gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion. 
+
+'And you, Ring-bearer,’ she said, turning to Frodo. 'I come to you last 
+who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.’ She held up 
+a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light 
+sprang from her hand. ’In this phial,’ she said, 'is caught the light of 
+Edrendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still 
+brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, 
+when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror! ’ 
+
+Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw 
+her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful, but no longer 
+terrible. He bowed, but found no words to say. 
+
+Now the Lady arose, and Celeborn led them back to the hythe. A yellow 
+noon lay on the green land of the Tongue, and the water glittered with 
+silver. All at last was made ready. The Company took their places in the 
+boats as before. Crying farewell, the Elves of Lurien with long grey poles 
+
+
+
+
+thrust them out into the flowing stream, and the rippling waters bore them 
+slowly away. The travellers sat still without moving or speaking. On the 
+green bank near to the very point of the Tongue the Lady Galadriel stood 
+alone and silent. As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her 
+slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lurien was 
+slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing 
+on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey 
+and leafless world. 
+
+Even as they gazed, the Silverlode passed out into the currents of the 
+Great River, and their boats turned and began to speed southwards. Soon the 
+white form of the Lady was small and distant. She shone like a window of 
+glass upon a far hill in the westering sun, or as a remote lake seen from a 
+mountain: a crystal fallen in the lap of the land. Then it seemed to Frodo 
+that she lifted her arms in a final farewell, and far but piercing-clear on 
+the following wind came the sound of her voice singing. But now she sang in 
+the ancient tongue of the Elves beyond the Sea, and he did not understand 
+the words: fair was the music, but it did not comfort him. 
+
+Yet as is the way of Elvish words, they remained graven in his memory, 
+and long afterwards he interpreted them, as well as he could: the language 
+was that of Elven-song and spoke of things little known on Middle-earth. 
+
+Ai! lauril lantar lassi s®rinen, 
+
+Yjni ®nutiml ve rbmar aldaron! 
+
+Yjni ve lintl yuldar avbnier 
+mi oromardi lisse-miruvureva 
+And®nl pella, Vardo tellumar 
+nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni 
+umaryo airetbri-lnrinen. 
+
+Sn man iyulma nin enquantuva? 
+
+An sn Tintalll Varda Oiolosslo 
+ve fanyar mbryat Elentbri ortanl 
+ar ilyl tier undulbvl lumbull; 
+ar sindanuriello caita mornil 
+i falmalinnar imbl met, ar hnsil 
+unt®pa Calaciryo mnri oiall. 
+
+Si vanwa nb, Rumello vanwa, Valimar! 
+
+
+
+
+Nambril! Nai hiruvalyl Valimar. 
+
+Nai elyl hiruva. Nambril! 
+
+'Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as 
+the wings of trees ! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the 
+sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda 
+wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly. Who 
+now shall refill the cup for me? For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of 
+the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all 
+paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on 
+the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for 
+ever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar! Farewell! Maybe thou 
+shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell! ' Varda is the 
+name of that Fady whom the Elves in these lands of exile name Elbereth. 
+
+Suddenly the River swept round a bend, and the banks rose upon either 
+side, and the light of Furien was hidden. To that fair land Frodo never came 
+again. 
+
+The travellers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was 
+before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. 
+
+Gimli wept openly. 
+
+'I have looked the last upon that which was fairest,' he said to 
+Fegolas his companion. 'Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be 
+her gift.' He put his hand to his breast. 
+
+'Tell me, Fegolas, why did I come on this Quest? Tittle did I know 
+where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not 
+foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger 
+that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I 
+known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this 
+parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Ford. Alas for 
+Gimli son of Gluin! ’ 
+
+'Nay! ’ said Fegolas. 'Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world 
+in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it 
+seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, 
+Gimli son of Gluin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you 
+might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, 
+and 
+
+the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Fothlurien shall 
+remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor 
+
+
+
+
+grow stale.' 
+
+'Maybe,' said Gimli; 'and I thank you for your words. True words 
+doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart 
+desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zvram. Or so says the 
+heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have 
+heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. 
+Not so for Dwarves. 
+
+'But let us talk no more of it. Look to the boat! She is too low in the 
+water with all this baggage, and the Great River is swift. I do not wish to 
+drown my grief in cold water.' He took up a paddle, and steered towards the 
+western bank, following Aragorn's boat ahead, which had already moved out of 
+the middle stream. 
+
+So the Company went on their long way, down the wide hurrying waters, 
+borne ever southwards. Bare woods stalked along either bank, and they could 
+not see any glimpse of the lands behind. The breeze died away and the River 
+flowed without a sound. No voice of bird broke the silence. The sun grew 
+misty as the day grew old, until it gleamed in a pale sky like a high white 
+pearl. Then it faded into the West, and dusk came early, followed by a grey 
+and starless night. Far into the dark quiet hours they floated on, guiding 
+their boats under the overhanging shadows of the western woods. Great trees 
+passed by like ghosts, thrusting their twisted thirsty roots through the 
+mist down into the water. It was dreary and cold. Frodo sat and listened to 
+the faint lap and gurgle of the River fretting among the tree-roots and 
+driftwood near the shore, until his head nodded and he fell into an uneasy 
+sleep. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 9 . The Great River 
+
+
+
+Frodo was roused by Sam. He found that he was lying, well wrapped, 
+under tall grey -skinned trees in a quiet corner of the woodlands on the west 
+bank of the Great River, Anduin. He had slept the night away, and the grey 
+of morning was dim among the bare branches. Gimli was busy with a small fire 
+near at hand. 
+
+They started again before the day was broad. Not that most of the 
+Company were eager to hurry southwards: they were content that the decision, 
+which they must make at latest when they came to Rauros and the Tindrock 
+Isle, still lay some days ahead; and they let the River bear them on at its 
+own pace, having no desire to hasten towards the perils that lay beyond, 
+whichever course they took in the end. Aragorn let them drift with the 
+stream as they wished, husbanding their strength against weariness to come. 
+But he insisted that at least they should start early each day and journey 
+on far into the evening; for he felt in his heart that time was pressing, 
+and he feared that the Dark Lord had not been idle while they lingered in 
+Lurien. 
+
+Nonetheless they saw no sign of an enemy that day, nor the next. The 
+dull grey hours passed without event. As the third day of their voyage wore 
+on the lands changed slowly: the trees thinned and then failed altogether. 
+
+On the eastern bank to their left they saw long formless slopes stretching 
+up and away toward the sky; brown and withered they looked, as if fire had 
+passed over them, leaving no living blade of green: an unfriendly waste 
+without even a broken tree or a bold stone to relieve the emptiness. They 
+had come to the Brown Lands that lay, vast and desolate, between Southern 
+Mirkwood and the hills of the Emyn Muil. What pestilence or war or evil deed 
+of the Enemy had so blasted all that region even Aragorn could not tell. 
+
+Upon the west to their right the land was treeless also, but it was 
+flat, and in many places green with wide plains of grass. On this side of 
+the River they passed forests of great reeds, so tall that they shut out all 
+view to the west, as the little boats went rustling by along their 
+fluttering borders. Their dark withered plumes bent and tossed in the light 
+cold airs, hissing softly and sadly. Here and there through openings Frodo 
+could catch sudden glimpses of rolling meads, and far beyond them hills in 
+
+
+
+
+the sunset, and away on the edge of sight a dark line, where marched the 
+southernmost ranks of the Misty Mountains. 
+
+There was no sign of living moving things, save birds. Of these there 
+were many: small fowl whistling and piping in the reeds, but they were 
+seldom seen. Once or twice the travellers heard the rush and whine of 
+swan-wings, and looking up they saw a great phalanx streaming along the sky. 
+'Swans! ' said Sam. 'And mighty big ones too! ’ 
+
+'Yes,' said Aragorn, ’and they are black swans.' 
+
+'How wide and empty and mournful all this country looks! ’ said Frodo. 
+
+'I always imagined that as one journeyed south it got warmer and merrier, 
+until winter was left behind for ever.’ 
+
+’But we have not journeyed far south yet,’ answered Aragorn. 'It is 
+still winter, and we are far from the sea. Here the world is cold until the 
+sudden spring, and we may yet have snow again. Far away down in the Bay of 
+Belfalas, to which Anduin runs, it is warm and merry, maybe, or would be but 
+for the Enemy. But here we are not above sixty leagues, I guess, south of 
+the Southfarthing away in your Shire, hundreds of long miles yonder. You are 
+looking now south-west across the north plains of the Riddermark, Rohan the 
+land of the Horse-lords. Ere long we shall come to the mouth of the Limlight 
+that runs down from Fangorn to join the Great River. That is the north 
+boundary of Rohan; and of old all that lay between Limlight and the White 
+Mountains belonged to the Rohirrim. It is a rich and pleasant land, and its 
+grass has no rival; but in these evil days folk do not dwell by the River or 
+ride often to its shores. Anduin is wide, yet the ores can shoot their 
+arrows far across the stream; and of late, it is said, they have dared to 
+cross the water and raid the herds and studs of Rohan.’ 
+
+Sam looked from bank to bank uneasily. The trees had seemed hostile 
+before, as if they harboured secret eyes and lurking dangers; now he wished 
+that the trees were still there. He felt that the Company was too naked, 
+afloat in little open boats in the midst of shelterless lands, and on a 
+river that was the frontier of war. 
+
+In the next day or two, as they went on, borne steadily southwards, 
+this feeling of insecurity grew on all the Company. For a whole day they 
+took to their paddles and hastened forward. The banks slid by. Soon the 
+River broadened and grew more shallow; long stony beaches lay upon the east, 
+and there were gravel-shoals in the water, so that careful steering was 
+needed. The Brown Lands rose into bleak wolds, over which flowed a chill air 
+
+
+
+
+from the East. On the other side the meads had become rolling downs of 
+withered grass amidst a land of fen and tussock. Frodo shivered, thinking of 
+the lawns and fountains, the clear sun and gentle rains of Lothlurien. There 
+was little speech and no laughter in any of the boats. Each member of the 
+Company was busy with his own thoughts. 
+
+The heart of Legolas was running under the stars of a summer night in 
+some northern glade amid the beech- woods; Gimli was fingering gold in his 
+mind, and wondering if it were fit to be wrought into the housing of the 
+Lady's gift. Merry and Pippin in the middle boat were ill at ease, for 
+Boromir sat muttering to himself, sometimes biting his nails, as if some 
+restlessness or doubt consumed him, sometimes seizing a paddle and driving 
+the boat close behind Aragorn's. Then Pippin, who sat in the bow looking 
+back, caught a queer gleam in his eye, as he peered forward gazing at Frodo. 
+Sam had long ago made up his mind that, though boats were maybe not as 
+dangerous as he had been brought up to believe, they were far more 
+uncomfortable than even he had imagined. Fie was cramped and miserable, 
+having nothing to do but stare at the winter -lands crawling by and the grey 
+water on either side of him. Even when the paddles were in use they did not 
+trust Sam with one. 
+
+As dusk drew down on the fourth day, he was looking back over the bowed 
+heads of Frodo and Aragorn and the following boats; he was drowsy and 
+longed 
+
+for camp and the feel of earth under his toes. Suddenly something caught his 
+sight: at first he stared at it listlessly, then he sat up and rubbed his 
+eyes; but when he looked again he could not see it any more. 
+
+That night they camped on a small eyot close to the western bank. Sam 
+lay rolled in blankets beside Frodo. V I had a funny dream an hour or two 
+before we stopped, Mr. Frodo,' he said. 'Or maybe it wasn't a dream. Funny 
+it was anyway.' 
+
+'Well, what was it? ' said Frodo, knowing that Sam would not settle 
+down until he had told his tale, whatever it was. 'I haven't seen or thought 
+of anything to make me smile since we left Lothlurien.' 
+
+'It wasn't funny that way, Mr. Frodo. It was queer. All wrong, if it 
+wasn't a dream. And you had best hear it. It was like this: I saw a log with 
+eyes! ' 
+
+'The log's all right,' said Frodo. 'There are many in the River. But 
+leave out the eyes ! ’ 
+
+
+
+
+'That I won't,' said Sam. ' 'Twas the eyes as made me sit up, so to 
+speak. I saw what I took to be a log floating along in the half-light behind 
+Gimli's boat; but I didn't give much heed to it. Then it seemed as if the 
+log was slowly catching us up. And that was peculiar, as you might say, 
+seeing as we were all floating on the stream together. Just then I saw the 
+eyes: two pale sort of points, shiny -like, on a hump at the near end of the 
+log. What's more, it wasn't a log, for it had paddle-feet, like a swan's 
+almost, only they seemed bigger, and kept dipping in and out of the water. 
+
+'That's when I sat right up and rubbed my eyes, meaning to give a 
+shout, if it was still there when I had rubbed the drowse out of my head. 
+
+For the whatever -it-was was coming along fast now and getting close behind 
+Gimli. But whether those two lamps spotted me moving and staring, or whether 
+I came to my senses, I don't know. When I looked again, it wasn't there. Yet 
+I think I caught a glimpse with the tail of-my eye, as the saying is, of 
+something dark shooting under the shadow of the bank. I couldn't see no more 
+eyes though. 
+
+'I said to myself: "dreaming again, Sam Gamgee," I said: and I said no 
+more just then. But I've been thinking since, and now I'm not so sure. What 
+do you make of it, Mr. Frodo? ' 
+
+'I should make nothing of it but a log and the dusk and sleep in your 
+eyes Sam, said Frodo, if this was the first time that those eyes had been 
+seen. But it isn't. I saw them away back north before we reached Lurien. And 
+I saw a strange creature with eyes climbing to the flet that night. Haldir 
+saw it too. And do you remember the report of the Elves that went after the 
+ore-band? ' 
+
+'Ah,' said Sam. 'I do; and I remember more too. I don't like my 
+thoughts; but thinking of one thing and another, and Mr. Bilbo's stories and 
+all, I fancy I could put a name on the creature, at a guess. A nasty name. 
+Gollum, maybe? ' 
+
+'Yes, that is what I have feared for some time,' said Frodo. 'Ever 
+since the night on the flet. I suppose he was lurking in Moria, and picked 
+up our trail then; but I hoped that our stay in Lurien would throw him off 
+the scent again. The miserable creature must have been hiding in the woods 
+by the Silverlode, watching us start off! ’ 
+
+'That's about it,' said Sam. 'And we'd better be a bit more watchful 
+ourselves, or we'll feel some nasty fingers round our necks one of these 
+nights, if we ever wake up to feel anything. And that's what I was leading 
+
+
+
+
+up to. No need to trouble Strider or the others tonight. I'll keep watch. I 
+can sleep tomorrow, being no more than luggage in a boat, as you might say.' 
+
+V I might,' said Frodo, 'and I might say "luggage with eyes". You shall 
+watch; but only if you promise to wake me halfway towards morning, if 
+nothing happens before then.' 
+
+In the dead hours Frodo came out of a deep dark sleep to find Sam 
+shaking him. 'It's a shame to wake you,' whispered Sam, 'but that's what you 
+said. There's nothing to tell, or not much. I thought I heard some soft 
+plashing and a sniffing noise, a while back; but you hear a lot of such 
+queer sounds by a river at night.' 
+
+He lay down, and Frodo sat up, huddled in his blankets, and fought off 
+his sleep. Minutes or hours passed slowly, and nothing happened. Frodo was 
+just yielding to the temptation to lie down again when a dark shape, hardly 
+visible, floated close to one of the moored boats. A long whitish hand could 
+be dimly seen as it shot out and grabbed the gunwale; two pale lamplike eyes 
+shone coldly as they peered inside, and then they lifted and gazed up at 
+Frodo on the eyot. They were not more than a yard or two away, and Frodo 
+heard the soft hiss of intaken breath. He stood up, drawing Sting from its 
+sheath, and faced the eyes. Immediately their light was shut off. There was 
+another hiss and a splash, and the dark log-shape shot away downstream into 
+the night. Aragorn stirred in his sleep, turned over, and sat up' 
+
+'What is it? ' he whispered, springing up and coming to Frodo. 'I felt 
+something in my sleep. Why have you drawn your sword? ' 
+
+'Gollum,' answered Frodo. 'Or at least, so I guess.' 
+
+'Ah! ' said Aragorn. 'So you know about our little footpad, do you? He 
+padded after us all through Moria and right down to Nimrodel. Since we took 
+to boats, he has been lying on a log and paddling with hands and feet. I 
+have tried to catch him once or twice at night; but he is slier than a fox, 
+and as slippery as a fish. I hoped the river-voyage would beat him, but he 
+is too clever a waterman. 
+
+'We shall have to try going faster tomorrow. You lie down now, and I 
+will keep watch for what is left of the night. I wish I could lay my hands 
+on the wretch. We might make him useful. But if I cannot, we shall have to 
+try and lose him. He is very dangerous. Quite apart from murder by night on 
+his own account, he may put any enemy that is about on our track.' 
+
+The night passed without Gollum showing so much as a shadow again. 
+After that the Company kept a sharp look-out, but they saw no more of Gollum 
+
+
+
+
+while the voyage lasted. If he was still following, he was very wary and 
+cunning. At Aragorn’s bidding they paddled now for long spells, and the 
+banks went swiftly by. But they saw little of the country, for they 
+journeyed mostly by night and twilight, resting by day, and lying as hidden 
+as the land allowed. In this way the time passed without event until the 
+seventh day. 
+
+The weather was still grey and overcast, with wind from the East, but 
+as evening drew into night the sky away westward cleared, and pools of faint 
+light, yellow and pale green, opened under the grey shores of cloud. There 
+the white rind of the new Moon could be seen glimmering in the remote lakes. 
+Sam looked at it and puckered his brows. 
+
+The next day the country on either side began to change rapidly. The 
+banks began to rise and grow stony. Soon they were passing through a hilly 
+rocky land, and on both shores there were steep slopes buried in deep brakes 
+of thorn and sloe, tangled with brambles and creepers. Behind them stood low 
+crumbling cliffs, and chimneys of grey weathered stone dark with ivy; and 
+beyond these again there rose high ridges crowned with wind-writhen firs. 
+They were drawing near to the grey hill -country of the Emyn Muil, the 
+southern march of Wilderland. 
+
+There were many birds about the cliffs and the rock-chimneys, and all 
+day high in the air flocks of birds had been circling, black against the 
+pale sky. As they lay in their camp that day Aragorn watched the flights 
+doubtfully, wondering if Gollum had been doing some mischief and the news 
+of 
+
+their voyage was now moving in the wilderness. Later as the sun was setting, 
+and the Company was stirring and getting ready to start again, he descried a 
+dark spot against the fading light: a great bird high and far off, now 
+wheeling, now flying on slowly southwards. 
+
+’What is that, Legolas? ' he asked, pointing to the northern sky. 'Is 
+it, as I think, an eagle? ' 
+
+’Yes.' said Legolas. 'It is an eagle, a hunting eagle. I wonder what 
+that forebodes. It is far from the mountains.' 
+
+'We will not start until it is fully dark,' said Aragorn. 
+
+The eighth night of their journey came. It was silent and windless; the 
+grey east wind had passed away. The thin crescent of the Moon had fallen 
+early into the pale sunset, but the sky was clear above, and though far away 
+in the South there were great ranges of cloud that still shone faintly, in 
+
+
+
+
+the West stars glinted bright. 
+
+'Come! ' said Aragorn. 'We will venture one more journey by night. We 
+are coming to reaches of the River that I do not know well: for I have never 
+journeyed by water in these parts before, not between here and the rapids of 
+Sarn Gebir. But if I am right in my reckoning, those are still many miles 
+ahead. Still there are dangerous places even before we come there: rocks and 
+stony eyots in the stream. We must keep a sharp watch and not try to paddle 
+swiftly.’ 
+
+To Sam in the leading boat was given the task of watchman. He lay 
+forward peering into the gloom. The night grew dark, but the stars above 
+were strangely bright, and there was a glimmer On the face of the River. It 
+was close on midnight, and they had been drifting for some while, hardly 
+using the paddles, when suddenly Sam cried out. Only a few yards ahead dark 
+shapes loomed up in the stream and he heard the swirl of racing water. There 
+was a swift current which swung left, towards the eastern shore where the 
+channel was clear. As they were swept aside the travellers could see, now 
+very close, the pale foam of the River lashing against sharp rocks that were 
+thrust out far into the stream like a ridge of teeth. The boats were all 
+huddled together. 
+
+'Hoy there, Aragorn! ’ shouted Boromir, as his boat bumped into the 
+leader. 'This is madness! We cannot dare the Rapids by night! But no boat 
+can live in Sarn Gebir, be it night or day.’ 
+
+'Back, back! ’ cried Aragorn. Turn! Turn if you can! ’ He drove his 
+paddle into the water, trying to hold the boat and bring it round. 
+
+’I am out of my reckoning,’ he said to Frodo. ’I did not know that we 
+had come so far: Anduin flows faster than I thought. Sarn Gebir must be 
+close at hand already.’ 
+
+With great efforts they checked the boats and slowly brought them 
+about; but at first they could make only small headway against the current, 
+and all the time they were carried nearer and nearer to the eastern bank. 
+
+Now dark and ominous it loomed up in the night. 
+
+’All together, paddle! ’ shouted Boromir. ’Paddle! Or we shall be 
+driven on the shoals.’ Even as he spoke Frodo felt the keel beneath him 
+grate upon stone. 
+
+At that moment there was a twang of bowstrings: several arrows whistled 
+over them, and some fell among them. One smote Frodo between the 
+shoulders 
+
+
+
+
+and he lurched forward with a cry, letting go his paddle: but the arrow fell 
+back, foiled by his hidden coat of mail. Another passed through Aragorn's 
+hood; and a third stood fast in the gunwale of the second boat, close by 
+Merry's hand. Sam thought he could glimpse black figures running to and fro 
+upon the long shingle -banks that lay under the eastern shore. They seemed 
+very near. 
+
+' Yrch !' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue. 
+
+'Ores! ' cried Gimli. 
+
+'Gollum's doing, I'll be bound.' said Sam to Frodo. 'And a nice place 
+to choose, too. The River seems set on taking us right into their arms! ' 
+
+They all leaned forward straining at the paddles: even Sam took a hand. 
+Every moment they expected to feel the bite of black -feathered arrows. Many 
+whined overhead or struck the water nearby; but there were no more hits. It 
+was dark, but not too dark for the night-eyes of Ores, and in the 
+star-glimmer they must have offered their cunning foes some mark, unless it 
+was that the grey cloaks Of Lurien and the grey timber of the elf- wrought 
+boats defeated the malice of the archers of Mordor. 
+
+Stroke by stroke they laboured on. In the darkness it was hard to be 
+sure that they were indeed moving at all; but slowly the swirl of the water 
+grew less, and the shadow of the eastern bank faded back into the night. At 
+last, as far as they could judge, they had reached the middle of the stream 
+again and had driven their boats back some distance above the jutting rocks. 
+Then half turning they thrust them with all their strength towards the 
+western shore. Under the shadow Of bushes leaning out over the water they 
+halted and drew breath. 
+
+Legolas laid down his paddle and took up the bow that he had brought 
+from Lurien. Then he sprang ashore and climbed a few paces up the bank. 
+Stringing the bow and fitting an arrow he turned, peering back over the 
+River into the darkness. Across the water there were shrill cries, but 
+nothing could be seen. 
+
+Frodo looked up at the Elf standing tall above him, as he gazed into 
+the night, seeking a mark to shoot at. His head was dark, crowned with sharp 
+white stars that glittered in the black pools of the sky behind. But now 
+rising and sailing up from the South the great clouds advanced, sending out 
+dark outriders into the starry fields. A sudden dread fell on the Company. 
+
+' Elbereth Gilthoniel!' sighed Legolas as he looked up. Even as he did 
+so, a dark shape, like a cloud and yet not a cloud, for it moved far more 
+
+
+
+
+swiftly, came out of the blackness in the South, and sped towards the 
+Company, blotting out all light as it approached. Soon it appeared as a 
+great winged creature, blacker than the pits in the night. Fierce voices 
+rose up to greet it from across the water. Frodo felt a sudden chill running 
+through him and clutching at his heart; there was a deadly cold, like the 
+memory of an old wound, in his shoulder. He crouched down, as if to hide. 
+
+Suddenly the great bow of Lurien sang. Shrill went the arrow from the 
+elven-string. Frodo looked up. Almost above him the winged shape swerved. 
+There was a harsh croaking scream, as it fell out of the air, vanishing down 
+into the gloom of the eastern shore. The sky was clean again. There was a 
+tumult of many voices far away, cursing and wailing in the darkness, and 
+then silence. Neither shaft nor cry came again from the east that night. 
+
+After a while Aragorn led the boats back upstream. They felt their way 
+along the water’s edge for some distance, until they found a small shallow 
+bay. A few low trees grew there close to the water, and behind them rose a 
+steep rocky bank. Here the Company decided to stay and await the dawn: it 
+was useless to attempt to move further by night. They made no camp and lit 
+no fire, but lay huddled in the boats, moored close together. 
+
+’Praised be the bow of Galadriel, and the hand and eye of Legolas ! ’ 
+said Gimli, as he munched a wafer of lembas. 'That was a mighty shot in the 
+dark, my friend!' 
+
+'But who can say what it hit?' said Legolas. 
+
+'I cannot,' said Gimli. 'But I am glad that the shadow came no nearer. 
+
+I liked it not at all. Too much it reminded me of the shadow in Moria — the 
+shadow of the Balrog,' he ended in a whisper. 
+
+'It was not a Balrog,' said Frodo, still shivering with the chill that 
+had come upon him. 'It was something colder. I think it was — ' Then he 
+paused and fell silent. 
+
+'What do you think? ' asked Boromir eagerly, leaning from his boat, as 
+if he was trying to catch a glimpse of Frodo's face. 
+
+'I think — No, I will not say,' answered Frodo. 'Whatever it was, its 
+fall has dismayed our enemies.' 
+
+'So it seems,' said Aragorn. 'Yet where they are, and how many, and 
+what they will do next, we do not know. This night we must all be sleepless! 
+Dark hides us now. But what the day will show who can tell? Have your 
+weapons close to hand! ' 
+
+Sam sat tapping the hilt of his sword as if he were counting on his 
+
+
+
+
+fingers, and looking up at the sky. "It's very strange,' he murmured. 'The 
+Moon's the same in the Shire and in Wilderland, or it ought to be. But 
+either it's out of its running, or I'm all wrong in my reckoning. You'll 
+remember, Mr. Frodo, the Moon was waning as we lay on the flet up in that 
+tree: a week from the full, I reckon. And we'd been a week on the way last 
+night, when up pops a New Moon as thin as a nail-paring, as if we had never 
+stayed no time in the Elvish country. 
+
+'Well, I can remember three nights there for certain, and I seem to 
+remember several more, but I would take my oath it was never a whole month. 
+Anyone would think that time did not count in there! ’ 
+
+'And perhaps that was the way of it,’ said Frodo. 'In that land, maybe, 
+we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, 
+until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that 
+flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea. And I don't remember any moon, 
+either new or old, in Caras Galadhon: only stars by night and sun by day.' 
+
+Legolas stirred in his boat. 'Nay, time does not tarry ever,' he said; 
+
+'but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For the Elves 
+the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because 
+they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to 
+them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. 
+The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. 
+
+Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.’ 
+
+'But the wearing is slow in Lurien,' said Frodo. 'The power of the Lady 
+is on it. Rich are the hours, though short they seem, in Caras Galadhon, 
+where Galadriel wields the Elven-ring.’ 
+
+'That should not have been said outside Lurien, not even to me,' said 
+Aragorn. 'Speak no more of it! But so it is, Sam: in that land you lost your 
+count. There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves. The old moon 
+passed, and a new moon waxed and waned in the world outside, while we 
+tarried there. And yestereve a new moon came again. Winter is nearly gone. 
+Time flows on to a spring of little hope.’ 
+
+The night passed silently. No voice or call was heard again across the 
+water. The travellers huddled in their boats felt the changing of the 
+weather. The air grew warm and very still under the great moist clouds that 
+had floated up from the South and the distant seas. The rushing of the River 
+over the rocks of the rapids seemed to grow louder and closer. The twigs of 
+the trees above them began to drip. 
+
+
+
+
+When the day came the mood of the world about them had become soft and 
+sad. Slowly the dawn grew to a pale light, diffused and shadowless. There 
+was mist on the River, and white fog swathed the shore; the far bank could 
+not be seen. 
+
+'I can't abide fog,' said Sam; 'but this seems to be a lucky one. Now 
+perhaps we can get away without those cursed goblins seeing us.' 
+
+'Perhaps so,' said Aragorn. 'But it will be hard to find the path 
+unless the fog lifts a little later on. And we must find the path, if we are 
+to pass Sarn Gebir and come to the Emyn Muil.' 
+
+'I do not see why we should pass the Rapids or follow the River any 
+further,' said Boromir. 'If the Emyn Muil lie before us, then we can abandon 
+these cockle-boats, and strike westward and southward, until we come to the 
+Entwash and cross into my own land.’ 
+
+'We can, if we are making for Minas Tirith,’ said Aragorn, 'but that is 
+not yet agreed. And such a course may be more perilous than it sounds. The 
+vale of Entwash is flat and fenny, and fog is a deadly peril there for those 
+on foot and laden. I would not abandon our boats until we must. The River is 
+at least a path that cannot be missed.' 
+
+'But the Enemy holds the eastern bank,' objected Boromir. 'And even if 
+you pass the Gates of Argonath and come unmolested to the Tindrock, what 
+will you do then? Leap down the Falls and land in the marshes? ’ 
+
+'No! ' answered Aragorn. 'Say rather that we will bear our boats by the 
+ancient way to Rauros-foot, and there take to the water again. Do you not 
+know, Boromir, or do you choose to forget the North Stair, and the high seat 
+upon Amon Hen, that were made in the days of the great kings? I at least 
+have a mind to stand in that high place again, before I decide my further 
+course. There, maybe, we shall see some sign that will guide us.' 
+
+Boromir held out long against this choice; but when it became plain 
+that Frodo would follow Aragorn, wherever he went, he gave in. 'It is not 
+the way of the Men of Minas Tirith to desert their friends at need,' he 
+said, 'and you will need my strength, if ever you are to reach the Tindrock. 
+
+To the tall isle I will go, but no further. There I shall turn to my home, 
+alone if my help has not earned the reward of any companionship.’ 
+
+The day was now growing, and the fog had lifted a little. It was 
+decided that Aragorn and Legolas should at once go forward along the shore, 
+while the others remained by the boats. Aragorn hoped to find some way by 
+which they could carry both their boats and their baggage to the smoother 
+
+
+
+
+water beyond the Rapids. 
+
+'Boats of the Elves would not sink, maybe,’ he said, 'but that does not 
+say that we should come through Sarn Gebir alive. None have ever done so 
+yet. No road was made by the Men of Gondor in this region, for even in their 
+great days their realm did not reach up Anduin beyond the Emyn Muil; but 
+there is a portage-way somewhere on the western shore, if I can find it. It 
+cannot yet have perished; for light boats used to journey out of Wilderland 
+down to Osgiliath, and still did so until a few years ago, when the Ores of 
+Mordor began to multiply.’ 
+
+’Seldom in my life has any boat come out of the North, and the Ores 
+prowl on the east-shore,’ said Boromir. 'If you go forward, peril will grow 
+with every mile, even if you find a path.’ 
+
+'Peril lies ahead on every southward road,’ answered Aragorn. 'Wait for 
+us one day. If we do not return in that time, you will know that evil has 
+indeed befallen us. Then you must take a new leader and follow him as best 
+you can.’ 
+
+It was with a heavy heart that Frodo saw Aragorn and Legolas climb the 
+steep bank and vanish into the mists; but his fears proved groundless. Only 
+two or three hours had passed, and it was barely mid-day, when the shadowy 
+shapes of the explorers appeared again. 
+
+'All is well,’ said Aragorn, as he clambered down the bank. ’There is a 
+track, and it leads to a good landing that is still serviceable. The 
+distance is not great: the head of the Rapids is but half a mile below us, 
+and they are little more than a mile long. Not far beyond them the stream 
+becomes clear and smooth again, though it runs swiftly. Our hardest task 
+will be to get our boats and baggage to the old portage- way. We have found 
+it, but it lies well back from the water-side here, and runs under the lee 
+of a rock-wall, a furlong or more from the shore. We did not find where the 
+northward landing lies. If it still remains, we must have passed it 
+yesterday night. We might labour far upstream and yet miss it in the fog. I 
+fear we must leave the River now, and make for the portage-way as best we 
+can from here.’ 
+
+'That would not be easy, even if we were all Men,’ said Boromir. 
+
+'Yet such as we are we will try it,’ said Aragorn. 
+
+’Aye, we will,’ said Gimli. 'The legs of Men will lag on a rough road, 
+while a Dwarf goes on, be the burden twice his own weight, Master Boromir! ’ 
+
+The task proved hard indeed, yet in the end it was done. The goods were 
+
+
+
+
+taken out of the boats and brought to the top of the bank, where there was a 
+level space. Then the boats were drawn out of the water and carried up. They 
+were far less heavy than any had expected. Of what tree growing in the 
+elvish country they were made not even Legolas knew; but the wood was 
+tough 
+
+and yet strangely light. Merry and Pippin alone could carry their boat with 
+ease along the flat. Nonetheless it needed the strength of the two Men to 
+lift and haul them over the ground that the Company now had to cross. It 
+sloped up away from the River, a tumbled waste of grey limestone-boulders, 
+with many hidden holes shrouded with weeds and bushes; there were thickets 
+of brambles, and sheer dells; and here and there boggy pools fed by waters 
+trickling from the terraces further inland. 
+
+One by one Boromir and Aragorn carried the boats, while the others 
+toiled and scrambled after them with the baggage. At last all was removed 
+and laid on the portage-way. Then with little further hindrance, save from 
+sprawling briars and many fallen stones, they moved forward all together. 
+Fog still hung in veils upon the crumbling rock-wall, and to their left mist 
+shrouded the River: they could hear it rushing and foaming over the sharp 
+shelves and stony teeth of Sarn Gebir, but they could not see it. Twice they 
+made the journey, before all was brought safe to the southern landing. 
+
+There the portage-way, turning back to the water-side, ran gently down 
+to the shallow edge of a little pool. It seemed to have been scooped in the 
+river-side, not by hand, but by the water swirling down from Sarn Gebir 
+against a low pier of rock that jutted out some way into the stream. Beyond 
+it the shore rose sheer into a grey cliff, and there was no further passage 
+for those on foot. 
+
+Already the short afternoon was past, and a dim cloudy dusk was closing 
+in. They sat beside the water listening to the confused rush and roar of the 
+Rapids hidden in the mist; they were tired and sleepy, and their hearts were 
+as gloomy as the dying day. 
+
+'Well, here we are, and here we must pass another night,' said Boromir. 
+
+'We need sleep, and even if Aragorn had a mind to pass the Gates of Argonath 
+by night, we are all too tired-except, no doubt, our sturdy dwarf.' 
+
+Gimli made no reply: he was nodding as he sat. 
+
+'Let us rest as much as we can now,' said Aragorn. 'Tomorrow we must 
+journey by day again. Unless the weather changes once more and cheats us, we 
+shall have a good chance of slipping through, unseen by any eyes on the 
+
+
+
+
+eastern shore. But tonight two must watch together in turns: three hours off 
+and one on guard.' 
+
+Nothing happened that night worse than a brief drizzle of rain an hour 
+before dawn. As soon as it was fully light they started. Already the fog was 
+thinning. They kept as close as they could to the western side, and they 
+could see the dim shapes of the low cliffs rising ever higher, shadowy walls 
+with their feet in the hurrying river. In the mid-morning the clouds drew 
+down lower, and it began to rain heavily. They drew the skin -covers over 
+their boats to prevent them from being flooded, and drifted on: little could 
+be seen before them or about them through the grey falling curtains. 
+
+The rain, however, did not last long. Slowly the sky above grew 
+lighter, and then suddenly the clouds broke, and their draggled fringes 
+trailed away northward up the River. The fogs and mists were gone. Before 
+the travellers lay a wide ravine, with great rocky sides to which clung, 
+upon shelves and in narrow crevices, a few thrawn trees. The channel grew 
+narrower and the River swifter. Now they were speeding along with little 
+hope of stopping or turning, whatever they might meet ahead. Over them was a 
+lane of pale-blue sky, around them the dark overshadowed River, and before 
+them black, shutting out the sun, the hills of Emyn Muil, in which no 
+opening could be seen. 
+
+Frodo peering forward saw in the distance two great rocks approaching: 
+like great pinnacles or pillars of stone they seemed. Tall and sheer and 
+ominous they stood upon either side of the stream. A narrow gap appeared 
+between them, and the River swept the boats towards it. 
+
+'Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings! ' cried Aragorn. 'We 
+shall pass them soon. Keep the boats in line, and as far apart as you can! 
+
+Hold the middle of the stream! ’ 
+
+As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to 
+meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but 
+threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned: the 
+craft and power of old had wrought upon them, and still they preserved 
+through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which 
+they had been hewn. Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood 
+two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they 
+frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in 
+gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head 
+there was a crumbling helm and crown. Great power and majesty they still 
+
+
+
+
+wore, the silent wardens of a long -vanished kingdom. Awe and fear fell upon 
+Frodo, and he cowered down, shutting his eyes and not daring to look up as 
+the boat drew near. Even Boromir bowed his head as the boats whirled by. 
+frail and fleeting as little leaves, under the enduring shadow of the 
+sentinels of N®menor. So they passed into the dark chasm of the Gates. 
+
+Sheer rose the dreadful cliffs to unguessed heights on either side. Far 
+off was the dim sky. The black waters roared and echoed, and a wind screamed 
+over them. Frodo crouching over his knees heard Sam in front muttering and 
+groaning: 'What a place! What a horrible place! Just let me get out of this 
+boat, and I'll never wet my toes in a puddle again, let alone a river! ' 
+
+'Fear not!' said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw 
+Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer 
+there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding 
+the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was 
+blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to 
+his own land. 
+
+’Fear not! ' he said. 'Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses 
+of Isildur and Anbrion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the 
+Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son heir of 
+Elendil, has nought to dread! ’ 
+
+Then the light of his eyes faded, and he spoke to himself: 'Would that 
+Gandalf were here! How my heart yearns for Minas Anor and the walls of my 
+own city! But whither now shall I go? ’ 
+
+The chasm was long and dark, and filled with the noise of wind and 
+rushing water and echoing stone. It bent somewhat towards the west so that 
+at first all was dark ahead; but soon Frodo saw a tall gap of light before 
+him, ever growing. Swiftly it drew near, and suddenly the boats shot 
+through, out into a wide clear light. 
+
+The sun, already long fallen from the noon, was shining in a windy sky. 
+
+The pent waters spread out into a long oval lake, pale Nen Hithoel, fenced 
+by steep grey hills whose sides were clad with trees, but their heads were 
+bare, cold-gleaming in the sunlight. At the far southern end rose three 
+peaks. The midmost stood somewhat forward from the others and sundered 
+from 
+
+them, an island in the waters, about which the flowing River flung pale 
+shimmering arms. Distant but deep there came up on the wind a roaring sound 
+like the roll of thunder heard far away. 
+
+
+
+
+'Behold Tol Brandir! ' said Aragorn, pointing south to the tall peak. 
+
+'Upon the left stands Amon Lhaw, and upon the right is Amon Hen the Hills of 
+Hearing and of Sight. In the days of the great kings there were high seats 
+upon them, and watch was kept there. But it is said that no foot of man or 
+beast has ever been set upon Tol Brandir. Ere the shade of night falls we 
+shall come to them. I hear the endless voice of Rauros calling.' 
+
+The Company rested now for a while, drifting south on the current that 
+flowed through the middle of the lake. They ate some food, and then they 
+took to their paddles and hastened on their way. The sides of the westward 
+hills fell into shadow, and the Sun grew round and red. Here and there a 
+misty star peered out. The three peaks loomed before them, darkling in the 
+twilight. Rauros was roaring with a great voice. Already night was laid on 
+the flowing waters when the travellers came at last under the shadow of the 
+hills. 
+
+The tenth day of their journey was over. Wilderland was behind them. 
+They could go no further without choice between the east-way and the west. 
+The last stage of the Quest was before them. 
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 10. The Breaking of the Fellowship 
+
+
+
+Aragorn led them to the right arm of the River. Here upon its western 
+side under the shadow of Tol Brandir a green lawn ran down to the water from 
+the feet of Amon Hen. Behind it rose the first gentle slopes of the hill 
+clad with trees, and trees marched away westward along the curving shores of 
+the lake. A little spring fell tumbling down and fed the grass. 
+
+'Here we will rest tonight,' said Aragorn. 'This is the lawn of Parth 
+Galen: a fair place in the summer days of old. Let us hope that no evil has 
+yet come here.' 
+
+They drew up their boats on the green banks, and beside them they made 
+their camp. They set a watch, but had no sight nor sound of their enemies. 
+
+If Gollum had contrived to follow them, he remained unseen and unheard. 
+Nonetheless as the night wore on Aragorn grew uneasy, tossing often in his 
+sleep and waking. In the small hours he got up and came to Frodo, whose turn 
+it was to watch. 
+
+'Why are you waking? ' asked Frodo. 'It is not your watch.' 
+
+'I do not know,’ answered Aragorn; 'but a shadow and a threat has been 
+growing in my sleep. It would be well to draw your sword.' 
+
+'Why? ’ said Frodo. 'Are enemies at hand? ’ 
+
+'Let us see what Sting may show,' answered Aragorn. 
+
+Frodo then drew the elf-blade from its sheath. To his dismay the edges 
+gleamed dimly in the night. 'Ores! ’ he said. 'Not very near, and yet too 
+near, it seems.’ 
+
+'I feared as much,' said Aragorn. 'But maybe they are not on this side 
+of the River. The light of Sting is faint, and it may point to no more than 
+spies of Mordor roaming on the slopes of Amon Lhaw. I have never heard 
+before of Ores upon Amon Hen. Yet who knows what may happen in these 
+evil 
+
+days, now that Minas Tirith no longer holds secure the passages of Anduin. 
+We must go warily tomorrow.’ 
+
+The day came like fire and smoke. Low in the East there were black bars 
+of cloud like the fumes of a great burning. The rising sun lit them from 
+beneath with flames of murky red; but soon it climbed above them into a 
+clear sky. The summit of Tol Brandir was tipped with gold. Frodo looked out 
+
+
+
+
+eastward and gazed at the tall island. Its sides sprang sheer out of the 
+running water. High up above the tall cliffs were steep slopes upon which 
+trees climbed, mounting one head above another; and above them again were 
+grey faces of inaccessible rock, crowned by a great spire of stone. Many 
+birds were circling about it, but no sign of other living things could be 
+seen. 
+
+When they had eaten, Aragorn called the Company together. 'The day has 
+come at last,' he said: 'the day of choice which we have long delayed. What 
+shall now become of our Company that has travelled so far in fellowship? 
+Shall we turn west with Boromir and go to the wars of Gondor; or turn east 
+to the Fear and Shadow; or shall we break our fellowship and go this way and 
+that as each may choose? Whatever we do must be done soon. We cannot 
+long 
+
+halt here. The enemy is on the eastern shore, we know; but I fear that the 
+Ores may already be on this side of the water.' 
+
+There was a long silence in which no one spoke or moved. 
+
+'Well, Frodo,' said Aragorn at last. 'I fear that the burden is laid 
+upon you. You are the Bearer appointed by the Council. Your own way you 
+alone can choose. In this matter I cannot advise you. I am not Gandalf, and 
+though I have tried to bear his part, I do not know what design or hope he 
+had for this hour, if indeed he had any. Most likely it seems that if he 
+were here now the choice would still wait on you. Such is your fate.' 
+
+Frodo did not answer at once. Then he spoke slowly. 'I know that haste 
+is needed, yet I cannot choose. The burden is heavy. Give me an hour longer, 
+and I will speak. Let me be alone! ’ 
+
+Aragorn looked at him with kindly pity. 'Very well, Frodo son of 
+Drogo,' he said. 'You shall have an hour, and you shall be alone. We will 
+stay here for a while. But do not stray far or out of call.’ 
+
+Frodo sat for a moment with his head bowed. Sam, who had been watching 
+his master with great concern, shook his head and muttered: 'Plain as a 
+pikestaff it is, but it's no good Sam Gamgee putting in his spoke just now.' 
+
+Presently Frodo got up and walked away; and Sam saw that while the 
+others restrained themselves and did not stare at him, the eyes of Boromir 
+followed Frodo intently, until he passed out of sight in the trees at the 
+foot of Amon Hen. 
+
+Wandering aimlessly at first in the wood, Frodo found that his feet 
+
+
+
+
+were leading him up towards the slopes of the hill. He came to a path, the 
+dwindling ruins of a road of long ago. In steep places stairs of stone had 
+been hewn, but now they were cracked and worn, and split by the roots of 
+trees. For some while he climbed, not caring which way he went, until he 
+came to a grassy place. Rowan-trees grew about it, and in the midst was a 
+wide flat stone. The little upland lawn was open upon the East and was 
+filled now with the early sunlight. Frodo halted and looked out over the 
+River, far below him, to Tol Brandir and the birds wheeling in the great 
+gulf of air between him and the untrodden isle. The voice of Rauros was a 
+mighty roaring mingled with a deep throbbing boom. 
+
+He sat down upon the stone and cupped his chin in his hands, staring 
+eastwards but seeing little with his eyes. All that had happened since Bilbo 
+left the Shire was passing through his mind, and he recalled and pondered 
+everything that he could remember of Gandalf s words. Time went on, and 
+still he was no nearer to a choice. 
+
+Suddenly he awoke from his thoughts: a strange feeling came to him that 
+something was behind him, that unfriendly eyes were upon him. He sprang up 
+and turned; but all that he saw to his surprise was Boromir, and his face 
+was smiling and kind. 
+
+'I was afraid for you, Frodo,' he said, coming forward. 'If Aragorn is 
+right and Ores are near, then none of us should wander alone, and you least 
+of all: so much depends on you. And my heart too is heavy. May I stay now 
+and talk for a while, since I have found you? It would comfort me. Where 
+there are so many, all speech becomes a debate without end. But two together 
+may perhaps find wisdom.' 
+
+'You are kind,' answered Frodo. 'But I do not think that any speech 
+will help me. For I know what I should do, but I am afraid of doing it, 
+Boromir: afraid.' 
+
+Boromir stood silent. Rauros roared endlessly on. The wind murmured in 
+the branches of the trees. Frodo shivered. 
+
+Suddenly Boromir came and sat beside him. 'Are you sure that you do not 
+suffer needlessly? ’ he said. 'I wish to help you. You need counsel in your 
+hard choice. Will you not take mine? ’ 
+
+’I think I know already what counsel you would give, Boromir,' said 
+Frodo. 'And it would seem like wisdom but for the warning of my heart.' 
+
+'Warning? Warning against what? ' said Boromir sharply. 
+
+'Against delay. Against the way that seems easier. Against refusal of 
+
+
+
+
+the burden that is laid on me. Against -well, if it must be said, against 
+trust in the strength and truth of Men.' 
+
+'Yet that strength has long protected you far away in your little 
+country, though you knew it not.' 
+
+'I do not doubt the valour of your people. But the world is changing. 
+
+The walls of Minas Tirith may be strong, but they are not strong enough. If 
+they fail, what then? ' 
+
+'We shall fall in battle valiantly. Yet there is still hope that they 
+will not fail.' 
+
+'No hope while the Ring lasts,' said Frodo. 
+
+'Ah! The Ring! ' said Boromir, his eyes lighting. 'The Ring! Is it not 
+a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a 
+thing? So small a thing! And I have seen it only for an instant in the House 
+of Elrond. Could I not have a sight of it again? ' 
+
+Frodo looked up. His heart went suddenly cold. He caught the strange 
+gleam in Boromir's eyes, yet his face was still kind and friendly. 'It is 
+best that it should lie hidden,' he answered. 
+
+'As you wish. I care not,' said Boromir. 'Yet may I not even speak of 
+it? For you seem ever to think only of its power in the hands of the Enemy: 
+of its evil uses not of its good. The world is changing, you say. Minas 
+Tirith will fall, if the Ring lasts. But why? Certainly, if the Ring were 
+with the Enemy. But why, if it were with us? ' 
+
+'Were you not at the Council? ' answered Frodo. 'Because we cannot use 
+it, and what is done with it turns to evil.’ 
+
+Boromir got up and walked about impatiently. 'So you go on,' he cried. 
+'Gandalf, Elrond — all these folk have taught you to say so. For themselves 
+they may be right. These elves and half-elves and wizards, they would come 
+to grief perhaps. Yet often I doubt if they are wise and not merely timid. 
+
+But each to his own kind. True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted. We 
+of Minas Tirith have been staunch through long years of trial. We do not 
+desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, 
+strength in a just cause. And behold! in our need chance brings to light the 
+-Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad 
+not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him. The fearless, the 
+ruthless, these alone will achieve victory. What could not a warrior do in 
+this hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he refuses, why 
+
+
+
+
+not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would 
+drive the 
+
+hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!' 
+
+Boromir strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly: Almost he seemed 
+to have forgotten Frodo, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the 
+mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious 
+victories to be; and he cast down Mordor, and became himself a mighty king, 
+benevolent and wise. Suddenly he stopped and waved his arms. 
+
+'And they tell us to throw it away!' he cried. 'I do not say destroy 
+it. That might be well, if reason could show any hope of doing so. It does 
+not. The only plan that is proposed to us is that a halfling should walk 
+blindly into Mordor and offer the Enemy every chance of recapturing it for 
+himself. Folly! 
+
+'Surely you see it, my friend?' he said, turning now suddenly to Frodo 
+again. 'You say that you are afraid. If it is so, the boldest should pardon 
+you. But is it not really your good sense that revolts?' 
+
+'No, I am afraid,' said Frodo. 'Simply afraid. But I am glad to have 
+heard you speak so fully. My mind is clearer now.' 
+
+'Then you will come to Minas Tirith? ' cried Boromir. His eyes were 
+shining and his face eager. 
+
+'You misunderstand me,’ said Frodo. 
+
+'But you will come, at least for a while? ' Boromir persisted. 'My city 
+is not far now; and it is little further from there to Mordor than from 
+here. We have been long in the wilderness, and you need news of what the 
+Enemy is doing before you make a move. Come with me, Frodo,' he said. 
+'You 
+
+need rest before your venture, if go you must.’ He laid his hand on the 
+hobbit's shoulder in friendly fashion; but Frodo felt the hand trembling 
+with suppressed excitement. He stepped quickly away, and eyed with alarm the 
+tall Man, nearly twice his height and many times his match in strength. 
+
+'Why are you so unfriendly? ’ said Boromir. 'I am a true man, neither 
+thief nor tracker. I need your Ring: that you know now; but I give you my 
+word that I do not desire to keep it. Will you not at least let me make 
+trial of my plan? Lend me the Ring! ’ 
+
+'No! no! ' cried Frodo. 'The Council laid it upon me to bear it.' 
+
+'It is by our own folly that the Enemy will defeat us,’ cried Boromir. 
+
+'How it angers me! Fool! Obstinate fool! Running wilfully to death and 
+
+
+
+
+mining our cause. If any mortals have claim to the Ring, it is the men of 
+N®menor, and not Halflings. It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It might 
+have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me ! ' 
+
+Frodo did not answer, but moved away till the great flat stone stood 
+between them. 'Come, come, my friend! ' said Boromir in a softer voice. 'Why 
+not get rid of it? Why not be free of your doubt and fear? You can lay the 
+blame on me, if you will. You can say that I was too strong and took it by 
+force. For I am too strong for you, halfling,' he cried; and suddenly he 
+sprang over the stone and leaped at Frodo. His fair and pleasant face was 
+hideously changed; a raging fire was in his eyes. 
+
+Frodo dodged aside and again put the stone between them. There was only 
+one thing he could do: trembling he pulled out the Ring upon its chain and 
+quickly slipped it on his finger, even as Boromir sprang at him again. The 
+Man gasped, stared for a moment amazed, and then ran wildly about, seeking 
+here and there among the rocks and trees. 
+
+'Miserable trickster!' he shouted. 'Let me get my hands on you! Now I 
+see your mind. You will take the Ring to Sauron and sell us all. You have 
+only waited your chance to leave us in the lurch. Curse you and all 
+halflings to death and darkness ! ' Then, catching his foot on a stone, he 
+fell sprawling and lay upon his face. For a while he was as still as if his 
+own curse had struck him down; then suddenly he wept. 
+
+He rose and passed his hand over his eyes, dashing away the tears. 
+
+'What have I said? ' he cried. 'What have I done? Frodo, Frodo! ' he called. 
+'Come back! A madness took me, but it has passed. Come back! ' 
+
+There was no answer. Frodo did not even hear his cries. He was already 
+far away, leaping blindly up the path to the hill-top. Terror and grief 
+shook him, seeing in his thought the mad fierce face of Boromir, and his 
+burning eyes. 
+
+Soon he came out alone on the summit of Amon Hen, and halted, gasping 
+for breath. He saw as through a mist a wide flat circle, paved with mighty 
+flags, and surrounded with a crumbling battlement; and in the middle, set 
+upon four carven pillars, was a high seat, reached by a stair of many steps. 
+
+Up he went and sat upon the ancient chair, feeling like a lost child that 
+had clambered upon the throne of mountain -kings. 
+
+At first he could see little. He seemed to be in a world of mist in 
+which there were only shadows: the Ring was upon him. Then here and there 
+the mist gave way and he saw many visions: small and clear as if they were 
+
+
+
+
+under his eyes upon a table, and yet remote. There was no sound, only bright 
+living images. The world seemed to have shrunk and fallen silent. He was 
+sitting upon the Seat of Seeing, on Amon Hen, the Hill of the Eye of the Men 
+of N®menor. Eastward he looked into wide uncharted lands, nameless plains, 
+and forests unexplored. Northward he looked, and the Great River lay like a 
+ribbon beneath him, and the Misty Mountains stood small and hard as broken 
+teeth. Westward he looked and saw the broad pastures of Rohan; and Orthanc, 
+the pinnacle of Isengard, like a black spike. Southward he looked, and below 
+his very feet the Great River curled like a toppling wave and plunged over 
+the falls of Rauros into a foaming pit; a glimmering rainbow played upon the 
+fume. And Ethir Anduin he saw, the mighty delta of the River, and myriads of 
+sea-birds whirling like a white dust in the sun, and beneath them a green 
+and silver sea, rippling in endless lines. 
+
+But everywhere he looked he saw the signs of war. The Misty Mountains 
+were crawling like anthills: ores were issuing out of a thousand holes. 
+
+Under the boughs of Mirkwood there was deadly strife of Elves and Men and 
+fell beasts. The land of the Beornings was aflame; a cloud was over Moria; 
+smoke rose on the borders of Lurien. 
+
+Horsemen were galloping on the grass of Rohan; wolves poured from 
+Isengard. From the havens of Harad ships of war put out to sea; and out of 
+the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon 
+horses, 
+
+chariots of chieftains and laden wains. All the power of the Dark Lord was 
+in motion. Then turning south again he beheld Minas Tirith. Far away it 
+seemed, and beautiful: white-walled, many -towered, proud and fair upon its 
+mountain- seat; its battlements glittered with steel, and its turrets were 
+bright with many banners. Hope leaped in his heart. But against Minas Tirith 
+was set another fortress, greater and more strong. Thither, eastward, 
+unwilling his eye was drawn. It passed the ruined bridges of Osgiliath, the 
+grinning gates of Minas Morgul. and the haunted Mountains, and it looked 
+upon Gorgoroth, the valley of terror in the Land of Mordor. Darkness lay 
+there under the Sun. Fire glowed amid the smoke. Mount Doom was burning, 
+and 
+
+a great reek rising. Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, 
+battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, 
+gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dyr, Fortress of Sauron. 
+
+All hope left him. 
+
+
+
+
+And suddenly he felt the Eye. There was an eye in the Dark Tower that 
+did not sleep. He knew that it had become aware of his gaze. A fierce eager 
+will was there. It leaped towards him; almost like a finger he felt it, 
+searching for him. Very soon it would nail him down, know just exactly where 
+he was. Amon Lhaw it touched. It glanced upon Tol Brandir he threw himself 
+from the seat, crouching, covering his head with his grey hood. 
+
+He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I 
+come to you ? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of 
+power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off! 
+
+Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring! 
+
+The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between 
+their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of 
+himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and 
+with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his 
+finger. He was kneeling in clear sunlight before the high seat. A black 
+shadow seemed to pass like an arm above him; it missed Amon Hen and 
+groped 
+
+out west, and faded. Then all the sky was clean and blue and birds sang in 
+every tree. 
+
+Frodo rose to his feet. A great weariness was on him, but his will was 
+firm and his heart lighter. He spoke aloud to himself. T will do now what I 
+must,' he said. This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at 
+work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more 
+harm. I will go alone. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too 
+dear to me: poor old Sam, and Merry and Pippin. Strider, too: his heart 
+yearns for Minas Tirith, and he will be needed there, now Boromir has fallen 
+into evil. I will go alone. At once.' 
+
+He went quickly down the path and came back to the lawn where Boromir 
+had found him. Then he halted, listening. He thought he could hear cries and 
+calls from the woods near the shore below. 
+
+'They'll be hunting for me,' he said. T wonder how long I have been 
+away. Hours, I should think.' He hesitated. 'What can I do? ' he muttered. 
+
+'I must go now or I shall never go. I shan't get a chance again. I hate 
+leaving them, and like this without any explanation. But surely they will 
+understand. Sam will. And what else can I do?' 
+
+Slowly he drew out the Ring and put it on once more. He vanished and 
+passed down the hill, less than a rustle of the wind. 
+
+
+
+
+The others remained long by the river -side. For some time they had been 
+silent, moving restlessly about; but now they were sitting in a circle, and 
+they were talking. Every now and again they made efforts to speak of other 
+things, of their long road and many adventures; they questioned Aragorn 
+concerning the realm of Gondor and its ancient history, and the remnants of 
+its great works that could still be seen in this strange border -land of the 
+Emyn Muil: the stone kings and the seats of Lhaw and Hen, and the great 
+Stair beside the falls of Rauros. But always their thoughts and words 
+strayed back to Frodo and the Ring. What would Frodo choose to do? Why 
+was 
+
+he hesitating? 
+
+'He is debating which course is the most desperate, I think,’ said 
+Aragorn. 'And well he may. It is now more hopeless than ever for the Company 
+to go east, since we have been tracked by Gollum, and must fear that the 
+secret of our journey is already betrayed. But Minas Tirith is no nearer to 
+the Fire and the destruction of the Burden. 
+
+'We may remain there for a while and make a brave stand; but the Lord 
+Denethor and all his men cannot hope to do what even Elrond said was beyond 
+his power: either to keep the Burden secret, or to hold off the full might 
+of the Enemy when he comes to take it. Which way would any of us choose in 
+Frodo’s place? I do not know. Now indeed we miss Gandalf most.’ 
+
+’Grievous is our loss,’ said Legolas. ’Yet we must needs make up our 
+minds without his aid. Why cannot we decide, and so help Frodo? Let us call 
+him back and then vote! I should vote for Minas Tirith.’ 
+
+'And so should I,’ said Gimli. ’We, of course, were only sent to help 
+the Bearer along the road, to go no further than we wished; and none of us 
+is under any oath or command to seek Mount Doom. Hard was my parting 
+from 
+
+Lothlurien. Yet I have come so far, and I say this: now we have reached the 
+last choice, it is clear to me that I cannot leave Frodo. I would choose 
+Minas Tirith, but if he does not, then I follow him.’ 
+
+'And I too will go with him,’ said Legolas. 'It would be faithless now 
+to say farewell.’ 
+
+’It would indeed be a betrayal, if we all left him,’ said Aragorn. ’But 
+if he goes east, then all need not go with him; nor do I think that all 
+should. That venture is desperate: as much so for eight as for three or two, 
+or one alone. If you would let me choose, then I should appoint three 
+
+
+
+
+companions: Sam, who could not bear it otherwise; and Gimli; and myself. 
+Boromir will return to his own city, where his father and his people need 
+him; and with him the others should go, or at least Meriadoc and Peregrin, 
+if Legolas is not willing to leave us.' 
+
+'That won’t do at all! ' cried Merry. 'We can't leave Frodo! Pippin and 
+I always intended to go wherever he went, and we still do. But we did not 
+realize what that would mean. It seemed different so far away, in the Shire 
+or in Ri vendell. It would be mad and cruel to let Frodo go to Mordor. Why 
+can't we stop him?' 
+
+'We must stop him,' said Pippin. 'And that is what he is worrying 
+about, I am sure. He knows we shan't agree to his going east. And he doesn't 
+like to ask anyone to go with him, poor old fellow. Imagine it: going off to 
+Mordor alone! ' Pippin shuddered. 'But the dear silly old hobbit, he ought 
+to know that he hasn't got to ask. He ought to know that if we can't stop 
+him, we shan't leave him.' 
+
+'Begging your pardon,' said Sam. 'I don't think you understand my 
+master at all. He isn't hesitating about which way to go. Of course not! 
+What's the good of Minas Tirith anyway? To him, I mean, begging your 
+pardon, 
+
+Master Boromir,' he added, and turned. It was then that they discovered that 
+Boromir, who at first had been sitting silent on the outside of the circle, 
+was no longer there. 
+
+'Now where's he got to? ' cried Sam, looking worried. 'He's been a bit 
+queer lately, to my mind. But anyway he's not in this business. He's off to 
+his home, as he always said; and no blame to him. But Mr. Frodo, he knows 
+he's got to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can. But he's afraid. Now it's 
+come to the point, he's just plain terrified. That's what his trouble is. Of 
+course he's had a bit of schooling, so to speak-we all have-since we left 
+home, or he'd be so terrified he'd just fling the Ring in the River and 
+bolt. But he's still too frightened to start. And he isn't worrying about us 
+either: whether we'll go along with him or no. He knows we mean to. That's 
+another thing that's bothering him. If he screws himself up to go, he'll 
+want to go alone. Mark my words! We're going to have trouble when he 
+comes 
+
+back. For he'll screw himself up all right, as sure as his name's Baggins.' 
+
+'I believe you speak more wisely than any of us, Sam,' said Aragorn. 
+'And what shall we do, if you prove right? ’ 
+
+
+
+
+'Stop him! Don't let him go! ' cried Pippin. 
+
+'I wonder? ' said Aragorn. 'He is the Bearer, and the fate of the 
+Burden is on him. I do not think that it is our part to drive him one way or 
+the other. Nor do I think that we should succeed, if we tried. There are 
+other powers at work far stronger.' 
+
+'Well, I wish Frodo would "screw himself up" and come back, and let us 
+get it over,' said Pippin. 'This waiting is horrible! Surely the time is up? 
+
+f 
+
+'Yes,' said Aragorn. 'The hour is long passed. The morning is wearing 
+away. We must call for him.' 
+
+At that moment Boromir reappeared. He came out from the trees and 
+walked towards them without speaking. His face looked grim and sad. He 
+paused as if counting those that were present, and then sat down aloof, with 
+his eyes on the ground. 
+
+'Where have you been, Boromir? ’ asked Aragorn. 'Have you seen Frodo? ’ 
+
+Boromir hesitated for a second. 'Yes, and no,’ he answered slowly. 
+
+'Yes: I found him some way up the hill, and I spoke to him. I urged him to 
+come to Minas Tirith and not to go east. I grew angry and he left me. He 
+vanished. I have never seen such a thing happen before, though I have heard 
+of it in tales. He must have put the Ring on. I could not find him again. I 
+thought he would return to you.' 
+
+'Is that all that you have to say? ' said Aragorn, looking hard and not 
+too kindly at Boromir. 
+
+'Yes,' he answered. 'I will say no more yet.’ 
+
+'This is bad!' cried Sam, jumping up. 'I don't know what this Man has 
+been up to. Why should Mr. Frodo put the thing on? He didn't ought to have; 
+and if he has, goodness knows what may have happened!' 
+
+'But he wouldn't keep it on' 1 said Merry. 'Not when he had escaped the 
+unwelcome visitor, like Bilbo used to.' 
+
+'But where did he go? Where is he? ' cried Pippin. 'He's been away ages 
+now.' 
+
+'How long is it since you saw Frodo last, Boromir? ' asked Aragorn. 
+
+'Half an hour, maybe,' he answered. 'Or it might be an hour. I have 
+wandered for some time since. I do not know! I do not know! ' He put his 
+head in his hands, and sat as if bowed with grief. 
+
+'An hour since he vanished! ' shouted Sam. 'We must try and find him at 
+once. Come on! ’ 
+
+
+
+
+'Wait a moment! ' cried Aragorn. 'We must divide up into pairs, and 
+arrange-here, hold on! Wait! ' 
+
+It was no good. They took no notice of him. Sam had dashed off first. 
+Merry and Pippin had followed, and were already disappearing westward into 
+the trees by the shore, shouting: Frodo! Frodo ! in their clear, high 
+hobbit- voices. Legolas and Gimli were running. A sudden panic or madness 
+seemed to have fallen on the Company. 
+
+'We shall all be scattered and lost,’ groaned Aragorn. 'Boromir! I do 
+not know what part you have played in this mischief, but help now! Go after 
+those two young hobbits, and guard them at the least, even if you cannot 
+find Frodo. Come back to this spot, if you find him, or any traces of him. I 
+shall return soon.' 
+
+Aragorn sprang swiftly away and went in pursuit of Sam. Just as he 
+reached the little lawn among the rowans he overtook him, toiling uphill, 
+panting and calling, Frodo! 
+
+'Come with me, Sam! ’ he said. 'None of us should be alone. There is 
+mischief about. I feel it. I am going to the top, to the Seat of Amon Hen, 
+to see what may be seen. And look! It is as my heart guessed, Frodo went 
+this way. Follow me, and keep your eyes open! ' He sped up the path. 
+
+Sam did his best, but he could not keep up with Strider the Ranger, and 
+soon fell behind. He had not gone far before Aragorn was out of sight ahead. 
+Sam stopped and puffed. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his head. 
+
+'Whoa, Sam Gamgee! ’ he said aloud. 'Your legs are too short, so use 
+your head! Let me see now! Boromir isn't lying, that's not his way; but he 
+hasn't told us everything. Something scared Mr. Frodo badly. He screwed 
+himself up to the point, sudden. He made up his mind at last to go. Where 
+to? Off East. Not without Sam? Yes, without even his Sam. That's hard, cruel 
+hard.' 
+
+Sam passed his hand over his eyes, brushing away the tears. 'Steady, 
+Gamgee! ' he said. 'Think, if you can! He can't fly across rivers, and he 
+can't jump waterfalls. He's got no gear. So he's got to get back to the 
+boats. Back to the boats! Back to the boats, Sam, like lightning! ' 
+
+Sam turned and bolted back down the path. He fell and cut his knees. Up 
+he got and ran on. He came to the edge of the lawn of Parth Galen by the 
+shore, where the boats were drawn up out of the water. No one was there. 
+There seemed to be cries in the woods behind, but he did not heed them. He 
+stood gazing for a moment, stock-still, gaping. A boat was sliding down the 
+
+
+
+
+bank all by itself. With a shout Sam raced across the grass. The boat 
+slipped into the wat 
+
+
+
+128d 
+
+
+
+er. 
+
+'Coming, Mr. Frodo! Coming! ' called Sam, and flung himself from the 
+bank, clutching at the departing boat. He missed it by a yard. With a cry 
+and a splash he fell face downward into deep swift water. Gurgling he went 
+under, and the River closed over his curly head. 
+
+An exclamation of dismay came from the empty boat. A paddle swirled and 
+the boat put about. Frodo was just in time to grasp Sam by the hair as he 
+came up, bubbling and struggling. Fear was staring in his round brown eyes. 
+
+'Up you come, Sam my lad! ’ said Frodo. 'Now take my hand! ' 
+
+'Save me, Mr. Frodo! ’ gasped Sam. 'I'm drownded. I can’t see your 
+hand.’ 
+
+'Here it is. Don't pinch, lad! I won’t let you go. Tread water and 
+don’t flounder, or you'll upset the boat. There now, get hold of the side, 
+and let me use the paddle! ' 
+
+With a few strokes Frodo brought the boat back to the bank, and Sam was 
+able to scramble out, wet as a water-rat. Frodo took off the Ring and 
+stepped ashore again. 
+
+'Of all the confounded nuisances you are the worst, Sam! ’ he said. 
+
+’Oh, Mr. Frodo, that’s hard! ’ said Sam shivering. 'That’s hard, trying 
+to go without me and all. If I hadn’t a guessed right, where would you be 
+now? ’ 
+
+'Safely on my way.’ 
+
+'Safely! ’ said Sam. 'All alone and without me to help you? I couldn’t 
+have a borne it, it’d have been the death of me.’ 
+
+’It would be the death of you to come with me, Sam,’ said Frodo and I 
+could not have borne that.’ 
+
+'Not as certain as being left behind,’ said Sam. 
+
+'But I am going to Mordor.’ 
+
+'I know that well enough, Mr. Frodo. Of course you are. And I’m coming 
+with you.’ 
+
+'Now, Sam,’ said Frodo, 'don’t hinder me! The others will be coming 
+back at any minute. If they catch me here. I shall have to argue and 
+
+
+
+
+explain, and I shall never have the heart or the chance to get off. But I 
+must go at once. It's the only way.’ 
+
+'Of course it is,' answered Sam. 'But not alone. I'm coming too, or 
+neither of us isn’t going. I'll knock holes in all the boats first.' 
+
+Frodo actually laughed. A sudden warmth and gladness touched his heart. 
+'Leave one! 'he said. 'We'll need it. But you can't come like this without 
+your gear or food or anything.' 
+
+'Just hold on a moment, and I'll get my stuff!' cried Sam eagerly. 
+
+'It's all ready. I thought we should be off today.' He rushed to the camping 
+place, fished out his pack from the pile where Frodo had laid it when he 
+emptied the boat of his companions' goods grabbed a spare blanket, and some 
+extra packages of food, and ran back. 
+
+'So all my plan is spoilt! ’ said Frodo. 'It is no good trying to 
+escape you. But I’m glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is 
+plain that we were meant to go together. We will go, and may the others find 
+a safe road! Strider will look after them. I don't suppose we shall see them 
+again.' 
+
+'Yet we may, Mr Frodo. We may,' said Sam. 
+
+So Frodo and Sam set off on the last stage of the Quest together. Frodo 
+paddled away from the shore, and the River bore them swiftly away, down the 
+western arm, and past the frowning cliffs of Tol Brandir. The roar of the 
+great falls drew nearer. Even with such help as Sam could give, it was hard 
+work to pass across the current at the southward end of the island and drive 
+the boat eastward towards the far shore. 
+
+At length they came to land again upon the southern slopes of Amon 
+Lhaw. There they found a shelving shore, and they drew the boat out, high 
+above the water, and hid it as well as they could behind a great boulder. 
+
+Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would 
+bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of 
+Shadow. 
+
+
+
+
+Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. 
+
+The second part is called THE TWO TOWERS, since the events recounted 
+in it are dominated by ORTHANC, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress 
+o/MINAS MORGUL that guards the secret entrance to Mordor; it tells of 
+the deeds and perils of all the members of the now sundered fellowship, until 
+the coming of the Great Darkness. 
+
+The third part tells of the last defence against the Shadow, and the 
+end of the mission of the Ring-bearer in THE RETURN OF THE KING. 
diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thegoldentrianglethereturnofarsenelupin b/files/books/unrelated/thegoldentrianglethereturnofarsenelupin
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Triangle, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Golden Triangle
+       The Return of Arsène Lupin
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2010 [EBook #34795]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Send Coralie up by herself and her life shall be saved,"
+read the scroll (Page 205)]
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
+
+_The Return of Arsène Lupin_
+
+BY MAURICE LE BLANC
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY," "CONFESSIONS OF
+ARSÈNE LUPIN," ETC.
+
+NEW YORK
+THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT 1917
+BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                     PAGE
+     I.  CORALIE                              11
+    II.  RIGHT HAND AND LEFT LEG              27
+   III.  THE RUSTY KEY                        43
+    IV.  BEFORE THE FLAMES                    59
+     V.  HUSBAND AND WIFE                     74
+    VI.  NINETEEN MINUTES PAST SEVEN          91
+   VII.  TWENTY-THREE MINUTES PAST TWELVE    107
+  VIII.  ESSARÈS BEY'S WORK                  124
+    IX.  PATRICE AND CORALIE                 140
+     X.  THE RED CORD                        156
+    XI.  ON THE BRINK                        174
+   XII.  IN THE ABYSS                        188
+  XIII.  THE NAILS IN THE COFFIN             206
+   XIV.  A STRANGE CHARACTER                 221
+    XV.  THE BELLE HÉLÈNE                    241
+   XVI.  THE FOURTH ACT                      263
+  XVII.  SIMÉON GIVES BATTLE                 283
+ XVIII.  SIMÉON'S LAST VICTIM                304
+   XIX.  FIAT LUX!                           332
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CORALIE
+
+
+It was close upon half-past six and the evening shadows were growing
+denser when two soldiers reached the little space, planted with trees,
+opposite the Musée Galliéra, where the Rue de Chaillot and the Rue
+Pierre-Charron meet. One wore an infantryman's sky-blue great-coat; the
+other, a Senegalese, those clothes of undyed wool, with baggy breeches
+and a belted jacket, in which the Zouaves and the native African troops
+have been dressed since the war. One of them had lost his right leg, the
+other his left arm.
+
+They walked round the open space, in the center of which stands a fine
+group of Silenus figures, and stopped. The infantryman threw away his
+cigarette. The Senegalese picked it up, took a few quick puffs at it,
+put it out by squeezing it between his fore-finger and thumb and stuffed
+it into his pocket. All this without a word.
+
+Almost at the same time two more soldiers came out of the Rue Galliéra.
+It would have been impossible to say to what branch they belonged, for
+their military attire was composed of the most incongruous civilian
+garments. However, one of them sported a Zouave's _chechia_, the other
+an artilleryman's _képi_. The first walked on crutches, the other on two
+sticks. These two kept near the newspaper-kiosk which stands at the edge
+of the pavement.
+
+Three others came singly by the Rue Pierre-Charron, the Rue Brignoles
+and the Rue de Chaillot: a one-armed rifleman, a limping sapper and a
+marine with a hip that looked as if it was twisted. Each of them made
+straight for a tree and leant against it.
+
+Not a word was uttered among them. None of the seven crippled soldiers
+seemed to know his companions or to trouble about or even perceive their
+presence. They stood behind their trees or behind the kiosk or behind
+the group of Silenus figures without stirring. And the few wayfarers
+who, on that evening of the 3rd of April, 1915, crossed this
+unfrequented square, which received hardly any light from the shrouded
+street-lamps, did not slacken pace to observe the men's motionless
+outlines.
+
+A clock struck half-past six. At that moment the door of one of the
+houses overlooking the square opened. A man came out, closed the door
+behind him, crossed the Rue de Chaillot and walked round the open space
+in front of the museum. It was an officer in khaki. Under his red
+forage-cap, with its three lines of gold braid, his head was wrapped in
+a wide linen bandage, which hid his forehead and neck. He was tall and
+very slenderly built. His right leg ended in a wooden stump with a
+rubber foot to it. He leant on a stick.
+
+Leaving the square, he stepped into the roadway of the Rue
+Pierre-Charron. Here he turned and gave a leisurely look to his
+surroundings on every side. This minute inspection brought him to one
+of the trees facing the museum. With the tip of his cane he gently
+tapped a protruding stomach. The stomach pulled itself in.
+
+The officer moved off again. This time he went definitely down the Rue
+Pierre-Charron towards the center of Paris. He thus came to the Avenue
+des Champs-Élysées, which he went up, taking the left pavement.
+
+Two hundred yards further on was a large house, which had been
+transformed, as a flag proclaimed, into a hospital. The officer took up
+his position at some distance, so as not to be seen by those leaving,
+and waited.
+
+It struck a quarter to seven and seven o'clock. A few more minutes
+passed. Five persons came out of the house, followed by two more. At
+last a lady appeared in the hall, a nurse wearing a wide blue cloak
+marked with the Red Cross.
+
+"Here she comes," said the officer.
+
+She took the road by which he had arrived and turned down the Rue
+Pierre-Charron, keeping to the right-hand pavement and thus making for
+the space where the street meets the Rue de Chaillot. Her walk was
+light, her step easy and well-balanced. The wind, buffeting against her
+as she moved quickly on her way, swelled out the long blue veil floating
+around her shoulders. Notwithstanding the width of the cloak, the
+rhythmical swing of her body and the youthfulness of her figure were
+revealed. The officer kept behind her and walked along with an
+absent-minded air, twirling his stick, like a man taking an aimless
+stroll.
+
+At this moment there was nobody in sight, in that part of the street,
+except him and her. But, just after she had crossed the Avenue Marceau
+and some time before he reached it, a motor standing in the avenue
+started driving in the same direction as the nurse, at a fixed distance
+from her.
+
+It was a taxi-cab. And the officer noticed two things: first, that there
+were two men inside it and, next, that one of them leant out of the
+window almost the whole time, talking to the driver. He was able to
+catch a momentary glimpse of this man's face, cut in half by a heavy
+mustache and surmounted by a gray felt hat.
+
+Meanwhile, the nurse walked on without turning round. The officer had
+crossed the street and now hurried his pace, the more so as it struck
+him that the cab was also increasing its speed as the girl drew near the
+space in front of the museum.
+
+From where he was the officer could take in almost the whole of the
+little square at a glance; and, however sharply he looked, he discerned
+nothing in the darkness that revealed the presence of the seven crippled
+men. No one, moreover, was passing on foot or driving. In the distance
+only, in the dusk of the wide crossing avenues, two tram-cars, with
+lowered blinds, disturbed the silence.
+
+Nor did the girl, presuming that she was paying attention to the sights
+of the street, appear to see anything to alarm her. She gave not the
+least sign of hesitation. And the behavior of the motor-cab following
+her did not seem to strike her either, for she did not look round once.
+
+The cab, however, was gaining ground. When it neared the square, it was
+ten or fifteen yards, at most, from the nurse; and, by the time that
+she, still noticing nothing, had reached the first trees, it came
+closer yet and, leaving the middle of the road, began to hug the
+pavement, while, on the side opposite the pavement, the left-hand side,
+the man who kept leaning out had opened the door and was now standing on
+the step.
+
+The officer crossed the street once more, briskly, without fear of being
+seen, so heedless did the two men now appear of anything but their
+immediate business. He raised a whistle to his lips. There was no doubt
+that the expected event was about to take place.
+
+The cab, in fact, pulled up suddenly. The two men leapt from the doors
+on either side and rushed to the pavement of the square, a few yards
+from the kiosk. At the same moment there was a cry of terror from the
+girl and a shrill whistle from the officer. And, also at the same time,
+the two men caught up and seized their victim and dragged her towards
+the cab, while the seven wounded soldiers, seeming to spring from the
+very trunks of the trees that hid them, fell upon the two aggressors.
+
+The battle did not last long. Or rather there was no battle. At the
+outset the driver of the taxi, perceiving that the attack was being
+countered, made off and drove away as fast as he could. As for the two
+men, realizing that their enterprise had failed and finding themselves
+faced with a threatening array of uplifted sticks and crutches, not to
+mention the barrel of a revolver which the officer pointed at them, they
+let go the girl, tacked from side to side, to prevent the officer from
+taking aim, and disappeared in the darkness of the Rue Brignoles.
+
+"Run for all you're worth, Ya-Bon," said the officer to the one-armed
+Senegalese, "and bring me back one of them by the scruff of the neck!"
+
+He supported the girl with his arm. She was trembling all over and
+seemed ready to faint.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Little Mother Coralie," he said, very anxiously.
+"It's I, Captain Belval, Patrice Belval."
+
+"Ah, it's you, captain!" she stammered.
+
+"Yes; all your friends have gathered round to defend you, all your old
+patients from the hospital, whom I found in the convalescent home."
+
+"Thank you. Thank you." And she added, in a quivering voice, "The
+others? Those two men?"
+
+"Run away. Ya-Bon's gone after them."
+
+"But what did they want with me? And what miracle brought you all here?"
+
+"We'll talk about that later, Little Mother Coralie. Let's speak of you
+first. Where am I to take you? Don't you think you'd better come in here
+with me, until you've recovered and taken a little rest?"
+
+Assisted by one of the soldiers, he helped her gently to the house which
+he himself had left three-quarters of an hour before. The girl let him
+do as he pleased. They all entered an apartment on the ground-floor and
+went into the drawing-room, where a bright fire of logs was burning. He
+switched on the electric light:
+
+"Sit down," he said.
+
+She dropped into a chair; and the captain at once gave his orders:
+
+"You, Poulard, go and fetch a glass in the dining-room. And you, Ribrac,
+draw a jug of cold water in the kitchen. . . . Chatelain, you'll find a
+decanter of rum in the pantry. . . . Or, stay, she doesn't like rum.
+. . . Then . . ."
+
+"Then," she said, smiling, "just a glass of water, please."
+
+Her cheeks, which were naturally pale, recovered a little of their
+warmth. The blood flowed back to her lips; and the smile on her face was
+full of confidence. Her face, all charm and gentleness, had a pure
+outline, features almost too delicate, a fair complexion and the
+ingenuous expression of a wondering child that looks on life with eyes
+always wide open. And all this, which was dainty and exquisite,
+nevertheless at certain moments gave an impression of energy, due no
+doubt to her shining, dark eyes and to the line of smooth, black hair
+that came down on either side from under the white cap in which her
+forehead was imprisoned.
+
+"Aha!" cried the captain, gaily, when she had drunk the water. "You're
+feeling better, I think, eh, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+"Much better."
+
+"Capital. But that was a bad minute we went through just now! What an
+adventure! We shall have to talk it all over and get some light on it,
+sha'n't we? Meanwhile, my lads, pay your respects to Little Mother
+Coralie. Eh, my fine fellows, who would have thought, when she was
+coddling you and patting your pillows for your fat pates to sink into,
+that one day we should be taking care of her and that the children would
+be coddling their little mother?"
+
+They all pressed round her, the one-armed and the one-legged, the
+crippled and the sick, all glad to see her. And she shook hands with
+them affectionately:
+
+"Well, Ribrac, how's that leg of yours?"
+
+"I don't feel it any longer, Little Mother Coralie."
+
+"And you, Vatinel? That wound in your shoulder?"
+
+"Not a sign of it, Little Mother Coralie."
+
+"And you, Poulard? And you, Jorisse?"
+
+Her emotion increased at seeing them again, the men whom she called her
+children. And Patrice Belval exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, Little Mother Coralie, now you're crying! Little mother, little
+mother, that's how you captured all our hearts. When we were trying our
+hardest not to call out, on our bed of pain, we used to see your eyes
+filling with great tears. Little Mother Coralie was weeping over her
+children. Then we clenched our teeth still firmer."
+
+"And I used to cry still more," she said, "just because you were afraid
+of hurting me."
+
+"And to-day you're at it again. No, you are too soft-hearted! You love
+us. We love you. There's nothing to cry about in that. Come, Little
+Mother Coralie, a smile. . . . And, I say, here's Ya-Bon coming; and
+Ya-Bon always laughs."
+
+She rose suddenly:
+
+"Do you think he can have overtaken one of the two men?"
+
+"Do I think so? I told Ya-Bon to bring one back by the neck. He won't
+fail. I'm only afraid of one thing. . . ."
+
+They had gone towards the hall. The Senegalese was already on the steps.
+With his right hand he was clutching the neck of a man, of a limp rag,
+rather, which he seemed to be carrying at arm's length, like a
+dancing-doll.
+
+"Drop him," said the captain.
+
+Ya-Bon loosened his fingers. The man fell on the flags in the hall.
+
+"That's what I feared," muttered the officer. "Ya-Bon has only his right
+hand; but, when that hand holds any one by the throat, it's a miracle if
+it doesn't strangle him. The Boches know something about it."
+
+Ya-Bon was a sort of colossus, the color of gleaming coal, with a woolly
+head and a few curly hairs on his chin, with an empty sleeve fastened to
+his left shoulder and two medals pinned to his jacket. Ya-Bon had had
+one cheek, one side of his jaw, half his mouth and the whole of his
+palate smashed by a splinter of shell. The other half of that mouth was
+split to the ear in a laugh which never seemed to cease and which was
+all the more surprising because the wounded portion of the face, patched
+up as best it could be and covered with a grafted skin, remained
+impassive.
+
+Moreover, Ya-Bon had lost his power of speech. The most that he could do
+was to emit a sequence of indistinct grunts in which his nickname of
+Ya-Bon was everlastingly repeated.
+
+He uttered it once more with a satisfied air, glancing by turns at his
+master and his victim, like a good sporting-dog standing over the bird
+which he has retrieved.
+
+"Good," said the officer. "But, next time, go to work more gently."
+
+He bent over the man, felt his heart and, on seeing that he had only
+fainted, asked the nurse:
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"Are you sure? Have you never seen that head anywhere?"
+
+It was a very big head, with black hair, plastered down with grease, and
+a thick beard. The man's clothes, which were of dark-blue serge and
+well-cut, showed him to be in easy circumstances.
+
+"Never . . . never," the girl declared.
+
+Captain Belval searched the man's pockets. They contained no papers.
+
+"Very well," he said, rising to his feet, "we will wait till he wakes up
+and question him then. Ya-Bon, tie up his arms and legs and stay here,
+in the hall. The rest of you fellows, go back to the home: it's time you
+were indoors. I have my key. Say good-by to Little Mother Coralie and
+trot off."
+
+And, when good-by had been said, he pushed them outside, came back to
+the nurse, led her into the drawing-room and said:
+
+"Now let's talk, Little Mother Coralie. First of all, before we try to
+explain things, listen to me. It won't take long."
+
+They were sitting before the merrily blazing fire. Patrice Belval
+slipped a hassock under Little Mother Coralie's feet, put out a light
+that seemed to worry her and, when he felt certain that she was
+comfortable, began:
+
+"As you know, Little Mother Coralie, I left the hospital a week ago and
+am staying on the Boulevard Maillot, at Neuilly, in the home reserved
+for the convalescent patients of the hospital. I sleep there at night
+and have my wounds dressed in the morning. The rest of the time I spend
+in loafing: I stroll about, lunch and dine where the mood takes me and
+go and call on my friends. Well, this morning I was waiting for one of
+them in a big café-restaurant on the boulevard, when I overheard the end
+of a conversation. . . . But I must tell you that the place is divided
+into two by a partition standing about six feet high, with the customers
+of the café on one side and those of the restaurant on the other. I was
+all by myself in the restaurant; and the two men, who had their backs
+turned to me and who in any case were out of sight, probably thought
+that there was no one there at all, for they were speaking rather louder
+than they need have done, considering the sentences which I overheard
+. . . and which I afterwards wrote down in my little note-book."
+
+He took the note-book from his pocket and went on:
+
+"These sentences, which caught my attention for reasons which you will
+understand presently, were preceded by some others in which there was a
+reference to sparks, to a shower of sparks that had already occurred
+twice before the war, a sort of night signal for the possible repetition
+of which they proposed to watch, so that they might act quickly as soon
+as it appeared. Does none of this tell you anything?"
+
+"No. Why?"
+
+"You shall see. By the way, I forgot to tell you that the two were
+talking English, quite correctly, but with an accent which assured me
+that neither of them was an Englishman. Here is what they said,
+faithfully translated: 'To finish up, therefore,' said one, 'everything
+is decided. You and he will be at the appointed place at a little before
+seven this evening.' 'We shall be there, colonel. We have engaged our
+taxi.' 'Good. Remember that the little woman leaves her hospital at
+seven o'clock.' 'Have no fear. There can't be any mistake, because she
+always goes the same way, down the Rue Pierre-Charron.' 'And your whole
+plan is settled?' 'In every particular. The thing will happen in the
+square at the end of the Rue de Chaillot. Even granting that there may
+be people about, they will have no time to rescue her, for we shall act
+too quickly.' 'Are you certain of your driver?' 'I am certain that we
+shall pay him enough to secure his obedience. That's all we want.'
+'Capital. I'll wait for you at the place you know of, in a motor-car.
+You'll hand the little woman over to me. From that moment, we shall be
+masters of the situation.' 'And you of the little woman, colonel, which
+isn't bad for you, for she's deucedly pretty.' 'Deucedly, as you say.
+I've known her a long time by sight; and, upon my word. . . .' The two
+began to laugh coarsely and called for their bill. I at once got up and
+went to the door on the boulevard, but only one of them came out by that
+door, a man with a big drooping mustache and a gray felt hat. The other
+had left by the door in the street round the corner. There was only one
+taxi in the road. The man took it and I had to give up all hope of
+following him. Only . . . only, as I knew that you left the hospital at
+seven o'clock every evening and that you went along the Rue
+Pierre-Charron, I was justified, wasn't I, in believing . . . ?"
+
+The captain stopped. The girl reflected, with a thoughtful air.
+Presently she asked:
+
+"Why didn't you warn me?"
+
+"Warn you!" he exclaimed. "And, if, after all, it wasn't you? Why alarm
+you? And, if, on the other hand, it was you, why put you on your guard?
+After the attempt had failed, your enemies would have laid another trap
+for you; and we, not knowing of it, would have been unable to prevent
+it. No, the best thing was to accept the fight. I enrolled a little band
+of your former patients who were being treated at the home; and, as the
+friend whom I was expecting to meet happened to live in the square,
+here, in this house, I asked him to place his rooms at my disposal from
+six to nine o'clock. That's what I did, Little Mother Coralie. And now
+that you know as much as I do, what do you think of it?"
+
+She gave him her hand:
+
+"I think you have saved me from an unknown danger that looks like a very
+great one; and I thank you."
+
+"No, no," he said, "I can accept no thanks. I was so glad to have
+succeeded! What I want to know is your opinion of the business itself?"
+
+Without a second's hesitation, she replied:
+
+"I have none. Not a word, not an incident, in all that you have told me,
+suggests the least idea to me."
+
+"You have no enemies, to your knowledge?"
+
+"Personally, no."
+
+"What about that man to whom your two assailants were to hand you over
+and who says that he knows you?"
+
+"Doesn't every woman," she said, with a slight blush, "come across men
+who pursue her more or less openly? I can't tell who it is."
+
+The captain was silent for a while and then went on:
+
+"When all is said, our only hope of clearing up the matter lies in
+questioning our prisoner. If he refuses to answer, I shall hand him over
+to the police, who will know how to get to the bottom of the business."
+
+The girl gave a start:
+
+"The police?"
+
+"Well, of course. What would you have me do with the fellow? He doesn't
+belong to me. He belongs to the police."
+
+"No, no, no!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "Not on any account! What, have
+my life gone into? . . . Have to appear before the magistrate? . . .
+Have my name mixed up in all this? . . ."
+
+"And yet, Little Mother Coralie, I can't . . ."
+
+"Oh, I beg, I beseech you, as my friend, find some way out of it, but
+don't have me talked about! I don't want to be talked about!"
+
+The captain looked at her, somewhat surprised to see her in such a state
+of agitation, and said:
+
+"You sha'n't be talked about, Little Mother Coralie, I promise you."
+
+"Then what will you do with that man?"
+
+"Well," he said, with a laugh, "I shall begin by asking him politely if
+he will condescend to answer my questions; then thank him for his civil
+behavior to you; and lastly beg him to be good enough to go away."
+
+He rose:
+
+"Do you wish to see him, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+"No," she said, "I am so tired! If you don't want me, question him by
+yourself. You can tell me about it afterwards. . . ."
+
+She seemed quite exhausted by all this fresh excitement and strain,
+added to all those which already rendered her life as a nurse so hard.
+The captain did not insist and went out, closing the door of the
+drawing-room after him.
+
+She heard him saying:
+
+"Well, Ya-Bon, have you kept a good watch! No news? And how's your
+prisoner? . . . Ah, there you are, my fine fellow! Have you got your
+breath back? Oh, I know Ya-Bon's hand is a bit heavy! . . . What's this?
+Won't you answer? . . . Hallo, what's happened? Hanged if I don't think
+. . ."
+
+A cry escaped him. The girl ran to the hall. She met the captain, who
+tried to bar her way.
+
+"Don't come," he said, in great agitation. "What's the use!"
+
+"But you're hurt!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I?"
+
+"There's blood on your shirt-cuff."
+
+"So there is, but it's nothing: it's the man's blood that must have
+stained me."
+
+"Then he was wounded?"
+
+"Yes, or at least his mouth was bleeding. Some blood-vessel . . ."
+
+"Why, surely Ya-Bon didn't grip as hard as that?"
+
+"It wasn't Ya-Bon."
+
+"Then who was it?"
+
+"His accomplices."
+
+"Did they come back?"
+
+"Yes; and they've strangled him."
+
+"But it's not possible!"
+
+She pushed by and went towards the prisoner. He did not move. His face
+had the pallor of death. Round his neck was a red-silk string, twisted
+very thin and with a buckle at either end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+RIGHT HAND AND LEFT LEG
+
+
+"One rogue less in the world, Little Mother Coralie!" cried Patrice
+Belval, after he had led the girl back to the drawing-room and made a
+rapid investigation with Ya-Bon. "Remember his name--I found it engraved
+on his watch--Mustapha Rovalaïof, the name of a rogue!"
+
+He spoke gaily, with no emotion in his voice, and continued, as he
+walked up and down the room:
+
+"You and I, Little Mother Coralie, who have witnessed so many tragedies
+and seen so many good fellows die, need not waste tears over the death
+of Mustapha Rovalaïof or his murder by his accomplices. Not even a
+funeral oration, eh? Ya-Bon has taken him under his arm, waited until
+the square was clear and carried him to the Rue Brignoles, with orders
+to fling the gentleman over the railings into the garden of the Musée
+Galliéra. The railings are high. But Ya-Bon's right hand knows no
+obstacles. And so, Little Mother Coralie, the matter is buried. You
+won't be talked about; and, this time, I claim a word of thanks."
+
+He stopped to laugh:
+
+"A word of thanks, but no compliments. By Jove, I don't make much of a
+warder! It was clever the way those beggars snatched my prisoner. Why
+didn't I foresee that your other assailant, the man in the gray-felt
+hat, would go and tell the third, who was waiting in his motor, and that
+they would both come back together to rescue their companion? And they
+came back. And, while you and I were chatting, they must have forced the
+servants' entrance, passed through the kitchen, come to the little door
+between the pantry and the hall and pushed it open. There, close by
+them, lay their man, still unconscious and firmly bound, on his sofa.
+What were they to do? It was impossible to get him out of the hall
+without alarming Ya-Bon. And yet, if they didn't release him, he would
+speak, give away his accomplices and ruin a carefully prepared plan. So
+one of the two must have leant forward stealthily, put out his arm,
+thrown his string round that throat which Ya-Bon had already handled
+pretty roughly, gathered the buckles at the two ends and pulled, pulled,
+quietly, until death came. Not a sound. Not a sigh. The whole operation
+performed in silence. We come, we kill and we go away. Good-night. The
+trick is done and our friend won't talk."
+
+Captain Belval's merriment increased:
+
+"Our friend won't talk," he repeated, "and the police, when they find
+his body to-morrow morning inside a railed garden, won't understand a
+word of the business. Nor we either, Little Mother Coralie; and we shall
+never know why those men tried to kidnap you. It's only too true! I may
+not be up to much as a warder, but I'm beneath contempt as a detective!"
+
+He continued to walk up and down the room. The fact that his leg or
+rather his calf had been amputated seemed hardly to inconvenience him;
+and, as the joints of the knee and thighbone had retained their
+mobility, there was at most a certain want of rhythm in the action of
+his hips and shoulders. Moreover, his tall figure tended to correct this
+lameness, which was reduced to insignificant proportions by the ease of
+his movements and the indifference with which he appeared to accept it.
+
+He had an open countenance, rather dark in color, burnt by the sun and
+tanned by the weather, with an expression that was frank, cheerful and
+often bantering. He must have been between twenty-eight and thirty. His
+manner suggested that of the officers of the First Empire, to whom their
+life in camp imparted a special air which they subsequently brought into
+the ladies' drawing-rooms.
+
+He stopped to look at Coralie, whose shapely profile stood out against
+the gleams from the fireplace. Then he came and sat beside her:
+
+"I know nothing about you," he said softly. "At the hospital the doctors
+and nurses call you Madame Coralie. Your patients prefer to say Little
+Mother. What is your married or your maiden name? Have you a husband or
+are you a widow? Where do you live? Nobody knows. You arrive every day
+at the same time and you go away by the same street. Sometimes an old
+serving-man, with long gray hair and a bristly beard, with a comforter
+round his neck and a pair of yellow spectacles on his nose, brings you
+or fetches you. Sometimes also he waits for you, always sitting on the
+same chair in the covered yard. He has been asked questions, but he
+never gives an answer. I know only one thing, therefore, about you,
+which is that you are adorably good and kind and that you are also--I
+may say it, may I not?--adorably beautiful. And it is perhaps, Little
+Mother Coralie, because I know nothing about your life that I imagine it
+so mysterious, and, in some way, so sad. You give the impression of
+living amid sorrow and anxiety; the feeling that you are all alone.
+There is no one who devotes himself to making you happy and taking care
+of you. So I thought--I have long thought and waited for an opportunity
+of telling you--I thought that you must need a friend, a brother, who
+would advise and protect you. Am I not right, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+As he went on, Coralie seemed to shrink into herself and to place a
+greater distance between them, as though she did not wish him to
+penetrate those secret regions of which he spoke.
+
+"No," she murmured, "you are mistaken. My life is quite simple. I do not
+need to be defended."
+
+"You do not need to be defended!" he cried, with increasing animation.
+"What about those men who tried to kidnap you? That plot hatched against
+you? That plot which your assailants are so afraid to see discovered
+that they go to the length of killing the one who allowed himself to be
+caught? Is that nothing? Is it mere delusion on my part when I say that
+you are surrounded by dangers, that you have enemies who stick at
+nothing, that you have to be defended against their attempts and that,
+if you decline the offer of my assistance, I . . . Well, I . . . ?"
+
+She persisted in her silence, showed herself more and more distant,
+almost hostile. The officer struck the marble mantelpiece with his fist,
+and, bending over her, finished his sentence in a determined tone:
+
+"Well, if you decline the offer of my assistance, I shall force it on
+you."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I shall force it on you," he repeated, firmly. "It is my duty and my
+right."
+
+"No," she said, in an undertone.
+
+"My absolute right," said Captain Belval, "for a reason which outweighs
+all the others and makes it unnecessary for me even to consult you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I love you."
+
+He brought out the words plainly, not like a lover venturing on a timid
+declaration, but like a man proud of the sentiment that he feels and
+happy to proclaim it.
+
+She lowered her eyes and blushed; and he cried, exultantly:
+
+"You can take it, Little Mother, from me. No impassioned outbursts, no
+sighs, no waving of the arms, no clapping of the hands. Just three
+little words, which I tell you without going on my knees. And it's the
+easier for me because you know it. Yes, Madame Coralie, it's all very
+well to look so shy, but you know my love for you and you've known it as
+long as I have. We saw it together take birth when your dear little
+hands touched my battered head. The others used to torture me. With you,
+it was nothing but caresses. So was the pity in your eyes and the tears
+that fell because I was in pain. But can any one see you without loving
+you? Your seven patients who were here just now are all in love with
+you, Little Mother Coralie. Ya-Bon worships the ground you walk on. Only
+they are privates. They cannot speak. I am an officer; and I speak
+without hesitation or embarrassment, believe me."
+
+Coralie had put her hands to her burning cheeks and sat silent, bending
+forward.
+
+"You understand what I mean, don't you," he went on, in a voice that
+rang, "when I say that I speak without hesitation or embarrassment? If I
+had been before the war what I am now, a maimed man, I should not have
+had the same assurance and I should have declared my love for you humbly
+and begged your pardon for my boldness. But now! . . . Believe me,
+Little Mother Coralie, when I sit here face to face with the woman I
+adore, I do not think of my infirmity. Not for a moment do I feel the
+impression that I can appear ridiculous or presumptuous in your eyes."
+
+He stopped, as though to take breath, and then, rising, went on:
+
+"And it must needs be so. People will have to understand that those who
+have been maimed in this war do not look upon themselves as outcasts,
+lame ducks, or lepers, but as absolutely normal men. Yes, normal! One
+leg short? What about it? Does that rob a man of his brain or heart?
+Then, because the war has deprived me of a leg, or an arm, or even both
+legs or both arms, I have no longer the right to love a woman save at
+the risk of meeting with a rebuff or imagining that she pities me? Pity!
+But we don't want the woman to pity us, nor to make an effort to love
+us, nor even to think that she is doing a charity because she treats us
+kindly. What we demand, from women and from the world at large, from
+those whom we meet in the street and from those who belong to the same
+set as ourselves, is absolute equality with the rest, who have been
+saved from our fate by their lucky stars or their cowardice."
+
+The captain once more struck the mantelpiece:
+
+"Yes, absolute equality! We all of us, whether we have lost a leg or an
+arm, whether blind in one eye or two, whether crippled or deformed,
+claim to be just as good, physically and morally, as any one you please;
+and perhaps better. What! Shall men who have used their legs to rush
+upon the enemy be outdistanced in life, because they no longer have
+those legs, by men who have sat and warmed their toes at an office-fire?
+What nonsense! We want our place in the sun as well as the others. It is
+our due; and we shall know how to get it and keep it. There is no
+happiness to which we are not entitled and no work for which we are not
+capable with a little exercise and training. Ya-Bon's right hand is
+already worth any pair of hands in the wide world; and Captain Belval's
+left leg allows him to do his five miles an hour if he pleases."
+
+He began to laugh:
+
+"Right hand and left leg; left hand and right leg: what does it matter
+which we have saved, if we know how to use it? In what respect have we
+fallen off? Whether it's a question of obtaining a position or
+perpetuating our race, are we not as good as we were? And perhaps even
+better. I venture to say that the children which we shall give to the
+country will be just as well-built as ever, with arms and legs and the
+rest . . . not to mention a mighty legacy of pluck and spirit. That's
+what we claim, Little Mother Coralie. We refuse to admit that our wooden
+legs keep us back or that we cannot stand as upright on our crutches as
+on legs of flesh and bone. We do not consider that devotion to us is any
+sacrifice or that it's necessary to talk of heroism when a girl has the
+honor to marry a blind soldier! Once more, we are not creatures outside
+the pale. We have not fallen off in any way whatever; and this is a
+truth before which everybody will bow for the next two or three
+generations. You can understand that, in a country like France, when
+maimed men are to be met by the hundred thousand, the conception of what
+makes a perfect man will no longer be as hard and fast as it was. In the
+new form of humanity which is preparing, there will be men with two arms
+and men with only one, just as there are fair men and dark, bearded men
+and clean-shaven. And it will all seem quite natural. And every one will
+lead the life he pleases, without needing to be complete in every limb.
+And, as my life is wrapped up in you, Little Mother Coralie, and as my
+happiness depends on you, I thought I would wait no longer before making
+you my little speech. . . . Well! That's finished! I have plenty more to
+say on the subject, but it can't all be said in a day, can it? . . ."
+
+He broke off, thrown out of his stride after all by Coralie's silence.
+She had not stirred since the first words of love that he uttered. Her
+hands had sought her forehead; and her shoulders were shaking slightly.
+
+He stooped and, with infinite gentleness, drawing aside the slender
+fingers, uncovered her beautiful face:
+
+"Why are you crying, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+He was calling her _tu_ now, but she did not mind. Between a man and the
+woman who has bent over his wounds relations of a special kind arise;
+and Captain Belval in particular had those rather familiar, but still
+respectful, ways at which it seems impossible to take offence.
+
+"Have _I_ made you cry?" he asked.
+
+"No," she said, in a low voice, "it's all of you who upset me. It's your
+cheerfulness, your pride, your way not of submitting to fate, but
+mastering it. The humblest of you raises himself above his nature
+without an effort; and I know nothing finer or more touching than that
+indifference."
+
+He sat down beside her:
+
+"Then you're not angry with me for saying . . . what I said?"
+
+"Angry with you?" she replied, pretending to mistake his meaning. "Why,
+every woman thinks as you do. If women, in bestowing their affection,
+had to choose among the men returning from the war, the choice I am sure
+would be in favor of those who have suffered most cruelly."
+
+He shook his head:
+
+"You see, I am asking for something more than affection and a more
+definite answer to what I said. Shall I remind you of my words?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then your answer . . . ?"
+
+"My answer, dear friend, is that you must not speak those words again."
+
+He put on a solemn air:
+
+"You forbid me?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"In that case, I swear to say nothing more until I see you again."
+
+"You will not see me again," she murmured.
+
+Captain Belval was greatly amused at this:
+
+"I say, I say! And why sha'n't I see you again, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+"Because I don't wish it."
+
+"And your reason, please?"
+
+"My reason?"
+
+She turned her eyes to him and said, slowly:
+
+"I am married."
+
+Belval seemed in no way disconcerted by this news. On the contrary, he
+said, in the calmest of tones:
+
+"Well, you must marry again! No doubt your husband is an old man and you
+do not love him. He will therefore understand that, as you have some one
+in love with you . . ."
+
+"Don't jest, please."
+
+He caught hold of her hand, just as she was rising to go:
+
+"You are right, Little Mother Coralie, and I apologize for not adopting
+a more serious manner to speak to you of very serious things. It's a
+question of our two lives. I am profoundly convinced that they are
+moving towards each other and that you are powerless to restrain them.
+That is why your answer is beside the point. I ask nothing of you. I
+expect everything from fate. It is fate that will bring us together."
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"Yes," he declared, "that is how things will happen."
+
+"It is not. They will not and shall not happen like that. You must give
+me your word of honor not to try to see me again nor even to learn my
+name. I might have granted more if you had been content to remain
+friends. The confession which you have made sets a barrier between us. I
+want nobody in my life . . . nobody!"
+
+She made this declaration with a certain vehemence and at the same time
+tried to release her arm from his grasp. Patrice Belval resisted her
+efforts and said:
+
+"You are wrong. . . . You have no right to expose yourself to danger
+like this. . . . Please reflect . . ."
+
+She pushed him away. As she did so, she knocked off the mantelpiece a
+little bag which she had placed there. It fell on the carpet and opened.
+Two or three things escaped, and she picked them up, while Patrice
+Belval knelt down on the floor to help her:
+
+"Here," he said, "you've missed this."
+
+It was a little case in plaited straw, which had also come open; the
+beads of a rosary protruded from it.
+
+They both stood up in silence. Captain Belval examined the rosary.
+
+"What a curious coincidence!" he muttered. "These amethyst beads! This
+old-fashioned gold filigree setting! . . . It's strange to find the same
+materials and the same workmanship. . . ."
+
+He gave a start, and it was so marked that Coralie asked:
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+He was holding in his fingers a bead larger than most of the others,
+forming a link between the string of tens and the shorter prayer-chain.
+And this bead was broken half-way across, almost level with the gold
+setting which held it.
+
+"The coincidence," he said, "is so inconceivable that I hardly dare
+. . . And yet the face can be verified at once. But first, one question:
+who gave you this rosary?"
+
+"Nobody gave it to me. I've always had it."
+
+"But it must have belonged to somebody before?"
+
+"To my mother, I suppose."
+
+"Your mother?"
+
+"I expect so, in the same way as the different jewels which she left
+me."
+
+"Is your mother dead?"
+
+"Yes, she died when I was four years old. I have only the vaguest
+recollection of her. But what has all this to do with a rosary?"
+
+"It's because of this," he said. "Because of this amethyst bead broken
+in two."
+
+He undid his jacket and took his watch from his waistcoat-pocket. It had
+a number of trinkets fastened to it by a little leather and silver
+strap. One of these trinkets consisted of the half of an amethyst bead,
+also broken across, also held in a filigree setting. The original size
+of the two beads seemed to be identical. The two amethysts were of the
+same color and contained in the same filigree.
+
+Coralie and Belval looked at each other anxiously. She stammered:
+
+"It's only an accident, nothing else . . ."
+
+"I agree," he said. "But, supposing these two halves fit each other
+exactly . . ."
+
+"It's impossible," she said, herself frightened at the thought of the
+simple little act needed for the indisputable proof.
+
+The officer, however, decided upon that act. He brought his right hand,
+which held the rosary-bead, and his left, which held the trinket,
+together. The hands hesitated, felt about and stopped. The contact was
+made.
+
+The projections and indentations of the broken stones corresponded
+precisely. Each protruding part found a space to fit it. The two half
+amethysts were the two halves of the same amethyst. When joined, they
+formed one and the same bead.
+
+There was a long pause, laden with excitement and mystery. Then,
+speaking in a low voice:
+
+"I do not know either exactly where this trinket comes from," Captain
+Belval said. "Ever since I was a child, I used to see it among other
+things of trifling value which I kept in a cardboard box: watch-keys,
+old rings, old-fashioned seals. I picked out these trinkets from among
+them two or three years ago. Where does this one come from? I don't
+know. But what I do know . . ."
+
+He had separated the two pieces and, examining them carefully,
+concluded:
+
+"What I do know, beyond a doubt, is that the largest bead in this rosary
+came off one day and broke; and that the other, with its setting, went
+to form the trinket which I now have. You and I therefore possess the
+two halves of a thing which somebody else possessed twenty years ago."
+
+He went up to her and, in the same low and rather serious voice, said:
+
+"You protested just now when I declared my faith in destiny and my
+certainty that events were leading us towards each other. Do you still
+deny it? For, after all, this is either an accident so extraordinary
+that we have no right to admit it or an actual fact which proves that
+our two lives have already touched in the past at some mysterious point
+and that they will meet again in the future, never to part. And that is
+why, without waiting for the perhaps distant future, I offer you to-day,
+when danger hangs over you, the support of my friendship. Observe that I
+am no longer speaking of love but only of friendship. Do you accept?"
+
+She was nonplussed and so much perturbed by that miracle of the two
+broken amethysts, fitting each other exactly, that she appeared not to
+hear Belval's voice.
+
+"Do you accept?" he repeated.
+
+After a moment she replied:
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the proof which destiny has given you of its wishes does not
+satisfy you?" he said, good-humoredly.
+
+"We must not see each other again," she declared.
+
+"Very well. I will leave it to chance. It will not be for long.
+Meanwhile, I promise to make no effort to see you."
+
+"Nor to find out my name?"
+
+"Yes, I promise you."
+
+"Good-by," she said, giving him her hand.
+
+"_Au revoir_," he answered.
+
+She moved away. When she reached the door, she seemed to hesitate. He
+was standing motionless by the chimney. Once more she said:
+
+"Good-by."
+
+"_Au revoir_, Little Mother Coralie."
+
+Then she went out.
+
+Only when the street-door had closed behind her did Captain Belval go to
+one of the windows. He saw Coralie passing through the trees, looking
+quite small in the surrounding darkness. He felt a pang at his heart.
+Would he ever see her again?
+
+"Shall I? Rather!" he exclaimed. "Why, to-morrow perhaps. Am I not the
+favorite of the gods?"
+
+And, taking his stick, he set off, as he said, with his wooden leg
+foremost.
+
+That evening, after dining at the nearest restaurant, Captain Belval
+went to Neuilly. The home run in connection with the hospital was a
+pleasant villa on the Boulevard Maillot, looking out on the Bois de
+Boulogne. Discipline was not too strictly enforced. The captain could
+come in at any hour of the night; and the man easily obtained leave from
+the matron.
+
+"Is Ya-Bon there?" he asked this lady.
+
+"Yes, he's playing cards with his sweetheart."
+
+"He has the right to love and be loved," he said. "Any letters for me?"
+
+"No, only a parcel."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"A commissionaire brought it and just said that it was 'for Captain
+Belval.' I put it in your room."
+
+The officer went up to his bedroom on the top floor and saw the parcel,
+done up in paper and string, on the table. He opened it and discovered a
+box. The box contained a key, a large, rusty key, of a shape and
+manufacture that were obviously old.
+
+What could it all mean? There was no address on the box and no mark. He
+presumed that there was some mistake which would come to light of
+itself; and he slipped the key into his pocket.
+
+"Enough riddles for one day," he thought. "Let's go to bed."
+
+But when he went to the window to draw the curtains he saw, across the
+trees of the Bois, a cascade of sparks which spread to some distance in
+the dense blackness of the night. And he remembered the conversation
+which he had overheard in the restaurant and the rain of sparks
+mentioned by the men who were plotting to kidnap Little Mother Coralie.
+. . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RUSTY KEY
+
+
+When Patrice Belval was eight years old he was sent from Paris, where he
+had lived till then, to a French boarding-school in London. Here he
+remained for ten years. At first he used to hear from his father weekly.
+Then, one day, the head-master told him that he was an orphan, that
+provision had been made for the cost of his education and that, on his
+majority, he would receive through an English solicitor his paternal
+inheritance, amounting to some eight thousand pounds.
+
+Two hundred thousand francs could never be enough for a young man who
+soon proved himself to possess expensive tastes and who, when sent to
+Algeria to perform his military service, found means to run up twenty
+thousand francs of debts before coming into his money. He therefore
+started by squandering his patrimony and, having done so, settled down
+to work. Endowed with an active temperament and an ingenious brain,
+possessing no special vocation, but capable of anything that calls for
+initiative and resolution, full of ideas, with both the will and the
+knowledge to carry out an enterprise, he inspired confidence in others,
+found capital as he needed it and started one venture after another,
+including electrical schemes, the purchase of rivers and waterfalls, the
+organization of motor services in the colonies, of steamship lines and
+of mining companies. In a few years he had floated a dozen of such
+enterprises, all of which succeeded.
+
+The war came to him as a wonderful adventure. He flung himself into it
+with heart and soul. As a sergeant in a colonial regiment, he won his
+lieutenant's stripes on the Marne. He was wounded in the calf on the
+15th of September and had it amputated the same day. Two months after,
+by some mysterious wirepulling, cripple though he was, he began to go up
+as observer in the aeroplane of one of our best pilots. A shrapnel-shell
+put an end to the exploits of both heroes on the 10th of January. This
+time, Captain Belval, suffering from a serious wound in the head, was
+discharged and sent to the hospital in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
+About the same period, the lady whom he was to call Little Mother
+Coralie also entered the hospital as a nurse.
+
+There he was trepanned. The operation was successful, but complications
+remained. He suffered a good deal of pain, though he never uttered a
+complaint and, in fact, with his own good-humor kept up the spirits of
+his companions in misfortune, all of whom were devoted to him. He made
+them laugh, consoled them and stimulated them with his cheeriness and
+his constant happy manner of facing the worst positions.
+
+Not one of them is ever likely to forget the way in which he received a
+manufacturer who called to sell him a mechanical leg:
+
+"Aha, a mechanical leg! And what for, sir? To take in people, I suppose,
+so that they may not notice that I've lost a bit of mine? Then you
+consider, sir, that it's a blemish to have your leg amputated, and that
+I, a French officer, ought to hide it as a disgrace?"
+
+"Not at all, captain. Still . . ."
+
+"And what's the price of that apparatus of yours?"
+
+"Five hundred francs."
+
+"Five hundred francs! And you think me capable of spending five hundred
+francs on a mechanical leg, when there are a hundred thousand poor
+devils who have been wounded as I have and who will have to go on
+showing their wooden stumps?"
+
+The men sitting within hearing reveled with delight. Little Mother
+Coralie herself listened with a smile. And what would Patrice Belval not
+have given for a smile from Little Mother Coralie?
+
+As he told her, he had fallen in love with her from the first, touched
+by her appealing beauty, her artless grace, her soft eyes, her gentle
+soul, which seemed to bend over the patients and to fondle them like a
+soothing caress. From the very first, the charm of her stole into his
+being and at the same time compassed it about. Her voice gave him new
+life. She bewitched him with the glance of her eyes and with her
+fragrant presence. And yet, while yielding to the empire of this love,
+he had an immense craving to devote himself to and to place his strength
+at the service of this delicate little creature, whom he felt to be
+surrounded with danger.
+
+And now events were proving that he was right, the danger was taking
+definite shape and he had had the happiness to snatch Coralie from the
+grasp of her enemies. He rejoiced at the result of the first battle, but
+could not look upon it as over. The attacks were bound to be repeated.
+And even now was he not entitled to ask himself if there was not some
+close connection between the plot prepared against Coralie that morning
+and the sort of signal given by the shower of sparks? Did the two facts
+announced by the speakers at the restaurant not form part of the same
+suspicious machination?
+
+The sparks continued to glitter in the distance. So far as Patrice
+Belval could judge, they came from the riverside, at some spot between
+two extreme points which might be the Trocadéro on the left and the Gare
+de Passy on the right.
+
+"A mile or two at most, as the crow flies," he said to himself. "Why not
+go there? We'll soon see."
+
+A faint light filtered through the key-hole of a door on the second
+floor. It was Ya-Bon's room; and the matron had told him that Ya-Bon was
+playing cards with his sweetheart. He walked in.
+
+Ya-Bon was no longer playing. He had fallen asleep in an armchair, in
+front of the outspread cards, and on the pinned-back sleeve hanging from
+his left shoulder lay the head of a woman, an appallingly common head,
+with lips as thick as Ya-Bon's, revealing a set of black teeth, and with
+a yellow, greasy skin that seemed soaked in oil. It was Angèle, the
+kitchen-maid, Ya-Bon's sweetheart. She snored aloud.
+
+Patrice looked at them contentedly. The sight confirmed the truth of his
+theories. If Ya-Bon could find some one to care for him, might not the
+most sadly mutilated heroes aspire likewise to all the joys of love?
+
+He touched the Senegalese on the shoulder. Ya-Bon woke up and smiled,
+or rather, divining the presence of his captain, smiled even before he
+woke.
+
+"I want you, Ya-Bon."
+
+Ya-Bon uttered a grunt of pleasure and gave a push to Angèle, who fell
+over on the table and went on snoring.
+
+Coming out of the house, Patrice saw no more sparks. They were hidden
+behind the trees. He walked along the boulevard and, to save time, went
+by the Ceinture railway to the Avenue Henri-Martin. Here he turned down
+the Rue de la Tour, which runs to Passy.
+
+On the way he kept talking to Ya-Bon about what he had in his mind,
+though he well knew that the negro did not understand much of what he
+said. But this was a habit with him. Ya-Bon, first his comrade-in-arms
+and then his orderly, was as devoted to him as a dog. He had lost a limb
+on the same day as his officer and was wounded in the head on the same
+day; he believed himself destined to undergo the same experiences
+throughout; and he rejoiced at having been twice wounded just as he
+would have rejoiced at dying at the same time as Captain Belval. On his
+side, the captain rewarded this humble, dumb devotion by unbending
+genially to his companion; he treated him with an ironical and sometimes
+impatient humor which heightened the negro's love for him. Ya-Bon played
+the part of the passive confidant who is consulted without being
+regarded and who is made to bear the brunt of his interlocutor's hasty
+temper.
+
+"What do you think of all this, Master Ya-Bon?" asked the captain,
+walking arm-in-arm with him. "I have an idea that it's all part of the
+same business. Do you think so too?"
+
+Ya-Bon had two grunts, one of which meant yes, the other no. He grunted
+out:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So there's no doubt about it," the officer declared, "and we must admit
+that Little Mother Coralie is threatened with a fresh danger. Is that
+so?"
+
+"Yes," grunted Ya-Bon, who always approved, on principle.
+
+"Very well. It now remains to be seen what that shower of sparks means.
+I thought for a moment that, as we had our first visit from the
+Zeppelins a week ago . . . are you listening to me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought that it was a treacherous signal with a view to a second
+Zeppelin visit . . ."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No, you idiot, it's not yes. How could it be a Zeppelin signal when,
+according to the conversation which I overheard, the signal had already
+been given twice before the war. Besides, is it really a signal?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How do you mean, no? What else could it be, you silly ass? You'd do
+better to hold your tongue and listen to me, all the more as you don't
+even know what it's all about. . . . No more do I, for that matter, and
+I confess that I'm at an utter loss. Lord, it's a complicated business,
+and I'm not much of a hand at solving these problems."
+
+Patrice Belval was even more perplexed when he came to the bottom of the
+Rue de la Tour. There were several roads in front of him, and he did
+not know which to take. Moreover, though he was in the middle of Passy,
+not a spark shone in the dark sky.
+
+"It's finished, I expect," he said, "and we've had our trouble for
+nothing. It's your fault, Ya-Bon. If you hadn't made me lose precious
+moments in snatching you from the arms of your beloved we should have
+arrived in time. I admit Angèle's charms, but, after all . . ."
+
+He took his bearings, feeling more and more undecided. The expedition
+undertaken on chance and with insufficient information was certainly
+yielding no results; and he was thinking of abandoning it when a closed
+private car came out of the Rue Franklin, from the direction of the
+Trocadéro, and some one inside shouted through the speaking-tube:
+
+"Bear to the left . . . and then straight on, till I stop you."
+
+Now it appeared to Captain Belval that this voice had the same foreign
+inflection as one of those which he had heard that morning at the
+restaurant.
+
+"Can it be the beggar in the gray hat," he muttered, "one of those who
+tried to carry off Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+"Yes," grunted Ya-Bon.
+
+"Yes. The signal of the sparks explains his presence in these parts. We
+mustn't lose sight of this track. Off with you, Ya-Bon."
+
+But there was no need for Ya-Bon to hurry. The car had gone down the Rue
+Raynouard, and Belval himself arrived just as it was stopping three or
+four hundred yards from the turning, in front of a large
+carriage-entrance on the left-hand side.
+
+Five men alighted. One of them rang. Thirty or forty seconds passed.
+Then Patrice heard the bell tinkle a second time. The five men waited,
+standing packed close together on the pavement. At last, after a third
+ring, a small wicket contrived in one of the folding-doors was opened.
+
+There was a pause and some argument. Whoever had opened the wicket
+appeared to be asking for explanations. But suddenly two of the men bore
+heavily on the folding-door, which gave way before their thrust and let
+the whole gang through.
+
+There was a loud noise as the door slammed to. Captain Belval at once
+studied his surroundings.
+
+The Rue Raynouard is an old country-road which at one time used to wind
+among the houses and gardens of the village of Passy, on the side of the
+hills bathed by the Seine. In certain places, which unfortunately are
+becoming more and more rare, it has retained a provincial aspect. It is
+skirted by old properties. Old houses stand hidden amidst the trees:
+that in which Balzac lived has been piously preserved. It was in this
+street that the mysterious garden lay where Arsène Lupin discovered a
+farmer-general's diamonds hidden in a crack of an old sundial.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Confessions of Arsène Lupin._ By Maurice Leblanc.
+Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. III. _The Sign of the
+Shadow._]
+
+The car was still standing outside the house into which the five men had
+forced their way; and this prevented Patrice Belval from coming nearer.
+It was built in continuation of a wall and seemed to be one of the
+private mansions dating back to the First Empire. It had a very long
+front with two rows of round windows, protected by gratings on the
+ground-floor and solid shutters on the story above. There was another
+building farther down, forming a separate wing.
+
+"There's nothing to be done on this side," said the captain. "It's as
+impregnable as a feudal stronghold. Let's look elsewhere."
+
+From the Rue Raynouard, narrow lanes, which used to divide the old
+properties, make their way down to the river. One of them skirted the
+wall that preceded the house. Belval turned down it with Ya-Bon. It was
+constructed of ugly pointed pebbles, was broken into steps and faintly
+lighted by the gleam of a street-lamp.
+
+"Lend me a hand, Ya-Bon. The wall is too high. But perhaps with the aid
+of the lamp-post . . ."
+
+Assisted by the negro, he hoisted himself to the lamp and was stretching
+out one of his hands when he noticed that all this part of the wall
+bristled with broken glass, which made it absolutely impossible to
+grasp. He slid down again.
+
+"Upon my word, Ya-Bon," he said, angrily, "you might have warned me!
+Another second and you would have made me cut my hands to pieces. What
+are you thinking of? In fact, I can't imagine what made you so anxious
+to come with me at all costs."
+
+There was a turn in the lane, hiding the light, so that they were now in
+utter darkness, and Captain Belval had to grope his way along. He felt
+the negro's hand come down upon his shoulder.
+
+"What do you want, Ya-Bon?"
+
+The hand pushed him against the wall. At this spot there was a door in
+an embrasure.
+
+"Well, yes," he said, "that's a door. Do you think I didn't see it? Oh,
+no one has eyes but Master Ya-Bon, I suppose."
+
+Ya-Bon handed him a box of matches. He struck several, one after the
+other, and examined the door.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he said between his teeth. "There's nothing to be
+done. Massive wood, barred and studded with iron. . . . Look, there's no
+handle on this side, merely a key-hole. . . . Ah, what we want is a key,
+made to measure and cut for the purpose! . . . For instance, a key like
+the one which the commissionaire left for me at the home just now.
+. . ."
+
+He stopped. An absurd idea flitted through his brain; and yet, absurd as
+it was, he felt that he was bound to perform the trifling action which
+it suggested to him. He therefore retraced his steps. He had the key on
+him. He took it from his pocket.
+
+He struck a fresh light. The key-hole appeared. Belval inserted the key
+at the first attempt. He bore on it to the left: the key turned in the
+lock. He pushed the door: it opened.
+
+"Come along in," he said.
+
+The negro did not stir a foot. Patrice could understand his amazement.
+All said, he himself was equally amazed. By what unprecedented miracle
+was the key just the key of this very door? By what miracle was the
+unknown person who had sent it him able to guess that he would be in a
+position to use it without further instructions? A miracle indeed!
+
+But Patrice had resolved to act without trying to solve the riddle
+which a mischievous chance seemed bent upon setting him.
+
+"Come along in," he repeated, triumphantly.
+
+Branches struck him in the face and he perceived that he was walking on
+grass and that there must be a garden lying in front of him. It was so
+dark that he could not see the paths against the blackness of the turf;
+and, after walking for a minute or two, he hit his foot against some
+rocks with a sheet of water on them.
+
+"Oh, confound it!" he cursed. "I'm all wet. Damn you, Ya-Bon!"
+
+He had not finished speaking when a furious barking was heard at the far
+end of the garden; and the sound at once came nearer, with extreme
+rapidity. Patrice realized that a watchdog, perceiving their presence,
+was rushing upon them, and, brave as he was, he shuddered, because of
+the impressiveness of this attack in complete darkness. How was he to
+defend himself? A shot would betray them; and yet he carried no weapon
+but his revolver.
+
+The dog came dashing on, a powerful animal, to judge by the noise it
+made, suggesting the rush of a wild boar through the copsewood. It must
+have broken its chain, for it was accompanied by the clatter of iron.
+Patrice braced himself to meet it. But through the darkness he saw
+Ya-Bon pass before him to protect him, and the impact took place almost
+at once.
+
+"Here, I say, Ya-Bon! Why did you get in front of me? It's all right, my
+lad, I'm coming!"
+
+The two adversaries had rolled over on the grass. Patrice stooped down,
+seeking to rescue the negro. He touched the hair of an animal and then
+Ya-Bon's clothes. But the two were wriggling on the ground in so compact
+a mass and fighting so frantically that his interference was useless.
+
+Moreover, the contest did not last long. In a few minutes the
+adversaries had ceased to move. A strangled death-rattle issued from the
+group.
+
+"Is it all right, Ya-Bon?" whispered the captain, anxiously.
+
+The negro stood up with a grunt. By the light of a match Patrice saw
+that he was holding at the end of his outstretched arm, of the one arm
+with which he had had to defend himself, a huge dog, which was gurgling,
+clutched round the throat by Ya-Bon's implacable fingers. A broken chain
+hung from its neck.
+
+"Thank you, Ya-Bon. I've had a narrow escape. You can let him go now. He
+can't do us any harm, I think."
+
+Ya-Bon obeyed. But he had no doubt squeezed too tight. The dog writhed
+for a moment on the grass, gave a few moans and then lay without moving.
+
+"Poor brute!" said Patrice. "After all, he only did his duty in going
+for the burglars that we are. Let us do ours, Ya-Bon, which is nothing
+like as plain."
+
+Something that shone like a window-pane guided his steps and led him, by
+a series of stairs cut in the rocks and of successive terraces, to the
+level ground on which the house was built. On this side also, all the
+windows were round and high up, like those in the streets, and
+barricaded with shutters. But one of them allowed the light which he
+had seen from below to filter through.
+
+Telling Ya-Bon to hide in the shrubberies, he went up to the house,
+listened, caught an indistinct sound of voices, discovered that the
+shutters were too firmly closed to enable him either to see or to hear
+and, in this way, after the fourth window, reached a flight of steps. At
+the top of the steps was a door.
+
+"Since they sent me the key of the garden," he said to himself, "there's
+no reason why this door, which leads from the house into the garden,
+should not be open."
+
+It was open.
+
+The voices indoors were now more clearly perceptible, and Belval
+observed that they reached him by the well of the staircase and that
+this staircase, which seemed to lead to an unoccupied part of the house,
+showed with an uncertain light above him.
+
+He went up. A door stood ajar on the first floor. He slipped his head
+through the opening and went in. He found that he was on a narrow
+balcony which ran at mid-height around three sides of a large room,
+along book-shelves rising to the ceiling. Against the wall at either end
+of the room was an iron spiral staircase. Stacks of books were also
+piled against the bars of the railing which protected the gallery, thus
+hiding Patrice from the view of the people on the ground-floor, ten or
+twelve feet below.
+
+He gently separated two of these stacks. At that moment the sound of
+voices suddenly increased to a great uproar and he saw five men,
+shouting like lunatics, hurl themselves upon a sixth and fling him to
+the ground before he had time to lift a finger in self-defense.
+
+Belval's first impulse was to rush to the victim's rescue. With the aid
+of Ya-Bon, who would have hastened to his call, he would certainly have
+intimidated the five men. The reason why he did not act was that, at any
+rate, they were using no weapons and appeared to have no murderous
+intentions. After depriving their victim of all power of movement, they
+were content to hold him by the throat, shoulders and ankles. Belval
+wondered what would happen next.
+
+One of the five drew himself up briskly and, in a tone of command, said:
+
+"Bind him. . . . Put a gag in his mouth. . . . Or let him call out, if
+he wants to: there's no one to hear him."
+
+Patrice at once recognized one of the voices which he had heard that
+morning in the restaurant. Its owner was a short, slim-built,
+well-dressed man, with an olive complexion and a cruel face.
+
+"At last we've got him," he said, "the rascal! And I think we shall get
+him to speak this time. Are you prepared to go all lengths, friends?"
+
+One of the other four growled, spitefully:
+
+"Yes. And at once, whatever happens!"
+
+The last speaker had a big black mustache; and Patrice recognized the
+other man whose conversation at the restaurant he had overheard, that is
+to say, one of Coralie's assailants, the one who had taken to flight.
+His gray-felt hat lay on a chair.
+
+"All lengths, Bournef, whatever happens, eh?" grinned the leader. "Well,
+let's get on with the work. So you refuse to give up your secret,
+Essarès, old man? We shall have some fun."
+
+All their movements must have been prepared beforehand and the parts
+carefully arranged, for the actions which they carried out were
+performed in an incredibly prompt and methodical fashion.
+
+After the man was tied up, they lifted him into an easy-chair with a
+very low back, to which they fastened him round the chest and waist with
+a rope. His legs, which were bound together, were placed on the seat of
+a heavy chair of the same height as the arm-chair, with the two feet
+projecting. Then the victim's shoes and socks were removed.
+
+"Roll him along!" said the leader.
+
+Between two of the four windows that overlooked the chimney was a large
+fire-place, in which burnt a red coal-fire, white in places with the
+intense heat of the hearth. The men pushed the two chairs bearing the
+victim until his bare feet were within twenty inches of the blazing
+coals.
+
+In spite of his gag, the man uttered a hideous yell of pain, while his
+legs, in spite of their bonds, succeeded in contracting and curling upon
+themselves.
+
+"Go on!" shouted the leader, passionately. "Go on! Nearer!"
+
+Patrice Belval grasped his revolver.
+
+"Oh, I'm going on too!" he said to himself. "I won't let that wretch be
+. . ."
+
+But, at this very moment, when he was on the point of drawing himself up
+and acting, a chance movement made him behold the most extraordinary and
+unexpected sight. Opposite him, on the other side of the room, in a part
+of the balcony corresponding with that where he was, he saw a woman's
+head, a head glued to the rails, livid and terror-stricken, with eyes
+wide-open in horror gazing frenziedly at the awful scene that was being
+enacted below by the glowing fire.
+
+Patrice had recognized Little Mother Coralie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BEFORE THE FLAMES
+
+
+Little Mother Coralie! Coralie concealed in this house into which her
+assailants had forced their way and in which she herself was hiding,
+through force of circumstances which were incapable of explanation.
+
+His first idea, which would at least have solved one of the riddles, was
+that she also had entered from the lane, gone into the house by the
+steps and in this way opened a passage for him. But, in that case, how
+had she procured the means of carrying out this enterprise? And, above
+all, what brought her here?
+
+All these questions occurred to Captain Belval's mind without his trying
+to reply to them. He was far too much impressed by the absorbed
+expression on Coralie's face. Moreover, a second cry, even wilder than
+the first, came from below; and he saw the victim's face writhing before
+the red curtain of fire from the hearth.
+
+But, this time, Patrice, held back by Coralie's presence, had no
+inclination to go to the sufferer's assistance. He decided to model
+himself entirely upon her and not to move or do anything to attract her
+attention.
+
+"Easy!" the leader commanded. "Pull him back. I expect he's had
+enough."
+
+He went up to the victim:
+
+"Well, my dear Essarès," he asked, "what do you think of it? Are you
+happy? And, you know, we're only beginning. If you don't speak, we shall
+go on to the end, as the real _chauffeurs_ used to do in the days of the
+Revolution. So it's settled, I presume: you're going to speak?"
+
+There was no answer. The leader rapped out an oath and went on:
+
+"What do you mean? Do you refuse? But, you obstinate brute, don't you
+understand the situation? Or have you a glimmer of hope? Hope, indeed!
+You're mad. Who would rescue you? Your servants? The porter, the footman
+and the butler are in my pay. I gave them a week's notice. They're gone
+by now. The housemaid? The cook? They sleep at the other end of the
+house; and you yourself have told me, time after time, that one can't
+hear anything over there. Who else? Your wife? Her room also is far
+away; and she hasn't heard anything either? Siméon, your old secretary?
+We made him fast when he opened the front door to us just now. Besides,
+we may as well finish the job here. Bournef!"
+
+The man with the big mustache, who was still holding the chair, drew
+himself up.
+
+"Bournef, where did you lock up the secretary?"
+
+"In the porter's lodge."
+
+"You know where to find Mme. Essarès' bedroom?"
+
+"Yes, you told me the way."
+
+"Go, all four of you, and bring the lady and the secretary here!"
+
+The four men went out by a door below the spot where Coralie was
+standing. They were hardly out of sight when the leader stooped eagerly
+over his victim and said:
+
+"We're alone, Essarès. It's what I intended. Let's make the most of it."
+
+He bent still lower and whispered so that Patrice found it difficult to
+hear what he said:
+
+"Those men are fools. I twist them round my finger and tell them no more
+of my plans than I can help. You and I, on the other hand, Essarès, are
+the men to come to terms. That is what you refused to admit; and you see
+where it has landed you. Come, Essarès, don't be obstinate and don't
+shuffle. You are caught in a trap, you are helpless, you are absolutely
+in my power. Well, rather than allow yourself to be broken down by
+tortures which would certainly end by overcoming your resistance, strike
+a bargain with me. We'll go halves, shall we? Let's make peace and treat
+upon that basis. I'll give you a hand in my game and you'll give me one
+in yours. As allies, we are bound to win. As enemies, who knows whether
+the victor will surmount all the obstacles that will still stand in his
+path? That's why I say again, halves! Answer me. Yes or no."
+
+He loosened the gag and listened. This time, Patrice did not hear the
+few words which the victim uttered. But the other, the leader, almost
+immediately burst into a rage:
+
+"Eh? What's that you're proposing? Upon my word, but you're a cool hand!
+An offer of this kind to me! That's all very well for Bournef or his
+fellows. They'll understand, they will. But it won't do for me, it won't
+do for Colonel Fakhi. No, no, my friend, I open my mouth wider! I'll
+consent to go halves, but accept an alms, never!"
+
+Patrice listened eagerly and, at the same time, kept his eyes on
+Coralie, whose face still contorted with anguish, wore an expression of
+the same rapt attention. And he looked back at the victim, part of whose
+body was reflected in the glass above the mantelpiece. The man was
+dressed in a braided brown-velvet smoking-suit and appeared to be about
+fifty years of age, quite bald, with a fleshy face, a large hooked nose,
+eyes deep set under a pair of thick eyebrows and puffy cheeks covered
+with a thick grizzled beard. Patrice was also able to examine his
+features more closely in a portrait of him which hung to the left of the
+fireplace, between the first and second windows, and which represented a
+strong, powerful countenance with an almost fierce expression.
+
+"It's an Eastern face," said Patrice to himself. "I've seen heads like
+that in Egypt and Turkey."
+
+The names of all these men too--Colonel Fakhi, Mustapha, Bournef,
+Essarès--their accent in talking, their way of holding themselves, their
+features, their figures, all recalled impressions which he had gathered
+in the Near East, in the hotels at Alexandria or on the banks of the
+Bosphorus, in the bazaars of Adrianople or in the Greek boats that plow
+the Ægean Sea. They were Levantine types, but of Levantines who had
+taken root in Paris. Essarès Bey was a name which Patrice recognized as
+well-known in the financial world, even as he knew that of Colonel
+Fakhi, whose speech and intonation marked him for a seasoned Parisian.
+
+But a sound of voices came from outside the door. It was flung open
+violently and the four men appeared, dragging in a bound man, whom they
+dropped to the floor as they entered.
+
+"Here's old Siméon," cried the one whom Fakhi had addressed as Bournef.
+
+"And the wife?" asked the leader. "I hope you've got her too!"
+
+"Well, no."
+
+"What is that? Has she escaped?"
+
+"Yes, through her window."
+
+"But you must run after her. She can only be in the garden. Remember,
+the watch-dog was barking just now."
+
+"And suppose she's got away?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"By the door on the lane?"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The door hasn't been used for years. There's not even a key to it."
+
+"That's as may be," Bournef rejoined. "All the same, we're surely not
+going to organize a battue with lanterns and rouse the whole district
+for the sake of finding a woman . . ."
+
+"Yes, but that woman . . ."
+
+Colonel Fakhi seemed exasperated. He turned to the prisoner:
+
+"You're in luck, you old rascal! This is the second time to-day that
+minx of yours has slipped through my fingers! Did she tell you what
+happened this afternoon? Oh, if it hadn't been for an infernal officer
+who happened to be passing! . . . But I'll get hold of him yet and he
+shall pay dearly for his interference. . . ."
+
+Patrice clenched his fists with fury. He understood: Coralie was hiding
+in her own house. Surprised by the sudden arrival of the five men, she
+had managed to climb out of her window and, making her way along the
+terrace to the steps, had gone to the part of the house opposite the
+rooms that were in use and taken refuge in the gallery of the library,
+where she was able to witness the terrible assault levied at her
+husband.
+
+"Her husband!" thought Patrice, with a shudder. "Her husband!"
+
+And, if he still entertained any doubts on the subject, the hurried
+course of events soon removed them, for the leader began to chuckle:
+
+"Yes, Essarès, old man, I confess that she attracts me more than I can
+tell you; and, as I failed to catch her earlier in the day, I did hope
+this evening, as soon as I had settled my business with you, to settle
+something infinitely more agreeable with your wife. Not to mention that,
+once in my power, the little woman would be serving me as a hostage and
+that I would only have restored her to you--oh, safe and sound, believe
+me!--after specific performance of our agreement. And you would have run
+straight, Essarès! For you love your Coralie passionately! And quite
+right too!"
+
+He went to the right-hand side of the fireplace and, touching a switch,
+lit an electric lamp under a reflector between the third and fourth
+windows. There was a companion picture here to Essarès' portrait, but it
+was covered over. The leader drew the curtain, and Coralie appeared in
+the full light.
+
+"The monarch of all she surveys! The idol! The witch! The pearl of
+pearls! The imperial diamond of Essarès Bey, banker! Isn't she
+beautiful? I ask you. Admire the delicate outline of her face, the
+purity of that oval; and the pretty neck; and those graceful shoulders.
+Essarès, there's not a favorite in the country we come from who can hold
+a candle to your Coralie! My Coralie, soon! For I shall know how to find
+her. Ah, Coralie, Coralie! . . ."
+
+Patrice looked across at her, and it seemed to him that her face was
+reddened with a blush of shame. He himself was shaken by indignation and
+anger at each insulting word. It was a violent enough sorrow to him to
+know that Coralie was the wife of another; and added to this sorrow was
+his rage at seeing her thus exposed to these men's gaze and promised as
+a helpless prey to whosoever should prove himself the strongest.
+
+At the same time, he wondered why Coralie remained in the room.
+Supposing that she could not leave the garden, nevertheless she was free
+to move about in that part of the house and might well have opened a
+window and called for help. What prevented her from doing so? Of course
+she did not love her husband. If she had loved him, she would have faced
+every danger to defend him. But how was it possible for her to allow
+that man to be tortured, worse still, to be present at his sufferings,
+to contemplate that most hideous of sights and to listen to his yells of
+pain?
+
+"Enough of this nonsense!" cried the leader, pulling the curtain back
+into its place. "Coralie, you shall be my final reward; but I must first
+win you. Comrades, to work; let's finish our friend's job. First of all,
+twenty inches nearer, no more. Good! Does it burn, Essarès? All the
+same, it's not more than you can stand. Bear up, old fellow."
+
+He unfastened the prisoner's right arm, put a little table by his side,
+laid a pencil and paper on it and continued:
+
+"There's writing-materials for you. As your gag prevents you from
+speaking, write. You know what's wanted of you, don't you? Scribble a
+few letters, and you're free. Do you consent? No? Comrades, three inches
+nearer."
+
+He moved away and stooped over the secretary, whom Patrice, by the
+brighter light, had recognized as the old fellow who sometimes escorted
+Coralie to the hospital.
+
+"As for you, Siméon," he said, "you shall come to no harm. I know that
+you are devoted to your master, but I also know that he tells you none
+of his private affairs. On the other hand, I am certain that you will
+keep silent as to all this, because a single word of betrayal would
+involve your master's ruin even more than ours. That's understood
+between us, isn't it? Well, why don't you answer? Have they squeezed
+your throat a bit too tight with their cords? Wait, I'll give you some
+air. . . ."
+
+Meanwhile the ugly work at the fireplace pursued its course. The two
+feet were reddened by the heat until it seemed almost as though the
+bright flames of the fire were glowing through them. The sufferer
+exerted all his strength in trying to bend his legs and to draw back;
+and a dull, continuous moan came through his gag.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" thought Patrice. "Are we going to let him roast like
+this, like a chicken on a spit?"
+
+He looked at Coralie. She did not stir. Her face was distorted beyond
+recognition, and her eyes seemed fascinated by the terrifying sight.
+
+"Couple of inches nearer!" cried the leader, from the other end of the
+room, as he unfastened Siméon's bonds.
+
+The order was executed. The victim gave such a yell that Patrice's blood
+froze in his veins. But, at the same moment, he became aware of
+something that had not struck him so far, or at least he had attached no
+significance to it. The prisoner's hand, as the result of a sequence of
+little movements apparently due to nervous twitches, had seized the
+opposite edge of the table, while his arm rested on the marble top. And
+gradually, unseen by the torturers, all whose efforts were directed to
+keeping his legs in position, or by the leader, who was still engaged
+with Siméon, this hand opened a drawer which swung on a hinge, dipped
+into the drawer, took out a revolver and, resuming its original position
+with a jerk, hid the weapon in the chair.
+
+The act, or rather the intention which it indicated, was foolhardy in
+the extreme, for, when all was said, reduced to his present state of
+helplessness, the man could not hope for victory against five
+adversaries, all free and all armed. Nevertheless, as Patrice looked at
+the glass in which he beheld him, he saw a fierce determination pictured
+in the man's face.
+
+"Another two inches," said Colonel Fakhi, as he walked back to the
+fireplace.
+
+He examined the condition of the flesh and said, with a laugh:
+
+"The skin is blistering in places; the veins are ready to burst.
+Essarès Bey, you can't be enjoying yourself, and it strikes me that you
+mean to do the right thing at last. Have you started scribbling yet? No?
+And don't you mean to? Are you still hoping? Counting on your wife,
+perhaps? Come, come, you must see that, even if she has succeeded in
+escaping, she won't say anything! Well, then, are you humbugging me, or
+what? . . ."
+
+He was seized with a sudden burst of rage and shouted:
+
+"Shove his feet into the fire! And let's have a good smell of burning
+for once! Ah, you would defy me, would you? Well, wait a bit, old chap,
+and let me have a go at you! I'll cut you off an ear or two: you know,
+the way we have in our country!"
+
+He drew from his waistcoat a dagger that gleamed in the firelight. His
+face was hideous with animal cruelty. He gave a fierce cry, raised his
+arm and stood over the other relentlessly.
+
+But, swift as his movement was, Essarès was before him. The revolver,
+quickly aimed, was discharged with a loud report. The dagger dropped
+from the colonel's hand. For two or three seconds he maintained his
+threatening attitude, with one arm lifted on high and a haggard look in
+his eyes, as though he did not quite understand what had happened to
+him. And then, suddenly, he fell upon his victim in a huddled heap,
+paralyzing his arm with the full weight of his body, at the moment when
+Essarès was taking aim at one of the other confederates.
+
+He was still breathing:
+
+"Oh, the brute, the brute!" he panted. "He's killed me! . . . But
+you'll lose by it, Essarès. . . . I was prepared for this. If I don't
+come home to-night, the prefect of police will receive a letter. . . .
+They'll know about your treason, Essarès . . . all your story . . . your
+plans. . . . Oh, you devil! . . . And what a fool! . . . We could so
+easily have come to terms. . . ."
+
+He muttered a few inaudible words and rolled down to the floor. It was
+all over.
+
+A moment of stupefaction was produced not so much by this unexpected
+tragedy as by the revelation which the leader had made before dying and
+by the thought of that letter, which no doubt implicated the aggressors
+as well as their victim. Bournef had disarmed Essarès. The latter, now
+that the chair was no longer held in position, had succeeded in bending
+his legs. No one moved.
+
+Meanwhile, the sense of terror which the whole scene had produced seemed
+rather to increase with the silence. On the ground was the corpse, with
+the blood flowing on the carpet. Not far away lay Siméon's motionless
+form. Then there was the prisoner, still bound in front of the flames
+waiting to devour his flesh. And standing near him were the four
+butchers, hesitating perhaps what to do next, but showing in every
+feature an implacable resolution to defeat the enemy by all and every
+means.
+
+His companions glanced at Bournef, who seemed the kind of man to go any
+length. He was a short, stout, powerfully-built man; his upper lip
+bristled with the mustache which had attracted Patrice Belval's
+attention. He was less cruel in appearance than his chief, less elegant
+in his manner and less masterful, but displayed far greater coolness
+and self-command. As for the colonel, his accomplices seemed not to
+trouble about him. The part which they were playing dispensed them from
+showing any empty compassion.
+
+At last Bournef appeared to have made up his mind how to act. He went to
+his hat, the gray-felt hat lying near the door, turned back the lining
+and took from it a tiny coil the sight of which made Patrice start. It
+was a slender red cord, exactly like that which he had found round the
+neck of Mustapha Rovalaïof, the first accomplice captured by Ya-Bon.
+
+Bournef unrolled the cord, took it by the two buckles, tested its
+strength across his knee and then, going back to Essarès, slipped it
+over his neck after first removing his gag.
+
+"Essarès," he said, with a calmness which was more impressive than the
+colonel's violence and sneers, "Essarès, I shall not put you to any
+pain. Torture is a revolting process; and I shall not have recourse to
+it. You know what to do; I know what to do. A word on your side, an
+action on my side; and the thing is done. The word is the yes or no
+which you will now speak. The action which I shall accomplish in reply
+to your yes or no will mean either your release or else . . ."
+
+He stopped for a second or two. Then he declared:
+
+"Or else your death."
+
+The brief phrase was uttered very simply but with a firmness that gave
+it the full significance of an irrevocable sentence. It was clear that
+Essarès was faced with a catastrophe which he could no longer avoid
+save by submitting absolutely. In less than a minute, he would have
+spoken or he would be dead.
+
+Once again Patrice fixed his eyes on Coralie, ready to interfere should
+he perceive in her any other feeling than one of passive terror. But her
+attitude did not change. She was therefore accepting the worst, it
+appeared, even though this meant her husband's death; and Patrice held
+his hand accordingly.
+
+"Are we all agreed?" Bournef asked, turning to his accomplices.
+
+"Quite," said one of them.
+
+"Do you take your share of the responsibility?"
+
+"We do."
+
+Bournef brought his hands together and crossed them, which had the
+result of knotting the cord round Essarès' neck. Then he pulled
+slightly, so as to make the pressure felt, and asked, unemotionally:
+
+"Yes or no?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There was a murmur of satisfaction. The accomplices heaved a breath; and
+Bournef nodded his head with an air of approval:
+
+"Ah, so you accept! It was high time: I doubt if any one was ever nearer
+death than you were, Essarès." Retaining his hold of the cord, he
+continued, "Very well. You will speak. But I know you; and your answer
+surprises me, for I told the colonel that not even the certainty of
+death would make you confess your secret. Am I wrong?"
+
+"No," replied Essarès. "Neither death nor torture."
+
+"Then you have something different to propose?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Something worth our while?"
+
+"Yes. I suggested it to the colonel just now, when you were out of the
+room. But, though he was willing to betray you and go halves with me in
+the secret, he refused the other thing."
+
+"Why should I accept it?"
+
+"Because you must take it or leave it and because you will understand
+what he did not."
+
+"It's a compromise, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Bournef shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"A few thousand-franc notes, I expect. And you imagine that Bournef and
+his friends will be such fools? . . . Come, Essarès, why do you want us
+to compromise? We know your secret almost entirely. . . ."
+
+"You know what it is, but not how to use it. You don't know how to get
+at it; and that's just the point."
+
+"We shall discover it."
+
+"Never."
+
+"Yes, your death will make it easier for us."
+
+"My death? Thanks to the information lodged by the colonel, in a few
+hours you will be tracked down and most likely caught: in any case, you
+will be unable to pursue your search. Therefore you have hardly any
+choice. It's the money which I'm offering you, or else . . . prison."
+
+"And, if we accept," asked Bournef, to whom the argument seemed to
+appeal, "when shall we be paid?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"Then the money is here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A contemptible sum, as I said before?"
+
+"No, a much larger sum than you hope for; infinitely larger."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Four millions."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE
+
+
+The accomplices started, as though they had received an electric shock.
+Bournef darted forward:
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said four millions, which means a million for each of you."
+
+"Look here! . . . Do you mean it? . . . Four millions? . . ."
+
+"Four millions is what I said."
+
+The figure was so gigantic and the proposal so utterly unexpected that
+the accomplices had the same feeling which Patrice Belval on his side
+underwent. They suspected a trap; and Bournef could not help saying:
+
+"The offer is more than we expected. . . . And I am wondering what
+induced you to make it."
+
+"Would you have been satisfied with less?"
+
+"Yes," said Bournef, candidly.
+
+"Unfortunately, I can't make it less. I have only one means of escaping
+death; and that is to open my safe for you. And my safe contains four
+bundles of a thousand bank-notes each."
+
+Bournef could not get over his astonishment and became more and more
+suspicious.
+
+"How do you know that, after taking the four millions, we shall not
+insist on more?"
+
+"Insist on what? The secret of the site?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Because you know that I would as soon die as tell it you. The four
+millions are the maximum. Do you want them or don't you? I ask for no
+promise in return, no oath of any kind, for I am convinced that, when
+you have filled your pockets, you will have but one thought, to clear
+off, without handicapping yourselves with a murder which might prove
+your undoing."
+
+The argument was so unanswerable that Bournef ceased discussing and
+asked:
+
+"Is the safe in this room?"
+
+"Yes, between the first and second windows, behind my portrait."
+
+Bournef took down the picture and said:
+
+"I see nothing."
+
+"It's all right. The lines of the safe are marked by the moldings of the
+central panel. In the middle you will see what looks like a rose, not of
+wood but of iron; and there are four others at the four corners of the
+panel. These four turn to the right, by successive notches, forming a
+word which is the key to the lock, the word Cora."
+
+"The first four letters of Coralie?" asked Bournef, following Essarès'
+instructions as he spoke.
+
+"No," said Essarès Bey, "the first four letters of the Coran. Have you
+done that?"
+
+After a moment, Bournef answered:
+
+"Yes, I've finished. And the key?"
+
+"There's no key. The fifth letter of the word, the letter N, is the
+letter of the central rose."
+
+Bournef turned this fifth rose; and presently a click was heard.
+
+"Now pull," said Essarès. "That's it. The safe is not deep: it's dug in
+one of the stones of the front wall. Put in your hand. You'll find four
+pocket-books."
+
+It must be admitted that Patrice Belval expected to see something
+startling interrupt Bournef's quest and hurl him into some pit suddenly
+opened by Essarès' trickery. And the three confederates seemed to share
+this unpleasant apprehension, for they were gray in the face, while
+Bournef himself appeared to be working very cautiously and suspiciously.
+
+At last he turned round and came and sat beside Essarès. In his hands he
+held a bundle of four pocket-books, short but extremely bulky and bound
+together with a canvas strap. He unfastened the buckle of the strap and
+opened one of the pocket-books.
+
+His knees shook under their precious burden, and, when he had taken a
+huge sheaf of notes from one of the compartments, his hands were like
+the hands of a very old man trembling with fever.
+
+"Thousand-franc notes," he murmured. "Ten packets of thousand-franc
+notes."
+
+Brutally, like men prepared to fight one another, each of the other
+three laid hold of a pocket-book, felt inside and mumbled:
+
+"Ten packets . . . they're all there. . . . Thousand-franc notes . . ."
+
+And one of them forthwith cried, in a choking voice:
+
+"Let's clear out! . . . Let's go!"
+
+A sudden fear was sending them off their heads. They could not imagine
+that Essarès would hand over such a fortune to them unless he had some
+plan which would enable him to recover it before they had left the room.
+That was a certainty. The ceiling would come down on their heads. The
+walls would close up and crush them to death, while sparing their
+unfathomable adversary.
+
+Nor had Patrice Belval any doubt of it. The disaster was preparing.
+Essarès' revenge was inevitably at hand. A man like him, a fighter as
+able as he appeared to be, does not so easily surrender four million
+francs if he has not some scheme at the back of his head. Patrice felt
+himself breathing heavily. His present excitement was more violent than
+any with which he had thrilled since the very beginning of the tragic
+scenes which he had been witnessing; and he saw that Coralie's face was
+as anxious as his own.
+
+Meanwhile Bournef partially recovered his composure and, holding back
+his companions, said:
+
+"Don't be such fools! He would be capable, with old Siméon, of releasing
+himself and running after us."
+
+Using only one hand, for the other was clutching a pocket-book, all four
+fastened Essarès' arm to the chair, while he protested angrily:
+
+"You idiots! You came here to rob me of a secret of immense importance,
+as you well knew, and you lose your heads over a trifle of four
+millions. Say what you like, the colonel had more backbone than that!"
+
+They gagged him once more and Bournef gave him a smashing blow with his
+fist which laid him unconscious.
+
+"That makes our retreat safe," said Bournef.
+
+"What about the colonel?" asked one of the others. "Are we to leave him
+here?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+But apparently he thought this unwise; for he added:
+
+"On second thoughts, no. It's not to our interest to compromise Essarès
+any further. What we must do, Essarès as well as ourselves, is to make
+ourselves scarce as fast as we can, before that damned letter of the
+colonel's is delivered at headquarters, say before twelve o'clock in the
+day."
+
+"Then what do you suggest?"
+
+"We'll take the colonel with us in the motor and drop him anywhere. The
+police must make what they can of it."
+
+"And his papers?"
+
+"We'll look through his pockets as we go. Lend me a hand."
+
+They bandaged the wound to stop the flow of blood, took up the body,
+each holding it by an arm or leg, and walked out without any one of them
+letting go his pocket-book for a second.
+
+Patrice Belval heard them pass through another room and then tramp
+heavily over the echoing flags of a hall.
+
+"This is the moment," he said. "Essarès or Siméon will press a button
+and the rogues will be nabbed."
+
+Essarès did not budge.
+
+Siméon did not budge.
+
+Patrice heard all the sounds accompanying their departure: the slamming
+of the carriage-gate, the starting-up of the engine and the drone of the
+car as it moved away. And that was all. Nothing had happened. The
+confederates were getting off with their four millions.
+
+A long silence followed, during which Patrice remained on tenterhooks.
+He did not believe that the drama had reached its last phase; and he was
+so much afraid of the unexpected which might still occur that he
+determined to make Coralie aware of his presence.
+
+A fresh incident prevented him. Coralie had risen to her feet.
+
+Her face no longer wore its expression of horror and affright, but
+Patrice was perhaps more scared at seeing her suddenly animated with a
+sinister energy that gave an unwonted sparkle to her eyes and set her
+eyebrows and her lips twitching. He realized that Coralie was preparing
+to act.
+
+In what way? Was this the end of the tragedy?
+
+She walked to the corner on her side of the gallery where one of the two
+spiral staircases stood and went down slowly, without, however, trying
+to deaden the sound of her feet. Her husband could not help hearing her.
+Patrice, moreover, saw in the mirror that he had lifted his head and was
+following her with his eyes.
+
+She stopped at the foot of the stairs. But there was no indecision in
+her attitude. Her plan was obviously quite clear; and she was only
+thinking out the best method of putting it into execution.
+
+"Ah!" whispered Patrice to himself, quivering all over. "What are you
+doing, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+He gave a start. The direction in which Coralie's eyes were turned,
+together with the strange manner in which they stared, revealed her
+secret resolve to him. She had caught sight of the dagger, lying on the
+floor where it had slipped from the colonel's grasp.
+
+Not for a second did Patrice believe that she meant to pick up that
+dagger with any other thought than to stab her husband. The intention of
+murder was so plainly written on her livid features that, even before
+she stirred a limb, Essarès was seized with a fit of terror and strained
+every muscle to break the bonds that hampered his movements.
+
+She came forward, stopped once more and, suddenly bending, seized the
+dagger. Without waiting, she took two more steps. These brought her to
+the right of the chair in which Essarès lay. He had only to turn his
+head a little way to see her. And an awful minute passed, during which
+the husband and wife looked into each other's eyes.
+
+The whirl of thoughts, of fear, of hatred, of vagrant and conflicting
+passions that passed through the brains of her who was about to kill and
+him who was about to die, was reproduced in Patrice Belval's mind and
+deep down in his inner consciousness. What was he to do? What part ought
+he to play in the tragedy that was being enacted before his eyes? Should
+he intervene? Was it his duty to prevent Coralie from committing the
+irreparable deed? Or should he commit it himself by breaking the man's
+head with a bullet from his revolver?
+
+Yet, from the beginning, Patrice had really been swayed by a feeling
+which, mingling with all the others, gradually paralyzed him and
+rendered any inward struggle illusory: a feeling of curiosity driven to
+its utmost pitch. It was not the everyday curiosity of unearthing a
+squalid secret, but the higher curiosity of penetrating the mysterious
+soul of a woman whom he loved, who was carried away by the rush of
+events and who suddenly, becoming once more mistress of herself, was of
+her own accord and with impressive calmness taking the most fearful
+resolution. Thereupon other questions forced themselves upon him. What
+prompted her to take this resolution? Was it revenge? Was it punishment?
+Was it the gratification of hatred?
+
+Patrice Belval remained where he was.
+
+Coralie raised her arm. Her husband, in front of her, no longer even
+attempted to make those movements of despair which indicate a last
+effort. There was neither entreaty nor menace in his eyes. He waited in
+resignation.
+
+Not far from them, old Siméon, still bound, half-lifted himself on his
+elbows and stared at them in dismay.
+
+Coralie raised her arm again. Her whole frame seemed to grow larger and
+taller. An invisible force appeared to strengthen and stiffen her whole
+being, summoning all her energies to the service of her will. She was on
+the point of striking. Her eyes sought the place at which she should
+strike.
+
+Yet her eyes became less hard and less dark. It even seemed to Patrice
+that there was a certain hesitation in her gaze and that she was
+recovering not her usual gentleness, but a little of her womanly grace.
+
+"Ah, Little Mother Coralie," murmured Patrice, "you are yourself again!
+You are the woman I know. Whatever right you may think you have to kill
+that man, you will not kill him . . . and I prefer it so."
+
+Slowly Coralie's arm dropped to her side. Her features relaxed. Patrice
+could guess the immense relief which she felt at escaping from the
+obsessing purpose that was driving her to murder. She looked at her
+dagger with astonishment, as though she were waking from a hideous
+nightmare. And, bending over her husband she began to cut his bonds.
+
+She did so with visible repugnance, avoiding his touch, as it were, and
+shunning his eyes. The cords were severed one by one. Essarès was free.
+
+What happened next was in the highest measure unexpected. With not a
+word of thanks to his wife, with not a word of anger either, this man
+who had just undergone the most cruel torture and whose body still
+throbbed with pain hurriedly tottered barefoot to a telephone standing
+on a table. He was like a hungry man who suddenly sees a piece of bread
+and snatches at it greedily as the means of saving himself and returning
+to life. Panting for breath, Essarès took down the receiver and called
+out:
+
+"Central 40.39."
+
+Then he turned abruptly to his wife:
+
+"Go away," he said.
+
+She seemed not to hear. She had knelt down beside old Siméon and was
+setting him free also.
+
+Essarès at the telephone began to lose patience:
+
+"Are you there? . . . Are you there? . . . I want that number to-day,
+please, not next week! It's urgent. . . . 40.39. . . . It's urgent, I
+tell you!"
+
+And, turning to Coralie, he repeated, in an imperious tone:
+
+"Go away!"
+
+She made a sign that she would not go away and that, on the contrary,
+she meant to listen. He shook his fist at her and again said:
+
+"Go away, go away! . . . I won't have you stay in the room. You go away
+too, Siméon."
+
+Old Siméon got up and moved towards Essarès. It looked as though he
+wished to speak, no doubt to protest. But his action was undecided; and,
+after a moment's reflection, he turned to the door and went without
+uttering a word.
+
+"Go away, will you, go away!" Essarès repeated, his whole body
+expressing menace.
+
+But Coralie came nearer to him and crossed her arms obstinately and
+defiantly. At that moment, Essarès appeared to get his call, for he
+asked:
+
+"Is that 40.39? Ah, yes . . ."
+
+He hesitated. Coralie's presence obviously displeased him greatly, and
+he was about to say things which he did not wish her to know. But time,
+no doubt, was pressing. He suddenly made up his mind and, with both
+receivers glued to his ears, said, in English:
+
+"Is that you, Grégoire? . . . Essarès speaking. . . . Hullo! . . . Yes,
+I'm speaking from the Rue Raynouard. . . . There's no time to lose.
+. . . Listen. . . ."
+
+He sat down and went on:
+
+"Look here. Mustapha's dead. So is the colonel. . . . Damn it, don't
+interrupt, or we're done for! . . . Yes, done for; and you too. . . .
+Listen, they all came, the colonel, Bournef, the whole gang, and robbed
+me by means of violence and threats. . . . I finished the colonel, only
+he had written to the police, giving us all away. The letter will be
+delivered soon. So you understand, Bournef and his three ruffians are
+going to disappear. They'll just run home and pack up their papers; and
+I reckon they'll be with you in an hour, or two hours at most. It's the
+refuge they're sure to make for. They prepared it themselves, without
+suspecting that you and I know each other. So there's no doubt about it.
+They're sure to come. . . ."
+
+Essarès stopped. He thought for a moment and resumed:
+
+"You still have a second key to each of the rooms which they use as
+bedrooms? Is that so? . . . Good. And you have duplicates of the keys
+that open the cupboards in the walls of those rooms, haven't you? . . .
+Capital. Well, as soon as they get to sleep, or rather as soon as you
+are certain that they are sound asleep, go in and search the cupboards.
+Each of them is bound to hide his share of the booty there. You'll find
+it quite easily. It's the four pocket-books which you know of. Put them
+in your bag, clear out as fast as you can and join me."
+
+There was another pause. This time it was Essarès listening. He replied:
+
+"What's that you say? Rue Raynouard? Here? Join me here? Why, you must
+be mad! Do you imagine that I can stay now, after the colonel's given me
+away? No, go and wait for me at the hotel, near the station. I shall be
+there by twelve o'clock or one in the afternoon, perhaps a little later.
+Don't be uneasy. Have your lunch quietly and we'll talk things over
+. . . Hullo! Did you hear? . . . Very well, I'll see that everything's
+all right. Good-by for the present."
+
+The conversation was finished; and it looked as if Essarès, having taken
+all his measures to recover possession of the four million francs, had
+no further cause for anxiety. He hung up the receiver, went back to the
+lounge-chair in which he had been tortured, wheeled it round with its
+back to the fire, sat down, turned down the bottoms of his trousers and
+pulled on his socks and shoes, all a little painfully and accompanied by
+a few grimaces, but calmly, in the manner of a man who has no need to
+hurry.
+
+Coralie kept her eyes fixed on his face.
+
+"I really ought to go," thought Captain Belval, who felt a trifle
+embarrassed at the thought of overhearing what the husband and wife were
+about to say.
+
+Nevertheless he stayed. He was not comfortable in his mind on Coralie's
+account.
+
+Essarès fired the first shot:
+
+"Well," he asked, "what are you looking at me like that for?"
+
+"So it's true?" she murmured, maintaining her attitude of defiance. "You
+leave me no possibility of doubt?"
+
+"Why should I lie?" he snarled. "I should not have telephoned in your
+hearing if I hadn't been sure that you were here all the time."
+
+"I was up there."
+
+"Then you heard everything?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And saw everything?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And, seeing the torture which they inflicted on me and hearing my
+cries, you did nothing to defend me, to defend me against torture,
+against death!"
+
+"No, for I knew the truth."
+
+"What truth?"
+
+"The truth which I suspected without daring to admit it."
+
+"What truth?" he repeated, in a louder voice.
+
+"The truth about your treason."
+
+"You're mad. I've committed no treason."
+
+"Oh, don't juggle with words! I confess that I don't know the whole
+truth: I did not understand all that those men said or what they were
+demanding of you. But the secret which they tried to force from you was
+a treasonable secret."
+
+"A man can only commit treason against his country," he said, shrugging
+his shoulders. "I'm not a Frenchman."
+
+"You were a Frenchman!" she cried. "You asked to be one and you became
+one. You married me, a Frenchwoman, and you live in France and you've
+made your fortune in France. It's France that you're betraying."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense! And for whose benefit?"
+
+"I don't know that, either. For months, for years indeed, the colonel,
+Bournef, all your former accomplices and yourself have been engaged on
+an enormous work--yes, enormous, it's their own word--and now it appears
+that you are fighting over the profits of the common enterprise and the
+others accuse you of pocketing those profits for yourself alone and of
+keeping a secret that doesn't belong to you. So that I seem to see
+something dirtier and more hateful even than treachery, something
+worthy of a common pickpocket. . . ."
+
+The man struck the arm of his chair with his fist:
+
+"Enough!" he cried.
+
+Coralie seemed in no way alarmed:
+
+"Enough," she echoed, "you are right. Enough words between us. Besides,
+there is one fact that stands out above everything: your flight. That
+amounts to a confession. You're afraid of the police."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders a second time:
+
+"I'm afraid of nobody."
+
+"Very well, but you're going."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let's have it out. When are you going?"
+
+"Presently, at twelve o'clock."
+
+"And if you're arrested?"
+
+"I sha'n't be arrested."
+
+"If you are arrested, however?"
+
+"I shall be let go."
+
+"At least there will be an inquiry, a trial?"
+
+"No, the matter will be hushed up."
+
+"You hope so."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"God grant it! And you will leave France, of course?"
+
+"As soon as I can."
+
+"When will that be?"
+
+"In a fortnight or three weeks."
+
+"Send me word of the day, so that I may know when I can breathe again."
+
+"I shall send you word, Coralie, but for another reason."
+
+"What reason?"
+
+"So that you may join me."
+
+"Join you!"
+
+He gave a cruel smile:
+
+"You are my wife," he said. "Where the husband goes the wife goes; and
+you know that, in my religion, the husband has every right over his
+wife, including that of life and death. Well, you're my wife."
+
+Coralie shook her head, and, in a tone of indescribable contempt,
+answered:
+
+"I am not your wife. I feel nothing for you but loathing and horror. I
+don't wish to see you again, and, whatever happens, whatever you may
+threaten, I shall not see you again."
+
+He rose, and, walking to her, bent in two, all trembling on his legs, he
+shouted, while again he shook his clenched fists at her:
+
+"What's that you say? What's that you dare to say? I, I, your lord and
+master, order you to join me the moment that I send for you."
+
+"I shall not join you. I swear it before God! I swear it as I hope to be
+saved."
+
+He stamped his feet with rage. His face underwent a hideous contortion;
+and he roared:
+
+"That means that you want to stay! Yes, you have reasons which I don't
+know, but which are easy to guess! An affair of the heart, I suppose.
+There's some one in your life, no doubt. . . . Hold your tongue, will
+you? . . . Haven't you always detested me? . . . Your hatred does not
+date from to-day. It dates back to the first time you saw me, to a time
+even before our marriage. . . . We have always lived like mortal
+enemies. I loved you. I worshipped you. A word from you would have
+brought me to your feet. The mere sound of your steps thrilled me to the
+marrow. . . . But your feeling for me is one of horror. And you imagine
+that you are going to start a new life, without me? Why, I'd sooner kill
+you, my beauty!"
+
+He had unclenched his fists; and his open hands were clutching on either
+side of Coralie, close to her head, as though around a prey which they
+seemed on the point of throttling. A nervous shiver made his jaws clash
+together. Beads of perspiration gleamed on his bald head.
+
+In front of him, Coralie stood impassive, looking very small and frail.
+Patrice Belval, in an agony of suspense and ready at any moment to act,
+could read nothing on her calm features but aversion and contempt.
+
+Mastering himself at last, Essarès said:
+
+"You shall join me, Coralie. Whether you like it or not, I am your
+husband. You felt it just now, when the lust to murder me made you take
+up a weapon and left you without the courage to carry out your
+intention. It will always be like that. Your independent fit will pass
+away and you will join the man who is your master."
+
+"I shall remain behind to fight against you," she replied, "here, in
+this house. The work of treason which you have accomplished I shall
+destroy. I shall do it without hatred, for I am no longer capable of
+hatred, but I shall do it without intermission, to repair the evil which
+you have wrought."
+
+He answered, in a low voice:
+
+"I _am_ capable of hatred. Beware, Coralie. The very moment when you
+believe that you have nothing more to fear will perhaps be the moment
+when I shall call you to account. Take care."
+
+He pushed an electric bell. Old Siméon appeared.
+
+"So the two men-servants have decamped?" asked Essarès. And, without
+waiting for the answer, he went on, "A good riddance. The housemaid and
+the cook can do all I want. They heard nothing, did they? No, their
+bedroom is too far away. No matter, Siméon: you must keep a watch on
+them after I am gone."
+
+He looked at his wife, surprised to see her still there, and said to his
+secretary:
+
+"I must be up at six to get everything ready; and I am dead tired. Take
+me to my room. You can come back and put out the lights afterwards."
+
+He went out, supported by Siméon. Patrice Belval at once perceived that
+Coralie had done her best to show no weakness in her husband's presence,
+but that she had come to the end of her strength and was unable to walk.
+Seized with faintness, she fell on her knees, making the sign of the
+cross.
+
+When she was able to rise, a few minutes later, she saw on the carpet,
+between her and the door, a sheet of note-paper with her name on it. She
+picked it up and read:
+
+      "Little Mother Coralie, the struggle is too much for
+      you. Why not appeal to me, your friend? Give a signal
+      and I am with you."
+
+She staggered, dazed by the discovery of the letter and dismayed by
+Belval's daring. But, making a last effort to summon up her power of
+will, she left the room, without giving the signal for which Patrice was
+longing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NINETEEN MINUTES PAST SEVEN
+
+
+Patrice, in his bedroom at the home, was unable to sleep that night. He
+had a continual waking sensation of being oppressed and hunted down, as
+though he were suffering the terrors of some monstrous nightmare. He had
+an impression that the frantic series of events in which he was playing
+the combined parts of a bewildered spectator and a helpless actor would
+never cease so long as he tried to rest; that, on the contrary, they
+would rage with greater violence and intensity. The leave-taking of the
+husband and wife did not put an end, even momentarily, to the dangers
+incurred by Coralie. Fresh perils arose on every side; and Patrice
+Belval confessed himself incapable of foreseeing and still more of
+allaying them.
+
+After lying awake for two hours, he switched on his electric light and
+began hurriedly to write down the story of the past twelve hours. He
+hoped in this way to some small extent to unravel the tangled knot.
+
+At six o'clock he went and roused Ya-Bon and brought him back with him.
+Then, standing in front of the astonished negro, he crossed his arms and
+exclaimed:
+
+"So you consider that your job is over! While I lie tossing about in the
+dark, my lord sleeps and all's well! My dear man, you have a jolly
+elastic conscience."
+
+The word elastic amused the Senegalese mightily. His mouth opened wider
+than ever; and he gave a grunt of enjoyment.
+
+"That'll do, that'll do," said the captain. "There's no getting a word
+in, once you start talking. Here, take a chair, read this report and
+give me your reasoned opinion. What? You don't know how to read? Well,
+upon my word! What was the good, then, of wearing out the seat of your
+trousers on the benches of the Senegal schools and colleges? A queer
+education, I must say!"
+
+He heaved a sigh, and, snatching the manuscript, said:
+
+"Listen, reflect, argue, deduct and conclude. This is how the matter
+briefly stands. First, we have one Essarès Bey, a banker, rich as
+Crœsus, and the lowest of rapscallions, who betrays at one and the same
+time France, Egypt, England, Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece . . . as is
+proved by the fact that his accomplices roast his feet for him.
+Thereupon he kills one of them and gets rid of four with the aid of as
+many millions, which millions he orders another accomplice to get back
+for him before five minutes are passed. And all these bright spirits
+will duck underground at eleven o'clock this morning, for at twelve
+o'clock the police propose to enter on the scene. Good."
+
+Patrice Belval paused to take breath and continued:
+
+"Secondly, Little Mother Coralie--upon my word, I can't say why--is
+married to Rapscallion Bey. She hates him and wants to kill him. He
+loves her and wants to kill her. There is also a colonel who loves her
+and for that reason loses his life and a certain Mustapha, who tries to
+kidnap her on the colonel's account and also loses his life for that
+reason, strangled by a Senegalese. Lastly, there is a French captain, a
+dot-and-carry-one, who likewise loves her, but whom she avoids because
+she is married to a man whom she abhors. And with this captain, in a
+previous incarnation, she has halved an amethyst bead. Add to all this,
+by way of accessories, a rusty key, a red silk bowstring, a dog choked
+to death and a grate filled with red coals. And, if you dare to
+understand a single word of my explanation, I'll catch you a whack with
+my wooden leg, for I don't understand it a little bit and I'm your
+captain."
+
+Ya-Bon laughed all over his mouth and all over the gaping scar that cut
+one of his cheeks in two. As ordered by his captain, he understood
+nothing of the business and very little of what Patrice had said; but he
+always quivered with delight when Patrice addressed him in that gruff
+tone.
+
+"That's enough," said the captain. "It's my turn now to argue, deduct
+and conclude."
+
+He leant against the mantelpiece, with his two elbows on the marble
+shelf and his head tight-pressed between his hands. His merriment, which
+sprang from temperamental lightness of heart, was this time only a
+surface merriment. Deep down within himself he did nothing but think of
+Coralie with sorrowful apprehension. What could he do to protect her? A
+number of plans occurred to him: which was he to choose? Should he hunt
+through the numbers in the telephone-book till he hit upon the
+whereabouts of that Grégoire, with whom Bournef and his companions had
+taken refuge? Should he inform the police? Should he return to the Rue
+Raynouard? He did not know. Yes, he was capable of acting, if the act to
+be performed consisted in flinging himself into the conflict with
+furious ardor. But to prepare the action, to divine the obstacles, to
+rend the darkness, and, as he said, to see the invisible and grasp the
+intangible, that was beyond his powers.
+
+He turned suddenly to Ya-Bon, who was standing depressed by his silence:
+
+"What's the matter with you, putting on that lugubrious air? Of course
+it's you that throw a gloom over me! You always look at the black side
+of things . . . like a nigger! . . . Be off."
+
+Ya-Bon was going away discomfited, when some one tapped at the door and
+a voice said:
+
+"Captain Belval, you're wanted on the telephone."
+
+Patrice hurried out. Who on earth could be telephoning to him so early
+in the morning?
+
+"Who is it?" he asked the nurse.
+
+"I don't know, captain. . . . It's a man's voice; he seemed to want you
+urgently. The bell had been ringing some time. I was downstairs, in the
+kitchen. . . ."
+
+Before Patrice's eyes there rose a vision of the telephone in the Rue
+Raynouard, in the big room at the Essarès' house. He could not help
+wondering if there was anything to connect the two incidents.
+
+He went down one flight of stairs and along a passage. The telephone was
+through a small waiting-room, in a room that had been turned into a
+linen-closet. He closed the door behind him.
+
+"Hullo! Captain Belval speaking. What is it?"
+
+A voice, a man's voice which he did not know, replied in breathless,
+panting tones:
+
+"Ah! . . . Captain Belval! . . . It's you! . . . Look here . . . but I'm
+almost afraid that it's too late. . . . I don't know if I shall have
+time to finish. . . . Did you get the key and the letter? . . ."
+
+"Who are you?" asked Patrice.
+
+"Did you get the key and the letter?" the voice insisted.
+
+"The key, yes," Patrice replied, "but not the letter."
+
+"Not the letter? But this is terrible! Then you don't know . . ."
+
+A hoarse cry struck Patrice's ear and the next thing he caught was
+incoherent sounds at the other end of the wire, the noise of an
+altercation. Then the voice seemed to glue itself to the instrument and
+he distinctly heard it gasping:
+
+"Too late! . . . Patrice . . . is that you? . . . Listen, the amethyst
+pendant . . . yes, I have it on me. . . . The pendant. . . . Ah, it's
+too late! . . . I should so much have liked to . . . Patrice. . . .
+Coralie. . . ."
+
+Then again a loud cry, a heart-rending cry, and confused sounds growing
+more distant, in which he seemed to distinguish:
+
+"Help! . . . Help! . . ."
+
+These grew fainter and fainter. Silence followed. And suddenly there was
+a little click. The murderer had hung up the receiver.
+
+All this had not taken twenty seconds. But, when Patrice wanted to
+replace the telephone, his fingers were gripping it so hard that it
+needed an effort to relax them.
+
+He stood utterly dumfounded. His eyes had fastened on a large clock
+which he saw, through the window, on one of the buildings in the yard,
+marking nineteen minutes past seven; and he mechanically repeated these
+figures, attributing a documentary value to them. Then he asked
+himself--so unreal did the scene appear to him--if all this was true and
+if the crime had not been penetrated within himself, in the depths of
+his aching heart. But the shouting still echoed in his ears; and
+suddenly he took up the receiver again, like one clinging desperately to
+some undefined hope:
+
+"Hullo!" he cried. "Exchange! . . . Who was it rang me up just now?
+. . . Are you there? Did you hear the cries? . . . Are you there? . . .
+Are you there? . . ."
+
+There was no reply. He lost his temper, insulted the exchange, left the
+linen-closet, met Ya-Bon and pushed him about:
+
+"Get out of this! It's your fault. Of course you ought to have stayed
+and looked after Coralie. Be off there now and hold yourself at my
+disposal. I'm going to inform the police. If you hadn't prevented me, it
+would have been done long ago and we shouldn't be in this predicament.
+Off you go!"
+
+He held him back:
+
+"No, don't stir. Your plan's ridiculous. Stay here. Oh, not here in my
+pocket! You're too impetuous for me, my lad!"
+
+He drove him out and returned to the linen-closet, striding up and down
+and betraying his excitement in irritable gestures and angry words.
+Nevertheless, in the midst of his confusion, one idea gradually came to
+light, which was that, after all, he had no proof that the crime which
+he suspected had happened at the house in the Rue Raynouard. He must not
+allow himself to be obsessed by the facts that lingered in his memory to
+the point of always seeing the same vision in the same tragic setting.
+No doubt the drama was being continued, as he had felt that it would be,
+but perhaps elsewhere and far away from Coralie.
+
+And this first thought led to another: why not investigate matters at
+once?
+
+"Yes, why not?" he asked himself. "Before bothering the police,
+discovering the number of the person who rang me up and thus working
+back to the start, a process which it will be time enough to employ
+later, why shouldn't I telephone to the Rue Raynouard at once, on any
+pretext and in anybody's name? I shall then have a chance of knowing
+what to think. . . ."
+
+Patrice felt that this measure did not amount to much. Suppose that no
+one answered, would that prove that the murder had been committed in the
+house, or merely that no one was yet about? Nevertheless, the need to do
+something decided him. He looked up Essarès Bey's number in the
+telephone-directory and resolutely rang up the exchange.
+
+The strain of waiting was almost more than he could bear. And then he
+was conscious of a thrill which vibrated through him from head to foot.
+He was connected; and some one at the other end was answering the call.
+
+"Hullo!" he said.
+
+"Hullo!" said a voice. "Who are you?"
+
+It was the voice of Essarès Bey.
+
+Although this was only natural, since at that moment Essarès must be
+getting his papers ready and preparing his flight, Patrice was so much
+taken aback that he did not know what to say and spoke the first words
+that came into his head:
+
+"Is that Essarès Bey?"
+
+"Yes. Who are you?"
+
+"I'm one of the wounded at the hospital, now under treatment at the
+home. . . ."
+
+"Captain Belval, perhaps?"
+
+Patrice was absolutely amazed. So Coralie's husband knew him by name? He
+stammered:
+
+"Yes . . . Captain Belval."
+
+"What a lucky thing!" cried Essarès Bey, in a tone of delight. "I rang
+you up a moment ago, at the home, Captain Belval, to ask . . ."
+
+"Oh, it was you!" interrupted Patrice, whose astonishment knew no
+bounds.
+
+"Yes, I wanted to know at what time I could speak to Captain Belval in
+order to thank him."
+
+"It was _you_! . . . It was _you_! . . ." Patrice repeated, more and
+more thunderstruck.
+
+Essarès' intonation denoted a certain surprise.
+
+"Yes, wasn't it a curious coincidence?" he said. "Unfortunately, I was
+cut off, or rather my call was interrupted by somebody else."
+
+"Then you heard?"
+
+"What, Captain Belval?"
+
+"Cries."
+
+"Cries?"
+
+"At least, so it seemed to me; but the connection was very indistinct."
+
+"All that I heard was somebody asking for you, somebody who was in a
+great hurry; and, as I was not, I hung up the telephone and postponed
+the pleasure of thanking you."
+
+"Of thanking me?"
+
+"Yes, I have heard how my wife was assaulted last night and how you came
+to her rescue. And I am anxious to see you and express my gratitude.
+Shall we make an appointment? Could we meet at the hospital, for
+instance, at three o'clock this afternoon?"
+
+Patrice made no reply. The audacity of this man, threatened with arrest
+and preparing for flight, baffled him. At the same time, he was
+wondering what Essarès' real object had been in telephoning to him
+without being in any way obliged to. But Belval's silence in no way
+troubled the banker, who continued his civilities and ended the
+inscrutable conversation with a monologue in which he replied with the
+greatest ease to questions which he kept putting to himself.
+
+In spite of everything, Patrice felt more comfortable. He went back to
+his room, lay down on his bed and slept for two hours. Then he sent for
+Ya-Bon.
+
+"This time," he said, "try to control your nerves and not to lose your
+head as you did just now. You were absurd. But don't let's talk about
+it. Have you had your breakfast? No? No more have I. Have you seen the
+doctor? No? No more have I. And the surgeon has just promised to take
+off this beastly bandage. You can imagine how pleased I am. A wooden leg
+is all very well; but a head wrapped up in lint, for a lover, never! Get
+on, look sharp. When we're ready, we'll start for the hospital. Little
+Mother Coralie can't forbid me to see her there!"
+
+Patrice was as happy as a schoolboy. As he said to Ya-Bon an hour later,
+on their way to the Porte-Maillot, the clouds were beginning to roll by:
+
+"Yes, Ya-Bon, yes, they are. And this is where we stand. To begin with,
+Coralie is not in danger. As I hoped, the battle is being fought far
+away from her, among the accomplices no doubt, over their millions. As
+for the unfortunate man who rang me up and whose dying cries I
+overheard, he was obviously some unknown friend, for he addressed me
+familiarly and called me by my Christian name. It was certainly he who
+sent me the key of the garden. Unfortunately, the letter that came with
+the key went astray. In the end, he felt constrained to tell me
+everything. Just at that moment he was attacked. By whom, you ask.
+Probably by one of the accomplices, who was frightened of his
+revelations. There you are, Ya-Bon. It's all as clear as noonday. For
+that matter, the truth may just as easily be the exact opposite of what
+I suggest. But I don't care. The great thing is to take one's stand upon
+a theory, true or false. Besides, if mine is false, I reserve the right
+to shift the responsibility on you. So you know what you're in for.
+. . ."
+
+At the Porte-Maillot they took a cab and it occurred to Patrice to drive
+round by the Rue Raynouard. At the junction of this street with the Rue
+de Passy, they saw Coralie leaving the Rue Raynouard, accompanied by old
+Siméon.
+
+She had hailed a taxi and stepped inside. Siméon sat down by the
+driver. They went to the hospital in the Champs-Élysées, with Patrice
+following. It was eleven o'clock when they arrived.
+
+"All's well," said Patrice. "While her husband is running away, she
+refuses to make any change in her daily life."
+
+He and Ya-Bon lunched in the neighborhood, strolled along the avenue,
+without losing sight of the hospital, and called there at half-past one.
+
+Patrice at once saw old Siméon, sitting at the end of a covered yard
+where the soldiers used to meet. His head was half wrapped up in the
+usual comforter; and, with his big yellow spectacles on his nose, he sat
+smoking his pipe on the chair which he always occupied.
+
+As for Coralie, she was in one of the rooms allotted to her on the first
+floor, seated by the bedside of a patient whose hand she held between
+her own. The man was asleep.
+
+Coralie appeared to Patrice to be very tired. The dark rings round her
+eyes and the unusual pallor of her cheeks bore witness to her fatigue.
+
+"Poor child!" he thought. "All those blackguards will be the death of
+you."
+
+He now understood, when he remembered the scenes of the night before,
+why Coralie kept her private life secret and endeavored, at least to the
+little world of the hospital, to be merely the kind sister whom people
+call by her Christian name. Suspecting the web of crime with which she
+was surrounded, she dropped her husband's name and told nobody where she
+lived. And so well was she protected by the defenses set up by her
+modesty and determination that Patrice dared not go to her and stood
+rooted to the threshold.
+
+"Yet surely," he said to himself, as he looked at Coralie without being
+seen by her, "I'm not going to send her in my card!"
+
+He was making up his mind to enter, when a woman who had come up the
+stairs, talking loudly as she went, called out:
+
+"Where is madame? . . . M. Siméon, she must come at once!"
+
+Old Siméon, who had climbed the stairs with her, pointed to where
+Coralie sat at the far end of the room; and the woman rushed in. She
+said a few words to Coralie, who seemed upset and at once, ran to the
+door, passing in front of Patrice, and down the stairs, followed by
+Siméon and the woman.
+
+"I've got a taxi, ma'am," stammered the woman, all out of breath. "I had
+the luck to find one when I left the house and I kept it. We must be
+quick, ma'am. . . . The commissary of police told me to . . ."
+
+Patrice, who was downstairs by this time, heard nothing more; but the
+last words decided him. He seized hold of Ya-Bon as he passed; and the
+two of them leapt into a cab, telling the driver to follow Coralie's
+taxi.
+
+"There's news, Ya-Bon, there's news!" said Patrice. "The plot is
+thickening. The woman is obviously one of the Essarès' servants and she
+has come for her mistress by the commissary's orders. Therefore the
+colonel's disclosures are having their effect. House searched;
+magistrate's inquest; every sort of worry for Little Mother Coralie; and
+you have the cheek to advise me to be careful! You imagine that I would
+leave her to her own devices at such a moment! What a mean nature you
+must have, my poor Ya-Bon!"
+
+An idea occurred to him; and he exclaimed:
+
+"Heavens! I hope that ruffian of an Essarès hasn't allowed himself to be
+caught! That would be a disaster! But he was far too sure of himself. I
+expect he's been trifling away his time. . . ."
+
+All through the drive this fear excited Captain Belval and removed his
+last scruples. In the end his certainty was absolute. Nothing short of
+Essarès' arrest could have produced the servant's attitude of panic or
+Coralie's precipitate departure. Under these conditions, how could he
+hesitate to interfere in a matter in which his revelations would
+enlighten the police? All the more so as, by revealing less or more,
+according to circumstances, he could make his evidence subservient to
+Coralie's interests.
+
+The two cabs pulled up almost simultaneously outside the Essarès' house,
+where a car was already standing. Coralie alighted and disappeared
+through the carriage-gate. The maid and Siméon also crossed the
+pavement.
+
+"Come along," said Patrice to the Senegalese.
+
+The front-door was ajar and Patrice entered. In the big hall were two
+policemen on duty. Patrice acknowledged their presence with a hurried
+movement of his hand and passed them with the air of a man who belonged
+to the house and whose importance was so great that nothing done without
+him could be of any use.
+
+The sound of his footsteps echoing on the flags reminded him of the
+flight of Bournef and his accomplices. He was on the right road.
+Moreover, there was a drawing-room on the left, the room, communicating
+with the library, to which the accomplices had carried the colonel's
+body. Voices came from the library. He walked across the drawing-room.
+
+At that moment he heard Coralie exclaim in accents of terror:
+
+"Oh, my God, it can't be! . . ."
+
+Two other policemen barred the doorway.
+
+"I am a relation of Mme. Essarès'," he said, "her only relation. . . ."
+
+"We have our orders, captain . . ."
+
+"I know, of course. Be sure and let no one in! Ya-Bon, stay here."
+
+And he went in.
+
+But, in the immense room, a group of six or seven gentlemen, no doubt
+commissaries of police and magistrates, stood in his way, bending over
+something which he was unable to distinguish. From amidst this group
+Coralie suddenly appeared and came towards him, tottering and wringing
+her hands. The housemaid took her round the waist and pressed her into a
+chair.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Patrice.
+
+"Madame is feeling faint," replied the woman, still quite distraught.
+"Oh, I'm nearly off my head!"
+
+"But why? What's the reason?"
+
+"It's the master . . . just think! . . . Such a sight! . . . It gave me
+a turn, too . . ."
+
+"What sight?"
+
+One of the gentlemen left the group and approached:
+
+"Is Mme. Essarès ill?"
+
+"It's nothing," said the maid. "A fainting-fit. . . . She is liable to
+these attacks."
+
+"Take her away as soon as she can walk. We shall not need her any
+longer."
+
+And, addressing Patrice Belval with a questioning air:
+
+"Captain? . . ."
+
+Patrice pretended not to understand:
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, "we will take Mme. Essarès away. Her presence, as
+you say, is unnecessary. Only I must first . . ."
+
+He moved aside to avoid his interlocutor, and, perceiving that the group
+of magistrates had opened out a little, stepped forward. What he now saw
+explained Coralie's fainting-fit and the servant's agitation. He himself
+felt his flesh creep at a spectacle which was infinitely more horrible
+than that of the evening before.
+
+On the floor, near the fireplace, almost at the place where he had
+undergone his torture, Essarès Bey lay upon his back. He was wearing the
+same clothes as on the previous day: a brown-velvet smoking-suit with a
+braided jacket. His head and shoulders had been covered with a napkin.
+But one of the men standing around, a divisional surgeon no doubt, was
+holding up the napkin with one hand and pointing to the dead man's face
+with the other, while he offered an explanation in a low voice.
+
+And that face . . . but it was hardly the word for the unspeakable mass
+of flesh, part of which seemed to be charred while the other part formed
+no more than a bloodstained pulp, mixed with bits of bone and skin,
+hairs and a broken eye-ball.
+
+"Oh," Patrice blurted out, "how horrible! He was killed and fell with
+his head right in the fire. That's how they found him, I suppose?"
+
+The man who had already spoken to him and who appeared to be the most
+important figure present came up to him once more:
+
+"May I ask who you are?" he demanded.
+
+"Captain Belval, sir, a friend of Mme. Essarès, one of the wounded
+officers whose lives she has helped to save . . ."
+
+"That may be, sir," replied the important figure, "but you can't stay
+here. Nobody must stay here, for that matter. Monsieur le commissaire,
+please order every one to leave the room, except the doctor, and have
+the door guarded. Let no one enter on any pretext whatever. . . ."
+
+"Sir," Patrice insisted, "I have some very serious information to
+communicate."
+
+"I shall be pleased to receive it, captain, but later on. You must
+excuse me now."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+TWENTY-THREE MINUTES PAST TWELVE
+
+
+The great hall that ran from Rue Raynouard to the upper terrace of the
+garden was filled to half its extent by a wide staircase and divided the
+Essarès house into two parts communicating only by way of the hall.
+
+On the left were the drawing-room and the library, which was followed by
+an independent block containing a private staircase. On the right were a
+billiard-room and the dining-room, both with lower ceilings. Above these
+were Essarès Bey's bedroom, on the street side, and Coralie's,
+overlooking the garden. Beyond was the servants' wing, where old Siméon
+also used to sleep.
+
+Patrice was asked to wait in the billiard-room, with the Senegalese. He
+had been there about a quarter of an hour when Siméon and the maid were
+shown in.
+
+The old secretary seemed quite paralyzed by the death of his employer
+and was holding forth under his breath, making queer gestures as he
+spoke. Patrice asked him how things were going; and the old fellow
+whispered in his ear:
+
+"It's not over yet . . . There's something to fear . . . to fear! . . .
+To-day . . . presently."
+
+"Presently?" asked Patrice.
+
+"Yes . . . yes," said the old man, trembling.
+
+He said nothing more. As for the housemaid, she readily told her story
+in reply to Patrice' questions:
+
+"The first surprise, sir, this morning was that there was no butler, no
+footman, no porter. All the three were gone. Then, at half-past six, M.
+Siméon came and told us from the master that the master had locked
+himself in his library and that he wasn't to be disturbed even for
+breakfast. The mistress was not very well. She had her chocolate at nine
+o'clock. . . . At ten o'clock she went out with M. Siméon. Then, after
+we had done the bedrooms, we never left the kitchen. Eleven o'clock
+came, twelve . . . and, just as the hour was striking, we heard a loud
+ring at the front-door. I looked out of the window. There was a motor,
+with four gentlemen inside. I went to the door. The commissary of police
+explained who he was and wanted to see the master. I showed them the
+way. The library-door was locked. We knocked: no answer. We shook it: no
+answer. In the end, one of the gentlemen, who knew how, picked the lock.
+. . . Then . . . then . . . you can imagine what we saw. . . . But you
+can't, it was much worse, because the poor master at that moment had his
+head almost under the grate. . . . Oh, what scoundrels they must have
+been! . . . For they did kill him, didn't they? I know one of the
+gentlemen said at once that the master had died of a stroke and fallen
+into the fire. Only my firm belief is . . ."
+
+Old Siméon had listened without speaking, with his head still half
+wrapped up, showing only his bristly gray beard and his eyes hidden
+behind their yellow spectacles. But at this point of the story he gave
+a little chuckle, came up to Patrice and said in his ear:
+
+"There's something to fear . . . to fear! . . . Mme. Coralie. . . . Make
+her go away at once . . . make her go away. . . . If not, it'll be the
+worse for her. . . ."
+
+Patrice shuddered and tried to question him, but could learn nothing
+more. Besides, the old man did not remain. A policeman came to fetch him
+and took him to the library.
+
+His evidence lasted a long time. It was followed by the depositions of
+the cook and the housemaid. Next, Coralie's evidence was taken, in her
+own room. At four o'clock another car arrived. Patrice saw two gentlemen
+pass into the hall, with everybody bowing very low before them. He
+recognized the minister of justice and the minister of the interior.
+They conferred in the library for half an hour and went away again.
+
+At last, shortly before five o'clock, a policeman came for Patrice and
+showed him up to the first floor. The man tapped at a door and stood
+aside. Patrice entered a small boudoir, lit up by a wood fire by which
+two persons were seated: Coralie, to whom he bowed, and, opposite her,
+the gentleman who had spoken to him on his arrival and who seemed to be
+directing the whole enquiry.
+
+He was a man of about fifty, with a thickset body and a heavy face, slow
+of movement, but with bright, intelligent eyes.
+
+"The examining-magistrate, I presume, sir?" asked Patrice.
+
+"No," he replied, "I am M. Masseron, a retired magistrate, specially
+appointed to clear up this affair . . . not to examine it, as you
+think, for it does not seem to me that there is anything to examine."
+
+"What?" cried Patrice, in great surprise. "Nothing to examine?"
+
+He looked at Coralie, who kept her eyes fixed upon him attentively. Then
+she turned them on M. Masseron, who resumed:
+
+"I have no doubt, Captain Belval, that, when we have said what we have
+to say, we shall be agreed at all points . . . just as madame and I are
+already agreed."
+
+"I don't doubt it either," said Patrice. "All the same, I am afraid that
+many of those points remain unexplained."
+
+"Certainly, but we shall find an explanation, we shall find it together.
+Will you please tell me what you know?"
+
+Patrice waited for a moment and then said:
+
+"I will not disguise my astonishment, sir. The story which I have to
+tell is of some importance; and yet there is no one here to take it
+down. Is it not to count as evidence given on oath, as a deposition
+which I shall have to sign?"
+
+"You yourself, captain, shall determine the value of your words and the
+innuendo which you wish them to bear. For the moment, we will look on
+this as a preliminary conversation, as an exchange of views relating to
+facts . . . touching which Mme. Essarès has given me, I believe, the
+same information that you will be able to give me."
+
+Patrice did not reply at once. He had a vague impression that there was
+a private understanding between Coralie and the magistrate and that, in
+face of that understanding, he, both by his presence and by his zeal,
+was playing the part of an intruder whom they would gladly have
+dismissed. He resolved therefore to maintain an attitude of reserve
+until the magistrate had shown his hand.
+
+"Of course," he said, "I daresay madame has told you. So you know of the
+conversation which I overheard yesterday at the restaurant?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the attempt to kidnap Mme. Essarès?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the murder? . . ."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mme. Essarès has described to you the blackmailing scene that took
+place last night, with M. Essarès for a victim, the details of the
+torture, the death of the colonel, the handing over of the four
+millions, the conversation on the telephone between M. Essarès and a
+certain Grégoire and, lastly, the threats uttered against madame by her
+husband?"
+
+"Yes, Captain Belval, I know all this, that is to say, all that you
+know; and I know, in addition, all that I discovered through my own
+investigations."
+
+"Of course, of course," Patrice repeated. "I see that my story becomes
+superfluous and that you are in possession of all the necessary factors
+to enable you to draw your conclusions." And, continuing to put rather
+than answer questions, he added, "May I ask what inference you have
+arrived at?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, captain, my inferences are not definite.
+However, until I receive some proof to the contrary, I propose to remain
+satisfied with the actual words of a letter which M. Essarès wrote to
+his wife at about twelve o'clock this morning and which we found lying
+on his desk, unfinished. Mme. Essarès asked me to read it and, if
+necessary, to communicate the contents to you. Listen."
+
+M. Masseron proceeded to read the letter aloud:
+
+      "_Coralie_,
+
+      "You were wrong yesterday to attribute my departure to
+      reasons which I dared not acknowledge; and perhaps I
+      also was wrong not to defend myself more convincingly
+      against your accusation. The only motive for my
+      departure is the hatred with which I am surrounded.
+      You have seen how fierce it is. In the face of these
+      enemies who are seeking to despoil me by every
+      possible means, my only hope of salvation lies in
+      flight. That is why I am going away.
+
+      "But let me remind you, Coralie, of my clearly
+      expressed wish. You are to join me at the first
+      summons. If you do not leave Paris then, nothing shall
+      protect you against my lawful resentment: nothing, not
+      even my death. I have made all my arrangements so
+      that, even in the contingency . . ."
+
+"The letter ends there," said M. Masseron, handing it back to Coralie,
+"and we know by an unimpeachable sign that the last lines were written
+immediately before M. Essarès' death, because, in falling, he upset a
+little clock which stood on his desk and which marked twenty-three
+minutes past twelve. I assume that he felt unwell and that, on trying to
+rise, he was seized with a fit of giddiness and fell to the floor.
+Unfortunately, the fireplace was near, with a fierce fire blazing in it;
+his head struck the grate; and the wound that resulted was so deep--the
+surgeon testified to this--that he fainted. Then the fire close at hand
+did its work . . . with the effects which you have seen. . . ."
+
+Patrice had listened in amazement to this unexpected explanation:
+
+"Then in your opinion," he asked, "M. Essarès died of an accident? He
+was not murdered?"
+
+"Murdered? Certainly not! We have no clue to support any such theory."
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"Captain Belval, you are the victim of an association of ideas which, I
+admit, is perfectly justifiable. Ever since yesterday you have been
+witnessing a series of tragic incidents; and your imagination naturally
+leads you to the most tragic solution, that of murder.
+Only--reflect--why should a murder have been committed? And by whom? By
+Bournef and his friends? With what object? They were crammed full with
+bank-notes; and, even admitting that the man called Grégoire recovered
+those millions from them, they would certainly not have got them back by
+killing M. Essarès. Then again, how would they have entered the house?
+And how can they have gone out? . . . No, captain, you must excuse me,
+but M. Essarès died an accidental death. The facts are undeniable; and
+this is the opinion of the divisional surgeon, who will draw up his
+report in that sense."
+
+Patrice turned to Coralie:
+
+"Is it Mme. Essarès' opinion also?"
+
+She reddened slightly and answered:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And old Siméon's?"
+
+"Oh," replied the magistrate, "old Siméon is wandering in his mind! To
+listen to him, you would think that everything was about to happen all
+over again, that Mme. Essarès is threatened with danger and that she
+ought to take to flight at once. That is all that I have been able to
+get out of him. However, he took me to an old disused door that opens
+out of the garden on a lane running at right angles with the Rue
+Raynouard; and here he showed me first the watch-dog's dead body and
+next some footprints between the door and the flight of steps near the
+library. But you know those foot-prints, do you not? They belong to you
+and your Senegalese. As for the death of the watch-dog, I can put that
+down to your Senegalese, can't I?"
+
+Patrice was beginning to understand. The magistrate's reticence, his
+explanation, his agreement with Coralie: all this was gradually becoming
+plain. He put the question frankly:
+
+"So there was no murder?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then there will be no magistrate's examination?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And no talk about the matter; it will all be kept quiet, in short, and
+forgotten?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+Captain Belval began to walk up and down, as was his habit. He now
+remembered Essarès' prophecy:
+
+"I sha'n't be arrested. . . . If I am, I shall be let go. . . . The
+matter will be hushed up. . . ."
+
+Essarès was right. The hand of justice was arrested; and there was no
+way for Coralie to escape silent complicity.
+
+Patrice was intensely annoyed by the manner in which the case was being
+handled. It was certain that a compact had been concluded between
+Coralie and M. Masseron. He suspected the magistrate of circumventing
+Coralie and inducing her to sacrifice her own interests to other
+considerations. To effect this, the first thing was to get rid of him,
+Patrice.
+
+"Ugh!" said Patrice to himself. "I'm fairly sick of this sportsman, with
+his cool ironical ways. It looks as if he were doing a considerable
+piece of thimblerigging at my expense."
+
+He restrained himself, however, and, with a pretense of wanting to keep
+on good terms with the magistrate, came and sat down beside him:
+
+"You must forgive me, sir," he said, "for insisting in what may appear
+to you an indiscreet fashion. But my conduct is explained not only by
+such sympathy or feeling as I entertain for Mme. Essarès at a moment in
+her life when she is more lonely than ever, a sympathy and feeling which
+she seems to repulse even more firmly than she did before. It is also
+explained by certain mysterious links which unite us to each other and
+which go back to a period too remote for our eyes to focus. Has Mme.
+Essarès told you those details? In my opinion, they are most important;
+and I cannot help associating them with the events that interest us."
+
+M. Masseron glanced at Coralie, who nodded. He answered:
+
+"Yes, Mme. Essarès has informed me and even . . ."
+
+He hesitated once more and again consulted Coralie, who flushed and
+seemed put out of countenance. M. Masseron, however, waited for a reply
+which would enable him to proceed. She ended by saying, in a low voice:
+
+"Captain Belval is entitled to know what we have discovered. The truth
+belongs as much to him as to me; and I have no right to keep it from
+him. Pray speak, monsieur."
+
+"I doubt if it is even necessary to speak," said the magistrate. "It
+will be enough, I think, to show the captain this photograph-album which
+I have found. Here you are, Captain Belval."
+
+And he handed Patrice a very slender album, covered in gray canvas and
+fastened with an india-rubber band.
+
+Patrice took it with a certain anxiety. But what he saw on opening it
+was so utterly unexpected that he gave an exclamation:
+
+"It's incredible!"
+
+On the first page, held in place by their four corners, were two
+photographs: one, on the right, representing a small boy in an Eton
+jacket; the other, on the left, representing a very little girl. There
+was an inscription under each. On the right: "Patrice, at ten." On the
+left: "Coralie, at three."
+
+Moved beyond expression, Patrice turned the leaf. On the second page
+they appeared again, he at the age of fifteen, she at the age of eight.
+And he saw himself at nineteen and at twenty-three and at twenty-eight,
+always accompanied by Coralie, first as a little girl, then as a young
+girl, next as a woman.
+
+"This is incredible!" he cried. "How is it possible? Here are portraits
+of myself which I had never seen, amateur photographs obviously, which
+trace my whole life. Here's one when I was doing my military training.
+. . . Here I am on horseback . . . Who can have ordered these
+photographs? And who can have collected them together with yours,
+madame?"
+
+He fixed his eyes on Coralie, who evaded their questioning gaze and
+lowered her head as though the close connection between their two lives,
+to which those pages bore witness, had shaken her to the very depths of
+her being.
+
+"Who can have brought them together?" he repeated. "Do you know? And
+where does the album come from?"
+
+M. Masseron supplied the answer:
+
+"It was the surgeon who found it. M. Essarès wore a vest under his
+shirt; and the album was in an inner pocket, a pocket sewn inside the
+vest. The surgeon felt the boards through it when he was undressing M.
+Essarès' body."
+
+This time, Patrice's and Coralie's eyes met. The thought that M. Essarès
+had been collecting both their photographs during the past twenty years
+and that he wore them next to his breast and that he had lived and died
+with them upon him, this thought amazed them so much that they did not
+even try to fathom its strange significance.
+
+"Are you sure of what you are saying, sir?" asked Patrice.
+
+"I was there," said M. Masseron. "I was present at the discovery.
+Besides, I myself made another which confirms this one and completes it
+in a really surprising fashion. I found a pendant, cut out of a solid
+block of amethyst and held in a setting of filigree-work."
+
+"What's that?" cried Captain Belval. "What's that? A pendant? An
+amethyst pendant?"
+
+"Look for yourself, sir," suggested the magistrate, after once more
+consulting Mme. Essarès with a glance.
+
+And he handed Captain Belval an amethyst pendant, larger than the ball
+formed by joining the two halves which Coralie and Patrice possessed,
+she on her rosary and he on his bunch of seals; and this new ball was
+encircled with a specimen of gold filigree-work exactly like that on the
+rosary and on the seal.
+
+The setting served as a clasp.
+
+"Am I to open it?" he asked.
+
+Coralie nodded. He opened the pendant. The inside was divided by a
+movable glass disk, which separated two miniature photographs, one of
+Coralie as a nurse, the other of himself, wounded, in an officer's
+uniform.
+
+Patrice reflected, with pale cheeks. Presently he asked:
+
+"And where does this pendant come from? Did you find it, sir?"
+
+"Yes, Captain Belval."
+
+"Where?"
+
+The magistrate seemed to hesitate. Coralie's attitude gave Patrice the
+impression that she was unaware of this detail. M. Masseron at last
+said:
+
+"I found it in the dead man's hand."
+
+"In the dead man's hand? In M. Essarès' hand?"
+
+Patrice had given a start, as though under an unexpected blow, and was
+now leaning over the magistrate, greedily awaiting a reply which he
+wanted to hear for the second time before accepting it as certain.
+
+"Yes, in his hand. I had to force back the clasped fingers in order to
+release it."
+
+Belval stood up and, striking the table with his fist, exclaimed:
+
+"Well, sir, I will tell you one thing which I was keeping back as a last
+argument to prove to you that my collaboration is of use; and this thing
+becomes of great importance after what we have just learnt. Sir, this
+morning some one asked to speak to me on the telephone; and I had hardly
+answered the call when this person, who seemed greatly excited, was the
+victim of a murderous assault, committed in my hearing. And, amid the
+sound of the scuffle and the cries of agony, I caught the following
+words, which the unhappy man insisted on trying to get to me as so many
+last instructions: 'Patrice! . . . Coralie! . . . The amethyst pendant.
+. . . Yes, I have it on me. . . . The pendant. . . . Ah, it's too late!
+. . . I should so much have liked. . . . Patrice. . . . Coralie. . . .'
+There's what I heard, sir, and here are the two facts which we cannot
+escape. This morning, at nineteen minutes past seven, a man was murdered
+having upon him an amethyst pendant. This is the first undeniable fact.
+A few hours later, at twenty-three minutes past twelve, this same
+amethyst pendant is discovered clutched in the hand of another man. This
+is the second undeniable fact. Place these facts side by side and you
+are bound to come to the conclusion that the first murder, the one of
+which I caught the distant echo, was committed here, in this house, in
+the same library which, since yesterday evening, witnessed the end of
+every scene in the tragedy which we are contemplating."
+
+This revelation, which in reality amounted to a fresh accusation against
+Essarès, seemed to affect the magistrate profoundly. Patrice had flung
+himself into the discussion with a passionate vehemence and a logical
+reasoning which it was impossible to disregard without evident
+insincerity.
+
+Coralie had turned aside slightly and Patrice could not see her face;
+but he suspected her dismay in the presence of all this infamy and
+shame.
+
+M. Masseron raised an objection:
+
+"Two undeniable facts, you say, Captain Belval? As to the first point,
+let me remark that we have not found the body of the man who is supposed
+to have been murdered at nineteen minutes past seven this morning."
+
+"It will be found in due course."
+
+"Very well. Second point: as regards the amethyst pendant discovered in
+Essarès' hand, how can we tell that Essarès Bey found it in the murdered
+man's hand and not somewhere else? For, after all, we do not know if he
+was at home at that time and still less if he was in his library."
+
+"But I do know."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I telephoned to him a few minutes later and he answered. More than
+that, to sweep away any trace of doubt, he told me that he had rung me
+up but that he had been cut off."
+
+M. Masseron thought for a moment and then said:
+
+"Did he go out this morning?"
+
+"Ask Mme. Essarès."
+
+Without turning round, manifestly wishing to avoid Belval's eyes,
+Coralie answered:
+
+"I don't think that he went out. The suit he was wearing at the time of
+his death was an indoor suit."
+
+"Did you see him after last night?"
+
+"He came and knocked at my room three times this morning, between seven
+and nine o'clock. I did not open the door. At about eleven o'clock I
+started off alone; I heard him call old Siméon and tell him to go with
+me. Siméon caught me up in the street. That is all I know."
+
+A prolonged silence ensued. Each of the three was meditating upon this
+strange series of adventures. In the end, M. Masseron, who had realized
+that a man of Captain Belval's stamp was not the sort to be easily
+thrust aside, spoke in the tone of one who, before coming to terms,
+wishes to know exactly what his adversary's last word is likely to be:
+
+"Let us come to the point, captain. You are building up a theory which
+strikes me as very vague. What is it precisely? And what are you
+proposing to do if I decline to accept it? I have asked you two very
+plain questions. Do you mind answering them?"
+
+"I will answer them, sir, as plainly as you put them."
+
+He went up to the magistrate and said:
+
+"Here, sir, is the field of battle and of attack--yes, of attack, if
+need be--which I select. A man who used to know me, who knew Mme.
+Essarès as a child and who was interested in both of us, a man who used
+to collect our portraits at different ages, who had reasons for loving
+us unknown to me, who sent me the key of that garden and who was making
+arrangements to bring us together for a purpose which he would have told
+us, this man was murdered at the moment when he was about to execute
+his plan. Now everything tells me that he was murdered by M. Essarès. I
+am therefore resolved to lodge an information, whatever the results of
+my action may be. And believe me, sir, my charge will not be hushed up.
+There are always means of making one's self heard . . . even if I am
+reduced to shouting the truth from the house-tops."
+
+M. Masseron burst out laughing:
+
+"By Jove, captain, but you're letting yourself go!"
+
+"I'm behaving according to my conscience; and Mme. Essarès, I feel sure,
+will forgive me. She knows that I am acting for her good. She knows that
+all will be over with her if this case is hushed up and if the
+authorities do not assist her. She knows that the enemies who threaten
+her are implacable. They will stop at nothing to attain their object and
+to do away with her, for she stands in their way. And the terrible thing
+about it is that the most clear-seeing eyes are unable to make out what
+that object is. We are playing the most formidable game against these
+enemies; and we do not even know what the stakes are. Only the police
+can discover those stakes."
+
+M. Masseron waited for a second or two and then, laying his hand on
+Patrice's shoulder, said, calmly:
+
+"And, suppose the authorities knew what the stakes were?"
+
+Patrice looked at him in surprise:
+
+"What? Do you mean to say you know?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"And can you tell me?"
+
+"Oh, well, if you force me to!"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Not much! A trifle!"
+
+"But what sort of trifle?"
+
+"A thousand million francs."
+
+"A thousand millions?"
+
+"Just that. A thousand millions, of which two-thirds, I regret to say,
+if not three-quarters, had already left France before the war. But the
+remaining two hundred and fifty or three hundred millions are worth more
+than a thousand millions all the same, for a very good reason."
+
+"What reason?"
+
+"They happen to be in gold."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ESSARÈS BEY'S WORK
+
+
+This time Captain Belval seemed to relax to some extent. He vaguely
+perceived the consideration that compelled the authorities to wage the
+battle prudently.
+
+"Are you sure?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I was instructed to investigate this matter two years ago; and my
+enquiries proved that really remarkable exports of gold were being
+effected from France. But, I confess, it is only since my conversation
+with Mme. Essarès that I have seen where the leakage came from and who
+it was that set on foot, all over France, down to the least important
+market-towns, the formidable organization through which the
+indispensable metal was made to leave the country."
+
+"Then Mme. Essarès knew?"
+
+"No, but she suspected a great deal; and last night, before you arrived,
+she overheard some words spoken between Essarès and his assailants which
+she repeated to me, thus giving me the key to the riddle. I should have
+been glad to work out the complete solution without your assistance--for
+one thing, those were the orders of the minister of the interior; and
+Mme. Essarès displayed the same wish--but your impetuosity overcomes my
+hesitation; and, since I can't manage to get rid of you, Captain
+Belval, I will tell you the whole story frankly . . . especially as your
+cooperation is not to be despised."
+
+"I am all ears," said Patrice, who was burning to know more.
+
+"Well, the motive force of the plot was here, in this house. Essarès
+Bey, president of the Franco-Oriental Bank, 6, Rue Lafayette, apparently
+an Egyptian, in reality a Turk, enjoyed the greatest influence in the
+Paris financial world. He had been naturalized an Englishman, but had
+kept up secret relations with the former possessors of Egypt; and he had
+received instructions from a foreign power, which I am not yet able to
+name with certainty, to bleed--there is no other word for it--to bleed
+France of all the gold that he could cause to flow into his coffers.
+According to documents which I have seen, he succeeded in exporting in
+this way some seven hundred million francs in two years. A last
+consignment was preparing when war was declared. You can understand that
+thenceforth such important sums could not be smuggled out of the country
+so easily as in times of peace. The railway-wagons are inspected on the
+frontiers; the outgoing vessels are searched in the harbors. In short,
+the gold was not sent away. Those two hundred and fifty or three hundred
+millions remained in France. Ten months passed; and the inevitable
+happened, which was that Essarès Bey, having this fabulous treasure at
+his disposal, clung to it, came gradually to look upon it as his own
+and, in the end, resolved to appropriate it. Only there were
+accomplices. . . ."
+
+"The men I saw last night?"
+
+"Yes, half-a-dozen shady Levantines, sham naturalized French citizens,
+more or less well-disguised Bulgarians, secret agents of the little
+German courts in the Balkans. This gang ran provincial branches of
+Essarès' bank. It had in its pay, on Essarès' account, hundreds of minor
+agents, who scoured the villages, visited the fairs, were
+hail-fellow-well-met with the peasants, offered them bank-notes and
+government securities in exchange for French gold and trousered all
+their savings. When war broke out the gang shut up shop and gathered
+round Essarès Bey, who also had closed his offices in the Rue
+Lafayette."
+
+"What happened then?"
+
+"Things that we don't know. No doubt the accomplices learnt from their
+governments that the last despatch of gold had never taken place; and no
+doubt they also guessed that Essarès Bey was trying to keep for himself
+the three hundred millions collected by the gang. One thing is certain,
+that a struggle began between the former partners, a fierce, implacable
+struggle, the accomplices wanting their share of the plunder, while
+Essarès Bey was resolved to part with none of it and pretended that the
+millions had left the country. Yesterday the struggle attained its
+culminating-point. In the afternoon the accomplices tried to get hold of
+Mme. Essarès so that they might have a hostage to use against her
+husband. In the evening . . . in the evening you yourself witnessed the
+final episode."
+
+"But why yesterday evening rather than another?"
+
+"Because the accomplices had every reason to think that the millions
+were intended to disappear yesterday evening. Though they did not know
+the methods employed by Essarès Bey when he made his last remittances,
+they believed that each of the remittances, or rather each removal of
+the sacks, was preceded by a signal."
+
+"Yes, a shower of sparks, was it not?"
+
+"Exactly. In a corner of the garden are some old conservatories, above
+which stands the furnace that used to heat them. This grimy furnace,
+full of soot and rubbish, sends forth, when you light it, flakes of fire
+and sparks which are seen at a distance and serve as an intimation.
+Essarès Bey lit it last night himself. The accomplices at once took
+alarm and came prepared to go any lengths."
+
+"And Essarès' plan failed."
+
+"Yes. But so did theirs. The colonel is dead. The others were only able
+to get hold of a few bundles of notes which have probably been taken
+from them by this time. But the struggle was not finished; and its dying
+agony has been a most shocking tragedy. According to your statement, a
+man who knew you and who was seeking to get into touch with you, was
+killed at nineteen minutes past seven, most likely by Essarès Bey, who
+dreaded his intervention. And, five hours later, at twenty-three past
+twelve, Essarès Bey himself was murdered, presumably by one of his
+accomplices. There is the whole story, Captain Belval. And, now that you
+know as much of it as I do, don't you think that the investigation of
+this case should remain secret and be pursued not quite in accordance
+with the ordinary rules?"
+
+After a moment's reflection Patrice said:
+
+"Yes, I agree."
+
+"There can be no doubt about it!" cried M. Masseron. "Not only will it
+serve no purpose to publish this story of gold which has disappeared and
+which can't be found, which would startle the public and excite their
+imaginations, but you will readily imagine that an operation which
+consisted in draining off such a quantity of gold in two years cannot
+have been effected without compromising a regrettable number of people.
+I feel certain that my own enquiries will reveal a series of weak
+concessions and unworthy bargains on the part of certain more or less
+important banks and credit-houses, transactions on which I do not wish
+to insist, but which it would be the gravest of blunders to publish.
+Therefore, silence."
+
+"But is silence possible?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Bless my soul, there are a good few corpses to be explained away!
+Colonel Fakhi's, for instance?"
+
+"Suicide."
+
+"Mustapha's, which you will discover or which you have already
+discovered in the Galliéra garden?"
+
+"Found dead."
+
+"Essarès Bey's?"
+
+"An accident."
+
+"So that all these manifestations of the same power will remain
+separated?"
+
+"There is nothing to show the link that connects them."
+
+"Perhaps the public will think otherwise."
+
+"The public will think what we wish it to think. This is war-time."
+
+"The press will speak."
+
+"The press will do nothing of the kind. We have the censorship."
+
+"But, if some fact or, rather, a fresh crime . . . ?"
+
+"Why should there be a fresh crime? The matter is finished, at least on
+its active and dramatic side. The chief actors are dead. The curtain
+falls on the murder of Essarès Bey. As for the supernumeraries, Bournef
+and the others, we shall have them stowed away in an internment-camp
+before a week is past. We therefore find ourselves in the presence of a
+certain number of millions, with no owner, with no one who dares to
+claim them, on which France is entitled to lay hands. I shall devote my
+activity to securing the money for the republic."
+
+Patrice Belval shook his head:
+
+"Mme. Essarès remains, sir. We must not forget her husband's threats."
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"No matter, the threats are there. Old Siméon tells you so in a striking
+fashion."
+
+"He's half mad."
+
+"Exactly, his brain retains the impression of great and imminent danger.
+No, the struggle is not ended. Perhaps indeed it is only beginning."
+
+"Well, captain, are we not here? Make it your business to protect and
+defend Mme. Essarès by all the means in your power and by all those
+which I place at your disposal. Our collaboration will be uninterrupted,
+because my task lies here and because, if the battle--which you expect
+and I do not--takes place, it will be within the walls of this house and
+garden."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"Some words which Mme. Essarès overheard last night. The colonel
+repeated several times, 'The gold is here, Essarès.' He added, 'For
+years past, your car brought to this house all that there was at your
+bank in the Rue Lafayette. Siméon, you and the chauffeur used to let the
+sacks down the last grating on the left. How you used to send it away I
+do not know. But of what was here on the day when the war broke out, of
+the seventeen or eighteen hundred bags which they were expecting out
+yonder, none has left your place. I suspected the trick; and we kept
+watch night and day. The gold is here.'"
+
+"And have you no clue?"
+
+"Not one. Or this at most; but I attach comparatively little value to
+it."
+
+He took a crumpled paper from his pocket, unfolded it and continued:
+
+"Besides the pendant, Essarès Bey held in his hand this bit of blotted
+paper, on which you can see a few straggling, hurriedly-written words.
+The only ones that are more or less legible are these: 'golden
+triangle.' What this golden triangle means, what it has to do with the
+case in hand, I can't for the present tell. The most that I am able to
+presume is that, like the pendant, the scrap of paper was snatched by
+Essarès Bey from the man who died at nineteen minutes past seven this
+morning and that, when he himself was killed at twenty-three minutes
+past twelve, he was occupied in examining it."
+
+"And then there is the album," said Patrice, making his last point. "You
+see how all the details are linked together. You may safely believe that
+it is all one case."
+
+"Very well," said M. Masseron. "One case in two parts. You, captain, had
+better follow up the second. I grant you that nothing could be stranger
+than this discovery of photographs of Mme. Essarès and yourself in the
+same album and in the same pendant. It sets a problem the solution of
+which will no doubt bring us very near to the truth. We shall meet again
+soon, Captain Belval, I hope. And, once more, make use of me and of my
+men."
+
+He shook Patrice by the hand. Patrice held him back:
+
+"I shall make use of you, sir, as you suggest. But is this not the time
+to take the necessary precautions?"
+
+"They are taken, captain. We are in occupation of the house."
+
+"Yes . . . yes . . . I know; but, all the same . . . I have a sort of
+presentiment that the day will not end without. . . . Remember old
+Siméon's strange words. . . ."
+
+M. Masseron began to laugh:
+
+"Come, Captain Belval, we mustn't exaggerate things. If any enemies
+remain for us to fight, they must stand in great need, for the moment,
+of taking council with themselves. We'll talk about this to-morrow,
+shall we, captain?"
+
+He shook hands with Patrice again, bowed to Mme. Essarès and left the
+room.
+
+Belval had at first made a discreet movement to go out with him. He
+stopped at the door and walked back again. Mme. Essarès, who seemed not
+to hear him, sat motionless, bent in two, with her head turned away from
+him.
+
+"Coralie," he said.
+
+She did not reply; and he uttered her name a second time, hoping that
+again she might not answer, for her silence suddenly appeared to him to
+be the one thing in the world for him to desire. That silence no longer
+implied either constraint or rebellion. Coralie accepted the fact that
+he was there, by her side, as a helpful friend. And Patrice no longer
+thought of all the problems that harassed him, nor of the murders that
+had mounted up, one after another, around them, nor of the dangers that
+might still encompass them. He thought only of Coralie's yielding
+gentleness.
+
+"Don't answer, Coralie, don't say a word. It is for me to speak. I must
+tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me
+out of this house . . . out of this house and out of your very life."
+
+He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and
+his hand just touched Coralie's hair.
+
+"Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps
+you away from me. You blush at having been that man's wife; and this
+makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been
+guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that
+I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and
+him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some
+machination, in order to force your consent to the marriage! No,
+Coralie, there is something else; and I will tell you what it is. There
+is something else. . . ."
+
+He was bending over her still more. He saw her beautiful profile lit up
+by the blazing logs and, speaking with increasing fervor and adopting
+the familiar _tu_ and _toi_ which, in his mouth, retained a note of
+affectionate respect, he cried:
+
+"Am I to speak, Little Mother Coralie? I needn't, need I? You have
+understood; and you read yourself clearly. Ah, I feel you trembling
+from head to foot! Yes, yes, I tell you, I knew your secret from the
+very first day. From the very first day you loved your great beggar of a
+wounded man, all scarred and maimed though he was. Hush! Don't deny it!
+. . . Yes, I understand: you are rather shocked to hear such words as
+these spoken to-day. I ought perhaps to have waited. And yet why should
+I? I am asking you nothing. I know; and that is enough for me. I sha'n't
+speak of it again for a long time to come, until the inevitable hour
+arrives when you are forced to tell it to me yourself. Till then I shall
+keep silence. But our love will always be between us; and it will be
+exquisite, Little Mother Coralie, it will be exquisite for me to know
+that you love me. Coralie. . . . There, now you're crying! And you would
+still deny the truth? Why, when you cry--I know you, Little Mother--it
+means that your dear heart is overflowing with tenderness and love! You
+are crying? Ah, Little Mother, I never thought you loved me to that
+extent!"
+
+Patrice also had tears in his eyes. Coralie's were coursing down her
+pale cheeks; and he would have given much to kiss that wet face. But the
+least outward sign of affection appeared to him an offense at such a
+moment. He was content to gaze at her passionately.
+
+And, as he did so, he received an impression that her thoughts were
+becoming detached from his own, that her eyes were being attracted by an
+unexpected sight and that, amid the great silence of their love, she was
+listening to something that he himself had not heard.
+
+And suddenly he too heard that thing, though it was almost
+imperceptible. It was not so much a sound as the sensation of a presence
+mingling with the distant rumble of the town. What could be happening?
+
+The light had begun to fade, without his noticing it. Also unperceived
+by Patrice, Mme. Essarès had opened the window a little way, for the
+boudoir was small and the heat of the fire was becoming oppressive.
+Nevertheless, the two casements were almost touching. It was at this
+that she was staring; and it was from there that the danger threatened.
+
+Patrice's first impulse was to run to the window, but he restrained
+himself. The danger was becoming defined. Outside, in the twilight, he
+distinguished through the slanting panes a human form. Next, he saw
+between the two casements something which gleamed in the light of the
+fire and which looked like the barrel of a revolver.
+
+"Coralie is done for," he thought, "if I allow it to be suspected for an
+instant that I am on my guard."
+
+She was in fact opposite the window, with no obstacle intervening. He
+therefore said aloud, in a careless tone:
+
+"Coralie, you must be a little tired. We will say good-by."
+
+At the same time, he went round her chair to protect her.
+
+But he had not the time to complete his movement. She also no doubt had
+seen the glint of the revolver, for she drew back abruptly, stammering:
+
+"Oh, Patrice! . . . Patrice! . . ."
+
+Two shots rang out, followed by a moan.
+
+"You're wounded!" cried Patrice, springing to her side.
+
+"No, no," she said, "but the fright . . ."
+
+"Oh, if he's touched you, the scoundrel!"
+
+"No, he hasn't."
+
+"Are you quite sure?"
+
+He lost thirty or forty seconds, switching on the electric light,
+looking at Coralie for signs of a wound and waiting in an agony of
+suspense for her to regain full consciousness. Only then did he rush to
+the window, open it wide and climb over the balcony. The room was on the
+first floor. There was plenty of lattice-work on the wall. But, because
+of his leg, Patrice had some difficulty in making his way down.
+
+Below, on the terrace, he caught his foot in the rungs of an overturned
+ladder. Next, he knocked against some policemen who were coming from the
+ground-floor. One of them shouted:
+
+"I saw the figure of a man making off that way."
+
+"Which way?" asked Patrice.
+
+The man was running in the direction of the lane. Patrice followed him.
+But, at that moment, from close beside the little door, there came
+shrill cries and the whimper of a choking voice:
+
+"Help! . . . Help! . . ."
+
+When Patrice came up, the policeman was already flashing his electric
+lantern over the ground; and they both saw a human form writhing in the
+shrubbery.
+
+"The door's open!" shouted Patrice. "The assassin has escaped! Go after
+him!"
+
+The policeman vanished down the lane; and, Ya-Bon appearing on the
+scene, Patrice gave him his orders:
+
+"Quick as you can, Ya-Bon! . . . If the policeman is going up the lane,
+you go down. Run! I'll look after the victim."
+
+All this time, Patrice was stooping low, flinging the light of the
+policeman's lantern on the man who lay struggling on the ground. He
+recognized old Siméon, nearly strangled, with a red-silk cord round his
+neck.
+
+"How do you feel?" he asked. "Can you understand what I'm saying?"
+
+He unfastened the cord and repeated his question. Siméon stuttered out a
+series of incoherent syllables and then suddenly began to sing and
+laugh, a very low, jerky laugh, alternating with hiccoughs. He had gone
+mad.
+
+When M. Masseron arrived, Patrice told him what had happened:
+
+"Do you really believe it's all over?" he asked.
+
+"No. You were right and I was wrong," said M. Masseron. "We must take
+every precaution to ensure Mme. Essarès' safety. The house shall be
+guarded all night."
+
+A few minutes later the policeman and Ya-Bon returned, after a vain
+search. The key that had served to open the door was found in the lane.
+It was exactly similar to the one in Patrice Belval's possession,
+equally old and equally rusty. The would-be murderer had thrown it away
+in the course of his flight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was seven o'clock when Patrice, accompanied by Ya-Bon, left the house
+in the Rue Raynouard and turned towards Neuilly. As usual, Patrice took
+Ya-Bon's arm and, leaning upon him for support as he walked, he said:
+
+"I can guess what you're thinking, Ya-Bon."
+
+Ya-Bon grunted.
+
+"That's it," said Captain Belval, in a tone of approval. "We are
+entirely in agreement all along the line. What strikes you first and
+foremost is the utter incapacity displayed by the police. A pack of
+addle-pates, you say? When you speak like that, Master Ya-Bon, you are
+talking impertinent nonsense, which, coming from you, does not astonish
+me and which might easily make me give you the punishment you deserve.
+But we will overlook it this time. Whatever you may say, the police do
+what they can, not to mention that, in war-time, they have other things
+to do than to occupy themselves with the mysterious relations between
+Captain Belval and Mme. Essarès. It is I therefore who will have to act;
+and I have hardly any one to reckon on but myself. Well, I wonder if I
+am a match for such adversaries. To think that here's one who has the
+cheek to come back to the house while it is being watched by the police,
+to put up a ladder, to listen no doubt to my conversation with M.
+Masseron and afterwards to what I said to Little Mother Coralie and,
+lastly, to send a couple of bullets whizzing past our ears! What do you
+say? Am I the man for the job? And could all the French police,
+overworked as they are, give me the indispensable assistance? No, the
+man I need for clearing up a thing like this is an exceptional sort of
+chap, one who unites every quality in himself, in short the type of man
+one never sees."
+
+Patrice leant more heavily on his companion's arm:
+
+"You, who know so many good people, haven't you the fellow I want
+concealed about your person? A genius of sorts? A demigod?"
+
+Ya-Bon grunted again, merrily this time, and withdrew his arm. He always
+carried a little electric lamp. Switching on the light, he put the
+handle between his teeth. Then he took a bit of chalk out of his
+jacket-pocket.
+
+A grimy, weather-beaten plaster wall ran along the street. Ya-Bon took
+his stand in front of the wall and, turning the light upon it, began to
+write with an unskilful hand, as though each letter cost him a
+measureless effort and as though the sum total of those letters were the
+only one that he had ever succeeded in composing and remembering. In
+this way he wrote two words which Patrice read out:
+
+     _Arsène Lupin._
+
+"Arsène Lupin," said Patrice, under his breath. And, looking at Ya-Bon
+in amazement, "Are you in your right mind? What do you mean by Arsène
+Lupin? Are you suggesting Arsène Lupin to me?"
+
+Ya-Bon nodded his head.
+
+"Arsène Lupin? Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes," Ya-Bon signified.
+
+Patrice then remembered that the Senegalese used to spend his days at
+the hospital getting his good-natured comrades to read all the
+adventures of Arsène Lupin aloud to him; and he grinned:
+
+"Yes, you know him as one knows somebody whose history one has read."
+
+"No," protested Ya-Bon.
+
+"Do you know him personally?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Get out, you silly fool! Arsène Lupin is dead. He threw himself into
+the sea from a rock;[2] and you pretend that you know him?"
+
+[Footnote 2: _813_. By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander Teixeira
+de Mattos.]
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you have met him since he died?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By Jove! And Master Ya-Bon's influence with Arsène Lupin is enough to
+make him come to life again and put himself out at a sign from Master
+Ya-Bon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I say! I had a high opinion of you as it was, but now there is nothing
+for me but to make you my bow. A friend of the late Arsène Lupin! We're
+going it! . . . And how long will it take you to place his ghost at our
+disposal? Six months? Three months? One month? A fortnight?"
+
+Ya-Bon made a gesture.
+
+"About a fortnight," Captain Belval translated. "Very well, evoke your
+friend's spirit; I shall be delighted to make his acquaintance. Only,
+upon my word, you must have a very poor idea of me to imagine that I
+need a collaborator! What next! Do you take me for a helpless
+dunderhead?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PATRICE AND CORALIE
+
+
+Everything happened as M. Masseron had foretold. The press did not
+speak. The public did not become excited. The various deaths were
+casually paragraphed. The funeral of Essarès Bey, the wealthy banker,
+passed unnoticed.
+
+But, on the day following the funeral, after Captain Belval, with the
+support of the police, had made an application to the military
+authorities, a new order of things was established in the house in the
+Rue Raynouard. It was recognized as Home No. 2 attached to the hospital
+in the Champs-Élysées; Mme. Essarès was appointed matron; and it became
+the residence of Captain Belval and his seven wounded men exclusively.
+
+Coralie, therefore, was the only woman remaining. The cook and housemaid
+were sent away. The seven cripples did all the work of the house. One
+acted as hall-porter, another as cook, a third as butler. Ya-Bon,
+promoted to parlor-maid, made it his business to wait on Little Mother
+Coralie. At night he slept in the passage outside her door. By day he
+mounted guard outside her window.
+
+"Let no one near that door or that window!" Patrice said to him. "Let no
+one in! You'll catch it if so much as a mosquito succeeds in entering
+her room."
+
+Nevertheless, Patrice was not easy in his mind. The enemy had given him
+too many proofs of reckless daring to let him imagine that he could take
+any steps to ensure her perfect protection. Danger always creeps in
+where it is least expected; and it was all the more difficult to ward
+off in that no one knew whence it threatened. Now that Essarès Bey was
+dead, who was continuing his work? Who had inherited the task of revenge
+upon Coralie announced in his last letter?
+
+M. Masseron had at once begun his work of investigation, but the
+dramatic side of the case seemed to leave him indifferent. Since he had
+not found the body of the man whose dying cries reached Patrice Belval's
+ears, since he had discovered no clue to the mysterious assailant who
+had fired at Patrice and Coralie later in the day, since he was not able
+to trace where the assailant had obtained his ladder, he dropped these
+questions and confined his efforts entirely to the search of the
+eighteen hundred bags of gold. These were all that concerned him.
+
+"We have every reason to believe that they are here," he said, "between
+the four sides of the quadrilateral formed by the garden and the house.
+Obviously, a bag of gold weighing a hundredweight does not take up as
+much room, by a long way, as a sack of coal of the same weight. But, for
+all that, eighteen hundred bags represent a cubic content; and a content
+like that is not easily concealed."
+
+In two days he had assured himself that the treasure was hidden neither
+in the house nor under the house. On the evenings when Essarès Bey's car
+brought the gold out of the coffers of the Franco-Oriental Bank to the
+Rue Raynouard, Essarès, the chauffeur and the man known as Grégoire
+used to pass a thick wire through the grating of which the accomplices
+spoke. This wire was found. Along the wire ran hooks, which were also
+found; and on these the bags were slung and afterwards stacked in a
+large cellar situated exactly under the library. It is needless to say
+that M. Masseron and his detectives devoted all their ingenuity and all
+the painstaking patience of which they were capable to the task of
+searching every corner of this cellar. Their efforts only established
+beyond doubt that it contained no secret, save that of a staircase which
+ran down from the library and which was closed at the top by a trap-door
+concealed by the carpet.
+
+In addition to the grating on the Rue Raynouard, there was another which
+overlooked the garden, on the level of the first terrace. These two
+openings were barricaded on the inside by very heavy shutters, so that
+it was an easy matter to stack thousands and thousands of rouleaus of
+gold in the cellar before sending them away.
+
+"But how were they sent away?" M. Masseron wondered. "That's the
+mystery. And why this intermediate stage in the basement, in the Rue
+Raynouard? Another mystery. And now we have Fakhi, Bournef and Co.
+declaring that, this time, it was not sent away, that the gold is here
+and that it can be found for the searching. We have searched the house.
+There is still the garden. Let us look there."
+
+It was a beautiful old garden and had once formed part of the
+wide-stretching estate where people were in the habit, at the end of the
+eighteenth century, of going to drink the Passy waters. With a
+two-hundred-yard frontage, it ran from the Rue Raynouard to the quay of
+the river-side and led, by four successive terraces, to an expanse of
+lawn as old as the rest of the garden, fringed with thickets of
+evergreens and shaded by groups of tall trees.
+
+But the beauty of the garden lay chiefly in its four terraces and in the
+view which they afforded of the river, the low ground on the left bank
+and the distant hills. They were united by twenty sets of steps; and
+twenty paths climbed from the one to the other, paths cut between the
+buttressing walls and sometimes hidden in the floods of ivy that dashed
+from top to bottom.
+
+Here and there a statue stood out, a broken column, or the fragments of
+a capital. The stone balcony that edged the upper terrace was still
+adorned with all its old terra-cotta vases. On this terrace also were
+the ruins of two little round temples where, in the old days, the
+springs bubbled to the surface. In front of the library windows was a
+circular basin, with in the center the figure of a child shooting a
+slender thread of water through the funnel of a shell. It was the
+overflow from this basin, forming a little stream, that trickled over
+the rocks against which Patrice had stumbled on the first evening.
+
+"Ten acres to explore before we've done," said M. Masseron to himself.
+
+He employed upon this work, in addition to Belval's cripples, a dozen of
+his own detectives. It was not a difficult business and was bound to
+lead to some definite result. As M. Masseron never ceased saying,
+eighteen hundred bags cannot remain invisible. An excavation leaves
+traces. You want a hole to go in and out by. But neither the grass of
+the lawns nor the sand of the paths showed any signs of earth recently
+disturbed. The ivy? The buttressing-walls? The terraces? Everything was
+inspected, but in vain. Here and there, in cutting up the ground, old
+conduit pipes were found, running towards the Seine, and remains of
+aqueducts that had once served to carry off the Passy waters. But there
+was no such thing as a cave, an underground chamber, a brick arch or
+anything that looked like a hiding-place.
+
+Patrice and Coralie watched the progress of the search. And yet, though
+they fully realized its importance and though, on the other hand, they
+were still feeling the strain of the recent dramatic hours, in reality
+they were engrossed only in the inexplicable problem of their fate; and
+their conversation nearly always turned upon the mystery of the past.
+
+Coralie's mother was the daughter of a French consul at Salonica, where
+she married a very rich man of a certain age, called Count Odolavitch,
+the head of an ancient Servian family. He died a year after Coralie was
+born. The widow and child were at that time in France, at this same
+house in the Rue Raynouard, which Count Odolavitch had purchased through
+a young Egyptian called Essarès, his secretary and factotum.
+
+Coralie here spent three years of her childhood. Then she suddenly lost
+her mother and was left alone in the world. Essarès took her to
+Salonica, to a surviving sister of her grandfather the consul, a woman
+many years younger than her brother. This lady took charge of Coralie.
+Unfortunately, she fell under Essarès' influence, signed papers and
+made her little grand-niece sign papers, until the child's whole
+fortune, administered by the Egyptian, gradually disappeared.
+
+At last, when she was about seventeen, Coralie became the victim of an
+adventure which left the most hideous memory in her mind and which had a
+fatal effect on her life. She was kidnaped one morning by a band of
+Turks on the plains of Salonica and spent a fortnight in the palace of
+the governor of the province, exposed to his desires. Essarès released
+her. But the release was brought about in so fantastic a fashion that
+Coralie must have often wondered afterwards whether the Turk and the
+Egyptian were not in collusion.
+
+At any rate, sick in body and depressed in spirits, fearing a fresh
+assault upon her liberty and yielding to her aunt's wishes, a month
+later she married this Essarès, who had already been paying her his
+addresses and who now definitely assumed in her eyes the figure of a
+deliverer. It was a hopeless union, the horror of which became manifest
+to her on the very day on which it was cemented. Coralie was the wife of
+a man whom she hated and whose love only grew with the hatred and
+contempt which she showed for it.
+
+Before the end of the year they came and took up their residence at the
+house in the Rue Raynouard. Essarès, who had long ago established and
+was at that time managing the Salonica branch of the Franco-Oriental
+Bank, bought up almost all the shares of the bank itself, acquired the
+building in the Rue Lafayette for the head office, became one of the
+financial magnates of Paris and received the title of bey in Egypt.
+
+This was the story which Coralie told Patrice one day in the beautiful
+garden at Passy; and, in this unhappy past which they explored together
+and compared with Patrice Belval's own, neither he nor Coralie was able
+to discover a single point that was common to both. The two of them had
+lived in different parts of the world. Not one name evoked the same
+recollection in their minds. There was not a detail that enabled them to
+understand why each should possess a piece of the same amethyst bead nor
+why their joint images should be contained in the same medallion-pendant
+or stuck in the pages of the same album.
+
+"Failing everything else," said Patrice, "we can explain that the
+pendant found in the hand of Essarès Bey was snatched by him from the
+unknown friend who was watching over us and whom he murdered. But what
+about the album, which he wore in a pocket sewn inside his vest?"
+
+Neither attempted to answer the question. Then Patrice asked:
+
+"Tell me about Siméon."
+
+"Siméon has always lived here."
+
+"Even in your mother's time?"
+
+"No, it was one or two years after my mother's death and after I went to
+Salonica that Essarès put him to look after this property and keep it in
+good condition."
+
+"Was he Essarès' secretary?"
+
+"I never knew what his exact functions were. But he was not Essarès'
+secretary, nor his confidant either. They never talked together
+intimately. He came to see us two or three times at Salonica. I remember
+one of his visits. I was quite a child and I heard him speaking to
+Essarès in a very angry tone, apparently threatening him."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"I don't know. I know nothing at all about Siméon. He kept himself very
+much to himself and was nearly always in the garden, smoking his pipe,
+dreaming, tending the trees and flowers, sometimes with the assistance
+of two or three gardeners whom he would send for."
+
+"How did he behave to you?"
+
+"Here again I can't give any definite impression. We never talked; and
+his occupations very seldom brought him into contact with me.
+Nevertheless I sometimes thought that his eyes used to seek me, through
+their yellow spectacles, with a certain persistency and perhaps even a
+certain interest. Moreover, lately, he liked going with me to the
+hospital; and he would then, either there or on the way, show himself
+more attentive, more eager to please . . . so much so that I have been
+wondering this last day or two . . ."
+
+She hesitated for a moment, undecided whether to speak, and then
+continued:
+
+"Yes, it's a very vague notion . . . but, all the same . . . Look here,
+there's one thing I forgot to tell you. Do you know why I joined the
+hospital in the Champs-Élysées, the hospital where you were lying
+wounded and ill? It was because Siméon took me there. He knew that I
+wanted to become a nurse and he suggested this hospital. . . . And then,
+if you think, later on, the photograph in the pendant, the one showing
+you in uniform and me as a nurse, can only have been taken at the
+hospital. Well, of the people here, in this house, no one except Siméon
+ever went there. . . . You will also remember that he used to come to
+Salonica, where he saw me as a child and afterwards as a girl, and that
+there also he may have taken the snapshots in the album. So that, if we
+allow that he had some correspondent who on his side followed your
+footsteps in life, it would not be impossible to believe that the
+unknown friend whom you assume to have intervened between us, the one
+who sent you the key of the garden . . ."
+
+"Was old Siméon?" Patrice interrupted. "The theory won't hold water."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because this friend is dead. The man who, as you say, sought to
+intervene between us, who sent me the key of the garden, who called me
+to the telephone to tell me the truth, that man was murdered. There is
+not the least doubt about it. I heard the cries of a man who is being
+killed, dying cries, the cries which a man utters when at the moment of
+death."
+
+"You can never be sure."
+
+"I am, absolutely. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind. The man whom
+I call our unknown friend died before finishing his work; he died
+murdered, whereas Siméon is alive. Besides," continued Patrice, "this
+man had a different voice from Siméon, a voice which I had never heard
+before and which I shall never hear again."
+
+Coralie was convinced and did not insist.
+
+They were seated on one of the benches in the garden, enjoying the
+bright April sunshine. The buds of the chestnut-trees shone at the tips
+of the branches. The heavy scent of the wall-flowers rose from the
+borders; and their brown and yellow blossoms, like a cluster of bees and
+wasps pressed close together, swayed to the light breeze.
+
+Suddenly Patrice felt a thrill. Coralie had placed her hand on his, with
+engaging friendliness; and, when he turned to look at her, he saw that
+she was in tears.
+
+"What's the matter, Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+Coralie's head bent down and her cheek touched the officer's shoulder.
+He dared not move. She was treating him as a protecting elder brother;
+and he shrank from showing any warmth of affection that might annoy her.
+
+"What is it, dear?" he repeated. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, it is so strange!" she murmured. "Look, Patrice, look at those
+flowers."
+
+They were on the third terrace, commanding a view of the fourth; and
+this, the lowest of the terraces, was adorned not with borders of
+wall-flowers but with beds in which were mingled all manner of spring
+flowers; tulips, silvery alyssums, hyacinths, with a great round plot of
+pansies in the middle.
+
+"Look over there," she said, pointing to this plot with her outstretched
+arm. "Do you see? . . . Letters. . . ."
+
+Patrice looked and gradually perceived that the clumps of pansies were
+so arranged as to form on the ground some letters that stood out among
+the other flowers. It did not appear at the first glance. It took a
+certain time to see; but, once seen, the letters grouped themselves of
+their own accord, forming three words set down in a single line:
+
+     _Patrice and Coralie_
+
+"Ah," he said, in a low voice, "I understand what you mean!"
+
+It gave them a thrill of inexpressible excitement to read their two
+names, which a friendly hand had, so to speak, sown; their two names
+united in pansy-flowers. It was inexpressibly exciting too that he and
+she should always find themselves thus linked together, linked together
+by events, linked together by their portraits, linked together by an
+unseen force of will, linked together now by the struggling effort of
+little flowers that spring up, waken into life and blossom in
+predetermined order.
+
+Coralie, sitting up, said:
+
+"It's Siméon who attends to the garden."
+
+"Yes," he said, wavering slightly. "But surely that does not affect my
+opinion. Our unknown friend is dead, but Siméon may have known him.
+Siméon perhaps was acting with him in certain matters and must know a
+good deal. Oh, if he could only put us on the right road!"
+
+An hour later, as the sun was sinking on the horizon, they climbed the
+terraces. On reaching the top they saw M. Masseron beckoning to them.
+
+"I have something curious to show you," he said, "something I have found
+which will interest both you, madame, and you, captain, particularly."
+
+He led them to the very end of the terrace, outside the occupied part of
+the house next to the library. Two detectives were standing mattock in
+hand. In the course of their searching, M. Masseron explained, they had
+begun by removing the ivy from the low wall adorned with terra-cotta
+vases. Thereupon M. Masseron's attention was attracted by the fact that
+this wall was covered, for a length of some yards, by a layer of plaster
+which appeared to be more recent in date than the stone.
+
+"What did it mean?" said M. Masseron. "I had to presuppose some motive.
+I therefore had this layer of plaster demolished; and underneath it I
+found a second layer, not so thick as the first and mingled with the
+rough stone. Come closer . . . or, rather, no, stand back a little way:
+you can see better like that."
+
+The second layer really served only to keep in place some small white
+pebbles, which constituted a sort of mosaic set in black pebbles and
+formed a series of large, written letters, spelling three words. And
+these three words once again were:
+
+     _Patrice and Coralie_
+
+"What do you say to that?" asked M. Masseron. "Observe that the
+inscription goes several years back, at least ten years, when we
+consider the condition of the ivy clinging to this part of the wall."
+
+"At least ten years," Patrice repeated, when he was once more alone with
+Coralie. "Ten years ago was when you were not married, when you were
+still at Salonica and when nobody used to come to this garden . . .
+nobody except Siméon and such people as he chose to admit. And among
+these," he concluded, "was our unknown friend who is now dead. And
+Siméon knows the truth, Coralie."
+
+They saw old Siméon, late that afternoon, as they had seen him
+constantly since the tragedy, wandering in the garden or along the
+passages of the house, restless and distraught, with his comforter
+always wound round his head and his spectacles on his nose, stammering
+words which no one could understand. At night, his neighbor, one of the
+maimed soldiers, would often hear him humming to himself.
+
+Patrice twice tried to make him speak. He shook his head and did not
+answer, or else laughed like an idiot.
+
+The problem was becoming complicated; and nothing pointed to a possible
+solution. Who was it that, since their childhood, had promised them to
+each other as a pair betrothed long beforehand by an inflexible
+ordinance? Who was it that arranged the pansy-bed last autumn, when they
+did not know each other? And who was it that had written their two
+names, ten years ago, in white pebbles, within the thickness of a wall?
+
+These were haunting questions for two young people in whom love had
+awakened quite spontaneously and who suddenly saw stretching behind them
+a long past common to them both. Each step that they took in the garden
+seemed to them a pilgrimage amid forgotten memories; and, at every turn
+in a path, they were prepared to discover some new proof of the bond
+that linked them together unknown to themselves.
+
+As a matter of fact, during those few days, they saw their initials
+interlaced twice on the trunk of a tree, once on the back of a bench.
+And twice again their names appeared inscribed on old walls and
+concealed behind a layer of plaster overhung with ivy.
+
+On these two occasions their names were accompanied by two separate
+dates:
+
+     _Patrice and Coralie, 1904_
+     _Patrice and Coralie, 1907_
+
+"Eleven years ago and eight years ago," said the officer. "And always
+our two names: Patrice and Coralie."
+
+Their hands met and clasped each other. The great mystery of their past
+brought them as closely together as did the great love which filled them
+and of which they refrained from speaking.
+
+In spite of themselves, however, they sought out solitude; and it was in
+this way that, a fortnight after the murder of Essarès Bey, as they
+passed the little door opening on the lane, they decided to go out by it
+and to stroll down to the river bank. No one saw them, for both the
+approach to the door and the path leading to it were hidden by a screen
+of tall bushes; and M. Masseron and his men were exploring the old
+green-houses, which stood at the other side of the garden, and the old
+furnace and chimney which had been used for signaling.
+
+But, when he was outside, Patrice stopped. Almost in front of him, in
+the opposite wall, was an exactly similar door. He called Coralie's
+attention to it, but she said:
+
+"There is nothing astonishing about that. This wall is the boundary of
+another garden which at one time belonged to the one we have just left."
+
+"But who lives there?"
+
+"Nobody. The little house which overlooks it and which comes before
+mine, in the Rue Raynouard, is always shut up."
+
+"Same door, same key, perhaps," Patrice murmured, half to himself.
+
+He inserted in the lock the rusty key, which had reached him by
+messenger. The lock responded.
+
+"Well," he said, "the series of miracles is continuing. Will this one be
+in our favor?"
+
+The vegetation had been allowed to run riot in the narrow strip of
+ground that faced them. However, in the middle of the exuberant grass, a
+well-trodden path, which looked as if it were often used, started from
+the door in the wall and rose obliquely to the single terrace, on which
+stood a dilapidated lodge with closed shutters. It was built on one
+floor, but was surmounted by a small lantern-shaped belvedere. It had
+its own entrance in the Rue Raynouard, from which it was separated by a
+yard and a very high wall. This entrance seemed to be barricaded with
+boards and posts nailed together.
+
+They walked round the house and were surprised by the sight that awaited
+them on the right-hand side. The foliage had been trained into
+rectangular cloisters, carefully kept, with regular arcades cut in yew-
+and box-hedges. A miniature garden was laid out in this space, the very
+home of silence and tranquillity. Here also were wall-flowers and
+pansies and hyacinths. And four paths, coming from four corners of the
+cloisters, met round a central space, where stood the five columns of a
+small, open temple, rudely constructed of pebbles and unmortared
+building-stones.
+
+Under the dome of this little temple was a tombstone and, in front of
+it, an old wooden praying-chair, from the bars of which hung, on the
+left, an ivory crucifix and, on the right, a rosary composed of amethyst
+beads in a gold filigree setting.
+
+"Coralie, Coralie," whispered Patrice, in a voice trembling with
+emotion, "who can be buried here?"
+
+They went nearer. There were bead wreaths laid in rows on the tombstone.
+They counted nineteen, each bearing the date of one of the last nineteen
+years. Pushing them aside, they read the following inscription in gilt
+letters worn and soiled by the rain:
+
+              HERE LIE
+        PATRICE AND CORALIE,
+     BOTH OF WHOM WERE MURDERED
+     ON THE 14th OF APRIL, 1895.
+     REVENGE TO ME: I WILL REPAY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE RED CORD
+
+
+Coralie, feeling her legs give way beneath her, had flung herself on the
+prie-dieu and there knelt praying fervently and wildly. She could not
+tell on whose behalf, for the repose of what unknown soul her prayers
+were offered; but her whole being was afire with fever and exaltation
+and the very action of praying seemed able to assuage her.
+
+"What was your mother's name, Coralie?" Patrice whispered.
+
+"Louise," she replied.
+
+"And my father's name was Armand. It cannot be either of them,
+therefore; and yet . . ."
+
+Patrice also was displaying the greatest agitation. Stooping down, he
+examined the nineteen wreaths, renewed his inspection of the tombstone
+and said:
+
+"All the same, Coralie, the coincidence is really too extraordinary. My
+father died in 1895."
+
+"And my mother died in that year too," she said, "though I do not know
+the exact date."
+
+"We shall find out, Coralie," he declared. "These things can all be
+verified. But meanwhile one truth becomes clear. The man who used to
+interlace the names of Patrice and Coralie was not thinking only of us
+and was not considering only the future. Perhaps he thought even more of
+the past, of that Coralie and Patrice whom he knew to have suffered a
+violent death and whom he had undertaken to avenge. Come away, Coralie.
+No one must suspect that we have been here."
+
+They went down the path and through the two doors on the lane. They were
+not seen coming in. Patrice at once brought Coralie indoors, urged
+Ya-Bon and his comrades to increase their vigilance and left the house.
+
+He came back in the evening only to go out again early the next day; and
+it was not until the day after, at three o'clock in the afternoon, that
+he asked to be shown up to Coralie.
+
+"Have you found out?" she asked him at once.
+
+"I have found out a great many things which do not dispel the darkness
+of the present. I am almost tempted to say that they increase it. They
+do, however, throw a very vivid light on the past."
+
+"Do they explain what we saw two days ago?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"Listen to me, Coralie."
+
+He sat down opposite her and said:
+
+"I shall not tell you all the steps that I have taken. I will merely sum
+up the result of those which led to some result. I went, first of all,
+to the Mayor of Passy's office and from there to the Servian Legation."
+
+"Then you persist in assuming that it was my mother?"
+
+"Yes. I took a copy of her death-certificate, Coralie. Your mother died
+on the fourteenth of April, 1895."
+
+"Oh!" she said. "That is the date on the tomb!"
+
+"The very date."
+
+"But the name? Coralie? My father used to call her Louise."
+
+"Your mother's name was Louise Coralie Countess Odolavitch."
+
+"Oh, my mother!" she murmured. "My poor darling mother! Then it was she
+who was murdered. It was for her that I was praying over the way?"
+
+"For her, Coralie, and for my father. I discovered his full name at the
+mayor's office in the Rue Drouot. My father was Armand Patrice Belval.
+He died on the fourteenth of April, 1895."
+
+Patrice was right in saying that a singular light had been thrown upon
+the past. He had now positively established that the inscription on the
+tombstone related to his father and Coralie's mother, both of whom were
+murdered on the same day. But by whom and for what reason, in
+consequence of what tragedies? This was what Coralie asked him to tell
+her.
+
+"I cannot answer your questions yet," he replied. "But I addressed
+another to myself, one more easily solved; and that I did solve. This
+also makes us certain of an essential point. I wanted to know to whom
+the lodge belonged. The outside, in the Rue Raynouard, affords no clue.
+You have seen the wall and the door of the yard: they show nothing in
+particular. But the number of the property was sufficient for my
+purpose. I went to the local receiver and learnt that the taxes were
+paid by a notary in the Avenue de l'Opéra. I called on this notary, who
+told me . . ."
+
+He stopped for a moment and then said:
+
+"The lodge was bought twenty-one years ago by my father. Two years
+later my father died; and the lodge, which of course formed part of his
+estate, was put up for sale by the present notary's predecessor and
+bought by one Siméon Diodokis, a Greek subject."
+
+"It's he!" cried Coralie. "Siméon's name is Diodokis."
+
+"Well, Siméon Diodokis," Patrice continued, "was a friend of my
+father's, because my father appointed him the sole executor of his will
+and because it was Siméon Diodokis who, through the notary in question
+and a London solicitor, paid my school-fees and, when I attained my
+majority, made over to me the sum of two hundred thousand francs, the
+balance of my inheritance."
+
+They maintained a long silence. Many things were becoming manifest, but
+indistinctly, as yet, and shaded, like things seen in the evening mist.
+And one thing stood in sharper outline than the rest, for Patrice
+murmured:
+
+"Your mother and my father loved each other, Coralie."
+
+The thought united them more closely and affected them profoundly. Their
+love was the counterpart of another love, bruised by trials, like
+theirs, but still more tragic and ending in bloodshed and death.
+
+"Your mother and my father loved each other," he repeated. "I should say
+they must have belonged to that class of rather enthusiastic lovers
+whose passion indulges in charming little childish ways, for they had a
+trick of calling each other, when alone, by names which nobody else used
+to them; and they selected their second Christian names, which were
+also yours and mine. One day your mother dropped her amethyst rosary.
+The largest of the beads broke in two pieces. My father had one of the
+pieces mounted as a trinket which he hung on his watch-chain. Both were
+widowed. You were two years old and I was eight. In order to devote
+himself altogether to the woman he loved, my father sent me to England
+and bought the lodge in which your mother, who lived in the big house
+next door, used to go and see him, crossing the lane and using the same
+key for both doors. It was no doubt in this lodge, or in the garden
+round it, that they were murdered. We shall find that out, because there
+must be visible proofs of the murder, proofs which Siméon Diodokis
+discovered, since he was not afraid to say so in the inscription on the
+tombstone."
+
+"And who was the murderer?" Coralie asked, under her breath.
+
+"You suspect it, Coralie, as I do. The hated name comes to your mind,
+even though we have no grounds for speaking with certainty."
+
+"Essarès!" she cried, in anguish.
+
+"Most probably."
+
+She hid her face in her hands:
+
+"No, no, it is impossible. It is impossible that I should have been the
+wife of the man who killed my mother."
+
+"You bore his name, but you were never his wife. You told him so the
+evening before his death, in my presence. Let us say nothing that we are
+unable to say positively; but all the same let us remember that he was
+your evil genius. Remember also that Siméon, my father's friend and
+executor, the man who bought the lovers' lodge, the man who swore upon
+their tomb to avenge them: remember that Siméon, a few months after your
+mother's death, persuaded Essarès to engage him as caretaker of the
+estate, became his secretary and gradually made his way into Essarès'
+life. His only object must have been to carry out a plan of revenge."
+
+"There has been no revenge."
+
+"What do we know about it? Do we know how Essarès met his death?
+Certainly it was not Siméon who killed him, as Siméon was at the
+hospital. But he may have caused him to be killed. And revenge has a
+thousand ways of manifesting itself. Lastly, Siméon was most likely
+obeying instructions that came from my father. There is little doubt
+that he wanted first to achieve an aim which my father and your mother
+had at heart: the union of our destinies, Coralie. And it was this aim
+that ruled his life. It was he evidently who placed among the
+knick-knacks which I collected as a child this amethyst of which the
+other half formed a bead in your rosary. It was he who collected our
+photographs. He lastly was our unknown friend and protector, the one who
+sent me the key, accompanied by a letter which I never received,
+unfortunately."
+
+"Then, Patrice, you no longer believe that he is dead, this unknown
+friend, or that you heard his dying cries?"
+
+"I cannot say. Siméon was not necessarily acting alone. He may have had
+a confidant, an assistant in the work which he undertook. Perhaps it was
+this other man who died at nineteen minutes past seven. I cannot say.
+Everything that happened on that ill-fated morning remains involved in
+the deepest mystery. The only conviction that we are able to hold is
+that for twenty years Siméon Diodokis has worked unobtrusively and
+patiently on our behalf, doing his utmost to defeat the murderer, and
+that Siméon Diodokis is alive. Alive, but mad!" Patrice added. "So that
+we can neither thank him nor question him about the grim story which he
+knows or about the dangers that threaten you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Patrice resolved once more to make the attempt, though he felt sure of a
+fresh disappointment. Siméon had a bedroom, next to that occupied by two
+of the wounded soldiers, in the wing which formerly contained the
+servants' quarters. Here Patrice found him.
+
+He was sitting half-asleep in a chair turned towards the garden. His
+pipe was in his mouth; he had allowed it to go out. The room was small,
+sparsely furnished, but clean and light. Hidden from view, the best part
+of the old man's life was spent here. M. Masseron had often visited the
+room, in Siméon's absence, and so had Patrice, each from his own point
+of view.
+
+The only discovery worthy of note consisted of a crude diagram in
+pencil, on the white wall-paper behind a chest of drawers: three lines
+intersecting to form a large equilateral triangle. In the middle of this
+geometrical figure were three words clumsily inscribed in adhesive
+gold-leaf:
+
+     _The Golden Triangle_
+
+There was nothing more, not another clue of any kind, to further M.
+Masseron's search.
+
+Patrice walked straight up to the old man and tapped him on the
+shoulder:
+
+"Siméon!" he said.
+
+The other lifted his yellow spectacles to him, and Patrice felt a sudden
+wish to snatch away this glass obstacle which concealed the old fellow's
+eyes and prevented him from looking into his soul and his distant
+memories. Siméon began to laugh foolishly.
+
+"So this," thought Patrice, "is my friend and my father's friend. He
+loved my father, respected his wishes, was faithful to his memory,
+raised a tomb to him, prayed on it and swore to avenge him. And now his
+mind has gone."
+
+Patrice felt that speech was useless. But, though the sound of his voice
+roused no echo in that wandering brain, it was possible that the eyes
+were susceptible to a reminder. He wrote on a clean sheet of paper the
+words that Siméon had gazed upon so often:
+
+     _Patrice and Coralie_
+        _14 April, 1895_
+
+The old man looked, shook his head and repeated his melancholy, foolish
+chuckle.
+
+The officer added a new line:
+
+     _Armand Belval_
+
+The old man displayed the same torpor. Patrice continued the test. He
+wrote down the names of Essarès Bey and Colonel Fakhi. He drew a
+triangle. The old man failed to understand and went on chuckling.
+
+But suddenly his laughter lost some of its childishness. Patrice had
+written the name of Bournef, the accomplice, and this time the old
+secretary appeared to be stirred by a recollection. He tried to get up,
+fell back in his chair, then rose to his feet again and took his hat
+from a peg on the wall.
+
+He left his room and, followed by Patrice, marched out of the house and
+turned to the left, in the direction of Auteuil. He moved like a man in
+a trance who is hypnotized into walking without knowing where he is
+going. He led the way along the Rue de Boulainvilliers, crossed the
+Seine and turned down the Quai de Grenelle with an unhesitating step.
+Then, when he reached the boulevard, he stopped, putting out his arm,
+made a sign to Patrice to do likewise. A kiosk hid them from view. He
+put his head round it. Patrice followed his example.
+
+Opposite, at the corner of the boulevard and a side-street, was a café,
+with a portion of the pavement in front of it marked out by dwarf shrubs
+in tubs. Behind these tubs four men sat drinking. Three of them had
+their backs turned to Patrice. He saw the only one that faced him, and
+he at once recognized Bournef.
+
+By this time Siméon was some distance away, like a man whose part is
+played and who leaves it to others to complete the work. Patrice looked
+round, caught sight of a post-office and went in briskly. He knew that
+M. Masseron was at the Rue Raynouard. He telephoned and told him where
+Bournef was. M. Masseron replied that he would come at once.
+
+Since the murder of Essarès Bey, M. Masseron's enquiry had made no
+progress in so far as Colonel Fakhi's four accomplices were concerned.
+True, they discovered the man Grégoire's sanctuary and the bedrooms with
+the wall-cupboards; but the whole place was empty. The accomplices had
+disappeared.
+
+"Old Siméon," said Patrice to himself, "was acquainted with their
+habits. He must have known that they were accustomed to meet at this
+café on a certain day of the week, at a fixed hour, and he suddenly
+remembered it all at the sight of Bournef's name."
+
+A few minutes later M. Masseron alighted from his car with his men. The
+business did not take long. The open front of the café was surrounded.
+The accomplices offered no resistance. M. Masseron sent three of them
+under a strong guard to the Dépôt and hustled Bournef into a private
+room.
+
+"Come along," he said to Patrice. "We'll question him."
+
+"Mme. Essarès is alone at the house," Patrice objected.
+
+"Alone? No. There are all your soldier-men."
+
+"Yes, but I would rather go back, if you don't mind. It's the first time
+that I've left her and I'm justified in feeling anxious."
+
+"It's only a matter of a few minutes," M. Masseron insisted. "One should
+always take advantage of the fluster caused by the arrest."
+
+Patrice followed him, but they soon saw that Bournef was not one of
+those men who are easily put out. He simply shrugged his shoulders at
+their threats:
+
+"It is no use, sir," he said, "to try and frighten me. I risk nothing.
+Shot, do you say? Nonsense! You don't shoot people in France for the
+least thing; and we are all four subjects of a neutral country. Tried?
+Sentenced? Imprisoned? Never! You forget that you have kept everything
+dark so far; and, when you hushed up the murder of Mustapha, of Fakhi
+and of Essarès, it was not done with the object of reviving the case for
+no valid reason. No, sir, I am quite easy. The internment-camp is the
+worst that can await me."
+
+"Then you refuse to answer?" said M. Masseron.
+
+"Not a bit of it! I accept internment. But there are twenty different
+ways of treating a man in these camps, and I should like to earn your
+favor and, in so doing, make sure of reasonable comfort till the end of
+the war. But first of all, what do you know?"
+
+"Pretty well everything."
+
+"That's a pity: it decreases my value. Do you know about Essarès' last
+night?"
+
+"Yes, with the bargain of the four millions. What's become of the
+money?"
+
+Bournef made a furious gesture:
+
+"Taken from us! Stolen! It was a trap!"
+
+"Who took it?"
+
+"One Grégoire."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"His familiar, as we have since learnt. We discovered that this Grégoire
+was no other than a fellow who used to serve as his chauffeur on
+occasion."
+
+"And who therefore helped him to convey the bags of gold from the bank
+to his house."
+
+"Yes. And we also think, we know . . . Look here, you may as well call
+it a certainty. Grégoire . . . is a woman."
+
+"A woman!"
+
+"Exactly. His mistress. We have several proofs of it. But she's a
+trustworthy, capable woman, strong as a man and afraid of nothing."
+
+"Do you know her address?"
+
+"No."
+
+"As to the gold: have you no clue to its whereabouts, no suspicion?"
+
+"No. The gold is in the garden or in the house in the Rue Raynouard. We
+saw it being taken in every day for a week. It has not been taken out
+since. We kept watch every night. The bags are there."
+
+"No clue either to Essarès' murderer?"
+
+"No, none."
+
+"Are you quite sure?"
+
+"Why should I tell a lie?"
+
+"Suppose it was yourself? Or one of your friends?"
+
+"We thought that you would suspect us. Fortunately, we happen to have an
+alibi."
+
+"Easy to prove?"
+
+"Impossible to upset."
+
+"We'll look into it. So you have nothing more to reveal?"
+
+"No. But I have an idea . . . or rather a question which you will answer
+or not, as you please. Who betrayed us? Your reply may throw some useful
+light, for one person only knew of our weekly meetings here from four
+to five o'clock, one person only, Essarès Bey; and he himself often came
+here to confer with us. Essarès is dead. Then who gave us away?"
+
+"Old Siméon."
+
+Bournef started with astonishment:
+
+"What! Siméon? Siméon Diodokis?"
+
+"Yes. Siméon Diodokis, Essarès Bey's secretary."
+
+"He? Oh, I'll make him pay for this, the blackguard! But no, it's
+impossible."
+
+"What makes you say that it's impossible?'"
+
+"Why, because . . ."
+
+He stopped and thought for some time, no doubt to convince himself that
+there was no harm in speaking. Then he finished his sentence:
+
+"Because old Siméon was on our side."
+
+"What's that you say?" exclaimed Patrice, whose turn it was to be
+surprised.
+
+"I say and I swear that Siméon Diodokis was on our side. He was our man.
+It was he who kept us informed of Essarès Bey's shady tricks. It was he
+who rang us up at nine o'clock in the evening to tell us that Essarès
+had lit the furnace of the old hothouses and that the signal of the
+sparks was going to work. It was he who opened the door to us,
+pretending to resist, of course, and allowed us to tie him up in the
+porter's lodge. It was he, lastly, who paid and dismissed the
+men-servants."
+
+"But why? Why this treachery? For the sake of money?"
+
+"No, from hatred. He bore Essarès Bey a hatred that often gave us the
+shudders."
+
+"What prompted it?"
+
+"I don't know. Siméon keeps his own counsel. But it dated a long way
+back."
+
+"Did he know where the gold was hidden?" asked M. Masseron.
+
+"No. And it was not for want of hunting to find out. He never knew how
+the bags got out the cellar, which was only a temporary hiding-place."
+
+"And yet they used to leave the grounds. If so, how are we to know that
+the same thing didn't happen this time?"
+
+"This time we were keeping watch the whole way round outside, a thing
+which Siméon could not do by himself."
+
+Patrice now put the question:
+
+"Can you tell us nothing more about him?"
+
+"No, I can't. Wait, though; there was one rather curious thing. On the
+afternoon of the great day, I received a letter in which Siméon gave me
+certain particulars. In the same envelope was another letter, which had
+evidently got there by some incredible mistake, for it appeared to be
+highly important."
+
+"What did it say?" asked Patrice, anxiously.
+
+"It was all about a key."
+
+"Don't you remember the details?"
+
+"Here is the letter. I kept it in order to give it back to him and warn
+him what he had done. Here, it's certainly his writing. . . ."
+
+Patrice took the sheet of notepaper; and the first thing that he saw was
+his own name. The letter was addressed to him, as he anticipated:
+
+      "_Patrice_,
+
+      "You will this evening receive a key. The key opens
+      two doors midway down a lane leading to the river:
+      one, on the right, is that of the garden of the woman
+      you love; the other, on the left, that of a garden
+      where I want you to meet me at nine o'clock in the
+      morning on the 14th of April. She will be there also.
+      You shall learn who I am and the object which I intend
+      to attain. You shall both hear things about the past
+      that will bring you still closer together.
+
+      "From now until the 14th the struggle which begins
+      to-night will be a terrible one. If anything happens
+      to me, it is certain that the woman you love will run
+      the greatest dangers. Watch over her, Patrice; do not
+      leave her for an instant unprotected. But I do not
+      intend to let anything happen to me; and you shall
+      both know the happiness which I have been preparing
+      for you so long.
+
+      "My best love to you."
+
+"It's not signed," said Bournef, "but, I repeat, it's in Siméon's
+handwriting. As for the lady, she is obviously Mme. Essarès."
+
+"But what danger can she be running?" exclaimed Patrice, uneasily.
+"Essarès is dead, so there is nothing to fear."
+
+"I wouldn't say that. He would take some killing."
+
+"Whom can he have instructed to avenge him? Who would continue his
+work?"
+
+"I can't say, but I should take no risks."
+
+Patrice waited to hear no more. He thrust the letter into M. Masseron's
+hand and made his escape.
+
+"Rue Raynouard, fast as you can," he said, springing into a taxi.
+
+He was eager to reach his destination. The dangers of which old Siméon
+spoke seemed suddenly to hang over Coralie's head. Already the enemy,
+taking advantage of Patrice's absence, might be attacking his beloved.
+And who could defend her?
+
+"If anything happens to me," Siméon had said.
+
+And the supposition was partly realized, since he had lost his wits.
+
+"Come, come," muttered Patrice, "this is sheer idiocy. . . . I am
+fancying things. . . . There is no reason . . ."
+
+But his mental anguish increased every minute. He reminded himself that
+old Siméon was still in full possession of his faculties at the time
+when he wrote that letter and gave the advice which it contained. He
+reminded himself that old Siméon had purposely informed him that the key
+opened the door of Coralie's garden, so that he, Patrice, might keep an
+effective watch by coming to her in case of need.
+
+He saw Siméon some way ahead of him. It was growing late, and the old
+fellow was going home. Patrice passed him just outside the porter's
+lodge and heard him humming to himself.
+
+"Any news?" Patrice asked the soldier on duty.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Where's Little Mother Coralie?"
+
+"She had a walk in the garden and went upstairs half an hour ago."
+
+"Ya-Bon?"
+
+"Ya-Bon went up with Little Mother Coralie. He should be at her door."
+
+Patrice climbed the stairs, feeling a good deal calmer. But, when he
+came to the first floor, he was astonished to find that the electric
+light was not on. He turned on the switch. Then he saw, at the end of
+the passage, Ya-Bon on his knees outside Coralie's room, with his head
+leaning against the wall. The door was open.
+
+"What are you doing there?" he shouted, running up.
+
+Ya-Bon made no reply. Patrice saw that there was blood on the shoulder
+of his jacket. At that moment the Senegalese sank to the floor.
+
+"Damn it! He's wounded! Dead perhaps."
+
+He leapt over the body and rushed into the room, switching on the light
+at once.
+
+Coralie was lying at full length on a sofa. Round her neck was the
+terrible little red-silk cord. And yet Patrice did not experience that
+awful, numbing despair which we feel in the presence of irretrievable
+misfortunes. It seemed to him that Coralie's face had not the pallor of
+death.
+
+He found that she was in fact breathing:
+
+"She's not dead. She's not dead," said Patrice to himself. "And she's
+not going to die, I'm sure of it . . . nor Ya-Bon either. . . . They've
+failed this time."
+
+He loosened the cords. In a few seconds Coralie heaved a deep breath and
+recovered consciousness. A smile lit up her eyes at the sight of him.
+But, suddenly remembering, she threw her arms, still so weak, around
+him:
+
+"Oh, Patrice," she said, in a trembling voice, "I'm frightened . . .
+frightened for you!"
+
+"What are you frightened of, Coralie? Who is the scoundrel?"
+
+"I didn't see him. . . . He put out the light, caught me by the throat
+and whispered, 'You first. . . . To-night it will be your lover's turn!'
+. . . Oh, Patrice, I'm frightened for you! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ON THE BRINK
+
+
+Patrice at once made up his mind what to do. He lifted Coralie to her
+bed and asked her not to move or call out. Then he made sure that Ya-Bon
+was not seriously wounded. Lastly, he rang violently, sounding all the
+bells that communicated with the posts which he had placed in different
+parts of the house.
+
+The men came hurrying up.
+
+"You're a pack of nincompoops," he said. "Some one's been here. Little
+Mother Coralie and Ya-Bon have had a narrow escape from being killed."
+
+They began to protest loudly.
+
+"Silence!" he commanded. "You deserve a good hiding, every one of you.
+I'll forgive you on one condition, which is that, all this evening and
+all to-night, you speak of Little Mother Coralie as though she were
+dead."
+
+"But whom are we to speak to, sir?" one of them objected. "There's
+nobody here."
+
+"Yes, there is, you silly fool, since Little Mother Coralie and Ya-Bon
+have been attacked. Unless it was yourselves who did it! . . . It
+wasn't? Very well then. . . . And let me have no more nonsense. It's not
+a question of speaking to others, but of talking among yourselves . . .
+and of thinking, even, without speaking. There are people listening to
+you, spying on you, people who hear what you say and who guess what you
+don't say. So, until to-morrow, Little Mother Coralie will not leave her
+room. You shall keep watch over her by turns. Those who are not watching
+will go to bed immediately after dinner. No moving about the house, do
+you understand? Absolute silence and quiet."
+
+"And old Siméon, sir?"
+
+"Lock him up in his room. He's dangerous because he's mad. They may have
+taken advantage of his madness to make him open the door to them. Lock
+him up!"
+
+Patrice's plan was a simple one. As the enemy, believing Coralie to be
+on the point of death, had revealed to her his intention, which was to
+kill Patrice as well, it was necessary that he should think himself free
+to act, with nobody to suspect his schemes or to be on his guard against
+him. He would enter upon the struggle and would then be caught in a
+trap.
+
+Pending this struggle, for which he longed with all his might, Patrice
+saw to Ya-Bon's wound, which proved to be only slight, and questioned
+him and Coralie. Their answers tallied at all points. Coralie, feeling a
+little tired, was lying down reading. Ya-Bon remained in the passage,
+outside the open door, squatting on the floor, Arab-fashion. Neither of
+them heard anything suspicious. And suddenly Ya-Bon saw a shadow between
+himself and the light in the passage. This light, which came from an
+electric lamp, was put out at just about the same time as the light in
+the bed-room. Ya-Bon, already half-erect, felt a violent blow in the
+back of the neck and lost consciousness. Coralie tried to escape by the
+door of her boudoir, was unable to open it, began to cry out and was at
+once seized and thrown down. All this had happened within the space of a
+few seconds.
+
+The only hint that Patrice succeeded in obtaining was that the man came
+not from the staircase but from the servants' wing. This had a smaller
+staircase of its own, communicating with the kitchen through a pantry by
+which the tradesmen entered from the Rue Raynouard. The door leading to
+the street was locked. But some one might easily possess a key.
+
+After dinner Patrice went in to see Coralie for a moment and then, at
+nine o'clock, retired to his bedroom, which was situated a little lower
+down, on the same side. It had been used, in Essarès Bey's lifetime, as
+a smoking-room.
+
+As the attack from which he expected such good results was not likely to
+take place before the middle of the night, Patrice sat down at a
+roll-top desk standing against the wall and took out the diary in which
+he had begun his detailed record of recent events. He wrote on for half
+an hour or forty minutes and was about to close the book when he seemed
+to hear a vague rustle, which he would certainly not have noticed if his
+nerves had not been stretched to their utmost state of tension. And he
+remembered the day when he and Coralie had once before been shot at.
+This time, however, the window was not open nor even ajar.
+
+He therefore went on writing without turning his head or doing anything
+to suggest that his attention had been aroused; and he set down, almost
+unconsciously, the actual phases of his anxiety:
+
+      "He is here. He is watching me. I wonder what he means
+      to do. I doubt if he will smash a pane of glass and
+      fire a bullet at me. He has tried that method before
+      and found it uncertain and a failure. No, his plan is
+      thought out, I expect, in a different and more
+      intelligent fashion. He is more likely to wait for me
+      to go to bed, when he can watch me sleeping and effect
+      his entrance by some means which I can't guess.
+
+      "Meanwhile, it's extraordinarily exhilarating to know
+      that his eyes are upon me. He hates me; and his hatred
+      is coming nearer and nearer to mine, like one sword
+      feeling its way towards another before clashing. He is
+      watching me as a wild animal, lurking in the dark,
+      watches its prey and selects the spot on which to
+      fasten its fangs. But no, I am certain that it's he
+      who is the prey, doomed beforehand to defeat and
+      destruction. He is preparing his knife or his red-silk
+      cord. And it's these two hands of mine that will
+      finish the battle. They are strong and powerful and
+      are already enjoying their victory. They will be
+      victorious."
+
+Patrice shut down the desk, lit a cigarette and smoked it quietly, as
+his habit was before going to bed. Then he undressed, folded his clothes
+carefully over the back of a chair, wound up his watch, got into bed and
+switched off the light.
+
+"At last," he said to himself, "I shall know the truth. I shall know who
+this man is. Some friend of Essarès', continuing his work? But why this
+hatred of Coralie? Is he in love with her, as he is trying to finish me
+off too? I shall know . . . I shall soon know. . . ."
+
+An hour passed, however, and another hour, during which nothing happened
+on the side of the window. A single creaking came from somewhere beside
+the desk. But this no doubt was one of those sounds of creaking
+furniture which we often hear in the silence of the night.
+
+Patrice began to lose the buoyant hope that had sustained him so far. He
+perceived that his elaborate sham regarding Coralie's death was a poor
+thing after all and that a man of his enemy's stamp might well refuse to
+be taken in by it. Feeling rather put out, he was on the point of going
+to sleep, when he heard the same creaking sound at the same spot.
+
+The need to do something made him jump out of bed. He turned on the
+light. Everything seemed to be as he had left it. There was no trace of
+a strange presence.
+
+"Well," said Patrice, "one thing's certain: I'm no good. The enemy must
+have smelt a rat and guessed the trap I laid for him. Let's go to sleep.
+There will be nothing happening to-night."
+
+There was in fact no alarm.
+
+Next morning, on examining the window, he observed that a stone ledge
+ran above the ground-floor all along the garden front of the house, wide
+enough for a man to walk upon by holding on to the balconies and
+rain-pipes. He inspected all the rooms to which the ledge gave access.
+None of them was old Siméon's room.
+
+"He hasn't stirred out, I suppose?" he asked the two soldiers posted on
+guard.
+
+"Don't think so, sir. In any case, we haven't unlocked the door."
+
+Patrice went in and, paying no attention to the old fellow, who was
+still sucking at his cold pipe, he searched the room, having it at the
+back of his mind that the enemy might take refuge there. He found
+nobody. But what he did discover, in a press in the wall, was a number
+of things which he had not seen on the occasion of his investigations in
+M. Masseron's company. These consisted of a rope-ladder, a coil of lead
+pipes, apparently gas-pipes, and a small soldering-lamp.
+
+"This all seems devilish odd," he said to himself. "How did the things
+get in here? Did Siméon collect them without any definite object,
+mechanically? Or am I to assume that Siméon is merely an instrument of
+the enemy's? He used to know the enemy before he lost his reason; and he
+may be under his influence at present."
+
+Siméon was sitting at the window, with his back to the room. Patrice
+went up to him and gave a start. In his hands the old man held a
+funeral-wreath made of black and white beads. It bore a date, "14 April,
+1915," and made the twentieth, the one which Siméon was preparing to lay
+on the grave of his dead friends.
+
+"He will lay it there," said Patrice, aloud. "His instinct as an
+avenging friend, which has guided his steps through life, continues in
+spite of his insanity. He will lay it on the grave. That's so, Siméon,
+isn't it: you will take it there to-morrow? For to-morrow is the
+fourteenth of April, the sacred anniversary. . . ."
+
+He leant over the incomprehensible being who held the key to all the
+plots and counterplots, to all the treachery and benevolence that
+constituted the inextricable drama. Siméon thought that Patrice wanted
+to take the wreath from him and pressed it to his chest with a startled
+gesture.
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Patrice. "You can keep it. To-morrow, Siméon,
+to-morrow, Coralie and I will be faithful to the appointment which you
+gave us. And to-morrow perhaps the memory of the horrible past will
+unseal your brain."
+
+The day seemed long to Patrice, who was eager for something that would
+provide a glimmer in the surrounding darkness. And now this glimmer
+seemed about to be kindled by the arrival of this twentieth anniversary
+of the fourteenth of April.
+
+At a late hour in the afternoon M. Masseron called at the Rue Raynouard.
+
+"Look what I've just received," he said to Patrice. "It's rather
+curious: an anonymous letter in a disguised hand. Listen:
+
+      "'_Sir_, be warned. They're going away. Take care.
+      To-morrow evening the 1800 bags will be on their way
+      out of the country.
+
+      A FRIEND OF FRANCE.'"
+
+"And to-morrow is the fourteenth of April," said Patrice, at once
+connecting the two trains of thought in his mind.
+
+"Yes. What makes you say that?"
+
+"Nothing. . . . Something that just occurred to me. . . ."
+
+He was nearly telling M. Masseron all the facts associated with the
+fourteenth of April and all those concerning the strange personality of
+old Siméon. If he did not speak, it was for obscure reasons, perhaps
+because he wished to work out this part of the case alone, perhaps also
+because of a sort of shyness which prevented him from admitting M.
+Masseron into all the secrets of the past. He said nothing about it,
+therefore, and asked:
+
+"What do you think of the letter?"
+
+"Upon my word, I don't know what to think. It may be a warning with
+something to back it, or it may be a trick to make us adopt one course
+of conduct rather than another. I'll talk about it to Bournef."
+
+"Nothing fresh on his side?"
+
+"No; and I don't expect anything in particular. The alibi which he has
+submitted is genuine. His friends and he are so many supers. Their parts
+are played."
+
+The coincidence of dates was all that stuck in Patrice's mind. The two
+roads which M. Masseron and he were following suddenly met on this day
+so long since marked out by fate. The past and the present were about to
+unite. The catastrophe was at hand. The fourteenth of April was the day
+on which the gold was to disappear for good and also the day on which an
+unknown voice had summoned Patrice and Coralie to the same tryst which
+his father and her mother had kept twenty years ago.
+
+And the next day was the fourteenth of April.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning Patrice asked after old Siméon.
+
+"Gone out, sir. You had countermanded your orders."
+
+Patrice entered the room and looked for the wreath. It was not there.
+Moreover, the three things in the cupboard, the rope-ladder, the coil of
+lead and the glazier's lamp, were not there either.
+
+"Did Siméon take anything with him?"
+
+"Yes, sir, a wreath."
+
+"Nothing else?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The window was open. Patrice came to the conclusion that the things had
+gone by this way, thus confirming his theory that the old fellow was an
+unconscious confederate.
+
+Shortly before ten o'clock Coralie joined him in the garden. Patrice had
+told her the latest events. She looked pale and anxious.
+
+They went round the lawns and, without being seen, reached the clumps of
+dwarf shrubs which hid the door on the lane. Patrice opened the door. As
+he started to open the other his hand hesitated. He felt sorry that he
+had not told M. Masseron and that he and Coralie were performing by
+themselves a pilgrimage which certain signs warned him to be dangerous.
+He shook off the obsession, however. He had two revolvers with him. What
+had he to fear?
+
+"You're coming in, aren't you, Coralie?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"I somehow thought you seemed undecided, anxious . . ."
+
+"It's quite true," said Coralie. "I feel a sort of hollowness."
+
+"Why? Are you afraid?"
+
+"No. Or rather yes. I'm not afraid for to-day, but in some way for the
+past. I think of my poor mother, who went through this door, as I am
+doing, one April morning. She was perfectly happy, she was going to
+meet her love. . . . And then I feel as if I wanted to hold her back and
+cry, 'Don't go on. . . . Death is lying in wait for you. . . . Don't go
+on. . . .' And it's I who hear those words of terror, they ring in my
+ears; it's I who hear them and I dare not go on. I'm afraid."
+
+"Let's go back, Coralie."
+
+She only took his arm:
+
+"No," she said, in a firm voice. "We'll walk on. I want to pray. It will
+do me good."
+
+Boldly she stepped along the little slanting path which her mother had
+followed and climbed the slope amid the tangled weeds and the straggling
+branches. They passed the lodge on their left and reached the leafy
+cloisters where each had a parent lying buried. And at once, at the
+first glance, they saw that the twentieth wreath was there.
+
+"Siméon has come," said Patrice. "An all-powerful instinct obliged him
+to come. He must be somewhere near."
+
+While Coralie knelt down beside the tombstone, he hunted around the
+cloisters and went as far as the middle of the garden. There was nothing
+left but to go to the lodge, and this was evidently a dread act which
+they put off performing, if not from fear, at least from the reverent
+awe which checks a man on entering a place of death and crime.
+
+It was Coralie once again who gave the signal for action:
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+Patrice did not know how they would make their way into the lodge, for
+all its doors and windows had appeared to them to be shut. But, as they
+approached, they saw that the back-door opening on the yard was wide
+open, and they at once thought that Siméon was waiting for them inside.
+
+It was exactly ten o'clock when they crossed the threshold of the lodge.
+A little hall led to a kitchen on one side and a bedroom on the other.
+The principal room must be that opposite. The door stood ajar.
+
+"That's where it must have happened . . . long ago," said Coralie, in a
+frightened whisper.
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, "we shall find Siméon there. But, if your courage
+fails you, Coralie, we had better give it up."
+
+An unquestioning force of will supported her. Nothing now would have
+induced her to stop. She walked on.
+
+Though large, the room gave an impression of coziness, owing to the way
+in which it was furnished. The sofas, armchairs, carpet and hangings all
+tended to add to its comfort; and its appearance might well have
+remained unchanged since the tragic death of the two who used to occupy
+it. This appearance was rather that of a studio, because of a skylight
+which filled the middle of the high ceiling, where the belvedere was.
+The light came from here. There were two other windows, but these were
+hidden by curtains.
+
+"Siméon is not here," said Patrice.
+
+Coralie did not reply. She was examining the things around her with an
+emotion which was reflected in every feature. There were books, all of
+them going back to the last century. Some of them were signed "Coralie"
+in pencil on their blue or yellow wrappers. There were pieces of
+unfinished needlework, an embroidery-frame, a piece of tapestry with a
+needle hanging to it by a thread of wool. And there were also books
+signed "Patrice" and a box of cigars and a blotting-pad and an inkstand
+and penholders. And there were two small framed photographs, those of
+two children, Patrice and Coralie. And thus the life of long ago went
+on, not only the life of two lovers who loved each other with a violent
+and fleeting passion, but of two beings who dwell together in the calm
+assurance of a long existence spent in common.
+
+"Oh, my darling, darling mother!" Coralie whispered.
+
+Her emotion increased with each new memory. She leant trembling on
+Patrice's shoulder.
+
+"Let's go," he said.
+
+"Yes, dear, yes, we had better. We will come back again. . . . We will
+come back to them. . . . We will revive the life of love that was cut
+short by their death. Let us go for to-day; I have no strength left."
+
+But they had taken only a few steps when they stopped dismayed.
+
+The door was closed.
+
+Their eyes met, filled with uneasiness.
+
+"We didn't close it, did we?" he asked.
+
+"No," she said, "we didn't close it."
+
+He went to open it and perceived that it had neither handle nor lock.
+
+It was a single door, of massive wood that looked hard and substantial.
+It might well have been made of one piece, taken from the very heart of
+an oak. There was no paint or varnish on it. Here and there were
+scratches, as if some one had been rapping at it with a tool. And then
+. . . and then, on the right, were these few words in pencil:
+
+     _Patrice and Coralie, 14 April, 1895_
+              _God will avenge us_
+
+Below this was a cross and, below the cross, another date, but in a
+different and more recent handwriting:
+
+     _14 April, 1915_
+
+"This is terrible, this is terrible," said Patrice. "To-day's date! Who
+can have written that? It has only just been written. Oh, it's terrible!
+. . . Come, come, after all, we can't . . ."
+
+He rushed to one of the windows, tore back the curtain that veiled it
+and pulled upon the casement. A cry escaped him. The window was walled
+up, walled up with building-stones that filled the space between the
+glass and the shutters.
+
+He ran to the other window and found the same obstacle.
+
+There were two doors, leading probably to the bedroom on the right and
+to a room next to the kitchen on the left. He opened them quickly. Both
+doors were walled up.
+
+He ran in every direction, during the first moment of terror, and then
+hurled himself against the first of the three doors and tried to break
+it down. It did not move. It might have been an immovable block.
+
+Then, once again, they looked at each other with eyes of fear; and the
+same terrible thought came over them both. The thing that had happened
+before was being repeated! The tragedy was being played a second time.
+After the mother and the father, it was the turn of the daughter and the
+son. Like the lovers of yesteryear, those of to-day were prisoners. The
+enemy held them in his powerful grip; and they would doubtless soon know
+how their parents had died by seeing how they themselves would die.
+. . . 14 April, 1895. . . . 14 April, 1915. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE ABYSS
+
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Patrice. "I won't stand this!"
+
+He flung himself against the windows and doors, took up an iron dog from
+the fender and banged it against the wooden doors and the stone walls.
+Barren efforts! They were the same which his father had made before him;
+and they could only result in the same mockery of impotent scratches on
+the wood and the stone.
+
+"Oh, Coralie, Coralie!" he cried in his despair. "It's I who have
+brought you to this! What an abyss I've dragged you into! It was madness
+to try to fight this out by myself! I ought to have called in those who
+understand, who are accustomed to it! . . . No, I was going to be so
+clever! . . . Forgive me, Coralie."
+
+She had sunk into a chair. He, almost on his knees beside her, threw his
+arms around her, imploring her pardon.
+
+She smiled, to calm him:
+
+"Come, dear," she said, gently, "don't lose courage. Perhaps we are
+mistaken. . . . After all, there's nothing to show that it is not all an
+accident."
+
+"The date!" he said. "The date of this year, of this day, written in
+another hand! It was your mother and my father who wrote the first . . .
+but this one, Coralie, this one proves premeditation, and an implacable
+determination to do away with us."
+
+She shuddered. Still she persisted in trying to comfort him:
+
+"It may be. But yet it is not so bad as all that. We have enemies, but
+we have friends also. They will look for us."
+
+"They will look for us, but how can they ever find us, Coralie? We took
+steps to prevent them from guessing where we were going; and not one of
+them knows this house."
+
+"Old Siméon does."
+
+"Siméon came and placed his wreath, but some one else came with him,
+some one who rules him and who has perhaps already got rid of him, now
+that Siméon has played his part."
+
+"And what then, Patrice?"
+
+He felt that she was overcome and began to be ashamed of his own
+weakness:
+
+"Well," he said, mastering himself, "we must just wait. After all, the
+attack may not materialize. The fact of our being locked in does not
+mean that we are lost. And, even so, we shall make a fight for it, shall
+we not? You need not think that I am at the end of my strength or my
+resources. Let us wait, Coralie, and act."
+
+The main thing was to find out whether there was any entrance to the
+house which could allow of an unforeseen attack. After an hour's search
+they took up the carpet and found tiles which showed nothing unusual.
+There was certainly nothing except the door, and, as they could not
+prevent this from being opened, since it opened outwards, they heaped
+up most of the furniture in front of it, thus forming a barricade which
+would protect them against a surprise.
+
+Then Patrice cocked his two revolvers and placed them beside him, in
+full sight.
+
+"This will make us easy in our minds," he said. "Any enemy who appears
+is a dead man."
+
+But the memory of the past bore down upon them with all its awful
+weight. All their words and all their actions others before them had
+spoken and performed, under similar conditions, with the same thoughts
+and the same forebodings. Patrice's father must have prepared his
+weapons. Coralie's mother must have folded her hands and prayed.
+Together they had barricaded the door and together sounded the walls and
+taken up the carpet. What an anguish was this, doubled as it was by a
+like anguish!
+
+To dispel the horror of the idea, they turned the pages of the books,
+works of fiction and others, which their parents had read. On certain
+pages, at the end of a chapter or volume, were lines constituting notes
+which Patrice's father and Coralie's mother used to write each other.
+
+      "_Darling Patrice_,
+
+      "I ran in this morning to recreate our life of
+      yesterday and to dream of our life this afternoon. As
+      you will arrive before me, you will read these lines.
+      You will read that I love you. . . ."
+
+And, in another book:
+
+      "_My own Coralie_,
+
+      "You have this minute gone; I shall not see you until
+      to-morrow and I do not want to leave this haven where
+      our love has tasted such delights without once more
+      telling you . . ."
+
+They looked through most of the books in this way, finding, however,
+instead of the clues for which they hoped, nothing but expressions of
+love and affection. And they spent more than two hours waiting and
+dreading what might happen.
+
+"There will be nothing," said Patrice. "And perhaps that is the most
+awful part of it, for, if nothing occurs, it will mean that we are
+doomed not to leave this room. And, in that case . . ."
+
+Patrice did not finish the sentence. Coralie understood. And together
+they received a vision of the death by starvation that seemed to
+threaten them. But Patrice exclaimed:
+
+"No, no, we have not that to fear. No. For people of our age to die of
+hunger takes several days, three or four days or more. And we shall be
+rescued before then."
+
+"How?" asked Coralie.
+
+"How? Why, by our soldiers, by Ya-Bon, by M. Masseron! They will be
+uneasy if we do not come home to-night."
+
+"You yourself said, Patrice, that they cannot know where we are."
+
+"They'll find out. It's quite simple. There is only the lane between the
+two gardens. Besides, everything we do is set down in my diary, which is
+in the desk in my room. Ya-Bon knows of its existence. He is bound to
+speak of it to M. Masseron. And then . . . and then there is Siméon.
+What will have become of him? Surely they will notice his movements?
+And won't he give a warning of some kind?"
+
+But words were powerless to comfort them. If they were not to die of
+hunger, then the enemy must have contrived another form of torture.
+Their inability to do anything kept them on the rack. Patrice began his
+investigations again. A curious accident turned them in a new direction.
+On opening one of the books through which they had not yet looked, a
+book published in 1895, Patrice saw two pages turned down together. He
+separated them and read a letter addressed to him by his father:
+
+      "_Patrice, my dear Son_,
+
+      "If ever chance places this note before your eyes, it
+      will prove that I have met with a violent death which
+      has prevented my destroying it. In that case, Patrice,
+      look for the truth concerning my death on the wall of
+      the studio, between the two windows. I shall perhaps
+      have time to write it down."
+
+The two victims had therefore at that time foreseen the tragic fate in
+store for them; and Patrice's father and Coralie's mother knew the
+danger which they ran in coming to the lodge. It remained to be seen
+whether Patrice's father had been able to carry out his intention.
+
+Between the two windows, as all around the room, was a wainscoting of
+varnished wood, topped at a height of six feet by a cornice. Above the
+cornice was the plain plastered wall. Patrice and Coralie had already
+observed, without paying particular attention to it, that the
+wainscoting seemed to have been renewed in this part, because the
+varnish of the boards did not have the same uniform color. Using one of
+the iron dogs as a chisel, Patrice broke down the cornice and lifted the
+first board. It broke easily. Under this plank, on the plaster of the
+wall, were lines of writing.
+
+"It's the same method," he said, "as that which old Siméon has since
+employed. First write on the walls, then cover it up with wood or
+plaster."
+
+He broke off the top of the other boards and in this way brought several
+complete lines into view, hurried lines, written in pencil and slightly
+worn by time. Patrice deciphered them with the greatest emotion. His
+father had written them at a moment when death was stalking at hand. A
+few hours later he had ceased to live. They were the evidence of his
+death-agony and perhaps too an imprecation against the enemy who was
+killing him and the woman he loved.
+
+Patrice read, in an undertone:
+
+      "I am writing this in order that the scoundrel's plot
+      may not be achieved to the end and in order to ensure
+      his punishment. Coralie and I are no doubt going to
+      perish, but at least we shall not die without
+      revealing the cause of our death.
+
+      "A few days ago, he said to Coralie, 'You spurn my
+      love, you load me with your hatred. So be it. But I
+      shall kill you both, your lover and you, in such a
+      manner that I can never be accused of the death, which
+      will look like suicide. Everything is ready. Beware,
+      Coralie.'
+
+      "Everything was, in fact, ready. He did not know me,
+      but he must have known that Coralie used to meet
+      somebody here daily; and it was in this lodge that he
+      prepared our tomb.
+
+      "What manner of death ours will be we do not know.
+      Lack of food, no doubt. It is four hours since we were
+      imprisoned. The door closed upon us, a heavy door
+      which he must have placed there last night. All the
+      other openings, doors and windows alike, are stopped
+      up with blocks of stone laid and cemented since our
+      last meeting. Escape is impossible. What is to become
+      of us?"
+
+The uncovered portion stopped here. Patrice said:
+
+"You see, Coralie, they went through the same horrors as ourselves. They
+too dreaded starvation. They too passed through long hours of waiting,
+when inaction is so painful; and it was more or less to distract their
+thoughts that they wrote those lines."
+
+He went on, after examining the spot:
+
+"They counted, most likely, on what happened, that the man who was
+killing them would not read this document. Look, one long curtain was
+hung over these two windows and the wall between them, one curtain, as
+is proved by the single rod covering the whole distance. After our
+parents' death no one thought of drawing it, and the truth remained
+concealed until the day when Siméon discovered it and, by way of
+precaution, hid it again under a wooden panel and hung up two curtains
+in the place of one. In this way everything seemed normal."
+
+Patrice set to work again. A few more lines made their appearance:
+
+      "Oh, if I were the only one to suffer, the only one to
+      die! But the horror of it all is that I am dragging my
+      dear Coralie with me. She fainted and is lying down
+      now, prostrate by the fears which she tries so hard to
+      overcome. My poor darling! I seem already to see the
+      pallor of death on her sweet face. Forgive me,
+      dearest, forgive me!"
+
+Patrice and Coralie exchanged glances. Here were the same sentiments
+which they themselves felt, the same scruples, the same delicacy, the
+same effacement of self in the presence of the other's grief.
+
+"He loved your mother," Patrice murmured, "as I love you. I also am not
+afraid of death. I have faced it too often, with a smile! But you,
+Coralie, you, for whose sake I would undergo any sort of torture
+. . . !"
+
+He began to walk up and down, once more yielding to his anger:
+
+"I shall save you, Coralie, I swear it. And what a delight it will then
+be to take our revenge! He shall have the same fate which he was
+devising for us. Do you understand, Coralie? He shall die here, here in
+this room. Oh, how my hatred will spur me to bring that about!"
+
+He tore down more pieces of boarding, in the hope of learning something
+that might be useful to him, since the struggle was being renewed under
+exactly similar conditions. But the sentences that followed, like those
+which Patrice had just uttered, were oaths of vengeance:
+
+      "Coralie, he shall be punished, if not by us, then by
+      the hand of God. No, his infernal scheme will not
+      succeed. No, it will never be believed that we had
+      recourse to suicide to relieve ourselves of an
+      existence that was built up of happiness and joy. No,
+      his crime will be known. Hour by hour I shall here set
+      down the undeniable proofs. . . ."
+
+"Words, words!" cried Patrice, in a tone of exasperation. "Words of
+vengeance and sorrow, but never a fact to guide us. Father, will you
+tell us nothing to save your Coralie's daughter? If your Coralie
+succumbed, let mine escape the disaster, thanks to your aid, father!
+Help me! Counsel me!"
+
+But the father answered the son with nothing but more words of challenge
+and despair:
+
+      "Who can rescue us? We are walled up in this tomb,
+      buried alive and condemned to torture without being
+      able to defend ourselves. My revolver lies there, upon
+      the table. What is the use of it? The enemy does not
+      attack us. He has time on his side, unrelenting time
+      which kills of its own strength, by the mere fact that
+      it is time. Who can rescue us? Who will save my
+      darling Coralie?"
+
+The position was terrible, and they felt all its tragic horror. It
+seemed to them as though they were already dead, once they were enduring
+the same trial endured by others and that they were still enduring it
+under the same conditions. There was nothing to enable them to escape
+any of the phases through which the other two, his father and her
+mother, had passed. The similarity between their own and their parents'
+fate was so striking that they seemed to be suffering two deaths, and
+the second agony was now commencing.
+
+Coralie gave way and began to cry. Moved by her tears, Patrice attacked
+the wainscoting with new fury, but its boards, strengthened by
+cross-laths, resisted his efforts:
+
+At last he read:
+
+      "What is happening? We had an impression that some one
+      was walking outside, in the garden. Yes, when we put
+      our ears to the stone wall built in the embrasure of
+      the window, we thought we heard footsteps. Is it
+      possible? Oh, if it only were! It would mean the
+      struggle, at last. Anything rather than the maddening
+      silence and endless uncertainty!
+
+      "That's it! . . . That's it! . . . The sound is
+      becoming more distinct. . . . It is a different sound,
+      like that which you make when you dig the ground with
+      a pick-ax. Some one is digging the ground, not in
+      front of the house, but on the right, near the
+      kitchen. . . ."
+
+Patrice redoubled his efforts. Coralie came and helped him. This time he
+felt that a corner of the veil was being lifted. The writing went on:
+
+      "Another hour, with alternate spells of sound and
+      silence: the same sound of digging and the same
+      silence which suggests work that is being continued.
+
+      "And then some one entered the hall, one person; he,
+      evidently. We recognized his step. . . . He walks
+      without attempting to deaden it. . . . Then he went to
+      the kitchen, where he worked the same way as before,
+      with a pick-ax, but on the stones this time. We also
+      heard the noise of a pane of glass breaking.
+
+      "And now he has gone outside again and there is a new
+      sort of sound, against the house, a sound that seems
+      to travel up the house as though the wretch had to
+      climb to a height in order to carry out his plan.
+      . . ."
+
+Patrice stopped reading and looked at Coralie. Both of them were
+listening.
+
+"Hark!" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, yes," she answered, "I hear. . . . Steps outside the house . . .
+in the garden. . . ."
+
+They went to one of the windows, where they had left the casement open
+behind the wall of building-stones, and listened. There was really some
+one walking; and the knowledge that the enemy was approaching gave them
+the same sense of relief that their parents had experienced.
+
+Some one walked thrice round the house. But they did not, like their
+parents, recognize the sound of the footsteps. They were those of a
+stranger, or else steps that had changed their tread. Then, for a few
+minutes, they heard nothing more. And suddenly another sound arose; and,
+though in their innermost selves they were expecting it, they were
+nevertheless stupefied at hearing it. And Patrice, in a hollow voice,
+laying stress upon each syllable, uttered the sentence which his father
+had written twenty years before:
+
+"It's the sound which you make when you dig the ground with a pick-ax."
+
+Yes, It must be that. Some one was digging the ground, not in front of
+the house, but on the right, near the kitchen.
+
+And so the abominable miracle of the revived tragedy was continuing.
+Here again the former act was repeated, a simple enough act in itself,
+but one which became sinister because it was one of those which had
+already been performed and because it was announcing and preparing the
+death once before announced and prepared.
+
+An hour passed. The work went on, paused and went on again. It was like
+the sound of a spade at work in a courtyard, when the grave-digger is in
+no hurry and takes a rest and then resumes his work.
+
+Patrice and Coralie stood listening side by side, their eyes in each
+other's eyes, their hands in each other's hands.
+
+"He's stopping," whispered Patrice.
+
+"Yes," said Coralie; "only I think . . ."
+
+"Yes, Coralie, there's some one in the hall. . . . Oh, we need not
+trouble to listen! We have only to remember. There: 'He goes to the
+kitchen and digs as he did just now, but on the stones this time.' . . .
+And then . . . and then . . . oh, Coralie, the same sound of broken
+glass!"
+
+It was memories mingling with the grewsome reality. The present and the
+past formed but one. They foresaw events at the very instant when these
+took place.
+
+The enemy went outside again; and, forthwith, the sound seemed "to
+travel up the house as though the wretch had to climb to a height in
+order to carry out his plans."
+
+And then . . . and then what would happen next? They no longer thought
+of consulting the inscription on the wall, or perhaps they did not dare.
+Their attention was concentrated on the invisible and sometimes
+imperceptible deeds that were being accomplished against them outside,
+an uninterrupted stealthy effort, a mysterious twenty-year-old plan
+whereof each slightest detail was settled as by clockwork!
+
+The enemy entered the house and they heard a rustling at the bottom of
+the door, a rustling of soft things apparently being heaped or pushed
+against the wood. Next came other vague noises in the two adjoining
+rooms, against the walled doors, and similar noises outside, between the
+stones of the windows and the open shutters. And then they heard some
+one on the roof.
+
+They raised their eyes. This time they felt certain that the last act
+was at hand, or at least one of the scenes of the last act. The roof to
+them was the framed skylight which occupied the center of the ceiling
+and admitted the only daylight that entered the room. And still the same
+agonizing question rose to their minds: what was going to happen? Would
+the enemy show his face outside the skylight and reveal himself at last?
+
+This work on the roof continued for a considerable time. Footsteps shook
+the zinc sheets that covered it, moving between the right-hand side of
+the house and the edge of the skylight. And suddenly this skylight, or
+rather a part of it, a square containing four panes, was lifted, a very
+little way, by a hand which inserted a stick to keep it open.
+
+And the enemy again walked across the roof and went down the side of the
+house.
+
+They were almost disappointed and felt such a craving to know the truth
+that Patrice once more fell to breaking the boards of the wainscoting,
+removing the last pieces, which covered the end of the inscription. And
+what they read made them live the last few minutes all over again. The
+enemy's return, the rustle against the walls and the walled windows, the
+noise on the roof, the opening of the skylight, the method of supporting
+it: all this had happened in the same order and, so to speak, within the
+same limit of time. Patrice's father and Coralie's mother had undergone
+the same impressions. Destiny seemed bent on following the same paths
+and making the same movements in seeking the same object.
+
+And the writing went on:
+
+      "He is going up again, he is going up again. . . .
+      There's his footsteps on the roof. . . . He is near
+      the skylight. . . . Will he look through? . . . Shall
+      we see his hated face? . . ."
+
+"He is going up again, he is going up again," gasped Coralie, nestling
+against Patrice.
+
+The enemy's footsteps were pounding over the zinc.
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, "he is going up as before, without departing from
+the procedure followed by the other. Only we do not know whose face will
+appear to us. Our parents knew their enemy."
+
+She shuddered at her image of the man who had killed her mother; and she
+asked:
+
+"It was he, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, it was he. There is his name, written by my father."
+
+Patrice had almost entirely uncovered the inscription. Bending low, he
+pointed with his finger:
+
+"Look. Read the name: Essarès. You can see it down there: it was one of
+the last words my father wrote."
+
+And Coralie read:
+
+      "The skylight rose higher, a hand lifted it and we saw
+      . . . we saw, laughing as he looked down on us--oh,
+      the scoundrel--Essarès! . . . Essarès! . . . And then
+      he passed something through the opening, something
+      that came down, that unrolled itself in the middle of
+      the room, over our heads: a ladder, a rope-ladder.
+
+      "We did not understand. It was swinging in front of
+      us. And then, in the end, I saw a sheet of paper
+      rolled round the bottom rung and pinned to it. On the
+      paper, in Essarès' handwriting, are the words, 'Send
+      Coralie up by herself. Her life shall be saved. I give
+      her ten minutes to accept. If not . . .'"
+
+"Ah," said Patrice, rising from his stooping posture, "will this also be
+repeated? What about the ladder, the rope-ladder, which I found in old
+Siméon's cupboard?"
+
+Coralie kept her eyes fixed on the skylight, for the footsteps were
+moving around it. Then they stopped. Patrice and Coralie had not a doubt
+that the moment had come and that they also were about to see their
+enemy. And Patrice said huskily, in a choking voice:
+
+"Who will it be? There are three men who could have played this sinister
+part as it was played before. Two are dead, Essarès and my father. And
+Siméon, the third, is mad. Is it he, in his madness, who has set the
+machine working again? But how are we to imagine that he could have done
+it with such precision? No, no, it is the other one, the one who directs
+him and who till now has remained in the background."
+
+He felt Coralie's fingers clutching his arm.
+
+"Hush," she said, "here he is!"
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Yes, I'm sure of it."
+
+Her imagination had foretold what was preparing; and in fact, as once
+before, the skylight was raised higher. A hand lifted it. And suddenly
+they saw a head slipping under the open framework.
+
+It was the head of old Siméon.
+
+"The madman!" Patrice whispered, in dismay. "The madman!"
+
+"But perhaps he isn't mad," she said. "He can't be mad."
+
+She could not check the trembling that shook her.
+
+The man overhead looked down upon them, hidden behind his spectacles,
+which allowed no expression of satisfied hatred or joy to show on his
+impassive features.
+
+"Coralie," said Patrice, in a low voice, "do what I say. . . . Come.
+. . ."
+
+He pushed her gently along, as though he were supporting her and leading
+her to a chair. In reality he had but one thought, to reach the table
+on which he had placed his revolvers, take one of them and fire.
+
+Siméon remained motionless, like some evil genius come to unloose the
+tempest. . . . Coralie could not rid herself of that glance which
+weighted upon her.
+
+"No," she murmured, resisting Patrice, as though she feared that his
+intention would precipitate the dreaded catastrophe, "no, you mustn't.
+. . ."
+
+But Patrice, displaying greater determination, was near his object. One
+more effort and his hand would hold the revolver.
+
+He quickly made up his mind, took rapid aim and fired a shot.
+
+The head disappeared from sight.
+
+"Oh," said Coralie, "you were wrong, Patrice! He will take his revenge
+on us. . . ."
+
+"No, perhaps not," said Patrice, still holding his revolver. "I may very
+well have hit him. The bullet struck the frame of the skylight. But it
+may have glanced off, in which case . . ."
+
+They waited hand in hand, with a gleam of hope, which did not last long,
+however.
+
+The noise on the roof began again. And then, as before--and this they
+really had the impression of not seeing for the first time--as before,
+something passed through the opening, something that came down, that
+unrolled itself in the middle of the room, a ladder, a rope-ladder, the
+very one which Patrice had seen in old Siméon's cupboard.
+
+As before, they looked at it; and they knew so well that everything was
+being done over again, that the facts were inexorably, pitilessly linked
+together, they were so certain of it that their eyes at once sought the
+sheet of paper which must inevitably be pinned to the bottom rung.
+
+It was there, forming a little scroll, dry and discolored and torn at
+the edges. It was the sheet of twenty years ago, written by Essarès and
+now serving, as before, to convey the same temptation and the same
+threat:
+
+      "Send Coralie up by herself. Her life shall be saved.
+      I give her ten minutes to accept. If not . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NAILS IN THE COFFIN
+
+
+"If not . . ."
+
+Patrice repeated the words mechanically, several times over, while their
+formidable significance became apparent to both him and Coralie. The
+words meant that, if Coralie did not obey and did not deliver herself to
+the enemy, if she did not flee from prison to go with the man who held
+the keys of the prison, the alternative was death.
+
+At that moment neither of them was thinking what end was in store for
+them nor even of that death itself. They thought only of the command to
+separate which the enemy had issued against them. One was to go and the
+other to die.
+
+Coralie was promised her life if she would sacrifice Patrice. But what
+was the price of the promise? And what would be the form of the
+sacrifice demanded?
+
+There was a long silence, full of uncertainty and anguish between the
+two lovers. They were coming to grips with something; and the drama was
+no longer taking place absolutely outside them, without their playing
+any other part than that of helpless victims. It was being enacted
+within themselves; and they had the power to alter its ending. It was a
+terrible problem. It had already been set to the earlier Coralie; and
+she had solved it as a lover would, for she was dead. And now it was
+being set again.
+
+Patrice read the inscription; and the rapidly scrawled words became less
+distinct:
+
+      "I have begged and entreated Coralie. . . . She flung
+      herself on her knees before me. She wants to die with
+      me. . . ."
+
+Patrice looked at Coralie. He had read the words in a very low voice;
+and she had not heard them. Then, in a burst of passion, he drew her
+eagerly to him and exclaimed:
+
+"You must go, Coralie! You can understand that my not saying so at once
+was not due to hesitation. No, only . . . I was thinking of that man's
+offer . . . and I am frightened for your sake. . . . What he asks,
+Coralie, is terrible. His reason for promising to save your life is that
+he loves you. And so you understand. . . . But still, Coralie, you must
+obey . . . you must go on living. . . . Go! It is no use waiting for the
+ten minutes to pass. He might change his mind and condemn you to death
+as well. No, Coralie, you must go, you must go at once!"
+
+"I shall stay," she replied, simply.
+
+He gave a start:
+
+"But this is madness! Why make a useless sacrifice? Are you afraid of
+what might happen if you obeyed him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then go."
+
+"I shall stay."
+
+"But why? Why this obstinacy? It can do no good. Then why stay?"
+
+"Because I love you, Patrice."
+
+He stood dumfounded. He knew that she loved him and he had already told
+her so. But that she loved him to the extent of preferring to die in his
+company, this was an unexpected, exquisite and at the same time terrible
+delight.
+
+"Ah," he said, "you love me, Coralie! You love me!"
+
+"I love you, my own Patrice."
+
+She put her arms around his neck; and he felt that hers was an embrace
+too strong to be sundered. Nevertheless, he was resolved to save her;
+and he refused to yield:
+
+"If you love me," he said, "you must obey me and save your life. Believe
+me, it is a hundred times more painful for me to die with you than to
+die alone. If I know that you are free and alive, death will be sweet to
+me."
+
+She did not listen and continued her confession, happy in making it,
+happy in uttering words which she had kept to herself so long:
+
+"I have loved you, Patrice, from the first day I saw you. I knew it
+without your telling me; and my only reason for not telling you earlier
+was that I was waiting for a solemn occasion, for a time when it would
+be a glory to tell you so, while I looked into the depths of your eyes
+and offered myself to you entirely. As I have had to speak on the brink
+of the grave, listen to me and do not force upon me a separation which
+would be worse than death."
+
+"No, no," he said, striving to release himself, "it is your duty to
+go."
+
+He made another effort and caught hold of her hands:
+
+"It is your duty to go," he whispered, "and, when you are free, to do
+all that you can to save me."
+
+"What are you saying, Patrice?"
+
+"Yes," he repeated, "to save me. There is no reason why you should not
+escape from that scoundrel's clutches, report him, seek assistance, warn
+our friends. You can call out, you can play some trick. . . ."
+
+She looked at him with so sad a smile and such a doubting expression
+that he stopped speaking.
+
+"You are trying to mislead me, my poor darling," she said, "but you are
+no more taken in by what you say than I am. No, Patrice, you well know
+that, if I surrender myself to that man, he will reduce me to silence or
+imprison me in some hiding-place, bound hand and foot, until you have
+drawn your last breath."
+
+"You really think that?"
+
+"Just as you do, Patrice. Just as you are sure of what will happen
+afterwards."
+
+"Well, what will happen?"
+
+"Ah, Patrice, if that man saves my life, it will not be out of
+generosity. Don't you see what his plan is, his abominable plan, once I
+am his prisoner? And don't you also see what my only means of escape
+will be? Therefore, Patrice, if I am to die in a few hours, why not die
+now, in your arms . . . at the same time as yourself, with my lips to
+yours? Is that dying? Is it not rather living, in one instant, the most
+wonderful of lives?"
+
+He resisted her embrace. He knew that the first kiss of her proffered
+lips would deprive him of all his power of will.
+
+"This is terrible," he muttered. "How can you expect me to accept your
+sacrifice, you, so young, with years of happiness before you?"
+
+"Years of mourning and despair, if you are gone."
+
+"You must live, Coralie. I entreat you to, with all my soul."
+
+"I cannot live without you, Patrice. You are my only happiness. I have
+no reason for existence except to love you. You have taught me to love.
+I love you!"
+
+Oh, those heavenly words! For the second time they rang between the four
+walls of that room. The same words, spoken by the daughter, which the
+mother had spoken with the same passion and the same glad acceptance of
+her fate! The same words made twice holy by the recollection of death
+past and the thought of death to come!
+
+Coralie uttered them without alarm. All her fears seemed to disappear in
+her love; and it was love alone that shook her voice and dimmed the
+brightness of her eyes.
+
+Patrice contemplated her with a rapt look. He too was beginning to think
+that minutes such as these were worth dying for. Nevertheless, he made a
+last effort:
+
+"And if I ordered you to go, Coralie?"
+
+"That is to say," she murmured, "if you ordered me to go to that man and
+surrender myself to him? Is that what you wish, Patrice?"
+
+The thought was too much for him.
+
+"Oh, the horror of it! That man . . . that man . . . you, my Coralie,
+so stainless and undefiled! . . ."
+
+Neither he nor she pictured the man in the exact image of Siméon. To
+both of them, notwithstanding the hideous vision perceived above, the
+enemy retained a mysterious character. It was perhaps Siméon. It was
+perhaps another, of whom Siméon was but the instrument. Assuredly it was
+the enemy, the evil genius crouching above their heads, preparing their
+death-throes while he pursued Coralie with his foul desire.
+
+Patrice asked one more question:
+
+"Did you ever notice that Siméon sought your company?"
+
+"No, never. If anything, he rather avoided me."
+
+"Then it's because he's mad. . . ."
+
+"I don't think he is mad: he is revenging himself."
+
+"Impossible. He was my father's friend. All his life long he worked to
+bring us together: surely he would not kill us deliberately?"
+
+"I don't know, Patrice, I don't understand. . . ."
+
+They discussed it no further. It was of no importance whether their
+death was caused by this one or that one. It was death itself that they
+had to fight, without troubling who had set it loose against them. And
+what could they do to ward it off?
+
+"You agree, do you not?" asked Coralie, in a low voice.
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"I shall not go," she went on, "but I want you to be of one mind with
+me. I entreat you. It tortures me to think that you are suffering more
+than I do. You must let me bear my share. Tell me that you agree."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I agree."
+
+"My own Patrice! Now give me your two hands, look right into my eyes and
+smile."
+
+Mad with love and longing they plunged themselves for an instant into a
+sort of ecstasy. Then she asked:
+
+"What is it, Patrice? You seem distraught again."
+
+He gave a hoarse cry:
+
+"Look! . . . Look . . ."
+
+This time he was certain of what he had seen. The ladder was going up.
+The ten minutes were over.
+
+He rushed forward and caught hold of one of the rungs. The ladder no
+longer moved.
+
+He did not know exactly what he intended to do. The ladder afforded
+Coralie's only chance of safety. Could he abandon that hope and resign
+himself to the inevitable?
+
+One or two minutes passed. The ladder must have been hooked fast again,
+for Patrice felt a firm resistance up above.
+
+Coralie was entreating him:
+
+"Patrice," she asked, "Patrice, what are you hoping for?"
+
+He looked around and above him, as though seeking an idea, and he seemed
+also to look inside himself, as though he were seeking that idea amid
+all the memories which he had accumulated at the moment when his father
+also held the ladder, in a last effort of will. And suddenly, throwing
+up his leg, he placed his left foot on the fifth rung of the ladder and
+began to raise himself by the uprights.
+
+It was an absurd attempt to scale the ladder, to reach the skylight, to
+lay hold of the enemy and thus save himself and Coralie. If his father
+had failed before him, how could he hope to succeed?
+
+It was all over in less than three seconds. The ladder was at once
+unfastened from the hook that kept it hanging from the skylight; and
+Patrice and the ladder came to the ground together. At the same time a
+strident laugh rang out above, followed the next moment by the sound of
+the skylight closing.
+
+Patrice picked himself up in a fury, hurled insults at the enemy and, as
+his rage increased, fired two revolver shots, which broke two of the
+panes. He next attacked the doors and windows, banging at them with the
+iron dog which he had taken from the fender. He hit the walls, he hit
+the floor, he shook his fist at the invisible enemy who was mocking him.
+But suddenly, after a few blows struck at space, he was compelled to
+stop. Something like a thick veil had glided overhead. They were in the
+dark.
+
+He understood what had happened. The enemy had lowered a shutter upon
+the skylight, covering it entirely.
+
+"Patrice! Patrice!" cried Coralie, maddened by the blotting out of the
+light and losing all her strength of mind. "Patrice! Where are you,
+Patrice? Oh, I'm frightened! Where are you?"
+
+They began to grope for each other, like blind people, and nothing that
+had gone before seemed to them more horrible than to be lost in this
+pitiless blackness.
+
+"Patrice! Oh, Patrice! Where are you?"
+
+Their hands touched, Coralie's poor little frozen fingers and Patrice's
+hands that burned with fever, and they pressed each other and twined
+together and clutched each other as though to assure themselves that
+they were still living.
+
+"Oh, don't leave me, Patrice!" Coralie implored.
+
+"I am here," he replied. "Have no fear: they can't separate us."
+
+"You are right," she panted, "they can't separate us. We are in our
+grave."
+
+The word was so terrible and Coralie uttered it so mournfully that a
+reaction overtook Patrice.
+
+"No! What are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "We must not despair.
+There is hope of safety until the last moment."
+
+Releasing one of his hands, he took aim with his revolver. A few faint
+rays trickled through the chinks around the skylight. He fired three
+times. They heard the crack of the wood-work and the chuckle of the
+enemy. But the shutter must have been lined with metal, for no split
+appeared.
+
+Besides, the chinks were forthwith stopped up; and they became aware
+that the enemy was engaged in the same work that he had performed around
+the doors and windows. It was obviously very thorough and took a long
+time in the doing. Next came another work, completing the first. The
+enemy was nailing the shutter to the frame of the skylight.
+
+It was an awful sound! Swift and light as were the taps of the hammer,
+they seemed to drive deep into the brain of those who heard them. It was
+their coffin that was being nailed down, their great coffin with a lid
+hermetically sealed that now bore heavy upon them. There was no hope
+left, not a possible chance of escape. Each tap of the hammer
+strengthened their dark prison, making yet more impregnable the walls
+that stood between them and the outer world and bade defiance to the
+most resolute assault:
+
+"Patrice," stammered Coralie, "I'm frightened . . . That tapping hurts
+me so!" . . .
+
+She sank back in his arms. Patrice felt tears coursing down her cheeks.
+
+Meanwhile the work overhead was being completed. They underwent the
+terrible experience which condemned men must feel on the morning of
+their last day, when from their cells they hear the preparations: the
+engine of death that is being set up, or the electric batteries that are
+being tested. They hear men striving to have everything ready, so that
+not one propitious chance may remain and so that destiny may be
+fulfilled. Death had entered the enemy's service and was working hand in
+hand with him. He was death itself, acting, contriving and fighting
+against those whom he had resolved to destroy.
+
+"Don't leave me," sobbed Coralie, "don't leave me! . . ."
+
+"Only for a second or two," he said. "We must be avenged later."
+
+"What is the use, Patrice? What can it matter to us?"
+
+He had a box containing a few matches. Lighting them one after the
+other, he led Coralie to the panel with the inscription.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"I will not have our death put down to suicide. I want to do what our
+parents did before us and to prepare for the future. Some one will read
+what I am going to write and will avenge us."
+
+He took a pencil from his pocket and bent down. There was a free space,
+right at the bottom of the panel. He wrote:
+
+      "Patrice Belval and Coralie, his betrothed, die the
+      same death, murdered by Siméon Diodokis, 14 April,
+      1915."
+
+But, as he finished writing, he noticed a few words of the former
+inscription which he had not yet read, because they were placed outside
+it, so to speak, and did not appear to form part of it.
+
+"One more match," he said. "Did you see? There are some words there, the
+last, no doubt, that my father wrote."
+
+She struck a match. By the flickering light they made out a certain
+number of misshapen letters, obviously written in a hurry and forming
+two words:
+
+      "_Asphyxiated. . . . Oxide. . . ._"
+
+The match went out. They rose in silence. Asphyxiated! They understood.
+That was how their parents had perished and how they themselves would
+perish. But they did not yet fully realize how the thing would happen.
+The lack of air would never be great enough to suffocate them in this
+large room, which contained enough to last them for many days.
+
+"Unless," muttered Patrice, "unless the quality of the air can be
+impaired and therefore . . ."
+
+He stopped. Then he went on:
+
+"Yes, that's it. I remember."
+
+He told Coralie what he suspected, or rather what conformed so well with
+the reality as to leave no room for doubt. He had seen in old Siméon's
+cupboard not only the rope-ladder which the madman had brought with him,
+but also a coil of lead pipes. And now Siméon's behavior from the moment
+when they were locked in, his movements to and fro around the lodge, the
+care with which he had stopped up every crevice, his labors along the
+wall and on the roof: all this was explained in the most definite
+fashion. Old Siméon had simply fitted to a gas-meter, probably in the
+kitchen, the pipe which he had next laid along the wall and on the roof.
+This therefore was the way in which they were about to die, as their
+parents had died before them, stifled by ordinary gas.
+
+Panic-stricken, they began to run aimlessly about the room, holding
+hands, while their disordered brains, bereft of thought or will, seemed
+like tiny things shaken by the fiercest gale. Coralie uttered incoherent
+words. Patrice, while imploring her to keep calm, was himself carried
+away by the storm and powerless to resist the terrible agony of the
+darkness wherein death lay waiting. At such times a man tries to flee,
+to escape the icy breath that is already chilling his marrow. He must
+flee, but where? Which way? The walls are insurmountable and the
+darkness is even harder than the walls.
+
+They stopped, exhausted. A low hiss was heard somewhere in the room, the
+faint hiss that issues from a badly-closed gas-jet. They listened and
+perceived that it came from above. The torture was beginning.
+
+"It will last half an hour, or an hour at most," Patrice whispered.
+
+Coralie had recovered her self-consciousness:
+
+"We shall be brave," she said.
+
+"Oh, if I were alone! But you, you, my poor Coralie!"
+
+"It is painless," she murmured.
+
+"You are bound to suffer, you, so weak!"
+
+"One suffers less, the weaker one is. Besides, I know that we sha'n't
+suffer, Patrice."
+
+She suddenly appeared so placid that he on his side was filled with a
+great peace. Seated on a sofa, their fingers still entwined, they
+silently steeped themselves in the mighty calm which comes when we think
+that events have run their course. This calm is resignation, submission
+to superior forces. Natures such as theirs cease to rebel when destiny
+has manifested its orders and when nothing remains but acquiescence and
+prayer.
+
+She put her arm round Patrice's neck:
+
+"I am your bride in the eyes of God," she said. "May He receive us as He
+would receive a husband and wife."
+
+Her gentle resignation brought tears to his eyes. She dried them with
+her kisses, and, of her own seeking, offered him her lips.
+
+They sat wrapped in an infinite silence. They perceived the first smell
+of gas descending around them, but they felt no fear.
+
+"Everything will happen as it did before, Coralie," whispered Patrice,
+"down to the very last second. Your mother and my father, who loved
+each other as we do, also died in each other's arms, with their lips
+joined together. They had decided to unite us and they have united us."
+
+"Our grave will be near theirs," she murmured.
+
+Little by little their ideas became confused and they began to think
+much as a man sees through a rising mist. They had had nothing to eat;
+and hunger now added its discomfort to the vertigo in which their minds
+were imperceptibly sinking. As it increased, their uneasiness and
+anxiety left them, to be followed by a sense of ecstasy, then lassitude,
+extinction, repose. The dread of the coming annihilation faded out of
+their thoughts.
+
+Coralie, the first to be affected, began to utter delirious words which
+astonished Patrice at first:
+
+"Dearest, there are flowers falling, roses all around us. How
+delightful!"
+
+Presently he himself grew conscious of the same blissful exaltation,
+expressing itself in tenderness and joyful emotion. With no sort of
+dismay he felt her gradually yielding in his arms and abandoning
+herself; and he had the impression that he was following her down a
+measureless abyss, all bathed with light, where they floated, he and
+she, descending slowly and without effort towards a happy valley.
+
+Minutes or perhaps hours passed. They were still descending, he
+supporting her by the waist, she with her head thrown back a little way,
+her eyes closed and a smile upon her lips. He remembered pictures
+showing gods thus gliding through the blue of heaven; and, drunk with
+pure, radiant light and air, he continued to circle above the happy
+valley.
+
+But, as he approached it, he felt himself grow weary. Coralie weighed
+heavily on his bent arm. The descent increased in speed. The waves of
+light turned to darkness. A thick cloud came, followed by others that
+formed a whirl of gloom.
+
+And suddenly, worn out, his forehead bathed in sweat and his body
+shaking with fever, he pitched forward into a great black pit. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A STRANGE CHARACTER
+
+
+It was not yet exactly death. In his present condition of agony, what
+lingered of Patrice's consciousness mingled, as in a nightmare, the life
+which he knew with the imaginary world in which he now found himself,
+the world which was that of death.
+
+In this world Coralie no longer existed; and her loss distracted him
+with grief. But he seemed to hear and see somebody whose presence was
+revealed by a shadow passing before his closed eyelids. This somebody he
+pictured to himself, though without reason, under the aspect of Siméon,
+who came to verify the death of his victims, began by carrying Coralie
+away, then came back to Patrice and carried him away also and laid him
+down somewhere. And all this was so well-defined that Patrice wondered
+whether he had not woke up.
+
+Next hours passed . . . or seconds. In the end Patrice had a feeling
+that he was falling asleep, but as a man sleeps in hell, suffering the
+moral and physical tortures of the damned. He was back at the bottom of
+the black pit, which he was making desperate efforts to leave, like a
+man who has fallen into the sea and is trying to reach the surface. In
+this way, with the greatest difficulty, he passed through one waste of
+water after another, the weight of which stifled him. He had to scale
+them, gripping with his hands and feet to things that slipped, to
+rope-ladders which, possessing no points of support, gave way beneath
+him.
+
+Meanwhile the darkness became less intense. A little muffled daylight
+mingled with it. Patrice felt less greatly oppressed. He half-opened his
+eyes, drew a breath or two and, looking round, beheld a sight that
+surprised him, the embrasure of an open door, near which he was lying in
+the air, on a sofa. Beside him he saw Coralie, on another sofa. She
+moved restlessly and seemed to be in great discomfort.
+
+"She is climbing out of the black pit," he thought to himself. "Like me,
+she is struggling. My poor Coralie!"
+
+There was a small table between them, with two glasses of water on it.
+Parched with thirst, he took one of them in his hand. But he dared not
+drink.
+
+At that moment some one came through the open door, which Patrice
+perceived to be the door of the lodge; and he observed that it was not
+old Siméon, as he had thought, but a stranger whom he had never seen
+before.
+
+"I am not asleep," he said to himself. "I am sure that I am not asleep
+and that this stranger is a friend."
+
+And he tried to say it aloud, to make certainty doubly sure. But he had
+not the strength.
+
+The stranger, however, came up to him and, in a gentle voice, said:
+
+"Don't tire yourself, captain. You're all right now. Allow me. Have some
+water."
+
+The stranger handed him one of the two glasses; Patrice emptied it at a
+draught, without any feeling of distrust, and was glad to see Coralie
+also drinking.
+
+"Yes, I'm all right now," he said. "Heavens, how good it is to be alive!
+Coralie is really alive, isn't she?"
+
+He did not hear the answer and dropped into a welcome sleep.
+
+When he woke up, the crisis was over, though he still felt a buzzing in
+his head and a difficulty in drawing a deep breath. He stood up,
+however, and realized that all these sensations were not fanciful, that
+he was really outside the door of the lodge and that Coralie had drunk
+the glass of water and was peacefully sleeping.
+
+"How good it is to be alive!" he repeated.
+
+He now felt a need for action, but dared not go into the lodge,
+notwithstanding the open door. He moved away from it, skirting the
+cloisters containing the graves, and then, with no exact object, for he
+did not yet grasp the reason of his own actions, did not understand what
+had happened to him and was simply walking at random, he came back
+towards the lodge, on the other front, the one overlooking the garden.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. A few yards from the house, at the foot of a tree
+standing beside the slanting path, a man lay back in a wicker
+long-chair, with his face in the shade and his legs in the sun. He was
+sleeping, with his head fallen forward and an open book upon his knees.
+
+Then and not till then did Patrice clearly understand that he and
+Coralie had escaped being killed, that they were both really alive and
+that they owed their safety to this man whose sleep suggested a state of
+absolute security and satisfied conscience.
+
+Patrice studied the stranger's appearance. He was slim of figure, but
+broad-shouldered, with a sallow complexion, a slight mustache on his
+lips and hair beginning to turn gray at the temples. His age was
+probably fifty at most. The cut of his clothes pointed to dandyism.
+Patrice leant forward and read the title of the book: _The Memoirs of
+Benjamin Franklin_. He also read the initials inside a hat lying on the
+grass: "L. P."
+
+"It was he who saved me," said Patrice to himself, "I recognize him. He
+carried us both out of the studio and looked after us. But how was the
+miracle brought about? Who sent him?"
+
+He tapped him on the shoulder. The man was on his feet at once, his face
+lit up with a smile:
+
+"Pardon me, captain, but my life is so much taken up that, when I have a
+few minutes to myself, I use them for sleeping, wherever I may be . . .
+like Napoleon, eh? Well, I don't object to the comparison. . . . But
+enough about myself. How are you feeling now? And madame--'Little Mother
+Coralie'--is she better? I saw no use in waking you, after I had opened
+the doors and taken you outside. I had done what was necessary and felt
+quite easy. You were both breathing. So I left the rest to the good pure
+air."
+
+He broke off, at the sight of Patrice's disconcerted attitude; and his
+smile made way for a merry laugh:
+
+"Oh, I was forgetting: you don't know me! Of course, it's true, the
+letter I sent you was intercepted. Let me introduce myself. Don Luis
+Perenna,[3] a member of an old Spanish family, genuine patent of
+nobility, papers all in order. . . . But I can see that all this tells
+you nothing," he went on, laughing still more gaily. "No doubt Ya-Bon
+described me differently when he wrote my name on that street-wall, one
+evening a fortnight ago. Aha, you're beginning to understand! . . . Yes,
+I'm the man you sent for to help you. Shall I mention the name, just
+bluntly? Well, here goes, captain! . . . Arsène Lupin, at your service."
+
+[Footnote 3: _The Teeth of the Tiger._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by
+Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. "Luis Perenna" is one of several anagrams
+of "Arsène Lupin."]
+
+Patrice was stupefied. He had utterly forgotten Ya-Bon's proposal and
+the unthinking permission which he had given him to call in the famous
+adventurer. And here was Arsène Lupin standing in front of him, Arsène
+Lupin, who, by a sheer effort of will that resembled an incredible
+miracle, had dragged him and Coralie out of their hermetically-sealed
+coffin.
+
+He held out his hand and said:
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"Tut!" said Don Luis, playfully. "No thanks! Just a good hand-shake,
+that's all. And I'm a man you can shake hands with, captain, believe me.
+I may have a few peccadilloes on my conscience, but on the other hand I
+have committed a certain number of good actions which should win me the
+esteem of decent folk . . . beginning with my own. And so . . ."
+
+He interrupted himself again, seemed to reflect and, taking Patrice by a
+button of his jacket, said:
+
+"Don't move. We are being watched."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Some one on the quay, right at the end of the garden. The wall is not
+high. There's a grating on the top of it. They're looking through the
+bars and trying to see us."
+
+"How do you know? You have your back turned to the quay; and then there
+are the trees."
+
+"Listen."
+
+"I don't hear anything out of the way."
+
+"Yes, the sound of an engine . . . the engine of a stopping car. Now
+what would a car want to stop here for, on the quay, opposite a wall
+with no house near it?"
+
+"Then who do you think it is?"
+
+"Why, old Siméon, of course!"
+
+"Old Siméon!"
+
+"Certainly. He's looking to see whether I've really saved the two of
+you."
+
+"Then he's not mad?"
+
+"Mad? No more mad than you or I!"
+
+"And yet . . ."
+
+"What you mean is that Siméon used to protect you; that his object was
+to bring you two together; that he sent you the key of the garden-door;
+and so on and so on."
+
+"Do you know all that?"
+
+"Well, of course! If not, how could I have rescued you?"
+
+"But," said Patrice, anxiously, "suppose the scoundrel returns to the
+attack. Ought we not to take some precautions? Let's go back to the
+lodge: Coralie is all alone."
+
+"There's no danger."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I'm here."
+
+Patrice was more astounded than ever:
+
+"Then Siméon knows you?" he asked. "He knows that you are here?"
+
+"Yes, thanks to a letter which I wrote you under cover to Ya-Bon and
+which he intercepted. I told you that I was coming; and he hurried to
+get to work. Only, as my habit is on these occasions, I hastened on my
+arrival by a few hours, so that I caught him in the act."
+
+"At that moment you did not know he was the enemy; you knew nothing?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Was it this morning?"
+
+"No, this afternoon, at a quarter to two."
+
+Patrice took out his watch:
+
+"And it's now four. So in two hours . . ."
+
+"Not that. I've been here an hour."
+
+"Did you find out from Ya-Bon?"
+
+"Do you think I've no better use for my time? Ya-Bon simply told me that
+you were not there, which was enough to astonish me."
+
+"After that?"
+
+"I looked to see where you were."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I first searched your room and, doing so in my own thorough fashion,
+ended by discovering that there was a crack at the back of your roll-top
+desk and that this crack faced a hole in the wall of the next room. I
+was able therefore to pull out the book in which you kept your diary and
+acquaint myself with what was going on. This, moreover, was how Siméon
+became aware of your least intentions. This was how he knew of your plan
+to come here, on a pilgrimage, on the fourteenth of April. This was how,
+last night, seeing you write, he preferred, before attacking you, to
+know what you were writing. Knowing it and learning, from your own
+words, that you were on your guard, he refrained. You see how simple it
+all is. If M. Masseron had grown uneasy at your absence, he would have
+been just as successful. Only he would have been successful to-morrow."
+
+"That is to say, too late."
+
+"Yes, too late. This really isn't his business, however, nor that of the
+police. So I would rather that they didn't meddle with it. I asked your
+wounded soldiers to keep silent about anything that may strike them as
+queer. Therefore, if M. Masseron comes to-day, he will think that
+everything is in order. Well, having satisfied my mind in this respect
+and possessing the necessary information from your diary, I took Ya-Bon
+with me and walked across the lane and into the garden."
+
+"Was the door open?"
+
+"No, but Siméon happened to be coming out at that moment. Bad luck for
+him, wasn't it? I took advantage of it boldly. I put my hand on the
+latch and we went in, without his daring to protest. He certainly knew
+who I was."
+
+"But you didn't know at that time that he was the enemy?"
+
+"I didn't know? And what about your diary?"
+
+"I had no notion . . ."
+
+"But, captain, every page is an indictment of the man. There's not an
+incident in which he did not take part, not a crime which he did not
+prepare."
+
+"In that case you should have collared him."
+
+"And if I had? What good would it have done me? Should I have compelled
+him to speak? No, I shall hold him tightest by leaving him his liberty.
+That will give him rope, you know. You see already he's prowling round
+the house instead of clearing out. Besides, I had something better to
+do: I had first to rescue you two . . . if there was still time. Ya-Bon
+and I therefore rushed to the door of the lodge. It was open; but the
+other, the door of the studio, was locked and bolted. I drew the bolts;
+and to force the lock was, for me, child's play. Then the smell of gas
+was enough to tell me what had happened, Siméon must have fitted an old
+meter to some outside pipe, probably the one which supplied the lamps on
+the lane, and he was suffocating you. All that remained for us to do was
+to fetch the two of you out and give you the usual treatment: rubbing,
+artificial respiration and so on. You were saved."
+
+"I suppose he removed all his murderous appliances?" asked Patrice.
+
+"No, he evidently contemplated coming back and putting everything to
+rights, so that his share in the business could not be proved, so too
+that people might believe in your suicide, a mysterious suicide, death
+without apparent cause; in short, the same tragedy that happened with
+your father and Little Mother Coralie's mother."
+
+"Then you know? . . ."
+
+"Why, haven't I eyes to read with? What about the inscription on the
+wall, your father's revelations? I know as much as you do, captain . . .
+and perhaps a bit more."
+
+"More?"
+
+"Well, of course! Habit, you know, experience! Plenty of problems,
+unintelligible to others, seem to me the simplest and clearest that can
+be. Therefore . . ."
+
+Don Luis hesitated whether to go on:
+
+"No," he said, "it's better that I shouldn't speak. The mystery will be
+dispelled gradually. Let us wait. For the moment . . ."
+
+He again stopped, this time to listen:
+
+"There, he must have seen you. And now that he knows what he wants to,
+he's going away."
+
+Patrice grew excited:
+
+"He's going away! You really ought to have collared him. Shall we ever
+find him again, the scoundrel? Shall we ever be able to take our
+revenge?"
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"There you go, calling him a scoundrel, the man who watched over you for
+twenty years, who brought you and Little Mother Coralie together, who
+was your benefactor!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know! All this is so bewildering! I can't help hating him.
+. . . The idea of his getting away maddens me. . . . I should like to
+torture him and yet . . ."
+
+He yielded to a feeling of despair and took his head between his two
+hands. Don Luis comforted him:
+
+"Have no fear," he said. "He was never nearer his downfall than at the
+present moment. I hold him in my hand as I hold this leaf."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"The man who's driving him belongs to me."
+
+"What's that? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I put one of my men on the driver's seat of a taxi, with
+instructions to hang about at the bottom of the lane, and that Siméon
+did not fail to take the taxi in question."
+
+"That is to say, you suppose so," Patrice corrected him, feeling more
+and more astounded.
+
+"I recognized the sound of the engine at the bottom of the garden when I
+told you."
+
+"And are you sure of your man?"
+
+"Certain."
+
+"What's the use? Siméon can drive far out of Paris, stab the man in the
+back . . . and then when shall we get to know?"
+
+"Do you imagine that people can get out of Paris and go running about
+the high-roads without a special permit? No, if Siméon leaves Paris he
+will have to drive to some railway station or other and we shall know of
+it twenty minutes after. And then we'll be off."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By motor."
+
+"Then you have a pass?"
+
+"Yes, valid for the whole of France."
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"I do; and a genuine pass at that! Made out in the name of Don Luis
+Perenna, signed by the minister of the interior and countersigned . . ."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By the President of the Republic."
+
+Patrice felt his bewilderment change all at once into violent
+excitement. Hitherto, in the terrible adventure in which he was engaged,
+he had undergone the enemy's implacable will and had known little
+besides defeat and the horrors of ever-threatening death. But now a more
+powerful will suddenly arose in his favor. And everything was abruptly
+altered. Fate seemed to be changing its course, like a ship which an
+unexpected fair wind brings back into harbor.
+
+"Upon my word, captain," said Don Luis, "I thought you were going to cry
+like Little Mother Coralie. Your nerves are overstrung. And I daresay
+you're hungry. We must find you something to eat. Come along."
+
+He led him slowly towards the lodge and, speaking in a rather serious
+voice:
+
+"I must ask you," he said, "to be absolutely discreet in this whole
+matter. With the exception of a few old friends and of Ya-Bon, whom I
+met in Africa, where he saved my life, no one in France knows me by my
+real name. I call myself Don Luis Perenna. In Morocco, where I was
+soldiering, I had occasion to do a service to the very gracious
+sovereign of a neighboring neutral nation, who, though obliged to
+conceal his true feelings, is ardently on our side. He sent for me; and,
+in return, I asked him to give me my credentials and to obtain a pass
+for me. Officially, therefore, I am on a secret mission, which expires
+in two days. In two days I shall go back . . . to whence I came, to a
+place where, during the war, I am serving France in my fashion: not a
+bad one, believe me, as people will see one day."
+
+They came to the settee on which Coralie lay sleeping. Don Luis laid his
+hand on Patrice's arm:
+
+"One word more, captain. I swore to myself and I gave my word of honor
+to him who trusted me that, while I was on this mission, my time should
+be devoted exclusively to defending the interests of my country to the
+best of my power. I must warn you, therefore, that, notwithstanding all
+my sympathy for you, I shall not be able to prolong my stay for a single
+minute after I have discovered the eighteen hundred bags of gold. They
+were the one and only reason why I came in answer to Ya-Bon's appeal.
+When the bags of gold are in our possession, that is to say, to-morrow
+evening at latest, I shall go away. However, the two quests are joined.
+The clearing up of the one will mean the end of the other. And now
+enough of words. Introduce me to Little Mother Coralie and let's get to
+work! Make no mystery with her, captain," he added, laughing. "Tell her
+my real name. I have nothing to fear: Arsène Lupin has every woman on
+his side."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forty minutes later Coralie was back in her room, well cared for and
+well watched. Patrice had taken a substantial meal, while Don Luis
+walked up and down the terrace smoking cigarettes.
+
+"Finished, captain? Then we'll make a start."
+
+He looked at his watch:
+
+"Half-past five. We have more than an hour of daylight left. That'll be
+enough."
+
+"Enough? You surely don't pretend that you will achieve your aim in an
+hour?"
+
+"My definite aim, no, but the aim which I am setting myself at the
+moment, yes . . . and even earlier. An hour? What for? To do what? Why,
+you'll be a good deal wiser in a few minutes!"
+
+Don Luis asked to be taken to the cellar under the library; where
+Essarès Bey used to keep the bags of gold until the time had come to
+send them off.
+
+"Was it through this ventilator that the bags were let down?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is there no other outlet?"
+
+"None except the staircase leading to the library and the other
+ventilator."
+
+"Opening on the terrace?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then that's clear. The bags used to come in by the first and go out by
+the second."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"There's no but about it, captain: how else would you have it happen?
+You see, the mistake people always make is to go looking for
+difficulties where there are none."
+
+They returned to the terrace. Don Luis took up his position near the
+ventilator and inspected the ground immediately around. It did not take
+long. Four yards away, outside the windows of the library, was the basin
+with the statue of a child spouting a jet of water through a shell.
+
+Don Luis went up, examined the basin and, leaning forwards, reached the
+little statue, which he turned upon its axis from right to left. At the
+same time the pedestal described a quarter of a circle.
+
+"That's it," he said, drawing himself up again.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The basin will empty itself."
+
+He was right. The water sank very quickly and the bottom of the fountain
+appeared.
+
+Don Luis stepped into it and squatted on his haunches. The inner wall
+was lined with a marble mosaic composing a wide red-and-white fretwork
+pattern. In the middle of one of the frets was a ring, which Don Luis
+lifted and pulled. All that portion of the wall which formed the pattern
+yielded to his effort and came down, leaving an opening of about twelve
+inches by ten.
+
+"That's where the bags of gold went," said Don Luis. "It was the second
+stage. They were despatched in the same manner, on a hook sliding along
+a wire. Look, here is the wire, in this groove at the top."
+
+"By Jove!" cried Captain Belval. "But you've unraveled this in a
+masterly fashion! What about the wire? Can't we follow it?"
+
+"No, but it will serve our purpose if we know where it finishes. I say,
+captain, go to the end of the garden, by the wall, taking a line at
+right angles to the house. When you get there, cut off a branch of a
+tree, rather high up. Oh, I was forgetting! I shall have to go out by
+the lane. Have you the key of the door? Give it me, please."
+
+Patrice handed him the key and then went down to the wall beside the
+quay.
+
+"A little farther to the right," Don Luis instructed him. "A little more
+still. That's better. Now wait."
+
+He left the garden by the lane, reached the quay and called out from the
+other side of the wall:
+
+"Are you there, captain?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Fix your branch so that I can see it from here. Capital."
+
+Patrice now joined Don Luis, who was crossing the road. All the way down
+the Seine are wharves, built on the bank of the river and used for
+loading and unloading vessels. Barges put in alongside, discharge their
+cargoes, take in fresh ones and often lie moored one next to the other.
+At the spot where Don Luis and Patrice descended by a flight of steps
+there was a series of yards, one of which, the one which they reached
+first, appeared to be abandoned, no doubt since the war. It contained,
+amid a quantity of useless materials, several heaps of bricks and
+building-stones, a hut with broken windows and the lower part of a
+steam-crane. A placard swinging from a post bore the inscription:
+
+           BERTHOU
+     WHARFINGER & BUILDER.
+
+Don Luis walked along the foot of the embankment, ten or twelve feet
+high, above which the quay was suspended like a terrace. Half of it was
+occupied by a heap of sand; and they saw in the wall the bars of an iron
+grating, the lower half of which was hidden by the sand-heap shored up
+with planks.
+
+Don Luis cleared the grating and said, jestingly:
+
+"Have you noticed that the doors are never locked in this adventure?
+Let's hope that it's the same with this one."
+
+His theory was confirmed, somewhat to his own surprise, and they entered
+one of those recesses where workmen put away their tools.
+
+"So far, nothing out of the common," said Don Luis, switching on an
+electric torch. "Buckets, pick-axes, wheelbarrows, a ladder. . . . Ah!
+Ah! Just as I expected: rails, a complete set of light rails! . . . Lend
+me a hand, captain. Let's clear out the back. Good, that's done it."
+
+Level with the ground and opposite the grating was a rectangular
+opening exactly similar to the one in the basin. The wire was visible
+above, with a number of hooks hanging from it.
+
+"So this is where the bags arrived," Don Luis explained. "They dropped,
+so to speak, into one of the two little trollies which you see over
+there, in the corner. The rails were laid across the bank, of course at
+night; and the trollies were pushed to a barge into which they tipped
+their contents."
+
+"So that . . . ?"
+
+"So that the French gold went this way . . . anywhere you like . . .
+somewhere abroad."
+
+"And you think that the last eighteen hundred bags have also been
+despatched?"
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"Then we are too late?"
+
+Don Luis reflected for a while without answering. Patrice, though
+disappointed by a development which he had not foreseen, remained amazed
+at the extraordinary skill with which his companion, in so short a time,
+had succeeded in unraveling a portion of the tangled skein.
+
+"It's an absolute miracle," he said, at last. "How on earth did you do
+it?"
+
+Without a word, Don Luis took from his pocket the book which Patrice had
+seen lying on his knees, _The Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin_, and
+motioned to him to read some lines which he indicated with his finger.
+They were written towards the end of the reign of Louis XVI and ran:
+
+      "We go daily to the village of Passy adjoining my
+      home, where you take the waters in a beautiful garden.
+      Streams and waterfalls pour down on all sides, this
+      way and that, in artfully leveled beds. I am known to
+      like skilful mechanism, so I have been shown the basin
+      where the waters of all the rivulets meet and mingle.
+      There stands a little marble figure in the midst; and
+      the weight of water is strong enough to turn it a
+      quarter circle to the left and then pour down straight
+      to the Seine by a conduit, which opens in the ground
+      of the basin."
+
+Patrice closed the book; and Don Luis went on to explain:
+
+"Things have changed since, no doubt, thanks to the energies of Essarès
+Bey. The water escapes some other way now; and the aqueduct was used to
+drain off the gold. Besides, the bed of the river has narrowed. Quays
+have been built, with a system of canals underneath them. You see,
+captain, all this was easy enough to discover, once I had the book to
+tell me. _Doctus cum libro._"
+
+"Yes, but, even so, you had to read the book."
+
+"A pure accident. I unearthed it in Siméon's room and put it in my
+pocket, because I was curious to know why he was reading it."
+
+"Why, that's just how he must have discovered Essarès Bey's secret!"
+cried Patrice. "He didn't know the secret. He found the book among his
+employer's papers and got up his facts that way. What do you think?
+Don't you agree? You seem not to share my opinion. Have you some other
+view?"
+
+Don Luis did not reply. He stood looking at the river. Beside the
+wharves, at a slight distance from the yard, a barge lay moored, with
+apparently no one on her. But a slender thread of smoke now began to
+rise from a pipe that stood out above the deck.
+
+"Let's go and have a look at her," he said.
+
+The barge was lettered:
+
+     LA NONCHALANTE. BEAUNE
+
+They had to cross the space between the barge and the wharf and to step
+over a number of ropes and empty barrels covering the flat portions of
+the deck. A companion-way brought them to a sort of cabin, which did
+duty as a stateroom and a kitchen in one. Here they found a
+powerful-looking man, with broad shoulders, curly black hair and a
+clean-shaven face. His only clothes were a blouse and a pair of dirty,
+patched canvas trousers.
+
+Don Luis offered him a twenty-franc note. The man took it eagerly.
+
+"Just tell me something, mate. Have you seen a barge lately, lying at
+Berthou's Wharf?"
+
+"Yes, a motor-barge. She left two days ago."
+
+"What was her name?"
+
+"The _Belle Hélène_. The people on board, two men and a woman, were
+foreigners talking I don't know what lingo. . . . We didn't speak to one
+another."
+
+"But Berthou's Wharf has stopped work, hasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, the owner's joined the army . . . and the foremen as well. We've
+all got to, haven't we? I'm expecting to be called up myself . . .
+though I've got a weak heart."
+
+"But, if the yard's stopped work, what was the boat doing here?"
+
+"I don't know. They worked the whole of one night, however. They had
+laid rails along the quay. I heard the trollies; and they were loading
+up. What with I don't know. And then, early in the morning, they
+unmoored."
+
+"Where did they go?"
+
+"Down stream, Mantes way."
+
+"Thanks, mate. That's what I wanted to know."
+
+Ten minutes later, when they reached the house, Patrice and Don Luis
+found the driver of the cab which Siméon Diodokis had taken after
+meeting Don Luis. As Don Luis expected, Siméon had told the man to go to
+a railway-station, the Gare Saint-Lazare, and there bought his ticket.
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To Mantes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE BELLE HÉLÈNE
+
+
+"There's no mistake about it," said Patrice. "The information conveyed
+to M. Masseron that the gold had been sent away; the speed with which
+the work was carried out, at night, mechanically, by the people
+belonging to the boat; their alien nationality; the direction which they
+took: it all agrees. The probability is that, between the cellar into
+which the gold was shot and the place where it finished its journey,
+there was some spot where it used to remain concealed . . . unless the
+eighteen hundred bags can have awaited their despatch, slung one behind
+the other, along the wire. But that doesn't matter much. The great thing
+is to know that the _Belle Hélène_, hiding somewhere in the outskirts,
+lay waiting for the favorable opportunity. In the old days Essarès Bey,
+by way of precaution, used to send her a signal with the aid of that
+shower of sparks which I saw. This time old Siméon, who is continuing
+Essarès' work, no doubt on his own account, gave the crew notice; and
+the bags of gold are on their way to Rouen and Le Hâvre, where some
+steamer will take them over and carry them . . . eastwards. After all,
+forty or fifty tons, hidden in the hold under a layer of coal, is
+nothing. What do you say? That's it, isn't it? I feel positive about it.
+. . . Then we have Mantes, to which he took his ticket and for which
+the _Belle Hélène_ is bound. Could anything be clearer? Mantes, where
+he'll pick up his cargo of gold and go on board in some seafaring
+disguise, unknown and unseen. . . . Loot and looter disappearing
+together. It's as clear as daylight. Don't you agree?"
+
+Once again Don Luis did not answer. However, he must have acquiesced in
+Patrice's theories, for, after a minute, he declared:
+
+"Very well. I'll go to Mantes." And, turning to the chauffeur, "Hurry
+off to the garage," he said, "and come back in the six-cylinder. I want
+to be at Mantes in less than an hour. You, captain . . ."
+
+"I shall come with you."
+
+"And who will look after . . . ?"
+
+"Coralie? She's in no danger! Who can attack her now? Siméon has failed
+in his attempt and is thinking only of saving his own skin . . . and his
+bags of gold."
+
+"You insist, do you?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"I don't know that you're wise. However, that's your affair. Let's go.
+By the way, though, one precaution." He raised his voice. "Ya-Bon!"
+
+The Senegalese came hastening up. While Ya-Bon felt for Patrice all the
+affection of a faithful dog, he seemed to profess towards Don Luis
+something more nearly approaching religious devotion. The adventurer's
+slightest action roused him to ecstasy. He never stopped laughing in the
+great chief's presence.
+
+"Ya-Bon, are you all right now? Is your wound healed? You don't feel
+tired? Good. In that case, come with me."
+
+He led him to the quay, a short distance away from Berthou's Wharf:
+
+"At nine o'clock this evening," he said, "you're to be on guard here, on
+this bench. Bring your food and drink with you; and keep a particular
+look-out for anything that happens over there, down stream. Perhaps
+nothing will happen at all; but never mind: you're not to move until I
+come back . . . unless . . . unless something does happen, in which case
+you will act accordingly."
+
+He paused and then continued:
+
+"Above all, Ya-Bon, beware of Siméon. It was he who gave you that wound.
+If you catch sight of him, leap at his throat and bring him here. But
+mind you don't kill him! No nonsense now. I don't want you to hand me
+over a corpse, but a live man. Do you understand, Ya-Bon?"
+
+Patrice began to feel uneasy:
+
+"Do you fear anything from that side?" he asked. "Look here, it's out of
+the question, as Siméon has gone . . ."
+
+"Captain," said Don Luis, "when a good general goes in pursuit of the
+enemy, that does not prevent him from consolidating his hold on the
+conquered ground and leaving garrisons in the fortresses. Berthou's
+Wharf is evidently one of our adversary's rallying-points. I'm keeping
+it under observation."
+
+Don Luis also took serious precautions with regard to Coralie. She was
+very much overstrained and needed rest and attention. They put her into
+the car and, after making a dash at full speed towards the center of
+Paris, so as to throw any spies off the scent, took her to the home on
+the Boulevard Maillot, where Patrice handed her over to the matron and
+recommended her to the doctor's care. The staff received strict orders
+to admit no strangers to see her. She was to answer no letter, unless
+the letter was signed "Captain Patrice."
+
+At nine o'clock, the car sped down the Saint-Germain and Mantes road.
+Sitting inside with Don Luis, Patrice felt all the enthusiasm of victory
+and indulged freely in theories, every one of which possessed for him
+the value of an unimpeachable certainty. A few doubts lingered in his
+mind, however, points which remained obscure and on which he would have
+been glad to have Don Luis' opinion.
+
+"There are two things," he said, "which I simply cannot understand. In
+the first place, who was the man murdered by Essarès, at nineteen
+minutes past seven in the morning, on the fourth of April? I heard his
+dying cries. Who was killed? And what became of the body?"
+
+Don Luis was silent; and Patrice went on:
+
+"The second point is stranger still. I mean Siméon's behavior. Here's a
+man who devotes his whole life to a single object, that of revenging his
+friend Belval's murder and at the same time ensuring my happiness and
+Coralie's. This is his one aim in life; and nothing can make him swerve
+from his obsession. And then, on the day when his enemy, Essarès Bey, is
+put out of the way, suddenly he turns round completely and persecutes
+Coralie and me, going to the length of using against us the horrible
+contrivance which Essarès Bey had employed so successfully against our
+parents! You really must admit that it's an amazing change! Can it be
+the thought of the gold that has hypnotized him? Are his crimes to be
+explained by the huge treasure placed at his disposal on the day when
+he discovered the secret? Has a decent man transformed himself into a
+bandit to satisfy a sudden instinct? What do you think?"
+
+Don Luis persisted in his silence. Patrice, who expected to see every
+riddle solved by the famous adventurer in a twinkling, felt peevish and
+surprised. He made a last attempt:
+
+"And the golden triangle? Another mystery! For, after all, there's not a
+trace of a triangle in anything we've seen! Where is this golden
+triangle? Have you any idea what it means?"
+
+Don Luis allowed a moment to pass and then said:
+
+"Captain, I have the most thorough liking for you and I take the
+liveliest interest in all that concerns you, but I confess that there is
+one problem which excludes all others and one object towards which all
+my efforts are now directed. That is the pursuit of the gold of which we
+have been robbed; and I don't want this gold to escape us. I have
+succeeded on your side, but not yet on the other. You are both of you
+safe and sound, but I haven't the eighteen hundred bags; and I want
+them, I want them."
+
+"You'll have them, since we know where they are."
+
+"I shall have them," said Don Luis, "when they lie spread before my
+eyes. Until then, I can tell you nothing."
+
+At Mantes the enquiries did not take long. They almost immediately had
+the satisfaction of learning that a traveler, whose description
+corresponded with old Siméon's, had gone to the Hôtel des
+Trois-Empereurs and was now asleep in a room on the third floor.
+
+Don Luis took a ground-floor room, while Patrice, who would have
+attracted the enemy's attention more easily, because of his lame leg,
+went to the Grand Hôtel.
+
+He woke late the next morning. Don Luis rang him up and told him that
+Siméon, after calling at the post-office, had gone down to the river and
+then to the station, where he met a fashionably-dressed woman, with her
+face hidden by a thick veil, and brought her back to the hotel. The two
+were lunching together in the room on the third floor.
+
+At four o'clock Don Luis rang up again, to ask Patrice to join him at
+once in a little café at the end of the town, facing the Seine. Here
+Patrice saw Siméon on the quay. He was walking with his hands behind his
+back, like a man strolling without any definite object.
+
+"Comforter, spectacles, the same get-up as usual," said Patrice. "Not a
+thing about him changed. Watch him. He's putting on an air of
+indifference, but you can bet that his eyes are looking up stream, in
+the direction from which the _Belle Hélène_ is coming."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Don Luis. "Here's the lady."
+
+"Oh, that's the one, is it?" said Patrice. "I've met her two or three
+times already in the street."
+
+A dust-cloak outlined her figure and shoulders, which were wide and
+rather well-developed. A veil fell around the brim of her felt hat. She
+gave Siméon a telegram to read. Then they talked for a moment, seemed to
+be taking their bearings, passed by the café and stopped a little lower
+down. Here Siméon wrote a few words on a sheet of note-paper and handed
+it to his companion. She left him and went back into the town. Siméon
+resumed his walk by the riverside.
+
+"You must stay here, captain," said Don Luis.
+
+"But the enemy doesn't seem to be on his guard," protested Patrice.
+"He's not turning round."
+
+"It's better to be prudent, captain. What a pity that we can't have a
+look at what Siméon wrote down!"
+
+"I might . . ."
+
+"Go after the lady? No, no, captain. Without wishing to offend you,
+you're not quite cut out for it. I'm not sure that even I . . ."
+
+And he walked away.
+
+Patrice waited. A few boats moved up or down the river. Mechanically, he
+glanced at their names. And suddenly, half an hour after Don Luis had
+left him, he heard the clearly-marked rhythm, the pulsation of one of
+those powerful motors which, for a few years past, have been fitted to
+certain barges.
+
+At the bend of the river a barge appeared. As she passed in front of
+him, he distinctly and with no little excitement read the name of the
+_Belle Hélène_!
+
+She was gliding along at a fair pace, to the accompaniment of a regular,
+throbbing beat. She was big and broad in the beam, heavy and pretty deep
+in the water, though she appeared to carry no cargo. Patrice saw two
+watermen on board, sitting and smoking carelessly. A dinghy floated
+behind at the end of a painter.
+
+The barge went on and passed out of sight at the turn. Patrice waited
+another hour before Don Luis came back.
+
+"Well?" he asked. "Have you seen her?"
+
+"Yes, they let go the dinghy, a mile and a half from here, and put in
+for Siméon."
+
+"Then he's gone with them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Without suspecting anything?"
+
+"You're asking me too much, captain!"
+
+"Never mind! We've won! We shall catch them up in the car, pass them
+and, at Vernon or somewhere, inform the military and civil authorities,
+so that they may proceed to arrest the men and seize the boat."
+
+"We shall inform nobody, captain. We shall proceed to carry out these
+little operations ourselves."
+
+"What do you mean? Surely . . ."
+
+The two looked at each other. Patrice had been unable to dissemble the
+thought that occurred to his mind. Don Luis showed no resentment:
+
+"You're afraid that I shall run away with the three hundred millions? By
+jingo, it's a largish parcel to hide in one's jacket-pocket!"
+
+"Still," said Patrice, "may I ask what you intend to do?"
+
+"You may, captain, but allow me to postpone my reply until we've really
+won. For the moment, we must first find the barge again."
+
+They went to the Hôtel des Trois-Empereurs and drove off in the car
+towards Vernon. This time they were both silent.
+
+The road joined the river a few miles lower down, at the bottom of the
+steep hill which begins at Rosny. Just as they reached Rosny the _Belle
+Hélène_ was entering the long loop which curves out to La Roche-Guyon,
+turns back and joins the high-road again at Bonnières. She would need at
+least three hours to cover the distance, whereas the car, climbing the
+hill and keeping straight ahead, arrived at Bonnières in fifteen
+minutes.
+
+They drove through the village. There was an inn a little way beyond it,
+on the right. Don Luis made his chauffeur stop here:
+
+"If we are not back by twelve to-night," he said, "go home to Paris.
+Will you come with me, captain?"
+
+Patrice followed him towards the right, whence a small road led them to
+the river-bank. They followed this for a quarter of an hour. At last Don
+Luis found what he appeared to be seeking, a boat fastened to a stake,
+not far from a villa with closed shutters. Don Luis unhooked the chain.
+
+It was about seven o'clock in the evening. Night was falling fast, but a
+brilliant moonlight lit the landscape.
+
+"First of all," said Don Luis, "a word of explanation. We're going to
+wait for the barge. She'll come in sight on the stroke of ten and find
+us lying across stream. I shall order her to heave to; and there's no
+doubt that, when they see your uniform by the light of the moon or of my
+electric lamp, they will obey. Then we shall go on board."
+
+"Suppose they refuse?"
+
+"If they refuse, we shall board her by force. There are three of them
+and two of us. So . . ."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then? Well, there's every reason to believe that the two men
+forming the crew are only extra hands, employed by Siméon, but ignorant
+of his actions and knowing nothing of the nature of the cargo. Once we
+have reduced Siméon to helplessness and paid them handsomely, they'll
+take the barge wherever I tell them. But, mind you--and this is what I
+was coming to--I mean to do with the barge exactly as I please. I shall
+hand over the cargo as and when I think fit. It's my booty, my prize. No
+one is entitled to it but myself."
+
+The officer drew himself up:
+
+"Oh, I can't agree to that, you know!"
+
+"Very well, then give me your word of honor that you'll keep a secret
+which doesn't belong to you. After which, we'll say good-night and go
+our own ways. I'll do the boarding alone and you can go back to your own
+business. Observe, however, that I am not insisting on an immediate
+reply. You have plenty of time to reflect and to take the decision which
+your interest, honor and conscience may dictate to you. For my part,
+excuse me, but you know my weakness: when circumstances give me a little
+spare time, I take advantage of it to go to sleep. _Carpe somnum_, as
+the poet says. Good-night, captain."
+
+And, without another word, Don Luis wrapped himself in his great-coat,
+sprang into the boat and lay down.
+
+Patrice had had to make a violent effort to restrain his anger. Don
+Luis' calm, ironic tone and well-bred, bantering voice got on his nerves
+all the more because he felt the influence of that strange man and fully
+recognized that he was incapable of acting without his assistance.
+Besides, he could not forget that Don Luis had saved his life and
+Coralie's.
+
+The hours slipped by. The adventurer slumbered peacefully in the cool
+night air. Patrice hesitated what to do, seeking for some plan of
+conduct which would enable him to get at Siméon and rid himself of that
+implacable adversary and at the same time to prevent Don Luis from
+laying hands on the enormous treasure. He was dismayed at the thought of
+being his accomplice. And yet, when the first throbs of the motor were
+heard in the distance and when Don Luis awoke, Patrice was by his side,
+ready for action.
+
+They did not exchange a word. A village-clock struck ten. The _Belle
+Hélène_ was coming towards them.
+
+Patrice felt his excitement increase. The _Belle Hélène_ meant Siméon's
+capture, the recovery of the millions, Coralie out of danger, the end of
+that most hideous nightmare and the total extinction of Essarès'
+handiwork. The engine was throbbing nearer and nearer. Its loud and
+regular beat sounded wide over the motionless Seine. Don Luis had taken
+the sculls and was pulling hard for the middle of the river. And
+suddenly they saw in the distance a black mass looming up in the white
+moonlight. Twelve or fifteen more minutes passed and the _Belle Hélène_
+was before them.
+
+"Shall I lend you a hand?" whispered Patrice. "It looks as if you had
+the current against you and as if you had a difficulty in getting
+along."
+
+"Not the least difficulty," said Don Luis; and he began to hum a tune.
+
+"But . . ."
+
+Patrice was stupefied. The boat had turned in its own length and was
+making for the bank.
+
+"But, I say, I say," he said, "what's this? Are you going back? Are you
+giving up? . . . I don't understand. . . . You're surely not afraid
+because they're three to our two?"
+
+Don Luis leapt on shore at a bound and stretched out his hand to him.
+Patrice pushed it aside, growling:
+
+"Will you explain what it all means?"
+
+"Take too long," replied Don Luis. "Just one question, though. You know
+that book I found in old Siméon's room, _The Memoirs of Benjamin
+Franklin_: did you see it when you were making your search?"
+
+"Look here, it seems to me we have other things to . . ."
+
+"It's an urgent question, captain."
+
+"Well, no, it wasn't there."
+
+"Then that's it," said Don Luis. "We've been done brown, or rather, to
+be accurate, I have. Let's be off, captain, as fast as we can."
+
+Patrice was still in the boat. He pushed off abruptly and caught up the
+scull, muttering:
+
+"As I live, I believe the beggar's getting at me!"
+
+He was ten yards from shore when he cried:
+
+"If you're afraid, I'll go alone. Don't want any help."
+
+"Right you are, captain!" replied Don Luis. "I'll expect you presently
+at the inn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Patrice encountered no difficulties in his undertaking. At the first
+order, which he shouted in a tone of command, the _Belle Hélène_
+stopped; and he was able to board her peacefully. The two bargees were
+men of a certain age, natives of the Basque coast. He introduced himself
+as a representative of the military authorities; and they showed him
+over their craft. He found neither old Siméon nor the very smallest bag
+of gold. The hold was almost empty.
+
+The questions and answers did not take long:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Rouen. We've been requisitioned by the government for transport of
+supplies."
+
+"But you picked up somebody on the way."
+
+"Yes, at Mantes."
+
+"His name, please?"
+
+"Siméon Diodokis."
+
+"Where's he got to?"
+
+"He made us put him down a little after, to take the train."
+
+"What did he want?"
+
+"To pay us."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"For a shipload we took at Paris two days ago."
+
+"Bags?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Don't know. We were well paid and asked no questions."
+
+"And what's become of the load?"
+
+"We transhipped it last night to a small steamer that came alongside of
+us below Passy."
+
+"What's the steamer's name?"
+
+"The _Chamois_. Crew of six."
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"Ahead of us. She was going fast. She must be at Rouen by this time.
+Siméon Diodokis is on his way to join her."
+
+"How long have you known Siméon Diodokis?"
+
+"It's the first time we saw him. But we knew that he was in M. Essarès'
+service."
+
+"Oh, so you've worked for M. Essarès?"
+
+"Yes, often. . . . Same job and same trip."
+
+"He called you by means of a signal, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes, he used to light an old factory-chimney."
+
+"Was it always bags?"
+
+"Yes. We didn't know what was inside. He was a good payer."
+
+Patrice asked no more questions. He hurriedly got into his boat, pulled
+back to shore and found Don Luis seated with a comfortable supper in
+front of him.
+
+"Quick!" he said. "The cargo is on board a steamer, the _Chamois_. We
+can catch her up between Rouen and Le Hâvre."
+
+Don Luis rose and handed the officer a white-paper packet:
+
+"Here's a few sandwiches for you, captain," he said. "We've an arduous
+night before us. I'm very sorry that you didn't get a sleep, as I did.
+Let's be off, and this time I shall drive. We'll knock some pace out of
+her! Come and sit beside me, captain."
+
+They both stepped into the car; the chauffeur took his seat behind them.
+But they had hardly started when Patrice exclaimed:
+
+"Hi! What are you up to? Not this way! We're going back to Mantes or
+Paris!"
+
+"That's what I mean to do," said Luis, with a chuckle.
+
+"Eh, what? Paris?"
+
+"Well, of course!"
+
+"Oh, look here, this is a bit too thick! Didn't I tell you that the two
+bargees . . . ?"
+
+"Those bargees of yours are humbugs."
+
+"They declared that the cargo . . ."
+
+"Cargo? No go!"
+
+"But the _Chamois_ . . ."
+
+"_Chamois_? Sham was! I tell you once more, we're done, captain, done
+brown! Old Siméon is a wonderful old hand! He's a match worth meeting.
+He gives you a run for your money. He laid a trap in which I've been
+fairly caught. It's a magnificent joke, but there's moderation in all
+things. We've been fooled enough to last us the rest of our lives. Let's
+be serious now."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"Aren't you satisfied yet, captain? After the _Belle Hélène_ do you want
+to attack the _Chamois_? As you please. You can get out at Mantes: Only,
+I warn you, Siméon is in Paris, with three or four hours' start of us."
+
+Patrice gave a shudder. Siméon in Paris! In Paris, where Coralie was
+alone and unprotected! He made no further protest; and Don Luis ran on:
+
+"Oh, the rascal! How well he played his hand! _The Memoirs of Benjamin
+Franklin_ were a master stroke. Knowing of my arrival, he said to
+himself, 'Arsène Lupin is a dangerous fellow, capable of disentangling
+the affair and putting both me and the bags of gold in his pocket. To
+get rid of him, there's only one thing to be done: I must act in such a
+way as to make him rush along the real track at so fast a rate of speed
+that he does not perceive the moment when the real track becomes a false
+track.' That was clever of him, wasn't it? And so we have the Franklin
+book, held out as a bait; the page opening of itself, at the right
+place; my inevitable easy discovery of the conduit system; the clue of
+Ariadne most obligingly offered. I follow up the clue like a trusting
+child, led by Siméon's own hand, from the cellar down to Berthou's
+Wharf. So far all's well. But, from that moment, take care! There's
+nobody at Berthou's Wharf. On the other hand, there's a barge alongside,
+which means a chance of making enquiries, which means the certainty that
+I shall make enquiries. And I make enquiries. And, having made
+enquiries, I am done for."
+
+"But then that man . . . ?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes, an accomplice of Siméon's, whom Siméon, knowing that he
+would be followed to the Gare Saint-Lazare, instructs in this way to
+direct me to Mantes for the second time. At Mantes the comedy continues.
+The _Belle Hélène_ passes, with her double freight, Siméon and the bags
+of gold. We go running after the _Belle Hélène_. Of course, on the
+_Belle Hélène_ there's nothing: no Siméon, no bags of gold. 'Run after
+the _Chamois_. We've transhipped it all on the _Chamois_.' We run after
+the _Chamois_, to Rouen, to Le Hâvre, to the end of the world; and of
+course our pursuit is fruitless, for the _Chamois_ does not exist. But
+we are convinced that she does exist and that she has escaped our
+search. And by this time the trick is played. The millions are gone,
+Siméon has disappeared and there is only one thing left for us to do,
+which is to resign ourselves and abandon our quest. You understand,
+we're to abandon our quest: that's the fellow's object. And he would
+have succeeded if . . ."
+
+The car was traveling at full speed. From time to time Don Luis would
+stop her dead with extraordinary skill. Post of territorials. Pass to be
+produced. Then a leap onward and once more the breakneck pace.
+
+"If what?" asked Patrice, half-convinced. "Which was the clue that put
+you on the track?"
+
+"The presence of that woman at Mantes. It was a vague clue at first. But
+suddenly I remembered that, in the first barge, the _Nonchalante_, the
+person who gave us information--do you recollect?--well, that this
+person somehow gave me the queer impression, I can't tell you why, that
+I might be talking to a woman in disguise. The impression occurred to me
+once more. I made a mental comparison with the woman at Mantes. . . .
+And then . . . and then it was like a flash of light. . . ."
+
+Don Luis paused to think and, in a lower voice, continued:
+
+"But who the devil can this woman be?"
+
+There was a brief silence, after which Patrice said, from instinct
+rather than reason:
+
+"Grégoire, I suppose."
+
+"Eh? What's that? Grégoire?"
+
+"Yes. Yes, Grégoire is a woman."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"Well, obviously. Don't you remember? The accomplice told me so, on the
+day when I had them arrested outside the café."
+
+"Why, your diary doesn't say a word about it!"
+
+"Oh, that's true! . . . I forgot to put down that detail."
+
+"A detail! He calls it a detail! Why, it's of the greatest importance,
+captain! If I had known, I should have guessed that that bargee was no
+other than Grégoire and we should not have wasted a whole night. Hang it
+all, captain, you really are the limit!"
+
+But all this was unable to affect his good-humor. While Patrice,
+overcome with presentiments, grew gloomier and gloomier, Don Luis began
+to sing victory in his turn:
+
+"Thank goodness! The battle is becoming serious! Really, it was too easy
+before; and that was why I was sulking, I, Lupin! Do you imagine things
+go like that in real life? Does everything fit in so accurately?
+Benjamin Franklin, the uninterrupted conduit for the gold, the series of
+clues that reveal themselves of their own accord, the man and the bags
+meeting at Mantes, the _Belle Hélène_: no, it all worried me. The cat
+was being choked with cream! And then the gold escaping in a barge! All
+very well in times of peace, but not in war-time, in the face of the
+regulations: passes, patrol-boats, inspections and I don't know what.
+. . . How could a fellow like Siméon risk a trip of that kind? No, I had
+my suspicions; and that was why, captain, I made Ya-Bon mount guard, on
+the off chance, outside Berthou's Wharf. It was just an idea that
+occurred to me. The whole of this adventure seemed to center round the
+wharf. Well, was I right or not? Is M. Lupin no longer able to follow a
+scent? Captain, I repeat, I shall go back to-morrow evening. Besides, as
+I told you, I've got to. Whether I win or lose, I'm going. But we shall
+win. Everything will be cleared up. There will be no more mysteries, not
+even the mystery of the golden triangle. . . . Oh, I don't say that I
+shall bring you a beautiful triangle of eighteen-carat gold! We mustn't
+allow ourselves to be fascinated by words. It may be a geometrical
+arrangement of the bags of gold, a triangular pile . . . or else a hole
+in the ground dug in that shape. No matter, we shall have it! And the
+bags of gold shall be ours! And Patrice and Coralie shall appear before
+monsieur le maire and receive my blessing and live happily ever after!"
+
+They reached the gates of Paris. Patrice was becoming more and more
+anxious:
+
+"Then you think the danger's over?"
+
+"Oh, I don't say that! The play isn't finished. After the great scene of
+the third act, which we will call the scene of the oxide of carbon,
+there will certainly be a fourth act and perhaps a fifth. The enemy has
+not laid down his arms, by any means."
+
+They were skirting the quays.
+
+"Let's get down," said Don Luis.
+
+He gave a faint whistle and repeated it three times.
+
+"No answer," he said. "Ya-Bon's not there. The battle has begun."
+
+"But Coralie . . ."
+
+"What are you afraid of for her? Siméon doesn't know her address."
+
+There was nobody on Berthou's Wharf and nobody on the quay below. But by
+the light of the moon they saw the other barge, the _Nonchalante_.
+
+"Let's go on board," said Don Luis. "I wonder if the lady known as
+Grégoire makes a practise of living here? Has she come back, believing
+us on our way to Le Hâvre? I hope so. In any case, Ya-Bon must have been
+there and no doubt left something behind to act as a signal. Will you
+come, captain?"
+
+"Right you are. It's a queer thing, though: I feel frightened!"
+
+"What of?" asked Don Luis, who was plucky enough himself to understand
+this presentiment.
+
+"Of what we shall see."
+
+"My dear sir, there may be nothing there!"
+
+Each of them switched on his pocket-lamp and felt the handle of his
+revolver. They crossed the plank between the shore and the boat. A few
+steps downwards brought them to the cabin. The door was locked.
+
+"Hi, mate! Open this, will you?"
+
+There was no reply. They now set about breaking it down, which was no
+easy matter, for it was massive and quite unlike an ordinary cabin-door.
+
+At last it gave way.
+
+"By Jingo!" said Don Luis, who was the first to go in. "I didn't expect
+this!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Look. The woman whom they called Grégoire. She seems to be dead."
+
+She was lying back on a little iron bedstead, with her man's blouse open
+at the top and her chest uncovered. Her face still bore an expression of
+extreme terror. The disordered appearance of the cabin suggested that a
+furious struggle had taken place.
+
+"I was right. Here, by her side, are the clothes she wore at Mantes. But
+what's the matter, captain?"
+
+Patrice had stifled a cry:
+
+"There . . . opposite . . . under the window . . ."
+
+It was a little window overlooking the river. The panes were broken.
+
+"Well?" asked Don Luis. "What? Yes, I believe some one's been thrown out
+that way."
+
+"The veil . . . that blue veil," stammered Patrice, "is her nurse's veil
+. . . Coralie's. . . ."
+
+Don Luis grew vexed:
+
+"Nonsense! Impossible! Nobody knew her address."
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"Still what? You haven't written to her? You haven't telegraphed to
+her?"
+
+"Yes . . . I telegraphed to her . . . from Mantes."
+
+"What's that? Oh, but look here. This is madness! You don't mean that
+you really telegraphed?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"You telegraphed from the post-office at Mantes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And was there any one in the post-office?"
+
+"Yes, a woman."
+
+"What woman? The one who lies here, murdered?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But she didn't read what you wrote?"
+
+"No, but I wrote the telegram twice over."
+
+"And you threw the first draft anywhere, on the floor, so that any one
+who came along. . . . Oh, really, captain, you must confess . . . !"
+
+But Patrice was running towards the car and was already out of ear-shot.
+
+Half an hour after, he returned with two telegrams which he had found on
+Coralie's table. The first, the one which he had sent, said:
+
+      "All well. Be easy and stay indoors. Fondest love.
+
+      "CAPTAIN PATRICE."
+
+The second, which had evidently been despatched by Siméon, ran as
+follows:
+
+      "Events taking serious turn. Plans changed. Coming
+      back. Expect you nine o'clock this evening at the
+      small door of your garden.
+
+      "CAPTAIN PATRICE."
+
+This second telegram was delivered to Coralie at eight o'clock; and she
+had left the home immediately afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE FOURTH ACT
+
+
+"Captain," said Don Luis, "you've scored two fine blunders. The first
+was your not telling me that Grégoire was a woman. The second . . ."
+
+But Don Luis saw that the officer was too much dejected for him to care
+about completing his charge. He put his hand on Patrice Belval's
+shoulder:
+
+"Come," he said, "don't upset yourself. The position's not as bad as you
+think."
+
+"Coralie jumped out of the window to escape that man," Patrice muttered.
+
+"Your Coralie is alive," said Don Luis, shrugging his shoulders. "In
+Siméon's hands, but alive."
+
+"Why, what do you know about it? Anyway, if she's in that monster's
+hands, might she not as well be dead? Doesn't it mean all the horrors of
+death? Where's the difference?"
+
+"It means a danger of death, but it means life if we come in time; and
+we shall."
+
+"Have you a clue?"
+
+"Do you imagine that I have sat twiddling my thumbs and that an old hand
+like myself hasn't had time in half an hour to unravel the mysteries
+which this cabin presents?"
+
+"Then let's go," cried Patrice, already eager for the fray. "Let's have
+at the enemy."
+
+"Not yet," said Don Luis, who was still hunting around him. "Listen to
+me. I'll tell you what I know, captain, and I'll tell it you straight
+out, without trying to dazzle you by a parade of reasoning and without
+even telling you of the tiny trifles that serve me as proofs. The bare
+facts, that's all. Well, then . . ."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Little Mother Coralie kept the appointment at nine o'clock. Siméon was
+there with his female accomplice. Between them they bound and gagged her
+and brought her here. Observe that, in their eyes, it was a safe spot
+for the job, because they knew for certain that you and I had not
+discovered the trap. Nevertheless, we may assume that it was a
+provisional base of operations, adopted for part of the night only, and
+that Siméon reckoned on leaving Little Mother Coralie in the hands of
+his accomplice and setting out in search of a definite place of
+confinement, a permanent prison. But luckily--and I'm rather proud of
+this--Ya-Bon was on the spot. Ya-Bon was watching on his bench, in the
+dark. He must have seen them cross the embankment and no doubt
+recognized Siméon's walk in the distance. We'll take it that he gave
+chase at once, jumped on to the deck of the barge and arrived here at
+the same time as the enemy, before they had time to lock themselves in.
+Four people in this narrow space, in pitch darkness, must have meant a
+frightful upheaval. I know my Ya-Bon. He's terrible at such times.
+Unfortunately, it was not Siméon whom he caught by the neck with that
+merciless hand of his, but . . . the woman. Siméon took advantage of
+this. He had not let go of Little Mother Coralie. He picked her up in
+his arms and went up the companionway, flung her on the deck and then
+came back to lock the door on the two as they struggled."
+
+"Do you think so? Do you think it was Ya-Bon and not Siméon who killed
+the woman?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. If there were no other proof, there is this particular
+fracture of the wind-pipe, which is Ya-Bon's special mark. What I do not
+understand is why, when he had settled his adversary, Ya-Bon didn't
+break down the door with a push of his shoulder and go after Siméon. I
+presume that he was wounded and that he had not the strength to make the
+necessary effort. I presume also that the woman did not die at once and
+that she spoke, saying things against Siméon, who had abandoned her
+instead of defending her. This much is certain, that Ya-Bon broke the
+window-panes . . ."
+
+"To jump into the Seine, wounded as he was, with his one arm?" said
+Patrice.
+
+"Not at all. There's a ledge running along the window. He could set his
+feet on it and get off that way."
+
+"Very well. But he was quite ten or twenty minutes behind Siméon?"
+
+"That didn't matter, if the woman had time, before dying, to tell him
+where Siméon was taking refuge."
+
+"How can we get to know?"
+
+"I've been trying to find out all the time that we've been chatting
+. . . and I've just discovered the way."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"This minute; and I expected no less from Ya-Bon. The woman told him of
+a place in the cabin--look, that open drawer, probably--in which there
+was a visiting-card with an address on it. Ya-Bon took it and, in order
+to let me know, pinned the card to the curtain over there. I had seen it
+already; but it was only this moment that I noticed the pin that fixed
+it, a gold pin with which I myself fastened the Morocco Cross to
+Ya-Bon's breast."
+
+"What is the address?"
+
+"Amédée Vacherot, 18, Rue Guimard. The Rue Guimard is close to this,
+which makes me quite sure of the road they took."
+
+The two men at once went away, leaving the woman's dead body behind. As
+Don Luis said, the police must make what they could of it.
+
+As they crossed Berthou's Wharf they glanced at the recess and Don Luis
+remarked:
+
+"There's a ladder missing. We must remember that detail. Siméon has been
+in there. He's beginning to make blunders too."
+
+The car took them to the Rue Guimard, a small street in Passy. No. 18
+was a large house let out in flats, of fairly ancient construction. It
+was two o'clock in the morning when they rang.
+
+A long time elapsed before the door opened; and, as they passed through
+the carriage-entrance, the porter put his head out of his lodge:
+
+"Who's there?" he asked.
+
+"We want to see M. Amédée Vacherot on urgent business."
+
+"That's myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, I, the porter. But by what right . . . ?"
+
+"Orders of the prefect of police," said Don Luis, displaying a badge.
+
+They entered the lodge. Amédée Vacherot was a little,
+respectable-looking old man, with white whiskers. He might have been a
+beadle.
+
+"Answer my questions plainly," Don Luis ordered, in a rough voice, "and
+don't try to prevaricate. We are looking for a man called Siméon
+Diodokis."
+
+The porter took fright at once:
+
+"To do him harm?" he exclaimed. "If it's to do him harm, it's no use
+asking me any questions. I would rather die by slow tortures than injure
+that kind M. Siméon."
+
+Don Luis assumed a gentler tone:
+
+"Do him harm? On the contrary, we are looking for him to do him a
+service, to save him from a great danger."
+
+"A great danger?" cried M. Vacherot. "Oh, I'm not at all surprised! I
+never saw him in such a state of excitement."
+
+"Then he's been here?"
+
+"Yes, since midnight."
+
+"Is he here now?"
+
+"No, he went away again."
+
+Patrice made a despairing gesture and asked:
+
+"Perhaps he left some one behind?"
+
+"No, but he intended to bring some one."
+
+"A lady?"
+
+M. Vacherot hesitated.
+
+"We know," Don Luis resumed, "that Siméon Diodokis was trying to find a
+place of safety in which to shelter a lady for whom he entertained the
+deepest respect."
+
+"Can you tell me the lady's name?" asked the porter, still on his guard.
+
+"Certainly, Mme. Essarès, the widow of the banker to whom Siméon used to
+act as secretary. Mme. Essarès is a victim of persecution; he is
+defending her against her enemies; and, as we ourselves want to help the
+two of them and to take this criminal business in hand, we must insist
+that you . . ."
+
+"Oh, well!" said M. Vacherot, now fully reassured. "I have known Siméon
+Diodokis for ever so many years. He was very good to me at the time when
+I was working for an undertaker; he lent me money; he got me my present
+job; and he used often to come and sit in my lodge and talk about heaps
+of things. . . ."
+
+"Such as relations with Essarès Bey?" asked Don Luis, carelessly. "Or
+his plans concerning Patrice Belval?"
+
+"Heaps of things," said the porter, after a further hesitation. "He is
+one of the best of men, does a lot of good and used to employ me in
+distributing his local charity. And just now again he was risking his
+life for Mme. Essarès."
+
+"One more word. Had you seen him since Essarès Bey's death?"
+
+"No, it was the first time. He arrived a little before one o'clock. He
+was out of breath and spoke in a low voice, listening to the sounds of
+the street outside: 'I've been followed,' said he; 'I've been followed.
+I could swear it.' 'By whom?' said I. 'You don't know him,' said he. 'He
+has only one hand, but he wrings your neck for you.' And then he
+stopped. And then he began again, in a whisper, so that I could hardly
+hear: 'Listen to me, you're coming with me. We're going to fetch a lady,
+Mme. Essarès. They want to kill her. I've hidden her all right, but
+she's fainted: we shall have to carry her. . . . Or no, I'll go alone.
+I'll manage. But I want to know, is my room still free?' I must tell
+you, he has a little lodging here, since the day when he too had to hide
+himself. He used to come to it sometimes and he kept it on in case he
+might want it, for it's a detached lodging, away from the other
+tenants."
+
+"What did he do after that?" asked Patrice, anxiously.
+
+"After that, he went away."
+
+"But why isn't he back yet?"
+
+"I admit that it's alarming. Perhaps the man who was following him has
+attacked him. Or perhaps something has happened to the lady."
+
+"What do you mean, something happened to the lady?"
+
+"I'm afraid something may have. When he first showed me the way we
+should have to go to fetch her, he said, 'Quick, we must hurry. To save
+her life, I had to put her in a hole. That's all very well for two or
+three hours. But, if she's left longer, she will suffocate. The want of
+air . . ."
+
+Patrice had leapt upon the old man. He was beside himself, maddened at
+the thought that Coralie, ill and worn-out as she was, might be at the
+point of death in some unknown place, a prey to terror and suffering.
+
+"You shall speak," he cried, "and this very minute! You shall tell us
+where she is! Oh, don't imagine that you can fool us any longer! Where
+is she? You know! He told you!"
+
+He was shaking M. Vacherot by the shoulders and hurling his rage into
+the old man's face with unspeakable violence.
+
+Don Luis, on the other hand, stood chuckling.
+
+"Splendid, captain," he said, "splendid! My best compliments! You're
+making real progress since I joined forces with you. M. Vacherot will go
+through fire and water for us now."
+
+"Well, you see if I don't make the fellow speak," shouted Patrice.
+
+"It's no use, sir," declared the porter, very firmly and calmly. "You
+have deceived me. You are enemies of M. Siméon's. I shall not say
+another word that can give you any information."
+
+"You refuse to speak, do you? You refuse to speak?"
+
+In his exasperation Patrice drew his revolver and aimed it at the man:
+
+"I'm going to count three. If, by that time, you don't make up your mind
+to speak, you shall see the sort of man that Captain Belval is!"
+
+The porter gave a start:
+
+"Captain Belval, did you say? Are you Captain Belval?"
+
+"Ah, old fellow, that seems to give you food for thought!"
+
+"Are you Captain Belval? Patrice Belval?"
+
+"At your service; and, if in two seconds from this you haven't told me
+. . ."
+
+"Patrice Belval! And you are M. Siméon's enemy? And you want to . . . ?"
+
+"I want to do him up like the cur he is, your blackguard of a Siméon
+. . . and you, his accomplice, with him. A nice pair of rascals! . . .
+Well, have you made up your mind?"
+
+"Unhappy man!" gasped the porter. "Unhappy man! You don't know what
+you're doing. Kill M. Siméon! You? You? Why, you're the last man who
+could commit a crime like that!"
+
+"What about it? Speak, will you, you old numskull!"
+
+"You, kill M. Siméon? You, Patrice? You, Captain Belval? You?"
+
+"And why not? Speak, damn it! Why not?"
+
+"You are his son."
+
+All Patrice's fury, all his anguish at the thought that Coralie was in
+Siméon's power or else lying in some pit, all his agonized grief, all
+his alarm: all this gave way, for a moment, to a terrible fit of
+merriment, which revealed itself in a long burst of laughter.
+
+"Siméon's son! What the devil are you talking about? Oh, this beats
+everything! Upon my word, you're full of ideas, when you're trying to
+save him! You old ruffian! Of course, it's most convenient: don't kill
+that man, he's your father. He my father, that putrid Siméon! Siméon
+Diodokis, Patrice Belval's father! Oh, it's enough to make a chap split
+his sides!"
+
+Don Luis had listened in silence. He made a sign to Patrice:
+
+"Will you allow me to clear up this business, captain? It won't take me
+more than a few minutes; and that certainly won't delay us." And,
+without waiting for the officer's reply, he turned to the old man and
+said slowly, "Let's have this out, M. Vacherot. It's of the highest
+importance. The great thing is to speak plainly and not to lose yourself
+in superfluous words. Besides, you have said too much not to finish your
+revelation. Siméon Diodokis is not your benefactor's real name, is it?"
+
+"No, that's so."
+
+"He is Armand Belval; and the woman who loved him used to call him
+Patrice?"
+
+"Yes, his son's name."
+
+"Nevertheless, this Armand Belval was a victim of the same murderous
+attempt as the woman he loved, who was Coralie Essarès' mother?"
+
+"Yes, but Coralie Essarès' mother died; and he did not."
+
+"That was on the fourteenth of April, 1895."
+
+"The fourteenth of April, 1895."
+
+Patrice caught hold of Don Luis' arm:
+
+"Come," he spluttered, "Coralie's at death's door. The monster has
+buried her. That's the only thing that matters."
+
+"Then you don't believe that monster to be your father?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"You're mad!"
+
+"For all that, captain, you're trembling! . . ."
+
+"I dare say, I dare say, but it's because of Coralie. . . . I can't even
+hear what the man's saying! . . . Oh, it's a nightmare, every word of
+it! Make him stop! Make him shut up! Why didn't I wring his neck?"
+
+He sank into a chair, with his elbows on the table and his head in his
+hands. It was really a horrible moment; and no catastrophe would have
+overwhelmed a man more utterly.
+
+Don Luis looked at him with feeling and then turned to the porter:
+
+"Explain yourself, M. Vacherot," he said. "As briefly as possible, won't
+you? No details. We can go into them later. We were saying, on the
+fourteenth of April, 1895 . . ."
+
+"On the fourteenth of April, 1895, a solicitor's clerk, accompanied by
+the commissary of police, came to my governor's, close by here, and
+ordered two coffins for immediate delivery. The whole shop got to work.
+At ten o'clock in the evening, the governor, one of my mates and I went
+to the Rue Raynouard, to a sort of pavilion or lodge, standing in a
+garden."
+
+"I know. Go on."
+
+"There were two bodies. We wrapped them in winding-sheets and put them
+into the coffins. At eleven o'clock my governor and my fellow-workmen
+went away and left me alone with a sister of mercy. There was nothing
+more to do except to nail the coffins down. Well, just then, the nun,
+who had been watching and praying, fell asleep and something happened
+. . . oh, an awful thing! It made my hair stand on end, sir. I shall
+never forget it as long as I live. My knees gave way beneath me, I shook
+with fright. . . . Sir, the man's body had moved. The man was alive!"
+
+"Then you didn't know of the murder at that time?" asked Don Luis. "You
+hadn't heard of the attempt?"
+
+"No, we were told that they had both suffocated themselves with gas.
+. . . It was many hours before the man recovered consciousness
+entirely. He was in some way poisoned."
+
+"But why didn't you inform the nun?"
+
+"I couldn't say. I was simply stunned. I looked at the man as he slowly
+came back to life and ended by opening his eyes. His first words were,
+'She's dead, I suppose?' And then at once he said, 'Not a word about all
+this. Let them think me dead: that will be better.' And I can't tell you
+why, but I consented. The miracle had deprived me of all power of will.
+I obeyed like a child. . . . He ended by getting up. He leant over the
+other coffin, drew aside the sheet and kissed the dead woman's face over
+and over again, whispering, 'I will avenge you. All my life shall be
+devoted to avenging you and also, as you wished, to uniting our
+children. If I don't kill myself, it will be for Patrice and Coralie's
+sake. Good-by.' Then he told me to help him. Between us, we lifted the
+woman out of the coffin and carried it into the little bedroom next
+door. Then we went into the garden, took some big stones and put them
+into the coffins where the two bodies had been. When this was done, I
+nailed the coffins down, woke the good sister and went away. The man had
+locked himself into the bedroom with the dead woman. Next morning the
+undertaker's men came and fetched away the two coffins."
+
+Patrice had unclasped his hands and thrust his distorted features
+between Don Luis and the porter. Fixing his haggard eyes upon the
+latter, he asked, struggling with his words:
+
+"But the graves? The inscription saying that the remains of both lie
+there, near the lodge where the murder was committed? The cemetery?"
+
+"Armand Belval wished it so. At that time I was living in a garret in
+this house. I took a lodging for him where he came and lived by stealth,
+under the name of Siméon Diodokis, since Armand Belval was dead, and
+where he stayed for several months without going out. Then, in his new
+name and through me, he bought his lodge. And, bit by bit, we dug the
+graves. Coralie's and his. His because, I repeat, he wished it so.
+Patrice and Coralie were both dead. It seemed to him, in this way, that
+he was not leaving her. Perhaps also, I confess, despair had upset his
+balance a little, just a very little, only in what concerned his memory
+of the woman who died on the fourteenth of April, 1895, and his devotion
+for her. He wrote her name and his own everywhere: on the grave and also
+on the walls, on the trees and in the very borders of the flower-beds.
+They were Coralie Essarès' name and yours. . . . And for this, for all
+that had to do with his revenge upon the murderer and with his son and
+with the dead woman's daughter, oh, for these matters he had all his
+wits about him, believe me, sir!"
+
+Patrice stretched his clutching hands and his distraught face towards
+the porter:
+
+"Proofs, proofs, proofs!" he insisted, in a stifled voice. "Give me
+proofs at once! There's some one dying at this moment by that
+scoundrel's criminal intentions, there's a woman at the point of death.
+Give me proofs!"
+
+"You need have no fear," said M. Vacherot. "My friend has only one
+thought, that of saving the woman, not killing her. . . ."
+
+"He lured her and me into the lodge to kill us, as our parents were
+killed before us."
+
+"He is trying only to unite you."
+
+"Yes, in death."
+
+"No, in life. You are his dearly-loved son. He always spoke of you with
+pride."
+
+"He is a ruffian, a monster!" shouted the officer.
+
+"He is the very best man living, sir, and he is your father."
+
+Patrice started, stung by the insult:
+
+"Proofs," he roared, "proofs! I forbid you to speak another word until
+you have proved the truth in a manner admitting of no doubt."
+
+Without moving from his seat, the old man put out his arm towards an old
+mahogany escritoire, lowered the lid and, pressing a spring, pulled out
+one of the drawers. Then he held out a bundle of papers:
+
+"You know your father's handwriting, don't you, captain?" he said. "You
+must have kept letters from him, since the time when you were at school
+in England. Well, read the letters which he wrote to me. You will see
+your name repeated a hundred times, the name of his son; and you will
+see the name of the Coralie whom he meant you to marry. Your whole
+life--your studies, your journeys, your work--is described in these
+letters. And you will also find your photographs, which he had taken by
+various correspondents, and photographs of Coralie, whom he had visited
+at Salonica. And you will see above all his hatred for Essarès Bey,
+whose secretary he had become, and his plans of revenge, his patience,
+his tenacity. And you will also see his despair when he heard of the
+marriage between Essarès and Coralie and, immediately afterwards, his
+joy at the thought that his revenge would be more cruel when he
+succeeded in uniting his son Patrice with Essarès' wife."
+
+As the old fellow spoke, he placed the letters one by one under the eyes
+of Patrice, who had at once recognized his father's hand and sat
+greedily devouring sentences in which his own name was constantly
+repeated. M. Vacherot watched him.
+
+"Have you any more doubts, captain?" he asked, at last.
+
+The officer again pressed his clenched fists to his temples:
+
+"I saw his face," he said, "above the skylight, in the lodge into which
+he had locked us. . . . It was gloating over our death, it was a face
+mad with hatred. . . . He hated us even more than Essarès did. . . ."
+
+"A mistake! Pure imagination!" the old man protested.
+
+"Or madness," muttered Patrice.
+
+Then he struck the table violently, in a fit of revulsion:
+
+"It's not true, it's not true!" he exclaimed. "That man is not my
+father. What, a scoundrel like that! . . ."
+
+He took a few steps round the little room and, stopping in front of Don
+Luis, jerked out:
+
+"Let's go. Else I shall go mad too. It's a nightmare, there's no other
+word for it, a nightmare in which things turn upside down until the
+brain itself capsizes. Let's go. Coralie is in danger. That's the only
+thing that matters."
+
+The old man shook his head:
+
+"I'm very much afraid . . ."
+
+"What are _you_ afraid of?" bellowed the officer.
+
+"I'm afraid that my poor friend has been caught up by the person who was
+following him . . . and then how can he have saved Mme. Essarès? The
+poor thing was hardly able to breathe, he told me."
+
+Hanging on to Don Luis' arm, Patrice staggered out of the porter's lodge
+like a drunken man:
+
+"She's done for, she must be!" he cried.
+
+"Not at all," said Don Luis. "Siméon is as feverishly active as
+yourself. He is nearing the catastrophe. He is quaking with fear and not
+in a condition to weigh his words. Believe me, your Coralie is in no
+immediate danger. We have some hours before us."
+
+"But Ya-Bon? Suppose Ya-Bon has laid hands upon him?"
+
+"I gave Ya-Bon orders not to kill him. Therefore, whatever happens,
+Siméon is alive. That's the great thing. So long as Siméon is alive,
+there is nothing to fear. He won't let your Coralie die."
+
+"Why not, seeing that he hates her? Why not? What is there in that man's
+heart? He devotes all his existence to a work of love on our behalf;
+and, from one minute to the next, that love turns to execration."
+
+He pressed Don Luis' arm and, in a hollow voice, asked:
+
+"Do you believe that he is my father?"
+
+"Siméon Diodokis is your father, captain," replied Don Luis.
+
+"Ah, don't, don't! It's too horrible! God, but we are in the valley of
+the shadow!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Don Luis, "the shadow is lifting slightly; and I
+confess that our talk with M. Vacherot has given me a little light."
+
+"Do you mean it?"
+
+But, in Patrice Belval's fevered brain, one idea jostled another. He
+suddenly stopped:
+
+"Siméon may have gone back to the porter's lodge! . . . And we sha'n't
+be there! . . . Perhaps he will bring Coralie back!"
+
+"No," Don Luis declared, "he would have done that before now, if it
+could be done. No, it's for us to go to him."
+
+"But where?"
+
+"Well, of course, where all the fighting has been . . . where the gold
+lies. All the enemy's operations are centered in that gold; and you may
+be sure that, even in retreat, he can't get away from it. Besides, we
+know that he is not far from Berthou's Wharf."
+
+Patrice allowed himself to be led along without a word. But suddenly Don
+Luis cried:
+
+"Did you hear?"
+
+"Yes, a shot."
+
+At that moment they were on the point of turning into the Rue Raynouard.
+The height of the houses prevented them from perceiving the exact spot
+from which the shot had been fired, but it came approximately from the
+Essarès house or the immediate precincts. Patrice was filled with
+alarm:
+
+"Can it be Ya-Bon?"
+
+"I'm afraid so," said Don Luis, "and, as Ya-Bon wouldn't fire, some one
+must have fired a shot at him. . . . Oh, by Jove, if my poor Ya-Bon were
+to be killed . . . !"
+
+"And suppose it was at her, at Coralie?" whispered Patrice.
+
+Don Luis began to laugh:
+
+"Oh, my dear captain, I'm almost sorry that I ever mixed myself up in
+this business! You were much cleverer before I came and a good deal
+clearer-sighted. Why the devil should Siméon attack your Coralie,
+considering that she's already in his power?"
+
+They hurried their steps. As they passed the Essarès house they saw that
+everything was quiet and they went on until they came to the lane, down
+which they turned.
+
+Patrice had the key, but the little door which opened on to the garden
+of the lodge was bolted inside.
+
+"Aha!" said Don Luis. "That shows that we're warm. Meet me on the quay,
+captain. I shall run down to Berthou's Wharf to have a look round."
+
+During the past few minutes a pale dawn had begun to mingle with the
+shades of night. The embankment was still deserted, however.
+
+Don Luis observed nothing in particular at Berthou's Wharf; but, when he
+returned to the quay above, Patrice showed him a ladder lying right at
+the end of the pavement which skirted the garden of the lodge; and Don
+Luis recognized the ladder as the one whose absence he had noticed from
+the recess in the yard. With that quick vision which was one of his
+greatest assets, he at once furnished the explanation:
+
+"As Siméon had the key of the garden, it was obviously Ya-Bon who used
+the ladder to make his way in. Therefore he saw Siméon take refuge there
+on returning from his visit to old Vacherot and after coming to fetch
+Coralie. Now the question is, did Siméon succeed in fetching Little
+Mother Coralie, or did he run away before fetching her? That I can't
+say. But, in any case . . ."
+
+Bending low down, he examined the pavement and continued:
+
+"In any case, what is certain is that Ya-Bon knows the hiding-place
+where the bags of gold are stacked and that it is there most likely that
+your Coralie was and perhaps still is, worse luck, if the enemy, giving
+his first thought to his personal safety, has not had time to remove
+her."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Look here, captain, Ya-Bon always carries a piece of chalk in his
+pocket. As he doesn't know how to write, except just the letters forming
+my name, he has drawn these two straight lines which, with the line of
+the wall, make a triangle . . . the golden triangle."
+
+Don Luis drew himself up:
+
+"The clue is rather meager. But Ya-Bon looks upon me as a wizard. He
+never doubted that I should manage to find this spot and that those
+three lines would be enough for me. Poor Ya-Bon!"
+
+"But," objected Patrice, "all this, according to you, took place before
+our return to Paris, between twelve and one o'clock, therefore."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what about the shot which we have just heard, four or five hours
+later?"
+
+"As to that I'm not so positive. We may assume that Siméon squatted
+somewhere in the dark. Possibly at the first break of day, feeling
+easier and hearing nothing of Ya-Bon, he risked taking a step or two.
+Then Ya-Bon, keeping watch in silence, would have leaped upon him."
+
+"So you think . . ."
+
+"I think that there was a struggle, that Ya-Bon was wounded and that
+Siméon . . ."
+
+"That Siméon escaped?"
+
+"Or else was killed. However, we shall know all about it in a few
+minutes."
+
+He set the ladder against the railing at the top of the wall. Patrice
+climbed over with Don Luis' assistance. Then, stepping over the railing
+in his turn, Don Luis drew up the ladder, threw it into the garden and
+made a careful examination. Finally, they turned their steps, through
+the tall grasses and bushy shrubs, towards the lodge.
+
+The daylight was increasing rapidly and the outlines of everything were
+becoming clearer. The two men walked round the lodge, Don Luis leading
+the way. When he came in sight of the yard, on the street side, he
+turned and said: "I was right."
+
+And he ran forward.
+
+Outside the hall-door lay the bodies of the two adversaries, clutching
+each other in a confused heap. Ya-Bon had a horrible wound in the head,
+from which the blood was flowing all over his face. With his right hand
+he held Siméon by the throat.
+
+Don Luis at once perceived that Ya-Bon was dead and Siméon Diodokis
+alive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SIMÉON GIVES BATTLE
+
+
+It took them some time to loosen Ya-Bon's grip. Even in death the
+Senegalese did not let go his prey; and his fingers, hard as iron and
+armed with nails piercing as a tiger's claws, dug into the neck of the
+enemy, who lay gurgling, deprived of consciousness and strength.
+
+Don Luis caught sight of Siméon's revolver on the cobbles of the yard:
+
+"It was lucky for you, you old ruffian," he said, in a low voice, "that
+Ya-Bon did not have time to squeeze the breath out of you before you
+fired that shot. But I wouldn't chortle overmuch, if I were you. He
+might perhaps have spared you, whereas, now that Ya-Bon's dead, you can
+write to your family and book your seat below. _De profundis_,
+Diodokis!" And, giving way to his grief, he added, "Poor Ya-Bon! He
+saved me from a horrible death one day in Africa . . . and to-day he
+dies by my orders, so to speak. My poor Ya-Bon!"
+
+Assisted by Patrice, he carried the negro's corpse into the little
+bedroom next to the studio.
+
+"We'll inform the police this evening, captain, when the drama is
+finished. For the moment, it's a matter of avenging him and the
+others."
+
+He thereupon applied himself to making a minute inspection of the scene
+of the struggle, after which he went back to Ya-Bon and then to Siméon,
+whose clothes and shoes he examined closely.
+
+Patrice was face to face with his terrible enemy, whom he had propped
+against the wall of the lodge and was contemplating in silence, with a
+fixed stare of hatred. Siméon! Siméon Diodokis, the execrable demon who,
+two days before, had hatched the terrible plot and, bending over the
+skylight, had laughed as he watched their awful agony! Siméon Diodokis,
+who, like a wild beast, had hidden Coralie in some hole, so that he
+might go back and torture her at his ease!
+
+He seemed to be in pain and to breathe with great difficulty. His
+wind-pipe had no doubt been injured by Ya-Bon's clutch. His yellow
+spectacles had fallen off during the fight. A pair of thick, grizzled
+eyebrows lowered about his heavy lids.
+
+"Search him, captain," said Don Luis.
+
+But, as Patrice seemed to shrink from the task, he himself felt in
+Siméon's jacket and produced a pocket-book, which he handed to the
+officer.
+
+It contained first of all a registration-card, in the name of Siméon
+Diodokis, Greek subject, with his photograph gummed to it. The
+photograph was a recent one, taken with the spectacles, the comforter
+and the long hair, and bore a police-stamp dated December, 1914. There
+was a collection of business documents, invoices and memoranda,
+addressed to Siméon as Essarès Bey's secretary, and, among these papers,
+a letter from Amédée Vacherot, running as follows:
+
+      "_Dear M. Siméon_,
+
+      "I have succeeded. A young friend of mine has taken a
+      snapshot of Mme. Essarès and Patrice at the hospital,
+      at a moment when they were talking together. I am so
+      glad to be able to gratify you. But when will you tell
+      your dear son the truth? How delighted he will be when
+      he hears it!"
+
+At the foot of the letter were a few words in Siméon's hand, a sort of
+personal note:
+
+      "Once more I solemnly pledge myself not to reveal
+      anything to my dearly-beloved son until Coralie, my
+      bride, is avenged and until Patrice and Coralie
+      Essarès are free to love each other and to marry."
+
+"That's your father's writing, is it not?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, in bewilderment. "And it is also the writing of the
+letters which he addressed to his friend Vacherot. Oh, it's too hideous
+to be true! What a man! What a scoundrel!"
+
+Siméon moved. His eyes opened and closed repeatedly. Then, coming to
+himself entirely, he looked at Patrice, who at once, in a stifled voice,
+asked:
+
+"Where's Coralie?"
+
+And, as Siméon, still dazed, seemed not to understand and sat gazing at
+him stupidly, he repeated, in a harsher tone:
+
+"Where's Coralie? What have you done with her? Where have you put her?
+She must be dying!"
+
+Siméon was gradually recovering life and consciousness. He mumbled:
+
+"Patrice. . . . Patrice. . . ."
+
+He looked around him, saw Don Luis, no doubt remembered his fight to the
+death with Ya-Bon and closed his eyes again. But Patrice's rage
+increased:
+
+"Will you attend?" he shouted. "I won't wait any longer! It'll cost you
+your life if you don't answer!"
+
+The man's eyes opened again, red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. He pointed to
+his throat to indicate his difficulty in speaking. At last, with a
+visible effort, he repeated:
+
+"Patrice! Is it you? . . . I have been waiting for this moment so long!
+. . . And now we are meeting as enemies! . . ."
+
+"As mortal enemies," said Patrice, with emphasis. "Death stands between
+us: Ya-Bon's death, Coralie's perhaps. . . . Where is she? You must
+speak, or . . ."
+
+"Patrice, is it really you?" the man repeated, in a whisper.
+
+The familiarity exasperated the officer. He caught his adversary by the
+lapel of his jacket and shook him. But Siméon had seen the pocket-book
+which he held in his other hand and, without resisting Patrice's
+roughness, whined:
+
+"You wouldn't hurt me, Patrice. You must have found some letters; and
+you now know the link that binds us together. Oh, how happy I should
+have been . . . !"
+
+Patrice had released his hold and stood staring at him in horror.
+Sinking his voice in his turn, he said:
+
+"Don't dare to speak of that: I won't, I won't believe it!"
+
+"It's the truth, Patrice."
+
+"You lie! You lie!" cried the officer, unable to restrain himself any
+longer, while his grief distorted his face out of all recognition.
+
+"Ah, I see you have guessed it! Then I need not explain . . ."
+
+"You lie! You're just a common scoundrel! . . . If what you say is true,
+why did you plot against Coralie and me? Why did you try to murder the
+two of us?"
+
+"I was mad, Patrice. Yes, I go mad at times. All these tragedies have
+turned my head. My own Coralie's death . . . and then my life in
+Essarès' shadow . . . and then . . . and then, above all, the gold!
+. . . Did I really try to kill you both? I no longer remember. Or at
+least I remember a dream I had: it happened in the lodge, didn't it, as
+before? Oh, madness! What a torture! I'm like a man in the galleys. I
+have to do things against my will! . . . Then it was in the lodge, was
+it, as before? And in the same manner? With the same implements? . . .
+Yes, in my dream, I went through all my agony over again . . . and that
+of my darling. . . . But, instead of being tortured, I was the torturer
+. . . What a torment!"
+
+He spoke low, inside himself, with hesitations and intervals and an
+unspeakable air of suffering. Don Luis kept his eyes fixed on him, as
+though trying to discover what he was aiming at. And Siméon continued:
+
+"My poor Patrice! . . . I was so fond of you! . . . And now you are my
+worst enemy! . . . How indeed could it be otherwise? . . . How could
+you forget? . . . Oh, why didn't they lock me up after Essarès' death?
+It was then that I felt my brain going. . . ."
+
+"So it was you who killed him?" asked Patrice.
+
+"No, no, that's just it: somebody else robbed me of my revenge."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"I don't know. . . . The whole business is incomprehensible to me. . . .
+Don't speak of it. . . . It all pains me. . . . I have suffered so since
+Coralie's death!"
+
+"Coralie!" exclaimed Patrice.
+
+"Yes, the woman I loved. . . . As for little Coralie, I've suffered also
+on her account. . . . She ought not to have married Essarès."
+
+"Where is she?" asked Patrice, in agony.
+
+"I can't tell you."
+
+"Oh," cried Patrice, shaking with rage, "you mean she's dead!"
+
+"No, she's alive, I swear it."
+
+"Then where is she? That's the only thing that matters. All the rest
+belongs to the past. But this thing, a woman's life, Coralie's life
+. . ."
+
+"Listen."
+
+Siméon stopped and gave a glance at Don Luis;
+
+"Tell him to go away," he said.
+
+Don Luis laughed:
+
+"Of course! Little Mother Coralie is hidden in the same place as the
+bags of gold. To save her means surrendering the bags of gold."
+
+"Well?" said Patrice, in an almost aggressive tone.
+
+"Well, captain," replied Don Luis, not without a certain touch of
+banter in his voice, "if this honorable gentleman suggested that you
+should release him on parole so that he might go and fetch your Coralie,
+I don't suppose you'd accept?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You haven't the least confidence in him, have you? And you're right.
+The honorable gentleman, mad though he may be, gave such proofs of
+mental superiority and balance, when he sent us trundling down the road
+to Mantes, that it would be dangerous to attach the least credit to his
+promises. The consequence is . . ."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"This, captain, that the honorable gentleman means to propose a bargain
+to you, which may be couched thus: 'You can have Coralie, but I'll keep
+the gold.'"
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then? It would be a capital notion, if you were alone with the
+honorable gentleman. The bargain would soon be concluded. But I'm here
+. . . by Jupiter!"
+
+Patrice had drawn himself up. He stepped towards Don Luis and said, in a
+voice which became openly hostile:
+
+"I presume that you won't raise any opposition. It's a matter of a
+woman's life."
+
+"No doubt. But, on the other hand, it's a matter of three hundred
+million francs."
+
+"Then you refuse?"
+
+"Refuse? I should think so!"
+
+"You refuse when that woman is at her last gasp? You would rather she
+died? . . . Look here, you seem to forget that this is my affair, that
+. . . that . . ."
+
+The two men were standing close together. Don Luis retained that
+chaffing calmness, that air of knowing more than he chose to say, which
+irritated Patrice. At heart Patrice, while yielding to Don Luis'
+mastery, resented it and felt a certain embarrassment at accepting the
+services of a man with whose past he was so well acquainted.
+
+"Then you actually refuse?" he rapped out, clenching his fists.
+
+"Yes," said Don Luis, preserving his coolness. "Yes, Captain Belval, I
+refuse this bargain, which I consider absurd. Why, it's the
+confidence-trick! By Jingo! Three hundred millions! Give up a windfall
+like that? Never. But I haven't the least objection to leaving you alone
+with the honorable gentleman. That's what he wants, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, talk it over between yourselves. Sign the compact. The honorable
+gentleman, who, for his part, has every confidence in his son, will tell
+you the whereabouts of the hiding-place; and you shall release your
+Coralie."
+
+"And you? What about you?" snarled Patrice, angrily.
+
+"I? I'm going to complete my little enquiry into the present and the
+past by revisiting the room where you nearly met your death. See you
+later, captain. And, whatever you do, insist on guarantees."
+
+Switching on his pocket-lamp, Don Luis entered the lodge and walked
+straight to the studio. Patrice saw the electric rays playing on the
+panels between the walled-up windows. He went back to where Siméon sat:
+
+"Now then," he said, in a voice of authority. "Be quick about it."
+
+"Are you sure he's not listening?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Be careful with him, Patrice. He means to take the gold and keep it."
+
+"Don't waste time," said Patrice, impatiently. "Get to Coralie."
+
+"I've told you Coralie was alive."
+
+"She was alive when you left her; but since then . . ."
+
+"Yes, since then . . ."
+
+"Since then, what? You seem to have your doubts."
+
+"It was last night, five or six hours ago, and I am afraid . . ."
+
+Patrice felt a cold shudder run down his back. He would have given
+anything for a decisive word; and at the same time he was almost
+strangling the old man to punish him. He mastered himself, however:
+
+"Don't let's waste time," he repeated. "Tell me where to go."
+
+"No, we'll go together."
+
+"You haven't the strength."
+
+"Yes, yes, I can manage . . . it's not far. Only, only, listen to me.
+. . ."
+
+The old man seemed utterly exhausted. From time to time his breathing
+was interrupted, as though Ya-Bon's hand were still clutching him by the
+throat, and he sank into a heap, moaning.
+
+Patrice stooped over him:
+
+"I'm listening," he said. "But, for God's sake, hurry!"
+
+"All right," said Siméon. "All right. She'll be free in a few minutes.
+But on one condition, just one. . . . Patrice, you must swear to me on
+Coralie's head that you will not touch the gold and that no one shall
+know . . ."
+
+"I swear it on her head."
+
+"You swear it, yes; but the other one, your damned companion, he'll
+follow us, he'll see."
+
+"No, he won't."
+
+"Yes, he will, unless you consent . . ."
+
+"To what? Oh, in Heaven's name, speak!"
+
+"I'll tell you. Listen. But remember, we must go to Coralie's assistance
+. . . and that quickly . . . otherwise . . ."
+
+Patrice hesitated, bending one leg, almost on his knees:
+
+"Then come, do!" he said, modifying his tone. "Please come, because
+Coralie . . ."
+
+"Yes, but that man . . ."
+
+"Oh, Coralie first!"
+
+"What do you mean? Suppose he sees us? Suppose he takes the gold from
+us?"
+
+"What does that matter!"
+
+"Oh, don't say that, Patrice! . . . The gold! That's the one thing!
+Since that gold has been mine, my life is changed. The past no longer
+counts . . . nor does hatred . . . nor love. . . . There's only the
+gold, the bags of gold . . . I'd rather die . . . and let Coralie die
+. . . and see the whole world disappear . . ."
+
+"But, look here, what is it you want? What is it you demand?"
+
+Patrice had taken the two arms of this man who was his father and whom
+he had never detested with greater vehemence. He was imploring him with
+all the strength of his being. He would have shed tears had he thought
+that the old man would allow himself to be moved by tears.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I'll tell you. Listen. He's there, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In the studio?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In that case . . . he mustn't come out. . . ."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"No, he must stay there until we've done."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"It's quite easy. Listen carefully. You've only to make a movement, to
+shut the door on him. The lock has been forced, but there are the two
+bolts; and those will do. Do you consent?"
+
+Patrice rebelled:
+
+"But you're mad! _I_ consent, _I_? . . . Why, the man saved my life!
+. . . He saved Coralie!"
+
+"But he's doing for her now. Think a moment: if he were not there, if he
+were not interfering, Coralie would be free. Do you accept?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not? Do you know what that man is? A highway robber . . . a wretch
+who has only one thought, to get hold of the millions. And you have
+scruples! Come, it's absurd, isn't it? . . . Do you accept?"
+
+"No and again no!"
+
+"Then so much the worse for Coralie. . . . Oh, yes, I see you don't
+realize the position exactly! It's time you did, Patrice. Perhaps it's
+even too late."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!"
+
+"Yes, yes, you must learn the facts and take your share of the
+responsibility. When that damned negro was chasing me, I got rid of
+Coralie as best I could, intending to release her in an hour or two. And
+then . . . and then you know what happened. . . . It was eleven o'clock
+at night . . . nearly eight hours ago. . . . So work it out for yourself
+. . ."
+
+Patrice wrung his hands. Never had he imagined that a man could be
+tortured to such a degree. And Siméon continued, unrelentingly.
+
+"She can't breathe, on my soul she can't! . . . Perhaps just a very
+little air reaches her, but that is all. . . . Then again I can't tell
+that all that covers and protects her hasn't given way. If it has, she's
+suffocating . . . while you stand here arguing. . . . Look here, can it
+matter to you to lock up that man for ten minutes? . . . Only ten
+minutes, you know. And you still hesitate! Then it's you who are killing
+her, Patrice. Think . . . buried alive!"
+
+Patrice drew himself up. His resolve was taken. At that moment he would
+have shrunk from no act, however painful. And what Siméon asked was so
+little.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Give your orders."
+
+"You know what I want," said the other. "It's quite simple. Go to the
+door, bolt it and come back again."
+
+The officer entered the lodge with a firm step and walked through the
+hall. The light was dancing up and down at the far end of the studio.
+
+Without a word, without a moment's hesitation, he slammed the door, shot
+both the bolts and hastened back. He felt relieved. The action was a
+base one, but he never doubted that he had fulfilled an imperative duty.
+
+"That's it," he said, "Let's hurry."
+
+"Help me up," said the old man. "I can't manage by myself."
+
+Patrice took him under the armpits and lifted him to his feet. But he
+had to support him, for the old man's legs were swaying beneath him.
+
+"Oh, curse it!" blurted Siméon. "That blasted nigger has done for me.
+I'm suffocating too, I can't walk."
+
+Patrice almost carried him, while Siméon, in the last stage of weakness,
+stammered:
+
+"This way. . . . Now straight ahead. . . ."
+
+They passed the corner of the lodge and turned their steps towards the
+graves.
+
+"You're quite sure you fastened the door?" the old man continued. "Yes,
+I heard it slam. Oh, he's a terrible fellow, that! You have to be on
+your guard with him! But you swore not to say anything, didn't you?
+Swear it again, by your mother's memory . . . no, better, swear it by
+Coralie. . . . May she die on the spot if you betray your oath!"
+
+He stopped. A spasm prevented his going any further until he had drawn a
+little air into his lungs. Nevertheless he went on talking:
+
+"I needn't worry, need I? Besides, you don't care about gold. That being
+so, why should you speak? Never mind, swear that you will be silent.
+Or, look here, give me your word of honor. That's best. Your word, eh?"
+
+Patrice was still holding him round the waist. It was a terrible, long
+agony for the officer, this slow crawl and this sort of embrace which he
+was compelled to adopt in order to effect Coralie's release. As he felt
+the contact of the detested man's body, he was more inclined to squeeze
+the life out of it. And yet a vile phrase kept recurring deep down
+within him:
+
+"I am his son, I am his son. . . ."
+
+"It's here," said the old man.
+
+"Here? But these are the graves."
+
+"Coralie's grave and mine. It's what we were making for."
+
+He turned round in alarm:
+
+"I say, the footprints! You'll get rid of them on the way back, won't
+you? For he would find our tracks otherwise and he would know that this
+is the place. . . ."
+
+"Let's hurry. . . . So Coralie is here? Down there? Buried? Oh, how
+horrible!"
+
+It seemed to Patrice as if each minute that passed meant more than an
+hour's delay and as if Coralie's safety might be jeopardized by a
+moment's hesitation or a single false step.
+
+He took every oath that was demanded of him. He swore upon Coralie's
+head. He pledged his word of honor. At that moment there was not an
+action which he would not have been ready to perform.
+
+Siméon knelt down on the grass, under the little temple, pointing with
+his finger:
+
+"It's there," he repeated. "Underneath that."
+
+"Under the tombstone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then the stone lifts?" asked Patrice, anxiously. "I can't lift it by
+myself. It can't be done. It would take three men to lift that."
+
+"No," said the old man, "the stone swings on a pivot. You'll manage
+quite easily. All you have to do is to pull at one end . . . this one,
+on the right."
+
+Patrice came and caught hold of the great stone slab, with its
+inscription, "Here lie Patrice and Coralie," and pulled.
+
+The stone rose at the first endeavor, as if a counterweight had forced
+the other end down.
+
+"Wait," said the old man. "We must hold it in position, or it will fall
+down again. You'll find an iron bar at the bottom of the second step."
+
+There were three steps running into a small cavity, barely large enough
+to contain a man stooping. Patrice saw the iron bar and, propping up the
+stone with his shoulder, took the bar and set it up.
+
+"Good," said Siméon. "That will keep it steady. What you must now do is
+to lie down in the hollow. This was where my coffin was to have been and
+where I often used to come and lie beside my dear Coralie. I would
+remain for hours, flat on the ground, speaking to her. . . . We both
+talked. . . . Yes, I assure you, we used to talk. . . . Oh, Patrice!
+. . ."
+
+Patrice had bent his tall figure in the narrow space where he was hardly
+able to move.
+
+"What am I to do?" he asked.
+
+"Don't you hear your Coralie? There's only a partition-wall between
+you: a few bricks hidden under a thin layer of earth. And a door. The
+other vault, Coralie's, is behind it. And behind that there's a third,
+with the bags of gold."
+
+The old man was bending over and directing the search as he knelt on the
+grass:
+
+"The door's on the left. Farther than that. Can't you find it? That's
+odd. You mustn't be too slow about it, though. Ah, have you got it now?
+No? Oh, if I could only go down too! But there's not room for more than
+one."
+
+There was a brief silence. Then he began again:
+
+"Stretch a bit farther. Good. Can you move?"
+
+"Yes," said Patrice.
+
+"Then go on moving, my lad!" cried the old man, with a yell of laughter.
+
+And, stepping back briskly, he snatched away the iron bar. The enormous
+block of stone came down heavily, slowly, because of the counterweight,
+but with irresistible force.
+
+Though floundering in the newly-turned earth, Patrice tried to rise, at
+the sight of his danger. Siméon had taken up the iron bar and now struck
+him a blow on the head with it. Patrice gave a cry and moved no more.
+The stone covered him up. The whole incident had lasted but a few
+seconds.
+
+Siméon did not lose an instant. He knew that Patrice, wounded as he was
+bound to be and weakened by the posture to which he was condemned, was
+incapable of making the necessary effort to lift the lid of his tomb. On
+that side, therefore, there was no danger.
+
+He went back to the lodge and, though he walked with some difficulty, he
+had no doubt exaggerated his injuries, for he did not stop until he
+reached the door. He even scorned to obliterate his footprints and went
+straight ahead.
+
+On entering the hall he listened. Don Luis was tapping against the walls
+and the partition inside the studio and the bedroom.
+
+"Capital!" said Siméon, with a grin. "His turn now."
+
+It did not take long. He walked to the kitchen on the right, opened the
+door of the meter and, turning the key, released the gas, thus beginning
+again with Don Luis what he had failed to achieve with Patrice and
+Coralie.
+
+Not till then did he yield to the immense weariness with which he was
+overcome and allow himself to lie back in a chair for two or three
+minutes.
+
+His most terrible enemy also was now out of the way. But it was still
+necessary for him to act and ensure his personal safety. He walked round
+the lodge, looked for his yellow spectacles and put them on, went
+through the garden, opened the door and closed it behind him. Then he
+turned down the lane to the quay.
+
+Once more stopping, in front of the parapet above Berthou's Wharf, he
+seemed to hesitate what to do. But the sight of people passing, carmen,
+market-gardeners and others, put an end to his indecision. He hailed a
+taxi and drove to the Rue Guimard.
+
+His friend Vacherot was standing at the door of his lodge.
+
+"Oh, is that you, M. Siméon?" cried the porter. "But what a state you're
+in!"
+
+"Hush, no names!" he whispered, entering the lodge. "Has any one seen
+me?"
+
+"No. It's only half-past seven and the house is hardly awake. But, Lord
+forgive us, what have the scoundrels done to you? You look as if you had
+no breath left in your body!"
+
+"Yes, that nigger who came after me . . ."
+
+"But the others?"
+
+"What others?"
+
+"The two who were here? Patrice?"
+
+"Eh? Has Patrice been?" asked Siméon, still speaking in a whisper.
+
+"Yes, last night, after you left."
+
+"And you told him?"
+
+"That he was your son."
+
+"Then that," mumbled the old man, "is why he did not seem surprised at
+what I said."
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"With Coralie. I was able to save her. I've handed her over to them. But
+it's not a question of her. Quick, I must see a doctor; there's no time
+to lose."
+
+"We have one in the house."
+
+"No, that's no use. Have you a telephone-directory?"
+
+"Here you are."
+
+"Turn up Dr. Géradec."
+
+"What? You can't mean that?"
+
+"Why not? He has a private hospital quite close, on the Boulevard de
+Montmorency, with no other house near it."
+
+"That's so, but haven't you heard? There are all sorts of rumors about
+him afloat: something to do with passports and forged certificates."
+
+"Never mind that."
+
+M. Vacherot hunted out the number in the directory and rang up the
+exchange. The line was engaged; and he wrote down the number on the
+margin of a newspaper. Then he telephoned again. The answer was that the
+doctor had gone out and would be back at ten.
+
+"It's just as well," said Siméon. "I'm not feeling strong enough yet.
+Say that I'll call at ten o'clock."
+
+"Shall I give your name as Siméon?"
+
+"No, my real name, Armand Belval. Say it's urgent, say it's a surgical
+case."
+
+The porter did so and hung up the instrument, with a moan:
+
+"Oh, my poor M. Siméon! A man like you, so good and kind to everybody!
+Tell me what happened?"
+
+"Don't worry about that. Is my place ready?"
+
+"To be sure it is."
+
+"Take me there without any one seeing us."
+
+"As usual."
+
+"Be quick. Put your revolver in your pocket. What about your lodge? Can
+you leave it?"
+
+"Five minutes won't hurt."
+
+The lodge opened at the back on a small courtyard, which communicated
+with a long corridor. At the end of this passage was another yard, in
+which stood a little house consisting of a ground-floor and an attic.
+
+They went in. There was an entrance-hall followed by three rooms,
+leading one into the other. Only the second room was furnished. The
+third had a door opening straight on a street that ran parallel with the
+Rue Guimard.
+
+They stopped in the second room.
+
+"Did you shut the hall-door after you?"
+
+"Yes, M. Siméon."
+
+"No one saw us come in, I suppose?"
+
+"Not a soul."
+
+"No one suspects that you're here?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Give me your revolver."
+
+"Here it is."
+
+"Do you think, if I fired it off, any one would hear?"
+
+"No, certainly not. Who is there to hear? But . . ."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"You're surely not going to fire?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"At yourself, M. Siméon, at yourself? Are you going to kill yourself?"
+
+"Don't be an ass."
+
+"Well, who then?"
+
+"You, of course!" chuckled Siméon.
+
+Pressing the trigger, he blew out the luckless man's brains. His victim
+fell in a heap, stone dead. Siméon flung aside the revolver and remained
+impassive, a little undecided as to his next step. He opened out his
+fingers, one by one, up to six, apparently counting the six persons of
+whom he had got rid in a few hours: Grégoire, Coralie, Ya-Bon, Patrice,
+Don Luis, old Vacherot!
+
+His mouth gave a grin of satisfaction. One more endeavor; and his flight
+and safety were assured.
+
+For the moment he was incapable of making the endeavor. His head
+whirled. His arms struck out at space. He fell into a faint, with a
+gurgle in his throat, his chest crushed under an unbearable weight.
+
+But, at a quarter to ten, with an effort of will, he picked himself up
+and, mastering himself and disregarding the pain, he went out by the
+other door of the house.
+
+At ten o'clock, after twice changing his taxi, he arrived at the
+Boulevard Montmorency, just at the moment when Dr. Géradec was alighting
+from his car and mounting the steps of the handsome villa in which his
+private hospital had been installed since the beginning of the war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SIMÉON'S LAST VICTIM
+
+
+Dr. Géradec's hospital had several annexes, each of which served a
+specific purpose, grouped around it in a fine garden. The villa itself
+was used for the big operations. The doctor had his consulting-room here
+also; and it was to this room that Siméon Diodokis was first shown. But,
+after answering a few questions put to him by a male nurse, Siméon was
+taken to another room in a separate wing.
+
+Here he was received by the doctor, a man of about sixty, still young in
+his movements, clean-shaven and wearing a glass screwed into his right
+eye, which contracted his features into a constant grimace. He was
+wrapped from the shoulders to the feet in a large white operating-apron.
+
+Siméon explained his case with great difficulty, for he could hardly
+speak. A footpad had attacked him the night before, taken him by the
+throat and robbed him, leaving him half-dead in the road.
+
+"You have had time to send for a doctor since," said Dr. Géradec, fixing
+him with a glance.
+
+Siméon did not reply; and the doctor added:
+
+"However, it's nothing much. The fact that you are alive shows that
+there's no fracture. It reduces itself therefore to a contraction of the
+larynx, which we shall easily get rid of by tubing."
+
+He gave his assistant some instructions. A long aluminum tube was
+inserted in the patient's wind-pipe. The doctor, who had absented
+himself meanwhile, returned and, after removing the tube, examined the
+patient, who was already beginning to breathe with greater ease.
+
+"That's over," said Dr. Géradec, "and much quicker than I expected.
+There was evidently in your case an inhibition which caused the throat
+to shrink. Go home now; and, when you've had a rest, you'll forget all
+about it."
+
+Siméon asked what the fee was and paid it. But, as the doctor was seeing
+him to the door, he stopped and, without further preface, said:
+
+"I am a friend of Mme. Albonin's."
+
+The doctor did not seem to understand what he meant.
+
+"Perhaps you don't recognize the name," Siméon insisted. "When I tell
+you, however, that it conceals the identity of Mme. Mosgranem, I have no
+doubt that we shall be able to arrange something."
+
+"What about?" asked the doctor, while his face displayed still greater
+astonishment.
+
+"Come, doctor, there's no need to be on your guard. We are alone. You
+have sound-proof, double doors. Sit down and let's talk."
+
+He took a chair. The doctor sat down opposite him, looking more and more
+surprised. And Siméon proceeded with his statement:
+
+"I am a Greek subject. Greece is a neutral; indeed, I may say, a
+friendly country; and I can easily obtain a passport and leave France.
+But, for personal reasons, I want the passport made out not in my own
+name but in some other, which you and I will decide upon together and
+which will enable me, with your assistance, to go away without any
+danger."
+
+The doctor rose to his feet indignantly.
+
+Siméon persisted:
+
+"Oh, please don't be theatrical! It's a question of price, is it not? My
+mind is made up. How much do you want?"
+
+The doctor pointed to the door.
+
+Siméon raised no protest. He put on his hat. But, on reaching the door,
+he said:
+
+"Twenty thousand francs? Is that enough?"
+
+"Do you want me to ring?" asked the doctor, "and have you turned out?"
+
+Siméon laughed and quietly, with a pause after each figure:
+
+"Thirty thousand?" he asked. "Forty? . . . Fifty? . . . Oh, I see, we're
+playing a great game, we want a round sum. . . . All right. Only, you
+know, everything must be included in the price we settle. You must not
+only fix me up a passport so genuine that it can't be disputed, but you
+must guarantee me the means of leaving France, as you did for Mme.
+Mosgranem, on terms not half so handsome, by Jove! However, I'm not
+haggling. I need your assistance. Is it a bargain? A hundred thousand
+francs?"
+
+Dr. Géradec bolted the door, came back, sat down at his desk and said,
+simply:
+
+"We'll talk about it."
+
+"I repeat the question," said Siméon, coming closer. "Are we agreed at a
+hundred thousand?"
+
+"We are agreed," said the doctor, "unless any complications appear
+later."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that the figure of a hundred thousand francs forms a suitable
+basis for discussion, that's all."
+
+Siméon hesitated a second. The man struck him as rather greedy. However,
+he sat down once more; and the doctor at once resumed the conversation:
+
+"Your real name, please."
+
+"You mustn't ask me that. I tell you, there are reasons . . ."
+
+"Then it will be two hundred thousand francs."
+
+"Eh?" said Siméon, with a start. "I say, that's a bit steep! I never
+heard of such a price."
+
+"You're not obliged to accept," replied Géradec, calmly. "We are
+discussing a bargain. You are free to do as you please."
+
+"But, look here, once you agree to fix me up a false passport, what can
+it matter to you whether you know my name or not?"
+
+"It matters a great deal. I run an infinitely greater risk in assisting
+the escape--for that's the only word--of a spy than I do in assisting
+the escape of a respectable man."
+
+"I'm not a spy."
+
+"How do I know? Look here, you come to me to propose a shady
+transaction. You conceal your name and your identity; and you're in such
+a hurry to disappear from sight that you're prepared to pay me a hundred
+thousand francs to help you. And, in the face of that, you lay claim to
+being a respectable man! Come, come! It's absurd! A respectable man does
+not behave like a burglar or a murderer."
+
+Old Siméon did not wince. He slowly wiped his forehead with his
+handkerchief. He was evidently thinking that Géradec was a hardy
+antagonist and that he would perhaps have done better not to go to him.
+But, after all, the contract was a conditional one. There would always
+be time enough to break it off.
+
+"I say, I say!" he said, with an attempt at a laugh. "You are using big
+words!"
+
+"They're only words," said the doctor. "I am stating no hypothesis. I am
+content to sum up the position and to justify my demands."
+
+"You're quite right."
+
+"Then we're agreed?"
+
+"Yes. Perhaps, however--and this is the last observation I propose to
+make--you might let me off more cheaply, considering that I'm a friend
+of Mme. Mosgranem's."
+
+"What do you suggest by that?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Mme. Mosgranem herself told me that you charged her nothing."
+
+"That's true, I charged her nothing," replied the doctor, with a fatuous
+smile, "but perhaps she presented me with a good deal. Mme. Mosgranem
+was one of those attractive women whose favors command their own price."
+
+There was a silence. Old Siméon seemed to feel more and more
+uncomfortable in his interlocutor's presence. At last the doctor sighed:
+
+"Poor Mme. Mosgranem!"
+
+"What makes you speak like that?" asked Siméon.
+
+"What! Haven't you heard?"
+
+"I have had no letters from her since she left."
+
+"I see. I had one last night; and I was greatly surprised to learn that
+she was back in France."
+
+"In France! Mme. Mosgranem!"
+
+"Yes. And she even gave me an appointment for this morning, a very
+strange appointment."
+
+"Where?" asked Siméon, with visible concern.
+
+"You'll never guess. On a barge, yes, called the _Nonchalante_, moored
+at the Quai de Passy, alongside Berthou's Wharf."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Siméon.
+
+"It's as I tell you. And do you know how the letter was signed? It was
+signed Grégoire."
+
+"Grégoire? A man's name?" muttered the old man, almost with a groan.
+
+"Yes, a man's name. Look, I have the letter on me. She tells me that she
+is leading a very dangerous life, that she distrusts the man with whom
+her fortunes are bound up and that she would like to ask my advice."
+
+"Then . . . then you went?"
+
+"Yes, I was there this morning, while you were ringing up here.
+Unfortunately . . ."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I arrived too late. Grégoire, or rather Mme. Mosgranem, was dead. She
+had been strangled."
+
+"So you know nothing more than that?" asked Siméon, who seemed unable to
+get his words out.
+
+"Nothing more about what?"
+
+"About the man whom she mentioned."
+
+"Yes, I do, for she told me his name in the letter. He's a Greek, who
+calls himself Siméon Diodokis. She even gave me a description of him. I
+haven't read it very carefully."
+
+He unfolded the letter and ran his eyes down the second page, mumbling:
+
+"A broken-down old man. . . . Passes himself off as mad. . . . Always
+goes about in a comforter and a pair of large yellow spectacles. . . ."
+
+Dr. Géradec ceased reading and looked at Siméon with an air of
+amazement. Both of them sat for a moment without speaking. Then the
+doctor said:
+
+"You are Siméon Diodokis."
+
+The other did not protest. All these incidents were so strangely and, at
+the same time, so naturally interlinked as to persuade him that lying
+was useless.
+
+"This alters the situation," declared the doctor. "The time for trifling
+is past. It's a most serious and terribly dangerous matter for me, I can
+tell you! You'll have to make it a million."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Siméon, excitedly. "Certainly not! Besides, I never
+touched Mme. Mosgranem. I was myself attacked by the man who strangled
+her, the same man--a negro called Ya-Bon--who caught me up and took me
+by the throat."
+
+"Ya-Bon? Did you say Ya-Bon?"
+
+"Yes, a one-armed Senegalese."
+
+"And did you two fight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And did you kill him?"
+
+"Well . . ."
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders with a smile:
+
+"Listen, sir, to a curious coincidence. When I left the barge, I met
+half-a-dozen wounded soldiers. They spoke to me and said that they were
+looking for a comrade, this very Ya-Bon, and also for their captain,
+Captain Belval, and a friend of this officer's and a lady, the lady they
+were staying with. All these people had disappeared; and they accused a
+certain person . . . wait, they told me his name. . . . Oh, but this is
+more and more curious! The man's name was Siméon Diodokis. It was you
+they accused! . . . Isn't it odd? But, on the other hand, you must
+confess that all this constitutes fresh facts and therefore . . ."
+
+There was a pause. Then the doctor formulated his demand in plain tones:
+
+"I shall want two millions."
+
+This time Siméon remained impassive. He felt that he was in the man's
+clutches, like a mouse clawed by a cat. The doctor was playing with him,
+letting him go and catching him again, without giving him the least hope
+of escaping from this grim sport.
+
+"This is blackmail," he said, quietly.
+
+The doctor nodded:
+
+"There's no other word for it," he admitted. "It's blackmail. Moreover,
+it's a case of blackmail in which I have not the excuse of creating the
+opportunity that gives me my advantage. A wonderful chance comes within
+reach of my hand. I grab at it, as you would do in my place. What else
+is possible? I have had a few differences, which you know of, with the
+police. We've signed a peace, the police and I. But my professional
+position has been so much injured that I cannot afford to reject with
+scorn what you so kindly bring me."
+
+"Suppose I refuse to submit?"
+
+"Then I shall telephone to the headquarters of police, with whom I stand
+in great favor at present, as I am able to do them a good turn now and
+again."
+
+Siméon glanced at the window and at the door. The doctor had his hand on
+the receiver of the telephone. There was no way out of it.
+
+"Very well," he declared. "After all, it's better so. You know me; and
+I know you. We can come to terms."
+
+"On the basis suggested?"
+
+"Yes. Tell me your plan."
+
+"No, it's not worth while. I have my methods; and there's no object in
+revealing them beforehand. The point is to secure your escape and to put
+an end to your present danger. I'll answer for all that."
+
+"What guarantee have I. . . ?"
+
+"You will pay me half the money now and the other half when the business
+is done. There remains the matter of the passport, a secondary matter
+for me. Still, we shall have to make one out. In what name is it to be?"
+
+"Any name you like."
+
+The doctor took a sheet of paper and wrote down the description, looking
+at Siméon between the phrases and muttering:
+
+"Gray hair. . . . Clean-shaven. . . . Yellow spectacles. . . ."
+
+Then he stopped and asked:
+
+"But how do I know that I shall be paid the money? That's essential, you
+know. I want bank-notes, real ones."
+
+"You shall have them."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"In a hiding-place that can't be got at."
+
+"Tell me where."
+
+"I have no objection. Even if I give you a clue to the general position,
+you'll never find it."
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"Grégoire had the money in her keeping, four million francs. It's on
+board the barge. We'll go there together and I'll count you out the
+first million."
+
+"You say those millions are on board the barge?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And there are four of those millions?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I won't accept any of them in payment."
+
+"Why not? You must be mad!"
+
+"Why not? Because you can't pay a man with what already belongs to him."
+
+"What's that you're saying?" cried Siméon, in dismay.
+
+"Those four millions belong to me, so you can't offer them to me."
+
+Siméon shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You're talking nonsense. For the money to belong to you, it must first
+be in your possession."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And is it?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Explain yourself, explain yourself at once!" snarled Siméon, beside
+himself with anger and alarm.
+
+"I will explain myself. The hiding-place that couldn't be got at
+consisted of four old books, back numbers of Bottin's directory for
+Paris and the provinces, each in two volumes. The four volumes were
+hollow inside, as though they had been scooped out; and there was a
+million francs in each of them."
+
+"You lie! You lie!"
+
+"They were on a shelf, in a little lumber-room next the cabin."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"What then? They're here."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Yes, here, on that bookshelf, in front of your nose. So, in the
+circumstances, you see, as I am already the lawful owner, I can't accept
+. . ."
+
+"You thief! You thief!" shouted Siméon, shaking with rage and clenching
+his fist. "You're nothing but a thief; and I'll make you disgorge. Oh,
+you dirty thief!"
+
+Dr. Géradec smiled very calmly and raised his hand in protest:
+
+"This is strong language and quite unjustified! quite unjustified! Let
+me remind you that Mme. Mosgranem honored me with her affection. One
+day, or rather one morning, after a moment of expansiveness, 'My dear
+friend,' she said--she used to call me her dear friend--'my dear friend,
+when I die'--she was given to those gloomy forebodings--'when I die, I
+bequeath to you the contents of my home!' Her home, at that moment, was
+the barge. Do you suggest that I should insult her memory by refusing to
+obey so sacred a wish?"
+
+Old Siméon was not listening. An infernal thought was awakening in him;
+and he turned to the doctor with a movement of affrighted attention.
+
+"We are wasting precious time, my dear sir," said the doctor. "What have
+you decided to do?"
+
+He was playing with the sheet of paper on which he had written the
+particulars required for the passport. Siméon came up to him without a
+word. At last the old man whispered:
+
+"Give me that sheet of paper. . . . I want to see . . ."
+
+He took the paper out of the doctor's hand, ran his eyes down it and
+suddenly leapt backwards:
+
+"What name have you put? What name have you put? What right have you to
+give me that name? Why did you do it?"
+
+"You told me to put any name I pleased, you know."
+
+"But why this one? Why this one?"
+
+"Can it be your own?"
+
+The old man started with terror and, bending lower and lower over the
+doctor, said, in a trembling voice:
+
+"One man alone, one man alone was capable of guessing . . ."
+
+There was a long pause. Then the doctor gave a little chuckle:
+
+"I know that only one man was capable of it. So let's take it that I'm
+the man."
+
+"One man alone," continued the other, while his breath once again seemed
+to fail him, "one man alone could find the hiding-place of the four
+millions in a few seconds."
+
+The doctor did not answer. He smiled; and his features gradually
+relaxed.
+
+In a sort of terror-stricken tone Siméon hissed out:
+
+"Arsène Lupin! . . . Arsène Lupin! . . ."
+
+"You've hit it in one," exclaimed the doctor, rising.
+
+He dropped his eye-glass, took from his pocket a little pot of grease,
+smeared his face with it, washed it off in a basin in a recess and
+reappeared with a clear skin, a smiling, bantering face and an easy
+carriage.
+
+"Arsène Lupin!" repeated Siméon, petrified. "Arsène Lupin! I'm in for
+it!"
+
+"Up to the neck, you old fool! And what a silly fool you must be! Why,
+you know me by reputation, you feel for me the intense and wholesome awe
+with which a decent man of my stamp is bound to inspire an old rascal
+like you . . . and you go and imagine that I should be ass enough to let
+myself be bottled up in that lethal chamber of yours! Mind you, at that
+very moment I could have taken you by the hair of the head and gone
+straight on to the great scene in the fifth act, which we are now
+playing. Only my fifth act would have been a bit short, you see; and I'm
+a born actor-manager. As it is, observe how well the interest is
+sustained! And what fun it was seeing the thought of it take birth in
+your old Turkish noddle! And what a lark to go into the studio, fasten
+my electric lamp to a bit of string, make poor, dear Patrice believe
+that I was there and go out and hear Patrice denying me three times and
+carefully bolting the door on . . . what? My electric lamp! That was all
+first-class work, don't you think? What do you say to it? I can feel
+that you're speechless with admiration. . . . And, ten minutes after,
+when you came back, the same scene in the wings and with the same
+success. Of course, you old Siméon, I was banging at the walled-up door,
+between the studio and the bedroom on the left. Only I wasn't in the
+studio: I was in the bedroom; and you went away quietly, like a good
+kind landlord. As for me, I had no need to hurry. I was as certain as
+that twice two is four that you would go to your friend M. Amédée
+Vacherot, the porter. And here, I may say, old Siméon, you committed a
+nice piece of imprudence, which got me out of my difficulty. No one in
+the porter's lodge: that couldn't be helped; but what I did find was a
+telephone-number on a scrap of newspaper. I did not hesitate for a
+moment. I rang up the number, coolly: 'Monsieur, it was I who telephoned
+to you just now. Only I've got your number, but not your address.' Back
+came the answer: 'Dr. Géradec, Boulevard de Montmorency.' Then I
+understood. Dr. Géradec? You would want your throat tubed for a bit,
+then the all-essential passport; and I came off here, without troubling
+about your poor friend M. Vacherot, whom you murdered in some corner or
+other to escape a possible give-away on his side. And I saw Dr. Géradec,
+a charming man, whose worries have made him very wise and submissive and
+who . . . lent me his place for the morning. I had still two hours
+before me. I went to the barge, took the millions, cleared up a few odds
+and ends and here I am!"
+
+He came and stood in front of the old man:
+
+"Well, are you ready?" he asked.
+
+Siméon, who seemed absorbed in thought, gave a start.
+
+"Ready for what?" said Don Luis, replying to his unspoken question.
+"Why, for the great journey, of course! Your passport is in order. Your
+ticket's taken: Paris to Hell, single. Non-stop hearse. Sleeping-coffin.
+Step in, sir!"
+
+The old man, tottering on his legs, made an effort and stammered:
+
+"And Patrice?"
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"I offer you his life in exchange for my own."
+
+Don Luis folded his arms across his chest:
+
+"Well, of all the cheek! Patrice is a friend; and you think me capable
+of abandoning him like that? Do you see me, Lupin, making more or less
+witty jokes upon your imminent death while my friend Patrice is in
+danger? Old Siméon, you're getting played out. It's time you went and
+rested in a better world."
+
+He lifted a hanging, opened a door and called out:
+
+"Well, captain, how are you getting on? Ah, I see you've recovered
+consciousness! Are you surprised to see me? No, no thanks, but please
+come in here. Our old Siméon's asking for you."
+
+Then, turning to the old man, he said:
+
+"Here's your son, you unnatural father!"
+
+Patrice entered the room with his head bandaged, for the blow which
+Siméon had struck him and the weight of the tombstone had opened his old
+wounds. He was very pale and seemed to be in great pain.
+
+At the sight of Siméon Diodokis he gave signs of terrible anger. He
+controlled himself, however. The two men stood facing each other,
+without stirring, and Don Luis, rubbing his hands, said, in an
+undertone:
+
+"What a scene! What a splendid scene? Isn't it well-arranged? The father
+and the son! The murderer and his victim! Listen to the orchestra! . . .
+A slight tremolo. . . . What are they going to do? Will the son kill his
+father or the father kill his son? A thrilling moment. . . . And the
+mighty silence! Only the call of the blood is heard . . . and in what
+terms! Now we're off! The call of the blood has sounded; and they are
+going to throw themselves into each other's arms, the better to strangle
+the life out of each other!"
+
+Patrice had taken two steps forward; and the movement suggested by Don
+Luis was about to be performed. Already the officer's arms were flung
+wide for the fight. But suddenly Siméon, weakened by pain and dominated
+by a stronger will than his own, let himself go and implored his
+adversary:
+
+"Patrice!" he entreated. "Patrice! What are you thinking of doing?"
+
+Stretching out his hands, he threw himself upon the other's pity; and
+Patrice, arrested in his onrush, stood perplexed, staring at the man to
+whom he was bound by so mysterious and strange a tie:
+
+"Coralie," he said, without lowering his hands, "Coralie . . . tell me
+where she is and I'll spare your life."
+
+The old man started. His evil nature was stimulated by the remembrance
+of Coralie; and he recovered a part of his energy at the possibility of
+wrong-doing. He gave a cruel laugh:
+
+"No, no," he answered. "Coralie in one scale and I in the other? I'd
+rather die. Besides, Coralie's hiding-place is where the gold is. No,
+never! I may just as well die."
+
+"Kill him then, captain," said Don Luis, intervening. "Kill him, since
+he prefers it."
+
+Once more the thought of immediate murder and revenge sent the red blood
+rushing to the officer's face. But the same hesitation unnerved him.
+
+"No, no," he said, in a low voice, "I can't do it."
+
+"Why not?" Don Luis insisted. "It's so easy. Come along! Wring his neck,
+like a chicken's, and have done with it!"
+
+"I can't."
+
+"But why? Do you dislike the thought of strangling him? Does it repel
+you? And yet, if it were a Boche, on the battlefield . . ."
+
+"Yes . . . but this man . . ."
+
+"Is it your hands that refuse? The idea of taking hold of the flesh and
+squeezing? . . . Here, captain, take my revolver and blow out his
+brains."
+
+Patrice accepted the weapon eagerly and aimed it at old Siméon. The
+silence was appalling. Old Siméon's eyes had closed and drops of sweat
+were streaming down his livid cheeks.
+
+At last the officer lowered his arm:
+
+"I can't do it," he said.
+
+"Nonsense," said Don Luis. "Get on with the work."
+
+"No. . . . No. . . ."
+
+"But, in Heaven's name, why not?"
+
+"I can't."
+
+"You can't? Shall I tell you the reason? You are thinking of that man as
+if he were your father."
+
+"Perhaps it's that," said the officer, speaking very low. "There's a
+chance of it, you know."
+
+"What does it matter, if he's a beast and a blackguard?"
+
+"No, no, I haven't the right. Let him die by all means, but not by my
+hand. I haven't the right."
+
+"You have the right."
+
+"No, it would be abominable! It would be monstrous!"
+
+Don Luis went up to him and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, gravely:
+
+"You surely don't believe that I should stand here, urging you to kill
+that man, if he were your father?"
+
+Patrice looked at him wildly:
+
+"Do you know something? Do you know something for certain? Oh, for
+Heaven's sake . . . !"
+
+Don Luis continued:
+
+"Do you believe that I would even encourage you to hate him, if he were
+your father?"
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Patrice. "Do you mean that he's not my father?"
+
+"Of course he's not!" cried Don Luis, with irresistible conviction and
+increasing eagerness. "Your father indeed! Why, look at him! Look at
+that scoundrelly head. Every sort of vice and violence is written on the
+brute's face. Throughout this adventure, from the first day to the last,
+there was not a crime committed but was his handiwork: not one, do you
+follow me? There were not two criminals, as we thought, not Essarès, to
+begin the hellish business, and old Siméon, to finish it. There was only
+one criminal, one, do you understand, Patrice? Before killing Coralie
+and Ya-Bon and Vacherot the porter and the woman who was his own
+accomplice, he killed others! He killed one other in particular, one
+whose flesh and blood you are, the man whose dying cries you heard over
+the telephone, the man who called you Patrice and who only lived for
+you! He killed that man; and that man was your father, Patrice; he was
+Armand Belval! Now do you understand?"
+
+Patrice did not understand. Don Luis' words fell uncomprehended; not one
+of them lit up the darkness of Patrice's brain. However, one thought
+insistently possessed him; and he stammered:
+
+"_That_ was my father? I heard his voice, you say? Then it was _he_ who
+called to me?"
+
+"Yes, Patrice, your father."
+
+"And the man who killed him . . . ?"
+
+"Was this one," said Don Luis, pointing to Siméon.
+
+The old man remained motionless, wild-eyed, like a felon awaiting
+sentence of death. Patrice, quivering with rage, stared at him fixedly:
+
+"Who are you? Who are you?" he asked. And, turning to Don Luis, "Tell me
+his name, I beseech you. I want to know his name, before I destroy him."
+
+"His name? Haven't you guessed it yet? Why, from the very first day, I
+took it for granted! After all, it was the only possible theory."
+
+"But what theory? What was it you took for granted?" cried Patrice,
+impatiently.
+
+"Do you really want to know?"
+
+"Oh, please! I'm longing to kill him, but I must first know his name."
+
+"Well, then . . ."
+
+There was a long silence between the two men, as they stood close
+together, looking into each other's eyes. Then Lupin let fall these four
+syllables:
+
+"Essarès Bey."
+
+Patrice felt a shock that ran through him from head to foot. Not for a
+second did he try to understand by what prodigy this revelation came to
+be merely an expression of the truth. He instantly accepted this truth,
+as though it were undeniable and proved by the most evident facts. The
+man was Essarès Bey and had killed his father. He had killed him, so to
+speak, twice over: first years ago, in the lodge in the garden, taking
+from him all the light of life and any reason for living; and again the
+other day, in the library, when Armand Belval had telephoned to his son.
+
+This time Patrice was determined to do the deed. His eyes expressed an
+indomitable resolution. His father's murderer, Coralie's murderer, must
+die then and there. His duty was clear and precise. The terrible Essarès
+was doomed to die by the hand of the son and the bridegroom.
+
+"Say your prayers," said Patrice, coldly. "In ten seconds you will be a
+dead man."
+
+He counted out the seconds and, at the tenth, was about to fire, when
+his enemy, in an access of mad energy proving that, under the outward
+appearance of old Siméon, there was hidden a man still young and
+vigorous, shouted with a violence so extraordinary that it made Patrice
+hesitate:
+
+"Very well, kill me! . . . Yes, let it be finished! . . . I am beaten: I
+accept defeat. But it is a victory all the same, because Coralie is dead
+and my gold is saved! . . . I shall die, but nobody shall have either
+one or the other, the woman whom I love or the gold that was my life.
+Ah, Patrice, Patrice, the woman whom we both loved to distraction is no
+longer alive . . . or else she is dying without a possibility of saving
+her now. If I cannot have her, you shall not have her either, Patrice.
+My revenge has done its work. Coralie is lost!"
+
+He had recovered a fierce energy and was shouting and stammering at the
+same time. Patrice stood opposite him, holding him covered with the
+revolver, ready to act, but still waiting to hear the terrible words
+that tortured him.
+
+"She is lost, Patrice!" Siméon continued, raising his voice still
+louder. "Lost! There's nothing to be done! And you will not find even
+her body in the bowels of the earth, where I buried her with the bags of
+gold. Under the tombstone? No, not such a fool! No, Patrice, you will
+never find her. The gold is stifling her. She's dead! Coralie is dead!
+Oh, the delight of throwing that in your face! The anguish you must be
+feeling! Coralie is dead! Coralie is dead!"
+
+"Don't shout so, you'll wake her," said Don Luis, calmly.
+
+The brief sentence was followed by a sort of stupor which paralyzed the
+two adversaries. Patrice's arms dropped to his sides. Siméon turned
+giddy and sank into a chair. Both of them, knowing the things of which
+Don Luis was capable, knew what he meant.
+
+But Patrice wanted something more than a vague sentence that might just
+as easily be taken as a jest. He wanted a certainty.
+
+"Wake her?" he asked, in a broken voice.
+
+"Well, of course!" said Don Luis. "When you shout too loud, you wake
+people up."
+
+"Then she's alive?"
+
+"You can't wake the dead, whatever people may say. You can only wake the
+living."
+
+"Coralie is alive! Coralie is alive!" Patrice repeated, in a sort of
+rapture that transfigured his features. "Can it be possible? But then
+she must be here! Oh, I beg of you, say you're in earnest, give me your
+word! . . . Or no, it's not true, is it? I can't believe it . . . you
+must be joking. . . ."
+
+"Let me answer you, captain, as I answered that wretch just now. You are
+admitting that it is possible for me to abandon my work before
+completing it. How little you know me! What I undertake to do I do.
+It's one of my habits and a good one at that. That's why I cling to it.
+Now watch me."
+
+He turned to one side of the room. Opposite the hanging that covered the
+door by which Patrice had entered was a second curtain, concealing
+another door. He lifted the curtain.
+
+"No, no, she's not there," said Patrice, in an almost inaudible voice.
+"I dare not believe it. The disappointment would be too great. Swear to
+me . . ."
+
+"I swear nothing, captain. You have only to open your eyes. By Jove, for
+a French officer, you're cutting a pretty figure! Why, you're as white
+as a sheet! Of course it's she! It's Little Mother Coralie! Look, she's
+in bed asleep, with two nurses to watch her. But there's no danger;
+she's not wounded. A bit of a temperature, that's all, and extreme
+weakness. Poor Little Mother Coralie! I never could have imagined her in
+such a state of exhaustion and coma."
+
+Patrice had stepped forward, brimming over with joy. Don Luis stopped
+him:
+
+"That will do, captain. Don't go any nearer. I brought her here, instead
+of taking her home, because I thought a change of scene and atmosphere
+essential. But she must have no excitement. She's had her share of that;
+and you might spoil everything by showing yourself."
+
+"You're right," said Patrice. "But are you quite sure . . . ?"
+
+"That she's alive?" asked Don Luis, laughing. "She's as much alive as
+you or I and quite ready to give you the happiness you deserve and to
+change her name to Mme. Patrice Belval. You must have just a little
+patience, that's all. And there is yet one obstacle to overcome,
+captain, for remember she's a married woman!"
+
+He closed the door and led Patrice back to Essarès Bey:
+
+"There's the obstacle, captain. Is your mind made up now? This wretch
+still stands between you and your Coralie."
+
+Essarès had not even glanced into the next room, as though he knew that
+there could be no doubt about Don Luis' word. He sat shivering in his
+chair, cowering, weak and helpless.
+
+"You don't seem comfortable," said Don Luis. "What's worrying you?
+You're frightened, perhaps? What for? I promise you that we will do
+nothing except by mutual consent and until we are all of the same
+opinion. That ought to cheer you up. We'll be your judges, the three of
+us, here and now. Captain Patrice Belval, Arsène Lupin and old Siméon
+will form the court. Let the trial begin. Does any one wish to speak in
+defense of the prisoner at the bar, Essarès Bey? No one. The prisoner at
+the bar is sentenced to death. Extenuating circumstances? No notice of
+appeal? No. Commutation of sentence? No. Reprieve? No. Immediate
+execution? Yes. You see, there's no delay. What about the means of
+death? A revolver-shot? That will do. It's clean, quick work. Captain
+Belval, your bird. The gun's loaded. Here you are."
+
+Patrice did not move. He stood gazing at the foul brute who had done him
+so many injuries. His whole being seethed with hatred. Nevertheless, he
+replied:
+
+"I will not kill that man."
+
+"I agree, captain. Your scruples do you honor. You have not the right to
+kill a man whom you know to be the husband of the woman you love. It is
+not for you to remove the obstacle. Besides, you hate taking life. So do
+I. This animal is too filthy for words. And so, my good man, there's no
+one left but yourself to help us out of this delicate position."
+
+Don Luis ceased speaking for a moment and leant over Essarès. Had the
+wretched man heard? Was he even alive? He looked as if he were in a
+faint, deprived of consciousness.
+
+Don Luis shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"The gold," moaned Essarès, "the bags of gold . . ."
+
+"Oh, you're thinking of that, you old scoundrel, are you? You're still
+interested? The bags of gold are in my pocket . . . if a pocket can
+contain eighteen hundred bags of gold."
+
+"The hiding-place?"
+
+"Your hiding-place? It doesn't exist, so far as I'm concerned. I needn't
+prove it to you, need I, since Coralie's here? As Coralie was buried
+among the bags of gold, you can draw your own conclusion. So you're
+nicely done. The woman you wanted is free and, what is worse still, free
+by the side of the man whom she adores and whom she will never leave.
+And, on the other hand, your treasure is discovered. So it's all
+finished, eh? We are agreed? Come, here's the toy that will release
+you."
+
+He handed him the revolver. Essarès took it mechanically and pointed it
+at Don Luis; but his arm lacked the strength to take aim and fell by his
+side.
+
+"Capital!" said Don Luis. "We understand each other; and the action
+which you are about to perform will atone for your evil life, you old
+blackguard. When a man's last hope is dispelled, there's nothing for it
+but death. That's the final refuge."
+
+He took hold of the other's hand and, bending Essarès' nerveless fingers
+round the revolver, forced him to point it towards his own face.
+
+"Come," said he, "just a little pluck. What you've resolved to do is a
+very good thing. As Captain Belval and I refuse to disgrace ourselves by
+killing you, you've decided to do the job yourself. We are touched; and
+we congratulate you. But you must behave with courage. No resistance,
+come! That's right, that's much more like it. Once more, my compliments.
+It's very smart, your manner of getting out of it. You perceive that
+there's no room for you on earth, that you're standing in the way of
+Patrice and Coralie and that the best thing you can do is to retire. And
+you're jolly well right! No love and no gold! No gold, Siméon! The
+beautiful shiny coins which you coveted, with which you would have
+managed to secure a nice, comfortable existence, all fled, vanished! You
+may just as well vanish yourself, what?"
+
+Whether because he felt himself to be helpless or because he really
+understood that Don Luis was right and that his life was no longer worth
+living, Siméon offered hardly any resistance. The revolver rose to his
+forehead. The barrel touched his temple.
+
+At the touch of the cold steel he gave a moan:
+
+"Mercy!"
+
+"No, no, no!" said Don Luis. "You mustn't show yourself any mercy. And I
+won't help you either. Perhaps, if you hadn't killed my poor Ya-Bon, we
+might have put our heads together and sought for another ending. But,
+honestly, you inspire me with no more pity than you feel for yourself.
+You want to die and you are right. I won't prevent you. Besides, your
+passport is made out; you've got your ticket in your pocket. They are
+expecting you down below. And, you know, you need have no fear of being
+bored. Have you ever seen a picture of Hell? Every one has a huge stone
+over his tomb; and every one is lifting the stone and supporting it with
+his back, in order to escape the flames bursting forth beneath him. You
+see, there's plenty of fun. Well, your grave is reserved. Bath's ready,
+sir!"
+
+Slowly and patiently he had succeeded in slipping the wretched man's
+fore-finger under the handle, so as to bring it against the trigger.
+Essarès was letting himself go. He was little more than a limp rag.
+Death had already cast its shadow upon him.
+
+"Mind you," said Don Luis, "you're perfectly free. You can pull the
+trigger if you feel like it. It's not my business. I'm not here to
+compel you to commit suicide, but only to advise you and to lend you a
+hand."
+
+He had in fact let go the fore-finger and was holding only the arm. But
+he was bearing upon Essarès with all his extraordinary power of will,
+the will to seek destruction, the will to seek annihilation, an
+indomitable will which Essarès was unable to resist. Every second death
+sank a little deeper into that invertebrate body, breaking up instinct,
+obscuring thought and bringing an immense craving for rest and inaction.
+
+"You see how easy it is. The intoxication is flying to your brain. It's
+an almost voluptuous feeling, isn't it? What a riddance! To cease
+living! To cease suffering! To cease thinking of that gold which you no
+longer possess and can never possess again, of that woman who belongs to
+another and offers him her lips and all her entrancing self! . . . You
+couldn't live, could you, with that thought on you? Then come on! . . ."
+
+Seized with cowardice, the wretch was yielding by slow degrees. He found
+himself face to face with one of those crushing forces, one of nature's
+forces, powerful as fate, which a man must needs accept. His head turned
+giddy and swam. He was descending into the abyss.
+
+"Come along now, show yourself a man. Don't forget either that you are
+dead already. Remember, you can't appear in this world again without
+falling into the hands of the police. And, of course, I'm there to
+inform them in case of need. That means prison and the scaffold. The
+scaffold, my poor fellow, the icy dawn, the knife . . ."
+
+It was over. Essarès was sinking into the depths of darkness. Everything
+whirled around him. Don Luis' will penetrated him and annihilated his
+own.
+
+For one moment he turned to Patrice and tried to implore his aid. But
+Patrice persisted in his impassive attitude. Standing with his arms
+folded, he gazed with eyes devoid of pity upon his father's murderer.
+The punishment was well-deserved. Fate must be allowed to take its
+course. Patrice did not interfere.
+
+And Don Luis continued, unrelentingly and without intermission:
+
+"Come along, come along! . . . It's a mere nothing and it means eternal
+rest! . . . How good it feels, already! To forget! To cease fighting!
+. . . Think of the gold which you have lost. . . . Three hundred
+millions gone for ever! . . . And Coralie lost as well. Mother and
+daughter: you can't have either. In that case, life is nothing but a
+snare and a delusion. You may as well leave it. Come, one little effort,
+one little movement. . . ."
+
+That little movement the miscreant made. Hardly knowing what he did, he
+pulled the trigger. The shot rang through the room; and Essarès fell
+forward, with his knees on the floor. Don Luis had to spring to one side
+to escape being splashed by the blood that trickled from the man's
+shattered head.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried. "The blood of vermin like that would have brought
+me ill-luck. And, Lord, what crawling vermin it is! . . . Upon my word,
+I believe that this makes one more good action I've done in my life and
+that this suicide entitles me to a little seat in Paradise. What say
+you, captain?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FIAT LUX!
+
+
+On the evening of the same day, Patrice was pacing up and down the Quai
+de Passy. It was nearly six o'clock. From time to time, a tram-car
+passed, or some motor-lorry. There were very few people about on foot.
+Patrice had the pavement almost to himself.
+
+He had not seen Don Luis Perenna since the morning, had merely received
+a line in which Don Luis asked him to have Ya-Bon's body moved into the
+Essarès' house and afterwards to meet him on the quay above Berthou's
+Wharf. The time appointed for the meeting was near at hand and Patrice
+was looking forward to this interview in which the truth would be
+revealed to him at last. He partly guessed the truth, but no little
+darkness and any number of unsolved problems remained. The tragedy was
+played out. The curtain had fallen on the villain's death. All was well:
+there was nothing more to fear, no more pitfalls in store for them. The
+formidable enemy was laid low. But Patrice's anxiety was intense as he
+waited for the moment when light would be cast freely and fully upon the
+tragedy.
+
+"A few words," he said to himself, "a few words from that incredible
+person known as Arsène Lupin, will clear up the mystery. It will not
+take him long. He will be gone in an hour. Will he take the secret of
+the gold with him, I wonder? Will he solve the secret of the golden
+triangle for me? And how will he keep the gold for himself? How will he
+take it away?"
+
+A motor-car arrived from the direction of the Trocadéro. It slowed down
+and stopped beside the pavement. It must be Don Luis, thought Patrice.
+But, to his great surprise, he recognized M. Masseron, who opened the
+door and came towards him with outstretched hand:
+
+"Well, captain, how are you? I'm punctual for the appointment, am I not?
+But, I say, have you been wounded in the head again?"
+
+"Yes, an accident of no importance," replied Patrice. "But what
+appointment are you speaking of?"
+
+"Why, the one you gave me, of course!"
+
+"I gave you no appointment."
+
+"Oh, I say!" said M. Masseron. "What does this mean? Why, here's the
+note they brought me at the police-office: 'Captain Belval's compliments
+to M. Masseron. The problem of the golden triangle is solved. The
+eighteen hundred bags are at his disposal. Will he please come to the
+Quai de Passy, at six o'clock, with full powers from the government to
+accept the conditions of delivery. It would be well if he brought with
+him twenty powerful detectives, of whom half should be posted a hundred
+yards on one side of Essarès' property and the other half on the other.'
+There you are. Is it clear?"
+
+"Perfectly clear," said Patrice, "but I never sent you that note."
+
+"Who sent it then?"
+
+"An extraordinary man who deciphered all those problems like so many
+children's riddles and who certainly will be here himself to bring you
+the solution."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"I sha'n't say."
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that! Secrets are hard to keep in war-time."
+
+"Very easy, on the contrary, sir," said a voice behind M. Masseron. "All
+you need do is to make up your mind to it."
+
+M. Masseron and Patrice turned round and saw a gentleman dressed in a
+long, black overcoat, cut like a frock-coat, and a tall collar which
+gave him a look of an English clergyman.
+
+"This is the friend I was speaking of," said Patrice, though he had some
+difficulty in recognizing Don Luis. "He twice saved my life and also
+that of the lady whom I am going to marry. I will answer for him in
+every respect."
+
+M. Masseron bowed; and Don Luis at once began, speaking with a slight
+accent:
+
+"Sir, your time is valuable and so is mine, for I am leaving Paris
+to-night and France to-morrow. My explanation therefore will be brief. I
+will pass over the drama itself, of which you have followed the main
+vicissitudes so far. It came to an end this morning. Captain Belval will
+tell you all about it. I will merely add that our poor Ya-Bon is dead
+and that you will find three other bodies: that of Grégoire, whose real
+name was Mme. Mosgranem, in the barge over there; that of one Vacherot,
+a hall-porter, in some corner of a block of flats at 18, Rue Guimard;
+and lastly the body of Siméon Diodokis, in Dr. Géradec's private
+hospital on the Boulevard de Montmorency."
+
+"Old Siméon?" asked M. Masseron in great surprise.
+
+"Old Siméon has killed himself. Captain Belval will give you every
+possible information about that person and his real identity; and I
+think you will agree with me that this business will have to be hushed
+up. But, as I said, we will pass over all this. There remains the
+question of the gold, which, if I am not mistaken, interests you more
+than anything else. Have you brought your men?"
+
+"Yes, I have. But why? The hiding-place, even after you have told me
+where it is, will be what it was before, undiscovered by those who do
+not know it."
+
+"Certainly; but, as the number of those who do know it increases, the
+secret may slip out. In any case that is one of my two conditions."
+
+"As you see, it is accepted. What is the other?"
+
+"A more serious condition, sir, so serious indeed that, whatever powers
+may have been conferred upon you, I doubt whether they will be
+sufficient."
+
+"Let me hear; then we shall see."
+
+"Very well."
+
+And Don Luis, speaking in a phlegmatic tone, as though he were telling
+the most unimportant story, calmly set forth his incredible proposal:
+
+"Two months ago, sir, thanks to my connection with the Near East and to
+my influence in certain Ottoman circles, I persuaded the clique which
+rules Turkey to-day to accept the idea of a separate peace. It was
+simply a question of a few hundred millions for distribution. I had the
+offer transmitted to the Allies, who rejected it, certainly not for
+financial reasons, but for reasons of policy, which it is not for me to
+judge. But I am not content to suffer this little diplomatic check. I
+failed in my first negotiation; I do not mean to fail in the second.
+That is why I am taking my precautions."
+
+He paused and then resumed, while his voice took on a rather more
+serious tone:
+
+"At this moment, in April, 1915, as you are well aware, conferences are
+in progress between the Allies and the last of the great European powers
+that has remained neutral. These conferences are going to succeed; and
+they will succeed because the future of that power demands it and
+because the whole nation is uplifted with enthusiasm. Among the
+questions raised is one which forms the object of a certain divergency
+of opinion. I mean the question of money. This foreign power is asking
+us for a loan of three hundred million francs in gold, while making it
+quite clear that a refusal on our part would in no way affect a decision
+which is already irrevocably taken. Well, I have three hundred millions
+in gold; I have them at my command; and I desire to place them at the
+disposal of our new allies. This is my second and, in reality, my only
+condition."
+
+M. Masseron seemed utterly taken aback:
+
+"But, my dear sir," he said, "these are matters quite outside our
+province; they must be examined and decided by others, not by us."
+
+"Every one has the right to dispose of his money as he pleases."
+
+M. Masseron made a gesture of distress:
+
+"Come, sir, think a moment. You yourself said that this power was only
+putting forward the question as a secondary one."
+
+"Yes, but the mere fact that it is being discussed will delay the
+conclusion of the agreement for a few days."
+
+"Well, a few days will make no difference, surely?"
+
+"Sir, a few hours _will_ make a difference."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"For a reason which you do not know and which nobody knows . . . except
+myself and a few people some fifteen hundred miles away."
+
+"What reason?"
+
+"The Russians have no munitions left."
+
+M. Masseron shrugged his shoulders impatiently. What had all this to do
+with the matter?
+
+"The Russians have no munitions left," repeated Don Luis. "Now there is
+a tremendous battle being fought over there, a battle which will be
+decided not many hours hence. The Russian front will be broken and the
+Russian troops will retreat and retreat . . . Heaven knows when they'll
+stop retreating! Of course, this assured, this inevitable contingency
+will have no influence on the wishes of the great power of which we are
+talking. Nevertheless, that nation has in its midst a very considerable
+party on the side of neutrality, a party which is held in check, but
+none the less violent for that. Think what a weapon you will place in
+its hands by postponing the agreement! Think of the difficulties which
+you are making for rulers preparing to go to war! It would be an
+unpardonable mistake, from which I wish to save my country. That is why
+I have laid down this condition."
+
+M. Masseron seemed quite discomforted. Waving his hands and shaking his
+head, he mumbled:
+
+"It's impossible. Such a condition as that will never be accepted. It
+will take time, it will need discussion. . . ."
+
+A hand was laid on his arm by some one who had come up a moment before
+and who had listened to Don Luis' little speech. Its owner had alighted
+from a car which was waiting some way off; and, to Patrice's great
+astonishment, his presence had aroused no opposition on the part of
+either M. Masseron or Don Luis Perenna. He was a man well-advanced in
+years, with a powerful, lined face.
+
+"My dear Masseron," he said, "it seems to me that you are not looking at
+the question from the right point of view."
+
+"That's what I think, monsieur le président," said Don Luis.
+
+"Ah, do you know me, sir?"
+
+"M. Valenglay, I believe? I had the honor of calling on you some years
+ago, sir, when you were president of the council."
+
+"Yes, I thought I remembered . . . though I can't say exactly . . ."
+
+"Please don't tax your memory, sir. The past does not concern us. What
+matters is that you should be of my opinion."
+
+"I don't know that I am of your opinion. But I consider that this makes
+no difference. And that is what I was telling you, my dear Masseron.
+It's not a question of knowing whether you ought to discuss this
+gentleman's conditions. It's a question of accepting them or refusing
+them without discussion. There's no bargain to be driven in the
+circumstances. A bargain presupposes that each party has something to
+offer. Now we have no offer to make, whereas this gentleman comes with
+his offer in his hand and says, 'Would you like three hundred million
+francs in gold? In that case you must do so-and-so with it. If that
+doesn't suit you, good-evening.' That's the position, isn't it,
+Masseron?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur le président."
+
+"Well, can you dispense with our friend here? Can you, without his
+assistance, find the place where the gold is hidden? Observe that he
+makes things very easy for you by bringing you to the place and almost
+pointing out the exact spot to you. Is that enough? Have you any hope of
+discovering the secret which you have been seeking for weeks and
+months?"
+
+M. Masseron was very frank in his reply:
+
+"No, monsieur le président," he said, plainly and without hesitation.
+
+"Well, then. . . ."
+
+And, turning to Don Luis:
+
+"And you, sir," Valenglay asked, "is it your last word?"
+
+"My last word."
+
+"If we refuse . . . good-evening?"
+
+"You have stated the case precisely, monsieur le président."
+
+"And, if we accept, will the gold be handed over at once?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"We accept."
+
+And, after a slight pause, he repeated:
+
+"We accept. The ambassador shall receive his instructions this
+evening."
+
+"Do you give me your word, sir?"
+
+"I give you my word."
+
+"In that case, we are agreed."
+
+"We are agreed. Now then! . . ."
+
+All these sentences were uttered rapidly. Not five minutes had elapsed
+since the former prime minister had appeared upon the scene. Nothing
+remained to do but for Don Luis to keep his promise.
+
+It was a solemn moment. The four men were standing close together, like
+acquaintances who have met in the course of a walk and who stop for a
+minute to exchange their news. Valenglay, leaning with one arm on the
+parapet overlooking the lower quay, had his face turned to the river and
+kept raising and lowering his cane above the sand-heap. Patrice and M.
+Masseron stood silent, with faces a little set.
+
+Don Luis gave a laugh:
+
+"Don't be too sure, monsieur le président," he said, "that I shall make
+the gold rise from the ground with a magic wand or show you a cave in
+which the bags lie stacked. I always thought those words, 'the golden
+triangle,' misleading, because they suggest something mysterious and
+fabulous. Now according to me it was simply a question of the space
+containing the gold, which space would have the shape of a triangle. The
+golden triangle, that's it: bags of gold arranged in a triangle, a
+triangular site. The reality is much simpler, therefore; and you will
+perhaps be disappointed."
+
+"I sha'n't be," said Valenglay, "if you put me with my face towards the
+eighteen hundred bags of gold."
+
+"You're that now, sir."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Exactly what I say. Short of touching the bags of gold, it would be
+difficult to be nearer to them than you are."
+
+For all his self-control, Valenglay could not conceal his surprise:
+
+"You are not suggesting, I suppose, that I am walking on gold and that
+we have only to lift up the flags of the pavement or to break down this
+parapet?"
+
+"That would be removing obstacles, sir, whereas there is no obstacle
+between you and what you are seeking."
+
+"No obstacle!"
+
+"None, monsieur le président, for you have only to make the least little
+movement in order to touch the bags."
+
+"The least little movement!" said Valenglay, mechanically repeating Don
+Luis' words.
+
+"I call a little movement what one can make without an effort, almost
+without stirring, such as dipping one's stick into a sheet of water, for
+instance, or . . ."
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"Well, or a heap of sand."
+
+Valenglay remained silent and impassive, with at most a slight shiver
+passing across his shoulders. He did not make the suggested movement. He
+had no need to make it. He understood.
+
+The others also did not speak a word, struck dumb by the simplicity of
+the amazing truth which had suddenly flashed upon them like lightning.
+And, amid this silence, unbroken by protest or sign of incredulity, Don
+Luis went on quietly talking:
+
+"If you had the least doubt, monsieur le président--and I see that you
+have not--you would dig your cane, no great distance, twenty inches at
+most, into the sand beneath you. You would then encounter a resistance
+which would compel you to stop. That is the bags of gold. There ought to
+be eighteen hundred of them; and, as you see, they do not make an
+enormous heap. A kilogram of gold represents three thousand one hundred
+francs. Therefore, according to my calculation, a bag containing
+approximately fifty kilograms, or one hundred and fifty-five thousand
+francs done up in rouleaus of a thousand francs, is not a very large
+bag. Piled one against the other and one on top of the other, the bags
+represent a bulk of about fifteen cubic yards, no more. If you shape the
+mass roughly like a triangular pyramid you will have a base each of
+whose sides would be three yards long at most, or three yards and a half
+allowing for the space lost between the rouleaus of coins. The height
+will be that of the wall, nearly. Cover the whole with a layer of sand
+and you have the heap which lies before your eyes . . ."
+
+Don Luis paused once more before continuing:
+
+"And which has been there for months, monsieur le président, safe from
+discovery not only by those who were looking for it, but also by
+accident on the part of a casual passer-by. Just think, a heap of sand!
+Who would dream of digging a hole in it to see what is going on inside?
+The dogs sniff at it, the children play beside it and make mudpies, an
+occasional tramp lies down against it and takes a snooze. The rain
+softens it, the sun hardens it, the snow whitens it all over; but all
+this happens on the surface, in the part that shows. Inside reigns
+impenetrable mystery, darkness unexplored. There is not a hiding-place
+in the world to equal the inside of a sand heap exposed to view in a
+public place. The man who thought of using it to hide three hundred
+millions of gold, monsieur le président, knew what he was about."
+
+The late prime minister had listened to Don Luis' explanation without
+interrupting him. When Don Luis had finished, Valenglay nodded his head
+once or twice and said:
+
+"He did indeed. But there is one man who is cleverer still."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"Yes, there's the man who guessed that the heap of sand concealed the
+three hundred million francs. That man is a master, before whom we must
+all bow."
+
+Flattered by the compliment, Don Luis raised his hat. Valenglay gave him
+his hand:
+
+"I can think of no reward worthy of the service which you have done the
+country."
+
+"I ask for no reward," said Don Luis.
+
+"I daresay, sir, but I should wish you at least to be thanked by voices
+that carry more weight than mine."
+
+"Is it really necessary, monsieur le président?"
+
+"I consider it essential. May I also confess that I am curious to learn
+how you discovered the secret? I should be glad, therefore, if you would
+call at my department in an hour's time."
+
+"I am very sorry, sir, but I shall be gone in fifteen minutes."
+
+"No, no, you can't go like this," said Valenglay, with authority.
+
+"Why not, sir?"
+
+"Well, because we don't know your name or anything about you."
+
+"That makes so little difference!"
+
+"In peace-time, perhaps. But, in war-time, it won't do at all."
+
+"Surely, monsieur le président, you will make an exception in my case?"
+
+"An exception, indeed? What next?"
+
+"Suppose it's the reward which I ask, will you refuse me then?"
+
+"It's the only one which we are obliged to refuse you. However, you
+won't ask for it. A good citizen like yourself understands the
+constraints to which everybody is bound to submit. My dear Masseron,
+arrange it with this gentleman. At the department in an hour from now.
+Good-by till then, sir. I shall expect you."
+
+And, after a very civil bow, he walked away to his car, twirling his
+stick gaily and escorted by M. Masseron.
+
+"Well, on my soul!" chuckled Don Luis. "There's a character for you! In
+the twinkling of an eye, he accepts three hundred millions in gold,
+signs an epoch-making treaty and orders the arrest of Arsène Lupin!"
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Patrice, startled out of his life. "Your
+arrest?"
+
+"Well, he orders me to appear before him, to produce my papers and the
+devil knows what."
+
+"But that's monstrous!"
+
+"It's the law of the land, my dear captain. We must bow to it."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"Captain, believe me when I say that a few little worries of this sort
+deprive me of none of the whole-hearted satisfaction which I feel at
+rendering this great service to my country. I wanted, during the war, to
+do something for France and to make the most of the time which I was
+able to devote to her during my stay. I've done it. And then I have
+another reward: the four millions. For I think highly enough of your
+Coralie to believe her incapable of wishing to touch this money . . .
+which is really her property."
+
+"I'll go bail for her over that."
+
+"Thank you. And you may be sure that the gift will be well employed. So
+everything is settled. I have still a few minutes to give you. Let us
+turn them to good account. M. Masseron is collecting his men by now. To
+simplify their task and avoid a scandal, we'll go down to the lower
+quay, by the sand-heap. It'll be easier for him to collar me there."
+
+"I accept your few minutes," said Patrice, as they went down the steps.
+"But first of all I want to apologize . . ."
+
+"For what? For behaving a little treacherously and locking me into the
+studio of the lodge? You couldn't help yourself: you were trying to
+assist your Coralie. For thinking me capable of keeping the treasure on
+the day when I discovered it? You couldn't help that either: how could
+you imagine that Arsène Lupin would despise three hundred million
+francs?"
+
+"Very well, no apologies," said Patrice, laughing. "But all my thanks."
+
+"For what? For saving your life and saving Coralie's? Don't thank me.
+It's a hobby of mine, saving people."
+
+Patrice took Don Luis' hand and pressed it firmly. Then, in a chaffing
+tone which hid his emotion, he said:
+
+"Then I won't thank you. I won't tell you that you rid me of a hideous
+nightmare by letting me know that I was not that monster's son and by
+unveiling his real identity. I will not tell you either that I am a
+happy man now that life is opening radiantly before me, with Coralie
+free to love me. No, we won't talk of it. But shall I confess to you
+that my happiness is still a little--what shall I say?--a little dim, a
+little timid? I no longer feel any doubt; but in spite of all, I don't
+quite understand the truth, and, until I do understand it, the truth
+will cause me some anxiety. So tell me . . . explain to me . . . I want
+to know . . ."
+
+"And yet the truth is so obvious!" cried Don Luis. "The most complex
+truths are always so simple! Look here, don't you understand anything?
+Just think of the way in which the problem is set. For sixteen or
+eighteen years, Siméon Diodokis behaves like a perfect friend, devoted
+to the pitch of self-denial, in short, like a father. He has not a
+thought, outside that of his revenge, but to secure your happiness and
+Coralie's. He wants to bring you together. He collects your photographs.
+He follows the whole course of your life. He almost gets into touch with
+you. He sends you the key of the garden and prepares a meeting.
+Then, suddenly, a complete change takes place. He becomes your
+inveterate enemy and thinks of nothing but killing the pair of you. What
+is there that separates those two states of mind? One fact, that's all,
+or rather one date, the night of the third of April and the tragedy that
+takes place that night and the following day at Essarès' house. Until
+that date, you were Siméon Diodokis' son. After that date, you were
+Siméon Diodokis' greatest enemy. Does that suggest nothing to you? It's
+really curious. As for me, all my discoveries are due to this general
+view of the case which I took from the beginning."
+
+Patrice shook his head without replying. He did not understand. The
+riddle retained a part of its unfathomable secret.
+
+"Sit down there," said Don Luis, "on our famous sand-heap, and listen to
+me. It won't take me ten minutes."
+
+They were on Berthou's Wharf. The light was beginning to wane and the
+outlines on the opposite bank of the river were becoming indistinct. The
+barge rocked lazily at the edge of the quay.
+
+Don Luis expressed himself in the following terms:
+
+"On the evening when, from the inner gallery of the library, you
+witnessed the tragedy at Essarès' house, you saw before your eyes two
+men bound by their accomplices: Essarès Bey and Siméon Diodokis. They
+are both dead. One of them was your father. Let us speak first of the
+other. Essarès Bey's position was a critical one that evening. After
+draining our gold currency on behalf of an eastern power, he was trying
+to filch the remainder of the millions of francs collected. The _Belle
+Hélène_, summoned by the rain of sparks, was lying moored alongside
+Berthou's Wharf. The gold was to be shifted at night from the sand-bags
+to the motor-barge. All was going well, when the accomplices, warned by
+Siméon, broke in. Thereupon we have the blackmailing-scene, Colonel
+Fakhi's death and so on, with Essarès learning at one and the same time
+that his accomplices knew of his schemes and his plan to pilfer the gold
+and also that Colonel Fakhi had informed the police about him. He was
+cornered. What could he do? Run away? But, in war-time, running away is
+almost impossible. Besides, running away meant giving up the gold and
+likewise giving up Coralie, which would never have done. So there was
+only one thing, to disappear from sight. To disappear from sight and yet
+to remain there, on the battlefield, near the gold and near Coralie.
+Night came; and he employed it in carrying out his plan. So much for
+Essarès. We now come to Siméon Diodokis."
+
+Don Luis stopped to take breath. Patrice had been listening eagerly, as
+though each word had brought its share of light into the oppressive
+darkness.
+
+"The man who was known as old Siméon," continued Don Luis, "that is to
+say, your father, Armand Belval, a former victim, together with
+Coralie's mother, of Essarès Bey, had also reached a turning-point of
+his career. He was nearly achieving his object. He had betrayed and
+delivered his enemy, Essarès, into the hands of Colonel Fakhi and the
+accomplices. He had succeeded in bringing you and Coralie together. He
+had sent you the key of the lodge. He was justified in hoping that, in
+a few days more, everything would end according to his wishes. But, next
+morning, on waking, certain indications unknown to me revealed to him a
+threatening danger; and he no doubt foresaw the plan which Essarès was
+engaged in elaborating. And he too put himself the same question: What
+was he to do? What was there for him to do? He must warn you, warn you
+without delay, telephone to you at once. For time was pressing, the
+danger was becoming definite. Essarès was watching and hunting down the
+man whom he had chosen as his victim for the second time. You can
+picture Siméon possibly feeling himself pursued and locking himself into
+the library. You can picture him wondering whether he would ever be able
+to telephone to you and whether you would be there. He asks for you. He
+calls out to you. Essarès hammers away at the door. And your father,
+gasping for breath, shouts, 'Is that you, Patrice? Have you the key?
+. . . And the letter? . . . No? . . . But this is terrible! Then you
+don't know' . . . And then a hoarse cry, which you hear at your end of
+the wire, and incoherent noises, the sound of an altercation. And then
+the lips gluing themselves to the instrument and stammering words at
+random: 'Patrice, the amethyst pendant . . . Patrice, I should so much
+have liked . . . Patrice, Coralie!' Then a loud scream . . . cries that
+grow weaker and weaker . . . silence, and that is all. Your father is
+dead, murdered. This time, Essarès Bey, who had failed before, in the
+lodge, took his revenge on his old rival."
+
+"Oh, my unhappy father!" murmured Patrice, in great distress.
+
+"Yes, it was he. That was at nineteen minutes past seven in the morning,
+as you noted. A few minutes later, eager to know and understand, you
+yourself rang up; and it was Essarès who replied, with your father's
+dead body at his feet."
+
+"Oh, the scoundrel! So that this body, which we did not find and were
+not able to find . . ."
+
+"Was simply made up by Essarès, made up, disfigured, transformed into
+his own likeness. That, captain, is how--and the whole mystery lies in
+this--Siméon Diodokis, dead, became Essarès Bey, while Essarès Bey,
+transformed into Siméon Diodokis, played the part of Siméon Diodokis."
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, "I see, I understand."
+
+"As to the relations existing between the two men," continued Don Luis,
+"I am not certain. Essarès may or may not have known before that old
+Siméon was none other than his former rival, the lover of Coralie's
+mother, the man in short who had escaped death. He may or may not have
+known that Siméon was your father. These are points which will never be
+decided and which, moreover, do not matter. What I do take for granted
+is that this new murder was not improvised on the spot. I firmly believe
+that Essarès, having noticed certain similarities in height and figure,
+had made every preparation to take Siméon's place if circumstances
+obliged him to disappear. And it was easily done. Siméon Diodokis wore a
+wig and no beard. Essarès, on the contrary, was bald-headed and had a
+beard. He shaved himself, smashed Siméon's face against the grate,
+mingled the hairs of his own beard with the bleeding mass, dressed the
+body in his clothes, took his victim's clothes for himself, put on the
+wig, the spectacles and the comforter. The transformation was complete."
+
+Patrice thought for a moment. Then he raised an objection:
+
+"Yes, that's what happened at nineteen minutes past seven. But something
+else happened at twenty-three minutes past twelve."
+
+"No, nothing at all."
+
+"But that clock, which stopped at twenty-three minutes past twelve?"
+
+"I tell you, nothing happened at all. Only, he had to put people off the
+scent. He had above all to avoid the inevitable accusation that would
+have been brought against the new Siméon."
+
+"What accusation?"
+
+"What accusation? Why, that he had killed Essarès Bey, of course! A dead
+body is discovered in the morning. Who has committed the murder?
+Suspicion would at once have fallen on Siméon. He would have been
+questioned and arrested. And Essarès would have been found under
+Siméon's mask. No, he needed liberty and facilities to move about as he
+pleased. To achieve this, he kept the murder concealed all the morning
+and arranged so that no one set foot in the library. He went three times
+and knocked at his wife's door, so that she should say that Essarès Bey
+was still alive during the morning. Then, when she went out, he raised
+his voice and ordered Siméon, in other words himself, to see her to the
+hospital in the Champs-Élysées. And in this way Mme. Essarès thought
+that she was leaving her husband behind her alive and that she was
+escorted by old Siméon, whereas actually she was leaving old Siméon's
+corpse in an empty part of the house and was escorted by her husband.
+Then what happened? What the rascal had planned. At one o'clock, the
+police, acting on the information laid by Colonel Fakhi, arrived and
+found themselves in the presence of a corpse. Whose corpse? There was
+not a shadow of hesitation on that point. The maids recognized their
+master; and, when Mme. Essarès returned, it was her husband whom she saw
+lying in front of the fireplace at which he had been tortured the night
+before. Old Siméon, that is to say, Essarès himself, helped to establish
+the identification. You yourself were taken in. The trick was played."
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, nodding his head, "that is how things must have
+gone. They all fit in."
+
+"The trick was played," Don Luis repeated, "and nobody could make out
+how it was done. Was there not this further proof, the letter written in
+Essarès' own hand and found on his desk? The letter was dated at twelve
+o'clock on the fourth of April, addressed to his wife, and told her that
+he was going away. Better still, the trick was so successfully played
+that the very clues which ought to have revealed the truth merely
+concealed it. For instance, your father used to carry a tiny album of
+photographs in a pocket stitched inside his under-vest. Essarès did not
+notice it and did not remove the vest from the body. Well, when they
+found the album, they at once accepted that most unlikely hypothesis:
+Essarès Bey carrying on his person an album filled with photographs of
+his wife and Captain Belval! In the same way, when they found in the
+dead man's hand an amethyst pendant containing your two latest
+photographs and when they also found a crumpled paper with something on
+it about the golden triangle, they at once admitted that Essarès Bey had
+stolen the pendant and the document and was holding them in his hand
+when he died! So absolutely certain were they all that it was Essarès
+Bey who had been murdered, that his dead body lay before their eyes and
+that they must not trouble about the question any longer. And in this
+way the new Siméon was master of the situation. Essarès Bey is dead,
+long live Siméon!"
+
+Don Luis indulged in a hearty laugh. The adventure struck him as really
+amusing.
+
+"Then and there," he went on, "Essarès, behind his impenetrable mask,
+set to work. That very day he listened to your conversation with Coralie
+and, overcome with fury at seeing you bend over her, fired a shot from
+his revolver. But, when this new attempt failed, he ran away and played
+an elaborate comedy near the little door in the garden, crying murder,
+tossing the key over the wall to lay a false scent and falling to the
+ground half dead, as though he had been strangled by the enemy who was
+supposed to have fired the shot. The comedy ended with a skilful
+assumption of madness."
+
+"But what was the object of this madness?"
+
+"What was the object? Why, to make people leave him alone and keep them
+from questioning him or suspecting him. Once he was looked upon as mad,
+he could remain silent and unobserved. Otherwise, Mme. Essarès would
+have recognized his voice at the first words he spoke, however cleverly
+he might have altered his tone. From this time onward, he is mad. He is
+an irresponsible being. He goes about as he pleases. He is a madman! And
+his madness is so thoroughly admitted that he leads you, so to speak, by
+the hand to his former accomplices and causes you to have them arrested,
+without asking yourself for an instant if this madman is not acting with
+the clearest possible sense of his own interest. He's a madman, a poor,
+harmless madman, one of those unfortunates with whom nobody dreams of
+interfering. Henceforth, he has only his last two adversaries to fight:
+Coralie and you. And this is an easy matter for him. I presume that he
+got hold of a diary kept by your father. At any rate, he knows every day
+of the one which you keep. From this he learns the whole story of the
+graves; and he knows that, on the fourteenth of April, Coralie and you
+are both going on a pilgrimage to those graves. Besides, he plans to
+make you go there, for his plot is laid. He prepares against the son and
+the daughter, against the Patrice and Coralie of to-day, the attempt
+which he once prepared against the father and the mother. The attempt
+succeeds at the start. It would have succeeded to the end, but for an
+idea that occurred to our poor Ya-Bon, thanks to which a new adversary,
+in the person of myself, entered the lists. . . . But I need hardly go
+on. You know the rest as well as I do; and, like myself, you can judge
+in all his glory the inhuman villain who, in the space of those
+twenty-four hours, allowed his accomplice Grégoire to be strangled,
+buried your Coralie under the sand-heap, killed Ya-Bon, locked me in the
+lodge, or thought he did, buried you alive in the grave dug by your
+father and made away with Vacherot, the porter. And now, Captain
+Belval, do you think that I ought to have prevented him from committing
+suicide, this pretty gentleman who, in the last resort, was trying to
+pass himself off as your father?"
+
+"You were right," said Patrice. "You have been right all through, from
+start to finish. I see it all now, as a whole and in every detail. Only
+one point remains: the golden triangle. How did you find out the truth?
+What was it that brought you to this sand-heap and enabled you to save
+Coralie from the most awful death?"
+
+"Oh, that part was even simpler," replied Don Luis, "and the light came
+almost without my knowing it! I'll tell it you in a few words. But let
+us move away first. M. Masseron and his men are becoming a little
+troublesome."
+
+The detectives were distributed at the two entrances to Berthou's Wharf.
+M. Masseron was giving them his instructions. He was obviously speaking
+to them of Don Luis and preparing to accost him.
+
+"Let's get on the barge," said Don Luis. "I've left some important
+papers there."
+
+Patrice followed him. Opposite the cabin containing Grégoire's body was
+another cabin, reached by the same companion-way. It was furnished with
+a table and a chair.
+
+"Here, captain," said Don Luis, taking a letter from the drawer of the
+table and settling it, "is a letter which I will ask you to . . . but
+don't let us waste words. I shall hardly have time to satisfy your
+curiosity. Our friends are coming nearer. Well, we were saying, the
+golden triangle . . ."
+
+He listened to what was happening outside with an attention whose real
+meaning Patrice was soon to understand. And, continuing to give ear, he
+resumed:
+
+"The golden triangle? There are problems which we solve more or less by
+accident, without trying. We are guided to a right solution by external
+events, among which we choose unconsciously, feeling our way in the
+dark, examining this one, thrusting aside that one and suddenly
+beholding the object aimed at. . . . Well, this morning, after taking
+you to the tombs and burying you under the stone, Essarès Bey came back
+to me. Believing me to be locked into the studio, he had the pretty
+thought to turn on the gas-meter and then went off to the quay above
+Berthou's Wharf. Here he hesitated; and his hesitation provided me with
+a precious clue. He was certainly then thinking of releasing Coralie.
+People passed and he went away. Knowing where he was going, I returned
+to your assistance, told your friends at Essarès' house and asked them
+to look after you. Then I came back here. Indeed, the whole course of
+events obliged me to come back. It was unlikely that the bags of gold
+were inside the conduit; and, as the _Belle Hélène_ had not taken them
+off, they must be beyond the garden, outside the conduit and therefore
+somewhere near here. I explored the barge we are now on, not so much
+with the object of looking for the bags as with the hope of finding some
+unexpected piece of information and also, I confess, the four millions
+in Grégoire's possession. Well, when I start exploring a place where I
+fail to find what I want, I always remember that capital story of Edgar
+Allan Poe's, _The Purloined Letter_. Do you recollect? The stolen
+diplomatic document which was known to be hidden in a certain room. The
+police investigate every nook and corner of the room and take up all the
+boards of the floor, without results. But Dupin arrives and almost
+immediately goes to a card-rack dangling from a little brass knob on the
+wall and containing a solitary soiled and crumpled letter. This is the
+document of which he was in search. Well, I instinctively adopted the
+same process. I looked where no one would dream of looking, in places
+which do not constitute a hiding-place because it would really be too
+easy to discover. This gave me the idea of turning the pages of four old
+directories standing in a row on that shelf. The four millions were
+there. And I knew all that I wanted to know."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About Essarès' temperament, his habits, the extent of his attainments,
+his notion of a good hiding-place. We had plunged on the expectation of
+meeting with difficulties; we ought to have looked at the outside, to
+have looked at the surface of things. I was assisted by two further
+clues. I had noticed that the uprights of the ladder which Ya-Bon must
+have taken from here had a few grains of sand on them. Lastly, I
+remembered that Ya-Bon had drawn a triangle on the pavement with a piece
+of chalk and that this triangle had only two sides, the third side being
+formed by the foot of the wall. Why this detail? Why not a third line in
+chalk? . . . To make a long story short, I lit a cigarette, sat down
+upstairs, on the deck of the barge, and, looking round me, said to
+myself, 'Lupin, my son, five minutes and no more.' When I say, 'Lupin,
+my son,' I simply can't resist myself. By the time I had smoked a
+quarter of the cigarette, I was there."
+
+"You had found out?"
+
+"I had found out. I can't say which of the factors at my disposal
+kindled the spark. No doubt it was all of them together. It's a rather
+complicated psychological operation, you know, like a chemical
+experiment. The correct idea is formed suddenly by mysterious reactions
+and combinations among the elements in which it existed in a potential
+stage. And then I was carrying within myself an intuitive principle, a
+very special incentive which obliged me, which inevitably compelled me,
+to discover the hiding-place: Little Mother Coralie was there! I knew
+for certain that failure on my part, prolonged weakness or hesitation
+would mean her destruction. There was a woman there, within a radius of
+a dozen yards or so. I had to find out and I found out. The spark was
+kindled. The elements combined. And I made straight for the sand-heap. I
+at once saw the marks of footsteps and, almost at the top, the signs of
+a slight stamping. I started digging. You can imagine my excitement when
+I first touched one of the bags. But I had no time for excitement. I
+shifted a few bags. Coralie was there, unconscious, hardly protected
+from the sand which was slowly stifling her, trickling through, stopping
+up her eyes, suffocating her. I needn't tell you more, need I? The wharf
+was deserted, as usual. I got her out. I hailed a taxi. I first took her
+home. Then I turned my attention to Essarès, to Vacherot the porter;
+and, when I had discovered our enemy's plans, I went and made my
+arrangements with Dr. Géradec. Lastly, I had you moved to the private
+hospital on the Boulevard de Montmorency and gave orders for Coralie to
+be taken there too. And there you are, captain! All done in three hours.
+When the doctor's car brought me back to the hospital, Essarès arrived
+at the same time, to have his injuries seen to. I had him safe."
+
+Don Luis ceased speaking. There were no words necessary between the two
+men. One had done the other the greatest services which a man has it in
+his power to render; and the other knew that these were services for
+which no thanks are adequate. And he also knew that he would never have
+an opportunity to prove his gratitude. Don Luis was in a manner above
+those proofs, owing to the mere fact that they were impossible. There
+was no service to be rendered to a man like him, disposing of his
+resources and performing miracles with the same ease with which we
+perform the trivial actions of everyday life.
+
+Patrice once again pressed his hand warmly, without a word. Don Luis
+accepted the homage of this silent emotion and said:
+
+"If ever people talk of Arsène Lupin before you, captain, say a good
+word for him, won't you? He deserves it." And he added, with a laugh,
+"It's funny, but, as I get on in life, I find myself caring about my
+reputation. The devil was old, the devil a monk would be!"
+
+He pricked up his ears and, after a moment, said:
+
+"Captain, it is time for us to part. Present my respects to Little
+Mother Coralie. I shall not have known her, so to speak, and she will
+not know me. It is better so. Good-by, captain."
+
+"Then we are taking leave of each other?"
+
+"Yes, I hear M. Masseron. Go to him, will you, and have the kindness to
+bring him here?"
+
+Patrice hesitated. Why was Don Luis sending him to meet M. Masseron? Was
+it so that he, Patrice, might intervene in his favor?
+
+The idea appealed to him; and he ran up the companion-way.
+
+Then a thing happened which Patrice was destined never to understand,
+something very quick and quite inexplicable. It was as though a long and
+gloomy adventure were to finish suddenly with melodramatic
+unexpectedness.
+
+Patrice met M. Masseron on the deck of the barge.
+
+"Is your friend here?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"Yes. But one word first: you don't mean to . . . ?"
+
+"Have no fear. We shall do him no harm, on the contrary."
+
+The answer was so definite that the officer could find nothing more to
+say. M. Masseron went down first, with Patrice following him.
+
+"Hullo!" said Patrice. "I left the cabin-door open!"
+
+He pushed the door. It opened. But Don Luis was no longer in the cabin.
+
+Immediate enquiries showed that no one had seen him go, neither the men
+remaining on the wharf nor those who had already crossed the gangway.
+
+"When you have time to examine this barge thoroughly," said Patrice,
+"I've no doubt you will find it pretty nicely faked."
+
+"So your friend has probably escaped through some trap-door and swum
+away?" asked M. Masseron, who seemed greatly annoyed.
+
+"I expect so," said Patrice, laughing. "Unless he's gone off on a
+submarine!"
+
+"A submarine in the Seine?"
+
+"Why not? I don't believe that there's any limit to my friend's
+resourcefulness and determination."
+
+But what completely dumbfounded M. Masseron was the discovery, on the
+table, of a letter directed to himself, the letter which Don Luis had
+placed there at the beginning of his interview with Patrice.
+
+"Then he knew that I should come here? He foresaw, even before we met,
+that I should ask him to fulfil certain formalities?"
+
+The letter ran as follows:
+
+      "_Sir_,
+
+      "Forgive my departure and believe that I, on my side,
+      quite understand the reason that brings you here. My
+      position is not in fact regular; and you are entitled
+      to ask me for an explanation. I will give you that
+      explanation some day or other. You will then see that,
+      if I serve France in a manner of my own, that manner
+      is not a bad one and that my country will owe me some
+      gratitude for the immense services, if I may venture
+      to use the word, which I have done her during this
+      war. On the day of our interview, I should like you to
+      thank me, sir. You will then--for I know your secret
+      ambition--be prefect of police. Perhaps I shall even
+      be able personally to forward a nomination which I
+      consider well-deserved. I will exert myself in that
+      direction without delay.
+
+      "I have the honor to be, etc."
+
+M. Masseron remained silent for a time.
+
+"A strange character!" he said, at last. "Had he been willing, we should
+have given him great things to do. That was what I was instructed to
+tell him."
+
+"You may be sure, sir," said Patrice, "that the things which he is
+actually doing are greater still." And he added, "A strange character,
+as you say. And stranger still, more powerful and more extraordinary
+than you can imagine. If each of the allied nations had had three or
+four men of his stamp at its disposal, the war would have been over in
+six months."
+
+"I quite agree," said M. Masseron. "Only those men are usually solitary,
+intractable people, who act solely upon their own judgment and refuse to
+accept any authority. I'll tell you what: they're something like that
+famous adventurer who, a few years ago, compelled the Kaiser to visit
+him in prison and obtain his release . . . and afterwards, owing to a
+disappointment in love, threw himself into the sea from the cliffs at
+Capri."
+
+"Who was that?"
+
+"Oh, you know the fellow's name as well as I do! . . . Lupin, that's it:
+Arsène Lupin."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
+original edition have been corrected.
+
+In Chapter II, a missing quotation mark was added before "Why, what's
+the matter?"
+
+In Chapter III, "never uttered a compaint" was changed to "never uttered
+a complaint".
+
+In Chapter V, "Bourney turned this fifth rose" was changed to "Bournef
+turned this fifth rose", and "bending over her huband" was changed to
+"bending over her husband".
+
+In Chapter VI, "Is Mmme. Essarès ill" was changed to "Is Mme. Essarès
+ill".
+
+In Chapter VIII, missing quotation marks were added after "Oh, Patrice!
+. . . Patrice! . . ." and "Help! . . . Help! . . .".
+
+In Chapter X, "They do, howover, throw" was changed to "They do,
+however, throw", "Siméon keeps his own council" was changed to "Siméon
+keeps his own counsel", and a quotation mark was removed after "And who
+could defend her?".
+
+In Chapter XIII, a quotation mark was removed after "what could they do
+to ward it off?", and "he shook his first at the invisible enemy" was
+changed to "he shook his fist at the invisible enemy".
+
+In Chapter XV, a quotation mark was removed before "There was a brief
+silence".
+
+In Chapter XVI, "your're trembling" was changed to "you're trembling".
+
+In Chapter XVII, "and then, above all, the gold! . ." was changed to
+"and then, above all, the gold! . . .", "How indeed could it be
+otherwise? . ." was changed to "How indeed could it be otherwise?
+. . .", and a missing quotation mark was added before "But what a state
+you're in!"
+
+In Chapter XVIII, "Gray hair . . ." was changed to "Gray hair. . . .",
+"Grégoire had the money in his keeping" was changed to "Grégoire had the
+money in her keeping", and "suddenly leapt backwords" was changed to
+"suddenly leapt backwards".
+
+In Chapter XIX, "Rue Guimart" was changed to "Rue Guimard", "which
+stoppd at twenty-three minutes past twelve" was changed to "which
+stopped at twenty-three minutes past twelve", and "to discovered the
+hiding-place" was changed to "to discover the hiding-place".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Triangle, by Maurice Leblanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thehollowneedle b/files/books/unrelated/thehollowneedle
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thehollowneedle
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hollow Needle, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Hollow Needle
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Posting Date: June 4, 2009 [EBook #4017]
+Release Date: May, 2003
+First Posted: October 11, 2001
+Last Updated: January, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLOW NEEDLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Greg Weeks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLLOW NEEDLE
+
+FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ARSENE LUPIN
+
+
+BY
+
+MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"ARSENE LUPIN," "THE BLONDE LADY," ETC.
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I. The Shot
+   II. Isidore Beautrelet, Sixth-form Schoolboy
+  III. The Corpse
+   IV. Face to Face
+    V. On the Track
+   VI. An Historic Secret
+  VII. The Treatise of the Needle
+ VIII. From Caesar to Lupin
+   IX. Open, Sesame!
+    X. The Treasures of the Kings of France
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Valmeras loved Raymonde's melancholy charm
+
+She put the gun to her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired
+
+Two huge letters, each perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in
+the granite of the floor
+
+"We're going now. What do you think of my cockle-shell, Beautrelet?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLLOW NEEDLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+THE SHOT
+
+
+Raymonde listened. The noise was repeated twice over, clearly enough to
+be distinguished from the medley of vague sounds that formed the great
+silence of the night and yet too faintly to enable her to tell whether
+it was near or far, within the walls of the big country-house, or
+outside, among the murky recesses of the park.
+
+She rose softly. Her window was half open: she flung it back wide. The
+moonlight lay over a peaceful landscape of lawns and thickets, against
+which the straggling ruins of the old abbey stood out in tragic
+outlines, truncated columns, mutilated arches, fragments of porches and
+shreds of flying buttresses. A light breeze hovered over the face of
+things, gliding noiselessly through the bare motionless branches of the
+trees, but shaking the tiny budding leaves of the shrubs.
+
+And, suddenly, she heard the same sound again. It was on the left and
+on the floor below her, in the living rooms, therefore, that occupied
+the left wing of the house. Brave and plucky though she was, the girl
+felt afraid. She slipped on her dressing gown and took the matches.
+
+"Raymonde--Raymonde!"
+
+A voice as low as a breath was calling to her from the next room, the
+door of which had not been closed. She was feeling her way there, when
+Suzanne, her cousin, came out of the room and fell into her arms:
+
+"Raymonde--is that you? Did you hear--?"
+
+"Yes. So you're not asleep?"
+
+"I suppose the dog woke me--some time ago. But he's not barking now.
+What time is it?"
+
+"About four."
+
+"Listen! Surely, some one's walking in the drawing room!"
+
+"There's no danger, your father is down there, Suzanne."
+
+"But there is danger for him. His room is next to the boudoir."
+
+"M. Daval is there too--"
+
+"At the other end of the house. He could never hear."
+
+They hesitated, not knowing what course to decide upon. Should they
+call out? Cry for help? They dared not; they were frightened of the
+sound of their own voices. But Suzanne, who had gone to the window,
+suppressed a scream:
+
+"Look!--A man!--Near the fountain!"
+
+A man was walking away at a rapid pace. He carried under his arm a
+fairly large load, the nature of which they were unable to distinguish:
+it knocked against his leg and impeded his progress. They saw him pass
+near the old chapel and turn toward a little door in the wall. The door
+must have been open, for the man disappeared suddenly from view and
+they failed to hear the usual grating of the hinges.
+
+"He came from the drawing room," whispered Suzanne.
+
+"No, the stairs and the hall would have brought him out more to the
+left--Unless--"
+
+The same idea struck them both. They leant out. Below them, a ladder
+stood against the front of the house, resting on the first floor. A
+glimmer lit up the stone balcony. And another man, who was also
+carrying something, bestrode the baluster, slid down the ladder and ran
+away by the same road as the first.
+
+Suzanne, scared to the verge of swooning, fell on her knees, stammering:
+
+"Let us call out--let us call for help--"
+
+"Who would come? Your father--and if there are more of them left--and
+they throw themselves upon him--?"
+
+"Then--then--we might call the servants--Your bell rings on their
+floor."
+
+"Yes--yes--perhaps, that's better. If only they come in time!"
+
+Raymonde felt for the electric push near her bed and pressed it with
+her finger. They heard the bell ring upstairs and had an impression
+that its shrill sound must also reach any one below.
+
+They waited. The silence became terrifying and the very breeze no
+longer shook the leaves of the shrubs.
+
+"I'm frightened--frightened," said Suzanne.
+
+And, suddenly, from the profound darkness below them, came the sound of
+a struggle, a crash of furniture overturned, words, exclamations and
+then, horrible and ominous, a hoarse groan, the gurgle of a man who is
+being murdered--
+
+Raymonde leapt toward the door. Suzanne clung desperately to her arm:
+
+"No--no--don't leave me--I'm frightened--"
+
+Raymonde pushed her aside and darted down the corridor, followed by
+Suzanne, who staggered from wall to wall, screaming as she went.
+Raymonde reached the staircase, flew down the stairs, flung herself
+upon the door of the big drawing room and stopped short, rooted to the
+threshold, while Suzanne sank in a heap by her side. Facing them, at
+three steps' distance, stood a man, with a lantern in his hand. He
+turned it upon the two girls, blinding them with the light, stared long
+at their pale faces, and then, without hurrying, with the calmest
+movements in the world, took his cap, picked up a scrap of paper and
+two bits of straw, removed some footmarks from the carpet, went to the
+balcony, turned to the girls, made them a deep bow and disappeared.
+
+Suzanne was the first to run to the little boudoir which separated the
+big drawing-room from her father's bedroom. But, at the entrance, a
+hideous sight appalled her. By the slanting rays of the moon, she saw
+two apparently lifeless bodies lying close to each other on the floor.
+She leaned over one of them:
+
+"Father!--Father!--Is it you? What has happened to you?" she cried,
+distractedly.
+
+After a moment, the Comte de Gesvres moved. In a broken voice, he said:
+
+"Don't be afraid--I am not wounded--Daval?--Is he alive?--The
+knife?--The knife?--"
+
+Two men-servants now arrived with candles. Raymonde flung herself down
+before the other body and recognized Jean Daval, the count's private
+secretary. A little stream of blood trickled from his neck. His face
+already wore the pallor of death.
+
+Then she rose, returned to the drawing room, took a gun that hung in a
+trophy of arms on the wall and went out on the balcony. Not more than
+fifty or sixty seconds had elapsed since the man had set his foot on
+the top rung of the ladder. He could not, therefore, be very far away,
+the more so as he had taken the precaution to remove the ladder, in
+order to prevent the inmates of the house from using it. And soon she
+saw him skirting the remains of the old cloister. She put the gun to
+her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired. The man fell.
+
+"That's done it! That's done it!" said one of the servants. "We've got
+this one. I'll run down."
+
+"No, Victor, he's getting up.... You had better go down by the
+staircase and make straight for the little door in the wall. That's the
+only way he can escape."
+
+Victor hurried off, but, before he reached the park, the man fell down
+again. Raymonde called the other servant:
+
+"Albert, do you see him down there? Near the main cloister?--"
+
+"Yes, he's crawling in the grass. He's done for--"
+
+"Watch him from here."
+
+"There's no way of escape for him. On the right of the ruins is the
+open lawn--"
+
+"And, Victor, do you guard the door, on the left," she said, taking up
+her gun.
+
+"But, surely, you are not going down, miss?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she said, with a resolute accent and abrupt movements; "let
+me be--I have a cartridge left--If he stirs--"
+
+She went out. A moment later, Albert saw her going toward the ruins. He
+called to her from the window:
+
+"He's dragged himself behind the cloister. I can't see him. Be careful,
+miss--"
+
+Raymonde went round the old cloisters, to cut off the man's retreat,
+and Albert soon lost sight of her. After a few minutes, as he did not
+see her return, he became uneasy and, keeping his eye on the ruins,
+instead of going down by the stairs he made an effort to reach the
+ladder. When he had succeeded, he scrambled down and ran straight to
+the cloisters near which he had seen the man last. Thirty paces
+farther, he found Raymonde, who was searching with Victor.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"There's no laying one's hands on him," replied Victor.
+
+"The little door?"
+
+"I've been there; here's the key."
+
+"Still--he must--"
+
+"Oh, we've got him safe enough, the scoundrel--He'll be ours in ten
+minutes."
+
+The farmer and his son, awakened by the shot, now came from the farm
+buildings, which were at some distance on the right, but within the
+circuit of the walls. They had met no one.
+
+"Of course not," said Albert. "The ruffian can't have left the
+ruins--We'll dig him out of some hole or other."
+
+They organized a methodical search, beating every bush, pulling aside
+the heavy masses of ivy rolled round the shafts of the columns. They
+made sure that the chapel was properly locked and that none of the
+panes were broken. They went round the cloisters and examined every
+nook and corner. The search was fruitless.
+
+There was but one discovery: at the place where the man had fallen
+under Raymonde's gun, they picked up a chauffeur's cap, in very soft
+buff leather; besides that, nothing.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gendarmerie of Ouville-la-Riviere were informed at six o'clock in
+the morning and at once proceeded to the spot, after sending an express
+to the authorities at Dieppe with a note describing the circumstances
+of the crime, the imminent capture of the chief criminal and "the
+discovery of his headgear and of the dagger with which the crime had
+been committed."
+
+At ten o'clock, two hired conveyances came down the gentle slope that
+led to the house. One of them, an old-fashioned calash, contained the
+deputy public prosecutor and the examining magistrate, accompanied by
+his clerk. In the other, a humble fly, were seated two reporters,
+representing the Journal de Rouen and a great Paris paper.
+
+The old chateau came into view--once the abbey residence of the priors
+of Ambrumesy, mutilated under the Revolution, both restored by the
+Comte de Gesvres, who had now owned it for some twenty years. It
+consists of a main building, surmounted by a pinnacled clock-tower, and
+two wings, each of which is surrounded by a flight of steps with a
+stone balustrade. Looking across the walls of the park and beyond the
+upland supported by the high Norman cliffs, you catch a glimpse of the
+blue line of the Channel between the villages of Sainte-Marguerite and
+Varengeville.
+
+Here the Comte de Gesvres lived with his daughter Suzanne, a delicate,
+fair-haired, pretty creature, and his niece Raymonde de Saint-Veran,
+whom he had taken to live with him two years before, when the
+simultaneous death of her father and mother left Raymonde an orphan.
+Life at the chateau was peaceful and regular. A few neighbors paid an
+occasional visit. In the summer, the count took the two girls almost
+every day to Dieppe. He was a tall man, with a handsome, serious face
+and hair that was turning gray. He was very rich, managed his fortune
+himself and looked after his extensive estates with the assistance of
+his secretary, Jean Daval.
+
+Immediately upon his arrival, the examining magistrate took down the
+first observations of Sergeant Quevillon of the gendarmes. The capture
+of the criminal, imminent though it might be, had not yet been
+effected, but every outlet of the park was held. Escape was impossible.
+
+The little company next crossed the chapter-hall and the refectory,
+both of which are on the ground floor, and went up to the first story.
+They at once remarked the perfect order that prevailed in the drawing
+room. Not a piece of furniture, not an ornament but appeared to occupy
+its usual place; nor was there any gap among the ornaments or
+furniture. On the right and left walls hung magnificent Flemish
+tapestries with figures. On the panels of the wall facing the windows
+were four fine canvases, in contemporary frames, representing
+mythological scenes. These were the famous pictures by Rubens which had
+been left to the Comte de Gesvres, together with the Flemish
+tapestries, by his maternal uncle, the Marques de Bobadilla, a Spanish
+grandee.
+
+M. Filleul remarked:
+
+"If the motive of the crime was theft, this drawing room, at any rate,
+was not the object of it."
+
+"You can't tell!" said the deputy, who spoke little, but who, when he
+did, invariably opposed the magistrate's views.
+
+"Why, my dear sir, the first thought of a burglar would be to carry off
+those pictures and tapestries, which are universally renowned."
+
+"Perhaps there was no time."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+At that moment, the Comte de Gesvres entered, accompanied by the
+doctor. The count, who did not seem to feel the effects of the attack
+to which he had been subjected, welcomed the two officials. Then he
+opened the door of the boudoir.
+
+This room, which no one had been allowed to enter since the discovery
+of the crime, differed from the drawing room inasmuch as it presented a
+scene of the greatest disorder. Two chairs were overturned, one of the
+tables smashed to pieces and several objects--a traveling-clock, a
+portfolio, a box of stationery--lay on the floor. And there was blood
+on some of the scattered pieces of note-paper.
+
+The doctor turned back the sheet that covered the corpse. Jean Daval,
+dressed in his usual velvet suit, with a pair of nailed boots on his
+feet, lay stretched on his back, with one arm folded beneath him. His
+collar and tie had been removed and his shirt opened, revealing a large
+wound in the chest.
+
+"Death must have been instantaneous," declared the doctor. "One blow of
+the knife was enough."
+
+"It was, no doubt, the knife which I saw on the drawing-room
+mantelpiece, next to a leather cap?" said the examining magistrate.
+
+"Yes," said the Comte de Gesvres, "the knife was picked up here. It
+comes from the same trophy in the drawing room from which my niece,
+Mlle. de Saint-Veran, snatched the gun. As for the chauffeur's cap,
+that evidently belongs to the murderer."
+
+M. Filleul examined certain further details in the room, put a few
+questions to the doctor and then asked M. de Gesvres to tell him what
+he had seen and heard. The count worded his story as follows:
+
+"Jean Daval woke me up. I had been sleeping badly, for that matter,
+with gleams of consciousness in which I seemed to hear noises, when,
+suddenly opening my eyes, I saw Daval standing at the foot of my bed,
+with his candle in his hand and fully dressed--as he is now, for he
+often worked late into the night. He seemed greatly excited and said,
+in a low voice: 'There's some one in the drawing room.' I heard a noise
+myself. I got up and softly pushed the door leading to this boudoir. At
+the same moment, the door over there, which opens into the big drawing
+room, was thrown back and a man appeared who leaped at me and stunned
+me with a blow on the temple. I am telling you this without any
+details, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, for the simple reason that I
+remember only the principal facts, and that these facts followed upon
+one another with extraordinary swiftness."
+
+"And after that?--"
+
+"After that, I don't know--I fainted. When I came to, Daval lay
+stretched by my side, mortally wounded."
+
+"At first sight, do you suspect no one?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"You have no enemy?"
+
+"I know of none."
+
+"Nor M. Daval either?"
+
+"Daval! An enemy? He was the best creature that ever lived. M. Daval
+was my secretary for twenty years and, I may say, my confidant; and I
+have never seen him surrounded with anything but love and friendship."
+
+"Still, there has been a burglary and there has been a murder: there
+must be a motive for all that."
+
+"The motive? Why, it was robbery pure and simple."
+
+"Robbery? Have you been robbed of something, then?"
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"In that case--?"
+
+"In that case, if they have stolen nothing and if nothing is missing,
+they at least took something away."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know. But my daughter and my niece will tell you, with
+absolute certainty, that they saw two men in succession cross the park
+and that those two men were carrying fairly heavy loads."
+
+"The young ladies--"
+
+"The young ladies may have been dreaming, you think? I should be
+tempted to believe it, for I have been exhausting myself in inquiries
+and suppositions ever since this morning. However, it is easy enough to
+question them."
+
+The two cousins were sent for to the big drawing room. Suzanne, still
+quite pale and trembling, could hardly speak. Raymonde, who was more
+energetic, more of a man, better looking, too, with the golden glint in
+her brown eyes, described the events of the night and the part which
+she had played in them.
+
+"So I may take it, mademoiselle, that your evidence is positive?"
+
+"Absolutely. The men who went across the park were carrying things away
+with them."
+
+"And the third man?"
+
+"He went from here empty-handed."
+
+"Could you describe him to us?"
+
+"He kept on dazzling us with the light of his lantern. All that I could
+say is that he is tall and heavily built."
+
+"Is that how he appeared to you, mademoiselle?" asked the magistrate,
+turning to Suzanne de Gesvres.
+
+"Yes--or, rather, no," said Suzanne, reflecting. "I thought he was
+about the middle height and slender."
+
+M. Filleul smiled; he was accustomed to differences of opinion and
+sight in witnesses to one and the same fact:
+
+"So we have to do, on the one hand, with a man, the one in the drawing
+room, who is, at the same time, tall and short, stout and thin, and, on
+the other, with two men, those in the park, who are accused of removing
+from that drawing room objects--which are still here!"
+
+M. Filleul was a magistrate of the ironic school, as he himself would
+say. He was also a very ambitious magistrate and one who did not object
+to an audience nor to an occasion to display his tactful resource in
+public, as was shown by the increasing number of persons who now
+crowded into the room. The journalists had been joined by the farmer
+and his son, the gardener and his wife, the indoor servants of the
+chateau and the two cabmen who had driven the flies from Dieppe.
+
+M. Filleul continued:
+
+"There is also the question of agreeing upon the way in which the third
+person disappeared. Was this the gun you fired, mademoiselle, and from
+this window?"
+
+"Yes. The man reached the tombstone which is almost buried under the
+brambles, to the left of the cloisters."
+
+"But he got up again?"
+
+"Only half. Victor ran down at once to guard the little door and I
+followed him, leaving the second footman, Albert, to keep watch here."
+
+Albert now gave his evidence and the magistrate concluded:
+
+"So, according to you, the wounded man was not able to escape on the
+left, because your fellow-servant was watching the door, nor on the
+right, because you would have seen him cross the lawn. Logically,
+therefore, he is, at the present moment, in the comparatively
+restricted space that lies before our eyes."
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"And you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I, too," said Victor.
+
+The deputy prosecutor exclaimed, with a leer:
+
+"The field of inquiry is quite narrow. We have only to continue the
+search commenced four hours ago."
+
+"We may be more fortunate."
+
+M. Filleul took the leather cap from the mantel, examined it and,
+beckoning to the sergeant of gendarmes, whispered:
+
+"Sergeant, send one of your men to Dieppe at once. Tell him to go to
+Maigret, the hatter, in the Rue de la Barre, and ask M. Maigret to tell
+him, if possible, to whom this cap was sold."
+
+The "field of inquiry," in the deputy's phrase, was limited to the
+space contained between the house, the lawn on the right and the angle
+formed by the left wall and the wall opposite the house, that is to
+say, a quadrilateral of about a hundred yards each way, in which the
+ruins of Ambrumesy, the famous mediaeval monastery, stood out at
+intervals.
+
+They at once noticed the traces left by the fugitive in the trampled
+grass. In two places, marks of blackened blood, now almost dried up,
+were observed. After the turn at the end of the cloisters, there was
+nothing more to be seen, as the nature of the ground, here covered with
+pine-needles, did not lend itself to the imprint of a body. But, in
+that case, how had the wounded man succeeded in escaping the eyes of
+Raymonde, Victor and Albert? There was nothing but a few brakes, which
+the servants and the gendarmes had beaten over and over again, and a
+number of tombstones, under which they had explored. The examining
+magistrate made the gardener, who had the key, open the chapel, a real
+gem of carving, a shrine in stone which had been respected by time and
+the revolutionaries, and which, with the delicate sculpture work of its
+porch and its miniature population of statuettes, was always looked
+upon as a marvelous specimen of the Norman-Gothic style. The chapel,
+which was very simple in the interior, with no other ornament than its
+marble altar, offered no hiding-place. Besides, the fugitive would have
+had to obtain admission. And by what means?
+
+The inspection brought them to the little door in the wall that served
+as an entrance for the visitors to the ruins. It opened on a sunk road
+running between the park wall and a copsewood containing some abandoned
+quarries. M. Filleul stooped forward: the dust of the road bore marks
+of anti-skid pneumatic tires. Raymonde and Victor remembered that,
+after the shot, they had seemed to hear the throb of a motor-car.
+
+The magistrate suggested:
+
+"The man must have joined his confederates."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Victor. "I was here while mademoiselle and Albert
+still had him in view."
+
+"Nonsense, he must be somewhere! Outside or inside: we have no choice!"
+
+"He is here," the servants insisted, obstinately.
+
+The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and went back to the house in a
+more or less sullen mood. There was no doubt that it was an unpromising
+case. A theft in which nothing had been stolen; an invisible prisoner:
+what could be less satisfactory?
+
+It was late. M. de Gesvres asked the officials and the two journalists
+to stay to lunch. They ate in silence and then M. Filleul returned to
+the drawing room, where he questioned the servants. But the sound of a
+horse's hoofs came from the courtyard and, a moment after, the gendarme
+who had been sent to Dieppe entered.
+
+"Well, did you see the hatter?" exclaimed the magistrate, eager at last
+to obtain some positive information.
+
+"I saw M. Maigret. The cap was sold to a cab-driver."
+
+"A cab-driver!"
+
+"Yes, a driver who stopped his fly before the shop and asked to be
+supplied with a yellow-leather chauffeur's cap for one of his
+customers. This was the only one left. He paid for it, without
+troubling about the size, and drove off. He was in a great hurry."
+
+"What sort of fly was it?"
+
+"A calash."
+
+"And on what day did this happen?"
+
+"On what day? Why, to-day, at eight o'clock this morning."
+
+"This morning? What are you talking about?"
+
+"The cap was bought this morning."
+
+"But that's impossible, because it was found last night in the park. If
+it was found there, it must have been there; and, consequently, it must
+have been bought before."
+
+"The hatter told me it was bought this morning."
+
+There was a moment of general bewilderment. The nonplussed magistrate
+strove to understand. Suddenly, he started, as though struck with a
+gleam of light:
+
+"Fetch the cabman who brought us here this morning! The man who drove
+the calash! Fetch him at once!"
+
+The sergeant of gendarmes and his subordinate ran off to the stables.
+In a few minutes, the sergeant returned alone.
+
+"Where's the cabman?"
+
+"He asked for food in the kitchen, ate his lunch and then--"
+
+"And then--?"
+
+"He went off."
+
+"With his fly?"
+
+"No. Pretending that he wanted to go and see a relation at Ouville, he
+borrowed the groom's bicycle. Here are his hat and greatcoat."
+
+"But did he leave bare-headed?"
+
+"No, he took a cap from his pocket and put it on."
+
+"A cap?"
+
+"Yes, a yellow leather cap, it seems."
+
+"A yellow leather cap? Why, no, we've got it here!"
+
+"That's true, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, but his is just like it."
+
+The deputy sniggered:
+
+"Very funny! Most amusing! There are two caps--One, the real one, which
+constituted our only piece of evidence, has gone off on the head of the
+sham flyman! The other, the false one, is in your hands. Oh, the fellow
+has had us nicely!"
+
+"Catch him! Fetch him back!" cried M. Filleul. "Two of your men on
+horseback, Sergeant Quevillon, and at full speed!"
+
+"He is far away by this time," said the deputy.
+
+"He can be as far as he pleases, but still we must lay hold of him."
+
+"I hope so; but I think, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that your
+efforts should be concentrated here above all. Would you mind reading
+this scrap of paper, which I have just found in the pocket of the coat?"
+
+"Which coat?"
+
+"The driver's."
+
+And the deputy prosecutor handed M. Filleul a piece of paper, folded in
+four, containing these few words written in pencil, in a more or less
+common hand:
+
+"Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!"
+
+The incident caused a certain stir.
+
+"A word to the wise!" muttered the deputy. "We are now forewarned."
+
+"Monsieur le Comte," said the examining magistrate, "I beg you not to
+be alarmed. Nor you either, mademoiselle. This threat is of no
+importance, as the police are on the spot. We shall take every
+precaution and I will answer for your safety. As for you, gentlemen. I
+rely on your discretion. You have been present at this inquiry, thanks
+to my excessive kindness toward the Press, and it would be making me an
+ill return--"
+
+He interrupted himself, as though an idea had struck him, looked at the
+two young men, one after the other, and, going up to the first, asked:
+
+"What paper do you represent, sir?"
+
+"The Journal de Rouen."
+
+"Have you your credentials?"
+
+"Here."
+
+The card was in order. There was no more to be said. M. Filleul turned
+to the other reporter:
+
+"And you, sir?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you: what paper do you belong to?"
+
+"Why, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I write for a number of
+papers--all over the place--"
+
+"Your credentials?"
+
+"I haven't any."
+
+"Oh! How is that?"
+
+"For a newspaper to give you a card, you have to be on its regular
+staff."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I am only an occasional contributor, a free-lance. I send
+articles to this newspaper and that. They are published or declined
+according to circumstances."
+
+"In that case, what is your name? Where are your papers?"
+
+"My name would tell you nothing. As for papers, I have none."
+
+"You have no paper of any kind to prove your profession!"
+
+"I have no profession."
+
+"But look here, sir," cried the magistrate, with a certain asperity,
+"you can't expect to preserve your incognito after introducing yourself
+here by a trick and surprising the secrets of the police!"
+
+"I beg to remark, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that you asked me
+nothing when I came in, and that therefore I had nothing to say.
+Besides, it never struck me that your inquiry was secret, when
+everybody was admitted--including even one of the criminals!"
+
+He spoke softly, in a tone of infinite politeness. He was quite a young
+man, very tall, very slender and dressed without the least attempt at
+fashion, in a jacket and trousers both too small for him. He had a pink
+face like a girl's, a broad forehead topped with close-cropped hair,
+and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with
+intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a
+pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter.
+
+M. Filleul looked at him with an aggressive air of distrust. The two
+gendarmes came forward. The young man exclaimed, gaily:
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you clearly suspect me of being an
+accomplice. But, if that were so, would I not have slipped away at the
+right moment, following the example of my fellow-criminal?"
+
+"You might have hoped--"
+
+"Any hope would have been absurd. A moment's reflection, Monsieur le
+Juge d'Instruction, will make you agree with me that, logically
+speaking--"
+
+M. Filleul looked him straight in the eyes and said, sharply:
+
+"No more jokes! Your name?"
+
+"Isidore Beautrelet."
+
+"Your occupation?"
+
+"Sixth-form pupil at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly."
+
+M. Filleul opened a pair of startled eyes.
+
+"What are you talking about? Sixth-form pupil--"
+
+"At the Lycee Janson, Rue de la Pompe, number--"
+
+"Oh, look here," exclaimed M. Filleul, "you're trying to take me in!
+This won't do, you know; a joke can go too far!"
+
+"I must say, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that your astonishment
+surprises me. What is there to prevent my being a sixth-form pupil at
+the Lycee Janson? My beard, perhaps? Set your mind at ease: my beard is
+false!"
+
+Isidore Beautrelet pulled off the few curls that adorned his chin, and
+his beardless face appeared still younger and pinker, a genuine
+schoolboy's face. And, with a laugh like a child's, revealing his white
+teeth:
+
+"Are you convinced now?" he asked. "Do you want more proofs? Here, you
+can read the address on these letters from my father: 'To Monsieur
+Isidore Beautrelet, Indoor Pupil, Lycee Janson-de-Sailly.'"
+
+Convinced or not, M. Filleul did not look as if he liked the story. He
+asked, gruffly:
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Why--I'm--I'm improving my mind."
+
+"There are schools for that: yours, for instance."
+
+"You forget, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that this is the
+twenty-third of April and that we are in the middle of the Easter
+holidays."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I have every right to spend my holidays as I please."
+
+"Your father--"
+
+"My father lives at the other end of the country, in Savoy, and he
+himself advised me to take a little trip on the North Coast."
+
+"With a false beard?"
+
+"Oh, no! That's my own idea. At school, we talk a great deal about
+mysterious adventures; we read detective stories, in which people
+disguise themselves; we imagine any amount of terrible and intricate
+cases. So I thought I would amuse myself; and I put on this false
+beard. Besides, I enjoyed the advantage of being taken seriously and I
+pretended to be a Paris reporter. That is how, last night, after an
+uneventful period of more than a week, I had the pleasure of making the
+acquaintance of my Rouen colleague; and, this morning, when he heard of
+the Ambrumesy murder, he very kindly suggested that I should come with
+him and that we should share the cost of a fly."
+
+Isidore Beautrelet said all this with a frank and artless simplicity of
+which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself,
+though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in
+listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone:
+
+"And are you satisfied with your expedition?"
+
+"Delighted! All the more as I had never been present at a case of the
+sort and I find that this one is not lacking in interest."
+
+"Nor in that mysterious intricacy which you prize so highly--"
+
+"And which is so stimulating, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction! I know
+nothing more exciting than to see all the facts coming up out of the
+shadow, clustering together, so to speak, and gradually forming the
+probable truth."
+
+"The probable truth! You go pretty fast, young man! Do you suggest that
+you have your little solution of the riddle ready?"
+
+"Oh, no!" replied Beautrelet, with a laugh.
+
+"Only--it seems to me that there are certain points on which it is not
+impossible to form an opinion; and others, even, are so precise as to
+warrant--a conclusion."
+
+"Oh, but this is becoming very curious and I shall get to know
+something at last! For I confess, to my great confusion, that I know
+nothing."
+
+"That is because you have not had time to reflect, Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction. The great thing is to reflect. Facts very seldom fail to
+carry their own explanation!"
+
+"And, according to you, the facts which we have just ascertained carry
+their own explanation?"
+
+"Don't you think so yourself? In any case, I have ascertained none
+besides those which are set down in the official report."
+
+"Good! So that, if I were to ask you which were the objects stolen from
+this room--"
+
+"I should answer that I know."
+
+"Bravo! My gentleman knows more about it than the owner himself. M. de
+Gesvres has everything accounted for: M. Isidore Beautrelet has not. He
+misses a bookcase in three sections and a life-size statue which nobody
+ever noticed. And, if I asked you the name of the murderer?"
+
+"I should again answer that I know it."
+
+All present gave a start. The deputy and the journalist drew nearer. M.
+de Gesvres and the two girls, impressed by Beautrelet's tranquil
+assurance, listened attentively.
+
+"You know the murderer's name?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the place where he is concealed, perhaps?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+M. Filleul rubbed his hands.
+
+"What a piece of luck! This capture will do honor to my career. And can
+you make me these startling revelations now?"
+
+"Yes, now--or rather, if you do not mind, in an hour or two, when I
+shall have assisted at your inquiry to the end."
+
+"No, no, young man, here and now, please." At that moment Raymonde de
+Saint-Veran, who had not taken her eyes from Isidore Beautrelet since
+the beginning of this scene, came up to M. Filleul:
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction--"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle?"
+
+She hesitated for two or three seconds, with her eyes fixed on
+Beautrelet, and then, addressing M. Filleul:
+
+"I should like you to ask monsieur the reason why he was walking
+yesterday in the sunk road which leads up to the little door."
+
+It was an unexpected and dramatic stroke. Isidore Beautrelet appeared
+nonplussed:
+
+"I, mademoiselle? I? You saw me yesterday?"
+
+Raymonde remained thoughtful, with her eyes upon Beautrelet, as though
+she were trying to settle her own conviction, and then said, in a
+steady voice:
+
+"At four o'clock in the afternoon, as I was crossing the wood, I met in
+the sunk road a young man of monsieur's height, dressed like him and
+wearing a beard cut in the same way--and I received a very clear
+impression that he was trying to hide."
+
+"And it was I?"
+
+"I could not say that as an absolute certainty, for my recollection is
+a little vague. Still--still, I think so--if not, it would be an
+unusual resemblance--"
+
+M. Filleul was perplexed. Already taken in by one of the confederates,
+was he now going to let himself be tricked by this self-styled
+schoolboy? Certainly, the young man's manner spoke in his favor; but
+one can never tell!
+
+"What have you to say, sir?"
+
+"That mademoiselle is mistaken, as I can easily show you with one word.
+Yesterday, at the time stated, I was at Veules."
+
+"You will have to prove it, you will have to. In any case, the position
+is not what it was. Sergeant, one of your men will keep monsieur
+company."
+
+Isidore Beautrelet's face denoted a keen vexation.
+
+"Will it be for long?"
+
+"Long enough to collect the necessary information."
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I beseech you to collect it with all
+possible speed and discretion."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"My father is an old man. We are very much attached to each other--and
+I would not have him suffer on my account."
+
+The more or less pathetic note in his voice made a bad impression on M.
+Filleul. It suggested a scene in a melodrama. Nevertheless, he promised:
+
+"This evening--or to-morrow at latest, I shall know what to think."
+
+The afternoon was wearing on. The examining magistrate returned to the
+ruins of the cloisters, after giving orders that no unauthorized
+persons were to be admitted, and patiently, methodically, dividing the
+ground into lots which were successively explored, himself directed the
+search. But at the end of the day he was no farther than at the start;
+and he declared, before an army of reporters who, during that time, had
+invaded the chateau:
+
+"Gentlemen, everything leads us to suppose that the wounded man is
+here, within our reach; everything, that is, except the reality, the
+fact. Therefore, in our humble opinion, he must have escaped and we
+shall find him outside."
+
+By way of precaution, however, he arranged, with the sergeant of
+gendarmes, for a complete watch to be kept over the park and, after
+making a fresh examination of the two drawing rooms, visiting the whole
+of the chateau and surrounding himself with all the necessary
+information, he took the road back to Dieppe, accompanied by the deputy
+prosecutor.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Night fell. As the boudoir was to remain locked, Jean Daval's body had
+been moved to another room. Two women from the neighborhood sat up with
+it, assisted by Suzanne and Raymonde. Downstairs, young Isidore
+Beautrelet slept on the bench in the old oratory, under the watchful
+eye of the village policeman, who had been attached to his person.
+Outside, the gendarmes, the farmer and a dozen peasants had taken up
+their position among the ruins and along the walls.
+
+All was still until eleven o'clock; but, at ten minutes past eleven, a
+shot echoed from the other side of the house.
+
+"Attention!" roared the sergeant. "Two men remain here: you,
+Fossier--and you, Lecanu--The others at the double!"
+
+They all rushed forward and ran round the house on the left. A figure
+was seen to make away in the dark. Then, suddenly, a second shot drew
+them farther on, almost to the borders of the farm. And, all at once,
+as they arrived, in a band, at the hedge which lines the orchard, a
+flame burst out, to the right of the farmhouse, and other names also
+rose in a thick column. It was a barn burning, stuffed to the ridge
+with straw.
+
+"The scoundrels!" shouted the sergeant. "They've set fire to it. Have
+at them, lads! They can't be far away!"
+
+But the wind was turning the flames toward the main building; and it
+became necessary, before all things, to ward off the danger. They all
+exerted themselves with the greater ardor inasmuch as M. de Gesvres,
+hurrying to the scene of the disaster, encouraged them with the promise
+of a reward. By the time that they had mastered the flames, it was two
+o'clock in the morning. All pursuit would have been vain.
+
+"We'll look into it by daylight," said the sergeant. "They are sure to
+have left traces: we shall find them."
+
+"And I shall not be sorry," added M. de Gesvres, "to learn the reason
+of this attack. To set fire to trusses of straw strikes me as a very
+useless proceeding."
+
+"Come with me, Monsieur le Comte: I may be able to tell you the reason."
+
+Together they reached the ruins of the cloisters. The sergeant called
+out:
+
+"Lecanu!--Fossier!"
+
+The other gendarmes were already hunting for their comrades whom they
+had left standing sentry. They ended by finding them at a few paces
+from the little door. The two men were lying full length on the ground,
+bound and gagged, with bandages over their eyes.
+
+"Monsieur le Comte," muttered the sergeant, while his men were being
+released; "Monsieur le Comte, we have been tricked like children."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"The shots--the attack on the barn--the fire--all so much humbug to get
+us down there--a diversion. During that time they were tying up our two
+men and the business was done."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"Carrying off the wounded man, of course!"
+
+"You don't mean to say you think--?"
+
+"Think? Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff! The idea came to me ten
+minutes ago--but I'm a fool not to have thought of it earlier. We
+should have nabbed them all." Quevillon stamped his foot on the ground,
+with a sudden attack of rage. "But where, confound it, where did they
+go through? Which way did they carry him off? For, dash it all, we beat
+the ground all day; and a man can't hide in a tuft of grass, especially
+when he's wounded! It's witchcraft, that's what it is!--"
+
+Nor was this the last surprise awaiting Sergeant Quevillon. At dawn,
+when they entered the oratory which had been used as a cell for young
+Isidore Beautrelet, they realized that young Isidore Beautrelet had
+vanished.
+
+On a chair slept the village policeman, bent in two. By his side stood
+a water-bottle and two tumblers. At the bottom of one of those tumblers
+a few grains of white powder.
+
+On examination, it was proved, first, that young Isidore Beautrelet had
+administered a sleeping draught to the village policeman; secondly,
+that he could only have escaped by a window situated at a height of
+seven or eight feet in the wall; and lastly--a charming detail,
+this--that he could only have reached this window by using the back of
+his warder as a footstool.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+ISIDORE BEAUTRELET, SIXTH-FORM SCHOOLBOY
+
+
+From the Grand Journal.
+
+LATEST NEWS
+
+DOCTOR DELATTRE KIDNAPPED A MAD PIECE OF CRIMINAL DARING
+
+At the moment of going to press, we have received an item of news which
+we dare not guarantee as authentic, because of its very improbable
+character. We print it, therefore, with all reserve.
+
+Yesterday evening, Dr. Delattre, the well-known surgeon, was present,
+with his wife and daughter, at the performance of Hernani at the
+Comedie Francaise. At the commencement of the third act, that is to
+say, at about ten o'clock, the door of his box opened and a gentleman,
+accompanied by two others, leaned over to the doctor and said to him,
+in a low voice, but loud enough for Mme. Delattre to hear:
+
+"Doctor, I have a very painful task to fulfil and I shall be very
+grateful to you if you will make it as easy for me as you can."
+
+"Who are you, sir?"
+
+"M. Thezard, commissary of police of the first district; and my
+instructions are to take you to M. Dudouis, at the prefecture."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Not a word, doctor, I entreat you, not a movement--There is some
+regrettable mistake; and that is why we must act in silence and not
+attract anybody's attention. You will be back, I have no doubt, before
+the end of the performance."
+
+The doctor rose and went with the commissary. At the end of the
+performance, he had not returned. Mme. Delattre, greatly alarmed, drove
+to the office of the commissary of police. There she found the real M.
+Thezard and discovered, to her great terror, that the individual who
+had carried off her husband was an impostor.
+
+Inquiries made so far have revealed the fact that the doctor stepped
+into a motor car and that the car drove off in the direction of the
+Concorde.
+
+Readers will find further details of this incredible adventure in our
+second edition.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Incredible though it might be, the adventure was perfectly true.
+Besides, the issue was not long delayed and the Grand Journal, while
+confirming the story in its midday edition, described in a few lines
+the dramatic ending with which it concluded:
+
+THE STORY ENDS
+
+AND
+
+GUESS-WORK BEGINS
+
+Dr. Delattre was brought back to 78, Rue Duret, at nine o'clock this
+morning, in a motor car which drove away immediately at full speed.
+
+No. 78, Rue Duret, is the address of Dr. Delattre's clinical surgery,
+at which he arrives every morning at the same hour. When we sent in our
+card, the doctor, though closeted with the chief of the detective
+service, was good enough to consent to receive us.
+
+"All that I can tell you," he said, in reply to our questions, "is that
+I was treated with the greatest consideration. My three companions were
+the most charming people I have ever met, exquisitely well-mannered and
+bright and witty talkers: a quality not to be despised, in view of the
+length of the journey."
+
+"How long did it take?"
+
+"About four hours and as long returning."
+
+"And what was the object of the journey?"
+
+"I was taken to see a patient whose condition rendered an immediate
+operation necessary."
+
+"And was the operation successful?"
+
+"Yes, but the consequences may be dangerous. I would answer for the
+patient here. Down there--under his present conditions--"
+
+"Bad conditions?"
+
+"Execrable!--A room in an inn--and the practically absolute
+impossibility of being attended to."
+
+"Then what can save him?"
+
+"A miracle--and his constitution, which is an exceptionally strong one."
+
+"And can you say nothing more about this strange patient?"
+
+"No. In the first place, I have taken an oath; and, secondly, I have
+received a present of ten thousand francs for my free surgery. If I do
+not keep silence, this sum will be taken from me."
+
+"You are joking! Do you believe that?"
+
+"Indeed I do. The men all struck me as being very much in earnest."
+
+This is the statement made to us by Dr. Delattre. And we know, on the
+other hand, that the head of the detective service, in spite of all his
+insisting, has not yet succeeded in extracting any more precise
+particulars from him as to the operation which he performed, the
+patient whom he attended or the district traversed by the car. It is
+difficult, therefore, to arrive at the truth.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+This truth, which the writer of the interview confessed himself unable
+to discover, was guessed by the more or less clear-sighted minds that
+perceived a connection with the facts which had occurred the day before
+at the Chateau d'Ambrumesy, and which were reported, down to the
+smallest detail, in all the newspapers of that day. There was evidently
+a coincidence to be reckoned with in the disappearance of a wounded
+burglar and the kidnapping of a famous surgeon.
+
+The judicial inquiry, moreover, proved the correctness of the
+hypothesis. By following the track of the sham flyman, who had fled on
+a bicycle, they were able to show that he had reached the forest of
+Arques, at some ten miles' distance, and that from there, after
+throwing his bicycle into a ditch, he had gone to the village of
+Saint-Nicolas, whence he had dispatched the following telegram:
+
+
+  A. L. N., Post-office 45, Paris.
+
+  Situation desperate. Operation urgently necessary.
+  Send celebrity by national road fourteen.
+
+
+The evidence was undeniable. Once apprised the accomplices in Paris
+hastened to make their arrangements. At ten o'clock in the evening they
+sent their celebrity by National Road No. 14, which skirts the forest
+of Arques and ends at Dieppe. During this time, under cover of the fire
+which they themselves had caused, the gang of burglars carried off
+their leader and moved him to an inn, where the operation took place on
+the arrival of the surgeon, at two o'clock in the morning.
+
+About that there was no doubt. At Pontoise, at Gournay, at Forges,
+Chief-inspector Ganimard, who was sent specially from Paris, with
+Inspector Folenfant, as his assistant, ascertained that a motor car had
+passed in the course of the previous night. The same on the road from
+Dieppe to Ambrumesy. And, though the traces of the car were lost at
+about a mile and a half from the chateau, at least a number of
+footmarks were seen between the little door in the park wall and the
+abbey ruins. Besides, Ganimard remarked that the lock of the little
+door had been forced.
+
+So all was explained. It remained to decide which inn the doctor had
+spoken of: an easy piece of work for a Ganimard, a professional ferret,
+a patient old stager of the police. The number of inns is limited and
+this one, given the condition of the wounded man, could only be one
+quite close to Ambrumesy. Ganimard and Sergeant Quevillon set to work.
+Within a circle of five hundred yards, of a thousand yards, of fifteen
+hundred yards, they visited and ransacked everything that could pass
+for an inn. But, against all expectation, the dying man persisted in
+remaining invisible.
+
+Ganimard became more resolved than ever. He came back to sleep at the
+chateau, on the Saturday night, with the intention of making his
+personal inquiry on the Sunday. On Sunday morning, he learned that,
+during the night, a posse of gendarmes had seen a figure gliding along
+the sunk road, outside the wall. Was it an accomplice who had come back
+to investigate? Were they to suppose that the leader of the gang had
+not left the cloisters or the neighborhood of the cloisters?
+
+That night, Ganimard openly sent the squad of gendarmes to the farm and
+posted himself and Folenfant outside the walls, near the little door.
+
+A little before midnight, a person passed out of the wood, slipped
+between them, went through the door and entered the park. For three
+hours, they saw him wander from side to side across the ruins,
+stooping, climbing up the old pillars, sometimes remaining for long
+minutes without moving. Then he went back to the door and again passed
+between the two inspectors.
+
+Ganimard caught him by the collar, while Folenfant seized him round the
+body. He made no resistance of any kind and, with the greatest
+docility, allowed them to bind his wrists and take him to the house.
+But, when they attempted to question him, he replied simply that he
+owed them no account of his doings and that he would wait for the
+arrival of the examining magistrate. Thereupon, they fastened him
+firmly to the foot of a bed, in one of the two adjoining rooms which
+they occupied.
+
+At nine o'clock on Monday morning, as soon as M. Filleul had arrived,
+Ganimard announced the capture which he had made. The prisoner was
+brought downstairs. It was Isidore Beautrelet.
+
+"M. Isidore Beautrelet!" exclaimed M. Filleul with an air of rapture,
+holding out both his hands to the newcomer. "What a delightful
+surprise! Our excellent amateur detective here! And at our disposal
+too! Why, it's a windfall!--M. Chief-inspector, allow me to introduce
+to you M. Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form pupil at the Lycee
+Janson-de-Sailly."
+
+Ganimard seemed a little nonplussed. Isidore made him a very low bow,
+as though he were greeting a colleague whom he knew how to esteem at
+his true value, and, turning to M. Filleul:
+
+"It appears, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that you have received a
+satisfactory account of me?"
+
+"Perfectly satisfactory! To begin with, you were really at
+Veules-les-Roses at the time when Mlle. de Saint-Veran thought she saw
+you in the sunk road. I dare say we shall discover the identity of your
+double. In the second place, you are in very deed Isidore Beautrelet, a
+sixth-form pupil and, what is more, an excellent pupil, industrious at
+your work and of exemplary behavior. As your father lives in the
+country, you go out once a month to his correspondent, M. Bernod, who
+is lavish in his praises of you."
+
+"So that--"
+
+"So that you are free, M. Isidore Beautrelet."
+
+"Absolutely free?"
+
+"Absolutely. Oh, I must make just one little condition, all the same.
+You can understand that I can't release a gentleman who administers
+sleeping-draughts, who escapes by the window and who is afterward
+caught in the act of trespassing upon private property. I can't release
+him without a compensation of some kind."
+
+"I await your pleasure."
+
+"Well, we will resume our interrupted conversation and you shall tell
+me how far you have advanced with your investigations. In two days of
+liberty, you must have carried them pretty far?" And, as Ganimard was
+preparing to go, with an affectation of contempt for that sort of
+practice, the magistrate cried, "Not at all, M. Inspector, your place
+is here--I assure you that M. Isidore Beautrelet is worth listening to.
+M. Isidore Beautrelet, according to my information, has made a great
+reputation at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly as an observer whom nothing
+escapes; and his schoolfellows, I hear, look upon him as your
+competitor and a rival of Holmlock Shears!"
+
+"Indeed!" said Ganimard, ironically.
+
+"Just so. One of them wrote to me, 'If Beautrelet declares that he
+knows, you must believe him; and, whatever he says, you may be sure
+that it is the exact expression of the truth.' M. Isidore Beautrelet,
+now or never is the time to vindicate the confidence of your friends. I
+beseech you, give us the exact expression of the truth."
+
+Isidore listened with a smile and replied:
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you are very cruel. You make fun of
+poor schoolboys who amuse themselves as best they can. You are quite
+right, however, and I will give you no further reason to laugh at me."
+
+"The fact is that you know nothing, M. Isidore Beautrelet."
+
+"Yes, I confess in all humility that I know nothing. For I do not call
+it 'knowing anything' that I happen to have hit upon two or three more
+precise points which, I am sure, cannot have escaped you."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"For instance, the object of the theft."
+
+"Ah, of course, you know the object of the theft?"
+
+"As you do, I have no doubt. In fact, it was the first thing I studied,
+because the task struck me as easier."
+
+"Easier, really?"
+
+"Why, of course. At the most, it's a question of reasoning."
+
+"Nothing more than that?"
+
+"Nothing more."
+
+"And what is your reasoning?"
+
+"It is just this, stripped of all extraneous comment: on the one hand,
+THERE HAS BEEN A THEFT, because the two young ladies are agreed and
+because they really saw two men running away and carrying things with
+them."
+
+"There has been a theft."
+
+"On the other hand, NOTHING HAS DISAPPEARED, because M. de Gesvres says
+so and he is in a better position than anybody to know."
+
+"Nothing has disappeared."
+
+"From those two premises I arrive at this inevitable result: granted
+that there has been a theft and that nothing has disappeared, it is
+because the object carried off has been replaced by an exactly similar
+object. Let me hasten to add that possibly my argument may not be
+confirmed by the facts. But I maintain that it is the first argument
+that ought to occur to us and that we are not entitled to waive it
+until we have made a serious examination."
+
+"That's true--that's true," muttered the magistrate, who was obviously
+interested.
+
+"Now," continued Isidore, "what was there in this room that could
+arouse the covetousness of the burglars? Two things. The tapestry
+first. It can't have been that. Old tapestry cannot be imitated: the
+fraud would have been palpable at once. There remain the four Rubens
+pictures."
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"I say that the four Rubenses on that wall are false."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"They are false a priori, inevitably and without a doubt."
+
+"I tell you, it's impossible."
+
+"It is very nearly a year ago, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, since a
+young man, who gave his name as Charpenais, came to the Chateau
+d'Ambrumesy and asked permission to copy the Rubens pictures. M. de
+Gesvres gave him permission. Every day for five months Charpenais
+worked in this room from morning till dusk. The copies which he made,
+canvases and frames, have taken the place of the four original pictures
+bequeathed to M. de Gesvres by his uncle, the Marques de Bobadilla."
+
+"Prove it!"
+
+"I have no proof to give. A picture is false because it is false; and I
+consider that it is not even necessary to examine these four."
+
+M. Filleul and Ganimard exchanged glances of unconcealed astonishment.
+The inspector no longer thought of withdrawing. At last, the magistrate
+muttered:
+
+"We must have M. de Gesvres's opinion."
+
+And Ganimard agreed:
+
+"Yes, we must have his opinion."
+
+And they sent to beg the count to come to the drawing room.
+
+The young sixth-form pupil had won a real victory. To compel two
+experts, two professionals like M. Filleul and Ganimard to take account
+of his surmises implied a testimony of respect of which any other would
+have been proud. But Beautrelet seemed not to feel those little
+satisfactions of self-conceit and, still smiling without the least
+trace of irony, he placidly waited.
+
+M. de Gesvres entered the room.
+
+"Monsieur le Comte," said the magistrate, "the result of our inquiry
+has brought us face to face with an utterly unexpected contingency,
+which we submit to you with all reserve. It is possible--I say that it
+is possible--that the burglars, when breaking into the house, had it as
+their object to steal your four pictures by Rubens--or, at least, to
+replace them by four copies--copies which are said to have been made
+last year by a painter called Charpenais. Would you be so good as to
+examine the pictures and to tell us if you recognize them as genuine?"
+
+The count appeared to suppress a movement of annoyance, looked at
+Isidore Beautrelet and at M. Filleul and replied, without even
+troubling to go near the pictures:
+
+"I hoped, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that the truth might have
+remained unknown. As this is not so, I have no hesitation in declaring
+that the four pictures are false."
+
+"You knew it, then?"
+
+"From the beginning."
+
+"Why didn't you say so?"
+
+"The owner of a work is never in a hurry to declare that that work is
+not--or, rather, is no longer genuine."
+
+"Still, it was the only means of recovering them."
+
+"I consider that there was another and a better."
+
+"Which was that?"
+
+"Not to make the secret known, not to frighten my burglars and to offer
+to buy back the pictures, which they must find more or less difficult
+to dispose of."
+
+"How would you communicate with them?"
+
+As the count did not reply, Isidore answered for him:
+
+"By means of an advertisement in the papers. The paragraph inserted in
+the agony column of the Journal, the Echo de Paris and the Matin runs,
+'Am prepared to buy back the pictures.'"
+
+The count agreed with a nod. Once again, the young man was teaching his
+elders. M. Filleul showed himself a good sportsman.
+
+"There's no doubt about it, my dear sir," he exclaimed. "I'm beginning
+to think your school-fellows were not quite wrong. By Jove, what an
+eye! What intuition! If this goes on, there will be nothing left for M.
+Ganimard and me to do."
+
+"Oh, none of this part was so very complicated!"
+
+"You mean to say that the rest was more so I remember, in fact, that,
+when we first met you seemed to know all about it. Let me see, a far as
+I recollect, you said that you knew the name of the murderer."
+
+"So I do."
+
+"Well, then, who killed Jean Daval? Is the man alive? Where is he
+hiding?"
+
+"There is a misunderstanding between us, Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction, or, rather, you have misunderstood the facts from the
+beginning The murderer and the runaway are two distinct persons."
+
+"What's that?" exclaimed M. Filleul. "The man whom M. de Gesvres saw in
+the boudoir and struggled with, the man whom the young ladies saw in
+the drawing-room and whom Mlle. de Saint-Veran shot at, the man who
+fell in the park and whom we are looking for: do you suggest that he is
+not the man who killed Jean Daval?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Have you discovered the traces of a third accomplice who disappeared
+before the arrival of the young ladies?"
+
+"I have not."
+
+"In that case, I don't understand.--Well, who is the murderer of Jean
+Daval?"
+
+"Jean Daval was killed by--"
+
+Beautrelet interrupted himself, thought for a moment and continued:
+
+"But I must first show you the road which I followed to arrive at the
+certainty and the very reasons of the murder--without which my
+accusation would seem monstrous to you.--And it is not--no, it is not
+monstrous at all.--There is one detail which has passed unobserved and
+which, nevertheless, is of the greatest importance; and that is that
+Jean Daval, at the moment when he was stabbed, had all his clothes on,
+including his walking boots, was dressed, in short, as a man is dressed
+in the middle of the day, with a waistcoat, collar, tie and braces. Now
+the crime was committed at four o'clock in the morning."
+
+"I reflected on that strange fact," said the magistrate, "and M. de
+Gesvres replied that Jean Daval spent a part of his nights in working."
+
+"The servants say, on the contrary, that he went to bed regularly at a
+very early hour. But, admitting that he was up, why did he disarrange
+his bedclothes, to make believe that he had gone to bed? And, if he was
+in bed, why, when he heard a noise, did he take the trouble to dress
+himself from head to foot, instead of slipping on anything that came to
+hand? I went to his room on the first day, while you were at lunch: his
+slippers were at the foot of the bed. What prevented him from putting
+them on rather than his heavy nailed boots?"
+
+"So far, I do not see--"
+
+"So far, in fact, you cannot see anything, except anomalies. They
+appeared much more suspicious to me, however, when I learned that
+Charpenais the painter, the man who copied the Rubens pictures, had
+been introduced and recommended to the Comte de Gesvres by Jean Daval
+himself."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, from that to the conclusion that Jean Daval and Charpenais were
+accomplices required but a step. I took that step at the time of our
+conversation."
+
+"A little quickly, I think."
+
+"As a matter of fact, a material proof was wanted. Now I had discovered
+in Daval's room, on one of the sheets of the blotting-pad on which he
+used to write, this address: 'Monsieur A.L.N., Post-office 45, Paris.'
+You will find it there still, traced the reverse way on the
+blotting-paper. The next day, it was discovered that the telegram sent
+by the sham flyman from Saint-Nicolas bore the same address: 'A.L.N.,
+Post-office 45.' The material proof existed: Jean Daval was in
+correspondence with the gang which arranged the robbery of the
+pictures."
+
+M. Filleul raised no objection.
+
+"Agreed. The complicity is established. And what conclusion do you
+draw?"
+
+"This, first of all, that it was not the runaway who killed Jean Daval,
+because Jean Daval was his accomplice."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I will ask you to remember the first
+sentence uttered by Monsieur le Comte when he recovered from fainting.
+The sentence forms part of Mlle. de Gesvres' evidence and is in the
+official report: 'I am not wounded.--Daval?--Is he alive?--The knife?'
+And I will ask you to compare it with that part of his story, also in
+the report, in which Monsieur le Comte describes the assault: 'The man
+leaped at me and felled me with a blow on the temple!' How could M. de
+Gesvres, who had fainted, know, on waking, that Daval had been stabbed
+with a knife?"
+
+Isidore Beautrelet did not wait for an answer to his question. It
+seemed as though he were in a hurry to give the answer himself and to
+avoid all comment. He continued straightway:
+
+"Therefore it was Jean Daval who brought the three burglars to the
+drawing room. While he was there with the one whom they call their
+chief, a noise was heard in the boudoir. Daval opened the door.
+Recognizing M. de Gesvres, he rushed at him, armed with the knife. M.
+de Gesvres succeeded in snatching the knife from him, struck him with
+it and himself fell, on receiving a blow from the man whom the two
+girls were to see a few minutes after."
+
+Once again, M. Filleul and the inspector exchanged glances. Ganimard
+tossed his head in a disconcerted way. The magistrate said:
+
+"Monsieur le Comte, am I to believe that this version is correct?"
+
+M. de Gesvres made no answer.
+
+"Come, Monsieur le Comte, your silence would allow us to suppose--I beg you
+to speak."
+
+Replying in a very clear voice, M. de Gesvres said:
+
+"The version is correct in every particular."
+
+The magistrate gave a start.
+
+"Then I cannot understand why you misled the police. Why conceal an act
+which you were lawfully entitled to commit in defense of your life?"
+
+"For twenty years," said M. de Gesvres, "Daval worked by my side. I
+trusted him. If he betrayed me, as the result of some temptation or
+other, I was, at least, unwilling, for the sake of the past, that his
+treachery should become known."
+
+"You were unwilling, I agree, but you had no right to be."
+
+"I am not of your opinion, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. As long as
+no innocent person was accused of the crime, I was absolutely entitled
+to refrain from accusing the man who was at the same time the culprit
+and the victim. He is dead. I consider death a sufficient punishment."
+
+"But now, Monsieur le Comte, now that the truth is known, you can
+speak."
+
+"Yes. Here are two rough drafts of letters written by him to his
+accomplices. I took them from his pocket-book, a few minutes after his
+death."
+
+"And the motive of his theft?"
+
+"Go to 18, Rue de la Barre, at Dieppe, which is the address of a
+certain Mme. Verdier. It was for this woman, whom he got to know two
+years ago, and to supply her constant need of money that Daval turned
+thief."
+
+So everything was cleared up. The tragedy rose out of the darkness and
+gradually appeared in its true light.
+
+"Let us go on," said M. Filluel after the count had withdrawn.
+
+"Upon my word," said Beautrelet, gaily, "I have said almost all that I
+had to say."
+
+"But the runaway, the wounded man?"
+
+"As to that, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you know as much as I do.
+You have followed his tracks in the grass by the cloisters--you have--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. But, since then, his friends have removed him and
+what I want is a clue or two as regards that inn--"
+
+Isidore Beautrelet burst out laughing:
+
+"The inn! The inn does not exist! It's an invention, a trick to put the
+police on the wrong scent, an ingenious trick, too, for it seems to
+have succeeded."
+
+"But Dr. Delattre declares--"
+
+"Ah, that's just it!" cried Beautrelet, in a tone of conviction. "It is
+just because Dr. Delattre declares that we mustn't believe him. Why,
+Dr. Delattre refused to give any but the vaguest details concerning his
+adventure! He refused to say anything that might compromise his
+patient's safety!--And suddenly he calls attention to an inn!--You may
+be sure that he talked about that inn because he was told to. You may
+be sure that the whole story which he dished up to us was dictated to
+him under the threat of terrible reprisals. The doctor has a wife. The
+doctor has a daughter. He is too fond of them to disobey people of
+whose formidable power he has seen proofs. And that is why he has
+assisted your efforts by supplying the most precise clues."
+
+"So precise that the inn is nowhere to be found."
+
+"So precise that you have never ceased looking for it, in the face of
+all probability, and that your eyes have been turned away from the only
+spot where the man can be, the mysterious spot which he has not left,
+which he has been unable to leave ever since the moment when, wounded
+by Mlle. de Saint-Veran, he succeeded in dragging himself to it, like a
+beast to its lair."
+
+"But where, confound it all?--In what corner of Hades--?"
+
+"In the ruins of the old abbey."
+
+"But there are no ruins left!--A few bits of wall!--A few broken
+columns!"
+
+"That's where he's gone to earth. Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction!"
+shouted Beautrelet. "That's where you will have to look for him! It's
+there and nowhere else that you will find Arsene Lupin!"
+
+"Arsene Lupin!" yelled M. Filleul, springing to his feet.
+
+There was a rather solemn pause, amid which the syllables of the famous
+name seemed to prolong their sound. Was it possible that the vanquished
+and yet invisible adversary, whom they had been hunting in vain for
+several days, could really be Arsene Lupin? Arsene Lupin, caught in a
+trap, arrested, meant immediate promotion, fortune, glory to any
+examining magistrate!
+
+Ganimard had not moved a limb. Isidore said to him:
+
+"You agree with me, do you not, M. Inspector?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"You have not doubted either, for a moment have you, that he managed
+this business?"
+
+"Not for a second! The thing bears his signature. A move of Arsene
+Lupin's is as different from a move made by another man as one face is
+from another. You have only to open your eyes."
+
+"Do you think so? Do you think so?" said M. Filleul.
+
+"Think so!" cried the young man. "Look, here's one little fact: what
+are the initials under which those men correspond among themselves? 'A.
+L. N.,' that is to say, the first letter of the name Arsene and the
+first and last letters of the name Lupin."
+
+"Ah," said Ganimard, "nothing escapes you! Upon my word, you're a fine
+fellow and old Ganimard lays down his arms before you!"
+
+Beautrelet flushed with pleasure and pressed the hand which the
+chief-inspector held out to him. The three men had drawn near the
+balcony and their eyes now took in the extent of the ruins. M. Filleul
+muttered:
+
+"So he ought to be there."
+
+"HE IS THERE," said Beautrelet, in a hollow voice. "He has been there
+ever since the moment when he fell. Logically and practically, he could
+not escape without being seen by Mlle. de Saint-Veran and the two
+servants."
+
+"What proof have you?"
+
+"His accomplices have furnished the proof. On the very morning, one of
+them disguised himself as a flyman and drove you here--"
+
+"To recover the cap, which would serve to identify him."
+
+"Very well, but also and more particularly to examine the spot, find
+out and see for himself what had become of the 'governor.'"
+
+"And did he find out?"
+
+"I presume so, as he knew the hiding-place. And I presume that he
+became aware of the desperate condition of his chief, because, under
+the impulse of his alarm, he committed the imprudence to write that
+threat: 'Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!'"
+
+"But his friends were able to take him away afterward?"
+
+"When? Your men have never left the ruins. And where could they have
+moved him to? At most, a few hundred yards away, for one doesn't let a
+dying man travel--and then you would have found him. No, I tell you, he
+is there. His friends would never have removed him from the safest of
+hiding-places. It was there that they brought the doctor, while the
+gendarmes were running to the fire like children."
+
+"But how is he living? How will he keep alive? To keep alive you need
+food and drink."
+
+"I can't say. I don't know. But he is there, I will swear it. He is
+there, because he can't help being there. I am as sure of it as if I
+saw as if I touched him. He is there."
+
+With his finger outstretched toward the ruins, he traced in the air a
+little circle which became smaller and smaller until it was only a
+point. And that point his two companions sought desperately, both
+leaning into space, both moved by the same faith in Beautrelet and
+quivering with the ardent conviction which he had forced upon them.
+Yes, Arsene Lupin was there. In theory and in fact, he was there:
+neither of them was now able to doubt it.
+
+And there was something impressive and tragic in knowing that the
+famous adventurer was lying in some dark shelter, below the ground,
+helpless, feverish and exhausted.
+
+"And if he dies?" asked M. Filleul, in a low voice.
+
+"If he dies," said Beautrelet, "and if his accomplices are sure of it,
+then see to the safety of Mlle. de Saint-Veran. Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction, for the vengeance will be terrible."
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later and in spite of the entreaties of M. Filleul, who
+would gladly have made further use of this fascinating auxiliary,
+Isidore Beautrelet, whose holidays ended that day, went off by the
+Dieppe Road. He stepped from the train in Paris at five o'clock and, at
+eight o'clock, returned to the Lycee Janson together with his
+schoolfellows.
+
+Ganimard, after a minute, but utterly useless exploration of the ruins
+of Ambrumesy, returned to Paris by the fast night-train. On reaching
+his apartment in the Rue Pergolese, he found an express letter awaiting
+him:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monsieur l'Inspecteur Principal:
+
+Finding that I had a little time to spare at the end of the day, I have
+succeeded in collecting a few additional particulars which are sure to
+interest you.
+
+Arsene Lupin has been living in Paris for twelve months under the name
+of Etienne de Vaudreix. It is a name which you will often come across
+in the society notes or the sporting columns of the newspapers. He is a
+great traveler and is absent for long periods, during which, by his own
+account, he goes hunting tigers in Bengal or blue foxes in Siberia. He
+is supposed to be in business of some kind, although nobody is able to
+say for certain what his business is.
+
+His present address is 38, Rue Marbeuf; and I will call your attention
+to the fact that the Rue Marbeuf is close to Post-office Number 45.
+Since Thursday the twenty-third of April, the day before the burglary
+at Ambrumesy, there has been no news at all of Etienne de Vaudreix.
+
+With very many thanks for the kindness which you have shown me, believe
+me to be,
+   Monsieur l'Inspecteur Principal,
+       Yours sincerely,
+         ISIDORE BEAUTRELET.
+
+P.S.--Please on no account think that it cost me any great trouble to
+obtain this information. On the very morning of the crime, while M.
+Filleul was pursuing his examination before a few privileged persons, I
+had the fortunate inspiration to glance at the runaway's cap, before
+the sham flyman came to change it. The hatter's name was enough, as you
+may imagine, to enable me to find the clue that led to the
+identification of the purchaser and his address.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, Ganimard called at 36, Rue Marbeuf. After questioning
+the concierge, he made him open the door of the ground-floor flat on
+the right, a very comfortable apartment, elegantly furnished, in which,
+however, he discovered nothing beyond some cinders in the fireplace.
+Two friends had come, four days earlier, to burn all compromising
+papers.
+
+But, just as he was leaving, Ganimard passed the postman, who was
+bringing a letter for M. de Vaudreix. That afternoon, the public
+prosecutor was informed of the case and ordered the letter to be given
+up. It bore an American postmark and contained the following lines, in
+English:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+I write to confirm the answer which I gave your representative. As soon
+as you have M. de Gesvres's four pictures in your possession, you can
+forward them as arranged.
+
+You may add the rest, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.
+
+An unexpected business requires my presence in Europe and I shall reach
+Paris at the same time as this letter. You will find me at the Grand
+Hotel.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+EPHRAIM B. HARLINGTON.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same day, Ganimard applied for a warrant and took Mr. E. B.
+Harlington, an American citizen, to the police-station, on a charge of
+receiving and conspiracy.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, within the space of twenty-four hours, all the threads of the
+plot had been unraveled, thanks to the really unforeseen clues supplied
+by a schoolboy of seventeen. In twenty-four hours, what had seemed
+inexplicable became simple and clear. In twenty-four hours, the scheme
+devised by the accomplices to save their leader was baffled; the
+capture of Arsene Lupin, wounded and dying, was no longer in doubt, his
+gang was disorganized, the address of his establishment in Paris and
+the name which he assumed were known and, for the first time, one of
+his cleverest and most carefully elaborated feats was seen through
+before he had been able to ensure its complete execution.
+
+An immense clamor of astonishment, admiration and curiosity arose among
+the public. Already, the Rouen journalist, in a very able article, had
+described the first examination of the sixth-form pupil, laying stress
+upon his personal charm, his simplicity of manner and his quiet
+assurance. The indiscretions of Ganimard and M. Filleul, indiscretions
+to which they yielded in spite of themselves, under an impulse that
+proved stronger than their professional pride, suddenly enlightened the
+public as to the part played by Isidore Beautrelet in recent events. He
+alone had done everything. To him alone the merit of the victory was
+due.
+
+The excitement was intense. Isidore Beautrelet awoke to find himself a
+hero; and the crowd, suddenly infatuated, insisted upon the fullest
+information regarding its new favorite. The reporters were there to
+supply it. They rushed to the assault of the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly,
+waited for the day-boarders to come out after schoolhours and picked up
+all that related, however remotely, to Beautrelet. It was in this way
+that they learned the reputation which he enjoyed among his
+schoolfellows, who called him the rival of Holmlock Shears. Thanks to
+his powers of logical reasoning, with no further data than those which
+he was able to gather from the papers, he had, time after time,
+proclaimed the solution of very complicated cases long before they were
+cleared up by the police.
+
+It had become a game at the Lycee Janson to put difficult questions and
+intricate problems to Beautrelet; and it was astonishing to see with
+what unhesitating and analytical power and by means of what ingenious
+deductions he made his way through the thickest darkness. Ten days
+before the arrest of Jorisse, the grocer, he showed what could be done
+with the famous umbrella. In the same way, he declared from the
+beginning, in the matter of the Saint-Cloud mystery, that the concierge
+was the only possible murderer.
+
+But most curious of all was the pamphlet which was found circulating
+among the boys at the school, a typewritten pamphlet signed by
+Beautrelet and manifolded to the number of ten copies. It was entitled,
+ARSENE LUPIN AND HIS METHOD, SHOWING IN HOW FAR THE LATTER IS BASED
+UPON TRADITION AND IN HOW FAR ORIGINAL. FOLLOWED BY A COMPARISON
+BETWEEN ENGLISH HUMOR AND FRENCH IRONY.
+
+It contained a profound study of each of the exploits of Arsene Lupin,
+throwing the illustrious burglar's operations into extraordinary
+relief, showing the very mechanism of his way of setting to work, his
+special tactics, his letters to the press, his threats, the
+announcement of his thefts, in short, the whole bag of tricks which he
+employed to bamboozle his selected victim and throw him into such a
+state of mind that the victim almost offered himself to the plot
+contrived against him and that everything took place, as it were, with
+his own consent.
+
+And the work was so just, regarded as a piece of criticism, so
+penetrating, so lively and marked by a wit so clever and, at the same
+time, so cruel that the lawyers at once passed over to his side, that
+the sympathy of the crowd was summarily transferred from Lupin to
+Beautrelet and that, in the struggle engaged upon between the two, the
+schoolboy's victory was loudly proclaimed in advance.
+
+Be this as it may, both M. Filleul and the Paris public prosecutor
+seemed jealously to reserve the possibility of this victory for him. On
+the one hand, they failed to establish Mr. Harlington's identity or to
+furnish a definite proof of his connection with Lupin's gang.
+Confederate or not, he preserved an obstinate silence. Nay, more, after
+examining his handwriting, it was impossible to declare that he was the
+author of the intercepted letter. A Mr. Harlington, carrying a small
+portmanteau and a pocket-book stuffed with bank-notes, had taken up his
+abode at the Grand Hotel: that was all that could be stated with
+certainty.
+
+On the other hand, at Dieppe, M. Filleul lay down on the positions
+which Beautrelet had won for him. He did not move a step forward.
+Around the individual whom Mlle. de Saint-Veran had taken for
+Beautrelet, on the eve of the crime, the same mystery reigned as
+heretofore. The same obscurity also surrounded everything connected
+with the removal of the four Rubens pictures. What had become of them?
+And what road had been taken by the motor car in which they were
+carried off during the night?
+
+Evidence of its passing was obtained at Luneray at Yerville, at Yvetot
+and at Caudebec-en-Caux, where it must have crossed the Seine at
+daybreak in the steam-ferry. But, when the matter came to be inquired
+into more thoroughly, it was stated that the motor car was an uncovered
+one and that it would have been impossible to pack four large pictures
+into it unobserved by the ferryman.
+
+It was very probably the same car; but then the question cropped up
+again: what had become of the four Rubenses?
+
+These were so many problems which M. Filleul unanswered. Every day, his
+subordinates searched the quadrilateral of the ruins. Almost every day,
+he came to direct the explorations. But between that and discovering
+the refuge in which Lupin lay dying--if it were true that Beautrelet's
+opinion was correct--there was a gulf fixed which the worthy magistrate
+did not seem likely to cross.
+
+And so it was natural that they should turn once more to Isidore
+Beautrelet, as he alone had succeeded in dispelling shadows which, in
+his absence, gathered thicker and more impenetrable than ever. Why did
+he not go on with the case? Seeing how far he had carried it, he
+required but an effort to succeed.
+
+The question was put to him by a member of the staff of the Grand
+Journal, who had obtained admission to the Lycee Janson by assuming the
+name of Bernod, the friend of Beautrelet's father. And Isidore very
+sensibly replied:
+
+"My dear sir, there are other things besides Lupin in this world, other
+things besides stories about burglars and detectives. There is, for
+instance, the thing which is known as taking one's degree. Now I am
+going up for my examination in July. This is May. And I don't want to
+be plucked. What would my worthy parent say?"
+
+"But what would he say if you delivered Arsene Lupin into the hands of
+the police?"
+
+"Tut! There's a time for everything. In the next holidays--"
+
+"Whitsuntide?"
+
+"Yes--I shall go down on Saturday the sixth of June by the first train."
+
+"And, on the evening of that Saturday, Lupin will be taken."
+
+"Will you give me until the Sunday?" asked Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+"Why delay?" replied the journalist, quite seriously.
+
+This inexplicable confidence, born of yesterday and already so strong,
+was felt with regard to the young man by one and all, even though, in
+reality, events had justified it only up to a certain point. No matter,
+people believed in him! Nothing seemed difficult to him. They expected
+from him what they were entitled to expect at most from some phenomenon
+of penetration and intuition, of experience and skill. That day of the
+sixth of June was made to sprawl over all the papers. On the sixth of
+June, Isidore Beautrelet would take the fast train to Dieppe: and Lupin
+would be arrested on the same evening.
+
+"Unless he escapes between this and then," objected the last remaining
+partisans of the adventurer.
+
+"Impossible! Every outlet is watched."
+
+"Unless he has succumbed to his wounds, then," said the partisans, who
+would have preferred their hero's death to his capture.
+
+And the retort was immediate:
+
+"Nonsense! If Lupin were dead, his confederates would know it by now,
+and Lupin would be revenged. Beautrelet said so!"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+And the sixth of June came. Half a dozen journalists were looking out
+for Isidore at the Gare Saint-Lazare. Two of them wanted to accompany
+him on his journey. He begged them to refrain.
+
+He started alone, therefore, in a compartment to himself. He was tired,
+thanks to a series of nights devoted to study, and soon fell asleep. He
+slept heavily. In his dreams, he had an impression that the train
+stopped at different stations and that people got in and out. When he
+awoke, within sight of Rouen, he was still alone. But, on the back of
+the opposite seat, was a large sheet of paper, fastened with a pin to
+the gray cloth. It bore these words:
+
+  "Every man should mind his own business. Do you mind yours.
+  If not, you must take the consequences."
+
+"Capital!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with delight. "Things are
+going badly in the adversary's camp. That threat is as stupid and
+vulgar as the sham flyman's. What a style! One can see that it wasn't
+composed by Lupin."
+
+The train threaded the tunnel that precedes the old Norman city. On
+reaching the station, Isidore took a few turns on the platform to
+stretch his legs. He was about to re-enter his compartment, when a cry
+escaped him. As he passed the bookstall, he had read, in an
+absent-minded way, the following lines on the front page of a special
+edition of the Journal de Rouen; and their alarming sense suddenly
+burst upon him:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+STOP-PRESS NEWS
+
+We hear by telephone from Dieppe that the Chateau d'Ambrumesy was
+broken into last night by criminals, who bound and gagged Mlle. de
+Gesvres and carried off Mlle. de Saint-Veran. Traces of blood have been
+seen at a distance of five hundred yards from the house and a scarf has
+been found close by, which is also stained with blood. There is every
+reason to fear that the poor young girl has been murdered.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isidore Beautrelet completed his journey to Dieppe without moving a
+limb. Bent in two, with his elbows on his knees and his hands plastered
+against his face, he sat thinking.
+
+At Dieppe, he took a fly. At the door of Ambrumesy, he met the
+examining magistrate, who confirmed the horrible news.
+
+"You know nothing more?" asked Beautrelet.
+
+"Nothing. I have only just arrived."
+
+At that moment, the sergeant of gendarmes came up to M. Filleul and
+handed him a crumpled, torn and discolored piece of paper, which he had
+picked up not far from the place where the scarf was found. M. Filleul
+looked at it and gave it to Beautrelet, saying:
+
+"I don't suppose this will help us much in our investigations."
+
+Isidore turned the paper over and over. It was covered with figures,
+dots and signs and presented the exact appearance reproduced below:
+
+[Illustration: drawing of an outline of paper with writing and drawing
+on it--numbers, dots, some letters, signs and symbols, something like...
+
+   2.1.1..2..2.1..1..
+   1...2.2.   2.43.2..2.
+   .45..2.4...2..2.4..2
+   D DF square 19F+44triangle357triangle
+   13.53..2   ..25.2
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+THE CORPSE
+
+
+At six o'clock in the evening, having finished all he had to do, M.
+Filluel, accompanied by M. Bredoux, his clerk, stood waiting for the
+carriage which was to take him back to Dieppe. He seemed restless,
+nervous. Twice over, he asked:
+
+"You haven't seen anything of young Beautrelet, I suppose?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I can't say I have."
+
+"Where on earth can he be? I haven't set eyes on him all day!"
+
+Suddenly, he had an idea, handed his portfolio to Bredoux, ran round
+the chateau and made for the ruins. Isidore Beautrelet was lying near
+the cloisters, flat on his face, with one arm folded under his head, on
+the ground carpeted with pine-needles. He seemed drowsing.
+
+"Hullo, young man, what are you doing here? Are you asleep?"
+
+"I'm not asleep. I've been thinking."
+
+"Ever since this morning?"
+
+"Ever since this morning."
+
+"It's not a question of thinking! One must see into things first, study
+facts, look for clues, establish connecting links. The time for
+thinking comes after, when one pieces all that together and discovers
+the truth."
+
+"Yes, I know.--That's the usual way, the right one, I dare say.--Mine
+is different.--I think first, I try, above all, to get the general hang
+of the case, if I may so express myself. Then I imagine a reasonable
+and logical hypothesis, which fits in with the general idea. And then,
+and not before, I examine the facts to see if they agree with my
+hypothesis."
+
+"That's a funny method and a terribly complicated one!"
+
+"It's a sure method, M. Filleul, which is more than can be said of
+yours."
+
+"Come, come! Facts are facts."
+
+"With your ordinary sort of adversary, yes. But, given an enemy endowed
+with a certain amount of cunning, the facts are those which he happens
+to have selected. Take the famous clues upon which you base your
+inquiry: why, he was at liberty to arrange them as he liked. And you
+see where that can lead you, into what mistakes and absurdities, when
+you are dealing with a man like Arsene Lupin. Holmlock Shears himself
+fell into the trap."
+
+"Arsene Lupin is dead."
+
+"No matter. His gang remains and the pupils of such a master are
+masters themselves."
+
+M. Filleul took Isidore by the arm and, leading him away:
+
+"Words, young man, words. Here is something of more importance. Listen
+to me. Ganimard is otherwise engaged at this moment and will not be
+here for a few days. On the other hand, the Comte de Gesvres has
+telegraphed to Holmlock Shears, who has promised his assistance next
+week. Now don't you think, young man, that it would be a feather in our
+cap if we were able to say to those two celebrities, on the day of
+their arrival, 'Awfully sorry, gentlemen, but we couldn't wait. The
+business is done'?"
+
+It was impossible for M. Filleul to confess helplessness with greater
+candor. Beautrelet suppressed a smile and, pretending not to see
+through the worthy magistrate, replied:
+
+"I confess. Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that, if I was not present
+at your inquiry just now, it was because I hoped that you would consent
+to tell me the results. May I ask what you have learned?"
+
+"Well, last night, at eleven o'clock, the three gendarmes whom Sergeant
+Quevillon had left on guard at the chateau received a note from the
+sergeant telling them to hasten with all speed to Ouville, where they
+are stationed. They at once rode off, and when they arrived at
+Ouville--"
+
+"They discovered that they had been tricked, that the order was a
+forgery and that there was nothing for them to do but return to
+Ambrumesy."
+
+"This they did, accompanied by Sergeant Quevillon. But they were away
+for an hour and a half and, during this time, the crime was committed."
+
+"In what circumstances?"
+
+"Very simple circumstances, indeed. A ladder was removed from the farm
+buildings and placed against the second story of the chateau. A pane of
+glass was cut out and a window opened. Two men, carrying a dark
+lantern, entered Mlle. de Gesvres's room and gagged her before she
+could cry out. Then, after binding her with cords, they softly opened
+the door of the room in which Mlle. de Saint-Veran was sleeping. Mlle.
+de Gesvres heard a stifled moan, followed by the sound of a person
+struggling. A moment later, she saw two men carrying her cousin, who
+was also bound and gagged. They passed in front of her and went out
+through the window. Then Mlle. de Gesvres, terrified and exhausted,
+fainted."
+
+"But what about the dogs? I thought M. de Gesvres had bought two almost
+wild sheep-dogs, which were let loose at night?"
+
+"They were found dead, poisoned."
+
+"By whom? Nobody could get near them."
+
+"It's a mystery. The fact remains that the two men crossed the ruins
+without let or hindrance and went out by the little door which we have
+heard so much about. They passed through the copsewood, following the
+line of the disused quarries. It was not until they were nearly half a
+mile from the chateau, at the foot of the tree known as the Great Oak,
+that they stopped--and executed their purpose."
+
+"If they came with the intention of killing Mlle. de Saint-Veran, why
+didn't they murder her in her room?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps the incident that settled their determination
+only occurred after they had left the house. Perhaps the girl succeeded
+in releasing herself from her bonds. In my opinion, the scarf which was
+picked up was used to fasten her wrists. In any case, the blow was
+struck at the foot of the Great Oak. I have collected indisputable
+proofs--"
+
+"But the body?"
+
+"The body has not been found, but there is nothing excessively
+surprising in that. As a matter of fact, the trail which I followed
+brought me to the church at Varengeville and the old cemetery perched
+on the top of the cliff. From there it is a sheer precipice, a fall of
+over three hundred feet to the rocks and the sea below. In a day or
+two, a stronger tide than usual will cast up the body on the beach."
+
+"Obviously. This is all very simple."
+
+"Yes, it is all very simple and doesn't trouble me in the least. Lupin
+is dead, his accomplices heard of it and, to revenge themselves, have
+killed Mlle. de Saint-Veran. These are facts which did not even require
+checking. But Lupin?"
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"What has become of him? In all probability, his confederates removed
+his corpse at the same time that they carried away the girl; but what
+proof have we? None at all. Any more than of his staying in the ruins,
+or of his death, or of his life. And that is the real mystery, M.
+Beautrelet. The murder of Mlle. Raymonde solves nothing. On the
+contrary, it only complicates matters. What has been happening during
+the past two months at the Chateau d'Ambrumesy? If we don't clear up
+the riddle, young man, others will give us the go-by."
+
+"On what day are those others coming?"
+
+"Wednesday--Tuesday perhaps--"
+
+Beautrelet seemed to be making an inward calculation and then declared:
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, this is Saturday. I have to be back at
+school on Monday evening. Well, if you will have the goodness to be
+here at ten o'clock exactly on Monday morning, I will try to give you
+the key to the riddle."
+
+"Really, M. Beautrelet--do you think so? Are you sure?"
+
+"I hope so, at any rate."
+
+"And where are you going now?"
+
+"I am going to see if the facts consent to fit in with the general
+theory which I am beginning to perceive."
+
+"And if they don't fit in?"
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction," said Beautrelet, with a laugh,
+"then it will be their fault and I must look for others which, will
+prove more tractable. Till Monday, then?"
+
+"Till Monday."
+
+A few minutes later, M. Filleul was driving toward Dieppe, while
+Isidore mounted a bicycle which he had borrowed from the Comte de
+Gesvres and rode off along the road to Yerville and Caudebec-en-Caux.
+
+There was one point in particular on which the young man was anxious to
+form a clear opinion, because this just appeared to him to be the
+enemy's weakest point. Objects of the size of the four Rubens pictures
+cannot be juggled away. They were bound to be somewhere. Granting that
+it was impossible to find them for the moment, might one not discover
+the road by which they had disappeared?
+
+What Beautrelet surmised was that the four pictures had undoubtedly
+been carried off in the motor car, but that, before reaching Caudebec,
+they were transferred to another car, which had crossed the Seine
+either above Caudebec or below it. Now the first horse-boat down the
+stream was at Quillebeuf, a greatly frequented ferry and, consequently,
+dangerous. Up stream, there was the ferry-boat at La Mailleraie, a
+large, but lonely market-town, lying well off the main road.
+
+By midnight, Isidore had covered the thirty-five or forty miles to La
+Mailleraie and was knocking at the door of an inn by the waterside. He
+slept there and, in the morning, questioned the ferrymen.
+
+They consulted the counterfoils in the traffic-book. No motor-car had
+crossed on Thursday the 23rd of April.
+
+"A horse-drawn vehicle, then?" suggested Beautrelet. "A cart? A van?"
+
+"No, not either."
+
+Isidore continued his inquiries all through the morning. He was on the
+point of leaving for Quillebeuf, when the waiter of the inn at which he
+had spent the night said:
+
+"I came back from my thirteen days' training on the morning of which
+you are speaking and I saw a cart, but it did not go across."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"No, they unloaded it onto a flat boat, a barge of sorts, which was
+moored to the wharf."
+
+"And where did the cart come from?"
+
+"Oh, I knew it at once. It belonged to Master Vatinel, the carter."
+
+"And where does he live?"
+
+"At Louvetot."
+
+Beautrelet consulted his military map. The hamlet of Louvetot lay where
+the highroad between Yvetot and Caudebec was crossed by a little
+winding road that ran through the woods to La Mailleraie.
+
+Not until six o'clock in the evening did Isidore succeed in discovering
+Master Vatinel, in a pothouse. Master Vatinel was one of those artful
+old Normans who are always on their guard, who distrust strangers, but
+who are unable to resist the lure of a gold coin or the influence of a
+glass or two:
+
+"Well, yes, sir, the men in the motor car that morning had told me to
+meet them at five o'clock at the crossroads. They gave me four great,
+big things, as high as that. One of them went with me and we carted the
+things to the barge."
+
+"You speak of them as if you knew them before."
+
+"I should think I did know them! It was the sixth time they were
+employing me."
+
+Isidore gave a start:
+
+"The sixth time, you say? And since when?"
+
+"Why every day before that one, to be sure! But it was other things
+then--great blocks of stone--or else smaller, longish ones, wrapped up
+in newspapers, which they carried as if they were worth I don't know
+what. Oh, I mustn't touch those on any account!--But what's the matter?
+You've turned quite white."
+
+"Nothing--the heat of the room--"
+
+Beautrelet staggered out into the air. The joy, the surprise of the
+discovery made him feel giddy. He went back very quietly to
+Varengeville, slept in the village, spent an hour at the mayor's
+offices with the school-master and returned to the chateau. There he
+found a letter awaiting him "care of M. le Comte de Gesvres." It
+consisted of a single line:
+
+"Second warning. Hold your tongue. If not--"
+
+"Come," he muttered. "I shall have to make up my mind and take a few
+precautions for my personal safety. If not, as they say--"
+
+It was nine o'clock. He strolled about among the ruins and then lay
+down near the cloisters and closed his eyes.
+
+"Well, young man, are you satisfied with the results of your campaign?"
+
+It was M. Filleul.
+
+"Delighted, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction."
+
+"By which you mean to say--?"
+
+"By which I mean to say that I am prepared to keep my promise--in spite
+of this very uninviting letter."
+
+He showed the letter to M. Filleul.
+
+"Pooh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the magistrate. "I hope you won't let
+that prevent you--"
+
+"From telling you what I know? No, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. I
+have given my word and I shall keep it. In less than ten minutes, you
+shall know--a part of the truth."
+
+"A part?"
+
+"Yes, in my opinion, Lupin's hiding-place does not constitute the whole
+of the problem. Far from it. But we shall see later on."
+
+"M. Beautrelet, nothing that you do could astonish me now. But how were
+you able to discover--?"
+
+"Oh, in a very natural way! In the letter from old man Harlington to M.
+Etienne de Vaudreix, or rather to Lupin--"
+
+"The intercepted letter?"
+
+"Yes. There is a phrase which always puzzled me. After saying that the
+pictures are to be forwarded as arranged, he goes on to say, 'You may
+add THE REST, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.'"
+
+"Yes, I remember."
+
+"What was this 'rest'? A work of art, a curiosity? The chateau contains
+nothing of any value besides the Rubenses and the tapestries. Jewelry?
+There is very little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that
+case, what could it be?--On the other hand, was it conceivable that
+people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in
+adding 'the rest,' which they themselves had evidently suggested? A
+difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare
+say; but possible and therefore certain, since Lupin wished it."
+
+"And yet he failed: nothing has disappeared."
+
+"He did not fail: something has disappeared."
+
+"Yes, the Rubenses--but--"
+
+"The Rubenses and something besides--something which has been replaced
+by a similar thing, as in the case of the Rubenses; something much more
+uncommon, much rarer, much more valuable than the Rubenses."
+
+"Well, what? You're killing me with this procrastination!"
+
+While talking, the two men had crossed the ruins, turned toward the
+little door and were now walking beside the chapel. Beautrelet stopped:
+
+"Do you really want to know, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction?"
+
+"Of course, I do."
+
+Beautrelet was carrying a walking-stick, a strong, knotted stick.
+Suddenly, with a back stroke of this stick, he smashed one of the
+little statues that adorned the front of the chapel.
+
+"Why, you're mad!" shouted M. Filleul, beside himself, rushing at the
+broken pieces of the statue. "You're mad! That old saint was an
+admirable bit of work--"
+
+"An admirable bit of work!" echoed Isidore, giving a whirl which
+brought down the Virgin Mary.
+
+M. Filleul took hold of him round the body:
+
+"Young man, I won't allow you to commit--"
+
+A wise man of the East came toppling to the ground, followed by a
+manger containing the Mother and Child. . . .
+
+"If you stir another limb, I fire!"
+
+The Comte de Gesvres had appeared upon the scene and was cocking his
+revolver. Beautrelet burst out laughing:
+
+"That's right, Monsieur le Comte, blaze away!--Take a shot at them, as
+if you were at a fair!--Wait a bit--this chap carrying his head in his
+hands--"
+
+St. John the Baptist fell, shattered to pieces.
+
+"Oh!" shouted the count, pointing his revolver. "You young
+vandal!--Those masterpieces!"
+
+"Sham, Monsieur le Comte!"
+
+"What? What's that?" roared M. Filleul, wresting the Comte de Gesvres's
+weapon from him.
+
+"Sham!" repeated Beautrelet. "Paper-pulp and plaster!"
+
+"Oh, nonsense! It can't be true!"
+
+"Hollow plaster, I tell you! Nothing at all!"
+
+The count stooped and picked up a sliver of a statuette.
+
+"Look at it, Monsieur le Comte, and see for yourself: it's plaster!
+Rusty, musty, mildewed plaster, made to look like old stone--but
+plaster for all that, plaster casts!--That's all that remains of your
+perfect masterpiece!--That's what they've done in just a few
+days!-That's what the Sieur Charpenais who copied the Rubenses,
+prepared a year ago." He seized M. Filleul's arm in his turn. "What do
+you think of it, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction? Isn't it fine? Isn't
+it grand? Isn't it gorgeous? The chapel has been removed! A whole
+Gothic chapel collected stone by stone! A whole population of statues
+captured and replaced by these chaps in stucco! One of the most
+magnificent specimens of an incomparable artistic period confiscated!
+The chapel, in short, stolen! Isn't it immense? Ah, Monsieur le Juge
+d'Instruction, what a genius the man is!"
+
+"You're allowing yourself to be carried away, M. Beautrelet."
+
+"One can't be carried away too much, monsieur, when one has to do with
+people like that. Everything above the average deserves our admiration.
+And this man soars above everything. There is in his flight a wealth of
+imagination, a force and power, a skill and freedom that send a thrill
+through me!"
+
+"Pity he's dead," said M. Filleul, with a grin. "He'd have ended by
+stealing the towers of Notre-Dame."
+
+Isidore shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Don't laugh, monsieur. He upsets you, dead though he may be."
+
+"I don't say not, I don't say not, M. Beautrelet, I confess that I feel
+a certain excitement now that I am about to set eyes on him--unless,
+indeed, his friends have taken away the body."
+
+"And always admitting," observed the Comte de Gesvres, "that it was
+really he who was wounded by my poor niece."
+
+"It was he, beyond a doubt, Monsieur le Comte," declared Beautrelet;
+"it was he, believe me, who fell in the ruins under the shot fired by
+Mlle. de Saint-Veran; it was he whom she saw rise and who fell again
+and dragged himself toward the cloisters to rise again for the last
+time--this by a miracle which I will explain to you presently--to rise
+again for the last time and reach this stone shelter--which was to be
+his tomb."
+
+And Beautrelet struck the threshold of the chapel with his stick.
+
+"Eh? What?" cried M. Filleul, taken aback. "His tomb?--Do you think
+that that impenetrable hiding-place--"
+
+"It was here--there," he repeated.
+
+"But we searched it."
+
+"Badly."
+
+"There is no hiding-place here," protested M. de Gesvres. "I know the
+chapel."
+
+"Yes, there is, Monsieur le Comte. Go to the mayor's office at
+Varengeville, where they have collected all the papers that used to be
+in the old parish of Ambrumesy, and you will learn from those papers,
+which belong to the eighteenth century, that there is a crypt below the
+chapel. This crypt doubtless dates back to the Roman chapel, upon the
+site of which the present one was built."
+
+"But how can Lupin have known this detail?" asked M. Filleul.
+
+"In a very simple manner: because of the works which he had to execute
+to take away the chapel."
+
+"Come, come, M. Beautrelet, you're exaggerating. He has not taken away
+the whole chapel. Look, not one of the stones of this top course has
+been touched."
+
+"Obviously, he cast and took away only what had a financial value: the
+wrought stones, the sculptures, the statuettes, the whole treasure of
+little columns and carved arches. He did not trouble about the
+groundwork of the building itself. The foundations remain."
+
+"Therefore, M. Beautrelet, Lupin was not able to make his way into the
+crypt."
+
+At that moment, M. de Gesvres, who had been to call a servant, returned
+with the key of the chapel. He opened the door. The three men entered.
+After a short examination Beautrelet said:
+
+"The flag-stones on the ground have been respected, as one might
+expect. But it is easy to perceive that the high altar is nothing more
+than a cast. Now, generally, the staircase leading to the crypt opens
+in front of the high altar and passes under it."
+
+"What do you conclude?"
+
+"I conclude that Lupin discovered the crypt when working at the altar."
+
+The count sent for a pickaxe and Beautrelet attacked the altar. The
+plaster flew to right and left. He pushed the pieces aside as he went
+on.
+
+"By Jove!" muttered M. Filleul, "I am eager to know--"
+
+"So am I," said Beautrelet, whose face was pale with anguish.
+
+He hurried his blows. And, suddenly, his pickaxe, which, until then,
+had encountered no resistance, struck against a harder material and
+rebounded. There was a sound of something falling in; and all that
+remained of the altar went tumbling into the gap after the block of
+stone which had been struck by the pickaxe. Beautrelet bent forward. A
+puff of cold air rose to his face. He lit a match and moved it from
+side to side over the gap:
+
+"The staircase begins farther forward than I expected, under the
+entrance-flags, almost. I can see the last steps, there, right at the
+bottom."
+
+"Is it deep?"
+
+"Three or four yards. The steps are very high--and there are some
+missing."
+
+"It is hardly likely," said M. Filleul, "that the accomplices can have
+had time to remove the body from the cellar, when they were engaged in
+carrying off Mlle. de Saint-Veran--during the short absence of the
+gendarmes. Besides, why should they?--No, in my opinion, the body is
+here."
+
+A servant brought them a ladder. Beautrelet let it down through the
+opening and fixed it, after groping among the fallen fragments. Holding
+the two uprights firmly:
+
+"Will you go down, M. Filleul?" he asked.
+
+The magistrate, holding a candle in his hand, ventured down the ladder.
+The Comte de Gesvres followed him and Beautrelet, in his turn, placed
+his foot on the first rung.
+
+Mechanically, he counted eighteen rungs, while his eyes examined the
+crypt, where the glimmer of the candle struggled against the heavy
+darkness. But, at the bottom, his nostrils were assailed by one of
+those foul and violent smells which linger in the memory for many a
+long day. And, suddenly, a trembling hand seized him by the shoulder.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"B-beautrelet," stammered M. Filleul. "B-beau-trelet--"
+
+He could not get a word out for terror.
+
+"Come, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, compose yourself!"
+
+"Beautrelet--he is there--"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Yes--there was something under the big stone that broke off the
+altar--I pushed the stone--and I touched--I shall never--shall never
+forget.--"
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"On this side.--Don't you notice the smell?--And then look--see."
+
+He took the candle and held it towards a motionless form stretched upon
+the ground.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Beautrelet, in a horror-stricken tone.
+
+The three men bent down quickly. The corpse lay half-naked, lean,
+frightful. The flesh, which had the greenish hue of soft wax, appeared
+in places through the torn clothes. But the most hideous thing, the
+thing that had drawn a cry of terror from the young man's lips, was the
+head, the head which had just been crushed by the block of stone, the
+shapeless head, a repulsive mass in which not one feature could be
+distinguished.
+
+Beautrelet took four strides up the ladder and fled into the daylight
+and the open air.
+
+M. Filleul found him again lying flat on the around, with his hands
+glued to his face:
+
+"I congratulate you, Beautrelet," he said. "In addition to the
+discovery of the hiding-place, there are two points on which I have
+been able to verify the correctness of your assertions. First of all,
+the man on whom Mlle. de Saint-Veran fired was indeed Arsene Lupin, as
+you said from the start. Also, he lived in Paris under the name of
+Etienne de Vaudreix. His linen is marked with the initials E. V. That
+ought to be sufficient proof, I think: don't you?"
+
+Isidore did not stir.
+
+"Monsieur le Comte has gone to have a horse put to. They're sending for
+Dr. Jouet, who will make the usual examination. In my opinion, death
+must have taken place a week ago, at least. The state of decomposition
+of the corpse--but you don't seem to be listening--"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"What I say is based upon absolute reasons. Thus, for instance--"
+
+M. Filleul continued his demonstrations, without, however, obtaining
+any more manifest marks of attention. But M. de Gesvres's return
+interrupted his monologue. The comte brought two letters. One was to
+tell him that Holmlock Shears would arrive next morning.
+
+"Capital!" cried M. Filleul, joyfully. "Inspector Ganimard will be here
+too. It will be delightful."
+
+"The other letter is for you, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction," said the
+comte.
+
+"Better and better," said M. Filleul, after reading it. "There will
+certainly not be much for those two gentlemen to do. M. Beautrelet, I
+hear from Dieppe that the body of a young woman was found by some
+shrimpers, this morning, on the rocks."
+
+Beautrelet gave a start:
+
+"What's that? The body--"
+
+"Of a young woman.--The body is horribly mutilated, they say, and it
+would be impossible to establish the identity, but for a very narrow
+little gold curb-bracelet on the right arm which has become encrusted
+in the swollen skin. Now Mlle. de Saint-Veran used to wear a gold
+curb-bracelet on her right arm. Evidently, therefore, Monsieur le
+Comte, this is the body of your poor niece, which the sea must have
+washed to that distance. What do you think, Beautrelet?"
+
+"Nothing--nothing--or, rather, yes--everything is connected, as you
+see--and there is no link missing in my argument. All the facts, one
+after the other, however contradictory, however disconcerting they may
+appear, end by supporting the supposition which I imagined from the
+first."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You soon will. Remember, I promised you the whole truth."
+
+"But it seems to me--"
+
+"A little patience, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. So far, you have
+had no cause to complain of me. It is a fine day. Go for a walk, lunch
+at the chateau, smoke your pipe. I shall be back by four o'clock. As
+for my school, well, I don't care: I shall take the night train."
+
+They had reached the out-houses at the back of the chateau. Beautrelet
+jumped on his bicycle and rode away.
+
+At Dieppe, he stopped at the office of the local paper, the Vigie, and
+examined the file for the last fortnight. Then he went on to the
+market-town of Envermeu, six or seven miles farther. At Envermeu, he
+talked to the mayor, the rector and the local policeman. The
+church-clock struck three. His inquiry was finished.
+
+He returned singing for joy. He pressed upon the two pedals turn by
+turn, with an equal and powerful rhythm; his chest opened wide to take
+in the keen air that blew from the sea. And, from time to time, he
+forgot himself to the extent of uttering shouts of triumph to the sky,
+when he thought of the aim which he was pursuing and of the success
+that was crowning his efforts.
+
+Ambrumesy appeared in sight. He coasted at full speed down the slope
+leading to the chateau. The top rows of venerable trees that line the
+road seemed to run to meet him and to vanish behind him forthwith. And,
+all at once, he uttered a cry. In a sudden vision, he had seen a rope
+stretched from one tree to another, across the road.
+
+His machine gave a jolt and stopped short. Beautrelet was flung three
+yards forward, with immense violence, and it seemed to him that only
+chance, a miraculous chance, caused him to escape a heap of pebbles on
+which, logically, he ought to have broken his head.
+
+He lay for a few seconds stunned. Then, all covered with bruises, with
+the skin flayed from his knees, he examined the spot. On the right lay
+a small wood, by which his aggressor had no doubt fled. Beautrelet
+untied the rope. To the tree on the left around which it was fastened a
+small piece of paper was fixed with string. Beautrelet unfolded it and
+read:
+
+"The third and last warning."
+
+He went on to the chateau, put a few questions to the servants and
+joined the examining magistrate in a room on the ground floor, at the
+end of the right wing, where M. Filleul used to sit in the course of
+his operations. M. Filleul was writing, with his clerk seated opposite
+to him. At a sign from him, the clerk left the room; and the magistrate
+exclaimed:
+
+"Why, what have you been doing to yourself, M. Beautrelet? Your hands
+are covered with blood."
+
+"It's nothing, it's nothing," said the young man. "Just a fall
+occasioned by this rope, which was stretched in front of my bicycle. I
+will only ask you to observe that the rope comes from the chateau. Not
+longer than twenty minutes ago, it was being used to dry linen on,
+outside the laundry."
+
+"You don't mean to say so!"
+
+"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I am being watched here, by some one
+in the very heart of the place, who can see me, who can hear me and
+who, minute by minute, observes my actions and knows my intentions."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it. It is for you to discover him and you will have no
+difficulty in that. As for myself, I want to have finished and to give
+you the promised explanations. I have made faster progress than our
+adversaries expected and I am convinced that they mean to take vigorous
+measures on their side. The circle is closing around me. The danger is
+approaching. I feel it."
+
+"Nonsense, Beautrelet--"
+
+"You wait and see! For the moment, let us lose no time. And, first, a
+question on a point which I want to have done with at once. Have you
+spoken to anybody of that document which Sergeant Quevillon picked up
+and handed you in my presence?"
+
+"No, indeed; not to a soul. But do you attach any value--?"
+
+"The greatest value. It's an idea of mine, an idea, I confess, which
+does not rest upon a proof of any kind--for, up to the present, I have
+not succeeded in deciphering the document. And therefore I am
+mentioning it--so that we need not come back to it."
+
+Beautrelet pressed his hand on M. Filleul's and whispered:
+
+"Don't speak--there's some one listening--outside--"
+
+The gravel creaked. Beautrelet ran to the window and leaned out:
+
+"There's no one there--but the border has been trodden down--we can
+easily identify the footprints--"
+
+He closed the window and sat down again:
+
+"You see, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, the enemy has even ceased to
+take the most ordinary precautions--he has not time left--he too feels
+that the hour is urgent. Let us be quick, therefore, and speak, since
+they do not wish us to speak."
+
+He laid the document on the table and held it in position, unfolded:
+
+"One observation, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, to begin with. The
+paper consists almost entirely of dots and figures. And in the first
+three lines and the fifth--the only ones with which we have to do at
+present, for the fourth seems to present an entirely different
+character--not one of those figures is higher than the figure 5. There
+is, therefore, a great chance that each of these figures represents one
+of the five vowels, taken in alphabetical order. Let us put down the
+result."
+
+He wrote on a separate piece of paper:
+
+  E . A . A . . E . . E . A . . A . .
+   A . . . E . E .      . E OI . E . . E .
+   . OU . . E . O . . . E . . E . O . . E
+   AI . UI . . E           . . EU . E
+
+
+Then he continued:
+
+"As you see, this does not give us much to go upon. The key is, at the
+same time, very easy, because the inventor has contented himself with
+replacing the vowels by figures and the consonants by dots, and very
+difficult, if not impossible, because he has taken no further trouble
+to complicate the problem."
+
+"It is certainly pretty obscure."
+
+"Let us try to throw some light upon it. The second line is divided
+into two parts; and the second part appears in such a way that it
+probably forms one word. If we now seek to replace the intermediary
+dots by consonants, we arrive at the conclusion, after searching and
+casting about, that the only consonants which are logically able to
+support the vowels are also logically able to produce only one word,
+the word DEMOISELLES."
+
+"That would refer to Mlle. de Gesvres and Mlle. de Saint-Veran."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"And do you see nothing more?"
+
+"Yes. I also note an hiatus in the middle of the last line; and, if I
+apply a similar operation to the beginning of the line, I at once see
+that the only consonant able to take the place of the dot between the
+diphthongs FAI and UI is the letter G and that, when I have thus formed
+the first five letters of the word, AIGUI, it is natural and inevitable
+that, with the two next dots and the final E, I should arrive at the
+word AIGUILLE."
+
+"Yes, the word AIGUILLE forces itself upon us."
+
+"Finally, for the last word, I have three vowels and three consonants.
+I cast about again, I try all the letters, one after the other, and,
+starting with the principle that the two first letters are necessary
+consonants, I find that three words apply: F*EUVE, PREUVE and CREUSE. I
+eliminate the words F*EUVE and PREUVE, as possessing no possible
+relation to a needle, and I keep the word CREUSE."
+
+"Making 'hollow needle'! By jove! I admit that your solution is
+correct, because it needs must be; but how does it help us?"
+
+"Not at all," said Beautrelet, in a thoughtful tone. "Not at all, for
+the moment.--Later on, we shall see.--I have an idea that a number of
+things are included in the puzzling conjunction of those two words,
+AIGUILLE CREUSE. What is troubling me at present is rather the material
+on which the document is written, the paper employed.--Do they still
+manufacture this sort of rather coarse-grained parchment? And then this
+ivory color.--And those folds--the wear of those folds--and, lastly,
+look, those marks of red sealing-wax, on the back--"
+
+At that moment Beautrelet, was interrupted by Bredoux, the magistrate's
+clerk, who opened the door and announced the unexpected arrival of the
+chief public prosecutor. M. Filleul rose:
+
+"Anything new? Is Monsieur le Procureur General downstairs?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Monsieur le Procureur General has
+not left his carriage. He is only passing through Ambrumesy and begs
+you to be good enough to go down to him at the gate. He only has a word
+to say to you."
+
+"That's curious," muttered M. Filleul. "However--we shall see. Excuse
+me, Beautrelet, I shan't be long."
+
+He went away. His footsteps sounded outside. Then the clerk closed the
+door, turned the key and put it in his pocket.
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed Beautrelet, greatly surprised. "What are you locking
+us in for?"
+
+"We shall be able to talk so much better," retorted Bredoux.
+
+Beautrelet rushed toward another door, which led to the next room. He
+had understood: the accomplice was Bredoux, the clerk of the examining
+magistrate himself. Bredoux grinned:
+
+"Don't hurt your fingers, my young friend. I have the key of that door,
+too."
+
+"There's the window!" cried Beautrelet.
+
+"Too late," said Bredoux, planting himself in front of the casement,
+revolver in hand.
+
+Every chance of retreat was cut off. There was nothing more for Isidore
+to do, nothing except to defend himself against the enemy who was
+revealing himself with such brutal daring. He crossed his arms.
+
+"Good," mumbled the clerk. "And now let us waste no time." He took out
+his watch. "Our worthy M. Filleul will walk down to the gate. At the
+gate, he will find nobody, of course: no more public prosecutor than my
+eye. Then he will come back. That gives us about four minutes. It will
+take me one minute to escape by this window, clear through the little
+door by the ruins and jump on the motor cycle waiting for me. That
+leaves three minutes, which is just enough."
+
+Bredoux was a queer sort of misshapen creature, who balanced on a pair
+of very long spindle-legs a huge trunk, as round as the body of a
+spider and furnished with immense arms. A bony face and a low, small
+stubborn forehead pointed to the man's narrow obstinacy.
+
+Beautrelet felt a weakness in the legs and staggered. He had to sit
+down:
+
+"Speak," he said. "What do you want?"
+
+"The paper. I've been looking for it for three days."
+
+"I haven't got it."
+
+"You're lying. I saw you put it back in your pocket-book when I came
+in."
+
+"Next?"
+
+"Next, you must undertake to keep quite quiet. You're annoying us.
+Leave us alone and mind your own business. Our patience is at an end."
+
+He had come nearer, with the revolver still aimed at the young man's
+head, and spoke in a hollow voice, with a powerful stress on each
+syllable that he uttered. His eyes were hard, his smile cruel.
+
+Beautrelet gave a shudder. It was the first time that he was
+experiencing the sense of danger. And such danger! He felt himself in
+the presence of an implacable enemy, endowed with blind and
+irresistible strength.
+
+"And next?" he asked, with less assurance in his voice.
+
+"Next? Nothing.--You will be free.--We will forget--"
+
+There was a pause. Then Bredoux resumed:
+
+"There is only a minute left. You must make up your mind. Come, old
+chap, don't be a fool.--We are the stronger, you know, always and
+everywhere.--Quick, the paper--"
+
+Isidore did not flinch. With a livid and terrified face, he remained
+master of himself, nevertheless, and his brain remained clear amid the
+breakdown of his nerves. The little black hole of the revolver was
+pointing at six inches from his eyes. The finger was bent and obviously
+pressing on the trigger. It only wanted a moment--
+
+"The paper," repeated Bredoux. "If not--"
+
+"Here it is," said Beautrelet.
+
+He took out his pocket-book and handed it to the clerk, who seized it
+eagerly.
+
+"Capital! We've come to our senses. I've no doubt there's something to
+be done with you.--You're troublesome, but full of common sense. I'll
+talk about it to my pals. And now I'm off. Good-bye!"
+
+He pocketed his revolver and turned back the fastening of the window.
+There was a noise in the passage.
+
+"Good-bye," he said again. "I'm only just in time."
+
+But the idea stopped him. With a quick movement, he examined the
+pocket-book:
+
+"Damn and blast it!" He grated through his teeth. "The paper's not
+there.--You've done me--"
+
+He leaped into the room. Two shots rang out. Isidore, in his turn, had
+seized his pistol and fired.
+
+"Missed, old chap!" shouted Bredoux. "Your hand's shaking.--You're
+afraid--"
+
+They caught each other round the body and came down to the floor
+together. There was a violent and incessant knocking at the door.
+Isidore's strength gave way and he was at once over come by his
+adversary. It was the end. A hand was lifted over him, armed with a
+knife, and fell. A fierce pain burst into his shoulder. He let go.
+
+He had an impression of some one fumbling in the inside pocket of his
+jacket and taking the paper from it. Then, through the lowered veil of
+his eyelids, he half saw the man stepping over the window-sill.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+The same newspapers which, on the following morning, related the last
+episodes that had occurred at the Chateau d'Ambrumesy--the trickery at
+the chapel, the discovery of Arsene Lupin's body and of Raymonde's body
+and, lastly, the murderous attempt made upon Beautrelet by the clerk to
+the examining magistrate--also announced two further pieces of news:
+the disappearance of Ganimard, and the kidnapping of Holmlock Shears,
+in broad daylight, in the heart of London, at the moment when he was
+about to take the train for Dover.
+
+Lupin's gang, therefore, which had been disorganized for a moment by
+the extraordinary ingenuity of a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, was now
+resuming the offensive and was winning all along the line from the
+first. Lupin's two great adversaries, Shears and Ganimard, were put
+away. Isidore Beautrelet was disabled. The police were powerless. For
+the moment there was no one left capable of struggling against such
+enemies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+FACE TO FACE
+
+
+One evening, five weeks later, I had given my man leave to go out. It
+was the day before the 14th of July. The night was hot, a storm
+threatened and I felt no inclination to leave the flat. I opened wide
+the glass doors leading to my balcony, lit my reading lamp and sat down
+in an easy-chair to look through the papers, which I had not yet seen.
+
+It goes without saying that there was something about Arsene Lupin in
+all of them. Since the attempt at murder of which poor Isidore
+Beautrelet had been the victim, not a day had passed without some
+mention of the Ambrumesy mystery. It had a permanent headline devoted
+to it. Never had public opinion been excited to that extent, thanks to
+the extraordinary series of hurried events, of unexpected and
+disconcerting surprises. M. Filleul, who was certainly accepting the
+secondary part allotted to him with a good faith worthy of all praise,
+had let the interviewers into the secret of his young advisor's
+exploits during the memorable three days, so that the public was able
+to indulge in the rashest suppositions. And the public gave itself free
+scope. Specialists and experts in crime, novelists and playwrights,
+retired magistrates and chief-detectives, erstwhile Lecocqs and budding
+Holmlock Shearses, each had his theory and expounded it in lengthy
+contributions to the press. Everybody corrected and supplemented the
+inquiry of the examining magistrate; and all on the word of a child, on
+the word of Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form schoolboy at the Lycee
+Janson-de-Sailly!
+
+For really, it had to be admitted, the complete elements of the truth
+were now in everybody's possession. What did the mystery consist of?
+They knew the hiding-place where Arsene Lupin had taken refuge and lain
+a-dying; there was no doubt about it: Dr. Delattre, who continued to
+plead professional secrecy and refused to give evidence, nevertheless
+confessed to his intimate friends--who lost no time in blabbing--that
+he really had been taken to a crypt to attend a wounded man whom his
+confederates introduced to him by the name of Arsene Lupin. And, as the
+corpse of Etienne de Vaudreix was found in that same crypt and as the
+said Etienne de Vaudreix was none other than Arsene Lupin--as the
+official examination went to show--all this provided an additional
+proof, if one were needed, of the identity of Arsene Lupin and the
+wounded man. Therefore, with Lupin dead and Mlle. de Saint-Veran's body
+recognized by the curb-bracelet on her wrist, the tragedy was finished.
+
+It was not. Nobody thought that it was, because Beautrelet had said the
+contrary. Nobody knew in what respect it was not finished, but, on the
+word of the young man, the mystery remained complete. The evidence of
+the senses did not prevail against the statement of a Beautrelet. There
+was something which people did not know, and of that something they
+were convinced that he was in position to supply a triumphant
+explanation.
+
+It is easy, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, at first,
+people awaited the bulletins issued by the two Dieppe doctors to whose
+care the Comte de Gesvres entrusted his patient; the distress that
+prevailed during the first few days, when his life was thought to be in
+danger; and the enthusiasm of the morning when the newspapers announced
+that there was no further cause for fear. The least details excited the
+crowd. People wept at the thought of Beautrelet nursed by his old
+father, who had been hurriedly summoned by telegram, and they also
+admired the devotion of Mlle. Suzanne de Gesvres, who spent night after
+night by the wounded lad's bedside.
+
+Next came a swift and glad convalescence. At last, the public were
+about to know! They would know what Beautrelet had promised to reveal
+to M. Filleul and the decisive words which the knife of the would-be
+assassin had prevented him from uttering! And they would also know
+everything, outside the tragedy itself, that remained impenetrable or
+inaccessible to the efforts of the police.
+
+With Beautrelet free and cured of his wound, one could hope for some
+certainty regarding Harlington, Arsene Lupin's mysterious accomplice,
+who was still detained at the Sante prison. One would learn what had
+become, after the crime, of Bredoux the clerk, that other accomplice,
+whose daring was really terrifying.
+
+With Beautrelet free, one could also form a precise idea concerning the
+disappearance of Ganimard and the kidnapping of Shears. How was it
+possible for two attempts of this kind to take place? Neither the
+English detectives nor their French colleagues possessed the slightest
+clue on the subject. On Whit-Sunday, Ganimard did not come home, nor on
+the Monday either, nor during the five weeks that followed. In London,
+on Whit-Monday, Holmlock Shears took a cab at eight o'clock in the
+evening to drive to the station. He had hardly stepped in, when he
+tried to alight, probably feeling a presentiment of danger. But two men
+jumped into the hansom, one on either side, flung him back on the seat
+and kept him there between them, or rather under them. All this
+happened in sight of nine or ten witnesses, who had no time to
+interfere. The cab drove off at a gallop. And, after that, nothing.
+Nobody knew anything.
+
+Perhaps, also, Beautrelet would be able to give the complete
+explanation of the document, the mysterious paper to which. Bredoux,
+the magistrate's clerk, attached enough importance to recover it, with
+blows of the knife, from the person in whose possession it was. The
+problem of the Hollow Needle it was called, by the countless solvers of
+riddles who, with their eyes bent upon the figures and dots, strove to
+read a meaning into them. The Hollow Needle! What a bewildering
+conjunction of two simple words! What an incomprehensible question was
+set by that scrap of paper, whose very origin and manufacture were
+unknown! The Hollow Needle! Was it a meaningless expression, the puzzle
+of a schoolboy scribbling with pen and ink on the corner of a page? Or
+were they two magic words which could compel the whole great adventure
+of Lupin the great adventurer to assume its true significance? Nobody
+knew.
+
+But the public soon would know. For some days, the papers had been
+announcing the approaching arrival of Beautrelet. The struggle was on
+the point of recommencing; and, this time, it would be implacable on
+the part of the young man, who was burning to take his revenge. And, as
+it happened, my attention, just then, was drawn to his name, printed in
+capitals. The Grand Journal headed its front page with the following
+paragraph:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+WE HAVE PERSUADED
+
+M. ISIDORE BEAUTRELET
+
+TO GIVE US THE FIRST RIGHT OF PRINTING HIS REVELATIONS. TO-MORROW,
+TUESDAY, BEFORE THE POLICE THEMSELVES ARE INFORMED, THE Grand Journal
+WILL PUBLISH THE WHOLE TRUTH OF THE AMBRUMESY MYSTERY.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's interesting, eh? What do you think of it, my dear chap?"
+
+I started from my chair. There was some one sitting beside me, some one
+I did not know. I cast my eyes round for a weapon. But, as my visitor's
+attitude appeared quite inoffensive, I restrained myself and went up to
+him.
+
+He was a young man with strongly-marked features, long, fair hair and a
+short, tawny beard, divided into two points. His dress suggested the
+dark clothes of an English clergyman; and his whole person, for that
+matter, wore an air of austerity and gravity that inspired respect.
+
+"Who are you?" I asked. And, as he did not reply, I repeated, "Who are
+you? How did you get in? What are you here for?"
+
+He looked at me and said:
+
+"Don't you know me?"
+
+"No--no!"
+
+"Oh, that's really curious! Just search your memory--one of your
+friends--a friend of a rather special kind--however--"
+
+I caught him smartly by the arm:
+
+"You lie! You lie! No, you're not the man you say you are--it's not
+true."
+
+"Then why are you thinking of that man rather than another?" he asked,
+with a laugh.
+
+Oh, that laugh! That bright and clear young laugh, whose amusing irony
+had so often contributed to my diversion! I shivered. Could it be?
+
+"No, no," I protested, with a sort of terror. "It cannot be."
+
+"It can't be I, because I'm dead, eh?" he retorted. "And because you
+don't believe in ghosts." He laughed again. "Am I the sort of man who
+dies? Do you think I would die like that, shot in the back by a girl?
+Really, you misjudge me! As though I would ever consent to such a death
+as that!"
+
+"So it is you!" I stammered, still incredulous and yet greatly excited.
+"So it is you! I can't manage to recognize you."
+
+"In that case," he said, gaily, "I am quite easy. If the only man to
+whom I have shown myself in my real aspect fails to know me to-day,
+then everybody who will see me henceforth as I am to-day is bound not
+to know me either, when he sees me in my real aspect--if, indeed, I
+have a real aspect--"
+
+I recognized his voice, now that he was no longer changing its tone,
+and I recognized his eyes also and the expression of his face and his
+whole attitude and his very being, through the counterfeit appearance
+in which he had shrouded it:
+
+"Arsene Lupin!" I muttered.
+
+"Yes, Arsene Lupin!" he cried, rising from his chair. "The one and only
+Arsene Lupin, returned from the realms of darkness, since it appears
+that I expired and passed away in a crypt! Arsene Lupin, alive and
+kicking, in the full exercise of his will, happy and free and more than
+ever resolved to enjoy that happy freedom in a world where hitherto he
+has received nothing but favors and privileges!"
+
+It was my turn to laugh:
+
+"Well, it's certainly you, and livelier this time than on the day when
+I had the pleasure of seeing you, last year--I congratulate you."
+
+I was alluding to his last visit, the visit following on the famous
+adventure of the diadem,[1] his interrupted marriage, his flight with
+Sonia Kirchnoff and the Russian girl's horrible death. On that day, I
+had seen an Arsene Lupin whom I did not know, weak, down-hearted, with
+eyes tired with weeping, seeking for a little sympathy and affection.
+
+
+[1] Arsene Lupin, play in three acts and four scenes, by Maurice
+Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.
+
+
+"Be quiet," he said. "The past is far away."
+
+"It was a year ago," I observed.
+
+"It was ten years ago," he declared. "Arsene Lupin's years count for
+ten times as much as another man's."
+
+I did not insist and, changing the conversation:
+
+"How did you get in?"
+
+"Why, how do you think? Through the door, of course. Then, as I saw
+nobody, I walked across the drawing room and out by the balcony, and
+here I am."
+
+"Yes, but the key of the door--?"
+
+"There are no doors for me, as you know. I wanted your flat and I came
+in."
+
+"It is at your disposal. Am I to leave you?"
+
+"Oh, not at all! You won't be in the way. In fact, I can promise you an
+interesting evening."
+
+"Are you expecting some one?"
+
+"Yes. I have given him an appointment here at ten o'clock." He took out
+his watch. "It is ten now. If the telegram reached him, he ought to be
+here soon."
+
+The front-door bell rang.
+
+"What did I tell you? No, don't trouble to get up: I'll go."
+
+With whom on earth could he have made an appointment? And what sort of
+scene was I about to assist at: dramatic or comic? For Lupin himself to
+consider it worthy of interest, the situation must be somewhat
+exceptional.
+
+He returned in a moment and stood back to make way for a young man,
+tall and thin and very pale in the face.
+
+Without a word and with a certain solemnity about his movements that
+made me feel ill at ease. Lupin switched on all the electric lamps, one
+after the other, till the room was flooded with light. Then the two men
+looked at each other, exchanged profound and penetrating glances, as
+if, with all the effort of their gleaming eyes, they were trying to
+pierce into each other's souls.
+
+It was an impressive sight to see them thus, grave and silent. But who
+could the newcomer be?
+
+I was on the point of guessing the truth, through his resemblance to a
+photograph which had recently appeared in the papers, when Lupin turned
+to me:
+
+"My dear chap, let me introduce M. Isidore Beautrelet." And, addressing
+the young man, he continued, "I have to thank you, M. Beautrelet,
+first, for being good enough, on receipt of a letter from me, to
+postpone your revelations until after this interview and, secondly, for
+granting me this interview with so good a grace."
+
+Beautrelet smiled:
+
+"Allow me to remark that my good grace consists, above all, in obeying
+your orders. The threat which you made to me in the letter in question
+was the more peremptory in being aimed not at me, but at my father."
+
+"My word," said Lupin laughing, "we must do the best we can and make
+use of the means of action vouchsafed to us. I knew by experience that
+your own safety was indifferent to you, seeing that you resisted the
+arguments of Master Bredoux. There remained your father--your father
+for whom you have a great affection--I played on that string."
+
+"And here I am," said Beautrelet, approvingly.
+
+I motioned them to be seated. They consented and Lupin resumed, in that
+tone of imperceptible banter which is all his own:
+
+"In any case, M. Beautrelet, if you will not accept my thanks, you will
+at least not refuse my apologies."
+
+"Apologies! Bless my soul, what for?"
+
+"For the brutality which Master Bredoux showed you."
+
+"I confess that the act surprised me. It was not Lupin's usual way of
+behaving. A stab--"
+
+"I assure you I had no hand in it. Bredoux is a new recruit. My
+friends, during the time that they had the management of our affairs,
+thought that it might be useful to win over to our cause the clerk of
+the magistrate himself who was conducting the inquiry."
+
+"Your friends were right."
+
+"Bredoux, who was specially attached to your person, was, in fact, most
+valuable to us. But, with the ardor peculiar to any neophyte who wishes
+to distinguish himself, he pushed his zeal too far and thwarted my
+plans by permitting himself, on his own initiative, to strike you a
+blow."
+
+"Oh, it was a little accident!"
+
+"Not at all, not at all! And I have reprimanded him severely! I am
+bound, however, to say in his favor that he was taken unawares by the
+really unexpected rapidity of your investigation. If you had only left
+us a few hours longer, you would have escaped that unpardonable
+attempt."
+
+"And I should doubtless have enjoyed the enormous advantage of
+undergoing the same fate as M. Ganimard and Mr. Holmlock Shears?"
+
+"Exactly," said Lupin, laughing heartily. "And I should not have known
+the cruel terrors which your wound caused me. I have had an atrocious
+time because of it, believe me, and, at this moment, your pallor fills
+me with all the stings of remorse. Can you ever forgive me?"
+
+"The proof of confidence which you have shown me in delivering yourself
+unconditionally into my hands--it would have been so easy for me to
+bring a few of Ganimard's friends with me--that proof of confidence
+wipes out everything."
+
+Was he speaking seriously? I confess frankly that I was greatly
+perplexed. The struggle between the two men was beginning in a manner
+which I was simply unable to understand. I had been present at the
+first meeting between Lupin and Holmlock Shears, in the cafe near the
+Gare Montparnesse,[2] and I could not help recalling the haughty
+carriage of the two combatants, the terrific clash of their pride under
+the politeness of their manners, the hard blows which they dealt each
+other, their feints, their arrogance.
+
+
+[2] Arsene Lupin versus Holmlock Shears, by Maurice Leblanc.
+
+
+Here, it was quite different. Lupin, it is true, had not changed; he
+exhibited the same tactics, the same crafty affability. But what a
+strange adversary he had come upon! Was it even an adversary? Really,
+he had neither the tone of one nor the appearance. Very calm, but with
+a real calmness, not one assumed to cloak the passion of a man
+endeavoring to restrain himself; very polite, but without exaggeration;
+smiling, but without chaff, he presented the most perfect contrast to
+Arsene Lupin, a contrast so perfect even that, to my mind, Lupin
+appeared as much perplexed as myself.
+
+No, there was no doubt about it: in the presence of that frail
+stripling, with cheeks smooth as a girl's and candid and charming eyes,
+Lupin was losing his ordinary self-assurance. Several times over, I
+observed traces of embarrassment in him. He hesitated, did not attack
+frankly, wasted time in mawkish and affected phrases.
+
+It also looked as though he wanted something. He seemed to be seeking,
+waiting. What for? Some aid?
+
+There was a fresh ring of the bell. He himself ran and opened the door.
+He returned with a letter:
+
+"Will you allow me, gentlemen?" he asked.
+
+He opened the letter. It contained a telegram. He read it--and became
+as though transformed. His face lit up, his figure righted itself and I
+saw the veins on his forehead swell. It was the athlete who once more
+stood before me, the ruler, sure of himself, master of events and
+master of persons. He spread the telegram on the table and, striking it
+with his fist, exclaimed:
+
+"Now, M. Beautrelet, it's you and I!"
+
+Beautrelet adopted a listening attitude and Lupin began, in measured,
+but harsh and masterful tones:
+
+"Let us throw off the mask--what say you?--and have done with
+hypocritical compliments. We are two enemies, who know exactly what to
+think of each other; we act toward each other as enemies; and therefore
+we ought to treat with each other as enemies."
+
+"To treat?" echoed Beautrelet, in a voice of surprise.
+
+"Yes, to treat. I did not use that word at random and I repeat it, in
+spite of the effort, the great effort, which it costs me. This is the
+first time I have employed it to an adversary. But also, I may as well
+tell you at once, it is the last. Make the most of it. I shall not
+leave this flat without a promise from you. If I do, it means war."
+
+Beautrelet seemed more and more surprised. He said very prettily:
+
+"I was not prepared for this--you speak so funnily! It's so different
+from what I expected! Yes, I thought you were not a bit like that! Why
+this display of anger? Why use threats? Are we enemies because
+circumstances bring us into opposition? Enemies? Why?"
+
+Lupin appeared a little out of countenance, but he snarled and, leaning
+over the boy:
+
+"Listen to me, youngster," he said. "It's not a question of picking
+one's words. It's a question of a fact, a positive, indisputable fact;
+and that fact is this: in all the past ten years, I have not yet
+knocked up against an adversary of your capacity. With Ganimard and
+Holmlock Shears I played as if they were children. With you, I am
+obliged to defend myself, I will say more, to retreat. Yes, at this
+moment, you and I well know that I must look upon myself as worsted in
+the fight. Isidore Beautrelet has got the better of Arsene Lupin. My
+plans are upset. What I tried to leave in the dark you have brought
+into the full light of day. You annoy me, you stand in my way. Well,
+I've had enough of it--Bredoux told you so to no purpose. I now tell
+you so again; and I insist upon it, so that you may take it to heart:
+I've had enough of it!"
+
+Beautrelet nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, but what do you want?"
+
+"Peace! Each of us minding his own business, keeping to his own side!"
+
+"That is to say, you free to continue your burglaries undisturbed, I
+free to return to my studies."
+
+"Your studies--anything you please--I don't care. But you must leave me
+in peace--I want peace."
+
+"How can I trouble it now?"
+
+Lupin seized his hand violently:
+
+"You know quite well! Don't pretend not to know. You are at this moment
+in possession of a secret to which I attach the highest importance.
+This secret you were free to guess, but you have no right to give it to
+the public."
+
+"Are you sure that I know it?"
+
+"You know it, I am certain: day by day, hour by hour, I have followed
+your train of thought and the progress of your investigations. At the
+very moment when Bredoux struck you, you were about to tell all.
+Subsequently, you delayed your revelations, out of solicitude for your
+father. But they are now promised to this paper here. The article is
+written. It will be set up in an hour. It will appear to-morrow."
+
+"Quite right."
+
+Lupin rose, and slashing the air with his hand,
+
+"It shall not appear!" he cried.
+
+"It shall appear!" said Beautrelet, starting up in his turn.
+
+At last, the two men were standing up to each other. I received the
+impression of a shock, as if they had seized each other round the body.
+Beautrelet seemed to burn with a sudden energy. It was as though a
+spark had kindled within him a group of new emotions: pluck,
+self-respect, the passion of fighting, the intoxication of danger. As
+for Lupin, I read in the radiance of his glance the joy of the duellist
+who at length encounters the sword of his hated rival.
+
+"Is the article in the printer's hands?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Have you it there--on you?"
+
+"No fear! I shouldn't have it by now, in that case!"
+
+"Then--"
+
+"One of the assistant editors has it, in a sealed envelope. If I am not
+at the office by midnight, he will have set it up."
+
+"Oh, the scoundrel!" muttered Lupin. "He has provided for everything!"
+
+His anger was increasing, visibly and frightfully. Beautrelet chuckled,
+jeering in his turn, carried away by his success.
+
+"Stop that, you brat!" roared Lupin. "You're forgetting who I am--and
+that, if I wished--upon my word, he's daring to laugh!"
+
+A great silence fell between them. Then Lupin stepped forward and, in
+muttered tones, with his eyes on Beautrelet's:
+
+"You shall go straight to the Grand Journal."
+
+"No."
+
+"Tear up your article."
+
+"No."
+
+"See the editor."
+
+"No."
+
+"Tell him you made a mistake."
+
+"No."
+
+"And write him another article, in which you will give the official
+version of the Ambrumesy mystery, the one which every one has accepted."
+
+"No."
+
+Lupin took up a steel ruler that lay on my desk and broke it in two
+without an effort. His pallor was terrible to see. He wiped away the
+beads of perspiration that stood on his forehead. He, who had never
+known his wishes resisted, was being maddened by the obstinacy of this
+child. He pressed his two hands on Beautrelet's shoulder and,
+emphasizing every syllable, continued:
+
+"You shall do as I tell you, Beautrelet. You shall say that your latest
+discoveries have convinced you of my death, that there is not the least
+doubt about it. You shall say so because I wish it, because it has to
+be believed that I am dead. You shall say so, above all, because, if
+you do not say so--"
+
+"Because, if I do not say so--?"
+
+"Your father will be kidnapped to-night, as Ganimard and Holmlock
+Shears were."
+
+Beautrelet gave a smile.
+
+"Don't laugh--answer!"
+
+"My answer is that I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I have
+promised to speak and I shall speak."
+
+"Speak in the sense which I have told you."
+
+"I shall speak the truth," cried Beautrelet, eagerly. "It is something
+which you can't understand, the pleasure, the need, rather, of saying
+the thing that is and saying it aloud. The truth is here, in this brain
+which has guessed it and discovered it; and it will come out, all naked
+and quivering. The article, therefore, will be printed as I wrote it.
+The world shall know that Lupin is alive and shall know the reason why
+he wished to be considered dead. The world shall know all." And he
+added, calmly, "And my father shall not be kidnapped."
+
+Once again, they were both silent, with their eyes still fixed upon
+each other. They watched each other. Their swords were engaged up to
+the hilt. And it was like the heavy silence that goes before the mortal
+blow. Which of the two was to strike it?
+
+Lupin said, between his teeth:
+
+"Failing my instructions to the contrary, two of my friends have orders
+to enter your father's room to-night, at three o'clock in the morning,
+to seize him and carry him off to join Ganimard and Holmlock Shears."
+
+A burst of shrill laughter interrupted him:
+
+"Why, you highwayman, don't you understand," cried Beautrelet, "that I
+have taken my precautions? So you think that I am innocent enough, ass
+enough, to have sent my father home to his lonely little house in the
+open country!" Oh, the gay, bantering laughter that lit up the boy's
+face! It was a new sort of laugh on his lips, a laugh that showed the
+influence of Lupin himself. And the familiar form of address which he
+adopted placed him at once on his adversary's level. He continued:
+
+"You see, Lupin, your great fault is to believe your schemes
+infallible. You proclaim yourself beaten, do you? What humbug! You are
+convinced that you will always win the day in the end--and you forget
+that others can have their little schemes, too. Mine is a very simple
+one, my friend."
+
+It was delightful to hear him talk. He walked up and down, with his
+hands in his pockets and with the easy swagger of a boy teasing a caged
+beast. Really, at this moment, he was revenging, with the most terrible
+revenges, all the victims of the great adventurer. And he concluded:
+
+"Lupin, my father is not in Savoy. He is at the other end of France, in
+the centre of a big town, guarded by twenty of our friends, who have
+orders not to lose sight of him until our battle is over. Would you
+like details? He is at Cherbourg, in the house of one of the keepers of
+the arsenal. And remember that the arsenal is closed at night and that
+no one is allowed to enter it by day, unless he carries an
+authorization and is accompanied by a guide."
+
+He stopped in front of Lupin and defied him, like a child making faces
+at his playmate:
+
+"What do you say to that, master?"
+
+For some minutes, Lupin had stood motionless. Not a muscle of his face
+had moved. What were his thoughts? Upon what action was he resolving?
+To any one knowing the fierce violence of his pride the only possible
+solution was the total, immediate, final collapse of his adversary. His
+fingers twitched. For a second, I had a feeling that he was about to
+throw himself upon the boy and wring his neck.
+
+"What do you say to that, master?" Beautrelet repeated.
+
+Lupin took up the telegram that lay on the table, held it out and said,
+very calmly:
+
+"Here, baby, read that."
+
+Beautrelet became serious, suddenly, impressed by the gentleness of the
+movement. He unfolded the paper and, at once, raising his eyes,
+murmured:
+
+"What does it mean? I don't understand."
+
+"At any rate, you understand the first word," said Lupin, "the first
+word of the telegram--that is to say, the name of the place from which
+it was sent--look--'Cherbourg.'"
+
+"Yes--yes," stammered Beautrelet. "Yes--I understand--'Cherbourg'-and
+then?"
+
+"And then?--I should think the rest is quite plain: 'Removal of luggage
+finished. Friends left with it and will wait instructions till eight
+morning. All well.' Is there anything there that seems obscure? The
+word 'luggage'? Pooh, you wouldn't have them write 'M. Beautrelet,
+senior'! What then? The way in which the operation was performed? The
+miracle by which your father was taken out of Cherbourg Arsenal, in
+spite of his twenty body-guards? Pooh, it's as easy as A B C! And the
+fact remains that the luggage has been dispatched. What do you say to
+that, baby?"
+
+With all his tense being, with all his exasperated energy, Isidore
+tried to preserve a good countenance. But I saw his lips quiver, his
+jaw shrink, his eyes vainly strive to fix upon a point. He lisped a few
+words, then was silent and, suddenly, gave way and, with his hands
+before his face, burst into loud sobs:
+
+"Oh, father! Father!"
+
+An unexpected result, which was certainly the collapse which Lupin's
+pride demanded, but also something more, something infinitely touching
+and infinitely artless. Lupin gave a movement of annoyance and took up
+his hat, as though this unaccustomed display of sentiment were too much
+for him. But, on reaching the door, he stopped, hesitated and then
+returned, slowly, step by step.
+
+The soft sound of the sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little child
+overcome with grief. The lad's shoulders marked the heart-rending
+rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin leaned
+forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice that had not
+the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive pity of the
+victor:
+
+"Don't cry, youngster. This is one of those blows which a man must
+expect when he rushes headlong into the fray, as you did. The worst
+disasters lie in wait for him. The destiny of fighters will have it so.
+We must suffer it as bravely as we can." Then, with a sort of
+gentleness, he continued, "You were right, you see: we are not enemies.
+I have known it for long. From the very first, I felt for you, for the
+intelligent creature that you are, an involuntary sympathy--and
+admiration. And that is why I wanted to say this to you--don't be
+offended, whatever you do: I should be extremely sorry to offend
+you--but I must say it: well, give up struggling against me. I am not
+saying this out of vanity--nor because I despise you--but, you see, the
+struggle is too unequal. You do not know--nobody knows all the
+resources which I have at my command. Look here, this secret of the
+Hollow Needle which you are trying so vainly to unravel: suppose, for a
+moment, that it is a formidable, inexhaustible treasure--or else an
+invisible, prodigious, fantastic refuge--or both perhaps. Think of the
+superhuman power which I must derive from it! And you do not know,
+either, all the resources which I have within myself--all that my will
+and my imagination enable me to undertake and to undertake
+successfully. Only think that my whole life--ever since I was born, I
+might almost say--has tended toward the same aim, that I worked like a
+convict before becoming what I am and to realize, in its perfection,
+the type which I wished to create--which I have succeeded in creating.
+That being so--what can you do? At that very moment when you think that
+victory lies within your grasp, it will escape you--there will be
+something of which you have not thought--a trifle--a grain of sand
+which I shall have put in the right place, unknown to you. I entreat
+you, give up--I should be obliged to hurt you; and the thought
+distresses me." And, placing his hand on the boy's forehead, he
+repeated, "Once more, youngster, give up. I should only hurt you. Who
+knows if the trap into which you will inevitably fall has not already
+opened under your footsteps?"
+
+Beautrelet uncovered his face. He was no longer crying. Had he heard
+Lupin's words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive
+air.
+
+For two or three minutes, he was silent. He seemed to weigh the
+decision which he was about to take, to examine the reasons for and
+against, to count up the favorable and unfavorable chances. At last, he
+said to Lupin:
+
+"If I change the sense of the article, if I confirm the version of your
+death and if I undertake never to contradict the false version which I
+shall have sanctioned, do you swear that my father will be free?"
+
+"I swear it. My friends have taken your father by motor car to another
+provincial town. At seven o'clock to-morrow morning, if the article in
+the Grand Journal is what I want it to be, I shall telephone to them
+and they will restore your father to liberty."
+
+"Very well," said Beautrelet. "I submit to your conditions."
+
+Quickly, as though he saw no object in prolonging the conversation
+after accepting his defeat, he rose, took his hat, bowed to me, bowed
+to Lupin and went out. Lupin watched him go, listened to the sound of
+the door closing and muttered:
+
+"Poor little beggar!"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eight o'clock the next morning, I sent my man out to buy the Grand
+Journal. It was twenty minutes before he brought me a copy, most of the
+kiosks being already sold out.
+
+I unfolded the paper with feverish hands. Beautrelet's article appeared
+on the front page. I give it as it stood and as it was quoted in the
+press of the whole world:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE AMBRUMESY MYSTERY
+
+I do not intend in these few sentences to set out in detail the mental
+processes and the investigations that have enabled me to reconstruct
+the tragedy--I should say the twofold tragedy--of Ambrumesy. In my
+opinion, this sort of work and the judgments which it entails,
+deductions, inductions, analyses and so on, are only interesting in a
+minor degree and, in any case, are highly commonplace. No, I shall
+content myself with setting forth the two leading ideas which I
+followed; and, if I do that, it will be seen that, in so setting them
+forth and in solving the two problems which they raise, I shall have
+told the story just as it happened, in the exact order of the different
+incidents.
+
+It may be said that some of these incidents are not proved and that I
+leave too large a field to conjecture. That is quite true. But, in my
+view, my theory is founded upon a sufficiently large number of proved
+facts to be able to say that even those facts which are not proved must
+follow from the strict logic of events. The stream is so often lost
+under the pebbly bed: it is nevertheless the same stream that reappears
+at intervals and mirrors back the blue sky.
+
+The first riddle that confronted me, a riddle not in detail, but as a
+whole, was how came it that Lupin, mortally wounded, one might say,
+managed to live for five or six weeks without nursing, medicine or
+food, at the bottom of a dark hole?
+
+Let us start at the beginning. On Thursday the sixteenth of April, at
+four o'clock in the morning, Arsene Lupin, surprised in the middle of
+one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path leading to the
+ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully along, falls
+again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of reaching the
+chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of which he has
+discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may be saved. By
+dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few yards away, when a
+sound of footsteps approaches. Harassed and lost, he lets himself go.
+The enemy arrives. It is Mlle. Raymonde de Saint-Veran.
+
+This is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.
+
+What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as the
+sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the girl's
+feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be captured
+in two minutes. THIS MAN HAS BEEN WOUNDED BY HERSELF. Will she also
+give him up?
+
+If he is Jean Daval's murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its
+course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this
+awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes him.
+What will she do?
+
+Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door.
+The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight of
+both of them. Will she give up the man she has wounded?
+
+The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which any
+woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements she
+binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks which the
+blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he gives her,
+she opens the door of the chapel. He enters, supported by the girl. She
+locks the door again and walks away. Albert arrives.
+
+If the chapel had been visited at that moment or at least during the
+next few minutes, before Lupin had had time to recover his strength, to
+raise the flagstone and disappear by the stairs leading to the crypt,
+he would have been taken. But this visit did not take place until six
+hours later and then only in the most superficial way. As it is, Lupin
+is saved; and saved by whom? By the girl who very nearly killed him.
+
+Thenceforth, whether she wishes it or no, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is his
+accomplice. Not only is she no longer able to give him up, but she is
+obliged to continue her work, else the wounded man will perish in the
+shelter in which she has helped to conceal him. Therefore she continues.
+
+For that matter, if her feminine instinct makes the task a compulsory
+one, it also makes it easy. She is full of artifice, she foresees and
+forestalls everything. It is she who gives the examining magistrate a
+false description of Arsene Lupin (the reader will remember the
+difference of opinion on this subject between the cousins). It is she,
+obviously, who, thanks to certain signs which I do not know of,
+suspects an accomplice of Lupin's in the driver of the fly. She warns
+him. She informs him of the urgent need of an operation. It is she, no
+doubt, who substitutes one cap for the other. It is she who causes the
+famous letter to be written in which she is personally threatened. How,
+after that, is it possible to suspect her?
+
+It is she, who at that moment when I was about to confide my first
+impressions to the examining magistrate, pretends to have seen me, the
+day before, in the copsewood, alarms M. Filleul on my score and reduces
+me to silence: a dangerous move, no doubt, because it arouses my
+attention and directs it against the person who assails me with an
+accusation which I know to be false; but an efficacious move, because
+the most important thing of all is to gain time and close my lips.
+
+Lastly, it is she who, during forty days, feeds Lupin, brings him his
+medicine (the chemist at Ouville will produce the prescriptions which
+he made up for Mlle. de Saint-Veran), nurses him, dresses his wound,
+watches over him AND CURES HIM.
+
+Here we have the first of our two problems solved, at the same time
+that the Ambrumesy mystery is set forth. Arsene Lupin found, close at
+hand, in the chateau itself, the assistance which was indispensable to
+him in order, first, not to be discovered and, secondly, to live.
+
+He now lives. And we come to the second problem, corresponding with the
+second Ambrumesy mystery, the study of which served me as a conducting
+medium. Why does Lupin, alive, free, at the head of his gang,
+omnipotent as before, why does Lupin make desperate efforts, efforts
+with which I am constantly coming into collision, to force the idea of
+his death upon the police and the public?
+
+We must remember that Mlle. de Saint-Veran was a very pretty girl. The
+photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance give but
+an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was bound to
+follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or six weeks,
+longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected to her charm
+and grace when she is there, inhaling the cool perfume of her breath
+when she bends over him, Lupin becomes enamored of his nurse. Gratitude
+turns to love, admiration to passion. She is his salvation, but she is
+also the joy of his eyes, the dream of his lonely hours, his light, his
+hope, his very life.
+
+He respects her sufficiently not to take advantage of the girl's
+devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates. There
+is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the
+gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as Mlle. de
+Saint-Veran refuses to be touched by a love that offends her, as she
+relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as she ceases them
+entirely on the day when he is cured--desperate, maddened by grief, he
+takes a terrible resolve. He leaves his lair, prepares his stroke and,
+on Saturday the sixth of June, assisted by his accomplices, he carries
+off the girl.
+
+This is not all. The abduction must not be known. All search, all
+surmises, all hope, even, must be cut short. Mlle. de Saint-Veran must
+pass for dead. There is a mock murder: proofs are supplied for the
+police inquiries. There is doubt about the crime, a crime, for that
+matter, not unexpected, a crime foretold by the accomplices, a crime
+perpetrated to revenge the chief's death. And, through this very
+fact--observe the marvelous ingenuity of the conception--through this
+very fact, the belief in this death is, so to speak, stimulated.
+
+It is not enough to suggest a belief; it is necessary to compel a
+certainty. Lupin foresees my interference. I am sure to guess the
+trickery of the chapel. I am sure to discover the crypt. And, as the
+crypt will be empty, the whole scaffolding will come to the ground.
+
+THE CRYPT SHALL NOT BE EMPTY.
+
+In the same way, the death of Mlle. de Saint-Veran will not be
+definite, unless the sea gives up her corpse.
+
+THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP THE CORPSE OF MLLE. DE SAINT-VERAN.
+
+The difficulty is tremendous. The double obstacle seems insurmountable.
+Yes, to any one but Lupin, but not to Lupin.
+
+As he had foreseen, I guess the trickery of the chapel, I discover the
+crypt and I go down into the lair where Lupin has taken refuge. His
+corpse is there!
+
+Any person who had admitted the death of Lupin as possible would have
+been baffled. But I had not admitted this eventuality for an instant
+(first, by intuition and, secondly, by reasoning). Pretense thereupon
+became useless and every scheme vain. I said to myself at once that the
+block of stone disturbed by the pickaxe had been placed there with a
+very curious exactness, that the least knock was bound to make it fall
+and that, in falling, it must inevitably reduce the head of the false
+Arsene Lupin to pulp, in such a way as to make it utterly
+irrecognizable.
+
+Another discovery: half an hour later, I hear that the body of Mlle. de
+Saint-Veran has been found on the rocks at Dieppe--or rather a body
+which is considered to be Mlle. de Saint-Veran's, for the reason that
+the arm has a bracelet similar to one of that young lady's bracelets.
+This, however, is the only mark of identity, for the corpse is
+irrecognizable.
+
+Thereupon I remember and I understand. A few days earlier, I happened
+to read in a number of the Vigie de Dieppe that a young American couple
+staying at Envermeu had committed suicide by taking poison and that
+their bodies had disappeared on the very night of the death. I hasten
+to Envermeu. The story is true, I am told, except in so far as concerns
+the disappearance, because the brothers of the victims came to claim
+the corpses and took them away after the usual formalities. The name of
+these brothers, no doubt, was Arsene Lupin & Co.
+
+Consequently, the thing is proved. We know why Lupin shammed the murder
+of the girl and spread the rumor of his own death. He is in love and
+does not wish it known. And, to reach his ends, he shrinks from
+nothing, he even undertakes that incredible theft of the two corpses
+which he needs in order to impersonate himself and Mlle. de
+Saint-Veran. In this way, he will be at ease. No one can disturb him.
+No one will ever suspect the truth which he wishes to suppress.
+
+No one? Yes--three adversaries, at the most, might conceive doubts:
+Ganimard, whose arrival is hourly expected; Holmlock Shears, who is
+about to cross the Channel; and I, who am on the spot. This constitutes
+a threefold danger. He removes it. He kidnaps Ganimard. He kidnaps
+Holmlock Shears. He has me stabbed by Bredoux.
+
+One point alone remains obscure. Why was Lupin so fiercely bent upon
+snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely did
+not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my memory
+the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why? Did he fear
+that the character of the paper itself, or some other clue, could give
+me a hint?
+
+Be that as it may, this is the truth of the Ambrumesy mystery. I repeat
+that conjecture plays a certain part in the explanation which I offer,
+even as it played a great part in my personal investigation. But, if
+one waited for proofs and facts to fight Lupin, one would run a great
+risk either of waiting forever or else of discovering proofs and facts
+carefully prepared by Lupin, which would lead in a direction
+immediately opposite to the object in view. I feel confident that the
+facts, when they are known, will confirm my surmise in every respect.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Isidore Beautrelet, mastered for a moment by Arsene Lupin,
+distressed by the abduction of his father and resigned to defeat,
+Isidore Beautrelet, in the end, was unable to persuade himself to keep
+silence. The truth was too beautiful and too curious, the proofs which
+he was able to produce were too logical and too conclusive for him to
+consent to misrepresent it. The whole world was waiting for his
+revelations. He spoke.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the evening of the day on which his article appeared, the newspapers
+announced the kidnapping of M. Beautrelet, senior. Isidore was informed
+of it by a telegram from Cherbourg, which reached him at three o'clock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+ON THE TRACK
+
+
+Young Beautrelet was stunned by the violence of the blow. As a matter
+of fact, although, in publishing his article, he had obeyed one of
+those irresistible impulses which make a man despise every
+consideration of prudence, he had never really believed in the
+possibility of an abduction. His precautions had been too thorough. The
+friends at Cherbourg not only had instructions to guard and protect
+Beautrelet the elder: they were also to watch his comings and goings,
+never to let him walk out alone and not even to hand him a single
+letter without first opening it. No, there was no danger. Lupin,
+wishing to gain time, was trying to intimidate his adversary.
+
+The blow, therefore, was almost unexpected; and Isidore, because he was
+powerless to act, felt the pain of the shock during the whole of the
+remainder of the day. One idea alone supported him: that of leaving
+Paris, going down there, seeing for himself what had happened and
+resuming the offensive.
+
+He telegraphed to Cherbourg. He was at Saint-Lazare a little before
+nine. A few minutes after, he was steaming out of the station in the
+Normandy express.
+
+It was not until an hour later, when he mechanically unfolded a
+newspaper which he had bought on the platform, that he became aware of
+the letter by which Lupin indirectly replied to his article of that
+morning:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the Editor of the Grand Journal.
+
+SIR: I cannot pretend but that my modest personality, which would
+certainly have passed unnoticed in more heroic times, has acquired a
+certain prominence in the dull and feeble period in which we live. But
+there is a limit beyond which the morbid curiosity of the crowd cannot
+go without becoming indecently indiscreet. If the walls that surround
+our private lives be not respected, what is to safeguard the rights of
+the citizen?
+
+Will those who differ plead the higher interest of truth? An empty
+pretext in so far as I am concerned, because the truth is known and I
+raise no difficulty about making an official confession of the truth in
+writing. Yes, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is alive. Yes, I love her. Yes, I
+have the mortification not to be loved by her. Yes, the results of the
+boy Beautrelet's inquiry are wonderful in their precision and accuracy.
+Yes, we agree on every point. There is no riddle left. There is no
+mystery. Well, then, what?
+
+Injured to the very depths of my soul, bleeding still from cruel
+wounds, I ask that my more intimate feelings and secret hopes may no
+longer be delivered to the malevolence of the public. I ask for peace,
+the peace which I need to conquer the affection of Mlle. de Saint-Veran
+and to wipe out from her memory the thousand little injuries which she
+has had to suffer at the hands of her uncle and cousin--this has not
+been told--because of her position as a poor relation. Mlle. de
+Saint-Veran will forget this hateful past. All that she can desire,
+were it the fairest jewel in the world, were it the most unattainable
+treasure, I shall lay at her feet. She will be happy. She will love me.
+
+But, if I am to succeed, once more, I require peace. That is why I lay
+down my arms and hold out the olive-branch to my enemies--while warning
+them, with every magnanimity on my part, that a refusal on theirs might
+bring down upon them the gravest consequences.
+
+One word more on the subject of Mr. Harlington. This name conceals the
+identity of an excellent fellow, who is secretary to Cooley, the
+American millionaire, and instructed by him to lay hands upon every
+object of ancient art in Europe which it is possible to discover. His
+evil star brought him into touch with my friend Etienne de Vaudreix,
+ALIAS Arsene Lupin, ALIAS myself. He learnt, in this way, that a
+certain M. de Gesvres was willing to part with four pictures by Rubens,
+ostensibly on the condition that they were replaced by copies and that
+the bargain to which he was consenting remained unknown. My friend
+Vaudreix also undertook to persuade M. de Gesvres to sell his chapel.
+The negotiations were conducted with entire good faith on the side of
+my friend Vaudreix and with charming ingenuousness on the side of Mr.
+Harlington, until the day when the Rubenses and the carvings from the
+chapel were in a safe place and Mr. Harlington in prison. There remains
+nothing, therefore, to be done but to release the unfortunate American,
+because he was content to play the modest part of a dupe; to brand the
+millionaire Cooley, because, for fear of possible unpleasantness, he
+did not protest against his secretary's arrest; and to congratulate my
+friend Etienne de Vaudreix, because he is revenging the outraged
+morality of the public by keeping the hundred thousand francs which he
+was paid on account by that singularly unattractive person, Cooley.
+
+Pray, pardon the length of this letter and permit me to be, Sir,
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+ARSENE LUPIN.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isidore weighed the words of this communication as minutely, perhaps,
+as he had studied the document concerning the Hollow Needle. He went on
+the principle, the correctness of which was easily proved, that Lupin
+had never taken the trouble to send one of his amusing letters to the
+press without absolute necessity, without some motive which events were
+sure, sooner or later, to bring to light.
+
+What was the motive for this particular letter? For what hidden reason
+was Lupin confessing his love and the failure of that love? Was it
+there that Beautrelet had to seek, or in the explanations regarding Mr.
+Harlington, or further still, between the lines, behind all those words
+whose apparent meaning had perhaps no other object than to suggest some
+wicked, perfidious, misleading little idea?
+
+For hours, the young man, confined to his compartment, remained pensive
+and anxious. The letter filled him with mistrust, as though it had been
+written for his benefit and were destined to lead him, personally, into
+error. For the first time and because he found himself confronted not
+with a direct attack, but with an ambiguous, indefinable method of
+fighting, he underwent a distinct sensation of fear. And, when he
+thought of his good old, easy-going father, kidnapped through his
+fault, he asked himself, with a pang, whether he was not mad to
+continue so unequal a contest. Was the result not certain? Had Lupin
+not won the game in advance?
+
+It was but a short moment of weakness. When he alighted from his
+compartment, at six o'clock in the morning, refreshed by a few hours'
+sleep, he had recovered all his confidence.
+
+On the platform, Froberval, the dockyard clerk who had given
+hospitality to M. Beautrelet, senior, was waiting for him, accompanied
+by his daughter Charlotte, an imp of twelve or thirteen.
+
+"Well?" cried Isidore.
+
+The worthy man beginning to moan and groan, he interrupted him, dragged
+him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put plain
+questions, without permitting the other the slightest digression:
+
+"My father has not been carried off, has he? It was impossible."
+
+"Impossible. Still, he has disappeared."
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"We don't know."
+
+"What!"
+
+"No. Yesterday morning, at six o'clock, as I had not seen him come down
+as usual, I opened his door. He was gone."
+
+"But was he there on the day before, two days ago?"
+
+"Yes. On the day before yesterday, he did not leave his room. He was a
+little tired; and Charlotte took his lunch up to him at twelve and his
+dinner at seven in the evening."
+
+"So it was between seven o'clock in the evening, on the day before
+yesterday, and six o'clock on yesterday morning that he disappeared?"
+
+"Yes, during the night before last. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Well, it's like this: you can't leave the arsenal at night."
+
+"Do you mean that he has not left it?"
+
+"That's impossible! My friends and I have searched the whole naval
+harbor."
+
+"Then he has left it!"
+
+"Impossible, every outlet is guarded!"
+
+Beautrelet reflected and then said:
+
+"What next?"
+
+"Next, I hurried to the commandant's and informed the officer in
+charge."
+
+"Did he come to your house?"
+
+"Yes; and a gentleman from the public prosecutor's also. They searched
+all through the morning; and, when I saw that they were making no
+progress and that there was no hope left, I telegraphed to you."
+
+"Was the bed disarranged in his room?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor the room disturbed in any way?"
+
+"No. I found his pipe in its usual place, with his tobacco and the book
+which he was reading. There was even this little photograph of yourself
+in the middle of the book, marking the page."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Froberval passed him the photograph. Beautrelet gave a start of
+surprise. He had recognized himself in the snapshot, standing, with his
+two hands in his pockets, on a lawn from which rose trees and ruins.
+
+Froberval added:
+
+"It must be the last portrait of yourself which you sent him. Look, on
+the back, you will see the date, 3 April, the name of the photographer,
+R. de Val, and the name of the town, Lion--Lion-sur-Mer, perhaps."
+
+Isidore turned the photograph over and read this little note, in his
+own handwriting:
+
+"R. de Val.--3.4--Lion."
+
+He was silent for a few minutes and resumed:
+
+"My father hadn't shown you that snapshot yet?"
+
+"No--and that's just what astonished me when I saw it yesterday--for
+your father used so often to talk to us about you."
+
+There was a fresh pause, greatly prolonged. Froberval muttered:
+
+"I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in--"
+
+He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph, was
+examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked:
+
+"Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d'Or at a short league
+outside the town?"
+
+"Yes, about a league from here."
+
+"On the Route de Valognes, is it?"
+
+"Yes, on the Route de Valognes."
+
+"Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the
+head-quarters of Lupin's friends. It was from there that they entered
+into communication with my father."
+
+"What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody."
+
+"He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary."
+
+"What proof have you?"
+
+"This photograph."
+
+"But it's your photograph!"
+
+"It's my photograph, but it was not sent by me. I was not even aware of
+its existence. It was taken, without my knowledge, in the ruins of
+Ambrumesy, doubtless by the examining-magistrate's clerk, who, as you
+know, was an accomplice of Arsene Lupin's."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then this photograph became the passport, the talisman, by means of
+which they obtained my father's confidence."
+
+"But who? Who was able to get into my house?"
+
+"I don't know, but my father fell into the trap. They told him and he
+believed that I was in the neighborhood, that I was asking to see him
+and that I was giving him an appointment at the Golden Lion."
+
+"But all this is nonsense! How can you assert--?"
+
+"Very simply. They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph
+and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400, Lion
+Inn. My father came and they seized him, that's all."
+
+"Very well," muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, "very well. I admit
+it--things happened as you say--but that does not explain how he was
+able to leave during the night."
+
+"He left in broad daylight, though he waited until dark to go to the
+meeting-place."
+
+"But, confound it, he didn't leave his room the whole of the day before
+yesterday!"
+
+"There is one way of making sure: run down to the dockyard, Froberval,
+and look for one of the men who were on guard in the afternoon, two
+days ago.--Only, be quick, if you wish to find me here."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"Yes, I shall take the next train back."
+
+"What!--Why, you don't know--your inquiry--"
+
+"My inquiry is finished. I know pretty well all that I wanted to know.
+I shall have left Cherbourg in an hour."
+
+Froberval rose to go. He looked at Beautrelet with an air of absolute
+bewilderment, hesitated a moment and then took his cap:
+
+"Are you coming, Charlotte?"
+
+"No," said Beautrelet, "I shall want a few more particulars. Leave her
+with me. Besides, I want to talk to her. I knew her when she was quite
+small."
+
+Froberval went away. Beautrelet and the little girl remained alone in
+the tavern smoking room. A few minutes passed, a waiter entered,
+cleared away some cups and left the room again. The eyes of the young
+man and the child met; and Beautrelet placed his hand very gently on
+the little girl's hand. She looked at him for two or three seconds,
+distractedly, as though about to choke. Then, suddenly hiding her head
+between her folded arms, she burst into sobs.
+
+He let her cry and, after a while, said:
+
+"It was you, wasn't it, who did all the mischief, who acted as
+go-between? It was you who took him the photograph? You admit it, don't
+you? And, when you said that my father was in his room, two days ago,
+you knew that it was not true, did you not, because you yourself had
+helped him to leave it--?"
+
+She made no reply. He asked:
+
+"Why did you do it? They offered you money, I suppose--to buy ribbons
+with a frock--?"
+
+He uncrossed Charlotte's arms and lifted up her head. He saw a poor
+little face all streaked with tears, the attractive, disquieting,
+mobile face of one of those little girls who seem marked out for
+temptation and weakness.
+
+"Come," said Beautrelet, "it's over, we'll say no more about it. I will
+not even ask you how it happened. Only you must tell me everything that
+can be of use to me.--Did you catch anything--any remark made by those
+men? How did they carry him off?"
+
+She replied at once:
+
+"By motor car. I heard them talking about it--"
+
+"And what road did they take?"
+
+"Ah, I don't know that!"
+
+"Didn't they say anything before you--something that might help us?"
+
+"No--wait, though: there was one who said, 'We shall have no time to
+lose--the governor is to telephone to us at eight o'clock in the
+morning--'"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"I can't say.--I've forgotten--"
+
+"Try--try and remember. It was the name of a town, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes--a name--like Chateau--"
+
+"Chateaubriant?--Chateau-Thierry?--"
+
+"No-no--"
+
+"Chateauroux?"
+
+"Yes, that was it--Chateauroux--"
+
+Beautrelet did not wait for her to complete her sentence. Already he
+was on his feet and, without giving a thought to Froberval, without
+even troubling about the child, who stood gazing at him in
+stupefaction, he opened the door and ran to the station:
+
+"Chateauroux, madame--a ticket for Chateauroux--"
+
+"Over Mans and Tours?" asked the booking-clerk.
+
+"Of course--the shortest way. Shall I be there for lunch?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"For dinner? Bedtime--?"
+
+"Oh, no! For that, you would have to go over Paris. The Paris express
+leaves at nine o'clock. You're too late--"
+
+It was not too late. Beautrelet was just able to catch the train.
+
+"Well," said Beautrelet, rubbing his hands, "I have spent only two
+hours or so at Cherbourg, but they were well employed."
+
+He did not for a moment think of accusing Charlotte of lying. Weak,
+unstable, capable of the worst treacheries, those petty natures also
+obey impulses of sincerity; and Beautrelet had read in her affrighted
+eyes her shame for the harm which she had done and her delight at
+repairing it in part. He had no doubt, therefore, that Chateauroux was
+the other town to which Lupin had referred and where his confederates
+were to telephone to him.
+
+On his arrival in Paris, Beautrelet took every necessary precaution to
+avoid being followed. He felt that it was a serious moment. He was on
+the right road that was leading him to his father: one act of
+imprudence might ruin all.
+
+He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour
+later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a
+brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a
+high-colored complexion and a red wig. He jumped on a bicycle laden
+with a complete painter's outfit and rode off to the Gare d'Austerlitz.
+
+He slept that night at Issoudun. The next morning, he mounted his
+machine at break of day. At seven o'clock, he walked into the
+Chateauroux post-office and asked to be put on to Paris. As he had to
+wait, he entered into conversation with the clerk and learnt that, two
+days before, at the same hour, a man dressed for motoring had also
+asked for Paris.
+
+The proof was established. He waited no longer.
+
+By the afternoon, he had ascertained, from undeniable evidence, that a
+limousine car, following the Tours road, had passed through the village
+of Buzancais and the town of Chateauroux and had stopped beyond the
+town, on the verge of the forest. At ten o'clock, a hired gig, driven
+by a man unknown, had stopped beside the car and then gone off south,
+through the valley of the Bouzanne. There was then another person
+seated beside the driver. As for the car, it had turned in the opposite
+direction and gone north, toward Issoudun.
+
+Beautrelet easily discovered the owner of the gig, who, however, had no
+information to supply. He had hired out his horse and trap to a man who
+brought them back himself next day.
+
+Lastly, that same evening, Isidore found out that the motor car had
+only passed through Issoudun, continuing its road toward Orleans, that
+is to say, toward Paris.
+
+From all this, it resulted, in the most absolute fashion, that M.
+Beautrelet was somewhere in the neighborhood. If not, how was it
+conceivable that people should travel nearly three hundred miles across
+France in order to telephone from Chateauroux and next to return, at an
+acute angle, by the Paris road?
+
+This immense circuit had a more definite object: to move M. Beautrelet
+to the place assigned to him.
+
+"And this place is within reach of my hand," said Isidore to himself,
+quivering with hope and expectation. "My father is waiting for me to
+rescue him at ten or fifteen leagues from here. He is close by. He is
+breathing the same air as I."
+
+He set to work at once. Taking a war-office map, he divided it into
+small squares, which he visited one after the other, entering the
+farmhouses making the peasants talk, calling on the schoolmasters, the
+mayors, the parish priests, chatting to the women. It seemed to him
+that he must attain his end without delay and his dreams grew until it
+was no longer his father alone whom he hoped to deliver, but all those
+whom Lupin was holding captive: Raymonde de Saint-Veran, Ganimard,
+Holmlock Shears, perhaps, and others, many others; and, in reaching
+them, he would, at the same time, reach Lupin's stronghold, his lair,
+the impenetrable retreat where he was piling up the treasures of which
+he had robbed the wide world.
+
+But, after a fortnight's useless searching, his enthusiasm ended by
+slackening and he very soon lost confidence. Because success was slow
+in appearing, from one day to the next, almost, he ceased to believe in
+it; and, though he continued to pursue his plan of investigations, he
+would have felt a real surprise if his efforts had led to the smallest
+discovery.
+
+More days still passed by, monotonous days of discouragement. He read
+in the newspapers that the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter had left
+Ambrumesy and gone to stay near Nice. He also learnt that Harlington
+had been released, that gentleman's innocence having become
+self-obvious, in accordance with the indications supplied by Arsene
+Lupin.
+
+Isidore changed his head-quarters, established himself for two days at
+the Chatre, for two days at Argenton. The result was the same.
+
+Just then, he was nearly throwing up the game. Evidently, the gig in
+which his father had been carried off could only have furnished a
+stage, which had been followed by another stage, furnished by some
+other conveyance. And his father was far away.
+
+He was thinking of leaving, when, one Monday morning, he saw, on the
+envelope of an unstamped letter, sent on to him from Paris, a
+handwriting that set him trembling with emotion. So great was his
+excitement that, for some minutes, he dared not open the letter, for
+fear of a disappointment. His hand shook. Was it possible? Was this not
+a trap laid for him by his infernal enemy?
+
+He tore open the envelope. It was indeed a letter from his father,
+written by his father himself. The handwriting presented all the
+peculiarities, all the oddities of the hand which he knew so well.
+
+He read:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Will these lines ever reach you, my dear son? I dare not believe it.
+
+During the whole night of my abduction, we traveled by motor car; then,
+in the morning, by carriage. I could see nothing. My eyes were
+bandaged. The castle in which I am confined should be somewhere in the
+midlands, to judge by its construction and the vegetation in the park.
+The room which I occupy is on the second floor: it is a room with two
+windows, one of which is almost blocked by a screen of climbing
+glycines. In the afternoon, I am allowed to walk about the park, at
+certain hours, but I am kept under unrelaxing observation.
+
+I am writing this letter, on the mere chance of its reaching you, and
+fastening it to a stone. Perhaps, one day, I shall be able to throw it
+over the wall and some peasant will pick it up.
+
+But do not be distressed about me. I am treated with every
+consideration.
+
+Your old father, who is very fond of you and very sad to think of the
+trouble he is giving you,
+
+BEAUTRELET.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isidore at once looked at the postmarks. They read, "Cuzion, Indre."
+
+The Indre! The department which he had been stubbornly searching for
+weeks!
+
+He consulted a little pocket-guide which he always carried. Cuzion, in
+the canton of Eguzon--he had been there too.
+
+For prudence's sake, he discarded his personality as an Englishman,
+which was becoming too well known in the district, disguised himself as
+a workman and made for Cuzion. It was an unimportant village. He would
+easily discover the sender of the letter.
+
+For that matter, chance served him without delay:
+
+"A letter posted on Wednesday last?" exclaimed the mayor, a respectable
+tradesman in whom he confided and who placed himself at his disposal.
+"Listen, I think I can give you a valuable clue: on Saturday morning,
+Gaffer Charel, an old knife-grinder who visits all the fairs in the
+department, met me at the end of the village and asked, 'Monsieur le
+maire, does a letter without a stamp on it go all the same?' 'Of
+course,' said I. 'And does it get there?' 'Certainly. Only there's
+double postage to pay on it, that's all the difference.'"
+
+"And where does he live?"
+
+"He lives over there, all alone--on the slope--the hovel that comes
+next after the churchyard.--Shall I go with you?"
+
+It was a hovel standing by itself, in the middle of an orchard
+surrounded by tall trees. As they entered the orchard, three magpies
+flew away with a great splutter and they saw that the birds were flying
+out of the very hole in which the watch-dog was fastened. And the dog
+neither barked nor stirred as they approached.
+
+Beautrelet went up in great surprise. The brute was lying on its side,
+with stiff paws, dead.
+
+They ran quickly to the cottage. The door stood open. They entered. At
+the back of a low, damp room, on a wretched straw mattress, flung on
+the floor itself, lay a man fully dressed.
+
+"Gaffer Charel!" cried the mayor. "Is he dead, too?"
+
+The old man's hands were cold, his face terribly pale, but his heart
+was still beating, with a faint, slow throb, and he seemed not to be
+wounded in any way.
+
+They tried to resuscitate him and, as they failed in their efforts,
+Beautrelet went to fetch a doctor. The doctor succeeded no better than
+they had done. The old man did not seem to be suffering. He looked as
+if he were just asleep, but with an artificial slumber, as though he
+had been put to sleep by hypnotism or with the aid of a narcotic.
+
+In the middle of the night that followed, however, Isidore, who was
+watching by his side, observed that the breathing became stronger and
+that his whole being appeared to be throwing off the invisible bonds
+that paralyzed it.
+
+At daybreak, he woke up and resumed his normal functions: ate, drank
+and moved about. But, the whole day long, he was unable to reply to the
+young man's questions and his brain seemed as though still numbed by an
+inexplicable torpor.
+
+The next day, he asked Beautrelet:
+
+"What are you doing here, eh?"
+
+It was the first time that he had shown surprise at the presence of a
+stranger beside him.
+
+Gradually, in this way, he recovered all his faculties. He talked. He
+made plans. But, when Beautrelet asked him about the events immediately
+preceding his sleep, he seemed not to understand.
+
+And Beautrelet felt that he really did not understand. He had lost the
+recollection of all that had happened since the Friday before. It was
+like a sudden gap in the ordinary flow of his life. He described his
+morning and afternoon on the Friday, the purchases he had made at the
+fair, the meals he had taken at the inn. Then--nothing--nothing more.
+He believed himself to be waking on the morrow of that day.
+
+It was horrible for Beautrelet. The truth lay there, in those eyes
+which had seen the walls of the park behind which his father was
+waiting for him, in those hands which had picked up the letter, in that
+muddled brain which had recorded the whereabouts of that scene, the
+setting, the little corner of the world in which the play had been
+enacted. And from those hands, from that brain he was unable to extract
+the faintest echo of the truth so near at hand!
+
+Oh, that impalpable and formidable obstacle, against which all his
+efforts hurled themselves in vain, that obstacle built up of silence
+and oblivion! How clearly it bore the mark of Arsene Lupin! He alone,
+informed, no doubt, that M. Beautrelet had attempted to give a signal,
+he alone could have struck with partial death the one man whose
+evidence could injure him. It was not that Beautrelet felt himself to
+be discovered or thought that Lupin, hearing of his stealthy attack and
+knowing that a letter had reached him, was defending himself against
+him personally. But what an amount of foresight and real intelligence
+it displayed to suppress any possible accusation on the part of that
+chance wayfarer! Nobody now knew that within the walls of a park there
+lay a prisoner asking for help.
+
+Nobody? Yes, Beautrelet. Gaffer Charel was unable to speak. Very well.
+But, at least, one could find out which fair the old man had visited
+and which was the logical road that he had taken to return by. And,
+along this road, perhaps it would at last be possible to find--
+
+Isidore, as it was, had been careful not to visit Gaffer Charel's hovel
+except with the greatest precautions and in such a way as not to give
+an alarm. He now decided not to go back to it. He made inquiries and
+learnt that Friday was market-day at Fresselines, a fair-sized town
+situated a few leagues off, which could be reached either by the rather
+winding highroad or by a series of short cuts.
+
+On the Friday, he chose the road and saw nothing that attracted his
+attention, no high walled enclosure, no semblance of an old castle.
+
+He lunched at an inn at Fresselines and was on the point of leaving
+when he saw Gaffer Charel arrive and cross the square, wheeling his
+little knife-grinding barrow before him. He at once followed him at a
+good distance.
+
+The old man made two interminable waits, during which he ground dozens
+of knives. Then, at last, he went away by a quite different road, which
+ran in the direction of Crozant and the market-town of Eguzon.
+
+Beautrelet followed him along this road. But he had not walked five
+minutes before he received the impression that he was not alone in
+shadowing the old fellow. A man was walking along between them,
+stopping at the same time as Charel and starting off again when he did,
+without, for that matter, taking any great precautions against being
+seen.
+
+"He is being watched," thought Beautrelet. "Perhaps they want to know
+if he stops in front of the walls--"
+
+His heart beat violently. The event was at hand.
+
+The three of them, one behind the other, climbed up and down the steep
+slopes of the country and arrived at Crozant, famed for the colossal
+ruins of its castle. There Charel made a halt of an hour's duration.
+Next he went down to the riverside and crossed the bridge.
+
+But then a thing happened that took Beautrelet by surprise. The other
+man did not cross the river. He watched the old fellow move away and,
+when he had lost sight of him, turned down a path that took him right
+across the fields.
+
+Beautrelet hesitated for a few seconds as to what course to take, and
+then quietly decided. He set off in pursuit of the man.
+
+"He has made sure," he thought, "that Gaffer Charel has gone straight
+ahead. That is all he wanted to know and so he is going--where? To the
+castle?"
+
+He was within touch of the goal. He felt it by a sort of agonizing
+gladness that uplifted his whole being.
+
+The man plunged into a dark wood overhanging the river and then
+appeared once more in the full light, where the path met the horizon.
+
+When Beautrelet, in his turn, emerged from the wood, he was greatly
+surprised no longer to see the man. He was seeking him with his eyes
+when, suddenly, he gave a stifled cry and, with a backward spring, made
+for the line of trees which he had just left. On his right, he had seen
+a rampart of high walls, flanked, at regular distances, by massive
+buttresses.
+
+It was there! It was there! Those walls held his father captive! He had
+found the secret place where Lupin confined his victim.
+
+He dared not quit the shelter which the thick foliage of the wood
+afforded him. Slowly, almost on all fours, he bore to the right and in
+this way reached the top of a hillock that rose to the level of the
+neighboring trees. The walls were taller still. Nevertheless, he
+perceived the roof of the castle which they surrounded, an old Louis
+XIII. roof, surmounted by very slender bell-turrets arranged
+corbel-wise around a higher steeple which ran to a point.
+
+Beautrelet did no more that day. He felt the need to reflect and to
+prepare his plan of attack without leaving anything to chance. He held
+Lupin safe; and it was for Beautrelet now to select the hour and the
+manner of the combat.
+
+He walked away.
+
+Near the bridge, he met two country-girls carrying pails of milk. He
+asked:
+
+"What is the name of the castle over there, behind the trees?"
+
+"That's the Chateau de l'Aiguille, sir."
+
+He had put his question without attaching any importance to it. The
+answer took away his breath:
+
+"The Chateau de l'Aiguille?--Oh!--But in what department are we? The
+Indre?"
+
+"Certainly not. The Indre is on the other side of the river. This side,
+it's the Creuse."
+
+Isidore saw it all in a flash. The Chateau de l'Aiguille! The
+department of the Creuse! L'AIGUILLE CREUSE! The Hollow Needle! The
+very key to the document! Certain, decisive, absolute victory!
+
+Without another word, he turned his back on the two girls and went his
+way, tottering like a drunken man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+AN HISTORIC SECRET
+
+
+Beautrelet's resolve was soon taken: he would act alone. To inform the
+police was too dangerous. Apart from the fact that he could only offer
+presumptions, he dreaded the slowness of the police, their inevitable
+indiscretions, the whole preliminary inquiry, during which Lupin, who
+was sure to be warned, would have time to effect a retreat in good
+order.
+
+At eight o'clock the next morning, with his bundle under his arm, he
+left the inn in which he was staying near Cuzion, made for the nearest
+thicket, took off his workman's clothes, became once more the young
+English painter that he had been and went to call on the notary at
+Eguzon, the largest place in the immediate neighborhood.
+
+He said that he liked the country and that he was thinking of taking up
+his residence there, with his relations, if he could find a suitable
+house.
+
+The notary mentioned a number of properties. Beautrelet took note of
+them and let fall that some one had spoken to him of the Chateau de
+l'Aiguille, on the bank of the Creuse.
+
+"Oh, yes, but the Chateau de l'Aiguille, which has belonged to one of
+my clients for the last five years, is not for sale."
+
+"He lives in it, then?"
+
+"He used to live in it, or rather his mother did. But she did not care
+for it; found the castle rather gloomy. So they left it last year."
+
+"And is no one living there at present?"
+
+"Yes, an Italian, to whom my client let it for the summer season: Baron
+Anfredi."
+
+"Oh, Baron Anfredi! A man still young, rather grave and
+solemn-looking--?"
+
+"I'm sure I can't say.--My client dealt with him direct. There was no
+regular agreement, just a letter--"
+
+"But you know the baron?"
+
+"No, he never leaves the castle.--Sometimes, in his motor, at night, so
+they say. The marketing is done by an old cook, who talks to nobody.
+They are queer people--"
+
+"Do you think your client would consent to sell his castle?"
+
+"I don't think so. It's an historic castle, built in the purest Louis
+XIII. style. My client was very fond of it; and, unless he has changed
+his mind--"
+
+"Can you give me his name and address?"
+
+"Louis Valmeras, 34, Rue du Mont-Thabor."
+
+Beautrelet took the train for Paris at the nearest station. On the next
+day but one, after three fruitless calls, he at last found Louis
+Valmeras at home. He was a man of about thirty, with a frank and
+pleasing face. Beautrelet saw no need to beat about the bush, stated
+who he was and described his efforts and the object of the step which
+he was now taking:
+
+"I have good reason to believe," he concluded, "that my father is
+imprisoned in the Chateau de l'Aiguille, doubtless in the company of
+other victims. And I have come to ask you what you know of your tenant,
+Baron Anfredi."
+
+"Not much. I met Baron Anfredi last winter at Monte Carlo. He had heard
+by accident that I was the owner of the Chateau de l'Aiguille and, as
+he wished to spend the summer in France, he made me an offer for it."
+
+"He is still a young man--"
+
+"Yes, with very expressive eyes, fair hair--"
+
+"And a beard?"
+
+"Yes, ending in two points, which fall over a collar fastened at the
+back, like a clergyman's. In fact, he looks a little like an English
+parson."
+
+"It's he," murmured Beautrelet, "it's he, as I have seen him: it's his
+exact description."
+
+"What! Do you think--?"
+
+"I think, I am sure that your tenant is none other than Arsene Lupin."
+
+The story amused Louis Valmeras. He knew all the adventures of Arsene
+Lupin and the varying fortunes of his struggle with Beautrelet. He
+rubbed his hands:
+
+"Ha, the Chateau de l'Aiguille will become famous!--I'm sure I don't
+mind, for, as a matter of fact, now that my mother no longer lives in
+it, I have always thought that I would get rid of it at the first
+opportunity. After this, I shall soon find a purchaser. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"I will ask you to act with the most extreme prudence and not to inform
+the police until you are quite sure. Can you picture the situation,
+supposing my tenant were not Arsene Lupin?"
+
+Beautrelet set forth his plan. He would go alone at night; he would
+climb the walls; he would sleep in the park-- Louis Valmeras stopped
+him at once:
+
+"You will not climb walls of that height so easily. If you do, you will
+be received by two huge sheep-dogs which belonged to my mother and
+which I left behind at the castle."
+
+"Pooh! A dose of poison--"
+
+"Much obliged. But suppose you escaped them. What then? How would you
+get into the castle? The doors are massive, the windows barred. And,
+even then, once you were inside, who would guide you? There are eighty
+rooms."
+
+"Yes, but that room with two windows, on the second story--"
+
+"I know it, we call it the glycine room. But how will you find it?
+There are three staircases and a labyrinth of passages. I can give you
+the clue and explain the way to you, but you would get lost just the
+same."
+
+"Come with me," said Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+"I can't. I have promised to go to my mother in the South."
+
+Beautrelet returned to the friend with whom he was staying and began to
+make his preparations. But, late in the day, as he was getting ready to
+go, he received a visit from Valmeras.
+
+"Do you still want me?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"Well, I'm coming with you. Yes, the expedition fascinates me. I think
+it will be very amusing and I like being mixed up in this sort of
+thing.--Besides, my help will be of use to you. Look, here's something
+to start with."
+
+He held up a big key, all covered with rust and looking very old.
+
+"What does the key open?" asked Beautrelet.
+
+"A little postern hidden between two buttresses and left unused since
+centuries ago. I did not even think of pointing it out to my tenant. It
+opens straight on the country, just at the verge of the wood."
+
+Beautrelet interrupted him quickly:
+
+"They know all about that outlet. It was obviously by this way that the
+man whom I followed entered the park. Come, it's fine game and we shall
+win it. But, by Jupiter, we must play our cards carefully!"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later, a half-famished horse dragged a gipsy caravan into
+Crozant. Its driver obtained leave to stable it at the end of the
+village, in an old deserted cart-shed. In addition to the driver, who
+was none other than Valmeras, there were three young men, who occupied
+themselves in the manufacture of wicker-work chairs: Beautrelet and two
+of his Janson friends.
+
+They stayed there for three days, waiting for a propitious, moonless
+night and roaming singly round the outskirts of the park. Once
+Beautrelet saw the postern. Contrived between two buttresses placed
+very close together, it was almost merged, behind the screen of
+brambles that concealed it, in the pattern formed by the stones of the
+wall.
+
+At last, on the fourth evening, the sky was covered with heavy black
+clouds and Valmeras decided that they should go reconnoitring, at the
+risk of having to return again, should circumstances prove unfavorable.
+
+All four crossed the little wood. Then Beautrelet crept through the
+heather, scratched his hands at the bramble-hedge and, half raising
+himself, slowly, with restrained movements, put the key into the lock.
+He turned it gently. Would the door open without an effort? Was there
+no bolt closing it on the other side? He pushed: the door opened,
+without a creak or jolt. He was in the park.
+
+"Are you there, Beautrelet?" asked Valmeras. "Wait for me. You two
+chaps, watch the door and keep our line of retreat open. At the least
+alarm, whistle."
+
+He took Beautrelet's hand and they plunged into the dense shadow of the
+thickets. A clearer space was revealed to them when they reached the
+edge of the central lawn. At the same moment a ray of moonlight pierced
+the clouds; and they saw the castle, with its pointed turrets arranged
+around the tapering spire to which, no doubt, it owed its name. There
+was no light in the windows; not a sound.
+
+Valmeras grasped his companion's arm:
+
+"Keep still!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"The dogs, over there--look--"
+
+There was a growl. Valmeras gave a low whistle. Two white forms leapt
+forward and, in four bounds, came and crouched at their master's feet.
+
+"Gently--lie down--that's it--good dogs--stay there."
+
+And he said to Beautrelet:
+
+"And now let us push on. I feel more comfortable."
+
+"Are you sure of the way?"
+
+"Yes. We are near the terrace."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I remember that, on the left, at a place where the river terrace rises
+to the level of the ground-floor windows, there is a shutter which
+closes badly and which can be opened from the outside."
+
+They found, when they came to it, that the shutter yielded to pressure.
+Valmeras removed a pane with a diamond which he carried. He turned the
+window-latch. First one and then the other stepped over the balcony.
+They were now in the castle, at the end of a passage which divided the
+left wing into two.
+
+"This room," said Valmeras, "opens at the end of a passage. Then comes
+an immense hall, lined with statues, and at the end of the hall a
+staircase which ends near the room occupied by your father."
+
+He took a step forward.
+
+"Are you coming, Beautrelet?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"But no, you're not coming--What's the matter with you?"
+
+He seized him by the hand. It was icy cold and he perceived that the
+young man was cowering on the floor.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" he repeated.
+
+"Nothing--it'll pass off--"
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"I'm afraid--"
+
+"You're afraid?"
+
+"Yes," Beautrelet confessed, frankly, "it's my nerves giving way--I
+generally manage to control them--but, to-day, the silence--the
+excitement--And then, since I was stabbed by that magistrate's
+clerk--But it will pass off--There, it's passing now--"
+
+He succeeded in rising to his feet and Valmeras dragged him out of the
+room. They groped their way along the passage, so softly that neither
+could hear a sound made by the other.
+
+A faint glimmer, however, seemed to light the hall for which they were
+making. Valmeras put his head round the corner. It was a night-light
+placed at the foot of the stairs, on a little table which showed
+through the frail branches of a palm tree.
+
+"Halt!" whispered Valmeras.
+
+Near the night-light, a man stood sentry, carrying a gun.
+
+Had he seen them? Perhaps. At least, something must have alarmed him,
+for he brought the gun to his shoulder.
+
+Beautrelet had fallen on his knees, against a tub containing a plant,
+and he remained quite still, with his heart thumping against his chest.
+
+Meanwhile, the silence and the absence of all movement reassured the
+man. He lowered his weapon. But his head was still turned in the
+direction of the tub.
+
+Terrible minutes passed: ten minutes, fifteen. A moonbeam had glided
+through a window on the staircase. And, suddenly, Beautrelet became
+aware that the moonbeam was shifting imperceptibly, and that, before
+fifteen, before ten more minutes had elapsed, it would be shining full
+in his face.
+
+Great drops of perspiration fell from his forehead on his trembling
+hands. His anguish was such that he was on the point of getting up and
+running away--But, remembering that Valmeras was there, he sought him
+with his eyes and was astounded to see him, or rather to imagine him,
+creeping in the dark, under cover of the statues and plants. He was
+already at the foot of the stairs, within a few steps of the man.
+
+What was he going to do? To pass in spite of all? To go upstairs alone
+and release the prisoner? But could he pass?
+
+Beautrelet no longer saw him and he had an impression that something
+was about to take place, something that seemed foreboded also by the
+silence, which hung heavier, more awful than before.
+
+And, suddenly, a shadow springing upon the man, the night-light
+extinguished, the sound of a struggle--Beautrelet ran up. The two
+bodies had rolled over on the flagstones. He tried to stoop and see.
+But he heard a hoarse moan, a sigh; and one of the adversaries rose to
+his feet and seized him by the arm:
+
+"Quick!--Come along!"
+
+It was Valmeras.
+
+They went up two storys and came out at the entrance to a corridor,
+covered by a hanging.
+
+"To the right," whispered Valmeras. "The fourth room on the left."
+
+They soon found the door of the room. As they expected, the captive was
+locked in. It took them half an hour, half an hour of stifled efforts,
+of muffled attempts, to force open the lock. The door yielded at last.
+
+Beautrelet groped his way to the bed. His father was asleep.
+
+He woke him gently:
+
+"It's I--Isidore--and a friend--don't be afraid--get up--not a word."
+
+The father dressed himself, but, as they were leaving the room, he
+whispered:
+
+"I am not alone in the castle--"
+
+"Ah? Who else? Ganimard? Shears?"
+
+"No--at least, I have not seen them."
+
+"Who then?"
+
+"A young girl."
+
+"Mlle. de Saint-Veran, no doubt."
+
+"I don't know--I saw her several times at a distance, in the park--and,
+when I lean out of my window, I can see hers. She has made signals to
+me."
+
+"Do you know which is her room?"
+
+"Yes, in this passage, the third on the right."
+
+"The blue room," murmured Valmeras. "It has folding doors: they won't
+give us so much trouble."
+
+One of the two leaves very soon gave way. Old Beautrelet undertook to
+tell the girl.
+
+Ten minutes later, he left the room with her and said to his son:
+
+"You were right--Mlle. de Saint-Veran--;"
+
+They all four went down the stairs. When they reached the bottom,
+Valmeras stopped and bent over the man. Then, leading them to the
+terrace-room:
+
+"He is not dead," he said. "He will live."
+
+"Ah!" said Beautrelet, with a sigh of relief.
+
+"No, fortunately, the blade of my knife bent: the blow is not fatal.
+Besides, in any case, those rascals deserve no pity."
+
+Outside, they were met by the dogs, which accompanied them to the
+postern. Here, Beautrelet found his two friends and the little band
+left the park. It was three o'clock in the morning.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+This first victory was not enough to satisfy Beautrelet. As soon as he
+had comfortably settled his father and Mlle. de Saint-Veran, he asked
+them about the people who lived at the castle, and, particularly, about
+the habits of Arsene Lupin. He thus learnt that Lupin came only every
+three or four days, arriving at night in his motor car and leaving
+again in the morning. At each of his visits, he called separately upon
+his two prisoners, both of whom agreed in praising his courtesy and his
+extreme civility. For the moment, he was not at the castle.
+
+Apart from him, they had seen no one except an old woman, who ruled
+over the kitchen and the house, and two men, who kept watch over them
+by turns and never spoke to them: subordinates, obviously, to judge by
+their manners and appearance.
+
+"Two accomplices, for all that," said Beautrelet, in conclusion, "or
+rather three, with the old woman. It is a bag worth having. And, if we
+lose no time--"
+
+He jumped on his bicycle, rode to Eguzon, woke up the gendarmerie, set
+them all going, made them sound the boot and saddle and returned to
+Crozant at eight o'clock, accompanied by the sergeant and eight
+gendarmes. Two of the men were posted beside the gipsy-van. Two others
+took up their positions outside the postern-door. The last four,
+commanded by their chief and accompanied by Beautrelet and Valmeras,
+marched to the main entrance of the castle.
+
+Too late. The door was wide open. A peasant told them that he had seen
+a motor car drive out of the castle an hour before.
+
+Indeed, the search led to no result. In all probability, the gang had
+installed themselves there picnic fashion. A few clothes were found, a
+little linen, some household implements; and that was all.
+
+What astonished Beautrelet and Valmeras more was the disappearance of
+the wounded man. They could not see the faintest trace of a struggle,
+not even a drop of blood on the flagstones of the hall.
+
+All said, there was no material evidence to prove the fleeting presence
+of Lupin at the Chateau de l'Aiguille; and the authorities would have
+been entitled to challenge the statements of Beautrelet and his father,
+of Valmeras and Mlle. de Saint-Veran, had they not ended by
+discovering, in a room next to that occupied by the young girl, some
+half-dozen exquisite bouquets with Arsene Lupin's card pinned to them,
+bouquets scorned by her, faded and forgotten--One of them, in addition
+to the card, contained a letter which Raymonde had not seen. That
+afternoon, when opened by the examining magistrate, it was found to
+contain page upon page of prayers, entreaties, promises, threats,
+despair, all the madness of a love that has encountered nothing but
+contempt and repulsion.
+
+And the letter ended:
+
+I shall come on Tuesday evening, Raymonde. Reflect between now and
+then. As for me, I will wait no longer. I am resolved on all.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tuesday evening was the evening of the very day on which Beautrelet had
+released Mlle. de Saint-Veran from her captivity.
+
+The reader will remember the extraordinary explosion of surprise and
+enthusiasm that resounded throughout the world at the news of that
+unexpected issue: Mlle. de Saint-Veran free! The pretty girl whom Lupin
+coveted, to secure whom he had contrived his most Machiavellian
+schemes, snatched from his claws! Free also Beautrelet's father, whom
+Lupin had chosen as a hostage in his extravagant longing for the
+armistice demanded by the needs of his passion! They were both free,
+the two prisoners! And the secret of the Hollow Needle was known,
+published, flung to the four corners of the world!
+
+The crowd amused itself with a will. Ballads were sold and sung about
+the defeated adventurer: Lupin's Little Love-Affairs!--Arsene's Piteous
+Sobs!--The Lovesick Burglar! The Pickpocket's Lament!--They were cried
+on the boulevards and hummed in the artists' studios.
+
+Raymonde, pressed with questions and pursued by interviewers, replied
+with the most extreme reserve. But there was no denying the letter, or
+the bouquets of flowers, or any part of the pitiful story! Then and
+there, Lupin, scoffed and jeered at, toppled from his pedestal.
+
+And Beautrelet became the popular idol. He had foretold everything,
+thrown light on everything. The evidence which Mlle. de Saint-Veran
+gave before the examining magistrate confirmed, down to the smallest
+detail, the hypothesis imagined by Isidore. Reality seemed to submit,
+in every point, to what he had decreed beforehand. Lupin had found his
+master.--
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beautrelet insisted that his father, before returning to his mountains
+in Savoy, should take a few months' rest in the sunshine, and himself
+escorted him and Mlle. de Saint-Veran to the outskirts of Nice, where
+the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter Suzanne were already settled for
+the winter. Two days later, Valmeras brought his mother to see his new
+friends and they thus composed a little colony grouped around the Villa
+de Gesvres and watched over day and night by half a dozen men engaged
+by the comte.
+
+Early in October, Beautrelet, once more the sixth-form pupil, returned
+to Paris to resume the interrupted course of his studies and to prepare
+for his examinations. And life began again, calmer, this time, and free
+from incident. What could happen, for that matter. Was the war not over?
+
+Lupin, on his side, must have felt this very clearly, must have felt
+that there was nothing left for him but to resign himself to the
+accomplished fact; for, one fine day, his two other victims, Ganimard
+and Holmlock Shears, made their reappearance. Their return to the life
+of this planet, however, was devoid of any sort of glamor or
+fascination. An itinerant rag-man picked them up on the Quai des
+Orfevres, opposite the headquarters of police. Both of them were
+gagged, bound and fast asleep.
+
+After a week of complete bewilderment, they succeeded in recovering the
+control of their thought and told--or rather Ganimard told, for Shears
+wrapped himself in a fierce and stubborn silence--how they had made a
+voyage of circumnavigation round the coast of Africa on board the yacht
+Hirondelle, a voyage combining amusement with instruction, during which
+they could look upon themselves as free, save for a few hours which
+they spent at the bottom of the hold, while the crew went on shore at
+outlandish ports.
+
+As for their landing on the Quai des Orfevres, they remembered nothing
+about it and had probably been asleep for many days before.
+
+This liberation of the prisoners was the final confession of defeat. By
+ceasing to fight, Lupin admitted it without reserve.
+
+One incident, moreover, made it still more glaring, which was the
+engagement of Louis Valmeras and Mlle. de Saint-Veran. In the intimacy
+created between them by the new conditions under which they lived, the
+two young people fell in love with each other. Valmeras loved
+Raymonde's melancholy charm; and she, wounded by life, greedy for
+protection, yielded before the strength and energy of the man who had
+contributed so gallantly to her preservation.
+
+The wedding day was awaited with a certain amount of anxiety. Would
+Lupin not try to resume the offensive? Would he accept with a good
+grace the irretrievable loss of the woman he loved? Twice or three
+times, suspicious-looking people were seen prowling round the villa;
+and Valmeras even had to defend himself one evening against a so-called
+drunken man, who fired a pistol at him and sent a bullet through his
+hat. But, in the end, the ceremony was performed at the appointed hour
+and day and Raymonde de Saint-Veran became Mme. Louis Valmeras.
+
+It was as though Fate herself had taken sides with Beautrelet and
+countersigned the news of victory. This was so apparent to the crowd
+that his admirers now conceived the notion of entertaining him at a
+banquet to celebrate his triumph and Lupin's overthrow. It was a great
+idea and aroused general enthusiasm. Three hundred tickets were sold in
+less than a fortnight. Invitations were issued to the public schools of
+Paris, to send two sixth-form pupils apiece. The press sang paeans. The
+banquet was what it could not fail to be, an apotheosis.
+
+But it was a charming and simple apotheosis, because Beautrelet was its
+hero. His presence was enough to bring things back to their due
+proportion. He showed himself modest, as usual, a little surprised at
+the excessive cheering, a little embarrassed by the extravagant
+panegyrics in which he was pronounced greater than the most illustrious
+detectives--a little embarrassed, but also not a little touched.
+
+He said as much in a few words that pleased all his hearers and with
+the shyness of a child that blushes when you look at it. He spoke of
+his delight, of his pride. And really, reasonable and self-controlled
+as he was, this was for him a moment of never-to-be-forgotten
+exultation. He smiled to his friends, to his fellow-Jansonians, to
+Valmeras, who had come specially to give him a cheer, to M. de Gesvres,
+to his father.
+
+When he had finished speaking; and while he still held his glass in his
+hand, a sound of voices came from the other end of the room and some
+one was gesticulating and waving a newspaper. Silence was restored and
+the importunate person sat down again: but a thrill of curiosity ran
+round the table, the newspaper was passed from hand to hand and, each
+time that one of the guests cast his eyes upon the page at which it was
+opened, exclamations followed:
+
+"Read it! Read it!" they cried from the opposite side.
+
+The people were leaving their seats at the principal table. M.
+Beautrelet went and took the paper and handed it to his son.
+
+"Read it out! Read it out!" they cried, louder.
+
+And others said:
+
+"Listen! He's going to read it! Listen!"
+
+Beautrelet stood facing his audience, looked in the evening paper which
+his father had given him for the article that was causing all this
+uproar and, suddenly, his eyes encountering a heading underlined in
+blue pencil, he raised his hand to call for silence and began in a loud
+voice to read a letter addressed to the editor by M. Massiban, of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. His voice broke and fell,
+little by little, as he read those stupefying revelations, which
+reduced all his efforts to nothing, upset his notions concerning the
+Hollow Needle and proved the vanity of his struggle with Arsene Lupin:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir:
+
+On the 17th of March, 1679, there appeared a little book with the
+following title: The Mystery of the Hollow Needle. The Whole Truth now
+first exhibited. One hundred copies printed by myself for the
+instruction of the Court.
+
+At nine o'clock on the morning of that day, the author, a very young
+man, well-dressed, whose name has remained unknown, began to leave his
+book on the principal persons at court. At ten o'clock, when he had
+fulfilled four of these errands, he was arrested by a captain in the
+guards, who took him to the king's closet and forthwith set off in
+search of the four copies distributed.
+
+When the hundred copies were got together, counted, carefully looked
+through and verified, the king himself threw them into the fire and
+burnt them, all but one, which he kept for his own purposes.
+
+Then he ordered the captain of the guards to take the author of the
+book to M. de Saint-Mars, who confined his prisoner first at Pignerol
+and then in the fortress of the Ile Sainte-Marguerite. This man was
+obviously no other than the famous Man with the Iron Mask.
+
+The truth would never have been known, or at least a part of the truth,
+if the captain in the guards had not been present at the interview and
+if, when the king's back was turned, he had not been tempted to
+withdraw another of the copies from the chimney, before the fire got to
+it.
+
+Six months later, the captain was found dead on the highroad between
+Gaillon and Mantes. His murderers had stripped him of all his apparel,
+forgetting, however, in his right boot a jewel which was discovered
+there afterward, a diamond of the first water and of considerable value.
+
+Among his papers was found a sheet in his handwriting, in which he did
+not speak of the book snatched from the flames, but gave a summary of
+the earlier chapters. It referred to a secret which was known to the
+Kings of England, which was lost by them when the crown passed from the
+poor fool, Henry VI., to the Duke of York, which was revealed to
+Charles VII., King of France, by Joan of Arc and which, becoming a
+State secret, was handed down from sovereign to sovereign by means of a
+letter, sealed anew on each occasion, which was found in the deceased
+monarch's death-bed with this superscription: "For the King of France."
+
+This secret concerned the existence and described the whereabouts of a
+tremendous treasure, belonging to the kings, which increased in
+dimensions from century to century.
+
+One hundred and fourteen years later, Louis XVI., then a prisoner in
+the Temple, took aside one of the officers whose duty it was to guard
+the royal family, and asked:
+
+"Monsieur, had you not an ancestor who served as a captain under my
+predecessor, the Great King?"
+
+"Yes, sire."
+
+"Well, could you be relied upon--could you be relied upon--"
+
+He hesitated. The officer completed the sentence:
+
+"Not to betray your Majesty! Oh, sire!--"
+
+"Then listen to me."
+
+He took from his pocket a little book of which he tore out one of the
+last pages. But, altering his mind:
+
+"No, I had better copy it--"
+
+He seized a large sheet of paper and tore it in such a way as to leave
+only a small rectangular space, on which he copied five lines of dots,
+letters and figures from the printed page. Then, after burning the
+latter, he folded the manuscript sheet in four, sealed it with red wax,
+and gave it to the officer.
+
+"Monsieur, after my death, you must hand this to the Queen and say to
+her, 'From the King, madame--for Your Majesty and for your son.' If she
+does not understand--"
+
+"If she does not understand, sire--"
+
+"You must add, 'It concerns the secret, the secret of the Needle.' The
+Queen will understand."
+
+When he had finished speaking, he flung the book into the embers
+glowing on the hearth.
+
+He ascended the scaffold on the 21st of January.
+
+It took the officer several months, in consequence of the removal of
+the Queen to the Conciergerie, before he could fulfil the mission with
+which he was entrusted. At last, by dint of cunning intrigues, he
+succeeded, one day, in finding himself in the presence of Marie
+Antoinette.
+
+Speaking so that she could just hear him, he said:
+
+"Madame, from the late King, your husband, for Your Majesty and your
+son."
+
+And he gave her the sealed letter.
+
+She satisfied herself that the jailers could not see her, broke the
+seals, appeared surprised at the sight of those undecipherable lines
+and then, all at once, seemed to understand.
+
+She smiled bitterly and the officer caught the words:
+
+"Why so late?"
+
+She hesitated. Where should she hide this dangerous document? At last,
+she opened her book of hours and slipped the paper into a sort of
+secret pocket contrived between the leather of the binding and the
+parchment that covered it.
+
+"Why so late?" she had asked.
+
+It is, in fact, probable that this document, if it could have saved
+her, came too late, for, in the month of October next, Queen Marie
+Antoinette ascended the scaffold in her turn.
+
+Now the officer, when going through his family papers, came upon his
+ancestor's manuscript. From that moment, he had but one idea, which was
+to devote his leisure to elucidating this strange problem. He read all
+the Latin authors, studied all the chronicles of France and those of
+the neighboring countries, visited the monasteries, deciphered
+account-books, cartularies, treaties; and, in this way, succeeded in
+discovering certain references scattered over the ages.
+
+In Book III of Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War (MS. edition,
+Alexandria), it is stated that, after the defeat of Veridovix by G.
+Titullius Sabinus, the chief of the Caleti was brought before Caesar
+and that, for his ransom, he revealed the secret of the Needle--
+
+The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, between Charles the Simple and
+Rollo, the chief of the Norse barbarians, gives Rollo's name followed
+by all his titles, among which we read that of Master of the Secret of
+the Needle.
+
+The Saxon Chronicle (Gibson's edition, page 134), speaking of William
+the Conqueror, says that the staff of his banner ended in a steel point
+pierced with an eye, like a needle.
+
+In a rather ambiguous phrase in her examination, Joan of Arc admits
+that she has still a great secret to tell the King of France. To which
+her judges reply, "Yes, we know of what you speak; and that, Joan, is
+why you shall die the death."
+
+Philippe de Comines mentions it in connection with Louis XI., and,
+later, Sully in connection with Henry IV.: "By the virtue of the
+Needle!" the good king sometimes swears.
+
+Between these two, Francis I., in a speech addressed to the notables of
+the Havre, in 1520, uttered this phrase, which has been handed down in
+the diary of a Honfleur burgess; "The Kings of France carry secrets
+that often decide the conduct of affairs and the fate of towns."
+
+All these quotations, all the stories relating to the Iron Mask, the
+captain of the guards and his descendant, I have found to-day in a
+pamphlet written by this same descendant and published in the month of
+June, 1815, just before or just after the battle of Waterloo, in a
+period, therefore, of great upheavals, in which the revelations which
+it contained were likely to pass unperceived.
+
+What is the value of this pamphlet? Nothing, you will tell me, and we
+must attach no credit to it. And this is the impression which I myself
+would have carried away, if it had not occurred to me to open Caesar's
+Commentaries at the chapter given. What was my astonishment when I came
+upon the phrase quoted in the little book before me! And it was the
+same thing with the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, with the Saxon
+Chronicle, with the examination of Joan of Arc, in short, with all that
+I have been able to verify up to the present.
+
+Lastly, there is an even more precise fact related by the author of the
+pamphlet of 1815. During the French campaign, he being then an officer
+under Napoleon, his horse dropped dead, one evening, and he rang at the
+door of a castle where he was received by an old knight of St. Louis.
+And, in the course of conversation with the old man, he learnt that
+this castle, standing on the bank of the Creuse, was called the Chateau
+de l'Aiguille, that it had been built and christened by Louis XIV., and
+that, by his express order, it was adorned with turrets and with a
+spire which represented the Needle. As its date it bore, it must still
+bear, the figure 1680.
+
+1680! One year after the publication of the book and the imprisonment
+of the Iron Mask! Everything was now explained: Louis XIV., foreseeing
+that the secret might be noised abroad, had built and named that castle
+so as to offer the quidnuncs a natural explanation of the ancient
+mystery. The Hollow Needle! A castle with pointed bell-turrets standing
+on the bank of the Creuse and belonging to the King. People would at
+once think that they had the key to the riddle and all enquiries would
+cease.
+
+The calculation was just, seeing that, more than two centuries later,
+M. Beautrelet fell into the trap. And this, Sir, is what I was leading
+up to in writing this letter. If Lupin, under the name of Anfredi,
+rented from M. Valmeras the Chateau de l'Aiguille on the bank of the
+Creuse; if, admitting the success of the inevitable investigations of
+M. Beautrelet, he lodged his two prisoners there, it was because he
+admitted the success of the inevitable researches made by M. Beautrelet
+and because, with the object of obtaining the peace for which he had
+asked, he laid for M. Beautrelet precisely what we may call the
+historic trap of Louis XIV.
+
+And hence we come to this undeniable conclusion, that he, Lupin, by his
+unaided lights, without possessing any other facts than those which we
+possess, managed by means of the witchcraft of a really extraordinary
+genius, to decipher the undecipherable document; and that he, Lupin,
+the last heir of the Kings of France, knows the royal mystery of the
+Hollow Needle!
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here ended the letter. But, for some minutes, from the passage that
+referred to the Chateau de l'Aiguille onward, it was not Beautrelet's
+but another voice that read it aloud. Realizing his defeat, crushed
+under the weight of his humiliation, Isidore had dropped the newspaper
+and sunk into his chair, with his face buried in his hands.
+
+Panting, shaken with excitement by this incredible story, the crowd had
+come gradually nearer and was now pressing round.
+
+With a thrill of anguish, they waited for the words which he would say
+in reply, the objections which he would raise.
+
+He did not stir.
+
+Valmeras gently uncrossed his hands and raised his head.
+
+Isidore Beautrelet was weeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+THE TREATISE OF THE NEEDLE
+
+
+It is four o'clock in the morning. Isidore has not returned to the
+Lycee Janson. He has no intention of returning before the end of the
+war of extermination which he has declared against Lupin. This much he
+swore to himself under his breath, while his friends drove off with
+him, all faint and bruised, in a cab.
+
+A mad oath! An absurd and illogical war! What can he do, a single,
+unarmed stripling, against that phenomenon of energy and strength? On
+which side is he to attack him? He is unassailable. Where to wound him?
+He is invulnerable. Where to get at him? He is inaccessible.
+
+Four o'clock in the morning. Isidore has again accepted his
+schoolfellow's hospitality. Standing before the chimney in his bedroom,
+with his elbows flat on the mantel-shelf and his two fists under his
+chin, he stares at his image in the looking-glass. He is not crying
+now, he can shed no more tears, nor fling himself about on his bed, nor
+give way to despair, as he has been doing for the last two hours and
+more. He wants to think, to think and understand.
+
+And he does not remove his eyes from those same eyes reflected in the
+glass, as though he hoped to double his powers of thought by
+contemplating his pensive image, as though he hoped to find at the back
+of that mirrored Beautrelet the unsolvable solution of what he does not
+find within himself.
+
+He stands thus until six o'clock, and, little by little, the question
+presents itself to his mind with the strictness of an equation, bare
+and dry and cleared of all the details that complicate and obscure it.
+
+Yes, he has made a mistake. Yes, his reading of the document is all
+wrong. The word aiguille does not point to the castle on the Creuse.
+Also, the word demoiselles cannot be applied to Raymonde de Saint-Veran
+and her cousin, because the text of the document dates back for
+centuries.
+
+Therefore, all must be done over again, from the beginning.
+
+How?
+
+One piece of evidence alone would be incontestible: the book published
+under Louis XIV. Now of those hundred copies printed by the person who
+was presumed to be the Man with the Iron Mask only two escaped the
+flames. One was purloined by the captain of the guards and lost. The
+other was kept by Louis XIV., handed down to Louis XV., and burnt by
+Louis XVI. But a copy of the essential page, the page containing the
+solution of the problem, or at least a cryptographic solution, was
+conveyed to Marie Antoinette, who slipped it into the binding of her
+book of hours. What has become of this paper? Is it the one which
+Beautrelet has held in his hands and which Lupin recovered from him
+through Bredoux, the magistrate's clerk? Or is it still in Marie
+Antoinette's book of hours? And the question resolves itself into this:
+what has become of the Queen's book of hours?
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+After taking a short rest, Beautrelet consulted his friend's father, an
+old and experienced collector, who was often called upon officially to
+give an expert opinion and who had quite lately been invited to advise
+the director of one of our museums on the drawing up of the catalogue.
+
+"Marie Antoinette's book of hours?" he exclaimed. "Why, the Queen left
+it to her waiting-woman, with secret instructions to forward it to
+Count Fersen. After being piously preserved in the count's family, it
+has been, for the last five years, in a glass case--"
+
+"A glass case?"
+
+"In the Musee Carnavalet, quite simply."
+
+"When will the museum be open?"
+
+"At twenty minutes from now, as it is every morning."
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isidore and his friend jumped out of a cab at the moment when the doors
+of Madame de Sevigne's old mansion were opening.
+
+"Hullo! M. Beautrelet!"
+
+A dozen voices greeted his arrival. To his great surprise, he
+recognized the whole crowd of reporters who were following up "the
+mystery of the Hollow Needle." And one of them exclaimed:
+
+"Funny, isn't it, that we should all have had the same idea? Take care,
+Arsene Lupin may be among us!"
+
+They entered the museum together. The director was at once informed,
+placed himself entirely at their disposal, took them to the glass case
+and showed them a poor little volume, devoid of all ornament, which
+certainly had nothing royal about it. Nevertheless, they were overcome
+by a certain emotion at the sight of this object which the Queen had
+touched in those tragic days, which her eyes, red with tears, had
+looked upon--And they dared not take it and hunt through it: it was as
+though they feared lest they should be guilty of a sacrilege--
+
+"Come, M. Beautrelet, it's your business!"
+
+He took the book with an anxious gesture. The description corresponded
+with that given by the author of the pamphlet. Outside was a parchment
+cover, dirty, stained and worn in places, and under it, the real
+binding, in stiff leather. With what a thrill Beautrelet felt for the
+hidden pocket! Was it a fairy tale? Or would he find the document
+written by Louis XVI. and bequeathed by the queen to her fervent
+admirer?
+
+At the first page, on the upper side of the book, there was no
+receptacle.
+
+"Nothing," he muttered.
+
+"Nothing," they echoed, palpitating with excitement.
+
+But, at the last page, forcing back the book a little, he at once saw
+that the parchment was not stuck to the binding. He slipped his fingers
+in between--there was something--yes, he felt something--a paper--
+
+"Oh!" he gasped, in an accent almost of pain. "Here--is it possible?"
+
+"Quick, quick!" they cried. "What are you waiting for?"
+
+He drew out a sheet folded in two.
+
+"Well, read it!--There are words in red ink--Look!--it might be
+blood--pale, faded blood--Read it!--"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+He read:
+
+To you, Fersen. For my son. 16 October, 1793.
+
+MARIE ANTOINETTE.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+And suddenly Beautrelet gave a cry of stupefaction. Under the queen's
+signature there were--there were two words, in black ink, underlined
+with a flourish--two words:
+
+ARSENE LUPIN.
+
+All, in turns, took the sheet of paper and the same cry escaped from
+the lips of all of them:
+
+"Marie Antoinette!--Arsene Lupin!"
+
+A great silence followed. That double signature: those two names
+coupled together, discovered hidden in the book of hours; that relic in
+which the poor queen's desperate appeal had slumbered for more than a
+century: that horrible date of the 16th of October, 1793, the day on
+which the Royal head fell: all of this was most dismally and
+disconcertingly tragic.
+
+"Arsene Lupin!" stammered one of the voices, thus emphasizing the scare
+that underlay the sight of that demoniacal name at the foot of the
+hallowed page.
+
+"Yes, Arsene Lupin," repeated Beautrelet. "The Queen's friend was
+unable to understand her desperate dying appeal. He lived with the
+keepsake in his possession which the woman whom he loved had sent him
+and he never guessed the reason of that keepsake. Lupin discovered
+everything, on the other hand--and took it."
+
+"Took what?"
+
+"The document, of course! The document written by Louis XVI.; and it is
+that which I held in my hands. The same appearance, the same shape, the
+same red seals. I understand why Lupin would not leave me a document
+which I could turn to account by merely examining the paper, the seals
+and so on."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Well, then, since the document is genuine, since I have, with my own
+eyes, seen the marks of the red seals, since Marie Antoinette herself
+assures me, by these few words in her hand, that the whole story of the
+pamphlet, as printed by M. Massiban, is correct, because a problem of
+the Hollow Needle really exists, I am now certain to succeed."
+
+"But how? Whether genuine or not, the document is of no use to you if
+you do not manage to decipher it, because Louis XVI. destroyed the book
+that gave the explanation."
+
+"Yes, but the other copy, which King Louis XVI.'s captain of the guards
+snatched from the flames, was not destroyed."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Prove the contrary."
+
+After uttering this defiance, Beautrelet was silent for a time and
+then, slowly, with his eyes closed, as though trying to fix and sum up
+his thoughts, he said:
+
+"Possessing the secret, the captain of the guards begins by revealing
+it bit by bit in the journal found by his descendant. Then comes
+silence. The answer to the riddle is withheld. Why? Because the
+temptation to make use of the secret creeps over him little by little
+and he gives way to it. A proof? His murder. A further proof? The
+magnificent jewel found upon him, which he must undoubtedly have taken
+from some royal treasure the hiding-place of which, unknown to all,
+would just constitute the mystery of the Hollow Needle. Lupin conveyed
+as much to me; Lupin was not lying."
+
+"Then what conclusion do you draw, Beautrelet?"
+
+"I draw this conclusion, my friends, that it be a good thing to
+advertise this story as much as possible, so that people may know,
+through all the papers, that we are looking for a book entitled The
+Treatise of the Needle. It may be fished out from the back shelves of
+some provincial library."
+
+The paragraph was drawn up forthwith; and Beautrelet set to work at
+once, without even waiting for it to produce a result. A first scent
+suggested itself: the murder was committed near Gaillon. He went there
+that same day. Certainly, he did not hope to reconstruct a crime
+perpetrated two hundred years ago. But, all the same, there are crimes
+that leave traces in the memories, in the traditions of a countryside.
+They are recorded in the local chronicles. One day, some provincial
+archaeologist, some lover of old legends, some student of the minor
+incidents of the life of the past makes them the subject of an article
+in a newspaper or of a communication to the academy of his departmental
+town.
+
+Beautrelet saw three or four of these archaeologists. With one of them
+in particular, an old notary, he examined the prison records, the
+ledgers of the old bailiwicks and the parish registers. There was no
+entry referring to the murder of a captain of the guards in the
+seventeenth century.
+
+He refused to be discouraged and continued his search in Paris, where
+the magistrate's examination might have taken place. His efforts came
+to nothing.
+
+But the thought of another track sent him off in a fresh direction. Was
+there no chance of finding out the name of that captain whose
+descendant served in the armies of the Republic and was quartered in
+the Temple during the imprisonment of the Royal family? By dint of
+patient working, he ended by making out a list in which two names at
+least presented an almost complete resemblance: M. de Larbeyrie, under
+Louis XIV., and Citizen Larbrie, under the Terror.
+
+This already was an important point. He stated it with precision in a
+note which he sent to the papers, asking for any information concerning
+this Larbeyrie or his descendants.
+
+It was M. Massiban, the Massiban of the pamphlet, the member of the
+Institute, who replied to him:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+SIR:
+
+Allow me to call your attention to the following passage of Voltaire,
+which I came upon in his manuscript of Le Siecle de Louis XIV. (Chapter
+XXV: Particularites et anecdotes du regne). The passage has been
+suppressed in all the printed editions:
+
+"I have heard it said by the late M. de Caumartin, intendant of
+finance, who was a friend of Chamillard the minister, that the King one
+day left hurriedly in his carriage at the news that M. de Larbeyrie had
+been murdered and robbed of some magnificent jewels. He seemed greatly
+excited and repeated:
+
+"'All is lost--all is lost--'
+
+"In the following year, the son of this Larbeyrie and his daughter, who
+had married the Marquis de Velines, were banished to their estates in
+Provence and Brittany. We cannot doubt that there is something peculiar
+in this."
+
+
+I, in my turn, will add that we can doubt it all the less inasmuch as
+M. de Chamillard, according to Voltaire, WAS THE LAST MINISTER WHO
+POSSESSED THE STRANGE SECRET OF THE IRON MASK.
+
+You will see for yourself, Sir, the profit that can be derived from
+this passage and the evident link established between the two
+adventures. As for myself, I will not venture to imagine any very exact
+surmise as regards the conduct, the suspicions, and the apprehensions
+of Louis XIV. in these circumstances; but, on the other hand, seeing
+that M. de Larbeyrie left a son, who was probably the grandfather of
+Larbrie the citizen-officer, and also a daughter, is it not permissible
+to suppose that a part of the papers left by Larbeyrie came to the
+daughter and that among these papers was the famous copy which the
+captain of the guards saved from the flames?
+
+I have consulted the Country-house Year-book. There is a Baron de
+Velines living not far from Rennes. Could he be a descendant of the
+marquis? At any rate, I wrote to him yesterday, on chance, to ask if he
+had not in his possession a little old book bearing on its title-page
+the word aiguille; and I am awaiting his reply.
+
+It would give me the greatest pleasure to talk of all these matters
+with you. If you can spare the time, come and see me.
+
+I am, Sir, etc., etc.
+
+P.S.--Of course, I shall not communicate these little discoveries to
+the press. Now that you are near the goal, discretion is essential.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beautrelet absolutely agreed. He even went further: to two journalists
+who were worrying him that morning he gave the most fanciful
+particulars as to his plans and his state of mind.
+
+In the afternoon, he hurried round to see Massiban, who lived at 17,
+Quai Voltaire. To his great surprise, he was told that M. Massiban had
+gone out of town unexpectedly, leaving a note for him in case he should
+call. Isidore opened it and read:
+
+     I have received a telegram which gives me
+     some hope. So I am leaving town and shall sleep
+     at Rennes. You might take the evening train and,
+     without stopping at Rennes, go on to the little
+     station of Velines. We would meet at the castle,
+     which is two miles and a half from the station.
+
+The programme appealed to Beautrelet, and especially the idea that he
+would reach the castle at almost the same time as Massiban, for he
+feared some blunder on the part of that inexperienced man. He went back
+to his friend and spent the rest of the day with him. In the evening,
+he took the Brittany express and got out at Velines as six o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+He did the two and a half miles, between bushy woods, on foot. He could
+see the castle, perched on a height, from a distance: it was a hybrid
+edifice, a mixture of the Renascence and Louis Philippe styles, but it
+bore a stately air, nevertheless, with its four turrets and its
+ivy-mantled draw-bridge.
+
+Isidore felt his heart beat as he approached. Was he really nearing the
+end of his race? Did the castle contain the key to the mystery?
+
+He was not without fear. It all seemed too good to be true; and he
+asked himself if he was not once more acting in obedience to some
+infernal plan contrived by Lupin, if Massiban was not for instance, a
+tool in the hands of his enemy. He burst out laughing:
+
+"Tut, tut, I'm becoming absurd! One would really think that Lupin was
+an infallible person who foresees everything, a sort of divine
+omnipotence against whom nothing can prevail! Dash it all, Lupin makes
+his mistakes; Lupin, too, is at the mercy of circumstances; Lupin has
+an occasional slip! And it is just because of his slip in losing the
+document that I am beginning to have the advantage of him. Everything
+starts from that. And his efforts, when all is said, serve only to
+repair the first blunder."
+
+And blithely, full of confidence, Beautrelet rang the bell.
+
+"Yes, sir?" said the servant who opened the door.
+
+"Can I see the Baron de Velines?"
+
+And he gave the man his card.
+
+"Monsieur le baron is not up yet, but, if monsieur will wait--"
+
+"Has not some one else been asking for him, a gentleman with a white
+beard and a slight stoop?" asked Beautrelet, who knew Massiban's
+appearance from the photographs in the newspapers.
+
+"Yes, the gentleman came about ten minutes ago; I showed him into the
+drawing room. If monsieur will come this way--"
+
+The interview between Massiban and Beautrelet was of the most cordial
+character. Isidore thanked the old man for the first-rate information
+which he owed to him and Massiban expressed his admiration for
+Beautrelet in the warmest terms. Then they exchanged impressions on the
+document, on their prospects of discovering the book; and Massiban
+repeated what he had heard at Rennes regarding M. de Velines. The baron
+was a man of sixty, who had been left a widower many years ago and who
+led a very retired life with his daughter, Gabrielle de Villemon. This
+lady had just suffered a cruel blow through the loss of her husband and
+her eldest son, both of whom had died as the result of a motor-car
+accident.
+
+"Monsieur le baron begs the gentlemen to be good enough to come
+upstairs."
+
+The servant led the way to the first floor, to a large, bare-walled
+room, very simply furnished with desks, pigeon-holes and tables covered
+with papers and account-books.
+
+The baron received them very affably and with the volubility often
+displayed by people who live too much alone. They had great difficulty
+in explaining the object of their visit.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know, you wrote to me about it, M. Massiban. It has
+something to do with a book about a needle, hasn't it, a book which is
+supposed to have come down to me from my ancestors?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"I may as well tell you that my ancestors and I have fallen out. They
+had funny ideas in those days. I belong to my own time. I have broken
+with the past."
+
+"Yes," said Beautrelet, impatiently, "but have you no recollection of
+having seen the book?--"
+
+"Certainly, I said so in my telegram," he exclaimed, addressing M.
+Massiban, who, in his annoyance, was walking up and down the room and
+looking out of the tall windows. "Certainly--or, at least, my daughter
+thought she had seen the title among the thousands of books that lumber
+up the library, upstairs--for I don't care about reading myself--I
+don't even read the papers. My daughter does, sometimes, but only when
+there is nothing the matter with Georges, her remaining son! As for me,
+as long as my tenants pay their rents and my leases are kept up--! You
+see my account-books: I live in them, gentlemen; and I confess that I
+know absolutely nothing whatever about that story of which you wrote to
+me in your letter, M. Massiban--"
+
+Isidore Beautrelet, nerve-shattered at all this talk, interrupted him
+bluntly:
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but the book--"
+
+"My daughter has looked for it. She looked for it all day yesterday."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, she found it; she found it a few hours ago. When you arrived--"
+
+"And where is it?"
+
+"Where is it? Why, she put it on that table--there it is--over there--"
+
+Isidore gave a bound. At one end of the table, on a muddled heap of
+papers, lay a little book bound in red morocco. He banged his fist down
+upon it, as though he were forbidding anybody to touch it--and also a
+little as though he himself dared not take it up.
+
+"Well!" cried Massiban, greatly excited.
+
+"I have it--here it is--we're there at last!"
+
+"But the title--are you sure?--"
+
+"Why, of course: look!"
+
+"Are you convinced? Have we mastered the secret at last?"
+
+"The front page--what does the front page say?"
+
+"Read: The Whole Truth now first exhibited. One hundred copies printed
+by myself for the instruction of the Court."
+
+"That's it, that's it," muttered Massiban, in a hoarse voice. "It's the
+copy snatched from the flames! It's the very book which Louis XIV.
+condemned."
+
+They turned over the pages. The first part set forth the explanations
+given by Captain de Larbeyrie in his journal.
+
+"Get on, get on!" said Beautrelet, who was in a hurry to come to the
+solution.
+
+"Get on? What do you mean? Not at all! We know that the Man with the
+Iron Mask was imprisoned because he knew and wished to divulge the
+secret of the Royal house of France. But how did he know it? And why
+did he wish to divulge it? Lastly, who was that strange personage? A
+half-brother of Louis XIV., as Voltaire maintained, or Mattioli, the
+Italian minister, as the modern critics declare? Hang it, those are
+questions of the very first interest!"
+
+"Later, later," protested Beautrelet, feverishly turning the pages, as
+though he feared that the book would fly out of his hands before he had
+solved the riddle.
+
+"But--" said Massiban, who doted on historical details.
+
+"We have plenty of time--afterward--let's see the explanation first--"
+
+Suddenly Beautrelet stopped. The document! In the middle of a left-hand
+page, his eyes saw the five mysterious lines of dots and figures! He
+made sure, with a glance, that the text was identical with that which
+he had studied so long; the same arrangement of the signs, the same
+intervals that permitted of the isolation of the word demoiselles and
+the separation of the two words aiguille and creuse.
+
+A short note preceded it:
+
+All the necessary indications, it appears, were reduced by King Louis
+XIII. into a little table which I transcribe below.
+
+Here followed the table of dots and figures.
+
+Then came the explanation of the document itself. Beautrelet read, in a
+broken voice:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+As will be seen, this table, even after we have changed the figures
+into vowels, affords no light. One might say that, in order to decipher
+the puzzle, we must first know it. It is, at most, a clue given to
+those who know the paths of the labyrinth.
+
+Let us take this clue and proceed. I will guide you.
+
+The fourth line first. The fourth line contains measurements and
+indications. By complying with the indications and noting the
+measurements set down, we inevitably attain our object, on condition,
+be it understood, that we know where we are and whither we are going,
+in a word, that we are enlightened as to the real meaning of the Hollow
+Needle. This is what we may learn from the first three lines. The first
+is so conceived to revenge myself on the King; I had warned him, for
+that matter--
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beautrelet stopped, nonplussed.
+
+"What? What is it?" said Massiban.
+
+"The words don't make sense."
+
+"No more they do," replied Massiban. "'The first is so conceived to
+revenge myself on the King--' What can that mean?"
+
+"Damn!" yelled Beautrelet.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Torn! Two pages! The next two pages! Look at the marks!"
+
+He trembled, shaking with rage and disappointment. Massiban bent
+forward.
+
+"It is true--there are the ends of two pages left, like bookbinders'
+guards. The marks seem pretty fresh. They've not been cut, but torn
+out--torn out with violence. Look, all the pages at the end of the book
+have been rumpled."
+
+"But who can have done it? Who?" moaned Isidore, wringing his hands. "A
+servant? An accomplice?"
+
+"All the same, it may date back to a few months since," observed
+Massiban.
+
+"Even so--even so--some one must have hunted out and taken the
+book--Tell me, monsieur," cried Beautrelet, addressing the baron, "is
+there no one whom you suspect?"
+
+"We might ask my daughter."
+
+"Yes--yes--that's it--perhaps she will know."
+
+M. de Velines rang for the footman. A few minutes later, Mme. de
+Villemon entered. She was a young woman, with a sad and resigned face.
+Beautrelet at once asked her:
+
+"You found this volume upstairs, madame, in the library?"
+
+"Yes, in a parcel of books that had not been uncorded."
+
+"And you read it?"
+
+"Yes, last night."
+
+"When you read it, were those two pages missing? Try and remember: the
+two pages following this table of figures and dots?"
+
+"No, certainly not," she said, greatly astonished. "There was no page
+missing at all."
+
+"Still, somebody has torn--"
+
+"But the book did not leave my room last night."
+
+"And this morning?"
+
+"This morning, I brought it down here myself, when M. Massiban's
+arrival was announced."
+
+"Then--?"
+
+"Well, I don't understand--unless--but no."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Georges--my son--this morning--Georges was playing with the book."
+
+She ran out headlong, accompanied by Beautrelet, Massiban and the
+baron. The child was not in his room. They hunted in every direction.
+At last, they found him playing behind the castle. But those three
+people seemed so excited and called him so peremptorily to account that
+he began to yell aloud.
+
+Everybody ran about to right and left. The servants were questioned. It
+was an indescribable tumult. And Beautrelet received the awful
+impression that the truth was ebbing away from him, like water
+trickling through his fingers.
+
+He made an effort to recover himself, took Mme. de Villemon's arm, and,
+followed by the baron and Massiban, led her back to the drawing room
+and said:
+
+"The book is incomplete. Very well. There are two pages torn out; but
+you read them, did you not, madame?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know what they contained?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could you repeat it to us?"
+
+"Certainly. I read the book with a great deal of curiosity, but those
+two pages struck me in particular because the revelations were so very
+interesting."
+
+"Well, then, speak madame, speak, I implore you! Those revelations are
+of exceptional importance. Speak, I beg of you: minutes lost are never
+recovered. The Hollow Needle--"
+
+"Oh, it's quite simple. The Hollow Needle means--"
+
+At that moment, a footman entered the room:
+
+"A letter for madame."
+
+"Oh, but the postman has passed!"
+
+"A boy brought it."
+
+Mme. de Villemon opened the letter, read it, and put her hand to her
+heart, turning suddenly livid and terrified, ready to faint.
+
+The paper had slipped to the floor. Beautrelet picked it up and,
+without troubling to apologize, read:
+
+  Not a word! If you say a word, your son will
+  never wake again.
+
+"My son--my son!" she stammered, too weak even to go to the assistance
+of the threatened child.
+
+Beautrelet reassured her:
+
+"It is not serious--it's a joke. Come, who could be interested?"
+
+"Unless," suggested Massiban, "it was Arsene Lupin."
+
+Beautrelet made him a sign to hold his tongue. He knew quite well, of
+course, that the enemy was there, once more, watchful and determined;
+and that was just why he wanted to tear from Mme. de Villemon the
+decisive words, so long awaited, and to tear them from her on the spot,
+that very moment:
+
+"I beseech you, madame, compose yourself. We are all here. There is not
+the least danger."
+
+Would she speak? He thought so, he hoped so. She stammered out a few
+syllables. But the door opened again. This time, the nurse entered. She
+seemed distraught:
+
+"M. Georges--madame--M. Georges--!"
+
+Suddenly, the mother recovered all her strength. Quicker than any of
+them, and urged by an unfailing instinct, she rushed down the
+staircase, across the hall and on to the terrace. There lay little
+Georges, motionless, on a wicker chair.
+
+"Well, what is it? He's asleep!--"
+
+"He fell asleep suddenly, madame," said the nurse. "I tried to prevent
+him, to carry him to his room. But he was fast asleep and his
+hands--his hands were cold."
+
+"Cold!" gasped the mother. "Yes--it's true. Oh dear, oh dear--IF HE
+ONLY WAKES UP!"
+
+Beautrelet put his hand in his trousers pocket, seized the butt of his
+revolver, cocked it with his forefinger, then suddenly produced the
+weapon and fired at Massiban.
+
+Massiban, as though he were watching the boy's movements, had avoided
+the shot, so to speak, in advance. But already Beautrelet had sprung
+upon him, shouting to the servants:
+
+"Help! It's Lupin!"
+
+Massiban, under the weight of the impact, fell back into one of the
+wicker chairs. In a few seconds, he rose, leaving Beautrelet stunned,
+choking; and, holding the young man's revolver in his hands:
+
+"Good!--that's all right!--don't stir--you'll be like that for two or
+three minutes--no more. But, upon my word, you took your time to
+recognize me! Was my make-up as old Massiban so good as all that?"
+
+He was now standing straight up on his legs, his body squared, in a
+formidable attitude, and he grinned as he looked at the three petrified
+footmen and the dumbfounded baron:
+
+"Isidore, you've missed the chance of a lifetime. If you hadn't told
+them I was Lupin, they'd have jumped on me. And, with fellows like
+that, what would have become of me, by Jove, with four to one against
+me?"
+
+He walked up to them:
+
+"Come, my lads, don't be afraid--I shan't hurt you. Wouldn't you like a
+sugar-stick apiece to screw your courage up? Oh, you, by the way, hand
+me back my hundred-franc note, will you? Yes, yes, I know you! You're
+the one I bribed just now to give the letter to your mistress. Come
+hurry, you faithless servant."
+
+He took the blue bank-note which the servant handed him and tore it
+into tiny shreds:
+
+"The price of treachery! It burns my fingers."
+
+He took off his hat and, bowing very low before Mme. de Villemon:
+
+"Will you forgive me, madame? The accidents of life--of mine
+especially--often drive one to acts of cruelty for which I am the first
+to blush. But have no fear for your son: it's a mere prick, a little
+puncture in the arm which I gave him while we were questioning him. In
+an hour, at the most, you won't know that it happened. Once more, all
+my apologies. But I had to make sure of your silence." He bowed again,
+thanked M. de Velines for his kind hospitality, took his cane, lit a
+cigarette, offered one to the baron, gave a circular sweep with his hat
+and, in a patronizing tone, said to Beautrelet:
+
+"Good-bye, baby."
+
+And he walked away quietly, puffing the smoke of his cigarette into the
+servants' faces.
+
+Beautrelet waited for a few minutes. Mme. de Villemon, now calmer, was
+watching by her son. He went up to her, with the intention of making
+one last appeal to her. Their eyes met. He said nothing. He had
+understood that she would never speak now, whatever happened. There,
+once more, in that mother's brain, the secret of the Hollow Needle lay
+buried as deeply as in the night of the past.
+
+Then he gave up and went away.
+
+It was half-past ten. There was a train at eleven-fifty. He slowly
+followed the avenue in the park and turned into the road that led to
+the station.
+
+"Well, what do you say to that?"
+
+It was Massiban, or rather Lupin, who appeared out of the wood
+adjoining the road.
+
+"Was it pretty well contrived, or was it not? Is your old friend great
+on the tight-rope, or is he not? I'm sure that you haven't got over it,
+eh, and that you're asking yourself whether the so-called Massiban,
+member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, ever existed.
+But, of course, he exists. I'll even show him to you, if you're good.
+But, first, let me give you back your revolver. You're looking to see
+if it's loaded? Certainly, my lad. There are five charges left, one of
+which would be enough to send me ad patres.--Well, so you're putting it
+in your pocket? Quite right. I prefer that to what you did up there.--A
+nasty little impulse, that, of yours!--Still, you're young, you
+suddenly see--in a flash!--that you've once more been done by that
+confounded Lupin and that he is standing there in front of you, at
+three steps from you--and bang! You fire!--I'm not angry with you,
+bless your little heart! To prove it, I offer you a seat in my 100 h.p.
+car. Will that suit you?"
+
+He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
+
+The contrast was delicious between the venerable appearance of this
+elderly Massiban and the schoolboy ways and accent which Lupin was
+putting on. Beautrelet could not help laughing.
+
+"He's laughed! He's laughed!" cried Lupin, jumping for joy. "You see,
+baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you're a trifle
+serious for your age. You're a very likeable boy, you have a charming
+candor and simplicity--but you have no sense of humor." He placed
+himself in front of him. "Look here, bet you I make you cry! Do you
+know how I was able to follow up all your inquiry, how I knew of the
+letter Massiban wrote you and his appointment to meet you this morning
+at the Chateau de Velines? Through the prattle of your friend, the one
+you're staying with. You confide in that idiot and he loses no time,
+but goes and tells everything to his best girl. And his best girl has
+no secrets for Lupin.--What did I tell you? I've made you feel, anyhow;
+your eyes are quite wet!--Friendship betrayed: that upsets you, eh?
+Upon my word, you're wonderful! I could take you in my arms and hug
+you! You always wear that look of astonishment which goes straight to
+my heart.--I shall never forget the other evening at Gaillon, when you
+consulted me.--Yes, I was the old notary!--But why don't you laugh,
+youngster? As I said, you have no sense of a joke. Look here, what you
+want is--what shall I call it?--imagination, imaginative impulse. Now,
+I'm full of imaginative impulse."
+
+A motor was heard panting not far off. Lupin seized Beautrelet roughly
+by the arm and in a cold voice, looking him straight in the eyes:
+
+"You're going to keep quiet now, aren't you? You can see there's
+nothing to be done. Then what's the use of wasting your time and
+energy? There are plenty of highway robbers in the world. Run after
+them and let me be--if not!--It's settled, isn't it?"
+
+He shook him as though to enforce his will upon him. Then he grinned:
+
+"Fool that I am! You leave me alone? You're not one of those who let
+go! Oh, I don't know what restrains me! In half a dozen turns of the
+wrist, I could have you bound and gagged--and, in two hours, safe under
+lock and key, for some months to come. And then I could twist my thumbs
+in all security, withdraw to the peaceful retreat prepared for me by my
+ancestors, the Kings of France, and enjoy the treasures which they have
+been good enough to accumulate for me. But no, it is doomed that I must
+go on blundering to the end. I can't help it, we all have our
+weaknesses--and I have one for you. Besides, it's not done yet. From
+now until you put your finger into the hollow of the Needle, a good
+deal of water will flow under the bridges. Dash it all, it took me ten
+days! Me! Lupin! You will want ten years, at least! There's that much
+distance between us, after all!"
+
+The motor arrived, an immense closed car. Lupin opened the door and
+Beautrelet gave a cry. There was a man inside and that man was Lupin,
+or rather Massiban. Suddenly understanding, he burst out laughing.
+Lupin said:
+
+"Don't be afraid, he's sound asleep. I promised that you should see
+him. Do you grasp the situation now? At midnight, I knew of your
+appointment at the castle. At seven in the morning, I was there. When
+Massiban passed, I had only to collect him--give him a tiny prick with
+a needle--and the thing--was done. Sleep old chap, sleep away. We'll
+set you down on the slope. That's it--there--capital--right in the sun,
+then you won't catch cold--good! And our hat in our hand.--Spare a
+copper, kind gentleman!--Oh. my dear old Massiban, so you were after
+Arsene Lupin!"
+
+It was really a huge joke to see the two Massibans face to face, one
+asleep with his head on his chest, the other seriously occupied in
+paying him every sort of attention and respect:
+
+"Pity a poor blind man! There, Massiban, here's two sous and my
+visiting-card. And now, my lads, off we go at the fourth speed. Do you
+hear, driver? You've got to do seventy-five miles an hour. Jump in,
+Isidore. There's a full sitting of the Institute to-day, and Massiban
+is to read a little paper, on I don't know what, at half-past three.
+Well, he'll read them his little paper. I'll dish them up a complete
+Massiban, more real than the real one, with my own ideas, on the
+lacustrine inscriptions. I don't have an opportunity of lecturing at
+the Institute ever day!--Faster, chauffeur: we're only doing
+seventy-one and a half!--Are you afraid? Remember you're with
+Lupin!--Ah, Isidore, and then people say that life is monotonous! Why,
+life's an adorable thing, my boy; only one has to know--and I know--.
+Wasn't it enough to make a man jump out of his skin for joy, just now,
+at the castle, when you were chattering with old Velines and I, up
+against the window, was tearing out the pages of the historic book? And
+then, when you were questioning the Dame de Villemon about the Hollow
+Needle! Would she speak? Yes, she would--no, she wouldn't--yes--no. It
+gave me gooseflesh, I assure you.--If she spoke, I should have to build
+up my life anew, the whole scaffolding was destroyed.--Would the
+footman come in time? Yes--no--there he is.--But Beautrelet will unmask
+me! Never! He's too much of a flat! Yes, though--no--there, he's done
+it--no, he hasn't--yes--he's eyeing me--that's it--he's feeling for his
+revolver!--Oh, the delight of it!--Isidore, you're talking too much,
+you'll hurt yourself!--Let's have a snooze, shall we?--I'm dying of
+sleep.--Good night."
+
+Beautrelet looked at him. He seemed almost asleep already. He slept.
+
+The motor-car, darting through space, rushed toward a horizon that was
+constantly reached and as constantly retreated. There was no impression
+of towns, villages, fields or forests; simply space, space devoured,
+swallowed up.
+
+Beautrelet looked at his traveling companion, for a long time, with
+eager curiosity and also with a keen wish to fathom his real character
+through the mask that covered it. And he thought of the circumstances
+that confined them, like that, together, in the close contact of that
+motor car. But, after the excitement and disappointment of the morning,
+tired in his turn, he too fell asleep.
+
+When he woke, Lupin was reading. Beautrelet leant over to see the title
+of the book. It was the Epistolae ad Lucilium of Seneca the philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+FROM CAESAR TO LUPIN
+
+
+Dash it all, it took me ten days! Me! Lupin!
+
+You will want ten years, at least!--
+
+These words, uttered by Lupin after leaving the Chateau de Velines, had
+no little influence on Beautrelet's conduct.
+
+Though very calm in the main and invariably master of himself, Lupin,
+nevertheless, was subject to moments of exaltation, of a more or less
+romantic expansiveness, at once theatrical and good-humored, when he
+allowed certain admissions to escape him, certain imprudent speeches
+which a boy like Beautrelet could easily turn to profit.
+
+Rightly or wrongly, Beautrelet read one of these involuntary admissions
+into that phrase. He was entitled to conclude that, if Lupin drew a
+comparison between his own efforts and Beautrelet's in pursuit of the
+truth about the Hollow Needle, it was because the two of them possessed
+identical means of attaining their object, because Lupin had no
+elements of success different from those possessed by his adversary.
+The chances were alike. Now, with the same chances, the same elements
+of success, the same means, ten days had been enough for Lupin.
+
+What were those elements, those means, those chances? They were
+reduced, when all was said, to a knowledge of the pamphlet published in
+1815, a pamphlet which Lupin, no doubt, like Massiban, had found by
+accident and thanks to which he had succeeded in discovering the
+indispensable document in Marie Antoinette's book of hours.
+
+Therefore, the pamphlet and the document were the only two fundamental
+facts upon which Lupin had relied. With these he had built up the whole
+edifice. He had had no extraneous aid. The study of the pamphlet and
+the study of the document--full stop--that was all.
+
+Well, could not Beautrelet confine himself to the same ground? What was
+the use of an impossible struggle? What was the use of those vain
+investigations, in which, even supposing that he avoided the pitfalls
+that were multiplied under his feet, he was sure, in the end, to
+achieve the poorest of results?
+
+His decision was clear and immediate; and, in adopting it, he had the
+happy instinct that he was on the right path. He began by leaving his
+Janson-de-Sailly schoolfellow, without indulging in useless
+recriminations, and, taking his portmanteau with him, went and
+installed himself, after much hunting about, in a small hotel situated
+in the very heart of Paris. This hotel he did not leave for days. At
+most, he took his meals at the table d'hote. The rest of the time,
+locked in his room, with the window-curtains close-drawn, he spent in
+thinking.
+
+"Ten days," Arsene Lupin had said.
+
+Beautrelet, striving to forget all that he had done and to remember
+only the elements of the pamphlet and the document, aspired eagerly to
+keep within the limit of those ten days. However the tenth day passed
+and the eleventh and the twelfth; but, on the thirteenth day, a gleam
+lit up his brain and, very soon, with the bewildering rapidity of those
+ideas which develop in us like miraculous plants, the truth emerged,
+blossomed, gathered strength. On the evening of the thirteenth day, he
+certainly did not know the answer to the problem, but he knew, to a
+certainty, one of the methods which Lupin had, beyond a doubt, employed.
+
+It was a very simple method, hinging on this one question: Is there a
+link of any sort uniting all the more or less important historic events
+with which the pamphlet connects the mystery of the Hollow Needle?
+
+The great diversity of these events made the question difficult to
+answer. Still, the profound examination to which Beautrelet applied
+himself ended by pointing to one essential characteristic which was
+common to them all. Each one of them, without exception, had happened
+within the boundaries of the old kingdom of Neustria, which correspond
+very nearly with those of our present-day Normandy. All the heroes of
+the fantastic adventure are Norman, or become Norman, or play their
+part in the Norman country.
+
+What a fascinating procession through the ages! What a rousing
+spectacle was that of all those barons, dukes and kings, starting from
+such widely opposite points to meet in this particular corner of the
+world! Beautrelet turned the pages of history at haphazard: it was
+Rolf, or Rou, or Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, who was master of the
+secret of the Needle, according to the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte!
+
+It was William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England,
+whose bannerstaff was pierced like a needle!
+
+It was at Rouen that the English burnt Joan of Arc, mistress of the
+secret!
+
+And right at the beginning of the adventure, who is that chief of the
+Caleti who pays his ransom to Caesar with the secret of the Needle but
+the chief of the men of the Caux country, which lies in the very heart
+of Normandy?
+
+The supposition becomes more definite. The field narrows. Rouen, the
+banks of the Seine, the Caux country: it really seems as though all
+roads lead in that direction. Two kings of France are mentioned more
+particularly, after the secret is lost by the Dukes of Normandy and
+their heirs, the kings of England, and becomes the royal secret of
+France; and these two are King Henry IV., who laid siege to Rouen and
+won the battle of Arques, near Dieppe, and Francis I., who founded the
+Havre and uttered that suggestive phrase:
+
+"The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of towns!"
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: the three angles of the triangle, the three
+large towns that occupy the three points. In the centre, the Caux
+country.
+
+The seventeenth century arrives. Louis XIV. burns the book in which a
+person unknown reveals the truth. Captain de Larbeyrie masters a copy,
+profits by the secret thus obtained, steals a certain number of jewels
+and dies by the hand of highway murderers. Now at which spot is the
+ambush laid? At Gaillon! At Gaillon, a little town on the road leading
+from Havre, Rouen or Dieppe to Paris!
+
+A year later, Louis XIV. buys a domain and builds the Chateau de
+l'Aiguille. Where does he select his site? In the Midlands of France,
+with the result that the curious are thrown off the scent and do not
+hunt about in Normandy.
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre--the Cauchois triangle--everything lies there.
+On one side, the sea; on another, the Seine: on the third, the two
+valleys that lead from Rouen to Dieppe.
+
+A light flashed across Beautrelet's mind. That extent of ground, that
+country of the high tablelands which run from the cliffs of the Seine
+to the cliffs of the Channel almost invariably constituted the field of
+operations of Arsene Lupin. For ten years, it was just this district
+which he parcelled out for his purposes, as though he had his haunt in
+the very centre of the region with which, the legend of the Hollow
+Needle was most closely connected.
+
+The affair of Baron Cahorn?[3] Or the banks of the Seine, between Rouen
+and the Havre.
+
+
+[3] The Seven of Hearts, by Maurice Leblanc. II; Arsene Lupin in Prison
+
+
+The Thibermenil case?[4] At the other end of the tableland, between
+Rouen and Dieppe.
+
+
+[4] The Seven of Hearts. IX: Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late.
+
+
+The Gruchet, Montigny, Crasville burglaries? In the midst of the Caux
+country.
+
+Where was Lupin going when he was attacked and bound hand and foot, in
+his compartment by Pierre Onfrey, the Auteuil murderer?[5]  To Rouen.
+
+
+[5] The Seven of Hearts. IV: The Mysterious Railway-passenger.
+
+
+Where was Holmlock Shears, Lupin's prisoner, put on board ship?[6] Near
+the Havre.
+
+
+[6] Arsene Lupin versus Holmlock Shears, by Maurice Leblanc,
+Chapter V: Kidnapped.
+
+
+And what was the scene of the whole of the present tragedy? Ambrumesy,
+on the road between the Havre and Dieppe.
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: always the Cauchois triangle.
+
+And so, a few years earlier, possessing the pamphlet and knowing the
+hiding-place in which Marie Antoinette had concealed the document,
+Arsene Lupin had ended by laying his hand on the famous book of hours.
+Once in possession of the document, he took the field, "found" and
+settled down as in a conquered country.
+
+Beautrelet took the field.
+
+He set out in genuine excitement, thinking of the same journey which
+Lupin had taken, of the same hopes with which he must have throbbed
+when he thus went in search of the tremendous secret which was to arm
+him with so great a power. Would his, Beautrelet's efforts have the
+same victorious results?
+
+He left Rouen early in the morning, on foot, with his face very much
+disguised and his bag at the end of a stick on his shoulder, like an
+apprentice doing his round of France. He walked straight to Duclair,
+where he lunched. On leaving this town, he followed the Seine and
+practically did not lose sight of it again. His instinct, strengthened,
+moreover, by numerous influences, always brought him back to the
+sinuous banks of the stately river. When the Chateau du Malaquis was
+robbed, the objects stolen from Baron Cahorn's collection were sent by
+way of the Seine. The old carvings removed from the chapel at Ambrumesy
+were carried to the Seine bank. He pictured the whole fleet of pinnaces
+performing a regular service between Rouen and the Havre and draining
+the works of art and treasures from a countryside to dispatch them
+thence to the land of millionaires.
+
+"I'm burning! I'm burning!" muttered the boy, gasping under the truth,
+which came to him in a mighty series of shocks and took away his breath.
+
+The checks encountered on the first few days, did not discourage him.
+He had a firm and profound belief in the correctness of the supposition
+that was guiding him. It was bold, perhaps, and extravagant; no matter:
+it was worthy of the adversary pursued. The supposition was on a level
+with the prodigious reality that bore the name of Lupin. With a man
+like that, of what good could it be to look elsewhere than in the
+domain of the enormous, the exaggerated, the superhuman?
+
+Jumieges, the Mailleraye, Saint-Wandrille, Caudebec, Tancarville,
+Quillebeuf were places filled with his memories. How often he must have
+contemplated the glory of their Gothic steeples or the splendor of
+their immense ruins!
+
+But the Havre, the neighborhood of the Havre drew Isidore like a
+beacon-fire.
+
+"The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of towns!"
+
+Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with
+clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that
+determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the
+fate of the Havre-de-Grace linked with the very secret of the Needle?
+
+"That's it, that's it," stammered Beautrelet, excitedly. "The old
+Norman estuary, one of the essential points, one of the original
+centres around which our French nationality was formed, is completed by
+those two forces, one in full view, alive, known to all, the new port
+commanding the ocean and opening on the world; the other dim and
+obscure, unknown and all the more alarming, inasmuch as it is invisible
+and impalpable. A whole side of the history of France and of the royal
+house is explained by the Needle, even as it explains the whole story
+of Arsene Lupin. The same sources of energy and power supply and renew
+the fortunes of kings and of the adventurer."
+
+Beautrelet ferreted and snuffed from village to village, from the river
+to the sea, with his nose in the wind, his ears pricked, trying to
+compel the inanimate things to surrender their deep meaning. Ought this
+hill-slope to be questioned? Or that forest? Or the houses of this
+hamlet? Or was it among the insignificant phrases spoken by that
+peasant yonder that he might hope to gather the one little illuminating
+word?
+
+One morning, he was lunching at an inn, within sight of Honfleur, the
+old city of the estuary. Opposite him was sitting one of those heavy,
+red-haired Norman horse-dealers who do the fairs of the district, whip
+in hand and clad in a long smock-frock. After a moment, it seemed to
+Beautrelet that the man was looking at him with a certain amount of
+attention, as though he knew him or, at least, was trying to recognize
+him.
+
+"Pooh," he thought, "there's some mistake: I've never seen that
+merchant before, nor he me."
+
+As a matter of fact, the man appeared to take no further interest in
+him. He lit his pipe, called for coffee and brandy, smoked and drank.
+
+When Beautrelet had finished his meal, he paid and rose to go. A group
+of men entered just as he was about to leave and he had to stand for a
+few seconds near the table at which the horse-dealer sat. He then heard
+the man say in a low voice:
+
+"Good-afternoon, M. Beautrelet."
+
+Without hesitation, Isidore sat down beside the man and said:
+
+"Yes, that is my name--but who are you? How did you know me?"
+
+"That's not difficult--and yet I've only seen your portrait in the
+papers. But you are so badly--what do you call it in French--so badly
+made-up."
+
+He had a pronounced foreign accent and Beautrelet seemed to perceive,
+as he looked at him, that he too wore a facial disguise that entirely
+altered his features.
+
+"Who are you?" he repeated. "Who are you?"
+
+The stranger smiled:
+
+"Don't you recognize me?"
+
+"No, I never saw you before."
+
+"Nor I you. But think. The papers print my portrait also--and pretty
+often. Well, have you got it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Holmlock Shears."
+
+It was an amusing and, at the same time, a significant meeting. The boy
+at once saw the full bearing of it. After an exchange of compliments,
+he said to Shears:
+
+"I suppose that you are here--because of 'him'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So--so--you think we have a chance--in this direction."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+Beautrelet's delight at finding that Shears's opinion agreed with his
+own was not unmingled with other feelings. If the Englishman attained
+his object, it meant that, at the very best, the two would share the
+victory; and who could tell that Shears would not attain it first?
+
+"Have you any proofs? Any clues?"
+
+"Don't be afraid," grinned the Englishman, who understood his
+uneasiness. "I am not treading on your heels. With you, it's the
+document, the pamphlet: things that do not inspire me with any great
+confidence."
+
+"And with you?"
+
+"With me, it's something different."
+
+"Should I be indiscreet, if--?"
+
+"Not at all. You remember the story of the coronet, the story of the
+Duc de Charmerac?"[7]
+
+
+[7] Arsene Lupin, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and
+Francis de Croisset.
+
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You remember Victoire, Lupin's old foster-mother, the one whom my good
+friend Ganimard allowed to escape in a sham prison-van?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have found Victoire's traces. She lives on a farm, not far from
+National Road No. 25. National Road No. 25 is the road from the Havre
+to Lille. Through Victoire I shall easily get at Lupin."
+
+"It will take long."
+
+"No matter! I have dropped all my cases. This is the only one I care
+about. Between Lupin and me, it's a fight--a fight to the death."
+
+He spoke these words with a sort of ferocity that betrayed all his
+bitterness at the humiliations which he had undergone, all his fierce
+hatred of the great enemy who had tricked him so cruelly.
+
+"Go away, now," he whispered, "we are observed. It's dangerous. But
+mark my words: on the day when Lupin and I meet face to face, it will
+be--it will be tragic."
+
+Beautrelet felt quite reassured on leaving Shears: he need not fear
+that the Englishman would gain on him. And here was one more proof
+which this chance interview had brought him: the road from the Havre to
+Lille passes through Dieppe! It is the great seaside road of the Caux
+country, the coast road commanding the Channel cliffs! And it was on a
+farm near this road that Victoire was installed, Victoire, that is to
+say, Lupin, for one did not move without the other, the master without
+the blindly devoted servant.
+
+"I'm burning! I'm burning!" he repeated to himself. "Whenever
+circumstances bring me a new element of information, it confirms my
+supposition. On the one hand, I have the absolute certainty of the
+banks of the Seine; on the other, the certainty of the National Road.
+The two means of communication meet at the Havre, the town of Francis
+I., the town of the secret. The boundaries are contracting. The Caux
+country is not large; and, even so, I have only the western portion of
+the Caux country to search."
+
+He set to work with renewed stubbornness:
+
+"Anything that Lupin has found," he kept on saying to himself, "there
+is no reason for my not finding."
+
+Certainly, Lupin had some great advantage over him, perhaps a thorough
+acquaintance with the country, a precise knowledge of the local
+legends, or less than that, a memory: invaluable advantages these, for
+he, Beautrelet, knew nothing, was totally ignorant of the country,
+which he had first visited at the time of the Ambrumesy burglary and
+then only rapidly, without lingering.
+
+But what did it matter? Though he had to devote ten years of his life
+to this investigation, he would carry it to a successful issue. Lupin
+was there. He could see him, he could feel him there. He expected to
+come upon him at the next turn of the road, on the skirt of the next
+wood, outside the next village. And, though continually disappointed,
+he seemed to find in each disappointment a fresh reason for persisting.
+
+Often, he would fling himself on the slope by the roadside and plunge
+into wild examination of the copy of the document which he always
+carried on him, a copy, that is to say, with vowels taking the place of
+the figures:
+
+  e . a . a . . e . . e . a . . a . .
+   a . . . e . e .     . e . oi . e . . e .
+   . ou . . e . o . . . e . . e . o . . e
+
+
+[Illustration: drawing of an outline of paper with writing and drawing
+on it--numbers, dots, some letters, signs and symbols...]
+
+  ai . ui . . e           . . eu . e
+
+Often, also, according to his habit, he would lie down flat on his
+stomach in the tall grass and think for hours. He had time enough. The
+future belonged to him.
+
+With wonderful patience, he tramped from the Seine to the sea, and from
+the sea to the Seine, going gradually farther, retracing his steps and
+never quitting the ground until, theoretically speaking, there was not
+a chance left of gathering the smallest particle upon it.
+
+He studied and explored Montivilliers and Saint-Romani and Octeville
+and Gonneville and Criquetot.
+
+At night, he knocked at the peasants' doors and asked for a lodging.
+After dinner, they smoked together and chatted. He made them tell him
+the stories which they told one another on the long winter nights. And
+he never omitted to insinuate, slily:
+
+"What about the Needle? The legend of the Hollow Needle? Don't you know
+that?"
+
+"Upon my word, I don't--never heard of it--"
+
+"Just think--an old wives' tale--something that has to do with a
+needle. An enchanted needle, perhaps.--I don't know--"
+
+Nothing. No legend, no recollection. And the next morning he walked
+blithely away again.
+
+One day, he passed through the pretty village of Saint-Jouin, which
+overlooks the sea, and descending among the chaos of rocks that have
+slipped from cliffs, he climbed up to the tableland and went in the
+direction of the dry valley of Bruneval, Cap d'Antifer and the little
+creek of Belle-Plage. He was walking gaily and lightly, feeling a
+little tired, perhaps, but glad to be alive, so glad, even, that he
+forgot Lupin and the mystery of the Hollow Needle and Victoire and
+Shears, and interested himself in the sight of nature: the blue sky,
+the great emerald sea, all glittering in the sunshine.
+
+Some straight slopes and remains of brick walls, in which he seemed to
+recognize the vestiges of a Roman camp, interested him. Then his eyes
+fell upon a sort of little castle, built in imitation of an ancient
+fort, with cracked turrets and Gothic windows. It stood on a jagged,
+rugged, rising promontory, almost detached from the cliff. A barred
+gate, flanked by iron hand-rails and bristling spikes, guarded the
+narrow passage.
+
+Beautrelet succeeded in climbing over, not without some difficulty.
+Over the pointed door, which was closed with an old rusty lock, he read
+the words:
+
+FORT DE FREFOSSE
+
+He did not attempt to enter, but, turning to the right, after going
+down a little slope, he embarked upon a path that ran along a ridge of
+land furnished with a wooden handrail. Right at the end was a cave of
+very small dimensions, forming a sort of watch-tower at the point of
+the rock in which it was hollowed out, a rock falling abruptly into the
+sea.
+
+There was just room to stand up in the middle of the cave. Multitudes
+of inscriptions crossed one another on the walls. An almost square
+hole, cut in the stone, opened like a dormer window on the land side,
+exactly opposite Fort Frefosse, the crenellated top of which appeared
+at thirty or forty yards' distance.
+
+Beautrelet threw off his knapsack and sat down. He had had a hard and
+tiring day. He fell asleep for a little. Then the cool wind that blew
+inside the cave woke him up. He sat for a few minutes without moving,
+absent-minded, vague-eyed. He tried to reflect, to recapture his still
+torpid thoughts. And, as he recovered his consciousness, he was on the
+point of rising, when he received the impression that his eyes,
+suddenly fixed, suddenly wide-open, saw--
+
+A thrill shook him from head to foot. His hands clutched convulsively
+and he felt the beads of perspiration forming at the roots of his hair:
+
+"No, no," he stammered. "It's a dream, an hallucination. Let's look:
+it's not possible!"
+
+He plunged down on his knees and stooped over. Two huge letters, each
+perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in the granite of the
+floor. Those two letters, clumsily, but plainly carved, with their
+corners rounded and their surface smoothed by the wear and tear of
+centuries, were a D and an F.
+
+D and F! Oh, bewildering miracle! D and F: just two letters of the
+document! Oh, Beautrelet had no need to consult it to bring before his
+mind that group of letters in the fourth line, the line of the
+measurements and indications! He knew them well! They were inscribed
+for all time at the back of his pupils, encrusted for good and all in
+the very substance of his brain!
+
+He rose to his feet, went down the steep road, climbed back along the
+old fort, hung on to the spikes of the rail again, in order to pass,
+and walked briskly toward a shepherd whose flock was grazing some way
+off on a dip in the tableland:
+
+"That cave, over there--that cave--"
+
+His lips trembled and he tried to find the words that would not come.
+The shepherd looked at him in amazement. At last, Isidore repeated:
+
+"Yes, that cave--over there--to the right of the fort. Has it a name?"
+
+"Yes, I should think so. All the Etretat folk like to call it the
+Demoiselles."
+
+"What?--What?--What's that you say?"
+
+"Why, of course--it's the Chambre des Demoiselles."
+
+Isidore felt like flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived
+in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to tear it
+from him.
+
+The Demoiselles! One of the words, one of the only three known words of
+the document!
+
+A whirlwind of madness shook Beautrelet where he stood. And it rose all
+around him, blew upon him like a tempestuous squall that came from the
+sea, that came from the land, that came from every direction and
+whipped him with great lashes of the truth.
+
+He understood. The document appeared to him in its real sense. The
+Chambre des Demoiselles--Etretat--
+
+"That's it," he thought, his brain filled with light, "it must be that.
+But why didn't I guess earlier?"
+
+He said to the shepherd, in a low voice:
+
+"That will do--go away--you can go--thank you."
+
+The man, not knowing what to think, whistled to his dog and went.
+
+Left alone, Beautrelet returned to the fort. He had almost passed it
+when, suddenly, he dropped to the ground and lay cowering against a
+piece of wall. And, wringing his hands, he thought:
+
+"I must be mad! If 'he' were to see me! Or his accomplices! I've been
+moving about for an hour--!"
+
+He did not stir another limb.
+
+The sun went down. Little by little, the night mingled with the day,
+blurring the outline of things.
+
+Then, with little imperceptible movements, flat on his stomach,
+gliding, crawling, he crept along one of the points of the promontory
+to the extreme edge of the cliff.
+
+He reached it. Stretching out his hands, he pushed aside some tufts of
+grass and his head appeared over the precipice.
+
+Opposite him, almost level with the cliff, in the open sea rose an
+enormous rock, over eighty yards high, a colossal obelisk, standing
+straight on its granite base, which showed at the surface of the water,
+and tapering toward the summit, like the giant tooth of a monster of
+the deep. White with the dirty gray white of the cliff, the awful
+monolith was streaked with horizontal lines marked by flint and
+displaying the slow work of the centuries, which had heaped alternate
+layers of lime and pebble-stone one atop of the other.
+
+Here and there, a fissure, a break; and, wherever these occurred, a
+scrap of earth, with grass and leaves.
+
+And all this was mighty and solid and formidable, with the look of an
+indestructible thing against which the furious assault of the waves and
+storms could not prevail. And it was definite and permanent and grand,
+despite the grandeur of the cliffy rampart that commanded it, despite
+the immensity of the space in which it stood.
+
+Beautrelet's nails dug into the soil like the claws of an animal ready
+to leap upon its prey. His eyes penetrated the wrinkled texture of the
+rock, penetrated its skin, so it seemed to him, its very flesh. He
+touched it, felt it, took cognizance and possession of it, absorbed and
+assimilated it.
+
+The horizon turned crimson with all the flames of the vanished sun; and
+long, red clouds, set motionless in the sky, formed glorious
+landscapes, fantastic lagoons, fiery plains, forests of gold, lakes of
+blood, a whole glowing and peaceful phantasmagoria.
+
+The blue of the sky grew darker. Venus shone with a marvelous
+brightness; then other stars lit up, timid as yet.
+
+And Beautrelet suddenly closed his eyes and convulsively pressed his
+folded arms to his forehead. Over there--oh, he felt as though he would
+die for joy, so great was the cruel emotion that wrung his heart!--over
+there, almost at the top of the Needle of Etretat, a little below the
+extreme point round which the sea-mews fluttered, a thread of smoke
+came filtering through a crevice, as though from an invisible chimney,
+a thread of smoke rose in slow spirals in the calm air of the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+OPEN, SESAME!
+
+
+The Etretat Needle was hollow!
+
+Was it a natural phenomenon, an excavation produced by internal
+cataclysms or by the imperceptible action of the rushing sea and the
+soaking rain? Or was it a superhuman work executed by human beings,
+Gauls, Celts, prehistoric men?
+
+These, no doubt, were insoluble questions; and what did it matter? The
+essence of the thing was contained in this fact: The Needle was hollow.
+At forty or fifty yards from that imposing arch which is called the
+Porte d'Aval and which shoots out from the top of the cliff, like the
+colossal branch of a tree, to take root in the submerged rocks, stands
+an immense limestone cone; and this cone is no more than the shell of a
+pointed cap poised upon the empty waters!
+
+A prodigious revelation! After Lupin, here was Beautrelet discovering
+the key to the great riddle that had loomed over more than twenty
+centuries! A key of supreme importance to whoever possessed it in the
+days of old, in those distant times when hordes of barbarians rode
+through and overran the old world! A magic key that opens the cyclopean
+cavern to whole tribes fleeing before the enemy! A mysterious key that
+guards the door of the most inviolable shelter! An enchanted key that
+gives power and ensures preponderance!
+
+Because he knows this key, Caesar is able to subdue Gaul. Because they
+know it, the Normans force their sway upon the country and, from there,
+later, backed by that support, conquer the neighboring island, conquer
+Sicily, conquer the East, conquer the new world!
+
+Masters of the secret, the Kings of England lord it over France, humble
+her, dismember her, have themselves crowned at Paris. They lose the
+secret; and the rout begins.
+
+Masters of the secret, the Kings of France push back and overstep the
+narrow limits of their dominion, gradually founding a great nation and
+radiating with glory and power. They forget it or know not how to use
+it; and death, exile, ruin follow.
+
+An invisible kingdom, in mid-water and at ten fathoms from land! An
+unknown fortress, taller than the towers of Notre Dame and built upon a
+granite foundation larger than a public square! What strength and what
+security! From Paris to the sea, by the Seine. There, the Havre, the
+new town, the necessary town. And, sixteen miles thence, the Hollow
+Needle, the impregnable sanctuary!
+
+It is a sanctuary and also a stupendous hiding-place. All the treasures
+of the kings, increasing from century to century, all the gold of
+France, all that they extort from the people, all that they snatch from
+the clergy, all the booty gathered on the battle-fields of Europe lie
+heaped up in the royal cave. Old Merovingian gold sous, glittering
+crown-pieces, doubloons, ducats, florins, guineas; and the precious
+stones and the diamonds; and all the jewels and all the ornaments:
+everything is there. Who could discover it? Who could ever learn the
+impenetrable secret of the Needle? Nobody.
+
+And Lupin becomes that sort of really disproportionate being whom we
+know, that miracle incapable of explanation so long as the truth
+remains in the shadow. Infinite though the resources of his genius be,
+they cannot suffice for the mad struggle which he maintains against
+society. He needs other, more material resources. He needs a sure place
+of retreat, he needs the certainty of impunity, the peace that allows
+of the execution of his plans.
+
+Without the Hollow Needle, Lupin is incomprehensible, a myth, a
+character in a novel, having no connection with reality.
+
+Master of the secret--and of such a secret!--he becomes simply a man
+like another, but gifted with the power of wielding in a superior
+manner the extraordinary weapon with which destiny has endowed him.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the Needle was hollow.
+
+It remained to discover how one obtained access to it.
+
+From the sea, obviously. There must be, on the side of the offing, some
+fissure where boats could land at certain hours of the tide.
+
+But on the side of the land?
+
+Beautrelet lay until ten o'clock at night hanging over the precipice,
+with his eyes riveted on the shadowy mass formed by the pyramid,
+thinking and pondering with all the concentrated effort of his mind.
+
+Then he went down to Etretat, selected the cheapest hotel, dined, went
+up to his room and unfolded the document.
+
+It was the merest child's play to him now to establish its exact
+meaning. He at once saw that the three vowels of the word Etretat
+occurred in the first line, in their proper order and at the necessary
+intervals. This first line now read as follows:
+
+  e . a . a .. etretat . a ..
+
+What words could come before Etretat? Words, no doubt, that referred to
+the position of the Needle with regard to the town. Now the Needle
+stood on the left, on the west--He ransacked his memory and,
+recollecting that westerly winds are called vents d'aval on the coast
+and that the nearest porte was known as the Porte d'Aval, he wrote down:
+
+  "En aval d'Etretat . a .."
+
+The second line was that containing the word Demoiselles and, at once
+seeing, in front of that word, the series of all the vowels that form
+part of the words la chambre des, he noted the two phrases:
+
+  "En aval d'Etretat. La Chambre des Demoiselles."
+
+The third line gave him more trouble; and it was not until some groping
+that, remembering the position, near the Chambre des Demoiselles, of
+the Fort de Frefosse, he ended by almost completely reconstructing the
+document:
+
+  "En aval d'Etretat. La Chambre des Demoiselles. Sous le Fort de
+  Frefosse. L'Aiguille creuse."
+
+These were the four great formulas, the essential and general formulas
+which you had to know. By means of them, you turned en aval, that is to
+say, below or west of Etretat, entered the Chambre des Demoiselles, in
+all probability passed under Fort Frefosse and thus arrived at the
+Needle.
+
+How? By means of the indications and measurements that constituted the
+fourth line:
+
+[Illustration: drawing of an outline of paper with writing and drawing
+on it--numbers, dots, some letters, signs and symbols...]
+
+These were evidently the more special formulas to enable you to find
+the outlet through which you made your way and the road that led to the
+Needle.
+
+Beautrelet at once presumed--and his surmise was no more than the
+logical consequence of the document--that, if there really was a direct
+communication between the land and the obelisk of the Needle, the
+underground passage must start from the Chambre des Demoiselles, pass
+under Fort Frefosse, descend perpendicularly the three hundred feet of
+cliff and, by means of a tunnel contrived under the rocks of the sea,
+end at the Hollow Needle.
+
+Which was the entrance to the underground passage? Did not the two
+letters D and F, so plainly cut, point to it and admit to it, with the
+aid, perhaps, of some ingenious piece of mechanism?
+
+The whole of the next morning, Isidore strolled about Etretat and
+chatted with everybody he met, in order to try and pick up useful
+information. At last, in the afternoon, he went up the cliff. Disguised
+as a sailor, he had made himself still younger and, in a pair of
+trousers too short for him and a fishing jersey, he looked a mere
+scape-grace of twelve or thirteen.
+
+As soon as he entered the cave, he knelt down before the letters. Here
+a disappointment awaited him. It was no use his striking them, pushing
+them, manipulating them in every way: they refused to move. And it was
+not long, in fact, before he became aware that they were really unable
+to move and that, therefore, they controlled no mechanism.
+
+And yet--and yet they must mean something! Inquiries which he had made
+in the village went to show that no one had ever been able to explain
+their existence and that the Abbe Cochet, in his valuable little book
+on Etretat,[8] had also tried in vain to solve this little puzzle. But
+Isidore knew what the learned Norman archaeologist did not know,
+namely, that the same two letters figured in the document, on the line
+containing the indications. Was it a chance coincidence: Impossible.
+Well, then--?
+
+
+[8] Les Origines d'Etretat. The Abbe Cochet seems to conclude,
+in the end, that the two letters are the initials of a passer-by. The
+revelations now made prove the fallacy of the theory.
+
+
+An idea suddenly occurred to him, an idea so reasonable, so simple that
+he did not doubt its correctness for a second. Were not that D and that
+F the initials of the two most important words in the document, the
+words that represented--together with the Needle--the essential
+stations on the road to be followed: the Chambre des Demoiselles and
+Fort Frefosse: D for Demoiselles, F for Frefosse: the connection was
+too remarkable to be a mere accidental fact.
+
+In that case, the problem stood thus: the two letters D F represent the
+relation that exists between the Chambre des Demoiselles and Fort
+Frefosse, the single letter D, which begins the line, represents the
+Demoiselles, that is to say, the cave in which you have to begin by
+taking up your position, and the single letter F, placed in the middle
+of the line, represents Frefosse, that is to say, the probable entrance
+to the underground passage.
+
+Between these various signs, are two more: first, a sort of irregular
+rectangle, marked with a stripe in the left bottom corner, and, next,
+the figure 19, signs which obviously indicate to those inside the cave
+the means of penetrating beneath the fort.
+
+The shape of this rectangle puzzled Isidore. Was there around him, on
+the walls of the cave, or at any rate within reach of his eyes, an
+inscription, anything whatever, affecting a rectangular shape?
+
+He looked for a long time and was on the point of abandoning that
+particular scent when his eyes fell upon the little opening, pierced in
+the rock, that acted as a window to the chamber.
+
+Now the edges of this opening just formed a rectangle: corrugated,
+uneven, clumsy, but still a rectangle; and Beautrelet at once saw that,
+by placing his two feet on the D and the F carved in the stone
+floor--and this explained the stroke that surmounted the two letters in
+the document--he found himself at the exact height of the window!
+
+He took up his position in this place and gazed out. The window looking
+landward, as we know, he saw, first, the path that connected the cave
+with the land, a path hung between two precipices; and, next, he caught
+sight of the foot of the hillock on which the fort stood. To try and
+see the fort, Beautrelet leaned over to the left and it was then that
+he understood the meaning of the curved stripe, the comma that marked
+the left bottom corner in the document: at the bottom on the left-hand
+side of the window, a piece of flint projected and the end of it was
+curved like a claw. It suggested a regular shooter's mark. And, when a
+man applied his eye to this mark, he saw cut out, on the slope of the
+mound facing him, a restricted surface of land occupied almost entirely
+by an old brick wall, a remnant of the original Fort Frefosse or of the
+old Roman oppidum built on this spot.
+
+Beautrelet ran to this piece of wall, which was, perhaps, ten yards
+long. It was covered with grass and plants. There was no indication of
+any kind visible. And yet that figure 19?
+
+He returned to the cave, took from his pocket a ball of string and a
+tape-measure, tied the string to the flint corner, fastened a pebble at
+the nineteenth metre and flung it toward the land side. The pebble at
+most reached the end of the path.
+
+"Idiot that I am!" thought Beautrelet. "Who reckoned by metres in those
+days? The figure 19 means 19 fathoms[9] or nothing!"
+
+
+[9] The toise, or fathom, measured 1.949 metres.--Translator's Note.
+
+
+Having made the calculation, he ran out the twine, made a knot and felt
+about on the piece of wall for the exact and necessarily one point at
+which the knot, formed at 37 metres from the window of the Demoiselles,
+should touch the Frefosse wall. In a few moments, the point of contact
+was established. With his free hand, he moved aside the leaves of
+mullein that had grown in the interstices. A cry escaped him. The knot,
+which he held pressed down with his fore-finger, was in the centre of a
+little cross carved in relief on a brick. And the sign that followed on
+the figure 19 in the document was a cross!
+
+It needed all his will-power to control the excitement with which he
+was overcome. Hurriedly, with convulsive fingers, he clutched the cross
+and, pressing upon it, turned it as he would have turned the spokes of
+a wheel. The brick heaved. He redoubled his effort; it moved no
+further. Then, without turning, he pressed harder. He at once felt the
+brick give way. And, suddenly, there was the click of a bolt that is
+released, the sound of a lock opening and, on the right of the brick,
+to the width of about a yard, the wall swung round on a pivot and
+revealed the orifice of an underground passage.
+
+Like a madman, Beautrelet seized the iron door in which the bricks were
+sealed, pulled it back, violently and closed it. Astonishment, delight,
+the fear of being surprised convulsed his face so as to render it
+unrecognizable. He beheld the awful vision of all that had happened
+there, in front of that door, during twenty centuries; of all those
+people, initiated into the great secret, who had penetrated through
+that issue: Celts, Gauls, Romans, Normans, Englishmen, Frenchmen,
+barons, dukes, kings--and, after all of them, Arsene Lupin--and, after
+Lupin, himself, Beautrelet. He felt that his brain was slipping away
+from him. His eyelids fluttered. He fell fainting and rolled to the
+bottom of the slope, to the very edge of the precipice.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+His task was done, at least the task which he was able to accomplish
+alone, with his unaided resources.
+
+That evening, he wrote a long letter to the chief of the detective
+service, giving a faithful account of the results of his investigations
+and revealing the secret of the Hollow Needle. He asked for assistance
+to complete his work and gave his address.
+
+While waiting for the reply, he spent two consecutive nights in the
+Chambre des Demoiselles. He spent them overcome with fear, his nerves
+shaken with a terror which was increased by the sounds of the night. At
+every moment, he thought he saw shadows approach in his direction.
+People knew of his presence in the cave--they were coming--they were
+murdering him!
+
+His eyes, however, staring madly before them, sustained by all the
+power of his will, clung to the piece of wall.
+
+On the first night, nothing stirred; but, on the second, by the light
+of the stars and a slender crescent-moon, he saw the door open and
+figures emerge from the darkness: he counted two, three, four, five of
+them.
+
+It seemed to him that those five men were carrying fairly large loads.
+He followed them for a little way. They cut straight across the fields
+to the Havre road; and he heard the sound of a motor car driving away.
+
+He retraced his steps, skirting a big farm. But, at the turn of the
+road that ran beside it, he had only just time to scramble up a slope
+and hide behind some trees. More men passed--four, five men--all
+carrying packages. And, two minutes later, another motor snorted.
+
+This time, he had not the strength to return to his post; and he went
+back to bed.
+
+When he woke and had finished dressing, the hotel waiter brought him a
+letter. He opened it. It contained Ganimard's card.
+
+"At last!" cried Beautrelet, who, after so hard a campaign, was really
+feeling the need of a comrade-in-arms.
+
+He ran downstairs with outstretched hands. Ganimard took them, looked
+at him for a moment and said:
+
+"You're a fine fellow, my lad!"
+
+"Pooh!" he said. "Luck has served me."
+
+"There's no such thing as luck with 'him,'" declared the inspector, who
+always spoke of Lupin in a solemn tone and without mentioning his name.
+
+He sat down:
+
+"So we've got him!"
+
+"Just as we've had him twenty times over," said Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+"Yes, but to-day--"
+
+"To-day, of course, the case is different. We know his retreat, his
+stronghold, which means, when all is said, that Lupin is Lupin. He can
+escape. The Etretat Needle cannot."
+
+"Why do you suppose that he will escape?" asked Ganimard, anxiously.
+
+"Why do you suppose that he requires to escape?" replied Beautrelet.
+"There is nothing to prove that he is in the Needle at present. Last
+night, eleven of his men left it. He may be one of the eleven."
+
+Ganimard reflected:
+
+"You are right. The great thing is the Hollow Needle. For the rest, let
+us hope that chance will favor us. And now, let us talk."
+
+He resumed his serious voice, his self-important air and said:
+
+"My dear Beautrelet, I have orders to recommend you to observe the most
+absolute discretion in regard to this matter."
+
+"Orders from whom?" asked Beautrelet, jestingly. "The prefect of
+police?"
+
+"Higher than that."
+
+"The prime minister?"
+
+"Higher."
+
+"Whew!"
+
+Ganimard lowered his voice:
+
+"Beautrelet, I was at the Elysee last night. They look upon this matter
+as a state secret of the utmost gravity. There are serious reasons for
+concealing the existence of this citadel--reasons of military strategy,
+in particular. It might become a revictualling centre, a magazine for
+new explosives, for lately-invented projectiles, for anything of that
+sort: the secret arsenal of France, in fact."
+
+"But how can they hope to keep a secret like this? In the old days, one
+man alone held it: the king. To-day, already, there are a good few of
+us who know it, without counting Lupin's gang."
+
+"Still, if we gained only ten years', only five years' silence! Those
+five years may be--the saving of us."
+
+"But, in order to capture this citadel, this future arsenal, it will
+have to be attacked, Lupin must be dislodged. And all this cannot be
+done without noise."
+
+"Of course, people will guess something, but they won't know. Besides,
+we can but try."
+
+"All right. What's your plan?"
+
+"Here it is, in two words. To begin with, you are not Isidore
+Beautrelet and there's no question of Arsene Lupin either. You are and
+you remain a small boy of Etretat, who, while strolling about the
+place, caught some fellows coming out of an underground passage. This
+makes you suspect the existence of a flight of steps which cuts through
+the cliff from top to bottom."
+
+"Yes, there are several of those flights of steps along the coast. For
+instance, to the right of Etretat, opposite Benouville, they showed me
+the Devil's Staircase, which every bather knows. And I say nothing of
+the three or four tunnels used by the fishermen."
+
+"So you will guide me and one-half of my men. I shall enter alone, or
+accompanied, that remains to be seen. This much is certain, that the
+attack must be delivered that way. If Lupin is not in the Needle, we
+shall fix up a trap in which he will be caught sooner or later. If he
+is there--"
+
+"If he is there, he will escape from the Needle by the other side, the
+side overlooking the sea."
+
+"In that case, he will at once be arrested by the other half of my men."
+
+"Yes, but if, as I presume, you choose a moment when the sea is at low
+ebb, leaving the base of the Needle uncovered, the chase will be
+public, because it will take place before all the men and women fishing
+for mussels, shrimps and shell-fish who swarm on the rocks round about."
+
+"That is why I just mean to select the time when the sea is full."
+
+"In that case, he will make off in a boat."
+
+"Ah, but I shall have a dozen fishing-smacks, each of which will be
+commanded by one of my men, and we shall collar him--"
+
+"If he doesn't slip through your dozen smacks, like a fish through the
+meshes."
+
+"All right, then I'll sink him."
+
+"The devil you will! Shall you have guns?"
+
+"Why, of course! There's a torpedo-boat at the Havre at this moment. A
+telegram from me will bring her to the Needle at the appointed hour."
+
+"How proud Lupin will be! A torpedo-boat! Well, M. Ganimard, I see that
+you have provided for everything. We have only to go ahead. When do we
+deliver the assault?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"At night?"
+
+"No, by daylight, at the flood-tide, as the clock strikes ten in the
+morning."
+
+"Capital."
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under his show of gaiety, Beautrelet concealed a real anguish of mind.
+He did not sleep until the morning, but lay pondering over the most
+impracticable schemes, one after the other.
+
+Ganimard had left him in order to go to Yport, six or seven miles from
+Etretat, where, for prudence's sake, he had told his men to meet him,
+and where he chartered twelve fishing smacks, with the ostensible
+object of taking soundings along the coast.
+
+At a quarter to ten, escorted by a body of twelve stalwart men, he met
+Isidore at the foot of the road that goes up the cliff.
+
+At ten o'clock exactly, they reached the skirt of wall. It was the
+decisive moment.
+
+At ten o'clock exactly.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with you, Beautrelet?" jeered Ganimard. "You're
+quite green in the face!"
+
+"It's as well you can't see yourself, Ganimard," the boy retorted. "One
+would think your last hour had come!"
+
+They both had to sit down and Ganimard swallowed a few mouthfuls of rum.
+
+"It's not funk," he said, "but, by Jove, this is an exciting business!
+Each time that I'm on the point of catching him, it takes me like that
+in the pit of the stomach. A dram of rum?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And if you drop behind?"
+
+"That will mean that I'm dead."
+
+"B-r-r-r-r! However, we'll see. And now, open, sesame! No danger of our
+being observed, I suppose?"
+
+"No. The Needle is not so high as the cliff, and, besides, there's a
+bend in the ground where we are."
+
+Beautrelet went to the wall and pressed upon the brick. The bolt was
+released and the underground passage came in sight.
+
+By the gleam of the lanterns which they lit, they saw that it was cut
+in the shape of a vault and that both the vaulting and the floor itself
+were entirely covered with bricks.
+
+They walked for a few seconds and, suddenly, a staircase appeared.
+Beautrelet counted forty-five brick steps, which the slow action of
+many footsteps had worn away in the middle.
+
+"Blow!" said Ganimard, holding his head and stopping suddenly, as
+though he had knocked against something.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"A door."
+
+"Bother!" muttered Beautrelet, looking at it. "And not an easy one to
+break down either. It's just a solid block of iron."
+
+"We are done," said Ganimard. "There's not even a lock to it."
+
+"Exactly. That's what gives me hope."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"A door is made to open; and, as this one has no lock, that means that
+there is a secret way of opening it."
+
+"And, as we don't know the secret--"
+
+"I shall know it in a minute."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By means of the document. The fourth line has no other object but to
+solve each difficulty as and when it crops up. And the solution is
+comparatively easy, because it's not written with a view to throwing
+searchers off the scent, but to assisting them."
+
+"Comparatively easy! I don't agree with you," cried Ganimard, who had
+unfolded the document. "The number 44 and a triangle with a dot in it:
+that doesn't tell us much!"
+
+"Yes, yes, it does! Look at the door. You see it's strengthened, at
+each corner, with a triangular slab of iron; and the slabs are fixed
+with big nails. Take the left-hand bottom slab and work the nail in the
+corner: I'll lay ten to one we've hit the mark."
+
+"You've lost your bet," said Ganimard, after trying.
+
+"Then the figure 44 must mean--"
+
+In a low voice, reflecting as he spoke, Beautrelet continued:
+
+"Let me see--Ganimard and I are both standing on the bottom step of the
+staircase--there are 45. Why 45, when the figure in the document is 44?
+A coincidence? No. In all this business, there is no such thing as a
+coincidence, at least not an involuntary one. Ganimard, be so good as
+to move one step higher up. That's it, don't leave this forty-fourth
+step. And now I will work the iron nail. And the trick's done, or I'll
+eat my boots!"
+
+The heavy door turned on its hinges. A fairly spacious cavern appeared
+before their eyes.
+
+"We must be exactly under Fort Frefosse," said Beautrelet. "We have
+passed through the different earthy layers by now. There will be no
+more brick. We are in the heart of the solid limestone."
+
+The room was dimly lit by a shaft of daylight that came from the other
+end. Going up to it, they saw that it was a fissure in the cliff,
+contrived in a projecting wall and forming a sort of observatory. In
+front of them, at a distance of fifty yards, the impressive mass of the
+Needle loomed from the waves. On the right, quite close, was the arched
+buttress of the Porte d'Aval and, on the left, very far away, closing
+the graceful curve of a large inlet, another rocky gateway, more
+imposing still, was cut out of the cliff; the Manneporte,[10] which was
+so wide and tall that a three-master could have passed through it with
+all sail set. Behind and everywhere, the sea.
+
+
+[10] Magna porta.
+
+
+"I don't see our little fleet," said Beautrelet.
+
+"I know," said Ganimard. "The Porte d'Aval hides the whole of the coast
+of Etretat and Yport. But look, over there, in the offing, that black
+line, level with the water--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That's our fleet of war, Torpedo-boat No. 25. With her there, Lupin is
+welcome to break loose--if he wants to study the landscape at the
+bottom of the sea."
+
+A baluster marked the entrance to the staircase, near the fissure. They
+started on their way down. From time to time, a little window pierced
+the wall of the cliff; and, each time, they caught sight of the Needle,
+whose mass seemed to them to grow more and more colossal.
+
+A little before reaching high-water level, the windows ceased and all
+was dark.
+
+Isidore counted the steps aloud. At the three hundred and fifty-eight,
+they emerged into a wider passage, which was barred by another iron
+door strengthened with slabs and nails.
+
+"We know all about this," said Beautrelet. "The document gives us 357
+and a triangle dotted on the right. We have only to repeat the
+performance."
+
+The second door obeyed like the first. A long, a very long tunnel
+appeared, lit up at intervals by the gleam of a lantern swung from the
+vault. The walls oozed moisture and drops of water fell to the ground,
+so that, to make walking easier a regular pavement of planks had been
+laid from end to end.
+
+"We are passing under the sea," said Beautrelet. "Are you coming,
+Ganimard?"
+
+Without replying, the inspector ventured into the tunnel, followed the
+wooden foot-plank and stopped before a lantern, which he took down.
+
+"The utensils may date back to the Middle Ages, but the lighting is
+modern," he said. "Our friends use incandescent mantles."
+
+He continued his way. The tunnel ended in another and a larger cave,
+with, on the opposite side, the first steps of a staircase that led
+upward.
+
+"It's the ascent of the Needle beginning," said Ganimard. "This is more
+serious."
+
+But one of his men called him:
+
+"There's another flight here, sir, on the left."
+
+And, immediately afterward, they discovered a third, on the right.
+
+"The deuce!" muttered the inspector. "This complicates matters. If we
+go by this way, they'll make tracks by that."
+
+"Shall we separate?" asked Beautrelet.
+
+"No, no--that would mean weakening ourselves. It would be better for
+one of us to go ahead and scout."
+
+"I will, if you like--"
+
+"Very well, Beautrelet, you go. I will remain with my men--then there
+will be no fear of anything. There may be other roads through the cliff
+than that by which we came and several roads also through the Needle.
+But it is certain that, between the cliff and the Needle, there is no
+communication except the tunnel. Therefore they must pass through this
+cave. And so I shall stay here till you come back. Go ahead,
+Beautrelet, and be prudent: at the least alarm, scoot back again."
+
+Isidore disappeared briskly up the middle staircase. At the thirtieth
+step, a door, an ordinary wooden door, stopped him. He seized the
+handle turned it. The door was not locked.
+
+He entered a room that seemed to him very low owing to its immense
+size. Lit by powerful lamps and supported by squat pillars, with long
+vistas showing between them, it had nearly the same dimensions as the
+Needle itself. It was crammed with packing cases and miscellaneous
+objects--pieces of furniture, oak settees, chests, credence-tables,
+strong-boxes--a whole confused heap of the kind which one sees in the
+basement of an old curiosity shop.
+
+On his right and left, Beautrelet perceived the wells of two
+staircases, the same, no doubt, that started from the cave below. He
+could easily have gone down, therefore, and told Ganimard. But a new
+flight of stairs led upward in front of him and he had the curiosity to
+pursue his investigations alone.
+
+Thirty more steps. A door and then a room, not quite so large as the
+last, Beautrelet thought. And again, opposite him, an ascending flight
+of stairs.
+
+Thirty steps more. A door. A smaller room.
+
+Beautrelet grasped the plan of the works executed inside the Needle. It
+was a series or rooms placed one above the other and, therefore,
+gradually decreasing in size. They all served as store-rooms.
+
+In the fourth, there was no lamp. A little light filtered in through
+clefts in the walls and Beautrelet saw the sea some thirty feet below
+him.
+
+At that moment, he felt himself so far from Ganimard that a certain
+anguish began to take hold of him and he had to master his nerves lest
+he should take to his heels. No danger threatened him, however, and the
+silence around him was even so great that he asked himself whether the
+whole Needle had not been abandoned by Lupin and his confederates.
+
+"I shall not go beyond the next floor," he said to himself.
+
+Thirty stairs again and a door. This door was lighter in construction
+and modern in appearance. He pushed it open gently, quite prepared for
+flight. There was no one there. But the room differed from the others
+in its purpose. There were hangings on the walls, rugs on the floor.
+Two magnificent sideboards, laden with gold and silver plate, stood
+facing each other. The little windows contrived in the deep, narrow
+cleft were furnished with glass panes.
+
+In the middle of the room was a richly-decked table, with a lace-edged
+cloth, dishes of fruits and cakes, champagne in decanters and flowers,
+heaps of flowers.
+
+Three places were laid around the table.
+
+Beautrelet walked up. On the napkins were cards with the names of the
+party. He read first:
+
+"Arsene Lupin."
+
+"Mme. Arsene Lupin."
+
+He took up the third card and started back with surprise. It bore his
+own name:
+
+"Isidore Beautrelet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+THE TREASURES OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE
+
+
+A curtain was drawn back.
+
+"Good morning, my dear Beautrelet, you're a little late. Lunch was
+fixed for twelve. However, it's only a few minutes--but what's the
+matter? Don't you know me? Have I changed so much?"
+
+In the course of his fight with Lupin, Beautrelet had met with many
+surprises and he was still prepared, at the moment of the final
+catastrophe, to experience any number of further emotions; but the
+shock which he received this time was utterly unexpected. It was not
+astonishment, but stupefaction, terror. The man who stood before him,
+the man whom the brutal force of events compelled him to look upon as
+Arsene Lupin, was--Valmeras! Valmeras, the owner of the Chateau de
+l'Aiguille! Valmeras, the very man to whom he had applied for
+assistance against Arsene Lupin! Valmeras, his companion on the
+expedition to Crozant! Valmeras, the plucky friend who had made
+Raymonde's escape possible by felling one of Lupin's accomplices, or
+pretending to fell him, in the dusk of the great hall! And Valmeras was
+Lupin!
+
+"You--you--So it's you!" he stammered.
+
+"Why not?" exclaimed Lupin. "Did you think that you knew me for good
+and all because you had seen me in the guise of a clergyman or under
+the features of M. Massiban? Alas, when a man selects the position in
+society which I occupy, he must needs make use of his little social
+gifts! If Lupin were not able to change himself, at will, into a
+minister of the Church of England or a member of the Academy of
+Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, it would be a bad lookout for Lupin!
+Now Lupin, the real Lupin, is here before you, Beautrelet! Take a good
+look at him."
+
+"But then--if it's you--then--Mademoiselle--"
+
+"Yes, Beautrelet, as you say--"
+
+He again drew back the hanging, beckoned and announced:
+
+"Mme. Arsene Lupin."
+
+"Ah," murmured the lad, confounded in spite of everything, "Mlle. de
+Saint-Veran!"
+
+"No, no," protested Lupin. "Mme. Arsene Lupin, or rather, if you
+prefer, Mme. Louis Valmeras, my wedded wife, married to me in
+accordance with the strictest forms of law; and all thanks to you, my
+dear Beautrelet."
+
+He held out his hand to him.
+
+"All my acknowledgements--and no ill will on your side, I trust?"
+
+Strange to say, Beautrelet felt no ill will at all, no sense of
+humiliation, no bitterness. He realized so strongly the immense
+superiority of his adversary that he did not blush at being beaten by
+him. He pressed the offered hand.
+
+"Luncheon is served, ma'am."
+
+A butler had placed a tray of dishes on the table.
+
+"You must excuse us, Beautrelet: my chef is away and we can only give
+you a cold lunch."
+
+Beautrelet felt very little inclined to eat. He sat down, however, and
+was enormously interested in Lupin's attitude. How much exactly did he
+know? Was he aware of the danger he was running? Was he ignorant of the
+presence of Ganimard and his men?
+
+And Lupin continued:
+
+"Yes, thanks to you, my dear friend. Certainly, Raymonde and I loved
+each other from the first. Just so, my boy--Raymonde's abduction, her
+imprisonment, were mere humbug: we loved each other. But neither she
+nor I, when we were free to love, would allow a casual bond at the
+mercy of chance, to be formed between us. The position, therefore, was
+hopeless for Lupin. Fortunately, it ceased to be so if I resumed my
+identity as the Louis Valmeras that I had been from a child. It was
+then that I conceived the idea, as you refused to relinquish your quest
+and had found the Chateau de l'Aiguille, of profiting by your
+obstinacy."
+
+"And my silliness."
+
+"Pooh! Any one would have been caught as you were!"
+
+"So you were really able to succeed because I screened you and assisted
+you?"
+
+"Of course! How could any one suspect Valmeras of being Lupin, when
+Valmeras was Beautrelet's friend and after Valmeras had snatched from
+Lupin's clutches the girl whom Lupin loved? And how charming it was!
+Such delightful memories! The expedition to Crozant! The bouquets we
+found! My pretended love letter to Raymonde! And, later, the
+precautions which I, Valmeras, had to take against myself, Lupin,
+before my marriage! And the night of your great banquet, Beautrelet,
+when you fainted in my arms! Oh, what memories!"
+
+There was a pause. Beautrelet watched Raymonde. She had listened to
+Lupin without saying a word and looked at him with eyes in which he
+read love, passion and something else besides, something which the lad
+could not define, a sort of anxious embarrassment and a vague sadness.
+But Lupin turned his eyes upon her and she gave him an affectionate
+smile. Their hands met over the table.
+
+"What do you say to the way I have arranged my little home,
+Beautrelet?" cried Lupin. "There's a style about it, isn't there? I
+don't pretend that it's as comfortable as it might be. And yet, some
+have been quite satisfied with it; and not the least of mankind,
+either!--Look at the list of distinguished people who have owned the
+Needle in their time and who thought it an honor to leave a mark of
+their sojourn."
+
+On the walls, one below the other, were carved the following names:
+
+  JULIUS CAESAR
+  CHARLEMAGNE ROLLO
+  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+  RICHARD COEUR-DE-LEON
+  LOUIS XI.
+  FRANCIS I.
+  HENRY IV.
+  LOUIS XIV.
+  ARSENE LUPIN
+
+"Whose name will figure after ours?" he continued. "Alas, the list is
+closed! From Caesar to Lupin--and there it ends. Soon the nameless mob
+will come to visit the strange citadel. And to think that, but for
+Lupin, all this would have remained for ever unknown to men! Ah
+Beautrelet, what a feeling of pride was mine on the day when I first
+set foot on this abandoned soil. To have found the lost secret and
+become its master, its sole master! To inherit such an inheritance! To
+live in the Needle, after all those kings!--"
+
+He was interrupted by a gesture of his wife's. She seemed greatly
+agitated.
+
+"There is a noise," she said. "Underneath us.--You can hear it."
+
+"It's the lapping of the water," said Lupin.
+
+"No, indeed it's not. I know the sound of the waves. This is something
+different."
+
+"What would you have it be, darling?" said Lupin, smiling. "I invited
+no one to lunch except Beautrelet." And, addressing the servant,
+"Charolais, did you lock the staircase doors behind the gentleman?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and fastened the bolts."
+
+Lupin rose:
+
+"Come, Raymonde, don't shake like that. Why, you're quite pale!"
+
+He spoke a few words to her in an undertone, as also to the servant,
+drew back the curtain and sent them both out of the room.
+
+The noise below grew more distinct. It was a series of dull blows,
+repeated at intervals. Beautrelet thought:
+
+"Ganimard has lost patience and is breaking down the doors."
+
+Lupin resumed the thread of his conversation, speaking very calmly and
+as though he had really not heard:
+
+"By Jove, the Needle was badly damaged when I succeeded in discovering
+it! One could see that no one had possessed the secret for more than a
+century, since Louis XVI. and the Revolution. The tunnel was
+threatening to fall in. The stairs were in a shocking state. The water
+was trickling in from the sea. I had to prop up and strengthen and
+rebuild the whole thing."
+
+Beautrelet could not help asking:
+
+"When you arrived, was it empty?"
+
+"Very nearly. The kings did not use the Needle, as I have done, as a
+warehouse."
+
+"As a place of refuge, then?"
+
+"Yes, no doubt, in times of invasion and during the civil wars. But its
+real destination was to be--how shall I put it?--the strong-room or the
+bank of the kings of France."
+
+The sound of blows increased, more distinctly now. Ganimard must have
+broken down the first door and was attacking the second. There was a
+short silence and then more blows, nearer still. It was the third door.
+Two remained.
+
+Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks
+sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like
+a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.
+
+"What a row!" exclaimed Lupin. "One can't hear one's self speak! Let's
+go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle."
+
+They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others,
+by a door which Lupin locked behind him.
+
+"My picture gallery," he said.
+
+The walls were covered with canvases on which Beautrelet recognized the
+most famous signatures. There were Raphael's Madonna of the Agnus Dei,
+Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of Lucrezia Fede, Titian's Salome,
+Botticelli's Madonna and Angels and numbers of Tintorettos, Carpaccios,
+Rembrandts, Velasquez.
+
+"What fine copies!" said Beautrelet, approvingly.
+
+Lupin looked at him with an air of stupefaction:
+
+"What! Copies! You must be mad! The copies are in Madrid, my dear
+fellow, in Florence, Venice, Munich, Amsterdam."
+
+"Then these--"
+
+"Are the original pictures, my lad, patiently collected in all the
+museums of Europe, where I have replaced them, like an honest man, with
+first-rate copies."
+
+"But some day or other--"
+
+"Some day or other, the fraud will be discovered? Well, they will find
+my signature on each canvas--at the back--and they will know that it
+was I who have endowed my country with the original masterpieces. After
+all, I have only done what Napoleon did in Italy.--Oh, look,
+Beautrelet: here are M. de Gesvres's four Rubenses!--"
+
+The knocking continued within the hollow of the Needle without ceasing.
+
+"I can't stand this!" said Lupin. "Let's go higher."
+
+A fresh staircase. A fresh door.
+
+"The tapestry-room," Lupin announced.
+
+The tapestries were not hung on the walls, but rolled, tied up with
+cord, ticketed; and, in addition, there were parcels of old fabrics
+which Lupin unfolded: wonderful brocades, admirable velvets, soft,
+faded silks, church vestments woven with silver and gold--
+
+They went higher still and Beautrelet saw the room containing the
+clocks and other time-pieces, the book-room--oh, the splendid bindings,
+the precious, undiscoverable volumes, the unique copies stolen from the
+great public libraries--the lace-room, the knicknack-room.
+
+And each time the circumference of the room grew smaller.
+
+And each time, now, the sound of knocking was more distant. Ganimard
+was losing ground.
+
+"This is the last room," said Lupin. "The treasury."
+
+This one was quite different. It was round also, but very high and
+conical in shape. It occupied the top of the edifice and its floor must
+have been fifteen or twenty yards below the extreme point of the Needle.
+
+On the cliff side there was no window. But on the side of the sea,
+whence there were no indiscreet eyes to fear, two glazed openings
+admitted plenty of light.
+
+The ground was covered with a parqueted flooring of rare wood, forming
+concentric patterns. Against the walls stood glass cases and a few
+pictures.
+
+"The pearls of my collection," said Lupin. "All that you have seen so
+far is for sale. Things come and things go. That's business. But here,
+in this sanctuary, everything is sacred. There is nothing here but
+choice, essential pieces, the best of the best, priceless things. Look
+at these jewels, Beautrelet: Chaldean amulets, Egyptian necklaces,
+Celtic bracelets, Arab chains. Look at these statuettes, Beautrelet, at
+this Greek Venus, this Corinthian Apollo. Look at these Tanagras,
+Beautrelet: all the real Tanagras are here. Outside this glass case,
+there is not a single genuine Tanagra statuette in the whole wide
+world. What a delicious thing to be able to say!--Beautrelet, do you
+remember Thomas and his gang of church-pillagers in the South--agents
+of mine, by the way? Well, here is the Ambazac reliquary, the real one,
+Beautrelet! Do you remember the Louvre scandal, the tiara which was
+admitted to be false, invented and manufactured by a modern artist?
+Here is the tiara of Saitapharnes, the real one, Beautrelet! Look,
+Beautrelet, look with all your eyes: here is the marvel of marvels, the
+supreme masterpiece, the work of no mortal brain; here is Leonardo's
+Gioconda, the real one! Kneel, Beautrelet, kneel; all womankind stands
+before you in this picture."
+
+There was a long silence between them. Below, the sound of blows drew
+nearer. Two or three doors, no more, separated them from Ganimard. In
+the offing, they saw the black back of the torpedo-boat and the
+fishing-smacks cruising to and fro.
+
+The boy asked:
+
+"And the treasure?"
+
+"Ah, my little man, that's what interests you most! None of those
+masterpieces of human art can compete with the contemplation of the
+treasure as a matter of curiosity, eh?--And the whole crowd will be
+like you!--Come, you shall be satisfied."
+
+He stamped his foot, and, in so doing, made one of the discs composing
+the floor-pattern turn right over. Then, lifting it as though it were
+the lid of a box, he uncovered a sort of large round bowl, dug in the
+thickness of the rock. It was empty.
+
+A little farther, he went through the same performance. Another large
+bowl appeared. It was also empty.
+
+He did this three times over again. The three other bowls were empty.
+
+"Eh," grinned Lupin. "What a disappointment! Under Louis XL, under
+Henry IV., under Richelieu, the five bowls were full. But think of
+Louis XIV., the folly of Versailles, the wars, the great disasters of
+the reign! And think of Louis XV., the spendthrift king, with his
+Pompadour and his Du Barry! How they must have drawn on the treasure in
+those days! With what thieving claws they must have scratched at the
+stone. You see, there's nothing left."
+
+He stopped.
+
+"Yes, Beautrelet, there is something--the sixth hiding-place! This one
+was intangible. Not one of them dared touch it. It was the very last
+resource, the nest-egg, the something put by for a rainy day. Look,
+Beautrelet!"
+
+He stooped and lifted up the lid. An iron box filled the bowl. Lupin
+took from his pocket a key with a complicated bit and wards and opened
+the box.
+
+A dazzling sight presented itself. Every sort of precious stone
+sparkled there, every color gleamed, the blue of the sapphires, the red
+of the rubies, the green of the emeralds, the yellow of the topazes.
+
+"Look, look, little Beautrelet! They have squandered all the cash, all
+the gold, all the silver, all the crown pieces and all the ducats and
+all the doubloons; but the chest with the jewels has remained intact.
+Look at the settings. They belong to every period, to every century, to
+every country. The dowries of the queens are here. Each brought her
+share: Margaret of Scotland and Charlotte of Savoy; duchesses of
+Austria: Eleonore, Elisabeth, Marie-Therese, Mary of England and
+Catherine de Medicis; and all the arch--Marie Antoinette. Look at those
+pearls, Beautrelet! And those diamonds: look at the size of the
+diamonds! Not one of them but is worthy of an empress! The Pitt Diamond
+is no finer!"
+
+He rose to his feet and held up his hand as one taking an oath:
+
+"Beautrelet, you shall tell the world that Lupin has not taken a single
+one of the stones that were in the royal chest, not a single one, I
+swear it on my honor! I had no right to. They are the fortune of
+France."
+
+Below them, Ganimard was making all speed. It was easy to judge by the
+reverberation of the blows that his men were attacking the last door
+but one, the door that gave access to the knicknack-room.
+
+"Let us leave the chest open," said Lupin, "and all the cavities, too,
+all those little empty graves."
+
+He went round the room, examined some of the glass cases, gazed at some
+of the pictures and, as he walked, said, pensively:
+
+"How sad it is to leave all this! What a wrench! The happiest hours of
+my life have been spent here, alone, in the presence of these objects
+which I loved. And my eyes will never behold them again and my hands
+will never touch them again--"
+
+His drawn face bore such an expression of lassitude upon it that
+Beautrelet felt a vague sort of pity for him. Sorrow in that man must
+assume larger proportions than in another, even as joy did, or pride,
+or humiliation. He was now standing by the window, and, with his finger
+pointing to the horizon, said:
+
+"What is sadder still is that I must abandon that, all that! How
+beautiful it is! The boundless sea--the sky.--On either side, the
+cliffs of Etretat with their three natural archways: the Porte
+d'Armont, the Porte d'Aval, the Manneporte--so many triumphal arches
+for the master. And the master was I! I was the king of the story, the
+king of fairyland, the king of the Hollow Needle! A strange and
+supernatural kingdom! From Caesar to Lupin: what a destiny!" He burst
+out laughing. "King of fairyland! Why not say King of Yvetot at once?
+What nonsense! King of the world, yes, that's more like it! From this
+topmost point of the Needle, I ruled the globe! I held it in my claws
+like a prey! Lift the tiara of Saitapharnes, Beautrelet.--You see those
+two telephones? The one on the right communicates with Paris: a private
+line; the one on the left with London: a private line. Through London,
+I am in touch with America, Asia, Australia, South Africa. In all those
+continents, I have my offices, my agents, my jackals, my scouts! I
+drive an international trade. I hold the great market in art and
+antiquities, the world's fair! Ah, Beautrelet, there are moments when
+my power turns my head! I feel intoxicated with strength and authority."
+
+The door gave way below. They heard Ganimard and his men running about
+and searching.
+
+After a moment, Lupin continued, in a low voice:
+
+"And now it's over. A little girl crossed my path, a girl with soft
+hair and wistful eyes and an honest, yes, an honest soul--and it's
+over. I myself am demolishing the mighty edifice.--All the rest seems
+absurd and childish to me--nothing counts but her hair--and her wistful
+eyes--and her honest little soul--"
+
+The men came up the staircase. A blow shook the door, the last door--
+
+Lupin seized the boy sharply by the arm:
+
+"Do you understand, Beautrelet, why I let you have things your own way
+when I could have crushed you, time after time, weeks ago? Do you
+understand how you succeeded in getting as far as this? Do you
+understand that I had given each of my men his share of the plunder
+when you met them the other night on the cliff? You do understand,
+don't you? The Hollow Needle is the great adventure. As long as it
+belongs to me, I remain the great adventurer. Once the Needle is
+recaptured, it means that the past and I are parted and that the future
+begins, a future of peace and happiness, in which I shall have no
+occasion to blush when Raymonde's eyes are turned upon me, a future--"
+
+He turned furiously toward the door:
+
+"Stop that noise, Ganimard, will you? I haven't finished my speech!"
+
+The blows came faster. It was like the sound of a beam that was being
+hurled against the door. Beautrelet, mad with curiosity, stood in front
+of Lupin and awaited events, without understanding what Lupin was doing
+or contemplating. To give up the Needle was all very well; but why was
+he giving up himself? What was his plan? Did he hope to escape from
+Ganimard? And, on the other hand, where was Raymonde?
+
+Lupin, meantime, was murmuring, dreamily:
+
+"An honest man.--Arsene Lupin an honest man--no more robbery--leading
+the life of everybody else.--And why not? There is no reason why I
+should not meet with the same success.--But do stop that now, Ganimard!
+Don't you know, you ass, that I'm uttering historic words and that
+Beautrelet is taking them in for the benefit of posterity?" He laughed.
+"I am wasting my time. Ganimard will never grasp the use of my historic
+words."
+
+He took a piece of red chalk, put a pair of steps to the wall and
+wrote, in large letters:
+
+   Arsene Lupin gives and bequeaths to France
+   all the treasures contained in the Hollow Needle,
+   on the sole condition that these treasures be housed
+   at the Musee du Louvre in rooms which shall be
+   known as the Arsene Lupin Rooms.
+
+"Now," he said, "my conscience is at ease. France and I are quits."
+
+The attackers were striking with all their might. One of the panels
+burst in two. A hand was put through and fumbled for the lock.
+
+"Thunder!" said Lupin. "That idiot of a Ganimard is capable of
+effecting his purpose for once in his life."
+
+He rushed to the lock and removed the key.
+
+"Sold, old chap!--The door's tough.--I have plenty of time--Beautrelet,
+I must say good-bye. And thank you!--For really you could have
+complicated the attack--but you're so tactful!"
+
+While speaking, he moved toward a large triptych by Van der Weyden,
+representing the Wise Men of the East. He shut the right-hand panel
+and, in so doing, exposed a little door concealed behind it and seized
+the handle.
+
+"Good luck to your hunting, Ganimard! And kind regards at home!"
+
+A pistol-shot resounded. Lupin jumped back: "Ah, you rascal, full in
+the heart! Have you been taking lessons? You've done for the Wise Man!
+Full in the heart! Smashed to smithereens, like a pipe at the fair!--"
+
+"Lupin, surrender!" roared Ganimard, with his eyes glittering and his
+revolver showing through the broken panel of the door. "Surrender, I
+say!"
+
+"Did the old guard surrender?"
+
+"If you stir a limb, I'll blow your brains out!"
+
+"Nonsense! You can't get me here!"
+
+As a matter of fact, Lupin had moved away; and, though Ganimard was
+able to fire straight in front of him through the breach in the door,
+he could not fire, still less take aim, on the side where Lupin stood.
+Lupin's position was a terrible one for all that, because the outlet on
+which he was relying, the little door behind the triptych, opened right
+in front of Ganimard. To try to escape meant to expose himself to the
+detective's fire; and there were five bullets left in the revolver.
+
+"By Jove," he said, laughing, "there's a slump in my shares this
+afternoon! You've done a nice thing. Lupin, old fellow: you wanted a
+last sensation and you've gone a bit too far. You shouldn't have talked
+so much."
+
+He flattened himself against the wall. A further portion of the panel
+had given way under the men's pressure and Ganimard was less hampered
+in his movements. Three yards, no more, separated the two antagonists.
+But Lupin was protected by a glass case with a gilt-wood framework.
+
+"Why don't you help, Beautrelet?" cried the old detective, gnashing his
+teeth with rage. "Why don't you shoot him, instead of staring at him
+like that?"
+
+Isidore, in fact, had not budged, had remained, till that moment, an
+eager, but passive spectator. He would have liked to fling himself into
+the contest with all his strength and to bring down the prey which he
+held at his mercy. He was prevented by some inexplicable sentiment.
+
+But Ganimard's appeal for assistance shook him. His hand closed on the
+butt of his revolver:
+
+"If I take part in it," he thought, "Lupin is lost. And I have the
+right--it's my duty."
+
+Their eyes met. Lupin's were calm, watchful, almost inquisitive, as
+though, in the awful danger that threatened him, he were interested
+only in the moral problem that held the young man in its clutches.
+Would Isidore decide to give the finishing stroke to the defeated enemy?
+
+The door cracked from top to bottom.
+
+"Help, Beautrelet, we've got him!" Ganimard bellowed.
+
+Isidore raised his revolver.
+
+What happened was so quick that he knew of it, so to speak, only by the
+result. He saw Lupin bob down and run along the wall, skimming the door
+right under the weapon which Ganimard was vainly brandishing; and he
+felt himself suddenly flung to the ground, picked up the next moment
+and lifted by an invincible force.
+
+Lupin held him in the air, like a living shield, behind which he hid
+himself.
+
+"Ten to one that I escape, Ganimard! Lupin, you see, has never quite
+exhausted his resources--"
+
+He had taken a couple of brisk steps backward to the triptych. Holding
+Beautrelet with one hand flat against his chest, with the other he
+cleared the passage and closed the little door behind them.
+
+A steep staircase appeared before their eyes.
+
+"Come along," said Lupin, pushing Beautrelet before him. "The land
+forces are beaten--let us turn our attention to the French
+fleet.--After Waterloo, Trafalgar.--You're having some fun for your
+money, eh, my lad?--Oh, how good: listen to them knocking at the
+triptych now!--It's too late, my children.--But hurry along,
+Beautrelet!"
+
+The staircase, dug out in the wall of the Needle, dug in its very
+crust, turned round and round the pyramid, encircling it like the
+spiral of a tobogganslide. Each hurrying the other, they clattered down
+the treads, taking two or three at a bound. Here and there, a ray of
+light trickled through a fissure; and Beautrelet carried away the
+vision of the fishing-smacks hovering a few dozen fathoms off, and of
+the black torpedo-boat.
+
+They went down and down, Isidore in silence, Lupin still bubbling over
+with merriment:
+
+"I should like to know what Ganimard is doing? Is he tumbling down the
+other staircases to bar the entrance to the tunnel against me? No, he's
+not such a fool as that. He must have left four men there--and four men
+are sufficient--" He stopped. "Listen--they're shouting up above.
+That's it, they've opened the window and are calling to their
+fleet.--Why, look, the men are busy on board the smacks--they're
+exchanging signals.--The torpedo-boat is moving.--Dear old
+torpedo-boat! I know you, you're from the Havre.--Guns' crews to the
+guns!--Hullo, there's the commander!--How are you, Duguay-Trouin?"
+
+He put his arm through a cleft and waved his handkerchief. Then he
+continued his way downstairs:
+
+"The enemy's fleet have set all sail," he said. "We shall be boarded
+before we know where we are. Heavens, what fun!"
+
+They heard the sound of voices below them. They were just then
+approaching the level of the sea and they emerged, almost at once, into
+a large cave into which two lanterns were moving about in the dark.
+
+A woman's figure appeared and threw itself on Lupin's neck:
+
+"Quick, quick, I was so nervous about you. What have you been
+doing?--But you're not alone!--"
+
+Lupin reassured her:
+
+"It's our friend Beautrelet.--Just think, Beautrelet had the tact--but
+I'll talk about that later--there's no time now.--Charolais are you
+there? That's right!--And the boat?"
+
+"The boat's ready, sir," Charolais replied,
+
+"Fire away," said Lupin.
+
+In a moment, the noise of a motor crackled and Beautrelet, whose eyes
+were gradually becoming used to the gloom, ended by perceiving that
+they were on a sort of quay, at the edge of the water, and that a boat
+was floating before them.
+
+"A motor boat," said Lupin, completing Beautrelet's observations. "This
+knocks you all of a heap, eh, Isidore, old chap?--You don't
+understand.--Still, you have only to think.--As the water before your
+eyes is no other than the water of the sea, which filters into this
+excavation each high tide, the result is that I have a safe little
+private roadstead all to myself."
+
+"But it's closed," Beautrelet protested. "No one can get in or out."
+
+"Yes, I can," said Lupin; "and I'm going to prove it to you."
+
+He began by handing Raymonde in. Then he came back to fetch Beautrelet.
+The lad hesitated.
+
+"Are you afraid?" asked Lupin.
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Of being sunk by the torpedo-boat."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you're considering whether it's not your duty to stay with
+Ganimard, law and order, society and morality, instead of going off
+with Lupin, shame, infamy and disgrace."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Unfortunately, my boy, you have no choice. For the moment, they must
+believe the two of us dead--and leave me the peace to which a
+prospective honest man is entitled. Later on, when I have given you
+your liberty, you can talk as much as you please--I shall have nothing
+more to fear."
+
+By the way in which Lupin clutched his arm, Beautrelet felt that all
+resistance was useless. Besides, why resist? Had he not discovered and
+handed over the Hollow Needle? What did he care about the rest? Had he
+not the right to humor the irresistible sympathy with which, in spite
+of everything, this man inspired him?
+
+The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to
+Lupin:
+
+"Look here, you're running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock
+Shears is on your track."
+
+"Come along!" said Lupin, before Isidore had made up his mind to speak.
+
+He obeyed and let Lupin lead him to the boat, the shape of which struck
+him as peculiar and its appearance quite unexpected.
+
+Once on deck, they went down a little steep staircase, or rather a
+ladder hooked on to a trap door, which closed above their heads. At the
+foot of the ladder, brightly lit by a lamp, was a very small saloon,
+where Raymonde was waiting for them and where the three had just room
+to sit down.
+
+Lupin took the mouthpiece of a speaking tube from a hook and gave the
+order:
+
+"Let her go, Charolais!"
+
+Isidore had the unpleasant sensation which one feels when going down in
+a lift: the sensation of the ground vanishing beneath you, the
+impression of emptiness, space. This time, it was the water retreating;
+and space opened out, slowly.
+
+"We're sinking, eh?" grinned Lupin. "Don't be afraid--we've only to
+pass from the upper cave where we were to another little cave, situated
+right at the bottom and half open to the sea, which can be entered at
+low tide. All the shellfish-catchers know it. Ah, ten seconds' wait!
+We're going through the passage and it's very narrow, just the size of
+the submarine."
+
+"But," asked Beautrelet, "how is it that the fishermen who enter the
+lower cave don't know that it's open at the top and that it
+communicates with another from which a staircase starts and runs
+through the Needle? The facts are at the disposal of the first-comer."
+
+"Wrong, Beautrelet! The top of the little public cave is closed, at low
+tide, by a movable platform, painted the color of the rock, which the
+sea, when it rises, shifts and carries up with it and, when it goes
+down, fastens firmly over the little cave. That is why I am able to
+pass at high tide. A clever notion, what? It's an idea of my own. True,
+neither Caesar nor Louis XIV., nor, in short, any of my distinguished
+predecessors could have had it, because they did not possess
+submarines. They were satisfied with the staircase, which then ran all
+the way down to the little bottom cave. I did away with the last treads
+of the staircase and invented the trick of the movable ceiling: it's a
+present I'm making to France--Raymonde, my love, put out the lamp
+beside you--we shan't want it now--on the contrary--"
+
+A pale light, which seemed to be of the same color as the water, met
+them as they left the cave and made its way into the cabin through the
+two portholes and through a thick glass skylight that projected above
+the planking of the deck and allowed the passengers to inspect the
+upper layers of the sea. And, suddenly, a shadow glided over their
+heads.
+
+"The attack is about to take place. The fleet is investing the Needle.
+But, hollow as the Needle is, I don't see how they propose to enter it."
+
+He took up the speaking tube:
+
+"Don't leave the bottom, Charolais. Where are we going? Why, I told
+you: to Port-Lupin. And at full speed, do you hear? We want water to
+land by--there's a lady with us."
+
+They skimmed over the rocky bed. The seaweed stood up on end like a
+heavy, dark vegetation and the deep currents made it wave gracefully,
+stretching and billowing like floating hair.
+
+Another shadow, a longer one.
+
+"That's the torpedo-boat," said Lupin. "We shall hear the roar of the
+guns presently. What will Duguay-Trouin do? Bombard the Needle? Think
+of what we're missing, Beautrelet, by not being present at the meeting
+of Duguay-Trouin and Ganimard! The juncture of the land and naval
+forces! Hi, Charolais, don't go to sleep, my man!"
+
+They were moving very fast, for all that. The rocks had been succeeded
+by sand-fields and then, almost at once, they saw more rocks, which
+marked the eastern extremity of Etretat, the Porte d'Amont. Fish fled
+at their approach. One of them, bolder than the rest, fastened on to a
+porthole and looked at the occupants of the saloon with its great,
+fixed, staring eyes.
+
+"That's better," cried Lupin. "We're going now. What do you think of my
+cockle-shell, Beautrelet? Not so bad, is she? Do you remember the story
+of the Seven of Hearts,[11] the wretched end of Lacombe, the engineer,
+and how, after punishing his murderers, I presented the State with his
+papers and his plans for the construction of a new submarine: one more
+gift to France? Well, among the plans, I kept those of a submersible
+motor boat and that is how you come to have the honor of sailing in my
+company."
+
+
+[11] The Exploits of Arsene Lupin. By Maurice Leblanc. VI: The
+Seven of Hearts.
+
+
+He called to Charolais:
+
+"Take us up, Charolais--there's no danger now--"
+
+They shot up to the surface and the glass skylight emerged above the
+water.
+
+They were a mile from the coast, out of sight, therefore, and
+Beautrelet was now able to realize more fully at what a headlong pace
+they were traveling. First Fecamp passed before them, then all the
+Norman seaside places: Saint-Pierre, the Petits--Dalles, Veulettes,
+Saint-Valery, Veules, Quiberville. Lupin kept on jesting and Isidore
+never wearied of watching and listening to him, amazed as he was at the
+man's spirits, at his gaiety, his mischievous ways, his careless chaff,
+his delight in life.
+
+He also noticed Raymonde. The young woman sat silent, nestling up
+against the man she loved. She had taken his hands between her own and
+kept on raising her eyes to him; and Beautrelet constantly observed
+that her hands were twitching and that the wistful sadness of her eyes
+increased. And, each time, it was like a dumb and sorrowful reply to
+Lupin's sallies. One would have thought that his frivolous words, his
+sarcastic outlook on life, caused her physical pain.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered. "It's defying destiny to laugh--so many
+misfortunes can reach us still!"
+
+Opposite Dieppe, they had to dive lest they should be seen by the
+fishing-craft. And twenty minutes later, they shot at an angle toward
+the coast and the boat entered a little submarine harbor formed by a
+regular gap between the rocks, drew up beside a jetty and rose gently
+to the surface.
+
+Lupin announced:
+
+"Port-Lupin!"
+
+The spot, situated at sixteen miles from Dieppe and twelve from the
+Treport and protected, moreover, by the two landslips of cliff, was
+absolutely deserted. A fine sand carpeted the rounded slope of the tiny
+beach.
+
+"Jump on shore, Beautrelet--Raymonde, give me your hand. You,
+Charolais, go back to the Needle, see what happens between Ganimard and
+Duguay-Trouin and come back and tell me at the end of the day. The
+thing interests me tremendously."
+
+Beautrelet asked himself with a certain curiosity how they were going
+to get out of this hemmed-in creek which was called Port-Lupin, when,
+at the foot of the cliff, he saw the uprights of an iron ladder.
+
+"Isidore," said Lupin, "if you knew your geography and your history,
+you would know that we are at the bottom of the gorge of Parfonval, in
+the parish of Biville. More than a century ago, on the night of the
+twenty-third of August, 1803, Georges Cadoudal and six accomplices, who
+had landed in France with the intention of kidnapping the first consul,
+Bonaparte, scrambled up to the top by the road which I will show you.
+Since then, this road has been demolished by landslips. But Louis
+Valmeras, better known by the name of Arsene Lupin, had it restored at
+his own expense and bought the farm of the Neuvillette, where the
+conspirators spent the first night and where, retired from business and
+withdrawing from the affairs of this world, he means to lead the life
+of a respectable country squire with his wife and his mother by his
+side. The gentleman-burglar is dead! Long live the gentleman-farmer!"
+
+After the ladder came a sort of gully, an abrupt ravine hollowed out,
+apparently, by the rains, at the end of which they laid hold of a
+makeshift staircase furnished with a hand-rail. As Lupin explained,
+this hand-rail had been placed where it was in the stead of the
+estamperche, a long rope fastened to stakes, by which the people of the
+country, in the old days, used to help themselves down when going to
+the beach.
+
+After a painful climb of half an hour, they emerged on the tableland,
+not far from one of those little cabins, dug out of the soil itself,
+which serve as shelters for the excisemen. And, as it happened, two
+minutes later, at a turn in the path, one of these custom-house
+officials appeared.
+
+He drew himself up and saluted.
+
+Lupin asked:
+
+"Any news, Gomel?"
+
+"No, governor."
+
+"You've met no one at all suspicious-looking?"
+
+"No, governor--only--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"My wife--who does dressmaking at the Neuvillette--"
+
+"Yes, I know--Cesarine--my mother spoke of her. Well?"
+
+"It seems a sailor was prowling about the village this morning."
+
+"What sort of face had he?"
+
+"Not a natural face--a sort of Englishman's face."
+
+"Ah!" said Lupin, in a tone preoccupied. "And you have given Cesarine
+orders--"
+
+"To keep her eyes open. Yes, governor."
+
+"Very well. Keep a lookout for Charolais's return in two or three hours
+from now. If there's anything, I shall be at the farm."
+
+He walked on and said to Beautrelet:
+
+"This makes me uneasy--is it Shears? Ah, if it's he, in his present
+state of exasperation, I have everything to fear!"
+
+He hesitated a moment: "I wonder if we hadn't better turn back. Yes, I
+have a nasty presentiment of evil."
+
+Gently undulating plains stretched before them as far as the eye could
+see. A little to the left, a series of handsome avenues of trees led to
+the farm of the Neuvillette, the buildings of which were now in view.
+It was the retreat which he had prepared, the haven of rest which he
+had promised Raymonde. Was he, for the sake of an absurd idea, to
+renounce happiness at the very moment when it seemed within his reach?
+
+He took Isidore by the arm and, calling his attention to Raymonde, who
+was walking in front of them:
+
+"Look at her. When she walks, her figure has a little swing at the
+waist which I cannot see without quivering. But everything in her gives
+me that thrill of emotion and love: her movements and her repose, her
+silence and the sound of her voice. I tell you, the mere fact that I am
+walking in the track of her footsteps makes me feel in the seventh
+heaven. Ah, Beautrelet, will she ever forget that I was once Lupin?
+Shall I ever be able to wipe out from her memory the past which she
+loathes and detests?" He mastered himself and, with obstinate
+assurance. "She will forget!" he declared. "She will forget, because I
+have made every sacrifice for her sake. I have sacrificed the
+inviolable sanctuary of the Hollow Needle, I have sacrificed my
+treasures, my power, my pride--I will sacrifice everything--I don't
+want to be anything more--but just a man in love--and an honest man,
+because she can only love an honest man. After all, why should I not be
+honest? It is no more degrading than anything else!"
+
+The quip escaped him, so to speak, unawares. His voice remained serious
+and free of all chaff. And he muttered, with restrained violence:
+
+"Ah, Beautrelet, you see, of all the unbridled joys which I have tasted
+in my adventurous life, there is not one that equals the joy with which
+her look fills me when she is pleased with me. I feel quite weak then,
+and I should like to cry--" Was he crying? Beautrelet had an intuition
+that his eyes were wet with tears. Tears in Lupin's eyes!--Tears of
+love!
+
+They were nearing an old gate that served as an entrance to the farm.
+Lupin stopped for a moment and stammered:
+
+"Why am I afraid?--I feel a sort of weight on my chest. Is the
+adventure of the Hollow Needle not over? Has destiny not accepted the
+issue which I selected?"
+
+Raymonde turned round, looking very anxious.
+
+"Here comes Cesarine. She's running."
+
+The exciseman's wife was hurrying from the farm as fast as she could.
+Lupin rushed up to her:
+
+"What is it? What has happened? Speak!"
+
+Choking, quite out of breath, Cesarine stuttered:
+
+"A man--I saw a man this morning!
+
+"A man--I saw a man in the sitting-room."
+
+"The Englishman of this morning?"
+
+"Yes--but in a different disguise."
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"No. He saw your mother. Mme. Valmeras caught him as he was just going
+away."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He told her that he was looking for Louis Valmeras, that he was a
+friend of yours."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"The madame said that her son had gone abroad--for years."
+
+"And he went away?"
+
+"No, he made signs through the window that overlooks the plain--as if
+he were calling to some one."
+
+Lupin seemed to hesitate. A loud cry tore the air. Raymonde moaned:
+
+"It's your mother--I recognize--"
+
+He flung himself upon her and, dragging her away, in a burst of fierce
+passion:
+
+"Come--let us fly--you first."
+
+But, suddenly, he stopped, distraught, overcome:
+
+"No, I can't do it--it's too awful. Forgive me--Raymonde--that poor
+woman down there--Stay here. Beautrelet, don't leave her."
+
+He darted along the slope that surrounds the farm, turned and followed
+it, at a run, till he came to the gate that opens on the plain.
+
+Raymonde, whom Beautrelet had been unable to hold back, arrived almost
+as soon as he did; and Beautrelet, hiding behind the trees, saw, in the
+lonely walk that led from the farm to the gate, three men, of whom one,
+the tallest, went ahead, while the two others were holding by the arms
+a woman who tried to resist and who uttered moans of pain.
+
+The daylight was beginning to fade. Nevertheless, Beautrelet recognized
+Holmlock Shears. The woman seemed of a certain age. Her livid features
+were set in a frame of white hair.
+
+They all four came up.
+
+They reached the gate. Shears opened one of the folding leaves.
+
+Then Lupin strode forward and stood in front of him.
+
+The encounter appeared all the more terrible inasmuch as it was silent,
+almost solemn.
+
+For long moments, the two enemies took each other's measure with their
+eyes. An equal hatred distorted the features of both of them. Neither
+moved.
+
+Then Lupin spoke, in a voice of terrifying calmness:
+
+"Tell your men to leave that woman alone."
+
+"No."
+
+It was as though both of them feared to engage in the supreme struggle,
+as though both were collecting all their strength. And there were no
+words wasted this time, no insults, no bantering challenges. Silence, a
+deathlike silence.
+
+Mad with anguish, Raymonde awaited the issue of the duel. Beautrelet
+had caught her arms and was holding her motionless.
+
+After a second, Lupin repeated:
+
+"Order your men to leave that woman alone."
+
+"No."
+
+Lupin said:
+
+"Listen, Shears--"
+
+But he interrupted himself, realizing the silliness of the words. In
+the face of that colossus of pride and will-power which called itself
+Holmlock Shears, of what use were threats?
+
+Resolved upon the worst, suddenly he put his hand to his jacket pocket.
+The Englishman anticipated his movement and, leaping upon his prisoner,
+thrust the barrel of his revolver within two inches of her temple:
+
+"If you stir a limb, I fire!"
+
+At the same time his two satellites drew their weapons and aimed them
+at Lupin.
+
+Lupin drew himself up, stifled the rage within him and, coolly, with
+his hands in his pockets and his breast exposed to the enemy, began
+once more:
+
+"Shears, for the third time, let that woman be--"
+
+The Englishman sneered:
+
+"I have no right to touch her, I suppose? Come, come, enough of this
+humbug! Your name isn't Valmeras any more than it's Lupin: you stole
+the name just as you stole the name of Charmerace. And the woman whom
+you pass off as your mother is Victoire, your old accomplice, the one
+who brought you up--"[12]
+
+
+[12] Arsene Lupin, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and
+Francis de Croisset.
+
+
+Shears made a mistake. Carried away by his longing for revenge, he
+glanced across at Raymonde, whom these revelations filled with horror.
+Lupin took advantage of his imprudence. With a sudden movement, he
+fired.
+
+"Damnation!" bellowed Shears, whose arm, pierced by a bullet, fell to
+his side. And, addressing his men, "Shoot, you two! Shoot him down!"
+
+But already Lupin was upon them: and not two seconds had elapsed before
+the one on the right was sprawling on the ground, with his chest
+smashed, while the other, with his jaw broken, fell back against the
+gate.
+
+"Hurry up, Victoire. Tie them down. And now, Mr. Englishman, it's you
+and I."
+
+He ducked with an oath:
+
+"Ah, you scoundrel!"
+
+Shears had picked up his revolver with his left hand and was taking aim
+at him.
+
+A shot--a cry of distress--Raymonde had flung herself between the two
+men, facing the Englishman. She staggered back, brought her hand to her
+neck, drew herself up, spun round on her heels and fell at Lupin's feet.
+
+"Raymonde!--Raymonde!"
+
+He threw himself upon her, took her in his arms and pressed her to him.
+
+"Dead--" he said.
+
+There was a moment of stupefaction. Shears seemed confounded by his own
+act. Victoire stammered:
+
+"My poor boy--my poor boy--"
+
+Beautrelet went up to the young woman and stooped to examine her. Lupin
+repeated:
+
+"Dead--dead--"
+
+He said it in a reflective tone, as though he did not yet understand.
+But his face became hollow, suddenly transformed, ravaged by grief. And
+then he was seized with a sort of madness, made senseless gestures,
+wrung his hands, stamped his feet, like a child that suffers more than
+it is able to bear.
+
+"You villain!" he cried, suddenly, in an access of hatred.
+
+And, flinging Shears back with a formidable blow, he took him by the
+throat and dug his twitching fingers into his flesh.
+
+The Englishman gasped, without even struggling.
+
+"My boy--my boy--" said Victoire, in a voice of entreaty.
+
+Beautrelet ran up. But Lupin had already let go and stood sobbing
+beside his enemy stretched upon the ground.
+
+O pitiful sight! Beautrelet never forgot its tragic horror, he who knew
+all Lupin's love for Raymonde and all that the great adventurer had
+sacrificed of his own being to bring a smile to the face of his
+well-beloved.
+
+Night began to cover the field of battle with a shroud of darkness. The
+three Englishmen lay bound and gagged in the tall grass. Distant songs
+broke the vast silence of the plain. It was the farm-hands returning
+from their work.
+
+Lupin drew himself up. He listened to the monotonous voices. Then he
+glanced at the happy homestead of the Neuvillette, where he had hoped
+to live peacefully with Raymonde. Then he looked at her, the poor,
+loving victim, whom love had killed and who, all white, was sleeping
+her last, eternal sleep.
+
+The men were coming nearer, however.
+
+Then Lupin bent down, took the dead woman in his powerful arms, lifted
+the corpse with a single effort and, bent in two, stretched it across
+his back:
+
+"Let us go, Victoire."
+
+"Let us go, dear."
+
+"Good-bye, Beautrelet," he said.
+
+And, bearing his precious and awful burden followed by his old servant,
+silent and fierce he turned toward the sea and plunged into the
+darkness of the night.
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hollow Needle, by Maurice Leblanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thehonorofthename b/files/books/unrelated/thehonorofthename
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thehonorofthename
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Honor of the Name, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Honor of the Name
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4002]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HONOR OF THE NAME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Moynihan; Dagny; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+By Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+On the first Sunday in the month of August, 1815, at ten o�clock
+precisely--as on every Sunday morning--the sacristan of the parish
+church at Sairmeuse sounded the three strokes of the bell which warn
+the faithful that the priest is ascending the steps of the altar to
+celebrate high mass.
+
+The church was already more than half full, and from every side little
+groups of peasants were hurrying into the church-yard. The women were
+all in their bravest attire, with cunning little _fichus_ crossed upon
+their breasts, broad-striped, brightly colored skirts, and large white
+coifs.
+
+Being as economical as they were coquettish, they came barefooted,
+bringing their shoes in their hands, but put them on reverentially
+before entering the house of God.
+
+But few of the men entered the church. They remained outside to talk,
+seating themselves in the porch, or standing about the yard, in the
+shade of the century-old elms.
+
+For such was the custom in the hamlet of Sairmeuse.
+
+The two hours which the women consecrated to prayer the men employed
+in discussing the news, the success or the failure of the crops; and,
+before the service ended, they could generally be found, glass in hand,
+in the bar-room of the village inn.
+
+For the farmers for a league around, the Sunday mass was only an excuse
+for a reunion, a sort of weekly bourse.
+
+All the cures who had been successively stationed at Sairmeuse had
+endeavored to put an end to this scandalous habit, as they termed it;
+but all their efforts had made no impression upon country obstinacy.
+
+They had succeeded in gaining only one concession. At the moment of the
+elevation of the Host, voices were hushed, heads uncovered, and a few
+even bowed the knee and made the sign of the cross.
+
+But this was the affair of an instant only, and conversation was
+immediately resumed with increased vivacity.
+
+But to-day the usual animation was wanting.
+
+No sounds came from the little knots of men gathered here and there, not
+an oath, not a laugh. Between buyers and sellers, one did not overhear
+a single one of those interminable discussions, punctuated with the
+popular oaths, such as: �By my faith in God!� or �May the devil burn
+me!�
+
+They were not talking, they were whispering together. A gloomy
+sadness was visible upon each face; lips were placed cautiously at the
+listener�s ear; anxiety could be read in every eye.
+
+One scented misfortune in the very air. Only a month had elapsed since
+Louis XVIII. had been, for the second time, installed in the Tuileries
+by a triumphant coalition.
+
+The earth had not yet had time to swallow the sea of blood that flowed
+at Waterloo; twelve hundred thousand foreign soldiers desecrated the
+soil of France; the Prussian General Muffling was Governor of Paris.
+
+And the peasantry of Sairmeuse trembled with indignation and fear.
+
+This king, brought back by the allies, was no less to be dreaded than
+the allies themselves.
+
+To them this great name of Bourbon signified only a terrible burden of
+taxation and oppression.
+
+Above all, it signified ruin--for there was scarcely one among them who
+had not purchased some morsel of government land; and they were assured
+now that all estates were to be returned to the former proprietors, who
+had emigrated after the overthrow of the Bourbons.
+
+Hence, it was with a feverish curiosity that most of them clustered
+around a young man who, only two days before, had returned from the
+army.
+
+With tears of rage in his eyes, he was recounting the shame and the
+misery of the invasion.
+
+He told of the pillage at Versailles, the exactions at Orleans, and the
+pitiless requisitions that had stripped the people of everything.
+
+�And these accursed foreigners to whom the traitors have delivered
+us, will not go so long as a shilling or a bottle of wine is left in
+France!� he exclaimed.
+
+As he said this he shook his clinched fist menacingly at a white flag
+that floated from the tower.
+
+His generous anger won the close attention of his auditors, and they
+were still listening to him with undiminished interest, when the sound
+of a horse�s hoofs resounded upon the stones of the only street in
+Sairmeuse.
+
+A shudder traversed the crowd. The same fear stopped the beating of
+every heart.
+
+Who could say that this rider was not some English or Prussian officer?
+He had come, perhaps, to announce the arrival of his regiment, and
+imperiously demand money, clothing, and food for his soldiers.
+
+But the suspense was not of long duration.
+
+The rider proved to be a fellow-countryman, clad in a torn and dirty
+blue linen blouse. He was urging forward, with repeated blows, a little,
+bony, nervous mare, fevered with foam.
+
+�Ah! it is Father Chupin,� murmured one of the peasants with a sigh of
+relief.
+
+�The same,� observed another. �He seems to be in a terrible hurry.�
+
+�The old rascal has probably stolen the horse he is riding.�
+
+This last remark disclosed the reputation Father Chupin enjoyed among
+his neighbors.
+
+He was, indeed, one of those thieves who are the scourge and the terror
+of the rural districts. He pretended to be a day-laborer, but the
+truth was, that he held work in holy horror, and spent all his time in
+sleeping and idling about his hovel. Hence, stealing was the only
+means of support for himself, his wife, two sons--terrible youths, who,
+somehow, had escaped the conscription.
+
+They consumed nothing that was not stolen. Wheat, wine, fuel,
+fruits--all were the rightful property of others. Hunting and fishing
+at all seasons, and with forbidden appliances, furnished them with ready
+money.
+
+Everyone in the neighborhood knew this; and yet when Father Chupin was
+pursued and captured, as he was occasionally, no witness could be found
+to testify against him.
+
+�He is a hard case,� men said; �and if he had a grudge against anyone,
+he would be quite capable of lying in ambush and shooting him as he
+would a squirrel.�
+
+Meanwhile the rider had drawn rein at the inn of the Boeuf Couronne.
+
+He alighted from his horse, and, crossing the square, approached the
+church.
+
+He was a large man, about fifty years of age, as gnarled and sinewy as
+the stem of an old grape-vine. At the first glance one would not have
+taken him for a scoundrel. His manner was humble, and even gentle; but
+the restlessness of his eye and the expression of his thin lips betrayed
+diabolical cunning and the coolest calculation.
+
+At any other time this despised and dreaded individual would have been
+avoided; but curiosity and anxiety led the crowd toward him.
+
+�Ah, well, Father Chupin!� they cried, as soon as he was within the
+sound of their voices; �whence do you come in such haste?�
+
+�From the city.�
+
+To the inhabitants of Sairmeuse and its environs, �the city� meant
+the country town of the _arrondissement_, Montaignac, a charming
+sub-prefecture of eight thousand souls, about four leagues distant.
+
+�And was it at Montaignac that you bought the horse you were riding just
+now?�
+
+�I did not buy it; it was loaned to me.�
+
+This was such a strange assertion that his listeners could not repress a
+smile. He did not seem to notice it, however.
+
+�It was loaned me,� he continued, �in order that I might bring some
+great news here the quicker.�
+
+Fear resumed possession of the peasantry.
+
+�Is the enemy in the city?� anxiously inquired some of the more timid.
+
+�Yes; but not the enemy you refer to. This is the former lord of the
+manor, the Duc de Sairmeuse.�
+
+�Ah! they said he was dead.�
+
+�They were mistaken.�
+
+�Have you seen him?�
+
+�No, I have not seen him, but someone else has seen him for me, and has
+spoken to him. And this someone is Monsieur Laugeron, the proprietor of
+the Hotel de France at Montaignac. I was passing the house this morning,
+when he called me. �Here, old man,� he said, �do you wish to do me a
+favor?� Naturally I replied: �Yes.� Whereupon he placed a coin in my
+hand and said: �Well! go and tell them to saddle a horse for you,
+then gallop to Sairmeuse, and tell my friend Lacheneur that the Duc
+de Sairmeuse arrived here last night in a post-chaise, with his son,
+Monsieur Martial, and two servants.��
+
+Here, in the midst of these peasants, who were listening to him with
+pale cheeks and set teeth, Father Chupin preserved the subdued mien
+appropriate to a messenger of misfortune.
+
+But if one had observed him carefully, one would have detected an
+ironical smile upon his lips and a gleam of malicious joy in his eyes.
+
+He was, in fact, inwardly jubilant. At that moment he had his revenge
+for all the slights and all the scorn he had been forced to endure. And
+what a revenge!
+
+And if his words seemed to fall slowly and reluctantly from his lips, it
+was only because he was trying to prolong the sufferings of his auditors
+as much as possible.
+
+But a robust young fellow, with an intelligent face, who, perhaps, read
+Father Chupin�s secret heart, brusquely interrupted him:
+
+�What does the presence of the Duc de Sairmeuse at Montaignac matter to
+us?� he exclaimed. �Let him remain at the Hotel de France as long as he
+chooses; we shall not go in search of him.�
+
+�No! we shall not go in search of him,� echoed the other peasants,
+approvingly.
+
+The old rogue shook his head with affected commiseration.
+
+�Monsieur le Duc will not put you to that trouble,� he replied; �he will
+be here in less than two hours.�
+
+�How do you know?�
+
+�I know it through Monsieur Laugeron, who, when I mounted his horse,
+said to me: �Above all, old man, explain to my friend Lacheneur that the
+duke has ordered horses to be in readiness to convey him to Sairmeuse at
+eleven o�clock.��
+
+With a common movement, all the peasants who had watches consulted them.
+
+�And what does he want here?� demanded the same young farmer.
+
+�Pardon! he did not tell me,� replied Father Chupin; �but one need not
+be very cunning to guess. He comes to revisit his former estates, and
+to take them from those who have purchased them, if possible. From you,
+Rousselet, he will claim the meadows upon the Oiselle, which always
+yield two crops; from you, Father Gauchais, the ground upon which
+the Croix-Brulee stands; from you, Chanlouineau, the vineyards on the
+Borderie----�
+
+Chanlouineau was the impetuous young man who had interrupted Father
+Chupin twice already.
+
+�Claim the Borderie!� he exclaimed, with even greater violence; �let
+him try, and we will see. It was waste land when my father bought
+it--covered with briers; even a goat could not have found pasture there.
+We have cleared it of stones, we have scratched up the soil with our
+very nails, we have watered it with our sweat, and now they would try to
+take it from us! Ah! they shall have my last drop of blood first!�
+
+�I do not say but----�
+
+�But what? Is it any fault of ours that the nobles fled to foreign
+lands? We have not stolen their lands, have we? The government offered
+them for sale; we bought them, and paid for them; they are lawfully
+ours.�
+
+�That is true; but Monsieur de Sairmeuse is the great friend of the
+king.�
+
+The young soldier, whose voice had aroused the most noble sentiments
+only a moment before, was forgotten.
+
+Invaded France, the threatening enemy, were alike forgotten. The
+all-powerful instinct of avarice was suddenly aroused.
+
+�In my opinion,� resumed Chanlouineau, �we should do well to consult the
+Baron d�Escorval.�
+
+�Yes, yes!� exclaimed the peasants; �let us go at once!�
+
+They were starting, when a villager who sometimes read the papers,
+checked them by saying:
+
+�Take care what you do. Do you not know that since the return of the
+Bourbons Monsieur d�Escorval is of no account whatever? Fouche has him
+upon the proscription list, and he is under the surveillance of the
+police.�
+
+This objection dampened the enthusiasm.
+
+�That is true,� murmured some of the older men; �a visit to Monsieur
+d�Escorval would, perhaps, do us more harm than good. And, besides, what
+advice could he give us?�
+
+Chanlouineau had forgotten all prudence.
+
+�What of that?� he exclaimed. �If Monsieur d�Escorval has no counsel to
+give us about this matter, he can, perhaps, teach us how to resist and
+to defend ourselves.�
+
+For some moments Father Chupin had been studying, with an impassive
+countenance, the storm of anger he had aroused. In his secret heart
+he experienced the satisfaction of the incendiary at the sight of the
+flames he has kindled.
+
+Perhaps he already had a presentiment of the infamous part he would play
+a few months later.
+
+Satisfied with his experiment, he assumed, for the time, the role of
+moderator.
+
+�Wait a little. Do not cry before you are hurt,� he exclaimed, in an
+ironical tone. �Who told you that the Duc de Sairmeuse would trouble
+you? How much of his former domain do you all own between you? Almost
+nothing. A few fields and meadows and a hill on the Borderie. All these
+together did not in former times yield him an income of five thousand
+francs a year.�
+
+�Yes, that is true,� replied Chanlouineau; �and if the revenue you
+mention is quadrupled, it is only because the land is now in the hands
+of forty proprietors who cultivate it themselves.�
+
+�Another reason why the duke will not say a word; he will not wish to
+set the whole district in commotion. In my opinion, he will dispossess
+only one of the owners of his former estates, and that is our worthy
+ex-mayor--Monsieur Lacheneur, in short.�
+
+Ah! he knew only too well the egotism of his compatriots. He knew with
+what complacency and eagerness they would accept an expiatory victim
+whose sacrifice should be their salvation.
+
+�That is a fact,� remarked an old man; �Monsieur Lacheneur owns nearly
+all the Sairmeuse property.�
+
+�Say all, while you are about it,� rejoined Father Chupin. �Where does
+Monsieur Lacheneur live? In that beautiful Chateau de Sairmeuse whose
+gable we can see there through the trees. He hunts in the forests which
+once belonged to the Ducs de Sairmeuse; he fishes in their lakes; he
+drives the horses which once belonged to them, in the carriages upon
+which one could now see their coat-of-arms, if it had not been painted
+out.
+
+�Twenty years ago, Lacheneur was a poor devil like myself; now, he is a
+grand gentleman with fifty thousand livres a year. He wears the finest
+broadcloth and top-boots like the Baron d�Escorval. He no longer works;
+he makes others work; and when he passes, everyone must bow to the
+earth. If you kill so much as a sparrow upon his lands, as he says, he
+will cast you into prison. Ah, he has been fortunate. The emperor made
+him mayor. The Bourbons deprived him of his office; but what does that
+matter to him? He is still the real master here, as the Sairmeuse were
+in other days. His son is pursuing his studies in Paris, intending to
+become a notary. As for his daughter, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne--�
+
+�Not a word against her!� exclaimed Chanlouineau; �if she were mistress,
+there would not be a poor man in the country; and yet, how some of her
+pensioners abuse her bounty. Ask your wife if this is not so, Father
+Chupin.�
+
+Undoubtedly the impetuous young man spoke at the peril of his life.
+
+But the wicked old Chupin swallowed this affront which he would never
+forget, and humbly continued:
+
+�I do not say that Mademoiselle Marie-Anne is not generous; but after
+all her charitable work she has plenty of money left for her fine
+dresses and her fallals. I think that Monsieur Lacheneur ought to
+be very well content, even after he has restored to its former owner
+one-half or even three-quarters of the property he has acquired--no one
+can tell how. He would have enough left then to grind the poor under
+foot.�
+
+After his appeal to selfishness, Father Chupin appealed to envy. There
+could be no doubt of his success.
+
+But he had not time to pursue his advantage. The services were over, and
+the worshippers were leaving the church.
+
+Soon there appeared upon the porch the man in question, with a young
+girl of dazzling beauty leaning upon his arm.
+
+Father Chupin walked straight toward him, and brusquely delivered his
+message.
+
+M. Lacheneur staggered beneath the blow. He turned first so red, then so
+frightfully pale, that those around him thought he was about to fall.
+
+But he quickly recovered his self-possession, and without a word to the
+messenger, he walked rapidly away, leading his daughter.
+
+Some minutes later an old post-chaise, drawn by four horses, dashed
+through the village at a gallop, and paused before the house of the
+village cure.
+
+Then one might have witnessed a singular spectacle.
+
+Father Chupin had gathered his wife and his children together, and the
+four surrounded the carriage, shouting, with all the power of their
+lungs:
+
+�Long live the Duc de Sairmeuse!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A gently ascending road, more than two miles in length, shaded by a
+quadruple row of venerable elms, led from the village to the Chateau de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+Nothing could be more beautiful than this avenue, a fit approach to a
+palace; and the stranger who beheld it could understand the naively vain
+proverb of the country: �He does not know the real beauty of France, who
+has never seen Sairmeuse nor the Oiselle.�
+
+The Oiselle is the little river which one crosses by means of a wooden
+bridge on leaving the village, and whose clear and rapid waters give a
+delicious freshness to the valley.
+
+At every step, as one ascends, the view changes. It is as if an
+enchanting panorama were being slowly unrolled before one.
+
+On the right you can see the saw-mills of Fereol. On the left, like an
+ocean of verdure, the forest of Dolomien trembles in the breeze. Those
+imposing ruins on the other side of the river are all that remain of
+the feudal manor of the house of Breulh. That red brick mansion, with
+granite trimmings, half concealed by a bend in the river, belongs to the
+Baron d�Escorval.
+
+And, if the day is clear, one can easily distinguish the spires of
+Montaignac in the distance.
+
+This was the path traversed by M. Lacheneur after Chupin had delivered
+his message.
+
+But what did he care for the beauties of the landscape!
+
+Upon the church porch he had received his death-wound; and now, with a
+tottering and dragging step, he dragged himself along like one of those
+poor soldiers, mortally wounded upon the field of battle, who go back,
+seeking a ditch or quiet spot where they can lie down and die.
+
+He seemed to have lost all thought of his surroundings--all
+consciousness of previous events. He pursued his way, lost in his
+reflections, guided only by force of habit.
+
+Two or three times his daughter, Marie-Anne, who was walking by his
+side, addressed him; but an �Ah! let me alone!� uttered in a harsh tone,
+was the only response she could draw from him.
+
+Evidently he had received a terrible blow; and undoubtedly, as often
+happens under such circumstances, the unfortunate man was reviewing all
+the different phases of his life.
+
+At twenty Lacheneur was only a poor ploughboy in the service of the
+Sairmeuse family.
+
+His ambition was modest then. When stretched beneath a tree at the hour
+of noonday rest, his dreams were as simple as those of an infant.
+
+�If I could but amass a hundred pistoles,� he thought, �I would ask
+Father Barrois for the hand of his daughter Martha; and he would not
+refuse me.� A hundred pistoles! A thousand francs!--an enormous sum
+for him who, in two years of toil and privation had only laid by eleven
+louis, which he had placed carefully in a tiny box and hidden in the
+depths of his straw mattress.
+
+Still he did not despair. He had read in Martha�s eyes that she would
+wait.
+
+And Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse, a rich old maid, was his god-mother;
+and he thought, if he attacked her adroitly, that he might, perhaps,
+interest her in his love-affair.
+
+Then the terrible storm of the revolution burst over France.
+
+With the fall of the first thunder-bolts, the Duke of Sairmeuse left
+France with the Count d�Artois. They took refuge in foreign lands as
+a passer-by seeks shelter in a doorway from a summer shower, saying to
+himself: �This will not last long.�
+
+The storm did last, however; and the following year Mlle. Armande, who
+had remained at Sairmeuse, died.
+
+The chateau was then closed, the president of the district took
+possession of the keys in the name of the government, and the servants
+were scattered.
+
+Lacheneur took up his residence in Montaignac.
+
+Young, daring, and personally attractive, blessed with an energetic
+face, and an intelligence far above his station, it was not long before
+he became well known in the political clubs.
+
+For three months Lacheneur was the tyrant of Montaignac.
+
+But this metier of public speaker is by no means lucrative, so the
+surprise throughout the district was immense, when it was ascertained
+that the former ploughboy had purchased the chateau, and almost all the
+land belonging to his old master.
+
+It is true that the nation had sold this princely domain for scarcely
+a twentieth part of its real value. The appraisement was sixty-nine
+thousand francs. It was giving the property away.
+
+And yet, it was necessary to have this amount, and Lacheneur possessed
+it, since he had poured it in a flood of beautiful louis d�or into the
+hands of the receiver of the district.
+
+From that moment his popularity waned. The patriots who had applauded
+the ploughboy, cursed the capitalist. He discreetly left them to recover
+from their rage as best they could, and returned to Sairmeuse. There
+everyone bowed low before Citoyen Lacheneur.
+
+Unlike most people, he did not forget his past hopes at the moment when
+they might be realized.
+
+He married Martha Barrois, and, leaving the country to work out its
+own salvation without his assistance, he gave his time and attention to
+agriculture.
+
+Any close observer, in those days, would have felt certain that the man
+was bewildered by the sudden change in his situation.
+
+His manner was so troubled and anxious that one, to see him, would
+have supposed him a servant in constant fear of being detected in some
+indiscretion.
+
+He did not open the chateau, but installed himself and his young wife in
+the cottage formerly occupied by the head game-keeper, near the entrance
+of the park.
+
+But, little by little, with the habit of possession, came assurance.
+
+The Consulate had succeeded the Directory, the Empire succeeded the
+Consulate, Citoyen Lacheneur became M. Lacheneur.
+
+Appointed mayor two years later, he left the cottage and took possession
+of the chateau.
+
+The former ploughboy slumbered in the bed of the Ducs de Sairmeuse; he
+ate from the massive plate, graven with their coat-of-arms; he received
+his visitors in the magnificent salon in which the Ducs de Sairmeuse had
+received their friends in years gone by.
+
+To those who had known him in former days, M. Lacheneur had become
+unrecognizable. He had adapted himself to his lofty station. Blushing
+at his own ignorance; he had found the courage--wonderful in one of his
+age--to acquire the education which he lacked.
+
+Then, all his undertakings were successful to such a degree that
+his good fortune had become proverbial. That he took any part in an
+enterprise, sufficed to make it turn out well.
+
+His wife had given him two lovely children, a son and a daughter.
+
+His property, managed with a shrewdness and sagacity which the former
+owners had not possessed, yielded him an income of at least sixty
+thousand francs.
+
+How many, under similar circumstances, would have lost their heads! But
+he, M. Lacheneur, had been wise enough to retain his _sang-froid_.
+
+In spite of the princely luxury that surrounded him, his own habits were
+simple and frugal. He had never had an attendant for his own person. His
+large income he consecrated almost entirely to the improvement of his
+estate or to the purchase of more land. And yet, he was not avaricious.
+In all that concerned his wife or children, he did not count the cost.
+His son, Jean, had been educated in Paris; he wished him to be fitted
+for any position. Unwilling to consent to a separation from his
+daughter, he had procured a governess to take charge of her education.
+
+Sometimes his friends accused him of an inordinate ambition for his
+children; but he always shook his head sadly, as he replied:
+
+�If _I_ can only insure them a modest and comfortable future! But what
+folly it is to count upon the future. Thirty years ago, who could have
+foreseen that the Sairmeuse family would be deprived of their estates?�
+
+With such opinions he should have been a good master; he was, but no one
+thought the better of him on that account. His former comrades could not
+forgive him for his sudden elevation.
+
+They seldom spoke of him without wishing his ruin in ambiguous words.
+
+Alas! the evil days came. Toward the close of the year 1812, he lost his
+wife, the disasters of the year 1813 swept away a large portion of his
+personal fortune, which had been invested in a manufacturing enterprise.
+
+Compromised by the first Restoration, he was obliged to conceal himself
+for a time; and to cap the climax, the conduct of his son, who was still
+in Paris, caused him serious disquietude.
+
+Only the evening before, he had thought himself the most unfortunate of
+men.
+
+But here was another misfortune menacing him; a misfortune so terrible
+that all the others were forgotten.
+
+From the day on which he had purchased Sairmeuse to this fatal Sunday in
+August, 1815, was an interval of twenty years.
+
+Twenty years! And it seemed to him only yesterday that, blushing and
+trembling, he had laid those piles of louis d�or upon the desk of the
+receiver of the district.
+
+Had he dreamed it?
+
+He had not dreamed it. His entire life, with its struggles and its
+miseries, its hopes and its fears, its unexpected joys and its blighted
+hopes, all passed before him.
+
+Lost in these memories, he had quite forgotten the present situation,
+when a commonplace incident, more powerful than the voice of his
+daughter, brought him back to the terrible reality. The gate leading to
+the Chateau de Sairmeuse, to _his_ chateau, was found to be locked.
+
+He shook it with a sort of rage; and, being unable to break the
+fastening, he found some relief in breaking the bell.
+
+On hearing the noise, the gardener came running to the scene of action.
+
+�Why is this gate closed?� demanded M. Lacheneur, with unwonted violence
+of manner. �By what right do you barricade my house when I, the master,
+am without?�
+
+The gardener tried to make some excuse.
+
+�Hold your tongue!� interrupted M. Lacheneur. �I dismiss you; you are no
+longer in my service.�
+
+He passed on, leaving the gardener petrified with astonishment, crossed
+the court-yard--a court-yard worthy of the mansion, bordered with velvet
+turf, with flowers, and with dense shrubbery.
+
+In the vestibule, inlaid with marble, three of his tenants sat awaiting
+him, for it was on Sunday that he always received the workmen who
+desired to confer with him.
+
+They rose at his approach, and removed their hats deferentially. But he
+did not give them time to utter a word.
+
+�Who permitted you to enter here?� he said, savagely, �and what do you
+desire? They sent you to play the spy on me, did they? Leave, I tell
+you!�
+
+The three farmers were even more bewildered and dismayed than the
+gardener had been, and their remarks must have been interesting.
+
+But M. Lacheneur could not hear them. He had opened the door of the
+grand salon, and dashed in, followed by his frightened daughter.
+
+Never had Marie-Anne seen her father in such a mood; and she trembled,
+her heart torn by the most frightful presentiments.
+
+She had heard it said that oftentimes, under the influence of some dire
+calamity, unfortunate men have suddenly lost their reason entirely; and
+she was wondering if her father had become insane.
+
+It would seem, indeed, that such was the case. His eyes flashed,
+convulsive shudders shook his whole body, a white foam gathered on his
+lips.
+
+He made the circuit of the room as a wild beast makes the circuit of his
+cage, uttering harsh imprecations and making frenzied gestures.
+
+His actions were strange, incomprehensible. Sometimes he seemed to be
+trying the thickness of the carpet with the toe of his boot; sometimes
+he threw himself upon a sofa or a chair, as if to test its softness.
+
+Occasionally, he paused abruptly before some one of the valuable
+pictures that covered the walls, or before a bronze. One might have
+supposed that he was taking an inventory, and appraising all the
+magnificent and costly articles which decorated this apartment, the most
+sumptuous in the chateau.
+
+�And I must renounce all this!� he exclaimed, at last.
+
+These words explained everything.
+
+�No, never!� he resumed, in a transport of rage; �never! never! I
+cannot! I will not!�
+
+Now Marie-Anne understood it all. But what was passing in her father�s
+mind? She wished to know; and, leaving the low chair in which she had
+been seated, she went to her father�s side.
+
+�Are you ill, father?� she asked, in her sweet voice; �what is the
+matter? What do you fear? Why do you not confide in me?--Am I not your
+daughter? Do you no longer love me?�
+
+At the sound of this dear voice, M. Lacheneur trembled like a sleeper
+suddenly aroused from the terrors of a nightmare, and he cast an
+indescribable glance upon his daughter.
+
+�Did you not hear what Chupin said to me?� he replied, slowly. �The Duc
+de Sairmeuse is at Montaignac; he will soon be here; and we are dwelling
+in the chateau of his fathers, and his domain has become ours!�
+
+The vexed question regarding the national lands, which agitated France
+for thirty years, Marie understood, for she had heard it discussed a
+thousand times.
+
+�Ah, well, dear father,� said she, �what does that matter, even if we do
+hold the property? You have bought it and paid for it, have you not? So
+it is rightfully and lawfully ours.�
+
+M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment before replying.
+
+But his secret suffocated him. He was in one of those crises in which a
+man, however strong he may be, totters and seeks some support, however
+fragile.
+
+�You would be right, my daughter,� he murmured, with drooping head, �if
+the money that I gave in exchange for Sairmeuse had really belonged to
+me.�
+
+At this strange avowal the young girl turned pale and recoiled a step.
+
+�What?� she faltered; �this gold was not yours, my father? To whom did
+it belong? From whence did it come?�
+
+The unhappy man had gone too far to retract.
+
+�I will tell you all, my daughter,� he replied, �and you shall judge.
+You shall decide. When the Sairmeuse family fled from France, I had only
+my hands to depend upon, and as it was almost impossible to obtain work,
+I wondered if starvation were not near at hand.
+
+�Such was my condition when someone came after me one evening to tell
+me that Mademoiselle Armande de Sairmeuse, my godmother, was dying, and
+wished to speak with me. I ran to the chateau.
+
+�The messenger had told the truth. Mademoiselle Armande was sick unto
+death. I felt this on seeing her upon her bed, whiter than wax.
+
+�Ah! if I were to live a hundred years, never should I forget her face
+as it looked at that moment. It was expressive of a strength of will and
+an energy that would hold death at bay until the task upon which she had
+determined was performed.
+
+�When I entered the room I saw a look of relief appear upon her
+countenance.
+
+��How long you were in coming!� she murmured faintly.
+
+�I was about to make some excuse, when she motioned me to pause, and
+ordered the women who surrounded her to leave the room.
+
+�As soon as we were alone:
+
+��You are an honest boy,�, said she, �and I am about to give you a proof
+of my confidence. People believe me to be poor, but they are mistaken.
+While my relatives were gayly ruining themselves, I was saving the five
+hundred louis which the duke, my brother, gave me each year.�
+
+�She motioned me to come nearer, and to kneel beside her bed.
+
+�I obeyed, and Mademoiselle Armande leaned toward me, almost glued her
+lips to my ear, and added:
+
+��I possess eighty thousand francs.�
+
+�I felt a sudden giddiness, but my godmother did not notice it.
+
+��This amount,� she continued, �is not a quarter part of the former
+income from our family estates. But now, who knows but it will, one day,
+be the only resource of the Sairmeuse? I am going to place it in your
+charge, Lacheneur. I confide it to your honor and to your devotion. The
+estates belonging to the emigrants are to be sold, I hear. If such an
+act of injustice is committed, you will probably be able to purchase
+our property for seventy thousand francs. If the property is sold by the
+government, purchase it; if the lands belonging to the emigrants are not
+sold, take that amount to the duke, my brother, who is with the
+Count d�Artois. The surplus, that is to say, the ten thousand francs
+remaining, I give to you--they are yours.�
+
+�She seemed to recover her strength. She raised herself in bed, and,
+holding the crucifix attached to her rosary to my lips, she said:
+
+��Swear by the image of our Saviour, that you will faithfully execute
+the last will of your dying godmother.�
+
+�I took the required oath, and an expression of satisfaction overspread
+her features.
+
+��That is well,� she said; �I shall die content. You will have a
+protector on high. But this is not all. In times like these in which we
+live, this gold will not be safe in your hands unless those about you
+are ignorant that you possess it. I have been endeavoring to discover
+some way by which you could remove it from my room, and from the
+chateau, without the knowledge of anyone; and I have found a way. The
+gold is here in this cupboard, at the head of my bed, in a stout oaken
+chest. You must find strength to move the chest--you must. You can
+fasten a sheet around it and let it down gently from the window into the
+garden. You will then leave the house as you entered it, and as soon as
+you are outside, you must take the chest and carry it to your home. The
+night is very dark, and no one will see you, if you are careful. But
+make haste; my strength is nearly gone.�
+
+�The chest was heavy, but I was very strong.
+
+�In less than ten minutes the task of removing the chest from the
+chateau was accomplished, without a single sound that would betray us.
+As I closed the window, I said:
+
+��It is done, godmother.�
+
+��God be praised!� she whispered; �Sairmeuse is saved!�
+
+�I heard a deep sigh. I turned; she was dead.�
+
+This scene that M. Lacheneur was relating rose vividly before him.
+
+To feign, to disguise the truth, or to conceal any portion of it was an
+impossibility.
+
+He forgot himself and his daughter; he thought only of the dead woman,
+of Mlle. Armande de Sairmeuse.
+
+And he shuddered on pronouncing the words: �She was dead.� It seemed to
+him that she was about to speak, and to insist upon the fulfilment of
+his pledge.
+
+After a moment�s silence, he resumed, in a hollow voice:
+
+�I called for aid; it came. Mademoiselle Armande was adored by everyone;
+there was great lamentation, and a half hour of indescribable confusion
+followed her death. I was able to withdraw, unnoticed, to run into
+the garden, and to carry away the oaken chest. An hour later, it was
+concealed in the miserable hovel in which I dwelt. The following year I
+purchased Sairmeuse.�
+
+He had confessed all; and he paused, trembling, trying to read his
+sentence in the eyes of his daughter.
+
+�And can you hesitate?� she demanded.
+
+�Ah! you do not know----�
+
+�I know that Sairmeuse must be given up.�
+
+This was the decree of his own conscience, that faint voice which speaks
+only in a whisper, but which all the tumult on earth cannot overpower.
+
+�No one saw me take away the chest,� he faltered. �If anyone suspected
+it, there is not a single proof against me. But no one does suspect it.�
+
+Marie-Anne rose, her eyes flashed with generous indignation.
+
+�My father!� she exclaimed; �oh! my father!�
+
+Then, in a calmer tone, she added:
+
+�If others know nothing of this, can _you_ forget it?�
+
+M. Lacheneur appeared almost ready to succumb to the torture of the
+terrible conflict raging in his soul.
+
+�Return!� he exclaimed. �What shall I return? That which I have
+received? So be it. I consent. I will give the duke the eighty thousand
+francs; to this amount I will add the interest on this sum since I have
+had it, and--we shall be free of all obligation.�
+
+The girl sadly shook her head.
+
+�Why do you resort to subterfuges which are so unworthy of you?� she
+asked, gently. �You know perfectly well that it was Sairmeuse which
+Mademoiselle Armande intended to intrust to the servant of her house.
+And it is Sairmeuse which must be returned.�
+
+The word �servant� was revolting to a man, who, at least, while the
+empire endured, had been a power in the land.
+
+�Ah! you are cruel, my daughter,� he said, with intense bitterness; �as
+cruel as a child who has never suffered--as cruel as one who, having
+never himself been tempted, is without mercy for those who have yielded
+to temptation.
+
+�It is one of those acts which God alone can judge, since God alone can
+read the depths of one�s secret soul.
+
+�I am only a depositary, you tell me. It was, indeed, in this light that
+I formerly regarded myself.
+
+�If your poor sainted mother was still alive, she would tell you the
+anxiety and anguish I felt on being made the master of riches which
+were not mine. I trembled lest I should yield to their seductions; I was
+afraid of myself. I felt as a gambler might feel who had the winnings
+of others confided to his care; as a drunkard might feel who had been
+placed in charge of a quantity of the most delicious wines.
+
+�Your mother would tell you that I moved heaven and earth to find the
+Duc de Sairmeuse. But he had left the Count d�Artois, and no one knew
+where he had gone or what had become of him. Ten years passed before
+I could make up my mind to inhabit the chateau--yes, ten years--during
+which I had the furniture dusted each morning as if the master was to
+return that evening.
+
+�At last I ventured. I had heard Monsieur d�Escorval declare that the
+duke had been killed in battle. I took up my abode here. And from day to
+day, in proportion as the domain of Sairmeuse became more beautiful
+and extensive beneath my care, I felt myself more and more its rightful
+owner.�
+
+But this despairing pleading in behalf of a bad cause produced no
+impression upon Marie-Anne�s loyal heart.
+
+�Restitution must be made,� she repeated. M. Lacheneur wrung his hands.
+
+�Implacable!� he exclaimed; �she is implacable. Unfortunate girl! does
+she not understand that it is for her sake I wish to remain where I
+am? I am old, and I am familiar with toil and poverty; idleness has
+not removed the callosities from my hands. What do I require to keep me
+alive until the day comes for me to take my place in the graveyard? A
+crust of bread and an onion in the morning, a porringer of soup in the
+evening, and for the night a bundle of straw. I could easily earn that.
+But you, unhappy child! and your brother, what will become of you?�
+
+�We must not discuss nor haggle with duty, my father. I think, however,
+that you are needlessly alarmed. I believe the duke is too noble-hearted
+ever to allow you to suffer want after the immense service you have
+rendered him.�
+
+The old servitor of the house of Sairmeuse laughed a loud, bitter laugh.
+
+�You believe that!� said he; �then you do not know the nobles who have
+been our masters for ages. �A., you are a worthy fellow!�--very coldly
+said--will be the only recompense I shall receive; and you will see us,
+me, at my plough; you, out at service. And if I venture to speak of
+the ten thousand francs that were given me, I shall be treated as an
+impostor, as an impudent fool. By the holy name of God this shall not
+be!�
+
+�Oh, my father!�
+
+�No! this shall not be. And I realize--as you cannot realize--the
+disgrace of such a fall. You think you are beloved in Sairmeuse? You are
+mistaken. We have been too fortunate not to be the victims of hatred and
+jealousy. If I fall to-morrow, you will see all who kissed your hands
+to-day fall upon you to tear you to pieces!�
+
+His eye glittered; he believed he had found a victorious argument.
+
+�And then you, yourself, will realize the horror of the disgrace. It
+will cost you the deadly anguish of a separation from him whom your
+heart has chosen.�
+
+He had spoken truly, for Marie-Anne�s beautiful eyes filled with tears.
+
+�If what you say proves true, father,� she murmured, in an altered
+voice, �I may, perhaps, die of sorrow; but I cannot fail to realize that
+my confidence and my love has been misplaced.�
+
+�And you still insist upon my returning Sairmeuse to its former owner?�
+
+�Honor speaks, my father.�
+
+M. Lacheneur made the arm-chair in which he was seated tremble by a
+violent blow of his fist.
+
+�And if I am just as obstinate,� he exclaimed--�if I keep the
+property--what will you do?�
+
+�I shall say to myself, father, that honest poverty is better than
+stolen wealth. I shall leave this chateau, which belongs to the Duc
+de Sairmeuse, and I shall seek a situation as a servant in the
+neighborhood.�
+
+M. Lacheneur sank back in his arm-chair sobbing. He knew his daughter�s
+nature well enough to be assured that what she said, that she would do.
+
+But he was conquered; his daughter had won the battle. He had decided to
+make the heroic sacrifice.
+
+�I will relinquish Sairmeuse,� he faltered, �come what may----�
+
+He paused suddenly; a visitor was entering the room.
+
+It was a young man about twenty years of age, of distinguished
+appearance, but with a rather melancholy and gentle manner.
+
+His eyes when he entered the apartment encountered those of Marie-Anne;
+he blushed slightly, and the girl half turned away, crimsoning to the
+roots of her hair.
+
+�Monsieur,� said the young man, �my father sends me to inform you that
+the Duc de Sairmeuse and his son have just arrived. They have asked the
+hospitality of our cure.�
+
+M. Lacheneur rose, unable to conceal his frightful agitation.
+
+�You will thank the Baron d�Escorval for his attention, my dear
+Maurice,� he responded. �I shall have the honor of seeing him to-day,
+after a very momentous step which we are about to take, my daughter and
+I.�
+
+Young d�Escorval had seen, at the first glance, that his presence was
+inopportune, so he remained only a few moments.
+
+But as he was taking leave, Marie-Anne found time to say, in a low
+voice:
+
+�I think I know your heart, Maurice; this evening I shall know it
+certainly.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Few of the inhabitants of Sairmeuse knew, except by name, the terrible
+duke whose arrival had thrown the whole village into commotion.
+
+Some of the oldest residents had a faint recollection of having seen
+him long ago, before �89 indeed, when he came to visit his aunt, Mlle.
+Armande.
+
+His duties, then, had seldom permitted him to leave the court.
+
+If he had given no sign of life during the empire, it was because he had
+not been compelled to submit to the humiliations and suffering which so
+many of the emigrants were obliged to endure in their exile.
+
+On the contrary, he had received, in exchange for the wealth of which he
+had been deprived by the revolution, a princely fortune.
+
+Taking refuge in London after the defeat of the army of Conde, he had
+been so fortunate as to please the only daughter of Lord Holland, one of
+the richest peers in England, and he had married her.
+
+She possessed a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
+sterling, more than six million francs.
+
+Still the marriage was not a happy one. The chosen companion of the
+dissipated and licentious Count d�Artois was not likely to prove a very
+good husband.
+
+The young duchess was contemplating a separation when she died,
+in giving birth to a boy, who was baptized under the names of
+Anne-Marie-Martial.
+
+The loss of his wife did not render the Duc de Sairmeuse inconsolable.
+
+He was free and richer than he had ever been.
+
+As soon as _les convenances_ permitted, he confided his son to the care
+of a relative of his wife, and began his roving life again.
+
+Rumor had told the truth. He had fought, and that furiously, against
+France in the Austrian, and then in the Russian ranks.
+
+And he took no pains to conceal the fact; convinced that he had only
+performed his duty. He considered that he had honestly and loyally
+gained the rank of general which the Emperor of all the Russias had
+bestowed upon him.
+
+He had not returned to France during the first Restoration; but his
+absence had been involuntary. His father-in-law, Lord Holland, had just
+died, and the duke was detained in London by business connected with his
+son�s immense inheritance.
+
+Then followed the �Hundred Days.� They exasperated him.
+
+But �the good cause,� as he styled it, having triumphed anew, he
+hastened to France.
+
+Alas! Lacheneur judged the character of his former master correctly,
+when he resisted the entreaties of his daughter.
+
+This man, who had been compelled to conceal himself during the first
+Restoration, knew only too well, that the returned _emigres_ had learned
+nothing and forgotten nothing.
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse was no exception to the rule.
+
+He thought, and nothing could be more sadly absurd, that a mere act
+of authority would suffice to suppress forever all the events of the
+Revolution and of the empire.
+
+When he said: �I do not admit that!� he firmly believed that there was
+nothing more to be said; that controversy was ended; and that what _had_
+been was as if it had never been.
+
+If some, who had seen Louis XVII. at the helm in 1814, assured the duke
+that France had changed in many respects since 1789, he responded with a
+shrug of the shoulders:
+
+�Nonsense! As soon as we assert ourselves, all these rascals, whose
+rebellion alarms you, will quietly sink out of sight.�
+
+Such was really his opinion.
+
+On the way from Montaignac to Sairmeuse, the duke, comfortably ensconced
+in his berlin, unfolded his theories for the benefit of his son.
+
+�The King has been poorly advised,� he said, in conclusion. �Besides,
+I am disposed to believe that he inclines too much to Jacobinism. If
+he would listen to my advice, he would make use of the twelve hundred
+thousand soldiers which our friends have placed at his disposal, to
+bring his subjects to a sense of their duty. Twelve hundred thousand
+bayonets have far more eloquence than the articles of a charter.�
+
+He continued his remarks on this subject until the carriage approached
+Sairmeuse.
+
+Though but little given to sentiment, he was really affected by the
+sight of the country in which he was born--where he had played as a
+child, and of which he had heard nothing since the death of his aunt.
+
+Everything was changed: still the outlines of the landscape remained the
+same; the valley of the Oiselle was as bright and laughing as in days
+gone by.
+
+�I recognize it!� he exclaimed, with a delight that made him forget
+politics. �I recognize it!�
+
+Soon the changes became more striking.
+
+The carriage entered Sairmeuse, and rattled over the stones of the only
+street in the village.
+
+This street, in former years, had been unpaved, and had always been
+rendered impassable by wet weather.
+
+�Ah, ha!� murmured the duke, �this is an improvement!�
+
+It was not long before he noticed others. The dilapidated, thatched
+hovels had given place to pretty and comfortable white cottages with
+green blinds, and a vine hanging gracefully over the door.
+
+As the carriage passed the public square in front of the church, Martial
+observed the groups of peasants who were still talking there.
+
+�What do you think of all these peasants?� he inquired of his father.
+�Do they have the appearance of people who are preparing a triumphal
+reception for their old masters?�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse shrugged his shoulders. He was not the man to renounce
+an illusion for such a trifle.
+
+�They do not know that I am in this post-chaise,� he replied. �When they
+know----�
+
+Shouts of �Vive Monsieur le Duc de Sairmeuse!� interrupted him.
+
+�Do you hear that, Marquis?� he exclaimed.
+
+And pleased by these cries that proved him in the right, he leaned from
+the carriage-window, waving his hand to the honest Chupin family, who
+were running after the vehicle with noisy shouts.
+
+The old rascal, his wife, and his children, all possessed powerful
+voices; and it was not strange that the duke believed the whole village
+was welcoming him. He was convinced of it; and when the berlin stopped
+before the house of the cure, M. de Sairmeuse was persuaded that the
+_prestige_ of the nobility was greater than ever.
+
+Upon the threshold of the parsonage, Bibiaine, the old housekeeper, was
+standing. She knew who these guests must be, for the cure�s servants
+always know what is going on.
+
+�Monsieur has not yet returned from church,� she said, in response to
+the duke�s inquiry; �but if the gentlemen wish to wait, it will not be
+long before he comes, for the poor, dear man has not breakfasted yet.�
+
+�Let us go in,� the duke said to his son. And guided by the housekeeper,
+they entered a sort of drawing-room, where the table was spread.
+
+M. de Sairmeuse took an inventory of the apartment in a single glance.
+The habits of a house reveal those of its master. This was clean, poor,
+and bare. The walls were whitewashed; a dozen chairs composed the entire
+furniture; upon the table, laid with monastic simplicity, were only tin
+dishes.
+
+This was either the abode of an ambitious man or a saint.
+
+�Will these gentlemen take any refreshments?� inquired Bibiaine.
+
+�Upon my word,� replied Martial, �I must confess that the drive has
+whetted my appetite amazingly.�
+
+�Blessed Jesus!� exclaimed the old housekeeper, in evident despair.
+�What am I to do? I, who have nothing! That is to say--yes--I have an
+old hen left in the coop. Give me time to wring its neck, to pick it,
+and clean it----�
+
+She paused to listen, and they heard a step in the passage.
+
+�Ah!� she exclaimed, �here is Monsieur le Cure now!�
+
+The son of a poor farmer in the environs of Montaignac, he owed his
+Latin and tonsure to the privations of his family.
+
+Tall, angular, and solemn, he was as cold and impassive as the stones of
+his church.
+
+By what immense efforts of will, at the cost of what torture, had he
+made himself what he was? One could form some idea of the terrible
+restraint to which he had subjected himself by looking at his eyes,
+which occasionally emitted the lightnings of an impassioned soul.
+
+Was he old or young? The most subtle observer would have hesitated to
+say on seeing this pallid and emaciated face, cut in two by an immense
+nose--a real eagle�s beak--as thin as the edge of a razor.
+
+He wore a white cassock, which had been patched and darned in numberless
+places, but which was a marvel of cleanliness, and which hung about his
+tall, attenuated body like the sails of a disabled vessel.
+
+He was known as the Abbe Midon.
+
+At the sight of the two strangers seated in his drawing-room, he
+manifested some slight surprise.
+
+The carriage standing before the door had announced the presence of a
+visitor; but he had expected to find one of his parishioners.
+
+No one had warned him or the sacristan, and he was wondering with whom
+he had to deal, and what they desired of him.
+
+Mechanically, he turned to Bibiaine, but the old servant had taken
+flight.
+
+The duke understood his host�s astonishment.
+
+�Upon my word, Abbe!� he said, with the impertinent ease of a _grand
+seigneur_ who makes himself at home everywhere, �we have taken your
+house by storm, and hold the position, as you see. I am the Duc de
+Sairmeuse, and this is my son, the Marquis.�
+
+The priest bowed, but he did not seem very greatly impressed by the
+exalted rank of his guests.
+
+�It is a great honor for me,� he replied, in a more than reserved tone,
+�to receive a visit from the former master of this place.�
+
+He emphasized this word �former� in such a manner that it was impossible
+to doubt his sentiments and his opinions.
+
+�Unfortunately,� he continued, �you will not find here the comforts to
+which you are accustomed, and I fear----�
+
+�Nonsense!� interrupted the duke. �An old soldier is not fastidious,
+and what suffices for you, Monsieur Abbe, will suffice for us. And rest
+assured that we shall amply repay you in one way or another for any
+inconvenience we may cause you.�
+
+The priest�s eye flashed. This want of tact, this disagreeable
+familiarity, this last insulting remark, kindled the anger of the man
+concealed beneath the priest.
+
+�Besides,� added Martial, gayly, �we have been vastly amused by
+Bibiaine�s anxieties, we already know that there is a chicken in the
+coop----�
+
+�That is to say there was one, Monsieur le Marquis.�
+
+The old housekeeper, who suddenly reappeared, explained her master�s
+response. She seemed overwhelmed with despair.
+
+�Blessed Virgin! Monsieur, what shall I do?� she clamored. �The chicken
+has disappeared. Someone has certainly stolen it, for the coop is
+securely closed!�
+
+�Do not accuse your neighbor hastily,� interrupted the cure; �no one has
+stolen it from us. Bertrande was here this morning to ask alms in the
+name of her sick daughter. I had no money, and I gave her this fowl that
+she might make a good bouillon for the sick girl.�
+
+This explanation changed Bibiaine�s consternation to fury.
+
+Planting herself in the centre of the room, one hand upon her hip, and
+gesticulating wildly with the other, she exclaimed, pointing to her
+master:
+
+�That is just the sort of man he is; he has less sense than a baby! Any
+miserable peasant who meets him can make him believe anything he wishes.
+Any great falsehood brings tears to his eyes, and then they can do what
+they like with him. In that way they take the very shoes off his feet
+and the bread from his mouth. Bertrande�s daughter, messieurs, is no
+more ill than you or I!�
+
+�Enough,� said the priest, sternly, �enough.� Then, knowing by
+experience that his voice had not the power to check her flood of
+reproaches, he took her by the arm and led her out into the passage.
+
+M. de Sairmeuse and his son exchanged a glance of consternation.
+
+Was this a comedy that had been prepared for their benefit? Evidently
+not, since their arrival had not been expected.
+
+But the priest, whose character had been so plainly revealed by this
+quarrel with his domestic, was not a man to their taste.
+
+At least, he was evidently not the man they had hoped to find--not the
+auxiliary whose assistance was indispensable to the success of their
+plans.
+
+Yet they did not exchange a word; they listened.
+
+They heard the sound as of a discussion in the passage. The master spoke
+in low tones, but with an unmistakable accent of command; the servant
+uttered an astonished exclamation.
+
+But the listeners could not distinguish a word.
+
+Soon the priest re-entered the apartment.
+
+�I hope, gentlemen,� he said, with a dignity that could not fail to
+check any attempt at raillery, �that you will excuse this ridiculous
+scene. The cure of Sairmeuse, thank God! is not so poor as she says.�
+
+Neither the duke nor Martial made any response.
+
+Even their remarkable assurance was very sensibly diminished; and M. de
+Sairmeuse deemed it advisable to change the subject.
+
+This he did, by relating the events which he had just witnessed in
+Paris, and by insisting that His Majesty, Louis XVIII., had been
+welcomed with enthusiasm and transports of affection.
+
+Fortunately, the old housekeeper interrupted this recital.
+
+She entered, loaded with china, silver, and bottles, and behind her came
+a large man in a white apron, bearing three or four covered dishes in
+his hands.
+
+It was the order to go and obtain this repast from the village inn which
+had drawn from Bibiaine so many exclamations of wonder and dismay in the
+passage.
+
+A moment later the cure and his guests took their places at the table.
+
+Had the much-lamented chicken constituted the dinner the rations would
+have been �short.� This the worthy woman was obliged to confess, on
+seeing the terrible appetite evinced by M. de Sairmeuse and his son.
+
+�One would have sworn that they had eaten nothing for a fortnight,� she
+told her friends, the next day.
+
+Abbe Midon was not hungry, though it was two o�clock, and he had eaten
+nothing since the previous evening.
+
+The sudden arrival of the former masters of Sairmeuse filled his
+heart with gloomy forebodings. Their coming, he believed, presaged the
+greatest misfortunes.
+
+So while he played with his knife and fork, pretending to eat, he was
+really occupied in watching his guests, and in studying them with
+all the penetration of a priest, which, by the way, is generally far
+superior to that of a physician or of a magistrate.
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse was fifty-seven, but looked considerably younger.
+
+The storms of his youth, the dissipation of his riper years, the great
+excesses of every kind in which he had indulged, had not impaired his
+iron constitution in the least.
+
+Of herculean build, he was extremely proud of his strength, and of his
+hands, which were well-formed, but large, firmly knit and powerful, such
+hands as rightly belonged to a gentleman whose ancestors had given many
+a crushing blow with ponderous battle-axe in the crusades.
+
+His face revealed his character. He possessed all the graces and all the
+vices of a courtier.
+
+He was, at the same time _spirituel_ and ignorant, sceptical and
+violently imbued with the prejudices of his class.
+
+Though less robust than his father, Martial was a no less
+distinguished-looking cavalier. It was not strange that women raved over
+his blue eyes, and the beautiful blond hair which he inherited from his
+mother.
+
+To his father he owed energy, courage, and, it must also be added,
+perversity. But he was his superior in education and in intellect. If he
+shared his father�s prejudices, he had not adopted them without weighing
+them carefully. What the father might do in a moment of excitement, the
+son was capable of doing in cold blood.
+
+It was thus that the abbe, with rare sagacity, read the character of his
+guests.
+
+So it was with great sorrow, but without surprise, that he heard the
+duke advance, on the questions of the day, the impossible ideas shared
+by nearly all the _emigres_.
+
+Knowing the condition of the country, and the state of public opinion,
+the cure endeavored to convince the obstinate man of his mistake; but
+upon this subject the duke would not permit contradiction, or even
+raillery; and he was fast losing his temper, when Bibiaine appeared at
+the parlor door.
+
+�Monsieur le Duc,� said she, �Monsieur Lacheneur and his daughter are
+without and desire to speak to you.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+This name Lacheneur awakened no recollection in the mind of the duke.
+
+First, he had never lived at Sairmeuse.
+
+And even if he had, what courtier of the _ancien regime_ ever troubled
+himself about the individual names of the peasants, whom he regarded
+with such profound indifference.
+
+When a _grand seigneur_ addressed these people, he said: �Halloo! hi,
+there! friend, my worthy fellow!�
+
+So it was with the air of a man who is making an effort of memory that
+the Duc de Sairmeuse repeated:
+
+�Lacheneur--Monsieur Lacheneur----�
+
+But Martial, a closer observer than his father, had noticed that the
+priest�s glance wavered at the sound of this name.
+
+�Who is this person, Abbe?� demanded the duke, lightly.
+
+�Monsieur Lacheneur,� replied the priest, with very evident hesitation,
+�is the present owner of the Chateau de Sairmeuse.�
+
+Martial, the precocious diplomat, could not repress a smile on hearing
+this response, which he had foreseen. But the duke bounded from his
+chair.
+
+�Ah!� he exclaimed, �it is the rascal who has had the impudence--Let him
+come in, old woman, let him come in.�
+
+Bibiaine retired, and the priest�s uneasiness increased.
+
+�Permit me, Monsieur le Duc,� he said, hastily, �to remark that Monsieur
+Lacheneur exercises a great influence in this region--to offend him
+would be impolitic----�
+
+�I understand--you advise me to be conciliatory. Such sentiments are
+purely Jacobin. If His Majesty listens to the advice of such as you,
+all these sales of confiscated estates will be ratified. Zounds! our
+interests are the same. If the Revolution has deprived the nobility of
+their property, it has also impoverished the clergy.�
+
+�The possessions of a priest are not of this world, Monsieur,� said the
+cure, coldly.
+
+M. de Sairmeuse was about to make some impertinent response, when M.
+Lacheneur appeared, followed by his daughter.
+
+The wretched man was ghastly pale, great drops of perspiration stood out
+upon his temples, his restless, haggard eyes revealed his distress of
+mind.
+
+Marie-Anne was as pale as her father, but her attitude and the light
+that burned in her eyes told of invincible energy and determination.
+
+�Ah, well! friend,� said the duke, �so we are the owner of Sairmeuse, it
+seems.�
+
+This was said with such a careless insolence of manner that the cure
+blushed that they should thus treat, in his own house, a man whom he
+considered his equal.
+
+He rose and offered the visitors chairs.
+
+�Will you take a seat, dear Monsieur Lacheneur?� said he, with
+a politeness intended as a lesson for the duke; �and you, also,
+Mademoiselle, do me the honor----�
+
+But the father and the daughter both refused the proffered civility with
+a motion of the head.
+
+�Monsieur le Duc,� continued Lacheneur, �I am an old servant of your
+house----�
+
+�Ah! indeed!�
+
+�Mademoiselle Armande, your aunt, accorded my poor mother the honor of
+acting as my godmother----�
+
+�Ah, yes,� interrupted the duke. �I remember you now. Our family
+has shown great goodness to you and yours. And it was to prove your
+gratitude, probably, that you made haste to purchase our estate!�
+
+The former ploughboy was of humble origin, but his heart and his
+character had developed with his fortunes; he understood his own worth.
+
+Much as he was disliked, and even detested, by his neighbors, everyone
+respected him.
+
+And here was a man who treated him with undisguised scorn. Why? By what
+right?
+
+Indignant at the outrage, he made a movement as if to retire.
+
+No one, save his daughter, knew the truth; he had only to keep silence
+and Sairmeuse remained his.
+
+Yes, he had still the power to keep Sairmeuse, and he knew it, for
+he did not share the fears of the ignorant rustics. He was too well
+informed not to be able to distinguish between the hopes of the
+_emigres_ and the possible. He knew that an abyss separated the dream
+from the reality.
+
+A beseeching word uttered in a low tone by his daughter, made him turn
+again to the duke.
+
+�If I purchased Sairmeuse,� he answered, in a voice husky with emotion,
+�it was in obedience to the command of your dying aunt, and with the
+money which she gave me for that purpose. If you see me here, it is only
+because I come to restore to you the deposit confided to my keeping.�
+
+Anyone not belonging to that class of spoiled fools which surround a
+throne would have been deeply touched.
+
+But the duke thought this grand act of honesty and of generosity the
+most simple and natural thing in the world.
+
+�That is very well, so far as the principal is concerned,� said he. �Let
+us speak now of the interest. Sairmeuse, if I remember rightly, yielded
+an average income of one thousand louis per year. These revenues, well
+invested, should have amounted to a very considerable amount. Where is
+this?�
+
+This claim, thus advanced and at such a moment, was so outrageous, that
+Martial, disgusted, made a sign to his father, which the latter did not
+see.
+
+But the cure hoping to recall the extortioner to something like a sense
+of shame, exclaimed:
+
+�Monsieur le Duc! Oh, Monsieur le Duc!�
+
+Lacheneur shrugged his shoulders with an air of resignation.
+
+�The income I have used for my own living expenses, and in educating
+my children; but most of it has been expended in improving the estate,
+which today yields an income twice as large as in former years.�
+
+�That is to say, for twenty years, Monsieur Lacheneur has played the
+part of lord of the manor. A delightful comedy. You are rich now, I
+suppose.�
+
+�I possess nothing. But I hope you will allow me to take ten thousand
+francs, which your aunt gave to me.�
+
+�Ah! she gave you ten thousand francs? And when?�
+
+�On the same evening that she gave me the eighty thousand francs
+intended for the purchase of the estate.�
+
+�Perfect! What proof can you furnish that she gave you this sum?�
+
+Lacheneur stood motionless and speechless. He tried to reply, but
+he could not. If he opened his lips it would only be to pour forth a
+torrent of menaces, insults, and invectives.
+
+Marie-Anne stepped quickly forward.
+
+�The proof, Monsieur,� said she, in a clear, ringing voice, �is the word
+of this man, who, of his own free will, comes to return to you--to give
+you a fortune.�
+
+As she sprang forward her beautiful dark hair escaped from its
+confinement, the rich blood crimsoned her cheeks, her dark eyes flashed
+brilliantly, and sorrow, anger, horror at the humiliation, imparted a
+sublime expression to her face.
+
+She was so beautiful that Martial regarded her with wonder.
+
+�Lovely!� he murmured, in English; �beautiful as an angel!�
+
+These words, which she understood, abashed Marie-Anne. But she had said
+enough; her father felt that he was avenged.
+
+He drew from his pocket a roll of papers, and throwing them upon the
+table: �Here are your titles,� he said, addressing the duke in a tone
+full of implacable hatred. �Keep the legacy that your aunt gave me,
+I wish nothing of yours. I shall never set foot in Sairmeuse again.
+Penniless I entered it, penniless I will leave it!�
+
+He quitted the room with head proudly erect, and when they were outside,
+he said but one word to his daughter:
+
+�Well!�
+
+�You have done your duty,� she replied; �it is those who have not done
+it, who are to be pitied!�
+
+She had no opportunity to say more. Martial came running after them,
+anxious for another chance of seeing this young girl whose beauty had
+made such an impression upon him.
+
+�I hastened after you,� he said, addressing Marie-Anne, rather than M.
+Lacheneur, �to reassure you. All this will be arranged, Mademoiselle.
+Eyes so beautiful as yours should never know tears. I will be your
+advocate with my father--�
+
+�Mademoiselle Lacheneur has no need of an advocate!� a harsh voice
+interrupted.
+
+Martial turned, and saw the young man, who, that morning, went to warn
+M. Lacheneur of the duke�s arrival.
+
+�I am the Marquis de Sairmeuse,� he said, insolently.
+
+�And I,� said the other, quietly, �am Maurice d�Escorval.�
+
+They surveyed each other for a moment; each expecting, perhaps, an
+insult from the other. Instinctively, they felt that they were to
+be enemies; and the bitterest animosity spoke in the glances they
+exchanged. Perhaps they felt a presentiment that they were to be
+champions of two different principles, as well as rivals.
+
+Martial, remembering his father, yielded.
+
+�We shall meet again, Monsieur d�Escorval,� he said, as he retired. At
+this threat, Maurice shrugged his shoulders, and said:
+
+�You had better not desire it.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The abode of the Baron d�Escorval, that brick structure with stone
+trimmings which was visible from the superb avenue leading to Sairmeuse,
+was small and unpretentious.
+
+Its chief attraction was a pretty lawn that extended to the banks of the
+Oiselle, and a small but beautifully shaded park.
+
+It was known as the Chateau d�Escorval, but that appellation was gross
+flattery. Any petty manufacturer who had amassed a small fortune would
+have desired a larger, handsomer, and more imposing establishment.
+
+M. d�Escorval--and it will be an eternal honor to him in history--was
+not rich.
+
+Although he had been intrusted with several of those missions from which
+generals and diplomats often return laden with millions, M. d�Escorval�s
+worldly possessions consisted only of the little patrimony bequeathed
+him by his father: a property which yielded an income of from twenty to
+twenty-five thousand francs a year.
+
+This modest dwelling, situated about a mile from Sairmeuse, represented
+the savings of ten years.
+
+He had built it in 1806, from a plan drawn by his own hand; and it was
+the dearest spot on earth to him.
+
+He always hastened to this retreat when his work allowed him a few days
+of rest.
+
+But this time he had not come to Escorval of his own free will.
+
+He had been compelled to leave Paris by the proscribed list of the 24th
+of July--that fatal list which summoned the enthusiastic Labedoyere and
+the honest and virtuous Drouot before a court-martial.
+
+And even in this solitude, M. d�Escorval�s situation was not without
+danger.
+
+He was one of those who, some days before the disaster of Waterloo, had
+strongly urged the Emperor to order the execution of Fouche, the former
+minister of police.
+
+Now, Fouche knew this counsel; and he was powerful.
+
+�Take care!� M. d�Escorval�s friends wrote him from Paris.
+
+But he put his trust in Providence, and faced the future, threatening
+though it was, with the unalterable serenity of a pure conscience.
+
+The baron was still young; he was not yet fifty, but anxiety, work, and
+long nights passed in struggling with the most arduous difficulties of
+the imperial policy, had made him old before his time.
+
+He was tall, slightly inclined to _embonpoint_, and stooped a little.
+
+His calm eyes, his serious mouth, his broad, furrowed forehead, and his
+austere manners inspired respect.
+
+�He must be stern and inflexible,� said those who saw him for the first
+time.
+
+But they were mistaken.
+
+If, in the exercise of his official duties, this truly great man had the
+strength to resist all temptations to swerve from the path of right; if,
+when duty was at stake, he was as rigid as iron, in private life he
+was as unassuming as a child, and kind and gentle even to the verge of
+weakness.
+
+To this nobility of character he owed his domestic happiness, that rare
+and precious happiness which fills one�s existence with a celestial
+perfume.
+
+During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d�Escorval had
+wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d�Alleu, a
+distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and
+only three years younger than himself.
+
+He loved her--and though she was an orphan, destitute of fortune, he
+married her, considering the treasure of her virgin heart of far greater
+value than the most magnificent dowry.
+
+She was an honest woman, as her husband was an honest man, in the most
+strict and vigorous sense of the word.
+
+She was seldom seen at the Tuileries, where M. d�Escorval�s worth made
+him eagerly welcomed. The splendors of the Imperial Court, which at
+that time surpassed all the pomp of the time of Louis XIV., had no
+attractions for her.
+
+Grace, beauty, youth and accomplishments--she reserved them all for the
+adornment of her home.
+
+Her husband was her God. She lived in him and through him. She had not a
+thought which did not belong to him.
+
+The short time that he could spare from his arduous labors to devote to
+her were her happiest hours.
+
+And when, in the evening, they sat beside the fire in their modest
+drawing-room, with their son Maurice playing on the rug at their feet,
+it seemed to them that they had nothing to wish for here below.
+
+The overthrow of the empire surprised them in the heydey of their
+happiness.
+
+Surprised them? No. For a long time M. d�Escorval had seen the
+prodigious edifice erected by the genius whom he had made his idol
+totter as if about to fall.
+
+Certainly, he felt intense chagrin at this fall, but he was heart-broken
+at the sight of all the treason and cowardice which followed it. He was
+indignant and horrified at the rising _en masse_ of the avaricious, who
+hastened to gorge themselves with the spoil.
+
+Under these circumstances, exile from Paris seemed an actual blessing.
+
+�Besides,� as he remarked to the baroness, �we shall soon be forgotten
+here.�
+
+But even while he said this he felt many misgivings. Still, by his side,
+his noble wife presented a tranquil face, even while she trembled for
+the safety of her adored husband.
+
+On this first Sunday in August, M. d�Escorval and his wife had been
+unusually sad. A vague presentiment of approaching misfortune weighed
+heavily upon their hearts.
+
+At the same hour that Lacheneur presented himself at the house of the
+Abbe Midon, they were seated upon the terrace in front of the house,
+gazing anxiously at the two roads leading from Escorval to the chateau,
+and to the village of Sairmeuse.
+
+Warned, that same morning, by his friends in Montaignac of the arrival
+of the duke, the baron had sent his son to inform M. Lacheneur.
+
+He had requested him to be absent as short a time as possible; but
+in spite of this fact, the hours were rolling by, and Maurice had not
+returned.
+
+�What if something has happened to him!� both father and mother were
+thinking.
+
+No; nothing had happened to him. Only a word from Mlle. Lacheneur had
+sufficed to make him forget his usual deference to his father�s wishes.
+
+�This evening,� she had said, �I shall certainly know your heart.�
+
+What could this mean? Could she doubt him?
+
+Tortured by the most cruel anxieties, the poor youth could not resolve
+to go away without an explanation, and he hung around the chateau hoping
+that Marie-Anne would reappear.
+
+She did reappear at last, but leaning upon the arm of her father.
+
+Young d�Escorval followed them at a distance, and soon saw them enter
+the parsonage. What were they going to do there? He knew that the duke
+and his son were within.
+
+The time that they remained there, and which he passed in the public
+square, seemed more than a century long.
+
+They emerged at last, however, and he was about to join them when he was
+prevented by the appearance of Martial, whose promises he overheard.
+
+Maurice knew nothing of life; he was as innocent as a child, but he
+could not mistake the intentions that dictated this step on the part of
+the Marquis de Sairmeuse.
+
+At the thought that a libertine�s caprice should dare rest for an
+instant upon the pure and beautiful girl whom he loved with all the
+strength of his being--whom he had sworn should be his wife--all his
+blood mounted madly to his brain.
+
+He felt a wild longing to chastise the insolent wretch.
+
+Fortunately--unfortunately, perhaps--his hand was arrested by the
+recollection of a phrase which he had heard his father repeat a thousand
+times:
+
+�Calmness and irony are the only weapons worthy of the strong.�
+
+And he possessed sufficient strength of will to appear calm, while, in
+reality, he was beside himself with passion. It was Martial who lost his
+self-control, and who threatened him.
+
+�Ah! yes, I will find you again, upstart!� repeated Maurice, through his
+set teeth as he watched his enemy move away.
+
+For Martial had turned and discovered that Marie-Anne and her father had
+left him. He saw them standing about a hundred paces from him. Although
+he was surprised at their indifference, he made haste to join them, and
+addressed M. Lacheneur.
+
+�We are just going to your father�s house,� was the response he
+received, in an almost ferocious tone.
+
+A glance from Marie-Anne commanded silence. He obeyed, and walked a
+few steps behind them, with his head bowed upon his breast, terribly
+anxious, and seeking vainly to explain what had passed.
+
+His attitude betrayed such intense sorrow that his mother divined it as
+soon as she caught sight of him.
+
+All the anguish which this courageous woman had hidden for a month,
+found utterance in a single cry.
+
+�Ah! here is misfortune!� said she, �we shall not escape it.�
+
+It was, indeed, misfortune. One could not doubt it when one saw M.
+Lacheneur enter the drawing-room.
+
+He advanced with the heavy, uncertain step of a drunken man, his eye
+void of expression, his features distorted, his lips pale and trembling.
+
+�What has happened?� asked the baron, eagerly.
+
+But the other did not seem to hear him.
+
+�Ah! I warned her,� he murmured, continuing a monologue which had begun
+before he entered the room. �I told my daughter so.�
+
+Mme. d�Escorval, after kissing Marie-Anne, drew the girl toward her.
+
+�What has happened? For God�s sake, tell me what has happened!� she
+exclaimed.
+
+With a gesture expressive of the most sorrowful resignation, the girl
+motioned her to look and to listen to M. Lacheneur.
+
+He had recovered from that stupor--that gift of God--which follows
+cries that are too terrible for human endurance. Like a sleeper who, on
+waking, finds his miseries forgotten during his slumber, lying in wait
+for him, he regained with consciousness the capacity to suffer.
+
+�It is only this, Monsieur le Baron,� replied the unfortunate man in a
+harsh, unnatural voice: �I rose this morning the richest proprietor
+in the country, and I shall lay down to-night poorer than the
+poorest beggar in this commune. I had everything; I no longer have
+anything--nothing but my two hands. They earned me my bread for
+twenty-five years; they will earn it for me now until the day of my
+death. I had a beautiful dream; it is ended.�
+
+Before this outburst of despair, M. d�Escorval turned pale.
+
+�You must exaggerate your misfortune,� he faltered; �explain what has
+happened.�
+
+Unconscious of what he was doing, M. Lacheneur threw his hat upon a
+chair, and flinging back his long, gray hair, he said:
+
+�To you I will tell all. I came here for that purpose. I know you; I
+know your heart. And have you not done me the honor to call me your
+friend?�
+
+Then, with the cruel exactness of the living, breathing truth, he
+related the scene which had just taken place at the presbytery.
+
+The baron listened petrified with astonishment, almost doubting the
+evidence of his own senses. Mme. d�Escorval�s indignant and sorrowful
+exclamations showed that every noble sentiment in her soul revolted
+against such injustice.
+
+But there was one auditor, whom Marie-Anne alone observed, who was moved
+to his very entrails by this recital. This auditor was Maurice.
+
+Leaning against the door, pale as death, he tried most energetically,
+but in vain, to repress the tears of rage and of sorrow which swelled up
+in his eyes.
+
+To insult Lacheneur was to insult Marie-Anne--that is to say, to injure,
+to strike, to outrage him in all that he held most dear in the world.
+
+Ah! it is certain that Martial, had he been within his reach, would have
+paid dearly for these insults to the father of the girl Maurice loved.
+
+But he swore that this chastisement was only deferred--that it should
+surely come.
+
+And it was not mere angry boasting. This young man, though so modest
+and so gentle in manner, had a heart that was inaccessible to fear. His
+beautiful, dark eyes, which had the trembling timidity of the eyes of a
+young girl, met the gaze of an enemy without flinching.
+
+When M. Lacheneur had repeated the last words which he had addressed to
+the Duc de Sairmeuse, M. d�Escorval offered him his hand.
+
+�I have told you already that I was your friend,� he said, in a voice
+faltering with emotion; �but I must tell you to-day that I am proud of
+having such a friend as you.�
+
+The unfortunate man trembled at the touch of that loyal hand which
+clasped his so warmly, and his face betrayed an ineffable satisfaction.
+
+�If my father had not returned it,� murmured the obstinate Marie-Anne,
+�my father would have been an unfaithful guardian--a thief. He has done
+only his duty.�
+
+M. d�Escorval turned to the young girl, a little surprised.
+
+�You speak the truth, Mademoiselle,� he said, reproachfully; �but when
+you are as old as I am, and have had my experience, you will know that
+the accomplishment of a duty is, under certain circumstances, a heroism
+of which few persons are capable.�
+
+M. Lacheneur turned to his friend.
+
+�Ah! your words do me good, Monsieur,� said he. �Now, I am content with
+what I have done.�
+
+The baroness rose, too much the woman to know how to resist the generous
+dictates of her heart.
+
+�And I, also, Monsieur Lacheneur,� she said, �desire to press your hand.
+I wish to tell you that I esteem you as much as I despise the ingrates
+who have sought to humiliate you, when they should have fallen at your
+feet. They are heartless monsters, the like of whom certainly cannot be
+found upon the earth.�
+
+�Alas!� sighed the baron, �the allies have brought back others who, like
+these men, think the world created exclusively for their benefit.�
+
+�And these people wish to be our masters,� growled Lacheneur.
+
+By some strange fatality no one chanced to hear the remark made by M.
+Lacheneur. Had they overheard and questioned him, he would probably have
+disclosed some of the projects which were as yet in embryo in his own
+mind; and in that case what disastrous consequences might have been
+averted.
+
+M. d�Escorval had regained his usual coolness.
+
+�Now, my dear friend,� he inquired, �what course do you propose to
+pursue with these members of the Sairmeuse family?�
+
+�They will hear nothing more from me--for some time, at least.�
+
+�What! Shall you not claim the ten thousand francs that they owe you?�
+
+�I shall ask them for nothing.�
+
+�You will be compelled to do so. Since you have alluded to the legacy,
+your own honor will demand that you insist upon its payment by all legal
+methods. There are still judges in France.�
+
+M. Lacheneur shook his head.
+
+�The judges will not accord me the justice I desire. I shall not apply
+to them.�
+
+�But----�
+
+�No, Monsieur, no. I wish to have nothing to do with these men. I
+shall not even go to the chateau to remove my clothing nor that of my
+daughter. If they send it to us--very well. If it pleases them to keep
+it, so much the better. The more shameful, infamous and odious their
+conduct appears, the better I shall be satisfied.�
+
+The baron made no reply; but his wife spoke, believing she had a sure
+means of conquering this incomprehensible obstinacy.
+
+�I should understand your determination if you were alone in the world,�
+ said she, �but you have children.�
+
+�My son is eighteen, Madame; he possesses good health and an excellent
+education. He can make his own way in Paris, if he chooses to remain
+there.�
+
+�But your daughter?�
+
+�Marie-Anne will remain with me.�
+
+M. d�Escorval thought it his duty to interfere.
+
+�Take care, my dear friend, that your grief does not overthrow your
+reason,� said he. �Reflect! What will become of you--your daughter and
+yourself?�
+
+The wretched man smiled sadly.
+
+�Oh,� he replied, �we are not as destitute as I said. I exaggerated our
+misfortune. We are still landed proprietors. Last year an old cousin,
+whom I could never induce to come and live at Sairmeuse, died,
+bequeathing all her property to Marie-Anne. This property consisted of a
+poor little cottage near the Reche, with a little garden and a few acres
+of sterile land. In compliance with my daughter�s entreaties, I repaired
+the cottage, and sent there a few articles of furniture--a table, some
+chairs, and a couple of beds. My daughter designed it as a home for old
+Father Guvat and his wife. And I, surrounded by wealth and luxury, said
+to myself: �How comfortable those two old people will be there.
+They will live as snug as a bug in a rug!� Well, what I thought so
+comfortable for others, will be good enough for me. I will raise
+vegetables, and Marie-Anne shall sell them.�
+
+Was he speaking seriously?
+
+Maurice must have supposed so, for he sprang forward.
+
+�This shall not be, Monsieur Lacheneur!� he exclaimed.
+
+�Oh----�
+
+�No, this shall not be, for I love Marie-Anne, and I ask you to give her
+to me for my wife.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Maurice and Marie-Anne had loved each other for many years.
+
+As children, they had played together in the magnificent grounds
+surrounding the Chateau de Sairmeuse, and in the park at Escorval.
+
+Together they chased the brilliant butterflies, searched for pebbles
+on the banks of the river, or rolled in the hay while their mothers
+sauntered through the meadows bordering the Oiselle.
+
+For their mothers were friends.
+
+Mme. Lacheneur had been reared like other poor peasant girls; that is
+to say, on the day of her marriage it was only with great difficulty she
+succeeded in inscribing her name upon the register.
+
+But from the example of her husband she had learned that prosperity, as
+well as _noblesse_, entails certain obligations upon one, and with rare
+courage, crowned with still rarer success, she had undertaken to acquire
+an education in keeping with her fortune and her new rank.
+
+And the baroness had made no effort to resist the sympathy that
+attracted her to this meritorious young woman, in whom she had discerned
+a really superior mind and a truly refined nature.
+
+When Mme. Lacheneur died, Mme. d�Escorval mourned for her as she would
+have mourned for a favorite sister.
+
+From that moment Maurice�s attachment assumed a more serious character.
+
+Educated in a Parisian lyceum, his teachers sometimes had occasion to
+complain of his want of application.
+
+�If your professors are not satisfied with you,� said his mother, �you
+shall not accompany me to Escorval on the coming of your vacation, and
+you will not see your little friend.�
+
+And this simple threat was always sufficient to make the school-boy
+resume his studies with redoubled diligence.
+
+So each year, as it passed, strengthened the _grande passion_ which
+preserved Maurice from the restlessness and the errors of adolescence.
+
+The two children were equally timid and artless, and equally infatuated
+with each other.
+
+Long walks in the twilight under the eyes of their parents, a glance
+that revealed their delight at meeting each other, flowers exchanged
+between them--which were religiously preserved--such were their simple
+pleasures.
+
+But that magical and sublime word, love--so sweet to utter, and so sweet
+to hear--had never once dropped from their lips.
+
+The audacity of Maurice had never gone beyond a furtive pressure of the
+hand.
+
+The parents could not be ignorant of this mutual affection; and if they
+pretended to shut their eyes, it was only because it did not displease
+them nor disturb their plans.
+
+M. and Mme. d�Escorval saw no objection to their son�s marriage with a
+young girl whose nobility of character they appreciated, and who was as
+beautiful as she was good. That she was the richest heiress in all the
+country round about was naturally no objection.
+
+So far as M. Lacheneur was concerned, he was delighted at the prospect
+of a marriage which would ally him, a former ploughboy, with an old
+family whose head was universally respected.
+
+So, although no direct allusion to the subject had ever escaped the lips
+of the baron or of M. Lacheneur, there was a tacit agreement between the
+two families.
+
+Yes, the marriage was considered a foregone conclusion.
+
+And yet this impetuous and unexpected declaration by Maurice struck
+everyone dumb.
+
+In spite of his agitation, the young man perceived the effect produced
+by his words, and frightened by his own boldness, he turned and looked
+questioningly at his father.
+
+The baron�s face was grave, even sad; but his attitude expressed no
+displeasure.
+
+This gave renewed courage to the anxious lover.
+
+�You will excuse me, Monsieur,� he said, addressing Lacheneur, �for
+presenting my request in such a manner, and at such a time. But surely,
+when fate glowers ominously upon you, that is the time when your friends
+should declare themselves--and deem themselves fortunate if their
+devotion can make you forget the infamous treatment to which you have
+been subjected.�
+
+As he spoke, he was watching Marie-Anne.
+
+Blushing and embarrassed, she turned away her head, perhaps to conceal
+the tears which inundated her face--tears of joy and of gratitude.
+
+The love of the man she adored came forth victorious from a test which
+it would not be prudent for many heiresses to impose.
+
+Now she could truly say that she knew Maurice�s heart.
+
+He, however, continued:
+
+�I have not consulted my father, sir; but I know his affection for me
+and his esteem for you. When the happiness of my life is at stake, he
+will not oppose me. He, who married my dear mother without a dowry, must
+understand my feelings.�
+
+He was silent, awaiting the verdict.
+
+�I approve your course, my son,� said M. d�Escorval, deeply affected;
+�you have conducted yourself like an honorable man. Certainly you
+are very young to become the head of a family; but, as you say,
+circumstances demand it.�
+
+He turned to M. Lacheneur, and added:
+
+�My dear friend, I, in my son�s behalf, ask the hand of your daughter in
+marriage.�
+
+Maurice had not expected so little opposition.
+
+In his delight he was almost tempted to bless the hateful Duc de
+Sairmeuse, to whom he would owe his approaching happiness.
+
+He sprang toward his father, and seizing his hands, he raised them to
+his lips, faltering:
+
+�Thanks! you are so good! I love you! Oh, how happy I am!�
+
+Alas! the poor boy was in too much haste to rejoice.
+
+A gleam of pride flashed in M. Lacheneur�s eyes; but his face soon
+resumed its gloomy expression.
+
+�Believe me, Monsieur le Baron, I am deeply touched by your grandeur of
+soul--yes, deeply touched. You wish to make me forget my humiliation;
+but, for this very reason, I should be the most contemptible of men if I
+did not refuse the great honor you desire to confer upon my daughter.�
+
+�What!� exclaimed the baron, in utter astonishment; �you refuse?�
+
+�I am compelled to do so.�
+
+Thunderstruck at first, Maurice afterward renewed the attack with an
+energy which no one had ever suspected in his character before.
+
+�Do you, then, wish to ruin my life, Monsieur?� he exclaimed; �to ruin
+_our_ life; for if I love Marie-Anne, she also loves me.�
+
+It was easy to see that he spoke the truth. The unhappy girl, crimson
+with happy blushes the moment before, had suddenly become whiter than
+marble, as she looked imploringly at her father.
+
+�It cannot be,� repeated M. Lacheneur; �and the day will come when you
+will bless the decision I make known at this moment.�
+
+Alarmed by her son�s evident agony, Mme. d�Escorval interposed:
+
+�You must have reasons for this refusal.�
+
+�None that I can disclose, Madame. But never while I live shall my
+daughter be your son�s wife!�
+
+�Ah! it will kill my child!� exclaimed the baroness.
+
+M. Lacheneur shook his head.
+
+�Monsieur Maurice,� said he, �is young; he will console himself--he will
+forget.�
+
+�Never!� interrupted the unhappy lover--�never!�
+
+�And your daughter?� inquired the baroness.
+
+Ah! this was the weak spot in his armor; the instinct of a mother was
+not mistaken. M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment; but he finally conquered
+the weakness that had threatened to master him.
+
+�Marie-Anne,� he replied, slowly, �knows her duty too well not to obey
+when I command. When I tell her the motive that governs my conduct, she
+will become resigned; and if she suffers, she will know how to conceal
+her sufferings.�
+
+He paused suddenly. They heard in the distance a firing of musketry, the
+discharge of rifles, whose sharp ring overpowered even the sullen roar
+of cannon.
+
+Every face grew pale. Circumstances imparted to these sounds an ominous
+significance.
+
+With the same anguish clutching the hearts of both, M. d�Escorval and
+Lacheneur sprang out upon the terrace.
+
+But all was still again. Extended as was the horizon, the eye could
+discern nothing unusual. The sky was blue; not a particle of smoke hung
+over the trees.
+
+�It is the enemy,� muttered M. Lacheneur, in a tone which told how
+gladly he would have shouldered his gun, and, with five hundred others,
+marched against the united allies.
+
+He paused. The explosions were repeated with still greater violence, and
+for a period of five minutes succeeded each other without cessation.
+
+M. d�Escorval listened with knitted brows.
+
+�That is not the fire of an engagement,� he murmured.
+
+To remain long in such a state of uncertainty was out of the question.
+
+�If you will permit me, father,� ventured Maurice, �I will go and
+ascertain----�
+
+�_Go_,� replied the baron, quietly; �but if it is anything, which I
+doubt, do not expose yourself to danger; return.�
+
+�Oh! be prudent!� insisted Mme. d�Escorval, who already saw her son
+exposed to the most frightful peril.
+
+�Be prudent!� entreated Marie-Anne, who alone understood what
+attractions danger might have for a despairing and unhappy man.
+
+These precautions were unnecessary. As Maurice was rushing to the door,
+his father stopped him.
+
+�Wait,� said he; �here is someone who can probably give us information.�
+
+A man had just appeared around a turn of the road leading to Sairmeuse.
+
+He was advancing bareheaded in the middle of the dusty road, with
+hurried strides, and occasionally brandishing his stick, as if
+threatening an enemy visible to himself alone.
+
+Soon they were able to distinguish his features.
+
+�It is Chanlouineau!� exclaimed M. Lacheneur.
+
+�The owner of the vineyards on the Borderie?�
+
+�The same! The handsomest young farmer in the country, and the best
+also. Ah! he has good blood in his veins; we may well be proud of him.�
+
+�Ask him to stop,� said M. d�Escorval.
+
+Lacheneur leaned over the balustrade, and, forming a trumpet out of his
+two hands, he called:
+
+�Oh! Chanlouineau!�
+
+The robust young farmer raised his head.
+
+�Come up,� shouted Lacheneur; �the baron wishes to speak with you.�
+
+Chanlouineau responded by a gesture of assent. They saw him enter
+the gate, cross the garden, and at last appear at the door of the
+drawing-room.
+
+His features were distorted with fury, his disordered clothing gave
+evidence of a serious conflict. His cravat was gone, and his torn
+shirt-collar revealed his muscular throat.
+
+�Where is this fighting?� demanded Lacheneur eagerly; �and with whom?�
+
+Chanlouineau gave a nervous laugh which resembled a roar of rage.
+
+�They are not fighting,� he replied; �they are amusing themselves. This
+firing which you hear is in honor of Monsieur le Duc de Sairmeuse.�
+
+�Impossible!�
+
+�I know it very well; and yet, what I have told you is the truth. It is
+the work of that miserable wretch and thief, Chupin. Ah, _canaille_! If
+I ever find him within reach of my arm he will never steal again.�
+
+M. Lacheneur was confounded.
+
+�Tell us what has happened,� he said, excitedly.
+
+�Oh, it is as clear as daylight. When the duke arrived at Sairmeuse,
+Chupin, the old scoundrel, with his two rascally boys, and that old hag,
+his wife, ran after the carriage like beggars after a diligence,
+crying, �Vive Monsieur le Duc!� The duke was enchanted, for he doubtless
+expected a volley of stones, and he placed a six-franc piece in the hand
+of each of the wretches. This money gave Chupin an appetite for more,
+so he took it into his head to give this old noble a reception like that
+which was given to the Emperor. Having learned through Bibiaine, whose
+tongue is as long as a viper�s, all that has passed at the presbytery,
+between you, Monsieur Lacheneur, and the duke, he came and proclaimed it
+in the market-place. When they heard it, all who had purchased national
+lands were frightened. Chupin had counted on this, and soon he began
+telling the poor fools that they must burn powder under the duke�s nose
+if they wished him to confirm their titles to their property.�
+
+�And did they believe him?�
+
+�Implicitly. It did not take them long to make their preparations. They
+went to the town hall and took the firemen�s rifles, and the guns used
+for firing a salute on fete days; the mayor gave them the powder, and
+you heard----
+
+�When I left Sairmeuse there were more than two hundred idiots before
+the presbytery, shouting:
+
+�_Vive Monseigneur! Vive le Duc de Sairmeuse_!�
+
+It was as d�Escorval had thought.
+
+�The same pitiful farce that was played in Paris, only on a smaller
+scale,� he murmured. �Avarice and human cowardice are the same the world
+over!�
+
+Meanwhile, Chanlouineau was going on with his recital.
+
+�To make the fete complete, the devil must have warned all the nobility
+in the neighborhood, for they all came running. They say that Monsieur
+de Sairmeuse is a favorite with the King, and that he can get anything
+he wishes. So you can imagine how they all greeted him! I am only a poor
+peasant, but never would I lie down in the dust before any man as these
+old nobles who are so haughty with us, did before the duke. They kissed
+his hands, and he allowed them to do it. He walked about the square with
+the Marquis de Courtornieu----�
+
+�And his son?� interrupted Maurice.
+
+�The Marquis Martial, is it not? He is also walking before the church
+with Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu upon his arm. Ah! I do not
+understand how people can call her pretty--a little bit of a thing,
+so blond that one might suppose her hair was gray. Ah! how those two
+laughed and made fun of the peasants. They say they are going to marry
+each other. And even this evening there is to be a banquet at the
+Chateau de Courtornieu in honor of the duke.�
+
+He had told all he knew. He paused.
+
+�You have forgotten only one thing,� said M. Lacheneur; �that is,
+to tell us how your clothing happened to be torn, as if you had been
+fighting.�
+
+The young farmer hesitated for a moment, then replied, somewhat
+brusquely:
+
+�I can tell you, all the same. While Chupin was preaching, I also
+preached, but not in the same strain. The scoundrel reported me. So, in
+crossing the square, the duke paused before me and remarked: �So you are
+an evil-disposed person?� I said no, but that I knew my rights. Then he
+took me by the coat and shook me, and told me that he would cure me,
+and that he would take possession of _his_ vineyard again. _Saint Dieu_!
+When I felt the old rascal�s hand upon me my blood boiled. I pinioned
+him. Fortunately, six or seven men fell upon me, and compelled me to let
+him go. But he had better make up his mind not to come prowling around
+my vineyard!�
+
+He clinched his hands, his eyes blazed ominously, his whole person
+breathed an intense desire for vengeance.
+
+And M. d�Escorval was silent, fearing to aggravate this hatred,
+so imprudently kindled, and whose explosion, he believed, would be
+terrible.
+
+M. Lacheneur had risen from his chair.
+
+�I must go and take possession of my cottage,� he remarked to
+Chanlouineau; �you will accompany me; I have a proposition to make to
+you.�
+
+M. and Mme. d�Escorval endeavored to detain him, but he would not allow
+himself to be persuaded, and he departed with his daughter.
+
+But Maurice did not despair; Marie-Anne had promised to meet him the
+following day in the pine-grove near the Reche.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The demonstrations which had greeted the Duc de Sairmeuse had been
+correctly reported by Chanlouineau.
+
+Chupin had found the secret of kindling to a white heat the enthusiasm
+of the cold and calculating peasants who were his neighbors.
+
+He was a dangerous rascal, the old robber, shrewd and cautious; bold, as
+those who possess nothing can afford to be; as patient as a savage; in
+short, one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever existed.
+
+The peasants feared him, and yet they had no conception of his real
+character.
+
+All his resources of mind had, until now, been expended in evading the
+precipice of the rural code.
+
+To save himself from falling into the hands of the gendarmes, and to
+steal a few sacks of wheat, he had expended treasures of intrigue which
+would have made the fortunes of twenty diplomats.
+
+Circumstances, as he always said, had been against him.
+
+So he desperately caught at the first and only opportunity worthy of his
+talent, which had ever presented itself.
+
+Of course, the wily rustic had said nothing of the true circumstances
+which attended the restoration of Sairmeuse to its former owner.
+
+From him, the peasants learned only the bare fact; and the news spread
+rapidly from group to group.
+
+�Monsieur Lacheneur has given up Sairmeuse,� said he. �Chateau, forests,
+vineyards, fields--he surrenders everything.�
+
+This was enough, and more than enough to terrify every land-owner in the
+village.
+
+If Lacheneur, this man who was so powerful in their eyes, considered the
+danger so threatening that he deemed it necessary or advisable to make
+a complete surrender, what was to become of them--poor devils--without
+aid, without counsel, without defence?
+
+They were told that the government was about to betray their interests;
+that a decree was in process of preparation which would render their
+title-deeds worthless. They could see no hope of salvation, except
+through the duke�s generosity--that generosity which Chupin painted with
+the glowing colors of the rainbow.
+
+When one is not strong enough to weather the gale, one must bow like the
+reed before it and rise again after the storm has passed; such was their
+conclusion.
+
+And they bowed. And their apparent enthusiasm was all the more
+vociferous on account of the rage and fear that filled their hearts.
+
+A close observer would have detected an undercurrent of anger and menace
+in their shouts.
+
+Each man also said to himself:
+
+�What do we risk by crying, �Vive le Duc?� Nothing; absolutely
+nothing. If he is contented with that as a compensation for his lost
+property--good! If he is not content, we shall have time afterward to
+adopt other measures.�
+
+So they shouted themselves hoarse.
+
+And while the duke was sipping his coffee in the little drawing-room
+of the presbytery, he expressed his lively satisfaction at the scene
+without.
+
+He, this _grand seigneur_ of times gone by, this man of absurd
+prejudices and obstinate illusions; the unconquerable, and the
+incorrigible--he took these acclamations, �truly spurious coin,� as
+Chateaubriand says, for ready money.
+
+�How you have deceived me, cure,� he was saying to Abbe Midon. �How
+could you declare that your people were unfavorably disposed toward us?
+One is compelled to believe that these evil intentions exist only in
+your own mind and in your own heart.�
+
+Abbe Midon was silent. What could he reply?
+
+He could not understand this sudden revolution in public opinion--this
+abrupt change from gloom and discontent to excessive gayety.
+
+There is somebody at the bottom of all this, he thought.
+
+It was not long before it became apparent who that somebody was.
+
+Emboldened by his success without, Chupin ventured to present himself at
+the presbytery.
+
+He entered the drawing-room with his back rounded into a circle,
+scraping and cringing, an obsequious smile upon his lips.
+
+And through the half-open door one could discern, in the shadows of the
+passage, the far from reassuring faces of his two sons.
+
+He came as an ambassador, he declared, after an interminable litany of
+protestations--he came to implore monseigneur to show himself upon the
+public square.
+
+�Ah, well--yes,� exclaimed the duke, rising; �yes, I will yield to the
+wishes of these good people. Follow me, Marquis!�
+
+As he appeared at the door of the presbytery, a loud shout rent the air;
+the rifles were discharged, the guns belched forth their smoke and fire.
+Never had Sairmeuse heard such a salvo of artillery. Three windows in
+the Boeuf Couronne were shattered.
+
+A veritable _grand seigneur_, the Duc de Sairmeuse knew how to preserve
+an appearance of haughtiness and indifference. Any display of emotion
+was, in his opinion, vulgar; but, in reality, he was delighted, charmed.
+
+So delighted that he desired to reward his welcomers.
+
+A glance over the deeds handed him by Lacheneur had shown him that
+Sairmeuse had been restored to him intact.
+
+The portions of the immense domain which had been detached and sold
+separately were of relatively minor importance.
+
+The duke thought it would be politic, and, at the same time,
+inexpensive, to abandon all claim to these few acres, which were now
+shared by forty or fifty peasants.
+
+�My friends,� he exclaimed, in a loud voice, �I renounce, for myself and
+for my descendants, all claim to the lands belonging to my house which
+you have purchased. They are yours--I give them to you!�
+
+By this absurd pretence of a gift, M. de Sairmeuse thought to add the
+finishing touch to his popularity. A great mistake! It simply assured
+the popularity of Chupin, the organizer of the farce.
+
+And while the duke was promenading through the crowd with a proud and
+self-satisfied air, the peasants were secretly laughing and jeering at
+him.
+
+And if they promptly took sides with him against Chanlouineau, it
+was only because his gift was still fresh in their minds; except for
+this----
+
+But the duke had not time to think much about this encounter, which
+produced a vivid impression upon his son.
+
+One of his former companions in exile, the Marquis de Courtornieu, whom
+he had informed of his arrival, hastened to welcome him, accompanied by
+his daughter, Mlle. Blanche.
+
+Martial could do no less than offer his arm to the daughter of his
+father�s friend; and they took a leisurely promenade in the shade of
+the lofty trees, while the duke renewed his acquaintance with all the
+nobility of the neighborhood.
+
+There was not a single nobleman who did not hasten to press the hand of
+the Duc de Sairmeuse. First, he possessed, it was said, a property of
+more than twenty millions in England. Then, he was the friend of the
+King, and each neighbor had some favor to ask for himself, for his
+relatives, or for his friends.
+
+Poor king! He should have had entire France to divide like a cake
+between these cormorants, whose voracious appetites it was impossible to
+satisfy.
+
+That evening, after a grand banquet at the Chateau de Courtornieu,
+the duke slept in the Chateau de Sairmeuse, in the room which had been
+occupied by Lacheneur, �like Louis XVIII.,� he laughingly said, �in the
+chamber of Bonaparte.�
+
+He was gay, chatty, and full of confidence in the future.
+
+�Ah! it is good to be in one�s own house!� he remarked to his son again
+and again.
+
+But Martial responded only mechanically. His mind was occupied with
+thoughts of two women who had made a profound impression upon his by
+no means susceptible heart that day. He was thinking of those two young
+girls, so utterly unlike. Blanche de Courtornieu--Marie-Anne Lacheneur.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Only those who, in the bright springtime of life, have loved, have been
+loved in return, and have suddenly seen an impassable gulf open between
+them and happiness, can realize Maurice d�Escorval�s disappointment.
+
+All the dreams of his life, all his future plans, were based upon his
+love for Marie-Anne.
+
+If this love failed him, the enchanted castle which hope had erected
+would crumble and fall, burying him in the ruins.
+
+Without Marie-Anne he saw neither aim nor motive in his existence. Still
+he did not suffer himself to be deluded by false hopes. Although at
+first, his appointed meeting with Marie-Anne on the following day
+seemed salvation itself, on reflection he was forced to admit that this
+interview would change nothing, since everything depended upon the will
+of another party--the will of M. Lacheneur.
+
+The remainder of the day he passed in mournful silence. The dinner-hour
+came; he took his seat at the table, but it was impossible for him
+to swallow a morsel, and he soon requested his parents� permission to
+withdraw.
+
+M. d�Escorval and the baroness exchanged a sorrowful glance, but did not
+allow themselves to offer any comment.
+
+They respected his grief. They knew that his was one of those sorrows
+which are only aggravated by any attempt at consolation.
+
+�Poor Maurice!� murmured Mme. d�Escorval, as soon as her son had left
+the room. And, as her husband made no reply: �Perhaps,� she added,
+hesitatingly, �perhaps it will not be prudent for us to leave him too
+entirely to the dictates of his despair.�
+
+The baron shuddered. He divined only too well the terrible apprehensions
+of his wife.
+
+�We have nothing to fear,� he replied, quickly; �I heard Marie-Anne
+promise to meet Maurice to-morrow in the grove on the Reche.�
+
+The anxious mother breathed more freely. Her blood had frozen with
+horror at the thought that her son might, perhaps, be contemplating
+suicide; but she was a mother, and her husband�s assurances did not
+satisfy her.
+
+She hastily ascended the stairs leading to her son�s room, softly opened
+the door, and looked in. He was so engrossed in his gloomy revery that
+he had heard nothing, and did not even suspect the presence of the
+anxious mother who was watching over him.
+
+He was sitting at the window, his elbows resting upon the sill, his head
+supported by his hands, looking out into the night.
+
+There was no moon, but the night was clear, and over beyond the light
+fog that indicated the course of the Oiselle one could discern the
+imposing mass of the Chateau de Sairmeuse, with its towers and fanciful
+turrets.
+
+More than once he had sat thus silently gazing at this chateau, which
+sheltered what was dearest and most precious in all the world to him.
+
+From his windows he could see those of the room occupied by Marie-Anne;
+and his heart always quickened its throbbing when he saw them
+illuminated.
+
+�She is there,� he thought, �in her virgin chamber. She is kneeling to
+say her prayers. She murmurs my name after that of her father, imploring
+God�s blessing upon us both.�
+
+But this evening he was not waiting for a light to gleam through the
+panes of that dear window.
+
+Marie-Anne was no longer at Sairmeuse--she had been driven away.
+
+Where was she now? She, accustomed to all the luxury that wealth could
+procure, no longer had any home except a poor thatch-covered hovel,
+whose walls were not even whitewashed, whose only floor was the earth
+itself, dusty as the public highway in summer, frozen or muddy in
+winter.
+
+She was reduced to the necessity of occupying herself the humble abode
+she, in her charitable heart, had intended as an asylum for one of her
+pensioners.
+
+What was she doing now? Doubtless she was weeping.
+
+At this thought poor Maurice was heartbroken.
+
+What was his surprise, a little after midnight, to see the chateau
+brilliantly illuminated.
+
+The duke and his son had repaired to the chateau after the banquet given
+by the Marquis de Courtornieu was over; and, before going to bed, they
+made a tour of inspection through this magnificent abode in which
+their ancestors had lived. They, therefore, might be said to have
+taken possession of the mansion whose threshold M. de Sairmeuse had not
+crossed for twenty-two years, and which Martial had never seen.
+
+Maurice saw the lights leap from story to story, from casement to
+casement, until at last even the windows of Marie-Anne�s room were
+illuminated.
+
+At this sight the unhappy youth could not restrain a cry of rage.
+
+These men, these strangers, dared enter this virgin bower, which he,
+even in thought, scarcely dared to penetrate.
+
+They trampled carelessly over the delicate carpet with their heavy
+boots. Maurice trembled in thinking of the liberties which they, in
+their insolent familiarity, might venture upon. He fancied he could see
+them examining and handling the thousand petty trifles with which young
+girls love to surround themselves; they opened the presses, perhaps they
+were reading an unfinished letter lying upon her writing-desk.
+
+Never until this evening had Martial supposed he could hate another as
+he hated these men.
+
+At last, in despair, he threw himself upon his bed, and passed the
+remainder of the night in thinking over what he should say to Marie-Anne
+on the morrow, and in seeking some issue from this inextricable
+labyrinth.
+
+He rose before daybreak, and wandered about the park like a soul in
+distress, fearing, yet longing, for the hour that would decide his fate.
+Mme. d�Escorval was obliged to exert all her authority to make him take
+some nourishment. He had quite forgotten that he had passed twenty-four
+hours without eating.
+
+When eleven o�clock sounded he left the house.
+
+The lands of the Reche are situated on the other side of the Oiselle.
+Maurice, to reach his destination, was obliged to cross the river at
+a ferry only a short distance from his home. When he reached the
+river-bank he found six or seven peasants who were waiting to cross.
+
+These people did not observe Maurice. They were talking earnestly, and
+he listened.
+
+�It is certainly true,� said one of the men. �I heard it from
+Chanlouineau himself only last evening. He was wild with delight. �I
+invite you all to the wedding!� he cried. �I am betrothed to Monsieur
+Lacheneur�s daughter; the affair is decided.��
+
+This astounding news positively stunned Maurice. He was actually unable
+to think or to move.
+
+�Besides, he has been in love with her for a long time. Everyone knows
+that. One had only to see his eyes when he met her--coals of fire were
+nothing to them. But while her father was so rich he did not dare to
+speak. Now that the old man has met with these reverses, he ventures to
+offer himself, and is accepted.�
+
+�An unfortunate thing for him,� remarked a little old man.
+
+�Why so?�
+
+�If Monsieur Lacheneur is ruined, as they say----�
+
+The others laughed heartily.
+
+�Ruined--Monsieur Lacheneur!� they exclaimed in chorus. �How absurd!
+He is richer than all of us together. Do you suppose that he has been
+stupid enough not to have laid anything aside during all these years? He
+has put this money not in grounds, as he pretends, but somewhere else.�
+
+�You are saying what is untrue!� interrupted Maurice, indignantly.
+�Monsieur Lacheneur left Sairmeuse as poor as he entered it.�
+
+On recognizing M. d�Escorval�s son, the peasants became extremely
+cautious. He questioned them, but could obtain only vague and
+unsatisfactory answers. A peasant, when interrogated, will never give
+a response which he thinks will be displeasing to his questioner; he is
+afraid of compromising himself.
+
+The news he had heard, however, caused Maurice to hasten on still more
+rapidly after crossing the Oiselle.
+
+�Marie-Anne marry Chanlouineau!� he repeated; �it is impossible! it is
+impossible!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Reche, literally translated the �Waste,� where Marie-Anne had
+promised to meet Maurice, owed its name to the rebellious and sterile
+character of the soil.
+
+Nature seemed to have laid her curse upon it. Nothing would grow there.
+The ground was covered with stones, and the sandy soil defied all
+attempts to enrich it.
+
+A few stunted oaks rose here and there above the thorns and broom-plant.
+
+But on the lowlands of the Reche is a flourishing grove. The firs are
+straight and strong, for the floods of winter have deposited in some
+of the clefts of the rock sufficient soil to sustain them and the wild
+clematis and honeysuckle that cling to their branches.
+
+On reaching this grove, Maurice consulted his watch. It marked the hour
+of mid-day. He had supposed that he was late, but he was more than an
+hour in advance of the appointed time.
+
+He seated himself upon a high rock, from which he could survey the
+entire Reche, and waited.
+
+The day was magnificent; the air intensely hot. The rays of the August
+sun fell with scorching violence upon the sandy soil, and withered the
+few plants which had sprung up since the last rain.
+
+The stillness was profound, almost terrible. Not a sound broke the
+silence, not even the buzzing of an insect, nor a whisper of breeze in
+the trees. All nature seemed sleeping. And on no side was there anything
+to remind one of life, motion, or mankind.
+
+This repose of nature, which contrasted so vividly with the tumult
+raging in his own heart, exerted a beneficial effect upon Maurice.
+These few moments of solitude afforded him an opportunity to regain his
+composure, to collect his thoughts scattered by the storm of passion
+which had swept over his soul, as leaves are scattered by the fierce
+November gale.
+
+With sorrow comes experience, and that cruel knowledge of life which
+teaches one to guard one�s self against one�s hopes.
+
+It was not until he heard the conversation of these peasants that
+Maurice fully realized the horror of Lacheneur�s position. Suddenly
+precipitated from the social eminence which he had attained, he found,
+in the valley of humiliations into which he was cast, only hatred,
+distrust, and scorn. Both factions despised and denied him. Traitor,
+cried one; thief, cried the other. He no longer held any social status.
+He was the fallen man, the man who _had_ been, and who was no more.
+
+Was not the excessive misery of such a position a sufficient explanation
+of the strangest and wildest resolutions?
+
+This thought made Maurice tremble. Connecting the stories of the
+peasants with the words addressed to Chanlouineau at Escorval by M.
+Lacheneur on the preceding evening, he arrived at the conclusion that
+this report of Marie-Anne�s approaching marriage to the young farmer was
+not so improbable as he had at first supposed.
+
+But why should M. Lacheneur give his daughter to an uncultured peasant?
+From mercenary motives? Certainly not, since he had just refused an
+alliance of which he had been proud in his days of prosperity. Could it
+be in order to satisfy his wounded pride, then? Perhaps he did not wish
+it to be said that he owed anything to a son-in-law.
+
+Maurice was exhausting all his ingenuity and penetration in endeavoring
+to solve this mystery, when at last, on a foot-path which crosses the
+waste, a woman appeared--Marie-Anne.
+
+He rose, but fearing observation, did not venture to leave the shelter
+of the grove.
+
+Marie-Anne must have felt a similar fear, for she hurried on, casting
+anxious glances on every side as she ran. Maurice remarked, not without
+surprise, that she was bare-headed, and that she had neither shawl nor
+scarf about her shoulders.
+
+As she reached the edge of the wood, he sprang toward her, and catching
+her hand raised it to his lips.
+
+But this hand, which she had so often yielded to him, was now gently
+withdrawn, with so sad a gesture that he could not help feeling there
+was no hope.
+
+�I came, Maurice,� she began, �because I could not endure the thought of
+your anxiety. By doing so I have betrayed my father�s confidence--he was
+obliged to leave home. I hastened here. And yet I promised him, only two
+hours ago, that I would never see you again. You hear me--never!�
+
+She spoke hurriedly, but Maurice was appalled by the firmness of her
+accent.
+
+Had he been less agitated, he would have seen what a terrible effort
+this semblance of calmness cost the young girl. He would have understood
+it from her pallor, from the contraction of her lips, from the redness
+of the eyelids which she had vainly bathed with fresh water, and which
+betrayed the tears that had fallen during the night.
+
+�If I have come,� she continued, �it is only to tell you that, for
+your own sake, as well as for mine, there must not remain in the secret
+recesses of your heart even the slightest shadow of a hope. All is over;
+we are separated forever! Only weak natures revolt against a destiny
+which they cannot alter. Let us accept our fate uncomplainingly. I
+wished to see you once more, and to say this: Have courage, Maurice. Go
+away--leave Escorval--forget me!�
+
+�Forget you, Marie-Anne!� exclaimed the wretched young man, �forget
+you!�
+
+His eyes met hers, and in a husky voice he added:
+
+�Will you then forget me?�
+
+�I am a woman, Maurice--�
+
+But he interrupted her:
+
+�Ah! I did not expect this,� he said, despondently. �Poor fool that I
+was! I believed that you would find a way to touch your father�s heart.�
+
+She blushed slightly, hesitated, and said:
+
+�I have thrown myself at my father�s feet; he repulsed me.�
+
+Maurice was thunderstruck, but recovering himself:
+
+�It was because you did not know how to speak to him!� he exclaimed in
+a passion of fury; �but I shall know--I will present such arguments that
+he will be forced to yield. What right has he to ruin my happiness with
+his caprices? I love you---by right of this love, you are mine--mine
+rather than his! I will make him understand this, you shall see. Where
+is he? Where can I find him?�
+
+Already he was starting to go, he knew not where. Marie-Anne caught him
+by the arm.
+
+�Remain,� she commanded, �remain! So you have failed to understand me,
+Maurice. Ah, well! you must know the truth. I am acquainted now with the
+reasons of my father�s refusal; and though his decision should cost me
+my life, I approve it. Do not go to find my father. If, moved by your
+prayers, he gave his consent, I should have the courage to refuse mine!�
+
+Maurice was so beside himself that this reply did not enlighten him.
+Crazed with anger and despair, and with no remorse for the insult he
+addressed to this woman whom he loved so deeply, he exclaimed:
+
+�Is it for Chanlouineau, then, that you are reserving your consent? He
+believes so since he goes about everywhere saying that you will soon be
+his wife.�
+
+Marie-Anne shuddered as if a knife had entered her very heart; and yet
+there was more sorrow than anger in the glance she cast upon Maurice.
+
+�Must I stoop so low as to defend myself from such an imputation?� she
+asked, sadly. �Must I declare that if even I suspect such an arrangement
+between Chanlouineau and my father, I have not been consulted? Must I
+tell you that there are some sacrifices which are beyond the strength
+of poor human nature? Understand this: I have found strength to renounce
+the man I love--I shall never be able to accept another in his place!�
+
+Maurice hung his head, abashed by her earnest words, dazzled by the
+sublime expression of her face.
+
+Reason returned; he realized the enormity of his suspicions, and was
+horrified with himself for having dared to give utterance to them.
+
+�Oh! pardon!� he faltered, �pardon!�
+
+What did the mysterious causes of all these events which had so rapidly
+succeeded each other, or M. Lacheneur�s secrets, or Marie-Anne�s
+reticence, matter to him now?
+
+He was seeking some chance of salvation; he believed that he had found
+it.
+
+�We must fly!� he exclaimed: �fly at once without pausing to look back.
+Before night we shall have passed the frontier.�
+
+He sprang toward her with outstretched arms, as if to seize her and bear
+her away; but she checked him by a single look.
+
+�Fly!� said she, reproachfully; �fly! and is it you, Maurice, who
+counsel me thus? What! while misfortune is crushing my poor father to
+the earth, shall I add despair and shame to his sorrows? His friends
+have deserted him; shall I, his daughter, also abandon him? Ah! if I
+did that, I should be the vilest, the most cowardly of creatures! If
+my father, yesterday, when I believed him the owner of Sairmeuse, had
+demanded the sacrifice to which I consented last evening, I might,
+perhaps, have resolved upon the extreme measure you have counselled. In
+broad daylight I might have left Sairmeuse on the arm of my lover. It
+is not the world that I fear! But if one might consent to fly from the
+chateau of a rich and happy father, one _cannot_ consent to desert the
+poor abode of a despairing and penniless parent. Leave me, Maurice,
+where honor holds me. It will not be difficult for me, who am the
+daughter of generations of peasants, to become a peasant. Go! I cannot
+endure more! Go! and remember that one cannot be utterly wretched if
+one�s conscience is clean, and one�s duty fulfilled!�
+
+Maurice was about to reply, when a crackling of dry branches made him
+turn his head.
+
+Scarcely ten paces off, Martial de Sairmeuse was standing motionless,
+leaning upon his gun.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse had slept little and poorly on the night following
+his return, or his restoration, as he styled it.
+
+Inaccessible, as he pretended to be, to the emotions which agitate the
+common herd, the scenes of the day had greatly excited him.
+
+He could not help reviewing them, although he made it the rule of his
+life never to reflect.
+
+While exposed to the scrutiny of the peasants and of his acquaintances
+at the Chateau de Courtornieu, he felt that his honor required him
+to appear cold and indifferent, but as soon as he had retired to the
+privacy of his own chamber, he gave free vent to his excessive joy.
+
+For his joy _was_ intense, almost verging on delirium.
+
+Now he was forced to admit to himself the immense service Lacheneur had
+rendered him in restoring Sairmeuse.
+
+This poor man to whom he had displayed the blackest ingratitude, this
+man, honest to heroism, whom he had treated as an unfaithful servant,
+had just relieved him of an anxiety which had poisoned his life.
+
+Lacheneur had just placed the Duc de Sairmeuse beyond the reach of a not
+probable, but very possible calamity which he had dreaded for some time.
+
+If his secret anxiety had been made known, it would have created much
+merriment.
+
+�Nonsense!� people would have exclaimed, �everyone knows that the
+Sairmeuse possesses property to the amount of at least eight or ten
+millions, in England.�
+
+This was true. Only these millions, which had accrued from the estate of
+the duchess and of Lord Holland, had not been bequeathed to the duke.
+
+He enjoyed absolute control of this enormous fortune; he disposed of
+the capital and of the immense revenues to please himself; but it all
+belonged to his son--to his only son.
+
+The duke possessed nothing--a pitiful income of twelve hundred francs,
+perhaps; but, strictly speaking, not even the means of subsistence.
+
+Martial, certainly, had never said a word which would lead him to
+suspect that he had any intention of removing his property from his
+father�s control; but he might possibly utter this word.
+
+Had he not good reason to believe that sooner or later this fatal word
+would be uttered?
+
+And even at the thought of such a contingency he shuddered with horror.
+
+He saw himself reduced to a pension, a very handsome pension,
+undoubtedly, but still a fixed, immutable, regular pension, by which he
+would be obliged to regulate his expenditures.
+
+He would be obliged to calculate that two ends might meet--he, who had
+been accustomed to inexhaustible coffers.
+
+�And this will necessarily happen sooner or later,� he thought. �If
+Martial should marry, or if he should become ambitious, or meet with
+evil counsellors, that will be the end of my reign.�
+
+He watched and studied his son as a jealous woman studies and watches
+the lover she mistrusts. He thought he read in his eyes many thoughts
+which were not there; and according as he saw him, gay or sad, careless
+or preoccupied, he was reassured or still more alarmed.
+
+Sometimes he imagined the worst. �If I should quarrel with Martial,� he
+thought, �he would take possession of his entire fortune, and I should
+be left without bread.�
+
+These torturing apprehensions were, to a man who judged the sentiments
+of others by his own, a terrible chastisement.
+
+Ah! no one would have wished his existence at the price he paid for
+it--not even the poor wretches who envied his lot and his apparent
+happiness, as they saw him roll by in his magnificent carriage.
+
+There were days when he almost went mad.
+
+�What am I?� he exclaimed, foaming with rage. �A mere plaything in the
+hands of a child. My son owns me. If I displease him, he casts me aside.
+Yes, he can dismiss me as he would a lackey. If I enjoy his fortune,
+it is only because he is willing that I should do so. I owe my very
+existence, as well as my luxuries, to his charity. But a moment of
+anger, even a caprice, may deprive me of everything.�
+
+With such ideas in his brain, the duke could not love his son.
+
+He hated him.
+
+He passionately envied him all the advantages he possessed--his youth,
+his millions, his physical beauty, and his talents, which were really of
+a superior order.
+
+We meet every day mothers who are jealous of their daughters, and some
+fathers!
+
+This was one of those cases.
+
+The duke, however, showed no sign of mental disquietude; and if Martial
+had possessed less penetration, he would have believed that his father
+adored him. But if he had detected the duke�s secret, he did not allow
+him to discover it, nor did he abuse his power.
+
+Their manner toward each other was perfect. The duke was kind even to
+weakness; Martial full of deference. But their relations were not those
+of father and son. One was in constant fear of displeasing the other;
+the other was a little too sure of his power. They lived on a footing of
+perfect equality, like two companions of the same age.
+
+From this trying situation, Lacheneur had rescued the duke.
+
+The owner of Sairmeuse, an estate worth more than a million, the duke
+was free from his son�s tyranny; he had recovered his liberty.
+
+What brilliant projects flitted through his brain that night!
+
+He beheld himself the richest landowner in that locality; he was the
+chosen friend of the King; had he not a right to aspire to anything?
+
+Such a prospect enchanted him. He felt twenty years younger--the twenty
+years that had been passed in exile.
+
+So, rising before nine o�clock, he went to awaken Martial.
+
+On returning from dining with the Marquis de Courtornieu, the
+evening before, the duke had gone through the chateau; but this hasty
+examination by candle-light had not satisfied his curiosity. He wished
+to see it in detail by daylight.
+
+Followed by his son, he explored one after another of the rooms of the
+princely abode; and, with every step, the recollections of his infancy
+crowded upon him.
+
+Lacheneur had respected everything. The duke found articles as old as
+himself, religiously preserved, occupying the old familiar places from
+which they had never been removed.
+
+When his inspection was concluded:
+
+�Decidedly, Marquis,� he exclaimed, �this Lacheneur was not such a
+rascal as I supposed. I am disposed to forgive him a great deal, on
+account of the care which he has taken of our house in our absence.�
+
+Martial seemed engrossed in thought.
+
+�I think, Monsieur,� he said, at last, �that we should testify our
+gratitude to this man by paying him a large indemnity.�
+
+This word excited the duke�s anger.
+
+�An indemnity!� he exclaimed. �Are you mad, Marquis? Think of the income
+that he has received from my estate. Have you forgotten the calculation
+made for us last evening by the Chevalier de la Livandiere?�
+
+�The chevalier is a fool!� declared Martial promptly. �He forgot that
+Lacheneur has trebled the value of Sairmeuse. I think that our family
+honor requires us to bestow upon this man an indemnity of at least
+one hundred thousand francs. This would, moreover, be a good stroke of
+policy in the present state of public sentiment, and His Majesty would,
+I am sure, be much pleased.�
+
+�Stroke of policy�--�public sentiment�--�His Majesty.� One might have
+obtained almost anything from M. de Sairmeuse by these arguments.
+
+�Heavenly powers!� he exclaimed; �a hundred thousand francs! how you
+talk! It is all very well for you, with your fortune! Still, if you
+really think so----�
+
+�Ah! my dear sir, is not my fortune yours? Yes, such is really my
+opinion. So much so, indeed, that if you will allow me to do so, I will
+see Lacheneur myself, and arrange the matter in such a way that his
+pride will not be wounded. His is a devotion which it would be well to
+retain.�
+
+The duke opened his eyes to their widest extent.
+
+�Lacheneur�s pride!� he murmured. �Devotion which it would be well to
+retain! Why do you sing in this strain? Whence comes this extraordinary
+interest?�
+
+He paused, enlightened by a sudden recollection.
+
+�I understand!� he exclaimed; �I understand. He has a pretty daughter.�
+
+Martial smiled without replying.
+
+�Yes, pretty as a rose,� continued the duke; �but one hundred thousand
+francs! Zounds! That is a round sum to pay for such a whim. But, if you
+insist upon it----�
+
+Armed with this authorization, Martial, two hours later, started on his
+mission.
+
+The first peasant he met told him the way to the cottage which M.
+Lacheneur now occupied.
+
+�Follow the river,� said the man, �and when you see a pine-grove upon
+your left, cross it.�
+
+Martial was crossing it, when he heard the sound of voices. He
+approached, recognized Marie-Anne and Maurice d�Escorval, and obeying an
+angry impulse, he paused.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+During the decisive moments of life, when one�s entire future depends
+upon a word, or a gesture, twenty contradictory inspirations can
+traverse the mind in the time occupied by a flash of lightning.
+
+On the sudden apparition of the young Marquis de Sairmeuse, Maurice
+d�Escorval�s first thought was this:
+
+�How long has he been there? Has he been playing the spy? Has he been
+listening to us? What did he hear?�
+
+His first impulse was to spring upon his enemy, to strike him in the
+face, and compel him to engage in a hand-to-hand struggle.
+
+The thought of Anne-Marie checked him.
+
+He reflected upon the possible, even probable results of a quarrel born
+of such circumstances. The combat which would ensue would cost this pure
+young girl her reputation. Martial would talk of it; and country people
+are pitiless. He saw this girl, whom he looked so devotedly upon, become
+the talk of the neighborhood; saw the finger of scorn pointed at her,
+and possessed sufficient self-control to master his anger. All these
+reflections had occupied only half a second.
+
+Then, politely touching his hat, and stepping toward Martial:
+
+�You are a stranger, Monsieur,� said he, in a voice which was
+frightfully altered, �and you have doubtless lost your way?� His words
+were ill-chosen, and defeated his prudent intentions. A curt �Mind your
+own business� would have been less wounding. He forgot that this word
+�stranger� was the most deadly insult that one could cast in the face of
+the former _emigres_, who had returned with the allied armies.
+
+Still the young marquis did not change his insolently nonchalant
+attitude.
+
+He touched the visor of his hunting cap with his finger, and replied:
+
+�It is true--I have lost my way.�
+
+Agitated as Marie-Anne was, she could not fail to understand that her
+presence was all that restrained the hatred of these two young men.
+Their attitude, the glance with which they measured each other, did not
+leave the shadow of a doubt on that score. If one was ready to spring
+upon the other, the other was on the alert, ready to defend himself.
+
+The silence of nearly a moment which followed was as threatening as the
+profound calm which precedes the storm.
+
+Martial was the first to break it.
+
+�A peasant�s directions are not generally remarkable for their
+clearness,� he said, lightly; �and for more than an hour I have been
+seeking the house to which Monsieur Lacheneur has retired.�
+
+�Ah!�
+
+�I am sent to him by the Duc de Sairmeuse, my father.�
+
+Knowing what he did, Maurice supposed that these strangely rapacious
+individuals had some new demand to make.
+
+�I thought,� said he, �that all relations between Monsieur Lacheneur and
+Monsieur de Sairmeuse were broken off last evening at the house of the
+abbe.�
+
+This was said in the most provoking manner, and yet Martial never so
+much as frowned. He had sworn that he would remain calm, and he had
+strength enough to keep his word.
+
+�If these relations--as God forbid--have been broken off,� he replied,
+�believe me, Monsieur d�Escorval, it is no fault of ours.�
+
+�Then it is not as people say?�
+
+�What people? Who?�
+
+�The people here in the neighborhood.�
+
+�Ah! And what do these people say?�
+
+�The truth. That you have been guilty of an offence which a man of honor
+could never forgive nor forget.�
+
+The young marquis shook his head gravely.
+
+�You are quick to condemn, sir,� he said, coldly. �Permit me to hope
+that Monsieur Lacheneur will be less severe than yourself; and that his
+resentment--just, I confess, will vanish before�--he hesitated--�before
+a truthful explanation.�
+
+Such an expression from the lips of this haughty young aristocrat! Was
+it possible?
+
+Martial profited by the effect he had produced to advance toward
+Marie-Anne, and, addressing himself exclusively to her, seemed after
+that to ignore the presence of Maurice completely.
+
+�For there has been a mistake--a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle,� he
+continued. �Do not doubt it. The Sairmeuse are not ingrates. How
+could anyone have supposed that we would intentionally give offense
+to a--devoted friend of our family, and that at a moment when he had
+rendered us a most signal service! A true gentleman like my father, and
+a hero of probity like yours, cannot fail to esteem each other. I admit
+that in the scene of yesterday, Monsieur de Sairmeuse did not appear to
+advantage; but the step he takes today proves his sincere regret.�
+
+Certainly this was not the cavalier tone which he had employed in
+addressing Marie-Anne, for the first time, on the square in front of the
+church.
+
+He had removed his hat, he remained half inclined before her, and
+he spoke in a tone of profound respect, as though it were a haughty
+duchess, and not the humble daughter of that �rascal� Lacheneur whom he
+was addressing.
+
+Was it only a _roue�s_ manoeuvre? Or had he also involuntarily submitted
+to the power of this beautiful girl? It was both; and it would have
+been difficult for him to say where the voluntary ended, and where the
+involuntary began.
+
+He continued:
+
+�My father is an old man who has suffered cruelly. Exile is hard to
+bear. But if sorrows and deceptions have embittered his character, they
+have not changed his heart. His apparent imperiousness and arrogance
+conceal a kindness of heart which I have often seen degenerate into
+positive weakness. And--why should I not confess it?--the Duc de
+Sairmeuse, with his white hair, still retains the illusions of a child.
+He refuses to believe that the world has progressed during the past
+twenty years. Moreover, people had deceived him by the most absurd
+fabrications. To speak plainly, even while we were in Montaignac,
+Monsieur Lacheneur�s enemies succeeded in prejudicing my father against
+him.�
+
+One would have sworn that he was speaking the truth, so persuasive was
+his voice, so entirely did the expression of his face, his glance, and
+his gestures accord with his words.
+
+And Maurice, who felt--who was certain that the young man was lying,
+impudently lying, was abashed by this scientific prevarication which is
+so universally practised in good society, and of which he was entirely
+ignorant.
+
+But what did the marquis desire here--and why this farce?
+
+�Need I tell you, Mademoiselle,� he resumed, �all that I suffered last
+evening in the little drawing-room in the presbytery? No, never in my
+whole life can I recollect such a cruel moment. I understood, and I
+did honor to Monsieur Lacheneur�s heroism. Hearing of our arrival, he,
+without hesitation, without delay, hastened to voluntarily surrender
+a princely fortune--and he was insulted. This excessive injustice
+horrified me. And if I did not openly protest against it--if I did not
+show my indignation--it was only because contradiction drives my father
+to the verge of frenzy. And what good would it have done for me to
+protest? The filial love and piety which you displayed were far more
+powerful in their effect than any words of mine would have been. You
+were scarcely out of the village before Monsieur de Sairmeuse, already
+ashamed of his injustice, said to me: �I have been wrong, but I am an
+old man; it is hard for me to decide to make the first advance; you,
+Marquis, go and find Monsieur Lacheneur, and obtain his forgiveness.��
+
+Marie-Anne, redder than a peony, and terribly embarrassed, lowered her
+eyes.
+
+�I thank you, Monsieur,� she faltered, �in the name of my father--�
+
+�Oh! do not thank me,� interrupted Martial, earnestly; �it will be my
+duty, on the contrary, to render you thanks, if you can induce Monsieur
+Lacheneur to accept the reparation which is due him--and he will accept
+it, if you will only condescend to plead our cause. Who could resist
+your sweet voice, your beautiful, beseeching eyes?�
+
+However inexperienced Maurice might be, he could no longer fail to
+comprehend Martial�s intentions. This man whom he mortally hated
+already, dared to speak of love to Marie-Anne, and before him, Maurice.
+In other words, the marquis, not content with having ignored and
+insulted him, presumed to take an insolent advantage of his supposed
+simplicity.
+
+The certainty of this insult sent all his blood in a boiling torrent to
+his brain.
+
+He seized Martial by the arm, and with irresistible power whirled him
+twice around, then threw him more than ten feet, exclaiming:
+
+�This last is too much, Marquis de Sairmeuse!�
+
+Maurice�s attitude was so threatening that Martial fully expected
+another attack. The violence of the shock had thrown him down upon one
+knee; without rising, he lifted his gun, ready to take aim.
+
+It was not from anything like cowardice on the part of the Marquis de
+Sairmeuse that he decided to fire upon an unarmed foe; but the affront
+which he had received was so deadly and so ignoble in his opinion, that
+he would have shot Maurice like a dog, rather than feel the weight of
+his finger upon him again.
+
+This explosion of anger from Maurice Marie-Anne had been expecting and
+hoping for every moment.
+
+She was even more inexperienced than her lover; but she was a woman, and
+could not fail to understand the meaning of the young marquis.
+
+He was evidently �paying his court to her.� And with what intentions! It
+was only too easy to divine.
+
+Her agitation, while the marquis spoke in a more and more tender voice,
+changed first to stupor, then to indignation, as she realized his
+marvellous audacity.
+
+After that, how could she help blessing the violence which put an end
+to a situation which was so insulting for her, and so humiliating for
+Maurice?
+
+An ordinary woman would have thrown herself between the two men who were
+ready to kill each other. Marie-Anne did not move a muscle.
+
+Was it not the duty of Maurice to protect her when she was insulted?
+Who, then, if not he, should defend her from the insolent gallantry of
+this libertine? She would have blushed, she who was energy personified,
+to love a weak and pusillanimous man.
+
+But any intervention was unnecessary. Maurice comprehended that this
+was one of those affronts which the person insulted must not seem to
+suspect, under penalty of giving the offending party the advantage.
+
+He felt that Marie-Anne must not be regarded as the cause of the
+quarrel!
+
+His instant recognition of the situation produced a powerful reaction
+in his mind; and he recovered, as if by magic, his coolness and the free
+exercise of his faculties.
+
+�Yes,� he resumed, defiantly, �this is hypocrisy enough. To dare to
+prate of reparation after the insults that you and yours have inflicted,
+is adding intentional humiliation to insult--and I will not permit it.�
+
+Martial had thrown aside his gun; he now rose and brushed the knee of
+his pantaloons, to which a few particles of dust had adhered, with a
+phlegm whose secret he had learned in England.
+
+He was too discerning not to perceive that Maurice had disguised the
+true cause of his outburst of passion; but what did it matter to him?
+Had he avowed it, the marquis would not have been displeased.
+
+Yet it was necessary to make some response, and to preserve the
+superiority which he imagined he had maintained up to that time.
+
+�You will never know, Monsieur,� he said, glancing alternately at his
+gun and at Marie-Anne, �all that you owe to Mademoiselle Lacheneur. We
+shall meet again, I hope--�
+
+�You have made that remark before,� Maurice interrupted, tauntingly.
+�Nothing is easier than to find me. The first peasant you meet will
+point out the house of Baron d�Escorval.�
+
+�_Eh bien_! sir, I cannot promise that you will not see two of my
+friends.�
+
+�Oh! whenever it may please you!�
+
+�Certainly; but it would gratify me to know by what right you make
+yourself the judge of Monsieur Lacheneur�s honor, and take it upon
+yourself to defend what has not been attacked. Who has given you this
+right?�
+
+From Martial�s sneering tone, Maurice was certain that he had overheard,
+at least a part of, his conversation with Marie-Anne.
+
+�My right,� he replied, �is that of friendship. If I tell you that your
+advances are unwelcome, it is because I know that Monsieur Lacheneur
+will accept nothing from you. No, nothing, under whatever guise you may
+offer these alms which you tender merely to appease your own conscience.
+He will never forgive the affront which is his honor and your shame. Ah!
+you thought to degrade him, Messieurs de Sairmeuse! and you have lifted
+him far above your mock grandeur. _He_ receive anything from you! Go;
+learn that your millions will never give you a pleasure equal to the
+ineffable joy he will feel, when seeing you roll by in your carriage, he
+says to himself: �Those people owe everything to me!��
+
+His burning words vibrated with such intensity of feeling that
+Marie-Anne could not resist the impulse to press his hand; and this
+gesture was his revenge upon Martial, who turned pale with passion.
+
+�But I have still another right,� continued Maurice. �My father
+yesterday had the honor of asking of Monsieur Lacheneur the hand of his
+daughter----�
+
+�And I refused it!� cried a terrible voice.
+
+Marie-Anne and both young men turned with the same movement of alarm and
+surprise.
+
+M. Lacheneur stood before them, and by his side was Chanlouineau, who
+surveyed the group with threatening eyes.
+
+�Yes, I refused it,� resumed M. Lacheneur, �and I do not believe that my
+daughter will marry anyone without my consent. What did you promise me
+this morning, Marie-Anne? Can it be you, you who grant a rendezvous to
+gallants in the forest? Return to the house, instantly----�
+
+�But father----�
+
+�Return!� he repeated with an oath; �return, I command you.�
+
+She obeyed and departed, not without giving Maurice a look in which he
+read a farewell that she believed would be eternal.
+
+As soon as she had gone, perhaps twenty paces, M. Lacheneur, with folded
+arms, confronted Maurice.
+
+�As for you, Monsieur d�Escorval,� said he, rudely, �I hope that you
+will no longer undertake to prowl around my daughter----�
+
+�I swear to you, Monsieur--�
+
+�Oh, no oaths, if you please. It is an evil action to endeavor to turn
+a young girl from her duty, which is obedience. You have broken forever
+all relations between your family and mine.�
+
+The poor youth tried to excuse himself, but M. Lacheneur interrupted
+him.
+
+�Enough! enough!� said he; �go back to your home.�
+
+And as Maurice hesitated, he seized him by the collar and dragged him to
+the little footpath leading through the grove.
+
+It was the work of scarcely ten seconds, and yet, he found time to
+whisper in the young man�s ear, in his formerly friendly tones:
+
+�Go, you little wretch! do you wish to render all my precautions
+useless?�
+
+He watched Maurice as he disappeared, bewildered by the scene he had
+just witnessed, and stupefied by what he had just heard; and it was not
+until he saw that young d�Escorval was out of hearing that he turned to
+Martial.
+
+�As I have had the honor of meeting you, Monsieur le Marquis,� said he,
+�I deem it my duty to inform you that Chupin and his sons are searching
+for you everywhere. It is at the instance of the duke, your father, who
+is anxious for you to repair at once to the Chateau de Courtornieu.�
+
+He turned to Chanlouineau, and added:
+
+�We will now proceed on our way.�
+
+But Martial detained him with a gesture.
+
+�I am much surprised to hear that they are seeking me,� said he. �My
+father knows very well where he sent me; I was going to your house,
+Monsieur, and at his request.�
+
+�To my house?�
+
+�To your house, yes, Monsieur, to express our sincere regret at the
+scene which took place at the presbytery last evening.�
+
+And without waiting for any response, Martial, with wonderful cleverness
+and felicity of expression, began to repeat to the father the story
+which he had just related to the daughter.
+
+According to his version, his father and himself were in despair. How
+could M. Lacheneur suppose them guilty of such black ingratitude?
+Why had he retired so precipitately? The Duc de Sairmeuse held at
+M. Lacheneur�s disposal any amount which it might please him to
+mention--sixty, a hundred thousand francs, even more.
+
+But M. Lacheneur did not appear to be dazzled in the least; and when
+Martial had concluded, he replied, respectfully, but coldly, that he
+would consider the matter.
+
+This coldness amazed Chanlouineai; he did not conceal the fact when
+the marquis, after many earnest protestations, at last wended his way
+homeward.
+
+�We have misjudged these people,� he declared.
+
+But M. Lacheneur shrugged his shoulders.
+
+�And so you are foolish enough to suppose that it was to me that he
+offered all that money?�
+
+�Zounds! I have ears.�
+
+�Ah, well! my poor boy, you must not believe all they hear, if you have.
+The truth is, that these large sums were intended to win the favor of my
+daughter. She has pleased this coxcomb of a marquis; and--he wishes to
+make her his mistress----�
+
+Chanlouineau stopped short, with eyes flashing, and hands clinched.
+
+�Good God!� he exclaimed; �prove that, and I am yours, body and soul--to
+do anything you desire.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+�No, never in my whole life have I met a woman who can compare with this
+Marie-Anne! What grace and what dignity! Ah! her beauty is divine!�
+
+So Martial was thinking while returning to Sairmeuse after his proposals
+to M. Lacheneur.
+
+At the risk of losing his way he took the shortest course, which led
+across the fields and over ditches, which he leaped with the aid of his
+gun.
+
+He found a pleasure, entirely novel and very delightful, in picturing
+Marie-Anne as he had just seen her, blushing and paling, about to swoon,
+then lifting her head haughtily in her pride and disdain.
+
+Who would have suspected that such indomitable energy and such an
+impassioned soul was hidden beneath such girlish artlessness and
+apparent coldness? What an adorable expression illumined her face, what
+passion shone in those great black eyes when she looked at that little
+fool d�Escorval! What would not one give to be regarded thus, even for a
+moment? How could the boy help being crazy about her?
+
+He himself loved her, without being, as yet, willing, to confess it.
+What other name could be given to this passion which had overpowered
+reason, and to the furious desires which agitated him?
+
+�Ah!� he exclaimed, �she shall be mine. Yes, she shall be mine; I will
+have her!�
+
+Consequently he began to study the strategic side of the undertaking
+which this resolution involved with the sagacity of one who had not been
+without an extended experience in such matters.
+
+His debut, he was forced to admit, had been neither fortunate nor
+adroit. Conveyed compliments and money had both been rejected. If
+Marie-Anne had heard his covert insinuations with evident horror, M.
+Lacheneur had received, with even more than coldness, his advances and
+his offers of actual wealth.
+
+Moreover, he remembered Chanlouineau�s terrible eyes.
+
+�How he measured me, that magnificent rustic!� he growled. �At a sign
+from Marie-Anne he would have crushed me like an eggshell, without a
+thought of my ancestors. Ah! does he also love her? There will be three
+rivals in that case.�
+
+But the more difficult and even perilous the undertaking seemed, the
+more his passions were inflamed.
+
+�My failures can be repaired,� he thought. �Occasions of meeting shall
+not be wanting. Will it not be necessary to hold frequent interviews
+with Monsieur Lacheneur in effecting a formal transfer of Sairmeuse?
+I will win him over to my side. With the daughter my course is plain.
+Profiting by my unfortunate experience, I will, in the future, be as
+timid as I have been bold; and she will be hard to please if she is
+not flattered by this triumph of her beauty. D�Escorval remains to be
+disposed of----�
+
+But this was the point upon which Martial was most exercised.
+
+He had, it is true, seen this rival rudely dismissed by M. Lacheneur;
+and yet the anger of the latter had seemed to him too great to be
+absolutely real.
+
+He suspected a comedy, but for whose benefit? For his, or for
+Chanlouineau�s? And yet, what could possibly be the motive?
+
+�And yet,� he reflected, �my hands are tied; and I cannot call this
+little d�Escorval to account for his insolence. To swallow such an
+affront in silence is hard. Still, he is brave, there is no denying
+that; perhaps I can find some other way to provoke his anger. But even
+then, what could I do? If I harmed a hair of his head, Marie-Anne would
+never forgive me. Ah! I would give a handsome sum in exchange for some
+little device to send him out of the country.�
+
+Revolving in his mind these plans, whose frightful consequences he could
+neither calculate nor foresee, Martial was walking up the avenue leading
+to the chateau, when he heard hurried footsteps behind him.
+
+He turned, and seeing two men running after him and motioning him to
+stop, he paused.
+
+It was Chupin, accompanied by one of his sons.
+
+This old rascal had been enrolled among the servants charged with
+preparing Sairmeuse for the reception of the duke; and he had already
+discovered the secret of making himself useful to his master, which was
+by seeming to be indispensable.
+
+�Ah, Monsieur,� he cried, �we have been searching for you everywhere, my
+son and I. It was Monsieur le Duc----�
+
+�Very well,� said Martial, dryly. �I am returning----�
+
+But Chupin was not sensitive; and although he had not been very
+favorably received, he ventured to follow the marquis at a little
+distance, but sufficiently near to make himself heard. He also had
+his schemes; for it was not long before he began a long recital of the
+calumnies which had been spread about the neighborhood in regard to the
+Lacheneur affair. Why did he choose this subject in preference to any
+other? Did he suspect the young marquis�s passion for Marie-Anne?
+
+According to this report, Lacheneur--he no longer said �monsieur�--was
+unquestionably a rascal; the complete surrender of Sairmeuse was only
+a farce, as he must possess thousands, and hundreds of thousands of
+francs, since he was about to marry his daughter.
+
+If the scoundrel had felt only suspicions, they were changed into
+certainty by the eagerness with which Martial demanded:
+
+�How! is Mademoiselle Lacheneur to be married?�
+
+�Yes, Monsieur.�
+
+�And to whom?�
+
+�To Chanlouineau, the fellow whom the peasants wished to kill yesterday
+upon the square, because he was disrespectful to the duke. He is an
+avaricious man; and if Marie-Anne does not bring him a good round sum as
+a dowry, he will never marry her, no matter how beautiful she may be.�
+
+�Are you sure of what you say?�
+
+�It is true. My eldest son heard from Chanlouineau and from Lacheneur
+that the wedding would take place within a month.�
+
+And turning to his son:
+
+�Is it not true, boy?�
+
+�Yes,� promptly replied the youth, who had heard nothing of the kind.
+
+Martial was silent, ashamed, perhaps, of allowing himself to listen
+to the gossip, but glad to have been informed of such an important
+circumstance.
+
+If Chupin was not telling a falsehood--and what reason could he have for
+doing so--it became evident that M. Lacheneur�s conduct concealed some
+great mystery. Why, without some potent motive, should he have refused
+to give his daughter to Maurice d�Escorval whom she loved, to bestow her
+upon a peasant?
+
+As he reached Sairmeuse, he was swearing that he would discover this
+motive. A strange scene awaited him. In the broad open space extending
+from the front of the chateau to the _parterre_ lay a huge pile of all
+kinds of clothing, linen, plate, and furniture. One might have supposed
+that the occupants of the chateau were moving. A half dozen men were
+running to and fro, and standing in the centre of the rubbish was the
+Duc de Sairmeuse, giving orders.
+
+Martial did not understand the whole meaning of the scene at first. He
+went to his father, and after saluting him respectfully, inquired:
+
+�What is all this?�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse laughed heartily.
+
+�What! can you not guess?� he replied. �It is very simple, however. When
+the lawful master, on his return, sleeps beneath the bed-coverings of
+the usurper, it is delightful, the first night, not so pleasant on the
+second. Everything here reminds me too forcibly of Monsieur Lacheneur.
+It seems to me that I am in his house; and the thought is unendurable.
+So I have had them collect everything belonging to him and to his
+daughter--everything, in fact, which did not belong to the chateau in
+former years. The servants will put it all into a cart and carry it to
+him.�
+
+The young marquis gave fervent thanks to Heaven that he had arrived
+before it was too late. Had his father�s project been executed, he would
+have been obliged to bid farewell to all his hopes.
+
+�You surely will not do this, Monsieur le Duc?� said he, earnestly.
+
+�And why, pray? Who will prevent me from doing it?�
+
+�No one, most assuredly. But you will decide, on reflection, that a
+man who has not conducted himself _too_ badly has a right to some
+consideration.�
+
+The duke seemed greatly astonished.
+
+�Consideration!� he exclaimed. �This rascal has a right to some
+consideration! Well, this is one of the poorest of jokes. What! I give
+him--that is to say--you give him a hundred thousand francs, and that
+will not content him! He is entitled to consideration! You, who are
+after the daughter, may give it to him if you like, but I shall do as I
+like!�
+
+�Very well; but, Monsieur, I would think twice, if I were in your place.
+Lacheneur has surrendered Sairmeuse. That is all very well; but how can
+you authenticate your claim to the property? What would you do if, in
+case you imprudently irritated him, he should change his mind? What
+would become of your right to the estate?�
+
+M. Sairmeuse actually turned green.
+
+�Zounds!� he exclaimed. �I had not thought of that. Here, you fellows,
+take all these things back again, and that quickly!�
+
+And as they were obeying his order:
+
+�Now,� he remarked, �let us hasten to Courtornieu. They have already
+sent for us twice. It must be business of the utmost importance which
+demands our attention.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Chateau de Courtornieu is, next to Sairmeuse, the most magnificent
+habitation in the _arrondissement_ of Montaignac.
+
+The approach to the castle was by a long and narrow road, badly paved.
+When the carriage containing Martial and his father turned from the
+public highway into this rough road, the jolting aroused the duke from
+the profound revery into which he had fallen on leaving Sairmeuse.
+
+The marquis thought that he had caused this unusual fit of abstraction.
+
+�It is the result of my adroit manoeuvre,� he said to himself, not
+without secret satisfaction. �Until the restitution of Sairmeuse is
+legalized, I can make my father do anything I wish; yes, anything. And
+if it is necessary, he will even invite Lacheneur and Marie-Anne to his
+table.�
+
+He was mistaken. The duke had already forgotten the affair; his most
+vivid impressions lasted no longer than an indentation in the sand.
+
+He lowered the glass in front of the carriage, and, after ordering the
+coachman to drive more slowly:
+
+�Now,� said he to his son, �let us talk a little. Are you really in love
+with that little Lacheneur?�
+
+Martial could not repress a start. �Oh! in love,� said he, lightly,
+�that would perhaps be saying too much. Let me say that she has taken my
+fancy; that will be sufficient.�
+
+The duke regarded his son with a bantering air.
+
+�Really, you delight me!� he exclaimed. �I feared that this love-affair
+might derange, at least for the moment, certain plans that I have
+formed--for I have formed certain plans for you.�
+
+�The devil!�
+
+�Yes, I have my plans, and I will communicate them to you later in
+detail. I will content myself today by recommending you to examine
+Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu.�
+
+Martial made no reply. This recommendation was entirely unnecessary. If
+Mlle. Lacheneur had made him forget Mlle. de Courtornieu that morning
+for some moments, the remembrance of Marie-Anne was now effaced by the
+radiant image of Blanche.
+
+�Before discussing the daughter,� resumed the duke, �let us speak of the
+father. He is one of my strongest friends; and I know him thoroughly.
+You have heard men reproach me for what they style my prejudices, have
+you not? Well, in comparison with the Marquis de Courtornieu, I am only
+a Jacobin.�
+
+�Oh! my father!�
+
+�Really, nothing could be more true. If I am behind the age in which
+I live, he belongs to the reign of Louis XIV. Only--for there is an
+only--the principles which I openly avow, he keeps locked up in his
+snuff-box--and trust him for not forgetting to open it at the opportune
+moment. He has suffered cruelly for his opinions, in the sense of having
+so often been obliged to conceal them. He concealed them, first, under
+the consulate, when he returned from exile. He dissimulated them even
+more courageously under the Empire--for he played the part of a kind of
+chamberlain to Bonaparte, this dear marquis. But, chut! do not remind
+him of that proof of heroism; he has deplored it bitterly since the
+battle of Lutzen.�
+
+This was the tone in which M. de Sairmeuse was accustomed to speak of
+his best friends.
+
+�The history of his fortune,� he continued, �is the history of his
+marriages--I say _marriages_, because he has married a number of times,
+and always advantageously. Yes, in a period of fifteen years he has had
+the misfortune of losing three wives, each richer than the other. His
+daughter is the child of his third and last wife, a Cisse Blossac--she
+died in 1809. He comforted himself after each bereavement by purchasing
+a quantity of lands or bonds. So that now he is as rich as you are,
+Marquis, and his influence is powerful and widespread. I forgot one
+detail, however, he believes, they tell me, in the growing power of the
+clergy, and has become very devout.�
+
+He checked himself; the carriage had stopped before the entrance of
+the Chateau de Courtornieu, and the marquis came forward to receive his
+guests in person. A nattering distinction, which he seldom lavished upon
+his visitors. The marquis was long rather than tall, and very solemn
+in deportment. The head that surmounted his angular form was remarkably
+small, a characteristic of his race, and covered with thin, glossy black
+hair, and lighted by cold, round black eyes.
+
+The pride that becomes a gentleman, and the humility that befits a
+Christian, were continually at war with each other in his countenance.
+
+He pressed the hands of M. de Sairmeuse and Martial, overwhelming them
+with compliments uttered in a thin, rather nasal voice, which, issuing
+from his immense body, was as astonishing as the sound of a flute
+issuing from the pipes of an orphicleide would be.
+
+�At last you have come,� he said; �we were waiting for you before
+beginning our deliberations upon a very grave, and also very delicate
+matter. We are thinking of addressing a petition to His Majesty. The
+nobility, who have suffered so much during the Revolution, have a right
+to expect ample compensation. Our neighbors, to the number of sixteen,
+are now assembled in my cabinet, transformed for the time into a council
+chamber.�
+
+Martial shuddered at the thought of all the ridiculous and tiresome
+conversation he would probably be obliged to hear; and his father�s
+recommendation occurred to him.
+
+�Shall we not have the honor of paying our respects to Mademoiselle de
+Courtornieu?�
+
+�My daughter must be in the drawing-room with our cousin,� replied
+the marquis, in an indifferent tone; �at least, if she is not in the
+garden.�
+
+This might be construed into, �Go and look for her if you choose.� At
+least Martial understood it in that way; and when they entered the hall,
+he allowed his father and the marquis to go upstairs without him.
+
+A servant opened the door of the drawing-room for him--but it was empty.
+
+�Very well,� said he; �I know my way to the garden.�
+
+But he explored it in vain; no one was to be found.
+
+He decided to return to the house and march bravely into the presence of
+the dreaded enemy. He had turned to retrace his steps when, through the
+foliage of a bower of jasmine, he thought he could distinguish a white
+dress.
+
+He advanced softly, and his heart quickened its throbbing when he saw
+that he was right.
+
+Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu was seated on a bench beside an old lady,
+and was engaged in reading a letter in a low voice.
+
+She must have been greatly preoccupied, since she had not heard
+Martial�s footsteps approaching.
+
+He was only ten paces from her, so near that he could distinguish
+the shadow of her long eyelashes. He paused, holding his breath, in a
+delicious ecstasy.
+
+�Ah! how beautiful she is!� he thought. Beautiful? no. But pretty, yes;
+as pretty as heart could desire, with her great velvety blue eyes
+and her pouting lips. She was a blonde, but one of those dazzling and
+radiant blondes found only in the countries of the sun; and from her
+hair, drawn high upon the top of her head, escaped a profusion of
+ravishing, glittering ringlets, which seemed almost to sparkle in the
+play of the light breeze.
+
+One might, perhaps, have wished her a trifle larger. But she had the
+winning charm of all delicate and _mignonnes_ women; and her figure was
+of exquisite roundness, and her dimpled hands were those of an infant.
+
+Alas! these attractive exteriors are often deceitful, as much and even
+more so, than the appearances of a man like the Marquis de Courtornieu.
+
+The apparently innocent and artless young girl possessed the parched,
+hollow soul of an experienced woman of the world, or of an old courtier.
+She had been so petted at the convent, in the capacity of only daughter
+of a _grand seigneur_ and millionnaire; she had been surrounded by so
+much adulation, that all her good qualities had been blighted in the bud
+by the poisonous breath of flattery.
+
+She was only nineteen; and still it was impossible for any person to
+have been more susceptible to the charms of wealth and of satisfied
+ambition. She dreamed of a position at court as a school-girl dreams of
+a lover.
+
+If she had deigned to notice Martial--for she had remarked him--it was
+only because her father had told her that this young man would lift his
+wife to the highest sphere of power. Thereupon she had uttered a �very
+well, we will see!� that would have changed an enamoured suitor�s love
+into disgust.
+
+Martial advanced a few steps, and Mlle. Blanche, on seeing him, sprang
+up with a pretty affectation of intense timidity.
+
+Bowing low before her, he said, gently, and with profound deference:
+
+�Monsieur de Courtornieu, Mademoiselle, was so kind as to tell me where
+I might have the honor of finding you. I had not courage to brave those
+formidable discussions inside; but----�
+
+He pointed to the letter the young girl held in her hand, and added:
+
+�But I fear that I am _de trop_.�
+
+�Oh! not in the least, Monsieur le Marquis, although this letter which
+I have just been reading has, I confess, interested me deeply. It was
+written by a poor child in whom I have taken a great interest--whom I
+have sent for sometimes when I was lonely--Marie-Anne Lacheneur.�
+
+Accustomed from his infancy to the hypocrisy of drawing-rooms, the young
+marquis had taught his face not to betray his feelings.
+
+He could have laughed gayly with anguish at his heart; he could have
+preserved the sternest gravity when inwardly convulsed with merriment.
+
+And yet, this name of Marie-Anne upon the lips of Mlle. de Courtornieu,
+caused his glance to waver.
+
+�They know each other!� he thought.
+
+In an instant he was himself again; but Mlle. Blanche had perceived his
+momentary agitation.
+
+�What can it mean?� she wondered, much disturbed.
+
+Still, it was with the perfect assumption of innocence that she
+continued:
+
+�In fact, you must have seen her, this poor Marie-Anne, Monsieur le
+Marquis, since her father was the guardian of Sairmeuse?�
+
+�Yes, I have seen her, Mademoiselle,� replied Martial, quietly.
+
+�Is she not remarkably beautiful? Her beauty is of an unusual type, it
+quite takes one by surprise.�
+
+A fool would have protested. The marquis was not guilty of this folly.
+
+�Yes, she is very beautiful,� said he.
+
+This apparent frankness disconcerted Mlle. Blanche a trifle; and it was
+with an air of hypocritical compassion that she murmured:
+
+�Poor girl! What will become of her? Here is her father, reduced to
+delving in the ground.�
+
+�Oh! you exaggerate, Mademoiselle; my father will always preserve
+Lacheneur from anything of that kind.�
+
+�Of course--I might have known that--but where will he find a husband
+for Marie-Anne?�
+
+�One has been found already. I understand that she is to marry a youth
+in the neighborhood, who has some property--a certain Chanlouineau.�
+
+The artless school-girl was more cunning than the marquis. She had
+satisfied herself that she had just grounds for her suspicions; and she
+experienced a certain anger on finding him so well informed in regard to
+everything that concerned Mlle. Lacheneur.
+
+�And do you believe that this is the husband of whom she had dreamed?
+Ah, well! God grant that she may be happy; for we were very fond of her,
+very--were we not, Aunt Medea?�
+
+Aunt Medea was the old lady seated beside Mlle. Blanche.
+
+�Yes, very,� she replied.
+
+This aunt, or cousin, rather, was a poor relation whom M. de Courtornieu
+had sheltered, and who was forced to pay dearly for her bread; since
+Mlle. Blanche compelled her to play the part of echo.
+
+�It grieves me to see these friendly relations, which were so dear
+to me, broken,� resumed Mlle. de Courtornieu. �But listen to what
+Marie-Anne has written.�
+
+She drew from her belt where she had placed it, Mlle. Lacheneur�s letter
+and read:
+
+
+��My dear blanche--You know that the Duc de Sairmeuse has returned. The
+news fell upon us like a thunder-bolt. My father and I had become
+too much accustomed to regard as our own the deposit which had been
+intrusted to our fidelity; we have been punished for it. At least, we
+have done our duty, and now all is ended. She whom you have called your
+friend, will be, hereafter, only a poor peasant girl, as her mother was
+before her.��
+
+
+The most subtle observer would have supposed that Mlle. Blanche was
+experiencing the keenest emotion. One would have sworn that it was only
+by intense effort that she succeeded in restraining her tears--that they
+were even trembling behind her long lashes.
+
+The truth was, that she was thinking only of discovering, upon Martial�s
+face, some indication of his feelings. But now that he was on guard, his
+features might have been marble for any sign of emotion they betrayed.
+So she continued:
+
+
+��I should utter an untruth if I said that I have not suffered on
+account of this sudden change. But I have courage; I shall learn how to
+submit. I shall, I hope, have strength to forget, for I _must_ forget!
+The remembrances of past felicity would render my present misery
+intolerable.��
+
+
+Mlle. de Courtornieu suddenly folded up the letter.
+
+�You have heard it, Monsieur,� said she. �Can you understand such pride
+as that? And they accuse us, daughters of the nobility, of being proud!�
+
+Martial made no response. He felt that his altered voice would betray
+him. How much more would he have been moved, if he had been allowed to
+read the concluding lines:
+
+
+�One must live, my dear Blanche!� added Marie-Anne, �and I feel no false
+shame in asking you to aid me. I sew very nicely, as you know, and I
+could earn my livelihood by embroidery if I knew more people. I will
+call to-day at Courtornieu to ask you to give me a list of ladies to
+whom I can present myself on your recommendation.�
+
+
+But Mlle. de Courtornieu had taken good care not to allude to the
+touching request. She had read the letter to Martial as a test. She
+had not succeeded; so much the worse. She rose and accepted his arm to
+return to the house.
+
+She seemed to have forgotten her friend, and she was chatting gayly.
+When they approached the chateau, she was interrupted by a sound of
+voices raised to the highest pitch.
+
+It was the address to the King which was agitating the council convened
+in M. de Courtornieu�s cabinet.
+
+Mlle. Blanche paused.
+
+�I am trespassing upon your kindness, Monsieur. I am boring you with my
+silly chat when you should undoubtedly be up there.�
+
+�Certainly not,� he replied, laughing. �What should I do there? The role
+of men of action does not begin until the orators have concluded.�
+
+He spoke so energetically, in spite of his jesting tone, that Mlle. de
+Courtornieu was fascinated. She saw before her, she believed, a man
+who, as her father had said, would rise to the highest position in the
+political world.
+
+Unfortunately, her admiration was disturbed by a ring of the great bell
+that always announces visitors.
+
+She trembled, let go her hold on Martial�s arm, and said, very
+earnestly:
+
+�Ah, no matter. I wish very much to know what is going on up there. If
+I ask my father, he will laugh at my curiosity, while you, Monsieur, if
+you are present at the conference, you will tell me all.�
+
+A wish thus expressed was a command. The marquis bowed and obeyed.
+
+�She dismisses me,� he said to himself as he ascended the staircase,
+�nothing could be more evident; and that without much ceremony. Why the
+devil does she wish to get rid of me?�
+
+Why? Because a single peal of the bell announced a visitor for Mlle.
+Blanche; because she was expecting a visit from her friend; and
+because she wished at any cost to prevent a meeting between Martial and
+Marie-Anne.
+
+She did not love him, and yet an agony of jealousy was torturing her.
+Such was her nature.
+
+Her presentiments were realized. It was, indeed, Mlle. Lacheneur who was
+awaiting her in the drawing-room.
+
+The poor girl was paler than usual; but nothing in her manner betrayed
+the frightful anguish she had suffered during the past two or three
+days.
+
+And her voice, in asking from her former friend a list of �customers,�
+ was as calm and as natural as in other days, when she was asking her to
+come and spend an afternoon at Sairmeuse.
+
+So, when the two girls embraced each other, their roles were reversed.
+
+It was Marie-Anne who had been crushed by misfortune; it was Mlle.
+Blanche who wept.
+
+But, while writing a list of the names of persons in the neighborhood
+with whom she was acquainted, Mlle. de Courtornieu did not neglect
+this favorable opportunity for verifying the suspicions which had been
+aroused by Martial�s momentary agitation.
+
+�It is inconceivable,� she remarked to her friend, �that the Duc de
+Sairmeuse should allow you to be reduced to such an extremity.�
+
+Marie-Anne�s nature was so royal, that she did not wish an unjust
+accusation to rest even upon the man who had treated her father so
+cruelly.
+
+�The duke is not to blame,� she replied, gently; �he offered us a very
+considerable sum, this morning, through his son.�
+
+Mlle. Blanche started as if a viper had stung her.
+
+�So you have seen the marquis, Marie-Anne?�
+
+�Yes.�
+
+�Has he been to your house?�
+
+�He was going there, when he met me in the grove on the waste.�
+
+She blushed as she spoke; she turned crimson at the thought of Martial�s
+impertinent gallantry.
+
+This girl who had just emerged from a convent was terribly experienced;
+but she misunderstood the cause of Marie-Anne�s confusion. She could
+dissimulate, however, and when Marie-Anne went away, Mlle. Blanche
+embraced her with every sign of the most ardent affection. But she was
+almost suffocated with rage.
+
+�What!� she thought; �they have met but once, and yet they are so
+strongly impressed with each other. Do they love each other already?�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+If Martial had faithfully reported to Mlle. Blanche all that he heard in
+the Marquis de Courtornieu�s cabinet, he would probably have astonished
+her a little.
+
+He, himself, if he had sincerely confessed his impressions and his
+reflections, would have been obliged to admit that he was greatly
+amazed.
+
+But this unfortunate man, who, in days to come, would be compelled to
+reproach himself bitterly for the excess of his fanaticism, refused
+to confess this truth even to himself. His life was to be spent in
+defending prejudices which his own reason condemned.
+
+Forced by Mlle. Blanche�s will into the midst of a discussion, he was
+really disgusted with the ridiculous and intense greediness of M. de
+Courtornieu�s noble guests.
+
+Decorations, fortune, honors, power--they desired everything.
+
+They were satisfied that their pure devotion deserved the most
+munificent rewards. It was only the most modest who declared that he
+would be content with the epaulets of a lieutenant-general.
+
+Many were the recriminations, stinging words, and bitter reproaches.
+
+The Marquis de Courtornieu, who acted as president of the council, was
+nearly exhausted with exclaiming:
+
+�Be calm, gentlemen, be calm! A little moderation, if you please!�
+
+�All these men are mad,� thought Martial, with difficulty restraining
+an intense desire to laugh; �they are insane enough to be placed in a
+mad-house.�
+
+But he was not obliged to render a report of the _seance_. The
+deliberations were soon fortunately interrupted by a summons to dinner.
+
+Mlle. Blanche, when the young marquis rejoined her, quite forgot to
+question him about the doings of the council.
+
+In fact, what did the hopes and plans of these people matter to her.
+
+She cared very little about them or about the people themselves, since
+they were below her father in rank, and most of them were not as rich.
+
+An absorbing thought--a thought of her future, and of her happiness,
+filled her mind to the exclusion of all other subjects.
+
+The few moments that she had passed alone, after Marie-Anne�s departure,
+she had spent in grave reflection.
+
+Martial�s mind and person pleased her. In him were combined all the
+qualifications which any ambitious woman would desire in a husband--and
+she decided that he should be _her_ husband. Probably she would not have
+arrived at this conclusion so quickly, had it not been for the feeling
+of jealousy aroused in her heart. But from the very moment that she
+could believe or suspect that another woman was likely to dispute the
+possession of Martial with her, she desired him.
+
+From that moment she was completely controlled by one of those
+strange passions in which the heart has no part, but which take entire
+possession of the brain and lead to the worst of follies.
+
+Let the woman whose pulse has never quickened its beating under the
+influence of this counterfeit of love, cast the first stone.
+
+That she could be vanquished in this struggle for supremacy; that there
+could be any doubt of the result, were thoughts which never once entered
+the mind of Mlle. Blanche.
+
+She had been told so often, it had been repeated again and again, that
+the man whom she would choose must esteem himself fortunate above all
+others.
+
+She had seen her father besieged by so many suitors for her hand.
+
+�Besides,� she thought, smiling proudly, as she surveyed her reflection
+in the large mirrors; �am I not as pretty as Marie-Anne?�
+
+�Far prettier!� murmured the voice of vanity; �and you possess what your
+rival does not: birth, wit, the genius of coquetry!�
+
+She did, indeed, possess sufficient cleverness and patience to assume
+and to sustain the character which seemed most likely to dazzle and to
+fascinate Martial.
+
+As to maintaining this character _after_ marriage, if it did not please
+her to do so, that was another matter!
+
+The result of all this was that during dinner Mlle. Blanche exercised
+all her powers of fascination upon the young marquis.
+
+She was so evidently desirous of pleasing him that several of the guests
+remarked it.
+
+Some were even shocked by such a breach of conventionality. But Blanche
+de Courtornieu could do as she chose; she was well aware of that. Was
+she not the richest heiress for miles and miles around? No slander can
+tarnish the brilliancy of a fortune of more than a million in hard cash.
+
+�Do you know that those two young people will have a joint income of
+between seven and eight hundred thousand francs!� said one old viscount
+to his neighbor.
+
+Martial yielded unresistingly to the charm of his position.
+
+How could he suspect unworthy motives in a young girl whose eyes were so
+pure, whose laugh rang out with the crystalline clearness of childhood!
+
+Involuntarily he compared her with the grave and thoughtful Marie-Anne,
+and his imagination floated from one to the other, inflamed by the
+strangeness of the contrast.
+
+He occupied a seat beside Mlle. Blanche at table; and they chatted
+gayly, amusing themselves at the expense of the other guests, who were
+again conversing upon political matters, and whose enthusiasm waxed
+warmer and warmer as course succeeded course.
+
+Champagne was served with the dessert; and the company drank to the
+allies whose victorious bayonets had forced a passage for the King to
+return to Paris; they drank to the English, to the Prussians, and to the
+Russians, whose horses were trampling the crops under foot.
+
+The name of d�Escorval heard, above the clink of the glasses, suddenly
+aroused Martial from his dream of enchantment.
+
+An old gentleman had just risen, and proposed that active measures
+should be taken to rid the neighborhood of the Baron d�Escorval.
+
+�The presence of such a man dishonors our country,� said he, �he is a
+frantic Jacobin, and admitted to be dangerous, since Monsieur Fouche
+has him upon his list of suspected persons; and he is even now under the
+surveillance of the police.�
+
+This discourse could not have failed to arouse intense anxiety in M.
+d�Escorval�s breast had he seen the ferocity expressed on almost every
+face.
+
+Still no one spoke; hesitation could be read in every eye.
+
+Martial, too, had turned so white that Mlle. Blanche remarked his pallor
+and thought he was ill.
+
+In fact, a terrible struggle was going on in the soul of the young
+marquis; a conflict between his honor and passion.
+
+Had he not longed only a few hours before to find some way of driving
+Maurice from the country?
+
+Ah, well! the opportunity he so ardently desired now presented itself.
+It was impossible to imagine a better one. If the proposed step was
+taken the Baron d�Escorval and his family would be forced to leave
+France forever!
+
+The company hesitated; Martial saw it, and felt that a single word from
+him, for or against, would decide the matter.
+
+After a few minutes of frightful uncertainty, honor triumphed.
+
+He rose and declared that the proposed measure was bad--impolitic.
+
+�Monsieur d�Escorval,� he remarked, �is one of those men who diffuse
+around them a perfume of honesty and justice. Have the good sense to
+respect the consideration which is justly his.�
+
+As he had foreseen, his words decided the matter. The cold and haughty
+manner which he knew so well how to assume, his few but incisive words,
+produced a great effect.
+
+�It would evidently be a great mistake!� was the general cry.
+
+Martial reseated himself; Mlle. Blanche leaned toward him.
+
+�You have done well,� she murmured; �you know how to defend your
+friends.�
+
+�Monsieur d�Escorval is not my friend,� replied Martial, in a voice
+which revealed the struggle through which he had passed. �The injustice
+of the proposed measure incensed me, that is all.�
+
+Mlle. de Courtornieu was not to be deceived by an explanation like this.
+Still she added:
+
+�Then your conduct is all the more grand, Monsieur.�
+
+But such was not the opinion of the Duc de Sairmeuse. On returning to
+the chateau some hours later he reproached his son for his intervention.
+
+�Why the devil did you meddle with the matter?� inquired the duke. �I
+would not have liked to take upon myself the odium of the proposition,
+but since it had been made----�
+
+�I was anxious to prevent such an act of useless folly!�
+
+�Useless folly! Zounds! Marquis, you carry matters with a high hand. Do
+you think that this d----d baron adores you? What would you say if you
+heard that he was conspiring against us?�
+
+�I should answer with a shrug of the shoulders.�
+
+�You would! Very well; do me the favor to question Chupin.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+It was only two weeks since the Duc de Sairmeuse had returned to France;
+he had not yet had time to shake the dust of exile from his feet, and
+already his imagination saw enemies on every side.
+
+He had been at Sairmeuse only two days, and yet he unhesitatingly
+accepted the venomous reports which Chupin poured into his ears.
+
+The suspicions which he was endeavoring to make Martial share were
+cruelly unjust.
+
+At the moment when the duke accused the baron of conspiring against the
+house of Sairmeuse, that unfortunate man was weeping at the bedside of
+his son, who was, he believed, at the point of death.
+
+Maurice was indeed dangerously ill.
+
+His excessively nervous organization had succumbed before the rude
+assaults of destiny.
+
+When, in obedience to M. Lacheneur�s imperative order, he left the grove
+on the Reche, he lost the power of reflecting calmly and deliberately
+upon the situation.
+
+Marie-Anne�s incomprehensible obstinacy, the insults he had received
+from the marquis, and Lacheneur�s feigned anger were mingled in
+inextricable confusion, forming one immense, intolerable misfortune, too
+crushing for his powers of resistance.
+
+The peasants who met him on his homeward way were struck by his singular
+demeanor, and felt convinced that some great catastrophe had just
+befallen the house of the Baron d�Escorval.
+
+Some bowed; others spoke to him, but he did not see or hear them.
+
+Force of habit--that physical memory which mounts guard when the mind is
+far away--brought him back to his home.
+
+His features were so distorted with suffering that Mme. d�Escorval, on
+seeing him, was seized with a most sinister presentiment, and dared not
+address him.
+
+He spoke first.
+
+�All is over!� he said, hoarsely, �but do not be worried, mother; I have
+some courage, as you shall see.�
+
+He did, in fact, seat himself at the table with a resolute air. He ate
+even more than usual; and his father noticed, without alluding to it,
+that he drank much more wine than usual.
+
+He was very pale, his eyes glittered, his gestures were excited, and his
+voice was husky. He talked a great deal, and even jested.
+
+�Why will he not weep,� thought Mme. d�Escorval; �then I should not be
+so much alarmed, and I could try to comfort him.�
+
+This was Maurice�s last effort. When dinner was over he went to his
+room, and when his mother, who had gone again and again to listen at his
+door, finally decided to enter his chamber, she found him lying upon the
+bed, muttering incoherently.
+
+She approached him. He did not appear to recognize or even to see her.
+She spoke to him. He did not seem to hear. His face was scarlet, his
+lips were parched. She took his hand; it was burning; and still he was
+shivering, and his teeth were chattering as if with cold.
+
+A mist swam before the eyes of the poor woman; she feared she was about
+to faint; but, summoning all her strength, she conquered her weakness
+and, dragging herself to the staircase, she cried:
+
+�Help! help! My son is dying!�
+
+With a bound M. d�Escorval reached his son�s chamber, looked at him
+and dashed out again, summoned a servant, and ordered him to gallop to
+Montaignac and bring a physician without a moment�s delay.
+
+There was, indeed, a doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid
+of men--a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for
+incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in
+case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d�Escorval followed their
+example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not arrive
+until nearly morning.
+
+Abbe Midon had never frequented the medical schools, but since he had
+been a priest the poor so often asked advice of him that he applied
+himself to the study of medicine, and, aided by experience, he had
+acquired a knowledge of the art which would have won him a diploma from
+the faculty anywhere.
+
+At whatever hour of the day or night parishioners came to ask his
+assistance, he was always ready--his only answer: �Let us go at once.�
+
+And when the people of the neighborhood met him on the road with his
+little box of medicine slung over his shoulder, they took off their hats
+respectfully and stood aside to let him pass. Those who did not respect
+the priest honored the man.
+
+For M. d�Escorval, above all others, Abbe Midon would make haste. The
+baron was his friend; and a terrible apprehension seized him when he saw
+Mme. d�Escorval at the gate watching for him. By the way in which
+she rushed to meet him, he thought she was about to announce some
+irreparable misfortune. But no--she took his hand, and, without uttering
+a word, she led him to her son�s chamber.
+
+The condition of the poor youth was really very critical; the abbe
+perceived this at a glance, but it was not hopeless.
+
+�We will get him out of this,� he said, with a smile that reawakened
+hope.
+
+And with the coolness of an old practitioner, he bled him freely, and
+ordered applications of ice to his head.
+
+In a moment all the household were busied in fulfilling the cure�s
+orders. He took advantage of the opportunity to draw the baron aside in
+the embrasure of a window.
+
+�What has happened?� he asked.
+
+�A disappointment in love,� M. d�Escorval replied, with a despairing
+gesture. �Monsieur Lacheneur has refused the hand of his daughter, which
+I asked in behalf of my son. Maurice was to have seen Marie-Anne to-day.
+What passed between them I do not know. The result you see.�
+
+The baroness re-entered the room, and the two men said no more. A truly
+funereal silence pervaded the apartment, broken only by the moans of
+Maurice.
+
+His excitement instead of abating had increased in violence. Delirium
+peopled his brain with phantoms; and the name of Marie-Anne, Martial de
+Sairmeuse and Chanlouineau dropped so incoherently from his lips that it
+was impossible to read his thoughts.
+
+How long that night seemed to M. d�Escorval and his wife, those only
+know who have counted each second beside the sick-bed of some loved one.
+
+Certainly their confidence in the companion in their vigil was great;
+but he was not a regular physician like the other, the one whose coming
+they awaited.
+
+Just as the light of the morning made the candles turn pale, they heard
+the furious gallop of a horse, and soon the doctor from Montaignac
+entered.
+
+He examined Maurice carefully, and, after a short conference with the
+priest:
+
+�_I_ see no immediate danger,� he declared. �All that can be done
+has been done. The malady must be allowed to take its course. I will
+return.�
+
+He did return the next day and many days after, for it was not until a
+week had passed that Maurice was declared out of danger.
+
+Then he confided to his father all that had taken place in the grove
+on the Reche. The slightest detail of the scene had engraved itself
+indelibly upon his memory. When the recital was ended:
+
+�Are you quite sure,� asked his father, �that you correctly understood
+Marie-Anne�s reply? Did she tell you that if her father gave his consent
+to your marriage, she would refuse hers?�
+
+�Those were her very words.�
+
+�And still she loves you?�
+
+�I am sure of it.�
+
+�You were not mistaken in Monsieur Lacheneur�s tone when he said to
+you: �Go, you little wretch! do you wish to render all my precautions
+useless?��
+
+�No.�
+
+M. d�Escorval sat for a moment in silence.
+
+�This passes comprehension,� he murmured at last. And so low that his
+son could not hear him, he added: �I will see Lacheneur to-morrow; this
+mystery must be explained.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+The cottage where M. Lacheneur had taken refuge was situated on a hill
+overlooking the water.
+
+It was, as he had said, a small and humble dwelling, but it was rather
+less miserable than the abodes of most of the peasants of the district.
+
+It was only one story high, but it was divided into three rooms, and the
+roof was covered with thatch.
+
+In front was a tiny garden, in which a few fruit-trees, some withered
+cabbages, and a vine which covered the cottage to the roof, managed to
+find subsistence.
+
+This garden was a mere nothing, but even this slight conquest over
+the sterility of the soil had cost Lacheneur�s deceased aunt almost
+unlimited courage and patience.
+
+For more than twenty years the poor woman had never, for a single day,
+failed to throw upon her garden three or four basketfuls of richer soil,
+which she was obliged to bring more than half a league.
+
+It had been more than a year since she died; but the little pathway
+which her patient feet had worn in the performance of this daily task
+was still distinctly visible.
+
+This was the path which M. d�Escorval, faithful to his resolution, took
+the following day, in the hope of wresting from Marie-Anne�s father the
+secret of his inexplicable conduct.
+
+He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he failed to notice the
+overpowering heat as he climbed the rough hill-side in the full glare of
+the noonday sun.
+
+When he reached the summit, however, he paused to take breath; and while
+wiping the perspiration from his brow, he turned to look back on the
+road which he had traversed.
+
+It was the first time he had visited the spot, and he was surprised at
+the extent of the landscape which stretched before him.
+
+From this point, which is the most elevated in the surrounding country,
+one can survey the entire valley of the Oiselle, and discern, in the
+distance, the redoubtable citadel of Montaignac, built upon an almost
+inaccessible rock.
+
+This last circumstance, which the baron was afterward doomed to recall
+in the midst of the most terrible scenes, did not strike him then.
+Lacheneur�s house absorbed all his attention.
+
+His imagination pictured vividly the sufferings of this unfortunate man,
+who, only two days before, had relinquished the splendors of the Chateau
+de Sairmeuse to repair to this wretched abode.
+
+He rapped at the door of the cottage.
+
+�Come in!� said a voice.
+
+The baron lifted the latch and entered.
+
+The room was small, with un-white-washed walls, but with no other floor
+than the ground; no ceiling save the thatch that formed the roof.
+
+A bed, a table and two wooden benches constituted the entire furniture.
+
+Seated upon a stool, near the tiny window, sat Marie-Anne, busily at
+work upon a piece of embroidery.
+
+She had abandoned her former mode of dress, and her costume was that
+worn by the peasant girls.
+
+When M. d�Escorval entered she rose, and for a moment they remained
+silently standing, face to face, she apparently calm, he visibly
+agitated.
+
+He was looking at Marie-Anne; and she seemed to him transfigured. She
+was much paler and considerably thinner; but her beauty had a strange
+and touching charm--the sublime radiance of heroic resignation and of
+duty nobly fulfilled.
+
+Still, remembering his son, he was astonished to see this tranquillity.
+
+�You do not ask me for news of Maurice,� he said, reproachfully.
+
+�I had news of him this morning, Monsieur, as I have had every day. I
+know that he is improving; and that, since day before yesterday, he has
+been allowed to take a little nourishment.�
+
+�You have not forgotten him, then?�
+
+She trembled; a faint blush suffused throat and forehead, but it was in
+a calm voice that she replied:
+
+�Maurice knows that it would be impossible for me to forget him, even if
+I wished to do so.�
+
+�And yet you have told him that you approve your father�s decision!�
+
+�I told him so, Monsieur, and I shall have the courage to repeat it.�
+
+�But you have made Maurice wretched, unhappy, child; he has almost
+died.�
+
+She raised her head proudly, sought M. d�Escorval�s eyes, and when she
+had found them:
+
+�Look at me, Monsieur. Do you think that I, too, do not suffer?�
+
+M. d�Escorval was abashed for a moment; but recovering himself, he took
+Marie-Anne�s hand, and pressing it affectionately, he said:
+
+�So Maurice loves you; you love him; you suffer; he has nearly died, and
+still you reject him!�
+
+�It must be so, Monsieur.�
+
+�You say this, my dear child--you say this, and you undoubtedly believe
+it. But I, who have sought to discover the necessity of this immense
+sacrifice, have failed to find it. Explain to me, then, why this must be
+so, Marie-Anne. Who knows but you are frightened by chimeras, which my
+experience can scatter with a breath? Have you no confidence in me? Am
+I not an old friend? It may be that your father, in his despair,
+has adopted extreme resolutions. Speak, let us combat them together.
+Lacheneur knows how devotedly I am attached to him. I will speak to him;
+he will listen to _me_.�
+
+�_I_ can tell you nothing, Monsieur.�
+
+�What! you are so cruel as to remain inflexible when a father entreats
+you on his knees--a father who says to you: �Marie-Anne, you hold in
+your hands the happiness, the life, the reason of my son----��
+
+Tears glittered in Marie-Anne�s eyes, but she drew away her hand.
+
+�Ah! it is you who are cruel, Monsieur; it is you who are without pity.
+Do you not see what I suffer, and that it is impossible for me to endure
+further torture? No, I have nothing to tell you; there is nothing
+you can say to my father. Why do you seek to impair my courage when I
+require it all to struggle against my despair? Maurice must forget me;
+he must never see me again. This is fate; and he must not fight against
+it. It would be folly. We are parted forever. Beseech Maurice to leave
+the country, and if he refuses, you, who are his father, must command
+him to do so. And you, too, Monsieur, in Heaven�s name, flee from us.
+We shall bring misfortune upon you. Never return here; our house is
+accursed. The fate that overshadows us will ruin you also.�
+
+She spoke almost wildly. Her voice was so loud that it penetrated an
+adjoining room.
+
+The communicating door opened and M. Lacheneur appeared upon the
+threshold.
+
+At the sight of M. d�Escorval he uttered an oath. But there was more
+sorrow and anxiety than anger in his manner, as he said:
+
+�You, Monsieur, you here!�
+
+The consternation into which Marie-Anne�s words had thrown M. d�Escorval
+was so intense that it was with great difficulty he stammered out a
+response.
+
+�You have abandoned us entirely; I was anxious about you. Have you
+forgotten our old friendship? I come to you----�
+
+The brow of the former master of Sairmeuse remained overcast.
+
+�Why did you not inform me of the honor that the baron had done me,
+Marie-Anne?� he said sternly.
+
+She tried to speak, but could not; and it was the baron who replied:
+
+�Why, I have but just come, my dear friend.�
+
+M. Lacheneur looked suspiciously, first at his daughter, then at the
+baron.
+
+�What did they say to each other while they were alone?� he was
+evidently wondering.
+
+But, however great may have been his disquietude, he seemed to master
+it; and it was with his old-time affability of manner that he invited M.
+d�Escorval to follow him into the adjoining room.
+
+�It is my reception-room and my cabinet combined,� he said, smiling.
+
+This room, which was much larger than the first, was as scantily
+furnished; but it contained several piles of small books and an infinite
+number of tiny packages.
+
+Two men were engaged in arranging and sorting these articles.
+
+One was Chanlouineau.
+
+M. d�Escorval did not remember that he had ever seen the other, who was
+a young man.
+
+�This is my son, Jean, Monsieur,� said Lacheneur. �He has changed since
+you last saw him ten years ago.�
+
+It was true. It had been, at least, ten years since the baron had seen
+Lacheneur�s son.
+
+How time flies! He had left him a boy; he found him a man.
+
+Jean was just twenty; but his haggard features and his precocious beard
+made him appear much older.
+
+He was tall and well formed, and his face indicated more than average
+intelligence.
+
+Still he did not impress one favorably. His restless eyes were always
+invading yours; and his smile betrayed an unusual degree of shrewdness,
+amounting almost to cunning.
+
+As his father presented him, he bowed profoundly; but he was very
+evidently out of temper.
+
+M. Lacheneur resumed:
+
+�Having no longer the means to maintain Jean in Paris, I have made him
+return. My ruin will, perhaps, be a blessing to him. The air of great
+cities is not good for the son of a peasant. Fools that we are, we
+send them there to teach them to rise above their fathers. But they do
+nothing of the kind. They think only of degrading themselves.�
+
+�Father,� interrupted the young man; �father, wait, at least, until we
+are alone!�
+
+�Monsieur d�Escorval is not a stranger.� Chanlouineau evidently sided
+with the son, since he made repeated signs to M. Lacheneur to be silent.
+
+Either he did not see them, or he pretended not to see them, for he
+continued:
+
+�I must have wearied you, Monsieur, by telling you again and again: �I
+am pleased with my son. He has a commendable ambition; he is working
+faithfully; he will succeed.� Ah! I was a poor, foolish father! The
+friend who carried Jean the order to return has enlightened me, to my
+sorrow. This model young man you see here left the gaming-house only to
+run to public balls. He was in love with a wretched little ballet-girl
+in some low theatre; and to please this creature, he also went upon the
+stage, with his face painted red and white.�
+
+�To appear upon the stage is not a crime.�
+
+�No; but it is a crime to deceive one�s father and to affect virtues
+which one does not possess! Have I ever refused you money? No.
+Notwithstanding that, you have contracted debts everywhere, and you owe
+at least twenty thousand francs.�
+
+Jean hung his head; he was evidently angry, but he feared his father.
+
+�Twenty thousand francs!� repeated M. Lacheneur. �I had them a fortnight
+ago; now I have nothing. I can hope to obtain this sum only through
+the generosity of the Duc de Sairmeuse and his son.� These words from
+Lacheneur�s lips astonished the baron.
+
+Lacheneur perceived it, and it was with every appearance of sincerity
+and good faith that he resumed:
+
+�Does what _I say_ surprise you? I understand why. My anger at first
+made me give utterance to all sorts of absurd threats. But I am calm
+now, and I realize my injustice. What could I expect the duke to do? To
+make me a present of Sairmeuse? He was a trifle brusque, I confess, but
+that is his way; at heart he is the best of men.�
+
+�Have you seen him again?�
+
+�No; but I have seen his son. I have even been with him to the chateau
+to designate the articles which I desire to keep. Oh! he refused me
+nothing. Everything was placed at my disposal--everything. I selected
+what I wished--furniture, clothing, linen. It is all to be brought here;
+and I shall be quite a _grand seigneur_.�
+
+�Why not seek another house? This----�
+
+�This pleases me, Monsieur. Its situation suits me perfectly.�
+
+In fact, why should not the Sairmeuse have regretted their odious
+conduct? Was it impossible that Lacheneur, in spite of his indignation,
+should conclude to accept honorable separation? Such were M.
+d�Escorval�s reflections.
+
+�To say that the marquis has been kind is saying too little,� continued
+Lacheneur. �He has shown us the most delicate attentions. For example,
+having noticed how much Marie-Anne regrets the loss of her flowers,
+he has declared that he is going to send her plants to stock our small
+garden, and that they shall be renewed every month.�
+
+Like all passionate men, M. Lacheneur overdid his part. This last remark
+was too much; it awakened a sinister suspicion in M. d�Escorval�s mind.
+
+�Good God!� he thought, �does this wretched man meditate some crime?�
+
+He glanced at Chanlouineau, and his anxiety increased. On hearing the
+names of the marquis and of Marie-Anne, the robust farmer had turned
+livid. �It is decided,� said Lacheneur, with an air of the lost
+satisfaction, �that they will give me the ten thousand francs bequeathed
+to me by Mademoiselle Armande. Moreover, I am to fix upon such a sum as
+I consider a just recompense for my services. And that is not all; they
+have offered me the position of manager at Sairmeuse; and I was to be
+allowed to occupy the gamekeeper�s cottage, where I lived so long. But
+on reflection I refused this offer. After having enjoyed for so long
+a time a fortune which did not belong to me, I am anxious to amass a
+fortune of my own.�
+
+�Would it be indiscreet in me to inquire what you intend to do?�
+
+�Not the least in the world. I am going to turn pedler.�
+
+M. d�Escorval could not believe his ears. �Pedler?� he repeated.
+
+�Yes, Monsieur. Look, there is my pack in that corner.�
+
+�But this is absurd!� exclaimed M. d�Escorval. �People can scarcely earn
+their daily bread in this way.�
+
+�You are wrong, Monsieur. I have considered the subject carefully; the
+profits are thirty per cent. And if besides, there will be three of us
+to sell goods, for I shall confide one pack to my son, and another to
+Chanlouineau.�
+
+�What! Chanlouineau?�
+
+�He has become my partner in the enterprise.�
+
+�And his farm--who will take care of that?�
+
+�He will employ day-laborers.�
+
+And then, as if wishing to make M. d�Escorval understand that his visit
+had lasted quite long enough, Lacheneur began arranging the little
+packages which were destined to fill the pack of the travelling
+merchant.
+
+But the baron was not to be gotten rid of so easily, now that his
+suspicions had become almost a certainty.
+
+�_I_ must speak with you,� he said, brusquely.
+
+M. Lacheneur turned.
+
+�_I_ am very busy,� he replied, with a very evident reluctance.
+
+�_I_ ask only five minutes. But if you have not the time to spare
+to-day, I will return to-morrow--day after to-morrow--and every day
+until I can see you in private.�
+
+Lacheneur saw plainly that it would be impossible to escape this
+interview, so, with the gesture of a man who resigns himself to a
+necessity, addressing his son and Chanlouineau, he said:
+
+�Go outside for a few moments.�
+
+They obeyed, and as soon as the door had closed behind them, Lacheneur
+said:
+
+�I know very well, Monsieur, the arguments you intend to advance; and
+the reason of your coming. You come to ask me again for Marie-Anne.
+I know that my refusal has nearly killed Maurice. Believe me, I have
+suffered cruelly at the thought; but my refusal is none the less
+irrevocable. There is no power in the world capable of changing my
+resolution. Do not ask my motives; I shall not reveal them; but rest
+assured that they are sufficient.�
+
+�Are we not your friends?�
+
+�You, Monsieur!� exclaimed Lacheneur, in tones of the most lively
+affection, �you! ah! you know it well! You are the best, the only
+friends, I have here below. I should be the basest and the most
+miserable of men if I did not guard the recollection of all your
+kindnesses until my eyes close in death. Yes, you are my friends; yes, I
+am devoted to you--and it is for that very reason that I answer: no, no,
+never!�
+
+There could no longer be any doubt. M. d�Escorval seized Lacheneur�s
+hands, and almost crushing them in his grasp:
+
+�Unfortunate man!� he exclaimed, hoarsely, �what do you intend to do? Of
+what terrible vengeance are you dreaming?�
+
+�I swear to you----�
+
+�Oh! do not swear. You cannot deceive a man of my age and of my
+experience. I divine your intentions--you hate the Sairmeuse family more
+mortally than ever.�
+
+�I?�
+
+�Yes, you; and if you pretend to forget it, it is only that they may
+forget it. These people have offended you too cruelly not to fear you;
+you understand this, and you are doing all in your power to reassure
+them. You accept their advances--you kneel before them--why? Because
+they will be more completely in your power when you have lulled their
+suspicions to rest, and then you can strike them more surely----�
+
+He paused; the communicating door opened, and Marie-Anne appeared upon
+the threshold.
+
+�Father,� said she, �here is the Marquis de Sairmeuse.�
+
+This name, which Marie-Anne uttered in a voice of such perfect
+composure, in the midst of this excited discussion, possessed such a
+powerful significance, that M. d�Escorval stood as if petrified.
+
+�He dares to come here!� he thought. �How can it be that he does not
+fear the walls will fall and crush him?�
+
+M. Lacheneur cast a withering glance at his daughter. He suspected her
+of a ruse which would force him to reveal his secret. For a second, the
+most furious passion contracted his features.
+
+But, by a prodigious effort of will, he succeeded in regaining his
+composure. He sprang to the door, pushed Marie-Anne aside, and leaning
+out, he said:
+
+�Deign to excuse me, Monsieur, if I take the liberty of asking you to
+wait a moment; I am just finishing some business, and I will be with you
+in a moment.�
+
+Neither agitation nor anger could be detected in his voice; but, rather,
+a respectful deference, and a feeling of profound gratitude.
+
+Having said this, he closed the door and turned to M. d�Escorval.
+
+The baron, still standing with folded arms, had witnessed this scene
+with the air of a man who distrusts the evidence of his own senses; and
+yet he understood the meaning of it only too well.
+
+�So this young man comes here?� he said to Lacheneur.
+
+�Almost every day--not at this hour, usually, but a trifle later.�
+
+�And you receive him? you welcome him?�
+
+�Certainly, Monsieur. How can I be insensible to the honor he confers
+upon me? Moreover, we have subjects of mutual interest to discuss. We
+are now occupied in legalizing the restitution of Sairmeuse. I can,
+also, give him much useful information, and many hints regarding the
+management of the property.�
+
+�And do you expect to make me, your old friend, believe that a man of
+your superior intelligence is deceived by the excuses the marquis makes
+for these frequent visits? Look me in the eye, and then tell me, if you
+dare, that you believe these visits are addressed to you!�
+
+Lacheneur�s eye did not waver.
+
+�To whom else could they be addressed?� he inquired.
+
+This obstinate serenity disappointed the baron�s expectations. He could
+not have received a heavier blow.
+
+�Take care, Lacheneur,� he said, sternly. �Think of the situation in
+which you place your daughter, between Chanlouineau, who wishes to make
+her his wife, and Monsieur de Sairmeuse, who desires to make her----�
+
+�Who desires to make her his mistress--is that what you mean? Oh, say
+the word. But what does that matter? I am sure of Marie-Anne.�
+
+M. d�Escorval shuddered.
+
+�In other words,� said he, in bitter indignation, �you make your
+daughter�s honor and reputation your stake in the game you are playing.�
+
+This was too much. Lacheneur could restrain his furious passion no
+longer.
+
+�Well, yes!� he exclaimed, with a frightful oath, �yes, you have spoken
+the truth. Marie-Anne must be, and will be, the instrument of my plans.
+A man situated as I am is free from the considerations that restrain
+other men. Fortune, friends, life, honor--I have been forced to
+sacrifice all. Perish my daughter�s virtue--perish my daughter
+herself--what do they matter, if I can but succeed?�
+
+He was terrible in his fanaticism; and in his mad excitement he clinched
+his hands as if he were threatening some invisible enemy; his eyes were
+wild and bloodshot.
+
+The baron seized him by the coat as if to prevent his escape.
+
+�You admit it, then?� he said. �You wish to revenge yourself on the
+Sairmeuse family, and you have made Chanlouineau your accomplice?�
+
+But Lacheneur, with a sudden movement, freed himself.
+
+�I admit nothing,� he replied. �And yet I wish to reassure you----�
+
+He raised his hand as if to take an oath, and in a solemn voice, he
+said:
+
+�Before God, who hears my words, by all that I hold sacred in this
+world, by the memory of my sainted wife who lies beneath the sod, I
+swear that I am plotting nothing against the Sairmeuse family; that
+I had no thought of touching a hair of their heads. I use them only
+because they are absolutely indispensable to me. They will aid me
+without injuring themselves.�
+
+Lacheneur, this time, spoke the truth. His hearer felt it; still he
+pretended to doubt. He thought by retaining his own self-possession,
+and exciting the anger of this unfortunate man still more, he might,
+perhaps, discover his real intentions. So it was with an air of
+suspicion that he said:
+
+�How can one believe this assurance after the avowal you have just
+made?�
+
+Lacheneur saw the snare; he regained his self-possession as if by magic.
+
+�So be it, Monsieur, refuse to believe me. But you will wring from me
+only one more word on this subject. I have said too much already. I know
+that you are guided solely by friendship for me; my gratitude is great,
+but I cannot reply to your question. The events of the past few days
+have dug a deep abyss between you and me. Do not endeavor to pass it.
+Why should we ever meet again? I must say to you, what I said only
+yesterday to Abbe Midon. If you are my friend, you will never come here
+again--never--by night or by day, or under any pretext whatever. Even if
+they tell you that I am dying, do not come. This house is fatal. And if
+you meet me, turn away; shun me as you would a pestilence whose touch is
+deadly!�
+
+The baron was silent. This was in substance what Marie-Anne had said to
+him, only under another form.
+
+�But there is still a wiser course that you might pursue. Everything
+here is certain to augment the sorrow and despair which afflicts your
+son. There is not a path, nor a tree, nor a flower which does not
+cruelly remind him of his former happiness. Leave this place; take him
+with you, and go far away.�
+
+�Ah! how can I do this? Fouche has virtually imprisoned me here.�
+
+�All the more reason why you should listen to my advice. You were a
+friend of the Emperor, hence you are regarded with suspicion; you are
+surrounded by spies. Your enemies are watching for an opportunity
+to ruin you. The slightest pretext would suffice to throw you into
+prison--a letter, a word, an act capable of being misconstrued. The
+frontier is not far off; go, and wait in a foreign land for happier
+times.�
+
+�That is something which I will not do,� said M. d�Escorval, proudly.
+
+His words and accent showed the folly of further discussion. Lacheneur
+understood this only too well, and seemed to despair.
+
+�Ah! you are like Abbe Midon,� he said, sadly; �you will not believe.
+Who knows how much your coming here this morning will cost you? It is
+said that no one can escape his destiny. But if some day the hand of the
+executioner is laid upon your shoulder, remember that I warned you, and
+do not curse me.�
+
+He paused, and seeing that even this sinister prophecy produced no
+impression upon the baron, he pressed his hand as if to bid him an
+eternal farewell, and opened the door to admit the Marquis de Sairmeuse.
+
+Martial was, perhaps, annoyed at meeting M. d�Escorval; but he
+nevertheless bowed with studied politeness, and began a lively
+conversation with M. Lacheneur, telling him that the articles he had
+selected at the chateau were on their way.
+
+M. d�Escorval could do no more. To speak with Marie-Anne was impossible:
+Chanlouineau and Jean would not let him go out of their sight.
+
+He reluctantly departed, and oppressed by cruel forebodings, he
+descended the hill which he had climbed an hour before so full of hope.
+
+What should he say to Maurice?
+
+He had reached the little grove of pines when a hurried footstep behind
+him made him turn.
+
+The Marquis de Sairmeuse was following him, and motioned him to
+stop. The baron paused, greatly surprised; Martial, with that air of
+ingenuousness which he knew so well how to assume, and in an almost
+brusque tone, said:
+
+�I hope, Monsieur, that you will excuse me for having followed you, when
+you hear what I have to say. I am not of your party; I loathe what you
+adore; but I have none of the passion nor the malice of your enemies.
+For this reason I tell you that if I were in your place I would take
+a journey. The frontier is but a few miles away; a good horse, a short
+gallop, and you have crossed it. A word to the wise is--salvation!�
+
+And without waiting for any response, he turned and retraced his steps.
+
+M. d�Escorval was amazed and confounded.
+
+�One might suppose there was a conspiracy to drive me away!� he
+murmured. �But I have good reason to distrust the disinterestedness of
+this young man.�
+
+Martial was already far off. Had he been less preoccupied, he would
+have perceived two figures in the wood. Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu,
+followed by the inevitable Aunt Medea, had come to play the spy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Marquis de Courtornieu idolized his daughter. Everyone spoke of that
+as an incontestable and uncontested fact.
+
+When persons spoke to him of his daughter, they always said:
+
+�You, who adore your daughter----�
+
+And when he spoke of himself, _he_ said:
+
+�I who adore Blanche.�
+
+The truth was, that he would have given a good deal, even a third of his
+fortune, to be rid of her.
+
+This smiling young girl, who seemed such an artless child, had gained
+an absolute control over him. She forced him to bow like a reed to her
+every caprice--and Heaven knows she had enough of them!
+
+In the hope of making his escape, he had thrown her Aunt Medea; but in
+less than three months that poor woman had been completely subjugated,
+and did not serve to divert his daughter�s attention from him, even for
+a moment.
+
+Sometimes the marquis revolted, but nine times out of ten he paid dearly
+for his attempts at rebellion. When Mlle. Blanche turned her cold and
+steel-like eyes upon him with a certain peculiar expression, his courage
+evaporated. Her weapon was irony; and knowing his weak points, she
+struck with wonderful precision.
+
+It is easy to understand how devoutly he prayed and hoped that some
+honest young man, by speedily marrying his daughter, would free him from
+this cruel bondage.
+
+But where was he to find this liberator?
+
+The marquis had announced everywhere his intention of bestowing a dowry
+of a million upon his daughter. Of course this had brought a host of
+eager suitors, not only from the immediate neighborhood, but from parts
+remote.
+
+But, unfortunately, though many of them would have suited M. de
+Courtornieu well enough, not a single one had been so fortunate as to
+please Mlle. Blanche.
+
+Her father presented some suitor; she received him graciously, lavished
+all her charms upon him; but as soon as his back was turned, she
+disappointed all her father�s hopes by rejecting him.
+
+�He is too small,� she said, �or too large. His rank is not equal to
+ours. I think him stupid. He is a fool--his nose is so ugly.�
+
+From these summary decisions there was no appeal. Arguments and
+persuasions were useless. The condemned man no longer existed.
+
+Still, as this view of aspirants to her hand amused her, she encouraged
+her father in his efforts. He was beginning to despair, when fate
+dropped the Duc de Sairmeuse and son at his very door. When he saw
+Martial, he had a presentiment of his approaching release.
+
+�He will be my son-in-law,� he thought.
+
+The marquis believed it best to strike the iron while it was hot. So,
+the very next day, he broached the subject to the duke.
+
+His overtures were favorably received.
+
+Possessed with the desire of transforming Sairmeuse into a little
+principality, the duke could not fail to be delighted with an alliance
+with one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the neighborhood.
+
+The conference was short.
+
+�Martial, my son, possesses, in his own right, an income of at least six
+hundred thousand francs,� said the duke.
+
+�I shall give my daughter at least--yes, at least fifteen hundred
+thousand francs as her marriage portion,� declared the marquis.
+
+�His Majesty is favorably disposed toward me. I can obtain any important
+diplomatic position for Martial.�
+
+�In case of trouble, I have many friends among the opposition.�
+
+The treaty was thus concluded; but M. de Courtornieu took good care not
+to speak of it to his daughter. If he told her how much he desired
+the match, she would be sure to oppose it. Non-interference seemed
+advisable.
+
+The correctness of his judgment was fully demonstrated. One morning
+Mlle. Blanche made her appearance in his cabinet.
+
+�Your capricious daughter has decided, papa, that she would like to
+become the Marquise de Sairmeuse,� said she, peremptorily.
+
+It cost M. de Courtornieu quite an effort to conceal his delight; but he
+feared if she discovered his satisfaction that the game would be lost.
+
+He presented several objections; they were quickly disposed of; and, at
+last, he ventured to say:
+
+�Then the marriage is half decided; one of the parties consents. It only
+remains to ascertain if----�
+
+�The other will consent,� declared the vain heiress.
+
+And, in fact, for several days Mlle. Blanche had been applying herself
+assiduously and quite successfully to the work of fascination which was
+to bring Martial to her feet.
+
+After having made an advance, with studied frankness and simplicity,
+sure of the effect she had produced, she now proceeded to beat a
+retreat--a manoeuvre so simple that it was almost sure to succeed.
+
+Until now she had been gay, _spirituette_, and coquettish; gradually,
+she became quiet and reserved. The giddy school-girl had given place to
+the shrinking virgin.
+
+With what perfection she played her part in the divine comedy of first
+love! Martial could not fail to be fascinated by the modest artlessness
+and chaste fears of the heart which seemed to be waking for him. When he
+appeared, Mlle. Blanche blushed and was silent. At a word from him
+she became confused. He could only occasionally catch a glimpse of her
+beautiful eyes through the shelter of their long lashes.
+
+Who had taught her this refinement of coquetry? They say that the
+convent is an excellent teacher.
+
+But what she had not learned was that the most clever often become the
+dupes of their own imagination; and that great _comediennes_ generally
+conclude by shedding real tears.
+
+She learned this one evening, when a laughing remark made by the Duc de
+Sairmeuse revealed the fact that Martial was in the habit of going to
+Lacheneur�s house every day.
+
+What she experienced now could not be compared with the jealousy, or
+rather anger, which had previously agitated her.
+
+This was an acute, bitter, and intolerable sorrow. Before, she had been
+able to retain her composure; now, it was impossible.
+
+That she might not betray herself, she left the drawing-room
+precipitately and hastened to her own room, where she burst into a fit
+of passionate sobbing.
+
+�Can it be that he does not love me?� she murmured.
+
+This thought made her cold with terror. For the first time this haughty
+heiress distrusted her own power.
+
+She reflected that Martial�s position was so exalted that he could
+afford to despise rank; that he was so rich that wealth had no
+attractions for him; and that she herself might not be so pretty and so
+charming as flatterers had led her to suppose.
+
+Still Martial�s conduct during the past week--and Heaven knows with
+what fidelity her memory recalled each incident--was well calculated to
+reassure her.
+
+He had not, it is true, formally declared himself, but it was evident
+that he was paying his addresses to her. His manner was that of the most
+respectful, but the most infatuated of lovers.
+
+Her reflections were interrupted by the entrance of her maid, bringing a
+large bouquet of roses which had just been sent by Martial.
+
+She took the flowers, and while arranging them in a large Japanese vase,
+she bedewed them with the first real sincere tears she had shed since
+her entrance into the world.
+
+She was so pale and sad, so unlike herself when she appeared the next
+morning at breakfast, that Aunt Medea was alarmed.
+
+Mlle. Blanche had prepared an excuse, and she uttered it in such sweet
+tones that the poor lady was as much amazed as if she had witnessed a
+miracle.
+
+M. de Courtornieu was no less astonished.
+
+�Of what new freak is this doleful face the preface?� he wondered.
+
+He was still more alarmed when, immediately after breakfast, his
+daughter asked a moment�s conversation with him.
+
+She followed him into his study, and as soon as they were alone, without
+giving her father time to seat himself, Mlle. Blanche entreated him to
+tell her all that had passed between the Duc de Sairmeuse and himself,
+and asked if Martial had been informed of the intended alliance, and
+what he had replied.
+
+Her voice was meek, her eyes tearful; her manner indicated the most
+intense anxiety.
+
+The marquis was delighted.
+
+�My wilful daughter has been playing with fire,� he thought, stroking
+his chin caressingly; �and upon my word, she has burned herself.�
+
+�Yesterday, my child,� he replied, �the Duc de Sairmeuse formally
+demanded your hand on behalf of his son; your consent is all that is
+lacking. So rest easy, my beautiful, lovelorn damsel--you will be a
+duchess.�
+
+She hid her face in her hands to conceal her blushes.
+
+�You know my decision, father,� she faltered, in an almost inaudible
+voice; �we must make haste.�
+
+He started back, thinking he had not heard her words aright.
+
+�Make haste!� he repeated.
+
+�Yes, father. I have fears.�
+
+�What fears, in Heaven�s name?�
+
+�I will tell you when everything is settled,� she replied, as she made
+her escape from the room.
+
+She did not doubt the reports which had reached her ears, of Martial�s
+frequent visits to Marie-Anne, but she wished to see for herself.
+
+So, as soon as she left her father, she obliged Aunt Medea to dress
+herself, and without vouchsafing a single word of explanation, took her
+with her to the Reche, and stationed herself where she could command a
+view of M. Lacheneur�s house.
+
+It chanced to be the very day on which M. d�Escorval came to ask an
+explanation from his friend. She saw him come; then, after a little,
+Martial made his appearance.
+
+She had not been mistaken--now she could go home satisfied.
+
+But no. She resolved to count the seconds which Martial passed with
+Marie-Anne.
+
+M. d�Escorval did not remain long; she saw Martial hasten out after him,
+and speak to him.
+
+She breathed again. His visit had not lasted a half hour, and doubtless
+he was going away. Not at all. After a moment�s conversation with the
+baron, he returned to the house.
+
+�What are we doing here?� demanded Aunt Medea.
+
+�Let me alone!� replied Mlle. Blanche, angrily; �hold your tongue!�
+
+She heard the sound of wheels, the tramp of horses� hoofs, blows of the
+whip, and oaths.
+
+The wagons bearing the furniture and clothing belonging to M. Lacheneur
+were coming. This noise Martial must have heard within the house, for
+he came out, and after him came M. Lacheneur, Jean, Chanlouineau, and
+Marie-Anne.
+
+Everyone was soon busy in unloading the wagons, and positively, from the
+movements of the young Marquis de Sairmeuse, one would have sworn that
+he was giving orders; he came and went, hurrying to and fro, talking to
+everybody, not even disdaining to lend a hand occasionally.
+
+�He, a nobleman, makes himself at home in that wretched hovel!� Mlle.
+Blanche said to herself. �How horrible! Ah! this dangerous creature will
+do with him whatever she desires.�
+
+All this was nothing compared with what was to come. A third wagon
+appeared, drawn by a single horse, and laden with pots of flowers and
+shrubs.
+
+This sight drew a cry of rage from Mlle. de Courtornieu which must have
+carried terror to Aunt Medea�s heart.
+
+�Flowers!� she exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with passion. �He sends
+flowers to her as he does to me--only he sends me a bouquet, while for
+her he despoils the gardens of Sairmeuse.�
+
+�What are you saying about flowers?� inquired the impoverished relative.
+
+Mlle. Blanche replied that she had not made the slightest allusion to
+flowers. She was suffocating--and yet she compelled herself to remain
+there three mortal hours--all the time that was required to unload the
+furniture.
+
+The wagons had been gone some time, when Martial again appeared upon the
+threshold.
+
+Marie-Anne had accompanied him to the door, and they were talking
+together. It seemed impossible for him to make up his mind to depart.
+
+He did so, at last, however; but he left slowly and with evident
+reluctance. Marie-Anne, remaining in the door, gave him a friendly
+gesture of farewell.
+
+�I wish to speak to this creature!� exclaimed Mlle. Blanche. �Come,
+aunt, at once!�
+
+Had Marie-Anne, at that moment, been within the reach of Mlle. de
+Courtornieu�s voice, she would certainly have learned the secret of her
+former friend�s anger and hatred.
+
+But fate willed it otherwise. At least three hundred yards of rough
+ground separated the place where Mlle. Blanche had stationed herself,
+from the Lacheneur cottage.
+
+It required a moment to cross this space; and that was time enough to
+change all the girl�s intentions.
+
+She had not traversed a quarter of the distance before she bitterly
+regretted having shown herself at all. But to retrace her steps now was
+impossible, for Marie-Anne, who was still standing upon the threshold,
+had seen her approaching.
+
+There remained barely time to regain her self-control, and to compose
+her features. She profited by it.
+
+She had her sweetest smile upon her lips as she greeted Marie-Anne.
+Still she was embarrassed; she did not know what excuse to give for her
+visit, and to gain time she pretended to be quite out of breath.
+
+�Ah! it is not very easy to reach you, dear Marie-Anne,� she said, at
+last; �you live _upon_ the summit of a veritable mountain.�
+
+Mlle. Lacheneur said not a word. She was greatly surprised, and she did
+not attempt to conceal the fact.
+
+�Aunt Medea pretended to know the road,� continued Mlle. Blanche, �but
+she led me astray; did you not, aunt?�
+
+As usual, the impecunious relative assented, and her niece resumed:
+
+�But at last we are here. I could not, my dearest, resign myself to
+hearing nothing from you, especially after all your misfortunes. What
+have you been doing? Did my recommendation procure for you the work you
+desired?�
+
+Marie-Anne could not fail to be deeply touched by this kindly interest
+on the part of her former friend. So, with perfect frankness, and
+without any false shame, she confessed that all her efforts had been
+fruitless. It had even seemed to her that several ladies had taken
+pleasure in treating her unkindly.
+
+But Mlle. Blanche was not listening. A few steps from her stood the
+flowers brought from Sairmeuse; and their perfume rekindled her anger.
+
+�At least,� she interrupted, �you have here what will almost make you
+forget the gardens of Sairmeuse. Who sent you these beautiful flowers?�
+
+Marie-Anne turned crimson. She did not speak for a moment, but at last
+she replied, or rather stammered:
+
+�It is--an attention from the Marquis de Sairmeuse.�
+
+�So she confesses it!� thought Mlle. de Courtornieu, amazed at what she
+was pleased to consider an outrageous piece of impudence.
+
+But she succeeded in concealing her rage beneath a loud burst of
+laughter; and it was in a tone of raillery that she said:
+
+�Take care, my dear friend; I am going to call you to account. It is
+from my fiance that you are accepting flowers.�
+
+�What! the Marquis de Sairmeuse?�
+
+�Has demanded the hand of your friend. Yes, my darling; and my father
+has given it to him. It is a secret as yet; but I see no danger in
+confiding in your friendship.�
+
+She believed that she had inflicted a mortal wound upon Marie-Anne�s
+heart; but though she watched her closely, she failed to detect the
+slightest trace of emotion upon her face.
+
+�What dissimulation!� she thought. Then aloud, and with affected gayety,
+she resumed:
+
+�And the country folks will see two weddings at about the same time,
+since you, also, are going to be married, my dear.�
+
+�I!�
+
+�Yes, you, you little deceiver! Everybody knows that you are engaged to
+a young man in the neighborhood, named--wait--I know--Chanlouineau.�
+
+Thus the report that annoyed Marie-Anne so much reached her from every
+side.
+
+�Everybody is for once mistaken,� said she, energetically. �I shall
+never be that young man�s wife.�
+
+�But why? They speak well of him, personally, and he is quite rich.�
+
+�Because,� faltered Marie-Anne, �because----�
+
+Maurice d�Escorval�s name trembled upon her lips; but unfortunately she
+did not utter it, prevented by a strange expression on the face of her
+friend. How often one�s destiny depends upon a circumstance apparently
+as trivial as this!
+
+�Impudent, worthless creature!� thought Mlle. Blanche.
+
+Then, in cold and sneering tones, that betrayed her hatred unmistakably,
+she said:
+
+�You are wrong, believe me, to refuse this offer. This Chanlouineau
+will, at all events, save you from the painful necessity of laboring
+with your own hands, and of going from door to door in quest of work
+which is refused you. But, no matter; I�--she laid great stress upon
+this word--�I will be more generous than your old acquaintances. I have
+a great deal of embroidery to be done. I shall send it to you by my
+maid, and you two may agree upon the price. We must go. Good-by, my
+dear. Come, Aunt Medea.�
+
+She departed, leaving Marie-Anne petrified with surprise, sorrow, and
+indignation.
+
+Although less experienced than Mlle. Blanche, she comprehended that this
+strange visit concealed some mystery--but what?
+
+For more than a minute she stood motionless, gazing after her departing
+guests; then she started suddenly as a hand was laid gently upon her
+shoulder.
+
+She trembled, and, turning quickly, found herself face to face with her
+father.
+
+Lacheneur�s face was whiter than his linen, and a sinister light
+glittered in his eye.
+
+�I was there,� said he, pointing to the door, �and--I heard all.�
+
+�Father!�
+
+�What! would you try to defend her after she came here to crush you with
+her insolent good fortune--after she overwhelmed you with her ironical
+pity and with her scorn? I tell you they are all like this--these girls,
+whose heads have been turned by flattery, and who believe that in
+their veins flows a different blood from ours. But patience! The day of
+reckoning is near at hand!�
+
+Those whom he threatened would have shuddered had they seen him at that
+moment, so terrible was the rage revealed by his accent, so formidable
+did he appear.
+
+�And you, my beloved daughter, my poor Marie-Anne, you did not
+understand the insults she heaped upon you. You are wondering why she
+should have treated you with such disdain. Ah, well! I will tell you:
+she imagines that the Marquis de Sairmeuse is your lover.�
+
+Marie-Anne tottered beneath the terrible blow, and a nervous spasm shook
+her from head to foot.
+
+�Can this be possible?� she exclaimed. �Great God! what shame! what
+humiliation!�
+
+�And why should this astonish you?� said Lacheneur, coldly. �Have you
+not expected this ever since the day when you, my devoted daughter,
+consented, for the sake of my plans, to submit to the attentions of this
+marquis, whom you loathe as much as I despise?�
+
+�But Maurice! Maurice will despise me! I can bear anything, yes,
+everything but that.�
+
+M. Lacheneur made no reply. Marie-Anne�s despair was heart-breaking;
+he felt that he could not bear to witness it, that it would shake his
+resolution, and he re-entered the house.
+
+But his penetration was not at fault. While waiting to find a revenge
+which would be worthy of her, Mlle. Blanche armed herself with a weapon
+of which jealousy and hatred so often avail themselves--calumny.
+
+Two or three abominable stories which she concocted, and which she
+forced Aunt Medea to circulate everywhere, did not produce the desired
+effect.
+
+Marie-Anne�s reputation was, of course, ruined by them; but Martial�s
+visits, instead of ceasing, became longer and more frequent.
+Dissatisfied with his progress, and fearful that he was being duped, he
+even watched the house.
+
+So it happened that, one evening, when he was quite sure that Lacheneur,
+his son, and Chanlouineau were absent, Martial saw a man leave the house
+and hasten across the fields.
+
+He rushed after him, but the man escaped him.
+
+He believed, however, that he recognized Maurice d�Escorval.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+After his son�s confession, M. d�Escorval was prudent enough to make no
+allusion to the hopes he, himself, entertained.
+
+�My poor Maurice,� he thought, �is heart-broken, but resigned. It is
+better for him to remain without hope than to be exposed to the danger
+of another disappointment.�
+
+But passion is not always blind. What the baron concealed, Maurice
+divined; and he clung to this faint hope as tenaciously as a drowning
+man clings to the plank which is his only hope of salvation.
+
+If he asked his parents no questions it was only because he was
+convinced that they would not tell him the truth.
+
+But he watched all that went on in the house with that subtleness of
+penetration which fever so often imparts.
+
+Not one of his father�s movements escaped his vigilant eye and ear.
+
+Consequently, he heard him put on his boots, ask for his hat, and select
+a cane from among those standing in the vestibule. He also heard the
+outer gate grate upon its hinges.
+
+�My father is going out,� he said to himself.
+
+And weak as he was, he succeeded in dragging himself to the window in
+time to satisfy himself of the truth of his conjectures.
+
+�If my father is going out,� he thought, �it can only be to visit
+Monsieur Lacheneur---then he has not relinquished all hope.�
+
+An arm-chair was standing nearby; he sank into it, intending to watch
+for his father�s return; by doing so, he might know his destiny a few
+moments sooner.
+
+Three long hours passed before the baron returned.
+
+By his father�s dejected manner he plainly saw that all hope was lost.
+He was sure of it; as sure as the criminal who reads the fatal verdict
+in the solemn face of the judge.
+
+He had need of all his energy to regain his couch. For a moment he felt
+that he was dying.
+
+But he was ashamed of this weakness, which he judged unworthy of him. He
+determined to know what had passed--to know the details.
+
+He rang, and told the servant that he wished to speak to his father. M.
+d�Escorval promptly made his appearance.
+
+�Well?� cried Maurice.
+
+M. d�Escorval felt that denial was useless.
+
+�Lacheneur is deaf to my remonstrances and to my entreaties,� he
+replied, sadly. �Nothing remains for you but to submit, my son. I
+shall not tell you that time will assuage the sorrow that now seems
+insupportable--you would not believe me. But I do say to you, that you
+are a man, and that you must prove your courage. I say even more:
+fight against thoughts of Marie-Anne as a traveller on the verge of a
+precipice fights against the thought of vertigo.�
+
+�Have you seen Marie-Anne, father? Have you spoken to her?�
+
+�I found her even more inflexible than Lacheneur.�
+
+�They reject me, and they receive Chanlouineau, perhaps.�
+
+�Chanlouineau is living there.�
+
+�My God! And Martial de Sairmeuse?�
+
+�He is their familiar guest. I saw him there.� That each of these
+responses fell upon Maurice like a thunder-bolt was only too evident.
+
+But M. d�Escorval had armed himself with the impassable courage of
+a surgeon who does not relax his hold on his instruments because the
+patient groans and writhes in agony.
+
+M. d�Escorval wished to extinguish the last ray of hope in the heart of
+his son.
+
+�It is evident that Monsieur Lacheneur has lost his reason!� exclaimed
+Maurice.
+
+The baron shook his head despondently. �I thought so myself, at first,�
+ he murmured.
+
+�But what does he say in justification of his conduct? He must say
+something.�
+
+�Nothing; _he_ refuses any explanation.�
+
+�And you, father, with all your knowledge of human nature, with all your
+wide experience, have not been able to fathom his intentions?�
+
+�I have my suspicions,� M. d�Escorval replied; �but only suspicions.
+It is possible that Lacheneur, listening to the voice of hatred, is
+dreaming of a terrible revenge. Who knows if he does not think of
+organizing some conspiracy, of which he is to be the leader? These
+suppositions would explain everything. Chanlouineau is his aider and
+abettor; and he pretends to be reconciled to the Marquis de Sairmeuse in
+order to get information through him----�
+
+The blood had returned to the pale cheeks of Maurice.
+
+�Such a conspiracy would not explain Monsieur Lacheneur�s obstinate
+rejection of my suit.�
+
+�Alas! yes, my poor boy. It is through Marie-Anne that Lacheneur exerts
+such an influence over Chanlouineau and the Marquis de Sairmeuse. If she
+became your wife to-day, they would desert him tomorrow. Then, too, it
+is precisely because he loves us that he is determined we shall not be
+mixed up in an enterprise the success of which is extremely doubtful.
+But these are mere conjectures.�
+
+�Then I see that it is necessary to submit, to be resigned; forget, I
+cannot,� faltered Maurice.
+
+He said this because he wished to reassure his father; but he thought
+exactly the opposite.
+
+�If Lacheneur is organizing a conspiracy,� he said, to himself, �he
+must need assistance. Why should I not offer mine? If I aid him in
+his preparations, if I share his hopes and his dangers, it will be
+impossible for him to refuse me the hand of his daughter. Whatever he
+may desire to undertake, I can surely be of greater assistance than
+Chanlouineau.�
+
+From that moment Maurice thought only of doing everything possible to
+hasten his convalescence. This was so rapid, so extraordinarily rapid,
+as to astonish Abbe Midon, who had taken the place of the physician from
+Montaignac.
+
+�I never would have believed that Maurice could have been thus
+consoled,� said Mme. d�Escorval, delighted to see her son�s wonderful
+improvement in health and spirits.
+
+But the baron made no response. He regarded this almost miraculous
+recovery with distrust; he was assailed by a vague suspicion of the
+truth.
+
+He questioned his son, but skilfully as he did it, he could draw nothing
+from him.
+
+Maurice had decided to say nothing to his parents. What good would it do
+to trouble them? Besides, he feared remonstrance and opposition, and he
+was resolved to carry out his plans, even if he was compelled to leave
+the paternal roof.
+
+In the second week of September the abbe declared that Maurice might
+resume his ordinary life, and that, as the weather was pleasant, it
+would be well for him to spend much of his time in the open air.
+
+In his delight, Maurice embraced the worthy priest.
+
+�What happiness!� he exclaimed; �then I can hunt once more!�
+
+He really cared but little for the chase; but he deemed it expedient
+to pretend a great passion for it, since it would furnish him with an
+excuse for frequent and protracted absences.
+
+Never had he felt more happy than on the morning when, with his gun upon
+his shoulder, he crossed the Oiselle and started for the abode of M.
+Lacheneur. On reaching the little grove on the Reche, he paused for a
+moment at a place which commanded a view of the cottage. While he stood
+there, he saw Jean Lacheneur and Chanlouineau leave the house, each
+laden with a pedler�s pack.
+
+Maurice was therefore sure that M. Lacheneur and Marie-Anne were alone
+in the house.
+
+He hastened to the cottage and entered without stopping to rap.
+
+Marie-Anne and her father were kneeling on the hearth, upon which a huge
+fire was blazing.
+
+On hearing the door open, they turned; and at the sight of Maurice, they
+both sprang up, blushing and confused.
+
+�What brings you here?� they exclaimed in the same breath.
+
+Under other circumstances, Maurice d�Escorval would have been dismayed
+by such a hostile greeting, but now he scarcely noticed it.
+
+�You have no business to return here against my wishes, and after what I
+have said to you, Monsieur d�Escorval,� said Lacheneur, rudely.
+
+Maurice smiled, he was perfectly cool, and not a detail of the scene
+before him had escaped his notice. If he had felt any doubts before,
+they were now dissipated. He saw upon the fire a large kettle of
+melted lead, and several bullet-moulds stood on the hearth, beside the
+andirons.
+
+�If I venture to present myself at your house, Monsieur,� said Maurice,
+gravely and impressively, �it is because I know all. I have discovered
+your revengeful project. You are looking for men to aid you, are you
+not? Very well! look me in the face, in the eyes, and tell me if I am
+not one of those whom a leader is glad to enroll among his followers.�
+
+M. Lacheneur was terribly agitated.
+
+�I do not know what you mean,� he faltered, forgetting his feigned
+anger; �I have no projects.�
+
+�Would you assert this upon oath? Why are you casting these bullets? You
+are clumsy conspirators. You should lock your door; someone else might
+have entered.�
+
+And adding example to precept, he turned and pushed the bolt.
+
+�This is only an imprudence,� he continued; �but to reject a soldier who
+comes to you voluntarily would be a fault for which your associate would
+have a right to call you to account. I have no desire, understand me,
+to force myself into your confidence. No, I give myself to you blindly,
+body and soul. Whatever your cause may be, I declare it mine; what you
+wish, I wish; I adopt your plans; your enemies are my enemies; command,
+I will obey. I ask only one favor, that of fighting, of triumphing, or
+of dying by your side.�
+
+�Oh! refuse, father!� exclaimed Marie-Anne; �refuse. To accept this
+offer would be a crime!�
+
+�A crime! And why, if you please?�
+
+�Because our cause is not your cause; because its success is doubtful;
+because dangers surround us on every side.�
+
+A scornful exclamation from Maurice interrupted her.
+
+�And it is you who think to dissuade me by pointing out the dangers that
+threaten you, the dangers that you are braving----�
+
+�Maurice!�
+
+�So if imminent peril menaced me, instead of coming to my aid you would
+desert me? You would hide yourself, saying, �Let him perish, so that I
+be saved!� Speak! Would you do this?�
+
+She averted her face and made no reply. She could not force herself to
+utter an untruth; and she was unwilling to answer: �I would act as you
+are acting.� She waited for her father�s decision.
+
+�If I should comply with your request, Maurice,� said M. Lacheneur, �in
+less than three days you would curse me, and ruin us by some outburst
+of anger. You love Marie-Anne. Could you see, unmoved, the frightful
+position in which she is placed? Remember, she must not discourage the
+addresses either of Chanlouineau or of the Marquis de Sairmeuse. You
+regard me--oh, I know as well as you do that it is a shameful and odious
+role that I impose upon her--that she is compelled to play a part
+in which she will lose a young girl�s most precious possession--her
+reputation.�
+
+Maurice did not wince. �So be it,� he said, calmly. �Marie-Anne�s fate
+will be that of all women who have devoted themselves to the political
+advancement of the man whom they love, be he father, brother, or lover.
+She will be slandered, insulted, calumniated. What does it matter? She
+may continue her task. I consent to it, for I shall never doubt her, and
+I shall know how to hold my peace. If we succeed, she shall be my wife;
+if we fail----�
+
+The gesture which concluded the sentence said more strongly than any
+protestations, that he was ready, resigned to anything.
+
+M. Lacheneur was greatly moved.
+
+�At least give me time for reflection,� said he.
+
+�There is no necessity for further reflection, Monsieur.�
+
+�But you are only a child, Maurice; and your father is my friend.�
+
+�What of that?�
+
+�Rash boy! do you not understand that by compromising yourself you also
+compromise Baron d�Escorval? You think you are risking only your own
+head; you are endangering your father�s life----�
+
+But Maurice violently interrupted him.
+
+�There has been too much parleying already!� he exclaimed; �there have
+been too many remonstrances. Answer me in a word! Only understand this:
+if you reject me, I will return to my father�s house, and with this gun
+which I hold in my hand I will blow out my brains.�
+
+This was no idle threat. It was evident that what he said, that would he
+do. His listeners were so convinced of this, that Marie-Anne turned to
+her father with clasped hands and a look of entreaty.
+
+�You are one of us, then,� said M. Lacheneur, sternly; �but do not
+forget that you forced me to consent by threats; and whatever may happen
+to you or yours, remember that you would have it so.�
+
+But these gloomy words produced no impression upon Maurice; he was wild
+with joy.
+
+�Now,� continued M. Lacheneur, �I must tell you my hopes, and acquaint
+you with the cause for which I am laboring----�
+
+�What does that matter to me?� Maurice exclaimed, gayly; and, springing
+toward Marie-Anne, he seized her hand and raised it to his lips, crying,
+with the joyous laugh of youth:
+
+�My cause--here it is!�
+
+Lacheneur turned away. Perhaps he recollected that a sacrifice of his
+pride was all that was necessary to assure the happiness of these poor
+children.
+
+But if a feeling of remorse entered his mind, he drove it away, and with
+increased sternness, he said:
+
+�Still, Monsieur d�Escorval, it is necessary for you to understand our
+agreement.�
+
+�Make known your conditions, sir.�
+
+�First, your visits here--after certain rumors that I have put in
+circulation--would arouse suspicion. You must come here only at night,
+and then only at hours that have been agreed upon in advance--never when
+you are not expected.�
+
+The attitude of Maurice expressed his entire consent.
+
+�Moreover, you must find some way to cross the river without having
+recourse to the ferryman, who is a dangerous fellow.�
+
+�We have an old skiff. I will persuade my father to have it repaired.�
+
+�Very well. Will you also promise me to avoid the Marquis de Sairmeuse?�
+
+�I will.�
+
+�Wait a moment; we must be prepared for any emergency. It may be
+that, in spite of our precautions, you will meet him here. Monsieur de
+Sairmeuse is arrogance itself; and he hates you. You detest him, and you
+are very hasty. Swear to me that if he provokes you, you will ignore his
+insults.�
+
+�But I should be considered a coward, Monsieur!�
+
+�Probably. Will you swear?�
+
+Maurice hesitated, but an imploring look from Marie-Anne decided him.
+
+�I swear!� he said, gravely.
+
+�As far as Chanlouineau is concerned, it would be better not to let him
+know of our agreement--but I will take care of this matter.�
+
+M. Lacheneur paused and reflected for a moment, as if striving to
+discover if he had forgotten anything.
+
+�Nothing remains, Maurice,� he resumed, �but to give you a last and very
+important piece of advice. Do you know my son?�
+
+�Certainly; we were formerly the best of comrades during our vacations.�
+
+�Very well. When you know my secret--for I shall confide it to you
+without reserve--beware of Jean.�
+
+�What, sir?�
+
+�Beware of Jean. I repeat it.�
+
+And he blushed deeply, as he added:
+
+�Ah! it is a painful avowal for a father; but I have no confidence in my
+own son. He knows no more in regard to my plans than I told him on the
+day of his arrival. I deceive him, because I fear he might betray us.
+Perhaps it would be wise to send him away; but in that case, what would
+people say? Most assuredly they would say that I was very avaricious of
+my own blood, while I was very ready to risk the lives of others. Still
+I may be mistaken; I may misjudge him.�
+
+He sighed, and added:
+
+�Beware!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+So it was really Maurice d�Escorval whom the Marquis de Sairmeuse had
+seen leaving Lacheneur�s house.
+
+Martial was not certain of it, but the very possibility made his heart
+swell with anger.
+
+�What part am I playing here, then?� he exclaimed, indignantly.
+
+He had been so completely blinded by passion that he would not have been
+likely to discover the real condition of affairs even if no pains had
+been taken to deceive him.
+
+Lacheneur�s formal courtesy and politeness he regarded as sincere.
+He believed in the studied respect shown him by Jean; and the almost
+servile obsequiousness of Chanlouineau did not surprise him in the
+least.
+
+And since Marie-Anne welcomed him politely, he concluded that his suit
+was progressing favorably.
+
+Having himself forgotten, he supposed that everyone else had ceased to
+remember.
+
+Moreover, he was of the opinion that he had acted with great generosity,
+and that he was entitled to the deep gratitude of the Lacheneur family;
+for M. Lacheneur had received the legacy bequeathed him by Mlle.
+Armande, and an indemnity, besides all the furniture he had chosen to
+take from the chateau, a total of at least sixty thousand francs.
+
+�He must be hard to please, if he is not satisfied!� growled the duke,
+enraged at such prodigality, though it did not cost him a penny.
+
+Martial had supposed himself the only visitor at the cottage on the
+Reche; and when he discovered that such was not the case, he became
+furious.
+
+�Am I, then, the dupe of a shameless girl?� he thought.
+
+He was so incensed, that for more than a week he did not go to
+Lacheneur�s house.
+
+His father concluded that his ill-humor and gloom was caused by
+some misunderstanding with Marie-Anne; and he took advantage of this
+opportunity to gain his son�s consent to an alliance with Blanche de
+Courtornieu.
+
+A victim to the most cruel doubts and fears, Martial, goaded to the last
+extremity, exclaimed:
+
+�Very well! I will marry Mademoiselle Blanche.�
+
+The duke did not allow such a good resolution to grow cold.
+
+In less than forty-eight hours the engagement was made public; the
+marriage contract was drawn up, and it was announced that the wedding
+would take place early in the spring.
+
+A grand banquet was given at Sairmeuse in honor of the betrothal--a
+banquet all the more brilliant since there were other victories to be
+celebrated.
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse had just received, with his brevet of
+lieutenant-general, a commission placing him in command of the military
+department of Montaignac.
+
+The Marquis de Courtornieu had also received an appointment, making him
+provost-marshal of the same district.
+
+Blanche had triumphed. After this public betrothal Martial was bound to
+her.
+
+For a fortnight, indeed, he scarcely left her side. In her society
+there was a charm whose sweetness almost made him forget his love for
+Marie-Anne.
+
+But unfortunately the haughty heiress could not resist the temptation
+to make a slighting allusion to Marie-Anne, and to the lowliness of
+the marquis�s former tastes. She found an opportunity to say that she
+furnished Marie-Anne with work to aid her in earning a living.
+
+Martial forced himself to smile; but the indignity which Marie-Anne had
+received aroused his sympathy and indignation.
+
+And the next day he went to Lacheneur�s house.
+
+In the warmth of the greeting that awaited him there, all his anger
+vanished, all his suspicions evaporated. Marie-Anne�s eyes beamed with
+joy on seeing him again; he noticed it.
+
+�Oh! I shall win her yet!� he thought.
+
+All the household were really delighted at his return; the son of the
+commander of the military forces at Montaignac, and the prospective
+son-in-law of the provost-marshal, Martial was a most valuable
+instrument.
+
+�Through him, we shall have an eye and an ear in the enemy�s camp,� said
+Lacheneur. �The Marquis de Sairmeuse will be our spy.�
+
+He was, for he soon resumed his daily visits to the cottage. It was now
+December, and the roads were terrible; but neither rain, snow, nor mud
+could keep Martial from the cottage.
+
+He made his appearance generally as early as ten o�clock, seated himself
+upon a stool in the shadow of a tall fireplace, and he and Marie-Anne
+talked by the hour.
+
+She seemed greatly interested in matters at Montaignac, and he told her
+all that he knew in regard to affairs there.
+
+Sometimes they were alone.
+
+Lacheneur, Chanlouineau, and Jean were tramping about the country with
+their merchandise. Business was prospering so well that M. Lacheneur had
+purchased a horse in order to extend his journeys.
+
+But Martial�s conversation was generally interrupted by visitors. It was
+really surprising to see how many peasants came to the house to speak to
+M. Lacheneur. There was an interminable procession of them. And to each
+of these peasants Marie-Anne had something to say in private. Then she
+offered each man refreshments--the house seemed almost like a common
+drinking-saloon.
+
+But what can daunt the courage of a lover? Martial endured all this
+without a murmur. He laughed and jested with the comers and goers; he
+shook hands with them; sometimes he even drank with them.
+
+He gave many other proofs of moral courage. He offered to assist M.
+Lacheneur in making up his accounts; and once--it happened about the
+middle of February--seeing Chanlouineau worrying over the composition of
+a letter, he actually offered to act as his amanuensis.
+
+�The d----d letter is not for me, but for an uncle of mine who is about
+to marry off his daughter,� said Chanlouineau.
+
+Martial took a seat at the table, and, at Chanlouineau�s dictation, but
+not without many erasures, indited the following epistle:
+
+
+�My dear friend--We are at last agreed, and the marriage has been
+decided upon. We are now busy with preparations for the wedding, which
+will take place on ----. We invite you to give us the pleasure of your
+company. We count upon you, and be assured that the more friends you
+bring with you the better we shall be pleased.�
+
+
+Had Martial seen the smile upon Chanlouineau�s lips when he requested
+him to leave the date for the wedding a blank, he would certainly have
+suspected that he had been caught in a snare. But he was in love.
+
+�Ah! Marquis,� remarked his father one day, �Chupin tells me you are
+always at Lacheneur�s. When will you recover from your _penchant_ for
+that little girl?�
+
+Martial did not reply. He felt that he was at that �little girl�s�
+ mercy. Each glance of hers made his heart throb wildly. By her side
+he was a willing captive. If she had asked him to make her his wife he
+would not have said no.
+
+But Marie-Anne had not this ambition. All her thoughts, all her wishes
+were for her father�s success.
+
+Maurice and Marie-Anne had become M. Lacheneur�s most intrepid
+auxiliaries. They were looking forward to such a magnificent reward.
+
+Such feverish activity as Maurice displayed! All day long he hurried
+from hamlet to hamlet, and in the evening, as soon as dinner was over,
+he made his escape from the drawing-room, sprang into his boat, and
+hastened to the Reche.
+
+M. d�Escorval could not fail to remark the long and frequent absences
+of his son. He watched him, and soon became absolutely certain that
+Lacheneur had, to use the baron�s own expression, seduced him.
+
+Greatly alarmed, he decided to go and see his former friend, and fearing
+another repulse, he begged Abbe Midon to accompany him.
+
+It was on the 4th of March, at about half-past four o�clock, that M.
+d�Escorval and the cure started for the Reche. They were so anxious
+and troubled in mind that they scarcely exchanged a dozen words as they
+wended their way onward.
+
+A strange sight met their eyes as they emerged from the grove on the
+Reche.
+
+Night was falling, but it was still light enough for them to distinguish
+objects only a short distance from them.
+
+Before Lacheneur�s house stood a group of about a dozen persons, and M.
+Lacheneur was speaking and gesticulating excitedly.
+
+What was he saying? Neither the baron nor the priest could distinguish
+his words, but when he ceased, the most vociferous acclamations rent the
+air.
+
+Suddenly a match glowed between his fingers; he set fire to a bundle of
+straw and tossed it upon the thatched roof of his cottage, crying out in
+a terrible voice:
+
+�The die is cast! This will prove to you that I shall not draw back!�
+
+Five minutes later the house was in flames.
+
+In the distance the baron and his companion saw the windows of the
+citadel at Montaignac illuminated by a red glare, and upon every
+hill-side glowed the light of other incendiary fires.
+
+The country was responding to Lacheneur�s signal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Ah! ambition is a fine thing!
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu were past middle
+age; their lives had been marked by many storms and vicissitudes; they
+were the possessors of millions, and the owners of the most sumptuous
+residences in the province. Under these circumstances one might
+have supposed that they would desire to end their days in peace and
+quietness.
+
+It would have been easy for them to create a life of happiness by doing
+good to those around them, and by preparing for their last hours a
+chorus of benedictions and of regrets.
+
+But no. They longed to have a hand in managing the ship of state; they
+were not content to be simply passengers.
+
+And the duke, appointed to the command of the military forces, and the
+marquis, made presiding judge of the court at Montaignac, were both
+obliged to leave their beautiful homes and take up their abode in rather
+dingy quarters in town.
+
+They did not murmur at the change; their vanity was satisfied.
+
+Louis XVIII. was on the throne; their prejudices were triumphant; they
+were happy.
+
+It is true that dissatisfaction was rife on every side, but had they not
+hundreds and thousands of allies at hand to suppress it?
+
+And when wise and thoughtful persons spoke of �discontent,� the duke and
+his associates regarded them as visionaries.
+
+On the 4th of March, 1816, the duke was just sitting down to dinner when
+a loud noise was heard in the vestibule.
+
+He rose--but at that very instant the door was flung open and a man
+entered, panting and breathless.
+
+This man was Chupin, the former poacher, whom M. de Sairmeuse had
+elevated to the position of head gamekeeper.
+
+It was evident that something extraordinary had happened.
+
+�What is it?� inquired the duke.
+
+�They are coming!� cried Chupin; �they are already on the way!�
+
+�Who? who?�
+
+By way of response, Chupin handed the duke a copy of the letter written
+by Martial under Chanlouineau�s dictation.
+
+M. de Sairmeuse read:
+
+
+�My dear friend--We are at last agreed, and the marriage is decided. We
+are now busy in preparing for the wedding, which will take place on the
+4th of March.�
+
+
+The date was no longer blank; but still the duke did not comprehend.
+
+�Well, what of it?� he demanded.
+
+Chupin tore his hair.
+
+�They are on the way,� he repeated. �I speak of the peasants--they
+intend to take possession of Montaignac, dethrone Louis XVIII.,
+bring back the Emperor, or at least the son of the Emperor--miserable
+wretches! they have deceived me. I suspected this outbreak, but I did
+not think it was so near at hand.�
+
+This terrible blow, so entirely unexpected, stupefied the duke for a
+moment.
+
+�How many are there?� he demanded.
+
+�Ah! how do I know, Monsieur? Two thousand, perhaps--perhaps ten
+thousand.�
+
+�All the towns-people are with us.�
+
+�No, Monsieur, no. The rebels have accomplices here. All the retired
+officers stand ready to assist them.�
+
+�Who are the leaders of the movement?�
+
+�Lacheneur, Abbe Midon, Chanlouineau, Baron d�Escorval----�
+
+�Enough!� cried the duke.
+
+Now that danger was certain, his coolness returned; and his herculean
+form, a trifle bowed by the weight of years, rose to its full height.
+
+He gave the bell-rope a violent pull; a valet appeared.
+
+�My uniform,� commanded M. de Sairmeuse; �my pistols! Quick!�
+
+The servant was about to obey, when the duke exclaimed:
+
+�Wait! Let someone take a horse, and go and tell my son to come here
+without a moment�s delay. Take one of the swiftest horses. The messenger
+ought to go to Sairmeuse and return in two hours.�
+
+Chupin endeavored to attract the duke�s attention by pulling the skirt
+of his coat. M. de Sairmeuse turned:
+
+�What is it?�
+
+The old poacher put his finger on his lip, recommending silence, but as
+soon as the valet had left the room, he said:
+
+�It is useless to send for the marquis.�
+
+�And why, you fool?�
+
+�Because, Monsieur, because--excuse me--I----�
+
+�Zounds! will you speak, or will you not?�
+
+Chupin regretted that he had gone so far.
+
+�Because the marquis----�
+
+�Well?�
+
+�He is engaged in it.�
+
+The duke overturned the table with a terrible blow of his clinched fist.
+
+�You lie, wretch!� he thundered, with the most horrible oaths.
+
+He was so formidable in his anger that the old poacher sprang to the
+door and turned the knob, ready to take flight.
+
+�May I lose my head if I do not speak the truth,� he insisted. �Ah!
+Lacheneur�s daughter is a regular sorceress. All the gallants of the
+neighborhood are in the ranks; Chanlouineau, young d�Escorval, your
+son----�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse was pouring forth a torrent of curses upon Marie-Anne
+when his valet re-entered the room.
+
+He suddenly checked himself, put on his uniform, and ordering Chupin to
+follow him, hastened from the house.
+
+He was still hoping that Chupin had exaggerated the danger; but when
+he reached the Place d�Arms, which commanded an extended view of the
+surrounding country, his illusions were put to flight.
+
+Signal-lights gleamed upon every side. Montaignac seemed surrounded by a
+circle of flame.
+
+�These are the signals,� murmured Chupin. �The rebels will be here
+before two o�clock in the morning.�
+
+The duke made no response, but hastened to consult M. de Courtornieu.
+
+He was striding toward his friend�s house when, on hastily turning
+a corner, he saw two men talking in a doorway, and on seeing the
+glittering of the duke�s epaulets, both of them took flight.
+
+The duke instinctively started in pursuit, overtook one man, and seizing
+him by the collar, he asked, sternly:
+
+�Who are you? What is your name?�
+
+The man was silent, and his captor shook him so roughly that two
+pistols, which had been hidden under his long coat, fell to the ground.
+
+�Ah, brigand!� exclaimed M. de Sairmeuse, �so you are one of the
+conspirators against the King!�
+
+Then, without another word, he dragged the man to the citadel, gave
+him in charge of the astonished soldiers, and again started for M. de
+Courtornieu�s house.
+
+He expected the marquis would be terrified; not in the least; he seemed
+delighted.
+
+�At last there comes an opportunity for us to display our devotion and
+our zeal--and without danger! We have good walls, strong gates, and
+three thousand soldiers at our command. These peasants are fools! But
+be grateful for their folly, my dear duke, and run and order out the
+Montaignac chasseurs----�
+
+But suddenly a cloud overspread his face; he knit his brows, and added:
+
+�The devil! I am expecting Blanche this evening. She was to leave
+Courtornieu after dinner. Heaven grant that she may meet with no
+misfortune on the way!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu had more time before
+them than they supposed.
+
+The rebels were advancing, but not so rapidly as Chupin had said.
+
+Two circumstances, which it was impossible to foresee, disarranged
+Lacheneur�s plans.
+
+Standing beside his burning house, Lacheneur counted the signal fires
+that blazed out in answer to his own.
+
+Their number corresponded to his expectations; he uttered a cry of joy.
+
+�All our friends keep their word!� he exclaimed. �They are ready; they
+are even now on their way to the rendezvous. Let us start at once, for
+we must be there first!�
+
+They brought him his horse, and his foot was already in the stirrup,
+when two men sprang from the neighboring grove and darted toward him.
+One of them seized the horse by the bridle.
+
+�Abbe Midon!� exclaimed Lacheneur, in profound astonishment; �Monsieur
+d�Escorval!�
+
+And foreseeing, perhaps, what was to come, he added, in a tone of
+concentrated fury:
+
+�What do you two men want with me?�
+
+�We wish to prevent the accomplishment of an act of madness!� exclaimed
+M. d�Escorval. �Hatred has crazed you, Lacheneur!�
+
+�You know nothing of my projects!�
+
+�Do you think that I do not suspect them? You hope to capture
+Montaignac-----�
+
+�What does that matter to you?� interrupted Lacheneur, violently.
+
+But M. d�Escorval would not be silenced.
+
+He seized the arm of his former friend, and in a voice loud enough to be
+heard distinctly by everyone present, he continued:
+
+�Foolish man! You have forgotten that Montaignac is a fortified city,
+protected by deep moats and high walls! You have forgotten that behind
+these fortifications is a garrison commanded by a man whose energy and
+valor are beyond all question--the Duc de Sairmeuse.�
+
+Lacheneur struggled to free himself from his friend�s grasp.
+
+�Everything has been arranged,� he replied, �and they are expecting us
+at Montaignac. You would be as sure of this as I am myself, if you had
+seen the light gleaming on the windows of the citadel. And look, you
+can see it yet. This light tells me that two or three hundred retired
+officers will come to open the gates of the city for us as soon as we
+make our appearance.�
+
+�And after that! If you take Montaignac, what will you do then? Do
+you suppose that the English will give you back your Emperor? Is not
+Napoleon II. the prisoner of the Austrians? Have you forgotten that
+the allied sovereigns have left one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers
+within a day�s march of Paris?�
+
+Sullen murmurs were heard among Lacheneur�s followers.
+
+�But all this is nothing,� continued the baron. �The chief danger lies
+in the fact that there are as many traitors as dupes in an undertaking
+of this sort.�
+
+�Whom do you call dupes, Monsieur?�
+
+�All those who take their illusions for realities, as you have done; all
+those who, because they desire anything very much, really believe that
+it will come to pass. Do you really suppose that neither the Duc de
+Sairmeuse nor the Marquis de Courtornieu has been warned of it?�
+
+Lacheneur shrugged his shoulders.
+
+�Who could have warned them?�
+
+But his tranquillity was feigned; the look which he cast upon Jean
+proved it.
+
+And it was in the coldest possible tone that he added:
+
+�It is probable that at this very hour the duke and the marquis are in
+the power of our friends.�
+
+The cure now attempted to join his efforts to those of the baron.
+
+�You will not go, Lacheneur,� he said. �You will not remain deaf to
+the voice of reason. You are an honest man; think of the frightful
+responsibility you assume! What! upon these frail hopes, you dare to
+peril the lives of hundreds of brave men? I tell you that you will not
+succeed; you will be betrayed; I am sure you will be betrayed!�
+
+An expression of horror contracted Lacheneur�s features. It was evident
+to all that he was deeply moved.
+
+It is impossible to say what might have happened had it not been for the
+intervention of Chanlouineau.
+
+This sturdy peasant came forward, brandishing his gun.
+
+�We are wasting too much time in foolish prattling,� he exclaimed with a
+fierce oath.
+
+Lacheneur started as if he had been struck by a whip. He rudely freed
+himself and leaped into the saddle.
+
+�Forward!� he ordered.
+
+But the baron and the priest did not yet despair; they sprang to the
+horse�s head.
+
+�Lacheneur,� cried the priest, �beware! The blood you are about to spill
+will fall upon your head, and upon the heads of your children!�
+
+Appalled by these prophetic words, the little band paused.
+
+Then someone issued from the ranks, clad in the costume of a peasant.
+
+�Marie-Anne!� exclaimed the abbe and the baron in the same breath.
+
+�Yes, I,� responded the young girl, removing the large hat which had
+partially concealed her face; �I wish to share the dangers of those who
+are dear to me--share in their victory or their defeat. Your counsel
+comes too late, gentlemen. Do you see those lights on the horizon?
+They tell us that the people of these communes are repairing to the
+cross-roads at the Croix d�Arcy, the general rendezvous. Before two
+o�clock fifteen hundred men will be gathered there awaiting my father�s
+commands. Would you have him leave these men, whom he has called from
+their peaceful firesides, without a leader? Impossible!�
+
+She evidently shared the madness of her lover and father, even if she
+did not share all their hopes.
+
+�No, there must be no more hesitation, no more parleying,� she
+continued. �Prudence now would be the height of folly. There is no more
+danger in a retreat than in an advance. Do not try to detain my father,
+gentlemen; each moment of delay may, perhaps, cost a man�s life. And
+now, my friends, forward!�
+
+A loud cheer answered her, and the little band descended the hill.
+
+But M. d�Escorval could not allow his own son, whom he saw in the ranks,
+to depart thus.
+
+�Maurice!� he cried.
+
+The young man hesitated, but at last approached.
+
+�You will not follow these madmen, Maurice?� said the baron.
+
+�I must follow them, father.�
+
+�I forbid it.�
+
+�Alas! father, I cannot obey you. I have promised--I have sworn. I am
+second in command.�
+
+His voice was sad, but it was determined.
+
+�My son!� exclaimed M. d�Escorval; �unfortunate child!--it is to certain
+death that you are marching--to certain death.�
+
+�All the more reason that I should not break my word, father.�
+
+�And your mother, Maurice, the mother whom you forget!�
+
+A tear glistened in the young man�s eye.
+
+�My mother,� he replied, �would rather weep for her dead son than
+keep him near her dishonored, and branded with the names of coward and
+traitor. Farewell! my father.�
+
+M. d�Escorval appreciated the nobility of soul that Maurice displayed
+in his conduct. He extended his arms, and pressed his beloved son
+convulsively to his heart, feeling that it might be for the last time.
+
+�Farewell!� he faltered, �farewell!�
+
+Maurice soon rejoined his comrades, whose acclamations were growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance; but the baron stood motionless,
+overwhelmed with sorrow.
+
+Suddenly he started from his revery.
+
+�A single hope remains, Abbe!� he cried.
+
+�Alas!� murmured the priest.
+
+�Oh--I am not mistaken. Marie-Anne just told us the place of rendezvous.
+By running to Escorval and harnessing the cabriolet, we might be able to
+reach the Croix d�Arcy before this party arrive there. Your voice, which
+touched Lacheneur, will touch the heart of his accomplices. We will
+persuade these poor, misguided men to return to their homes. Come, Abbe;
+come quickly!�
+
+And they departed on the run.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The clock in the tower of Sairmeuse was striking the hour of eight when
+Lacheneur and his little band of followers left the Reche.
+
+An hour later, at the Chateau de Courtornieu, Mlle. Blanche, after
+finishing her dinner, ordered the carriage to convey her to Montaignac.
+Since her father had taken up his abode in town they met only on Sunday;
+on that day either Blanche went to Montaignac, or the marquis paid a
+visit to the chateau.
+
+Hence this proposed journey was a deviation from the regular order of
+things. It was explained, however, by grave circumstances.
+
+It was six days since Martial had presented himself at Courtornieu; and
+Blanche was half crazed with grief and rage.
+
+What Aunt Medea was forced to endure during this interval, only poor
+dependents in rich families can understand.
+
+For the first three days Mlle. Blanche succeeded in preserving a
+semblance of self-control; on the fourth she could endure it no longer,
+and in spite of the breach of �_les convenances_� which it involved, she
+sent a messenger to Sairmeuse to inquire for Martial. Was he ill--had he
+gone away?
+
+The messenger was informed that the marquis was perfectly well, but,
+as he spent the entire day, from early morn to dewy eve, in hunting, he
+went to bed every evening as soon as supper was over.
+
+What a horrible insult! Still, she was certain that Martial, on hearing
+what she had done, would hasten to her to make his excuses. Vain hope!
+He did not come; he did not even condescend to give one sign of life.
+
+�Ah! doubtless he is with her,� she said to Aunt Medea. �He is on his
+knees before that miserable Marie-Anne--his mistress.�
+
+For she had finished by believing--as is not unfrequently the case--the
+very calumnies which she herself had invented.
+
+In this extremity she decided to make her father her confidant; and she
+wrote him a note announcing her coming.
+
+She wished her father to compel Lacheneur to leave the country. This
+would be an easy matter for him, since he was armed with discretionary
+authority at an epoch when lukewarm devotion afforded an abundant excuse
+for sending a man into exile.
+
+Fully decided upon this plan, Blanche became calmer on leaving the
+chateau; and her hopes overflowed in incoherent phrases, to which poor
+Aunt Medea listened with her accustomed resignation.
+
+�At last I shall be rid of this shameless creature!� she exclaimed. �We
+will see if he has the audacity to follow her! Will he follow her? Oh,
+no; he dare not!�
+
+When the carriage passed through the village of Sairmeuse, Mlle. Blanche
+noticed an unwonted animation.
+
+There were lights in every house, the saloons seemed full of drinkers,
+and groups of people were standing upon the public square and upon the
+doorsteps.
+
+But what did this matter to Mlle. de Courtornieu! It was not until they
+were a mile or so from Sairmeuse that she was startled from her revery.
+
+�Listen, Aunt Medea,� she said, suddenly. �Do you hear anything?�
+
+The poor dependent listened. Both occupants of the carriage heard shouts
+that became more and more distinct with each revolution of the wheels.
+
+�Let us find out the meaning of this,� said Mlle. Blanche.
+
+And lowering one of the carriage-windows, she asked the coachman the
+cause of the disturbance.
+
+�I see a great crowd of peasants on the hill; they have torches and----�
+
+�Blessed Jesus!� interrupted Aunt Medea, in alarm.
+
+�It must be a wedding,� added the coachman, whipping up his horses.
+
+It was not a wedding, but Lacheneur�s little band, which had been
+augmented to the number of about five hundred. Lacheneur should have
+been at the Croix d�Arcy two hours before. But he had shared the fate of
+most popular chiefs. When an impetus had been given to the movement he
+was no longer master of it.
+
+Baron d�Escorval had made him lose twenty minutes; he was delayed four
+times as long in Sairmeuse. When he reached that village, a little
+behind time, he found the peasants scattered through the wine-shops,
+drinking to the success of the enterprise.
+
+To tear them from their merry-making was a long and difficult task.
+
+And to crown all, when they were finally induced to resume their line of
+march, it was impossible to persuade them to extinguish the pine knots
+which they had lighted to serve as torches.
+
+Prayers and threats were alike unavailing. �They wished to see their
+way,� they said.
+
+Poor deluded creatures! They had not the slightest conception of the
+difficulties and the perils of the enterprise they had undertaken.
+
+They were going to capture a fortified city, defended by a numerous
+garrison, as if they were bound on a pleasure jaunt.
+
+Gay, thoughtless, and animated by the imperturbable confidence of a
+child, they were marching along, arm in arm, singing patriotic songs.
+
+On horseback, in the centre of the band, M. Lacheneur felt his hair
+turning white with anguish.
+
+Would not this delay ruin everything? What would the others, who were
+waiting at the Croix d�Arcy, think! What were they doing at this very
+moment?
+
+�Onward! onward!� he repeated.
+
+Maurice, Chanlouineau, Jean, Marie-Anne, and about twenty of the old
+soldiers of the Empire, understood and shared Lacheneur�s despair. They
+knew the terrible danger they were incurring, and they, too, repeated:
+
+�Faster! Let us march faster!�
+
+Vain exhortation! It pleased these people to go slowly.
+
+Suddenly the entire band stopped. Some of the peasants, chancing to look
+back, had seen the lamps of Mlle. de Courtornieu�s carriage gleaming in
+the darkness.
+
+It came rapidly onward, and soon overtook them. The peasants recognized
+the coachman�s livery, and greeted the vehicle with shouts of derision.
+
+M. de Courtornieu, by his avariciousness, had made even more enemies
+than the Duc de Sairmeuse; and all the peasants who thought they had
+more or less reason to complain of his extortions were delighted at this
+opportunity to frighten him.
+
+For, that they were not thinking of vengeance, is conclusively proved by
+the sequel.
+
+Hence great was their disappointment when, on opening the carriage-door,
+they saw within the vehicle only Mlle. Blanche and Aunt Medea, who
+uttered the most piercing shrieks.
+
+But Mlle. de Courtornieu was a brave woman.
+
+�Who are you?� she demanded, haughtily, �and what do you desire?�
+
+�You will know to-morrow,� replied Chanlouineau. �Until then, you are
+our prisoner.�
+
+�I see that you do not know who I am, boy.�
+
+�Excuse me. I do know who you are, and, for this very reason, I request
+you to descend from your carriage. She must leave the carriage, must she
+not, Monsieur d�Escorval?�
+
+�Very well! I declare that I will not leave my carriage; tear me from it
+if you dare!�
+
+They would certainly have dared had it not been for Marie-Anne, who
+checked some peasants as they were springing toward the carriage.
+
+�Let Mademoiselle de Courtornieu pass without hinderance,� said she.
+
+But this permission might produce such serious consequences that
+Chanlouineau found courage to resist.
+
+�That cannot be, Marie-Anne,� said he; �she will warn her father. We
+must keep her as a hostage; her life may save the life of our friends.�
+
+Mlle. Blanche had not recognized her former friend, any more than she
+had suspected the intentions of this crowd of men.
+
+But Marie-Anne�s name, uttered with that of d�Escorval enlightened her
+at once.
+
+She understood it all, and trembled with rage at the thought that she
+was at the mercy of her rival. She resolved to place herself under no
+obligation to Marie-Anne Lacheneur.
+
+�Very well,� said she, �we will descend.�
+
+Her former friend checked her.
+
+�No,� said she, �no! This is not the place for a young girl.�
+
+�For an honest young girl, you should say,� replied Blanche, with a
+sneer.
+
+Chanlouineau was standing only a few feet from the speaker with his
+gun in his hand. If a man had uttered those words he would have been
+instantly killed. Marie-Anne did not deign to notice them.
+
+�Mademoiselle will turn back,� she said, calmly; �and as she can reach
+Montaignac by the other road, two men will accompany her as far as
+Courtornieu.�
+
+She was obeyed. The carriage turned and rolled away, but not so quickly
+that Marie-Anne failed to hear Blanche cry:
+
+�Beware, Marie! I will make you pay dearly for your insulting
+patronage!�
+
+The hours were flying by. This incident had occupied ten minutes
+more--ten centuries--and the last trace of order had disappeared.
+
+M. Lacheneur could have wept with rage. He called Maurice and
+Chanlouineau.
+
+�I place you in command,� said he; �do all that you can to hurry these
+idiots onward. I will ride as fast as I can to the Croix d�Arcy.�
+
+He started, but he was only a short distance in advance of his followers
+when he saw two men running toward him at full speed. One was clad in
+the attire of a well-to-do bourgeois; the other wore the old uniform of
+captain in the Emperor�s guard.
+
+�What has happened?� Lacheneur cried, in alarm.
+
+�All is discovered!�
+
+�Great God!�
+
+�Major Carini has been arrested.�
+
+�By whom? How?�
+
+�Ah! there was a fatality about it! Just as we were perfecting our
+arrangements to capture the Duc de Sairmeuse, the duke surprised us. We
+fled, but the cursed noble pursued us, overtook Carini, seized him by
+the collar, and dragged him to the citadel.�
+
+Lacheneur was overwhelmed; the abbe�s gloomy prophecy again resounded in
+his ears.
+
+�So I warned my friends, and hastened to warn you,� continued the
+officer. �The affair is an utter failure!�
+
+He was only too correct; and Lacheneur knew it even better than he did.
+But, blinded by hatred and anger, he would not acknowledge that the
+disaster was irreparable.
+
+�Let Mademoiselle de Counornieu pass without hinderance.�
+
+He affected a calmness which he did not in the least feel.
+
+�You are easily discouraged, gentlemen,� he said, bitterly. �There is,
+at least, one more chance.�
+
+�The devil! Then you have resources of which we are ignorant?�
+
+�Perhaps--that depends. You have just passed the Croix d�Arcy; did you
+tell any of those people what you have just told me?�
+
+�Not a word.�
+
+�How many men are there at the rendezvous?�
+
+�At least two thousand.�
+
+�And what is their mood?�
+
+�They are burning to begin the struggle. They are cursing our slowness,
+and told me to entreat you to make haste.�
+
+�In that case our cause is not lost,� said Lacheneur, with a threatening
+gesture. �Wait here until the peasants come up, and say to them that
+you were sent to tell them to make haste. Bring them on as quickly
+as possible, and have confidence in me; I will be responsible for the
+success of the enterprise.�
+
+He said this, then putting spurs to his horse, galloped away. He
+had deceived the men. He had no other resources. He did not have the
+slightest hope of success. It was an abominable falsehood. But, if this
+edifice, which he had erected with such care and labor, was to totter
+and fall, he desired to be buried beneath its ruins. They would be
+defeated; he was sure of it, but what did that matter? In the conflict
+he would seek death and find it.
+
+Bitter discontent pervaded the crowd at the Croix d�Arcy; and after
+the passing of the officers, who had hastened to warn Lacheneur of the
+disaster at Montaignac, the murmurs of dissatisfaction were changed to
+curses.
+
+These peasants, nearly two thousand in number, were indignant at not
+finding their leader awaiting them at the rendezvous.
+
+�Where is he?� they asked. �Who knows but he is afraid at the last
+moment? Perhaps he is concealing himself while we are risking our lives
+and the bread of our children here.�
+
+And already the epithets of mischief-maker and traitor were flying from
+lip to lip, and increasing the anger in every breast.
+
+Some were of the opinion that the crowd should disperse; others wished
+to march against Montaignac without Lacheneur, and that, immediately.
+
+But these deliberations were interrupted by the furious gallop of a
+horse.
+
+A carriage appeared, and stopped in the centre of the open space.
+
+Two men alighted; Baron d�Escorval and Abbe Midon.
+
+They were in advance of Lacheneur. They thought they had arrived in
+time.
+
+Alas! here, as on the Reche, all their efforts, all their entreaties,
+and all their threats were futile.
+
+They had come in the hope of arresting the movement; they only
+precipitated it.
+
+�We have gone too far to draw back,� exclaimed one of the neighboring
+farmers, who was the recognized leader in Lacheneur�s absence. �If death
+is before us, it is also behind us. To attack and conquer--that is our
+only hope of salvation. Forward, then, at once. That is the only way of
+disconcerting our enemies. He who hesitates is a coward! Forward!�
+
+A shout of approval from two thousand throats replied:
+
+�Forward!�
+
+They unfurled the tri-color, that much regretted flag that reminded
+them of so much glory, and so many great misfortunes; the drums began to
+beat, and with shouts of: �Vive Napoleon II.!� the whole column took up
+its line of march.
+
+Pale, with clothing in disorder, and voices husky with fatigue and
+emotion, M. d�Escorval and the abbe followed the rebels, imploring them
+to listen to reason.
+
+They saw the precipice toward which these misguided creatures were
+rushing, and they prayed God for an inspiration to check them.
+
+In fifty minutes the distance separating the Croix d�Arcy from
+Montaignac is traversed.
+
+Soon they see the gate of the citadel, which was to have been opened for
+them by their friends within the walls.
+
+It is eleven o�clock, and yet this gate stands open.
+
+Does not this circumstance prove that their friends are masters of the
+town, and that they are awaiting them in force?
+
+They advance, so certain of success that those who have guns do not even
+take the trouble to load them.
+
+M. d�Escorval and the abbe alone foresee the catastrophe.
+
+The leader of the expedition is near them, they entreat him not to
+neglect the commonest precautions, they implore him to send some two
+men on in advance to reconnoitre; they, themselves, offer to go, on
+condition that the peasants will await their return before proceeding
+farther.
+
+But their prayers are unheeded.
+
+The peasants pass the outer line of fortifications in safety. The head
+of the advancing column reaches the drawbridge.
+
+The enthusiasm amounts to delirium; who will be the first to enter is
+the only thought.
+
+Alas! at that very moment a pistol is fired.
+
+It is a signal, for instantly, and on every side, resounds a terrible
+fusillade.
+
+Three or four peasants fall, mortally wounded. The rest pause, frozen
+with terror, thinking only of escape.
+
+The indecision is terrible; but the leader encourages his men, there are
+a few of Napoleon�s old soldiers in the ranks. A struggle begins, all
+the more frightful by reason of the darkness!
+
+But it is not the cry of �Forward!� that suddenly rends the air.
+
+The voice of a coward sends up the cry of panic:
+
+�We are betrayed! Let him save himself who can!�
+
+This is the end of all order. A wild fear seizes the throng; and these
+men flee madly, despairingly, scattered as withered leaves are scattered
+by the power of the tempest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Chupin�s stupefying revelations and the thought that Martial, the heir
+of his name and dukedom, should degrade himself so low as to enter into
+a conspiracy with vulgar peasants, drove the Duc de Sairmeuse nearly
+wild.
+
+But the Marquis de Courtornieu�s coolness restored the duke�s
+_sang-froid_.
+
+He ran to the barracks, and in less than half an hour five hundred
+foot-soldiers and three hundred of the Montaignac chasseurs were under
+arms.
+
+With these forces at his disposal it would have been easy enough
+to suppress this movement without the least bloodshed. It was only
+necessary to close the gates of the city. It was not with fowling-pieces
+and clubs that these poor peasants could force an entrance into a
+fortified town.
+
+But such moderation did not suit a man of the duke�s violent
+temperament, a man who was ever longing for struggle and excitement, a
+man whose ambition prompted him to display his zeal.
+
+He had ordered the gate of the citadel to be left open, and had
+concealed some of his soldiers behind the parapets of the outer
+fortifications.
+
+He then stationed himself where he could command a view of the approach
+to the citadel, and deliberately chose his moment for giving the signal
+to fire.
+
+Still, a strange thing happened. Of four hundred shots, fired into a
+dense crowd of fifteen hundred men, only three had hit the mark.
+
+More humane than their chief, nearly all the soldiers had fired in the
+air.
+
+But the duke had not time to investigate this strange occurrence now.
+He leaped into the saddle, and placing himself at the head of about
+five hundred men, cavalry and infantry, he started in pursuit of the
+fugitives.
+
+The peasants had the advantage of their pursuers by about twenty
+minutes.
+
+Poor simple creatures!
+
+They might easily have made their escape. They had only to disperse,
+to scatter; but, unfortunately, the thought never once occurred to the
+majority of them. A few ran across the fields and gained their homes
+in safety; the others, frantic and despairing, overcome by the strange
+vertigo that seizes the bravest in moments of panic, fled like a flock
+of frightened sheep.
+
+Fear lent them wings, for did they not hear each moment shots fired at
+the laggards?
+
+But there was one man, who, at each of these detonations, received, as
+it were, his death-wound--this man was Lacheneur.
+
+He had reached the Croix d�Arcy just as the firing at Montaignac began.
+He listened and waited. No discharge of musketry replied to the first
+fusillade. There might have been butchery, but combat, no.
+
+Lacheneur understood it all; and he wished that every ball had pierced
+his own heart.
+
+He put spurs to his horse and galloped to the crossroads. The place was
+deserted. At the entrance of one of the roads stood the cabriolet which
+had brought M. d�Escorval and the abbe.
+
+At last M. Lacheneur saw the fugitives approaching in the distance. He
+dashed forward, to meet them, trying by mingled curses and insults to
+stay their flight.
+
+�Cowards!� he vociferated, �traitors! You flee--and you are ten against
+one! Where are you going? To your own homes. Fools! you will find
+the gendarmes there only awaiting your coming to conduct you to the
+scaffold. Is it not better to die with your weapons in your hands?
+Come--right about. Follow me! We may still conquer. Reinforcements are
+at hand; two thousand men are following me!�
+
+He promised them two thousand men; had he promised them ten thousand,
+twenty thousand--an army and cannon, it would have made no difference.
+
+Not until they reached the wide-open space of the cross-roads, where
+they had talked so confidently scarcely an hour before, did the most
+intelligent of the throng regain their senses, while the others fled in
+every direction.
+
+About a hundred of the bravest and most determined of the conspirators
+gathered around M. Lacheneur. In the little crowd was the abbe, gloomy
+and despondent. He had been separated from the baron. What had been his
+fate? Had he been killed or taken prisoner? Was it possible that he had
+made his escape?
+
+The worthy priest dared not go away. He waited, hoping that his
+companion might rejoin him, and deemed himself fortunate in finding
+the carriage still there. He was still waiting when the remnant of the
+column confided to Maurice and Chanlouineau came up.
+
+Of the five hundred men that composed it on its departure from
+Sairmeuse, only fifteen remained, including the two retired officers.
+
+Marie-Anne was in the centre of this little party.
+
+M. Lacheneur and his friends were trying to decide what course it was
+best for them to pursue. Should each man go his way? or should they
+unite, and by an obstinate resistance, give all their comrades time to
+reach their homes?
+
+The voice of Chanlouineau put an end to all hesitation.
+
+�I have come to fight,� he exclaimed, �and I shall sell my life dearly.�
+
+�We will make a stand then!� cried the others.
+
+But Chanlouineau did not follow them to the spot which they had
+considered best adapted to the prolonged defence; he called Maurice and
+drew him a little aside.
+
+�You, Monsieur d�Escorval,� he said, almost roughly, �are going to leave
+here and at once.�
+
+�I--I came here, Chanlouineau, as you did, to do my duty.�
+
+�Your duty, Monsieur, is to serve Marie-Anne. Go at once, and take her
+with you.�
+
+�I shall remain,� said Maurice, firmly.
+
+He was going to join his comrades when Chanlouineau stopped him.
+
+�You have no right to sacrifice your life here,� he said, quietly. �Your
+life belongs to the woman who has given herself to you.�
+
+�Wretch! how dare you!�
+
+Chanlouineau sadly shook his head.
+
+�What is the use of denying it?� said he.
+
+�It was so great a temptation that only an angel could have resisted
+it. It was not your fault, nor was it hers. Lacheneur was a bad father.
+There was a day when I wished either to kill myself or to kill you, I
+knew not which. Ah! only once again will you be as near death as you
+were that day. You were scarcely five paces from the muzzle of my gun.
+It was God who stayed my hand by reminding me of her despair. Now that I
+am to die, as well as Lacheneur, someone must care for Marie-Anne.
+Swear that you will marry her. You may be involved in some difficulty on
+account of this affair; but I have here the means of saving you.�
+
+A sound of firing interrupted him; the soldiers of the Duc de Sairmeuse
+were approaching.
+
+�Good God!� exclaimed Chanlouineau, �and Marie-Anne!�
+
+They rushed in pursuit of her, and Maurice was the first to discover
+her, standing in the centre of the open space clinging to the neck of
+her father�s horse. He took her in his arms, trying to drag her away.
+
+�Come!� said he, �come!�
+
+But she refused.
+
+�Leave me, leave me!� she entreated.
+
+�But all is lost!�
+
+�Yes, I know that all is lost--even honor. Leave me here. I must remain;
+I must die, and thus hide my shame. I must, it shall be so!�
+
+Just then Chanlouineau appeared.
+
+Had he divined the secret of her resistance? Perhaps; but without
+uttering a word, he lifted her in his strong arms as if she had been a
+child and bore her to the carriage guarded by Abbe Midon.
+
+�Get in,� he said, addressing the priest, �and quick--take Mademoiselle
+Lacheneur. Now, Maurice, in your turn!�
+
+But already the duke�s soldiers were masters of the field. Seeing a
+group in the shadow, at a little distance, they rushed to the spot.
+
+The heroic Chanlouineau seized his gun, and brandishing it like a club,
+held the enemy at bay, giving Maurice time to spring into the carriage,
+catch the reins and start the horse off at a gallop.
+
+All the cowardice and all the heroism displayed on that terrible night
+will never be really known.
+
+Two minutes after the departure of Marie-Anne and of Maurice,
+Chanlouineau was still battling with the foe.
+
+A dozen or more soldiers were in front of him. Twenty shots had been
+fired, but not a ball had struck him. His enemies always believed him
+invulnerable.
+
+�Surrender!� cried the soldiers, amazed by such valor; �surrender!�
+
+�Never! never!�
+
+He was truly formidable; he brought to the support of his marvellous
+courage a superhuman strength and agility. No one dared come within
+reach of those brawny arms that revolved with the power and velocity of
+the sails of a wind-mill.
+
+Then it was that a soldier, confiding his musket to the care of a
+companion, threw himself flat upon his belly, and crawling unobserved
+around behind this obscure hero, seized him by the legs. He tottered
+like an oak beneath the blow of the axe, struggled furiously, but taken
+at such a disadvantage was thrown to the ground, crying, as he fell:
+
+�Help! friends, help!�
+
+But no one responded to this appeal.
+
+At the other end of the open space those upon whom he called had, after
+a desperate struggle, yielded.
+
+The main body of the duke�s infantry was near at hand.
+
+The rebels heard the drums beating the charge; they could see the
+bayonets gleaming in the sunlight.
+
+Lacheneur, who had remained in the same spot, utterly ignoring the shot
+that whistled around him, felt that his few remaining comrades were
+about to be exterminated.
+
+In that supreme moment the whole past was revealed to him as by a flash
+of lightning. He read and judged his own heart. Hatred had led him to
+crime. He loathed himself for the humiliation which he had imposed
+upon his daughter. He cursed himself for the falsehoods by which he had
+deceived these brave men, for whose death he would be accountable.
+
+Enough blood had flowed; he must save those who remained.
+
+�Cease firing, my friends,� he commanded; �retreat!�
+
+They obeyed--he could see them scatter in every direction.
+
+He too could flee; was he not mounted upon a gallant steed which would
+bear him beyond the reach of the enemy?
+
+But he had sworn that he would not survive defeat. Maddened with
+remorse, despair, sorrow, and impotent rage, he saw no refuge save in
+death.
+
+He had only to wait for it; it was fast approaching; he preferred to
+rush to meet it. Gathering up the reins, he dashed the rowels in his
+steed and, alone, charged upon the enemy.
+
+The shock was rude, the ranks opened, there was a moment of confusion.
+
+But Lacheneur�s horse, its chest cut open by the bayonets, reared, beat
+the air with his hoofs, then fell backward, burying his rider beneath
+him.
+
+And the soldiers marched on, not suspecting that beneath the body of the
+horse the brave rider was struggling to free himself.
+
+It was half-past one in the morning--the place was deserted.
+
+Nothing disturbed the silence save the moans of a few wounded men, who
+called upon their comrades for succor.
+
+But before thinking of the wounded, M. de Sairmeuse must decide upon the
+course which would be most likely to redound to his advantage and to his
+political glory.
+
+Now that the insurrection had been suppressed, it was necessary to
+exaggerate its magnitude as much as possible, in order that his reward
+should be in proportion to the service supposed to have been rendered.
+
+Some fifteen or twenty rebels had been captured; but that was not a
+sufficient number to give the victory the _eclat_ which he desired. He
+must find more culprits to drag before the provost-marshal or before a
+military commission.
+
+He, therefore, divided his troops into several detachments, and sent
+them in every direction with orders to explore the villages, search all
+isolated houses, and arrest all suspected persons.
+
+His task here having been completed, he again recommended the most
+implacable severity, and started on a brisk trot for Montaignac.
+
+He was delighted; certainly he blessed--as had M. de Courtornieu--these
+honest and artless conspirators; but one fear, which he vainly tried to
+dismiss, impaired his satisfaction.
+
+His son, the Marquis de Sairmeuse, was he, or was he not, implicated in
+this conspiracy?
+
+He could not, he would not, believe it; and yet the recollection of
+Chupin�s assurance troubled him.
+
+On the other hand, what could have become of Martial? The servant who
+had been sent to warn him--had he met him? Was the marquis returning?
+And by which road? Could it be possible that he had fallen into the
+hands of the peasants?
+
+The duke�s relief was intense when, on returning home, after a
+conference with M. de Courtornieu, he learned that Martial had arrived
+about a quarter of an hour before.
+
+�The marquis went at once to his own room on dismounting from his
+horse,� added the servant.
+
+�Very well,� replied the duke. �I will seek him there.�
+
+Before the servants he said, �Very well;� but secretly, he exclaimed:
+�Abominable impertinence! What! I am on horseback at the head of my
+troops, my life imperilled, and my son goes quietly to bed without even
+assuring himself of my safety!�
+
+He reached his son�s room, but found the door closed and locked on the
+inside. He rapped.
+
+�Who is there?� demanded Martial.
+
+�It is I; open the door.�
+
+Martial drew the bolt; M. de Sairmeuse entered, but the sight that met
+his gaze made him tremble.
+
+Upon the table was a basin of blood, and Martial, with chest bared, was
+bathing a large wound in his right breast.
+
+�You have been fighting!� exclaimed the duke, in a husky voice.
+
+�Yes.�
+
+�Ah! then you were, indeed----�
+
+�I was where? what?�
+
+�At the convocation of these miserable peasants who, in their parricidal
+folly, have dared to dream of the overthrow of the best of princes!�
+
+Martial�s face betrayed successively profound surprise, and a more
+violent desire to laugh.
+
+�I think you must be jesting, Monsieur,� he replied.
+
+The young man�s words and manner reassured the duke a little, without
+entirely dissipating his suspicions.
+
+�Then, these vile rascals attacked you?� he exclaimed.
+
+�Not at all. I have been simply obliged to fight a duel.�
+
+�With whom? Name the scoundrel who has dared to insult you!�
+
+A faint flush tinged Martial�s cheek; but it was in his usual careless
+tone that he replied:
+
+�Upon my word, no; I shall not give his name. You would trouble him,
+perhaps; and I really owe the fellow a debt of gratitude. It happened
+upon the highway; he might have assassinated me without ceremony, but he
+offered me open combat. Besides, he was wounded far more severely than
+I.�
+
+All M. de Sairmeuse�s doubts had returned.
+
+�And why, instead of summoning a physician, are you attempting to dress
+this wound yourself?�
+
+�Because it is a mere trifle, and because I wish to keep it a secret.�
+
+The duke shook his head.
+
+�All this is scarcely plausible,� he remarked, �especially after the
+assurance of your complicity, which I have received.�
+
+�Ah!� said he; �and from whom? From your spy-in-chief, no doubt--that
+rascal Chupin. It surprises me to see that you can hesitate for a moment
+between the word of your son and the stories of such a wretch.�
+
+�Do not speak ill of Chupin, Marquis; he is a very useful man. Had it
+not been for him, we should have been taken unawares. It was through him
+that I learned of this vast conspiracy organized by Lacheneur----�
+
+�What! is it Lacheneur--�
+
+�Who is at the head of the movement? yes, Marquis. Ah! your usual
+discernment has failed you in this instance. What, you have been a
+constant visitor at this house, and you have suspected nothing? And you
+contemplate a diplomatic career! But this is not all. You know now for
+what purpose the money which you so lavishly bestowed upon them has been
+employed. They have used it to purchase guns, powder, and ammunition.�
+
+The duke had become satisfied of the injustice of his suspicions; but he
+was now endeavoring to irritate his son.
+
+It was a fruitless effort. Martial knew very well that he had been
+duped, but he did not think of resenting it.
+
+�If Lacheneur has been captured,� he thought; �if he should be condemned
+to death and if I should save him, Marie-Anne would refuse me nothing.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Having penetrated the mystery that enveloped his son�s frequent absence,
+the Baron d�Escorval had concealed his fears and his chagrin from his
+wife.
+
+It was the first time that he had ever had a secret from the faithful
+and courageous companion of his existence.
+
+Without warning her, he went to beg Abbe Midon to follow him to the
+Reche, to the house of M. Lacheneur.
+
+The silence, on his part, explains Mme. d�Escorval�s astonishment when,
+on the arrival of the dinner-hour, neither her son nor her husband
+appeared.
+
+Maurice was sometimes late; but the baron, like all great workers, was
+punctuality itself. What extraordinary thing could have happened?
+
+Her surprise became uneasiness when she learned that her husband had
+departed in company with Abbe Midon. They had harnessed the horse
+themselves, and instead of driving through the court-yard as usual, they
+had driven through the stable-yard into a lane leading to the public
+road.
+
+What did all this mean? Why these strange precautions?
+
+Mme. d�Escorval waited, oppressed by vague forebodings.
+
+The servants shared her anxiety. The baron was so equable in temper, so
+kind and just to his inferiors, that his servants adored him, and would
+have gone through a fiery furnace for him.
+
+So, about ten o�clock, they hastened to lead to their mistress a peasant
+who was returning from Sairmeuse.
+
+This man, who was slightly intoxicated, told the strangest and most
+incredible stories.
+
+He said that all the peasantry for ten leagues around were under arms,
+and that the Baron d�Escorval was the leader of the revolt.
+
+He did not doubt the final success of the movement, declaring that
+Napoleon II., Marie-Louise, and all the marshals of the Empire were
+concealed in Montaignac.
+
+Alas! it must be confessed that Lacheneur had not hesitated to utter the
+grossest falsehoods in his anxiety to gain followers.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval could not be deceived by these ridiculous stories, but
+she could believe, and she did believe that the baron was the prime
+mover in this insurrection.
+
+And this belief, which would have carried consternation to the hearts of
+so many women, reassured her.
+
+She had entire, absolute, and unlimited faith in her husband. She
+believed him superior to all other men--infallible, in short. The moment
+he said: �This is so!� she believed it implicitly.
+
+Hence, if her husband had organized a movement that movement was
+right. If he had attempted it, it was because he expected to succeed.
+Therefore, it was sure to succeed.
+
+Impatient, however, to know the result, she sent the gardener to
+Sairmeuse with orders to obtain information without awakening suspicion,
+if possible, and to hasten back as soon as he could learn anything of a
+positive nature.
+
+He returned in about two hours, pale, frightened, and in tears.
+
+The disaster had already become known, and had been related to him with
+the most terrible exaggerations. He had been told that hundreds of
+men had been killed, and that a whole army was scouring the country,
+massacring defenceless peasants and their families.
+
+While he was telling his story, Mme. d�Escorval felt that she was going
+mad.
+
+She saw--yes, positively, she saw her son and her husband, dead--or
+still worse, mortally wounded upon the public highway--they were lying
+with their arms crossed upon their breasts, livid, bloody, their eyes
+staring wildly--they were begging for water--a drop of water.
+
+�I will find them!� she exclaimed, in frenzied accents. �I will go to
+the field of battle, I will seek for them among the dead, until I find
+them. Light some torches, my friends, and come with me, for you will aid
+me, will you not? You loved them; they were so good! You would not leave
+their dead bodies unburied! oh! the wretches! the wretches who have
+killed them!�
+
+The servants were hastening to obey when the furious gallop of a horse
+and the sound of carriage-wheels were heard upon the drive.
+
+�Here they are!� exclaimed the gardener; �here they are!�
+
+Mme. d�Escorval, followed by the servants, rushed to the door just in
+time to see a cabriolet enter the court-yard, and the horse, panting,
+exhausted, and flecked with foam, miss his footing, and fall.
+
+Abbe Midon and Maurice had already leaped to the ground and were lifting
+out an apparently lifeless body.
+
+Even Marie-Anne�s great energy had not been able to resist so many
+successive shocks; the last trial had overwhelmed her. Once in the
+carriage, all immediate danger having disappeared, the excitement which
+had sustained her fled. She became unconscious, and all the efforts of
+Maurice and of the priest had failed to restore her.
+
+But Mme. d�Escorval did not recognize Mlle. Lacheneur in the masculine
+habiliments in which she was clothed.
+
+She only saw that it was not her husband whom they had brought with
+them; and a convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot.
+
+�Your father, Maurice!� she exclaimed, in a stifled voice; �and your
+father!�
+
+The effect was terrible. Until that moment, Maurice and the cure had
+comforted themselves with the hope that M. d�Escorval would reach home
+before them.
+
+Maurice tottered, and almost dropped his precious burden. The abbe
+perceived it, and at a sign from him, two servants gently lifted
+Marie-Anne, and bore her to the house.
+
+Then the cure approached Mme. d�Escorval.
+
+�Monsieur will soon be here, Madame,� said he, at hazard; �he fled
+first----�
+
+�Baron d�Escorval could not have fled,� she interrupted. �A general
+does not desert when face to face with the enemy. If a panic seizes his
+soldiers, he rushes to the front, and either leads them back to combat,
+or takes his own life.�
+
+�Mother!� faltered Maurice; �mother!�
+
+�Oh! do not try to deceive me. My husband was the organizer of this
+conspiracy--his confederates beaten and dispersed must have proved
+themselves cowards. God have mercy upon me; my husband is dead!�
+
+In spite of the abbe�s quickness of perception, he could not understand
+such assertions on the part of the baroness; he thought that sorrow and
+terror must have destroyed her reason.
+
+�Ah! Madame,� he exclaimed, �the baron had nothing to do with this
+movement; far from it----�
+
+He paused; all this was passing in the court-yard, in the glare of the
+torches which had been lighted up by the servants. Anyone in the public
+road could hear and see all. He realized the imprudence of which they
+were guilty.
+
+�Come, Madame,� said he, leading the baroness toward the house; �and
+you, also, Maurice, come!�
+
+It was with the silent and passive submission of great misery that Mme.
+d�Escorval obeyed the cure.
+
+Her body alone moved in mechanical obedience; her mind and heart were
+flying through space to the man who was her all, and whose mind and
+heart were even then, doubtless, calling to her from the dread abyss
+into which he had fallen.
+
+But when she had passed the threshold of the drawing-room, she trembled
+and dropped the priest�s arm, rudely recalled to the present reality.
+
+She recognized Marie-Anne in the lifeless form extended upon the sofa.
+
+�Mademoiselle Lacheneur!� she faltered, �here in this costume--dead!�
+
+One might indeed believe the poor girl dead, to see her lying there
+rigid, cold, and as white as if the last drop of blood had been drained
+from her veins. Her beautiful face had the immobility of marble; her
+half-opened, colorless lips disclosed teeth convulsively clinched, and a
+large dark-blue circle surrounded her closed eyelids.
+
+Her long black hair, which she had rolled up closely to slip under her
+peasant�s hat, had become unbound, and flowed down in rich masses over
+her shoulders and trailed upon the floor.
+
+�She is only in a state of syncope; there is no danger,� declared the
+abbe, after he had examined Marie-Anne. �It will not be long before she
+regains consciousness.�
+
+And then, rapidly but clearly, he gave the necessary directions to the
+servants, who were astonished at their mistress.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval looked on with eyes dilated with terror. She seemed
+to doubt her own sanity, and incessantly passed her hand across her
+forehead, thickly beaded with cold sweat.
+
+�What a night!� she murmured. �What a night!�
+
+�I must remind you, Madame,� said the priest, sympathizingly, but
+firmly, �that reason and duty alike forbid you thus to yield to
+despair! Wife, where is your energy? Christian, what has become of your
+confidence in a just and beneficial God?�
+
+�Oh! I have courage, Monsieur,� faltered the wretched woman. �I am
+brave!�
+
+The abbe led her to a large arm-chair, where he forced her to seat
+herself, and in a gentler tone, he resumed:
+
+�Besides, why should you despair, Madame? Your son, certainly, is with
+you in safety. Your husband has not compromised himself; he has done
+nothing which I myself have not done.�
+
+And briefly, but with rare precision, he explained the part which he and
+the baron had played during this unfortunate evening.
+
+But this recital, instead of reassuring the baroness, seemed to increase
+her anxiety.
+
+�I understand you,� she interrupted, �and I believe you. But I also know
+that all the people in the country round about are convinced that my
+husband commanded the insurrectionists. They believe it, and they will
+say it.�
+
+�And what of that?�
+
+�If he has been arrested, as you give me to understand, he will be
+summoned before a court-martial. Was he not the friend of the Emperor?
+That is a crime, as you very well know. He will be convicted and
+sentenced to death.�
+
+�No, Madame, no! Am I not here? I will appear before the tribunal, and I
+shall say: �Here I am! I have seen and I know all.��
+
+�But they will arrest you, alas, Monsieur, because you are not a priest
+according to the hearts of these cruel men. They will throw you in
+prison, and you, will meet him upon the scaffold.�
+
+Maurice had been listening, pale and trembling.
+
+But on hearing these last words, he sank upon his knees, hiding his face
+in his hands:
+
+�Ah! I have killed my father!� he exclaimed.
+
+�Unhappy child! what do you say?�
+
+The priest motioned him to be silent; but he did not see him, and he
+pursued:
+
+�My father was ignorant even of the existence of this conspiracy of
+which Monsieur Lacheneur was the guiding spirit; but I knew it--I wished
+him to succeed, because on his success depended the happiness of my
+life. And then--wretch that I was!--when I wished to attract to our
+ranks some timid or wavering accomplice, I used the loved and respected
+name of d�Escorval. Ah, I was mad! I was mad!�
+
+Then, with a despairing gesture, he added:
+
+�And yet, even now, I have not the courage to curse my folly! Oh,
+mother, mother, if you knew----�
+
+His sobs interrupted him. Just then a faint moan was heard.
+
+Marie-Anne was regaining consciousness. Already she had partially risen
+from the sofa, and sat regarding this terrible scene with an air of
+profound wonder, as if she did not understand it in the least.
+
+Slowly and gently she put back her hair from her face, and opened and
+closed her eyes, which seemed dazzled by the light of the candles.
+
+She endeavored to speak, to ask some question, but Abbe Midon commanded
+silence by a gesture.
+
+Enlightened by the words of Mme. d�Escorval and by the confession of
+Maurice, the abbe understood at once the extent of the frightful danger
+that menaced the baron and his son.
+
+How was this danger to be averted? What must be done?
+
+He had no time for explanation or reflection; with each moment, a chance
+of salvation fled. He must decide and act without delay.
+
+The abbe was a brave man. He darted to the door, and called the servants
+who were standing in the hall and on the staircase.
+
+When they were gathered around him:
+
+�Listen to me, intently,� said he, in that quick and imperious voice
+that impresses one with the certainty of approaching peril, �and
+remember that your master�s life depends, perhaps, upon your discretion.
+We can rely upon you, can we not?�
+
+Every hand was raised as if to call upon God to witness their fidelity.
+
+�In less than an hour,� continued the priest, �the soldiers sent in
+pursuit of the fugitives will be here. Not a word must be uttered in
+regard to what has passed this evening. Everyone must be led to suppose
+that I went away with the baron and returned alone. Not one of you
+must have seen Mademoiselle Lacheneur. We are going to find a place of
+concealment for her. Remember, my friends, if there is the slightest
+suspicion of her presence here, all is lost. If the soldiers question
+you, endeavor to convince them that Monsieur Maurice has not left the
+house this evening.�
+
+He paused, trying to think if he had forgotten any precaution that human
+prudence could suggest, then added:
+
+�One word more; to see you standing about at this hour of the night will
+awaken suspicion at once. But this is what I desire. We will plead in
+justification, the alarm that you feel at the absence of the baron, and
+also the indisposition of madame--for madame is going to retire--she
+will thus escape interrogation. And you, Maurice, run and change your
+clothes; and, above all, wash your hands, and sprinkle some perfume upon
+them.�
+
+All present were so impressed with the imminence of the danger, that
+they were more than willing to obey the priest�s orders.
+
+Marie-Anne, as soon as she could be moved, was carried to a tiny room
+under the roof. Mme. d�Escorval retired to her own apartment, and the
+servants went back to the office.
+
+Maurice and the abbe remained alone in the drawing-room, silent and
+appalled by horrible forebodings.
+
+The unusually calm face of the priest betrayed his terrible anxiety.
+He now felt convinced that Baron d�Escorval was a prisoner, and all his
+efforts were now directed toward removing any suspicion of complicity
+from Maurice.
+
+�This was,� he reflected, �the only way to save the father.�
+
+A violent peal of the bell attached to the gate interrupted his
+meditations.
+
+He heard the footsteps of the gardener as he hastened to open it, heard
+the gate turn upon its hinges, then the measured tramp of soldiers in
+the court-yard.
+
+A loud voice commanded:
+
+�Halt!�
+
+The priest looked at Maurice and saw that he was as pale as death.
+
+�Be calm,� he entreated; �do not be alarmed. Do not lose your
+self-possession--and do not forget my instructions.�
+
+�Let them come,� replied Maurice. �I am prepared!�
+
+The drawing-room door was flung violently open, and a young man,
+wearing the uniform of a captain of grenadiers, entered. He was scarcely
+twenty-five years of age, tall, fair-haired, with blue eyes and little
+waxed mustache. His whole person betokened an excessive elegance
+exaggerated to the verge of the ridiculous. His face ordinarily must
+have indicated extreme self-complacency; but at the present moment it
+wore a really ferocious expression.
+
+Behind him, in the passage, were a number of armed soldiers.
+
+He cast a suspicious glance around the room, then, in a harsh voice:
+
+�Who is the master of this house?� he demanded.
+
+�The Baron d�Escorval, my father, who is absent,� replied Maurice.
+
+�Where is he?�
+
+The abbe, who, until now, had remained seated, rose.
+
+�On hearing of the unfortunate outbreak of this evening,� he replied,
+�the baron and myself went to these peasants, in the hope of inducing
+them to relinquish their foolish undertaking. They would not listen to
+us. In the confusion that ensued, I became separated from the baron; I
+returned here very anxious, and am now awaiting his return.�
+
+The captain twisted his mustache with a sneering air.
+
+�Not a bad invention!� said he. �Only I do not believe a word of this
+fiction.�
+
+A light gleamed in the eyes of the priest, his lips trembled, but he
+held his peace.
+
+�Who are you?� rudely demanded the officer.
+
+�I am the cure of Sairmeuse.�
+
+�Honest men ought to be in bed at this hour. And you are racing about
+the country after rebellious peasants. Really, I do not know what
+prevents me from ordering your arrest.�
+
+That which did prevent him was the priestly robe, all powerful under the
+Restoration. With Maurice he was more at ease.
+
+�How many are there in this family?�
+
+�Three; my father, my mother--ill at this moment--and myself.�
+
+�And how many servants?�
+
+�Seven--four men and three women.�
+
+�You have neither received nor concealed anyone this evening?�
+
+�No one.�
+
+�It will be necessary to prove this,� said the captain. And turning
+toward the door:
+
+�Corporal Bavois!� he called.
+
+This man was one of those old soldiers who had followed the Emperor
+over all Europe. Two small, ferocious gray eyes lighted his tanned,
+weather-beaten face, and an immense hooked nose surmounted a heavy,
+bristling mustache.
+
+�Bavois,� commanded the officer, �you will take half a dozen men and
+search this house from top to bottom. You are an old fox that knows a
+thing or two. If there is any hiding-place here, you will be sure to
+discover it; if anyone is concealed here, you will bring the person to
+me. Go, and make haste!�
+
+The corporal departed on his mission; the captain resumed his questions.
+
+�And now,� said he, turning to Maurice, �what have you been doing this
+evening?�
+
+The young man hesitated for an instant; then, with well-feigned
+indifference, replied:
+
+�I have not put my head outside the door this evening.�
+
+�Hum! that must be proved. Let me see your hands.�
+
+The soldier�s tone was so offensive that Maurice felt the angry blood
+mount to his forehead. Fortunately, a warning glance from the abbe made
+him restrain his wrath.
+
+He offered his hands to the inspection of the captain, who examined them
+carefully, outside and in, and finally smelled them.
+
+�Ah! these hands are too white and smell too sweet to have been dabbling
+in powder.�
+
+He was evidently surprised that this young man should have had so little
+courage as to remain in the shelter of the fireside while his father was
+leading the peasants on to battle.
+
+�Another thing,� said he, �you must have weapons here.�
+
+�Yes, hunting rifles.�
+
+�Where are they?�
+
+�In a small room on the ground-floor.�
+
+�Take me there.�
+
+They conducted him to the room, and on finding that none of the
+double-barrelled guns had been used for some days, he seemed
+considerably annoyed.
+
+He appeared furious when the corporal came and told him that he had
+searched everywhere, but had found nothing of a suspicious character.
+
+�Send for the servants,� was his next order.
+
+But all the servants faithfully repeated the lesson which the abbe had
+given them.
+
+The captain saw that he was not likely to discover the mystery, although
+he was well satisfied that one existed.
+
+Swearing that they should pay dearly for it, if they were deceiving him,
+he again called Bavois.
+
+�I must continue my search,� said he. �You, with two men, will remain
+here, and render a strict account of all that you see and hear. If
+Monsieur d�Escorval returns, bring him to me at once; do not allow him
+to escape. Keep your eyes open, and good luck to you!�
+
+He added a few words in a low voice, then left the room as abruptly as
+he had entered it.
+
+The departing footsteps of the soldiers were soon lost in the stillness
+of the night, and then the corporal gave vent to his disgust in a
+frightful oath.
+
+�_Hein_!� said he, to his men, �you have heard that cadet. Listen,
+watch, arrest, report. So he takes us for spies! Ah! if our old leader
+knew to what base uses his old soldiers were degraded!�
+
+The two men responded by a sullen growl.
+
+�As for you,� pursued the old trooper, addressing Maurice and the abbe,
+�I, Bavois, corporal of grenadiers, declare in my name and in that of my
+two men, that you are as free as birds, and that we shall arrest no one.
+More than that, if we can aid you in any way, we are at your service.
+The little fool that commanded us this evening thought we were fighting.
+Look at my gun; I have not fired a shot from it; and my comrades fired
+only blank cartridges.�
+
+The man might possibly be sincere, but it was scarcely probable.
+
+�We have nothing to conceal,� replied the cautious priest.
+
+The old corporal gave a knowing wink.
+
+�Ah! you distrust me! You are wrong; and I am going to prove it.
+Because, you see, though it is easy to gull that fool who just left
+here, it is not so easy to deceive Corporal Bavois. Very well! it was
+scarcely prudent to leave in the court-yard a gun that certainly had not
+been charged for firing at swallows.�
+
+The cure and Maurice exchanged a glance of consternation. Maurice now
+recollected, for the first time, that when he sprang from the carriage
+to lift out Marie-Anne, he propped his loaded gun against the wall. It
+had escaped the notice of the servants.
+
+�Secondly,� pursued Bavois, �there is someone concealed in the attic. I
+have excellent ears. Thirdly, I arranged it so that no one should enter
+the sick lady�s room.�
+
+Maurice needed no further proof. He extended his hand to the corporal,
+and, in a voice trembling with emotion, he said:
+
+�You are a brave man!�
+
+A few moments later, Maurice, the abbe, and Mme. d�Escorval were again
+assembled in the drawing-room, deliberating upon the measures which must
+be taken, when Marie-Anne appeared.
+
+She was still frightfully pale; but her step was firm, her manner quiet
+and composed.
+
+�I must leave this house,� she said to the baroness. �Had I been
+conscious, I would never have accepted hospitality which is likely to
+bring dire misfortune on your family. Alas! your acquaintance with
+me has cost you too many tears and too much sorrow already. Do
+you understand now why I wished you to regard us as strangers? A
+presentiment told me that my family would be fatal to yours!�
+
+�Poor child!� exclaimed Mme. d�Escorval; �where will you go?�
+
+Marie-Anne lifted her beautiful eyes to the heaven in which she placed
+her trust.
+
+�I do not know, Madame,� she replied; �but duty commands me to go. I
+must learn what has become of my father and my brother, and share their
+fate.�
+
+�What!� exclaimed Maurice; �still this thought of death. You, who no
+longer----�
+
+He paused; a secret which was not his own had almost escaped his lips.
+But visited by a sudden inspiration, he threw himself at his mother�s
+feet.
+
+�Oh, my mother! my dearest mother, do not allow her to depart. I may
+perish in my attempt to save my father. She will be your daughter
+then--she whom I have loved so much. You will encircle her with your
+tender and protecting love----�
+
+Marie-Anne remained.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The secret which approaching death had wrestled from Marie-Anne in the
+fortification at the Croix d�Arcy, Mme. d�Escorval was ignorant of when
+she joined her entreaties to those of her son to induce the unfortunate
+girl to remain.
+
+But the fact occasioned Maurice scarcely an uneasiness.
+
+His faith in his mother was complete, absolute; he was sure that she
+would forgive when she learned the truth.
+
+Loving and chaste wives and mothers are always most indulgent to those
+who have been led astray by the voice of passion.
+
+Such noble women can, with impunity, despise and brave the prejudices of
+hypocrites.
+
+These reflections made Maurice feel more tranquil in regard to
+Marie-Anne�s future, and he now thought only of his father.
+
+Day was breaking; he declared that he would assume some disguise and go
+to Montaignac at once.
+
+On hearing these words, Mme. d�Escorval turned and hid her face in the
+sofa-cushions to stifle her sobs.
+
+She was trembling for her husband�s life, and now her son must
+precipitate himself into danger. Perhaps before the sun sank to rest,
+she would have neither husband nor son.
+
+And yet she did not say �no.� She felt that Maurice was only fulfilling
+a sacred duty. She would have loved him less had she supposed him
+capable of cowardly hesitation. She would have dried her tears, if
+necessary, to bid him �go.�
+
+Moreover, what was not preferable to the agony of suspense which they
+had been enduring for hours?
+
+Maurice had reached the door when the abbe stopped him.
+
+�You must go to Montaignac,� said he, �but it would be folly to disguise
+yourself. You would certainly be recognized, and the saying: �He who
+conceals himself is guilty,� will assuredly be applied to you. You must
+go openly, with head erect, and you must even exaggerate the assurance
+of innocence. Go straight to the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de
+Courtornieu. I will accompany you; we will go in the carriage.�
+
+Maurice seemed undecided.
+
+�Obey these counsels, my son,� said Mme. d�Escorval; �the abbe knows
+much better than we do what is best.�
+
+�I will obey, mother.�
+
+The cure had not waited for this assent to go and give an order for
+harnessing the horses. Mme. d�Escorval left the room to write a few
+lines to a lady friend, whose husband exerted considerable influence in
+Montaignac. Maurice and Marie-Anne were left alone.
+
+It was the first moment of freedom and solitude which they had found
+since Marie-Anne�s confession.
+
+They stood for a moment, silent and motionless, then Maurice advanced,
+and clasping her in his arms, he whispered:
+
+�Marie-Anne, my darling, my beloved, I did not know that one could love
+more fondly than I loved you yesterday; but now--And you--you wish for
+death when another precious life depends upon yours.�
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+�I was terrified,� she faltered. �The future of shame that I saw--that
+I still--alas! see before me, appalled me. Now I am resigned. I will
+uncomplainingly endure the punishment for my horrible fault--I will
+submit to the insults and disgrace that await me!�
+
+�Insults, to you! Ah! woe to who dares! But will you not now be my wife
+in the sight of men, as you are in the sight of God? The failure of your
+father�s scheme sets you free!�
+
+�No, no, Maurice, I am not free! Ah! it is you who are pitiless! I see
+only too well that you curse me, that you curse the day when we met for
+the first time! Confess it! Say it!�
+
+Marie-Anne lifted her streaming eyes to his.
+
+�Ah! I should lie if I said that. My cowardly heart has not that much
+courage! I suffer--I am disgraced and humiliated, but----�
+
+He could not finish; he drew her to him, and their lips and their tears
+met in one long kiss.
+
+�You love me,� exclaimed Maurice, �you love me in spite of all! We shall
+succeed. I will save your father, and mine--I will save your brother!�
+
+The horses were neighing and stamping in the courtyard. The abbe cried:
+�Come, let us start.� Mme. d�Escorval entered with a letter, which she
+handed to Maurice.
+
+She clasped in a long and convulsive embrace the son whom she feared she
+should never see again; then, summoning all her courage, she pushed him
+away, uttering only the single word:
+
+�Go!�
+
+He departed; and when the sound of the carriage-wheels had died away
+in the distance, Mme. d�Escorval and Marie-Anne fell upon their knees,
+imploring the mercy and aid of a just God.
+
+They could only pray. The cure and Maurice could act.
+
+Abbe Midon�s plan, which he explained to young d�Escorval, as the horses
+dashed along, was as simple as the situation was terrible.
+
+�If, by confessing your own guilt, you could save your father, I should
+tell you to deliver yourself up, and to confess the whole truth. Such
+would be your duty. But this sacrifice would be not only useless, but
+dangerous. Your confession of guilt would only implicate your father
+still more. You would be arrested, but they would not release him, and
+you would both be tried and convicted. Let us, then, allow--I will not
+say justice, for that would be blasphemy--but these blood-thirsty men,
+who call themselves judges, to pursue their course, and attribute all
+that you have done to your father. When the trial comes, you will prove
+his innocence, and produce alibis so incontestable, that they will be
+forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our country so
+well, that I am sure not one of them will reveal our stratagem.�
+
+�And if we should not succeed,� asked Maurice, gloomily, �what could I
+do then?�
+
+The question was so terrible that the priest dared not respond to it. He
+and Maurice were silent during the remainder of the drive.
+
+They reached the city at last, and Maurice saw how wise the abbe had
+been in preventing him from assuming a disguise.
+
+Armed with the most absolute power, the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis
+de Courtornieu had closed all the gates of Montaignac save one.
+
+Through this gate all who desired to leave or enter the city were
+obliged to pass, and two officers were stationed there to examine
+all comers and goers, to question them, and to take their name and
+residence.
+
+At the name �d�Escorval,� the two officers evinced such surprise that
+Maurice noticed it at once.
+
+�Ah! you know what has become of my father!� he exclaimed.
+
+�The Baron d�Escorval is a prisoner, Monsieur,� replied one of the
+officers.
+
+Although Maurice had expected this response, he turned pale.
+
+�Is he wounded?� he asked, eagerly.
+
+�He has not a scratch. But enter, sir, and pass on.�
+
+From the anxious looks of these officers one might have supposed that
+they feared they should compromise themselves by conversing with the son
+of so great a criminal.
+
+The carriage rolled beneath the gate-way; but it had not traversed two
+hundred yards of the Grand Rue before the abbe and Maurice had remarked
+several posters and notices affixed to the walls.
+
+�We must see what this is,� they said, in a breath.
+
+They stopped near one of these notices, before which a reader had
+already stationed himself; they descended from the carriage, and read
+the following order:
+
+
+�article I.--The inmates of the house in which the elder Lacheneur shall
+be found will be handed over to a military commission for trial.
+
+�article II.--Whoever shall deliver the body of the elder Lacheneur,
+dead or alive, will receive a reward of twenty thousand francs.�
+
+
+This was signed Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+�God be praised!� exclaimed Maurice, �Marie-Anne�s father has escaped!
+He had a good horse, and in two hours----�
+
+A glance and a nudge of the elbow from the abbe checked him.
+
+The abbe drew his attention to the man standing near them. This man was
+none other than Chupin.
+
+The old scoundrel had also recognized them, for he took off his hat to
+the cure, and with an expression of intense covetousness in his eyes, he
+said: �Twenty thousand francs! what a sum! A man could live comfortably
+all his life on the interest of it.�
+
+The abbe and Maurice shuddered as they re-entered their carriage.
+
+�Lacheneur is lost if this man discovers his retreat,� murmured the
+priest.
+
+�Fortunately, he must have crossed the frontier before this,� replied
+Maurice. �A hundred to one he is beyond reach.�
+
+�And if you should be mistaken. What, if wounded and faint from loss of
+blood, Lacheneur has had only strength to drag himself to the nearest
+house and ask the hospitality of its inmates?�
+
+�Oh! even in that case he is safe; I know our peasants. There is not one
+who is capable of selling the life of a proscribed man.�
+
+The noble enthusiasm of youth drew a sad smile from the priest.
+
+�You forget the dangers to be incurred by those who shelter him. Many a
+man who would not soil his hands with the price of blood might deliver
+up a fugitive from fear.�
+
+They were passing through the principal street, and they were struck
+with the mournful aspect of the place--the little city which was
+ordinarily so bustling and gay--fear and consternation evidently reigned
+there. The shops were closed; the shutters of the houses had not been
+opened. A lugubrious silence pervaded the town. One might have supposed
+that there was general mourning, and that each family had lost one of
+its members.
+
+The manner of the few persons seen upon the thoroughfare was anxious and
+singular. They hurried on, casting suspicious glances on every side.
+
+Two or three who were acquaintances of the Baron d�Escorval averted
+their heads, on seeing his carriage, to avoid the necessity of bowing.
+
+The abbe and Maurice found an explanation of this evident terror on
+reaching the hotel to which they had ordered the coachman to take them.
+
+They had designated the Hotel de France, where the baron always stopped
+when he visited Montaignac, and whose proprietor was none other than
+Laugeron, that friend of Lacheneur, who had been the first to warn him
+of the arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+This worthy man, on hearing what guests had arrived, went to the
+court-yard to meet them, with his white cap in his hand.
+
+On such a day politeness was heroism. Was he connected with the
+conspiracy? It has always been supposed so.
+
+He invited Maurice and the abbe to take some refreshments in a way that
+made them understand he was anxious to speak with them, and he
+conducted them to a retired room where he knew they would be secure from
+observation.
+
+Thanks to one of the Duc de Sairmeuse�s valets de chambre who frequented
+the house, the host knew as much as the authorities; he knew even more,
+since he had also received information from the rebels who had escaped
+capture.
+
+From him the abbe and Maurice received their first positive information.
+
+In the first place, nothing had been heard of Lacheneur, or of his son
+Jean; thus far they had escaped the most rigorous pursuit.
+
+In the second place, there were, at this moment, two hundred prisoners
+in the citadel, and among them the Baron d�Escorval and Chanlouineau.
+
+And lastly, since morning there had been at least sixty arrests in
+Montaignac.
+
+It was generally supposed that these arrests were the work of some
+traitor, and all the inhabitants were trembling with fear.
+
+But M. Laugeron knew the real cause. It had been confided to him under
+pledge of secrecy by his guest, the duke�s _valet de chambre_.
+
+�It is certainly an incredible story, gentlemen,� he said;
+�nevertheless, it is true. Two officers belonging to the Montaignac
+militia, on returning from their expedition this morning at daybreak,
+on passing the Croix d�Arcy, found a man, clad in the uniform of the
+Emperor�s body-guard, lying dead in the fosse.�
+
+Maurice shuddered.
+
+The unfortunate man, he could not doubt, was the brave old soldier who
+had spoken to Lacheneur.
+
+�Naturally,� pursued M. Laugeron, �the two officers examined the body of
+the dead man. Between his lips they found a paper, which they opened and
+read. It was a list of all the conspirators in the village. The brave
+man, knowing he was mortally wounded, endeavored to destroy this fatal
+list; but the agonies of death prevented him from swallowing it----�
+
+But the abbe and Maurice had not time to listen to the commentaries with
+which the hotel proprietor accompanied his recital.
+
+They despatched a messenger to Mme. d�Escorval and to Marie-Anne,
+in order to reassure them, and, without losing a moment, and fully
+determined to brave all, they went to the house occupied by the Duc de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+A crowd had gathered about the door. At least a hundred persons were
+standing there; men with anxious faces, women in tears, soliciting,
+imploring an audience.
+
+They were the friends and relatives of the unfortunate men who had been
+arrested.
+
+Two footmen, in gorgeous livery and pompous in bearing, had all they
+could do to keep back the struggling throng.
+
+The abbe, hoping that his priestly dress would win him a hearing,
+approached and gave his name. But he was repulsed like the others.
+
+�Monsieur le Duc is busy, and can receive no one,� said the servant.
+�Monsieur le Duc is preparing his report for His Majesty.�
+
+And in support of this assertion, he pointed to the horses, standing
+saddled in the court-yard, and the couriers who were to bear the
+despatches.
+
+The priest sadly rejoined his companions.
+
+�We must wait!� said he.
+
+Intentionally or not, the servants were deceiving these poor people. The
+duke, just then, was not troubling himself about despatches. A violent
+altercation was going on between the Marquis de Courtornieu and himself.
+
+Each of these noble personages aspired to the leading role--the one
+which would be most generously rewarded, undoubtedly. It was a conflict
+of ambitions and of wills.
+
+It had begun by the exchange of a few recriminations, and it quickly
+reached stinging words, bitter allusions, and at last, even threats.
+
+The marquis declared it necessary to inflict the most frightful--he
+said the most _salutary_ punishment upon the offender; the duke, on the
+contrary, was inclined to be indulgent.
+
+The marquis declared that since Lacheneur, the prime mover, and his
+son, had both eluded pursuit, it was an urgent necessity to arrest
+Marie-Anne.
+
+The other declared that the arrest and imprisonment of this young girl
+would be impolitic, that such a course would render the authorities
+odious, and the rebels more zealous.
+
+As each was firmly wedded to his own opinion, the discussion was heated,
+but they failed to convince each other.
+
+�These rebels must be put down with a strong hand!� urged M. de
+Courtornieu.
+
+�I do not wish to exasperate the populace,� replied the duke.
+
+�Bah! what does public sentiment matter?�
+
+�It matters a great deal when you cannot depend upon your soldiers. Do
+you know what happened last night? There was powder enough burned to win
+a battle; there were only fifteen peasants wounded. Our men fired in the
+air. You forget that the Montaignac militia is composed, for the most
+part, at least of men who formerly fought under Bonaparte, and who are
+burning to turn their weapons against us.�
+
+But neither the one nor the other dared to tell the real cause of his
+obstinacy.
+
+Mlle. Blanche had been at Montaignac that morning. She had confided her
+anxiety and her sufferings to her father; and she made him swear that he
+would profit by this opportunity to rid her of Marie-Anne.
+
+On his side, the duke, persuaded that Marie-Anne was his son�s mistress,
+wished, at any cost, to prevent her appearance before the tribunal. At
+last the marquis yielded.
+
+The duke had said to him: �Very well! let us end this dispute,� at the
+same time glancing so meaningly at a pair of pistols that the worthy
+marquis felt a disagreeable chilliness creep up his spine.
+
+They then went together to examine the prisoners, preceded by a
+detachment of soldiery who drove back the crowd, which gathered again to
+await the duke�s return. So all day Maurice watched the aerial
+telegraph established upon the citadel, and whose black arms were moving
+incessantly.
+
+�What orders are travelling through space?� he said to the abbe; �is it
+life or is it death?�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+�Above all, make haste!� Maurice had said to the messenger charged with
+bearing a letter to the baroness.
+
+Nevertheless, the man did not reach Escorval until nightfall.
+
+Beset by a thousand fears, he had taken the unfrequented roads and had
+made long circuits to avoid all the people he saw approaching in the
+distance.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval tore the letter rather than took it from his hands. She
+opened it, read it aloud to Marie-Anne, and merely said:
+
+�Let us go--at once.�
+
+But this was easier said than done.
+
+They kept but three horses at Escorval. One was nearly dead from
+its terrible journey of the previous night; the other two were in
+Montaignac.
+
+What were the ladies to do? To trust to the kindness of their neighbors
+was the only resource open to them.
+
+But these neighbors having heard of the baron�s arrest, firmly refused
+to lend their horses. They believed they would gravely compromise
+themselves by rendering any service to the wife of a man upon whom the
+burden of the most terrible of accusations was resting.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval and Marie-Anne were talking of pursuing their journey
+on foot, when Corporal Bavois, enraged at such cowardice, swore by the
+sacred name of thunder that this should not be.
+
+�One moment!� said he. �I will arrange the matter.�
+
+He went away, but reappeared about a quarter of an hour afterward,
+leading an old plough-horse by the mane. This clumsy and heavy steed he
+harnessed into the cabriolet as best he could.
+
+But even this did not satisfy the old trooper�s complaisance.
+
+His duties at the chateau were over, as M. d�Escorval had been arrested,
+and nothing remained for Corporal Bavois but to rejoin his regiment.
+
+He declared that he would not allow these ladies to travel at night, and
+unattended, on the road where they might be exposed to many disagreeable
+encounters, and that he, in company with two grenadiers, would escort
+them to their journey�s end.
+
+�And it will go hard with soldier or civilian who ventures to molest
+them, will it not, comrades?� he exclaimed.
+
+As usual, the two men assented with an oath.
+
+So, as they pursued their journey, Mme. d�Escorval and Marie-Anne saw
+the three men preceding or following the carriage, or oftener walking
+beside it.
+
+Not until they reached the gates of Montaignac did the old soldier
+forsake his _protegees_, and then, not without bidding them a respectful
+farewell, in the name of his companions as well as himself; not without
+telling them, if they had need of him, to call upon Bavois, corporal of
+grenadiers, company first, stationed at the citadel.
+
+The clocks were striking ten when Mme. d�Escorval and Marie-Anne
+alighted at the Hotel de France.
+
+They found Maurice in despair, and even the abbe disheartened. Since
+Maurice had written to them, events had progressed with fearful
+rapidity.
+
+They knew now the orders which had been forwarded by signals from the
+citadel. These orders had been printed and affixed to the walls. The
+signals had said:
+
+
+�Montaignac must be regarded as in a state of siege. The military
+authorities have been granted discretionary power. A military commission
+will exercise jurisdiction instead of, and in place of, the courts. Let
+peaceable citizens take courage; let the evil-disposed tremble! As for
+the rabble, the sword of the law is about to strike!�
+
+
+Only six lines in all--but each word was a menace.
+
+That which filled the abbe�s heart with dismay was the substitution of a
+military commission for a court-martial.
+
+This upset all his plans, made all his precautions useless, and
+destroyed his hopes of saving his friend.
+
+A court-martial was, of course, hasty and often unjust in its decisions;
+but still, it observed some of the forms of procedure practised in
+judicial tribunals. It still preserved something of the solemnity of
+legal justice, which desires to be enlightened before it condemns.
+
+A military commission would infallibly neglect all legal forms; and
+summarily condemn and punish the accused parties, as in time of war a
+spy is tried and punished.
+
+�What!� exclaimed Maurice, �they dare to condemn without investigating,
+without listening to testimony, without allowing the accused time to
+prepare any defence?�
+
+The abbe was silent. This exceeded his most sinister apprehensions. Now,
+he believed anything possible.
+
+Maurice spoke of an investigation. It had commenced that day, and it was
+still going on by the light of the jailer�s lantern.
+
+That is to say, the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu were
+passing the prisoners in review.
+
+They numbered three hundred, and the duke and his companion had
+decided to summon before the commission thirty of the most dangerous
+conspirators.
+
+How were they to select them? By what method could they discover the
+extent of each prisoner�s guilt? It would have been difficult for them
+to explain.
+
+They went from one to another, asking any question that entered their
+minds, and after the terrified man replied, according as they thought
+his countenance good or bad, they said to the jailer who accompanied
+them: �Keep this one until another time,� or, �This one for to-morrow.�
+
+By daylight, they had thirty names upon their list: and the names of the
+Baron d�Escorval and Chanlouineau led all the rest.
+
+Although the unhappy party at the Hotel de France could not suspect this
+fact, they suffered an agony of fear and dread through the long night
+which seemed to them eternal.
+
+As soon as day broke, they heard the beating of the _reveille_ at the
+citadel; the hour when they might commence their efforts anew had come.
+
+The abbe announced that he was going alone to the duke�s house, and that
+he would find a way to force an entrance.
+
+He had bathed his red and swollen eyes in fresh water, and was prepared
+to start on his expedition, when someone rapped cautiously at the door
+of the chamber.
+
+Maurice cried: �Come in,� and M. Laugeron instantly entered the room.
+
+His face announced some dreadful misfortune; and the worthy man was
+really terrified. He had just learned that the military commission had
+been organized.
+
+In contempt of all human laws and the commonest rules of justice, the
+presidency of this tribunal of vengeance and of hatred had been bestowed
+upon the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+And he had accepted it--he who was at the same time to play the part of
+participant, witness, and judge.
+
+The other members of the commission were military men.
+
+�And when does the commission enter upon its functions?� inquired the
+abbe.
+
+�To-day,� replied the host, hesitatingly; �this morning--in an
+hour--perhaps sooner!�
+
+The abbe understood what M. Laugeron meant, but dared not say: �The
+commission is assembling, make haste.�
+
+�Come!� he said to Maurice, �I wish to be present when your father is
+examined.�
+
+Ah! what would not the baroness have given to follow the priest and her
+son? But she could not; she understood this, and submitted.
+
+They set out, and as they stepped into the street they saw a soldier a
+little way from them, who made a friendly gesture.
+
+They recognized Corporal Bavois, and paused.
+
+But he, passing them with an air of the utmost indifference, and
+apparently without observing them, hastily dropped these words:
+
+�I have seen Chanlouineau. Be of good cheer; he promises to save
+Monsieur d�Escorval!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+In the citadel of Montaignac, within the second line of fortifications,
+stands an old building known as the chapel.
+
+Originally consecrated to worship, the structure had, at the time of
+which we write, fallen into disuse. It was so damp that it would not
+even serve as an arsenal for an artillery regiment, for the guns rusted
+there more quickly than in the open air. A black mould covered the walls
+to a height of six or seven feet.
+
+This was the place selected by the Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de
+Courtornieu for the assembling of the military commission.
+
+On first entering it, Maurice and the abbe felt a cold chill strike
+to their very hearts; and an indefinable anxiety paralyzed all their
+faculties.
+
+But the commission had not yet commenced its _seance_; and they had time
+to look about them.
+
+The arrangements which had been made in transforming this gloomy hall
+into a tribunal, attested the precipitancy of the judges and their
+determination to finish their work promptly and mercilessly.
+
+The arrangements denoted an absence of all form; and one could divine at
+once the frightful certainty of the result.
+
+Three large tables taken from the mess-room, and covered with
+horse-blankets instead of tapestry, stood upon the platform. Some
+unpainted wooden chairs awaited the judges; but in the centre glittered
+the president�s chair, a superbly carved and gilded fauteuil, sent by
+the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+Several wooden benches had been provided for the prisoners.
+
+Ropes stretched from one wall to the other divided the chapel into two
+parts. It was a precaution against the public.
+
+A superfluous precaution, alas!
+
+The abbe and Maurice had expected to find the crowd too great for the
+hall, large as it was, and they found the chapel almost unoccupied.
+
+There were not twenty persons in the building. Standing back in the
+shadow of the wall were perhaps a dozen men, pale and gloomy, a sullen
+fire smouldering in their eyes, their teeth tightly clinched. They were
+army officers retired on half pay. Three men, attired in black, were
+conversing in low tones near the door. In a corner stood several
+country-women with their aprons over their faces. They were weeping
+bitterly, and their sobs alone broke the silence. They were the mothers,
+wives, or daughters of the accused men.
+
+Nine o�clock sounded. The rolling of the drum made the panes of the
+only window tremble. A loud voice outside shouted, �Present arms!� The
+military commission entered, followed by the Marquis de Courtornieu and
+several civil functionaries.
+
+The duke was in full uniform, his face a little more crimson, and his
+air a trifle more haughty than usual.
+
+�The session is open!� pronounced the Duc de Sairmeuse, the president.
+
+Then, in a rough voice, he added:
+
+�Bring in the culprits.�
+
+He had not even the grace to say �the accused.�
+
+They came in, one by one, to the number of twenty, and took their places
+on the benches at the foot of the platform.
+
+Chanlouineau held his head proudly erect, and looked composedly about
+him.
+
+Baron d�Escorval was calm and grave; but not more so than when, in days
+gone by, he had been called upon to express his opinion in the councils
+of the Empire.
+
+Both saw Maurice, who was so overcome that he had to lean upon the abbe
+for support. But while the baron greeted his son with a simple bend of
+the head, Chanlouineau made a gesture that clearly signified:
+
+�Have confidence in me--fear nothing.�
+
+The attitude of the other prisoners betrayed surprise rather than fear.
+Perhaps they were unconscious of the peril they had braved, and the
+extent of the danger that now threatened them.
+
+When the prisoners had taken their places, the chief counsel for the
+prosecution rose.
+
+His presentation of the case was characterized by intense violence, but
+lasted only five minutes. He briefly narrated the facts, exalted the
+merits of the government, of the Restoration, and concluded by a demand
+that sentence of death should be pronounced upon the culprits.
+
+When he ceased speaking, the duke, addressing the first prisoner upon
+the bench, said, rudely:
+
+�Stand up.�
+
+The prisoner rose.
+
+�Your name and age?�
+
+�Eugene Michel Chanlouineau, aged twenty-nine, farmer by occupation.�
+
+�An owner of national lands, probably?�
+
+�The owner of lands which, having been paid for with good money and made
+fertile by labor, are rightfully mine.�
+
+The duke did not wish to waste time on discussion.
+
+�You have taken part in this rebellion?� he pursued.
+
+�Yes.�
+
+�You are right in avowing it, for witnesses will be introduced who will
+prove this fact conclusively.�
+
+Five grenadiers entered; they were the men whom Chanlouineau had held at
+bay while Maurice, the abbe, and Marie-Anne were entering the carriage.
+
+These soldiers declared upon oath that they recognized the accused; and
+one of them even went so far as to pronounce a glowing eulogium upon
+him, declaring him to be a solid fellow, of remarkable courage.
+
+Chanlouineau�s eyes during this deposition betrayed an agony of anxiety.
+Would the soldiers allude to this circumstance of the carriage? No; they
+did not allude to it.
+
+�That is sufficient,� interrupted the president.
+
+Then turning to Chanlouineau:
+
+�What were your motives?� he inquired.
+
+�We hoped to free ourselves from a government imposed upon us by
+foreigners; to free ourselves from the insolence of the nobility, and to
+retain the lands that were justly ours.�
+
+�Enough! You were one of the leaders of the revolt?�
+
+�One of the leaders--yes.�
+
+�Who were the others?�
+
+A faint smile flitted over the lips of the young farmer, as he replied:
+
+�The others were Monsieur Lacheneur, his son Jean, and the Marquis de
+Sairmeuse.�
+
+The duke bounded from his gilded arm-chair.
+
+�Wretch!� he exclaimed, �rascal! vile scoundrel!�
+
+He caught up a heavy inkstand that stood upon the table before him: and
+one would have supposed that he was about to hurl it at the prisoner�s
+head.
+
+Chanlouineau stood perfectly unmoved in the midst of the assembly, which
+was excited to the highest pitch by his startling declaration.
+
+�You questioned me,� he resumed, �and I replied. You may gag me if my
+responses do not please you. If there were witnesses _for_ me as there
+are against me, I could prove the truth of my words. As it is, all the
+prisoners here will tell you that I am speaking the truth. Is it not so,
+you others?�
+
+With the exception of Baron d�Escorval, there was not one prisoner
+who was capable of understanding the real bearing of these audacious
+allegations; but all, nevertheless, nodded their assent.
+
+�The Marquis de Sairmeuse was so truly our leader,� exclaimed the daring
+peasant, �that he was wounded by a sabre-thrust while fighting by my
+side.�
+
+The face of the duke was more purple than that of a man struck with
+apoplexy; and his fury almost deprived him of the power of speech.
+
+�You lie, scoundrel! you lie!� he gasped.
+
+�Send for the marquis,� said Chanlouineau, tranquilly, �and see whether
+or not he is wounded.�
+
+A refusal on the part of the duke could not fail to arouse suspicion.
+But what could he do? Martial had concealed his wound the day before; it
+was now impossible to confess that he had been wounded.
+
+Fortunately for the duke, one of the judges relieved him of his
+embarrassment.
+
+�I hope, Monsieur, that you will not give this arrogant rebel the
+satisfaction he desires. The commission opposes his demand.�
+
+Chanlouineau laughed loudly.
+
+�Very naturally,� he exclaimed. �To-morrow my head will be off, and
+you think nothing will then remain to prove what I say. I have another
+proof, fortunately--material and indestructible proof--which it is
+beyond your power to destroy, and which will speak when my body is six
+feet under ground.�
+
+�What is the proof?� demanded another judge, upon whom the duke looked
+askance.
+
+The prisoner shook his head.
+
+�I will give it to you when you offer me my life in exchange for it,�
+ he replied. �It is now in the hands of a trusty person, who knows its
+value. It will go to the King if necessary. We would like to
+understand the part which the Marquis de Sairmeuse has played in
+this affair--whether he was truly with us, or whether he was only an
+instigating agent.�
+
+A tribunal regardful of the immutable rules of justice, or even of its
+own honor, would, by virtue of its discretionary powers, have instantly
+demanded the presence of the Marquis de Sairmeuse.
+
+But the military commission considered such a course quite beneath its
+dignity.
+
+These men arrayed in gorgeous uniforms were not judges charged with the
+vindication of a cruel law, but still a law--they were the instruments,
+commissioned by the conquerors, to strike the vanquished in the name of
+that savage code which may be summed up in two words: �_vae victis_.�
+
+The president, the noble Duc de Sairmeuse, would not have consented to
+summon Martial on any consideration. Nor did his associate judges wish
+him to do so.
+
+Had Chanlouineau foreseen this? Probably. Yet, why had he ventured so
+hazardous a blow?
+
+The tribunal, after a short deliberation, decided that it would not
+admit this testimony which had so excited the audience, and stupefied
+Maurice and Abbe Midon.
+
+The examination was continued, therefore, with increased bitterness.
+
+�Instead of designating imaginary leaders,� resumed the duke, �you would
+do well to name the real instigator of this revolt--not Lacheneur,
+but an individual seated upon the other end of the bench, the elder
+d�Escorval----�
+
+�Monsieur le Baron d�Escorval was entirely ignorant of the conspiracy, I
+swear it by all that I hold most sacred----�
+
+�Hold your tongue!� interrupted the counsel for the prosecution.
+�Instead of wearying the patience of the commission by such ridiculous
+stories, try to merit its indulgence.�
+
+Chanlouineau�s glance and gesture expressed such disdain that the man
+who interrupted him was abashed.
+
+�I wish no indulgence,� he said. �I have played, I have lost; here is
+my head. But if you were not more cruel than wild beasts you would take
+pity on the poor wretches who surround me. I see at least ten among them
+who were not our accomplices, and who certainly did not take up arms.
+Even the others did not know what they were doing. No, they did not!�
+
+Having spoken, he resumed his seat, proud, indifferent, and apparently
+oblivious to the murmur which ran through the audience, the soldiers of
+the guard and even to the platform, at the sound of his vibrant voice.
+
+The despair of the poor peasant women had been reawakened, and their
+sobs and moans filled the immense hall.
+
+The retired officers had grown even more pale and gloomy; and tears
+streamed down the wrinkled cheeks of several.
+
+�That one is a man!� they were thinking.
+
+The abbe leaned over and whispered in the ear of Maurice:
+
+�Evidently Chanlouineau has some plan. He intends to save your father.
+How, I cannot understand.�
+
+The judges were conversing in low tones with considerable animation.
+
+A difficulty had presented itself.
+
+The prisoners, ignorant of the charges which would be brought against
+them, and not expecting instant trial, had not thought of procuring a
+defender.
+
+And this circumstance, bitter mockery! frightened this iniquitous
+tribunal, which did not fear to trample beneath its feet the most sacred
+rules of justice.
+
+The judges had decided; their verdict was, as it were, rendered in
+advance, and yet they wished to hear a voice raised in defence of those
+who were already doomed.
+
+It chanced that three lawyers, retained by the friends of several of the
+prisoners, were in the hall.
+
+They were the three men that Maurice, on his entrance, had noticed
+conversing near the door of the chapel.
+
+The duke was informed of this fact. He turned to them, and motioned them
+to approach; then, pointing to Chanlouineau:
+
+�Will you undertake this culprit�s defence?� he demanded.
+
+For a moment the lawyers made no response. This monstrous _seance_ had
+aroused a storm of indignation and disgust within their breasts, and
+they looked questioningly at each other.
+
+�We are all disposed to undertake the prisoner�s defence,� at last
+replied the eldest of the three; �but we see him for the first time;
+we are ignorant of his grounds of defence. We must ask a delay; it is
+indispensable, in order to confer with him.�
+
+�The court can grant you no delay,� interrupted M. de Sairmeuse; �will
+you accept the defence, yes or no?�
+
+The advocate hesitated, not that he was afraid, for he was a brave man:
+but he was endeavoring to find some argument strong enough to trouble
+the conscience of these judges.
+
+�I will speak in his behalf,� said the advocate, at last, �but not
+without first protesting with all my strength against these unheard-of
+modes of procedure.�
+
+�Oh! spare us your homilies, and be brief.�
+
+After Chanlouineau�s examination, it was difficult to improvise there,
+on the spur of the moment, a plea in his behalf. Still, his courageous
+advocate, in his indignation, presented a score of arguments which would
+have made any other tribunal reflect.
+
+But all the while he was speaking the Duc de Sairmeuse fidgeted in his
+gilded arm-chair with every sign of angry impatience.
+
+�The plea was very long,� he remarked, when the lawyer had concluded,
+�terribly long. We shall never get through with this business if each
+prisoner takes up as much time!�
+
+He turned to his colleagues as if to consult them, but suddenly changing
+his mind he proposed to the prosecuting counsel that he should unite
+all the cases, try all the culprits in a body, with the exception of the
+elder d�Escorval.
+
+�This will shorten our task, for, in case we adopt this course, there
+will be but two judgments to be pronounced,� he said. �This will not, of
+course, prevent each individual from defending himself.�
+
+The lawyers protested against this. A judgment in a lump, like that
+suggested by the duke, would destroy all hope of saving a single one of
+these unfortunate men from the guillotine.
+
+�How can we defend them,� the lawyers pleaded, �when we know nothing of
+the situation of each of the prisoners? we do not even know their names.
+We shall be obliged to designate them by the cut of their coats and by
+the color of their hair.�
+
+They implored the tribunal to grant them a week for preparation,
+four days, even twenty-four hours. Futile efforts! The president�s
+proposition was adopted.
+
+Consequently, each prisoner was called to the desk according to the
+place which he occupied upon the benches. Each man gave his name, his
+age, his abode, and his profession, and received an order to return to
+his place.
+
+Six or seven prisoners were actually granted time to say that they were
+absolutely ignorant of the conspiracy, and that they had been arrested
+while conversing quietly upon the public highway. They begged to be
+allowed to furnish proof of the truth of their assertions; they invoked
+the testimony of the soldiers who had arrested them.
+
+M. d�Escorval, whose case had been separated from the others, was not
+summoned to the desk. He would be interrogated last.
+
+�Now the counsel for the defence will be heard,� said the duke; �but
+make haste; lose no time! It is already twelve o�clock.�
+
+Then began a shameful, revolting, and unheard-of scene. The duke
+interrupted the lawyers every other moment, bidding them be silent,
+questioning them, or jeering at them.
+
+�It seems incredible,� said he, �that anyone can think of defending such
+wretches!�
+
+Or again:
+
+�Silence! You should blush with shame for having constituted yourself
+the defender of such rascals!�
+
+But the lawyers persevered even while they realized the utter
+uselessness of their efforts. But what could they do under such
+circumstances? The defence of these twenty-nine prisoners lasted only
+one hour and a half.
+
+Before the last word was fairly uttered, the Duc de Sairmeuse gave a
+sigh of relief, and in a tone which betrayed his delight, said:
+
+�Prisoner Escorval, stand up.�
+
+Thus called upon, the baron rose, calm and dignified. Terrible as his
+sufferings must have been, there was no trace of it upon his noble face.
+
+He had even repressed the smile of disdain which the duke�s paltry
+affection in not giving him the title which belonged to him, brought to
+his lips.
+
+But Chanlouineau sprang up at the same time, trembling with indignation,
+his face all aglow with anger.
+
+�Remain seated,� ordered the duke, �or you shall be removed from the
+court-room.�
+
+Chanlouineau, nevertheless, declared that he would speak; that he had
+some remarks to add to the plea made by the defending counsel.
+
+Upon a sign from the duke, two gendarmes approached and placed their
+hands upon his shoulders. He allowed them to force him back into his
+seat though he could easily have crushed them with one pressure of his
+brawny arm.
+
+An observer would have supposed that he was furious; secretly, he was
+delighted. The aim he had had in view was now attained. In the glance he
+cast upon the abbe, the latter could read:
+
+�Whatever happens, watch over Maurice; restrain him. Do not allow him to
+defeat my plans by any outbreak.�
+
+This caution was not unnecessary. Maurice was terribly agitated; he
+could not see, he felt that he was suffocating, that he was losing his
+reason.
+
+�Where is the self-control you promised me?� murmured the priest.
+
+But no one observed the young man�s condition. The attention was rapt,
+breathless. So profound was the silence that the measured tread of the
+sentinels without could be distinctly heard.
+
+Each person present felt that the decisive moment for which the tribunal
+had reserved all its attention and efforts had come.
+
+To convict and condemn the poor peasants, of whom no one would think
+twice, was a mere trifle. But to bring low an illustrious man who had
+been the counsellor and faithful friend of the Emperor! What glory, and
+what an opportunity for the ambitious!
+
+The instinct of the audience spoke the truth. If the tribunal had acted
+informally in the case of the obscure conspirators, it had carefully
+prepared its suit against the baron.
+
+Thanks to the activity of the Marquis de Courtornieu, the prosecution
+had found seven charges against the baron, the least grave of which was
+punishable by death.
+
+�Which of you,� demanded M. de Sairmeuse, �will consent to defend this
+great culprit?�
+
+�I!� exclaimed three advocates, in a breath.
+
+�Take care,� said the duke, with a malicious smile; �the task is not
+light.�
+
+�Not light!� It would have been better to say dangerous. It would have
+been better to say that the defender risked his career, his peace, and
+his liberty; very probably, his life.
+
+�Our profession has its exigencies,� nobly replied the oldest of the
+advocates.
+
+And the three courageously took their places beside the baron, thus
+avenging the honor of their robe which had just been miserably sullied,
+in a city where, among more than a hundred thousand souls, two pure and
+innocent victims of a furious reaction had not--oh, shame!--been able to
+find a defender.
+
+�Prisoner,� resumed M. de Sairmeuse, �state your name and profession.�
+
+�Louis Guillaume, Baron d�Escorval, Commander of the Order of the Legion
+of Honor, formerly Councillor of State under the Empire.�
+
+�So you avow these shameful services? You confess----�
+
+�Pardon, Monsieur; I am proud of having had the honor of serving my
+country, and of being useful to her in proportion to my ability----�
+
+With a furious gesture the duke interrupted him.
+
+�That is excellent!� he exclaimed. �These gentlemen, the commissioners,
+will appreciate that. It was, undoubtedly, in the hope of regaining your
+former position that you entered into a conspiracy against a magnanimous
+prince with these vile wretches!�
+
+�These peasants are not vile wretches, but misguided men, Monsieur.
+Moreover, you know--yes, you know as well as I do myself--that I have
+had no hand in this conspiracy.�
+
+�You were arrested in the ranks of the conspirators with weapons in your
+hands!�
+
+�I was unarmed, Monsieur, as you are well aware; and if I was among
+the peasantry, it was only because I hoped to induce them to relinquish
+their senseless enterprise.�
+
+�You lie!�
+
+The baron paled beneath the insult, but he made no reply.
+
+There was, however, one man in the assemblage who could no longer endure
+this horrible and abominable injustice, and this man was Abbe Midon,
+who, only a moment before, had advised Maurice to be calm.
+
+He brusquely quitted his place, and advanced to the foot of the
+platform.
+
+�The Baron d�Escorval speaks the truth,� he cried, in a ringing voice;
+�the three hundred prisoners in the citadel will swear to it; these
+prisoners here would say the same if they stood upon the guillotine; and
+I, who accompanied him, who walked beside him, I, a priest, swear before
+the God who will judge all men, Monsieur de Sairmeuse, I swear that all
+which it was in human power to do to arrest this movement we have done!�
+
+The duke listened with an ironical smile.
+
+�They did not deceive me, then, when they told me that this army of
+rebels had a chaplain! Ah! Monsieur, you should sink to the earth with
+shame. You, a priest, mingle with such scoundrels as these--with these
+enemies of our good King and of our holy religion! Do not deny this!
+Your haggard features, your swollen eyes, your disordered attire soiled
+with dust and mud betray your guilt. Must I, a soldier, remind you of
+what is due your sacred calling? Hold your peace, Monsieur, and depart!�
+
+The counsel for the prisoner sprang up.
+
+�We demand,� they cried, �that this witness be heard. He must be heard!
+Military commissions are not above the laws that regulate ordinary
+tribunals.�
+
+�If I do not speak the truth,� resumed the abbe, �I am a perjured
+witness, worse yet, an accomplice. It is your duty, in that case, to
+have me arrested.�
+
+The duke�s face expressed a hypocritical compassion.
+
+�No, Monsieur le Cure,� said he, �I shall not arrest you. I would avert
+the scandal which you are trying to cause. We will show your priestly
+garb the respect the wearer does not deserve. Again, and for the last
+time, retire, or I shall be obliged to employ force.�
+
+What would further resistance avail? Nothing. The abbe, with a face
+whiter than the plastered walls, and eyes filled with tears, came back
+to his place beside Maurice.
+
+The lawyers, meanwhile, were uttering their protests with increasing
+energy. But the duke, by a prolonged hammering upon the table with his
+fists, at last succeeded in reducing them to silence.
+
+�Ah! you wish testimony!� he exclaimed. �Very well, you shall have it.
+Soldiers, bring in the first witness.�
+
+A movement among the guards, and almost immediately Chupin appeared.
+He advanced deliberately, but his countenance betrayed him. A close
+observer could have read his anxiety and his terror in his eyes, which
+wandered restlessly about the room.
+
+And there was a very appreciable terror in his voice when, with hand
+uplifted, he swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
+the truth.
+
+�What do you know regarding the prisoner d�Escorval?� demanded the duke.
+
+�I know that he took part in the rebellion on the night of the fourth.�
+
+�Are you sure of this?�
+
+�I can furnish proofs.�
+
+�Submit them to the consideration of the commission.�
+
+The old scoundrel began to gain more confidence.
+
+�First,� he replied, �it was to the house of Monsieur d�Escorval that
+Lacheneur hastened after he had, much against his will, restored to
+Monsieur le Duc the chateau of Monsieur le Duc�s ancestors. Monsieur
+Lacheneur met Chanlouineau there, and from that day dates the plot of
+this insurrection.�
+
+�I was Lacheneur�s friend,� said the baron; �it was perfectly natural
+that he should come to me for consolation after a great misfortune.�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse turned to his colleague.
+
+�You hear that!� said he. �This d�Escorval calls the restitution of a
+deposit a great misfortune! Go on, witness.�
+
+�In the second place,� resumed Chupin, �the accused was always prowling
+about Lacheneur�s house.�
+
+�That is false,� interrupted the baron. �I never visited the house but
+once, and on that occasion I implored him to renounce.�
+
+He paused, comprehending only when it was too late, the terrible
+significance of his words. But having begun, he would not retract, and
+he added:
+
+�I implored him to renounce this project of an insurrection.�
+
+�Ah! then you knew his wicked intentions?�
+
+�I suspected them.�
+
+�Not to reveal a conspiracy makes one an accomplice, and means the
+guillotine.�
+
+Baron d�Escorval had just signed his death-warrant.
+
+Strange caprice of destiny! He was innocent, and yet he was the only one
+among the accused whom a regular tribunal could have legally condemned.
+
+Maurice and the abbe were prostrated with grief; but Chanlouineau, who
+turned toward them, had still upon his lips a smile of confidence.
+
+How could he hope when all hope seemed absolutely lost?
+
+But the commissioners made no attempt to conceal their satisfaction. M.
+de Sairmeuse, especially, evinced an indecent joy.
+
+�Ah, well! Messieurs?� he said to the lawyers, in a sneering tone.
+
+The counsel for the defence poorly dissimulated their discouragement;
+but they nevertheless endeavored to question the validity of such a
+declaration on the part of their client. He had said that he _suspected_
+the conspiracy, not that he _knew_ it. It was quite a different thing.
+
+�Say at once that you wish still more overwhelming evidence,�
+ interrupted the duke. �Very well! You shall have it. Continue your
+deposition, witness.�
+
+�The accused,� continued Chupin, �was present at all the conferences
+held at Lacheneur�s house. The proof of this is as clear as daylight.
+Being obliged to cross the Oiselle to reach the Reche, and fearing the
+ferryman would notice his frequent nocturnal voyages, the baron had an
+old boat repaired which he had not used for years.�
+
+�Ah! that is a remarkable circumstance, prisoner; do you recollect
+having your boat repaired?�
+
+�Yes; but not for the purpose which this man mentions.�
+
+�For what purpose, then?�
+
+The baron made no response. Was it not in compliance with the request of
+Maurice that the boat had been put in order?
+
+�And finally,� continued Chupin, �when Lacheneur set fire to his house
+to give the signal for the insurrection, the prisoner was with him.�
+
+�That,� exclaimed the duke, �is conclusive evidence.�
+
+�I was, indeed, at the Reche,� interrupted the baron; �but it was, as
+I have already told you, with the firm determination of preventing this
+outbreak.�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse gave utterance to a little disdainful laugh.
+
+�Ah, gentlemen!� he said, addressing the commissioners, �can you not
+see that the prisoner�s courage does not equal his depravity? But I will
+confound him. What did you do, prisoner, when the insurgents left the
+Reche?�
+
+�I returned to my home with all possible haste, took a horse and
+repaired to the Croix d�Arcy.�
+
+�Then you knew that this was the spot appointed for the general
+rendezvous?�
+
+�Lacheneur had just informed me.�
+
+�If I believed your story, I should tell you that it was your duty to
+have hastened to Montaignac and informed the authorities. But what you
+say is untrue. You did not leave Lacheneur, you accompanied him.�
+
+�No, Monsieur, no!�
+
+�And what if I could prove this fact beyond all question?�
+
+�Impossible, Monsieur, since such was not the case.�
+
+By the malicious satisfaction that lighted M. de Sairmeuse�s face, the
+abbe knew that this wicked judge had some terrible weapon in his hands,
+and that Baron d�Escorval was about to be overwhelmed by one of those
+fatal coincidences which explain, although they do not justify, judicial
+errors.
+
+At a sign from the counsel for the prosecution, the Marquis de
+Courtornieu left his seat and came forward to the platform.
+
+�I must request you, Monsieur le Marquis,� said the duke, �to have the
+goodness to read to the commission the deposition written and signed by
+your daughter.�
+
+This scene must have been prepared in advance for the audience. M. de
+Courtornieu cleaned his glasses, drew from his pocket a paper which he
+unfolded, and amid a death-like silence, he read:
+
+�I, Blanche de Courtornieu, do declare upon oath that, on the evening
+of the fourth of February, between ten and eleven o�clock, on the public
+road leading from Sairmeuse to Montaignac, I was assailed by a crowd of
+armed brigands. While they were deliberating as to whether they should
+take possession of my person and pillage my carriage, I overheard one
+of these men say to another, speaking of me: �She must get out, must she
+not, Monsieur d�Escorval?� I believe that the brigand who uttered these
+words was a peasant named Chanlouineau, but I dare not assert it on
+oath.�
+
+A terrible cry, followed by inarticulate moans, interrupted the marquis.
+
+The suffering which Maurice endured was too great for his strength and
+his reason. He was about to spring forward and cry:
+
+�It was I who addressed those words to Chanlouineau. I alone am guilty;
+my father is innocent!�
+
+But fortunately the abbe had the presence of mind to hold him back, and
+place his hand over the poor youth�s lips.
+
+But the priest would not have been able to restrain Maurice without the
+aid of the retired army officers, who were standing beside him.
+
+Divining all, perhaps, they surrounded Maurice, took him up, and carried
+him from the room by main force, in spite of his violent resistance.
+
+All this occupied scarcely ten seconds.
+
+�What is the cause of this disturbance?� inquired the duke, looking
+angrily over the audience.
+
+No one uttered a word.
+
+�At the least noise the hall shall be cleared,� added M. de Sairmeuse.
+�And you, prisoner, what have you to say in self-justification, after
+this crushing accusation by Mademoiselle de Courtornieu?�
+
+�Nothing,� murmured the baron.
+
+�So you confess your guilt?�
+
+Once outside, the abbe confided Maurice to the care of three officers,
+who promised to go with him, to carry him by main force, if need be, to
+the hotel, and keep him there.
+
+Relieved on this score, the priest re-entered the hall just in time to
+see the baron seat himself without making any response, thus indicating
+that he had relinquished all intention of defending his life.
+
+Really, what could he say? How could he defend himself without betraying
+his son?
+
+Until now there had not been one person who did not believe in the
+baron�s entire innocence. Could it be that he was guilty? His silence
+must be accepted as a confession of guilt; at least, some present
+believed so.
+
+Baron d�Escorval appeared to be guilty. Was that not a sufficiently
+great victory for the Duc de Sairmeuse?
+
+He turned to the lawyers, and with an air of weariness and disdain he
+said:
+
+�Now speak, since it is absolutely necessary; but no long phrases! We
+should have finished here an hour ago.�
+
+The oldest lawyer rose, trembling with indignation, ready to dare
+anything for the sake of giving free utterance to his thought, but the
+baron checked him.
+
+�Do not try to defend me,� he said, calmly; �it would be labor wasted.
+I have only a word to say to my judges. Let them remember what the noble
+and generous Marshal Moncey wrote to the King: �The scaffold does not
+make friends.��
+
+This recollection was not of a nature to soften the hearts of the
+judges. The marshal, for that saying, had been deprived of his office,
+and condemned to three months� imprisonment.
+
+As the advocates made no further attempt to argue the case, the
+commission retired to deliberate. This gave M. d�Escorval an opportunity
+to speak with his defenders. He shook them warmly by the hand, and
+thanked them for their devotion and for their courage.
+
+The good man wept.
+
+Then the baron, turning to the oldest among them, quickly and in a low
+voice said:
+
+�I have a last favor to ask of you. When the sentence of death shall
+have been pronounced upon me, go at once to my son. You will say to him
+that his dying father commands him to live; he will understand you. Tell
+him it is my last wish; that he live--live for his mother!�
+
+He said no more; the judges were returning.
+
+Of the thirty prisoners, nine were declared not guilty, and released.
+
+The remaining twenty-one, and M. d�Escorval and Chanlouineau were among
+the number, were condemned to death.
+
+But the smile had not once forsaken Chanlouineau�s lips.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+The abbe had been right in feeling he could trust the officers to whose
+care he had confided Maurice.
+
+Finding their entreaties would not induce him to leave the citadel, they
+seized him and literally carried him away. He made the most desperate
+efforts to escape; each step was a struggle.
+
+�Leave me!� he exclaimed; �let me go where duty calls me. You only
+dishonor me in pretending to save me.�
+
+His agony was terrible. He had thrown himself headlong into this absurd
+undertaking, and now the responsibility of his acts had fallen upon
+his father. He, the culprit, would live, and his innocent father would
+perish on the guillotine. It was to this his love for Marie-Anne had led
+him, that radiant love which in other days had smiled so joyously.
+
+But our capacity for suffering has its limits.
+
+When they had carried him to the room in the hotel where his mother and
+Marie-Anne were waiting in agonized surprise, that irresistible torpor
+which follows suffering too intense for human endurance, crept over him.
+
+�Nothing is decided yet,� the officers answered in response to Mme.
+d�Escorval�s questions. �The cure will hasten here as soon as the
+verdict is rendered.�
+
+Then, as they had promised not to lose sight of Maurice, they seated
+themselves in gloomy silence.
+
+The house was silent. One might have supposed the hotel deserted. At
+last, a little before four o�clock, the abbe came in, followed by the
+lawyer to whom the baron had confided his last wishes.
+
+�My husband!� exclaimed Mme. d�Escorval, springing wildly from her
+chair.
+
+The priest bowed his head; she understood.
+
+�Death!� she faltered. �They have condemned him!�
+
+And overcome by the terrible blow, she sank back, inert, with hanging
+arms.
+
+But the weakness did not last long; she again sprang up, her eyes
+brilliant with heroic resolve.
+
+�We must save him!� she exclaimed. �We must wrest him from the scaffold.
+Up, Maurice! up, Marie-Anne! No more weak lamentations, we must to work!
+You, also, gentlemen, will aid me. I can count upon your assistance,
+Monsieur le Cure. What are we going to do? I do not know! But something
+must be done. The death of this just man would be too great a crime. God
+will not permit it.�
+
+She suddenly paused, with clasped hands, and eyes uplifted to heaven, as
+if seeking divine inspiration.
+
+�And the King,� she resumed; �will the King consent to such a crime? No.
+A king can refuse mercy, but he cannot refuse justice. I will go to him.
+I will tell him all! Why did not this thought come to me sooner? We must
+start for Paris without losing an instant. Maurice, you will accompany
+me. One of you gentlemen will go at once and order post-horses.�
+
+Thinking they would obey her, she hastened into the next room to make
+preparations for her journey.
+
+�Poor woman!� the lawyer whispered to the abbe, �she does not know that
+the sentence of a military commission is executed in twenty-four hours.�
+
+�Well?�
+
+�It requires four days to make the journey to Paris.�
+
+He reflected a moment, then added:
+
+�But, after all, to let her go would be an act of mercy. Did not Ney, on
+the morning of his execution, implore the King to order the removal of
+his wife who was sobbing and moaning in his cell?�
+
+The abbe shook his head.
+
+�No,� said he; �Madame d�Escorval will never forgive us if we prevent
+her from receiving her husband�s last farewell.�
+
+She, at that very moment, re-entered the room, and the priest was trying
+to gather courage to tell her the cruel truth, when someone knocked
+violently at the door.
+
+One of the officers went to open it, and Bavois, the corporal of
+grenadiers, entered, his right hand lifted to his cap, as if he were in
+the presence of his superior officer.
+
+�Is Mademoiselle Lacheneur here?� he demanded.
+
+Marie-Anne came forward.
+
+�I am she, Monsieur,� she replied; �what do you desire of me?�
+
+�I am ordered, Mademoiselle, to conduct you to the citadel.�
+
+�Ah!� exclaimed Maurice, in a ferocious tone; �so they imprison women
+also!�
+
+The worthy corporal struck himself a heavy blow upon the forehead.
+
+�I am an old stupid!� he exclaimed, �and express myself badly. I meant
+to say that I came to seek mademoiselle at the request of one of the
+condemned, a man named Chanlouineau, who desires to speak with her.�
+
+�Impossible, my good man,� said one of the officers; �they would
+not allow this lady to visit one of the condemned without special
+permission----�
+
+�Well, she has this permission,� said the old soldier.
+
+Assuring himself, with a glance, that he had nothing to fear from anyone
+present, he added, in lower tones:
+
+�This Chanlouineau told me that the cure would understand his reasons.�
+
+Had the brave peasant really found some means of salvation? The abbe
+almost began to believe it.
+
+�You must go with this worthy man, Marie-Anne,� said he.
+
+The poor girl shuddered at the thought of seeing Chanlouineau again, but
+the idea of refusing never once occurred to her.
+
+�Let us go,� she said, quietly.
+
+But the corporal did not stir from his place, and winking, according to
+his habit when he desired to attract the attention of his hearers:
+
+�In one moment,� he said. �This Chanlouineau, who seems to be a shrewd
+fellow, told me to tell you that all was going well. May I be hung if I
+can see how! Still such is his opinion. He also told me to tell you not
+to stir from this place, and not to attempt anything until mademoiselle
+returns, which will be in less than an hour. He swears to you that he
+will keep his promise; he only asks you to pledge your word that you
+will obey him----�
+
+�We will take no action until an hour has passed,� said the abbe. �I
+promise that----�
+
+�That is all. Salute company. And now, Mademoiselle, on the
+double-quick, march! The poor devil over there must be on coals of
+fire.�
+
+That a condemned prisoner should be allowed to receive a visit from
+the daughter of the leader of the rebellion--of that Lacheneur who had
+succeeded in making his escape--was indeed surprising.
+
+But Chanlouineau had been ingenious enough to discover a means of
+procuring this special permission.
+
+With this aim in view, when sentence of death was passed upon him, he
+pretended to be overcome with terror, and to weep piteously.
+
+The soldiers could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw this robust
+young fellow, who had been so insolent and defiant a few hours before,
+so overcome that they were obliged to carry him to his cell.
+
+There, his lamentations were redoubled; and he begged the guard to go
+to the Duc de Sairmeuse, or the Marquis de Courtornieu, and tell them he
+had revelations of the greatest importance to make.
+
+That potent word �revelations� made M. de Courtornieu hasten to the
+prisoner�s cell.
+
+He found Chanlouineau on his knees, his features distorted by what was
+apparently an agony of fear. The man dragged himself toward him, took
+his hands and kissed them, imploring mercy and forgiveness, swearing
+that to preserve his life he was ready to do anything, yes, anything,
+even to deliver up M. Lacheneur.
+
+To capture Lacheneur! Such a prospect had powerful attractions for the
+Marquis de Courtornieu.
+
+�Do you know, then, where this brigand is concealed?� he inquired.
+
+Chanlouineau admitted that he did not know, but declared that
+Marie-Anne, Lacheneur�s daughter, knew her father�s hiding-place. She
+had, he declared, perfect confidence in him; and if they would only send
+for her, and allow him ten minutes� private conversation with her,
+he was sure he could obtain the secret of her father�s place of
+concealment. So the bargain was quickly concluded.
+
+The prisoner�s life was promised, him in exchange for the life of
+Lacheneur.
+
+A soldier, who chanced to be Corporal Bavois, was sent to summon
+Marie-Anne.
+
+And Chanlouineau waited in terrible anxiety. No one had told him what
+had taken place at Escorval, but he divined it by the aid of that
+strange prescience which so often illuminates the mind when death is
+near at hand.
+
+He was almost certain that Mme. d�Escorval was in Montaignac; he was
+equally certain that Marie-Anne was with her; and if she were, he knew
+that she would come.
+
+And he waited, counting the seconds by the throbbings of his heart.
+
+He waited, understanding the cause of every sound without,
+distinguishing with the marvellous acuteness of senses excited to the
+highest pitch by passion, sounds which would have been inaudible to
+another person.
+
+At last, at the end of the corridor, he heard the rustling of a dress
+against the wall.
+
+�It is she,� he murmured.
+
+Footsteps approached; the heavy bolts were drawn back, the door opened,
+and Marie-Anne entered, accompanied by Corporal Bavois.
+
+�Monsieur de Courtornieu promised me that we should be left alone!�
+ exclaimed Chanlouineau.
+
+�Therefore, I go at once,� replied the old soldier. �But I have orders
+to return for mademoiselle in half an hour.�
+
+When the door closed behind the worthy corporal, Chanlouineau took
+Marie-Anne�s hand and drew her to the tiny grafted window.
+
+�Thank you for coming,� said he, �thank you. I can see you and speak to
+you once more. Now that my hours are numbered, I may reveal the secret
+of my soul and of my life. Now, I can venture to tell you how ardently I
+have loved you--how much I still love you.�
+
+Involuntarily Marie-Anne drew away her hand and stepped back.
+
+This outburst of passion, at such a moment, seemed at once unspeakably
+sad and frightful.
+
+�Have I, then, offended you?� said Chanlouineau, sadly. �Forgive one who
+is about to die! You cannot refuse to listen to the voice of one, who
+after tomorrow, will have vanished from earth forever.
+
+�I have loved you for a long time, Marie-Anne, for more than six years.
+Before I saw you, I loved only my possessions. To raise fine crops, and
+to amass a fortune, seemed to me, then, the greatest possible happiness
+here below.
+
+�Why did I meet you? But at that time you were so high, and I, so low,
+that never in my wildest dreams did I aspire to you. I went to church
+each Sunday only that I might worship you as peasant women worship the
+Blessed Virgin; I went home with my eyes and my heart full of you--and
+that was all.
+
+�Then came the misfortune that brought us nearer to each other; and your
+father made me as insane, yes, as insane as himself.
+
+�After the insults he received from the Sairmeuse, your father resolved
+to revenge himself upon these arrogant nobles, and he selected me for
+his accomplice. He had read my heart. On leaving the house of Baron
+d�Escorval, on that Sunday evening, which you must remember, the compact
+that bound me to your father was made.
+
+��You love my daughter, my boy,� said he. �Very well, aid me, and I
+promise you, in case we succeed, she shall be your wife. Only,� he
+added, �I must warn you that you hazard your life.�
+
+�But what was life in comparison with the hope that dazzled me! From
+that night I gave body, soul, and fortune to the cause. Others were
+influenced by hatred, or by ambition; but I was actuated by neither of
+these motives.
+
+�What did the quarrels of the great matter to me--a simple laborer? I
+knew that the greatest were powerless to give my crops a drop of rain in
+season of drought, or a ray of sunshine during the rain.
+
+�I took part in this conspiracy because I loved you----�
+
+�Ah! you are cruel!� exclaimed Marie-Anne, �you are pitiless!�
+
+It seemed to the poor girl that he was reproaching her for the horrible
+fate which Lacheneur had brought upon him, and for the terrible part
+which her father had imposed upon her, and which she had not been strong
+enough to refuse to perform.
+
+But Chanlouineau scarcely heard Marie-Anne�s exclamation. All the
+bitterness of the past had mounted to his brain like fumes of alcohol.
+He was scarcely conscious of his own words.
+
+�But the day soon came,� he continued, �when my foolish illusions were
+destroyed. You could not be mine since you belonged to another. I might
+have broken my compact! I thought of doing so, but had not the courage.
+To see you, to hear your voice, to dwell beneath the same roof with you,
+was happiness. I longed to see you happy and honored; I fought for the
+triumph of another, for him whom you had chosen----�
+
+A sob that had risen in his throat choked his utterance; he buried
+his face in his hands to hide his tears, and, for a moment, seemed
+completely overcome.
+
+But he mastered his weakness after a little and in a firm voice, he
+said:
+
+�We must not linger over the past. Time flies and the future is
+ominous.�
+
+As he spoke, he went to the door and applied first his eye, then his ear
+to the opening, to see that there were no spies without.
+
+No one was in the corridor; he could not hear a sound.
+
+He came back to Marie-Anne�s side, and tearing the sleeve of his jacket
+open with his teeth, he drew from it two letters, wrapped carefully in a
+piece of cloth.
+
+�Here,� he said, in a low voice, �is a man�s life!�
+
+Marie-Anne knew nothing of Chanlouineau�s promises and hopes, and
+bewildered by her distress, she did not at first understand.
+
+�This,� she exclaimed, �is a man�s life!�
+
+�Hush, speak lower!� interrupted Chanlouineau. �Yes, one of these
+letters might perhaps save the life of one who has been condemned to
+death.�
+
+�Unfortunate man! Why do you not make use of it and save yourself?�
+
+The young man sadly shook his head.
+
+�Is it possible that you could ever love me?� he said, simply. �No, it
+is not. I have, therefore, no desire to live. Rest beneath the sod is
+preferable to the misery I am forced to endure. Moreover I was justly
+condemned. I knew what I was doing when I left the Reche with my gun
+upon my shoulder, and my sword by my side; I have no right to complain.
+But those cruel judges have condemned an innocent man----�
+
+�Baron d�Escorval?�
+
+�Yes--the father of--Maurice!�
+
+His voice changed in uttering the name of this man, for whose happiness
+he would have given ten lives had they been his to give.
+
+�I wish to save him,� he added, �I can do it.�
+
+�Oh! if what you said were true? But you undoubtedly deceive yourself.�
+
+�I know what I am saying.�
+
+Fearing that some spy outside would overhear him, he came close to
+Marie-Anne and said, rapidly, and in a low voice:
+
+�I never believed in the success of this conspiracy. When I sought for a
+weapon of defence in case of failure, the Marquis de Sairmeuse furnished
+it. When it became necessary to send a circular warning our accomplices
+of the date decided upon for the uprising, I persuaded Monsieur Martial
+to write a model. He suspected nothing. I told him it was for a wedding;
+he did what I asked. This letter, which is now in my possession, is
+the rough draft of the circular; and it was written by the hand of the
+Marquis de Sairmeuse. It is impossible for him to deny it. There is an
+erasure on each line. Everyone would regard it as the handiwork of a man
+who was seeking to convey his real meaning in ambiguous phrases.�
+
+Chanlouineau opened the envelope and showed her the famous letter which
+he had dictated, and in which the space for the date of the insurrection
+was left blank.
+
+�My dear friend, we are at last agreed, and the marriage is decided,
+etc.�
+
+The light that had sparkled in Marie-Anne�s eye was suddenly
+extinguished.
+
+�And you believe that this letter can be of any service?� she inquired,
+in evident discouragement.
+
+�I do not believe it!�
+
+�But----�
+
+With a gesture, he interrupted her.
+
+�We must not lose time in discussion--listen to me. Of itself, this
+letter might be unimportant, but I have arranged matters in such a way
+that it will produce a powerful effect. I declared before the commission
+that the Marquis de Sairmeuse was one of the leaders of the movement.
+They laughed; and I read incredulity on the faces of the judges. But
+calumny is never without its effect. When the Duc de Sairmeuse is about
+to receive a reward for his services, there will be enemies in plenty
+to remember and to repeat my words. He knew this so well that he was
+greatly agitated, even while his colleagues sneered at my accusation.�
+
+�To accuse a man falsely is a great crime,� murmured the honest
+Marie-Anne.
+
+�Yes, but I wish to save my friend, and I cannot choose my means. I
+was all the more sure of success as I knew that the marquis had been
+wounded. I declared that he was fighting against the troops by my side;
+I demanded that he should be summoned before the tribunal; I told them
+that I had in my possession unquestionable proofs of his complicity.�
+
+�Did you say that the Marquis de Sairmeuse had been wounded?� inquired
+Marie-Anne.
+
+Chanlouineau�s face betrayed the most intense astonishment.
+
+�What!� he exclaimed, �you do not know----�
+
+Then after an instant�s reflection:
+
+�Fool that I am!� he resumed. �Who could have told you what had
+happened? You remember that when we were travelling over the Sairmeuse
+road on our way to the Croix d�Arcy, and after your father had left
+us to ride on in advance, Maurice placed himself at the head of one
+division, and you walked beside him, while your brother Jean and myself
+stayed behind to urge on the laggards. We were performing our duty
+conscientiously when suddenly we heard the gallop of a horse behind us.
+�We must know who is coming,� Jean said to me.
+
+�We paused. The horse soon reached us; we caught the bridle and held
+him. Can you guess who the rider was? Martial de Sairmeuse.
+
+�To describe your brother�s fury on recognizing the marquis would be
+impossible.
+
+��At last I find you, wretched noble!� he exclaimed, �and now we will
+settle our account! After reducing my father, who has just given you a
+fortune, to despair and penury, you have tried to degrade my sister. I
+will have my revenge! Down, we must fight!��
+
+Marie-Anne could scarcely tell whether she was awake or dreaming.
+
+�My brother,� she murmured, �has challenged the marquis! Is it
+possible?�
+
+�Brave as Monsieur Martial is,� pursued Chanlouineau, �he did not seem
+inclined to accept the invitation. He stammered out something like this:
+�You are mad--you are jesting--have we not always been friends? What
+does this mean?�
+
+�Jean ground his teeth in rage. �This means that we have endured your
+insulting familiarity long enough,� he replied, �and if you do not
+dismount and meet me in open combat, I will blow your brains out!�
+
+�Your brother, as he spoke, manipulated his pistol in so threatening a
+manner that the marquis dismounted, and addressing me:
+
+��You see, Chanlouineau,� he said, �I must fight a duel or submit to
+assassination. If Jean kills me there is no more to be said--but if I
+kill him, what is to be done?�
+
+�I told him he would be free to depart on condition he would give me his
+word not to return to Montaignac before two o�clock.
+
+��Then I accept the challenge,� said he; �give me a weapon.�
+
+�I gave him my sword, your brother drew his, and they took their places
+in the middle of the highway.�
+
+The young farmer paused to take breath, then said, more slowly:
+
+�Marie-Anne, your father and I have misjudged your brother. Poor Jean�s
+appearance is terribly against him. His face indicates a treacherous,
+cowardly nature, his smile is cunning, and his eyes always shun yours.
+We have distrusted him, but we should ask his pardon. A man who fights
+as I saw him fight, is deserving of confidence. For this combat in
+the public road, and in the darkness of the night, was terrible. They
+attacked each other silently but furiously. At last Jean fell.�
+
+�Ah! my brother is dead!� exclaimed Marie-Anne.
+
+�No,� responded Chanlouineau; �at least we have reason to hope not; and
+I know he has not lacked any attention. This duel had another witness,
+a man named Poignot, whom you must remember; he was one of your father�s
+tenants. He took Jean, promising me that he would conceal him and care
+for him.
+
+�As for the marquis, he showed me that he too was wounded, and then he
+remounted his horse, saying:
+
+��What could I do? He would have it so.��
+
+Marie-Anne understood now.
+
+�Give me the letter,� she said to Chanlouineau, �I will go to the duke.
+I will find some way to reach him, and then God will tell me what course
+to pursue.�
+
+The noble peasant handed the girl the tiny scrap of paper which might
+have been his own salvation.
+
+�On no account,� said he, �must you allow the duke to suppose that you
+have upon your person the proof with which you threaten him. Who knows
+of what he might be capable under such circumstances? He will say, at
+first, that he can do nothing--that he sees no way to save the baron.
+You will tell him that he must find a means, if he does not wish this
+letter sent to Paris, to one of his enemies----�
+
+He paused; he heard the grating of the bolt. Corporal Bavois reappeared.
+
+�The half hour expired ten minutes ago,� he said, sadly. �I have my
+orders.�
+
+�Coming,� said Chanlouineau; �all is ended!�
+
+And handing Marie-Anne the second letter:
+
+�This is for you,� he added. �You will read it when I am no more. Pray,
+pray, do not weep thus! Be brave! You will soon be the wife of Maurice.
+And when you are happy, think sometimes of the poor peasant who loved
+you so much.�
+
+Marie-Anne could not utter a word, but she lifted her face to his.
+
+�Ah! I dared not ask it!� he exclaimed.
+
+And for the first time he clasped her in his arms and pressed his lips
+to her pallid cheek.
+
+�Now adieu,� he said once more. �Do not lose a moment. Adieu!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The prospect of capturing Lacheneur, the chief conspirator, excited the
+Marquis de Courtornieu so much that he had not been able to tear himself
+away from the citadel to return home to his dinner.
+
+Remaining near the entrance of the dark corridor leading to
+Chanlouineau�s cell, he watched Marie-Anne depart; but as he saw her go
+out into the twilight with a quick, alert step, he felt a sudden doubt
+of Chanlouineau�s sincerity.
+
+�Can it be that this miserable peasant has deceived me?� he thought.
+
+So strong was this suspicion that he hastened after her, determined to
+question her--to ascertain the truth--to arrest her, if necessary.
+
+But he no longer possessed the agility of youth, and when he reached the
+gateway the guard told him that Mlle. Lacheneur had already passed out.
+He rushed out after her, looked about on every side, but could see no
+trace of her. He re-entered the citadel, furious with himself for his
+own credulity.
+
+�Still, I can visit Chanlouineau,� thought he, �and to-morrow will be
+time enough to summon this creature and question her.�
+
+�This creature� was even then hastening up the long, ill-paved street
+that led to the Hotel de France.
+
+Regardless of self, and of the curious gaze of a few passers-by, she ran
+on, thinking only of shortening the terrible anxiety which her friends
+at the hotel must be enduring.
+
+�All is not lost!� she exclaimed, on re-entering the room.
+
+�My God, Thou hast heard my prayers!� murmured the baroness.
+
+Then, suddenly seized by a horrible dread, she added:
+
+�Do not attempt to deceive me. Are you not trying to delude me with
+false hopes? That would be cruel!�
+
+�I am not deceiving you, Madame, Chanlouineau has given me a weapon,
+which, _I_ hope and believe, places the Duc de Sairmeuse in our power.
+He is omnipotent in Montaignac; the only man who could oppose him,
+Monsieur de Courtornieu, is his friend. I believe that Monsieur
+d�Escorval can be saved.�
+
+�Speak!� cried Maurice; �what must we do?�
+
+�Pray and wait, Maurice. I must act alone in this matter, but be assured
+that I--the cause of all your misfortune--will leave nothing undone
+which is possible for mortal to do.�
+
+Absorbed in the task which she had imposed upon herself, Marie-Anne had
+failed to remark a stranger who had arrived during her absence--an old
+white-haired peasant.
+
+The abbe called her attention to him.
+
+�Here is a courageous friend,� said he, �who since morning, has been
+searching for you everywhere, in, order to give you news of your
+father.�
+
+Marie-Anne was so overcome that she could scarcely falter her gratitude.
+
+�Oh, you need not thank me,� answered the brave peasant. �I said to
+myself: �The poor girl must be terribly anxious. I ought to relieve her
+of her misery.� So I came to tell you that Monsieur Lacheneur is safe
+and well, except for a wound in the leg, which causes him considerable
+suffering, but which will be healed in two or three weeks. My
+son-in-law, who was hunting yesterday in the mountains, met him near the
+frontier in company with two of his friends. By this time he must be in
+Piedmont, beyond the reach of the gendarmes.�
+
+�Let us hope now,� said the abbe, �that we shall soon hear what has
+become of Jean.�
+
+�I know, already, Monsieur,� responded Marie-Anne; �my brother has been
+badly wounded, and he is now under the protection of kind friends.�
+
+She bowed her head, almost crushed beneath her burden of sorrow, but
+soon rallying, she exclaimed:
+
+�What am I doing! What right have I to think of my friends, when upon
+my promptness and upon my courage depends the life of an innocent man
+compromised by them?�
+
+Maurice, the abbe, and the officers surrounded the brave young girl.
+They wished to know what she was about to attempt, and to dissuade her
+from incurring useless danger.
+
+She refused to reply to their pressing questions. They wished to
+accompany her, or, at least, to follow her at a distance, but she
+declared that she must go alone.
+
+�I will return in less than two hours, and then we can decide what must
+be done,� said she, as she hastened away.
+
+To obtain an audience with the Duc de Sairmeuse was certainly a
+difficult matter; Maurice and the abbe had proved that only too well
+the previous day. Besieged by weeping and heart-broken families, he shut
+himself up securely, fearing, perhaps, that he might be moved by their
+entreaties.
+
+Marie-Anne knew this, but it did not alarm her. Chanlouineau had given
+her a word, the same which he had used; and this word was a key which
+would unlock the most firmly and obstinately locked doors.
+
+In the vestibule of the house occupied by the Duc de Sairmeuse, three or
+four valets stood talking.
+
+�I am the daughter of Monsieur Lacheneur,� said Marie-Anne, addressing
+one of them. �I must speak to the duke at once, on matters connected
+with the revolt.�
+
+�The duke is absent.�
+
+�I came to make a revelation.�
+
+The servant�s manner suddenly changed.
+
+�In that case follow me, Mademoiselle.�
+
+She followed him up the stairs and through two or three rooms. At last
+he opened a door, saying, �enter.� She went in.
+
+It was not the Duc de Sairmeuse who was in the room, but his son,
+Martial.
+
+Stretched upon a sofa, he was reading a paper by the light of a large
+candelabra.
+
+On seeing Marie-Anne he sprang up, as pale and agitated as if the door
+had given passage to a spectre.
+
+�You!� he stammered.
+
+But he quickly mastered his emotion, and in a second his quick mind
+revolved all the possibilities that might have produced this visit:
+
+�Lacheneur has been arrested!� he exclaimed, �and you, wishing to save
+him from the fate which the military commission will pronounce upon him,
+have thought of me. Thank you, dearest Marie-Anne, thank you for your
+confidence. I will not abuse it. Let your heart be reassured. We will
+save your father, I promise you--I swear it. How, I do not yet know. But
+what does that matter? It is enough that he shall be saved. I will have
+it so!�
+
+His voice betrayed the intense passion and joy that was surging in his
+heart.
+
+�My father has not been arrested,� said Marie-Anne, coldly.
+
+�Then,� said Martial, with some hesitation, �then it is Jean who is a
+prisoner.�
+
+�My brother is in safety. If he survives his wounds he will escape all
+attempts at capture.�
+
+From white the Marquis de Sairmeuse had turned as red as fire. By
+Marie-Anne�s manner he saw that she knew of the duel. He made no attempt
+to deny it; but he tried to excuse himself.
+
+�It was Jean who challenged me,� said he; �I tried to avoid it. I only
+defended my own life in fair combat, and with equal weapons----�
+
+Marie-Anne interrupted him.
+
+�I reproach you for nothing, Monsieur le Marquis,� she said, quietly.
+
+�Ah! Marie-Anne, I am more severe than you. Jean was right to challenge
+me. I deserved his anger. He knew the baseness of which I had been
+guilty; but you--you were ignorant of it. Oh! Marie-Anne, if I wronged
+you in thought it was because I did not know you. Now I know that you,
+above all others, are pure and chaste.�
+
+He tried to take her hands; she repulsed him with horror; and broke into
+a fit of passionate sobbing.
+
+Of all the blows she had received this last was most terrible and
+overwhelming.
+
+What humiliation and shame--! Now, indeed, was her cup of sorrow filled
+to overflowing. �Chaste and pure!� he had said. Oh, bitter mockery!
+
+But Martial misunderstood the meaning of the poor girl�s gesture.
+
+�Oh! I comprehend your indignation,� he resumed, with growing eagerness.
+�But if I have injured you even in thought, I now offer you reparation.
+I have been a fool--a miserable fool--for I love you; I love, and can
+love you only. I am the Marquis de Sairmeuse. I am the possessor of
+millions. I entreat you, I implore you to be my wife.�
+
+Marie-Anne listened in utter bewilderment. Vertigo seized her; even
+reason seemed to totter upon its throne.
+
+But now, it had been Chanlouineau who, in his prison-cell, cried that he
+died for love of her. Now, it was Martial who avowed his willingness to
+sacrifice his ambition and his future for her sake.
+
+And the poor peasant condemned to death, and the son of the all-powerful
+Duc de Sairmeuse, had avowed their passion in almost the very same
+words.
+
+Martial paused, awaiting some response--a word, a gesture. But
+Marie-Anne remained mute, motionless, frozen.
+
+�You are silent,� he cried, with increased vehemence. �Do you question
+my sincerity? No, it is impossible! Then why this silence? Do you fear
+my father�s opposition? You need not. I know how to gain his consent.
+Besides, what does his approbation matter to us? Have we any need of
+him? Am I not my own master? Am I not rich--immensely rich? I should be
+a miserable fool, a coward, if I hesitated between his stupid prejudices
+and the happiness of my life.�
+
+He was evidently obliging himself to weigh all the possible objections,
+in order to answer them and overrule them.
+
+�Is it on account of your family that you hesitate?� he continued. �Your
+father and brother are pursued, and France is closed against them. Very
+well, we will leave France, and they shall come and live near you. Jean
+will no longer dislike me when you are my wife. We will all live in
+England or in Italy. Now I am grateful for the fortune that will enable
+me to make life a continual enchantment for you. I love you--and in the
+happiness and tender love which shall be yours in the future, I will
+compel you to forget all the bitterness of the past!�
+
+Marie-Anne knew the Marquis de Sairmeuse well enough to understand the
+intensity of the love revealed by these astounding propositions.
+
+And for that very reason she hesitated to tell him that he had won this
+triumph over his pride in vain.
+
+She was anxiously wondering to what extremity his wounded vanity would
+carry him, and if a refusal would not transform him into a bitter enemy.
+
+�Why do you not answer?� asked Martial, with evident anxiety.
+
+She felt that she must reply, that she must speak, say something; but
+she could not unclose her lips.
+
+�I am only a poor girl, Monsieur le Marquis,� she murmured, at last. �If
+I accepted your offer, you would regret it continually.�
+
+�Never!�
+
+�But you are no longer free. You have already plighted your troth.
+Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu is your promised wife.�
+
+�Ah! say one word--only one--and this engagement, which I detest, is
+broken.�
+
+She was silent. It was evident that her mind was fully made up, and that
+she refused his offer.
+
+�Do you hate me, then?� asked Martial, sadly.
+
+If she had allowed herself to tell the whole truth Marie-Anne would have
+answered �Yes.� The Marquis de Sairmeuse did inspire her with an almost
+insurmountable aversion.
+
+�I no more belong to myself than you belong to yourself, Monsieur,� she
+faltered.
+
+A gleam of hatred, quickly extinguished, shone in Martial�s eye.
+
+�Always Maurice!� said he.
+
+�Always.�
+
+She expected an angry outburst, but he remained perfectly calm.
+
+�Then,� said he, with a forced smile, �I must believe this and other
+evidence. I must believe that you have forced me to play a most
+ridiculous part. Until now I doubted it.�
+
+The poor girl bowed her head, crimsoning with shame to the roots of her
+hair; but she made no attempt at denial.
+
+�_I_ was not my own mistress,� she stammered; �my father commanded and
+threatened, and I--I obeyed him.�
+
+�That matters little,� he interrupted; �your role has not been that
+which a pure young girl should play.�
+
+It was the only reproach he had uttered, and still he regretted it,
+perhaps because he did not wish her to know how deeply he was wounded,
+perhaps because--as he afterward declared--he could not overcome his
+love for Marie-Anne.
+
+�Now,� he resumed, �I understand your presence here. You come to ask
+mercy for Monsieur d�Escorval.�
+
+�Not mercy, but justice. The baron is innocent.�
+
+Martial approached Marie-Anne, and lowering his voice:
+
+�If the father is innocent,� he whispered, �then it is the son who is
+guilty.�
+
+She recoiled in terror. He knew the secret which the judges could not,
+or would not penetrate.
+
+But seeing her anguish, he had pity.
+
+�Another reason,� said he, �for attempting to save the baron! His blood
+shed upon the guillotine would form an impassable gulf between Maurice
+and you. I will join my efforts to yours.�
+
+Blushing and embarrassed, Marie-Anne dared not thank him. How was she
+about to reward his generosity? By vilely traducing him. Ah! she would
+infinitely have preferred to see him angry and revengeful.
+
+Just then a valet opened the door, and the Duc de Sairmeuse, still in
+full uniform, entered.
+
+�Upon my word!� he exclaimed, as he crossed the threshold, �I must
+confess that Chupin is an admirable hunter. Thanks to him----�
+
+He paused abruptly; he had not perceived Marie-Anne until now.
+
+�The daughter of that scoundrel Lacheneur!� said he, with an air of the
+utmost surprise. �What does she desire here?�
+
+The decisive moment had come--the life of the baron hung upon
+Marie-Anne�s courage and address. The consciousness of the terrible
+responsibility devolving upon her restored her self-control and calmness
+as if by magic.
+
+�I have a revelation to sell to you, Monsieur,� she said, resolutely.
+
+The duke regarded her with mingled wonder and curiosity; then, laughing
+heartily, he threw himself upon a sofa, exclaiming:
+
+�Sell it, my pretty one--sell it!�
+
+�I cannot speak until I am alone with you.�
+
+At a sign from his father, Martial left the room.
+
+�You can speak now,� said the duke.
+
+She did not lose a second.
+
+�You must have read, Monsieur,� she began, �the circular convening the
+conspirators.�
+
+�Certainly; I have a dozen copies in my pocket.�
+
+�By whom do you suppose it was written?�
+
+�By the elder d�Escorval, or by your father.�
+
+�You are mistaken, Monsieur; that letter was the work of the Marquis de
+Sairmeuse, your son.�
+
+The duke sprang up, fire flashing from his eyes, his face purple with
+anger.
+
+�Zounds! girl! I advise you to bridle your tongue!�
+
+�The proof of what I have asserted exists.�
+
+�Silence, you hussy, or----�
+
+�The lady who sends me here, Monsieur, possesses the original of this
+circular written by the hand of Monsieur Martial, and I am obliged to
+tell you----�
+
+She did not have an opportunity to complete the sentence. The duke
+sprang to the door, and, in a voice of thunder, called his son.
+
+As soon as Martial entered the room:
+
+�Repeat,� said the duke--�repeat before my son what you have just said
+to me.�
+
+Boldly, with head erect, and clear, firm voice, Marie-Anne repeated her
+accusation.
+
+She expected, on the part of the marquis, an indignant denial, cruel
+reproaches, or an angry explanation. Not a word. He listened with a
+nonchalant air, and she almost believed she could read in his eyes an
+encouragement to proceed, and a promise of protection.
+
+When she had concluded:
+
+�Well!� demanded the duke, imperiously.
+
+�First,� replied Martial, lightly, �I would like to see this famous
+circular.�
+
+The duke handed him a copy.
+
+�Here--read it.�
+
+Martial glanced over it, laughed heartily, and exclaimed:
+
+�A clever trick.�
+
+�What do you say?�
+
+�I say that this Chanlouineau is a sly rascal. Who the devil would have
+thought the fellow so cunning to see his honest face? Another lesson to
+teach one not to trust to appearances.�
+
+In all his life the Duc de Sairmeuse had never received so severe a
+shock.
+
+�Chanlouineau was not lying, then,� he said to his son, in a choked,
+unnatural voice; �you _were_ one of the instigators of this rebellion,
+then?�
+
+Martial�s face grew dark, and in a tone of disdainful hauteur, he
+replied:
+
+�This is the fourth time, sir, that you have addressed that question to
+me, and for the fourth time I answer: �No.� That should suffice. If the
+fancy had seized me for taking part in this movement, I should frankly
+confess it. What possible reason could I have for concealing anything
+from you?�
+
+�The facts!� interrupted the duke, in a frenzy of passion; �the facts!�
+
+�Very well,� rejoined Martial, in his usual indifferent tone; �the fact
+is that the model of this circular does exist, that it was written in my
+best hand on a very large sheet of very poor paper. I recollect that
+in trying to find appropriate expressions I erased and rewrote several
+words. Did I date this writing? I think I did, but I could not swear to
+it.�
+
+�How do you reconcile this with your denials?� exclaimed M. de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+�I can do this easily. Did I not tell you just now that Chanlouineau had
+made a tool of me?�
+
+The duke no longer knew what to believe; but what exasperated him more
+than all else was his son�s imperturbable tranquillity.
+
+�Confess, rather, that you have been led into this filth by your
+mistress,� he retorted, pointing to Marie-Anne.
+
+But this insult Martial would not tolerate.
+
+�Mademoiselle Lacheneur is not my mistress,� he replied, in a tone so
+imperious that it was a menace. �It is true, however, that it rests
+only with her to decide whether she will be the Marquise de Sairmeuse
+tomorrow. Let us abandon these recriminations, they do not further the
+progress of our business.�
+
+The faint glimmer of reason which still lighted M. de Sairmeuse�s mind,
+checked the still more insulting reply that rose to his lips. Trembling
+with suppressed rage, he made the circuit of the room several times,
+and finally paused before Marie-Anne, who remained in the same place, as
+motionless as a statue.
+
+�Come, my good girl,� said he, �give me the writing.�
+
+�It is not in my possession, sir.�
+
+�Where is it?�
+
+�In the hands of a person who will give it to you only under certain
+conditions.�
+
+�Who is this person?�
+
+�I am not at liberty to tell you.�
+
+There was both admiration and jealousy in the look that Martial fixed
+upon Marie-Anne.
+
+He was amazed by her coolness and presence of mind. Ah! how powerful
+must be the passion that imparted such a ringing clearness to her voice,
+such brilliancy to her eyes, such precision to her responses.
+
+�And if I should not accept the--the conditions which are imposed, what
+then?� asked M. de Sairmeuse.
+
+�In that case the writing will be utilized.�
+
+�What do you mean by that?�
+
+�I mean, sir, that early to-morrow morning a trusty messenger will start
+for Paris, charged with the task of submitting this document to the eyes
+of certain persons who are not exactly friends of yours. He will show it
+to Monsieur Laine, for example--or to the Duc de Richelieu; and he will,
+of course, explain to them its significance and its value. Will this
+writing prove the complicity of the Marquis de Sairmeuse? Yes, or no?
+Have you, or have you not, dared to try and to condemn to death the
+unfortunate men who were only the tools of your son?�
+
+�Ah, wretch! hussy! viper!� interrupted the duke. He was beside himself.
+A foam gathered upon his lips, his eyes seemed starting from their
+sockets; he was no longer conscious of what he was saying.
+
+�This,� he exclaimed, with wild gestures, �is enough to appall me! Yes,
+I have bitter enemies, envious rivals who would give their right hand
+for this execrable letter. Ah! if they obtain it they will demand an
+investigation, and then farewell to the rewards due to my services.
+
+�It will be shouted from the house-tops that Chanlouineau, in the
+presence of the tribunal, declared you, Marquis, his leader and his
+accomplice. You will be obliged to submit to the scrutiny of physicians,
+who, seeing a freshly healed wound, will require you to tell where you
+received it, and why you concealed it.
+
+�Of what shall I _not_ be accused? They will say that I expedited
+matters in order to silence the voice that had been raised against
+my son. Perhaps they will even say that I secretly favored the
+insurrection; I shall be vilified in the journals.
+
+�And who has thus ruined the fortunes of our house, that promised so
+brilliantly? You, you alone, Marquis.
+
+�You believe in nothing, you doubt everything--you are cold, sceptical,
+disdainful, _blase_. But a pretty woman makes her appearance on the
+scene. You go wild like a school-boy and are ready to commit any act of
+folly. It is you who I am addressing, Marquis. Do you hear me? Speak!
+what have you to say?�
+
+Martial had listened to this tirade with unconcealed scorn, and without
+even attempting to interrupt it.
+
+Now he responded, slowly:
+
+�I think, sir, if Mademoiselle Lacheneur _had_ any doubts of the value
+of the document she possesses, she has them no longer.�
+
+This response fell upon the duke�s wrath like a bucket of ice-water. He
+instantly comprehended his folly; and frightened by his own words, he
+stood stupefied with astonishment.
+
+Without deigning to add another word, the marquis turned to Marie-Anne.
+
+�Will you be so kind as to explain what is required of my father in
+exchange for this letter?�
+
+�The life and liberty of Monsieur d�Escorval.�
+
+The duke started as if he had received an electric shock.
+
+�Ah!� he exclaimed. �I knew they would ask something that was
+impossible!�
+
+He sank back in his arm-chair. A profound despair succeeded his frenzy.
+He buried his face in his hands, evidently seeking some expedient.
+
+�Why did you not come to me before judgment was pronounced?� he
+murmured. �Then I could have done anything--now, my hands are bound. The
+commission has spoken; the judgment must be executed----�
+
+He rose, and in the tone of a man who is resigned to anything, he said:
+
+�Decidedly. I should risk more in attempting to save the baron�--in his
+anxiety he gave M. d�Escorval his title--�a thousand times more than I
+have to fear from my enemies. So, Mademoiselle�--he no longer said �my
+good girl�--�you can utilize your document.�
+
+The duke was about leaving the room, but Martial detained him by a
+gesture.
+
+�Think again before you decide. Our situation is not without a
+precedent. A few months ago the Count de Lavalette was condemned to
+death. The King wished to pardon him, but his ministers and friends
+opposed it. Though the King was master, what did he do? He seemed to
+be deaf to all the supplications made in the prisoner�s behalf. The
+scaffold was erected, and yet Lavalette was saved! And no one was
+compromised--yes, a jailer lost his position; he is living on his income
+now.�
+
+Marie-Anne caught eagerly at the idea so cleverly presented by Martial.
+
+�Yes,� she exclaimed, �the Count de Lavalette, protected by royal
+connivance, succeeded in making his escape.�
+
+The simplicity of the expedient--the authority of the example--seemed to
+make a vivid impression upon the duke. He was silent for a moment, and
+Marie-Anne fancied she saw an expression of relief steal over his face.
+
+�Such an attempt would be very hazardous,� he murmured; �yet, with care,
+and if one were sure that the secret would be kept----�
+
+�Oh! the secret will be religiously preserved, Monsieur,� interrupted
+Marie-Anne.
+
+With a glance Martial recommended silence; then turning to his father,
+he said:
+
+�One can always consider an expedient, and calculate the
+consequences--that does not bind one. When is this sentence to be
+carried into execution?�
+
+�To-morrow,� responded the duke.
+
+But even this terrible response did not cause Marie-Anne any alarm.
+The duke�s anxiety and terror had taught her how much reason she had to
+hope; and she saw that Martial had openly espoused her cause.
+
+�We have, then, only the night before us,� resumed the marquis.
+�Fortunately, it is only half-past seven, and until ten o�clock my
+father can visit the citadel without exciting the slightest suspicion.�
+
+He paused suddenly. His eyes, in which had shone almost absolute
+confidence, became gloomy. He had just discovered an unexpected and, as
+it seemed to him, almost insurmountable difficulty.
+
+�Have we any intelligent men in the citadel?� he murmured. �The
+assistance of a jailer or of a soldier is indispensable.�
+
+He turned to his father, and brusquely asked: �Have you any man in whom
+you can confide?�
+
+�I have three or four spies--they can be bought.�
+
+�No! the wretch who betrays his comrade for a few sous, will betray you
+for a few louis. We must have an honest man who sympathizes with the
+opinions of Baron d�Escorval--an old soldier who fought under Napoleon,
+if possible.�
+
+A sudden inspiration visited Marie-Anne�s mind.
+
+�I know the man that you require!� she cried.
+
+�You?�
+
+�Yes, I. At the citadel.�
+
+�Take care! Remember that he must risk much. If this should be
+discovered, those who take part in it will be sacrificed.�
+
+�He of whom I speak is the man you need. I will be responsible for him.�
+
+�And he is a soldier?�
+
+�He is only an humble corporal; but the nobility of his nature entitles
+him to the highest rank. Believe me, we can safely confide in him.�
+
+If she spoke thus, she who would willingly have given her life for the
+baron�s salvation, she must be absolutely certain.
+
+So thought Martial.
+
+�I will confer with this man,� said he. �What is his name?�
+
+�He is called Bavois, and he is a corporal in the first company of
+grenadiers.�
+
+�Bavois,� repeated Martial, as if to fix the name in his memory;
+�Bavois. My father will find some pretext for desiring him summoned.�
+
+�It is easy to find a pretext. He was the brave soldier left on guard at
+Escorval after the troops left the house.�
+
+�This promises well,� said Martial. He had risen and gone to the
+fireplace in order to be nearer his father.
+
+�I suppose,� he continued, �the baron has been separated from the other
+prisoners?�
+
+�Yes, he is alone, in a large and very comfortable room.�
+
+�Where is it?�
+
+�On the second story of the corner tower.�
+
+But Martial, who was not so well acquainted with the citadel as his
+father, was obliged to reflect a moment.
+
+�The corner tower!� said he; �is not that the tall tower which one sees
+from a distance, and which is built on a spot where the rock is almost
+perpendicular?�
+
+�Precisely.�
+
+By the promptness M. de Sairmeuse displayed in replying, it was easy
+to see that he was ready to risk a good deal to effect the prisoner�s
+deliverance.
+
+�What kind of a window is that in the baron�s room?� inquired Martial.
+
+�It is quite large and furnished with a double row of iron bars,
+securely fastened into the stone walls.�
+
+�It is easy enough to cut these bars. On which side does this window
+look?�
+
+�On the country.�
+
+�That is to say, it overlooks the precipice. The devil! That is a
+serious difficulty, and yet, in one respect, it is an advantage, for
+they station no sentinels there, do they?�
+
+�Never. Between the citadel wall and the edge of the precipice there
+is barely standing-room. The soldiers do not venture there even in the
+daytime.�
+
+�There is one more important question. What is the distance from
+Monsieur d�Escorval�s window to the ground?�
+
+�It is about forty feet from the base of the tower.�
+
+�Good! And from the base of the tower to the foot of the precipice--how
+far is that?�
+
+�Really, I scarcely know. Sixty feet, at least, I should think.�
+
+�Ah, that is high, terribly high. The baron fortunately is still agile
+and vigorous.� The duke began to be impatient.
+
+�Now,� said he to his son, �will you be so kind as to explain your
+plan?�
+
+Martial had gradually resumed the careless tone which always exasperated
+his father.
+
+�He is sure of success,� thought Marie-Anne.
+
+�My plan is simplicity itself,� replied Martial. �Sixty and forty are
+one hundred. It is necessary to procure one hundred feet of strong rope.
+It will make a very large bundle; but no matter. I will twist it around
+me, envelop myself in a large cloak, and accompany you to the citadel.
+You will send for Corporal Bavois; you will leave me alone with him in a
+quiet place; I will explain our wishes.�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse shrugged his shoulders.
+
+�And how will you procure a hundred feet of rope at this hour in
+Montaignac? Will you go about from shop to shop? You might as well
+trumpet your project at once.�
+
+�I shall attempt nothing of the kind. What I cannot do the friends of
+the Escorval family will do.�
+
+The duke was about to offer some new objection when his son interrupted
+him.
+
+�Pray do not forget the danger that threatens us,� he said, earnestly,
+�nor the little time that is left us. I have committed a fault, leave me
+to repair it.�
+
+And turning to Marie-Anne:
+
+�You may consider the baron saved,� he pursued; �but it is necessary
+for me to confer with one of his friends. Return at once to the Hotel de
+France and tell the cure to meet me on the Place d�Armes, where I go to
+await him.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Though among the first to be arrested at the time of the panic before
+Montaignac, the Baron d�Escorval had not for an instant deluded himself
+with false hopes.
+
+�I am a lost man,� he thought. And confronting death calmly, he now
+thought only of the danger that threatened his son.
+
+His mistake before the judges was the result of his preoccupation.
+
+He did not breathe freely until he saw Maurice led from the hall by Abbe
+Midon and the friendly officers, for he knew that his son would try to
+confess connection with the affair.
+
+Then, calm and composed, with head erect, and steadfast eye, he listened
+to the death-sentence.
+
+In the confusion that ensued in removing the prisoners from the hall,
+the baron found himself beside Chanlouineau, who had begun his noisy
+lamentations.
+
+�Courage, my boy,� he said, indignant at such apparent cowardice.
+
+�Ah! it is easy to talk,� whined the young farmer.
+
+Then seeing that no one was observing them, he leaned toward the baron,
+and whispered:
+
+�It is for you I am working. Save all your strength for to-night.�
+
+Chanlouineau�s words and burning glance surprised M. d�Escorval, but he
+attributed both to fear. When the guards took him back to his cell, he
+threw himself upon his pallet, and before him rose that vision of the
+last hour, which is at once the hope and despair of those who are about
+to die.
+
+He knew the terrible laws that govern a court-martial. The next day--in
+a few hours--at dawn, perhaps, they would take him from his cell, place
+him in front of a squad of soldiers, an officer would lift his sword,
+and all would be over.
+
+Then what was to become of his wife and his son?
+
+His agony on thinking of these dear ones was terrible. He was alone; he
+wept.
+
+But suddenly he started up, ashamed of his weakness. He must not
+allow these thoughts to unnerve him. He was determined to meet death
+unflinchingly. Resolved to shake off the profound melancholy that was
+creeping over him, he walked about his cell, forcing his mind to occupy
+itself with material objects.
+
+The room which had been allotted to him was very large. It had once
+communicated with the apartment adjoining; but the door had been walled
+up for a long time. The cement which held the large blocks of stone
+together had crumbled away, leaving crevices through which one might
+look from one room into the other.
+
+M. d�Escorval mechanically applied his eye to one of these interstices.
+Perhaps he had a friend for a neighbor, some wretched man who was to
+share his fate. He saw no one. He called, first in a whisper, then
+louder. No voice responded to his.
+
+�If _I_ could only tear down this thin partition,� he thought.
+
+He trembled, then shrugged his shoulders. And if he did, what then? He
+would only find himself in another apartment similar to his own, and
+opening like his upon a corridor full of guards, whose monotonous tramp
+he could plainly hear as they passed to and fro.
+
+What folly to think of escape! He knew that every possible precaution
+must have been taken to guard against it.
+
+Yes, he knew this, and yet he could not refrain from examining his
+window. Two rows of iron bars protected it. These were placed in such a
+way that it was impossible for him to put out his head and see how far
+he was above the ground. The height, however, must be considerable,
+judging from the extent of the view.
+
+The sun was setting; and through the violet haze the baron could discern
+an undulating line of hills, whose culminating point must be the land of
+the Reche.
+
+The dark masses of foliage that he saw on the right were probably the
+forests of Sairmeuse. On the left, he divined rather than saw, nestling
+between the hills, the valley of the Oiselle and Escorval.
+
+Escorval, that lovely retreat where he had known such happiness, where
+he had hoped to die the calm and serene death of the just.
+
+And remembering his past felicity, and thinking of his vanished dreams,
+his eyes once more filled with tears. But he quickly dried them on
+hearing the door of his cell open.
+
+Two soldiers appeared.
+
+One of the men bore a torch, the other, one of those long baskets
+divided into compartments which are used in carrying meals to the
+officers on guard.
+
+These men were evidently deeply moved, and yet, obeying a sentiment of
+instinctive delicacy, they affected a sort of gayety.
+
+�Here is your dinner, Monsieur,� said one soldier; �it ought to be very
+good, for it comes from the cuisine of the commander of the citadel.�
+
+M. d�Escorval smiled sadly. Some attentions on the part of one�s jailer
+have a sinister significance. Still, when he seated himself before the
+little table which they prepared for him, he found that he was really
+hungry.
+
+He ate with a relish, and chatted quite cheerfully with the soldiers.
+
+�Always hope for the best, sir,� said one of these worthy fellows. �Who
+knows? Stranger things have happened!�
+
+When the baron finished his repast, he asked for pen, ink, and paper.
+They brought what he desired.
+
+He found himself again alone; but his conversation with the soldiers had
+been of service to him. His weakness had passed; his _sang-froid_ had
+returned; he would now reflect.
+
+He was surprised that he had heard nothing from Mme. d�Escorval and from
+Maurice.
+
+Could it be that they had been refused access to the prison? No, they
+could not be; he could not imagine that there existed men sufficiently
+cruel to prevent a doomed man from pressing to his heart, in a last
+embrace, his wife and his son.
+
+Yet, how was it that neither the baroness nor Maurice had made an
+attempt to see him! Something must have prevented them from doing so.
+What could it be?
+
+He imagined the worst misfortunes. He saw his wife writhing in agony,
+perhaps dead. He pictured Maurice, wild with grief, upon his knees at
+the bedside of his mother.
+
+But they might come yet. He consulted his watch. It marked the hour of
+seven.
+
+But he waited in vain. No one came.
+
+He took up his pen, and was about to write, when he heard a bustle in
+the corridor outside. The clink of spurs resounded on the flags; he
+heard the sharp clink of the rifle as the guard presented arms.
+
+Trembling, the baron sprang up, saying:
+
+�They have come at last!�
+
+He was mistaken; the footsteps died away in the distance.
+
+�A round of inspection!� he murmured.
+
+But at the same moment, two objects thrown through the tiny opening in
+the door of his cell fell on the floor in the middle of the room.
+
+M. d�Escorval caught them up. Someone had thrown him two files.
+
+His first feeling was one of distrust. He knew that there were jailers
+who left no means untried to dishonor their prisoners before delivering
+them to the executioner.
+
+Was it a friend, or an enemy, that had given him these instruments of
+deliverance and of liberty.
+
+Chanlouineau�s words and the look that accompanied them recurred to his
+mind, perplexing him still more.
+
+He was standing with knitted brows, turning and returning the fine and
+well-tempered files in his hands, when he suddenly perceived upon the
+floor a tiny scrap of paper which had, at first, escaped his notice.
+
+He snatched it up, unfolded it, and read:
+
+
+�Your friends are at work. Everything is prepared for your escape. Make
+haste and saw the bars of your window. Maurice and his mother embrace
+you. Hope, courage!�
+
+
+Beneath these few lines was the letter M.
+
+But the baron did not need this initial to be reassured. He had
+recognized Abbe Midon�s handwriting.
+
+�Ah! he is a true friend,� he murmured.
+
+Then the recollection of his doubts and despair arose in his mind.
+
+�This explains why neither my wife nor son came to visit me,� he
+thought. �And I doubted their energy--and I was complaining of their
+neglect!�
+
+Intense joy filled his breast; he raised the letter that promised him
+life and liberty to his lips, and enthusiastically exclaimed:
+
+�To work! to work!�
+
+He had chosen the finest of the two files, and was about to attack the
+ponderous bars, when he fancied he heard someone open the door of the
+next room.
+
+Someone had opened it, certainly. The person closed it again, but did
+not lock it.
+
+Then the baron heard someone moving cautiously about. What did all this
+mean? Were they incarcerating some new prisoner, or were they stationing
+a spy there?
+
+Listening breathlessly, the baron heard a singular sound, whose cause it
+was absolutely impossible to explain.
+
+Noiselessly he advanced to the former communicating door, knelt, and
+peered through one of the interstices.
+
+The sight that met his eyes amazed him.
+
+A man was standing in a corner of the room. The baron could see the
+lower part of the man�s body by the light of a large lantern which he
+had deposited on the floor at his feet. He was turning around and around
+very quickly, by this movement unwinding a long rope which had been
+twined around his body as thread is wound about a bobbin.
+
+M. d�Escorval rubbed his eyes as if to assure himself that he was
+not dreaming. Evidently this rope was intended for him. It was to be
+attached to the broken bars.
+
+But how had this man succeeded in gaining admission to this room?
+Who could it be that enjoyed such liberty in the prison? He was not a
+soldier--or, at least, he did not wear a uniform.
+
+Unfortunately, the highest crevice was in such a place that the visual
+ray did not strike the upper part of the man�s body; and, despite the
+baron�s efforts, he was unable to see the face of this friend--he judged
+him to be such--whose boldness verged on folly.
+
+Unable to resist his intense curiosity, M. d�Escorval was on the point
+of rapping on the wall to question him, when the door of the room
+occupied by this man, whom the baron already called his saviour, was
+impetuously thrown open.
+
+Another man entered, whose face was also outside the baron�s range of
+vision; and the new-comer, in a tone of astonishment, exclaimed:
+
+�Good heavens! what are you doing?�
+
+The baron drew back in despair.
+
+�All is discovered!� he thought.
+
+The man whom M. d�Escorval believed to be his friend did not pause in
+his labor of unwinding the rope, and it was in the most tranquil voice
+that he responded:
+
+�As you see, I am freeing myself from this burden of rope, which I find
+extremely uncomfortable. There are at least sixty yards of it, I should
+think--and what a bundle it makes! I feared they would discover it under
+my cloak.�
+
+�And what are you going to do with all this rope?� inquired the
+new-comer.
+
+�I am going to hand it to Baron d�Escorval, to whom I have already given
+a file. He must make his escape to-night.�
+
+So improbable was this scene that the baron could not believe his own
+ears.
+
+�I cannot be awake; I must be dreaming,� he thought.
+
+The new-comer uttered a terrible oath, and, in an almost threatening
+tone, he said:
+
+�We will see about that! If you have gone mad, I, thank God! still
+possess my reason! I will not permit----�
+
+�Pardon!� interrupted the other, coldly, �you will permit it. This is
+merely the result of your own--credulity. When Chanlouineau asked you to
+allow him to receive a visit from Mademoiselle Lacheneur, that was the
+time you should have said: �I will not permit it.� Do you know what the
+fellow desired? Simply to give Mademoiselle Lacheneur a letter of mine,
+so compromising in its natures that if it ever reaches the hands of a
+certain person of my acquaintance, my father and I will be obliged
+to reside in London in future. Then farewell to the projects for an
+alliance between our two families!�
+
+The new-comer heaved a mighty sigh, accompanied by a half-angry,
+half-sorrowful exclamation; but the other, without giving him any
+opportunity to reply, resumed:
+
+�You, yourself, Marquis, would doubtless be compromised. Were you not a
+chamberlain during the reign of Bonaparte? Ah, Marquis! how could a man
+of your experience, a man so subtle, and penetrating, and acute, allow
+himself to be duped by a low, ignorant peasant?�
+
+Now M. d�Escorval understood. He was not dreaming; it was the Marquis de
+Courtornieu and Martial de Sairmeuse who were talking on the other side
+of the wall.
+
+This poor M. de Courtornieu had been so entirely crushed by Martial�s
+revelation that he no longer made any effort to oppose him.
+
+�And this terrible letter?� he groaned.
+
+�Marie-Anne Lacheneur gave it to Abbe Midon, who came to me and said:
+�Either the baron will escape, or this letter will be taken to the Duc
+de Richelieu.� I voted for the baron�s escape, I assure you. The abbe
+procured all that was necessary; he met me at a rendezvous which I
+appointed in a quiet spot; he coiled all his rope about my body, and
+here I am.�
+
+�Then you think if the baron escapes they will give you back your
+letter?�
+
+�Most assuredly.�
+
+�Deluded man! As soon as the baron is safe, they will demand the life of
+another prisoner, with the same menaces.�
+
+�By no means.�
+
+�You will see.�
+
+�I shall see nothing of the kind, for a very simple reason. I have the
+letter now in my pocket. The abbe gave it to me in exchange for my word
+of honor.�
+
+M. de Courtornieu�s exclamation proved that he considered the abbe an
+egregious fool.
+
+�What!� he exclaimed. �You hold the proof, and--But this is madness!
+Burn this accursed letter by the flames of this lantern, and let the
+baron go where his slumbers will be undisturbed.�
+
+Martial�s silence betrayed something like stupor.
+
+�What! you would do this--you?� he demanded, at last.
+
+�Certainly--and without the slightest hesitation.�
+
+�Ah, well! I cannot say that I congratulate you.�
+
+The sneer was so apparent that M. de Courtornieu was sorely tempted
+to make an angry response. But he was not a man to yield to his first
+impulse--this former chamberlain under the Emperor, now become a _grand
+prevot_ under the Restoration.
+
+He reflected. Should he, on account of a sharp word, quarrel with
+Martial--with the only suitor who had pleased his daughter? A
+rupture--then he would be left without any prospect of a son-in-law!
+When would Heaven send him such another? And how furious Mlle. Blanche
+would be!
+
+He concluded to swallow the bitter pill; and it was with a paternal
+indulgence of manner that he said:
+
+�You are young, my dear Martial.�
+
+The baron was still kneeling by the partition, his ear glued to the
+crevices, holding his breath in an agony of suspense.
+
+�You are only twenty, my dear Martial,� pursued the Marquis de
+Courtornieu; �you possess the ardent enthusiasm and generosity of youth.
+Complete your undertaking; I shall interpose no obstacle; but remember
+that all may be discovered--and then----�
+
+�Have no fears, sir,� interrupted the young marquis; �I have taken every
+precaution. Did you see a single soldier in the corridor, just now? No.
+That is because my father has, at my solicitation, assembled all the
+officers and guards under pretext of ordering exceptional precautions.
+He is talking to them now. This gave me an opportunity to come here
+unobserved. No one will see me when I go out. Who, then, will dare
+suspect me of having any hand in the baron�s escape?�
+
+�If the baron escapes, justice will demand to know who aided him.�
+
+Martial laughed.
+
+�If justice seeks to know, she will find a culprit of my providing.
+Go now; I have told you all. I had but one person to fear: that was
+yourself. A trusty messenger requested you to join me here. You came;
+you know all, you have agreed to remain neutral. I am tranquil. The
+baron will be safe in Piedmont when the sun rises.�
+
+He picked up his lantern, and added, gayly:
+
+�But let us go--my father cannot harangue those soldiers forever.�
+
+�But,� insisted M. de Courtornieu, �you have not told me----�
+
+�I will tell you all, but not here. Come, come!�
+
+They went out, locking the door behind them; and then the baron rose
+from his knees.
+
+All sorts of contradictory ideas, doubts, and conjectures filled his
+mind.
+
+What could this letter have contained? Why had not Chanlouineau used it
+to procure his own salvation? Who would have believed that Martial would
+be so faithful to a promise wrested from him by threats?
+
+But this was a time for action, not for reflection. The bars were heavy,
+and there were two rows of them.
+
+M. d�Escorval set to work.
+
+He had supposed that the task would be difficult. It was a thousand
+times more so than he had expected; he discovered this almost
+immediately.
+
+It was the first time that he had ever worked with a file, and he did
+not know how to use it. His progress was despairingly slow.
+
+Nor was that all. Though he worked as cautiously as possible, each
+movement of the instrument across the iron produced a harsh, grating
+sound that froze his blood with terror. What if someone should overhear
+this noise? And it seemed to him impossible for it to escape notice,
+since he could plainly distinguish the measured tread of the guards, who
+had resumed their watch in the corridor.
+
+So slight was the result of his labors, that at the end of twenty
+minutes he experienced a feeling of profound discouragement.
+
+At this rate, it would be impossible for him to sever the first bar
+before daybreak, What, then, was the use of spending his time in
+fruitless labor? Why mar the dignity of death by the disgrace of an
+unsuccessful effort to escape?
+
+He was hesitating when footsteps approached his cell. He hastened to
+seat himself at the table.
+
+The door opened and a soldier entered, to whom an officer who did not
+cross the threshold remarked:
+
+�You have your instructions, Corporal, keep a close watch. If the
+prisoner needs anything, call.�
+
+M. de Escorval�s heart throbbed almost to bursting. What was coming now?
+
+Had M. de Courtornieu�s counsels carried the day, or had Martial sent
+someone to aid him?
+
+�We must not be dawdling here,� said the corporal, as soon as the door
+was closed.
+
+M. d�Escorval bounded from his chair. This man was a friend. Here was
+aid and life.
+
+�I am Bavois,� continued the corporal. �Someone said to me just now:
+�A friend of the Emperor is in danger; are you willing to lend him a
+helping hand?� I replied: �Present,� and here I am!�
+
+This certainly was a brave soul. The baron extended his hand, and in a
+voice trembling with emotion:
+
+�Thanks,� said he; �thanks to you who, without knowing me, expose
+yourself to the greatest danger for my sake.�
+
+Bavois shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
+
+�Positively, my old hide is no more precious than yours. If we do not
+succeed, they will chop off our heads with the same axe. But we shall
+succeed. Now, let us cease talking and proceed to business.�
+
+As he spoke he drew from beneath his long overcoat a strong iron crowbar
+and a small vial of brandy, and deposited them upon the bed.
+
+He then took the candle and passed it back and forth before the window
+five or six times.
+
+�What are you doing?� inquired the baron, in suspense.
+
+�I am signalling to your friends that everything is progressing
+favorably. They are down there waiting for us; and see, now they are
+answering.�
+
+The baron looked, and three times they saw a little flash of flame like
+that produced by the burning of a pinch of gunpowder.
+
+�Now,� said the corporal, �we are all right. Let us see what progress
+you have made with the bars.�
+
+�I have scarcely begun,� murmured M. d�Escorval.
+
+The corporal inspected the work.
+
+�You may indeed say that you have made no progress,� said he; �but,
+never mind, I have been a locksmith, and I know how to handle a file.�
+
+Having drawn the cork from the vial of brandy which he had brought, he
+fastened the stopper to the end of one of the files, and swathed the
+handle of the instrument with a piece of damp linen.
+
+�That is what they call putting a _stop_ on the instrument,� he
+remarked, by way of explanation.
+
+Then he made an energetic attack on the bars. It at once became evident
+that he had not exaggerated his knowledge of the subject, nor the
+efficacy of his precautions for deadening the sound. The harsh grating
+that had so alarmed the baron was no longer heard, and Bavois,
+finding he had nothing more to dread from the keenest ears, now made
+preparations to shelter himself from observation.
+
+To cover the opening in the door would arouse suspicion at once--so the
+corporal adopted another expedient.
+
+Moving the little table to another part of the room, he placed the light
+upon it, in such a position that the window remained entirely in shadow.
+
+Then he ordered the baron to sit down, and handing him a paper, said:
+
+�Now read aloud, without stopping for an instant, until you see me cease
+work.�
+
+By this method they might reasonably hope to deceive the guards outside
+in the corridor. Some of them, indeed, did come to the door and look in,
+then went away to say to their companions:
+
+�We have just taken a look at the prisoner. He is very pale, and his
+eyes are glittering feverishly. He is reading aloud to divert his mind.
+Corporal Bavois is looking out of the window. It must be dull music for
+him.�
+
+The baron�s voice would also be of advantage in overpowering any
+suspicious sound, should there be one.
+
+And while Bavois worked, M. d�Escorval read, read, read.
+
+He had completed the perusal of the entire paper, and was about to begin
+it again, when the old soldier, leaving the window, motioned him to
+stop.
+
+�Half the task is completed,� he said, in a whisper. �The lower bars are
+cut.�
+
+�Ah! how can I ever repay you for your devotion!� murmured the baron.
+
+�Hush! not a word!� interrupted Bavois. �If I escape with you, I can
+never return here; and I shall not know where to go, for the regiment,
+you see, is my only family. Ah, well! if you will give me a home with
+you, I shall be content.�
+
+Whereupon he swallowed a big draught of brandy, and set to work with
+renewed ardor.
+
+The corporal had cut one of the second row of bars, when he was
+interrupted by M. d�Escorval, who, without discontinuing his reading,
+had approached and pulled Bavois�s long coat to attract his attention.
+
+He turned quickly.
+
+�What is it?�
+
+�I heard a singular noise.�
+
+�Where?�
+
+�In the adjoining room where the ropes are.�
+
+Honest Bavois muttered a terrible oath.
+
+�Do they intend to betray us? I risked my life, and they promised me
+fair play.�
+
+He placed his ear against an opening in the partition, and listened for
+a long time. Nothing, not the slightest sound.
+
+�It must have been some rat that you heard,� he said, at last. �Resume
+your reading.�
+
+And he began his work again. This was the only interruption, and a
+little before four o�clock everything was ready. The bars were cut, and
+the ropes, which had been drawn through an opening in the wall, were
+coiled under the window.
+
+The decisive moment had come. Bavois took the counterpane from the bed,
+fastened it over the opening in the door, and filled up the key-hole.
+
+�Now,� said he, in the same measured tone which he would have used
+in instructing his recruits, �attention, sir, and obey the word of
+command.� Then he calmly explained that the escape would consist of two
+distinct operations; the first in gaining the narrow platform at
+the base of the tower; the second, in descending to the foot of the
+precipitous rock.
+
+The abbe, who understood this, had brought Martial two ropes; the one to
+be used in the descent of the precipice being considerably longer than
+the other.
+
+�I will fasten the shortest rope under your arms, Monsieur, and I will
+let you down to the base of the tower. When you have reached it, I will
+pass you the longer rope and the crowbar. Do not miss them. If we find
+ourselves without them, on that narrow ledge of rock, we shall either
+be compelled to deliver ourselves up, or throw ourselves down the
+precipice. I shall not be long in joining you. Are you ready?�
+
+M. d�Escorval lifted his arms, the rope was fastened securely about him,
+and he crawled through the window.
+
+From there the height seemed immense. Below, in the barren fields that
+surrounded the citadel, eight persons were waiting, silent, anxious,
+breathless.
+
+They were Mme. d�Escorval and Maurice, Marie-Anne, Abbe Midon, and the
+four retired army officers.
+
+There was no moon; but the night was very clear, and they could see the
+tower quite plainly.
+
+Soon after four o�clock sounded they saw a dark object glide slowly down
+the side of the tower--it was the baron. After a little, another form
+followed very rapidly--it was Bavois.
+
+Half of the perilous journey was accomplished.
+
+From below, they could see the two figures moving about on the narrow
+platform. The corporal and the baron were exerting all their strength to
+fix the crowbar securely in a crevice of the rock.
+
+In a moment or two one of the figures stepped from the projecting rock
+and glided gently down the side of the precipice.
+
+It could be none other than M. d�Escorval. Transported with happiness,
+his wife sprang forward with open arms to receive him.
+
+Wretched woman! A terrific cry rent the still night air.
+
+M. d�Escorval was falling from a height of fifty feet; he was hurled
+down to the foot of the rocky precipice. The rope had parted.
+
+Had it broken naturally?
+
+Maurice, who examined the end of it, exclaimed with horrible
+imprecations of hatred and vengeance that they had been betrayed--that
+their enemy had arranged to deliver only a dead body into their
+hands--that the rope, in short, had been foully tampered with--cut!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Chupin had not taken time to sleep, nor scarcely time to drink, since
+that unfortunate morning when the Duc de Sairmeuse ordered affixed
+to the walls of Montaignac, that decree in which he promised twenty
+thousand francs to the person who should deliver up Lacheneur, dead or
+alive.
+
+�Twenty thousand francs,� Chupin muttered gloomily; �twenty sacks with a
+hundred pistoles in each! Ah! if I could discover Lacheneur; even if
+he were dead and buried a hundred feet under ground, I should gain the
+reward.�
+
+The appellation of traitor, which he would receive; the shame and
+condemnation that would fall upon him and his, did not make him hesitate
+for a moment.
+
+He saw but one thing--the reward--the blood-money.
+
+Unfortunately, he had nothing whatever to guide him in his researches;
+no clew, however vague.
+
+All that was known in Montaignac was that M. Lacheneur�s horse was
+killed at the Croix d�Arcy.
+
+But no one knew whether Lacheneur himself had been wounded, or whether
+he had escaped from the fray uninjured. Had he reached the frontier? or
+had he found an asylum in the house of one of his friends?
+
+Chupin was thus hungering for the price of blood, when, on the day
+of the trial, as he was returning from the citadel, after making his
+deposition, he entered a drinking saloon. While there he heard the name
+of Lacheneur uttered in low tones near him.
+
+Two peasants were emptying a bottle of wine, and one of them, an old
+man, was telling the other that he had come to Montaignac to give Mlle.
+Lacheneur news of her father.
+
+He said that his son-in-law had met the chief conspirator in the
+mountains which separate the _arrondissement_ of Montaignac from Savoy.
+He even mentioned the exact place of meeting, which was near Saint
+Pavin-des-Gottes, a tiny village of only a few houses.
+
+Certainly the worthy man did not think he was committing a dangerous
+indiscretion. In his opinion, Lacheneur had, ere this, crossed the
+frontier, and was out of danger.
+
+In this he was mistaken.
+
+The frontier bordering on Savoy was guarded by soldiers, who had
+received orders to allow none of the conspirators to pass.
+
+The passage of the frontier, then, presented many great difficulties,
+and even if a man succeeded in effecting it, he might be arrested and
+imprisoned on the other side, until the formalities of extradition had
+been complied with.
+
+Chupin saw his advantage, and instantly decided on his course.
+
+He knew that he had not a moment to lose. He threw a coin down upon the
+counter, and without waiting for his change, rushed back to the citadel,
+and asked the sergeant at the gate for pen and paper.
+
+The old rascal generally wrote slowly and painfully; to-day it took him
+but a moment to trace these lines:
+
+
+�I know Lacheneur�s retreat, and beg monseigneur to order some mounted
+soldiers to accompany me, in order to capture him. Chupin.�
+
+
+This note was given to one of the guards, with a request to take it to
+the Duc de Sairmeuse, who was presiding over the military commission.
+
+Five minutes later, the soldier reappeared with the same note.
+
+Upon the margin the duke had written an order, placing at Chupin�s
+disposal a lieutenant and eight men chosen from the Montaignac
+chasseurs, who could be relied upon, and who were not suspected (as were
+the other troops) of sympathizing with the rebels.
+
+Chupin also requested a horse for his own use, and this was accorded
+him. The duke had just received this note when, with a triumphant
+air, he abruptly entered the room where Marie-Anne and his son were
+negotiating for the release of Baron d�Escorval.
+
+It was because he believed in the truth of the rather hazardous
+assertion made by his spy that he exclaimed, upon the threshold:
+
+�Upon my word! it must be confessed that this Chupin is an incomparable
+huntsman! Thanks to him----�
+
+Then he saw Mlle. Lacheneur, and suddenly checked himself.
+
+Unfortunately, neither Martial nor Marie-Anne were in a state of mind to
+notice this remark and its interruption.
+
+Had he been questioned, the duke would probably have allowed the truth
+to escape him, and M. Lacheneur might have been saved.
+
+But Lacheneur was one of those unfortunate beings who seem to be pursued
+by an evil destiny which they can never escape.
+
+Buried beneath his horse, M. Lacheneur had lost consciousness.
+
+When he regained his senses, restored by the fresh morning air, the
+place was silent and deserted. Not far from him, he saw two dead bodies
+which had not yet been removed.
+
+It was a terrible moment, and in the depth of his soul he cursed death,
+which had refused to heed his entreaties. Had he been armed, doubtless,
+he would have ended by suicide, the most cruel mental torture which man
+was ever forced to endure--but he had no weapon.
+
+He was obliged to accept the chastisement of life.
+
+Perhaps, too, the voice of honor whispered that it was cowardice to
+strive to escape the responsibility of one�s acts by death.
+
+At last, he endeavored to draw himself out from beneath the body of his
+horse.
+
+This proved to be no easy matter, as his foot was still in the stirrup,
+and his limbs were so badly cramped that he could scarcely move them.
+He finally succeeded in freeing himself, however, and, on examination,
+discovered that he, who it would seem ought to have been killed ten
+times over, had only one hurt--a bayonet-wound in the leg, extending
+from the ankle almost to the knee.
+
+Such a wound, of course, caused him not a little suffering, and he was
+trying to bandage it with his handkerchief, when he heard the sound of
+approaching footsteps.
+
+He had no time for reflection; he sprang into the forest that lies to
+the left of the Croix d�Arcy.
+
+The troops were returning to Montaignac after pursuing the rebels for
+more than three miles. There were about two hundred soldiers, and they
+were bringing back, as prisoners, about twenty peasants.
+
+Hidden by a great oak scarcely fifteen paces from the road, Lacheneur
+recognized several of the prisoners in the gray light of dawn. It
+was only by the merest chance that he escaped discovery; and he fully
+realized how difficult it would be for him to gain the frontier without
+falling into the hands of the detachment of soldiery, who were doubtless
+scouring the country in every direction.
+
+Still he did not despair.
+
+The mountains lay only two leagues away; and he firmly believed that he
+could successfully elude his pursuers as soon as he gained the shelter
+of the hills.
+
+He began his journey courageously.
+
+Alas! he had not realized how exhausted he had become from the excessive
+labor and excitement of the past few days, and by the loss of blood from
+his wound, which he could not stanch.
+
+He tore up a pole in one of the vineyards to serve as a staff, and
+dragged himself along, keeping in the shelter of the woods as much as
+possible, and creeping along beside the hedges and in the ditches when
+he was obliged to traverse an open space.
+
+To the great physical suffering, and the most cruel mental anguish, was
+now added an agony that momentarily increased--hunger.
+
+He had eaten nothing for thirty hours, and he felt terribly weak from
+lack of nourishment. This torture soon became so intolerable that he was
+willing to brave anything to appease it.
+
+At last he perceived the roofs of a tiny hamlet. He decided to enter it
+and ask for food. He was on the outskirts of the village, when he heard
+the rolling of a drum. Instinctively he hid behind a wall. But it was
+only a town-crier beating his drum to call the people together.
+
+And soon a voice rose so clear and penetrating that each word it uttered
+fell distinctly on Lacheneur�s ears.
+
+It said:
+
+�This is to inform you that the authorities of Montaignac promise to
+give a reward of twenty thousand francs--two thousand pistoles, you
+understand--to him who will deliver up the man known as Lacheneur, dead
+or alive. Dead or alive, you understand. If he is dead, the compensation
+will be the same; twenty thousand francs! It will be paid in gold.�
+
+With a bound, Lacheneur had risen, wild with despair and horror. Though
+he had believed himself utterly exhausted, he found superhuman strength
+to flee.
+
+A price had been set upon his head. This frightful thought awakened in
+his breast the frenzy that renders a hunted wild beast so dangerous.
+
+In all the villages around him he fancied he could hear the rolling of
+drums, and the voice of the criers proclaiming this infamous edict.
+
+Go where he would now, he was a tempting bait offered to treason and
+cupidity. In what human creature could he confide? Under what roof could
+he ask shelter?
+
+And even if he were dead, he would still be worth a fortune.
+
+Though he died from lack of nourishment and exhaustion under a bush by
+the wayside, his emaciated body would still be worth twenty thousand
+francs.
+
+And the man who found his corpse would not give it burial. He would
+place it on his cart and bear it to Montaignac. He would go to the
+authorities and say: �Here is Lacheneur�s body--give me the reward!�
+
+How long and by what paths he pursued his flight, he could not tell.
+
+But several hours after, as he traversed the wooded hills of Charves,
+he saw two men, who sprang up and fled at his approach. In a terrible
+voice, he called after them:
+
+�Eh! you men! do each of you desire a thousand pistoles? I am
+Lacheneur.�
+
+They paused when they recognized him, and Lacheneur saw that they were
+two of his followers. They were well-to-do farmers, and it had been very
+difficult to induce them to take part in the revolt.
+
+These men had part of a loaf of bread and a little brandy. They gave
+both to the famished man.
+
+They sat down beside him on the grass, and while he was eating they
+related their misfortunes. Their connection with the conspiracy had been
+discovered; their houses were full of soldiers, who were hunting for
+them, but they hoped to reach Italy by the aid of a guide who was
+waiting for them at an appointed place.
+
+Lacheneur extended his hand to them.
+
+�Then I am saved,� said he. �Weak and wounded as I am, I should perish
+if I were left alone.�
+
+But the two farmers did not accept the hand he offered.
+
+�We should leave you,� said the younger man, gloomily, �for you are the
+cause of our misfortunes. You deceived us, Monsieur Lacheneur.�
+
+He dared not protest, so just was the reproach.
+
+�Nonsense! let him come all the same,� said the other, with a peculiar
+glance at his companion.
+
+So they walked on, and that same evening, after nine hours of travelling
+on the mountains, they crossed the frontier.
+
+But this long journey was not made without bitter reproaches, and even
+more bitter recriminations.
+
+Closely questioned by his companions, Lacheneur, exhausted both in mind
+and body, finally admitted the insincerity of the promises with which
+he had inflamed the zeal of his followers. He acknowledged that he had
+spread the report that Marie-Louise and the young King of Rome were
+concealed in Montaignac, and that this report was a gross falsehood. He
+confessed that he had given the signal for the revolt without any chance
+of success, and without means of action, leaving everything to chance.
+In short, he confessed that nothing was real save his hatred, his
+implacable hatred of the Sairmeuse family.
+
+A dozen times, at least, during this terrible avowal, the peasants who
+accompanied him were on the point of hurling him down the precipices
+upon whose verge they were walking.
+
+�So it was to gratify his own spite,� they thought, quivering with rage,
+�that he sets everybody to fighting and killing one another--that he
+ruins us, and drives us into exile. We will see.�
+
+The fugitives went to the nearest house after crossing the frontier.
+
+It was a lonely inn, about a league from the little village of
+Saint-Jean-de-Coche, and was kept by a man named Balstain.
+
+They rapped, in spite of the lateness of the hour--it was past midnight.
+They were admitted, and they ordered supper.
+
+But Lacheneur, weak from loss of blood, and exhausted by his long tramp,
+declared that he would eat no supper.
+
+He threw himself upon a bed in an adjoining room, and was soon asleep.
+
+This was the first time since their meeting with Lacheneur that his
+companions had found an opportunity to talk together in private.
+
+The same idea had occurred to both of them.
+
+They believed that by delivering up Lacheneur to the authorities, they
+might obtain pardon for themselves.
+
+Neither of these men would have consented to receive a single sou of the
+money promised to the betrayer; but to exchange their life and liberty
+for the life and liberty of Lacheneur did not seem to them a culpable
+act, under the circumstances.
+
+�For did he not deceive us?� they said to themselves.
+
+They decided, at last, that as soon as they had finished their supper,
+they would go to Saint-Jean-de-Coche and inform the Piedmontese guards.
+
+But they reckoned without their host.
+
+They had spoken loud enough to be overheard by Balstain, the innkeeper,
+who had learned, during the day, of the magnificent reward which had
+been promised to Lacheneur�s captor.
+
+When he heard the name of the guest who was sleeping quietly under his
+roof, a thirst for gold seized him. He whispered a word to his wife,
+then escaped through the window to run and summon the gendarmes.
+
+He had been gone half an hour before the peasants left the house; for
+to muster up courage for the act they were about to commit they had been
+obliged to drink heavily.
+
+They closed the door so violently on going out that Lacheneur was
+awakened by the noise. He sprang up, and came out into the adjoining
+room.
+
+The wife of the innkeeper was there alone.
+
+�Where are my friends?� he asked, anxiously. �Where is your husband?�
+
+Moved by sympathy, the woman tried to falter some excuse, but finding
+none, she threw herself at his feet, crying:
+
+�Fly, Monsieur, save yourself--you are betrayed!�
+
+Lacheneur rushed back into the other room, seeking a weapon with which
+he could defend himself, an issue through which he could flee!
+
+He had thought that they might abandon him, but betray him--no, never!
+
+�Who has sold me?� he asked, in a strained, unnatural voice.
+
+�Your friends--the two men who supped there at that table.�
+
+�Impossible, Madame, impossible!�
+
+He did not suspect the designs and hopes of his former comrades; and he
+could not, he would not believe them capable of ignobly betraying him
+for gold.
+
+�But,� pleaded the innkeeper�s wife, still on her knees before him,
+�they have just started for Saint-Jean-de-Coche, where they will
+denounce you. I heard them say that your life would purchase theirs.
+They have certainly gone to summon the gendarmes! Is this not enough, or
+am I obliged to endure the shame of confessing that my own husband, too,
+has gone to betray you.�
+
+Lacheneur understood it all now! And this supreme misfortune, after all
+the misery he had endured, broke him down completely.
+
+Great tears gushed from his eyes, and sinking down into a chair, he
+murmured:
+
+�Let them come; I am ready for them. No, I will not stir from here. My
+miserable life is not worth such a struggle.�
+
+But the wife of the traitor rose, and grasping the unfortunate man�s
+clothing, she shook him, she dragged him to the door--she would have
+carried him had she possessed sufficient strength.
+
+�You shall not remain here,� said she, with extraordinary vehemence.
+�Fly, save yourself. You shall not be taken here; it will bring
+misfortune upon our house!�
+
+Bewildered by these violent adjurations, and urged on by the instinct of
+self-preservation, so powerful in every human heart, Lacheneur stepped
+out upon the threshold.
+
+The night was very dark, and a chilling fog intensified the gloom.
+
+�See, Madame,� said the poor fugitive gently, �how can I find my way
+through these mountains, which I do not know, and where there are no
+roads--where the foot-paths are scarcely discernible.�
+
+With a quick movement Balstain�s wife pushed Lacheneur out, and turning
+him as one does a blind man to set him on the right track:
+
+�Walk straight before you,� said she, �always against the wind. God will
+protect you. Farewell!�
+
+He turned to ask further directions, but she had re-entered the house
+and closed the door.
+
+Upheld by a feverish excitement, he walked for long hours. He soon lost
+his way, and wandered on through the mountains, benumbed with cold,
+stumbling over rocks, sometimes falling.
+
+Why he was not precipitated to the depths of some chasm it is difficult
+to explain.
+
+He lost all idea of his whereabouts, and the sun was high in the heavens
+when he at last met a human being of whom he could inquire his way.
+
+It was a little shepherd-boy, in pursuit of some stray goats, whom he
+encountered; but the lad, frightened by the wild and haggard appearance
+of the stranger, at first refused to approach.
+
+The offer of a piece of money induced him to come a little nearer.
+
+�You are on the summit of the mountain, Monsieur,� said he; �and exactly
+on the boundary line. Here is France; there is Savoy.�
+
+�And what is the nearest village?�
+
+�On the Savoyard side, Saint-Jean-de-Coche; on the French side,
+Saint-Pavin.�
+
+So after all his terrible exertions, Lacheneur was not a league from the
+inn.
+
+Appalled by this discovery, he remained for a moment undecided which
+course to pursue.
+
+What did it matter? Why should the doomed hesitate? Do not all roads
+lead to the abyss into which they must sink?
+
+He remembered the gendarmes that the innkeeper�s wife had warned him
+against, and slowly and with great difficulty descended the steep
+mountainside leading down to France.
+
+He was near Saint-Pavin, when, before an isolated cottage, he saw a
+pretty peasant woman spinning in the sunshine.
+
+He dragged himself toward her, and in weak tones begged her hospitality.
+
+On seeing this man, whose face was ghastly pale, and whose clothing
+was torn and soiled with dust and blood, the woman rose, evidently more
+surprised than alarmed.
+
+She looked at him closely, and saw that his age, his stature, and his
+features corresponded with the descriptions of Lacheneur, which had been
+scattered thickly about the frontier.
+
+�You are the conspirator they are hunting for, and for whom they promise
+a reward of twenty thousand francs,� she said.
+
+Lacheneur trembled.
+
+�Yes, I am Lacheneur,� he replied, after a moment�s hesitation; �I
+am Lacheneur. Betray me, if you will, but in charity�s name give me a
+morsel of bread, and allow me to rest a little.�
+
+At the words �betray me,� the young woman made a gesture of horror and
+disgust.
+
+�We betray you, sir!� said she. �Ah! you do not know the Antoines! Enter
+our house, and lie down upon the bed while I prepare some refreshments
+for you. When my husband comes home, we will see what can be done.�
+
+It was nearly sunset when the master of the house, a robust mountaineer,
+with a frank face, returned.
+
+On beholding the stranger seated at his fireside he turned frightfully
+pale.
+
+�Unfortunate woman!� he whispered to his wife, �do you not know that any
+man who shelters this fugitive will be shot, and his house levelled to
+the ground?�
+
+Lacheneur rose with a shudder.
+
+He had not known this. He knew the infamous reward which had been
+promised to his betrayer; but he had not known the danger his presence
+brought upon these worthy people. �I will go at once, sir,� said he,
+gently.
+
+But the peasant placed his large hand kindly upon his guest�s shoulder,
+and forced him to resume his seat.
+
+�It was not to drive you away that I said what I did,� he remarked. �You
+are at home, and you shall remain here until I can find some means of
+insuring your safety.�
+
+The pretty peasant woman flung her arms about her husband�s neck, and in
+tones of the most ardent affection exclaimed: �Ah! you are a noble man,
+Antoine.�
+
+He smiled, embraced her tenderly, then, pointing to the open door:
+
+�Watch!� he said. �I feel it my duty to tell you, sir, that it will
+not be easy to save you,� resumed the honest peasant. �The promises of
+reward have set all evil-minded people on the alert. They know that you
+are in the neighborhood. A rascally innkeeper has crossed the frontier
+for the express purpose of betraying your whereabouts to the French
+gendarmes.�
+
+�Balstain?�
+
+�Yes, Balstain; and he is hunting for you now. That is not all. As I
+passed through Saint-Pavin, on my return, I saw eight mounted soldiers,
+guided by a peasant, also on horseback. They declared that they knew
+you were concealed in the village, and they were going to search every
+house.�
+
+These soldiers were none other than the Montaignac chasseurs, placed at
+Chupin�s disposal by the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+It was indeed as Antoine had said.
+
+The task was certainly not at all to their taste, but they were
+closely watched by the lieutenant in command, who hoped to receive some
+substantial reward if the expedition was crowned with success. Antoine,
+meanwhile, continued his exposition of his hopes and fears.
+
+�Wounded and exhausted as you are,� he was saying to Lacheneur, �you
+will be in no condition to make a long march in less than a fortnight.
+Until then you must conceal yourself. Fortunately, I know a safe retreat
+in the mountain, not far from here. I will take you there to-night, with
+provisions enough to last you for a week.�
+
+A stifled cry from his wife interrupted him.
+
+He turned, and saw her fall almost fainting against the door, her face
+whiter than her coif, her finger pointing to the path that led from
+Saint-Pavin to their cottage.
+
+�The soldiers--they are coming!� she gasped.
+
+Quicker than thought, Lacheneur and the peasant sprang to the door to
+see for themselves.
+
+The young woman had spoken the truth.
+
+The Montaignac chasseurs were climbing the steep foot-path slowly, but
+surely.
+
+Chupin walked in advance, urging them on with voice, gesture and
+example.
+
+An imprudent word from the little shepherd-boy, whom M. Lacheneur had
+questioned, had decided the fugitive�s fate.
+
+On returning to Saint-Pavin, and hearing that the soldiers were
+searching for the chief conspirator, the lad chanced to say:
+
+�I met a man just now on the mountain who asked me where he was; and I
+saw him go down the footpath leading to Antoine�s cottage.�
+
+And in proof of his words, he proudly displayed the piece of silver
+which Lacheneur had given him.
+
+�One more bold stroke and we have our man!� exclaimed Chupin. �Come,
+comrades!�
+
+And now the party were not more than two hundred feet from the house in
+which the proscribed man had found an asylum.
+
+Antoine and his wife looked at each other with anguish in their eyes.
+
+They saw that their visitor was lost.
+
+�We must save him! we must save him!� cried the woman.
+
+�Yes, we must save him!� repeated the husband, gloomily. �They shall
+kill me before I betray a man in my own house.�
+
+�If he would hide in the stable behind the bundles of straw----�
+
+�They would find him! These soldiers are worse than tigers, and the
+wretch who leads them on must have the keen scent of a blood-hound.�
+
+He turned quickly to Lacheneur.
+
+�Come, sir,� said he, �let us leap from the back window and flee to the
+mountains. They will see us, but no matter! These horsemen are always
+clumsy runners. If you cannot run, I will carry you. They will probably
+fire at us, but they will miss us.�
+
+�And your wife?� asked Lacheneur.
+
+The honest mountaineer shuddered; but he said:
+
+�She will join us.�
+
+Lacheneur took his friend�s hand and pressed it tenderly.
+
+�Ah! you are noble people,� he exclaimed, �and God will reward you for
+your kindness to a poor fugitive. But you have done too much already.
+I should be the basest of men if I consented to uselessly expose you to
+danger. I can bear this life no longer; I have no wish to escape.�
+
+He drew the sobbing woman to him and kissed her upon the forehead.
+
+�I have a daughter, young and beautiful like yourself, as generous
+and proud. Poor Marie-Anne! And I have pitilessly sacrificed her to my
+hatred! I should not complain; come what may, I have deserved it.�
+
+The sound of approaching footsteps became more and more distinct.
+Lacheneur straightened himself up, and seemed to be gathering all his
+energy for the decisive moment.
+
+�Remain inside,� he said, imperiously, to Antoine and his wife. �I am
+going out; they must not arrest me in your house.�
+
+As he spoke, he stepped outside the door, with a firm tread, a dauntless
+brow, a calm and assured mien.
+
+The soldiers were but a few feet from him.
+
+�Halt!� he exclaimed, in a strong, ringing voice. �It is Lacheneur you
+are seeking, is it not? I am he! I surrender myself.�
+
+An unbroken stillness reigned. Not a sound, not a word replied.
+
+The spectre of death that hovered above his head imparted such an
+imposing majesty to his person that the soldiers paused, silent and
+awed.
+
+But there was one man who was terrified by this resonant voice, and that
+was Chupin.
+
+Remorse filled his cowardly heart, and pale and trembling, he tried to
+hide behind the soldiers.
+
+Lacheneur walked straight to him.
+
+�So it is you who have sold my life, Chupin?� he said, scornfully. �You
+have not forgotten, I see plainly, how often Marie-Anne has filled your
+empty larder--and now you take your revenge.�
+
+The miserable wretch seemed crushed. Now that he had done this foul
+deed, he knew what treason really was.
+
+�So be it,� said M. Lacheneur. �You will receive the price of my blood;
+but it will not bring you good fortune--traitor!�
+
+But Chupin, indignant with himself for his weakness, was already trying
+to shake off the fear that mastered him.
+
+�You have conspired against the King,� he stammered. �I have done only
+my duty in denouncing you.�
+
+And turning to the soldiers, he said:
+
+�As for you, comrades, you may rest assured that the Duc de Sairmeuse
+will testify his gratitude for your services.�
+
+They had bound Lacheneur�s hands, and the party were about to
+descend the mountain, when a man appeared, bareheaded, covered with
+perspiration, and panting for breath.
+
+Twilight was falling, but M. Lacheneur recognized Balstain.
+
+�Ah! you have him!� he exclaimed, as soon as he was within hearing
+distance, and pointing to the prisoner. �The reward belongs to me--I
+denounced him first on the other side of the frontier. The gendarmes at
+Saint-Jean-de-Coche will testify to that. He would have been captured
+last night in my house, but he ran away in my absence; and I have been
+following the bandit for sixteen hours.�
+
+He spoke with extraordinary vehemence and volubility, beside himself
+with fear lest he was about to lose his reward, and lest his treason
+would bring him nothing save disgrace and obloquy.
+
+�If you have any right to the reward, you must prove it before the
+proper authorities,� said the officer in command.
+
+�If I have any right!� interrupted Balstain; �who contests my right,
+then?�
+
+He looked threateningly around, and his eyes fell on Chupin.
+
+�Is it you?� he demanded. �Do you dare to assert that you discovered the
+brigand?�
+
+�Yes, it was I who discovered his hiding-place.�
+
+�You lie, impostor!� vociferated the innkeeper; �you lie!�
+
+The soldiers did not move. This scene repaid them for the disgust they
+had experienced during the afternoon.
+
+�But,� continued Balstain, �what else could one expect from a vile knave
+like Chupin? Everyone knows that he has been obliged to flee from France
+a dozen times on account of his crimes. Where did you take refuge when
+you crossed the frontier, Chupin? In my house, in the inn kept by honest
+Balstain. You were fed and protected there. How many times have I saved
+you from the gendarmes and from the galleys? More times than I can
+count. And to reward me, you steal my property; you steal this man who
+was mine----�
+
+�He is insane!� said the terrified Chupin, �he is mad!�
+
+Then the innkeeper changed his tactics.
+
+�At least you will be reasonable,� he exclaimed. �Let us see, Chupin,
+what you will do for an old friend? Divide, will you not? No, you
+say no? What will you give me, comrade? A third? Is that too much? A
+quarter, then----�
+
+Chupin felt that all the soldiers were enjoying his terrible
+humiliation. They were sneering at him, and only an instant before they
+had avoided coming in contact with him with evident horror.
+
+Transported with anger, he pushed Balstain violently aside, crying to
+the soldiers:
+
+�Come--are we going to spend the night here?�
+
+An implacable hatred gleamed in the eye of the Piedmontese.
+
+He drew his knife from his pocket, and making the sign of the cross in
+the air:
+
+�Saint-Jean-de-Coche,� he exclaimed, in a ringing voice, �and you, Holy
+Virgin, hear my vow. May my soul burn in hell if I ever use a knife at
+my repasts until I have plunged this, which I now hold, into the heart
+of the scoundrel who has defrauded me!�
+
+Having said this, he disappeared in the woods, and the soldiers took up
+their line of march.
+
+But Chupin was no longer the same. All his accustomed impudence
+had fled. He walked on with bowed head, a prey to the most sinister
+presentiments.
+
+He felt assured that an oath like that of Balstain�s, and uttered by
+such a man, was equivalent to a death-warrant, or at least to a speedy
+prospect of assassination.
+
+This thought tormented him so much that he would not allow the
+detachment to spend the night at Saint-Pavin, as had been agreed upon.
+He was impatient to leave the neighborhood.
+
+After supper Chupin sent for a cart; the prisoner, securely bound, was
+placed in it, and the party started for Montaignac.
+
+The great bell was striking two when Lacheneur was brought into the
+citadel.
+
+At that very moment M. d�Escorval and Corporal Bavois were making their
+preparations for escape.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Alone in his cell, Chanlouineau, after Marie-Anne�s departure, abandoned
+himself to the most frightful despair.
+
+He had just given more than life to the woman he loved so fervently.
+
+For had he not, in the hope of obtaining an interview with her, perilled
+his honor by simulating the most ignoble fear? While doing so, he
+thought only of the success of his ruse. But now he knew only too well
+what those who had witnessed his apparent weakness would say of him.
+
+�This Chanlouineau is only a miserable coward after all,� he fancied he
+could hear them saying among themselves. �We have seen him on his knees,
+begging for mercy, and promising to betray his accomplices.�
+
+The thought that his memory would be tarnished with charges of cowardice
+and treason drove him nearly mad.
+
+He actually longed for death, since it would give him an opportunity to
+retrieve his honor.
+
+�They shall see, then,� he cried, wrathfully, �if I turn pale and
+tremble before the soldiers.�
+
+He was in this state of mind when the door opened to admit the Marquis
+de Courtornieu, who, after seeing Mlle. Lacheneur leave the prison, came
+to Chanlouineau to ascertain the result of her visit.
+
+�Well, my good fellow--� began the marquis, in his most condescending
+manner.
+
+�Leave!� cried Chanlouineau, in a fury of passion. �Leave, or----�
+
+Without waiting to hear the end of the sentence the marquis made his
+escape, greatly surprised and not a little dismayed by this sudden
+change.
+
+�What a dangerous and blood-thirsty rascal!� he remarked to the guard.
+�It would, perhaps, be advisable to put him in a strait-jacket!�
+
+Ah! there was no necessity for that. The heroic peasant had thrown
+himself upon his straw pallet, oppressed with feverish anxiety.
+
+Would Marie-Anne know how to make the best use of the weapon which he
+had placed in her hands?
+
+If he hoped so, it was because she would have as her counsellor and
+guide a man in whose judgment he had the most implicit confidence--Abbe
+Midon.
+
+�Martial will be afraid of the letter,� he said to himself, again and
+again; �certainly he will be afraid.�
+
+In this Chanlouineau was entirely mistaken. His discernment and
+intelligence were certainly above his station, but he was not
+sufficiently acute to read a character like that of the young Marquis de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+The document which he had written in a moment of _abandon_ and
+blindness, was almost without influence in determining his course.
+
+He pretended to be greatly alarmed, in order to frighten his father; but
+in reality he considered the threat puerile.
+
+Marie-Anne would have obtained the same assistance from him if she had
+not possessed this letter.
+
+Other influences had decided him: the difficulties and dangers of the
+undertaking, the risks to be incurred, the prejudices to be braved.
+
+To save the life of Baron d�Escorval--an enemy--to wrest him from the
+execution on the very steps of the scaffold, as it were, seemed to him
+a delightful enterprise. And to assure the happiness of the woman he
+adored by saving the life of an enemy, even after his suit had been
+refused, seemed a chivalrous act worthy of him.
+
+Besides, what an opportunity it afforded for the exercise of his
+_sang-froid_, his diplomatic talent, and the _finesse_ upon which he
+prided himself!
+
+It was necessary to make his father his dupe. That was an easy task.
+
+It was necessary to impose upon the credulity of the Marquis de
+Courtornieu. This was a difficult task, yet he succeeded.
+
+But poor Chanlouineau could not conceive of such contradictions, and he
+was consumed with anxiety.
+
+Willingly would he have consented to be put to the torture before
+receiving his death-blow, if he might have been allowed to follow
+Marie-Anne in her undertakings.
+
+What was she doing? How could he ascertain?
+
+A dozen times during the evening he called his guards, under every
+possible pretext, and tried to compel them to talk with him. He knew
+very well that these men could be no better informed on the subject than
+he was himself, that he could place no confidence in their reports--but
+that made no difference.
+
+The drums beat for the evening roll-call, then for the extinguishment of
+lights--after that, silence.
+
+Standing at the window of his cell, Chanlouineau concentrated all his
+faculties in a superhuman effort of attention.
+
+It seemed to him if the baron regained his liberty, he would be warned
+of it by some sign. Those whom he had saved owed him, he thought, this
+slight token of gratitude.
+
+A little after two o�clock he heard sounds that made him tremble. There
+was a great bustle in the corridors; guards running to and fro, and
+calling each other, a rattling of keys, and the opening and shutting of
+doors.
+
+The passage was suddenly illuminated; he looked out, and by the
+uncertain light of the lanterns, he thought he saw Lacheneur, as pale as
+a ghost, pass the cell, led by some soldiers.
+
+Lacheneur! Could this be possible? He doubted his own eyesight. He
+thought it must be a vision born of the fever burning in his brain.
+
+Later, he heard a despairing cry. But was it surprising that one should
+hear such a sound in a prison, where twenty men condemned to death were
+suffering the agony of that terrible night which precedes the day of
+execution.
+
+At last, the gray light of early dawn came creeping in through the
+prison-bars. Chanlouineau was in despair.
+
+�The letter was useless!� he murmured.
+
+Poor generous peasant! His heart would have leaped for joy could he have
+cast a glance on the courtyard of the citadel.
+
+More than an hour had passed after the sounding of the _reveille_, when
+two countrywomen, who were carrying their butter and eggs to market,
+presented themselves at the gate of the fortress.
+
+They declared that while passing through the fields at the base of the
+precipitous cliff upon which the citadel was built, they had discovered
+a rope dangling from the side of the rock. A rope! Then one of the
+condemned prisoners must have escaped. The guards hastened to Baron
+d�Escorval�s room--it was empty.
+
+The baron had fled, taking with him the man who had been left to guard
+him--Corporal Bavois, of the grenadiers.
+
+The amazement was as intense as the indignation, but the fright was
+still greater.
+
+There was not a single officer who did not tremble on thinking of
+his responsibility; not one who did not see his hopes of advancement
+blighted forever.
+
+What should they say to the formidable Duc de Sairmeuse and to the
+Marquis de Courtornieu, who, in spite of his calm and polished manners,
+was almost as much to be feared. It was necessary to warn them, however,
+and a sergeant was despatched with the news.
+
+Soon they made their appearance, accompanied by Martial; all frightfully
+angry.
+
+M. de Sairmeuse especially seemed beside himself.
+
+He swore at everybody, accused everybody, threatened everybody.
+
+He began by consigning all the keepers and guards to prison; he even
+talked of demanding the dismissal of all the officers.
+
+�As for that miserable Bavois,� he exclaimed, �as for that cowardly
+deserter, he shall be shot as soon as we capture him, and we will
+capture him, you may depend upon it!�
+
+They had hoped to appease the duke�s wrath a little, by informing him of
+Lacheneur�s arrest; but he knew this already, for Chupin had ventured to
+awake him in the middle of the night to tell him the great news.
+
+The baron�s escape afforded the duke an opportunity to exalt Chupin�s
+merits.
+
+�The man who has discovered Lacheneur will know how to find this traitor
+d�Escorval,� he remarked.
+
+M. de Courtornieu, who was more calm, �took measures for the restoration
+of a great culprit to the hand of justice,� as he said.
+
+He sent couriers in every direction, ordering them to make close
+inquiries throughout the neighborhood.
+
+His commands were brief, but to the point; they were to watch the
+frontier, to submit all travellers to a rigorous examination, to search
+the house, and to sow the description of d�Escorval broadcast through
+the land.
+
+But first of all he ordered the arrest both of Abbe Midon--the Cure of
+Sairmeuse, and of the son of Baron d�Escorval.
+
+Among the officers present there was one, an old lieutenant, medalled
+and decorated, who had been deeply wounded by imputations uttered by the
+Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+He stepped forward with a gloomy air, and said that these measures were
+doubtless all very well, but the most pressing and urgent duty was to
+institute an investigation at once, which, while acquainting them with
+the method of escape, would probably reveal the accomplices.
+
+On hearing the word �investigation,� neither the Duc de Sairmeuse nor
+the Marquis de Courtornieu could repress a slight shudder.
+
+They could not ignore the fact that their reputations were at stake, and
+that the merest trifle might disclose the truth. A precaution neglected,
+the most insignificant detail, a word, a gesture might ruin their
+ambitious hopes forever.
+
+They trembled to think that this officer might be a man of unusual
+shrewdness, who had suspected their complicity, and was impatient to
+verify his presumptions.
+
+No, the old lieutenant had not the slightest suspicion. He had spoken
+on the impulse of the moment, merely to give vent to his displeasure. He
+was not even keen enough to remark the rapid glance interchanged between
+the marquis and the duke.
+
+Martial noticed this look, however, and with a politeness too studied
+not to be ridicule, he addressed the lieutenant:
+
+�Yes, we must institute an investigation; that suggestion is as shrewd
+as it is opportune,� he remarked.
+
+The old officer turned away with a muttered oath.
+
+�That coxcomb is poking fun at me,� he thought; �and he and his father
+and that prig deserve--but what is one to do?�
+
+In spite of his bold remark, Martial felt that he must not incur the
+slightest risk.
+
+To whom must the charge of this investigation be intrusted? To the duke
+and to the marquis, of course, since they were the only persons who
+would know just how much to conceal, and just how much to disclose.
+
+They began their task immediately, with an _empressement_ which could
+not fail to silence all doubts, in case any existed in the minds of
+their subordinates.
+
+But who could be suspicious? The success of the plot had been all the
+more certain from the fact that the baron�s escape seemed likely to
+injure the interests of the very parties who had favored it.
+
+Martial thought he knew the details of the escape as exactly as the
+fugitives themselves. He had been the author, even if they had been the
+actors, of the drama of the preceding night.
+
+He was soon obliged to admit that he was mistaken in this opinion.
+
+The investigation revealed facts which seemed incomprehensible to him.
+
+It was evident that the Baron d�Escorval and Corporal Bavois had been
+compelled to accomplish two successive descents.
+
+To do this the prisoners had realized (since they had succeeded) the
+necessity of having two ropes. Martial had provided them; the prisoners
+must have used them. And yet only one rope could be found--the one which
+the peasant woman had perceived hanging from the rocky platform, where
+it was made fast to an iron crowbar.
+
+From the window to the platform, there was no rope.
+
+�This is most extraordinary!� murmured Martial, thoughtfully.
+
+�Very strange!� approved M. de Courtornieu.
+
+�How the devil could they have reached the base of the tower?�
+
+�That is what I cannot understand.�
+
+But Martial found another cause for surprise.
+
+On examining the rope that remained--the one which had been used in
+making the second descent--he discovered that it was not a single piece.
+Two pieces had been knotted together. The longest piece had evidently
+been too short.
+
+How did this happen? Could the duke have made a mistake in the height of
+the cliff? or had the abbe measured the rope incorrectly?
+
+But Martial had also measured it with his eye, and it had seemed to
+him that the rope was much longer, fully a third longer, than it now
+appeared.
+
+�There must have been some accident,� he remarked to his father and to
+the marquis; �but what?�
+
+�Well, what does it matter?� replied the marquis, �you have the
+compromising letter, have you not?�
+
+But Martial�s was one of those minds that never rest when confronted by
+an unsolved problem.
+
+He insisted on going to inspect the rocks at the foot of the precipice.
+
+There they discovered large spots of blood.
+
+�One of the fugitives must have fallen,� said Martial, quickly, �and was
+dangerously wounded!�
+
+�Upon my word!� exclaimed the Duc de Sairmeuse, �if Baron d�Escorval has
+broken his neck, I shall be delighted!�
+
+Martial�s face turned crimson, and he looked searchingly at his father.
+
+�I suppose, Monsieur, that you do not mean one word of what you are
+saying,� Martial said, coldly. �We pledged ourselves, upon the honor of
+our name, to save Baron d�Escorval. If he has been killed it will be a
+great misfortune to us, Monsieur, a great misfortune.�
+
+When his son addressed him in his haughty and freezing tone the duke
+never knew how to reply. He was indignant, but his son�s was the
+stronger nature.
+
+�Nonsense!� exclaimed M. de Courtornieu; �if the rascal had merely been
+wounded we should have known it.�
+
+Such was the opinion of Chupin, who had been sent for by the duke, and
+who had just made his appearance.
+
+But the old scoundrel, who was usually so loquacious and so officious,
+replied briefly; and, strange to say, did not offer his services.
+
+Of his imperturbable assurance, of his wonted impudence, of his
+obsequious and cunning smile, absolutely nothing remained.
+
+His restless eyes, the contraction of his features, his gloomy manner,
+and the occasional shudder which he could not repress, all betrayed his
+secret perturbation.
+
+So marked was the change that even the Duc de Sairmeuse observed it.
+
+�What calamity has happened to you, Master Chupin?� he inquired.
+
+�This has happened,� he responded, sullenly: �when I was coming here
+the children of the town threw mud and stones at me, and ran after me,
+shouting: �Traitor! traitor!��
+
+He clinched his fists; he seemed to be meditating vengeance, and he
+added:
+
+�The people of Montaignac are pleased. They know that the baron has
+escaped, and they are rejoicing.�
+
+Alas! this joy was destined to be of short duration, for this was the
+day appointed for the execution of the conspirators.
+
+It was Wednesday.
+
+At noon the gates of the citadel were closed, and the gloom was
+profound and universal, when the heavy rolling of drums announced the
+preparations for the frightful holocaust.
+
+Consternation and fear spread through the town; the silence of death
+made itself felt on every side; the streets were deserted, and the doors
+and shutters of every house were closed.
+
+At last, as three o�clock sounded, the gates of the fortress were opened
+to give passage to fourteen doomed men, each accompanied by a priest.
+
+Fourteen! for seized by remorse or fright at the last moment, M de
+Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had granted a reprieve to six of
+the prisoners and at that very hour a courier was hastening toward Paris
+with six petitions for pardons, signed by the Military Commission.
+
+Chanlouineau was not among those for whom royal clemency had been
+solicited.
+
+When he left his cell, without knowing whether or not his letter had
+availed, he counted the condemned with poignant anxiety.
+
+His eyes betrayed such an agony of anguish that the priest who
+accompanied him leaned toward him and whispered:
+
+�For whom are you looking, my son?�
+
+�For Baron d�Escorval.�
+
+�He escaped last night.�
+
+�Ah! now I shall die content!� exclaimed the heroic peasant.
+
+He died as he had sworn he would die, without even changing color--calm
+and proud, the name of Marie-Anne upon his lips.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Ah, well, there was one woman, a fair young girl, whose heart had not
+been touched by the sorrowful scenes of which Montaignac had been the
+theatre.
+
+Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu smiled as brightly as ever in the midst of
+a stricken people; and surrounded by mourners, her lovely eyes remained
+dry.
+
+The daughter of a man who, for a week, exercised the power of a
+dictator, she did not lift her finger to save a single one of the
+condemned prisoners from the executioner.
+
+They had stopped her carriage on the public road. This was a crime which
+Mlle. de Courtornieu could never forget.
+
+She also knew that she owed it to Marie-Anne�s intercession that she had
+not been held prisoner. This she could never forgive.
+
+So it was with the bitterest resentment that, on the morning
+following her arrival in Montaignac, she recounted what she styled her
+�humiliations� to her father, i.e., the inconceivable arrogance of that
+Lacheneur girl, and the frightful brutality of which the peasants had
+been guilty.
+
+And when the Marquis de Courtornieu asked if she would consent to
+testify against Baron d�Escorval, she coldly replied:
+
+�I think that such is my duty, and I shall fulfil it, however painful it
+may be.�
+
+She knew perfectly well that her deposition would be the baron�s
+death-warrant; but she persisted in her resolve, veiling her hatred and
+her insensibility under the name of virtue.
+
+But we must do her the justice to admit that her testimony was sincere.
+
+She really believed that it was Baron d�Escorval who was with the
+rebels, and whose opinion Chanlouineau had asked.
+
+This error on the part of Mlle. Blanche rose from the custom of
+designating Maurice by his Christian name, which prevailed in the
+neighborhood.
+
+In speaking of him everyone said �Monsieur Maurice.� When they said
+�Monsieur d�Escorval,� they referred to the baron.
+
+After the crushing evidence against the accused had been written and
+signed in her fine and aristocratic hand-writing, Mlle. de Courtornieu
+bore herself with partly real and partly affected indifference. She
+would not, on any account, have had people suppose that anything
+relating to these plebeians--these low peasants--could possibly disturb
+her proud serenity. She would not so much as ask a single question on
+the subject.
+
+But this superb indifference was, in great measure, assumed. In her
+inmost soul she was blessing this conspiracy which had caused so many
+tears and so much blood to flow. Had it not removed her rival from her
+path?
+
+�Now,� she thought, �the marquis will return to me, and I will make him
+forget the bold creature who has bewitched him!�
+
+Chimeras! The charm had vanished which had once caused the love of
+Martial de Sairmeuse to oscillate between Mlle. de Courtornieu and the
+daughter of Lacheneur.
+
+Captivated at first by the charms of Mlle. Blanche, he soon discovered
+the calculating ambition and the utter worldliness concealed beneath
+such seeming simplicity and candor. Nor was he long in discerning her
+intense vanity, her lack of principle, and her unbounded selfishness;
+and, comparing her with the noble and generous Marie-Anne, his
+admiration was changed into indifference, or rather repugnance.
+
+He did return to her, however, or at least he seemed to return to
+her, actuated, perhaps, by that inexplicable sentiment that impels us
+sometimes to do that which is most distasteful to us, and by a feeling
+of discouragement and despair, knowing that Marie-Anne was now lost to
+him forever.
+
+He also said to himself that a pledge had been interchanged between the
+duke and the Marquis de Courtornieu; that he, too, had given his word,
+and that Mlle. Blanche was his betrothed.
+
+Was it worth while to break this engagement? Would he not be compelled
+to marry some day? Why not fulfil the pledge that had been made? He was
+as willing to marry Mlle. de Courtornieu as anyone else, since he was
+sure that the only woman whom he had ever truly loved--the only woman
+whom he ever could love--was never to be his.
+
+Master of himself when near her, and sure that he would ever remain the
+same, it was easy to play the part of lover with that perfection and
+that charm which--sad as it is to say it--the real passion seldom
+or never attains. He was assisted by his self-love, and also by that
+instinct of duplicity which leads a man to contradict his thoughts by
+his acts.
+
+But while he seemed to be occupied only with thoughts of his approaching
+marriage, his mind was full of intense anxiety concerning Baron
+d�Escorval.
+
+What had become of the baron and of Bavois after their escape? What had
+become of those who were awaiting them on the rocks--for Martial knew
+all their plans--Mme. d�Escorval and Marie-Anne, the abbe and Maurice,
+and the four officers?
+
+There were, then, ten persons in all who had disappeared. And Martial
+asked himself again and again, how it could be possible for so many
+individuals to mysteriously disappear, leaving no trace behind them.
+
+�It unquestionably denotes a superior ability,� thought Martial, �I
+recognize the hand of the priest.�
+
+It was, indeed, remarkable, since the search ordered by the Duc de
+Sairmeuse and the marquis had been pursued with feverish activity,
+greatly to the terror of those who had instituted it. Still what could
+they do? They had imprudently excited the zeal of their subordinates,
+and now they were unable to moderate it. But fortunately all efforts to
+discover the fugitives had proved unavailing.
+
+One witness testified, however, that on the morning of the escape, he
+met, just before daybreak, a party of about a dozen persons, men and
+women, who seemed to be carrying a dead body.
+
+This circumstance, taken in connection with the broken rope and the
+blood-stains, made Martial tremble.
+
+He had also been strongly impressed by another circumstance, which was
+revealed as the investigation progressed.
+
+All the soldiers who were on guard that eventful night were
+interrogated. One of them testified as follows:
+
+�I was on guard in the corridor communicating with the prisoner�s
+apartment in the tower, when at about half-past two o�clock, after
+Lacheneur had been placed in his cell, I saw an officer approaching me.
+I challenged him; he gave me the countersign, and, naturally, I allowed
+him to pass. He went down the corridor, and entered the room adjoining
+that in which Monsieur d�Escorval was confined. He remained there about
+five minutes.�
+
+�Did you recognize this officer?� Martial eagerly inquired.
+
+And the soldier answered: �No. He wore a large cloak, the collar of
+which was turned up so high that it covered his face to the very eyes.�
+
+Who could this mysterious officer have been? What was he doing in the
+room where the ropes had been deposited?
+
+Martial racked his brain to discover an answer to these questions.
+
+The Marquis de Courtornieu himself seemed much disturbed.
+
+�How could you be ignorant that there were many sympathizers with this
+movement in the garrison?� he said, angrily. �You might have known that
+this visitor, who concealed his face so carefully, was an accomplice who
+had been warned by Bavois, and who came to see if he needed a helping
+hand.�
+
+This was a plausible explanation, still it did not satisfy Martial.
+
+�It is very strange,� he thought, �that Monsieur d�Escorval has not
+even deigned to let me know he is in safety. The service which _I_ have
+rendered him deserves that acknowledgment, at least.�
+
+Such was his disquietude that he resolved to apply to Chupin, even
+though this traitor inspired him with extreme repugnance.
+
+But it was no longer easy to obtain the services of the old spy. Since
+he had received the price of Lacheneur�s blood--the twenty thousand
+francs which had so fascinated him--Chupin had deserted the house of the
+Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+He had taken up his quarters in a small inn on the outskirts of the
+town; and he spent his days alone in a large room on the second floor.
+
+At night he barricaded the doors, and drank, drank, drank; and until
+daybreak they could hear him cursing and singing or struggling against
+imaginary enemies.
+
+Still he dared not disobey the order brought by a soldier, summoning him
+to the Hotel de Sairmeuse at once.
+
+�I wish to discover what has become of Baron d�Escorval,� said Martial.
+
+Chupin trembled, he who had formerly been bronze, and a fleeting color
+dyed his cheeks.
+
+�The Montaignac police are at your disposal,� he answered sulkily.
+�They, perhaps, can satisfy the curiosity of Monsieur le Marquis. I do
+not belong to the police.�
+
+Was he in earnest, or was he endeavoring to augment the value of his
+services by refusing them? Martial inclined to the latter opinion.
+
+�You shall have no reason to complain of my generosity,� said he. �I
+will pay you well.�
+
+But on hearing the word �pay,� which would have made his eyes gleam with
+delight a week before, Chupin flew into a furious passion.
+
+�So it was to tempt me again that you summoned me here!� he exclaimed.
+�You would do better to leave me quietly at my inn.�
+
+�What do you mean, fool?�
+
+But Chupin did not even hear this interruption, and, with increasing
+fury, he continued:
+
+�They told me that, by betraying Lacheneur, I should be doing my duty
+and serving the King. I betrayed him, and now I am treated as if I had
+committed the worst of crimes. Formerly, when I lived by stealing and
+poaching, they despised me, perhaps; but they did not shun me as they
+did the pestilence. They called me rascal, robber, and the like; but
+they would drink with me all the same. To-day I have twenty thousand
+francs, and I am treated as if I were a venomous beast. If I approach a
+man, he draws back; if I enter a room, those who are there leave it.�
+
+The recollection of the insults he had received made him more and more
+frantic with rage.
+
+�Was the act I committed so ignoble and abominable?� he pursued. �Then
+why did your father propose it? The shame should fall on him. He should
+not have tempted a poor man with wealth like that. If, on the contrary,
+I have done well, let them make laws to protect me.�
+
+Martial comprehended the necessity of reassuring his troubled mind.
+
+�Chupin, my boy,� said he, �I do not ask you to discover Monsieur
+d�Escorval in order to denounce him; far from it--I only desire you to
+ascertain if anyone at Saint-Pavin, or at Saint-Jean-de-Coche, knows of
+his having crossed the frontier.�
+
+On hearing the name Saint-Jean-de-Coche, Chupin�s face blanched.
+
+�Do you wish me to be murdered?� he exclaimed, remembering Balstain
+and his vow. �I would have you know that I value my life, now that I am
+rich.�
+
+And seized with a sort of panic he fled precipitately. Martial was
+stupefied with astonishment.
+
+�One might really suppose that the wretch was sorry for what he had
+done,� he thought.
+
+If that was really the case, Chupin was not alone.
+
+M. de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse were secretly blaming
+themselves for the exaggerations in their first reports, and the manner
+in which they had magnified the proportions of the rebellion. They
+accused each other of undue haste, of neglect of the proper forms of
+procedure, and the injustice of the verdict rendered.
+
+Each endeavored to make the other responsible for the blood which had
+been spilled; one tried to cast the public odium upon the other.
+
+Meanwhile they were both doing their best to obtain a pardon for the six
+prisoners who had been reprieved.
+
+They did not succeed.
+
+One night a courier arrived at Montaignac, bearing the following laconic
+despatch:
+
+
+�The twenty-one convicted prisoners must be executed.�
+
+
+That is to say, the Duc de Richelieu, and the council of ministers,
+headed by M. Decazes, the minister of police, had decided that the
+petitions for clemency must be refused.
+
+This despatch was a terrible blow to the Duc de Sairmeuse and M. de
+Courtornieu. They knew, better than anyone else, how little these poor
+men, whose lives they had tried, too late, to save, deserved death. They
+knew it would soon be publicly proven that two of the six men had taken
+no part whatever in the conspiracy.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+Martial desired his father to resign his authority; but the duke had not
+courage to do it.
+
+M. de Courtornieu encouraged him. He admitted that all this was very
+unfortunate, but declared, since the wine had been drawn, that it was
+necessary to drink it, and that one could not draw back now without
+causing a terrible scandal.
+
+The next day the dismal rolling of drums was again heard, and the six
+doomed men, two of whom were known to be innocent, were led outside
+the walls of the citadel and shot, on the same spot where, only a week
+before, fourteen of their comrades had fallen.
+
+And the prime mover in the conspiracy had not yet been tried.
+
+Confined in the cell next to that which Chanlouineau had occupied,
+Lacheneur had fallen into a state of gloomy despondency, which lasted
+during his whole term of imprisonment. He was terribly broken, both in
+body and in mind.
+
+Once only did the blood mount to his pallid cheek, and that was on the
+morning when the Duc de Sairmeuse entered the cell to interrogate him.
+
+�It was you who drove me to do what I did,� he said. �God sees us, and
+judges us!�
+
+Unhappy man! his faults had been great; his chastisement was terrible.
+
+He had sacrificed his children on the altar of his wounded pride; he
+had not even the consolation of pressing them to his heart and of asking
+their forgiveness before he died.
+
+Alone in his cell he could not distract his mind from thoughts of his
+son and of his daughter; but such was the terrible situation in which he
+had placed himself that he dared not ask what had become of them.
+
+Through a compassionate keeper, he learned that nothing had been heard
+of Jean, and that it was supposed Marie-Anne had gone to some foreign
+country with the d�Escorval family.
+
+When summoned before the court for trial, Lacheneur was calm and
+dignified in manner. He attempted no defence, but responded with perfect
+frankness. He took all the blame upon himself, and would not give the
+name of one of his accomplices.
+
+Condemned to be beheaded, he was executed on the following day. In
+spite of the rain, he desired to walk to the place of execution. When he
+reached the scaffold, he ascended the steps with a firm tread, and, of
+his own accord, placed his head upon the block.
+
+A few seconds later, the rebellion of the 4th of March counted its
+twenty-first victim.
+
+And that same evening the people everywhere were talking of the
+magnificent rewards which were to be bestowed upon the Duc de Sairmeuse
+and the Marquis de Courtornieu; and it was also asserted that the
+nuptials of the children of these great houses were to take place before
+the close of the week.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+That Martial de Sairmeuse was to marry Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu did
+not surprise the inhabitants of Montaignac in the least.
+
+But spreading such a report, with Lacheneur�s execution fresh in the
+minds of everyone, could not fail to bring odium upon these men who had
+held absolute power, and who had exercised it so mercilessly.
+
+Heaven knows that M. de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse were now
+doing their best to make the people of Montaignac forget the atrocious
+cruelty of which they had been guilty during their dictatorship.
+
+Of the hundred or more who were confined in the citadel, only
+eighteen or twenty were tried, and they received only some very slight
+punishment; the others were released.
+
+Major Carini, the leader of the conspirators in Montaignac, who had
+expected to lose his head, heard himself, with astonishment, sentenced
+to two years� imprisonment.
+
+But there are crimes which nothing can efface or extenuate. Public
+opinion attributed this sudden clemency on the part of the duke and the
+marquis to fear.
+
+People execrated them for their cruelty, and despised them for their
+apparent cowardice.
+
+They were ignorant of this, however, and hastened forward the
+preparations for the nuptials of their children, without suspecting that
+the marriage was considered a shameless defiance of public sentiment on
+their part.
+
+The 17th of April was the day which had been appointed for the bridal,
+and the wedding-feast was to be held at the Chateau de Sairmeuse, which,
+at a great expense, had been transformed into a fairy palace for the
+occasion.
+
+It was in the church of the little village of Sairmeuse, on the
+loveliest of spring days, that this marriage ceremony was performed by
+the cure who had taken the place of poor Abbe Midon.
+
+At the close of the address to the newly wedded pair, the priest uttered
+these words, which he believed prophetic:
+
+�You will be, you _must_ be happy!�
+
+Who would not have believed as he did? Where could two young people
+be found more richly dowered with all the attributes likely to produce
+happiness, i.e., youth, rank, health, and riches.
+
+But though an intense joy sparkled in the eyes of the new Marquise
+de Sairmeuse, there were those among the guests who observed the
+bridegroom�s preoccupation. One might have supposed that he was making
+an effort to drive away some gloomy thought.
+
+At the moment when his young wife hung upon his arm, proud and radiant,
+a vision of Marie-Anne rose before him, more life-like, more potent than
+ever.
+
+What had become of her that she had not been seen at the time of her
+father�s execution? Courageous as he knew her to be, if she had made no
+attempt to see her father, it must have been because she was ignorant of
+his approaching doom.
+
+�Ah! if she had but loved him,� Martial thought, �what happiness would
+have been his. But, now he was bound for life to a woman whom he did not
+love.�
+
+At dinner, however, he succeeded in shaking off the sadness that
+oppressed him, and when the guests rose to repair to the drawing-rooms,
+he had almost forgotten his dark forebodings. He was rising in his turn,
+when a servant approached him with a mysterious air.
+
+�Someone desires to see the marquis,� whispered the valet.
+
+�Who?�
+
+�A young peasant who will not give his name.�
+
+�On one�s wedding-day, one must grant an audience to everybody,� said
+Martial.
+
+And gay and smiling he descended the staircase.
+
+In the vestibule, lined with rare and fragrant plants, stood a young
+man. He was very pale, and his eyes glittered with feverish brilliancy.
+
+On recognizing him Martial could not restrain an exclamation of
+surprise.
+
+�Jean Lacheneur!� he exclaimed; �imprudent man!�
+
+The young man stepped forward.
+
+�You believed that you were rid of me,� he said, bitterly. �Instead, I
+return from afar. You can have your people arrest me if you choose.�
+
+Martial�s face crimsoned at the insult; but he retained his composure.
+
+�What do you desire?� he asked, coldly.
+
+Jean drew from his pocket a folded letter.
+
+�I am to give you this on behalf of Maurice d�Escorval.�
+
+With an eager hand, Martial broke the seal. He glanced over the letter,
+turned as pale as death, staggered and said only one word.
+
+�Infamous!�
+
+�What must I say to Maurice?� insisted Jean. �What do you intend to do?�
+
+With a terrible effort Martial had conquered his weakness. He seemed to
+deliberate for ten seconds, then seizing Jean�s arm, he dragged him up
+the staircase, saying:
+
+�Come--you shall see.�
+
+Martial�s countenance had changed so much during the three minutes
+he had been absent that there was an exclamation of terror when he
+reappeared, holding an open letter in one hand and leading with the
+other a young peasant whom no one recognized.
+
+�Where is my father?� he demanded, in a husky voice; �where is the
+Marquis de Courtornieu?�
+
+The duke and the marquis were with Mme. Blanche in the little salon at
+the end of the main hall.
+
+Martial hastened there, followed by a crowd of wondering guests, who,
+foreseeing a stormy scene, were determined not to lose a syllable.
+
+He walked directly to M. de Courtornieu, who was standing by the
+fireplace, and handing him the letter:
+
+�Read!� said he, in a terrible voice.
+
+M. de Courtornieu obeyed. He became livid; the paper trembled in his
+hands; his eyes fell, and he was obliged to lean against the marble
+mantel for support.
+
+�I do not understand,� he stammered: �no, I do not understand.�
+
+The duke and Mme. Blanche both sprang forward.
+
+�What is it?� they asked in a breath; �what has happened?�
+
+With a rapid movement, Martial tore the paper from the hands of the
+Marquis de Courtornieu, and addressing his father:
+
+�Listen to this letter,� he said, imperiously.
+
+Three hundred people were assembled there, but the silence was so
+profound that the voice of the young marquis penetrated to the farthest
+extremity of the hall as he read:
+
+
+�Monsieur le marquis--In exchange for a dozen lines that threatened you
+with ruin, you promised us, upon the honor of your name, the life of
+Baron d�Escorval.
+
+�You did, indeed, bring the ropes by which he was to make his escape,
+but they had been previously cut, and my father was precipitated to the
+rocks below.
+
+�You have forfeited your honor, Monsieur. You have soiled your name with
+ineffaceable opprobrium. While so much as a drop of blood remains in my
+veins, I will leave no means untried to punish you for your cowardice
+and vile treason.
+
+�By killing me you would, it is true, escape the chastisement I am
+reserving for you. Consent to fight with me. Shall I await you to-morrow
+on the Reche? At what hour? With what weapons?
+
+�If you are the vilest of men, you can appoint a rendezvous, and then
+send your gendarmes to arrest me. That would be an act worthy of you.
+
+�Maurice d�Escorval.�
+
+
+The duke was in despair. He saw the secret of the baron�s flight made
+public--his political prospects ruined.
+
+�Hush!� he said, hurriedly, and in a low voice; �hush, wretched man, you
+will ruin us!�
+
+But Martial seemed not even to hear him. When he had finished his
+reading:
+
+�Now, what do you think?� he demanded, looking the Marquis de
+Courtornieu full in the face.
+
+�I am still unable to comprehend,� said the old nobleman, coldly.
+
+Martial lifted his hand; everyone believed that he was about to strike
+the man who had been his father-in-law only a few hours.
+
+�Very well! I comprehend!� he exclaimed. �I know now who that officer
+was who entered the room in which I had deposited the ropes--and I know
+what took him there.�
+
+He crumbled the letter between his hands and threw it in M. de
+Courtornieu�s face, saying:
+
+�Here is your reward--coward!�
+
+Overwhelmed by this _denouement_ the marquis sank into an arm-chair, and
+Martial, still holding Jean Lacheneur by the arm, was leaving the room,
+when his young wife, wild with despair, tried to detain him.
+
+�You shall not go!� she exclaimed, intensely exasperated; �you shall
+not! Where are you going? To rejoin the sister of the man, whom I now
+recognize?�
+
+Beside himself, Martial pushed his wife roughly aside.
+
+�Wretch!� said he, �how dare you insult the noblest and purest of women?
+Ah, well--yes--I am going to find Marie-Anne. Farewell!�
+
+And he passed on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+The ledge of rock upon which Baron d�Escorval and Corporal Bavois rested
+in their descent from the tower was very narrow.
+
+In the widest place it did not measure more than a yard and a half, and
+its surface was uneven, cut by innumerable fissures and crevices, and
+sloped suddenly at the edge. To stand there in the daytime, with the
+wall of the tower behind one, and the precipice at one�s feet, would
+have been considered very imprudent.
+
+Of course, the task of lowering a man from this ledge, at dead of night,
+was perilous in the extreme.
+
+Before allowing the baron to descend, honest Bavois took every possible
+precaution to save himself from being dragged over the verge of the
+precipice by the weight he would be obliged to sustain.
+
+He placed his crowbar firmly in a crevice of the rock, then bracing his
+feet against the bar, he seated himself firmly, throwing his shoulders
+well back, and it was only when he was sure of his position that he said
+to the baron:
+
+�I am here and firmly fixed, comrade; now let yourself down.�
+
+The sudden parting of the rope hurled the brave corporal rudely against
+the tower wall, then he was thrown forward by the rebound.
+
+His unalterable _sang-froid_ was all that saved him.
+
+For more than a minute he hung suspended over the abyss into which the
+baron had just fallen, and his hands clutched at the empty air.
+
+A hasty movement, and he would have fallen.
+
+But he possessed a marvellous power of will, which prevented him from
+attempting any violent effort. Prudently, but with determined energy,
+he screwed his feet and his knees into the crevices of the rock, feeling
+with his hands for some point of support, and gradually sinking to one
+side, he finally succeeded in dragging himself from the verge of the
+precipice.
+
+It was time, for a cramp seized him with such violence that he was
+obliged to sit down and rest for a moment.
+
+That the baron had been killed by his fall, Bavois did not doubt for an
+instant. But this catastrophe did not produce much effect upon the old
+soldier, who had seen so many comrades fall by his side on the field of
+battle.
+
+What did _amaze_ him was the breaking of the rope--a rope so large that
+one would have supposed it capable of sustaining the weight of ten men
+like the baron.
+
+As he could not, by reason of the darkness, see the ruptured place,
+Bavois felt it with his finger; and, to his inexpressible astonishment,
+he found it smooth. No filaments, no rough bits of hemp, as usual after
+a break; the surface was perfectly even.
+
+The corporal comprehended what Maurice had comprehended below.
+
+�The scoundrels have cut the rope!� he exclaimed, with a frightful oath.
+
+And a recollection of what had happened three or four hours previous
+arose in his mind.
+
+�This,� he thought, �explains the noise which the poor baron heard in
+the next room! And I said to him: �Nonsense! it is a rat!��
+
+Then he thought of a very simple method of verifying his conjectures. He
+passed the cord about the crowbar and pulled it with all his strength.
+It parted in three places.
+
+This discovery appalled him.
+
+A part of the rope had fallen with the unfortunate baron, and it was
+evident that the remaining fragments tied together would not be long
+enough to reach to the base of the rock.
+
+From this isolated ledge it was impossible to reach the ground upon
+which the citadel was built.
+
+�You are in a fine fix, Corporal,� he growled.
+
+Honest Bavois looked the situation full in the face, and saw that it was
+desperate.
+
+�Well, Corporal, your jig is up!� he murmured, �At daybreak they will
+find that the baron�s cell is empty. They will poke their heads out
+of the window, and they will see you here, like a stone saint upon his
+pedestal. Naturally, you will be captured, tried, condemned; and you
+will be led out to take your turn in the ditches. Ready! Aim! Fire! And
+that will be the end of your story.�
+
+He stopped short. A vague idea had entered his mind, which he felt might
+possibly be his salvation.
+
+It came to him in touching the rope which he had used in his descent
+from the prison to the ledge, and which, firmly attached to the bars,
+hung down the side of the tower.
+
+�If you had that rope which hangs there useless, Corporal, you could add
+it to these fragments, and then it would be long enough to carry you
+to the foot of the rock. But how shall I obtain it? It is certainly
+impossible to go back after it! and how can I pull it down when it is so
+securely fastened to the bars?�
+
+He sought a way, found it, and pursued it, talking to himself all the
+while as if there were two corporals; one prompt to conceive, the other,
+a trifle stupid, to whom it was necessary to explain everything in
+detail.
+
+�Attention, Corporal,� said he. �You are going to knot these five pieces
+of rope together and attach them to your waist; then you are going to
+climb up to that window, hand over hand. Not an easy matter! A carpeted
+staircase is preferable to that rope dangling there. But no matter, you
+are not finical, Corporal! So you climb it, and here you are in the cell
+again. What are you going to do? A mere nothing. You are unfastening the
+cord attached to the bars; you will tie it to this, and that will give
+you eighty feet of good strong rope. Then you will pass the rope about
+one of the bars that remain intact; the rope will thus be doubled; then
+you let yourself down again, and when you are here, you have only
+to untie one of the knots and the rope is at your service. Do you
+understand, Corporal?�
+
+The corporal did understand so well that in less than twenty minutes
+he was back again upon the narrow shelf of rock, the difficult and
+dangerous operation which he had planned accomplished.
+
+Not without a terrible effort; not without torn and bleeding hands and
+knees.
+
+But he had succeeded in obtaining the rope, and now he was certain
+that he could make his escape from his dangerous position. He laughed
+gleefully, or rather with that chuckle which was habitual to him.
+
+Anxiety, then joy, had made him forget M. d�Escorval. At the thought of
+him, he was smitten with remorse.
+
+�Poor man!� he murmured. �I shall succeed in saving my miserable life,
+for which no one cares, but I was unable to save him. Undoubtedly, by
+this time his friends have carried him away.�
+
+As he uttered these words he was leaning over the abyss. He doubted the
+evidence of his own senses when he saw a faint light moving here and
+there in the depths below.
+
+What had happened? For something very extraordinary must have happened
+to induce intelligent men like the baron�s friends to display this
+light, which, if observed from the citadel, would betray their presence
+and ruin them.
+
+But Corporal Bavois�s moments were too precious to be wasted in idle
+conjectures.
+
+�Better go down on the double-quick,� he said aloud, as if to spur on
+his courage. �Come, my friend, spit on your hands and be off!�
+
+As he spoke the old soldier threw himself flat on his belly and crawled
+slowly backward to the verge of the precipice. The spirit was strong,
+but the flesh shuddered. To march upon a battery had always been a mere
+pastime to the worthy corporal; but to face an unknown peril, to suspend
+one�s life upon a cord, was a different matter.
+
+Great drops of perspiration, caused by the horror of his situation,
+stood out upon his brow when he felt that half his body had passed the
+edge of the precipice, and that the slightest movement would now launch
+him into space.
+
+He made this movement, murmuring:
+
+�If there is a God who watches over honest people let Him open His eyes
+this instant!�
+
+The God of the just was watching.
+
+Bavois arrived at the end of his dangerous journey with torn and
+bleeding hands, but safe. He fell like a mass of rock; and the rudeness
+of the shock drew from him a groan resembling the roar of an infuriated
+beast.
+
+For more than a minute he lay there upon the ground stunned and dizzy.
+
+When he rose two men seized him roughly.
+
+�Ah, no foolishness,� he said quickly. �It is I, Bavois.�
+
+This did not cause them to relax their hold.
+
+�How does it happen,� demanded one, in a threatening tone, �that Baron
+d�Escorval falls and you succeed in making the descent in safety a few
+moments later?�
+
+The old soldier was too shrewd not to understand the whole import of
+this insulting question.
+
+The sorrow and indignation aroused within him gave him strength to free
+himself from the hands of his captors.
+
+�_Mille tonnerres_!� he exclaimed; �so I pass for a traitor, do I! No,
+it is impossible--listen to me.�
+
+Then rapidly, but with surprising clearness, he related all the details
+of his escape, his despair, his perilous situation, and the almost
+insurmountable obstacles which he had overcome. To hear was to believe.
+
+The men--they were, of course, the retired army officers who had
+been waiting for the baron--offered the honest corporal their hands,
+sincerely sorry that they had wounded the feelings of a man who was so
+worthy of their respect and gratitude.
+
+�You will forgive us, Corporal,� they said, sadly. �Misery renders men
+suspicious and unjust, and we are very unhappy.�
+
+�No offence,� he growled. �If I had trusted poor Monsieur d�Escorval, he
+would be alive now.�
+
+�The baron still breathes,� said one of the officers.
+
+This was such astounding news that Bavois was utterly confounded for a
+moment.
+
+�Ah! I will give my right hand, if necessary, to save him!� he
+exclaimed, at last.
+
+�If it is possible to save him, he will be saved, my friend. That worthy
+priest whom you see there, is an excellent physician. He is examining
+Monsieur d�Escorval�s wounds now. It was by his order that we procured
+and lighted this candle, which may bring our enemies upon us at any
+moment; but this is not a time for hesitation.�
+
+Bavois looked with all his eyes, but from where he was standing he could
+discover only a confused group of moving figures.
+
+�I would like to see the poor man,� he said, sadly.
+
+�Come nearer, my good fellow; fear nothing!�
+
+He stepped forward, and by the flickering light of the candle which
+Marie-Anne held, he saw a spectacle which moved him more than the
+horrors of the bloodiest battle-field.
+
+The baron was lying upon the ground, his head supported on Mme.
+d�Escorval�s knee.
+
+His face was not disfigured; but he was pale as death itself, and his
+eyes were closed.
+
+At intervals a convulsive shudder shook his frame, and a stream of blood
+gushed from his mouth. His clothing was hacked--literally hacked
+in pieces; and it was easy to see that his body had sustained many
+frightful wounds.
+
+Kneeling beside the unconscious man, Abbe Midon, with admirable
+dexterity, was stanching the blood and applying bandages which had been
+torn from the linen of those present.
+
+Maurice and one of the officers were assisting him. �Ah! if I had my
+hands on the scoundrel who cut the rope,� cried the corporal, in a
+passion of indignation; �but patience. I shall have him yet.�
+
+�Do you know who it was?�
+
+�Only too well!�
+
+He said no more. The abbe had done all it was possible to do, and he now
+lifted the wounded man a little higher on Mme. d�Escorval�s knee.
+
+This change of position elicited a moan that betrayed the unfortunate
+baron�s intense sufferings. He opened his eyes and faltered a few
+words--they were the first he had uttered.
+
+�Firmin!� he murmured, �Firmin!� It was the name of the baron�s former
+secretary, a man who had been absolutely devoted to his master, but who
+had been dead for several years. It was evident that the baron�s mind
+was wandering. Still he had some vague idea of his terrible situation,
+for in a stifled, almost inaudible voice, he added:
+
+�Oh! how I suffer! Firmin, I will not fall into the hands of the Marquis
+de Courtornieu alive. You shall kill me rather--do you hear me? I
+command it.�
+
+This was all; then his eyes closed again, and his head fell back a dead
+weight. One would have supposed that he had yielded up his last sigh.
+
+Such was the opinion of the officers; and it was with poignant anxiety
+they drew the abbe a little aside.
+
+�Is it all over?� they asked. �Is there any hope?�
+
+The priest sadly shook his head, and pointing to heaven:
+
+�My hope is in God!� he said, reverently.
+
+The hour, the place, the terrible catastrophe, the present danger, the
+threatening future, all combined to lend a deep solemnity to the words
+of the priest.
+
+So profound was the impression that, for more than a minute, these men,
+familiar with peril and scenes of horror, stood in awed silence.
+
+Maurice, who approached, followed by Corporal Bavois, brought them back
+to the exigencies of the present.
+
+�Ought we not to make haste and carry away my father?� he asked. �Must
+we not be in Piedmont before evening?�
+
+�Yes!� exclaimed the officers, �let us start at once.�
+
+But the priest did not move, and in a despondent voice, he said:
+
+�To make any attempt to carry Monsieur d�Escorval across the frontier in
+his present condition would cost him his life.�
+
+This seemed so inevitably a death-warrant for them all, that they
+shuddered.
+
+�My God! what shall we do?� faltered Maurice. �What course shall we
+pursue?�
+
+Not a voice replied. It was clear that they hoped for salvation through
+the priest alone.
+
+He was lost in thought, and it was some time before he spoke.
+
+�About an hour�s walk from here,� he said, at last, �beyond the Croix
+d�Arcy, is the hut of a peasant upon whom I can rely. His name is
+Poignot; and he was formerly in Monsieur Lacheneur�s employ. With the
+assistance of his three sons, he now tills quite a large farm. We must
+procure a litter and carry Monsieur d�Escorval to the house of this
+honest peasant.�
+
+�What, Monsieur,� interrupted one of the officers, �you wish us to
+procure a litter at this hour of the night, and in this neighborhood?�
+
+�It must be done.�
+
+�But, will it not awaken suspicion?�
+
+�Most assuredly.�
+
+�The Montaignac police will follow us.�
+
+�I am certain of it.�
+
+�The baron will be recaptured!�
+
+�No.�
+
+The abbe spoke in the tone of a man who, by virtue of assuming all the
+responsibility, feels that he has a right to be obeyed.
+
+�When the baron has been conveyed to Poignot�s house,� he continued,
+�one of you gentlemen will take the wounded man�s place upon the litter;
+the others will carry him, and the party will remain together until it
+has reached Piedmontese territory. Then you will separate and pretend
+to conceal yourselves, but do it in such a way that you are seen
+everywhere.� All present comprehended the priest�s simple plan.
+
+They were to throw the emissaries sent by the Duc de Sairmeuse and the
+Marquis de Courtornieu off the track; and at the very moment it was
+apparently proven that the baron was in the mountains, he would be safe
+in Poignot�s house.
+
+�One word more,� added the priest. �It will be necessary to make the
+_cortege_ which accompanies the pretended baron resemble as much as
+possible the little party that would be likely to attend Monsieur
+d�Escorval. Mademoiselle Lacheneur will accompany you; Maurice also.
+People know that I would not leave the baron, who is my friend; my
+priestly robe would attract attention; one of you must assume it. God
+will forgive this deception on account of its worthy motive.�
+
+It was now necessary to procure the litter; and the officers were
+trying to decide where they should go to obtain it, when Corporal Bavois
+interrupted them.
+
+�Give yourselves no uneasiness,� he remarked; �I know an inn not far
+from here where I can procure one.�
+
+He departed on the run, and five minutes later reappeared with a small
+litter, a thin mattress, and a coverlid. He had thought of everything.
+
+The wounded man was lifted carefully and placed upon the mattress.
+
+A long and difficult operation which, in spite of extreme caution, drew
+many terrible groans from the baron.
+
+When all was ready, each officer took an end of the litter, and the
+little procession, headed by the abbe, started on its way. They were
+obliged to proceed slowly on account of the suffering which the least
+jolting inflicted upon the baron. Still they made some progress, and by
+daybreak they were about half way to Poignot�s house.
+
+It was then that they met some peasants going to their daily toil. Both
+men and women paused to look at them, and when the little _cortege_ had
+passed they still stood gazing curiously after these people who were
+apparently carrying a dead body.
+
+The priest did not seem to trouble himself in regard to these
+encounters; at least, he made no attempt to avoid them.
+
+But he did seem anxious and cautious when, after a three hours� march,
+they came in sight of Poignot�s cottage.
+
+Fortunately there was a little grove not far from the house. The abbe
+made the party enter it, recommending the strictest prudence, while
+he went on in advance to confer with this man, upon whose decision the
+safety of the whole party depended.
+
+As the priest approached the house, a small, thin man, with gray hair
+and a sunburned face emerged from the stable.
+
+It was Father Poignot.
+
+�What! is this you, Monsieur le Cure!� he exclaimed, delightedly.
+�Heavens! how pleased my wife will be. We have a great favor to ask of
+you----�
+
+And then, without giving the abbe an opportunity to open his lips, he
+began to tell him his perplexities. The night of the revolt he had given
+shelter to a poor man who had received an ugly sword-thrust. Neither his
+wife nor himself knew how to dress the wound, and he dared not call in a
+physician.
+
+�And this wounded man,� he added, �is Jean Lacheneur, the son of my
+former employer.� A terrible anxiety seized the priest�s heart.
+
+Would this man, who had already given an asylum to one wounded
+conspirator, consent to receive another?
+
+The abbe�s voice trembled as he made known his petition.
+
+The farmer turned very pale and shook his head gravely, while the priest
+was speaking. When the abbe had finished:
+
+�Do you know, sir,� he asked, coldly, �that I incur a great risk by
+converting my house into a hospital for these rebels?�
+
+The abbe dared not answer.
+
+�They told me,� Father Poignot continued, �that I was a coward, because
+_I_ would not take part in the revolt. Such was not my opinion. Now I
+choose to shelter these wounded men--I shelter them. In my opinion, it
+requires quite as much courage as it does to go and fight.�
+
+�Ah! you are a brave man!� cried the abbe.
+
+�I know that very well! Bring Monsieur d�Escorval. There is no one here
+but my wife and boys--no one will betray him!�
+
+A half hour later the baron was lying in a small loft, where Jean
+Lacheneur was already installed.
+
+From the window, Abbe Midon and Mme. d�Escorval watched the little
+_cortege_, organized for the purpose of deceiving the Duc de Sairmeuse�s
+spies, as it moved rapidly away.
+
+Corporal Bavois, with his head bound up with bloodstained linen, had
+taken the baron�s place upon the litter.
+
+This was one of the troubled epochs in history that try men�s souls.
+There is no chance for hypocrisy; each man stands revealed in his
+grandeur, or in his pettiness of soul.
+
+Certainly much cowardice was displayed during the early days of the
+second Restoration; but many deeds of sublime courage and devotion were
+performed.
+
+These officers who befriended Mme. d�Escorval and Maurice--who lent
+their aid to the abbe--knew the baron only by name and reputation.
+
+It was sufficient for them to know that he was the friend of their
+former ruler--the man whom they had made their idol, and they rejoiced
+with all their hearts when they saw M. d�Escorval reposing under Father
+Poignot�s roof in comparative security.
+
+After this, their task, which consisted in misleading the government
+emissaries, seemed to them mere child�s play.
+
+But all these precautions were unnecessary. Public sentiment had
+declared itself in an unmistakable manner, and it was evident that
+Lacheneur�s hopes had not been without some foundation.
+
+The police discovered nothing, not so much as a single detail of the
+escape. They did not even hear of the little party that had travelled
+nearly three leagues in the full light of day, bearing a wounded man
+upon a litter.
+
+Among the two thousand peasants who believed that this wounded man was
+Baron d�Escorval, there was not one who turned informer or let drop an
+indiscreet word.
+
+But on approaching the frontier, which they knew to be strictly guarded,
+the fugitives became even more cautious.
+
+They waited until nightfall before presenting themselves at a lonely
+inn, where they hoped to procure a guide to lead them through the
+defiles of the mountains.
+
+Frightful news awaited them there. The innkeeper informed them of the
+bloody massacre at Montaignac.
+
+With tears rolling down his cheeks, he related the details of the
+execution, which he had heard from an eyewitness.
+
+Fortunately, or unfortunately, he knew nothing of M. d�Escorval�s flight
+or of M. Lacheneur�s arrest.
+
+But he was well acquainted with Chanlouineau, and he was inconsolable
+over the death of that �handsome young fellow, the best farmer in the
+country.�
+
+The officers, who had left the litter a short distance from the inn,
+decided that they could confide at least a part of their secret to this
+man.
+
+�We are carrying one of our wounded comrades,� they said to him. �Can
+you guide us across the frontier to-night?�
+
+The innkeeper replied that he would do so very willingly, that he would
+promise to take them safely past the military posts; but that he would
+not think of going upon the mountain before the moon rose.
+
+By midnight the fugitives were _en route_; by daybreak they set foot on
+Piedmont territory.
+
+They had dismissed their guide some time before. They now proceeded to
+break the litter in pieces; and handful by handful they cast the wool of
+the mattress to the wind.
+
+�Our task is accomplished,� the officer said to Maurice. �We will now
+return to France. May God protect you! Farewell!�
+
+It was with tears in his eyes that Maurice saw these brave men, who had
+just saved his father�s life, depart. Now he was the sole protector of
+Marie-Anne, who, pale and overcome with fatigue and emotion, trembled on
+his arm.
+
+But no--Corporal Bavois still lingered by his side.
+
+�And you, my friend,� he asked, sadly, �what are you going to do?�
+
+�Follow you,� replied the old soldier. �I have a right to a home with
+you; that was agreed between your father and myself! So do not hurry,
+the young lady does not seem well, and I see the village only a short
+distance away.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+Essentially a woman in grace and beauty, as well as in devotion and
+tenderness, Marie-Anne was capable of a virile bravery. Her energy and
+her coolness during those trying days had been the admiration and the
+astonishment of all around her.
+
+But human endurance has its limits. Always after excessive efforts comes
+a moment when the shrinking flesh fails the firmest will.
+
+When Marie-Anne tried to begin her journey anew, she found that her
+strength was exhausted; her swollen feet would no longer sustain her,
+her limbs sank under her, her head whirled, and an intense freezing
+coldness crept over her heart.
+
+Maurice and the old soldier were obliged to support her, almost carry
+her. Fortunately they were not far from the village, whose church-tower
+they had discerned through the gray mists of morning.
+
+Soon the fugitives could distinguish the houses on the outskirts of the
+town. The corporal suddenly stopped short with an oath.
+
+�_Mille tonnerres_!� he exclaimed; �and my uniform! To enter the village
+in this rig would excite suspicion at once; before we had a chance to
+sit down, the Piedmontese gendarmes would arrest us.�
+
+He reflected for a moment, twirling his mustache furiously; then, in a
+tone that would have made a passerby tremble, he said:
+
+�All things are fair in love and war. The next peasant who passes--�
+
+�But I have money,� interrupted Maurice, unbuckling a belt filled with
+gold, which he had put on under his clothing on the night of the revolt.
+
+�Eh! we are fortunate!� cried Bavois. �Give me some, and I will
+soon find some shop in the suburbs where I can purchase a change of
+clothing.� He departed; but it was not long before he reappeared,
+transformed by a peasant�s costume, which fitted him perfectly. His
+small, thin face was almost hidden beneath an immense broad-brimmed hat.
+
+�Now, steady, forward, march!� he said to Maurice and Marie-Anne, who
+scarcely recognized him in this disguise.
+
+The town, which they soon reached, was called Saliente. They read the
+name upon a guide-post.
+
+The fourth house after entering the place was a hostelry, the
+Traveller�s Rest. They entered it, and ordered the hostess to take the
+young lady to a room and to assist her in disrobing.
+
+The order was obeyed, and Maurice and the corporal went into the
+dining-room and ordered something to eat.
+
+The desired refreshments were served, but the glances cast upon the
+guests were by no means friendly. It was evident that they were regarded
+with suspicion.
+
+A large man, who was apparently the proprietor of the house, hovered
+around them, and at last embraced a favorable opportunity to ask their
+names.
+
+�My name is Dubois,� replied Maurice, without the slightest hesitation.
+�I am travelling on business, and this man here is my farmer.�
+
+These replies seemed to reassure the host a little.
+
+�And what is your business?� he inquired.
+
+�I came into this land of inquisitive people to buy mules,� laughed
+Maurice, striking his belt of money.
+
+On hearing the jingle of the coin the man lifted his cap deferentially.
+Raising mules was the chief industry of the country. This bourgeois was
+very young, but he had a well-filled purse, and that was enough.
+
+�You will excuse me,� resumed the host, in quite a different tone. �You
+see, we are obliged to be very careful. There has been some trouble in
+Montaignac.�
+
+The imminence of the peril and the responsibility devolving upon
+him, gave Maurice an assurance unusual to him; and it was in the most
+careless, off-hand manner possible that he concocted a quite plausible
+story to explain his early arrival on foot accompanied by a sick wife.
+He congratulated himself upon his address, but the old corporal was far
+from satisfied.
+
+�We are too near the frontier to bivouac here,� he grumbled. �As soon as
+the young lady is on her feet again we must hurry on.�
+
+He believed, and Maurice hoped, that twenty-four hours of rest would
+restore Marie-Anne.
+
+They were mistaken. The very springs of life in her existence seemed to
+have been drained dry. She did not appear to suffer, but she remained in
+a death-like torpor, from which nothing could arouse her. They spoke to
+her but she made no response. Did she hear? did she comprehend? It was
+extremely doubtful.
+
+By rare good fortune the mother of the proprietor proved to be a
+good, kind-hearted old woman, who would not leave the bedside of
+Marie-Anne--of Mme. Dubois, as she was called at the Traveller�s Rest.
+
+It was not until the evening of the third day that they heard Marie-Anne
+utter a word.
+
+�Poor girl!� she sighed; �poor, wretched girl!�
+
+It was of herself that she spoke.
+
+By a phenomenon not very unusual after a crisis in which reason has been
+temporarily obscured, it seemed to her that it was someone else who had
+been the victim of all the misfortunes, whose recollections gradually
+returned to her like the memory of a painful dream.
+
+What strange and terrible events had taken place since that August
+Sabbath, when, on leaving the church with her father, she heard of the
+arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+And that was only eight months ago.
+
+What a difference between those days when she lived happy and envied in
+that beautiful Chateau de Sairmeuse, of which she believed herself the
+mistress, and at the present time, when she found herself lying in the
+comfortless room of a miserable country inn, attended by an old woman
+whom she did not know, and with no other protection than that of an old
+soldier--a deserter, whose life was in constant danger--and that of her
+proscribed lover.
+
+From this total wreck of her cherished ambitions, of her hopes, of her
+fortune, of her happiness, and of her future, she had not even saved her
+honor.
+
+But was she alone responsible? Who had imposed upon her the odious role
+which she had played with Maurice, Martial, and Chanlouineau?
+
+As this last name darted through her mind, the scene in the prison-cell
+rose suddenly and vividly before her.
+
+Chanlouineau had given her a letter, saying as he did so:
+
+�You will read this when I am no more.�
+
+She might read it now that he had fallen beneath the bullets of the
+soldiery. But what had become of it? From the moment that he gave it to
+her until now she had not once thought of it.
+
+She raised herself in bed, and in an imperious voice:
+
+�My dress,� she said to the old nurse, seated beside her; �give me my
+dress.�
+
+The woman obeyed; with an eager hand Marie-Anne examined the pocket.
+
+She uttered an exclamation of joy on finding the letter there.
+
+She opened it, read it slowly twice, then, sinking back on her pillows,
+she burst into tears.
+
+Maurice anxiously approached her.
+
+�What is the matter?� he inquired anxiously.
+
+She handed him the letter, saying: �Read.�
+
+Chanlouineau was only a poor peasant. His entire education had been
+derived from an old country pedagogue, whose school he attended for
+three winters, and who troubled himself much less about the progress of
+his students than about the size of the books which they carried to and
+from the school.
+
+This letter, which was written upon the commonest kind of paper, was
+sealed with a huge wafer, as large as a two-sou piece, which he had
+purchased from a grocer in Sairmeuse.
+
+The chirography was labored, heavy and trembling; it betrayed the stiff
+hand of a man more accustomed to guiding the plough than the pen.
+
+The lines zigzagged toward the top or toward the bottom of the page, and
+faults of orthography were everywhere apparent.
+
+But if the writing was that of a vulgar peasant, the thoughts it
+expressed were worthy of the noblest, the proudest in the land.
+
+This was the letter which Chanlouineau had written, probably on the eve
+of the insurrection:
+
+
+�Marie-Anne--The outbreak is at hand. Whether it succeeds, or whether it
+fails, I shall die. That was decided on the day when I learned that you
+could marry none other than Maurice d�Escorval.
+
+�But the conspiracy will not succeed; and I understand your father well
+enough to know that he will not survive its defeat. And if Maurice and
+your brother should both be killed, what would become of you? Oh, my
+God, would you not be reduced to beggary?
+
+�The thought has haunted me continually. I have reflected, and this is
+my last will:
+
+�I give and bequeath to you all my property, all that I possess:
+
+�My house, the Borderie, with the gardens and vineyards pertaining
+thereto, the woodland and the pastures of Berarde, and five lots of land
+at Valrollier.
+
+�You will find an inventory of this property, and of my other
+possessions which I devise to you, deposited with the lawyer at
+Sairmeuse.
+
+�You can accept this bequest without fear; for, having no parents, my
+control over my property is absolute.
+
+�If you do not wish to remain in France, this property will sell for at
+least forty thousand francs.
+
+�But it would, it seems to me, be better for you to remain in your own
+country. The house on the Borderie is comfortable and convenient, since
+I have had it divided into three rooms and thoroughly repaired.
+
+�Upstairs is a room that has been fitted up by the best upholsterer in
+Montaignac. I intended it for you. Beneath the hearth-stone in this room
+you will find a box containing three hundred and twenty-seven louis d�or
+and one hundred and forty-six livres.
+
+�If you refuse this gift, it will be because you scorn me even after I
+am dead. Accept it, if not for your own sake, for the sake of--I dare
+not write it; but you will understand my meaning only too well.
+
+�If Maurice is not killed, and I shall try my best to stand between him
+and danger, he will marry you. Then you will, perhaps, be obliged to ask
+his consent in order to accept my gift. I hope that he will not refuse
+it. One is not jealous of the dead!
+
+�Besides, he knows well that you have scarcely vouchsafed a glance to
+the poor peasant who has loved you so much.
+
+�Do not be offended at anything I have said, I am in such agony that I
+cannot weigh my words.
+
+�Adieu, adieu, Marie-Anne.
+
+�Chanlouineau.�
+
+
+Maurice also read twice, before handing it back, this letter whose every
+word palpitated with sublime passion.
+
+He was silent for a moment, then, in a husky voice, he said:
+
+�You cannot refuse; it would be wrong.�
+
+His emotion was so great that he could not conceal it, and he left the
+room.
+
+He was overwhelmed by the grandeur of soul exhibited by this peasant,
+who, after saving the life of his successful rival at the Croix d�Arcy,
+had wrested Baron d�Escorval from the hands of his executioners, and
+who had never allowed a complaint nor a reproach to escape his lips, and
+whose protection over the woman he adored extended even from beyond the
+grave.
+
+In comparison with this obscure hero, Maurice felt himself
+insignificant, mediocre, unworthy.
+
+Good God! what if this comparison should arise in Marie-Anne�s mind as
+well? How could he compete with the memory of such nobility of soul and
+heroic self-sacrifice?
+
+Chanlouineau was mistaken; one, may, perhaps, be jealous of the dead!
+
+But Maurice took good care to conceal this poignant anxiety and these
+sorrowful thoughts, and during the days that followed, he presented
+himself in Marie-Anne�s room with a calm, even cheerful face.
+
+For she, unfortunately, was not restored to health. She had recovered
+the full possession of her mental faculties, but her strength had not
+yet returned. She was still unable to sit up; and Maurice was forced to
+relinquish all thought of quitting Saliente, though he felt the earth
+burn beneath his feet.
+
+This persistent weakness began to astonish the old nurse. Her faith in
+herbs, gathered by the light of the moon, was considerably shaken.
+
+Honest Bavois was the first to suggest the idea of consulting a
+physician whom he had found in this land of savages.
+
+Yes; he had found a really skilful physician in the neighborhood, a
+man of superior ability. Attached at one time to the beautiful court
+of Prince Eugene, he had been obliged to flee from Milan, and had taken
+refuge in this secluded spot.
+
+This physician was summoned, and promptly made his appearance. He was
+one of those men whose age it is impossible to determine. His past,
+whatever it might have been, had wrought deep furrows on his brow, and
+his glance was as keen and piercing as his lancet.
+
+After visiting the sick-room, he drew Maurice aside.
+
+�Is this young lady really your wife, Monsieur--Dubois?�
+
+He hesitated so strangely over this name, Dubois, that Maurice felt his
+face crimson to the roots of his hair.
+
+�I do not understand your question,� he retorted, angrily.
+
+�I beg your pardon, of course, but you seem very young for a married
+man, and your hands are too soft to belong to a farmer. And when I spoke
+to this young lady of her husband, she blushed scarlet. The man who
+accompanies you has terrible mustaches for a farmer. Besides, you
+must remember that there have been troubles across the frontier at
+Montaignac.�
+
+From crimson Maurice had turned white. He felt that he was
+discovered--that he was in this man�s power.
+
+What should he do?
+
+What good would denial do?
+
+He reflected that confession is sometimes the height of prudence, and
+that extreme confidence often meets with sympathy and protection; so, in
+a voice trembling with anxiety, he said:
+
+�You are not mistaken, Monsieur. My friend and myself both are
+fugitives, undoubtedly condemned to death in France at this moment.�
+
+And without giving the doctor time to respond, he narrated the
+terrible events that had happened at Sairmeuse, and the history of his
+unfortunate love-affair.
+
+He omitted nothing. He neither concealed his own name nor that of
+Marie-Anne.
+
+When his recital was completed, the physician pressed his hand.
+
+�It is just as I supposed,� said he. �Believe me, Monsieur--Dubois, you
+must not tarry here. What I have discovered others will discover. And
+above all, do not warn the hotel-keeper of your departure. He has not
+been deceived by your explanation. Self-interest alone has kept his
+mouth closed. He has seen your money, and so long as you spend it at his
+house he will hold his tongue; but if he discovers that you are going
+away, he will probably betray you.�
+
+�Ah! sir, but how is it possible for us to leave this place?�
+
+�In two days the young lady will be on her feet again,� interrupted the
+physician. �And take my advice. At the next village, stop and give your
+name to Mademoiselle Lacheneur.�
+
+�Ah! sir,� Maurice exclaimed; �have you considered the advice you offer
+me? How can I, a proscribed man--a man condemned to death perhaps--how
+can I obtain the necessary papers?�
+
+The physician shook his head.
+
+�Excuse me, you are no longer in France, Monsieur d�Escorval, you are in
+Piedmont.�
+
+�Another difficulty!�
+
+�No, because in this country, people marry, or at least they can marry,
+without all the formalities that cause you so much anxiety.�
+
+�Is it possible?� Maurice exclaimed.
+
+�Yes, if you can find a priest who will consent to your union, inscribe
+your name upon his parish register and give you a certificate, you will
+be so indissolubly united, Mademoiselle Lacheneur and you, that the
+court of Rome would never grant you a divorce.�
+
+To suspect the truth of these affirmations was difficult, and yet
+Maurice doubted still.
+
+�So, sir,� he said, hesitatingly, �in case I was able to find a
+priest----�
+
+The physician was silent. One might have supposed he was blaming himself
+for meddling with matters that did not concern him.
+
+Then, almost brusquely, he said:
+
+�Listen to me attentively, Monsieur d�Escorval. I am about to take my
+leave, but before I go, I shall take occasion to recommend a good
+deal of exercise for the sick lady--I will do this before your host.
+Consequently, day after to-morrow, Wednesday, you will hire mules, and
+you, Mademoiselle Lacheneur and your old friend, the soldier, will
+leave the hotel as if going on a pleasure excursion. You will push on
+to Vigano, three leagues from here, where I live. I will take you to a
+priest, one of my friends; and he, upon my recommendation, will perform
+the marriage ceremony. Now reflect, shall I expect you on Wednesday?�
+
+�Oh, yes, yes, Monsieur. How can I ever thank you?�
+
+�By not thanking me at all. See, here is the innkeeper; you are Monsieur
+Dubois, again.�
+
+Maurice was intoxicated with joy. He understood the irregularity of
+such a marriage, but he knew it would reassure Marie-Anne�s troubled
+conscience. Poor girl! she was suffering an agony of remorse. It was
+that which was killing her.
+
+He did not speak to her on the subject, however, fearing something might
+occur to interfere with the project.
+
+But the old physician had not given his word lightly, and everything
+took place as he had promised.
+
+The priest at Vigano blessed the marriage of Maurice d�Escorval and of
+Marie-Anne Lacheneur, and after inscribing their names upon the church
+register, he gave them a certificate, upon which the physician and
+Corporal Bavois figured as witnesses.
+
+That same evening the mules were sent back to Saliente, and the
+fugitives resumed their journey.
+
+Abbe Midon had counselled them to reach Turin as quickly as possible.
+
+�It is a large city,� he said; �you will be lost in the crowd. I have
+more than one friend there, whose name and address are upon this paper.
+Go to them, and in that way I will try to send you news of your father.�
+
+So it was toward Turin that Maurice, Marie-Anne, and Corporal Bavois
+directed their steps.
+
+But their progress was very slow, for they were obliged to avoid
+frequented roads, and renounce the ordinary modes of transportation.
+
+The fatigue of travel, instead of exhausting Marie-Anne, seemed to
+revive her. After five or six days the color came back to her cheek and
+her strength returned.
+
+�Fate seems to have relaxed her rigor,� said Maurice, one day. �Who
+knows what compensations the future may have in store for us!�
+
+No, fate had not taken pity upon them; it was only a short respite
+granted by destiny. One lovely April morning the fugitives stopped for
+breakfast at an inn on the outskirts of a large city.
+
+Maurice having finished his repast was just leaving the table to settle
+with the hostess, when a despairing cry arrested him.
+
+Marie-Anne, deadly pale, and with eyes staring wildly at a paper which
+she held in her hand, exclaimed in frenzied tones:
+
+�Here! Maurice! Look!�
+
+It was a French journal about a fortnight old, which had probably been
+left there by some traveller.
+
+Maurice seized it and read:
+
+
+�Yesterday, Lacheneur, the leader of the revolt in Montaignac, was
+executed. The miserable mischief-maker exhibited upon the scaffold the
+audacity for which he has always been famous.�
+
+
+�My father has been put to death!� cried Marie-Anne, �and I--his
+daughter--was not there to receive his last farewell!�
+
+She rose, and in an imperious voice:
+
+�I will go no farther,� she said; �we must turn back now without losing
+an instant. I wish to return to France.�
+
+To return to France was to expose themselves to frightful peril. What
+good would it do? Was not the misfortune irreparable?
+
+So Corporal Bavois suggested, very timidly. The old soldier trembled at
+the thought that they might suspect him of being afraid.
+
+But Maurice would not listen.
+
+He shuddered. It seemed to him that Baron d�Escorval must have been
+discovered and arrested at the same time that Lacheneur was captured.
+
+�Yes, let us start at once on our return!� he exclaimed.
+
+They immediately procured a carriage to convey them to the frontier. One
+important question, however, remained to be decided. Should Maurice and
+Marie-Anne make their marriage public? She wished to do so, but Maurice
+entreated her, with tears in his eyes, to conceal it.
+
+�Our marriage certificate will not silence the evil disposed,� said he.
+�Let us keep our secret for the present. We shall doubtless remain in
+France only a few days.�
+
+Unfortunately, Marie-Anne yielded.
+
+�Since you wish it,� said she, �I will obey you. No one shall know it.�
+
+The next day, which was the 14th of April, the fugitives at nightfall
+reached Father Poignot�s house.
+
+Maurice and Corporal Bavois were disguised as peasants.
+
+The old soldier had made one sacrifice that drew tears from his eyes; he
+had shaved off his mustache.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+When Abbe Midon and Martial de Sairmeuse held their conference, to
+discuss and to decide upon the arrangements for the Baron d�Escorval�s
+escape, a difficulty presented itself which threatened to break off the
+negotiation.
+
+�Return my letter,� said Martial, �and I will save the baron.�
+
+�Save the baron,� replied the abbe, �and your letter shall be returned.�
+
+But Martial�s was one of those natures which become exasperated by the
+least shadow of suspicion.
+
+The idea that anyone should suppose him influenced by threats, when in
+reality, he had yielded only to Marie-Anne�s tears, angered him beyond
+endurance.
+
+�These are my last words, Monsieur,� he said, emphatically. �Restore
+to me, now, this instant, the letter which was obtained from me by
+Chanlouineau�s ruse, and I swear to you, by the honor of my name, that
+all which it is possible for any human being to do to save the baron, I
+will do. If you distrust my word, good-evening.�
+
+The situation was desperate, the danger imminent, the time limited;
+Martial�s tone betrayed an inflexible determination.
+
+The abbe could not hesitate. He drew the letter from his pocket and
+handing it to Martial:
+
+�Here it is, Monsieur,� he said, solemnly, �remember that you have
+pledged the honor of your name.�
+
+�I will remember it, Monsieur le Cure. Go and obtain the ropes.�
+
+The abbe�s sorrow and amazement were intense, when, after the baron�s
+terrible fall, Maurice announced that the cord had been cut. And yet he
+could not make up his mind that Martial was guilty of the execrable act.
+It betrayed a depth of duplicity and hypocrisy which is rarely found
+in men under twenty-five years of age. But no one suspected his secret
+thoughts. It was with the most unalterable _sang-froid_ that he dressed
+the baron�s wounds and made arrangements for the flight. Not until he
+saw M. d�Escorval installed in Poignot�s house did he breathe freely.
+
+The fact that the baron had been able to endure the journey, proved
+that in this poor maimed body remained a power of vitality for which the
+priest had not dared to hope.
+
+Some way must now be discovered to procure the surgical instruments and
+the remedies which the condition of the wounded man demanded.
+
+But where and how could he procure them?
+
+The police kept a close watch over the physicians and druggists in
+Montaignac, in the hope of discovering the wounded conspirators through
+them.
+
+But the cure, who had been for ten years physician and surgeon for the
+poor of his parish, had an almost complete set of surgical instruments
+and a well-filled medicine-chest.
+
+�This evening,� said he, �I will obtain what is needful.�
+
+When night came, he put on a long blue blouse, shaded his face by an
+immense slouch hat, and directed his steps toward Sairmeuse.
+
+Not a light was visible through the windows of the presbytery; Bibiane,
+the old housekeeper, must have gone out to gossip with some of the
+neighbors.
+
+The priest effected an entrance into the house, which had once been
+his, by forcing the lock of the door opening on the garden; he found the
+requisite articles, and retired without having been discovered.
+
+That night the abbe hazarded a cruel but indispensable operation. His
+heart trembled, but not the hand that held the knife, although he had
+never before attempted so difficult a task.
+
+�It is not upon my weak powers that I rely: I have placed my trust in
+One who is on High.�
+
+His faith was rewarded. Three days later the wounded man, after quite a
+comfortable night, seemed to regain consciousness.
+
+His first glance was for his devoted wife, who was seated by his
+bedside; his first word was for his son.
+
+�Maurice?� he asked.
+
+�Is in safety,� replied the abbe. �He must be on the way to Turin.�
+
+M. d�Escorval�s lips moved as if he were murmuring a prayer; then, in a
+feeble voice:
+
+�We owe you a debt of gratitude which we can never pay,� he murmured,
+�for I think I shall pull through.�
+
+He did �pull through,� but not without terrible suffering, not without
+difficulties that made those around him tremble with anxiety. Jean
+Lacheneur, more fortunate, was on his feet by the end of the week.
+
+Forty days had passed, when one evening--it was the 17th of April--while
+the abbe was reading a newspaper to the baron, the door gently opened
+and one of the Poignot boys put in his head, then quickly withdrew it.
+
+The priest finished the paragraph, laid down the paper, and quietly went
+out.
+
+�What is it?� he inquired of the young man.
+
+�Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur Maurice, Mademoiselle Lacheneur and the old
+corporal have just arrived; they wish to come up.�
+
+In three bounds the abbe descended the narrow staircase.
+
+�Unfortunate creatures!� he exclaimed, addressing the three imprudent
+travellers, �what has induced you to return here?�
+
+Then turning to Maurice:
+
+�Is it not enough that _for_ you, and _through_ you, your father has
+nearly died? Are you afraid he will not be recaptured, that you return
+here to set the enemies upon his track? Depart!�
+
+The poor boy, quite overwhelmed, faltered his excuse. Uncertainty seemed
+to him worse than death; he had heard of M. Lacheneur�s execution; he
+had not reflected, he would go at once; he asked only to see his father
+and to embrace his mother.
+
+The priest was inflexible.
+
+�The slightest emotion might kill your father,� he declared; �and to
+tell your mother of your return, and of the dangers to which you have
+foolishly exposed yourself, would cause her untold tortures. Go at once.
+Cross the frontier again this very night.�
+
+Jean Lacheneur, who had witnessed this scene, now approached.
+
+�It is time for me to depart,� said he, �and I entreat you to care for
+my sister, the place for her is here, not upon the highways.�
+
+The abbe deliberated for a moment, then he said, brusquely:
+
+�So be it; but go at once; your name is not upon the proscribed list.
+You will not be pursued.�
+
+Thus, suddenly separated from his wife, Maurice wished to confer with
+her, to give her some parting advice; but the abbe did not allow him an
+opportunity.
+
+�Go, go at once,� he insisted. �Farewell!�
+
+The good abbe was too hasty.
+
+Just when Maurice stood sorely in need of wise counsel, he was thus
+delivered over to the influence of Jean Lacheneur�s furious hatred. As
+soon as they were outside:
+
+�This,� exclaimed Jean, �is the work of the Sairmeuse and the Marquis
+de Courtornieu! I do not even know where they have thrown the body of
+my murdered parent; you cannot even embrace the father who has been
+traitorously assassinated by them!�
+
+He laughed a harsh, discordant, terrible laugh, and continued:
+
+�And yet, if we ascended that hill, we could see the Chateau de
+Sairmeuse in the distance, brightly illuminated. They are celebrating
+the marriage of Martial de Sairmeuse and Blanche de Courtornieu. _We_
+are homeless wanderers without friends, and without a shelter for our
+heads: _they_ are feasting and making merry.�
+
+Less than this would have sufficed to rekindle the wrath of Maurice. He
+forgot everything in saying to himself that to disturb this fete by his
+appearance would be a vengeance worthy of him.
+
+�I will go and challenge Martial now, on the instant, in the presence of
+the revellers,� he exclaimed.
+
+But Jean interrupted him.
+
+�No, not that! They are cowards; they would arrest you. Write; I will be
+the bearer of the letter.�
+
+Corporal Bavois heard them; but he did not oppose their folly. He
+thought it all perfectly natural, under the circumstances, and esteemed
+them the more for their rashness.
+
+Forgetful of prudence they entered the first shop, and the challenge was
+written and confided to Jean Lacheneur.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+To disturb the merrymaking at the Chateau de Sairmeuse; to change the
+joy of the bridal-day into sadness; to cast a gloom over the nuptials of
+Martial and Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu.
+
+This, in truth, was all that Jean Lacheneur hoped to do.
+
+As for believing that Martial, triumphant and happy, would accept the
+challenge of Maurice, a miserable outlaw, he did not believe it.
+
+While awaiting Martial in the vestibule of the chateau, he armed himself
+against the scorn and sneers which he would probably receive from this
+haughty nobleman whom he had come to insult.
+
+But Martial�s kindly greeting had disconcerted him a little.
+
+But he was reassured when he saw the terrible effect produced upon the
+marquis by the insulting letter.
+
+�We have cut him to the quick,� he thought.
+
+When Martial seized him by the arm and led him upstairs, he made no
+resistance.
+
+While they traversed the brightly lighted drawing-rooms and passed
+through the crowd of astonished guests, Jean thought neither of his
+heavy shoes nor of his peasant dress.
+
+Breathless with anxiety, he wondered what was to come.
+
+He soon knew.
+
+Leaning against the gilded door-post, he witnessed the terrible scene in
+the little salon.
+
+He saw Martial de Sairmeuse, frantic with passion, cast into the face of
+his father-in-law Maurice d�Escorval�s letter.
+
+One might have supposed that all this did not affect him in the least,
+he stood so cold and unmoved, with compressed lips and downcast eyes;
+but appearances were deceitful. His heart throbbed with wild exultation;
+and if he cast down his eyes, it was only to conceal the joy that
+sparkled there.
+
+He had not hoped for so prompt and so terrible a revenge.
+
+Nor was this all.
+
+After brutally repulsing Blanche, his newly wedded wife, who attempted
+to detain him, Martial again seized Jean Lacheneur�s arm.
+
+�Now,� said he, �follow me!�
+
+Jean followed him still without a word.
+
+They again crossed the grand hall, but instead of going to the vestibule
+Martial took a candle that was burning upon a side table, and opened a
+little door leading to the private staircase.
+
+�Where are you taking me?� inquired Jean Lacheneur.
+
+Martial, who had already ascended two or three steps, turned.
+
+�Are you afraid?� he asked.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders, and coldly replied:
+
+�If you put it in that way, let us go on.�
+
+They entered the room which Martial had occupied since taking possession
+of the chateau. It was the same room that had once belonged to Jean
+Lacheneur; and nothing had been changed. He recognized the brightly
+flowered curtains, the figures on the carpet, and even an old arm-chair
+where he had read many a novel in secret.
+
+Martial hastened to a small writing-desk, and took from it a paper which
+he slipped into his pocket.
+
+�Now,� said he, �let us go. We must avoid another scene. My father
+and--my wife will be seeking me. I will explain when we are outside.�
+
+They hastily descended the staircase, passed through the gardens, and
+soon reached the long avenue.
+
+Then Jean Lacheneur suddenly paused.
+
+�To come so far for a simple yes or no is, I think, unnecessary,� said
+he. �Have you decided? What answer am I to give Maurice d�Escorval?�
+
+�Nothing! You will take me to him. I must see him and speak with him in
+order to justify myself. Let us proceed!�
+
+But Jean Lacheneur did not move.
+
+�What you ask is impossible!� he replied.
+
+�Why?�
+
+�Because Maurice is pursued. If he is captured, he will be tried and
+undoubtedly condemned to death. He is now in a safe retreat, and I have
+no right to disclose it.�
+
+Maurice�s safe retreat was, in fact, only a neighboring wood, where in
+company with the corporal, he was awaiting Jean�s return.
+
+But Jean could not resist the temptation to make this response, which
+was far more insulting than if he had simply said:
+
+�We fear informers!�
+
+Strange as it may appear to one who knew Martial�s proud and violent
+nature, he did not resent the insult.
+
+�So you distrust me!� he said, sadly.
+
+Jean Lacheneur was silent--another insult.
+
+�But,� insisted Martial, �after what you have just seen and heard you
+can no longer suspect me of having cut the ropes which I carried to the
+baron.�
+
+�No! I am convinced that you are innocent of that atrocious act.�
+
+�You saw how I punished the man who dared to compromise the honor of the
+name of Sairmeuse. And this man is the father of the young girl whom I
+wedded to-day.�
+
+�I have seen all this; but I must still reply: �Impossible.��
+
+Jean was amazed at the patience, we should rather say, the humble
+resignation displayed by Martial de Sairmeuse.
+
+Instead of rebelling against this manifest injustice, Martial drew from
+his pocket the paper which he had just taken from his desk, and handing
+it to Jean:
+
+�Those who have brought upon me the shame of having my word doubted
+shall be punished for it,� he said grimly. �You do not believe in my
+sincerity, Jean. Here is a proof, which I expect you to give to Maurice,
+and which cannot fail to convince even you.�
+
+�What is this proof?�
+
+�The letter written by my hand, in exchange for which my father assisted
+in the baron�s escape. An inexplicable presentiment prevented me from
+burning this compromising letter. To-day, I rejoice that such was the
+case. Take it, and use it as you will.�
+
+Anyone save Jean Lacheneur would have been touched by the generosity
+of soul. But Jean was implacable. His was a nature which nothing can
+disarm, which nothing can mollify; hatred in his heart was a passion
+which, instead of growing weaker with time, increased and became more
+terrible.
+
+He would have sacrificed anything at that moment for the ineffable joy
+of seeing this proud and detested marquis at his feet.
+
+�Very well, I will give it to Maurice,� he responded, coldly.
+
+�It should be a bond of alliance, it seems to me,� said Martial, gently.
+
+Jean Lacheneur made a gesture terrible in its irony and menace.
+
+�A bond of alliance!� he exclaimed. �You are too fast, Monsieur le
+Marquis! Have you forgotten all the blood that flows between us? You did
+not cut the ropes; but who condemned the innocent Baron d�Escorval to
+death? Was it not the Duc de Sairmeuse? An alliance! You have forgotten
+that you and yours sent my father to the scaffold! How have you rewarded
+the man whose heroic honesty gave you back a fortune? By murdering him,
+and by ruining the reputation of his daughter.�
+
+�I offered my name and my fortune to your sister.�
+
+�I would have killed her with my own hand had she accepted your offer.
+Let this prove to you that I do not forget. If any great disgrace ever
+tarnishes the proud name of Sairmeuse, think of Jean Lacheneur. My hand
+will be in it.�
+
+He was so frantic with passion that he forgot his usual caution. By a
+violent effort he recovered his self-possession, and in calmer tones he
+added:
+
+�And if you are so desirous of seeing Maurice, be at the Reche to-morrow
+at mid-day. He will be there.�
+
+Having said this, he turned abruptly aside, sprang over the fence
+skirting the avenue, and disappeared in the darkness.
+
+�Jean,� cried Martial, in almost supplicating tones; �Jean, come
+back--listen to me!�
+
+No response.
+
+A sort of bewilderment had seized the young marquis, and he stood
+motionless and dazed in the middle of the road.
+
+A horse and rider on their way to Montaignac, that nearly ran over him,
+aroused him from his stupor, and the consciousness of his acts, which he
+had lost while reading the letter from Maurice, came back to him.
+
+Now he could judge of his conduct calmly.
+
+Was it indeed he, Martial, the phlegmatic sceptic, the man who boasted
+of his indifference and his insensibility, who had thus forgotten all
+self-control?
+
+Alas, yes. And when Blanche de Courtornieu, now and henceforth the
+Marquise de Sairmeuse, accused Marie-Anne of being the cause of his
+frenzy, she had not been entirely wrong.
+
+Martial, who regarded the opinion of the entire world with disdain,
+was rendered frantic by the thought that Marie-Anne despised him, and
+considered him a traitor and a coward.
+
+It was for her sake, that in his outburst of rage, he resolved upon
+such a startling justification. And if he besought Jean to lead him to
+Maurice d�Escorval, it was because he hoped to find Marie-Anne not far
+off, and to say to her:
+
+�Appearances were against me, but I am innocent; and I have proved it by
+unmasking the real culprit.�
+
+It was to Marie-Anne that he wished this famous letter to be given,
+thinking that she, at least, could not fail to be surprised at his
+generosity.
+
+His expectations had been disappointed; and now he realized what a
+terrible scandal he had created.
+
+�It will be the devil to arrange!� he explained; �but nonsense! it will
+be forgotten in a month. The best way will be to face those gossips at
+once: I will return immediately.�
+
+He said: �I will return,� in the most deliberate manner; but in
+proportion as he neared the chateau, his courage failed him.
+
+The guests must have departed ere this, and Martial concluded that he
+would probably find himself alone with his young wife, his father, and
+the Marquis de Courtornieu. What reproaches, tears, anger and threats he
+would be obliged to encounter.
+
+�No,� he muttered. �I am not such a fool! Let them have a night to calm
+themselves. I will not appear until to-morrow.�
+
+But where should he pass the night? He was in evening dress and
+bareheaded; he began to feel cold. The house belonging to the duke in
+Montaignac would afford him a refuge.
+
+�I shall find a bed, some servants, a fire, and a change of clothing
+there--and to-morrow, a horse to return.�
+
+It was quite a distance to walk; but in his present mood this did not
+displease him.
+
+The servant who came to open the door when he rapped, was speechless
+with astonishment on recognizing him.
+
+�You, Monsieur!� he exclaimed.
+
+�Yes, it is I. Light a good fire in the drawing-room for me, and bring
+me a change of clothing.�
+
+The valet obeyed, and soon Martial found himself alone, stretched upon a
+sofa before the cheerful blaze.
+
+�It would be a good thing to sleep and forget my troubles,� he said to
+himself.
+
+He tried; but it was not until early morning that he fell into a
+feverish slumber.
+
+He awoke about nine o�clock, ordered breakfast, concluded to return to
+Sairmeuse, and he was eating with a good appetite, when suddenly:
+
+�Have a horse saddled instantly!� he exclaimed.
+
+He had just remembered the rendezvous with Maurice. Why should he not go
+there?
+
+He set out at once, and thanks to a spirited horse, he reached the Reche
+at half-past eleven o�clock.
+
+The others had not yet arrived; he fastened his horse to a tree near by,
+and leisurely climbed to the summit of the hill.
+
+This spot had been the site of Lacheneur�s house. The four walls
+remained standing, blackened by fire.
+
+Martial was contemplating the ruins, not without deep emotion, when he
+heard a sharp crackling in the underbrush.
+
+He turned; Maurice, Jean, and Corporal Bavois were approaching.
+
+The old soldier carried under his arm a long and narrow package,
+enveloped in a piece of green serge. It contained the swords which Jean
+Lacheneur had gone to Montaignac during the night to procure from a
+retired officer.
+
+�We are sorry to have kept you waiting,� began Maurice, �but you will
+observe that it is not yet midday. Since we scarcely expected to see
+you----�
+
+�I was too anxious to justify myself not to be here early,� interrupted
+Martial.
+
+Maurice shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
+
+�It is not a question of self-justification, but of fighting,� he said,
+in a tone rude even to insolence.
+
+Insulting as were the words and the gesture that accompanied them,
+Martial never so much as winced.
+
+�Sorrow has rendered you unjust,� said he, gently, �or Monsieur
+Lacheneur here has told you nothing.�
+
+�Jean has told me all.�
+
+�Well, then?�
+
+Martial�s coolness drove Maurice frantic.
+
+�Well,� he replied, with extreme violence, �my hatred is unabated even
+if my scorn is diminished. You have owed me an opportunity to avenge
+myself, Monsieur, ever since the day we met on the square at Sairmeuse
+in the presence of Mademoiselle Lacheneur. You said to me on that
+occasion: �We shall meet again.� Here we stand now face to face. What
+insults must I heap upon you to decide you to fight?�
+
+A flood of crimson dyed Martial�s face. He seized one of the swords
+which Bavois offered him, and assumed an attitude of defence.
+
+�You will have it so,� said he in a husky voice. �The thought of
+Marie-Anne can no longer save you.�
+
+But the blades had scarcely crossed before a cry from Jean and from
+Corporal Bavois arrested the combat.
+
+�The soldiers!� they exclaimed; �let us fly!�
+
+A dozen soldiers were indeed approaching at the top of their speed.
+
+�Ah! I spoke the truth!� exclaimed Maurice. �The coward came, but the
+gendarmes accompanied him.�
+
+He bounded back, and breaking his sword over his knee, he hurled the
+fragments in Martial�s face, saying:
+
+�Here, miserable wretch!�
+
+�Wretch!� repeated Jean and Corporal Bavois, �traitor! coward!�
+
+And they fled, leaving Martial thunderstruck.
+
+He struggled hard to regain his composure. The soldiers were very near;
+he ran to meet them, and addressing the officer in command, he said,
+imperiously:
+
+�Do you know who I am?�
+
+�Yes,� replied the sergeant, respectfully, �you are the son of the Duc
+de Sairmeuse.�
+
+�Very well! I forbid you to follow those men.�
+
+The sergeant hesitated at first; then, in a decided tone, he replied:
+
+�I cannot obey you, sir. I have my orders.�
+
+And addressing his men:
+
+�Forward!� he exclaimed. He was about to set the example, when Martial
+seized him by the arm.
+
+�At least you will not refuse to tell me who sent you here?�
+
+�Who sent us? The colonel, of course, in obedience to orders from the
+_grand prevot_, Monsieur de Courtornieu. He sent the order last
+night. We have been hidden in that grove since daybreak. But release
+me--_tonnerre_! would you have my expedition fail entirely?�
+
+He hurried away, and Martial, staggering like a drunken man, descended
+the slope, and remounted his horse.
+
+But he did not repair to the Chateau de Sairmeuse; he returned to
+Montaignac, and passed the remainder of the afternoon in the solitude of
+his own room.
+
+That evening he sent two letters to Sairmeuse. One to his father, the
+other to his wife.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Terrible as Martial imagined the scandal to be which he had created, his
+conception of it by no means equalled the reality.
+
+Had a thunder-bolt burst beneath that roof, the guests at Sairmeuse
+could not have been more amazed and horrified.
+
+A shudder passed over the assembly when Martial, terrible in his
+passion, flung the crumbled letter full in the face of the Marquis de
+Courtornieu.
+
+And when the marquis sank half-fainting into an arm-chair some young
+ladies of extreme sensibility could not repress a cry of fear.
+
+For twenty seconds after Martial disappeared with Jean Lacheneur, the
+guests stood as motionless as statues, pale, mute, stupefied.
+
+It was Blanche who broke the spell.
+
+While the Marquis de Courtornieu was panting for breath--while the Duc
+de Sairmeuse was trembling and speechless with suppressed anger, the
+young marquise made an heroic attempt to come to the rescue.
+
+With her hand still aching from Martial�s brutal clasp, a heart swelling
+with rage and hatred, and a face whiter than her bridal veil, she had
+strength to restrain her tears and to compel her lips to smile.
+
+�Really this is placing too much importance on a trifling
+misunderstanding which will be explained to-morrow,� she said, almost
+gayly, to those nearest her.
+
+And stepping into the middle of the hall she made a sign to the
+musicians to play a country-dance.
+
+But when the first measures floated through the air, the company, as if
+by unanimous consent, hastened toward the door.
+
+One might have supposed the chateau on fire--the guests did not
+withdraw, they actually fled.
+
+An hour before, the Marquis de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had
+been overwhelmed with the most obsequious homage and adulation.
+
+But now there was not one in that assembly daring enough to take them
+openly by the hand.
+
+Just when they believed themselves all-powerful they were rudely
+precipitated from their lordly eminence. Disgrace and perhaps punishment
+were to be their portion.
+
+Heroic to the last, the bride endeavored to stay the tide of retreating
+guests.
+
+Stationing herself near the door, with her most bewitching smile upon
+her lips, Madame Blanche spared neither flattering words nor entreaties
+in her efforts to reassure the deserters.
+
+Vain attempt! Useless sacrifice! Many ladies were not sorry of an
+opportunity to repay the young Marquise de Sairmeuse for the disdain and
+the caustic words of Blanche de Courtornieu.
+
+Soon all the guests, who had so eagerly presented themselves that
+morning, had disappeared, and there remained only one old gentleman who,
+on account of his gout, had deemed it prudent not to mingle with the
+crowd.
+
+He bowed in passing before the young marquise, and blushing at this
+insult to a woman, he departed as the others had done.
+
+Blanche was now alone. There was no longer any necessity for constraint.
+There were no more curious witnesses to enjoy her sufferings and to make
+comment upon them. With a furious gesture she tore her bridal veil and
+the wreath of orange flowers from her head, and trampled them under
+foot.
+
+A servant was passing through the hall; she stopped him.
+
+�Extinguish the lights everywhere!� she ordered, with an angry stamp
+of her foot as if she had been in her own father�s house, and not at
+Sairmeuse.
+
+He obeyed her, and then, with flashing eyes and dishevelled hair, she
+hastened to the little salon in which the _denouement_ had taken place.
+
+A crowd of servants surrounded the marquis, who was lying like one
+stricken with apoplexy.
+
+�All the blood in his body has flown to his head,� remarked the duke,
+with a shrug of his shoulders.
+
+For the duke was furious with his former friends.
+
+He scarcely knew with whom he was most angry, Martial or the Marquis de
+Courtornieu.
+
+Martial, by this public confession, had certainly imperilled, if he had
+not ruined, their political future.
+
+But, on the other hand, had not the Marquis de Courtornieu represented
+a Sairmeuse as being guilty of an act of treason revolting to any
+honorable heart?
+
+Buried in a large arm-chair, he sat watching, with contracted brows, the
+movements of the servants, when his daughter-in-law entered the room.
+
+She paused before him, and with arms folded tightly across her breast,
+she said, angrily:
+
+�Why did you remain here while I was left alone to endure such
+humiliation? Ah! had I been a man! All our guests have fled,
+Monsieur--all!�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse sprang up.
+
+�Ah, well! what if they have? Let them go to the devil!�
+
+Of the guests that had just left his house there was not one whom the
+duke really regretted--not one whom he regarded as an equal. In giving
+a marriage-feast for his son, he had bidden all the gentry of the
+neighborhood. They had come--very well! They had fled--_bon voyage_!
+
+If the duke cared at all for their desertion, it was only because it
+presaged with terrible eloquence the disgrace that was to come.
+
+Still he tried to deceive himself.
+
+�They will return, Madame; you will see them return, humble and
+repentant! But where can Martial be?�
+
+The lady�s eyes flashed, but she made no reply.
+
+�Did he go away with the son of that rascal, Lacheneur?�
+
+�I believe so.�
+
+�It will not be long before he returns----�
+
+�Who can say?�
+
+M. de Sairmeuse struck the marble mantel heavily with his clinched fist.
+
+�My God!� he exclaimed; �this is an overwhelming misfortune.�
+
+The young wife believed that he was anxious and angry on her account.
+But she was mistaken. He was thinking only of his disappointed ambition.
+
+Whatever he might pretend, the duke secretly confessed his son�s
+superiority and his genius for intrigue, and he was now extremely
+anxious to consult him.
+
+�He has wrought this evil; it is for him to repair it! And he is capable
+of it if he chooses,� he murmured.
+
+Then, aloud, he resumed:
+
+�Martial must be found--he must be found----�
+
+With an angry gesture, Blanche interrupted him.
+
+�You must seek Marie-Anne if you wish to find--my husband.�
+
+The duke was of the same opinion, but he dared not avow it.
+
+�Anger leads you astray, Marquise,� said he.
+
+�I know what I know.�
+
+�Martial will soon make his appearance, believe me. If he went away, he
+will soon return. They shall go for him at once, or I will go for him
+myself----�
+
+He left the room with a muttered oath, and Blanche approached her
+father, who still seemed to be unconscious.
+
+She seized his arm and shook it roughly, saying, in the most peremptory
+tone:
+
+�Father! father!�
+
+This voice, which had so often made the Marquis de Courtornieu tremble,
+was far more efficacious than eau de cologne. He opened one eye the
+least bit in the world, then quickly closed it; but not so quickly that
+his daughter failed to discover it.
+
+�I wish to speak with you,� she said; �get up.�
+
+He dared not disobey, and slowly and with difficulty, he raised himself.
+
+�Ah! how I suffer!� he groaned; �how I suffer!�
+
+His daughter glanced at him scornfully; then, in a tone of bitter irony,
+she remarked:
+
+�Do you think I am in Paradise?�
+
+�Speak,� sighed the marquis. �What do you wish to say?�
+
+The bride turned haughtily to the servants.
+
+�Leave the room!� she said, imperiously.
+
+They obeyed, and, after she had locked the door:
+
+�Let us speak of Martial,� she began.
+
+At the sound of this name, the marquis bounded from his chair with
+clinched fists.
+
+�Ah, the wretch!� he exclaimed.
+
+�Martial is my husband, father.�
+
+�And you!--after what he has done--you dare to defend him?�
+
+�I do not defend him; but I do not wish him to be murdered.�
+
+At that moment the news of Martial�s death would have given the Marquis
+de Courtornieu infinite satisfaction.
+
+�You heard, father,� continued Blanche, �the rendezvous appointed
+to-morrow, at mid-day, on the Reche. I know Martial; he has been
+insulted, and he will go there. Will he encounter a loyal adversary? No.
+He will find a crowd of assassins. You alone can prevent him from being
+assassinated.�
+
+�I! and how?�
+
+�By sending some soldiers to the Reche, with orders to conceal
+themselves in the grove--with orders to arrest these murderers at the
+proper moment.�
+
+The marquis gravely shook his head.
+
+�If I do that,� said he, �Martial is quite capable--�
+
+�Of anything! yes, I know it. But what does it matter to you, since I am
+willing to assume the responsibility?�
+
+M. de Courtornieu vainly tried to penetrate the bride�s real motive.
+
+�The order to Montaignac must be sent at once,� she insisted.
+
+Had she been less excited she would have discerned the gleam of malice
+in her father�s eye. He was thinking that this would afford him an ample
+revenge, since he could bring dishonor upon Martial, who had shown so
+little regard for the honor of others.
+
+�Very well; since you will have it so,� he said, with feigned
+reluctance.
+
+His daughter made haste to bring him ink and pens, and with trembling
+hands he prepared a series of minute instructions for the commander at
+Montaignac.
+
+Blanche herself gave the letter to a servant, with directions to depart
+at once; and it was not until she had seen him set off on a gallop that
+she went to her own apartments--the apartments in which Martial had
+gathered together all that was most beautiful and luxurious.
+
+But this splendor only aggravated the misery of the deserted wife, for
+that she was deserted she did not doubt for a moment. She was sure that
+her husband would not return; she did not expect him.
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse was searching the neighborhood with a party of
+servants, but she knew that it was labor lost; that they would not
+encounter Martial.
+
+Where could he be? Near Marie-Anne most assuredly--and at the thought a
+wild desire to wreak her vengeance on her rival took possession of her
+heart.
+
+Martial, at Montaignac, had ended by going to sleep.
+
+Blanche, when daylight came, exchanged the snowy bridal robes for a
+black dress, and wandered about the garden like a restless spirit.
+
+She spent most of the day shut up in her room, refusing to allow the
+duke, or even her father, to enter.
+
+In the evening, about eight o�clock, they received tidings from Martial.
+
+A servant brought two letters; one, sent by Martial to his father, the
+other, to his wife.
+
+For a moment or more Blanche hesitated to open the one intended for her.
+It would determine her destiny; she was afraid; she broke the seal and
+read:
+
+
+�Madame la marquise--Between you and me all is ended; reconciliation is
+impossible.
+
+�From this moment you are free. I esteem you enough to hope that you
+will respect the name of Sairmeuse, from which I cannot relieve you.
+
+�You will agree with me, I am sure, in thinking a quiet separation
+preferable to the scandal of a divorce suit.
+
+�My lawyer will pay you an allowance befitting the wife of a man whose
+income amounts to three hundred thousand francs.
+
+�Martial de Sairmeuse.�
+
+
+Blanche staggered beneath this terrible blow. She was indeed deserted,
+and deserted, as she supposed, for another.
+
+�Ah!� she exclaimed, �that creature! that creature! I will kill her!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+The twenty-four hours which Blanche had spent in measuring the extent of
+her terrible misfortune, the duke had spent in raving and swearing.
+
+He had not even thought of going to bed.
+
+After his fruitless search for his son he returned to the chateau, and
+began a continuous tramp to and fro in the great hall.
+
+He was almost sinking from weariness when his son�s letter was handed
+him.
+
+It was very brief.
+
+Martial did not vouchsafe any explanation; he did not even mention the
+rupture between his wife and himself.
+
+
+�I cannot return to Sairmeuse,� he wrote, �and yet it is of the utmost
+importance that I should see you.
+
+�You will, I trust, approve my determinations when I explain the reasons
+that have guided me in making them.
+
+�Come to Montaignac, then, the sooner the better. I am waiting for you.�
+
+
+Had he listened to the prompting of his impatience, the duke would
+have started at once. But how could he thus abandon the Marquis de
+Courtornieu, who had accepted his hospitality, and especially Blanche,
+his son�s wife?
+
+He must, at least, see them, speak to them, and warn them of his
+intended departure.
+
+He attempted this in vain. Mme. Blanche had shut herself up in her own
+apartments, and remained deaf to all entreaties for admittance. Her
+father had been put to bed, and the physician who had been summoned to
+attend him, declared the marquis to be at death�s door.
+
+The duke was therefore obliged to resign himself to the prospect of
+another night of suspense, which was almost intolerable to a character
+like his.
+
+�To-morrow, after breakfast, I will find some pretext to escape, without
+telling them I am going to see Martial,� he thought.
+
+He was spared this trouble. The next morning, at about nine o�clock,
+while he was dressing, a servant came to inform him that M. de
+Courtornieu and his daughter were awaiting him in the drawing-room.
+
+Much surprised, he hastened down.
+
+When he entered the room, the marquis, who was seated in an arm-chair,
+rose, leaning heavily upon the shoulder of Aunt Medea.
+
+Mme. Blanche came rapidly forward to meet the duke, as pale as if every
+drop of blood had been drawn from her veins.
+
+�We are going, Monsieur le Duc,� she said, coldly, �and we wish to make
+our adieux.�
+
+�What! you are going? Will you not----�
+
+The young bride interrupted him by a sad gesture, and drawing Martial�s
+letter from her bosom, she handed it to M. de Sairmeuse, saying.
+
+�Will you do me the favor to peruse this, Monsieur?�
+
+The duke glanced over the short epistle, and his astonishment was so
+intense that he could not even find an oath.
+
+�Incomprehensible!� he faltered; �incomprehensible!�
+
+�Incomprehensible, indeed,� repeated the young wife, sadly, but without
+bitterness. �I was married yesterday; to-day I am deserted. It would
+have been generous to have reflected the evening before and not the next
+day. Tell Martial, however, that I forgive him for having destroyed my
+life, for having made me the most miserable of creatures. I also forgive
+him for the supreme insult of speaking to me of his fortune. I trust he
+may be happy. Adieu, Monsieur le Duc, we shall never meet again. Adieu!�
+
+She took her father�s arm, and they were about to retire, when M. de
+Sairmeuse hastily threw himself between them and the door.
+
+�You shall not depart thus!� he exclaimed. �I will not suffer it. Wait,
+at least, until I have seen Martial. Perhaps he is not as culpable as
+you suppose--�
+
+�Enough!� interrupted the marquis; �enough! This is one of those
+outrages which can never be repaired. May your conscience forgive you,
+as I, myself, forgive you. Farewell!�
+
+This was said so perfectly, with such entire harmony of intonation and
+gesture, that M. de Sairmeuse was bewildered.
+
+With an absolutely wonderstruck air he watched the marquis and his
+daughter depart, and they had been gone some moments before he recovered
+himself sufficiently to exclaim:
+
+�Old hypocrite! does he believe me his dupe?�
+
+His dupe! M. de Sairmeuse was so far from being his dupe, that his next
+thought was:
+
+�What is to follow this farce? He says that he pardons us--that means
+that he has some crushing blow in store for us.�
+
+This conviction filled him with disquietude. He really felt unable to
+cope successfully with the perfidious marquis.
+
+�But Martial is a match for him!� he exclaimed. �Yes, I must see Martial
+at once.�
+
+So great was his anxiety that he lent a helping hand in harnessing the
+horses he had ordered, and when the carriage was ready, he announced his
+determination to drive himself.
+
+As he urged the horses furiously on he tried to reflect, but the most
+contradictory ideas seethed in his brain, and he lost all power to
+consider the situation calmly.
+
+He burst into Martial�s room like a tornado. �I think you must certainly
+have gone mad, Marquis,� he exclaimed. �That is the only valid excuse
+you can offer.�
+
+But Martial, who had been expecting this visit, had prepared himself for
+it.
+
+�Never, on the contrary, have I felt more calm and composed in mind,�
+ he replied. �Allow me to ask you one question. Was it you who sent the
+soldiers to the rendezvous which Maurice d�Escorval had appointed?�
+
+�Marquis!�
+
+�Very well! Then it was another act of infamy on the part of the Marquis
+de Courtornieu.�
+
+The duke made no reply. In spite of his faults and his vices,
+this haughty man possessed the characteristic of the old French
+nobility--fidelity to his word and undoubted valor.
+
+He thought it perfectly natural, even necessary, that Martial should
+fight with Maurice; and he thought it a contemptible act to send armed
+soldiers to seize an honest and confiding opponent.
+
+�This is the second time,� pursued Martial, �that this scoundrel has
+attempted to bring dishonor upon our name; and if I desire to convince
+people of the truth of this assertion, I must break off all connection
+with him and his daughter. I have done this. I do not regret it, since I
+married her only out of deference to your wishes, and because it seemed
+necessary for me to marry, and because all women, save one who can never
+be mine, are alike to me.�
+
+Such utterances were not at all calculated to reassure the duke.
+
+�This sentiment is very noble, no doubt,� said he; �but it has none the
+less ruined the political prospects of our house.�
+
+An almost imperceptible smile curved Martial�s lips.
+
+�I believe, on the contrary, that I have saved them,� he replied.
+
+�It is useless for us to attempt to deceive ourselves; this whole affair
+of the insurrection has been abominable, and you have good reason to
+bless the opportunity of freeing yourself from the responsibility of it
+which this quarrel gives you. With a little address, you can throw all
+the odium upon the Marquis de Courtornieu, and keep for yourself only
+the prestige of valuable service rendered.�
+
+The duke�s face brightened.
+
+�Zounds, Marquis!� he exclaimed; �that is a good idea! In the future I
+shall be infinitely less afraid of Courtornieu.�
+
+Martial remained thoughtful.
+
+�It is not the Marquis de Courtornieu whom I fear,� he murmured, �but
+his daughter--my wife.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+One must have lived in the country to know with what inconceivable
+rapidity news flies from mouth to mouth.
+
+Strange as it may seem, the news of the scene at the chateau reached
+Father Poignot�s farm-house that same evening.
+
+It had not been three hours since Maurice, Jean Lacheneur and Bavois
+left the house, promising to re-cross the frontier that same night.
+
+Abbe Midon had decided to say nothing to M. d�Escorval of his son�s
+return, and to conceal Marie-Anne�s presence in the house. The baron�s
+condition was so critical that the merest trifle might turn the scale.
+
+About ten o�clock the baron fell asleep, and the abbe and Mme.
+d�Escorval went downstairs to talk with Marie-Anne. As they were sitting
+there Poignot�s eldest son entered in a state of great excitement.
+
+After supper he had gone with some of his acquaintances to admire
+the splendors of the fete, and he now came rushing back to relate the
+strange events of the evening to his father�s guests.
+
+�It is inconceivable!� murmured the abbe.
+
+He knew but too well, and the others comprehended it likewise, that
+these strange events rendered their situation more perilous than ever.
+
+�I cannot understand how Maurice could commit such an act of folly after
+what I had just said to him. The baron�s most cruel enemy has been his
+own son. We must wait until to-morrow before deciding upon anything.�
+
+The next day they heard of the meeting at the Reche. A peasant who, from
+a distance, had witnessed the preliminaries of the duel which had not
+been fought, was able to give them the fullest details.
+
+He had seen the two adversaries take their places, then the soldiers run
+to the spot, and afterward pursue Maurice, Jean and Bavois.
+
+But he was sure that the soldiers had not overtaken them. He had met
+them five hours afterward, harassed and furious; and the officer in
+charge of the expedition declared their failure to be the fault of the
+Marquis de Sairmeuse, who had detained them.
+
+That same day Father Poignot informed the abbe that the Duc de Sairmeuse
+and the Marquis de Courtornieu were at variance. It was the talk of the
+country. The marquis had returned to his chateau, accompanied by his
+daughter, and the duke had gone to Montaignac.
+
+The abbe�s anxiety on receiving this intelligence was so poignant that
+he could not conceal it from Baron d�Escorval.
+
+�You have heard something, my friend,� said the baron.
+
+�Nothing, absolutely nothing.�
+
+�Some new danger threatens us.�
+
+�None, I swear it.�
+
+The priest�s protestations did not convince the baron.
+
+�Oh, do not deny it!� he exclaimed. �Night before last, when you entered
+my room after I awoke, you were paler than death, and my wife had
+certainly been crying. What does all this mean?�
+
+Usually, when the cure did not wish to reply to the sick man�s
+questions, it was sufficient to tell him that conversation and
+excitement would retard his recovery; but this time the baron was not so
+docile.
+
+�It will be very easy for you to restore my tranquillity,� he said.
+�Confess now, that you are trembling lest they discover my retreat.
+This fear is torturing me also. Very well, swear to me that you will not
+allow them to take me alive, and then my mind will be at rest.�
+
+�I cannot take such an oath as that,� said the cure, turning pale.
+
+�And why?� insisted M. d�Escorval. �If I am recaptured, what will
+happen? They will nurse me, and then, as soon as I can stand upon my
+feet, they will shoot me down. Would it be a crime to save me from
+such suffering? You are my best friend; swear to render me this supreme
+service. Would you have me curse you for saving my life?�
+
+The abbe made no response; but his eye, voluntarily or involuntarily,
+turned with a peculiar expression to the box of medicine standing upon
+the table near by.
+
+Did he wish to be understood as saying:
+
+�I will do nothing; but you will find a poison there.�
+
+M. d�Escorval understood it in this way, for it was with an accent of
+gratitude that he murmured:
+
+�Thanks!�
+
+Now that he felt that he was master of his life he breathed more freely.
+From that moment his condition, so long desperate, began to improve.
+
+�I can defy all my enemies from this hour,� he said, with a gayety which
+certainly was not feigned.
+
+Day after day passed and the abbe�s sinister apprehensions were not
+realized; he, too, began to regain confidence.
+
+Instead of causing an increase of severity, Maurice�s and Jean
+Lacheneur�s frightful imprudence had been, as it were, the point of
+departure for a universal indulgence.
+
+One might reasonably have supposed that the authorities of Montaignac
+had forgotten, and desired to have forgotten, if that were possible,
+Lacheneur�s conspiracy, and the abominable slaughter for which it had
+been made the pretext.
+
+They soon heard at the farm that Maurice and the brave corporal had
+succeeded in reaching Piedmont.
+
+No allusion was made to Jean Lacheneur, so it was supposed that he had
+not left the country; but they had no reason to fear for his safety,
+since he was not upon the proscribed list.
+
+Later, it was rumored that the Marquis de Courtornieu was ill, and that
+Mme. Blanche did not leave his bedside.
+
+Soon afterward, Father Poignot, on returning from Montaignac, reported
+that the duke had just passed a week in Paris, and that he was now on
+his way home with one more decoration--another proof of royal favor--and
+that he had succeeded in obtaining an order for the release of all the
+conspirators, who were now in prison.
+
+It was impossible to doubt this intelligence, for the Montaignac papers
+mentioned this fact, with all the circumstances on the following day.
+
+The abbe attributed this sudden and happy change entirely to the rupture
+between the duke and the marquis, and this was the universal opinion in
+the neighborhood. Even the retired officers remarked:
+
+�The duke is decidedly better than he is supposed to be, and if he has
+been severe, it is only because he was influenced by that odious Marquis
+de Courtornieu.�
+
+Marie-Anne alone suspected the truth. A secret presentiment told her
+that it was Martial de Sairmeuse who had shaken off his wonted apathy,
+and was working these changes and using and abusing his ascendancy over
+the mind of his father.
+
+�And it is for your sake,� whispered an inward voice, �that Martial is
+thus working. What does this careless egotist care for these obscure
+peasants, whose names he does not even know? If he protects them, it is
+only that he may have a right to protect you, and those whom you love!�
+
+With these thoughts in her mind, she could not but feel her aversion to
+Martial diminish.
+
+Was not such conduct truly heroic in a man whose dazzling offers she had
+refused? Was there not real moral grandeur in the feeling that induced
+Martial to reveal a secret which might ruin the political fortunes of
+his house, rather than be suspected of an unworthy action? And still
+the thought of this _grande passion_ which she had inspired in so truly
+great a man never once made her heart quicken its throbbing.
+
+Alas! nothing was capable of touching her heart now; nothing seemed to
+reach her through the gloomy sadness that enveloped her.
+
+She was but the ghost of the formerly beautiful and radiant Marie-Anne.
+Her quick, alert tread had become slow and dragging, often she sat for
+whole days motionless in her chair, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, her
+lips contracted as if by a spasm, while great tears rolled silently down
+her cheeks.
+
+Abbe Midon, who was greatly disquieted on her account, often attempted
+to question her.
+
+�You are suffering, my child,� he said, kindly. �What is the matter?�
+
+�I am not ill, Monsieur.�
+
+�Why do you not confide in me? Am I not your friend? What do you fear?�
+
+She shook her head sadly and replied:
+
+�I have nothing to confide.�
+
+She said this, and yet she was dying of sorrow and anguish.
+
+Faithful to the promise she had made Maurice, she had said nothing of
+her condition, or of the marriage solemnized in the little church at
+Vigano. And she saw with inexpressible terror, the approach of
+the moment when she could no longer keep her secret. Her agony was
+frightful; but what could she do!
+
+Fly? but where should she go? And by going, would she not lose all
+chance of hearing from Maurice, which was the only hope that sustained
+her in this trying hour?
+
+She had almost determined on flight when circumstances--providentially,
+it seemed to her--came to her aid.
+
+Money was needed at the farm. The guests were unable to obtain any
+without betraying their whereabouts, and Father Poignot�s little store
+was almost exhausted.
+
+Abbe Midon was wondering what they were to do, when Marie-Anne told him
+of the will which Chanlouineau had made in her favor, and of the money
+concealed beneath the hearth-stone in the best chamber.
+
+�I might go to the Borderie at night,� suggested Marie-Anne, �enter the
+house, which is unoccupied, obtain the money and bring it here. I have a
+right to do so, have I not?�
+
+But the priest did not approve this step.
+
+�You might be seen,� said he, �and who knows--perhaps arrested. If you
+were questioned, what plausible explanation could you give?�
+
+�What shall I do, then?�
+
+�Act openly; you are not compromised. Make your appearance in Sairmeuse
+to-morrow as if you had just returned from Piedmont; go to the notary,
+take possession of your property, and install yourself at the Borderie.�
+
+Marie-Anne shuddered.
+
+�Live in Chanlouineau�s house,� she faltered. �I alone!�
+
+�Heaven will protect you, my dear child. I can see only advantages in
+your installation at the Borderie. It will be easy to communicate with
+you; and with ordinary precautions there can be no danger. Before your
+departure we will decide upon a place of rendezvous, and two or three
+times a week you can meet Father Poignot there. And, in the course of
+two or three months you can be still more useful to us. When people have
+become accustomed to your residence at the Borderie, we will take the
+baron there. His convalescence will be much more rapid there, than here
+in this cramped and narrow loft, where we are obliged to conceal him
+now, and where he is really suffering for light and air.�
+
+So it was decided that Father Poignot should accompany Marie-Anne to the
+frontier that very night; there she would take the diligence that
+ran between Piedmont and Montaignac, passing through the village of
+Sairmeuse.
+
+It was with the greatest care that the abbe dictated to Marie-Anne the
+story she was to tell of her sojourn in foreign lands. All that she
+said, and all her answers to questions must tend to prove that Baron
+d�Escorval was concealed near Turin.
+
+The plan was carried out in every particular; and the next day, about
+eight o�clock, the people of Sairmeuse were greatly astonished to see
+Marie-Anne alight from the diligence.
+
+�Monsieur Lacheneur�s daughter has returned!�
+
+The words flew from lip to lip with marvellous rapidity, and soon all
+the inhabitants of the village were gathered at the doors and windows.
+
+They saw the poor girl pay the driver, and enter the inn, followed by a
+boy bearing a small trunk.
+
+In the city, curiosity has some shame; it hides itself while it spies
+into the affairs of its neighbors; but in the country it has no such
+scruples.
+
+When Marie-Anne emerged from the inn, she found a crowd awaiting her
+with open mouths and staring eyes.
+
+And more than twenty people making all sorts of comments, followed her
+to the door of the notary.
+
+He was a man of importance, this notary, and he welcomed Marie-Anne with
+all the deference due an heiress of an unencumbered property, worth from
+forty to fifty thousand francs.
+
+But jealous of his renown for perspicuity, he gave her clearly to
+understand that he, being a man of experience, had divined that love
+alone had dictated Chanlouineau�s last will and testament.
+
+Marie-Anne�s composure and resignation made him really angry.
+
+�You forget what brings me here,� she said; �you do not tell me what I
+have to do!�
+
+The notary, thus interrupted, made no further attempts at consolation.
+
+�_Pestet!_� he thought, �she is in a hurry to get possession of her
+property--the avaricious creature!�
+
+Then aloud:
+
+�The business can be terminated at once, for the justice of the peace
+is at liberty to-day, and he can go with us to break the seals this
+afternoon.�
+
+So, before evening, all the legal requirements were complied with, and
+Marie-Anne was formally installed at the Borderie.
+
+She was alone in Chanlouineau�s house--alone! Night came on and a great
+terror seized her heart. It seemed to her that the doors were about to
+open, that this man who had loved her so much would appear before her,
+and that she would hear his voice as she heard it for the last time in
+his grim prison-cell.
+
+She fought against these foolish fears, lit a lamp, and went through
+this house--now hers--in which everything spoke so forcibly of its
+former owner.
+
+Slowly she examined the different rooms on the lower floor, noting the
+recent repairs which had been made and the conveniences which had been
+added, and at last she ascended to that room above which Chanlouineau
+had made the tabernacle of his passion.
+
+Here, everything was magnificent, far more so than his words had led her
+to suppose. The poor peasant who made his breakfast off a crust and a
+bit of onion had lavished a small fortune on the decorations of this
+apartment, designed as a sanctuary for his idol.
+
+�How he loved me!� murmured Marie-Anne, moved by that emotion, the bare
+thought of which had awakened the jealousy of Maurice.
+
+But she had neither the time nor the right to yield to her feelings.
+Father Poignot was doubtless, even then, awaiting her at the rendezvous.
+
+She lifted the hearth-stone, and found the sum of money which
+Chanlouineau had named.
+
+The next morning, when he awoke, the abbe received the money.
+
+Now, Marie-Anne could breathe freely; and this peace, after so many
+trials and agitations, seemed to her almost happiness.
+
+Faithful to the abbe�s instructions, she lived alone; but, by frequent
+visits, she accustomed the people of the neighborhood to her presence.
+
+Yes, she would have been almost happy, could she have had news of
+Maurice. What had become of him? Why did he give no sign of life? What
+would she not have given in exchange for some word of counsel and of
+love from him?
+
+The time was fast approaching when she would require a confidant; and
+there was no one in whom she could confide.
+
+In this hour of extremity, when she really felt that her reason was
+failing her, she remembered the old physician at Vigano, who had been
+one of the witnesses to her marriage.
+
+�He would help me if I called upon him for aid,� she thought.
+
+She had no time to temporize or to reflect; she wrote to him
+immediately, giving the letter in charge of a youth in the neighborhood.
+
+�The gentleman says you may rely upon him,� said the messenger on his
+return.
+
+That very evening Marie-Anne heard someone rap at her door. It was the
+kind-hearted old man who had come to her relief.
+
+He remained at the Borderie nearly a fortnight.
+
+When he departed one morning, before daybreak, he took away with him
+under his large cloak an infant--a boy--whom he had sworn to cherish as
+his own child.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+To quit Sairmeuse without any display of violence had cost Blanche an
+almost superhuman effort.
+
+The wildest anger convulsed her soul at the very moment, when, with
+an assumption of melancholy dignity, she murmured those words of
+forgiveness.
+
+Ah! had she obeyed the dictates of her resentment!
+
+But her indomitable vanity aroused within her the heroism of a gladiator
+dying on the arena, with a smile upon his lips.
+
+Falling, she intended to fall gracefully.
+
+�No one shall see me weep; no one shall hear me complain,� she said to
+her despondent father; �try to imitate me.�
+
+And on her return to the Chateau de Courtornieu, she was a stoic.
+
+Her face, although pale, was as immobile as marble, beneath the curious
+gaze of the servants.
+
+�I am to be called mademoiselle as in the past,� she said, imperiously.
+�Anyone forgetting this order will be dismissed.�
+
+A maid forgot that very day, and uttered the prohibited word, �madame.�
+ The poor girl was instantly dismissed, in spite of her tears and
+protestations.
+
+All the servants were indignant.
+
+�Does she hope to make us forget that she is married and that her
+husband has deserted her?� they queried.
+
+Alas! she wished to forget it herself. She wished to annihilate all
+recollection of that fatal day whose sun had seen her a maiden, a wife,
+and a widow.
+
+For was she not really a widow?
+
+Only it was not death which had deprived her of her husband, but an
+odious rival--an infamous and perfidious creature lost to all sense of
+shame.
+
+And yet, though she had been disdained, abandoned, and repulsed, she was
+no longer free.
+
+She belonged to the man whose name she bore like a badge of
+servitude--to the man who hated her, who fled from her.
+
+She was not yet twenty; and this was the end of her youth, of her life,
+of her hopes, and even of her dreams.
+
+Society condemned her to solitude, while Martial was free to rove
+wheresoever fancy might lead him.
+
+Now she saw the disadvantage of isolating one�s self. She had not been
+without friends in her school-girl days; but after leaving the convent
+she had alienated them by her haughtiness, on finding them not as high
+in rank, nor as rich as herself. She was now reduced to the irritating
+consolations of Aunt Medea, who was a worthy person, undoubtedly, but
+her tears flowed quite as freely for the loss of a cat, as for the death
+of a relative.
+
+But Blanche bravely resolved that she would conceal her grief and
+despair in the recesses of her own heart.
+
+She drove about the country; she wore the prettiest dresses in her
+_trousseau_; she forced herself to appear gay and indifferent.
+
+But on going to attend high mass in Sairmeuse the following Sunday, she
+realized the futility of her efforts.
+
+People did not look at her haughtily, or even curiously; but they turned
+away their heads to laugh, and she overheard remarks upon the maiden
+widow which pierced her very soul.
+
+They mocked her; they ridiculed her!
+
+�Oh! I will have my revenge!� she muttered.
+
+But she had not waited for these insults before thinking of vengeance;
+and she had found her father quite ready to assist her in her plans.
+
+For the first time the father and the daughter were in accord.
+
+�The Duc de Sairmeuse shall learn what it costs to aid in the escape
+of a prisoner and to insult a man like me. Fortune, favor, position--he
+shall lose all! I hope to see him ruined and dishonored at my feet.
+You shall see that day! you shall see that day!� said the marquis,
+vehemently.
+
+But, unfortunately for him and his plans, he was extremely ill for three
+days, after the scene at Sairmeuse; then he wasted three days more in
+composing a report, which was intended to crush his former ally.
+
+This delay ruined him, since it gave Martial time to perfect his plans
+and to send the Duc de Sairmeuse to Paris skilfully indoctrinated.
+
+And what did the duke say to the King, who accorded him such a gracious
+reception?
+
+He undoubtedly pronounced the first reports false, reduced the
+Montaignac revolution to its proper proportions, represented Lacheneur
+as a fool, and his followers as inoffensive idiots.
+
+Perhaps he led the King to suppose that the Marquis de Courtornieu
+might have provoked the outbreak by undue severity. He had served under
+Napoleon, and possibly had thought it necessary to make a display of his
+zeal. There have been such cases.
+
+So far as he himself was concerned, he deeply deplored the mistakes into
+which he had been led by the ambitious marquis, upon whom he cast most
+of the responsibility for the blood which had been shed.
+
+The result of all this was, that when the Marquis de Courtornieu�s
+report reached Paris, it was answered by a decree depriving him of the
+office of _grand prevot_.
+
+This unexpected blow crushed him.
+
+To think that a man as shrewd, as subtle-minded, as quick-witted, and
+adroit as himself--a man who had passed through so many troubled epochs,
+who had served with the same obsequious countenance all the masters who
+would accept his services--to think that such a man should have been
+thus duped and betrayed!
+
+�It must be that old imbecile, the Duc de Sairmeuse, who has manoeuvred
+so skilfully, and with so much address,� he said. �But who advised him?
+I cannot imagine who it could have been.�
+
+Who it was Mme. Blanche knew only too well.
+
+She recognized Martial�s hand in all this, as Marie-Anne had done.
+
+�Ah! I was not deceived in him,� she thought; �he is the great
+diplomatist I believed him to be. At his age to outwit my father, an old
+politician of such experience and acknowledged astuteness! And he does
+all this to please Marie-Anne,� she continued, frantic with rage. �It
+is the first step toward obtaining pardon for the friends of that vile
+creature. She has unbounded influence over him, and so long as she lives
+there is no hope for me. But, patience.�
+
+She was patient, realizing that he who wishes to surely attain his
+revenge must wait, dissimulate, _prepare_ an opportunity, but not force
+it.
+
+What her revenge should be she had not yet decided; but she already had
+her eye upon a man whom she believed would be a willing instrument in
+her hands, and capable of doing anything for money.
+
+But how had such a man chanced to cross the path of Mme. Blanche? How
+did it happen that she was cognizant of the existence of such a person?
+
+It was the result of one of those simple combinations of circumstances
+which go by the name of chance.
+
+Burdened with remorse, despised and jeered at, and stoned whenever he
+showed himself upon the street, and horror-stricken whenever he thought
+of the terrible threats of Balstain, the Piedmontese innkeeper, Chupin
+left Montaignac and came to beg an asylum at the Chateau de Sairmeuse.
+
+In his ignorance, he thought that the _grand seigneur_ who had employed
+him, and who had profited by his treason, owed him, over and above the
+promised reward, aid and protection.
+
+But the servants shunned him. They would not allow him a seat at the
+kitchen-table, nor would the grooms allow him to sleep in the stables.
+They threw him a bone, as they would have thrown it to a dog; and he
+slept where he could.
+
+He bore all this uncomplainingly, deeming himself fortunate in being
+able to purchase comparative safety at such a price.
+
+But when the duke returned from Paris with a policy of forgetfulness and
+conciliation in his pocket, he would no longer tolerate the presence of
+this man, who was the object of universal execration.
+
+He ordered the dismissal of Chupin.
+
+The latter resisted, swearing that he would not leave Sairmeuse unless
+he was forcibly expelled, or unless he received the order from the lips
+of the duke himself.
+
+This obstinate resistance was reported to the duke. It made him
+hesitate; but the necessity of the moment, and a word from Martial,
+decided him.
+
+He sent for Chupin and told him that he must not visit Sairmeuse again
+under any pretext whatever, softening the harshness of expulsion,
+however, by the offer of a small sum of money.
+
+But Chupin sullenly refused the money, gathered his belongings together,
+and departed, shaking his clinched fist at the chateau, and vowing
+vengeance on the Sairmeuse family. Then he went to his old home, where
+his wife and his two boys still lived.
+
+He seldom left the house, and then only to satisfy his passion for
+hunting. At such times, instead of hiding and surrounding himself with
+every precaution, as he had done, before shooting a squirrel or a few
+partridges, in former times, he went boldly to the Sairmeuse or the
+Courtornieu forests, shot his game, and brought it home openly, almost
+defiantly.
+
+The rest of the time he spent in a state of semi-intoxication, for he
+drank constantly and more and more immoderately. When he had taken more
+than usual, his wife and his sons generally attempted to obtain money
+from him, and if persuasions failed they resorted to blows.
+
+For he had never given them the reward of his treason. What had he done
+with the twenty thousand francs in gold which had been paid him? No one
+knew. His sons believed he had buried it somewhere; but they tried in
+vain to wrest his secret from him.
+
+All the people in the neighborhood were aware of this state of affairs,
+and regarded it as a just punishment for the traitor. Mme. Blanche
+overheard one of the gardeners telling the story to two of his
+assistants:
+
+�Ah, the man is an old scoundrel!� he said, his face crimson with
+indignation. �He should be in the galleys, and not at large among
+respectable people.�
+
+�He is a man who would serve your purpose,� the voice of hatred
+whispered in Blanche�s ear.
+
+�But how can I find an opportunity to confer with him?� she wondered.
+Mme. Blanche was too prudent to think of hazarding a visit to his house,
+but she remembered that he hunted occasionally in the Courtornieu woods,
+and that it might be possible for her to meet him there.
+
+�It will only require a little perseverance and a few long walks,� she
+said to herself.
+
+But it cost poor Aunt Medea, the inevitable chaperon, two long weeks of
+almost continued walking.
+
+�Another freak!� groaned the poor relative, overcome with fatigue; �my
+niece is certainly crazy!�
+
+But one lovely afternoon in May Blanche discovered what she sought.
+
+It was in a sequestered spot near the lake. Chupin was tramping sullenly
+along with his gun and glancing suspiciously on every side! Not that
+he feared the game-keeper or a verbal process, but wherever he went, he
+fancied he saw Balstain walking in his shadow, with that terrible knife
+in his hand.
+
+Seeing Mme. Blanche he tried to hide himself in the forest, but she
+prevented it by calling:
+
+�Father Chupin!�
+
+He hesitated for a moment, then he paused, dropped his gun, and waited.
+
+Aunt Medea was pale with fright.
+
+�Blessed Jesus!� she murmured, pressing her niece�s arm; �why do you
+call that terrible man?�
+
+�I wish to speak with him.�
+
+�What, Blanche, do you dare----�
+
+�I must!�
+
+�No, I cannot allow it. _I_ must not----�
+
+�There, that is enough,� said Blanche, with one of those imperious
+glances that deprive a dependent of all strength and courage; �quite
+enough.�
+
+Then, in gentler tones:
+
+�I must talk with this man,� she added.
+
+�You, Aunt Medea, will remain at a little distance. Keep a close watch
+on every side, and if you see anyone approaching, call me, whoever it
+may be.�
+
+Aunt Medea, submissive as she was ever wont to be, obeyed; and Mme.
+Blanche advanced toward the old poacher, who stood as motionless as the
+trunks of the giant trees around him.
+
+�Well, my good Father Chupin, what sort of sport have you had to-day?�
+ she began, when she was a few steps from him.
+
+�What do you want with me?� growled Chupin; �for you do want something,
+or you would not trouble yourself about such as I.�
+
+It required all Blanche�s determination to repress a gesture of fright
+and of disgust; but, in a resolute tone, she replied:
+
+�Yes, it is true that I have a favor to ask you.�
+
+�Ah, ha! I supposed so.�
+
+�A mere trifle which will cost you no trouble and for which you shall be
+well paid.�
+
+She said this so carelessly that one would really have supposed the
+service was unimportant; but cleverly as she played her part, Chupin was
+not deceived.
+
+�No one asks trifling services of a man like me,� he said coarsely.
+
+�Since I have served the good cause, at the peril of my life, people
+seem to suppose that they have a right to come to me with their money in
+their hands, when they desire any dirty work done. It is true that I was
+well paid for that other job; but I would like to melt all the gold and
+pour it down the throats of those who gave it to me.
+
+�Ah! I know what it costs the humble to listen to the words of the
+great! Go your way; and if you have any wickedness in your head, do it
+yourself!�
+
+He shouldered his gun and was moving away, when Mme. Blanche said,
+coldly:
+
+�It was because I knew your wrongs that I stopped you; I thought you
+would be glad to serve me, because I hate the Sairmeuse.�
+
+These words excited the interest of the old poacher, and he paused.
+
+�I know very well that you hate the Sairmeuse now--but----�
+
+�But what!�
+
+�In less than a month you will be reconciled. And you will pay the
+expenses of the war and of the reconciliation? That old wretch,
+Chupin----�
+
+�We shall never be reconciled.�
+
+�Hum!� he growled, after deliberating awhile. �And if I should aid you,
+what compensation will you give me?�
+
+�I will give you whatever you desire--money, land, a house----�
+
+�Many thanks. I desire something quite different.�
+
+�What? Name your conditions.�
+
+Chupin reflected a moment, then he replied:
+
+�This is what I desire. _I_ have enemies--I do not even feel safe in my
+own house. My sons abuse me when I have been drinking; my wife is quite
+capable of poisoning my wine; I tremble for my life and for my money.
+I cannot endure this existence much longer. Promise me an asylum in the
+Chateau de Courtornieu, and I am yours. In your house I shall be safe.
+But let it be understood, I will not be ill-treated by the servants as I
+was at Sairmeuse.�
+
+�It shall be as you desire.�
+
+�Swear it by your hope of heaven.�
+
+�I swear.�
+
+There was such an evident sincerity in her accent that Chupin was
+reassured. He leaned toward her, and said, in a low voice:
+
+�Now tell me your business.�
+
+His small gray eyes glittered with a demoniac light; his thin lips were
+tightly drawn over his sharp teeth; he was evidently expecting some
+proposition to murder, and he was ready.
+
+His attitude showed this so plainly that Blanche shuddered.
+
+�Really, what I ask of you is almost nothing,� she replied. �I only wish
+you to watch the Marquis de Sairmeuse.�
+
+�Your husband?�
+
+�Yes; my husband. I wish to know what he does, where he goes, and what
+persons he sees. I wish to know how each moment of his time is spent.�
+
+�What! seriously, frankly, is this all that you desire of me?� Chupin
+asked.
+
+�For the present, yes. My plans are not yet decided. It depends upon
+circumstances what action I shall take.�
+
+�You can rely upon me,� he responded; �but I must have a little time.�
+
+�Yes, I understand. To-day is Saturday; will you be ready to report on
+Thursday?�
+
+�In five days? Yes, probably.�
+
+�In that case, meet me here on Thursday, at this same hour.�
+
+A cry from Aunt Medea interrupted them.
+
+�Someone is coming!� Mme. Blanche exclaimed. �Quick! we must not be seen
+together. Conceal yourself.�
+
+With a bound the old poacher disappeared in the forest.
+
+A servant had approached Aunt Medea, and was speaking to her with great
+animation.
+
+Blanche hastened toward them.
+
+�Ah! Mademoiselle,� exclaimed the servant, �we have been seeking you
+everywhere for three hours. Your father, monsieur le marquis--_mon
+Dieu_! what a misfortune! A physician has been summoned.�
+
+�Is my father dead?�
+
+�No, Mademoiselle, no; but--how can I tell you? When the marquis went
+out this morning his actions were very strange, and--and--when he
+returned----�
+
+As he spoke the servant tapped his forehead with the end of his
+forefinger.
+
+�You understand me, Mademoiselle--when he returned, reason had fled!�
+
+Without waiting for her terrified aunt, Blanche darted in the direction
+of the chateau.
+
+�How is the marquis?� she inquired of the first servant whom she met.
+
+�He is in his room on the bed; he is more quiet now.�
+
+She had already reached his room. He was seated upon the bed, and two
+servants were watching his every movement. His face was livid, and
+a white foam had gathered upon his lips. Still, he recognized his
+daughter.
+
+�Here you are,� said he. �I was waiting for you.�
+
+She remained upon the threshold, quite overcome, although she was
+neither tender-hearted nor impressionable.
+
+�My father!� she faltered. �Good heavens! what has happened?�
+
+He uttered a discordant laugh.
+
+�Ah, ha!� he exclaimed, �I met him. Do you doubt me? I tell you that I
+saw the wretch. I know him well; have I not seen his cursed face before
+my eyes for more than a month--for it never leaves me. I saw him. It was
+in the forest near the Sanguille rocks. You know the place; it is always
+dark there, on account of the trees. I was returning slowly, thinking of
+him, when suddenly he sprang up before me, extending his arms as if to
+bar my passage.
+
+��Come,� said he, �you must come and join me.� He was armed with a gun;
+he fired----�
+
+The marquis paused, and Blanche summoned sufficient courage to approach
+him. For more than a minute she fastened upon him that cold and
+persistent look that is said to exercise such power over those who have
+lost their reason; then, shaking him energetically by the arm, she said,
+almost roughly:
+
+�Control yourself, father. You are the victim of an hallucination. It is
+impossible that you have seen the man of whom you speak.�
+
+Who it was that M. de Courtornieu supposed he had seen, Blanche knew
+only too well; but she dared not, could not, utter the name.
+
+But the marquis had resumed his incoherent narrative.
+
+�Was I dreaming?� he continued. �No, it was certainly Lacheneur who
+confronted me. I am sure of it, and the proof is, that he reminded me of
+a circumstance which occurred in my youth, and which was known only to
+him and me. It happened during the Reign of Terror. He was all-powerful
+in Montaignac; and I was accused of being in correspondence with the
+_emigres_. My property had been confiscated; and every moment I was
+expecting to feel the hand of the executioner upon my shoulder, when
+Lacheneur took me into his house. He concealed me; he furnished me with
+a passport; he saved my money, and he saved my head--I sentenced him to
+death. That is the reason why I have seen him again. I must rejoin him;
+he told me so--I am a dying man!�
+
+He fell back upon his pillows, pulled the sheet up over his face, and,
+lying there, rigid and motionless, one might readily have supposed it
+was a corpse, whose outlines could be vaguely discerned through the
+bed-coverings.
+
+Mute with horror, the servants exchanged frightened glances.
+
+Such baseness and ingratitude amazed them. It seemed incomprehensible
+to them, under such circumstances, that the marquis had not pardoned
+Lacheneur.
+
+Mme. Blanche alone retained her presence of mind. Turning to her
+father�s valet, she said:
+
+�It is not possible that anyone has attempted to injure my father?�
+
+�I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle, a little more and he would have been
+killed.�
+
+�How do you know this?�
+
+�In undressing the marquis I noticed that he had received a wound in
+the head. I also examined his hat, and in it I found three holes, which
+could only have been made by bullets.�
+
+The worthy _valet de chambre_ was certainly more agitated than the
+daughter.
+
+�Then someone must have attempted to assassinate my father,� she
+murmured, �and this attack of delirium has been brought on by fright.
+How can we find out who the would-be murderer was?�
+
+The servant shook his head.
+
+�I suspect that old poacher, who is always prowling around, is the
+guilty man--Chupin.�
+
+�No, it could not have been he.�
+
+�Ah! I am almost sure of it. There is no one else in the neighborhood
+capable of such an evil deed.�
+
+Mme. Blanche could not give her reasons for declaring Chupin innocent.
+Nothing in the world would have induced her to admit that she had met
+him, talked with him for more than half an hour, and just parted from
+him.
+
+She was silent. In a few moments the physician arrived.
+
+He removed the covering from M. de Courtornieu�s face--he was almost
+compelled to use force to do it--examined the patient with evident
+anxiety, then ordered mustard plasters, applications of ice to the head,
+leeches, and a potion, for which a servant was to gallop to Montaignac
+at once. All was bustle and confusion.
+
+When the physician left the sick-room, Mme. Blanche followed him.
+
+�Well, Doctor,� she said, with a questioning look.
+
+With considerable hesitation, he replied:
+
+�People sometimes recover from such attacks.�
+
+It really mattered little to Blanche whether her father recovered or
+died, but she felt that an opportunity to recover her lost _prestige_
+was now afforded her. If she desired to turn public opinion against
+Martial, she must improvise for herself an entirely different
+reputation. If she could erect a pedestal upon which she could pose as a
+patient victim, her satisfaction would be intense. Such an occasion now
+offered itself, and she seized it at once.
+
+Never did a devoted daughter lavish more touching and delicate
+attentions upon a sick father. It was impossible to induce her to leave
+his bedside for a moment. It was only with great difficulty that they
+could persuade her to sleep for a couple of hours, in an armchair in the
+sick-room.
+
+But while she was playing the role of Sister of Charity, which she had
+imposed upon herself, her thoughts followed Chupin. What was he doing in
+Montaignac? Was he watching Martial as he had promised? How slow the day
+appointed for the meeting was in coming!
+
+It came at last, however, and after intrusting her father to the care of
+Aunt Medea, Blanche made her escape.
+
+The old poacher was awaiting her at the appointed place.
+
+�Speak!� said Mme. Blanche.
+
+�I would do so willingly, only I have nothing to tell you.�
+
+�What! you have not watched the marquis?�
+
+�Your husband? Excuse me, I have followed him; like his own shadow. But
+what would you have me say to you; since the duke left for Paris, your
+husband has charge of everything. Ah! you would not recognize him! He
+is always busy now. He is up at cock-crow and he goes to bed with
+the chickens. He writes letters all the morning. In the afternoon he
+receives all who call upon him. The retired officers are hand and glove
+in with him. He has reinstated five or six of them, and he has granted
+pensions to two others. He seldom goes out, and never in the evening.�
+
+He paused and for more than a minute Blanche was silent. She was
+confused and agitated by the question that rose to her lips. What
+humiliation! But she conquered her embarrassment, and turning away her
+head to hide her crimson face, she said:
+
+�But he certainly has a mistress!�
+
+Chupin burst into a noisy laugh.
+
+�Well, we have come to it at last,� he said, with an audacious
+familiarity that made Blanche shudder. �You mean that scoundrel
+Lacheneur�s daughter, do you not? that stuck-up minx, Marie-Anne?�
+
+Blanche felt that denial was useless.
+
+�Yes,� she answered; �it is Marie-Anne that I mean.�
+
+�Ah, well! she has been neither seen nor heard from. She must have fled
+with another of her lovers, Maurice d�Escorval.�
+
+�You are mistaken.�
+
+�Oh, not at all! Of all the Lacheneurs only Jean remains, and he lives
+like the vagabond that he is, by poaching and stealing. Day and night he
+rambles through the woods with his gun on his shoulder. He is frightful
+to look upon, a perfect skeleton, and his eyes glitter like live coals.
+If he ever meets me, my account will be settled then and there.�
+
+Blanche turned pale. It was Jean Lacheneur who had fired at the marquis
+then. She did not doubt it in the least.
+
+�Very well!� said she, �I, myself, am sure that Marie-Anne is in the
+neighborhood, concealed in Montaignac, probably. I must know. Endeavor
+to discover her retreat before Monday, when I will meet you here again.�
+
+�I will try,� Chupin answered.
+
+He did indeed try; he exerted all his energy and cunning, but in vain.
+He was fettered by the precautions which he took against Balstain and
+against Jean Lacheneur. On the other hand, no one in the neighborhood
+would have consented to give him the least information.
+
+�Still no news!� he said to Mme. Blanche at each interview.
+
+But she would not yield. Jealousy will not yield even to evidence.
+
+Blanche had declared that Marie-Anne had taken her husband from her,
+that Martial and Marie-Anne loved each other, hence it must be so, all
+proofs to the contrary notwithstanding.
+
+But one morning she found her spy jubilant.
+
+�Good news!� he cried, as soon as he saw her; �we have caught the minx
+at last.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+It was the second day after Marie-Anne�s installation at the Borderie.
+
+That event was the general topic of conversation; and Chanlouineau�s
+will was the subject of countless comments.
+
+�Here is Monsieur Lacheneur�s daughter with an income of more than
+two thousand francs, without counting the house,� said the old people,
+gravely.
+
+�An honest girl would have had no such luck as that!� muttered the
+unattractive maidens who had not been fortunate enough to secure
+husbands.
+
+This was the great news which Chupin brought to Mme. Blanche.
+
+She listened to it, trembling with anger, her hands so convulsively
+clinched that the nails penetrated the flesh.
+
+�What audacity!� she exclaimed. �What impudence!�
+
+The old poacher seemed to be of the same opinion.
+
+�If each of her lovers gives her as much she will be richer than a
+queen. She will have enough to buy both Sairmeuse and Courtornieu, if
+she chooses,� he remarked, maliciously.
+
+If he had desired to augment the rage of Mme. Blanche, he had good
+reason to be satisfied.
+
+�And this is the woman who has alienated Martial�s heart from me!� she
+exclaimed. �It is for this miserable wretch that he abandons me!�
+
+The unworthiness of the unfortunate girl whom she regarded as her
+rival, incensed her to such a degree that she entirely forgot Chupin�s
+presence. She made no attempt to restrain herself or to hide the secret
+of her sufferings.
+
+�Are you sure that what you tell me is true?� she asked.
+
+�As sure as that you stand there.�
+
+�Who told you all this?�
+
+�No one--I have eyes. I went to the Borderie yesterday to see for
+myself, and all the shutters were open. Marie-Anne was leaning out of a
+window. She does not even wear mourning, the heartless hussy!�
+
+Poor Marie-Anne, indeed, had no dress but the one which Mme. d�Escorval
+had given her on the night of the insurrection, when she laid aside her
+masculine habiliments.
+
+Chupin wished to irritate Mme. Blanche still more by other malicious
+remarks, but she checked him by a gesture.
+
+�So you know the way to the Borderie?� she inquired.
+
+�Perfectly.�
+
+�Where is it?�
+
+�Opposite the mills of the Oiselle, near the river, about a league and a
+half from here.�
+
+�That is true. I remember now. Were you ever in the house?�
+
+�More than a hundred times while Chanlouineau was living.�
+
+�Explain the topography of the dwelling!�
+
+Chupin�s eyes dilated to their widest extent.
+
+�What do you wish?� he asked, not understanding in the least what was
+required of him.
+
+�I mean, explain how the house is constructed.�
+
+�Ah! now I understand. The house is built upon an open space a little
+distance from the road. Before it is a small garden, and behind it an
+orchard enclosed by a hedge. Back of the orchard, to the right, are the
+vineyards; but on the left side is a small grove that shades a spring.�
+
+He paused suddenly, and with a knowing wink, inquired:
+
+�But what use do you expect to make of all this information?�
+
+�What does that matter to you? How is the interior arranged?�
+
+�There are three large square rooms on the ground floor, besides the
+kitchen and a small dark room.�
+
+�Now, what is on the floor above?�
+
+�I have never been up there.�
+
+�How are the rooms furnished which you have visited?�
+
+�Like those in any peasant�s house.�
+
+Certainly no one was aware of the existence of the luxurious apartment
+which Chanlouineau had intended for Marie-Anne. He had never spoken of
+it, and had even taken the greatest precautions to prevent anyone from
+seeing him transport the furniture.
+
+�How many doors are there?� inquired Blanche.
+
+�Three; one opening into the garden, another into the orchard, another
+communicating with the stables. The staircase leading to the floor above
+is in the middle room.�
+
+�And is Marie-Anne alone at the Borderie?�
+
+�Entirely alone at present; but I suppose it will not be long before her
+brigand of a brother joins her.�
+
+Mme. Blanche fell into a revery so deep and so prolonged that Chupin at
+last became impatient.
+
+He ventured to touch her upon the arm, and, in a wily voice, he said:
+�Well, what shall we decide?�
+
+Blanche shuddered like a wounded man on hearing the terrible click of
+the surgeon�s instruments.
+
+�My mind is not yet made up,� she replied. �I must reflect--I will see.�
+
+And remarking the old poacher�s discontented face, she said, vehemently:
+
+�I will do nothing lightly. Do not lose sight of Martial. If he goes
+to the Borderie, and he will go there, I must be informed of it. If he
+writes, and he will write, try to procure one of his letters. I must see
+you every other day. Do not rest! Strive to deserve the good place I am
+reserving for you at Courtornieu. Go!�
+
+He departed without a word, but also without attempting to conceal his
+disappointment and chagrin.
+
+�It serves you right for listening to a silly, affected woman,� he
+growled. �She fills the air with her ravings; she wishes to kill
+everybody, to burn and destroy everything. She only asks for an
+opportunity. The occasion presents itself, and her heart fails her. She
+draws back--she is afraid!�
+
+Chupin did Mme. Blanche great injustice. The movement of horror which
+he had observed was the instinctive revolt of the flesh, and not a
+faltering of her inflexible will.
+
+Her reflections were not of a nature to appease her rancor.
+
+Whatever Chupin and all Sairmeuse might say to the contrary, Blanche
+regarded this story of Marie-Anne�s travels as a ridiculous fable.
+In her opinion, Marie-Anne had simply emerged from the retreat where
+Martial had deemed it prudent to conceal her.
+
+But why this sudden reappearance? The vindictive woman was ready to
+swear that it was out of mere bravado, and intended only as an insult to
+her.
+
+�And I will have my revenge,� she thought. �I would tear my heart out if
+it were capable of cowardly weakness under such provocation!�
+
+The voice of conscience was unheard in this tumult of passion. Her
+sufferings, and Jean Lacheneur�s attempt upon her father�s life seemed
+to justify the most extreme measures.
+
+She had plenty of time now to brood over her wrongs, and to concoct
+schemes of vengeance. Her father no longer required her care. He had
+passed from the frenzied ravings of insanity and delirium to the stupor
+of idiocy.
+
+The physician declared his patient cured.
+
+Cured! The body was cured, perhaps, but reason had succumbed. All traces
+of intelligence had disappeared from this once mobile face, so ready to
+assume any expression which the most consummate hypocrisy required.
+
+There was no longer a sparkle in the eye which had formerly gleamed with
+cunning, and the lower lip hung with a terrible expression of stupidity.
+
+And there was no hope of any improvement.
+
+A single passion, the table, took the place of all the passions which
+had formerly swayed the life of this ambitious man.
+
+The marquis, who had always been temperate in his habits, now ate and
+drank with the most disgusting voracity, and he was becoming immensely
+corpulent. A soulless body, he wandered about the chateau and its
+surroundings without projects, without aim. Self-consciousness, all
+thought of dignity, knowledge of good and evil, memory--he had lost
+all these. Even the instinct of self-preservation, the last which dies
+within us, had departed, and he had to be watched like a child.
+
+Often, as the marquis roamed about the large gardens, his daughter
+regarded him from her window with a strange terror in her heart.
+
+But this warning of Providence only increased her desire for revenge.
+
+�Who would not prefer death to such a misfortune?� she murmured. �Ah!
+Jean Lacheneur�s revenge is far more terrible than it would have been
+had his bullet pierced my father�s heart. It is a revenge like this that
+I desire. It is due me; I will have it!�
+
+She saw Chupin every two or three days; sometimes going to the place of
+meeting alone, sometimes accompanied by Aunt Medea.
+
+The old poacher came punctually, although he was beginning to tire of
+his task.
+
+�I am risking a great deal,� he growled. �I supposed that Jean Lacheneur
+would go and live at the Borderie with his sister. Then, I should be
+safe. But no; the brigand continues to prowl around with his gun under
+his arm, and to sleep in the woods at night. What game is he hunting?
+Father Chupin, of course. On the other hand, I know that my rascally
+innkeeper over there has abandoned his inn and mysteriously disappeared.
+Where is he? Hidden behind one of these trees, perhaps, deciding in
+which portion of my body he shall plunge his knife.�
+
+What irritated the old poacher most of all was, that after two months of
+surveillance, he had arrived at the conclusion that, whatever might have
+been the relations existing between Martial and Marie-Anne in the past,
+all was now over between them.
+
+But Blanche would not admit this.
+
+�Say that they are more cunning than you, Father Chupin.�
+
+�Cunning--and how? Since I have been watching the marquis, he has not
+once passed outside the fortifications. On the other hand, the postman
+at Sairmeuse, who has been adroitly questioned by my wife, declares that
+he has not taken a single letter to the Borderie.�
+
+Had it not been for the hope of a safe and pleasant retreat at
+Courtornieu, Chupin would have abandoned his task; and, in spite of
+the tempting rewards that were promised him, he had relaxed his
+surveillance.
+
+If he still came to the rendezvous, it was only because he had fallen
+into the habit of claiming some money for his expenses each time.
+
+And when Mme. Blanche demanded an account of everything that Martial had
+done, he told her anything that came into his head.
+
+Mme. Blanche soon discovered this. One day, early in September, she
+interrupted him as he began the same old story, and, looking him
+steadfastly in the eye, she said:
+
+�Either you are betraying me, or you are a fool. Yesterday Martial and
+Marie-Anne spent a quarter of an hour together at the Croix d�Arcy.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+The old physician at Vigano, who had come to Marie-Anne�s aid, was an
+honorable man. His intellect was of a superior order, and his heart was
+equal to his intelligence. He knew life; he had loved and suffered, and
+he possessed two sublime virtues--forbearance and charity.
+
+It was easy for such a man to read Marie-Anne�s character; and while he
+was at the Borderie he endeavored in every possible way to reassure her,
+and to restore the self-respect of the unfortunate girl who had confided
+in him.
+
+Had he succeeded? He certainly hoped so.
+
+But when he departed and Marie-Anne was again left in solitude, she
+could not overcome the feeling of despondency that stole over her.
+
+Many, in her situation, would have regained their serenity of mind,
+and even rejoiced. Had she not succeeded in concealing her fault? Who
+suspected it, except, perhaps, the abbe.
+
+Hence, Marie-Anne had nothing to fear, and everything to hope.
+
+But this conviction did not appease her sorrow. Hers was one of those
+pure and proud natures that are more sensitive to the whisperings of
+conscience than to the clamors of the world.
+
+She had been accused of having three lovers--Chanlouineau, Martial, and
+Maurice. The calumny had not moved her. What tortured her was what these
+people did not know--the truth.
+
+Nor was this all. The sublime instinct of maternity had been awakened
+within her. When she saw the physician depart, bearing her child, she
+felt as if soul and body were being rent asunder. When could she hope
+to see again this little son who was doubly dear to her by reason of the
+very sorrow and anguish he had cost her? The tears gushed to her eyes
+when she thought that his first smile would not be for her.
+
+Ah! had it not been for her promise to Maurice, she would unhesitatingly
+have braved public opinion, and kept her precious child.
+
+Her brave and honest nature could have endured any humiliation far
+better than the continual lie she was forced to live.
+
+But she had promised; Maurice was her husband, and reason told her that
+for his sake she must preserve not her honor, alas! but the semblance of
+honor.
+
+And when she thought of her brother, her blood froze in her veins.
+
+Having learned that Jean was roving about the country, she sent for him;
+but it was not without much persuasion that he consented to come to the
+Borderie.
+
+It was easy to explain Chupin�s terror when one saw Jean Lacheneur.
+His clothing was literally in tatters, his face wore an expression of
+ferocious despair, and a fierce unextinguishable hatred burned in his
+eyes.
+
+When he entered the cottage, Marie-Anne recoiled in horror. She did not
+recognize him until he spoke.
+
+�It is I, sister,� he said, gloomily.
+
+�You--my poor Jean! you!�
+
+He surveyed himself from head to foot, and said, with a sneering laugh:
+
+�Really, I should not like to meet myself at dusk in the forest.�
+
+Marie-Anne shuddered. She fancied that a threat lurked beneath these
+ironical words, beneath this mockery of himself.
+
+�What a life yours must be, my poor brother! Why did you not come
+sooner? Now, I have you here, I shall not let you go. You will not
+desert me. I need protection and love so much. You will remain with me?�
+
+�It is impossible, Marie-Anne.�
+
+�And why?�
+
+A fleeting crimson suffused Jean Lacheneur�s cheek; he hesitated for a
+moment, then:
+
+�Because I have a right to dispose of my own life, but not of yours,� he
+replied. �We can no longer be anything to each other. I deny you to-day,
+that you may be able to deny me to-morrow. Yes, I renounce you, who are
+my all--the only person on earth whom I love. Your most cruel enemies
+have not calumniated you more foully than I----�
+
+He paused an instant, then he added:
+
+�I have said openly, before numerous witnesses, that I would never set
+foot in a house that had been given you by Chanlouineau.�
+
+�Jean! you, my brother! said that?�
+
+�I said it. It must be supposed that there is a deadly feud between us.
+This must be, in order that neither you nor Maurice d�Escorval can be
+accused of complicity in any deed of mine.�
+
+Marie-Anne stood as if petrified.
+
+�He is mad!� she murmured.
+
+�Do I really have that appearance?�
+
+She shook off the stupor that paralyzed her, and seizing her brother�s
+hands:
+
+�What do you intend to do?� she exclaimed. �What do you intend to do?
+Tell me; I will know.�
+
+�Nothing! let me alone.�
+
+�Jean!�
+
+�Let me alone,� he said, roughly, disengaging himself.
+
+A horrible presentiment crossed Marie-Anne�s mind.
+
+She stepped back, and solemnly, entreatingly, she said:
+
+�Take care, take care, my brother. It is not well to tamper with these
+matters. Leave to God�s justice the task of punishing those who have
+wronged us.�
+
+But nothing could move Jean Lacheneur, or divert him from his purpose.
+He uttered a hoarse, discordant laugh, then striking his gun heavily
+with his hand, he exclaimed:
+
+�Here is justice!�
+
+Appalled and distressed beyond measure, Marie-Anne sank into a chair.
+She discerned in her brother�s mind the same fixed, fatal idea which had
+lured her father on to destruction--the idea for which he had sacrificed
+all--family, friends, fortune, the present and the future--even his
+daughter�s honor--the idea which had caused so much blood to flow,
+which had cost the life of so many innocent men, and which had finally
+conducted him to the scaffold.
+
+�Jean,� she murmured, �remember our father.�
+
+The young man�s face became livid; his hands clinched involuntarily, but
+he controlled his anger.
+
+Advancing toward his sister, in a cold, quiet tone that added a
+frightful violence to his threats, he said:
+
+�It is because I remember my father that justice shall be done. Ah!
+these miserable nobles would not display such audacity if all sons had
+my resolution. A scoundrel would hesitate before attacking a good man if
+he was obliged to say to himself: �I cannot strike this honest man, for
+though he die, his children will surely call me to account. Their fury
+will fall on me and mine; they will pursue us sleeping and waking,
+pursue us without ceasing, everywhere, and pitilessly. Their hatred
+always on the alert, will accompany us and surround us. It will be
+an implacable, merciless warfare. I shall never venture forth without
+fearing a bullet; I shall never lift food to my lips without dread of
+poison. And until we have succumbed, they will prowl about our house,
+trying to slip in through tiniest opening, death, dishonor, ruin,
+infamy, and misery!��
+
+He paused with a nervous laugh, and then, still more slowly, he added:
+
+�That is what the Sairmeuse and Courtornieu have to expect from me.�
+
+It was impossible to mistake the meaning of Jean Lacheneur�s words. His
+threats were not the wild ravings of anger. His quiet manner, his icy
+tones, his automatic gestures betrayed one of those cold rages which
+endure so long as the man lives.
+
+He took good care to make himself understood, for between his teeth he
+added:
+
+�Undoubtedly, these people are very high, and I am very low; but when
+a tiny worm fastens itself to the roots of a giant oak, that tree is
+doomed.�
+
+Marie-Anne knew all too well the uselessness of prayers and entreaties.
+
+And yet she could not, she must not allow her brother to depart in this
+mood.
+
+She fell upon her knees, and with clasped hands and supplicating voice:
+
+�Jean,� said she, �I implore you to renounce these projects. In the name
+of our mother, return to your better self. These are crimes which you
+are meditating!�
+
+With a glance of scorn and a shrug of the shoulders, he replied:
+
+�Have done with this. I was wrong to confide my hopes to you. Do not
+make me regret that I came here.�
+
+Then the sister tried another plan. She rose, forced her lips to smile,
+and as if nothing unpleasant had passed between them, she begged Jean to
+remain with her that evening, at least, and share her frugal supper.
+
+�Remain,� she entreated; �that is not much to do--and it will make me
+so happy. And since it will be the last time we shall see each other
+for years, grant me a few hours. It is so long since we have met. I
+have suffered so much. I have so many things to tell you! Jean, my dear
+brother, can it be that you love me no longer?�
+
+One must have been bronze to remain insensible to such prayers. Jean
+Lacheneur�s heart swelled almost to bursting; his stern features
+relaxed, and a tear trembled in his eye.
+
+Marie-Anne saw that tear. She thought she had conquered, and clapping
+her hands in delight, she exclaimed:
+
+�Ah! you will remain! you will remain!�
+
+No. Jean had already mastered his momentary weakness, though not without
+a terrible effort; and in a harsh voice:
+
+�Impossible! impossible!� he repeated.
+
+Then, as his sister clung to him imploringly, he took her in his arms
+and pressed her to his heart.
+
+�Poor sister--poor Marie-Anne--you will never know what it costs me
+to refuse you, to separate myself from you. But this must be. In
+even coming here I have been guilty of an imprudent act. You do not
+understand to what perils you will be exposed if people suspect any bond
+between us. I trust you and Maurice may lead a calm and happy life. It
+would be a crime for me to mix you up with my wild schemes. Think of me
+sometimes, but do not try to see me, or even to learn what has become of
+me. A man like me struggles, triumphs, or perishes alone.�
+
+He kissed Marie-Anne passionately, then lifted her, placed her in a
+chair, and freed himself from her detaining hands.
+
+�Adieu!� he cried; �when you see me again, our father will be avenged!�
+
+She sprang up to rush after him and to call him back. Too late!
+
+He had fled.
+
+�It is over,� murmured the wretched girl; �my brother is lost. Nothing
+will restrain him now.�
+
+A vague, inexplicable, but horrible fear, contracted her heart. She felt
+that she was being slowly but surely drawn into a whirlpool of passion,
+rancor, vengeance, and crime, and a voice whispered that she would be
+crushed.
+
+But other thoughts soon replaced these gloomy presentiments.
+
+One evening, while she was preparing her little table, she heard a
+rustling sound at the door. She turned and looked; someone had slipped a
+letter under the door.
+
+Courageously, and without an instant�s hesitation, she sprang to the
+door and opened it. No one was there!
+
+The night was dark, and she could distinguish nothing in the gloom
+without. She listened; not a sound broke the stillness.
+
+Agitated and trembling she picked up the letter, approached the light,
+and looked at the address.
+
+�The Marquis de Sairmeuse!� she exclaimed, in amazement.
+
+She recognized Martial�s handwriting. So he had written to her! He had
+dared to write to her!
+
+Her first impulse was to burn the letter; she held it to the flame, then
+the thought of her friends concealed at Father Poignot�s farm made her
+withdraw it. �For their sake,� she thought, �I must read it.� She broke
+the seal with the arms of the De Sairmeuse family inscribed upon it, and
+read:
+
+
+�My dear Marie-Anne--Perhaps you have suspected who it is that has given
+an entirely new, and certainly surprising, direction to events.
+
+�Perhaps you have also understood the motives that guided him. In that
+case I am amply repaid for my efforts, for you cannot refuse me your
+friendship and your esteem.
+
+�But my work of reparation is not yet accomplished. I have prepared
+everything for a revision of the judgment that condemned Baron
+d�Escorval to death, or for procuring a pardon.
+
+�You must know where the baron is concealed. Acquaint him with my plans
+and ascertain whether he prefers a revision of judgment, or a simple
+pardon.
+
+�If he desires a new trial, I will give him a letter of license from the
+King.
+
+�I await your reply before acting.
+
+�Martial de Sairmeuse.�
+
+
+Marie-Anne�s head whirled.
+
+This was the second time that Martial had astonished her by the grandeur
+of his passion.
+
+How noble the two men who had loved her and whom she had rejected, had
+proved themselves to be.
+
+One, Chanlouineau, after dying for her sake, protected her still.
+
+Martial de Sairmeuse had sacrificed the convictions of his life and
+the prejudice of his race for her sake; and, with a noble recklessness,
+hazarded for her the political fortunes of his house.
+
+And yet the man whom she had chosen, the father of her child, Maurice
+d�Escorval, had not given a sign of life since he quitted her, five
+months before.
+
+But suddenly, and without reason, Marie-Anne passed from the most
+profound admiration to the deepest distrust.
+
+�What if Martial�s offer is only a trap?� This was the suspicion that
+darted through her mind.
+
+�Ah!� she thought, �the Marquis de Sairmeuse would be a hero if he were
+sincere!�
+
+And she did not wish him to be a hero.
+
+The result of these suspicions was that she hesitated five days before
+repairing to the rendezvous where Father Poignot usually awaited her.
+
+When she did go, she found, not the worthy farmer, but Abbe Midon, who
+had been greatly alarmed by her long absence.
+
+It was night, but Marie-Anne, fortunately, knew Martial�s letter by
+heart.
+
+The abbe made her repeat it twice, the second time very slowly, and when
+she had concluded:
+
+�This young man,� said the priest, �has the voice and the prejudices of
+his rank and of his education; but his heart is noble and generous.�
+
+And when Marie-Anne disclosed her suspicions:
+
+�You are wrong, my child,� said he; �the Marquis is certainly sincere.
+It would be wrong not to take advantage of his generosity. Such, at
+least, is my opinion. Intrust this letter to me. I will consult the
+baron, and to-morrow I will tell you our decision.�
+
+The abbe was awaiting her with feverish impatience on the same spot,
+when she rejoined him twenty-four hours later.
+
+�Monsieur d�Escorval agrees with me that we must trust ourselves to the
+Marquis de Sairmeuse. Only the baron, being innocent, cannot, will not,
+accept a pardon. He demands a revision of the iniquitous judgment which
+condemned him.�
+
+Although she must have foreseen this determination, Marie-Anne seemed
+stupefied.
+
+�What!� said she. �Monsieur d�Escorval will give himself up to his
+enemies? Does not the Marquis de Sairmeuse promise him a letter of
+license, a safe-conduct from the King?�
+
+�Yes.�
+
+She could find no objection, so in a submissive tone, she said:
+
+�In this case, Monsieur, I must ask you for a rough draft of the letter
+I am to write to the marquis.�
+
+The priest did not reply for a moment. It was evident that he felt some
+misgivings. At last, summoning all his courage, he said:
+
+�It would be better not to write.�
+
+�But----�
+
+�It is not that I distrust the marquis, not by any means, but a
+letter is dangerous; it does not always reach the person to whom it is
+addressed. You must see Monsieur de Sairmeuse.�
+
+Marie-Anne recoiled in horror.
+
+�Never! never!� she exclaimed.
+
+The abbe did not seem surprised.
+
+�I understand your repugnance, my child,� he said, gently; �your
+reputation has suffered greatly through the attentions of the marquis.�
+
+�Oh! sir, I entreat you.�
+
+�But one should not hesitate, my child, when duty speaks. You owe this
+sacrifice to an innocent man who has been ruined through your father.�
+
+He explained to her all that she must say, and did not leave her until
+she had promised to see the marquis in person. But the cause of her
+repugnance was not what the abbe supposed. Her reputation! Alas! she
+knew that was lost forever. No, it was not that.
+
+A fortnight before she would not have been disquieted by the prospect
+of this interview. Then, though she no longer hated Martial, he was
+perfectly indifferent to her, while now----
+
+Perhaps in choosing the Croix d�Arcy for the place of meeting, she hoped
+that this spot, haunted by so many cruel memories, would restore her
+former aversion.
+
+On pursuing the path leading to the place of rendezvous, she said to
+herself that Martial would undoubtedly wound her by the tone of careless
+gallantry which was habitual to him.
+
+But in this she was mistaken. Martial was greatly agitated, but he did
+not utter a word that was not connected with the baron.
+
+It was only when the conference was ended, and he had consented to all
+the conditions, that he said, sadly:
+
+�We are friends, are we not?�
+
+In an almost inaudible voice she answered:
+
+�Yes.�
+
+And that was all. He remounted his horse which had been held by a
+servant, and departed in the direction of Montaignac.
+
+Breathless, with cheeks on fire, Marie-Anne watched him as he
+disappeared; and then her inmost heart was revealed as by a lightning
+flash.
+
+�_Mon Dieu_! wretch that I _am_!� she exclaimed. �Do I not love? is it
+possible that I could ever love any other than Maurice, my husband, the
+father of my child?�
+
+Her voice was still trembling with emotion when she recounted the
+details of the interview to the abbe. But he did not perceive it. He was
+thinking only of the baron.
+
+�I was sure that Martial would agree to everything; I was so certain
+of it that I have made all the arrangements for the baron to leave the
+farm. He will await, at your house, a safe-conduct from His Majesty.
+
+�The close air and the heat of the loft are retarding the baron�s
+recovery,� the abbe pursued, �so be prepared for his coming to-morrow
+evening. One of the Poignot boys will bring over all our baggage. About
+eleven o�clock we will put Monsieur d�Escorval in a carriage; and we
+will all sup together at the Borderie.�
+
+�Heaven comes to my aid!� thought Marie-Anne as she walked homeward.
+
+She thought that she would no longer be alone, that Mme. d�Escorval
+would be with her to talk to her of Maurice, and that all the friends
+who would surround her would aid her in driving away the thoughts of
+Martial, which haunted her.
+
+So the next day she was more cheerful than she had been for months, and
+once, while putting her little house in order, she was surprised to find
+herself singing at her work.
+
+Eight o�clock was sounding when she heard a peculiar whistle.
+
+It was the signal of the younger Poignot, who came bringing an arm-chair
+for the sick man, the abbe�s box of medicine, and a bag of books.
+
+These articles Marie-Anne deposited in the room which Chanlouineau had
+adorned for her, and which she intended for the baron. After arranging
+them to her satisfaction she went out to meet young Poignot, who had
+told her that he would soon return with other articles.
+
+The night was very dark, and Marie-Anne, as she hastened on, did not
+notice two motionless figures in the shadow of a clump of lilacs in her
+little garden.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+Detected by Mme. Blanche in a palpable falsehood, Chupin was quite
+crestfallen for a moment.
+
+He saw the pleasing vision of a retreat at Courtornieu vanish; he saw
+himself suddenly deprived of frequent gifts which permitted him to spare
+his hoarded treasure, and even to increase it.
+
+But he soon regained his assurance, and with an affectation of frankness
+he said:
+
+�I may be stupid, but I could not deceive an infant. Someone must have
+told you falsely.�
+
+Mme. Blanche shrugged her shoulders.
+
+�I obtained my information from two persons who were ignorant of the
+interest it would possess for me.�
+
+�As truly as the sun is in the heavens I swear----�
+
+�Do not swear; simply confess that you have been wanting in zeal.�
+
+The young lady�s manner betrayed such positive certainty that Chupin
+ceased his denials and changed his tactics.
+
+With the most abject humility, he admitted that the evening before he
+had relaxed his surveillance; he had been very busy; one of his boys had
+injured his foot; then he had encountered some friends who persuaded
+him to enter a drinking-saloon, where he had taken more than usual, so
+that----
+
+He told this story in a whining tone, and every moment he interrupted
+himself to affirm his repentance and to cover himself with reproaches.
+
+�Old drunkard!� he said, �this will teach you----�
+
+But these protestations, far from reassuring Mme. Blanche, made her
+still more suspicious,
+
+�All this is very well, Father Chupin,� she said, dryly, �but what are
+you going to do now to repair your negligence?�
+
+�What do I intend to do?� he exclaimed, feigning the most violent
+anger. �Oh! you will see. I will prove that no one can deceive me with
+impunity. Near the Borderie is a small grove. I shall station myself
+there; and may the devil seize me if a cat enters that house unbeknown
+to me.�
+
+Mme. Blanche drew her purse from her pocket, and taking out three louis,
+she gave them to Chupin, saying:
+
+�Take these, and be more careful in future. Another blunder like this,
+and I shall be compelled to ask the aid of some other person.�
+
+The old poacher went away, whistling quite reassured; but he was wrong.
+The lady�s generosity was only intended to allay his suspicions.
+
+And why should she not suppose he had betrayed her--this miserable
+wretch, who made it his business to betray others? What reason had she
+for placing any confidence in his reports? She paid him! Others, by
+paying him more, would certainly have the preference!
+
+But how could she ascertain what she wished to know? Ah! she saw but one
+way--a very disagreeable, but a sure way. She, herself, would play the
+spy.
+
+This idea took such possession of her mind that, after dinner was
+concluded, and twilight had enveloped the earth in a mantle of gray, she
+summoned Aunt Medea.
+
+�Get your cloak, quickly, aunt,� she commanded. �I am going for a walk,
+and you must accompany me.�
+
+Aunt Medea extended her hand to the bell-rope, but her niece stopped
+her.
+
+�You will dispense with the services of your maid,� said she. �I do not
+wish anyone in the chateau to know that we have gone out.�
+
+�Are we going alone?�
+
+�Alone.�
+
+�Alone, and on foot, at night----�
+
+�I am in a hurry, aunt,� interrupted Blanche, �and I am waiting for
+you.�
+
+In the twinkling of an eye Aunt Medea was ready.
+
+The marquis had just been put to bed, the servants were at dinner, and
+Blanche and Aunt Medea reached the little gate leading from the garden
+into the open fields without being observed.
+
+�Good heavens! Where are we going?� groaned Aunt Medea.
+
+�What is that to you? Come!�
+
+Mme. Blanche was going to the Borderie.
+
+She could have followed the banks of the Oiselle, but she preferred
+to cut across the fields, thinking she would be less likely to meet
+someone.
+
+The night was still, but very dark, and the progress of the two women
+was often retarded by hedges and ditches. Twice Blanche lost her way.
+Again and again, Aunt Medea stumbled over the rough ground, and bruised
+herself against the stones; she groaned, she almost wept, but her
+terrible niece was pitiless.
+
+�Come!� she said, �or I will leave you to find your way as best you
+can.�
+
+And the poor dependent struggled on.
+
+At last, after a tramp of more than an hour, Blanche ventured to
+breathe. She recognized Chanlouineau�s house, and she paused in the
+little grove of which Chupin had spoken.
+
+�Are we at our journey�s end?� inquired Aunt Medea, timidly.
+
+�Yes, but be quiet. Remain where you are, I wish to look about a
+little.�
+
+�What! you are leaving me alone? Blanche, I entreat you! What are you
+going to do? _Mon Dieu_! you frighten me. I am afraid, Blanche!�
+
+But her niece had gone. She was exploring the grove, seeking Chupin. She
+did not find him.
+
+�I knew the wretch was deceiving me,� she muttered through her set
+teeth. �Who knows but Martial and Marie-Anne are there in that house
+now, mocking me, and laughing at my credulity?�
+
+She rejoined Aunt Medea, whom she found half dead with fright, and both
+advanced to the edge of the woods, which commanded a view of the front
+of the house.
+
+A flickering, crimson light gleamed through two windows in the second
+story. Evidently there was a fire in the room.
+
+�That is right,� murmured Blanche, bitterly; �Martial is such a chilly
+person!�
+
+She was about to approach the house, when a peculiar whistle rooted her
+to the spot.
+
+She looked about her, and, in spite of the darkness, she discerned in
+the footpath leading to the Borderie, a man laden with articles which
+she could not distinguish.
+
+Almost immediately a woman, certainly Marie-Anne, left the house and
+advanced to meet him.
+
+They exchanged a few words and then walked together to the house. Soon
+after the man emerged without his burden and went away.
+
+�What does this mean?� murmured Mme. Blanche.
+
+She waited patiently for more than half an hour, and as nothing stirred:
+
+�Let us go nearer,� she said to Aunt Medea, �I wish to look through the
+windows.�
+
+They were approaching the house when, just as they reached the little
+garden, the door of the cottage opened so suddenly that they had
+scarcely time to conceal themselves in a clump of lilac-bushes.
+
+Marie-Anne came out, imprudently leaving the key in the door, passed
+down the narrow path, gained the road, and disappeared.
+
+Blanche pressed Aunt Medea�s arm with a violence that made her cry out.
+
+�Wait for me here,� she said, in a strained, unnatural voice, �and
+whatever happens, whatever you hear, if you wish to finish your days at
+Courtornieu, not a word! Do not stir from this spot; I will return.�
+
+And she entered the cottage.
+
+Marie-Anne, on going out, had left a candle burning on the table in the
+front room.
+
+Blanche seized it and boldly began an exploration of the dwelling.
+
+She had gone over the arrangement of the Borderie so often in her own
+mind that the rooms seemed familiar to her, she seemed to recognize
+them.
+
+In spite of Chupin�s description the poverty of this humble abode
+astonished her. There was no floor save the ground; the walls were
+poorly whitewashed; all kinds of grain and bunches of herbs hung
+suspended from the ceiling; a few heavy tables, wooden benches, and
+clumsy chairs constituted the entire furniture.
+
+Marie-Anne evidently occupied the back room. It was the only apartment
+that contained a bed. This was one of those immense country affairs,
+very high and broad, with tall fluted posts, draped with green serge
+curtains, sliding back and forth on iron rings.
+
+At the head of the bed, fastened to the wall, hung a receptacle for
+holy-water. Blanche dipped her finger in the bowl; it was full to the
+brim.
+
+Beside the window was a wooden shelf supported by a hook, and on the
+shelf stood a basin and bowl of the commonest earthenware.
+
+�It must be confessed that my husband does not provide a very sumptuous
+abode for his idol,� said Mme. Blanche, with a sneer.
+
+She was almost on the point of asking herself if jealousy had not led
+her astray.
+
+She remembered Martial�s fastidious tastes, and she did not know how
+to reconcile them with these meagre surroundings. Then, there was the
+holy-water!
+
+But her suspicions became stronger when she entered the kitchen.
+Some savory compound was bubbling in a pot over the fire, and several
+saucepans, in which fragrant stews were simmering, stood among the warm
+ashes.
+
+�All this cannot be for her,� murmured Blanche.
+
+Then she remembered the two windows in the story above which she had
+seen illuminated by the trembling glow of the fire-light.
+
+�I must examine the rooms above,� she thought.
+
+The staircase led up from the middle of the room; she knew this. She
+quickly ascended the stairs, pushed open a door, and could not repress a
+cry of surprise and rage.
+
+She found herself in the sumptuously appointed room which Chanlouineau
+had made the sanctuary of his great love, and upon which he had
+lavished, with the fanaticism of passion, all that was costly and
+luxurious.
+
+�Then it is true!� exclaimed Blanche. �And I thought just now that all
+was too meagre and too poor! Miserable dupe that I am! Below, all is
+arranged for the eyes of comers and goers. Here, everything is intended
+exclusively for themselves. Now, I recognize Martial�s astonishing
+talent for dissimulation. He loves this vile creature so much that he
+is anxious in regard to her reputation; he keeps his visits to her a
+secret, and this is the hidden paradise of their love. Here they laugh
+at me, the poor forsaken wife, whose marriage was but a mockery.�
+
+She had desired to know the truth; certainty was less terrible to endure
+than this constant suspicion, And, as if she found a little enjoyment
+in proving the extent of Martial�s love for a hated rival, she took an
+inventory, as it were, of the magnificent appointments of the chamber,
+feeling the heavy brocaded silk stuff that formed the curtains, and
+testing the thickness of the rich carpet with her foot.
+
+Everything indicated that Marie-Anne was expecting someone; the bright
+fire, the large arm-chair placed before the hearth, the embroidered
+slippers lying beside the chair.
+
+And whom could she expect save Martial? The person who had been there a
+few moments before probably came to announce the arrival of her lover,
+and she had gone out to meet him.
+
+For a trifling circumstance would seem to indicate that this messenger
+had not been expected.
+
+Upon the mantel stood a bowl of still smoking bouillon.
+
+It was evident that Marie-Anne was on the point of drinking this when
+she heard the signal.
+
+Mme. Blanche was wondering how she could profit by her discovery, when
+her eyes fell upon a large oaken box standing open upon a table near the
+glass door leading into the dressing-room, and filled with tiny boxes
+and vials.
+
+Mechanically she approached it, and among the bottles she saw two of
+blue glass, upon which the word �poison� was inscribed.
+
+�Poison!� Blanche could not turn her eyes from this word, which seemed
+to exert a kind of fascination over her.
+
+A diabolical inspiration associated the contents of these vials with the
+bowl standing upon the mantel.
+
+�And why not?� she murmured. �I could escape afterward.�
+
+A terrible thought made her pause. Martial would return with Marie-Anne;
+who could say that it would not be he who would drink the contents of
+the bowl.
+
+�God shall decide!� she murmured. �It is better one�s husband should be
+dead than belong to another!�
+
+And with a firm hand, she took up one of the vials.
+
+Since her entrance into the cottage Blanche had scarcely been conscious
+of her acts. Hatred and despair had clouded her brain like fumes of
+alcohol.
+
+But when her hand came in contact with the glass containing the deadly
+drug, the terrible shock dissipated her bewilderment; she regained
+the full possession of her faculties; the power of calm deliberation
+returned.
+
+This is proved by the fact that her first thought was this:
+
+�I am ignorant even of the name of the poison which I hold. What dose
+must I administer, much or little?�
+
+She opened the vial, not without considerable difficulty, and poured
+a few grains of its contents into the palm of her hand. It was a fine,
+white powder, glistening like pulverized glass, and looking not unlike
+sugar.
+
+�Can it really be sugar?� she thought.
+
+Resolved to ascertain, she moistened the tip of her finger, and
+collected upon it a few atoms of the powder which she placed upon her
+tongue.
+
+The taste was like that of an extremely acid apple.
+
+Without hesitation, without remorse, without even turning pale, she
+poured into the bowl the entire contents of the vial.
+
+Her self-possession was so perfect, she even recollected that the powder
+might be slow in dissolving, and she stirred it gently for a moment or
+more.
+
+Having done this--she seemed to think of everything--she tasted
+the bouillon. She noticed a slightly bitter taste, but it was not
+sufficiently perceptible to awaken distrust.
+
+Now Mme. Blanche breathed freely. If she could succeed in making her
+escape she was avenged.
+
+She was going toward the door when a sound on the stairs startled her.
+
+Two persons were ascending the staircase.
+
+Where should she go? where could she conceal herself?
+
+She was now so sure she would be detected that she almost decided to
+throw the bowl into the fire, and then boldly face the intruders.
+
+But no--a chance remained--she darted into the dressing-room. She dared
+not close the door; the least click of the latch would have betrayed
+her.
+
+Marie-Anne entered the chamber, followed by a peasant, bearing a large
+bundle.
+
+�Ah! here is my candle!� she exclaimed, as she crossed the threshold.
+�Joy must be making me lose my wits! I could have sworn that I left it
+on the table downstairs.� Blanche shuddered. She had not thought of this
+circumstance.
+
+�Where shall I put this clothing?� asked the young peasant.
+
+�Lay it down here. I will arrange the articles by and by,� replied Marie
+Anne.
+
+The boy dropped his heavy burden with a sigh of relief.
+
+�This is the last,� he exclaimed. �Now, our gentleman can come.�
+
+�At what hour will he start?� inquired Marie-Anne.
+
+�At eleven o�clock. It will be nearly midnight when he gets here.�
+
+Marie-Anne glanced at the magnificent clock on the mantel.
+
+�I have still three hours before me,� said she; �more time than I shall
+need. Supper is ready; I am going to set the table here, by the fire.
+Tell him to bring a good appetite.�
+
+�I will tell him, and many thanks, Mademoiselle, for having come to meet
+me and aid me with my second load. It was not so very heavy, but it was
+clumsy to handle.�
+
+�Will you not accept a glass of wine?�
+
+�No, thank you. I must hasten back. _Au revoir_, Mademoiselle
+Lacheneur.�
+
+�_Au revoir_, Poignot.�
+
+This name Poignot had no significance in the ears of Blanche.
+
+Ah! had she heard Monsieur d�Escorval�s or the abbe�s name mentioned,
+she might have felt some doubt of Marie-Anne�s guilt; her resolution
+might have wavered, and--who knows?
+
+But no. Young Poignot, in referring to the baron had said: �our
+gentleman,� Marie-Anne said: �he.�
+
+Is not �he� always the person who is uppermost in our minds, the husband
+whom one hates or the lover whom one adores?
+
+�Our gentleman!� �he!� Blanche translated Martial.
+
+Yes, it was the Marquis de Sairmeuse who was to arrive at midnight. She
+was sure of it. It was he who had been preceded by a messenger bearing
+clothing. This could only mean that he was about to establish himself
+at the Borderie. Perhaps he would cast aside all secrecy and live there
+openly, regardless of his rank, of his dignity, and of his duties;
+forgetful even of his prejudices.
+
+These conjectures inflamed her fury still more.
+
+Why should she hesitate or tremble after that?
+
+Her only dread now, was lest she should be discovered.
+
+Aunt Medea was, it is true, in the garden; but after the orders she
+had received the poor woman would remain motionless as stone behind the
+clump of lilacs, the entire night if necessary.
+
+For two hours and a half Marie-Anne would be alone at the Borderie.
+Blanche reflected that this would give her ample time to watch the
+effects of the poison upon her hated rival.
+
+When the crime was discovered she would be far away. No one knew she
+had been absent from Courtornieu; no one had seen her leave the chateau;
+Aunt Medea would be as silent as the grave. And besides, who would dare
+to accuse her, Marquise de Sairmeuse _nee_ Blanche de Courtornieu, of
+being the murderer? �But she does not drink it!� Blanche thought.
+
+Marie-Anne had, in fact, forgotten the bouillon entirely. She had opened
+the bundle of clothing, and was busily arranging the articles in a
+wardrobe near the bed.
+
+Who talks of presentiments. She was as gay and vivacious as in her days
+of happiness; and as she worked, she hummed an air that Maurice had
+often sung.
+
+She felt that her troubles were nearly over; her friends would soon be
+around her.
+
+When her task of putting away the clothing was completed and the
+wardrobe closed, she drew a small table up before the fire.
+
+Not until then did she notice the bowl standing upon the mantel.
+
+�Stupid!� she said, with a laugh; and taking the bowl she raised it to
+her lips.
+
+From her hiding-place Blanche had heard Marie-Anne�s exclamation; she
+saw the movement, and yet not the slightest remorse struck her soul.
+
+Marie-Anne drank but one mouthful, then, in evident disgust, set the
+bowl down.
+
+A horrible dread made the watcher�s heart stand still. �Does she notice
+a peculiar taste in the bouillon?� she thought.
+
+No; but it had grown cold, and a slight coating of grease had formed
+over the top. Marie-Anne took the spoon, skimmed the bouillon, and then
+stirred it up for some time, to divide the greasy particles.
+
+After she had done this she drank the liquid, put the bowl back upon the
+mantel, and resumed her work.
+
+It was done. The _denouement_ no longer depended upon Blanche de
+Courtornieu�s will. Come what would, she was a murderess.
+
+But though she was conscious of her crime, the excess of her hatred
+prevented her from realizing its enormity. She said to herself that
+it was only an act of justice which she had accomplished; that the
+vengeance she had taken was not proportionate to the offence, and that
+nothing could atone for the torture she had endured.
+
+But in a few moments a sinister apprehension took possession of her
+mind.
+
+Her knowledge of the effects of poison was extremely limited. She had
+expected to see Marie-Anne fall dead before her, as if stricken down by
+a thunder-bolt.
+
+But no. The moments slipped by, and Marie-Anne continued her
+preparations for supper as if nothing had occurred.
+
+She spread a white cloth over the table, smoothed it with her hands, and
+placed a dish upon it.
+
+�What if she should come in here!� thought Blanche.
+
+The fear of punishment which precedes remorse, made her heart beat with
+such violence that she could not understand why its throbbing were
+not heard in the adjoining room. Her terror increased when she saw
+Marie-Anne take the light and go downstairs. Blanche was left alone. The
+thought of making her escape occurred to her; but how, and by what way
+could she leave the house without being seen?
+
+�It must be that poison does not work!� she said, in a rage.
+
+Alas! no. She knew better when Marie-Anne reappeared.
+
+In the few moments she had spent below, her features had become
+frightfully changed. Her face was livid and mottled with purple spots,
+her eyes were distended and glittered with a strange brilliancy. She let
+the plates which she held fall upon the table with a crash.
+
+�The poison! it begins!� thought Blanche.
+
+Marie-Anne stood on the hearth, gazing wildly around her, as if seeking
+the cause of her incomprehensible suffering. She passed and re-passed
+her hand across her forehead, which was bathed in a cold perspiration;
+she gasped for breath. Then suddenly, overcome with nausea, she
+staggered, pressed her hands convulsively upon her breast, and sank into
+the armchair, crying:
+
+�Oh, God! how I suffer!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+Kneeling by the half-open door, Blanche eagerly watched the workings of
+the poison which she had administered.
+
+She was so near her victim that she could distinguish the throbbing of
+her temples, and sometimes she fancied she could feel upon her cheek her
+rival�s breath, which scorched like flame.
+
+An utter prostration followed Marie-Anne�s paroxysm of agony. One would
+have supposed her dead had it not been for the convulsive workings of
+the jaws and her labored breathing.
+
+But soon the nausea returned, and she was seized with vomiting. Each
+effort to relieve seemed to wrench her whole body; and gradually a
+ghastly tint crept over her face, the spots upon her cheeks became more
+pronounced in tint, her eyes appeared ready to burst from their sockets,
+and great drops of perspiration rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Her sufferings must have been intolerable. She moaned feebly at times,
+and occasionally rendered heart-rending shrieks. Then she faltered
+fragmentary sentences; she begged piteously for water or entreated God
+to shorten her torture.
+
+�Ah, it is horrible! I suffer too much! Death! My God! grant me death!�
+
+She invoked all the friends she had ever known, calling for aid in a
+despairing voice.
+
+She called Mme. d�Escorval, the abbe, Maurice, her brother,
+Chanlouineau, Martial!
+
+Martial, this name was more than sufficient to extinguish all pity in
+the heart of Mme. Blanche.
+
+�Go on! call your lover, call!� she said to herself, bitterly. �He will
+come too late.�
+
+And as Marie-Anne repeated the name in a tone of agonized entreaty:
+
+�Suffer!� continued Mme. Blanche, �suffer, you who have inspired Martial
+with the odious courage to forsake me, his wife, as a drunken lackey
+would abandon the lowest of degraded creatures! Die, and my husband will
+return to me repentant.�
+
+No, she had no pity. She felt a difficulty in breathing, but that
+resulted simply from the instinctive horror which the sufferings of
+others inspire--an entirely different physical impression, which is
+adorned with the fine name of sensibility, but which is, in reality, the
+grossest selfishness.
+
+And yet, Marie-Anne was perceptibly sinking. Soon she had not strength
+even to moan; her eyes closed, and after a spasm which brought a bloody
+foam to her lips, her head sank back, and she lay motionless.
+
+�It is over,� murmured Blanche.
+
+She rose, but her limbs trembled so that she could scarcely stand.
+
+Her heart remained firm and implacable; but the flesh failed.
+
+Never had she imagined a scene like that which she had just witnessed.
+She knew that poison caused death; she had not suspected the agony of
+that death.
+
+She no longer thought of augmenting Marie-Anne�s sufferings by
+upbraiding her. Her only desire now was to leave this house, whose very
+floor seemed to scorch her feet.
+
+A strange, inexplicable sensation crept over her; it was not yet fright,
+it was the stupor that follows the commission of a terrible crime--the
+stupor of the murderer.
+
+Still, she compelled herself to wait a few moments longer; then seeing
+that Marie-Anne still remained motionless and with closed eyes, she
+ventured to softly open the door and to enter the room in which her
+victim was lying.
+
+But she had not advanced three steps before Marie-Anne suddenly, and as
+if she had been galvanized by an electric battery, rose and extended her
+arms to bar her enemy�s passage.
+
+This movement was so unexpected and so frightful that Mme. Blanche
+recoiled.
+
+�The Marquise de Sairmeuse,� faltered Marie-Anne. �You, Blanche--here!�
+
+And her suffering, explained by the presence of this young girl who once
+had been her friend, but who was now her bitterest enemy, she exclaimed:
+
+�You are my murderer!�
+
+Blanche de Courtornieu�s was one of those iron natures that break, but
+never bend.
+
+Since she had been discovered, nothing in the world would induce her to
+deny her guilt.
+
+She advanced resolutely, and in a firm voice:
+
+�Yes,� she said, �I have taken my revenge. Do you think I did not suffer
+that evening when you sent your brother to take away my newly wedded
+husband, upon whose face I have not gazed since?�
+
+�Your husband! I sent to take him away! I do not understand you.�
+
+�Do you then dare to deny that you are not Martial�s mistress!�
+
+�The Marquis de Sairmeuse! I saw him yesterday for the first time since
+Baron d�Escorval�s escape.�
+
+The effort which she had made to rise and to speak had exhausted her
+strength. She fell back in the armchair.
+
+But Blanche was pitiless.
+
+�You have not seen Martial! Tell me, then, who gave you this costly
+furniture, these silken hangings, all the luxury that surrounds you?�
+
+�Chanlouineau.�
+
+Blanche shrugged her shoulders.
+
+�So be it,� she said, with an ironical smile, �but is it Chanlouineau
+for whom you are waiting this evening? Is it for Chanlouineau you have
+warmed these slippers and laid this table? Was it Chanlouineau who sent
+his clothing by a peasant named Poignot? You see that I know all----�
+
+But her victim was silent.
+
+�For whom are you waiting?� she insisted. �Answer!�
+
+�I cannot!�
+
+�You know that it is your lover! wretched woman--my husband, Martial!�
+
+Marie-Anne was considering the situation as well as her intolerable
+sufferings and troubled mind would permit.
+
+Could she tell what guests she was expecting?
+
+To name Baron d�Escorval to Blanche, would it not ruin and betray him?
+They hoped for a safe-conduct, a revision of judgment, but he was none
+the less under sentence of death, executory in twenty-four hours.
+
+�So you refuse to tell me whom you expect here in an hour--at midnight.�
+
+�I refuse.�
+
+But a sudden impulse took possession of the sufferer�s mind.
+
+Though the slightest movement caused her intolerable agony, she tore
+open her dress and drew from her bosom a folded paper.
+
+�I am not the mistress of the Marquis de Sairmeuse,� she said, in an
+almost inaudible voice; �I am the wife of Maurice d�Escorval. Here is
+the proof--read.�
+
+No sooner had Blanche glanced at the paper, than she became as pale as
+her victim. Her sight failed her; there was a strange ringing in her
+ears, a cold sweat started from every pore.
+
+This paper was the marriage-certificate of Maurice and Marie-Anne, drawn
+up by the cure of Vigano, witnessed by the old physician and Bavois, and
+sealed with the seal of the parish.
+
+The proof was indisputable. She had committed a useless crime; she had
+murdered an innocent woman.
+
+The first good impulse of her life made her heart beat more quickly.
+She did not stop to consider; she forgot the danger to which she exposed
+herself, and in a ringing voice she cried:
+
+�Help! help!�
+
+Eleven o�clock was sounding; the whole country was asleep. The
+farm-house nearest the Borderie was half a league distant.
+
+The voice of Blanche was lost in the deep stillness of the night.
+
+In the garden below Aunt Medea heard it, perhaps; but she would have
+allowed herself to be chopped in pieces rather than stir from her place.
+
+And yet, there was one who heard that cry of distress. Had Blanche and
+her victim been less overwhelmed with despair, they would have heard a
+noise upon the staircase which creaked beneath the tread of a man who
+was cautiously ascending it. But it was not a saviour, for he did not
+answer the appeal. But even though there had been aid near at hand, it
+would have come too late.
+
+Marie-Anne felt that there was no longer any hope for her, and that it
+was the chill of death which was creeping up to her heart. She felt that
+her life was fast ebbing away.
+
+So, when Blanche seemed about to rush out in search of assistance, she
+detained her by a gesture, and gently said:
+
+�Blanche.�
+
+The murderess paused.
+
+�Do not summon anyone; it would do no good. Remain; be calm, that I may
+at least die in peace. It will not be long now.�
+
+�Hush! do not speak so. You must not, you shall not die! If you should
+die--great God! what would my life be afterward?�
+
+Marie-Anne made no reply. The poison was pursuing its work of
+dissolution. Her breath made a whistling sound as it forced its way
+through her inflamed throat; her tongue, when she moved it, produced in
+her mouth the terrible sensation of a piece of red-hot iron; her lips
+were parched and swollen; her hands, inert and paralyzed, would no
+longer obey her will.
+
+But the horror of the situation restored Blanche�s calmness.
+
+�All is not yet lost,� she exclaimed. �It was in that great box
+there upon the table, where I found�--she dared not utter the word
+poison--�the white powder which I poured into the bowl. You know this
+powder; you must know the antidote.�
+
+Marie-Anne sadly shook her head.
+
+�Nothing can save me now,� she murmured, in an almost inaudible voice;
+�but I do not complain. Who knows the misery from which death may
+preserve me? I do not crave life; I have suffered so much during the
+past year; I have endured such humiliation; I have wept so much! A curse
+was upon me!�
+
+She was suddenly endowed with that clearness of mental vision so often
+granted to the dying. She saw how she had wrought her own undoing by
+consenting to accept the perfidious role imposed upon her by her father,
+and how she, herself, had paved the way for the falsehoods, slander,
+crimes and misfortunes of which she had been the victim.
+
+Her voice grew fainter and fainter. Worn out by suffering, a sensation
+of drowsiness stole over her. She was falling asleep in the arms of
+death.
+
+Suddenly such a terrible thought pierced the stupor which enveloped her
+that she uttered a heart-breaking cry:
+
+�My child!�
+
+Collecting, by a superhuman effort, all the will, energy, and strength
+that the poison had left her, she straightened herself in her arm-chair,
+her features contracted by mortal anguish.
+
+�Blanche!� she said, with an energy of which one would have supposed her
+incapable. �Blanche, listen to me. It is the secret of my life which I
+am about to disclose; no one suspects it. I have a son by Maurice. Alas!
+many months have elapsed since my husband disappeared. If he is dead,
+what will become of my child? Blanche, you, who have killed me, must
+swear to me that you will be a mother to my child!�
+
+Blanche was utterly overcome.
+
+�I swear!� she sobbed, �I swear!�
+
+�On that condition, but on that condition alone, I pardon you. But take
+care! Do not forget your oath! Blanche, God sometimes permits the dead
+to avenge themselves! You have sworn, remember.
+
+�My spirit will allow you no rest if you do not fulfil your vow.�
+
+�I will remember,� sobbed Blanche; �I will remember. But the child----�
+
+�Ah! I was afraid--cowardly creature that I was! I dreaded the
+shame--then Maurice insisted--I sent my child away--your jealousy and
+my death are my punishment. Poor child! I abandoned him to strangers.
+Wretched woman that I am! Ah! this suffering is too horrible. Blanche,
+remember----�
+
+She spoke again, but her words were indistinct, inaudible.
+
+Blanche frantically seized the dying woman�s arm, and endeavored to
+arouse her.
+
+�To whom have you confided your child?� she repeated; �to whom?
+Marie-Anne--a word more--a single word--a name, Marie-Anne!�
+
+The unfortunate woman�s lips moved, but the death-rattle sounded in her
+throat; a terrible convulsion shook her form; she slid down from the
+chair, and fell full length upon the floor.
+
+Marie-Anne was dead--dead, and she had not disclosed the name of the old
+physician at Vigano to whom she had intrusted her child. She was dead,
+and the terrified murderess stood in the middle of the room, as rigid
+and motionless as a statue. It seemed to her that madness--a madness
+like that which had stricken her father--was developing itself in her
+brain.
+
+She forgot everything; she forgot that a guest was expected at midnight,
+that time was flying, and that she would surely be discovered if she did
+not flee.
+
+But the man who had entered when she cried for aid was watching over
+her. When he saw that Marie-Anne had breathed her last, he made a slight
+noise at the door, and thrust his leering face into the room.
+
+�Chupin!� faltered Mme. Blanche.
+
+�In the flesh,� he responded. �This was a grand chance for you. Ah, ha!
+The business riled your stomach a little, but nonsense! that will soon
+pass off. But we must not dawdle here; someone may come in. Let us make
+haste.�
+
+Mechanically the murderess advanced; but Marie-Anne�s dead body lay
+between her and the door, barring the passage. To leave the room it
+was necessary to step over the lifeless form of her victim. She had not
+courage to do this, and recoiled with a shudder.
+
+But Chupin was troubled by no such scruples. He sprang across the body,
+lifted Blanche as if she had been a child and carried her out of the
+house.
+
+He was drunk with joy. Fears for the future no longer disquieted
+him, now that Mme. Blanche was bound to him by the strongest of
+chains--complicity in crime.
+
+He saw himself on the threshold of a life of ease and continual
+feasting. Remorse for Lacheneur�s betrayal had ceased to trouble him. He
+saw himself sumptuously fed, lodged and clothed; above all, effectually
+guarded by an army of servants.
+
+Blanche, who had experienced a feeling of deadly faintness, was revived
+by the cool night air.
+
+�I wish to walk,� said she.
+
+Chupin placed her on the ground about twenty paces from the house.
+
+�And Aunt Medea!� she exclaimed.
+
+Her relative was beside her; like one of those dogs who are left at the
+door when their master enters a house, she had, instinctively followed
+her niece on seeing her borne from the cottage by the old poacher.
+
+�We must not stop to talk,� said Chupin. �Come, I will lead the way.�
+
+And taking Blanche by the arm, he hastened toward the grove.
+
+�Ah! so Marie-Anne had a child,� he said, as they hurried on. �She was
+pretending to be such a saint! But where the devil has she put it?�
+
+�I shall find it.�
+
+�Hum! That is easier said than done.�
+
+A shrill laugh, resounding in the darkness, interrupted him. He released
+his hold on the arm of Blanche and assumed an attitude of defence.
+
+Vain precaution! A man concealed behind a tree bounded upon him, and,
+plunging his knife four times into the old poacher�s writhing body,
+cried:
+
+�Holy Virgin! now is my vow fulfilled! I shall no longer be obliged to
+eat with my fingers!�
+
+�The innkeeper!� groaned the wounded man, sinking to the earth.
+
+For once in her life, Aunt Medea manifested some energy.
+
+�Come!� she shrieked, wild with fear, dragging her niece away. �Come--he
+is dead!�
+
+Not quite. The traitor had strength to crawl home and knock at the door.
+
+His wife and youngest son were sleeping soundly. His eldest son, who had
+just returned home, opened the door.
+
+Seeing his father prostrate on the ground, he thought he was
+intoxicated, and tried to lift him and carry him into the house, but the
+old poacher begged him to desist.
+
+�Do not touch me,� said he. �It is all over with me; but listen;
+Lacheneur�s daughter has just been poisoned by Madame Blanche. It was
+to tell you this that I dragged myself here. This knowledge is worth a
+fortune, my boy, if you are not a fool!�
+
+And he died, without being able to tell his family where he had
+concealed the price of Lacheneur�s blood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+Of all the persons who witnessed Baron d�Escorval�s terrible fall, the
+abbe was the only one who did not despair.
+
+What a learned doctor would not have dared to do, he did.
+
+He was a priest; he had faith. He remembered the sublime saying of
+Ambroise Pare: �I dress the wound: God heals it.�
+
+After a six months� sojourn in Father Poignot�s secluded farm-house, M.
+d�Escorval was able to sit up and to walk about a little, with the aid
+of crutches.
+
+Then he began to be seriously inconvenienced by his cramped quarters
+in the loft, where prudence compelled him to remain; and it was with
+transports of joy that he welcomed the idea of taking up his abode at
+the Borderie with Marie-Anne.
+
+When the day of departure had been decided upon, he counted the minutes
+as impatiently as a school-boy pining for vacation.
+
+�I am suffocating here,� he said to his wife. �I am suffocating. Time
+drags so slowly. When will the happy day come?�
+
+It came at last. During the morning all the articles which they
+had succeeded in procuring during their stay at the farm-house were
+collected and packed; and when night came, Poignot�s son began the
+moving.
+
+�Everything is at the Borderie,� said the honest fellow, on returning
+from his last trip, �and Mademoiselle Lacheneur bids the baron bring a
+good appetite.�
+
+�I shall have one, never fear!� responded the baron, gayly. �We shall
+all have one.�
+
+Father Poignot himself was busily engaged in harnessing his best horse
+to the cart which was to convey M. d�Escorval to his new home.
+
+The worthy man�s heart grew sad at the thought of the departure of these
+guests, for whose sake he had incurred such danger. He felt that he
+should miss them, that the house would seem gloomy and deserted after
+they left it.
+
+He would allow no one else to perform the task of arranging the mattress
+comfortably in the cart. When this had been done to his satisfaction, he
+heaved a deep sigh, and exclaimed:
+
+�It is time to start!�
+
+Slowly he ascended the narrow staircase leading to the loft.
+
+M. d�Escorval had not thought of the moment of parting.
+
+At the sight of the honest farmer, who came toward him, his face
+crimsoned with emotion to bid him farewell, he forgot all the comforts
+that awaited him at the Borderie, in the remembrance of the loyal and
+courageous hospitality he had received in the house he was about to
+leave. The tears sprang to his eyes.
+
+�You have rendered me a service which nothing can repay, Father
+Poignot,� he said, with intense feeling. �You have saved my life.�
+
+�Oh! we will not talk of that, Baron. In my place, you would have done
+the same--neither more nor less.�
+
+�I shall not attempt to express my thanks, but I hope to live long
+enough to prove that I am not ungrateful.�
+
+The staircase was so narrow that they had considerable difficulty in
+carrying the baron down; but finally they had him comfortably extended
+upon his mattress and threw over him a few handsful of straw, which
+concealed him entirely.
+
+�Farewell, then!� said the old farmer, when the last hand-shake had been
+exchanged, �or rather _au revoir_, Monsieur le Baron, Madame, and you,
+my good cure.�
+
+�All ready?� inquired young Poignot.
+
+�Yes,� replied the invalid.
+
+The cart, driven with the utmost caution by the young peasant, started
+slowly on its way.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval, leaning upon the abbe�s arm, walked about twenty paces
+in the rear.
+
+It was very dark, but had it been as light as day the former cure of
+Sairmeuse might have encountered any of his old parishioners without the
+least danger of detection.
+
+His hair and his beard had been allowed to grow; his tonsure had
+entirely disappeared, and his sedentary life had caused him to become
+much stouter. He was clad like all the well-to-do peasants of the
+neighborhood, and his face was hidden by a large slouch hat.
+
+He had not felt so tranquil in mind for months. Obstacles which had
+appeared almost insurmountable had vanished. In the near future he
+saw the baron declared innocent by impartial judges; he saw himself
+reinstalled in the presbytery of Sairmeuse.
+
+The recollection of Maurice was the only thing that marred his
+happiness. Why did he not give some sign of life?
+
+�But if he had met with any misfortune we should have heard of it,�
+ thought the priest. �He has with him a brave man--an old soldier who
+would risk anything to come and tell us.�
+
+He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he did not observe that Mme.
+d�Escorval was leaning more and more heavily upon his arm.
+
+�I am ashamed to confess it,� she said at last, �but I can go no
+farther. It has been so long since I was out of doors that I have almost
+forgotten how to walk.�
+
+�Fortunately, we are almost there,� replied the priest.
+
+A moment after young Poignot stopped his cart in the road, at the
+entrance of the little footpath leading to the Borderie.
+
+�Our journey is ended!� he remarked to the baron. Then he uttered a
+low whistle, like that which he had given a few hours before, to warn
+Marie-Anne of his arrival.
+
+No one appeared; he whistled again, louder this time; then with all his
+might--still no response.
+
+Mme. d�Escorval and the abbe had now overtaken the cart.
+
+�It is very strange that Marie-Anne does not hear me,� remarked young
+Poignot, turning to them. �We cannot take the baron to the house until
+we have seen her. She knows that very well. Shall I run up and warn
+her?�
+
+�She is asleep, perhaps,� replied the abbe; �you stay with your horse,
+my boy, and I will go and wake her.�
+
+Certainly he did not feel the slightest disquietude. All was calm and
+still; a bright light was shining through the windows of the second
+story.
+
+Still, when he saw the open door, a vague presentiment of evil stirred
+his heart.
+
+�What can this mean?� he thought.
+
+There was no light in the lower rooms, and the abbe was obliged to feel
+for the staircase with his hands. At last he found it and went up. But
+upon the threshold of the chamber he paused, petrified with horror by
+the spectacle before him.
+
+Poor Marie-Anne was lying on the floor. Her eyes, which were wide open,
+were covered with a white film; her black and swollen tongue was hanging
+from her mouth.
+
+�Dead!� faltered the priest, �dead!�
+
+But this could not be. The abbe conquered his weakness, and approaching
+the poor girl, he took her hand.
+
+It was icy cold; the arm was rigid as iron.
+
+�Poisoned!� he murmured; �poisoned with arsenic.�
+
+He rose to his feet, and cast a bewildered glance around the room. His
+eyes fell upon his medicine-chest, open upon the table.
+
+He rushed to it and unhesitatingly took out a vial, uncorked it, and
+inverted it on the palm of his hand--it was empty.
+
+�I was not mistaken!� he exclaimed.
+
+But he had no time to lose in conjectures.
+
+The first thing to be done was to induce the baron to return to the
+farm-house without telling him the terrible misfortune which had
+occurred.
+
+To find a pretext was easy enough.
+
+The priest hastened back to the wagon, and with well-affected calmness
+told the baron that it would be impossible for him to take up his abode
+at the Borderie at present, that several suspicious-looking characters
+had been seen prowling about, and that they must be more prudent than
+ever, now they could rely upon the kindly intervention of Martial de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+At last, but not without considerable reluctance, the baron yielded.
+
+�You desire it, cure,� he sighed, �so I obey. Come, Poignot, my boy,
+take me back to your father�s house.�
+
+Mme. d�Escorval took a seat in the cart beside her husband; the priest
+watched them as they drove away, and not until the sound of their
+carriage-wheels had died away in the distance did he venture to go back
+to the Borderie.
+
+He was ascending the stairs when he heard moans that seemed to issue
+from the chamber of death. The sound sent all his blood wildly rushing
+to his heart. He darted up the staircase.
+
+A man was kneeling beside Marie-Anne, weeping bitterly. The expression
+of his face, his attitude, his sobs betrayed the wildest despair. He was
+so lost in grief that he did not observe the abbe�s entrance.
+
+Who was this mourner who had found his way to the house of death?
+
+After a moment, the priest divined who the intruder was, though he did
+not recognize him.
+
+�Jean!� he cried, �Jean Lacheneur!�
+
+With a bound the young man was on his feet, pale and menacing; a flame
+of anger drying the tears in his eyes.
+
+�Who are you?� he demanded, in a terrible voice. �What are you doing
+here? What do you wish with me?�
+
+By his peasant dress and by his long beard, the former cure of Sairmeuse
+was so effectually disguised that he was obliged to tell who he really
+was.
+
+As soon as he uttered his name, Jean uttered a cry of joy.
+
+�God has sent you here!� he exclaimed. �Marie-Anne cannot be dead! You,
+who have saved so many others, will save her.�
+
+As the priest sadly pointed to heaven, Jean paused, his face more
+ghastly than before. He understood now that there was no hope.
+
+�Ah!� he murmured, with an accent of frightful despondency, �fate
+shows us no mercy. I have been watching over Marie-Anne, though from
+a distance; and this very evening I was coming to say to her: �Beware,
+sister--be cautious!��
+
+�What! you knew----�
+
+�I knew she was in great danger; yes, Monsieur. An hour ago, while I was
+eating my supper in a restaurant at Sairmeuse, Grollet�s son entered.
+�Is this you, Jean?� said he. �I just saw Chupin hiding near your
+sister�s house; when he observed me he slunk away.� I ran here like
+one crazed. But when fate is against a man, what can he do? I came too
+late!�
+
+The abbe reflected for a moment.
+
+�Then you suppose that it was Chupin?�
+
+�I do not suppose, sir; I _swear_ that it was he--the miserable
+traitor!--who committed this foul deed.�
+
+�Still, what motive could he have had?�
+
+Jean burst into one of those discordant laughs that are, perhaps, the
+most frightful signs of despair.
+
+�You may rest assured that the blood of the daughter will yield him
+a richer reward than did the father�s. Chupin has been the vile
+instrument; but it was not he who conceived the crime. You will have to
+seek higher for the culprit, much higher, in the finest chateau of the
+country, in the midst of an army of valets at Sairmeuse, in short!�
+
+�Wretched man, what do you mean?�
+
+�What I say.�
+
+And coldly, he added:
+
+�Martial de Sairmeuse is the assassin.� The priest recoiled, really
+appalled by the looks and manner of the grief-stricken man.
+
+�You are mad!� he said, severely.
+
+But Jean gravely shook his head.
+
+�If I seem so to you, sir,� he replied, �it is only because you are
+ignorant of Martial�s wild passion for Marie-Anne. He wished to make
+her his mistress. She had the audacity to refuse this honor; that was
+a crime for which she must be punished. When the Marquis de Sairmeuse
+became convinced that Lacheneur�s daughter would never be his, he
+poisoned her that she might not belong to another.�
+
+Any attempt to convince Jean of the folly of his accusation would have
+been vain at that moment. No proofs would have convinced him. He would
+have closed his eyes to all evidence.
+
+�To-morrow, when he is more calm, I will reason with him,� thought the
+abbe; then, turning to Jean, he said:
+
+�We cannot allow the body of the poor girl to remain here upon the
+floor. Assist me, and we will place it upon the bed.�
+
+Jean trembled from head to foot, and his hesitation was apparent.
+
+�Very well!� he said, at last, after a severe struggle.
+
+No one had ever slept upon this bed which poor Chanlouineau had destined
+for Marie-Anne.
+
+�It shall be for her,� he said to himself, �or for no one.�
+
+And it was Marie-Anne who rested there first--dead.
+
+When this sad task was accomplished, he threw himself into the same
+arm-chair in which Marie-Anne had breathed her last, and with his face
+buried in his hands, and his elbows supported upon his knees, he sat
+there as silent and motionless as the statues of sorrow placed above the
+last resting-places of the dead.
+
+The abbe knelt at the head of the bed and began the recital of the
+prayers for the dead, entreating God to grant peace and happiness in
+heaven to her who had suffered so much upon earth.
+
+But he prayed only with his lips. In spite of his efforts, his mind
+would persist in wandering.
+
+He was striving to solve the mystery that enshrouded Marie-Anne�s death.
+Had she been murdered? Could it be that she had committed suicide?
+
+This explanation recurred to him, but he could not believe it.
+
+But, on the other hand, how could her death possibly be the result of a
+crime?
+
+He had carefully examined the room, and he had discovered nothing that
+betrayed the presence of a stranger.
+
+All that he could prove was, that his vial of arsenic was empty, and
+that Marie-Anne had been poisoned by the bouillon, a few drops of which
+were left in the bowl that was standing upon the mantel.
+
+�When daylight comes,� thought the abbe, �I will look outside.�
+
+When morning broke, he went into the garden, and made a careful
+examination of the premises.
+
+At first he saw nothing that gave him the least clew, and was about to
+abandon the investigations, when, upon entering the little grove, he saw
+in the distance a large dark stain upon the grass. He went nearer--it
+was blood!
+
+Much excited, he summoned Jean, to inform him of the discovery.
+
+�Someone has been assassinated here,� said Lacheneur; �and it happened
+last night, for the blood has not had time to dry.�
+
+�The victim lost a great deal of blood,� the priest remarked; �it might
+be possible to discover who he was by following up these stains.�
+
+�I am going to try,� responded Jean. �Go back to the house, sir; I will
+soon return.�
+
+A child might have followed the track of the wounded man, the
+blood-stains left in his passage were so frequent and so distinct.
+
+These tell-tale marks stopped at Chupin�s house. The door was closed;
+Jean rapped without the slightest hesitation.
+
+The old poacher�s eldest son opened the door, and Jean saw a strange
+spectacle.
+
+The traitor�s body had been thrown on the ground, in a corner of the
+room, the bed was overturned and broken, all the straw had been torn
+from the mattress, and the wife and sons of the dead man, armed with
+pickaxes and spades, were wildly overturning the beaten soil that formed
+the floor of the hovel. They were seeking the hidden treasures.
+
+�What do you want?� demanded the widow, rudely.
+
+�Father Chupin.�
+
+�You can see very plainly that he has been murdered,� replied one of the
+sons.
+
+And brandishing his pick a few inches from Jean�s head, he exclaimed:
+
+�And you, perhaps, are the assassin. But that is for justice to
+determine. Now, decamp; if you do not----�
+
+Had he listened to the promptings of anger, Jean Lacheneur would
+certainly have attempted to make the Chupins repent their menaces.
+
+But a conflict was scarcely permissible under the circumstances.
+
+He departed without a word, and hastened back to the Borderie.
+
+The death of Chupin overturned all his plans, and greatly irritated him.
+
+�I had sworn that the vile wretch who betrayed my father should perish
+by my hand,� he murmured; �and now my vengeance has escaped me. Someone
+has robbed me of it.�
+
+Then he asked himself who the murderer could be.
+
+�Is it possible that Martial assassinated Chupin after he murdered
+Marie-Anne? To kill an accomplice is an effectual way of assuring one�s
+self of his silence.�
+
+He had reached the Borderie, and was about going upstairs, when he
+thought he heard the sound of voices in the back room.
+
+�That is strange,� he said to himself. �Who can it be?�
+
+And impelled by curiosity, he went and tapped upon the communicating
+door.
+
+The abbe instantly made his appearance, hurriedly closing the door
+behind him. He was very pale, and visibly agitated.
+
+�Who is it?� inquired Jean, eagerly.
+
+�It is--it is. Guess who it is.�
+
+�How can I guess?�
+
+�Maurice d�Escorval and Corporal Bavois.�
+
+�My God!�
+
+�And it is a miracle that he has not been upstairs.�
+
+�But whence does he come? Why have we received no news of him?�
+
+�I do not know. He has been here only five minutes. Poor boy! after
+I told him that his father was safe, his first words were: �And
+Marie-Anne?� He loves her more devotedly than ever. He comes with his
+heart full of her, confident and hopeful; and I tremble--I fear to tell
+him the truth.�
+
+�Oh, terrible! terrible!�
+
+�I have warned you; be prudent--and now, come in.�
+
+They entered the room together; and Maurice and the old soldier greeted
+Jean with the most ardent expressions of friendship.
+
+They had not seen each other since the duel on the Reche, which had been
+interrupted by the arrival of the soldiers; and when they parted that
+day they scarcely expected to meet again.
+
+�And now we are together once more,� said Maurice, gayly, �and we have
+nothing to fear.�
+
+Never had the unfortunate man seemed so cheerful; and it was with the
+most jubilant air that he explained the reason of his long silence.
+
+�Three days after we crossed the frontier,� said he, �Corporal Bavois
+and I reached Turin. It was time, for we were tired out. We went to a
+small inn, and they gave us a room with two beds.
+
+�That evening, while we were undressing, the corporal said to me: �I
+am capable of sleeping two whole days without waking.� I, too, promised
+myself a rest of at least twelve hours. We reckoned without our host, as
+you will see.
+
+�It was scarcely daybreak when we were awakened by a great tumult. A
+dozen rough-looking men entered our room, and ordered us, in Italian, to
+dress ourselves. They were too strong for us, so we obeyed; and an hour
+later we were in prison, confined in the same cell. Our reflections, I
+confess, were not _couleur de rose_.
+
+�I well remember how the corporal said again and again, in that cool way
+of his: �It will require four days to obtain our extradition, three days
+to take us back to Montaignac--that is seven days; it will take one day
+more to try me; so I have in all eight days to live.��
+
+�Upon my word! that was exactly what I thought,� said the old soldier,
+approvingly.
+
+�For five months,� continued Maurice, �instead of saying �good-night� to
+each other, we said: �To-morrow they will come for us.� But they did not
+come.
+
+�We were kindly treated. They did not take away my money; and they
+willingly sold us little luxuries; they also granted us two hours of
+exercise each day in the court-yard, and even loaned us books to read.
+In short, I should not have had any particular cause to complain, if I
+had been allowed to receive or to forward letters, or if I had been able
+to communicate with my father or with Marie-Anne. But we were in the
+secret cells, and were not allowed to have any intercourse with the
+other prisoners.
+
+�At length our detention seemed so strange and became so insupportable
+to us, that we resolved to obtain some explanation of it, cost what it
+might.
+
+�We changed our tactics. Up to that time we had been quite submissive;
+we suddenly became violent and intractable. We made the prison resound
+with our cries and protestations; we were continually sending for the
+superintendent; we claimed the intervention of the French ambassador. We
+were not obliged to wait long for the result.
+
+�One fine afternoon, the superintendent released us, not without
+expressing much regret at being deprived of the society of such amiable
+and charming guests.
+
+�Our first act, as you may suppose, was to run to the ambassador. We did
+not see that dignitary, but his secretary received us. He knit his brows
+when I told my story, and became excessively grave. I remember each word
+of his reply.
+
+��Monsieur,� said he, �I can swear that the persecution of which you
+have been the object in France had nothing whatever to do with your
+detention here.�
+
+�And as I expressed my astonishment:
+
+��One moment,� he added. �I shall express my opinion very frankly. One
+of your enemies--I leave you to discover which one--must exert a very
+powerful influence in Turin. You were in his way, perhaps; he had you
+imprisoned by the Piedmontese police.��
+
+With a heavy blow of his clinched fist, Jean Lacheneur made the table
+beside him reel.
+
+�Ah! the secretary was right!� he exclaimed. �Maurice, it was Martial de
+Sairmeuse who caused your arrest----�
+
+�Or the Marquis de Courtornieu,� interrupted the abbe, with a warning
+glance at Jean.
+
+A wrathful light gleamed for an instant in the eyes of Maurice; but it
+vanished almost immediately, and he shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
+
+�Nonsense,� said he, �I do not wish to trouble myself any more about
+the past. My father is well again, that is the main thing. We can easily
+find some way of getting him safely across the frontier. Marie-Anne
+and I, by our devotion, will strive to make him forget that my rashness
+almost cost him his life. He is so good, so indulgent to the faults of
+others. We will take up our residence in Italy or in Switzerland. You
+will accompany us, Monsieur l�Abbe, and you also, Jean. As for you,
+corporal, it is decided that you belong to our family.�
+
+Nothing could be more horrible than to see this man, upon whose life
+such a terrible blight was about to fall, so bright and full of hope and
+confidence.
+
+The impression produced upon Jean and the abbe was so terrible, that,
+in spite of their efforts, it showed itself in their faces; and Maurice
+remarked their agitation.
+
+�What is the matter?� he inquired, in evident surprise.
+
+They trembled, hung their heads, but did not say a word.
+
+The unfortunate man�s astonishment changed to a vague, inexpressible
+fear.
+
+He enumerated all the misfortunes which could possibly have befallen
+him.
+
+�What has happened?� he asked, in a stifled voice. �My father is safe,
+is he not? You said that my mother would desire nothing, if I were with
+her again. Is it Marie-Anne----�
+
+He hesitated.
+
+�Courage, Maurice,� murmured the abbe. �Courage!�
+
+The stricken man tottered as if about to fall; his face grew whiter than
+the plastered wall against which he leaned for support.
+
+�Marie-Anne is dead!� he exclaimed.
+
+Jean and the abbe were silent.
+
+�Dead!� Maurice repeated--�and no secret voice warned me! Dead! when?�
+
+�She died only last night,� replied Jean.
+
+Maurice rose.
+
+�Last night?� said he. �In that case, then, she is still here. Where?
+upstairs?�
+
+And without waiting for any response, he darted toward the staircase so
+quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him.
+
+With three bounds he reached the chamber; he walked straight to the
+bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid the face of the
+dead.
+
+He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.
+
+Was this indeed the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne, whom he had loved
+to his own undoing! He did not recognize her.
+
+He could not recognize these distorted features, this face swollen and
+discolored by poison, these eyes which were almost concealed by the
+purple swelling around them.
+
+When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with
+head thrown back, eyes dilated with terror, and rigid arm extended
+toward the corpse.
+
+�Maurice,� said the priest, gently, �be calm. Courage!�
+
+He turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features.
+
+�Yes,� he faltered, �that is what I need--courage!�
+
+He staggered; they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair.
+
+�Be a man,� continued the priest; �where is your energy? To live, is to
+suffer.�
+
+He listened, but did not seem to comprehend.
+
+�Live!� he murmured, �why should I desire to live since she is dead?�
+
+The dread light of insanity glittered in his dry eyes. The abbe was
+alarmed.
+
+�If he does not weep, he will lose his reason!� he thought.
+
+And in an imperious voice, he said:
+
+�You have no right to despair thus; you owe a sacred duty to your
+child.�
+
+He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.
+
+The recollection which had given Marie-Anne strength to hold death at
+bay for a moment, saved Maurice from the dangerous torpor into which he
+was sinking. He trembled as if he had received an electric shock, and
+springing from his chair:
+
+�That is true,� he cried. �Take me to my child.�
+
+�Not just now, Maurice; wait a little.�
+
+�Where is it? Tell me where it is.�
+
+�I cannot; I do not know.�
+
+An expression of unspeakable anguish stole over the face of Maurice, and
+in a husky voice he said:
+
+�What! you do not know! Did she not confide in you?�
+
+�No. I suspected her secret. I alone----�
+
+�You, alone! Then the child is dead, perhaps. Even if it is living, who
+can tell me where it is?�
+
+�We shall undoubtedly find something that will give us a clew.�
+
+�You are right,� faltered the wretched man. �When Marie-Anne knew that
+her life was in danger, she would not have forgotten her child. Those
+who cared for her in her last moments must have received some message
+for me. I wish to see those who watched over her. Who were they?�
+
+The priest averted his face.
+
+�I asked you who was with her when she died,� repeated Maurice, in a
+sort of frenzy.
+
+And, as the abbe remained silent, a terrible light dawned on the mind
+of the stricken man. He understood the cause of Marie-Anne�s distorted
+features now.
+
+�She perished the victim of a crime!� he exclaimed.
+
+�Some monster has killed her. If she died such a death, our child is
+lost forever! And it was I who recommended, who commanded the greatest
+precautions! Ah! it is a curse upon me!�
+
+He sank back in his chair, overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse, and
+silent tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
+
+�He is saved!� thought the abbe, whose heart bled at the sight of such
+despair. Suddenly someone plucked him by the sleeve.
+
+It was Jean Lacheneur, and he drew the priest into the embrasure of a
+window.
+
+�What is this about a child?� he asked, harshly.
+
+A flood of crimson suffused the brow of the priest.
+
+�You have heard,� he responded, laconically.
+
+�Am I to understand that Marie-Anne was the mistress of Maurice, and
+that she had a child by him? Is this true? I will not--I cannot believe
+it! She, whom I revered as a saint! Did her pure forehead and her
+chaste looks lie? And he--Maurice--he whom I loved as a brother! So, his
+friendship was only a mask assumed to enable him to steal our honor!�
+
+He hissed these words through his set teeth in such low tones that
+Maurice, absorbed in his agony of grief, did not overhear him.
+
+�But how did she conceal her shame?� he continued. �No one suspected
+it--absolutely no one. And what has she done with her child? Appalled by
+a dread of disgrace, did she commit the crime committed by so many other
+ruined and forsaken women? Did she murder her own child?�
+
+A hideous smile curved his thin lips.
+
+�If the child is alive,� he added, �I will find it, and Maurice shall
+be punished for his perfidy as he deserves.� He paused; the sound of
+horses� hoofs upon the road attracted his attention, and that of Abbe
+Midon.
+
+They glanced out of the window and saw a horseman stop before the little
+footpath, alight from his horse, throw the reins to his groom, and
+advance toward the Borderie.
+
+At the sight of the visitor, Jean Lacheneur uttered the frightful howl
+of an infuriated wild beast.
+
+�The Marquis de Sairmeuse here!� he exclaimed.
+
+He sprang to Maurice, and shaking him violently, he cried:
+
+�Up! here is Martial, Marie-Anne�s murderer! Up! he is coming! he is at
+our mercy!�
+
+Maurice sprang up in a fury of passion, but the abbe darted to the door
+and intercepted the infuriated men as they were about to leave the room.
+
+�Not a word, young men, not a threat!� he said, imperiously. �I forbid
+it. At least respect the dead who is lying here!�
+
+There was such an irresistible authority in his words and glance, that
+Jean and Maurice stood as if turned to stone.
+
+Before the priest had time to say more, Martial was there.
+
+He did not cross the threshold. With a glance he took in the whole
+scene; he turned very pale, but not a gesture, not a word escaped his
+lips.
+
+Wonderful as was his accustomed control over himself, he could not
+articulate a syllable; and it was only by pointing to the bed upon which
+Marie-Anne�s lifeless form was reposing, that he asked an explanation.
+
+�She was infamously poisoned last evening,� replied the abbe, sadly.
+
+Maurice, forgetting the priest�s commands, stepped forward.
+
+�She was alone and defenceless. I have been at liberty only two days.
+But I know the name of the man who had me arrested at Turin, and thrown
+into prison. They told me the coward�s name!�
+
+Instinctively Martial recoiled.
+
+�It was you, infamous wretch!� exclaimed Maurice. �You confess your
+guilt, scoundrel?�
+
+Once again the abbe interposed; he threw himself between the rivals,
+persuaded that Martial was about to attack Maurice.
+
+But no; the Marquis de Sairmeuse had resumed the haughty and indifferent
+manner which was habitual to him. He took from his pocket a bulky
+envelope, and throwing it upon the table:
+
+�Here,� he said coldly, �is what I was bringing to Mademoiselle
+Lacheneur. It contains first a safe-conduct from His Majesty for
+Monsieur d�Escorval. From this moment, he is at liberty to leave
+Poignot�s farm-house and return to Escorval. He is free, he is saved, he
+is granted a new trial, and there can be no doubt of his acquittal. Here
+is also a decree of his non-complicity rendered in favor of Abbe Midon,
+and an order from the bishop which reinstates him as Cure of Sairmeuse;
+and lastly, a discharge, drawn up in due form, and an acknowledged right
+to a pension in the name of Corporal Bavois.�
+
+He paused, and as his astonished hearers stood rooted to their places
+with wonder, he turned and approached Marie-Anne�s bedside.
+
+With hand uplifted to heaven over the lifeless form of her whom he had
+loved, and in a voice that would have made the murderess tremble in her
+innermost soul, he said, solemnly:
+
+�To you, Marie-Anne, I swear that I will avenge you!�
+
+For a few seconds he stood motionless, then suddenly he stopped, pressed
+a kiss upon the dead girl�s brow, and left the room.
+
+�And you think that man can be guilty!� exclaimed the abbe. �You see,
+Jean, that you are mad!�
+
+�And this last insult to my dead sister is an honor, I suppose,� said
+Jean, with a furious gesture.
+
+�And the wretch binds my hands by saving my father!� exclaimed Maurice.
+
+From his place by the window, the abbe saw Martial remount his horse.
+
+But the marquis did not take the road to Montaignac. It was toward the
+Chateau de Courtornieu that he hastened.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+The reason of Mme. Blanche had sustained a frightful shock, when Chupin
+was obliged to lift her and carry her from Marie-Anne�s chamber.
+
+But she lost consciousness entirely when she saw the old poacher
+stricken down by her side.
+
+On and after that night Aunt Medea took her revenge for all the slights
+she had received.
+
+Scarcely tolerated until then at Courtornieu, she henceforth made
+herself respected, and even feared.
+
+She, who usually swooned if a kitten hurt itself, did not utter a cry.
+Her extreme fear gave her the courage that not unfrequently animates
+cowards when they are in some dire extremity.
+
+She seized the arm of her bewildered niece, and, by dint of dragging and
+pushing, had her back at the chateau in much less time than it had taken
+them to go to the Borderie.
+
+It was half-past one o�clock when they reached the little garden-gate,
+by which they had left the grounds.
+
+No one in the chateau was aware of their long absence.
+
+This was due to several different circumstances. First, to the
+precautions taken by Blanche, who had given orders, before going out,
+that no one should come to her room, on any pretext whatever, unless she
+rang.
+
+It also chanced to be the birthday of the marquis�s _valet de chambre_.
+The servants had dined more sumptuously than usual. They had toasts
+and songs over their dessert; and at the conclusion of the repast, they
+amused themselves by an extempore ball.
+
+They were still dancing at half-past one; all the doors were open, and
+the two ladies succeeded in gaining the chamber of Blanche without being
+observed.
+
+When the doors of the apartment had been securely closed, and when there
+was no longer any fear of listeners, Aunt Medea attacked her niece.
+
+�Now will you explain what happened at the Borderie; and what you were
+doing there?� she inquired.
+
+Blanche shuddered.
+
+�Why do you wish to know?� she asked.
+
+�Because I suffered agony during the three hours that I spent in waiting
+for you. What was the meaning of those despairing cries that I heard?
+Why did you call for aid? I heard a death-rattle that made my hair stand
+on end with terror. Why was it necessary for Chupin to bring you out in
+his arms?�
+
+Aunt Medea would have packed her trunks, perhaps, that very evening, had
+she seen the glance which her niece bestowed upon her.
+
+Blanche longed for power to annihilate this relative--this witness who
+might ruin her by a word, but whom she would ever have beside her, a
+living reproach for her crime.
+
+�You do not answer me,� insisted Aunt Medea.
+
+Blanche was trying to decide whether it would be better for her to
+reveal the truth, horrible as it was, or to invent some plausible
+explanation.
+
+To confess all! It would be intolerable. She would place herself, body
+and soul, in Aunt Medea�s power.
+
+But, on the other hand, if she deceived her, was it not more than
+probable that her aunt would betray her by some involuntary exclamation
+when she heard of the crime which had been committed at the Borderie?
+
+�For she is so stupid!� thought Blanche.
+
+She felt that it would be the wisest plan, under such circumstances, to
+be perfectly frank, to teach her relative her lesson, and to imbue her
+with some of her own firmness.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, she disdained all concealment.
+
+�Ah, well!� she said, �I was jealous of Marie-Anne. I thought she was
+Martial�s mistress. I was half crazed, and I killed her.�
+
+She expected despairing cries, or a fainting fit; nothing of the kind.
+Stupid though Aunt Medea was, she had divined the truth before she
+interrogated her niece. Besides, the insults she had received for years
+had extinguished every generous sentiment, dried up the springs of
+emotion, and destroyed every particle of moral sensibility she had ever
+possessed.
+
+�Ah!� she exclaimed, �it is terrible! What if it should be discovered!�
+
+Then she shed a few tears, but not more than she had often wept for some
+trifle.
+
+Blanche breathed more freely. Surely she could count upon the silence
+and absolute submission of her dependent relative. Convinced of this,
+she began to recount all the details of the frightful drama which had
+been enacted at the Borderie.
+
+She yielded to a desire which was stronger than her own will; to the
+wild longing that sometimes unbinds the tongue of the worst criminals,
+and forces them--irresistibly impels them--to talk of their crimes, even
+when they distrust their confidant.
+
+But when she came to the proofs which had convinced her of her
+lamentable mistake, she suddenly paused in dismay.
+
+That certificate of marriage signed by the Cure of Vigano; what had she
+done with it? where was it? She remembered holding it in her hands.
+
+She sprang up, examined the pocket of her dress and uttered a cry of
+joy. She had it safe. She threw it into a drawer, and turned the key.
+
+Aunt Medea wished to retire to her own room, but Blanche entreated her
+to remain. She was unwilling to be left alone--she dared not--she was
+afraid.
+
+And as if she desired to silence the inward voice that tormented her,
+she talked with extreme volubility, repeating again and again that she
+was ready to do anything in expiation of her crime, and that she would
+brave impossibilities to recover Marie-Anne�s child.
+
+And certainly, the task was both difficult and dangerous.
+
+If she sought the child openly, it would be equivalent to a confession
+of guilt. She would be compelled to act secretly, and with great
+caution.
+
+�But I shall succeed,� she said. �I will spare no expense.�
+
+And remembering her vow, and the threats of her dying victim, she added:
+
+�I must succeed. I have sworn--and I was forgiven under those
+conditions.�
+
+Astonishment dried the ever ready tears of Aunt Medea.
+
+That her niece, with her dreadful crime still fresh in her mind, could
+coolly reason, deliberate, and make plans for the future, seemed to her
+incomprehensible.
+
+�What an iron will!� she thought.
+
+But in her bewilderment she quite overlooked something that would have
+enlightened any ordinary observer.
+
+Blanche was seated upon her bed, her hair was unbound, her eyes were
+glittering with delirium, and her incoherent words and her excited
+gestures betrayed the frightful anxiety that was torturing her.
+
+And she talked and talked, exclaiming, questioning Aunt Medea, and
+forcing her to reply, only that she might escape from her own thoughts.
+
+Morning had dawned some time before, and the servants were heard
+bustling about the chateau, and Blanche, oblivious to all around
+her, was still explaining how she could, in less than a year, restore
+Marie-Anne�s child to Maurice d�Escorval.
+
+She paused abruptly in the middle of a sentence.
+
+Instinct had suddenly warned her of the danger she incurred in making
+the slightest change in her habits.
+
+She sent Aunt Medea away, then, at the usual hour, rang for her maid.
+
+It was nearly eleven o�clock, and she was just completing her toilet,
+when the ringing of the bell announced a visitor.
+
+Almost immediately a maid appeared, evidently in a state of great
+excitement.
+
+�What is it?� inquired Blanche, eagerly. �Who has come?�
+
+�Ah, Madame--that is, Mademoiselle, if you only knew----�
+
+�_Will_ you speak?�
+
+�The Marquis de Sairmeuse is below, in the blue drawing-room; and he
+begs Mademoiselle to grant him a few moments� conversation.�
+
+Had a thunder-bolt riven the earth at the feet of the murderess, she
+could not have been more terrified.
+
+�All must have been discovered!� this was her first thought. That alone
+would have brought Martial there.
+
+She almost decided to reply that she was not at home, or that she
+was extremely ill; but reason told her that she was alarming herself
+needlessly, perhaps, and that, in any case, the worst was preferable to
+suspense.
+
+�Tell the marquis that I will be there in a moment,� she replied.
+
+She desired a few minutes of solitude to compose her features, to regain
+her self-possession, if possible, and to conquer the nervous trembling
+that made her shake like a leaf.
+
+But just as she was most disquieted by the thought of her peril, a
+sudden inspiration brought a malicious smile to her lip.
+
+�Ah!� she thought, �my agitation will seem perfectly natural. It may
+even be made of service.�
+
+As she descended the grand staircase, she could not help saying to
+herself:
+
+�Martial�s presence here is incomprehensible.�
+
+It was certainly very extraordinary; and it had not been without much
+hesitation that he resolved upon this painful step.
+
+But it was the only means of procuring several important documents which
+were indispensable in the revision of M. d�Escorval�s case.
+
+These documents, after the baron�s condemnation, had been left in the
+hands of the Marquis de Courtornieu. Now that he had lost his reason, it
+was impossible to ask him for them; and Martial was obliged to apply
+to the daughter for permission to search for them among her father�s
+papers.
+
+This was why Martial said to himself that morning:
+
+�I will carry the baron�s safe-conduct to Marie-Anne, and then I will
+push on to Courtornieu.�
+
+He arrived at the Borderie gay and confident, his heart full of hope.
+Alas! Marie-Anne was dead.
+
+No one would ever know what a terrible blow it had been to Martial; and
+his conscience told him that he was not free from blame; that he had, at
+least, rendered the execution of the crime an easy matter.
+
+For it was indeed he who, by abusing his influence, had caused the
+arrest of Maurice at Turin.
+
+But though he was capable of the basest perfidy when his love was at
+stake, he was incapable of virulent animosity.
+
+Marie-Anne was dead; he had it in his power to revoke the benefits he
+had conferred, but the thought of doing so never once occurred to him.
+And when Jean and Maurice insulted him, he revenged himself only by
+overwhelming them by his magnanimity. When he left the Borderie, pale
+as a ghost, his lips still cold from the kiss pressed on the brow of the
+dead, he said to himself:
+
+�For her sake, I will go to Courtornieu. In memory of her, the baron
+must be saved.�
+
+By the expression on the faces of the valets when he dismounted in the
+court-yard of the chateau and asked to see Mme. Blanche, the marquis
+was again reminded of the profound sensation which this unexpected visit
+would produce. But, what did it matter to him? He was passing through
+one of those crises in which the mind can conceive of no further
+misfortune, and is therefore indifferent to everything.
+
+Still he trembled when they ushered him into the blue drawing-room.
+He remembered the room well. It was here that Blanche had been wont to
+receive him in days gone by, when his fancy was vacillating between her
+and Marie-Anne.
+
+How many pleasant hours they had passed together here! He seemed to see
+Blanche again, as she was then, radiant with youth, gay and laughing.
+Her naivete was affected, perhaps, but was it any the less charming on
+that account?
+
+At this very moment Blanche entered the room. She looked so careworn
+and sad that he scarcely knew her. His heart was touched by the look of
+patient sorrow imprinted upon her features.
+
+�How much you must have suffered, Blanche,� he murmured, scarcely
+knowing what he said.
+
+It cost her an effort to repress her secret joy. She saw that he knew
+nothing of her crime. She noticed his emotion, and saw the profit she
+could derive from it.
+
+�I can never cease to regret having displeased you,� she replied, humbly
+and sadly. �I shall never be consoled.�
+
+She had touched the vulnerable spot in every man�s heart.
+
+For there is no man so sceptical, so cold, or so _blase_ that his vanity
+is not pleased with the thought that a woman is dying for his sake.
+
+There is no man who is not moved by this most delicious flattery,
+and who is not ready and willing to give, at least, a tender pity in
+exchange for such devotion.
+
+�Is it possible that you could forgive me?� stammered Martial.
+
+The wily enchantress averted her face as if to prevent him from reading
+in her eyes a weakness of which she was ashamed. It was the most
+eloquent of replies.
+
+But Martial said no more on this subject. He made known his petition,
+which was granted, then fearing, perhaps, to promise too much, he said:
+
+�Since you do not forbid it, Blanche, I will return--to-morrow--another
+day.�
+
+As he rode back to Montaignac, Martial�s thoughts were busy.
+
+�She really loves me,� he thought; �that pallor, that weakness could
+not be feigned. Poor girl! she is my wife, after all. The reasons that
+influenced me in my rupture with her father exist no longer, and the
+Marquis de Courtornieu may be regarded as dead.�
+
+All the inhabitants of Sairmeuse were congregated on the public square
+when Martial passed through the village. They had just heard of the
+murder at the Borderie, and the abbe was now closeted with the justice
+of the peace, relating the circumstances of the poisoning.
+
+After a prolonged inquest the following verdict was rendered: �That a
+man known as Chupin, a notoriously bad character, had entered the house
+of Marie-Anne Lacheneur, and taken advantage of her absence to mingle
+poison with her food.�
+
+The report added that: �Said Chupin had been himself assassinated, soon
+after his crime, by a certain Balstain, whose whereabouts were unknown.�
+
+But this affair interested the community much less than the visits which
+Martial was paying to Mme. Blanche.
+
+It was soon rumored that the Marquis and the Marquise de Sairmeuse were
+reconciled, and in a few weeks they left for Paris with the intention of
+residing there permanently. A few days after their departure, the eldest
+of the Chupins announced his determination of taking up his abode in the
+same great city.
+
+Some of his friends endeavored to dissuade him, assuring him that he
+would certainly die of starvation.
+
+�Nonsense!� he replied, with singular assurance; �I, on the contrary,
+have an idea that I shall not want for anything there.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+Time gradually heals all wounds, and in less than a year it was
+difficult to discern any trace of the fierce whirlwind of passion which
+had devastated the peaceful valley of the Oiselle.
+
+What remained to attest the reality of all these events, which, though
+they were so recent, had already been relegated to the domain of the
+legendary?
+
+A charred ruin on the Reche.
+
+A grave in the cemetery, upon which was inscribed:
+
+�Marie-Anne Lacheneur, died at the age of twenty. Pray for her!�
+
+Only a few, the oldest men and the politicians of the village, forgot
+their solicitude in regard to the crops to remember this episode.
+
+Sometimes, during the long winter evenings, when they had gathered
+at the Boeuf Couronne, they laid down their greasy cards and gravely
+discussed the events of the past years.
+
+They never failed to remark that almost all the actors in that bloody
+drama at Montaignac had, in common parlance, �come to a bad end.�
+
+Victors and vanquished seemed to be pursued by the same inexorable
+fatality.
+
+Look at the names already upon the fatal list!
+
+Lacheneur, beheaded.
+
+Chanlouineau, shot.
+
+Marie-Anne, poisoned.
+
+Chupin, the traitor, assassinated.
+
+The Marquis de Courtornieu lived, or rather survived, but death would
+have seemed a mercy in comparison with such total annihilation of
+intelligence. He had fallen below the level of the brute, which is, at
+least, endowed with instinct. Since the departure of his daughter he had
+been cared for by two servants, who did not allow him to give them much
+trouble, and when they desired to go out they shut him up, not in his
+chamber, but in the cellar, to prevent his ravings and shrieks from
+being heard from without.
+
+If people supposed for awhile that the Sairmeuse would escape the fate
+of the others, they were mistaken. It was not long before the curse fell
+upon them.
+
+One fine morning in the month of December, the duke left the chateau to
+take part in a wolf-hunt in the neighborhood.
+
+At nightfall, his horse returned, panting, covered with foam, and
+riderless.
+
+What had become of its master?
+
+A search was instituted at once, and all night long twenty men, bearing
+torches, wandered through the woods, shouting and calling at the top of
+their voices.
+
+Five days went by, and the search for the missing man was almost
+abandoned, when a shepherd lad, pale with fear, came to the chateau one
+morning to tell them that he had discovered, at the base of a precipice,
+the bloody and mangled body of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+It seemed strange that such an excellent rider should have met with such
+a fate. There might have been some doubt as to its being an accident,
+had it not been for the explanation given by the grooms.
+
+�The duke was riding an exceedingly vicious beast,� said these men. �She
+was always taking fright and shying at everything.�
+
+The following week Jean Lacheneur left the neighborhood.
+
+The conduct of this singular man had caused much comment. When
+Marie-Anne died, he at first refused his inheritance.
+
+�I wish nothing that came to her through Chanlouineau!� he said
+everywhere, thus calumniating the memory of his sister as he had
+calumniated her when alive.
+
+Then, after a short absence, and without any apparent reason, he
+suddenly changed his mind.
+
+He not only accepted the property, but made all possible haste to obtain
+possession of it. He made many excuses; and, if one might believe him,
+he was not acting in his own interest, but merely conforming to the
+wishes of his deceased sister; and he declared that not a penny would go
+into his pockets.
+
+This much is certain, as soon as he obtained legal possession of the
+estate, he sold all the property, troubling himself but little in regard
+to the price he received, provided the purchasers paid cash.
+
+He reserved only the furniture of the sumptuously adorned chamber at the
+Borderie. These articles he burned.
+
+This strange act was the talk of the neighborhood.
+
+�The poor young man has lost his reason!� was the almost universal
+opinion.
+
+And those who doubted it, doubted it no longer when it became known
+that Jean Lacheneur had formed an engagement with a company of strolling
+players who stopped at Montaignac for a few days.
+
+But the young man had not wanted for good advice and kind friends. M.
+d�Escorval and the abbe had exerted all their eloquence to induce him to
+return to Paris, and complete his studies; but in vain.
+
+The necessity for concealment no longer existed, either in the case of
+the baron or the priest.
+
+Thanks to Martial de Sairmeuse they were now installed, the one in the
+presbytery, the other at Escorval, as in days gone by.
+
+Acquitted at his new trial, restored to the possession of his property,
+reminded of his frightful fall only by a very slight lameness, the baron
+would have deemed himself a fortunate man, had it not been for his great
+anxiety on his son�s account.
+
+Poor Maurice! his heart was broken by the sound of the clods of earth
+falling upon Marie-Anne�s coffin; and his very life now seemed dependent
+upon the hope of finding his child.
+
+Assured of the powerful assistance of Abbe Midon, he had confessed all
+to his father, and confided his secret to Corporal Bavois, who was an
+honored guest at Escorval; and these devoted friends had promised him
+all possible aid.
+
+The task was very difficult, however, and certain resolutions on the
+part of Maurice greatly diminished the chance of success.
+
+Unlike Jean, he was determined to guard religiously the honor of the
+dead; and he had made _his_ friends promise that Marie-Anne�s name
+should not be mentioned in prosecuting the search.
+
+�We shall succeed all the same,� said the abbe, kindly; �with time and
+patience any mystery can be solved.�
+
+He divided the department into a certain number of districts; then one
+of the little band went each day from house to house questioning
+the inmates, but not without extreme caution, for fear of arousing
+suspicion, for a peasant becomes intractable at once if his suspicions
+are aroused.
+
+But the weeks went by, and the quest was fruitless. Maurice was deeply
+discouraged.
+
+�My child died on coming into the world,� he said, again and again.
+
+But the abbe reassured him.
+
+�I am morally certain that such was not the case,� he replied. �I know,
+by Marie-Anne�s absence, the date of her child�s birth. I saw her after
+her recovery; she was comparatively gay and smiling. Draw your own
+conclusions.�
+
+�And yet there is not a nook or corner for miles around which we have
+not explored.�
+
+�True; but we must extend the circle of our investigations.�
+
+The priest, now, was only striving to gain time, knowing full well that
+it is the sovereign balm for all sorrows.
+
+His confidence, which had been very great at first, had been sensibly
+diminished by the responses of an old woman, who passed for one of the
+greatest gossips in the community.
+
+Adroitly interrogated, the worthy dame replied that she knew nothing of
+such a child, but that there must be one in the neighborhood, since it
+was the third time she had been questioned on the subject.
+
+Intense as was his surprise, the abbe succeeded in hiding it.
+
+He set the old gossip to talking, and after a two hours� conversation,
+he arrived at the conclusion that two persons besides Maurice were
+searching for Marie-Anne�s child.
+
+Why, with what aim, and who these persons could be the abbe was unable
+to ascertain.
+
+�Ah! rascals have their uses after all,� he thought. �If we only had a
+man like Chupin to set upon the track!�
+
+But the old poacher was dead, and his eldest son--the one who knew
+Blanche de Courtornieu�s secret--was in Paris.
+
+Only the widow and the second son remained in Sairmeuse.
+
+They had not, as yet, succeeded in discovering the twenty thousand
+francs, but the fever for gold was burning in their veins, and they
+persisted in their search. From morning until night the mother and son
+toiled on, until the earth around their hut had been explored to the
+depth of six feet.
+
+A word dropped by a peasant one day put an end to these researches.
+
+�Really, my boy,� he said, addressing young Chupin, �I did not suppose
+you were such a fool as to persist in hunting birds� nests after the
+birds have flown. Your brother, who is in Paris, can undoubtedly tell
+you where the treasure was concealed.�
+
+The younger Chupin uttered the fierce roar of a wild beast.
+
+�Holy Virgin! you are right!� he exclaimed. �Wait until I get money
+enough to take me to Paris, and we will see.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+Martial de Sairmeuse�s unexpected visit to the Chateau de Courtornieu
+had alarmed Aunt Medea even more than Blanche.
+
+In ten seconds, more ideas passed through her brain than had visited it
+for ten years.
+
+She saw the gendarmes at the chateau; she saw her niece arrested,
+incarcerated in the Montaignac prison, and brought before the Court of
+Assizes.
+
+If this were all she had to fear! But suppose she, too, were
+compromised, suspected of complicity, dragged before the judge, and even
+accused of being the sole culprit!
+
+Finding the suspense intolerable, she left her room; and, stealing on
+tiptoe to the great drawing-room, she applied her ear to the door of the
+little blue salon, in which Blanche and Martial were seated.
+
+The conversation which she heard convinced her that her fears were
+groundless.
+
+She drew a long breath, as if a mighty burden had been lifted from her
+breast. But a new idea, which was to grow, flourish, and bear fruit, had
+just taken root in her brain.
+
+When Martial left the room, Aunt Medea at once opened the communicating
+door and entered the blue salon, thus avowing that she had been a
+listener.
+
+Twenty-four hours earlier she would not have dreamed of committing such
+an enormity.
+
+�Well, Blanche, we were frightened at nothing,� she exclaimed.
+
+Blanche did not reply.
+
+She was deliberating, forcing herself to weigh the probable consequences
+of all these events which had succeeded each other with such marvellous
+rapidity.
+
+�Perhaps the hour of my revenge is almost here,� murmured Blanche, as if
+communing with herself.
+
+�What do you say?� inquired Aunt Medea, with evident curiosity.
+
+�I say, aunt, that in less than a month I shall be Marquise de Sairmeuse
+in reality as well as in name. My husband will return to me, and
+then--oh, then!�
+
+�God grant it!� said Aunt Medea, hypocritically.
+
+In her secret heart she had but little faith in this prediction, and
+whether it was realized or not mattered little to her.
+
+�Still another proof that your jealousy led you astray; and that--that
+what you did at the Borderie was unnecessary,� she said, in that low
+tone that accomplices always use in speaking of their crime.
+
+Such had been the opinion of Blanche; but she now shook her head, and
+gloomily replied:
+
+�You are wrong; that which took place at the Borderie has restored my
+husband to me. I understand it all, now. It is true that Marie-Anne was
+not Martial�s mistress, but Martial loved her. He loved her, and the
+rebuffs which he received only increased his passion. It was for her
+sake that he abandoned me; and never, while she lived, would he have
+thought of me. His emotion on seeing me was the remnant of the emotion
+which had been awakened by another. His tenderness was only the
+expression of his sorrow. Whatever happens, I shall have only her
+leavings--what she has disdained!� the young marquise added, bitterly;
+and her eyes flashed, and she stamped her foot in ungovernable anger.
+�And shall I regret what I have done?� she exclaimed; �never! no,
+never!�
+
+From that moment, she was herself again, brave and determined.
+
+But horrible fears assailed her when the inquest began.
+
+Officials came from Montaignac charged with investigating the affair.
+They examined a host of witnesses, and there was even talk of sending
+to Paris for one of those detectives skilled in unravelling all the
+mysteries of crime.
+
+Aunt Medea was half crazed with terror; and her fear was so apparent
+that it caused Blanche great anxiety.
+
+�You will end by betraying us,� she remarked, one evening.
+
+�Ah! my terror is beyond my control.�
+
+�If that is the case, do not leave your room.�
+
+�It would be more prudent, certainly.�
+
+�You can say that you are not well; your meals shall be served in your
+own apartment.�
+
+Aunt Medea�s face brightened. In her inmost heart she was enraptured. To
+have her meals served in her own room, in her bed in the morning, and
+on a little table by the fire in the evening, had long been the ambition
+and the dream of the poor dependent. But how to accomplish it! Two or
+three times, being a trifle indisposed, she had ventured to ask if her
+breakfast might be brought to her room, but her request had been harshly
+refused.
+
+�If Aunt Medea is hungry, she will come down and take her place at the
+table as usual,� had been the response of Mme. Blanche.
+
+To be treated in this way in a chateau where there were a dozen servants
+standing about idle was hard indeed.
+
+But now----
+
+Every morning, in obedience to a formal order from Blanche, the cook
+came up to receive Aunt Medea�s commands; she was permitted to dictate
+the bill-of-fare each day, and to order the dishes that she preferred.
+
+These new joys awakened many strange thoughts in her mind, and
+dissipated much of the regret which she had felt for the crime at the
+Borderie.
+
+The inquest was the subject of all her conversation with her niece. They
+had all the latest information in regard to the facts developed by the
+investigation through the butler, who took a great interest in such
+matters, and who had won the good-will of the agents from Montaignac, by
+making them familiar with the contents of his wine-cellar.
+
+Through him, Blanche and her aunt learned that suspicion pointed to the
+deceased Chupin. Had he not been seen prowling around the Borderie on
+the very evening that the crime was committed? The testimony of the
+young peasant who had warned Jean Lacheneur seemed decisive.
+
+The motive was evident; at least, everyone thought so. Twenty persons
+had heard Chupin declare, with frightful oaths, that he should never be
+tranquil in mind while a Lacheneur was left upon earth.
+
+So that which might have ruined Blanche, saved her; and the death of the
+old poacher seemed really providential.
+
+Why should she suspect that Chupin had revealed her secret before his
+death?
+
+When the butler told her that the judges and the police agents had
+returned to Montaignac, she had great difficulty in concealing her joy.
+
+�There is no longer anything to fear,� she said to Aunt Medea.
+
+She had, indeed, escaped the justice of man. There remained the justice
+of God.
+
+A few weeks before, this thought of �the justice of God� might, perhaps,
+have brought a smile to the lips of Mme. Blanche.
+
+She then regarded it as an imaginary evil, designed to hold timorous
+spirits in check.
+
+On the morning that followed her crime, she almost shrugged her
+shoulders at the thought of Marie-Anne�s dying threats.
+
+She remembered her promise, but she did not intend to fulfil it.
+
+She had considered the matter, and she saw the terrible risk to which
+she exposed herself if she endeavored to find the missing child.
+
+�The father will be sure to discover it,� she thought.
+
+But she was to realize the power of her victim�s threats that same
+evening.
+
+Overcome with fatigue, she retired to her room at an early hour, and
+instead of reading, as she was accustomed to do before retiring, she
+extinguished her candle as soon as she had undressed, saying:
+
+�I must sleep.�
+
+But sleep had fled. Her crime was ever in her thoughts; it rose before
+her in all its horror and atrocity. She knew that she was lying upon
+her bed, at Courtornieu; and yet it seemed as if she was there in
+Chanlouineau�s house, pouring out poison, then watching its effects,
+concealed in the dressing-room.
+
+She was struggling against these thoughts; she was exerting all her
+strength of will to drive away these terrible memories, when she thought
+she heard the key turn in the lock. She lifted her head from the pillow
+with a start.
+
+Then, by the uncertain light of her night-lamp, she thought she saw the
+door open slowly and noiselessly. Marie-Anne entered--gliding in like
+a phantom. She seated herself in an arm-chair near the bed. Great tears
+were rolling down her cheeks, and she looked sadly, yet threateningly,
+around her.
+
+The murderess hid her face under the bed-covers; and her whole body
+was bathed in an icy perspiration. For her, this was not a mere
+apparition--it was a frightful reality.
+
+But hers was not a nature to submit unresistingly to such an impression.
+She shook off the stupor that was creeping over her, and tried to reason
+with herself aloud, as if the sound of her voice would reassure her.
+
+�I am dreaming!� she said. �Do the dead return to life? Am I childish
+enough to be frightened by phantoms born of my own imaginations?�
+
+She said this, but the phantom did not disappear.
+
+She shut her eyes, but still she saw it through her closed
+eyelids--through the coverings which she had drawn up over her head, she
+saw it still.
+
+Not until daybreak did Mme. Blanche fall asleep.
+
+And it was the same the next night, and the night following that, and
+always and always; and the terrors of each night were augmented by the
+terrors of the nights which had preceded it.
+
+During the day, in the bright sunshine, she regained her courage, and
+became sceptical again. Then she railed at herself.
+
+�To be afraid of something that does not exist, is folly!� she said,
+vehemently. �To-night I will conquer my absurd weakness.�
+
+But when evening came all her brave resolution vanished, and the same
+fear seized her when night appeared with its _cortege_ of spectres.
+
+It is true that Mme. Blanche attributed her tortures at night to the
+disquietude she suffered during the day.
+
+For the officials were at Sairmeuse then, and she trembled. A mere
+nothing might divert suspicion from Chupin and direct it toward her.
+What if some peasant had seen her with Chupin? What if some trifling
+circumstance should furnish a clew which would lead straight to
+Courtornieu?
+
+�When the investigation is over, I shall forget,� she thought.
+
+It ended, but she did not forget.
+
+Darwin has said:
+
+�It is when their safety is assured that great criminals really feel
+remorse.�
+
+Mme. Blanche might have vouched for the truth of this assertion, made by
+the most profound thinker and closest observer of the age.
+
+And yet, the agony she was enduring did not make her abandon, for a
+single moment, the plan she had conceived on the day of Martial�s visit.
+
+She played her part so well, that, deeply moved, almost repentant, he
+returned five or six times, and at last, one day, he besought her to
+allow him to remain.
+
+But even the joy of this triumph did not restore her peace of mind.
+
+Between her and her husband rose that dread apparition; and Marie-Anne�s
+distorted features were ever before her. She knew only too well that
+this heart-broken man had no love to give her, and that she would never
+have the slightest influence over him. And to crown all, to her already
+intolerable sufferings was added another, more poignant than all the
+rest.
+
+Speaking one evening of Marie-Anne�s death, Martial forgot himself,
+and spoke of his oath of vengeance. He deeply regretted that Chupin was
+dead, he remarked, for he should have experienced an intense delight in
+making the wretch who murdered her _die_ a lingering death in the midst
+of the most frightful tortures.
+
+He spoke with extreme violence and in a voice vibrant with his still
+powerful passion.
+
+And Blanche, in terror, asked herself what would be her fate if her
+husband ever discovered that she was the culprit--and he might discover
+it.
+
+She now began to regret that she had not kept the promise she had made
+to her victim; and she resolved to commence the search for Marie-Anne�s
+child.
+
+To do this effectually it was necessary for her to be in a large
+city--Paris, for example--where she could procure discreet and skilful
+agents.
+
+It was necessary to persuade Martial to remove to the capital. Aided by
+the Duc de Sairmeuse, she did not find this a very difficult task; and
+one morning, Mme. Blanche, with a radiant face, announced to Aunt Medea:
+
+�Aunt, we leave just one week from to-day.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+Beset by a thousand fears and anxieties, Blanche had failed to notice
+that Aunt Medea was no longer the same.
+
+The change, it is true, had been gradual; it had not struck the
+servants, but it was none the less positive and real, and it betrayed
+itself in numberless trifles.
+
+For example, though the poor dependent still retained her humble,
+resigned manner; she had lost, little by little, the servile fear that
+had showed itself in her every movement. She no longer trembled when
+anyone addressed her, and there was occasionally a ring of independence
+in her voice.
+
+If visitors were present, she no longer kept herself modestly in
+the background, but drew forward her chair and took part in the
+conversation. At table, she allowed her preferences and her dislikes to
+appear. On two or three occasions she had ventured to differ from her
+niece in opinion, and had even been so bold as to question the propriety
+of some of her orders.
+
+Once Mme. Blanche, on going out, asked Aunt Medea to accompany her; but
+the latter declared she had a cold, and remained at home.
+
+And, on the following Sunday, although Blanche did not wish to attend
+vespers, Aunt Medea declared her intention of going; and as it rained,
+she requested the coachman to harness the horses to the carriage, which
+was done.
+
+All this was nothing, in appearance; in reality, it was monstrous,
+amazing. It was quite plain that the humble relative was becoming bold,
+even audacious, in her demands.
+
+As this departure, which her niece had just announced so gayly, had
+never been discussed before her, she was greatly surprised.
+
+�What! you are going away,� she repeated; �you are leaving Courtornieu?�
+
+�And without regret.�
+
+�To go where, pray?�
+
+�To Paris. We shall reside there; that is decided. That is the place for
+my husband. His name, his fortune, his talents, the favor of the King,
+assure him a high position there. He will repurchase the Hotel de
+Sairmeuse, and furnish it magnificently. We shall have a princely
+establishment.�
+
+All the torments of envy were visible upon Aunt Medea�s countenance.
+
+��And what is to become of me?� she asked, in plaintive tones.
+
+�You, aunt! You will remain here; you will be mistress of the chateau. A
+trustworthy person must remain to watch over my poor father. You will be
+happy and contented here, I hope.�
+
+But no; Aunt Medea did not seem satisfied.
+
+�I shall never have courage to stay all alone in this great chateau,�
+ she whined.
+
+�You foolish woman! will you not have the servants, the gardeners, and
+the concierge to protect you?�
+
+�That makes no difference. I am afraid of insane people. When the
+marquis began to rave and howl this evening, I felt as if I should go
+mad myself.�
+
+Blanche shrugged her shoulders.
+
+�What _do_ you wish, then?� she asked, in a still more sarcastic manner.
+
+�I thought--I wondered--if you would not take me with you.�
+
+�To Paris! You are crazy, I do believe. What would you do there?�
+
+�Blanche, I entreat you, I beseech you, to do so!�
+
+�Impossible, aunt; impossible!�
+
+Aunt Medea seemed to be in despair.
+
+�And what if I should tell you that I cannot remain here--that I dare
+not--that I should die!�
+
+A flush of impatience dyed the cheek of Mme. Blanche.
+
+�You weary me beyond endurance,� she said, rudely.
+
+And with a gesture that increased the harshness of her words, she added:
+
+�If Courtornieu displeases you so much, there is nothing to prevent you
+from seeking a home more to your taste. You are free and of age.�
+
+Aunt Medea turned very pale, and she bit her lips until the blood came.
+
+�That is to say,� she said, at last, �you permit me to take my choice
+between dying of fear at Courtornieu and ending my days in a hospital.
+Thanks, my niece, thanks. That is like you. I expected nothing less of
+you. Thanks!�
+
+She raised her head, and a dangerous light gleamed in her eyes. There
+was the hiss of a serpent in the voice in which she continued:
+
+�Very well! this decides me. I entreated you, and you brutally refused
+to heed my prayer, now I command and I say: �I will go!� Yes, I intend
+to go with you to Paris--and I shall go. Ah! it surprises you to hear
+poor, meek, much-abused Aunt Medea speak in this way. I have endured in
+silence for a long time, but I have rebelled at last. My life in this
+house has been a hell. It is true that you have given me shelter--that
+you have fed and lodged me; but you have taken my entire life in
+exchange. What servant ever endured what I have endured? Have you ever
+treated one of your maids as you have treated me, your own flesh and
+blood? And I have had no wages; on the contrary, I was expected to
+be grateful since I lived by your tolerance. Ah! you have made me pay
+dearly for the crime of being poor. How you have insulted me--humiliated
+me--trampled me under foot!�
+
+She paused.
+
+The bitter rancor which had been accumulating for years fairly choked
+her; but after a moment she resumed, in a tone of intense irony:
+
+�You ask me what would I do in Paris? I, too, would enjoy myself. What
+will you do, yourself? You will go to Court, to balls, and to the play,
+will you not? Very well, I will accompany you. I will attend these
+fetes. I will have handsome toilets, I--poor Aunt Medea--who have never
+seen myself in anything but shabby black woollen dresses. Have you ever
+thought of giving me the pleasure of possessing a handsome dress? Yes,
+twice a year, perhaps, you have given me a black silk, recommending me
+to take good care of it. But it was not for my sake that you went to
+this expense. It was for your own sake; and in order that your poor
+relation should do honor to your generosity. You dressed me in it, as
+you sew gold lace upon the clothing of your lackeys, through vanity.
+And I endured all this; I made myself insignificant and humble; buffeted
+upon one cheek, I offered the other. I must live--I must have food. And
+you, Blanche, how often, to make me subservient to your will, have
+you said to me: �You will do thus-and-so, if you desire to remain at
+Courtornieu?� And I obeyed--I was forced to obey, since I knew not where
+to go. Ah! you have abused me in every way; but now my turn has come!�
+
+Blanche was so amazed that she could not articulate a syllable. At last,
+in a scarcely audible voice, she faltered:
+
+�I do not understand you, aunt; I do not understand you.�
+
+The poor dependent shrugged her shoulders, as her niece had done a few
+moments before.
+
+�In that case,� said she, slowly, �I may as well tell you that since you
+have, against my will, made me your accomplice, we must share everything
+in common. I share the danger; I will share the pleasure. What if all
+should be discovered? Do you ever think of that? Yes; and that is why
+you are seeking diversion. Very well! I also desire diversion. I shall
+go to Paris with you.�
+
+By a terrible effort Blanche had succeeded in regaining her
+self-possession, in some measure at least.
+
+�And if I should say no?� she responded, coldly.
+
+�But you will not say no.�
+
+�And why, if you please?�
+
+�Because----�
+
+�Will you go to the authorities and denounce me?�
+
+Aunt Medea shook her head.
+
+�I am not such a fool,� she retorted. �I should only compromise myself.
+No, I shall not do that; but I might, perhaps, tell your husband what
+happened at the Borderie.�
+
+Blanche shuddered. No threat was capable of moving her like that.
+
+�You shall accompany us, aunt,� said she; �I promise it.�
+
+Then she added, gently:
+
+�But it is unnecessary to threaten me. You have been cruel, aunt, and at
+the same time, unjust. If you have been unhappy in our house, you alone
+are to blame. Why have you said nothing? I attributed your complaisance
+to your affection for me. How was I to know that a woman as quiet
+and modest as yourself longed for fine apparel. Confess that it was
+impossible. Had I known--But rest easy, aunt; I will atone for my
+neglect.�
+
+And as Aunt Medea, having obtained all she desired, stammered an excuse:
+
+�Nonsense!� Blanche exclaimed; �let us forget this foolish quarrel. You
+forgive me, do you not?�
+
+And the two ladies embraced each other with the greatest effusion, like
+two friends united after a misunderstanding. But Aunt Medea was as far
+from being deceived by this mock reconciliation as the clearsighted
+Blanche.
+
+�It will be best for me to keep on the _qui vive_,� thought the humble
+relative. �God only knows with what intense joy my dear niece would send
+me to join Marie-Anne.�
+
+Perhaps a similar thought flitted through the mind of Mme. Blanche.
+
+She felt as a convict might feel on seeing his most execrated enemy,
+perhaps the man who had betrayed him, fastened to the other end of his
+chain.
+
+�I am bound now and forever to this dangerous and perfidious creature,�
+ she thought. �I am no longer my own mistress; I belong to her. When she
+commands, I must obey. I must be the slave of her every caprice--and she
+has forty years of humiliation and servitude to avenge.�
+
+The prospect of such a life made her tremble; and she racked her brain
+to discover some way of freeing herself from her detested companion.
+
+Would it be possible to inspire Aunt Medea with a desire to live
+independently in her own house, served by her own servants?
+
+Might she succeed in persuading this silly old woman, who still longed
+for finery and ball-dresses, to marry? A handsome marriage-portion will
+always attract a husband.
+
+But, in either case, Blanche would require money--a large sum of money,
+for whose use she would be accountable to no one.
+
+This conviction made her resolve to take possession of about two hundred
+and fifty thousand francs, in bank-notes and coin, belonging to her
+father.
+
+This sum represented the savings of the Marquis de Courtornieu during
+the past three years. No one knew he had laid it aside, except his
+daughter; and now that he had lost his reason, Blanche, who knew where
+the hoard was concealed, could take it for her own use without the
+slightest danger.
+
+�With this,� she thought, �I can at any moment enrich Aunt Medea without
+having recourse to Martial.�
+
+After this little scene there was a constant interchange of delicate
+attentions and touching devotion between the two ladies. It was �my
+dearest little aunt,� and �my dearly beloved niece,� from morning until
+night; and the gossips of the neighborhood, who had often commented upon
+the haughty disdain which Mme. Blanche displayed in her treatment of her
+relative, would have found abundant food for comment had they known that
+Aunt Medea was protected from the possibility of cold by a mantle lined
+with costly fur, exactly like the marquise�s own, and that she made
+the journey, not in the large Berlin, with the servants, but in the
+post-chaise with the Marquis and Marquise de Sairmeuse.
+
+The change was so marked that even Martial remarked it, and as soon
+as he found himself alone with his wife, he exclaimed, in a tone of
+good-natured raillery:
+
+�What is the meaning of all this devotion? We shall finish by encasing
+this precious aunt in cotton, shall we not?�
+
+Blanche trembled, and flushed a little.
+
+�I love good Aunt Medea so much!� said she. �I never can forget all the
+affection and devotion she lavished upon me when I was so unhappy.�
+
+It was such a plausible explanation that Martial took no further notice
+of the matter, for his mind just then was fully occupied.
+
+The agent, whom he had sent to Paris in advance, to purchase, if
+possible, the Hotel de Sairmeuse, had written him to make all possible
+haste, as there was some difficulty about concluding the bargain.
+
+�Plague take the fellow!� said the marquis, angrily, on receiving this
+news. �He is quite stupid enough to let this opportunity, for which we
+have been waiting ten years, slip through his fingers. I shall find no
+pleasure in Paris if I cannot own our old residence.�
+
+He was so impatient to reach Paris that, on the second day of their
+journey, he declared if he were alone he would travel all night.
+
+�Do so now,� said Blanche, graciously; �I do not feel fatigued in the
+least, and a night of travel does not appall me.�
+
+They did travel all night, and the next day, about nine o�clock, they
+alighted at the Hotel Meurice.
+
+Martial scarcely took time to eat his breakfast.
+
+�I must go and see my agent at once,� he said, as he hurried off. �I
+will soon be back.�
+
+He reappeared in about two hours, pleased and radiant.
+
+�My agent was a simpleton,� he exclaimed. �He was afraid to write me
+that a man, upon whom the conclusion of the sale depends, demands a
+bonus of fifty thousand francs. He shall have it in welcome.�
+
+Then, in a tone of gallantry, which he always used in addressing his
+wife, he said:
+
+�It only remains for me to sign the paper; but I will not do so unless
+the house suits you. If you are not too tired, I would like you to visit
+it at once. Time presses, and we have many competitors.�
+
+This visit was, of course, one of pure form; but Mme. Blanche would have
+been hard to please if she had not been satisfied with this mansion,
+one of the most magnificent in Paris, with an entrance on the Rue de
+Grenelle, and large gardens shaded with superb trees, and extending to
+the Rue de Varennes.
+
+Unfortunately, this superb dwelling had not been occupied for several
+years, and required many repairs.
+
+�It will take at least six months to restore it,� said Martial; �perhaps
+more. It is true that they might in three months, perhaps, render a
+portion of it very comfortable.�
+
+�It would be living in one�s own house, at least,� approved Blanche,
+divining her husband�s wishes.
+
+�Ah! then you agree with me! In that case, you may rest assured that I
+will expedite matters as much as possible.�
+
+In spite, or rather by reason of his immense fortune, the Marquis de
+Sairmeuse knew that a person is never so well, nor so quickly served, as
+when he serves himself, so he resolved to take the matter into his
+own hands. He conferred with architects, interviewed contractors, and
+hurried on the workmen.
+
+As soon as he was up in the morning he started out without waiting for
+breakfast, and seldom returned until dinner.
+
+Although Blanche was compelled to pass most of her time within doors,
+on account of the bad weather, she was not inclined to complain. Her
+journey, the unaccustomed sights and sounds of Paris, the novelty of
+life in a hotel, all combined to distract her thoughts from herself.
+She forgot her fears; a sort of haze enveloped the terrible scene at the
+Borderie; the clamors of conscience sank into faint whispers.
+
+The past seemed fading away, and she was beginning to entertain hopes of
+a new and better life, when one day a servant entered, and said:
+
+�There is a man below who wishes to speak with Madame.�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+Half reclining upon a sofa, Mme. Blanche was listening to a new book
+which Aunt Medea was reading aloud, and she did not even raise her head
+as the servant delivered his message.
+
+�A man?� she asked, carelessly; �what man?�
+
+She was expecting no one; it must be one of the laborers employed by
+Martial.
+
+�I cannot inform Madame,� replied the servant. �He is quite a young man;
+is dressed like a peasant, and is perhaps, seeking a place.�
+
+�It is probably the marquis whom he desires to see.�
+
+�Madame will excuse me, but he said particularly that he desired to
+speak to her.�
+
+�Ask his name and his business, then. Go on, aunt,� she added; �we have
+been interrupted in the most interesting portion.�
+
+But Aunt Medea had not time to finish the page when the servant
+reappeared.
+
+�The man says Madame will understand his business when she hears his
+name.�
+
+�And his name?�
+
+�Chupin.�
+
+It was as if a bomb-shell had exploded in the room.
+
+Aunt Medea, with a shriek, dropped her book, and sank back, half
+fainting, in her chair.
+
+Blanche sprang up with a face as colorless as her white cashmere
+_peignoir_, her eyes troubled, her lips trembling.
+
+�Chupin!� she repeated, as if she hoped the servant would tell her she
+had not understood him correctly; �Chupin!�
+
+Then angrily:
+
+�Tell this man that I will not see him, I will not see him, do you
+hear?�
+
+But before the servant had time to bow respectfully and retire, the
+young marquise changed her mind.
+
+�One moment,� said she; �on reflection I think I will see him. Bring him
+up.�
+
+The servant withdrew, and the two ladies looked at each other in silent
+consternation.
+
+�It must be one of Chupin�s sons,� faltered Blanche, at last.
+
+�Undoubtedly; but what does he desire?�
+
+�Money, probably.� Aunt Medea lifted her eyes to heaven.
+
+�God grant that he knows nothing of your meetings with his father!
+Blessed Jesus! what if he should know.�
+
+�You are not going to despair in advance! We shall know all in a few
+moments. Pray be calm. Turn your back to us; look out into the street;
+do not let him see your face. But why is he so long in coming?�
+
+Blanche was not deceived. It was Chupin�s eldest son; the one to whom
+the dying poacher had confided his secret.
+
+Since his arrival in Paris he had been running the streets from morning
+until evening, inquiring everywhere and of everybody the address of the
+Marquis de Sairmeuse. At last he discovered it; and he lost no time in
+presenting himself at the Hotel Meurice.
+
+He was now awaiting the result of his application at the entrance of the
+hotel, where he stood whistling, with his hands in his pockets, when the
+servant returned, saying:
+
+�She consents to see you; follow me.�
+
+Chupin obeyed; but the servant, greatly astonished, and on fire with
+curiosity, loitered by the way in the hope of obtaining some explanation
+from this country youth.
+
+�I do not say it to flatter you, my boy,� he remarked, �but your name
+produced a great effect upon madame.�
+
+The prudent peasant carefully concealed the joy he felt on receiving
+this information.
+
+�How does it happen that she knows you?� pursued the servant. �Are you
+both from the same place?�
+
+�I am her foster-brother.�
+
+The servant did not believe a word of this response; but they had
+reached the apartment of the marquise, he opened the door and ushered
+Chupin into the room.
+
+The peasant had prepared a little story in advance, but he was so
+dazzled by the magnificence around him that he stood motionless with
+staring eyes and gaping mouth. His wonder was increased by a large
+mirror opposite the door, in which he could survey himself from head
+to foot, and by the beautiful flowers on the carpet, which he feared to
+crush beneath his heavy shoes.
+
+After a moment, Mme. Blanche decided to break the silence.
+
+�What do you wish?� she demanded.
+
+With many circumlocutions Chupin explained that he had been obliged to
+leave Sairmeuse on account of the numerous enemies he had there, that
+he had been unable to find his father�s hidden treasure, and that he was
+consequently without resources.
+
+�Enough!� interrupted Mme. Blanche. Then in a manner not in the least
+friendly, she continued: �I do not understand why you should apply to
+me. You and all the rest of your family have anything but an enviable
+reputation in Sairmeuse; still, as you are from that part of the
+country, I am willing to aid you a little on condition that you do not
+apply to me again.�
+
+Chupin listened to this homily with a half-cringing, half-impudent air;
+when it was finished he lifted his head, and said, proudly:
+
+�I do not ask for alms.�
+
+�What do you ask then?�
+
+�My dues.�
+
+The heart of Mme. Blanche sank, and yet she had courage to cast a glance
+of disdain upon the speaker, and said:
+
+�Ah! do I owe you anything?�
+
+�You owe me nothing personally, Madame; but you owe a heavy debt to my
+deceased father. In whose service did he perish? Poor old man! he loved
+you devotedly. His last words were of you. �A terrible thing has just
+happened at the Borderie, my boy,� said he. �The young marquise hated
+Marie-Anne, and she has poisoned her. Had it not been for me she would
+have been lost. I am about to die; let the whole blame rest upon me;
+it will not hurt me, and it will save the young lady. And afterward she
+will reward you; and as long as you keep the secret you will want for
+nothing.��
+
+Great as was his impudence, he paused, amazed by the perfectly composed
+face of the listener.
+
+In the presence of such wonderful dissimulation he almost doubted the
+truth of his father�s story.
+
+The courage and heroism displayed by the marquise were really wonderful.
+She felt if she yielded once, she would forever be at the mercy of this
+wretch, as she was already at the mercy of Aunt Medea.
+
+�In other words,� said she, calmly, �you accuse me of the murder of
+Mademoiselle Lacheneur; and you threaten to denounce me if I do not
+yield to your demands.�
+
+Chupin nodded his head in acquiescence.
+
+�Very well!� said the marquise; �since this is the case--go!�
+
+It seemed, indeed, as if she would, by her audacity, win this dangerous
+game upon which her future peace depended. Chupin, greatly abashed, was
+standing there undecided what course to pursue when Aunt Medea, who was
+listening by the window, turned in affright, crying:
+
+�Blanche! your husband--Martial! He is coming!�
+
+The game was lost. Blanche saw her husband entering, finding Chupin,
+conversing with him, and discovering all!
+
+Her brain whirled; she yielded.
+
+She hastily thrust her purse in Chupin�s hand and dragged him through an
+inner door and to the servants� staircase.
+
+�Take this,� she said, in a hoarse whisper. �I will see you again. And
+not a word--not a word to my husband, remember!�
+
+She had been wise to yield in time. When she re-entered the salon, she
+found Martial there.
+
+His head was bowed upon his breast; he held an open letter in his hand.
+
+He looked up when his wife entered the room, and she saw a tear in his
+eye.
+
+�What has happened?� she faltered.
+
+Martial did not remark her emotion.
+
+�My father is dead, Blanche,� he replied.
+
+�The Duc de Sairmeuse! My God! how did it happen?�
+
+�He was thrown from his horse, in the forest, near the Sanguille rocks.�
+
+�Ah! it was there where my poor father was nearly murdered.�
+
+�Yes, it is the very place.�
+
+There was a moment�s silence.
+
+Martial�s affection for his father had not been very deep, and he
+was well aware that his father had but little love for him. He was
+astonished at the bitter grief he felt on hearing of his death.
+
+�From this letter which was forwarded by a messenger from Sairmeuse,� he
+continued, �I judge that everybody believes it to have been an accident;
+but I--I----�
+
+�Well?�
+
+�I believe he was murdered.�
+
+An exclamation of horror escaped Aunt Medea, and Blanche turned pale.
+
+�Murdered!� she whispered.
+
+�Yes, Blanche; and I could name the murderer. Oh! I am not deceived. The
+murderer of my father is the same man who attempted to assassinate the
+Marquis de Courtornieu----�
+
+�Jean Lacheneur!�
+
+Martial gravely bowed his head. It was his only reply.
+
+�And you will not denounce him? You will not demand justice?�
+
+Martial�s face grew more and more gloomy.
+
+�What good would it do?� he replied. �I have no material proofs to give,
+and justice demands incontestable evidence.�
+
+Then, as if communing with his own thoughts, rather than addressing his
+wife, he said, despondently:
+
+�The Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu have reaped
+what they have sown. The blood of murdered innocence always calls for
+vengeance. Sooner or later, the guilty must expiate their crimes.�
+
+Blanche shuddered. Each word found an echo in her own soul. Had
+he intended his words for her, he would not have expressed himself
+differently.
+
+�Martial,� said she, trying to arouse him from his gloomy revery,
+�Martial.�
+
+He did not seem to hear her, and, in the same tone, he continued:
+
+�These Lacheneurs were happy and honored before our arrival at
+Sairmeuse. Their conduct was above all praise; their probity amounted
+to heroism. We might have made them our faithful and devoted friends. It
+was our duty, as well as in our interests, to have done so. We did not
+understand this; we humiliated, ruined, exasperated them. It was a fault
+for which we must atone. Who knows but, in Jean Lacheneur�s place, I
+should have done what he has done?�
+
+He was silent for a moment; then, with one of those sudden inspirations
+that sometimes enable one almost to read the future, he resumed:
+
+�I know Jean Lacheneur. I alone can fathom his hatred, and I know that
+he lives only in the hope of vengeance. It is true that we are very high
+and he is very low, but that matters little. We have everything to fear.
+Our millions form a rampart around us, but he will know how to open a
+breach. And no precautions will save us. At the very moment when we feel
+ourselves secure, he will be ready to strike. What he will attempt,
+I know not; but his will be a terrible revenge. Remember my words,
+Blanche, if ruin ever threatens our house, it will be Jean Lacheneur�s
+work.�
+
+Aunt Medea and her niece were too horror-stricken to articulate a
+word, and for five minutes no sound broke the stillness save Martial�s
+monotonous tread, as he paced up and down the room.
+
+At last he paused before his wife.
+
+�I have just ordered post-horses. You will excuse me for leaving you
+here alone. I must go to Sairmeuse at once. I shall not be absent more
+than a week.�
+
+He departed from Paris a few hours later, and Blanche was left a prey to
+the most intolerable anxiety. She suffered more now than during the days
+that immediately followed her crime. It was not against phantoms she was
+obliged to protect herself now; Chupin existed, and his voice, even if
+it were not as terrible as the voice of conscience, might make itself
+heard at any moment.
+
+If she had known where to find him, she would have gone to him, and
+endeavored, by the payment of a large sum of money, to persuade him to
+leave France.
+
+But Chupin had left the hotel without giving her his address.
+
+The gloomy apprehension expressed by Martial increased the fears of the
+young marquise. The mere sound of the name Lacheneur made her shrink
+with terror. She could not rid herself of the idea that Jean Lacheneur
+suspected her guilt, and that he was watching her.
+
+Her wish to find Marie-Anne�s infant was stronger than ever.
+
+It seemed to her that the child might be a protection to her some day.
+But where could she find an agent in whom she could confide?
+
+At last she remembered that she had heard her father speak of a
+detective by the name of Chelteux, an exceedingly shrewd fellow, capable
+of anything, even honesty if he were well paid.
+
+The man was really a miserable wretch, one of Fouche�s vilest
+instruments, who had served and betrayed all parties, and who, at
+last, had been convicted of perjury, but had somehow managed to escape
+punishment.
+
+After his dismissal from the police-force, Chelteux founded a bureau of
+private information.
+
+After several inquiries, Mme. Blanche discovered that he lived in the
+Place Dauphine; and she determined to take advantage of her husband�s
+absence to pay the detective a visit.
+
+One morning she donned her simplest dress, and, accompanied by Aunt
+Medea, repaired to the house of Chelteux.
+
+He was then, about thirty-four years of age, a man of medium height, of
+inoffensive mien, and who affected an unvarying good-humor.
+
+He invited his clients into a nicely furnished drawing-room, and Mme.
+Blanche at once began telling him that she was married, and living in
+the Rue Saint-Denis, that one of her sisters, who had lately died,
+had been guilty of an indiscretion, and that she was ready to make any
+sacrifice to find this sister�s child, etc., etc. A long story, which
+she had prepared in advance, and which sounded very plausible.
+
+Chelteux did not believe a word of it, however; for, as soon as it was
+ended, he tapped her familiarly on the shoulder, and said:
+
+�In short, my dear, we have had our little escapades before our
+marriage.�
+
+She shrank back as if from some venomous reptile.
+
+To be treated thus! she--a Courtornieu--Duchesse de Sairmeuse!
+
+�I think you are laboring under a wrong impression,� she said,
+haughtily.
+
+He made haste to apologize; but while listening to further details given
+him by the young lady, he thought:
+
+�What an eye! what a voice!--they are not suited to a denizen of the
+Saint-Denis!�
+
+His suspicions were confirmed by the reward of twenty thousand francs,
+which Mme. Blanche imprudently promised him in case of success, and by
+the five hundred francs which she paid in advance.
+
+�And where shall I have the honor of addressing my communications to
+you, Madame?� he inquired.
+
+�Nowhere,� replied the young lady. �I shall be passing here from time to
+time, and I will call.�
+
+When they left the house, Chelteux followed them.
+
+�For once,� he thought, �I believe that fortune smiles upon me.�
+
+To discover the name and rank of his new clients was but child�s play to
+Fouche�s former pupil.
+
+His task was all the easier since they had no suspicion whatever of his
+designs. Mme. Blanche, who had heard his powers of discernment so highly
+praised, was confident of success.
+
+All the way back to the hotel she was congratulating herself upon the
+step she had taken.
+
+�In less than a month,� she said to Aunt Medea, �we shall have the
+child; and it will be a protection to us.�
+
+But the following week she realized the extent of her imprudence. On
+visiting Chelteux again, she was received with such marks of respect
+that she saw at once she was known.
+
+She made an attempt to deceive him, but the detective checked her.
+
+�First of all,� he said, with a good-humored smile, �I ascertain the
+identity of the persons who honor me with their confidence. It is a
+proof of my ability, which I give, gratis. But Madame need have no
+fears. I am discreet by nature and by profession. Many ladies of the
+highest ranks are in the position of Madame la Duchesse!�
+
+So Chelteux still believed that the Duchesse de Sairmeuse was searching
+for her own child.
+
+She did not try to convince him to the contrary. It was better that he
+should believe this than suspect the truth.
+
+The condition of Mme. Blanche was now truly pitiable. She found herself
+entangled in a net, and each movement far from freeing her, tightened
+the meshes around her.
+
+Three persons knew the secret that threatened her life and honor. Under
+these circumstances, how could she hope to keep that secret inviolate?
+She was, moreover, at the mercy of three unscrupulous masters; and
+before a word, or a gesture, or a look from them, her haughty spirit was
+compelled to bow in meek subservience.
+
+And her time was no longer at her own disposal. Martial had returned;
+and they had taken up their abode at the Hotel de Sairmeuse.
+
+The young duchess was now compelled to live under the scrutiny of fifty
+servants--of fifty enemies, more or less, interested in watching her, in
+criticising her every act, and in discovering her inmost thoughts.
+
+Aunt Medea, it is true, was of great assistance to her. Blanche
+purchased a dress for her, whenever she purchased one for herself, took
+her about with her on all occasions, and the humble relative expressed
+her satisfaction in the most enthusiastic terms, and declared her
+willingness to do anything for her benefactress.
+
+Nor did Chelteux give Mme. Blanche much more annoyance. Every three
+months he presented a memorandum of the expenses of investigations,
+which usually amounted to about ten thousand francs; and so long as she
+paid him it was plain that he would be silent.
+
+He had given her to understand, however, that he should expect an
+annuity of twenty-four thousand francs; and once, when Mme. Blanche
+remarked that he must abandon the search, if nothing had been discovered
+at the end of two years:
+
+�Never,� he replied: �I shall continue the search as long as I live.�
+ But Chupin, unfortunately, remained; and he was a constant terror.
+
+She had been compelled to give him twenty thousand francs, to begin
+with.
+
+He declared that his younger brother had come to Paris in pursuit of
+him, accusing him of having stolen their father�s hoard, and demanding
+his share with his dagger in his hand.
+
+There had been a battle, and it was with a head bound up in a
+blood-stained linen, that Chupin made his appearance before Mme.
+Blanche.
+
+�Give me the sum that the old man buried, and I will allow my brother to
+think that I had stolen it. It is not very pleasant to be regarded as a
+thief, when one is an honest man, but I will bear it for your sake. If
+you refuse, I shall be compelled to tell him where I have obtained my
+money and how.�
+
+If he possessed all the vices, depravity, and coldblooded perversity of
+his father, this wretch had inherited neither his intelligence nor his
+_finesse_.
+
+Instead of taking the precautions which his interest required, he seemed
+to find a brutal pleasure in compromising the duchess.
+
+He was a constant visitor at the Hotel de Sairmeuse. He came and went
+at all hours, morning, noon, and night, without troubling himself in the
+least about Martial.
+
+And the servants were amazed to see their haughty mistress
+unhesitatingly leave everything at the call of this suspicious-looking
+character, who smelled _so_ strongly of tobacco and vile brandy.
+
+One evening, while a grand entertainment was in progress at the Hotel de
+Sairmeuse, he made his appearance, half drunk, and imperiously ordered
+the servants to go and tell Mme. Blanche that he was there, and that he
+was waiting for her.
+
+She hastened to him in her magnificent evening-dress, her face white
+with rage and shame beneath her tiara of diamonds. And when, in her
+exasperation, she refused to give the wretch what he demanded:
+
+�That is to say, I am to starve while you are revelling here!� he
+exclaimed. �I am not such a fool. Give me money, and instantly, or I
+will tell all I know here and now!�
+
+What could she do? She was obliged to yield, as she had always done
+before.
+
+And yet he grew more and more insatiable every day. Money remained in
+his pockets no longer than water remains in a sieve. But he did not
+think of elevating his vices to the proportions of the fortune which he
+squandered. He did not even provide himself with decent clothing; from
+his appearance one would have supposed him a beggar, and his companions
+were the vilest and most degraded of beings.
+
+One night he was arrested in a low den, and the police, surprised at
+seeing so much gold in the possession of such a beggarly looking wretch,
+accused him of being a thief. He mentioned the name of the Duchesse de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+An inspector of the police presented himself at the Hotel de Sairmeuse
+the following morning. Martial, fortunately, was in Vienna at the time.
+
+And Mme. Blanche was forced to undergo the terrible humiliation of
+confessing that she had given a large sum of money to this man, whose
+family she had known, and who, she added, had once rendered her an
+important service.
+
+Sometimes her tormentor changed his tactics.
+
+For example, he declared that he disliked to come to the Hotel de
+Sairmeuse, that the servants treated him as if he were a mendicant, that
+after this he would write.
+
+And in a day or two there would come a letter bidding her bring such a
+sum, to such a place, at such an hour.
+
+And the proud duchess was always punctual at the rendezvous.
+
+There was constantly some new invention, as if he found an intense
+delight in proving his power and in abusing it.
+
+He had met, Heaven knows where! a certain Aspasie Clapard, to whom he
+took a violent fancy, and although she was much older than himself, he
+wished to marry her. Mme. Blanche paid for the wedding-feast.
+
+Again he announced his desire of establishing himself in business,
+having resolved, he said, to live by his own exertions. He purchased the
+stock of a wine merchant, which the duchess paid for, and which he drank
+in no time.
+
+His wife gave birth to a child, and Mme. de Sairmeuse must pay for the
+baptism as she had paid for the wedding, only too happy that Chupin
+did not require her to stand as godmother to little Polyte. He had
+entertained this idea at first.
+
+On two occasions Mme. Blanche accompanied her husband to Vienna and to
+London, whither he went charged with important diplomatic missions. She
+remained three years in foreign lands.
+
+Each week during all that time she received one letter, at least, from
+Chupin.
+
+Ah! many a time she envied the lot of her victim! What was Marie-Anne�s
+death compared with the life she led?
+
+Her sufferings were measured by years, Marie-Anne�s by minutes; and she
+said to herself, again and again, that the torture of poison could not
+be as intolerable as her agony.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+How was it that Martial had failed to discover or to suspect this state
+of affairs?
+
+A moment�s reflection will explain this fact which is so extraordinary
+in appearance, so natural in reality.
+
+The head of a family, whether he dwells in an attic or in a palace, is
+always the last to know what is going on in his home. What everybody
+else knows he does not even suspect. The master often sleeps while his
+house is on fire. Some terrible catastrophe--an explosion--is necessary
+to arouse him from his fancied security.
+
+The life that Martial led was likely to prevent him from arriving at the
+truth. He was a stranger to his wife. His manner toward her was perfect,
+full of deference and chivalrous courtesy; but they had nothing in
+common except a name and certain interests.
+
+Each lived their own life. They met only at dinner, or at the
+entertainments which they gave and which were considered the most
+brilliant in Paris society.
+
+The duchess had her own apartments, her servants, her carriages, her
+horses, her own table.
+
+At twenty-five, Martial, the last descendant of the great house of
+Sairmeuse--a man upon whom destiny had apparently lavished every
+blessing--the possessor of youth, unbounded wealth, and a brilliant
+intellect, succumbed beneath the burden of an incurable despondency and
+_ennui_.
+
+The death of Marie-Anne had destroyed all his hopes of happiness; and
+realizing the emptiness of his life, he did his best to fill the void
+with bustle and excitement. He threw himself headlong into politics,
+striving to find in power and in satisfied ambition some relief from his
+despondency.
+
+It is only just to say that Mme. Blanche had remained superior to
+circumstances; and that she had played the role of a happy, contented
+woman with consummate skill.
+
+Her frightful sufferings and anxiety never marred the haughty serenity
+of her face. She soon won a place as one of the queens of Parisian
+society; and plunged into dissipation with a sort of frenzy. Was she
+endeavoring to divert her mind? Did she hope to overpower thought by
+excessive fatigue?
+
+To Aunt Medea alone did Blanche reveal her secret heart.
+
+�I am like a culprit who has been bound to the scaffold, and then
+abandoned by the executioner, who says, as he departs: �Live until the
+axe falls of its own accord.��
+
+And the axe might fall at any moment. A word, a trifle, an unlucky
+chance--she dared not say �a decree of Providence,� and Martial would
+know all.
+
+Such, in all its unspeakable horror, was the position of the beautiful
+and envied Duchesse de Sairmeuse. �She must be perfectly happy,� said
+the world; but she felt herself sliding down the precipice to the awful
+depths below.
+
+Like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a floating spar, she scanned
+the horizon with a despairing eye, and saw only angry and threatening
+clouds.
+
+Time, perhaps, might bring her some relief.
+
+Once it happened that six weeks went by, and she heard nothing from
+Chupin. A month and a half! What had become of him? To Mme. Blanche this
+silence was as ominous as the calm that precedes the storm.
+
+A line in a newspaper solved the mystery.
+
+Chupin was in prison.
+
+The wretch, after drinking more heavily than usual one evening, had
+quarrelled with his brother, and had killed him by a blow upon the head
+with a piece of iron.
+
+The blood of the betrayed Lacheneur was visited upon the heads of his
+murderer�s children.
+
+Tried by the Court of Assizes, Chupin was condemned to twenty years of
+hard labor, and sent to Brest.
+
+But this sentence afforded the duchess no relief. The culprit had
+written to her from his Paris prison; he wrote to her from Brest.
+
+But he did not send his letters through the post. He confided them to
+comrades, whose terms of imprisonment had expired, and who came to the
+Hotel de Sairmeuse demanding an interview with the duchess.
+
+And she received them. They told all the miseries they had endured �out
+there;� and usually ended by requesting some slight assistance.
+
+One morning, a man whose desperate appearance and manner frightened her,
+brought the duchess this laconic epistle:
+
+
+�I am tired of starving here; I wish to make my escape. Come to Brest;
+you can visit the prison, and we will decide upon some plan. If you
+refuse to do this, I shall apply to the duke, who will obtain my pardon
+in exchange of what I will tell him.�
+
+
+Mme. Blanche was dumb with horror. It was impossible, she thought, to
+sink lower than this.
+
+�Well!� demanded the man, harshly. �What reply shall I make to my
+comrade?�
+
+�I will go--tell him that I will go!� she said, driven to desperation.
+
+She made the journey, visited the prison, but did not find Chupin.
+
+The previous week there had been a revolt in the prison, the troops had
+fired upon the prisoners, and Chupin had been killed instantly.
+
+Still the duchess dared not rejoice.
+
+She feared that her tormentor had told his wife the secret of his power.
+
+�I shall soon know,� she thought.
+
+The widow promptly made her appearance; but her manner was humble and
+supplicating.
+
+She had often heard her dear, dead husband say that madame was his
+benefactress, and now she came to beg a little aid to enable her to open
+a small drinking saloon.
+
+Her son Polyte--ah! such a good son! just eighteen years old, and such
+a help to his poor mother--had discovered a little house in a good
+situation for the business, and if they only had three or four hundred
+francs----
+
+Mme. Blanche gave her five hundred francs.
+
+�Either her humility is a mask,� she thought, �or her husband has told
+her nothing.�
+
+Five days later Polyte Chupin presented himself.
+
+They needed three hundred francs more before they could commence
+business, and he came on behalf of his mother to entreat the kind lady
+to advance them.
+
+Determined to discover exactly where she stood, the duchess shortly
+refused, and the young man departed without a word.
+
+Evidently the mother and son were ignorant of the facts. Chupin�s secret
+had died with him.
+
+This happened early in January. Toward the last of February, Aunt Medea
+contracted inflammation of the lungs on leaving a fancy ball, which she
+attended in an absurd costume, in spite of all the attempts which her
+niece made to dissuade her.
+
+Her passion for dress killed her. Her illness lasted only three days;
+but her sufferings, physical and mental, were terrible.
+
+Constrained by her fear of death to examine her own conscience, she
+saw plainly that by profiting by the crime of her niece she had been
+as culpable as if she had aided her in committing it. She had been very
+devout in former years, and now her superstitious fears were reawakened
+and intensified. Her faith returned, accompanied by a _cortege_ of
+terrors.
+
+�I am lost!� she cried; �I am lost!�
+
+She tossed to and fro upon her bed; she writhed and shrieked as if she
+already saw hell opening to engulf her.
+
+She called upon the Holy Virgin and upon all the saints to protect her.
+She entreated God to grant her time for repentance and for expiation.
+She begged to see a priest, swearing she would make a full confession.
+
+Paler than the dying woman, but implacable, Blanche watched over her,
+aided by that one of her personal attendants in whom she had most
+confidence.
+
+�If this lasts long, I shall be ruined,� she thought. �I shall be
+obliged to call for assistance, and she will betray me.�
+
+It did not last long.
+
+The patient�s delirium was succeeded by such utter prostration that it
+seemed each moment would be her last.
+
+But toward midnight she appeared to revive a little, and in a voice of
+intense feeling, she said:
+
+�You have had no pity, Blanche. You have deprived me of all hope in
+the life to come. God will punish you. You, too, shall die like a dog;
+alone, without a word of Christian counsel or encouragement. I curse
+you!�
+
+And she died just as the clock was striking two.
+
+The time when Blanche would have given almost anything to know that Aunt
+Medea was beneath the sod, had long since passed.
+
+Now, the death of the poor old woman affected her deeply.
+
+She had lost an accomplice who had often consoled her, and she had
+gained nothing, since one of her maids was now acquainted with the
+secret of the crime at the Borderie.
+
+Everyone who was intimately acquainted with the Duchesse de Sairmeuse,
+noticed her dejection, and was astonished by it.
+
+�Is it not strange,� remarked her friends, �that the duchess--such a
+very superior woman--should grieve so much for that absurd relative of
+hers?�
+
+But the dejection of Mme. Blanche was due in great measure to the
+sinister prophecies of the accomplice to whom she had denied the last
+consolations of religion.
+
+And as her mind reviewed the past she shuddered, as the peasants at
+Sairmeuse had done, when she thought of the fatality which had pursued
+the shedders of innocent blood.
+
+What misfortune had attended them all--from the sons of Chupin, the
+miserable traitor, up to her father, the Marquis de Courtornieu, whose
+mind had not been illumined by the least gleam of reason for ten long
+years before his death.
+
+�My turn will come!� she thought.
+
+The Baron and the Baroness d�Escorval, and old Corporal Bavois had
+departed this life within a month of each other, the previous year,
+mourned by all.
+
+So that of all the people of diverse condition who had been connected
+with the troubles at Montaignac, Blanche knew only four who were still
+alive.
+
+Maurice d�Escorval, who had entered the magistracy, and was now a judge
+in the tribunal of the Seine; Abbe Midon, who had come to Paris with
+Maurice, and Martial and herself.
+
+There was another person, the bare recollection of whom made her
+tremble, and whose name she dared not utter.
+
+Jean Lacheneur, Marie-Anne�s brother.
+
+An inward voice, more powerful than reason, told her that this
+implacable enemy was still alive, watching for his hour of vengeance.
+
+More troubled by her presentiments now, than she had been by Chupin�s
+persecutions in days gone by, Mme. de Sairmeuse decided to apply to
+Chelteux in order to ascertain, if possible, what she had to expect.
+
+Fouche�s former agent had not wavered in his devotion to the duchess.
+Every three months he presented his bill, which was paid without
+discussion; and to ease his conscience, he sent one of his men to prowl
+around Sairmeuse for a while, at least once a year.
+
+Animated by the hope of a magnificent reward, the spy promised his
+client, and--what was more to the purpose--promised himself, that he
+would discover this dreaded enemy.
+
+He started in quest of him, and had already begun to collect proofs of
+Jean�s existence, when his investigations were abruptly terminated.
+
+One morning the body of a man literally hacked in pieces was found in an
+old well. It was the body of Chelteux.
+
+�A fitting close to the career of such a wretch,� said the _Journal des
+Debats_, in noting the event.
+
+When she read this news, Mme. Blanche felt as a culprit would feel on
+reading his death-warrant.
+
+�The end is near,� she murmured. �Lacheneur is coming!�
+
+The duchess was not mistaken.
+
+Jean had told the truth when he declared that he was not disposing of
+his sister�s estate for his own benefit. In his opinion, Marie-Anne�s
+fortune must be consecrated to one sacred purpose; he would not divert
+the slightest portion of it to his individual needs.
+
+He was absolutely penniless when the manager of a travelling theatrical
+company engaged him for a consideration of forty-five francs per month.
+
+From that day he lived the precarious life of a strolling player. He was
+poorly paid, and often reduced to abject poverty by lack of engagements,
+or by the impecuniosity of managers.
+
+His hatred had lost none of its virulence; but to wreak the desired
+vengeance upon his enemy, he must have time and money at his disposal.
+
+But how could he accumulate money when he was often too poor to appease
+his hunger?
+
+Still he did not renounce his hopes. His was a rancor which was only
+intensified by years. He was biding his time while he watched from the
+depths of his misery the brilliant fortunes of the house of Sairmeuse.
+
+He had waited sixteen years, when one of his friends procured him an
+engagement in Russia.
+
+The engagement was nothing; but the poor comedian was afterward
+fortunate enough to obtain an interest in a theatrical enterprise, from
+which he realized a fortune of one hundred thousand francs in less than
+six years.
+
+�Now,� said he, �I can give up this life. I am rich enough, now, to
+begin the warfare.�
+
+And six weeks later he arrived in his native village.
+
+Before carrying any of his atrocious designs into execution, he went
+to Sairmeuse to visit Marie-Anne�s grave, in order to obtain there an
+increase of animosity, as well as the relentless _sang-froid_ of a stern
+avenger of crime.
+
+That was his only motive in going, but, on the very evening of his
+arrival, he learned through a garrulous old peasant woman that ever
+since his departure--that is to say, for a period of twenty years--two
+parties had been making persistent inquiries for a child which had been
+placed somewhere in the neighborhood.
+
+Jean knew that it was Marie-Anne�s child they were seeking. Why they had
+not succeeded in finding it, he knew equally well.
+
+But why were there two persons seeking the child? One was Maurice
+d�Escorval, of course, but who was the other?
+
+Instead of remaining at Sairmeuse a week, Jean Lacheneur tarried there a
+month; and by the expiration of that month he had traced these inquiries
+concerning the child to the agent of Chelteux. Through him, he reached
+Fouche�s former spy; and, finally, succeeded in discovering that the
+search had been instituted by no less a person than the Duchesse de
+Sairmeuse.
+
+This discovery bewildered him. How could Mme. Blanche have known that
+Marie-Anne had given birth to a child; and knowing it, what possible
+interest could she have had in finding it?
+
+These two questions tormented Jean�s mind continually; but he could
+discover no satisfactory answer.
+
+�Chupin�s son could tell me, perhaps,� he thought. �I must pretend to be
+reconciled to the sons of the wretch who betrayed my father.�
+
+But the traitor�s children had been dead for several years, and after a
+long search, Jean found only the Widow Chupin and her son, Polyte.
+
+They were keeping a drinking-saloon not far from the
+Chateau-des-Rentiers; and their establishment, known as the Poivriere,
+bore anything but an enviable reputation.
+
+Lacheneur questioned the widow and her son in vain; they could give him
+no information whatever on the subject. He told them his name, but even
+this did not awaken the slightest recollection in their minds.
+
+Jean was about to take his departure when Mother Chupin, probably in the
+hope of extracting a few pennies, began to deplore her present misery,
+which was, she declared, all the harder to bear since she had wanted for
+nothing during the life of her poor husband, who had always obtained
+as much money as he wanted from a lady of high degree--the Duchesse de
+Sairmeuse, in short.
+
+Lacheneur uttered such a terrible oath that the old woman and her son
+started back in affright.
+
+He saw at once the close connection between the researches of Mme.
+Blanche and her generosity to Chupin.
+
+�It was she who poisoned Marie-Anne,� he said to himself. �It was
+through my sister that she became aware of the existence of the
+child. She loaded Chupin with favors because he knew the crime she had
+committed--that crime in which his father had been only an accomplice.�
+
+He remembered Martial�s oath at the bedside of the murdered girl, and
+his heart overflowed with savage exultation. He saw his two enemies, the
+last of the Sairmeuse and the last of the Courtornieu take in their own
+hands his work of vengeance.
+
+But this was mere conjecture; he desired to be assured of the
+correctness of his suppositions.
+
+He drew from his pocket a handful of gold, and, throwing it upon the
+table, he said:
+
+�I am very rich; if you will obey me and keep my secret, your fortune is
+made.�
+
+A shrill cry of delight from mother and son outweighed any protestations
+of obedience.
+
+The Widow Chupin knew how to write, and Lacheneur dictated this letter:
+
+
+�Madame la Duchesse--I shall expect you at my establishment to-morrow
+between twelve and four o�clock. It is on business connected with the
+Borderie. If at five o�clock I have not seen you, I shall carry to the
+post a letter for the duke.�
+
+
+�And if she comes what am I to say to her?� asked the astonished widow.
+
+�Nothing; you will merely ask her for money.�
+
+�If she comes, it is as I have guessed,� he reflected.
+
+She came.
+
+Hidden in the loft of the Poivriere, Jean, through an opening in the
+floor, saw the duchess give a banknote to Mother Chupin.
+
+�Now, she is in my power!� he thought exultantly. �Through what sloughs
+of degradation will I drag her before I deliver her up to her husband�s
+vengeance!�
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+A few lines of the article consecrated to Martial de Sairmeuse in the
+�General Biography of the Men of the Century,� give the history of his
+life after his marriage.
+
+
+�Martial de Sairmeuse,� it says there, �brought to the service of his
+party a brilliant intellect and admirable endowments. Called to the
+front at the moment when political strife was raging with the utmost
+violence, he had courage to assume the sole responsibility of the most
+extreme measures.
+
+�Compelled by almost universal opprobrium to retire from office, he left
+behind him animosities which will be extinguished only with life.�
+
+
+But what this article does not state is this: if Martial was wrong--and
+that depends entirely upon the point of view from which his conduct
+is regarded--he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of those
+ardent convictions verging upon fanaticism which make men fools, heroes,
+and martyrs.
+
+He was not even ambitious.
+
+Those associated with him, witnessing his passionate struggle and his
+unceasing activity, thought him actuated by an insatiable thirst for
+power.
+
+He cared little or nothing for it. He considered its burdens heavy; its
+compensations small. His pride was too lofty to feel any satisfaction in
+the applause that delights the vain, and flattery disgusted him.
+Often, in his princely drawing-rooms, during some brilliant fete, his
+acquaintances noticed a shade of gloom steal over his features, and
+seeing him thus thoughtful and preoccupied, they respectfully refrained
+from disturbing him.
+
+�His mind is occupied with momentous questions,� they thought. �Who can
+tell what important decisions may result from this revery?�
+
+They were mistaken.
+
+At the very moment when his brilliant success made his rivals pale with
+envy--when it would seem that he had nothing left to wish for in this
+world, Martial was saying to himself:
+
+�What an empty life! What weariness and vexation of spirit! To live for
+others--what a mockery!�
+
+He looked at his wife, radiant in her beauty, worshipped like a queen,
+and he sighed.
+
+He thought of her who was dead--Marie-Anne--the only woman whom he had
+ever loved.
+
+She was never absent from his mind. After all these years he saw her
+yet, cold, rigid, lifeless, in that luxurious room at the Borderie;
+and time, far from effacing the image of the fair girl who had won his
+youthful heart, made it still more radiant and endowed his lost idol
+with almost superhuman grace of person and of character.
+
+If fate had but given him Marie-Anne for his wife! He said this to
+himself again and again, picturing the exquisite happiness which a life
+with her would have afforded him.
+
+They would have remained at Sairmeuse. They would have had lovely
+children playing around them! He would not be condemned to this
+continual warfare--to this hollow, unsatisfying, restless life.
+
+The truly happy are not those who parade their satisfaction and
+good fortune before the eyes of the multitude. The truly happy hide
+themselves from the curious gaze, and they are right; happiness is
+almost a crime.
+
+So thought Martial; and he, the great statesman, often said to himself,
+in a sort of rage:
+
+�To love, and to be loved--that is everything! All else is vanity.�
+
+He had really tried to love his wife; he had done his best to rekindle
+the admiration with which she had inspired him at their first meeting.
+He had not succeeded.
+
+Between them there seemed to be a wall of ice which nothing could melt,
+and which was constantly increasing in height and thickness.
+
+�Why is it?� he wondered, again and again. �It is incomprehensible.
+There are days when I could swear that she loved me. Her character,
+formerly so irritable, is entirely changed; she is gentleness itself.�
+
+But he could not conquer his aversion; it was stronger than his own
+will.
+
+These unavailing regrets, and the disappointments and sorrow that
+preyed upon him, undoubtedly aggravated the bitterness and severity of
+Martial�s policy.
+
+But he, at least, knew how to fall nobly.
+
+He passed, without even a change of countenance, from almost omnipotence
+to a position so compromising that his very life was endangered.
+
+On seeing his ante-chambers, formerly thronged with flatterers and
+office-seekers, empty and deserted, he laughed, and his laugh was
+unaffected.
+
+�The ship is sinking,� said he; �the rats have deserted it.�
+
+He did not even pale when the noisy crowd came to hoot and curse and
+hurl stones at his windows; and when Otto, his faithful _valet de
+chambre_, entreated him to assume a disguise and make his escape through
+the gardens, he responded:
+
+�By no means! I am simply odious; I do not wish to become ridiculous!�
+
+They could not even dissuade him from going to a window and looking down
+upon the rabble in the street below.
+
+A singular idea had just occurred to him.
+
+�If Jean Lacheneur is still alive,� he thought, �how much he would enjoy
+this! And if he is alive, he is undoubtedly there in the foremost rank,
+urging on the crowd.�
+
+And he wished to see.
+
+But Jean Lacheneur was in Russia at that epoch. The excitement subsided;
+the Hotel de Sairmeuse was not seriously threatened. Still Martial
+realized that it would be better for him to go away for a while, and
+allow people to forget him.
+
+He did not ask the duchess to accompany him.
+
+�The fault has been mine entirely,� he said to her, �and to make you
+suffer for it by condemning you to exile would be unjust. Remain here; I
+think it will be much better for you to remain here.�
+
+She did not offer to go with him. It would have been a pleasure to her,
+but she dared not leave Paris. She knew that she must remain in order
+to insure the silence of her persecutors. Both times she had left Paris
+before, all came near being discovered, and yet she had Aunt Medea,
+then, to take her place.
+
+Martial went away, accompanied only by his devoted servant, Otto.
+In intelligence, this man was decidedly superior to his position; he
+possessed an independent fortune, and he had a hundred reasons--one, by
+the way, was a very pretty one--for desiring to remain in Paris; but his
+master was in trouble, and he did not hesitate.
+
+For four years the Duc de Sairmeuse wandered over Europe, ever
+accompanied by his _ennui_ and his dejection, and chafing beneath the
+burden of a life no longer animated by interest or sustained by hope.
+
+He remained awhile in London, then he went to Vienna, afterward to
+Venice. One day he was seized by an irresistible desire to see Paris
+again, and he returned.
+
+It was not a very prudent step, perhaps. His bitterest enemies--personal
+enemies, whom he had mortally offended and persecuted--were in power;
+but he did not hesitate. Besides, how could they injure him, since he
+had no favors to ask, no cravings of ambition to satisfy?
+
+The exile which had weighed so heavily upon him, the sorrow, the
+disappointments and loneliness he had endured had softened his nature
+and inclined his heart to tenderness; and he returned firmly resolved to
+overcome his aversion to his wife, and seek a reconciliation.
+
+�Old age is approaching,� he thought. �If I have not a beloved wife at
+my fireside, I may at least have a friend.�
+
+His manner toward her, on his return, astonished Mme. Blanche. She
+almost believed she saw again the Martial of the little blue salon at
+Courtornieu; but the realization of her cherished dream was now only
+another torture added to all the others.
+
+Martial was striving to carry his plan into execution, when the
+following laconic epistle came to him one day through the post:
+
+
+�Monsieur le Duc--I, if I were in your place, would watch my wife.�
+
+
+It was only an anonymous letter, but Martial�s blood mounted to his
+forehead.
+
+�Can it be that she has a lover?� he thought.
+
+Then reflecting on his own conduct toward his wife since their marriage,
+he said to himself:
+
+�And if she has, have I any right to complain? Did I not tacitly give
+her back her liberty?�
+
+He was greatly troubled, and yet he would not have degraded himself
+so much as to play the spy, had it not been for one of those trifling
+circumstances which so often decide a man�s destiny.
+
+He was returning from a ride on horseback one morning about eleven
+o�clock, and he was not thirty paces from the Hotel de Sairmeuse when
+he saw a lady hurriedly emerge from the house. She was very plainly
+dressed--entirely in black--but her whole appearance was strikingly that
+of the duchess.
+
+�It is certainly my wife; but why is she dressed in such a fashion?� he
+thought.
+
+Had he been on foot he would certainly have entered the house; as it
+was, he slowly followed Mme. Blanche, who was going up the Rue Grenelle.
+She walked very quickly, and without turning her head, and kept her face
+persistently shrouded in a very thick veil.
+
+When she reached the Rue Taranne, she threw herself into one of the
+_fiacres_ at the carriage-stand.
+
+The coachman came to the door to speak to her; then nimbly sprang upon
+the box, and gave his bony horses one of those cuts of the whip that
+announce a princely _pourboire_.
+
+The carriage had already turned the corner of the Rue du Dragon, and
+Martial, ashamed and irresolute, had not moved from the place where he
+had stopped his horse, just around the corner of the Rue Saint Pares.
+
+Not daring to admit his suspicions, he tried to deceive himself.
+
+�Nonsense!� he thought, giving the reins to his horse, �what do I risk
+in advancing? The carriage is a long way off by this time, and I shall
+not overtake it.�
+
+He did overtake it, however, on reaching the intersection of the
+Croix-Rouge, where there was, as usual, a crowd of vehicles.
+
+It was the same _fiacre_; Martial recognized it by its green body, and
+its wheels striped with white.
+
+Emerging from the crowd of carriages, the driver whipped up his horses,
+and it was at a gallop that they flew up the Rue du Vieux Columbier--the
+narrowest street that borders the Place Saint Sulpice--and gained the
+outer boulevards.
+
+Martial�s thoughts were busy as he trotted along about a hundred yards
+behind the vehicle.
+
+�She is in a terrible hurry,� he said to himself. �This, however, is
+scarcely the quarter for a lover�s rendezvous.�
+
+The carriage had passed the Place d�Italie. It entered the Rue du
+Chateau-des-Rentiers and soon paused before a tract of unoccupied
+ground.
+
+The door was at once opened, and the Duchesse de Sairmeuse hastily
+alighted.
+
+Without stopping to look to the right or to the left, she hurried across
+the open space.
+
+A man, by no means prepossessing in appearance, with a long beard, and
+with a pipe in his mouth, and clad in a workman�s blouse, was seated
+upon a large block of stone not far off.
+
+�Will you hold my horse a moment?� inquired Martial.
+
+�Certainly,� answered the man.
+
+Had Martial been less preoccupied, his suspicions might have been
+aroused by the malicious smile that curved the man�s lips; and had he
+examined his features closely, he would perhaps have recognized him.
+
+For it was Jean Lacheneur.
+
+Since addressing that anonymous letter to the Duc de Sairmeuse, he had
+made the duchess multiply her visits to the Widow Chupin; and each time
+he had watched for her coming.
+
+�So, if her husband decides to follow her I shall know it,� he thought.
+
+It was indispensable for the success of his plans that Mme. Blanche
+should be watched by her husband.
+
+For Jean Lacheneur had decided upon his course. From a thousand schemes
+for revenge he had chosen the most frightful and ignoble that a brain
+maddened and enfevered by hatred could possibly conceive.
+
+He longed to see the haughty Duchesse de Sairmeuse subjected to the
+vilest ignominy, Martial in the hands of the lowest of the low. He
+pictured a bloody struggle in this miserable den; the sudden arrival
+of the police, summoned by himself, who would arrest all the parties
+indiscriminately. He gloated over the thought of a trial in which the
+crime committed at the Borderie would be brought to light; he saw the
+duke and the duchess in prison, and the great names of Sairmeuse and of
+Courtornieu shrouded in eternal disgrace.
+
+And he believed that nothing was wanting to insure the success of his
+plans. He had at his disposal two miserable wretches who were capable
+of any crime; and an unfortunate youth named Gustave, made his willing
+slave by poverty and cowardice, was intended to play the part of
+Marie-Anne�s son.
+
+These three accomplices had no suspicion of his real intentions. As for
+the Widow Chupin and her son, if they suspected some infamous plot, the
+name of the duchess was all they really knew in regard to it. Moreover,
+Jean held Polyte and his mother completely under his control by the
+wealth which he had promised them if they served him docilely.
+
+And if Martial followed his wife into the Poivriere, Jean had so
+arranged matters that the duke would at first suppose that she had been
+led there by charity.
+
+�But he will not go in,� thought Lacheneur, whose heart throbbed wildly
+with sinister joy as he held Martial�s horse. �Monsieur le Duc is too
+fine for that.�
+
+And Martial did not go in. Though he was horrified when he saw his wife
+enter that vile den, as if she were at home there, he said to himself
+that he should learn nothing by following her.
+
+He, therefore, contented himself by making a thorough examination of
+the outside of the house; then, remounting his horse, he departed on a
+gallop. He was completely mystified; he did not know what to think, what
+to imagine, what to believe.
+
+But he was fully resolved to fathom this mystery and as soon as he
+returned home he sent Otto out in search of information. He could
+confide everything to this devoted servant; he had no secrets from him.
+
+About four o�clock his faithful _valet de chambre_ returned, an
+expression of profound consternation visible upon his countenance.
+
+�What is it?� asked Martial, divining some great misfortune.
+
+�Ah, sir, the mistress of that wretched den is the widow of Chupin�s
+son----�
+
+Martial�s face became as white as his linen.
+
+He knew life too well not to understand that since the duchess had been
+compelled to submit to the power of these people, they must be masters
+of some secret which she was willing to make any sacrifice to preserve.
+But what secret?
+
+The years which had silvered Martial�s hair, had not cooled the ardor of
+his blood. He was, as he had always been, a man of impulses.
+
+He rushed to his wife�s apartments.
+
+�Madame has just gone down to receive the Countess de Mussidan and the
+Marquise d�Arlange,� said the maid.
+
+�Very well; I will wait for her here. Retire.�
+
+And Martial entered the chamber of Mme. Blanche.
+
+The room was in disorder, for the duchess, after returning from the
+Poivriere, was still engaged in her toilet when the visitors were
+announced.
+
+The wardrobe-doors were open, the chairs were encumbered with wearing
+apparel, the articles which Mme. Blanche used daily--her watch, her
+purse, and several bunches of keys--were lying upon the dressing-table
+and mantel.
+
+Martial did not sit down. His self-possession was returning.
+
+�No folly,� he thought, �if I question her, I shall learn nothing. I
+must be silent and watchful.�
+
+He was about to retire, when, on glancing about the room, his eyes fell
+upon a large casket, inlaid with silver, which had belonged to his wife
+ever since she was a young girl, and which accompanied her everywhere.
+
+�That, doubtless, holds the solution of the mystery,� he said to
+himself.
+
+It was one of those moments when a man obeys the dictates of passion
+without pausing to reflect. He saw the keys upon the mantel; he seized
+them, and endeavored to find one that would fit the lock of the casket.
+The fourth key opened it. It was full of papers.
+
+With feverish haste, Martial examined the contents. He had thrown
+aside several unimportant letters, when he came to a bill that read as
+follows:
+
+�Search for the child of Madame de Sairmeuse. Expenses for the third
+quarter of the year 18--.�
+
+Martial�s brain reeled.
+
+A child! His wife had a child!
+
+He read on: �For services of two agents at Sairmeuse, ----. For expenses
+attending my own journey, ----. Divers gratuities, ----. Etc., etc.� The
+total amounted to six thousand francs. The bill was signed �Chelteux.�
+
+With a sort of cold rage, Martial continued his examination of the
+contents of the casket, and found a note written in a miserable hand,
+that said: �Two thousand francs this evening, or I will tell the duke
+the history of the affair at the Borderie.� Then several more bills from
+Chelteux; then a letter from Aunt Medea in which she spoke of prison
+and of remorse. And finally, at the bottom of the casket, he found the
+marriage-certificate of Marie-Anne Lacheneur and Maurice d�Escorval,
+drawn up by the Cure of Vigano and signed by the old physician and
+Corporal Bavois.
+
+The truth was as clear as daylight.
+
+Stunned, frozen with horror, Martial scarcely had strength to return the
+letters to the casket and restore it to its place.
+
+Then he tottered back to his own room, clinging to the walls for
+support.
+
+�It was she who murdered Marie-Anne,� he murmured.
+
+He was confounded, terror-stricken by the perfidy and baseness of
+this woman who was his wife--by her criminal audacity, by her cool
+calculation and assurance, by her marvellous powers of dissimulation.
+
+He swore he would discover all, either through the duchess or through
+the Widow Chupin; and he ordered Otto to procure a costume for him such
+as was generally worn by the _habitues_ of the Poivriere. He did not
+know how soon he might have use for it.
+
+This happened early in February, and from that moment Mme. Blanche did
+not take a single step without being watched. Not a letter reached her
+that her husband had not previously read.
+
+And she had not the slightest suspicion of the constant espionage to
+which she was subjected.
+
+Martial did not leave his room; he pretended to be ill. To meet his
+wife and be silent, was beyond his powers. He remembered the oath of
+vengeance which he had pronounced over Marie-Anne�s lifeless form too
+well.
+
+But there were no new revelations, and for this reason: Polyte Chupin
+had been arrested under charge of theft, and this accident caused a
+delay in the execution of Lacheneur�s plans. But, at last, he judged
+that all would be in readiness on the 20th of February, Shrove Sunday.
+
+The evening before the Widow Chupin, in conformance with his
+instructions, wrote to the duchess that she must come to the Poivriere
+Sunday evening at eleven o�clock.
+
+On that same evening Jean was to meet his accomplices at a ball at the
+Rainbow--a public-house bearing a very unenviable reputation--and give
+them their last instructions.
+
+These accomplices were to open the scene; he was to appear only in the
+_denouement_.
+
+�All is well arranged; the mechanism will work of its own accord,� he
+said to himself.
+
+But the �mechanism,� as he styled it, failed to work.
+
+Mme. Blanche, on receiving the Widow Chupin�s summons, revolted for a
+moment. The lateness of the hour, the isolation of the spot designated,
+frightened her.
+
+But she was obliged to submit, and on the appointed evening she
+furtively left the house, accompanied by Camille, the same servant who
+had witnessed Aunt Medea�s last agony.
+
+The duchess and her maid were attired like women of the very lowest
+order, and felt no fear of being seen or recognized.
+
+And yet a man was watching them, and he quickly followed them. It was
+Martial.
+
+Knowing of this rendezvous even before his wife, he had disguised
+himself in the costume Otto had procured for him, which was that of a
+laborer about the quays; and, as he was a man who did perfectly
+whatever he attempted to do, he had succeeded in rendering himself
+unrecognizable. His hair and beard were rough and matted; his hands were
+soiled and grimed with dirt; he was really the abject wretch whose rags
+he wore.
+
+Otto had begged to be allowed to accompany him; but the duke refused,
+saying that the revolver which he would take with him would be
+sufficient protection. He knew Otto well enough, however, to be certain
+he would disobey him.
+
+Ten o�clock was sounding when Mme. Blanche and Camille left the house,
+and it did not take them five minutes to reach the Rue Taranne.
+
+There was one _fiacre_ on the stand--one only.
+
+They entered it and it drove away.
+
+This circumstance drew from Martial an oath worthy of his costume. Then
+he reflected that, since he knew where to find his wife, a slight delay
+in finding a carriage did not matter.
+
+He soon obtained one; and the coachman, thanks to a _pourboire_ of ten
+francs, drove to the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers as fast as his horses
+could go.
+
+But the duke had scarcely set foot on the ground before he heard
+the rumbling of another carriage which stopped abruptly at a little
+distance.
+
+�Otto is evidently following me,� he thought.
+
+And he started across the open space in the direction of the Poivriere.
+
+Gloom and silence prevailed on every side, and were made still more
+oppressive by a chill fog that heralded an approaching thaw. Martial
+stumbled and slipped at almost every step upon the rough, snow-covered
+ground.
+
+It was not long before he could distinguish a dark mass in the midst
+of the fog. It was the Poivriere. The light within filtered through the
+heart-shaped openings in the blinds, looking at a distance like lurid
+eyes gleaming in the darkness.
+
+Could it really be possible that the Duchesse de Sairmeuse was there!
+
+Martial cautiously approached the window, and clinging to the hinges of
+one of the shutters, he lifted himself up so he could peer through the
+opening.
+
+Yes, his wife was indeed there in that vile den.
+
+She and Camille were seated at a table before a large punch-bowl, and
+in company with two ragged, leering scoundrels, and a soldier, quite
+youthful in appearance.
+
+In the centre of the room stood the Widow Chupin, with a small glass
+in her hand, talking volubly and punctuating her sentences by copious
+draughts of brandy.
+
+The impression produced upon Martial was so terrible that his hold
+relaxed and he dropped to the ground.
+
+A ray of pity penetrated his soul, for he vaguely realized the frightful
+suffering which had been the chastisement of the murderess.
+
+But he desired another glance at the interior of the hovel, and he again
+lifted himself up to the opening and looked in.
+
+The old woman had disappeared; the young soldier had risen from the
+table and was talking and gesticulating earnestly. Mme. Blanche and
+Camille were listening to him with the closest attention.
+
+The two men who were sitting face to face, with their elbows upon the
+table, were looking at each other; and Martial saw them exchange a
+significant glance.
+
+He was not wrong. The scoundrels were plotting �a rich haul.�
+
+Mme. Blanche, who had dressed herself with such care, that to render her
+disguise perfect she had encased her feet in large, coarse shoes that
+were almost killing her--Mme. Blanche had forgotten to remove her superb
+diamond ear-rings.
+
+She had forgotten them, but Lacheneur�s accomplices had noticed them,
+and were now regarding them with eyes that glittered more brilliantly
+than the diamonds themselves.
+
+While awaiting Lacheneur�s coming, these wretches, as had been agreed
+upon, were playing the part which he had imposed upon them. For this,
+and their assistance afterward, they were to receive a certain sum of
+money.
+
+But they were thinking that this sum was not, perhaps, a quarter part of
+the value of these jewels, and they exchanged glances that said:
+
+�Ah! if we could only get them and make our escape before Lacheneur
+comes!�
+
+The temptation was too strong to be resisted.
+
+One of them rose suddenly, and, seizing the duchess by the back of the
+neck, he forced her head down upon the table.
+
+The diamonds would have been torn from the ears of Mme. Blanche had it
+not been for Camille, who bravely came to the aid of her mistress.
+
+Martial could endure no more. He sprang to the door of the hovel, opened
+it, and entered, bolting it behind him.
+
+�Martial!�
+
+�Monsieur le Duc!�
+
+These cries escaping the lips of Mme. Blanche and Camille in the same
+breath, changed the momentary stupor of their assailants into fury; and
+they both precipitated themselves upon Martial, determined to kill him.
+
+With a spring to one side, Martial avoided them. He had his revolver in
+his hand; he fired twice and the wretches fell. But he was not yet safe,
+for the young soldier threw himself upon him, and attempted to disarm
+him.
+
+Through all the furious struggle, Martial did not cease crying, in a
+panting voice:
+
+�Fly! Blanche, fly! Otto is not far off. The name--save the honor of the
+name!�
+
+The two women obeyed, making their escape through the back door, which
+opened upon the garden; and they had scarcely done so, before a violent
+knocking was heard at the front door.
+
+The police were coming! This increased Martial�s frenzy; and with one
+supreme effort to free himself from his assailant, he gave him such
+a violent push that his adversary fell, striking his head against the
+corner of the table, after which he lay like one dead.
+
+But the Widow Chupin, who had come downstairs on hearing the uproar, was
+shrieking upon the stairs. At the door someone was crying: �Open in the
+name of the law!�
+
+Martial might have fled; but if he fled, the duchess might be captured,
+for he would certainly be pursued. He saw the peril at a glance, and his
+decision was made.
+
+He shook the Widow Chupin violently by the arm, and said, in an
+imperious voice:
+
+�If you know how to hold your tongue you shall have one hundred thousand
+francs.�
+
+Then, drawing a table before the door opening into the adjoining room,
+he intrenched himself behind it as behind a rampart, and awaited the
+approach of the enemy.
+
+The next moment the door was forced open, and a squad of police, under
+the command of Inspector Gevrol, entered the room.
+
+�Surrender!� cried the inspector.
+
+Martial did not move; his pistol was turned upon the intruder.
+
+�If I can parley with them, and hold them in check only two minutes, all
+may yet be saved,� he thought.
+
+He obtained the wished-for delay; then he threw his weapon to the
+ground, and was about to bound through the back-door, when a policeman,
+who had gone round to the rear of the house, seized him about the body,
+and threw him to the floor.
+
+From this side he expected only assistance, so he cried:
+
+�Lost! It is the Prussians who are coming!�
+
+In the twinkling of an eye he was bound; and two hours later he was an
+inmate of the station-house at the Place d�Italie.
+
+He had played his part so perfectly, that he had deceived even Gevrol.
+The other participants in the broil were dead, and he could rely upon
+the Widow Chupin. But he knew that the trap had been set for him by Jean
+Lacheneur; and he read a whole volume of suspicion in the eyes of the
+young officer who had cut off his retreat, and who was called Lecoq by
+his companions.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+The Duc de Sairmeuse was one of those men who remain superior to all
+fortuitous circumstances, good or bad. He was a man of vast experience,
+and great natural shrewdness. His mind was quick to act, and fertile in
+resources. But when he found himself immured in the damp and loathsome
+station-house, after the terrible scenes at the Poivriere, he
+relinquished all hope.
+
+Martial knew that Justice does not trust to appearances, and that when
+she finds herself confronted by a mystery, she does not rest until she
+has fathomed it.
+
+Martial knew, only too well, that if his identity was established, the
+authorities would endeavor to discover the reason of his presence at
+the Poivriere. That this reason would soon be discovered, he could not
+doubt, and, in that case, the crime at the Borderie, and the guilt of
+the duchess, would undoubtedly be made public.
+
+This meant the Court of Assizes, prison, a frightful scandal, dishonor,
+eternal disgrace!
+
+And the power he had wielded in former days was a positive disadvantage
+to him now. His place was now filled by his political adversaries. Among
+them were two personal enemies upon whom he had inflicted those terrible
+wounds of vanity which are never healed. What an opportunity for revenge
+this would afford them!
+
+At the thought of this ineffaceable stain upon the great name of
+Sairmeuse, which was his pride and his glory, reason almost forsook him.
+
+�My God, inspire me,� he murmured. �How shall I save the honor of the
+name?�
+
+He saw but one chance of salvation--death. They now believed him one of
+the miserable wretches that haunt the suburbs of Paris; if he were dead
+they would not trouble themselves about his identity.
+
+�It is the only way!� he thought.
+
+He was endeavoring to find some means of accomplishing his plan of
+self-destruction, when he heard a bustle and confusion outside. In a few
+moments the door was opened and a man was thrust into the same cell--a
+man who staggered a few steps, fell heavily to the floor, and began to
+snore loudly. It was only a drunken man.
+
+But a gleam of hope illumined Martial�s heart, for in the drunken man he
+recognized Otto--disguised, almost unrecognizable.
+
+It was a bold ruse and no time must be lost in profiting by it. Martial
+stretched himself upon a bench, as if to sleep, in such a way that his
+head was scarcely a yard from that of Otto.
+
+�The duchess is out of danger,� murmured the faithful servant.
+
+�For to-day, perhaps. But to-morrow, through me, all will be known.�
+
+�Have you told them who you are?�
+
+�No; all the policemen but one took me for a vagabond.�
+
+�You must continue to personate this character.�
+
+�What good will it do? Lacheneur will betray me.�
+
+But Martial, though he little knew it, had no need to fear Lacheneur for
+the present, at least. A few hours before, on his way from the Rainbow
+to the Poivriere, Jean had been precipitated to the bottom of a stone
+quarry, and had fractured his skull. The laborers, on returning to their
+work early in the morning, found him lying there senseless; and at that
+very moment they were carrying him to the hospital.
+
+Although Otto was ignorant of this circumstance, he did not seem
+discouraged.
+
+�There will be some way of getting rid of Lacheneur,� said he, �if you
+will only sustain your present character. An escape is an easy matter
+when a man has millions at his command.�
+
+�They will ask me who I am, whence I came, how I have lived.�
+
+�You speak English and German; tell them that you have just returned
+from foreign lands; that you were a foundling and that you have always
+lived a roving life.�
+
+�How can I prove this?�
+
+Otto drew a little nearer his master, and said, impressively:
+
+�We must agree upon our plans, for our success depends upon a perfect
+understanding between us. I have a sweetheart in Paris--and no one knows
+our relations. She is as sharp as steel. Her name is Milner, and she
+keeps the Hotel de Mariembourg, on the Saint-Quentin. You can say that
+you arrived here from Leipsic on Sunday; that you went to this hotel;
+that you left your trunk there, and that this trunk is marked with the
+name of May, foreign artist.�
+
+�Capital!� said Martial, approvingly.
+
+And then, with extraordinary quickness and precision, they agreed, point
+by point, upon their plan of defence.
+
+When all had been arranged, Otto pretended to awake from the heavy sleep
+of intoxication; he clamored to be released, and the keeper finally
+opened the door and set him at liberty.
+
+Before leaving the station-house, however, he succeeded in throwing a
+note to the Widow Chupin, who was imprisoned in the other compartment.
+
+So, when Lecoq, after his skilful investigations at the Poivriere,
+rushed to the Place d�Italie, panting with hope and ambition, he found
+himself outwitted by these men, who were inferior to him in penetration,
+but whose _finesse_ was superior to his own.
+
+Martial�s plans being fully formed, he intended to carry them out with
+absolute perfection of detail, and, after his removal to prison, the
+Duc de Sairmeuse was preparing himself for the visit of the judge of
+instruction, when Maurice d�Escorval entered.
+
+They recognized each other. They were both terribly agitated, and the
+examination was an examination only in name. After the departure of
+Maurice, Martial attempted to destroy himself. He had no faith in the
+generosity of his former enemy.
+
+But when he found M. Segmuller occupying Maurice�s place the next
+morning, Martial believed that he was saved.
+
+Then began that struggle between the judge and Lecoq on one side, and
+the accused on the other--a struggle from which neither party came out
+conqueror.
+
+Martial knew that Lecoq was the only person he had to fear, still he
+bore him no ill-will. Faithful to his nature, which compelled him to
+be just even to his enemies, he could not help admiring the astonishing
+penetration and perseverance of this young policeman who, undismayed
+by the obstacles and discouragements that surrounded him, struggled on,
+unassisted, to reach the truth.
+
+But Lecoq was always outwitted by Otto, the mysterious accomplice, who
+seemed to know his every movement in advance.
+
+At the morgue, at the Hotel de Mariembourg, with Toinon, the wife of
+Polyte Chupin, as well as with Polyte Chupin himself, Lecoq was just a
+little too late.
+
+Lecoq detected the secret correspondence between the prisoner and his
+accomplice. He was even ingenious enough to discover the key to it, but
+this served no purpose. A man, who had seen a rival, or rather, a future
+master, in Lecoq had betrayed him.
+
+If his efforts to arrive at the truth through the jeweller and the
+Marquis d�Arlange had failed, it was only because Mme. Blanche had not
+purchased the diamond ear-rings she wore at the Poivriere at any shop,
+but from one of her friends, the Baroness de Watchau.
+
+And lastly, if no one at Paris had missed the Duc de Sairmeuse, it
+was because--thanks to an understanding between the duchess, Otto,
+and Camille--no other inmate of the Hotel de Sairmeuse suspected his
+absence. All the servants supposed their master confined to his room by
+illness. They prepared all sorts of gruels and broths for him, and his
+breakfast and dinner were taken to his apartments every day.
+
+So the weeks went by, and Martial was expecting to be summoned before
+the Court of Assizes and condemned under the name of May, when he was
+afforded an opportunity to escape.
+
+Too shrewd not to discern the trap that had been set for him, he endured
+some moments of horrible hesitation in the prison-van.
+
+He decided to accept the risk, however, commending himself to his lucky
+star.
+
+And he decided wisely, for that same night he leaped his own
+garden-wall, leaving, as a hostage, in the hands of Lecoq, an escaped
+convict, Joseph Conturier by name, whom he had picked up in a low
+drinking-saloon.
+
+Warned by Mme. Milner, thanks to a blunder on the part of Lecoq, Otto
+was awaiting his master.
+
+In the twinkling of an eye Martial�s beard fell under the razor; he
+plunged into the bath that was awaiting him, and his clothing was
+burned.
+
+And it was he who, during the search a few minutes later, had the
+hardihood to call out:
+
+�Otto, by all means allow these men to do their duty.�
+
+But he did not breathe freely until the agents of police had departed.
+
+�At last,� he exclaimed, �honor is saved! We have outwitted Lecoq!�
+
+He had just left the bath, and enveloped himself in a _robe de chambre_,
+when Otto handed him a letter from the duchess.
+
+He hastily broke the seal and read:
+
+
+�You are safe. You know all. I am dying. Farewell. I loved you.�
+
+
+With two bounds he reached his wife�s apartments. The door was locked;
+he burst it open. Too late!
+
+Mme. Blanche was dead--poisoned, like Marie-Anne; but she had procured
+a drug whose effect was instantaneous; and extended upon her couch, clad
+in her wonted apparel, her hands folded upon her breast, she seemed only
+asleep.
+
+A tear glittered in Martial�s eye.
+
+�Poor, unhappy woman!� he murmured; �may God forgive you as I forgive
+you--you whose crime has been so frightfully expiated here below!�
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+THE FIRST SUCCESS
+
+Safe, in his own princely mansion, and surrounded by an army of
+retainers, the Duc de Sairmeuse triumphantly exclaimed:
+
+�We have outwitted Lecoq.�
+
+In this he was right.
+
+But he thought himself forever beyond the reach of the wily, keen-witted
+detective; and in this he was wrong.
+
+Lecoq was not the man to sit down with folded hands and brood over the
+humiliation of his defeat.
+
+Before he went to Father Tabaret, he was beginning to recover from his
+stupor and despondency; and when he left that experienced detective�s
+presence, he had regained his courage, his command over his faculties,
+and sufficient energy to move the world, if necessary.
+
+�Well, my good man,� he remarked to Father Absinthe, who was trotting
+along by his side, �you have heard what the great Monsieur Tabaret said,
+did you not? So you see I was right.�
+
+But his companion evinced no enthusiasm.
+
+�Yes, you were right,� he responded, in woebegone tones.
+
+�Do you think we are ruined by two or three mistakes? Nonsense! I will
+soon turn our defeat of today into a glorious victory.�
+
+�Ah! you might do so perhaps, if--they do not dismiss us from the
+force.�
+
+This doleful remark recalled Lecoq to a realizing sense of the present
+situation.
+
+They had allowed a prisoner to slip through their fingers. That was
+vexatious, it is true; but they had captured one of the most notorious
+of criminals--Joseph Conturier. Surely there was some comfort in that.
+
+But while Lecoq could have borne dismissal, he could not endure the
+thought that he would not be allowed to follow up this affair of the
+Poivriere.
+
+What would his superior officers say when he told them that May and the
+Duc de Sairmeuse were one and the same person?
+
+They would, undoubtedly, shrug their shoulders and turn up their noses.
+
+�Still, Monsieur Segmuller will believe me,� he thought. �But will
+he dare to take any action in the matter without incontrovertible
+evidence?�
+
+This was very unlikely. Lecoq realized it all too well.
+
+�Could we not make a descent upon the Hotel de Sairmeuse, and, on some
+pretext or other, compel the duke to show himself, and identify him as
+the prisoner May?�
+
+He entertained this idea only for an instant, then abruptly dismissed
+it.
+
+�A stupid expedient!� he exclaimed. �Are two such men as the duke and
+his accomplice likely to be caught napping? They are prepared for such a
+visit, and we should only have our labor for our pains.�
+
+He made these reflections _sotto voce_; and Father Absinthe�s curiosity
+was aroused.
+
+�Excuse me,� said he, �I did not quite understand you.�
+
+�I say that we must find some tangible proof before asking permission to
+proceed further.�
+
+He paused with knitted brows.
+
+In seeking a circumstance which would establish the complicity between
+some member of the duke�s household and the witnesses who had been
+called upon to give their testimony, Lecoq thought of Mme. Milner, the
+owner of the Hotel de Mariembourg, and his first meeting with her.
+
+He saw her again, standing upon a chair, her face on a level with a
+cage, covered with a large piece of black silk, persistently repeating
+three or four German words to a starling, who as persistently retorted:
+�Camille! Where is Camille?�
+
+�One thing is certain,� resumed Lecoq; �if Madame Milner--who is a
+German and who speaks with the strongest possible German accent--had
+raised this bird, it would either have spoken German or with the same
+accent as its mistress. Therefore it cannot have been in her possession
+long, and who gave it to her?�
+
+Father Absinthe began to grow impatient.
+
+�In sober earnest, what are you talking about?� he asked, petulantly.
+
+�I say that if there is someone at the Hotel de Sairmeuse named Camille,
+I have the proof I desire. Come, Papa Absinthe, let us hurry on.�
+
+And without another word of explanation, he dragged his companion
+rapidly along.
+
+When they reached the Rue de Grenelle, Lecoq saw a messenger leaning
+against the door of a wine-shop. Lecoq called him.
+
+�Come, my boy,� said he; �I wish you to go to the Hotel de Sairmeuse and
+ask for Camille. Tell her that her uncle is waiting her here.�
+
+�But, sir----�
+
+�What, you have not gone yet?�
+
+The messenger departed; the two policemen entered the wine-shop, and
+Father Absinthe had scarcely had time to swallow a glass of brandy when
+the lad returned.
+
+�Monsieur, I was unable to see Mademoiselle Camille. The house is closed
+from top to bottom. The duchess died very suddenly this morning.�
+
+�Ah! the wretch!� exclaimed the young policeman.
+
+Then, controlling himself, he mentally added:
+
+�He must have killed his wife on returning home, but his fate is sealed.
+Now, I shall be allowed to continue my investigations.�
+
+In less than twenty minutes they arrived at the Palais de Justice.
+
+M. Segmuller did not seem to be immoderately surprised at Lecoq�s
+revelations. Still he listened with evident doubt to the young
+policeman�s ingenious deductions; it was the circumstance of the
+starling that seemed to decide him.
+
+�Perhaps you are right, my dear Lecoq,� he said, at last; �and to tell
+the truth, I quite agree with you. But I can take no further action in
+the matter until you can furnish proof so convincing in its nature that
+the Duc de Sairmeuse will be unable to think of denying it.�
+
+�Ah! sir, my superior officers will not allow me----�
+
+�On the contrary,� interrupted the judge, �they will allow you the
+fullest liberty after I have spoken to them.�
+
+Such action on the part of M. Segmuller required not a little courage.
+There had been so much laughter about M. Segmuller�s _grand seigneur_,
+disguised as a clown, that many men would have sacrificed their
+convictions to the fear of ridicule.
+
+�And when will you speak to them?� inquired Lecoq, timidly.
+
+�At once.�
+
+The judge had already turned toward the door when the young policeman
+stopped him.
+
+�I have one more favor to ask, Monsieur,� he said, entreatingly. �You
+are so good; you are the first person who gave me any encouragement--who
+had faith in me.�
+
+�Speak, my brave fellow.�
+
+�Ah! Monsieur, will you not give me a message for Monsieur d�Escorval?
+Any insignificant message--inform him of the prisoner�s escape. I will
+be the bearer of the message, and then--Oh! fear nothing, Monsieur; I
+will be prudent.�
+
+�Very well!� replied the judge.
+
+When he left the office of his chief, Lecoq was fully authorized to
+proceed with his investigations, and in his pocket was a note for M.
+d�Escorval from M. Segmuller. His joy was so intense that he did not
+deign to notice the sneers which were bestowed upon him as he passed
+through the corridors. On the threshold his enemy Gevrol, the so-called
+general, was watching for him.
+
+�Ah, ha!� he laughed, as Lecoq passed out, �here is one of those
+simpletons who fish for whales and do not catch even a gudgeon.�
+
+For an instant Lecoq was angry. He turned abruptly and looked Gevrol
+full in the face.
+
+�That is better than assisting prisoners to carry on a surreptitious
+correspondence with people outside,� he retorted, in the tone of a man
+who knows what he is saying.
+
+In his surprise, Gevrol almost lost countenance, and his blush was
+equivalent to a confession.
+
+But Lecoq said no more. What did it matter to him now if Gevrol had
+betrayed him! Was he not about to win a glorious revenge?
+
+He spent the remainder of the day in preparing his plan of action,
+and in thinking what he should say when he took M. Segmuller�s note to
+Maurice d�Escorval.
+
+The next morning about eleven o�clock he presented himself at the house
+of M. d�Escorval.
+
+�Monsieur is in his study with a young man,� replied the servant; �but,
+as he gave me no orders to the contrary, you may go in.�
+
+Lecoq entered.
+
+The study was unoccupied. But from the adjoining room, separated
+from the study only by a velvet _portiere_, came a sound of stifled
+exclamations, and of sobs mingled with kisses.
+
+Not knowing whether to remain or retire, the young policeman stood for a
+moment undecided; then he observed an open letter lying upon the carpet.
+
+Impelled to do it by an impulse stronger than his own will, Lecoq picked
+up the letter. It read as follows:
+
+
+�The bearer of this letter is Marie-Anne�s son, Maurice--your son. I
+have given him all the proofs necessary to establish his identity.
+It was to his education that I consecrated the heritage of my poor
+Marie-Anne.
+
+�Those to whose care I confided him have made a noble man of him. If I
+restore him to you, it is only because the life I lead is not a fitting
+life for him. Yesterday, the miserable woman who murdered my sister died
+from poison administered by her own hand. Poor Marie-Anne! she would
+have been far more terribly avenged had not an accident which happened
+to me, saved the Duc and the Duchesse de Sairmeuse from the snare into
+which I had drawn them.
+
+�Jean Lacheneur.�
+
+
+Lecoq stood as if petrified.
+
+Now he understood the terrible drama which had been enacted in the Widow
+Chupin�s cabin.
+
+�I must go to Sairmeuse at once,� he said to himself; �there I can
+discover all.�
+
+He departed without seeing M. d�Escorval. He resisted the temptation to
+take the letter with him.
+
+It was exactly one month to a day after the death of Mme. Blanche.
+
+Reclining upon a divan in his library the Duc de Sairmeuse was engaged
+in reading, when Otto, his _valet de chambre_, came to inform him that a
+messenger was below, charged with delivering into the duke�s own hands a
+letter from M. Maurice d�Escorval.
+
+With a bound, Martial was on his feet.
+
+�Is it possible?� he exclaimed.
+
+Then he added, quickly:
+
+�Let the messenger enter.�
+
+A large man, with a very florid complexion, and red hair and beard,
+timidly handed the duke a letter, he broke the seal, and read:
+
+
+�I saved you, Monsieur, by not recognizing the prisoner, May. In your
+turn, aid me! By noon, day after to-morrow, I must have two hundred and
+sixty thousand francs.
+
+�I have sufficient confidence in your honor to apply to you.
+
+�Maurice d�Escorval.�
+
+
+For a moment Martial stood bewildered, then, springing to a table, he
+began writing, without noticing that the messenger was looking over his
+shoulder:
+
+
+�Monsieur--Not day after to-morrow, but this evening. My fortune and my
+life are at your disposal. It is but a slight return for the generosity
+you showed in retiring, when, beneath the rags of May, you recognized
+your former enemy, now your devoted friend,
+
+�Martial de Sairmeuse.�
+
+
+He folded this letter with a feverish hand, and giving it to the
+messenger with a louis, he said:
+
+�Here is the answer, make haste!�
+
+But the messenger did not go.
+
+He slipped the letter into his pocket, then with a hasty movement he
+cast his red beard and wig upon the floor.
+
+�Lecoq!� exclaimed Martial, paler than death.
+
+�Lecoq, yes, Monsieur,� replied the young detective. �I was obliged to
+take my revenge; my future depended upon it, and I ventured to imitate
+Monsieur d�Escorval�s writing.�
+
+And as Martial made no response:
+
+�I must also say to Monsieur le Duc,� he continued, �that on
+transmitting to the judge the confession written by the Duke�s own hand,
+of his presence at the Poivriere, I can and shall, at the same time,
+furnish proofs of his entire innocence.�
+
+And to show that he was ignorant of nothing, he added:
+
+�As madame is dead, there will be nothing said in regard to what took
+place at the Borderie.�
+
+A week later a verdict of not guilty was rendered by M. Segmuller in the
+case of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
+
+Appointed to the position he coveted, Lecoq had the good taste, or
+perhaps the shrewdness, to wear his honors modestly.
+
+But on the day of his promotion, he ordered a seal, upon which was
+engraved the exultant rooster, which he had chosen as his armorial
+design, and a motto to which he ever remained faithful: _Semper
+Vigilan_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Honor of the Name, by Emile Gaboriau
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thehoundofthebaskervilles b/files/books/unrelated/thehoundofthebaskervilles
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c9dca8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thehoundofthebaskervilles
@@ -0,0 +1,7224 @@
+Project Gutenberg’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, by A. Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
+
+Author: A. Conan Doyle
+
+Posting Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #2852]
+Release Date: October, 2001
+Last Updated: September 30, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Shreevatsa R
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
+
+By A. Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1. Mr. Sherlock Holmes
+
+
+
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save
+upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated
+at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the
+stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a
+fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as
+a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly
+an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the
+C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a
+stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry--dignified,
+solid, and reassuring.
+
+“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
+
+Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of
+my occupation.
+
+“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back
+of your head.”
+
+“I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of
+me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s
+stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no
+notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance.
+Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it.”
+
+“I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my
+companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man,
+well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their
+appreciation.”
+
+“Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
+
+“I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country
+practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one has been so
+knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it.
+The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a
+great amount of walking with it.”
+
+“Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
+
+“And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should guess
+that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has
+possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small
+presentation in return.”
+
+“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his
+chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the
+accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small
+achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may
+be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of
+light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of
+stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your
+debt.”
+
+He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave
+me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my
+admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to
+his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his
+system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took
+the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked
+eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette,
+and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a
+convex lens.
+
+“Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his
+favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two
+indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several
+deductions.”
+
+“Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some self-importance. “I trust
+that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?”
+
+“I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were
+erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that
+in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.
+Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a
+country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.”
+
+“Then I was right.”
+
+“To that extent.”
+
+“But that was all.”
+
+“No, no, my dear Watson, not all--by no means all. I would suggest, for
+example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a
+hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed
+before that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very naturally suggest
+themselves.”
+
+“You may be right.”
+
+“The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a
+working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our
+construction of this unknown visitor.”
+
+“Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing Cross
+Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?”
+
+“Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!”
+
+“I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised
+in town before going to the country.”
+
+“I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it
+in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a
+presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him
+a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr. Mortimer
+withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start a practice
+for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has
+been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then,
+stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the
+occasion of the change?”
+
+“It certainly seems probable.”
+
+“Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the
+hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice could
+hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the country.
+What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he
+could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician--little more
+than a senior student. And he left five years ago--the date is on the
+stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into
+thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty,
+amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite
+dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and
+smaller than a mastiff.”
+
+I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and
+blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
+
+“As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I, “but
+at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the
+man’s age and professional career.” From my small medical shelf I took
+down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were several
+Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record
+aloud.
+
+        “Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon.
+        House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital.
+        Winner of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology,
+        with essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Reversion?’  Corresponding
+        member of the Swedish Pathological Society.  Author of
+        ‘Some Freaks of Atavism’ (Lancet 1882).  ‘Do We Progress?’
+        (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883).  Medical Officer
+        for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.”
+
+“No mention of that local hunt, Watson,” said Holmes with a mischievous
+smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. I think
+that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As to the adjectives, I
+said, if I remember right, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded.
+It is my experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who
+receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who abandons a London
+career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his
+stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.”
+
+“And the dog?”
+
+“Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. Being a
+heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of
+his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog’s jaw, as shown in the space
+between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not
+broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been--yes, by Jove, it is a
+curly-haired spaniel.”
+
+He had risen and paced the room as he spoke. Now he halted in the recess
+of the window. There was such a ring of conviction in his voice that I
+glanced up in surprise.
+
+“My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?”
+
+“For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very
+door-step, and there is the ring of its owner. Don’t move, I beg you,
+Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may be
+of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when
+you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you
+know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man
+of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!”
+
+The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected
+a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin man, with a
+long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen, gray eyes,
+set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of
+gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather slovenly
+fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and his trousers frayed. Though
+young, his long back was already bowed, and he walked with a forward
+thrust of his head and a general air of peering benevolence. As he
+entered his eyes fell upon the stick in Holmes’s hand, and he ran
+towards it with an exclamation of joy. “I am so very glad,” said he.
+“I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the Shipping Office. I
+would not lose that stick for the world.”
+
+“A presentation, I see,” said Holmes.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“From Charing Cross Hospital?”
+
+“From one or two friends there on the occasion of my marriage.”
+
+“Dear, dear, that’s bad!” said Holmes, shaking his head.
+
+Dr. Mortimer blinked through his glasses in mild astonishment. “Why was
+it bad?”
+
+“Only that you have disarranged our little deductions. Your marriage,
+you say?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I married, and so left the hospital, and with it all hopes of
+a consulting practice. It was necessary to make a home of my own.”
+
+“Come, come, we are not so far wrong, after all,” said Holmes. “And now,
+Dr. James Mortimer--”
+
+“Mister, sir, Mister--a humble M.R.C.S.”
+
+“And a man of precise mind, evidently.”
+
+“A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the shores
+of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes
+whom I am addressing and not--”
+
+“No, this is my friend Dr. Watson.”
+
+“Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in connection
+with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I
+had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked
+supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my
+finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until
+the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological
+museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet
+your skull.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. “You are an
+enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in
+mine,” said he. “I observe from your forefinger that you make your own
+cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one.”
+
+The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the other
+with surprising dexterity. He had long, quivering fingers as agile and
+restless as the antennae of an insect.
+
+Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the interest
+which he took in our curious companion. “I presume, sir,” said he at
+last, “that it was not merely for the purpose of examining my skull that
+you have done me the honour to call here last night and again today?”
+
+“No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing
+that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I recognized that I am
+myself an unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted with a
+most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognizing, as I do, that you
+are the second highest expert in Europe--”
+
+“Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?” asked
+Holmes with some asperity.
+
+“To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon
+must always appeal strongly.”
+
+“Then had you not better consult him?”
+
+“I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man
+of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I
+have not inadvertently--”
+
+“Just a little,” said Holmes. “I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do
+wisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the
+exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2. The Curse of the Baskervilles
+
+
+
+“I have in my pocket a manuscript,” said Dr. James Mortimer.
+
+“I observed it as you entered the room,” said Holmes.
+
+“It is an old manuscript.”
+
+“Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.”
+
+“How can you say that, sir?”
+
+“You have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the time
+that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert who could not give
+the date of a document within a decade or so. You may possibly have read
+my little monograph upon the subject. I put that at 1730.”
+
+“The exact date is 1742.” Dr. Mortimer drew it from his breast-pocket.
+“This family paper was committed to my care by Sir Charles Baskerville,
+whose sudden and tragic death some three months ago created so much
+excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was his personal friend as
+well as his medical attendant. He was a strong-minded man, sir, shrewd,
+practical, and as unimaginative as I am myself. Yet he took this
+document very seriously, and his mind was prepared for just such an end
+as did eventually overtake him.”
+
+Holmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it upon
+his knee. “You will observe, Watson, the alternative use of the long s
+and the short. It is one of several indications which enabled me to fix
+the date.”
+
+I looked over his shoulder at the yellow paper and the faded script. At
+the head was written: “Baskerville Hall,” and below in large, scrawling
+figures: “1742.”
+
+“It appears to be a statement of some sort.”
+
+“Yes, it is a statement of a certain legend which runs in the
+Baskerville family.”
+
+“But I understand that it is something more modern and practical upon
+which you wish to consult me?”
+
+“Most modern. A most practical, pressing matter, which must be decided
+within twenty-four hours. But the manuscript is short and is intimately
+connected with the affair. With your permission I will read it to you.”
+
+Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed his finger-tips together, and
+closed his eyes, with an air of resignation. Dr. Mortimer turned the
+manuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking voice the following
+curious, old-world narrative:
+
+        “Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there
+        have been many statements, yet as I come in a direct
+        line from Hugo Baskerville, and as I had the story from
+        my father, who also had it from his, I have set it down
+        with all belief that it occurred even as is here set
+        forth.  And I would have you believe, my sons, that the
+        same Justice which punishes sin may also most graciously
+        forgive it, and that no ban is so heavy but that by prayer
+        and repentance it may be removed.  Learn then from this
+        story not to fear the fruits of the past, but rather to
+        be circumspect in the future, that those foul passions
+        whereby our family has suffered so grievously may not
+        again be loosed to our undoing.
+
+        “Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the
+        history of which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most
+        earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor of
+        Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name, nor can it be
+        gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and godless
+        man.  This, in truth, his neighbours might have pardoned,
+        seeing that saints have never flourished in those parts,
+        but there was in him a certain wanton and cruel humour
+        which made his name a by-word through the West.  It
+        chanced that this Hugo came to love (if, indeed, so dark
+        a passion may be known under so bright a name) the daughter
+        of a yeoman who held lands near the Baskerville estate.
+        But the young maiden, being discreet and of good repute,
+        would ever avoid him, for she feared his evil name.  So
+        it came to pass that one Michaelmas this Hugo, with five
+        or six of his idle and wicked companions, stole down upon
+        the farm and carried off the maiden, her father and
+        brothers being from home, as he well knew.  When they had
+        brought her to the Hall the maiden was placed in an upper
+        chamber, while Hugo and his friends sat down to a long
+        carouse, as was their nightly custom.  Now, the poor lass
+        upstairs was like to have her wits turned at the singing
+        and shouting and terrible oaths which came up to her from
+        below, for they say that the words used by Hugo Baskerville,
+        when he was in wine, were such as might blast the man who
+        said them.  At last in the stress of her fear she did that
+        which might have daunted the bravest or most active man,
+        for by the aid of the growth of ivy which covered (and
+        still covers) the south wall she came down from under the
+        eaves, and so homeward across the moor, there being three
+        leagues betwixt the Hall and her father’s farm.
+
+        “It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his
+        guests to carry food and drink--with other worse things,
+        perchance--to his captive, and so found the cage empty
+        and the bird escaped.  Then, as it would seem, he became
+        as one that hath a devil, for, rushing down the stairs
+        into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table,
+        flagons and trenchers flying before him, and he cried
+        aloud before all the company that he would that very
+        night render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil if
+        he might but overtake the wench.  And while the revellers
+        stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or,
+        it may be, more drunken than the rest, cried out that
+        they should put the hounds upon her.  Whereat Hugo ran
+        from the house, crying to his grooms that they should
+        saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and giving the
+        hounds a kerchief of the maid’s, he swung them to the
+        line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor.
+
+        “Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable
+        to understand all that had been done in such haste.  But
+        anon their bemused wits awoke to the nature of the deed
+        which was like to be done upon the moorlands.  Everything
+        was now in an uproar, some calling for their pistols,
+        some for their horses, and some for another flask of
+        wine.  But at length some sense came back to their crazed
+        minds, and the whole of them, thirteen in number, took
+        horse and started in pursuit.  The moon shone clear above
+        them, and they rode swiftly abreast, taking that course
+        which the maid must needs have taken if she were to reach
+        her own home.
+
+        “They had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the
+        night shepherds upon the moorlands, and they cried to
+        him to know if he had seen the hunt.  And the man, as
+        the story goes, was so crazed with fear that he could
+        scarce speak, but at last he said that he had indeed seen
+        the unhappy maiden, with the hounds upon her track.  ‘But
+        I have seen more than that,’ said he, ‘for Hugo Baskerville
+        passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind
+        him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at
+        my heels.’  So the drunken squires cursed the shepherd
+        and rode onward.  But soon their skins turned cold, for
+        there came a galloping across the moor, and the black
+        mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing
+        bridle and empty saddle.  Then the revellers rode close
+        together, for a great fear was on them, but they still
+        followed over the moor, though each, had he been alone,
+        would have been right glad to have turned his horse’s
+        head.  Riding slowly in this fashion they came at last
+        upon the hounds.  These, though known for their valour
+        and their breed, were whimpering in a cluster at the
+        head of a deep dip or goyal, as we call it, upon the
+        moor, some slinking away and some, with starting hackles
+        and staring eyes, gazing down the narrow valley before them.
+
+        “The company had come to a halt, more sober men, as you
+        may guess, than when they started.  The most of them
+        would by no means advance, but three of them, the boldest,
+        or it may be the most drunken, rode forward down the goyal.
+        Now, it opened into a broad space in which stood two of
+        those great stones, still to be seen there, which were
+        set by certain forgotten peoples in the days of old.
+        The moon was shining bright upon the clearing, and there
+        in the centre lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen,
+        dead of fear and of fatigue.  But it was not the sight
+        of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo
+        Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon
+        the heads of these three dare-devil roysterers, but it
+        was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat,
+        there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped
+        like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal
+        eye has rested upon.  And even as they looked the thing
+        tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it
+        turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the
+        three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still
+        screaming, across the moor.  One, it is said, died that
+        very night of what he had seen, and the other twain were
+        but broken men for the rest of their days.
+
+        “Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound
+        which is said to have plagued the family so sorely ever
+        since.  If I have set it down it is because that which
+        is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but
+        hinted at and guessed.  Nor can it be denied that many
+        of the family have been unhappy in their deaths, which
+        have been sudden, bloody, and mysterious.  Yet may we
+        shelter ourselves in the infinite goodness of Providence,
+        which would not forever punish the innocent beyond that
+        third or fourth generation which is threatened in Holy
+        Writ.  To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend
+        you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from
+        crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of
+        evil are exalted.
+
+        “[This from Hugo Baskerville to his sons Rodger and John,
+        with instructions that they say nothing thereof to their
+        sister Elizabeth.]”
+
+When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he pushed
+his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his cigarette into the
+fire.
+
+“Well?” said he.
+
+“Do you not find it interesting?”
+
+“To a collector of fairy tales.”
+
+Dr. Mortimer drew a folded newspaper out of his pocket.
+
+“Now, Mr. Holmes, we will give you something a little more recent. This
+is the Devon County Chronicle of May 14th of this year. It is a short
+account of the facts elicited at the death of Sir Charles Baskerville
+which occurred a few days before that date.”
+
+My friend leaned a little forward and his expression became intent. Our
+visitor readjusted his glasses and began:
+
+        “The recent sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville, whose
+        name has been mentioned as the probable Liberal candidate
+        for Mid-Devon at the next election, has cast a gloom over
+        the county.  Though Sir Charles had resided at Baskerville
+        Hall for a comparatively short period his amiability of
+        character and extreme generosity had won the affection
+        and respect of all who had been brought into contact with
+        him.  In these days of nouveaux riches it is refreshing
+        to find a case where the scion of an old county family
+        which has fallen upon evil days is able to make his own
+        fortune and to bring it back with him to restore the
+        fallen grandeur of his line.  Sir Charles, as is well known,
+        made large sums of money in South African speculation.
+        More wise than those who go on until the wheel turns
+        against them, he realized his gains and returned to England
+        with them.  It is only two years since he took up his
+        residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is common talk how
+        large were those schemes of reconstruction and improvement
+        which have been interrupted by his death.  Being himself
+        childless, it was his openly expressed desire that the
+        whole countryside should, within his own lifetime, profit
+        by his good fortune, and many will have personal reasons
+        for bewailing his untimely end.  His generous donations
+        to local and county charities have been frequently
+        chronicled in these columns.
+
+        “The circumstances connected with the death of Sir Charles
+        cannot be said to have been entirely cleared up by the
+        inquest, but at least enough has been done to dispose of
+        those rumours to which local superstition has given rise.
+        There is no reason whatever to suspect foul play, or to
+        imagine that death could be from any but natural causes.
+        Sir Charles was a widower, and a man who may be said to
+        have been in some ways of an eccentric habit of mind.
+        In spite of his considerable wealth he was simple in his
+        personal tastes, and his indoor servants at Baskerville
+        Hall consisted of a married couple named Barrymore, the
+        husband acting as butler and the wife as housekeeper.
+        Their evidence, corroborated by that of several friends,
+        tends to show that Sir Charles’s health has for some time
+        been impaired, and points especially to some affection
+        of the heart, manifesting itself in changes of colour,
+        breathlessness, and acute attacks of nervous depression.
+        Dr. James Mortimer, the friend and medical attendant of
+        the deceased, has given evidence to the same effect.
+
+        “The facts of the case are simple.  Sir Charles Baskerville
+        was in the habit every night before going to bed of walking
+        down the famous yew alley of Baskerville Hall.  The evidence
+        of the Barrymores shows that this had been his custom.
+        On the fourth of May Sir Charles had declared his intention
+        of starting next day for London, and had ordered Barrymore
+        to prepare his luggage.  That night he went out as usual
+        for his nocturnal walk, in the course of which he was in
+        the habit of smoking a cigar.  He never returned.  At
+        twelve o’clock Barrymore, finding the hall door still open,
+        became alarmed, and, lighting a lantern, went in search
+        of his master.  The day had been wet, and Sir Charles’s
+        footmarks were easily traced down the alley.  Halfway down
+        this walk there is a gate which leads out on to the moor.
+        There were indications that Sir Charles had stood for some
+        little time here.  He then proceeded down the alley, and
+        it was at the far end of it that his body was discovered.
+        One fact which has not been explained is the statement
+        of Barrymore that his master’s footprints altered their
+        character from the time that he passed the moor-gate, and
+        that he appeared from thence onward to have been walking
+        upon his toes.  One Murphy, a gipsy horse-dealer, was on
+        the moor at no great distance at the time, but he appears
+        by his own confession to have been the worse for drink.
+        He declares that he heard cries but is unable to state
+        from what direction they came.  No signs of violence were
+        to be discovered upon Sir Charles’s person, and though
+        the doctor’s evidence pointed to an almost incredible
+        facial distortion--so great that Dr. Mortimer refused at
+        first to believe that it was indeed his friend and patient
+        who lay before him--it was explained that that is a symptom
+        which is not unusual in cases of dyspnoea and death from
+        cardiac exhaustion.  This explanation was borne out by
+        the post-mortem examination, which showed long-standing
+        organic disease, and the coroner’s jury returned a
+        verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.  It is
+        well that this is so, for it is obviously of the utmost
+        importance that Sir Charles’s heir should settle at the
+        Hall and continue the good work which has been so sadly
+        interrupted.  Had the prosaic finding of the coroner not
+        finally put an end to the romantic stories which have been
+        whispered in connection with the affair, it might have been
+        difficult to find a tenant for Baskerville Hall.  It is
+        understood that the next of kin is Mr. Henry Baskerville,
+        if he be still alive, the son of Sir Charles Baskerville’s
+        younger brother.  The young man when last heard of was
+        in America, and inquiries are being instituted with a
+        view to informing him of his good fortune.”
+
+Dr. Mortimer refolded his paper and replaced it in his pocket. “Those
+are the public facts, Mr. Holmes, in connection with the death of Sir
+Charles Baskerville.”
+
+“I must thank you,” said Sherlock Holmes, “for calling my attention to a
+case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed
+some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied
+by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige
+the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases. This
+article, you say, contains all the public facts?”
+
+“It does.”
+
+“Then let me have the private ones.” He leaned back, put his finger-tips
+together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial expression.
+
+“In doing so,” said Dr. Mortimer, who had begun to show signs of some
+strong emotion, “I am telling that which I have not confided to anyone.
+My motive for withholding it from the coroner’s inquiry is that a man of
+science shrinks from placing himself in the public position of seeming
+to indorse a popular superstition. I had the further motive that
+Baskerville Hall, as the paper says, would certainly remain untenanted
+if anything were done to increase its already rather grim reputation.
+For both these reasons I thought that I was justified in telling rather
+less than I knew, since no practical good could result from it, but with
+you there is no reason why I should not be perfectly frank.
+
+“The moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each other
+are thrown very much together. For this reason I saw a good deal of
+Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr. Frankland, of Lafter
+Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other men of
+education within many miles. Sir Charles was a retiring man, but the
+chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests
+in science kept us so. He had brought back much scientific information
+from South Africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together
+discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot.
+
+“Within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me that
+Sir Charles’s nervous system was strained to the breaking point. He had
+taken this legend which I have read you exceedingly to heart--so much
+so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing would induce
+him to go out upon the moor at night. Incredible as it may appear to
+you, Mr. Holmes, he was honestly convinced that a dreadful fate overhung
+his family, and certainly the records which he was able to give of
+his ancestors were not encouraging. The idea of some ghastly presence
+constantly haunted him, and on more than one occasion he has asked me
+whether I had on my medical journeys at night ever seen any strange
+creature or heard the baying of a hound. The latter question he put
+to me several times, and always with a voice which vibrated with
+excitement.
+
+“I can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some three
+weeks before the fatal event. He chanced to be at his hall door. I had
+descended from my gig and was standing in front of him, when I saw
+his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder and stare past me with an
+expression of the most dreadful horror. I whisked round and had just
+time to catch a glimpse of something which I took to be a large black
+calf passing at the head of the drive. So excited and alarmed was he
+that I was compelled to go down to the spot where the animal had been
+and look around for it. It was gone, however, and the incident appeared
+to make the worst impression upon his mind. I stayed with him all the
+evening, and it was on that occasion, to explain the emotion which he
+had shown, that he confided to my keeping that narrative which I read to
+you when first I came. I mention this small episode because it assumes
+some importance in view of the tragedy which followed, but I was
+convinced at the time that the matter was entirely trivial and that his
+excitement had no justification.
+
+“It was at my advice that Sir Charles was about to go to London. His
+heart was, I knew, affected, and the constant anxiety in which he lived,
+however chimerical the cause of it might be, was evidently having a
+serious effect upon his health. I thought that a few months among the
+distractions of town would send him back a new man. Mr. Stapleton, a
+mutual friend who was much concerned at his state of health, was of the
+same opinion. At the last instant came this terrible catastrophe.
+
+“On the night of Sir Charles’s death Barrymore the butler, who made
+the discovery, sent Perkins the groom on horseback to me, and as I was
+sitting up late I was able to reach Baskerville Hall within an hour of
+the event. I checked and corroborated all the facts which were mentioned
+at the inquest. I followed the footsteps down the yew alley, I saw the
+spot at the moor-gate where he seemed to have waited, I remarked the
+change in the shape of the prints after that point, I noted that there
+were no other footsteps save those of Barrymore on the soft gravel, and
+finally I carefully examined the body, which had not been touched until
+my arrival. Sir Charles lay on his face, his arms out, his fingers dug
+into the ground, and his features convulsed with some strong emotion to
+such an extent that I could hardly have sworn to his identity. There was
+certainly no physical injury of any kind. But one false statement was
+made by Barrymore at the inquest. He said that there were no traces
+upon the ground round the body. He did not observe any. But I did--some
+little distance off, but fresh and clear.”
+
+“Footprints?”
+
+“Footprints.”
+
+“A man’s or a woman’s?”
+
+Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank
+almost to a whisper as he answered.
+
+“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3. The Problem
+
+
+
+I confess at these words a shudder passed through me. There was a thrill
+in the doctor’s voice which showed that he was himself deeply moved by
+that which he told us. Holmes leaned forward in his excitement and his
+eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he was keenly
+interested.
+
+“You saw this?”
+
+“As clearly as I see you.”
+
+“And you said nothing?”
+
+“What was the use?”
+
+“How was it that no one else saw it?”
+
+“The marks were some twenty yards from the body and no one gave them
+a thought. I don’t suppose I should have done so had I not known this
+legend.”
+
+“There are many sheep-dogs on the moor?”
+
+“No doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.”
+
+“You say it was large?”
+
+“Enormous.”
+
+“But it had not approached the body?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What sort of night was it?’
+
+“Damp and raw.”
+
+“But not actually raining?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What is the alley like?”
+
+“There are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and
+impenetrable. The walk in the centre is about eight feet across.”
+
+“Is there anything between the hedges and the walk?”
+
+“Yes, there is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either side.”
+
+“I understand that the yew hedge is penetrated at one point by a gate?”
+
+“Yes, the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor.”
+
+“Is there any other opening?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“So that to reach the yew alley one either has to come down it from the
+house or else to enter it by the moor-gate?”
+
+“There is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.”
+
+“Had Sir Charles reached this?”
+
+“No; he lay about fifty yards from it.”
+
+“Now, tell me, Dr. Mortimer--and this is important--the marks which you
+saw were on the path and not on the grass?”
+
+“No marks could show on the grass.”
+
+“Were they on the same side of the path as the moor-gate?”
+
+“Yes; they were on the edge of the path on the same side as the
+moor-gate.”
+
+“You interest me exceedingly. Another point. Was the wicket-gate
+closed?”
+
+“Closed and padlocked.”
+
+“How high was it?”
+
+“About four feet high.”
+
+“Then anyone could have got over it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And what marks did you see by the wicket-gate?”
+
+“None in particular.”
+
+“Good heaven! Did no one examine?”
+
+“Yes, I examined, myself.”
+
+“And found nothing?”
+
+“It was all very confused. Sir Charles had evidently stood there for
+five or ten minutes.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.”
+
+“Excellent! This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart. But the
+marks?”
+
+“He had left his own marks all over that small patch of gravel. I could
+discern no others.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes struck his hand against his knee with an impatient
+gesture.
+
+“If I had only been there!” he cried. “It is evidently a case of
+extraordinary interest, and one which presented immense opportunities to
+the scientific expert. That gravel page upon which I might have read so
+much has been long ere this smudged by the rain and defaced by the clogs
+of curious peasants. Oh, Dr. Mortimer, Dr. Mortimer, to think that you
+should not have called me in! You have indeed much to answer for.”
+
+“I could not call you in, Mr. Holmes, without disclosing these facts to
+the world, and I have already given my reasons for not wishing to do so.
+Besides, besides--”
+
+“Why do you hesitate?”
+
+“There is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of
+detectives is helpless.”
+
+“You mean that the thing is supernatural?”
+
+“I did not positively say so.”
+
+“No, but you evidently think it.”
+
+“Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears several
+incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature.”
+
+“For example?”
+
+“I find that before the terrible event occurred several people had seen
+a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this Baskerville demon,
+and which could not possibly be any animal known to science. They all
+agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I
+have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed countryman,
+one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of
+this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the
+legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district,
+and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night.”
+
+“And you, a trained man of science, believe it to be supernatural?”
+
+“I do not know what to believe.”
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “I have hitherto confined my
+investigations to this world,” said he. “In a modest way I have combated
+evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too
+ambitious a task. Yet you must admit that the footmark is material.”
+
+“The original hound was material enough to tug a man’s throat out, and
+yet he was diabolical as well.”
+
+“I see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. But now,
+Dr. Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these views, why have you come
+to consult me at all? You tell me in the same breath that it is useless
+to investigate Sir Charles’s death, and that you desire me to do it.”
+
+“I did not say that I desired you to do it.”
+
+“Then, how can I assist you?”
+
+“By advising me as to what I should do with Sir Henry Baskerville, who
+arrives at Waterloo Station”--Dr. Mortimer looked at his watch--“in
+exactly one hour and a quarter.”
+
+“He being the heir?”
+
+“Yes. On the death of Sir Charles we inquired for this young gentleman
+and found that he had been farming in Canada. From the accounts which
+have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every way. I speak now not
+as a medical man but as a trustee and executor of Sir Charles’s will.”
+
+“There is no other claimant, I presume?”
+
+“None. The only other kinsman whom we have been able to trace was Rodger
+Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor Sir Charles was
+the elder. The second brother, who died young, is the father of this lad
+Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of the family. He came of
+the old masterful Baskerville strain and was the very image, they tell
+me, of the family picture of old Hugo. He made England too hot to hold
+him, fled to Central America, and died there in 1876 of yellow fever.
+Henry is the last of the Baskervilles. In one hour and five minutes
+I meet him at Waterloo Station. I have had a wire that he arrived at
+Southampton this morning. Now, Mr. Holmes, what would you advise me to
+do with him?”
+
+“Why should he not go to the home of his fathers?”
+
+“It seems natural, does it not? And yet, consider that every Baskerville
+who goes there meets with an evil fate. I feel sure that if Sir Charles
+could have spoken with me before his death he would have warned me
+against bringing this, the last of the old race, and the heir to great
+wealth, to that deadly place. And yet it cannot be denied that the
+prosperity of the whole poor, bleak countryside depends upon his
+presence. All the good work which has been done by Sir Charles will
+crash to the ground if there is no tenant of the Hall. I fear lest I
+should be swayed too much by my own obvious interest in the matter, and
+that is why I bring the case before you and ask for your advice.”
+
+Holmes considered for a little time.
+
+“Put into plain words, the matter is this,” said he. “In your opinion
+there is a diabolical agency which makes Dartmoor an unsafe abode for a
+Baskerville--that is your opinion?”
+
+“At least I might go the length of saying that there is some evidence
+that this may be so.”
+
+“Exactly. But surely, if your supernatural theory be correct, it could
+work the young man evil in London as easily as in Devonshire. A devil
+with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too inconceivable
+a thing.”
+
+“You put the matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would probably
+do if you were brought into personal contact with these things. Your
+advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young man will be as safe
+in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty minutes. What would you
+recommend?”
+
+“I recommend, sir, that you take a cab, call off your spaniel who is
+scratching at my front door, and proceed to Waterloo to meet Sir Henry
+Baskerville.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“And then you will say nothing to him at all until I have made up my
+mind about the matter.”
+
+“How long will it take you to make up your mind?”
+
+“Twenty-four hours. At ten o’clock tomorrow, Dr. Mortimer, I will be
+much obliged to you if you will call upon me here, and it will be
+of help to me in my plans for the future if you will bring Sir Henry
+Baskerville with you.”
+
+“I will do so, Mr. Holmes.” He scribbled the appointment on his
+shirt-cuff and hurried off in his strange, peering, absent-minded
+fashion. Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.
+
+“Only one more question, Dr. Mortimer. You say that before Sir Charles
+Baskerville’s death several people saw this apparition upon the moor?”
+
+“Three people did.”
+
+“Did any see it after?”
+
+“I have not heard of any.”
+
+“Thank you. Good-morning.”
+
+Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward satisfaction
+which meant that he had a congenial task before him.
+
+“Going out, Watson?”
+
+“Unless I can help you.”
+
+“No, my dear fellow, it is at the hour of action that I turn to you for
+aid. But this is splendid, really unique from some points of view.
+When you pass Bradley’s, would you ask him to send up a pound of the
+strongest shag tobacco? Thank you. It would be as well if you could make
+it convenient not to return before evening. Then I should be very glad
+to compare impressions as to this most interesting problem which has
+been submitted to us this morning.”
+
+I knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my friend
+in those hours of intense mental concentration during which he weighed
+every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories, balanced
+one against the other, and made up his mind as to which points were
+essential and which immaterial. I therefore spent the day at my club and
+did not return to Baker Street until evening. It was nearly nine o’clock
+when I found myself in the sitting-room once more.
+
+My first impression as I opened the door was that a fire had broken out,
+for the room was so filled with smoke that the light of the lamp upon
+the table was blurred by it. As I entered, however, my fears were set at
+rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco which took me
+by the throat and set me coughing. Through the haze I had a vague vision
+of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black
+clay pipe between his lips. Several rolls of paper lay around him.
+
+“Caught cold, Watson?” said he.
+
+“No, it’s this poisonous atmosphere.”
+
+“I suppose it is pretty thick, now that you mention it.”
+
+“Thick! It is intolerable.”
+
+“Open the window, then! You have been at your club all day, I perceive.”
+
+“My dear Holmes!”
+
+“Am I right?”
+
+“Certainly, but how?”
+
+He laughed at my bewildered expression. “There is a delightful freshness
+about you, Watson, which makes it a pleasure to exercise any small
+powers which I possess at your expense. A gentleman goes forth on a
+showery and miry day. He returns immaculate in the evening with the
+gloss still on his hat and his boots. He has been a fixture therefore
+all day. He is not a man with intimate friends. Where, then, could he
+have been? Is it not obvious?”
+
+“Well, it is rather obvious.”
+
+“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever
+observes. Where do you think that I have been?”
+
+“A fixture also.”
+
+“On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire.”
+
+“In spirit?”
+
+“Exactly. My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret
+to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an
+incredible amount of tobacco. After you left I sent down to Stamford’s
+for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit has
+hovered over it all day. I flatter myself that I could find my way
+about.”
+
+“A large-scale map, I presume?”
+
+“Very large.”
+
+He unrolled one section and held it over his knee. “Here you have the
+particular district which concerns us. That is Baskerville Hall in the
+middle.”
+
+“With a wood round it?”
+
+“Exactly. I fancy the yew alley, though not marked under that name, must
+stretch along this line, with the moor, as you perceive, upon the right
+of it. This small clump of buildings here is the hamlet of Grimpen,
+where our friend Dr. Mortimer has his headquarters. Within a radius of
+five miles there are, as you see, only a very few scattered dwellings.
+Here is Lafter Hall, which was mentioned in the narrative. There is
+a house indicated here which may be the residence of the
+naturalist--Stapleton, if I remember right, was his name. Here are two
+moorland farmhouses, High Tor and Foulmire. Then fourteen miles away the
+great convict prison of Princetown. Between and around these scattered
+points extends the desolate, lifeless moor. This, then, is the stage
+upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we may help to play
+it again.”
+
+“It must be a wild place.”
+
+“Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a
+hand in the affairs of men--”
+
+“Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.”
+
+“The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? There are
+two questions waiting for us at the outset. The one is whether any crime
+has been committed at all; the second is, what is the crime and how was
+it committed? Of course, if Dr. Mortimer’s surmise should be correct,
+and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature,
+there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all
+other hypotheses before falling back upon this one. I think we’ll shut
+that window again, if you don’t mind. It is a singular thing, but I find
+that a concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of thought. I have
+not pushed it to the length of getting into a box to think, but that is
+the logical outcome of my convictions. Have you turned the case over in
+your mind?”
+
+“Yes, I have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day.”
+
+“What do you make of it?”
+
+“It is very bewildering.”
+
+“It has certainly a character of its own. There are points of
+distinction about it. That change in the footprints, for example. What
+do you make of that?”
+
+“Mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that portion of
+the alley.”
+
+“He only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest. Why should a
+man walk on tiptoe down the alley?”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“He was running, Watson--running desperately, running for his life,
+running until he burst his heart--and fell dead upon his face.”
+
+“Running from what?”
+
+“There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was crazed
+with fear before ever he began to run.”
+
+“How can you say that?”
+
+“I am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across the moor.
+If that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man who had lost his
+wits would have run from the house instead of towards it. If the
+gipsy’s evidence may be taken as true, he ran with cries for help in the
+direction where help was least likely to be. Then, again, whom was he
+waiting for that night, and why was he waiting for him in the yew alley
+rather than in his own house?”
+
+“You think that he was waiting for someone?”
+
+“The man was elderly and infirm. We can understand his taking an evening
+stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement. Is it natural
+that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as Dr. Mortimer, with more
+practical sense than I should have given him credit for, deduced from
+the cigar ash?”
+
+“But he went out every evening.”
+
+“I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening. On
+the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor. That night he
+waited there. It was the night before he made his departure for London.
+The thing takes shape, Watson. It becomes coherent. Might I ask you to
+hand me my violin, and we will postpone all further thought upon this
+business until we have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and Sir
+Henry Baskerville in the morning.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4. Sir Henry Baskerville
+
+
+
+Our breakfast table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his
+dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were punctual to
+their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer
+was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small,
+alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built,
+with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a
+ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who
+has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something
+in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated
+the gentleman.
+
+“This is Sir Henry Baskerville,” said Dr. Mortimer.
+
+“Why, yes,” said he, “and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
+that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning
+I should have come on my own account. I understand that you think out
+little puzzles, and I’ve had one this morning which wants more thinking
+out than I am able to give it.”
+
+“Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you have
+yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in London?”
+
+“Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke, as like as not.
+It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which reached me this
+morning.”
+
+He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It was of
+common quality, grayish in colour. The address, “Sir Henry Baskerville,
+Northumberland Hotel,” was printed in rough characters; the post-mark
+“Charing Cross,” and the date of posting the preceding evening.
+
+“Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Hotel?” asked
+Holmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor.
+
+“No one could have known. We only decided after I met Dr. Mortimer.”
+
+“But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?”
+
+“No, I had been staying with a friend,” said the doctor.
+
+“There was no possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel.”
+
+“Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements.” Out
+of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap paper folded into four.
+This he opened and spread flat upon the table. Across the middle of it
+a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of pasting printed
+words upon it. It ran:
+
+        As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.
+
+The word “moor” only was printed in ink.
+
+“Now,” said Sir Henry Baskerville, “perhaps you will tell me, Mr.
+Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is that takes
+so much interest in my affairs?”
+
+“What do you make of it, Dr. Mortimer? You must allow that there is
+nothing supernatural about this, at any rate?”
+
+“No, sir, but it might very well come from someone who was convinced
+that the business is supernatural.”
+
+“What business?” asked Sir Henry sharply. “It seems to me that all you
+gentlemen know a great deal more than I do about my own affairs.”
+
+“You shall share our knowledge before you leave this room, Sir Henry. I
+promise you that,” said Sherlock Holmes. “We will confine ourselves
+for the present with your permission to this very interesting document,
+which must have been put together and posted yesterday evening. Have you
+yesterday’s Times, Watson?”
+
+“It is here in the corner.”
+
+“Might I trouble you for it--the inside page, please, with the leading
+articles?” He glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes up and down the
+columns. “Capital article this on free trade. Permit me to give you an
+extract from it.
+
+     ‘You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special
+     trade or your own industry will be encouraged by a
+     protective tariff, but it stands to reason that such
+     legislation must in the long run keep away wealth from the
+     country, diminish the value of our imports, and lower the
+     general conditions of life in this island.’
+
+“What do you think of that, Watson?” cried Holmes in high glee, rubbing
+his hands together with satisfaction. “Don’t you think that is an
+admirable sentiment?”
+
+Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional interest, and
+Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me.
+
+“I don’t know much about the tariff and things of that kind,” said he,
+“but it seems to me we’ve got a bit off the trail so far as that note is
+concerned.”
+
+“On the contrary, I think we are particularly hot upon the trail, Sir
+Henry. Watson here knows more about my methods than you do, but I fear
+that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this sentence.”
+
+“No, I confess that I see no connection.”
+
+“And yet, my dear Watson, there is so very close a connection that
+the one is extracted out of the other. ‘You,’ ‘your,’ ‘your,’ ‘life,’
+‘reason,’ ‘value,’ ‘keep away,’ ‘from the.’ Don’t you see now whence
+these words have been taken?”
+
+“By thunder, you’re right! Well, if that isn’t smart!” cried Sir Henry.
+
+“If any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that ‘keep
+away’ and ‘from the’ are cut out in one piece.”
+
+“Well, now--so it is!”
+
+“Really, Mr. Holmes, this exceeds anything which I could have imagined,”
+ said Dr. Mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement. “I could understand
+anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper; but that you should
+name which, and add that it came from the leading article, is really one
+of the most remarkable things which I have ever known. How did you do
+it?”
+
+“I presume, Doctor, that you could tell the skull of a negro from that
+of an Esquimau?”
+
+“Most certainly.”
+
+“But how?”
+
+“Because that is my special hobby. The differences are obvious. The
+supra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the maxillary curve, the--”
+
+“But this is my special hobby, and the differences are equally obvious.
+There is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded bourgeois type
+of a Times article and the slovenly print of an evening half-penny paper
+as there could be between your negro and your Esquimau. The detection of
+types is one of the most elementary branches of knowledge to the special
+expert in crime, though I confess that once when I was very young I
+confused the Leeds Mercury with the Western Morning News. But a Times
+leader is entirely distinctive, and these words could have been taken
+from nothing else. As it was done yesterday the strong probability was
+that we should find the words in yesterday’s issue.”
+
+“So far as I can follow you, then, Mr. Holmes,” said Sir Henry
+Baskerville, “someone cut out this message with a scissors--”
+
+“Nail-scissors,” said Holmes. “You can see that it was a very
+short-bladed scissors, since the cutter had to take two snips over ‘keep
+away.’”
+
+“That is so. Someone, then, cut out the message with a pair of
+short-bladed scissors, pasted it with paste--”
+
+“Gum,” said Holmes.
+
+“With gum on to the paper. But I want to know why the word ‘moor’ should
+have been written?”
+
+“Because he could not find it in print. The other words were all simple
+and might be found in any issue, but ‘moor’ would be less common.”
+
+“Why, of course, that would explain it. Have you read anything else in
+this message, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“There are one or two indications, and yet the utmost pains have been
+taken to remove all clues. The address, you observe is printed in rough
+characters. But the Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands
+but those of the highly educated. We may take it, therefore, that
+the letter was composed by an educated man who wished to pose as an
+uneducated one, and his effort to conceal his own writing suggests that
+that writing might be known, or come to be known, by you. Again, you
+will observe that the words are not gummed on in an accurate line, but
+that some are much higher than others. ‘Life,’ for example is quite out
+of its proper place. That may point to carelessness or it may point to
+agitation and hurry upon the part of the cutter. On the whole I incline
+to the latter view, since the matter was evidently important, and it
+is unlikely that the composer of such a letter would be careless. If he
+were in a hurry it opens up the interesting question why he should be
+in a hurry, since any letter posted up to early morning would reach
+Sir Henry before he would leave his hotel. Did the composer fear an
+interruption--and from whom?”
+
+“We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,” said Dr.
+Mortimer.
+
+“Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose
+the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we
+have always some material basis on which to start our speculation. Now,
+you would call it a guess, no doubt, but I am almost certain that this
+address has been written in a hotel.”
+
+“How in the world can you say that?”
+
+“If you examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the ink
+have given the writer trouble. The pen has spluttered twice in a single
+word and has run dry three times in a short address, showing that there
+was very little ink in the bottle. Now, a private pen or ink-bottle is
+seldom allowed to be in such a state, and the combination of the two
+must be quite rare. But you know the hotel ink and the hotel pen, where
+it is rare to get anything else. Yes, I have very little hesitation
+in saying that could we examine the waste-paper baskets of the hotels
+around Charing Cross until we found the remains of the mutilated Times
+leader we could lay our hands straight upon the person who sent this
+singular message. Halloa! Halloa! What’s this?”
+
+He was carefully examining the foolscap, upon which the words were
+pasted, holding it only an inch or two from his eyes.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Nothing,” said he, throwing it down. “It is a blank half-sheet of
+paper, without even a water-mark upon it. I think we have drawn as much
+as we can from this curious letter; and now, Sir Henry, has anything
+else of interest happened to you since you have been in London?”
+
+“Why, no, Mr. Holmes. I think not.”
+
+“You have not observed anyone follow or watch you?”
+
+“I seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel,” said our
+visitor. “Why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me?”
+
+“We are coming to that. You have nothing else to report to us before we
+go into this matter?”
+
+“Well, it depends upon what you think worth reporting.”
+
+“I think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth
+reporting.”
+
+Sir Henry smiled. “I don’t know much of British life yet, for I have
+spent nearly all my time in the States and in Canada. But I hope that to
+lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over
+here.”
+
+“You have lost one of your boots?”
+
+“My dear sir,” cried Dr. Mortimer, “it is only mislaid. You will find
+it when you return to the hotel. What is the use of troubling Mr. Holmes
+with trifles of this kind?”
+
+“Well, he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Holmes, “however foolish the incident may seem. You have
+lost one of your boots, you say?”
+
+“Well, mislaid it, anyhow. I put them both outside my door last night,
+and there was only one in the morning. I could get no sense out of the
+chap who cleans them. The worst of it is that I only bought the pair
+last night in the Strand, and I have never had them on.”
+
+“If you have never worn them, why did you put them out to be cleaned?”
+
+“They were tan boots and had never been varnished. That was why I put
+them out.”
+
+“Then I understand that on your arrival in London yesterday you went out
+at once and bought a pair of boots?”
+
+“I did a good deal of shopping. Dr. Mortimer here went round with me.
+You see, if I am to be squire down there I must dress the part, and
+it may be that I have got a little careless in my ways out West. Among
+other things I bought these brown boots--gave six dollars for them--and
+had one stolen before ever I had them on my feet.”
+
+“It seems a singularly useless thing to steal,” said Sherlock Holmes.
+“I confess that I share Dr. Mortimer’s belief that it will not be long
+before the missing boot is found.”
+
+“And, now, gentlemen,” said the baronet with decision, “it seems to me
+that I have spoken quite enough about the little that I know. It is time
+that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what we are all
+driving at.”
+
+“Your request is a very reasonable one,” Holmes answered. “Dr. Mortimer,
+I think you could not do better than to tell your story as you told it
+to us.”
+
+Thus encouraged, our scientific friend drew his papers from his pocket
+and presented the whole case as he had done upon the morning before.
+Sir Henry Baskerville listened with the deepest attention and with an
+occasional exclamation of surprise.
+
+“Well, I seem to have come into an inheritance with a vengeance,” said
+he when the long narrative was finished. “Of course, I’ve heard of the
+hound ever since I was in the nursery. It’s the pet story of the family,
+though I never thought of taking it seriously before. But as to my
+uncle’s death--well, it all seems boiling up in my head, and I can’t
+get it clear yet. You don’t seem quite to have made up your mind whether
+it’s a case for a policeman or a clergyman.”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“And now there’s this affair of the letter to me at the hotel. I suppose
+that fits into its place.”
+
+“It seems to show that someone knows more than we do about what goes on
+upon the moor,” said Dr. Mortimer.
+
+“And also,” said Holmes, “that someone is not ill-disposed towards you,
+since they warn you of danger.”
+
+“Or it may be that they wish, for their own purposes, to scare me away.”
+
+“Well, of course, that is possible also. I am very much indebted to you,
+Dr. Mortimer, for introducing me to a problem which presents several
+interesting alternatives. But the practical point which we now have to
+decide, Sir Henry, is whether it is or is not advisable for you to go to
+Baskerville Hall.”
+
+“Why should I not go?”
+
+“There seems to be danger.”
+
+“Do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger from
+human beings?”
+
+“Well, that is what we have to find out.”
+
+“Whichever it is, my answer is fixed. There is no devil in hell, Mr.
+Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going to
+the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final answer.”
+ His dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red as he spoke.
+It was evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles was not extinct
+in this their last representative. “Meanwhile,” said he, “I have hardly
+had time to think over all that you have told me. It’s a big thing for a
+man to have to understand and to decide at one sitting. I should like
+to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. Now, look here, Mr.
+Holmes, it’s half-past eleven now and I am going back right away to my
+hotel. Suppose you and your friend, Dr. Watson, come round and lunch
+with us at two. I’ll be able to tell you more clearly then how this
+thing strikes me.”
+
+“Is that convenient to you, Watson?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“Then you may expect us. Shall I have a cab called?”
+
+“I’d prefer to walk, for this affair has flurried me rather.”
+
+“I’ll join you in a walk, with pleasure,” said his companion.
+
+“Then we meet again at two o’clock. Au revoir, and good-morning!”
+
+We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of the
+front door. In an instant Holmes had changed from the languid dreamer to
+the man of action.
+
+“Your hat and boots, Watson, quick! Not a moment to lose!” He rushed
+into his room in his dressing-gown and was back again in a few seconds
+in a frock-coat. We hurried together down the stairs and into the
+street. Dr. Mortimer and Baskerville were still visible about two
+hundred yards ahead of us in the direction of Oxford Street.
+
+“Shall I run on and stop them?”
+
+“Not for the world, my dear Watson. I am perfectly satisfied with your
+company if you will tolerate mine. Our friends are wise, for it is
+certainly a very fine morning for a walk.”
+
+He quickened his pace until we had decreased the distance which divided
+us by about half. Then, still keeping a hundred yards behind, we
+followed into Oxford Street and so down Regent Street. Once our friends
+stopped and stared into a shop window, upon which Holmes did the
+same. An instant afterwards he gave a little cry of satisfaction, and,
+following the direction of his eager eyes, I saw that a hansom cab with
+a man inside which had halted on the other side of the street was now
+proceeding slowly onward again.
+
+
+“There’s our man, Watson! Come along! We’ll have a good look at him, if
+we can do no more.”
+
+At that instant I was aware of a bushy black beard and a pair of
+piercing eyes turned upon us through the side window of the cab.
+Instantly the trapdoor at the top flew up, something was screamed to
+the driver, and the cab flew madly off down Regent Street. Holmes looked
+eagerly round for another, but no empty one was in sight. Then he dashed
+in wild pursuit amid the stream of the traffic, but the start was too
+great, and already the cab was out of sight.
+
+“There now!” said Holmes bitterly as he emerged panting and white with
+vexation from the tide of vehicles. “Was ever such bad luck and such
+bad management, too? Watson, Watson, if you are an honest man you will
+record this also and set it against my successes!”
+
+“Who was the man?”
+
+“I have not an idea.”
+
+“A spy?”
+
+“Well, it was evident from what we have heard that Baskerville has been
+very closely shadowed by someone since he has been in town. How else
+could it be known so quickly that it was the Northumberland Hotel which
+he had chosen? If they had followed him the first day I argued that they
+would follow him also the second. You may have observed that I twice
+strolled over to the window while Dr. Mortimer was reading his legend.”
+
+“Yes, I remember.”
+
+“I was looking out for loiterers in the street, but I saw none. We
+are dealing with a clever man, Watson. This matter cuts very deep, and
+though I have not finally made up my mind whether it is a benevolent or
+a malevolent agency which is in touch with us, I am conscious always of
+power and design. When our friends left I at once followed them in the
+hopes of marking down their invisible attendant. So wily was he that he
+had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had availed himself of a cab
+so that he could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their
+notice. His method had the additional advantage that if they were to
+take a cab he was all ready to follow them. It has, however, one obvious
+disadvantage.”
+
+“It puts him in the power of the cabman.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“What a pity we did not get the number!”
+
+“My dear Watson, clumsy as I have been, you surely do not seriously
+imagine that I neglected to get the number? No. 2704 is our man. But
+that is no use to us for the moment.”
+
+“I fail to see how you could have done more.”
+
+“On observing the cab I should have instantly turned and walked in the
+other direction. I should then at my leisure have hired a second cab
+and followed the first at a respectful distance, or, better still, have
+driven to the Northumberland Hotel and waited there. When our unknown
+had followed Baskerville home we should have had the opportunity of
+playing his own game upon himself and seeing where he made for. As
+it is, by an indiscreet eagerness, which was taken advantage of with
+extraordinary quickness and energy by our opponent, we have betrayed
+ourselves and lost our man.”
+
+We had been sauntering slowly down Regent Street during this
+conversation, and Dr. Mortimer, with his companion, had long vanished in
+front of us.
+
+“There is no object in our following them,” said Holmes. “The shadow has
+departed and will not return. We must see what further cards we have
+in our hands and play them with decision. Could you swear to that man’s
+face within the cab?”
+
+“I could swear only to the beard.”
+
+“And so could I--from which I gather that in all probability it was
+a false one. A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a
+beard save to conceal his features. Come in here, Watson!”
+
+He turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he was
+warmly greeted by the manager.
+
+“Ah, Wilson, I see you have not forgotten the little case in which I had
+the good fortune to help you?”
+
+“No, sir, indeed I have not. You saved my good name, and perhaps my
+life.”
+
+“My dear fellow, you exaggerate. I have some recollection, Wilson, that
+you had among your boys a lad named Cartwright, who showed some ability
+during the investigation.”
+
+“Yes, sir, he is still with us.”
+
+“Could you ring him up?--thank you! And I should be glad to have change
+of this five-pound note.”
+
+A lad of fourteen, with a bright, keen face, had obeyed the summons
+of the manager. He stood now gazing with great reverence at the famous
+detective.
+
+“Let me have the Hotel Directory,” said Holmes. “Thank you! Now,
+Cartwright, there are the names of twenty-three hotels here, all in the
+immediate neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Do you see?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You will visit each of these in turn.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You will begin in each case by giving the outside porter one shilling.
+Here are twenty-three shillings.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You will tell him that you want to see the waste-paper of yesterday.
+You will say that an important telegram has miscarried and that you are
+looking for it. You understand?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“But what you are really looking for is the centre page of the Times
+with some holes cut in it with scissors. Here is a copy of the Times. It
+is this page. You could easily recognize it, could you not?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“In each case the outside porter will send for the hall porter, to whom
+also you will give a shilling. Here are twenty-three shillings. You will
+then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three that the
+waste of the day before has been burned or removed. In the three other
+cases you will be shown a heap of paper and you will look for this page
+of the Times among it. The odds are enormously against your finding
+it. There are ten shillings over in case of emergencies. Let me have a
+report by wire at Baker Street before evening. And now, Watson, it only
+remains for us to find out by wire the identity of the cabman, No. 2704,
+and then we will drop into one of the Bond Street picture galleries and
+fill in the time until we are due at the hotel.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5. Three Broken Threads
+
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching
+his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in which we had
+been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was entirely absorbed in
+the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing
+but art, of which he had the crudest ideas, from our leaving the gallery
+until we found ourselves at the Northumberland Hotel.
+
+“Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs expecting you,” said the clerk. “He
+asked me to show you up at once when you came.”
+
+“Have you any objection to my looking at your register?” said Holmes.
+
+“Not in the least.”
+
+The book showed that two names had been added after that of Baskerville.
+One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle; the other Mrs.
+Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.
+
+“Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know,” said Holmes
+to the porter. “A lawyer, is he not, gray-headed, and walks with a
+limp?”
+
+“No, sir, this is Mr. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active gentleman,
+not older than yourself.”
+
+“Surely you are mistaken about his trade?”
+
+“No, sir! he has used this hotel for many years, and he is very well
+known to us.”
+
+“Ah, that settles it. Mrs. Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the name.
+Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend one finds
+another.”
+
+“She is an invalid lady, sir. Her husband was once mayor of Gloucester.
+She always comes to us when she is in town.”
+
+“Thank you; I am afraid I cannot claim her acquaintance. We have
+established a most important fact by these questions, Watson,” he
+continued in a low voice as we went upstairs together. “We know now that
+the people who are so interested in our friend have not settled down
+in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as we have seen, very
+anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious that he should not see
+them. Now, this is a most suggestive fact.”
+
+“What does it suggest?”
+
+“It suggests--halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the matter?”
+
+As we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against Sir Henry
+Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with anger, and he held an old
+and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was he that he was hardly
+articulate, and when he did speak it was in a much broader and more
+Western dialect than any which we had heard from him in the morning.
+
+“Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel,” he cried.
+“They’ll find they’ve started in to monkey with the wrong man unless
+they are careful. By thunder, if that chap can’t find my missing boot
+there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the best, Mr. Holmes, but
+they’ve got a bit over the mark this time.”
+
+“Still looking for your boot?”
+
+“Yes, sir, and mean to find it.”
+
+“But, surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?”
+
+“So it was, sir. And now it’s an old black one.”
+
+“What! you don’t mean to say--?”
+
+“That’s just what I do mean to say. I only had three pairs in the
+world--the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers, which I am
+wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones, and today they have
+sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got it? Speak out, man, and
+don’t stand staring!”
+
+An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.
+
+“No, sir; I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but I can hear no word
+of it.”
+
+“Well, either that boot comes back before sundown or I’ll see the
+manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel.”
+
+“It shall be found, sir--I promise you that if you will have a little
+patience it will be found.”
+
+“Mind it is, for it’s the last thing of mine that I’ll lose in this den
+of thieves. Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you’ll excuse my troubling you about
+such a trifle--”
+
+“I think it’s well worth troubling about.”
+
+“Why, you look very serious over it.”
+
+“How do you explain it?”
+
+“I just don’t attempt to explain it. It seems the very maddest, queerest
+thing that ever happened to me.”
+
+“The queerest perhaps--” said Holmes thoughtfully.
+
+“What do you make of it yourself?”
+
+“Well, I don’t profess to understand it yet. This case of yours is very
+complex, Sir Henry. When taken in conjunction with your uncle’s death
+I am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of capital importance
+which I have handled there is one which cuts so deep. But we hold
+several threads in our hands, and the odds are that one or other of them
+guides us to the truth. We may waste time in following the wrong one,
+but sooner or later we must come upon the right.”
+
+We had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the business
+which had brought us together. It was in the private sitting-room to
+which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked Baskerville what were his
+intentions.
+
+“To go to Baskerville Hall.”
+
+“And when?”
+
+“At the end of the week.”
+
+“On the whole,” said Holmes, “I think that your decision is a wise one.
+I have ample evidence that you are being dogged in London, and amid the
+millions of this great city it is difficult to discover who these people
+are or what their object can be. If their intentions are evil they might
+do you a mischief, and we should be powerless to prevent it. You did not
+know, Dr. Mortimer, that you were followed this morning from my house?”
+
+Dr. Mortimer started violently. “Followed! By whom?”
+
+“That, unfortunately, is what I cannot tell you. Have you among your
+neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a black, full
+beard?”
+
+“No--or, let me see--why, yes. Barrymore, Sir Charles’s butler, is a man
+with a full, black beard.”
+
+“Ha! Where is Barrymore?”
+
+“He is in charge of the Hall.”
+
+“We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any possibility
+he might be in London.”
+
+“How can you do that?”
+
+“Give me a telegraph form. ‘Is all ready for Sir Henry?’ That will
+do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the nearest
+telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second wire to the
+postmaster, Grimpen: ‘Telegram to Mr. Barrymore to be delivered into
+his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville,
+Northumberland Hotel.’ That should let us know before evening whether
+Barrymore is at his post in Devonshire or not.”
+
+“That’s so,” said Baskerville. “By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this
+Barrymore, anyhow?”
+
+“He is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. They have looked after
+the Hall for four generations now. So far as I know, he and his wife are
+as respectable a couple as any in the county.”
+
+“At the same time,” said Baskerville, “it’s clear enough that so long as
+there are none of the family at the Hall these people have a mighty fine
+home and nothing to do.”
+
+“That is true.”
+
+“Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles’s will?” asked Holmes.
+
+“He and his wife had five hundred pounds each.”
+
+“Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?”
+
+“Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provisions of his
+will.”
+
+“That is very interesting.”
+
+“I hope,” said Dr. Mortimer, “that you do not look with suspicious eyes
+upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a
+thousand pounds left to me.”
+
+“Indeed! And anyone else?”
+
+“There were many insignificant sums to individuals, and a large number
+of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry.”
+
+“And how much was the residue?”
+
+“Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.”
+
+Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I had no idea that so gigantic
+a sum was involved,” said he.
+
+“Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not know how
+very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. The total
+value of the estate was close on to a million.”
+
+“Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate
+game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer. Supposing that anything
+happened to our young friend here--you will forgive the unpleasant
+hypothesis!--who would inherit the estate?”
+
+“Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles’s younger brother died unmarried,
+the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are distant cousins. James
+Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland.”
+
+“Thank you. These details are all of great interest. Have you met Mr.
+James Desmond?”
+
+“Yes; he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of venerable
+appearance and of saintly life. I remember that he refused to accept any
+settlement from Sir Charles, though he pressed it upon him.”
+
+“And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles’s
+thousands.”
+
+“He would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. He would
+also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise by the
+present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it.”
+
+“And have you made your will, Sir Henry?”
+
+“No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I’ve had no time, for it was only yesterday
+that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I feel that the money
+should go with the title and estate. That was my poor uncle’s idea. How
+is the owner going to restore the glories of the Baskervilles if he has
+not money enough to keep up the property? House, land, and dollars must
+go together.”
+
+“Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the
+advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay. There is
+only one provision which I must make. You certainly must not go alone.”
+
+“Dr. Mortimer returns with me.”
+
+“But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is miles
+away from yours. With all the goodwill in the world he may be unable to
+help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you someone, a trusty man,
+who will be always by your side.”
+
+“Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in person;
+but you can understand that, with my extensive consulting practice
+and with the constant appeals which reach me from many quarters, it is
+impossible for me to be absent from London for an indefinite time. At
+the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being
+besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I can stop a disastrous scandal.
+You will see how impossible it is for me to go to Dartmoor.”
+
+“Whom would you recommend, then?”
+
+Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. “If my friend would undertake it there
+is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a
+tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.”
+
+The proposition took me completely by surprise, but before I had time to
+answer, Baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily.
+
+“Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr. Watson,” said he. “You see how
+it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter as I do. If
+you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me through I’ll never
+forget it.”
+
+The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and I was
+complimented by the words of Holmes and by the eagerness with which the
+baronet hailed me as a companion.
+
+“I will come, with pleasure,” said I. “I do not know how I could employ
+my time better.”
+
+“And you will report very carefully to me,” said Holmes. “When a crisis
+comes, as it will do, I will direct how you shall act. I suppose that by
+Saturday all might be ready?”
+
+“Would that suit Dr. Watson?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“Then on Saturday, unless you hear to the contrary, we shall meet at the
+ten-thirty train from Paddington.”
+
+We had risen to depart when Baskerville gave a cry, of triumph, and
+diving into one of the corners of the room he drew a brown boot from
+under a cabinet.
+
+“My missing boot!” he cried.
+
+“May all our difficulties vanish as easily!” said Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“But it is a very singular thing,” Dr. Mortimer remarked. “I searched
+this room carefully before lunch.”
+
+“And so did I,” said Baskerville. “Every inch of it.”
+
+“There was certainly no boot in it then.”
+
+“In that case the waiter must have placed it there while we were
+lunching.”
+
+The German was sent for but professed to know nothing of the matter,
+nor could any inquiry clear it up. Another item had been added to that
+constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries which had
+succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole grim story of
+Sir Charles’s death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all within
+the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed
+letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown
+boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new
+brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker
+Street, and I knew from his drawn brows and keen face that his mind,
+like my own, was busy in endeavouring to frame some scheme into which
+all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitted.
+All afternoon and late into the evening he sat lost in tobacco and
+thought.
+
+Just before dinner two telegrams were handed in. The first ran:
+
+Have just heard that Barrymore is at the Hall. BASKERVILLE.
+
+The second:
+
+Visited twenty-three hotels as directed, but sorry, to report unable to
+trace cut sheet of Times. CARTWRIGHT.
+
+“There go two of my threads, Watson. There is nothing more stimulating
+than a case where everything goes against you. We must cast round for
+another scent.”
+
+“We have still the cabman who drove the spy.”
+
+“Exactly. I have wired to get his name and address from the Official
+Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an answer to my
+question.”
+
+The ring at the bell proved to be something even more satisfactory
+than an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking fellow
+entered who was evidently the man himself.
+
+“I got a message from the head office that a gent at this address had
+been inquiring for No. 2704,” said he. “I’ve driven my cab this seven
+years and never a word of complaint. I came here straight from the Yard
+to ask you to your face what you had against me.”
+
+“I have nothing in the world against you, my good man,” said Holmes.
+“On the contrary, I have half a sovereign for you if you will give me a
+clear answer to my questions.”
+
+“Well, I’ve had a good day and no mistake,” said the cabman with a grin.
+“What was it you wanted to ask, sir?”
+
+“First of all your name and address, in case I want you again.”
+
+“John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. My cab is out of Shipley’s
+Yard, near Waterloo Station.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes made a note of it.
+
+“Now, Clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched this
+house at ten o’clock this morning and afterwards followed the two
+gentlemen down Regent Street.”
+
+The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. “Why, there’s no good
+my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as I do already,”
+ said he. “The truth is that the gentleman told me that he was a
+detective and that I was to say nothing about him to anyone.”
+
+“My good fellow; this is a very serious business, and you may find
+yourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide anything from me.
+You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?”
+
+“Yes, he did.”
+
+“When did he say this?”
+
+“When he left me.”
+
+“Did he say anything more?”
+
+“He mentioned his name.”
+
+Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. “Oh, he mentioned his name,
+did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?”
+
+“His name,” said the cabman, “was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
+
+Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the
+cabman’s reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement. Then he burst
+into a hearty laugh.
+
+“A touch, Watson--an undeniable touch!” said he. “I feel a foil as quick
+and supple as my own. He got home upon me very prettily that time. So
+his name was Sherlock Holmes, was it?”
+
+“Yes, sir, that was the gentleman’s name.”
+
+“Excellent! Tell me where you picked him up and all that occurred.”
+
+“He hailed me at half-past nine in Trafalgar Square. He said that he was
+a detective, and he offered me two guineas if I would do exactly what he
+wanted all day and ask no questions. I was glad enough to agree. First
+we drove down to the Northumberland Hotel and waited there until two
+gentlemen came out and took a cab from the rank. We followed their cab
+until it pulled up somewhere near here.”
+
+“This very door,” said Holmes.
+
+“Well, I couldn’t be sure of that, but I dare say my fare knew all about
+it. We pulled up halfway down the street and waited an hour and a half.
+Then the two gentlemen passed us, walking, and we followed down Baker
+Street and along--”
+
+“I know,” said Holmes.
+
+“Until we got three-quarters down Regent Street. Then my gentleman threw
+up the trap, and he cried that I should drive right away to Waterloo
+Station as hard as I could go. I whipped up the mare and we were there
+under the ten minutes. Then he paid up his two guineas, like a good one,
+and away he went into the station. Only just as he was leaving he turned
+round and he said: ‘It might interest you to know that you have been
+driving Mr. Sherlock Holmes.’ That’s how I come to know the name.”
+
+“I see. And you saw no more of him?”
+
+“Not after he went into the station.”
+
+“And how would you describe Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+The cabman scratched his head. “Well, he wasn’t altogether such an easy
+gentleman to describe. I’d put him at forty years of age, and he was
+of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. He was
+dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at the end,
+and a pale face. I don’t know as I could say more than that.”
+
+“Colour of his eyes?”
+
+“No, I can’t say that.”
+
+“Nothing more that you can remember?”
+
+“No, sir; nothing.”
+
+“Well, then, here is your half-sovereign. There’s another one waiting
+for you if you can bring any more information. Good-night!”
+
+“Good-night, sir, and thank you!”
+
+John Clayton departed chuckling, and Holmes turned to me with a shrug of
+his shoulders and a rueful smile.
+
+“Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began,” said he. “The
+cunning rascal! He knew our number, knew that Sir Henry Baskerville had
+consulted me, spotted who I was in Regent Street, conjectured that I had
+got the number of the cab and would lay my hands on the driver, and so
+sent back this audacious message. I tell you, Watson, this time we have
+got a foeman who is worthy of our steel. I’ve been checkmated in London.
+I can only wish you better luck in Devonshire. But I’m not easy in my
+mind about it.”
+
+“About what?”
+
+“About sending you. It’s an ugly business, Watson, an ugly dangerous
+business, and the more I see of it the less I like it. Yes, my dear
+fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very glad
+to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6. Baskerville Hall
+
+
+
+Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer were ready upon the appointed
+day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire. Mr. Sherlock Holmes
+drove with me to the station and gave me his last parting injunctions
+and advice.
+
+“I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions,
+Watson,” said he; “I wish you simply to report facts in the fullest
+possible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the theorizing.”
+
+“What sort of facts?” I asked.
+
+“Anything which may seem to have a bearing however indirect upon the
+case, and especially the relations between young Baskerville and his
+neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death of Sir Charles.
+I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days, but the results
+have, I fear, been negative. One thing only appears to be certain, and
+that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is the next heir, is an elderly
+gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this persecution does
+not arise from him. I really think that we may eliminate him entirely
+from our calculations. There remain the people who will actually
+surround Sir Henry Baskerville upon the moor.”
+
+“Would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this Barrymore
+couple?”
+
+“By no means. You could not make a greater mistake. If they are innocent
+it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we should be
+giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No, no, we will
+preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there is a groom at the
+Hall, if I remember right. There are two moorland farmers. There is our
+friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I believe to be entirely honest, and there is
+his wife, of whom we know nothing. There is this naturalist, Stapleton,
+and there is his sister, who is said to be a young lady of attractions.
+There is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor,
+and there are one or two other neighbours. These are the folk who must
+be your very special study.”
+
+“I will do my best.”
+
+“You have arms, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, I thought it as well to take them.”
+
+“Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never
+relax your precautions.”
+
+Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were waiting
+for us upon the platform.
+
+“No, we have no news of any kind,” said Dr. Mortimer in answer to my
+friend’s questions. “I can swear to one thing, and that is that we
+have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have never gone
+out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could have escaped our
+notice.”
+
+“You have always kept together, I presume?”
+
+“Except yesterday afternoon. I usually give up one day to pure amusement
+when I come to town, so I spent it at the Museum of the College of
+Surgeons.”
+
+“And I went to look at the folk in the park,” said Baskerville.
+
+“But we had no trouble of any kind.”
+
+“It was imprudent, all the same,” said Holmes, shaking his head and
+looking very grave. “I beg, Sir Henry, that you will not go about alone.
+Some great misfortune will befall you if you do. Did you get your other
+boot?”
+
+“No, sir, it is gone forever.”
+
+“Indeed. That is very interesting. Well, good-bye,” he added as the
+train began to glide down the platform. “Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of
+the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr. Mortimer has read to us,
+and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil
+are exalted.”
+
+I looked back at the platform when we had left it far behind and saw the
+tall, austere figure of Holmes standing motionless and gazing after us.
+
+The journey was a swift and pleasant one, and I spent it in making the
+more intimate acquaintance of my two companions and in playing with
+Dr. Mortimer’s spaniel. In a very few hours the brown earth had
+become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed in
+well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant vegetation
+spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate. Young Baskerville stared
+eagerly out of the window and cried aloud with delight as he recognized
+the familiar features of the Devon scenery.
+
+“I’ve been over a good part of the world since I left it, Dr. Watson,”
+ said he; “but I have never seen a place to compare with it.”
+
+“I never saw a Devonshire man who did not swear by his county,” I
+remarked.
+
+“It depends upon the breed of men quite as much as on the county,” said
+Dr. Mortimer. “A glance at our friend here reveals the rounded head of
+the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and power
+of attachment. Poor Sir Charles’s head was of a very rare type, half
+Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics. But you were very young
+when you last saw Baskerville Hall, were you not?”
+
+“I was a boy in my teens at the time of my father’s death and had never
+seen the Hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the South Coast.
+Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I tell you it is all as
+new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I’m as keen as possible to see the
+moor.”
+
+“Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first
+sight of the moor,” said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage
+window.
+
+Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there
+rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged
+summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in
+a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed upon it, and I
+read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of
+that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long
+and left their mark so deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his
+American accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as
+I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how
+true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery,
+and masterful men. There were pride, valour, and strength in his thick
+brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes. If on that
+forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should lie before us,
+this was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a risk
+with the certainty that he would bravely share it.
+
+The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all descended.
+Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs
+was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great event, for station-master
+and porters clustered round us to carry out our luggage. It was a sweet,
+simple country spot, but I was surprised to observe that by the gate
+there stood two soldierly men in dark uniforms who leaned upon their
+short rifles and glanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachman, a
+hard-faced, gnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in
+a few minutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Rolling
+pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses
+peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful
+and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky,
+the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister
+hills.
+
+The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward through
+deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy
+with dripping moss and fleshy hart’s-tongue ferns. Bronzing bracken and
+mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily
+rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy
+stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the gray
+boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with
+scrub oak and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of
+delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To
+his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon
+the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year.
+Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we
+passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of
+rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw
+before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.
+
+“Halloa!” cried Dr. Mortimer, “what is this?”
+
+A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in
+front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue
+upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle
+poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along which we
+travelled.
+
+“What is this, Perkins?” asked Dr. Mortimer.
+
+Our driver half turned in his seat. “There’s a convict escaped from
+Princetown, sir. He’s been out three days now, and the warders watch
+every road and every station, but they’ve had no sight of him yet. The
+farmers about here don’t like it, sir, and that’s a fact.”
+
+“Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give
+information.”
+
+“Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared
+to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it isn’t like any
+ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing.”
+
+“Who is he, then?”
+
+“It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”
+
+I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had taken an
+interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the
+wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin. The
+commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his
+complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Our wagonette had topped
+a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled
+with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from
+it and set us shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was
+lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, his
+heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast him out.
+It needed but this to complete the grim suggestiveness of the barren
+waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky. Even Baskerville fell
+silent and pulled his overcoat more closely around him.
+
+We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked back on
+it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to threads of
+gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough and the broad
+tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder
+over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now
+and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone,
+with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into
+a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been
+twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers
+rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip.
+
+“Baskerville Hall,” said he.
+
+Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining
+eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze of
+fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten pillars on either
+side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars’ heads of the
+Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of
+rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first
+fruit of Sir Charles’s South African gold.
+
+Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were
+again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a
+sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up
+the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the
+farther end.
+
+“Was it here?” he asked in a low voice.
+
+“No, no, the yew alley is on the other side.”
+
+The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.
+
+“It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a
+place as this,” said he. “It’s enough to scare any man. I’ll have a row
+of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won’t know it
+again, with a thousand candle-power Swan and Edison right here in front
+of the hall door.”
+
+The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay before
+us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a heavy block
+of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in
+ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat
+of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the
+twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. To
+right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite.
+A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high
+chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a
+single black column of smoke.
+
+“Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!”
+
+A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door of
+the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouetted against the yellow
+light of the hall. She came out and helped the man to hand down our
+bags.
+
+“You don’t mind my driving straight home, Sir Henry?” said Dr. Mortimer.
+“My wife is expecting me.”
+
+“Surely you will stay and have some dinner?”
+
+“No, I must go. I shall probably find some work awaiting me. I would
+stay to show you over the house, but Barrymore will be a better guide
+than I. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to send for me if I
+can be of service.”
+
+The wheels died away down the drive while Sir Henry and I turned
+into the hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us. It was a fine
+apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily
+raftered with huge baulks of age-blackened oak. In the great
+old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled
+and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands to it, for we were numb
+from our long drive. Then we gazed round us at the high, thin window
+of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stags’ heads, the coats
+of arms upon the walls, all dim and sombre in the subdued light of the
+central lamp.
+
+“It’s just as I imagined it,” said Sir Henry. “Is it not the very
+picture of an old family home? To think that this should be the same
+hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. It strikes me
+solemn to think of it.”
+
+I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed about
+him. The light beat upon him where he stood, but long shadows trailed
+down the walls and hung like a black canopy above him. Barrymore had
+returned from taking our luggage to our rooms. He stood in front of
+us now with the subdued manner of a well-trained servant. He was a
+remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and
+pale, distinguished features.
+
+“Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?”
+
+“Is it ready?”
+
+“In a very few minutes, sir. You will find hot water in your rooms. My
+wife and I will be happy, Sir Henry, to stay with you until you have
+made your fresh arrangements, but you will understand that under the new
+conditions this house will require a considerable staff.”
+
+“What new conditions?”
+
+“I only meant, sir, that Sir Charles led a very retired life, and we
+were able to look after his wants. You would, naturally, wish to have
+more company, and so you will need changes in your household.”
+
+“Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?”
+
+“Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir.”
+
+“But your family have been with us for several generations, have they
+not? I should be sorry to begin my life here by breaking an old family
+connection.”
+
+I seemed to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler’s white face.
+
+“I feel that also, sir, and so does my wife. But to tell the truth, sir,
+we were both very much attached to Sir Charles, and his death gave us
+a shock and made these surroundings very painful to us. I fear that we
+shall never again be easy in our minds at Baskerville Hall.”
+
+“But what do you intend to do?”
+
+“I have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing ourselves
+in some business. Sir Charles’s generosity has given us the means to do
+so. And now, sir, perhaps I had best show you to your rooms.”
+
+A square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall,
+approached by a double stair. From this central point two long corridors
+extended the whole length of the building, from which all the bedrooms
+opened. My own was in the same wing as Baskerville’s and almost next
+door to it. These rooms appeared to be much more modern than the
+central part of the house, and the bright paper and numerous candles
+did something to remove the sombre impression which our arrival had left
+upon my mind.
+
+But the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of shadow
+and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step separating the dais where
+the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their dependents.
+At one end a minstrel’s gallery overlooked it. Black beams shot across
+above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling beyond them. With rows of
+flaring torches to light it up, and the colour and rude hilarity of
+an old-time banquet, it might have softened; but now, when two
+black-clothed gentlemen sat in the little circle of light thrown by a
+shaded lamp, one’s voice became hushed and one’s spirit subdued. A
+dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan
+knight to the buck of the Regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by
+their silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the
+meal was over and we were able to retire into the modern billiard-room
+and smoke a cigarette.
+
+“My word, it isn’t a very cheerful place,” said Sir Henry. “I suppose
+one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at present.
+I don’t wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived all alone
+in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will retire early
+tonight, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in the morning.”
+
+I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my
+window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the hall
+door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising wind. A
+half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its cold light I
+saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the long, low curve
+of the melancholy moor. I closed the curtain, feeling that my last
+impression was in keeping with the rest.
+
+And yet it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet wakeful,
+tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would
+not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the
+hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house. And then
+suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my
+ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the
+muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow.
+I sat up in bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been
+far away and was certainly in the house. For half an hour I waited with
+every nerve on the alert, but there came no other sound save the chiming
+clock and the rustle of the ivy on the wall.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7. The Stapletons of Merripit House
+
+
+
+The fresh beauty of the following morning did something to efface from
+our minds the grim and gray impression which had been left upon both of
+us by our first experience of Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry and I sat
+at breakfast the sunlight flooded in through the high mullioned windows,
+throwing watery patches of colour from the coats of arms which covered
+them. The dark panelling glowed like bronze in the golden rays, and it
+was hard to realize that this was indeed the chamber which had struck
+such a gloom into our souls upon the evening before.
+
+“I guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to blame!” said
+the baronet. “We were tired with our journey and chilled by our drive,
+so we took a gray view of the place. Now we are fresh and well, so it is
+all cheerful once more.”
+
+“And yet it was not entirely a question of imagination,” I answered.
+“Did you, for example, happen to hear someone, a woman I think, sobbing
+in the night?”
+
+“That is curious, for I did when I was half asleep fancy that I heard
+something of the sort. I waited quite a time, but there was no more of
+it, so I concluded that it was all a dream.”
+
+“I heard it distinctly, and I am sure that it was really the sob of a
+woman.”
+
+“We must ask about this right away.” He rang the bell and asked
+Barrymore whether he could account for our experience. It seemed to me
+that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler still as he
+listened to his master’s question.
+
+“There are only two women in the house, Sir Henry,” he answered. “One is
+the scullery-maid, who sleeps in the other wing. The other is my wife,
+and I can answer for it that the sound could not have come from her.”
+
+And yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after breakfast I met
+Mrs. Barrymore in the long corridor with the sun full upon her face. She
+was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a stern set expression
+of mouth. But her telltale eyes were red and glanced at me from between
+swollen lids. It was she, then, who wept in the night, and if she did so
+her husband must know it. Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery
+in declaring that it was not so. Why had he done this? And why did she
+weep so bitterly? Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded
+man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom. It was he
+who had been the first to discover the body of Sir Charles, and we had
+only his word for all the circumstances which led up to the old man’s
+death. Was it possible that it was Barrymore, after all, whom we had
+seen in the cab in Regent Street? The beard might well have been the
+same. The cabman had described a somewhat shorter man, but such an
+impression might easily have been erroneous. How could I settle the
+point forever? Obviously the first thing to do was to see the Grimpen
+postmaster and find whether the test telegram had really been placed in
+Barrymore’s own hands. Be the answer what it might, I should at least
+have something to report to Sherlock Holmes.
+
+Sir Henry had numerous papers to examine after breakfast, so that the
+time was propitious for my excursion. It was a pleasant walk of four
+miles along the edge of the moor, leading me at last to a small gray
+hamlet, in which two larger buildings, which proved to be the inn and
+the house of Dr. Mortimer, stood high above the rest. The postmaster,
+who was also the village grocer, had a clear recollection of the
+telegram.
+
+“Certainly, sir,” said he, “I had the telegram delivered to Mr.
+Barrymore exactly as directed.”
+
+“Who delivered it?”
+
+“My boy here. James, you delivered that telegram to Mr. Barrymore at the
+Hall last week, did you not?”
+
+“Yes, father, I delivered it.”
+
+“Into his own hands?” I asked.
+
+“Well, he was up in the loft at the time, so that I could not put it
+into his own hands, but I gave it into Mrs. Barrymore’s hands, and she
+promised to deliver it at once.”
+
+“Did you see Mr. Barrymore?”
+
+“No, sir; I tell you he was in the loft.”
+
+“If you didn’t see him, how do you know he was in the loft?”
+
+“Well, surely his own wife ought to know where he is,” said the
+postmaster testily. “Didn’t he get the telegram? If there is any mistake
+it is for Mr. Barrymore himself to complain.”
+
+It seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry any farther, but it was clear
+that in spite of Holmes’s ruse we had no proof that Barrymore had not
+been in London all the time. Suppose that it were so--suppose that the
+same man had been the last who had seen Sir Charles alive, and the first
+to dog the new heir when he returned to England. What then? Was he the
+agent of others or had he some sinister design of his own? What interest
+could he have in persecuting the Baskerville family? I thought of the
+strange warning clipped out of the leading article of the Times. Was
+that his work or was it possibly the doing of someone who was bent upon
+counteracting his schemes? The only conceivable motive was that which
+had been suggested by Sir Henry, that if the family could be scared away
+a comfortable and permanent home would be secured for the Barrymores.
+But surely such an explanation as that would be quite inadequate to
+account for the deep and subtle scheming which seemed to be weaving an
+invisible net round the young baronet. Holmes himself had said that
+no more complex case had come to him in all the long series of his
+sensational investigations. I prayed, as I walked back along the gray,
+lonely road, that my friend might soon be freed from his preoccupations
+and able to come down to take this heavy burden of responsibility from
+my shoulders.
+
+Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running feet
+behind me and by a voice which called me by name. I turned, expecting to
+see Dr. Mortimer, but to my surprise it was a stranger who was pursuing
+me. He was a small, slim, clean-shaven, prim-faced man, flaxen-haired
+and leanjawed, between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in a gray
+suit and wearing a straw hat. A tin box for botanical specimens hung
+over his shoulder and he carried a green butterfly-net in one of his
+hands.
+
+“You will, I am sure, excuse my presumption, Dr. Watson,” said he as he
+came panting up to where I stood. “Here on the moor we are homely folk
+and do not wait for formal introductions. You may possibly have heard
+my name from our mutual friend, Mortimer. I am Stapleton, of Merripit
+House.”
+
+“Your net and box would have told me as much,” said I, “for I knew that
+Mr. Stapleton was a naturalist. But how did you know me?”
+
+“I have been calling on Mortimer, and he pointed you out to me from
+the window of his surgery as you passed. As our road lay the same way I
+thought that I would overtake you and introduce myself. I trust that Sir
+Henry is none the worse for his journey?”
+
+“He is very well, thank you.”
+
+“We were all rather afraid that after the sad death of Sir Charles the
+new baronet might refuse to live here. It is asking much of a wealthy
+man to come down and bury himself in a place of this kind, but I need
+not tell you that it means a very great deal to the countryside. Sir
+Henry has, I suppose, no superstitious fears in the matter?”
+
+“I do not think that it is likely.”
+
+“Of course you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the
+family?”
+
+“I have heard it.”
+
+“It is extraordinary how credulous the peasants are about here! Any
+number of them are ready to swear that they have seen such a creature
+upon the moor.” He spoke with a smile, but I seemed to read in his eyes
+that he took the matter more seriously. “The story took a great hold
+upon the imagination of Sir Charles, and I have no doubt that it led to
+his tragic end.”
+
+“But how?”
+
+“His nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might have
+had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. I fancy that he really
+did see something of the kind upon that last night in the yew alley. I
+feared that some disaster might occur, for I was very fond of the old
+man, and I knew that his heart was weak.”
+
+“How did you know that?”
+
+“My friend Mortimer told me.”
+
+“You think, then, that some dog pursued Sir Charles, and that he died of
+fright in consequence?”
+
+“Have you any better explanation?”
+
+“I have not come to any conclusion.”
+
+“Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+The words took away my breath for an instant but a glance at the placid
+face and steadfast eyes of my companion showed that no surprise was
+intended.
+
+“It is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you, Dr. Watson,”
+ said he. “The records of your detective have reached us here, and you
+could not celebrate him without being known yourself. When Mortimer told
+me your name he could not deny your identity. If you are here, then it
+follows that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is interesting himself in the matter,
+and I am naturally curious to know what view he may take.”
+
+“I am afraid that I cannot answer that question.”
+
+“May I ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself?”
+
+“He cannot leave town at present. He has other cases which engage his
+attention.”
+
+“What a pity! He might throw some light on that which is so dark to us.
+But as to your own researches, if there is any possible way in which I
+can be of service to you I trust that you will command me. If I had
+any indication of the nature of your suspicions or how you propose to
+investigate the case, I might perhaps even now give you some aid or
+advice.”
+
+“I assure you that I am simply here upon a visit to my friend, Sir
+Henry, and that I need no help of any kind.”
+
+“Excellent!” said Stapleton. “You are perfectly right to be wary and
+discreet. I am justly reproved for what I feel was an unjustifiable
+intrusion, and I promise you that I will not mention the matter again.”
+
+We had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from the
+road and wound away across the moor. A steep, boulder-sprinkled hill lay
+upon the right which had in bygone days been cut into a granite quarry.
+The face which was turned towards us formed a dark cliff, with ferns and
+brambles growing in its niches. From over a distant rise there floated a
+gray plume of smoke.
+
+“A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit House,”
+ said he. “Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have the pleasure of
+introducing you to my sister.”
+
+My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry’s side. But then I
+remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table was
+littered. It was certain that I could not help with those. And Holmes
+had expressly said that I should study the neighbours upon the moor. I
+accepted Stapleton’s invitation, and we turned together down the path.
+
+“It is a wonderful place, the moor,” said he, looking round over the
+undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite
+foaming up into fantastic surges. “You never tire of the moor. You
+cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and
+so barren, and so mysterious.”
+
+“You know it well, then?”
+
+“I have only been here two years. The residents would call me a
+newcomer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled. But my tastes led
+me to explore every part of the country round, and I should think that
+there are few men who know it better than I do.”
+
+“Is it hard to know?”
+
+“Very hard. You see, for example, this great plain to the north here
+with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do you observe anything
+remarkable about that?”
+
+“It would be a rare place for a gallop.”
+
+“You would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their
+lives before now. You notice those bright green spots scattered thickly
+over it?”
+
+“Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest.”
+
+Stapleton laughed. “That is the great Grimpen Mire,” said he. “A false
+step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the
+moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite
+a long time craning out of the bog-hole, but it sucked him down at last.
+Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn
+rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart
+of it and return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable
+ponies!”
+
+Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. Then a
+long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful cry echoed
+over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my companion’s nerves
+seemed to be stronger than mine.
+
+“It’s gone!” said he. “The mire has him. Two in two days, and many more,
+perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the dry weather and
+never know the difference until the mire has them in its clutches. It’s
+a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire.”
+
+“And you say you can penetrate it?”
+
+“Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take. I
+have found them out.”
+
+“But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?”
+
+“Well, you see the hills beyond? They are really islands cut off on all
+sides by the impassable mire, which has crawled round them in the course
+of years. That is where the rare plants and the butterflies are, if you
+have the wit to reach them.”
+
+“I shall try my luck some day.”
+
+He looked at me with a surprised face. “For God’s sake put such an idea
+out of your mind,” said he. “Your blood would be upon my head. I assure
+you that there would not be the least chance of your coming back alive.
+It is only by remembering certain complex landmarks that I am able to do
+it.”
+
+“Halloa!” I cried. “What is that?”
+
+A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It filled the
+whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. From a
+dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a
+melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with a
+curious expression in his face.
+
+“Queer place, the moor!” said he.
+
+“But what is it?”
+
+“The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its
+prey. I’ve heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.”
+
+I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling
+plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing stirred over
+the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor
+behind us.
+
+“You are an educated man. You don’t believe such nonsense as that?” said
+I. “What do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?”
+
+“Bogs make queer noises sometimes. It’s the mud settling, or the water
+rising, or something.”
+
+“No, no, that was a living voice.”
+
+“Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever hear a bittern booming?”
+
+“No, I never did.”
+
+“It’s a very rare bird--practically extinct--in England now, but all
+things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I should not be surprised to
+learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the bitterns.”
+
+“It’s the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life.”
+
+“Yes, it’s rather an uncanny place altogether. Look at the hillside
+yonder. What do you make of those?”
+
+The whole steep slope was covered with gray circular rings of stone, a
+score of them at least.
+
+“What are they? Sheep-pens?”
+
+“No, they are the homes of our worthy ancestors. Prehistoric man lived
+thickly on the moor, and as no one in particular has lived there since,
+we find all his little arrangements exactly as he left them. These are
+his wigwams with the roofs off. You can even see his hearth and his
+couch if you have the curiosity to go inside.
+
+“But it is quite a town. When was it inhabited?”
+
+“Neolithic man--no date.”
+
+“What did he do?”
+
+“He grazed his cattle on these slopes, and he learned to dig for tin
+when the bronze sword began to supersede the stone axe. Look at the
+great trench in the opposite hill. That is his mark. Yes, you will find
+some very singular points about the moor, Dr. Watson. Oh, excuse me an
+instant! It is surely Cyclopides.”
+
+A small fly or moth had fluttered across our path, and in an instant
+Stapleton was rushing with extraordinary energy and speed in pursuit of
+it. To my dismay the creature flew straight for the great mire, and my
+acquaintance never paused for an instant, bounding from tuft to tuft
+behind it, his green net waving in the air. His gray clothes and jerky,
+zigzag, irregular progress made him not unlike some huge moth himself.
+I was standing watching his pursuit with a mixture of admiration for his
+extraordinary activity and fear lest he should lose his footing in the
+treacherous mire, when I heard the sound of steps and, turning round,
+found a woman near me upon the path. She had come from the direction in
+which the plume of smoke indicated the position of Merripit House, but
+the dip of the moor had hid her until she was quite close.
+
+I could not doubt that this was the Miss Stapleton of whom I had
+been told, since ladies of any sort must be few upon the moor, and I
+remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a beauty. The
+woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most uncommon type.
+There could not have been a greater contrast between brother and sister,
+for Stapleton was neutral tinted, with light hair and gray eyes, while
+she was darker than any brunette whom I have seen in England--slim,
+elegant, and tall. She had a proud, finely cut face, so regular that it
+might have seemed impassive were it not for the sensitive mouth and the
+beautiful dark, eager eyes. With her perfect figure and elegant dress
+she was, indeed, a strange apparition upon a lonely moorland path. Her
+eyes were on her brother as I turned, and then she quickened her pace
+towards me. I had raised my hat and was about to make some explanatory
+remark when her own words turned all my thoughts into a new channel.
+
+“Go back!” she said. “Go straight back to London, instantly.”
+
+I could only stare at her in stupid surprise. Her eyes blazed at me, and
+she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.
+
+“Why should I go back?” I asked.
+
+“I cannot explain.” She spoke in a low, eager voice, with a curious lisp
+in her utterance. “But for God’s sake do what I ask you. Go back and
+never set foot upon the moor again.”
+
+“But I have only just come.”
+
+“Man, man!” she cried. “Can you not tell when a warning is for your own
+good? Go back to London! Start tonight! Get away from this place at all
+costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not a word of what I have said. Would
+you mind getting that orchid for me among the mare’s-tails yonder? We
+are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course, you are rather
+late to see the beauties of the place.”
+
+Stapleton had abandoned the chase and came back to us breathing hard and
+flushed with his exertions.
+
+“Halloa, Beryl!” said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of his
+greeting was not altogether a cordial one.
+
+“Well, Jack, you are very hot.”
+
+“Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare and seldom found in
+the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed him!” He spoke
+unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced incessantly from the
+girl to me.
+
+“You have introduced yourselves, I can see.”
+
+“Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to see the
+true beauties of the moor.”
+
+“Why, who do you think this is?”
+
+“I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville.”
+
+“No, no,” said I. “Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My name is
+Dr. Watson.”
+
+A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. “We have been
+talking at cross purposes,” said she.
+
+“Why, you had not very much time for talk,” her brother remarked with
+the same questioning eyes.
+
+“I talked as if Dr. Watson were a resident instead of being merely a
+visitor,” said she. “It cannot much matter to him whether it is early
+or late for the orchids. But you will come on, will you not, and see
+Merripit House?”
+
+A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the farm
+of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into repair and
+turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded it, but the trees,
+as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and nipped, and the effect of
+the whole place was mean and melancholy. We were admitted by a strange,
+wizened, rusty-coated old manservant, who seemed in keeping with
+the house. Inside, however, there were large rooms furnished with an
+elegance in which I seemed to recognize the taste of the lady. As I
+looked from their windows at the interminable granite-flecked moor
+rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon I could not but marvel at what
+could have brought this highly educated man and this beautiful woman to
+live in such a place.
+
+“Queer spot to choose, is it not?” said he as if in answer to my
+thought. “And yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we not,
+Beryl?”
+
+“Quite happy,” said she, but there was no ring of conviction in her
+words.
+
+“I had a school,” said Stapleton. “It was in the north country. The work
+to a man of my temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but the
+privilege of living with youth, of helping to mould those young minds,
+and of impressing them with one’s own character and ideals was very dear
+to me. However, the fates were against us. A serious epidemic broke out
+in the school and three of the boys died. It never recovered from the
+blow, and much of my capital was irretrievably swallowed up. And yet,
+if it were not for the loss of the charming companionship of the boys,
+I could rejoice over my own misfortune, for, with my strong tastes
+for botany and zoology, I find an unlimited field of work here, and my
+sister is as devoted to Nature as I am. All this, Dr. Watson, has been
+brought upon your head by your expression as you surveyed the moor out
+of our window.”
+
+“It certainly did cross my mind that it might be a little dull--less for
+you, perhaps, than for your sister.”
+
+“No, no, I am never dull,” said she quickly.
+
+“We have books, we have our studies, and we have interesting neighbours.
+Dr. Mortimer is a most learned man in his own line. Poor Sir Charles was
+also an admirable companion. We knew him well and miss him more than
+I can tell. Do you think that I should intrude if I were to call this
+afternoon and make the acquaintance of Sir Henry?”
+
+“I am sure that he would be delighted.”
+
+“Then perhaps you would mention that I propose to do so. We may in
+our humble way do something to make things more easy for him until he
+becomes accustomed to his new surroundings. Will you come upstairs, Dr.
+Watson, and inspect my collection of Lepidoptera? I think it is the most
+complete one in the south-west of England. By the time that you have
+looked through them lunch will be almost ready.”
+
+But I was eager to get back to my charge. The melancholy of the moor,
+the death of the unfortunate pony, the weird sound which had been
+associated with the grim legend of the Baskervilles, all these things
+tinged my thoughts with sadness. Then on the top of these more or less
+vague impressions there had come the definite and distinct warning of
+Miss Stapleton, delivered with such intense earnestness that I could
+not doubt that some grave and deep reason lay behind it. I resisted
+all pressure to stay for lunch, and I set off at once upon my return
+journey, taking the grass-grown path by which we had come.
+
+It seems, however, that there must have been some short cut for those
+who knew it, for before I had reached the road I was astounded to see
+Miss Stapleton sitting upon a rock by the side of the track. Her face
+was beautifully flushed with her exertions and she held her hand to her
+side.
+
+“I have run all the way in order to cut you off, Dr. Watson,” said she.
+“I had not even time to put on my hat. I must not stop, or my brother
+may miss me. I wanted to say to you how sorry I am about the stupid
+mistake I made in thinking that you were Sir Henry. Please forget the
+words I said, which have no application whatever to you.”
+
+“But I can’t forget them, Miss Stapleton,” said I. “I am Sir Henry’s
+friend, and his welfare is a very close concern of mine. Tell me why it
+was that you were so eager that Sir Henry should return to London.”
+
+“A woman’s whim, Dr. Watson. When you know me better you will understand
+that I cannot always give reasons for what I say or do.”
+
+“No, no. I remember the thrill in your voice. I remember the look in
+your eyes. Please, please, be frank with me, Miss Stapleton, for ever
+since I have been here I have been conscious of shadows all round me.
+Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches
+everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track.
+Tell me then what it was that you meant, and I will promise to convey
+your warning to Sir Henry.”
+
+An expression of irresolution passed for an instant over her face, but
+her eyes had hardened again when she answered me.
+
+“You make too much of it, Dr. Watson,” said she. “My brother and I
+were very much shocked by the death of Sir Charles. We knew him very
+intimately, for his favourite walk was over the moor to our house. He
+was deeply impressed with the curse which hung over the family, and when
+this tragedy came I naturally felt that there must be some grounds
+for the fears which he had expressed. I was distressed therefore when
+another member of the family came down to live here, and I felt that he
+should be warned of the danger which he will run. That was all which I
+intended to convey.
+
+“But what is the danger?”
+
+“You know the story of the hound?”
+
+“I do not believe in such nonsense.”
+
+“But I do. If you have any influence with Sir Henry, take him away from
+a place which has always been fatal to his family. The world is wide.
+Why should he wish to live at the place of danger?”
+
+“Because it is the place of danger. That is Sir Henry’s nature. I fear
+that unless you can give me some more definite information than this it
+would be impossible to get him to move.”
+
+“I cannot say anything definite, for I do not know anything definite.”
+
+“I would ask you one more question, Miss Stapleton. If you meant no
+more than this when you first spoke to me, why should you not wish your
+brother to overhear what you said? There is nothing to which he, or
+anyone else, could object.”
+
+“My brother is very anxious to have the Hall inhabited, for he thinks it
+is for the good of the poor folk upon the moor. He would be very angry
+if he knew that I have said anything which might induce Sir Henry to
+go away. But I have done my duty now and I will say no more. I must go
+back, or he will miss me and suspect that I have seen you. Good-bye!”
+ She turned and had disappeared in a few minutes among the scattered
+boulders, while I, with my soul full of vague fears, pursued my way to
+Baskerville Hall.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 8. First Report of Dr. Watson
+
+
+
+From this point onward I will follow the course of events by
+transcribing my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes which lie before me
+on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly
+as written and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more
+accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events, can
+possibly do.
+
+
+Baskerville Hall, October 13th. MY DEAR HOLMES: My previous letters
+and telegrams have kept you pretty well up to date as to all that has
+occurred in this most God-forsaken corner of the world. The longer one
+stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one’s soul,
+its vastness, and also its grim charm. When you are once out upon its
+bosom you have left all traces of modern England behind you, but, on the
+other hand, you are conscious everywhere of the homes and the work of
+the prehistoric people. On all sides of you as you walk are the houses
+of these forgotten folk, with their graves and the huge monoliths which
+are supposed to have marked their temples. As you look at their gray
+stone huts against the scarred hillsides you leave your own age behind
+you, and if you were to see a skin-clad, hairy man crawl out from the
+low door fitting a flint-tipped arrow on to the string of his bow, you
+would feel that his presence there was more natural than your own. The
+strange thing is that they should have lived so thickly on what must
+always have been most unfruitful soil. I am no antiquarian, but I could
+imagine that they were some unwarlike and harried race who were forced
+to accept that which none other would occupy.
+
+All this, however, is foreign to the mission on which you sent me and
+will probably be very uninteresting to your severely practical mind.
+I can still remember your complete indifference as to whether the sun
+moved round the earth or the earth round the sun. Let me, therefore,
+return to the facts concerning Sir Henry Baskerville.
+
+If you have not had any report within the last few days it is because
+up to today there was nothing of importance to relate. Then a very
+surprising circumstance occurred, which I shall tell you in due course.
+But, first of all, I must keep you in touch with some of the other
+factors in the situation.
+
+One of these, concerning which I have said little, is the escaped
+convict upon the moor. There is strong reason now to believe that he
+has got right away, which is a considerable relief to the lonely
+householders of this district. A fortnight has passed since his flight,
+during which he has not been seen and nothing has been heard of him. It
+is surely inconceivable that he could have held out upon the moor during
+all that time. Of course, so far as his concealment goes there is
+no difficulty at all. Any one of these stone huts would give him a
+hiding-place. But there is nothing to eat unless he were to catch and
+slaughter one of the moor sheep. We think, therefore, that he has gone,
+and the outlying farmers sleep the better in consequence.
+
+We are four able-bodied men in this household, so that we could take
+good care of ourselves, but I confess that I have had uneasy moments
+when I have thought of the Stapletons. They live miles from any help.
+There are one maid, an old manservant, the sister, and the brother, the
+latter not a very strong man. They would be helpless in the hands of a
+desperate fellow like this Notting Hill criminal if he could once effect
+an entrance. Both Sir Henry and I were concerned at their situation, and
+it was suggested that Perkins the groom should go over to sleep there,
+but Stapleton would not hear of it.
+
+The fact is that our friend, the baronet, begins to display a
+considerable interest in our fair neighbour. It is not to be wondered
+at, for time hangs heavily in this lonely spot to an active man like
+him, and she is a very fascinating and beautiful woman. There is
+something tropical and exotic about her which forms a singular contrast
+to her cool and unemotional brother. Yet he also gives the idea of
+hidden fires. He has certainly a very marked influence over her, for
+I have seen her continually glance at him as she talked as if seeking
+approbation for what she said. I trust that he is kind to her. There is
+a dry glitter in his eyes and a firm set of his thin lips, which goes
+with a positive and possibly a harsh nature. You would find him an
+interesting study.
+
+He came over to call upon Baskerville on that first day, and the very
+next morning he took us both to show us the spot where the legend of the
+wicked Hugo is supposed to have had its origin. It was an excursion of
+some miles across the moor to a place which is so dismal that it might
+have suggested the story. We found a short valley between rugged tors
+which led to an open, grassy space flecked over with the white cotton
+grass. In the middle of it rose two great stones, worn and sharpened at
+the upper end until they looked like the huge corroding fangs of some
+monstrous beast. In every way it corresponded with the scene of the old
+tragedy. Sir Henry was much interested and asked Stapleton more
+than once whether he did really believe in the possibility of the
+interference of the supernatural in the affairs of men. He spoke
+lightly, but it was evident that he was very much in earnest. Stapleton
+was guarded in his replies, but it was easy to see that he said less
+than he might, and that he would not express his whole opinion out of
+consideration for the feelings of the baronet. He told us of similar
+cases, where families had suffered from some evil influence, and he left
+us with the impression that he shared the popular view upon the matter.
+
+On our way back we stayed for lunch at Merripit House, and it was there
+that Sir Henry made the acquaintance of Miss Stapleton. From the first
+moment that he saw her he appeared to be strongly attracted by her, and
+I am much mistaken if the feeling was not mutual. He referred to her
+again and again on our walk home, and since then hardly a day has passed
+that we have not seen something of the brother and sister. They dine
+here tonight, and there is some talk of our going to them next week. One
+would imagine that such a match would be very welcome to Stapleton, and
+yet I have more than once caught a look of the strongest disapprobation
+in his face when Sir Henry has been paying some attention to his sister.
+He is much attached to her, no doubt, and would lead a lonely life
+without her, but it would seem the height of selfishness if he were to
+stand in the way of her making so brilliant a marriage. Yet I am certain
+that he does not wish their intimacy to ripen into love, and I have
+several times observed that he has taken pains to prevent them from
+being tete-a-tete. By the way, your instructions to me never to allow
+Sir Henry to go out alone will become very much more onerous if a love
+affair were to be added to our other difficulties. My popularity would
+soon suffer if I were to carry out your orders to the letter.
+
+The other day--Thursday, to be more exact--Dr. Mortimer lunched with us.
+He has been excavating a barrow at Long Down and has got a prehistoric
+skull which fills him with great joy. Never was there such a
+single-minded enthusiast as he! The Stapletons came in afterwards, and
+the good doctor took us all to the yew alley at Sir Henry’s request to
+show us exactly how everything occurred upon that fatal night. It is
+a long, dismal walk, the yew alley, between two high walls of clipped
+hedge, with a narrow band of grass upon either side. At the far end is
+an old tumble-down summer-house. Halfway down is the moor-gate, where
+the old gentleman left his cigar-ash. It is a white wooden gate with
+a latch. Beyond it lies the wide moor. I remembered your theory of the
+affair and tried to picture all that had occurred. As the old man stood
+there he saw something coming across the moor, something which terrified
+him so that he lost his wits and ran and ran until he died of sheer
+horror and exhaustion. There was the long, gloomy tunnel down which
+he fled. And from what? A sheep-dog of the moor? Or a spectral hound,
+black, silent, and monstrous? Was there a human agency in the matter?
+Did the pale, watchful Barrymore know more than he cared to say? It was
+all dim and vague, but always there is the dark shadow of crime behind
+it.
+
+One other neighbour I have met since I wrote last. This is Mr.
+Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who lives some four miles to the south of us.
+He is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and choleric. His passion
+is for the British law, and he has spent a large fortune in litigation.
+He fights for the mere pleasure of fighting and is equally ready to take
+up either side of a question, so that it is no wonder that he has found
+it a costly amusement. Sometimes he will shut up a right of way and defy
+the parish to make him open it. At others he will with his own hands
+tear down some other man’s gate and declare that a path has existed
+there from time immemorial, defying the owner to prosecute him for
+trespass. He is learned in old manorial and communal rights, and he
+applies his knowledge sometimes in favour of the villagers of Fernworthy
+and sometimes against them, so that he is periodically either carried in
+triumph down the village street or else burned in effigy, according to
+his latest exploit. He is said to have about seven lawsuits upon his
+hands at present, which will probably swallow up the remainder of his
+fortune and so draw his sting and leave him harmless for the future.
+Apart from the law he seems a kindly, good-natured person, and I
+only mention him because you were particular that I should send some
+description of the people who surround us. He is curiously employed
+at present, for, being an amateur astronomer, he has an excellent
+telescope, with which he lies upon the roof of his own house and sweeps
+the moor all day in the hope of catching a glimpse of the escaped
+convict. If he would confine his energies to this all would be well, but
+there are rumours that he intends to prosecute Dr. Mortimer for opening
+a grave without the consent of the next of kin because he dug up the
+Neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down. He helps to keep our lives
+from being monotonous and gives a little comic relief where it is badly
+needed.
+
+And now, having brought you up to date in the escaped convict, the
+Stapletons, Dr. Mortimer, and Frankland, of Lafter Hall, let me end on
+that which is most important and tell you more about the Barrymores, and
+especially about the surprising development of last night.
+
+First of all about the test telegram, which you sent from London in
+order to make sure that Barrymore was really here. I have already
+explained that the testimony of the postmaster shows that the test was
+worthless and that we have no proof one way or the other. I told Sir
+Henry how the matter stood, and he at once, in his downright fashion,
+had Barrymore up and asked him whether he had received the telegram
+himself. Barrymore said that he had.
+
+“Did the boy deliver it into your own hands?” asked Sir Henry.
+
+Barrymore looked surprised, and considered for a little time.
+
+“No,” said he, “I was in the box-room at the time, and my wife brought
+it up to me.”
+
+“Did you answer it yourself?”
+
+“No; I told my wife what to answer and she went down to write it.”
+
+In the evening he recurred to the subject of his own accord.
+
+“I could not quite understand the object of your questions this morning,
+Sir Henry,” said he. “I trust that they do not mean that I have done
+anything to forfeit your confidence?”
+
+Sir Henry had to assure him that it was not so and pacify him by giving
+him a considerable part of his old wardrobe, the London outfit having
+now all arrived.
+
+Mrs. Barrymore is of interest to me. She is a heavy, solid person, very
+limited, intensely respectable, and inclined to be puritanical. You
+could hardly conceive a less emotional subject. Yet I have told you how,
+on the first night here, I heard her sobbing bitterly, and since then
+I have more than once observed traces of tears upon her face. Some deep
+sorrow gnaws ever at her heart. Sometimes I wonder if she has a guilty
+memory which haunts her, and sometimes I suspect Barrymore of being a
+domestic tyrant. I have always felt that there was something singular
+and questionable in this man’s character, but the adventure of last
+night brings all my suspicions to a head.
+
+And yet it may seem a small matter in itself. You are aware that I am
+not a very sound sleeper, and since I have been on guard in this house
+my slumbers have been lighter than ever. Last night, about two in the
+morning, I was aroused by a stealthy step passing my room. I rose,
+opened my door, and peeped out. A long black shadow was trailing down
+the corridor. It was thrown by a man who walked softly down the passage
+with a candle held in his hand. He was in shirt and trousers, with no
+covering to his feet. I could merely see the outline, but his height
+told me that it was Barrymore. He walked very slowly and circumspectly,
+and there was something indescribably guilty and furtive in his whole
+appearance.
+
+I have told you that the corridor is broken by the balcony which runs
+round the hall, but that it is resumed upon the farther side. I waited
+until he had passed out of sight and then I followed him. When I came
+round the balcony he had reached the end of the farther corridor, and
+I could see from the glimmer of light through an open door that he
+had entered one of the rooms. Now, all these rooms are unfurnished and
+unoccupied so that his expedition became more mysterious than ever. The
+light shone steadily as if he were standing motionless. I crept down
+the passage as noiselessly as I could and peeped round the corner of the
+door.
+
+Barrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held against the
+glass. His profile was half turned towards me, and his face seemed to be
+rigid with expectation as he stared out into the blackness of the moor.
+For some minutes he stood watching intently. Then he gave a deep groan
+and with an impatient gesture he put out the light. Instantly I made my
+way back to my room, and very shortly came the stealthy steps passing
+once more upon their return journey. Long afterwards when I had fallen
+into a light sleep I heard a key turn somewhere in a lock, but I could
+not tell whence the sound came. What it all means I cannot guess, but
+there is some secret business going on in this house of gloom which
+sooner or later we shall get to the bottom of. I do not trouble you with
+my theories, for you asked me to furnish you only with facts. I have
+had a long talk with Sir Henry this morning, and we have made a plan of
+campaign founded upon my observations of last night. I will not speak
+about it just now, but it should make my next report interesting
+reading.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 9. The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. Watson]
+
+
+
+Baskerville Hall, Oct. 15th. MY DEAR HOLMES: If I was compelled to
+leave you without much news during the early days of my mission you must
+acknowledge that I am making up for lost time, and that events are now
+crowding thick and fast upon us. In my last report I ended upon my top
+note with Barrymore at the window, and now I have quite a budget already
+which will, unless I am much mistaken, considerably surprise you. Things
+have taken a turn which I could not have anticipated. In some ways they
+have within the last forty-eight hours become much clearer and in some
+ways they have become more complicated. But I will tell you all and you
+shall judge for yourself.
+
+Before breakfast on the morning following my adventure I went down the
+corridor and examined the room in which Barrymore had been on the night
+before. The western window through which he had stared so intently has,
+I noticed, one peculiarity above all other windows in the house--it
+commands the nearest outlook on to the moor. There is an opening between
+two trees which enables one from this point of view to look right down
+upon it, while from all the other windows it is only a distant glimpse
+which can be obtained. It follows, therefore, that Barrymore, since
+only this window would serve the purpose, must have been looking out for
+something or somebody upon the moor. The night was very dark, so that I
+can hardly imagine how he could have hoped to see anyone. It had struck
+me that it was possible that some love intrigue was on foot. That would
+have accounted for his stealthy movements and also for the uneasiness
+of his wife. The man is a striking-looking fellow, very well equipped
+to steal the heart of a country girl, so that this theory seemed to
+have something to support it. That opening of the door which I had heard
+after I had returned to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep
+some clandestine appointment. So I reasoned with myself in the morning,
+and I tell you the direction of my suspicions, however much the result
+may have shown that they were unfounded.
+
+But whatever the true explanation of Barrymore’s movements might be,
+I felt that the responsibility of keeping them to myself until I could
+explain them was more than I could bear. I had an interview with the
+baronet in his study after breakfast, and I told him all that I had
+seen. He was less surprised than I had expected.
+
+“I knew that Barrymore walked about nights, and I had a mind to speak
+to him about it,” said he. “Two or three times I have heard his steps in
+the passage, coming and going, just about the hour you name.”
+
+“Perhaps then he pays a visit every night to that particular window,” I
+suggested.
+
+“Perhaps he does. If so, we should be able to shadow him and see what
+it is that he is after. I wonder what your friend Holmes would do if he
+were here.”
+
+“I believe that he would do exactly what you now suggest,” said I. “He
+would follow Barrymore and see what he did.”
+
+“Then we shall do it together.”
+
+“But surely he would hear us.”
+
+“The man is rather deaf, and in any case we must take our chance of
+that. We’ll sit up in my room tonight and wait until he passes.” Sir
+Henry rubbed his hands with pleasure, and it was evident that he hailed
+the adventure as a relief to his somewhat quiet life upon the moor.
+
+The baronet has been in communication with the architect who prepared
+the plans for Sir Charles, and with a contractor from London, so that we
+may expect great changes to begin here soon. There have been decorators
+and furnishers up from Plymouth, and it is evident that our friend
+has large ideas and means to spare no pains or expense to restore the
+grandeur of his family. When the house is renovated and refurnished, all
+that he will need will be a wife to make it complete. Between ourselves
+there are pretty clear signs that this will not be wanting if the lady
+is willing, for I have seldom seen a man more infatuated with a woman
+than he is with our beautiful neighbour, Miss Stapleton. And yet the
+course of true love does not run quite as smoothly as one would under
+the circumstances expect. Today, for example, its surface was broken
+by a very unexpected ripple, which has caused our friend considerable
+perplexity and annoyance.
+
+After the conversation which I have quoted about Barrymore, Sir Henry
+put on his hat and prepared to go out. As a matter of course I did the
+same.
+
+“What, are you coming, Watson?” he asked, looking at me in a curious
+way.
+
+“That depends on whether you are going on the moor,” said I.
+
+“Yes, I am.”
+
+“Well, you know what my instructions are. I am sorry to intrude, but
+you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I should not leave you, and
+especially that you should not go alone upon the moor.”
+
+Sir Henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile.
+
+“My dear fellow,” said he, “Holmes, with all his wisdom, did not foresee
+some things which have happened since I have been on the moor. You
+understand me? I am sure that you are the last man in the world who
+would wish to be a spoil-sport. I must go out alone.”
+
+It put me in a most awkward position. I was at a loss what to say or
+what to do, and before I had made up my mind he picked up his cane and
+was gone.
+
+But when I came to think the matter over my conscience reproached me
+bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my sight.
+I imagined what my feelings would be if I had to return to you and to
+confess that some misfortune had occurred through my disregard for your
+instructions. I assure you my cheeks flushed at the very thought. It
+might not even now be too late to overtake him, so I set off at once in
+the direction of Merripit House.
+
+I hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing anything
+of Sir Henry, until I came to the point where the moor path branches
+off. There, fearing that perhaps I had come in the wrong direction after
+all, I mounted a hill from which I could command a view--the same hill
+which is cut into the dark quarry. Thence I saw him at once. He was on
+the moor path about a quarter of a mile off, and a lady was by his side
+who could only be Miss Stapleton. It was clear that there was already
+an understanding between them and that they had met by appointment. They
+were walking slowly along in deep conversation, and I saw her making
+quick little movements of her hands as if she were very earnest in what
+she was saying, while he listened intently, and once or twice shook his
+head in strong dissent. I stood among the rocks watching them, very much
+puzzled as to what I should do next. To follow them and break into their
+intimate conversation seemed to be an outrage, and yet my clear duty was
+never for an instant to let him out of my sight. To act the spy upon a
+friend was a hateful task. Still, I could see no better course than to
+observe him from the hill, and to clear my conscience by confessing to
+him afterwards what I had done. It is true that if any sudden danger had
+threatened him I was too far away to be of use, and yet I am sure that
+you will agree with me that the position was very difficult, and that
+there was nothing more which I could do.
+
+Our friend, Sir Henry, and the lady had halted on the path and were
+standing deeply absorbed in their conversation, when I was suddenly
+aware that I was not the only witness of their interview. A wisp of
+green floating in the air caught my eye, and another glance showed me
+that it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the broken
+ground. It was Stapleton with his butterfly-net. He was very much closer
+to the pair than I was, and he appeared to be moving in their direction.
+At this instant Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his side. His
+arm was round her, but it seemed to me that she was straining away from
+him with her face averted. He stooped his head to hers, and she raised
+one hand as if in protest. Next moment I saw them spring apart and turn
+hurriedly round. Stapleton was the cause of the interruption. He was
+running wildly towards them, his absurd net dangling behind him. He
+gesticulated and almost danced with excitement in front of the lovers.
+What the scene meant I could not imagine, but it seemed to me that
+Stapleton was abusing Sir Henry, who offered explanations, which became
+more angry as the other refused to accept them. The lady stood by in
+haughty silence. Finally Stapleton turned upon his heel and beckoned in
+a peremptory way to his sister, who, after an irresolute glance at Sir
+Henry, walked off by the side of her brother. The naturalist’s angry
+gestures showed that the lady was included in his displeasure. The
+baronet stood for a minute looking after them, and then he walked slowly
+back the way that he had come, his head hanging, the very picture of
+dejection.
+
+What all this meant I could not imagine, but I was deeply ashamed to
+have witnessed so intimate a scene without my friend’s knowledge. I ran
+down the hill therefore and met the baronet at the bottom. His face was
+flushed with anger and his brows were wrinkled, like one who is at his
+wit’s ends what to do.
+
+“Halloa, Watson! Where have you dropped from?” said he. “You don’t mean
+to say that you came after me in spite of all?”
+
+I explained everything to him: how I had found it impossible to remain
+behind, how I had followed him, and how I had witnessed all that
+had occurred. For an instant his eyes blazed at me, but my frankness
+disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a rather rueful laugh.
+
+“You would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe
+place for a man to be private,” said he, “but, by thunder, the whole
+countryside seems to have been out to see me do my wooing--and a mighty
+poor wooing at that! Where had you engaged a seat?”
+
+“I was on that hill.”
+
+“Quite in the back row, eh? But her brother was well up to the front.
+Did you see him come out on us?”
+
+“Yes, I did.”
+
+“Did he ever strike you as being crazy--this brother of hers?”
+
+“I can’t say that he ever did.”
+
+“I dare say not. I always thought him sane enough until today, but you
+can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a straitjacket.
+What’s the matter with me, anyhow? You’ve lived near me for some weeks,
+Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there anything that would prevent me
+from making a good husband to a woman that I loved?”
+
+“I should say not.”
+
+“He can’t object to my worldly position, so it must be myself that he
+has this down on. What has he against me? I never hurt man or woman in
+my life that I know of. And yet he would not so much as let me touch the
+tips of her fingers.”
+
+“Did he say so?”
+
+“That, and a deal more. I tell you, Watson, I’ve only known her these
+few weeks, but from the first I just felt that she was made for me,
+and she, too--she was happy when she was with me, and that I’ll swear.
+There’s a light in a woman’s eyes that speaks louder than words. But he
+has never let us get together and it was only today for the first time
+that I saw a chance of having a few words with her alone. She was glad
+to meet me, but when she did it was not love that she would talk about,
+and she wouldn’t have let me talk about it either if she could have
+stopped it. She kept coming back to it that this was a place of danger,
+and that she would never be happy until I had left it. I told her that
+since I had seen her I was in no hurry to leave it, and that if she
+really wanted me to go, the only way to work it was for her to arrange
+to go with me. With that I offered in as many words to marry her, but
+before she could answer, down came this brother of hers, running at us
+with a face on him like a madman. He was just white with rage, and those
+light eyes of his were blazing with fury. What was I doing with the
+lady? How dared I offer her attentions which were distasteful to her?
+Did I think that because I was a baronet I could do what I liked? If he
+had not been her brother I should have known better how to answer him.
+As it was I told him that my feelings towards his sister were such as
+I was not ashamed of, and that I hoped that she might honour me by
+becoming my wife. That seemed to make the matter no better, so then I
+lost my temper too, and I answered him rather more hotly than I should
+perhaps, considering that she was standing by. So it ended by his going
+off with her, as you saw, and here am I as badly puzzled a man as any
+in this county. Just tell me what it all means, Watson, and I’ll owe you
+more than ever I can hope to pay.”
+
+I tried one or two explanations, but, indeed, I was completely puzzled
+myself. Our friend’s title, his fortune, his age, his character, and his
+appearance are all in his favour, and I know nothing against him unless
+it be this dark fate which runs in his family. That his advances should
+be rejected so brusquely without any reference to the lady’s own wishes
+and that the lady should accept the situation without protest is very
+amazing. However, our conjectures were set at rest by a visit from
+Stapleton himself that very afternoon. He had come to offer apologies
+for his rudeness of the morning, and after a long private interview with
+Sir Henry in his study the upshot of their conversation was that the
+breach is quite healed, and that we are to dine at Merripit House next
+Friday as a sign of it.
+
+“I don’t say now that he isn’t a crazy man,” said Sir Henry; “I can’t
+forget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning, but I must
+allow that no man could make a more handsome apology than he has done.”
+
+“Did he give any explanation of his conduct?”
+
+“His sister is everything in his life, he says. That is natural enough,
+and I am glad that he should understand her value. They have always been
+together, and according to his account he has been a very lonely man
+with only her as a companion, so that the thought of losing her was
+really terrible to him. He had not understood, he said, that I was
+becoming attached to her, but when he saw with his own eyes that it was
+really so, and that she might be taken away from him, it gave him such a
+shock that for a time he was not responsible for what he said or did.
+He was very sorry for all that had passed, and he recognized how foolish
+and how selfish it was that he should imagine that he could hold a
+beautiful woman like his sister to himself for her whole life. If she
+had to leave him he had rather it was to a neighbour like myself than to
+anyone else. But in any case it was a blow to him and it would take him
+some time before he could prepare himself to meet it. He would withdraw
+all opposition upon his part if I would promise for three months to let
+the matter rest and to be content with cultivating the lady’s friendship
+during that time without claiming her love. This I promised, and so the
+matter rests.”
+
+So there is one of our small mysteries cleared up. It is something to
+have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we are floundering.
+We know now why Stapleton looked with disfavour upon his sister’s
+suitor--even when that suitor was so eligible a one as Sir Henry. And
+now I pass on to another thread which I have extricated out of the
+tangled skein, the mystery of the sobs in the night, of the tear-stained
+face of Mrs. Barrymore, of the secret journey of the butler to the
+western lattice window. Congratulate me, my dear Holmes, and tell me
+that I have not disappointed you as an agent--that you do not regret
+the confidence which you showed in me when you sent me down. All these
+things have by one night’s work been thoroughly cleared.
+
+I have said “by one night’s work,” but, in truth, it was by two nights’
+work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. I sat up with Sir Henry
+in his rooms until nearly three o’clock in the morning, but no sound of
+any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the stairs. It was
+a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling asleep in our
+chairs. Fortunately we were not discouraged, and we determined to try
+again. The next night we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes
+without making the least sound. It was incredible how slowly the hours
+crawled by, and yet we were helped through it by the same sort of
+patient interest which the hunter must feel as he watches the trap into
+which he hopes the game may wander. One struck, and two, and we had
+almost for the second time given it up in despair when in an instant we
+both sat bolt upright in our chairs with all our weary senses keenly on
+the alert once more. We had heard the creak of a step in the passage.
+
+Very stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the
+distance. Then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out in
+pursuit. Already our man had gone round the gallery and the corridor was
+all in darkness. Softly we stole along until we had come into the other
+wing. We were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall, black-bearded
+figure, his shoulders rounded as he tiptoed down the passage. Then he
+passed through the same door as before, and the light of the candle
+framed it in the darkness and shot one single yellow beam across the
+gloom of the corridor. We shuffled cautiously towards it, trying every
+plank before we dared to put our whole weight upon it. We had taken the
+precaution of leaving our boots behind us, but, even so, the old boards
+snapped and creaked beneath our tread. Sometimes it seemed impossible
+that he should fail to hear our approach. However, the man is
+fortunately rather deaf, and he was entirely preoccupied in that which
+he was doing. When at last we reached the door and peeped through we
+found him crouching at the window, candle in hand, his white, intent
+face pressed against the pane, exactly as I had seen him two nights
+before.
+
+We had arranged no plan of campaign, but the baronet is a man to whom
+the most direct way is always the most natural. He walked into the room,
+and as he did so Barrymore sprang up from the window with a sharp hiss
+of his breath and stood, livid and trembling, before us. His dark eyes,
+glaring out of the white mask of his face, were full of horror and
+astonishment as he gazed from Sir Henry to me.
+
+“What are you doing here, Barrymore?”
+
+“Nothing, sir.” His agitation was so great that he could hardly speak,
+and the shadows sprang up and down from the shaking of his candle. “It
+was the window, sir. I go round at night to see that they are fastened.”
+
+“On the second floor?”
+
+“Yes, sir, all the windows.”
+
+“Look here, Barrymore,” said Sir Henry sternly, “we have made up our
+minds to have the truth out of you, so it will save you trouble to tell
+it sooner rather than later. Come, now! No lies! What were you doing at
+that window?”
+
+The fellow looked at us in a helpless way, and he wrung his hands
+together like one who is in the last extremity of doubt and misery.
+
+“I was doing no harm, sir. I was holding a candle to the window.”
+
+“And why were you holding a candle to the window?”
+
+“Don’t ask me, Sir Henry--don’t ask me! I give you my word, sir, that it
+is not my secret, and that I cannot tell it. If it concerned no one but
+myself I would not try to keep it from you.”
+
+A sudden idea occurred to me, and I took the candle from the trembling
+hand of the butler.
+
+“He must have been holding it as a signal,” said I. “Let us see if
+there is any answer.” I held it as he had done, and stared out into the
+darkness of the night. Vaguely I could discern the black bank of the
+trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for the moon was behind the
+clouds. And then I gave a cry of exultation, for a tiny pinpoint of
+yellow light had suddenly transfixed the dark veil, and glowed steadily
+in the centre of the black square framed by the window.
+
+“There it is!” I cried.
+
+“No, no, sir, it is nothing--nothing at all!” the butler broke in; “I
+assure you, sir--”
+
+“Move your light across the window, Watson!” cried the baronet. “See,
+the other moves also! Now, you rascal, do you deny that it is a signal?
+Come, speak up! Who is your confederate out yonder, and what is this
+conspiracy that is going on?”
+
+The man’s face became openly defiant. “It is my business, and not yours.
+I will not tell.”
+
+“Then you leave my employment right away.”
+
+“Very good, sir. If I must I must.”
+
+“And you go in disgrace. By thunder, you may well be ashamed of
+yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years under
+this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot against me.”
+
+“No, no, sir; no, not against you!” It was a woman’s voice, and Mrs.
+Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband, was standing
+at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might have been comic
+were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her face.
+
+“We have to go, Eliza. This is the end of it. You can pack our things,”
+ said the butler.
+
+“Oh, John, John, have I brought you to this? It is my doing, Sir
+Henry--all mine. He has done nothing except for my sake and because I
+asked him.”
+
+“Speak out, then! What does it mean?”
+
+“My unhappy brother is starving on the moor. We cannot let him perish at
+our very gates. The light is a signal to him that food is ready for him,
+and his light out yonder is to show the spot to which to bring it.”
+
+“Then your brother is--”
+
+“The escaped convict, sir--Selden, the criminal.”
+
+“That’s the truth, sir,” said Barrymore. “I said that it was not my
+secret and that I could not tell it to you. But now you have heard it,
+and you will see that if there was a plot it was not against you.”
+
+This, then, was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at night
+and the light at the window. Sir Henry and I both stared at the woman in
+amazement. Was it possible that this stolidly respectable person was of
+the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the country?
+
+“Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother. We humoured
+him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way in everything
+until he came to think that the world was made for his pleasure, and
+that he could do what he liked in it. Then as he grew older he met
+wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until he broke my
+mother’s heart and dragged our name in the dirt. From crime to crime
+he sank lower and lower until it is only the mercy of God which has
+snatched him from the scaffold; but to me, sir, he was always the little
+curly-headed boy that I had nursed and played with as an elder sister
+would. That was why he broke prison, sir. He knew that I was here and
+that we could not refuse to help him. When he dragged himself here one
+night, weary and starving, with the warders hard at his heels, what
+could we do? We took him in and fed him and cared for him. Then you
+returned, sir, and my brother thought he would be safer on the moor than
+anywhere else until the hue and cry was over, so he lay in hiding there.
+But every second night we made sure if he was still there by putting a
+light in the window, and if there was an answer my husband took out some
+bread and meat to him. Every day we hoped that he was gone, but as long
+as he was there we could not desert him. That is the whole truth, as I
+am an honest Christian woman and you will see that if there is blame in
+the matter it does not lie with my husband but with me, for whose sake
+he has done all that he has.”
+
+The woman’s words came with an intense earnestness which carried
+conviction with them.
+
+“Is this true, Barrymore?”
+
+“Yes, Sir Henry. Every word of it.”
+
+“Well, I cannot blame you for standing by your own wife. Forget what
+I have said. Go to your room, you two, and we shall talk further about
+this matter in the morning.”
+
+When they were gone we looked out of the window again. Sir Henry had
+flung it open, and the cold night wind beat in upon our faces. Far away
+in the black distance there still glowed that one tiny point of yellow
+light.
+
+“I wonder he dares,” said Sir Henry.
+
+“It may be so placed as to be only visible from here.”
+
+“Very likely. How far do you think it is?”
+
+“Out by the Cleft Tor, I think.”
+
+“Not more than a mile or two off.”
+
+“Hardly that.”
+
+“Well, it cannot be far if Barrymore had to carry out the food to it.
+And he is waiting, this villain, beside that candle. By thunder, Watson,
+I am going out to take that man!”
+
+The same thought had crossed my own mind. It was not as if the
+Barrymores had taken us into their confidence. Their secret had been
+forced from them. The man was a danger to the community, an unmitigated
+scoundrel for whom there was neither pity nor excuse. We were only doing
+our duty in taking this chance of putting him back where he could do no
+harm. With his brutal and violent nature, others would have to pay the
+price if we held our hands. Any night, for example, our neighbours the
+Stapletons might be attacked by him, and it may have been the thought of
+this which made Sir Henry so keen upon the adventure.
+
+“I will come,” said I.
+
+“Then get your revolver and put on your boots. The sooner we start the
+better, as the fellow may put out his light and be off.”
+
+In five minutes we were outside the door, starting upon our expedition.
+We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull moaning of the
+autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The night air was
+heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again the moon peeped
+out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the face of the sky,
+and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain began to fall. The light
+still burned steadily in front.
+
+“Are you armed?” I asked.
+
+“I have a hunting-crop.”
+
+“We must close in on him rapidly, for he is said to be a desperate
+fellow. We shall take him by surprise and have him at our mercy before
+he can resist.”
+
+“I say, Watson,” said the baronet, “what would Holmes say to this? How
+about that hour of darkness in which the power of evil is exalted?”
+
+As if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast gloom
+of the moor that strange cry which I had already heard upon the borders
+of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind through the silence
+of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad
+moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air
+throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing. The baronet caught my
+sleeve and his face glimmered white through the darkness.
+
+“My God, what’s that, Watson?”
+
+“I don’t know. It’s a sound they have on the moor. I heard it once
+before.”
+
+It died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. We stood
+straining our ears, but nothing came.
+
+“Watson,” said the baronet, “it was the cry of a hound.”
+
+My blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice which
+told of the sudden horror which had seized him.
+
+“What do they call this sound?” he asked.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The folk on the countryside.”
+
+“Oh, they are ignorant people. Why should you mind what they call it?”
+
+“Tell me, Watson. What do they say of it?”
+
+I hesitated but could not escape the question.
+
+“They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles.”
+
+He groaned and was silent for a few moments.
+
+“A hound it was,” he said at last, “but it seemed to come from miles
+away, over yonder, I think.”
+
+“It was hard to say whence it came.”
+
+“It rose and fell with the wind. Isn’t that the direction of the great
+Grimpen Mire?”
+
+“Yes, it is.”
+
+“Well, it was up there. Come now, Watson, didn’t you think yourself that
+it was the cry of a hound? I am not a child. You need not fear to speak
+the truth.”
+
+“Stapleton was with me when I heard it last. He said that it might be
+the calling of a strange bird.”
+
+“No, no, it was a hound. My God, can there be some truth in all these
+stories? Is it possible that I am really in danger from so dark a cause?
+You don’t believe it, do you, Watson?”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“And yet it was one thing to laugh about it in London, and it is another
+to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear such a cry as
+that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the hound beside him as
+he lay. It all fits together. I don’t think that I am a coward, Watson,
+but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood. Feel my hand!”
+
+It was as cold as a block of marble.
+
+“You’ll be all right tomorrow.”
+
+“I don’t think I’ll get that cry out of my head. What do you advise that
+we do now?”
+
+“Shall we turn back?”
+
+“No, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do it. We
+after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as not, after us. Come
+on! We’ll see it through if all the fiends of the pit were loose upon
+the moor.”
+
+We stumbled slowly along in the darkness, with the black loom of the
+craggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of light burning steadily
+in front. There is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a light upon
+a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be far away upon
+the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a few yards of us.
+But at last we could see whence it came, and then we knew that we were
+indeed very close. A guttering candle was stuck in a crevice of the
+rocks which flanked it on each side so as to keep the wind from it
+and also to prevent it from being visible, save in the direction of
+Baskerville Hall. A boulder of granite concealed our approach, and
+crouching behind it we gazed over it at the signal light. It was strange
+to see this single candle burning there in the middle of the moor, with
+no sign of life near it--just the one straight yellow flame and the
+gleam of the rock on each side of it.
+
+“What shall we do now?” whispered Sir Henry.
+
+“Wait here. He must be near his light. Let us see if we can get a
+glimpse of him.”
+
+The words were hardly out of my mouth when we both saw him. Over the
+rocks, in the crevice of which the candle burned, there was thrust out
+an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed and scored with
+vile passions. Foul with mire, with a bristling beard, and hung with
+matted hair, it might well have belonged to one of those old savages
+who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides. The light beneath him was
+reflected in his small, cunning eyes which peered fiercely to right and
+left through the darkness like a crafty and savage animal who has heard
+the steps of the hunters.
+
+Something had evidently aroused his suspicions. It may have been that
+Barrymore had some private signal which we had neglected to give, or
+the fellow may have had some other reason for thinking that all was not
+well, but I could read his fears upon his wicked face. Any instant he
+might dash out the light and vanish in the darkness. I sprang forward
+therefore, and Sir Henry did the same. At the same moment the convict
+screamed out a curse at us and hurled a rock which splintered up against
+the boulder which had sheltered us. I caught one glimpse of his short,
+squat, strongly built figure as he sprang to his feet and turned to run.
+At the same moment by a lucky chance the moon broke through the clouds.
+We rushed over the brow of the hill, and there was our man running with
+great speed down the other side, springing over the stones in his way
+with the activity of a mountain goat. A lucky long shot of my revolver
+might have crippled him, but I had brought it only to defend myself if
+attacked and not to shoot an unarmed man who was running away.
+
+We were both swift runners and in fairly good training, but we soon
+found that we had no chance of overtaking him. We saw him for a long
+time in the moonlight until he was only a small speck moving swiftly
+among the boulders upon the side of a distant hill. We ran and ran until
+we were completely blown, but the space between us grew ever wider.
+Finally we stopped and sat panting on two rocks, while we watched him
+disappearing in the distance.
+
+And it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and
+unexpected thing. We had risen from our rocks and were turning to go
+home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low upon the
+right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the
+lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as black as an ebony
+statue on that shining background, I saw the figure of a man upon the
+tor. Do not think that it was a delusion, Holmes. I assure you that
+I have never in my life seen anything more clearly. As far as I could
+judge, the figure was that of a tall, thin man. He stood with his legs
+a little separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if he were
+brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite which lay
+before him. He might have been the very spirit of that terrible place.
+It was not the convict. This man was far from the place where the
+latter had disappeared. Besides, he was a much taller man. With a cry
+of surprise I pointed him out to the baronet, but in the instant during
+which I had turned to grasp his arm the man was gone. There was the
+sharp pinnacle of granite still cutting the lower edge of the moon, but
+its peak bore no trace of that silent and motionless figure.
+
+I wished to go in that direction and to search the tor, but it was some
+distance away. The baronet’s nerves were still quivering from that cry,
+which recalled the dark story of his family, and he was not in the mood
+for fresh adventures. He had not seen this lonely man upon the tor and
+could not feel the thrill which his strange presence and his commanding
+attitude had given to me. “A warder, no doubt,” said he. “The moor
+has been thick with them since this fellow escaped.” Well, perhaps his
+explanation may be the right one, but I should like to have some further
+proof of it. Today we mean to communicate to the Princetown people where
+they should look for their missing man, but it is hard lines that
+we have not actually had the triumph of bringing him back as our
+own prisoner. Such are the adventures of last night, and you must
+acknowledge, my dear Holmes, that I have done you very well in
+the matter of a report. Much of what I tell you is no doubt quite
+irrelevant, but still I feel that it is best that I should let you have
+all the facts and leave you to select for yourself those which will
+be of most service to you in helping you to your conclusions. We are
+certainly making some progress. So far as the Barrymores go we have
+found the motive of their actions, and that has cleared up the situation
+very much. But the moor with its mysteries and its strange inhabitants
+remains as inscrutable as ever. Perhaps in my next I may be able to
+throw some light upon this also. Best of all would it be if you could
+come down to us. In any case you will hear from me again in the course
+of the next few days.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 10. Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson
+
+
+
+So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have forwarded
+during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I have arrived
+at a point in my narrative where I am compelled to abandon this method
+and to trust once more to my recollections, aided by the diary which
+I kept at the time. A few extracts from the latter will carry me on to
+those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory. I
+proceed, then, from the morning which followed our abortive chase of the
+convict and our other strange experiences upon the moor.
+
+October 16th. A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. The house
+is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the
+dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of the
+hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon
+their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a
+black reaction after the excitements of the night. I am conscious myself
+of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger--ever present
+danger, which is the more terrible because I am unable to define it.
+
+And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long sequence of
+incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which is
+at work around us. There is the death of the last occupant of the Hall,
+fulfilling so exactly the conditions of the family legend, and there
+are the repeated reports from peasants of the appearance of a strange
+creature upon the moor. Twice I have with my own ears heard the sound
+which resembled the distant baying of a hound. It is incredible,
+impossible, that it should really be outside the ordinary laws of
+nature. A spectral hound which leaves material footmarks and fills the
+air with its howling is surely not to be thought of. Stapleton may
+fall in with such a superstition, and Mortimer also, but if I have one
+quality upon earth it is common sense, and nothing will persuade me to
+believe in such a thing. To do so would be to descend to the level of
+these poor peasants, who are not content with a mere fiend dog but must
+needs describe him with hell-fire shooting from his mouth and eyes.
+Holmes would not listen to such fancies, and I am his agent. But facts
+are facts, and I have twice heard this crying upon the moor. Suppose
+that there were really some huge hound loose upon it; that would go far
+to explain everything. But where could such a hound lie concealed, where
+did it get its food, where did it come from, how was it that no one
+saw it by day? It must be confessed that the natural explanation offers
+almost as many difficulties as the other. And always, apart from the
+hound, there is the fact of the human agency in London, the man in the
+cab, and the letter which warned Sir Henry against the moor. This at
+least was real, but it might have been the work of a protecting friend
+as easily as of an enemy. Where is that friend or enemy now? Has he
+remained in London, or has he followed us down here? Could he--could he
+be the stranger whom I saw upon the tor?
+
+It is true that I have had only the one glance at him, and yet there are
+some things to which I am ready to swear. He is no one whom I have seen
+down here, and I have now met all the neighbours. The figure was far
+taller than that of Stapleton, far thinner than that of Frankland.
+Barrymore it might possibly have been, but we had left him behind us,
+and I am certain that he could not have followed us. A stranger then is
+still dogging us, just as a stranger dogged us in London. We have never
+shaken him off. If I could lay my hands upon that man, then at last we
+might find ourselves at the end of all our difficulties. To this one
+purpose I must now devote all my energies.
+
+My first impulse was to tell Sir Henry all my plans. My second and
+wisest one is to play my own game and speak as little as possible to
+anyone. He is silent and distrait. His nerves have been strangely shaken
+by that sound upon the moor. I will say nothing to add to his anxieties,
+but I will take my own steps to attain my own end.
+
+We had a small scene this morning after breakfast. Barrymore asked leave
+to speak with Sir Henry, and they were closeted in his study some little
+time. Sitting in the billiard-room I more than once heard the sound of
+voices raised, and I had a pretty good idea what the point was which was
+under discussion. After a time the baronet opened his door and called
+for me. “Barrymore considers that he has a grievance,” he said. “He
+thinks that it was unfair on our part to hunt his brother-in-law down
+when he, of his own free will, had told us the secret.”
+
+The butler was standing very pale but very collected before us.
+
+“I may have spoken too warmly, sir,” said he, “and if I have, I am sure
+that I beg your pardon. At the same time, I was very much surprised when
+I heard you two gentlemen come back this morning and learned that you
+had been chasing Selden. The poor fellow has enough to fight against
+without my putting more upon his track.”
+
+“If you had told us of your own free will it would have been a different
+thing,” said the baronet, “you only told us, or rather your wife only
+told us, when it was forced from you and you could not help yourself.”
+
+“I didn’t think you would have taken advantage of it, Sir Henry--indeed
+I didn’t.”
+
+“The man is a public danger. There are lonely houses scattered over the
+moor, and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing. You only want to
+get a glimpse of his face to see that. Look at Mr. Stapleton’s house,
+for example, with no one but himself to defend it. There’s no safety for
+anyone until he is under lock and key.”
+
+“He’ll break into no house, sir. I give you my solemn word upon that.
+But he will never trouble anyone in this country again. I assure you,
+Sir Henry, that in a very few days the necessary arrangements will have
+been made and he will be on his way to South America. For God’s sake,
+sir, I beg of you not to let the police know that he is still on the
+moor. They have given up the chase there, and he can lie quiet until the
+ship is ready for him. You can’t tell on him without getting my wife and
+me into trouble. I beg you, sir, to say nothing to the police.”
+
+“What do you say, Watson?”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. “If he were safely out of the country it would
+relieve the tax-payer of a burden.”
+
+“But how about the chance of his holding someone up before he goes?”
+
+“He would not do anything so mad, sir. We have provided him with all
+that he can want. To commit a crime would be to show where he was
+hiding.”
+
+“That is true,” said Sir Henry. “Well, Barrymore--”
+
+“God bless you, sir, and thank you from my heart! It would have killed
+my poor wife had he been taken again.”
+
+“I guess we are aiding and abetting a felony, Watson? But, after what
+we have heard I don’t feel as if I could give the man up, so there is an
+end of it. All right, Barrymore, you can go.”
+
+With a few broken words of gratitude the man turned, but he hesitated
+and then came back.
+
+“You’ve been so kind to us, sir, that I should like to do the best I
+can for you in return. I know something, Sir Henry, and perhaps I should
+have said it before, but it was long after the inquest that I found it
+out. I’ve never breathed a word about it yet to mortal man. It’s about
+poor Sir Charles’s death.”
+
+The baronet and I were both upon our feet. “Do you know how he died?”
+
+“No, sir, I don’t know that.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“I know why he was at the gate at that hour. It was to meet a woman.”
+
+“To meet a woman! He?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And the woman’s name?”
+
+“I can’t give you the name, sir, but I can give you the initials. Her
+initials were L. L.”
+
+“How do you know this, Barrymore?”
+
+“Well, Sir Henry, your uncle had a letter that morning. He had usually a
+great many letters, for he was a public man and well known for his kind
+heart, so that everyone who was in trouble was glad to turn to him. But
+that morning, as it chanced, there was only this one letter, so I took
+the more notice of it. It was from Coombe Tracey, and it was addressed
+in a woman’s hand.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, sir, I thought no more of the matter, and never would have done
+had it not been for my wife. Only a few weeks ago she was cleaning out
+Sir Charles’s study--it had never been touched since his death--and she
+found the ashes of a burned letter in the back of the grate. The greater
+part of it was charred to pieces, but one little slip, the end of a
+page, hung together, and the writing could still be read, though it was
+gray on a black ground. It seemed to us to be a postscript at the end
+of the letter and it said: ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn
+this letter, and be at the gate by ten o clock. Beneath it were signed
+the initials L. L.”
+
+“Have you got that slip?”
+
+“No, sir, it crumbled all to bits after we moved it.”
+
+“Had Sir Charles received any other letters in the same writing?”
+
+“Well, sir, I took no particular notice of his letters. I should not
+have noticed this one, only it happened to come alone.”
+
+“And you have no idea who L. L. is?”
+
+“No, sir. No more than you have. But I expect if we could lay our hands
+upon that lady we should know more about Sir Charles’s death.”
+
+“I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this important
+information.”
+
+“Well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to us.
+And then again, sir, we were both of us very fond of Sir Charles, as we
+well might be considering all that he has done for us. To rake this
+up couldn’t help our poor master, and it’s well to go carefully when
+there’s a lady in the case. Even the best of us--”
+
+“You thought it might injure his reputation?”
+
+“Well, sir, I thought no good could come of it. But now you have been
+kind to us, and I feel as if it would be treating you unfairly not to
+tell you all that I know about the matter.”
+
+“Very good, Barrymore; you can go.” When the butler had left us Sir
+Henry turned to me. “Well, Watson, what do you think of this new light?”
+
+“It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.”
+
+“So I think. But if we can only trace L. L. it should clear up the whole
+business. We have gained that much. We know that there is someone who
+has the facts if we can only find her. What do you think we should do?”
+
+“Let Holmes know all about it at once. It will give him the clue for
+which he has been seeking. I am much mistaken if it does not bring him
+down.”
+
+I went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning’s
+conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he had been very busy
+of late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street were few and short,
+with no comments upon the information which I had supplied and hardly
+any reference to my mission. No doubt his blackmailing case is absorbing
+all his faculties. And yet this new factor must surely arrest his
+attention and renew his interest. I wish that he were here.
+
+October 17th. All day today the rain poured down, rustling on the ivy
+and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out upon the
+bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his crimes, he has
+suffered something to atone for them. And then I thought of that other
+one--the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. Was he also out
+in that deluged--the unseen watcher, the man of darkness? In the evening
+I put on my waterproof and I walked far upon the sodden moor, full of
+dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face and the wind whistling
+about my ears. God help those who wander into the great mire now, for
+even the firm uplands are becoming a morass. I found the black tor upon
+which I had seen the solitary watcher, and from its craggy summit I
+looked out myself across the melancholy downs. Rain squalls drifted
+across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured clouds hung
+low over the landscape, trailing in gray wreaths down the sides of the
+fantastic hills. In the distant hollow on the left, half hidden by the
+mist, the two thin towers of Baskerville Hall rose above the trees. They
+were the only signs of human life which I could see, save only those
+prehistoric huts which lay thickly upon the slopes of the hills. Nowhere
+was there any trace of that lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot
+two nights before.
+
+As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr. Mortimer driving in his dog-cart
+over a rough moorland track which led from the outlying farmhouse of
+Foulmire. He has been very attentive to us, and hardly a day has passed
+that he has not called at the Hall to see how we were getting on. He
+insisted upon my climbing into his dog-cart, and he gave me a lift
+homeward. I found him much troubled over the disappearance of his little
+spaniel. It had wandered on to the moor and had never come back. I
+gave him such consolation as I might, but I thought of the pony on the
+Grimpen Mire, and I do not fancy that he will see his little dog again.
+
+“By the way, Mortimer,” said I as we jolted along the rough road, “I
+suppose there are few people living within driving distance of this whom
+you do not know?”
+
+“Hardly any, I think.”
+
+“Can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are L. L.?”
+
+He thought for a few minutes.
+
+“No,” said he. “There are a few gipsies and labouring folk for whom
+I can’t answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no one whose
+initials are those. Wait a bit though,” he added after a pause. “There
+is Laura Lyons--her initials are L. L.--but she lives in Coombe Tracey.”
+
+“Who is she?” I asked.
+
+“She is Frankland’s daughter.”
+
+“What! Old Frankland the crank?”
+
+“Exactly. She married an artist named Lyons, who came sketching on the
+moor. He proved to be a blackguard and deserted her. The fault from what
+I hear may not have been entirely on one side. Her father refused to
+have anything to do with her because she had married without his consent
+and perhaps for one or two other reasons as well. So, between the old
+sinner and the young one the girl has had a pretty bad time.”
+
+“How does she live?”
+
+“I fancy old Frankland allows her a pittance, but it cannot be more,
+for his own affairs are considerably involved. Whatever she may have
+deserved one could not allow her to go hopelessly to the bad. Her story
+got about, and several of the people here did something to enable her
+to earn an honest living. Stapleton did for one, and Sir Charles for
+another. I gave a trifle myself. It was to set her up in a typewriting
+business.”
+
+He wanted to know the object of my inquiries, but I managed to satisfy
+his curiosity without telling him too much, for there is no reason why
+we should take anyone into our confidence. Tomorrow morning I shall
+find my way to Coombe Tracey, and if I can see this Mrs. Laura Lyons, of
+equivocal reputation, a long step will have been made towards clearing
+one incident in this chain of mysteries. I am certainly developing the
+wisdom of the serpent, for when Mortimer pressed his questions to an
+inconvenient extent I asked him casually to what type Frankland’s skull
+belonged, and so heard nothing but craniology for the rest of our drive.
+I have not lived for years with Sherlock Holmes for nothing.
+
+I have only one other incident to record upon this tempestuous and
+melancholy day. This was my conversation with Barrymore just now, which
+gives me one more strong card which I can play in due time.
+
+Mortimer had stayed to dinner, and he and the baronet played ecarte
+afterwards. The butler brought me my coffee into the library, and I took
+the chance to ask him a few questions.
+
+“Well,” said I, “has this precious relation of yours departed, or is he
+still lurking out yonder?”
+
+“I don’t know, sir. I hope to heaven that he has gone, for he has
+brought nothing but trouble here! I’ve not heard of him since I left out
+food for him last, and that was three days ago.”
+
+“Did you see him then?”
+
+“No, sir, but the food was gone when next I went that way.”
+
+“Then he was certainly there?”
+
+“So you would think, sir, unless it was the other man who took it.”
+
+I sat with my coffee-cup halfway to my lips and stared at Barrymore.
+
+“You know that there is another man then?”
+
+“Yes, sir; there is another man upon the moor.”
+
+“Have you seen him?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“How do you know of him then?”
+
+“Selden told me of him, sir, a week ago or more. He’s in hiding, too,
+but he’s not a convict as far as I can make out. I don’t like it, Dr.
+Watson--I tell you straight, sir, that I don’t like it.” He spoke with a
+sudden passion of earnestness.
+
+“Now, listen to me, Barrymore! I have no interest in this matter but
+that of your master. I have come here with no object except to help him.
+Tell me, frankly, what it is that you don’t like.”
+
+Barrymore hesitated for a moment, as if he regretted his outburst or
+found it difficult to express his own feelings in words.
+
+“It’s all these goings-on, sir,” he cried at last, waving his hand
+towards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor. “There’s foul play
+somewhere, and there’s black villainy brewing, to that I’ll swear!
+Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry on his way back to London
+again!”
+
+“But what is it that alarms you?”
+
+“Look at Sir Charles’s death! That was bad enough, for all that the
+coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor at night. There’s not a
+man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it. Look at this
+stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! What’s he waiting
+for? What does it mean? It means no good to anyone of the name of
+Baskerville, and very glad I shall be to be quit of it all on the day
+that Sir Henry’s new servants are ready to take over the Hall.”
+
+“But about this stranger,” said I. “Can you tell me anything about
+him? What did Selden say? Did he find out where he hid, or what he was
+doing?”
+
+“He saw him once or twice, but he is a deep one and gives nothing away.
+At first he thought that he was the police, but soon he found that he
+had some lay of his own. A kind of gentleman he was, as far as he could
+see, but what he was doing he could not make out.”
+
+“And where did he say that he lived?”
+
+“Among the old houses on the hillside--the stone huts where the old folk
+used to live.”
+
+“But how about his food?”
+
+“Selden found out that he has got a lad who works for him and brings all
+he needs. I dare say he goes to Coombe Tracey for what he wants.”
+
+“Very good, Barrymore. We may talk further of this some other time.”
+ When the butler had gone I walked over to the black window, and I looked
+through a blurred pane at the driving clouds and at the tossing outline
+of the wind-swept trees. It is a wild night indoors, and what must it
+be in a stone hut upon the moor. What passion of hatred can it be which
+leads a man to lurk in such a place at such a time! And what deep and
+earnest purpose can he have which calls for such a trial! There, in that
+hut upon the moor, seems to lie the very centre of that problem which
+has vexed me so sorely. I swear that another day shall not have passed
+before I have done all that man can do to reach the heart of the
+mystery.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 11. The Man on the Tor
+
+
+
+The extract from my private diary which forms the last chapter has
+brought my narrative up to the eighteenth of October, a time when these
+strange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible conclusion.
+The incidents of the next few days are indelibly graven upon my
+recollection, and I can tell them without reference to the notes made
+at the time. I start them from the day which succeeded that upon which
+I had established two facts of great importance, the one that Mrs. Laura
+Lyons of Coombe Tracey had written to Sir Charles Baskerville and made
+an appointment with him at the very place and hour that he met his
+death, the other that the lurking man upon the moor was to be found
+among the stone huts upon the hillside. With these two facts in my
+possession I felt that either my intelligence or my courage must be
+deficient if I could not throw some further light upon these dark
+places.
+
+I had no opportunity to tell the baronet what I had learned about Mrs.
+Lyons upon the evening before, for Dr. Mortimer remained with him at
+cards until it was very late. At breakfast, however, I informed him
+about my discovery and asked him whether he would care to accompany
+me to Coombe Tracey. At first he was very eager to come, but on second
+thoughts it seemed to both of us that if I went alone the results might
+be better. The more formal we made the visit the less information we
+might obtain. I left Sir Henry behind, therefore, not without some
+prickings of conscience, and drove off upon my new quest.
+
+When I reached Coombe Tracey I told Perkins to put up the horses, and
+I made inquiries for the lady whom I had come to interrogate. I had no
+difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well appointed.
+A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the sitting-room
+a lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter, sprang up with a
+pleasant smile of welcome. Her face fell, however, when she saw that
+I was a stranger, and she sat down again and asked me the object of my
+visit.
+
+The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty. Her
+eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks, though
+considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the
+brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose.
+Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second was
+criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some
+coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness
+of lip which marred its perfect beauty. But these, of course, are
+afterthoughts. At the moment I was simply conscious that I was in
+the presence of a very handsome woman, and that she was asking me the
+reasons for my visit. I had not quite understood until that instant how
+delicate my mission was.
+
+“I have the pleasure,” said I, “of knowing your father.”
+
+It was a clumsy introduction, and the lady made me feel it. “There
+is nothing in common between my father and me,” she said. “I owe him
+nothing, and his friends are not mine. If it were not for the late Sir
+Charles Baskerville and some other kind hearts I might have starved for
+all that my father cared.”
+
+“It was about the late Sir Charles Baskerville that I have come here to
+see you.”
+
+The freckles started out on the lady’s face.
+
+“What can I tell you about him?” she asked, and her fingers played
+nervously over the stops of her typewriter.
+
+“You knew him, did you not?”
+
+“I have already said that I owe a great deal to his kindness. If I am
+able to support myself it is largely due to the interest which he took
+in my unhappy situation.”
+
+“Did you correspond with him?”
+
+The lady looked quickly up with an angry gleam in her hazel eyes.
+
+“What is the object of these questions?” she asked sharply.
+
+“The object is to avoid a public scandal. It is better that I should ask
+them here than that the matter should pass outside our control.”
+
+She was silent and her face was still very pale. At last she looked up
+with something reckless and defiant in her manner.
+
+“Well, I’ll answer,” she said. “What are your questions?”
+
+“Did you correspond with Sir Charles?”
+
+“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy and
+his generosity.”
+
+“Have you the dates of those letters?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Have you ever met him?”
+
+“Yes, once or twice, when he came into Coombe Tracey. He was a very
+retiring man, and he preferred to do good by stealth.”
+
+“But if you saw him so seldom and wrote so seldom, how did he know
+enough about your affairs to be able to help you, as you say that he has
+done?”
+
+She met my difficulty with the utmost readiness.
+
+“There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to
+help me. One was Mr. Stapleton, a neighbour and intimate friend of Sir
+Charles’s. He was exceedingly kind, and it was through him that Sir
+Charles learned about my affairs.”
+
+I knew already that Sir Charles Baskerville had made Stapleton his
+almoner upon several occasions, so the lady’s statement bore the impress
+of truth upon it.
+
+“Did you ever write to Sir Charles asking him to meet you?” I continued.
+
+Mrs. Lyons flushed with anger again. “Really, sir, this is a very
+extraordinary question.”
+
+“I am sorry, madam, but I must repeat it.”
+
+“Then I answer, certainly not.”
+
+“Not on the very day of Sir Charles’s death?”
+
+The flush had faded in an instant, and a deathly face was before me. Her
+dry lips could not speak the “No” which I saw rather than heard.
+
+“Surely your memory deceives you,” said I. “I could even quote a passage
+of your letter. It ran ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn
+this letter, and be at the gate by ten o’clock.’”
+
+I thought that she had fainted, but she recovered herself by a supreme
+effort.
+
+“Is there no such thing as a gentleman?” she gasped.
+
+“You do Sir Charles an injustice. He did burn the letter. But sometimes
+a letter may be legible even when burned. You acknowledge now that you
+wrote it?”
+
+“Yes, I did write it,” she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent of
+words. “I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have no reason to be
+ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I believed that if I had an
+interview I could gain his help, so I asked him to meet me.”
+
+“But why at such an hour?”
+
+“Because I had only just learned that he was going to London next day
+and might be away for months. There were reasons why I could not get
+there earlier.”
+
+“But why a rendezvous in the garden instead of a visit to the house?”
+
+“Do you think a woman could go alone at that hour to a bachelor’s
+house?”
+
+“Well, what happened when you did get there?”
+
+“I never went.”
+
+“Mrs. Lyons!”
+
+“No, I swear it to you on all I hold sacred. I never went. Something
+intervened to prevent my going.”
+
+“What was that?”
+
+“That is a private matter. I cannot tell it.”
+
+“You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir Charles at
+the very hour and place at which he met his death, but you deny that you
+kept the appointment.”
+
+“That is the truth.”
+
+Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get past that
+point.
+
+“Mrs. Lyons,” said I as I rose from this long and inconclusive
+interview, “you are taking a very great responsibility and putting
+yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean
+breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of the police
+you will find how seriously you are compromised. If your position is
+innocent, why did you in the first instance deny having written to Sir
+Charles upon that date?”
+
+“Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from it and
+that I might find myself involved in a scandal.”
+
+“And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy your
+letter?”
+
+“If you have read the letter you will know.”
+
+“I did not say that I had read all the letter.”
+
+“You quoted some of it.”
+
+“I quoted the postscript. The letter had, as I said, been burned and it
+was not all legible. I ask you once again why it was that you were so
+pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this letter which he received
+on the day of his death.”
+
+“The matter is a very private one.”
+
+“The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation.”
+
+“I will tell you, then. If you have heard anything of my unhappy history
+you will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason to regret it.”
+
+“I have heard so much.”
+
+“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor.
+The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the possibility
+that he may force me to live with him. At the time that I wrote this
+letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a prospect of
+my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met. It meant
+everything to me--peace of mind, happiness, self-respect--everything. I
+knew Sir Charles’s generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story
+from my own lips he would help me.”
+
+“Then how is it that you did not go?”
+
+“Because I received help in the interval from another source.”
+
+“Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?”
+
+“So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next
+morning.”
+
+The woman’s story hung coherently together, and all my questions were
+unable to shake it. I could only check it by finding if she had, indeed,
+instituted divorce proceedings against her husband at or about the time
+of the tragedy.
+
+It was unlikely that she would dare to say that she had not been to
+Baskerville Hall if she really had been, for a trap would be necessary
+to take her there, and could not have returned to Coombe Tracey until
+the early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could not be kept
+secret. The probability was, therefore, that she was telling the truth,
+or, at least, a part of the truth. I came away baffled and disheartened.
+Once again I had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across
+every path by which I tried to get at the object of my mission. And yet
+the more I thought of the lady’s face and of her manner the more I felt
+that something was being held back from me. Why should she turn so pale?
+Why should she fight against every admission until it was forced from
+her? Why should she have been so reticent at the time of the tragedy?
+Surely the explanation of all this could not be as innocent as she
+would have me believe. For the moment I could proceed no farther in that
+direction, but must turn back to that other clue which was to be sought
+for among the stone huts upon the moor.
+
+And that was a most vague direction. I realized it as I drove back
+and noted how hill after hill showed traces of the ancient people.
+Barrymore’s only indication had been that the stranger lived in one of
+these abandoned huts, and many hundreds of them are scattered throughout
+the length and breadth of the moor. But I had my own experience for a
+guide since it had shown me the man himself standing upon the summit of
+the Black Tor. That, then, should be the centre of my search. From there
+I should explore every hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right
+one. If this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at
+the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged
+us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent Street,
+but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor. On the other
+hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I
+must remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had
+missed him in London. It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run
+him to earth where my master had failed.
+
+Luck had been against us again and again in this inquiry, but now at
+last it came to my aid. And the messenger of good fortune was none other
+than Mr. Frankland, who was standing, gray-whiskered and red-faced,
+outside the gate of his garden, which opened on to the highroad along
+which I travelled.
+
+“Good-day, Dr. Watson,” cried he with unwonted good humour, “you must
+really give your horses a rest and come in to have a glass of wine and
+to congratulate me.”
+
+My feelings towards him were very far from being friendly after what I
+had heard of his treatment of his daughter, but I was anxious to send
+Perkins and the wagonette home, and the opportunity was a good one. I
+alighted and sent a message to Sir Henry that I should walk over in time
+for dinner. Then I followed Frankland into his dining-room.
+
+“It is a great day for me, sir--one of the red-letter days of my life,”
+ he cried with many chuckles. “I have brought off a double event. I mean
+to teach them in these parts that law is law, and that there is a man
+here who does not fear to invoke it. I have established a right of way
+through the centre of old Middleton’s park, slap across it, sir, within
+a hundred yards of his own front door. What do you think of that? We’ll
+teach these magnates that they cannot ride roughshod over the rights
+of the commoners, confound them! And I’ve closed the wood where the
+Fernworthy folk used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that
+there are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they like
+with their papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and
+both in my favour. I haven’t had such a day since I had Sir John Morland
+for trespass because he shot in his own warren.”
+
+“How on earth did you do that?”
+
+“Look it up in the books, sir. It will repay reading--Frankland v.
+Morland, Court of Queen’s Bench. It cost me 200 pounds, but I got my
+verdict.”
+
+“Did it do you any good?”
+
+“None, sir, none. I am proud to say that I had no interest in the
+matter. I act entirely from a sense of public duty. I have no doubt, for
+example, that the Fernworthy people will burn me in effigy tonight.
+I told the police last time they did it that they should stop these
+disgraceful exhibitions. The County Constabulary is in a scandalous
+state, sir, and it has not afforded me the protection to which I am
+entitled. The case of Frankland v. Regina will bring the matter before
+the attention of the public. I told them that they would have occasion
+to regret their treatment of me, and already my words have come true.”
+
+“How so?” I asked.
+
+The old man put on a very knowing expression. “Because I could tell them
+what they are dying to know; but nothing would induce me to help the
+rascals in any way.”
+
+I had been casting round for some excuse by which I could get away
+from his gossip, but now I began to wish to hear more of it. I had seen
+enough of the contrary nature of the old sinner to understand that any
+strong sign of interest would be the surest way to stop his confidences.
+
+“Some poaching case, no doubt?” said I with an indifferent manner.
+
+“Ha, ha, my boy, a very much more important matter than that! What about
+the convict on the moor?”
+
+I stared. “You don’t mean that you know where he is?” said I.
+
+“I may not know exactly where he is, but I am quite sure that I could
+help the police to lay their hands on him. Has it never struck you that
+the way to catch that man was to find out where he got his food and so
+trace it to him?”
+
+He certainly seemed to be getting uncomfortably near the truth. “No
+doubt,” said I; “but how do you know that he is anywhere upon the moor?”
+
+“I know it because I have seen with my own eyes the messenger who takes
+him his food.”
+
+My heart sank for Barrymore. It was a serious thing to be in the power
+of this spiteful old busybody. But his next remark took a weight from my
+mind.
+
+“You’ll be surprised to hear that his food is taken to him by a child.
+I see him every day through my telescope upon the roof. He passes along
+the same path at the same hour, and to whom should he be going except to
+the convict?”
+
+Here was luck indeed! And yet I suppressed all appearance of interest. A
+child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied by a boy. It was
+on his track, and not upon the convict’s, that Frankland had stumbled.
+If I could get his knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt. But
+incredulity and indifference were evidently my strongest cards.
+
+“I should say that it was much more likely that it was the son of one of
+the moorland shepherds taking out his father’s dinner.”
+
+The least appearance of opposition struck fire out of the old autocrat.
+His eyes looked malignantly at me, and his gray whiskers bristled like
+those of an angry cat.
+
+“Indeed, sir!” said he, pointing out over the wide-stretching moor. “Do
+you see that Black Tor over yonder? Well, do you see the low hill beyond
+with the thornbush upon it? It is the stoniest part of the whole moor.
+Is that a place where a shepherd would be likely to take his station?
+Your suggestion, sir, is a most absurd one.”
+
+I meekly answered that I had spoken without knowing all the facts. My
+submission pleased him and led him to further confidences.
+
+“You may be sure, sir, that I have very good grounds before I come to an
+opinion. I have seen the boy again and again with his bundle. Every
+day, and sometimes twice a day, I have been able--but wait a moment,
+Dr. Watson. Do my eyes deceive me, or is there at the present moment
+something moving upon that hillside?”
+
+It was several miles off, but I could distinctly see a small dark dot
+against the dull green and gray.
+
+“Come, sir, come!” cried Frankland, rushing upstairs. “You will see with
+your own eyes and judge for yourself.”
+
+The telescope, a formidable instrument mounted upon a tripod, stood upon
+the flat leads of the house. Frankland clapped his eye to it and gave a
+cry of satisfaction.
+
+“Quick, Dr. Watson, quick, before he passes over the hill!”
+
+There he was, sure enough, a small urchin with a little bundle upon his
+shoulder, toiling slowly up the hill. When he reached the crest I saw
+the ragged uncouth figure outlined for an instant against the cold blue
+sky. He looked round him with a furtive and stealthy air, as one who
+dreads pursuit. Then he vanished over the hill.
+
+“Well! Am I right?”
+
+“Certainly, there is a boy who seems to have some secret errand.”
+
+“And what the errand is even a county constable could guess. But not
+one word shall they have from me, and I bind you to secrecy also, Dr.
+Watson. Not a word! You understand!”
+
+“Just as you wish.”
+
+“They have treated me shamefully--shamefully. When the facts come out in
+Frankland v. Regina I venture to think that a thrill of indignation will
+run through the country. Nothing would induce me to help the police in
+any way. For all they cared it might have been me, instead of my effigy,
+which these rascals burned at the stake. Surely you are not going! You
+will help me to empty the decanter in honour of this great occasion!”
+
+But I resisted all his solicitations and succeeded in dissuading him
+from his announced intention of walking home with me. I kept the road
+as long as his eye was on me, and then I struck off across the moor and
+made for the stony hill over which the boy had disappeared. Everything
+was working in my favour, and I swore that it should not be through lack
+of energy or perseverance that I should miss the chance which fortune
+had thrown in my way.
+
+The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the hill, and
+the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and gray
+shadow on the other. A haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line, out of
+which jutted the fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor. Over the
+wide expanse there was no sound and no movement. One great gray bird, a
+gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. He and I seemed to be
+the only living things between the huge arch of the sky and the desert
+beneath it. The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery
+and urgency of my task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy was
+nowhere to be seen. But down beneath me in a cleft of the hills there
+was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle of them there
+was one which retained sufficient roof to act as a screen against the
+weather. My heart leaped within me as I saw it. This must be the burrow
+where the stranger lurked. At last my foot was on the threshold of his
+hiding place--his secret was within my grasp.
+
+As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do when
+with poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I satisfied myself
+that the place had indeed been used as a habitation. A vague pathway
+among the boulders led to the dilapidated opening which served as a
+door. All was silent within. The unknown might be lurking there, or
+he might be prowling on the moor. My nerves tingled with the sense of
+adventure. Throwing aside my cigarette, I closed my hand upon the butt
+of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, I looked in. The
+place was empty.
+
+But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent. This
+was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a waterproof
+lay upon that very stone slab upon which Neolithic man had once
+slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it
+lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of
+empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I
+saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and
+a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of
+the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood
+a small cloth bundle--the same, no doubt, which I had seen through the
+telescope upon the shoulder of the boy. It contained a loaf of bread,
+a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches. As I set it down
+again, after having examined it, my heart leaped to see that beneath it
+there lay a sheet of paper with writing upon it. I raised it, and this
+was what I read, roughly scrawled in pencil: “Dr. Watson has gone to
+Coombe Tracey.”
+
+For a minute I stood there with the paper in my hands thinking out the
+meaning of this curt message. It was I, then, and not Sir Henry, who was
+being dogged by this secret man. He had not followed me himself, but
+he had set an agent--the boy, perhaps--upon my track, and this was his
+report. Possibly I had taken no step since I had been upon the moor
+which had not been observed and reported. Always there was this feeling
+of an unseen force, a fine net drawn round us with infinite skill and
+delicacy, holding us so lightly that it was only at some supreme moment
+that one realized that one was indeed entangled in its meshes.
+
+If there was one report there might be others, so I looked round the hut
+in search of them. There was no trace, however, of anything of the kind,
+nor could I discover any sign which might indicate the character or
+intentions of the man who lived in this singular place, save that he
+must be of Spartan habits and cared little for the comforts of life.
+When I thought of the heavy rains and looked at the gaping roof I
+understood how strong and immutable must be the purpose which had kept
+him in that inhospitable abode. Was he our malignant enemy, or was he by
+chance our guardian angel? I swore that I would not leave the hut until
+I knew.
+
+Outside the sun was sinking low and the west was blazing with scarlet
+and gold. Its reflection was shot back in ruddy patches by the distant
+pools which lay amid the great Grimpen Mire. There were the two towers
+of Baskerville Hall, and there a distant blur of smoke which marked the
+village of Grimpen. Between the two, behind the hill, was the house
+of the Stapletons. All was sweet and mellow and peaceful in the golden
+evening light, and yet as I looked at them my soul shared none of the
+peace of Nature but quivered at the vagueness and the terror of that
+interview which every instant was bringing nearer. With tingling nerves
+but a fixed purpose, I sat in the dark recess of the hut and waited with
+sombre patience for the coming of its tenant.
+
+And then at last I heard him. Far away came the sharp clink of a boot
+striking upon a stone. Then another and yet another, coming nearer and
+nearer. I shrank back into the darkest corner and cocked the pistol in
+my pocket, determined not to discover myself until I had an opportunity
+of seeing something of the stranger. There was a long pause which showed
+that he had stopped. Then once more the footsteps approached and a
+shadow fell across the opening of the hut.
+
+“It is a lovely evening, my dear Watson,” said a well-known voice. “I
+really think that you will be more comfortable outside than in.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 12. Death on the Moor
+
+
+
+For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears.
+Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight
+of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul. That
+cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in all the
+world.
+
+“Holmes!” I cried--“Holmes!”
+
+“Come out,” said he, “and please be careful with the revolver.”
+
+I stooped under the rude lintel, and there he sat upon a stone outside,
+his gray eyes dancing with amusement as they fell upon my astonished
+features. He was thin and worn, but clear and alert, his keen face
+bronzed by the sun and roughened by the wind. In his tweed suit and
+cloth cap he looked like any other tourist upon the moor, and he had
+contrived, with that catlike love of personal cleanliness which was one
+of his characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen
+as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.
+
+“I never was more glad to see anyone in my life,” said I as I wrung him
+by the hand.
+
+“Or more astonished, eh?”
+
+“Well, I must confess to it.”
+
+“The surprise was not all on one side, I assure you. I had no idea that
+you had found my occasional retreat, still less that you were inside it,
+until I was within twenty paces of the door.”
+
+“My footprint, I presume?”
+
+“No, Watson, I fear that I could not undertake to recognize your
+footprint amid all the footprints of the world. If you seriously desire
+to deceive me you must change your tobacconist; for when I see the stub
+of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my friend
+Watson is in the neighbourhood. You will see it there beside the path.
+You threw it down, no doubt, at that supreme moment when you charged
+into the empty hut.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“I thought as much--and knowing your admirable tenacity I was convinced
+that you were sitting in ambush, a weapon within reach, waiting for the
+tenant to return. So you actually thought that I was the criminal?”
+
+“I did not know who you were, but I was determined to find out.”
+
+“Excellent, Watson! And how did you localize me? You saw me, perhaps, on
+the night of the convict hunt, when I was so imprudent as to allow the
+moon to rise behind me?”
+
+“Yes, I saw you then.”
+
+“And have no doubt searched all the huts until you came to this one?”
+
+“No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to
+look.”
+
+“The old gentleman with the telescope, no doubt. I could not make it out
+when first I saw the light flashing upon the lens.” He rose and peeped
+into the hut. “Ha, I see that Cartwright has brought up some supplies.
+What’s this paper? So you have been to Coombe Tracey, have you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“To see Mrs. Laura Lyons?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Well done! Our researches have evidently been running on parallel
+lines, and when we unite our results I expect we shall have a fairly
+full knowledge of the case.”
+
+“Well, I am glad from my heart that you are here, for indeed the
+responsibility and the mystery were both becoming too much for my
+nerves. But how in the name of wonder did you come here, and what have
+you been doing? I thought that you were in Baker Street working out that
+case of blackmailing.”
+
+“That was what I wished you to think.”
+
+“Then you use me, and yet do not trust me!” I cried with some
+bitterness. “I think that I have deserved better at your hands, Holmes.”
+
+“My dear fellow, you have been invaluable to me in this as in many other
+cases, and I beg that you will forgive me if I have seemed to play a
+trick upon you. In truth, it was partly for your own sake that I did it,
+and it was my appreciation of the danger which you ran which led me to
+come down and examine the matter for myself. Had I been with Sir Henry
+and you it is confident that my point of view would have been the
+same as yours, and my presence would have warned our very formidable
+opponents to be on their guard. As it is, I have been able to get about
+as I could not possibly have done had I been living in the Hall, and
+I remain an unknown factor in the business, ready to throw in all my
+weight at a critical moment.”
+
+“But why keep me in the dark?”
+
+“For you to know could not have helped us and might possibly have led
+to my discovery. You would have wished to tell me something, or in your
+kindness you would have brought me out some comfort or other, and so an
+unnecessary risk would be run. I brought Cartwright down with me--you
+remember the little chap at the express office--and he has seen after
+my simple wants: a loaf of bread and a clean collar. What does man want
+more? He has given me an extra pair of eyes upon a very active pair of
+feet, and both have been invaluable.”
+
+“Then my reports have all been wasted!”--My voice trembled as I recalled
+the pains and the pride with which I had composed them.
+
+Holmes took a bundle of papers from his pocket.
+
+“Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I assure
+you. I made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed one day
+upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly upon the zeal and
+the intelligence which you have shown over an extraordinarily difficult
+case.”
+
+I was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised upon
+me, but the warmth of Holmes’s praise drove my anger from my mind. I
+felt also in my heart that he was right in what he said and that it was
+really best for our purpose that I should not have known that he was
+upon the moor.
+
+“That’s better,” said he, seeing the shadow rise from my face. “And
+now tell me the result of your visit to Mrs. Laura Lyons--it was not
+difficult for me to guess that it was to see her that you had gone, for
+I am already aware that she is the one person in Coombe Tracey who might
+be of service to us in the matter. In fact, if you had not gone today it
+is exceedingly probable that I should have gone tomorrow.”
+
+The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. The air had turned
+chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. There, sitting together
+in the twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with the lady. So
+interested was he that I had to repeat some of it twice before he was
+satisfied.
+
+“This is most important,” said he when I had concluded. “It fills up a
+gap which I had been unable to bridge in this most complex affair. You
+are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this lady and
+the man Stapleton?”
+
+“I did not know of a close intimacy.”
+
+“There can be no doubt about the matter. They meet, they write, there
+is a complete understanding between them. Now, this puts a very powerful
+weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to detach his wife--”
+
+“His wife?”
+
+“I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you have
+given me. The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is in reality
+his wife.”
+
+“Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could he have
+permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?”
+
+“Sir Henry’s falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Sir
+Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did not make love to her,
+as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the lady is his wife and
+not his sister.”
+
+“But why this elaborate deception?”
+
+“Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in
+the character of a free woman.”
+
+All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape and
+centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive colourless man, with his
+straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed to see something terrible--a
+creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling face and a
+murderous heart.
+
+“It is he, then, who is our enemy--it is he who dogged us in London?”
+
+“So I read the riddle.”
+
+“And the warning--it must have come from her!”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed
+through the darkness which had girt me so long.
+
+“But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the woman is his
+wife?”
+
+“Because he so far forgot himself as to tell you a true piece of
+autobiography upon the occasion when he first met you, and I dare say
+he has many a time regretted it since. He was once a schoolmaster in
+the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than a
+schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify
+any man who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed me
+that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and that
+the man who had owned it--the name was different--had disappeared with
+his wife. The descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing man
+was devoted to entomology the identification was complete.”
+
+The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.
+
+“If this woman is in truth his wife, where does Mrs. Laura Lyons come
+in?” I asked.
+
+“That is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a
+light. Your interview with the lady has cleared the situation very
+much. I did not know about a projected divorce between herself and her
+husband. In that case, regarding Stapleton as an unmarried man, she
+counted no doubt upon becoming his wife.”
+
+“And when she is undeceived?”
+
+“Why, then we may find the lady of service. It must be our first duty
+to see her--both of us--tomorrow. Don’t you think, Watson, that you are
+away from your charge rather long? Your place should be at Baskerville
+Hall.”
+
+The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled
+upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.
+
+“One last question, Holmes,” I said as I rose. “Surely there is no need
+of secrecy between you and me. What is the meaning of it all? What is he
+after?”
+
+Holmes’s voice sank as he answered:
+
+“It is murder, Watson--refined, cold-blooded, deliberate murder. Do not
+ask me for particulars. My nets are closing upon him, even as his are
+upon Sir Henry, and with your help he is already almost at my mercy.
+There is but one danger which can threaten us. It is that he should
+strike before we are ready to do so. Another day--two at the most--and
+I have my case complete, but until then guard your charge as closely
+as ever a fond mother watched her ailing child. Your mission today has
+justified itself, and yet I could almost wish that you had not left his
+side. Hark!”
+
+A terrible scream--a prolonged yell of horror and anguish--burst out of
+the silence of the moor. That frightful cry turned the blood to ice in
+my veins.
+
+“Oh, my God!” I gasped. “What is it? What does it mean?”
+
+Holmes had sprung to his feet, and I saw his dark, athletic outline at
+the door of the hut, his shoulders stooping, his head thrust forward,
+his face peering into the darkness.
+
+“Hush!” he whispered. “Hush!”
+
+The cry had been loud on account of its vehemence, but it had pealed out
+from somewhere far off on the shadowy plain. Now it burst upon our ears,
+nearer, louder, more urgent than before.
+
+“Where is it?” Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of his voice
+that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul. “Where is it, Watson?”
+
+“There, I think.” I pointed into the darkness.
+
+“No, there!”
+
+Again the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and much
+nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep, muttered
+rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like the low,
+constant murmur of the sea.
+
+“The hound!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we are
+too late!”
+
+He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at his
+heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately in
+front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull, heavy
+thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy silence
+of the windless night.
+
+I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. He
+stamped his feet upon the ground.
+
+“He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late.”
+
+“No, no, surely not!”
+
+“Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes of
+abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened we’ll
+avenge him!”
+
+Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders, forcing
+our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing down slopes,
+heading always in the direction whence those dreadful sounds had come.
+At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but the shadows were
+thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its dreary face.
+
+“Can you see anything?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“But, hark, what is that?”
+
+A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There it was again upon our left!
+On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which overlooked
+a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was spread-eagled some dark,
+irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague outline hardened into
+a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward upon the ground,
+the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded
+and the body hunched together as if in the act of throwing a somersault.
+So grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant realize
+that that moan had been the passing of his soul. Not a whisper, not a
+rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we stooped. Holmes laid
+his hand upon him and held it up again with an exclamation of horror.
+The gleam of the match which he struck shone upon his clotted fingers
+and upon the ghastly pool which widened slowly from the crushed skull
+of the victim. And it shone upon something else which turned our hearts
+sick and faint within us--the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!
+
+There was no chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy tweed
+suit--the very one which he had worn on the first morning that we had
+seen him in Baker Street. We caught the one clear glimpse of it, and
+then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had gone out
+of our souls. Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white through the
+darkness.
+
+“The brute! The brute!” I cried with clenched hands. “Oh Holmes, I shall
+never forgive myself for having left him to his fate.”
+
+“I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case well
+rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life of my client. It is
+the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. But how could I
+know--how could I know--that he would risk his life alone upon the moor
+in the face of all my warnings?”
+
+“That we should have heard his screams--my God, those screams!--and yet
+have been unable to save him! Where is this brute of a hound which drove
+him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks at this instant.
+And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for this deed.”
+
+“He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been murdered--the
+one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast which he thought
+to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in his wild flight to
+escape from it. But now we have to prove the connection between the
+man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the
+existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has evidently died from the
+fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power
+before another day is past!”
+
+We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body,
+overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought
+all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then as the moon
+rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor friend had
+fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy moor, half
+silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen,
+a single steady yellow light was shining. It could only come from the
+lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a bitter curse I shook my fist at
+it as I gazed.
+
+“Why should we not seize him at once?”
+
+“Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the last
+degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we make one
+false move the villain may escape us yet.”
+
+“What can we do?”
+
+“There will be plenty for us to do tomorrow. Tonight we can only perform
+the last offices to our poor friend.”
+
+Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached the
+body, black and clear against the silvered stones. The agony of those
+contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with
+tears.
+
+“We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to the
+Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?”
+
+He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing and
+laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained
+friend? These were hidden fires, indeed!
+
+“A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!”
+
+“A beard?”
+
+“It is not the baronet--it is--why, it is my neighbour, the convict!”
+
+With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping beard
+was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no doubt about
+the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed the same
+face which had glared upon me in the light of the candle from over the
+rock--the face of Selden, the criminal.
+
+Then in an instant it was all clear to me. I remembered how the baronet
+had told me that he had handed his old wardrobe to Barrymore. Barrymore
+had passed it on in order to help Selden in his escape. Boots, shirt,
+cap--it was all Sir Henry’s. The tragedy was still black enough, but
+this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his country. I told
+Holmes how the matter stood, my heart bubbling over with thankfulness
+and joy.
+
+“Then the clothes have been the poor devil’s death,” said he. “It is
+clear enough that the hound has been laid on from some article of
+Sir Henry’s--the boot which was abstracted in the hotel, in all
+probability--and so ran this man down. There is one very singular thing,
+however: How came Selden, in the darkness, to know that the hound was on
+his trail?”
+
+“He heard him.”
+
+“To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this
+convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture
+by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have run a long way
+after he knew the animal was on his track. How did he know?”
+
+“A greater mystery to me is why this hound, presuming that all our
+conjectures are correct--”
+
+“I presume nothing.”
+
+“Well, then, why this hound should be loose tonight. I suppose that it
+does not always run loose upon the moor. Stapleton would not let it go
+unless he had reason to think that Sir Henry would be there.”
+
+“My difficulty is the more formidable of the two, for I think that we
+shall very shortly get an explanation of yours, while mine may remain
+forever a mystery. The question now is, what shall we do with this poor
+wretch’s body? We cannot leave it here to the foxes and the ravens.”
+
+“I suggest that we put it in one of the huts until we can communicate
+with the police.”
+
+“Exactly. I have no doubt that you and I could carry it so far. Halloa,
+Watson, what’s this? It’s the man himself, by all that’s wonderful and
+audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions--not a word, or my plans
+crumble to the ground.”
+
+A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw the dull red glow
+of a cigar. The moon shone upon him, and I could distinguish the dapper
+shape and jaunty walk of the naturalist. He stopped when he saw us, and
+then came on again.
+
+“Why, Dr. Watson, that’s not you, is it? You are the last man that I
+should have expected to see out on the moor at this time of night. But,
+dear me, what’s this? Somebody hurt? Not--don’t tell me that it is our
+friend Sir Henry!” He hurried past me and stooped over the dead man. I
+heard a sharp intake of his breath and the cigar fell from his fingers.
+
+“Who--who’s this?” he stammered.
+
+“It is Selden, the man who escaped from Princetown.”
+
+Stapleton turned a ghastly face upon us, but by a supreme effort he had
+overcome his amazement and his disappointment. He looked sharply from
+Holmes to me. “Dear me! What a very shocking affair! How did he die?”
+
+“He appears to have broken his neck by falling over these rocks. My
+friend and I were strolling on the moor when we heard a cry.”
+
+“I heard a cry also. That was what brought me out. I was uneasy about
+Sir Henry.”
+
+“Why about Sir Henry in particular?” I could not help asking.
+
+“Because I had suggested that he should come over. When he did not come
+I was surprised, and I naturally became alarmed for his safety when I
+heard cries upon the moor. By the way”--his eyes darted again from my
+face to Holmes’s--“did you hear anything else besides a cry?”
+
+“No,” said Holmes; “did you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What do you mean, then?”
+
+“Oh, you know the stories that the peasants tell about a phantom
+hound, and so on. It is said to be heard at night upon the moor. I was
+wondering if there were any evidence of such a sound tonight.”
+
+“We heard nothing of the kind,” said I.
+
+“And what is your theory of this poor fellow’s death?”
+
+“I have no doubt that anxiety and exposure have driven him off his head.
+He has rushed about the moor in a crazy state and eventually fallen over
+here and broken his neck.”
+
+“That seems the most reasonable theory,” said Stapleton, and he gave a
+sigh which I took to indicate his relief. “What do you think about it,
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+My friend bowed his compliments. “You are quick at identification,” said
+he.
+
+“We have been expecting you in these parts since Dr. Watson came down.
+You are in time to see a tragedy.”
+
+“Yes, indeed. I have no doubt that my friend’s explanation will cover
+the facts. I will take an unpleasant remembrance back to London with me
+tomorrow.”
+
+“Oh, you return tomorrow?”
+
+“That is my intention.”
+
+“I hope your visit has cast some light upon those occurrences which have
+puzzled us?”
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“One cannot always have the success for which one hopes. An investigator
+needs facts and not legends or rumours. It has not been a satisfactory
+case.”
+
+My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner. Stapleton
+still looked hard at him. Then he turned to me.
+
+“I would suggest carrying this poor fellow to my house, but it would
+give my sister such a fright that I do not feel justified in doing it.
+I think that if we put something over his face he will be safe until
+morning.”
+
+And so it was arranged. Resisting Stapleton’s offer of hospitality,
+Holmes and I set off to Baskerville Hall, leaving the naturalist to
+return alone. Looking back we saw the figure moving slowly away over the
+broad moor, and behind him that one black smudge on the silvered slope
+which showed where the man was lying who had come so horribly to his
+end.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 13. Fixing the Nets
+
+
+
+“We’re at close grips at last,” said Holmes as we walked together across
+the moor. “What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself together
+in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when he found that
+the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. I told you in London,
+Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never had a foeman more
+worthy of our steel.”
+
+“I am sorry that he has seen you.”
+
+“And so was I at first. But there was no getting out of it.”
+
+“What effect do you think it will have upon his plans now that he knows
+you are here?”
+
+“It may cause him to be more cautious, or it may drive him to desperate
+measures at once. Like most clever criminals, he may be too confident in
+his own cleverness and imagine that he has completely deceived us.”
+
+“Why should we not arrest him at once?”
+
+“My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your instinct is
+always to do something energetic. But supposing, for argument’s sake,
+that we had him arrested tonight, what on earth the better off should
+we be for that? We could prove nothing against him. There’s the devilish
+cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent we could get some
+evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it
+would not help us in putting a rope round the neck of its master.”
+
+“Surely we have a case.”
+
+“Not a shadow of one--only surmise and conjecture. We should be laughed
+out of court if we came with such a story and such evidence.”
+
+“There is Sir Charles’s death.”
+
+“Found dead without a mark upon him. You and I know that he died of
+sheer fright, and we know also what frightened him, but how are we to
+get twelve stolid jurymen to know it? What signs are there of a hound?
+Where are the marks of its fangs? Of course we know that a hound does
+not bite a dead body and that Sir Charles was dead before ever the
+brute overtook him. But we have to prove all this, and we are not in a
+position to do it.”
+
+“Well, then, tonight?”
+
+“We are not much better off tonight. Again, there was no direct
+connection between the hound and the man’s death. We never saw the
+hound. We heard it, but we could not prove that it was running upon this
+man’s trail. There is a complete absence of motive. No, my dear fellow;
+we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case at present,
+and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order to establish
+one.”
+
+“And how do you propose to do so?”
+
+“I have great hopes of what Mrs. Laura Lyons may do for us when the
+position of affairs is made clear to her. And I have my own plan as
+well. Sufficient for tomorrow is the evil thereof; but I hope before the
+day is past to have the upper hand at last.”
+
+I could draw nothing further from him, and he walked, lost in thought,
+as far as the Baskerville gates.
+
+“Are you coming up?”
+
+“Yes; I see no reason for further concealment. But one last word,
+Watson. Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry. Let him think that
+Selden’s death was as Stapleton would have us believe. He will have a
+better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo tomorrow,
+when he is engaged, if I remember your report aright, to dine with these
+people.”
+
+“And so am I.”
+
+“Then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone. That will be easily
+arranged. And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think that we are
+both ready for our suppers.”
+
+Sir Henry was more pleased than surprised to see Sherlock Holmes, for he
+had for some days been expecting that recent events would bring him down
+from London. He did raise his eyebrows, however, when he found that my
+friend had neither any luggage nor any explanations for its absence.
+Between us we soon supplied his wants, and then over a belated supper
+we explained to the baronet as much of our experience as it seemed
+desirable that he should know. But first I had the unpleasant duty of
+breaking the news to Barrymore and his wife. To him it may have been an
+unmitigated relief, but she wept bitterly in her apron. To all the world
+he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he
+always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who
+had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to
+mourn him.
+
+“I’ve been moping in the house all day since Watson went off in the
+morning,” said the baronet. “I guess I should have some credit, for I
+have kept my promise. If I hadn’t sworn not to go about alone I might
+have had a more lively evening, for I had a message from Stapleton
+asking me over there.”
+
+“I have no doubt that you would have had a more lively evening,” said
+Holmes drily. “By the way, I don’t suppose you appreciate that we have
+been mourning over you as having broken your neck?”
+
+Sir Henry opened his eyes. “How was that?”
+
+“This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes. I fear your servant who
+gave them to him may get into trouble with the police.”
+
+“That is unlikely. There was no mark on any of them, as far as I know.”
+
+“That’s lucky for him--in fact, it’s lucky for all of you, since you are
+all on the wrong side of the law in this matter. I am not sure that as
+a conscientious detective my first duty is not to arrest the whole
+household. Watson’s reports are most incriminating documents.”
+
+“But how about the case?” asked the baronet. “Have you made anything out
+of the tangle? I don’t know that Watson and I are much the wiser since
+we came down.”
+
+“I think that I shall be in a position to make the situation rather more
+clear to you before long. It has been an exceedingly difficult and most
+complicated business. There are several points upon which we still want
+light--but it is coming all the same.”
+
+“We’ve had one experience, as Watson has no doubt told you. We heard the
+hound on the moor, so I can swear that it is not all empty superstition.
+I had something to do with dogs when I was out West, and I know one when
+I hear one. If you can muzzle that one and put him on a chain I’ll be
+ready to swear you are the greatest detective of all time.”
+
+“I think I will muzzle him and chain him all right if you will give me
+your help.”
+
+“Whatever you tell me to do I will do.”
+
+“Very good; and I will ask you also to do it blindly, without always
+asking the reason.”
+
+“Just as you like.”
+
+“If you will do this I think the chances are that our little problem
+will soon be solved. I have no doubt--”
+
+He stopped suddenly and stared fixedly up over my head into the air. The
+lamp beat upon his face, and so intent was it and so still that it might
+have been that of a clear-cut classical statue, a personification of
+alertness and expectation.
+
+“What is it?” we both cried.
+
+I could see as he looked down that he was repressing some internal
+emotion. His features were still composed, but his eyes shone with
+amused exultation.
+
+“Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur,” said he as he waved his hand
+towards the line of portraits which covered the opposite wall. “Watson
+won’t allow that I know anything of art but that is mere jealousy
+because our views upon the subject differ. Now, these are a really very
+fine series of portraits.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Sir Henry, glancing with some
+surprise at my friend. “I don’t pretend to know much about these things,
+and I’d be a better judge of a horse or a steer than of a picture. I
+didn’t know that you found time for such things.”
+
+“I know what is good when I see it, and I see it now. That’s a Kneller,
+I’ll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the stout
+gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds. They are all family
+portraits, I presume?”
+
+“Every one.”
+
+“Do you know the names?”
+
+“Barrymore has been coaching me in them, and I think I can say my
+lessons fairly well.”
+
+“Who is the gentleman with the telescope?”
+
+“That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the West
+Indies. The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir William
+Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons
+under Pitt.”
+
+“And this Cavalier opposite to me--the one with the black velvet and the
+lace?”
+
+“Ah, you have a right to know about him. That is the cause of all the
+mischief, the wicked Hugo, who started the Hound of the Baskervilles.
+We’re not likely to forget him.”
+
+I gazed with interest and some surprise upon the portrait.
+
+“Dear me!” said Holmes, “he seems a quiet, meek-mannered man enough, but
+I dare say that there was a lurking devil in his eyes. I had pictured
+him as a more robust and ruffianly person.”
+
+“There’s no doubt about the authenticity, for the name and the date,
+1647, are on the back of the canvas.”
+
+Holmes said little more, but the picture of the old roysterer seemed to
+have a fascination for him, and his eyes were continually fixed upon it
+during supper. It was not until later, when Sir Henry had gone to his
+room, that I was able to follow the trend of his thoughts. He led me
+back into the banqueting-hall, his bedroom candle in his hand, and he
+held it up against the time-stained portrait on the wall.
+
+“Do you see anything there?”
+
+I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the white lace
+collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed between them. It
+was not a brutal countenance, but it was prim, hard, and stern, with a
+firm-set, thin-lipped mouth, and a coldly intolerant eye.
+
+“Is it like anyone you know?”
+
+“There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.”
+
+“Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait an instant!” He stood upon a
+chair, and, holding up the light in his left hand, he curved his right
+arm over the broad hat and round the long ringlets.
+
+“Good heavens!” I cried in amazement.
+
+The face of Stapleton had sprung out of the canvas.
+
+“Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not
+their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that
+he should see through a disguise.”
+
+“But this is marvellous. It might be his portrait.”
+
+“Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be
+both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is enough
+to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. The fellow is a
+Baskerville--that is evident.”
+
+“With designs upon the succession.”
+
+“Exactly. This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of our
+most obvious missing links. We have him, Watson, we have him, and I dare
+swear that before tomorrow night he will be fluttering in our net as
+helpless as one of his own butterflies. A pin, a cork, and a card, and
+we add him to the Baker Street collection!” He burst into one of his
+rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not
+heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.
+
+I was up betimes in the morning, but Holmes was afoot earlier still, for
+I saw him as I dressed, coming up the drive.
+
+“Yes, we should have a full day today,” he remarked, and he rubbed his
+hands with the joy of action. “The nets are all in place, and the drag
+is about to begin. We’ll know before the day is out whether we have
+caught our big, leanjawed pike, or whether he has got through the
+meshes.”
+
+“Have you been on the moor already?”
+
+“I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death of
+Selden. I think I can promise that none of you will be troubled in the
+matter. And I have also communicated with my faithful Cartwright, who
+would certainly have pined away at the door of my hut, as a dog does at
+his master’s grave, if I had not set his mind at rest about my safety.”
+
+“What is the next move?”
+
+“To see Sir Henry. Ah, here he is!”
+
+“Good-morning, Holmes,” said the baronet. “You look like a general who
+is planning a battle with his chief of the staff.”
+
+“That is the exact situation. Watson was asking for orders.”
+
+“And so do I.”
+
+“Very good. You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with our friends
+the Stapletons tonight.”
+
+“I hope that you will come also. They are very hospitable people, and I
+am sure that they would be very glad to see you.”
+
+“I fear that Watson and I must go to London.”
+
+“To London?”
+
+“Yes, I think that we should be more useful there at the present
+juncture.”
+
+The baronet’s face perceptibly lengthened.
+
+“I hoped that you were going to see me through this business. The Hall
+and the moor are not very pleasant places when one is alone.”
+
+“My dear fellow, you must trust me implicitly and do exactly what I tell
+you. You can tell your friends that we should have been happy to have
+come with you, but that urgent business required us to be in town. We
+hope very soon to return to Devonshire. Will you remember to give them
+that message?”
+
+“If you insist upon it.”
+
+“There is no alternative, I assure you.”
+
+I saw by the baronet’s clouded brow that he was deeply hurt by what he
+regarded as our desertion.
+
+“When do you desire to go?” he asked coldly.
+
+“Immediately after breakfast. We will drive in to Coombe Tracey, but
+Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come back to you.
+Watson, you will send a note to Stapleton to tell him that you regret
+that you cannot come.”
+
+“I have a good mind to go to London with you,” said the baronet. “Why
+should I stay here alone?”
+
+“Because it is your post of duty. Because you gave me your word that you
+would do as you were told, and I tell you to stay.”
+
+“All right, then, I’ll stay.”
+
+“One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House. Send back
+your trap, however, and let them know that you intend to walk home.”
+
+“To walk across the moor?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But that is the very thing which you have so often cautioned me not to
+do.”
+
+“This time you may do it with safety. If I had not every confidence in
+your nerve and courage I would not suggest it, but it is essential that
+you should do it.”
+
+“Then I will do it.”
+
+“And as you value your life do not go across the moor in any direction
+save along the straight path which leads from Merripit House to the
+Grimpen Road, and is your natural way home.”
+
+“I will do just what you say.”
+
+“Very good. I should be glad to get away as soon after breakfast as
+possible, so as to reach London in the afternoon.”
+
+I was much astounded by this programme, though I remembered that Holmes
+had said to Stapleton on the night before that his visit would terminate
+next day. It had not crossed my mind however, that he would wish me to
+go with him, nor could I understand how we could both be absent at a
+moment which he himself declared to be critical. There was nothing for
+it, however, but implicit obedience; so we bade good-bye to our rueful
+friend, and a couple of hours afterwards we were at the station of
+Coombe Tracey and had dispatched the trap upon its return journey. A
+small boy was waiting upon the platform.
+
+“Any orders, sir?”
+
+“You will take this train to town, Cartwright. The moment you arrive you
+will send a wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, in my name, to say that if he
+finds the pocketbook which I have dropped he is to send it by registered
+post to Baker Street.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And ask at the station office if there is a message for me.”
+
+The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handed to me. It ran:
+
+Wire received. Coming down with unsigned warrant. Arrive five-forty.
+Lestrade.
+
+“That is in answer to mine of this morning. He is the best of the
+professionals, I think, and we may need his assistance. Now, Watson, I
+think that we cannot employ our time better than by calling upon your
+acquaintance, Mrs. Laura Lyons.”
+
+His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. He would use the
+baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we were really gone,
+while we should actually return at the instant when we were likely to
+be needed. That telegram from London, if mentioned by Sir Henry to the
+Stapletons, must remove the last suspicions from their minds. Already I
+seemed to see our nets drawing closer around that leanjawed pike.
+
+Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened his
+interview with a frankness and directness which considerably amazed her.
+
+“I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the
+late Sir Charles Baskerville,” said he. “My friend here, Dr. Watson,
+has informed me of what you have communicated, and also of what you have
+withheld in connection with that matter.”
+
+“What have I withheld?” she asked defiantly.
+
+“You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate at ten
+o’clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his death. You have
+withheld what the connection is between these events.”
+
+“There is no connection.”
+
+“In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one. But
+I think that we shall succeed in establishing a connection, after all. I
+wish to be perfectly frank with you, Mrs. Lyons. We regard this case as
+one of murder, and the evidence may implicate not only your friend Mr.
+Stapleton but his wife as well.”
+
+The lady sprang from her chair.
+
+“His wife!” she cried.
+
+“The fact is no longer a secret. The person who has passed for his
+sister is really his wife.”
+
+Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands were grasping the arms of her
+chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with the pressure
+of her grip.
+
+“His wife!” she said again. “His wife! He is not a married man.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so--!”
+
+The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words.
+
+“I have come prepared to do so,” said Holmes, drawing several papers
+from his pocket. “Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four
+years ago. It is indorsed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,’ but you will have no
+difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight.
+Here are three written descriptions by trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and
+Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time kept St. Oliver’s private school. Read
+them and see if you can doubt the identity of these people.”
+
+She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set, rigid face
+of a desperate woman.
+
+“Mr. Holmes,” she said, “this man had offered me marriage on condition
+that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied to me, the
+villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of truth has he ever
+told me. And why--why? I imagined that all was for my own sake. But now
+I see that I was never anything but a tool in his hands. Why should I
+preserve faith with him who never kept any with me? Why should I try to
+shield him from the consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you
+like, and there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear
+to you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of any
+harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest friend.”
+
+“I entirely believe you, madam,” said Sherlock Holmes. “The recital of
+these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make it
+easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can check me if I make any
+material mistake. The sending of this letter was suggested to you by
+Stapleton?”
+
+“He dictated it.”
+
+“I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help from
+Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping
+the appointment?”
+
+“He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man
+should find the money for such an object, and that though he was a poor
+man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the obstacles
+which divided us.”
+
+“He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard
+nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with Sir
+Charles?”
+
+“He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I
+should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me
+into remaining silent.”
+
+“Quite so. But you had your suspicions?”
+
+She hesitated and looked down.
+
+“I knew him,” she said. “But if he had kept faith with me I should
+always have done so with him.”
+
+“I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,” said
+Sherlock Holmes. “You have had him in your power and he knew it, and yet
+you are alive. You have been walking for some months very near to the
+edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning now, Mrs. Lyons, and
+it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us again.”
+
+“Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins
+away in front of us,” said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival of
+the express from town. “I shall soon be in the position of being able
+to put into a single connected narrative one of the most singular
+and sensational crimes of modern times. Students of criminology will
+remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little Russia, in the year
+‘66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but
+this case possesses some features which are entirely its own. Even now
+we have no clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very
+much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this
+night.”
+
+The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry
+bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We all three
+shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which
+Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since
+the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember
+the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the
+practical man.
+
+“Anything good?” he asked.
+
+“The biggest thing for years,” said Holmes. “We have two hours before
+we need think of starting. I think we might employ it in getting some
+dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London fog out of your
+throat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of Dartmoor. Never
+been there? Ah, well, I don’t suppose you will forget your first visit.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 14. The Hound of the Baskervilles
+
+
+
+One of Sherlock Holmes’s defects--if, indeed, one may call it a
+defect--was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans
+to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it
+came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and
+surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional
+caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result, however,
+was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants.
+I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that long
+drive in the darkness. The great ordeal was in front of us; at last we
+were about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing,
+and I could only surmise what his course of action would be. My nerves
+thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon our faces and
+the dark, void spaces on either side of the narrow road told me that we
+were back upon the moor once again. Every stride of the horses and every
+turn of the wheels was taking us nearer to our supreme adventure.
+
+Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of the hired
+wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial matters when our
+nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation. It was a relief to me,
+after that unnatural restraint, when we at last passed Frankland’s
+house and knew that we were drawing near to the Hall and to the scene
+of action. We did not drive up to the door but got down near the gate of
+the avenue. The wagonette was paid off and ordered to return to Coombe
+Tracey forthwith, while we started to walk to Merripit House.
+
+“Are you armed, Lestrade?”
+
+The little detective smiled. “As long as I have my trousers I have a
+hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have something in it.”
+
+“Good! My friend and I are also ready for emergencies.”
+
+“You’re mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes. What’s the game
+now?”
+
+“A waiting game.”
+
+“My word, it does not seem a very cheerful place,” said the detective
+with a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes of the hill and
+at the huge lake of fog which lay over the Grimpen Mire. “I see the
+lights of a house ahead of us.”
+
+“That is Merripit House and the end of our journey. I must request you
+to walk on tiptoe and not to talk above a whisper.”
+
+We moved cautiously along the track as if we were bound for the house,
+but Holmes halted us when we were about two hundred yards from it.
+
+“This will do,” said he. “These rocks upon the right make an admirable
+screen.”
+
+“We are to wait here?”
+
+“Yes, we shall make our little ambush here. Get into this hollow,
+Lestrade. You have been inside the house, have you not, Watson? Can you
+tell the position of the rooms? What are those latticed windows at this
+end?”
+
+“I think they are the kitchen windows.”
+
+“And the one beyond, which shines so brightly?”
+
+“That is certainly the dining-room.”
+
+“The blinds are up. You know the lie of the land best. Creep forward
+quietly and see what they are doing--but for heaven’s sake don’t let
+them know that they are watched!”
+
+I tiptoed down the path and stooped behind the low wall which surrounded
+the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadow I reached a point whence I
+could look straight through the uncurtained window.
+
+There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton. They sat
+with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table. Both
+of them were smoking cigars, and coffee and wine were in front of them.
+Stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronet looked pale and
+distrait. Perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the ill-omened
+moor was weighing heavily upon his mind.
+
+As I watched them Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir Henry
+filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his
+cigar. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon
+gravel. The steps passed along the path on the other side of the wall
+under which I crouched. Looking over, I saw the naturalist pause at the
+door of an out-house in the corner of the orchard. A key turned in
+a lock, and as he passed in there was a curious scuffling noise from
+within. He was only a minute or so inside, and then I heard the key turn
+once more and he passed me and reentered the house. I saw him rejoin his
+guest, and I crept quietly back to where my companions were waiting to
+tell them what I had seen.
+
+“You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?” Holmes asked when I had
+finished my report.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other room
+except the kitchen?”
+
+“I cannot think where she is.”
+
+I have said that over the great Grimpen Mire there hung a dense, white
+fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked itself up like a
+wall on that side of us, low but thick and well defined. The moon shone
+on it, and it looked like a great shimmering ice-field, with the heads
+of the distant tors as rocks borne upon its surface. Holmes’s face
+was turned towards it, and he muttered impatiently as he watched its
+sluggish drift.
+
+“It’s moving towards us, Watson.”
+
+“Is that serious?”
+
+“Very serious, indeed--the one thing upon earth which could have
+disarranged my plans. He can’t be very long, now. It is already ten
+o’clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his coming out
+before the fog is over the path.”
+
+The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and bright,
+while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light.
+Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof and
+bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky. Broad
+bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across the orchard
+and the moor. One of them was suddenly shut off. The servants had left
+the kitchen. There only remained the lamp in the dining-room where the
+two men, the murderous host and the unconscious guest, still chatted
+over their cigars.
+
+Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one-half of the moor
+was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the first thin
+wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted window.
+The farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and the trees
+were standing out of a swirl of white vapour. As we watched it the
+fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and rolled
+slowly into one dense bank on which the upper floor and the roof
+floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck his hand
+passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his
+impatience.
+
+“If he isn’t out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered. In
+half an hour we won’t be able to see our hands in front of us.”
+
+“Shall we move farther back upon higher ground?”
+
+“Yes, I think it would be as well.”
+
+So as the fog-bank flowed onward we fell back before it until we were
+half a mile from the house, and still that dense white sea, with the
+moon silvering its upper edge, swept slowly and inexorably on.
+
+“We are going too far,” said Holmes. “We dare not take the chance of his
+being overtaken before he can reach us. At all costs we must hold our
+ground where we are.” He dropped on his knees and clapped his ear to the
+ground. “Thank God, I think that I hear him coming.”
+
+A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor. Crouching among
+the stones we stared intently at the silver-tipped bank in front of us.
+The steps grew louder, and through the fog, as through a curtain, there
+stepped the man whom we were awaiting. He looked round him in surprise
+as he emerged into the clear, starlit night. Then he came swiftly along
+the path, passed close to where we lay, and went on up the long slope
+behind us. As he walked he glanced continually over either shoulder,
+like a man who is ill at ease.
+
+“Hist!” cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol.
+“Look out! It’s coming!”
+
+There was a thin, crisp, continuous patter from somewhere in the heart
+of that crawling bank. The cloud was within fifty yards of where we lay,
+and we glared at it, all three, uncertain what horror was about to break
+from the heart of it. I was at Holmes’s elbow, and I glanced for an
+instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly
+in the moonlight. But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed
+stare, and his lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade
+gave a yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground.
+I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed
+by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of
+the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a
+hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its
+eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap
+were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of
+a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more
+hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke
+upon us out of the wall of fog.
+
+With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the track,
+following hard upon the footsteps of our friend. So paralyzed were we by
+the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered our
+nerve. Then Holmes and I both fired together, and the creature gave a
+hideous howl, which showed that one at least had hit him. He did not
+pause, however, but bounded onward. Far away on the path we saw Sir
+Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in
+horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him
+down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the
+winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we
+could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night. I
+am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as I outpaced the
+little professional. In front of us as we flew up the track we heard
+scream after scream from Sir Henry and the deep roar of the hound. I was
+in time to see the beast spring upon its victim, hurl him to the ground,
+and worry at his throat. But the next instant Holmes had emptied five
+barrels of his revolver into the creature’s flank. With a last howl of
+agony and a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet
+pawing furiously, and then fell limp upon its side. I stooped, panting,
+and pressed my pistol to the dreadful, shimmering head, but it was
+useless to press the trigger. The giant hound was dead.
+
+Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen. We tore away his collar,
+and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when we saw that there was
+no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time. Already our
+friend’s eyelids shivered and he made a feeble effort to move. Lestrade
+thrust his brandy-flask between the baronet’s teeth, and two frightened
+eyes were looking up at us.
+
+“My God!” he whispered. “What was it? What, in heaven’s name, was it?”
+
+“It’s dead, whatever it is,” said Holmes. “We’ve laid the family ghost
+once and forever.”
+
+In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying
+stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a pure
+mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of the two--gaunt, savage,
+and as large as a small lioness. Even now in the stillness of death,
+the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and the small,
+deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon the
+glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and
+gleamed in the darkness.
+
+“Phosphorus,” I said.
+
+“A cunning preparation of it,” said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal.
+“There is no smell which might have interfered with his power of scent.
+We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having exposed you to this
+fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such a creature as this.
+And the fog gave us little time to receive him.”
+
+“You have saved my life.”
+
+“Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?”
+
+“Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for
+anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do you propose to do?”
+
+“To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures tonight. If
+you will wait, one or other of us will go back with you to the Hall.”
+
+He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly pale and
+trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock, where he sat shivering
+with his face buried in his hands.
+
+“We must leave you now,” said Holmes. “The rest of our work must be
+done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and now we
+only want our man.
+
+“It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the house,” he
+continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. “Those shots
+must have told him that the game was up.”
+
+“We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.”
+
+“He followed the hound to call him off--of that you may be certain. No,
+no, he’s gone by this time! But we’ll search the house and make sure.”
+
+The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried from room to
+room to the amazement of a doddering old manservant, who met us in the
+passage. There was no light save in the dining-room, but Holmes caught
+up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. No sign could we
+see of the man whom we were chasing. On the upper floor, however, one of
+the bedroom doors was locked.
+
+“There’s someone in here,” cried Lestrade. “I can hear a movement. Open
+this door!”
+
+A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the door
+just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it flew open. Pistol in
+hand, we all three rushed into the room.
+
+But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain
+whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by an object so strange
+and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in amazement.
+
+The room had been fashioned into a small museum, and the walls were
+lined by a number of glass-topped cases full of that collection of
+butterflies and moths the formation of which had been the relaxation of
+this complex and dangerous man. In the centre of this room there was an
+upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a support for the
+old worm-eaten baulk of timber which spanned the roof. To this post a
+figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been
+used to secure it that one could not for the moment tell whether it
+was that of a man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and was
+secured at the back of the pillar. Another covered the lower part of
+the face, and over it two dark eyes--eyes full of grief and shame and a
+dreadful questioning--stared back at us. In a minute we had torn off
+the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in
+front of us. As her beautiful head fell upon her chest I saw the clear
+red weal of a whiplash across her neck.
+
+“The brute!” cried Holmes. “Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle! Put her
+in the chair! She has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.”
+
+She opened her eyes again.
+
+“Is he safe?” she asked. “Has he escaped?”
+
+“He cannot escape us, madam.”
+
+“No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he safe?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the hound?”
+
+“It is dead.”
+
+She gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
+
+“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how he has treated me!”
+ She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with horror that they
+were all mottled with bruises. “But this is nothing--nothing! It is my
+mind and soul that he has tortured and defiled. I could endure it all,
+ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception, everything, as long as I could
+still cling to the hope that I had his love, but now I know that in
+this also I have been his dupe and his tool.” She broke into passionate
+sobbing as she spoke.
+
+“You bear him no good will, madam,” said Holmes. “Tell us then where we
+shall find him. If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so
+atone.”
+
+“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered. “There is
+an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. It was there that
+he kept his hound and there also he had made preparations so that he
+might have a refuge. That is where he would fly.”
+
+The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held the
+lamp towards it.
+
+“See,” said he. “No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire
+tonight.”
+
+She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed with
+fierce merriment.
+
+“He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried. “How can he see the
+guiding wands tonight? We planted them together, he and I, to mark the
+pathway through the mire. Oh, if I could only have plucked them out
+today. Then indeed you would have had him at your mercy!”
+
+It was evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had
+lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house while
+Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville Hall. The story
+of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he took
+the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom he had
+loved. But the shock of the night’s adventures had shattered his nerves,
+and before morning he lay delirious in a high fever under the care of
+Dr. Mortimer. The two of them were destined to travel together round the
+world before Sir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he
+had been before he became master of that ill-omened estate.
+
+And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative, in
+which I have tried to make the reader share those dark fears and vague
+surmises which clouded our lives so long and ended in so tragic a
+manner. On the morning after the death of the hound the fog had lifted
+and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they had found
+a pathway through the bog. It helped us to realize the horror of this
+woman’s life when we saw the eagerness and joy with which she laid us
+on her husband’s track. We left her standing upon the thin peninsula of
+firm, peaty soil which tapered out into the widespread bog. From the
+end of it a small wand planted here and there showed where the path
+zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those green-scummed pits
+and foul quagmires which barred the way to the stranger. Rank reeds and
+lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic
+vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once
+thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft
+undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as
+we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was
+tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was
+the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone
+had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass
+which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. Holmes
+sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it, and had we
+not been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot
+upon firm land again. He held an old black boot in the air. “Meyers,
+Toronto,” was printed on the leather inside.
+
+“It is worth a mud bath,” said he. “It is our friend Sir Henry’s missing
+boot.”
+
+“Thrown there by Stapleton in his flight.”
+
+“Exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound
+upon the track. He fled when he knew the game was up, still clutching
+it. And he hurled it away at this point of his flight. We know at least
+that he came so far in safety.”
+
+But more than that we were never destined to know, though there was much
+which we might surmise. There was no chance of finding footsteps in the
+mire, for the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them, but as we at last
+reached firmer ground beyond the morass we all looked eagerly for them.
+But no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes. If the earth told a
+true story, then Stapleton never reached that island of refuge towards
+which he struggled through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in
+the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the
+huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is
+forever buried.
+
+Many traces we found of him in the bog-girt island where he had hid his
+savage ally. A huge driving-wheel and a shaft half-filled with rubbish
+showed the position of an abandoned mine. Beside it were the crumbling
+remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt by the foul
+reek of the surrounding swamp. In one of these a staple and chain with
+a quantity of gnawed bones showed where the animal had been confined.
+A skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the
+debris.
+
+“A dog!” said Holmes. “By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel. Poor Mortimer
+will never see his pet again. Well, I do not know that this place
+contains any secret which we have not already fathomed. He could hide
+his hound, but he could not hush its voice, and hence came those cries
+which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear. On an emergency he
+could keep the hound in the out-house at Merripit, but it was always a
+risk, and it was only on the supreme day, which he regarded as the end
+of all his efforts, that he dared do it. This paste in the tin is no
+doubt the luminous mixture with which the creature was daubed. It was
+suggested, of course, by the story of the family hell-hound, and by the
+desire to frighten old Sir Charles to death. No wonder the poor devil of
+a convict ran and screamed, even as our friend did, and as we ourselves
+might have done, when he saw such a creature bounding through the
+darkness of the moor upon his track. It was a cunning device, for, apart
+from the chance of driving your victim to his death, what peasant would
+venture to inquire too closely into such a creature should he get sight
+of it, as many have done, upon the moor? I said it in London, Watson,
+and I say it again now, that never yet have we helped to hunt down a
+more dangerous man than he who is lying yonder”--he swept his long arm
+towards the huge mottled expanse of green-splotched bog which stretched
+away until it merged into the russet slopes of the moor.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 15. A Retrospection
+
+
+
+It was the end of November, and Holmes and I sat, upon a raw and foggy
+night, on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting-room in Baker
+Street. Since the tragic upshot of our visit to Devonshire he had been
+engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of which
+he had exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel Upwood in connection
+with the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while in the second
+he had defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge
+of murder which hung over her in connection with the death of her
+step-daughter, Mlle. Carere, the young lady who, as it will be
+remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York.
+My friend was in excellent spirits over the success which had attended
+a succession of difficult and important cases, so that I was able to
+induce him to discuss the details of the Baskerville mystery. I had
+waited patiently for the opportunity for I was aware that he would never
+permit cases to overlap, and that his clear and logical mind would not
+be drawn from its present work to dwell upon memories of the past. Sir
+Henry and Dr. Mortimer were, however, in London, on their way to that
+long voyage which had been recommended for the restoration of his
+shattered nerves. They had called upon us that very afternoon, so that
+it was natural that the subject should come up for discussion.
+
+“The whole course of events,” said Holmes, “from the point of view of
+the man who called himself Stapleton was simple and direct, although
+to us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of
+his actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared
+exceedingly complex. I have had the advantage of two conversations with
+Mrs. Stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up that I
+am not aware that there is anything which has remained a secret to us.
+You will find a few notes upon the matter under the heading B in my
+indexed list of cases.”
+
+“Perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of events from
+memory.”
+
+“Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in my
+mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting out
+what has passed. The barrister who has his case at his fingers’ ends and
+is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject finds that a week
+or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head once more. So
+each of my cases displaces the last, and Mlle. Carere has blurred my
+recollection of Baskerville Hall. Tomorrow some other little problem may
+be submitted to my notice which will in turn dispossess the fair French
+lady and the infamous Upwood. So far as the case of the hound goes,
+however, I will give you the course of events as nearly as I can, and
+you will suggest anything which I may have forgotten.
+
+“My inquiries show beyond all question that the family portrait did not
+lie, and that this fellow was indeed a Baskerville. He was a son of that
+Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with
+a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died
+unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this
+fellow, whose real name is the same as his father’s. He married Beryl
+Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a
+considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and
+fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire.
+His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had
+struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage
+home, and that he had used this man’s ability to make the undertaking a
+success. Fraser, the tutor, died however, and the school which had begun
+well sank from disrepute into infamy. The Vandeleurs found it convenient
+to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his
+fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for entomology to
+the south of England. I learned at the British Museum that he was a
+recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur
+has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his
+Yorkshire days, been the first to describe.
+
+“We now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be of such
+intense interest to us. The fellow had evidently made inquiry and found
+that only two lives intervened between him and a valuable estate. When
+he went to Devonshire his plans were, I believe, exceedingly hazy, but
+that he meant mischief from the first is evident from the way in which
+he took his wife with him in the character of his sister. The idea of
+using her as a decoy was clearly already in his mind, though he may not
+have been certain how the details of his plot were to be arranged. He
+meant in the end to have the estate, and he was ready to use any tool
+or run any risk for that end. His first act was to establish himself as
+near to his ancestral home as he could, and his second was to cultivate
+a friendship with Sir Charles Baskerville and with the neighbours.
+
+“The baronet himself told him about the family hound, and so prepared
+the way for his own death. Stapleton, as I will continue to call him,
+knew that the old man’s heart was weak and that a shock would kill him.
+So much he had learned from Dr. Mortimer. He had heard also that Sir
+Charles was superstitious and had taken this grim legend very seriously.
+His ingenious mind instantly suggested a way by which the baronet could
+be done to death, and yet it would be hardly possible to bring home the
+guilt to the real murderer.
+
+“Having conceived the idea he proceeded to carry it out with
+considerable finesse. An ordinary schemer would have been content
+to work with a savage hound. The use of artificial means to make the
+creature diabolical was a flash of genius upon his part. The dog he
+bought in London from Ross and Mangles, the dealers in Fulham Road. It
+was the strongest and most savage in their possession. He brought it
+down by the North Devon line and walked a great distance over the moor
+so as to get it home without exciting any remarks. He had already on his
+insect hunts learned to penetrate the Grimpen Mire, and so had found a
+safe hiding-place for the creature. Here he kennelled it and waited his
+chance.
+
+“But it was some time coming. The old gentleman could not be decoyed
+outside of his grounds at night. Several times Stapleton lurked about
+with his hound, but without avail. It was during these fruitless quests
+that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that the legend
+of the demon dog received a new confirmation. He had hoped that his wife
+might lure Sir Charles to his ruin, but here she proved unexpectedly
+independent. She would not endeavour to entangle the old gentleman in
+a sentimental attachment which might deliver him over to his enemy.
+Threats and even, I am sorry to say, blows refused to move her. She
+would have nothing to do with it, and for a time Stapleton was at a
+deadlock.
+
+“He found a way out of his difficulties through the chance that Sir
+Charles, who had conceived a friendship for him, made him the minister
+of his charity in the case of this unfortunate woman, Mrs. Laura Lyons.
+By representing himself as a single man he acquired complete influence
+over her, and he gave her to understand that in the event of her
+obtaining a divorce from her husband he would marry her. His plans were
+suddenly brought to a head by his knowledge that Sir Charles was about
+to leave the Hall on the advice of Dr. Mortimer, with whose opinion he
+himself pretended to coincide. He must act at once, or his victim might
+get beyond his power. He therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons to
+write this letter, imploring the old man to give her an interview on
+the evening before his departure for London. He then, by a specious
+argument, prevented her from going, and so had the chance for which he
+had waited.
+
+“Driving back in the evening from Coombe Tracey he was in time to get
+his hound, to treat it with his infernal paint, and to bring the beast
+round to the gate at which he had reason to expect that he would find
+the old gentleman waiting. The dog, incited by its master, sprang over
+the wicket-gate and pursued the unfortunate baronet, who fled screaming
+down the yew alley. In that gloomy tunnel it must indeed have been a
+dreadful sight to see that huge black creature, with its flaming jaws
+and blazing eyes, bounding after its victim. He fell dead at the end
+of the alley from heart disease and terror. The hound had kept upon the
+grassy border while the baronet had run down the path, so that no track
+but the man’s was visible. On seeing him lying still the creature had
+probably approached to sniff at him, but finding him dead had turned
+away again. It was then that it left the print which was actually
+observed by Dr. Mortimer. The hound was called off and hurried away to
+its lair in the Grimpen Mire, and a mystery was left which puzzled
+the authorities, alarmed the countryside, and finally brought the case
+within the scope of our observation.
+
+“So much for the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. You perceive the
+devilish cunning of it, for really it would be almost impossible to make
+a case against the real murderer. His only accomplice was one who could
+never give him away, and the grotesque, inconceivable nature of
+the device only served to make it more effective. Both of the women
+concerned in the case, Mrs. Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons, were left
+with a strong suspicion against Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton knew that he
+had designs upon the old man, and also of the existence of the hound.
+Mrs. Lyons knew neither of these things, but had been impressed by the
+death occurring at the time of an uncancelled appointment which was only
+known to him. However, both of them were under his influence, and he had
+nothing to fear from them. The first half of his task was successfully
+accomplished but the more difficult still remained.
+
+“It is possible that Stapleton did not know of the existence of an heir
+in Canada. In any case he would very soon learn it from his friend Dr.
+Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all details about the arrival of
+Henry Baskerville. Stapleton’s first idea was that this young stranger
+from Canada might possibly be done to death in London without coming
+down to Devonshire at all. He distrusted his wife ever since she had
+refused to help him in laying a trap for the old man, and he dared not
+leave her long out of his sight for fear he should lose his influence
+over her. It was for this reason that he took her to London with him.
+They lodged, I find, at the Mexborough Private Hotel, in Craven Street,
+which was actually one of those called upon by my agent in search
+of evidence. Here he kept his wife imprisoned in her room while
+he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to Baker Street and
+afterwards to the station and to the Northumberland Hotel. His wife had
+some inkling of his plans; but she had such a fear of her husband--a
+fear founded upon brutal ill-treatment--that she dare not write to warn
+the man whom she knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into
+Stapleton’s hands her own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we
+know, she adopted the expedient of cutting out the words which would
+form the message, and addressing the letter in a disguised hand. It
+reached the baronet, and gave him the first warning of his danger.
+
+“It was very essential for Stapleton to get some article of Sir Henry’s
+attire so that, in case he was driven to use the dog, he might always
+have the means of setting him upon his track. With characteristic
+promptness and audacity he set about this at once, and we cannot doubt
+that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel was well bribed to help him
+in his design. By chance, however, the first boot which was procured for
+him was a new one and, therefore, useless for his purpose. He then had
+it returned and obtained another--a most instructive incident, since it
+proved conclusively to my mind that we were dealing with a real hound,
+as no other supposition could explain this anxiety to obtain an old
+boot and this indifference to a new one. The more outre and grotesque an
+incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very
+point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and
+scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.
+
+“Then we had the visit from our friends next morning, shadowed always
+by Stapleton in the cab. From his knowledge of our rooms and of my
+appearance, as well as from his general conduct, I am inclined to think
+that Stapleton’s career of crime has been by no means limited to this
+single Baskerville affair. It is suggestive that during the last three
+years there have been four considerable burglaries in the west country,
+for none of which was any criminal ever arrested. The last of these, at
+Folkestone Court, in May, was remarkable for the cold-blooded pistolling
+of the page, who surprised the masked and solitary burglar. I cannot
+doubt that Stapleton recruited his waning resources in this fashion, and
+that for years he has been a desperate and dangerous man.
+
+“We had an example of his readiness of resource that morning when he got
+away from us so successfully, and also of his audacity in sending back
+my own name to me through the cabman. From that moment he understood
+that I had taken over the case in London, and that therefore there was
+no chance for him there. He returned to Dartmoor and awaited the arrival
+of the baronet.”
+
+“One moment!” said I. “You have, no doubt, described the sequence
+of events correctly, but there is one point which you have left
+unexplained. What became of the hound when its master was in London?”
+
+“I have given some attention to this matter and it is undoubtedly of
+importance. There can be no question that Stapleton had a confidant,
+though it is unlikely that he ever placed himself in his power by
+sharing all his plans with him. There was an old manservant at Merripit
+House, whose name was Anthony. His connection with the Stapletons can
+be traced for several years, as far back as the school-mastering days,
+so that he must have been aware that his master and mistress were really
+husband and wife. This man has disappeared and has escaped from the
+country. It is suggestive that Anthony is not a common name in England,
+while Antonio is so in all Spanish or Spanish-American countries. The
+man, like Mrs. Stapleton herself, spoke good English, but with a curious
+lisping accent. I have myself seen this old man cross the Grimpen
+Mire by the path which Stapleton had marked out. It is very probable,
+therefore, that in the absence of his master it was he who cared for the
+hound, though he may never have known the purpose for which the beast
+was used.
+
+“The Stapletons then went down to Devonshire, whither they were soon
+followed by Sir Henry and you. One word now as to how I stood myself at
+that time. It may possibly recur to your memory that when I examined
+the paper upon which the printed words were fastened I made a close
+inspection for the water-mark. In doing so I held it within a few inches
+of my eyes, and was conscious of a faint smell of the scent known as
+white jessamine. There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very
+necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each
+other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended
+upon their prompt recognition. The scent suggested the presence of a
+lady, and already my thoughts began to turn towards the Stapletons. Thus
+I had made certain of the hound, and had guessed at the criminal before
+ever we went to the west country.
+
+“It was my game to watch Stapleton. It was evident, however, that I
+could not do this if I were with you, since he would be keenly on his
+guard. I deceived everybody, therefore, yourself included, and I came
+down secretly when I was supposed to be in London. My hardships were
+not so great as you imagined, though such trifling details must never
+interfere with the investigation of a case. I stayed for the most
+part at Coombe Tracey, and only used the hut upon the moor when it was
+necessary to be near the scene of action. Cartwright had come down with
+me, and in his disguise as a country boy he was of great assistance
+to me. I was dependent upon him for food and clean linen. When I was
+watching Stapleton, Cartwright was frequently watching you, so that I
+was able to keep my hand upon all the strings.
+
+“I have already told you that your reports reached me rapidly, being
+forwarded instantly from Baker Street to Coombe Tracey. They were of
+great service to me, and especially that one incidentally truthful piece
+of biography of Stapleton’s. I was able to establish the identity of
+the man and the woman and knew at last exactly how I stood. The case
+had been considerably complicated through the incident of the escaped
+convict and the relations between him and the Barrymores. This also you
+cleared up in a very effective way, though I had already come to the
+same conclusions from my own observations.
+
+“By the time that you discovered me upon the moor I had a complete
+knowledge of the whole business, but I had not a case which could go to
+a jury. Even Stapleton’s attempt upon Sir Henry that night which ended
+in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much in proving
+murder against our man. There seemed to be no alternative but to
+catch him red-handed, and to do so we had to use Sir Henry, alone and
+apparently unprotected, as a bait. We did so, and at the cost of a
+severe shock to our client we succeeded in completing our case and
+driving Stapleton to his destruction. That Sir Henry should have been
+exposed to this is, I must confess, a reproach to my management of the
+case, but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and paralyzing
+spectacle which the beast presented, nor could we predict the fog which
+enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice. We succeeded in our
+object at a cost which both the specialist and Dr. Mortimer assure me
+will be a temporary one. A long journey may enable our friend to recover
+not only from his shattered nerves but also from his wounded feelings.
+His love for the lady was deep and sincere, and to him the saddest part
+of all this black business was that he should have been deceived by her.
+
+“It only remains to indicate the part which she had played throughout.
+There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised an influence over her
+which may have been love or may have been fear, or very possibly both,
+since they are by no means incompatible emotions. It was, at least,
+absolutely effective. At his command she consented to pass as his
+sister, though he found the limits of his power over her when he
+endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder. She was ready to
+warn Sir Henry so far as she could without implicating her husband, and
+again and again she tried to do so. Stapleton himself seems to have been
+capable of jealousy, and when he saw the baronet paying court to the
+lady, even though it was part of his own plan, still he could not help
+interrupting with a passionate outburst which revealed the fiery soul
+which his self-contained manner so cleverly concealed. By encouraging
+the intimacy he made it certain that Sir Henry would frequently come
+to Merripit House and that he would sooner or later get the opportunity
+which he desired. On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned
+suddenly against him. She had learned something of the death of the
+convict, and she knew that the hound was being kept in the outhouse on
+the evening that Sir Henry was coming to dinner. She taxed her husband
+with his intended crime, and a furious scene followed in which he showed
+her for the first time that she had a rival in his love. Her fidelity
+turned in an instant to bitter hatred, and he saw that she would betray
+him. He tied her up, therefore, that she might have no chance of warning
+Sir Henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole countryside put
+down the baronet’s death to the curse of his family, as they certainly
+would do, he could win his wife back to accept an accomplished fact and
+to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that in any case
+he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had not been there, his doom
+would none the less have been sealed. A woman of Spanish blood does
+not condone such an injury so lightly. And now, my dear Watson, without
+referring to my notes, I cannot give you a more detailed account of
+this curious case. I do not know that anything essential has been left
+unexplained.”
+
+“He could not hope to frighten Sir Henry to death as he had done the old
+uncle with his bogie hound.”
+
+“The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not
+frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the resistance
+which might be offered.”
+
+“No doubt. There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into the
+succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had been
+living unannounced under another name so close to the property? How
+could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry?”
+
+“It is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much when
+you expect me to solve it. The past and the present are within the field
+of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question
+to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the problem on
+several occasions. There were three possible courses. He might claim the
+property from South America, establish his identity before the British
+authorities there and so obtain the fortune without ever coming to
+England at all, or he might adopt an elaborate disguise during the
+short time that he need be in London; or, again, he might furnish an
+accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting him in as heir, and
+retaining a claim upon some proportion of his income. We cannot doubt
+from what we know of him that he would have found some way out of the
+difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe
+work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more
+pleasant channels. I have a box for ‘Les Huguenots.’ Have you heard the
+De Reszkes? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we
+can stop at Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way?”
+
+
+
+
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theleavenworthcase b/files/books/unrelated/theleavenworthcase
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0f20a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theleavenworthcase
@@ -0,0 +1,13922 @@
+Title: The Leavenworth Case
+
+Author: Anna Katherine Green
+
+Release Date: January 8, 2010 [EBook #4047]
+Last Updated: February 4, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEAVENWORTH CASE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Moynihan, and David Widger
+
+
+
+THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
+
+By Anna Katherine Green
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I.   THE PROBLEM
+
+I.   “A GREAT CASE”
+
+II.   THE CORONER’S INQUEST
+
+III.   FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS
+
+IV.   A CUTS
+
+V.   EXPERT TESTIMONY
+
+VI.   SIDE-LIGHTS
+
+VII.   MARY LEAVENWORTH
+
+VIII.   CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
+
+IX.   A DISCOVERY
+
+X.   MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS
+
+XI.   THE SUMMONS
+
+XII.   ELEANORES
+
+XIII.   THE PROBLEM
+
+
+BOOK II.   HENRY CLAVERING
+
+XIV.   MR. GRYCE AT HOME
+
+XV.   WAYS OPENING
+
+XVI.   THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE
+
+XVII.   THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES
+
+XVIII.   ON THE STAIRS
+
+XIX.   IN MY OFFICE
+
+XX.   “TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!”
+
+XXI.   A PREJUDICE
+
+XXII.   PATCH-WORK
+
+XXIII.   THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN
+
+XXIV.   A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE
+
+XXV.   TIMOTHY COOK
+
+XXVI.   MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF
+
+
+BOOK III.   HANNAH
+
+XXVII.   AMY BELDEN
+
+XXVIII.   A WEIRD EXPERIENCE
+
+XXIX.   THE MISSING WITNESS
+
+XXX.   BURNED PAPER
+
+XXXI.   “THEREBY HANGS A TALE.”
+
+XXXII.   MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE
+
+XXXIII.   UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY
+
+
+BOOK IV.   THE PROBLEM SOLVED
+
+XXXIV.   MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL
+
+XXXV.   FINE WORK
+
+XXXVI.   GATHERED THREADS
+
+XXXVII.   CULMINATION
+
+XXXVIII.   A FULL CONFESSION
+
+XXXIX.   THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME
+
+
+
+BOOK I. THE PROBLEM
+
+
+
+I. “A GREAT CASE”
+
+
+    “A deed of dreadful note.”
+        --Macbeth.
+
+I had been a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond,
+attorneys and counsellors at law, for about a year, when one morning, in
+the temporary absence of both Mr. Veeley and Mr. Carr, there came into
+our office a young man whose whole appearance was so indicative of haste
+and agitation that I involuntarily rose at his approach and impetuously
+inquired:
+
+“What is the matter? You have no bad news to tell, I hope.”
+
+“I have come to see Mr. Veeley; is he in?”
+
+“No,” I replied; “he was unexpectedly called away this morning to
+Washington; cannot be home before to-morrow; but if you will make your
+business known to me----”
+
+“To you, sir?” he repeated, turning a very cold but steady eye on mine;
+then, seeming to be satisfied with his scrutiny, continued, “There is no
+reason why I shouldn’t; my business is no secret. I came to inform him
+that Mr. Leavenworth is dead.”
+
+“Mr. Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, falling back a step. Mr. Leavenworth was
+an old client of our firm, to say nothing of his being the particular
+friend of Mr. Veeley.
+
+“Yes, murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while
+sitting at his library table.”
+
+“Shot! murdered!” I could scarcely believe my ears.
+
+“How? when?” I gasped.
+
+“Last night. At least, so we suppose. He was not found till this
+morning. I am Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary,” he explained, “and
+live in the family. It was a dreadful shock,” he went on, “especially to
+the ladies.”
+
+“Dreadful!” I repeated. “Mr. Veeley will be overwhelmed by it.”
+
+“They are all alone,” he continued in a low businesslike way
+I afterwards found to be inseparable from the man; “the Misses
+Leavenworth, I mean--Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces; and as an inquest is
+to be held there to-day it is deemed proper for them to have some one
+present capable of advising them. As Mr. Veeley was their uncle’s best
+friend, they naturally sent me for him; but he being absent I am at a
+loss what to do or where to go.”
+
+“I am a stranger to the ladies,” was my hesitating reply, “but if I can
+be of any assistance to them, my respect for their uncle is such----”
+
+The expression of the secretary’s eye stopped me. Without seeming to
+wander from my face, its pupil had suddenly dilated till it appeared to
+embrace my whole person with its scope.
+
+“I don’t know,” he finally remarked, a slight frown, testifying to
+the fact that he was not altogether pleased with the turn affairs
+were taking. “Perhaps it would be best. The ladies must not be left
+alone----”
+
+“Say no more; I will go.” And, sitting down, I despatched a hurried
+message to Mr. Veeley, after which, and the few other preparations
+necessary, I accompanied the secretary to the street.
+
+“Now,” said I, “tell me all you know of this frightful affair.”
+
+“All I know? A few words will do that. I left him last night sitting as
+usual at his library table, and found him this morning, seated in the
+same place, almost in the same position, but with a bullet-hole in his
+head as large as the end of my little finger.”
+
+“Dead?”
+
+“Stone-dead.”
+
+“Horrible!” I exclaimed. Then, after a moment, “Could it have been a
+suicide?”
+
+“No. The pistol with which the deed was committed is not to be found.”
+
+“But if it was a murder, there must have been some motive. Mr.
+Leavenworth was too benevolent a man to have enemies, and if robbery was
+intended----”
+
+“There was no robbery. There is nothing missing,” he again interrupted.
+“The whole affair is a mystery.”
+
+“A mystery?”
+
+“An utter mystery.”
+
+Turning, I looked at my informant curiously. The inmate of a house in
+which a mysterious murder had occurred was rather an interesting object.
+But the good-featured and yet totally unimpressive countenance of the
+man beside me offered but little basis for even the wildest imagination
+to work upon, and, glancing almost immediately away, I asked:
+
+“Are the ladies very much overcome?”
+
+He took at least a half-dozen steps before replying.
+
+“It would be unnatural if they were not.” And whether it was the
+expression of his face at the time, or the nature of the reply itself,
+I felt that in speaking of these ladies to this uninteresting,
+self-possessed secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth, I was somehow
+treading upon dangerous ground. As I had heard they were very
+accomplished women, I was not altogether pleased at this discovery. It
+was, therefore, with a certain consciousness of relief I saw a Fifth
+Avenue stage approach.
+
+“We will defer our conversation,” said I. “Here’s the stage.”
+
+But, once seated within it, we soon discovered that all intercourse upon
+such a subject was impossible. Employing the time, therefore, in
+running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that my
+knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired merchant
+of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of possessing
+children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one of whom had
+already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard Mr. Veeley
+speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very fact of his
+making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of the other;
+but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large, I knew
+little or nothing.
+
+There was a great crowd in front of the house when we arrived there, and
+I had barely time to observe that it was a corner dwelling of unusual
+depth when I was seized by the throng and carried quite to the foot of
+the broad stone steps. Extricating myself, though with some difficulty,
+owing to the importunities of a bootblack and butcher-boy, who seemed
+to think that by clinging to my arms they might succeed in smuggling
+themselves into the house, I mounted the steps and, finding the
+secretary, by some unaccountable good fortune, close to my side,
+hurriedly rang the bell. Immediately the door opened, and a face I
+recognized as that of one of our city detectives appeared in the gap.
+
+“Mr. Gryce!” I exclaimed.
+
+“The same,” he replied. “Come in, Mr. Raymond.” And drawing us quietly
+into the house, he shut the door with a grim smile on the disappointed
+crowd without. “I trust you are not surprised to see me here,” said he,
+holding out his hand, with a side glance at my companion.
+
+“No,” I returned. Then, with a vague idea that I ought to introduce the
+young man at my side, continued: “This is Mr. ----, Mr. ----, --excuse
+me, but I do not know your name,” I said inquiringly to my companion.
+“The private secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth,” I hastened to add.
+
+“Oh,” he returned, “the secretary! The coroner has been asking for you,
+sir.”
+
+“The coroner is here, then?”
+
+“Yes; the jury have just gone up-stairs to view the body; would you like
+to follow them?”
+
+“No, it is not necessary. I have merely come in the hope of being of
+some assistance to the young ladies. Mr. Veeley is away.”
+
+“And you thought the opportunity too good to be lost,” he went on;
+“just so. Still, now that you are here, and as the case promises to be
+a marked one, I should think that, as a rising young lawyer, you would
+wish to make yourself acquainted with it in all its details. But follow
+your own judgment.”
+
+I made an effort and overcame my repugnance. “I will go,” said I.
+
+“Very well, then, follow me.”
+
+But just as I set foot on the stairs I heard the jury descending, so,
+drawing back with Mr. Gryce into a recess between the reception room and
+the parlor, I had time to remark:
+
+“The young man says it could not have been the work of a burglar.”
+
+“Indeed!” fixing his eye on a door-knob near by.
+
+“That nothing has been found missing--”
+
+“And that the fastenings to the house were all found secure this
+morning; just so.”
+
+“He did not tell me that. In that case”--and I shuddered--“the murderer
+must have been in the house all night.”
+
+Mr. Gryce smiled darkly at the door-knob.
+
+“It has a dreadful look!” I exclaimed.
+
+Mr. Gryce immediately frowned at the door-knob.
+
+And here let me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin,
+wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to
+see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with
+an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on _you._ If it rested
+anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity,
+some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take
+into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as
+for you--you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all
+connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At
+present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate
+terms with the door-knob.
+
+“A dreadful look,” I repeated.
+
+His eye shifted to the button on my sleeve.
+
+“Come,” he said, “the coast is clear at last.”
+
+Leading the way, he mounted the stairs, but stopped on the upper
+landing. “Mr. Raymond,” said he, “I am not in the habit of talking much
+about the secrets of my profession, but in this case everything depends
+upon getting the right clue at the start. We have no common villainy
+to deal with here; genius has been at work. Now sometimes an absolutely
+uninitiated mind will intuitively catch at something which the most
+highly trained intellect will miss. If such a thing should occur,
+remember that I am your man. Don’t go round talking, but come to me. For
+this is going to be a great case, mind you, a great case. Now, come on.”
+
+“But the ladies?”
+
+“They are in the rooms above; in grief, of course, but tolerably
+composed for all that, I hear.” And advancing to a door, he pushed it
+open and beckoned me in.
+
+All was dark for a moment, but presently, my eyes becoming accustomed to
+the place, I saw that we were in the library.
+
+“It was here he was found,” said he; “in this room and upon this
+very spot.” And advancing, he laid his hand on the end of a large
+baize-covered table that, together with its attendant chairs, occupied
+the centre of the room. “You see for yourself that it is directly
+opposite this door,” and, crossing the floor, he paused in front of the
+threshold of a narrow passageway, opening into a room beyond. “As the
+murdered man was discovered sitting in this chair, and consequently with
+his back towards the passageway, the assassin must have advanced through
+the doorway to deliver his shot, pausing, let us say, about here.” And
+Mr. Gryce planted his feet firmly upon a certain spot in the carpet,
+about a foot from the threshold before mentioned.
+
+“But--” I hastened to interpose.
+
+“There is no room for ‘but,’” he cried. “We have studied the situation.”
+ And without deigning to dilate upon the subject, he turned immediately
+about and, stepping swiftly before me, led the way into the passage
+named. “Wine closet, clothes closet, washing apparatus, towel-rack,”
+ he explained, waving his hand from side to side as we hurried through,
+finishing with “Mr. Leavenworth’s private apartment,” as that room of
+comfortable aspect opened upon us.
+
+Mr. Leavenworth’s private apartment! It was here then that _it_ ought
+to be, the horrible, blood-curdling _it_ that yesterday was a living,
+breathing man. Advancing to the bed that was hung with heavy curtains,
+I raised my hand to put them back, when Mr. Gryce, drawing them from
+my clasp, disclosed lying upon the pillow a cold, calm face looking so
+natural I involuntarily started.
+
+“His death was too sudden to distort the features,” he remarked, turning
+the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound in the
+back of the cranium. “Such a hole as that sends a man out of the world
+without much notice. The surgeon will convince you it could never have
+been inflicted by himself. It is a case of deliberate murder.”
+
+Horrified, I drew hastily back, when my glance fell upon a door situated
+directly opposite me in the side of the wall towards the hall. It
+appeared to be the only outlet from the room, with the exception of the
+passage through which we had entered, and I could not help wondering
+if it was through this door the assassin had entered on his roundabout
+course to the library. But Mr. Gryce, seemingly observant of my glance,
+though his own was fixed upon the chandelier, made haste to remark, as
+if in reply to the inquiry in my face:
+
+“Found locked on the inside; may have come that way and may not; we
+don’t pretend to say.”
+
+Observing now that the bed was undisturbed in its arrangement, I
+remarked, “He had not retired, then?”
+
+“No; the tragedy must be ten hours old. Time for the murderer to have
+studied the situation and provided for all contingencies.”
+
+“The murderer? Whom do you suspect?” I whispered.
+
+He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.
+
+“Every one and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect.” And
+dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the room.
+
+The coroner’s inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire to be
+present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr. Veeley
+was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to render
+them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an occasion, I
+proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among the various
+persons there assembled.
+
+
+
+II. THE CORONER’S INQUEST
+
+
+    “The baby figure of the giant mass
+     Of things to come.”
+         --Troilus and Cressida.
+
+FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting me
+from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting
+features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon
+my consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
+sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
+enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two
+lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets
+of incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two
+irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate
+furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday’s life, as seen in the open
+piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady’s fan, occupying
+my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of incongruous
+and impatient people huddled about me.
+
+Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the room
+I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of marble
+meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think it
+was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
+confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough and
+poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists:
+simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette,
+dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a wood-path,
+looking back over her shoulder at some one following--yet with such a
+dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek
+eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the individuality of
+life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist almost beneath
+the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the perfection of
+the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it for a literal portrait of
+one of the ladies of the house. As it was, I could not rid myself of the
+idea that one, if not both, of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces looked down upon
+me from the eyes of this entrancing blonde with the beckoning glance
+and forbidding hand. So vividly did this fancy impress me that I half
+shuddered as I looked, wondering if this sweet creature did not know
+what had occurred in this house since the happy yesterday; and if so,
+how she could stand there smiling so invitingly,--when suddenly I became
+aware that I had been watching the little crowd of men about me with as
+complete an absorption as if nothing else in the room had attracted
+my attention; that the face of the coroner, sternly intelligent and
+attentive, was as distinctly imprinted upon my mind as that of this
+lovely picture, or the clearer-cut and more noble features of the
+sculptured Psyche, shining in mellow beauty from the crimson-hung window
+at his right; yes, even that the various countenances of the jurymen
+clustered before me, commonplace and insignificant as most of them were;
+the trembling forms of the excited servants crowded into a far corner;
+and the still more disagreeable aspect of the pale-faced, seedy
+reporter, seated at a small table and writing with a ghoul-like avidity
+that made my flesh creep, were each and all as fixed an element in the
+remarkable scene before me as the splendor of the surroundings which
+made their presence such a nightmare of discord and unreality.
+
+I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was no
+stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held frequent
+conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was Hammond, and he
+was universally regarded as a man of more than ordinary acuteness, fully
+capable of conducting an important examination, with the necessary skill
+and address. Interested as I was, or rather was likely to be, in this
+particular inquiry, I could not but congratulate myself upon our good
+fortune in having so intelligent a coroner.
+
+As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like
+all other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from the
+streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues,
+they presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and
+refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our city
+stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed to take
+any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest appearing to be
+actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the commoner instincts of
+pity and indignation.
+
+Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was the
+first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of the wound
+found in the murdered man’s head. As some of the facts presented by him
+are likely to prove of importance to us in our narrative, I will proceed
+to give a synopsis of what he said.
+
+Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the manner in
+which he had been summoned to the house by one of the servants, he went
+on to state that, upon his arrival, he found the deceased lying on a
+bed in the second-story front room, with the blood clotted about a
+pistol-wound in the back of the head; having evidently been carried
+there from the adjoining apartment some hours after death. It was the
+only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found
+and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying
+in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely
+upward, and at once struck the _medulla oblongata,_ causing instant
+death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar
+manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only
+instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from the
+position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the bullet, it
+was manifestly impossible that the shot should have been fired by the
+man himself, even if the condition of the hair about the wound did not
+completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was fired from a point
+some three or four feet distant. Still further, considering the angle at
+which the bullet had entered the skull, it was evident that the deceased
+must not only have been seated at the time, a fact about which there
+could be no dispute, but he must also have been engaged in some
+occupation which drew his head forward. For, in order that a ball should
+enter the head of a man sitting erect at the angle seen here, of 45
+degrees, it would be necessary, not only for the pistol to be held very
+low down, but in a peculiar position; while if the head had been bent
+forward, as in the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally
+with the elbow bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the
+angle observed.
+
+Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr. Leavenworth,
+he replied that the deceased appeared to have been in good condition at
+the time of his death, but that, not being his attendant physician,
+he could not speak conclusively upon the subject without further
+examination; and, to the remark of a juryman, observed that he had not
+seen pistol or weapon lying upon the floor, or, indeed, anywhere else in
+either of the above-mentioned rooms.
+
+I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the
+position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the murderer,
+in order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the situation, must
+have stood upon, or just within, the threshold of the passageway leading
+into the room beyond. Also, that as the ball was small, and from a
+rifled barrel, and thus especially liable to deflections while passing
+through bones and integuments, it seemed to him evident that the victim
+had made no effort to raise or turn his head when advanced upon by
+his destroyer; the fearful conclusion being that the footstep was an
+accustomed one, and the presence of its possessor in the room either
+known or expected.
+
+The physician’s testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the bullet
+which had been laid on the table before him, and for a moment rolled
+it contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing a pencil from his
+pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a piece of paper and, calling
+an officer to his side, delivered some command in a low tone. The
+officer, taking up the slip, looked at it for an instant knowingly, then
+catching up his hat left the room. Another moment, and the front door
+closed on him, and a wild halloo from the crowd of urchins without told
+of his appearance in the street. Sitting where I did, I had a full view
+of the corner. Looking out, I saw the officer stop there, hail a cab,
+hastily enter it, and disappear in the direction of Broadway.
+
+
+
+III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS
+
+
+    “Confusion now hath made his master-piece;
+    Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
+    The Lord’s anointed temple, and stolen thence
+    The life of the building.”
+         --Macbeth.
+
+TURNING my attention back into the room where I was, I found the
+coroner consulting a memorandum through a very impressive pair of gold
+eye-glasses.
+
+“Is the butler here?” he asked.
+
+Immediately there was a stir among the group of servants in the corner,
+and an intelligent-looking, though somewhat pompous, Irishman stepped
+out from their midst and confronted the jury. “Ah,” thought I to
+myself, as my glance encountered his precise whiskers, steady eye, and
+respectfully attentive, though by no means humble, expression, “here is
+a model servant, who is likely to prove a model witness.” And I was not
+mistaken; Thomas, the butler, was in all respects one in a thousand--and
+he knew it.
+
+The coroner, upon whom, as upon all others in the room, he seemed to
+have made the like favorable impression, proceeded without hesitation to
+interrogate him.
+
+“Your name, I am told, is Thomas Dougherty?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Well, Thomas, how long have you been employed in your present
+situation?”
+
+“It must be a matter of two years now, sir.”
+
+“You are the person who first discovered the body of Mr. Leavenworth?”
+
+“Yes, sir; I and Mr. Harwell.”
+
+“And who is Mr. Harwell?”
+
+“Mr. Harwell is Mr. Leavenworth’s private secretary, sir; the one who
+did his writing.”
+
+“Very good. Now at what time of the day or night did you make this
+discovery?”
+
+“It was early, sir; early this morning, about eight.”
+
+“And where?”
+
+“In the library, sir, off Mr. Leavenworth’s bedroom. We had forced our
+way in, feeling anxious about his not coming to breakfast.”
+
+“You forced your way in; the door was locked, then?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“On the inside?”
+
+“That I cannot tell; there was no key in the door.”
+
+“Where was Mr. Leavenworth lying when you first found him?”
+
+“He was not lying, sir. He was seated at the large table in the centre
+of his room, his back to the bedroom door, leaning forward, his head on
+his hands.”
+
+“How was he dressed?”
+
+“In his dinner suit, sir, just as he came from the table last night.”
+
+“Were there any evidences in the room that a struggle had taken place?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Any pistol on the floor or table?”
+
+“No, sir?”
+
+“Any reason to suppose that robbery had been attempted?”
+
+“No, sir. Mr. Leavenworth’s watch and purse were both in his pockets.”
+
+Being asked to mention who were in the house at the time of the
+discovery, he replied, “The young ladies, Miss Mary Leavenworth and
+Miss Eleanore, Mr. Harwell, Kate the cook, Molly the upstairs girl, and
+myself.”
+
+“The usual members of the household?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Now tell me whose duty it is to close up the house at night.”
+
+“Mine, sir.”
+
+“Did you secure it as usual, last night?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“Who unfastened it this morning?”
+
+“I, sir.”
+
+“How did you find it?”
+
+“Just as I left it.”
+
+“What, not a window open nor a door unlocked?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+By this time you could have heard a pin drop. The certainty that the
+murderer, whoever he was, had not left the house, at least till after it
+was opened in the morning, seemed to weigh upon all minds. Forewarned as
+I had been of the fact, I could not but feel a certain degree of emotion
+at having it thus brought before me; and, moving so as to bring the
+butler’s face within view, searched it for some secret token that he had
+spoken thus emphatically in order to cover up some failure of duty
+on his own part. But it was unmoved in its candor, and sustained the
+concentrated gaze of all in the room like a rock.
+
+Being now asked when he had last seen Mr. Leavenworth alive, he replied,
+“At dinner last night.”
+
+“He was, however, seen later by some of you?”
+
+“Yes, sir; Mr. Harwell says he saw him as late as half-past ten in the
+evening.”
+
+“What room do you occupy in this house?”
+
+“A little one on the basement floor.”
+
+“And where do the other members of the household sleep?”
+
+“Mostly on the third floor, sir; the ladies in the large back rooms, and
+Mr. Harwell in the little one in front. The girls sleep above.”
+
+“There was no one on the same floor with Mr. Leavenworth?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“At what hour did you go to bed?”
+
+“Well, I should say about eleven.”
+
+“Did you hear any noise in the house either before or after that time,
+that you remember?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“So that the discovery you made this morning was a surprise to you?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Requested now to give a more detailed account of that discovery, he
+went on to say it was not till Mr. Leavenworth failed to come to his
+breakfast at the call of the bell that any suspicion arose in the house
+that all was not right. Even then they waited some little time before
+doing anything, but as minute after minute went by and he did not come,
+Miss Eleanore grew anxious, and finally left the room saying she would
+go and see what was the matter, but soon returned looking very much
+frightened, saying she had knocked at her uncle’s door, and had even
+called to him, but could get no answer. At which Mr. Harwell and himself
+had gone up and together tried both doors, and, finding them locked,
+burst open that of the library, when they came upon Mr. Leavenworth, as
+he had already said, sitting at the table, dead.
+
+“And the ladies?”
+
+“Oh, they followed us up and came into the room and Miss Eleanore
+fainted away.”
+
+“And the other one,--Miss Mary, I believe they call her?”
+
+“I don’t remember anything about her; I was so busy fetching water to
+restore Miss Eleanore, I didn’t notice.”
+
+“Well, how long was it before Mr. Leavenworth was carried into the next
+room?”
+
+“Almost immediate, as soon as Miss Eleanore recovered, and that was as
+soon as ever the water touched her lips.”
+
+“Who proposed that the body should be carried from the spot?”
+
+“She, sir. As soon as ever she stood up she went over to it and looked
+at it and shuddered, and then calling Mr. Harwell and me, bade us carry
+him in and lay him on the bed and go for the doctor, which we did.”
+
+“Wait a moment; did she go with you when you went into the other room?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“What did she do?”
+
+“She stayed by the library table.”
+
+“What doing?”
+
+“I couldn’t see; her back was to me.”
+
+“How long did she stay there?”
+
+“She was gone when we came back.”
+
+“Gone from the table?”
+
+“Gone from the room.”
+
+“Humph! when did you see her again?”
+
+“In a minute. She came in at the library door as we went out.”
+
+“Anything in her hand?”
+
+“Not as I see.”
+
+“Did you miss anything from the table?”
+
+“I never thought to look, sir. The table was nothing to me. I was only
+thinking of going for the doctor, though I knew it was of no use.”
+
+“Whom did you leave in the room when you went out?”
+
+“The cook, sir, and Molly, sir, and Miss Eleanore.”
+
+“Not Miss Mary?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Very well. Have the jury any questions to put to this man?”
+
+A movement at once took place in that profound body.
+
+“I should like to ask a few,” exclaimed a weazen-faced, excitable little
+man whom I had before noticed shifting in his seat in a restless manner
+strongly suggestive of an intense but hitherto repressed desire to
+interrupt the proceedings.
+
+“Very well, sir,” returned Thomas.
+
+But the juryman stopping to draw a deep breath, a large and decidedly
+pompous man who sat at his right hand seized the opportunity to inquire
+in a round, listen-to-me sort of voice:
+
+“You say you have been in the family for two years. Was it what you
+might call a united family?”
+
+“United?”
+
+“Affectionate, you know,--on good terms with each other.” And the
+juryman lifted the very long and heavy watch-chain that hung across
+his vest as if that as well as himself had a right to a suitable and
+well-considered reply.
+
+The butler, impressed perhaps by his manner, glanced uneasily around.
+“Yes, sir, so far as I know.”
+
+“The young ladies were attached to their uncle?”
+
+“O yes, sir.”
+
+“And to each other?”
+
+“Well, yes, I suppose so; it’s not for me to say.”
+
+“You suppose so. Have you any reason to think otherwise?” And he doubled
+the watch-chain about his fingers as if he would double its attention as
+well as his own.
+
+Thomas hesitated a moment. But just as his interlocutor was about to
+repeat his question, he drew himself up into a rather stiff and formal
+attitude and replied:
+
+“Well, sir, no.”
+
+The juryman, for all his self-assertion, seemed to respect the reticence
+of a servant who declined to give his opinion in regard to such a
+matter, and drawing complacently back, signified with a wave of his hand
+that he had no more to say.
+
+Immediately the excitable little man, before mentioned, slipped forward
+to the edge of his chair and asked, this time without hesitation: “At
+what time did you unfasten the house this morning?”
+
+“About six, sir.”
+
+“Now, could any one leave the house after that time without your
+knowledge?”
+
+Thomas glanced a trifle uneasily at his fellow-servants, but answered up
+promptly and as if without reserve;
+
+“I don’t think it would be possible for anybody to leave this house
+after six in the morning without either myself or the cook’s knowing of
+it. Folks don’t jump from second-story windows in broad daylight, and as
+to leaving by the doors, the front door closes with such a slam all the
+house can hear it from top to bottom, and as for the back-door, no one
+that goes out of that can get clear of the yard without going by the
+kitchen window, and no one can go by our kitchen window without the
+cook’s a-seeing of them, that I can just swear to.” And he cast a
+half-quizzing, half-malicious look at the round, red-faced individual
+in question, strongly suggestive of late and unforgotten bickerings over
+the kitchen coffee-urn and castor.
+
+This reply, which was of a nature calculated to deepen the forebodings
+which had already settled upon the minds of those present, produced a
+visible effect. The house found locked, and no one seen to leave it!
+Evidently, then, we had not far to look for the assassin.
+
+Shifting on his chair with increased fervor, if I may so speak, the
+juryman glanced sharply around. But perceiving the renewed interest
+in the faces about him, declined to weaken the effect of the last
+admission, by any further questions. Settling, therefore, comfortably
+back, he left the field open for any other juror who might choose to
+press the inquiry. But no one seeming to be ready to do this, Thomas in
+his turn evinced impatience, and at last, looking respectfully around,
+inquired:
+
+“Would any other gentleman like to ask me anything?”
+
+No one replying, he threw a hurried glance of relief towards the
+servants at his side, then, while each one marvelled at the sudden
+change that had taken place in his countenance, withdrew with an eager
+alacrity and evident satisfaction for which I could not at the moment
+account.
+
+But the next witness proving to be none other than my acquaintance of
+the morning, Mr. Harwell, I soon forgot both Thomas and the doubts his
+last movement had awakened, in the interest which the examination of
+so important a person as the secretary and right-hand man of Mr.
+Leavenworth was likely to create.
+
+Advancing with the calm and determined air of one who realized that life
+and death itself might hang upon his words, Mr. Harwell took his stand
+before the jury with a degree of dignity not only highly prepossessing
+in itself, but to me, who had not been over and above pleased with him
+in our first interview, admirable and surprising. Lacking, as I
+have said, any distinctive quality of face or form agreeable or
+otherwise--being what you might call in appearance a negative sort of
+person, his pale, regular features, dark, well-smoothed hair and simple
+whiskers, all belonging to a recognized type and very commonplace--there
+was still visible, on this occasion at least, a certain self-possession
+in his carriage, which went far towards making up for the want of
+impressiveness in his countenance and expression. Not that even this was
+in any way remarkable. Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about the
+man, any more than there is about a thousand others you meet every day
+on Broadway, unless you except the look of concentration and solemnity
+which pervaded his whole person; a solemnity which at this time would
+not have been noticeable, perhaps, if it had not appeared to be the
+habitual expression of one who in his short life had seen more of sorrow
+than joy, less of pleasure than care and anxiety.
+
+The coroner, to whom his appearance one way or the other seemed to be a
+matter of no moment, addressed him immediately and without reserve:
+
+“Your name?”
+
+“James Trueman Harwell.”
+
+“Your business?”
+
+“I have occupied the position of private secretary and amanuensis to Mr.
+Leavenworth for the past eight months.”
+
+“You are the person who last saw Mr. Leavenworth alive, are you not?”
+
+The young man raised his head with a haughty gesture which well-nigh
+transfigured it.
+
+“Certainly not, as I am not the man who killed him.”
+
+This answer, which seemed to introduce something akin to levity or
+badinage into an examination the seriousness of which we were all
+beginning to realize, produced an immediate revulsion of feeling toward
+the man who, in face of facts revealed and to be revealed, could so
+lightly make use of it. A hum of disapproval swept through the room, and
+in that one remark, James Harwell lost all that he had previously won
+by the self-possession of his bearing and the unflinching regard of his
+eye. He seemed himself to realize this, for he lifted his head still
+higher, though his general aspect remained unchanged.
+
+“I mean,” the coroner exclaimed, evidently nettled that the young man
+had been able to draw such a conclusion from his words, “that you were
+the last one to see him previous to his assassination by some unknown
+individual?”
+
+The secretary folded his arms, whether to hide a certain tremble which
+had seized him, or by that simple action to gain time for a moment’s
+further thought, I could not then determine. “Sir,” he replied at
+length, “I cannot answer yes or no to that question. In all probability
+I was the last to see him in good health and spirits, but in a house as
+large as this I cannot be sure of even so simple a fact as that.” Then,
+observing the unsatisfied look on the faces around, added slowly, “It is
+my business to see him late.”
+
+“Your business? Oh, as his secretary, I suppose?”
+
+He gravely nodded.
+
+“Mr. Harwell,” the coroner went on, “the office of private secretary
+in this country is not a common one. Will you explain to us what your
+duties were in that capacity; in short, what use Mr. Leavenworth had for
+such an assistant and how he employed you?”
+
+“Certainly. Mr. Leavenworth was, as you perhaps know, a man of great
+wealth. Connected with various societies, clubs, institutions, etc.,
+besides being known far and near as a giving man, he was accustomed
+every day of his life to receive numerous letters, begging and
+otherwise, which it was my business to open and answer, his private
+correspondence always bearing a mark upon it which distinguished it from
+the rest. But this was not all I was expected to do. Having in his early
+life been engaged in the tea-trade, he had made more than one voyage
+to China, and was consequently much interested in the question of
+international communication between that country and our own. Thinking
+that in his various visits there, he had learned much which, if known
+to the American people, would conduce to our better understanding of the
+nation, its peculiarities, and the best manner of dealing with it, he
+has been engaged for some time in writing a book on the subject, which
+same it has been my business for the last eight months to assist him
+in preparing, by writing at his dictation three hours out of the
+twenty-four, the last hour being commonly taken from the evening, say
+from half-past nine to half-past ten, Mr. Leavenworth being a very
+methodical man and accustomed to regulate his own life and that of those
+about him with almost mathematical precision.”
+
+“You say you were accustomed to write at his dictation evenings? Did you
+do this as usual last evening?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“What can you tell us of his manner and appearance at the time? Were
+they in any way unusual?”
+
+A frown crossed the secretary’s brow.
+
+“As he probably had no premonition of his doom, why should there have
+been any change in his manner?”
+
+This giving the coroner an opportunity to revenge himself for his
+discomfiture of a moment before, he said somewhat severely:
+
+“It is the business of a witness to answer questions, not to put them.”
+
+The secretary flushed and the account stood even.
+
+“Very well, then, sir; if Mr. Leavenworth felt any forebodings of his
+end, he did not reveal them to me. On the contrary, he seemed to be more
+absorbed in his work than usual. One of the last words he said to
+me was, ‘In a month we will have this book in press, eh, Trueman?’ I
+remember this particularly, as he was filling his wine-glass at the
+time. He always drank one glass of wine before retiring, it being my
+duty to bring the decanter of sherry from the closet the last thing
+before leaving him. I was standing with my hand on the knob of the
+hall-door, but advanced as he said this and replied, ‘I hope so, indeed,
+Mr. Leavenworth.’ ‘Then join me in drinking a glass of sherry,’ said he,
+motioning me to procure another glass from the closet. I did so, and he
+poured me out the wine with his own hand. I am not especially fond of
+sherry, but the occasion was a pleasant one and I drained my glass. I
+remember being slightly ashamed of doing so, for Mr. Leavenworth set his
+down half full. It was half full when we found him this morning.”
+
+Do what he would, and being a reserved man he appeared anxious to
+control his emotion, the horror of his first shock seemed to overwhelm
+him here. Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his
+forehead. “Gentlemen, that is the last action of Mr. Leavenworth I ever
+saw. As he set the glass down on the table, I said good-night to him and
+left the room.”
+
+The coroner, with a characteristic imperviousness to all expressions
+of emotion, leaned back and surveyed the young man with a scrutinizing
+glance. “And where did you go then?” he asked.
+
+“To my own room.”
+
+“Did you meet anybody on the way?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Hear any thing or see anything unusual?”
+
+The secretary’s voice fell a trifle. “No, sir.”
+
+“Mr. Harwell, think again. Are you ready to swear that you neither
+met anybody, heard anybody, nor saw anything which lingers yet in your
+memory as unusual?”
+
+His face grew quite distressed. Twice he opened his lips to speak,
+and as often closed them without doing so. At last, with an effort, he
+replied:
+
+“I saw one thing, a little thing, too slight to mention, but it was
+unusual, and I could not help thinking of it when you spoke.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Only a door half open.”
+
+“Whose door?”
+
+“Miss Eleanore Leavenworth’s.” His voice was almost a whisper now.
+
+“Where were you when you observed this fact?”
+
+“I cannot say exactly. Probably at my own door, as I did not stop on
+the way. If this frightful occurrence had not taken place I should never
+have thought of it again.”
+
+“When you went into your room did you close your door?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“How soon did you retire?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Did you hear nothing before you fell asleep?”
+
+Again that indefinable hesitation.
+
+“Barely nothing.”
+
+“Not a footstep in the hall?”
+
+“I might have heard a footstep.”
+
+“Did you?”
+
+“I cannot swear I did.”
+
+“Do you think you did?”
+
+“Yes, I think I did. To tell the whole: I remember hearing, just as I
+was falling into a doze, a rustle and a footstep in the hall; but it
+made no impression upon me, and I dropped asleep.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Some time later I woke, woke suddenly, as if something had startled me,
+but what, a noise or move, I cannot say. I remember rising up in my bed
+and looking around, but hearing nothing further, soon yielded to the
+drowsiness which possessed me and fell into a deep sleep. I did not wake
+again till morning.”
+
+Here requested to relate how and when he became acquainted with the fact
+of the murder, he substantiated, in all particulars, the account of the
+matter already given by the butler; which subject being exhausted, the
+coroner went on to ask if he had noted the condition of the library
+table after the body had been removed.
+
+“Somewhat; yes, sir.”
+
+“What was on it?”
+
+“The usual properties, sir, books, paper, a pen with the ink dried on
+it, besides the decanter and the wineglass from which he drank the night
+before.”
+
+“Nothing more?”
+
+“I remember nothing more.”
+
+“In regard to that decanter and glass,” broke in the juryman of the
+watch and chain, “did you not say that the latter was found in the
+same condition in which you saw it at the time you left Mr. Leavenworth
+sitting in his library?”
+
+“Yes, sir, very much.”
+
+“Yet he was in the habit of drinking a full glass?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“An interruption must then have ensued very close upon your departure,
+Mr. Harwell.”
+
+A cold bluish pallor suddenly broke out upon the young man’s face. He
+started, and for a moment looked as if struck by some horrible thought.
+“That does not follow, sir,” he articulated with some difficulty. “Mr.
+Leavenworth might--” but suddenly stopped, as if too much distressed to
+proceed.
+
+“Go on, Mr. Harwell, let us hear what you have to say.”
+
+“There is nothing,” he returned faintly, as if battling with some strong
+emotion.
+
+As he had not been answering a question, only volunteering an
+explanation, the coroner let it pass; but I saw more than one pair of
+eyes roll suspiciously from side to side, as if many there felt that
+some sort of clue had been offered them in this man’s emotion. The
+coroner, ignoring in his easy way both the emotion and the universal
+excitement it had produced, now proceeded to ask: “Do you know whether
+the key to the library was in its place when you left the room last
+night?”
+
+“No, sir; I did not notice.”
+
+“The presumption is, it was?”
+
+“I suppose so.”
+
+“At all events, the door was locked in the morning, and the key gone?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Then whoever committed this murder locked the door on passing out, and
+took away the key?”
+
+“It would seem so.”
+
+The coroner turning, faced the jury with an earnest look. “Gentlemen,”
+ said he, “there seems to be a mystery in regard to this key which must
+be looked into.”
+
+Immediately a universal murmur swept through the room, testifying to the
+acquiescence of all present. The little juryman hastily rising proposed
+that an instant search should be made for it; but the coroner, turning
+upon him with what I should denominate as a quelling look, decided
+that the inquest should proceed in the usual manner, till the verbal
+testimony was all in.
+
+“Then allow me to ask a question,” again volunteered the irrepressible.
+“Mr. Harwell, we are told that upon the breaking in of the library door
+this morning, Mr. Leavenworth’s two nieces followed you into the room.”
+
+“One of them, sir, Miss Eleanore.”
+
+“Is Miss Eleanore the one who is said to be Mr. Leavenworth’s sole
+heiress?” the coroner here interposed.
+
+“No, sir, that is Miss Mary.”
+
+“That she gave orders,” pursued the juryman, “for the removal of the
+body into the further room?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And that you obeyed her by helping to carry it in?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Now, in thus passing through the rooms, did you observe anything to
+lead you to form a suspicion of the murderer?”
+
+The secretary shook his head. “I have no suspicion,” he emphatically
+said.
+
+Somehow, I did not believe him. Whether it was the tone of his voice,
+the clutch of his hand on his sleeve--and the hand will often reveal
+more than the countenance--I felt that this man was not to be relied
+upon in making this assertion.
+
+“I should like to ask Mr. Harwell a question,” said a juryman who had
+not yet spoken. “We have had a detailed account of what looks like the
+discovery of a murdered man. Now, murder is never committed without some
+motive. Does the secretary know whether Mr. Leavenworth had any secret
+enemy?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Every one in the house seemed to be on good terms with him?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” with a little quaver of dissent in the assertion, however.
+
+“Not a shadow lay between him and any other member of his household, so
+far as you know?”
+
+“I am not ready to say that,” he returned, quite distressed. “A shadow
+is a very slight thing. There might have been a shadow----”
+
+“Between him and whom?”
+
+A long hesitation. “One of his nieces, sir.”
+
+“Which one?”
+
+Again that defiant lift of the head. “Miss Eleanore.”
+
+“How long has this shadow been observable?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“You do not know the cause?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Nor the extent of the feeling?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You open Mr. Leavenworth’s letters?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Has there been anything in his correspondence of late calculated to
+throw any light upon this deed?”
+
+It actually seemed as if he never would answer. Was he simply pondering
+over his reply, or was the man turned to stone?
+
+“Mr. Harwell, did you hear the juryman?” inquired the coroner.
+
+“Yes, sir; I was thinking.”
+
+“Very well, now answer.”
+
+“Sir,” he replied, turning and looking the juryman full in the face, and
+in that way revealing his unguarded left hand to my gaze, “I have opened
+Mr. Leavenworth’s letters as usual for the last two weeks, and I can
+think of nothing in them bearing in the least upon this tragedy.”
+
+The man lied; I knew it instantly. The clenched hand pausing irresolute,
+then making up its mind to go through with the lie firmly, was enough
+for me.
+
+“Mr. Harwell, this is undoubtedly true according to your judgment,”
+ said the coroner; “but Mr. Leavenworth’s correspondence will have to be
+searched for all that.”
+
+“Of course,” he replied carelessly; “that is only right.”
+
+This remark ended Mr. Harwell’s examination for the time. As he sat down
+I made note of four things.
+
+That Mr. Harwell himself, for some reason not given, was conscious of a
+suspicion which he was anxious to suppress even from his own mind.
+
+That a woman was in some way connected with it, a rustle as well as a
+footstep having been heard by him on the stairs.
+
+That a letter had arrived at the house, which if found would be likely
+to throw some light upon this subject.
+
+That Eleanore Leavenworth’s name came with difficulty from his lips;
+this evidently unimpressible man, manifesting more or less emotion
+whenever he was called upon to utter it.
+
+
+
+IV. A CLUE.
+
+
+    “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.”
+         Hamlet.
+
+THE cook of the establishment being now called, that portly, ruddy-faced
+individual stepped forward with alacrity, displaying upon her
+good-humored countenance such an expression of mingled eagerness and
+anxiety that more than one person present found it difficult to restrain
+a smile at her appearance. Observing this and taking it as a compliment,
+being a woman as well as a cook, she immediately dropped a curtsey,
+and opening her lips was about to speak, when the coroner, rising
+impatiently in his seat, took the word from her mouth by saying sternly:
+
+“Your name?”
+
+“Katherine Malone, sir.”
+
+“Well, Katherine, how long have you been in Mr. Leavenworth’s service?”
+
+“Shure, it is a good twelvemonth now, sir, since I came, on Mrs.
+Wilson’s ricommindation, to that very front door, and----”
+
+“Never mind the front door, but tell us why you left this Mrs. Wilson?”
+
+“Shure, and it was she as left me, being as she went sailing to the
+ould country the same day when on her recommendation I came to this very
+front door--”
+
+“Well, well; no matter about that. You have been in Mr. Leavenworth’s
+family a year?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And liked it? found him a good master?”
+
+“Och, sir, niver have I found a better, worse luck to the villain as
+killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many’s the time I
+killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many’s the time
+I have said to Hannah--” She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of
+terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously
+made a slip. The coroner, observing this, inquired hastily,
+
+“Hannah? Who is Hannah?”
+
+The cook, drawing her roly-poly figure up into some sort of shape in
+her efforts to appear unconcerned, exclaimed boldly: “She? Oh, only the
+ladies’ maid, sir.”
+
+“But I don’t see any one here answering to that description. You didn’t
+speak of any one by the name of Hannah, as belonging to the house,” said
+he, turning to Thomas.
+
+“No, sir,” the latter replied, with a bow and a sidelong look at the
+red-cheeked girl at his side. “You asked me who were in the house at the
+time the murder was discovered, and I told you.”
+
+“Oh,” cried the coroner, satirically; “used to police courts, I see.”
+ Then, turning back to the cook, who had all this while been rolling
+her eyes in a vague fright about the room, inquired, “And where is this
+Hannah?”
+
+“Shure, sir, she’s gone.”
+
+“How long since?”
+
+The cook caught her breath hysterically. “Since last night.”
+
+“What time last night?”
+
+“Troth, sir, and I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.”
+
+“Was she dismissed?”
+
+“Not as I knows on; her clothes is here.”
+
+“Oh, her clothes are here. At what hour did you miss her?”
+
+“I didn’t miss her. She was here last night, and she isn’t here this
+morning, and so I says she ‘s gone.”
+
+“Humph!” cried the coroner, casting a slow glance down the room, while
+every one present looked as if a door had suddenly opened in a closed
+wall.
+
+“Where did this girl sleep?”
+
+The cook, who had been fumbling uneasily with her apron, looked up.
+
+“Shure, we all sleeps at the top of the house, sir.”
+
+“In one room?”
+
+Slowly. “Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did she come up to the room last night?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“At what hour?”
+
+“Shure, it was ten when we all came up. I heard the clock a-striking.”
+
+“Did you observe anything unusual in her appearance?”
+
+“She had a toothache, sir.”
+
+“Oh, a toothache; what, then? Tell me all she did.”
+
+But at this the cook broke into tears and wails.
+
+“Shure, she didn’t do nothing, sir. It wasn’t her, sir, as did anything;
+don’t you believe it. Hannah is a good girl, and honest, sir, as ever
+you see. I am ready to swear on the Book as how she never put her hand
+to the lock of his door. What should she for? She only went down to Miss
+Eleanore for some toothache-drops, her face was paining her that awful;
+and oh, sir----”
+
+“There, there,” interrupted the coroner, “I am not accusing Hannah of
+anything. I only asked you what she did after she reached your room. She
+went downstairs, you say. How long after you went up?”
+
+“Troth, sir, I couldn’t tell; but Molly says----”
+
+“Never mind what Molly says. _You_ didn’t see her go down?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nor see her come back?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nor see her this morning?”
+
+“No, sir; how could I when she ‘s gone?”
+
+“But you did see, last night, that she seemed to be suffering with
+toothache?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Very well; now tell me how and when you first became acquainted with
+the fact of Mr. Leavenworth’s death.”
+
+But her replies to this question, while over-garrulous, contained but
+little information; and seeing this, the coroner was on the point of
+dismissing her, when the little juror, remembering an admission she had
+made, of having seen Miss Eleanore Leavenworth coming out of the library
+door a few minutes after Mr. Leavenworth’s body had been carried into
+the next room, asked if her mistress had anything in her hand at the
+time.
+
+“I don’t know, sir. Faith!” she suddenly exclaimed, “I believe she
+did have a piece of paper. I recollect, now, seeing her put it in her
+pocket.”
+
+The next witness was Molly, the upstairs girl.
+
+Molly O’Flanagan, as she called herself, was a rosy-cheeked,
+black-haired, pert girl of about eighteen, who under ordinary
+circumstances would have found herself able to answer, with a due degree
+of smartness, any question which might have been addressed to her. But
+fright will sometimes cower the stoutest heart, and Molly, standing
+before the coroner at this juncture, presented anything but a reckless
+appearance, her naturally rosy cheeks blanching at the first word
+addressed to her, and her head falling forward on her breast in a
+confusion too genuine to be dissembled and too transparent to be
+misunderstood.
+
+As her testimony related mostly to Hannah, and what she knew of her, and
+her remarkable disappearance, I shall confine myself to a mere synopsis
+of it.
+
+As far as she, Molly, knew, Hannah was what she had given herself out
+to be, an uneducated girl of Irish extraction, who had come from
+the country to act as lady’s-maid and seamstress to the two Misses
+Leavenworth. She had been in the family for some time; before Molly
+herself, in fact; and though by nature remarkably reticent, refusing to
+tell anything about herself or her past life, she had managed to become
+a great favorite with all in the house. But she was of a melancholy
+nature and fond of brooding, often getting up nights to sit and think in
+the dark: “as if she was a lady!” exclaimed Molly.
+
+This habit being a singular one for a girl in her station, an attempt
+was made to win from the witness further particulars in regard to
+it. But Molly, with a toss of her head, confined herself to the one
+statement. She used to get up nights and sit in the window, and that was
+all she knew about it.
+
+Drawn away from this topic, during the consideration of which, a little
+of the sharpness of Molly’s disposition had asserted itself, she went on
+to state, in connection with the events of the past night, that Hannah
+had been ill for two days or more with a swelled face; that it grew so
+bad after they had gone upstairs, the night before, that she got out
+of bed, and dressing herself--Molly was closely questioned here, but
+insisted upon the fact that Hannah had fully dressed herself, even to
+arranging her collar and ribbon--lighted a candle, and made known her
+intention of going down to Miss Eleanore for aid.
+
+“Why Miss Eleanore?” a juryman here asked.
+
+“Oh, she is the one who always gives out medicines and such like to the
+servants.”
+
+Urged to proceed, she went on to state that she had already told all she
+knew about it. Hannah did not come back, nor was she to be found in the
+house at breakfast time.
+
+“You say she took a candle with her,” said the coroner. “Was it in a
+candlestick?”
+
+“No, sir; loose like.”
+
+“Why did she take a candle? Does not Mr. Leavenworth burn gas in his
+halls?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but we put the gas out as we go up, and Hannah is afraid of
+the dark.”
+
+“If she took a candle, it must be lying somewhere about the house. Now,
+has anybody seen a stray candle?”
+
+“Not as I knows on, sir.”
+
+“Is _this_ it?” exclaimed a voice over my shoulder.
+
+It was Mr. Gryce, and he was holding up into view a half-burned
+paraffine candle.
+
+“Yes, sir; lor’, where did you find it?”
+
+“In the grass of the carriage yard, half-way from the kitchen door to
+the street,” he quietly returned.
+
+Sensation. A clue, then, at last! Something had been found which seemed
+to connect this mysterious murder with the outside world. Instantly the
+backdoor assumed the chief position of interest. The candle found lying
+in the yard seemed to prove, not only that Hannah had left the house
+shortly after descending from her room, but had left it by the backdoor,
+which we now remembered was only a few steps from the iron gate opening
+into the side street. But Thomas, being recalled, repeated his assertion
+that not only the back-door, but all the lower windows of the house,
+had been found by him securely locked and bolted at six o’clock that
+morning. Inevitable conclusion--some one had locked and bolted them
+after the girl. Who? Alas, that had now become the very serious and
+momentous question.
+
+
+
+V. EXPERT TESTIMONY
+
+
+     “And often-times, to win us to our harm,
+      The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
+      Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
+      In deepest consequence.”
+
+     Macbeth.
+
+IN the midst of the universal gloom thus awakened there came a sharp
+ring at the bell. Instantly all eyes turned toward the parlor door,
+just as it slowly opened, and the officer who had been sent off so
+mysteriously by the coroner an hour before entered, in company with a
+young man, whose sleek appearance, intelligent eye, and general air of
+trustworthiness, seemed to proclaim him to be, what in fact he was, the
+confidential clerk of a responsible mercantile house.
+
+Advancing without apparent embarrassment, though each and every eye in
+the room was fixed upon him with lively curiosity, he made a slight bow
+to the coroner.
+
+“You have sent for a man from Bohn & Co.,” he said.
+
+Strong and immediate excitement. Bohn & Co. was the well-known pistol
+and ammunition store of ---- Broadway.
+
+“Yes, sir,” returned the coroner. “We have here a bullet, which we must
+ask you to examine, You are fully acquainted with all matters connected
+with your business?”
+
+The young man, merely elevating an expressive eyebrow, took the bullet
+carelessly in his hand.
+
+“Can you tell us from what make of pistol that was delivered?”
+
+The young man rolled it slowly round between his thumb and forefinger,
+and then laid it down. “It is a No. 32 ball, usually sold with the small
+pistol made by Smith & Wesson.”
+
+“A small pistol!” exclaimed the butler, jumping up from his seat.
+“Master used to keep a little pistol in his stand drawer. I have often
+seen it. We all knew about it.”
+
+Great and irrepressible excitement, especially among the servants.
+“That’s so!” I heard a heavy voice exclaim. “I saw it once
+myself--master was cleaning it.” It was the cook who spoke.
+
+“In his stand drawer?” the coroner inquired.
+
+“Yes, sir; at the head of his bed.”
+
+An officer was sent to examine the stand drawer. In a few moments he
+returned, bringing a small pistol which he laid down on the coroner’s
+table, saying, “Here it is.”
+
+Immediately, every one sprang to his feet, but the coroner, handing
+it over to the clerk from Bonn’s, inquired if that was the make before
+mentioned. Without hesitation he replied, “Yes, Smith & Wesson; you can
+see for yourself,” and he proceeded to examine it.
+
+“Where did you find this pistol?” asked the coroner of the officer.
+
+“In the top drawer of a shaving table standing near the head of Mr.
+Leavenworth’s bed. It was lying in a velvet case together with a box
+of cartridges, one of which I bring as a sample,” and he laid it down
+beside the bullet.
+
+“Was the drawer locked?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but the key was not taken out.”
+
+Interest had now reached its climax. A universal cry swept through the
+room, “Is it loaded?”
+
+The coroner, frowning on the assembly, with a look of great dignity,
+remarked:
+
+“I was about to ask that question myself, but first I must request
+order.”
+
+An immediate calm followed. Every one was too much interested to
+interpose any obstacle in the way of gratifying his curiosity.
+
+“Now, sir!” exclaimed the coroner.
+
+The clerk from Bonn’s, taking out the cylinder, held it up. “There are
+seven chambers here, and they are all loaded.”
+
+A murmur of disappointment followed this assertion.
+
+“But,” he quietly added after a momentary examination of the face of
+the cylinder, “they have not all been loaded long. A bullet has been
+recently shot from one of these chambers.”
+
+“How do you know?” cried one of the jury.
+
+“How do I know? Sir,” said he, turning to the coroner, “will you be kind
+enough to examine the condition of this pistol?” and he handed it over
+to that gentleman. “Look first at the barrel; it is clean and bright,
+and shows no evidence of a bullet having passed out of it very lately;
+that is because it has been cleaned. But now, observe the face of the
+cylinder: what do you see there?”
+
+“I see a faint line of smut near one of the chambers.”
+
+“Just so; show it to the gentlemen.”
+
+It was immediately handed down.
+
+“That faint line of smut, on the edge of one of the chambers, is the
+telltale, sirs. A bullet passing out always leaves smut behind. The man
+who fired this, remembering the fact, cleaned the barrel, but forgot the
+cylinder.” And stepping aside he folded his arms.
+
+“Jerusalem!” spoke out a rough, hearty voice, “isn’t that wonderful!”
+ This exclamation came from a countryman who had stepped in from the
+street, and now stood agape in the doorway.
+
+It was a rude but not altogether unwelcome interruption. A smile passed
+round the room, and both men and women breathed more easily. Order being
+at last restored, the officer was requested to describe the position of
+the stand, and its distance from the library table.
+
+“The library table is in one room, and the stand in another. To
+reach the former from the latter, one would be obliged to cross
+Mr. Leavenworth’s bedroom in a diagonal direction, pass through the
+passageway separating that one apartment from the other, and----”
+
+“Wait a moment; how does this table stand in regard to the door which
+leads from the bedroom into the hall?”
+
+“One might enter that door, pass directly round the foot of the bed
+to the stand, procure the pistol, and cross half-way over to the
+passage-way, without being seen by any one sitting or standing in the
+library beyond.”
+
+“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the horrified cook, throwing her apron over her
+head as if to shut out some dreadful vision. “Hannah niver would have
+the pluck for that; niver, niver!” But Mr. Gryce, laying a heavy hand on
+the woman, forced her back into her seat, reproving and calming her
+at the same time, with a dexterity marvellous to behold. “I beg your
+pardons,” she cried deprecatingly to those around; “but it niver was
+Hannah, niver!”
+
+The clerk from Bohn’s here being dismissed, those assembled took the
+opportunity of making some change in their position, after which, the
+name of Mr. Harwell was again called. That person rose with manifest
+reluctance. Evidently the preceding testimony had either upset some
+theory of his, or indubitably strengthened some unwelcome suspicion.
+
+“Mr. Harwell,” the coroner began, “we are told of the existence of a
+pistol belonging to Mr. Leavenworth, and upon searching, we discover it
+in his room. Did you know of his possessing such an instrument?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Was it a fact generally known in the house?”
+
+“So it would seem.”
+
+“How was that? Was he in the habit of leaving it around where any one
+could see it?”
+
+“I cannot say; I can only acquaint you with the manner in which I myself
+became aware of its existence.”
+
+“Very well, do so.”
+
+“We were once talking about firearms. I have some taste that way, and
+have always been anxious to possess a pocket-pistol. Saying something
+of the kind to him one day, he rose from his seat and, fetching me this,
+showed it to me.”
+
+“How long ago was this?”
+
+“Some few months since.”
+
+“He has owned this pistol, then, for some time?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Is that the only occasion upon which you have ever seen it?”
+
+“No, sir,”--the secretary blushed--“I have seen it once since.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“About three weeks ago.”
+
+“Under what circumstances?”
+
+The secretary dropped his head, a certain drawn look making itself
+suddenly visible on his countenance.
+
+“Will you not excuse me, gentlemen?” he asked, after a moment’s
+hesitation.
+
+“It is impossible,” returned the coroner.
+
+His face grew even more pallid and deprecatory. “I am obliged to
+introduce the name of a lady,” he hesitatingly declared.
+
+“We are very sorry,” remarked the coroner.
+
+The young man turned fiercely upon him, and I could not help wondering
+that I had ever thought him commonplace. “Of Miss Eleanore Leavenworth!”
+ he cried.
+
+At that name, so uttered, every one started but Mr. Gryce; he was
+engaged in holding a close and confidential confab with his finger-tips,
+and did not appear to notice.
+
+“Surely it is contrary to the rules of decorum and the respect we all
+feel for the lady herself to introduce her name into this discussion,”
+ continued Mr. Harwell. But the coroner still insisting upon an answer,
+he refolded his arms (a movement indicative of resolution with him), and
+began in a low, forced tone to say:
+
+“It is only this, gentlemen. One afternoon, about three weeks since, I
+had occasion to go to the library at an unusual hour. Crossing over to
+the mantel-piece for the purpose of procuring a penknife which I had
+carelessly left there in the morning, I heard a noise in the adjoining
+room. Knowing that Mr. Leavenworth was out, and supposing the ladies to
+be out also, I took the liberty of ascertaining who the intruder was;
+when what was my astonishment to come upon Miss Eleanore Leavenworth,
+standing at the side of her uncle’s bed, with his pistol in her hand.
+Confused at my indiscretion, I attempted to escape without being
+observed; but in vain, for just as I was crossing the threshold, she
+turned and, calling me by name, requested me to explain the pistol to
+her. Gentlemen, in order to do so, I was obliged to take it in my hand;
+and that, sirs, is the only other occasion upon which I ever saw or
+handled the pistol of Mr. Leavenworth.” Drooping his head, he waited in
+indescribable agitation for the next question.
+
+“She asked you to explain the pistol to her; what do you mean by that?”
+
+“I mean,” he faintly continued, catching his breath in a vain effort to
+appear calm, “how to load, aim, and fire it.”
+
+A flash of awakened feeling shot across the faces of all present. Even
+the coroner showed sudden signs of emotion, and sat staring at the bowed
+form and pale countenance of the man before him, with a peculiar look of
+surprised compassion, which could not fail of producing its effect, not
+only upon the young man himself, but upon all who saw him.
+
+“Mr. Harwell,” he at length inquired, “have you anything to add to the
+statement you have just made?”
+
+The secretary sadly shook his head.
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I here whispered, clutching that person by the arm and
+dragging him down to my side; “assure me, I entreat you--” but he would
+not let me finish.
+
+“The coroner is about to ask for the young ladies,” he quickly
+interposed. “If you desire to fulfil your duty towards them, be ready,
+that’s all.”
+
+Fulfil my duty! The simple words recalled me to myself. What had I been
+thinking of; was I mad? With nothing more terrible in mind than a tender
+picture of the lovely cousins bowed in anguish over the remains of one
+who had been as dear as a father to them, I slowly rose, and upon demand
+being made for Miss Mary and Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, advanced and
+said that, as a friend of the family--a petty lie, which I hope will not
+be laid up against me--I begged the privilege of going for the ladies
+and escorting them down.
+
+Instantly a dozen eyes flashed upon me, and I experienced the
+embarrassment of one who, by some unexpected word or action, has drawn
+upon himself the concentrated attention of a whole room.
+
+But the permission sought being almost immediately accorded, I was
+speedily enabled to withdraw from my rather trying position, finding
+myself, almost before I knew it, in the hall, my face aflame, my heart
+beating with excitement, and these words of Mr. Gryce ringing in my
+ears: “Third floor, rear room, first door at the head of the stairs. You
+will find the young ladies expecting you.”
+
+
+
+VI. SIDE-LIGHTS
+
+
+    “Oh! she has beauty might ensnare
+    A conqueror’s soul, and make him leave his crown
+    At random, to be scuffled for by slaves.”
+
+        OTWAY.
+
+THIRD floor, rear room, first door at the head of the stairs! What was I
+about to encounter there?
+
+Mounting the lower flight, and shuddering by the library wall, which to
+my troubled fancy seemed written all over with horrible suggestions, I
+took my way slowly up-stairs, revolving in my mind many things, among
+which an admonition uttered long ago by my mother occupied a prominent
+place.
+
+“My son, remember that a woman with a secret may be a fascinating study,
+but she can never be a safe, nor even satisfactory, companion.”
+
+A wise saw, no doubt, but totally inapplicable to the present situation;
+yet it continued to haunt me till the sight of the door to which I had
+been directed put every other thought to flight save that I was about to
+meet the stricken nieces of a brutally murdered man.
+
+Pausing only long enough on the threshold to compose myself for the
+interview, I lifted my hand to knock, when a rich, clear voice rose from
+within, and I heard distinctly uttered these astounding words: “I do not
+accuse your hand, though I know of none other which would or could have
+done this deed; but your heart, your head, your will, these I do and
+must accuse, in my secret mind at least; and it is well that you should
+know it!”
+
+Struck with horror, I staggered back, my hands to my ears, when a touch
+fell on my arm, and turning, I saw Mr. Gryce standing close beside me,
+with his finger on his lip, and the last flickering shadow of a flying
+emotion fading from his steady, almost compassionate countenance.
+
+“Come, come,” he exclaimed; “I see you don’t begin to know what kind
+of a world you are living in. Rouse yourself; remember they are waiting
+down below.”
+
+“But who is it? Who was it that spoke?”
+
+“That we shall soon see.” And without waiting to meet, much less answer,
+my appealing look, he struck his hand against the door, and flung it
+wide open.
+
+Instantly a flush of lovely color burst upon us. Blue curtains, blue
+carpets, blue walls. It was like a glimpse of heavenly azure in a spot
+where only darkness and gloom were to be expected. Fascinated by the
+sight, I stepped impetuously forward, but instantly paused again,
+overcome and impressed by the exquisite picture I saw before me.
+
+Seated in an easy chair of embroidered satin, but rousing from her
+half-recumbent position, like one who was in the act of launching a
+powerful invective, I beheld a glorious woman. Fair, frail, proud,
+delicate; looking like a lily in the thick creamy-tinted wrapper that
+alternately clung to and swayed from her finely moulded figure; with her
+forehead, crowned with the palest of pale tresses, lifted and flashing
+with power; one quivering hand clasping the arm of her chair, the other
+outstretched and pointing toward some distant object in the room,--her
+whole appearance was so startling, so extraordinary, that I held my
+breath in surprise, actually for the moment doubting if it were a living
+woman I beheld, or some famous pythoness conjured up from ancient story,
+to express in one tremendous gesture the supreme indignation of outraged
+womanhood.
+
+“Miss Mary Leavenworth,” whispered that ever present voice over my
+shoulder.
+
+Ah! Mary Leavenworth! What a relief came with this name. This beautiful
+creature, then, was not the Eleanore who could load, aim, and fire a
+pistol. Turning my head, I followed the guiding of that uplifted
+hand, now frozen into its place by a new emotion: the emotion of being
+interrupted in the midst of a direful and pregnant revelation, and
+saw--but, no, here description fails me! Eleanore Leavenworth must be
+painted by other hands than mine. I could sit half the day and dilate
+upon the subtle grace, the pale magnificence, the perfection of form and
+feature which make Mary Leavenworth the wonder of all who behold her;
+but Eleanore--I could as soon paint the beatings of my own heart.
+Beguiling, terrible, grand, pathetic, that face of faces flashed upon my
+gaze, and instantly the moonlight loveliness of her cousin faded from
+my memory, and I saw only Eleanore--only Eleanore from that moment on
+forever.
+
+When my glance first fell upon her, she was standing by the side of a
+small table, with her face turned toward her cousin, and her two hands
+resting, the one upon her breast, the other on the table, in an attitude
+of antagonism. But before the sudden pang which shot through me at the
+sight of her beauty had subsided, her head had turned, her gaze had
+encountered mine; all the horror of the situation had burst upon her,
+and, instead of a haughty woman, drawn up to receive and trample upon
+the insinuations of another, I beheld, alas! a trembling, panting human
+creature, conscious that a sword hung above her head, and without a word
+to say why it should not fall and slay her.
+
+It was a pitiable change; a heart-rending revelation! I turned from
+it as from a confession. But just then, her cousin, who had apparently
+regained her self-possession at the first betrayal of emotion on the
+part of the other, stepped forward and, holding out her hand, inquired:
+
+“Is not this Mr. Raymond? How kind of you, sir. And you?” turning to Mr.
+Gryce; “you have come to tell us we are wanted below, is it not so?”
+
+It was the voice I had heard through the door, but modulated to a sweet,
+winning, almost caressing tone.
+
+Glancing hastily at Mr. Gryce, I looked to see how he was affected by
+it. Evidently much, for the bow with which he greeted her words was
+lower than ordinary, and the smile with which he met her earnest look
+both deprecatory and reassuring. His glance did not embrace her cousin,
+though her eyes were fixed upon his face with an inquiry in their depths
+more agonizing than the utterance of any cry would have been. Knowing
+Mr. Gryce as I did, I felt that nothing could promise worse, or be more
+significant, than this transparent disregard of one who seemed to fill
+the room with her terror. And, struck with pity, I forgot that Mary
+Leavenworth had spoken, forgot her very presence in fact, and, turning
+hastily away, took one step toward her cousin, when Mr. Gryce’s hand
+falling on my arm stopped me.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth speaks,” said he.
+
+Recalled to myself, I turned my back upon what had so interested me even
+while it repelled, and forcing myself to make some sort of reply to the
+fair creature before me, offered my arm and led her toward the door.
+
+Immediately the pale, proud countenance of Mary Leavenworth softened
+almost to the point of smiling;--and here let me say, there never was a
+woman who could smile and not smile like Mary Leavenworth. Looking in my
+face, with a frank and sweet appeal in her eyes, she murmured:
+
+“You are very good. I do feel the need of support; the occasion is so
+horrible, and my cousin there,”--here a little gleam of alarm nickered
+into her eyes--“is so very strange to-day.”
+
+“Humph!” thought I to myself; “where is the grand indignant pythoness,
+with the unspeakable wrath and menace in her countenance, whom I saw
+when I first entered the room?” Could it be that she was trying
+to beguile us from our conjectures, by making light of her former
+expressions? Or was it possible she deceived herself so far as to
+believe us unimpressed by the weighty accusation overheard by us at a
+moment so critical?
+
+But Eleanore Leavenworth, leaning on the arm of the detective,
+soon absorbed all my attention. She had regained by this time her
+self-possession, also, but not so entirely as her cousin. Her step
+faltered as she endeavored to walk, and the hand which rested on his
+arm trembled like a leaf. “Would to God I had never entered this house,”
+ said I to myself. And yet, before the exclamation was half uttered, I
+became conscious of a secret rebellion against the thought; an emotion,
+shall I say, of thankfulness that it had been myself rather than another
+who had been allowed to break in upon their privacy, overhear that
+significant remark, and, shall I acknowledge it, follow Mr. Gryce and
+the trembling, swaying figure of Eleanore Leavenworth down-stairs. Not
+that I felt the least relenting in my soul towards guilt. Crime had
+never looked so black; revenge, selfishness, hatred, cupidity, never
+seemed more loathsome; and yet--but why enter into the consideration of
+my feelings at that time. They cannot be of interest; besides, who can
+fathom the depths of his own soul, or untangle for others the secret
+cords of revulsion and attraction which are, and ever have been, a
+mystery and wonder to himself? Enough that, supporting upon my arm the
+half-fainting form of one woman, but with my attention, and interest
+devoted to another, I descended the stairs of the Leavenworth mansion,
+and re-entered the dreaded presence of those inquisitors of the law who
+had been so impatiently awaiting us.
+
+As I once more crossed that threshold, and faced the eager countenances
+of those I had left so short a time before, I felt as if ages had
+elapsed in the interval; so much can be experienced by the human soul in
+the short space of a few over-weighted moments.
+
+
+
+VII. MARY LEAVENWORTH
+
+
+    “For this relief much thanks.”
+         Hamlet.
+
+HAVE you ever observed the effect of the sunlight bursting suddenly upon
+the earth from behind a mass of heavily surcharged clouds? If so,
+you can have some idea of the sensation produced in that room by the
+entrance of these two beautiful ladies. Possessed of a loveliness which
+would have been conspicuous in all places and under all circumstances,
+Mary, at least, if not her less striking, though by no means less
+interesting cousin, could never have entered any assemblage without
+drawing to herself the wondering attention of all present. But, heralded
+as here, by the most fearful of tragedies, what could you expect from
+a collection of men such as I have already described, but overmastering
+wonder and incredulous admiration? Nothing, perhaps, and yet at the
+first murmuring sound of amazement and satisfaction, I felt my soul
+recoil in disgust.
+
+Making haste to seat my now trembling companion in the most retired spot
+I could find, I looked around for her cousin. But Eleanore Leavenworth,
+weak as she had appeared in the interview above, showed at this moment
+neither hesitation nor embarrassment. Advancing upon the arm of the
+detective, whose suddenly assumed air of persuasion in the presence of
+the jury was anything but reassuring, she stood for an instant gazing
+calmly upon the scene before her. Then bowing to the coroner with a
+grace and condescension which seemed at once to place him on the footing
+of a politely endured intruder in this home of elegance, she took the
+seat which her own servants hastened to procure for her, with an ease
+and dignity that rather recalled the triumphs of the drawing-room
+than the self-consciousness of a scene such as that in which we found
+ourselves. Palpable acting, though this was, it was not without its
+effect. Instantly the murmurs ceased, the obtrusive glances fell,
+and something like a forced respect made itself visible upon the
+countenances of all present. Even I, impressed as I had been by her very
+different demeanor in the room above, experienced a sensation of relief;
+and was more than startled when, upon turning to the lady at my side, I
+beheld her eyes riveted upon her cousin with an inquiry in their depths
+that was anything but encouraging. Fearful of the effect this look might
+have upon those about us, I hastily seized her hand which, clenched and
+unconscious, hung over the edge of her chair, and was about to beseech
+her to have care, when her name, called in a slow, impressive way by the
+coroner, roused her from her abstraction. Hurriedly withdrawing her gaze
+from her cousin, she lifted her face to the jury, and I saw a gleam
+pass over it which brought back my early fancy of the pythoness. But
+it passed, and it was with an expression of great modesty she settled
+herself to respond to the demand of the coroner and answer the first few
+opening inquiries.
+
+But what can express the anxiety of that moment to me? Gentle as she now
+appeared, she was capable of great wrath, as I knew. Was she going to
+reiterate her suspicions here? Did she hate as well as mistrust her
+cousin? Would she dare assert in this presence, and before the world,
+what she found it so easy to utter in the privacy of her own room
+and the hearing of the one person concerned? Did she wish to? Her own
+countenance gave me no clue to her intentions, and, in my anxiety,
+I turned once more to look at Eleanore. But she, in a dread and
+apprehension I could easily understand, had recoiled at the first
+intimation that her cousin was to speak, and now sat with her face
+covered from sight, by hands blanched to an almost deathly whiteness.
+
+The testimony of Mary Leavenworth was short. After some few questions,
+mostly referring to her position in the house and her connection with
+its deceased master, she was asked to relate what she knew of the murder
+itself, and of its discovery by her cousin and the servants.
+
+Lifting up a brow that seemed never to have known till now the shadow of
+care or trouble, and a voice that, whilst low and womanly, rang like a
+bell through the room, she replied:
+
+“You ask me, gentlemen, a question which I cannot answer of my own
+personal knowledge. I know nothing of this murder, nor of its discovery,
+save what has come to me through the lips of others.”
+
+My heart gave a bound of relief, and I saw Eleanore Leavenworth’s hands
+drop from her brow like stone, while a flickering gleam as of hope fled
+over her face, and then died away like sunlight leaving marble.
+
+“For, strange as it may seem to you,” Mary earnestly continued, the
+shadow of a past horror revisiting her countenance, “I did not enter
+the room where my uncle lay. I did not even think of doing so; my only
+impulse was to fly from what was so horrible and heartrending. But
+Eleanore went in, and she can tell you----”
+
+“We will question Miss Eleanore Leavenworth later,” interrupted the
+coroner, but very gently for him. Evidently the grace and elegance of
+this beautiful woman were making their impression. “What we want to know
+is what _you_ saw. You say you cannot tell us of anything that passed in
+the room at the time of the discovery?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Only what occurred in the hall?”
+
+“Nothing occurred in the hall,” she innocently remarked.
+
+“Did not the servants pass in from the hall, and your cousin come out
+there after her revival from her fainting fit?”
+
+Mary Leavenworth’s violet eyes opened wonderingly.
+
+“Yes, sir; but that was nothing.”
+
+“You remember, however, her coming into the hall?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“With a paper in her hand?”
+
+“Paper?” and she wheeled suddenly and looked at her cousin. “Did you
+have a paper, Eleanore?”
+
+The moment was intense. Eleanore Leavenworth, who at the first mention
+of the word paper had started perceptibly, rose to her feet at this
+naive appeal, and opening her lips, seemed about to speak, when the
+coroner, with a strict sense of what was regular, lifted his hand with
+decision, and said:
+
+“You need not ask your cousin, Miss; but let us hear what you have to
+say yourself.”
+
+Immediately, Eleanore Leavenworth sank back, a pink spot breaking out on
+either cheek; while a slight murmur testified to the disappointment
+of those in the room, who were more anxious to have their curiosity
+gratified than the forms of law adhered to.
+
+Satisfied with having done his duty, and disposed to be easy with so
+charming a witness, the coroner repeated his question. “Tell us, if you
+please, if you saw any such thing in her hand?”
+
+“I? Oh, no, no; I saw nothing.”
+
+Being now questioned in relation to the events of the previous night,
+she had no new light to throw upon the subject. She acknowledged her
+uncle to have been a little reserved at dinner, but no more so than at
+previous times when annoyed by some business anxiety.
+
+Asked if she had seen her uncle again that evening, she said no, that
+she had been detained in her room. That the sight of him, sitting in his
+seat at the head of the table, was the very last remembrance she had of
+him.
+
+There was something so touching, so forlorn, and yet so unobtrusive, in
+this simple recollection of hers, that a look of sympathy passed slowly
+around the room.
+
+I even detected Mr. Gryce softening towards the inkstand. But Eleanore
+Leavenworth sat unmoved.
+
+“Was your uncle on ill terms with any one?” was now asked. “Had he
+valuable papers or secret sums of money in his possession?”
+
+To all these inquiries she returned an equal negative.
+
+“Has your uncle met any stranger lately, or received any important
+letter during the last few weeks, which might seem in any way to throw
+light upon this mystery?”
+
+There was the slightest perceptible hesitation in her voice, as she
+replied: “No, not to my knowledge; I don’t know of any such.” But here,
+stealing a side glance at Eleanore, she evidently saw something that
+reassured her, for she hastened to add:
+
+“I believe I may go further than that, and meet your question with a
+positive no. My uncle was in the habit of confiding in me, and I should
+have known if anything of importance to him had occurred.”
+
+Questioned in regard to Hannah, she gave that person the best of
+characters; knew of nothing which could have led either to her strange
+disappearance, or to her connection with crime. Could not say whether
+she kept any company, or had any visitors; only knew that no one with
+any such pretensions came to the house. Finally, when asked when she
+had last seen the pistol which Mr. Leavenworth always kept in his stand
+drawer, she returned, not since the day he bought it; Eleanore, and not
+herself, having the charge of her uncle’s apartments.
+
+It was the only thing she had said which, even to a mind freighted like
+mine, would seem to point to any private doubt or secret suspicion; and
+this, uttered in the careless manner in which it was, would have passed
+without comment if Eleanore herself had not directed at that moment a
+very much aroused and inquiring look upon the speaker.
+
+But it was time for the inquisitive juror to make himself heard again.
+Edging to the brink of the chair, he drew in his breath, with a vague
+awe of Mary’s beauty, almost ludicrous to see, and asked if she had
+properly considered what she had just said.
+
+“I hope, sir, I consider all I am called upon to say at such a time as
+this,” was her earnest reply.
+
+The little juror drew back, and I looked to see her examination
+terminate, when suddenly his ponderous colleague of the watch-chain,
+catching the young lady’s eye, inquired:
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, did your uncle ever make a will?”
+
+Instantly every man in the room was in arms, and even she could not
+prevent the slow blush of injured pride from springing to her cheek. But
+her answer was given firmly, and without any show of resentment.
+
+“Yes, sir,” she returned simply.
+
+“More than one?”
+
+“I never heard of but one.”
+
+“Are you acquainted with the contents of that will?”
+
+“I am. He made no secret of his intentions to any one.”
+
+The juryman lifted his eye-glass and looked at her. Her grace was little
+to him, or her beauty or her elegance. “Perhaps, then, you can tell me
+who is the one most likely to be benefited by his death?”
+
+The brutality of this question was too marked to pass unchallenged.
+Not a man in that room, myself included, but frowned with sudden
+disapprobation. But Mary Leavenworth, drawing herself up, looked her
+interlocutor calmly in the face, and restrained herself to say:
+
+“I know who would be the greatest losers by it. The children he took to
+his bosom in their helplessness and sorrow; the young girls he enshrined
+with the halo of his love and protection, when love and protection were
+what their immaturity most demanded; the women who looked to him for
+guidance when childhood and youth were passed--these, sir, these are
+the ones to whom his death is a loss, in comparison to which all others
+which may hereafter befall them must ever seem trivial and unimportant.”
+
+It was a noble reply to the basest of insinuations, and the juryman drew
+back rebuked; but here another of them, one who had not spoken before,
+but whose appearance was not only superior to the rest, but also almost
+imposing in its gravity, leaned from his seat and in a solemn voice
+said:
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, the human mind cannot help forming impressions.
+Now have you, with or without reason, felt at any time conscious of
+a suspicion pointing towards any one person as the murderer of your
+uncle?”
+
+It was a frightful moment. To me and to one other, I am sure it was
+not only frightful, but agonizing. Would her courage fail? would her
+determination to shield her cousin remain firm in the face of duty and
+at the call of probity? I dared not hope it.
+
+But Mary Leavenworth, rising to her feet, looked judge and jury calmly
+in the face, and, without raising her voice, giving it an indescribably
+clear and sharp intonation, replied:
+
+“No; I have neither suspicion nor reason for any. The assassin of my
+uncle is not only entirely unknown to, but completely unsuspected by,
+me.”
+
+It was like the removal of a stifling pressure. Amid a universal
+outgoing of the breath, Mary Leavenworth stood aside and Eleanore was
+called in her place.
+
+
+
+VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
+
+
+    “O dark, dark, dark!”
+
+AND now that the interest was at its height, that the veil which
+shrouded this horrible tragedy seemed about to be lifted, if not
+entirely withdrawn, I felt a desire to fly the scene, to leave the spot,
+to know no more. Not that I was conscious of any particular fear of
+this woman betraying herself. The cold steadiness of her now fixed and
+impassive countenance was sufficient warranty in itself against the
+possibility of any such catastrophe. But if, indeed, the suspicions of
+her cousin were the offspring, not only of hatred, but of knowledge; if
+that face of beauty was in truth only a mask, and Eleanore Leavenworth
+was what the words of her cousin, and her own after behavior would seem
+to imply, how could I bear to sit there and see the frightful serpent of
+deceit and sin evolve itself from the bosom of this white rose! And yet,
+such is the fascination of uncertainty that, although I saw something
+of my own feelings reflected in the countenances of many about me, not a
+man in all that assemblage showed any disposition to depart, I least of
+all.
+
+The coroner, upon whom the blonde loveliness of Mary had impressed
+itself to Eleanor’s apparent detriment, was the only one in the room
+who showed himself unaffected at this moment. Turning toward the witness
+with a look which, while respectful, had a touch of austerity in it, he
+began:
+
+“You have been an intimate of Mr. Leavenworth’s family from childhood,
+they tell me, Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+“From my tenth year,” was her quiet reply.
+
+It was the first time I had heard her voice, and it surprised me; it
+was so like, and yet so unlike, that of her cousin. Similar in tone, it
+lacked its expressiveness, if I may so speak; sounding without vibration
+on the ear, and ceasing without an echo.
+
+“Since that time you have been treated like a daughter, they tell me?”
+
+“Yes, sir, like a daughter, indeed; he was more than a father to both of
+us.”
+
+“You and Miss Mary Leavenworth are cousins, I believe. When did she
+enter the family?”
+
+“At the same time I did. Our respective parents were victims of the same
+disaster. If it had not been for our uncle, we should have been thrown,
+children as we were, upon the world. But he”--here she paused, her
+firm lips breaking into a half tremble--“but he, in the goodness of his
+heart, adopted us into his family, and gave us what we had both lost, a
+father and a home.”
+
+“You say he was a father to you as well as to your cousin--that he
+adopted you. Do you mean by that, that he not only surrounded you with
+present luxury, but gave you to understand that the same should be
+secured to you after his death; in short, that he intended to leave any
+portion of his property to you?”
+
+“No, sir; I was given to understand, from the first, that his property
+would be bequeathed by will to my cousin.”
+
+“Your cousin was no more nearly related to him than yourself, Miss
+Leavenworth; did he never give you any reason for this evident
+partiality?”
+
+“None but his pleasure, sir.”
+
+Her answers up to this point had been so straightforward and
+satisfactory that a gradual confidence seemed to be taking the place
+of the rather uneasy doubts which had from the first circled about this
+woman’s name and person. But at this admission, uttered as it was in
+a calm, unimpassioned voice, not only the jury, but myself, who had so
+much truer reason for distrusting her, felt that actual suspicion in her
+case must be very much shaken before the utter lack of motive which this
+reply so clearly betokened.
+
+Meanwhile the coroner continued: “If your uncle was as kind to you as
+you say, you must have become very much attached to him?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” her mouth taking a sudden determined curve.
+
+“His death, then, must have been a great shock to you?”
+
+“Very, very great.”
+
+“Enough of itself to make you faint away, as they tell me you did, at
+the first glimpse you had of his body?”
+
+“Enough, quite.”
+
+“And yet you seemed to be prepared for it?”
+
+“Prepared?”
+
+“The servants say you were much agitated at finding your uncle did not
+make his appearance at the breakfast table.”
+
+“The servants!” her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth;
+she could hardly speak.
+
+“That when you returned from his room you were very pale.”
+
+Was she beginning to realize that there was some doubt, if not actual
+suspicion, in the mind of the man who could assail her with questions
+like these? I had not seen her so agitated since that one memorable
+instant up in her room. But her mistrust, if she felt any, did not long
+betray itself. Calming herself by a great effort, she replied, with a
+quiet gesture--
+
+“That is not so strange. My uncle was a very methodical man; the least
+change in his habits would be likely to awaken our apprehensions.”
+
+“You were alarmed, then?”
+
+“To a certain extent I was.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, who is in the habit of overseeing the regulation of
+your uncle’s private apartments?”
+
+“I am, sir.”
+
+“You are doubtless, then, acquainted with a certain stand in his room
+containing a drawer?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“How long is it since you had occasion to go to this drawer?”
+
+“Yesterday,” visibly trembling at the admission.
+
+“At what time?”
+
+“Near noon, I should judge.”
+
+“Was the pistol he was accustomed to keep there in its place at the
+time?”
+
+“I presume so; I did not observe.”
+
+“Did you turn the key upon closing the drawer?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Take it out?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, that pistol, as you have perhaps observed, lies on
+the table before you. Will you look at it?” And lifting it up into view,
+he held it towards her.
+
+If he had meant to startle her by the sudden action, he amply succeeded.
+At the first sight of the murderous weapon she shrank back, and a
+horrified, but quickly suppressed shriek, burst from her lips. “Oh, no,
+no!” she moaned, flinging out her hands before her.
+
+“I must insist upon your looking at it, Miss Leavenworth,” pursued the
+coroner. “When it was found just now, all the chambers were loaded.”
+
+Instantly the agonized look left her countenance. “Oh, then--” She did
+not finish, but put out her hand for the weapon.
+
+But the coroner, looking at her steadily, continued: “It has been lately
+fired off, for all that. The hand that cleaned the barrel forgot the
+cartridge-chamber, Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+She did not shriek again, but a hopeless, helpless look slowly settled
+over her face, and she seemed about to sink; but like a flash the
+reaction came, and lifting her head with a steady, grand action I have
+never seen equalled, she exclaimed, “Very well, what then?”
+
+The coroner laid the pistol down; men and women glanced at each other;
+every one seemed to hesitate to proceed. I heard a tremulous sigh at my
+side, and, turning, beheld Mary Leavenworth staring at her cousin with
+a startled flush on her cheek, as if she began to recognize that the
+public, as well as herself, detected something in this woman, calling
+for explanation.
+
+At last the coroner summoned up courage to continue.
+
+“You ask me, Miss Leavenworth, upon the evidence given, what then? Your
+question obliges me to say that no burglar, no hired assassin, would
+have used this pistol for a murderous purpose, and then taken the pains,
+not only to clean it, but to reload it, and lock it up again in the
+drawer from which he had taken it.”
+
+She did not reply to this; but I saw Mr. Gryce make a note of it with
+that peculiar emphatic nod of his.
+
+“Nor,” he went on, even more gravely, “would it be possible for any one
+who was not accustomed to pass in and out of Mr. Leavenworth’s room at
+all hours, to enter his door so late at night, procure this pistol from
+its place of concealment, traverse his apartment, and advance as closely
+upon him as the facts show to have been necessary, without causing him
+at least to turn his head to one side; which, in consideration of the
+doctor’s testimony, we cannot believe he did.”
+
+It was a frightful suggestion, and we looked to see Eleanore Leavenworth
+recoil. But that expression of outraged feeling was left for her cousin
+to exhibit. Starting indignantly from her seat, Mary cast one hurried
+glance around her, and opened her lips to speak; but Eleanore, slightly
+turning, motioned her to have patience, and replied in a cold and
+calculating voice: “You are not sure, sir, that this _was_ done. If my
+uncle, for some purpose of his own, had fired the pistol off yesterday,
+let us say--which is surely possible, if not probable--the like results
+would be observed, and the same conclusions drawn.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” the coroner went on, “the ball has been extracted
+from your uncle’s head!”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“It corresponds with those in the cartridges found in his stand drawer,
+and is of the number used with this pistol.”
+
+Her head fell forward on her hands; her eyes sought the floor; her whole
+attitude expressed disheartenment. Seeing it, the coroner grew still
+more grave.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said he, “I have now some questions to put you
+concerning last night. Where did you spend the evening?”
+
+“Alone, in my own room.”
+
+“You, however, saw your uncle or your cousin during the course of it?”
+
+“No, sir; I saw no one after leaving the dinner table--except Thomas,”
+ she added, after a moment’s pause.
+
+“And how came you to see him?”
+
+“He came to bring me the card of a gentleman who called.”
+
+“May I ask the name of the gentleman?”
+
+“The name on the card was Mr. Le Roy Robbins.”
+
+The matter seemed trivial; but the sudden start given by the lady at my
+side made me remember it.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, when seated in your room, are you in the habit of
+leaving your door open?”
+
+A startled look at this, quickly suppressed. “Not in the habit; no,
+sir.”
+
+“Why did you leave it open last night?”
+
+“I was feeling warm.”
+
+“No other reason?”
+
+“I can give no other.”
+
+“When did you close it?”
+
+“Upon retiring.”
+
+“Was that before or after the servants went up?”
+
+“After.”
+
+“Did you hear Mr. Harwell when he left the library and ascended to his
+room?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“How much longer did you leave your door open after that?”
+
+“I--I--a few minutes--a--I cannot say,” she added, hurriedly.
+
+“Cannot say? Why? Do you forget?”
+
+“I forget just how long after Mr. Harwell came up I closed it.”
+
+“Was it more than ten minutes?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“More than twenty?”
+
+“Perhaps.” How pale her face was, and how she trembled!
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, according to evidence, your uncle came to his death
+not very long after Mr. Harwell left him. If your door was open, you
+ought to have heard if any one went to his room, or any pistol shot was
+fired. Now, did you hear anything?”
+
+“I heard no confusion; no, sir.”
+
+“Did you hear anything?”
+
+“Nor any pistol shot.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, excuse my persistence, but did you hear anything?”
+
+“I heard a door close.”
+
+“What door?”
+
+“The library door.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“I do not know.” She clasped her hands hysterically. “I cannot say. Why
+do you ask me so many questions?”
+
+I leaped to my feet; she was swaying, almost fainting. But before I
+could reach her, she had drawn herself up again, and resumed her former
+demeanor. “Excuse me,” said she; “I am not myself this morning. I beg
+your pardon,” and she turned steadily to the coroner. “What was it you
+asked?”
+
+“I asked,” and his voice grew thin and high,--evidently her manner was
+beginning to tell against her,--“when it was you heard the library door
+shut?”
+
+“I cannot fix the precise time, but it was after Mr. Harwell came up,
+and before I closed my own.”
+
+“And you heard no pistol shot?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+The coroner cast a quick look at the jury, who almost to a man glanced
+aside as he did so.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, we are told that Hannah, one of the servants, started
+for your room late last night after some medicine. Did she come there?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“When did you first learn of her remarkable disappearance from this
+house during the night?”
+
+“This morning before breakfast. Molly met me in the hall, and asked
+how Hannah was. I thought the inquiry a strange one, and naturally
+questioned her. A moment’s talk made the conclusion plain that the girl
+was gone.”
+
+“What did you think when you became assured of this fact?”
+
+“I did not know what to think.”
+
+“No suspicion of foul play crossed your mind?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You did not connect the fact with that of your uncle’s murder?”
+
+“I did not know of this murder then.”
+
+“And afterwards?”
+
+“Oh, some thought of the possibility of her knowing something about it
+may have crossed my mind; I cannot say.”
+
+“Can you tell us anything of this girl’s past history?”
+
+“I can tell you no more in regard to it than my cousin has done.”
+
+“Do you not know what made her sad at night?”
+
+Her cheek flushed angrily; was it at his tone, or at the question
+itself? “No, sir! she never confided her secrets to my keeping.”
+
+“Then you cannot tell us where she would be likely to go upon leaving
+this house?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, we are obliged to put another question to you. We are
+told it was by your order your uncle’s body was removed from where it
+was found, into the next room.”
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+“Didn’t you know it to be improper for you or any one else to disturb
+the body of a person found dead, except in the presence and under the
+authority of the proper officer?”
+
+“I did not consult my knowledge, sir, in regard to the subject: only my
+feelings.”
+
+“Then I suppose it was your feelings which prompted you to remain
+standing by the table at which he was murdered, instead of following the
+body in and seeing it properly deposited? Or perhaps,” he went on, with
+relentless sarcasm, “you were too much interested, just then, in the
+piece of paper you took away, to think much of the proprieties of the
+occasion?”
+
+“Paper?” lifting her head with determination. “Who says I took a piece
+of paper from the table?”
+
+“One witness has sworn to seeing you bend over the table upon which
+several papers lay strewn; another, to meeting you a few minutes later
+in the hall just as you were putting a piece of paper into your pocket.
+The inference follows, Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+This was a home thrust, and we looked to see some show of agitation, but
+her haughty lip never quivered.
+
+“You have drawn the inference, and you must prove the fact.”
+
+The answer was stateliness itself, and we were not surprised to see the
+coroner look a trifle baffled; but, recovering himself, he said:
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, I must ask you again, whether you did or did not take
+anything from that table?”
+
+She folded her arms. “I decline answering the question,” she quietly
+said.
+
+“Pardon me,” he rejoined: “it is necessary that you should.”
+
+Her lip took a still more determined curve. “When any suspicious paper
+is found in my possession, it will be time enough then for me to explain
+how I came by it.”
+
+This defiance seemed to quite stagger the coroner.
+
+“Do you realize to what this refusal is liable to subject you?”
+
+She dropped her head. “I am afraid that I do; yes, sir.”
+
+Mr. Gryce lifted his hand, and softly twirled the tassel of the window
+curtain.
+
+“And you still persist?”
+
+She absolutely disdained to reply.
+
+The coroner did not press it further.
+
+It had now become evident to all, that Eleanore Leavenworth not only
+stood on her defence, but was perfectly aware of her position, and
+prepared to maintain it. Even her cousin, who until now had preserved
+some sort of composure, began to show signs of strong and uncontrollable
+agitation, as if she found it one thing to utter an accusation herself,
+and quite another to see it mirrored in the countenances of the men
+about her.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” the coroner continued, changing the line of attack,
+“you have always had free access to your uncle’s apartments, have you
+not?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Might even have entered his room late at night, crossed it and stood at
+his side, without disturbing him sufficiently to cause him to turn his
+head?”
+
+“Yes,” her hands pressing themselves painfully together.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, the key to the library door is missing.”
+
+She made no answer.
+
+“It has been testified to, that previous to the actual discovery of the
+murder, you visited the door of the library alone. Will you tell us if
+the key was then in the lock?”
+
+“It was not.”
+
+“Are you certain?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Now, was there anything peculiar about this key, either in size or
+shape?”
+
+She strove to repress the sudden terror which this question produced,
+glanced carelessly around at the group of servants stationed at her
+back, and trembled. “It was a little different from the others,” she
+finally acknowledged.
+
+“In what respect?”
+
+“The handle was broken.”
+
+“Ah, gentlemen, the handle was broken!” emphasized the coroner, looking
+towards the jury.
+
+Mr. Gryce seemed to take this information to himself, for he gave
+another of his quick nods.
+
+“You would, then, recognize this key, Miss Leavenworth, if you should
+see it?”
+
+She cast a startled look at him, as if she expected to behold it in his
+hand; but, seeming to gather courage at not finding it produced, replied
+quite easily:
+
+“I think I should, sir.”
+
+The coroner seemed satisfied, and was about to dismiss the witness when
+Mr. Gryce quietly advanced and touched him on the arm. “One moment,”
+ said that gentleman, and stooping, he whispered a few words in the
+coroner’s ear; then, recovering himself, stood with his right hand in
+his breast pocket and his eye upon the chandelier.
+
+I scarcely dared to breathe. Had he repeated to the coroner the words
+he had inadvertently overheard in the hall above? But a glance at
+the latter’s face satisfied me that nothing of such importance had
+transpired. He looked not only tired, but a trifle annoyed.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said he, turning again in her direction; “you have
+declared that you did not visit your uncle’s room last evening. Do you
+repeat the assertion?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+He glanced at Mr. Gryce, who immediately drew from his breast a
+handkerchief curiously soiled. “It is strange, then, that your
+handkerchief should have been found this morning in that room.”
+
+The girl uttered a cry. Then, while Mary’s face hardened into a sort of
+strong despair, Eleanore tightened her lips and coldly replied, “I
+do not see as it is so very strange. I was in that room early this
+morning.”
+
+“And you dropped it then?”
+
+A distressed blush crossed her face; she did not reply.
+
+“Soiled in this way?” he went on.
+
+“I know nothing about the soil. What is it? let me see.”
+
+“In a moment. What we now wish, is to know how it came to be in your
+uncle’s apartment.”
+
+“There are many ways. I might have left it there days ago. I have told
+you I was in the habit of visiting his room. But first, let me see if it
+is my handkerchief.” And she held out her hand.
+
+“I presume so, as I am told it has your initials embroidered in the
+corner,” he remarked, as Mr. Gryce passed it to her.
+
+But she with horrified voice interrupted him. “These dirty spots! What
+are they? They look like--”
+
+“--what they are,” said the coroner. “If you have ever cleaned a pistol,
+you must know what they are, Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+She let the handkerchief fall convulsively from her hand, and stood
+staring at it, lying before her on the floor. “I know nothing about it,
+gentlemen,” she said. “It is my handkerchief, but--” for some cause she
+did not finish her sentence, but again repeated, “Indeed, gentlemen, I
+know nothing about it!”
+
+This closed her testimony.
+
+Kate, the cook, was now recalled, and asked to tell when she last washed
+the handkerchief?
+
+“This, sir; this handkerchief? Oh, some time this week, sir,” throwing a
+deprecatory glance at her mistress.
+
+“What day?”
+
+“Well, I wish I could forget, Miss Eleanore, but I can’ t. It is the
+only one like it in the house. I washed it day before yesterday.”
+
+“When did you iron it?”
+
+“Yesterday morning,” half choking over the words.
+
+“And when did you take it to her room?”
+
+The cook threw her apron over her head. “Yesterday afternoon, with the
+rest of the clothes, just before dinner. Indade, I could not help it,
+Miss Eleanore!” she whispered; “it was the truth.”
+
+Eleanore Leavenworth frowned. This somewhat contradictory evidence
+had very sensibly affected her; and when, a moment later, the coroner,
+having dismissed the witness, turned towards her, and inquired if she
+had anything further to say in the way of explanation or otherwise,
+she threw her hands up almost spasmodically, slowly shook her head and,
+without word or warning, fainted quietly away in her chair.
+
+A commotion, of course, followed, during which I noticed that Mary did
+not hasten to her cousin, but left it for Molly and Kate to do what
+they could toward her resuscitation. In a few moments this was in so far
+accomplished that they were enabled to lead her from the room. As they
+did so, I observed a tall man rise and follow her out.
+
+A momentary silence ensued, soon broken, however, by an impatient stir
+as our little juryman rose and proposed that the jury should now adjourn
+for the day. This seeming to fall in with the coroner’s views, he
+announced that the inquest would stand adjourned till three o’clock the
+next day, when he trusted all the jurors would be present.
+
+A general rush followed, that in a few minutes emptied the room of all
+but Miss Leavenworth, Mr. Gryce, and myself.
+
+
+
+IX. A DISCOVERY
+
+
+    “His rolling Eies did never rest in place,
+     But walkte each where for feare of hid mischance,
+     Holding a lattis still before his Pace,
+     Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace.”
+
+        Faerie Queene.
+
+MISS LEAVENWORTH, who appeared to have lingered from a vague terror
+of everything and everybody in the house not under her immediate
+observation, shrank from my side the moment she found herself left
+comparatively alone, and, retiring to a distant corner, gave herself
+up to grief. Turning my attention, therefore, in the direction of Mr.
+Gryce, I found that person busily engaged in counting his own fingers
+with a troubled expression upon his countenance, which may or may not
+have been the result of that arduous employment. But, at my approach,
+satisfied perhaps that he possessed no more than the requisite number,
+he dropped his hands and greeted me with a faint smile which was,
+considering all things, too suggestive to be pleasant.
+
+“Well,” said I, taking my stand before him, “I cannot blame you. You had
+a right to do as you thought best; but how had you the heart? Was she
+not sufficiently compromised without your bringing out that wretched
+handkerchief, which she may or may not have dropped in that room,
+but whose presence there, soiled though it was with pistol grease, is
+certainly no proof that she herself was connected with this murder?”
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” he returned, “I have been detailed as police officer and
+detective to look after this case, and I propose to do it.”
+
+“Of course,” I hastened to reply. “I am the last man to wish you to
+shirk your duty; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this
+young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all
+likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. The mere
+assertion of another woman’s suspicions on the subject ought not----”
+
+But here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “You talk when your attention should
+be directed to more important matters. That other woman, as you are
+pleased to designate the fairest ornament of New York society, sits over
+there in tears; go and comfort her.”
+
+Looking at him in amazement, I hesitated to comply; but, seeing he was
+in earnest, crossed to Mary Leavenworth and sat down by her side.
+She was weeping, but in a slow, unconscious way, as if grief had been
+mastered by fear. The fear was too undisguised and the grief too natural
+for me to doubt the genuineness of either.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, “any attempt at consolation on the part of a
+stranger must seem at a time like this the most bitter of mockeries; but
+do try and consider that circumstantial evidence is not always absolute
+proof.”
+
+Starting with surprise, she turned her eyes upon me with a slow,
+comprehensive gaze wonderful to see in orbs so tender and womanly.
+
+“No,” she repeated; “circumstantial evidence is not absolute proof, but
+Eleanore does not know this. She is so intense; she cannot see but one
+thing at a time. She has been running her head into a noose, and oh,--”
+ Pausing, she clutched my arm with a passionate grasp: “Do you think
+there is any danger? Will they--” She could not go on.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I protested, with a warning look toward the
+detective, “what do you mean?”
+
+Like a flash, her glance followed mine, an instant change taking place
+in her bearing.
+
+“Your cousin may be intense,” I went on, as if nothing had occurred;
+“but I do not know to what you refer when you say she has been running
+her head into a noose.”
+
+“I mean this,” she firmly returned: “that, wittingly or unwittingly, she
+has so parried and met the questions which have been put to her in this
+room that any one listening to her would give her the credit of
+knowing more than she ought to of this horrible affair. She acts”--Mary
+whispered, but not so low but that every word could be distinctly
+heard in all quarters of the room--“as if she were anxious to conceal
+something. But she is not; I am sure she is not. Eleanore and I are not
+good friends; but all the world can never make me believe she has any
+more knowledge of this murder than I have. Won’t somebody tell her,
+then--won’t you--that her manner is a mistake; that it is calculated to
+arouse suspicion; that it has already done so? And oh, don’t forget to
+add”--her voice sinking to a decided whisper now--“what you have just
+repeated to me: that circumstantial evidence is not always absolute
+proof.”
+
+I surveyed her with great astonishment. What an actress this woman was!
+
+“You request me to tell her this,” said I. “Wouldn’t it be better for
+you to speak to her yourself?”
+
+“Eleanore and I hold little or no confidential communication,” she
+replied.
+
+I could easily believe this, and yet I was puzzled. Indeed, there was
+something incomprehensible in her whole manner. Not knowing what else
+to say, I remarked, “That is unfortunate. She ought to be told that the
+straightforward course is the best by all means.”
+
+Mary Leavenworth only wept. “Oh, why has this awful trouble come to me,
+who have always been so happy before!”
+
+“Perhaps for the very reason that you have always been so happy.”
+
+“It was not enough for dear uncle to die in this horrible manner; but
+she, my own cousin, had to----”
+
+I touched her arm, and the action seemed to recall her to herself.
+Stopping short, she bit her lip.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I whispered, “you should hope for the best. Besides,
+I honestly believe you to be disturbing yourself unnecessarily. If
+nothing fresh transpires, a mere prevarication or so of your cousin’s
+will not suffice to injure her.”
+
+I said this to see if she had any reason to doubt the future. I was
+amply rewarded.
+
+“Anything fresh? How could there be anything fresh, when she is
+perfectly innocent?”
+
+Suddenly, a thought seemed to strike her. Wheeling round in her seat
+till her lovely, perfumed wrapper brushed my knee, she asked: “Why
+didn’t they ask me more questions? I could have told them Eleanore never
+left her room last night.”
+
+“You could?” What was I to think of this woman?
+
+“Yes; my room is nearer the head of the stairs than hers; if she had
+passed my door, I should have heard her, don’t you see?”
+
+Ah, that was all.
+
+“That does not follow,” I answered sadly. “Can you give no other
+reason?”
+
+“I would say whatever was necessary,” she whispered.
+
+I started back. Yes, this woman would lie now to save her cousin; had
+lied during the inquest. But then I felt grateful, and now I was simply
+horrified.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, “nothing can justify one in violating the
+dictates of his own conscience, not even the safety of one we do not
+altogether love.”
+
+“No?” she returned; and her lip took a tremulous curve, the lovely bosom
+heaved, and she softly looked away.
+
+If Eleanore’s beauty had made less of an impression on my fancy, or her
+frightful situation awakened less anxiety in my breast, I should have
+been a lost man from that moment.
+
+“I did not mean to do anything very wrong,” Miss Leavenworth continued.
+“Do not think too badly of me.”
+
+“No, no,” said I; and there is not a man living who would not have said
+the same in my place.
+
+What more might have passed between us on this subject I cannot say, for
+just then the door opened and a man entered whom I recognized as the one
+who had followed Eleanore Leavenworth out, a short time before.
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” said he, pausing just inside the door; “a word if you
+please.”
+
+The detective nodded, but did not hasten towards him; instead of that,
+he walked deliberately away to the other end of the room, where he
+lifted the lid of an inkstand he saw there, muttered some unintelligible
+words into it, and speedily shut it again. Immediately the uncanny fancy
+seized me that if I should leap to that inkstand, open it and peer in,
+I should surprise and capture the bit of confidence he had intrusted
+to it. But I restrained my foolish impulse, and contented myself with
+noting the subdued look of respect with which the gaunt subordinate
+watched the approach of his superior.
+
+“Well?” inquired the latter as he reached him: “what now?”
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders, and drew his principal through the open
+door. Once in the hall their voices sank to a whisper, and as their
+backs only were visible, I turned to look at my companion. She was pale
+but composed.
+
+“Has he come from Eleanore?”
+
+“I do not know; I fear so. Miss Leavenworth,” I proceeded, “can it be
+possible that your cousin has anything in her possession she desires to
+conceal?”
+
+“Then you think she is trying to conceal something?”
+
+“I do not say so. But there was considerable talk about a paper----”
+
+“They will never find any paper or anything else suspicious in
+Eleanore’s possession,” Mary interrupted. “In the first place, there
+was no paper of importance enough”--I saw Mr. Gryce’s form suddenly
+stiffen--“for any one to attempt its abstraction and concealment.”
+
+“Can you be sure of that? May not your cousin be acquainted with
+something----”
+
+“There was nothing to be acquainted with, Mr. Raymond. We lived the most
+methodical and domestic of lives. I cannot understand, for my part, why
+so much should be made out of this. My uncle undoubtedly came to his
+death by the hand of some intended burglar. That nothing was stolen from
+the house is no proof that a burglar never entered it. As for the doors
+and windows being locked, will you take the word of an Irish servant
+as infallible upon such an important point? I cannot. I believe the
+assassin to be one of a gang who make their living by breaking into
+houses, and if you cannot honestly agree with me, do try and consider
+such an explanation as possible; if not for the sake of the family
+credit, why then”--and she turned her face with all its fair beauty upon
+mine, eyes, cheeks, mouth all so exquisite and winsome--“why then, for
+mine.”
+
+Instantly Mr. Gryce turned towards us. “Mr. Raymond, will you be kind
+enough to step this way?”
+
+Glad to escape from my present position, I hastily obeyed.
+
+“What has happened?” I asked.
+
+“We propose to take you into our confidence,” was the easy response.
+“Mr. Raymond, Mr. Fobbs.”
+
+I bowed to the man I saw before me, and stood uneasily waiting. Anxious
+as I was to know what we really had to fear, I still intuitively shrank
+from any communication with one whom I looked upon as a spy.
+
+“A matter of some importance,” resumed the detective. “It is not
+necessary for me to remind you that it is in confidence, is it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I thought not. Mr. Fobbs you may proceed.”
+
+Instantly the whole appearance of the man Fobbs changed. Assuming an
+expression of lofty importance, he laid his large hand outspread upon
+his heart and commenced.
+
+“Detailed by Mr. Gryce to watch the movements of Miss Eleanore
+Leavenworth, I left this room upon her departure from it, and followed
+her and the two servants who conducted her up-stairs to her own
+apartment. Once there---”
+
+Mr. Gryce interrupted him. “Once there? where?”
+
+“Her own room, sir.”
+
+“Where situated?”
+
+“At the head of the stairs.”
+
+“That is not her room. Go on.”
+
+“Not her room? Then it _was_ the fire she was after!” he cried, clapping
+himself on the knee.
+
+“The fire?”
+
+“Excuse me; I am ahead of my story. She did not appear to notice me
+much, though I was right behind her. It was not until she had reached
+the door of this room--which was not her room!” he interpolated
+dramatically, “and turned to dismiss her servants, that she seemed
+conscious of having been followed. Eying me then with an air of
+great dignity, quickly eclipsed, however, by an expression of patient
+endurance, she walked in, leaving the door open behind her in a
+courteous way I cannot sufficiently commend.”
+
+I could not help frowning. Honest as the man appeared, this was
+evidently anything but a sore subject with him. Observing me frown, he
+softened his manner.
+
+“Not seeing any other way of keeping her under my eye, except by
+entering the room, I followed her in, and took a seat in a remote
+corner. She flashed one look at me as I did so, and commenced pacing the
+floor in a restless kind of way I’m not altogether unused to. At last
+she stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the room. ‘Get me a glass
+of water!’ she gasped; ‘I’m faint again--quick! on the stand in the
+corner.’ Now in order to get that glass of water it was necessary for me
+to pass behind a dressing mirror that reached almost to the ceiling;
+and I naturally hesitated. But she turned and looked at me, and--Well,
+gentlemen, I think either of you would have hastened to do what she
+asked; or at least”--with a doubtful look at Mr. Gryce--“have given
+your two ears for the privilege, even if you didn’t succumb to the
+temptation.”
+
+“Well, well!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, impatiently.
+
+“I am going on,” said he. “I stepped out of sight, then, for a moment;
+but it seemed long enough for her purpose; for when I emerged, glass in
+hand, she was kneeling at the grate full five feet from the spot where
+she had been standing, and was fumbling with the waist of her dress in
+a way to convince me she had something concealed there which she was
+anxious to dispose of. I eyed her pretty closely as I handed her the
+glass of water, but she was gazing into the grate, and didn’t appear to
+notice. Drinking barely a drop, she gave it back, and in another moment
+was holding out her hands over the fire. ‘Oh, I am so cold!’ she cried,
+‘so cold.’ And I verily believe she was. At any rate, she shivered most
+naturally. But there were a few dying embers in the grate, and when
+I saw her thrust her hand again into the folds of her dress I became
+distrustful of her intentions and, drawing a step nearer, looked over
+her shoulder, when I distinctly saw her drop something into the
+grate that clinked as it fell. Suspecting what it was, I was about to
+interfere, when she sprang to her feet, seized the scuttle of coal that
+was upon the hearth, and with one move emptied the whole upon the dying
+embers. ‘I want a fire,’ she cried, ‘a fire!’ ‘That is hardly the way
+to make one,’ I returned, carefully taking the coal out with my hands,
+piece by piece, and putting it back into the scuttle, till--”
+
+“Till what?” I asked, seeing him and Mr. Gryce exchange a hurried look.
+
+“Till I found this!” opening his large hand, and showing me _a
+broken-handled key._
+
+
+
+X. MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS
+
+
+    “There’s nothing ill
+     Can dwell in such a temple.”
+
+        Tempest.
+
+THIS astounding discovery made a most unhappy impression upon me. It was
+true, then. Eleanore the beautiful, the lovesome, was--I did not, could
+not finish the sentence, even in the silence of my own mind.
+
+“You look surprised,” said Mr. Gryce, glancing curiously towards the
+key. “Now, I ain’t. A woman does not thrill, blush, equivocate, and
+faint for nothing; especially such a woman as Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+“A woman who could do such a deed would be the last to thrill,
+equivocate, and faint,” I retorted. “Give me the key; let me see it.”
+
+He complacently put it in my hand. “It is the one we want. No getting
+out of that.”
+
+I returned it. “If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.”
+
+He stared with great amazement. “You have strong faith in the women,” he
+laughed. “I hope they will never disappoint you.”
+
+I had no reply for this, and a short silence ensued, first broken by Mr.
+Gryce. “There is but one thing left to do,” said he. “Fobbs, you will
+have to request Miss Leavenworth to come down. Do not alarm her; only
+see that she comes. To the reception room,” he added, as the man drew
+off.
+
+No sooner were we left alone than I made a move to return to Mary, but
+he stopped me.
+
+“Come and see it out,” he whispered. “She will be down in a moment; see
+it out; you had best.”
+
+Glancing back, I hesitated; but the prospect of beholding Eleanore again
+drew me, in spite of myself. Telling him to wait, I returned to Mary’s
+side to make my excuses.
+
+“What is the matter--what has occurred?” she breathlessly asked.
+
+“Nothing as yet to disturb you much. Do not be alarmed.” But my face
+betrayed me.
+
+“There is something!” said she.
+
+“Your cousin is coming down.”
+
+“Down here?” and she shrank visibly.
+
+“No, to the reception room.”
+
+“I do not understand. It is all dreadful; and no one tells me anything.”
+
+“I pray God there may be nothing to tell. Judging from your present
+faith in your cousin, there will not be. Take comfort, then, and be
+assured I will inform you if anything occurs which you ought to know.”
+
+Giving her a look of encouragement, I left her crushed against the
+crimson pillows of the sofa on which she sat, and rejoined Mr. Gryce. We
+had scarcely entered the reception room when Eleanore Leavenworth came
+in.
+
+More languid than she was an hour before, but haughty still, she slowly
+advanced, and, meeting my eye, gently bent her head.
+
+“I have been summoned here,” said she, directing herself exclusively to
+Mr. Gryce, “by an individual whom I take to be in your employ. If so,
+may I request you to make your wishes known at once, as I am quite
+exhausted, and am in great need of rest.”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” returned Mr. Gryce, rubbing his hands together and
+staring in quite a fatherly manner at the door-knob, “I am very sorry to
+trouble you, but the fact is I wish to ask you----”
+
+But here she stopped him. “Anything in regard to the key which that man
+has doubtless told you he saw me drop into the ashes?”
+
+“Yes, Miss.”
+
+“Then I must refuse to answer any questions concerning it. I have
+nothing to say on the subject, unless it is this:”--giving him a look
+full of suffering, but full of a certain sort of courage, too--“that he
+was right if he told you I had the key in hiding about my person, and
+that I attempted to conceal it in the ashes of the grate.”
+
+“Still, Miss----”
+
+But she had already withdrawn to the door. “I pray you to excuse me,”
+ said she. “No argument you could advance would make any difference in my
+determination; therefore it would be but a waste of energy on your
+part to attempt any.” And, with a flitting glance in my direction, not
+without its appeal, she quietly left the room.
+
+For a moment Mr. Gryce stood gazing after her with a look of great
+interest, then, bowing with almost exaggerated homage, he hastily
+followed her out.
+
+I had scarcely recovered from the surprise occasioned by this unexpected
+movement when a quick step was heard in the hall, and Mary, flushed and
+anxious, appeared at my side.
+
+“What is it?” she inquired. “What has Eleanore been saying?”
+
+“Alas!” I answered, “she has not said anything. That is the trouble,
+Miss Leavenworth. Your cousin preserves a reticence upon certain points
+very painful to witness. She ought to understand that if she persists in
+doing this, that----”
+
+“That what?” There was no mistaking the deep anxiety prompting this
+question.
+
+“That she cannot avoid the trouble that will ensue.”
+
+For a moment she stood gazing at me, with great horror-stricken,
+incredulous eyes; then sinking back into a chair, flung her hands over
+her face with the cry:
+
+“Oh, why were we ever born! Why were we allowed to live! Why did we not
+perish with those who gave us birth!”
+
+In the face of anguish like this, I could not keep still.
+
+“Dear Miss Leavenworth,” I essayed, “there is no cause for such despair
+as this. The future looks dark, but not impenetrable. Your cousin will
+listen to reason, and in explaining----”
+
+But she, deaf to my words, had again risen to her feet, and stood before
+me in an attitude almost appalling.
+
+“Some women in my position would go mad! mad! mad!”
+
+I surveyed her with growing wonder. I thought I knew what she meant. She
+was conscious of having given the cue which had led to this suspicion of
+her cousin, and that in this way the trouble which hung over their heads
+was of her own making. I endeavored to soothe her, but my efforts
+were all unavailing. Absorbed in her own anguish, she paid but little
+attention to me. Satisfied at last that I could do nothing more for her,
+I turned to go. The movement seemed to arouse her.
+
+“I am sorry to leave,” said I, “without having afforded you any comfort.
+Believe me; I am very anxious to assist you. Is there no one I can send
+to your side; no woman friend or relative? It is sad to leave you alone
+in this house at such a time.”
+
+“And do you expect me to remain here? Why, I should die! Here to-night?”
+ and the long shudders shook her very frame.
+
+“It is not at all necessary for you to do so, Miss Leavenworth,” broke
+in a bland voice over our shoulders.
+
+I turned with a start. Mr. Gryce was not only at our back, but had
+evidently been there for some moments. Seated near the door, one hand
+in his pocket, the other caressing the arm of his chair, he met our
+gaze with a sidelong smile that seemed at once to beg pardon for
+the intrusion, and to assure us it was made with no unworthy motive.
+“Everything will be properly looked after, Miss; you can leave with
+perfect safety.”
+
+I expected to see her resent this interference; but instead of that, she
+manifested a certain satisfaction in beholding him there.
+
+Drawing me to one side, she whispered, “You think this Mr. Gryce very
+clever, do you not?”
+
+“Well,” I cautiously replied, “he ought to be to hold the position he
+does. The authorities evidently repose great confidence in him.”
+
+Stepping from my side as suddenly as she had approached it, she crossed
+the room and stood before Mr. Gryce.
+
+“Sir,” said she, gazing at him with a glance of entreaty: “I hear you
+have great talents; that you can ferret out the real criminal from
+a score of doubtful characters, and that nothing can escape the
+penetration of your eye. If this is so, have pity on two orphan
+girls, suddenly bereft of their guardian and protector, and use your
+acknowledged skill in finding out who has committed this crime. It
+would be folly in me to endeavor to hide from you that my cousin in her
+testimony has given cause for suspicion; but I here declare her to be as
+innocent of wrong as I am; and I am only endeavoring to turn the eye
+of justice from the guiltless to the guilty when I entreat you to look
+elsewhere for the culprit who committed this deed.” Pausing, she held
+her two hands out before him. “It must have been some common burglar or
+desperado; can you not bring him, then, to justice?”
+
+Her attitude was so touching, her whole appearance so earnest and
+appealing, that I saw Mr. Gryce’s countenance brim with suppressed
+emotion, though his eye never left the coffee-urn upon which it had
+fixed itself at her first approach.
+
+“You must find out--you can!” she went on. “Hannah--the girl who is
+gone--must know all about it. Search for her, ransack the city, do
+anything; my property is at your disposal. I will offer a large reward
+for the detection of the burglar who did this deed!”
+
+Mr. Gryce slowly rose. “Miss Leavenworth,” he began, and stopped; the
+man was actually agitated. “Miss Leavenworth, I did not need your very
+touching appeal to incite me to my utmost duty in this case. Personal
+and professional pride were in themselves sufficient. But, since you
+have honored me with this expression of your wishes, I will not conceal
+from you that I shall feel a certain increased interest in the affair
+from this hour. What mortal man can do, I will do, and if in one month
+from this day I do not come to you for my reward, Ebenezer Gryce is not
+the man I have always taken him to be.”
+
+“And Eleanore?”
+
+“We will mention no names,” said he, gently waving his hand to and fro.
+
+A few minutes later, I left the house with Miss Leavenworth, she having
+expressed a wish to have me accompany her to the home of her friend,
+Mrs. Gilbert, with whom she had decided to take refuge. As we rolled
+down the street in the carriage Mr. Gryce had been kind enough to
+provide for us, I noticed my companion cast a look of regret behind her,
+as if she could not help feeling some compunctions at this desertion of
+her cousin.
+
+But this expression was soon changed for the alert look of one who
+dreads to see a certain face start up from some unknown quarter.
+Glancing up and down the street, peering furtively into doorways as
+we passed, starting and trembling if a sudden figure appeared on the
+curbstone, she did not seem to breathe with perfect ease till we had
+left the avenue behind us and entered upon Thirty-seventh Street. Then,
+all at once her natural color returned and, leaning gently toward me,
+she asked if I had a pencil and piece of paper I could give her. I
+fortunately possessed both. Handing them to her, I watched her with some
+little curiosity while she wrote two or three lines, wondering she could
+choose such a time and place for the purpose.
+
+“A little note I wish to send,” she explained, glancing at the almost
+illegible scrawl with an expression of doubt. “Couldn’t you stop the
+carriage a moment while I direct it?”
+
+I did so, and in another instant the leaf which I had torn from my
+note-book was folded, directed, and sealed with a stamp which she had
+taken from her own pocket-book.
+
+“That is a crazy-looking epistle,” she muttered, as she laid it,
+direction downwards, in her lap.
+
+“Why not wait, then, till you arrive at your destination, where you can
+seal it properly, and direct it at your leisure?”
+
+“Because I am in haste. I wish to mail it now. Look, there is a box on
+the corner; please ask the driver to stop once more.”
+
+“Shall I not post it for you?” I asked, holding out my hand.
+
+But she shook her head, and, without waiting for my assistance, opened
+the door on her own side of the carriage and leaped to the ground. Even
+then she paused to glance up and down the street, before venturing to
+drop her hastily written letter into the box. But when it had left her
+hand, she looked brighter and more hopeful than I had yet seen her. And
+when, a few moments later, she turned to bid me good-by in front of her
+friend’s house, it was with almost a cheerful air she put out her hand
+and entreated me to call on her the next day, and inform her how the
+inquest progressed.
+
+I shall not attempt to disguise from you the fact that I spent all
+that long evening in going over the testimony given at the inquest,
+endeavoring to reconcile what I had heard with any other theory than
+that of Eleanore’s guilt. Taking a piece of paper, I jotted down the
+leading causes of suspicion as follows:
+
+1. Her late disagreement with her uncle, and evident estrangement from
+him, as testified to by Mr. Harwell.
+
+2. The mysterious disappearance of one of the servants of the house.
+
+3. The forcible accusation made by her cousin,--overheard, however, only
+by Mr. Gryce and myself.
+
+4. Her equivocation in regard to the handkerchief found stained with
+pistol smut on the scene of the tragedy.
+
+5. Her refusal to speak in regard to the paper which she was supposed to
+have taken from Mr. Leavenworth’s table immediately upon the removal of
+the body.
+
+6. The finding of the library key in her possession.
+
+“A dark record,” I involuntarily decided, as I looked it over; but
+even in doing so began jotting down on the other side of the sheet the
+following explanatory notes:
+
+1. Disagreements and even estrangements between relatives are common.
+Cases where such disagreements and estrangements have led to crime,
+rare.
+
+2. The disappearance of Hannah points no more certainly in one direction
+than another.
+
+3. If Mary’s private accusation of her cousin was forcible and
+convincing, her public declaration that she neither knew nor suspected
+who might be the author of this crime, was equally so. To be sure, the
+former possessed the advantage of being uttered spontaneously; but it
+was likewise true that it was spoken under momentary excitement, without
+foresight of the consequences, and possibly without due consideration of
+the facts.
+
+4, 5. An innocent man or woman, under the influence of terror, will
+often equivocate in regard to matters that seem to criminate them.
+
+But the key! What could I say to that? Nothing. With that key in her
+possession, and unexplained, Eleanore Leavenworth stood in an attitude
+of suspicion which even I felt forced to recognize. Brought to this
+point, I thrust the paper into my pocket, and took up the evening
+_Express_. Instantly my eye fell upon these words:
+
+
+    SHOCKING MURDER
+
+    MR. LEAVENWORTH, THE WELL-KNOWN MILLIONAIRE, FOUND DEAD IN HIS ROOM
+
+    NO CLUE TO THE PERPETRATOR OF THE DEED
+
+    THE AWFUL CRIME COMMITTED WITH A PISTOL--EXTRAORDINARY FEATURES OF
+    THE AFFAIR
+
+Ah! here at least was one comfort; her name was not yet mentioned
+as that of a suspected party. But what might not the morrow bring? I
+thought of Mr. Gryce’s expressive look as he handed me that key, and
+shuddered.
+
+“She must be innocent; she cannot be otherwise,” I reiterated to myself,
+and then pausing, asked what warranty I had of this? Only her beautiful
+face; only, only her beautiful face. Abashed, I dropped the newspaper,
+and went down-stairs just as a telegraph boy arrived with a message from
+Mr. Veeley. It was signed by the proprietor of the hotel at which Mr.
+Veeley was then stopping and ran thus:
+
+
+    “WASHINGTON, D. C.
+
+    “Mr. Everett Raymond--
+
+    “Mr. Veeley is lying at my house ill. Have not shown him telegram,
+    fearing results. Will do so as soon as advisable.
+
+    “Thomas Loworthy.”
+
+I went in musing. Why this sudden sensation of relief on my part? Could
+it be that I had unconsciously been guilty of cherishing a latent dread
+of my senior’s return? Why, who else could know so well the secret
+springs which governed this family? Who else could so effectually put me
+upon the right track? Was it possible that I, Everett Raymond, hesitated
+to know the truth in any case? No, that should never be said; and,
+sitting down again, I drew out the memoranda I had made and, looking
+them carefully over, wrote against No. 6 the word _suspicious_ in good
+round characters. There! no one could say, after that, I had allowed
+myself to be blinded by a bewitching face from seeing what, in a woman
+with no claims to comeliness, would be considered at once an almost
+indubitable evidence of guilt.
+
+And yet, after it was all done, I found myself repeating aloud as I
+gazed at it: “If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her.” So
+completely are we the creatures of our own predilections.
+
+
+
+XI. THE SUMMONS
+
+
+    “The pink of courtesy.”
+         Romeo and Juliet.
+
+THE morning papers contained a more detailed account of the murder than
+those of the evening before; but, to my great relief, in none of them
+was Eleanore’s name mentioned in the connection I most dreaded.
+
+The final paragraph in the _Times_ ran thus: “The detectives are upon
+the track of the missing girl, Hannah.” And in the _Herald_ I read the
+following notice:
+
+“_A Liberal Reward_ will be given by the relatives of Horatio
+Leavenworth, Esq., deceased, for any news of the whereabouts of one
+Hannah Chester, disappeared from the house -------- Fifth Avenue since
+the evening of March 4. Said girl was of Irish extraction; in age about
+twenty-five, and may be known by the following characteristics. Form
+tall and slender; hair dark brown with a tinge of red; complexion fresh;
+features delicate and well made; hands small, but with the fingers much
+pricked by the use of the needle; feet large, and of a coarser type than
+the hands. She had on when last seen a checked gingham dress, brown
+and white, and was supposed to have wrapped herself in a red and green
+blanket shawl, very old. Beside the above distinctive marks, she had
+upon her right hand wrist the scar of a large burn; also a pit or two of
+smallpox upon the left temple.”
+
+This paragraph turned my thoughts in a new direction. Oddly enough, I
+had expended very little thought upon this girl; and yet how apparent
+it was that she was the one person upon whose testimony, if given,
+the whole case in reality hinged, I could not agree with those who
+considered her as personally implicated in the murder. An accomplice,
+conscious of what was before her, would have hid in her pockets whatever
+money she possessed. But the roll of bills found in Hannah’s trunk
+proved her _to_ have left too hurriedly for this precaution. On the
+other hand, if this girl had come unexpectedly upon the assassin at his
+work, how could she have been hustled from the house without creating
+a disturbance loud enough to have been heard by the ladies, one of
+whom had her door open? An innocent girl’s first impulse upon such an
+occasion would have been to scream; and yet no scream was heard; she
+simply disappeared. What were we to think then? That the person seen
+by her was one both known and trusted? I would not consider such a
+possibility; so laying down the paper, I endeavored to put away all
+further consideration of the affair till I had acquired more facts
+upon which to base the theory. But who can control his thoughts when
+over-excited upon any one theme? All the morning I found myself turning
+the case over in my mind, arriving ever at one of two conclusions.
+Hannah Chester must be found, or Eleanore Leavenworth must explain when
+and by what means the key of the library door came into her possession.
+
+At two o’clock I started from my office to attend the inquest; but,
+being delayed on the way, missed arriving at the house until after the
+delivery of the verdict. This was a disappointment to me, especially as
+by these means I lost the opportunity of seeing Eleanore Leavenworth,
+she having retired to her room immediately upon the dismissal of the
+jury. But Mr. Harwell was visible, and from him I heard what the verdict
+had been.
+
+“Death by means of a pistol shot from the hand of some person unknown.”
+
+The result of the inquest was a great relief to me. I had feared worse.
+Nor could I help seeing that, for all his studied self-command, the
+pale-faced secretary shared in my satisfaction.
+
+What was less of a relief to me was the fact, soon communicated, that
+Mr. Gryce and his subordinates had left the premises immediately upon
+the delivery of the verdict. Mr. Gryce was not the man to forsake an
+affair like this while anything of importance connected with it remained
+unexplained. Could it be he meditated any decisive action? Somewhat
+alarmed, I was about to hurry from the house for the purpose of learning
+what his intentions were, when a sudden movement in the front lower
+window of the house on the opposite side of the way arrested my
+attention, and, looking closer, I detected the face of Mr. Fobbs peering
+out from behind the curtain. The sight assured me I was not wrong in my
+estimate of Mr. Gryce; and, struck with pity for the desolate girl left
+to meet the exigencies of a fate to which this watch upon her movements
+was but the evident precursor, I stepped back and sent her a note, in
+which, as Mr. Veeley’s representative, I proffered my services in case
+of any sudden emergency, saying I was always to be found in my rooms
+between the hours of six and eight. This done, I proceeded to the house
+in Thirty-seventh Street where I had left Miss Mary Leavenworth the day
+before.
+
+Ushered into the long and narrow drawing-room which of late years
+has been so fashionable in our uptown houses, I found myself almost
+immediately in the presence of Miss Leavenworth.
+
+“Oh,” she cried, with an eloquent gesture of welcome, “I had begun to
+think I was forsaken!” and advancing impulsively, she held out her hand.
+“What is the news from home?”
+
+“A verdict of murder, Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+Her eyes did not lose their question.
+
+“Perpetrated by party or parties unknown.”
+
+A look of relief broke softly across her features.
+
+“And they are all gone?” she exclaimed.
+
+“I found no one in the house who did not belong there.”
+
+“Oh! then we can breathe easily again.”
+
+I glanced hastily up and down the room.
+
+“There is no one here,” said she.
+
+And still I hesitated. At length, in an awkward way enough, I turned
+towards her and said:
+
+“I do not wish either to offend or alarm you, but I must say that I
+consider it your duty to return to your own home to-night.”
+
+“Why?” she stammered. “Is there any particular reason for my doing so?
+Have you not perceived the impossibility of my remaining in the same
+house with Eleanore?”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, I cannot recognize any so-called impossibility of
+this nature. Eleanore is your cousin; has been brought up to regard you
+as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her at the time of her
+necessity. You will see this as I do, if you will allow yourself a
+moment’s dispassionate thought.”
+
+“Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances,” she
+returned, with a smile of bitter irony.
+
+But before I could reply to this, she softened, and asked if I was very
+anxious to have her return; and when I replied, “More than I can say,”
+ she trembled and looked for a moment as if she were half inclined to
+yield; but suddenly broke into tears, crying it was impossible, and that
+I was cruel to ask it.
+
+I drew back, baffled and sore. “Pardon me,” said I, “I have indeed
+transgressed the bounds allotted to me. I will not do so again; you have
+doubtless many friends; let some of them advise you.”
+
+She turned upon me all fire. “The friends you speak of are flatterers.
+You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right.”
+
+“Excuse me, I do not command; I only entreat.”
+
+She made no reply, but began pacing the room, her eyes fixed, her hands
+working convulsively. “You little know what you ask,” said she. “I feel
+as though the very atmosphere of that house would destroy me; but--why
+cannot Eleanore come here?” she impulsively inquired. “I know Mrs.
+Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not
+meet.”
+
+“You forget that there is another call at home, besides the one I have
+already mentioned. To-morrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried.”
+
+“O yes; poor, poor uncle!”
+
+“You are the head of the household,” I now ventured, “and the proper
+one to attend to the final offices towards one who has done so much for
+you.”
+
+There was something strange in the look which she gave me. “It is true,”
+ she assented. Then, with a grand turn of her body, and a quick air of
+determination: “I am desirous of being worthy of your good opinion. I
+will go back to my cousin, Mr. Raymond.”
+
+I felt my spirits rise a little; I took her by the hand. “May that
+cousin have no need of the comfort which I am now sure you will be ready
+to give her.”
+
+Her hand dropped from mine. “I mean to do my duty,” was her cold
+response.
+
+As I descended the stoop, I met a certain thin and fashionably dressed
+young man, who gave me a very sharp look as he passed. As he wore his
+clothes a little too conspicuously for the perfect gentleman, and as I
+had some remembrance of having seen him at the inquest, I set him down
+for a man in Mr. Gryce’s employ, and hasted on towards the avenue; when
+what was my surprise to find on the corner another person, who,
+while pretending to be on the look out for a car, cast upon me, as I
+approached, a furtive glance of intense inquiry. As this latter was,
+without question, a gentleman, I felt some annoyance, and, walking
+quietly up to him, asked if he found my countenance familiar, that he
+scrutinized it so closely.
+
+“I find it a very agreeable one,” was his unexpected reply, as he turned
+from me and walked down the avenue.
+
+Nettled, and in no small degree mortified, at the disadvantage in which
+his courtesy had placed me, I stood watching him as he disappeared,
+asking myself who and what he was. For he was not only a gentleman, but
+a marked one; possessing features of unusual symmetry as well as a form
+of peculiar elegance. Not so very young--he might well be forty--there
+were yet evident on his face the impress of youth’s strongest emotions,
+not a curve of his chin nor a glance of his eye betraying in any way the
+slightest leaning towards _ennui,_ though face and figure were of that
+type which seems most to invite and cherish it.
+
+“He can have no connection with the police force,” thought I; “nor is it
+by any means certain that he knows me, or is interested in my affairs;
+but I shall not soon forget him, for all that.”
+
+The summons from Eleanore Leavenworth came about eight o’clock in the
+evening. It was brought by Thomas, and read as follows:
+
+“Come, Oh, come! I--” there breaking off in a tremble, as if the pen had
+fallen from a nerveless hand.
+
+It did not take me long to find my way to her home.
+
+
+
+XII. ELEANORE.
+
+
+    “Constant you are--
+     ... And for secrecy
+     No lady closer.”
+
+        Henry IV.
+
+    “No, ‘t is slander,
+    Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue
+    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.”
+
+        Cymbeline.
+
+THE door was opened by Molly. “You will find Miss Eleanore in the
+drawing-room, sir,” she said, ushering me in.
+
+Fearing I knew not what, I hurried to the room thus indicated, feeling
+as never before the sumptuousness of the magnificent hall with its
+antique flooring, carved woods, and bronze ornamentations:--the mockery
+of _things_ for the first time forcing itself upon me. Laying my hand
+on the drawing-room door, I listened. All was silent. Slowly pulling it
+open, I lifted the heavy satin curtains hanging before me to the floor,
+and looked within. What a picture met my eyes!
+
+Sitting in the light of a solitary gas jet, whose faint glimmering just
+served to make visible the glancing satin and stainless marble of
+the gorgeous apartment, I beheld Eleanore Leavenworth. Pale as the
+sculptured image of the Psyche that towered above her from the mellow
+dusk of the bow-window near which she sat, beautiful as it, and almost
+as immobile, she crouched with rigid hands frozen in forgotten entreaty
+before her, apparently insensible to sound, movement, or touch; a silent
+figure of despair in presence of an implacable fate.
+
+Impressed by the scene, I stood with my hand upon the curtain,
+hesitating if to advance or retreat, when suddenly a sharp tremble shook
+her impassive frame, the rigid hands unlocked, the stony eyes softened,
+and, springing to her feet, she uttered a cry of satisfaction, and
+advanced towards me.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, starting at the sound of my own voice.
+
+She paused, and pressed her hands to her face, as if the world and all
+she had forgotten had rushed back upon her at this simple utterance of
+her name.
+
+“What is it?” I asked.
+
+Her hands fell heavily. “Do you not know? They--they are beginning to
+say that I--” she paused, and clutched her throat. “Read!” she gasped,
+pointing to a newspaper lying on the floor at her feet.
+
+I stooped and lifted what showed itself at first glance to be the
+_Evening Telegram._ It needed but a single look to inform me to what she
+referred. There, in startling characters, I beheld:
+
+
+    THE LEAVENWORTH MURDER
+
+    LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MYSTERIOUS CASE
+
+    A MEMBER OF THE MURDERED MAN’S OWN FAMILY
+    STRONGLY SUSPECTED OF THE CRIME
+
+    THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK UNDER A CLOUD
+
+    PAST HISTORY OF MISS ELEANORE LEAVENWORTH
+
+I was prepared for it; had schooled myself for this very thing, you
+might say; and yet I could not help recoiling. Dropping the paper from
+my hand, I stood before her, longing and yet dreading to look into her
+face.
+
+“What does it mean?” she panted; “what, what does it mean? Is the world
+mad?” and her eyes, fixed and glassy, stared into mine as if she found
+it impossible to grasp the sense of this outrage.
+
+I shook my head. I could not reply.
+
+“To accuse _me_” she murmured; “me, me!” striking her breast with her
+clenched hand, “who loved the very ground he trod upon; who would have
+cast my own body between him and the deadly bullet if I had only known
+his danger. Oh!” she cried, “it is not a slander they utter, but a
+dagger which they thrust into my heart!”
+
+Overcome by her misery, but determined not to show my compassion until
+more thoroughly convinced of her complete innocence, I replied, after a
+pause:
+
+“This seems to strike you with great surprise, Miss Leavenworth; were
+you not then able to foresee what must follow your determined reticence
+upon certain points? Did you know so little of human nature as to
+imagine that, situated as you are, you could keep silence in regard to
+any matter connected with this crime, without arousing the antagonism of
+the crowd, to say nothing of the suspicions of the police?”
+
+“But--but----”
+
+I hurriedly waved my hand. “When you defied the coroner to find
+any suspicious paper in your possession; when”--I forced myself to
+speak--“you refused to tell Mr. Gryce how you came in possession of the
+key--”
+
+She drew hastily back, a heavy pall seeming to fall over her with my
+words.
+
+“Don’t,” she whispered, looking in terror about her. “Don’t! Sometimes I
+think the walls have ears, and that the very shadows listen.”
+
+“Ah,” I returned; “then you hope to keep from the world what is known to
+the detectives?”
+
+She did not answer.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I went on, “I am afraid you do not comprehend
+your position. Try to look at the case for a moment in the light of
+an unprejudiced person; try to see for yourself the necessity of
+explaining----”
+
+“But I cannot explain,” she murmured huskily.
+
+“Cannot!”
+
+I do not know whether it was the tone of my voice or the word itself,
+but that simple expression seemed to affect her like a blow.
+
+“Oh!” she cried, shrinking back: “you do not, cannot doubt me, too? I
+thought that you--” and stopped. “I did not dream that I--” and stopped
+again. Suddenly her whole form quivered. “Oh, I see! You have mistrusted
+me from the first; the appearances against me have been too strong”; and
+she sank inert, lost in the depths of her shame and humiliation. “Ah,
+but now I am forsaken!” she murmured.
+
+The appeal went to my heart. Starting forward, I exclaimed: “Miss
+Leavenworth, I am but a man; I cannot see you so distressed. Say
+that you are innocent, and I will believe you, without regard to
+appearances.”
+
+Springing erect, she towered upon me. “Can any one look in my face
+and accuse me of guilt?” Then, as I sadly shook my head, she hurriedly
+gasped: “You want further proof!” and, quivering with an extraordinary
+emotion, she sprang to the door.
+
+“Come, then,” she cried, “come!” her eyes flashing full of resolve upon
+me.
+
+Aroused, appalled, moved in spite of myself, I crossed the room to where
+she stood; but she was already in the hall. Hastening after her, filled
+with a fear I dared not express, I stood at the foot of the stairs; she
+was half-way to the top. Following her into the hall above, I saw her
+form standing erect and noble at the door of her uncle’s bedroom.
+
+“Come!” she again cried, but this time in a calm and reverential tone;
+and flinging the door open before her, she passed in.
+
+Subduing the wonder which I felt, I slowly followed her. There was no
+light in the room of death, but the flame of the gas-burner, at the far
+end of the hall, shone weirdly in, and by its glimmering I beheld her
+kneeling at the shrouded bed, her head bowed above that of the murdered
+man, her hand upon his breast.
+
+“You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me,”
+ she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. “See here,” and laying
+her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the
+clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonizedly, then, leaping to her feet,
+cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: “Could I do that if I were
+guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in
+my veins, and my heart faint at this contact? Son of a father loved and
+reverenced, can you believe me to be a woman stained with crime when I
+can do this?” and kneeling again she cast her arms over and about that
+inanimate form, looking in my face at the same time with an expression
+no mortal touch could paint, nor tongue describe.
+
+“In olden times,” she went on, “they used to say that a dead body would
+bleed if its murderer came in contact with it. What then would happen
+here if I, his daughter, his cherished child, loaded with benefits,
+enriched with his jewels, warm with his kisses, should be the thing they
+accuse me of? Would not the body of the outraged dead burst its very
+shroud and repel me?”
+
+I could not answer; in the presence of some scenes the tongue forgets
+its functions.
+
+“Oh!” she went on, “if there is a God in heaven who loves justice and
+hates a crime, let Him hear me now. If I, by thought or action, with
+or without intention, have been the means of bringing this dear head to
+this pass; if so much as the shadow of guilt, let alone the substance,
+lies upon my heart and across these feeble woman’s hands, may His wrath
+speak in righteous retribution to the world, and here, upon the breast
+of the dead, let this guilty forehead fall, never to rise again!”
+
+An awed silence followed this invocation; then a long, long sigh of
+utter relief rose tremulously from my breast, and all the feelings
+hitherto suppressed in my heart burst their bonds, and leaning towards
+her I took her hand in mine.
+
+“You do not, cannot believe me tainted by crime now?” she whispered,
+the smile which does not stir the lips, but rather emanates from the
+countenance, like the flowering of an inner peace, breaking softly out
+on cheek and brow.
+
+“Crime!” The word broke uncontrollably from my lips; “crime!”
+
+“No,” she said calmly, “the man does not live who could accuse me of
+crime, _here_.”
+
+For reply, I took her hand, which lay in mine, and placed it on the
+breast of the dead.
+
+Softly, slowly, gratefully, she bowed her head.
+
+“Now let the struggle come!” she whispered. “There is one who will
+believe in me, however dark appearances may be.”
+
+
+
+XIII. THE PROBLEM
+
+
+    “But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw
+     Against a champion cased in adamant.”
+         Wordsworth.
+
+WHEN we re-entered the parlor below, the first sight that met our eyes
+was Mary, standing wrapped in her long cloak in the centre of the room.
+She had arrived during our absence, and now awaited us with lifted head
+and countenance fixed in its proudest expression. Looking in her face, I
+realized what the embarrassment of this meeting must be to these
+women, and would have retreated, but something in the attitude of Mary
+Leavenworth seemed to forbid my doing so. At the same time, determined
+that the opportunity should not pass without some sort of reconcilement
+between them, I stepped forward, and, bowing to Mary, said:
+
+“Your cousin has just succeeded in convincing me of her entire
+innocence, Miss Leavenworth. I am now ready to join Mr. Gryce, heart and
+soul, in finding out the true culprit.”
+
+“I should have thought one look into Eleanore Leavenworth’s face would
+have been enough to satisfy you that she is incapable of crime,” was
+her unexpected answer; and, lifting her head with a proud gesture, Mary
+Leavenworth fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine.
+
+I felt the blood flash to my brow, but before I could speak, her voice
+rose again still more coldly than before.
+
+“It is hard for a delicate girl, unused to aught but the most flattering
+expressions of regard, to be obliged to assure the world of her
+innocence in respect to the committal of a great crime. Eleanore has
+my sympathy.” And sweeping her cloak from her shoulders with a quick
+gesture, she turned her gaze for the first time upon her cousin.
+
+Instantly Eleanore advanced, as if to meet it; and I could not but feel
+that, for some reason, this moment possessed an importance for them
+which I was scarcely competent to measure. But if I found myself unable
+to realize its significance, I at least responded to its intensity. And
+indeed it was an occasion to remember. To behold two such women, either
+of whom might be considered the model of her time, face to face
+and drawn up in evident antagonism, was a sight to move the dullest
+sensibilities. But there was something more in this scene than that. It
+was the shock of all the most passionate emotions of the human soul;
+the meeting of waters of whose depth and force I could only guess by the
+effect. Eleanore was the first to recover. Drawing back with the cold
+haughtiness which, alas, I had almost forgotten in the display of later
+and softer emotions, she exclaimed:
+
+“There is something better than sympathy, and that is justice”; and
+turned, as if to go. “I will confer with you in the reception room, Mr.
+Raymond.”
+
+But Mary, springing forward, caught her back with one powerful hand.
+“No,” she cried, “you shall confer with _me!_ I have something to say to
+you, Eleanore Leavenworth.” And, taking her stand in the centre of the
+room, she waited.
+
+I glanced at Eleanore, saw this was no place for me, and hastily
+withdrew. For ten long minutes I paced the floor of the reception room,
+a prey to a thousand doubts and conjectures. What was the secret of this
+home? What had given rise to the deadly mistrust continually manifested
+between these cousins, fitted by nature for the completest companionship
+and the most cordial friendship? It was not a thing of to-day or
+yesterday. No sudden flame could awake such concentrated heat of emotion
+as that of which I had just been the unwilling witness. One must go
+farther back than this murder to find the root of a mistrust so great
+that the struggle it caused made itself felt even where I stood, though
+nothing but the faintest murmur came to my ears through the closed
+doors.
+
+Presently the drawing-room curtain was raised, and Mary’s voice was
+heard in distinct articulation.
+
+“The same roof can never shelter us both after this. To-morrow, you or I
+find another home.” And, blushing and panting, she stepped into the
+hall and advanced to where I stood. But at the first sight of my face,
+a change came over her; all her pride seemed to dissolve, and, flinging
+out her hands, as if to ward off scrutiny, she fled from my side, and
+rushed weeping up-stairs.
+
+I was yet laboring under the oppression caused by this painful
+termination of the strange scene when the parlor curtain was again
+lifted, and Eleanore entered the room where I was. Pale but calm,
+showing no evidences of the struggle she had just been through, unless
+by a little extra weariness about the eyes, she sat down by my side,
+and, meeting my gaze with one unfathomable in its courage, said after
+a pause: “Tell me where I stand; let me know the worst at once; I fear
+that I have not indeed comprehended my own position.”
+
+Rejoiced to hear this acknowledgment from her lips, I hastened to
+comply. I began by placing before her the whole case as it appeared
+to an unprejudiced person; enlarged upon the causes of suspicion, and
+pointed out in what regard some things looked dark against her, which
+perhaps to her own mind were easily explainable and of small account;
+tried to make her see the importance of her decision, and finally wound
+up with an appeal. Would she not confide in me?
+
+“But I thought you were satisfied?” she tremblingly remarked.
+
+“And so I am; but I want the world to be so, too.”
+
+“Ah; now you ask too much! The finger of suspicion never forgets the way
+it has once pointed,” she sadly answered. “My name is tainted forever.”
+
+“And you will submit to this, when a word--”
+
+“I am thinking that any word of mine now would make very little
+difference,” she murmured.
+
+I looked away, the vision of Mr. Fobbs, in hiding behind the curtains of
+the opposite house, recurring painfully to my mind.
+
+“If the affair looks as bad as you say it does,” she pursued, “it is
+scarcely probable that Mr. Gryce will care much for any interpretation
+of mine in regard to the matter.”
+
+“Mr. Gryce would be glad to know where you procured that key, if only to
+assist him in turning his inquiries in the right direction.”
+
+She did not reply, and my spirits sank in renewed depression.
+
+“It is worth your while to satisfy him,” I pursued; “and though it may
+compromise some one you desire to shield----”
+
+She rose impetuously. “I shall never divulge to any one how I came in
+possession of that key.” And sitting again, she locked her hands in
+fixed resolve before her.
+
+I rose in my turn and paced the floor, the fang of an unreasoning
+jealousy striking deep into my heart.
+
+“Mr. Raymond, if the worst should come, and all who love me should plead
+on bended knees for me to tell, I will never do it.”
+
+“Then,” said I, determined not to disclose my secret thought, but
+equally resolved to find out if possible her motive for this silence,
+“you desire to defeat the cause of justice.”
+
+She neither spoke nor moved.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I now said, “this determined shielding of another at
+the expense of your own good name is no doubt generous of you; but
+your friends and the lovers of truth and justice cannot accept such a
+sacrifice.”
+
+She started haughtily. “Sir!” she said.
+
+“If you will not assist us,” I went on calmly, but determinedly, “we
+must do without your aid. After the scene I have just witnessed above;
+after the triumphant conviction which you have forced upon me, not only
+of your innocence, but your horror of the crime and its consequences, I
+should feel myself less than a man if I did not sacrifice even your own
+good opinion, in urging your cause, and clearing your character from
+this foul aspersion.”
+
+Again that heavy silence.
+
+“What do you propose to do?” she asked, at last.
+
+Crossing the room, I stood before her. “I propose to relieve you utterly
+and forever from suspicion, by finding out and revealing to the world
+the true culprit.”
+
+I expected to see her recoil, so positive had I become by this time
+as to who that culprit was. But instead of that, she merely folded her
+hands still more tightly and exclaimed:
+
+“I doubt if you will be able to do that, Mr. Raymond.”
+
+“Doubt if I will be able to put my finger upon the guilty man, or doubt
+if I will be able to bring him to justice?”
+
+“I doubt,” she said with strong effort, “if any one ever knows who is
+the guilty person in this case.”
+
+“There is one who knows,” I said with a desire to test her.
+
+“One?”
+
+“The girl Hannah is acquainted with the mystery of that night’s evil
+doings, Miss Leavenworth. Find Hannah, and we find one who can point out
+to us the assassin of your uncle.”
+
+“That is mere supposition,” she said; but I saw the blow had told.
+
+“Your cousin has offered a large reward for the girl, and the whole
+country is on the lookout. Within a week we shall see her in our midst.”
+
+A change took place in her expression and bearing.
+
+“The girl cannot help me,” she said.
+
+Baffled by her manner, I drew back. “Is there anything or anybody that
+can?”
+
+She slowly looked away.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I continued with renewed earnestness, “you have no
+brother to plead with you, you have no mother to guide you; let me then
+entreat, in default of nearer and dearer friends, that you will rely
+sufficiently upon me to tell me one thing.”
+
+“What is it?” she asked.
+
+“Whether you took the paper imputed to you from the library table?”
+
+She did not instantly respond, but sat looking earnestly before her with
+an intentness which seemed to argue that she was weighing the question
+as well as her reply. Finally, turning toward me, she said:
+
+“In answering you, I speak in confidence. Mr. Raymond, I did.”
+
+Crushing back the sigh of despair that arose to my lips, I went on.
+
+“I will not inquire what the paper was,”--she waved her hand
+deprecatingly,--“but this much more you will tell me. Is that paper
+still in existence?”
+
+She looked me steadily in the face.
+
+“It is not.”
+
+I could with difficulty forbear showing my disappointment. “Miss
+Leavenworth,” I now said, “it may seem cruel for me to press you at this
+time; nothing less than my strong realization of the peril in which you
+stand would induce me to run the risk of incurring your displeasure by
+asking what under other circumstances would seem puerile and insulting
+questions. You have told me one thing which I strongly desired to know;
+will you also inform me what it was you heard that night while sitting
+in your room, between the time of Mr. Harwell’s going up-stairs and the
+closing of the library door, of which you made mention at the inquest?”
+
+I had pushed my inquiries too far, and I saw it immediately.
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” she returned, “influenced by my desire not to appear
+utterly ungrateful to you, I have been led to reply in confidence to one
+of your urgent appeals; but I can go no further. Do not ask me to.”
+
+Stricken to the heart by her look of reproach, I answered with some
+sadness that her wishes should be respected. “Not but what I intend to
+make every effort in my power to discover the true author of this crime.
+That is a sacred duty which I feel myself called upon to perform; but I
+will ask you no more questions, nor distress you with further appeals.
+What is done shall be done without your assistance, and with no other
+hope than that in the event of my success you will acknowledge my
+motives to have been pure and my action disinterested.”
+
+“I am ready to acknowledge that now,” she began, but paused and looked
+with almost agonized entreaty in my face. “Mr. Raymond, cannot you leave
+things as they are? Won’t you? I don’t ask for assistance, nor do I want
+it; I would rather----”
+
+But I would not listen. “Guilt has no right to profit by the generosity
+of the guiltless. The hand that struck this blow shall not be
+accountable for the loss of a noble woman’s honor and happiness as well.
+
+“I shall do what I can, Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+As I walked down the avenue that night, feeling like an adventurous
+traveller that in a moment of desperation has set his foot upon a plank
+stretching in narrow perspective over a chasm of immeasurable depth,
+this problem evolved itself from the shadows before me: How, with no
+other clue than the persuasion that Eleanore Leavenworth was engaged in
+shielding another at the expense of her own good name, I was to
+combat the prejudices of Mr. Gryce, find out the real assassin of Mr.
+Leavenworth, and free an innocent woman from the suspicion that had, not
+without some show of reason, fallen upon her?
+
+
+
+BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING
+
+
+
+XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME
+
+
+    “Nay, but hear me.”
+         Measure for Measure.
+
+THAT the guilty person for whom Eleanore Leavenworth stood ready to
+sacrifice herself was one for whom she had formerly cherished affection,
+I could no longer doubt; love, or the strong sense of duty growing out
+of love, being alone sufficient to account for such determined action.
+Obnoxious as it was to all my prejudices, one name alone, that of the
+commonplace secretary, with his sudden heats and changeful manners, his
+odd ways and studied self-possession, would recur to my mind whenever I
+asked myself who this person could be.
+
+Not that, without the light which had been thrown upon the affair by
+Eleanore’s strange behavior, I should have selected this man as one in
+any way open to suspicion; the peculiarity of his manner at the inquest
+not being marked enough to counteract the improbability of one in his
+relations to the deceased finding sufficient motive for a crime so
+manifestly without favorable results to himself. But if love had entered
+as a factor into the affair, what might not be expected? James Harwell,
+simple amanuensis to a retired tea-merchant, was one man; James Harwell,
+swayed by passion for a woman beautiful as Eleanore Leavenworth, was
+another; and in placing him upon the list of those parties open to
+suspicion I felt I was only doing what was warranted by a proper
+consideration of probabilities.
+
+But, between casual suspicion and actual proof, what a gulf! To believe
+James Harwell capable of guilt, and to find evidence enough to accuse
+him of it, were two very different things. I felt myself instinctively
+shrink from the task, before I had fully made up my mind to attempt it;
+some relenting thought of his unhappy position, if innocent, forcing
+itself upon me, and making my very distrust of him seem personally
+ungenerous if not absolutely unjust. If I had liked the man better, I
+should not have been so ready to look upon him with doubt.
+
+But Eleanore must be saved at all hazards. Once delivered up to the
+blight of suspicion, who could tell what the result might be; the arrest
+of her person perhaps,--a thing which, once accomplished, would cast a
+shadow over her young life that it would take more than time to dispel.
+The accusation of an impecunious secretary would be less horrible than
+this. I determined to make an early call upon Mr. Gryce.
+
+Meanwhile the contrasted pictures of Eleanore standing with her hand
+upon the breast of the dead, her face upraised and mirroring a glory,
+I could not recall without emotion; and Mary, fleeing a short half-hour
+later indignantly from her presence, haunted me and kept me awake long
+after midnight. It was like a double vision of light and darkness that,
+while contrasting, neither assimilated nor harmonized. I could not flee
+from it. Do what I would, the two pictures followed me, filling my soul
+with alternate hope and distrust, till I knew not whether to place my
+hand with Eleanore on the breast of the dead, and swear implicit faith
+in her truth and purity, or to turn my face like Mary, and fly from what
+I could neither comprehend nor reconcile.
+
+Expectant of difficulty, I started next morning upon my search for Mr.
+Gryce, with strong determination not to allow myself to become flurried
+by disappointment nor discouraged by premature failure. My business was
+to save Eleanore Leavenworth; and to do that, it was necessary for me to
+preserve, not only my equanimity, but my self-possession. The worst
+fear I anticipated was that matters would reach a crisis before I could
+acquire the right, or obtain the opportunity, to interfere. However, the
+fact of Mr. Leavenworth’s funeral being announced for that day gave
+me some comfort in that direction; my knowledge of Mr. Gryce being
+sufficient, as I thought, to warrant me in believing he would wait till
+after that ceremony before proceeding to extreme measures.
+
+I do not know that I had any very definite ideas of what a detective’s
+home should be; but when I stood before the neat three-story brick house
+to which I had been directed, I could not but acknowledge there was
+something in the aspect of its half-open shutters, over closely drawn
+curtains of spotless purity, highly suggestive of the character of its
+inmate.
+
+A pale-looking youth, with vivid locks of red hair hanging straight down
+over either ear, answered my rather nervous ring. To my inquiry as to
+whether Mr. Gryce was in, he gave a kind of snort which might have meant
+no, but which I took to mean yes.
+
+“My name is Raymond, and I wish to see him.”
+
+He gave me one glance that took in every detail of my person and
+apparel, and pointed to a door at the head of the stairs. Not waiting
+for further directions, I hastened up, knocked at the door he had
+designated, and went in. The broad back of Mr. Gryce, stooping above a
+desk that might have come over in the _Mayflower,_ confronted me.
+
+“Well!” he exclaimed; “this is an honor.” And rising, he opened with a
+squeak and shut with a bang the door of an enormous stove that occupied
+the centre of the room. “Rather chilly day, eh?”
+
+“Yes,” I returned, eyeing him closely to see if he was in a
+communicative mood. “But I have had but little time to consider the
+state of the weather. My anxiety in regard to this murder----”
+
+“To be sure,” he interrupted, fixing his eyes upon the poker, though
+not with any hostile intention, I am sure. “A puzzling piece of business
+enough. But perhaps it is an open book to you. I see you have something
+to communicate.”
+
+“I have, though I doubt if it is of the nature you expect. Mr. Gryce,
+since I saw you last, my convictions upon a certain point have been
+strengthened into an absolute belief. The object of your suspicions is
+an innocent woman.”
+
+If I had expected him to betray any surprise at this, I was destined to
+be disappointed. “That is a very pleasing belief,” he observed. “I honor
+you for entertaining it, Mr. Raymond.”
+
+I suppressed a movement of anger. “So thoroughly is it mine,” I went on,
+in the determination to arouse him in some way, “that I have come here
+to-day to ask you in the name of justice and common humanity to suspend
+action in that direction till we can convince ourselves there is no
+truer scent to go upon.”
+
+But there was no more show of curiosity than before. “Indeed!” he cried;
+“that is a singular request to come from a man like you.”
+
+I was not to be discomposed, “Mr. Gryce,” I went on, “a woman’s name,
+once tarnished, remains so forever. Eleanore Leavenworth has too many
+noble traits to be thoughtlessly dealt with in so momentous a crisis. If
+you will give me your attention, I promise you shall not regret it.”
+
+He smiled, and allowed his eyes to roam from the poker to the arm of my
+chair. “Very well,” he remarked; “I hear you; say on.”
+
+I drew my notes from my pocketbook, and laid them on the table.
+
+“What! memoranda?” he exclaimed. “Unsafe, very; never put your plans on
+paper.”
+
+Taking no heed of the interruption, I went on.
+
+“Mr. Gryce, I have had fuller opportunities than yourself for studying
+this woman. I have seen her in a position which no guilty person could
+occupy, and I am assured, beyond all doubt, that not only her hands, but
+her heart, are pure from this crime. She may have some knowledge of its
+secrets; that I do not presume to deny. The key seen in her possession
+would refute me if I did. But what if she has? You can never wish to see
+so lovely a being brought to shame for withholding information which she
+evidently considers it her duty to keep back, when by a little patient
+finesse we may succeed in our purposes without it.”
+
+“But,” interposed the detective, “say this is so; how are we to arrive
+at the knowledge we want without following out the only clue which has
+yet been given us?”
+
+“You will never reach it by following out any clue given you by Eleanore
+Leavenworth.”
+
+His eyebrows lifted expressively, but he said nothing.
+
+“Miss Eleanore Leavenworth has been used by some one acquainted with her
+firmness, generosity, and perhaps love. Let us discover who possesses
+sufficient power over her to control her to this extent, and we find the
+man we seek.”
+
+“Humph!” came from Mr. Gryce’s compressed lips, and no more.
+
+Determined that he should speak, I waited.
+
+“You have, then, some one in your mind”; he remarked at last, almost
+flippantly.
+
+“I mention no names,” I returned. “All I want is further time.”
+
+“You are, then, intending to make a personal business of this matter?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+He gave a long, low whistle. “May I ask,” he inquired at length,
+“whether you expect to work entirely by yourself; or whether, if a
+suitable coadjutor were provided, you would disdain his assistance and
+slight his advice?”
+
+“I desire nothing more than to have you for my colleague.”
+
+The smile upon his face deepened ironically. “You must feel very sure of
+yourself!” said he.
+
+“I am very sure of Miss Leavenworth.”
+
+The reply seemed to please him. “Let us hear what you propose doing.”
+
+I did not immediately answer. The truth was, I had formed no plans.
+
+“It seems to me,” he continued, “that you have undertaken a rather
+difficult task for an amateur. Better leave it to me, Mr. Raymond;
+better leave it to me.”
+
+“I am sure,” I returned, “that nothing would please me better----”
+
+“Not,” he interrupted, “but that a word from you now and then would
+be welcome. I am not an egotist. I am open to suggestions: as, for
+instance, now, if you could conveniently inform me of all you have
+yourself seen and heard in regard to this matter, I should be most happy
+to listen.”
+
+Relieved to find him so amenable, I asked myself what I really had to
+tell; not so much that he would consider vital. However, it would not do
+to hesitate now.
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” said I, “I have but few facts to add to those already known
+to you. Indeed, I am more moved by convictions than facts. That Eleanore
+Leavenworth never committed this crime, I am assured. That, on the other
+hand, the real perpetrator is known to her, I am equally certain;
+and that for some reason she considers it a sacred duty to shield the
+assassin, even at the risk of her own safety, follows as a matter
+of course from the facts. Now, with such data, it cannot be a very
+difficult task for you or me to work out satisfactorily, to our own
+minds at least, who this person can be. A little more knowledge of the
+family--”
+
+“You know nothing of its secret history, then?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Do not even know whether either of these girls is engaged to be
+married?”
+
+“I do not,” I returned, wincing at this direct expression of my own
+thoughts.
+
+He remained a moment silent. “Mr. Raymond,” he cried at last, “have
+you any idea of the disadvantages under which a detective labors? For
+instance, now, you imagine I can insinuate myself into all sorts of
+society, perhaps; but you are mistaken. Strange as it may appear, I have
+never by any possibility of means succeeded with one class of persons at
+all. I cannot pass myself off for a gentleman. Tailors and barbers are
+no good; I am always found out.”
+
+He looked so dejected I could scarcely forbear smiling, notwithstanding
+my secret care and anxiety.
+
+“I have even employed a French valet, who understood dancing and
+whiskers; but it was all of no avail. The first gentleman I approached
+stared at me,--real gentleman, I mean, none of your American
+dandies,--and I had no stare to return; I had forgotten that emergency
+in my confabs with Pierre Catnille Marie Make-face.”
+
+Amused, but a little discomposed by this sudden turn in the
+conversation, I looked at Mr. Gryce inquiringly.
+
+“Now you, I dare say, have no trouble? Was born one, perhaps. Can even
+ask a lady to dance without blushing, eh?”
+
+“Well,--” I commenced.
+
+“Just so,” he replied; “now, I can’t. I can enter a house, bow to the
+mistress of it, let her be as elegant as she will, so long as I have
+a writ of arrest in my hand, or some such professional matter upon my
+mind; but when it comes to visiting in kid gloves, raising a glass of
+champagne in response to a toast--and such like, I am absolutely good
+for nothing.” And he plunged his two hands into his hair, and looked
+dolefully at the head of the cane I carried in my hand. “But it is much
+the same with the whole of us. When we are in want of a gentleman to
+work for us, we have to go outside of our profession.”
+
+I began to see what he was driving at; but held my peace, vaguely
+conscious I was likely to prove a necessity to him, after all.
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” he now said, almost abruptly; “do you know a gentleman by
+the name of Clavering residing at present at the Hoffman House?”
+
+“Not that I am aware of.”
+
+“He is very polished in his manners; would you mind making his
+acquaintance?”
+
+I followed Mr. Gryce’s example, and stared at the chimney-piece. “I
+cannot answer till I understand matters a little better,” I returned at
+length.
+
+“There is not much to understand. Mr. Henry Clavering, a gentleman and
+a man of the world, resides at the Hoffman House. He is a stranger in
+town, without being strange; drives, walks, smokes, but never visits;
+looks at the ladies, but is never seen to bow to one. In short, a
+person whom it is desirable to know; but whom, being a proud man,
+with something of the old-world prejudice against Yankee freedom and
+forwardness, I could no more approach in the way of acquaintance than I
+could the Emperor of Austria.”
+
+“And you wish----”
+
+“He would make a very agreeable companion for a rising young lawyer
+of good family and undoubted respectability. I have no doubt, if you
+undertook to cultivate him, you would find him well worth the trouble.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Might even desire to take him into familiar relations; to confide in
+him, and----”
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I hastily interrupted; “I can never consent to plot for any
+man’s friendship for the sake of betraying him to the police.”
+
+“It is essential to your plans to make the acquaintance of Mr.
+Clavering,” he dryly replied.
+
+“Oh!” I returned, a light breaking in upon me; “he has some connection
+with this case, then?”
+
+Mr. Gryce smoothed his coat-sleeve thoughtfully. “I don’t know as it
+will be necessary for you to betray him. You wouldn’t object to being
+introduced to him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor, if you found him pleasant, to converse with him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Not even if, in the course of conversation, you should come across
+something that might serve as a clue in your efforts to save Eleanore
+Leavenworth?”
+
+The no I uttered this time was less assured; the part of a spy was the
+very last one I desired to play in the coming drama.
+
+“Well, then,” he went on, ignoring the doubtful tone in which my assent
+had been given, “I advise you to immediately take up your quarters at
+the Hoffman House.”
+
+“I doubt if that would do,” I said. “If I am not mistaken, I have
+already seen this gentleman, and spoken to him.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Describe him first.”
+
+“Well, he is tall, finely formed, of very upright carriage, with a
+handsome dark face, brown hair streaked with gray, a piercing eye, and a
+smooth address. A very imposing personage, I assure you.”
+
+“I have reason to think I have seen him,” I returned; and in a few words
+told him when and where.
+
+“Humph!” said he at the conclusion; “he is evidently as much interested
+in you as we are in him.
+
+“How ‘s that? I think I see,” he added, after a moment’s thought.
+“Pity you spoke to him; may have created an unfavorable impression; and
+everything depends upon your meeting without any distrust.”
+
+He rose and paced the floor.
+
+“Well, we must move slowly, that is all. Give him a chance to see you in
+other and better lights. Drop into the Hoffman House reading-room.
+Talk with the best men you meet while there; but not too much, or too
+indiscriminately. Mr. Clavering is fastidious, and will not feel honored
+by the attentions of one who is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody.
+Show yourself for what you are, and leave all advances to him; he ‘ll
+make them.”
+
+“Supposing we are under a mistake, and the man I met on the corner of
+Thirty-seventh Street was not Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“I should be greatly surprised, that’s all.”
+
+Not knowing what further objection to make, I remained silent.
+
+“And this head of mine would have to put on its thinking-cap,” he
+pursued jovially.
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I now said, anxious to show that all this talk about an
+unknown party had not served to put my own plans from my mind, “there is
+one person of whom we have not spoken.”
+
+“No?” he exclaimed softly, wheeling around until his broad back
+confronted me. “And who may that be?”
+
+“Why, who but Mr.--” I could get no further. What right had I to
+mention any man’s name in this connection, without possessing sufficient
+evidence against him to make such mention justifiable? “I beg your
+pardon,” said I; “but I think I will hold to my first impulse, and speak
+no names.”
+
+“Harwell?” he ejaculated easily.
+
+The quick blush rising to my face gave an involuntary assent.
+
+“I see no reason why we shouldn’t speak of him,” he went on; “that is,
+if there is anything to be gained by it.”
+
+“His testimony at the inquest was honest, you think?”
+
+“It has not been disproved.”
+
+“He is a peculiar man.”
+
+“And so am I.”
+
+I felt myself slightly nonplussed; and, conscious of appearing at a
+disadvantage, lifted my hat from the table and prepared to take my
+leave; but, suddenly thinking of Hannah, turned and asked if there was
+any news of her.
+
+He seemed to debate with himself, hesitating so long that I began to
+doubt if this man intended to confide in me, after all, when suddenly he
+brought his two hands down before him and exclaimed vehemently:
+
+“The evil one himself is in this business! If the earth had opened and
+swallowed up this girl, she couldn’t have more effectually disappeared.”
+
+I experienced a sinking of the heart. Eleanore had said: “Hannah can do
+nothing for me.” Could it be that the girl was indeed gone, and forever?
+
+“I have innumerable agents at work, to say nothing of the general
+public; and yet not so much as a whisper has come to me in regard to her
+whereabouts or situation. I am only afraid we shall find her floating in
+the river some fine morning, without a confession in her pocket.”
+
+“Everything hangs upon that girl’s testimony,” I remarked.
+
+He gave a short grunt. “What does Miss Leavenworth say about it?”
+
+“That the girl cannot help her.”
+
+I thought he looked a trifle surprised at this, but he covered it with a
+nod and an exclamation. “She must be found for all that,” said he, “and
+shall, if I have to send out Q.”
+
+“Q?”
+
+“An agent of mine who is a living interrogation point; so we call him
+_Q,_ which is short for query.” Then, as I turned again to go: “When the
+contents of the will are made known, come to me.”
+
+The will! I had forgotten the will.
+
+
+
+XV. WAYS OPENING
+
+
+    “It is not and it cannot come to good.”
+         Hamlet.
+
+I ATTENDED the funeral of Mr. Leavenworth, but did not see the
+ladies before or after the ceremony. I, however, had a few moments’
+conversation with Mr. Harwell; which, without eliciting anything new,
+provided me with food for abundant conjecture. For he had asked, almost
+at first greeting, if I had seen the _Telegram_ of the night before;
+and when I responded in the affirmative, turned such a look of mingled
+distress and appeal upon me, I was tempted to ask how such a frightful
+insinuation against a young lady of reputation and breeding could ever
+have got into the papers. It was his reply that struck me.
+
+“That the guilty party might be driven by remorse to own himself the
+true culprit.”
+
+A curious remark to come from a person who had no knowledge or
+suspicion of the criminal and his character; and I would have pushed
+the conversation further, but the secretary, who was a man of few words,
+drew off at this, and could be induced to say no more. Evidently it was
+my business to cultivate Mr. Clavering, or any one else who could throw
+any light upon the secret history of these girls.
+
+That evening I received notice that Mr. Veeley had arrived home, but
+was in no condition to consult with me upon so painful a subject as
+the murder of Mr. Leavenworth. Also a line from Eleanore, giving me her
+address, but requesting me at the same time not to call unless I had
+something of importance to communicate, as she was too ill to receive
+visitors. The little note affected me. Ill, alone, and in a strange
+home,--‘twas pitiful!
+
+The next day, pursuant to the wishes of Mr. Gryce, in I stepped into the
+Hoffman House, and took a seat in the reading room. I had been there but
+a few moments when a gentleman entered whom I immediately recognized
+as the same I had spoken to on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street
+and Sixth Avenue. He must have remembered me also, for he seemed to be
+slightly embarrassed at seeing me; but, recovering himself, took up a
+paper and soon became to all appearance lost in its contents, though I
+could feel his handsome black eye upon me, studying my features,
+figure, apparel, and movements with a degree of interest which equally
+astonished and disconcerted me. I felt that it would be injudicious on
+my part to return his scrutiny, anxious as I was to meet his eye and
+learn what emotion had so fired his curiosity in regard to a perfect
+stranger; so I rose, and, crossing to an old friend of mine who sat at
+a table opposite, commenced a desultory conversation, in the course of
+which I took occasion to ask if he knew who the handsome stranger was.
+Dick Furbish was a society man, and knew everybody.
+
+“His name is Clavering, and he comes from London. I don’t know anything
+more about him, though he is to be seen everywhere except in private
+houses. He has not been received into society yet; waiting for letters
+of introduction, perhaps.”
+
+“A gentleman?”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“One you speak to?”
+
+“Oh, yes; I talk to him, but the conversation is very one-sided.”
+
+I could not help smiling at the grimace with which Dick accompanied this
+remark. “Which same goes to prove,” he went on, “that he is the real
+thing.”
+
+Laughing outright this time, I left him, and in a few minutes sauntered
+from the room.
+
+As I mingled again with the crowd on Broadway, I found myself wondering
+immensely over this slight experience. That this unknown gentleman from
+London, who went everywhere except into private houses, could be in
+any way connected with the affair I had so at heart, seemed not only
+improbable but absurd; and for the first time I felt tempted to doubt
+the sagacity of Mr. Gryce in recommending him to my attention.
+
+The next day I repeated the experiment, but with no greater success
+than before. Mr. Clavering came into the room, but, seeing me, did
+not remain. I began to realize it was no easy matter to make his
+acquaintance. To atone for my disappointment, I called on Mary
+Leavenworth in the evening. She received me with almost a sister-like
+familiarity.
+
+“Ah,” she cried, after introducing me to an elderly lady at her
+side,--some connection of the family, I believe, who had come to remain
+with her for a while,--“you are here to tell me Hannah is found; is it
+not so?”
+
+I shook my head, sorry to disappoint her. “No,” said I; “not yet.”
+
+“But Mr. Gryce was here to-day, and he told me he hoped she would be
+heard from within twenty-four hours.”
+
+“Mr. Gryce here!”
+
+“Yes; came to report how matters were progressing,--not that they seemed
+to have advanced very far.”
+
+“You could hardly have expected that yet. You must not be so easily
+discouraged.”
+
+“But I cannot help it; every day, every hour that passes in this
+uncertainty, is like a mountain weight here”; and she laid one trembling
+hand upon her bosom. “I would have the whole world at work. I would
+leave no stone unturned; I----”
+
+“What would you do?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” she cried, her whole manner suddenly changing;
+“nothing, perhaps.” Then, before I could reply to this: “Have you seen
+Eleanore to-day?”
+
+I answered in the negative.
+
+She did not seem satisfied, but waited till her friend left the room
+before saying more. Then, with an earnest look, inquired if I knew
+whether Eleanore was well.
+
+“I fear she is not,” I returned.
+
+“It is a great trial to me, Eleanore being away. Not,” she resumed,
+noting, perhaps, my incredulous look, “that I would have you think I
+wish to disclaim my share in bringing about the present unhappy state
+of things. I am willing to acknowledge I was the first to propose a
+separation. But it is none the easier to bear on that account.”
+
+“It is not as hard for you as for her,” said I.
+
+“Not as hard? Why? because she is left comparatively poor, while I am
+rich--is that what you would say? Ah,” she went on, without waiting for
+my answer, “would I could persuade Eleanore to share my riches with me!
+Willingly would I bestow upon her the half I have received; but I fear
+she could never be induced to accept so much as a dollar from me.”
+
+“Under the circumstances it would be better for her not to.”
+
+“Just what I thought; yet it would ease me of a great weight if she
+would. This fortune, suddenly thrown into my lap, sits like an incubus
+upon me, Mr. Raymond. When the will was read to-day which makes me
+possessor of so much wealth, I could not but feel that a heavy, blinding
+pall had settled upon me, spotted with blood and woven of horrors. Ah,
+how different from the feelings with which I have been accustomed to
+anticipate this day! For, Mr. Raymond,” she went on, with a hurried
+gasp, “dreadful as it seems now, I have been reared to look forward to
+this hour with pride, if not with actual longing. Money has been made
+so much of in my small world. Not that I wish in this evil time of
+retribution to lay blame upon any one; least of all upon my uncle; but
+from the day, twelve years ago, when for the first time he took us in
+his arms, and looking down upon our childish faces, exclaimed: ‘The
+light-haired one pleases me best; she shall be my heiress,’ I have
+been petted, cajoled, and spoiled; called little princess, and uncle’s
+darling, till it is only strange I retain in this prejudiced breast any
+of the impulses of generous womanhood; yes, though I was aware from the
+first that whim alone had raised this distinction between myself and
+cousin; a distinction which superior beauty, worth, or accomplishments
+could never have drawn; Eleanore being more than my equal in all these
+things.” Pausing, she choked back the sudden sob that rose in her
+throat, with an effort at self-control which was at once touching and
+admirable. Then, while my eyes stole to her face, murmured in a low,
+appealing voice: “If I have faults, you see there is some slight excuse
+for them; arrogance, vanity, and selfishness being considered in the gay
+young heiress as no more than so many assertions of a laudable dignity.
+Ah! ah,” she bitterly exclaimed “money alone has been the ruin of us
+all!” Then, with a falling of her voice: “And now it has come to me
+with its heritage of evil, and I--I would give it all for--But this is
+weakness! I have no right to afflict you with my griefs. Pray forget all
+I have said, Mr. Raymond, or regard my complaints as the utterances of
+an unhappy girl loaded down with sorrows and oppressed by the weight of
+many perplexities and terrors.”
+
+“But I do not wish to forget,” I replied. “You have spoken some good
+words, manifested much noble emotion. Your possessions cannot but prove
+a blessing to you if you enter upon them with such feelings as these.”
+
+But, with a quick gesture, she ejaculated: “Impossible! they cannot
+prove a blessing.” Then, as if startled at her own words, bit her lip
+and hastily added: “Very great wealth is never a blessing.
+
+“And now,” said she, with a total change of manner, “I wish to
+address you on a subject which may strike you as ill-timed, but which,
+nevertheless, I must mention, if the purpose I have at heart is ever to
+be accomplished. My uncle, as you know, was engaged at the time of his
+death in writing a book on Chinese customs and prejudices. It was a work
+which he was anxious to see published, and naturally I desire to carry
+out his wishes; but, in order to do so, I find it necessary not only
+to interest myself in the matter now,--Mr. Harwell’s services being
+required, and it being my wish to dismiss that gentleman as soon as
+possible--but to find some one competent to supervise its completion.
+Now I have heard,--I have been told,--that you were the one of all
+others to do this; and though it is difficult if not improper for me to
+ask so great a favor of one who but a week ago was a perfect stranger to
+me, it would afford me the keenest pleasure if you would consent to look
+over this manuscript and tell me what remains to be done.”
+
+The timidity with which these words were uttered proved her to be in
+earnest, and I could not but wonder at the strange coincidence of this
+request with my secret wishes; it having been a question with me for
+some time how I was to gain free access to this house without in any way
+compromising either its inmates or myself. I did not know then that Mr.
+Gryce had been the one to recommend me to her favor in this respect.
+But, whatever satisfaction I may have experienced, I felt myself in duty
+bound to plead my incompetence for a task so entirely out of the line
+of my profession, and to suggest the employment of some one better
+acquainted with such matters than myself. But she would not listen to
+me.
+
+“Mr. Harwell has notes and memoranda in plenty,” she exclaimed, “and
+can give you all the information necessary. You will have no difficulty;
+indeed, you will not.”
+
+“But cannot Mr. Harwell himself do all that is requisite? He seems to be
+a clever and diligent young man.”
+
+But she shook her head. “He thinks he can; but I know uncle never
+trusted him with the composition of a single sentence.”
+
+“But perhaps he will not be pleased,--Mr. Harwell, I mean--with the
+intrusion of a stranger into his work.”
+
+She opened her eyes with astonishment. “That makes no difference,” she
+cried. “Mr. Harwell is in my pay, and has nothing to say about it.
+But he will not object. I have already consulted him, and he expresses
+himself as satisfied with the arrangement.”
+
+“Very well,” said I; “then I will promise to consider the subject. I
+can at any rate look over the manuscript and give you my opinion of its
+condition.”
+
+“Oh, thank you,” said she, with the prettiest gesture of satisfaction.
+“How kind you are, and what can I ever do to repay you? But would you
+like to see Mr. Harwell himself?” and she moved towards the door; but
+suddenly paused, whispering, with a short shudder of remembrance: “He is
+in the library; do you mind?”
+
+Crushing down the sick qualm that arose at the mention of that spot, I
+replied in the negative.
+
+“The papers are all there, and he says he can work better in his old
+place than anywhere else; but if you wish, I can call him down.”
+
+But I would not listen to this, and myself led the way to the foot of
+the stairs.
+
+“I have sometimes thought I would lock up that room,” she hurriedly
+observed; “but something restrains me. I can no more do so than I can
+leave this house; a power beyond myself forces me to confront all its
+horrors. And yet I suffer continually from terror. Sometimes, in the
+darkness of the night--But I will not distress you. I have already said
+too much; come,” and with a sudden lift of the head she mounted the
+stairs.
+
+Mr. Harwell was seated, when we entered that fatal room, in the one
+chair of all others I expected to see unoccupied; and as I beheld his
+meagre figure bending where such a little while before his eyes had
+encountered the outstretched form of his murdered employer, I could not
+but marvel over the unimaginativeness of the man who, in the face of
+such memories, could not only appropriate that very spot for his own
+use, but pursue his avocations there with so much calmness and evident
+precision. But in another moment I discovered that the disposition of
+the light in the room made that one seat the only desirable one for his
+purpose; and instantly my wonder changed to admiration at this quiet
+surrender of personal feeling to the requirements of the occasion.
+
+He looked up mechanically as we came in, but did not rise, his
+countenance wearing the absorbed expression which bespeaks the
+preoccupied mind.
+
+“He is utterly oblivious,” Mary whispered; “that is a way of his.
+I doubt if he knows who or what it is that has disturbed him.” And,
+advancing into the room, she passed across his line of vision, as if
+to call attention to herself, and said: “I have brought Mr. Raymond
+up-stairs to see you, Mr. Harwell. He has been so kind as to accede to
+my wishes in regard to the completion of the manuscript now before you.”
+
+Slowly Mr. Harwell rose, wiped his pen, and put it away; manifesting,
+however, a reluctance in doing so that proved this interference to be
+in reality anything but agreeable to him. Observing this, I did not wait
+for him to speak, but took up the pile of manuscript, arranged in one
+mass on the table, saying:
+
+“This seems to be very clearly written; if you will excuse me, I will
+glance over it and thus learn something of its general character.”
+
+He bowed, uttered a word or so of acquiescence, then, as Mary left the
+room, awkwardly reseated himself, and took up his pen.
+
+Instantly the manuscript and all connected with it vanished from my
+thoughts; and Eleanore, her situation, and the mystery surrounding
+this family, returned upon me with renewed force. Looking the secretary
+steadily in the face, I remarked:
+
+“I am very glad of this opportunity of seeing you a moment alone, Mr.
+Harwell, if only for the purpose of saying----”
+
+“Anything in regard to the murder?”
+
+“Yes,” I began.
+
+“Then you must pardon me,” he respectfully but firmly replied. “It is
+a disagreeable subject which I cannot bear to think of, much less
+discuss.”
+
+Disconcerted and, what was more, convinced of the impossibility of
+obtaining any information from this man, I abandoned the attempt; and,
+taking up the manuscript once more, endeavored to master in some small
+degree the nature of its contents. Succeeding beyond my hopes, I opened
+a short conversation with him in regard to it, and finally, coming to
+the conclusion I could accomplish what Miss Leavenworth desired, left
+him and descended again to the reception room.
+
+When, an hour or so later, I withdrew from the house, it was with the
+feeling that one obstacle had been removed from my path. If I failed
+in what I had undertaken, it would not be from lack of opportunity of
+studying the inmates of this dwelling.
+
+
+
+XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE
+
+
+    “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
+     Which we ascribe to Heaven.”
+         All’s Well that Ends Well.
+
+THE next morning’s _Tribune_ contained a synopsis of Mr. Leavenworth’s
+will. Its provisions were a surprise to me; for, while the bulk of his
+immense estate was, according to the general understanding, bequeathed
+to his niece, Mary, it appeared by a codicil, attached to his will some
+five years before, that Eleanore was not entirely forgotten, she having
+been made the recipient of a legacy which, if not large, was at least
+sufficient to support her in comfort. After listening to the various
+comments of my associates on the subject, I proceeded to the house
+of Mr. Gryce, in obedience to his request to call upon him as soon as
+possible after the publication of the will.
+
+“Good-morning,” he remarked as I entered, but whether addressing me or
+the frowning top of the desk before which he was sitting it would be
+difficult to say. “Won’t you sit?” nodding with a curious back movement
+of his head towards a chair in his rear.
+
+I drew up the chair to his side. “I am curious to know,” I remarked,
+“what you have to say about this will, and its probable effect upon the
+matters we have in hand.”
+
+“What is your own idea in regard to it?”
+
+“Well, I think upon the whole it will make but little difference in
+public opinion. Those who thought Eleanore guilty before will feel that
+they possess now greater cause than ever to doubt her innocence; while
+those who have hitherto hesitated to suspect her will not consider
+that the comparatively small amount bequeathed her would constitute an
+adequate motive for so great a crime.”
+
+“You have heard men talk; what seems to be the general opinion among
+those you converse with?”
+
+“That the motive of the tragedy will be found in the partiality shown in
+so singular a will, though how, they do not profess to know.”
+
+Mr. Gryce suddenly became interested in one of the small drawers before
+him.
+
+“And all this has not set you thinking?” said he.
+
+“Thinking,” returned I. “I don’t know what you mean. I am sure I have
+done nothing but think for the last three days. I----”
+
+“Of course--of course,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to say anything
+disagreeable. And so you have seen Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“Just seen him; no more.”
+
+“And are you going to assist Mr. Harwell in finishing Mr. Leavenworth’s
+book?”
+
+“How did you learn that?”
+
+He only smiled.
+
+“Yes,” said I; “Miss Leavenworth has requested me to do her that little
+favor.”
+
+“She is a queenly creature!” he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm.
+Then, with an instant return to his business-like tone: “You are going
+to have opportunities, Mr. Raymond. Now there are two things I want you
+to find out; first, what is the connection between these ladies and Mr.
+Clavering----”
+
+“There is a connection, then?”
+
+“Undoubtedly. And secondly, what is the cause of the unfriendly feeling
+which evidently exists between the cousins.”
+
+I drew back and pondered the position offered me. A spy in a fair
+woman’s house! How could I reconcile it with my natural instincts as a
+gentleman?
+
+“Cannot you find some one better adapted to learn these secrets for
+you?” I asked at length. “The part of a spy is anything but agreeable to
+my feelings, I assure you.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s brows fell.
+
+“I will assist Mr. Harwell in his efforts to arrange Mr. Leavenworth’s
+manuscript for the press,” I said; “I will give Mr. Clavering an
+opportunity to form my acquaintance; and I will listen, if Miss
+Leavenworth chooses to make me her confidant in any way. But any
+hearkening at doors, surprises, unworthy feints or ungentlemanly
+subterfuges, I herewith disclaim as outside of my province; my task
+being to find out what I can in an open way, and yours to search into
+the nooks and corners of this wretched business.”
+
+“In other words, you are to play the hound, and I the mole; just so, I
+know what belongs to a gentleman.”
+
+“And now,” said I, “what news of Hannah?”
+
+He shook both hands high in the air. “None.”
+
+I cannot say I was greatly surprised, that evening, when, upon
+descending from an hour’s labor with Mr. Harwell, I encountered Miss
+Leavenworth standing at the foot of the stairs. There had been something
+in her bearing, the night before, which prepared me for another
+interview this evening, though her manner of commencing it was a
+surprise. “Mr. Raymond,” said she, with an air of marked embarrassment,
+“I want to ask you a question. I believe you to be a good man, and I
+know you will answer me conscientiously. As a brother would,” she added,
+lifting her eyes for a moment to my face. “I know it will sound strange;
+but remember, I have no adviser but you, and I must ask some one. Mr.
+Raymond, do you think a person could do something that was very wrong,
+and yet grow to be thoroughly good afterwards?”
+
+“Certainly,” I replied; “if he were truly sorry for his fault.”
+
+“But say it was more than a fault; say it was an actual harm; would not
+the memory of that one evil hour cast a lasting shadow over one’s life?”
+
+“That depends upon the nature of the harm and its effect upon others.
+If one had irreparably injured a fellow-being, it would be hard for a
+person of sensitive nature to live a happy life afterwards; though the
+fact of not living a happy life ought to be no reason why one should not
+live a good life.”
+
+“But to live a good life would it be necessary to reveal the evil you
+had done? Cannot one go on and do right without confessing to the world
+a past wrong?”
+
+“Yes, unless by its confession he can in some way make reparation.”
+
+My answer seemed to trouble her. Drawing back, she stood for one moment
+in a thoughtful attitude before me, her beauty shining with almost a
+statuesque splendor in the glow of the porcelain-shaded lamp at her
+side. Nor, though she presently roused herself, leading the way into the
+drawing-room with a gesture that was allurement itself, did she recur to
+this topic again; but rather seemed to strive, in the conversation that
+followed, to make me forget what had already passed between us. That she
+did not succeed, was owing to my intense and unfailing interest in her
+cousin.
+
+As I descended the stoop, I saw Thomas, the butler, leaning over the
+area gate. Immediately I was seized with an impulse to interrogate him
+in regard to a matter which had more or less interested me ever since
+the inquest; and that was, who was the Mr. Robbins who had called
+upon Eleanore the night of the murder? But Thomas was decidedly
+uncommunicative. He remembered such a person called, but could not
+describe his looks any further than to say that he was not a small man.
+
+I did not press the matter.
+
+
+
+XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES
+
+
+    “Vous regardez une etoile pour deux motifs, parce qu’elle est
+    lumineuse et parce qu’elle est impenetrable. Vous avez aupres
+    de vous un plus doux rayonnement et un pas grand mystere, la femme.”
+         Les Miserables.
+
+AND now followed days in which I seemed to make little or no progress.
+Mr. Clavering, disturbed perhaps by my presence, forsook his usual
+haunts, thus depriving me of all opportunity of making his acquaintance
+in any natural manner, while the evenings spent at Miss Leavenworth’s
+were productive of little else than constant suspense and uneasiness.
+
+The manuscript required less revision than I supposed. But, in the
+course of making such few changes as were necessary, I had ample
+opportunity of studying the character of Mr. Harwell. I found him to be
+neither more nor less than an excellent amanuensis. Stiff, unbending,
+and sombre, but true to his duty and reliable in its performance, I
+learned to respect him, and even to like him; and this, too, though I
+saw the liking was not reciprocated, whatever the respect may have been.
+He never spoke of Eleanore Leavenworth or, indeed, mentioned the family
+or its trouble in any way; till I began to feel that all this reticence
+had a cause deeper than the nature of the man, and that if he did
+speak, it would be to some purpose. This suspicion, of course, kept me
+restlessly eager in his presence. I could not forbear giving him sly
+glances now and then, to see how he acted when he believed himself
+unobserved; but he was ever the same, a passive, diligent, unexcitable
+worker.
+
+This continual beating against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it,
+became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary
+unapproachable--how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had
+with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish,
+grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I
+learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview. She appeared to be
+passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering.
+I have seen her, when she thought herself alone, throw up her hands
+with the gesture which we use to ward off a coming evil or shut out some
+hideous vision. I have likewise beheld her standing with her proud head
+abased, her nervous hands drooping, her whole form sinking and inert, as
+if the pressure of a weight she could neither upbear nor cast aside
+had robbed her even of the show of resistance. But this was only once.
+Ordinarily she was at least stately in her trouble. Even when the
+softest appeal came into her eyes she stood erect, and retained her
+expression of conscious power. Even the night she met me in the hall,
+with feverish cheeks and lips trembling with eagerness, only to turn and
+fly again without giving utterance to what she had to say, she comported
+herself with a fiery dignity that was well nigh imposing.
+
+That all this meant something, I was sure; and so I kept my patience
+alive with the hope that some day she would make a revelation. Those
+quivering lips would not always remain closed; the secret involving
+Eleanore’s honor and happiness would be divulged by this restless being,
+if by no one else. Nor was the memory of that extraordinary, if not
+cruel, accusation I had heard her make enough to destroy this hope--for
+hope it had grown to be--so that I found myself insensibly shortening
+my time with Mr. Harwell in the library, and extending my _tete-a-tete_
+visits with Mary in the reception room, till the imperturbable secretary
+was forced to complain that he was often left for hours without work.
+
+But, as I say, days passed, and a second Monday evening came round
+without seeing me any further advanced upon the problem I had set myself
+to solve than when I first started upon it two weeks before. The subject
+of the murder had not even been broached; nor was Hannah spoken of,
+though I observed the papers were not allowed to languish an instant
+upon the stoop; mistress and servants betraying equal interest in their
+contents. All this was strange to me. It was as if you saw a group of
+human beings eating, drinking, and sleeping upon the sides of a volcano
+hot with a late eruption and trembling with the birth of a new one. I
+longed to break this silence as we shiver glass: by shouting the name
+of Eleanore through those gilded rooms and satin-draped vestibules. But
+this Monday evening I was in a calmer mood. I was determined to expect
+nothing from my visits to Mary Leavenworth’s house; and entered it upon
+the eve in question with an equanimity such as I had not experienced
+since the first day I passed under its unhappy portals.
+
+But when, upon nearing the reception room, I saw Mary pacing the floor
+with the air of one who is restlessly awaiting something or somebody,
+I took a sudden resolution, and, advancing towards her, said: “Do I see
+you alone, Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+She paused in her hurried action, blushed and bowed, but, contrary to
+her usual custom, did not bid me enter.
+
+“Will it be too great an intrusion on my part, if I venture to come in?”
+ I asked.
+
+Her glance flashed uneasily to the clock, and she seemed about to excuse
+herself, but suddenly yielded, and, drawing up a chair before the fire,
+motioned me towards it. Though she endeavored to appear calm, I vaguely
+felt I had chanced upon her in one of her most agitated moods, and that
+I had only to broach the subject I had in mind to behold her haughtiness
+disappear before me like melting snow. I also felt that I had but few
+moments in which to do it. I accordingly plunged immediately into the
+subject.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, “in obtruding upon you to-night, I have a
+purpose other than that of giving myself a pleasure. I have come to make
+an appeal.”
+
+Instantly I saw that in some way I had started wrong. “An appeal to make
+to me?” she asked, breathing coldness from every feature of her face.
+
+“Yes,” I went on, with passionate recklessness. “Balked in every other
+endeavor to learn the truth, I have come to you, whom I believe to be
+noble at the core, for that help which seems likely to fail us in every
+other direction: for the word which, if it does not absolutely save your
+cousin, will at least put us upon the track of what will.”
+
+“I do not understand what you mean,” she protested, slightly shrinking.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I pursued, “it is needless for me to tell you in
+what position your cousin stands. You, who remember both the form and
+drift of the questions put to her at the inquest, comprehend it all
+without any explanation from me. But what you may not know is this, that
+unless she is speedily relieved from the suspicion which, justly or not,
+has attached itself to her name, the consequences which such suspicion
+entails must fall upon her, and----”
+
+“Good God!” she cried; “you do not mean she will be----”
+
+“Subject to arrest? Yes.”
+
+It was a blow. Shame, horror, and anguish were in every line of her
+white face. “And all because of that key!” she murmured.
+
+“Key? How did you know anything about a key?”
+
+“Why,” she cried, flushing painfully; “I cannot say; didn’t you tell
+me?”
+
+“No,” I returned.
+
+“The papers, then?”
+
+“The papers have never mentioned it.”
+
+She grew more and more agitated. “I thought every one knew. No, I did
+not, either,” she avowed, in a sudden burst of shame and penitence. “I
+knew it was a secret; but--oh, Mr. Raymond, it was Eleanore herself who
+told me.”
+
+“Eleanore?”
+
+“Yes, that last evening she was here; we were together in the
+drawing-room.”
+
+“What did she tell?”
+
+“That the key to the library had been seen in her possession.”
+
+I could scarcely conceal my incredulity. Eleanore, conscious of the
+suspicion with which her cousin regarded her, inform that cousin of a
+fact calculated to add weight to that suspicion? I could not believe
+this.
+
+“But you knew it?” Mary went on. “I have revealed nothing I ought to
+have kept secret?”
+
+“No,” said I; “and, Miss Leavenworth, it is this thing which makes
+your cousin’s position absolutely dangerous. It is a fact that,
+left unexplained, must ever link her name with infamy; a bit of
+circumstantial evidence no sophistry can smother, and no denial
+obliterate. Only her hitherto spotless reputation, and the efforts of
+one who, notwithstanding appearances, believes in her innocence, keeps
+her so long from the clutch of the officers of justice. That key, and
+the silence preserved by her in regard to it, is sinking her slowly into
+a pit from which the utmost endeavors of her best friends will soon be
+inadequate to extricate her.”
+
+“And you tell me this----”
+
+“That you may have pity on the poor girl, who will not have pity on
+herself, and by the explanation of a few circumstances, which cannot be
+mysteries to you, assist in bringing her from under the dreadful shadow
+that threatens to overwhelm her.”
+
+“And would you insinuate, sir,” she cried, turning upon me with a look
+of great anger, “that I know any more than you do of this matter? that
+I possess any knowledge which I have not already made public concerning
+the dreadful tragedy which has transformed our home into a desert, our
+existence into a lasting horror? Has the blight of suspicion fallen upon
+me, too; and have you come to accuse me in my own house----”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” I entreated; “calm yourself. I accuse you of
+nothing. I only desire you to enlighten me as to your cousin’s probable
+motive for this criminating silence. You cannot be ignorant of it. You
+are her cousin, almost her sister, have been at all events her daily
+companion for years, and must know for whom or for what she seals her
+lips, and conceals facts which, if known, would direct suspicion to the
+real criminal--that is, if you really believe what you have hitherto
+stated, that your cousin is an innocent woman.”
+
+She not making any answer to this, I rose and confronted her. “Miss
+Leavenworth, do you believe your cousin guiltless of this crime, or
+not?”
+
+“Guiltless? Eleanore? Oh! my God; if all the world were only as innocent
+as she!”
+
+“Then,” said I, “you must likewise believe that if she refrains from
+speaking in regard to matters which to ordinary observers ought to be
+explained, she does it only from motives of kindness towards one less
+guiltless than herself.”
+
+“What? No, no; I do not say that. What made you think of any such
+explanation?”
+
+“The action itself. With one of Eleanore’s character, such conduct
+as hers admits of no other construction. Either she is mad, or she is
+shielding another at the expense of herself.”
+
+Mary’s lip, which had trembled, slowly steadied itself. “And whom
+have you settled upon, as the person for whom Eleanore thus sacrifices
+herself?”
+
+“Ah,” said I, “there is where I seek assistance from you. With your
+knowledge of her history----”
+
+But Mary Leavenworth, sinking haughtily back into her chair, stopped
+me with a quiet gesture. “I beg your pardon,” said she; “but you make a
+mistake. I know little or nothing of Eleanore’s personal feelings. The
+mystery must be solved by some one besides me.”
+
+I changed my tactics.
+
+“When Eleanore confessed to you that the missing key had been seen in
+her possession, did she likewise inform you where she obtained it, and
+for what reason she was hiding it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Merely told you the fact, without any explanation?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Was not that a strange piece of gratuitous information for her to
+give one who, but a few hours before, had accused her to the face of
+committing a deadly crime?”
+
+“What do you mean?”’ she asked, her voice suddenly sinking.
+
+“You will not deny that you were once, not only ready to believe her
+guilty, but that you actually charged her with having perpetrated this
+crime.”
+
+“Explain yourself!” she cried.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, do you not remember what you said in that room
+upstairs, when you were alone with your cousin on the morning of the
+inquest, just before Mr. Gryce and myself entered your presence?”
+
+Her eyes did not fall, but they filled with sudden terror.
+
+“You heard?” she whispered.
+
+“I could not help it. I was just outside the door, and----”
+
+“What did you hear?”
+
+I told her.
+
+“And Mr. Gryce?”
+
+“He was at my side.”
+
+It seemed as if her eyes would devour my face. “Yet nothing was said
+when you came in?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You, however, have never forgotten it?”
+
+“How could we, Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+Her head fell forward in her hands, and for one wild moment she seemed
+lost in despair. Then she roused, and desperately exclaimed:
+
+“And that is why you come here to-night. With that sentence written upon
+your heart, you invade my presence, torture me with questions----”
+
+“Pardon me,” I broke in; “are my questions such as you, with reasonable
+regard for the honor of one with whom you are accustomed to associate,
+should hesitate to answer? Do I derogate from my manhood in asking you
+how and why you came to make an accusation of so grave a nature, at a
+time when all the circumstances of the case were freshly before you,
+only to insist fully as strongly upon your cousin’s innocence when
+you found there was even more cause for your imputation than you had
+supposed?”
+
+She did not seem to hear me. “Oh, my cruel fate!” she murmured. “Oh, my
+cruel fate!”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, rising, and taking my stand before her;
+“although there is a temporary estrangement between you and your cousin,
+you cannot wish to seem her enemy. Speak, then; let me at least know the
+name of him for whom she thus immolates herself. A hint from you----”
+
+But rising, with a strange look, to her feet, she interrupted me with a
+stern remark: “If you do not know, I cannot inform you; do not ask me,
+Mr. Raymond.” And she glanced at the clock for the second time.
+
+I took another turn.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth, you once asked me if a person who had committed a
+wrong ought necessarily to confess it; and I replied no, unless by the
+confession reparation could be made. Do you remember?”
+
+Her lips moved, but no words issued from them.
+
+“I begin to think,” I solemnly proceeded, following the lead of her
+emotion, “that confession is the only way out of this difficulty: that
+only by the words you can utter Eleanore can be saved from the doom that
+awaits her. Will you not then show yourself a true woman by responding
+to my earnest entreaties?”
+
+I seemed to have touched the right chord; for she trembled, and a look
+of wistfulness filled her eyes. “Oh, if I could!” she murmured.
+
+“And why can you not? You will never be happy till you do. Eleanore
+persists in silence; but that is no reason why you should emulate her
+example. You only make her position more doubtful by it.”
+
+“I know it; but I cannot help myself. Fate has too strong a hold upon
+me; I cannot break away.”
+
+“That is not true. Any one can escape from bonds imaginary as yours.”
+
+“No, no,” she protested; “you do not understand.”
+
+“I understand this: that the path of rectitude is a straight one, and
+that he who steps into devious byways is going astray.”
+
+A flicker of light, pathetic beyond description, flashed for a moment
+across her face; her throat rose as with one wild sob; her lips opened;
+she seemed yielding, when--A sharp ring at the front door-bell!
+
+“Oh,” she cried, sharply turning, “tell him I cannot see him; tell
+him----”
+
+“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, taking her by both hands, “never mind the
+door; never mind anything but this. I have asked you a question which
+involves the mystery of this whole affair; answer me, then, for your
+soul’s sake; tell me, what the unhappy circumstances were which could
+induce you--”
+
+But she tore her hands from mine. “The door!” she cried; “it will open,
+and--”
+
+Stepping into the hall, I met Thomas coming up the basement stairs. “Go
+back,” said I; “I will call you when you are wanted.”
+
+With a bow he disappeared.
+
+“You expect me to answer,” she exclaimed, when I re-entered, “now, in a
+moment? I cannot.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Impossible!” fastening her gaze upon the front door.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth!”
+
+She shuddered.
+
+“I fear the time will never come, if you do not speak now.”
+
+“Impossible,” she reiterated.
+
+Another twang at the bell.
+
+“You hear!” said she.
+
+I went into the hall and called Thomas. “You may open the door now,”
+ said I, and moved to return to her side.
+
+But, with a gesture of command, she pointed up-stairs. “Leave me!” and
+her glance passed on to Thomas, who stopped where he was.
+
+“I will see you again before I go,” said I, and hastened up-stairs.
+
+Thomas opened the door. “Is Miss Leavenworth in?” I heard a rich,
+tremulous voice inquire.
+
+“Yes, sir,” came in the butler’s most respectful and measured accents,
+and, leaning over the banisters I beheld, to my amazement, the form of
+Mr. Clavering enter the front hall and move towards the reception room.
+
+
+
+XVIII. ON THE STAIRS
+
+
+    “You cannot _say_ I did it.”
+         Macbeth.
+
+EXCITED, tremulous, filled with wonder at this unlooked-for event, I
+paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses, when the sound of
+a low, monotonous voice breaking upon my ear from the direction of the
+library, I approached and found Mr. Harwell reading aloud from his late
+employer’s manuscript. It would be difficult for me to describe the
+effect which this simple discovery made upon me at this time. There,
+in that room of late death, withdrawn from the turmoil of the world, a
+hermit in his skeleton-lined cell, this man employed himself in reading
+and rereading, with passive interest, the words of the dead, while above
+and below, human beings agonized in doubt and shame. Listening, I heard
+these words:
+
+“By these means their native rulers will not only lose their jealous
+terror of our institutions, but acquire an actual curiosity in regard to
+them.”
+
+Opening the door I went in.
+
+“Ah! you are late, sir,” was the greeting with which he rose and brought
+forward a chair.
+
+My reply was probably inaudible, for he added, as he passed to his own
+seat:
+
+“I am afraid you are not well.”
+
+I roused myself.
+
+“I am not ill.” And, pulling the papers towards me, I began looking them
+over. But the words danced before my eyes, and I was obliged to give up
+all attempt at work for that night.
+
+“I fear I am unable to assist you this evening, Mr. Harwell. The fact
+is, I find it difficult to give proper attention to this business while
+the man who by a dastardly assassination has made it necessary goes
+unpunished.”
+
+The secretary in his turn pushed the papers aside, as if moved by a
+sudden distaste of them, but gave me no answer.
+
+“You told me, when you first came to me with news of this fearful
+tragedy, that it was a mystery; but it is one which must be solved,
+Mr. Harwell; it is wearing out the lives of too many whom we love and
+respect.”
+
+The secretary gave me a look. “Miss Eleanore?” he murmured.
+
+“And Miss Mary,” I went on; “myself, you, and many others.”
+
+“You have manifested much interest in the matter from the
+beginning,”--he said, methodically dipping his pen into the ink.
+
+I stared at him in amazement.
+
+“And you,” said I; “do you take no interest in that which involves not
+only the safety, but the happiness and honor, of the family in which you
+have dwelt so long?”
+
+He looked at me with increased coldness. “I have no wish to discuss
+this subject. I believe I have before prayed you to spare me its
+introduction.” And he arose.
+
+“But I cannot consider your wishes in this regard,” I persisted. “If you
+know any facts, connected with this affair, which have not yet been made
+public, it is manifestly your duty to state them. The position which
+Miss Eleanore occupies at this time is one which should arouse the sense
+of justice in every true breast; and if you----”
+
+“If I knew anything which would serve to release her from her unhappy
+position, Mr. Raymond, I should have spoken long ago.”
+
+I bit my lip, weary of these continual bafflings, and rose also.
+
+“If you have nothing more to say,” he went on, “and feel utterly
+disinclined to work, why, I should be glad to excuse myself, as I have
+an engagement out.”
+
+“Do not let me keep you,” I said, bitterly. “I can take care of myself.”
+
+He turned upon me with a short stare, as if this display of feeling
+was well nigh incomprehensible to him; and then, with a quiet, almost
+compassionate bow left the room. I heard him go up-stairs, felt the
+jar when his room door closed, and sat down to enjoy my solitude. But
+solitude in that room was unbearable. By the time Mr. Harwell again
+descended, I felt I could remain no longer, and, stepping into the hall,
+told him that if he had no objection I would accompany him for a short
+stroll.
+
+He bowed a stiff assent, and hastened before me down the stairs. By the
+time I had closed the library door, he was half-way to the foot, and I
+was just remarking to myself upon the unpliability of his figure and the
+awkwardness of his carriage, as seen from my present standpoint, when
+suddenly I saw him stop, clutch the banister at his side, and hang there
+with a startled, deathly expression upon his half-turned countenance,
+which fixed me for an instant where I was in breathless astonishment,
+and then caused me to rush down to his side, catch him by the arm, and
+cry:
+
+“What is it? what is the matter?”
+
+But, thrusting out his hand, he pushed me upwards. “Go back!” he
+whispered, in a voice shaking with intensest emotion, “go back.” And
+catching me by the arm, he literally pulled me up the stairs. Arrived
+at the top, he loosened his grasp, and leaning, quivering from head to
+foot, over the banisters, glared below.
+
+“Who is that?” he cried. “Who is that man? What is his name?”
+
+Startled in my turn, I bent beside him, and saw Henry Clavering come out
+of the reception room and cross the hall.
+
+“That is Mr. Clavering,” I whispered, with all the self-possession I
+could muster; “do you know him?”
+
+Mr. Harwell fell back against the opposite wall. “Clavering, Clavering,”
+ he murmured with quaking lips; then, suddenly bounding forward, clutched
+the railing before him, and fixing me with his eyes, from which all the
+stoic calmness had gone down forever in flame and frenzy, gurgled into
+my ear: “You want to know who the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is, do
+you? Look there, then: that is the man, Clavering!” And with a leap, he
+bounded from my side, and, swaying like a drunken man, disappeared from
+my gaze in the hall above.
+
+My first impulse was to follow him. Rushing upstairs, I knocked at the
+door of his room, but no response came to my summons. I then called
+his name in the hall, but without avail; he was determined not to show
+himself. Resolved that he should not thus escape me, I returned to the
+library, and wrote him a short note, in which I asked for an explanation
+of his tremendous accusation, saying I would be in my rooms the next
+evening at six, when I should expect to see him. This done I descended
+to rejoin Mary.
+
+But the evening was destined to be full of disappointments. She had
+retired to her room while I was in the library, and I lost the interview
+from which I expected so much. “The woman is slippery as an eel,” I
+inwardly commented, pacing the hall in my chagrin. “Wrapped in mystery,
+she expects me to feel for her the respect due to one of frank and open
+nature.”
+
+I was about to leave the house, when I saw Thomas descending the stairs
+with a letter in his hand.
+
+“Miss Leavenworth’s compliments, sir, and she is too fatigued to remain
+below this evening.”
+
+I moved aside to read the note he handed me, feeling a little
+conscience-stricken as I traced the hurried, trembling handwriting
+through the following words:
+
+
+    “You ask more than I can give. Matters must be received as they are
+    without explanation from me. It is the grief of my life to deny you;
+    but I have no choice. God forgive us all and keep us from despair.
+
+    “M.”
+
+And below:
+
+
+    “As we cannot meet now without embarrassment, it is better we should
+    bear our burdens in silence and apart. Mr. Harwell will visit you.
+    Farewell!”
+
+As I was crossing Thirty-second Street, I heard a quick footstep behind
+me, and turning, saw Thomas at my side. “Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but
+I have something a little particular to say to you. When you asked me
+the other night what sort of a person the gentleman was who called
+on Miss Eleanore the evening of the murder, I didn’t answer you as I
+should. The fact is, the detectives had been talking to me about that
+very thing, and I felt shy; but, sir, I know you are a friend of the
+family, and I want to tell you now that that same gentleman, whoever
+he was,--Mr. Robbins, he called himself then,--was at the house again
+tonight, sir, and the name he gave me this time to carry to Miss
+Leavenworth was Clavering. Yes, sir,” he went on, seeing me start; “and,
+as I told Molly, he acts queer for a stranger. When he came the other
+night, he hesitated a long time before asking for Miss Eleanore, and
+when I wanted his name, took out a card and wrote on it the one I told
+you of, sir, with a look on his face a little peculiar for a caller;
+besides----”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” the butler went on, in a low, excited voice, edging up
+very closely to me in the darkness. “There is something I have never
+told any living being but Molly, sir, which may be of use to those as
+wishes to find out who committed this murder.”
+
+“A fact or a suspicion?” I inquired.
+
+“A fact, sir; which I beg your pardon for troubling you with at this
+time; but Molly will give me no rest unless I speak of it to you or Mr.
+Gryce; her feelings being so worked up on Hannah’s account, whom we all
+know is innocent, though folks do dare to say as how she must be guilty
+just because she is not to be found the minute they want her.”
+
+“But this fact?” I urged.
+
+“Well, the fact is this. You see--I would tell Mr. Gryce,” he resumed,
+unconscious of my anxiety, “but I have my fears of detectives, sir; they
+catch you up so quick at times, and seem to think you know so much more
+than you really do.”
+
+“But this fact,” I again broke in.
+
+“O yes, sir; the fact is, that that night, the one of the murder you
+know, I saw Mr. Clavering, Robbins, or whatever his name is, enter the
+house, but neither I nor any one else saw him go out of it; nor do I
+know that he _did.”_
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Well, sir, what I mean is this. When I came down from Miss Eleanore and
+told Mr. Robbins, as he called himself at that time, that my mistress
+was ill and unable to see him (the word she gave me, sir, to deliver)
+Mr. Robbins, instead of bowing and leaving the house like a gentleman,
+stepped into the reception room and sat down. He may have felt sick, he
+looked pale enough; at any rate, he asked me for a glass of water.
+Not knowing any reason then for suspicionating any one’s actions, I
+immediately went down to the kitchen for it, leaving him there in the
+reception room alone. But before I could get it, I heard the front door
+close. ‘What’s that?’ said Molly, who was helping me, sir. ‘I don’t
+know,’ said I, ‘unless it’s the gentleman has got tired of waiting and
+gone.’ ‘If he’s gone, he won’t want the water,’ she said. So down I set
+the pitcher, and up-stairs I come; and sure enough he was gone, or so
+I thought then. But who knows, sir, if he was not in that room or the
+drawing-room, which was dark that night, all the time I was a-shutting
+up of the house?”
+
+I made no reply to this; I was more startled than I cared to reveal.
+
+“You see, sir, I wouldn’t speak of such a thing about any person that
+comes to see the young ladies; but we all know some one who was in the
+house that night murdered my master, and as it was not Hannah----”
+
+“You say that Miss Eleanore refused to see him,” I interrupted, in the
+hope that the simple suggestion would be enough to elicitate further
+details of his interview with Eleanore.
+
+“Yes, sir. When she first looked at the card, she showed a little
+hesitation; but in a moment she grew very flushed in the face, and bade
+me say what I told you. I should never have thought of it again if I had
+not seen him come blazoning and bold into the house this evening, with
+a new name on his tongue. Indeed, and I do not like to think any evil of
+him now; but Molly would have it I should speak to you, sir, and ease my
+mind,--and that is all, sir.”
+
+When I arrived home that night, I entered into my memorandum-book a
+new list of suspicious circumstances, but this time they were under the
+caption “C” instead of “E.”
+
+
+
+XIX. IN MY OFFICE
+
+
+    “Something between an hindrance and a help.”
+         Wordsworth.
+
+THE next day as, with nerves unstrung and an exhausted brain, I entered
+my office, I was greeted by the announcement:
+
+“A gentleman, sir, in your private room--been waiting some time, very
+impatient.”
+
+Weary, in no mood to hold consultation with clients new or old, I
+advanced with anything but an eager step towards my room, when, upon
+opening the door, I saw--Mr. Clavering.
+
+Too much astounded for the moment to speak, I bowed to him silently,
+whereupon he approached me with the air and dignity of a highly bred
+gentleman, and presented his card, on which I saw written, in free and
+handsome characters, his whole name, Henry Ritchie Clavering. After this
+introduction of himself, he apologized for making so unceremonious
+a call, saying, in excuse, that he was a stranger in town; that his
+business was one of great urgency; that he had casually heard honorable
+mention of me as a lawyer and a gentleman, and so had ventured to seek
+this interview on behalf of a friend who was so unfortunately situated
+as to require the opinion and advice of a lawyer upon a question which
+not only involved an extraordinary state of facts, but was of a nature
+peculiarly embarrassing to him, owing to his ignorance of American laws,
+and the legal bearing of these facts upon the same.
+
+Having thus secured my attention, and awakened my curiosity, he asked me
+if I would permit him to relate his story. Recovering in a measure from
+my astonishment, and subduing the extreme repulsion, almost horror,
+I felt for the man, I signified my assent; at which he drew from his
+pocket a memorandum-book from which he read in substance as follows:
+
+“An Englishman travelling in this country meets, at a fashionable
+watering-place, an American girl, with whom he falls deeply in love, and
+whom, after a few days, he desires to marry. Knowing his position to be
+good, his fortune ample, and his intentions highly honorable, he offers
+her his hand, and is accepted. But a decided opposition arising in the
+family to the match, he is compelled to disguise his sentiments, though
+the engagement remained unbroken. While matters were in this uncertain
+condition, he received advices from England demanding his instant
+return, and, alarmed at the prospect of a protracted absence from the
+object of his affections, he writes to the lady, informing her of
+the circumstances, and proposing a secret marriage. She consents with
+stipulations; the first of which is, that he should leave her instantly
+upon the conclusion of the ceremony, and the second, that he should
+intrust the public declaration of the marriage to her. It was not
+precisely what he wished, but anything which served to make her his
+own was acceptable at such a crisis. He readily enters into the plans
+proposed. Meeting the lady at a parsonage, some twenty miles from the
+watering-place at which she was staying, he stands up with her before
+a Methodist preacher, and the ceremony of marriage is performed. There
+were two witnesses, a hired man of the minister, called in for the
+purpose, and a lady friend who came with the bride; but there was no
+license, and the bride had not completed her twenty-first year. Now, was
+that marriage legal? If the lady, wedded in good faith upon that day by
+my friend, chooses to deny that she is his lawful wife, can he hold
+her to a compact entered into in so informal a manner? In short, Mr.
+Raymond, is my friend the lawful husband of that girl or not?”
+
+While listening to this story, I found myself yielding to feelings
+greatly in contrast to those with which I greeted the relator but a
+moment before. I became so interested in his “friend’s” case as to
+quite forget, for the time being, that I had ever seen or heard of Henry
+Clavering; and after learning that the marriage ceremony took place in
+the State of New York, I replied to him, as near as I can remember, in
+the following words:
+
+“In this State, and I believe it to be American law, marriage is a
+civil contract, requiring neither license, priest, ceremony, nor
+certificate--and in some cases witnesses are not even necessary to give
+it validity. Of old, the modes of getting a wife were the same as those
+of acquiring any other species of property, and they are not materially
+changed at the present time. It is enough that the man and woman say to
+each other, ‘From this time we are married,’ or, ‘You are now my wife,’
+or, ‘my husband,’ as the case may be. The mutual consent is all that is
+necessary. In fact, you may contract marriage as you contract to lend a
+sum of money, or to buy the merest trifle.”
+
+“Then your opinion is----”
+
+“That upon your statement, your friend is the lawful husband of the lady
+in question; presuming, of course, that no legal disabilities of either
+party existed to prevent such a union. As to the young lady’s age, I
+will merely say that any fourteen-year-old girl can be a party to a
+marriage contract.”
+
+Mr. Clavering bowed, his countenance assuming a look of great
+satisfaction. “I am very glad to hear this,” said he; “my friend’s
+happiness is entirely involved in the establishment of his marriage.”
+
+He appeared so relieved, my curiosity was yet further aroused. I
+therefore said: “I have given you my opinion as to the legality of this
+marriage; but it may be quite another thing to prove it, should the same
+be contested.”
+
+He started, cast me an inquiring look, and murmured:
+
+“True.”
+
+“Allow me to ask you a few questions. Was the lady married under her own
+name?”
+
+“She was.”
+
+“The gentleman?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did the lady receive a certificate?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Properly signed by the minister and witnesses?”
+
+He bowed his head in assent.
+
+“Did she keep this?”
+
+“I cannot say; but I presume she did.”
+
+“The witnesses were----”
+
+“A hired man of the minister----”
+
+“Who can be found?”
+
+“Who cannot be found.”
+
+“Dead or disappeared?”
+
+“The minister is dead, the man has disappeared.”
+
+“The minister dead!”
+
+“Three months since.”
+
+“And the marriage took place when?”
+
+“Last July.”
+
+“The other witness, the lady friend, where is she?”
+
+“She can be found; but her action is not to be depended upon.”
+
+“Has the gentleman himself no proofs of this marriage?”
+
+Mr. Clavering shook his head. “He cannot even prove he was in the town
+where it took place on that particular day.”
+
+“The marriage certificate was, however, filed with the clerk of the
+town?” said I.
+
+“It was not, sir.”
+
+“How was that?”
+
+“I cannot say. I only know that my friend has made inquiry, and that no
+such paper is to be found.”
+
+I leaned slowly back and looked at him. “I do not wonder your friend is
+concerned in regard to his position, if what you hint is true, and the
+lady seems disposed to deny that any such ceremony ever took place.
+Still, if he wishes to go to law, the Court may decide in his favor,
+though I doubt it. His sworn word is all he would have to go upon, and
+if she contradicts his testimony under oath, why the sympathy of a jury
+is, as a rule, with the woman.”
+
+Mr. Clavering rose, looked at me with some earnestness, and finally
+asked, in a tone which, though somewhat changed, lacked nothing of its
+former suavity, if I would be kind enough to give him in writing that
+portion of my opinion which directly bore upon the legality of the
+marriage; that such a paper would go far towards satisfying his friend
+that his case had been properly presented; as he was aware that no
+respectable lawyer would put his name to a legal opinion without first
+having carefully arrived at his conclusions by a thorough examination of
+the law bearing upon the facts submitted.
+
+This request seeming so reasonable, I unhesitatingly complied with it,
+and handed him the opinion. He took it, and, after reading it carefully
+over, deliberately copied it into his memorandum-book. This done, he
+turned towards me, a strong, though hitherto subdued, emotion showing
+itself in his countenance.
+
+“Now, sir,” said he, rising upon me to the full height of his majestic
+figure, “I have but one more request to make; and that is, that you will
+receive back this opinion into your own possession, and in the day you
+think to lead a beautiful woman to the altar, pause and ask yourself:
+‘Am I sure that the hand I clasp with such impassioned fervor is free?
+Have I any certainty for knowing that it has not already been given
+away, like that of the lady whom, in this opinion of mine, I have
+declared to be a wedded wife according to the laws of my country? ’”
+
+“Mr. Clavering!”
+
+But he, with an urbane bow, laid his hand upon the knob of the door. “I
+thank you for your courtesy, Mr. Raymond, and I bid you good-day. I hope
+you will have no need of consulting that paper before I see you again.”
+ And with another bow, he passed out.
+
+It was the most vital shock I had yet experienced; and for a moment
+I stood paralyzed. Me! me! Why should he mix me up with the affair
+unless--but I would not contemplate that possibility. Eleanore married,
+and to this man? No, no; anything but that! And yet I found myself
+continually turning the supposition over in my mind until, to escape
+the torment of my own conjectures, I seized my hat, and rushed into
+the street in the hope of finding him again and extorting from him an
+explanation of his mysterious conduct. But by the time I reached the
+sidewalk, he was nowhere to be seen. A thousand busy men, with their
+various cares and purposes, had pushed themselves between us, and I was
+obliged to return to my office with my doubts unsolved.
+
+I think I never experienced a longer day; but it passed, and at five
+o’clock I had the satisfaction of inquiring for Mr. Clavering at the
+Hoffman House. Judge of my surprise when I learned that his visit to
+my office was his last action before taking passage upon the steamer
+leaving that day for Liverpool; that he was now on the high seas, and
+all chance of another interview with him was at an end. I could scarcely
+believe the fact at first; but after a talk with the cabman who
+had driven him off to my office and thence to the steamer, I became
+convinced. My first feeling was one of shame. I had been brought face to
+face with the accused man, had received an intimation from him that he
+was not expecting to see me again for some time, and had weakly gone on
+attending to my own affairs and allowed him to escape, like the simple
+tyro that I was. My next, the necessity of notifying Mr. Gryce of this
+man’s departure. But it was now six o’clock, the hour set apart for my
+interview with Mr. Harwell. I could not afford to miss that, so merely
+stopping to despatch a line to Mr. Gryce, in which I promised to visit
+him that evening, I turned my steps towards home. I found Mr. Harwell
+there before me.
+
+
+
+XX. “TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!”
+
+
+    “Often do the spirits
+    Of great events stride on before the events,
+    And in to-day already walks to-morrow.”
+         Coleridge.
+
+INSTANTLY a great dread seized me. What revelations might not this man
+be going to make! But I subdued the feeling; and, greeting him with what
+cordiality I could, settled myself to listen to his explanations.
+
+But Trueman Harwell had no explanations to give, or so it seemed; on
+the contrary, he had come to apologize for the very violent words he had
+used the evening before; words which, whatever their effect upon me, he
+now felt bound to declare had been used without sufficient basis in fact
+to make their utterance of the least importance.
+
+“But you must have thought you had grounds for so tremendous an
+accusation, or your act was that of a madman.”
+
+His brow wrinkled heavily, and his eyes assumed a very gloomy
+expression. “It does not follow,” he returned. “Under the pressure of
+surprise, I have known men utter convictions no better founded than mine
+without running the risk of being called mad.”
+
+“Surprise? Mr. Clavering’s face or form must, then, have been known to
+you. The mere fact of seeing a strange gentleman in the hall would have
+been insufficient to cause you astonishment, Mr. Harwell.”
+
+He uneasily fingered the back of the chair before which he stood, but
+made no reply.
+
+“Sit down,” I again urged, this time with a touch of command in my
+voice. “This is a serious matter, and I intend to deal with it as it
+deserves. You once said that if you knew anything which might serve
+to exonerate Eleanore Leavenworth from the suspicion under which she
+stands, you would be ready to impart it.”
+
+“Pardon me. I said that if I had ever known anything calculated to
+release her from her unhappy position, I would have spoken,” he coldly
+corrected.
+
+“Do not quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping something
+back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of justice, to tell
+me what it is.”
+
+“You are mistaken,” was his dogged reply. “I have reasons, perhaps, for
+certain conclusions I may have drawn; but my conscience will not allow
+me in cold blood to give utterance to suspicions which may not only
+damage the reputation of an honest man, but place me in the unpleasant
+position of an accuser without substantial foundation for my
+accusations.”
+
+“You occupy that position already,” I retorted, with equal coldness.
+“Nothing can make me forget that in my presence you have denounced Henry
+Clavering as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. You had better explain
+yourself, Mr. Harwell.”
+
+He gave me a short look, but moved around and took the chair. “You have
+me at a disadvantage,” he said, in a lighter tone. “If you choose to
+profit by your position, and press me to disclose the little I know, I
+can only regret the necessity under which I lie, and speak.”
+
+“Then you are deterred by conscientious scruples alone?”
+
+“Yes, and by the meagreness of the facts at my command.”
+
+“I will judge of the facts when I have heard them.”
+
+He raised his eyes to mine, and I was astonished to observe a strange
+eagerness in their depths; evidently his convictions were stronger
+than his scruples. “Mr. Raymond,” he began, “you are a lawyer, and
+undoubtedly a practical man; but you may know what it is to scent danger
+before you see it, to feel influences working in the air over and
+about you, and yet be in ignorance of what it is that affects you so
+powerfully, till chance reveals that an enemy has been at your side, or
+a friend passed your window, or the shadow of death crossed your book as
+you read, or mingled with your breath as you slept?”
+
+I shook my head, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze into some sort
+of response.
+
+“Then you cannot understand me, or what I have suffered these last three
+weeks.” And he drew back with an icy reserve that seemed to promise but
+little to my now thoroughly awakened curiosity.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” I hastened to say; “but the fact of my never having
+experienced such sensations does not hinder me from comprehending the
+emotions of others more affected by spiritual influences than myself.”
+
+He drew himself slowly forward. “Then you will not ridicule me if I say
+that upon the eve of Mr. Leavenworth’s murder I experienced in a dream
+all that afterwards occurred; saw him murdered, saw”--and he clasped
+his hands before him, in an attitude inexpressibly convincing, while his
+voice sank to a horrified whisper, “saw the face of his murderer!”
+
+I started, looked at him in amazement, a thrill as at a ghostly presence
+running through me.
+
+“And was that----” I began.
+
+“My reason for denouncing the man I beheld before me in the hall of
+Miss Leavenworth’s house last night? It was.” And, taking out his
+handkerchief, he wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration was
+standing in large drops.
+
+“You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and the
+face you saw in the hall last night were the same?”
+
+He gravely nodded his head.
+
+I drew my chair nearer to his. “Tell me your dream,” said I.
+
+“It was the night before Mr. Leavenworth’s murder. I had gone to bed
+feeling especially contented with myself and the world at large; for,
+though my life is anything but a happy one,” and he heaved a short sigh,
+“some pleasant words had been said to me that day, and I was revelling
+in the happiness they conferred, when suddenly a chill struck my heart,
+and the darkness which a moment before had appeared to me as the abode
+of peace thrilled to the sound of a supernatural cry, and I heard my
+name, ‘Trueman, Trueman, Trueman,’ repeated three times in a voice I did
+not recognize, and starting from my pillow beheld at my bedside a woman.
+Her face was strange to me,” he solemnly proceeded, “but I can give you
+each and every detail of it, as, bending above me, she stared into my
+eyes with a growing terror that seemed to implore help, though her lips
+were quiet, and only the memory of that cry echoed in my ears.”
+
+“Describe the face,” I interposed.
+
+“It was a round, fair, lady’s face. Very lovely in contour, but devoid
+of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike look of
+trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead, was brown; the
+eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth, which was its most
+charming feature, delicate of make and very expressive. There was
+a dimple in the chin, but none in the cheeks. It was a face to be
+remembered.”
+
+“Go on,” said I.
+
+“Meeting the gaze of those imploring eyes, I started up. Instantly the
+face and all vanished, and I became conscious, as we sometimes do in
+dreams, of a certain movement in the hall below, and the next instant
+the gliding figure of a man of imposing size entered the library.
+I remember experiencing a certain thrill at this, half terror, half
+curiosity, though I seemed to know, as if by intuition, what he was
+going to do. Strange to say, I now seemed to change my personality,
+and to be no longer a third party watching these proceedings, but Mr.
+Leavenworth himself, sitting at his library table and feeling his doom
+crawling upon him without capacity for speech or power of movement to
+avert it. Though my back was towards the man, I could feel his stealthy
+form traverse the passage, enter the room beyond, pass to that stand
+where the pistol was, try the drawer, find it locked, turn the key,
+procure the pistol, weigh it in an accustomed hand, and advance again.
+I could feel each footstep he took as though his feet were in truth upon
+my heart, and I remember staring at the table before me as if I expected
+every moment to see it run with my own blood. I can see now how the
+letters I had been writing danced upon the paper before me, appearing
+to my eyes to take the phantom shapes of persons and things long ago
+forgotten; crowding my last moments with regrets and dead shames, wild
+longings, and unspeakable agonies, through all of which that face, the
+face of my former dream, mingled, pale, sweet, and searching, while
+closer and closer behind me crept that noiseless foot till I could
+feel the glaring of the assassin’s eyes across the narrow threshold
+separating me from death and hear the click of his teeth as he set his
+lips for the final act. Ah!” and the secretary’s livid face showed the
+touch of awful horror, “what words can describe such an experience as
+that? In one moment, all the agonies of hell in the heart and brain,
+the next a blank through which I seemed to see afar, and as if suddenly
+removed from all this, a crouching figure looking at its work with
+starting eyes and pallid back-drawn lips; and seeing, recognize no face
+that I had ever known, but one so handsome, so remarkable, so unique in
+its formation and character, that it would be as easy for me to mistake
+the countenance of my father as the look and figure of the man revealed
+to me in my dream.”
+
+“And this face?” said I, in a voice I failed to recognize as my own.
+
+“Was that of him whom we saw leave Mary Leavenworth’s presence last
+night and go down the hall to the front door.”
+
+
+
+XXI. A PREJUDICE
+
+
+    “True, I talk of dreams,
+     Which are the children of an idle brain
+     Begot of nothing but vain phantasy.”
+         --Romeo and Juliet.
+
+FOR one moment I sat a prey to superstitious horror; then, my natural
+incredulity asserting itself, I looked up and remarked:
+
+“You say that all this took place the night previous to the actual
+occurrence?”
+
+He bowed his head. “For a warning,” he declared.
+
+“But you did not seem to take it as such?”
+
+“No; I am subject to horrible dreams. I thought but little of it in a
+superstitious way till I looked next day upon Mr. Leavenworth’s dead
+body.”
+
+“I do not wonder you behaved strangely at the inquest.”
+
+“Ah, sir,” he returned, with a slow, sad smile; “no one knows what
+I suffered in my endeavors not to tell more than I actually knew,
+irrespective of my dream, of this murder and the manner of its
+accomplishment.”
+
+“You believe, then, that your dream foreshadowed the manner of the
+murder as well as the fact?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“It is a pity it did not go a little further, then, and tell us how
+the assassin escaped from, if not how he entered, a house so securely
+fastened.”
+
+His face flushed. “That would have been convenient,” he repeated.
+“Also, if I had been informed where Hannah was, and why a stranger and a
+gentleman should have stooped to the committal of such a crime.”
+
+Seeing that he was nettled, I dropped my bantering vein. “Why do you
+say a stranger?” I asked; “are you so well acquainted with all who visit
+that house as to be able to say who are and who are not strangers to the
+family?
+
+“I am well acquainted with the faces of their friends, and Henry
+Clavering is not amongst the number; but----”
+
+“Were you ever with Mr. Leavenworth,” I interrupted, “when he has been
+away from home; in the country, for instance, or upon his travels?”
+
+“No.” But the negative came with some constraint.
+
+“Yet I suppose he was in the habit of absenting himself from home?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Can you tell me where he was last July, he and the ladies?”
+
+“Yes, sir; they went to R----. The famous watering-place, you know. Ah,”
+ he cried, seeing a change in my face, “do you think he could have met
+them there?”
+
+I looked at him for a moment, then, rising in my turn, stood level with
+him, and exclaimed:
+
+“You are keeping something back, Mr. Harwell; you have more knowledge of
+this man than you have hitherto given me to understand. What is it?”
+
+He seemed astonished at my penetration, but replied: “I know no more
+of the man than I have already informed you; but”--and a burning flush
+crossed his face, “if you are determined to pursue this matter--” and he
+paused, with an inquiring look.
+
+“I am resolved to find out all I can about Henry Clavering,” was my
+decided answer.
+
+“Then,” said he, “I can tell you this much. Henry Clavering wrote a
+letter to Mr. Leavenworth a few days before the murder, which I have
+some reason to believe produced a marked effect upon the household.”
+ And, folding his arms, the secretary stood quietly awaiting my next
+question.
+
+“How do you know?” I asked.
+
+“I opened it by mistake. I was in the habit of reading Mr. Leavenworth’s
+business letters, and this, being from one unaccustomed to write to him,
+lacked the mark which usually distinguished those of a private nature.”
+
+“And you saw the name of Clavering?”
+
+“I did; Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
+
+“Did you read the letter?” I was trembling now.
+
+The secretary did not reply.
+
+“Mr. Harwell,” I reiterated, “this is no time for false delicacy. Did
+you read that letter?”
+
+“I did; but hastily, and with an agitated conscience.”
+
+“You can, however, recall its general drift?”
+
+“It was some complaint in regard to the treatment received by him at the
+hand of one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces. I remember nothing more.”
+
+“Which niece?”
+
+“There were no names mentioned.”
+
+“But you inferred----”
+
+“No, sir; that is just what I did not do. I forced myself to forget the
+whole thing.”
+
+“And yet you say it produced an effect upon the family?”
+
+“I can see now that it did. None of them have ever appeared quite the
+same as before.”
+
+“Mr. Harwell,” I gravely continued; “when you were questioned as to the
+receipt of any letter by Mr. Leavenworth, which might seem in any manner
+to be connected with this tragedy, you denied having seen any such; how
+was that?”
+
+“Mr. Raymond, you are a gentleman; have a chivalrous regard for the
+ladies; do you think you could have brought yourself (even if in your
+secret heart you considered some such result possible, which I am not
+ready to say I did) to mention, at such a time as that, the receipt of
+a letter complaining of the treatment received from one of Mr.
+Leavenworth’s nieces, as a suspicious circumstance worthy to be taken
+into account by a coroner’s jury?”
+
+I shook my head. I could not but acknowledge the impossibility.
+
+“What reason had I for thinking that letter was one of importance? I
+knew of no Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
+
+“And yet you seemed to think it was. I remember you hesitated before
+replying.”
+
+“It is true; but not as I should hesitate now, if the question were put
+to me again.”
+
+Silence followed these words, during which I took two or three turns up
+and down the room.
+
+“This is all very fanciful,” I remarked, laughing in the vain endeavor
+to throw off the superstitious horror his words had awakened.
+
+He bent his head in assent. “I know it,” said he. “I am practical myself
+in broad daylight, and recognize the flimsiness of an accusation based
+upon a poor, hardworking secretary’s dream, as plainly as you do. This
+is the reason I desired to keep from speaking at all; but, Mr. Raymond,”
+ and his long, thin hand fell upon my arm with a nervous intensity which
+gave me almost the sensation of an electrical shock, “if the murderer of
+Mr. Leavenworth is ever brought to confess his deed, mark my words, he
+will prove to be the man of my dream.”
+
+I drew a long breath. For a moment his belief was mine; and a mingled
+sensation of relief and exquisite pain swept over me as I thought of the
+possibility of Eleanore being exonerated from crime only to be plunged
+into fresh humiliation and deeper abysses of suffering.
+
+“He stalks the streets in freedom now,” the secretary went on, as if to
+himself; “even dares to enter the house he has so wofully desecrated;
+but justice is justice and, sooner or later, something will transpire
+which will prove to you that a premonition so wonderful as that
+I received had its significance; that the voice calling ‘Trueman,
+Trueman,’ was something more than the empty utterances of an excited
+brain; that it was Justice itself, calling attention to the guilty.”
+
+I looked at him in wonder. Did he know that the officers of justice were
+already upon the track of this same Clavering? I judged not from his
+look, but felt an inclination to make an effort and see.
+
+“You speak with strange conviction,” I said; “but in all probability
+you are doomed to be disappointed. So far as we know, Mr. Clavering is a
+respectable man.”
+
+He lifted his hat from the table. “I do not propose to denounce him;
+I do not even propose to speak his name again. I am not a fool, Mr.
+Raymond. I have spoken thus plainly to you only in explanation of last
+night’s most unfortunate betrayal; and while I trust you will regard
+what I have told you as confidential, I also hope you will give me
+credit for behaving, on the whole, as well as could be expected under
+the circumstances.” And he held out his hand.
+
+“Certainly,” I replied as I took it. Then, with a sudden impulse to
+test the accuracy of this story of his, inquired if he had any means of
+verifying his statement of having had this dream at the time spoken of:
+that is, before the murder and not afterwards.
+
+“No, sir; I know myself that I had it the night previous to that of Mr.
+Leavenworth’s death; but I cannot prove the fact.”
+
+“Did not speak of it next morning to any one?”
+
+“O no, sir; I was scarcely in a position to do so.”
+
+“Yet it must have had a great effect upon you, unfitting you for
+work----”
+
+“Nothing unfits me for work,” was his bitter reply.
+
+“I believe you,” I returned, remembering his diligence for the last few
+days. “But you must at least have shown some traces of having passed an
+uncomfortable night. Have you no recollection of any one speaking to you
+in regard to your appearance the next morning?”
+
+“Mr. Leavenworth may have done so; no one else would be likely to
+notice.” There was sadness in the tone, and my own voice softened as I
+said:
+
+“I shall not be at the house to-night, Mr. Harwell; nor do I know when
+I shall return there. Personal considerations keep me from Miss
+Leavenworth’s presence for a time, and I look to you to carry on the
+work we have undertaken without my assistance, unless you can bring it
+here----”
+
+“I can do that.”
+
+“I shall expect you, then, to-morrow evening.”
+
+“Very well, sir”; and he was going, when a sudden thought seemed to
+strike him. “Sir,” he said, “as we do not wish to return to this subject
+again, and as I have a natural curiosity in regard to this man, would
+you object to telling me what you know of him? You believe him to be a
+respectable man; are you acquainted with him, Mr. Raymond?”
+
+“I know his name, and where he resides.”
+
+“And where is that?”
+
+“In London; he is an Englishman.”
+
+“Ah!” he murmured, with a strange intonation.
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+He bit his lip, looked down, then up, finally fixed his eyes on mine,
+and returned, with marked emphasis: “I used an exclamation, sir, because
+I was startled.”
+
+“Startled?”
+
+“Yes; you say he is an Englishman. Mr. Leavenworth had the most bitter
+antagonism to the English. It was one of his marked peculiarities. He
+would never be introduced to one if he could help it.”
+
+It was my turn to look thoughtful.
+
+“You know,” continued the secretary, “that Mr. Leavenworth was a man who
+carried his prejudices to the extreme. He had a hatred for the English
+race amounting to mania. If he had known the letter I have mentioned was
+from an Englishman, I doubt if he would have read it. He used to say he
+would sooner see a daughter of his dead before him than married to an
+Englishman.”
+
+I turned hastily aside to hide the effect which this announcement made
+upon me.
+
+“You think I am exaggerating,” he said. “Ask Mr. Veeley.”
+
+“No,” I replied. “I have no reason for thinking so.”
+
+“He had doubtless some cause for hating the English with which we are
+unacquainted,” pursued the secretary. “He spent some time in Liverpool
+when young, and had, of course, many opportunities for studying their
+manners and character.” And the secretary made another movement, as if
+to leave.
+
+But it was my turn to detain him now. “Mr. Harwell, you must excuse me.
+You have been on familiar terms with Mr. Leavenworth for so long. Do you
+think that, in the case of one of his nieces, say, desiring to marry a
+gentleman of that nationality, his prejudice was sufficient to cause him
+to absolutely forbid the match?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+I moved back. I had learned what I wished, and saw no further reason for
+prolonging the interview.
+
+
+
+XXII. PATCH-WORK
+
+
+    “Come, give us a taste of your quality.”
+         Hamlet.
+
+STARTING with the assumption that Mr. Clavering in his conversation of
+the morning had been giving me, with more or less accuracy, a
+detailed account of his own experience and position regarding Eleanore
+Leavenworth, I asked myself what particular facts it would be necessary
+for me to establish in order to prove the truth of this assumption, and
+found them to be:
+
+I. That Mr. Clavering had not only been in this country at the time
+designated, but that he had been located for some little time at a
+watering-place in New York State.
+
+II. That this watering-place should correspond to the one in which Miss
+Eleanore Leavenworth was staying at the same time.
+
+III. That they had been seen while there to hold more or less
+communication.
+
+IV. That they had both been absent from town, at some one time, long
+enough to have gone through the ceremony of marriage at a point twenty
+miles or so away.
+
+V. That a Methodist clergyman, who has since died, lived at that time
+within a radius of twenty miles of said watering-place.
+
+I next asked myself how I was to establish these facts. Mr. Clavering’s
+life was as yet too little known to me to offer me any assistance; so,
+leaving it for the present, I took up the thread of Eleanore’s history,
+and found that at the time given me she had been in R----, a fashionable
+watering-place in this State. Now, if his was true, and my theory
+correct, he must have been there also. To prove this fact, became,
+consequently, my first business. I resolved to go to R---- on the
+morrow.
+
+But before proceeding in an undertaking of such importance, I considered
+it expedient to make such inquiries and collect such facts as the few
+hours I had left to work in rendered possible. I went first to the house
+of Mr. Gryce.
+
+I found him lying upon a hard sofa, in the bare sitting-room I have
+before mentioned, suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism. His
+hands were done up in bandages, and his feet incased in multiplied folds
+of a dingy red shawl which looked as if it had been through the wars.
+Greeting me with a short nod that was both a welcome and an apology,
+he devoted a few words to an explanation of his unwonted position; and
+then, without further preliminaries, rushed into the subject which was
+uppermost in both our minds by inquiring, in a slightly sarcastic way,
+if I was very much surprised to find my bird flown when I returned to
+the Hoffman House that afternoon.
+
+“I was astonished to find you allowed him to fly at this time,”
+ I replied. “From the manner in which you requested me to make his
+acquaintance, I supposed you considered him an important character in
+the tragedy which has just been enacted.”
+
+“And what makes you think I don’t? Oh, the fact that I let him go off
+so easily? That’s no proof. I never fiddle with the brakes till the
+car starts down-hill. But let that pass for the present; Mr. Clavering,
+then, did not explain himself before going?”
+
+“That is a question which I find it exceedingly difficult to answer.
+Hampered by circumstances, I cannot at present speak with the directness
+which is your due, but what I can say, I will. Know, then, that in my
+opinion Mr. Clavering did explain himself in an interview with me this
+morning. But it was done in so blind a way, it will be necessary for me
+to make a few investigations before I shall feel sufficiently sure of
+my ground to take you into my confidence. He has given me a possible
+clue----”
+
+“Wait,” said Mr. Gryce; “does he know this? Was it done intentionally
+and with sinister motive, or unconsciously and in plain good faith?”
+
+“In good faith, I should say.”
+
+Mr. Gryce remained silent for a moment. “It is very unfortunate you
+cannot explain yourself a little more definitely,” he said at last. “I
+am almost afraid to trust you to make investigations, as you call them,
+on your own hook. You are not used to the business, and will lose time,
+to say nothing of running upon false scents, and using up your strength
+on unprofitable details.”
+
+“You should have thought of that when you admitted me into partnership.”
+
+“And you absolutely insist upon working this mine alone?”
+
+“Mr. Gryce, the matter stands just here. Mr. Clavering, for all I know,
+is a gentleman of untarnished reputation. I am not even aware for what
+purpose you set me upon his trail. I only know that in thus following
+it I have come upon certain facts that seem worthy of further
+investigation.”
+
+“Well, well; you know best. But the days are slipping by. Something must
+be done, and soon. The public are becoming clamorous.”
+
+“I know it, and for that reason I have come to you for such assistance
+as you can give me at this stage of the proceedings. You are in
+possession of certain facts relating to this man which it concerns me
+to know, or your conduct in reference to him has been purposeless. Now,
+frankly, will you make me master of those facts: in short, tell me all
+you know of Mr. Clavering, without requiring an immediate return of
+confidence on my part?”
+
+“That is asking a great deal of a professional detective.”
+
+“I know it, and under other circumstances I should hesitate long before
+preferring such a request; but as things are, I don’t see how I am to
+proceed in the matter without some such concession on your part. At all
+events----”
+
+“Wait a moment! Is not Mr. Clavering the lover of one of the young
+ladies?”
+
+Anxious as I was to preserve the secret of my interest in that
+gentleman, I could not prevent the blush from rising to my face at the
+suddenness of this question.
+
+“I thought as much,” he went on. “Being neither a relative nor
+acknowledged friend, I took it for granted he must occupy some such
+position as that in the family.”
+
+“I do not see why you should draw such an inference,” said I, anxious
+to determine how much he knew about him. “Mr. Clavering is a stranger in
+town; has not even been in this country long; has indeed had no time to
+establish himself upon any such footing as you suggest.”
+
+“This is not the only time Mr. Clavering has been in New York. He was
+here a year ago to my certain knowledge.”
+
+“You know that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How much more do you know? Can it be possible I am groping blindly
+about for facts which are already in your possession? I pray you listen
+to my entreaties, Mr. Gryce, and acquaint me at once with what I want to
+know. You will not regret it. I have no selfish motive in this matter.
+If I succeed, the glory shall be yours; it I fail, the shame of the
+defeat shall be mine.”
+
+“That is fair,” he muttered. “And how about the reward?”
+
+“My reward will be to free an innocent woman from the imputation of
+crime which hangs over her.”
+
+This assurance seemed to satisfy him. His voice and appearance changed;
+for a moment he looked quite confidential. “Well, well,” said he; “and
+what is it you want to know?”
+
+“I should first like to know how your suspicions came to light on him
+at all. What reason had you for thinking a gentleman of his bearing and
+position was in any way connected with this affair?”
+
+“That is a question you ought not to be obliged to put,” he returned.
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Simply because the opportunity of answering it was in your hands before
+ever it came into mine.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Don’t you remember the letter mailed in your presence by Miss Mary
+Leavenworth during your drive from her home to that of her friend in
+Thirty-seventh Street?”
+
+“On the afternoon of the inquest?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Certainly, but----”
+
+“You never thought to look at its superscription before it was dropped
+into the box.”
+
+“I had neither opportunity nor right to do so.”
+
+“Was it not written in your presence?”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“And you never regarded the affair as worth your attention?”
+
+“However I may have regarded it, I did not see how I could prevent Miss
+Leavenworth from dropping a letter into a box if she chose to do so.”
+
+“That is because you are a _gentleman._ Well, it has its disadvantages,”
+ he muttered broodingly.
+
+“But you,” said I; “how came you to know anything about this letter?
+Ah, I see,” remembering that the carriage in which we were riding at the
+time had been procured for us by him. “The man on the box was in your
+pay, and informed, as you call it.”
+
+Mr. Gryce winked at his muffled toes mysteriously. “That is not the
+point,” he said. “Enough that I heard that a letter, which might
+reasonably prove to be of some interest to me, had been dropped at such
+an hour into the box on the corner of a certain street. That, coinciding
+in the opinion of my informant, I telegraphed to the station connected
+with that box to take note of the address of a suspicious-looking letter
+about to pass through their hands on the way to the General Post Office,
+and following up the telegram in person, found that a curious epistle
+addressed in lead pencil and sealed with a stamp, had just arrived, the
+address of which I was allowed to see----”
+
+“And which was?”
+
+“Henry R. Clavering, Hoffman House, New York.”
+
+I drew a deep breath. “And so that is how your attention first came to
+be directed to this man?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Strange. But go on--what next?”
+
+“Why, next I followed up the clue by going to the Hoffman House and
+instituting inquiries. I learned that Mr. Clavering was a regular guest
+of the hotel. That he had come there, direct from the Liverpool
+steamer, about three months since, and, registering his name as Henry
+R. Clavering, Esq., London, had engaged a first-class room which he had
+kept ever since. That, although nothing definite was known concerning
+him, he had been seen with various highly respectable people, both of
+his own nation and ours, by all of whom he was treated with respect. And
+lastly, that while not liberal, he had given many evidences of being a
+man of means. So much done, I entered the office, and waited for him to
+come in, in the hope of having an opportunity to observe his manner when
+the clerk handed him that strange-looking letter from Mary Leavenworth.”
+
+“And did you succeed?”
+
+“No; an awkward gawk of a fellow stepped between us just at the critical
+moment, and shut off my view. But I heard enough that evening from the
+clerk and servants, of the agitation he had shown on receiving it, to
+convince me I was upon a trail worth following. I accordingly put on
+my men, and for two days Mr. Clavering was subjected to the most
+rigid watch a man ever walked under. But nothing was gained by it; his
+interest in the murder, if interest at all, was a secret one; and though
+he walked the streets, studied the papers, and haunted the vicinity
+of the house in Fifth Avenue, he not only refrained from actually
+approaching it, but made no attempt to communicate with any of the
+family. Meanwhile, you crossed my path, and with your determination
+incited me to renewed effort. Convinced from Mr. Clavering’s bearing,
+and the gossip I had by this time gathered in regard to him, that no one
+short of a gentleman and a friend could succeed in getting at the clue
+of his connection with this family, I handed him over to you, and----”
+
+“Found me rather an unmanageable colleague.”
+
+Mr. Gryce smiled very much as if a sour plum had been put in his mouth,
+but made no reply; and a momentary pause ensued.
+
+“Did you think to inquire,” I asked at last, “if any one knew where Mr.
+Clavering had spent the evening of the murder?”
+
+“Yes; but with no good result. It was agreed he went out during the
+evening; also that he was in his bed in the morning when the servant
+came in to make his fire; but further than this no one seemed posted.”
+
+“So that, in fact, you gleaned nothing that would in any way connect
+this man with the murder except his marked and agitated interest in it,
+and the fact that a niece of the murdered man had written a letter to
+him?”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+“Another question; did you hear in what manner and at what time he
+procured a newspaper that evening?”
+
+“No; I only learned that he was observed, by more than one, to hasten
+out of the dining-room with the _Post_ in his hand, and go immediately
+to his room without touching his dinner.”
+
+“Humph! that does not look---”
+
+“If Mr. Clavering had had a guilty knowledge of the crime, he would
+either have ordered dinner before opening the paper, or, having ordered
+it, he would have eaten it.”
+
+“Then you do not believe, from what you have learned, that Mr. Clavering
+is the guilty party?”
+
+Mr. Gryce shifted uneasily, glanced at the papers protruding from my
+coat pocket and exclaimed: “I am ready to be convinced by you that he
+is.”
+
+That sentence recalled me to the business in hand. Without appearing to
+notice his look, I recurred to my questions.
+
+“How came you to know that Mr. Clavering was in this city last summer?
+Did you learn that, too, at the Hoffman House?”
+
+“No; I ascertained that in quite another way. In short, I have had a
+communication from London in regard to the matter.
+
+“From London?”
+
+“Yes; I’ve a friend there in my own line of business, who sometimes
+assists me with a bit of information, when requested.”
+
+“But how? You have not had time to write to London, and receive an
+answer since the murder.”
+
+“It is not necessary to write. It is enough for me to telegraph him the
+name of a person, for him to understand that I want to know everything
+he can gather in a reasonable length of time about that person.”
+
+“And you sent the name of Mr. Clavering to him?”
+
+“Yes, in cipher.”
+
+“And have received a reply?”
+
+“This morning.”
+
+I looked towards his desk.
+
+“It is not there,” he said; “if you will be kind enough to feel in my
+breast pocket you will find a letter----”
+
+It was in my hand before he finished his sentence. “Excuse my
+eagerness,” I said. “This kind of business is new to me, you know.”
+
+He smiled indulgently at a very old and faded picture hanging on the
+wall before him. “Eagerness is not a fault; only the betrayal of it. But
+read out what you have there. Let us hear what my friend Brown has to
+tell us of Mr. Henry Ritchie Clavering, of Portland Place, London.”
+
+I took the paper to the light and read as follows:
+
+
+    “Henry Ritchie Clavering, Gentleman, aged 43. Born in
+
+    ----, Hertfordshire, England. His father was Chas. Clavering, for
+    short time in the army. Mother was Helen Ritchie, of Dumfriesshire,
+    Scotland; she is still living. Home with H. R. C., in Portland Place,
+    London. H. R. C. is a bachelor, 6 ft. high, squarely built, weight
+    about 12 stone. Dark complexion, regular features. Eyes dark brown;
+    nose straight. Called a handsome man; walks erect and rapidly. In
+    society is considered a good fellow; rather a favorite, especially with
+    ladies. Is liberal, not extravagant; reported to be worth about
+    5000 pounds per year, and appearances give color to this statement.
+    Property consists of a small estate in Hertfordshire, and some funds,
+    amount not known. Since writing this much, a correspondent sends the
+    following in regard to his history. In ‘46 went from uncle’s house to
+    Eton. From Eton went to Oxford, graduating in ‘56. Scholarship good. In
+    1855 his uncle died, and his father succeeded to the estates. Father
+    died in ‘57 by a fall from his horse or a similar accident. Within a
+    very short time H. R. C. took his mother to London, to the residence
+    named, where they have lived to the present time.
+
+    “Travelled considerably in 1860; part of the time was with
+    ----, of Munich; also in party of Vandervorts from New York; went
+    as far east as Cairo. Went to America in 1875 alone, but at end of
+    three months returned on account of mother’s illness. Nothing is known
+    of his movements while in America.
+
+    “From servants learn that he was always a favorite from a boy. More
+    recently has become somewhat taciturn. Toward last of his stay watched
+    the post carefully, especially foreign ones. Posted scarcely anything
+    but newspapers. Has written to Munich. Have seen, from waste-paper
+    basket, torn envelope directed to Amy Belden, no address. American
+    correspondents mostly in Boston; two in New York. Names not known, but
+    supposed to be bankers. Brought home considerable luggage, and fitted
+    up part of house, as for a lady. This was closed soon afterwards. Left
+    for America two months since. Has been, I understand, travelling in the
+    south. Has telegraphed twice to Portland Place. His friends hear from
+    him but rarely. Letters rec’d recently, posted in New York. One by last
+    steamer posted in F----, N. Y.
+
+    “Business here conducted by ----. In the country, ---- of ---- has
+    charge of the property.
+
+    “BROWN.”
+
+The document fell from my hands.
+
+F----, N. Y., was a small town near R----.
+
+“Your friend is a trump,” I declared. “He tells me just what I wanted
+most to know.” And, taking out my book, I made memoranda of the facts
+which had most forcibly struck me during my perusal of the communication
+before me. “With the aid of what he tells me, I shall ferret out the
+mystery of Henry Clavering in a week; see if I do not.”
+
+“And how soon,” inquired Mr. Gryce, “may I expect to be allowed to take
+a hand in the game?”
+
+“As soon as I am reasonably assured I am upon the right tack.”
+
+“And what will it take to assure you of that?”
+
+“Not much; a certain point settled, and----”
+
+“Hold on; who knows but what I can do that for you?” And, looking
+towards the desk which stood in the corner, Mr. Gryce asked me if I
+would be kind enough to open the top drawer and bring him the bits of
+partly-burned paper I would find there.
+
+Hastily complying, I brought three or four strips of ragged paper, and
+laid them on the table at his side.
+
+“Another result of Fobbs’ researches under the coal on the first day of
+the inquest,” Mr. Gryce abruptly explained. “You thought the key was
+all he found. Well, it wasn’t. A second turning over of the coal brought
+these to light, and very interesting they are, too.”
+
+I immediately bent over the torn and discolored scraps with great
+anxiety. They were four in number, and appeared at first glance to be
+the mere remnants of a sheet of common writing-paper, torn lengthwise
+into strips, and twisted up into lighters; but, upon closer inspection,
+they showed traces of writing upon one side, and, what was more
+important still, the presence of one or more drops of spattered blood.
+This latter discovery was horrible to me, and so overcame me for the
+moment that I put the scraps down, and, turning towards Mr. Gryce,
+inquired:
+
+“What do you make of them?”
+
+“That is just the question I was going to put to you.”
+
+Swallowing my disgust, I took them up again. “They look like the
+remnants of some old letter,” said I.
+
+“They have that appearance,” Mr. Gryce grimly assented.
+
+“A letter which, from the drop of blood observable on the written side,
+must have been lying face up on Mr. Leavenworth’s table at the time of
+the murder--”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“And from the uniformity in width of each of these pieces, as well as
+their tendency to curl up when left alone, must first have been torn
+into even strips, and then severally rolled up, before being tossed into
+the grate where they were afterwards found.”
+
+“That is all good,” said Mr. Gryce; “go on.”
+
+“The writing, so far as discernible, is that of a cultivated gentleman.
+It is not that of Mr. Leavenworth; for I have studied his chirography
+too much lately not to know it at a glance; but it may be--Hold!” I
+suddenly exclaimed, “have you any mucilage handy? I think, if I could
+paste these strips down upon a piece of paper, so that they would
+remain flat, I should be able to tell you what I think of them much more
+easily.”
+
+“There is mucilage on the desk,” signified Mr. Gryce.
+
+Procuring it, I proceeded to consult the scraps once more for evidence
+to guide me in their arrangement. These were more marked than I
+expected; the longer and best preserved strip, with its “Mr. Hor” at
+the top, showing itself at first blush to be the left-hand margin of
+the letter, while the machine-cut edge of the next in length presented
+tokens fully as conclusive of its being the right-hand margin of the
+same. Selecting these, then, I pasted them down on a piece of paper at
+just the distance they would occupy if the sheet from which they were
+torn was of the ordinary commercial note size. Immediately it became
+apparent: first, that it would take two other strips of the same width
+to fill up the space left between them; and secondly, that the writing
+did not terminate at the foot of the sheet, but was carried on to
+another page.
+
+Taking up the third strip, I looked at its edge; it was machine-cut
+at the top, and showed by the arrangement of its words that it was
+the margin strip of a second leaf. Pasting that down by itself, I
+scrutinized the fourth, and finding it also machine-cut at the top but
+not on the side, endeavored to fit it to the piece already pasted down,
+but the words would not match. Moving it along to the position it
+would hold if it were the third strip, I fastened it down; the whole
+presenting, when completed, the appearance seen on the opposite page.
+
+“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, “that’s business.” Then, as I held it up
+before his eyes: “But don’t show it to me. Study it yourself, and tell
+me what you think of it.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “this much is certain: that it is a letter directed to
+Mr. Leavenworth from some House, and dated--let’s see; that is an _h,_
+isn’t it?” And I pointed to the one letter just discernible on the line
+under the word House.
+
+“I should think so; but don’t ask me.”
+
+“It must be an _h._ The year is 1875, and this is not the termination
+of either January or February. Dated, then, March 1st, 1876, and
+signed----”
+
+Mr. Gryce rolled his eyes in anticipatory ecstasy towards the ceiling.
+
+“By Henry Clavering,” I announced without hesitation.
+
+Mr. Gryce’s eyes returned to his swathed finger-ends. “Humph! how do you
+know that?”
+
+“Wait a moment, and I’ll show you”; and, taking out of my pocket the
+card which Mr. Clavering had handed me as an introduction at our late
+interview, I laid it underneath the last line of writing on the second
+page. One glance was sufficient. Henry Ritchie Clavering on the card;
+H----chie--in the same handwriting on the letter.
+
+“Clavering it is,” said he, “without a doubt.” But I saw he was not
+surprised.
+
+“And now,” I continued, “for its general tenor and meaning.” And,
+commencing at the beginning, I read aloud the words as they came, with
+pauses at the breaks, something as follows: “Mr. Hor--Dear--a niece whom
+yo--one too who see--the love and trus--any other man ca--autiful, so
+char----s she in face fo----conversation. ery rose has its----rose is no
+exception------ely as she is, char----tender as she is,
+s----------pable of tramplin------one who trusted----heart------------.
+-------------------- him to----he owes a----honor----ance.
+
+“If------t believe ---- her to----cruel----face,---- what is----ble
+serv----yours
+
+“H------tchie”
+
+“It reads like a complaint against one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces,” I
+said, and started at my own words.
+
+“What is it?” cried Mr. Gryce; “what is the matter?”
+
+“Why,” said I, “the fact is I have heard this very letter spoken of.
+It _is_ a complaint against one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces, and was
+written by Mr. Clavering.” And I told him of Mr. Harwell’s communication
+in regard to the matter.
+
+“Ah! then Mr. Harwell has been talking, has he? I thought he had
+forsworn gossip.”
+
+“Mr. Harwell and I have seen each other almost daily for the last two
+weeks,” I replied. “It would be strange if he had nothing to tell me.”
+
+“And he says he has read a letter written to Mr. Leavenworth by Mr.
+Clavering?”
+
+“Yes; but the particular words of which he has now forgotten.”
+
+“These few here may assist him in recalling the rest.”
+
+“I would rather not admit him to a knowledge of the existence of
+this piece of evidence. I don’t believe in letting any one into our
+confidence whom we can conscientiously keep out.”
+
+“I see you don’t,” dryly responded Mr. Gryce.
+
+Not appearing to notice the fling conveyed by these words, I took up the
+letter once more, and began pointing out such half-formed words in it
+as I thought we might venture to complete, as the Hor--, yo--,
+see--utiful----, har----, for----, tramplin----, pable----, serv----.
+
+This done, I next proposed the introduction of such others as seemed
+necessary to the sense, as _Leavenworth_ after _Horatio; Sir_ after
+_Dear; have_ with a possible _you_ before _a niece; thorn_ after _its_
+in the phrase _rose has its; on after trampling; whom_ after _to;
+debt after a; you_ after _If; me ask_ after _believe; beautiful_ after
+_cruel._
+
+Between the columns of words thus furnished I interposed a phrase or
+two, here and there, the whole reading upon its completion as follows:
+
+“------------ House.” March 1st, 1876.
+
+“_Mr. Horatio Leavenworth; Dear Sir:_
+
+“(You) have a niece whom you    one too who seems    worthy    the love
+and trust     of any other man ca    so    beautiful, so charming    is
+she in face form and    conversation.    But every rose has its thorn
+and (this) rose is no exception    lovely as she is, charming (as she
+is,) tender as she is, she    is    capable of trampling on     one who
+trusted her heart a
+
+him to whom she owes a debt of honor a    ance
+
+“If you don’t believe me ask her to    her    cruel beautiful face   
+what is (her) humble servant yours:
+
+“Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
+
+“I think that will do,” said Mr. Gryce. “Its general tenor is evident,
+and that is all we want at this time.”
+
+“The whole tone of it is anything but complimentary to the lady it
+mentions,” I remarked. “He must have had, or imagined he had, some
+desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in
+regard to one he can still characterize as tender, charming, beautiful.”
+
+“Grievances are apt to lie back of mysterious crimes.”
+
+“I think I know what this one was,” I said; “but”--seeing him look
+up--“must decline to communicate my suspicion to you for the present. My
+theory stands unshaken, and in some degree confirmed; and that is all I
+can say.”
+
+“Then this letter does not supply the link you wanted?”
+
+“No: it is a valuable bit of evidence; but it is not the link I am in
+search of just now.”
+
+“Yet it must be an important clue, or Eleanore Leavenworth would not
+have been to such pains, first to take it in the way she did from her
+uncle’s table, and secondly----”
+
+“Wait! what makes you think this is the paper she took, or was believed
+to have taken, from Mr. Leavenworth’s table on that fatal morning?”
+
+“Why, the fact that it was found together with the key, which we know
+she dropped into the grate, and that there are drops of blood on it.”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“Why do you shake your head?” asked Mr. Gryce.
+
+“Because I am not satisfied with your reason for believing this to be
+the paper taken by her from Mr. Leavenworth’s table.”
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Well, first, because Fobbs does not speak of seeing any paper in her
+hand, when she bent over the fire; leaving us to conclude that these
+pieces were in the scuttle of coal she threw upon it; which surely you
+must acknowledge to be a strange place for her to have put a paper she
+took such pains to gain possession of; and, secondly, for the reason
+that these scraps were twisted as if they had been used for curl papers,
+or something of that kind; a fact hard to explain by your hypothesis.”
+
+The detective’s eye stole in the direction of my necktie, which was as
+near as he ever came to a face. “You are a bright one,” said he; “a very
+bright one. I quite admire you, Mr. Raymond.”
+
+A little surprised, and not altogether pleased with this unexpected
+compliment, I regarded him doubtfully for a moment and then asked:
+
+“What is your opinion upon the matter?”
+
+“Oh, you know I have no opinion. I gave up everything of that kind when
+I put the affair into your hands.”
+
+“Still----”
+
+“That the letter of which these scraps are the remnant was on Mr.
+Leavenworth’s table at the time of the murder is believed. That upon the
+body being removed, a paper was taken from the table by Miss Eleanore
+Leavenworth, is also believed. That, when she found her action had been
+noticed, and attention called to this paper and the key, she resorted to
+subterfuge in order to escape the vigilance of the watch that had been
+set over her, and, partially succeeding in her endeavor, flung the key
+into the fire from which these same scraps were afterwards recovered, is
+also known. The conclusion I leave to your judgment.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said I, rising; “we will let conclusions go for the
+present. My mind must be satisfied in regard to the truth or falsity of
+a certain theory of mine, for my judgment to be worth much on this or
+any other matter connected with the affair.”
+
+And, only waiting to get the address of his subordinate P., in case
+I should need assistance in my investigations, I left Mr. Gryce, and
+proceeded immediately to the house of Mr. Veeley.
+
+
+
+XXIII. THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN
+
+
+    “Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
+         --Old Song.
+
+    “I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted.”
+         --Measure for Measure.
+
+“YOU have never heard, then, the particulars of Mr. Leavenworth’s
+marriage?”
+
+It was my partner who spoke. I had been asking him to explain to me Mr.
+Leavenworth’s well-known antipathy to the English race.
+
+“No.”
+
+“If you had, you would not need to come to me for this explanation. But
+it is not strange you are ignorant of the matter. I doubt if there
+are half a dozen persons in existence who could tell you where Horatio
+Leavenworth found the lovely woman who afterwards became his wife,
+much less give you any details of the circumstances which led to his
+marriage.”
+
+“I am very fortunate, then, in being in the confidence of one who can.
+What were those circumstances, Mr. Veeley?”
+
+“It will aid you but little to hear. Horatio Leavenworth, when a young
+man, was very ambitious; so much so, that at one time he aspired to
+marry a wealthy lady of Providence. But, chancing to go to England, he
+there met a young woman whose grace and charm had such an effect upon
+him that he relinquished all thought of the Providence lady, though it
+was some time before he could face the prospect of marrying the one
+who had so greatly interested him; as she was not only in humble
+circumstances, but was encumbered with a child concerning whose
+parentage the neighbors professed ignorance, and she had nothing to
+say. But, as is very apt to be the case in an affair like this, love and
+admiration soon got the better of worldly wisdom. Taking his future
+in his hands, he offered himself as her husband, when she immediately
+proved herself worthy of his regard by entering at once into those
+explanations he was too much of a gentleman to demand.
+
+The story she told was pitiful. She proved to be an American by birth,
+her father having been a well-known merchant of Chicago. While he lived,
+her home was one of luxury, but just as she was emerging into womanhood
+he died. It was at his funeral she met the man destined to be her ruin.
+How he came there she never knew; he was not a friend of her father’s.
+It is enough he was there, and saw her, and that in three weeks--don’t
+shudder, she was such a child--they were married. In twenty-four hours
+she knew what that word meant for her; it meant blows. Everett, I am
+telling no fanciful story. In twenty-four hours after that girl was
+married, her husband, coming drunk into the house, found her in his way,
+and knocked her down. It was but the beginning. Her father’s estate, on
+being settled up, proving to be less than expected, he carried her off
+to England, where he did not wait to be drunk in order to maltreat her.
+She was not free from his cruelty night or day. Before she was sixteen,
+she had run the whole gamut of human suffering; and that, not at the
+hands of a coarse, common ruffian, but from an elegant, handsome,
+luxury-loving gentleman, whose taste in dress was so nice he would
+sooner fling a garment of hers into the fire than see her go into
+company clad in a manner he did not consider becoming. She bore it till
+her child was born, then she fled. Two days after the little one saw the
+light, she rose from her bed and, taking her baby in her arms, ran out
+of the house. The few jewels she had put into her pocket supported her
+till she could set up a little shop. As for her husband, she neither saw
+him, nor heard from him, from the day she left him till about two weeks
+before Horatio Leavenworth first met her, when she learned from the
+papers that he was dead. She was, therefore, free; but though she loved
+Horatio Leavenworth with all her heart, she would not marry him. She
+felt herself forever stained and soiled by the one awful year of abuse
+and contamination. Nor could he persuade her. Not till the death of her
+child, a month or so after his proposal, did she consent to give him her
+hand and what remained of her unhappy life. He brought her to New York,
+surrounded her with luxury and every tender care, but the arrow had gone
+too deep; two years from the day her child breathed its last, she too
+died. It was the blow of his life to Horatio Leavenworth; he was never
+the same man again. Though Mary and Eleanore shortly after entered his
+home, he never recovered his old light-heartedness. Money became his
+idol, and the ambition to make and leave a great fortune behind him
+modified all his views of life. But one proof remained that he never
+forgot the wife of his youth, and that was, he could not bear to have
+the word ‘Englishman’ uttered in his hearing.”
+
+Mr. Veeley paused, and I rose to go. “Do you remember how Mrs.
+Leavenworth looked?” I asked. “Could you describe her to me?”
+
+He seemed a little astonished at my request, but immediately replied:
+“She was a very pale woman; not strictly beautiful, but of a contour and
+expression of great charm. Her hair was brown, her eyes gray--”
+
+“And very wide apart?”
+
+He nodded, looking still more astonished. “How came you to know? Have
+you seen her picture?”
+
+I did not answer that question. On my way downstairs, I bethought me of
+a letter which I had in my pocket for Mr. Veeley’s son Fred, and,
+knowing of no surer way of getting it to him that night than by leaving
+it on the library table, I stepped to the door of that room, which in
+this house was at the rear of the parlors, and receiving no reply to my
+knock, opened it and looked in.
+
+The room was unlighted, but a cheerful fire was burning in the grate,
+and by its glow I espied a lady crouching on the hearth, whom at first
+glance I took for Mrs. Veeley. But, upon advancing and addressing her by
+that name, I saw my mistake; for the person before me not only refrained
+from replying, but, rising at the sound of my voice, revealed a form
+of such noble proportions that all possibility of its being that of the
+dainty little wife of my partner fled.
+
+“I see I have made a mistake,” said I. “I beg your pardon”; and would
+have left the room, but something in the general attitude of the lady
+before me restrained me, and, believing it to be Mary Leavenworth, I
+inquired:
+
+“Can it be this is Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+The noble figure appeared to droop, the gently lifted head to fall, and
+for a moment I doubted if I had been correct in my supposition. Then
+form and head slowly erected themselves, a soft voice spoke, and I heard
+a low “yes,” and hurriedly advancing, confronted--not Mary, with her
+glancing, feverish gaze, and scarlet, trembling lips--but Eleanore, the
+woman whose faintest look had moved me from the first, the woman whose
+husband I believed myself to be even then pursuing to his doom!
+
+The surprise was too great; I could neither sustain nor conceal it.
+Stumbling slowly back, I murmured something about having believed it
+to be her cousin; and then, conscious only of the one wish to fly a
+presence I dared not encounter in my present mood, turned, when her
+rich, heart-full voice rose once more and I heard:
+
+“You will not leave me without a word, Mr. Raymond, now that chance has
+thrown us together?” Then, as I came slowly forward: “Were you so very
+much astonished to find me here?”
+
+“I do not know--I did not expect--” was my incoherent reply. “I had
+heard you were ill; that you went nowhere; that you had no wish to see
+your friends.”
+
+“I have been ill,” she said; “but I am better now, and have come to
+spend the night with Mrs. Veeley, because I could not endure the stare
+of the four walls of my room any longer.”
+
+This was said without any effort at plaintiveness, but rather as if she
+thought it necessary to excuse herself for being where she was.
+
+“I am glad you did so,” said I. “You ought to be here all the while.
+That dreary, lonesome boarding-house is no place for you, Miss
+Leavenworth. It distresses us all to feel that you are exiling yourself
+at this time.”
+
+“I do not wish anybody to be distressed,” she returned. “It is best for
+me to be where I am. Nor am I altogether alone. There is a child there
+whose innocent eyes see nothing but innocence in mine. She will keep me
+from despair. Do not let my friends be anxious; I can bear it.” Then, in
+a lower tone: “There is but one thing which really unnerves me; and
+that is my ignorance of what is going on at home. Sorrow I can bear, but
+suspense is killing me. Will you not tell me something of Mary and home?
+I cannot ask Mrs. Veeley; she is kind, but has no real knowledge of Mary
+or me, nor does she know anything of our estrangement. She thinks me
+obstinate, and blames me for leaving my cousin in her trouble. But you
+know I could not help it. You know,--” her voice wavered off into a
+tremble, and she did not conclude.
+
+“I cannot tell you much,” I hastened to reply; “but whatever knowledge
+is at my command is certainly yours. Is there anything in particular you
+wish to know?”
+
+“Yes, how Mary is; whether she is well, and--and composed.”
+
+“Your cousin’s health is good,” I returned; “but I fear I cannot say she
+is composed. She is greatly troubled about you.”
+
+“You see her often, then?”
+
+“I am assisting Mr. Harwell in preparing your uncle’s book for the
+press, and necessarily am there much of the time.”
+
+“My uncle’s book!” The words came in a tone of low horror.
+
+“Yes, Miss Leavenworth. It has been thought best to bring it before the
+world, and----”
+
+“And Mary has set you at the task?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+It seemed as if she could not escape from the horror which this caused.
+“How could she? Oh, how could she!”
+
+“She considers herself as fulfilling her uncle’s wishes. He was very
+anxious, as you know, to have the book out by July.”
+
+“Do not speak of it!” she broke in, “I cannot bear it.” Then, as if she
+feared she had hurt my feelings by her abruptness, lowered her voice and
+said: “I do not, however, know of any one I should be better pleased to
+have charged with the task than yourself. With you it will be a work of
+respect and reverence; but a stranger--Oh, I could not have endured a
+stranger touching it.”
+
+She was fast falling into her old horror; but rousing herself, murmured:
+“I wanted to ask you something; ah, I know”--and she moved so as to
+face me. “I wish to inquire if everything is as before in the house; the
+servants the same and--and other things?”
+
+“There is a Mrs. Darrell there; I do not know of any other change.”
+
+“Mary does not talk of going away?”
+
+“I think not.”
+
+“But she has visitors? Some one besides Mrs. Darrell to help her bear
+her loneliness?”
+
+I knew what was coming, and strove to preserve my composure.
+
+“Yes,” I replied; “a few.”
+
+“Would you mind naming them?” How low her tones were, but how distinct!
+
+“Certainly not. Mrs. Veeley, Mrs. Gilbert, Miss Martin, and a--a----”
+
+“Go on,” she whispered.
+
+“A gentleman by the name of Clavering.”
+
+“You speak that name with evident embarrassment,” she said, after a
+moment of intense anxiety on my part. “May I inquire why?”
+
+Astounded, I raised my eyes to her face. It was very pale, and wore
+the old look of self-repressed calm I remembered so well. I immediately
+dropped my gaze.
+
+“Why? because there are some circumstances surrounding him which have
+struck me as peculiar.”
+
+“How so?” she asked.
+
+“He appears under two names. To-day it is Clavering; a short time ago it
+was----”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“Robbins.”
+
+Her dress rustled on the hearth; there was a sound of desolation in it;
+but her voice when she spoke was expressionless as that of an automaton.
+
+“How many times has this person, of whose name you do not appear to be
+certain, been to see Mary?”
+
+“Once.”
+
+“When was it?”
+
+“Last night.”
+
+“Did he stay long?”
+
+“About twenty minutes, I should say.”
+
+“And do you think he will come again?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“He has left the country.”
+
+A short silence followed this, I felt her eyes searching my face, but
+doubt whether, if I had known she held a loaded pistol, I could have
+looked up at that moment.
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” she at length observed, in a changed tone, “the last time
+I saw you, you told me you were going to make some endeavor to restore
+me to my former position before the world. I did not wish you to do so
+then; nor do I wish you to do so now. Can you not make me comparatively
+happy, then, by assuring me you have abandoned or will abandon a project
+so hopeless?”
+
+“It is impossible,” I replied with emphasis. “I cannot abandon it. Much
+as I grieve to be a source of sorrow to you, it is best you should know
+that I can never give up the hope of righting you while I live.”
+
+She put out her hand in a sort of hopeless appeal inexpressibly touching
+to behold in the fast waning firelight. But I was relentless.
+
+“I should never be able to face the world or my own conscience if,
+through any weakness of my own, I should miss the blessed privilege
+of setting the wrong right, and saving a noble woman from unmerited
+disgrace.” And then, seeing she was not likely to reply to this, drew a
+step nearer and said: “Is there not some little kindness I can show you,
+Miss Leavenworth? Is there no message you would like taken, or act it
+would give you pleasure to see performed?”
+
+She stopped to think. “No,” said she; “I have only one request to make,
+and that you refuse to grant.”
+
+“For the most unselfish of reasons,” I urged.
+
+She slowly shook her head. “You think so”; then, before I could reply,
+“I could desire one little favor shown me, however.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“That if anything should transpire; if Hannah should be found, or--or my
+presence required in any way,--you will not keep me in ignorance. That
+you will let me know the worst when it comes, without fail.”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“And now, good-night. Mrs. Veeley is coming back, and you would scarcely
+wish to be found here by her.”
+
+“No,” said I.
+
+And yet I did not go, but stood watching the firelight flicker on her
+black dress till the thought of Clavering and the duty I had for the
+morrow struck coldly to my heart, and I turned away towards the
+door. But at the threshold I paused again, and looked back. Oh, the
+flickering, dying fire flame! Oh, the crowding, clustering shadows!
+Oh, that drooping figure in their midst, with its clasped hands and its
+hidden face! I see it all again; I see it as in a dream; then darkness
+falls, and in the glare of gas-lighted streets, I am hastening along,
+solitary and sad, to my lonely home.
+
+
+
+XXIV. A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE
+
+
+    “Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
+    Where most it promises; and oft it hits
+    Where Hope is coldest, and Despair most sits.”
+         --All’s Well that Ends Well.
+
+WHEN I told Mr. Gryce I only waited for the determination of one fact,
+to feel justified in throwing the case unreservedly into his hands,
+I alluded to the proving or disproving of the supposition that Henry
+Clavering had been a guest at the same watering-place with Eleanore
+Leavenworth the summer before.
+
+When, therefore, I found myself the next morning with the Visitor Book
+of the Hotel Union at R---- in my hands, it was only by the strongest
+effort of will I could restrain my impatience. The suspense, however,
+was short. Almost immediately I encountered his name, written not half
+a page below those of Mr. Leavenworth and his nieces, and, whatever
+may have been my emotion at finding my suspicions thus confirmed, I
+recognized the fact that I was in the possession of a clue which would
+yet lead to the solving of the fearful problem which had been imposed
+upon me.
+
+Hastening to the telegraph office, I sent a message for the man promised
+me by Mr. Gryce, and receiving for an answer that he could not be with
+me before three o’clock, started for the house of Mr. Monell, a client
+of ours, living in R----. I found him at home and, during our interview
+of two hours, suffered the ordeal of appearing at ease and interested
+in what he had to say, while my heart was heavy with its first
+disappointment and my brain on fire with the excitement of the work then
+on my hands.
+
+I arrived at the depot just as the train came in.
+
+There was but one passenger for R----, a brisk young man, whose whole
+appearance differed so from the description which had been given me of
+Q that I at once made up my mind he could not be the man I was looking
+for, and was turning away disappointed, when he approached, and handed
+me a card on which was inscribed the single character “?” Even then I
+could not bring myself to believe that the slyest and most successful
+agent in Mr. Gryce’s employ was before me, till, catching his eye, I saw
+such a keen, enjoyable twinkle sparkling in its depths that all doubt
+fled, and, returning his bow with a show of satisfaction, I remarked:
+
+“You are very punctual. I like that.”
+
+He gave another short, quick nod. “Glad, sir, to please you. Punctuality
+is too cheap a virtue not to be practised by a man on the lookout for
+a rise. But what orders, sir? Down train due in ten minutes; no time to
+spare.”
+
+“Down train? What have we to do with that?”
+
+“I thought you might wish to take it, sir. Mr. Brown”--winking
+expressively at the name, “always checks his carpet-bag for home when he
+sees me coming. But that is your affair; I am not particular.”
+
+“I wish to do what is wisest under the circumstances.”
+
+“Go home, then, as speedily as possible.” And he gave a third sharp nod
+exceedingly business-like and determined.
+
+“If I leave you, it is with the understanding that you bring your
+information first to me; that you are in my employ, and in that of no
+one else for the time being; and that _mum_ is the word till I give you
+liberty to speak.”
+
+“Yes, sir. When I work for Brown & Co. I do not work for Smith & Jones.
+That you can count on.”
+
+“Very well then, here are your instructions.”
+
+He looked at the paper I handed him with a certain degree of care, then
+stepped into the waiting-room and threw it into the stove, saying in
+a low tone: “So much in case I should meet with some accident: have an
+apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Oh, don’t worry; I sha’n’t forget. I’ve a memory, sir. No need of
+anybody using pen and paper with me.”
+
+And laughing in the short, quick way one would expect from a person of
+his appearance and conversation, he added: “You will probably hear from
+me in a day or so,” and bowing, took his brisk, free way down the street
+just as the train came rushing in from the West.
+
+My instructions to Q were as follows:
+
+1. To find out on what day, and in whose company, the Misses Leavenworth
+arrived at R---- the year before. What their movements had been while
+there, and in whose society they were oftenest to be seen. Also the date
+of their departure, and such facts as could be gathered in regard to
+their habits, etc.
+
+2. Ditto in respect to a Mr. Henry Clavering, fellow-guest and probable
+friend of said ladies.
+
+3. Name of individual fulfilling the following requirements: Clergyman,
+Methodist, deceased since last December or thereabouts, who in July of
+Seventy-five was located in some town not over twenty miles from R----.
+
+4. Also name and present whereabouts of a man at that time in service of
+the above.
+
+To say that the interval of time necessary to a proper inquiry into
+these matters was passed by me in any reasonable frame of mind, would be
+to give myself credit for an equanimity of temper which I unfortunately
+do not possess. Never have days seemed so long as the two which
+interposed between my return from R---- and the receipt of the following
+letter:
+
+“Sir:
+
+“Individuals mentioned arrived in R---- July 3, 1875. Party consisted
+of four; the two ladies, their uncle, and the girl named Hannah.
+Uncle remained three days, and then left for a short tour through
+Massachusetts. Gone two weeks, during which ladies were seen more
+or less with the gentleman named between us, but not to an extent
+sufficient to excite gossip or occasion remark, when said gentleman
+left R---- abruptly, two days after uncle’s return. Date July 19. As to
+habits of ladies, more or less social. They were always to be seen
+at picnics, rides, etc., and in the ballroom. M---- liked best.
+E----considered grave, and, towards the last of her stay, moody. It is
+remembered now that her manner was always peculiar, and that she was
+more or less shunned by her cousin.
+
+However, in the opinion of one girl still to be found at the hotel, she
+was the sweetest lady that ever breathed. No particular reason for this
+opinion. Uncle, ladies, and servants left R---- for New York, August 7,
+1875.
+
+“2. H. C. arrived at the hotel in R----July 6, 1875, in-company with Mr.
+and Mrs. Vandervort, friends of the above. Left July 19, two weeks from
+day of arrival. Little to be learned in regard to him. Remembered as the
+handsome gentleman who was in the party with the L. girls, and that is
+all.
+
+“3. F----, a small town, some sixteen or seventeen miles from R----, had
+for its Methodist minister, in July of last year, a man who has since
+died, Samuel Stebbins by name. Date of decease, Jan. 7 of this year.
+
+“4. Name of man in employ of S. S. at that time is Timothy Cook. He
+has been absent, but returned to F---- two days ago. Can be seen if
+required.”
+
+“Ah, ha!” I cried aloud at this point, in my sudden surprise and
+satisfaction; “now we have something to work upon!” And sitting down I
+penned the following reply:
+
+“T. C. wanted by all means. Also any evidence going to prove that H.
+C. and E. L. were married at the house of Mr. S. on any day of July or
+August last.”
+
+Next morning came the following telegram:
+
+“T. C. on the road. Remembers a marriage. Will be with you by 2 p.m.”
+
+At three o’clock of that same day, I stood before Mr. Gryce. “I am here
+to make my report,” I announced.
+
+The flicker of a smile passed over his face, and he gazed for the first
+time at his bound-up finger-ends with a softening aspect which must have
+done them good. “I’m ready,” said he.
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I began, “do you remember the conclusion we came to at our
+first interview in this house?”
+
+“I remember the _one you_ came to.”
+
+“Well, well,” I acknowledged a little peevishly, “the one I came to,
+then. It was this: that if we could find to whom Eleanore Leavenworth
+felt she owed her best duty and love, we should discover the man who
+murdered her uncle.”
+
+“And do you imagine you have done this?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+His eyes stole a little nearer my face. “Well! that is good; go on.”
+
+“When I undertook this business of clearing Eleanore Leavenworth from
+suspicion,” I resumed, “it was with the premonition that this person
+would prove to be her lover; but I had no idea he would prove to be her
+husband.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s gaze flashed like lightning to the ceiling.
+
+“What!” he ejaculated with a frown.
+
+“The lover of Eleanore Leavenworth is likewise her husband,” I repeated.
+“Mr. Clavering holds no lesser connection to her than that.”
+
+“How have you found that out?” demanded Mr. Gryce, in a harsh tone that
+argued disappointment or displeasure.
+
+“That I will not take time to state. The question is not how I became
+acquainted with a certain thing, but is what I assert in regard to it
+true. If you will cast your eye over this summary of events gleaned by
+me from the lives of these two persons, I think you will agree with me
+that it is.” And I held up before his eyes the following:
+
+“During the two weeks commencing July 6, of the year 1875, and ending
+July 19, of the same year, Henry R. Clavering, of London, and Eleanore
+Leavenworth, of New York, were guests of the same hotel. _ Fact proved
+by Visitor Book of the Hotel Union at R_----, _New York._
+
+“They were not only guests of the same hotel, but are known to have
+held more or less communication with each other. _Fact proved by such
+servants now employed in R---- as were in the hotel at that time._
+
+“July 19. Mr. Clavering left R---- abruptly, a circumstance that would
+not be considered remarkable if Mr. Leavenworth, whose violent antipathy
+to Englishmen as husbands is publicly known, had not just returned from
+a journey.
+
+“July 30. Mr. Clavering was seen in the parlor of Mr. Stebbins, the
+Methodist minister at F----, a town about sixteen miles from R----,
+where he was married to a lady of great beauty. _Proved by Timothy Cook,
+a man in the employ of Mr. Stebbins, who was called in from the garden
+to witness the ceremony and sign a paper supposed to be a certificate._
+
+“July 31. Mr. Clavering takes steamer for Liverpool. _Proved by
+newspapers of that date._
+
+“September. Eleanore Leavenworth in her uncle’s house in New York,
+conducting herself as usual, but pale of face and preoccupied in manner.
+_Proved by servants then in her service._ Mr. Clavering in London;
+watches the United States mails with eagerness, but receives no letters.
+Fits up room elegantly, as for a lady. _Proved by secret communication
+from London._
+
+“November. Miss Leavenworth still in uncle’s house. No publication
+of her marriage ever made. Mr. Clavering in London; shows signs of
+uneasiness; the room prepared for lady closed. _Proved as above._
+
+“January 17, 1876. Mr. Clavering, having returned to America, engages
+room at Hoffman House, New York.
+
+“March 1 or 2. Mr. Leavenworth receives a letter signed by Henry
+Clavering, in which he complains of having been ill-used by one of that
+gentleman’s nieces. A manifest shade falls over the family at this time.
+
+“March 4. Mr. Clavering under a false name inquires at the door of Mr.
+Leavenworth’s house for Miss Eleanore Leavenworth. _Proved by Thomas.’”_
+
+“March 4th?” exclaimed Mr. Gryce at this point. “That was the night of
+the murder.-”
+
+“Yes; the Mr. Le Roy Robbins said to have called that evening was none
+other than Mr. Clavering.”
+
+“March 19. Miss Mary Leavenworth, in a conversation with me,
+acknowledges that there is a secret in the family, and is just upon the
+point of revealing its nature, when Mr. Clavering enters the house. Upon
+his departure she declares her unwillingness ever to mention the subject
+again.”
+
+Mr. Gryce slowly waved the paper aside. “And from these facts you draw
+the inference that Eleanore Leavenworth is the wife of Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“And that, being his wife----”
+
+“It would be natural for her to conceal anything she knew likely to
+criminate him.”
+
+“Always supposing Clavering himself had done anything criminal!”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Which latter supposition you now propose to justify!”
+
+“Which latter supposition it is left for _us_ to justify.”
+
+A peculiar gleam shot over Mr. Gryce’s somewhat abstracted countenance.
+“Then you have no new evidence against Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“I should think the fact just given, of his standing in the relation of
+unacknowledged husband to the suspected party was something.”
+
+“No positive evidence as to his being the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth, I
+mean?”
+
+I was obliged to admit I had none which he would consider positive. “But
+I can show the existence of motive; and I can likewise show it was not
+only possible, but probable, he was in the house at the time of the
+murder.”
+
+“Ah, you can!” cried Mr. Gryce, rousing a little from his abstraction.
+
+“The motive was the usual one of self-interest. Mr. Leavenworth stood
+in the way of Eleanore’s acknowledging him as a husband, and he must
+therefore be put out of the way.”
+
+“Weak!”
+
+“Motives for murders are sometimes weak.”
+
+“The motive for this was not. Too much calculation was shown for the arm
+to have been nerved by anything short of the most deliberate intention,
+founded upon the deadliest necessity of passion or avarice.”
+
+“Avarice?”
+
+“One should never deliberate upon the causes which have led to the
+destruction of a rich man without taking into account that most common
+passion of the human race.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Let us hear what you have to say of Mr. Clavering’s presence in the
+house at the time of the murder.”
+
+I related what Thomas the butler had told me in regard to Mr.
+Clavering’s call upon Miss Leavenworth that night, and the lack of proof
+which existed as to his having left the house when supposed to do so.
+
+“That is worth remembering,” said Mr. Gryce at the conclusion.
+“Valueless as direct evidence, it might prove of great value as
+corroborative.” Then, in a graver tone, he went on to say: “Mr. Raymond,
+are you aware that in all this you have been strengthening the case
+against Eleanore Leavenworth instead of weakening it?”
+
+I could only ejaculate, in my sudden wonder and dismay.
+
+“You have shown her to be secret, sly, and unprincipled; capable of
+wronging those to whom she was most bound, her uncle and her husband.”
+
+“You put it very strongly,” said I, conscious of a shocking discrepancy
+between this description of Eleanore’s character and all that I had
+preconceived in regard to it.
+
+“No more so than your own conclusions from this story warrant me in
+doing.” Then, as I sat silent, murmured low, and as if to himself:
+“If the case was dark against her before, it is doubly so with this
+supposition established of her being the woman secretly married to Mr.
+Clavering.”
+
+“And yet,” I protested, unable to give up my hope without a struggle;
+“you do not, cannot, believe the noble-looking Eleanore guilty of this
+horrible crime?”
+
+“No,” he slowly said; “you might as well know right here what I think
+about that. I believe Eleanore Leavenworth to be an innocent woman.”
+
+“You do? Then what,” I cried, swaying between joy at this admission and
+doubt as to the meaning of his former expressions, “remains to be done?”
+
+Mr. Gryce quietly responded: “Why, nothing but to prove your supposition
+a false one.”
+
+
+
+XXV. TIMOTHY COOK
+
+
+    “Look here upon this picture and on this.”
+         --Hamlet.
+
+I STARED at him in amazement. “I doubt if it will be so very difficult,”
+ said he. Then, in a sudden burst, “Where is the man Cook?”
+
+“He is below with Q.”
+
+“That was a wise move; let us see the boys; have them up.”
+
+Stepping to the door I called them.
+
+“I expected, of course, you would want to question them,” said I, coming
+back.
+
+In another moment the spruce Q and the shock-headed Cook entered the
+room.
+
+“Ah,” said Mr. Gryce, directing his attention at the latter in his own
+whimsical, non-committal way; “this is the deceased Mr. Stebbins’ hired
+man, is it? Well, you look as though you could tell the truth.”
+
+“I usually calculate to do that thing, sir; at all events, I was never
+called a liar as I can remember.”
+
+“Of course not, of course not,” returned the affable detective. Then,
+without any further introduction: “What was the first name of the lady
+you saw married in your master’s house last summer?”
+
+“Bless me if I know! I don’t think I heard, sir.”
+
+“But you recollect how she looked?”
+
+“As well as if she was my own mother. No disrespect to the lady, sir, if
+you know her,” he made haste to add, glancing hurriedly at me. “What I
+mean is, she was so handsome, I could never forget the look of her sweet
+face if I lived a hundred years.”
+
+“Can you describe her?”
+
+“I don’t know, sirs; she was tall and grand-looking, had the brightest
+eyes and the whitest hand, and smiled in a way to make even a common man
+like me wish he had never seen her.”
+
+“Would you know her in a crowd?”
+
+“I would know her anywhere.”
+
+“Very well; now tell us all you can about that marriage.”
+
+“Well, sirs, it was something like this. I had been in Mr. Stebbins’
+employ about a year, when one morning as I was hoeing in the garden
+I saw a gentleman walk rapidly up the road to our gate and come in. I
+noticed him particularly, because he was so fine-looking; unlike anybody
+in F----, and, indeed, unlike anybody I had ever seen, for that matter;
+but I shouldn’t have thought much about that if there hadn’t come along,
+not five minutes after, a buggy with two ladies in it, which stopped at
+our gate, too. I saw they wanted to get out, so I went and held their
+horse for them, and they got down and went into the house.”
+
+“Did you see their faces?”
+
+“No, sir; not then. They had veils on.”
+
+“Very well, go on.”
+
+“I hadn’t been to work long, before I heard some one calling my name,
+and looking up, saw Mr. Stebbins standing in the doorway beckoning. I
+went to him, and he said, ‘I want you, Tim; wash your hands and come
+into the parlor.’ I had never been asked to do that before, and it
+struck me all of a heap; but I did what he asked, and was so taken
+aback at the looks of the lady I saw standing up on the floor with
+the handsome gentleman, that I stumbled over a stool and made a great
+racket, and didn’t know much where I was or what was going on, till I
+heard Mr. Stebbins say ‘man and wife’; and then it came over me in a hot
+kind of way that it was a marriage I was seeing.”
+
+Timothy Cook stopped to wipe his forehead, as if overcome with the very
+recollection, and Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to remark:
+
+“You say there were two ladies; now where was the other one at this
+time?”
+
+“She was there, sir; but I didn’t mind much about her, I was so taken up
+with the handsome one and the way she had of smiling when any one looked
+at her. I never saw the beat.”
+
+I felt a quick thrill go through me.
+
+“Can you remember the color of her hair or eyes?”
+
+“No, sir; I had a feeling as if she wasn’t dark, and that is all I
+know.”
+
+“But you remember her face?”
+
+“Yes, sir!”
+
+Mr. Gryce here whispered me to procure two pictures which I would find
+in a certain drawer in his desk, and set them up in different parts of
+the room unbeknown to the man.
+
+“You have before said,” pursued Mr. Gryce, “that you have no remembrance
+of her name. Now, how was that? Weren’t you called upon to sign the
+certificate?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but I am most ashamed to say it; I was in a sort of maze,
+and didn’t hear much, and only remember it was a Mr. Clavering she was
+married to, and that some one called some one else Elner, or something
+like that. I wish I hadn’t been so stupid, sir, if it would have done
+you any good.”
+
+“Tell us about the signing of the certificate,” said Mr. Gryce.
+
+“Well, sir, there isn’t much to tell. Mr. Stebbins asked me to put my
+name down in a certain place on a piece of paper he pushed towards me,
+and I put it down there; that is all.”
+
+“Was there no other name there when you wrote yours?”
+
+“No, sir. Afterwards Mr. Stebbins turned towards the other lady, who now
+came forward, and asked her if she wouldn’t please sign it, too; and she
+said,’ yes,’ and came very quickly and did so.”
+
+“And didn’t you see her face then?”
+
+“No, sir; her back was to me when she threw by her veil, and I only saw
+Mr. Stebbins staring at her as she stooped, with a kind of wonder on his
+face, which made me think she might have been something worth looking at
+too; but I didn’t see her myself.”
+
+“Well, what happened then?”
+
+“I don’t know, sir. I went stumbling out of the room, and didn’t see
+anything more.”
+
+“Where were you when the ladies went away?”
+
+“In the garden, sir. I had gone back to my work.”
+
+“You saw them, then. Was the gentleman with them?”
+
+“No, sir; that was the queer part of it all. They went back as they
+came, and so did he; and in a few minutes Mr. Stebbins came out where I
+was, and told me I was to say nothing about what I had seen, for it was
+a secret.”
+
+“Were you the only one in the house who knew anything about it? Weren’t
+there any women around?”
+
+“No, sir; Miss Stebbins had gone to the sewing circle.”
+
+I had by this time some faint impression of what Mr. Gryce’s suspicions
+were, and in arranging the pictures had placed one, that of Eleanore, on
+the mantel-piece, and the other, which was an uncommonly fine photograph
+of Mary, in plain view on the desk. But Mr. Cook’s back was as yet
+towards that part of the room, and, taking advantage of the moment,
+I returned and asked him if that was all he had to tell us about this
+matter.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Then,” said Mr. Gryce, with a glance at Q, “isn’t there something you
+can give Mr. Cook in payment for his story? Look around, will you?”
+
+Q nodded, and moved towards a cupboard in the wall at the side of the
+mantel-piece; Mr. Cook following him with his eyes, as was natural,
+when, with a sudden start, he crossed the room and, pausing before the
+mantelpiece, looked at the picture of Eleanore which I had put there,
+gave a low grunt of satisfaction or pleasure, looked at it again, and
+walked away. I felt my heart leap into my throat, and, moved by what
+impulse of dread or hope I cannot say, turned my back, when suddenly I
+heard him give vent to a startled exclamation, followed by the words:
+“Why! here she is; this is her, sirs,” and turning around saw him
+hurrying towards us with Mary’s picture in his hands.
+
+I do not know as I was greatly surprised. I was powerfully excited, as
+well as conscious of a certain whirl of thought, and an unsettling of
+old conclusions that was very confusing; but surprised? No. Mr. Gryce’s
+manner had too well prepared me.
+
+“This the lady who was married to Mr. Clavering, my good man? I guess
+you are mistaken,” cried the detective, in a very incredulous tone.
+
+“Mistaken? Didn’t I say I would know her anywhere? This is the lady, if
+she is the president’s wife herself.” And Mr. Cook leaned over it with a
+devouring look that was not without its element of homage.
+
+“I am very much astonished,” Mr. Gryce went on, winking at me in a slow,
+diabolical way which in another mood would have aroused my fiercest
+anger. “Now, if you had said the other lady was the one”--pointing to
+the picture on the mantelpiece,” I shouldn’t have wondered.”
+
+“She? I never saw that lady before; but this one--would you mind telling
+me her name, sirs?”
+
+“If what you say is true, her name is Mrs. Clavering.”
+
+“Clavering? Yes, that was his name.”
+
+“And a very lovely lady,” said Mr. Gryce. “Morris, haven’t you found
+anything yet?”
+
+Q, for answer, brought forward glasses and a bottle.
+
+But Mr. Cook was in no mood for liquor. I think he was struck with
+remorse; for, looking from the picture to Q, and from Q to the picture,
+he said:
+
+“If I have done this lady wrong by my talk, I’ll never forgive myself.
+You told me I would help her to get her rights; if you have deceived me
+----”
+
+“Oh, I haven’t deceived you,” broke in Q, in his short, sharp way. “Ask
+that gentleman there if we are not all interested in Mrs. Clavering
+getting her due.”
+
+He had designated me; but I was in no mood to reply. I longed to
+have the man dismissed, that I might inquire the reason of the great
+complacency which I now saw overspreading Mr. Gryce’s frame, to his very
+finger-ends.
+
+“Mr. Cook needn’t be concerned,” remarked Mr. Gryce. “If he will take
+a glass of warm drink to fortify him for his walk, I think he may go to
+the lodgings Mr. Morris has provided for him without fear. Give the gent
+a glass, and let him mix for himself.”
+
+But it was full ten minutes before we were delivered of the man and his
+vain regrets. Mary’s image had called up every latent feeling in his
+heart, and I could but wonder over a loveliness capable of swaying the
+low as well as the high. But at last he yielded to the seductions of the
+now wily Q, and departed.
+
+Left alone with Mr. Gryce, I must have allowed some of the confused
+emotions which filled my breast to become apparent on my countenance;
+for after a few minutes of ominous silence, he exclaimed very grimly,
+and yet with a latent touch of that complacency I had before noticed:
+
+“This discovery rather upsets you, doesn’t it? Well, it don’t me,”
+ shutting his mouth like a trap. “I expected it.”
+
+“Your conclusions must differ very materially from mine,” I returned;
+“or you would see that this discovery alters the complexion of the whole
+affair.”
+
+“It does not alter the truth.”
+
+“What is the truth?”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s very legs grew thoughtful; his voice sank to its deepest
+tone. “Do you very much want to know?”
+
+“Want to know the truth? What else are we after?”
+
+“Then,” said he, “to my notion, the complexion of things has altered,
+but very much for the better. As long as Eleanore was believed to be
+the wife, her action in this matter was accounted for; but the tragedy
+itself was not. Why should Eleanore or Eleanore’s husband wish the death
+of a man whose bounty they believed would end with his life? But with
+Mary, the heiress, proved the wife!--I tell you, Mr. Raymond, it all
+hangs together now. You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder
+like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man’s
+death.”
+
+“But Eleanore’s silence? her concealment of certain proofs and evidences
+in her own breast--how will you account for that? I can imagine a woman
+devoting herself to the shielding of a husband from the consequences of
+crime; but a cousin’s husband, never.”
+
+Mr. Gryce put his feet very close together, and softly grunted. “Then
+you still think Mr. Clavering the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?”
+
+I could only stare at him in my sudden doubt and dread. “Still think?” I
+repeated.
+
+“Mr. Clavering the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth?”
+
+“Why, what else is there to think? You don’t--you can’t--suspect
+Eleanore of having deliberately undertaken to help her cousin out of a
+difficulty by taking the life of their mutual benefactor?”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Gryce; “no, I do not think Eleanore Leavenworth had any
+hand in the business.”
+
+“Then who--” I began, and stopped, lost in the dark vista that was
+opening before me.
+
+“Who? Why, who but the one whose past deceit and present necessity
+demanded his death as a relief? Who but the beautiful, money-loving,
+man-deceiving goddess----”
+
+I leaped to my feet in my sudden horror and repugnance. “Do not mention
+the name! You are wrong; but do not speak the name.”
+
+“Excuse me,” said he; “but it will have to be spoken many times, and we
+may as well begin here and now--who then but Mary Leavenworth; or, if
+you like it better, Mrs. Henry Clavering? Are you so much surprised? It
+has been my thought from the beginning.”
+
+
+
+XXVI. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF
+
+
+    “Sits the wind in that corner?”
+         --Much Ado about Nothing.
+
+I DO not propose to enter into a description of the mingled feelings
+aroused in me by this announcement. As a drowning man is said to live
+over in one terrible instant the events of a lifetime, so each word
+uttered in my hearing by Mary, from her first introduction to me in her
+own room, on the morning of the inquest, to our final conversation on
+the night of Mr. Clavering’s call, swept in one wild phantasmagoria
+through my brain, leaving me aghast at the signification which her whole
+conduct seemed to acquire from the lurid light which now fell upon it.
+
+“I perceive that I have pulled down an avalanche of doubts about your
+ears,” exclaimed my companion from the height of his calm superiority.
+“You never thought of this possibility, then, yourself?”
+
+“Do not ask me what I have thought. I only know I will never believe
+your suspicions true. That, however much Mary may have been benefited by
+her uncle’s death, she never had a hand in it; actual hand, I mean.”
+
+“And what makes you so sure of this?”
+
+“And what makes you so sure of the contrary? It is for you to prove, not
+for me to prove her innocence.”
+
+“Ah,” said Mr. Gryce, in his slow, sarcastic way, “you recollect that
+principle of law, do you? If I remember rightly, you have not always
+been so punctilious in regarding it, or wishing to have it regarded,
+when the question was whether Mr. Clavering was the assassin or not.”
+
+“But he is a man. It does not seem so dreadful to accuse a man of a
+crime. But a woman! and such a woman! I cannot listen to it; it is
+horrible. Nothing short of absolute confession on her part will ever
+make me believe Mary Leavenworth, or any other woman, committed this
+deed. It was too cruel, too deliberate, too----”
+
+“Read the criminal records,” broke in Mr. Gryce.
+
+But I was obstinate. “I do not care for the criminal records. All the
+criminal records in the world would never make me believe Eleanore
+perpetrated this crime, nor will I be less generous towards her cousin.
+Mary Leavenworth is a faulty woman, but not a guilty one.”
+
+“You are more lenient in your judgment of her than her cousin was, it
+appears.”
+
+“I do not understand you,” I muttered, feeling a new and yet more
+fearful light breaking upon me.
+
+“What! have you forgotten, in the hurry of these late events, the
+sentence of accusation which we overheard uttered between these ladies
+on the morning of the inquest?”
+
+“No, but----”
+
+“You believed it to have been spoken by Mary to Eleanore?”
+
+“Of course; didn’t you?”
+
+Oh, the smile which crossed Mr. Gryce’s face! “Scarcely. I left that
+baby-play for you. I thought one was enough to follow on that tack.”
+
+The light, the light that was breaking upon me! “And do you mean to say
+it was Eleanore who was speaking at that time? That I have been laboring
+all these weeks under a terrible mistake, and that you could have
+righted me with a word, and did not?”
+
+“Well, as to that, I had a purpose in letting you follow your own lead
+for a while. In the first place, I was not sure myself which spoke;
+though I had but little doubt about the matter. The voices are, as you
+must have noticed, very much alike, while the attitudes in which we
+found them upon entering were such as to be explainable equally by the
+supposition that Mary was in the act of launching a denunciation, or in
+that of repelling one. So that, while I did not hesitate myself as to
+the true explanation of the scene before me, I was pleased to find you
+accept a contrary one; as in this way both theories had a chance of
+being tested; as was right in a case of so much mystery. You accordingly
+took up the affair with one idea for your starting-point, and I with
+another. You saw every fact as it developed through the medium of Mary’s
+belief in Eleanore’s guilt, and I through the opposite. And what has
+been the result? With you, doubt, contradiction, constant unsettlement,
+and unwarranted resorts to strange sources for reconcilement between
+appearances and your own convictions; with me, growing assurance, and
+a belief which each and every development so far has but served to
+strengthen and make more probable.”
+
+Again that wild panorama of events, looks, and words swept before me.
+Mary’s reiterated assertions of her cousin’s innocence, Eleanore’s
+attitude of lofty silence in regard to certain matters which might be
+considered by her as pointing towards the murderer.
+
+“Your theory must be the correct one,” I finally admitted; “it was
+undoubtedly Eleanore who spoke. She believes in Mary’s guilt, and I have
+been blind, indeed, not to have seen it from the first.”
+
+“If Eleanore Leavenworth believes in her cousin’s criminality, she must
+have some good reasons for doing so.”
+
+I was obliged to admit that too. “She did not conceal in her bosom that
+telltale key,--found who knows where?--and destroy, or seek to destroy,
+it and the letter which introduced her cousin to the public as the
+unprincipled destroyer of a trusting man’s peace, for nothing.”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“And yet you, a stranger, a young man who have never seen Mary
+Leavenworth in any other light than that in which her coquettish nature
+sought to display itself, presume to say she is innocent, in the face of
+the attitude maintained from the first by her cousin!”
+
+“But,” said I, in my great unwillingness to accept his conclusions,
+“Eleanore Leavenworth is but mortal. She may have been mistaken in her
+inferences. She has never stated what her suspicion was founded upon;
+nor can we know what basis she has for maintaining the attitude you
+speak of. Clavering is as likely as Mary to be the assassin, for all we
+know, and possibly for all she knows.”
+
+“You seem to be almost superstitious in your belief in Clavering’s
+guilt.”
+
+I recoiled. Was I? Could it be that Mr. Harwell’s fanciful conviction in
+regard to this man had in any way influenced me to the detriment of my
+better judgment?
+
+“And you may be right,” Mr. Gryce went on. “I do not pretend to be set
+in my notions. Future investigation may succeed in fixing something upon
+him; though I hardly think it likely. His behavior as the secret husband
+of a woman possessing motives for the commission of a crime has been too
+consistent throughout.”
+
+“All except his leaving her.”
+
+“No exception at all; for he hasn’t left her.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that, instead of leaving the country, Mr. Clavering has only
+made pretence of doing so. That, in place of dragging himself off to
+Europe at her command, he has only changed his lodgings, and can now be
+found, not only in a house opposite to hers, but in the window of that
+house, where he sits day after day watching who goes in and out of her
+front door.”
+
+I remembered his parting injunction to me, in that memorable interview
+we had in my office, and saw myself compelled to put a new construction
+upon it.
+
+“But I was assured at the Hoffman House that he had sailed for Europe,
+and myself saw the man who professes to have driven him to the steamer.”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“And Mr. Clavering returned to the city after that?”
+
+“In another carriage, and to another house.”
+
+“And you tell me that man is all right?”
+
+“No; I only say there isn’t the shadow of evidence against him as the
+person who shot Mr. Leavenworth.”
+
+Rising, I paced the floor, and for a few minutes silence fell between
+us. But the clock, striking, recalled me to the necessity of the hour,
+and, turning, I asked Mr. Gryce what he proposed to do now.
+
+“There is but one thing I can do,” said he.
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“To go upon such lights as I have, and cause the arrest of Miss
+Leavenworth.”
+
+I had by this time schooled myself to endurance, and was able to hear
+this without uttering an exclamation. But I could not let it pass
+without making one effort to combat his determination.
+
+“But,” said I, “I do not see what evidence you have, positive enough in
+its character, to warrant extreme measures. You have yourself intimated
+that the existence of motive is not enough, even though taken with
+the fact of the suspected party being in the house at the time of the
+murder; and what more have you to urge against Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+“Pardon me. I said ‘Miss Leavenworth’; I should have said ‘Eleanore
+Leavenworth.’”
+
+“Eleanore? What! when you and all unite in thinking that she alone of
+all these parties to the crime is utterly guiltless of wrong?”
+
+“And yet who is the only one against whom positive testimony of any kind
+can be brought.”
+
+I could but acknowledge that.
+
+“Mr. Raymond,” he remarked very gravely; “the public is becoming
+clamorous; something must be done to satisfy it, if only for the moment.
+Eleanore has laid herself open to the suspicion of the police, and
+must take the consequences of her action. I am sorry; she is a noble
+creature; I admire her; but justice is justice, and though I think her
+innocent, I shall be forced to put her under arrest unless----”
+
+“But I cannot be reconciled to it. It is doing an irretrievable injury
+to one whose only fault is an undue and mistaken devotion to an unworthy
+cousin. If Mary is the----.”
+
+“Unless something occurs between now and tomorrow morning,” Mr. Gryce
+went on, as if I had not spoken.
+
+“To-morrow morning?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I tried to realize it; tried to face the fact that all my efforts had
+been for nothing, and failed.
+
+“Will you not grant me one more day?” I asked in my desperation.
+
+“What to do?”
+
+Alas, I did not know. “To confront Mr. Clavering, and force from him the
+truth.”
+
+“To make a mess of the whole affair!” he growled. “No, sir; the die is
+cast. Eleanore Leavenworth knows the one point which fixes this
+crime upon her cousin, and she must tell us that point or suffer the
+consequences of her refusal.”
+
+I made one more effort.
+
+“But why to-morrow? Having exhausted so much time already in our
+inquiries, why not take a little more; especially as the trail is
+constantly growing warmer? A little more moleing----”
+
+“A little more folderol!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, losing his temper. “No,
+sir; the hour for moleing has passed; something decisive has got to be
+done now; though, to be sure, if I could find the one missing link I
+want----”
+
+“Missing link? What is that?”
+
+“The immediate motive of the tragedy; a bit of proof that Mr.
+Leavenworth threatened his niece with his displeasure, or Mr. Clavering
+with his revenge, would place me on the vantage-point at once; no
+arresting of Eleanore then! No, my lady! I would walk right into your
+own gilded parlors, and when you asked me if I had found the murderer
+yet, say ‘yes,’ and show you a bit of paper which would surprise you!
+But missing links are not so easily found. This has been moled for, and
+moled for, as you are pleased to call our system of investigation, and
+totally without result. Nothing but the confession of some one of these
+several parties to the crime will give us what we want. I will tell you
+what I will do,” he suddenly cried. “Miss Leavenworth has desired me to
+report to her; she is very anxious for the detection of the murderer,
+you know, and offers an immense reward. Well, I will gratify this desire
+of hers. The suspicions I have, together with my reasons for them, will
+make an interesting disclosure. I should not greatly wonder if they
+produced an equally interesting confession.”
+
+I could only jump to my feet in my horror.
+
+“At all events, I propose to try it. Eleanore is worth that much risk
+any way.”
+
+“It will do no good,” said I. “If Mary is guilty, she will never confess
+it. If not----”
+
+“She will tell us who is.”
+
+“Not if it is Clavering, her husband.”
+
+“Yes; even if it is Clavering, her husband. She has not the devotion of
+Eleanore.”
+
+That I could but acknowledge. She would hide no keys for the sake of
+shielding another: no, if Mary were accused, she would speak. The future
+opening before us looked sombre enough. And yet when, in a short time
+from that, I found myself alone in a busy street, the thought that
+Eleanore was free rose above all others, filling and moving me till my
+walk home in the rain that day has become a marked memory of my life.
+It was only with nightfall that I began to realize the truly critical
+position in which Mary stood if Mr. Gryce’s theory was correct. But,
+once seized with this thought, nothing could drive it from my mind.
+Shrink as I would, it was ever before me, haunting me with the direst
+forebodings. Nor, though I retired early, could I succeed in getting
+either sleep or rest. All night I tossed on my pillow, saying over to
+myself with dreary iteration: “Something must happen, something will
+happen, to prevent Mr. Gryce doing this dreadful thing.” Then I would
+start up and ask what could happen; and my mind would run over various
+contingencies, such as,--Mr. Clavering might confess; Hannah might come
+back; Mary herself wake up to her position and speak the word I had more
+than once seen trembling on her lips. But further thought showed me how
+unlikely any of these things were to happen, and it was with a brain
+utterly exhausted that I fell asleep in the early dawn, to dream I saw
+Mary standing above Mr. Gryce with a pistol in her hand. I was awakened
+from this pleasing vision by a heavy knock at the door. Hastily rising,
+I asked who was there. The answer came in the shape of an envelope
+thrust under the door. Raising it, I found it to be a note. It was from
+Mr. Gryce, and ran thus:
+
+“Come at once; Hannah Chester is found.”
+
+“Hannah found?”
+
+“So we have reason to think.”
+
+“When? where? by whom?”
+
+“Sit down, and I will tell you.”
+
+Drawing up a chair in a flurry of hope and fear, I sat down by Mr.
+Gryce’s side.
+
+“She is not in the cupboard,” that person dryly assured me, noting
+without doubt how my eyes went travelling about the room in my anxiety
+and impatience. “We are not absolutely sure that she is anywhere. But
+word has come to us that a girl’s face believed to be Hannah’s has been
+seen at the upper window of a certain house in--don’t start--R----,
+where a year ago she was in the habit of visiting while at the hotel
+with the Misses Leavenworth. Now, as it has already been determined that
+she left New York the night of the murder, by the ------ ----Railroad,
+though for what point we have been unable to ascertain, we consider the
+matter worth inquiring into.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“If she is there,” resumed Mr. Gryce, “she is secreted; kept very
+close. No one except the informant has ever seen her, nor is there any
+suspicion among the neighbors of her being in town.”
+
+“Hannah secreted at a certain house in R----? Whose house?”
+
+Mr. Gryce honored me with one of his grimmest smiles. “The name of
+the lady she’s with is given in the communication as Belden; Mrs. Amy
+Belden.”
+
+“Amy Belden! the name found written on a torn envelope by Mr.
+Clavering’s servant girl in London?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I made no attempt to conceal my satisfaction. “Then we are upon the
+verge of some discovery; Providence has interfered, and Eleanore will be
+saved! But when did you get this word?”
+
+“Last night, or rather this morning; Q brought it.”
+
+“It was a message, then, to Q?”
+
+“Yes, the result of his moleings while in R----, I suppose.”
+
+“Whom was it signed by?”
+
+“A respectable tinsmith who lives next door to Mrs. B.”
+
+“And is this the first you knew of an Amy Belden living in R----?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Widow or wife?”
+
+“Don’t know; don’t know anything about her but her name.”
+
+“But you have already sent Q to make inquiries?”
+
+“No; the affair is a little too serious for him to manage alone. He is
+not equal to great occasions, and might fail just for the lack of a keen
+mind to direct him.”
+
+“In short----”
+
+“I wish you to go. Since I cannot be there myself, I know of no one else
+sufficiently up in the affair to conduct it to a successful issue.
+You see, it is not enough to find and identify the girl. The present
+condition of things demands that the arrest of so important a witness
+should be kept secret. Now, for a man to walk into a strange house in a
+distant village, find a girl who is secreted there, frighten her,
+cajole her, force her, as the case may be, from her hiding-place to a
+detective’s office in New York, and all without the knowledge of the
+next-door neighbor, if possible, requires judgment, brains, genius. Then
+the woman who conceals her! She must have her reasons for doing so; and
+they must be known. Altogether, the affair is a delicate one. Do you
+think you can manage it?”
+
+“I should at least like to try.”
+
+Mr. Gryce settled himself on the sofa. “To think what pleasure I am
+losing on your account!” he grumbled, gazing reproachfully at his
+helpless limbs. “But to business. How soon can you start?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Good! a train leaves the depot at 12.15. Take that. Once in R----,
+it will be for you to decide upon the means of making Mrs. Belden’s
+acquaintance without arousing her suspicions. Q, who will follow you,
+will hold himself in readiness to render you any assistance you may
+require. Only this thing is to be understood: as he will doubtless go in
+disguise, you are not to recognize him, much less interfere with him
+and his plans, till he gives you leave to do so, by some preconcerted
+signal. You are to work in your way, and he in his, till circumstances
+seem to call for mutual support and countenance. I cannot even say
+whether you will see him or not; he may find it necessary to keep out of
+the way; but you may be sure of one thing, that he will know where
+you are, and that the display of, well, let us say a red silk
+handkerchief--have you such a thing?”
+
+“I will get one.”
+
+“Will be regarded by him as a sign that you desire his presence or
+assistance, whether it be shown about your person or at the window of
+your room.”
+
+“And these are all the instructions you can give me?” I said, as he
+paused.
+
+“Yes, I don’t know of anything else. You must depend largely upon your
+own discretion, and the exigencies of the moment. I cannot tell you now
+what to do. Your own wit will be the best guide. Only, if possible, let
+me either hear from you or see you by to-morrow at this time.”
+
+And he handed me a cipher in case I should wish to telegraph.
+
+
+
+BOOK III. HANNAH
+
+
+
+XXVII. AMY BELDEN
+
+
+    “A merrier man
+    Within the limits of becoming mirth,
+    I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
+         --Love’s Labour’s Last.
+
+I HAD a client in R---- by the name of Monell; and it was from him I
+had planned to learn the best way of approaching Mrs. Belden. When,
+therefore, I was so fortunate as to meet him, almost on my arrival,
+driving on the long road behind his famous trotter Alfred, I regarded
+the encounter as a most auspicious beginning of a very doubtful
+enterprise.
+
+“Well, and how goes the day?” was his exclamation as, the first
+greetings passed, we drove rapidly into town.
+
+“Your part in it goes pretty smoothly,” I returned; and thinking I could
+never hope to win his attention to my own affairs till I had satisfied
+him in regard to his, I told him all I could concerning the law-suit
+then pending; a subject so prolific of question and answer, that we
+had driven twice round the town before he remembered he had a letter to
+post. As it was an important one, admitting of no delay, we hasted at
+once to the post-office, where he went in, leaving me outside to watch
+the rather meagre stream of goers and comers who at that time of day
+make the post-office of a country town their place of rendezvous. Among
+these, for some reason, I especially noted one middle-aged woman; why, I
+cannot say; her appearance was anything but remarkable. And yet when
+she came out, with two letters in her hand, one in a large and one in a
+small envelope, and meeting my eye hastily drew them under her shawl,
+I found myself wondering what was in her letters and who she could be,
+that the casual glance of a stranger should unconsciously move her to an
+action so suspicious. But Mr. Monell’s reappearance at the same moment,
+diverted my attention, and in the interest of the conversation that
+followed, I soon forgot both the woman and her letters. For determined
+that he should have no opportunity to revert to that endless topic, a
+law case, I exclaimed with the first crack of the whip,--“There, I knew
+there was something I wanted to ask you. It is this: Are you acquainted
+with any one is this town by the name of Belden?”
+
+“There is a widow Belden in town; I don’t know of any other.”
+
+“Is her first name Amy?”
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Amy Belden.”
+
+“That is the one,” said I. “Who is she, what is she, and what is the
+extent of your acquaintance with her?”
+
+“Well,” said he, “ I cannot conceive why you should be interested in
+such an antiquated piece of commonplace goodness as she is, but seeing
+you ask, I have no objection to telling you that she is the very
+respectable relict of a deceased cabinetmaker of this town; that she
+lives in a little house down the street there, and that if you have any
+forlorn old tramp to be lodged over night, or any destitute family of
+little ones to be looked after, she is the one to go to. As to knowing
+her, I know her as I do a dozen other members of our church there up
+over the hill. When I see her I speak to her, and that is all.”
+
+“A respectable widow, you say. Any family?”
+
+“No; lives alone, has a little income, I believe; must have, to put the
+money on the plate she always does; but spends her time in plain sewing
+and such deeds of charity, as one with small means but willing heart can
+find the opportunity of doing in a town like this. But why in the name
+of wonders do you ask?”
+
+“Business,” said I, “business. Mrs. Belden--don’t mention it by the
+way--has got mixed up in a case of mine, and I felt it due to my
+curiosity if not to my purse, to find out something about her. And I am
+not satisfied yet. The fact is I would give something, Monell, for the
+opportunity of studying this woman’s character. Now couldn’t you manage
+to get me introduced into her house in some way that would make it
+possible and proper for me to converse with her at my leisure? Business
+would thank you if you could.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know; I suppose it could be done. She used to take
+lodgers in the summer when the hotel was full, and might be induced
+to give a bed to a friend of mine who is very anxious to be near the
+post-office on account of a business telegram he is expecting, and which
+when it comes will demand his immediate attention.” And Mr. Monell gave
+me a sly wink of his eye, little imagining how near the mark he had
+struck.
+
+“You need not say that. Tell her I have a peculiar dislike to sleeping
+in a public house, and that you know of no one better fitted to
+accommodate me, for the short time I desire to be in town, than
+herself.”
+
+“And what will be said of my hospitality in allowing you under these
+circumstances to remain in any other house than my own?”
+
+“I don’t know; very hard things, no doubt; but I guess your hospitality
+can stand it.”
+
+“Well, if you persist, we will see what can be done.” And driving up to
+a neat white cottage of homely, but sufficiently attractive appearance,
+he stopped.
+
+“This is her house,” said he, jumping to the ground; “let’s go in and
+see what we can do.”
+
+Glancing up at the windows, which were all closed save the two on the
+veranda overlooking the street, I thought to myself, “If she has anybody
+in hiding here, whose presence in the house she desires to keep secret,
+it is folly to hope she will take me in, however well recommended I may
+come.” But, yielding to the example of my friend, I alighted in my turn
+and followed him up the short, grass-bordered walk to the front door.
+
+“As she has no servant, she will come to the door herself, so be ready,”
+ he remarked as he knocked.
+
+I had barely time to observe that the curtains to the window at my left
+suddenly dropped, when a hasty step made itself heard within, and a
+quick hand drew open the door; and I saw before me the woman whom I
+had observed at the post-office, and whose action with the letters had
+struck me as peculiar. I recognized her at first glance, though she
+was differently dressed, and had evidently passed through some worry or
+excitement that had altered the expression of her countenance, and
+made her manner what it was not at that time, strained and a trifle
+uncertain. But I saw no reason for thinking she remembered me. On the
+contrary, the look she directed towards me had nothing but inquiry in
+it, and when Mr. Monell pushed me forward with the remark, “A friend
+of mine; in fact my lawyer from New York,” she dropped a hurried
+old-fashioned curtsey whose only expression was a manifest desire to
+appear sensible of the honor conferred upon her, through the mist of a
+certain trouble that confused everything about her.
+
+“We have come to ask a favor, Mrs. Belden; but may we not come in? “said
+my client in a round, hearty voice well calculated to recall a person’s
+thoughts into their proper channel. “I have heard many times of your
+cosy home, and am glad of this opportunity of seeing it.” And with a
+blind disregard to the look of surprised resistance with which she met
+his advance, he stepped gallantly into the little room whose cheery
+red carpet and bright picture-hung walls showed invitingly through the
+half-open door at our left.
+
+Finding her premises thus invaded by a sort of French _coup d’etat,_
+Mrs. Belden made the best of the situation, and pressing me to enter
+also, devoted herself to hospitality. As for Mr. Monell, he quite
+blossomed out in his endeavors to make himself agreeable; so much so,
+that I shortly found myself laughing at his sallies, though my heart was
+full of anxiety lest, after all, our efforts should fail of the success
+they certainly merited. Meanwhile, Mrs. Belden softened more and more,
+joining in the conversation with an ease hardly to be expected from one
+in her humble circumstances. Indeed, I soon saw she was no common woman.
+There was a refinement in her speech and manner, which, combined with
+her motherly presence and gentle air, was very pleasing. The last woman
+in the world to suspect of any underhanded proceeding, if she had not
+shown a peculiar hesitation when Mr. Monell broached the subject of my
+entertainment there.
+
+“I don’t know, sir; I would be glad, but,” and she turned a very
+scrutinizing look upon me, “the fact is, I have not taken lodgers of
+late, and I have got out of the way of the whole thing, and am afraid I
+cannot make him comfortable. In short, you will have to excuse me.”
+
+“But we can’t,” returned Mr. Monell. “What, entice a fellow into a room
+like this”--and he cast a hearty admiring glance round the apartment
+which, for all its simplicity, both its warm coloring and general air of
+cosiness amply merited, “and then turn a cold shoulder upon him when he
+humbly entreats the honor of staying a single night in the enjoyment
+of its attractions? No, no, Mrs. Belden; I know you too well for that.
+Lazarus himself couldn’t come to your door and be turned away; much less
+a good-hearted, clever-headed young gentleman like my friend here.”
+
+“You are very good,” she began, an almost weak love of praise showing
+itself for a moment in her eyes; “but I have no room prepared. I have
+been house-cleaning, and everything is topsy-turvy Mrs. Wright, now,
+over the way----”
+
+“My young friend is going to stop here,” Mr. Mouell broke in, with frank
+positiveness. “If I cannot have him at my own house,--and for certain
+reasons it is not advisable,--I shall at least have the satisfaction of
+knowing he is in the charge of the best housekeeper in R----.”
+
+“Yes,” I put in, but without too great a show of interest; “I should be
+sorry, once introduced here, to be obliged to go elsewhere.”
+
+The troubled eye wavered away from us to the door.
+
+“I was never called inhospitable,” she commenced; “but everything in
+such disorder. What time would you like to come?”
+
+“I was in hopes I might remain now,” I replied; “I have some letters
+to write, and ask nothing better than for leave to sit here and write
+them.”
+
+At the word letters I saw her hand go to her pocket in a movement which
+must have been involuntary, for her countenance did not change, and she
+made the quick reply:
+
+“Well, you may. If you can put up with such poor accommodations as I can
+offer, it shall not be said I refused you what Mr. Monell is pleased to
+call a favor.”
+
+And, complete in her reception as she had been in her resistance, she
+gave us a pleasant smile, and, ignoring my thanks, bustled out with Mr.
+Monell to the buggy, where she received my bag and what was, doubtless,
+more to her taste, the compliments he was now more than ever ready to
+bestow upon her.
+
+“I will see that a room is got ready for you in a very short space of
+time,” she said, upon re-entering. “Meanwhile, make yourself at home
+here; and if you wish to write, why I think you will find everything for
+the purpose in these drawers.” And wheeling up a table to the easy chair
+in which I sat, she pointed to the small compartments beneath, with
+an air of such manifest desire to have me make use of anything and
+everything she had, that I found myself wondering over my position with
+a sort of startled embarrassment that was not remote from shame.
+
+“Thank you; I have materials of my own,” said I, and hastened to open my
+bag and bring out the writing-case, which I always carried with me.
+
+“Then I will leave you,” said she; and with a quick bend and a short,
+hurried look out of the window, she hastily quitted the room.
+
+I could hear her steps cross the hall, go up two or three stairs, pause,
+go up the rest of the flight, pause again, and then pass on. I was left
+on the first floor alone.
+
+
+
+XXVIII. A WEIRD EXPERIENCE
+
+
+    “Flat burglary as ever was committed.”
+         --Much Ado about Nothing.
+
+THE first thing I did was to inspect with greater care the room in which
+I sat.
+
+It was a pleasant apartment, as I have already said; square, sunny, and
+well furnished. On the floor was a crimson carpet, on the walls several
+pictures, at the windows, cheerful curtains of white, tastefully
+ornamented with ferns and autumn leaves; in one corner an old melodeon,
+and in the centre of the room a table draped with a bright cloth, on
+which were various little knick-knacks which, without being rich or
+expensive, were both pretty and, to a certain extent, ornamental. But
+it was not these things, which I had seen repeated in many other country
+homes, that especially attracted my attention, or drew me forward in the
+slow march which I now undertook around the room. It was the something
+underlying all these, the evidences which I found, or sought to find,
+not only in the general aspect of the room, but in each trivial object
+I encountered, of the character, disposition, and history of the woman
+with whom I now had to deal. It was for this reason I studied the
+daguerreotypes on the mantel-piece, the books on the shelf, and the
+music on the rack; for this and the still further purpose of noting if
+any indications were to be found of there being in the house any such
+person as Hannah.
+
+First then, for the little library, which I was pleased to see occupied
+one corner of the room. Composed of a few well-chosen books, poetical,
+historical, and narrative, it was of itself sufficient to account
+for the evidences of latent culture observable in Mrs. Belden’s
+conversation. Taking out a well-worn copy of _Byron,_ I opened it. There
+were many passages marked, and replacing the book with a mental comment
+upon her evident impressibility to the softer emotions, I turned towards
+the melodeon fronting me from the opposite wall. It was closed, but on
+its neatly-covered top lay one or two hymn-books, a basket of russet
+apples, and a piece of half-completed knitting work.
+
+I took up the latter, but was forced to lay it down again without a
+notion for what it was intended. Proceeding, I next stopped before
+a window opening upon the small yard that ran about the house, and
+separated it from the one adjoining. The scene without failed to attract
+me, but the window itself drew my attention, for, written with a diamond
+point on one of the panes, I perceived a row of letters which, as
+nearly as I could make out, were meant for some word or words, but which
+utterly failed in sense or apparent connection. Passing it by as the
+work of some school-girl, I glanced down at the work-basket standing on
+a table at my side. It was full of various kinds of work, among which I
+spied a pair of stockings, which were much too small, as well as in too
+great a state of disrepair, to belong to Mrs. Belden; and drawing them
+carefully out, I examined them for any name on them. Do not start when I
+say I saw the letter H plainly marked upon them. Thrusting them back,
+I drew a deep breath of relief, gazing, as I did so, out of the window,
+when those letters again attracted my attention.
+
+What could they mean? Idly I began to read them backward, when--But try
+for yourself, reader, and judge of my surprise! Elate at the discovery
+thus made, I sat down to write my letters. I had barely finished them,
+when Mrs. Belden came in with the announcement that supper was ready.
+“As for your room,” said she, “I have prepared my own room for your use,
+thinking you would like to remain on the first floor.” And, throwing
+open a door at my side, she displayed a small, but comfortable room,
+in which I could dimly see a bed, an immense bureau, and a shadowy
+looking-glass in a dark, old-fashioned frame.
+
+“I live in very primitive fashion,” she resumed, leading the way into
+the dining-room; “but I mean to be comfortable and make others so.”
+
+“I should say you amply succeeded,” I rejoined, with an appreciative
+glance at her well-spread board.
+
+She smiled, and I felt I had paved the way to her good graces in a way
+that would yet redound to my advantage.
+
+Shall I ever forget that supper! its dainties, its pleasant freedom, its
+mysterious, pervading atmosphere of unreality, and the constant sense
+which every bountiful dish she pressed upon me brought of the shame of
+eating this woman’s food with such feelings of suspicion in my heart!
+Shall I ever forget the emotion I experienced when I first perceived
+she had something on her mind, which she longed, yet hesitated, to give
+utterance to! Or how she started when a cat jumped from the sloping roof
+of the kitchen on to the grass-plot at the back of the house; or how my
+heart throbbed when I heard, or thought I heard, a board creak overhead!
+We were in a long and narrow room which seemed, curiously enough, to run
+crosswise of the house, opening on one side into the parlor, and on the
+other into the small bedroom, which had been allotted to my use.
+
+“You live in this house alone, without fear?” I asked, as Mrs. Belden,
+contrary to my desire, put another bit of cold chicken on my plate.
+“Have you no marauders in this town: no tramps, of whom a solitary woman
+like you might reasonably be afraid?”
+
+“No one will hurt me,” said she; “and no one ever came here for food or
+shelter but got it.”
+
+“I should think, then, that living as you do, upon a railroad, you would
+be constantly overrun with worthless beings whose only trade is to take
+all they can get without giving a return.”
+
+“I cannot turn them away. It is the only luxury I have: to feed the
+poor.”
+
+“But the idle, restless ones, who neither will work, nor let others
+work----”
+
+“Are still the poor.”
+
+Mentally remarking, here is the woman to shield an unfortunate who has
+somehow become entangled in the meshes of a great crime, I drew back
+from the table. As I did so, the thought crossed me that, in case
+there was any such person in the house as Hannah, she would take the
+opportunity of going up-stairs with something for her to eat; and that
+she might not feel hampered by my presence, I stepped out on the veranda
+with my cigar.
+
+While smoking it, I looked about for Q. I felt that the least token
+of his presence in town would be very encouraging at this time. But it
+seemed I was not to be afforded even that small satisfaction. If Q was
+anywhere near, he was lying very low.
+
+Once again seated with Mrs. Belden (who I know came down-stairs with an
+empty plate, for going into the kitchen for a drink, I caught her in
+the act of setting it down on the table), I made up my mind to wait a
+reasonable length of time for what she had to say; and then, if she did
+not speak, make an endeavor on my own part to surprise her secret.
+
+But her avowal was nearer and of a different nature from what I
+expected, and brought its own train of consequences with it.
+
+“You are a lawyer, I believe,” she began, taking down her knitting work,
+with a forced display of industry.
+
+“Yes,” I said; “that is my profession.”
+
+She remained for a moment silent, creating great havoc in her work I am
+sure, from the glance of surprise and vexation she afterwards threw it.
+Then, in a hesitating voice, remarked:
+
+“Perhaps you may be willing, then, to give me some advice. The truth is,
+I am in a very curious predicament; one from which I don’t know how to
+escape, and yet which demands immediate action. I should like to tell
+you about it; may I?”
+
+“You may; I shall be only too happy to give you any advice in my power.”
+
+She drew in her breath with a sort of vague relief, though her forehead
+did not lose its frown.
+
+“It can all be said in a few words. I have in my possession a package of
+papers which were intrusted to me by two ladies, with the understanding
+that I should neither return nor destroy them without the full
+cognizance and expressed desire of both parties, given in person or
+writing. That they were to remain in my hands till then, and that
+nothing or nobody should extort them from me.”
+
+“That is easily understood,” said I; for she stopped.
+
+“But, now comes word from one of the ladies, the one, too, most
+interested in the matter, that, for certain reasons, the immediate
+destruction of those papers is necessary to her peace and safety.”
+
+“And do you want to know what your duty is in this case?”
+
+“Yes,” she tremulously replied.
+
+I rose. I could not help it: a flood of conjectures rushing in tumult
+over me.
+
+“It is to hold on to the papers like grim death till released from your
+guardianship by the combined wish of both parties.”
+
+“Is that your opinion as a lawyer?”
+
+“Yes, and as a man. Once pledged in that way, you have no choice. It
+would be a betrayal of trust to yield to the solicitations of one party
+what you have undertaken to return to both. The fact that grief or loss
+might follow your retention of these papers does not release you from
+your bond. You have nothing to do with that; besides, you are by no
+means sure that the representations of the so-called interested party
+are true. You might be doing a greater wrong, by destroying in this way,
+what is manifestly considered of value to them both, than by preserving
+the papers intact, according to compact.”
+
+“But the circumstances? Circumstances alter cases; and in short, it
+seems to me that the wishes of the one most interested ought to be
+regarded, especially as there is an estrangement between these ladies
+which may hinder the other’s consent from ever being obtained.”
+
+“No,” said I; “two wrongs never make a right; nor are we at liberty to
+do an act of justice at the expense of an injustice. The papers must be
+preserved, Mrs. Belden.”
+
+Her head sank very despondingly; evidently it had been her wish to
+please the interested party. “Law is very hard,” she said; “very hard.”
+
+“This is not only law, but plain duty,” I remarked. “Suppose a case
+different; suppose the honor and happiness of the other party depended
+upon the preservation of the papers; where would your duty be then?”
+
+“But----”
+
+“A contract is a contract,” said I, “and cannot be tampered with. Having
+accepted the trust and given your word, you are obliged to fulfil, to
+the letter, all its conditions. It would be a breach of trust for you to
+return or destroy the papers without the mutual consent necessary.”
+
+An expression of great gloom settled slowly over her features. “I
+suppose you are right,” said she, and became silent.
+
+Watching her, I thought to myself, “If I were Mr. Gryce, or even Q, I
+would never leave this seat till I had probed this matter to the bottom,
+learned the names of the parties concerned, and where those precious
+papers are hidden, which she declares to be of so much importance.” But
+being neither, I could only keep her talking upon the subject until
+she should let fall some word that might serve as a guide to my further
+enlightenment; I therefore turned, with the intention of asking her
+some question, when my attention was attracted by the figure of a woman
+coming out of the back-door of the neighboring house, who, for general
+dilapidation and uncouthness of bearing, was a perfect type of the style
+of tramp of whom we had been talking at the supper table. Gnawing a
+crust which she threw away as she reached the street, she trudged down
+the path, her scanty dress, piteous in its rags and soil, flapping in
+the keen spring wind, and revealing ragged shoes red with the mud of the
+highway.
+
+“There is a customer that may interest you,” said I.
+
+Mrs. Belden seemed to awake from a trance. Rising slowly, she looked
+out, and with a rapidly softening gaze surveyed the forlorn creature
+before her.
+
+“Poor thing!” she muttered; “but I cannot do much for her to-night. A
+good supper is all I can give her.”
+
+And, going to the front door, she bade her step round the house to the
+kitchen, where, in another moment, I heard the rough creature’s voice
+rise in one long “Bless you!” that could only have been produced by the
+setting before her of the good things with which Mrs. Belden’s larder
+seemed teeming.
+
+But supper was not all she wanted. After a decent length of time,
+employed as I should judge in mastication, I heard her voice rise once
+more in a plea for shelter.
+
+“The barn, ma’am, or the wood-house. Any place where I can lie out of
+the wind.” And she commenced a long tale of want and disease, so piteous
+to hear that I was not at all surprised when Mrs. Belden told me,
+upon re-entering, that she had consented, notwithstanding her previous
+determination, to allow the woman to lie before the kitchen fire for the
+night.
+
+“She has such an honest eye,” said she; “and charity is my only luxury.”
+
+The interruption of this incident effectually broke up our conversation.
+Mrs. Belden went up-stairs, and for some time I was left alone to ponder
+over what I had heard, and determine upon my future course of action. I
+had just reached the conclusion that she would be fully as liable to
+be carried away by her feelings to the destruction of the papers in her
+charge, as to be governed by the rules of equity I had laid down to her,
+when I heard her stealthily descend the stairs and go out by the front
+door. Distrustful of her intentions, I took up my hat and hastily
+followed her. She was on her way down the main street, and my first
+thought was, that she was bound for some neighbor’s house or perhaps for
+the hotel itself; but the settled swing into which she soon altered her
+restless pace satisfied me that she had some distant goal in prospect;
+and before long I found myself passing the hotel with its appurtenances,
+even the little schoolhouse, that was the last building at this end of
+the village, and stepping out into the country beyond. What could it
+mean?
+
+But still her fluttering figure hasted on, the outlines of her form,
+with its close shawl and neat bonnet, growing fainter and fainter in the
+now settled darkness of an April night; and still I followed, walking on
+the turf at the side of the road lest she should hear my footsteps and
+look round. At last we reached a bridge. Over this I could hear her
+pass, and then every sound ceased. She had paused, and was evidently
+listening. It would not do for me to pause too, so gathering myself into
+as awkward a shape as possible, I sauntered by her down the road, but
+arrived at a certain point, stopped, and began retracing my steps with a
+sharp lookout for her advancing figure, till I had arrived once more at
+the bridge. She was not there.
+
+Convinced now that she had discovered my motive for being in her house
+and, by leading me from it, had undertaken to supply Hannah with an
+opportunity for escape, I was about to hasten back to the charge I had
+so incautiously left, when a strange sound heard at my left arrested me.
+It came from the banks of the puny stream which ran under the bridge,
+and was like the creaking of an old door on worn-out hinges.
+
+Leaping the fence, I made my way as best I could down the sloping field
+in the direction from which the sound came. It was quite dark, and my
+progress was slow; so much so, that I began to fear I had ventured upon
+a wild-goose chase, when an unexpected streak of lightning shot across
+the sky, and by its glare I saw before me what seemed, in the momentary
+glimpse I had of it, an old barn. From the rush of waters near at hand,
+I judged it to be somewhere on the edge of the stream, and consequently
+hesitated to advance, when I heard the sound of heavy breathing near me,
+followed by a stir as of some one feeling his way over a pile of loose
+boards; and presently, while I stood there, a faint blue light flashed
+up from the interior of the barn, and I saw, through the tumbled-down
+door that faced me, the form of Mrs. Belden standing with a lighted
+match in her hand, gazing round on the four walls that encompassed her.
+Hardly daring to breathe, lest I should alarm her, I watched her while
+she turned and peered at the roof above her, which was so old as to be
+more than half open to the sky, at the flooring beneath, which was in
+a state of equal dilapidation, and finally at a small tin box which she
+drew from under her shawl and laid on the ground at her feet. The sight
+of that box at once satisfied me as to the nature of her errand. She was
+going to hide what she dared not destroy; and, relieved upon this point,
+I was about to take a step forward when the match went out in her hand.
+While she was engaged in lighting another, I considered that perhaps it
+would be better for me not to arouse her apprehensions by accosting her
+at this time, and thus endanger the success of my main scheme; but
+to wait till she was gone, before I endeavored to secure the box.
+Accordingly I edged my way up to the side of the barn and waited till
+she should leave it, knowing that if I attempted to peer in at the
+door, I ran great risk of being seen, owing to the frequent streaks of
+lightning which now flashed about us on every side. Minute after minute
+went by, with its weird alternations of heavy darkness and sudden
+glare; and still she did not come. At last, just as I was about to start
+impatiently from my hiding-place, she reappeared, and began to withdraw
+with faltering steps toward the bridge. When I thought her quite out of
+hearing, I stole from my retreat and entered the barn. It was of course
+as dark as Erebus, but thanks to being a smoker I was as well provided
+with matches as she had been, and having struck one, I held it up; but
+the light it gave was very feeble, and as I did not know just where to
+look, it went out before I had obtained more than a cursory glimpse of
+the spot where I was. I thereupon lit another; but though I confined my
+attention to one place, namely, the floor at my feet, it too went out
+before I could conjecture by means of any sign seen there where she had
+hidden the box. I now for the first time realized the difficulty before
+me. She had probably made up her mind, before she left home, in just
+what portion of this old barn she would conceal her treasure; but I had
+nothing to guide me: I could only waste matches. And I did waste them. A
+dozen had been lit and extinguished before I was so much as sure the box
+was not under a pile of debris that lay in one corner, and I had taken
+the last in my hand before I became aware that one of the broken boards
+of the floor was pushed a little out of its proper position. One match!
+and that board was to be raised, the space beneath examined, and the
+box, if there, lifted safely out. I concluded not to waste my resources,
+so kneeling down in the darkness, I groped for the board, tried it, and
+found it to be loose. Wrenching at it with all my strength, I tore it
+free and cast it aside; then lighting my match looked into the hole thus
+made. Something, I could not tell what, stone or box, met my eye, but
+while I reached for it, the match flew out of my hand. Deploring my
+carelessness, but determined at all hazards to secure what I had seen,
+I dived down deep into the hole, and in another moment had the object of
+my curiosity in my hands. It was the box!
+
+Satisfied at this result of my efforts, I turned to depart, my one wish
+now being to arrive home before Mrs. Belden. Was this possible? She had
+several minutes the start of me; I would have to pass her on the road,
+and in so doing might be recognized. Was the end worth the risk? I
+decided that it was.
+
+Regaining the highway, I started at a brisk pace. For some little
+distance I kept it up, neither overtaking nor meeting any one. But
+suddenly, at a turn in the road, I came unexpectedly upon Mrs. Belden,
+standing in the middle of the path, looking back. Somewhat disconcerted,
+I hastened swiftly by her, expecting her to make some effort to stop me.
+But she let me pass without a word. Indeed, I doubt now if she even saw
+or heard me. Astonished at this treatment, and still more surprised
+that she made no attempt to follow me, I looked back, when I saw what
+enchained her to the spot, and made her so unmindful of my presence. The
+barn behind us was on fire!
+
+Instantly I realized it was the work of my hands; I had dropped a
+half-extinguished match, and it had fallen upon some inflammable
+substance.
+
+Aghast at the sight, I paused in my turn, and stood staring. Higher and
+higher the red flames mounted, brighter and brighter glowed the clouds
+above, the stream beneath; and in the fascination of watching it all,
+I forgot Mrs. Belden. But a short, agitated gasp in my vicinity soon
+recalled her presence to my mind, and drawing nearer, I heard her
+exclaim like a person speaking in a dream, “Well, I didn’t mean to do
+it”; then lower, and with a certain satisfaction in her tone, “But it’s
+all right, any way; the thing is lost now for good, and Mary will be
+satisfied without any one being to blame.”
+
+I did not linger to hear more; if this was the conclusion she had come
+to, she would not wait there long, especially as the sound of distant
+shouts and running feet announced that a crowd of village boys was on
+its way to the scene of the conflagration.
+
+The first thing I did, upon my arrival at the house, was to assure
+myself that no evil effects had followed my inconsiderate desertion of
+it to the mercies of the tramp she had taken in; the next to retire to
+my room, and take a peep at the box. I found it to be a neat tin coffer,
+fastened with a lock. Satisfied from its weight that it contained
+nothing heavier than the papers of which Mrs. Belden had spoken, I hid
+it under the bed and returned to the sitting-room. I had barely taken a
+seat and lifted a book when Mrs. Belden came in.
+
+“Well!” cried she, taking off her bonnet and revealing a face much
+flushed with exercise, but greatly relieved in expression; “this _is_
+a night! It lightens, and there is a fire somewhere down street, and
+altogether it is perfectly dreadful out. I hope you have not been
+lonesome,” she continued, with a keen searching of my face which I
+bore in the best way I could. “I had an errand to attend to, but didn’t
+expect to stay so long.”
+
+I returned some nonchalant reply, and she hastened from the room to
+fasten up the house.
+
+I waited, but she did not come back; fearful, perhaps, of betraying
+herself, she had retired to her own apartment, leaving me to take care
+of myself as best I might. I own that I was rather relieved at this. The
+fact is, I did not feel equal to any more excitement that night, and was
+glad to put off further action until the next day. As soon, then, as
+the storm was over, I myself went to bed, and, after several ineffectual
+efforts, succeeded in getting asleep.
+
+
+
+XXIX. THE MISSING WITNESS
+
+
+    “I fled and cried out death.”
+         --Milton.
+
+“MR. RAYMOND!”
+
+The voice was low and searching; it reached me in my dreams, waked me,
+and caused me to look up. Morning had begun to break, and by its light I
+saw, standing in the open door leading into the dining-room, the forlorn
+figure of the tramp who had been admitted into the house the night
+before. Angry and perplexed, I was about to bid her be gone, when, to my
+great surprise, she pulled out a red handkerchief from her pocket, and I
+recognized Q.
+
+“Read that,” said he, hastily advancing and putting a slip of paper into
+my hand. And, without another word or look, left the room, closing the
+door behind him.
+
+Rising in considerable agitation, I took it to the window, and by the
+rapidly increasing light, succeeded in making out the rudely scrawled
+lines as follows:
+
+“She is here; I have seen her; in the room marked with a cross in the
+accompanying plan. Wait till eight o’clock, then go up. I will contrive
+some means of getting Mrs. B---- out of the house.”
+
+Sketched below this was the following plan of the upper floor:
+
+Hannah, then, was in the small back room over the dining-room, and I had
+not been deceived in thinking I had heard steps overhead, the evening
+before. Greatly relieved, and yet at the same time much moved at the
+near prospect of being brought face to face with one who we had every
+reason to believe was acquainted with the dreadful secret involved in
+the Leavenworth murder, I lay down once more, and endeavored to catch
+another hour’s rest. But I soon gave up the effort in despair, and
+contented myself with listening to the sounds of awakening life which
+now began to make themselves heard in the house and neighborhood.
+
+As Q had closed the door after him, I could only faintly hear Mrs.
+Belden when she came down-stairs. But the short, surprised exclamation
+which she uttered upon reaching the kitchen and finding the tramp gone
+and the back-door wide open, came plainly enough to my ears, and for a
+moment I was not sure but that Q had made a mistake in thus leaving so
+unceremoniously. But he had not studied Mrs. Belden’s character in vain.
+As she came, in the course of her preparations for breakfast, into the
+room adjoining mine, I could hear her murmur to herself:
+
+“Poor thing! She has lived so long in the fields and at the roadside,
+she finds it unnatural to be cooped up in the house all night.”
+
+The trial of that breakfast! The effort to eat and appear unconcerned,
+to chat and make no mistake,--May I never be called upon to go through
+such another! But at last it was over, and I was left free to await
+in my own room the time for the dreaded though much-to-be-desired
+interview. Slowly the minutes passed; eight o’clock struck, when, just
+as the last vibration ceased, there came a loud knock at the backdoor,
+and a little boy burst into the kitchen, crying at the top of his voice:
+“Papa’s got a fit! Oh, Mrs. Belden! papa’s got a fit; do come!”
+
+Rising, as was natural, I hastened towards the kitchen, meeting Mrs.
+Belden’s anxious face in the doorway.
+
+“A poor wood-chopper down the street has fallen in a fit,” she said.
+“Will you please watch over the house while I see what I can do for him?
+I won’t be absent any longer than I can help.”
+
+And almost without waiting for my reply, she caught up a shawl, threw
+it over her head, and followed the urchin, who was in a state of great
+excitement, out into the street.
+
+Instantly the silence of death seemed to fill the house, and a dread the
+greatest I had ever experienced settled upon me. To leave the kitchen,
+go up those stairs, and confront that girl seemed for the moment beyond
+my power; but, once on the stair, I found myself relieved from the
+especial dread which had overwhelmed me, and possessed, instead, of a
+sort of combative curiosity that led me to throw open the door which
+I saw at the top with a certain fierceness new to my nature, and not
+altogether suitable, perhaps, to the occasion.
+
+I found myself in a large bedroom, evidently the one occupied by Mrs.
+Belden the night before. Barely stopping to note certain evidences of
+her having passed a restless night, I passed on to the door leading into
+the room marked with a cross in the plan drawn for me by Q. It was a
+rough affair, made of pine boards rudely painted. Pausing before it, I
+listened. All was still. Raising the latch, I endeavored to enter. The
+door was locked. Pausing again, I bent my ear to the keyhole. Not a
+sound came from within; the grave itself could not have been stiller.
+Awe-struck and irresolute, I looked about me and questioned what I had
+best do. Suddenly I remembered that, in the plan Q had given me, I had
+seen intimation of another door leading into this same room from the one
+on the opposite side of the hall. Going hastily around to it, I tried
+it with my hand. But it was as fast as the other. Convinced at last that
+nothing was left me but force, I spoke for the first time, and, calling
+the girl by name, commanded her to open the door. Receiving no response,
+I said aloud with an accent of severity:
+
+“Hannah Chester, you are discovered; if you do not open the door, we
+shall be obliged to break it down; save us the trouble, then, and open
+immediately.”
+
+Still no reply.
+
+Going back a step, I threw my whole weight against the door. It creaked
+ominously, but still resisted.
+
+Stopping only long enough to be sure no movement had taken place within,
+I pressed against it once more, this time with all my strength, when it
+flew from its hinges, and I fell forward into a room so stifling, chill,
+and dark that I paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses
+before venturing to look around me. It was well I did so. In another
+moment, the pallor and fixity of the pretty Irish face staring upon me
+from amidst the tumbled clothes of a bed, drawn up against the wall at
+my side, struck me with so deathlike a chill that, had it not been for
+that one instant of preparation, I should have been seriously dismayed.
+As it was, I could not prevent a feeling of sickly apprehension from
+seizing me as I turned towards the silent figure stretched so near, and
+observed with what marble-like repose it lay beneath the patchwork quilt
+drawn across it, asking myself if sleep could be indeed so like death
+in its appearance. For that it was a sleeping woman I beheld, I did not
+seriously doubt. There were too many evidences of careless life in the
+room for any other inference. The clothes, left just as she had stepped
+from them in a circle on the floor; the liberal plate of food placed
+in waiting for her on the chair by the door, --food amongst which I
+recognized, even in this casual glance, the same dish which we had had
+for breakfast --all and everything in the room spoke of robust life and
+reckless belief in the morrow.
+
+And yet so white was the brow turned up to the bare beams of the
+unfinished wall above her, so glassy the look of the half-opened eyes,
+so motionless the arm lying half under, half over, the edge of the
+coverlid that it was impossible not to shrink from contact with a
+creature so sunk in unconsciousness. But contact seemed to be necessary;
+any cry which I could raise at that moment would be ineffectual enough
+to pierce those dull ears. Nerving myself, therefore, I stooped and
+lifted the hand which lay with its telltale scar mockingly uppermost,
+intending to speak, call, do something, anything, to arouse her. But at
+the first touch of her hand on mine an unspeakable horror thrilled me.
+It was not only icy cold, but stiff. Dropping it in my agitation, I
+started back and again surveyed the face. Great God! when did life ever
+look like that? What sleep ever wore such pallid hues, such accusing
+fixedness? Bending once more I listened at the lips. Not a breath, nor a
+stir. Shocked to the core of my being, I made one final effort. Tearing
+down the clothes, I laid my hand upon her heart. It was pulseless as
+stone.
+
+
+
+XXX. BURNED PAPER
+
+
+    “I could have better spared a better man.”
+         --Henry IV.
+
+I DO not think I called immediately for help. The awful shock of this
+discovery, coming as it did at the very moment life and hope were
+strongest within me; the sudden downfall which it brought of all the
+plans based upon this woman’s expected testimony; and, worst of all, the
+dread coincidence between this sudden death and the exigency in which
+the guilty party, whoever it was, was supposed to be at that hour were
+much too appalling for instant action. I could only stand and stare at
+the quiet face before me, smiling in its peaceful rest as if death
+were pleasanter than we think, and marvel over the providence which
+had brought us renewed fear instead of relief, complication instead of
+enlightenment, disappointment instead of realization. For eloquent as is
+death, even on the faces of those unknown and unloved by us, the causes
+and consequences of this one were much too important to allow the mind
+to dwell upon the pathos of the scene itself. Hannah, the girl, was lost
+in Hannah the witness.
+
+But gradually, as I gazed, the look of expectation which I perceived
+hovering about the wistful mouth and half-open lids attracted me, and I
+bent above her with a more personal interest, asking myself if she were
+quite dead, and whether or not immediate medical assistance would be of
+any avail. But the more closely I looked, the more certain I became
+that she had been dead for some hours; and the dismay occasioned by this
+thought, taken with the regrets which I must ever feel, that I had not
+adopted the bold course the evening before, and, by forcing my way to
+the hiding-place of this poor creature, interrupted, if not prevented
+the consummation of her fate, startled me into a realization of my
+present situation; and, leaving her side, I went into the next room,
+threw up the window, and fastened to the blind the red handkerchief
+which I had taken the precaution to bring with me.
+
+Instantly a young man, whom I was fain to believe Q, though he bore
+not the least resemblance, either in dress or facial expression to
+any renderings of that youth which I had yet seen, emerged from the
+tinsmith’s house, and approached the one I was in.
+
+Observing him cast a hurried glance in my direction, I crossed the
+floor, and stood awaiting him at the head of the stairs.
+
+“Well?” he whispered, upon entering the house and meeting my glance from
+below; “have you seen her?”
+
+“Yes,” I returned bitterly, “I have seen her!”
+
+He hurriedly mounted to my side. “And she has confessed?”
+
+“No; I have had no talk with her.” Then, as I perceived him growing
+alarmed at my voice and manner, I drew him into Mrs. Belden’s room and
+hastily inquired: “What did you mean this morning when you informed me
+you had seen this girl? that she was in a certain room where I might
+find her?”
+
+“What I said.”
+
+“You have, then, been to her room?”
+
+“No; I have only been on the outside of it. Seeing a light, I crawled up
+on to the ledge of the slanting roof last night while both you and Mrs.
+Belden were out, and, looking through the window, saw her moving round
+the room.” He must have observed my countenance change, for he stopped.
+“What is to pay?” he cried.
+
+I could restrain myself no longer. “Come,” I said, “and see for
+yourself!” And, leading him to the little room I had just left, I
+pointed to the silent form lying within. “You told me I should
+find Hannah here; but you did not tell me I should find her in this
+condition.”
+
+“Great heaven!” he cried with a start: “not dead?”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “dead.”
+
+It seemed as if he could not realize it. “But it is impossible!” he
+returned. “She is in a heavy sleep, has taken a narcotic----”
+
+“It is not sleep,” I said, “or if it is, she will never wake. Look!”
+ And, taking the hand once more in mine, I let it fall in its stone
+weight upon the bed.
+
+The sight seemed to convince him. Calming down, he stood gazing at her
+with a very strange expression upon his face. Suddenly he moved and
+began quietly turning over the clothes that were lying on the floor.
+
+“What are you doing?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”
+
+“I am looking for the bit of paper from which I saw her take what I
+supposed to be a dose of medicine last night. Oh, here it is!” he cried,
+lifting a morsel of paper that, lying on the floor under the edge of the
+bed, had hitherto escaped his notice.
+
+“Let me see!” I anxiously exclaimed.
+
+He handed me the paper, on the inner surface of which I could dimly
+discern the traces of an impalpable white powder.
+
+“This is important,” I declared, carefully folding the paper together.
+“If there is enough of this powder remaining to show that the contents
+of this paper were poisonous, the manner and means of the girl’s death
+are accounted for, and a case of deliberate suicide made evident.”
+
+“I am not so sure of that,” he retorted. “If I am any judge of
+countenances, and I rather flatter myself I am, this girl had no more
+idea she was taking poison than I had. She looked not only bright but
+gay; and when she tipped up the paper, a smile of almost silly triumph
+crossed her face. If Mrs. Belden gave her that dose to take, telling her
+it was medicine----”
+
+“That is something which yet remains to be learned; also whether the
+dose, as you call it, was poisonous or not. It may be she died of heart
+disease.”
+
+He simply shrugged his shoulders, and pointed first at the plate of
+breakfast left on the chair, and secondly at the broken-down door.
+
+“Yes,” I said, answering his look, “Mrs. Belden has been in here this
+morning, and Mrs. Belden locked the door when she went out; but that
+proves nothing beyond her belief in the girl’s hearty condition.”
+
+“A belief which that white face on its tumbled pillow did not seem to
+shake?”
+
+“Perhaps in her haste she may not have looked at the girl, but have set
+the dishes down without more than a casual glance in her direction?”
+
+“I don’t want to suspect anything wrong, but it is such a coincidence!”
+
+This was touching me on a sore point, and I stepped back. “Well,”
+ said I, “there is no use in our standing here busying ourselves with
+conjectures. There is too much to be done. Come!” and I moved hurriedly
+towards the door.
+
+“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Have you forgotten this is but
+an episode in the one great mystery we are sent here to unravel? If this
+girl has come to her death by some foul play, it is our business to find
+it out.”
+
+“That must be left for the coroner. It has now passed out of our hands.”
+
+“I know; but we can at least take full note of the room and everything
+in it before throwing the affair into the hands of strangers. Mr. Gryce
+will expect that much of us, I am sure.”
+
+“I have looked at the room. The whole is photographed on my mind. I am
+only afraid I can never forget it.”
+
+“And the body? Have you noticed its position? the lay of the bed-clothes
+around it? the lack there is of all signs of struggle or fear? the
+repose of the countenance? the easy fall of the hands?”
+
+“Yes, yes; don’t make me look at it any more.”
+
+“Then the clothes hanging on the wall?”--rapidly pointing out each
+object as he spoke. “Do you see? a calico dress, a shawl,--not the
+one in which she was believed to have run away, but an old black
+one, probably belonging to Mrs. Belden. Then this chest,”--opening
+it,--“containing a few underclothes marked,--let us see, ah, with the
+name of the lady of the house, but smaller than any she ever wore;
+made for Hannah, you observe, and marked with her own name to prevent
+suspicion. And then these other clothes lying on the floor, all new,
+all marked in the same way. Then this--Halloo! look here!” he suddenly
+cried.
+
+Going over to where he stood I stooped down, when a wash-bowl half full
+of burned paper met my eye.
+
+“I saw her bending over something in this corner, and could not think
+what it was. Can it be she is a suicide after all? She has evidently
+destroyed something here which she didn’t wish any one to see.”
+
+“I do not know,” I said. “I could almost hope so.”
+
+“Not a scrap, not a morsel left to show what it was; how unfortunate!”
+
+“Mrs. Belden must solve this riddle,” I cried.
+
+“Mrs. Belden must solve the whole riddle,” he replied; “the secret
+of the Leavenworth murder hangs upon it.” Then, with a lingering
+look towards the mass of burned paper, “Who knows but what that was a
+confession?”
+
+The conjecture seemed only too probable.
+
+“Whatever it was,” said I, “it is now ashes, and we have got to accept
+the fact and make the best of it.”
+
+“Yes,” said he with a deep sigh; “that’s so; but Mr. Gryce will never
+forgive me for it, never. He will say I ought to have known it was a
+suspicious circumstance for her to take a dose of medicine at the very
+moment detection stood at her back.”
+
+“But she did not know that; she did not see you.”
+
+“We don’t know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw. Women are a
+mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for
+the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in
+this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted.”
+
+“Well, well,” I said, “the end has not come yet; who knows what a talk
+with Mrs. Belden will bring out? And, by the way, she will be coming
+back soon, and I must be ready to meet her. Everything depends upon
+finding out, if I can, whether she is aware of this tragedy or not. It
+is just possible she knows nothing about it.”
+
+And, hurrying him from the room, I pulled the door to behind me, and led
+the way down-stairs.
+
+“Now,” said I, “there is one thing you must attend to at once. A
+telegram must be sent Mr. Gryce acquainting him with this unlooked-for
+occurrence.”
+
+“All right, sir,” and Q started for the door.
+
+“Wait one moment,” said I. “I may not have another opportunity to
+mention it. Mrs. Belden received two letters from the postmaster
+yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find
+out where they were postmarked----”
+
+Q put his hand in his pocket. “I think I will not have to go far to
+find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!” And
+before I knew it, he had returned up-stairs.
+
+That moment I heard the gate click.
+
+
+
+XXXI. “THEREBY HANGS A TALE.”
+
+
+    --Taming of the Shrew.
+
+“IT was all a hoax; nobody was ill; I have been imposed upon, meanly
+imposed upon!” And Mrs. Belden, flushed and panting, entered the room
+where I was, and proceeded to take off her bonnet; but whilst doing so
+paused, and suddenly exclaimed: “What is the matter? How you look at me!
+Has anything happened?”
+
+“Something very serious has occurred,” I replied; “you have been gone
+but a little while, but in that time a discovery has been made--” I
+purposely paused here that the suspense might elicit from her some
+betrayal; but, though she turned pale, she manifested less emotion than
+I expected, and I went on--“which is likely to produce very important
+consequences.”
+
+To my surprise she burst violently into tears. “I knew it, I knew it!”
+ she murmured. “I always said it would be impossible to keep it secret
+if I let anybody into the house; she is so restless. But I forget,” she
+suddenly said, with a frightened look; “you haven’t told me what the
+discovery was. Perhaps it isn’t what I thought; perhaps----”
+
+I did not hesitate to interrupt her. “Mrs. Belden,” I said, “I shall not
+try to mitigate the blow. A woman who, in the face of the most urgent
+call from law and justice, can receive into her house and harbor there a
+witness of such importance as Hannah, cannot stand in need of any great
+preparation for hearing that her efforts, have been too successful, that
+she has accomplished her design of suppressing valuable testimony, that
+law and justice are outraged, and that the innocent woman whom this
+girl’s evidence might have saved stands for ever compromised in the eyes
+of the world, if not in those of the officers of the law.”
+
+Her eyes, which had never left me during this address, flashed wide with
+dismay.
+
+“What do you mean?” she cried. “I have intended no wrong; I have only
+tried to save people. I--I--But who are you? What have you got to do
+with all this? What is it to you what I do or don’t do? You said you
+were a lawyer. Can it be you are come from Mary Leavenworth to see how I
+am fulfilling her commands, and----”
+
+“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “it is of small importance now as to who I am, or
+for what purpose I am here. But that my words may have the more effect,
+I will say, that whereas I have not deceived you, either as to my name
+or position, it is true that I am the friend of the Misses Leavenworth,
+and that anything which is likely to affect them, is of interest to
+me. When, therefore, I say that Eleanore Leavenworth is irretrievably
+injured by this girl’s death----”
+
+“Death? What do you mean? Death!”
+
+The burst was too natural, the tone too horror-stricken for me to doubt
+for another moment as to this woman’s ignorance of the true state of
+affairs.
+
+“Yes,” I repeated, “the girl you have been hiding so long and so well is
+now beyond your control. Only her dead body remains, Mrs. Belden.”
+
+I shall never lose from my ears the shriek which she uttered, nor the
+wild, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” with which she dashed
+from the room and rushed up-stairs.
+
+Nor that after-scene when, in the presence of the dead, she stood
+wringing her hands and protesting, amid sobs of the sincerest grief and
+terror, that she knew nothing of it; that she had left the girl in the
+best of spirits the night before; that it was true she had locked her
+in, but this she always did when any one was in the house; and that if
+she died of any sudden attack, it must have been quietly, for she had
+heard no stir all night, though she had listened more than once, being
+naturally anxious lest the girl should make some disturbance that would
+arouse me.
+
+“But you were in here this morning?” said I.
+
+“Yes; but I didn’t notice. I was in a hurry, and thought she was asleep;
+so I set the things down where she could get them and came right away,
+locking the door as usual.”
+
+“It is strange she should have died this night of all others. Was she
+ill yesterday?”
+
+“No, sir; she was even brighter than common; more lively. I never
+thought of her being sick then or ever. If I had----”
+
+“You never thought of her being sick?” a voice here interrupted. “Why,
+then, did you take such pains to give her a dose of medicine last
+night?” And Q entered from the room beyond.
+
+“I didn’t!” she protested, evidently under the supposition it was I who
+had spoken. “Did I, Hannah, did I, poor girl?” stroking the hand that
+lay in hers with what appeared to be genuine sorrow and regret.
+
+“How came she by it, then? Where she did she get it if you didn’t give
+it to her?”
+
+This time she seemed to be aware that some one besides myself was
+talking to her, for, hurriedly rising, she looked at the man with a
+wondering stare, before replying.
+
+“I don’t know who you are, sir; but I can tell you this, the girl had no
+medicine,--took no dose; she wasn’t sick last night that I know of.”
+
+“Yet I saw her swallow a powder.”
+
+“Saw her!--the world is crazy, or I am--saw her swallow a powder! How
+could you see her do that or anything else? Hasn’t she been shut up in
+this room for twenty-four hours?”
+
+“Yes; but with a window like that in the roof, it isn’t so very
+difficult to see into the room, madam.”
+
+“Oh,” she cried, shrinking, “I have a spy in the house, have I? But I
+deserve it; I kept her imprisoned in four close walls, and never came
+to look at her once all night. I don’t complain; but what was it you say
+you saw her take? medicine? poison?”
+
+“I didn’t say poison.”
+
+“But you meant it. You think she has poisoned herself, and that I had a
+hand in it!”
+
+“No,” I hastened to remark, “he does not think you had a hand in it. He
+says he saw the girl herself swallow something which he believes to have
+been the occasion of her death, and only asks you now where she obtained
+it.”
+
+“How can I tell? I never gave her anything; didn’t know she had
+anything.”
+
+Somehow, I believed her, and so felt unwilling to prolong the present
+interview, especially as each moment delayed the action which I felt it
+incumbent upon us to take. So, motioning Q to depart upon his errand, I
+took Mrs. Belden by the hand and endeavored to lead her from the
+room. But she resisted, sitting down by the side of the bed with the
+expression, “I will not leave her again; do not ask it; here is my
+place, and here I will stay,” while Q, obdurate for the first time,
+stood staring severely upon us both, and would not move, though I urged
+him again to make haste, saying that the morning was slipping away, and
+that the telegram to Mr. Gryce ought to be sent.
+
+“Till that woman leaves the room, I don’t; and unless you promise to
+take my place in watching her, I don’t quit the house.”
+
+Astonished, I left her side and crossed to him.
+
+“You carry your suspicions too far,” I whispered, “and I think you are
+too rude. We have seen nothing, I am sure, to warrant us in any such
+action; besides, she can do no harm here; though, as for watching her, I
+promise to do that much if it will relieve your mind.”
+
+“I don’t want her watched here; take her below. I cannot leave while she
+remains.”
+
+“Are you not assuming a trifle the master?”
+
+“Perhaps; I don’t know. If I am, it is because I have something in my
+possession which excuses my conduct.”
+
+“What is that? the letter?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Agitated now in my turn, I held out my hand. “Let me see,” I said.
+
+“Not while that woman remains in the room.”
+
+Seeing him implacable, I returned to Mrs. Belden.
+
+“I must entreat you to come with me,” said I. “This is not a common
+death; we shall be obliged to have the coroner here and others. You had
+better leave the room and go below.”
+
+“I don’t mind the coroner; he is a neighbor of mine; his coming won’t
+prevent my watching over the poor girl until he arrives.”
+
+“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “your position as the only one conscious of the
+presence of this girl in your house makes it wiser for you not to invite
+suspicion by lingering any longer than is necessary in the room where
+her dead body lies.”
+
+“As if my neglect of her now were the best surety of my good intentions
+towards her in time past!”
+
+“It will not be neglect for you to go below with me at my earnest
+request. You can do no good here by staying; will, in fact, be doing
+harm. So listen to me or I shall be obliged to leave you in charge of
+this man and go myself to inform the authorities.”
+
+This last argument seemed to affect her, for with one look of shuddering
+abhorrence at Q she rose, saying, “You have me in your power,” and then,
+without another word, threw her handkerchief over the girl’s face and
+left the room. In two minutes more I had the letter of which Q had
+spoken in my hands.
+
+“It is the only one I could find, sir. It was in the pocket of the dress
+Mrs. Belden had on last night. The other must be lying around somewhere,
+but I haven’t had time to find it. This will do, though, I think. You
+will not ask for the other.”
+
+Scarcely noticing at the time with what deep significance he spoke, I
+opened the letter. It was the smaller of the two I had seen her draw
+under her shawl the day before at the post-office, and read as follows:
+
+
+    “DEAR, DEAR FRIEND:
+
+    “I am in awful trouble. You who love me must know it. I cannot
+    explain, I can only make one prayer. Destroy what you have,
+    to-day, instantly, without question or hesitation. The consent
+    of any one else has nothing to do with it. You must obey. I am
+    lost if you refuse. Do then what I ask, and save
+
+    “ONE WHO LOVES YOU.”
+
+It was addressed to Mrs. Belden; there was no signature or date,
+only the postmark New York; but I knew the handwriting. It was Mary
+Leavenworth’s.
+
+“A damning letter!” came in the dry tones which Q seemed to think fit to
+adopt on this occasion. “And a damning bit of evidence against the one
+who wrote it, and the woman who received it!”
+
+“A terrible piece of evidence, indeed,” said I, “if I did not happen to
+know that this letter refers to the destruction of something radically
+different from what you suspect. It alludes to some papers in Mrs.
+Belden’s charge; nothing else.”
+
+“Are you sure, sir?”
+
+“Quite; but we will talk of this hereafter. It is time you sent your
+telegram, and went for the coroner.”
+
+“Very well, sir.” And with this we parted; he to perform his role and I
+mine.
+
+I found Mrs. Belden walking the floor below, bewailing her situation,
+and uttering wild sentences as to what the neighbors would say of her;
+what the minister would think; what Clara, whoever that was, would do,
+and how she wished she had died before ever she had meddled with the
+affair.
+
+Succeeding in calming her after a while, I induced her to sit down and
+listen to what I had to say. “You will only injure yourself by this
+display of feeling,” I remarked, “besides unfitting yourself for what
+you will presently be called upon to go through.” And, laying myself out
+to comfort the unhappy woman, I first explained the necessities of the
+case, and next inquired if she had no friend upon whom she could call in
+this emergency.
+
+To my great surprise she replied no; that while she had kind neighbors
+and good friends, there was no one upon whom she could call in a case
+like this, either for assistance or sympathy, and that, unless I would
+take pity on her, she would have to meet it alone--“As I have met
+everything,” she said, “from Mr. Belden’s death to the loss of most of
+my little savings in a town fire last year.”
+
+I was touched by this,--that she who, in spite of her weakness and
+inconsistencies of character, possessed at least the one virtue of
+sympathy with her kind, should feel any lack of friends. Unhesitatingly,
+I offered to do what I could for her, providing she would treat me with
+the perfect frankness which the case demanded. To my great relief, she
+expressed not only her willingness, but her strong desire, to tell all
+she knew. “I have had enough secrecy for my whole life,” she said.
+And indeed I do believe she was so thoroughly frightened, that if a
+police-officer had come into the house and asked her to reveal secrets
+compromising the good name of her own son, she would have done so
+without cavil or question. “I feel as if I wanted to take my stand out
+on the common, and, in the face of the whole world, declare what I have
+done for Mary Leavenworth. But first,” she whispered, “tell me, for
+God’s sake, how those girls are situated. I have not dared to ask or
+write. The papers say a good deal about Eleanore, but nothing about
+Mary; and yet Mary writes of her own peril only, and of the danger she
+would be in if certain facts were known. What is the truth? I don’t want
+to injure them, only to take care of myself.”
+
+“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “Eleanore Leavenworth has got into her
+present difficulty by not telling all that was required of her. Mary
+Leavenworth--but I cannot speak of her till I know what you have to
+divulge. Her position, as well as that of her cousin, is too anomalous
+for either you or me to discuss. What we want to learn from you is, how
+you became connected with this affair, and what it was that Hannah knew
+which caused her to leave New York and take refuge here.”
+
+But Mrs. Belden, clasping and unclasping her hands, met my gaze with one
+full of the most apprehensive doubt. “You will never believe me,” she
+cried; “but I don’t know what Hannah knew. I am in utter ignorance of
+what she saw or heard on that fatal night; she never told, and I never
+asked. She merely said that Miss Leavenworth wished me to secrete her
+for a short time; and I, because I loved Mary Leavenworth and admired
+her beyond any one I ever saw, weakly consented, and----”
+
+“Do you mean to say,” I interrupted, “that after you knew of the murder,
+you, at the mere expression of Miss Leavenworth’s wishes, continued to
+keep this girl concealed without asking her any questions or demanding
+any explanations?”
+
+“Yes, sir; you will never believe me, but it is so. I thought that,
+since Mary had sent her here, she must have her reasons; and--and--I
+cannot explain it now; it all looks so differently; but I did do as I
+have said.”
+
+“But that was very strange conduct. You must have had strong reason for
+obeying Mary Leavenworth so blindly.”
+
+“Oh, sir,” she gasped, “I thought I understood it all; that Mary, the
+bright young creature, who had stooped from her lofty position to make
+use of me and to love me, was in some way linked to the criminal, and
+that it would be better for me to remain in ignorance, do as I was
+bid, and trust all would come right. I did not reason about it; I only
+followed my impulse. I couldn’t do otherwise; it isn’t my nature. When I
+am requested to do anything for a person I love, I cannot refuse.”
+
+“And you love Mary Leavenworth; a woman whom you yourself seem to
+consider capable of a great crime?”
+
+“Oh, I didn’t say that; I don’t know as I thought that. She might be in
+some way connected with it, without being the actual perpetrator. She
+could never be that; she is too dainty.”
+
+“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “what do you know of Mary Leavenworth which makes
+even that supposition possible?”
+
+The white face of the woman before me flushed. “I scarcely know what to
+reply,” she cried. “It is a long story, and----”
+
+“Never mind the long story,” I interrupted. “Let me hear the one vital
+reason.”
+
+“Well,” said she, “it is this; that Mary was in an emergency from which
+nothing but her uncle’s death could release her.”
+
+“Ah, how’s that?”
+
+But here we were interrupted by the sound of steps on the porch, and,
+looking out, I saw Q entering the house alone. Leaving Mrs. Belden where
+she was, I stepped into the hall.
+
+“Well,” said I, “what is the matter? Haven’t you found the coroner?
+Isn’t he at home?”
+
+“No, gone away; off in a buggy to look after a man that was found some
+ten miles from here, lying in a ditch beside a yoke of oxen.” Then, as
+he saw my look of relief, for I was glad of this temporary delay, said,
+with an expressive wink: “It would take a fellow a long time to go to
+him--if he wasn’t in a hurry--hours, I think.”
+
+“Indeed!” I returned, amused at his manner. “Rough road?”
+
+“Very; no horse I could get could travel it faster than a walk.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “so much the better for us. Mrs. Belden has a long story
+to tell, and----”
+
+“Doesn’t wish to be interrupted. I understand.”
+
+I nodded and he turned towards the door.
+
+“Have you telegraphed Mr. Gryce?” I asked.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Do you think he will come?”
+
+“Yes, sir; if he has to hobble on two sticks.”
+
+“At what time do you look for him?”
+
+“_You_ will look for him as early as three o’clock. I shall be among the
+mountains, ruefully eying my broken-down team.” And leisurely donning
+his hat he strolled away down the street like one who has the whole day
+on his hands and does not know what to do with it.
+
+An opportunity being thus given for Mrs. Belden’s story, she at once
+composed herself to the task, with the following result.
+
+
+
+XXXII. MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE
+
+
+    “Cursed, destructive Avarice,
+     Thou everlasting foe to Love and Honor.”
+         --Trap’s Abram.
+
+    “Mischief never thrives
+     Without the help of Woman.”
+         --The Same.
+
+IT will be a year next July since I first saw Mary Leavenworth. I
+was living at that time a most monotonous existence. Loving what was
+beautiful, hating what was sordid, drawn by nature towards all that
+was romantic and uncommon, but doomed by my straitened position and the
+loneliness of my widowhood to spend my days in the weary round of plain
+sewing, I had begun to think that the shadow of a humdrum old age
+was settling down upon me, when one morning, in the full tide of my
+dissatisfaction, Mary Leavenworth stepped across the threshold of my
+door and, with one smile, changed the whole tenor of my life.
+
+This may seem exaggeration to you, especially when I say that her errand
+was simply one of business, she having heard I was handy with my needle;
+but if you could have seen her as she appeared that day, marked the look
+with which she approached me, and the smile with which she left, you
+would pardon the folly of a romantic old woman, who beheld a fairy queen
+in this lovely young lady. The fact is, I was dazzled by her beauty and
+her charms. And when, a few days after, she came again, and crouching
+down on the stool at my feet, said she was so tired of the gossip and
+tumult down at the hotel, that it was a relief to run away and hide with
+some one who would let her act like the child she was, I experienced
+for the moment, I believe, the truest happiness of my life. Meeting her
+advances with all the warmth her manner invited, I found her ere long
+listening eagerly while I told her, almost without my own volition, the
+story of my past life, in the form of an amusing allegory.
+
+The next day saw her in the same place; and the next; always with the
+eager, laughing eyes, and the fluttering, uneasy hands, that grasped
+everything they touched, and broke everything they grasped.
+
+But the fourth day she was not there, nor the fifth, nor the sixth, and
+I was beginning to feel the old shadow settling back upon me, when one
+night, just as the dusk of twilight was merging into evening gloom, she
+came stealing in at the front door, and, creeping up to my side, put her
+hands over my eyes with such a low, ringing laugh, that I started.
+
+“You don’t know what to make of me!” she cried, throwing aside her
+cloak, and revealing herself in the full splendor of evening attire. “I
+don’t know what to make of myself. Though it seems folly, I felt that
+I must run away and tell some one that a certain pair of eyes have been
+looking into mine, and that for the first time in my life I feel
+myself a woman as well as a queen.” And with a glance in which coyness
+struggled with pride, she gathered up her cloak around her, and
+laughingly cried:
+
+“Have you had a visit from a flying sprite? Has one little ray of
+moonlight found its way into your prison for a wee moment, with Mary’s
+laugh and Mary’s snowy silk and flashing diamonds? Say!” and she patted
+my cheek, and smiled so bewilderingly, that even now, with all the
+dull horror of these after-events crowding upon me, I cannot but feel
+something like tears spring to my eyes at the thought of it.
+
+“And so the Prince has come for you?” I whispered, alluding to a story I
+had told her the last time she had visited me; a story in which a girl,
+who had waited all her life in rags and degradation for the lordly
+knight who was to raise her from a hovel to a throne, died just as her
+one lover, an honest peasant-lad whom she had discarded in her pride,
+arrived at her door with the fortune he had spent all his days in
+amassing for her sake.
+
+But at this she flushed, and drew back towards the door. “I don’t know;
+I am afraid not. I--I don’t think anything about that. Princes are not
+so easily won,” she murmured.
+
+“What! are you going?” I said, “and alone? Let me accompany you.”
+
+But she only shook her fairy head, and replied: “No, no; that would be
+spoiling the romance, indeed. I have come upon you like a sprite, and
+like a sprite I will go.” And, flashing like the moonbeam she was, she
+glided out into the night, and floated away down the street.
+
+When she next came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner,
+which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in
+our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover’s
+attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a
+melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy way, with
+kisses and marriage, “I shall never marry!” finishing the exclamation
+with a long-drawn sigh, that somehow emboldened me to say, perhaps
+because I knew she had no mother:
+
+“And why? What reason can there be for such rosy lips saying their
+possessor will never marry?”
+
+She gave me one quick look, and then dropped her eyes. I feared I had
+offended her, and was feeling very humble, when she suddenly replied, in
+an even but low tone, “I said I should never marry, because the one man
+who pleases me can never be my husband.”
+
+All the hidden romance in my nature started at once into life. “Why not?
+What do you mean? Tell me.”
+
+“There is nothing to tell,” said she; “only I have been so weak as
+to”--she would not say, fall in love, she was a proud woman--“admire a
+man whom my uncle will never allow me to marry.”
+
+And she rose as if to go; but I drew her back. “Whom your uncle will not
+allow you to marry!” I repeated. “Why? because he is poor?”
+
+“No; uncle loves money, but not to such an extent as that. Besides, Mr.
+Clavering is not poor. He is the owner of a beautiful place in his own
+country----”
+
+“Own country?” I interrupted. “Is he not an American?”
+
+“No,” she returned; “he is an Englishman.”
+
+I did not see why she need say that in just the way she did, but,
+supposing she was aggravated by some secret memory, went on to inquire:
+“Then what difficulty can there be? Isn’t he--” I was going to say
+steady, but refrained.
+
+“He is an Englishman,” she emphasized in the same bitter tone as
+before. “In saying that, I say it all. Uncle will never let me marry an
+Englishman.”
+
+I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had never
+entered my mind.
+
+“He has an absolute mania on the subject,” resumed she. “I might as well
+ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman.”
+
+A woman of truer judgment than myself would have said: “Then, if that is
+so, why not discard from your breast all thought of him? Why dance with
+him, and talk to him, and let your admiration develop into love?” But
+I was all romance then, and, angry at a prejudice I could neither
+understand nor appreciate, I said:
+
+“But that is mere tyranny! Why should he hate the English so? And why,
+if he does, should you feel yourself obliged to gratify him in a whim so
+unreasonable?”
+
+“Why? Shall I tell you, auntie?” she said, flushing and looking away.
+
+“Yes,” I returned; “tell me everything.”
+
+“Well, then, if you want to know the worst of me, as you already know
+the best, I hate to incur my uncle’s displeasure, because--because--I
+have always been brought up to regard myself as his heiress, and I
+know that if I were to marry contrary to his wishes, he would instantly
+change his mind, and leave me penniless.”
+
+“But,” I cried, my romance a little dampened by this admission, “you
+tell me Mr. Clavering has enough to live upon, so you would not want;
+and if you love--”
+
+Her violet eyes fairly flashed in her amazement.
+
+“You don’t understand,” she said; “Mr. Clavering is not poor; but uncle
+is rich. I shall be a queen--” There she paused, trembling, and falling
+on my breast. “Oh, it sounds mercenary, I know, but it is the fault of
+my bringing up. I have been taught to worship money. I would be utterly
+lost without it. And yet”--her whole face softening with the light of
+another emotion, “I cannot say to Henry Clavering, ‘Go! my prospects are
+dearer to me than you!’ I cannot, oh, I cannot!”
+
+“You love him, then?” said I, determined to get at the truth of the
+matter if possible.
+
+She rose restlessly. “Isn’t that a proof of love? If you knew me, you
+would say it was.” And, turning, she took her stand before a picture
+that hung on the wall of my sitting-room.
+
+“That looks like me,” she said.
+
+It was one of a pair of good photographs I possessed.
+
+“Yes,” I remarked, “that is why I prize it.”
+
+She did not seem to hear me; she was absorbed in gazing at the exquisite
+face before her. “That is a winning face,” I heard her say. “Sweeter
+than mine. I wonder if she would ever hesitate between love and money. I
+do not believe she would,” her own countenance growing gloomy and sad
+as she said so; “she would think only of the happiness she would confer;
+she is not hard like me. Eleanore herself would love this girl.”
+
+I think she had forgotten my presence, for at the mention of her
+cousin’s name she turned quickly round with a half suspicious look,
+saying lightly:
+
+“My dear old Mamma Hubbard looks horrified. She did not know she had
+such a very unromantic little wretch for a listener, when she was
+telling all those wonderful stories of Love slaying dragons, and living
+in caves, and walking over burning ploughshares as if they were tufts of
+spring grass?”
+
+“No,” I said, taking her with an irresistible impulse of admiring
+affection into my arms; “but if I had, it would have made no difference.
+I should still have talked about love, and of all it can do to make this
+weary workaday world sweet and delightful.”
+
+“Would you? Then you do not think me such a wretch?”
+
+What could I say? I thought her the winsomest being in the world, and
+frankly told her so. Instantly she brightened into her very gayest self.
+Not that I thought then, much less do I think now, she partially
+cared for my good opinion; but her nature demanded admiration, and
+unconsciously blossomed under it, as a flower under the sunshine.
+
+“And you will still let me come and tell you how bad I am,--that is, if
+I go on being bad, as I doubtless shall to the end of the chapter? You
+will not turn me off?”
+
+“I will never turn you off.”
+
+“Not if I should do a dreadful thing? Not if I should run away with my
+lover some fine night, and leave uncle to discover how his affectionate
+partiality had been requited?”
+
+It was lightly said, and lightly meant, for she did not even wait for my
+reply. But its seed sank deep into our two hearts for all that. And for
+the next few days I spent my time in planning how I should manage, if
+it should ever fall to my lot to conduct to a successful issue so
+enthralling a piece of business as an elopement. You may imagine, then,
+how delighted I was, when one evening Hannah, this unhappy girl who
+is now lying dead under my roof, and who was occupying the position of
+lady’s maid to Miss Mary Leavenworth at that time, came to my door with
+a note from her mistress, running thus:
+
+    “Have the loveliest story of the season ready for me tomorrow; and
+    let the prince be as handsome as--as some one you have heard of,
+    and the princess as foolish as your little yielding pet,
+
+    “MARY.”
+
+Which short note could only mean that she was engaged. But the next day
+did not bring me my Mary, nor the next, nor the next; and beyond hearing
+that Mr. Leavenworth had returned from his trip I received neither word
+nor token. Two more days dragged by, when, just as twilight set in, she
+came. It had been a week since I had seen her, but it might have been
+a year from the change I observed in her countenance and expression. I
+could scarcely greet her with any show of pleasure, she was so unlike
+her former self.
+
+“You are disappointed, are you not?” said she, looking at me. “You
+expected revelations, whispered hopes, and all manner of sweet
+confidences; and you see, instead, a cold, bitter woman, who for
+the first time in your presence feels inclined to be reserved and
+uncommunicative.”
+
+“That is because you have had more to trouble than encourage you in your
+love,” I returned, though not without a certain shrinking, caused more
+by her manner than words.
+
+She did not reply to this, but rose and paced the floor, coldly at
+first, but afterwards with a certain degree of excitement that proved
+to be the prelude to a change in her manner; for, suddenly pausing, she
+turned to me and said: “Mr. Clavering has left R----, Mrs. Belden.”
+
+“Left!”
+
+“Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed.”
+
+The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment. “Ah!
+then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore told
+him.”
+
+“Then _she_ knew?”
+
+“Yes,” with a half sigh. “She could hardly help it. I was foolish enough
+to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness. I did
+not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is so
+conscientious.”
+
+“I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another’s secrets,” I
+returned.
+
+“That is because you are not Eleanore.”
+
+Not having a reply for this, I said, “And so your uncle did not regard
+your engagement with favor?”
+
+“Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an
+Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried.”
+
+“And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have his
+way?”
+
+She was walking off to look again at that picture which had attracted
+her attention the time before, but at this word gave me one little
+sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive.
+
+“I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean.”
+
+“And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of honor
+to be his wife?”
+
+“Why not, when I found I could not keep my word.”
+
+“Then you have decided not to marry him?”
+
+She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the
+picture.
+
+“My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by
+his wishes!” she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful
+bitterness.
+
+Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. “Oh, Mary!” I cried, “Oh,
+Mary!” and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her
+first name.
+
+But she did not appear to notice.
+
+“Have you any complaint to make?” she asked. “Is it not my manifest
+duty to be governed by my uncle’s wishes? Has he not brought me up from
+childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am, even to the
+love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with every gift he
+has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped into my ear, since I
+was old enough to know what riches meant? Is it for me now to turn my
+back upon fostering care so wise, beneficent, and free, just because
+a man whom I have known some two weeks chances to offer me in exchange
+what he pleases to call his love?”
+
+“But,” I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm in
+which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of thinking
+after all, “if in two weeks you have learned to love this man more than
+everything else, even the riches which make your uncle’s favor a thing
+of such moment--”
+
+“Well,” said she, “what then?”
+
+“Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of your
+choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your influence
+over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can persistently deny.”
+
+You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her face
+at that. “Would it not be better,” she asked, creeping to my arms, and
+laying her head on my shoulder, “would it not be better for me to make
+sure of that uncle’s favor first, before undertaking the hazardous
+experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?”
+
+Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was one
+amused smile.
+
+“Oh, my darling,” said I, “you have not, then dismissed Mr. Clavering?”
+
+“I have sent him away,” she whispered demurely.
+
+“But not without hope?”
+
+She burst into a ringing laugh.
+
+“Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to be sure!
+You appear as much interested as if you were the lover yourself.”
+
+“But tell me,” I urged.
+
+In a moment her serious mood returned. “He will wait for me,” said she.
+
+The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her
+clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both to
+assume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke conjecture
+than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The plan pleased
+her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign being used on the
+envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine, was at once adopted.
+
+And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all this
+trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use as she
+would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what was left me of
+judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her scheming, planning,
+devoted slave; now copying the letters which she brought me, and
+enclosing them to the false name we had agreed upon, and now busying
+myself in devising ways to forward to her those which I received from
+him, without risk of discovery. Hannah was the medium we employed, as
+Mary felt it would not be wise for her to come too often to my house.
+To this girl’s charge, then, I gave such notes as I could not forward in
+any other way, secure in the reticence of her nature, as well as in her
+inability to read, that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would
+arrive at their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they
+always did. At all events, no difficulty that I ever heard of arose out
+of the use of this girl as a go-between.
+
+But a change was at hand. Mr. Clavering, who had left an invalid mother
+in England, was suddenly summoned home. He prepared to go, but, flushed
+with love, distracted by doubts, smitten with the fear that, once
+withdrawn from the neighborhood of a woman so universally courted as
+Mary, he would stand small chance of retaining his position in her
+regard, he wrote to her, telling his fears and asking her to marry him
+before he went.
+
+“Make me your husband, and I will follow your wishes in all things,”
+ he wrote. “The certainty that you are mine will make parting possible;
+without it, I cannot go; no, not if my mother should die without the
+comfort of saying good-bye to her only child.”
+
+By some chance she was in my house when I brought this letter from the
+post-office, and I shall never forget how she started when she read it.
+But, from looking as if she had received an insult, she speedily settled
+down into a calm consideration of the subject, writing and delivering
+into my charge for copying a few lines in which she promised to accede
+to his request, if he would agree to leave the public declaration of the
+marriage to her discretion, and consent to bid her farewell at the door
+of the church or wherever the ceremony of marriage should take place,
+never to come into her presence again till such declaration had been
+made. Of course this brought in a couple of days the sure response:
+“Anything, so you will be mine.”
+
+And Amy Belden’s wits and powers of planning were all summoned into
+requisition for the second time, to devise how this matter could be
+arranged without subjecting the parties to the chance of detection. I
+found the thing very difficult. In the first place, it was essential
+that the marriage should come off within three days, Mr. Clavering
+having, upon the receipt of her letter, secured his passage upon a
+steamer that sailed on the following Saturday; and, next, both he and
+Miss Leavenworth were too conspicuous in their personal appearance to
+make it at all possible for them to be secretly married anywhere within
+gossiping distance of this place. And yet it was desirable that the
+scene of the ceremony should not be too far away, or the time occupied
+in effecting the journey to and from the place would necessitate an
+absence from the hotel on the part of Miss Leavenworth long enough to
+arouse the suspicions of Eleanore; something which Mary felt it wiser
+to avoid. Her uncle, I have forgotten to say, was not here--having gone
+away again shortly after the apparent dismissal of Mr. Clavering.
+F----, then, was the only town I could think of which combined the two
+advantages of distance and accessibility. Although upon the railroad, it
+was an insignificant place, and had, what was better yet, a very obscure
+man for its clergyman, living, which was best of all, not ten rods from
+the depot. If they could meet there? Making inquiries, I found that it
+could be done, and, all alive to the romance of the occasion, proceeded
+to plan the details.
+
+And now I am coming to what might have caused the overthrow of the
+whole scheme: I allude to the detection on the part of Eleanore of the
+correspondence between Mary and Mr. Clavering. It happened thus. Hannah,
+who, in her frequent visits to my house, had grown very fond of my
+society, had come in to sit with me for a while one evening. She had not
+been in the house, however, more than ten minutes, before there came a
+knock at the front door; and going to it I saw Mary, as I supposed, from
+the long cloak she wore, standing before me. Thinking she had come with
+a letter for Mr. Clavering, I grasped her arm and drew her into the
+hall, saying, “Have you got it? I must post it to-night, or he will not
+receive it in time.”
+
+There I paused, for, the panting creature I had by the arm turning upon
+me, I saw myself confronted by a stranger.
+
+“You have made a mistake,” she cried. “I am Eleanore Leavenworth, and I
+have come for my girl Hannah. Is she here?”
+
+I could only raise my hand in apprehension, and point to the girl
+sitting in the corner of the room before her. Miss Leavenworth
+immediately turned back.
+
+“Hannah, I want you,” said she, and would have left the house without
+another word, but I caught her by the arm.
+
+“Oh, miss--” I began, but she gave me such a look, I dropped her arm.
+
+“I have nothing to say to you!” she cried in a low, thrilling voice. “Do
+not detain me.” And, with a glance to see if Hannah were following her,
+she went out.
+
+For an hour I sat crouched on the stair just where she had left me. Then
+I went to bed, but I did not sleep a wink that night. You can imagine,
+then, my wonder when, with the first glow of the early morning light,
+Mary, looking more beautiful than ever, came running up the steps and
+into the room where I was, with the letter for Mr. Clavering trembling
+in her hand.
+
+“Oh!” I cried in my joy and relief, “didn’t she understand me, then?”
+
+The gay look on Mary’s face turned to one of reckless scorn. “If you
+mean Eleanore, yes. She is duly initiated, Mamma Hubbard. Knows that I
+love Mr. Clavering and write to him. I couldn’t keep it secret after the
+mistake you made last evening; so I did the next best thing, told her
+the truth.”
+
+“Not that you were about to be married?”
+
+“Certainly not. I don’t believe in unnecessary communications.”
+
+“And you did not find her as angry as you expected?”
+
+“I will not say that; she was angry enough. And yet,” continued Mary,
+with a burst of self-scornful penitence, “I will not call Eleanore’s
+lofty indignation anger. She was grieved, Mamma Hubbard, grieved.” And
+with a laugh which I believe was rather the result of her own relief
+than of any wish to reflect on her cousin, she threw her head on one
+side and eyed me with a look which seemed to say, “Do I plague you so
+very much, you dear old Mamma Hubbard?”
+
+She did plague me, and I could not conceal it. “And will she not tell
+her uncle?” I gasped.
+
+The naive expression on Mary’s face quickly changed. “No,” said she.
+
+I felt a heavy hand, hot with fever, lifted from my heart. “And we can
+still go on?”
+
+She held out the letter for reply.
+
+The plan agreed upon between us for the carrying out of our intentions
+was this. At the time appointed, Mary was to excuse herself to her
+cousin upon the plea that she had promised to take me to see a friend
+in the next town. She was then to enter a buggy previously ordered, and
+drive here, where I was to join her. We were then to proceed immediately
+to the minister’s house in F----, where we had reason to believe we
+should find everything prepared for us. But in this plan, simple as it
+was, one thing was forgotten, and that was the character of Eleanore’s
+love for her cousin. That her suspicions would be aroused we did
+not doubt; but that she would actually follow Mary up and demand an
+explanation of her conduct, was what neither she, who knew her so well,
+nor I, who knew her so little, ever imagined possible. And yet that was
+just what occurred. But let me explain. Mary, who had followed out the
+programme to the point of leaving a little note of excuse on Eleanore’s
+dressing-table, had come to my house, and was just taking off her long
+cloak to show me her dress, when there came a commanding knock at
+the front door. Hastily pulling her cloak about her I ran to open it,
+intending, you may be sure, to dismiss my visitor with short ceremony,
+when I heard a voice behind me say, “Good heavens, it is Eleanore!” and,
+glancing back, saw Mary looking through the window-blind upon the porch
+without.
+
+“What shall we do?” I cried, in very natural dismay.
+
+“Do? why, open the door and let her in; I am not afraid of Eleanore.”
+
+I immediately did so, and Eleanore Leavenworth, very pale, but with
+a resolute countenance, walked into the house and into this room,
+confronting Mary in very nearly the same spot where you are now sitting.
+“I have come,” said she, lifting a face whose expression of mingled
+sweetness and power I could not but admire, even in that moment of
+apprehension, “to ask you without any excuse for my request, if you will
+allow me to accompany you upon your drive this morning?”
+
+Mary, who had drawn herself up to meet some word of accusation or
+appeal, turned carelessly away to the glass. “I am very sorry,” she
+said, “but the buggy holds only two, and I shall be obliged to refuse.”
+
+“I will order a carriage.”
+
+“But I do not wish your company, Eleanore. We are off on a pleasure
+trip, and desire to have our fun by ourselves.”
+
+“And you will not allow me to accompany you?”
+
+“I cannot prevent your going in another carriage.”
+
+Eleanore’s face grew yet more earnest in its expression. “Mary,” said
+she, “we have been brought up together. I am your sister in affection
+if not in blood, and I cannot see you start upon this adventure with no
+other companion than this woman. Then tell me, shall I go with you, as a
+sister, or on the road behind you as the enforced guardian of your honor
+against your will?”
+
+“My honor?”
+
+“You are going to meet Mr. Clavering.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Twenty miles from home.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Now is it discreet or honorable in you to do this?”
+
+Mary’s haughty lip took an ominous curve. “The same hand that raised you
+has raised me,” she cried bitterly.
+
+“This is no time to speak of that,” returned Eleanore.
+
+Mary’s countenance flushed. All the antagonism of her nature was
+aroused. She looked absolutely Juno-like in her wrath and reckless
+menace. “Eleanore,” she cried, “I am going to F---- to marry Mr.
+Clavering! _Now_ do you wish to accompany me?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+Mary’s whole manner changed. Leaping forward, she grasped her cousin’s
+arm and shook it. “For what reason?” she cried. “What do you intend to
+do?”
+
+“To witness the marriage, if it be a true one; to step between you
+and shame if any element of falsehood should come in to affect its
+legality.”
+
+Mary’s hand fell from her cousin’s arm. “I do not understand you,”
+ said she. “I thought you never gave countenance to what you considered
+wrong.”
+
+“Nor do I. Any one who knows me will understand that I do not give my
+approval to this marriage just because I attend its ceremonial in the
+capacity of an unwilling witness.”
+
+“Then why go?”
+
+“Because I value your honor above my own peace. Because I love our
+common benefactor, and know that he would never pardon me if I let his
+darling be married, however contrary her union might be to his wishes,
+without lending the support of my presence to make the transaction at
+least a respectable one.”
+
+“But in so doing you will be involved in a world of deception--which you
+hate.”
+
+“Any more so than now?”
+
+“Mr. Clavering does not return with me, Eleanore.”
+
+“No, I supposed not.”
+
+“I leave him immediately after the ceremony.”
+
+Eleanore bowed her head.
+
+“He goes to Europe.” A pause.
+
+“And I return home.”
+
+“There to wait for what, Mary?”
+
+Mary’s face crimsoned, and she turned slowly away.
+
+“What every other girl does under such circumstances, I suppose. The
+development of more reasonable feelings in an obdurate parent’s heart.”
+
+Eleanore sighed, and a short silence ensued, broken by Eleanore’s
+suddenly falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin’s hand. “Oh,
+Mary,” she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild
+entreaty, “consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of
+the consequences which must follow such an act as this. Marriage founded
+upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love--but it is not that.
+Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once,
+or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring.
+Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this. And you,” she continued,
+rising and turning toward me in a sort of forlorn hope very touching
+to see, “can you see this young motherless girl, driven by caprice, and
+acknowledging no moral restraint, enter upon the dark and crooked path
+she is planning for herself, without uttering one word of warning and
+appeal? Tell me, mother of children dead and buried, what excuse you
+will have for your own part in this day’s work, when she, with her
+face marred by the sorrows which must follow this deception, comes to
+you----”
+
+“The same excuse, probably,” Mary’s voice broke in, chill and strained,
+“which you will have when uncle inquires how you came to allow such an
+act of disobedience to be perpetrated in his absence: that she could not
+help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait, and every one around
+must accommodate themselves to it.”
+
+It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated up
+to fever point. Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing back, pale
+and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark:
+
+“Then nothing can move you?”
+
+The curling of Mary’s lips was her only reply.
+
+Mr. Raymond, I do not wish to weary you with my feelings, but the first
+great distrust I ever felt of my wisdom in pushing this matter so far
+came with that curl of Mary’s lip. More plainly than Eleanore’s words it
+showed me the temper with which she was entering upon this undertaking;
+and, struck with momentary dismay, I advanced to speak when Mary stopped
+me.
+
+“There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don’t you go and acknowledge that you
+are frightened, for I won’t hear it. I have promised to marry Henry
+Clavering to-day, and I am going to keep my word--if I don’t love him,”
+ she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a way which
+caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was going to her
+bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was doing this, with very
+trembling fingers, she said, looking straight at Eleanore:
+
+“You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any
+reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the way
+to F----, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to dream
+upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon me such
+dreadful consequences?”
+
+“If I go with you to F----,” Eleanore returned, “it is as a witness, no
+more. My sisterly duty is done.”
+
+“Very well, then,” Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; “I suppose
+I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am so sorry to
+disappoint you, but the buggy _won’t_ hold three. If you are good you
+shall be the first to congratulate me when I come home to-night.” And,
+almost before I knew it, the two had taken their seats in the buggy that
+was waiting at the door. “Good-by,” cried Mary, waving her hand from the
+back; “wish me much joy--of my ride.”
+
+I tried to do so, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only wave my hand
+in response, and rush sobbing into the house.
+
+Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I
+cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when,
+seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the token
+of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the shape of Mary
+herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her beautiful face
+aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house just as I was beginning
+to despair.
+
+A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having a
+dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my fancy
+that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her cloak, she
+displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned with snowy roses.
+
+“Oh, Mary!” I cried, bursting into tears; “you are then----”
+
+“Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I’m a bride, Auntie.”
+
+“Without a bridal,” I murmured, taking her passionately into my embrace.
+
+She was not insensible to my emotion. Nestling close to me, she gave
+herself up for one wild moment to a genuine burst of tears, saying
+between her sobs all manner of tender things; telling me how she loved
+me, and how I was the only one in all the world to whom she dared come
+on this, her wedding night, for comfort or congratulation, and of how
+frightened she felt now it was all over, as if with her name she had
+parted with something of inestimable value.
+
+“And does not the thought of having made some one the proudest of men
+solace you?” I asked, more than dismayed at this failure of mine to make
+these lovers happy.
+
+“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “What satisfaction can it be for him to
+feel himself tied for life to a girl who, sooner than lose a prospective
+fortune, subjected him to such a parting?”
+
+“Tell me about it,” said I.
+
+But she was not in the mood at that moment. The excitement of the day
+had been too much for her. A thousand fears seemed to beset her mind.
+Crouching down on the stool at my feet, she sat with her hands folded
+and a glare on her face that lent an aspect of strange unreality to her
+brilliant attire. “How shall I keep it secret! The thought haunts me
+every moment; how can I keep it secret!”
+
+“Why, is there any danger of its being known?” I inquired. “Were you
+seen or followed?”
+
+“No,” she murmured. “It all went off well, but----”
+
+“Where is the danger, then?”
+
+“I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid;
+they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will
+or not. I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you
+will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me
+like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart. While
+the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now--oh, Auntie, I have
+done something that will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself
+to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness.”
+
+I was too aghast to speak.
+
+“For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal white,
+and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if they were
+wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the compliments
+bestowed upon me--and they are only too numerous--were just so many
+congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use; Eleanore knew it
+was no use. She has gone to her room to pray, while I--I have come here
+for the first time, perhaps for the last, to fall at some one’s feet and
+cry,--’ God have mercy upon me!’”
+
+I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. “Oh, Mary, have I only
+succeeded, then, in making you miserable?”
+
+She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of roses
+which had fallen from her hair to the floor.
+
+“If I had not been taught to love money so!” she said at length. “If,
+like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been ours from
+childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped at the call of
+duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were
+not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more!
+If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand
+luxurious longings after me. Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in
+her beautiful womanhood, haughty as she can be when the delicate quick
+of her personality is touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the
+hour in a low, chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a
+dirty child on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old
+woman whom no one else would consent to touch. Oh, oh! they talk about
+repentance and a change of heart! If some one or something would only
+change mine! But there is no hope of that! no hope of my ever being
+anything else than what I am: a selfish, wilful, mercenary girl.”
+
+Nor was this mood a mere transitory one. That same night she made a
+discovery which increased her apprehension almost to terror. This was
+nothing less than the fact that Eleanore had been keeping a diary of
+the last few weeks. “Oh,” she cried in relating this to me the next day,
+“what security shall I ever feel as long as this diary of hers remains
+to confront me every time I go into her room? And she will not consent
+to destroy it, though I have done my best to show her that it is a
+betrayal of the trust I reposed in her. She says it is all she has to
+show in the way of defence, if uncle should ever accuse her of treachery
+to him and his happiness. She promises to keep it locked up; but what
+good will that do! A thousand accidents might happen, any of them
+sufficient to throw it into uncle’s hands. I shall never feel safe for a
+moment while it exists.”
+
+I endeavored to calm her by saying that if Eleanore was without malice,
+such fears were groundless. But she would not be comforted, and seeing
+her so wrought up, I suggested that Eleanore should be asked to trust it
+into my keeping till such time as she should feel the necessity of using
+it. The idea struck Mary favorably. “O yes,” she cried; “and I will
+put my certificate with it, and so get rid of all my care at once.”
+ And before the afternoon was over, she had seen Eleanore and made her
+request.
+
+It was acceded to with this proviso, that I was neither to destroy nor
+give up all or any of the papers except upon their united demand. A
+small tin box was accordingly procured, into which were put all the
+proofs of Mary’s marriage then existing, viz.: the certificate, Mr.
+Clavering’s letters, and such leaves from Eleanore’s diary as referred
+to this matter. It was then handed over to me with the stipulation
+I have already mentioned, and I stowed it away in a certain closet
+upstairs, where it has lain undisturbed till last night.
+
+Here Mrs. Belden paused, and, blushing painfully, raised her eyes to
+mine with a look in which anxiety and entreaty were curiously blended.
+
+“I don’t know what you will say,” she began, “but, led away by my
+fears, I took that box out of its hiding-place last evening and,
+notwithstanding your advice, carried it from the house, and it is
+now----”
+
+“In my possession,” I quietly finished.
+
+I don’t think I ever saw her look more astounded, not even when I told
+her of Hannah’s death. “Impossible!” she exclaimed. “I left it last
+night in the old barn that was burned down. I merely meant to hide it
+for the present, and could think of no better place in my hurry; for the
+barn is said to be haunted--a man hung himself there once--and no one
+ever goes there. I--I--you cannot have it!” she cried, “unless----”
+
+“Unless I found and brought it away before the barn was destroyed,” I
+suggested.
+
+Her face flushed deeper. “Then you followed me?”
+
+“Yes,” said I. Then, as I felt my own countenance redden, hastened to
+add: “We have been playing strange and unaccustomed parts, you and I.
+Some time, when all these dreadful events shall be a mere dream of the
+past, we will ask each other’s pardon. But never mind all this now. The
+box is safe, and I am anxious to hear the rest of your story.”
+
+This seemed to compose her, and after a minute she continued:
+
+Mary seemed more like herself after this. And though, on account of Mr.
+Leavenworth’s return and their subsequent preparations for departure,
+I saw but little more of her, what I did see was enough to make me
+fear that, with the locking up of the proofs of her marriage, she was
+indulging the idea that the marriage itself had become void. But I may
+have wronged her in this.
+
+The story of those few weeks is almost finished. On the eve of the day
+before she left, Mary came to my house to bid me good-by. She had a
+present in her hand the value of which I will not state, as I did not
+take it, though she coaxed me with all her prettiest wiles. But she said
+something that night that I have never been able to forget. It was this.
+I had been speaking of my hope that before two months had elapsed she
+would find herself in a position to send for Mr. Clavering, and that
+when that day came I should wish to be advised of it; when she suddenly
+interrupted me by saying:
+
+“Uncle will never be won upon, as you call it, while he lives. If I was
+convinced of it before, I am sure of it now. Nothing but his death will
+ever make it possible for me to send for Mr. Clavering.” Then, seeing
+me look aghast at the long period of separation which this seemed to
+betoken, blushed a little and whispered: “The prospect looks somewhat
+dubious, doesn’t it? But if Mr. Clavering loves me, he can wait.”
+
+“But,” said I, “your uncle is only little past the prime of life and
+appears to be in robust health; it will be years of waiting, Mary.”
+
+“I don’t know,” she muttered, “I think not. Uncle is not as strong as he
+looks and--” She did not say any more, horrified perhaps at the turn the
+conversation was taking. But there was an expression on her countenance
+that set me thinking at the time, and has kept me thinking ever since.
+
+Not that any actual dread of such an occurrence as has since happened
+came to oppress my solitude during the long months which now intervened.
+I was as yet too much under the spell of her charm to allow anything
+calculated to throw a shadow over her image to remain long in my
+thoughts. But when, some time in the fall, a letter came to me
+personally from Mr. Clavering, filled with a vivid appeal to tell
+him something of the woman who, in spite of her vows, doomed him to a
+suspense so cruel, and when, on the evening of the same day, a friend
+of mine who had just returned from New York spoke of meeting Mary
+Leavenworth at some gathering, surrounded by manifest admirers, I began
+to realize the alarming features of the affair, and, sitting down, I
+wrote her a letter. Not in the strain in which I had been accustomed to
+talk to her,--I had not her pleading eyes and trembling, caressing hands
+ever before me to beguile my judgment from its proper exercise,--but
+honestly and earnestly, telling her how Mr. Clavering felt, and what a
+risk she ran in keeping so ardent a lover from his rights. The reply she
+sent rather startled me.
+
+“I have put Mr. Robbins out of my calculations for the present, and
+advise you to do the same. As for the gentleman himself, I have told him
+that when I could receive him I would be careful to notify him. That day
+has not yet come.
+
+“But do not let him be discouraged,” she added in a postscript. “When he
+does receive his happiness, it will be a satisfying one.”
+
+_When, _I thought. Ah, it is that _when_ which is likely to ruin all!
+But, intent only upon fulfilling her will, I sat down and wrote a letter
+to Mr. Clavering, in which I stated what she had said, and begged him
+to have patience, adding that I would surely let him know if any change
+took place in Mary or her circumstances. And, having despatched it to
+his address in London, awaited the development of events.
+
+They were not slow in transpiring. In two weeks I heard of the sudden
+death of Mr. Stebbins, the minister who had married them; and while
+yet laboring under the agitation produced by this shock, was further
+startled by seeing in a New York paper the name of Mr. Clavering among
+the list of arrivals at the Hoffman House; showing that my letter to
+him had failed in its intended effect, and that the patience Mary had
+calculated upon so blindly was verging to its end. I was consequently
+far from being surprised when, in a couple of weeks or so afterwards,
+a letter came from him to my address, which, owing to the careless
+omission of the private mark upon the envelope, I opened, and read
+enough to learn that, driven to desperation by the constant failures
+which he had experienced in all his endeavors to gain access to her in
+public or private, a failure which he was not backward in ascribing
+to her indisposition to see him, he had made up his mind to risk
+everything, even her displeasure; and, by making an appeal to her uncle,
+end the suspense under which he was laboring, definitely and at once. “I
+want you,” he wrote; “dowered or dowerless, it makes little difference
+to me. If you will not come of yourself, then I must follow the example
+of the brave knights, my ancestors; storm the castle that holds you, and
+carry you off by force of arms.”
+
+Neither can I say I was much surprised, knowing Mary as I did, when, in
+a few days from this, she forwarded to me for copying, this reply: “If
+Mr. Robbins ever expects to be happy with Amy Belden, let him reconsider
+the determination of which he speaks. Not only would he by such an
+action succeed in destroying the happiness of her he professes to love,
+but run the greater risk of effectually annulling the affection which
+makes the tie between them endurable.”
+
+To this there was neither date nor signature. It was the cry of warning
+which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when brought to bay. It
+made even me recoil, though I had known from the first that her pretty
+wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating above the soundless depths
+of cold resolve and most deliberate purpose.
+
+What its real effect was upon him and her fate I can only conjecture.
+All I know is that in two weeks thereafter Mr. Leavenworth was found
+murdered in his room, and Hannah Chester, coming direct to my door from
+the scene of violence, begged me to take her in and secrete her from
+public inquiry, as I loved and desired to serve Mary Leavenworth.
+
+
+
+XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY
+
+
+    _Pol._ What do you read, my lord?
+    _Ham._ Words, words, words.
+        --Hamlet.
+
+MRS. BELDEN paused, lost in the sombre shadow which these words were
+calculated to evoke, and a short silence fell upon the room. It was
+broken by my asking for some account of the occurrence she had just
+mentioned, it being considered a mystery how Hannah could have found
+entrance into her house without the knowledge of the neighbors.
+
+“Well,” said she, “it was a chilly night, and I had gone to bed early
+(I was sleeping then in the room off this) when, at about a quarter to
+one--the last train goes through R---- at 12.50--there came a low knock
+on the window-pane at the head of my bed. Thinking that some of the
+neighbors were sick, I hurriedly rose on my elbow and asked who
+was there. The answer came in low, muffled tones, ‘Hannah, Miss
+Leavenworth’s girl! Please let me in at the kitchen door.’ Startled at
+hearing the well-known voice, and fearing I knew not what, I caught up
+a lamp and hurried round to the door. ‘Is any one with you?’ I asked.
+‘No,’ she replied. ‘Then come in.’ But no sooner had she done so than
+my strength failed me, and I had to sit down, for I saw she looked very
+pale and strange, was without baggage, and altogether had the appearance
+of some wandering spirit. ‘Hannah!’ I gasped, ‘what is it? what has
+happened? what brings you here in this condition and at this time
+of night?’ ‘Miss Leavenworth has sent me,’ she replied, in the low,
+monotonous tone of one repeating a lesson by rote. ‘She told me to come
+here; said you would keep me. I am not to go out of the house, and no
+one is to know I am here.’ ‘But why?’ I asked, trembling with a thousand
+undefined fears; ‘what has occurred?’ ‘I dare not say,’ she whispered;
+‘I am forbid; I am just to stay here, and keep quiet.’ ‘But,’ I began,
+helping her to take off her shawl,--the dingy blanket advertised for
+in the papers--‘you must tell me. She surely did not forbid you to tell
+_me?_’ ‘Yes she did; every one,’ the girl replied, growing white in her
+persistence, ‘and I never break my word; fire couldn’t draw it out
+of me.’ She looked so determined, so utterly unlike herself, as I
+remembered her in the meek, unobtrusive days of our old acquaintance,
+that I could do nothing but stare at her. ‘You will keep me,’ she said;
+‘you will not turn me away?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I will not turn you away.’
+‘And tell no one?’ she went on. ‘And tell no one,’ I repeated.
+
+“This seemed to relieve her. Thanking me, she quietly followed me
+up-stairs. I put her into the room in which you found her, because it
+was the most secret one in the house; and there she has remained ever
+since, satisfied and contented, as far as I could see, till this very
+same horrible day.”
+
+“And is that all?” I asked. “Did you have no explanation with her
+afterwards? Did she never give you any information in regard to the
+transactions which led to her flight?”
+
+“No, sir. She kept a most persistent silence. Neither then nor when,
+upon the next day, I confronted her with the papers in my hand, and the
+awful question upon my lips as to whether her flight had been occasioned
+by the murder which had taken place in Mr. Leavenworth’s household, did
+she do more than acknowledge she had run away on this account. Some one
+or something had sealed her lips, and, as she said, ‘Fire and torture
+should never make her speak.’”
+
+Another short pause followed this; then, with my mind still hovering
+about the one point of intensest interest to me, I said:
+
+“This story, then, this account which you have just given me of Mary
+Leavenworth’s secret marriage and the great strait it put her
+into--a strait from which nothing but her uncle’s death could relieve
+her--together with this acknowledgment of Hannah’s that she had left
+home and taken refuge here on the insistence of Mary Leavenworth, is the
+groundwork you have for the suspicions you have mentioned?”
+
+“Yes, sir; that and the proof of her interest in the matter which is
+given by the letter I received from her yesterday, and which you say you
+have now in your possession.”
+
+Oh, that letter!
+
+“I know,” Mrs. Belden went on in a broken voice, “that it is wrong, in a
+serious case like this, to draw hasty conclusions; but, oh, sir, how can
+I help it, knowing what I do?”
+
+I did not answer; I was revolving in my mind the old question: was it
+possible, in face of all these later developments, still to believe Mary
+Leavenworth’s own hand guiltless of her uncle’s blood?
+
+“It is dreadful to come to such conclusions,” proceeded Mrs. Belden,
+“and nothing but her own words written in her own hand would ever have
+driven me to them, but----”
+
+“Pardon me,” I interrupted; “but you said in the beginning of this
+interview that you did not believe Mary herself had any direct hand in
+her uncle’s murder. Are you ready to repeat that assertion?”
+
+“Yes, yes, indeed. Whatever I may think of her influence in inducing
+it, I never could imagine her as having anything to do with its actual
+performance. Oh, no! oh, no! whatever was done on that dreadful night,
+Mary Leavenworth never put hand to pistol or ball, or even stood by
+while they were used; that you may be sure of. Only the man who loved
+her, longed for her, and felt the impossibility of obtaining her by any
+other means, could have found nerve for an act so horrible.”
+
+“Then you think----”
+
+“Mr. Clavering is the man? I do: and oh, sir, when you consider that he
+is her husband, is it not dreadful enough?”
+
+“It is, indeed,” said I, rising to conceal how much I was affected by
+this conclusion of hers.
+
+Something in my tone or appearance seemed to startle her. “I hope and
+trust I have not been indiscreet,” she cried, eying me with something
+like an incipient distrust. “With this dead girl lying in my house, I
+ought to be very careful, I know, but----”
+
+“You have said nothing,” was my earnest assurance as I edged towards the
+door in my anxiety to escape, if but for a moment, from an atmosphere
+that was stifling me. “No one can blame you for anything you have
+either said or done to-day. But”--and here I paused and walked hurriedly
+back,--“I wish to ask one question more. Have you any reason, beyond
+that of natural repugnance to believing a young and beautiful woman
+guilty of a great crime, for saying what you have of Henry Clavering, a
+gentleman who has hitherto been mentioned by you with respect?”
+
+“No,” she whispered, with a touch of her old agitation.
+
+I felt the reason insufficient, and turned away with something of the
+same sense of suffocation with which I had heard that the missing key
+had been found in Eleanore Leavenworth’s possession. “You must excuse
+me,” I said; “I want to be a moment by myself, in order to ponder over
+the facts which I have just heard; I will soon return “; and without
+further ceremony, hurried from the room.
+
+By some indefinable impulse, I went immediately up-stairs, and took my
+stand at the western window of the large room directly over Mrs. Belden.
+The blinds were closed; the room was shrouded in funereal gloom, but
+its sombreness and horror were for the moment unfelt; I was engaged in
+a fearful debate with myself. Was Mary Leavenworth the principal, or
+merely the accessory, in this crime? Did the determined prejudice of Mr.
+Gryce, the convictions of Eleanore, the circumstantial evidence even of
+such facts as had come to our knowledge, preclude the possibility
+that Mrs. Belden’s conclusions were correct? That all the detectives
+interested in the affair would regard the question as settled, I did not
+doubt; but need it be? Was it utterly impossible to find evidence yet
+that Henry Clavering was, after all, the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?
+
+Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet where
+lay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had known
+the truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me. Oh, why could
+not the dead be made to speak? Why should she lie there so silent, so
+pulseless, so inert, when a word from her were enough to decide the
+awful question? Was there no power to compel those pallid lips to move?
+
+Carried away by the fervor of the moment, I made my way to her side. Ah,
+God, how still! With what a mockery the closed lips and lids confronted
+my demanding gaze! A stone could not have been more unresponsive.
+
+With a feeling that was almost like anger, I stood there, when--what
+was it I saw protruding from beneath her shoulders where they crushed
+against the bed? An envelope? a letter? Yes.
+
+Dizzy with the sudden surprise, overcome with the wild hopes this
+discovery awakened, I stooped in great agitation and drew the letter
+out. It was sealed but not directed. Breaking it hastily open, I took
+a glance at its contents. Good heavens! it was the work of the girl
+herself!--its very appearance was enough to make that evident! Feeling
+as if a miracle had happened, I hastened with it into the other room,
+and set myself to decipher the awkward scrawl.
+
+This is what I saw, rudely printed in lead pencil on the inside of a
+sheet of common writing-paper:
+
+“I am a wicked girl. I have knone things all the time which I had ought
+to have told but I didn’t dare to he said he would kill me if I did I
+mene the tall splendud looking gentulman with the black mustash who I
+met coming out of Mister Levenworth’s room with a key in his hand the
+night Mr. Levenworth was murdered. He was so scared he gave me money and
+made me go away and come here and keep every thing secret but I can’t do
+so no longer. I seem to see Miss Elenor all the time crying and asking
+me if I want her sent to prisun. God knows I’d rathur die. And this is
+the truth and my last words and I pray every body’s forgivness and hope
+nobody will blame me and that they wont bother Miss Elenor any more but
+go and look after the handsome gentulman with the black mushtash.”
+
+
+
+BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED
+
+
+
+XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL
+
+
+    “It out-herods Herod.”
+         --Hamlet.
+
+    “A thing devised by the enemy.”
+         --Richard III
+
+A HALF-HOUR had passed. The train upon which I had every reason to
+expect Mr. Gryce had arrived, and I stood in the doorway awaiting with
+indescribable agitation the slow and labored approach of the motley
+group of men and women whom I had observed leave the depot at the
+departure of the cars. Would he be among them? Was the telegram of a
+nature peremptory enough to make his presence here, sick as he was, an
+absolute certainty? The written confession of Hannah throbbing against
+my heart, a heart all elation now, as but a short half-hour before it
+had been all doubt and struggle, seemed to rustle distrust, and the
+prospect of a long afternoon spent in impatience was rising before me,
+when a portion of the advancing crowd turned off into a side street,
+and I saw the form of Mr. Gryce hobbling, not on two sticks, but very
+painfully on one, coming slowly down the street.
+
+His face, as he approached, was a study.
+
+“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed, as we met at the gate; “this is a
+pretty how-dye-do, I must say. Hannah dead, eh? and everything turned
+topsy-turvy! Humph, and what do you think of Mary Leavenworth now?”
+
+It would therefore seem natural, in the conversation which followed his
+introduction into the house and installment in Mrs. Belden’s parlor,
+that I should begin my narration by showing him Hannah’s confession; but
+it was not so. Whether it was that I felt anxious to have him go through
+the same alternations of hope and fear it had been my lot to experience
+since I came to R----; or whether, in the depravity of human nature,
+there lingered within me sufficient resentment for the persistent
+disregard he had always paid to my suspicions of Henry Clavering to make
+it a matter of moment to me to spring this knowledge upon him just at
+the instant his own convictions seemed to have reached the point of
+absolute certainty, I cannot say. Enough that it was not till I had
+given him a full account of every other matter connected with my stay in
+this house; not till I saw his eye beaming, and his lip quivering with
+the excitement incident upon the perusal of the letter from Mary, found
+in Mrs. Belden’s pocket; not, indeed, until I became assured from such
+expressions as “Tremendous! The deepest game of the season! Nothing
+like it since the Lafarge affair!” that in another moment he would be
+uttering some theory or belief that once heard would forever stand like
+a barrier between us, did I allow myself to hand him the letter I had
+taken from under the dead body of Hannah.
+
+I shall never forget his expression as he received it; “Good heavens!”
+ cried he, “what’s this?”
+
+“A dying confession of the girl Hannah. I found it lying in her bed when
+I went up, a half-hour ago, to take a second look at her.”
+
+Opening it, he glanced over it with an incredulous air that speedily,
+however, turned to one of the utmost astonishment, as he hastily perused
+it, and then stood turning it over and over in his hand, examining it.
+
+“A remarkable piece of evidence,” I observed, not without a certain
+feeling of triumph; “quite changes the aspect of affairs!”
+
+“Think so?” he sharply retorted; then, whilst I stood staring at him in
+amazement, his manner was so different from what I expected, looked up
+and said: “You tell me that you found this in her bed. Whereabouts in
+her bed?”
+
+“Under the body of the girl herself,” I returned. “I saw one corner of
+it protruding from beneath her shoulders, and drew it out.”
+
+He came and stood before me. “Was it folded or open, when you first
+looked at it?”
+
+“Folded; fastened up in this envelope,” showing it to him.
+
+He took it, looked at it for a moment, and went on with his questions.
+
+“This envelope has a very crumpled appearance, as well as the letter
+itself. Were they so when you found them?”
+
+“Yes, not only so, but doubled up as you see.”
+
+“Doubled up? You are sure of that? Folded, sealed, and then doubled up
+as if her body had rolled across it while alive?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“No trickery about it? No look as if the thing had been insinuated there
+since her death?”
+
+“Not at all. I should rather say that to every appearance she held it in
+her hand when she lay down, but turning over, dropped it and then laid
+upon it.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s eyes, which had been very bright, ominously clouded;
+evidently he had been disappointed in my answers. Laying the letter
+down, he stood musing, but suddenly lifted it again, scrutinized the
+edges of the paper on which it was written, and, darting me a quick
+look, vanished with it into the shade of the window curtain. His manner
+was so peculiar, I involuntarily rose to follow; but he waved me back,
+saying:
+
+“Amuse yourself with that box on the table, which you had such an ado
+over; see if it contains all we have a right to expect to find in it. I
+want to be by myself for a moment.”
+
+Subduing my astonishment, I proceeded to comply with his request, but
+scarcely had I lifted the lid of the box before me when he came hurrying
+back, flung the letter down on the table with an air of the greatest
+excitement, and cried:
+
+“Did I say there had never been anything like it since the Lafarge
+affair? I tell you there has never been anything like it in any affair.
+It is the rummest case on record! Mr. Raymond,” and his eyes, in his
+excitement, actually met mine for the first time in my experience of
+him, “prepare yourself for a disappointment. This pretended confession
+of Hannah’s is a fraud!”
+
+“A fraud?”
+
+“Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it.”
+
+Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. “How do you know
+that?” I cried.
+
+Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. “Look at it,” said he;
+“examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in
+regard to it?”
+
+“Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are printed,
+instead of written; something which might be expected from this girl,
+according to all accounts.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper----”
+
+“Ordinary paper?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality.”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“But is it?”
+
+“Why, yes; I should say so.”
+
+“Look at the lines.”
+
+“What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page;
+evidently the scissors have been used here.”
+
+“In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial
+note?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And is that all you see?”
+
+“All but the words.”
+
+“Don’t you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?”
+
+“No, unless you mean the manufacturer’s stamp in the corner.” Mr.
+Gryce’s glance took meaning. “But I don’t see why the loss of that
+should be deemed a matter of any importance.”
+
+“Don’t you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of
+all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from
+which it was taken?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don’t you
+see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing where the
+paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have
+been prepared by some one else?”
+
+“No,” said I; “I cannot say that I see all that.”
+
+“Can’t! Well then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to
+commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her confession,
+to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was
+taken, on which she wrote it?”
+
+“She wouldn’t.”
+
+“Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond,
+and tell me what you gather from it.”
+
+“Why,” said I, after complying, “that the girl, worn out with constant
+apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that
+Henry Clavering----”
+
+“Henry Clavering?”
+
+The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. “Yes,” said
+I.
+
+“Ah, I didn’t know that Mr. Clavering’s name was mentioned there; excuse
+me.”
+
+“His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in
+accordance----”
+
+Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “Does it not seem a little surprising to
+you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she
+knew by name?”
+
+I started; it was unnatural surely.
+
+“You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year
+ago?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with
+Mr. Clavering and with his name?”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“Then why didn’t she use it? If her intention was, as she here
+professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which
+had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method
+of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at
+once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of
+a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the
+_role_ of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden,
+according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the
+house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she
+declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache.”
+
+“I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?”
+
+“Yes,” said he; “yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there
+is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person.
+But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs.
+Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!”
+
+“A few words from Mrs. Belden,” I repeated. “I have had thousands
+from her to-day, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the
+beginning.”
+
+“_You_ have had,” said he, “but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond.”
+
+I rose. “One thing,” said I, “before I go. What if Hannah had found the
+sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought
+of the suspicions it would occasion!”
+
+“Ah!” said he, “that is just what we are going to find out.”
+
+Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the
+sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I
+imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there
+alone for something, she knew not what.
+
+I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet
+informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first.
+Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was
+better than suspense.
+
+Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood
+from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that
+show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as
+she upon the good opinion of others.
+
+“Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event
+has occurred,” he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet
+her. “May I request you to sit,” he asked; “if a stranger may be allowed
+to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house.”
+
+“It does not seem like my own house any longer,” said she, but in a sad,
+rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way imposed upon
+her. “Little better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or
+speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom
+I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my
+house!”
+
+“Just so!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce; “it is very unjust. But perhaps we can
+right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death
+ought to be easily explained. You say you had no poison in the house?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“And that the girl never went out?”
+
+“Never, sir.”
+
+“And that no one has ever been here to see her?”
+
+“No one, sir.”
+
+“So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Unless,” he added suavely, “she had it with her when she came here?”
+
+“That couldn’t have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for her
+pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked.”
+
+“And what did you find there?”
+
+“Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl to
+have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief.”
+
+“Well, then, it is proved the girl didn’t die of poison, there being
+none in the house.”
+
+He said this in so convinced a tone she was deceived.
+
+“That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond,” giving me a
+triumphant look.
+
+“Must have been heart disease,” he went on, “You say she was well
+yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, sir; or seemed so.”
+
+“Though not cheerful?”
+
+“I did not say that; she was, sir, very.”
+
+“What, ma’am, this girl?” giving me a look. “I don’t understand that. I
+should think her anxiety about those she had left behind her in the city
+would have been enough to keep her from being very cheerful.”
+
+“So you would,” returned Mrs. Belden; “but it wasn’t so. On the
+contrary, she never seemed to worry about them at all.”
+
+“What! not about Miss Eleanore, who, according to the papers, stands
+in so cruel a position before the world? But perhaps she didn’t know
+anything about that--Miss Leavenworth’s position, I mean?”
+
+“Yes, she did, for I told her. I was so astonished I could not keep
+it to myself. You see, I had always considered Eleanore as one above
+reproach, and it so shocked me to see her name mentioned in the
+newspaper in such a connection, that I went to Hannah and read the
+article aloud, and watched her face to see how she took it.”
+
+“And how did she?”
+
+“I can’t say. She looked as if she didn’t understand; asked me why I
+read such things to her, and told me she didn’t want to hear any more;
+that I had promised not to trouble her about this murder, and that if I
+continued to do so she wouldn’t listen.”
+
+“Humph! and what else?”
+
+“Nothing else. She put her hand over her ears and frowned in such a
+sullen way I left the room.”
+
+“That was when?”
+
+“About three weeks ago.”
+
+“She has, however, mentioned the subject since?”
+
+“No, sir; not once.”
+
+“What! not asked what they were going to do with her mistress?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“She has shown, however, that something was preying on her mind--fear,
+remorse, or anxiety?”
+
+“No, sir; on the contrary, she has oftener appeared like one secretly
+elated.”
+
+“But,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, with another sidelong look at me, “that was
+very strange and unnatural. I cannot account for it.”
+
+“Nor I, sir. I used to try to explain it by thinking her sensibilities
+had been blunted, or that she was too ignorant to comprehend the
+seriousness of what had happened; but as I learned to know her better,
+I gradually changed my mind. There was too much method in her gayety for
+that. I could not help seeing she had some future before her for which
+she was preparing herself. As, for instance, she asked me one day if I
+thought she could learn to play on the piano. And I finally came to the
+conclusion she had been promised money if she kept the secret intrusted
+to her, and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the
+dreadful past, and all connected with it. At all events, that was the
+only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to
+improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then
+stealing over her face when she didn’t know I was looking.”
+
+Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that
+moment, I warrant.
+
+“It was all this,” continued Mrs. Belden, “which made her death such a
+shock to me. I couldn’t believe that so cheerful and healthy a creature
+could die like that, all in one night, without anybody knowing anything
+about it. But----”
+
+“Wait one moment,” Mr. Gryce here broke in. “You speak of her endeavors
+to improve herself. What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Her desire to learn things she didn’t know; as, for instance, to write
+and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came here.”
+
+I thought Mr. Gryce would take a piece out of my arm, he griped it so.
+
+“When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been with you
+she has learned to write?”
+
+“Yes, sir; I used to set her copies and----”
+
+“Where are these copies?” broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its
+most professional tone. “And where are her attempts at writing? I’d like
+to see some of them. Can’t you get them for us?”
+
+“I don’t know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as
+they had answered their purpose. I didn’t like to have such things lying
+around. But I will go see.”
+
+“Do,” said he; “and I will go with you. I want to take a look at things
+upstairs, any way.” And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and
+prepared to accompany her.
+
+“This is getting very intense,” I whispered, as he passed me.
+
+The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian
+Mephistopheles.
+
+Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say
+nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of
+paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.
+
+“The writing-paper of the household,” observed Mr. Gryce; “every scrap
+and half-sheet which could be found. But, before you examine it, look at
+this.” And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap, on which were written
+some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy, “BE GOOD AND YOU WILL
+BE HAPPY”; with an occasional “_Beauty soon fades,”_ and “_Evil
+communications corrupt good manners.”_
+
+“What do you think of that?”
+
+“Very neat and very legible.”
+
+“That is Hannah’s latest. The only specimens of her writing to be found.
+Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Mrs. Belden says this girl has known how to write as good as this for
+more than a week. Took great pride in it, and was continually talking
+about how smart she was.” Leaning over, he whispered in my ear, “This
+thing you have in your hand must have been scrawled some time ago, if
+she did it.” Then aloud: “But let us look at the paper she used to write
+on.”
+
+Dashing open the covers of the boxes on the table, he took out the loose
+sheets lying inside, and scattered them out before me. One glance showed
+they were all of an utterly different quality from that used in the
+confession. “This is all the paper in the house,” said he.
+
+“Are you sure of that?” I asked, looking at Mrs. Belden, who stood in
+a sort of maze before us. “Wasn’t there one stray sheet lying around
+somewhere, foolscap or something like that, which she might have got
+hold of and used without your knowing it?”
+
+“No, sir; I don’t think so. I had only these kinds; besides, Hannah had
+a whole pile of paper like this in her room, and wouldn’t have been apt
+to go hunting round after any stray sheets.”
+
+“But you don’t know what a girl like that might do. Look at this one,”
+ said I, showing her the blank side of the confession. “Couldn’t a sheet
+like this have come from somewhere about the house? Examine it well; the
+matter is important.”
+
+“I have, and I say, no, I never had a sheet of paper like that in my
+house.”
+
+Mr. Gryce advanced and took the confession from my hand. As he did so,
+he whispered: “What do you think now? Many chances that Hannah got up
+this precious document?”
+
+I shook my head, convinced at last; but in another moment turned to him
+and whispered back: “But, if Hannah didn’t write it, who did? And how
+came it to be found where it was?”
+
+“That,” said he, “is just what is left for us to learn.” And, beginning
+again, he put question after question concerning the girl’s life in the
+house, receiving answers which only tended to show that she could not
+have brought the confession with her, much less received it from a
+secret messenger. Unless we doubted Mrs. Belden’s word, the mystery
+seemed impenetrable, and I was beginning to despair of success, when Mr.
+Gryce, with an askance look at me, leaned towards Mrs. Belden and said:
+
+“You received a letter from Miss Mary Leavenworth yesterday, I hear.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“_This_ letter?” he continued, showing it to her.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Now I want to ask you a question. Was the letter, as you see it, the
+only contents of the envelope in which it came? Wasn’t there one for
+Hannah enclosed with it?”
+
+“No, sir. There was nothing in my letter for her; but she had a letter
+herself yesterday. It came in the same mail with mine.”
+
+“Hannah had a letter!” we both exclaimed; “and in the mail?”
+
+“Yes; but it was not directed to her. It was”--casting me a look full of
+despair, “directed to me. It was only by a certain mark in the corner of
+the envelope that I knew----”
+
+“Good heaven!” I interrupted; “where is this letter? Why didn’t you
+speak of it before? What do you mean by allowing us to flounder about
+here in the dark, when a glimpse at this letter might have set us right
+at once?”
+
+“I didn’t think anything about it till this minute. I didn’t know it was
+of importance. I----”
+
+But I couldn’t restrain myself. “Mrs. Belden, where is this letter?” I
+demanded. “Have you got it?”
+
+“No,” said she; “I gave it to the girl yesterday; I haven’t seen it
+since.”
+
+“It must be upstairs, then. Let us take another look.” and I hastened
+towards the door.
+
+“You won’t find it,” said Mr. Gryce at my elbow. “I have looked. There
+is nothing but a pile of burned paper in the corner. By the way, what
+could that have been?” he asked of Mrs. Belden.
+
+“I don’t know, sir. She hadn’t anything to burn unless it was the
+letter.”
+
+“We will see about that,” I muttered, hurrying upstairs and bringing
+down the wash-bowl with its contents. “If the letter was the one I saw
+in your hand at the post-office, it was in a yellow envelope.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Yellow envelopes burn differently from white paper. I ought to be able
+to tell the tinder made by a yellow envelope when I see it. Ah, the
+letter has been destroyed; here is a piece of the envelope,” and I drew
+out of the heap of charred scraps a small bit less burnt than the rest,
+and held it up.
+
+“Then there is no use looking here for what the letter contained,” said
+Mr. Gryce, putting the wash-bowl aside. “We will have to ask you, Mrs.
+Belden.”
+
+“But I don’t know. It was directed to me, to be sure; but Hannah told
+me, when she first requested me to teach her how to write, that she
+expected such a letter, so I didn’t open it when it came, but gave it to
+her just as it was.”
+
+“You, however, stayed by to see her read it?”
+
+“No, sir; I was in too much of a flurry. Mr. Raymond had just come and I
+had no time to think of her. My own letter, too, was troubling me.”
+
+“But you surely asked her some questions about it before the day was
+out?”
+
+“Yes, sir, when I went up with her tea things; but she had nothing
+to say. Hannah could be as reticent as any one I ever knew, when she
+pleased. She didn’t even admit it was from her mistress.”
+
+“Ah! then you thought it was from Miss Leavenworth?”
+
+“Why, yes, sir; what else was I to think, seeing that mark in the
+corner? Though, to be sure, it might have been put there by Mr.
+Clavering,” she thoughtfully added.
+
+“You say she was cheerful yesterday; was she so after receiving this
+letter?”
+
+“Yes, sir; as far as I could see. I wasn’t with her long; the necessity
+I felt of doing something with the box in my charge--but perhaps Mr.
+Raymond has told you?”
+
+Mr. Gryce nodded.
+
+“It was an exhausting evening, and quite put Hannah out of my head,
+but----”
+
+“Wait!” cried Mr. Gryce, and beckoning me into a corner, he whispered,
+“Now comes in that experience of Q’s. While you are gone from the house,
+and before Mrs. Belden sees Hannah again, he has a glimpse of the girl
+bending over something in the corner of her room which may very fairly
+be the wash-bowl we found there. After which, he sees her swallow, in
+the most lively way, a dose of something from a bit of paper. Was there
+anything more?”
+
+“No,” said I.
+
+“Very well, then,” he cried, going back to Mrs. Belden. “But----”
+
+“But when I went upstairs to bed, I thought of the girl, and going to
+her door opened it. The light was extinguished, and she seemed asleep,
+so I closed it again and came out.”
+
+“Without speaking?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did you notice how she was lying?”
+
+“Not particularly. I think on her back.”
+
+“In something of the same position in which she was found this morning?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And that is all you can tell us, either of her letter or her mysterious
+death?”
+
+“All, sir.”
+
+Mr. Gryce straightened himself up.
+
+“Mrs. Belden,” said he, “you know Mr. Clavering’s handwriting when _you_
+see it?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“And Miss Leavenworth’s?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Now, which of the two was upon the envelope of the letter you gave
+Hannah?”
+
+“I couldn’t say. It was a disguised handwriting and might have been that
+of either; but I think----”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“That it was more like hers than his, though it wasn’t like hers
+either.”
+
+With a smile, Mr. Gryce enclosed the confession in his hand in the
+envelope in which it had been found. “You remember how large the letter
+was which you gave her?”
+
+“Oh, it was large, very large; one of the largest sort.”
+
+“And thick?”
+
+“O yes; thick enough for two letters.”
+
+“Large enough and thick enough to contain this?” laying the confession,
+folded and enveloped as it was, before her.
+
+“Yes, sir,” giving it a look of startled amazement, “large enough and
+thick enough to contain that.”
+
+Mr. Gryce’s eyes, bright as diamonds, flashed around the room, and
+finally settled upon a fly traversing my coat-sleeve. “Do you need to
+ask now,” he whispered, in a low voice, “where, and from whom, this
+so-called confession comes?”
+
+He allowed himself one moment of silent triumph, then rising, began
+folding the papers on the table and putting them in his pocket.
+
+“What are you going to do?” I asked, hurriedly approaching.
+
+He took me by the arm and led me across the hall into the sitting-room.
+“I am going back to New York, I am going to pursue this matter. I am
+going to find out from whom came the poison which killed this girl, and
+by whose hand this vile forgery of a confession was written.”
+
+“But,” said I, rather thrown off my balance by all this, “Q and the
+coroner will be here presently, won’t you wait to see them?”
+
+“No; clues such as are given here must be followed while the trail is
+hot; I can’t afford to wait.”
+
+“If I am not mistaken, they have already come,” I remarked, as a
+tramping of feet without announced that some one stood at the door.
+
+“That is so,” he assented, hastening to let them in.
+
+Judging from common experience, we had every reason to fear that an
+immediate stop would be put to all proceedings on our part, as soon as
+the coroner was introduced upon the scene. But happily for us and the
+interest at stake, Dr. Fink, of R ----, proved to be a very sensible
+man. He had only to hear a true story of the affair to recognize at
+once its importance and the necessity of the most cautious action in
+the matter. Further, by a sort of sympathy with Mr. Gryce, all the more
+remarkable that he had never seen him before, he expressed himself
+as willing to enter into our plans, offering not only to allow us the
+temporary use of such papers as we desired, but even undertaking to
+conduct the necessary formalities of calling a jury and instituting
+an inquest in such a way as to give us time for the investigations we
+proposed to make.
+
+The delay was therefore short. Mr. Gryce was enabled to take the 6:30
+train for New York, and I to follow on the 10 p.m.,--the calling of a
+jury, ordering of an autopsy, and final adjournment of the inquiry till
+the following Tuesday, having all taken place in the interim.
+
+
+
+XXXV. FINE WORK
+
+
+    “No hinge nor loop
+     To hang a doubt on!”
+     “But yet the pity of it, Iago!
+     Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago.”
+         --Othello.
+
+One sentence dropped by Mr. Gryce before leaving R---- prepared me for
+his next move.
+
+“The clue to this murder is supplied by the paper on which the
+confession is written. Find from whose desk or portfolio this especial
+sheet was taken, and you find the double murderer,” he had said.
+
+Consequently, I was not surprised when, upon visiting his house, early
+the next morning, I beheld him seated before a table on which lay
+a lady’s writing-desk and a pile of paper, till told the desk was
+Eleanore’s. Then I did show astonishment. “What,” said I, “are you not
+satisfied yet of her innocence?”
+
+“O yes; but one must be thorough. No conclusion is valuable which is not
+preceded by a full and complete investigation. Why,” he cried, casting
+his eyes complacently towards the fire-tongs, “I have even been
+rummaging through Mr. Clavering’s effects, though the confession bears
+the proof upon its face that it could not have been written by him. It
+is not enough to look for evidence where you expect to find it. You must
+sometimes search for it where you don’t. Now,” said he, drawing the desk
+before him, “I don’t anticipate finding anything here of a criminating
+character; but it is among the possibilities that I may; and that is
+enough for a detective.”
+
+“Did you see Miss Leavenworth this morning?” I asked, as he proceeded
+to fulfil his intention by emptying the contents of the desk upon the
+table.
+
+“Yes; I was unable to procure what I desired without it. And she behaved
+very handsomely, gave me the desk with her own hands, and never raised
+an objection. To be sure, she had little idea what I was looking for;
+thought, perhaps, I wanted to make sure it did not contain the letter
+about which so much has been said. But it would have made but little
+difference if she had known the truth. This desk contains nothing _we_
+want.”
+
+“Was she well; and had she heard of Hannah’s sudden death?” I asked, in
+my irrepressible anxiety.
+
+“Yes, and feels it, as you might expect her to. But let us see what we
+have here,” said he, pushing aside the desk, and drawing towards him the
+stack of paper I have already referred to. “I found this pile, just as
+you see it, in a drawer of the library table at Miss Mary Leavenworth’s
+house in Fifth Avenue. If I am not mistaken, it will supply us with the
+clue we want.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“But this paper is square, while that of the confession is of the size
+and shape of commercial note? I know; but you remember the sheet used in
+the confession was trimmed down. Let us compare the quality.”
+
+Taking the confession from his pocket and the sheet from the pile before
+him, he carefully compared them, then held them out for my inspection. A
+glance showed them to be alike in color.
+
+“Hold them up to the light,” said he.
+
+I did so; the appearance presented by both was precisely alike.
+
+“Now let us compare the ruling.” And, laying them both down on the
+table, he placed the edges of the two sheets together. The lines on the
+one accommodated themselves to the lines on the other; and that question
+was decided.
+
+His triumph was assured. “I was convinced of it,” said he. “From the
+moment I pulled open that drawer and saw this mass of paper, I knew the
+end was come.”
+
+“But,” I objected, in my old spirit of combativeness, “isn’t there any
+room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the
+block might easily have specimens of it in their library.”
+
+“That isn’t so,” he said. “It is letter size, and that has gone out. Mr.
+Leavenworth used it for his manuscript, or I doubt if it would have been
+found in his library. But, if you are still incredulous, let us see what
+can be done,” and jumping up, he carried the confession to the window,
+looked at it this way and that, and, finally discovering what he wanted,
+came back and, laying it before me, pointed out one of the lines of
+ruling which was markedly heavier than the rest, and another which was
+so faint as to be almost undistinguishable. “Defects like these often
+run through a number of consecutive sheets,” said he. “If we could find
+the identical half-quire from which this was taken, I might show you
+proof that would dispel every doubt,” and taking up the one that lay on
+top, he rapidly counted the sheets. There were but eight. “It might have
+been taken from this one,” said he; but, upon looking closely at the
+ruling, he found it to be uniformly distinct. “Humph! that won’t do!”
+ came from his lips.
+
+The remainder of the paper, some dozen or so half-quires, looked
+undisturbed. Mr. Gryce tapped his fingers on the table and a frown
+crossed his face. “Such a pretty thing, if it could have been done!” he
+longingly exclaimed. Suddenly he took up the next half-quire. “Count the
+sheets,” said he, thrusting it towards me, and himself lifting another.
+
+I did as I was bid. “Twelve.”
+
+He counted his and laid it down. “Go on with the rest,” he cried.
+
+I counted the sheets in the next; twelve. He counted those in the one
+following, and paused. “Eleven!”
+
+“Count again,” I suggested.
+
+He counted again, and quietly put them aside. “I made a mistake,” said
+he.
+
+But he was not to be discouraged. Taking another half-quire, he went
+through with the same operation;--in vain. With a sigh of impatience he
+flung it down on the table and looked up. “Halloo!” he cried, “what is
+the matter?”
+
+“There are but eleven sheets in this package,” I said, placing it in his
+hand.
+
+The excitement he immediately evinced was contagious. Oppressed as I
+was, I could not resist his eagerness. “Oh, beautiful!” he exclaimed.
+“Oh, beautiful! See! the light on the inside, the heavy one on the
+outside, and both in positions precisely corresponding to those on
+this sheet of Hannah’s. What do you think now? Is any further proof
+necessary?”
+
+“The veriest doubter must succumb before this,” returned I.
+
+With something like a considerate regard for my emotion, he turned away.
+“I am obliged to congratulate myself, notwithstanding the gravity of the
+discovery that has been made,” said he. “It is so neat, so very neat,
+and so conclusive. I declare I am myself astonished at the perfection
+of the thing. But what a woman that is!” he suddenly cried, in a tone
+of the greatest admiration. “What an intellect she has! what shrewdness!
+what skill! I declare it is almost a pity to entrap a woman who has done
+as well as this--taken a sheet from the very bottom of the pile, trimmed
+it into another shape, and then, remembering the girl couldn’t write,
+put what she had to say into coarse, awkward printing, Hannah-like.
+_Splendid_! or would have been, if any other man than myself had
+had this thing in charge.” And, all animated and glowing with his
+enthusiasm, he eyed the chandelier above him as if it were the
+embodiment of his own sagacity.
+
+Sunk in despair, I let him go on.
+
+“Could she have done any better?” he now asked. “Watched, circumscribed
+as she was, could she have done any better? I hardly think so; the fact
+of Hannah’s having learned to write after she left here was fatal. No,
+she could not have provided against that contingency.”
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I here interposed, unable to endure this any longer; “did
+you have an interview with Miss Mary Leavenworth this morning?”
+
+“No,” said he; “it was not in the line of my present purpose to do so. I
+doubt, indeed, if she knew I was in her house. A servant maid who has a
+grievance is a very valuable assistant to a detective. With Molly at my
+side, I didn’t need to pay my respects to the mistress.”
+
+“Mr. Gryce,” I asked, after another moment of silent self-congratulation
+on his part, and of desperate self-control on mine, “what do you propose
+to do now? You have followed your clue to the end and are satisfied.
+Such knowledge as this is the precursor of action.”
+
+“Humph! we will see,” he returned, going to his private desk and
+bringing out the box of papers which we had no opportunity of looking at
+while in R----. “First let us examine these documents, and see if they
+do not contain some hint which may be of service to us.” And taking out
+the dozen or so loose sheets which had been torn from Eleanore’s Diary,
+he began turning them over.
+
+While he was doing this, I took occasion to examine the contents of
+the box. I found them to be precisely what Mrs. Belden had led me to
+expect,--a certificate of marriage between Mary and Mr. Clavering and
+a half-dozen or more letters. While glancing over the former, a short
+exclamation from Mr. Gryce startled me into looking up.
+
+“What is it?” I cried.
+
+He thrust into my hand the leaves of Eleanore’s Diary. “Read,” said he.
+“Most of it is a repetition of what you have already heard from Mrs.
+Belden, though given from a different standpoint; but there is one
+passage in it which, if I am not mistaken, opens up the way to an
+explanation of this murder such as we have not had yet. Begin at the
+beginning; you won’t find it dull.”
+
+Dull! Eleanore’s feelings and thoughts during that anxious time, dull!
+
+Mustering up my self-possession, I spread out the leaves in their order
+and commenced:
+
+“R------, July 6,----”
+
+“Two days after they got there, you perceive,” Mr. Gryce explained.
+
+“--A gentleman was introduced to us to-day upon the _piazza_ whom
+I cannot forbear mentioning; first, because he is the most perfect
+specimen of manly beauty I ever beheld, and secondly, because Mary, who
+is usually so voluble where gentlemen are concerned, had nothing to say
+when, in the privacy of our own apartment, I questioned her as to the
+effect his appearance and conversation had made upon her. The fact
+that he is an Englishman may have something to do with this; Uncle’s
+antipathy to every one of that nation being as well known to her as to
+me. But somehow I cannot feel satisfied of this. Her experience with
+Charlie Somerville has made me suspicious. What if the story of last
+summer were to be repeated here, with an Englishman for the hero! But
+I will not allow myself to contemplate such a possibility. Uncle will
+return in a few days, and then all communication with one who, however
+prepossessing, is of a family and race with whom it is impossible for
+us to unite ourselves, must of necessity cease. I doubt if I should have
+thought twice of all this if Mr. Clavering had not betrayed, upon his
+introduction to Mary, such intense and unrestrained admiration.
+
+“July 8. The old story is to be repeated. Mary not only submits to the
+attentions of Mr. Clavering, but encourages them. To-day she sat
+two hours at the piano singing over to him her favorite songs, and
+to-night--But I will not put down every trivial circumstance that comes
+under my observation; it is unworthy of me. And yet, how can I shut my
+eyes when the happiness of so many I love is at stake!
+
+“July 11. If Mr. Clavering is not absolutely in love with Mary, he is on
+the verge of it. He is a very fine-looking man, and too honorable to be
+trifled with in this reckless fashion.
+
+“July 13. Mary’s beauty blossoms like the rose. She was absolutely
+wonderful to-night in scarlet and silver. I think her smile the sweetest
+I ever beheld, and in this I am sure Mr. Clavering passionately agrees
+with me; he never looked away from her to-night. But it is not so easy
+to read _her_ heart. To be sure, she appears anything but indifferent
+to his fine appearance, strong sense, and devoted affection. But did she
+not deceive us into believing she loved Charlie Somerville? In her case,
+blush and smile go for little, I fear. Would it not be wiser under the
+circumstances to say, I hope?
+
+“July 17. Oh, my heart! Mary came into my room this evening, and
+absolutely startled me by falling at my side and burying her face in my
+lap. ‘Oh, Eleanore, Eleanore!’ she murmured, quivering with what seemed
+to me very happy sobs. But when I strove to lift her head to my breast,
+she slid from my arms, and drawing herself up into her old attitude of
+reserved pride, raised her hand as if to impose silence, and haughtily
+left the room. There is but one interpretation to put upon this. Mr.
+Clavering has expressed his sentiments, and she is filled with that
+reckless delight which in its first flush makes one insensible to the
+existence of barriers which have hitherto been deemed impassable. When
+will Uncle come?
+
+“July 18. Little did I think when I wrote the above that Uncle was
+already in the house. He arrived unexpectedly on the last train, and
+came into my room just as I was putting away my diary. Looking a little
+care-worn, he took me in his arms and then asked for Mary. I dropped my
+head, and could not help stammering as I replied that she was in her own
+room. Instantly his love took alarm, and leaving me, he hastened to
+her apartment, where I afterwards learned he came upon her sitting
+abstractedly before her dressing-table with Mr. Clavering’s family ring
+on her finger. I do not know what followed. An unhappy scene, I fear,
+for Mary is ill this morning, and Uncle exceedingly melancholy and
+stern.
+
+“Afternoon. We are an unhappy family! Uncle not only refuses to consider
+for a moment the question of Mary’s alliance with Mr. Clavering, but
+even goes so far as to demand his instant and unconditional dismissal.
+The knowledge of this came to me in the most distressing way.
+Recognizing the state of affairs, but secretly rebelling against a
+prejudice which seemed destined to separate two persons otherwise fitted
+for each other, I sought Uncle’s presence this morning after breakfast,
+and attempted to plead their cause. But he almost instantly stopped me
+with the remark, ‘You are the last one, Eleanore, who should seek to
+promote this marriage.’ Trembling with apprehension, I asked him
+why. ‘For the reason that by so doing you work entirely for your own
+interest.’ More and more troubled, I begged him to explain himself. ‘I
+mean,’ said he, ‘that if Mary disobeys me by marrying this Englishman,
+I shall disinherit her, and substitute your name for hers in my will as
+well as in my affection.’
+
+“For a moment everything swam before my eyes. ‘You will never make me so
+wretched!’ I entreated. ‘I will make you my heiress, if Mary persists
+in her present determination,’ he declared, and without further word
+sternly left the room. What could I do but fall on my knees and pray!
+Of all in this miserable house, I am the most wretched. To supplant
+her! But I shall not be called upon to do it; Mary will give up Mr.
+Clavering.”
+
+“There!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce. “What do you think of that? Isn’t it
+becoming plain enough what was Mary’s motive for this murder? But go on;
+let us hear what followed.”
+
+With sinking heart, I continued. The next entry is dated July 19, and
+runs thus:
+
+“I was right. After a long struggle with Uncle’s invincible will, Mary
+has consented to dismiss Mr. Clavering. I was in the room when she
+made known her decision, and I shall never forget our Uncle’s look of
+gratified pride as he clasped her in his arms and called her his own
+True Heart. He has evidently been very much exercised over this matter,
+and I cannot but feel greatly relieved that affairs have terminated
+so satisfactorily. But Mary? What is there in her manner that vaguely
+disappoints me? I cannot say. I only know that I felt a powerful
+shrinking overwhelm me when she turned her face to me and asked if I
+were satisfied now. But I conquered my feelings and held out my hand.
+She did not take it.
+
+“July 26. How long the days are! The shadow of our late trial is upon
+me yet; I cannot shake it off. I seem to see Mr. Clavering’s despairing
+face wherever I go. How is it that Mary preserves her cheerfulness? If
+she does not love him, I should think the respect which she must feel
+for his disappointment would keep her from levity at least.
+
+“Uncle has gone away again. Nothing I could say sufficed to keep him.
+
+“July 28. It has all come out. Mary has only nominally separated from
+Mr. Clavering; she still cherishes the idea of one day uniting herself
+to him in marriage. The fact was revealed to me in a strange way not
+necessary to mention here; and has since been confirmed by Mary herself.
+‘I admire the man,’ she declares, ‘and have no intention of giving him
+up.’ ‘Then why not tell Uncle so?’ I asked. Her only answer was a bitter
+smile and a short,--‘I leave that for you to do.’
+
+“July 30. Midnight. Worn completely out, but before my blood cools let
+me write. Mary is a wife. I have just returned from seeing her give her
+hand to Henry Clavering. Strange that I can write it without quivering
+when my whole soul is one flush of indignation and revolt. But let me
+state the facts. Having left my room for a few minutes this morning,
+I returned to find on my dressing-table a note from Mary in which she
+informed me that she was going to take Mrs. Belden for a drive and would
+not be back for some hours. Convinced, as I had every reason to be, that
+she was on her way to meet Mr. Clavering, I only stopped to put on my
+hat--”
+
+There the Diary ceased.
+
+“She was probably interrupted by Mary at this point,” explained Mr.
+Gryce. “But we have come upon the one thing we wanted to know. Mr.
+Leavenworth threatened to supplant Mary with Eleanore if she persisted
+in marrying contrary to his wishes. She did so marry, and to avoid the
+consequences of her act she----”
+
+“Say no more,” I returned, convinced at last. “It is only too clear.”
+
+Mr. Gryce rose.
+
+“But the writer of these words is saved,” I went on, trying to grasp
+the one comfort left me. “No one who reads this Diary will ever dare to
+insinuate she is capable of committing a crime.”
+
+“Assuredly not; the Diary settles that matter effectually.”
+
+I tried to be man enough to think of that and nothing else. To rejoice
+in her deliverance, and let every other consideration go; but in this I
+did not succeed. “But Mary, her cousin, almost her sister, is lost,” I
+muttered.
+
+Mr. Gryce thrust his hands into his pockets and, for the first time,
+showed some evidence of secret disturbance. “Yes, I am afraid she is;
+I really am afraid she is.” Then after a pause, during which I felt a
+certain thrill of vague hope: “Such an entrancing creature too! It is a
+pity, it positively is a pity! I declare, now that the thing is worked
+up, I begin to feel almost sorry we have succeeded so well. Strange,
+but true. If there was the least loophole out of it,” he muttered. “But
+there isn’t. The thing is clear as A, B, C.” Suddenly he rose, and began
+pacing the floor very thoughtfully, casting his glances here, there, and
+everywhere, except at me, though I believe now, as then, my face was all
+he saw.
+
+“Would it be a very great grief to you, Mr. Raymond, if Miss Mary
+Leavenworth should be arrested on this charge of murder?” he asked,
+pausing before a sort of tank in which two or three disconsolate-looking
+fishes were slowly swimming about.
+
+“Yes,” said I, “it would; a very great grief.”
+
+“Yet it must be done,” said he, though with a strange lack of his usual
+decision. “As an honest official, trusted to bring the murderer of Mr.
+Leavenworth to the notice of the proper authorities, I have got to do
+it.”
+
+Again that strange thrill of hope at my heart induced by his peculiar
+manner.
+
+“Then my reputation as a detective! I ought surely to consider that.
+I am not so rich or so famous that I can afford to forget all that a
+success like this may bring me. No, lovely as she is, I have got to push
+it through.” But even as he said this, he became still more thoughtful,
+gazing down into the murky depths of the wretched tank before him with
+such an intentness I half expected the fascinated fishes to rise from
+the water and return his gaze. What was in his mind?
+
+After a little while he turned, his indecision utterly gone. “Mr.
+Raymond, come here again at three. I shall then have my report ready for
+the Superintendent. I should like to show it to you first, so don’t fail
+me.”
+
+There was something so repressed in his expression, I could not prevent
+myself from venturing one question. “Is your mind made up?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” he returned, but in a peculiar tone, and with a peculiar gesture.
+
+“And you are going to make the arrest you speak of?”
+
+“Come at three!”
+
+
+
+XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS
+
+
+    “This is the short and the long of it.”
+         --Merry Wives of Windsor.
+
+PROMPTLY at the hour named, I made my appearance at Mr. Gryce’s door. I
+found him awaiting me on the threshold.
+
+“I have met you,” said he gravely, “for the purpose of requesting you
+not to speak during the coming interview. I am to do the talking; you
+the listening. Neither are you to be surprised at anything I may do or
+say. I am in a facetious mood”--he did not look so--“and may take it
+into my head to address you by another name than your own. If I do,
+don’t mind it. Above all, don’t talk: remember that.” And without
+waiting to meet my look of doubtful astonishment, he led me softly
+up-stairs.
+
+The room in which I had been accustomed to meet him was at the top of
+the first flight, but he took me past that into what appeared to be the
+garret story, where, after many cautionary signs, he ushered me into
+a room of singularly strange and unpromising appearance. In the first
+place, it was darkly gloomy, being lighted simply by a very dim and
+dirty skylight. Next, it was hideously empty; a pine table and two
+hard-backed chairs, set face to face at each end of it, being the only
+articles in the room. Lastly, it was surrounded by several closed doors
+with blurred and ghostly ventilators over their tops which, being round,
+looked like the blank eyes of a row of staring mummies. Altogether it
+was a lugubrious spot, and in the present state of my mind made me
+feel as if something unearthly and threatening lay crouched in the very
+atmosphere. Nor, sitting there cold and desolate, could I imagine that
+the sunshine glowed without, or that life, beauty, and pleasure paraded
+the streets below.
+
+Mr. Gryce’s expression, as he took a seat and beckoned me to do the
+same, may have had something to do with this strange sensation, it was
+so mysteriously and sombrely expectant.
+
+“You’ll not mind the room,” said he, in so muffled a tone I scarcely
+heard him. “It’s an awful lonesome spot, I know; but folks with such
+matters before them mustn’t be too particular as to the places in which
+they hold their consultations, if they don’t want all the world to know
+as much as they do. Smith,” and he gave me an admonitory shake of his
+finger, while his voice took a more distinct tone, “I have done the
+business; the reward is mine; the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is found,
+and in two hours will be in custody. Do you want to know who it
+is?” leaning forward with every appearance of eagerness in tone and
+expression.
+
+I stared at him in great amazement. Had anything new come to light? any
+great change taken place in his conclusions? All this preparation could
+not be for the purpose of acquainting me with what I already knew, yet--
+
+He cut short my conjectures with a low, expressive chuckle. “It was a
+long chase, I tell you,” raising his voice still more; “a tight go; a
+woman in the business too; but all the women in the world can’t pull
+the wool over the eyes of Ebenezer Gryce when he is on a trail; and the
+assassin of Mr. Leavenworth and”--here his voice became actually shrill
+in his excitement--“and of Hannah Chester is found.
+
+“Hush!” he went on, though I had neither spoken nor made any move; “you
+didn’t know Hannah Chester was murdered. Well, she wasn’t in one sense
+of the word, but in another she was, and by the same hand that killed
+the old gentleman. How do I know this? look here! This scrap of paper
+was found on the floor of her room; it had a few particles of white
+powder sticking to it; those particles were tested last night and found
+to be poison. But you say the girl took it herself, that she was a
+suicide. You are right, she did take it herself, and it was a suicide;
+but who terrified her into this act of self-destruction? Why, the one
+who had the most reason to fear her testimony, of course. But the proof,
+you say. Well, sir, this girl left a confession behind her, throwing the
+onus of the whole crime on a certain party believed to be innocent; this
+confession was a forged one, known from three facts; first, that the
+paper upon which it was written was unobtainable by the girl in the
+place where she was; secondly, that the words used therein were printed
+in coarse, awkward characters, whereas Hannah, thanks to the teaching of
+the woman under whose care she has been since the murder, had learned to
+write very well; thirdly, that the story told in the confession does not
+agree with the one related by the girl herself. Now the fact of a forged
+confession throwing the guilt upon an innocent party having been found
+in the keeping of this ignorant girl, killed by a dose of poison, taken
+with the fact here stated, that on the morning of the day on which she
+killed herself the girl received from some one manifestly acquainted
+with the customs of the Leavenworth family a letter large enough and
+thick enough to contain the confession folded, as it was when found,
+makes it almost certain to my mind that the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth
+sent this powder and this so-called confession to the girl, meaning
+her to use them precisely as she did: for the purpose of throwing off
+suspicion from the right track and of destroying herself at the same
+time; for, as you know, dead men tell no tales.”
+
+He paused and looked at the dingy skylight above us. Why did the
+air seem to grow heavier and heavier? Why did I shudder in vague
+apprehension? I knew all this before; why did it strike me, then, as
+something new?
+
+“But who was this? you ask. Ah, that is the secret; that is the bit of
+knowledge which is to bring me fame and fortune. But, secret or not,
+I don’t mind telling you”; lowering his voice and rapidly raising it
+again. “The fact is, _I_ can’t keep it to myself; it burns like a new
+dollar in my pocket. Smith, my boy, the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth--but
+stay, who does the world say it is? Whom do the papers point at and
+shake their heads over? A woman! a young, beautiful, bewitching woman!
+Ha, ha, ha! The papers are right; it is a woman; young, beautiful, and
+bewitching too. But what one? Ah, that’s the question. There is more
+than one woman in this affair. Since Hannah’s death I have heard it
+openly advanced that she was the guilty party in the crime: bah! Others
+cry it is the niece who was so unequally dealt with by her uncle in his
+will: bah! again. But folks are not without some justification for this
+latter assertion. Eleanore Leavenworth did know more of this matter than
+appeared. Worse than that, Eleanore Leavenworth stands in a position of
+positive peril to-day. If you don’t think so, let me show you what the
+detectives have against her.
+
+“First, there is the fact that a handkerchief, with her name on it, was
+found stained with pistol grease upon the scene of murder; a place which
+she explicitly denies having entered for twenty-four hours previous to
+the discovery of the dead body.
+
+“Secondly, the fact that she not only evinced terror when confronted
+with this bit of circumstantial evidence, but manifested a decided
+disposition, both at this time and others, to mislead inquiry, shirking
+a direct answer to some questions and refusing all answer to others.
+
+“Thirdly, that an attempt was made by her to destroy a certain letter
+evidently relating to this crime.
+
+“Fourthly, that the key to the library door was seen in her possession.
+
+“All this, taken with the fact that the fragments of the letter which
+this same lady attempted to destroy within an hour after the inquest
+were afterwards put together, and were found to contain a bitter
+denunciation of one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces, by a gentleman we will
+call _X_ in other words, an unknown quantity--makes out a dark case
+against _you,_ especially as after investigations revealed the fact that
+a secret underlay the history of the Leavenworth family. That, unknown
+to the world at large, and Mr. Leavenworth in particular, a marriage
+ceremony had been performed a year before in a little town called F----
+between a Miss Leavenworth and this same _X._ That, in other words, the
+unknown gentleman who, in the letter partly destroyed by Miss Eleanore
+Leavenworth, complained to Mr. Leavenworth of the treatment received
+by him from one of his nieces, was in fact the secret husband of that
+niece. And that, moreover, this same gentleman, under an assumed name,
+called on the night of the murder at the house of Mr. Leavenworth and
+asked for Miss Eleanore.
+
+“Now you see, with all this against her, Eleanore Leavenworth is lost
+if it cannot be proved, first that the articles testifying against her,
+viz.: the handkerchief, letter, and key, passed after the murder through
+other hands, before reaching hers; and secondly, that some one else had
+even a stronger reason than she for desiring Mr. Leavenworth’s death at
+this time.
+
+“Smith, my boy, both of these hypotheses have been established by me.
+By dint of moleing into old secrets, and following unpromising clues, I
+have finally come to the conclusion that not Eleanore Leavenworth, dark
+as are the appearances against her, but another woman, beautiful as
+she, and fully as interesting, is the true criminal. In short, that her
+cousin, the exquisite Mary, is the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth, and by
+inference of Hannah Chester also.”
+
+He brought this out with such force, and with such a look of triumph
+and appearance of having led up to it, that I was for the moment
+dumbfounded, and started as if I had not known what he was going to say.
+The stir I made seemed to awake an echo. Something like a suppressed
+cry was in the air about me. All the room appeared to breathe horror and
+dismay. Yet when, in the excitement of this fancy, I half turned round
+to look, I found nothing but the blank eyes of those dull ventilators
+staring upon me.
+
+“You are taken aback!” Mr. Gryce went on. “I don’t wonder. Every one
+else is engaged in watching the movements of Eleanore Leavenworth; I
+only know where to put my hand upon the real culprit. You shake your
+head!” (Another fiction.) “You don’t believe me! Think I am deceived.
+Ha, ha! Ebenezer Gryce deceived after a month of hard work! You are as
+bad as Miss Leavenworth herself, who has so little faith in my sagacity
+that she offered me, of all men, an enormous reward if I would find for
+her the assassin of her uncle! But that is neither here nor there;
+you have your doubts, and you are waiting for me to solve them. Well,
+nothing is easier. Know first that on the morning of the inquest I made
+one or two discoveries not to be found in the records, viz.: that the
+handkerchief picked up, as I have said, in Mr. Leavenworth’s library,
+had notwithstanding its stains of pistol grease, a decided perfume
+lingering about it. Going to the dressing-table of the two ladies, I
+sought for that perfume, and found it in Mary’s room, not Eleanore’s.
+This led me to examine the pockets of the dresses respectively worn by
+them the evening before. In that of Eleanore I found a handkerchief,
+presumably the one she had carried at that time. But in Mary’s there was
+none, nor did I see any lying about her room as if tossed down on
+her retiring. The conclusion I drew from this was, that she, and
+not Eleanore, had carried the handkerchief into her uncle’s room, a
+conclusion emphasized by the fact privately communicated to me by one of
+the servants, that Mary was in Eleanore’s room when the basket of clean
+clothes was brought up with this handkerchief lying on top.
+
+“But knowing the liability we are to mistake in such matters as these,
+I made another search in the library, and came across a very curious
+thing. Lying on the table was a penknife, and scattered on the floor
+beneath, in close proximity to the chair, were two or three minute
+portions of wood freshly chipped off from the leg of the table; all of
+which looked as if some one of a nervous disposition had been sitting
+there, whose hand in a moment of self-forgetfulness had caught up the
+knife and unconsciously whittled the table. A little thing, you say;
+but when the question is, which of two ladies, one of a calm and
+self-possessed nature, the other restless in her ways and excitable in
+her disposition, was in a certain spot at a certain time, it is these
+little things that become almost deadly in their significance. No one
+who has been with these two women an hour can hesitate as to whose
+delicate hand made that cut in Mr. Leavenworth’s library table.
+
+“But we are not done. I distinctly overheard Eleanore accuse her cousin
+of this deed. Now such a woman as Eleanore Leavenworth has proved
+herself to be never would accuse a relative of crime without the
+strongest and most substantial reasons. First, she must have been sure
+her cousin stood in a position of such emergency that nothing but
+the death of her uncle could release her from it; secondly, that her
+cousin’s character was of such a nature she would not hesitate to
+relieve herself from a desperate emergency by the most desperate of
+means; and lastly, been in possession of some circumstantial evidence
+against her cousin, seriously corroborative of her suspicions. Smith,
+all this was true of Eleanore Leavenworth. As to the character of her
+cousin, she has had ample proof of her ambition, love of money, caprice
+and deceit, it having been Mary Leavenworth, and not Eleanore, as was
+first supposed, who had contracted the secret marriage already spoken
+of. Of the critical position in which she stood, let the threat once
+made by Mr. Leavenworth to substitute her cousin’s name for hers in
+his will in case she had married this _x_ be remembered, as well as the
+tenacity with which Mary clung to her hopes of future fortune; while for
+the corroborative testimony of her guilt which Eleanore is supposed
+to have had, remember that previous to the key having been found in
+Eleanore’s possession, she had spent some time in her cousin’s room; and
+that it was at Mary’s fireplace the half-burned fragments of that letter
+were found,--and you have the outline of a report which in an hour’s
+time from this will lead to the arrest of Mary Leavenworth as the
+assassin of her uncle and benefactor.”
+
+A silence ensued which, like the darkness of Egypt, could be felt;
+then a great and terrible cry rang through the room, and a man’s form,
+rushing from I knew not where, shot by me and fell at Mr. Gryce’s feet
+shrieking out:
+
+“It is a lie! a lie! Mary Leavenworth is innocent as a babe unborn. I am
+the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. I! I! I!”
+
+It was Trueman Harwell.
+
+
+
+XXXVII. CULMINATION
+
+
+    “Saint seducing gold.”
+         --Romeo and Juliet.
+
+    “When our actions do not,
+     Our fears do make us traitors.”
+         --Macbeth.
+
+I NEVER saw such a look of mortal triumph on the face of a man as that
+which crossed the countenance of the detective.
+
+“Well,” said he, “this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome. I am
+truly glad to learn that Miss Leavenworth is innocent; but I must hear
+some few more particulars before I shall be satisfied. Get up,
+Mr. Harwell, and explain yourself. If you are the murderer of Mr.
+Leavenworth, how comes it that things look so black against everybody
+but yourself?”
+
+But in the hot, feverish eyes which sought him from the writhing form at
+his feet, there was mad anxiety and pain, but little explanation. Seeing
+him making unavailing efforts to speak, I drew near.
+
+“Lean on me,” said I, lifting him to his feet.
+
+His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned towards
+me with the look of a despairing spirit. “Save! save!” he gasped. “Save
+her--Mary--they are sending a report--stop it!”
+
+“Yes,” broke in another voice. “If there is a man here who believes in
+God and prizes woman’s honor, let him stop the issue of that report.”
+ And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of extreme
+agitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at our right.
+
+But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered, shrieked,
+and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr. Clavering, herculean
+of frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce interposed.
+
+“Wait!” he cried; and holding back the secretary with one hand--where
+was his rheumatism now!--he put the other in his pocket and drew thence
+a document which he held up before Mr. Clavering. “It has not gone
+yet,” said he; “be easy. And you,” he went on, turning towards Trueman
+Harwell, “be quiet, or----”
+
+His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp. “Let me
+go!” he shrieked. “Let me have my revenge on him who, in face of all I
+have done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his wife! Let me--”
+ But at this point he paused, his quivering frame stiffening into stone,
+and his clutching hands, outstretched for his rival’s throat, falling
+heavily back. “Hark!” said he, glaring over Mr. Clavering’s shoulder:
+“it is she! I hear her! I feel her! She is on the stairs! she is at the
+door! she--” a low, shuddering sigh of longing and despair finished the
+sentence: the door opened, and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!
+
+It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray. To see her face, so pale,
+so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry Clavering,
+to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most horrible scene!
+Trueman Harwell could not stand it.
+
+“Ah, ah!” he cried; “look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for me,
+though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened it about
+my own!”
+
+And, breaking from the clasp of the man who in his jealous rage would
+now have withheld him, he fell on his knees before Mary, clutching her
+dress with frenzied hands. “You _shall_ look at me,” he cried; “you
+_shall_ listen to me! I will not lose body and soul for nothing. Mary,
+they said you were in peril! I could not endure that thought, so I
+uttered the truth,--yes, though I knew what the consequence would
+be,--and all I want now is for you to say you believe me, when I swear
+that I only meant to secure to you the fortune you so much desired; that
+I never dreamed it would come to this; that it was because I loved you,
+and hoped to win your love in return that I----”
+
+But she did not seem to see him, did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were
+fixed upon Henry Clavering with an awful inquiry in their depths, and
+none but he could move her.
+
+“You do not hear me!” shrieked the poor wretch. “Ice that you are, you
+would not turn your head if I should call to you from the depths of
+hell!”
+
+But even this cry fell unheeded. Pushing her hands down upon his
+shoulders as though she would sweep some impediment from her path, she
+endeavored to advance. “Why is that man here?” she cried, indicating
+her husband with one quivering hand. “What has he done that he should be
+brought here to confront me at this awful time?”
+
+‘“I told her to come here to meet her uncle’s murderer,” whispered Mr.
+Gryce into my ear.
+
+But before I could reply to her, before Mr. Clavering himself could
+murmur a word, the guilty wretch before her had started to his feet.
+
+“Don’t you know? then I will tell you. It is because these gentlemen,
+chivalrous and honorable as they consider themselves, think that you,
+the beauty and the Sybarite, committed with your own white hand the
+deed of blood which has brought you freedom and fortune. Yes, yes, this
+man”--turning and pointing at me--“friend as he has made himself out to
+be, kindly and honorable as you have doubtless believed him, but who in
+every look he has bestowed upon you, every word he has uttered in your
+hearing during all these four horrible weeks, has been weaving a cord
+for your neck--thinks you the assassin of your uncle, unknowing that a
+man stood at your side ready to sweep half the world from your path if
+that same white hand rose in bidding. That I----”
+
+“You?” Ah! now she could see him: now she could hear him!
+
+“Yes,” clutching her robe again as she hastily recoiled; “didn’t you
+know it? When in that dreadful hour of your rejection by your uncle, you
+cried aloud for some one to help you, didn’t you know----”
+
+“Don’t!” she shrieked, bursting from him with a look of unspeakable
+horror. “Don’t say that! Oh!” she gasped, “is the mad cry of a stricken
+woman for aid and sympathy the call for a murderer?” And turning away
+in horror, she moaned: “Who that ever looks at me now will forget that
+a man--such a man!--dared to think that, because I was in mortal
+perplexity, I would accept the murder of my best friend as a relief from
+it!” Her horror was unbounded. “Oh, what a chastisement for folly!” she
+murmured. “What a punishment for the love of money which has always been
+my curse!”
+
+Henry Clavering could no longer restrain himself, leaping to her side,
+he bent over her. “Was it nothing but folly, Mary? Are you guiltless of
+any deeper wrong? Is there no link of complicity between you two? Have
+you nothing on your soul but an inordinate desire to preserve your place
+in your uncle’s will, even at the risk of breaking my heart and wronging
+your noble cousin? Are you innocent in this matter? Tell me!” placing
+his hand on her head, he pressed it slowly back and gazed into her eyes;
+then, without a word, took her to his breast and looked calmly around
+him.
+
+“She is innocent!” said he.
+
+It was the uplifting of a stifling pall. No one in the room, unless it
+was the wretched criminal shivering before us, but felt a sudden influx
+of hope. Even Mary’s own countenance caught a glow. “Oh!” she whispered,
+withdrawing from his arms to look better into his face, “and is this the
+man I have trifled with, injured, and tortured, till the very name of
+Mary Leavenworth might well make him shudder? Is this he whom I married
+in a fit of caprice, only to forsake and deny? Henry, do you declare
+me innocent in face of all you have seen and heard; in face of that
+moaning, chattering wretch before us, and my own quaking flesh and
+evident terror; with the remembrance on your heart and in your mind of
+the letter I wrote you the morning after the murder, in which I prayed
+you to keep away from me, as I was in such deadly danger the least hint
+given to the world that I had a secret to conceal would destroy me? Do
+you, can you, will you, declare me innocent before God and the world?”
+
+“I do,” said he.
+
+A light such as had never visited her face before passed slowly over it.
+“Then God forgive me the wrong I have done this noble heart, for I can
+never forgive myself! Wait!” said she, as he opened his lips. “Before I
+accept any further tokens of your generous confidence, let me show you
+what I am. You shall know the worst of the woman you have taken to your
+heart. Mr. Raymond,” she cried, turning towards me for the first time,
+“in those days when, with such an earnest desire for my welfare (you see
+I do not believe this man’s insinuations), you sought to induce me to
+speak out and tell all I knew concerning this dreadful deed, I did not
+do it because of my selfish fears. I knew the case looked dark against
+me. Eleanore had told me so. Eleanore herself--and it was the keenest
+pang I had to endure--believed me guilty. She had her reasons. She knew
+first, from the directed envelope she had found lying underneath my
+uncle’s dead body on the library table, that he had been engaged at the
+moment of death in summoning his lawyer to make that change in his will
+which would transfer my claims to her; secondly, that notwithstanding
+my denial of the same, I had been down to his room the night before, for
+she had heard my door open and my dress rustle as I passed out. But that
+was not all; the key that every one felt to be a positive proof of guilt
+wherever found, had been picked up by her from the floor of my room; the
+letter written by Mr. Clavering to my uncle was found in my fire; and
+the handkerchief which she had seen me take from the basket of clean
+clothes, was produced at the inquest stained with pistol grease. I could
+not account for these things. A web seemed tangled about my feet.
+I could not stir without encountering some new toil. I knew I was
+innocent; but if I failed to satisfy my cousin of this, how could I
+hope to convince the general public, if once called upon to do so. Worse
+still, if Eleanore, with every apparent motive for desiring long life
+to our uncle, was held in such suspicion because of a few circumstantial
+evidences against her, what would I not have to fear if these evidences
+were turned against me, the heiress! The tone and manner of the juryman
+at the inquest that asked who would be most benefited by my uncle’s will
+showed but too plainly. When, therefore, Eleanore, true to her heart’s
+generous instincts, closed her lips and refused to speak when speech
+would have been my ruin, I let her do it, justifying myself with the
+thought that she had deemed me capable of crime, and so must bear the
+consequences. Nor, when I saw how dreadful these were likely to
+prove, did I relent. Fear of the ignominy, suspense, and danger which
+confession would entail sealed my lips. Only once did I hesitate. That
+was when, in the last conversation we had, I saw that, notwithstanding
+appearances, you believed in Eleanore’s innocence, and the thought
+crossed me you might be induced to believe in mine if I threw myself
+upon your mercy. But just then Mr. Clavering came; and as in a flash I
+seemed to realize what my future life would be, stained by suspicion,
+and, instead of yielding to my impulse, went so far in the other
+direction as to threaten Mr. Clavering with a denial of our marriage if
+he approached me again till all danger was over.
+
+“Yes, he will tell you that was my welcome to him when, with heart
+and brain racked by long suspense, he came to my door for one word of
+assurance that the peril I was in was not of my own making. That was the
+greeting I gave him after a year of silence every moment of which was
+torture to him. But he forgives me; I see it in his eyes; I hear it in
+his accents; and you--oh, if in the long years to come you can forget
+what I have made Eleanore suffer by my selfish fears; if with the shadow
+of her wrong before you, you can by the grace of some sweet hope think
+a little less hardly of me, do. As for this man--torture could not be
+worse to me than this standing with him in the same room--let him
+come forward and declare if I by look or word have given him reason to
+believe I understood his passion, much less returned it.”
+
+“Why ask!” he gasped. “Don’t you see it was your indifference which
+drove me mad? To stand before you, to agonize after you, to follow you
+with thoughts in every move you made; to know my soul was welded to
+yours with bands of steel no fire could melt, no force destroy, no
+strain dissever; to sleep under the same roof, sit at the same table,
+and yet meet not so much as one look to show me you understood! It was
+that which made my life a hell. I was determined you should understand.
+If I had to leap into a pit of flame, you should know what I was, and
+what my passion for you was. And you do. You comprehend it all now.
+Shrink as you will from my presence, cower as you may to the weak man
+you call husband, you can never forget the love of Trueman Harwell;
+never forget that love, love, love, was the force which led me down into
+your uncle’s room that night, and lent me will to pull the trigger which
+poured all the wealth you hold this day into your lap. Yes,” he went on,
+towering in his preternatural despair till even the noble form of Henry
+Clavering looked dwarfed beside him, “every dollar that chinks from
+your purse shall talk of me. Every gew-gaw which flashes on that haughty
+head, too haughty to bend to me, shall shriek my name into your ears.
+Fashion, pomp, luxury,--you will have them all; but till gold loses its
+glitter and ease its attraction you will never forget the hand that gave
+them to you!”
+
+With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand into
+the arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would have been
+led from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of emotions that
+was seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:
+
+“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your
+comfort. Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannot
+accept the torture, so must release the wealth. From this day, Mary
+Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has so
+long and so basely wronged.” And raising her hands to her ears, she tore
+out the diamonds which hung there, and flung them at the feet of the
+unfortunate man.
+
+It was the final wrench of the rack. With a yell such as I never thought
+to listen to from the lips of a man, he flung up his arms, while all the
+lurid light of madness glared on his face. “And I have given my soul to
+hell for a shadow!” he moaned, “for a shadow!”
+
+“Well, that is the best day’s work I ever did! Your congratulations,
+Mr. Raymond, upon the success of the most daring game ever played in a
+detective’s office.”
+
+I looked at the triumphant countenance of Mr. Gryce in amazement. “What
+do you mean?” I cried; “did you plan all this?”
+
+“Did I plan it?” he repeated. “Could I stand here, seeing how things
+have turned out, if I had not? Mr. Raymond, let us be comfortable. You
+are a gentleman, but we can well shake hands over this. I have never
+known such a satisfactory conclusion to a bad piece of business in all
+my professional career.”
+
+We did shake hands, long and fervently, and then I asked him to explain
+himself.
+
+“Well,” said he, “there has always been one thing that plagued me, even
+in the very moment of my strongest suspicion against this woman, and
+that was, the pistol-cleaning business. I could not reconcile it with
+what I knew of womankind. I could not make it seem the act of a woman.
+Did you ever know a woman who cleaned a pistol? No. They can fire them,
+and do; but after firing them, they do not clean them. Now it is a
+principle which every detective recognizes, that if of a hundred leading
+circumstances connected with a crime, ninety-nine of these are acts
+pointing to the suspected party with unerring certainty, but the
+hundredth equally important act one which that person could not have
+performed, the whole fabric of suspicion is destroyed. Recognizing this
+principle, then, as I have said, I hesitated when it came to the point
+of arrest. The chain was complete; the links were fastened; but one link
+was of a different size and material from the rest; and in this argued a
+break in the chain. I resolved to give her a final chance. Summoning Mr.
+Clavering, and Mr. Harwell, two persons whom I had no reason to suspect,
+but who were the only persons beside herself who could have committed
+this crime, being the only persons of intellect who were in the house
+or believed to be, at the time of the murder, I notified them separately
+that the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth was not only found, but was
+about to be arrested in my house, and that if they wished to hear
+the confession which would be sure to follow, they might have the
+opportunity of doing so by coming here at such an hour. They were both
+too much interested, though for very different reasons, to refuse; and
+I succeeded in inducing them to conceal themselves in the two rooms from
+which you saw them issue, knowing that if either of them had committed
+this deed, he had done it for the love of Mary Leavenworth, and
+consequently could not hear her charged with crime, and threatened
+with arrest, without betraying himself. I did not hope much from the
+experiment; least of all did I anticipate that Mr. Harwell would prove
+to be the guilty man--but live and learn, Mr. Raymond, live and learn.”
+
+
+
+XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION
+
+
+    “Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
+    And the first motion, all the interim is
+    Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;
+    The genius and the mortal instruments
+    Are then in council; and the state of a man,
+    Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then
+    The nature of an insurrection.”
+         --Julius Caesar.
+
+I AM not a bad man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love, jealousy,
+hatred, revenge--transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions
+with me. To be sure, they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents
+that make no stir till aroused; but then, deadly in their spring and
+relentless in their action. Those who have known me best have not known
+this. My own mother was ignorant of it. Often and often have I heard
+her say: “If Trueman only had more sensibility! If Trueman were not so
+indifferent to everything! In short, if Trueman had more power in him!”
+
+It was the same at school. No one understood me. They thought me meek;
+called me Dough-face. For three years they called me this, then I turned
+upon them. Choosing out their ringleader, I felled him to the ground,
+laid him on his back, and stamped upon him. He was handsome before
+my foot came down; afterwards--Well, it is enough he never called me
+Dough-face again. In the store I entered soon after, I met with even
+less appreciation. Regular at my work and exact in my performance of it,
+they thought me a good machine and nothing more. What heart, soul, and
+feeling could a man have who never sported, never smoked, and never
+laughed? I could reckon up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed
+heart or soul for that. I could even write day by day and month by month
+without showing a flaw in my copy; but that only argued I was no more
+than they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the
+certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others
+had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself,
+to care for any man’s opinion. Life was well-nigh a blank to me; a dead
+level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not. And such
+it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth.
+But when, some nine months since, I left my desk in the counting-house
+for a seat in Mr. Leavenworth’s library, a blazing torch fell into
+my soul whose flame has never gone out, and never will, till the doom
+before me is accomplished.
+
+She was so beautiful! When, on that first evening, I followed my new
+employer into the parlor, and saw this woman standing up before me
+in her half-alluring, half-appalling charm, I knew, as by a lightning
+flash, what my future would be if I remained in that house. She was
+in one of her haughty moods, and bestowed upon me little more than a
+passing glance. But her indifference made slight impression upon me
+then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look
+unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure, it was like gazing into the
+flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano. Fear and fascination
+were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the
+moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.
+
+And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the
+emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not cease to
+study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way
+of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this. I
+wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being
+that nothing could ever serve to tear it away. For I saw then as plainly
+as now that, coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me. No;
+I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me; she would not
+even turn to see what it was she had stepped upon. I might spend days,
+months, years, learning the alphabet of her wishes; she would not thank
+me for my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as
+I passed. I was nothing to her, could not be anything unless--and this
+thought came slowly--I could in some way become her master.
+
+Meantime I wrote at Mr. Leavenworth’s dictation and pleased him. My
+methodical ways were just to his taste. As for the other member of the
+family, Miss Eleanore Leavenworth--she treated me just as one of her
+proud but sympathetic nature might be expected to do. Not familiarly,
+but kindly; not as a friend, but as a member of the household whom she
+met every day at table, and who, as she or any one else could see, was
+none too happy or hopeful.
+
+Six months went by. I had learned two things; first, that Mary
+Leavenworth loved her position as prospective heiress to a large fortune
+above every other earthly consideration; and secondly, that she was in
+the possession of a secret which endangered that position. What this
+was, I had for some time no means of knowing. But when later I became
+convinced it was one of love, I grew hopeful, strange as it may seem.
+For by this time I had learned Mr. Leavenworth’s disposition almost as
+perfectly as that of his niece, and knew that in a matter of this kind
+he would be uncompromising; and that in the clashing of these two wills
+something might occur which would give me a hold upon her. The only
+thing that troubled me was the fact that I did not know the name of the
+man in whom she was interested. But chance soon favored me here. One
+day--a month ago now--I sat down to open Mr. Leavenworth’s mail as
+usual. One letter--shall I ever forget it? ran thus:
+
+“HOFFMAN HOUSE,
+
+“March 1, 1876.”
+
+MR. HORATIO LEAVENWORTH:
+
+“DEAR SIR,--You have a niece whom you love and trust, one, too, who
+seems worthy of all the love and trust that you or any other man can
+give her; so beautiful, so charming, so tender is she in face, form,
+manner, and conversation. But, dear sir, every rose has its thorn, and
+your rose is no exception to this rule. Lovely as she is, charming as
+she is, tender as she is, she is not only capable of trampling on the
+rights of one who trusted her, but of bruising the heart and breaking
+the spirit of him to whom she owes all duty, honor, and observance.
+
+“If you don’t believe this, ask her to her cruel, bewitching face, who
+and what is her humble servant, and yours.
+
+“Henry Ritchie Clavering.”
+
+If a bombshell had exploded at my feet, or the evil one himself appeared
+at my call, I would not have been more astounded. Not only was the name
+signed to these remarkable words unknown to me, but the epistle itself
+was that of one who felt himself to be her master: a position which, as
+you know, I was myself aspiring to occupy. For a few minutes, then, I
+stood a prey to feelings of the bitterest wrath and despair; then I grew
+calm, realizing that with this letter in my possession I was virtually
+the arbitrator of her destiny. Some men would have sought her there and
+then and, by threatening to place it in her uncle’s hand, won from her
+a look of entreaty, if no more; but I--well, my plans went deeper than
+that. I knew she would have to be in extremity before I could hope to
+win her. She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice
+before she would clutch at the first thing offering succor. I decided
+to allow the letter to pass into my employer’s hands. But it had been
+opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this condition without
+exciting his suspicion? I knew of but one way; to let him see me open it
+for what he would consider the first time. So, waiting till he came into
+the room, I approached him with the letter, tearing off the end of the
+envelope as I came. Opening it, I gave a cursory glance at its contents
+and tossed it down on the table before him.
+
+“That appears to be of a private character,” said I, “though there is no
+sign to that effect on the envelope.”
+
+He took it up while I stood there. At the first word he started, looked
+at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not read far
+enough to realize its nature, and, whirling slowly around in his chair,
+devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment, then withdrew to
+my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in silence; he was evidently
+rereading the letter; then he hurriedly rose and left the room. As he
+passed me I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. The expression I
+saw there did not tend to lessen the hope that was rising in my breast.
+
+By following him almost immediately up-stairs I ascertained that he
+went directly to Mary’s room, and when in a few hours later the family
+collected around the dinner table, I perceived, almost without looking
+up, that a great and insurmountable barrier had been raised between him
+and his favorite niece.
+
+Two days passed; days that were for me one long and unrelieved suspense.
+Had Mr. Leavenworth answered that letter? Would it all end as it had
+begun, without the appearance of the mysterious Clavering on the scene?
+I could not tell.
+
+Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its
+relentless wheel. I wrote and wrote and wrote, till it seemed as if my
+life blood went from me with every drop of ink I used. Always alert
+and listening, I dared not lift my head or turn my eyes at any unusual
+sound, lest I should seem to be watching. The third night I had a dream;
+I have already told Mr. Raymond what it was, and hence will not repeat
+it here. One correction, however, I wish to make in regard to it. In my
+statement to him I declared that the face of the man whom I saw lift his
+hand against my employer was that of Mr. Clavering. I lied when I said
+this. The face seen by me in my dream was my own. It was that fact
+which made it so horrible to me. In the crouching figure stealing warily
+down-stairs, I saw as in a glass the vision of my own form. Otherwise my
+account of the matter was true.
+
+This vision had a tremendous effect upon me. Was it a premonition? a
+forewarning of the way in which I was to win this coveted creature for
+my own? Was the death of her uncle the bridge by which the impassable
+gulf between us might be spanned? I began to think it might be; to
+consider the possibilities which could make this the only path to
+my elysium; even went so far as to picture her lovely face bending
+gratefully towards me through the glare of a sudden release from some
+emergency in which she stood. One thing was sure; if that was the way I
+must go, I had at least been taught how to tread it; and all through the
+dizzy, blurred day that followed, I saw, as I sat at my work, repeated
+visions of that stealthy, purposeful figure stealing down the stairs
+and entering with uplifted pistol into the unconscious presence of my
+employer. I even found myself a dozen times that day turning my eyes
+upon the door through which it was to come, wondering how long it would
+be before my actual form would pause there. That the moment was at hand
+I did not imagine. Even when I left him that night after drinking with
+him the glass of sherry mentioned at the inquest, I had no idea the hour
+of action was so near. But when, not three minutes after going upstairs,
+I caught the sound of a lady’s dress rustling through the hall, and
+listening, heard Mary Leavenworth pass my door on her way to the
+library, I realized that the fatal hour was come; that something
+was going to be said or done in that room which would make this deed
+necessary. What? I determined to ascertain. Casting about in my mind
+for the means of doing so, I remembered that the ventilator running
+up through the house opened first into the passage-way connecting Mr.
+Leavenworth’s bedroom and library, and, secondly, into the closet of
+the large spare room adjoining mine. Hastily unlocking the door of
+the communication between the rooms, I took my position in the closet.
+Instantly the sound of voices reached my ears; all was open below, and
+standing there, I was as much an auditor of what went on between Mary
+and her uncle as if I were in the library itself. And what did I hear?
+Enough to assure me my suspicions were correct; that it was a moment of
+vital interest to her; that Mr. Leavenworth, in pursuance of a threat
+evidently made some time since, was in the act of taking steps to change
+his will, and that she had come to make an appeal to be forgiven her
+fault and restored to his favor. What that fault was, I did not learn.
+No mention was made of Mr. Clavering as her husband. I only heard her
+declare that her action had been the result of impulse, rather than
+love; that she regretted it, and desired nothing more than to be free
+from all obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her
+uncle what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I
+was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the insanest
+hope from these words; and when, in a moment later I heard her uncle
+reply, in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably forfeited her
+claims to his regard and favor, I did not need her short and bitter cry
+of shame and disappointment, or that low moan for some one to help her,
+for me to sound his death-knell in my heart. Creeping back to my own
+room, I waited till I heard her reascend, then I stole forth. Calm as
+I had ever been in my life, I went down the stairs just as I had seen
+myself do in my dream, and knocking lightly at the library door, went
+in. Mr. Leavenworth was sitting in his usual place writing.
+
+“Excuse me,” said I as he looked up, “I have lost my memorandum-book,
+and think it possible I may have dropped it in the passage-way when I
+went for the wine.” He bowed, and I hurried past him into the closet.
+Once there, I proceeded rapidly into the room beyond, procured the
+pistol, returned, and almost before I realized what I was doing, had
+taken up my position behind him, aimed, and fired. The result was what
+you know. Without a groan his head fell forward on his hands, and Mary
+Leavenworth was the virtual possessor of the thousands she coveted.
+
+My first thought was to procure the letter he was writing. Approaching
+the table, I tore it out from under his hands, looked at it, saw that
+it was, as I expected, a summons to his lawyer, and thrust it into my
+pocket, together with the letter from Mr. Clavering, which I perceived
+lying spattered with blood on the table before me. Not till this was
+done did I think of myself, or remember the echo which that low, sharp
+report must have made in the house. Dropping the pistol at the side of
+the murdered man, I stood ready to shriek to any one who entered that
+Mr. Leavenworth had killed himself. But I was saved from committing such
+a folly. The report had not been heard, or if so, had evidently failed
+to create an alarm. No one came, and I was left to contemplate my
+work undisturbed and decide upon the best course to be taken to avoid
+detection. A moment’s study of the wound made in his head by the
+bullet convinced me of the impossibility of passing the affair off as
+a suicide, or even the work of a burglar. To any one versed in such
+matters it was manifestly a murder, and a most deliberate one. My one
+hope, then, lay in making it as mysterious as it was deliberate, by
+destroying all clue to the motive and manner of the deed. Picking up the
+pistol, I carried it into the other room with the intention of
+cleaning it, but finding nothing there to do it with, came back for the
+handkerchief I had seen lying on the floor at Mr. Leavenworth’s feet. It
+was Miss Eleanore’s, but I did not know it till I had used it to clean
+the barrel; then the sight of her initials in one corner so shocked me
+I forgot to clean the cylinder, and only thought of how I could do
+away with this evidence of her handkerchief having been employed for a
+purpose so suspicious. Not daring to carry it from the room, I sought
+for means to destroy it; but finding none, compromised the matter by
+thrusting it deep down behind the cushion of one of the chairs, in the
+hope of being able to recover and burn it the next day. This done, I
+reloaded the pistol, locked it up, and prepared to leave the room.
+But here the horror which usually follows such deeds struck me like a
+thunderbolt and made me for the first time uncertain in my action. I
+locked the door on going out, something I should never have done. Not
+till I reached the top of the stairs did I realize my folly; and then it
+was too late, for there before me, candle in hand, and surprise written
+on every feature of her face, stood Hannah, one of the servants, looking
+at me.
+
+“Lor, sir, where have you been?” she cried, but strange to say, in a
+low tone. “You look as if you had seen a ghost.” And her eyes turned
+suspiciously to the key which I held in my hand.
+
+I felt as if some one had clutched me round the throat. Thrusting the
+key into my pocket, I took a step towards her. “I will tell you what I
+have seen if you will come down-stairs,” I whispered; “the ladies will
+be disturbed if we talk here,” and smoothing my brow as best I could,
+I put out my hand and drew her towards me. What my motive was I hardly
+knew; the action was probably instinctive; but when I saw the look which
+came into her face as I touched her, and the alacrity with which she
+prepared to follow me, I took courage, remembering the one or two
+previous tokens I had had of this girl’s unreasonable susceptibility to
+my influence; a susceptibility which I now felt could be utilized and
+made to serve my purpose.
+
+Taking her down to the parlor floor, I drew her into the depths of
+the great drawing-room, and there told her in the least alarming
+way possible what had happened to Mr. Leavenworth. She was of course
+intensely agitated, but she did not scream;--the novelty of her position
+evidently bewildering her--and, greatly relieved, I went on to say that
+I did not know who committed the deed, but that folks would declare it
+was I if they knew I had been seen by her on the stairs with the library
+key in my hand. “But I won’t tell,” she whispered, trembling violently
+in her fright and eagerness. “I will keep it to myself. I will say I
+didn’t see anybody.” But I soon convinced her that she could never keep
+her secret if the police once began to question her, and, following
+up my argument with a little cajolery, succeeded after a long while in
+winning her consent to leave the house till the storm should be blown
+over. But that given, it was some little time before I could make her
+comprehend that she must depart at once and without going back after her
+things. Not till I brightened up her wits by a promise to marry her some
+day if she only obeyed me now, did she begin to look the thing in
+the face and show any evidence of the real mother wit she evidently
+possessed. “Mrs. Belden would take me in,” said she, “if I could only
+get to R----. She takes everybody in who asks, her; and she would
+keep me, too, if I told her Miss Mary sent me. But I can’t get there
+to-night.”
+
+I immediately set to work to convince her that she could. The midnight
+train did not leave the city for a half-hour yet, and the distance to
+the depot could be easily walked by her in fifteen minutes. But she had
+no money! I easily supplied that. And she was afraid she couldn’t find
+her way! I entered into minutest directions. She still hesitated, but
+at length consented to go, and with some further understanding of the
+method I was to employ in communicating with her, we went down-stairs.
+There we found a hat and shawl of the cook’s which I put on her, and in
+another moment we were in the carriage yard. “Remember, you are to say
+nothing of what has occurred, no matter what happens,” I whispered in
+parting injunction as she turned to leave me. “Remember, you are to come
+and marry me some day,” she murmured in reply, throwing her arms about
+my neck. The movement was sudden, and it was probably at this time she
+dropped the candle she had unconsciously held clenched in her hand till
+now. I promised her, and she glided out of the gate.
+
+Of the dreadful agitation that followed the disappearance of this girl
+I can give no better idea than by saying I not only committed the
+additional error of locking up the house on my re-entrance, but omitted
+to dispose of the key then in my pocket by flinging it into the street
+or dropping it in the hall as I went up. The fact is, I was so absorbed
+by the thought of the danger I stood in from this girl, I forgot
+everything else. Hannah’s pale face, Hannah’s look of terror, as she
+turned from my side and flitted down the street, were continually before
+me. I could not escape them; the form of the dead man lying below was
+less vivid. It was as though I were tied in fancy to this woman of the
+white face fluttering down the midnight streets. That she would fail in
+something--come back or be brought back--that I should find her standing
+white and horror-stricken on the front steps when I went down in the
+morning, was like a nightmare to me. I began to think no other result
+possible; that she never would or could win her way unchallenged to that
+little cottage in a distant village; that I had but sent a trailing flag
+of danger out into the world with this wretched girl;--danger that would
+come back to me with the first burst of morning light!
+
+But even those thoughts faded after a while before the realization
+of the peril I was in as long as the key and papers remained in my
+possession. How to get rid of them! I dared not leave my room again,
+or open my window. Some one might see me and remember it. Indeed I was
+afraid to move about in my room. Mr. Leavenworth might hear me. Yes, my
+morbid terror had reached that point--I was fearful of one whose ears I
+myself had forever closed, imagined him in his bed beneath and wakeful
+to the least sound.
+
+But the necessity of doing something with these evidences of guilt
+finally overcame this morbid anxiety, and drawing the two letters from
+my pocket--I had not yet undressed--I chose out the most dangerous of
+the two, that written by Mr. Leavenworth himself, and, chewing it till
+it was mere pulp, threw it into a corner; but the other had blood on it,
+and nothing, not even the hope of safety, could induce me to put it
+to my lips. I was forced to lie with it clenched in my hand, and the
+flitting image of Hannah before my eyes, till the slow morning broke. I
+have heard it said that a year in heaven seems like a day; I can easily
+believe it. I know that an hour in hell seems an eternity!
+
+But with daylight came hope. Whether it was that the sunshine glancing
+on the wall made me think of Mary and all I was ready to do for her
+sake, or whether it was the mere return of my natural stoicism in the
+presence of actual necessity, I cannot say. I only know that I arose
+calm and master of myself. The problem of the letter and key had solved
+itself also. Hide them? I would not try to! Instead of that I would
+put them in plain sight, trusting to that very fact for their being
+overlooked. Making the letter up into lighters, I carried them into the
+spare room and placed them in a vase. Then, taking the key in my hand,
+went down-stairs, intending to insert it in the lock of the library door
+as I went by. But Miss Eleanore descending almost immediately behind me
+made this impossible. I succeeded, however, in thrusting it, without
+her knowledge, among the filagree work of the gas-fixture in the
+second hall, and thus relieved, went down into the breakfast room as
+self-possessed a man as ever crossed its threshold. Mary was there,
+looking exceedingly pale and disheartened, and as I met her eye, which
+for a wonder turned upon me as I entered, I could almost have laughed,
+thinking of the deliverance that had come to her, and of the time when I
+should proclaim myself to be the man who had accomplished it.
+
+Of the alarm that speedily followed, and my action at that time and
+afterwards, I need not speak in detail. I behaved just as I would have
+done if I had had no hand in the murder. I even forbore to touch the key
+or go to the spare room, or make any movement which I was not willing
+all the world should see. For as things stood, there was not a shadow
+of evidence against me in the house; neither was I, a hard-working,
+uncomplaining secretary, whose passion for one of his employer’s nieces
+was not even mistrusted by the lady herself, a person to be suspected
+of the crime which threw him out of a fair situation. So I performed
+all the duties of my position, summoning the police, and going for Mr.
+Veeley, just as I would have done if those hours between me leaving
+Mr. Leavenworth for the first time and going down to breakfast in the
+morning had been blotted from my consciousness.
+
+And this was the principle upon which I based my action at the inquest.
+Leaving that half-hour and its occurrences out of the question, I
+resolved to answer such questions as might be put me as truthfully as
+I could; the great fault with men situated as I was usually being that
+they lied too much, thus committing themselves on unessential matters.
+But alas, in thus planning for my own safety, I forgot one thing,
+and that was the dangerous position in which I should thus place Mary
+Leavenworth as the one benefited by the crime. Not till the inference
+was drawn by a juror, from the amount of wine found in Mr. Leavenworth’s
+glass in the morning, that he had come to his death shortly after my
+leaving him, did I realize what an opening I had made for suspicion in
+her direction by admitting that I had heard a rustle on the stair a few
+minutes after going up. That all present believed it to have been made
+by Eleanore, did not reassure me. She was so completely disconnected
+with the crime I could not imagine suspicion holding to her for an
+instant. But Mary--If a curtain had been let down before me, pictured
+with the future as it has since developed, I could not have seen more
+plainly what her position would be, if attention were once directed
+towards her. So, in the vain endeavor to cover up my blunder, I began
+to lie. Forced to admit that a shadow of disagreement had been lately
+visible between Mr. Leavenworth and one of his nieces, I threw the
+burden of it upon Eleanore, as the one best able to bear it. The
+consequences were more serious than I anticipated. Direction had been
+given to suspicion which every additional evidence that now came up
+seemed by some strange fatality to strengthen. Not only was it proved
+that Mr. Leavenworth’s own pistol had been used in the assassination,
+and that too by a person then in the house, but I myself was brought
+to acknowledge that Eleanore had learned from me, only a little while
+before, how to load, aim, and fire this very pistol--a coincidence
+mischievous enough to have been of the devil’s own making.
+
+Seeing all this, my fear of what the ladies would admit when questioned
+became very great. Let them in their innocence acknowledge that, upon my
+ascent, Mary had gone to her uncle’s room for the purpose of persuading
+him not to carry into effect the action he contemplated, and what
+consequences might not ensue! I was in a torment of apprehension.
+But events of which I had at that time no knowledge had occurred to
+influence them. Eleanore, with some show of reason, as it seems, not
+only suspected her cousin of the crime, but had informed her of the
+fact, and Mary, overcome with terror at finding there was more or
+less circumstantial evidence supporting the suspicion, decided to deny
+whatever told against herself, trusting to Eleanore’s generosity not to
+be contradicted. Nor was her confidence misplaced. Though, by the course
+she took, Eleanore was forced to deepen the prejudice already rife
+against herself, she not only forbore to contradict her cousin, but when
+a true answer would have injured her, actually refused to return any,
+a lie being something she could not utter, even to save one especially
+endeared to her.
+
+This conduct of hers had one effect upon me. It aroused my admiration
+and made me feel that here was a woman worth helping if assistance could
+be given without danger to myself. Yet I doubt if my sympathy would have
+led me into doing anything, if I had not perceived, by the stress laid
+upon certain well-known matters, that actual danger hovered about us
+all while the letter and key remained in the house. Even before the
+handkerchief was produced, I had made up my mind to attempt their
+destruction; but when that was brought up and shown, I became so alarmed
+I immediately rose and, making my way under some pretence or other to
+the floors above, snatched the key from the gas-fixture, the
+lighters from the vase, and hastening with them down the hall to Mary
+Leavenworth’s room, went in under the expectation of finding a fire
+there in which to destroy them. But, to my heavy disappointment, there
+were only a few smoldering ashes in the grate, and, thwarted in my
+design, I stood hesitating what to do, when I heard some one coming
+up-stairs. Alive to the consequences of being found in that room at that
+time, I cast the lighters into the grate and started for the door. But
+in the quick move I made, the key flew from my hand and slid under a
+chair. Aghast at the mischance, I paused, but the sound of approaching
+steps increasing, I lost all control over myself and fled from the room.
+And indeed I had no time to lose. I had barely reached my own door when
+Eleanore Leavenworth, followed by two servants, appeared at the top of
+the staircase and proceeded towards the room I had just left. The sight
+reassured me; she would see the key, and take some means of disposing
+of it; and indeed I always supposed her to have done so, for no further
+word of key or letter ever came to my ears. This may explain why the
+questionable position in which Eleanore soon found herself awakened in
+me no greater anxiety. I thought the suspicions of the police rested
+upon nothing more tangible than the peculiarity of her manner at the
+inquest and the discovery of her handkerchief on the scene of the
+tragedy. I did not know they possessed what might be called absolute
+proof of her connection with the crime. But if I had, I doubt if my
+course would have been any different. Mary’s peril was the one thing
+capable of influencing me, and she did not appear to be in peril. On the
+contrary, every one, by common consent, seemed to ignore all appearance
+of guilt on her part. If Mr. Gryce, whom I soon learned to fear, had
+given one sign of suspicion, or Mr. Raymond, whom I speedily recognized
+as my most persistent though unconscious foe, had betrayed the least
+distrust of her, I should have taken warning. But they did not, and,
+lulled into a false security by their manner, I let the days go by
+without suffering any fears on her account. But not without many
+anxieties for myself. Hannah’s existence precluded all sense of personal
+security. Knowing the determination of the police to find her, I trod
+the verge of an awful suspense continually.
+
+Meantime the wretched certainty was forcing itself upon me that I had
+lost, instead of gained, a hold on Mary Leavenworth. Not only did she
+evince the utmost horror of the deed which had made her mistress of
+her uncle’s wealth, but, owing, as I believed, to the influence of Mr.
+Raymond, soon gave evidence that she was losing, to a certain extent,
+the characteristics of mind and heart which had made me hopeful of
+winning her by this deed of blood. This revelation drove me almost
+insane. Under the terrible restraint forced upon me, I walked my weary
+round in a state of mind bordering on frenzy. Many and many a time have
+I stopped in my work, wiped my pen and laid it down with the idea that
+I could not repress myself another moment, but I have always taken it
+up again and gone on with my task. Mr. Raymond has sometimes shown his
+wonder at my sitting in my dead employer’s chair. Great heaven! it was
+my only safeguard. By keeping the murder constantly before my mind, I
+was enabled to restrain myself from any inconsiderate action.
+
+At last there came a time when my agony could be no longer suppressed.
+Going down the stairs one evening with Mr. Raymond, I saw a strange
+gentleman standing in the reception room, looking at Mary Leavenworth
+in a way that would have made my blood boil, even if I had not heard him
+whisper these words: “But you are my wife, and know it, whatever you may
+say or do!”
+
+It was the lightning-stroke of my life. After what I had done to make
+her mine, to hear another claim her as already his own, was stunning,
+maddening! It forced a demonstration from me. I had either to yell in
+my fury or deal the man beneath some tremendous blow in my hatred. I did
+not dare to shriek, so I struck the blow. Demanding his name from Mr.
+Raymond, and hearing that it was, as I expected, Clavering, I flung
+caution, reason, common sense, all to the winds, and in a moment of fury
+denounced him as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth.
+
+The next instant I would have given worlds to recall my words. What had
+I done but drawn attention to myself in thus accusing a man against whom
+nothing could of course be proved! But recall now was impossible.
+So, after a night of thought, I did the next best thing: gave a
+superstitious reason for my action, and so restored myself to my former
+position without eradicating from the mind of Mr. Raymond that vague
+doubt of the man which my own safety demanded. But I had no intention of
+going any further, nor should I have done so if I had not observed that
+for some reason Mr. Raymond was willing to suspect Mr. Clavering. But
+that once seen, revenge took possession of me, and I asked myself if the
+burden of this crime could be thrown on this man. Still I do not believe
+that any active results would have followed this self-questioning if I
+had not overheard a whispered conversation between two of the servants,
+in which I learned that Mr. Clavering had been seen to enter the
+house on the night of the murder, but was not seen to leave it. That
+determined me. With such a fact for a starting-point, what might I not
+hope to accomplish? Hannah alone stood in my way. While she remained
+alive I saw nothing but ruin before me. I made up my mind to destroy
+her and satisfy my hatred of Mr. Clavering at one blow. But how? By what
+means could I reach her without deserting my post, or make away with
+her without exciting fresh suspicion? The problem seemed insolvable;
+but Trueman Harwell had not played the part of a machine so long without
+result. Before I had studied the question a day, light broke upon it,
+and I saw that the only way to accomplish my plans was to inveigle her
+into destroying herself.
+
+No sooner had this thought matured than I hastened to act upon it.
+Knowing the tremendous risk I ran, I took every precaution. Locking
+myself up in my room, I wrote her a letter in printed characters--she
+having distinctly told me she could not read writing--in which I played
+upon her ignorance, foolish fondness, and Irish superstition, by telling
+her I dreamed of her every night and wondered if she did of me; was
+afraid she didn’t, so enclosed her a little charm, which, if she would
+use according to directions, would give her the most beautiful visions.
+These directions were for her first to destroy my letter by burning it,
+next to take in her hand the packet I was careful to enclose, swallow
+the powder accompanying it, and go to bed. The powder was a deadly dose
+of poison and the packet was, as you know, a forged confession falsely
+criminating Henry Clavering. Enclosing all these in an envelope in
+the corner of which I had marked a cross, I directed it, according to
+agreement, to Mrs. Belden, and sent it.
+
+Then followed the greatest period of suspense I had yet endured. Though
+I had purposely refrained from putting my name to the letter, I felt
+that the chances of detection were very great. Let her depart in the
+least particular from the course I had marked out for her, and fatal
+results must ensue. If she opened the enclosed packet, mistrusted the
+powder, took Mrs. Belden into her confidence, or even failed to burn my
+letter, all would be lost. I could not be sure of her or know the result
+of my scheme except through the newspapers. Do you think I kept watch
+of the countenances about me? devoured the telegraphic news, or started
+when the bell rang? And when, a few days since, I read that short
+paragraph in the paper which assured me that my efforts had at least
+produced the death of the woman I feared, do you think I experienced any
+sense of relief?
+
+But of that why speak? In six hours had come the summons from Mr. Gryce,
+and--let these prison walls, this confession itself, tell the rest. I am
+no longer capable of speech or action.
+
+
+
+XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME
+
+
+    “Leave her to Heaven
+    And to those thorns that
+    In her bosom lodge
+    To prick and sting her.”
+         --Hamlet
+
+    “For she is wise, if I can judge of her;
+    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true;
+    And true she is, as she has proved herself;
+    And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true,
+    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.”
+         --Merchant of Venice.
+
+“OH, ELEANORE!” I cried, as I made my way into her presence, “are you
+prepared for very good news? News that will brighten these pale cheeks
+and give the light back to these eyes, and make life hopeful and sweet
+to you once more? Tell me,” I urged, stooping over her where she sat,
+for she looked ready to faint.
+
+“I don’t know,” she faltered; “I fear your idea of good news and mine
+may differ. No news can be good but----”
+
+“What?” I asked, taking her hands in mine with a smile that ought to
+have reassured her, it was one of such profound happiness. “Tell me; do
+not be afraid.”
+
+But she was. Her dreadful burden had lain upon her so long it had become
+a part of her being. How could she realize it was founded on a mistake;
+that she had no cause to fear the past, present, or future?
+
+But when the truth was made known to her; when, with all the fervor and
+gentle tact of which I was capable, I showed her that her suspicions had
+been groundless, and that Trueman Harwell, and not Mary, was accountable
+for the evidences of crime which had led her into attributing to her
+cousin the guilt of her uncle’s death, her first words were a prayer to
+be taken to the one she had so wronged. “Take me to her! Oh, take me to
+her! I cannot breathe or think till I have begged pardon of her on my
+knees. Oh, my unjust accusation! My unjust accusation!”
+
+Seeing the state she was in, I deemed it wise to humor her. So,
+procuring a carriage, I drove with her to her cousin’s home.
+
+“Mary will spurn me; she will not even look at me; and she will be
+right!” she cried, as we rolled away up the avenue. “An outrage like
+this can never be forgiven. But God knows I thought myself justified in
+my suspicions. If you knew--”
+
+“I do know,” I interposed. “Mary acknowledges that the circumstantial
+evidence against her was so overwhelming, she was almost staggered
+herself, asking if she could be guiltless with such proofs against her.
+But----”
+
+“Wait, oh, wait; did Mary say that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“To-day?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Mary must be changed.”
+
+I did not answer; I wanted her to see for herself the extent of that
+change. But when, in a few minutes later, the carriage stopped and I
+hurried with her into the house which had been the scene of so much
+misery, I was hardly prepared for the difference in her own countenance
+which the hall light revealed. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were
+brilliant, her brow lifted and free from shadow; so quickly does the ice
+of despair melt in the sunshine of hope.
+
+Thomas, who had opened the door, was sombrely glad to see his mistress
+again. “Miss Leavenworth is in the drawing-room,” said he.
+
+I nodded, then seeing that Eleanore could scarcely move for agitation,
+asked her whether she would go in at once, or wait till she was more
+composed.
+
+“I will go in at once; I cannot wait.” And slipping from my grasp, she
+crossed the hall and laid her hand upon the drawing-room curtain, when
+it was suddenly lifted from within and Mary stepped out.
+
+“Mary!”
+
+“Eleanore!”
+
+The ring of those voices told everything. I did not need to glance their
+way to know that Eleanore had fallen at her cousin’s feet, and that
+her cousin had affrightedly lifted her. I did not need to hear: “My sin
+against you is too great; you cannot forgive me!” followed by the low:
+“My shame is great enough to lead me to forgive anything!” to know that
+the lifelong shadow between these two had dissolved like a cloud, and
+that, for the future, bright days of mutual confidence and sympathy were
+in store.
+
+Yet when, a half-hour or so later, I heard the door of the reception
+room, into which I had retired, softly open, and looking up, saw Mary
+standing on the threshold, with the light of true humility on her face,
+I own that I was surprised at the softening which had taken place in
+her haughty beauty. “Blessed is the shame that purifies,” I inwardly
+murmured, and advancing, held out my hand with a respect and sympathy I
+never thought to feel for her again.
+
+The action seemed to touch her. Blushing deeply, she came and stood by
+my side. “I thank you,” said she. “I have much to be grateful for; how
+much I never realized till to-night; but I cannot speak of it now. What
+I wish is for you to come in and help me persuade Eleanore to accept
+this fortune from my hands. It is hers, you know; was willed to her, or
+would have been if--”
+
+“Wait,” said I, in the trepidation which this appeal to me on such a
+subject somehow awakened. “Have you weighed this matter well? Is it your
+determined purpose to transfer your fortune into your cousin’s hands?”
+
+Her look was enough without the low, “Ah, how can you ask me?” that
+followed it.
+
+Mr. Clavering was sitting by the side of Eleanore when we entered the
+drawing-room. He immediately rose, and drawing me to one side, earnestly
+said:
+
+“Before the courtesies of the hour pass between us, Mr. Raymond, allow
+me to tender you my apology. You have in your possession a document
+which ought never to have been forced upon you. Founded upon a mistake,
+the act was an insult which I bitterly regret. If, in consideration of
+my mental misery at that time, you can pardon it, I shall feel forever
+indebted to you; if not----”
+
+“Mr. Clavering, say no more. The occurrences of that day belong to
+a past which I, for one, have made up my mind to forget as soon as
+possible. The future promises too richly for us to dwell on bygone
+miseries.”
+
+And with a look of mutual understanding and friendship we hastened to
+rejoin the ladies.
+
+Of the conversation that followed, it is only necessary to state the
+result. Eleanore, remaining firm in her refusal to accept property so
+stained by guilt, it was finally agreed upon that it should be devoted
+to the erection and sustainment of some charitable institution of
+magnitude sufficient to be a recognized benefit to the city and its
+unfortunate poor. This settled, our thoughts returned to our friends,
+especially to Mr. Veeley.
+
+“He ought to know,” said Mary. “He has grieved like a father over us.”
+ And, in her spirit of penitence, she would have undertaken the unhappy
+task of telling him the truth.
+
+But Eleanore, with her accustomed generosity, would not hear of this.
+“No, Mary,” said she; “you have suffered enough. Mr. Raymond and I will
+go.”
+
+And leaving them there, with the light of growing hope and confidence on
+their faces, we went out again into the night, and so into a dream from
+which I have never waked, though the shine of her dear eyes have been
+now the load-star of my life for many happy, happy months.
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Leavenworth Case, by Anna Katherine Green
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thelegendsofkingarthurandhisknights b/files/books/unrelated/thelegendsofkingarthurandhisknights
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thelegendsofkingarthurandhisknights
@@ -0,0 +1,9930 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights
+by James Knowles
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights
+
+Author: James Knowles
+
+Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12753]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Zoran Stefanovic, GF Untermeyer and  Distributed
+Proofreaders Europe, http://dp.rastko.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Legends of KING ARTHUR and his KNIGHTS
+
+Sir James Knowles
+
+Illustrated by Lancelot Speed
+
+
+TO
+ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L.
+POET LAUREATE
+
+THIS ATTEMPT AT A POPULAR VERSION OF
+THE ARTHUR LEGENDS
+IS BY HIS PERMISSION DEDICATED
+AS A TRIBUTE
+OF THE SINCEREST AND WARMEST RESPECT
+
+
+1862
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
+
+
+The Publishers have asked me to authorise a new edition, in my own name,
+of this little book--now long out of print--which was written by me
+thirty-five years ago under the initials J.T.K.
+
+In acceding to their request I wish to say that the book as now published
+is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to popularise
+the Arthur legends.
+
+It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version of
+them as printed by Caxton--with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth
+and other sources--and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more
+or less consecutive story.
+
+The chief pleasure which came to me from it was, and is, that it began for
+me a long and intimate acquaintance with Lord Tennyson, to whom, by his
+permission, I Dedicated it before I was personally known to him.
+
+JAMES KNOWLES.
+
+
+
+
+_Addendum by Lady Knowles_
+
+
+In response to a widely expressed wish for a fresh edition of this little
+book--now for some years out of print--a new and ninth edition has been
+prepared.
+
+In his preface my husband says that the intimacy with Lord Tennyson to
+which it led was the chief pleasure the book brought him. I have been
+asked to furnish a few more particulars on this point that may be
+generally interesting, and feel that I cannot do better than give some
+extracts from a letter written by himself to a friend in July 1896.
+
+"DEAR ----,
+
+"I am so _very_ glad you approve of my little effort to popularise the
+Arthur Legends. Tennyson had written his first four 'Idylls of the King'
+before my book appeared, which was in 1861. Indeed, it was in consequence
+of the first four Idylls that I sought and obtained, while yet a stranger
+to him, leave to dedicate my venture to him. He was extremely kind about
+it--declared 'it ought to go through forty editions'--and when I came to
+know him personally talked very frequently about it and Arthur with me,
+and made constant use of it when he at length yielded to my perpetual
+urgency and took up again his forsaken project of treating the whole
+subject of King Arthur.
+
+"He discussed and rediscussed at any amount of length the way in which
+this could now be done--and the Symbolism, which had from his earliest
+time haunted him as the inner meaning to be given to it, brought him back
+to the Poem in its changed shape of separate pictures.
+
+"He used often to say that it was entirely my doing that he revived his
+old plan, and added, 'I know more about Arthur than any other man in
+England, and I think you know next most.' It would amuse you to see in
+what intimate detail he used to consult with me--and often with my little
+book in front of us--over the various tales, and when I wrote an article
+(in the shape of a long letter) in the _Spectator_ of January 1870 he
+asked to reprint it, and published it with the collected Idylls.
+
+"For years, while his boys were at school and college, I acted as his
+confidential friend in business and many other matters, and I suppose he
+told me more about himself and his life than any other man now living
+knows."
+
+ISABEL KNOWLES.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Finding of Merlin--The Fight of the Dragons--The Giants' Dance--The
+Prophecies of Merlin and the Birth of Arthur--Uther attacks the
+Saxons--The Death of Uther
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Merlin's Advice to the Archbishop--The Miracle of the Sword and Stone--The
+Coronation of King Arthur--The Opposition of the Six Kings--The Sword
+Excalibur--The Defeat of the Six Kings--The War with the Eleven Kings
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Adventure of the Questing Beast--The Siege of York--The Battles of
+Celidon Forest and Badon Hill--King Arthur drives the Saxons from the
+Realm--The Embassy from Rome--The King rescues Merlin--The Knight of the
+Fountain
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+King Arthur conquers Ireland and Norway--Slays the Giant of St. Michael's
+Mount and conquers Gaul--King Ryence's Insolent Message--The Damsel and
+the Sword--The Lady of the Lake--The Adventures of Sir Balin
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Sir Balin kills Sir Lancear--The Sullen Knight--The Knight Invisible is
+killed--Sir Balin smites the Dolorous Stroke, and fights with his brother
+Sir Balan
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Marriage of King Arthur and Guinevere--The Coronation of the
+Queen--The Founding of the Round Table--The Quest of the White Hart--The
+Adventures of Sir Gawain--The Quest of the White Hound--Sir Tor kills
+Abellius--The Adventures of Sir Pellinore--The Death of Sir
+Hantzlake--Merlin saves King Arthur
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+King Arthur and Sir Accolon of Gaul are entrapped by Sir Damas--They fight
+each other through Enchantment of Queen Morgan le Fay--Sir Damas is
+compelled to surrender all his Lands to Sir Outzlake his Brother their
+Rightful Owner--Queen Morgan essays to kill King Arthur with a Magic
+Garment--Her Damsel is compelled to wear it and is thereby burned to
+Cinders
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A Second Embassy from Rome--King Arthur's Answer--The Emperor assembles
+his Armies--King Arthur slays the Emperor--Sir Gawain and Sir
+Prianius--The Lombards are defeated--King Arthur crowned at Rome
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Adventures of Sir Lancelot--He and his Cousin Sir Lionel set
+forth--The Four Witch-Queens--King Bagdemagus--Sir Lancelot slays Sir
+Turquine and delivers his Captive Knights--The Foul Knight--Sir Gaunter
+attacks Sir Lancelot--The Four Knights--Sir Lancelot comes to the Chapel
+Perilous--Ellawes the Sorceress--The Lady and the Falcon--Sir Bedivere and
+the Dead Lady
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Beaumains is made a Kitchen Page by Sir Key--He claims the Adventure of
+the Damsel Linet--He fights with Sir Lancelot and is knighted by him in
+his True Name of Gareth--Is flouted by the Damsel Linet--But overthrows
+all Knights he meets and sends them to King Arthur's Court--He delivers
+the Lady Lyones from the Knight of the Redlands--The Tournament before
+Castle Perilous--Marriage of Sir Gareth and the Lady Lyones
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Adventures of Sir Tristram--His Stepmother--He is knighted--Fights
+with Sir Marhaus--Sir Palomedes and La Belle Isault--Sir Bleoberis and Sir
+Segwarides--Sir Tristram's Quest--His Return--The Castle Pluere--Sir
+Brewnor is slain--Sir Kay Hedius--La Belle Isault's Hound--Sir Dinedan
+refuses to fight--Sir Pellinore follows Sir Tristram--Sir
+Brewse-without-pity--The Tournament at the Maiden's Castle--Sir Palomedes
+and Sir Tristram
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Merlin is bewitched by a Damsel of the Lady of the Lake--Galahad knighted
+by Sir Lancelot--The Perilous Seat--The Marvellous Sword--Sir Galahad in
+the Perilous Seat--The Sangreal--The Knights vow themselves to its
+Quest--The Shield of the White Knight--The Fiend of the Tomb--Sir Galahad
+at the Maiden's Castle--The Sick Knight and the Sangreal--Sir Lancelot
+declared unworthy to find the Holy Vessel--Sir Percival seeks Sir
+Galahad--The Black Steed--Sir Bors and the Hermit--Sir Pridan le Noir--Sir
+Lionel's Anger--He meets Sir Percival--The ship "Faith"--Sir Galahad and
+Earl Hernox--The Leprous Lady--Sir Galahad discloses himself to Sir
+Lancelot--They part--The Blind King Evelake--Sir Galahad finds the
+Sangreal--His Death
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Queen quarrels with Sir Lancelot--She is accused of Murder--Her
+Champion proves her innocence--The Tourney at Camelot--Sir Lancelot in the
+Tourney--Sir Baldwin the Knight-Hermit--Elaine, the Maid of Astolat, seeks
+for Sir Lancelot--She tends his Wounds--Her Death--The Queen and Sir
+Lancelot are reconciled
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Sir Lancelot attacked by Sir Agravaine, Sir Modred, and thirteen other
+Knights--He slays them all but Sir Modred--He leaves the Court--Sir Modred
+accuses him to the King--The Queen condemned to be burnt--Her rescue by
+Sir Lancelot and flight with him--The War between Sir Lancelot and the
+King--The Enmity of Sir Gawain--The Usurpation of Sir Modred--The Queen
+retires to a Nunnery--Sir Lancelot goes on Pilgrimage--The Battle of
+Barham Downs--Sir Bedivere and the Sword Excalibur--The Death of King
+Arthur
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTE
+
+
+Of scenes from the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
+Table many lovely pictures have been painted, showing much diversity of
+figures and surroundings, some being definitely sixth-century British or
+Saxon, as in Blair Leighton's fine painting of the dead Elaine;
+others--for example, Watts' Sir Galahad--show knight and charger in
+fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely
+impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was
+free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever
+period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the
+actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found
+himself face to face with a difficulty.
+
+King Arthur and his knights fought, endured, and toiled in the sixth
+century, when the Saxons were overrunning Britain; but their achievements
+were not chronicled by Sir Thomas Malory until late in the fifteenth
+century.
+
+Sir Thomas, as Froissart has done before him, described the habits of
+life, the dresses, weapons, and armour that his own eyes looked upon in
+the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every
+detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late.
+
+Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would,
+as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or
+salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest,
+and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim
+misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit
+of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter
+with the butt of malmsey.
+
+Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose
+every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old
+writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were
+not so much tolerated as unperceived.
+
+In illustrating this edition of "The Legends of King Arthur and his
+Knights," it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the
+pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion
+of the costumes and armour somewhere about A.D. 1460, and to arm the
+knights in accordance with the Tabard Period.
+
+LANCELOT SPEED.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The Marriage of King Arthur
+
+Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground before young
+Arthur, and Sir Key also with him.
+
+The Lady of the Lake
+
+The giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and baking his huge
+frame by the fire
+
+The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and
+breaking to the earth
+
+Came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by his name
+
+Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the Round Table
+
+Sir Lancelot smote down with one spear five knights, and brake the backs
+of four, and cast down the King of Northgales
+
+Beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, "Sir Lancelot, leave
+that sword behind thee, or thou diest"
+
+"Lady," replied Sir Beaumains, "a knight is little worth who may not bear
+with a damsel"
+
+So he rode into the hall and alighted
+
+Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest against each other
+
+And running to her chamber, she sought in her casket for the piece of
+iron ... and fitted it in Tristram's sword
+
+By the time they had finished drinking they loved each other so well that
+their love never more might leave them
+
+Waving her hands and muttering the charm, and presently enclosed him fast
+within the tree
+
+Galahad ... quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came out a foul
+smoke
+
+"This girdle, lords," said she, "is made for the most part of mine own
+hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved full well"
+
+At last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave him such a
+buffet on the helm as wellnigh killed him
+
+Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud by a clerk
+
+But still the knights cried mightily without the door, "Traitor, come
+forth!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Prophecies of Merlin, and the Birth of Arthur_
+
+
+King Vortigern the usurper sat upon his throne in London, when, suddenly,
+upon a certain day, ran in a breathless messenger, and cried aloud--
+
+"Arise, Lord King, for the enemy is come; even Ambrosius and Uther, upon
+whose throne thou sittest--and full twenty thousand with them--and they
+have sworn by a great oath, Lord, to slay thee, ere this year be done; and
+even now they march towards thee as the north wind of winter for
+bitterness and haste."
+
+At those words Vortigern's face grew white as ashes, and, rising in
+confusion and disorder, he sent for all the best artificers and craftsmen
+and mechanics, and commanded them vehemently to go and build him
+straightway in the furthest west of his lands a great and strong castle,
+where he might fly for refuge and escape the vengeance of his master's
+sons--"and, moreover," cried he, "let the work be done within a hundred
+days from now, or I will surely spare no life amongst you all."
+
+Then all the host of craftsmen, fearing for their lives, found out a
+proper site whereon to build the tower, and eagerly began to lay in the
+foundations. But no sooner were the walls raised up above the ground than
+all their work was overwhelmed and broken down by night invisibly, no man
+perceiving how, or by whom, or what. And the same thing happening again,
+and yet again, all the workmen, full of terror, sought out the king, and
+threw themselves upon their faces before him, beseeching him to interfere
+and help them or to deliver them from their dreadful work.
+
+Filled with mixed rage and fear, the king called for the astrologers and
+wizards, and took counsel with them what these things might be, and how to
+overcome them. The wizards worked their spells and incantations, and in
+the end declared that nothing but the blood of a youth born without mortal
+father, smeared on the foundations of the castle, could avail to make it
+stand. Messengers were therefore sent forthwith through all the land to
+find, if it were possible, such a child. And, as some of them went down a
+certain village street, they saw a band of lads fighting and quarrelling,
+and heard them shout at one--"Avaunt, thou imp!--avaunt! Son of no mortal
+man! go, find thy father, and leave us in peace."
+
+At that the messengers looked steadfastly on the lad, and asked who he
+was. One said his name was Merlin; another, that his birth and parentage
+were known by no man; a third, that the foul fiend alone was his father.
+Hearing the things, the officers seized Merlin, and carried him before the
+king by force.
+
+But no sooner was he brought to him than he asked in a loud voice, for
+what cause he was thus dragged there?
+
+"My magicians," answered Vortigern, "told me to seek out a man that had no
+human father, and to sprinkle my castle with his blood, that it may
+stand."
+
+"Order those magicians," said Merlin, "to come before me, and I will
+convict them of a lie."
+
+The king was astonished at his words, but commanded the magicians to come
+and sit down before Merlin, who cried to them--
+
+"Because ye know not what it is that hinders the foundation of the castle,
+ye have advised my blood for a cement to it, as if that would avail; but
+tell me now rather what there is below that ground, for something there is
+surely underneath that will not suffer the tower to stand?"
+
+The wizards at these words began to fear, and made no answer. Then said
+Merlin to the king--
+
+"I pray, Lord, that workmen may be ordered to dig deep down into the
+ground till they shall come to a great pool of water."
+
+This then was done, and the pool discovered far beneath the surface of the
+ground.
+
+Then, turning again to the magicians, Merlin said, "Tell me now, false
+sycophants, what there is underneath that pool?"--but they were silent.
+Then said he to the king, "Command this pool to be drained, and at the
+bottom shall be found two dragons, great and huge, which now are sleeping,
+but which at night awake and fight and tear each other. At their great
+struggle all the ground shakes and trembles, and so casts down thy towers,
+which, therefore, never yet could find secure foundations."
+
+The king was amazed at these words, but commanded the pool to be forthwith
+drained; and surely at the bottom of it did they presently discover the
+two dragons, fast asleep, as Merlin had declared.
+
+But Vortigern sat upon the brink of the pool till night to see what else
+would happen.
+
+Then those two dragons, one of which was white, the other red, rose up and
+came near one another, and began a sore fight, and cast forth fire with
+their breath. But the white dragon had the advantage, and chased the other
+to the end of the lake. And he, for grief at his flight, turned back upon
+his foe, and renewed the combat, and forced him to retire in turn. But in
+the end the red dragon was worsted, and the white dragon disappeared no
+man knew where.
+
+When their battle was done, the king desired Merlin to tell him what it
+meant. Whereat he, bursting into tears, cried out this prophecy, which
+first foretold the coming of King Arthur.
+
+"Woe to the red dragon, which figureth the British nation, for his
+banishment cometh quickly; his lurkingholes shall be seized by the white
+dragon--the Saxon whom thou, O king, hast called to the land. The
+mountains shall be levelled as the valleys, and the rivers of the valleys
+shall run blood; cities shall be burned, and churches laid in ruins; till
+at length the oppressed shall turn for a season and prevail against the
+strangers. For a Boar of Cornwall shall arise and rend them, and trample
+their necks beneath his feet. The island shall be subject to his power,
+and he shall take the forests of Gaul. The house of Romulus shall dread
+him--all the world shall fear him--and his end shall no man know; he shall
+be immortal in the mouths of the people, and his works shall be food to
+those that tell them.
+
+"But as for thee, O Vortigern, flee thou the sons of Constantine, for they
+shall burn thee in thy tower. For thine own ruin wast thou traitor to
+their father, and didst bring the Saxon heathens to the land. Aurelius and
+Uther are even now upon thee to revenge their father's murder; and the
+brood of the white dragon shall waste thy country, and shall lick thy
+blood. Find out some refuge, if thou wilt! but who may escape the doom of
+God?"
+
+The king heard all this, trembling greatly; and, convicted of his sins,
+said nothing in reply. Only he hasted the builders of his tower by day and
+night, and rested not till he had fled thereto.
+
+In the meantime, Aurelius, the rightful king, was hailed with joy by the
+Britons, who flocked to his standard, and prayed to be led against the
+Saxons. But he, till he had first killed Vortigern, would begin no other
+war. He marched therefore to Cambria, and came before the tower which the
+usurper had built. Then, crying out to all his knights, "Avenge ye on him
+who hath ruined Britain and slain my father and your king!" he rushed with
+many thousands at the castle walls. But, being driven back again and yet
+again, at length he thought of fire, and ordered blazing brands to be cast
+into the building from all sides. These finding soon a proper fuel, ceased
+not to rage, till spreading to a mighty conflagration, they burned down
+the tower and Vortigern within it.
+
+Then did Aurelius turn his strength against Hengist and the Saxons, and,
+defeating them in many places, weakened their power for a long season, so
+that the land had peace.
+
+Anon the king, making many journeys to and fro, restoring ruined churches
+and, creating order, came to the monastery near Salisbury, where all those
+British knights lay buried who had been slain there by the treachery of
+Hengist. For when in former times Hengist had made a solemn truce with
+Vortigern, to meet in peace and settle terms, whereby himself and all his
+Saxons should depart from Britain, the Saxon soldiers carried every one of
+them beneath his garment a long dagger, and, at a given signal, fell upon
+the Britons, and slew them, to the number of nearly five hundred.
+
+The sight of the place where the dead lay moved Aurelius to great sorrow,
+and he cast about in his mind how to make a worthy tomb over so many noble
+martyrs, who had died there for their country.
+
+When he had in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the
+advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you
+would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an
+everlasting monument, send for the Giants' Dance which is in Killaraus, a
+mountain in Ireland; for there is a structure of stone there which none of
+this age could raise without a perfect knowledge of the arts. They are
+stones of a vast size and wondrous nature, and if they can be placed here
+as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever."
+
+At these words of Merlin, Aurelius burst into laughter, and said, "How is
+it possible to remove such vast stones from so great a distance, as if
+Britain, also, had no stones fit for the work?"
+
+"I pray the king," said Merlin, "to forbear vain laughter; what I have
+said is true, for those stones are mystical and have healing virtues. The
+giants of old brought them from the furthest coast of Africa, and placed
+them in Ireland while they lived in that country: and their design was to
+make baths in them, for use in time of grievous illness. For if they
+washed the stones and put the sick into the water, it certainly healed
+them, as also it did them that were wounded in battle; and there is no
+stone among them but hath the same virtue still."
+
+When the Britons heard this, they resolved to send for the stones, and to
+make war upon the people of Ireland if they offered to withhold them. So,
+when they had chosen Uther the king's brother for their chief, they set
+sail, to the number of 15,000 men, and came to Ireland. There Gillomanius,
+the king, withstood them fiercely, and not till after a great battle could
+they approach the Giants' Dance, the sight of which filled them with joy
+and admiration. But when they sought to move the stones, the strength of
+all the army was in vain, until Merlin, laughing at their failures,
+contrived machines of wondrous cunning, which took them down with ease,
+and placed them in the ships.
+
+When they had brought the whole to Salisbury, Aurelius, with the crown
+upon his head, kept for four days the feast of Pentecost with royal pomp;
+and in the midst of all the clergy and the people, Merlin raised up the
+stones, and set them round the sepulchre of the knights and barons, as
+they stood in the mountains of Ireland.
+
+Then was the monument called "Stonehenge," which stands, as all men know,
+upon the plain of Salisbury to this very day.
+
+Soon thereafter it befell that Aurelius was slain by poison at Winchester,
+and was himself buried within the Giants' Dance.
+
+At the same time came forth a comet of amazing size and brightness,
+darting out a beam, at the end whereof was a cloud of fire shaped like a
+dragon, from whose mouth went out two rays, one stretching over Gaul, the
+other ending in seven lesser rays over the Irish sea.
+
+At the appearance of this star a great dread fell upon the people, and
+Uther, marching into Cambria against the son of Vortigern, himself was
+very troubled to learn what it might mean. Then Merlin, being called
+before him, cried with a loud voice: "O mighty loss! O stricken Britain!
+Alas! the great prince is gone from us. Aurelius Ambrosius is dead, whose
+death will be ours also, unless God help us. Haste, therefore, noble
+Uther, to destroy the enemy; the victory shall be thine, and thou shalt be
+king of all Britain. For the star with the fiery dragon signifies thyself;
+and the ray over Gaul portends that thou shalt have a son, most mighty,
+whom all those kingdoms shall obey which the ray covers."
+
+Thus, for the second time, did Merlin foretell the coming of King Arthur.
+And Uther, when he was made king, remembered Merlin's words, and caused
+two dragons to be made in gold, in likeness of the dragon he had seen in
+the star. One of these he gave to Winchester Cathedral, and had the other
+carried into all his wars before him, whence he was ever after called
+Uther Pendragon, or the dragon's head.
+
+Now, when Uther Pendragon had passed through all the land, and settled
+it--and even voyaged into all the countries of the Scots, and tamed the
+fierceness of that rebel people--he came to London, and ministered justice
+there. And it befell at a certain great banquet and high feast which the
+king made at Easter-tide, there came, with many other earls and barons,
+Gorloïs, Duke of Cornwall, and his wife Igerna, who was the most famous
+beauty in all Britain. And soon thereafter, Gorloïs being slain in battle,
+Uther determined to make Igerna his own wife. But in order to do this, and
+enable him to come to her--for she was shut up in the high castle of
+Tintagil, on the furthest coast of Cornwall--the king sent for Merlin, to
+take counsel with him and to pray his help. This, therefore, Merlin
+promised him on one condition--namely, that the king should give him up
+the first son born of the marriage. For Merlin by his arts foreknew that
+this firstborn should be the long-wished prince, King Arthur.
+
+When Uther, therefore, was at length happily wedded, Merlin came to the
+castle on a certain day, and said, "Sir, thou must now provide thee for
+the nourishing of thy child."
+
+And the king, nothing doubting, said, "Be it as thou wilt."
+
+"I know a lord of thine in this land," said Merlin, "who is a man both
+true and faithful; let him have the nourishing of the child. His name is
+Sir Ector, and he hath fair possessions both in England and in Wales.
+When, therefore, the child is born, let him be delivered unto me,
+unchristened, at yonder postern-gate, and I will bestow him in the care of
+this good knight."
+
+So when the child was born, the king bid two knights and two ladies to
+take it, bound in rich cloth of gold, and deliver it to a poor man whom
+they should discover at the postern-gate. And the child being delivered
+thus to Merlin, who himself took the guise of a poor man, was carried by
+him to a holy priest and christened by the name of Arthur, and then was
+taken to Sir Ector's house, and nourished at Sir Ector's wife's own
+breasts. And in the same house he remained privily for many years, no man
+soever knowing where he was, save Merlin and the king.
+
+Anon it befell that the king was seized by a lingering distemper, and the
+Saxon heathens, taking their occasion, came back from over sea, and
+swarmed upon the land, wasting it with fire and sword. When Uther heard
+thereof, he fell into a greater rage than his weakness could bear, and
+commanded all his nobles to come before him, that he might upbraid them
+for their cowardice. And when he had sharply and hotly rebuked them, he
+swore that he himself, nigh unto death although he lay, would lead them
+forth against the enemy. Then causing a horse-litter to be made, in which
+he might be carried--for he was too faint and weak to ride--he went up
+with all his army swiftly against the Saxons.
+
+But they, when they heard that Uther was coming in a litter, disdained to
+fight with him, saying it would be shame for brave men to fight with one
+half dead. So they retired into their city; and, as it were in scorn of
+danger, left the gates wide open. But Uther straightway commanding his men
+to assault the town, they did so without loss of time, and had already
+reached the gates, when the Saxons, repenting too late of their haughty
+pride, rushed forth to the defence. The battle raged till night, and was
+begun again next day; but at last, their leaders, Octa and Eosa, being
+slain, the Saxons turned their backs and fled, leaving the Britons a full
+triumph.
+
+The king at this felt so great joy, that, whereas before he could scarce
+raise himself without help, he now sat upright in his litter by himself,
+and said, with a laughing and merry face, "They called me the half-dead
+king, and so indeed I was; but victory to me half dead is better than
+defeat and the best health. For to die with honour is far better than to
+live disgraced."
+
+But the Saxons, although thus defeated, were ready still for war. Uther
+would have pursued them; but his illness had by now so grown, that his
+knights and barons kept him from the adventure. Whereat the enemy took
+courage, and left nothing undone to destroy the land; until, descending to
+the vilest treachery, they resolved to kill the king by poison.
+
+To this end, as he lay sick at Verulam, they sent and poisoned stealthily
+a spring of clear water, whence he was wont to drink daily; and so, on the
+very next day, he was taken with the pains of death, as were also a
+hundred others after him, before the villainy was discovered, and heaps of
+earth thrown over the well.
+
+The knights and barons, full of sorrow, now took counsel together, and
+came to Merlin for his help to learn the king's will before he died, for
+he was by this time speechless. "Sirs, there is no remedy," said Merlin,
+"and God's will must be done; but be ye all to-morrow before him, for God
+will make him speak before he die."
+
+So on the morrow all the barons, with Merlin, stood round the bedside of
+the king; and Merlin said aloud to Uther, "Lord, shall thy son Arthur be
+the king of all this realm after thy days?"
+
+Then Uther Pendragon turned him about, and said, in the hearing of them
+all, "God's blessing and mine be upon him. I bid him pray for my soul, and
+also that he claim my crown, or forfeit all my blessing;" and with those
+words he died.
+
+Then came together all the bishops and the clergy, and great multitudes of
+people, and bewailed the king; and carrying his body to the convent of
+Ambrius, they buried it close by his brother's grave, within the "Giants'
+Dance."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_The Miracle of the Sword and Stone, and the Coronation of King
+Arthur--The Sword Excalilur--The War with the Eleven Kings_
+
+
+Now Arthur the prince had all this time been nourished in Sir Ector's
+house as his own son, and was fair and tall and comely, being of the age
+of fifteen years, great in strength, gentle in manner, and accomplished in
+all exercises proper for the training of a knight.
+
+But as yet he knew not of his father; for Merlin had so dealt, that none
+save Uther and himself knew aught about him. Wherefore it befell, that
+many of the knights and barons who heard King Uther speak before his
+death, and call his son Arthur his successor, were in great amazement; and
+some doubted, and others were displeased.
+
+Anon the chief lords and princes set forth each to his own land, and,
+raising armed men and multitudes of followers, determined every one to
+gain the crown for himself; for they said in their hearts, "If there be
+any such a son at all as he of whom this wizard forced the king to speak,
+who are we that a beardless boy should have rule over us?"
+
+So the land stood long in great peril, for every lord and baron sought but
+his own advantage; and the Saxons, growing ever more adventurous, wasted
+and overran the towns and villages in every part.
+
+Then Merlin went to Brice, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and advised him
+to require all the earls and barons of the realm and all knights and
+gentlemen-at-arms to come to him at London, before Christmas, under pain
+of cursing, that they might learn the will of Heaven who should be king.
+This, therefore, the archbishop did, and upon Christmas Eve were met
+together in London all the greatest princes, lords, and barons; and long
+before day they prayed in St. Paul's Church, and the archbishop besought
+Heaven for a sign who should be lawful king of all the realm.
+
+And as they prayed, there was seen in the churchyard, set straight before
+the doorways of the church, a huge square stone having a naked sword stuck
+in the midst of it. And on the sword was written in letters of gold,
+"Whoso pulleth out the sword from this stone is born the rightful King of
+Britain."
+
+At this all the people wondered greatly; and, when Mass was over, the
+nobles, knights, and princes ran out eagerly from the church to see the
+stone and sword; and a law was forthwith made that whoso should pull out
+the sword should be acknowledged straightway King of Britain.
+
+Then many knights and barons pulled at the sword with all their might, and
+some of them tried many times, but none could stir or move it.
+
+When all had tried in vain, the archbishop declared the man whom Heaven
+had chosen was not yet there. "But God," said he, "will doubtless make
+him known ere many days."
+
+So ten knights were chosen, being men of high renown, to watch and keep
+the sword; and there was proclamation made through all the land that
+whosoever would, had leave and liberty to try and pull it from the stone.
+But though great multitudes of people came, both gentle and simple, for
+many days, no man could ever move the sword a hair's breadth from its
+place.
+
+Now, at the New Year's Eve a great tournament was to be held in London,
+which the archbishop had devised to keep together lords and commons, lest
+they should grow estranged in the troublous and unsettled times. To the
+which tournament there came, with many other knights, Sir Ector, Arthur's
+foster-father, who had great possessions near to London; and with him came
+his son, Sir Key, but recently made knight, to take his part in the
+jousting, and young Arthur also to witness all the sports and fighting.
+
+But as they rode towards the jousts, Sir Key found suddenly he had no
+sword, for he had left it at his father's house; and turning to young
+Arthur, he prayed him to ride back and fetch it for him. "I will with a
+good will," said Arthur; and rode fast back after the sword.
+
+But when he came to the house he found it locked and empty, for all were
+gone forth to see the tournament. Whereat, being angry and impatient, he
+said within himself, "I will ride to the churchyard and take with me the
+sword that sticketh in the stone, for my brother shall not go without a
+sword this day."
+
+So he rode and came to the churchyard, and alighting from his horse he
+tied him to the gate, and went to the pavilion, which was pitched near
+the stone, wherein abode the ten knights who watched and kept it; but he
+found no knights there, for all were gone to see the jousting.
+
+Then he took the sword by its handle, and lightly and fiercely he pulled
+it out of the stone, and took his horse and rode until he came to Sir Key
+and delivered him the sword. But as soon as Sir Key saw it he knew well it
+was the sword of the stone, and, riding swiftly to his father, he cried
+out, "Lo! here, sir, is the sword of the stone, wherefore it is I who must
+be king of all this land."
+
+When Sir Ector saw the sword, he turned back straight with Arthur and Sir
+Key and came to the churchyard, and there alighting, they went all three
+into the church, and Sir Key was sworn to tell truly how he came by the
+sword. Then he confessed it was his brother Arthur who had brought it to
+him.
+
+Whereat Sir Ector, turning to young Arthur, asked him--"How gottest thou
+the sword?"
+
+"Sir," said he, "I will tell you. When I went home to fetch my brother's
+sword, I found nobody to deliver it to me, for all were abroad to the
+jousts. Yet was I loath to leave my brother swordless, and, bethinking me
+of this one, I came hither eagerly to fetch it for him, and pulled it out
+of the stone without any pain."
+
+Then said Sir Ector, much amazed and looking steadfastly on Arthur, "If
+this indeed be thus, 'tis thou who shalt be king of all this land--and God
+will have it so--for none but he who should be rightful Lord of Britain
+might ever draw this sword forth from that stone. But let me now with mine
+own eyes see thee put back the sword into its place and draw it forth
+again."
+
+"That is no mystery," said Arthur; and straightway set it in the stone.
+And then Sir Ector pulled at it himself, and after him Sir Key, with all
+his might, but both of them in vain: then Arthur reaching forth his hand
+and grasping at the pommel, pulled it out easily, and at once.
+
+Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground before young
+Arthur, and Sir Key also with him, and straightway did him homage as their
+sovereign lord.
+
+[Illustration: Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground
+before young Arthur, and Sir Key also with him.]
+
+But Arthur cried aloud, "Alas! mine own dear father and my brother, why
+kneel ye thus to me?"
+
+"Nay, my Lord Arthur," answered then Sir Ector, "we are of no
+blood-kinship with thee, and little though I thought how high thy kin
+might be, yet wast thou never more than foster-child of mine." And then he
+told him all he knew about his infancy, and how a stranger had delivered
+him, with a great sum of gold, into his hands to be brought up and
+nourished as his own born child, and then had disappeared.
+
+But when young Arthur heard of it, he fell upon Sir Ector's neck, and
+wept, and made great lamentation, "For now," said he, "I have in one day
+lost my father and my mother and my brother."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Ector presently, "when thou shalt be made king be good and
+gracious unto me and mine."
+
+"If not," said Arthur, "I were no true man's son at all, for thou art he
+in all the world to whom I owe the most; and my good lady and mother, thy
+wife, hath ever kept and fostered me as though I were her own; so if it be
+God's will that I be king hereafter as thou sayest, desire of me whatever
+thing thou wilt and I will do it; and God forbid that I should fail thee
+in it."
+
+"I will but pray," replied Sir Ector, "that thou wilt make my son Sir Key,
+thy foster-brother, seneschal of all the lands."
+
+"That shall he be," said Arthur; "and never shall another hold that
+office, save thy son, while he and I do live."
+
+Anon, they left the church and went to the archbishop to tell him that the
+sword had been achieved. And when he saw the sword in Arthur's hand he set
+a day and summoned all the princes, knights, and barons to meet again at
+St. Paul's Church and see the will of Heaven signified. So when they came
+together, the sword was put back in the stone, and all tried, from the
+greatest to the least, to move it; but there before them all not one could
+take it out save Arthur only.
+
+But then befell a great confusion and dispute, for some cried out it was
+the will of Heaven, and, "Long live King Arthur," but many more were full
+of wrath and said, "What! would ye give the ancient sceptre of this land
+unto a boy born none know how?" And the contention growing greatly, till
+nothing could be done to pacify their rage, the meeting was at length
+broken up by the archbishop and adjourned till Candlemas, when all should
+meet again.
+
+But when Candlemas was come, Arthur alone again pulled forth the sword,
+though more than ever came to win it; and the barons, sorely vexed and
+angry, put it in delay till Easter. But as he had sped before so he did at
+Easter, and the barons yet once more contrived delays till Pentecost.
+
+But now the archbishop, fully seeing God's will, called together, by
+Merlin's counsel, a band of knights and gentlemen-at-arms, and set them
+about Arthur to keep him safely till the feast of Pentecost. And when at
+the feast Arthur still again alone prevailed to move the sword, the people
+all with one accord cried out, "Long live King Arthur! we will have no
+more delay, nor any other king, for so it is God's will; and we will slay
+whoso resisteth Him and Arthur;" and wherewithal they kneeled down all at
+once, and cried for Arthur's grace and pardon that they had so long
+delayed him from his crown. Then he full sweetly and majestically pardoned
+them; and taking in his hand the sword, he offered it upon the high altar
+of the church.
+
+Anon was he solemnly knighted with great pomp by the most famous knight
+there present, and the crown was placed upon his head; and, having taken
+oath to all the people, lords and commons, to be true king and deal in
+justice only unto his life's end, he received homage and service from all
+the barons who held lands and castles from the crown. Then he made Sir
+Key, High Steward of England, and Sir Badewaine of Britain, Constable, and
+Sir Ulfius, Chamberlain: and after this, with all his court and a great
+retinue of knights and armed men, he journeyed into Wales, and was crowned
+again in the old city of Caerleon-upon-Usk.
+
+Meanwhile those knights and barons who had so long delayed him from the
+crown, met together and went up to the coronation feast at Caerleon, as if
+to do him homage; and there they ate and drank such things as were set
+before them at the royal banquet, sitting with the others in the great
+hall.
+
+But when after the banquet Arthur began, according to the ancient royal
+custom, to bestow great boons and fiefs on whom he would, they all with
+one accord rose up, and scornfully refused his gifts, crying that they
+would take nothing from a beardless boy come of low or unknown birth, but
+would instead give him good gifts of hard sword-strokes between neck and
+shoulders.
+
+Whereat arose a deadly tumult in the hall, and every man there made him
+ready to fight. But Arthur leaped up as a flame of fire against them, and
+all his knights and barons drawing their swords, rushed after him upon
+them and began a full sore battle; and presently the king's party
+prevailed, and drave the rebels from the hall and from the city, closing
+the gates behind them; and King Arthur brake his sword upon them in his
+eagerness and rage.
+
+But amongst them were six kings of great renown and might, who more than
+all raged against Arthur and determined to destroy him, namely, King Lot,
+King Nanters, King Urien, King Carados, King Yder, and King Anguisant.
+These six, therefore, joining their armies together, laid close siege to
+the city of Caerleon, wherefrom King Arthur had so shamefully driven them.
+
+And after fifteen days Merlin came suddenly into their camp and asked them
+what this treason meant. Then he declared to them that Arthur was no base
+adventurer, but King Uther's son, whom they were bound to serve and honour
+even though Heaven had not vouchsafed the wondrous miracle of the sword.
+Some of the kings, when they heard Merlin speak thus, marvelled and
+believed him; but others, as King Lot, laughed him and his words to scorn,
+and mocked him for a conjurer and wizard. But it was agreed with Merlin
+that Arthur should come forth and speak with the kings.
+
+So he went forth to them to the city gate, and with him the archbishop and
+Merlin, and Sir Key, Sir Brastias, and a great company of others. And he
+spared them not in his speech, but spoke to them as king and chieftain
+telling them plainly he would make them all bow to him if he lived, unless
+they choose to do him homage there and then; and so they parted in great
+wrath, and each side armed in haste.
+
+"What will ye do?" said Merlin to the kings; "ye had best hold your hands,
+for were ye ten times as many ye should not prevail."
+
+"Shall we be afraid of a dream-reader?" quoth King Lot in scorn.
+
+With that Merlin vanished away and came to King Arthur.
+
+Then Arthur said to Merlin, "I have need now of a sword that shall
+chastise these rebels terribly."
+
+"Come then with me," said Merlin, "for hard by there is a sword that I can
+gain for thee."
+
+So they rode out that night till they came to a fair and broad lake, and
+in the midst of it King Arthur saw an arm thrust up, clothed in white
+samite, and holding a great sword in the hand.
+
+"Lo! yonder is the sword I spoke of," said Merlin.
+
+Then saw they a damsel floating on the lake in the Moonlight. "What damsel
+is that?" said the king.
+
+"The lady of the lake," said Merlin; "for upon this lake there is a rock,
+and on the rock a noble palace, where she abideth, and she will come
+towards thee presently, thou shalt ask her courteously for the sword."
+
+[Illustration: The lady of the lake.]
+
+Therewith the damsel came to King Arthur, and saluted him, and he saluted
+her, and said, "Lady, what sword is that the arm holdeth above the water?
+I would that it were mine, for I have no sword."
+
+"Sir King," said the lady of the lake, "that sword is mine, and if thou
+wilt give me in return a gift whenever I shall ask it of thee, thou shalt
+have it."
+
+"By my faith," said he, "I will give thee any gift that thou shalt ask."
+
+"Well," said the damsel, "go into yonder barge, and row thyself unto the
+sword, and take it and the scabbard with thee, and I will ask my gift of
+thee when I see my time."
+
+So King Arthur and Merlin alighted, and tied their horses to two trees,
+and went into the barge; and when they came to the sword that the hand
+held, King Arthur took it by the handle and bore it with him, and the arm
+and hand went down under the water; and so they came back to land, and
+rode again to Caerleon.
+
+On the morrow Merlin bade King Arthur to set fiercely on the enemy; and in
+the meanwhile three hundred good knights went over to King Arthur from the
+rebels' side. Then at the spring of day, when they had scarce left their
+tents, he fell on them with might and main, and Sir Badewaine, Sir Key,
+and Sir Brastias slew on the right hand and on the left marvellously; and
+ever in the thickest of the fight King Arthur raged like a young lion, and
+laid on with his sword, and did wondrous deeds of arms, to the joy and
+admiration of the knights and barons who beheld him.
+
+Then King Lot, King Carados, and the King of the Hundred Knights--who also
+rode with them--going round to the rear, set on King Arthur fiercely from
+behind; but Arthur, turning to his knights, fought ever in the foremost
+press until his horse was slain beneath him. At that, King Lot rode
+furiously at him, and smote him down; but rising straightway, and being
+set again on horseback, he drew his sword Excalibur that he had gained by
+Merlin from the lady of the lake, which, shining brightly as the light of
+thirty torches, dazzled the eyes of his enemies. And therewith falling on
+them afresh with all his knights, he drove them back and slew them in
+great numbers, and Merlin by his arts scattered among them fire and pitchy
+smoke, so that they broke and fled. Then all the common people of
+Caerleon, seeing them give way, rose up with one accord, and rushed at
+them with clubs and staves, and chased them far and wide, and slew many
+great knights and lords, and the remainder of them fled and were seen no
+more. Thus won King Arthur his first battle and put his enemies to shame.
+
+But the six kings, though sorely routed, prepared for a new war, and
+joining to themselves five others swore together that, whether for weal or
+woe, they would keep steadfast alliance till they had destroyed King
+Arthur. Then, with a host of 50,000 men-at-arms on horseback, and 10,000
+foot, they were soon ready, and sent forth their fore-riders, and drew
+from the northern country towards King Arthur, to the castle of Bedgraine.
+
+But he by Merlin's counsel had sent over sea to King Ban of Benwick and
+King Bors of Gaul, praying them to come and help him in his wars, and
+promising to help in return against King Claudas, their foe. To which
+those kings made answer that they would joyfully fulfil his wish, and
+shortly after came to London with 300 knights, well arrayed for both peace
+and war, leaving behind them a great army on the other side of the sea
+till they had consulted with King Arthur and his ministers how they might
+best dispose of it.
+
+And Merlin being asked for his advice and help, agreed to go himself and
+fetch it over sea to England, which in one night he did; and brought with
+him 10,000 horsemen and led them northward privately to the forest of
+Bedgraine, and there lodged them in a valley secretly.
+
+Then, by the counsel of Merlin, when they knew which way the eleven kings
+would ride and sleep, King Arthur with Kings Ban and Bors made themselves
+ready with their army for the fight, having yet but 30,000 men, counting
+the 10,000 who had come from Gaul.
+
+"Now shall ye do my advice," said Merlin; "I would that King Ban and King
+Bors, with all their fellowship of 10,000 men, were led to ambush in this
+wood ere daylight, and stir not therefrom until the battle hath been long
+waged. And thou, Lord Arthur, at the spring of day draw forth thine army
+before the enemy, and dress the battle so that they may at once see all
+thy host, for they will be the more rash and hardy when they see you have
+but 20,000 men."
+
+To this the three knights and the barons heartily consented, and it was
+done as Merlin had devised. So on the morrow when the hosts beheld each
+other, the host of the north was greatly cheered to find so few led out
+against them.
+
+Then gave King Arthur the command to Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias to take
+3000 men-at-arms, and to open battle. They therefore setting fiercely on
+the enemy slew them on the right hand and the left till it was wonderful
+to see their slaughter.
+
+When the eleven kings beheld so small a band doing such mighty deeds of
+arms they were ashamed, and charged them fiercely in return. Then was Sir
+Ulfius' horse slain under him; but he fought well and marvellously on foot
+against Duke Eustace and King Clarience, who set upon him grievously, till
+Sir Brastias, seeing his great peril, pricked towards them swiftly, and so
+smote the duke through with his spear that horse and man fell down and
+rolled over. Whereat King Clarience turned upon Sir Brastias, and rushing
+furiously together they each unhorsed the other and fell both to the
+ground, and there lay a long time stunned, their horses' knees being cut
+to the bone. Then came Sir Key the seneschal with six companions, and did
+wondrous well, till the eleven kings went out against them and overthrew
+Sir Griflet and Sir Lucas the butler. And when Sir Key saw Sir Griflet
+unhorsed and on foot, he rode against King Nanters hotly and smote him
+down, and led his horse to Griflet and horsed him again; with the same
+spear did Sir Key smite down King Lot and wounded him full sore.
+
+But seeing that, the King of the Hundred Knights rushed at Sir Key and
+overthrew him in return, and took his horse and gave it to King Lot. And
+when Sir Griflet saw Sir Key's mischance, he set his spear in rest, and
+riding at a mighty man-at-arms, he cast him down headlong and caught his
+horse and led it straightway to Sir Key.
+
+By now the battle was growing perilous and hard, and both sides fought
+with rage and fury. And Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias were both afoot and
+in great danger of their death, and foully stained and trampled under
+horses' feet. Then King Arthur, putting spurs to his horse, rushed forward
+like a lion into the midst of all the _mêlée_, and singling out King
+Cradlemont of North Wales, smote him through the left side and overthrew
+him, and taking his horse by the rein he brought it to Sir Ulfius in haste
+and said, "Take this horse, mine old friend, for thou hast great need of
+one, and charge by side of me." And even as he spoke he saw Sir Ector, Sir
+Key's father, smitten to the earth by the King of the Hundred Knights, and
+his horse taken to King Cradlemont.
+
+But when King Arthur saw him ride upon Sir Ector's horse his wrath was
+very great, and with his sword he smote King Cradlemont upon the helm, and
+shore off the fourth part thereof and of the shield, and drave the sword
+onward to the horse's neck and slew the horse, and hurled the king upon
+the ground.
+
+And now the battle waxed so great and furious that all the noise and sound
+thereof rang out by water and by wood, so that Kings Ban and Bors, with
+all their knights and men-at-arms in ambush, hearing the tumult and the
+cries, trembled and shook for eagerness, and scarce could stay in secret,
+but made them ready for the fray and dressed their shields and harness.
+
+But when King Arthur saw the fury of the enemy, he raged like a mad lion,
+and stirred and drove his horse now here, now there, to the right hand and
+to the left, and stayed not in his wrath till he had slain full twenty
+knights. He wounded also King Lot so sorely in the shoulder that he left
+the field, and in great pain and dolour cried out to the other kings, "Do
+ye as I devise, or we shall be destroyed. I, with the King of the Hundred
+Knights, King Anguisant, King Yder, and the Duke of Cambinet, will take
+fifteen thousand men and make a circuit, meanwhile that ye do hold the
+battle with twelve thousand. Then coming suddenly we will fall fiercely on
+them from behind and put them to the rout, but else shall we never stand
+against them."
+
+So Lot and four kings departed with their party to one side, and the six
+other kings dressed their ranks against King Arthur and fought long and
+stoutly.
+
+But now Kings Ban and Bors, with all their army fresh and eager, broke
+from their ambush and met face to face the five kings and their host as
+they came round behind, and then began a frantic struggle with breaking of
+spears and clashing of swords and slaying of men and horses. Anon King
+Lot, espying in the midst King Bors, cried out in great dismay, "Our Lady
+now defend us from our death and fearful wounds; our peril groweth great,
+for yonder cometh one of the worshipfullest kings and best knights in all
+the world."
+
+"Who is he?" said the King of the Hundred Knights.
+
+"It is King Bors of Gaul," replied King Lot, "and much I marvel how he may
+have come with all his host into this land without our knowledge."
+
+"Aha!" cried King Carados, "I will encounter with this king if ye will
+rescue me when there is need."
+
+"Ride on," said they.
+
+So King Carados and all his host rode softly till they came within a
+bow-shot of King Bors, and then both hosts, spurring their horses to their
+greatest swiftness, rushed at each other. And King Bors encountered in
+the onset with a knight, and struck him through with a spear, so that he
+fell dead upon the earth; then drawing his sword, he did such mighty feats
+of arms that all who saw him gazed with wonder. Anon King Ban came also
+forth upon the field with all his knights, and added yet more fury, sound,
+and slaughter, till at length both hosts of the eleven kings began to
+quake, and drawing all together into one body, they prepared to meet the
+worst, while a great multitude already fled.
+
+Then said King Lot, "Lords, we must take yet other means, or worse loss
+still awaits us. See ye not what people we have lost in waiting on the
+footmen, and that it costs ten horsemen to save one of them? Therefore it
+is my counsel to put away our footmen from us, for it is almost night, and
+King Arthur will not stay to slaughter them. So they can save their lives
+in this great wood hard by. Then let us gather into one band all the
+horsemen that remain, and whoso breaketh rank or leaveth us, let him be
+straightway slain by him that seeth him, for it is better that we slay a
+coward than through a coward be all slain. How say ye?" said King Lot;
+"answer me, all ye kings."
+
+"It is well said," replied they all.
+
+And swearing they would never fail each other, they mended and set right
+their armour and their shields, and took new spears and set them
+steadfastly against their thighs, waiting, and so stood still as a clump
+of trees stands on the plain; and no assaults could shake them, they held
+so hard together; which when King Arthur saw he marvelled greatly, and was
+very wroth. "Yet," cried he, "I may not blame them, by my faith, for they
+do as brave men ought to do, and are the best fighting men and knights of
+most prowess that I ever saw or heard tell of." And so said also Kings Ban
+and Bors, and praised them greatly for their noble chivalry.
+
+But now came forty noble knights out of King Arthur's host, and prayed
+that he would suffer them to break the enemy. And when they were allowed,
+they rode forth with their spears upon their thighs, and spurred their
+horses to their hottest. Then the eleven kings, with a party of their
+knights, rushed with set spears as fast and mightily to meet them; and
+when they were encountered, all the crash and splinter of their spears and
+armour rang with a mighty din, and so fierce and bloody was their onset
+that in all that day there had been no such cruel press, and rage, and
+smiting. At that same moment rode fiercely into the thickest of the
+struggle King Arthur and Kings Ban and Bors, and slew downright on both
+hands right and left, until their horses went in blood up to the fetlocks.
+
+And while the slaughter and the noise and shouting were at their greatest,
+suddenly there came down through the battle Merlin the Wizard, upon a
+great black horse, and riding to King Arthur, he cried out, "Alas, my
+Lord! will ye have never done? Of sixty thousand have ye left but fifteen
+thousand men alive. Is it not time to stay this slaying? for God is ill
+pleased with ye that ye have never ended, and yonder kings shall not be
+altogether overthrown this time. But if ye fall upon them any more, the
+fortune of this day will turn, and go to them. Withdraw, Lord, therefore,
+to thy lodging, and there now take thy rest, for to-day thou hast won a
+great victory, and overcome the noblest chivalry of all the world. And now
+for many years those kings shall not disturb thee. Therefore, I tell
+thee, fear them no more, for now they are sore beaten, and have nothing
+left them but their honour; and why shouldest thou slay them to take
+that?"
+
+Then said King Arthur, "Thou sayest well, and I will take thy counsel."
+With that he cried out, "Ho!" for the battle to cease, and sent forth
+heralds through the field to stay more fighting. And gathering all the
+spoil, he gave it not amongst his own host, but to Kings Ban and Bors and
+all their knights and men-at-arms, that he might treat them with the
+greater courtesy as strangers.
+
+Then Merlin took his leave of Arthur and the two other kings, and went to
+see his master, Blaise, a holy hermit, dwelling in Northumberland, who had
+nourished him through all his youth. And Blaise was passing glad to see
+him, for there was a great love ever between them; and Merlin told him how
+King Arthur had sped in the battle, and how it had ended; and told him the
+names of every king and knight of worship who was there. So Blaise wrote
+down the battle, word for word, as Merlin told him; and in the same way
+ever after, all the battles of King Arthur's days Merlin caused Blaise,
+his master, to record.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_The Adventure of the Questing Beast--King Arthur drives the Saxons from
+the Realm--The Battles of Celidon Forest and Badon Hill_
+
+
+Anon, thereafter, came word to King Arthur that Ryence, King of North
+Wales, was making war upon King Leodegrance of Camelgard; whereat he was
+passing wroth, for he loved Leodegrance well, and hated Ryence. So he
+departed with Kings Ban and Bors and twenty thousand men, and came to
+Camelgard, and rescued Leodegrance, and slew ten thousand of Ryence's men
+and put him to flight. Then Leodegrance made a great festival to the three
+kings, and treated them with every manner of mirth and pleasure which
+could be devised. And there had King Arthur the first sight of Guinevere,
+daughter of Leodegrance, whom in the end he married, as shall be told
+hereafter.
+
+Then did Kings Ban and Bors take leave, and went to their own country,
+where King Claudas worked great mischief. And King Arthur would have gone
+with them, but they refused him, saying, "Nay, ye shall not at this time,
+for ye have yet much to do in these lands of your own; and we with the
+riches we have won here by your gifts shall hire many good knights, and,
+by the grace of God, withstand the malice of King Claudas; and if we have
+need we will send to ye for succour; and likewise ye, if ye have need,
+send for us, and we will not tarry, by the faith of our bodies."
+
+When the two kings had left, King Arthur rode to Caerleon, and thither
+came to him his half-sister Belisent, wife to King Lot, sent as a
+messenger, but in truth to espy his power; and with her came a noble
+retinue, and also her four sons--Gawain, Gaheris, Agravaine, and Gareth.
+But when she saw King Arthur and his nobleness, and all the splendour of
+his knights and service, she forbore to spy upon him as a foe, and told
+him of her husband's plots against him and his throne. And the king, not
+knowing that she was his half-sister, made great court to her; and being
+full of admiration for her beauty, loved her out of measure, and kept her
+a long season at Caerleon. Wherefore her husband, King Lot, was more than
+ever King Arthur's enemy, and hated him till death with a passing great
+hatred.
+
+At that time King Arthur had a marvellous dream, which gave him great
+disquietness of heart. He dreamed that the whole land was full of many
+fiery griffins and serpents, which burnt and slew the people everywhere;
+and then that he himself fought with them, and that they did him mighty
+injuries, and wounded him nigh to death, but that at last he overcame and
+slew them all. When he woke, he sat in great heaviness of spirit and
+pensiveness, thinking what this dream might signify, but by-and-by, when
+he could by no means satisfy himself what it might mean, to rid himself of
+all his thoughts of it, he made ready with a great company to ride out
+hunting.
+
+As soon as he was in the forest, the king saw a great hart before him, and
+spurred his horse, and rode long eagerly after it, and chased until his
+horse lost breath and fell down dead from under him. Then, seeing the hart
+escaped and his horse dead, he sat down by a fountain, and fell into deep
+thought again. And as he sat there alone, he thought he heard the noise of
+hounds, as it were some thirty couple in number, and looking up he saw
+coming towards him the strangest beast that ever he had seen or heard tell
+of, which ran towards the fountain and drank of the water. Its head was
+like a serpent's, with a leopard's body and a lion's tail, and it was
+footed like a stag; and the noise was in its belly, as it were the baying
+or questing of thirty couple of hounds. While it drank there was no noise
+within it; but presently, having finished, it departed with a greater
+sound than ever.
+
+The king was amazed at all this; but being greatly wearied, he fell
+asleep, and was before long waked up by a knight on foot, who said,
+"Knight, full of thought and sleepy, tell me if thou sawest a strange
+beast pass this way?"
+
+"Such a one I saw," said King Arthur to the knight, "but that is now two
+miles distant at the least. What would you with that beast?"
+
+"Sir," said the knight, "I have followed it for a long time, and have
+killed my horse, and would to heaven I had another to pursue my quest
+withal."
+
+At that moment came a yeoman with another horse for the king, which, when
+the knight saw, he earnestly prayed to be given him. "For I have followed
+this quest," said he, "twelve months, and either I shall achieve him or
+bleed of the best blood of my body."
+
+It was King Pellinore who at that time followed the questing beast, but
+neither he nor King Arthur knew each other.
+
+"Sir Knight," said King Arthur, "leave that quest and suffer me to have
+it, and I will follow it other twelve months."
+
+"Ah, fool," said the knight, "thy desire is utterly in vain, for it shall
+never be achieved but by me, or by my next of kin."
+
+Therewith he started to the king's horse, and mounted to the saddle,
+crying out, "Grammercy, this horse is mine!"
+
+"Well," said the king, "thou mayest take my horse by force, and I will not
+say nay; but till we prove whether thou or I be best on horseback, I shall
+not rest content."
+
+"Seek me here," said the knight, "whenever thou wilt, and here by this
+fountain thou shalt find me;" and so he passed forth on his way.
+
+Then sat King Arthur in a deep fit of study, and bade his yeomen fetch him
+yet another horse as quickly as they could. And when they left him all
+alone came Merlin, disguised as a child of fourteen years of age, and
+saluted the king, and asked him why he was so pensive and heavy.
+
+"I may well be pensive and heavy," he replied, "for here even now I have
+seen the strangest sight I ever saw."
+
+"That know I well," said Merlin, "as well as thyself, and also all thy
+thoughts; but thou art foolish to take thought, for it will not amend
+thee. Also I know what thou art, and know thy father and thy mother."
+
+"That is false," said King Arthur; "how shouldst thou know? thy years are
+not enough."
+
+"Yea," said Merlin, "but I know better than thou how thou wast born, and
+better than any man living."
+
+"I will not believe thee," said King Arthur, and was wroth with the child.
+
+So Merlin departed, and came again in the likeness of an old man of
+fourscore years of age; and the king was glad at his coming, for he seemed
+wise and venerable. Then said the old man, "Why art thou so sad?"
+
+"For divers reasons," said King Arthur; "for I have seen strange things
+to-day, and but this moment there was here a child who told me things
+beyond his years to know."
+
+"Yea," said the old man, "but he told thee truth, and more he would have
+told thee hadst thou suffered him. But I will tell thee wherefore thou art
+sad, for thou hast done a thing of late for which God is displeased with
+thee, and what it is thou knowest in thy heart, though no man else may
+know."
+
+"What art thou," said King Arthur, starting up all pale, "that tellest me
+these tidings?"
+
+"I am Merlin," said he, "and I was he in the child's likeness, also."
+
+"Ah," said King Arthur, "thou art a marvellous and right fearful man, and
+I would ask and tell thee many things this day."
+
+As they talked came one with the king's horses, and so, King Arthur
+mounting one, and Merlin another, they rode together to Caerleon; and
+Merlin prophesied to Arthur of his death, and also foretold his own end.
+
+And now King Arthur, having utterly dispersed and overwhelmed those kings
+who had so long delayed his coronation, turned all his mind to overthrow
+the Saxon heathens who yet in many places spoiled the land. Calling
+together, therefore, his knights and men-at-arms, he rode with all his
+hosts to York, where Colgrin, the Saxon, lay with a great army; and there
+he fought a mighty battle, long and bloody, and drove him into the city,
+and besieged him. Then Baldulph, Colgrin's brother, came secretly with six
+thousand men to assail King Arthur and to raise the siege. But King Arthur
+was aware of him, and sent six hundred horsemen and three thousand foot to
+meet and fall on him instead. This therefore they did, encountering them
+at midnight, and utterly defeated them, till they fled away for life. But
+Baldulph, full of grief, resolved to share his brother's peril; wherefore
+he shaved his head and beard, and disguised himself as a jester, and so
+passed through King Arthur's camp, singing and playing on a harp, till by
+degrees he drew near to the city walls, where presently he made himself
+known, and was drawn up by ropes into the town.
+
+Anon, while Arthur closely watched the city, came news that full six
+hundred ships had landed countless swarms of Saxons, under Cheldric, on
+the eastern coast. At that he raised the siege, and marched straight to
+London, and there increased his army, and took counsel with his barons how
+to drive the Saxons from the land for evermore.
+
+Then with his nephew, Hoel, King of the Armorican Britons, who came with a
+great force to help him, King Arthur, with a mighty multitude of barons,
+knights, and fighting men, went swiftly up to Lincoln, which the Saxons
+lay besieging. And there he fought a passing fierce battle, and made
+grievous slaughter, killing above six thousand men, till the main body of
+them turned and fled. But he pursued them hotly into the wood of Celidon,
+where, sheltering themselves among the trees from his arrows, they made a
+stand, and for a long season bravely defended themselves. Anon, he ordered
+all the trees in that part of the forest to be cut down, leaving no
+shelter or ambush; and with their trunks and branches made a mighty
+barricade, which shut them in and hindered their escape. After three days,
+brought nigh to death by famine, they offered to give up their wealth of
+gold and silver spoils, and to depart forthwith in their empty ships;
+moreover, to pay tribute to King Arthur when they reached their home, and
+to leave him hostages till all was paid.
+
+This offer, therefore, he accepted, and suffered them to depart. But when
+they had been a few hours at sea, they repented of their shameful flight,
+and turned their ships back again, and landing at Totnes, ravaged all the
+land as far as the Severn, and, burning and slaying on all sides, bent
+their steps towards Bath.
+
+When King Arthur heard of their treachery and their return, he burned with
+anger till his eyes shone like two torches, and then he swore a mighty
+oath to rest no more until he had utterly destroyed those enemies of God
+and man, and had rooted them for ever out of the land of Britain. Then
+marching hotly with his armies on to Bath, he cried aloud to them, "Since
+these detestable impious heathens disdain to keep their faith with me, to
+keep faith with God, to whom I sware to cherish and defend this realm,
+will now this day avenge on them the blood of all that they have slain in
+Britain!"
+
+In like manner after him spoke the archbishop, standing upon a hill, and
+crying that to-day they should fight both for their country and for
+Paradise, "For whoso," he said, "shall in this holy war be slain, the
+angels shall forthwith receive him; for death in this cause shall be
+penance and absolution for all sins."
+
+At these words every man in the whole army raged with hatred, and pressed
+eagerly to rush upon those savages.
+
+Anon King Arthur, dressed in armour shining with gold and jewels, and
+wearing on his head a helmet with a golden dragon, took a shield painted
+with the likeness of the blessed Mary. Then girding on Excalibur and
+taking in his right hand his great lance Ron, he placed his men in order
+and led them out against the enemy, who stood for battle on the slope of
+Badon Hill, ranged in the form of a wedge, as their custom was. And they,
+resisting all the onslaughts of King Arthur and his host, made that day a
+stout defence, and at night lay down upon the hill.
+
+But on the next day Arthur led his army once again to the attack, and with
+wounds and slaughter such as no man had ever seen before, he drove the
+heathen step by step before him, backwards and upwards, till he stood with
+all his noblest knights upon the summit of the hill.
+
+And then men saw him, "red as the rising sun from spur to plume," lift up
+his sword, and, kneeling, kiss the cross of it; and after, rising to his
+feet, set might and main with all his fellowship upon the foe, till, as a
+troop of lions roaring for their prey, they drove them like a scattered
+herd along the plains, and cut them down till they could cut no more for
+weariness.
+
+That day King Arthur by himself alone slew with his word Excalibur four
+hundred and seventy heathens. Colgrin also, and his brother Baldulph, were
+slain.
+
+Then the king bade Cador, Duke of Cornwall, follow Cheldric, the chief
+leader, and the remnant of his hosts, unto the uttermost. He, therefore,
+when he had first seized their fleet, and filled it with chosen men, to
+beat them back when they should fly to it at last, chased them and slew
+them without mercy so long as he could overtake them. And though they
+crept with trembling hearts for shelter to the coverts of the woods and
+dens of mountains, yet even so they found no safety, for Cador slew them,
+even one by one. Last of all he caught and slew Cheldric himself, and
+slaughtering a great multitude took hostages for the surrender of the
+rest.
+
+Meanwhile, King Arthur turned from Badon Hill, and freed his nephew Hoel
+from the Scots and Picts, who besieged him in Alclud. And when he had
+defeated them in three sore battles, he drove them before him to a lake,
+which was one of the most wondrous lakes in all the world, for it was fed
+by sixty rivers, and had sixty islands, and sixty rocks, and on every
+island sixty eagles' nests. But King Arthur with a great fleet sailed
+round the rivers and besieged them in the lake for fifteen days, so that
+many thousands died of hunger.
+
+Anon the King of Ireland came with an army to relieve them; but Arthur,
+turning on him fiercely, routed him, and compelled him to retreat in
+terror to his land. Then he pursued his purpose, which was no less to
+destroy the race of Picts and Scots, who, beyond memory, had been a
+ceaseless torment to the Britons by their barbarous malice.
+
+So bitterly, therefore, did he treat them, giving quarter to none, that at
+length the bishops of that miserable country with the clergy met together,
+and, bearing all the holy relics, came barefooted to the king to pray his
+mercy for their people. As soon as they were led before him they fell down
+upon their knees, and piteously besought him to spare the few survivors of
+their countrymen, and grant them any corner of the land where they might
+live in peace. When he thus heard them, and knew that he had now fully
+punished them, he consented to their prayer, and withdrew his hosts from
+any further slaughter.
+
+Then turned he back to his own realm, and came to York for Christmas, and
+there with high solemnity observed that holy tide; and being passing
+grieved to see the ruin of the churches and houses, which the rage or the
+pagans had destroyed, he rebuilt them, and restored the city to its
+ancient happy state.
+
+And on a certain day, as the king sat with his barons, there came into the
+court a squire on horseback, carrying a knight before him wounded to the
+death, and told the king that hard by in the forest was a knight who had
+reared up a pavilion by the fountain, "and hath slain my master, a valiant
+knight, whose name was Nirles; wherefore I beseech thee, Lord, my master
+may be buried, and that some good knight may avenge his death."
+
+At that stepped forth a squire named Griflet, who was very young, being of
+the same age with King Arthur, and besought the king, for all the service
+he had done, to give him knighthood.
+
+"Thou art full young and tender of age," said King Arthur, "to take so
+high an order upon thee."
+
+"Sir," said Griflet, "I beseech thee make me a knight;" and Merlin also
+advising the king to grant his request, "Well," said Arthur, "be it then
+so," and knighted him forthwith. Then said he to him, "Since I have
+granted thee this favour, thou must in turn grant me a gift."
+
+"Whatsoever thou wilt, my lord," replied Sir Griflet.
+
+"Promise me," said King Arthur, "by the faith of thy body, that when thou
+hast jousted with this knight at the fountain, thou wilt return to me
+straightway, unless he slay thee."
+
+"I promise," said Sir Griflet; and taking his horse in haste, he dressed
+his shield, and took a spear in his hand and rode full gallop till he came
+to the fountain, by the side of which he saw a rich pavilion, and a great
+horse standing well saddled and bridled, and on a tree close by there hung
+a shield of many colours and a long lance.
+
+Then Sir Griflet smote upon the shield with the butt of his spear until he
+cast it to the ground. At that a knight came out of the pavilion and said,
+"Fair knight, why smote ye down my shield?"
+
+"Because," said Griflet, "I would joust with thee."
+
+"It were better not," replied the knight; "for thou art young and but
+lately made a knight, and thy strength is small compared to mine."
+
+"For all that," said Sir Griflet, "I will joust with ye."
+
+"I am full loath," replied the knight; "but if I must I must."
+
+Then did they wheel their horses far apart, and running them together,
+the strange knight shivered Sir Griflet's spear to fragments, and smote
+him through the shield and the left side, and broke his own spear into Sir
+Griflet's body, so that the truncheon stuck there, and Sir Griflet and his
+horse fell down. But when the strange knight saw him overthrown, he was
+sore grieved, and hastily alighted, for he thought that he had slain him.
+Then he unlaced his helm and gave him air, and tended him carefully till
+he came out of his swoon, and leaving the truncheon of his spear in his
+body, he set him upon horse, and commended him to God, and said he had a
+mighty heart, and if he lived would prove a passing good knight. And so
+Sir Griflet rode to the court, where, by aid of good physicians, he was
+healed in time and his life saved.
+
+At that same time there came before the king twelve old men, ambassadors
+from Lucius Tiberius, Emperor of Rome, and demanded of Arthur tribute unto
+Caesar for his realm, or else, said they, the emperor would destroy both
+him and his land. To whom King Arthur answered that he owed the emperor no
+tribute, nor would send him any; but said he, "On a fair field I will pay
+him his proper tribute--with a sharp spear and sword; and by my father's
+soul that tribute shall he take from me, whether he will or not." So the
+ambassadors departed passing wroth, and King Arthur was as wroth as they.
+
+But on the morrow of Sir Griflet's hurt, the king commanded to take his
+horse and armour secretly outside the city walls before sunrise of the
+next morning, and, rising a long while before dawn, he mounted up and took
+his shield and spear, and bade his chamberlain tarry till he came again;
+but he forbore to take Excalibur, for he had given it for safety into
+charge of his sister, Queen Morgan le Fay. And as the king rode at a soft
+pace he saw suddenly three villains chasing Merlin and making to attack
+and slay him. Clapping spurs to his horse, he rushed towards them, and
+cried out in a terrible voice, "Flee, churls, or take your deaths;" but
+they, as soon as they perceived a knight, fled away with the haste of
+hares.
+
+"O Merlin," said the king; "here hadst thou been killed, despite thy many
+crafts, had I not chanced to pass."
+
+"Not so," said Merlin, "for when I would, I could have saved myself; but
+thou art nearer to thy death than I, for without special help from heaven
+thou ridest now towards thy grave."
+
+And as they were thus talking, they came to the fountain and the rich
+pavilion pitched beside it, and saw a knight sitting all armed on a chair
+in the opening of the tent. "Sir knight," said King Arthur, "for what
+cause abidest thou here? to joust with any knight that passeth by? If so,
+I caution thee to quit that custom."
+
+"That custom," said the knight, "have I followed and will follow, let
+whosoever will say nay, and if any is aggrieved at it, let him who will
+amend it."
+
+"I will amend it," said King Arthur.
+
+"And I will defend it," answered the knight.
+
+Then the knight mounted his horse and made himself ready, and charging at
+each other they met so hard that both their lances splintered into pieces.
+Then King Arthur drew his sword, but the knight cried out, "Not so; but
+let us run another tilt together with sharp spears."
+
+"I would with a good will," said King Arthur; "but I have no more spears."
+
+"I have enough of spears," replied the knight, and called a squire, who
+brought two good new lances.
+
+Then spurring their horses, they rushed together with all their might, and
+broke each one his own spear short off in his hand. Then the king again
+put his hand to his sword, but the knight once more cried out, "Nay, yet
+abide awhile; ye are the best jouster that I ever met with; for the love
+of knighthood, let us joust yet once again."
+
+So once again they tilted with their fullest force, and this time King
+Arthur's spear was shivered, but the knight's held whole, and drove so
+furiously against the king that both his horse and he were hurled to the
+ground.
+
+At that, King Arthur was enraged and drew his sword and said, "I will
+attack thee now, Sir knight, on foot, for on horseback I have lost the
+honour."
+
+"I will be on horseback," said the knight. But when he saw him come on
+foot, he lighted from his horse, thinking it shame to have so great
+advantage.
+
+And then began they a strong battle, with many great strokes and grievous
+blows, and so hewed with their swords that the fragments of their armour
+flew about the fields, and both so bled that all the ground around was
+like a marsh of blood. Thus they fought long and mightily, and anon, after
+brief rest fell to again, and so hurtled together like two wild boars that
+they both rolled to the ground. At last their swords clashed furiously
+together, and the knight's sword shivered the king's in two.
+
+Then said the knight, "Now art thou in my power, to save thee or to slay.
+Yield therefore as defeated, and a recreant knight, or thou shall surely
+die."
+
+"As for death," replied King Arthur, "welcome be it when it cometh; but as
+for yielding me to thee as a recreant because of this poor accident upon
+my sword, I had far liefer die than be so shamed."
+
+So saying, he sprang on the knight, and took him by the middle and threw
+him down, and tore off his helm. But the knight, being a huge man,
+wrestled and struggled in a frenzy with the king until he brought him
+under, and tore off his helm in turn, and would have smitten off his head.
+
+At that came Merlin and said, "Knight, hold thy hand, for if thou slayest
+yonder knight, thou puttest all this realm to greater loss and damage than
+ever realm was in; for he is a man of greater worship than thou dreamest
+of."
+
+"Who then is he?" cried the knight.
+
+"Arthur Pendragon!" answered Merlin.
+
+Then would he have slain him for dread of his wrath, but Merlin cast a
+spell upon the knight, so that he fell suddenly to the earth in a deep
+sleep. Then raising up the king, he took the knight's horse for himself
+and rode away.
+
+"Alas," said King Arthur, "what hast thou done, Merlin? hast thou slain
+this good knight by thy crafts? There never lived a better knight; I had
+rather lose my kingdom for a year than have him dead."
+
+"Be not afraid," said Merlin; "he is more whole and sound than thou art,
+and is but in a sleep, wherefrom in three hours' time he will awake. I
+told thee what a knight he was, and how near thou wast to death. There
+liveth not a better knight than he in all the world, and hereafter he
+shall do thee good service. His name is King Pellinore, and he shall have
+two sons, who shall be passing valiant men, and, save one another, shall
+have no equal in prowess and in purity of life. The one shall be named
+Percival, and the other Lamoracke of Wales."
+
+So they rode on to Caerleon, and all the knights grieved greatly when they
+heard of this adventure, that the king would jeopardise his person thus
+alone. Yet could they not hide their joy at serving under such a noble
+chief, who adventured his own life as much as did the poorest knight among
+them all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_King Arthur Conquers Ireland and Norway, Slays the Giant of St. Michael's
+Mount, and Conquers Gaul--The Adventures of Sir Balin_
+
+
+The land of Britain being now in peace, and many great and valiant knights
+therein ready to take part in whatsoever battles or adventures might
+arise, King Arthur resolved to follow all his enemies to their own coasts.
+Anon he fitted out a great fleet, and sailing first to Ireland, in one
+battle he miserably routed the people of the country. The King of Ireland
+also he took prisoner, and forced all earls and barons to pay him homage.
+
+Having conquered Ireland, he went next to Iceland and subdued it also, and
+the winter being then arrived, returned to Britain.
+
+In the next year he set forth to Norway, whence many times the heathen had
+descended on the British coasts; for he was determined to give so terrible
+a lesson to those savages as should be told through all their tribes both
+far and near, and make his name fearful to them.
+
+As soon as he was come, Riculf, the king, with all the power of that
+country, met and gave him battle; but, after mighty slaughter, the Britons
+had at length the advantage, and slew Riculf and a countless multitude
+besides.
+
+Having thus defeated them, they set the cities on fire, dispersed the
+country people, and pursued the victory till they had reduced all Norway,
+as also Dacia, under the dominion of King Arthur.
+
+Now, therefore, having thus chastised those pagans who so long had
+harassed Britain, and put his yoke upon them, he voyaged on to Gaul, being
+steadfastly set upon defeating the Roman governor of that province, and so
+beginning to make good the threats which he had sent the emperor by his
+ambassadors.
+
+So soon as he was landed on the shores of Gaul, there came to him a
+countryman who told him of a fearful giant in the land of Brittany, who
+had slain, murdered, and devoured many people, and had lived for seven
+years upon young children only, "insomuch," said the man, "that all the
+children of the country are destroyed; and but the other day he seized
+upon our duchess, as she rode out with her men, and took her away to his
+lodging in a cave of a mountain, and though five hundred people followed
+her, yet could they give her no help or rescue, but left her shrieking and
+crying lamentably in the giant's hands; and, Lord, she is thy cousin
+Hoel's wife, who is of thy near kindred; wherefore, as thou art a rightful
+king, have pity on this lady; and as thou art a valiant conqueror, avenge
+us and deliver us."
+
+"Alas!" said King Arthur, "this is a great mischief that ye tell of. I had
+rather than the best realm I have, that I had rescued that lady ere the
+giant laid his hand on her; but tell me now, good fellow, canst thou bring
+me where this giant haunteth?"
+
+"Yea, Lord!" replied the man; "lo, yonder, where thou seest two great
+fires, there shall thou find him, and more treasure also than is in all
+Gaul besides."
+
+Then the king returned to his tent, and, calling Sir Key and Sir Bedwin,
+desired them to get horses ready for himself and them, for that after
+evensong he would ride a pilgrimage with them alone to St. Michael's
+Mount. So in the evening they departed, and rode as fast as they could
+till they came near the mount, and there alighted; and the king commanded
+the two knights to await him at the hill foot, while he went up alone.
+
+Then he ascended the mountain till he came to a great fire. And there he
+found a sorrowful widow wringing her hands and weeping miserably, sitting
+by a new-made grave. And saluting her, King Arthur prayed her wherefore
+she made such heavy lamentations.
+
+"Sir knight," she said, "speak softly, for yonder is a devil, who, if he
+hear thy voice, will come and straightway slay thee. Alas! what dost thou
+here? Fifty such men as thou were powerless to resist him. Here lieth dead
+my lady, Duchess of Brittany, wife to Sir Hoel, who was the fairest lady
+in the world, foully and shamefully slaughtered by that fiend! Beware that
+thou go not too nigh, for he hath overcome and vanquished fifteen kings,
+and hath made himself a coat of precious stones, embroidered with their
+beards; but if thou art hardy, and wilt speak with him, at yonder great
+fire he is at supper."
+
+"Well," said King Arthur, "I will accomplish mine errand, for all thy
+fearful words;" and so went forth to the crest of the hill, and saw where
+the giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and baking his huge
+frame by the fire, while three damsels turned three spits whereon were
+spitted, like larks, twelve young children lately born.
+
+[Illustration: The giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and
+baking his huge frame by the fire.]
+
+When King Arthur saw all that, his heart bled for sorrow, and he trembled
+for rage and indignation; then lifting up his voice he cried aloud--"God,
+that wieldeth all the world, give thee short life and shameful death, and
+may the devil have thy soul! Why hast thou slain those children and that
+fair lady? Wherefore arise, and prepare thee to perish, thou glutton and
+fiend, for this day thou shalt die by my hands."
+
+Then the giant, mad with fury at these words, started up, and seizing a
+great club, smote the king, and struck his crown from off his head. But
+King Arthur smote him with his sword so mightily in return, that all his
+blood gushed forth in streams.
+
+At that the giant, howling in great anguish, threw away his club of iron,
+and caught the king in both his arms and strove to crush his ribs
+together. But King Arthur struggled and writhed, and twisted him about, so
+that the giant could not hold him tightly; and as they fiercely wrestled,
+they both fell, and rolling over one another, tumbled--wrestling, and
+struggling, and fighting frantically--from rock to rock, till they came to
+the sea.
+
+And as they tore and strove and tumbled, the king ever and anon smote at
+the giant with his dagger, till his arms stiffened in death around King
+Arthur's body, and groaning horribly, he died. So presently the two
+knights came and found the king locked fast in the giant's arms, and very
+faint and weary, and loosed him from their hold.
+
+Then the king bade Sir Key to "smite off the giant's head and set it on
+the truncheon of a spear, and bear it to Sir Hoel, and tell him that his
+enemy is slain; and afterwards let it be fastened to the castle gate, that
+all the people may behold it. And go ye two up on the mountain and fetch
+me my shield and sword, and also the great club of iron ye will see there;
+and as for the treasure, ye shall find there wealth beyond counting, but
+take as much as ye will, for if I have his kirtle and the club, I desire
+no more."
+
+Then the knights fetched the club and kirtle, as the king had ordered, and
+took the treasure to themselves, as much as they could carry, and returned
+to the army. But when this deed was noised abroad, all the people came in
+multitudes to thank the king, who told them "to give thanks to God, and to
+divide the giant's spoils amongst them equally." And King Arthur desired
+Sir Hoel to build a church upon the mount, and dedicate it to the
+Archangel Michael.
+
+On the morrow, all the host moved onwards into the country of Champagne,
+and Flollo, the Roman tribune, retired before them into Paris. But while
+he was preparing to collect more forces from the neighbouring countries,
+King Arthur came upon him unawares, and besieged him in the town.
+
+And when a month had passed, Flollo--full of grief at the starvation of
+his people, who died in hundreds day by day--sent to King Arthur, and
+desired that they two might fight together; for he was a man of mighty
+stature and courage, and thought himself sure of the victory. This
+challenge, King Arthur, full weary the siege, accepted with great joy, and
+sent back word to Flollo that he would meet him whensoever he appointed.
+
+And a truce being made on both sides, they met together the next day on
+the island without the city, where all the people also were gathered to
+see the issue. And as the king and Flollo rode up to the lists, each was
+so nobly armed and horsed, and sat so mightily upon his saddle, that no
+man could tell which way the battle would end.
+
+When they had saluted one another, and presented themselves against each
+other with their lances aloft, they put spurs to their horses and began a
+fierce encounter. But King Arthur, carrying his spear more warily, struck
+it on the upper part of Flollo's breast, and flung him from his saddle to
+the earth. Then drawing his sword, he cried to him to rise, and rushed
+upon him; but Flollo, starting up, met him with his spear couched, and
+pierced the breast of King Arthur's horse, and overthrew both horse and
+man.
+
+The Britons, when they saw their king upon the ground, could scarcely keep
+themselves from breaking up the truce and falling on the Gauls. But as
+they were about to burst the barriers, and rush upon the lists, King
+Arthur hastily arose, and, guarding himself with his shield, ran with
+speed on Flollo. And now they renewed the assault with great rage, being
+sorely bent upon each other's death.
+
+At length, Flollo, seizing his advantage, gave King Arthur a huge stroke
+upon the helm, which nigh overthrew him, and drew forth his blood in
+streams.
+
+But when King Arthur saw his armour and shield red with blood, he was
+inflamed with fury, and lifting up Excalibur on high, with all his might,
+he struck straight through the helmet into Flollo's head, and smote it
+into halves; and Flollo falling backwards, and tearing up the ground with
+his spurs, expired.
+
+As soon as this news spread, the citizens all ran together, and, opening
+the gates, surrendered the city to the conqueror.
+
+And when he had overrun the whole province with his arms, and reduced it
+everywhere to subjection, he returned again to Britain, and held his court
+at Caerleon, with greater state than ever.
+
+Anon he invited thereto all the kings, dukes, earls, and barons, who owed
+him homage, that he might treat them royally, and reconcile them to each
+other, and to his rule.
+
+And never was there a city more fit and pleasant for such festivals. For
+on one side it was washed by a noble river, so that the kings and princes
+from the countries beyond sea might conveniently sail up to it; and on the
+other side, the beauty of the groves and meadows, and the stateliness and
+magnificence of the royal palaces, with lofty gilded roofs, made it even
+rival the grandeur of Rome. It was famous also for two great and noble
+churches, whereof one was built in honour of the martyr Julius, and
+adorned with a choir of virgins who had devoted themselves wholly to the
+service of God; and the other, founded in memory of St. Aaron, his
+companion, maintained a convent of canons, and was the third metropolitan
+church of Britain. Besides, there was a college of two hundred
+philosophers, learned in astronomy, and all the other sciences and arts.
+
+In this place, therefore, full of such delights, King Arthur held his
+court, with many jousts and tournaments, and royal huntings, and rested
+for a season after all his wars.
+
+And on a certain day there came into the court a messenger from Ryence,
+King of North Wales, bearing this message from his master: That King
+Ryence had discomfited eleven kings, and had compelled each one of them to
+cut off his beard; that he had trimmed a mantle with these beards, and
+lacked but one more beard to finish it; and that he therefore now sent for
+King Arthur's beard, which he required of him forthwith, or else he would
+enter his lands and burn and slay, and never leave them till he had taken
+by force not his beard only, but his head also.
+
+When King Arthur heard these words he flushed all scarlet, and rising in
+great anger said, "Well is it for thee that thou speakest another man's
+words with thy lips, and not thine own. Thou hast said thy message, which
+is the most insolent and villainous that ever man heard sent to any king:
+now hear my reply. My beard is yet too young to trim that mantle of thy
+master's with; yet, young although I be, I owe no homage either to him or
+any man--nor will ever owe. But, young although I be, I will have thy
+master's homage upon both his knees before this year be past, or else he
+shall lose his head, by the faith of my body, for this message is the
+shamefullest I ever heard speak of. I see well thy king hath never yet met
+with a worshipful man; but tell that King Arthur will have his head or his
+worship right soon."
+
+Then the messenger departed, and Arthur, looking round upon his knights,
+demanded of them if any there knew this King Ryence. "Yea," answered Sir
+Noran, "I know him well, and there be few better or stronger knights upon
+a field than he; and he is passing proud and haughty in his heart;
+wherefore I doubt not, Lord, he will make war on thee with mighty power."
+
+"Well," said King Arthur, "I shall be ready for him, and that shall he
+find."
+
+While the king thus spoke, there came into the hall a damsel having on a
+mantle richly furred, which she let fall and showed herself to be girded
+with a noble sword. The king being surprised at this, said, "Damsel,
+wherefore art thou girt with that sword, for it beseemeth thee not?"
+"Sir," said she, "I will tell thee. This sword wherewith I am thus girt
+gives me great sorrow and encumbrance, for I may not be delivered from it
+till I find a knight faithful and pure and true, strong of body and of
+valiant deeds, without guile or treachery, who shall be able to draw it
+from its scabbard, which no man else can do. And I have but just now come
+from the court of King Ryence, for there they told me many great and good
+knights were to be ever found; but he and all his knights have tried to
+draw it forth in vain--for none of them can move it."
+
+"This is a great marvel," said King Arthur; "I will myself try to draw
+forth this sword, not thinking in my heart that I am the best knight, but
+rather to begin and give example that all may try after me." Saying this,
+he took the sword and pulled at it with all his might, but could not shake
+or move it.
+
+"Thou needest not strive so hard, Lord," said the damsel, "for whoever may
+be able to pull it forth shall do so very easily." "Thou sayest well,"
+replied the king, remembering how he had himself drawn forth the sword
+from the stone before St. Paul's. "Now try ye, all my barons; but beware
+ye be not stained with shame, or any treachery, or guile." And turning
+away his face from them, King Arthur mused full heavily of sins within his
+breast he knew of, and which his failure brought to mind right sadly.
+
+Then all the barons present tried each after other, but could none of them
+succeed; whereat the damsel greatly wept, and said, "Alas, alas! I thought
+in this court to have found the best knight, without shame or treachery or
+treason."
+
+Now by chance there was at that time a poor knight with King Arthur, who
+had been prisoner at his court for half a year and more, charged with
+slaying unawares a knight who was a cousin of the king's. He was named
+Balin le Savage, and had been by the good offices of the barons delivered
+from prison, for he was of good and valiant address and gentle blood. He
+being secretly present at the court saw this adventure, and felt his heart
+rise high within him, and longed to try the sword as did the others; but
+being poor and poorly clad, he was ashamed to come forward in the press of
+knights and nobles. But in his heart he felt assured that he could do
+better--if Heaven willed--than any knight among them all.
+
+So as the damsel left the king, he called to her and said, "Damsel, I pray
+thee of thy courtesy, suffer me to try the sword as well as all these
+lords; for though I be but poorly clad, I feel assurance in my heart."
+
+The damsel looking at him, saw in him a likely an honest man, but because
+of his poor garments could not think him to be any knight of worship, and
+said, "Sir, there is no need to put me to any more pain or labour; why
+shouldst thou succeed where so many worthy ones have failed?"
+
+"Ah, fair lady," answered Balin, "worthiness and brave deeds are not shown
+by fair raiment, but manhood and truth lie hid within the heart. There be
+many worshipful knights unknown to all the people."
+
+"By my faith, thou sayest truth," replied the damsel; "try therefore, if
+thou wilt, what thou canst do."
+
+So Balin took the sword by the girdle and hilt, and drew it lightly out,
+and looking on its workmanship and brightness, it pleased him greatly.
+
+But the king and all the barons marvelled at Sir Balin's fortune, and many
+knights were envious of him, for, "Truly," said the damsel, "this is a
+passing good knight, and the best man I have ever found, and the most
+worshipfully free from treason, treachery, or villainy, and many wonders
+shall he achieve."
+
+"Now, gentle and courteous knight," continued she, turning to Balin, "give
+me the sword again."
+
+"Nay," said Sir Balin, "save it be taken from me by force, I shall
+preserve this sword for evermore."
+
+"Thou art not wise," replied the damsel, "to keep it from me; for if thou
+wilt do so, thou shalt slay with it the best friend thou hast, and the
+sword shall be thine destruction also."
+
+"I will take whatever adventure God may send," said Balin; "but the sword
+will I keep, by the faith of my body."
+
+"Thou will repent it shortly," said the damsel; "I would take the sword
+for thy sake rather than for mine for I am passing grieved and heavy for
+thy sake, who wilt not believe the peril I foretell thee." With that she
+departed, making great lamentation.
+
+Then Balin sent for his horse and armour, and took his leave of King
+Arthur, who urged him to stay at his court. "For," said he, "I believe
+that thou art displeased that I showed thee unkindness; blame me not
+overmuch, for I was misinformed against thee, and knew not truly what a
+knight of worship thou art. Abide in this court with my good knights, and
+I will so advance thee that thou shalt be well pleased."
+
+"God thank thee, Lord," said Balin, "for no man can reward thy bounty and
+thy nobleness; but at this time I must needs depart, praying thee ever to
+hold me in thy favour."
+
+"Truly," said King Arthur, "I am grieved for thy departure; but tarry not
+long, and thou shalt be right welcome to me and all my knights when thou
+returnest, and I will repair my neglect and all that I have done amiss
+against thee."
+
+"God thank thee, Lord," again said Balin, and made ready to depart.
+
+But meanwhile came into the court a lady upon horseback, full richly
+dressed, and saluted King Arthur, and asked him for the gift that he had
+promised her when she gave him his sword Excalibur, "for," said she, "I am
+the lady of the lake."
+
+"Ask what thou wilt," said the king, "and thou shalt have it, if I have
+power to give."
+
+"I ask," said she, "the head of that knight who hath just achieved the
+sword, or else the damsel's head who brought it, or else both; for the
+knight slew my brother, and the lady caused my father's death."
+
+"Truly," said King Arthur, "I cannot grant thee this desire; it were
+against my nature and against my name; but ask whatever else thou wilt,
+and I will do it."
+
+"I will demand no other thing," said she.
+
+And as she spake came Balin, on his way to leave the court, and saw her
+where she stood, and knew her straightway for his mother's murderess, whom
+he had sought in vain three years. And when they told him that she had
+asked King Arthur for his head, he went up straight to her and said, "May
+evil have thee! Thou desirest my head, therefore shalt thou lose thine;"
+and with his sword he lightly smote her head off, in the presence of the
+king and all the court.
+
+"Alas, for shame!" cried out King Arthur, rising up in wrath; "why hast
+thou done this, shaming both me and my court? I am beholden greatly to
+this lady, and under my safe conduct came she here; thy deed is passing
+shameful; never shall I forgive thy villainy."
+
+"Lord," cried Sir Balin, "hear me; this lady was the falsest living, and
+by her witchcraft hath destroyed many, and caused my mother also to be
+burnt to death by her false arts and treachery."
+
+"What cause soever thou mightest have had," said the king, "thou shouldst
+have forborne her in my presence. Deceive not thyself, thou shalt repent
+this sin, for such a shame was never brought upon my court; depart now
+from my face with all the haste thou mayest."
+
+Then Balin took up the head of the lady and carried it to his lodgings,
+and rode forth with his squire from out the town. Then said he, "Now must
+we part; take ye this head and bear it to my friends in Northumberland,
+and tell them how I speed, and that our worst foe is dead; also tell them
+that I am free from prison, and of the adventure of my sword."
+
+"Alas!" said the squire, "ye are greatly to blame to have so displeased
+King Arthur."
+
+"As for that," said Sir Balin, "I go now to find King Ryence, and destroy
+him or lose my life; for should I take him prisoner, and lead him to the
+court, perchance King Arthur would forgive me, and become my good and
+gracious lord."
+
+"Where shall I meet thee again?" said the squire.
+
+"In King Arthur's court," said Balin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_Sir Balin Smites the Dolorous Stroke, and Fights with his Brother, Sir
+Balan_
+
+
+Now there was a knight at the court more envious than the others of Sir
+Balin, for he counted himself one of the best knights in Britain. His name
+was Lancear; and going to the king, he begged leave to follow after Sir
+Balin and avenge the insult he had put upon the court. "Do thy best,"
+replied the king, "for I am passing wroth with Balin."
+
+In the meantime came Merlin, and was told of this adventure of the sword
+and lady of the lake.
+
+"Now hear me," said he, "when I tell ye that this lady who hath brought
+the sword is the falsest damsel living."
+
+"Say not so," they answered, "for she hath a brother a good knight, who
+slew another knight this damsel loved; so she, to be revenged upon her
+brother, went to the Lady Lile, of Avilion, and besought her help. Then
+Lady Lile gave her the sword, and told her that no man should draw it
+forth but one, a valiant knight and strong, who should avenge her on her
+brother. This, therefore, was the reason why the damsel came here." "I
+know it all as well as ye do," answered Merlin; "and would to God she had
+never come hither, for never came she into any company but to do harm; and
+that good knight who hath achieved the sword shall be himself slain by it,
+which shall be great harm and loss, for a better knight there liveth not;
+and he shall do unto my lord the king great honour and service."
+
+Then Sir Lancear, having armed himself at all points, mounted, and rode
+after Sir Balin, as fast as he could go, and overtaking him, he cried
+aloud, "Abide, Sir knight! wait yet awhile, or I shall make thee do so."
+
+Hearing him cry, Sir Balin fiercely turned his horse, and said, "Fair
+knight, what wilt thou with me? wilt thou joust?"
+
+"Yea," said Sir Lancear, "it is for that I have pursued thee."
+
+"Peradventure," answered Balin, "thou hadst best have staid at home, for
+many a man who thinketh himself already victor, endeth by his own
+downfall. Of what court art thou?"
+
+"Of King Arthur's court," cried Lancear, "and I am come to revenge the
+insult thou hast put on it this day."
+
+"Well," said Sir Balin, "I see that I must fight thee, and I repent to be
+obliged to grieve King Arthur or his knights; and thy quarrel seemeth full
+foolish to me, for the damsel that is dead worked endless evils through
+the land, or else I had been loath as any knight that liveth to have slain
+a lady."
+
+"Make thee ready," shouted Lancear, "for one of us shall rest for ever in
+this field."
+
+But at their first encounter Sir Lancear's spear flew into splinters from
+Sir Balin's shield, and Sir Balin's lance pierced with such might through
+Sir Lancear's shield that it rove the hauberk also, and passed through the
+knight's body and the horse's crupper. And Sir Balin turning fiercely
+round again, drew out his sword, and knew not that he had already slain
+him; and then he saw him lie a corpse upon the ground.
+
+At that same moment came a damsel riding towards him as fast as her horse
+could gallop, who, when she saw Sir Lancear dead, wept and sorrowed out of
+measure, crying, "O, Sir Balin, two bodies hast thou slain, and one heart;
+and two hearts in one body; and two souls also hast thou lost."
+
+Therewith she took the sword from her dead lover's side--for she was Sir
+Lancear's lady-love--and setting the pommel of it on the ground, ran
+herself through the body with the blade.
+
+When Sir Balin saw her dead he was sorely hurt and grieved in spirit, and
+repented the death of Lancear, which had also caused so fair a lady's
+death. And being unable to look on their bodies for sorrow, he turned
+aside into a forest, where presently as he rode, he saw the arms of his
+brother, Sir Balan. And when they were met they put off their helms, and
+embraced each other, kissing, and weeping for joy and pity. Then Sir Balin
+told Sir Balan all his late adventures, and that he was on his way to King
+Ryence, who at that time was besieging Castle Terrabil. "I will be with
+thee," answered Sir Balan, "and we will help each other, as brethren ought
+to do."
+
+Anon by chance, as they were talking, came King Mark, of Cornwall, by that
+way, and when he saw the two dead bodies of Sir Lancear and his lady lying
+there, and heard the story of their death, he vowed to build a tomb to
+them before he left that place. So pitching his pavilion there, he sought
+through all the country round to find a monument, and found at last a rich
+and fair one in a church, which he took and raised above the dead knight
+and his damsel, writing on it--"Here lieth Lancear, son of the King of
+Ireland, who, at his own request, was slain by Balin; and here beside him
+also lieth his lady Colombe, who slew herself with her lover's sword for
+grief and sorrow."
+
+Then as Sir Balin and Sir Balan rode away, Merlin met with them, and said
+to Balin, "Thou hast done thyself great harm not to have saved that lady's
+life who slew herself; and because of it, thou shalt strike the most
+Dolorous Stroke that ever man struck, save he that smote our Lord. For
+thou shalt smite the truest and most worshipful of living knights, who
+shall not be recovered from his wounds for many years, and through that
+stroke three kingdoms shall be overwhelmed in poverty and misery."
+
+"If I believed," said Balin, "what thou sayest, I would slay myself to
+make thee a liar."
+
+At that Merlin vanished suddenly away; but afterwards he met them in
+disguise towards night, and told them he could lead them to King Ryence,
+whom they sought. "For this night he is to ride with sixty lances only
+through a wood hard by."
+
+So Sir Balin and Sir Balan hid themselves within the wood, and at midnight
+came out from their ambush among the leaves by the highway, and waited for
+the king, whom presently they heard approaching with his company. Then did
+they suddenly leap forth and smote at him and overthrew him and laid him
+on the ground, and turning on his company wounded and slew forty of them,
+and put the rest to flight. And returning to King Ryence they would have
+slain him there, but he craved mercy, and yielded to their grace, crying,
+"Knights full of prowess, slay me not; for by my life ye may win
+something--but my death can avail ye nought."
+
+"Ye say truth," said the two knights, and put him in a horse-litter, and
+went swiftly through all the night, till at cock-crow they came to King
+Arthur's palace. There they delivered him to the warders and porters, to
+be brought before the king, with this message--"That he was sent to King
+Arthur by the knight of the two swords (for so was Balin known by name,
+since his adventure with the damsel) and by his brother." And so they rode
+away again ere sunrise.
+
+Within a month or two thereafter, King Arthur being somewhat sick, went
+forth outside the town, and had his pavilion pitched in a meadow, and
+there abode, and laid him down on a pallet to sleep, but could get no
+rest. And as he lay he heard the sound of a great horse, and looking out
+of the tent door, saw a knight ride by, making great lamentation.
+
+"Abide, fair sir," said King Arthur, "and tell me wherefore thou makest
+this sorrow."
+
+"Ye may little amend it," said the knight, and so passed on.
+
+Presently after Sir Balin, rode, by chance, past that meadow, and when he
+saw the king he alighted and came to him on foot, and kneeled and saluted
+him.
+
+"By my head," said King Arthur, "ye be welcome, Sir Balin;" and then he
+thanked him heartily for revenging him upon King Ryence, and for sending
+him so speedily a prisoner to his castle, and told him how King Nero,
+Ryence's brother, had attacked him afterwards to deliver Ryence from
+prison; and how he had defeated him and slain him, and also King Lot, of
+Orkney who was joined with Nero, and whom King Pellinore had killed in the
+battle. Then when they had thus talked, King Arthur told Sir Balin of the
+sullen knight that had just passed his tent, and desired him to pursue him
+and to bring him back.
+
+So Sir Balin rode and overtook the knight in a forest with a damsel, and
+said, "Sir knight, thou must come back with me unto my lord, King Arthur,
+to tell him the cause of thy sorrow, which thou hast refused even now to
+do."
+
+"That will I not," replied the knight, "for it would harm me much, and do
+him no advantage."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Balin, "I pray thee make ready, for thou must needs go
+with me--or else I must fight with thee and take thee by force."
+
+"Wilt thou be warrant for safe conduct, if I go with thee?" inquired the
+knight.
+
+"Yea, surely," answered Balin, "I will die else."
+
+So the knight made ready to go with Sir Balin, and left the damsel in the
+wood.
+
+But as they went, there came one invisible, and smote the knight through
+the body with a spear. "Alas," cried Sir Herleus (for so was he named), "I
+am slain under thy guard and conduct, by that traitor knight called
+Garlon, who through magic and witchcraft rideth invisibly. Take,
+therefore, my horse, which is better than thine, and ride to the damsel
+whom we left, and the quest I had in hand, as she will lead thee--and
+revenge my death when thou best mayest."
+
+"That will I do," said Sir Balin, "by my knighthood, and so I swear to
+thee."
+
+Then went Sir Balin to the damsel, and rode forth with her; she carrying
+ever with her the truncheon of the spear wherewith Sir Herleus had been
+slain. And as they went, a good knight, Perin de Mountbelgard, joined
+their company, and vowed to take adventure with them wheresoever they
+might go. But presently as they passed a hermitage fast by a churchyard,
+came the knight Garlon, again invisible, and smote Sir Perin through the
+body with a spear, and slew him as he had slain Sir Herleus. Whereat, Sir
+Balin greatly raged, and swore to have Sir Garlon's life, whenever next he
+might encounter and behold him in his bodily shape. Anon, he and the
+hermit buried the good knight Sir Perin, and rode on with the damsel till
+they came to a great castle, whereinto they were about to enter. But when
+Sir Balin had passed through the gateway, the portcullis fell behind him
+suddenly, leaving the damsel on the outer side, with men around her,
+drawing their swords as if to slay her.
+
+When he saw that, Sir Balin climbed with eager haste by wall and tower,
+and leaped into the castle moat, and rushed towards the damsel and her
+enemies, with his sword drawn, to fight and slay them. But they cried out,
+"Put up thy sword, Sir knight, we will not fight thee in this quarrel, for
+we do nothing but an ancient custom of this castle."
+
+Then they told him that the lady of the castle was sick, and had lain ill
+for many years, and might never more be cured, unless she had a silver
+dish full of the blood of a pure maid and a king's daughter. Wherefore the
+custom of the castle was, that never should a damsel pass that way but she
+must give a dish full of her blood. Then Sir Balin suffered them to bleed
+the damsel with her own consent, but her blood helped not the lady of the
+castle. So on the morrow they departed, after right good cheer and rest.
+
+Then they rode three or four days without adventure and came at last to
+the abode of a rich man, who sumptuously lodged and fed them. And while
+they sat at supper Sir Balin heard a voice of some one groaning
+grievously. "What noise is this?" said he.
+
+"Forsooth," said the host, "I will tell you. I was lately at a tournament,
+and there I fought a knight who is brother to King Pelles, and overthrew
+him twice, for which he swore to be revenged on me through my best friend,
+and so he wounded my son, who cannot be recovered till I have that
+knight's blood, but he rideth through witchcraft always invisibly, and I
+know not his name."
+
+"Ah," said Sir Balin, "but I know him; his name is Garlon, and he hath
+slain two knights, companions of mine own, in the same fashion, and I
+would rather than all the riches in this realm that I might meet him face
+to face."
+
+"Well," said his host, "let me now tell thee that King Pelles hath
+proclaimed in all the country a great festival, to be held at Listeniss,
+in twenty days from now, whereto no knight may come without a lady. At
+that great feast we might perchance find out this Garlon, for many will be
+there; and if it please thee we will set forth together."
+
+So on the morrow they rode all three towards Listeniss, and travelled
+fifteen days, and reached it on the day the feast began. Then they
+alighted and stabled their horses, and went up to the castle, and Sir
+Balin's host was denied entrance, having no lady with him. But Sir Balin
+was right heartily received, and taken to a chamber, where they unarmed
+him, and dressed him in rich robes, of any colour that he chose, and told
+him he must lay aside his sword. This, however, he refused, and said, "It
+is the custom of my country for a knight to keep his sword ever with him;
+and if I may not keep it here, I will forthwith depart." Then they gave
+him leave to wear his sword. So he went to the great hall, and was set
+among knights of rank and worship, and his lady before him.
+
+Soon he found means to ask one who sat near him, "Is there not here a
+knight whose name is Garlon?"
+
+"Yonder he goeth," said his neighbour, "he with that black face; he is the
+most marvellous knight alive, for he rideth invisibly, and destroyeth whom
+he will."
+
+"Ah, well," said Balin, drawing a long breath, "is that indeed the man? I
+have aforetime heard of him."
+
+Then he mused long within himself, and thought, "If I shall slay him here
+and now, I shall not escape myself; but if I leave him, peradventure I
+shall never meet with him again at such advantage; and if he live, how
+much more harm and mischief will he do!"
+
+But while he deeply thought, and cast his eyes from time to time upon Sir
+Garlon, that false knight saw that he watched him, and thinking that he
+could at such a time escape revenge, he came and smote Sir Balin on the
+face with the back of his hand, and said, "Knight, why dost thou so watch
+me? be ashamed, and eat thy meat, and do that which thou camest for."
+
+"Thou sayest well," cried Sir Balin, rising fiercely; "now will I
+straightway do that which I came to do, as thou shalt find." With that he
+whirled his sword aloft and struck him downright on the head, and clove
+his skull asunder to the shoulder.
+
+"Give me the truncheon," cried out Sir Balin to his lady, "wherewith he
+slew thy knight." And when she gave it him--for she had always carried it
+about with her, wherever she had gone--he smote him through the body with
+it, and said, "With that truncheon didst thou treacherously murder a good
+knight, and now it sticketh in thy felon body."
+
+Then he called to the father of the wounded son, who had come with him to
+Listeniss, and said, "Now take as much blood as thou wilt, to heal thy son
+withal."
+
+But now arose a terrible confusion, and all the knights leaped from the
+table to slay Balin, King Pelles himself the foremost, who cried out,
+"Knight, thou hast slain my brother at my board; die, therefore, die, for
+thou shalt never leave this castle."
+
+"Slay me, thyself, then," shouted Balin.
+
+"Yea," said the king, "that will I! for no other man shall touch thee, for
+the love I bear my brother."
+
+Then King Pelles caught in his hand a grim weapon and smote eagerly at
+Balin, but Balin put his sword between his head and the king's stroke, and
+saved himself but lost his sword, which fell down smashed and shivered
+into pieces by the blow. So being weaponless he ran to the next room to
+find a sword, and so from room to room, with King Pelles after him, he in
+vain ever eagerly casting his eyes round every place to find some weapon.
+
+At last he ran into a chamber wondrous richly decked, where was a bed all
+dressed with cloth of gold, the richest that could be thought of, and one
+who lay quite still within the bed; and by the bedside stood a table of
+pure gold borne on four silver pillars, and on the table stood a
+marvellous spear, strangely wrought.
+
+When Sir Balin saw the spear he seized it in his hand, and turned upon
+King Pelles, and smote at him so fiercely and so sore that he dropped
+swooning to the ground.
+
+But at that Dolorous and awful Stroke the castle rocked and rove
+throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and breaking to the earth, and
+Balin himself fell also in their midst, struck as it were to stone, and
+powerless to move a hand or foot. And so three days he lay amidst the
+ruins, until Merlin came and raised him up and brought him a good horse,
+and bade him ride out of that land as swiftly as he could.
+
+[Illustration: The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls
+fell crashed and breaking to the earth.]
+
+"May I not take the damsel with me I brought hither?" said Sir Balin.
+
+"Lo! where she lieth dead," said Merlin. "Ah, little knowest thou, Sir
+Balin, what thou hast done; for in this castle and that chamber which thou
+didst defile, was the blood of our Lord Christ! and also that most holy
+cup--the Sangreal--wherefrom the wine was drunk at the last supper of our
+Lord. Joseph of Arimathea brought it to this land, when first he came here
+to convert and save it. And on that bed of gold it was himself who lay,
+and the strange spear beside him was the spear wherewith the soldier
+Longus smote our Lord, which evermore had dripped with blood. King Pelles
+is the nearest kin to Joseph in direct descent, wherefore he held these
+holy things in trust; but now have they all gone at thy dolorous stroke,
+no man knoweth whither; and great is the damage to this land, which until
+now hath been the happiest of all lands, for by that stroke thou hast
+slain thousands, and by the loss and parting of the Sangreal the safety of
+this realm is put in peril, and its great happiness is gone for evermore."
+
+Then Balin departed from Merlin, struck to his soul with grief and sorrow,
+and said, "In this world shall we meet never more."
+
+So he rode forth through the fair cities and the country, and found the
+people lying dead on every side. And all the living cried out on him as he
+passed, "O Balin, all this misery hast thou done! For the dolorous stroke
+thou gavest King Pelles, three countries are destroyed, and doubt not but
+revenge will fall on thee at last!"
+
+When he had passed the boundary of those countries, he was somewhat
+comforted, and rode eight days without adventure. Anon he came to a cross,
+whereon was written in letters of gold, "It is not for a knight alone to
+ride towards this castle." Looking up, he saw a hoary ancient man come
+towards him, who said, "Sir Balin le Savage, thou passest thy bounds this
+way; therefore turn back again, it will be best for thee;" and with these
+words he vanished.
+
+Then did he hear a horn blow as it were the deathnote of some hunted
+beast. "That blast," said Balin, "is blown for me, for I am the prey;
+though yet I be not dead." But as he spoke he saw a hundred ladies with a
+great troop of knights come forth to meet him, with bright faces and
+great welcome, who led him to the castle and made a great feast, with
+dancing and minstrelsy and all manner of joy.
+
+Then the chief lady of the castle said, "Knight with the two swords, thou
+must encounter and fight with a knight hard by, who dwelleth on an island,
+for no man may pass this way without encountering him."
+
+"It is a grievous custom," answered Sir Balin.
+
+"There is but one knight to defeat," replied the lady.
+
+"Well," said Sir Balin, "be it as thou wilt. I am ready and quite willing,
+and though my horse and my body be full weary, yet is my heart not weary,
+save of life. And truly I were glad if I might meet my death."
+
+"Sir," said one standing by, "methinketh your shield is not good; I will
+lend you a bigger."
+
+"I thank thee, sir," said Balin, and took the unknown shield and left his
+own, and so rode forth, and put himself and horse into a boat and came to
+the island.
+
+As soon as he had landed, he saw come riding towards him, a knight dressed
+all in red, upon a horse trapped in the same colour. When the red knight
+saw Sir Balin, and the two swords he wore, he thought it must have been
+his brother (for the red knight was Sir Balan), but when he saw the
+strange arms on his shield, he forgot the thought, and came against him
+fiercely. At the first course they overthrew each other, and both lay
+swooning on the ground; but Sir Balin was the most hurt and bruised, for
+he was weary and spent with travelling. So Sir Balan rose up first to his
+feet and drew his sword, and Sir Balin painfully rose against him and
+raised his shield.
+
+Then Sir Balan smote him through the shield and brake his helmet; and Sir
+Balin, in return, smote at him with his fated sword, and had wellnigh
+slain his brother. So they fought till their breaths failed.
+
+Then Sir Balin, looking up, saw all the castle towers stand full of
+ladies. So they went again to battle, and wounded each other full sore,
+and paused, and breathed again, and then again began the fight; and this
+for many times they did, till all the ground was red with blood. And by
+now, each had full grievously wounded the other with seven great wounds,
+the least of which might have destroyed the mightiest giant in the world.
+But still they rose against each other, although their hauberks now were
+all unnailed, and they smiting at each other's naked bodies with their
+sharp swords. At the last, Sir Balan, the younger brother, withdrew a
+little space and laid him down.
+
+Then said Sir Balin le Savage, "What knight art thou? for never before
+have I found a knight to match me thus."
+
+"My name," said he, all faintly, "is Balan, brother to the good knight Sir
+Balin."
+
+"Ah, God!" cried Balin, "that ever I should see this day!" and therewith
+fell down backwards in a swoon.
+
+Then Sir Balan crept with pain upon his feet and hands, and put his
+brother's helmet off his head, but could not know him by his face, it was
+so hewed and bloody. But presently, when Sir Balin came to, he said, "Oh!
+Balan, mine own brother, thou hast slain me, and I thee! All the wide
+world saw never greater grief!"
+
+"Alas!" said Sir Balan, "that I ever saw this day; and through mishap
+alone I knew thee not, for when I saw thy two swords, if it had not been
+for thy strange shield, I should have known thee for my brother."
+
+"Alas!" said Balin, "all this sorrow lieth at the door of one unhappy
+knight within the castle, who made me change my shield. If I might live, I
+would destroy that castle and its evil customs."
+
+"It were well done," said Balan, "for since I first came hither I have
+never been able to depart, for here they made me fight with one who kept
+this island, whom I slew, and by enchantment I might never quit it more;
+nor couldst thou, brother, hadst thou slain me, and escaped with thine own
+life."
+
+Anon came the lady of the castle, and when she heard their talk, and saw
+their evil case, she wrung her hands and wept bitterly. So Sir Balan
+prayed the lady of her gentleness that, for his true service, she would
+bury them both together in that place. This she granted, weeping full
+sore, and said it should be done right solemnly and richly, and in the
+noblest manner possible. Then did they send for a priest, and received the
+holy sacrament at his hands. And Balin said, "Write over us upon our tomb,
+that here two brethren slew each other; then shall never good knight or
+pilgrim pass this way but he will pray for both our souls." And anon Sir
+Balan died, but Sir Balin died not till the midnight after; and then they
+both were buried.
+
+On the morrow of their death came Merlin, and took Sir Balin's sword and
+fixed on it a new pommel, and set it in a mighty stone, which then, by
+magic, he made float upon the water. And so, for many years, it floated to
+and fro around the island, till it swam down the river to Camelot, where
+young Sir Galahad achieved it, as shall be told hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_The Marriage of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and the Founding of the
+Round Table--The Adventure of the Hart and Hound_
+
+
+It befell upon a certain day, that King Arthur said to Merlin, "My lords
+and knights do daily pray me now to take a wife; but I will have none
+without thy counsel, for thou hast ever helped me since I came first to
+this crown."
+
+"It is well," said Merlin, "that thou shouldst take a wife, for no man of
+bounteous and noble nature should live without one; but is there any lady
+whom thou lovest better than another?"
+
+"Yea," said King Arthur, "I love Guinevere, the daughter of King
+Leodegrance, of Camelgard, who also holdeth in his house the Round Table
+that he had from my father Uther; and as I think, that damsel is the
+gentlest and the fairest lady living."
+
+"Sir," answered Merlin, "as for her beauty, she is one of the fairest that
+do live; but if ye had not loved her as ye do, I would fain have had ye
+choose some other who was both fair and good. But where a man's heart is
+set, he will be loath to leave." This Merlin said, knowing the misery
+that should hereafter happen from this marriage.
+
+Then King Arthur sent word to King Leodegrance that he mightily desired to
+wed his daughter, and how that he had loved her since he saw her first,
+when with Kings Ban and Bors he rescued Leodegrance from King Ryence of
+North Wales.
+
+When King Leodegrance heard the message, he cried out "These be the best
+tidings I have heard in all my life--so great and worshipful a prince to
+seek my daughter for his wife! I would fain give him half my lands with
+her straightway, but that he needeth none--and better will it please him
+that I send him the Round Table of King Uther, his father, with a hundred
+good knights towards the furnishing of it with guests, for he will soon
+find means to gather more, and make the table full."
+
+Then King Leodegrance delivered his daughter Guinevere to the messengers
+of King Arthur, and also the Round Table with the hundred knights.
+
+So they rode royally and freshly, sometimes by water and sometimes by
+land, towards Camelot. And as they rode along in the spring weather, they
+made full many sports and pastimes. And, in all those sports and games, a
+young knight lately come to Arthur's court, Sir Lancelot by name, was
+passing strong, and won praise from all, being full of grace and
+hardihood; and Guinevere also ever looked on him with joy. And always in
+the eventide, when the tents were set beside some stream or forest, many
+minstrels came and sang before the knights and ladies as they sat in the
+tent-doors, and many knights would tell adventures; and still Sir Lancelot
+was foremost, and told the knightliest tales, and sang the goodliest
+songs, of all the company.
+
+And when they came to Camelot, King Arthur made great joy, and all the
+city with him; and riding forth with a great retinue he met Guinevere and
+her company, and led her through the streets all filled with people, and
+in the midst of all their shoutings and the ringing of church bells, to a
+palace hard by his own.
+
+Then, in all haste, the king commanded to prepare the marriage and the
+coronation with the stateliest and most honourable pomp that could be
+made. And when the day was come, the archbishops led the king to the
+cathedral, whereto he walked, clad in his royal robes, and having four
+kings, bearing four golden swords, before him; a choir of passing sweet
+music going also with him.
+
+In another part, was the queen dressed in her richest ornaments, and led
+by archbishops and bishops to the Chapel of the Virgins, the four queens
+also of the four kings last mentioned walked before her, bearing four
+white doves, according to ancient custom; and after her there followed
+many damsels, singing and making every sign of joy.
+
+And when the two processions were come to the churches, so wondrous was
+the music and the singing, that all the knights and barons who were there
+pressed on each other, as in the crowd of battle, to hear and see the most
+they might.
+
+When the king was crowned, he called together all the knights that came
+with the Round Table from Camelgard, and twenty-eight others, great and
+valiant men, chosen by Merlin out of all the realm, towards making up the
+full number of the table. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury blessed the
+seats of all the knights, and when they rose again therefrom to pay their
+homage to King Arthur there was found upon the back of each knight's seat
+his name, written in letters of gold. But upon one seat was found written,
+"This is the Siege Perilous, wherein if any man shall sit save him whom
+Heaven hath chosen, he shall be devoured by fire."
+
+Anon came young Gawain, the king's nephew, praying to be made a knight,
+whom the king knighted then and there. Soon after came a poor man, leading
+with him a tall fair lad of eighteen years of age, riding on a lean mare.
+And falling at the king's feet, the poor man said, "Lord, it was told me,
+that at this time of thy marriage thou wouldst give to any man the gift he
+asked for, so it were not unreasonable."
+
+"That is the truth," replied King Arthur, "and I will make it good."
+
+"Thou sayest graciously and nobly," said the poor man. "Lord, I ask
+nothing else but that thou wilt make my son here a knight."
+
+"It is a great thing that thou askest," said the king. "What is thy name?"
+
+"Aries, the cowherd," answered he.
+
+"Cometh this prayer from thee or from thy son?" inquired King Arthur.
+
+"Nay, lord, not from myself," said he, "but from him only, for I have
+thirteen other sons, and all of them will fall to any labour that I put
+them to. But this one will do no such work for anything that I or my wife
+may do, but is for ever shooting or fighting, and running to see knights
+and joustings, and torments me both night and day that he be made a
+knight."
+
+"What is thy name?" said the king to the young man.
+
+"My name is Tor," said he.
+
+Then the king, looking at him steadfastly, was well pleased with his face
+and figure, and with his look of nobleness and strength.
+
+"Fetch all thy other sons before me," said the king to Aries. But when he
+brought them, none of them resembled Tor in size or shape or feature.
+
+Then the king knighted Tor, saying, "Be thou to thy life's end a good
+knight and a true, as I pray God thou mayest be; and if thou provest
+worthy, and of prowess, one day thou shall be counted in the Round Table."
+Then turning to Merlin, Arthur said, "Prophesy now, O Merlin, shall Sir
+Tor become a worthy knight, or not?"
+
+"Yea, lord," said Merlin, "so he ought to be, for he is the son of that
+King Pellinore whom thou hast met, and proved to be one of the best
+knights living. He is no cowherd's son."
+
+Presently after came in King Pellinore, and when he saw Sir Tor he knew
+him for his son, and was more pleased than words can tell to find him
+knighted by the king. And Pellinore did homage to King Arthur, and was
+gladly and graciously accepted of the king; and then was led by Merlin to
+a high seat at the Table Round, near to the Perilous Seat.
+
+But Sir Gawain was full of anger at the honour done King Pellinore, and
+said to his brother Gaheris, "He slew our father, King Lot, therefore will
+I slay him."
+
+"Do it not yet," said he; "wait till I also be a knight, then will I help
+ye in it: it is best ye suffer him to go at this time, and not trouble
+this high feast with bloodshed."
+
+"As ye will, be it," said Sir Gawain.
+
+Then rose the king and spake to all the Table Round, and charged them to
+be ever true and noble knights, to do neither outrage nor murder, nor any
+unjust violence, and always to flee treason; also by no means ever to be
+cruel, but give mercy unto him that asked for mercy, upon pain of
+forfeiting the liberty of his court for evermore. Moreover, at all times,
+on pain of death, to give all succour unto ladies and young damsels; and
+lastly, never to take part in any wrongful quarrel, for reward or payment.
+And to all this he swore them knight by knight.
+
+Then he ordained that, every year at Pentecost, they should all come
+before him, wheresoever he might appoint a place, and give account of all
+their doings and adventures of the past twelvemonth. And so, with prayer
+and blessing, and high words of cheer, he instituted the most noble order
+of the Round Table, whereto the best and bravest knights in all the world
+sought afterwards to find admission.
+
+Then was the high feast made ready, and the king and queen sat side by
+side, before the whole assembly; and great and royal was the banquet and
+the pomp.
+
+And as they sat, each man in his place, Merlin went round and said, "Sit
+still awhile, for ye shall see a strange and marvellous adventure."
+
+So as they sat, there suddenly came running through the hall, a white
+hart, with a white hound next after him, and thirty couple of black
+running hounds, making full cry; and the hart made circuit of the Table
+Round, and past the other tables; and suddenly the white hound flew upon
+him and bit him fiercely, and tore out a piece from his haunch. Whereat
+the hart sprang suddenly with a great leap, and overthrew a knight sitting
+at the table, who rose forthwith, and, taking up the hound, mounted, and
+rode fast away.
+
+But no sooner had he left, than there came in a lady, mounted on a white
+palfrey, who cried out to the king, "Lord, suffer me not to have this
+injury!--the hound is mine which that knight taketh." And as she spake, a
+knight rode in all armed, on a great horse, and suddenly took up the lady
+and rode away with her by force, although she greatly cried and moaned.
+
+Then the king desired Sir Gawain, Sir Tor, and King Pellinore to mount and
+follow this adventure to the uttermost; and told Sir Gawain to bring back
+the hart, Sir Tor the hound and knight, and King Pellinore the knight and
+the lady.
+
+So Sir Gawain rode forth at a swift pace, and with him Gaheris, his
+brother, for a squire. And as they went, they saw two knights fighting on
+horseback, and when they reached them they divided them and asked the
+reason of their quarrel. "We fight for a foolish matter," one replied,
+"for we be brethren; but there came by a white hart this way, chased by
+many hounds, and thinking it was an adventure for the high feast of King
+Arthur, I would have followed it to have gained worship; whereat my
+younger brother here declared he was the better knight and would go after
+it instead, and so we fight to prove which of us be the better knight."
+
+"This is a foolish thing," said Sir Gawain. "Fight with all strangers, if
+ye will, but not brother with brother. Take my advice, set on against me,
+and if ye yield to me, as I shall do my best to make ye, ye shall go to
+King Arthur and yield ye to his grace."
+
+"Sir knight," replied the brothers, "we are weary, and will do thy wish
+without encountering thee; but by whom shall we tell the king that we were
+sent?"
+
+"By the knight that followeth the quest of the white hart," said Sir
+Gawain. "And now tell me your names, and let us part."
+
+"Sorlous and Brian of the Forest," they replied; and so they went their
+way to the king's court.
+
+Then Sir Gawain, still following his quest by the distant baying of the
+hounds, came to a great river, and saw the hart swimming over and near to
+the further bank. And as he was about to plunge in and swim after, he saw
+a knight upon the other side, who cried, "Come not over here, Sir knight,
+after that hart, save thou wilt joust with me."
+
+"I will not fail for that," said Sir Gawain; and swam his horse across the
+stream.
+
+Anon they got their spears, and ran against each other fiercely; and Sir
+Gawain smote the stranger off his horse, and turning, bade him yield.
+
+"Nay," replied he, "not so; for though ye have the better of me on
+horseback, I pray thee, valiant knight, alight, and let us match together
+with our swords on foot."
+
+"What is thy name?" quoth Gawain.
+
+"Allardin of the Isles," replied the stranger.
+
+Then they fell on each other; but soon Sir Gawain struck him through the
+helm, so deeply and so hard, that all his brains were scattered, and Sir
+Allardin fell dead. "Ah," said Gaheris, "that was a mighty stroke for a
+young knight!"
+
+Then did they turn again to follow the white hart, and let slip three
+couple of greyhounds after him; and at the last they chased him to a
+castle, and there they overtook and slew him, in the chief courtyard.
+
+At that there rushed a knight forth from a chamber, with a drawn sword in
+his hand, and slew two of the hounds before their eyes, and chased the
+others from the castle, crying, "Oh, my white hart! alas, that thou art
+dead! for thee my sovereign lady gave to me, and evil have I kept thee;
+but if I live, thy death shall be dear bought." Anon he went within and
+armed, and came out fiercely, and met Sir Gawain face to face.
+
+"Why have ye slain my hounds?" said Sir Gawain; "they did but after their
+nature: and ye had better have taken vengeance on me than on the poor dumb
+beasts."
+
+"I will avenge me on thee, also," said the other, "ere thou depart this
+place."
+
+Then did they fight with each other savagely and madly, till the blood ran
+down to their feet. But at last Sir Gawain had the better, and felled the
+knight of the castle to the ground. Then he cried out for mercy, and
+yielded to Sir Gawain, and besought him as he was a knight and gentleman
+to save his life. "Thou shalt die," said Sir Gawain, "for slaying my
+hounds."
+
+"I will make thee all amends within my power," replied the knight.
+
+But Sir Gawain would have no mercy, and unlaced his helm to strike his
+head off; and so blind was he with rage, that he saw not where a lady ran
+out from her chamber and fell down upon his enemy. And making a fierce
+blow at him, he smote off by mischance the lady's head.
+
+"Alas!" cried Gaheris, "foully and shamefully have ye done--the shame
+shall never leave ye! Why give ye not your mercy unto them that ask it? a
+knight without mercy is without worship also."
+
+Then Sir Gawain was sore amazed at that fair lady's death, and knew not
+what to do, and said to the fallen knight, "Arise, for I will give thee
+mercy."
+
+"Nay, nay," said he, "I care not for thy mercy now, for thou hast slain my
+lady and my love--that of all earthly things I loved the best."
+
+"I repent me sorely of it," said Sir Gawain, "for I meant to have struck
+thee: but now shalt thou go to King Arthur and tell him this adventure,
+and how thou hast been overcome by the knight that followeth the quest of
+the white hart."
+
+"I care not whether I live or die, or where I go," replied the knight.
+
+So Sir Gawain sent him to the court to Camelot, making him bear one dead
+greyhound before and one behind him on his horse. "Tell me thy name before
+we part," said he.
+
+"My name is Athmore of the Marsh," he answered.
+
+Then went Sir Gawain into the castle, and prepared to sleep there and
+began to unarm; but Gaheris upbraided him, saying, "Will ye disarm in this
+strange country? bethink ye, ye must needs have many enemies about."
+
+No sooner had he spoken than there came out suddenly four knights, well
+armed, and assailed them hard, saying to Sir Gawain, "Thou new-made
+knight, how hast thou shamed thy knighthood! a knight without mercy is
+dishonoured! Slayer of fair ladies, shame to thee evermore! Doubt not thou
+shalt thyself have need of mercy ere we leave thee."
+
+Then were the brothers in great jeopardy, and feared for their lives, for
+they were but two to four, and weary with travelling; and one of the four
+knights shot Sir Gawain with a bolt, and hit him through the arm, so that
+he could fight no more. But when there was nothing left for them but
+death, there came four ladies forth and prayed the four knights' mercy for
+the strangers. So they gave Sir Gawain and Gaheris their lives, and made
+them yield themselves prisoners.
+
+On the morrow, came one of the ladies to Sir Gawain, and talked with him,
+saying, "Sir knight, what cheer?"
+
+"Not good," said he.
+
+"It is your own default, sir," said the lady, "for ye have done a passing
+foul deed in slaying that fair damsel yesterday--and ever shall it be
+great shame to you. But ye be not of King Arthur's kin."
+
+"Yea, truly am I," said he; "my name is Gawain, son of King Lot of Orkney,
+whom King Pellinore slew--and my mother, Belisent, is half-sister to the
+king."
+
+When the lady heard that, she went and presently got leave for him to quit
+the castle; and they gave him the head of the white hart to take with him,
+because it was in his quest; but made him also carry the dead lady with
+him--her head hung round his neck and her body lay before him on his
+horse's neck.
+
+So in that fashion he rode back to Camelot; and when the king and queen
+saw him, and heard tell of his adventures, they were heavily displeased,
+and, by the order of the queen, he was put upon his trial before a court
+of ladies--who judged him to be evermore, for all his life, the knight of
+ladies' quarrels, and to fight always on their side, and never against
+any, except he fought for one lady and his adversary for another; also
+they charged him never to refuse mercy to him that asked it, and swore him
+to it on the Holy Gospels. Thus ended the adventure of the white hart.
+
+Meanwhile, Sir Tor had made him ready, and followed the knight who rode
+away with the hound. And as he went, there suddenly met him in the road a
+dwarf, who struck his horse so viciously upon the head with a great staff,
+that he leaped backwards a spear's length.
+
+"Wherefore so smitest thou my horse, foul dwarf?" shouted Sir Tor.
+
+"Because thou shall not pass this way," replied the dwarf, "unless thou
+fight for it with yonder knights in those pavilions," pointing to two
+tents, where two great spears stood out, and two shields hung upon two
+trees hard by.
+
+"I may not tarry, for I am on a quest I needs must follow," said Sir Tor.
+
+"Thou shalt not pass," replied the dwarf, and therewith blew his horn.
+Then rode out quickly at Sir Tor one armed on horseback, but Sir Tor was
+quick as he, and riding at him bore him from his horse, and made him
+yield. Directly after came another still more fiercely, but with a few
+great strokes and buffets Sir Tor unhorsed him also, and sent them both to
+Camelot to King Arthur. Then came the dwarf and begged Sir Tor to take
+him in his service, "for," said he, "I will serve no more recreant
+knights."
+
+"Take then a horse, and come with me," said Tor.
+
+"Ride ye after the knight with the white hound?" said the dwarf; "I can
+soon bring ye where he is."
+
+So they rode through the forest till they came to two more tents. And Sir
+Tor alighting, went into the first, and saw three damsels lie there,
+sleeping. Then went he to the other, and found another lady also sleeping,
+and at her feet the white hound he sought for, which instantly began to
+bay and bark so loudly, that the lady woke. But Sir Tor had seized the
+hound and given it to the dwarfs charge.
+
+"What will ye do, Sir knight?" cried out the lady; "will ye take away my
+hound from me by force?"
+
+"Yea, lady," said Sir Tor; "for so I must, having the king's command; and
+I have followed it from King Arthur's court, at Camelot, to this place."
+
+"Well" said the lady, "ye will not go far before ye be ill handled, and
+will repent ye of the quest."
+
+"I shall cheerfully abide whatsoever adventure cometh, by the grace of
+God," said Sir Tor; and so mounted his horse and began to ride back on his
+way. But night coming on, he turned aside to a hermitage that was in the
+forest, and there abode till the next day, making but sorrowful cheer of
+such poor food as the hermit had to give him, and hearing a Mass devoutly
+before he left on the morrow.
+
+And in the early morning, as he rode forth with the dwarf towards Camelot,
+he heard a knight call loudly after him, "Turn, turn! Abide, Sir knight,
+and yield me up the hound thou tookest from my lady." At which he turned,
+and saw a great and strong knight, armed full splendidly, riding down upon
+him fiercely through a glade of the forest.
+
+Now Sir Tor was very ill provided, for he had but an old courser, which
+was as weak as himself, because of the hermit's scanty fare. He waited,
+nevertheless, for the strange knight to come, and at the first onset with
+their spears, each unhorsed the other, and then fell to with their swords
+like two mad lions. Then did they smite through one another's shields and
+helmets till the fragments flew on all sides, and their blood ran out in
+streams; but yet they carved and rove through the thick armour of the
+hauberks, and gave each other great and ghastly wounds. But in the end,
+Sir Tor, finding the strange knight faint, doubled his strokes until he
+beat him to the earth. Then did he bid him yield to his mercy.
+
+"That will I not," replied Abellius, "while my life lasteth and my soul is
+in my body, unless thou give me first the hound."
+
+"I cannot," said Sir Tor, "and will not, for it was my quest to bring
+again that hound and thee unto King Arthur, or otherwise to slay thee."
+
+With that there came a damsel riding on a palfrey, as fast as she could
+drive, and cried out to Sir Tor with a loud voice, "I pray thee, for King
+Arthur's love, give me a gift."
+
+"Ask," said Sir Tor, "and I will give thee."
+
+"Grammercy," said the lady, "I ask the head of this false knight Abellius,
+the most outrageous murderer that liveth."
+
+"I repent me of the gift I promised," said Sir Tor. "Let him make thee
+amends for all his trespasses against thee."
+
+"He cannot make amends," replied the damsel, "for he hath slain my
+brother, a far better knight than he, and scorned to give him mercy,
+though I kneeled for half an hour before him in the mire, to beg it, and
+though it was but by a chance they fought, and for no former injury or
+quarrel. I require my gift of thee as a true knight, or else will I shame
+thee in King Arthur's court; for this Abellius is the falsest knight
+alive, and a murderer of many."
+
+When Abellius heard this, he trembled greatly, and was sore afraid, and
+yielded to Sir Tor, and prayed his mercy.
+
+"I cannot now, Sir knight," said he, "lest I be false to my promise. Ye
+would not take my mercy when I offered it; and now it is too late."
+
+Therewith he unlaced his helmet, and took it off; but Abellius, in dismal
+fear, struggled to his feet, and fled, until Sir Tor overtook him, and
+smote off his head entirely with one blow.
+
+"Now, sir," said the damsel, "it is near night, I pray ye come and lodge
+at my castle hard by."
+
+"I will, with a good will," said he, for both his horse and he had fared
+but poorly since they left Camelot.
+
+So he went to the lady's castle and fared sumptuously, and saw her
+husband, an old knight, who greatly thanked him for his service, and urged
+him oftentimes to come again.
+
+On the morrow he departed, and reached Camelot by noon, where the king and
+queen rejoiced to see him, and the king made him Earl; and Merlin
+prophesied that these adventures were but little to the things he should
+achieve hereafter.
+
+Now while Sir Gawain and Sir Tor had fulfilled their quests, King
+Pellinore pursued the lady whom the knight had seized away from the
+wedding-feast. And as he rode through the woods, he saw in a valley a fair
+young damsel sitting by a well-side, and a wounded knight lying in her
+arms, and King Pellinore saluted her as he passed by.
+
+As soon as she perceived him she cried out, "Help, help me, knight, for
+our Lord's sake!" But Pellinore was far too eager in his quest to stay or
+turn, although she cried a hundred times to him for help; at which she
+prayed to heaven he might have such sore need before he died as she had
+now. And presently thereafter her knight died in her arms; and she, for
+grief and love slew herself with his sword.
+
+But King Pellinore rode on till he met a poor man and asked him had he
+seen a knight pass by that way leading by force a lady with him.
+
+"Yea, surely," said the man, "and greatly did she moan and cry; but even
+now another knight is fighting with him to deliver the lady; ride on and
+thou shalt find them fighting still."
+
+At that King Pellinore rode swiftly on, and came to where he saw the two
+knights fighting, hard by where two pavilions stood. And when he looked in
+one of them he saw the lady that was his quest, and with her the two
+squires of the two knights who fought.
+
+"Fair lady," said he, "ye must come with me unto Arthur's court."
+
+"Sir knight," said the two squires, "yonder be two knights fighting for
+this lady; go part them, and get their consent to take her, ere thou touch
+her."
+
+"Ye say well," said King Pellinore, and rode between the combatants, and
+asked them why they fought.
+
+"Sir knight," said the one, "yon lady is my cousin, mine aunt's daughter,
+whom I met borne away against her will, by this knight here, with whom I
+therefore fight to free her."
+
+"Sir knight," replied the other, whose name was Hantzlake of Wentland,
+"this lady got I, by my arms and prowess, at King Arthur's court to-day."
+
+"That is false," said King Pellinore; "ye stole the lady suddenly, and
+fled away with her, before any knight could arm to stay thee. But it is my
+service to take her back again. Neither of ye shall therefore have her;
+but if ye will fight for her, fight with me now and here."
+
+"Well," said the knights, "make ready, and we will assail thee with all
+our might."
+
+Then Sir Hantzlake ran King Pellinore's horse through with his sword, so
+that they might be all alike on foot. But King Pellinore at that was
+passing wroth, and ran upon Sir Hantzlake, with a cry, "Keep well thy
+head!" and gave him such a stroke upon the helm as clove him to the chin,
+so that he fell dead to the ground. When he saw that, the other knight
+refused to fight, and kneeling down said, "Take my cousin the lady with
+thee, as thy quest is; but as thou art a true knight, suffer her to come
+to neither shame nor harm."
+
+So the next day King Pellinore departed for Camelot, and took the lady
+with him; and as they rode in a valley full of rough stones, the damsel's
+horse stumbled and threw her, so that her arms were sorely bruised and
+hurt. And as they rested in the forest for the pain to lessen, night came
+on, and there they were compelled to make their lodging. A little before
+midnight they heard the trotting of a horse. "Be ye still," said King
+Pellinore, "for now we may hear of some adventure," and therewith he armed
+him. Then he heard two knights meet and salute each other, in the dark;
+one riding from Camelot, the other from the north.
+
+"What tidings at Camelot?" said one.
+
+"By my head," said the other, "I have but just left there, and have espied
+King Arthur's court, and such a fellowship is there as never may be broke
+or overcome; for wellnigh all the chivalry of the world is there, and all
+full loyal to the king, and now I ride back homewards to the north to tell
+our chiefs, that they waste not their strength in wars against him."
+
+"As for all that," replied the other knight, "I am but now from the north,
+and bear with me a remedy, the deadliest poison that ever was heard tell
+of, and to Camelot will I with it; for there we have a friend close to the
+king, and greatly cherished of him, who hath received gifts from us to
+poison him, as he hath promised soon to do."
+
+"Beware," said the first knight, "of Merlin, for he knoweth all things, by
+the devil's craft."
+
+"I will not fear for that," replied the other, and so rode on his way.
+
+Anon King Pellinore and the lady passed on again; and when they came to
+the well at which the lady with the wounded knight had sat, they found
+both knight and Damsel utterly devoured by lions and wild beasts, all save
+the lady's head.
+
+When King Pellinore saw that, he wept bitterly, saying, "Alas! I might
+have saved her life had I but tarried a few moments in my quest."
+
+"Wherefore make so much sorrow now?" said the lady.
+
+"I know not," answered he, "but my heart grieveth greatly for this poor
+lady's death, so fair she was and young."
+
+Then he required a hermit to bury the remains of the bodies, and bare the
+lady's head with him to Camelot, to the court.
+
+When he was arrived, he was sworn to tell the truth of his quest before
+the King and Queen, and when he had entered the Queen somewhat upbraided
+him, saying, "Ye were much to blame that ye saved not that lady's life."
+
+"Madam," said he, "I shall repent it all my life."
+
+"Ay, king," quoth Merlin, who suddenly came in, "and so ye ought to do,
+for that lady was your daughter, not seen since infancy by thee. And she
+was on her way to court, with a right good young knight, who would have
+been her husband, but was slain by treachery of a felon knight, Lorraine
+le Savage, as they came; and because thou wouldst not abide and help her,
+thy best friend shall fail thee in thine hour of greatest need, for such
+is the penance ordained thee for that deed."
+
+Then did King Pellinore tell Merlin secretly of the treason he had heard
+in the forest, and Merlin by his craft so ordered that the knight who bare
+the poison was himself soon after slain by it, and so King Arthur's life
+was saved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_King Arthur and Sir Accolon of Gaul_
+
+
+Being now happily married, King Arthur for a season took his pleasure,
+with great tournaments, and jousts, and huntings. So once upon a time the
+king and many of his knights rode hunting in a forest, and Arthur, King
+Urience, and Sir Accolon of Gaul, followed after a great hart, and being
+all three well mounted, they chased so fast that they outsped their
+company, and left them many miles behind; but riding still as rapidly as
+they could go, at length their horses fell dead under them. Then being all
+three on foot, and seeing the stag not far before them, very weary and
+nigh spent--"What shall we do," said King Arthur, "for we are hard
+bested?" "Let us go on afoot," said King Urience, "till we can find some
+lodging." At that they saw the stag lying upon the bank of a great lake,
+with a hound springing at his throat, and many other hounds trooping
+towards him. So, running forward, Arthur blew the death-note on his horn,
+and slew the hart. Then lifting up his eyes he saw before him on the lake
+a barge, all draped down to the water's edge, with silken folds and
+curtains, which swiftly came towards him, and touched upon the sands; but
+when he went up close and looked in, he saw no earthly creature. Then he
+cried out to his companions, "Sirs, come ye hither, and let us see what
+there is in this ship." So they all three went in, and found it everywhere
+throughout furnished, and hung with rich draperies of silk and gold.
+
+By this time eventide had come, when suddenly a hundred torches were set
+up on all sides of the barge, and gave a dazzling light, and at the same
+time came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by his name,
+kneeling on their knees, and telling him that he was welcome, and should
+have their noblest cheer, for which the king thanked them courteously.
+Then did they lead him and his fellows to a splendid chamber, where was a
+table spread with all the richest furniture, and costliest wines and
+viands; and there they served them with all kinds of wines and meats, till
+Arthur wondered at the splendour of the feast, declaring he had never in
+his life supped better, or more royally. After supper they led him to
+another chamber, than which he had never beheld a richer, where he was
+left to rest. King Urience, also, and Sir Accolon were each conducted into
+rooms of like magnificence. And so they all three fell asleep, and being
+very weary slept deeply all that night.
+
+[Illustration: Came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by
+his name.]
+
+But when the morning broke, King Urience found himself in his own house in
+Camelot, he knew not how; and Arthur awaking found himself in a dark
+dungeon, and heard around him nothing but the groans of woful knights,
+prisoners like himself. Then said King Arthur, "Who are ye, thus groaning
+and complaining?" And some one answered him, "Alas, we be all prisoners,
+even twenty good knights, and some of us have lain here seven years--some
+more--nor seen the light of day for all that time." "For what cause?" said
+King Arthur. "Know ye not then yourself?" they answered--"we will soon
+tell you. The lord of this strong castle is Sir Damas, and is the falsest
+and most traitorous knight that liveth; and he hath a younger brother, a
+good and noble knight, whose name is Outzlake. This traitor Damas,
+although passing rich, will give his brother nothing of his wealth, and
+save what Outzlake keepeth to himself by force, he hath no share of the
+inheritance. He owneth, nevertheless, one fair rich manor, whereupon he
+liveth, loved of all men far and near. But Damas is as altogether hated as
+his brother is beloved, for he is merciless and cowardly: and now for many
+years there hath been war between these brothers, and Sir Outzlake
+evermore defieth Damas to come forth and fight with him, body to body, for
+the inheritance; and if he be too cowardly, to find some champion knight
+that will fight for him. And Damas hath agreed to find some champion, but
+never yet hath found a knight to take his evil cause in hand, or wager
+battle for him. So with a strong band of men-at-arms he lieth ever in
+ambush, and taketh captive every passing knight who may unwarily go near,
+and bringeth him into this castle, and desireth him either to fight Sir
+Outzlake, or to lie for evermore in durance. And thus hath he dealt with
+all of us, for we all scorned to take up such a cause for such a false
+foul knight--but rather one by one came here, where many a good knight
+hath died of hunger and disease. But if one of us would fight, Sir Damas
+would deliver all the rest."
+
+"God of his mercy send you deliverance," said King Arthur, and sat
+turning in his mind how all these things should end, and how he might
+himself gain freedom for so many noble hearts.
+
+Anon there came a damsel to the king, saying, "Sir if thou wilt fight for
+my lord thou shalt be delivered out of prison, but else nevermore shalt
+thou escape with thy life." "Nay," said King Arthur, "that is but a hard
+choice, yet had I rather fight than die in prison, and if I may deliver
+not myself alone, but all these others, I will do the battle." "Yea," said
+the damsel, "it shall be even so." "Then," said King Arthur, "I am ready
+now, if but I had a horse and armour." "Fear not," said she, "that shalt
+thou have presently, and shalt lack nothing proper for the fight." "Have I
+not seen thee," said the king, "at King Arthur's court? for it seemeth
+that thy face is known to me." "Nay," said the damsel, "I was never there;
+I am Sir Damas' daughter, and have never been but a day's journey from
+this castle." But she spoke falsely, for she was one of the damsels of
+Morgan le Fay, the great enchantress, who was King Arthur's half-sister.
+
+When Sir Damas knew that there had been at length a knight found who would
+fight for him, he sent for Arthur, and finding him a man so tall and
+strong, and straight of limb, he was passingly well pleased, and made a
+covenant with him, that he should fight unto the uttermost for his cause,
+and that all the other knights should be delivered. And when they were
+sworn to each other on the holy gospels, all those imprisoned knights were
+straightway led forth and delivered, but abode there one and all to see
+the battle.
+
+In the meanwhile there had happened to Sir Accolon of Gaul a strange
+adventure; for when he awoke from his deep sleep upon the silken barge, he
+found himself upon the edge of a deep well, and in instant peril of
+falling thereinto. Whereat, leaping up in great affright, he crossed
+himself and cried aloud, "May God preserve my lord King Arthur and King
+Urience, for those damsels in the ship have betrayed us, and were
+doubtless devils and no women; and if I may escape this misadventure, I
+will certainly destroy them wheresoever I may find them." With that there
+came to him a dwarf with a great mouth, and a flat nose, and saluted him,
+saying that he came from Queen Morgan le Fay. "And she greeteth you well,"
+said he, "and biddeth you be strong of heart, for to-morrow you shall do
+battle with a strange knight, and therefore she hath sent you here
+Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, and the scabbard likewise. And she
+desireth you as you do love her to fight this battle to the uttermost, and
+without any mercy, as you have promised her you would fight when she
+should require it of you; and she will make a rich queen for ever of any
+damsel that shall bring her that knight's head with whom you are to
+fight."
+
+"Well," said Sir Accolon, "tell you my lady Queen Morgan, that I shall
+hold to that I promised her, now that I have this sword--and," said he, "I
+suppose it was to bring about this battle that she made all these
+enchantments by her craft." "You have guessed rightly," said the dwarf,
+and therewithal he left him.
+
+Then came a knight and lady, and six squires, to Sir Accolon, and took him
+to a manor house hard by, and gave him noble cheer; and the house belonged
+to Sir Outzlake, the brother of Sir Damas, for so had Morgan le Fay
+contrived with her enchantments. Now Sir Outzlake himself was at that time
+sorely wounded and disabled, having been pierced through both his thighs
+by a spear-thrust. When, therefore, Sir Damas sent down messengers to his
+brother, bidding him make ready by to-morrow morning, and be in the field
+to fight with a good knight, for that he had found a champion ready to do
+battle at all points, Sir Outzlake was sorely annoyed and distressed, for
+he knew he had small chance of victory, while yet he was disabled by his
+wounds; notwithstanding, he determined to take the battle in hand,
+although he was so weak that he must needs be lifted to his saddle. But
+when Sir Accolon of Gaul heard this, he sent a message to Sir Outzlake
+offering to take the battle in his stead, which cheered Sir Outzlake
+mightily, who thanked Sir Accolon with all his heart, and joyfully
+accepted him.
+
+So, on the morrow, King Arthur was armed and well horsed, and asked Sir
+Damas, "When shall we go to the field?" "Sir," said Sir Damas, "you shall
+first hear mass." And when mass was done, there came a squire on a great
+horse, and asked Sir Damas if his knight were ready, "for our knight is
+already in the field." Then King Arthur mounted on horseback, and there
+around were all the knights, and barons, and people of the country; and
+twelve of them were chosen to wait upon the two knights who were about to
+fight. And as King Arthur sat on horseback, there came a damsel from
+Morgan le Fay, and brought to him a sword, made like Excalibur, and a
+scabbard also, and said to him, "Morgan le Fay sendeth you here your sword
+for her great love's sake." And the king thanked her, and believed it to
+be as she said; but she traitorously deceived him, for both sword and
+scabbard were counterfeit, brittle, and false, and the true sword
+Excalibur was in the hands of Sir Accolon. Then, at the sound of a
+trumpet, the champions set themselves on opposite sides of the field, and
+giving rein and spur to their horses urged them to so great a speed that
+each smiting the other in the middle of the shield, rolled his opponent to
+the ground, both horse and man. Then starting up immediately, both drew
+their swords and rushed swiftly together. And so they fell to eagerly, and
+gave each other many great and mighty strokes.
+
+And as they were thus fighting, the damsel Vivien, lady of the lake, who
+loved King Arthur, came upon the ground, for she knew by her enchantments
+how Morgan le Fay had craftily devised to have King Arthur slain by his
+own sword that day, and therefore came to save his life. And Arthur and
+Sir Accolon were now grown hot against each other, and spared not strength
+nor fury in their fierce assaults; but the king's sword gave way
+continually before Sir Accolon's, so that at every stroke he was sore
+wounded, and his blood ran from him so fast that it was a marvel he could
+stand. When King Arthur saw the ground so sore be-blooded, he bethought
+him in dismay that there was magic treason worked upon him, and that his
+own true sword was changed, for it seemed to him that the sword in Sir
+Accolon's hand was Excalibur, for fearfully it drew his blood at every
+blow, while what he held himself kept no sharp edge, nor fell with any
+force upon his foe.
+
+"Now, knight, look to thyself, and keep thee well from me," cried out Sir
+Accolon. But King Arthur answered not, and gave him such a buffet on the
+helm as made him stagger and nigh fall upon the ground. Then Sir Accolon
+withdrew a little, and came on with Excalibur on high, and smote King
+Arthur in return with such a mighty stroke as almost felled him; and both
+being now in hottest wrath, they gave each other grievous and savage
+blows. But Arthur all the time was losing so much blood that scarcely
+could he keep upon his feet yet so full was he of knighthood, that
+knightly he endured the pain, and still sustained himself, though now he
+was so feeble that he thought himself about to die. Sir Accolon, as yet,
+had lost no drop of blood, and being very bold and confident in Excalibur,
+even grew more vigorous and hasty in his assaults. But all men who beheld
+them said they never saw a knight fight half so well as did King Arthur;
+and all the people were so grieved for him that they besought Sir Damas
+and Sir Outzlake to make up their quarrel and so stay the fight; but they
+would not.
+
+So still the battle raged, till Arthur drew a little back for breath and a
+few moments' rest; but Accolon came on after him, following fiercely and
+crying loud, "It is no time for me to suffer thee to rest," and therewith
+set upon him. Then Arthur, full of scorn and rage, lifted up his sword and
+struck Sir Accolon upon the helm so mightily that he drove him to his
+knees; but with the force of that great stroke his brittle, treacherous
+sword broke short off at the hilt, and fell down in the grass among the
+blood, leaving the pommel only in his hand. At that, King Arthur thought
+within himself that all was over, and secretly prepared his mind for
+death, yet kept himself so knightly sheltered by his shield that he lost
+no ground, and made as though he yet had hope and cheer. Then said Sir
+Accolon, "Sir knight, thou now art overcome and canst endure no longer,
+seeing thou art weaponless, and hast lost already so much blood. Yet am I
+fully loth to slay thee; yield, then, therefore, to me as recreant."
+"Nay," said King Arthur, "that may I not, for I have promised to do battle
+to the uttermost by the faith of my body while my life lasteth; and I had
+rather die with honour than live with shame; and if it were possible for
+me to die an hundred times, I had rather die as often than yield me to
+thee, for though I lack weapons, I shall lack no worship, and it shall be
+to thy shame to slay me weaponless." "Aha," shouted then Sir Accolon, "as
+for the shame, I will not spare; look to thyself, sir knight, for thou art
+even now but a dead man." Therewith he drove at him with pitiless force,
+and struck him nearly down; but Arthur evermore waxing in valour as he
+waned in blood, pressed on Sir Accolon with his shield, and hit at him so
+fiercely with the pommel in his hand, as hurled him three strides
+backwards.
+
+This, therefore, so confused Sir Accolon, that rushing up, all dizzy, to
+deliver once again a furious blow, even as he struck, Excalibur, by
+Vivien's magic, fell from out his hands upon the earth. Beholding which,
+King Arthur lightly sprang to it, and grasped it, and forthwith felt it
+was his own good sword, and said to it, "Thou hast been from me all too
+long, and done me too much damage." Then spying the scabbard hanging by
+Sir Accolon's side, he sprang and pulled it from him, and cast it away as
+far as he could throw it; for so long as he had worn it, Arthur new his
+life would have been kept secure. "Oh, knight!" then said the king, "thou
+hast this day wrought me much damage by this sword, but now art thou come
+to thy death, for I shall not warrant thee but that thou shalt suffer, ere
+we part, somewhat of that thou hast made me suffer." And therewithal King
+Arthur flew at him with all his might, and pulled him to the earth, and
+then struck off his helm, and gave him on the head a fearful buffet, till
+the blood leaped forth. "Now will I slay thee!" cried King Arthur; for his
+heart was hardened, and his body all on fire with fever, till for a moment
+he forgot his knightly mercy. "Slay me thou mayest," said Sir Accolon,
+"for thou art the best knight I ever found, and I see well that God is
+with thee; and I, as thou hast, have promised to fight this battle to the
+uttermost, and never to be recreant while I live; therefore shall I never
+yield me with my mouth, and God must do with my body what he will." And as
+Sir Accolon spoke, King Arthur thought he knew his voice; and parting all
+his blood-stained hair from out his eyes, and leaning down towards him,
+saw, indeed, it was his friend and own true knight. Then said he--keeping
+his own visor down--"I pray thee tell me of what country art thou, and
+what court?" "Sir knight," he answered, "I am of King Arthur's court, and
+my name is Sir Accolon of Gaul." Then said the king, "Oh, sir knight! I
+pray thee tell me who gave thee this sword? and from whom thou hadst it?"
+
+Then said Sir Accolon, "Woe worth this sword, for by it I have gotten my
+death. This sword hath been in my keeping now for almost twelve months,
+and yesterday Queen Morgan le Fay, wife of King Urience, sent it to me by
+a dwarf, that therewith I might in some way slay her brother, King Arthur;
+for thou must understand that King Arthur is the man she hateth most in
+all the world, being full of envy and jealousy because he is of greater
+worship and renown than any other of her blood. She loveth me also as much
+as she doth hate him; and if she might contrive to slay King Arthur by her
+craft and magic, then would she straightway kill her husband also, and
+make me the king of all this land, and herself my queen, to reign with me;
+but now," said he, "all that is over, for this day I am come to my death."
+
+"It would have been sore treason of thee to destroy thy lord," said
+Arthur. "Thou sayest truly," answered he; "but now that I have told thee,
+and openly confessed to thee all that foul treason whereof I now do
+bitterly repent, tell me, I pray thee, whence art thou, and of what
+court?" "O, Sir Accolon!" said King Arthur, "learn that I am myself King
+Arthur." When Sir Accolon heard this he cried aloud, "Alas, my gracious
+lord! have mercy on me, for I knew thee not." "Thou shalt have mercy,"
+said he, "for thou knewest not my person at this time; and though by thine
+own confession thou art a traitor, yet do I blame thee less, because thou
+hast been blinded by the false crafts of my sister Morgan le Fay, whom I
+have trusted more than all others of my kin, and whom I now shall know
+well how to punish." Then did Sir Accolon cry loudly, "O, lords, and all
+good people! this noble knight that I have fought with is the noblest and
+most worshipful in all the world; for it is King Arthur, our liege lord
+and sovereign king; and full sorely I repent that I have ever lifted lance
+against him, though in ignorance I did it."
+
+Then all the people fell down on their knees and prayed the pardon of the
+king for suffering him to come to such a strait. But he replied, "Pardon
+ye cannot have, for, truly, ye have nothing sinned; but here ye see what
+ill adventure may ofttimes befall knights-errant, for to my own hurt, and
+his danger also, I have fought with one of my own knights."
+
+Then the king commanded Sir Damas to surrender to his brother the whole
+manor, Sir Outzlake only yielding him a palfrey every year; "for," said he
+scornfully, "it would become thee better to ride on than a courser;" and
+ordered Damas, upon pain of death, never again to touch or to distress
+knights-errant riding on their adventures; and also to make full
+compensation and satisfaction to the twenty knights whom he had held in
+prison. "And if any of them," said the king, "come to my court complaining
+that he hath not had full satisfaction of thee for his injuries, by my
+head, thou shalt die therefor."
+
+Afterwards, King Arthur asked Sir Outzlake to come with him to his court,
+where he should become a knight of his, and, if his deeds were noble, be
+advanced to all he might desire.
+
+So then he took his leave of all the people and mounted upon horseback,
+and Sir Accolon went with him to an abbey hard by, where both their wounds
+were dressed. But Sir Accolon died within four days after. And when he was
+dead, the king sent his body to Queen Morgan, to Camelot, saying that he
+sent her a present in return for the sword Excalibur which she had sent
+him by the damsel.
+
+So, on the morrow, there came a damsel from Queen Morgan to the king, and
+brought with her the richest mantle that ever was seen, for it was set as
+full of precious stones as they could stand against each other, and they
+were the richest stones that ever the king saw. And the damsel said, "Your
+sister sendeth you this mantle, and prayeth you to take her gift, and in
+whatsoever thing she hath offended you, she will amend it at your
+pleasure." To this the king replied not, although the mantle pleased him
+much. With that came in the lady of the lake, and said, "Sir, put not on
+this mantle till thou hast seen more; and in nowise let it be put upon
+thee, or any of thy knights, till ye have made the bringer of it first put
+it on her." "It shall be done as thou dost counsel," said the king. Then
+said he to the damsel that came from his sister, "Damsel, I would see this
+mantle ye have brought me upon yourself." "Sir," said she, "it will not
+beseem me to wear a knight's garment." "By my head," said King Arthur,
+"thou shall wear it ere it go on any other person's back!" And so they put
+it on her by force, and forthwith the garment burst into a flame and
+burned the damsel into cinders. When the king saw that, he hated that
+false witch Morgan le Fay with all his heart, and evermore was deadly
+quarrel between her and Arthur to their lives' end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_King Arthur conquers Rome, and is crowned Emperor_
+
+
+And now again the second time there came ambassadors from Lucius Tiberius,
+Emperor of Rome, demanding, under pain of war, tribute and homage from
+King Arthur, and the restoration of all Gaul, which he had conquered from
+the tribune Flollo.
+
+When they had delivered their message, the king bade them withdraw while
+he consulted with his knights and barons what reply to send. Then some of
+the younger knights would have slain the ambassadors, saying that their
+speech was a rebuke to all who heard the king insulted by it. But when
+King Arthur heard that, he ordered none to touch them upon pain of death;
+and sending officers, he had them taken to a noble lodging, and there
+entertained with the best cheer. "And," said he, "let no dainty be spared,
+for the Romans are great lords; and though their message please me not,
+yet must I remember mine honour."
+
+Then the lords and knights of the Round Table were called on to declare
+their counsel--what should be done upon this matter; and Sir Cador of
+Cornwall speaking first, said, "Sir, this message is the best news I have
+heard for a long time, for we have been now idle and at rest for many
+days, and I trust that thou wilt make sharp war upon the Romans, wherein,
+I doubt not, we shall all gain honour."
+
+"I believe well," said Arthur, "that thou art pleased, Sir Cador; but that
+is scarce an answer to the Emperor of Rome, and his demand doth grieve me
+sorely, for truly I will never pay him tribute; wherefore, lords, I pray
+ye counsel me. Now, I have understood that Belinus and Brennius, knights
+of Britain, held the Roman Empire in their hands for many days, and also
+Constantine, the son of Helen, which is open evidence, not only that we
+owe Rome no tribute, but that I, being descended from them, may, of right,
+myself claim the empire."
+
+Then said King Anguish of Scotland, "Sir, thou oughtest of right to be
+above all other kings, for in all Christendom is there not thine equal;
+and I counsel thee never to obey the Romans. For when they reigned here
+they grievously distressed us, and put the land to great and heavy
+burdens; and here, for my part, I swear to avenge me on them when I may,
+and will furnish thee with twenty thousand men-at-arms, whom I will pay
+and keep, and who shall wait on thee with me, when it shall please thee."
+
+Then the King of Little Britain rose and promised King Arthur thirty
+thousand men; and likewise many other kings, and dukes, and barons,
+promised aid--as the lord of West Wales thirty thousand men, Sir Ewaine
+and his cousin thirty thousand men, and so forth; Sir Lancelot also, and
+every other knight of the Round Table, promised each man a great host.
+
+So the king, passing joyful at their courage and good will, thanked them
+all heartily, and sent for the ambassadors again, to hear his answer. "I
+will," said he, "that ye now go back straightway unto the Emperor your
+master and tell him that I give no heed to his words, for I have conquered
+all my kingdoms by the will of God and by my own right arm, and I am
+strong enough to keep them, without paying tribute to any earthly
+creature. But, on the other hand, I claim both tribute and submission from
+himself, and also claim the sovereignty of all his empire, whereto I am
+entitled by the right of my own ancestors--sometime kings of this land.
+And say to him that I will shortly come to Rome, and by God's grace will
+take possession of my empire and subdue all rebels. Wherefore, lastly, I
+command him and all the lords of Rome that they forthwith pay me their
+homage, under pain of my chastisement and wrath."
+
+Then he commanded his treasurers to give the ambassadors great gifts, and
+defray all their charges, and appointed Sir Cador to convey them
+worshipfully out of the land.
+
+So when they returned to Rome and came before Lucius, he was sore angry at
+their words, and said, "I thought this Arthur would have instantly obeyed
+my orders and have served me as humbly as any other king; but because of
+his fortune in Gaul, he hath grown insolent."
+
+"Ah, lord," said one of the ambassadors, "refrain from such vain words,
+for truly I and all with me were fearful at his royal majesty and angry
+countenance. I fear me thou hast made a rod for thee more sharp than thou
+hast counted on. He meaneth to be master of this empire; and is another
+kind of man than thou supposest, and holdeth the most noble court of all
+the world. We saw him on the new year's day, served at his table by nine
+kings, and the noblest company of other princes, lords, and knights that
+ever was in all the world; and in his person he is the most manly-seeming
+man that liveth, and looketh like to conquer all the earth."
+
+Then Lucius sent messengers to all the subject countries of Rome, and
+brought together a mighty army, and assembled sixteen kings, and many
+dukes, princes, lords, and admirals, and a wondrous great multitude of
+people. Fifty giants also, born of fiends, were set around him for a
+body-guard. With all that host he straightway went from Rome, and passed
+beyond the mountains into Gaul, and burned the towns and ravaged all the
+country of that province, in rage for its submission to King Arthur. Then
+he moved on towards Little Britain.
+
+Meanwhile, King Arthur having held a parliament at York, left the realm in
+charge of Sir Badewine and Sir Constantine, and crossed the sea from
+Sandwich to meet Lucius. And so soon as he was landed, he sent Sir Gawain,
+Sir Bors, Sir Lionel, and Sir Bedivere to the Emperor, commanding him "to
+move swiftly and in haste out of his land, and, if not, to make himself
+ready for battle, and not continue ravaging the country and slaying
+harmless people." Anon, those noble knights attired themselves and set
+forth on horseback to where they saw, in a meadow, many silken tents of
+divers colours, and the Emperor's pavilion in the midst, with a golden
+eagle set above it.
+
+Then Sir Gawain and Sir Bors rode forward, leaving the other two behind
+in ambush, and gave King Arthur's message. To which the Emperor replied,
+"Return, and tell your lord that I am come to conquer him and all his
+land."
+
+At this, Sir Gawain burned with anger, and cried out, "I had rather than
+all France that I might fight with thee alone!"
+
+"And I also," said Sir Bors.
+
+Then a knight named Ganius, a near cousin of the Emperor, laughed out
+aloud, and said, "Lo! how these Britons boast and are full of pride,
+bragging as though they bare up all the world!"
+
+At these words, Sir Gawain could refrain no longer, but drew forth his
+sword and with one blow shore oft Ganius' head; then with Sir Bors, he
+turned his horse and rode over waters and through woods, back to the
+ambush, where Sir Lionel and Sir Bedivere were waiting. The Romans
+followed fast behind them till the knights turned and stood, and then Sir
+Bors smote the foremost of them through the body with a spear, and slew
+him on the spot. Then came on Calibere, a huge Pavian, but Sir Bors
+overthrew him also. And then the company of Sir Lionel and Sir Bedivere
+brake from their ambush and fell on the Romans, and slew and hewed them
+down, and forced them to return and flee, chasing them to their tents.
+
+But as they neared the camp, a great host more rushed forth, and turned
+the battle backwards, and in the turmoil, Sir Bors and Sir Berel fell into
+the Romans' hands. When Sir Gawain saw that, he drew his good sword
+Galotine, and swore to see King Arthur's face no more if those two knights
+were not delivered; and then, with good Sir Idrus, made so sore an
+onslaught that the Romans fled and left Sir Bors and Sir Berel to their
+friends. So the Britons returned in triumph to King Arthur, having slain
+more than ten thousand Romans, and lost no man of worship from amongst
+themselves.
+
+When the Emperor Lucius heard of that discomfiture he arose, with all his
+army, to crush King Arthur, and met him in the vale of Soissons. Then
+speaking to all his host, he said, "Sirs, I admonish you that this day ye
+fight and acquit yourselves as men; and remembering how Rome is chief of
+all the earth, and mistress of the universal world, suffer not these
+barbarous and savage Britons to abide our onset." At that, the trumpets
+blew so loud, that the ground trembled and shook.
+
+Then did the rival hosts draw near each other with great shoutings; and
+when they closed, no tongue can tell the fury of their smiting, and the
+sore struggling, wounds, and slaughter. Then King Arthur, with his
+mightiest knights, rode down into the thickest of the fight, and drew
+Excalibur, and slew as lightning slays for swiftness and for force. And in
+the midmost crowd he met a giant, Galapas by name, and struck off both his
+legs at the knee-joints; then saying, "Now art thou a better size to deal
+with!" smote his head off at a second blow: and the body killed six men in
+falling down.
+
+Anon, King Arthur spied where Lucius fought and worked great deeds of
+prowess with his own hands. Forthwith he rode at him, and each attacked
+the other passing fiercely; till at the last, Lucius struck King Arthur
+with a fearful wound across the face, and Arthur, in return, lifting up
+Excalibur on high, drove it with all his force upon the Emperor's head,
+shivering his helmet, crashing his head in halves, and splitting his body
+to the breast. And when the Romans saw their Emperor dead they fled in
+hosts of thousands; and King Arthur and his knights, and all his army
+followed them, and slew one hundred thousand men.
+
+Then returning to the field, King Arthur rode to the place where Lucius
+lay dead, and round him the kings of Egypt and Ethiopia, and seventeen
+other kings, with sixty Roman senators, all noble men. All these he
+ordered to be carefully embalmed with aromatic gums, and laid in leaden
+coffins, covered with their shields and arms and banners. Then calling for
+three senators who were taken prisoners, he said to them, "As the ransom
+of your lives, I will that ye take these dead bodies and carry them to
+Rome, and there present them for me, with these letters saying I will
+myself be shortly there. And I suppose the Romans will beware how they
+again ask tribute of me; for tell them, these dead bodies that I send them
+are for the tribute they have dared to ask of me; and if they wish for
+more, when I come I will pay them the rest."
+
+So, with that charge, the three senators departed with the dead bodies,
+and went to Rome; the body of the Emperor being carried in a chariot
+blazoned with the arms of the empire, all alone, and the bodies of the
+kings two and two in chariots following.
+
+After the battle, King Arthur entered Lorraine, Brabant, and Flanders, and
+thence, subduing all the countries as he went, passed into Germany, and so
+beyond the mountains into Lombardy and Tuscany. At length he came before a
+city which refused to obey him, wherefore he sat down before it to besiege
+it. And after a long time thus spent, King Arthur called Sir Florence,
+and told him they began to lack food for his hosts--"And not far from
+hence," said he, "are great forests full of cattle belonging to my
+enemies. Go then, and bring by force all that thou canst find; and take
+with thee Sir Gawain, my nephew, and Sir Clegis, Sir Claremond the Captain
+of Cardiff, and a strong band."
+
+Anon, those knights made ready, and rode over holts and hills, and through
+forests and woods, till they came to a great meadow full of fair flowers
+and grass, and there they rested themselves and their horses that night.
+And at the dawn of the next day, Sir Gawain took his horse and rode away
+from his fellows to seek some adventure. Soon he saw an armed knight
+walking his horse by a wood's side, with his shield laced to his shoulder,
+and no attendant with him save a page, bearing a mighty spear; and on his
+shield were blazoned three gold griffins. When Sir Gawain spied him, he
+put his spear in rest, and riding straight to him, asked who he was. "A
+Tuscan," said he; "and they mayest prove me when thou wilt, for thou shalt
+be my prisoner ere we part."
+
+Then said Sir Gawain, "Thou vauntest thee greatly, and speakest proud
+words; yet I counsel thee, for all thy boastings, look to thyself the best
+thou canst."
+
+At that they took their spears and ran at each other with all the might
+they had, and smote each other through their shields into their shoulders;
+and then drawing swords smote with great strokes, till the fire sprang out
+of their helms. Then was Sir Gawain enraged, and with his good sword
+Galotine struck his enerny through shield and hauberk, and splintered into
+pieces all the precious stones of it, and made so huge a wound that men
+might see both lungs and liver. At that the Tuscan, groaning loudly,
+rushed on to Sir Gawain, and gave him a deep slanting stroke, and made a
+mighty wound and cut a great vein asunder, so that he bled fast. Then he
+cried out, "Bind thy wound quickly up, Sir knight, for thou be-bloodest
+all thy horse and thy fair armour, and all the surgeons of the world shall
+never staunch thy blood; for so shall it be to whomsoever is hurt with
+this good sword."
+
+Then answered Sir Gawain, "It grieveth me but little, and thy boastful
+words give me no fear, for thou shalt suffer greater grief and sorrow ere
+we part; but tell me quickly who can staunch this blood."
+
+"That can I do," said the strange knight, "and will, if thou wilt aid and
+succour me to become christened, and to believe on God, which now I do
+require of thee upon thy manhood."
+
+"I am content," said Sir Gawain; "and may God help me to grant all thy
+wishes. But tell mefirst, what soughtest thou thus here alone, and of what
+land art thou?"
+
+"Sir," said the knight, "my name is Prianius, and my father is a great
+prince, who hath rebelled against Rome. He is descended from Alexander and
+Hector, and of our lineage also were Joshua and Maccabaeus. I am of right
+the king of Alexandria, and Africa, and all the outer isles, yet I would
+believe in the Lord thou worshippest, and for thy labour I will give thee
+treasure enough. I was so proud in heart that I thought none my equal, but
+now have I encountered with thee, who hast given me my fill of fighting;
+wherefore, I pray thee, Sir knight, tell me of thyself."
+
+"I am no knight," said Sir Gawain; "I have been brought up many years in
+the wardrobe of the noble prince King Arthur, to mind his armour and
+array."
+
+"Ah," said Prianius, "if his varlets be so keen and fierce, his knights
+must be passing good! Now, for the love of heaven, whether thou be knight
+or knave, tell me thy name."
+
+"By heaven!" said Gawain, "now will I tell thee the truth. My name is Sir
+Gawain, and I am a knight of the Round Table."
+
+"Now am I better pleased," said Prianius, "than if thou hadst given me all
+the province of Paris the rich. I had rather have been torn by wild horses
+than that any varlet should have won such victory over me as thou hast
+done. But now, Sir knight, I warn thee that close by is the Duke of
+Lorraine, with sixty thousand good men of war; and we had both best flee
+at once, for he will find us else, and we be sorely wounded and never
+likely to recover. And let my page be careful that he blow no horn, for
+hard by are a hundred knights, my servants; and if they seize thee, no
+ransom of gold or silver would acquit thee."
+
+Then Sir Gawain rode over a river to save himself, and Sir Prianius after
+him, and so they both fled till they came to his companions who were in
+the meadow, where they spent the night. When Sir Whishard saw Sir Gawain
+so hurt, he ran to him weeping, and asked him who it was had wounded him;
+and Sir Gawain told him how he had fought with that man--pointing to
+Prianius--who had salves to heal them both. "But I can tell ye other
+tidings," said he--"that soon we must encounter many enemies, for a great
+army is close to us in our front."
+
+Then Prianius and Sir Gawain alighted and let their horses graze while
+they unarmed, and when they took their armour and their clothing off, the
+hot blood ran down freshly from their wounds till it was piteous to see.
+But Prianius took from his page a vial filled from the four rivers that
+flow out of Paradise, and anointed both their wounds with a certain balm,
+and washed them with that water, and within an hour afterwards they were
+both as sound and whole as ever they had been. Then, at the sound of a
+trumpet, all the knights were assembled to council; and after much
+talking, Prianius said, "Cease your words, for I warn you in yonder wood
+ye shall find knights out of number, who will put out cattle for a decoy
+to lead you on; and ye are not seven hundred!"
+
+"Nevertheless," said Sir Gawain, "let us at once encounter them, and see
+what they can do; and may the best have the victory."
+
+Then they saw suddenly an earl named Sir Ethelwold, and the Duke of
+Duchmen come leaping out of ambush of the woods in front, with many a
+thousand after them, and all rode straight down to the battle. And Sir
+Gawain, full of ardour and courage, comforted his knights, saying, "They
+all are ours." Then the seven hundred knights, in one close company, set
+spurs to their horses and began to gallop, and fiercely met their enemies.
+And then were men and horses slain and overthrown on every side, and in
+and out amidst them all, the knights of the Round Table pressed and
+thrust, and smote down to the earth all who withstood them, till at length
+the whole of them turned back and fled.
+
+"By heaven!" said Sir Gawain, "this gladdeneth well my heart, for now
+behold them as they flee! they are full seventy thousand less in number
+than they were an hour ago!"
+
+Thus was the battle quickly ended, and a great host of high lords and
+knights of Lombardy and Saracens left dead upon the field. Then Sir Gawain
+and his company collected a great plenty of cattle, and of gold and
+silver, and all kind of treasure, and returned to King Arthur, where he
+still kept the siege.
+
+"Now God be thanked," cried he; "but who is he that standeth yonder by
+himself, and seemeth not a prisoner?"
+
+"Sir," said Sir Gawain, "he is a good man with his weapons, and hath
+matched me; but cometh hither to be made a Christian. Had it not been for
+his warnings, we none of us should have been here this day. I pray thee,
+therefore, let him be baptized, for there can be few nobler men, or better
+knights."
+
+So Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the Round Table.
+
+[Illustration: Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the
+Round Table.]
+
+Presently afterwards, they made a last attack upon the city, and entered
+by the walls on every side; and as the men were rushing to the pillage,
+came the Duchess forth, with many ladies and damsels, and kneeled before
+King Arthur; and besought him to receive their submission. To whom the
+king made answer, with a noble countenance, "Madam, be well assured that
+none shall harm ye, or your ladies; neither shall any that belong to thee
+be hurt; but the Duke must abide my judgment." Then he commanded to stay
+the assault and took the keys from the Duke's eldest son, who brought them
+kneeling. Anon the Duke was sent a prisoner to Dover for his life, and
+rents and taxes were assigned for dowry of the Duchess and her children.
+
+Then went he on with all his hosts, winning all towns and castles, and
+wasting them that refused obedience, till he came to Viterbo. From thence
+he sent to Rome, to ask the senators whether they would receive him for
+their lord and governor. In answer, came out to him all the Senate who
+remained alive, and the Cardinals, with a majestic retinue and procession;
+and laying great treasures at his feet, they prayed him to come in at once
+to Rome, and there be peaceably crowned as Emperor. "At this next
+Christmas," said King Arthur, "will I be crowned, and hold my Round Table
+in your city."
+
+Anon he entered Rome, in mighty pomp and state; and after him came all his
+hosts, and his knights, and princes, and great lords, arrayed in gold and
+jewels, such as never were beheld before. And then was he crowned Emperor
+by the Pope's hands, with all the highest solemnity that could be made.
+
+Then after his coronation, he abode in Rome for a season, settling his
+lands and giving kingdoms to his knights and servants, to each one after
+his deserving, and in such wise fashion that no man among them all
+complained. Also he made many dukes and earls, and loaded all his
+men-at-arms with riches and great treasures.
+
+When all this was done, the lords and knights, and all the men of great
+estate, came together before him, and said, "Noble Emperor! by the
+blessing of Eternal God, thy mortal warfare is all finished, and thy
+conquests all achieved; for now in all the world is none so great and
+mighty as to dare make war with thee. Wherefore we beseech and heartily
+pray thee of thy noble grace, to turn thee homeward, and to give us also
+leave to see our wives and homes again, for now we have been from them a
+long season, and all thy journey is completed with great honour and
+worship."
+
+"Ye say well," replied he, "and to tempt God is no wisdom; therefore make
+ready in all haste, and turn we home to England."
+
+So King Arthur returned with his knights and lords and armies, in great
+triumph and joy, through all the countries he had conquered, and commanded
+that no man, upon pain of death, should rob or do any violence by the way.
+And crossing the sea, he came at length to Sandwich, where Queen Guinevere
+received him, and made great joy at his arrival. And through all the realm
+of Britain was there such rejoicing as no tongue can tell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_The Adventures of Sir Lancelot du Lake_
+
+
+Then, at the following Pentecost, was held a feast of the Round Table at
+Caerleon, with high splendour; and all the knights thereof resorted to the
+court, and held many games and jousts. And therein Sir Lancelot increased
+in fame and worship above all men, for he overthrew all comers, and never
+was unhorsed or worsted, save by treason and enchantment.
+
+When Queen Guinevere had seen his wondrous feats, she held him in great
+favour, and smiled more on him than on any other knight. And ever since he
+first had gone to bring her to King Arthur, had Lancelot thought on her as
+fairest of all ladies, and done his best to win her grace. So the queen
+often sent for him, and bade him tell of his birth and strange adventures:
+how he was only son of great King Ban of Brittany, and how, one night, his
+father, with his mother Helen and himself, fled from his burning castle;
+how his father, groaning deeply, fell to the ground and died of grief and
+wounds, and how his mother, running to her husband, left himself alone;
+how, as he thus lay wailing, came the lady of the lake, and took him in
+her arms and went with him into the midst of the waters, where, with his
+cousins Lionel and Bors he had been cherished all his childhood until he
+came to King Arthur's court; and how this was the reason why men called
+him Lancelot du Lake.
+
+Anon it was ordained by King Arthur, that in every year at Pentecost there
+should be held a festival of all the knights of the Round Table at
+Caerleon, or such other place as he should choose. And at those festivals
+should be told publicly the most famous adventures of any knight during
+the past year.
+
+So, when Sir Lancelot saw Queen Guinevere rejoiced to hear his wanderings
+and adventures, he resolved to set forth yet again, and win more worship
+still, that he might more increase her favour. Then he bade his cousin Sir
+Lionel make ready, "for," said he, "we two will seek adventure." So they
+mounted their horses--armed at all points--and rode into a vast forest;
+and when they had passed through it, they came to a great plain, and the
+weather being very hot about noontide, Sir Lancelot greatly longed to
+sleep. Then Sir Lionel espied a great apple-tree standing by a hedge, and
+said, "Brother, yonder is a fair shadow where we may rest ourselves and
+horses."
+
+"I am full glad of it," said Sir Lancelot, "for all these seven years I
+have not been so sleepy."
+
+So they alighted there, and tied their horses up to sundry trees; and Sir
+Lionel waked and watched while Sir Lancelot fell asleep, and slept passing
+fast.
+
+In the meanwhile came three knights, riding as fast flying as ever they
+could ride, and after them followed a single knight; but when Sir Lionel
+looked at him, he thought he had never seen so great and strong a man, or
+so well furnished and apparelled. Anon he saw him overtake the last of
+those who fled, and smite him to the ground; then came he to the second,
+and smote him such a stroke that horse and man went to the earth; then
+rode he to the third, likewise, and struck him off his horse more than a
+spear's length. With that he lighted from his horse, and bound all three
+knights fast with the reins of their own bridles.
+
+When Sir Lionel saw this he thought the time was come to prove himself
+against him, so quietly and cautiously, lest he should wake Sir Lancelot,
+he took his horse and mounted and rode after him. Presently overtaking
+him, he cried aloud to him to turn, which instantly he did, and smote Sir
+Lionel so hard that horse and man went down forthwith. Then took he up Sir
+Lionel, and threw him bound over his own horse's back; and so he served
+the three other knights, and rode them away to his own castle. There they
+were disarmed, stripped naked, and beaten with thorns, and afterwards
+thrust into a deep prison, where many more knights, also, made great moans
+and lamentations, saying, "Alas, alas! there is no man can help us but Sir
+Lancelot, for no other knight can match this tyrant Turquine, our
+conqueror."
+
+But all this while, Sir Lancelot lay sleeping soundly under the
+apple-tree. And, as it chanced, there passed that way four queens, of high
+estate, riding upon four white mules, under four canopies of green silk
+borne on spears, to keep them from the sun. As they rode thus, they heard
+a great horse grimly neigh, and, turning them about, soon saw a sleeping
+knight that lay all armed under an apple-tree; and when they saw his
+face, they knew it was Lancelot of the Lake.
+
+Then they began to strive which of them should have the care of him. But
+Queen Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's half sister, the great sorceress, was
+one of them, and said "We need not strive for him, I have enchanted him,
+so that for six hours more he shall not wake. Let us take him to my
+castle, and, when he wakes, himself shall choose which one of us he would
+rather serve." So Sir Lancelot was laid upon his shield and borne on
+horseback between two knights, to the castle, and there laid in a cold
+chamber, till the spell should pass.
+
+Anon, they sent him a fair damsel, bearing his supper, who asked him,
+"What cheer?"
+
+"I cannot tell, fair damsel," said he, "for I know not how I came into
+this castle, if it were not by enchantment."
+
+"Sir," said she, "be of good heart, and to-morrow at the dawn of day, ye
+shall know more."
+
+And so she left him alone, and there he lay all night. In the morning
+early came the four queens to him, passing richly dressed; and said, "Sir
+knight, thou must understand that thou art our prisoner, and that we know
+thee well for King Ban's son, Sir Lancelot du Lake. And though we know
+full well there is one lady only in this world may have thy love, and she
+Queen Guinevere--King Arthur's wife--yet now are we resolved to have thee
+to serve one of us; choose, therefore, of us four which thou wilt serve. I
+am Queen Morgan le Fay, Queen of the land of Gore, and here also is the
+Queen of Northgales, and the Queen of Eastland, and the Queen of the Out
+Isles. Choose, then, at once, for else shall thou abide here, in this
+prison, till thy death."
+
+"It is a hard case," said Sir Lancelot, "that either I must die, or choose
+one of you for my mistress! Yet had I rather die in this prison than serve
+any living creature against my will. So take this for my answer. I will
+serve none of ye, for ye be false enchantresses. And as for my lady, Queen
+Guinevere, whom lightly ye have spoken of, were I at liberty I would prove
+it upon you or upon yours she is the truest lady living to her lord the
+king."
+
+"Well," said the queen, "is this your answer, that ye refuse us all?"
+
+"Yea, on my life," said Lancelot, "refused ye be of me."
+
+So they departed from him in great wrath, and left him sorrowfully
+grieving in his dungeon.
+
+At noon the damsel came to him and brought his dinner, and asked him as
+before, "What cheer?"
+
+"Truly, fair damsel," said Sir Lancelot, "in all my life never so ill."
+
+"Sir," replied she, "I grieve to see ye so, but if ye do as I advise, I
+can help ye out of this distress, and will do so if you promise me a
+boon."
+
+"Fair damsel," said Sir Lancelot, "right willingly will I grant it thee,
+for sorely do I dread these four witch-queens, who have destroyed and
+slain many a good knight with their enchantments."
+
+Then said the damsel, "Sir, wilt thou promise me to help my father on next
+Tuesday, for he hath a tournament with the King of Northgales, and last
+Tuesday lost the field through three knights of King Arthur's court, who
+came against him. And if next Tuesday thou wilt aid him, to-morrow,
+before daylight, by God's grace, I will deliver thee."
+
+"Fair maiden," said Sir Lancelot, "tell me thy father's name and I will
+answer thee."
+
+"My father is King Bagdemagus," said she.
+
+"I know him well," replied Sir Lancelot, "for a noble king and a good
+knight; and by the faith of my body I will do him all the service I am
+able on that day."
+
+"Grammercy to thee, Sir knight," said the damsel.
+
+"To-morrow, when thou art delivered from this place, ride ten miles hence
+unto an abbey of white monks, and there abide until I bring my father to
+thee."
+
+"So be it," said Sir Lancelot, "as I am a true knight."
+
+So she departed, and on the morrow, early, came again, and let him out of
+twelve gates, differently locked, and brought him to his armour; and when
+he was all armed, she brought him his horse also, and lightly he saddled
+him, and took a great spear in his hand, and mounted and rode forth,
+saying, as he went, "Fair damsel, I shall not fail thee, by the grace of
+God."
+
+And all that day he rode in a great forest, and could find no highway, and
+spent the night in the wood; but the next morning found his road, and came
+to the abbey of white monks. And there he saw King Bagdemagus and his
+daughter waiting for him. So when they were together in a chamber, Sir
+Lancelot told the king how he had been betrayed by an enchantment, and how
+his brother Lionel was gone he knew not where, and how the damsel had
+delivered him from the castle of Queen Morgan le Fay. "Wherefore while I
+live," said he, "I shall do service to herself and all her kindred."
+
+"Then am I sure of thy aid," said the king, "on Tuesday now next coming?"
+
+"Yea, sir, I shall not fail thee," said Sir Lancelot; "but what knights
+were they who last week defeated thee, and took part with the King of
+Northgales?"
+
+"Sir Mador de la Port, Sir Modred, and Sir Gahalatine," replied the king.
+
+"Sir," said Sir Lancelot, "as I understand, the tournament shall take
+place but three miles from this abbey; send then to me here, three knights
+of thine, the best thou hast, and let them all have plain white shields,
+such as I also will; then will we four come suddenly into the midst
+between both parties, and fall upon thy enemies, and grieve them all we
+can, and none will know us who we are."
+
+So, on the Tuesday, Sir Lancelot and the three knights lodged themselves
+in a small grove hard by the lists. Then came into the field the King of
+Northgales, with one hundred and sixty helms, and the three knights of
+King Arthur's court, who stood apart by themselves. And when King
+Bagdemagus had arrived, with eighty helms, both companies set all their
+spears in rest and came together with a mighty clash, wherein were slain
+twelve knights of King Bagdemagus, and six of the King of Northgales; and
+the party of King Bagdemagus was driven back.
+
+With that, came Sir Lancelot, and thrust into the thickest of the press,
+and smote down with one spear five knights, and brake the backs of four,
+and cast down the King of Northgales, and brake his thigh by the fall.
+When the three knights of Arthur's court saw this, they rode at Sir
+Lancelot, and each after other attacked him; but he overthrew them all,
+and smote them nigh to death. Then taking a new spear, he bore down to the
+ground sixteen more knights, and hurt them all so sorely, that they could
+carry arms no more that day. And when his spear at length was broken, he
+took yet another, and smote down twelve knights more, the most of whom he
+wounded mortally, till in the end the party of the King of Northgales
+would joust no more, and the victory was cried to King Bagdemagus.
+
+[Illustration: Sir Lancelot smote down with one spear five knights, and
+brake the backs of four, and cast down the King of Northgales.]
+
+Then Sir Lancelot rode forth with King Bagdemagus to his castle, and there
+he feasted with great cheer and welcome, and received many royal gifts.
+And on the morrow he took leave and went to find his brother Lionel.
+
+Anon, by chance, he came to the same forest where the four queens had
+found him sleeping, and there he met a damsel riding on a white palfrey.
+When they had saluted each other, Sir Lancelot said, "Fair damsel, knowest
+thou where any adventures may be had in this country?"
+
+"Sir knight," said she, "there are adventures great enough close by if
+thou darest prove them."
+
+"Why should I not," said he, "since for that cause I came here?"
+
+"Sir," said the damsel, "hard by this place there dwelleth a knight that
+cannot be defeated by any man, so great and perilously strong he is. His
+name is Sir Turquine, and in the prisons of his castle lie three score
+knights and four, mostly from King Arthur's court, whom he hath taken with
+his own hands. But promise me, ere thou undertakest their deliverance, to
+go and help me afterwards, and free me and many other ladies that are
+distressed by a false knight." "Bring me but to this felon Turquine,"
+quoth Sir Lancelot, "and I will afterwards fulfil all your wishes."
+
+So the damsel went before, and brought him to a ford, and a tree whereon a
+great brass basin hung; and Sir Lancelot beat with his spear-end upon the
+basin, long and hard, until he beat the bottom of it out, but he saw
+nothing. Then he rode to and fro before the castle gates for well-nigh
+half an hour, and anon saw a great knight riding from the distance,
+driving a horse before him, across which hung an armed man bound. And when
+they came near, Sir Lancelot knew the prisoner for a knight of the Round
+Table. By that time, the great knight who drove the prisoner saw Sir
+Lancelot, and each of them began to settle his spear, and to make ready.
+
+"Fair sir," then said Sir Lancelot, "put off that wounded knight, I pray
+thee, from his horse, and let him rest while thou and I shall prove our
+strength upon each other; for, as I am told, thou doest, and hast done,
+great shame and injury to knights of the Round Table. Wherefore, I warn
+thee now, defend thyself."
+
+"If thou mayest be of the Round Table," answered Turquine, "I defy thee,
+and all thy fellows."
+
+"That is saying overmuch," said Sir Lancelot.
+
+Then, setting their lances in rest, they spurred their horses towards each
+other, as fast as they could go, and smote so fearfully upon each other's
+shields, that both their horses' backs brake under them. As soon as they
+could clear their saddles, they took their shields before them, and drew
+their swords, and came together eagerly, and fought with great and
+grievous strokes; and soon they both had many grim and fearful wounds, and
+bled in streams. Thus they fought two hours and more, thrusting and
+smiting at each other, wherever they could hit.
+
+Anon, they both were breathless, and stood leaning on their swords.
+
+"Now, comrade," said Sir Turquine, "let us wait awhile, and answer me what
+I shall ask thee."
+
+"Say on," said Lancelot.
+
+"Thou art," said Turquine, "the best man I ever met, and seemest like one
+that I hate above all other knights that live; but if thou be not he, I
+will make peace with thee, and for sake of thy great valour, will deliver
+all the three score prisoners and four who lie within my dungeons, and
+thou and I will be companions evermore. Tell me, then, thy name."
+
+"Thou sayest well," replied Sir Lancelot; "but who is he thou hatest so
+above all others?"
+
+"His name," said Turquine, "is Sir Lancelot of the Lake; and he slew my
+brother Sir Carados, at the dolorous tower; wherefore, if ever I shall
+meet with him, one of us two shall slay the other; and thereto I have
+sworn by a great oath. And to discover and destroy him I have slain a
+hundred knights, and crippled utterly as many more, and many have died in
+my prisons; and now, as I have told thee, I have many more therein, who
+all shall be delivered, if thou tell me thy name, and it be not Sir
+Lancelot."
+
+"Well," said Lancelot, "I am that knight, son of King Ban of Benwick, and
+Knight of the Round Table; so now I defy thee to do thy best!"
+
+"Aha!" said Turquine, with a shout, "is it then so at last! Thou art more
+welcome to my sword than ever knight or lady was to feast, for never
+shall we part till one of us be dead."
+
+Then did they hurtle together like two wild bulls, slashing and lashing
+with their shields and swords, and sometimes falling both on to the
+ground. For two more hours they fought so, and at the last Sir Turquine
+grew very faint, and gave a little back, and bare his shield full low for
+weariness. When Sir Lancelot saw him thus, he leaped upon him fiercely as
+a lion, and took him by the crest of his helmet, and dragged him to his
+knees; and then he tore his helmet off and smote his neck asunder.
+
+Then he arose, and went to the damsel who had brought him to Sir Turquine,
+and said, "I am ready, fair lady, to go with thee upon thy service, but I
+have no horse."
+
+"Fair sir," said she, "take ye this horse of the wounded knight whom
+Turquine but just now was carrying to his prisons, and send that knight on
+to deliver all the prisoners."
+
+So Sir Lancelot went to the knight and prayed him for the loan of his
+horse.
+
+"Fair lord," said he, "ye are right welcome, for to-day ye have saved both
+me and my horse; and I see that ye are the best knight in all the world,
+for in my sight have ye slain the mightiest man and the best knight,
+except thyself, I ever saw."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Lancelot, "I thank thee well; and now go into yonder
+castle, where thou shall find many noble knights of the Round Table, for I
+have seen their shields hung on the trees around. On yonder tree alone
+there are Sir Key's, Sir Brandel's, Sir Marhaus', Sir Galind's, and Sir
+Aliduke's, and many more; and also my two kinsmen's shields, Sir Ector de
+Maris' and Sir Lionel's. And I pray you greet them all from me, Sir
+Lancelot of the Lake, and tell them that I bid them help themselves to any
+treasures they can find within the castle; and that I pray my brethren,
+Lionel and Ector, to go to King Arthur's court and stay there till I come.
+And by the high feast at Pentecost I must be there; but now I must ride
+forth with this damsel to fulfil my promise."
+
+So, as they went, the damsel told him, "Sir, we are now near the place
+where the foul knight haunteth, who robbeth and distresseth all ladies and
+gentlewomen travelling past this way, against whom I have sought thy aid."
+
+Then they arranged that she should ride on foremost, and Sir Lancelot
+should follow under cover of the trees by the roadside, and if he saw her
+come to any mishap, he should ride forth and deal with him that troubled
+her. And as the damsel rode on at a soft ambling pace, a knight and page
+burst forth from the roadside and forced the damsel from her horse, till
+she cried out for help.
+
+Then came Sir Lancelot rushing through the wood as fast as he might fly,
+and all the branches of the trees crackled and waved around him. "O thou
+false knight and traitor to all knighthood!" shouted he, "who taught thee
+to distress fair ladies thus?"
+
+The foul knight answered nothing, but drew out his sword and rode at Sir
+Lancelot, who threw his spear away and drew his own sword likewise, and
+struck him such a mighty blow as clave his head down to the throat. "Now
+hast thou the wages thou long hast earned!" said he; and so departed from
+the damsel.
+
+Then for two days he rode in a great forest, and had but scanty food and
+lodging, and on the third day he rode over a long bridge, when suddenly
+there started up a passing foul churl, and smote his horse across the
+nose, so that he started and turned back, rearing with pain. "Why ridest
+thou over here without my leave?" said he.
+
+"Why should I not?" said Sir Lancelot; "there is no other way to ride."
+
+"Thou shalt not pass by here," cried out the churl, and dashed at him with
+a great club full of iron spikes, till Sir Lancelot was fain to draw his
+sword and smite him dead upon the earth.
+
+At the end of the bridge was a fair village, and all the people came and
+cried, "Ah, sir! a worse deed for thyself thou never didst, for thou hast
+slain the chief porter of the castle yonder!" But he let them talk as they
+pleased, and rode straight forward to the castle.
+
+There he alighted, and tied his horse to a ring in the wall; and going in,
+he saw a wide green court, and thought it seemed a noble place to fight
+in. And as he looked about, he saw many people watching him from doors and
+windows, making signs of warning, and saying, "Fair knight, thou art
+unhappy." In the next moment came upon him two great giants, well armed
+save their heads, and with two horrible clubs in their hands. Then he put
+his shield before him, and with it warded off one giant's stroke, and
+clove the other with his sword from the head downward to the chest. When
+the first giant saw that, he ran away mad with fear; but Sir Lancelot ran
+after him, and smote him through the shoulder, and shore him down his
+back, so that he fell dead.
+
+Then he walked onward to the castle hall, and saw a band of sixty ladies
+and young damsels coming forth, who knelt to him, and thanked him for
+their freedom. "For, sir," said they, "the most of us have been prisoners
+here these seven years; and have been kept at all manner of work to earn
+our meat, though we be all great gentlewomen born. Blessed be the time
+that thou wast born, for never did a knight a deed of greater worship than
+thou hast this day, and thereto will we all bear witness in all times and
+places! Tell us, therefore, noble knight, thy name and court, that we may
+tell them to our friends!" And when they heard it, they all cried aloud,
+"Well may it be so, for we knew that no knight save thou shouldst ever
+overcome those giants; and many a long day have we sighed for thee; for
+the giants feared no other name among all knights but thine."
+
+Then he told them to take the treasures of the castle as a reward for
+their grievances, and to return to their homes, and so rode away into many
+strange and wild countries. And at last, after many days, by chance he
+came, near the night time, to a fair mansion, wherein he found an old
+gentlewoman, who gave him and his horse good cheer. And when bed time was
+come, his host brought him to a chamber over a gate, and there he unarmed,
+and went to bed and fell asleep.
+
+But soon thereafter came one riding in great haste, and knocking
+vehemently at the gate below, which when Sir Lancelot heard, he rose and
+looked out of the window, and, by the moonlight, saw three knights come
+riding fiercely after one man, and lashing on him all at once with their
+swords, while the one knight nobly fought all.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot quickly armed himself, and getting through the window,
+let himself down by a sheet into the midst of them, crying out, "Turn ye
+on me, ye cowards, and leave fighting with that knight!" Then they all
+left Sir Key, for the first knight was he, and began to fall upon Sir
+Lancelot furiously. And when Sir Key would have come forward to assist
+him, Sir Lancelot refused, and cried, "Leave me alone to deal with them."
+And presently, with six great strokes, he felled them all.
+
+Then they cried out, "Sir knight, we yield us unto thee, as to a man of
+might!"
+
+"I will not take your yielding!" said he; "yield ye to Sir Key, the
+seneschal, or I will have your lives."
+
+"Fair knight," said they, "excuse us in that thing, for we have chased Sir
+Key thus far, and should have overcome him but for thee."
+
+"Well," said Sir Lancelot, "do as ye will, for ye may live or die; but, if
+ye live, ye shall be holden to Sir Key."
+
+Then they yielded to him; and Sir Lancelot commanded them to go unto King
+Arthur's court at the next Pentecost, and say, Sir Key had sent them
+prisoners to Queen Guinevere. And this they sware to do upon their swords.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot knocked at the gate with his sword-hilt till his hostess
+came and let him in again, and Sir Key also. And when the light came, Sir
+Key knew Sir Lancelot, and knelt and thanked him for his courtesy, and
+gentleness, and kindness. "Sir," said he, "I have done no more than what I
+ought to do, and ye are welcome; therefore let us now take rest."
+
+So when Sir Key had supped, they went to sleep, and Sir Lancelot and he
+slept in the same bed. On the morrow, Sir Lancelot rose early, and took
+Sir Key's shield and armour and set forth. When Sir Key arose, he found
+Sir Lancelot's armour by his bedside, and his own arms gone. "Now, by my
+faith," thought he, "I know that he will grieve some knights of our king's
+court; for those who meet him will be bold to joust with him, mistaking
+him for me, while I, dressed in his shield and armour, shall surely ride
+in peace."
+
+Then Sir Lancelot, dressed in Sir Key's apparel, rode long in a great
+forest, and came at last to a low country, full of rivers and fair
+meadows, and saw a bridge before him, whereon were three silk tents of
+divers colours, and to each tent was hung a white shield, and by each
+shield stood a knight. So Sir Lancelot went by without speaking a word.
+And when he had passed, the three knights said it was the proud Sir Key,
+"who thinketh no knight equal to himself, although the contrary is full
+often proved upon him."
+
+"By my faith!" said one of them, named Gaunter, "I will ride after and
+attack him for all his pride, and ye shall watch my speed."
+
+Then, taking shield and spear, he mounted and rode after Sir Lancelot, and
+cried, "Abide, proud knight, and turn, for thou shalt not pass free!"
+
+So Sir Lancelot turned, and each one put his spear in rest and came with
+all his might against the other. And Sir Gaunter's spear brake short, but
+Sir Lancelot smote him down, both horse and man.
+
+When the other knights saw this, they said, "Yonder is not Sir Key, but a
+bigger man."
+
+"I dare wager my head," said Sir Gilmere, "yonder knight hath slain Sir
+Key, and taken his horse and harness."
+
+"Be it so, or not," said Sir Reynold, the third brother; "let us now go to
+our brother Gaunter's rescue; we shall have enough to do to match that
+knight, for, by his stature, I believe it is Sir Lancelot or Sir
+Tristram."
+
+Anon, they took their horses and galloped after Sir Lancelot; and Sir
+Gilmere first assailed him, but was smitten down forthwith, and lay
+stunned on the earth. Then said Sir Reynold, "Sir knight, thou art a
+strong man, and, I believe, hast slain my two brothers, wherefore my heart
+is sore against thee; yet, if I might with honour, I would avoid thee.
+Nevertheless, that cannot be, so keep thyself." And so they hurtled
+together with all their might, and each man shivered his spear to pieces;
+and then they drew their swords and lashed out eagerly.
+
+And as they fought, Sir Gaunter and Sir Gilmere presently arose and
+mounted once again, and came down at full tilt upon Sir Lancelot. But,
+when he saw them coming, he put forth all his strength, and struck Sir
+Reynold off his horse. Then, with two other strokes, he served the others
+likewise.
+
+Anon, Sir Reynold crept along the ground, with his head all bloody, and
+came towards Sir Lancelot. "It is enough," said Lancelot, "I was not far
+from thee when thou wast made a knight, Sir Reynold, and know thee for a
+good and valiant man, and was full loth to slay thee."
+
+"Grammercy for thy gentleness!" said Sir Reynold. "I and my brethren will
+straightway yield to thee when we know thy name, for well we know that
+thou art not Sir Key."
+
+"As for that," said Sir Lancelot, "be it as it may, but ye shall yield to
+Queen Guinevere at the next feast of Pentecost as prisoners, and say that
+Sir Key sent ye."
+
+Then they swore to him it should be done as he commanded. And so Sir
+Lancelot passed on, and the three brethren helped each other's wounds as
+best they might.
+
+Then rode Sir Lancelot forward into a deep forest, and came upon four
+knights of King Arthur's court, under an oak tree--Sir Sagramour, Sir
+Ector, Sir Gawain, and Sir Ewaine. And when they spied him, they thought
+he was Sir Key. "Now by my faith," said Sir Sagramour, "I will prove Sir
+Key's might!" and taking his spear he rode towards Sir Lancelot.
+
+But Sir Lancelot was aware of him, and, setting his spear in rest, smote
+him so sorely, that horse and man fell to the earth.
+
+"Lo!" cried Sir Ector, "I see by the buffet that knight hath given our
+fellow he is stronger than Sir Key. Now will I try what I can do against
+him!" So Sir Ector took his spear, and galloped at Sir Lancelot; and Sir
+Lancelot met him as he came, and smote him through shield and shoulder, so
+that he fell, but his own spear was not broken.
+
+"By my faith," cried Sir Ewaine, "yonder is a strong knight, and must have
+slain Sir Key, and taken his armour! By his strength, I see it will be
+hard to match him." So saying he rode towards Sir Lancelot, who met him
+halfway and struck him so fiercely, that at one blow he overthrew him
+also.
+
+"Now," said Sir Gawain, "will I encounter him." So he took a good spear in
+his hand, and guarded himself with his shield. And he and Sir Lancelot
+rode against each other, with their horses at full speed, and furiously
+smote each other on the middle of their shields; but Sir Gawain's spear
+broke short asunder, and Sir Lancelot charged so mightily upon him, that
+his horse and he both fell, and rolled upon the ground.
+
+"Ah," said Sir Lancelot, smiling, as he rode away from the four knights,
+"heaven give joy to him who made this spear, for never held I better in my
+hand."
+
+But the four knights said to each other, "Truly one spear hath felled us
+all."
+
+"I dare lay my life," said Sir Gawain, "it is Sir Lancelot. I know him by
+his riding."
+
+So they all departed for the court.
+
+And as Sir Lancelot rode still in the forest, he saw a black bloodhound,
+running with its head towards the ground, as if it tracked a deer. And
+following after it, he came to a great pool of blood. But the hound, ever
+and anon looking behind, ran through a great marsh, and over a bridge,
+towards an old manor house. So Sir Lancelot followed, and went into the
+hall, and saw a dead knight lying there, whose wounds the hound licked.
+And a lady stood behind him, weeping and wringing her hands, who cried, "O
+knight! too great is the sorrow which thou hast brought me!"
+
+"Why say ye so?" replied Sir Lancelot; "for I never harmed this knight,
+and am full sorely grieved to see thy sorrow."
+
+"Nay, sir," said the lady, "I see it is not thou hast slain my husband,
+for he that truly did that deed is deeply wounded, and shall never more
+recover."
+
+"What is thy husband's name?" said Sir Lancelot.
+
+"His name," she answered, "was Sir Gilbert--one of the best knights in all
+the world; but I know not his name who hath slain him."
+
+"God send thee comfort," said Sir Lancelot, and departed again into the
+forest.
+
+And as he rode, he met with a damsel who knew him, who cried out, "Well
+found, my lord! I pray ye of your knighthood help my brother, who is sore
+wounded and ceases not to bleed, for he fought this day with Sir Gilbert,
+and slew him, but was himself well nigh slain. And there is a sorceress,
+who dwelleth in a castle hard by, and she this day hath told me that my
+brother's wound shall never be made whole until I find a knight to go into
+the Chapel Perilous, and bring from thence a sword and the bloody cloth in
+which the wounded knight was wrapped."
+
+"This is a marvellous thing!" said Sir Lancelot; "but what is your
+brother's name?"
+
+"His name, sir," she replied, "is Sir Meliot de Logres."
+
+"He is a Fellow of the Round Table," said Sir Lancelot, "and truly will I
+do my best to help him."
+
+"Then, sir," said she, "follow this way, and it will bring ye to the
+Chapel Perilous. I will abide here till God send ye hither again; for if
+ye speed not, there is no living knight who may achieve that adventure."
+
+So Sir Lancelot departed, and when he came to the Chapel Perilous he
+alighted, and tied his horse to the gate. And as soon as he was within
+the churchyard, he saw on the front of the chapel many shields of knights
+whom he had known, turned upside down. Then saw he in the pathway thirty
+mighty knights, taller than any men whom he had ever seen, all armed in
+black armour, with their swords drawn; and they gnashed their teeth upon
+him as he came. But he put his shield before him, and took his sword in
+hand, ready to do battle with them. And when he would have cut his way
+through them, they scattered on every side and let him pass. Then he went
+into the chapel, and saw therein no light but of a dim lamp burning. Then
+he was aware of a corpse in the midst of the chapel, covered with a silken
+cloth, and so stooped down and cut off a piece of the cloth, whereat the
+earth beneath him trembled. Then saw he a sword lying by the dead knight,
+and taking it in his hand, he hied him from the chapel. As soon as he was
+in the churchyard again, all the thirty knights cried out to him with
+fierce voices, "Sir Lancelot! lay that sword from thee, or thou diest!"
+
+"Whether I live or die," said he, "ye shall fight for it ere ye take it
+from me."
+
+With that they let him pass.
+
+And further on, beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, "Sir
+Lancelot, leave that sword behind thee, or thou diest."
+
+[Illustration: Beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, "Sir
+Lancelot, leave that sword behind thee, or thou diest."]
+
+"I will not leave it," said Sir Lancelot, "for any asking."
+
+"Then, gentle knight," said the damsel, "I pray thee kiss me once."
+
+"Nay," said Sir Lancelot, "that God forbid!"
+
+"Alas!" cried she, "I have lost all my labour! but hadst thou kissed me,
+thy life's days had been all done!"
+
+"Heaven save me from thy subtle crafts!" said Sir Lancelot; and therewith
+took his horse and galloped forth.
+
+And when he was departed, the damsel sorrowed greatly, and died in fifteen
+days. Her name was Ellawes, the sorceress.
+
+Then came Sir Lancelot to Sir Meliot's sister, who, when she saw him,
+clapped her hands and wept for joy, and took him to the castle hard by,
+where Sir Meliot was. And when Sir Lancelot saw Sir Meliot, he knew him,
+though he was pale as ashes for loss of blood. And Sir Meliot, when he saw
+Sir Lancelot, kneeled to him and cried aloud, "O lord, Sir Lancelot! help
+me!"
+
+And thereupon, Sir Lancelot went to him and touched his wounds with the
+sword, and wiped them with the piece of bloody cloth. And immediately he
+was as whole as though he had been never wounded. Then was there great joy
+between him and Sir Meliot; and his sister made Sir Lancelot good cheer.
+So on the morrow, he took his leave, that he might go to King Arthur's
+court, "for," said he, "it draweth nigh the feast of Pentecost, and there,
+by God's grace, shall ye then find me."
+
+And riding through many strange countries, over marshes and valleys, he
+came at length before a castle. As he passed by he heard two little bells
+ringing, and looking up, he saw a falcon flying overhead, with bells tied
+to her feet, and long strings dangling from them. And as the falcon flew
+past an elm-tree, the strings caught in the boughs, so that she could fly
+no further.
+
+In the meanwhile, came a lady from the castle and cried, "Oh, Sir
+Lancelot! as thou art the flower of all knights in the world, help me to
+get my hawk, for she hath slipped away from me, and if she be lost, my
+lord my husband is so hasty, he will surely slay me!"
+
+"What is thy lord's name?" said Sir Lancelot.
+
+"His name," said she, "is Sir Phelot, a knight of the King of Northgales."
+
+"Fair lady," said Sir Lancelot, "since you know my name, and require me,
+on my knighthood, to help you, I will do what I can to get your hawk."
+
+And thereupon alighting, he tied his horse to the same tree, and prayed
+the lady to unarm him. So when he was unarmed, he climbed up and reached
+the falcon, and threw it to the lady.
+
+Then suddenly came down, out of the wood, her husband, Sir Phelot, all
+armed, with a drawn sword in his hand, and said, "Oh, Sir Lancelot! now
+have I found thee as I would have thee!" and stood at the trunk of the
+tree to slay him.
+
+"Ah, lady!" cried Sir Lancelot, "why have ye betrayed me?"
+
+"She hath done as I commanded her," said Sir Phelot, "and thine hour is
+come that thou must die."
+
+"It were shame," said Lancelot, "for an armed to slay an unarmed man."
+
+"Thou hast no other favour from me," said Sir Phelot.
+
+"Alas!" cried Sir Lancelot, "that ever any knight should die weaponless!"
+And looking overhead, he saw a great bough without leaves, and wrenched it
+off the tree, and suddenly leaped down. Then Sir Phelot struck at him
+eagerly, thinking to have slain him, but Sir Lancelot put aside the stroke
+with the bough, and therewith smote him on the side of the head, till he
+fell swooning to the ground. And tearing his sword from out his hands, he
+shore his neck through from the body. Then did the lady shriek dismally,
+and swooned as though she would die. But Sir Lancelot put on his armour,
+and with haste took his horse and departed thence, thanking God he had
+escaped that peril.
+
+And as he rode through a valley, among many wild ways, he saw a knight,
+with a drawn sword, chasing a lady to slay her. And seeing Sir Lancelot,
+she cried and prayed to him to come and rescue her.
+
+At that he went up, saying, "Fie on thee, knight! why wilt thou slay this
+lady? Thou doest shame to thyself and all knights."
+
+"What hast thou to do between me and my wife?" replied the knight. "I will
+slay her in spite of thee."
+
+"Thou shall not harm her," said Sir Lancelot, "till we have first fought
+together."
+
+"Sir," answered the knight, "thou doest ill, for this lady hath betrayed
+me."
+
+"He speaketh falsely," said the lady, "for he is jealous of me without
+cause, as I shall answer before Heaven; but as thou art named the most
+worshipful knight in the world, I pray thee of thy true knighthood to save
+me, for he is without mercy."
+
+"Be of good cheer," said Sir Lancelot; "it shall not lie within his power
+to harm thee."
+
+"Sir," said the knight, "I will be ruled as ye will have me."
+
+So Sir Lancelot rode between the knight and the lady. And when they had
+ridden awhile, the knight cried out suddenly to Sir Lancelot to turn and
+see what men they were who came riding after them; and while Sir Lancelot,
+thinking not of treason, turned to look, the knight, with one great
+stroke, smote off the lady's head.
+
+Then was Sir Lancelot passing wroth, and cried, "Thou traitor! Thou hast
+shamed me for ever!" and, alighting from his horse, he drew his sword to
+have slain him instantly; but the knight fell on the ground and clasped
+Sir Lancelot's knees, and cried out for mercy. "Thou shameful knight,"
+answered Lancelot, "thou mayest have no mercy, for thou showedst none,
+therefore arise and fight with me."
+
+"Nay," said the knight, "I will not rise till thou dost grant me mercy."
+
+"Now will I deal fairly by thee," said Sir Lancelot; "I will unarm me to
+my shirt, and have my sword only in my hand, and if thou canst slay me
+thou shall be quit for ever."
+
+"That will I never do," said the knight.
+
+"Then," answered Sir Lancelot, "take this lady and the head, and bear it
+with thee, and swear to me upon thy sword never to rest until thou comest
+to Queen Guinevere."
+
+"That will I do," said he.
+
+"Now," said Sir Lancelot, "tell me thy name."
+
+"It is Pedivere," answered the knight.
+
+"In a shameful hour wert thou born," said Sir Lancelot.
+
+So Sir Pedivere departed, bearing with him the dead lady and her head. And
+when he came to Winchester, where the Queen was with King Arthur, he told
+them all the truth; and afterwards did great and heavy penance many
+years, and became an holy hermit.
+
+"So, two days before the Feast of Pentecost, Sir Lancelot returned to the
+court, and King Arthur was full glad of his coming. And when Sir Gawain,
+Sir Ewaine, Sir Sagramour, and Sir Ector, saw him in Sir Key's armour,
+they knew well it was he who had smitten them all down with one spear.
+Anon, came all the knights Sir Turquine had taken prisoners, and gave
+worship and honour to Sir Lancelot. Then Sir Key told the King how Sir
+Lancelot had rescued him when he was in near danger of his death; "and,"
+said Sir Key, "he made the knights yield, not to himself, but me. And by
+Heaven! because Sir Lancelot took my armour and left me his, I rode in
+peace, and no man would have aught to do with me." Then came the knights
+who fought with Sir Lancelot at the long bridge and yielded themselves
+also to Sir Key, but he said nay, he had not fought with them. "It is Sir
+Lancelot," said he, "that overcame ye." Next came Sir Meliot de Logres,
+and told King Arthur how Sir Lancelot had saved him from death.
+
+And so all Sir Lancelot's deeds and great adventures were made known; how
+the four sorceress-queens had him in prison; how he was delivered by the
+daughter of King Bagdemagus, and what deeds of arms he did at the
+tournament between the King of North Wales and King Bagdemagus. And so, at
+that festival, Sir Lancelot had the greatest name of any knight in all the
+world, and by high and low was he the most honoured of all men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Adventures of Sir Beaumains or Sir Gareth_
+
+
+Again King Arthur held the Feast of Pentecost, with all the Table Round,
+and after his custom sat in the banquet hall, before beginning meat,
+waiting for some adventure. Then came there to the king a squire and said,
+"Lord, now may ye go to meat, for here a damsel cometh with some strange
+adventure." So the king was glad, and sat down to meat.
+
+Anon the damsel came in and saluted him, praying him for succour. "What
+wilt thou?" said the king. "Lord," answered she, "my mistress is a lady of
+great renown, but is at this time besieged by a tyrant, who will not
+suffer her to go out of her castle; and because here in thy court the
+knights are called the noblest in the world, I come to pray thee for thy
+succour. "Where dwelleth your lady?" answered the king. "What is her name,
+and who is he that hath besieged her?" "For her name," replied the damsel,
+"as yet I may not tell it; but she is a lady of worship and great lands.
+The tyrant that besiegeth her and wasteth her lands is called the Red
+Knight of the Redlands." "I know him not," said Arthur. "But I know him,
+lord," said Sir Gawain, "and he is one of the most perilous knights in all
+the world. Men say he hath the strength of seven; and from him I myself
+once hardly escaped with life." "Fair damsel," said the king, "there be
+here many knights that would gladly do their uttermost to rescue your
+lady, but unless ye tell me her name, and where she dwelleth, none of my
+knights shall go with you by my leave."
+
+Now, there was a stripling at the court called Beaumains, who served in
+the king's kitchen, a fair youth and of great stature. Twelve months
+before this time he had come to the king as he sat at meat, at
+Whitsuntide, and prayed three gifts of him. And being asked what gifts, he
+answered, "As for the first gift I will ask it now, but the other two
+gifts I will ask on this day twelve months, wheresoever ye hold your high
+feast." Then said King Arthur, "What is thy first request?" "This, lord,"
+said he, "that thou wilt give me meat and drink enough for twelve months
+from this time, and then will I ask my other two gifts." And the king
+seeing that he was a goodly youth, and deeming that he was come of
+honourable blood, had granted his desire, and given him into the charge of
+Sir Key, the steward. But Sir Key scorned and mocked the youth, calling
+him Beaumains, because his hands were large and fair, and putting him into
+the kitchen, where he had served for twelve months as a scullion, and, in
+spite of all his churlish treatment, had faithfully obeyed Sir Key. But
+Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain were angered when they saw Sir Key so churlish
+to a youth that had so worshipful a bearing, and ofttimes had they given
+him gold and clothing.
+
+And now at this time came young Beaumains to the king, while the damsel
+was there, and said, "Lord, now I thank thee well and heartily that I have
+been twelve months kept in thy kitchen, and have had full sustenance. Now
+will I ask my two remaining gifts." "Ask," said King Arthur, "on my good
+faith." "These, lord," said he, "shall be my two gifts--the one, that thou
+wilt grant me this adventure of the damsel, for to me of right it
+belongeth; and the other, that thou wilt bid Sir Lancelot make me a
+knight, for of him only will I have that honour; and I pray that he may
+ride after me and make me a knight when I require him." "Be it as thou
+wilt," replied the king. But thereupon the damsel was full wroth, and
+said, "Shall I have a kitchen page for this adventure?" and so she took
+horse and departed.
+
+Then came one to Beaumains, and told him that a dwarf with a horse and
+armour were waiting for him. And all men marvelled whence these things
+came. But when he was on horseback and armed, scarce any one at the court
+was a goodlier man than he. And coming into the hall, he took his leave of
+the king and Sir Gawain, and prayed Sir Lancelot to follow him. So he rode
+after the damsel, and many of the court went out to see him, so richly
+arrayed and horsed; yet he had neither shield nor spear. Then Sir Key
+cried, "I also will ride after the kitchen boy, and see whether he will
+obey me now." And taking his horse, he rode after him, and said, "Know ye
+not me, Beaumains?" "Yea," said he, "I know thee for an ungentle knight,
+therefore beware of me." Then Sir Key put his spear in rest and ran at
+him, but Beaumains rushed upon him with his sword in his hand, and
+therewith, putting aside the spear, struck Sir Key so sorely in the side,
+that he fell down, as if dead. Then he alighted, and took his shield and
+spear, and bade his dwarf ride upon Sir Key's horse.
+
+By this time, Sir Lancelot had come up, and Beaumains offering to tilt
+with him, they both made ready. And their horses came together so fiercely
+that both fell to the earth, full sorely bruised. Then they arose, and
+Beaumains, putting up his shield before him, offered to fight Sir
+Lancelot, on foot. So they rushed upon each other, striking, and
+thrusting, and parrying, for the space of an hour. And Lancelot marvelled
+at the strength of Beaumains, for he fought more like a giant than a man,
+and his fighting was passing fierce and terrible. So, at the last, he
+said, "Fight not so sorely, Beaumains; our quarrel is not such that we may
+not now cease." "True," answered Beaumains; "yet it doth me good to feel
+thy might, though I have not yet proved my uttermost." "By my faith," said
+Lancelot, "I had as much as I could do to save myself from you unshamed,
+therefore be in no doubt of any earthly knight." "May I, then, stand as a
+proved knight?" said Beaumains. "For that will I be thy warrant," answered
+Lancelot. "Then, I pray thee," said he, "give me the order of knighthood."
+"First, then, must thou tell me of thy name and kindred," said Sir
+Lancelot. "If thou wilt tell them to no other, I will tell thee," answered
+he. "My name is Gareth of Orkney, and I am own brother to Sir Gawain."
+"Ah!" said Sir Lancelot, "at that am I full glad; for, truly, I deemed
+thee to be of gentle blood." So then he knighted Beaumains, and, after
+that, they parted company, and Sir Lancelot, returning to the court, took
+up Sir Key on his shield. And hardly did Sir Key escape with his life,
+from the wound Beaumains had given him; but all men blamed him for his
+ungentle treatment of so brave a knight.
+
+Then Sir Beaumains rode forward, and soon overtook the damsel; but she
+said to him, in scorn, "Return again, base kitchen page! What art thou,
+but a washer-up of dishes!" "Damsel," said he, "say to me what thou wilt,
+I will not leave thee; for I have undertaken to King Arthur to relieve thy
+adventure, and I will finish it to the end, or die." "Thou finish my
+adventure!" said she--"anon, thou shalt meet one, whose face thou wilt not
+even dare to look at." "I shall attempt it," answered he. So, as they rode
+thus, into a wood, there met them a man, fleeing, as for his life.
+"Whither fleest thou?" said Sir Beaumains. "O lord!" he answered, "help
+me; for, in a valley hard by, there are six thieves, who have taken my
+lord, and bound him, and I fear will slay him." "Bring me thither," said
+Sir Beaumains. So they rode to the place, and Sir Beaumains rushed after
+the thieves, and smote one, at the first stroke, so that he died; and
+then, with two other blows, slew a second and third. Then fled the other
+three, and Sir Beaumains rode after them, and overtook and slew them all.
+Then he returned and unbound the knight. And the knight thanked him, and
+prayed him to ride to his castle, where he would reward him. "Sir,"
+answered Sir Beaumains, "I will have no reward of thee, for but this day
+was I made knight by the most noble Sir Lancelot; and besides, I must go
+with this damsel." Then the knight begged the damsel to rest that night at
+his castle. So they all rode thither, and ever the damsel scoffed at Sir
+Beaumains as a kitchen boy, and laughed at him before the knight their
+host, so that he set his meat before him at a lower table, as though he
+were not of their company.
+
+And on the morrow, the damsel and Sir Beaumains took their leave of the
+knight, and thanking him departed. Then they rode on their way till they
+came to a great forest, through which flowed a river, and there was but
+one passage over it, whereat stood two knights armed to hinder the way.
+"Wilt thou match those two knights," said the damsel to Sir Beaumains, "or
+return again?" "I would not return," said he, "though they were six."
+Therewith he galloped into the water, and swam his horse into the middle
+of the stream. And there, in the river, one of the knights met him, and
+they brake their spears together, and then drew their swords, and smote
+fiercely at each other. And at the last, Sir Beaumains struck the other
+mightily upon the helm, so that he fell down stunned into the water, and
+was drowned. Then Sir Beaumains spurred his horse on to the land, where
+instantly the other knight fell on him. And they also brake their spears
+upon each other, and then drew their swords, and fought savagely and long
+together. And after many blows, Sir Beaumains clove through the knight's
+skull down to the shoulders. Then rode Sir Beaumains to the damsel, but
+ever she still scoffed at him, and said, "Alas! that a kitchen page should
+chance to slay two such brave knights! Thou deemest now that thou hast
+done a mighty deed, but it is not so; for the first knight's horse
+stumbled, and thus was he drowned--not by thy strength; and as for the
+second knight, thou wentest by chance behind him, and didst kill him
+shamefully." "Damsel," said Sir Beaumains, "say what ye list, I care not
+so I may win your lady; and wouldst thou give me but fair language, all
+my care were past; for whatsoever knights I meet, I fear them not." "Thou
+shalt see knights that shall abate thy boast, base kitchen knave," replied
+she; "yet say I this for thine advantage, for if thou followest me thou
+wilt be surely slain, since I see all thou doest is but by chance, and not
+by thy own prowess." "Well damsel," said he, "say what ye will, wherever
+ye go I will follow."
+
+So they rode on until the eventide, and still the damsel evermore kept
+chiding Sir Beaumains. Then came they to a black space of land, whereon
+was a black hawthorn tree, and on the tree there hung a black banner, and
+on the other side was a black shield and spear, and by them a great black
+horse, covered with silk; and hard by sat a knight armed in black armour,
+whose name was the Knight of the Blacklands. When the damsel saw him, she
+cried out to Beaumains, "Flee down the valley, for thy horse is not
+saddled!" "Wilt thou for ever deem me coward?" answered he. With that came
+the Black Knight to the damsel, and said, "Fair damsel, hast thou brought
+this knight from Arthur's court to be thy champion?" "Not so, fair
+knight," said she; "he is but a kitchen knave." "Then wherefore cometh he
+in such array?" said he; "it is a shame that he should bear thee company."
+"I cannot be delivered from him," answered she: "for in spite of me he
+rideth with me; and would to Heaven you would put him from me, or now slay
+him, for he hath slain two knights at the river passage yonder, and done
+many marvellous deeds through pure mischance." "I marvel," said the Black
+Knight, "that any man of worship will fight with him." "They know him
+not," said the damsel, "and think, because he rideth with me, that he is
+well born." "Truly, he hath a goodly person, and is likely to be a strong
+man," replied the knight; "but since he is no man of worship, he shall
+leave his horse and armour with me, for it were a shame for me to do him
+more harm."
+
+When Sir Beaumains heard him speak thus, he said, "Horse or armour gettest
+thou none of me, Sir knight, save thou winnest them with thy hands;
+therefore defend thyself, and let me see what thou canst do." "How sayest
+thou?" answered the Black Knight. "Now quit this lady also, for it
+beseemeth not a kitchen knave like thee to ride with such a lady." "I am
+of higher lineage than thou," said Sir Beaumains, "and will straightway
+prove it on thy body." Then furiously they drove their horses at each
+other, and came together as it had been thunder. But the Black Knight's
+spear brake short, and Sir Beaumains thrust him through the side, and his
+spear breaking at the head, left its point sticking fast in the Black
+Knight's body. Yet did the Black Knight draw his sword, and smite at Sir
+Beaumains with many fierce and bitter blows; but after they had fought an
+hour and more, he fell down from his horse in a swoon, and forthwith died.
+Then Sir Beaumains lighted down and armed himself in the Black Knight's
+armour, and rode on after the damsel. But notwithstanding all his valour,
+still she scoffed at him, and said, "Away! for thou savourest ever of the
+kitchen. Alas! that such a knave should by mishap destroy so good a
+knight; yet once again I counsel thee to flee, for hard by is a knight who
+shall repay thee!" "It may chance that I am beaten or slain," answered Sir
+Beaumains, "but I warn thee, fair damsel, that I will not flee away, nor
+leave thy company or my quest, for all that ye can say."
+
+Anon, as they rode, they saw a knight come swiftly towards them, dressed
+all in green, who, calling to the damsel said, "Is that my brother, the
+Black Knight, that ye have brought with you?" "Nay, and alas!" said she,
+"this kitchen knave hath slain thy brother through mischance." "Alas!"
+said the Green Knight, "that such a noble knight as he was should be slain
+by a knave's hand. Traitor!" cried he to Sir Beaumains, "thou shalt die
+for this! Sir Pereard was my brother, and a full noble knight." "I defy
+thee," said Sir Beaumains, "for I slew him knightly and not shamefully."
+Then the Green Knight rode to a thorn whereon hung a green horn, and, when
+he blew three notes, there came three damsels forth, who quickly armed
+him, and brought him a great horse and a green shield and spear. Then did
+they run at one another with their fullest might, and break their spears
+asunder; and, drawing their swords, they closed in fight, and sorely smote
+and wounded each other with many grievous blows.
+
+At last, Sir Beaumains' horse jostled against the Green Knight's horse,
+and overthrew him. Then both alighted, and, hurtling together like mad
+lions, fought a great while on foot. But the damsel cheered the Green
+Knight, and said, "My lord, why wilt thou let a kitchen knave so long
+stand up against thee?" Hearing these words, he was ashamed, and gave Sir
+Beaumains such a mighty stroke as clave his shield asunder. When Sir
+Beaumains heard the damsel's words, and felt that blow, he waxed passing
+wroth, and gave the Green Knight such a buffet on the helm that he fell on
+his knees, and with another blow Sir Beaumains threw him on the ground.
+Then the Green Knight yielded, and prayed him to spare his life. "All thy
+prayers are vain," said he, "unless this damsel who came with me pray for
+thee." "That will I never do, base kitchen knave," said she. "Then shall
+he die," said Beaumains. "Alas! fair lady," said the Green Knight, "suffer
+me not to die for a word! O, Sir knight," cried he to Beaumains, "give me
+my life, and I will ever do thee homage; and thirty knights, who owe me
+service, shall give allegiance to thee." "All availeth not," answered Sir
+Beaumains, "unless the damsel ask me for thy life;" and thereupon he made
+as though he would have slain him. Then cried the damsel, "Slay him not;
+for if thou do thou shalt repent it." "Damsel," said Sir Beaumains, "at
+thy command, he shall obtain his life. Arise, Sir knight of the green
+armour, I release thee!" Then the Green Knight knelt at his feet, and did
+him homage with his words. "Lodge with me this night," said he, "and
+to-morrow will I guide ye through the forest." So, taking their horses,
+they rode to his castle, which was hard by.
+
+Yet still did the damsel rebuke and scoff at Sir Beaumains, and would not
+suffer him to sit at her table. "I marvel," said the Green Knight to her,
+"that ye thus chide so noble a knight, for truly I know none to match him;
+and be sure, that whatsoever he appeareth now, he will prove, at the end,
+of noble blood and royal lineage." But of all this would the damsel take
+no heed, and ceased not to mock at Sir Beaumains. On the morrow, they
+arose and heard mass; and when they had broken their fast, took their
+horses and rode on their way, the Green Knight conveying them through the
+forest. Then, when he had led them for a while, he said to Sir Beaumains,
+"My lord, my thirty knights and I shall always be at thy command
+whensoever thou shalt send for us." "It is well said," replied he; "and
+when I call upon you, you shall yield yourself and all your knights unto
+King Arthur." "That will we gladly do," said the Green Knight, and so
+departed.
+
+And the damsel rode on before Sir Beaumains, and said to him, "Why dost
+thou follow me, thou kitchen boy? I counsel thee to throw aside thy spear
+and shield, and flee betimes, for wert thou as mighty as Sir Lancelot or
+Sir Tristram, thou shouldest not pass a valley near this place, called the
+Pass Perilous." "Damsel," answered he, "let him that feareth flee; as for
+me, it were indeed a shameful thing to turn after so long a journey." As
+he spake, they came upon a tower as white as snow, with mighty
+battlements, and double moats round it, and over the tower-gate hung fifty
+shields of divers colours. Before the tower walls, they saw a fair meadow,
+wherein were many knights and squires in pavilions, for on the morrow
+there was a tournament at that castle.
+
+Then the lord of the castle, seeing a knight armed at all points, with a
+damsel and a page, riding towards the tower, came forth to meet them; and
+his horse and harness, with his shield and spear, were all of a red
+colour. When he came near Sir Beaumains, and saw his armour all of black,
+he thought him his own brother, the Black Knight, and so cried aloud,
+"Brother! what do ye here, within these borders?" "Nay!" said the damsel,
+"it is not thy brother, but a kitchen knave of Arthur's court, who hath
+slain thy brother, and overcome thy other brother also, the Green Knight."
+"Now do I defy thee!" cried the Red Knight to Sir Beaumains, and put his
+spear in rest and spurred his horse. Then both knights turned back a
+little space, and ran together with all their might, till their horses
+fell to the earth. Then, with their swords, they fought fiercely for the
+space of three hours. And at last, Sir Beaumains overcame his foe, and
+smote him to the ground. Then the Red Knight prayed his mercy, and said,
+"Slay me not, noble knight, and I will yield to thee with sixty knights
+that do my bidding." "All avails not," answered Sir Beaumains, "save this
+damsel pray me to release thee." Then did he lift his sword to slay him;
+but the damsel cried aloud, "Slay him not, Beaumains, for he is a noble
+knight." Then Sir Beaumains bade him rise up and thank the damsel, which
+straightway he did, and afterwards invited them to his castle, and made
+them goodly cheer.
+
+But notwithstanding all Sir Beaumains' mighty deeds, the damsel ceased not
+to revile and chide him, at which the Red Knight marvelled much; and
+caused his sixty knights to watch Sir Beaumains, that no villainy might
+happen to him. And on the morrow, they heard mass and broke their fast,
+and the Red Knight came before Sir Beaumains, with his sixty knights, and
+proffered him homage and fealty. "I thank thee," answered he; "and when I
+call upon thee thou shalt come before my lord King Arthur at his court,
+and yield yourselves to him." "That will we surely do," said the Red
+Knight. So Sir Beaumains and the damsel departed.
+
+And as she constantly reviled him and tormented him, he said to her,
+"Damsel, ye are discourteous thus always to rebuke me, for I have done you
+service; and for all your threats of knights that shall destroy me, all
+they who come lie in the dust before me. Now, therefore, I pray you
+rebuke me no more till you see me beaten or a recreant, and then bid me go
+from you." "There shall soon meet thee a knight who shall repay thee all
+thy deeds, thou boaster," answered she, "for, save King Arthur, he is the
+man of most worship in the world." "It will be the greater honour to
+encounter him," said Sir Beaumains.
+
+Soon after, they saw before them a city passing fair, and between them and
+the city was a meadow newly mown, wherein were many goodly tents. "Seest
+thou yonder blue pavilion?" said the damsel to Sir Beaumains; "it is Sir
+Perseant's, the lord of that great city, whose custom is, in all fair
+weather, to lie in this meadow, and joust with his knights."
+
+And as she spake, Sir Perseant, who had espied them coming, sent a
+messenger to meet Sir Beaumains, and to ask him if he came in war or
+peace. "Say to thy lord," he answered, "that I care not whether of the
+twain it be." So when the messenger gave this reply, Sir Perseant came out
+to fight with Sir Beaumains. And making ready, they rode their steeds
+against each other; and when their spears were shivered asunder, they
+fought with their swords. And for more than two hours did they hack and
+hew at each other, till their shields and hauberks were all dinted with
+many blows, and they themselves were sorely wounded. And at the last, Sir
+Beaumains smote Sir Perseant on the helm, so that he fell grovelling on
+the earth. And when he unlaced his helm to slay him, the damsel prayed for
+his life. "That will I grant gladly," answered Sir Beaumains, "for it were
+pity such a noble knight should die." "Grammercy!" said Sir Perseant,
+"for now I certainly know that it was thou who slewest my brother, the
+Black Knight, Sir Pereard; and overcame my brothers, the Green Knight, Sir
+Pertolope, and the Red Knight, Sir Perimones; and since thou hast overcome
+me also, I will do thee homage and fealty, and place at thy command one
+hundred knights to do thy bidding."
+
+But when the damsel saw Sir Perseant overthrown, she marvelled greatly at
+the might of Sir Beaumains, and said, "What manner of man may ye be, for
+now am I sure that ye be come of noble blood? And truly, never did woman
+revile knight as I have done thee, and yet ye have ever courteously borne
+with me, which surely never had been were ye not of gentle blood and
+lineage."
+
+"Lady," replied Sir Beaumains, "a knight is little worth who may not bear
+with a damsel; and so whatsoever ye said to me I took no heed, save only
+that at times when your scorn angered me, it made me all the stronger
+against those with whom I fought, and thus have ye furthered me in my
+battles. But whether I be born of gentle blood or no, I have done you
+gentle service, and peradventure will do better still, ere I depart from
+you."
+
+[Illustration: "Lady," replied Sir Beaumains, "a knight is little worth
+who may not bear with a damsel."]
+
+"Alas!" said she, weeping at his courtesy, "forgive me, fair Sir
+Beaumains, all that I have missaid and misdone against you." "With all my
+heart," said he; "and since you now speak fairly to me, I am passing glad
+of heart, and methinks I have the strength to overcome whatever knights I
+shall henceforth encounter."
+
+Then Sir Perseant prayed them to come to his pavilion, and set before them
+wines and spices, and made them great cheer. So they rested that night;
+and on the morrow, the damsel and Sir Beaumains rose, and heard mass. And
+when they had broken their fast, they took their leave of Sir Perseant.
+"Fair damsel," said he "whither lead ye this knight?" "Sir," answered she,
+"to the Castle Dangerous, where my sister is besieged by the Knight of the
+Redlands." "I know him well," said Sir Perseant, "for the most perilous
+knight alive--a man without mercy, and with the strength of seven men. God
+save thee, Sir Beaumains, from him! and enable thee to overcome him, for
+the Lady Lyones, whom he besiegeth, is as fair a lady as there liveth in
+this world." "Thou sayest truth, sir," said the damsel; "for I am her
+sister; and men call me Linet, or the Wild Maiden." "Now, I would have
+thee know," said Sir Perseant to Sir Beaumains, "that the Knight of the
+Redlands hath kept that siege more than two years, and prolongeth the time
+hoping that Sir Lancelot, or Sir Tristram, or Sir Lamoracke, may come and
+battle with him; for these three knights divide between them all
+knighthood; and thou if thou mayest match the Knight of the Redlands,
+shall well be called the fourth knight of the world." "Sir," said Sir
+Beaumains, "I would fain have that good fame; and truly, I am come of
+great and honourable lineage. And so that you and this fair damsel will
+conceal it, I will tell ye my descent." And when they swore to keep it
+secret, he told them, "My name is Sir Gareth of Orkney, my father was King
+Lot, and my mother the Lady Belisent, King Arthur's sister. Sir Gawain,
+Sir Agravain, and Sir Gaheris, are my brethren, and I am the youngest of
+them all. But, as yet King Arthur and the court know me not, who I am."
+When he had thus told them, they both wondered greatly.
+
+And the damsel Linet sent the dwarf forward to her sister, to tell her of
+their coming. Then did Dame Lyones inquire what manner of man the knight
+was who was coming to her rescue. And the dwarf told her of all Sir
+Beaumains' deeds by the way: how he had overthrown Sir Key, and left him
+for dead; how he had battled with Sir Lancelot, and was knighted of him;
+how he had fought with, and slain, the thieves; how he had overcome the
+two knights who kept the river passage; how he had fought with, and slain,
+the Black Knight; and how he had overcome the Green Knight, the Red
+Knight, and last of all, the Blue Knight, Sir Perseant. Then was Dame
+Lyones passing glad, and sent the dwarf back to Sir Beaumains with great
+gifts, thanking him for his courtesy, in taking such a labour on him for
+her sake, and praying him to be of good heart and courage. And as the
+dwarf returned, he met the Knight of the Redlands, who asked him whence he
+came. "I came here with the sister of my lady of the castle," said the
+dwarf, "who hath been now to King Arthur's court and brought a knight with
+her to take her battle on him." "Then is her travail lost," replied the
+knight; "for, though she had brought Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristram, Sir
+Lamoracke, or Sir Gawain, I count myself their equal, and who besides
+shall be so called?" Then the dwarf told the knight what deeds Sir
+Beaumains had done; but he answered, "I care not for him, whosoever he be,
+for I shall shortly overcome him, and give him shameful death, as to so
+many others I have done."
+
+Then the damsel Linet and Sir Beaumains left Sir Perseant, and rode on
+through a forest to a large plain, where they saw many pavilions, and hard
+by, a castle passing fair.
+
+But as they came near Sir Beaumains saw upon the branches of some trees
+which grew there, the dead bodies of forty knights hanging, with rich
+armour on them, their shields and swords about their necks, and golden
+spurs upon their heels. "What meaneth this?" said he, amazed. "Lose not
+thy courage, fair sir," replied the damsel, "at this shameful sight, for
+all these knights came hither to rescue my sister; and when the Knight of
+the Redlands had overcome them, he put them to this piteous death, without
+mercy; and in such wise will he treat thee also unless thou bearest thee
+more valiantly than they." "Truly he useth shameful customs," said Sir
+Beaumains; "and it is a marvel that he hath endured so long."
+
+So they rode onward to the castle walls, and found them double-moated, and
+heard the sea waves dashing on one side the walls. Then said the damsel,
+"See you that ivory horn hanging upon the sycamore-tree? The Knight of the
+Redlands hath hung it there, that any knight may blow thereon, and then
+will he himself come out and fight with him. But I pray thee sound it not
+till high noontide, for now it is but daybreak, and till noon his strength
+increases to the might of seven men." "Let that be as it may, fair
+damsel," answered he, "for were he stronger knight than ever lived, I
+would not fail him. Either will I defeat him at his mightiest, or die
+knightly in the field." With that he spurred his horse unto the sycamore,
+and blew the ivory horn so eagerly, that all the castle rang its echoes.
+Instantly, all the knights who were in the pavilions ran forth, and those
+within the castle looked out from the windows, or above the walls. And the
+Knight of the Redlands, arming himself quickly in blood-red armour, with
+spear, and shield, and horse's trappings of like colour, rode forth into a
+little valley by the castle walls, so that all in the castle, and at the
+siege, might see the battle.
+
+"Be of good cheer," said the damsel Linet to Sir Beaumains, "for thy
+deadly enemy now cometh; and at yonder window is my lady and sister, Dame
+Lyones." "In good sooth," said Sir Beaumains, "she is the fairest lady I
+have ever seen, and I would wish no better quarrel than to fight for her."
+With that, he looked up to the window, and saw the Lady Lyones, who waved
+her handkerchief to her sister and to him to cheer them. Then called the
+Knight of the Redlands to Sir Beaumains, "Leave now thy gazing, Sir
+knight, and turn to me, for I warn thee that lady is mine." "She loveth
+none of thy fellowship," he answered; "but know this, that I love her, and
+will rescue her from thee, or die." "Say ye so!" said the Red Knight.
+"Take ye no warning from those knights that hang on yonder trees?" "For
+shame that thou so boastest!" said Sir Beaumains. "Be sure that sight hath
+raised a hatred for thee that will not lightly be put out, and given me
+not fear, but rage." "Sir knight, defend thyself," said the Knight of the
+Redlands, "for we will talk no longer."
+
+Then did they put their spears in rest, and came together at the fullest
+speed of their horses, and smote each other in the midst of their shields,
+so that their horses' harness sundered by the shock, and they fell to the
+ground. And both lay there so long time, stunned, that many deemed their
+necks were broken. And all men said the strange knight was a strong man,
+and a noble jouster, for none had ever yet so matched the Knight of the
+Redlands. Then, in a while, they rose, and putting up their shields before
+them, drew their swords, and fought with fury, running at each other like
+wild beasts--now striking such buffets that both reeled backwards, now
+hewing at each other till they shore the harness off in pieces, and left
+their bodies naked and unarmed. And thus they fought till noon was past,
+when, for a time they rested to get breath, so sorely staggering and
+bleeding, that many who beheld them wept for pity. Then they renewed the
+battle--sometimes rushing so furiously together, that both fell to the
+ground, and anon changing swords in their confusion. Thus they endured,
+and lashed, and struggled, until eventide, and none who saw knew which was
+the likeliest to win; for though the Knight of the Redlands was a wily and
+subtle warrior, his subtlety made Sir Beaumains wilier and wiser too. So
+once again they rested for a little space, and took their helms off to
+find breath.
+
+But when Sir Beaumains' helm was off, he looked up to Dame Lyones, where
+she leaned, gazing and weeping, from her window. And when he saw the
+sweetness of her smiling, all his heart was light and joyful, and starting
+up, he bade the Knight of the Redlands make ready. Then did they lace
+their helms and fight together yet afresh, as though they had never fought
+before. And at the last, the Knight of the Redlands with a sudden stroke
+smote Sir Beaumains on the hand, so that his sword fell from it, and with
+a second stroke upon the helm he drove him to the earth. Then cried aloud
+the damsel Linet, "Alas! Sir Beaumains, see how my sister weepeth to
+behold thee fallen!" And when Sir Beaumains heard her words, he sprang
+upon his feet with strength, and leaping to his sword, he caught it; and
+with many heavy blows pressed so sorely on the Knight of the Redlands,
+that in the end he smote his sword from out his hand, and, with a mighty
+blow upon the head, hurled him upon the ground.
+
+Then Sir Beaumains unlaced his helm, and would have straightway slain him,
+but the Knight of the Redlands yielded, and prayed for mercy. "I may not
+spare thee," answered he, "because of the shameful death which thou hast
+given to so many noble knights." "Yet hold thy hand, Sir knight," said he,
+"and hear the cause. I loved once a fair damsel, whose brother was slain,
+as she told me, by a knight of Arthur's court, either Sir Lancelot, or Sir
+Gawain; and she prayed me, as I truly loved her, and by the faith of my
+knighthood, to labour daily in deeds of arms, till I should meet with him;
+and to put all knights of the Round Table whom I should overcome to a
+villainous death. And this I swore to her." Then prayed the earls, and
+knights, and barons, who stood round Sir Beaumains, to spare the Red
+Knight's life. "Truly," replied he, "I am loth to slay him,
+notwithstanding he hath done such shameful deeds. And inasmuch as what he
+did was done to please his lady and to gain her love, I blame him less,
+and for your sakes I will release him. But on this agreement only shall he
+hold his life--that straightway he depart into the castle, and yield him
+to the lady there, and make her such amends as she shall ask, for all the
+trespass he hath done upon her lands; and afterwards, that he shall go
+unto King Arthur's court, and ask the pardon of Sir Lancelot and Sir
+Gawain for all the evil he hath done against them." "All this, Sir knight,
+I swear to do," said the Knight of the Redlands; and therewith he did him
+homage and fealty.
+
+Then came the damsel Linet to Sir Beaumains and the Knight of the
+Redlands, and disarmed them, and staunched their wounds. And when the
+Knight of the Redlands had made amends for all his trespasses, he departed
+for the court.
+
+Then Sir Beaumains, being healed of his wounds, armed himself, and took
+his horse and spear and rode straight to the castle of Dame Lyones, for
+greatly he desired to see her. But when he came to the gate they closed it
+fast, and pulled the drawbridge up. And as he marvelled thereat, he saw
+the Lady Lyones standing at a window, who said, "Go thy way as yet, Sir
+Beaumains, for thou shalt not wholly have my love until thou be among the
+worthiest knights of all the world. Go, therefore, and labour yet in arms
+for twelve months more, and then return to me." "Alas! fair lady," said
+Sir Beaumains, "I have scarce deserved this of thee, for sure I am that I
+have bought thy love with all the best blood in my body." "Be not
+aggrieved, fair knight," said she, "for none of thy service is forgot or
+lost. Twelve months will soon be passed in noble deeds; and trust that to
+my death I shall love thee and not another." With that she turned and left
+the window.
+
+So Sir Beaumains rode away from the castle very sorrowrul at heart, and
+rode he knew not whither, and lay that night in a poor man's cottage. On
+the morrow he went forward, and came at noon to a broad lake, and thereby
+he alighted, being very sad and weary, and rested his head upon his
+shield, and told his dwarf to keep watch while he slept.
+
+Now, as soon as he had departed, the Lady Lyones repented, and greatly
+longed to see him back, and asked her sister many times of what lineage he
+was; but the damsel would not tell her, being bound by her oath to Sir
+Beaumains, and said his dwarf best knew, So she called Sir Gringamors,
+her brother, who dwelt with her, and prayed him to ride after Sir
+Beaumains till he found him sleeping, and then to take his dwarf away and
+bring him back to her. Anon Sir Gringamors departed, and rode till he came
+to Sir Beaumains, and found him as he lay sleeping by the water-side. Then
+stepping stealthily behind the dwarf he caught him in his arms and rode
+off in haste. And though the dwarf cried loudly to his lord for help, and
+woke Sir Beaumains, yet, though he rode full quickly after him, he could
+not overtake Sir Gringamors.
+
+When Dame Lyones saw her brother come back, she was passing glad of heart,
+and forthwith asked the dwarf his master's lineage. "He is a king's son,"
+said the dwarf, "and his mother is King Arthur's sister. His name is Sir
+Gareth of Orkney, and he is brother to the good knight, Sir Gawain. But I
+pray you suffer me to go back to my lord, for truly he will never leave
+this country till he have me again." But when the Lady Lyones knew her
+deliverer was come of such a kingly stock, she longed more than ever to
+see him again.
+
+Now as Sir Beaumains rode in vain to rescue his dwarf, he came to a fair
+green road and met a poor man of the country, and asked him had he seen a
+knight on a black horse, riding with a dwarf of a sad countenance behind
+him. "Yea," said the man, "I met with such a knight an hour agone, and his
+name is Sir Gringamors. He liveth at a castle two miles from hence; but he
+is a perilous knight, and I counsel ye not to follow him save ye bear him
+goodwill." Then Sir Beaumains followed the path which the poor man showed
+him, and came to the castle. And riding to the gate in great anger, he
+drew his sword, and cried aloud, "Sir Gringamors, thou traitor! deliver
+me my dwarf again, or by my knighthood it shall be ill for thee!" Then Sir
+Gringamors looked out of a window and said, "Sir Gareth of Orkney, leave
+thy boasting words, for thou wilt not get thy dwarf again." But the Lady
+Lyones said to her brother, "Nay brother, but I will that he have his
+dwarf, for he hath done much for me, and delivered me from the Knight of
+the Redlands, and well do I love him above all other knights." So Sir
+Gringamors went down to Sir Gareth and cried him mercy, and prayed him to
+alight and take good cheer.
+
+Then he alighted, and his dwarf ran to him. And when he was in the hall
+came the Lady Lyones dressed royally like a princess. And Sir Gareth was
+right glad of heart when he saw her. Then she told him how she had made
+her brother take away his dwarf and bring him back to her. And then she
+promised him her love, and faithfully to cleave to him and none other all
+the days of her life. And so they plighted their troth to each other. Then
+Sir Gringamors prayed him to sojourn at the castle, which willingly he
+did. "For," said he, "I have promised to quit the court for twelve months,
+though sure I am that in the meanwhile I shall be sought and found by my
+lord King Arthur and many others." So he sojourned long at the castle.
+
+Anon the knights, Sir Perseant, Sir Perimones, and Sir Pertolope, whom Sir
+Gareth had overthrown, went to King Arthur's court with all the knights
+who did them service, and told the king they had been conquered by a
+knight of his named Beaumains. And as they yet were talking, it was told
+the king there came another great lord with five hundred knights, who,
+entering in, did homage, and declared himself to be the Knight of the
+Redlands. "But my true name," said he, "is Ironside, and I am hither sent
+by one Sir Beaumains, who conquered me, and charged me to yield unto your
+grace." "Thou art welcome," said King Arthur, "for thou hast been long a
+foe to me and mine, and truly I am much beholden to the knight who sent
+thee. And now, Sir Ironside, if thou wilt amend thy life and hold of me, I
+will entreat thee as a friend, and make thee Knight of the Round Table;
+but thou mayst no more be a murderer of noble knights." Then the Knight of
+the Redlands knelt to the king, and told him of his promise to Sir
+Beaumains to use never more such shameful customs; and how he had so done
+but at the prayer of a lady whom he loved. Then knelt he to Sir Lancelot
+and Sir Gawain, and prayed their pardon for the hatred he had borne them.
+
+But the king and all the court marvelled greatly who Sir Beaumains was.
+"For," said the king, "he is a full noble knight." Then said Sir Lancelot,
+"Truly he is come of honourable blood, else had I not given him the order
+of knighthood; but he charged me that I should conceal his secret."
+
+Now as they talked thus it was told King Arthur that his sister, the Queen
+of Orkney, was come to the court with a great retinue of knights and
+ladies. Then was there great rejoicing, and the king rose and saluted his
+sister. And her sons, Sir Gawain, Sir Agravain, and Sir Gaheris knelt
+before her and asked her blessing, for during fifteen years last past they
+had not seen her. Anon she said, "Where is my youngest son, Sir Gareth?
+for I know that he was here a twelvemonth with you, and that ye made a
+kitchen knave of him. Then the king and all the knights knew that Sir
+Beaumains and Sir Gareth were the same. "Truly," said the king, "I knew
+him not." "Nor I," said Sir Gawain and both his brothers. Then said the
+king, "God be thanked, fair sister, that he is proved as worshipful a
+knight as any now alive, and by the grace of Heaven he shall be found
+forthwith if he be anywhere within these seven realms." Then said Sir
+Gawain and his brethren, "Lord, if ye will give us leave we will go seek
+him." But Sir Lancelot said, "It were better that the king should send a
+messenger to Dame Lyones and pray her to come hither with all speed, and
+she will counsel where ye shall find him." "It is well said," replied the
+king; and sent a messenger quickly unto Dame Lyones.
+
+When she heard the message she promised she would come forthwith, and told
+Sir Gareth what the messenger had said, and asked him what to do. "I pray
+you," said he, "tell them not where I am, but when my lord King Arthur
+asketh for me, advise him thus--that he proclaim a tournament before this
+castle on Assumption Day, and that the knight who proveth best shall win
+yourself and all your lands." So the Lady Lyones departed and came to King
+Arthur's court, and there was right nobly welcomed. And when they asked
+her where Sir Gareth was, she said she could not tell. "But, lord," said
+she, "with thy goodwill I will proclaim a tournament before my castle on
+the Feast of the Assumption, whereof the prize shall be myself and all my
+lands. Then if it be proclaimed that you, lord, and your knights will be
+there, I will find knights on my side to fight you and yours, and thus am
+I sure ye will hear tidings of Sir Gareth." "Be it so done," replied the
+king.
+
+So Sir Gareth sent messengers privily to Sir Perseant and Sir Ironside,
+and charged them to be ready on the day appointed, with their companies of
+knights to aid him and his party against the king. And when they were
+arrived he said, "Now be ye well assured that we shall be matched with the
+best knights of the world, and therefore must we gather all the good
+knights we can find."
+
+So proclamation was made throughout all England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
+and Cornwall, and in the out isles and other countries, that at the Feast
+of the Assumption of our Lady, next coming, all knights who came to joust
+at Castle Perilous should make choice whether they would side with the
+king or with the castle. Then came many good knights on the side of the
+castle. Sir Epinogris, the son of the King of Northumberland, and Sir
+Palomedes the Saracen, and Sir Grummore Grummorsum, a good knight of
+Scotland, and Sir Brian des Iles, a noble knight, and Sir Carados of the
+Tower Dolorous, and Sir Tristram, who as yet was not a knight of the Round
+Table, and many others. But none among them knew Sir Gareth, for he took
+no more upon him than any mean person.
+
+And on King Arthur's side there came the King of Ireland and the King of
+Scotland, the noble prince Sir Galahaut, Sir Gawain and his brothers Sir
+Agravain and Sir Gaheris, Sir Ewaine, Sir Tor, Sir Perceval, and Sir
+Lamoracke, Sir Lancelot also and his kindred, Sir Lionel, Sir Ector, Sir
+Bors and Sir Bedivere, likewise Sir Key and the most part of the Table
+Round. The two queens also, Queen Guinevere and the Queen of Orkney, Sir
+Gareth's mother, came with the king. So there was a great array both
+within and without the castle, with all manner of feasting and minstrelsy.
+
+Now before the tournament began, Sir Gareth privily prayed Dame Lyones,
+Sir Gringamors, Sir Ironside, and Sir Perseant, that they would in nowise
+disclose his name, nor make more of him than of any common knight. Then
+said Dame Lyones, "Dear lord, I pray thee take this ring, which hath the
+power to change the wearer's clothing into any colour he may will, and
+guardeth him from any loss of blood. But give it me again, I pray thee,
+when the tournament is done, for it greatly increaseth my beauty
+whensoever I wear it." "Grammercy, mine own lady," said Sir Gareth, "I
+wished for nothing better, for now I may be certainly disguised as long as
+I will." Then Sir Gringamors gave Sir Gareth a bay courser that was a
+passing good horse, with sure armour, and a noble sword, won by his father
+from a heathen tyrant. And then every knight made him ready for the
+tournament.
+
+So on the day of the Assumption, when mass and matins were said, the
+heralds blew their trumpets and sounded for the tourney. Anon came out the
+knights of the castle and the knights of King Arthur, and matched
+themselves together.
+
+Then Sir Epinogris, son of the King of Northumberland, a knight of the
+castle, encountered Sir Ewaine, and both broke off their spears short to
+their hands. Then came Sir Palomedes from the castle, and met Sir Gawain,
+and they so hardly smote each other, that both knights and horses fell to
+the earth. Then Sir Tristram, from the castle, encountered with Sir
+Bedivere, and smote him to the earth, horse and man. Then the Knight of
+the Redlands and Sir Gareth met with Sir Bors and Sir Bleoberis; and the
+Knight of the Redlands and Sir Bors smote together so hard that their
+spears burst, and their horses fell grovelling to the ground. And Sir
+Bleoberis brake his spear upon Sir Gareth, but himself was hurled upon
+the ground. When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bade Sir Gareth keep him, but
+Sir Gareth lightly smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud got a spear to
+avenge his brother, but was served in like manner. And Sir Dinadam, and
+his brother La-cote-male-taile, and Sir Sagramour le Desirous, and Dodinas
+le Savage, he bore down all with one spear.
+
+When King Anguish of Ireland saw this, he marvelled what that knight could
+be who seemed at one time green and at another blue; for so at every
+course he changed his colour that none might know him. Then he ran towards
+him and encountered him, and Sir Gareth smote the king from his horse,
+saddle and all. And in like manner he served the King of Scotland, and
+King Urience of Gore, and King Bagdemagus.
+
+Then Sir Galahaut, the noble prince, cried out, "Knight of the many
+colours! thou hast jousted well; now make thee ready to joust with me."
+When Sir Gareth heard him, he took a great spear and met him swiftly. And
+the prince's spear broke off, but Sir Gareth smote him on the left side of
+the helm, so that he reeled here and there, and had fallen down had not
+his men recovered him. "By my faith," said King Arthur, "that knight of
+the many colours is a good knight. I pray thee, Sir Lancelot du Lake,
+encounter with him." "Lord," said Sir Lancelot, "by thy leave I will
+forbear. I find it in my heart to spare him at this time, for he hath done
+enough work for one day; and when a good knight doth so well it is no
+knightly part to hinder him from this honour. And peradventure his quarrel
+is here to-day, and he may be the best beloved of the Lady Lyones of all
+that be here; for I see well he paineth and forceth himself to do great
+deeds. Therefore, as for me, this day he shall have the honour; for
+though I were able to put him from it, I would not." "You speak well and
+truly," said the king.
+
+Then after the tilting, they drew swords, and there began a great
+tournament, and there Sir Lancelot did marvellous deeds of arms, for first
+he fought with both Sir Tristram and Sir Carados, albeit they were the
+most perilous in all the world. Then came Sir Gareth and put them asunder,
+but would not smite a stroke against Sir Lancelot, for by him he had been
+knighted. Anon Sir Gareth's helm had need of mending, and he rode aside to
+see to it and to drink water, for he was sore athirst with all his mighty
+feats of strength. And while he drank, his dwarf said to him, "Give me
+your ring, lest ye lose it while ye drink." So Sir Gareth took it off. And
+when he had finished drinking, he rode back eagerly to the field, and in
+his haste forgot to take the ring again. Then all the people saw that he
+wore yellow armour. And King Arthur told a herald, "Ride and espy the
+cognizance of that brave knight, for I have asked many who he is, and none
+can tell me."
+
+Then the herald rode near, and saw written round about his helmet in
+letters of gold, "Sir Gareth of Orkney." And instantly the herald cried
+his name aloud, and all men pressed to see him.
+
+But when he saw he was discovered, he pushed with haste through all the
+crowd, and cried to his dwarf, Boy, thou hast beguiled me foully in
+keeping my ring; give it me again, that I may be hidden." And as soon as
+he had put it on, his armour changed again, and no man knew where he had
+gone. Then he passed forth from the field; but Sir Gawain, his brother,
+rode after him.
+
+And when Sir Gareth had ridden far into the forest, he took off his ring,
+and sent it back by the dwarf to the Lady Lyones, praying her to be true
+and faithful to him while he was away.
+
+Then rode Sir Gareth long through the forest, till night fell, and coming
+to a castle he went up to the gate, and prayed the porter to let him in.
+But churlishly he answered "that he should not lodge there." Then said Sir
+Gareth, "Tell thy lord and lady that I am a knight of King Arthur's court,
+and for his sake I pray their shelter." With that the porter went to the
+duchess who owned the castle. "Let him in straightway," cried she; "for
+the king's sake he shall not be harbourless!" and went down to receive
+him. When Sir Gareth saw her coming, he saluted her, and said, "Fair lady,
+I pray you give me shelter for this night, and if there be here any
+champion or giant with whom I must needs fight, spare me till to-morrow,
+when I and my horse shall have rested, for we are full weary." "Sir
+knight," she said, "thou speakest boldly; for the lord of this castle is a
+foe to King Arthur and his court, and if thou wilt rest here to-night thou
+must agree, that wheresoever thou mayest meet my lord, thou must yield to
+him as a prisoner." "What is thy lord's name, lady?" said Sir Gareth. "The
+Duke de la Rowse," said she. "I will promise thee," said he, "to yield to
+him, if he promise to do me no harm; but if he refuse, I will release
+myself with my sword and spear."
+
+"It is well," said the duchess; and commanded the drawbridge to be let
+down. So he rode into the hall and alighted. And when he had taken off his
+armour, the duchess and her ladies made him passing good cheer. And after
+supper his bed was made in the hall, and there he rested that night. On
+the morrow he rose and heard mass, and having broken his fast, took his
+leave and departed.
+
+[Illustration: So he rode into the hall and alighted.]
+
+And as he rode past a certain mountain there met him a knight named Sir
+Bendelaine, and cried unto him "Thou shalt not pass unless thou joust with
+me or be my prisoner!" "Then will we joust," replied Sir Gareth. So they
+let their horses run at full speed, and Sir Gareth smote Sir Bendelaine
+through his body so sorely that he scarcely reached his castle ere he fell
+dead. And as Sir Gareth presently came by the castle, Sir Bendelaine's
+knights and servants rode out to revenge their lord. And twenty of them
+fell on him at once, although his spear was broken. But drawing his sword
+he put his shield before him. And though they brake their spears upon him,
+one and all, and sorely pressed on him, yet ever he defended himself like
+a noble knight. Anon, finding they could not overcome him, they agreed to
+slay his horse; and having killed it with their spears, they set upon Sir
+Gareth as he fought on foot. But every one he struck he slew, and drave at
+them with fearful blows, till he had slain them all but four, who fled.
+Then taking the horse of one of those that lay there dead, he rode upon
+his way.
+
+Anon he came to another castle and heard from within a sound as of many
+women moaning and weeping. Then said he to a page who stood without, "What
+noise is this I hear?" "Sir knight," said he, "there be within thirty
+ladies, the widows of thirty knights who have been slain by the lord of
+this castle. He is called the Brown Knight without pity, and is the most
+perilous knight living, wherefore I warn thee to flee." "That will I never
+do," said Sir Gareth, "for I fear him not." Then the page saw the Brown
+Knight coming and said to Gareth, "Lo! my lord is near."
+
+So both knights made them ready and galloped their horses towards each
+other, and the Brown Knight brake his spear upon Sir Gareth's shield; but
+Sir Gareth smote him through the body so that he fell dead. At that he
+rode into the castle and told the ladies he had slain their foe. Then were
+they right glad of heart and made him all the cheer they could, and
+thanked him out of measure. But on the morrow as he went to mass he found
+the ladies weeping in the chapel upon divers tombs that were there. And he
+knew that in those tombs their husbands lay. Then he bade them be
+comforted, and with noble and high words he desired and prayed them all to
+be at Arthur's court on the next Feast of Pentecost.
+
+So he departed and rode past a mountain where was a goodly knight waiting,
+who said to him, "Abide, Sir knight, and joust with me!" "How are ye
+named?" said Sir Gareth. "I am the Duke de la Rowse," answered he. "In
+good sooth," then said Sir Gareth, "not long ago I lodged within your
+castle, and there promised I would yield to you whenever we might meet."
+"Art thou that proud knight," said the duke, "who was ready to fight with
+me? Guard thyself therefore and make ready." So they ran together, and Sir
+Gareth smote the duke from his horse. Then they alighted and drew their
+swords, and fought full sorely for the space of an hour; and at the last
+Sir Gareth smote the duke to the earth and would have slain him, but he
+yielded. "Then must ye go," said Sir Gareth, "to my lord King Arthur at
+the next Feast of Pentecost and say that I, Sir Gareth, sent ye." "As ye
+will be it," said the duke; and gave him up his shield for pledge.
+
+And as Sir Gareth rode alone he saw an armed knight coming towards him.
+And putting the duke's shield before him he rode fast to tilt with him;
+and so they ran together as it had been thunder, and brake their spears
+upon each other. Then fought they fiercely with their swords and lashed
+together with such mighty strokes that blood ran to the ground on every
+side. And after they had fought together for two hours and more, it
+chanced the damsel Linet passed that way; and when she saw them she cried
+out, "Sir Gawain and Sir Gareth, leave your fighting, for ye are
+brethren!" At that they threw away their shields and swords, and took each
+other in their arms and wept a great while ere they could speak. And each
+gave to the other the honour of the battle, and there was many a kind word
+between them. Then said Sir Gawain, "O my brother, for your sake have I
+had great sorrow and labour! But truly I would honour you though ye were
+not my brother, for ye have done great worship to King Arthur and his
+court, and sent more knights to him than any of the Table Round, except
+Sir Lancelot."
+
+Then the damsel Linet staunched their wounds, and their horses being weary
+she rode her palfrey to King Arthur and told him of this strange
+adventure. When she had told her tidings, the king himself mounted his
+horse and bade all come with him to meet them. So a great company of lords
+and ladies went forth to meet the brothers. And when King Arthur saw them
+he would have spoken hearty words, but for gladness he could not. And both
+Sir Gawain and Sir Gareth fell down at their uncle's knees and did him
+homage, and there was passing great joy and gladness among them all.
+
+Then said the king to the damsel Linet, "Why cometh not the Lady Lyones to
+visit her knight, Sir Gareth, who hath had such travail for her love?"
+"She knoweth not, my lord, that he is here," replied the damsel, "for
+truly she desireth greatly to see him." "Go ye and bring her hither,"
+said the king. So the damsel rode to tell her sister where Sir Gareth was,
+and when she heard it she rejoiced full heartily and came with all the
+speed she could. And when Sir Gareth saw her, there was great joy and
+comfort between them.
+
+Then the king asked Sir Gareth whether he would have that lady for his
+wife? "My lord," replied Sir Gareth, "know well that I love her above all
+ladies living." "Now, fair lady," said King Arthur, "what say ye?" "Most
+noble king," she answered, "my lord, Sir Gareth, is my first love and
+shall be my last, and if I may not have him for my husband I will have
+none." Then said the king to them, "Be well assured that for my crown I
+would not be the cause of parting your two hearts."
+
+Then was high preparation made for the marriage, for the king desired it
+should be at the Michaelmas next following, at Kinkenadon-by-the-Sea.
+
+So Sir Gareth sent out messages to all the knights whom he had overcome in
+battle that they should be there upon his marriage-day.
+
+Therefore, at the next Michaelmas, came a goodly company to
+Kinkenadon-by-the-Sea. And there did the Archbishop of Canterbury marry
+Sir Gareth and the Lady Lyones with all solemnity. And all the knights
+whom Sir Gareth had overcome were at the feast; and every manner of revels
+and games was held with music and minstrelsy. And there was a great
+jousting for three days. But because of his bride the king would not
+suffer Sir Gareth to joust. Then did King Arthur give great lands and
+fair, with store of gold, to Sir Gareth and his wife, that so they might
+live royally together to their lives' end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_The Adventures of Sir Tristram of Lyonesse_
+
+
+Again King Arthur held high festival at Caerleon, at Pentecost, and
+gathered round him all the fellowship of the Round Table, and so,
+according to his custom, sat and waited till some adventure should arise,
+or some knight return to court whose deeds and perils might be told.
+
+Anon he saw Sir Lancelot and a crowd of knights coming through the doors
+and leading in their midst the mighty knight, Sir Tristram. As soon as
+King Arthur saw him, he rose up and went through half the hall, and held
+out both his hands and cried, "Right welcome to thee, good Sir Tristram,
+as welcome art thou as any knight that ever came before into this court. A
+long time have I wished for thee amongst my fellowship." Then all the
+knights and barons rose up with one accord and came around, and cried out,
+"Welcome." Queen Guinevere came also, and many ladies with her, and all
+with one voice said the same.
+
+Then the king took Sir Tristram by the hand and led him to the Round Table
+and said, "Welcome again for one of the best and gentlest knights in all
+the world; a chief in war, a chief in peace, a chief in field and forest,
+a chief in the ladies' chamber--right heartily welcome to this court, and
+mayest thou long abide in it."
+
+When he had so said he looked at every empty seat until he came to what
+had been Sir Marhaus', and there he found written in gold letters, "This
+is the seat of the noble knight, Sir Tristram." Whereat they made him,
+with great cheer and gladness, a Fellow of the Round Table.
+
+Now the story of Sir Tristram was as follows:--
+
+There was a king of Lyonesse, named Meliodas, married to the sister of
+King Mark of Cornwall, a right fair lady and a good. And so it happened
+that King Meliodas hunting in the woods was taken by enchantment and made
+prisoner in a castle. When his wife Elizabeth heard it she was nigh mad
+with grief, and ran into the forest to seek out her lord. But after many
+days of wandering and sorrow she found no trace of him, and laid her down
+in a deep valley and prayed to meet her death. And so indeed she did, but
+ere she died she gave birth in the midst of all her sorrow to a child, a
+boy, and called him with her latest breath Tristram; for she said, "His
+name shall show how sadly he hath come into this world."
+
+Therewith she gave up her ghost, and the gentlewoman who was with her took
+the child and wrapped it from the cold as well as she was able, and lay
+down with it in her arms beneath the shadow of a tree hard by, expecting
+death to come to her in turn.
+
+But shortly after came a company of lords and barons seeking for the
+queen, and found the lady and the child and took them home. And on the
+next day came King Meliodas, whom Merlin had delivered, and when he heard
+of the queen's death his sorrow was greater than tongue can tell. And anon
+he buried her solemnly and nobly, and called the child Tristram as she had
+desired.
+
+Then for seven years King Meliodas mourned and took no comfort, and all
+that time young Tristram was well nourished; but in a while he wedded with
+the daughter of Howell, King of Brittany, who, that her own children might
+enjoy the kingdom, cast about in her mind how she might destroy Tristram.
+So on a certain day she put poison in a silver cup, where Tristram and her
+children were together playing, that when he was athirst he might drink of
+it and die. But so it happened that her own son saw the cup, and, thinking
+it must hold good drink, he climbed and took it, and drank deeply of it,
+and suddenly thereafter burst and fell down dead.
+
+When the queen heard that, her grief was very great, but her anger and
+envy were fiercer than before, and soon again she put more poison in the
+cup. And by chance one day her husband finding it when thirsty, took it up
+and was about to drink therefrom, when, seeing him, she sprang up with a
+mighty cry and dashed it from his hands.
+
+At that King Meliodas, wondering greatly, called to mind the sudden death
+of his young child, and taking her fiercely by the hand he cried:
+
+"Traitress, tell me what drink is in this cup or I will slay thee in a
+moment;" and therewith pulling out his sword he swore by a great oath to
+slay her if she straightway told him not the truth.
+
+"Ah, mercy, lord," said she, and fell down at his feet; "mercy, and I will
+tell thee all."
+
+And then she told him of her plot to murder Tristram, that her own sons
+might enjoy the kingdom.
+
+"The law shall judge thee," said the king.
+
+And so anon she was tried before the barons, and condemned to be burnt to
+death.
+
+But when the fire was made, and she brought out, came Tristram kneeling at
+his father's feet and besought of him a favour.
+
+"Whatsoever thou desirest I will give thee," said the king.
+
+"Give me the life, then, of the queen, my stepmother," said he.
+
+"Thou doest wrong to ask it," said Meliodas; "for she would have slain
+thee with her poisons if she could, and chiefly for thy sake she ought to
+die."
+
+"Sir," said he, "as for that, I beseech thee of thy mercy to forgive it
+her, and for my part may God pardon her as I do; and so I pray thee grant
+me my boon, and for God's sake hold thee to thy promise."
+
+"If it must be so," said the king, "take thou her life, for to thee I give
+it, and go and do with her as thou wilt."
+
+Then went young Tristram to the fire and loosed the queen from all her
+bonds and delivered her from death.
+
+And after a great while by his good means the king again forgave and lived
+in peace with her, though never more in the same lodgings.
+
+Anon was Tristram sent abroad to France in care of one named Governale.
+And there for seven years he learned the language of the land, and all
+knightly exercises and gentle crafts, and especially was he foremost in
+music and in hunting, and was a harper beyond all others. And when at
+nineteen years of age he came back to his father, he was as lusty and
+strong of body and as noble of heart as ever man was seen.
+
+Now shortly after his return it befell that King Anguish of Ireland sent
+to King Mark of Cornwall for the tribute due to Ireland, but which was now
+seven years behindhand. To whom King Mark sent answer, if he would have it
+he must send and fight for it, and they would find a champion to fight
+against it.
+
+So King Anguish called for Sir Marhaus, his wife's brother, a good knight
+of the Round Table, who lived then at his court, and sent him with a
+knightly retinue in six great ships to Cornwall. And, casting anchor by
+the castle of Tintagil, he sent up daily to King Mark for the tribute or
+the champion. But no knight there would venture to assail him, for his
+fame was very high in all the realm for strength and hardihood.
+
+Then made King Mark a proclamation throughout Cornwall, that if any knight
+would fight Sir Marhaus he should stand at the king's right hand for
+evermore, and have great honour and riches all the rest of his days. Anon
+this news came to the land of Lyonesse, and when young Tristram heard it
+he was angry and ashamed to think no knight of Cornwall durst assail the
+Irish champion. "Alas," said he, "that I am not a knight, that I might
+match this Marhaus! I pray you give me leave, sir, to depart to King
+Mark's court and beg of his grace to make me knight."
+
+"Be ruled by thy own courage," said his father.
+
+So Tristram rode away forthwith to Tintagil to King Mark, and went up
+boldly to him and said, "Sir, give me the order of knighthood and I will
+fight to the uttermost with Sir Marhaus of Ireland."
+
+"What are ye, and whence come ye?" said the king, seeing he was but a
+young man, though strong and well made both in body and limb.
+
+"My name is Tristram," said he, "and I was born in the country of
+Lyonesse."
+
+"But know ye," said the king, "this Irish knight will fight with none who
+be not come of royal blood and near of kin to kings or queens, as he
+himself is, for his sister is the Queen of Ireland."
+
+Then said Tristram, "Let him know that I am come both on my father's and
+my mother's side of blood as good as his, for my father is King Meliodas
+and my mother was that Queen Elizabeth, thy sister, who died in the forest
+at my birth."
+
+When King Mark heard that he welcomed him with all his heart, and knighted
+him forthwith, and made him ready to go forth as soon as he would choose,
+and armed him royally in armour covered with gold and silver.
+
+Then he sent Sir Marhaus word, "That a better man than he should fight
+with him, Sir Tristram of Lyonesse, son of King Meliodas and of King
+Mark's own sister." So the battle was ordained to be fought in an island
+near Sir Marhaus' ships, and there Sir Tristram landed on the morrow, with
+Governale alone attending him for squire, and him he sent back to the land
+when he had made himself ready.
+
+When Sir Marhaus and Sir Tristram were thus left alone, Sir Marhaus said,
+"Young knight Sir Tristram what doest thou here? I am full sorry for thy
+rashness, for ofttimes have I been assailed in vain, and by the best
+knights of the world. Be warned in time, return to them that sent thee."
+
+"Fair knight, and well-proved knight," replied Sir Tristram, "be sure that
+I shall never quit this quarrel till one of us be overcome. For this cause
+have I been made knight, and thou shalt know before we part that though as
+yet unproved, I am a king's son and first-born of a queen. Moreover I have
+promised to deliver Cornwall from this ancient burden, or to die. Also,
+thou shouldst have known, Sir Marhaus, that thy valour and thy might are
+but the better reasons why I should assail thee; for whether I win or lose
+I shall gain honour to have met so great a knight as thou art."
+
+Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest against each
+other, so that both knights and horses fell to the earth. But Sir Marhaus'
+spear smote Sir Tristram a great wound in the side. Then, springing up
+from their horses, they lashed together with their swords like two wild
+boars. And when they had stricken together a great while they left off
+strokes and lunged at one another's breasts and visors; but seeing this
+availed not they hurtled together again to bear each other down.
+
+[Illustration: Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest
+against each other.]
+
+Thus fought they more than half the day, till both were sorely spent and
+blood ran from them to the ground on every side. But by this time Sir
+Tristram remained fresher than Sir Marhaus and better winded, and with a
+mighty stroke he smote him such a buffet as cut through his helm into his
+brain-pan, and there his sword stuck in so fast that thrice Sir Tristram
+pulled ere he could get it from his head. Then fell Sir Marhaus down upon
+his knees, and the edge of Sir Tristram's sword broke off into his
+brain-pan. And suddenly when he seemed dead, Sir Marhaus rose and threw
+his sword and shield away from him and ran and fled into his ship. And
+Tristram cried out after him, "Aha! Sir knight of the Round Table, dost
+thou withdraw thee from so young a knight? it is a shame to thee and all
+thy kin; I would rather have been hewn into a hundred pieces than have
+fled from thee."
+
+But Sir Marhaus answered nothing, and sorely groaning fled away.
+
+"Farewell, Sir knight, farewell," laughed Tristram, whose own voice now
+was hoarse and faint with loss of blood; "I have thy sword and shield in
+my safe keeping, and will wear them in all places where I ride on my
+adventures, and before King Arthur and the Table Round."
+
+Then was Sir Marhaus taken back to Ireland by his company; and as soon as
+he arrived his wounds were searched, and when they searched his head they
+found therein a piece of Tristram's sword; but all the skill of surgeons
+was in vain to move it out. So anon Sir Marhaus died.
+
+But the queen, his sister, took the piece of sword-blade and put it safely
+by, for she thought that some day it might help her to revenge her
+brother's death.
+
+Meanwhile, Sir Tristram, being sorely wounded, sat down softly on a little
+mound and bled passing fast; and in that evil case was found anon by
+Governale and King Mark's knights. Then they gently took him up and
+brought him in a barge back to the land, and lifted him into a bed within
+the castle, and had his wounds dressed carefully.
+
+But for a great while he lay sorely sick, and was likely to have died of
+the first stroke Sir Marhaus had given him with the spear, for the point
+of it was poisoned. And, though the wisest surgeons and leeches--both men
+and women--came from every part, yet could he be by no means cured. At
+last came a wise lady, and said plainly that Sir Tristram never should be
+healed, until he went and stayed in that same country whence the poison
+came. When this was understood, the king sent Sir Tristram in a fair and
+goodly ship to Ireland, and by fortune he arrived fast by a castle where
+the king and queen were. And as the ship was being anchored, he sat upon
+his bed and harped a merry lay, and made so sweet a music as was never
+equalled.
+
+When the king heard that the sweet harper was a wounded knight, he sent
+for him, and asked his name. "I am of the country of Lyonesse," he
+answered, "and my name is Tramtrist;" for he dared not tell his true name
+lest the vengeance of the queen should fall upon him for her brother's
+death.
+
+"Well," said King Anguish, "thou art right welcome here, and shalt have
+all the help this land can give thee; but be not anxious if I am at times
+cast down and sad, for but lately in Cornwall the best knight in the
+world, fighting for my cause, was slain; his name was Sir Marhaus, a
+knight of King Arthur's Round Table." And then he told Sir Tristram all
+the story of Sir Marhaus' battle, and Sir Tristram made pretence of great
+surprise and sorrow, though he knew all far better than the king himself.
+
+Then was he put in charge of the king's daughter, La Belle Isault, to be
+healed of his wound, and she was as fair and noble a lady as men's eyes
+might see. And so marvellously was she skilled in medicine, that in a few
+days she fully cured him; and in return Sir Tristram taught her the harp;
+so, before long, they two began to love each other greatly.
+
+But at that time a heathen knight, Sir Palomedes, was in Ireland, and much
+cherished by the king and queen. He also loved mightily La Belle Isault,
+and never wearied of making her great gifts, and seeking for her favour,
+and was ready even to be christened for her sake. Sir Tristram therefore
+hated him out of measure, and Sir Palomedes was full of rage and envy
+against Tristram.
+
+And so it befell that King Anguish proclaimed a great tournament to be
+held, the prize whereof should be a lady called the Lady of the Launds, of
+near kindred to the king: and her the winner of the tournament should wed
+in three days afterwards, and possess all her lands. When La Belle Isault
+told Sir Tristram of this tournament, he said, "Fair lady! I am yet a
+feeble knight, and but for thee had been a dead man now: what wouldest
+thou I should do? Thou knowest well I may not joust."
+
+"Ah, Tristram," said she, "why wilt thou not fight in this tournament? Sir
+Palomedes will be there, and will do his mightiest; and therefore be thou
+there, I pray thee, or else he will be winner of the prize."
+
+"Madam," said Tristram, "I will go, and for thy sake will do my best; but
+let me go unknown to all men; and do thou, I pray thee, keep my counsel,
+and help me to a disguise."
+
+So on the day of jousting came Sir Palomedes, with a black shield, and
+overthrew many knights. And all the people wondered at his prowess; for on
+the first day he put to the worse Sir Gawain, Sir Gaheris, Sir Agravaine,
+Sir Key, and many more from far and near. And on the morrow he was
+conqueror again, and overthrew the king with a hundred knights and the
+King of Scotland. But presently Sir Tristram rode up to the lists, having
+been let out at a privy postern of the castle, where none could see. La
+Belle Isault had dressed him in white armour and given him a white horse
+and shield, and so he came suddenly into the field as it had been a bright
+angel.
+
+As soon as Sir Palomedes saw him he ran at him with a great spear in rest,
+but Sir Tristram was ready, and at the first encounter hurled him to the
+ground. Then there arose a great cry that the knight with the black shield
+was overthrown. And Palomedes sorely hurt and shamed, sought out a secret
+way and would have left the field; but Tristram watched him, and rode
+after him, and bade him stay, for he had not yet done with him. Then did
+Sir Palomedes turn with fury, and lash at Sir Tristram with his sword; but
+at the first stroke Sir Tristram smote him to the earth, and cried, "Do
+now all my commands, or take thy death." Then he yielded to Sir Tristram's
+mercy, and promised to forsake La Belle Isault, and for twelve months to
+wear no arms or armour. And rising up, he cut his armour off him into
+shreds with rage and madness, and turned and left the field: and Sir
+Tristram also left the lists, and rode back to the castle through the
+postern gate.
+
+Then was Sir Tristram long cherished by the King and Queen of Ireland, and
+ever with La Belle Isault. But on a certain day, while he was bathing,
+came the queen with La Belle Isault by chance into his chamber, and saw
+his sword lie naked on the bed: anon she drew it from the scabbard and
+looked at it a long while, and both thought it a passing fair sword; but
+within a foot and a half of the end there was a great piece broken out,
+and while the queen was looking at the gap, she suddenly remembered the
+piece of sword-blade that was found in the brain-pan of her brother Sir
+Marhaus.
+
+Therewith she turned and cried, "By my faith, this is the felon knight who
+slew thy uncle!" And running to her chamber she sought in her casket for
+the piece of iron from Sir Marhaus' head and brought it back, and fitted
+it in Tristram's sword; and surely did it fit therein as closely as it had
+been but yesterday broke out.
+
+[Illustration: And running to her chamber, she sought in her casket for
+the piece of iron ... and fitted it in Tristram's sword.]
+
+Then the queen caught the sword up fiercely in her hand, and ran into the
+room where Sir Tristram was yet in his bath, and making straight for him,
+had run him through the body, had not his squire, Sir Hebes, got her in
+his arms, and pulled the sword away from her.
+
+Then ran she to the king, and fell upon her knees before him, saying,
+"Lord and husband, thou hast here in thy house that felon knight who slew
+my brother Marhaus!"
+
+"Who is it?" said the king.
+
+"It is Sir Tristram!" said she, "whom Isault hath healed."
+
+"Alas!" replied the king, "I am full grieved thereat, for he is a good
+knight as ever I have seen in any field; but I charge thee leave thou him,
+and let me deal with him."
+
+Then the king went to Sir Tristram's chamber and found him all armed and
+ready to mount his horse, and said to him, "Sir Tristram, it is not to
+prove me against thee I come, for it were shameful of thy host to seek thy
+life. Depart in peace, but tell me first thy name, and whether thou
+slewest my brother, Sir Marhaus."
+
+Then Sir Tristram told him all the truth, and how he had hid his name, to
+be unknown in Ireland; and when he had ended, the king declared he held
+him in no blame. "Howbeit, I cannot for mine honour's sake retain thee at
+this court, for so I should displease my barons, and my wife, and all her
+kin."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Tristram, "I thank thee for the goodness thou hast shown
+me here, and for the great goodness my lady, thy daughter, hath shown me;
+and it may chance to be more for thy advantage if I live than if I die;
+for wheresoever I may be, I shall ever seek thy service, and shall be my
+lady thy daughter's servant in all places, and her knight in right and
+wrong, and shall never fail to do for her as much as knight can do."
+
+Then Sir Tristram went to La Belle Isault, and took his leave of her. "O
+gentle knight," said she, "full of grief am I at your departing, for never
+yet I saw a man to love so well."
+
+"Madam," said he, "I promise faithfully that all my life I shall be your
+knight."
+
+Then Sir Tristram gave her a ring, and she gave him another, and after
+that he left her, weeping and lamenting, and went among the barons, and
+openly took his leave of them all, saying, "Fair lords, it so befalleth
+that I now must depart hence; therefore, if there be any here whom I have
+offended or who is grieved with me, let him now say it, and before I go I
+will amend it to the utmost of my power. And if there be but one who
+would speak shame of me behind my back, let him say it now or never, and
+here is my body to prove it on--body against body."
+
+And all stood still and said no word, though some there were of the
+queen's kindred who would have assailed him had they dared.
+
+So Sir Tristram departed from Ireland and took the sea and came with a
+fair wind to Tintagil. And when the news came to King Mark that Sir
+Tristram was returned, healed of his wound, he was passing glad, and so
+were all his barons. And when he had visited the king his uncle, he rode
+to his father, King Meliodas, and there had all the heartiest welcome that
+could be made him. And both the king and queen gave largely to him of
+their lands and goods.
+
+Anon he came again to King Mark's court, and there lived in great joy and
+pleasure, till within a while the king grew jealous of his fame, and of
+the love and favour shown him by all damsels. And as long as King Mark
+lived, he never after loved Sir Tristram, though there was much fair
+speech between them.
+
+Then it befell upon a certain day that the good knight Sir Bleoberis de
+Ganis, brother to Sir Blamor de Ganis, and nigh cousin to Sir Lancelot of
+the Lake, came to King Mark's court and asked of him a favour. And though
+the king marvelled, seeing he was a man of great renown, and a knight of
+the Round Table, he granted him all his asking. Then said Sir Bleoberis,
+"I will have the fairest lady in your court, at my own choosing."
+
+"I may not say thee nay," replied the king; "choose therefore, but take
+all the issues of thy choice."
+
+So when he had looked around, he chose the wife of Earl Segwarides, and
+took her by the hand, and set her upon horseback behind his squire, and
+rode forth on his way.
+
+Presently thereafter came in the earl, and rode out straightway after him
+in rage. But all the ladies cried out shame upon Sir Tristram that he had
+not gone, and one rebuked him foully and called him coward knight, that he
+would stand and see a lady forced away from his uncle's court. But Sir
+Tristram answered her, "Fair lady, it is not my place to take part in this
+quarrel while her lord and husband is here to do it. Had he not been at
+this court, peradventure I had been her champion. And if it so befall that
+he speed ill, then may it happen that I speak with that foul knight before
+he pass out of this realm."
+
+Anon ran in one of Sir Segwarides' squires, and told that his master was
+sore wounded, and at the point of death. When Sir Tristram heard that, he
+was soon armed and on his horse, and Governale, his servant, followed him
+with shield and spear.
+
+And as he rode, he met his cousin Sir Andret, who had been commanded by
+King Mark to bring home to him two knights of King Arthur's court who
+roamed the country thereabouts seeking adventures.
+
+"What tidings?" said Sir Tristram.
+
+"God help me, never worse," replied his cousin; "for those I went to bring
+have beaten and defeated me, and set my message at naught."
+
+"Fair cousin," said Sir Tristram, "ride ye on your way, perchance if I
+should meet them ye may be revenged."
+
+So Sir Andret rode into Cornwall, but Sir Tristram rode after the two
+knights who had misused him, namely, Sir Sagramour le Desirous, and Sir
+Dodinas le Savage. And before long he saw them but a little way before
+him.
+
+"Sir," said Governale, "by my advice thou wilt leave them alone, for they
+be two well-proved knights of Arthur's court."
+
+"Shall I not therefore rather meet them?" said Sir Tristram, and, riding
+swiftly after them, he called to them to stop, and asked them whence they
+came, and whither they were going, and what they were doing in those
+marches.
+
+Sir Sagramour looked haughtily at Sir Tristram, and made mocking of his
+words, and said, "Fair knight, be ye a knight of Cornwall?"
+
+"Wherefore askest thou that?" said Tristram.
+
+"Truly, because it is full seldom seen," replied Sir Sagramour, "that
+Cornish knights are valiant with their arms as with their tongues. It is
+but two hours since there met us such a Cornish knight, who spoke great
+words with might and prowess, but anon, with little mastery, he was laid
+on earth, as I trow wilt thou be also."
+
+"Fair lords," said Sir Tristram, "it may chance I be a better man than he;
+but, be that as it may, he was my cousin, and for his sake I will assail
+ye both; one Cornish knight against ye two."
+
+When Sir Dodinas le Savage heard this speech, he caught at his spear and
+said, "Sir knight, keep well thyself;" and then they parted and came
+together as it had been thunder, and Sir Dodinas' spear split asunder; but
+Sir Tristram smote him with so full a stroke as hurled him over his
+horse's crupper, and nearly brake his neck. Sir Sagramour, seeing his
+fellow's fall, marvelled who this new knight might be, and dressed his
+spear, and came against Sir Tristram as a whirlwind; but Sir Tristram
+smote him a mighty buffet, and rolled him with his horse down on the
+ground; and in the falling he brake his thigh.
+
+Then, looking at them both as they lay grovelling on the grass, Sir
+Tristram said, "Fair knights, will ye joust any more? Are there no bigger
+knights in King Arthur's court? Will ye soon again speak shame of Cornish
+knights?"
+
+"Thou hast defeated us, in truth," replied Sir Sagramour, "and on the
+faith of knighthood I require thee tell us thy right name?"
+
+"Ye charge me by a great thing," said Sir Tristram, "and I will answer
+ye."
+
+And when they heard his name the two knights were right glad that they had
+met Sir Tristram, for his deeds were known through all the land, and they
+prayed him to abide in their company.
+
+"Nay," said he, "I must find a fellow-knight of yours, Sir Bleoberis de
+Ganis, whom I seek."
+
+"God speed you well," said the two knights; and Sir Tristram rode away.
+
+Soon he saw before him in a valley Sir Bleoberis with Sir Segwarides' wife
+riding behind his squire upon a palfrey. At that he cried out aloud,
+"Abide, Sir knight of King Arthur's court, bring back again that lady or
+deliver her to me."
+
+"I will not," said Bleoberis, "for I dread no Cornish knight."
+
+"Why," said Sir Tristram, "may not a Cornish knight do well as any other?
+This day, but three miles back, two knights of thy own court met me, and
+found one Cornish knight enough for both before we parted."
+
+"What were their names?" said Sir Bleoberis.
+
+"Sir Sagramour le Desirous and Sir Dodinas le Savage," said Sir Tristram.
+
+"Ah," said Sir Bleoberis, amazed; "hast thou then met with them? By my
+faith, they were two good knights and men of worship, and if thou hast
+beat both thou must needs be a good knight; but for all that thou shalt
+beat me also ere thou hast this lady."
+
+"Defend thee, then," cried out Sir Tristram, and came upon him swiftly
+with his spear in rest. But Sir Bleoberis was as swift as he, and each
+bore down the other, horse and all, on to the earth.
+
+Then they sprang clear of their horses, and lashed together full eagerly
+and mightily with their swords, tracing and traversing on the right hand
+and on the left more than two hours, and sometimes rushing together with
+such fury that they both lay grovelling on the ground. At last Sir
+Bleoberis started back and said, "Now, gentle knight, hold hard awhile,
+and let us speak together."
+
+"Say on," said Sir Tristram, "and I will answer thee."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Bleoberis, "I would know thy name, and court, and
+country."
+
+"I have no shame to tell them," said Sir Tristram. "I am King Meliodas'
+son, and my mother was sister to King Mark, from whose court I now come.
+My name is Sir Tristram de Lyonesse." "Truly," said Sir Bleoberis, "I am
+right glad to hear it, for thou art he that slew Sir Marhaus hand-to-hand,
+fighting for the Cornish tribute; and overcame Sir Palomedes at the great
+Irish tournament, where also thou didst overthrow Sir Gawain and his nine
+companions."
+
+"I am that knight," said Sir Tristram, "and now I pray thee tell me thy
+name."
+
+"I am Sir Bleoberis de Ganis, cousin of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, one of
+the best knights in all the world," he answered.
+
+"Thou sayest truth," said Sir Tristram; "for Sir Lancelot, as all men
+know, is peerless in courtesy and knighthood, and for the great love I
+bear to his name I will not willingly fight more with thee his kinsman."
+
+"In good faith, sir," said Sir Bleoberis, "I am as loth to fight thee
+more; but since thou hast followed me to win this lady, I proffer thee
+kindness, courtesy, and gentleness; this lady shall be free to go with
+which of us she pleaseth best."
+
+"I am content," said Sir Tristram, "for I doubt not she will come to me."
+
+"That shalt thou shortly prove," said he, and called his squire, and set
+the lady in the midst between them, who forthwith walked to Sir Bleoberis
+and elected to abide with him. Which, when Sir Tristram saw, he was in
+wondrous anger with her, and felt that he could scarce for shame return to
+King Mark's court. But Sir Bleoberis said, "Hearken to me, good knight,
+Sir Tristram, because King Mark gave me free choice of any gift, and
+because this lady chose to go with me, I took her; but now I have
+fulfilled my quest and my adventure, and for thy sake she shall be sent
+back to her husband at the abbey where he lieth."
+
+So Sir Tristram rode back to Tintagil, and Sir Bleoberis to the abbey
+where Sir Segwarides lay wounded, and there delivered up his lady, and
+departed as a noble knight.
+
+After this adventure Sir Tristram abode still at his uncle's court, till
+in the envy of his heart King Mark devised a plan to be rid of him. So on
+a certain day he desired him to depart again for Ireland, and there demand
+La Belle Isault on his behalf, to be his queen--for ever had Sir Tristram
+praised her beauty and her goodness, till King Mark desired to wed her for
+himself. Moreover, he believed his nephew surely would be slain by the
+queen's kindred if he once were found again in Ireland.
+
+But Sir Tristram, scorning fear, made ready to depart, and took with him
+the noblest knights that could be found, arrayed in the richest fashion.
+
+And when they were come to Ireland, upon a certain day Sir Tristram gave
+his uncle's message, and King Anguish consented thereto.
+
+But when La Belle Isault was told the tidings she was very sorrowful and
+loth--yet made she ready to set forth with Sir Tristram, and took with her
+Dame Bragwaine, her chief gentlewoman. Then the queen gave Dame Bragwaine,
+and Governale, Sir Tristram's servant, a little flask, and charged them
+that La Belle Isault and King Mark should both drink of it on their
+marriage day, and then should they surely love each other all their lives.
+
+Anon, Sir Tristram and Isault, with a great company, took the sea and
+departed. And so it chanced that one day sitting in their cabin they were
+athirst, and saw a little flask of gold which seemed to hold good wine. So
+Sir Tristram took it up, and said, "Fair lady, this looketh to be the best
+of wines, and your maid, Dame Bragwaine, and my servant, Governale, have
+kept it for themselves." Thereat they both laughed merrily, and drank each
+after other from the flask, and never before had they tasted any wine
+which seemed so good and sweet. But by the time they had finished drinking
+they loved each other so well that their love nevermore might leave them
+for weal or woe. And thus it came to pass that though Sir Tristram might
+never wed La Belle Isault, he did the mightiest deeds of arms for her sake
+only all his life.
+
+[Illustration: By the time they had finished drinking they loved each
+other so well that their love never more might leave them.]
+
+Then they sailed onwards till they came to a castle called Pluere, where
+they would have rested. But anon there ran forth a great company and took
+them prisoners. And when they were in prison, Sir Tristram asked a knight
+and lady whom they found therein wherefore they were so shamefully dealt
+with; "for," said he, "it was never the custom of any place of honour that
+I ever came unto to seize a knight and lady asking shelter and thrust them
+into prison, and a full evil and discourteous custom is it."
+
+"Sir," said the knight, "know ye not that this is called the Castle
+Pluere, or the weeping castle, and that it is an ancient custom here that
+whatsoever knight abideth in it must needs fight the lord of it, Sir
+Brewnor, and he that is the weakest shall lose his head. And if the lady
+he hath with him be less fair than the lord's wife, she shall lose her
+head; but if she be fairer, then must the lady of the castle lose her
+head."
+
+"Now Heaven help me," said Sir Tristram, "but this is a foul and shameful
+custom. Yet have I one advantage, for my lady is the fairest that doth
+live in all the world, so that I nothing fear for her; and as for me, I
+will full gladly fight for my own head in a fair field."
+
+Then said the knight, "Look ye be up betimes to-morrow, and make you ready
+and your lady."
+
+And on the morrow came Sir Brewnor to Sir Tristram, and put him and Isault
+forth out of prison, and brought him a horse and armour, and bade him make
+ready, for all the commons and estates of that lordship waited in the
+field to see and judge the battle.
+
+Then Sir Brewnor, holding his lady by the hand, all muffled, came forth,
+and Sir Tristram went to meet him with La Belle Isault beside him, muffled
+also. Then said Sir Brewnor, "Sir knight, if thy lady be fairer than mine,
+with thy sword smite off my lady's head; but if my lady be fairer than
+thine, with my sword I will smite off thy lady's head. And if I overcome
+thee thy lady shall be mine, and thou shalt lose thy head."
+
+"Sir knight," replied Sir Tristram, "this is a right foul and felon
+custom, and rather than my lady shall lose her head will I lose my own."
+
+"Nay," said Sir Brewnor, "but the ladies shall be now compared together
+and judgment shall be had."
+
+"I consent not," cried Sir Tristram, "for who is here that will give
+rightful judgment? Yet doubt not that my lady is far fairer than thine
+own, and that will I prove and make good." Therewith Sir Tristram lifted
+up the veil from off La Belle Isault, and stood beside her with his naked
+sword drawn in his hand.
+
+Then Sir Brewnor unmuffled his lady and did in like manner. But when he
+saw La Belle Isault he knew that none could be so fair, and all there
+present gave their judgment so. Then said Sir Tristram, "Because thou and
+thy lady have long used this evil custom, and have slain many good knights
+and ladies, it were a just thing to destroy thee both."
+
+"In good sooth," said Sir Brewnor, "thy lady is fairer than mine, and of
+all women I never saw any so fair. Therefore, slay my lady if thou wilt,
+and I doubt not but I shall slay thee and have thine."
+
+"Thou shalt win her," said Sir Tristram, "as dearly as ever knight won
+lady; and because of thy own judgment and of the evil custom that thy lady
+hath consented to, I will slay her as thou sayest."
+
+And therewithal Sir Tristram went to him and took his lady from him, and
+smote off her head at a stroke.
+
+"Now take thy horse," cried out Sir Brewnor, "for since I have lost my
+lady I will win thine and have thy life."
+
+So they took their horses and came together as fast as they could fly, and
+Sir Tristram lightly smote Sir Brewnor from his horse. But he rose right
+quickly, and when Sir Tristram came again he thrust his horse through both
+the shoulders, so that it reeled and fell. But Sir Tristram was light and
+nimble, and voided his horse, and rose up and dressed his shield before
+him, though meanwhile, ere he could draw out his sword, Sir Brewnor gave
+him three or four grievous strokes. Then they rushed furiously together
+like two wild boars, and fought hurtling and hewing here and there for
+nigh two hours, and wounded each other full sorely. Then at the last Sir
+Brewnor rushed upon Sir Tristram and took him in his arms to throw him,
+for he trusted greatly in his strength. But Sir Tristram was at that time
+called the strongest and biggest knight of the world; for he was bigger
+than Sir Lancelot, though Sir Lancelot was better breathed. So anon he
+thrust Sir Brewnor grovelling to the earth, and then unlaced his helm and
+struck off his head. Then all they that belonged to the castle came and
+did him homage and fealty, and prayed him to abide there for a season and
+put an end to that foul custom.
+
+But within a while he departed and came to Cornwall, and there King Mark
+was forthwith wedded to La Belle Isault with great joy and splendour.
+
+And Sir Tristram had high honour, and ever lodged at the king's court. But
+for all he had done him such services King Mark hated him, and on a
+certain day he set two knights to fall upon him as he rode in the forest.
+But Sir Tristram lightly smote one's head off, and sorely wounded the
+other, and made him bear his fellow's body to the king. At that the king
+dissembled and hid from Sir Tristram that the knights were sent by him;
+yet more than ever he hated him in secret, and sought to slay him.
+
+So on a certain day, by the assent of Sir Andret, a false knight, and
+forty other knights, Sir Tristram was taken prisoner in his sleep and
+carried to a chapel on the rocks above the sea to be cast down. But as
+they were about to cast him in, suddenly he brake his bonds asunder, and
+rushing at Sir Andret, took his sword and smote him down therewith. Then,
+leaping down the rocks where none could follow, he escaped them. But one
+shot after him and wounded him full sorely with a poisoned arrow in the
+arm.
+
+Anon, his servant Governale, with Sir Lambegus sought him and found him
+safe among the rocks, and told him that King Mark had banished him and all
+his followers to avenge Sir Andret's death. So they took ship and came to
+Brittany.
+
+Now Sir Tristram, suffering great anguish from his wound, was told to seek
+Isoude, the daughter of the King of Brittany, for she alone could cure
+such wounds. Wherefore he went to King Howell's court, and said, "Lord, I
+am come into this country to have help from thy daughter, for men tell me
+none but she may help me." And Isoude gladly offering to do her best,
+within a month he was made whole.
+
+While he abode still at that court, an earl named Grip made war upon King
+Howell, and besieged him; and Sir Kay Hedius, the king's son, went forth
+against him, but was beaten in battle and sore wounded. Then the king
+praying Sir Tristram for his help, he took with him such knights as he
+could find, and on the morrow, in another battle, did such deeds of arms
+that all the land spake of him. For there he slew the earl with his own
+hands, and more than a hundred knights besides.
+
+When he came back King Howell met him, and saluted him with every honour
+and rejoicing that could be thought of, and took him in his arms, and
+said, "Sir Tristram, all my kingdom will I resign to thee."
+
+"Nay," answered he, "God forbid, for truly am I beholden to you for ever
+for your daughter's sake."
+
+Then the king prayed him to take Isoude in marriage, with a great dower of
+lands and castles. To this Sir Tristram presently consenting anon they
+were wedded at the court.
+
+But within a while Sir Tristram greatly longed to see Cornwall, and Sir
+Kay Hedius desired to go with him. So they took ship; but as soon as they
+were at sea the wind blew them upon the coast of North Wales, nigh to
+Castle Perilous, hard by a forest wherein were many strange adventures
+ofttimes to be met. Then said Sir Tristram to Sir Kay Hedius, "Let us
+prove some of them ere we depart." So they took their horses and rode
+forth.
+
+When they had ridden a mile or more, Sir Tristram spied a goodly knight
+before him well armed, who sat by a clear fountain with a strong horse
+near him, tied to an oak-tree. "Fair sir," said he, when they came near,
+"ye seem to be a knight errant by your arms and harness, therefore make
+ready now to joust with one of us, or both."
+
+Thereat the knight spake not, but took his shield and buckled it round his
+neck, and leaping on his horse caught a spear from his squire's hand.
+
+Then said Sir Kay Hedius to Sir Tristram, "Let me assay him."
+
+"Do thy best," said he.
+
+So the two knights met, and Sir Kay Hedius fell sorely wounded in the
+breast.
+
+"Thou hast well jousted," cried Sir Tristram to the knight; "now make
+ready for me!"
+
+"I am ready," answered he, and encountered him, and smote him so heavily
+that he fell down from his horse. Whereat, being ashamed, he put his
+shield before him, and drew his sword, crying to the strange knight to do
+likewise. Then they fought on foot for well nigh two hours, till they were
+both weary.
+
+At last Sir Tristram said, "In all my life I never met a knight so strong
+and well-breathed as ye be. It were a pity we should further hurt each
+other. Hold thy hand, fair knight, and tell me thy name."
+
+"That will I," answered he, "if thou wilt tell me thine."
+
+"My name," said he, "is Sir Tristram of Lyonesse."
+
+"And mine, Sir Lamoracke of Gaul."
+
+Then both cried out together, "Well met;" and Sir Lamoracke said, "Sir,
+for your great renown, I will that ye have all the worship of this battle,
+and therefore will I yield me unto you." And therewith he took his sword
+by the point to yield him.
+
+"Nay," said Sir Tristram, "ye shall not do so, for well I know ye do it of
+courtesy, and not of dread." And therewith he offered his sword to Sir
+Lamoracke, saying, "Sir, as an overcome knight, I yield me unto you as
+unto the man of noblest powers I have ever met with."
+
+"Hold," said Sir Lamoracke, "let us now swear together nevermore to fight
+against each other."
+
+Then did they swear as he said.
+
+Then Sir Tristram returned to Sir Kay Hedius, and when he was whole of his
+wounds, they departed together in a ship, and landed on the coast of
+Cornwall. And when they came ashore, Sir Tristram eagerly sought news of
+La Belle Isault. And one told him in mistake that she was dead. Whereat,
+for sore and grievous sorrow, he fell down in a swoon, and so lay for
+three days and nights.
+
+When he awoke therefrom he was crazed, and ran into the forest and abode
+there like a wild man many days; whereby he waxed lean and weak of body,
+and would have died, but that a hermit laid some meat beside him as he
+slept. Now in that forest was a giant named Tauleas, who, for fear of
+Tristram, had hid himself within a castle, but when they told him he was
+mad, came forth and went at large again. And on a certain day he saw a
+knight of Cornwall, named Sir Dinaunt, pass by with a lady, and when he
+had alighted by a well to rest, the giant leaped out from his ambush, and
+took him by the throat to slay him. But Sir Tristram, as he wandered
+through the forest, came upon them as they struggled; and when the knight
+cried out for help, he rushed upon the giant, and taking up Sir Dinaunt's
+sword, struck off therewith the giant's head, and straightway disappeared
+among the trees.
+
+Anon, Sir Dinaunt took the head of Tauleas, and bare it with him to the
+court of King Mark, whither he was bound, and told of his adventures.
+"Where had ye this adventure?" said King Mark.
+
+"At a fair fountain in thy forest," answered he.
+
+"I would fain see that wild man," said the king.
+
+So within a day or two he commanded his knights to a great hunting in the
+forest. And when the king came to the well, he saw a wild man lying there
+asleep, having a sword beside him; but he knew not that it was Sir
+Tristram. Then he blew his horn, and summoned all his knights to take him
+gently up and bear him to the court.
+
+And when they came thereto they bathed and washed him, and brought him
+somewhat to his right mind. Now La Belle Isault knew not that Sir Tristram
+was in Cornwall; but when she heard that a wild man had been found in the
+forest, she came to see him. And so sorely was he changed, she knew him
+not. "Yet," said she to Dame Bragwaine, "in good faith I seem to have
+beheld him ofttimes before."
+
+As she thus spoke a little hound, which Sir Tristram had given her when
+she first came to Cornwall, and which was ever with her, saw Sir Tristram
+lying there, and leapt upon him, licking his hands and face, and whined
+and barked for joy.
+
+"Alas," cried out La Belle Isault, "it is my own true knight, Sir
+Tristram."
+
+And at her voice Sir Tristram's senses wholly came again, and wellnigh he
+wept for joy to see his lady living.
+
+But never would the hound depart from Tristram; and when King Mark and
+other knights came up to see him, it sat upon his body and bayed at all
+who came too near. Then one of the knights said, "Surely this is Sir
+Tristram; I see it by the hound."
+
+"Nay," said the king, "it cannot be," and asked Sir Tristram on his faith
+who he was.
+
+"My name," said he, "is Sir Tristram of Lyonesse, and now ye may do what
+ye list with me."
+
+Then the king said, "It repents me that ye are recovered," and sought to
+make his barons slay him. But most of them would not assent thereto, and
+counselled him instead to banish Tristram for ten years again from
+Cornwall, for returning without orders from the king. So he was sworn to
+depart forthwith.
+
+And as he went towards the ship a knight of King Arthur, named Sir
+Dinadan, who sought him, came and said, "Fair knight, ere that you pass
+out of this country, I pray you joust with me!"
+
+"With a good will," said he.
+
+Then they ran together, and Sir Tristram lightly smote him from his horse.
+Anon he prayed Sir Tristram's leave to bear him company, and when he had
+consented they rode together to the ship.
+
+Then was Sir Tristram full of bitterness of heart, and said to all the
+knights who took him to the shore, "Greet well King Mark and all mine
+enemies from me, and tell them I will come again when I may. Well am I now
+rewarded for slaying Sir Marhaus, and delivering this kingdom from its
+bondage, and for the perils wherewithal I brought La Belle Isault from
+Ireland to the king, and rescued her at the Castle Pluere, and for the
+slaying of the giant Tauleas, and all the other deeds that I have done for
+Cornwall and King Mark." Thus angrily and passing bitterly he spake, and
+went his way.
+
+And after sailing awhile the ship stayed at a landing-place upon the coast
+of Wales; and there Sir Tristram and Sir Dinadan alighted, and on the
+shore they met two knights, Sir Ector and Sir Bors. And Sir Ector
+encountered with Sir Dinadan and smote him to the ground; but Sir Bors
+would not encounter with Sir Tristram, "For," said he, "no Cornish knights
+are men of worship." Thereat Sir Tristram was full wroth, but presently
+there met them two more knights, Sir Bleoberis and Sir Driant; and Sir
+Bleoberis proffered to joust with Sir Tristram, who shortly smote him
+down.
+
+"I had not thought," cried out Sir Bors, "that any Cornish knight could do
+so valiantly."
+
+Then Sir Tristram and Sir Dinadan departed, and rode into a forest, and as
+they rode a damsel met them, who for Sir Lancelot's sake was seeking any
+noble knights to rescue him. For Queen Morgan le Fay, who hated him, had
+ordered thirty men-at-arms to lie in ambush for him as he passed, with the
+intent to kill him. So the damsel prayed them to rescue him.
+
+Then said Sir Tristram, "Bring me to that place, fair damsel."
+
+But Sir Dinadan cried out, "It is not possible for us to meet with thirty
+knights! I will take no part in such a hardihood, for to match one or two
+or three knights is enough; but to match fifteen I will never assay."
+
+"For shame," replied Sir Tristram, "do but your part."
+
+"That will I not," said he; "wherefore, I pray ye, lend me your shield,
+for it is of Cornwall, and because men of that country are deemed cowards,
+ye are but little troubled as ye ride with knights to joust with."
+
+"Nay," said Sir Tristram, "I will never give my shield up for her sake who
+gave it me; but if thou wilt not stand by me to-day I will surely slay
+thee; for I ask no more of thee than to fight one knight, and if thy heart
+will not serve thee that much, thou shalt stand by and look on me and
+them."
+
+"Would God that I had never met with ye!" cried Sir Dinadan; "but I
+promise to look on and do all that I may to save myself."
+
+Anon they came to where the thirty knights lay waiting, and Sir Tristram
+rushed upon them, saying, "Here is one who fights for love of Lancelot!"
+Then slew he two of them at the first onset with his spear, and ten more
+swiftly after with his sword. At that Sir Dinadan took courage, and
+assailed the others with him, till they turned and fled.
+
+But Sir Tristram and Sir Dinadan rode on till nightfall, and meeting with
+a shepherd, asked him if he knew of any lodging thereabouts.
+
+"Truly, fair lords," said he, "there is good lodging in a castle hard by,
+but it is a custom there that none shall lodge therein save ye first joust
+with two knights, and as soon as ye be within, ye shall find your match."
+
+"That is an evil lodging," said Sir Dinadan; "lodge where ye will, I will
+not lodge there."
+
+"Shame on thee!" said Sir Tristram; "art thou a knight at all?"
+
+Then he required him on his knighthood to go with him, and they rode
+together to the castle. As soon as they were near, two knights came out
+and ran full speed against them; but both of them they overthrew, and went
+within the castle, and had noble cheer. Now, when they were unarmed and
+ready to take rest, there came to the castle-gate two knights, Sir
+Palomedes and Sir Gaheris, and desired the custom of the castle.
+
+"I would far rather rest than fight," said Sir Dinadan.
+
+"That may not be," replied Sir Tristram, "for we must needs defend the
+custom of the castle, seeing we have overcome its lords; therefore, make
+ready."
+
+"Alas that I ever came into your company," said Sir Dinadan.
+
+So they made ready, and Sir Gaheris encountered Sir Tristram and fell
+before him; but Sir Palomedes overthrew Sir Dinadan. Then would all fight
+on foot save Sir Dinadan, for he was sorely bruised and frighted by his
+fall. And when Sir Tristram prayed him to fight, "I will not," answered
+he, "for I was wounded by those thirty knights with whom we fought this
+morning; and as to you, ye are in truth like one gone mad, and who would
+cast himself away! There be but two knights in the world so mad, and the
+other is Sir Lancelot, with whom I once rode forth, who kept me evermore
+at battling so that for a quarter of a year thereafter I lay in my bed.
+Heaven defend me again from either of your fellowships!"
+
+"Well," said Sir Tristram, "if it must be, I will fight them both."
+
+Therewith he drew his sword and assailed Sir Palomedes and Sir Gaheris
+together; but Sir Palomedes said, "Nay, but it is a shame for two to fight
+with one." So he bade Sir Gaheris stand by, and he and Sir Tristram fought
+long together; but in the end Sir Tristram drave him backward, whereat Sir
+Gaheris and Sir Dinadan with one accord sundered them. Then Sir Tristram
+prayed the two knights to lodge there; but Sir Dinadan departed and rode
+away into a priory hard by, and there he lodged that night.
+
+And on the morrow came Sir Tristram to the priory to find him, and seeing
+him so weary that he could not ride, he left him, and departed. At that
+same priory was lodged Sir Pellinore, who asked Sir Dinadan Sir Tristram's
+name, but could not learn it, for Sir Tristram had charged that he should
+remain unknown. Then said Sir Pellinore, "Since ye will not tell it me, I
+will ride after him and find it myself."
+
+"Beware, Sir knight," said Sir Dinadan, "ye will repent it if ye follow
+him."
+
+But Sir Pellinore straightway mounted and overtook him, and cried to him
+to joust; whereat Sir Tristram forthwith turned and smote him down, and
+wounded him full sorely in the shoulder.
+
+On the day after, Sir Tristram met a herald, who told him of a tournament
+proclaimed between King Carados of Scotland, and the King of North Wales,
+to be held at the Maiden's Castle. Now King Carados sought Sir Lancelot to
+fight there on his side, and the King of North Wales sought Sir Tristram.
+And Sir Tristram purposed to be there. So as he rode, he met Sir Key, the
+seneschal, and Sir Sagramour, and Sir Key proffered to joust with him. But
+he refused, desiring to keep himself unwearied for the tourney. Then Sir
+Key cried, "Sir knight of Cornwall, joust with me, or yield as recreant."
+When Sir Tristram heard that, he fiercely turned and set his spear in
+rest, and spurred his horse towards him. But when Sir Key saw him so madly
+coming on, he in his turn refused, whereat Sir Tristram called him coward,
+till for shame he was compelled to meet him. Then Sir Tristram lightly
+smote him down, and rode away. But Sir Sagramour pursued him, crying
+loudly to joust with him also. So Sir Tristram turned and quickly
+overthrew him likewise, and departed.
+
+Anon a damsel met him as he rode, and told him of a knight adventurous who
+did great harm thereby, and prayed him for his help. But as he went with
+her he met Sir Gawain, who knew the damsel for a maiden of Queen Morgan le
+Fay. Knowing, therefore, that she needs must have evil plots against Sir
+Tristram, Sir Gawain demanded of him courteously whither he went.
+
+"I know not whither," said he, "save as this damsel leadeth me."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Gawain, "ye shall not ride with her, for she and her lady
+never yet did good to any;" and, drawing his sword, he said to the
+damsel, "Tell me now straightway for what cause thou leadest this knight
+or else shalt thou die; for I know of old thy lady's treason."
+
+"Mercy, Sir Gawain," cried the damsel, "and I will tell thee all." Then
+she told him that Queen Morgan had ordained thirty fair damsels to seek
+out Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram, and by their wiles persuade them to her
+castle, where she had thirty knights in wait to slay them.
+
+"Oh shame!" cried Sir Gawain, "that ever such foul treason should be
+wrought by a queen, and a king's sister." Then said he to Sir Tristram,
+"Sir knight, if ye will stand with me, we will together prove the malice
+of these thirty knights."
+
+"I will not fail you," answered he, "for but few days since I had to do
+with thirty knights of that same queen, and trust we may win honour as
+lightly now as then."
+
+So they rode together, and when they came to the castle, Sir Gawain cried
+aloud, "Queen Morgan le Fay, send out thy knights that we may fight with
+them."
+
+Then the queen urged her knights to issue forth, but they durst not, for
+they well knew Sir Tristram, and feared him greatly.
+
+So Sir Tristram and Sir Gawain went on their way, and as they rode they
+saw a knight, named Sir Brewse-without-pity, chasing a lady, with intent
+to slay her. Then Sir Gawain prayed Sir Tristram to hold still and let him
+assail that knight. So he rode up between Sir Brewse and the lady, and
+cried, "False knight, turn thee to me and leave that lady." Then Sir
+Brewse turned and set his spear in rest, and rushed against Sir Gawain
+and overthrew him, and rode his horse upon him as he lay, which when Sir
+Tristram saw, he cried, "Forbear that villainy," and galloped at him. But
+when Sir Brewse saw by the shield it was Sir Tristram, he turned and fled.
+And though Sir Tristram followed swiftly after him, yet he was so well
+horsed that he escaped.
+
+Anon Sir Tristram and Sir Gawain came nigh the Maiden's Castle, and there
+an old knight named Sir Pellonnes gave them lodging. And Sir Persides, the
+son of Sir Pellonnes, a good knight, came out to welcome them. And, as
+they stood talking at a bay window of the castle, they saw a goodly knight
+ride by on a black horse, and carrying a black shield. "What knight is
+that?" asked Tristram.
+
+"One of the best knights in all the world," said Sir Persides.
+
+"Is he Sir Lancelot?" said Sir Tristram.
+
+"Nay," answered Sir Persides, "it is Sir Palomedes, who is yet
+unchristened."
+
+Within a while one came and told them that a knight with a black shield
+had smitten down thirteen knights. "Let us go and see this jousting," said
+Sir Tristram. So they armed themselves and went down. And when Sir
+Palomedes saw Sir Persides, he sent a squire to him and proffered him to
+joust. So they jousted, and Sir Persides was overthrown. Then Sir Tristram
+made ready to joust, but ere he had his spear in rest, Sir Palomedes took
+him at advantage, and struck him on the shield so that he fell. At that
+Sir Tristram was wroth out of measure and sore ashamed, wherefore he sent
+a squire and prayed Sir Palomedes to joust once again. But he would not,
+saying, "Tell thy master to revenge himself to-morrow at the Maiden's
+Castle, where he shall see me again."
+
+So on the morrow Sir Tristram commanded his servant to give him a black
+shield with no cognizance thereon, and he and Sir Persides rode into the
+tournament and joined King Carados' side.
+
+Then the knights of the King of North Wales came forth, and there was a
+great fighting and breaking of spears, and overthrow of men and horses.
+
+Now King Arthur sat above in a high gallery to see the tourney and give
+the judgment, and Sir Lancelot sat beside him. Then came against Sir
+Tristram and Sir Persides, two knights with them of North Wales, Sir
+Bleoberis and Sir Gaheris; and Sir Persides was smitten down and nigh
+slain, for four horsemen rode over him. But Sir Tristram rode against Sir
+Gaheris and smote him from his horse, and when Sir Bleoberis next
+encountered him, he overthrew him also. Anon they horsed themselves again,
+and with them came Sir Dinadan, whom Sir Tristram forthwith smote so
+sorely, that he reeled off his saddle. Then cried he, "Ah! Sir knight, I
+know ye better than ye deem, and promise nevermore to come against ye."
+Then rode Sir Bleoberis at him the second time, and had a buffet that
+felled him to the earth. And soon thereafter the king commanded to cease
+for that day, and all men marvelled who Sir Tristram was, for the prize of
+the first day was given him in the name of the Knight of the Black Shield.
+
+Now Sir Palomedes was on the side of the King of North Wales, but knew not
+Sir Tristram again. And, when he saw his marvellous deeds, he sent to ask
+his name. "As to that," said Sir Tristram, "he shall not know at this
+time, but tell him he shall know when I have broken two spears upon him,
+for I am the knight he smote down yesterday, and whatever side he taketh,
+I will take the other."
+
+So when they told him that Sir Palomedes would be on King Carados'
+side--for he was kindred to King Arthur--"Then will I be on the King of
+North Wales' side," said he, "but else would I be on my lord King
+Arthur's."
+
+Then on the morrow, when King Arthur was come, the heralds blew unto the
+tourney. And King Carados jousted with the King of a Hundred Knights and
+fell before him, and then came in King Arthur's knights and bare back
+those of North Wales. But anon Sir Tristram came to aid them and bare back
+the battle, and fought so mightily that none could stand against him, for
+he smote down on the right and on the left, so that all the knights and
+common people shouted his praise.
+
+"Since I bare arms," said King Arthur, "never saw I a knight do more
+marvellous deeds."
+
+Then the King of the Hundred Knights and those of North Wales, set upon
+twenty knights who were of Sir Lancelot's kin, who fought all together,
+none failing the others. When Sir Tristram beheld their nobleness and
+valour, he marvelled much. "Well may he be valiant and full of prowess,"
+said he, "who hath such noble knights for kindred." So, when he had looked
+on them awhile, he thought it shame to see two hundred men assailing
+twenty, and riding to the King of a Hundred Knights, he said, "I pray
+thee, Sir king, leave your fighting with those twenty knights, for ye be
+too many and they be too few. For ye shall gain no honour if ye win, and
+that I see verily ye will not do unless ye slay them; but if ye will not
+stay, I will ride with them and help them."
+
+"Nay," said the king, "ye shall not do so; for full gladly I will do you
+courtesy," and with that he withdrew his knights.
+
+Then Sir Tristram rode his way into the forest, that no man might know
+him. And King Arthur caused the heralds to blow that the tourney should
+end that day, and he gave the King of North Wales the prize, because Sir
+Tristram was on his side. And in all the field there was such a cry that
+the sound thereof was heard two miles away--"The knight with the black
+shield hath won the field."
+
+"Alas!" said King Arthur, "where is that knight? it is shame to let him
+thus escape us." Then he comforted his knights, and said, "Be not
+dismayed, my friends, howbeit ye have lost the day; be of good cheer;
+to-morrow I myself will be in the field, and fare with you." So they all
+rested that night.
+
+And on the morrow the heralds blew unto the field. So the King of North
+Wales and the King of a Hundred Knights encountered with King Carados and
+the King of Ireland, and overthrew them. With that came King Arthur, and
+did mighty deeds of arms, and overthrew the King of North Wales and his
+fellows, and put twenty valiant knights to the worse. Anon came in Sir
+Palomedes, and made great fight upon King Arthur's side. But Sir Tristram
+rode furiously against him, and Sir Palomedes was thrown from his horse.
+Then cried King Arthur, "Knight of the Black Shield, keep thyself." And as
+he spake he came upon him, and smote him from his saddle to the ground,
+and so passed on to other knights. Then Sir Palomedes having now another
+horse rushed at Sir Tristram, as he was on foot, thinking to run over him.
+But he was aware of him, and stepped aside, and grasped Sir Palomedes by
+the arms, and pulled him off his horse. Then they rushed together with
+their swords, and many stood still to gaze on them. And Sir Tristram smote
+Sir Palomedes with three mighty strokes upon the helm, crying at each
+stroke, "Take this for Sir Tristram's sake," and with that Sir Palomedes
+fell to the earth.
+
+Anon the King of North Wales brought Sir Tristram another horse, and Sir
+Palomedes found one also. Then did they joust again with passing rage, for
+both by now were like mad lions. But Sir Tristram avoided his spear, and
+seized Sir Palomedes by the neck, and pulled him from his saddle, and bore
+him onward ten spears' length, and so let him fall. Then King Arthur drew
+forth his sword and smote the spear asunder, and gave Sir Tristram two or
+three sore strokes ere he could get at his own sword. But when he had it
+in his hand he mightily assailed the king. With that eleven knights of
+Lancelot's kin went forth against him, but he smote them all down to the
+earth, so that men marvelled at his deeds.
+
+And the cry was now so great that Sir Lancelot got a spear in his hand,
+and came down to assay Sir Tristram, saying, "Knight with the black
+shield, make ready." When Sir Tristram heard him he levelled his spear,
+and both stooping their heads, they ran together mightily, as it had been
+thunder. And Sir Tristram's spear brake short, but Sir Lancelot struck him
+with a deep wound in the side and broke his spear, yet overthrew him not.
+Therewith Sir Tristram, smarting at his wound, drew forth his sword, and
+rushing at Sir Lancelot, gave him mighty strokes upon the helm, so that
+the sparks flew from it, and Sir Lancelot stooped his head down to the
+saddle-bow. But then Sir Tristram turned and left the field, for he felt
+his wound so grievous that he deemed he should soon die. Then did Sir
+Lancelot hold the field against all comers, and put the King of North
+Wales and his party to the worse. And because he was the last knight in
+the field the prize was given him.
+
+But he refused to take it, and when the cry was raised, "Sir Lancelot hath
+won the day," he cried out, "Nay, but Sir Tristram is the victor, for he
+first began and last endured, and so hath he done each day." And all men
+honoured Lancelot more for his knightly words than if he had taken the
+prize.
+
+Thus was the tournament ended, and King Arthur departed to Caerleon, for
+the Whitsun feast was now nigh come, and all the knights adventurous went
+their ways. And many sought Sir Tristram in the forest whither he had
+gone, and at last Sir Lancelot found him, and brought him to King Arthur's
+court, as hath been told already.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_The Quest of the Sangreal, and the Adventures of Sir Percival, Sir Bors,
+and Sir Galahad_
+
+
+After these things, Merlin fell into a dotage of love for a damsel of the
+Lady of the Lake, and would let her have no rest, but followed her in
+every place. And ever she encouraged him, and made him welcome till she
+had learned all his crafts that she desired to know.
+
+Then upon a time she went with him beyond the sea to the land of Benwicke,
+and as they went he showed her many wonders, till at length she was
+afraid, and would fain have been delivered from him.
+
+And as they were in the forest of Broceliande, they sat together under an
+oak-tree, and the damsel prayed to see all that charm whereby men might be
+shut up yet alive in rocks or trees. But he refused her a long time,
+fearing to let her know, yet in the end, her prayers and kisses overcame
+him, and he told her all. Then did she make him great cheer, but anon, as
+he lay down to sleep, she softly rose, and walked about him waving her
+hands and muttering the charm, and presently enclosed him fast within the
+tree whereby he slept. And therefrom nevermore he could by any means come
+out for all the crafts that he could do. And so she departed and left
+Merlin.
+
+[Illustration: Waving her hands and muttering the charm, and presently
+enclosed him fast within the tree.]
+
+At the vigil of the next Feast of Pentecost, when all the Knights of the
+Round Table were met together at Camelot, and had heard mass, and were
+about to sit down to meat, there rode into the hall a fair lady on
+horseback, who went straight up to King Arthur where he sat upon his
+throne, and reverently saluted him.
+
+"God be with thee, fair damsel," quoth the king; "what desirest thou of
+me?"
+
+"I pray thee tell me, lord," she answered, "where Sir Lancelot is."
+
+"Yonder may ye see him," said King Arthur.
+
+Then went she to Sir Lancelot and said, "Sir, I salute thee in King
+Pelles' name, and require thee to come with me into the forest hereby."
+
+Then asked he her with whom she dwelt, and what she wished of him.
+
+"I dwell with King Pelles," said she, "whom Balin erst so sorely wounded
+when he smote the dolorous stroke. It is he who hath sent me to call
+thee."
+
+"I will go with thee gladly," said Sir Lancelot, and bade his squire
+straightway saddle his horse and bring his armour.
+
+Then came the queen to him and said, "Sir Lancelot, will ye leave me thus
+at this high feast?"
+
+"Madam," replied the damsel, "by dinner-time to-morrow he shall be with
+you."
+
+"If I thought not," said the queen, "he should not go with thee by my
+goodwill."
+
+Then Sir Lancelot and the lady rode forth till they came to the forest,
+and in a valley thereof found an abbey of nuns, whereby a squire stood
+ready to open the gates. When they had entered, and descended from their
+horses, a joyful crowd pressed round Sir Lancelot and heartily saluted
+him, and led him to the abbess's chamber, and unarmed him. Anon he saw his
+cousins likewise there, Sir Bors and Sir Lionel, who also made great joy
+at seeing him, and said, "By what adventure art thou here, for we thought
+to have seen thee at Camelot to-morrow?"
+
+"A damsel brought me here," said he, "but as yet I know not for what
+service."
+
+As they thus talked twelve nuns came in, who brought with them a youth so
+passing fair and well made, that in all the world his match could not be
+found. His name was Galahad, and though he knew him not, nor Lancelot him,
+Sir Lancelot was his father.
+
+"Sir," said the nuns, "we bring thee here this child whom we have
+nourished from his youth, and pray thee to make him a knight, for from no
+worthier hand can he receive that order."
+
+Then Sir Lancelot, looking on the youth, saw that he was seemly and demure
+as a dove, with every feature good and noble, and thought he never had
+beheld a better fashioned man of his years. "Cometh this desire from
+himself?" said he.
+
+"Yea," answered Galahad and all the nuns.
+
+"To-morrow, then, in reverence for the feast, he shall have his wish,"
+said Sir Lancelot.
+
+And the next day at the hour of prime, he knighted him, and said, "God
+make of thee as good a man as He hath made thee beautiful."
+
+Then with Sir Lionel and Sir Bors he returned to the court, and found all
+gone to the minster to hear service. When they came into the banquet-hall
+each knight and baron found his name written in some seat in letters of
+gold, as "here ought to sit Sir Lionel," "here ought to sit Sir
+Gawain,"--and so forth. And in the Perilous Seat, at the high centre of
+the table, a name was also written, whereat they marvelled greatly, for no
+living man had ever yet dared sit upon that seat, save one, and him a
+flame leaped forth and drew down under earth, so that he was no more seen.
+
+Then came Sir Lancelot and read the letters in that seat, and said, "My
+counsel is that this inscription be now covered up until the knight be
+come who shall achieve this great adventure." So they made a veil of silk
+and put it over the letters.
+
+In the meanwhile came Sir Gawain to the court and told the king he had a
+message to him from beyond the sea, from Merlin.
+
+"For," said he, "as I rode through the forest of Broceliande but five days
+since, I heard the voice of Merlin speaking to me from the midst of an
+oak-tree, whereat, in great amazement, I besought him to come forth. But
+he, with many groans, replied he never more might do so, for that none
+could free him, save the damsel of the Lake, who had enclosed him there by
+his own spells which he had taught her. 'But go,' said he, 'to King
+Arthur, and tell him, that he now prepare his knights and all his Table
+Round to seek the Sangreal, for the time is come when it shall be
+achieved.'"
+
+When Sir Gawain had spoken thus, King Arthur sat pensive in spirit, and
+mused deeply of the Holy Grale an what saintly knight should come who
+might achieve it.
+
+Anon he bade them hasten to set on the banquet. "Sir," said Sir Key, the
+seneschal, "if ye go now to meat ye will break the ancient custom of your
+court, for never have ye dined at this high feast till ye have seen some
+strange adventure."
+
+"Thou sayest truly," said the king, "but my mind was full of wonders and
+musings, till I bethought me not of mine old custom."
+
+As they stood speaking thus, a squire ran in and cried, "Lord, I bring
+thee marvellous tidings."
+
+"What be they?" said King Arthur.
+
+"Lord," said he, "hereby at the river is a marvellous great stone, which I
+myself saw swim down hitherwards upon the water, and in it there is set a
+sword, and ever the stone heaveth and swayeth on the water, but floateth
+down no further with the stream."
+
+"I will go and see it," said the king. So all the knights went with him,
+and when they came to the river, there surely found they a mighty stone of
+red marble floating on the water, as the squire had said, and therein
+stuck a fair and rich sword, on the pommel whereof were precious stones
+wrought skilfully with gold into these words: "No man shall take me hence
+but he by whose side I should hang, and he shall be the best knight in the
+world."
+
+When the king read this, he turned round to Sir Lancelot, and said, "Fair
+sir, this sword ought surely to be thine, for thou art the best knight in
+all the world."
+
+But Lancelot answered soberly, "Certainly, sir, it is not for me; nor will
+I have the hardihood to set my hand upon it. For he that toucheth it and
+faileth to achieve it shall one day be wounded by it mortally. But I doubt
+not, lord, this day will show the greatest marvels that we yet have seen,
+for now the time is fully come, as Merlin hath forewarned us, when all the
+prophecies about the Sangreal shall be fulfilled."
+
+Then stepped Sir Gawain forward and pulled at the sword, but could not
+move it, and after him Sir Percival, to keep him fellowship in any peril
+he might suffer. But no other knight durst be so hardy as to try.
+
+"Now may ye go to your dinner," said Sir Key, "for a marvellous adventure
+ye have had."
+
+So all returned from the river, and every knight sat down in his own
+place, and the high feast and banquet then was sumptuously begun, and all
+the hall was full of laughter and loud talk and jests, and running to and
+fro of squires who served their knights, and noise of jollity and mirth.
+
+Then suddenly befell a wondrous thing, for all the doors and windows of
+the hall shut violently of themselves, and made thick darkness; and
+presently there came a fair and gentle light from out the Perilous Seat,
+and filled the palace with its beams. Then a dead silence fell on all the
+knights, and each man anxiously beheld his neighbour.
+
+But King Arthur rose and said, "Lords and fair knights, have ye no fear,
+but rejoice; we have seen strange things to-day, but stranger yet remain.
+For now I know we shall to-day see him who may sit in the Siege Perilous,
+and shall achieve the Sangreal. For as ye all well know, that holy vessel,
+wherefrom at the Supper of our Lord before His death He drank the wine
+with His disciples, hath been held ever since the holiest treasure of the
+world, and wheresoever it hath rested peace and prosperity have rested
+with it on the land. But since the dolorous stroke which Balin gave King
+Pelles none have seen it, for Heaven, wroth with that presumptuous blow,
+hath hid it none know where. Yet somewhere in the world it still may be,
+and may be it is left to us, and to this noble order of the Table Round,
+to find and bring it home, and make of this our realm the happiest in the
+earth. Many great quests and perilous adventures have ye all taken and
+achieved, but this high quest he only shall attain who hath clean hands
+and a pure heart, and valour and hardihood beyond all othermen."
+
+While the king spoke there came in softly an old man robed all in white,
+leading with him a young knight clad in red from top to toe, but without
+armour or shield, and having by his side an empty scabbard.
+
+The old man went up to the king, and said, "Lord, here I bring thee this
+young knight of royal lineage, and of the blood of Joseph of Arimathea, by
+whom the marvels of thy court shall fully be accomplished."
+
+The king was right glad at his words, and said, "Sir, ye be right heartily
+welcome, and the young knight also."
+
+Then the old man put on Sir Galahad (for it was he) a crimson robe trimmed
+with fine ermine, and took him by the hand and led him to the Perilous
+Seat, and lifting up the silken cloth which hung upon it, read these words
+written in gold letters, "This is the seat of Sir Galahad, the good
+knight."
+
+"Sir," said the old man, "this place is thine."
+
+Then sat Sir Galahad down firmly and surely, and said to the old man,
+"Sir, ye may now go your way, for ye have done well and truly all ye were
+commanded, and commend me to my grandsire, King Pelles, and say that I
+shall see him soon." So the old man departed with a retinue of twenty
+noble squires.
+
+But all the knights of the Round Table marvelled at Sir Galahad, and at
+his tender age, and at his sitting there so surely in the Perilous Seat.
+
+Then the king led Sir Galahad forth from the palace, to show him the
+adventure of the floating stone. "Here" said he, "is as great a marvel as
+I ever saw, and right good knights have tried and failed to gain that
+sword."
+
+"I marvel not thereat," said Galahad, "for this adventure is not theirs,
+but mine; and for the certainty I had thereof, I brought no sword with me,
+as thou mayst see here by this empty scabbard."
+
+Anon he laid his hand upon the sword, and lightly drew it from the stone,
+and put it in his sheath, and said, "This sword was that enchanted one
+which erst belonged to the good knight, Sir Balin, wherewith he slew
+through piteous mistake his brother Balan; who also slew him at the same
+time: all which great woe befell him through the dolorous stroke he gave
+my grandsire, King Pelles, the wound whereof is not yet whole, nor shall
+be till I heal him."
+
+As he stood speaking thus, they saw a lady riding swiftly down the river's
+bank towards them, on a white palfrey; who, saluting the king and queen,
+said, "Lord king, Nacien the hermit sendeth thee word that to thee shall
+come to-day the greatest honour and worship that hath yet ever befallen a
+king of Britain; for this day shall the Sangreal appear in thy house."
+
+With that the damsel took her leave, and departed the same way she came.
+
+"Now," said the king, "I know that from to-day the quest of the Sangreal
+shall begin, and all ye of the Round Table will be scattered so that
+nevermore shall I see ye again together as ye are now; let me then see a
+joust and tournament amongst ye for the last time before ye go."
+
+So they all took their harness and met together in the meadows by Camelot,
+and the queen and all her ladies sat in a tower to see.
+
+Then Sir Galahad, at the prayer of the king and queen, put on a coat of
+light armour, and a helmet, but shield he would take none, and grasping a
+lance, he drove into the middle of the press of knights, and began to
+break spears marvellously, so that all men were full of wonder. And in so
+short a time he had surmounted and exceeded the rest, save Sir Lancelot
+and Sir Percival, that he took the chief worship of the field.
+
+Then the king and all the court and fellowship of knights went back to the
+palace, and so to evensong in the great minster, a royal and goodly
+company, and after that sat down to supper in the hall, every knight in
+his own seat, as they had been before.
+
+Anon suddenly burst overhead the cracking and crying of great peals of
+thunder, till the palace walls were shaken sorely, and they thought to see
+them riven all to pieces.
+
+And in the midst of the blast there entered in a sunbeam, clearer by seven
+times than ever they saw day, and a marvellous great glory fell upon them
+all. Then each knight, looking on his neighbour, found his face fairer
+than he had ever seen, and so--all standing on their feet--they gazed as
+dumb men on each other, not knowing what to say.
+
+Then entered into the hall the Sangreal, borne aloft without hands through
+the midst of the sunbeam, and covered with white samite, so that none
+might see it. And all the hall was filled with perfume and incense, and
+every knight was fed with the food he best loved. And when the holy vessel
+had been thus borne through the hall, it suddenly departed, no man saw
+whither.
+
+When they recovered breath to speak, King Arthur first rose up, and
+yielded thanks to God and to our Lord.
+
+Then Sir Gawain sprang up and said, "Now have we all been fed by miracle
+with whatsoever food we thought of or desired; but with our eyes we have
+not seen the blessed vessel whence it came, so carefully and preciously it
+was concealed. Therefore, I make a vow, that from to-morrow I shall labour
+twelve months and a day in quest of the Sangreal, and longer if need be;
+nor will I come again into this court until mine eyes have seen it
+evidently."
+
+When he had spoken thus, knight after knight rose up and vowed himself to
+the same quest, till the most part of the Round Table had thus sworn.
+
+But when King Arthur heard them all, he could not refrain his eyes from
+tears, and said, "Sir Gawain, Sir Gawain, thou hast set me in great
+sorrow, for I fear me my true fellowship shall never meet together here
+again; and surely never Christian king had such a company of worthy
+knights around his table at one time."
+
+And when the queen and her ladies and gentlewomen heard the vows, they had
+such grief and sorrow as no tongue could tell; and Queen Guinevere cried
+out, "I marvel that my lord will suffer them to depart from him." And many
+of the ladies who loved knights would have gone with them, but were
+forbidden by the hermit Nacien, who sent this message to all who had sworn
+themselves to the quest: "Take with ye no lady nor gentlewoman, for into
+so high a service as ye go in, no thought but of our Lord and heaven may
+enter."
+
+On the morrow morning all the knights rose early, and when they were fully
+armed, save shields and helms, they went in with the king and queen to
+service in the minster. Then the king counted all who had taken the
+adventure on themselves, and found them a hundred and fifty knights of the
+Round Table; and so they all put on their helms, and rode away together in
+the midst of cries and lamentations from the court, and from the ladies,
+and from all the town.
+
+But the queen went alone to her chamber, that no man might see her sorrow;
+and Sir Lancelot followed her to say farewell.
+
+When she saw him she cried out, "Oh, Sir Lancelot, thou hast betrayed me;
+thou hast put me to death thus to depart and leave my lord the king."
+
+"Ah, madam," said he, "be not displeased or angry, for I shall come again
+as soon as I can with honour."
+
+"Alas!" said she, "that ever I saw thee; but He that suffered death upon
+the cross for all mankind be to thee safety and good conduct, and to all
+thy company."
+
+Then Sir Lancelot saluted her and the king, and went forth with the rest,
+and came with them that night to Castle Vagon, where they abode, and on
+the morrow they departed from each other on their separate ways, every
+knight taking the way that pleased him best.
+
+Now Sir Galahad went forth without a shield, and rode so four days without
+adventure; and on the fourth day, after evensong, he came to an abbey of
+white monks, where he was received in the house, and led into a chamber.
+And there he was unarmed, and met two knights of the Round Table, King
+Bagdemagus, and Sir Uwaine.
+
+"Sirs," said Sir Galahad, "what adventure hath brought ye here?"
+
+"Within this place, as we are told," they answered, "there is a shield no
+man may bear around his neck without receiving sore mischance, or death
+within three days."
+
+"To-morrow," said King Bagdemagus, "I shall attempt the adventure; and if
+I fail, do thou, Sir Galahad, take it up after me."
+
+"I will willingly," said he; "for as ye see I have no shield as yet."
+
+So on the morrow they arose and heard mass, and afterwards King Bagdemagus
+asked where the shield was kept. Then a monk led him behind the altar,
+where the shield hung, as white as any snow, and with a blood-red cross in
+the midst of it.
+
+"Sir," said the monk, "this shield should hang from no knight's neck
+unless he be the worthiest in the world. I warn ye, therefore, knights;
+consider well before ye dare to touch it."
+
+"Well," said King Bagdemagus, "I know well that I am far from the best
+knight in all the world, yet shall I make the trial;" and so he took the
+shield, and bore it from the monastery.
+
+"If it please thee," said he to Sir Galahad, "abide here till thou hearest
+how I speed."
+
+"I will abide thee," said he.
+
+Then taking with him a squire who might return with any tidings to Sir
+Galahad, the king rode forth; and before he had gone two miles, he saw in
+a fair valley a hermitage, and a knight who came forth dressed in white
+armour, horse and all, who rode fast against him. When they encountered,
+Bagdemagus brake his spear upon the White Knight's shield, but was himself
+struck through the shoulder with a sore wound, and hurled down from his
+horse. Then the White Knight alighting, came and took the white shield
+from the king, and said, "Thou hast done great folly, for this shield
+ought never to be borne but by one who hath no living peer." And turning
+to the squire, he said, "Bear thou this shield to the good knight, Sir
+Galahad, and greet him well from me."
+
+"In whose name shall I greet him?" said the squire.
+
+"Take thou no heed of that," he answered; "it is not for thee or any
+earthly man to know."
+
+"Now tell me, fair sir, at the least," said the squire, "why may this
+shield be never borne except its wearer come to injury or death?"
+
+"Because it shall belong to no man save its rightful owner, Galahad,"
+replied the knight.
+
+Then the squire went to his master, and found him wounded nigh to death,
+wherefore he fetched his horse, and bore him back with him to the abbey.
+And there they laid him in a bed, and looked to his wounds; and when he
+had lain many days grievously sick, he at the last barely escaped with his
+life.
+
+"Sir Galahad," said the squire, "the knight who overthrew King Bagdemagus
+sent you greeting, and bade you bear this shield."
+
+"Now blessed be God and fortune," said Sir Galahad, and hung the shield
+about his neck, and armed him, and rode forth.
+
+Anon he met the White Knight by the hermitage, and each saluted
+courteously the other.
+
+"Sir," said Sir Galahad, "this shield I bear hath surely a full marvellous
+history."
+
+"Thou sayest rightly," answered he. "That shield was made in the days of
+Joseph of Arimathea, the gentle knight who took our Lord down from the
+cross. He, when he left Jerusalem with his kindred, came to the country of
+King Evelake, who warred continually with one Tollome; and when, by the
+teaching of Joseph, King Evelake became a Christian, this shield was made
+for him in our Lord's name; and through its aid King Tollome was defeated.
+For when King Evelake met him next in battle, he hid it in a veil, and
+suddenly uncovering it, he showed his enemies the figure of a bleeding man
+nailed to a cross, at sight of which they were discomfited and fled.
+Presently after that, a man whose hand was smitten off touched the cross
+upon the shield, and had his hand restored to him; and many other miracles
+it worked. But suddenly the cross that was upon it vanished away. Anon
+both Joseph and King Evelake came to Britain, and by the preaching of
+Joseph the people were made Christians. And when at length he lay upon his
+death-bed, King Evelake begged of him some token ere he died. Then,
+calling for his shield, he dipped his finger in his own blood, for he was
+bleeding fast, and none could staunch the wound, and marked that cross
+upon it, saying, 'This cross shall ever show as bright as now, and the
+last of my lineage shall wear this shield about his neck, and go forth to
+all the marvellous deeds he will achieve.'"
+
+When the White Knight had thus spoken he vanished suddenly away, and Sir
+Galahad returned to the abbey.
+
+As he alighted, came a monk, and prayed him to go see a tomb in the
+churchyard, wherefrom came such a great and hideous noise, that none could
+hear it but they went nigh mad, or lost all strength. "And sir," said he,
+"I deem it is a fiend."
+
+"Lead me thither," said Sir Galahad.
+
+When they were come near the place, "Now," said the monk, "go thou to the
+tomb, and lift it up."
+
+And Galahad, nothing afraid, quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith
+came out a foul smoke, and from the midst thereof leaped up the loathliest
+figure that ever he had seen in the likeness of man; and Galahad blessed
+himself, for he knew it was a fiend of hell. Then he heard a voice crying
+out, "Oh, Galahad, I cannot tear thee as I would; I see so many angels
+round thee, that I may not come at thee."
+
+[Illustration: Galahad ... quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came
+out a foul smoke.]
+
+Then the fiend suddenly disappeared with a marvellous great cry; and Sir
+Galahad, looking in the tomb, saw there a body all armed, with a sword
+beside it. "Now, fair brother," said he to the monk, "let us remove this
+cursed body, which is not fit to lie in a churchyard, for when it lived, a
+false and perjured Christian man dwelt in it. Cast it away, and there
+shall come no more hideous noises from the tomb."
+
+"And now must I depart," he added, "for I have much in hand, and am upon
+the holy quest of the Sangreal, with many more good knights."
+
+So he took his leave, and rode many journeys backwards and forwards as
+adventure would lead him; and at last one day he departed from a castle
+without first hearing mass, which was it ever his custom to hear before he
+left his lodging. Anon he found a ruined chapel on a mountain, and went in
+and kneeled before the altar, and prayed for wholesome counsel what to do;
+and as he prayed he heard a voice, which said, "Depart, adventurous
+knight, unto the Maiden's Castle, and redress the violence and wrongs
+there done!"
+
+Hearing these words he cheerfully arose, and mounted his horse, and rode
+but half a mile, when he saw before him a strong castle, with deep ditches
+round it, and a fair river running past. And seeing an old churl hard by,
+he asked him what men called that castle.
+
+"Fair sir," said he, "it is the Maiden's Castle."
+
+"It is a cursed place," said Galahad, "and all its masters are but felons,
+full of mischief and hardness and shame."
+
+"For that good reason," said the old man, "thou wert well-advised to turn
+thee back."
+
+"For that same reason," quoth Sir Galahad, "will I the more certainly ride
+on."
+
+Then, looking at his armour carefully, to see that nothing failed him, he
+went forward, and presently there met him seven damsels, who cried out,
+"Sir knight, thou ridest in great peril, for thou hast two waters to pass
+over."
+
+"Why should I not pass over them?" said he, and rode straight on.
+
+Anon he met a squire, who said, "Sir knight, the masters of this castle
+defy thee, and bid thee go no further, till thou showest them thy business
+here."
+
+"Fair fellow," said Sir Galahad, "I am come here to destroy their wicked
+customs."
+
+"If that be thy purpose," answered he, "thou wilt have much to do."
+
+"Go thou," said Galahad, "and hasten with my message."
+
+In a few minutes after rode forth furiously from the gateways of the
+castle seven knights, all brothers, and crying out, "Knight, keep thee,"
+bore down all at once upon Sir Galahad. But thrusting forth his spear, he
+smote the foremost to the earth, so that his neck was almost broken, and
+warded with his shield the spears of all the others, which every one brake
+off from it, and shivered into pieces. Then he drew out his sword, and set
+upon them hard and fiercely, and by his wondrous force drave them before
+him, and chased them to the castle gate, and there he slew them.
+
+At that came out to him an ancient man, in priest's vestments, saying,
+"Behold, sir, here, the keys of this castle."
+
+Then he unlocked the gates, and found within a multitude of people, who
+cried out, "Sir knight, ye be welcome, for long have we waited thy
+deliverance," and told him that the seven felons he had slain had long
+enslaved the people round about, and killed all knights who passed that
+way, because the maiden whom they had robbed of the castle had foretold
+that by one knight they should themselves be overthrown.
+
+"Where is the maiden?" asked Sir Galahad.
+
+"She lingereth below in a dungeon," said they.
+
+So Sir Galahad went down and released her, and restored her her
+inheritance; and when he had summoned the barons of the country to do her
+homage, he took his leave, and departed.
+
+Presently thereafter, as he rode, he entered a great forest, and in a
+glade thereof met two knights, disguised, who proffered him to joust.
+These were Sir Lancelot, his father, and Sir Percival, but neither knew
+the other. So he and Sir Lancelot encountered first, and Sir Galahad smote
+down his father. Then drawing his sword, for his spear was broken, he
+fought with Sir Percival, and struck so mightily that he clave Sir
+Percival's helm, and smote him from his horse.
+
+Now hard by where they fought there was a hermitage, where dwelt a pious
+woman, a recluse, who, when she heard the sound, came forth, and seeing
+Sir Galahad ride, she cried, "God be with thee, the best knight in the
+world; had yonder knights known thee as well as I do, they would not have
+encountered with thee."
+
+When Sir Galahad heard that, fearing to be made known, he forthwith smote
+his horse with his spurs, and departed at a great pace.
+
+Sir Lancelot and Sir Percival heard her words also, and rode fast after
+him, but within awhile he was out of their sight. Then Sir Percival rode
+back to ask his name of the recluse; but Sir Lancelot went forward on his
+quest, and following any path his horse would take, he came by-and-by
+after nightfall to a stone cross hard by an ancient chapel. When he had
+alighted and tied his horse up to a tree, he went and looked in through
+the chapel door, which was all ruinous and wasted, and there within he saw
+an altar, richly decked with silk, whereon there stood a fair candlestick
+of silver, bearing six great lights. And when Sir Lancelot saw the light,
+he tried to get within the chapel, but could find no place. So, being
+passing weary and heavy, he came again to his horse, and when he had
+unsaddled him, and set him free to pasture, he unlaced his helm, and
+ungirded his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon his shield before the
+cross.
+
+And while he lay between waking and sleeping, he saw come by him two white
+palfreys bearing a litter, wherein a sick knight lay, and the palfreys
+stood still by the cross. Then Sir Lancelot heard the sick man say, "O
+sweet Lord, when shall this sorrow leave me, and the holy vessel pass by
+me, wherethrough I shall be blessed? for I have long endured."
+
+With that Sir Lancelot saw the chapel open, and the candlestick with the
+six tapers come before the cross, but he could see none who bare it. Then
+came there also a table of silver, and thereon the holy vessel of the
+Sangreal. And when the sick knight saw that, he sat up, and lifting both
+his hands, said, "Fair Lord, sweet Lord, who art here within this holy
+vessel, have mercy on me, that I may be whole;" and therewith he crept
+upon his hands and knees so nigh, that he might touch the vessel; and when
+he had kissed it, he leaped up, and stood and cried aloud, "Lord God, I
+thank Thee, for I am made whole." Then the Holy Grale departed with the
+table and the silver candlestick into the chapel, so that Sir Lancelot saw
+it no more, nor for his sins' sake could he follow it. And the knight who
+was healed went on his way.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot awake, and marvelled whether he had seen aught but a
+dream. And as he marvelled, he heard a voice saying, "Sir Lancelot, thou
+are unworthy, go thou hence, and withdraw thee from this holy place." And
+when he heard that, he was passing heavy, for he bethought him of his
+sins.
+
+So he departed weeping, and cursed the day of his birth, for the words
+went into his heart, and he knew wherefore he was thus driven forth. Then
+he went to seek his arms and horse, but could not find them; and then he
+called himself the wretchedest and most unhappy of all knights, and said,
+"My sin hath brought me unto great dishonour: for when I sought earthly
+honours, I achieved them ever; but now I take upon me holy things, my
+guilt doth hinder me, and shameth me; therefore had I no power to stir or
+speak when the holy blood appeared before me."
+
+So thus he sorrowed till it was day, and he heard the birds sing; then was
+he somewhat comforted, and departing from the cross on foot, he came into
+a wild forest, and to a high mountain, and there he found a hermitage;
+and, kneeling before the hermit down upon both his knees, he cried for
+mercy for his wicked works, and prayed him to hear his confession. But
+when he told his name, the hermit marvelled to see him in so sore a case,
+and said, "Sir, ye ought to thank God more than any knight living, for He
+hath given thee more honour than any; yet for thy presumption, while in
+deadly sin to come into the presence of His flesh and blood, He suffered
+thee neither to see nor follow it. Wherefore, believe that all thy
+strength and manhood will avail thee little, when God is against thee."
+
+Then Sir Lancelot wept and said, "Now know I well ye tell me truth."
+
+Then he confessed to him, and told him all his sins, and how he had for
+fourteen years served but Queen Guinevere only, and forgotten God, and
+done great deeds of arms for her, and not for Heaven, and had little or
+nothing thanked God for the honour that he won. And then Sir Lancelot
+said, "I pray you counsel me."
+
+"I will counsel thee," said he: "never more enter into that queen's
+company when ye can avoid it."
+
+So Sir Lancelot promised him.
+
+"Look that your heart and your mouth accord," said the good man, "and ye
+shall have more honour and more nobleness than ever ye have had."
+
+Then were his arms and horse restored to him, and so he took his leave,
+and rode forth, repenting greatly.
+
+Now Sir Percival had ridden back to the recluse, to learn who that knight
+was whom she had called the best in the world. And when he had told her
+that he was Sir Percival, she made passing great joy of him, for she was
+his mother's sister, wherefore she opened her door to him, and made him
+good cheer. And on the morrow she told him of her kindred to him, and they
+both made great rejoicing. Then he asked her who that knight was, and she
+told him, "He it is who on Whit Sunday last was clad in the red robe, and
+bare the red arms; and he hath no peer, for he worketh all by miracle, and
+shall be never overcome by any earthly hands."
+
+"By my goodwill," said Sir Percival, "I will never after these tidings
+have to do with Sir Galahad but in the way of kindness; and I would fain
+learn where I may find him."
+
+"Fair nephew," said she, "ye must ride to the Castle of Goth, where he
+hath a cousin; by him ye may be lodged, and he will teach you the way to
+go; but if he can tell you no tidings, ride straight to the Castle of
+Carbonek, where the wounded king is lying, for there shall ye surely hear
+true tidings of him."
+
+So Sir Percival departed from his aunt, and rode till evensong time, when
+he was ware of a monastery closed round with walls and deep ditches, where
+he knocked at the gate, and anon was let in. And there he had good cheer
+that night, and on the morrow heard mass. And beside the altar where the
+priest stood, was a rich bed of silk and cloth of gold; and on the bed
+there lay a man passing old, having a crown of gold upon his head, and all
+his body was full of great wounds, and his eyes almost wholly blind; and
+ever he held up his hands and said, "Sweet Lord, forget not me!"
+
+Then Sir Percival asked one of the brethren who he was.
+
+"Sir," said the good man, "ye have heard of Joseph of Arimathea, how he
+was sent of Jesus Christ into this land to preach and teach the Christian
+faith. Now, in the city of Sarras he converted a king named Evelake, and
+this is he. He came with Joseph to this land, and ever desired greatly to
+see the Sangreal; so on a time he came nigh thereto, and was struck almost
+blind. Then he cried out for mercy, and said, 'Fair Lord, I pray thee let
+me never die until a good knight of my blood achieve the Sangreal, and I
+may see and kiss him.' When he had thus prayed, he heard a voice that
+said, 'Thy prayers be heard and answered, for thou shalt not die till that
+knight kiss thee; and when he cometh shall thine eyes be opened and thy
+wounds be healed.' And now hath he lived here for three hundred winters in
+a holy life, and men say a certain knight of King Arthur's court shall
+shortly heal him."
+
+Thereat Sir Percival marvelled greatly, for he well knew who that knight
+should be; and so, taking his leave of the monk, departed.
+
+Then he rode on till noon, and came into a valley where he met twenty
+men-at-arms bearing a dead knight on a bier. And they cried to him,
+"Whence comest thou?"
+
+"From King Arthur's court," he answered.
+
+Then they all cried together, "Slay him," and set upon him.
+
+But he smote down the first man to the ground, and his horse upon him;
+whereat seven of them all at once assailed him, and others slew his horse.
+Thus he had been either taken or slain, but by good chance Sir Galahad was
+passing by that way, who, seeing twenty men attacking one, cried, "Slay
+him not," and rushed upon them; and, as fast as his horse could drive, he
+encountered with the foremost man, and smote him down. Then, his spear
+being broken, he drew forth his sword and struck out on the right hand and
+on the left, at each blow smiting down a man, till the remainder fled, and
+he pursued them.
+
+Then Sir Percival, knowing that it was Sir Galahad, would fain have
+overtaken him, but could not, for his horse was slain. Yet followed he on
+foot as fast as he could go; and as he went there met him a yeoman riding
+on a palfrey, and leading in his hand a great black steed. So Sir Percival
+prayed him to lend him the steed, that he might overtake Sir Galahad. But
+he replied, "That can I not do, fair sir, for the horse is my master's,
+and should I lend it he would slay me." So he departed, and Sir Percival
+sat down beneath a tree in heaviness of heart. And as he sat, anon a
+knight went riding past on the black steed which the yeoman had led. And
+presently after came the yeoman back in haste, and asked Sir Percival if
+he had seen a knight riding his horse.
+
+"Yea," said Sir Percival.
+
+"Alas," said the yeoman, "he hath reft him from me by strength, and my
+master will slay me."
+
+Then he besought Sir Percival to take his hackney and follow, and get back
+his steed. So he rode quickly, and overtook the knight, and cried,
+"Knight, turn again." Whereat he turned and set his spear, and smote Sir
+Percival's hackney in the breast, so that it fell dead, and then went on
+his way. Then cried Sir Percival after him, "Turn now, false knight, and
+fight with me on foot;" but he would not, and rode out of sight.
+
+Then was Sir Percival passing wroth and heavy of heart, and lay down to
+rest beneath a tree, and slept till midnight. When he awoke he saw a woman
+standing by him, who said to him right fiercely, "Sir Percival, what doest
+thou here?"
+
+"I do neither good nor evil," said he.
+
+"If thou wilt promise me," said she, "to do my will whenever I shall ask
+thee, I will bring thee here a horse that will bear thee wheresoever thou
+desirest."
+
+At that he was full glad, and promised as she asked. Then anon she came
+again, with a great black steed, strong and well apparelled. So Sir
+Percival mounted, and rode through the clear moonlight, and within less
+than an hour had gone a four days' journey, till he came to a rough water
+that roared; and his horse would have borne him into it, but Sir Percival
+would not suffer him, yet could he scarce restrain him. And seeing the
+water so furious, he made the sign of the cross upon his forehead, whereat
+the horse suddenly shook him off, and with a terrible sound leaped into
+the water and disappeared, the waves all burning up in flames around him.
+Then Sir Percival knew it was a fiend which had brought him the horse; so
+he commended himself to God, and prayed that he might escape temptations,
+and continued in prayer till it was day.
+
+Then he saw that he was on a wild mountain, nigh surrounded on all sides
+by the sea, and filled with wild beasts; and going on into a valley, he
+saw a serpent carrying a young lion by the neck. With that came another
+lion, crying and roaring after the serpent, and anon overtook him, and
+began to battle with him. And Sir Percival helped the lion, and drew his
+sword, and gave the serpent such a stroke that it fell dead. Thereat the
+lion fawned upon him like a dog, licking his hands, and crouching at his
+feet, and at night lay down by him and slept at his side.
+
+And at noon the next day Sir Percival saw a ship come sailing before a
+strong wind upon the sea towards him, and he rose and went towards it. And
+when it came to shore, he found it covered with white samite, and on the
+deck there stood an old man dressed in priest's robes, who said, "God be
+with you, fair sir; whence come ye?"
+
+"I am a knight of King Arthur's court," said he, "and follow the quest of
+the Sangreal; but here have I lost myself in this wilderness."
+
+"Fear nothing," said the old man, "for I have come from a strange country
+to comfort thee."
+
+Then he told Sir Percival it was a fiend of hell upon which he had ridden
+to the sea, and that the lion, whom he had delivered from the serpent,
+meant the Church. And Sir Percival rejoiced at these tidings, and entered
+into the ship, which presently sailed from the shore into the sea.
+
+Now when Sir Bors rode forth from Camelot to seek the Sangreal, anon he
+met a holy man riding on an ass, and courteously saluted him.
+
+"Who are ye, son?" said the good man.
+
+"I am a knight," said he, "in quest of the Sangreal, and would fain have
+thy counsel, for he shall have much earthly honour who may bring it to a
+favourable end."
+
+"That is truth," said the good man, "for he shall be the best knight of
+the world; yet know that none shall gain it save by sinless living."
+
+So they rode to his hermitage together, and there he prayed Sir Bors to
+abide that night, and anon they went into the chapel, and Sir Bors was
+confessed. And they eat bread and drank water together.
+
+"Now," said the hermit, "I pray thee eat no other food till thou sit at
+the table where the Sangreal shall be." Thereto Sir Bors agreed.
+
+"Also," said the hermit, "it were wise that ye should wear a sackcloth
+garment next your skin, for penance;" and in this also did Sir Bors as he
+was counselled. And afterwards he armed himself and took his leave.
+
+Then rode he onwards all that day, and as he rode he saw a passing great
+bird sit in an old dry tree, whereon no leaves were left; and many little
+birds lay round the great one, nigh dead with hunger. Then did the big
+bird smite himself with his own bill, and bled till he died amongst his
+little ones, and they recovered life in drinking up his blood. When Sir
+Bors saw this he knew it was a token, and rode on full of thought. And
+about eventide he came to a tower, whereto he prayed admission, and he was
+received gladly by the lady of the castle. But when a supper of many meats
+and dainties was set before him, he remembered his vow, and bade a squire
+to bring him water, and therein he dipped his bread, and ate.
+
+Then said the lady, "Sir Bors, I fear ye like not my meat."
+
+"Yea, truly," said he; "God thank thee, madam; but I may eat no other meat
+this day."
+
+After supper came a squire, and said, "Madam, bethink thee to provide a
+champion for thee to-morrow for the tourney, or else shall thy sister have
+thy castle."
+
+At that the lady wept, and made great sorrow. But Sir Bors prayed her to
+be comforted, and asked her why the tournament was held. Then she told him
+how she and her sister were the daughters of King Anianse, who left them
+all his lands between them; and how her sister was the wife of a strong
+knight, named Sir Pridan le Noir, who had taken from herself all her
+lands, save the one tower wherein she dwelt. "And now," said she, "this
+also will they take, unless I find a champion by to-morrow."
+
+Then said Sir Bors, "Be comforted; to-morrow I will fight for thee;"
+whereat she rejoiced not a little, and sent word to Sir Pridan that she
+was provided and ready. And Sir Bors lay on the floor, and in no bed, nor
+ever would do otherwise till he had achieved his quest.
+
+On the morrow he arose and clothed himself, and went into the chapel,
+where the lady met him, and they heard mass together. Anon he called for
+his armour, and went with a goodly company of knights to the battle. And
+the lady prayed him to refresh himself ere he should fight, but he refused
+to break his fast until the tournament were done. So they all rode
+together to the lists, and there they saw the lady's eldest sister, and
+her husband, Sir Pridan le Noir. And a cry was made by the heralds that,
+whichever should win, his lady should have all the other's lands.
+
+Then the two knights departed asunder a little space, and came together
+with such force, that both their spears were shivered, and their shields
+and hauberks pierced through; and both fell to the ground sorely wounded,
+with their horses under them. But swiftly they arose, and drew their
+swords, and smote each other on the head with many great and heavy blows,
+till the blood ran down their bodies; and Sir Pridan was a full good
+knight, so that Sir Bors had more ado than he had thought for to overcome
+him.
+
+But at last Sir Pridan grew a little faint; that instantly perceived Sir
+Bors, and rushed upon him the more vehemently, and smote him fiercely,
+till he rent off his helm, and then gave him great strokes upon his visage
+with the flat of his sword, and bade him yield or be slain.
+
+And then Sir Pridan cried him mercy, and said, "For God's sake slay me
+not, and I will never war against thy lady more." So Sir Bors let him go,
+and his wife fled away with all her knights.
+
+Then all those who had held lands of the lady of the tower came and did
+homage to her again, and swore fealty. And when the country was at peace
+Sir Bors departed, and rode forth into a forest until it was midday, and
+there befell him a marvellous adventure.
+
+For at a place where two ways parted, there met him two knights, bearing
+Sir Lionel, his brother, all naked, bound on a horse, and as they rode,
+they beat him sorely with thorns, so that the blood trailed down in more
+than a hundred places from his body; but for all this he uttered no word
+or groan, so great he was of heart. As soon as Sir Bors knew his brother,
+he put his spear in rest to run and rescue him; but in the same moment
+heard a woman's voice cry close beside him in the wood, "St. Mary, succour
+thy maid;" and, looking round, he saw a damsel whom a felon knight dragged
+after him into the thickets; and she, perceiving him, cried piteously for
+help, and adjured him to deliver her as he was a sworn knight. Then was
+Sir Bors sore troubled, and knew not what to do, for he thought within
+himself, "If I let my brother be, he will be murdered; but if I help not
+the maid, she is shamed for ever, and my vow compelleth me to set her
+free; wherefore must I first help her, and trust my brother unto God."
+
+So, riding to the knight who held the damsel, he cried out, "Sir knight,
+lay your hand off that maid, or else ye be but dead."
+
+At that the knight set down the maid, and dropped his shield, and drew
+forth his sword against Sir Bors, who ran at him, and smote him through
+both shield and shoulder, and threw him to the earth; and when he pulled
+his spear forth, the knight swooned. Then the maid thanked Sir Bors
+heartily, and he set her on the knight's horse, and brought her to her
+men-at-arms, who presently came riding after her. And they made much joy,
+and besought him to come to her father, a great lord, and he should be
+right welcome. But "truly," said he, "I may not at this time, for I have a
+great adventure yet to do;" and commending them to God, he departed in
+great haste to find his brother.
+
+So he rode, seeking him by the track of the horses a great while. Anon he
+met a seeming holy man riding upon a strong black horse, and asked him,
+had he seen pass by that way a knight led bound and beaten with thorns by
+two others.
+
+"Yea, truly, such an one I saw," said the man; "but he is dead, and lo!
+his body is hard by in a bush."
+
+Then he showed him a newly slain body lying in a thick bush, which seemed
+indeed to be Sir Lionel. Then made Sir Bors such mourning and sorrow that
+by-and-by he fell into a swoon upon the ground. And when he came to
+himself again, he took the body in his arms and put it on his horse's
+saddle, and bore it to a chapel hard by, and would have buried it. But
+when he made the sign of the cross, he heard a full great noise and cry as
+though all the fiends of hell had been about him, and suddenly the body
+and the chapel and the old man vanished all away. Then he knew that it was
+the devil who had thus beguiled him, and that his brother yet lived.
+
+Then held he up his hands to heaven, and thanked God for his own escape
+from hurt, and rode onwards; and anon, as he passed by an hermitage in a
+forest, he saw his brother sitting armed by the door. And when he saw him
+he was filled with joy, and lighted from his horse, and ran to him and
+said, "Fair brother, when came ye hither?"
+
+But Sir Lionel answered, with an angry face, "What vain words be these,
+when for you I might have been slain? Did ye not see me bound and led away
+to death, and left me in that peril to go succouring a gentlewoman, the
+like whereof no brother ever yet hath done? Now, for thy false misdeed, I
+do defy thee, and ensure thee speedy death."
+
+Then Sir Bors prayed his brother to abate his anger, and said, "Fair
+brother, remember the love that should be between us twain."
+
+But Sir Lionel would not hear, and prepared to fight and mounted his horse
+and came before him, crying, "Sir Bors, keep thee from me, for I shall do
+to thee as a felon and a traitor; therefore, start upon thy horse, for if
+thou wilt not, I will run upon thee as thou standest."
+
+But for all his words Sir Bors would not defend himself against his
+brother. And anon the fiend stirred up Sir Lionel to such rage, that he
+rushed over him and overthrew him with his horse's hoofs, so that he lay
+swooning on the ground. Then would he have rent off his helm and slain
+him, but the hermit of that place ran out, and prayed him to forbear, and
+shielded Sir Bors with his body.
+
+Then Sir Lionel cried out, "Now, God so help me, sir priest, but I shall
+slay thee else thou depart, and him too after thee."
+
+And when the good man utterly refused to leave Sir Bors, he smote him on
+the head until he died, and then he took his brother by the helm and
+unlaced it, to have stricken off his head, and so he would have done, but
+suddenly was pulled off backwards by a knight of the Round Table, who, by
+the will of Heaven, was passing by that place--Sir Colgrevance by name.
+
+"Sir Lionel," he cried, "will ye slay your brother, one of the best
+knights of all the world? That ought no man to suffer."
+
+"Why," said Sir Lionel, "will ye hinder me and meddle in this strife?
+beware, lest I shall slay both thee and him."
+
+And when Sir Colgrevance refused to let them be, Sir Lionel defied him,
+and gave him a great stroke through the helmet, whereat Sir Colgrevance
+drew his sword, and smote again right manfully. And so long they fought
+together that Sir Bors awoke from his swoon, and tried to rise and part
+them, but had no strength to stand upon his feet.
+
+Anon Sir Colgrevance saw him, and cried out to him for help, for now Sir
+Lionel had nigh defeated him. When Sir Bors heard that, he struggled to
+his feet, and put his helmet on, and took his sword. But before he could
+come to him, Sir Lionel had smitten off Sir Colgrevance's helm, and thrown
+him to the earth and slain him. Then turned he to his brother as a man
+possessed by fiends, and gave him such a stroke as bent him nearly double.
+
+But still Sir Bors prayed him for God's sake to quit that battle, "For if
+it befell us that we either slew the other we should die for care of that
+sin."
+
+"Never will I spare thee if I master thee," cried out Sir Lionel.
+
+Then Sir Bors drew his sword all weeping, and said, "Now, God have mercy
+on me, though I defend my life against my brother;" with that he lifted up
+his sword to strike, but suddenly he heard a mighty voice, "Put up thy
+sword, Sir Bors, and flee, or thou shalt surely slay him." And then there
+fell upon them both a fiery cloud, which flamed and burned their shields,
+and they fell to the earth in sore dread.
+
+Anon Sir Bors rose to his feet, and saw that Sir Lionel had taken no harm.
+Then came the voice again, and said, "Sir Bors, go hence and leave thy
+brother, and ride thou forward to the sea, for there Sir Percival abideth
+thee."
+
+Then he said to his brother, "Brother, forgive me all my trespass against
+thee."
+
+And Sir Lionel answered, "God forgive it thee, as I do."
+
+Then he departed and rode to the sea, and on the strand he found a ship
+all covered with white samite, and as soon as he had entered thereinto,
+it put forth from the shore. And in the midst of the ship there stood an
+armed knight, whom he knew to be Sir Percival. Then they rejoiced greatly
+over each other, and said, "We lack nothing now but the good knight Sir
+Galahad."
+
+Now when Sir Galahad had rescued Sir Percival from the twenty knights he
+rode into a vast forest. And after many days it befell that he came to a
+castle whereat was a tournament. And the knights of the castle were put to
+the worse; which when he saw, he set his spear in rest and ran to help
+them, and smote down many of their adversaries. And as it chanced, Sir
+Gawain was amongst the stranger knights, and when he saw the white shield
+with the red cross, he knew it was Sir Galahad, and proffered to joust
+with him. So they encountered, and having broken their spears, they drew
+their swords, and Sir Galahad smote Sir Gawain so sorely on the helm that
+he clove it through, and struck on slanting to the earth, carving the
+horse's shoulder in twain, and Sir Gawain fell to the earth. Then Sir
+Galahad beat back all who warred against the castle, yet would he not wait
+for thanks, but rode away that no man might know him.
+
+And he rested that night at a hermitage, and when he was asleep, he heard
+a knocking at the door. So he rose, and found a damsel there, who said,
+"Sir Galahad, I will that ye arm you, and mount upon your horse and follow
+me, for I will show you within these three days the highest adventure that
+ever any knight saw."
+
+Anon Sir Galahad armed him, and took his horse, and commended himself to
+God, and bade the gentlewoman go, and he would follow where she liked.
+
+So they rode onwards to the sea as fast as their horses might gallop, and
+at night they came to a castle in a valley, inclosed by running water, and
+by strong and high walls, whereinto they entered and had great cheer, for
+the lady of the castle was the damsel's mistress.
+
+And when he was unarmed, the damsel said to her lady, "Madam, shall we
+abide here this night?"
+
+"Nay," said she, "but only till he hath dined and slept a little."
+
+So he ate and slept a while, till the maid called him, and armed him by
+torchlight; and when he had saluted the lady of the castle, the damsel and
+Sir Galahad rode on.
+
+Anon they came to the seaside, and lo! the ship, wherein were Sir Percival
+and Sir Bors, abode by the shore. Then they cried, "Welcome, Sir Galahad,
+for we have awaited thee long."
+
+Then they rejoiced to see each other, and told of all their adventures and
+temptations. And the damsel went into the ship with them, and spake to Sir
+Percival: "Sir Percival, know ye not who I am?"
+
+And he replied, "Nay, certainly, I know thee not."
+
+Then said she, "I am thy sister, the daughter of King Pellinore, and am
+sent to help thee and these knights, thy fellows, to achieve the quest
+which ye all follow."
+
+So Sir Percival rejoiced to see his sister, and they departed from the
+shore. And after a while they came upon a whirlpool, where their ship
+could not live. Then saw they another greater ship hard by and went
+towards it, but saw neither man nor woman therein. And on the end of it
+these words were written, "Thou who shalt enter me, beware that thou be in
+steadfast belief, for I am Faith; and if thou doubtest, I cannot help
+thee." Then were they all adread, but, commending themselves to God, they
+entered in.
+
+As soon as they were on board they saw a fair bed; whereon lay a crown of
+silk, and at the foot was a fair and rich sword drawn from its scabbard
+half a foot and more. The pommel was of precious stones of many colours,
+every colour having a different virtue, and the scales of the haft were of
+two ribs of different beasts. The one was bone of a serpent from Calidone
+forest, named the serpent of the fiend; and its virtue saveth all men who
+hold it from weariness. The other was of a fish that haunteth the floods
+of Euphrates, named Ertanax; and its virtue causeth whoever holdeth it to
+forget all other things, whether of joy or pain, save the thing he seeth
+before him.
+
+"In the name of God," said Sir Percival, "I shall assay to handle this
+sword; "and set his hand to it, but could not grasp it. "By my faith,"
+said he, "now have I failed."
+
+Sir Bors set his hand to it, and failed also.
+
+Then came Sir Galahad, and saw these letters written red as blood, "None
+shall draw me forth save the hardiest of all men; but he that draweth me
+shall never be shamed or wounded to death." "By my faith," said Sir
+Galahad, "I would draw it forth, but dare not try."
+
+"Ye may try safely," said the gentlewoman, Sir Percival's sister, "for be
+ye well assured the drawing of this sword is forbid to all but you. For
+this was the sword of David, King of Israel, and Solomon his son made for
+it this marvellous pommel and this wondrous sheath, and laid it on this
+bed till thou shouldest come and take it up; and though before thee some
+have dared to raise it, yet have they all been maimed or wounded for their
+daring."
+
+"Where," said Sir Galahad, "shall we find a girdle for it?"
+
+"Fair sir," said she, "dismay you not;" and therewith took from out a box
+a girdle, nobly wrought with golden thread, set full of precious stones
+and with a rich gold buckle. "This girdle, lords," said she, "is made for
+the most part of mine own hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I
+loved full well; but when I knew that this adventure was ordained me, I
+cut off and wove as ye now see."
+
+[Illustration: "This girdle, lords," said she, "is made for the most part
+of mine own hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved full
+well."]
+
+Then they all prayed Sir Galahad to take the sword, and so anon he gripped
+it in his fingers; and the maiden girt it round his waist, saying, "Now
+reck I not though I die, for I have made thee the worthiest knight of all
+the world."
+
+"Fair damsel," said Sir Galahad, "ye have done so much that I shall be
+your knight all the days of my life."
+
+Then the ship sailed a great way on the sea, and brought them to land near
+the Castle of Carteloise. When they were landed came a squire and asked
+them, "Be ye of King Arthur's court?"
+
+"We are," said they.
+
+"In an evil hour are ye come," said he, and went back swiftly to the
+castle.
+
+Within a while they heard a great horn blow, and saw a multitude of
+well-armed knights come forth, who bade them yield or die. At that they
+ran together, and Sir Percival smote one to the earth and mounted his
+horse, and so likewise did Sir Bors and Sir Galahad, and soon had they
+routed all their enemies and alighted on foot, and with their swords slew
+them downright, and entered into the castle.
+
+Then came there forth a priest, to whom Sir Galahad kneeled and said, "In
+sooth, good father, I repent me of this slaughter; but we were first
+assailed, or else it had not been."
+
+"Repent ye not," said the good man, "for if ye lived as long as the world
+lasted ye could do no better deed, for these were all the felon sons of a
+good knight, Earl Hernox, whom they have thrown into a dungeon, and in his
+name have slain priests and clerks, and beat down chapels far and near."
+
+Then Sir Galahad prayed the priest to bring him to the earl; who, when he
+saw Sir Galahad, cried out, "Long have I waited for thy coming, and now I
+pray thee hold me in thine arms that I may die in peace."
+
+And therewith, when Sir Galahad had taken him in his arms, his soul
+departed from his body.
+
+Then came a voice in the hearing of them all, "Depart now, Sir Galahad,
+and go quickly to the maimed king, for he hath long abided to receive
+health from thy hand."
+
+So the three knights departed, and Sir Percival's sister with them, and
+came to a vast forest, and saw before them a white hart, exceeding fair,
+led by four lions; and marvelling greatly at that sight, they followed.
+
+Anon they came to a hermitage and a chapel, whereunto the hart entered,
+and the lions with it. Then a priest offered mass, and presently they saw
+the hart change into the figure of a man, most sweet and comely to behold;
+and the four lions also changed and became a man, an eagle, a lion, and an
+ox. And suddenly all those five figures vanished without sound. Then the
+knights marvelled greatly, and fell upon their knees, and when they rose
+they prayed the priest to tell them what that sight might mean.
+
+"What saw ye, sirs?" said he, "for I saw nothing." Then they told him.
+
+"Ah, lords!" said he, "ye are full welcome; now know I well ye be the
+knights who shall achieve the Sangreal, for unto them alone such
+mysteries are revealed. The hart ye saw is One above all men, white and
+without blemish, and the four lions with Him are the four evangelists."
+
+When they heard that they heartily rejoiced, and thanking the priest,
+departed.
+
+Anon, as they passed by a certain castle, an armed knight suddenly came
+after them, and cried out to the damsel, "By the holy cross, ye shall not
+go till ye have yielded to the custom of the castle."
+
+"Let her go," said Sir Percival, "for a maiden, wheresoever she cometh, is
+free."
+
+"Whatever maiden passeth here," replied the knight, "must give a dishful
+of her blood from her right arm."
+
+"It is a foul and shameful custom," cried Sir Galahad and both his
+fellows, "and sooner will we die than let this maiden yield thereto."
+
+"Then shall ye die," replied the knight, and as he spake there came out
+from a gate hard by, ten or twelve more, and encountered with them,
+running upon them vehemently with a great cry. But the three knights
+withstood them, and set their hands to their swords, and beat them down
+and slew them.
+
+At that came forth a company of threescore knights, all armed. "Fair
+lords," said Sir Galahad, "have mercy on yourselves and keep from us."
+
+"Nay, fair lords," they answered, "rather be advised by us, and yield ye
+to our custom."
+
+"It is an idle word," said Galahad, "in vain ye speak it."
+
+"Well," said they, "will ye die?"
+
+"We be not come thereto as yet," replied Sir Galahad.
+
+Then did they fall upon each other, and Sir Galahad drew forth his sword,
+and smote on the right hand and on the left, and slew so mightily that
+all who saw him thought he was a monster and no earthly man. And both his
+comrades helped him well, and so they held the field against that
+multitude till it was night. Then came a good knight forward from the
+enemy and said, "Fair knights, abide with us to-night and be right
+welcome; by the faith of our bodies as we are true knights, to-morrow ye
+shall rise unharmed, and meanwhile maybe ye will, of your own accord,
+accept the custom of the castle when ye know it better."
+
+So they entered and alighted and made great cheer. Anon, they asked them
+whence that custom came. "The lady of this castle is a leper," said they,
+"and can be no way cured save by the blood of a pure virgin and a king's
+daughter; therefore to save her life are we her servants bound to stay
+every maid that passeth by, and try if her blood may not cure our
+mistress."
+
+Then said the damsel, "Take ye of my blood as much as ye will, if it may
+avail your lady."
+
+And though the three knights urged her not to put her life in that great
+peril, she replied, "If I die to heal another's body, I shall get health
+to my soul," and would not be persuaded to refuse.
+
+So on the morrow she was brought to the sick lady, and her arm was bared,
+and a vein thereof was opened, and the dish filled with her blood. Then
+the sick lady was anointed therewith, and anon she was whole of her
+malady. With that Sir Percival's sister lifted up her hand and blessed
+her, saying, "Madam, I am come to my death to make you whole; for God's
+love pray for me;" and thus saying she fell down in a swoon.
+
+Then Sir Galahad, Sir Percival, and Sir Bors started to lift her up and
+staunch her blood, but she had lost too much to live. So when she came to
+herself she said to Sir Percival, "Fair brother, I must die for the
+healing of this lady, and now, I pray thee, bury me not here, but when I
+am dead put me in a boat at the next haven and let me float at venture on
+the sea. And when ye come to the city of Sarras, to achieve the Sangreal,
+shall ye find me waiting by a tower, and there I pray thee bury me, for
+there shall Sir Galahad and ye also be laid." Thus having said, she died.
+
+Then Sir Percival wrote all the story of her life and put it in her right
+hand, and so laid her in a barge and covered it with silk. And the wind
+arising drove the barge from land, and all the knights stood watching it
+till it was out of sight.
+
+Anon they returned to the castle, and forthwith fell a sudden tempest of
+thunder and lightning and rain, as if the earth were broken up: and half
+the castle was thrown down. Then came a voice to the three knights which
+said, "Depart ye now asunder till ye meet again where the maimed king is
+lying." So they parted and rode divers ways.
+
+Now after Sir Lancelot had left the hermit, he rode a long while till he
+knew not whither to turn, and so he lay down to sleep, if haply he might
+dream whither to go.
+
+And in his sleep a vision came to him saying, "Lancelot, rise up and take
+thine armour, and enter the first ship that thou shalt find."
+
+When he awoke he obeyed the vision, and rode till he came to the
+sea-shore, and found there a ship without sails or oars, and as soon as he
+was in it he smelt the sweetest savour he had ever known, and seemed
+filled with all things he could think of or desire. And looking round he
+saw a fair bed, and thereon a gentlewoman lying dead, who was Sir
+Percival's sister. And as Sir Lancelot looked on her he spied the writing
+in her right hand, and, taking it, he read therein her story. And more
+than a month thereafter he abode in that ship and was nourished by the
+grace of Heaven, as Israel was fed with manna in the desert.
+
+And on a certain night he went ashore to pass the time, for he was
+somewhat weary, and, listening, he heard a horse come towards him, from
+which a knight alighted and went up into the ship; who, when he saw Sir
+Lancelot, said, "Fair sir, ye be right welcome to mine eyes, for I am thy
+son Galahad, and long time I have sought for thee." With that he kneeled
+and asked his blessing, and took off his helm and kissed him, and the
+great joy there was between them no tongue can tell.
+
+Then for half a year they dwelt together in the ship, and served God night
+and day with all their powers, and went to many unknown islands, where none
+but wild beasts haunted, and there found many strange and perilous
+adventures.
+
+And upon a time they came to the edge of a forest, before a cross of
+stone, and saw a knight armed all in white, leading a white horse. Then
+the knight saluted them, and said to Galahad, "Ye have been long time
+enough with your father; now, therefore, leave him and ride this horse
+till ye achieve the Holy Quest."
+
+Then went Sir Galahad to his father and kissed him full courteously, and
+said, "Fair father, I know not when I shall see thee again."
+
+And as he took his horse a voice spake in their hearing, "Ye shall meet no
+more in this life."
+
+"Now, my son, Sir Galahad," said Sir Lancelot, "since we must so part and
+see each other never more, I pray the High Father of Heaven to preserve
+both you and me."
+
+Then they bade farewell, and Sir Galahad entered the forest, and Sir
+Lancelot returned to the ship, and the wind rose and drove him more than a
+month through the sea, whereby he slept but little, yet ever prayed that
+he might see the Sangreal.
+
+So it befell upon a certain midnight, the moon shining clear, he came
+before a fair and rich castle, whereof the postern gate was open towards
+the sea, having no keeper save two lions in the entry.
+
+Anon Sir Lancelot heard a voice: "Leave now thy ship and go within the
+castle, and thou shalt see a part of thy desire."
+
+Then he armed and went towards the gate, and coming to the lions he drew
+out his sword, but suddenly a dwarf rushed out and smote him on the arm,
+so that he dropt his sword, and heard again the voice, "Oh, man of evil
+faith, and poor belief, wherefore trustest thou thine arms above thy
+Maker?" Then he put up his sword and signed the cross upon his forehead,
+and so passed by the lions without hurt.
+
+And going in, he found a chamber with the door shut, which in vain he
+tried to open. And listening thereat he heard a voice within, which sang
+so sweetly that it seemed no earthly thing, "Joy and honour be to the
+Father of Heaven!" Then he kneeled down at the door, for he knew well the
+Sangreal was there within.
+
+Anon the door was opened without hands, and forthwith came thereout so
+great a splendour as if all the torches of the world had been alight
+together. But when he would have entered in, a voice forbad him; wherefore
+he drew back, and looked, standing upon the threshold of the door. And
+there he saw a table of silver, and the holy vessel covered with red
+samite, and many angels round it holding burning candles and a cross and
+all the ornaments of the altar.
+
+Then a priest stood up and offered mass, and when he took the vessel up,
+he seemed to sink beneath that burden. At that Sir Lancelot cried, "O
+Father, take it not for sin that I go in to help the priest, who hath much
+need thereof." So saying, he went in, but when he came towards the table
+he felt a breath of fire which issued out therefrom and smote him to the
+ground, so that he had no power to rise.
+
+Then felt he many hands about him, which took him up and laid him down
+outside the chapel door. There lay he in a swoon all through that night,
+and on the morrow certain people found him senseless, and bore him to an
+inner chamber and laid him on a bed. And there he rested, living, but
+moving no limbs, twenty-four days and nights.
+
+On the twenty-fifth day he opened his eyes and saw those standing round,
+and said, "Why have ye waked me? for I have seen marvels that no tongue
+can tell, and more than any heart can think."
+
+Then he asked where he was, and they told him, "In the Castle of
+Carbonek."
+
+"Tell your lord, King Pelles," said he, "that I am Sir Lancelot."
+
+At that they marvelled greatly, and told their lord it was Sir Lancelot
+who had lain there so long.
+
+Then was King Pelles wondrous glad and went to see him, and prayed him to
+abide there for a season. But Sir Lancelot said, "I know well that I have
+now seen as much as mine eyes may behold of the Sangreal; wherefore I will
+return to my own country." So he took leave of King Pelles, and departed
+towards Logris.
+
+Now after Sir Galahad had parted from Sir Lancelot, he rode many days,
+till he came to the monastery where the blind King Evelake lay, whom Sir
+Percival had seen. And on the morrow, when he had heard mass, Sir Galahad
+desired to see the king, who cried out, "Welcome, Sir Galahad, servant of
+the Lord! long have I abided thy coming. Take me now in thine arms, that I
+may die in peace."
+
+At that Sir Galahad embraced him; and when he had so done the king's eyes
+were opened, and he said, "Fair Lord Jesus, suffer me now to come to
+Thee;" and anon his soul departed.
+
+Then they buried him royally, as a king should be; and Sir Galahad went on
+his way.
+
+Within a while he came to a chapel in a forest, in the crypt whereof he
+saw a tomb which always blazed and burnt. And asking the brethren what
+that might mean, they told him, "Joseph of Arimathea's son did found this
+monastery, and one who wronged him hath lain here these three hundred and
+fifty years and burneth evermore, until that perfect knight who shall
+achieve the Sangreal doth quench the fire."
+
+Then said he, "I pray ye bring me to the tomb."
+
+And when he touched the place immediately the fire was quenched, and a
+voice came from the grave and cried, "Thanks be to God, who now hath
+purged me of my sin, and draweth me from earthly pains into the joys of
+paradise."
+
+Then Sir Galahad took the body in his arms and bore it to the abbey, and
+on the morrow put it in the earth before the high altar.
+
+Anon he departed from thence and rode five days in a great forest; and
+after that he met Sir Percival, and a little further on Sir Bors. When
+they had told each other their adventures, they rode together to the
+Castle of Carbonek: and there King Pelles gave them hearty welcome, for he
+knew they should achieve the Holy Quest.
+
+As soon as they were come into the castle, a voice cried in the midst of
+the chamber, "Let them who ought not now to sit at the table of the Lord
+rise and depart hence!" Then all, save those three knights, departed.
+
+Anon they saw other knights come in with haste at the hall doors and take
+their harness off, who said to Sir Galahad, "Sir, we have tried sore to be
+with you at this table."
+
+"Ye be welcome," said he, "but whence are ye?"
+
+So three of them said they were from Gaul; and three from Ireland; and
+three from Denmark.
+
+Then came forth the likeness of a bishop, with a cross in his hand, and
+four angels stood by him, and a table of silver was before them, whereon
+was set the vessel of the Sangreal. Then came forth other angels also--two
+bearing burning candles, and the third a towel, and the fourth a spear
+which bled marvellously, the drops wherefrom fell into a box he held in
+his left hand. Anon the bishop took the wafer up to consecrate it, and at
+the lifting up, they saw the figure of a Child, whose visage was as bright
+as any fire, which smote itself into the midst of the wafer and vanished,
+so that all saw the flesh made bread.
+
+Thereat the bishop went to Galahad and kissed him, and bade him go and
+kiss his fellows; and said, "Now, servants of the Lord, prepare for food
+such as none ever yet were fed with since the world began."
+
+With that he vanished, and the knights were filled with a great dread and
+prayed devoutly.
+
+Then saw they come forth from the holy vessel the vision of a man bleeding
+all openly, whom they knew well by the tokens of His passion for the Lord
+Himself. At that they fell upon their faces and were dumb. Anon he brought
+the Holy Grale to them and spake high words of comfort, and, when they
+drank therefrom, the taste thereof was sweeter than any tongue could tell
+or heart desire. Then a voice said to Galahad, "Son, with this blood which
+drippeth from the spear anoint thou the maimed king and heal him. And when
+thou hast this done, depart hence with thy brethren in a ship that ye
+shall find, and go to the city of Sarras. And bear with thee the holy
+vessel, for it shall no more be seen in the realm of Logris."
+
+At that Sir Galahad walked to the bleeding spear, and therefrom anointing
+his fingers went out straightway to the maimed King Pelles, and touched
+his wound. Then suddenly he uprose from his bed as whole a man as ever he
+was, and praised God passing thankfully with all his heart.
+
+Then Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and Sir Percival departed as they had been
+told; and when they had ridden three days they came to the sea-shore, and
+found the ship awaiting them. Therein they entered, and saw in the midst
+the silver table and the vessel of the Sangreal, covered with red samite.
+Then were they passing glad, and made great reverence thereto. And Sir
+Galahad prayed that now he might leave the world and pass to God. And
+presently, the while he prayed, a voice said to him, "Galahad, thy prayer
+is heard, and when thou asketh the death of the body thou shalt have it,
+and find the life of thy soul."
+
+But while they prayed and slept the ship sailed on, and when they woke
+they saw the city of Sarras before them, and the other ship wherein was
+Sir Percival's sister. Then the three knights took up the holy table and
+the Sangreal and went into the city; and there, in a chapel, they buried
+Sir Percival's sister right solemnly.
+
+Now at the gate of the town they saw an old cripple sitting, whom Sir
+Galahad called to help them bear their weight.
+
+"Truly," said the old man, "it is ten years since I have gone a step
+without these crutches."
+
+"Care ye not," said Sir Galahad; "rise now and show goodwill."
+
+So he assayed to move, and found his limbs as strong as any man's might
+be, and running to the table helped to carry it.
+
+Anon there rose a rumour in the city that a cripple had been healed by
+certain marvellous strange knights.
+
+But the king, named Estouranse, who was a heathen tyrant, when he heard
+thereof took Sir Galahad and his fellows, and put them in prison in a deep
+hole. Therein they abode a great while, but ever the Sangreal was with
+them and fed them with marvellous sweet food, so that they fainted not,
+but had all joy and comfort they could wish.
+
+At the year's end the king fell sick and felt that he should die. Then
+sent he for the three knights, and when they came before him prayed their
+mercy for his trespasses against them. So they forgave him gladly, and
+anon he died.
+
+Then the chief men of the city took counsel together who should be king in
+his stead, and as they talked, a voice cried in their midst, "Choose ye
+the youngest of the three knights King Estouranse cast into prison for
+your king." At that they sought Sir Galahad and made him king with the
+assent of all the city, and else they would have slain him.
+
+But within a twelvemonth came to him, upon a certain day, as he prayed
+before the Sangreal, a man in likeness of a bishop, with a great company
+of angels round about him, who offered mass, and afterwards called to Sir
+Galahad, "Come forth, thou servant of the Lord, for the time hath come
+thou hast desired so long."
+
+Then Sir Galahad lifted up his hands and prayed, "Now, blessed Lord! would
+I no longer live if it might please Thee."
+
+Anon the bishop gave him the sacrament, and when he had received it with
+unspeakable gladness, he said, "Who art thou, father?"
+
+"I am Joseph of Arimathea," answered he, "whom our Lord hath sent to bear
+thee fellowship."
+
+When he heard that, Sir Galahad went to Sir Percival and Sir Bors and
+kissed them and commended them to God, saying, "Salute for me Sir
+Lancelot, my father, and bid him remember this unstable world."
+
+Therewith he kneeled down and prayed, and suddenly his soul departed, and
+a multitude of angels bare it up to heaven. Then came a hand from heaven
+and took the vessel and the spear and bare them out of sight.
+
+Since then was never man so hardy as to say that he had seen the Sangreal.
+
+And after all these things, Sir Percival put off his armour and betook him
+to an hermitage, and within a little while passed out of this world. And
+Sir Bors, when he had buried him beside his sister, returned, weeping sore
+for the loss of his two brethren, to King Arthur, at Camelot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_Sir Lancelot and the Fair Maid of Astolat_
+
+
+Now after the quest of the Sangreal was fulfilled and all the knights who
+were left alive were come again to the Round Table, there was great joy in
+the court. And passing glad were King Arthur and Queen Guinevere to see
+Sir Lancelot and Sir Bors, for they had been long absent in that quest.
+
+And so greatly was Sir Lancelot's fame now spread abroad that many ladies
+and damsels daily resorted to him and besought him for their champion; and
+all right quarrels did he gladly undertake for the pleasure of our Lord
+Christ. And always as much as he might he withdrew him from the queen.
+
+Wherefore Queen Guinevere, who counted him for her own knight, grew wroth
+with him, and on a certain day she called him to her chamber, and said
+thus: "Sir Lancelot, I daily see thy loyalty to me doth slack, for ever
+thou art absent from this court, and takest other ladies' quarrels on thee
+more than ever thou wert wont. Now do I understand thee, false knight, and
+therefore shall I never trust thee more. Depart now from my sight, and
+come no more within this court upon pain of thy head." With that she
+turned from him and would hear no excuses.
+
+So Sir Lancelot departed in heaviness of heart, and calling Sir Bors, Sir
+Ector, and Sir Lionel, he told them how the queen had dealt with him.
+
+"Fair sir," replied Sir Bors, "remember what honour ye have in this
+country, and how ye are called the noblest knight in the world; wherefore
+go not, for women are hasty, and do often what they sore repent of
+afterwards. Be ruled by my advice. Take horse and ride to the hermitage
+beside Windsor, and there abide till I send ye better tidings."
+
+To that Sir Lancelot consented, and departed with a sorrowful countenance.
+
+Now when the queen heard of his leaving she was inwardly sorry, but made
+no show of grief, bearing a proud visage outwardly. And on a certain day
+she made a costly banquet to all the knights of the Round Table, to show
+she had as great joy in all others as in Sir Lancelot. And at the banquet
+were Sir Gawain, and his brothers Sir Agravaine, Sir Gaheris, and Sir
+Gareth; also Sir Modred, Sir Bors, Sir Blamor, Sir Bleoberis, Sir Ector,
+Sir Lionel, Sir Palomedes, Sir Mador de la Port, and his cousin Sir
+Patrice--a knight of Ireland, Sir Pinell le Savage, and many more.
+
+Now Sir Pinell hated Sir Gawain because he had slain one of his kinsmen by
+treason; and Sir Gawain had a great love for all kinds of fruit, which,
+when Sir Pinell knew, he poisoned certain apples that were set upon the
+table, with intent to slay him. And so it chanced as they ate and made
+merry, Sir Patrice, who sat next to Sir Gawain, took one of the poisoned
+apples and eat it, and when he had eaten he suddenly swelled up and fell
+down dead.
+
+At that every knight leapt from the board ashamed and enraged nigh out of
+their wits, for they knew not what to say, yet seeing that the queen had
+made the banquet they all had suspicion of her.
+
+"My lady the queen," said Sir Gawain, "I wit well this fruit was meant for
+me, for all men know my love for it, and now had I been nearly slain;
+wherefore, I fear me, ye will be ashamed."
+
+"This shall not end so," cried Sir Mador de la Port; "now have I lost a
+noble knight of my own blood, and for this despite and shame I will be
+revenged to the uttermost."
+
+Then he challenged Queen Guinevere concerning the death of his cousin, but
+she stood still, sore abashed, and anon with her sorrow and dread, she
+swooned.
+
+At the noise and sudden cry came in King Arthur, and to him appealed Sir
+Mador, and impeached the queen.
+
+"Fair lords," said he, "full sorely am I troubled at this matter, for I
+must be rightful judge, and therein it repenteth me I may not do battle
+for my wife, for, as I deem, this deed was none of hers. But I suppose she
+will not lack a champion, and some good knight surely will put his body in
+jeopardy to save her."
+
+But all who had been bidden to the banquet said they could not hold the
+queen excused, or be her champions, for she had made the feast, and either
+by herself or servants must it have come.
+
+"Alas!" said the queen, "I made this dinner for a good intent, and no
+evil, so God help me in my need."
+
+"My lord the king," said Sir Mador, "I require you heartily as you be a
+righteous king give me a day when I may have justice."
+
+"Well," said the king, "I give ye this day fifteen days, when ye shall be
+ready and armed in the meadow beside Westminster, and if there be a
+knight to fight with you, God speed the right, and if not, then must my
+queen be burnt."
+
+When the king and queen were alone together he asked her how this case
+befell.
+
+"I wot not how or in what manner," answered she.
+
+"Where is Sir Lancelot?" said King Arthur, "for he would not grudge to do
+battle for thee."
+
+"Sir," said she, "I cannot tell you, but all his kinsmen deem he is not in
+this realm."
+
+"These be sad tidings," said the king; "I counsel ye to find Sir Bors, and
+pray him for Sir Lancelot's sake to do this battle for you."
+
+So the queen departed and sent for Sir Bors to her chamber, and besought
+his succour.
+
+"Madam," said he, "what would you have me do? for I may not with my honour
+take this matter on me, for I was at that same dinner, and all the other
+knights would have me ever in suspicion. Now do ye miss Sir Lancelot, for
+he would not have failed you in right nor yet in wrong, as ye have often
+proved, but now ye have driven him from the country."
+
+"Alas! fair knight," said the queen, "I put me wholly at your mercy, and
+all that is done amiss I will amend as ye will counsel me."
+
+And therewith she kneeled down upon both her knees before Sir Bors, and
+besought him to have mercy on her.
+
+Anon came in King Arthur also, and prayed him of his courtesy to help her,
+saying, "I require you for the love of Lancelot."
+
+"My lord," said he, "ye require the greatest thing of me that any man can
+ask, for if I do this battle for the queen I shall anger all my fellows of
+the Table Round; nevertheless, for my lord Sir Lancelot's sake, and for
+yours, I will that day be the queen's champion, unless there chance to
+come a better knight than I am to do battle for her." And this he promised
+on his faith.
+
+Then were the king and queen passing glad, and thanked him heartily, and
+so departed.
+
+But Sir Bors rode in secret to the hermitage where Sir Lancelot was, and
+told him all these tidings.
+
+"It has chanced as I would have it," said Sir Lancelot; "yet make ye ready
+for the battle, but tarry till ye see me come."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Bors, "doubt not but ye shall have your will."
+
+But many of the knights were greatly wroth with him when they heard he was
+to be the queen's champion, for there were few in the court but deemed her
+guilty.
+
+Then said Sir Bors, "Wit ye well, fair lords, it were a shame to us all to
+suffer so fair and noble a lady to be burnt for lack of a champion, for
+ever hath she proved herself a lover of good knights; wherefore I doubt
+not she is guiltless of this treason."
+
+At that were some well pleased, but others rested passing wroth.
+
+And when the day was come, the king and queen and all the knights went to
+the meadow beside Westminster, where the battle should be fought. Then the
+queen was put in ward, and a great fire was made round the iron stake,
+where she must be burnt if Sir Mador won the day.
+
+So when the heralds blew, Sir Mador rode forth, and took oath that Queen
+Guinevere was guilty of Sir Patrice's death, and his oath he would prove
+with his body against any who would say the contrary. Then came forth Sir
+Bors, and said, "Queen Guinevere is in the right, and that will I prove
+with my hands."
+
+With that they both departed to their tents to make ready for the battle.
+But Sir Bors tarried long, hoping Sir Lancelot would come, till Sir Mador
+cried out to King Arthur, "Bid thy champion come forth, unless he dare
+not." Then was Sir Bors ashamed, and took his horse and rode to the end of
+the lists.
+
+But ere he could meet Sir Mador he was ware of a knight upon a white
+horse, armed at all points, and with a strange shield, who rode to him and
+said, "I pray you withdraw from this quarrel, for it is mine, and I have
+ridden far to fight in it."
+
+Thereat Sir Bors rode to King Arthur, and told him that another knight was
+come who would do battle for the queen.
+
+"Who is he?" said King Arthur.
+
+"I may not tell you," said Sir Bors; "but he made a covenant with me to be
+here to-day, wherefore I am discharged."
+
+Then the king called that knight, and asked him if he would fight for the
+queen.
+
+"Therefore came I hither, Sir king," answered he; "but let us tarry no
+longer, for anon I have other matters to do. But wit ye well," said he to
+the Knights of the Round Table, "it is shame to ye for such a courteous
+queen to suffer this dishonour."
+
+And all men marvelled who this knight might be, for none knew him save Sir
+Bors.
+
+Then Sir Mador and the knight rode to either end of the lists, and
+couching their spears, ran one against the other with all their might; and
+Sir Mador's spear broke short, but the strange knight bore both him and
+his horse down to the ground. Then lightly they leaped from their saddles
+and drew their swords, and so came eagerly to the battle, and either gave
+the other many sad strokes and sore and deep wounds.
+
+Thus they fought nigh an hour, for Sir Mador was a full strong and valiant
+knight. But at last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave
+him such a buffet on the helm as wellnigh killed him. Then did Sir Mador
+yield, and prayed his life.
+
+[Illustration: At last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave
+him such a buffet on the helm as well-nigh killed him. ]
+
+"I will but grant it thee," said the strange knight, "if thou wilt release
+the queen from this quarrel for ever, and promise that no mention shall be
+made upon Sir Patrice's tomb that ever she consented to that treason."
+
+"All this shall be done," said Sir Mador.
+
+Then the knights parters took up Sir Mador and led him to his tent, and
+the other knight went straight to the stair foot of King Arthur's throne;
+and by that time was the queen come to the king again, and kissed him
+lovingly.
+
+Then both the king and she stooped down, and thanked the knight, and
+prayed him to put off his helm and rest him, and to take a cup of wine.
+And when he put his helmet off to drink, all people saw it was Sir
+Lancelot. But when the queen beheld him she sank almost to the ground
+weeping for sorrow and for joy, that he had done her such great goodness
+when she had showed him such unkindness.
+
+Then the knights of his blood gathered round him, and there was great joy
+and mirth in the court. And Sir Mador and Sir Lancelot were soon healed of
+their wounds; and not long after came the Lady of the Lake to the court,
+and told all there by her enchantments how Sir Pinell, and not the queen,
+was guilty of Sir Patrice's death. Whereat the queen was held excused of
+all men, and Sir Pinell fled the country.
+
+So Sir Patrice was buried in the church of Winchester, and it was written
+on his tomb that Sir Pinell slew him with a poisoned apple, in error for
+Sir Gawain. Then, through Sir Lancelot's favour, the queen was reconciled
+to Sir Mador, and all was forgiven.
+
+Now fifteen days before the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, the king
+proclaimed a tourney to be held that feast-day at Camelot, whereat himself
+and the King of Scotland would joust with all who should come against
+them. So thither went the King of North Wales, and King Anguish of
+Ireland, and Sir Galahaut the noble prince, and many other nobles of
+divers countries.
+
+And King Arthur made ready to go, and would have had the queen go with
+him, but she said that she was sick. Sir Lancelot, also, made excuses,
+saying he was not yet whole of his wounds.
+
+At that the king was passing heavy and grieved, and so departed alone
+towards Camelot. And by the way he lodged in a town called Astolat, and
+lay that night in the castle.
+
+As soon as he had gone, Sir Lancelot said to the queen, "This night I will
+rest, and to-morrow betimes will I take my way to Camelot; for at these
+jousts I will be against the king and his fellowship."
+
+"Ye may do as ye list," said Queen Guinevere; "but by my counsel ye will
+not be against the king, for in his company are many hardy knights, as ye
+well know."
+
+"Madam," said Sir Lancelot, "I pray ye be not displeased with me, for I
+will take the adventure that God may send me."
+
+And on the morrow he went to the church and heard mass, and took his leave
+of the queen, and so departed.
+
+Then he rode long till he came to Astolat, and there lodged at the castle
+of an old baron called Sir Bernard of Astolat, which was near the castle
+where King Arthur lodged. And as Sir Lancelot entered the king espied him,
+and knew him. Then said he to the knights, "I have just seen a knight who
+will fight full well at the joust toward which we go."
+
+"Who is it?" asked they.
+
+"As yet ye shall not know," he answered smiling.
+
+When Sir Lancelot was in his chamber unarming, the old baron came to him
+saluting him, though as yet he knew not who he was.
+
+Now Sir Bernard had a daughter passing beautiful, called the Fair Maid of
+Astolat, and when she saw Sir Lancelot she loved him from that instant
+with her whole heart, and could not stay from gazing on him.
+
+On the morrow, Sir Lancelot asked the old baron to lend him a strange
+shield. "For," said he, "I would be unknown."
+
+"Sir," said his host, "ye shall have your desire, for here is the shield
+of my eldest son, Sir Torre, who was hurt the day he was made knight, so
+that he cannot ride; and his shield, therefore, is not known. And, if it
+please you, my youngest son, Sir Lavaine, shall ride with you to the
+jousts, for he is of his age full strong and mighty; and I deem ye be a
+noble knight, wherefore I pray ye tell me your name."
+
+"As to that," said Sir Lancelot, "ye must hold me excused at this time,
+but if I speed well at the jousts, I will come again and tell you; but in
+anywise let me have your son, Sir Lavaine, with me, and lend me his
+brother's shield."
+
+Then, ere they departed, came Elaine, the baron's daughter, and said to
+Sir Lancelot, "I pray thee, gentle knight, to wear my token at to-morrow's
+tourney."
+
+"If I should grant you that, fair damsel," said he, "ye might say that I
+did more for you than ever I have done for lady or damsel."
+
+Then he bethought him that if he granted her request he would be the more
+disguised, for never before had he worn any lady's token. So anon he said,
+"Fair damsel, I will wear thy token on my helmet if thou wilt show it me."
+
+Thereat was she passing glad, and brought him a scarlet sleeve broidered
+with pearls, which Sir Lancelot took, and put upon his helm. Then he
+prayed her to keep his shield for him until he came again, and taking Sir
+Torre's shield instead, rode forth with Sir Lavaine towards Camelot.
+
+On the morrow the trumpets blew for the tourney, and there was a great
+press of dukes and earls and barons and many noble knights; and King
+Arthur sat in a gallery to behold who did the best. So the King of
+Scotland and his knights, and King Anguish of Ireland rode forth on King
+Arthur's side; and against them came the King of North Wales, the King of
+a Hundred Knights, the King of Northumberland, and the noble prince Sir
+Galahaut.
+
+But Sir Lancelot and Sir Lavaine rode into a little wood behind the party
+which was against King Arthur, to watch which side should prove the
+weakest.
+
+Then was there a strong fight between the two parties, for the King of a
+Hundred Knights smote down the King of Scotland; and Sir Palomedes, who
+was on King Arthur's side, overthrew Sir Galahaut. Then came fifteen
+Knights of the Round Table and beat back the Kings of Northumberland and
+North Wales with their knights.
+
+"Now," said Sir Lancelot to Sir Lavaine, "if ye will help me, ye shall
+see yonder fellowship go back as fast as they came."
+
+"Sir," said Sir Lavaine, "I will do what I can."
+
+Then they rode together into the thickest of the press, and there, with
+one spear, Sir Lancelot smote down five Knights of the Round Table, one
+after other, and Sir Lavaine overthrew two. And taking another spear, for
+his own was broken, Sir Lancelot smote down four more knights, and Sir
+Lavaine a fifth. Then, drawing his sword, Sir Lancelot fought fiercely on
+the right hand and the left, and unhorsed Sir Safire, Sir Epinogris, and
+Sir Galleron. At that the Knights of the Round Table withdrew themselves
+as well as they were able.
+
+"Now, mercy," said Sir Gawain, who sat by King Arthur; "what knight is
+that who doth such marvellous deeds of arms? I should deem him by his
+force to be Sir Lancelot, but that he wears a lady's token on his helm as
+never Lancelot doth."
+
+"Let him be," said King Arthur; "he will be better known, and do more ere
+he depart."
+
+Thus the party against King Arthur prospered at this time, and his knights
+were sore ashamed. Then Sir Bors, Sir Ector, and Sir Lionel called
+together the knights of their blood, nine in number, and agreed to join
+together in one band against the two strange knights. So they encountered
+Sir Lancelot all at once, and by main force smote his horse to the ground;
+and by misfortune Sir Bors struck Sir Lancelot through the shield into the
+side, and the spear broke off and left the head in the wound.
+
+When Sir Lavaine saw that, he ran to the King of Scotland and struck him
+off his horse, and brought it to Sir Lancelot, and helped him to mount.
+Then Sir Lancelot bore Sir Bors and his horse to the ground, and in like
+manner served Sir Ector and Sir Lionel; and turning upon three other
+knights he smote them down also; while Sir Lavaine did many gallant deeds.
+
+But feeling himself now sorely wounded Sir Lancelot drew his sword, and
+proffered to fight with Sir Bors, who, by this time, was mounted anew. And
+as they met, Sir Ector and Sir Lionel came also, and the swords of all
+three drave fiercely against him. When he felt their buffets, and his
+wound that was so grievous, he determined to do all his best while he
+could yet endure, and smote Sir Bors a blow that bent his head down nearly
+to the ground and razed his helmet off and pulled him from his horse.
+
+Then rushing at Sir Ector and Sir Lionel, he smote them down, and might
+have slain all three, but when he saw their faces his heart forbade him.
+Leaving them, therefore, on the field, he hurled into the thickest of the
+press, and did such feats of arms as never were beheld before.
+
+And Sir Lavaine was with him through it all, and overthrew ten knights;
+but Sir Lancelot smote down more than thirty, and most of them Knights of
+the Round Table.
+
+Then the king ordered the trumpets to blow for the end of the tourney, and
+the prize to be given by the heralds to the knight with the white shield
+who bore the red sleeve.
+
+But ere Sir Lancelot was found by the heralds, came the King of the
+Hundred Knights, the King of North Wales, the King of Northumberland, and
+Sir Galahaut, and said to him, "Fair knight, God bless thee, for much have
+ye done this day for us; wherefore we pray ye come with us and receive
+the honour and the prize as ye have worshipfully deserved it."
+
+"My fair lords," said Sir Lancelot, "wit ye well if I have deserved
+thanks, I have sore bought them, for I am like never to escape with my
+life; therefore I pray ye let me depart, for I am sore hurt. I take no
+thought of honour, for I had rather rest me than be lord of all the
+world." And therewith he groaned piteously, and rode a great gallop away
+from them.
+
+And Sir Lavaine rode after him, sad at heart, for the broken spear still
+stuck fast in Sir Lancelot's side, and the blood streamed sorely from the
+wound. Anon they came near a wood more than a mile from the lists, where
+he knew he could be hidden.
+
+Then said he to Sir Lavaine, "O gentle knight, help me to pull out this
+spear-head from my side, for the pain thereof nigh killeth me."
+
+"Dear lord," said he, "I fain would help ye; but I dread to draw it forth,
+lest ye should die for loss of blood."
+
+"I charge you as you love me," said Sir Lancelot, "draw it out."
+
+So they dismounted, and with a mighty wrench Sir Lavaine drew the spear
+forth from Sir Lancelot's side; whereat he gave a marvellous great shriek
+and ghastly groan, and all his blood leaped forth in a full stream. Then
+he sank swooning to the earth, with a visage pale as death.
+
+"Alas!" cried Sir Lavaine, "what shall I do now?"
+
+And then he turned his master's face towards the wind, and sat by him nigh
+half an hour while he lay quiet as one dead. But at the last he lifted up
+his eyes, and said, "I pray ye bear me on my horse again, and lead me to a
+ hermit who dwelleth within two miles hence, for he was formerly a knight
+of Arthur's court, and now hath mighty skill in medicine and herbs."
+
+So with great pain Sir Lavaine got him to his horse, and led him to the
+hermitage within the wood, beside a stream. Then knocked he with his spear
+upon the door, and prayed to enter. At that a child came out, to whom he
+said, "Fair child, pray the good man thy master to come hither and let in
+a knight who is sore wounded."
+
+Anon came out the knight-hermit, whose name was Sir Baldwin, and asked,
+"Who is this wounded knight?"
+
+"I know not," said Sir Lavaine, "save that he is the noblest knight I ever
+met with, and hath done this day such marvellous deeds of arms against
+King Arthur that he hath won the prize of the tourney."
+
+Then the hermit gazed long on Sir Lancelot, and hardly knew him, so pale
+he was with bleeding, yet said he at the last, "Who art thou, lord?"
+
+Sir Lancelot answered feebly, "I am a stranger knight adventurous, who
+laboureth through many realms to win worship."
+
+"Why hidest thou thy name, dear lord, from me?" cried Sir Baldwin; "for in
+sooth I know thee now to be the noblest knight in all the world--my lord
+Sir Lancelot du Lake, with whom I long had fellowship at the Round Table."
+
+"Since ye know me, fair sir," said he, "I pray ye, for Christ's sake, to
+help me if ye may."
+
+"Doubt not," replied he, "that ye shall live and fare right well."
+
+Then he staunched his wound, and gave him strong medicines and cordials
+till he was refreshed from his faintness and came to himself again.
+
+Now after the jousting was done King Arthur held a feast, and asked to see
+the knight with the red sleeve that he might take the prize. So they told
+him how that knight had ridden from the field wounded nigh to death.
+"These be the worst tidings I have heard for many years," cried out the
+king; "I would not for my kingdom he were slain."
+
+Then all men asked, "Know ye him, lord?"
+
+"I may not tell ye at this time," said he; "but would to God we had good
+tidings of him."
+
+Then Sir Gawain prayed leave to go and seek that knight, which the king
+gladly gave him. So forthwith he mounted and rode many leagues round
+Camelot, but could hear no tidings.
+
+Within two days thereafter King Arthur and his knights returned from
+Camelot, and Sir Gawain chanced to lodge at Astolat, in the house of Sir
+Bernard. And there came in the fair Elaine to him, and prayed him news of
+the tournament, and who won the prize. "A knight with a white shield,"
+said he, "who bare a red sleeve in his helm, smote down all comers and won
+the day."
+
+At that the visage of Elaine changed suddenly from white to red, and
+heartily she thanked our Lady.
+
+Then said Sir Gawain, "Know ye that knight?" and urged her till she told
+him that it was her sleeve he wore. So Sir Gawain knew it was for love
+that she had given it; and when he heard she kept his proper shield he
+prayed to see it.
+
+As soon as it was brought he saw Sir Lancelot's arms thereon, and cried,
+"Alas! now am I heavier of heart than ever yet."
+
+"Wherefore?" said fair Elaine.
+
+"Fair damsel," answered he, "know ye not that the knight ye love is of
+all knights the noblest in the world, Sir Lancelot du Lake? With all my
+heart I pray ye may have joy of each other, but hardly dare I think that
+ye shall see him in this world again, for he is so sore wounded he may
+scarcely live, and is gone out of sight where none can find him."
+
+Then was Elaine nigh mad with grief and sorrow, and with piteous words she
+prayed her father that she might go seek Sir Lancelot and her brother. So
+in the end her father gave her leave, and she departed.
+
+And on the morrow came Sir Gawain to the court, and told how he had found
+Sir Lancelot's shield in Elaine's keeping, and how it was her sleeve which
+he had worn; whereat all marvelled, for Sir Lancelot had done for her more
+than he had ever done for any woman.
+
+But when Queen Guinevere heard it she was beside herself with wrath, and
+sending privily for Sir Bors, who sorrowed sorely that through him Sir
+Lancelot had been hurt--"Have ye now heard," said she, "how falsely Sir
+Lancelot hath betrayed me?"
+
+"I beseech thee, madam," said he, "speak not so, for else I may not hear
+thee."
+
+"Shall I not call him traitor," cried she, "who hath worn another lady's
+token at the jousting?"
+
+"Be sure he did it, madam, for no ill intent," replied Sir Bors, "but that
+he might be better hidden, for never did he in that wise before."
+
+"Now shame on him, and thee who wouldest help him," cried the queen.
+
+"Madam, say what ye will," said he; "but I must haste to seek him, and God
+send me soon good tidings of him."
+
+So with that he departed to find Sir Lancelot.
+
+Now Elaine had ridden with full haste from Astolat, and come to Camelot,
+and there she sought throughout the country for any news of Lancelot. And
+so it chanced that Sir Lavaine was riding near the hermitage to exercise
+his horse, and when she saw him she ran up and cried aloud, "How doth my
+lord Sir Lancelot fare?"
+
+Then said Sir Lavaine, marvelling greatly, "How know ye my lord's name,
+fair sister?"
+
+So she told him how Sir Gawain had lodged with Sir Bernard, and knew Sir
+Lancelot's shield.
+
+Then prayed she to see his lord forthwith, and when she came to the
+hermitage and found him lying there sore sick and bleeding, she swooned
+for sorrow. Anon, as she revived, Sir Lancelot kissed her, and said, "Fair
+maid, I pray ye take comfort, for, by God's grace, I shall be shortly
+whole of this wound, and if ye be come to tend me, I am heartily bounden
+to your great kindness." Yet was he sore vexed to hear Sir Gawain had
+discovered him, for he knew Queen Guinevere would be full wroth because of
+the red sleeve.
+
+So Elaine rested in the hermitage, and ever night and day she watched and
+waited on Sir Lancelot, and would let none other tend him. And as she saw
+him more, the more she set her love upon him, and could by no means
+withdraw it. Then said Sir Lancelot to Sir Lavaine, "I pray thee set some
+to watch for the good knight Sir Bors, for as he hurt me, so will he
+surely seek for me."
+
+Now Sir Bors by this time had come to Camelot, and was seeking for Sir
+Lancelot everywhere, so Sir Lavaine soon found him, and brought him to the
+hermitage.
+
+And when he saw Sir Lancelot pale and feeble, he wept for pity and sorrow
+that he had given him that grievous wound. "God send thee a right speedy
+cure, dear lord," said he; "for I am of all men most unhappy to have
+wounded thee, who art our leader, and the noblest knight in all the
+world."
+
+"Fair cousin," said Sir Lancelot, "be comforted, for I have but gained
+what I sought, and it was through pride that I was hurt, for had I warned
+ye of my coming it had not been; wherefore let us speak of other things."
+
+So they talked long together, and Sir Bors told him of the queen's anger.
+Then he asked Sir Lancelot, "Was it from this maid who tendeth you so
+lovingly ye had the token?"
+
+"Yea," said Sir Lancelot; "and would I could persuade her to withdraw her
+love from me."
+
+"Why should ye do so?" said Sir Bors; "for she is passing fair and loving.
+I would to heaven ye could love her."
+
+"That may not be," replied he; "but it repenteth me in sooth to grieve
+her."
+
+Then they talked of other matters, and of the great jousting at
+Allhallowtide next coming, between King Arthur and the King of North
+Wales.
+
+"Abide with me till then," said Sir Lancelot, "for by that time I trust to
+be all whole again, and we will go together."
+
+So Elaine daily and nightly tending him, within a month he felt so strong
+he deemed himself full cured. Then on a day, when Sir Bors and Sir Lavaine
+were from the hermitage, and the knight-hermit also was gone forth, Sir
+Lancelot prayed Elaine to bring him some herbs from the forest.
+
+When she was gone he rose and made haste to arm himself, and try if he
+were whole enough to joust, and mounted on his horse, which was fresh with
+lack of labour for so long a time. But when he set his spear in the rest
+and tried his armour, the horse bounded and leapt beneath him, so that Sir
+Lancelot strained to keep him back. And therewith his wound, which was not
+wholly healed, burst forth again, and with a mighty groan he sank down
+swooning on the ground.
+
+At that came fair Elaine and wept and piteously moaned to see him lying
+so. And when Sir Bors and Sir Lavaine came back, she called them traitors
+to let him rise, or to know any rumour of the tournament. Anon the hermit
+returned and was wroth to see Sir Lancelot risen, but within a while he
+recovered him from his swoon and staunched the wound. Then Sir Lancelot
+told him how he had risen of his own will to assay his strength for the
+tournament. But the hermit bad him rest and let Sir Bors go alone, for
+else would he sorely peril his life. And Elaine, with tears, prayed him in
+the same wise, so that Sir Lancelot in the end consented.
+
+So Sir Bors departed to the tournament, and there he did such feats of
+arms that the prize was given between him and Sir Gawain, who did like
+valiantly.
+
+And when all was over he came back and told Sir Lancelot, and found him so
+nigh well that he could rise and walk. And within a while thereafter he
+departed from the hermitage and went with Sir Bors, Sir Lavaine, and fair
+Elaine to Astolat, where Sir Bernard joyfully received them.
+
+But after they had lodged there a few days Sir Lancelot and Sir Bors must
+needs depart and return to King Arthur's court.
+
+So when Elaine knew Sir Lancelot must go, she came to him and said, "Have
+mercy on me, fair knight, and let me not die for your love."
+
+Then said Sir Lancelot, very sad at heart, "Fair maid, what would ye that
+I should do for you?"
+
+"If I may not be your wife, dear lord," she answered, "I must die."
+
+"Alas!" said he, "I pray heaven that may not be; for in sooth I may not be
+your husband. But fain would I show ye what thankfulness I can for all
+your love and kindness to me. And ever will I be your knight, fair maiden;
+and if it chance that ye shall ever wed some noble knight, right heartily
+will I give ye such a dower as half my lands will bring."
+
+"Alas! what shall that aid me?" answered she; "for I must die," and
+therewith she fell to the earth in a deep swoon.
+
+Then was Sir Lancelot passing heavy of heart, and said to Sir Bernard and
+Sir Lavaine, "What shall I do for her?"
+
+"Alas!" said Sir Bernard, "I know well that she will die for your sake."
+
+And Sir Lavaine said, "I marvel not that she so sorely mourneth your
+departure, for truly I do as she doth, and since I once have seen you,
+lord, I cannot leave you."
+
+So anon, with a full sorrowful heart, Sir Lancelot took his leave, and Sir
+Lavaine rode with him to the court. And King Arthur and the Knights of the
+Round Table joyed greatly to see him whole of his wound, but Queen
+Guinevere was sorely wroth, and neither spake with him nor greeted him.
+
+Now when Sir Lancelot had departed, the Maid of Astolat could neither eat,
+nor drink, not sleep for sorrow; and having thus endured ten days, she
+felt within herself that she must die.
+
+Then sent she for a holy man, and was shriven and received the sacrament.
+But when he told her she must leave her earthly thoughts, she answered,
+"Am I not an earthly woman? What sin is it to love the noblest knight of
+all the world? And, by my truth, I am not able to withstand the love
+whereof I die; wherefore, I pray the High Father of Heaven to have mercy
+on my soul."
+
+Then she besought Sir Bernard to indite a letter as she should devise, and
+said, "When I am dead put this within my hand, and dress me in my fairest
+clothes, and lay me in a barge all covered with black samite, and steer it
+down the river till it reach the court. Thus, father, I beseech thee let
+it be."
+
+Then, full of grief, he promised her it should be so. And anon she died,
+and all the household made a bitter lamentation over her.
+
+Then did they as she had desired, and laid her body, richly dressed, upon
+a bed within the barge, and a trusty servant steered it down the river
+towards the court.
+
+Now King Arthur and Queen Guinevere sat at a window of the palace, and saw
+the barge come floating with the tide, and marvelled what was laid
+therein, and sent a messenger to see, who, soon returning, prayed them to
+come forth.
+
+When they came to the shore they marvelled greatly, and the king asked of
+the serving-men who steered the barge what this might mean. But he made
+signs that he was dumb, and pointed to the letter in the damsel's hands.
+So King Arthur took the letter from the hand of the corpse, and found
+thereon written, "To the noble knight, Sir Lancelot du Lake."
+
+Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud by a clerk, and
+thus it was written:--
+
+[Illustration: Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud
+by a clerk.]
+
+"Most noble knight, my lord Sir Lancelot, now hath death for ever parted
+us. I, whom men call the Maid of Astolat, set my love upon you, and have
+died for your sake. This is my last request, that ye pray for my soul and
+give me burial. Grant me this, Sir Lancelot, as thou art a peerless
+knight."
+
+At these words the queen and all the knights wept sore for pity.
+
+Then said Sir Lancelot, "My lord, I am right heavy for the death of this
+fair damsel; and God knoweth that right unwillingly I caused it, for she
+was good as she was fair, and much was I beholden to her; but she loved me
+beyond measure, and asked me that I could not give her."
+
+"Ye might have shown her gentleness enough to save her life," answered the
+queen.
+
+"Madam," said he, "she would but be repaid by my taking her to wife, and
+that I could not grant her, for love cometh of the heart and not by
+constraint."
+
+"That is true," said the king; "for love is free."
+
+"I pray you," said Sir Lancelot, "let me now grant her last asking, to be
+buried by me."
+
+So on the morrow, he caused her body to be buried richly and solemnly, and
+ordained masses for her soul, and made great sorrow over her.
+
+Then the queen sent for Sir Lancelot, and prayed his pardon for her wrath
+against him without cause. "This is not the first time it hath been so,"
+answered he; "yet must I ever bear with ye, and so do I now forgive you."
+
+So Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot were made friends again; but anon such
+favour did she show him, as in the end brought many evils on them both and
+all the realm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_The War between King Arthur and Sir Lancelot and the Death of King
+Arthur_
+
+
+Within a while thereafter was a jousting at the court, wherein Sir
+Lancelot won the prize. And two of those he smote down were Sir Agravaine,
+the brother of Sir Gawain, and Sir Modred, his false brother--King
+Arthur's son by Belisent. And because of his victory they hated Sir
+Lancelot, and sought how they might injure him.
+
+So on a night, when King Arthur was hunting in the forest, and the queen
+sent for Sir Lancelot to her chamber, they two espied him; and thinking
+now to make a scandal and a quarrel between Lancelot and the king, they
+found twelve others, and said Sir Lancelot was ever now in the queen's
+chamber, and King Arthur was dishonoured.
+
+Then, all armed, they came suddenly round the queen's door, and cried,
+"Traitor! now art thou taken."
+
+"Madam, we be betrayed," said Sir Lancelot; "yet shall my life cost these
+men dear."
+
+Then did the queen weep sore, and dismally she cried, "Alas! there is no
+armour here whereby ye might withstand so many; wherefore ye will be
+slain, and I be burnt for the dread crime they will charge on me."
+
+But while she spake the shouting of the knights was heard without,
+"Traitor, come forth, for now thou art snared!"
+
+"Better were twenty deaths at once than this vile outcry," said Sir
+Lancelot.
+
+Then he kissed her and said, "Most noble lady, I beseech ye, as I have
+ever been your own true knight, take courage; pray for my soul if I be now
+slain, and trust my faithful friends, Sir Bors and Sir Lavaine, to save
+you from the fire."
+
+But ever bitterly she wept and moaned, and cried, "Would God that they
+would take and slay me, and that thou couldest escape."
+
+"That shall never be," said he. And wrapping his mantle round his arm he
+unbarred the door a little space, so that but one could enter.
+
+Then first rushed in Sir Chalaunce, a full strong knight, and lifted up
+his sword to smite Sir Lancelot; but lightly he avoided him, and struck
+Sir Chalaunce, with his hand, such a sore buffet on the head as felled him
+dead upon the floor.
+
+Then Sir Lancelot pulled in his body and barred the door again, and
+dressed himself in his armour, and took his drawn sword in his hand.
+
+But still the knights cried mightily without the door, "Traitor, come
+forth!"
+
+[Illustration: But still the knights cried mightily without the door,
+"Traitor, come forth!"]
+
+"Be silent and depart," replied Sir Lancelot; "for be ye sure ye will not
+take me, and to-morrow will I meet ye face to face before the king."
+
+"Ye shall have no such grace," they cried; "but we will slay thee, or take
+thee as we list."
+
+"Then save yourselves who may," he thundered, and therewith suddenly
+unbarred the door and rushed forth at them. And at the first blow he slew
+Sir Agravaine, and after him twelve other knights, with twelve more mighty
+buffets. And none of all escaped him save Sir Modred, who, sorely wounded,
+fled away for life.
+
+Then returned he to the queen, and said, "Now, madam, will I depart, and
+if ye be in any danger I pray ye come to me."
+
+"Surely will I stay here, for I am queen," she answered; "yet if to-morrow
+any harm come to me I trust to thee for rescue."
+
+"Have ye no doubt of me," said he, "for ever while I live am I your own
+true knight."
+
+Therewith he took his leave, and went and told Sir Bors and all his
+kindred of this adventure. "We will be with thee in this quarrel," said
+they all; "and if the queen be sentenced to the fire, we certainly will
+save her."
+
+Meanwhile Sir Modred, in great fear and pain, fled from the court, and
+rode until he found King Arthur, and told him all that had befallen. But
+the king would scarce believe him till he came and saw the bodies of Sir
+Agravaine and all the other knights.
+
+Then felt he in himself that all was true, and with his passing grief his
+heart nigh broke. "Alas!" cried he, "now is the fellowship of the Round
+Table for ever broken: yea, woe is me! I may not with my honour spare my
+queen."
+
+Anon it was ordained that Queen Guinevere should be burned to death,
+because she had dishonoured King Arthur.
+
+But when Sir Gawain heard thereof, he came before the king, and said, "My
+lord, I counsel thee be not too hasty in this matter, but stay the
+judgment of the queen a season, for it may well be that Sir Lancelot was
+in her chamber for no evil, seeing she is greatly beholden to him for so
+many deeds done for her sake, and peradventure she had sent to him to
+thank him, and did it secretly that she might avoid slander."
+
+But King Arthur answered, full of grief, "Alas! I may not help her; she is
+judged as any other woman."
+
+Then he required Sir Gawain and his brethren, Sir Gaheris and Sir Gareth,
+to be ready to bear the queen to-morrow to the place of execution.
+
+"Nay, noble lord," replied Sir Gawain, "that can I never do; for neither
+will my heart suffer me to see the queen die, nor shall men ever say I was
+of your counsel in this matter."
+
+Then said his brothers, "Ye may command us to be there, but since it is
+against our will, we will be without arms, that we may do no battle
+against her."
+
+So on the morrow was Queen Guinevere led forth to die by fire, and a
+mighty crowd was there, of knights and nobles, armed and unarmed. And all
+the lords and ladies wept sore at that piteous sight. Then was she shriven
+by a priest, and the men came nigh to bind her to the stake and light the
+fire.
+
+At that Sir Lancelot's spies rode hastily and told him and his kindred,
+who lay hidden in a wood hard by; and suddenly, with twenty knights, he
+rushed into the midst of all the throng to rescue her.
+
+But certain of King Arthur's knights rose up and fought with them, and
+there was a full great battle and confusion. And Sir Lancelot drave
+fiercely here and there among the press, and smote on every side, and at
+every blow struck down a knight, so that many were slain by him and his
+fellows.
+
+Then was the queen set free, and caught up on Sir Lancelot's saddle and
+fled away with him and all his company to the Castle of La Joyous Garde.
+
+Now so it chanced that, in the turmoil of the fighting, Sir Lancelot had
+unawares struck down and slain the two good knights Sir Gareth and Sir
+Gaheris, knowing it not, for he fought wildly, and saw not that they were
+unarmed.
+
+When King Arthur heard thereof, and of all that battle, and the rescue of
+the queen, he sorrowed heavily for those good knights, and was passing
+wroth with Lancelot and the queen.
+
+But when Sir Gawain heard of his brethren's death he swooned for sorrow
+and wrath, for he wist that Sir Lancelot had killed them in malice. And as
+soon as he recovered he ran in to the king, and said, "Lord king and
+uncle, hear this oath which now I swear, that from this day I will not
+fail Sir Lancelot till one of us hath slain the other. And now, unless ye
+haste to war with him, that we may be avenged, will I myself alone go
+after him."
+
+Then the king, full of wrath and grief, agreed thereto, and sent letters
+throughout the realm to summon all his knights, and went with a vast army
+to besiege the Castle of La Joyous Garde. And Sir Lancelot, with his
+knights, mightily defended it; but never would he suffer any to go forth
+and attack one of the king's army, for he was right loth to fight against
+him.
+
+So when fifteen weeks were passed, and King Arthur's army wasted itself in
+vain against the castle, for it was passing strong, it chanced upon a day
+Sir Lancelot was looking from the walls and espied King Arthur and Sir
+Gawain close beside.
+
+"Come forth, Sir Lancelot," said King Arthur right fiercely, "and let us
+two meet in the midst of the field."
+
+"God forbid that I should encounter with thee, lord, for thou didst make
+me a knight," replied Sir Lancelot.
+
+Then cried Sir Gawain, "Shame on thee, traitor and false knight, yet be ye
+well assured we will regain the queen and slay thee and thy company; yea,
+double shame on ye to slay my brother Gaheris unarmed, Sir Gareth also,
+who loved ye so well. For that treachery, be sure I am thine enemy till
+death."
+
+"Alas!" cried Sir Lancelot, "that I hear such tidings, for I knew not I
+had slain those noble knights, and right sorely now do I repent it with a
+heavy heart. Yet abate thy wrath, Sir Gawain, for ye know full well I did
+it by mischance, for I loved them ever as my own brothers."
+
+"Thou liest, false recreant," cried Sir Gawain, fiercely.
+
+At that Sir Lancelot was wroth, and said, "I well see thou art now mine
+enemy, and that there can be no more peace with thee, or with my lord the
+king, else would I gladly give back the queen."
+
+Then the king would fain have listened to Sir Lancelot, for more than all
+his own wrong did he grieve at the sore waste and damage of the realm, but
+Sir Gawain persuaded him against it, and ever cried out foully on Sir
+Lancelot.
+
+When Sir Bors and the other knights of Lancelot's party heard the fierce
+words of Sir Gawain, they were passing wroth, and prayed to ride forth and
+be avenged on him, for they were weary of so long waiting to no good. And
+in the end Sir Lancelot, with a heavy heart, consented.
+
+So on the morrow the hosts on either side met in the field, and there was
+a great battle. And Sir Gawain prayed his knights chiefly to set upon Sir
+Lancelot; but Sir Lancelot commanded his company to forbear King Arthur
+and Sir Gawain.
+
+So the two armies jousted together right fiercely, and Sir Gawain
+proffered to encounter with Sir Lionel, and overthrew him. But Sir Bors,
+and Sir Blamor, and Sir Palomedes, who were on Sir Lancelot's side, did
+great feats of arms, and overthrew many of King Arthur's knights.
+
+Then the king came forth against Sir Lancelot, but Sir Lancelot forbore
+him and would not strike again.
+
+At that Sir Bors rode up against the king and smote him down. But Sir
+Lancelot cried, "Touch him not on pain of thy head," and going to King
+Arthur he alighted and gave him his own horse, saying, "My lord, I pray
+thee forbear this strife, for it can bring to neither of us any honour."
+
+And when King Arthur looked on him the tears came to his eyes as he
+thought of his noble courtesy, and he said within himself, "Alas! that
+ever this war began."
+
+But on the morrow Sir Gawain led forth the army again, and Sir Bors
+commanded on Sir Lancelot's side. And they two struck together so fiercely
+that both fell to the ground sorely wounded; and all the day they fought
+till night fell, and many were slain on both sides, yet in the end neither
+gained the victory.
+
+But by now the fame of this fierce war spread through all Christendom, and
+when the Pope heard thereof he sent a Bull, and charged King Arthur to
+make peace with Lancelot, and receive back Queen Guinevere; and for the
+offence imputed to her absolution should be given by the Pope.
+
+Thereto would King Arthur straightway have obeyed, but Sir Gawain ever
+urged him to refuse.
+
+When Sir Lancelot heard thereof, he wrote thus to the king: "It was never
+in my thought, lord, to withhold thy queen from thee; but since she was
+condemned for my sake to death, I deemed it but a just and knightly part
+to rescue her therefrom; wherefore I recommend me to your grace, and
+within eight days will I come to thee and bring the queen in safety."
+
+Then, within eight days, as he had said, Sir Lancelot rode from out the
+castle with Queen Guinevere, and a hundred knights for company, each
+carrying an olive branch, in sign of peace. And so they came to the court,
+and found King Arthur sitting on his throne, with Sir Gawain and many
+other knights around him. And when Sir Lancelot entered with the queen,
+they both kneeled down before the king.
+
+Anon Sir Lancelot rose and said, "My lord, I have brought hither my lady
+the queen again, as right requireth, and by commandment of the Pope and
+you. I pray ye take her to your heart again and forget the past. For
+myself I may ask nothing, and for my sin I shall have sorrow and sore
+punishment; yet I would to heaven I might have your grace."
+
+But ere the king could answer, for he was moved with pity at his words,
+Sir Gawain cried aloud, "Let the king do as he will, but be sure, Sir
+Lancelot, thou and I shall never be accorded while we live, for thou has
+slain my brethren traitorously and unarmed."
+
+"As heaven is my help," replied Sir Lancelot, "I did it ignorantly, for I
+loved them well, and while I live I shall bewail their death; but to make
+war with me were no avail, for I must needs fight with thee if thou
+assailest, and peradventure I might kill thee also, which I were right
+loth to do."
+
+"I will forgive thee never," cried Sir Gawain, "and if the king accordeth
+with thee he shall lose my service."
+
+Then the knights who stood near tried to reconcile Sir Gawain to Sir
+Lancelot, but he would not hear them. So, at the last, Sir Lancelot said,
+"Since peace is vain, I will depart, lest I bring more evil on my
+fellowship."
+
+And as he turned to go, the tears fell from him, and he said, "Alas, most
+noble Christian realm, which I have loved above all others, now shall I
+see thee never more!" Then said he to the queen, "Madam, now must I leave
+ye and this noble fellowship for ever. And, I beseech ye, pray for me, and
+if ye ever be defamed of any, let me hear thereof, and as I have been ever
+thy true knight in right and wrong, so will I be again."
+
+With that he kneeled and kissed King Arthur's hands, and departed on his
+way. And there was none in all that court, save Sir Gawain alone, but wept
+to see him go.
+
+So he returned with all his knights to the Castle of La Joyous Garde, and,
+for his sorrow's sake, he named it Dolorous Garde thenceforth.
+
+Anon he left the realm, and went with many of his fellowship beyond the
+sea to France, and there divided all his lands among them equally, he
+sharing but as the rest.
+
+And from that time forward peace had been between him and King Arthur, but
+for Sir Gawain, who left the king no rest, but constantly persuaded him
+that Lancelot was raising mighty hosts against him.
+
+So in the end his malice overcame the king, who left the government in
+charge of Modred, and made him guardian of the queen, and went with a
+great army to invade Sir Lancelot's lands.
+
+Yet Sir Lancelot would make no war upon the king, and sent a message to
+gain peace on any terms King Arthur chose. But Sir Gawain met the herald
+ere he reached the king, and sent him back with taunting and bitter words.
+Whereat Sir Lancelot sorrowfully called his knights together and fortified
+the Castle of Benwicke, and there was shortly besieged by the army of King
+Arthur.
+
+And every day Sir Gawain rode up to the walls, and cried out foully on Sir
+Lancelot, till, upon a time, Sir Lancelot answered him that he would meet
+him in the field and put his boasting to the proof. So it was agreed on
+both sides that there should none come nigh them or separate them till one
+had fallen or yielded; and they two rode forth.
+
+Then did they wheel their horses apart, and turning, came together as it
+had been thunder, so that both horses fell, and both their lances broke.
+At that they drew their swords and set upon each other fiercely, with
+passing grievous strokes.
+
+Now Sir Gawain had through magic a marvellous great gift. For every day,
+from morning till noon, his strength waxed to the might of seven men, but
+after that waned to his natural force. Therefore till noon he gave Sir
+Lancelot many mighty buffets, which scarcely he endured. Yet greatly he
+forbore Sir Gawain, for he was aware of his enchantment, and smote him
+slightly till his own knights marvelled. But after noon Sir Gawain's
+strength sank fast, and then, with one full blow, Sir Lancelot laid him on
+the earth. Then Sir Gawain cried out, "Turn not away, thou traitor knight,
+ but slay me if thou wilt, or else I will arise and fight with thee again
+some other time."
+
+"Sir knight," replied Sir Lancelot, "I never yet smote a fallen man."
+
+At that they bore Sir Gawain sorely wounded to his tent, and King Arthur
+withdrew his men, for he was loth to shed the blood of so many knights of
+his own fellowship.
+
+But now came tidings to King Arthur from across the sea, which caused him
+to return in haste. For thus the news ran, that no sooner was Sir Modred
+set up in his regency, than he had forged false tidings from abroad that
+the king had fallen in a battle with Sir Lancelot. Whereat he had
+proclaimed himself the king, and had been crowned at Canterbury, where he
+had held a coronation feast for fifteen days. Then he had gone to
+Winchester, where Queen Guinevere abode, and had commanded her to be his
+wife; whereto, for fear and sore perplexity, she had feigned consent, but,
+under pretext of preparing for the marriage, had fled in haste to London
+and taken shelter in the Tower, fortifying it and providing it with all
+manner of victuals, and defending it against Sir Modred, and answering to
+all his threats that she would rather slay herself than be his queen.
+
+Thus was it written to King Arthur. Then, in passing great wrath and
+haste, he came with all his army swiftly back from France and sailed to
+England. But when Sir Modred heard thereof, he left the Tower and marched
+with all his host to meet the king at Dover.
+
+Then fled Queen Guinevere to Amesbury to a nunnery, and there she clothed
+herself in sackcloth, and spent her time in praying for the king and in
+good deeds and fasting. And in that nunnery evermore she lived, sorely
+repenting and mourning for her sin, and for the ruin she had brought on
+all the realm. And there anon she died.
+
+And when Sir Lancelot heard thereof, he put his knightly armour off, and
+bade farewell to all his kin, and went a mighty pilgrimage for many years,
+and after lived a hermit till his death.
+
+When Sir Modred came to Dover, he found King Arthur and his army but just
+landed; and there they fought a fierce and bloody battle, and many great
+and noble knights fell on both sides.
+
+But the king's side had the victory, for he was beyond himself with might
+and passion, and all his knights so fiercely followed him, that, in spite
+of all their multitude, they drove Sir Modred's army back with fearful
+wounds and slaughter, and slept that night upon the battle-field.
+
+But Sir Gawain was smitten by an arrow in the wound Sir Lancelot gave him,
+and wounded to the death. Then was he borne to the king's tent, and King
+Arthur sorrowed over him as it had been his own son. "Alas!" said he; "in
+Sir Lancelot and in you I had my greatest earthly joy, and now is all gone
+from me."
+
+And Sir Gawain answered, with a feeble voice, "My lord and king, I know
+well my death is come, and through my own wilfulness, for I am smitten in
+the wound Sir Lancelot gave me. Alas! that I have been the cause of all
+this war, for but for me thou hadst been now at peace with Lancelot, and
+then had Modred never done this treason. I pray ye, therefore, my dear
+lord, be now agreed with Lancelot, and tell him, that although he gave me
+my death-wound, it was through my own seeking; wherefore I beseech him to
+come back to England, and here to visit my tomb, and pray for my soul."
+
+When he had thus spoken, Sir Gawain gave up his ghost, and the king
+grievously mourned for him.
+
+Then they told him that the enemy had camped on Barham Downs, whereat,
+with all his hosts, he straightway marched there, and fought again a
+bloody battle, and overthrew Sir Modred utterly. Howbeit, he raised yet
+another army, and retreating ever from before the king, increased his
+numbers as he went, till at the farthest west in Lyonesse, he once more
+made a stand.
+
+Now, on the night of Trinity Sunday, being the eve of the battle, King
+Arthur had a vision, and saw Sir Gawain in a dream, who warned him not to
+fight with Modred on the morrow, else he would be surely slain; and prayed
+him to delay till Lancelot and his knights should come to aid him.
+
+So when King Arthur woke he told his lords and knights that vision, and
+all agreed to wait the coming of Sir Lancelot. Then a herald was sent with
+a message of truce to Sir Modred, and a treaty was made that neither army
+should assail the other.
+
+But when the treaty was agreed upon, and the heralds returned, King Arthur
+said to his knights, "Beware, lest Sir Modred deceive us, for I in no wise
+trust him, and if swords be drawn be ready to encounter!" And Sir Modred
+likewise gave an order, that if any man of the king's army drew his sword,
+they should begin to fight.
+
+And as it chanced, a knight of the king's side was bitten by an adder in
+the foot, and hastily drew forth his sword to slay it. That saw Sir
+Modred, and forthwith commanded all his army to assail the king's.
+
+So both sides rushed to battle, and fought passing fiercely. And when the
+king saw there was no hope to stay them, he did right mightily and nobly
+as a king should do, and ever, like a lion, raged in the thickest of the
+press, and slew on the right hand and on the left, till his horse went
+fetlock deep in blood. So all day long they fought, and stinted not till
+many a noble knight was slain.
+
+But the king was passing sorrowful to see his trusty knights lie dead on
+every side. And at the last but two remained beside him, Sir Lucan, and
+his brother, Sir Bedivere, and both were sorely wounded.
+
+"Now am I come to mine end," said King Arthur; "but, lo! that traitor
+Modred liveth yet, and I may not die till I have slain him. Now, give me
+my spear, Sir Lucan."
+
+"Lord, let him be," replied Sir Lucan; "for if ye pass through this
+unhappy day, ye shall be right well revenged upon him. My good lord,
+remember well your dream, and what the spirit of Sir Gawain did forewarn
+ye."
+
+"Betide me life, betide me death," said the king; "now I see him yonder
+alone, he shall never escape my hands, for at a better vantage shall I
+never have him."
+
+"God speed you well," said Sir Bedivere.
+
+Then King Arthur got his spear in both his hands, and ran towards Sir
+Modred, crying, "Traitor, now is thy death-day come!" And when Sir Modred
+heard his words, and saw him come, he drew his sword and stood to meet
+him. Then King Arthur smote Sir Modred through the body more than a
+fathom. And when Sir Modred felt he had his death wound, he thrust himself
+with all his might up to the end of King Arthur's spear, and smote his
+father, Arthur, with his sword upon the head, so that it pierced both helm
+and brain-pan.
+
+And therewith Sir Modred fell down stark dead to the earth, and King
+Arthur fell down also in a swoon, and swooned many times.
+
+Then Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere came and bare him away to a little chapel
+by the sea-shore. And there Sir Lucan sank down with the bleeding of his
+own wounds, and fell dead.
+
+And King Arthur lay long in a swoon, and when he came to himself, he found
+Sir Lucan lying dead beside him, and Sir Bedivere weeping over the body of
+his brother.
+
+Then said the king to Sir Bedivere, "Weeping will avail no longer, else
+would I grieve for evermore. Alas! now is the fellowship of the Round
+Table dissolved for ever, and all my realm I have so loved is wasted with
+war. But my time hieth fast, wherefore take thou Excalibur, my good sword,
+and go therewith to yonder water-side and throw it in, and bring me word
+what thing thou seest."
+
+So Sir Bedivere departed; but as he went he looked upon the sword, the
+hilt whereof was all inlaid with precious stones exceeding rich. And
+presently he said within himself, "If I now throw this sword into the
+water, what good should come of it?" So he hid the sword among the reeds,
+and came again to the king.
+
+"What sawest thou?" said he to Sir Bedivere.
+
+"Lord," said he, "I saw nothing else but wind and waves."
+
+"Thou hast untruly spoken," said the king; "wherefore go lightly back and
+throw it in, and spare not."
+
+Then Sir Bedivere returned again, and took the sword up in his hand; but
+when he looked on it, he thought it sin and shame to throw away a thing so
+noble. Wherefore he hid it yet again, and went back to the king.
+
+"What saw ye?" said King Arthur.
+
+"Lord," answered he, "I saw nothing but the water ebbing and flowing."
+
+"Oh, traitor and untrue!" cried out the king; "twice hast thou now
+betrayed me. Art thou called of men a noble knight, and wouldest betray me
+for a jewelled sword? Now, therefore, go again for the last time, for thy
+tarrying hath put me in sore peril of my life, and I fear my wound hath
+taken cold; and if thou do it not this time, by my faith I will arise and
+slay thee with my hands."
+
+Then Sir Bedivere ran quickly and took up the sword, and went down to the
+water's edge, and bound the girdle round the hilt and threw it far into
+the water. And lo! an arm and hand came forth above the water, and caught
+the sword, and brandished it three times, and vanished.
+
+So Sir Bedivere came again to the king and told him what he had seen.
+
+"Help me from hence," said King Arthur; "for I dread me I have tarried
+over long."
+
+Then Sir Bedivere took the king up in his arms, and bore him to the
+water's edge. And by the shore they saw a barge with three fair queens
+therein, all dressed in black, and when they saw King Arthur they wept and
+wailed.
+
+"Now put me in the barge," said he to Sir Bedivere, and tenderly he did
+so.
+
+Then the three queens received him, and he laid his head upon the lap of
+one of them, who cried, "Alas! dear brother, why have ye tarried so long,
+for your wound hath taken cold?"
+
+With that the barge put from the land, and when Sir Bedivere saw it
+departing, he cried with a bitter cry, "Alas! my lord King Arthur, what
+shall become of me now ye have gone from me?"
+
+"Comfort ye," said King Arthur, "and be strong, for I may no more help ye.
+I go to the Vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound, and if ye see
+me no more, pray for my soul."
+
+Then the three queens kneeled down around the king and sorely wept and
+wailed, and the barge went forth to sea, and departed slowly out of Sir
+Bedivere's sight.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Legends Of King Arthur And His
+Knights, by James Knowles
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thememoirsofsherlockholmes b/files/books/unrelated/thememoirsofsherlockholmes
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+Project Gutenberg's Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
+
+Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Posting Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #834]
+Release Date: March, 1997
+Last Updated: March 6, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Angela M. Cable
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
+
+by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+Adventure I. Silver Blaze
+
+
+“I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat
+down together to our breakfast one morning.
+
+“Go! Where to?”
+
+“To Dartmoor; to King's Pyland.”
+
+I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already
+been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one topic of
+conversation through the length and breadth of England. For a whole day
+my companion had rambled about the room with his chin upon his chest and
+his brows knitted, charging and recharging his pipe with the strongest
+black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks.
+Fresh editions of every paper had been sent up by our news agent, only
+to be glanced over and tossed down into a corner. Yet, silent as he was,
+I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was brooding. There was
+but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of
+analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favorite for
+the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer. When, therefore,
+he suddenly announced his intention of setting out for the scene of the
+drama it was only what I had both expected and hoped for.
+
+“I should be most happy to go down with you if I should not be in the
+way,” said I.
+
+“My dear Watson, you would confer a great favor upon me by coming. And
+I think that your time will not be misspent, for there are points about
+the case which promise to make it an absolutely unique one. We have, I
+think, just time to catch our train at Paddington, and I will go further
+into the matter upon our journey. You would oblige me by bringing with
+you your very excellent field-glass.”
+
+And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the
+corner of a first-class carriage flying along en route for Exeter, while
+Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped
+travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh papers which he
+had procured at Paddington. We had left Reading far behind us before
+he thrust the last one of them under the seat, and offered me his
+cigar-case.
+
+“We are going well,” said he, looking out the window and glancing at his
+watch. “Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour.”
+
+“I have not observed the quarter-mile posts,” said I.
+
+“Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards
+apart, and the calculation is a simple one. I presume that you
+have looked into this matter of the murder of John Straker and the
+disappearance of Silver Blaze?”
+
+“I have seen what the Telegraph and the Chronicle have to say.”
+
+“It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be
+used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh
+evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such
+personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a
+plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to
+detach the framework of fact--of absolute undeniable fact--from the
+embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established
+ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences
+may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole
+mystery turns. On Tuesday evening I received telegrams from both Colonel
+Ross, the owner of the horse, and from Inspector Gregory, who is looking
+after the case, inviting my cooperation.”
+
+“Tuesday evening!” I exclaimed. “And this is Thursday morning. Why
+didn't you go down yesterday?”
+
+“Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson--which is, I am afraid, a more
+common occurrence than any one would think who only knew me through your
+memoirs. The fact is that I could not believe it possible that the most
+remarkable horse in England could long remain concealed, especially in
+so sparsely inhabited a place as the north of Dartmoor. From hour to
+hour yesterday I expected to hear that he had been found, and that
+his abductor was the murderer of John Straker. When, however, another
+morning had come, and I found that beyond the arrest of young Fitzroy
+Simpson nothing had been done, I felt that it was time for me to take
+action. Yet in some ways I feel that yesterday has not been wasted.”
+
+“You have formed a theory, then?”
+
+“At least I have got a grip of the essential facts of the case. I shall
+enumerate them to you, for nothing clears up a case so much as stating
+it to another person, and I can hardly expect your co-operation if I do
+not show you the position from which we start.”
+
+I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes,
+leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the points
+upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events which had
+led to our journey.
+
+“Silver Blaze,” said he, “is from the Somomy stock, and holds as
+brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth year,
+and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to Colonel Ross,
+his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the catastrophe he was the first
+favorite for the Wessex Cup, the betting being three to one on him. He
+has always, however, been a prime favorite with the racing public, and
+has never yet disappointed them, so that even at those odds enormous
+sums of money have been laid upon him. It is obvious, therefore, that
+there were many people who had the strongest interest in preventing
+Silver Blaze from being there at the fall of the flag next Tuesday.
+
+“The fact was, of course, appreciated at King's Pyland, where the
+Colonel's training-stable is situated. Every precaution was taken to
+guard the favorite. The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey
+who rode in Colonel Ross's colors before he became too heavy for the
+weighing-chair. He has served the Colonel for five years as jockey and
+for seven as trainer, and has always shown himself to be a zealous and
+honest servant. Under him were three lads; for the establishment was a
+small one, containing only four horses in all. One of these lads sat up
+each night in the stable, while the others slept in the loft. All three
+bore excellent characters. John Straker, who is a married man, lived
+in a small villa about two hundred yards from the stables. He has no
+children, keeps one maid-servant, and is comfortably off. The country
+round is very lonely, but about half a mile to the north there is a
+small cluster of villas which have been built by a Tavistock contractor
+for the use of invalids and others who may wish to enjoy the pure
+Dartmoor air. Tavistock itself lies two miles to the west, while
+across the moor, also about two miles distant, is the larger training
+establishment of Mapleton, which belongs to Lord Backwater, and is
+managed by Silas Brown. In every other direction the moor is a complete
+wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies. Such was the
+general situation last Monday night when the catastrophe occurred.
+
+“On that evening the horses had been exercised and watered as usual, and
+the stables were locked up at nine o'clock. Two of the lads walked up
+to the trainer's house, where they had supper in the kitchen, while the
+third, Ned Hunter, remained on guard. At a few minutes after nine
+the maid, Edith Baxter, carried down to the stables his supper, which
+consisted of a dish of curried mutton. She took no liquid, as there was
+a water-tap in the stables, and it was the rule that the lad on duty
+should drink nothing else. The maid carried a lantern with her, as it
+was very dark and the path ran across the open moor.
+
+“Edith Baxter was within thirty yards of the stables, when a man
+appeared out of the darkness and called to her to stop. As he stepped
+into the circle of yellow light thrown by the lantern she saw that he
+was a person of gentlemanly bearing, dressed in a gray suit of tweeds,
+with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters, and carried a heavy stick with a knob
+to it. She was most impressed, however, by the extreme pallor of his
+face and by the nervousness of his manner. His age, she thought, would
+be rather over thirty than under it.
+
+“'Can you tell me where I am?' he asked. 'I had almost made up my mind
+to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light of your lantern.'
+
+“'You are close to the King's Pyland training-stables,' said she.
+
+“'Oh, indeed! What a stroke of luck!' he cried. 'I understand that a
+stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is his supper
+which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you would not be too
+proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?' He took a piece of
+white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. 'See that the boy
+has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock that money can
+buy.'
+
+“She was frightened by the earnestness of his manner, and ran past him
+to the window through which she was accustomed to hand the meals. It was
+already opened, and Hunter was seated at the small table inside. She had
+begun to tell him of what had happened, when the stranger came up again.
+
+“'Good-evening,' said he, looking through the window. 'I wanted to have
+a word with you.' The girl has sworn that as he spoke she noticed the
+corner of the little paper packet protruding from his closed hand.
+
+“'What business have you here?' asked the lad.
+
+“'It's business that may put something into your pocket,' said the
+other. 'You've two horses in for the Wessex Cup--Silver Blaze and
+Bayard. Let me have the straight tip and you won't be a loser. Is it a
+fact that at the weights Bayard could give the other a hundred yards in
+five furlongs, and that the stable have put their money on him?'
+
+“'So, you're one of those damned touts!' cried the lad. 'I'll show you
+how we serve them in King's Pyland.' He sprang up and rushed across the
+stable to unloose the dog. The girl fled away to the house, but as she
+ran she looked back and saw that the stranger was leaning through the
+window. A minute later, however, when Hunter rushed out with the hound
+he was gone, and though he ran all round the buildings he failed to find
+any trace of him.”
+
+“One moment,” I asked. “Did the stable-boy, when he ran out with the
+dog, leave the door unlocked behind him?”
+
+“Excellent, Watson, excellent!” murmured my companion. “The importance
+of the point struck me so forcibly that I sent a special wire to
+Dartmoor yesterday to clear the matter up. The boy locked the door
+before he left it. The window, I may add, was not large enough for a man
+to get through.
+
+“Hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned, when he sent a
+message to the trainer and told him what had occurred. Straker was
+excited at hearing the account, although he does not seem to have quite
+realized its true significance. It left him, however, vaguely uneasy,
+and Mrs. Straker, waking at one in the morning, found that he was
+dressing. In reply to her inquiries, he said that he could not sleep on
+account of his anxiety about the horses, and that he intended to walk
+down to the stables to see that all was well. She begged him to remain
+at home, as she could hear the rain pattering against the window, but in
+spite of her entreaties he pulled on his large mackintosh and left the
+house.
+
+“Mrs. Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find that her husband
+had not yet returned. She dressed herself hastily, called the maid, and
+set off for the stables. The door was open; inside, huddled together
+upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of absolute stupor, the
+favorite's stall was empty, and there were no signs of his trainer.
+
+“The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the harness-room
+were quickly aroused. They had heard nothing during the night, for they
+are both sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously under the influence of
+some powerful drug, and as no sense could be got out of him, he was left
+to sleep it off while the two lads and the two women ran out in search
+of the absentees. They still had hopes that the trainer had for some
+reason taken out the horse for early exercise, but on ascending the
+knoll near the house, from which all the neighboring moors were visible,
+they not only could see no signs of the missing favorite, but they
+perceived something which warned them that they were in the presence of
+a tragedy.
+
+“About a quarter of a mile from the stables John Straker's overcoat was
+flapping from a furze-bush. Immediately beyond there was a bowl-shaped
+depression in the moor, and at the bottom of this was found the dead
+body of the unfortunate trainer. His head had been shattered by a savage
+blow from some heavy weapon, and he was wounded on the thigh, where
+there was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently by some very sharp
+instrument. It was clear, however, that Straker had defended himself
+vigorously against his assailants, for in his right hand he held a small
+knife, which was clotted with blood up to the handle, while in his left
+he clasped a red and black silk cravat, which was recognized by the maid
+as having been worn on the preceding evening by the stranger who had
+visited the stables. Hunter, on recovering from his stupor, was also
+quite positive as to the ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain
+that the same stranger had, while standing at the window, drugged his
+curried mutton, and so deprived the stables of their watchman. As to the
+missing horse, there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the
+bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at the time of the
+struggle. But from that morning he has disappeared, and although a large
+reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the
+alert, no news has come of him. Finally, an analysis has shown that
+the remains of his supper left by the stable-lad contain an appreciable
+quantity of powdered opium, while the people at the house partook of the
+same dish on the same night without any ill effect.
+
+“Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise, and
+stated as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what the police
+have done in the matter.
+
+“Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an extremely
+competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination he might rise to
+great heights in his profession. On his arrival he promptly found and
+arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally rested. There was little
+difficulty in finding him, for he inhabited one of those villas which I
+have mentioned. His name, it appears, was Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man
+of excellent birth and education, who had squandered a fortune upon the
+turf, and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel book-making
+in the sporting clubs of London. An examination of his betting-book
+shows that bets to the amount of five thousand pounds had been
+registered by him against the favorite. On being arrested he volunteered
+the statement that he had come down to Dartmoor in the hope of
+getting some information about the King's Pyland horses, and also about
+Desborough, the second favorite, which was in charge of Silas Brown at
+the Mapleton stables. He did not attempt to deny that he had acted as
+described upon the evening before, but declared that he had no sinister
+designs, and had simply wished to obtain first-hand information. When
+confronted with his cravat, he turned very pale, and was utterly unable
+to account for its presence in the hand of the murdered man. His wet
+clothing showed that he had been out in the storm of the night before,
+and his stick, which was a Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just
+such a weapon as might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible
+injuries to which the trainer had succumbed. On the other hand, there
+was no wound upon his person, while the state of Straker's knife would
+show that one at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him.
+There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any
+light I shall be infinitely obliged to you.”
+
+I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which Holmes,
+with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though most of the
+facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently appreciated their
+relative importance, nor their connection to each other.
+
+“Is it not possible,” I suggested, “that the incised wound upon Straker
+may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive struggles which
+follow any brain injury?”
+
+“It is more than possible; it is probable,” said Holmes. “In that case
+one of the main points in favor of the accused disappears.”
+
+“And yet,” said I, “even now I fail to understand what the theory of the
+police can be.”
+
+“I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections to
+it,” returned my companion. “The police imagine, I take it, that this
+Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way obtained
+a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the horse, with
+the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether. His bridle is
+missing, so that Simpson must have put this on. Then, having left the
+door open behind him, he was leading the horse away over the moor, when
+he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. A row naturally ensued.
+Simpson beat out the trainer's brains with his heavy stick without
+receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker used in
+self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse on to some secret
+hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the struggle, and be
+now wandering out on the moors. That is the case as it appears to
+the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more
+improbable still. However, I shall very quickly test the matter when I
+am once upon the spot, and until then I cannot really see how we can get
+much further than our present position.”
+
+It was evening before we reached the little town of Tavistock, which
+lies, like the boss of a shield, in the middle of the huge circle of
+Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were awaiting us in the station--the one a tall,
+fair man with lion-like hair and beard and curiously penetrating light
+blue eyes; the other a small, alert person, very neat and dapper, in a
+frock-coat and gaiters, with trim little side-whiskers and an eye-glass.
+The latter was Colonel Ross, the well-known sportsman; the other,
+Inspector Gregory, a man who was rapidly making his name in the English
+detective service.
+
+“I am delighted that you have come down, Mr. Holmes,” said the Colonel.
+“The Inspector here has done all that could possibly be suggested, but I
+wish to leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge poor Straker and in
+recovering my horse.”
+
+“Have there been any fresh developments?” asked Holmes.
+
+“I am sorry to say that we have made very little progress,” said the
+Inspector. “We have an open carriage outside, and as you would no doubt
+like to see the place before the light fails, we might talk it over as
+we drive.”
+
+A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable landau, and were
+rattling through the quaint old Devonshire city. Inspector Gregory was
+full of his case, and poured out a stream of remarks, while Holmes threw
+in an occasional question or interjection. Colonel Ross leaned back with
+his arms folded and his hat tilted over his eyes, while I listened with
+interest to the dialogue of the two detectives. Gregory was formulating
+his theory, which was almost exactly what Holmes had foretold in the
+train.
+
+“The net is drawn pretty close round Fitzroy Simpson,” he remarked, “and
+I believe myself that he is our man. At the same time I recognize that
+the evidence is purely circumstantial, and that some new development may
+upset it.”
+
+“How about Straker's knife?”
+
+“We have quite come to the conclusion that he wounded himself in his
+fall.”
+
+“My friend Dr. Watson made that suggestion to me as we came down. If so,
+it would tell against this man Simpson.”
+
+“Undoubtedly. He has neither a knife nor any sign of a wound. The
+evidence against him is certainly very strong. He had a great interest
+in the disappearance of the favorite. He lies under suspicion of having
+poisoned the stable-boy, he was undoubtedly out in the storm, he was
+armed with a heavy stick, and his cravat was found in the dead man's
+hand. I really think we have enough to go before a jury.”
+
+Holmes shook his head. “A clever counsel would tear it all to rags,”
+ said he. “Why should he take the horse out of the stable? If he wished
+to injure it why could he not do it there? Has a duplicate key been
+found in his possession? What chemist sold him the powdered opium? Above
+all, where could he, a stranger to the district, hide a horse, and such
+a horse as this? What is his own explanation as to the paper which he
+wished the maid to give to the stable-boy?”
+
+“He says that it was a ten-pound note. One was found in his purse. But
+your other difficulties are not so formidable as they seem. He is not
+a stranger to the district. He has twice lodged at Tavistock in the
+summer. The opium was probably brought from London. The key, having
+served its purpose, would be hurled away. The horse may be at the bottom
+of one of the pits or old mines upon the moor.”
+
+“What does he say about the cravat?”
+
+“He acknowledges that it is his, and declares that he had lost it. But a
+new element has been introduced into the case which may account for his
+leading the horse from the stable.”
+
+Holmes pricked up his ears.
+
+“We have found traces which show that a party of gypsies encamped on
+Monday night within a mile of the spot where the murder took place. On
+Tuesday they were gone. Now, presuming that there was some understanding
+between Simpson and these gypsies, might he not have been leading the
+horse to them when he was overtaken, and may they not have him now?”
+
+“It is certainly possible.”
+
+“The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have also examined every
+stable and out-house in Tavistock, and for a radius of ten miles.”
+
+“There is another training-stable quite close, I understand?”
+
+“Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not neglect. As
+Desborough, their horse, was second in the betting, they had an interest
+in the disappearance of the favorite. Silas Brown, the trainer, is known
+to have had large bets upon the event, and he was no friend to poor
+Straker. We have, however, examined the stables, and there is nothing to
+connect him with the affair.”
+
+“And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the interests of the
+Mapleton stables?”
+
+“Nothing at all.”
+
+Holmes leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased. A few
+minutes later our driver pulled up at a neat little red-brick villa with
+overhanging eaves which stood by the road. Some distance off, across a
+paddock, lay a long gray-tiled out-building. In every other direction
+the low curves of the moor, bronze-colored from the fading ferns,
+stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the steeples of
+Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away to the westward which marked
+the Mapleton stables. We all sprang out with the exception of Holmes,
+who continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the sky in front of
+him, entirely absorbed in his own thoughts. It was only when I touched
+his arm that he roused himself with a violent start and stepped out of
+the carriage.
+
+“Excuse me,” said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who had looked at him in
+some surprise. “I was day-dreaming.” There was a gleam in his eyes and a
+suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as I was
+to his ways, that his hand was upon a clue, though I could not imagine
+where he had found it.
+
+“Perhaps you would prefer at once to go on to the scene of the crime,
+Mr. Holmes?” said Gregory.
+
+“I think that I should prefer to stay here a little and go into one or
+two questions of detail. Straker was brought back here, I presume?”
+
+“Yes; he lies upstairs. The inquest is to-morrow.”
+
+“He has been in your service some years, Colonel Ross?”
+
+“I have always found him an excellent servant.”
+
+“I presume that you made an inventory of what he had in his pockets at
+the time of his death, Inspector?”
+
+“I have the things themselves in the sitting-room, if you would care to
+see them.”
+
+“I should be very glad.” We all filed into the front room and sat round
+the central table while the Inspector unlocked a square tin box and laid
+a small heap of things before us. There was a box of vestas, two inches
+of tallow candle, an A D P brier-root pipe, a pouch of seal-skin with
+half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch with a gold chain,
+five sovereigns in gold, an aluminum pencil-case, a few papers, and an
+ivory-handled knife with a very delicate, inflexible blade marked Weiss
+& Co., London.
+
+“This is a very singular knife,” said Holmes, lifting it up and
+examining it minutely. “I presume, as I see blood-stains upon it, that
+it is the one which was found in the dead man's grasp. Watson, this
+knife is surely in your line?”
+
+“It is what we call a cataract knife,” said I.
+
+“I thought so. A very delicate blade devised for very delicate work.
+A strange thing for a man to carry with him upon a rough expedition,
+especially as it would not shut in his pocket.”
+
+“The tip was guarded by a disk of cork which we found beside his body,”
+ said the Inspector. “His wife tells us that the knife had lain upon the
+dressing-table, and that he had picked it up as he left the room. It was
+a poor weapon, but perhaps the best that he could lay his hands on at
+the moment.”
+
+“Very possible. How about these papers?”
+
+“Three of them are receipted hay-dealers' accounts. One of them is a
+letter of instructions from Colonel Ross. This other is a milliner's
+account for thirty-seven pounds fifteen made out by Madame Lesurier,
+of Bond Street, to William Derbyshire. Mrs. Straker tells us that
+Derbyshire was a friend of her husband's and that occasionally his
+letters were addressed here.”
+
+“Madam Derbyshire had somewhat expensive tastes,” remarked Holmes,
+glancing down the account. “Twenty-two guineas is rather heavy for a
+single costume. However there appears to be nothing more to learn, and
+we may now go down to the scene of the crime.”
+
+As we emerged from the sitting-room a woman, who had been waiting in
+the passage, took a step forward and laid her hand upon the Inspector's
+sleeve. Her face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped with the print
+of a recent horror.
+
+“Have you got them? Have you found them?” she panted.
+
+“No, Mrs. Straker. But Mr. Holmes here has come from London to help us,
+and we shall do all that is possible.”
+
+“Surely I met you in Plymouth at a garden-party some little time ago,
+Mrs. Straker?” said Holmes.
+
+“No, sir; you are mistaken.”
+
+“Dear me! Why, I could have sworn to it. You wore a costume of
+dove-colored silk with ostrich-feather trimming.”
+
+“I never had such a dress, sir,” answered the lady.
+
+“Ah, that quite settles it,” said Holmes. And with an apology he
+followed the Inspector outside. A short walk across the moor took us to
+the hollow in which the body had been found. At the brink of it was the
+furze-bush upon which the coat had been hung.
+
+“There was no wind that night, I understand,” said Holmes.
+
+“None; but very heavy rain.”
+
+“In that case the overcoat was not blown against the furze-bush, but
+placed there.”
+
+“Yes, it was laid across the bush.”
+
+“You fill me with interest, I perceive that the ground has been trampled
+up a good deal. No doubt many feet have been here since Monday night.”
+
+“A piece of matting has been laid here at the side, and we have all
+stood upon that.”
+
+“Excellent.”
+
+“In this bag I have one of the boots which Straker wore, one of Fitzroy
+Simpson's shoes, and a cast horseshoe of Silver Blaze.”
+
+“My dear Inspector, you surpass yourself!” Holmes took the bag, and,
+descending into the hollow, he pushed the matting into a more central
+position. Then stretching himself upon his face and leaning his chin
+upon his hands, he made a careful study of the trampled mud in front of
+him. “Hullo!” said he, suddenly. “What's this?” It was a wax vesta half
+burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first like a
+little chip of wood.
+
+“I cannot think how I came to overlook it,” said the Inspector, with an
+expression of annoyance.
+
+“It was invisible, buried in the mud. I only saw it because I was
+looking for it.”
+
+“What! You expected to find it?”
+
+“I thought it not unlikely.”
+
+He took the boots from the bag, and compared the impressions of each of
+them with marks upon the ground. Then he clambered up to the rim of the
+hollow, and crawled about among the ferns and bushes.
+
+“I am afraid that there are no more tracks,” said the Inspector. “I
+have examined the ground very carefully for a hundred yards in each
+direction.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Holmes, rising. “I should not have the impertinence to
+do it again after what you say. But I should like to take a little walk
+over the moor before it grows dark, that I may know my ground to-morrow,
+and I think that I shall put this horseshoe into my pocket for luck.”
+
+Colonel Ross, who had shown some signs of impatience at my companion's
+quiet and systematic method of work, glanced at his watch. “I wish you
+would come back with me, Inspector,” said he. “There are several points
+on which I should like your advice, and especially as to whether we do
+not owe it to the public to remove our horse's name from the entries for
+the Cup.”
+
+“Certainly not,” cried Holmes, with decision. “I should let the name
+stand.”
+
+The Colonel bowed. “I am very glad to have had your opinion, sir,” said
+he. “You will find us at poor Straker's house when you have finished
+your walk, and we can drive together into Tavistock.”
+
+He turned back with the Inspector, while Holmes and I walked slowly
+across the moor. The sun was beginning to sink behind the stables of
+Mapleton, and the long, sloping plain in front of us was tinged with
+gold, deepening into rich, ruddy browns where the faded ferns and
+brambles caught the evening light. But the glories of the landscape were
+all wasted upon my companion, who was sunk in the deepest thought.
+
+“It's this way, Watson,” said he at last. “We may leave the question
+of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to
+finding out what has become of the horse. Now, supposing that he broke
+away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to? The horse
+is a very gregarious creature. If left to himself his instincts would
+have been either to return to King's Pyland or go over to Mapleton. Why
+should he run wild upon the moor? He would surely have been seen by now.
+And why should gypsies kidnap him? These people always clear out when
+they hear of trouble, for they do not wish to be pestered by the police.
+They could not hope to sell such a horse. They would run a great risk
+and gain nothing by taking him. Surely that is clear.”
+
+“Where is he, then?”
+
+“I have already said that he must have gone to King's Pyland or to
+Mapleton. He is not at King's Pyland. Therefore he is at Mapleton. Let
+us take that as a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to. This
+part of the moor, as the Inspector remarked, is very hard and dry. But
+it falls away towards Mapleton, and you can see from here that there
+is a long hollow over yonder, which must have been very wet on Monday
+night. If our supposition is correct, then the horse must have crossed
+that, and there is the point where we should look for his tracks.”
+
+We had been walking briskly during this conversation, and a few more
+minutes brought us to the hollow in question. At Holmes' request I
+walked down the bank to the right, and he to the left, but I had not
+taken fifty paces before I heard him give a shout, and saw him waving
+his hand to me. The track of a horse was plainly outlined in the soft
+earth in front of him, and the shoe which he took from his pocket
+exactly fitted the impression.
+
+“See the value of imagination,” said Holmes. “It is the one quality
+which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon
+the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed.”
+
+We crossed the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of dry,
+hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on the tracks.
+Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up once more
+quite close to Mapleton. It was Holmes who saw them first, and he stood
+pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. A man's track was visible
+beside the horse's.
+
+“The horse was alone before,” I cried.
+
+“Quite so. It was alone before. Hullo, what is this?”
+
+The double track turned sharp off and took the direction of King's
+Pyland. Holmes whistled, and we both followed along after it. His eyes
+were on the trail, but I happened to look a little to one side, and
+saw to my surprise the same tracks coming back again in the opposite
+direction.
+
+“One for you, Watson,” said Holmes, when I pointed it out. “You have
+saved us a long walk, which would have brought us back on our own
+traces. Let us follow the return track.”
+
+We had not to go far. It ended at the paving of asphalt which led up
+to the gates of the Mapleton stables. As we approached, a groom ran out
+from them.
+
+“We don't want any loiterers about here,” said he.
+
+“I only wished to ask a question,” said Holmes, with his finger and
+thumb in his waistcoat pocket. “Should I be too early to see your
+master, Mr. Silas Brown, if I were to call at five o'clock to-morrow
+morning?”
+
+“Bless you, sir, if any one is about he will be, for he is always
+the first stirring. But here he is, sir, to answer your questions for
+himself. No, sir, no; it is as much as my place is worth to let him see
+me touch your money. Afterwards, if you like.”
+
+As Sherlock Holmes replaced the half-crown which he had drawn from his
+pocket, a fierce-looking elderly man strode out from the gate with a
+hunting-crop swinging in his hand.
+
+“What's this, Dawson!” he cried. “No gossiping! Go about your business!
+And you, what the devil do you want here?”
+
+“Ten minutes' talk with you, my good sir,” said Holmes in the sweetest
+of voices.
+
+“I've no time to talk to every gadabout. We want no stranger here. Be
+off, or you may find a dog at your heels.”
+
+Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in the trainer's ear. He
+started violently and flushed to the temples.
+
+“It's a lie!” he shouted, “an infernal lie!”
+
+“Very good. Shall we argue about it here in public or talk it over in
+your parlor?”
+
+“Oh, come in if you wish to.”
+
+Holmes smiled. “I shall not keep you more than a few minutes, Watson,”
+ said he. “Now, Mr. Brown, I am quite at your disposal.”
+
+It was twenty minutes, and the reds had all faded into grays before
+Holmes and the trainer reappeared. Never have I seen such a change as
+had been brought about in Silas Brown in that short time. His face was
+ashy pale, beads of perspiration shone upon his brow, and his hands
+shook until the hunting-crop wagged like a branch in the wind. His
+bullying, overbearing manner was all gone too, and he cringed along at
+my companion's side like a dog with its master.
+
+“Your instructions will be done. It shall all be done,” said he.
+
+“There must be no mistake,” said Holmes, looking round at him. The other
+winced as he read the menace in his eyes.
+
+“Oh no, there shall be no mistake. It shall be there. Should I change it
+first or not?”
+
+Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. “No, don't,” said
+he; “I shall write to you about it. No tricks, now, or--”
+
+“Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!”
+
+“Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me to-morrow.” He turned
+upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other held out
+to him, and we set off for King's Pyland.
+
+“A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master
+Silas Brown I have seldom met with,” remarked Holmes as we trudged along
+together.
+
+“He has the horse, then?”
+
+“He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what
+his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that I was
+watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly square toes in the
+impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to them.
+Again, of course no subordinate would have dared to do such a thing.
+I described to him how, when according to his custom he was the first
+down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor. How he went
+out to it, and his astonishment at recognizing, from the white forehead
+which has given the favorite its name, that chance had put in his power
+the only horse which could beat the one upon which he had put his money.
+Then I described how his first impulse had been to lead him back to
+King's Pyland, and how the devil had shown him how he could hide the
+horse until the race was over, and how he had led it back and concealed
+it at Mapleton. When I told him every detail he gave it up and thought
+only of saving his own skin.”
+
+“But his stables had been searched?”
+
+“Oh, an old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.”
+
+“But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he
+has every interest in injuring it?”
+
+“My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He knows that
+his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.”
+
+“Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show
+much mercy in any case.”
+
+“The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods,
+and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of
+being unofficial. I don't know whether you observed it, Watson, but the
+Colonel's manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined
+now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing to him about
+the horse.”
+
+“Certainly not without your permission.”
+
+“And of course this is all quite a minor point compared to the question
+of who killed John Straker.”
+
+“And you will devote yourself to that?”
+
+“On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train.”
+
+I was thunderstruck by my friend's words. We had only been a few hours
+in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation which he had
+begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me. Not a word more
+could I draw from him until we were back at the trainer's house. The
+Colonel and the Inspector were awaiting us in the parlor.
+
+“My friend and I return to town by the night-express,” said Holmes. “We
+have had a charming little breath of your beautiful Dartmoor air.”
+
+The Inspector opened his eyes, and the Colonel's lip curled in a sneer.
+
+“So you despair of arresting the murderer of poor Straker,” said he.
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “There are certainly grave difficulties
+in the way,” said he. “I have every hope, however, that your horse
+will start upon Tuesday, and I beg that you will have your jockey in
+readiness. Might I ask for a photograph of Mr. John Straker?”
+
+The Inspector took one from an envelope and handed it to him.
+
+“My dear Gregory, you anticipate all my wants. If I might ask you to
+wait here for an instant, I have a question which I should like to put
+to the maid.”
+
+“I must say that I am rather disappointed in our London consultant,”
+ said Colonel Ross, bluntly, as my friend left the room. “I do not see
+that we are any further than when he came.”
+
+“At least you have his assurance that your horse will run,” said I.
+
+“Yes, I have his assurance,” said the Colonel, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. “I should prefer to have the horse.”
+
+I was about to make some reply in defence of my friend when he entered
+the room again.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I am quite ready for Tavistock.”
+
+As we stepped into the carriage one of the stable-lads held the door
+open for us. A sudden idea seemed to occur to Holmes, for he leaned
+forward and touched the lad upon the sleeve.
+
+“You have a few sheep in the paddock,” he said. “Who attends to them?”
+
+“I do, sir.”
+
+“Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?”
+
+“Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame, sir.”
+
+I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and
+rubbed his hands together.
+
+“A long shot, Watson; a very long shot,” said he, pinching my arm.
+“Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic
+among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!”
+
+Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion
+which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the
+Inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.
+
+“You consider that to be important?” he asked.
+
+“Exceedingly so.”
+
+“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
+
+“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
+
+“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
+
+“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
+
+
+Four days later Holmes and I were again in the train, bound for
+Winchester to see the race for the Wessex Cup. Colonel Ross met us by
+appointment outside the station, and we drove in his drag to the course
+beyond the town. His face was grave, and his manner was cold in the
+extreme.
+
+“I have seen nothing of my horse,” said he.
+
+“I suppose that you would know him when you saw him?” asked Holmes.
+
+The Colonel was very angry. “I have been on the turf for twenty years,
+and never was asked such a question as that before,” said he. “A
+child would know Silver Blaze, with his white forehead and his mottled
+off-foreleg.”
+
+“How is the betting?”
+
+“Well, that is the curious part of it. You could have got fifteen to one
+yesterday, but the price has become shorter and shorter, until you can
+hardly get three to one now.”
+
+“Hum!” said Holmes. “Somebody knows something, that is clear.”
+
+As the drag drew up in the enclosure near the grand stand I glanced at
+the card to see the entries.
+
+Wessex Plate [it ran] 50 sovs each h ft with 1000 sovs added for four
+and five year olds. Second, L300. Third, L200. New course (one mile and
+five furlongs). Mr. Heath Newton's The Negro. Red cap. Cinnamon jacket.
+Colonel Wardlaw's Pugilist. Pink cap. Blue and black jacket. Lord
+Backwater's Desborough. Yellow cap and sleeves. Colonel Ross's Silver
+Blaze. Black cap. Red jacket. Duke of Balmoral's Iris. Yellow and black
+stripes. Lord Singleford's Rasper. Purple cap. Black sleeves.
+
+“We scratched our other one, and put all hopes on your word,” said the
+Colonel. “Why, what is that? Silver Blaze favorite?”
+
+“Five to four against Silver Blaze!” roared the ring. “Five to four
+against Silver Blaze! Five to fifteen against Desborough! Five to four
+on the field!”
+
+“There are the numbers up,” I cried. “They are all six there.”
+
+“All six there? Then my horse is running,” cried the Colonel in great
+agitation. “But I don't see him. My colors have not passed.”
+
+“Only five have passed. This must be he.”
+
+As I spoke a powerful bay horse swept out from the weighing enclosure
+and cantered past us, bearing on its back the well-known black and red
+of the Colonel.
+
+“That's not my horse,” cried the owner. “That beast has not a white hair
+upon its body. What is this that you have done, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Well, well, let us see how he gets on,” said my friend, imperturbably.
+For a few minutes he gazed through my field-glass. “Capital! An
+excellent start!” he cried suddenly. “There they are, coming round the
+curve!”
+
+From our drag we had a superb view as they came up the straight. The six
+horses were so close together that a carpet could have covered them,
+but half way up the yellow of the Mapleton stable showed to the front.
+Before they reached us, however, Desborough's bolt was shot, and the
+Colonel's horse, coming away with a rush, passed the post a good six
+lengths before its rival, the Duke of Balmoral's Iris making a bad
+third.
+
+“It's my race, anyhow,” gasped the Colonel, passing his hand over his
+eyes. “I confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it. Don't you
+think that you have kept up your mystery long enough, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Certainly, Colonel, you shall know everything. Let us all go round and
+have a look at the horse together. Here he is,” he continued, as we made
+our way into the weighing enclosure, where only owners and their friends
+find admittance. “You have only to wash his face and his leg in spirits
+of wine, and you will find that he is the same old Silver Blaze as
+ever.”
+
+“You take my breath away!”
+
+“I found him in the hands of a faker, and took the liberty of running
+him just as he was sent over.”
+
+“My dear sir, you have done wonders. The horse looks very fit and well.
+It never went better in its life. I owe you a thousand apologies
+for having doubted your ability. You have done me a great service by
+recovering my horse. You would do me a greater still if you could lay
+your hands on the murderer of John Straker.”
+
+“I have done so,” said Holmes quietly.
+
+The Colonel and I stared at him in amazement. “You have got him! Where
+is he, then?”
+
+“He is here.”
+
+“Here! Where?”
+
+“In my company at the present moment.”
+
+The Colonel flushed angrily. “I quite recognize that I am under
+obligations to you, Mr. Holmes,” said he, “but I must regard what you
+have just said as either a very bad joke or an insult.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes laughed. “I assure you that I have not associated
+you with the crime, Colonel,” said he. “The real murderer is standing
+immediately behind you.” He stepped past and laid his hand upon the
+glossy neck of the thoroughbred.
+
+“The horse!” cried both the Colonel and myself.
+
+“Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was
+done in self-defence, and that John Straker was a man who was entirely
+unworthy of your confidence. But there goes the bell, and as I stand
+to win a little on this next race, I shall defer a lengthy explanation
+until a more fitting time.”
+
+
+
+We had the corner of a Pullman car to ourselves that evening as we
+whirled back to London, and I fancy that the journey was a short one
+to Colonel Ross as well as to myself, as we listened to our
+companion's narrative of the events which had occurred at the Dartmoor
+training-stables upon the Monday night, and the means by which he had
+unravelled them.
+
+“I confess,” said he, “that any theories which I had formed from
+the newspaper reports were entirely erroneous. And yet there were
+indications there, had they not been overlaid by other details which
+concealed their true import. I went to Devonshire with the conviction
+that Fitzroy Simpson was the true culprit, although, of course, I saw
+that the evidence against him was by no means complete. It was while I
+was in the carriage, just as we reached the trainer's house, that the
+immense significance of the curried mutton occurred to me. You may
+remember that I was distrait, and remained sitting after you had all
+alighted. I was marvelling in my own mind how I could possibly have
+overlooked so obvious a clue.”
+
+“I confess,” said the Colonel, “that even now I cannot see how it helps
+us.”
+
+“It was the first link in my chain of reasoning. Powdered opium is by no
+means tasteless. The flavor is not disagreeable, but it is perceptible.
+Were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater would undoubtedly detect
+it, and would probably eat no more. A curry was exactly the medium
+which would disguise this taste. By no possible supposition could
+this stranger, Fitzroy Simpson, have caused curry to be served in
+the trainer's family that night, and it is surely too monstrous a
+coincidence to suppose that he happened to come along with powdered
+opium upon the very night when a dish happened to be served which would
+disguise the flavor. That is unthinkable. Therefore Simpson becomes
+eliminated from the case, and our attention centers upon Straker and
+his wife, the only two people who could have chosen curried mutton for
+supper that night. The opium was added after the dish was set aside
+for the stable-boy, for the others had the same for supper with no ill
+effects. Which of them, then, had access to that dish without the maid
+seeing them?
+
+“Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of the
+silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others.
+The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the stables,
+and yet, though some one had been in and had fetched out a horse, he
+had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the
+midnight visitor was some one whom the dog knew well.
+
+“I was already convinced, or almost convinced, that John Straker went
+down to the stables in the dead of the night and took out Silver Blaze.
+For what purpose? For a dishonest one, obviously, or why should he drug
+his own stable-boy? And yet I was at a loss to know why. There have been
+cases before now where trainers have made sure of great sums of money
+by laying against their own horses, through agents, and then preventing
+them from winning by fraud. Sometimes it is a pulling jockey. Sometimes
+it is some surer and subtler means. What was it here? I hoped that the
+contents of his pockets might help me to form a conclusion.
+
+“And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife which was
+found in the dead man's hand, a knife which certainly no sane man would
+choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr. Watson told us, a form of knife
+which is used for the most delicate operations known in surgery. And it
+was to be used for a delicate operation that night. You must know, with
+your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible
+to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a horse's ham, and to do it
+subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so treated
+would develop a slight lameness, which would be put down to a strain in
+exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never to foul play.”
+
+“Villain! Scoundrel!” cried the Colonel.
+
+“We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take the
+horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have certainly
+roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife. It
+was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air.”
+
+“I have been blind!” cried the Colonel. “Of course that was why he
+needed the candle, and struck the match.”
+
+“Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings I was fortunate enough to
+discover not only the method of the crime, but even its motives. As a
+man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other people's
+bills about in their pockets. We have most of us quite enough to do to
+settle our own. I at once concluded that Straker was leading a double
+life, and keeping a second establishment. The nature of the bill showed
+that there was a lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes.
+Liberal as you are with your servants, one can hardly expect that they
+can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for their ladies. I questioned
+Mrs. Straker as to the dress without her knowing it, and having
+satisfied myself that it had never reached her, I made a note of the
+milliner's address, and felt that by calling there with Straker's
+photograph I could easily dispose of the mythical Derbyshire.
+
+“From that time on all was plain. Straker had led out the horse to a
+hollow where his light would be invisible. Simpson in his flight had
+dropped his cravat, and Straker had picked it up--with some idea,
+perhaps, that he might use it in securing the horse's leg. Once in the
+hollow, he had got behind the horse and had struck a light; but the
+creature frightened at the sudden glare, and with the strange instinct
+of animals feeling that some mischief was intended, had lashed out, and
+the steel shoe had struck Straker full on the forehead. He had already,
+in spite of the rain, taken off his overcoat in order to do his delicate
+task, and so, as he fell, his knife gashed his thigh. Do I make it
+clear?”
+
+“Wonderful!” cried the Colonel. “Wonderful! You might have been there!”
+
+“My final shot was, I confess a very long one. It struck me that so
+astute a man as Straker would not undertake this delicate tendon-nicking
+without a little practice. What could he practice on? My eyes fell upon
+the sheep, and I asked a question which, rather to my surprise, showed
+that my surmise was correct.
+
+“When I returned to London I called upon the milliner, who had
+recognized Straker as an excellent customer of the name of Derbyshire,
+who had a very dashing wife, with a strong partiality for expensive
+dresses. I have no doubt that this woman had plunged him over head and
+ears in debt, and so led him into this miserable plot.”
+
+“You have explained all but one thing,” cried the Colonel. “Where was
+the horse?”
+
+“Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. We must have
+an amnesty in that direction, I think. This is Clapham Junction, if I am
+not mistaken, and we shall be in Victoria in less than ten minutes. If
+you care to smoke a cigar in our rooms, Colonel, I shall be happy to
+give you any other details which might interest you.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure II. The Yellow Face
+
+
+[In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in
+which my companion's singular gifts have made us the listeners to, and
+eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural that I
+should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this
+not so much for the sake of his reputation--for, indeed, it was when
+he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility were most
+admirable--but because where he failed it happened too often that no one
+else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever without a conclusion.
+Now and again, however, it chanced that even when he erred, the truth
+was still discovered. I have noted of some half-dozen cases of the
+kind; the Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual and that which I am about to
+recount are the two which present the strongest features of interest.]
+
+Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's sake.
+Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly
+one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he
+looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom
+bestirred himself save when there was some professional object to be
+served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable. That he
+should have kept himself in training under such circumstances is
+remarkable, but his diet was usually of the sparest, and his habits
+were simple to the verge of austerity. Save for the occasional use of
+cocaine, he had no vices, and he only turned to the drug as a protest
+against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers
+uninteresting.
+
+One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk with
+me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were breaking out
+upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the chestnuts were just
+beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves. For two hours we rambled
+about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know
+each other intimately. It was nearly five before we were back in Baker
+Street once more.
+
+“Beg pardon, sir,” said our page-boy, as he opened the door. “There's
+been a gentleman here asking for you, sir.”
+
+Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. “So much for afternoon walks!” said
+he. “Has this gentleman gone, then?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Didn't you ask him in?”
+
+“Yes, sir; he came in.”
+
+“How long did he wait?”
+
+“Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir, a-walkin'
+and a-stampin' all the time he was here. I was waitin' outside the door,
+sir, and I could hear him. At last he outs into the passage, and he
+cries, 'Is that man never goin' to come?' Those were his very words,
+sir. 'You'll only need to wait a little longer,' says I. 'Then I'll wait
+in the open air, for I feel half choked,' says he. 'I'll be back before
+long.' And with that he ups and he outs, and all I could say wouldn't
+hold him back.”
+
+“Well, well, you did your best,” said Holmes, as we walked into our
+room. “It's very annoying, though, Watson. I was badly in need of
+a case, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of
+importance. Hullo! That's not your pipe on the table. He must have
+left his behind him. A nice old brier with a good long stem of what the
+tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouthpieces there
+are in London? Some people think that a fly in it is a sign. Well, he
+must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind him which he
+evidently values highly.”
+
+“How do you know that he values it highly?” I asked.
+
+“Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven and sixpence.
+Now it has, you see, been twice mended, once in the wooden stem and once
+in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as you observe, with silver
+bands, must have cost more than the pipe did originally. The man must
+value the pipe highly when he prefers to patch it up rather than buy a
+new one with the same money.”
+
+“Anything else?” I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about in his
+hand, and staring at it in his peculiar pensive way.
+
+He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger, as a
+professor might who was lecturing on a bone.
+
+“Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,” said he. “Nothing
+has more individuality, save perhaps watches and bootlaces. The
+indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very important.
+The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent
+set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need to practise
+economy.”
+
+My friend threw out the information in a very offhand way, but I saw
+that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.
+
+“You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling pipe,”
+ said I.
+
+“This is Grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce,” Holmes answered,
+knocking a little out on his palm. “As he might get an excellent smoke
+for half the price, he has no need to practise economy.”
+
+“And the other points?”
+
+“He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets.
+You can see that it is quite charred all down one side. Of course a
+match could not have done that. Why should a man hold a match to the
+side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a lamp without getting the
+bowl charred. And it is all on the right side of the pipe. From that I
+gather that he is a left-handed man. You hold your own pipe to the lamp,
+and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the left side to the
+flame. You might do it once the other way, but not as a constancy. This
+has always been held so. Then he has bitten through his amber. It takes
+a muscular, energetic fellow, and one with a good set of teeth, to do
+that. But if I am not mistaken I hear him upon the stair, so we shall
+have something more interesting than his pipe to study.”
+
+An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the room.
+He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-gray suit, and carried a brown
+wide-awake in his hand. I should have put him at about thirty, though he
+was really some years older.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said he, with some embarrassment; “I suppose I
+should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact
+is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that.” He
+passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed, and then
+fell rather than sat down upon a chair.
+
+“I can see that you have not slept for a night or two,” said Holmes,
+in his easy, genial way. “That tries a man's nerves more than work, and
+more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help you?”
+
+“I wanted your advice, sir. I don't know what to do and my whole life
+seems to have gone to pieces.”
+
+“You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?”
+
+“Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man--as a man of the
+world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to God you'll be
+able to tell me.”
+
+He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that to
+speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all through was
+overriding his inclinations.
+
+“It's a very delicate thing,” said he. “One does not like to speak of
+one's domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful to discuss the
+conduct of one's wife with two men whom I have never seen before. It's
+horrible to have to do it. But I've got to the end of my tether, and I
+must have advice.”
+
+“My dear Mr. Grant Munro--” began Holmes.
+
+Our visitor sprang from his chair. “What!” he cried, “you know my name?”
+
+“If you wish to preserve your incognito,” said Holmes, smiling, “I would
+suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of your
+hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you are
+addressing. I was about to say that my friend and I have listened to a
+good many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the good
+fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. I trust that we may do as
+much for you. Might I beg you, as time may prove to be of importance, to
+furnish me with the facts of your case without further delay?”
+
+Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he found it
+bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that he was
+a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his nature, more
+likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then suddenly, with a
+fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who throws reserve to the
+winds, he began.
+
+“The facts are these, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “I am a married man, and
+have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved
+each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two that ever were
+joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought or word or
+deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung up a barrier
+between us, and I find that there is something in her life and in her
+thought of which I know as little as if she were the woman who brushes
+by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.
+
+“Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I go
+any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don't let there be any mistake
+about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more
+than now. I know it. I feel it. I don't want to argue about that. A man
+can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there's this secret
+between us, and we can never be the same until it is cleared.”
+
+“Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro,” said Holmes, with some
+impatience.
+
+“I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. She was a widow when
+I met her first, though quite young--only twenty-five. Her name then was
+Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young, and lived in
+the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer
+with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out
+badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it. I have seen
+his death certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back
+to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that
+her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a capital of
+about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested
+by him that it returned an average of seven per cent. She had only been
+six months at Pinner when I met her; we fell in love with each other,
+and we married a few weeks afterwards.
+
+“I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or
+eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice
+eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was very
+countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an inn and
+two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other side of
+the field which faces us, and except those there were no houses until
+you got half way to the station. My business took me into town at
+certain seasons, but in summer I had less to do, and then in our country
+home my wife and I were just as happy as could be wished. I tell you
+that there never was a shadow between us until this accursed affair
+began.
+
+“There's one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When we
+married, my wife made over all her property to me--rather against my
+will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went
+wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was done. Well, about six
+weeks ago she came to me.
+
+“'Jack,' said she, 'when you took my money you said that if ever I
+wanted any I was to ask you for it.'
+
+“'Certainly,' said I. 'It's all your own.'
+
+“'Well,' said she, 'I want a hundred pounds.'
+
+“I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply a new
+dress or something of the kind that she was after.
+
+“'What on earth for?' I asked.
+
+“'Oh,' said she, in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my
+banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'
+
+“'If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said I.
+
+“'Oh, yes, I really mean it.'
+
+“'And you won't tell me what you want it for?'
+
+“'Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.'
+
+“So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time that
+there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a check, and I
+never thought any more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with
+what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to mention it.
+
+“Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our
+house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to
+go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice
+little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling
+down there, for trees are always a neighborly kind of things. The
+cottage had been standing empty this eight months, and it was a pity,
+for it was a pretty two-storied place, with an old-fashioned porch and
+honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and thought what a neat
+little homestead it would make.
+
+“Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way, when
+I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and
+things lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear that
+the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, and wondered what
+sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. And as I looked
+I suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one of the
+upper windows.
+
+“I don't know what there was about that face, Mr. Holmes, but it seemed
+to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way off, so that
+I could not make out the features, but there was something unnatural and
+inhuman about the face. That was the impression that I had, and I moved
+quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person who was watching
+me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared, so suddenly that it
+seemed to have been plucked away into the darkness of the room. I stood
+for five minutes thinking the business over, and trying to analyze my
+impressions. I could not tell if the face were that of a man or a
+woman. It had been too far from me for that. But its color was what had
+impressed me most. It was of a livid chalky white, and with something
+set and rigid about it which was shockingly unnatural. So disturbed
+was I that I determined to see a little more of the new inmates of
+the cottage. I approached and knocked at the door, which was instantly
+opened by a tall, gaunt woman with a harsh, forbidding face.
+
+“'What may you be wantin'?' she asked, in a Northern accent.
+
+“'I am your neighbor over yonder,' said I, nodding towards my house. 'I
+see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could be of
+any help to you in any--'
+
+“'Ay, we'll just ask ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door
+in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked
+home. All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind
+would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the
+woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for
+she is a nervous, highly strung woman, and I had no wish that she would
+share the unpleasant impression which had been produced upon myself. I
+remarked to her, however, before I fell asleep, that the cottage was now
+occupied, to which she returned no reply.
+
+“I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest
+in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night. And yet
+somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight
+excitement produced by my little adventure or not I know not, but
+I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly
+conscious that something was going on in the room, and gradually became
+aware that my wife had dressed herself and was slipping on her mantle
+and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of
+surprise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my
+half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the candle-light,
+and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an expression such as I had
+never seen before--such as I should have thought her incapable of
+assuming. She was deadly pale and breathing fast, glancing furtively
+towards the bed as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed
+me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from
+the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking which could only
+come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my
+knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then
+I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What
+on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in
+the morning?
+
+“I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind
+and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the
+more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling
+over it when I heard the door gently close again, and her footsteps
+coming up the stairs.
+
+“'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.
+
+“She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and
+that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was
+something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been
+a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her
+slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own
+husband spoke to her.
+
+“'You awake, Jack!' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought
+that nothing could awake you.'
+
+“'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.
+
+“'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see that
+her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her mantle.
+'Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life before. The
+fact is that I felt as though I were choking, and had a perfect longing
+for a breath of fresh air. I really think that I should have fainted if
+I had not gone out. I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am
+quite myself again.'
+
+“All the time that she was telling me this story she never once looked
+in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual tones. It
+was evident to me that she was saying what was false. I said nothing
+in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart, with my mind
+filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions. What was it that
+my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been during that strange
+expedition? I felt that I should have no peace until I knew, and yet I
+shrank from asking her again after once she had told me what was false.
+All the rest of the night I tossed and tumbled, framing theory after
+theory, each more unlikely than the last.
+
+“I should have gone to the City that day, but I was too disturbed in my
+mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. My wife seemed
+to be as upset as myself, and I could see from the little questioning
+glances which she kept shooting at me that she understood that I
+disbelieved her statement, and that she was at her wits' end what to do.
+We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards
+I went out for a walk, that I might think the matter out in the fresh
+morning air.
+
+“I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour in the grounds, and
+was back in Norbury by one o'clock. It happened that my way took me past
+the cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the windows, and to
+see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange face which had looked
+out at me on the day before. As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr.
+Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my wife walked out.
+
+“I was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her; but my
+emotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face
+when our eyes met. She seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back
+inside the house again; and then, seeing how useless all concealment
+must be, she came forward, with a very white face and frightened eyes
+which belied the smile upon her lips.
+
+“'Ah, Jack,' she said, 'I have just been in to see if I can be of any
+assistance to our new neighbors. Why do you look at me like that, Jack?
+You are not angry with me?'
+
+“'So,' said I, 'this is where you went during the night.'
+
+“'What do you mean?' she cried.
+
+“'You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people, that you should
+visit them at such an hour?'
+
+“'I have not been here before.'
+
+“'How can you tell me what you know is false?' I cried. 'Your very voice
+changes as you speak. When have I ever had a secret from you? I shall
+enter that cottage, and I shall probe the matter to the bottom.'
+
+“'No, no, Jack, for God's sake!' she gasped, in uncontrollable emotion.
+Then, as I approached the door, she seized my sleeve and pulled me back
+with convulsive strength.
+
+“'I implore you not to do this, Jack,' she cried. 'I swear that I will
+tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of it if
+you enter that cottage.' Then, as I tried to shake her off, she clung to
+me in a frenzy of entreaty.
+
+“'Trust me, Jack!' she cried. 'Trust me only this once. You will never
+have cause to regret it. You know that I would not have a secret from
+you if it were not for your own sake. Our whole lives are at stake in
+this. If you come home with me, all will be well. If you force your way
+into that cottage, all is over between us.'
+
+“There was such earnestness, such despair, in her manner that her words
+arrested me, and I stood irresolute before the door.
+
+“'I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said I
+at last. 'It is that this mystery comes to an end from now. You are
+at liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that there
+shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept from my
+knowledge. I am willing to forget those which are passed if you will
+promise that there shall be no more in the future.'
+
+“'I was sure that you would trust me,' she cried, with a great sigh of
+relief. 'It shall be just as you wish. Come away--oh, come away up to
+the house.'
+
+“Still pulling at my sleeve, she led me away from the cottage. As we
+went I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us
+out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature
+and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the
+day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I
+knew that my mind could never know ease again until I had solved it.
+
+“For two days after this I stayed at home, and my wife appeared to abide
+loyally by our engagement, for, as far as I know, she never stirred out
+of the house. On the third day, however, I had ample evidence that
+her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from this secret
+influence which drew her away from her husband and her duty.
+
+“I had gone into town on that day, but I returned by the 2.40 instead of
+the 3.36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house the maid ran
+into the hall with a startled face.
+
+“'Where is your mistress?' I asked.
+
+“'I think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.
+
+“My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to make
+sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I happened to glance out
+of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom I had just been
+speaking running across the field in the direction of the cottage. Then
+of course I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife had gone over there,
+and had asked the servant to call her if I should return. Tingling with
+anger, I rushed down and hurried across, determined to end the matter
+once and forever. I saw my wife and the maid hurrying back along the
+lane, but I did not stop to speak with them. In the cottage lay the
+secret which was casting a shadow over my life. I vowed that, come what
+might, it should be a secret no longer. I did not even knock when I
+reached it, but turned the handle and rushed into the passage.
+
+“It was all still and quiet upon the ground floor. In the kitchen a
+kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in
+the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before.
+I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then I rushed up
+the stairs, only to find two other rooms empty and deserted at the top.
+There was no one at all in the whole house. The furniture and pictures
+were of the most common and vulgar description, save in the one chamber
+at the window of which I had seen the strange face. That was comfortable
+and elegant, and all my suspicions rose into a fierce bitter flame when
+I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph
+of my wife, which had been taken at my request only three months ago.
+
+“I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely
+empty. Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had never
+had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my house; but I
+was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing past her, I made
+my way into my study. She followed me, however, before I could close the
+door.
+
+“'I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack,' said she; 'but if you knew
+all the circumstances I am sure that you would forgive me.'
+
+“'Tell me everything, then,' said I.
+
+“'I cannot, Jack, I cannot,' she cried.
+
+“'Until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage, and
+who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never be any
+confidence between us,' said I, and breaking away from her, I left the
+house. That was yesterday, Mr. Holmes, and I have not seen her since,
+nor do I know anything more about this strange business. It is the first
+shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken me that I do not
+know what I should do for the best. Suddenly this morning it occurred to
+me that you were the man to advise me, so I have hurried to you now, and
+I place myself unreservedly in your hands. If there is any point which I
+have not made clear, pray question me about it. But, above all, tell me
+quickly what I am to do, for this misery is more than I can bear.”
+
+Holmes and I had listened with the utmost interest to this extraordinary
+statement, which had been delivered in the jerky, broken fashion of a
+man who is under the influence of extreme emotions. My companion sat
+silent for some time, with his chin upon his hand, lost in thought.
+
+“Tell me,” said he at last, “could you swear that this was a man's face
+which you saw at the window?”
+
+“Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it, so that it is
+impossible for me to say.”
+
+“You appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it.”
+
+“It seemed to be of an unnatural color, and to have a strange rigidity
+about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a jerk.”
+
+“How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?”
+
+“Nearly two months.”
+
+“Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?”
+
+“No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and
+all her papers were destroyed.”
+
+“And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it.”
+
+“Yes; she got a duplicate after the fire.”
+
+“Did you ever meet any one who knew her in America?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Or get letters from it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If the
+cottage is now permanently deserted we may have some difficulty. If, on
+the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were warned of
+your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then they may be
+back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me advise you, then,
+to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of the cottage again.
+If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited, do not force your
+way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within
+an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom
+of the business.”
+
+“And if it is still empty?”
+
+“In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you.
+Good-by; and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really have
+a cause for it.”
+
+“I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,” said my companion, as
+he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. “What do you
+make of it?”
+
+“It had an ugly sound,” I answered.
+
+“Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.”
+
+“And who is the blackmailer?”
+
+“Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room
+in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word,
+Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the
+window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds.”
+
+“You have a theory?”
+
+“Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn
+out to be correct. This woman's first husband is in that cottage.”
+
+“Why do you think so?”
+
+“How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should
+not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this:
+This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful
+qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease,
+and became a leper or an imbecile? She flies from him at last, returns
+to England, changes her name, and starts her life, as she thinks,
+afresh. She has been married three years, and believes that her position
+is quite secure, having shown her husband the death certificate of
+some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her whereabouts
+is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose, by some
+unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid. They write
+to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred
+pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and
+when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers
+in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She
+waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavor
+to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes
+again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he has told us, as
+she comes out. She promises him then not to go there again, but two days
+afterwards the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbors was too
+strong for her, and she made another attempt, taking down with her the
+photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of
+this interview the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home,
+on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the
+cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of
+fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing near. In this way
+he found the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if
+it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think
+of my theory?”
+
+“It is all surmise.”
+
+“But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our
+knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to
+reconsider it. We can do nothing more until we have a message from our
+friend at Norbury.”
+
+But we had not a very long time to wait for that. It came just as we had
+finished our tea. “The cottage is still tenanted,” it said. “Have seen
+the face again at the window. Will meet the seven o'clock train, and
+will take no steps until you arrive.”
+
+
+He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see in
+the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and quivering with
+agitation.
+
+“They are still there, Mr. Holmes,” said he, laying his hand hard upon
+my friend's sleeve. “I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We
+shall settle it now once and for all.”
+
+“What is your plan, then?” asked Holmes, as he walked down the dark
+tree-lined road.
+
+“I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the house. I
+wish you both to be there as witnesses.”
+
+“You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife's warning
+that it is better that you should not solve the mystery?”
+
+“Yes, I am determined.”
+
+“Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than
+indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally, we
+are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong; but I think that it is
+worth it.”
+
+It was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned
+from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on
+either side. Mr. Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and we
+stumbled after him as best we could.
+
+“There are the lights of my house,” he murmured, pointing to a glimmer
+among the trees. “And here is the cottage which I am going to enter.”
+
+We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the building
+close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black foreground showed
+that the door was not quite closed, and one window in the upper story
+was brightly illuminated. As we looked, we saw a dark blur moving across
+the blind.
+
+“There is that creature!” cried Grant Munro. “You can see for yourselves
+that some one is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon know all.”
+
+We approached the door; but suddenly a woman appeared out of the shadow
+and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. I could not see her
+face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an attitude of
+entreaty.
+
+“For God's sake, don't Jack!” she cried. “I had a presentiment that you
+would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and
+you will never have cause to regret it.”
+
+“I have trusted you too long, Effie,” he cried, sternly. “Leave go of
+me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter
+once and forever!” He pushed her to one side, and we followed closely
+after him. As he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of
+him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an instant
+afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed into the
+lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.
+
+It was a cosey, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon
+the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a
+desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned
+away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red
+frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round
+to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she turned
+towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were
+absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was
+explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's
+ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal
+black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our
+amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment;
+but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his throat.
+
+“My God!” he cried. “What can be the meaning of this?”
+
+“I will tell you the meaning of it,” cried the lady, sweeping into
+the room with a proud, set face. “You have forced me, against my own
+judgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My
+husband died at Atlanta. My child survived.”
+
+“Your child?”
+
+She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. “You have never seen this
+open.”
+
+“I understood that it did not open.”
+
+She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait
+within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but bearing
+unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.
+
+“That is John Hebron, of Atlanta,” said the lady, “and a nobler man
+never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed
+him, but never once while he lived did I for an instant regret it. It
+was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than
+mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker far than
+ever her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear little girlie,
+and her mother's pet.” The little creature ran across at the words and
+nestled up against the lady's dress. “When I left her in America,” she
+continued, “it was only because her health was weak, and the change
+might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch
+woman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream
+of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack,
+and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God
+forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage
+to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned
+away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence
+a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was
+well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to
+see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I
+knew the danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but
+for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her
+instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbor,
+without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my
+precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during
+the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands so that even
+those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there
+being a black child in the neighborhood. If I had been less cautious
+I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with fear that you
+should learn the truth.
+
+“It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should
+have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement, and
+so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake you. But
+you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles. Next day you
+had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained from pursuing your
+advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just
+escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one. And now
+to-night you at last know all, and I ask you what is to become of us, my
+child and me?” She clasped her hands and waited for an answer.
+
+It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and
+when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted
+the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his
+other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.
+
+“We can talk it over more comfortably at home,” said he. “I am not a
+very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have
+given me credit for being.”
+
+Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my
+sleeve as we came out.
+
+“I think,” said he, “that we shall be of more use in London than in
+Norbury.”
+
+Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when he
+was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.
+
+“Watson,” said he, “if it should ever strike you that I am getting a
+little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case
+than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be
+infinitely obliged to you.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure III. The Stock-Broker's Clerk
+
+
+Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington
+district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an
+excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature
+of St. Vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it.
+The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he who would heal
+others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers
+of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus as my
+predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I purchased
+it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three
+hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy,
+and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as
+flourishing as ever.
+
+For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely
+at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy
+to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon
+professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when, one morning in
+June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I
+heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones
+of my old companion's voice.
+
+“Ah, my dear Watson,” said he, striding into the room, “I am very
+delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered
+from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the Sign
+of Four.”
+
+“Thank you, we are both very well,” said I, shaking him warmly by the
+hand.
+
+“And I hope, also,” he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair,
+“that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the
+interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.”
+
+“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was only last night that I was
+looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results.”
+
+“I trust that you don't consider your collection closed.”
+
+“Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of such
+experiences.”
+
+“To-day, for example?”
+
+“Yes, to-day, if you like.”
+
+“And as far off as Birmingham?”
+
+“Certainly, if you wish it.”
+
+“And the practice?”
+
+“I do my neighbor's when he goes. He is always ready to work off the
+debt.”
+
+“Ha! Nothing could be better,” said Holmes, leaning back in his chair
+and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. “I perceive
+that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little
+trying.”
+
+“I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last week.
+I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it.”
+
+“So you have. You look remarkably robust.”
+
+“How, then, did you know of it?”
+
+“My dear fellow, you know my methods.”
+
+“You deduced it, then?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“And from what?”
+
+“From your slippers.”
+
+I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. “How on
+earth--” I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was asked.
+
+“Your slippers are new,” he said. “You could not have had them more than
+a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are
+slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and
+been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular
+wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of
+course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet
+outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a
+June as this if he were in his full health.”
+
+Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it
+was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his smile
+had a tinge of bitterness.
+
+“I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain,” said he.
+“Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come
+to Birmingham, then?”
+
+“Certainly. What is the case?”
+
+“You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a
+four-wheeler. Can you come at once?”
+
+“In an instant.” I scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs to
+explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the door-step.
+
+“Your neighbor is a doctor,” said he, nodding at the brass plate.
+
+“Yes; he bought a practice as I did.”
+
+“An old-established one?”
+
+“Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were
+built.”
+
+“Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two.”
+
+“I think I did. But how do you know?”
+
+“By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his. But
+this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall Pycroft. Allow me to
+introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have only just
+time to catch our train.”
+
+The man whom I found myself facing was a well built, fresh-complexioned
+young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp, yellow
+mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a neat suit of sober black,
+which made him look what he was--a smart young City man, of the class
+who have been labeled cockneys, but who give us our crack volunteer
+regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any
+body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full
+of cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled
+down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were
+all in a first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to
+Birmingham that I was able to learn what the trouble was which had
+driven him to Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“We have a clear run here of seventy minutes,” Holmes remarked. “I
+want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting
+experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if
+possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events
+again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or
+may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those unusual
+and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me. Now, Mr.
+Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again.”
+
+Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+“The worst of the story is,” said he, “that I show myself up as such a
+confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and I don't see
+that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and get
+nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnnie I have been. I'm
+not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this with
+me:
+
+“I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens,
+but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan,
+as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them
+five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when
+the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the
+twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of
+other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a
+long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at Coxon's, and I had
+saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my way through that and
+out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my tether at last,
+and could hardly find the stamps to answer the advertisements or the
+envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my boots paddling up office
+stairs, and I seemed just as far from getting a billet as ever.
+
+“At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson & Williams's, the great stock-broking
+firm in Lombard Street. I dare say E. C. is not much in your line, but
+I can tell you that this is about the richest house in London.
+The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent in my
+testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it.
+Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would appear next Monday
+I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was
+satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say
+that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first
+that comes. Anyhow it was my innings that time, and I don't ever wish to
+feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties
+just about the same as at Coxon's.
+
+“And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out
+Hampstead way, 17 Potter's Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke
+that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up
+came my landlady with a card which had 'Arthur Pinner, Financial Agent,'
+printed upon it. I had never heard the name before and could not imagine
+what he wanted with me; but, of course, I asked her to show him up. In
+he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man,
+with a touch of the Sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way
+with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of time.”
+
+“'Mr. Hall Pycroft, I believe?'” said he.
+
+“'Yes, sir,' I answered, pushing a chair towards him.
+
+“'Lately engaged at Coxon & Woodhouse's?'
+
+“'Yes, sir.'
+
+“'And now on the staff of Mawson's.'
+
+“'Quite so.'
+
+“'Well,' said he, 'the fact is that I have heard some really
+extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember Parker,
+who used to be Coxon's manager? He can never say enough about it.'
+
+“Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty sharp in
+the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City
+in this fashion.
+
+“'You have a good memory?' said he.
+
+“'Pretty fair,' I answered, modestly.
+
+“'Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of
+work?' he asked.
+
+“'Yes. I read the stock exchange list every morning.'
+
+“'Now that shows real application!' he cried. 'That is the way to
+prosper! You won't mind my testing you, will you? Let me see. How are
+Ayrshires?'
+
+“'A hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and
+seven-eighths.'
+
+“'And New Zealand consolidated?'
+
+“'A hundred and four.
+
+“'And British Broken Hills?'
+
+“'Seven to seven-and-six.'
+
+“'Wonderful!' he cried, with his hands up. 'This quite fits in with all
+that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a
+clerk at Mawson's!'
+
+“This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. 'Well,' said I,
+'other people don't think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr.
+Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am very glad
+to have it.'
+
+“'Pooh, man; you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere.
+Now, I'll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little
+enough when measured by your ability, but when compared with Mawson's,
+it's light to dark. Let me see. When do you go to Mawson's?'
+
+“'On Monday.'
+
+“'Ha, ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you don't
+go there at all.'
+
+“'Not go to Mawson's?'
+
+“'No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the
+Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with a hundred and thirty-four
+branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in
+Brussels and one in San Remo.'
+
+“This took my breath away. 'I never heard of it,' said I.
+
+“'Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was all
+privately subscribed, and it's too good a thing to let the public
+into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board after
+allotment as managing director. He knew I was in the swim down here, and
+asked me to pick up a good man cheap. A young, pushing man with plenty
+of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought me here
+to-night. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with.'
+
+“'Five hundred a year!' I shouted.
+
+“'Only that at the beginning; but you are to have an overriding
+commission of one per cent on all business done by your agents, and you
+may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary.'
+
+“'But I know nothing about hardware.'
+
+“'Tut, my boy; you know about figures.'
+
+“My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in my chair. But suddenly
+a little chill of doubt came upon me.
+
+“'I must be frank with you,' said I. 'Mawson only gives me two hundred,
+but Mawson is safe. Now, really, I know so little about your company
+that--'
+
+“'Ah, smart, smart!' he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. 'You
+are the very man for us. You are not to be talked over, and quite right,
+too. Now, here's a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think that we
+can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an advance upon
+your salary.'
+
+“'That is very handsome,' said I. 'When should I take over my new
+duties?'
+
+“'Be in Birmingham to-morrow at one,' said he. 'I have a note in my
+pocket here which you will take to my brother. You will find him at
+126b Corporation Street, where the temporary offices of the company
+are situated. Of course he must confirm your engagement, but between
+ourselves it will be all right.'
+
+“'Really, I hardly know how to express my gratitude, Mr. Pinner,' said
+I.
+
+“'Not at all, my boy. You have only got your deserts. There are one or
+two small things--mere formalities--which I must arrange with you.
+You have a bit of paper beside you there. Kindly write upon it “I am
+perfectly willing to act as business manager to the Franco-Midland
+Hardware Company, Limited, at a minimum salary of L500.”'
+
+“I did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket.
+
+“'There is one other detail,' said he. 'What do you intend to do about
+Mawson's?'
+
+“I had forgotten all about Mawson's in my joy. 'I'll write and resign,'
+said I.
+
+“'Precisely what I don't want you to do. I had a row over you with
+Mawson's manager. I had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very
+offensive; accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the firm,
+and that sort of thing. At last I fairly lost my temper. “If you want
+good men you should pay them a good price,” said I.'
+
+“'He would rather have our small price than your big one,' said he.
+
+“'I'll lay you a fiver,' said I, 'that when he has my offer you'll never
+so much as hear from him again.'
+
+“'Done!' said he. 'We picked him out of the gutter, and he won't leave
+us so easily.' Those were his very words.”
+
+“'The impudent scoundrel!' I cried. 'I've never so much as seen him in
+my life. Why should I consider him in any way? I shall certainly not
+write if you would rather I didn't.'
+
+“'Good! That's a promise,' said he, rising from his chair. 'Well, I'm
+delighted to have got so good a man for my brother. Here's your advance
+of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. Make a note of the address,
+126b Corporation Street, and remember that one o'clock to-morrow is
+your appointment. Good-night; and may you have all the fortune that you
+deserve!'
+
+“That's just about all that passed between us, as near as I can
+remember. You can imagine, Dr. Watson, how pleased I was at such an
+extraordinary bit of good fortune. I sat up half the night hugging
+myself over it, and next day I was off to Birmingham in a train that
+would take me in plenty time for my appointment. I took my things to
+a hotel in New Street, and then I made my way to the address which had
+been given me.
+
+“It was a quarter of an hour before my time, but I thought that would
+make no difference. 126b was a passage between two large shops, which
+led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let as
+offices to companies or professional men. The names of the occupants
+were painted at the bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as
+the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood for a few minutes
+with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an
+elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very
+like the chap I had seen the night before, the same figure and voice,
+but he was clean shaven and his hair was lighter.
+
+“'Are you Mr. Hall Pycroft?' he asked.
+
+“'Yes,' said I.
+
+“'Oh! I was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. I had
+a note from my brother this morning in which he sang your praises very
+loudly.'
+
+“'I was just looking for the offices when you came.
+
+“'We have not got our name up yet, for we only secured these temporary
+premises last week. Come up with me, and we will talk the matter over.'
+
+“I followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there, right under
+the slates, were a couple of empty, dusty little rooms, uncarpeted and
+uncurtained, into which he led me. I had thought of a great office with
+shining tables and rows of clerks, such as I was used to, and I dare say
+I stared rather straight at the two deal chairs and one little table,
+which, with a ledger and a waste paper basket, made up the whole
+furniture.
+
+“'Don't be disheartened, Mr. Pycroft,' said my new acquaintance, seeing
+the length of my face. 'Rome was not built in a day, and we have lots of
+money at our backs, though we don't cut much dash yet in offices. Pray
+sit down, and let me have your letter.'
+
+“I gave it to him, and he read it over very carefully.
+
+“'You seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother Arthur,' said
+he; 'and I know that he is a pretty shrewd judge. He swears by London,
+you know; and I by Birmingham; but this time I shall follow his advice.
+Pray consider yourself definitely engaged.”
+
+“'What are my duties?' I asked.
+
+“'You will eventually manage the great depot in Paris, which will pour
+a flood of English crockery into the shops of a hundred and thirty-four
+agents in France. The purchase will be completed in a week, and
+meanwhile you will remain in Birmingham and make yourself useful.'
+
+“'How?'
+
+“For answer, he took a big red book out of a drawer.
+
+“'This is a directory of Paris,' said he, 'with the trades after the
+names of the people. I want you to take it home with you, and to mark
+off all the hardware sellers, with their addresses. It would be of the
+greatest use to me to have them.'
+
+“'Surely there are classified lists?' I suggested.
+
+“'Not reliable ones. Their system is different from ours. Stick at it,
+and let me have the lists by Monday, at twelve. Good-day, Mr. Pycroft.
+If you continue to show zeal and intelligence you will find the company
+a good master.'
+
+“I went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with very
+conflicting feelings in my breast. On the one hand, I was definitely
+engaged and had a hundred pounds in my pocket; on the other, the look
+of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and other of the points
+which would strike a business man had left a bad impression as to the
+position of my employers. However, come what might, I had my money, so I
+settled down to my task. All Sunday I was kept hard at work, and yet by
+Monday I had only got as far as H. I went round to my employer, found
+him in the same dismantled kind of room, and was told to keep at
+it until Wednesday, and then come again. On Wednesday it was still
+unfinished, so I hammered away until Friday--that is, yesterday. Then I
+brought it round to Mr. Harry Pinner.
+
+“'Thank you very much,' said he; 'I fear that I underrated the
+difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to
+me.'
+
+“'It took some time,' said I.
+
+“'And now,' said he, 'I want you to make a list of the furniture shops,
+for they all sell crockery.'
+
+“'Very good.'
+
+“'And you can come up to-morrow evening, at seven, and let me know how
+you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours at Day's
+Music Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your labors.' He
+laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his second tooth upon
+the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold.”
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared with
+astonishment at our client.
+
+“You may well look surprised, Dr. Watson; but it is this way,” said he:
+“When I was speaking to the other chap in London, at the time that he
+laughed at my not going to Mawson's, I happened to notice that his tooth
+was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint of the gold in
+each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with the voice and
+figure being the same, and only those things altered which might be
+changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it was the same man.
+Of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but not that they should
+have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He bowed me out, and I
+found myself in the street, hardly knowing whether I was on my head or
+my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my head in a basin of cold water,
+and tried to think it out. Why had he sent me from London to Birmingham?
+Why had he got there before me? And why had he written a letter from
+himself to himself? It was altogether too much for me, and I could make
+no sense of it. And then suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me
+might be very light to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to
+town by the night train to see him this morning, and to bring you both
+back with me to Birmingham.”
+
+There was a pause after the stock-broker's clerk had concluded his
+surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me,
+leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like
+a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet vintage.
+
+“Rather fine, Watson, is it not?” said he. “There are points in it which
+please me. I think that you will agree with me that an interview with
+Mr. Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of the Franco-Midland
+Hardware Company, Limited, would be a rather interesting experience for
+both of us.”
+
+“But how can we do it?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, easily enough,” said Hall Pycroft, cheerily. “You are two friends
+of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more natural than
+that I should bring you both round to the managing director?”
+
+“Quite so, of course,” said Holmes. “I should like to have a look at
+the gentleman, and see if I can make anything of his little game.
+What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services
+so valuable? or is it possible that--” He began biting his nails and
+staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word from
+him until we were in New Street.
+
+At seven o'clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down
+Corporation Street to the company's offices.
+
+“It is no use our being at all before our time,” said our client. “He
+only comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up to
+the very hour he names.”
+
+“That is suggestive,” remarked Holmes.
+
+“By Jove, I told you so!” cried the clerk. “That's he walking ahead of
+us there.”
+
+He pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling along
+the other side of the road. As we watched him he looked across at a boy
+who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper, and running
+over among the cabs and busses, he bought one from him. Then, clutching
+it in his hand, he vanished through a door-way.
+
+“There he goes!” cried Hall Pycroft. “These are the company's offices
+into which he has gone. Come with me, and I'll fix it up as easily as
+possible.”
+
+Following his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found ourselves
+outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. A voice within
+bade us enter, and we entered a bare, unfurnished room such as Hall
+Pycroft had described. At the single table sat the man whom we had seen
+in the street, with his evening paper spread out in front of him, and as
+he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had never looked upon a face
+which bore such marks of grief, and of something beyond grief--of a
+horror such as comes to few men in a lifetime. His brow glistened with
+perspiration, his cheeks were of the dull, dead white of a fish's belly,
+and his eyes were wild and staring. He looked at his clerk as though he
+failed to recognize him, and I could see by the astonishment depicted
+upon our conductor's face that this was by no means the usual appearance
+of his employer.
+
+“You look ill, Mr. Pinner!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, I am not very well,” answered the other, making obvious efforts
+to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke. “Who
+are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?”
+
+“One is Mr. Harris, of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr. Price, of this
+town,” said our clerk, glibly. “They are friends of mine and gentlemen
+of experience, but they have been out of a place for some little time,
+and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening for them in the
+company's employment.”
+
+“Very possibly! Very possibly!” cried Mr. Pinner with a ghastly smile.
+“Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something for you.
+What is your particular line, Mr. Harris?”
+
+“I am an accountant,” said Holmes.
+
+“Ah yes, we shall want something of the sort. And you, Mr. Price?”
+
+“A clerk,” said I.
+
+“I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let you
+know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. And now I beg that
+you will go. For God's sake leave me to myself!”
+
+These last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which
+he was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst
+asunder. Holmes and I glanced at each other, and Hall Pycroft took a
+step towards the table.
+
+“You forget, Mr. Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive some
+directions from you,” said he.
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Pycroft, certainly,” the other resumed in a calmer tone.
+“You may wait here a moment; and there is no reason why your friends
+should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service in three
+minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far.” He rose with a
+very courteous air, and, bowing to us, he passed out through a door at
+the farther end of the room, which he closed behind him.
+
+“What now?” whispered Holmes. “Is he giving us the slip?”
+
+“Impossible,” answered Pycroft.
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“That door leads into an inner room.”
+
+“There is no exit?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Is it furnished?”
+
+“It was empty yesterday.”
+
+“Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don't
+understand in this manner. If ever a man was three parts mad with
+terror, that man's name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on
+him?”
+
+“He suspects that we are detectives,” I suggested.
+
+“That's it,” cried Pycroft.
+
+Holmes shook his head. “He did not turn pale. He was pale when we
+entered the room,” said he. “It is just possible that--”
+
+His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of the
+inner door.
+
+“What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?” cried the clerk.
+
+Again and much louder came the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly at
+the closed door. Glancing at Holmes, I saw his face turn rigid, and he
+leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low guggling,
+gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes sprang
+frantically across the room and pushed at the door. It was fastened on
+the inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves upon it with
+all our weight. One hinge snapped, then the other, and down came the
+door with a crash. Rushing over it, we found ourselves in the inner
+room. It was empty.
+
+But it was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner, the
+corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second door.
+Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat were lying
+on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his own braces
+round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the Franco-Midland
+Hardware Company. His knees were drawn up, his head hung at a dreadful
+angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels against the door made
+the noise which had broken in upon our conversation. In an instant I
+had caught him round the waist, and held him up while Holmes and Pycroft
+untied the elastic bands which had disappeared between the livid creases
+of skin. Then we carried him into the other room, where he lay with
+a clay-colored face, puffing his purple lips in and out with every
+breath--a dreadful wreck of all that he had been but five minutes
+before.
+
+“What do you think of him, Watson?” asked Holmes.
+
+I stooped over him and examined him. His pulse was feeble and
+intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little
+shivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball
+beneath.
+
+“It has been touch and go with him,” said I, “but he'll live now. Just
+open that window, and hand me the water carafe.” I undid his collar,
+poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his arms until
+he drew a long, natural breath. “It's only a question of time now,” said
+I, as I turned away from him.
+
+Holmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his trouser's pockets
+and his chin upon his breast.
+
+“I suppose we ought to call the police in now,” said he. “And yet I
+confess that I'd like to give them a complete case when they come.”
+
+“It's a blessed mystery to me,” cried Pycroft, scratching his head.
+“Whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and then--”
+
+“Pooh! All that is clear enough,” said Holmes impatiently. “It is this
+last sudden move.”
+
+“You understand the rest, then?”
+
+“I think that it is fairly obvious. What do you say, Watson?”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. “I must confess that I am out of my depths,”
+ said I.
+
+“Oh surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to
+one conclusion.”
+
+“What do you make of them?”
+
+“Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The first is the making
+of Pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service of this
+preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that is?”
+
+“I am afraid I miss the point.”
+
+“Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a business matter, for
+these arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly business
+reason why this should be an exception. Don't you see, my young friend,
+that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of your handwriting,
+and had no other way of doing it?”
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Quite so. Why? When we answer that we have made some progress with our
+little problem. Why? There can be only one adequate reason. Some one
+wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a specimen
+of it first. And now if we pass on to the second point we find that each
+throws light upon the other. That point is the request made by Pinner
+that you should not resign your place, but should leave the manager of
+this important business in the full expectation that a Mr. Hall Pycroft,
+whom he had never seen, was about to enter the office upon the Monday
+morning.”
+
+“My God!” cried our client, “what a blind beetle I have been!”
+
+“Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose that some one
+turned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from that
+in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game would have
+been up. But in the interval the rogue had learned to imitate you,
+and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that nobody in the
+office had ever set eyes upon you.”
+
+“Not a soul,” groaned Hall Pycroft.
+
+“Very good. Of course it was of the utmost importance to prevent you
+from thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into
+contact with any one who might tell you that your double was at work
+in Mawson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome advance on your
+salary, and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you enough work
+to do to prevent your going to London, where you might have burst their
+little game up. That is all plain enough.”
+
+“But why should this man pretend to be his own brother?”
+
+“Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of them
+in it. The other is impersonating you at the office. This one acted
+as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an employer
+without admitting a third person into his plot. That he was most
+unwilling to do. He changed his appearance as far as he could, and
+trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe, would be
+put down to a family resemblance. But for the happy chance of the gold
+stuffing, your suspicions would probably never have been aroused.”
+
+Hall Pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air. “Good Lord!” he cried,
+“while I have been fooled in this way, what has this other Hall Pycroft
+been doing at Mawson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes? Tell me what to
+do.”
+
+“We must wire to Mawson's.”
+
+“They shut at twelve on Saturdays.”
+
+“Never mind. There may be some door-keeper or attendant--”
+
+“Ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of
+the securities that they hold. I remember hearing it talked of in the
+City.”
+
+“Very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a clerk
+of your name is working there. That is clear enough; but what is not so
+clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should instantly walk out
+of the room and hang himself.”
+
+“The paper!” croaked a voice behind us. The man was sitting up, blanched
+and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands which rubbed
+nervously at the broad red band which still encircled his throat.
+
+“The paper! Of course!” yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement.
+“Idiot that I was! I thought so much of our visit that the paper never
+entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must be there.”
+ He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph burst from his
+lips. “Look at this, Watson,” he cried. “It is a London paper, an early
+edition of the Evening Standard. Here is what we want. Look at the
+headlines: 'Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson & Williams's. Gigantic
+attempted Robbery. Capture of the Criminal.' Here, Watson, we are all
+equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read it aloud to us.”
+
+It appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event of
+importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:
+
+“A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man and
+the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City. For
+some time back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house, have been
+the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate to a sum of
+considerably over a million sterling. So conscious was the manager of
+the responsibility which devolved upon him in consequence of the great
+interests at stake that safes of the very latest construction have
+been employed, and an armed watchman has been left day and night in the
+building. It appears that last week a new clerk named Hall Pycroft was
+engaged by the firm. This person appears to have been none other than
+Beddington, the famous forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, had
+only recently emerged from a five years' spell of penal servitude. By
+some means, which are not yet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a
+false name, this official position in the office, which he utilized in
+order to obtain moulding of various locks, and a thorough knowledge of
+the position of the strong room and the safes.
+
+“It is customary at Mawson's for the clerks to leave at midday on
+Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City Police, was somewhat surprised,
+therefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at
+twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being aroused, the sergeant
+followed the man, and with the aid of Constable Pollock succeeded, after
+a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at once clear
+that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. Nearly a hundred
+thousand pounds' worth of American railway bonds, with a large amount
+of scrip in mines and other companies, was discovered in the bag. On
+examining the premises the body of the unfortunate watchman was found
+doubled up and thrust into the largest of the safes, where it would not
+have been discovered until Monday morning had it not been for the prompt
+action of Sergeant Tuson. The man's skull had been shattered by a
+blow from a poker delivered from behind. There could be no doubt
+that Beddington had obtained entrance by pretending that he had left
+something behind him, and having murdered the watchman, rapidly rifled
+the large safe, and then made off with his booty. His brother, who
+usually works with him, has not appeared in this job as far as can
+at present be ascertained, although the police are making energetic
+inquiries as to his whereabouts.”
+
+“Well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,”
+ said Holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window.
+“Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain
+and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to
+suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. However, we have
+no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on guard, Mr.
+Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the police.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure IV. The “_Gloria Scott_”
+
+
+“I have some papers here,” said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat
+one winter's night on either side of the fire, “which I really think,
+Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the
+documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this is the
+message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror when
+he read it.”
+
+He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing
+the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of
+slate-gray paper.
+
+“The supply of game for London is going steadily up,” it ran.
+“Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders
+for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.”
+
+As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes
+chuckling at the expression upon my face.
+
+“You look a little bewildered,” said he.
+
+“I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems
+to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise.”
+
+“Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
+robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt
+end of a pistol.”
+
+“You arouse my curiosity,” said I. “But why did you say just now that
+there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?”
+
+“Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged.”
+
+I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first turned
+his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never caught him
+before in a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in this arm-chair
+and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and
+sat for some time smoking and turning them over.
+
+“You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?” he asked. “He was the only
+friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very
+sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and
+working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed
+much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic
+tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the
+other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was
+the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull
+terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.
+
+“It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.
+I was laid by the heels for ten days, but Trevor used to come in to
+inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his
+visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends.
+He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy,
+the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects
+in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
+friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at
+Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of
+the long vacation.
+
+“Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a
+J.P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to
+the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
+an old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine
+lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild-duck
+shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select
+library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a
+tolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could not put
+in a pleasant month there.
+
+“Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.
+
+“There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria
+while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely.
+He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude
+strength, both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but
+he had traveled far, had seen much of the world. And had remembered
+all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with
+a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes
+which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for
+kindness and charity on the country-side, and was noted for the leniency
+of his sentences from the bench.
+
+“One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of
+port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits
+of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system,
+although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in
+my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in
+his description of one or two trivial feats which I had performed.
+
+“'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humoredly. 'I'm an
+excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'
+
+“'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might suggest that
+you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last
+twelvemonth.'
+
+“The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great surprise.
+
+“'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to his
+son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us, and
+Sir Edward Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on my
+guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'
+
+“'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription I
+observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken
+some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole so
+as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not take such
+precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'
+
+“'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
+
+“'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'
+
+“'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of
+the straight?'
+
+“'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening and
+thickening which marks the boxing man.'
+
+“'Anything else?'
+
+“'You have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'
+
+“'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
+
+“'You have been in New Zealand.'
+
+“'Right again.'
+
+“'You have visited Japan.'
+
+“'Quite true.'
+
+“'And you have been most intimately associated with some one whose
+initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely
+forget.'
+
+“Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a
+strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the
+nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.
+
+“You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His
+attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar, and
+sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he
+gave a gasp or two and sat up.
+
+“'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't frightened you.
+Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does not
+take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
+Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy
+would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you
+may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.'
+
+“And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
+with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very
+first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made
+out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment,
+however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to
+think of anything else.
+
+“'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said I.
+
+“'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask
+how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting
+fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.
+
+“'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw
+that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. had been tattooed in the bend
+of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear
+from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round
+them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious,
+then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that
+you had afterwards wished to forget them.'
+
+“What an eye you have!” he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just as
+you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old
+lovers are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet
+cigar.'
+
+
+“From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of
+suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked it.
+'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll never be
+sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did not mean
+to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped
+out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing
+him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day,
+however, before I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel
+to be of importance.
+
+“We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,
+basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a maid
+came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr.
+Trevor.
+
+“'What is his name?' asked my host.
+
+“'He would not give any.'
+
+“'What does he want, then?'
+
+“'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's
+conversation.'
+
+“'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little
+wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of
+walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve,
+a red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly
+worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile
+upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his
+crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors.
+As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of
+hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his chair, he ran
+into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of
+brandy as he passed me.
+
+“'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'
+
+“The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same
+loose-lipped smile upon his face.
+
+“'You don't know me?' he asked.
+
+“'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor in a tone of
+surprise.
+
+“'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and more
+since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking
+my salt meat out of the harness cask.'
+
+“'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr.
+Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low
+voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will get
+food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.'
+
+“'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his fore-lock. 'I'm just
+off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I
+wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with you.'
+
+“'Ah!' cried Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'
+
+“'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the
+fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to the
+kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmate
+with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving
+us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the
+house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The
+whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was
+not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my
+presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.
+
+“All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went
+up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few
+experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was
+far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram
+from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that
+he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped
+everything and set out for the North once more.
+
+“He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that
+the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin
+and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been
+remarkable.
+
+“'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.
+
+“'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'
+
+“'Apoplexy. Nervous shock, He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if we
+shall find him alive.'
+
+“I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.
+
+“'What has caused it?' I asked.
+
+“'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while we drive.
+You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?'
+
+“'Perfectly.'
+
+“'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'
+
+“'I have no idea.'
+
+“'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.
+
+“I stared at him in astonishment.
+
+“'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour
+since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that
+evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart
+broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'
+
+“'What power had he, then?'
+
+“'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable,
+good old governor--how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a
+ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much
+to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for
+the best.'
+
+“We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with the long
+stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the
+setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high
+chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's dwelling.
+
+“'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then, as
+that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed
+to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it.
+The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The
+dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance.
+The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat
+himself to little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering,
+leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times
+over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have
+had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time; and now I am asking
+myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have
+been a wiser man.
+
+“'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal Hudson
+became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some insolent
+reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulders
+and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face and two
+venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I
+don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the
+dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologizing to
+Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he
+could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his
+household.
+
+“'“Ah, my boy,” said he, “it is all very well to talk, but you don't
+know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you
+shall know, come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old
+father, would you, lad?” He was very much moved, and shut himself up
+in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was
+writing busily.
+
+“'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release,
+for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the
+dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in the
+thick voice of a half-drunken man.
+
+“'“I've had enough of Norfolk,” said he. “I'll run down to Mr. Beddoes
+in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare say.”
+
+“'“You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope,” said my
+father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.
+
+“'“I've not had my 'pology,” said he sulkily, glancing in my direction.
+
+“'“Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow
+rather roughly,” said the dad, turning to me.
+
+“'“On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary
+patience towards him,” I answered.
+
+“'“Oh, you do, do you?” he snarls. “Very good, mate. We'll see about
+that!”
+
+“'He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the
+house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after
+night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering
+his confidence that the blow did at last fall.'
+
+“'And how?' I asked eagerly.
+
+“'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father
+yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge post-mark. My father read
+it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room
+in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When
+I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all
+puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came
+over at once. We put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has
+shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall
+hardly find him alive.'
+
+“'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have been in this
+letter to cause so dreadful a result?'
+
+“'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was
+absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'
+
+“As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the
+fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As
+we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a
+gentleman in black emerged from it.
+
+“'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.
+
+“'Almost immediately after you left.'
+
+“'Did he recover consciousness?'
+
+“'For an instant before the end.'
+
+“'Any message for me.'
+
+“'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'
+
+“My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I
+remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my
+head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the
+past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveler, and gold-digger, and how had he
+placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should
+he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm, and
+die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered
+that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddoes, whom the
+seaman had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been
+mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come
+from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret
+which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old
+confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear
+enough. But then how could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as
+described by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been
+one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem
+to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning
+in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat
+pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in
+a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed,
+with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat
+down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed
+me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a single sheet of gray
+paper. 'The supply of game for London is going steadily up,' it ran.
+'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders
+for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.'
+
+“I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when
+first I read this message. Then I reread it very carefully. It was
+evidently as I had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried
+in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was
+a prearranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and
+'hen-pheasant'? Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be
+deduced in any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was the
+case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the
+subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from
+Beddoes rather than the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the
+combination 'life pheasant's hen' was not encouraging. Then I tried
+alternate words, but neither 'the of for' nor 'supply game London'
+promised to throw any light upon it.
+
+“And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw
+that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a message
+which might well drive old Trevor to despair.
+
+“It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my companion:
+
+“'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'
+
+“Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must be that,
+I suppose,' said he. “This is worse than death, for it means disgrace
+as well. But what is the meaning of these “head-keepers” and
+“hen-pheasants”?'
+
+“'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us
+if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has
+begun by writing “The...game...is,” and so on. Afterwards he had, to
+fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space.
+He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and
+if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may
+be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in
+breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'
+
+“'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that my poor
+father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves
+every autumn.'
+
+“'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said I. 'It only
+remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson
+seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected
+men.'
+
+“'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried my
+friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement
+which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson
+had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the
+doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor
+the courage to do it myself.'
+
+“These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will
+read them to you, as I read them in the old study that night to him.
+They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the voyage
+of the bark _Gloria Scott_, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th
+October, 1855, to her destruction in N. Lat. 15 degrees 20', W. Long.
+25 degrees 14' on Nov. 6th.' It is in the form of a letter, and runs in
+this way:
+
+“'My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the
+closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it
+is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the
+county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me, which
+cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come to
+blush for me--you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to
+do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging
+over me, then I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight
+from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should
+go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance this
+paper should be still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I
+conjure you, by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother,
+and by the love which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire and
+to never give one thought to it again.
+
+“'If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall
+already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is more
+likely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue
+sealed forever in death. In either case the time for suppression is
+past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this I
+swear as I hope for mercy.
+
+“'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger
+days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks
+ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply
+that he had surprised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a
+London banking-house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my
+country's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very
+harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honor, so called, which I had
+to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty
+that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its
+being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which
+I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of
+accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently
+with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than
+now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon
+with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark _Gloria
+Scott_, bound for Australia.
+
+“'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war was at its height, and the
+old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black
+Sea. The government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less
+suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott
+had been in the Chinese tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,
+heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her
+out. She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eight
+jail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a
+captain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a
+hundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Falmouth.
+
+“'The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being of
+thick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin and frail.
+The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had particularly
+noticed when we were led down the quay. He was a young man with a
+clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather nut-cracker jaws.
+He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style
+of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary
+height. I don't think any of our heads would have come up to his
+shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six
+and a half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see
+one which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to me
+like a fire in a snow-storm. I was glad, then, to find that he was my
+neighbor, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a
+whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an opening
+in the board which separated us.
+
+“'“Hullo, chummy!” said he, “what's your name, and what are you here
+for?”
+
+“'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.
+
+“'“I'm Jack Prendergast,” said he, “and by God! You'll learn to bless my
+name before you've done with me.”
+
+“'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an
+immense sensation throughout the country some time before my own arrest.
+He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurably
+vicious habits, who had by an ingenious system of fraud obtained huge
+sums of money from the leading London merchants.
+
+“'“Ha, ha! You remember my case!” said he proudly.
+
+“'“Very well, indeed.”
+
+“'“Then maybe you remember something queer about it?”
+
+“'“What was that, then?”
+
+“'“I'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't I?”
+
+“'“So it was said.”
+
+“'“But none was recovered, eh?”
+
+“'“No.”
+
+“'“Well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?” he asked.
+
+“'“I have no idea,” said I.
+
+“'“Right between my finger and thumb,” he cried. “By God! I've got more
+pounds to my name than you've hairs on your head. And if you've money,
+my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything.
+Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do anything is going
+to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted,
+beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a China coaster. No, sir, such
+a man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may lay
+to that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the book that he'll haul
+you through.”
+
+“'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing;
+but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all
+possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot
+to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it
+before they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader, and his money was
+the motive power.
+
+“'“I'd a partner,” said he, “a rare good man, as true as a stock to a
+barrel. He's got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at this
+moment? Why, he's the chaplain of this ship--the chaplain, no less! He
+came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and money enough in
+his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew
+are his, body and soul. He could buy 'em at so much a gross with a cash
+discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He's got two of the
+warders and Mereer, the second mate, and he'd get the captain himself,
+if he thought him worth it.”
+
+“'“What are we to do, then?” I asked.
+
+“'“What do you think?” said he. “We'll make the coats of some of these
+soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.”
+
+“'“But they are armed,” said I.
+
+“'“And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols for every
+mother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship, with the crew at
+our back, it's time we were all sent to a young misses' boarding-school.
+You speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and see if he is to be
+trusted.”
+
+“'I did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much
+the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was
+Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and he is now a rich
+and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough to join
+the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had
+crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the
+secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him,
+and the other was suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use
+to us.
+
+“'From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from taking
+possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially
+picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort us,
+carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts, and so often did
+he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our
+beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs.
+Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was
+his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieutenant
+Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had
+against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution,
+and to make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly
+than we expected, and in this way.
+
+“'One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come
+down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down
+on the bottom of his bunk he felt the outline of the pistols. If he had
+been silent he might have blown the whole thing, but he was a nervous
+little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and turned so pale that the
+man knew what was up in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before
+he could give the alarm, and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked
+the door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush. The two
+sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see
+what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the
+state-room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never
+fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets.
+Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the
+door there was an explosion from within, and there he lay with his
+brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the
+table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at
+his elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole
+business seemed to be settled.
+
+“'The state-room was next the cabin, and we flocked in there and flopped
+down on the settees, all speaking together, for we were just mad with
+the feeling that we were free once more. There were lockers all round,
+and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in, and pulled out a
+dozen of brown sherry. We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured
+the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an
+instant without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and
+the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the table.
+When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight others
+were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the blood and
+the brown sherry on that table turn me sick now when I think of it. We
+were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given the job up
+if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed
+for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran,
+and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing
+skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired
+on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load, and they
+stood to it like men; but we had the upper hand of them, and in five
+minutes it was all over. My God! Was there ever a slaughter-house
+like that ship! Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the
+soldiers up as if they had been children and threw them overboard alive
+or dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded and yet kept
+on swimming for a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out his
+brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies
+except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.
+
+“'It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us
+who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish
+to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over
+with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while
+men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and
+three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no
+moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of
+safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave
+a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our
+sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished
+we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already
+sick of these bloodthirsty doings, and we saw that there would be worse
+before it was done. We were given a suit of sailor togs each, a barrel
+of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass.
+Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us that we were shipwrecked
+mariners whose ship had foundered in Lat. 15 degrees and Long 25 degrees
+west, and then cut the painter and let us go.
+
+“'And now I come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear son.
+The seamen had hauled the fore-yard aback during the rising, but now as
+we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a light wind
+from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away from us. Our
+boat lay, rising and falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans
+and I, who were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the
+sheets working out our position and planning what coast we should make
+for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de Verdes were about five
+hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about seven
+hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the
+north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head
+in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly hull down on our
+starboard quarter. Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense black
+cloud of smoke shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon
+the sky line. A few seconds later a roar like thunder burst upon our
+ears, and as the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the
+_Gloria Scott_. In an instant we swept the boat's head round again and
+pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze still trailing
+over the water marked the scene of this catastrophe.
+
+“'It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared that
+we had come too late to save any one. A splintered boat and a number of
+crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves showed us
+where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign of life, and we
+had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some
+distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across it. When
+we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young seaman of the
+name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he could give us no
+account of what had happened until the following morning.
+
+“'It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang had
+proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The two warders
+had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had the third mate.
+Prendergast then descended into the 'tween-decks and with his own hands
+cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. There only remained the first
+mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw the convict approaching
+him with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he
+had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged
+into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols
+in search of him, found him with a match-box in his hand seated beside
+an open powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on board, and
+swearing that he would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested.
+An instant later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was
+caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the
+mate's match. Be the cause what it may, it was the end of the _Gloria
+Scott_ and of the rabble who held command of her.
+
+“'Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible
+business in which I was involved. Next day we were picked up by the brig
+_Hotspur_, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in
+believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which had
+foundered. The transport ship Gloria Scott was set down by the Admiralty
+as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to her true
+fate. After an excellent voyage the _Hotspur_ landed us at Sydney, where
+Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings,
+where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no
+difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I need not relate.
+We prospered, we traveled, we came back as rich colonials to England,
+and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years we have
+led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was forever
+buried. Imagine, then, my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I
+recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck. He had
+tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live upon our fears. You
+will understand now how it was that I strove to keep the peace with him,
+and you will in some measure sympathize with me in the fears which fill
+me, now that he has gone from me to his other victim with threats upon
+his tongue.'
+
+“Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible,
+'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. has told all. Sweet Lord, have mercy
+on our souls!'
+
+“That was the narrative which I read that night to young Trevor, and I
+think, Watson, that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one.
+The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and went out to the Terai tea
+planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to the sailor and
+Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on which
+the letter of warning was written. They both disappeared utterly and
+completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police, so that
+Beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking
+about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away with
+Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the truth was exactly
+the opposite. I think that it is most probable that Beddoes, pushed to
+desperation and believing himself to have been already betrayed, had
+revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with as much
+money as he could lay his hands on. Those are the facts of the case,
+Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that
+they are very heartily at your service.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure V. The Musgrave Ritual
+
+
+An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock
+Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest
+and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain
+quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one
+of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.
+Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The
+rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural
+Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a
+medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who
+keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of
+a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a
+jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin
+to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol
+practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in
+one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger
+and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite
+wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that
+neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by
+it.
+
+Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which
+had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in
+the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his papers were
+my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those
+which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in
+every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange
+them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs,
+the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable
+feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of
+lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books,
+hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month
+his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with
+bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which
+could not be put away save by their owner. One winter's night, as we
+sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as he had
+finished pasting extracts into his common-place book, he might employ
+the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could
+not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went
+off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin
+box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting
+down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see
+that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red
+tape into separate packages.
+
+“There are cases enough here, Watson,” said he, looking at me with
+mischievous eyes. “I think that if you knew all that I had in this box
+you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.”
+
+“These are the records of your early work, then?” I asked. “I have often
+wished that I had notes of those cases.”
+
+“Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer
+had come to glorify me.” He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,
+caressing sort of way. “They are not all successes, Watson,” said he.
+“But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here's the record
+of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant,
+and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair
+of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the
+club-foot, and his abominable wife. And here--ah, now, this really is
+something a little recherché.”
+
+He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a small
+wooden box with a sliding lid, such as children's toys are kept in. From
+within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass
+key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty
+old disks of metal.
+
+“Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?” he asked, smiling at my
+expression.
+
+“It is a curious collection.”
+
+“Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as
+being more curious still.”
+
+“These relics have a history then?”
+
+“So much so that they are history.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?”
+
+Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the edge
+of the table. Then he reseated himself in his chair and looked them over
+with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
+
+“These,” said he, “are all that I have left to remind me of the
+adventure of the Musgrave Ritual.”
+
+I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been
+able to gather the details. “I should be so glad,” said I, “if you would
+give me an account of it.”
+
+“And leave the litter as it is?” he cried, mischievously. “Your tidiness
+won't bear much strain after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you
+should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which
+make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe,
+of any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would
+certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very singular
+business.
+
+“You may remember how the affair of the _Gloria Scott_, and my
+conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first turned
+my attention in the direction of the profession which has become my
+life's work. You see me now when my name has become known far and
+wide, and when I am generally recognized both by the public and by the
+official force as being a final court of appeal in doubtful cases.
+Even when you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you have
+commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had already established a
+considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection. You can hardly
+realize, then, how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had to
+wait before I succeeded in making any headway.
+
+“When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just
+round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling in
+my too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of science
+which might make me more efficient. Now and again cases came in my way,
+principally through the introduction of old fellow-students, for during
+my last years at the University there was a good deal of talk there
+about myself and my methods. The third of these cases was that of the
+Musgrave Ritual, and it is to the interest which was aroused by that
+singular chain of events, and the large issues which proved to be at
+stake, that I trace my first stride towards the position which I now
+hold.
+
+“Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had
+some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among
+the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down
+as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence.
+In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin,
+high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was
+indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom,
+though his branch was a cadet one which had separated from the northern
+Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and had established itself
+in western Sussex, where the Manor House of Hurlstone is perhaps the
+oldest inhabited building in the county. Something of his birth place
+seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen face
+or the poise of his head without associating him with gray archways and
+mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep. Once
+or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he
+expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.
+
+“For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked
+into my room in Montague Street. He had changed little, was dressed like
+a young man of fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and preserved
+the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.
+
+“'How has all gone with you Musgrave?' I asked, after we had cordially
+shaken hands.
+
+“'You probably heard of my poor father's death,' said he; 'he was
+carried off about two years ago. Since then I have of course had the
+Hurlstone estates to manage, and as I am member for my district as well,
+my life has been a busy one. But I understand, Holmes, that you are
+turning to practical ends those powers with which you used to amaze us?'
+
+“'Yes,' said I, 'I have taken to living by my wits.'
+
+“'I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be
+exceedingly valuable to me. We have had some very strange doings at
+Hurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the
+matter. It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business.'
+
+“You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for
+the very chance for which I had been panting during all those months
+of inaction seemed to have come within my reach. In my inmost heart I
+believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the
+opportunity to test myself.
+
+“'Pray, let me have the details,' I cried.
+
+“Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit the cigarette which
+I had pushed towards him.
+
+“'You must know,' said he, 'that though I am a bachelor, I have to keep
+up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling
+old place, and takes a good deal of looking after. I preserve, too, and
+in the pheasant months I usually have a house-party, so that it would
+not do to be short-handed. Altogether there are eight maids, the cook,
+the butler, two footmen, and a boy. The garden and the stables of course
+have a separate staff.
+
+“'Of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was
+Brunton the butler. He was a young school-master out of place when he
+was first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and
+character, and he soon became quite invaluable in the household. He was
+a well-grown, handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though he has
+been with us for twenty years he cannot be more than forty now. With
+his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts--for he can speak
+several languages and play nearly every musical instrument--it is
+wonderful that he should have been satisfied so long in such a position,
+but I suppose that he was comfortable, and lacked energy to make any
+change. The butler of Hurlstone is always a thing that is remembered by
+all who visit us.
+
+“'But this paragon has one fault. He is a bit of a Don Juan, and you can
+imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part to play
+in a quiet country district. When he was married it was all right, but
+since he has been a widower we have had no end of trouble with him. A
+few months ago we were in hopes that he was about to settle down again
+for he became engaged to Rachel Howells, our second house-maid; but he
+has thrown her over since then and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the
+daughter of the head game-keeper. Rachel--who is a very good girl, but
+of an excitable Welsh temperament--had a sharp touch of brain-fever,
+and goes about the house now--or did until yesterday--like a black-eyed
+shadow of her former self. That was our first drama at Hurlstone; but a
+second one came to drive it from our minds, and it was prefaced by the
+disgrace and dismissal of butler Brunton.
+
+“'This was how it came about. I have said that the man was intelligent,
+and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it seems to have
+led to an insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the least
+concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to which this would carry him,
+until the merest accident opened my eyes to it.
+
+“'I have said that the house is a rambling one. One day last week--on
+Thursday night, to be more exact--I found that I could not sleep,
+having foolishly taken a cup of strong café noir after my dinner. After
+struggling against it until two in the morning, I felt that it was quite
+hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with the intention of continuing
+a novel which I was reading. The book, however, had been left in the
+billiard-room, so I pulled on my dressing-gown and started off to get
+it.
+
+“'In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend a flight of
+stairs and then to cross the head of a passage which led to the library
+and the gun-room. You can imagine my surprise when, as I looked down
+this corridor, I saw a glimmer of light coming from the open door of the
+library. I had myself extinguished the lamp and closed the door before
+coming to bed. Naturally my first thought was of burglars. The corridors
+at Hurlstone have their walls largely decorated with trophies of old
+weapons. From one of these I picked a battle-axe, and then, leaving my
+candle behind me, I crept on tiptoe down the passage and peeped in at
+the open door.
+
+“'Brunton, the butler, was in the library. He was sitting, fully
+dressed, in an easy-chair, with a slip of paper which looked like a
+map upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in deep
+thought. I stood dumb with astonishment, watching him from the darkness.
+A small taper on the edge of the table shed a feeble light which
+sufficed to show me that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as I looked,
+he rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at the side, he
+unlocked it and drew out one of the drawers. From this he took a paper,
+and returning to his seat he flattened it out beside the taper on the
+edge of the table, and began to study it with minute attention. My
+indignation at this calm examination of our family documents overcame
+me so far that I took a step forward, and Brunton, looking up, saw me
+standing in the doorway. He sprang to his feet, his face turned livid
+with fear, and he thrust into his breast the chart-like paper which he
+had been originally studying.
+
+“'“So!” said I. “This is how you repay the trust which we have reposed
+in you. You will leave my service to-morrow.”
+
+“'He bowed with the look of a man who is utterly crushed, and slunk past
+me without a word. The taper was still on the table, and by its light
+I glanced to see what the paper was which Brunton had taken from the
+bureau. To my surprise it was nothing of any importance at all,
+but simply a copy of the questions and answers in the singular old
+observance called the Musgrave Ritual. It is a sort of ceremony peculiar
+to our family, which each Musgrave for centuries past has gone through
+on his coming of age--a thing of private interest, and perhaps of some
+little importance to the archaeologist, like our own blazonings and
+charges, but of no practical use whatever.'
+
+“'We had better come back to the paper afterwards,' said I.
+
+“'If you think it really necessary,' he answered, with some hesitation.
+'To continue my statement, however: I relocked the bureau, using the key
+which Brunton had left, and I had turned to go when I was surprised to
+find that the butler had returned, and was standing before me.
+
+“'“Mr. Musgrave, sir,” he cried, in a voice which was hoarse with
+emotion, “I can't bear disgrace, sir. I've always been proud above my
+station in life, and disgrace would kill me. My blood will be on your
+head, sir--it will, indeed--if you drive me to despair. If you cannot
+keep me after what has passed, then for God's sake let me give you
+notice and leave in a month, as if of my own free will. I could stand
+that, Mr. Musgrave, but not to be cast out before all the folk that I
+know so well.”
+
+“'“You don't deserve much consideration, Brunton,” I answered. “Your
+conduct has been most infamous. However, as you have been a long time in
+the family, I have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. A month,
+however is too long. Take yourself away in a week, and give what reason
+you like for going.”
+
+“'“Only a week, sir?” he cried, in a despairing voice. “A fortnight--say
+at least a fortnight!”
+
+“'“A week,” I repeated, “and you may consider yourself to have been very
+leniently dealt with.”
+
+“'He crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a broken man, while
+I put out the light and returned to my room.
+
+
+“'“For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous in his attention
+to his duties. I made no allusion to what had passed, and waited with
+some curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace. On the third
+morning, however he did not appear, as was his custom, after breakfast
+to receive my instructions for the day. As I left the dining-room I
+happened to meet Rachel Howells, the maid. I have told you that she had
+only recently recovered from an illness, and was looking so wretchedly
+pale and wan that I remonstrated with her for being at work.
+
+“'“You should be in bed,” I said. “Come back to your duties when you are
+stronger.”
+
+“'She looked at me with so strange an expression that I began to suspect
+that her brain was affected.
+
+“'“I am strong enough, Mr. Musgrave,” said she.
+
+“'“We will see what the doctor says,” I answered. “You must stop work
+now, and when you go downstairs just say that I wish to see Brunton.”
+
+“'“The butler is gone,” said she.
+
+“'“Gone! Gone where?”
+
+“'“He is gone. No one has seen him. He is not in his room. Oh, yes, he
+is gone, he is gone!” She fell back against the wall with shriek after
+shriek of laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden hysterical attack,
+rushed to the bell to summon help. The girl was taken to her room, still
+screaming and sobbing, while I made inquiries about Brunton. There was
+no doubt about it that he had disappeared. His bed had not been slept
+in, he had been seen by no one since he had retired to his room the
+night before, and yet it was difficult to see how he could have left
+the house, as both windows and doors were found to be fastened in the
+morning. His clothes, his watch, and even his money were in his room,
+but the black suit which he usually wore was missing. His slippers,
+too, were gone, but his boots were left behind. Where then could butler
+Brunton have gone in the night, and what could have become of him now?
+
+“'Of course we searched the house from cellar to garret, but there was
+no trace of him. It is, as I have said, a labyrinth of an old house,
+especially the original wing, which is now practically uninhabited; but
+we ransacked every room and cellar without discovering the least sign
+of the missing man. It was incredible to me that he could have gone away
+leaving all his property behind him, and yet where could he be? I called
+in the local police, but without success. Rain had fallen on the night
+before and we examined the lawn and the paths all round the house, but
+in vain. Matters were in this state, when a new development quite drew
+our attention away from the original mystery.
+
+“'For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill, sometimes delirious,
+sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit up with her
+at night. On the third night after Brunton's disappearance, the nurse,
+finding her patient sleeping nicely, had dropped into a nap in the
+arm-chair, when she woke in the early morning to find the bed empty, the
+window open, and no signs of the invalid. I was instantly aroused, and,
+with the two footmen, started off at once in search of the missing girl.
+It was not difficult to tell the direction which she had taken, for,
+starting from under her window, we could follow her footmarks easily
+across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where they vanished close to
+the gravel path which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is eight
+feet deep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trail
+of the poor demented girl came to an end at the edge of it.
+
+“'Of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work to recover the
+remains, but no trace of the body could we find. On the other hand, we
+brought to the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. It was a
+linen bag which contained within it a mass of old rusted and discolored
+metal and several dull-colored pieces of pebble or glass. This strange
+find was all that we could get from the mere, and, although we made
+every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know nothing of the fate
+either of Rachel Howells or of Richard Brunton. The county police are at
+their wits' end, and I have come up to you as a last resource.'
+
+“You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened to this
+extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavored to piece them together,
+and to devise some common thread upon which they might all hang. The
+butler was gone. The maid was gone. The maid had loved the butler, but
+had afterwards had cause to hate him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery
+and passionate. She had been terribly excited immediately after his
+disappearance. She had flung into the lake a bag containing some
+curious contents. These were all factors which had to be taken into
+consideration, and yet none of them got quite to the heart of the
+matter. What was the starting-point of this chain of events? There lay
+the end of this tangled line.
+
+“'I must see that paper, Musgrave,' said I, 'which this butler of yours
+thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the loss of
+his place.'
+
+“'It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,' he answered.
+'But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. I have
+a copy of the questions and answers here if you care to run your eye
+over them.'
+
+“He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson, and this is the
+strange catechism to which each Musgrave had to submit when he came to
+man's estate. I will read you the questions and answers as they stand.
+
+“'Whose was it?'
+
+“'His who is gone.'
+
+“'Who shall have it?'
+
+“'He who will come.'
+
+“'Where was the sun?'
+
+“'Over the oak.'
+
+“'Where was the shadow?'
+
+“'Under the elm.'
+
+“How was it stepped?'
+
+“'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by
+two, west by one and by one, and so under.'
+
+“'What shall we give for it?'
+
+“'All that is ours.'
+
+“'Why should we give it?'
+
+“'For the sake of the trust.'
+
+“'The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of the
+seventeenth century,' remarked Musgrave. 'I am afraid, however, that it
+can be of little help to you in solving this mystery.'
+
+“'At least,' said I, 'it gives us another mystery, and one which is even
+more interesting than the first. It may be that the solution of the one
+may prove to be the solution of the other. You will excuse me, Musgrave,
+if I say that your butler appears to me to have been a very clever man,
+and to have had a clearer insight than ten generations of his masters.'
+
+“'I hardly follow you,' said Musgrave. 'The paper seems to me to be of
+no practical importance.'
+
+“'But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy that Brunton took
+the same view. He had probably seen it before that night on which you
+caught him.'
+
+“'It is very possible. We took no pains to hide it.'
+
+“'He simply wished, I should imagine, to refresh his memory upon that
+last occasion. He had, as I understand, some sort of map or chart which
+he was comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust into his
+pocket when you appeared.'
+
+“'That is true. But what could he have to do with this old family custom
+of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?'
+
+“'I don't think that we should have much difficulty in determining
+that,' said I; 'with your permission we will take the first train down
+to Sussex, and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the spot.'
+
+
+“The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone. Possibly you have seen
+pictures and read descriptions of the famous old building, so I will
+confine my account of it to saying that it is built in the shape of
+an L, the long arm being the more modern portion, and the shorter the
+ancient nucleus, from which the other had developed. Over the low,
+heavily-lintelled door, in the centre of this old part, is chiseled the
+date, 1607, but experts are agreed that the beams and stone-work are
+really much older than this. The enormously thick walls and tiny windows
+of this part had in the last century driven the family into building the
+new wing, and the old one was used now as a store-house and a cellar,
+when it was used at all. A splendid park with fine old timber surrounds
+the house, and the lake, to which my client had referred, lay close to
+the avenue, about two hundred yards from the building.
+
+“I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there were not three
+separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if I could read the
+Musgrave Ritual aright I should hold in my hand the clue which would
+lead me to the truth concerning both the butler Brunton and the maid
+Howells. To that then I turned all my energies. Why should this servant
+be so anxious to master this old formula? Evidently because he saw
+something in it which had escaped all those generations of country
+squires, and from which he expected some personal advantage. What was it
+then, and how had it affected his fate?
+
+“It was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the ritual, that the
+measurements must refer to some spot to which the rest of the document
+alluded, and that if we could find that spot, we should be in a fair way
+towards finding what the secret was which the old Musgraves had thought
+it necessary to embalm in so curious a fashion. There were two guides
+given us to start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak there could be
+no question at all. Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand
+side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most
+magnificent trees that I have ever seen.
+
+“'That was there when your ritual was drawn up,' said I, as we drove
+past it.
+
+“'It was there at the Norman Conquest in all probability,' he answered.
+'It has a girth of twenty-three feet.'
+
+“'Have you any old elms?' I asked.
+
+“'There used to be a very old one over yonder but it was struck by
+lightning ten years ago, and we cut down the stump.'
+
+“'You can see where it used to be?'
+
+“'Oh, yes.'
+
+“'There are no other elms?'
+
+“'No old ones, but plenty of beeches.'
+
+“'I should like to see where it grew.'
+
+“We had driven up in a dog-cart, and my client led me away at once,
+without our entering the house, to the scar on the lawn where the
+elm had stood. It was nearly midway between the oak and the house. My
+investigation seemed to be progressing.
+
+“'I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the elm was?' I asked.
+
+“'I can give you it at once. It was sixty-four feet.'
+
+“'How do you come to know it?' I asked, in surprise.
+
+“'When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in trigonometry, it
+always took the shape of measuring heights. When I was a lad I worked
+out every tree and building in the estate.'
+
+“This was an unexpected piece of luck. My data were coming more quickly
+than I could have reasonably hoped.
+
+“'Tell me,' I asked, 'did your butler ever ask you such a question?'
+
+“Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment. 'Now that you call it
+to my mind,' he answered, 'Brunton did ask me about the height of the
+tree some months ago, in connection with some little argument with the
+groom.'
+
+“This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me that I was on the
+right road. I looked up at the sun. It was low in the heavens, and I
+calculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost
+branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in the Ritual would
+then be fulfilled. And the shadow of the elm must mean the farther end
+of the shadow, otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the guide.
+I had, then, to find where the far end of the shadow would fall when the
+sun was just clear of the oak.”
+
+“That must have been difficult, Holmes, when the elm was no longer
+there.”
+
+“Well, at least I knew that if Brunton could do it, I could also.
+Besides, there was no real difficulty. I went with Musgrave to his study
+and whittled myself this peg, to which I tied this long string with a
+knot at each yard. Then I took two lengths of a fishing-rod, which came
+to just six feet, and I went back with my client to where the elm had
+been. The sun was just grazing the top of the oak. I fastened the rod
+on end, marked out the direction of the shadow, and measured it. It was
+nine feet in length.
+
+“Of course the calculation now was a simple one. If a rod of six feet
+threw a shadow of nine, a tree of sixty-four feet would throw one of
+ninety-six, and the line of the one would of course be the line of the
+other. I measured out the distance, which brought me almost to the
+wall of the house, and I thrust a peg into the spot. You can imagine
+my exultation, Watson, when within two inches of my peg I saw a conical
+depression in the ground. I knew that it was the mark made by Brunton in
+his measurements, and that I was still upon his trail.
+
+“From this starting-point I proceeded to step, having first taken the
+cardinal points by my pocket-compass. Ten steps with each foot took me
+along parallel with the wall of the house, and again I marked my spot
+with a peg. Then I carefully paced off five to the east and two to the
+south. It brought me to the very threshold of the old door. Two steps
+to the west meant now that I was to go two paces down the stone-flagged
+passage, and this was the place indicated by the Ritual.
+
+“Never have I felt such a cold chill of disappointment, Watson. For a
+moment is seemed to me that there must be some radical mistake in my
+calculations. The setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and I
+could see that the old, foot-worn gray stones with which it was paved
+were firmly cemented together, and had certainly not been moved for many
+a long year. Brunton had not been at work here. I tapped upon the floor,
+but it sounded the same all over, and there was no sign of any crack
+or crevice. But, fortunately, Musgrave, who had begun to appreciate the
+meaning of my proceedings, and who was now as excited as myself, took
+out his manuscript to check my calculation.
+
+“'And under,' he cried. 'You have omitted the “and under.”'
+
+“I had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but now, of course,
+I saw at once that I was wrong. 'There is a cellar under this then?' I
+cried.
+
+“'Yes, and as old as the house. Down here, through this door.'
+
+“We went down a winding stone stair, and my companion, striking a match,
+lit a large lantern which stood on a barrel in the corner. In an instant
+it was obvious that we had at last come upon the true place, and that we
+had not been the only people to visit the spot recently.
+
+“It had been used for the storage of wood, but the billets, which had
+evidently been littered over the floor, were now piled at the sides, so
+as to leave a clear space in the middle. In this space lay a large and
+heavy flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the centre to which a thick
+shepherd's-check muffler was attached.
+
+“'By Jove!' cried my client. 'That's Brunton's muffler. I have seen it
+on him, and could swear to it. What has the villain been doing here?'
+
+“At my suggestion a couple of the county police were summoned to be
+present, and I then endeavored to raise the stone by pulling on the
+cravat. I could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one
+of the constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to one side.
+A black hole yawned beneath into which we all peered, while Musgrave,
+kneeling at the side, pushed down the lantern.
+
+“A small chamber about seven feet deep and four feet square lay open to
+us. At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the lid of
+which was hinged upwards, with this curious old-fashioned key projecting
+from the lock. It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp
+and worms had eaten through the wood, so that a crop of livid fungi
+was growing on the inside of it. Several discs of metal, old coins
+apparently, such as I hold here, were scattered over the bottom of the
+box, but it contained nothing else.
+
+“At the moment, however, we had no thought for the old chest, for our
+eyes were riveted upon that which crouched beside it. It was the figure
+of a man, clad in a suit of black, who squatted down upon his hams with
+his forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and his two arms thrown out
+on each side of it. The attitude had drawn all the stagnant blood to
+the face, and no man could have recognized that distorted liver-colored
+countenance; but his height, his dress, and his hair were all sufficient
+to show my client, when we had drawn the body up, that it was indeed his
+missing butler. He had been dead some days, but there was no wound or
+bruise upon his person to show how he had met his dreadful end. When
+his body had been carried from the cellar we found ourselves still
+confronted with a problem which was almost as formidable as that with
+which we had started.
+
+“I confess that so far, Watson, I had been disappointed in my
+investigation. I had reckoned upon solving the matter when once I had
+found the place referred to in the Ritual; but now I was there, and was
+apparently as far as ever from knowing what it was which the family had
+concealed with such elaborate precautions. It is true that I had thrown
+a light upon the fate of Brunton, but now I had to ascertain how that
+fate had come upon him, and what part had been played in the matter by
+the woman who had disappeared. I sat down upon a keg in the corner and
+thought the whole matter carefully over.
+
+“You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man's
+place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I
+should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this
+case the matter was simplified by Brunton's intelligence being quite
+first-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the
+personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. He knew that
+something valuable was concealed. He had spotted the place. He found
+that the stone which covered it was just too heavy for a man to move
+unaided. What would he do next? He could not get help from outside, even
+if he had some one whom he could trust, without the unbarring of doors
+and considerable risk of detection. It was better, if he could, to have
+his helpmate inside the house. But whom could he ask? This girl had been
+devoted to him. A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have
+finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may have treated her. He
+would try by a few attentions to make his peace with the girl Howells,
+and then would engage her as his accomplice. Together they would come at
+night to the cellar, and their united force would suffice to raise the
+stone. So far I could follow their actions as if I had actually seen
+them.
+
+“But for two of them, and one a woman, it must have been heavy work the
+raising of that stone. A burly Sussex policeman and I had found it no
+light job. What would they do to assist them? Probably what I should
+have done myself. I rose and examined carefully the different billets
+of wood which were scattered round the floor. Almost at once I came
+upon what I expected. One piece, about three feet in length, had a very
+marked indentation at one end, while several were flattened at the sides
+as if they had been compressed by some considerable weight. Evidently,
+as they had dragged the stone up they had thrust the chunks of wood into
+the chink, until at last, when the opening was large enough to crawl
+through, they would hold it open by a billet placed lengthwise, which
+might very well become indented at the lower end, since the whole weight
+of the stone would press it down on to the edge of this other slab. So
+far I was still on safe ground.
+
+“And now how was I to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama?
+Clearly, only one could fit into the hole, and that one was Brunton. The
+girl must have waited above. Brunton then unlocked the box, handed up
+the contents presumably--since they were not to be found--and then--and
+then what happened?
+
+“What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in
+this passionate Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had wronged
+her--wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected--in her power?
+Was it a chance that the wood had slipped, and that the stone had shut
+Brunton into what had become his sepulchre? Had she only been guilty of
+silence as to his fate? Or had some sudden blow from her hand dashed the
+support away and sent the slab crashing down into its place? Be that
+as it might, I seemed to see that woman's figure still clutching at her
+treasure trove and flying wildly up the winding stair, with her ears
+ringing perhaps with the muffled screams from behind her and with the
+drumming of frenzied hands against the slab of stone which was choking
+her faithless lover's life out.
+
+“Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her peals
+of hysterical laughter on the next morning. But what had been in the
+box? What had she done with that? Of course, it must have been the old
+metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere. She had
+thrown them in there at the first opportunity to remove the last trace
+of her crime.
+
+“For twenty minutes I had sat motionless, thinking the matter out.
+Musgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his lantern and
+peering down into the hole.
+
+“'These are coins of Charles the First,' said he, holding out the few
+which had been in the box; 'you see we were right in fixing our date for
+the Ritual.'
+
+“'We may find something else of Charles the First,' I cried, as the
+probable meaning of the first two questions of the Ritual broke suddenly
+upon me. 'Let me see the contents of the bag which you fished from the
+mere.'
+
+
+“We ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me. I could
+understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at it,
+for the metal was almost black and the stones lustreless and dull. I
+rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like
+a spark in the dark hollow of my hand. The metal work was in the form
+of a double ring, but it had been bent and twisted out of its original
+shape.
+
+“'You must bear in mind,' said I, 'that the royal party made head in
+England even after the death of the king, and that when they at last
+fled they probably left many of their most precious possessions buried
+behind them, with the intention of returning for them in more peaceful
+times.'
+
+“'My ancestor, Sir Ralph Musgrave, was a prominent Cavalier and the
+right-hand man of Charles the Second in his wanderings,' said my friend.
+
+“'Ah, indeed!' I answered. 'Well now, I think that really should give us
+the last link that we wanted. I must congratulate you on coming into
+the possession, though in rather a tragic manner of a relic which is of
+great intrinsic value, but of even greater importance as an historical
+curiosity.'
+
+“'What is it, then?' he gasped in astonishment.
+
+“'It is nothing less than the ancient crown of the kings of England.'
+
+“'The crown!'
+
+“'Precisely. Consider what the Ritual says: How does it run? “Whose was
+it?” “His who is gone.” That was after the execution of Charles. Then,
+“Who shall have it?” “He who will come.” That was Charles the Second,
+whose advent was already foreseen. There can, I think, be no doubt that
+this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the brows of the royal
+Stuarts.'
+
+“'And how came it in the pond?'
+
+“'Ah, that is a question that will take some time to answer.' And with
+that I sketched out to him the whole long chain of surmise and of proof
+which I had constructed. The twilight had closed in and the moon was
+shining brightly in the sky before my narrative was finished.
+
+“'And how was it then that Charles did not get his crown when he
+returned?' asked Musgrave, pushing back the relic into its linen bag.
+
+“'Ah, there you lay your finger upon the one point which we shall
+probably never be able to clear up. It is likely that the Musgrave who
+held the secret died in the interval, and by some oversight left this
+guide to his descendant without explaining the meaning of it. From that
+day to this it has been handed down from father to son, until at last
+it came within reach of a man who tore its secret out of it and lost his
+life in the venture.'
+
+
+“And that's the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson. They have the
+crown down at Hurlstone--though they had some legal bother and a
+considerable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. I am sure
+that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to you. Of
+the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that she got
+away out of England and carried herself and the memory of her crime to
+some land beyond the seas.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure VI. The Reigate Puzzle
+
+
+It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes
+recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring
+of '87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the
+colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the
+public, and are too intimately concerned with politics and finance to be
+fitting subjects for this series of sketches. They led, however, in an
+indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave my friend
+an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the
+many with which he waged his life-long battle against crime.
+
+On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the 14th of April that
+I received a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes was
+lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his
+sick-room, and was relieved to find that there was nothing formidable in
+his symptoms. Even his iron constitution, however, had broken down
+under the strain of an investigation which had extended over two months,
+during which period he had never worked less than fifteen hours a day,
+and had more than once, as he assured me, kept to his task for five days
+at a stretch. Even the triumphant issue of his labors could not save him
+from reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a time when Europe
+was ringing with his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep
+with congratulatory telegrams I found him a prey to the blackest
+depression. Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of
+three countries had failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point
+the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse him
+from his nervous prostration.
+
+Three days later we were back in Baker Street together; but it was
+evident that my friend would be much the better for a change, and the
+thought of a week of spring time in the country was full of attractions
+to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter, who had come under my
+professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house near Reigate in
+Surrey, and had frequently asked me to come down to him upon a visit. On
+the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend would only come
+with me he would be glad to extend his hospitality to him also. A little
+diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment
+was a bachelor one, and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom,
+he fell in with my plans and a week after our return from Lyons we were
+under the Colonel's roof. Hayter was a fine old soldier who had seen
+much of the world, and he soon found, as I had expected, that Holmes and
+he had much in common.
+
+On the evening of our arrival we were sitting in the Colonel's gun-room
+after dinner, Holmes stretched upon the sofa, while Hayter and I looked
+over his little armory of Eastern weapons.
+
+“By the way,” said he suddenly, “I think I'll take one of these pistols
+upstairs with me in case we have an alarm.”
+
+“An alarm!” said I.
+
+“Yes, we've had a scare in this part lately. Old Acton, who is one of
+our county magnates, had his house broken into last Monday. No great
+damage done, but the fellows are still at large.”
+
+“No clue?” asked Holmes, cocking his eye at the Colonel.
+
+“None as yet. But the affair is a petty one, one of our little country
+crimes, which must seem too small for your attention, Mr. Holmes, after
+this great international affair.”
+
+Holmes waved away the compliment, though his smile showed that it had
+pleased him.
+
+“Was there any feature of interest?”
+
+“I fancy not. The thieves ransacked the library and got very little for
+their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open,
+and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope's
+'Homer,' two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak
+barometer, and a ball of twine are all that have vanished.”
+
+“What an extraordinary assortment!” I exclaimed.
+
+“Oh, the fellows evidently grabbed hold of everything they could get.”
+
+Holmes grunted from the sofa.
+
+“The county police ought to make something of that,” said he; “why, it
+is surely obvious that--”
+
+But I held up a warning finger.
+
+“You are here for a rest, my dear fellow. For Heaven's sake don't get
+started on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.”
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation towards
+the Colonel, and the talk drifted away into less dangerous channels.
+
+It was destined, however, that all my professional caution should be
+wasted, for next morning the problem obtruded itself upon us in such a
+way that it was impossible to ignore it, and our country visit took a
+turn which neither of us could have anticipated. We were at breakfast
+when the Colonel's butler rushed in with all his propriety shaken out of
+him.
+
+“Have you heard the news, sir?” he gasped. “At the Cunningham's sir!”
+
+“Burglary!” cried the Colonel, with his coffee-cup in mid-air.
+
+“Murder!”
+
+The Colonel whistled. “By Jove!” said he. “Who's killed, then? The J.P.
+or his son?”
+
+“Neither, sir. It was William the coachman. Shot through the heart, sir,
+and never spoke again.”
+
+“Who shot him, then?”
+
+“The burglar, sir. He was off like a shot and got clean away. He'd just
+broke in at the pantry window when William came on him and met his end
+in saving his master's property.”
+
+“What time?”
+
+“It was last night, sir, somewhere about twelve.”
+
+“Ah, then, we'll step over afterwards,” said the Colonel, coolly
+settling down to his breakfast again. “It's a baddish business,” he
+added when the butler had gone; “he's our leading man about here, is old
+Cunningham, and a very decent fellow too. He'll be cut up over this, for
+the man has been in his service for years and was a good servant. It's
+evidently the same villains who broke into Acton's.”
+
+“And stole that very singular collection,” said Holmes, thoughtfully.
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“Hum! It may prove the simplest matter in the world, but all the same
+at first glance this is just a little curious, is it not? A gang of
+burglars acting in the country might be expected to vary the scene of
+their operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same district within
+a few days. When you spoke last night of taking precautions I remember
+that it passed through my mind that this was probably the last parish
+in England to which the thief or thieves would be likely to turn their
+attention--which shows that I have still much to learn.”
+
+“I fancy it's some local practitioner,” said the Colonel. “In that case,
+of course, Acton's and Cunningham's are just the places he would go for,
+since they are far the largest about here.”
+
+“And richest?”
+
+“Well, they ought to be, but they've had a lawsuit for some years which
+has sucked the blood out of both of them, I fancy. Old Acton has some
+claim on half Cunningham's estate, and the lawyers have been at it with
+both hands.”
+
+“If it's a local villain there should not be much difficulty in running
+him down,” said Holmes with a yawn. “All right, Watson, I don't intend
+to meddle.”
+
+“Inspector Forrester, sir,” said the butler, throwing open the door.
+
+The official, a smart, keen-faced young fellow, stepped into the room.
+“Good-morning, Colonel,” said he; “I hope I don't intrude, but we hear
+that Mr. Holmes of Baker Street is here.”
+
+The Colonel waved his hand towards my friend, and the Inspector bowed.
+
+“We thought that perhaps you would care to step across, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“The fates are against you, Watson,” said he, laughing. “We were
+chatting about the matter when you came in, Inspector. Perhaps you
+can let us have a few details.” As he leaned back in his chair in the
+familiar attitude I knew that the case was hopeless.
+
+“We had no clue in the Acton affair. But here we have plenty to go on,
+and there's no doubt it is the same party in each case. The man was
+seen.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, sir. But he was off like a deer after the shot that killed poor
+William Kirwan was fired. Mr. Cunningham saw him from the bedroom
+window, and Mr. Alec Cunningham saw him from the back passage. It was
+quarter to twelve when the alarm broke out. Mr. Cunningham had just got
+into bed, and Mr. Alec was smoking a pipe in his dressing-gown. They
+both heard William the coachman calling for help, and Mr. Alec ran down
+to see what was the matter. The back door was open, and as he came to
+the foot of the stairs he saw two men wrestling together outside. One of
+them fired a shot, the other dropped, and the murderer rushed across the
+garden and over the hedge. Mr. Cunningham, looking out of his bedroom,
+saw the fellow as he gained the road, but lost sight of him at once. Mr.
+Alec stopped to see if he could help the dying man, and so the villain
+got clean away. Beyond the fact that he was a middle-sized man and
+dressed in some dark stuff, we have no personal clue; but we are making
+energetic inquiries, and if he is a stranger we shall soon find him
+out.”
+
+“What was this William doing there? Did he say anything before he died?”
+
+“Not a word. He lives at the lodge with his mother, and as he was a
+very faithful fellow we imagine that he walked up to the house with
+the intention of seeing that all was right there. Of course this Acton
+business has put every one on their guard. The robber must have just
+burst open the door--the lock has been forced--when William came upon
+him.”
+
+“Did William say anything to his mother before going out?”
+
+“She is very old and deaf, and we can get no information from her. The
+shock has made her half-witted, but I understand that she was never
+very bright. There is one very important circumstance, however. Look at
+this!”
+
+He took a small piece of torn paper from a note-book and spread it out
+upon his knee.
+
+“This was found between the finger and thumb of the dead man. It appears
+to be a fragment torn from a larger sheet. You will observe that the
+hour mentioned upon it is the very time at which the poor fellow met his
+fate. You see that his murderer might have torn the rest of the sheet
+from him or he might have taken this fragment from the murderer. It
+reads almost as though it were an appointment.”
+
+Holmes took up the scrap of paper, a fac-simile of which is here
+reproduced.
+
+          at quarter to twelve
+          learn what
+          maybe
+
+“Presuming that it is an appointment,” continued the Inspector, “it is
+of course a conceivable theory that this William Kirwan--though he had
+the reputation of being an honest man, may have been in league with the
+thief. He may have met him there, may even have helped him to break in
+the door, and then they may have fallen out between themselves.”
+
+“This writing is of extraordinary interest,” said Holmes, who had been
+examining it with intense concentration. “These are much deeper waters
+than I had thought.” He sank his head upon his hands, while the Inspector
+smiled at the effect which his case had had upon the famous London
+specialist.
+
+“Your last remark,” said Holmes, presently, “as to the possibility of
+there being an understanding between the burglar and the servant, and
+this being a note of appointment from one to the other, is an ingenious
+and not entirely impossible supposition. But this writing opens up--” He
+sank his head into his hands again and remained for some minutes in the
+deepest thought. When he raised his face again, I was surprised to see
+that his cheek was tinged with color, and his eyes as bright as before
+his illness. He sprang to his feet with all his old energy.
+
+“I'll tell you what,” said he, “I should like to have a quiet little
+glance into the details of this case. There is something in it which
+fascinates me extremely. If you will permit me, Colonel, I will leave my
+friend Watson and you, and I will step round with the Inspector to test
+the truth of one or two little fancies of mine. I will be with you again
+in half an hour.”
+
+An hour and half had elapsed before the Inspector returned alone.
+
+“Mr. Holmes is walking up and down in the field outside,” said he. “He
+wants us all four to go up to the house together.”
+
+“To Mr. Cunningham's?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. “I don't quite know, sir. Between
+ourselves, I think Mr. Holmes had not quite got over his illness yet.
+He's been behaving very queerly, and he is very much excited.”
+
+“I don't think you need alarm yourself,” said I. “I have usually found
+that there was method in his madness.”
+
+“Some folks might say there was madness in his method,” muttered the
+Inspector. “But he's all on fire to start, Colonel, so we had best go
+out if you are ready.”
+
+We found Holmes pacing up and down in the field, his chin sunk upon his
+breast, and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.
+
+“The matter grows in interest,” said he. “Watson, your country-trip has
+been a distinct success. I have had a charming morning.”
+
+“You have been up to the scene of the crime, I understand,” said the
+Colonel.
+
+“Yes; the Inspector and I have made quite a little reconnaissance
+together.”
+
+“Any success?”
+
+“Well, we have seen some very interesting things. I'll tell you what we
+did as we walk. First of all, we saw the body of this unfortunate man.
+He certainly died from a revolver wound as reported.”
+
+“Had you doubted it, then?”
+
+“Oh, it is as well to test everything. Our inspection was not wasted. We
+then had an interview with Mr. Cunningham and his son, who were able
+to point out the exact spot where the murderer had broken through the
+garden-hedge in his flight. That was of great interest.”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“Then we had a look at this poor fellow's mother. We could get no
+information from her, however, as she is very old and feeble.”
+
+“And what is the result of your investigations?”
+
+“The conviction that the crime is a very peculiar one. Perhaps our visit
+now may do something to make it less obscure. I think that we are both
+agreed, Inspector that the fragment of paper in the dead man's hand,
+bearing, as it does, the very hour of his death written upon it, is of
+extreme importance.”
+
+“It should give a clue, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“It does give a clue. Whoever wrote that note was the man who brought
+William Kirwan out of his bed at that hour. But where is the rest of
+that sheet of paper?”
+
+“I examined the ground carefully in the hope of finding it,” said the
+Inspector.
+
+“It was torn out of the dead man's hand. Why was some one so anxious to
+get possession of it? Because it incriminated him. And what would he do
+with it? Thrust it into his pocket, most likely, never noticing that a
+corner of it had been left in the grip of the corpse. If we could get
+the rest of that sheet it is obvious that we should have gone a long way
+towards solving the mystery.”
+
+“Yes, but how can we get at the criminal's pocket before we catch the
+criminal?”
+
+“Well, well, it was worth thinking over. Then there is another obvious
+point. The note was sent to William. The man who wrote it could not have
+taken it; otherwise, of course, he might have delivered his own message
+by word of mouth. Who brought the note, then? Or did it come through the
+post?”
+
+“I have made inquiries,” said the Inspector. “William received a letter
+by the afternoon post yesterday. The envelope was destroyed by him.”
+
+“Excellent!” cried Holmes, clapping the Inspector on the back. “You've
+seen the postman. It is a pleasure to work with you. Well, here is the
+lodge, and if you will come up, Colonel, I will show you the scene of
+the crime.”
+
+We passed the pretty cottage where the murdered man had lived, and
+walked up an oak-lined avenue to the fine old Queen Anne house, which
+bears the date of Malplaquet upon the lintel of the door. Holmes and
+the Inspector led us round it until we came to the side gate, which is
+separated by a stretch of garden from the hedge which lines the road. A
+constable was standing at the kitchen door.
+
+“Throw the door open, officer,” said Holmes. “Now, it was on those
+stairs that young Mr. Cunningham stood and saw the two men struggling
+just where we are. Old Mr. Cunningham was at that window--the second on
+the left--and he saw the fellow get away just to the left of that bush.
+Then Mr. Alec ran out and knelt beside the wounded man. The ground is
+very hard, you see, and there are no marks to guide us.” As he spoke two
+men came down the garden path, from round the angle of the house. The
+one was an elderly man, with a strong, deep-lined, heavy-eyed face; the
+other a dashing young fellow, whose bright, smiling expression and showy
+dress were in strange contrast with the business which had brought us
+there.
+
+“Still at it, then?” said he to Holmes. “I thought you Londoners were
+never at fault. You don't seem to be so very quick, after all.”
+
+“Ah, you must give us a little time,” said Holmes good-humoredly.
+
+“You'll want it,” said young Alec Cunningham. “Why, I don't see that we
+have any clue at all.”
+
+“There's only one,” answered the Inspector. “We thought that if we could
+only find--Good heavens, Mr. Holmes! What is the matter?”
+
+My poor friend's face had suddenly assumed the most dreadful expression.
+His eyes rolled upwards, his features writhed in agony, and with a
+suppressed groan he dropped on his face upon the ground. Horrified
+at the suddenness and severity of the attack, we carried him into the
+kitchen, where he lay back in a large chair, and breathed heavily for
+some minutes. Finally, with a shamefaced apology for his weakness, he
+rose once more.
+
+“Watson would tell you that I have only just recovered from a severe
+illness,” he explained. “I am liable to these sudden nervous attacks.”
+
+“Shall I send you home in my trap?” asked old Cunningham.
+
+“Well, since I am here, there is one point on which I should like to
+feel sure. We can very easily verify it.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival of
+this poor fellow William was not before, but after, the entrance of
+the burglar into the house. You appear to take it for granted that,
+although the door was forced, the robber never got in.”
+
+“I fancy that is quite obvious,” said Mr. Cunningham, gravely. “Why, my
+son Alec had not yet gone to bed, and he would certainly have heard any
+one moving about.”
+
+“Where was he sitting?”
+
+“I was smoking in my dressing-room.”
+
+“Which window is that?”
+
+“The last on the left next my father's.”
+
+“Both of your lamps were lit, of course?”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“There are some very singular points here,” said Holmes, smiling. “Is
+it not extraordinary that a burglar--and a burglar who had had some
+previous experience--should deliberately break into a house at a time
+when he could see from the lights that two of the family were still
+afoot?”
+
+“He must have been a cool hand.”
+
+“Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not have
+been driven to ask you for an explanation,” said young Mr. Alec. “But as
+to your ideas that the man had robbed the house before William tackled
+him, I think it a most absurd notion. Wouldn't we have found the place
+disarranged, and missed the things which he had taken?”
+
+“It depends on what the things were,” said Holmes. “You must remember
+that we are dealing with a burglar who is a very peculiar fellow, and
+who appears to work on lines of his own. Look, for example, at the
+queer lot of things which he took from Acton's--what was it?--a ball of
+string, a letter-weight, and I don't know what other odds and ends.”
+
+“Well, we are quite in your hands, Mr. Holmes,” said old Cunningham.
+“Anything which you or the Inspector may suggest will most certainly be
+done.”
+
+“In the first place,” said Holmes, “I should like you to offer a
+reward--coming from yourself, for the officials may take a little time
+before they would agree upon the sum, and these things cannot be done
+too promptly. I have jotted down the form here, if you would not mind
+signing it. Fifty pounds was quite enough, I thought.”
+
+“I would willingly give five hundred,” said the J.P., taking the slip
+of paper and the pencil which Holmes handed to him. “This is not quite
+correct, however,” he added, glancing over the document.
+
+“I wrote it rather hurriedly.”
+
+“You see you begin, 'Whereas, at about a quarter to one on Tuesday
+morning an attempt was made,' and so on. It was at a quarter to twelve,
+as a matter of fact.”
+
+I was pained at the mistake, for I knew how keenly Holmes would feel any
+slip of the kind. It was his specialty to be accurate as to fact, but
+his recent illness had shaken him, and this one little incident was
+enough to show me that he was still far from being himself. He was
+obviously embarrassed for an instant, while the Inspector raised his
+eyebrows, and Alec Cunningham burst into a laugh. The old gentleman
+corrected the mistake, however, and handed the paper back to Holmes.
+
+“Get it printed as soon as possible,” he said; “I think your idea is an
+excellent one.”
+
+Holmes put the slip of paper carefully away into his pocket-book.
+
+“And now,” said he, “it really would be a good thing that we should all
+go over the house together and make certain that this rather erratic
+burglar did not, after all, carry anything away with him.”
+
+Before entering, Holmes made an examination of the door which had been
+forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been thrust
+in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see the marks in the wood
+where it had been pushed in.
+
+“You don't use bars, then?” he asked.
+
+“We have never found it necessary.”
+
+“You don't keep a dog?”
+
+“Yes, but he is chained on the other side of the house.”
+
+“When do the servants go to bed?”
+
+“About ten.”
+
+“I understand that William was usually in bed also at that hour.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It is singular that on this particular night he should have been up.
+Now, I should be very glad if you would have the kindness to show us
+over the house, Mr. Cunningham.”
+
+A stone-flagged passage, with the kitchens branching away from it, led
+by a wooden staircase directly to the first floor of the house. It came
+out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which
+came up from the front hall. Out of this landing opened the drawing-room
+and several bedrooms, including those of Mr. Cunningham and his son.
+Holmes walked slowly, taking keen note of the architecture of the house.
+I could tell from his expression that he was on a hot scent, and yet
+I could not in the least imagine in what direction his inferences were
+leading him.
+
+“My good sir,” said Mr. Cunningham with some impatience, “this is surely
+very unnecessary. That is my room at the end of the stairs, and my
+son's is the one beyond it. I leave it to your judgment whether it was
+possible for the thief to have come up here without disturbing us.”
+
+“You must try round and get on a fresh scent, I fancy,” said the son
+with a rather malicious smile.
+
+“Still, I must ask you to humor me a little further. I should like, for
+example, to see how far the windows of the bedrooms command the front.
+This, I understand is your son's room”--he pushed open the door--“and
+that, I presume, is the dressing-room in which he sat smoking when the
+alarm was given. Where does the window of that look out to?” He stepped
+across the bedroom, pushed open the door, and glanced round the other
+chamber.
+
+“I hope that you are satisfied now?” said Mr. Cunningham, tartly.
+
+“Thank you, I think I have seen all that I wished.”
+
+“Then if it is really necessary we can go into my room.”
+
+“If it is not too much trouble.”
+
+The J. P. shrugged his shoulders, and led the way into his own chamber,
+which was a plainly furnished and commonplace room. As we moved across
+it in the direction of the window, Holmes fell back until he and I were
+the last of the group. Near the foot of the bed stood a dish of oranges
+and a carafe of water. As we passed it Holmes, to my unutterable
+astonishment, leaned over in front of me and deliberately knocked the
+whole thing over. The glass smashed into a thousand pieces and the fruit
+rolled about into every corner of the room.
+
+“You've done it now, Watson,” said he, coolly. “A pretty mess you've
+made of the carpet.”
+
+I stooped in some confusion and began to pick up the fruit,
+understanding for some reason my companion desired me to take the blame
+upon myself. The others did the same, and set the table on its legs
+again.
+
+“Hullo!” cried the Inspector, “where's he got to?”
+
+Holmes had disappeared.
+
+“Wait here an instant,” said young Alec Cunningham. “The fellow is off
+his head, in my opinion. Come with me, father, and see where he has got
+to!”
+
+They rushed out of the room, leaving the Inspector, the Colonel, and me
+staring at each other.
+
+“'Pon my word, I am inclined to agree with Master Alec,” said the
+official. “It may be the effect of this illness, but it seems to me
+that--”
+
+His words were cut short by a sudden scream of “Help! Help! Murder!”
+ With a thrill I recognized the voice of that of my friend. I rushed
+madly from the room on to the landing. The cries, which had sunk down
+into a hoarse, inarticulate shouting, came from the room which we had
+first visited. I dashed in, and on into the dressing-room beyond. The
+two Cunninghams were bending over the prostrate figure of Sherlock
+Holmes, the younger clutching his throat with both hands, while the
+elder seemed to be twisting one of his wrists. In an instant the three
+of us had torn them away from him, and Holmes staggered to his feet,
+very pale and evidently greatly exhausted.
+
+“Arrest these men, Inspector,” he gasped.
+
+“On what charge?”
+
+“That of murdering their coachman, William Kirwan.”
+
+The Inspector stared about him in bewilderment. “Oh, come now, Mr.
+Holmes,” said he at last, “I'm sure you don't really mean to--”
+
+“Tut, man, look at their faces!” cried Holmes, curtly.
+
+Never certainly have I seen a plainer confession of guilt upon human
+countenances. The older man seemed numbed and dazed with a heavy, sullen
+expression upon his strongly-marked face. The son, on the other hand,
+had dropped all that jaunty, dashing style which had characterized him,
+and the ferocity of a dangerous wild beast gleamed in his dark eyes
+and distorted his handsome features. The Inspector said nothing, but,
+stepping to the door, he blew his whistle. Two of his constables came at
+the call.
+
+“I have no alternative, Mr. Cunningham,” said he. “I trust that this may
+all prove to be an absurd mistake, but you can see that--Ah, would you?
+Drop it!” He struck out with his hand, and a revolver which the younger
+man was in the act of cocking clattered down upon the floor.
+
+“Keep that,” said Holmes, quietly putting his foot upon it; “you will
+find it useful at the trial. But this is what we really wanted.” He held
+up a little crumpled piece of paper.
+
+“The remainder of the sheet!” cried the Inspector.
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“And where was it?”
+
+“Where I was sure it must be. I'll make the whole matter clear to you
+presently. I think, Colonel, that you and Watson might return now, and
+I will be with you again in an hour at the furthest. The Inspector and I
+must have a word with the prisoners, but you will certainly see me back
+at luncheon time.”
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes was as good as his word, for about one o'clock he
+rejoined us in the Colonel's smoking-room. He was accompanied by a
+little elderly gentleman, who was introduced to me as the Mr. Acton
+whose house had been the scene of the original burglary.
+
+“I wished Mr. Acton to be present while I demonstrated this small matter
+to you,” said Holmes, “for it is natural that he should take a keen
+interest in the details. I am afraid, my dear Colonel, that you must
+regret the hour that you took in such a stormy petrel as I am.”
+
+“On the contrary,” answered the Colonel, warmly, “I consider it the
+greatest privilege to have been permitted to study your methods of
+working. I confess that they quite surpass my expectations, and that I
+am utterly unable to account for your result. I have not yet seen the
+vestige of a clue.”
+
+“I am afraid that my explanation may disillusion you but it has always
+been my habit to hide none of my methods, either from my friend Watson
+or from any one who might take an intelligent interest in them. But,
+first, as I am rather shaken by the knocking about which I had in
+the dressing-room, I think that I shall help myself to a dash of your
+brandy, Colonel. My strength had been rather tried of late.”
+
+“I trust that you had no more of those nervous attacks.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily. “We will come to that in its turn,”
+ said he. “I will lay an account of the case before you in its due order,
+showing you the various points which guided me in my decision. Pray
+interrupt me if there is any inference which is not perfectly clear to
+you.
+
+“It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able
+to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which
+vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of
+being concentrated. Now, in this case there was not the slightest doubt
+in my mind from the first that the key of the whole matter must be
+looked for in the scrap of paper in the dead man's hand.
+
+“Before going into this, I would draw your attention to the fact that,
+if Alec Cunningham's narrative was correct, and if the assailant, after
+shooting William Kirwan, had instantly fled, then it obviously could not
+be he who tore the paper from the dead man's hand. But if it was not he,
+it must have been Alec Cunningham himself, for by the time that the old
+man had descended several servants were upon the scene. The point is a
+simple one, but the Inspector had overlooked it because he had started
+with the supposition that these county magnates had had nothing to do
+with the matter. Now, I make a point of never having any prejudices,
+and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me, and so, in the
+very first stage of the investigation, I found myself looking a little
+askance at the part which had been played by Mr. Alec Cunningham.
+
+“And now I made a very careful examination of the corner of paper which
+the Inspector had submitted to us. It was at once clear to me that it
+formed part of a very remarkable document. Here it is. Do you not now
+observe something very suggestive about it?”
+
+“It has a very irregular look,” said the Colonel.
+
+“My dear sir,” cried Holmes, “there cannot be the least doubt in the
+world that it has been written by two persons doing alternate words.
+When I draw your attention to the strong t's of 'at' and 'to', and ask
+you to compare them with the weak ones of 'quarter' and 'twelve,' you
+will instantly recognize the fact. A very brief analysis of these
+four words would enable you to say with the utmost confidence that the
+'learn' and the 'maybe' are written in the stronger hand, and the 'what'
+in the weaker.”
+
+“By Jove, it's as clear as day!” cried the Colonel. “Why on earth should
+two men write a letter in such a fashion?”
+
+“Obviously the business was a bad one, and one of the men who distrusted
+the other was determined that, whatever was done, each should have an
+equal hand in it. Now, of the two men, it is clear that the one who
+wrote the 'at' and 'to' was the ringleader.”
+
+“How do you get at that?”
+
+“We might deduce it from the mere character of the one hand as compared
+with the other. But we have more assured reasons than that for supposing
+it. If you examine this scrap with attention you will come to the
+conclusion that the man with the stronger hand wrote all his words
+first, leaving blanks for the other to fill up. These blanks were not
+always sufficient, and you can see that the second man had a squeeze
+to fit his 'quarter' in between the 'at' and the 'to,' showing that the
+latter were already written. The man who wrote all his words first is
+undoubtedly the man who planned the affair.”
+
+“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton.
+
+“But very superficial,” said Holmes. “We come now, however, to a point
+which is of importance. You may not be aware that the deduction of a
+man's age from his writing is one which been has brought to considerable
+accuracy by experts. In normal cases one can place a man in his true
+decade with tolerable confidence. I say normal cases, because ill-health
+and physical weakness reproduce the signs of old age, even when the
+invalid is a youth. In this case, looking at the bold, strong hand of
+the one, and the rather broken-backed appearance of the other, which
+still retains its legibility although the t's have begun to lose their
+crossing, we can say that the one was a young man and the other was
+advanced in years without being positively decrepit.”
+
+“Excellent!” cried Mr. Acton again.
+
+“There is a further point, however, which is subtler and of greater
+interest. There is something in common between these hands. They belong
+to men who are blood-relatives. It may be most obvious to you in the
+Greek e's, but to me there are many small points which indicate the same
+thing. I have no doubt at all that a family mannerism can be traced in
+these two specimens of writing. I am only, of course, giving you
+the leading results now of my examination of the paper. There were
+twenty-three other deductions which would be of more interest to experts
+than to you. They all tend to deepen the impression upon my mind that
+the Cunninghams, father and son, had written this letter.
+
+“Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine into the
+details of the crime, and to see how far they would help us. I went up
+to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen. The
+wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to determine with absolute
+confidence, fired from a revolver at the distance of something over
+four yards. There was no powder-blackening on the clothes. Evidently,
+therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when he said that the two men were
+struggling when the shot was fired. Again, both father and son agreed
+as to the place where the man escaped into the road. At that point,
+however, as it happens, there is a broadish ditch, moist at the bottom.
+As there were no indications of bootmarks about this ditch, I was
+absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had again lied, but that
+there had never been any unknown man upon the scene at all.
+
+“And now I have to consider the motive of this singular crime. To get
+at this, I endeavored first of all to solve the reason of the original
+burglary at Mr. Acton's. I understood, from something which the Colonel
+told us, that a lawsuit had been going on between you, Mr. Acton, and
+the Cunninghams. Of course, it instantly occurred to me that they had
+broken into your library with the intention of getting at some document
+which might be of importance in the case.”
+
+“Precisely so,” said Mr. Acton. “There can be no possible doubt as to
+their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half of their present
+estate, and if they could have found a single paper--which, fortunately,
+was in the strong-box of my solicitors--they would undoubtedly have
+crippled our case.”
+
+“There you are,” said Holmes, smiling. “It was a dangerous, reckless
+attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having
+found nothing they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be
+an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could
+lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that
+was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part
+of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn it out of the dead man's
+hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of
+his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it? The only question
+was whether it was still there. It was worth an effort to find out, and
+for that object we all went up to the house.
+
+“The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the
+kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance that they
+should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise they
+would naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was about to
+tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by the luckiest
+chance in the world, I tumbled down in a sort of fit and so changed the
+conversation.
+
+“Good heavens!” cried the Colonel, laughing, “do you mean to say all our
+sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?”
+
+“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,” cried I, looking in
+amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new phase
+of his astuteness.
+
+“It is an art which is often useful,” said he. “When I recovered I
+managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of ingenuity,
+to get old Cunningham to write the word 'twelve,' so that I might
+compare it with the 'twelve' upon the paper.”
+
+“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed.
+
+“I could see that you were commiserating me over my weakness,” said
+Holmes, laughing. “I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain which
+I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and having entered
+the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind the door, I
+contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage their attention for the
+moment, and slipped back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the
+paper, however--which was, as I had expected, in one of them--when the
+two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered
+me then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel
+that young man's grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my
+wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that
+I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute
+security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.
+
+“I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive of
+the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon,
+ready to blow out his own or anybody else's brains if he could have got
+to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against him was so
+strong he lost all heart and made a clean breast of everything. It seems
+that William had secretly followed his two masters on the night when
+they made their raid upon Mr. Acton's, and having thus got them into
+his power, proceeded, under threats of exposure, to levy blackmail upon
+them. Mr. Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games of that
+sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part to see in the
+burglary scare which was convulsing the country side an opportunity of
+plausibly getting rid of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up
+and shot, and had they only got the whole of the note and paid a little
+more attention to detail in the accessories, it is very possible that
+suspicion might never have been aroused.”
+
+“And the note?” I asked.
+
+Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.
+
+     If you will only come round at quarter to twelve
+     to the east gate you will learn what
+     will very much surprise you and maybe [sic]
+     be of the greatest service to you and also
+     to Annie Morrison. But say nothing to anyone
+     upon the matter.
+
+
+“It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,” said he. “Of
+course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between Alec
+Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The results shows that
+the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that you cannot fail to be
+delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p's and in the tails
+of the g's. The absence of the i-dots in the old man's writing is also
+most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet rest in the country has
+been a distinct success, and I shall certainly return much invigorated
+to Baker Street to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure VII. The Crooked Man
+
+
+One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own
+hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day's work
+had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the
+sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told me that the
+servants had also retired. I had risen from my seat and was knocking out
+the ashes of my pipe when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell.
+
+I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve. This could not be
+a visitor at so late an hour. A patient, evidently, and possibly an
+all-night sitting. With a wry face I went out into the hall and opened
+the door. To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my
+step.
+
+“Ah, Watson,” said he, “I hoped that I might not be too late to catch
+you.”
+
+“My dear fellow, pray come in.”
+
+“You look surprised, and no wonder! Relieved, too, I fancy! Hum! You
+still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days then! There's no
+mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It's easy to tell that you
+have been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson. You'll never pass as
+a pure-bred civilian as long as you keep that habit of carrying your
+handkerchief in your sleeve. Could you put me up to-night?”
+
+“With pleasure.”
+
+“You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and I see that you
+have no gentleman visitor at present. Your hat-stand proclaims as much.”
+
+“I shall be delighted if you will stay.”
+
+“Thank you. I'll fill the vacant peg then. Sorry to see that you've had
+the British workman in the house. He's a token of evil. Not the drains,
+I hope?”
+
+“No, the gas.”
+
+“Ah! He has left two nail-marks from his boot upon your linoleum
+just where the light strikes it. No, thank you, I had some supper at
+Waterloo, but I'll smoke a pipe with you with pleasure.”
+
+I handed him my pouch, and he seated himself opposite to me and smoked
+for some time in silence. I was well aware that nothing but business
+of importance would have brought him to me at such an hour, so I waited
+patiently until he should come round to it.
+
+“I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,” said he,
+glancing very keenly across at me.
+
+“Yes, I've had a busy day,” I answered. “It may seem very foolish in
+your eyes,” I added, “but really I don't know how you deduced it.”
+
+Holmes chuckled to himself.
+
+“I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he.
+“When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you
+use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by
+no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to
+justify the hansom.”
+
+“Excellent!” I cried.
+
+“Elementary,” said he. “It is one of those instances where the reasoner
+can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because
+the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the
+deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of
+some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious,
+depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors
+in the problem which are never imparted to the reader. Now, at present
+I am in the position of these same readers, for I hold in this hand
+several threads of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a
+man's brain, and yet I lack the one or two which are needful to complete
+my theory. But I'll have them, Watson, I'll have them!” His eyes kindled
+and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant only.
+When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure
+which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.
+
+“The problem presents features of interest,” said he. “I may even say
+exceptional features of interest. I have already looked into the matter,
+and have come, as I think, within sight of my solution. If you could
+accompany me in that last step you might be of considerable service to
+me.”
+
+“I should be delighted.”
+
+“Could you go as far as Aldershot to-morrow?”
+
+“I have no doubt Jackson would take my practice.”
+
+“Very good. I want to start by the 11.10 from Waterloo.”
+
+“That would give me time.”
+
+“Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a sketch of what has
+happened, and of what remains to be done.”
+
+“I was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful now.”
+
+“I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting
+anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you may even have
+read some account of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel
+Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I am investigating.”
+
+“I have heard nothing of it.”
+
+“It has not excited much attention yet, except locally. The facts are
+only two days old. Briefly they are these:
+
+“The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish
+regiments in the British army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the
+Mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every possible
+occasion. It was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay,
+a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to
+commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so
+lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a musket.
+
+“Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and
+his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a
+former color-sergeant in the same corps. There was, therefore, as can
+be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple (for
+they were still young) found themselves in their new surroundings. They
+appear, however, to have quickly adapted themselves, and Mrs. Barclay
+has always, I understand, been as popular with the ladies of the
+regiment as her husband was with his brother officers. I may add that
+she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now, when she has been
+married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking and
+queenly appearance.
+
+“Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy
+one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he
+has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole,
+he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than his
+wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from her for
+a day. She, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful, was less
+obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in the regiment as
+the very model of a middle-aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in
+their mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was to
+follow.
+
+“Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in his
+character. He was a dashing, jovial old soldier in his usual mood,
+but there were occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable
+of considerable violence and vindictiveness. This side of his nature,
+however, appears never to have been turned towards his wife. Another
+fact, which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other
+officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort of depression
+which came upon him at times. As the major expressed it, the smile had
+often been struck from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand, when he
+has been joining the gayeties and chaff of the mess-table. For days on
+end, when the mood was on him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom.
+This and a certain tinge of superstition were the only unusual traits
+in his character which his brother officers had observed. The latter
+peculiarity took the form of a dislike to being left alone, especially
+after dark. This puerile feature in a nature which was conspicuously
+manly had often given rise to comment and conjecture.
+
+“The first battalion of the Royal Munsters (which is the old 117th) has
+been stationed at Aldershot for some years. The married officers live
+out of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time occupied a
+villa called Lachine, about half a mile from the north camp. The house
+stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it is not more than
+thirty yards from the high-road. A coachman and two maids form the
+staff of servants. These with their master and mistress were the sole
+occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual
+for them to have resident visitors.
+
+“Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on the evening of
+last Monday.”
+
+“Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church,
+and had interested herself very much in the establishment of the Guild
+of St. George, which was formed in connection with the Watt Street
+Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing.
+A meeting of the Guild had been held that evening at eight, and Mrs.
+Barclay had hurried over her dinner in order to be present at it. When
+leaving the house she was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace
+remark to her husband, and to assure him that she would be back before
+very long. She then called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives
+in the next villa, and the two went off together to their meeting. It
+lasted forty minutes, and at a quarter-past nine Mrs. Barclay returned
+home, having left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed.
+
+“There is a room which is used as a morning-room at Lachine. This faces
+the road and opens by a large glass folding-door on to the lawn. The
+lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided from the highway by
+a low wall with an iron rail above it. It was into this room that Mrs.
+Barclay went upon her return. The blinds were not down, for the room was
+seldom used in the evening, but Mrs. Barclay herself lit the lamp and
+then rang the bell, asking Jane Stewart, the house-maid, to bring her
+a cup of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits. The Colonel
+had been sitting in the dining-room, but hearing that his wife had
+returned he joined her in the morning-room. The coachman saw him cross
+the hall and enter it. He was never seen again alive.
+
+“The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the end of ten
+minutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, was surprised to
+hear the voices of her master and mistress in furious altercation. She
+knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned the handle, but
+only to find that the door was locked upon the inside. Naturally enough
+she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the coachman came
+up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was still raging.
+They all agreed that only two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay
+and of his wife. Barclay's remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none
+of them were audible to the listeners. The lady's, on the other hand,
+were most bitter, and when she raised her voice could be plainly heard.
+'You coward!' she repeated over and over again. 'What can be done now?
+What can be done now? Give me back my life. I will never so much as
+breathe the same air with you again! You coward! You coward!' Those were
+scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man's
+voice, with a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman. Convinced
+that some tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door and
+strove to force it, while scream after scream issued from within. He was
+unable, however, to make his way in, and the maids were too distracted
+with fear to be of any assistance to him. A sudden thought struck him,
+however, and he ran through the hall door and round to the lawn upon
+which the long French windows open. One side of the window was open,
+which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and he passed
+without difficulty into the room. His mistress had ceased to scream and
+was stretched insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over
+the side of an arm-chair, and his head upon the ground near the corner
+of the fender, was lying the unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of
+his own blood.
+
+“Naturally, the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do
+nothing for his master, was to open the door. But here an unexpected and
+singular difficulty presented itself. The key was not in the inner side
+of the door, nor could he find it anywhere in the room. He went out
+again, therefore, through the window, and having obtained the help of
+a policeman and of a medical man, he returned. The lady, against whom
+naturally the strongest suspicion rested, was removed to her room, still
+in a state of insensibility. The Colonel's body was then placed upon the
+sofa, and a careful examination made of the scene of the tragedy.
+
+“The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was found
+to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the back part of his head,
+which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon.
+Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have been. Upon the
+floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club of hard carved wood
+with a bone handle. The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons
+brought from the different countries in which he had fought, and it
+is conjectured by the police that his club was among his trophies. The
+servants deny having seen it before, but among the numerous curiosities
+in the house it is possible that it may have been overlooked. Nothing
+else of importance was discovered in the room by the police, save the
+inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs. Barclay's person nor upon that
+of the victim nor in any part of the room was the missing key to
+be found. The door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from
+Aldershot.
+
+“That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the Tuesday morning I,
+at the request of Major Murphy, went down to Aldershot to supplement
+the efforts of the police. I think that you will acknowledge that the
+problem was already one of interest, but my observations soon made me
+realize that it was in truth much more extraordinary than would at first
+sight appear.
+
+“Before examining the room I cross-questioned the servants, but only
+succeeded in eliciting the facts which I have already stated. One other
+detail of interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the housemaid. You
+will remember that on hearing the sound of the quarrel she descended and
+returned with the other servants. On that first occasion, when she was
+alone, she says that the voices of her master and mistress were sunk
+so low that she could hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones
+rather than their words that they had fallen out. On my pressing her,
+however, she remembered that she heard the word David uttered twice by
+the lady. The point is of the utmost importance as guiding us towards
+the reason of the sudden quarrel. The Colonel's name, you remember, was
+James.
+
+“There was one thing in the case which had made the deepest impression
+both upon the servants and the police. This was the contortion of the
+Colonel's face. It had set, according to their account, into the most
+dreadful expression of fear and horror which a human countenance is
+capable of assuming. More than one person fainted at the mere sight
+of him, so terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that he had
+foreseen his fate, and that it had caused him the utmost horror. This,
+of course, fitted in well enough with the police theory, if the Colonel
+could have seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him. Nor was
+the fact of the wound being on the back of his head a fatal objection to
+this, as he might have turned to avoid the blow. No information could
+be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute
+attack of brain-fever.
+
+“From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who you remember went out
+that evening with Mrs. Barclay, denied having any knowledge of what it
+was which had caused the ill-humor in which her companion had returned.
+
+“Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over them,
+trying to separate those which were crucial from others which were
+merely incidental. There could be no question that the most distinctive
+and suggestive point in the case was the singular disappearance of the
+door-key. A most careful search had failed to discover it in the room.
+Therefore it must have been taken from it. But neither the Colonel
+nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it. That was perfectly clear.
+Therefore a third person must have entered the room. And that third
+person could only have come in through the window. It seemed to me that
+a careful examination of the room and the lawn might possibly reveal
+some traces of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson.
+There was not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry. And it
+ended by my discovering traces, but very different ones from those which
+I had expected. There had been a man in the room, and he had crossed
+the lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain five very clear
+impressions of his foot-marks: one in the roadway itself, at the point
+where he had climbed the low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint
+ones upon the stained boards near the window where he had entered.
+He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for his toe-marks were much
+deeper than his heels. But it was not the man who surprised me. It was
+his companion.”
+
+“His companion!”
+
+Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his pocket and
+carefully unfolded it upon his knee.
+
+“What do you make of that?” he asked.
+
+The paper was covered with the tracings of the foot-marks of some small
+animal. It had five well-marked foot-pads, an indication of long nails,
+and the whole print might be nearly as large as a dessert-spoon.
+
+“It's a dog,” said I.
+
+“Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I found distinct
+traces that this creature had done so.”
+
+“A monkey, then?”
+
+“But it is not the print of a monkey.”
+
+“What can it be, then?”
+
+“Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar
+with. I have tried to reconstruct it from the measurements. Here are
+four prints where the beast has been standing motionless. You see that
+it is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind. Add to that
+the length of neck and head, and you get a creature not much less than
+two feet long--probably more if there is any tail. But now observe this
+other measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have the length
+of its stride. In each case it is only about three inches. You have an
+indication, you see, of a long body with very short legs attached to it.
+It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its hair behind it.
+But its general shape must be what I have indicated, and it can run up a
+curtain, and it is carnivorous.”
+
+“How do you deduce that?”
+
+“Because it ran up the curtain. A canary's cage was hanging in the
+window, and its aim seems to have been to get at the bird.”
+
+“Then what was the beast?”
+
+“Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way towards solving
+the case. On the whole, it was probably some creature of the weasel and
+stoat tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that I have seen.”
+
+“But what had it to do with the crime?”
+
+“That, also, is still obscure. But we have learned a good deal, you
+perceive. We know that a man stood in the road looking at the quarrel
+between the Barclays--the blinds were up and the room lighted. We know,
+also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the room, accompanied by a
+strange animal, and that he either struck the Colonel or, as is equally
+possible, that the Colonel fell down from sheer fright at the sight of
+him, and cut his head on the corner of the fender. Finally, we have the
+curious fact that the intruder carried away the key with him when he
+left.”
+
+“Your discoveries seem to have left the business more obscure that it
+was before,” said I.
+
+“Quite so. They undoubtedly showed that the affair was much deeper than
+was at first conjectured. I thought the matter over, and I came to
+the conclusion that I must approach the case from another aspect. But
+really, Watson, I am keeping you up, and I might just as well tell you
+all this on our way to Aldershot to-morrow.”
+
+“Thank you, you have gone rather too far to stop.”
+
+“It is quite certain that when Mrs. Barclay left the house at half-past
+seven she was on good terms with her husband. She was never, as I think
+I have said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was heard by the
+coachman chatting with the Colonel in a friendly fashion. Now, it was
+equally certain that, immediately on her return, she had gone to the
+room in which she was least likely to see her husband, had flown to tea
+as an agitated woman will, and finally, on his coming in to her, had
+broken into violent recriminations. Therefore something had occurred
+between seven-thirty and nine o'clock which had completely altered her
+feelings towards him. But Miss Morrison had been with her during the
+whole of that hour and a half. It was absolutely certain, therefore, in
+spite of her denial, that she must know something of the matter.
+
+“My first conjecture was, that possibly there had been some passages
+between this young lady and the old soldier, which the former had now
+confessed to the wife. That would account for the angry return, and
+also for the girl's denial that anything had occurred. Nor would it be
+entirely incompatible with most of the words overheard. But there was the
+reference to David, and there was the known affection of the Colonel for
+his wife, to weigh against it, to say nothing of the tragic intrusion
+of this other man, which might, of course, be entirely disconnected with
+what had gone before. It was not easy to pick one's steps, but, on the
+whole, I was inclined to dismiss the idea that there had been anything
+between the Colonel and Miss Morrison, but more than ever convinced that
+the young lady held the clue as to what it was which had turned Mrs.
+Barclay to hatred of her husband. I took the obvious course, therefore,
+of calling upon Miss M., of explaining to her that I was perfectly
+certain that she held the facts in her possession, and of assuring her
+that her friend, Mrs. Barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a
+capital charge unless the matter were cleared up.
+
+“Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes
+and blond hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and
+common-sense. She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and
+then, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
+remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit.
+
+“'I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a
+promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when
+so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor
+darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my
+promise. I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening.
+
+“'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine
+o'clock. On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which is
+a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp in it, upon the
+left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming
+towards us with his back very bent, and something like a box slung over
+one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed, for he carried his
+head low and walked with his knees bent. We were passing him when he
+raised his face to look at us in the circle of light thrown by the lamp,
+and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, “My
+God, it's Nancy!” Mrs. Barclay turned as white as death, and would have
+fallen down had the dreadful-looking creature not caught hold of her. I
+was going to call for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite
+civilly to the fellow.
+
+“'“I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry,” said she, in a
+shaking voice.
+
+“'“So I have,” said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he said
+it in. He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that
+comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were shot with
+gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple.
+
+“'“Just walk on a little way, dear,” said Mrs. Barclay; “I want to have
+a word with this man. There is nothing to be afraid of.” She tried to
+speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly get her
+words out for the trembling of her lips.
+
+“'I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.
+Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the
+crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched fists
+in the air as if he were mad with rage. She never said a word until we
+were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and begged me to
+tell no one what had happened.
+
+“'“It's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,”
+ said she. When I promised her I would say nothing she kissed me, and I
+have never seen her since. I have told you now the whole truth, and if
+I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize then the
+danger in which my dear friend stood. I know that it can only be to her
+advantage that everything should be known.'
+
+“There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it was
+like a light on a dark night. Everything which had been disconnected
+before began at once to assume its true place, and I had a shadowy
+presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My next step obviously was
+to find the man who had produced such a remarkable impression upon Mrs.
+Barclay. If he were still in Aldershot it should not be a very difficult
+matter. There are not such a very great number of civilians, and a
+deformed man was sure to have attracted attention. I spent a day in the
+search, and by evening--this very evening, Watson--I had run him down.
+The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same
+street in which the ladies met him. He has only been five days in the
+place. In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting
+gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade a conjurer and performer,
+going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a little
+entertainment at each. He carries some creature about with him in that
+box; about which the landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation,
+for she had never seen an animal like it. He uses it in some of his
+tricks according to her account. So much the woman was able to tell me,
+and also that it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted he was,
+and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes, and that for the last
+two nights she had heard him groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He
+was all right, as far as money went, but in his deposit he had given her
+what looked like a bad florin. She showed it to me, Watson, and it was
+an Indian rupee.
+
+“So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I
+want you. It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from this
+man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel between
+husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and that
+the creature which he carried in his box got loose. That is all very
+certain. But he is the only person in this world who can tell us exactly
+what happened in that room.”
+
+“And you intend to ask him?”
+
+“Most certainly--but in the presence of a witness.”
+
+“And I am the witness?”
+
+“If you will be so good. If he can clear the matter up, well and good.
+If he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a warrant.”
+
+“But how do you know he'll be there when we return?”
+
+“You may be sure that I took some precautions. I have one of my Baker
+Street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like a burr,
+go where he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street to-morrow, Watson,
+and meanwhile I should be the criminal myself if I kept you out of bed
+any longer.”
+
+It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy, and,
+under my companion's guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson Street.
+In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I could easily see
+that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself
+tingling with that half-sporting, half-intellectual pleasure which
+I invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his
+investigations.
+
+“This is the street,” said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare
+lined with plain two-storied brick houses. “Ah, here is Simpson to
+report.”
+
+“He's in all right, Mr. Holmes,” cried a small street Arab, running up
+to us.
+
+“Good, Simpson!” said Holmes, patting him on the head. “Come along,
+Watson. This is the house.” He sent in his card with a message that he
+had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to face
+with the man whom we had come to see. In spite of the warm weather he
+was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an oven. The
+man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way which gave an
+indescribable impression of deformity; but the face which he turned
+towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some time have been
+remarkable for its beauty. He looked suspiciously at us now out of
+yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or rising, he waved
+towards two chairs.
+
+“Mr. Henry Wood, late of India, I believe,” said Holmes, affably. “I've
+come over this little matter of Colonel Barclay's death.”
+
+“What should I know about that?”
+
+“That's what I want to ascertain. You know, I suppose, that unless the
+matter is cleared up, Mrs. Barclay, who is an old friend of yours, will
+in all probability be tried for murder.”
+
+The man gave a violent start.
+
+“I don't know who you are,” he cried, “nor how you come to know what you
+do know, but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?”
+
+“Why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest
+her.”
+
+“My God! Are you in the police yourself?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What business is it of yours, then?”
+
+“It's every man's business to see justice done.”
+
+“You can take my word that she is innocent.”
+
+“Then you are guilty.”
+
+“No, I am not.”
+
+“Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?”
+
+“It was a just providence that killed him. But, mind you this, that if
+I had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he would have
+had no more than his due from my hands. If his own guilty conscience had
+not struck him down it is likely enough that I might have had his blood
+upon my soul. You want me to tell the story. Well, I don't know why I
+shouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be ashamed of it.
+
+“It was in this way, sir. You see me now with my back like a camel and
+my ribs all awry, but there was a time when Corporal Henry Wood was the
+smartest man in the 117th foot. We were in India then, in cantonments,
+at a place we'll call Bhurtee. Barclay, who died the other day, was
+sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle of the regiment,
+ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of life between her
+lips, was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the color-sergeant. There were
+two men that loved her, and one that she loved, and you'll smile when
+you look at this poor thing huddled before the fire, and hear me say
+that it was for my good looks that she loved me.
+
+“Well, though I had her heart, her father was set upon her marrying
+Barclay. I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an
+education, and was already marked for the sword-belt. But the girl held
+true to me, and it seemed that I would have had her when the Mutiny
+broke out, and all hell was loose in the country.
+
+“We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery of
+artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women-folk.
+There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were as keen as a set
+of terriers round a rat-cage. About the second week of it our water gave
+out, and it was a question whether we could communicate with General
+Neill's column, which was moving up country. It was our only chance, for
+we could not hope to fight our way out with all the women and children,
+so I volunteered to go out and to warn General Neill of our danger. My
+offer was accepted, and I talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who was
+supposed to know the ground better than any other man, and who drew up
+a route by which I might get through the rebel lines. At ten o'clock the
+same night I started off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to
+save, but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over the
+wall that night.
+
+“My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen
+me from the enemy's sentries; but as I crept round the corner of it
+I walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark
+waiting for me. In an instant I was stunned with a blow and bound hand
+and foot. But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head, for as
+I came to and listened to as much as I could understand of their talk,
+I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man who had arranged
+the way that I was to take, had betrayed me by means of a native servant
+into the hands of the enemy.
+
+“Well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it. You know now
+what James Barclay was capable of. Bhurtee was relieved by Neill next
+day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and it was
+many a long year before ever I saw a white face again. I was tortured
+and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again. You can see
+for yourselves the state in which I was left. Some of them that fled
+into Nepaul took me with them, and then afterwards I was up past
+Darjeeling. The hill-folk up there murdered the rebels who had me, and
+I became their slave for a time until I escaped; but instead of going
+south I had to go north, until I found myself among the Afghans. There
+I wandered about for many a year, and at last came back to the Punjab,
+where I lived mostly among the natives and picked up a living by the
+conjuring tricks that I had learned. What use was it for me, a wretched
+cripple, to go back to England or to make myself known to my old
+comrades? Even my wish for revenge would not make me do that. I had
+rather that Nancy and my old pals should think of Harry Wood as having
+died with a straight back, than see him living and crawling with a stick
+like a chimpanzee. They never doubted that I was dead, and I meant that
+they never should. I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he
+was rising rapidly in the regiment, but even that did not make me speak.
+
+“But when one gets old one has a longing for home. For years I've been
+dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England. At last I
+determined to see them before I died. I saved enough to bring me across,
+and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I know their ways and
+how to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me.”
+
+“Your narrative is most interesting,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I have
+already heard of your meeting with Mrs. Barclay, and your mutual
+recognition. You then, as I understand, followed her home and saw
+through the window an altercation between her husband and her, in which
+she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth. Your own feelings
+overcame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon them.”
+
+“I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a man
+look before, and over he went with his head on the fender. But he was
+dead before he fell. I read death on his face as plain as I can read
+that text over the fire. The bare sight of me was like a bullet through
+his guilty heart.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her hand,
+intending to unlock it and get help. But as I was doing it it seemed to
+me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing might look black
+against me, and any way my secret would be out if I were taken. In my
+haste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped my stick while I was
+chasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain. When I got him into his box,
+from which he had slipped, I was off as fast as I could run.”
+
+“Who's Teddy?” asked Holmes.
+
+The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in
+the corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown
+creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose,
+and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal's head.
+
+“It's a mongoose,” I cried.
+
+“Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,” said the
+man. “Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on
+cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every
+night to please the folk in the canteen.
+
+“Any other point, sir?”
+
+“Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove to
+be in serious trouble.”
+
+“In that case, of course, I'd come forward.”
+
+“But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a
+dead man, foully as he has acted. You have at least the satisfaction
+of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly
+reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on the
+other side of the street. Good-by, Wood. I want to learn if anything has
+happened since yesterday.”
+
+We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.
+
+“Ah, Holmes,” he said: “I suppose you have heard that all this fuss has
+come to nothing?”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively
+that death was due to apoplexy. You see it was quite a simple case after
+all.”
+
+“Oh, remarkably superficial,” said Holmes, smiling. “Come, Watson, I
+don't think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more.”
+
+“There's one thing,” said I, as we walked down to the station. “If the
+husband's name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this talk
+about David?”
+
+“That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had
+I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was
+evidently a term of reproach.”
+
+“Of reproach?”
+
+“Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one occasion
+in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You remember the small
+affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My biblical knowledge is a trifle rusty,
+I fear, but you will find the story in the first or second of Samuel.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure VIII. The Resident Patient
+
+
+In glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I
+have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my
+friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I
+have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer
+my purpose. For in those cases in which Holmes has performed some tour
+de force of analytical reasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his
+peculiar methods of investigation, the facts themselves have often been
+so slight or so commonplace that I could not feel justified in laying
+them before the public. On the other hand, it has frequently happened
+that he has been concerned in some research where the facts have been of
+the most remarkable and dramatic character, but where the share which he
+has himself taken in determining their causes has been less pronounced
+than I, as his biographer, could wish. The small matter which I have
+chronicled under the heading of “A Study in Scarlet,” and that other
+later one connected with the loss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as
+examples of this Scylla and Charybdis which are forever threatening the
+historian. It may be that in the business of which I am now about to
+write the part which my friend played is not sufficiently accentuated;
+and yet the whole train of circumstances is so remarkable that I cannot
+bring myself to omit it entirely from this series.
+
+It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were half-drawn,
+and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter
+which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of
+service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and
+a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. But the paper was uninteresting.
+Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the
+glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank
+account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion,
+neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to
+him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with
+his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to
+every little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of
+Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was
+when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his
+brother of the country.
+
+Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed
+aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a
+brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.
+
+“You are right, Watson,” said he. “It does seem a very preposterous way
+of settling a dispute.”
+
+“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then, suddenly realizing how
+he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and
+stared at him in blank amazement.
+
+“What is this, Holmes?” I cried. “This is beyond anything which I could
+have imagined.”
+
+He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
+
+“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago, when I read you the
+passage in one of Poe's sketches, in which a close reasoner follows the
+unspoken thought of his companion, you were inclined to treat the
+matter as a mere tour de force of the author. On my remarking that I
+was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed
+incredulity.”
+
+“Oh, no!”
+
+“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
+eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train
+of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it
+off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in
+rapport with you.”
+
+But I was still far from satisfied. “In the example which you read to
+me,” said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the
+man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap
+of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated
+quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?”
+
+“You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the
+means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful
+servants.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
+features?”
+
+“Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself
+recall how your reverie commenced?”
+
+“No, I cannot.”
+
+“Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the
+action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with
+a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your
+newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in
+your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead
+very far. Your eyes turned across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward
+Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced up at
+the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking
+that if the portrait were framed it would just cover that bare space and
+correspond with Gordon's picture over there.”
+
+“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.
+
+“So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went
+back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying
+the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but
+you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were
+recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you
+could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook
+on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember
+you expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was
+received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about
+it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that
+also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture,
+I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when
+I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands
+clinched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry
+which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then,
+again, your face grew sadder; you shook your head. You were dwelling
+upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole
+towards your own old wound, and a smile quivered on your lips,
+which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling
+international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point
+I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that
+all my deductions had been correct.”
+
+“Absolutely!” said I. “And now that you have explained it, I confess
+that I am as amazed as before.”
+
+“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not
+have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity
+the other day. But the evening has brought a breeze with it. What do you
+say to a ramble through London?”
+
+I was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. For
+three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing
+kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the
+Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of detail
+and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled. It was ten
+o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham was waiting at
+our door.
+
+“Hum! A doctor's--general practitioner, I perceive,” said Holmes. “Not
+been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come to consult
+us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!”
+
+I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes's methods to be able to follow
+his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the various
+medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the lamplight
+inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift deduction.
+The light in our window above showed that this late visit was indeed
+intended for us. With some curiosity as to what could have sent a
+brother medico to us at such an hour, I followed Holmes into our
+sanctum.
+
+A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by the
+fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three or four
+and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of a life
+which has sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His manner
+was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and the thin
+white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was that of an
+artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and sombre--a black
+frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of color about his necktie.
+
+“Good-evening, doctor,” said Holmes, cheerily. “I am glad to see that
+you have only been waiting a very few minutes.”
+
+“You spoke to my coachman, then?”
+
+“No, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. Pray resume your
+seat and let me know how I can serve you.”
+
+“My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan,” said our visitor, “and I live at
+403 Brook Street.”
+
+“Are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous lesions?” I
+asked.
+
+His pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work was known
+to me.
+
+“I so seldom hear of the work that I thought it was quite dead,” said
+he. “My publishers gave me a most discouraging account of its sale. You
+are yourself, I presume, a medical man?”
+
+“A retired army surgeon.”
+
+“My own hobby has always been nervous disease. I should wish to make it
+an absolute specialty, but, of course, a man must take what he can get
+at first. This, however, is beside the question, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
+and I quite appreciate how valuable your time is. The fact is that a
+very singular train of events has occurred recently at my house in Brook
+Street, and to-night they came to such a head that I felt it was quite
+impossible for me to wait another hour before asking for your advice and
+assistance.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes sat down and lit his pipe. “You are very welcome
+to both,” said he. “Pray let me have a detailed account of what the
+circumstances are which have disturbed you.”
+
+“One or two of them are so trivial,” said Dr. Trevelyan, “that really
+I am almost ashamed to mention them. But the matter is so inexplicable,
+and the recent turn which it has taken is so elaborate, that I shall
+lay it all before you, and you shall judge what is essential and what is
+not.
+
+“I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own college
+career. I am a London University man, you know, and I am sure that you
+will not think that I am unduly singing my own praises if I say that my
+student career was considered by my professors to be a very promising
+one. After I had graduated I continued to devote myself to research,
+occupying a minor position in King's College Hospital, and I was
+fortunate enough to excite considerable interest by my research into the
+pathology of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce Pinkerton prize and
+medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to which your friend has
+just alluded. I should not go too far if I were to say that there was a
+general impression at that time that a distinguished career lay before
+me.
+
+“But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As you
+will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is compelled to
+start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish Square quarter, all
+of which entail enormous rents and furnishing expenses. Besides this
+preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to keep himself for some years,
+and to hire a presentable carriage and horse. To do this was quite
+beyond my power, and I could only hope that by economy I might in ten
+years' time save enough to enable me to put up my plate. Suddenly,
+however, an unexpected incident opened up quite a new prospect to me.
+
+“This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington, who was a
+complete stranger to me. He came up to my room one morning, and plunged
+into business in an instant.
+
+“'You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a career
+and won a great prize lately?' said he.
+
+“I bowed.
+
+“'Answer me frankly,' he continued, 'for you will find it to your
+interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a successful
+man. Have you the tact?'
+
+“I could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.
+
+“'I trust that I have my share,' I said.
+
+“'Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?'
+
+“'Really, sir!' I cried.
+
+“'Quite right! That's all right! But I was bound to ask. With all these
+qualities, why are you not in practice?'
+
+“I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+“'Come, come!' said he, in his bustling way. 'It's the old story. More
+in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I were to
+start you in Brook Street?'
+
+“I stared at him in astonishment.
+
+“'Oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,' he cried. 'I'll be perfectly
+frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. I have a
+few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and I think I'll sink them in you.'
+
+“'But why?' I gasped.
+
+“'Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'
+
+“'What am I to do, then?'
+
+“'I'll tell you. I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run
+the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your chair in
+the consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket-money and everything. Then
+you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn, and you keep the
+other quarter for yourself.'
+
+“This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man
+Blessington approached me. I won't weary you with the account of how
+we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house next
+Lady-day, and starting in practice on very much the same conditions as
+he had suggested. He came himself to live with me in the character of a
+resident patient. His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constant
+medical supervision. He turned the two best rooms of the first floor
+into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself. He was a man of singular
+habits, shunning company and very seldom going out. His life was
+irregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening,
+at the same hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the
+books, put down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned,
+and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.
+
+“I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his
+speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and the
+reputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to the
+front, and during the last few years I have made him a rich man.
+
+“So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with Mr.
+Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred to
+bring me here to-night.
+
+“Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me,
+a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary which, he
+said, had been committed in the West End, and he appeared, I remember,
+to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring that a day should
+not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our windows and doors.
+For a week he continued to be in a peculiar state of restlessness,
+peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short
+walk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner
+it struck me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but
+when I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was
+compelled to drop the subject. Gradually, as time passed, his fears
+appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a fresh
+event reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he now
+lies.
+
+“What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I now
+read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.
+
+“'A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,' it runs, 'would
+be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of Dr. Percy
+Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks, on
+which, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is an authority. He proposes to
+call at about quarter past six to-morrow evening, if Dr. Trevelyan will
+make it convenient to be at home.'
+
+“This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in the
+study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may believe,
+then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the appointed hour, the
+page showed in the patient.
+
+“He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace--by no means the
+conception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more struck by
+the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man, surprisingly
+handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and chest of a
+Hercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they entered, and
+helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would hardly have
+expected from his appearance.
+
+“'You will excuse my coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking English
+with a slight lisp. 'This is my father, and his health is a matter of
+the most overwhelming importance to me.'
+
+“I was touched by this filial anxiety. 'You would, perhaps, care to
+remain during the consultation?' said I.
+
+“'Not for the world,' he cried with a gesture of horror. 'It is more
+painful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father in one of
+these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should never survive
+it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. With your
+permission, I will remain in the waiting-room while you go into my
+father's case.'
+
+“To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The patient
+and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which I took
+exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for intelligence, and his
+answers were frequently obscure, which I attributed to his limited
+acquaintance with our language. Suddenly, however, as I sat writing,
+he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on my turning
+towards him I was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in his
+chair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was again
+in the grip of his mysterious malady.
+
+“My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and horror.
+My second, I fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. I made
+notes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity of his
+muscles, and examined his reflexes. There was nothing markedly abnormal
+in any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former experiences.
+I had obtained good results in such cases by the inhalation of nitrite
+of amyl, and the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testing
+its virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so leaving my
+patient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was some little
+delay in finding it--five minutes, let us say--and then I returned.
+Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the patient gone.
+
+“Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The son had
+gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut. My page who
+admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick. He waits downstairs,
+and runs up to show patients out when I ring the consulting-room bell.
+He had heard nothing, and the affair remained a complete mystery. Mr.
+Blessington came in from his walk shortly afterwards, but I did not say
+anything to him upon the subject, for, to tell the truth, I have got in
+the way of late of holding as little communication with him as possible.
+
+“Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the Russian
+and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the very same hour
+this evening, they both came marching into my consulting-room, just as
+they had done before.
+
+“'I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt departure
+yesterday, doctor,' said my patient.
+
+“'I confess that I was very much surprised at it,' said I.
+
+“'Well, the fact is,' he remarked, 'that when I recover from these
+attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone before. I
+woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my way out into
+the street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.'
+
+“'And I,' said the son, 'seeing my father pass the door of the
+waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to an
+end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to realize the
+true state of affairs.'
+
+“'Well,' said I, laughing, 'there is no harm done except that you
+puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the
+waiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which was
+brought to so abrupt an ending.'
+
+“'For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman's symptoms with
+him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him go off upon the arm
+of his son.
+
+“I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour of the
+day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and passed upstairs.
+An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst into my
+consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.
+
+“'Who has been in my room?' he cried.
+
+“'No one,' said I.
+
+“'It's a lie! He yelled. 'Come up and look!'
+
+“I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out of
+his mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he pointed to several
+footprints upon the light carpet.
+
+“'D'you mean to say those are mine?' he cried.
+
+“They were certainly very much larger than any which he could have made,
+and were evidently quite fresh. It rained hard this afternoon, as you
+know, and my patients were the only people who called. It must have been
+the case, then, that the man in the waiting-room had, for some unknown
+reason, while I was busy with the other, ascended to the room of my
+resident patient. Nothing had been touched or taken, but there were the
+footprints to prove that the intrusion was an undoubted fact.
+
+“Mr. Blessington seemed more excited over the matter than I should have
+thought possible, though of course it was enough to disturb anybody's
+peace of mind. He actually sat crying in an arm-chair, and I could
+hardly get him to speak coherently. It was his suggestion that I should
+come round to you, and of course I at once saw the propriety of it,
+for certainly the incident is a very singular one, though he appears to
+completely overrate its importance. If you would only come back with me
+in my brougham, you would at least be able to soothe him, though I
+can hardly hope that you will be able to explain this remarkable
+occurrence.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes had listened to this long narrative with an intentness
+which showed me that his interest was keenly aroused. His face was as
+impassive as ever, but his lids had drooped more heavily over his eyes,
+and his smoke had curled up more thickly from his pipe to emphasize each
+curious episode in the doctor's tale. As our visitor concluded, Holmes
+sprang up without a word, handed me my hat, picked his own from the
+table, and followed Dr. Trevelyan to the door. Within a quarter of an
+hour we had been dropped at the door of the physician's residence
+in Brook Street, one of those sombre, flat-faced houses which one
+associates with a West-End practice. A small page admitted us, and we
+began at once to ascend the broad, well-carpeted stair.
+
+But a singular interruption brought us to a standstill. The light at
+the top was suddenly whisked out, and from the darkness came a reedy,
+quivering voice.
+
+“I have a pistol,” it cried. “I give you my word that I'll fire if you
+come any nearer.”
+
+“This really grows outrageous, Mr. Blessington,” cried Dr. Trevelyan.
+
+“Oh, then it is you, doctor,” said the voice, with a great heave of
+relief. “But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to be?”
+
+We were conscious of a long scrutiny out of the darkness.
+
+“Yes, yes, it's all right,” said the voice at last. “You can come up,
+and I am sorry if my precautions have annoyed you.”
+
+He relit the stair gas as he spoke, and we saw before us a
+singular-looking man, whose appearance, as well as his voice, testified
+to his jangled nerves. He was very fat, but had apparently at some time
+been much fatter, so that the skin hung about his face in loose pouches,
+like the cheeks of a blood-hound. He was of a sickly color, and his
+thin, sandy hair seemed to bristle up with the intensity of his emotion.
+In his hand he held a pistol, but he thrust it into his pocket as we
+advanced.
+
+“Good-evening, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “I am sure I am very much obliged
+to you for coming round. No one ever needed your advice more than I do.
+I suppose that Dr. Trevelyan has told you of this most unwarrantable
+intrusion into my rooms.”
+
+“Quite so,” said Holmes. “Who are these two men Mr. Blessington, and why
+do they wish to molest you?”
+
+“Well, well,” said the resident patient, in a nervous fashion, “of
+course it is hard to say that. You can hardly expect me to answer that,
+Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Do you mean that you don't know?”
+
+“Come in here, if you please. Just have the kindness to step in here.”
+
+He led the way into his bedroom, which was large and comfortably
+furnished.
+
+“You see that,” said he, pointing to a big black box at the end of his
+bed. “I have never been a very rich man, Mr. Holmes--never made but
+one investment in my life, as Dr. Trevelyan would tell you. But I don't
+believe in bankers. I would never trust a banker, Mr. Holmes. Between
+ourselves, what little I have is in that box, so you can understand what
+it means to me when unknown people force themselves into my rooms.”
+
+Holmes looked at Blessington in his questioning way and shook his head.
+
+“I cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive me,” said he.
+
+“But I have told you everything.”
+
+Holmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust. “Good-night, Dr.
+Trevelyan,” said he.
+
+“And no advice for me?” cried Blessington, in a breaking voice.
+
+“My advice to you, sir, is to speak the truth.”
+
+A minute later we were in the street and walking for home. We had
+crossed Oxford Street and were half way down Harley Street before I
+could get a word from my companion.
+
+“Sorry to bring you out on such a fool's errand, Watson,” he said at
+last. “It is an interesting case, too, at the bottom of it.”
+
+“I can make little of it,” I confessed.
+
+“Well, it is quite evident that there are two men--more, perhaps, but
+at least two--who are determined for some reason to get at this fellow
+Blessington. I have no doubt in my mind that both on the first and on
+the second occasion that young man penetrated to Blessington's room,
+while his confederate, by an ingenious device, kept the doctor from
+interfering.”
+
+“And the catalepsy?”
+
+“A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should hardly dare to hint as
+much to our specialist. It is a very easy complaint to imitate. I have
+done it myself.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“By the purest chance Blessington was out on each occasion. Their reason
+for choosing so unusual an hour for a consultation was obviously to
+insure that there should be no other patient in the waiting-room. It
+just happened, however, that this hour coincided with Blessington's
+constitutional, which seems to show that they were not very well
+acquainted with his daily routine. Of course, if they had been merely
+after plunder they would at least have made some attempt to search for
+it. Besides, I can read in a man's eye when it is his own skin that he
+is frightened for. It is inconceivable that this fellow could have made
+two such vindictive enemies as these appear to be without knowing of it.
+I hold it, therefore, to be certain that he does know who these men are,
+and that for reasons of his own he suppresses it. It is just possible
+that to-morrow may find him in a more communicative mood.”
+
+“Is there not one alternative,” I suggested, “grotesquely improbable,
+no doubt, but still just conceivable? Might the whole story of the
+cataleptic Russian and his son be a concoction of Dr. Trevelyan's, who
+has, for his own purposes, been in Blessington's rooms?”
+
+I saw in the gaslight that Holmes wore an amused smile at this brilliant
+departure of mine.
+
+“My dear fellow,” said he, “it was one of the first solutions which
+occurred to me, but I was soon able to corroborate the doctor's tale.
+This young man has left prints upon the stair-carpet which made it quite
+superfluous for me to ask to see those which he had made in the room.
+When I tell you that his shoes were square-toed instead of being pointed
+like Blessington's, and were quite an inch and a third longer than the
+doctor's, you will acknowledge that there can be no doubt as to his
+individuality. But we may sleep on it now, for I shall be surprised if
+we do not hear something further from Brook Street in the morning.”
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes's prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic
+fashion. At half-past seven next morning, in the first glimmer of
+daylight, I found him standing by my bedside in his dressing-gown.
+
+“There's a brougham waiting for us, Watson,” said he.
+
+“What's the matter, then?”
+
+“The Brook Street business.”
+
+“Any fresh news?”
+
+“Tragic, but ambiguous,” said he, pulling up the blind. “Look at this--a
+sheet from a note-book, with 'For God's sake come at once--P. T.,'
+scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor, was hard put to
+it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear fellow, for it's an urgent
+call.”
+
+In a quarter of an hour or so we were back at the physician's house. He
+came running out to meet us with a face of horror.
+
+“Oh, such a business!” he cried, with his hands to his temples.
+
+“What then?”
+
+“Blessington has committed suicide!”
+
+Holmes whistled.
+
+“Yes, he hanged himself during the night.”
+
+We had entered, and the doctor had preceded us into what was evidently
+his waiting-room.
+
+“I really hardly know what I am doing,” he cried. “The police are
+already upstairs. It has shaken me most dreadfully.”
+
+“When did you find it out?”
+
+“He has a cup of tea taken in to him early every morning. When the maid
+entered, about seven, there the unfortunate fellow was hanging in the
+middle of the room. He had tied his cord to the hook on which the heavy
+lamp used to hang, and he had jumped off from the top of the very box
+that he showed us yesterday.”
+
+Holmes stood for a moment in deep thought.
+
+“With your permission,” said he at last, “I should like to go upstairs
+and look into the matter.”
+
+We both ascended, followed by the doctor.
+
+It was a dreadful sight which met us as we entered the bedroom door. I
+have spoken of the impression of flabbiness which this man Blessington
+conveyed. As he dangled from the hook it was exaggerated and intensified
+until he was scarce human in his appearance. The neck was drawn out
+like a plucked chicken's, making the rest of him seem the more obese and
+unnatural by the contrast. He was clad only in his long night-dress, and
+his swollen ankles and ungainly feet protruded starkly from beneath it.
+Beside him stood a smart-looking police-inspector, who was taking notes
+in a pocket-book.
+
+“Ah, Mr. Holmes,” said he, heartily, as my friend entered, “I am
+delighted to see you.”
+
+“Good-morning, Lanner,” answered Holmes; “you won't think me an
+intruder, I am sure. Have you heard of the events which led up to this
+affair?”
+
+“Yes, I heard something of them.”
+
+“Have you formed any opinion?”
+
+“As far as I can see, the man has been driven out of his senses by
+fright. The bed has been well slept in, you see. There's his impression
+deep enough. It's about five in the morning, you know, that suicides are
+most common. That would be about his time for hanging himself. It seems
+to have been a very deliberate affair.”
+
+“I should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by the
+rigidity of the muscles,” said I.
+
+“Noticed anything peculiar about the room?” asked Holmes.
+
+“Found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand. Seems to
+have smoked heavily during the night, too. Here are four cigar-ends that
+I picked out of the fireplace.”
+
+“Hum!” said Holmes, “have you got his cigar-holder?”
+
+“No, I have seen none.”
+
+“His cigar-case, then?”
+
+“Yes, it was in his coat-pocket.”
+
+Holmes opened it and smelled the single cigar which it contained.
+
+“Oh, this is an Havana, and these others are cigars of the peculiar sort
+which are imported by the Dutch from their East Indian colonies. They
+are usually wrapped in straw, you know, and are thinner for their length
+than any other brand.” He picked up the four ends and examined them with
+his pocket-lens.
+
+“Two of these have been smoked from a holder and two without,” said he.
+“Two have been cut by a not very sharp knife, and two have had the ends
+bitten off by a set of excellent teeth. This is no suicide, Mr. Lanner.
+It is a very deeply planned and cold-blooded murder.”
+
+“Impossible!” cried the inspector.
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Why should any one murder a man in so clumsy a fashion as by hanging
+him?”
+
+“That is what we have to find out.”
+
+“How could they get in?”
+
+“Through the front door.”
+
+“It was barred in the morning.”
+
+“Then it was barred after them.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“I saw their traces. Excuse me a moment, and I may be able to give you
+some further information about it.”
+
+He went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in his
+methodical way. Then he took out the key, which was on the inside, and
+inspected that also. The bed, the carpet, the chairs the mantelpiece,
+the dead body, and the rope were each in turn examined, until at last he
+professed himself satisfied, and with my aid and that of the inspector
+cut down the wretched object and laid it reverently under a sheet.
+
+“How about this rope?” he asked.
+
+“It is cut off this,” said Dr. Trevelyan, drawing a large coil from
+under the bed. “He was morbidly nervous of fire, and always kept this
+beside him, so that he might escape by the window in case the stairs
+were burning.”
+
+“That must have saved them trouble,” said Holmes, thoughtfully. “Yes,
+the actual facts are very plain, and I shall be surprised if by the
+afternoon I cannot give you the reasons for them as well. I will take
+this photograph of Blessington, which I see upon the mantelpiece, as it
+may help me in my inquiries.”
+
+“But you have told us nothing!” cried the doctor.
+
+“Oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of events,” said Holmes.
+“There were three of them in it: the young man, the old man, and a
+third, to whose identity I have no clue. The first two, I need hardly
+remark, are the same who masqueraded as the Russian count and his son,
+so we can give a very full description of them. They were admitted by
+a confederate inside the house. If I might offer you a word of advice,
+Inspector, it would be to arrest the page, who, as I understand, has
+only recently come into your service, Doctor.”
+
+“The young imp cannot be found,” said Dr. Trevelyan; “the maid and the
+cook have just been searching for him.”
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“He has played a not unimportant part in this drama,” said he. “The
+three men having ascended the stairs, which they did on tiptoe, the
+elder man first, the younger man second, and the unknown man in the
+rear--”
+
+“My dear Holmes!” I ejaculated.
+
+“Oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of the
+footmarks. I had the advantage of learning which was which last night.
+They ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington's room, the door of which they
+found to be locked. With the help of a wire, however, they forced round
+the key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches on
+this ward, where the pressure was applied.
+
+“On entering the room their first proceeding must have been to gag Mr.
+Blessington. He may have been asleep, or he may have been so paralyzed
+with terror as to have been unable to cry out. These walls are thick,
+and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time to utter one, was
+unheard.
+
+“Having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of some
+sort was held. Probably it was something in the nature of a judicial
+proceeding. It must have lasted for some time, for it was then that
+these cigars were smoked. The older man sat in that wicker chair; it
+was he who used the cigar-holder. The younger man sat over yonder; he
+knocked his ash off against the chest of drawers. The third fellow paced
+up and down. Blessington, I think, sat upright in the bed, but of that I
+cannot be absolutely certain.
+
+“Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and hanging him. The matter
+was so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought with them
+some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows. That
+screw-driver and those screws were, as I conceive, for fixing it up.
+Seeing the hook, however they naturally saved themselves the trouble.
+Having finished their work they made off, and the door was barred behind
+them by their confederate.”
+
+We had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of the
+night's doings, which Holmes had deduced from signs so subtle and minute
+that, even when he had pointed them out to us, we could scarcely follow
+him in his reasoning. The inspector hurried away on the instant to make
+inquiries about the page, while Holmes and I returned to Baker Street
+for breakfast.
+
+“I'll be back by three,” said he, when we had finished our meal. “Both
+the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour, and I hope
+by that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which the case may
+still present.”
+
+
+Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter to
+four before my friend put in an appearance. From his expression as he
+entered, however, I could see that all had gone well with him.
+
+“Any news, Inspector?”
+
+“We have got the boy, sir.”
+
+“Excellent, and I have got the men.”
+
+“You have got them!” we cried, all three.
+
+“Well, at least I have got their identity. This so-called Blessington
+is, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so are his
+assailants. Their names are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat.”
+
+“The Worthingdon bank gang,” cried the inspector.
+
+“Precisely,” said Holmes.
+
+“Then Blessington must have been Sutton.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Holmes.
+
+“Why, that makes it as clear as crystal,” said the inspector.
+
+But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderment.
+
+“You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank business,” said
+Holmes. “Five men were in it--these four and a fifth called Cartwright.
+Tobin, the care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got away with seven
+thousand pounds. This was in 1875. They were all five arrested, but the
+evidence against them was by no means conclusive. This Blessington or
+Sutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned informer. On his evidence
+Cartwright was hanged and the other three got fifteen years apiece. When
+they got out the other day, which was some years before their full term,
+they set themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to
+avenge the death of their comrade upon him. Twice they tried to get at
+him and failed; a third time, you see, it came off. Is there anything
+further which I can explain, Dr. Trevelyan?”
+
+“I think you have made it all remarkably clear,” said the doctor. “No
+doubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen of
+their release in the newspapers.”
+
+“Quite so. His talk about a burglary was the merest blind.”
+
+“But why could he not tell you this?”
+
+“Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his old
+associates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody as
+long as he could. His secret was a shameful one, and he could not bring
+himself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he was still living
+under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that
+you will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of
+justice is still there to avenge.”
+
+
+Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the Resident
+Patient and the Brook Street Doctor. From that night nothing has
+been seen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surmised
+at Scotland Yard that they were among the passengers of the ill-fated
+steamer Norah Creina, which was lost some years ago with all hands
+upon the Portuguese coast, some leagues to the north of Oporto. The
+proceedings against the page broke down for want of evidence, and the
+Brook Street Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been fully
+dealt with in any public print.
+
+
+
+
+Adventure IX. The Greek Interpreter
+
+
+During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had
+never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early
+life. This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman
+effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myself
+regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as
+deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence. His
+aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were
+both typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than his
+complete suppression of every reference to his own people. I had come to
+believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living, but one day, to
+my very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his brother.
+
+It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had
+roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes
+of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last
+to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes. The point under
+discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due to
+his ancestry and how far to his own early training.
+
+“In your own case,” said I, “from all that you have told me, it seems
+obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for
+deduction are due to your own systematic training.”
+
+“To some extent,” he answered, thoughtfully. “My ancestors were country
+squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to
+their class. But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and
+may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the
+French artist. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.”
+
+“But how do you know that it is hereditary?”
+
+“Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than I do.”
+
+This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such singular
+powers in England, how was it that neither police nor public had heard
+of him? I put the question, with a hint that it was my companion's
+modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his superior. Holmes
+laughed at my suggestion.
+
+“My dear Watson,” said he, “I cannot agree with those who rank modesty
+among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as
+they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from
+truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say, therefore, that
+Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I
+am speaking the exact and literal truth.”
+
+“Is he your junior?”
+
+“Seven years my senior.”
+
+“How comes it that he is unknown?”
+
+“Oh, he is very well known in his own circle.”
+
+“Where, then?”
+
+“Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example.”
+
+I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have proclaimed
+as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled out his watch.
+
+“The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of
+the queerest men. He's always there from quarter to five to twenty to
+eight. It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful evening
+I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities.”
+
+Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards Regent's
+Circus.
+
+“You wonder,” said my companion, “why it is that Mycroft does not use
+his powers for detective work. He is incapable of it.”
+
+“But I thought you said--”
+
+“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the
+art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my
+brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has
+no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify
+his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the
+trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem
+to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to
+be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out
+the practical points which must be gone into before a case could be laid
+before a judge or jury.”
+
+“It is not his profession, then?”
+
+“By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the merest
+hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty for figures, and
+audits the books in some of the government departments. Mycroft lodges
+in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall every morning
+and back every evening. From year's end to year's end he takes no other
+exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club,
+which is just opposite his rooms.”
+
+“I cannot recall the name.”
+
+“Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know, who, some from
+shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their
+fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest
+periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club
+was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men
+in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any
+other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any
+circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of
+the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one
+of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”
+
+We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it from the
+St. James's end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some little distance
+from the Carlton, and, cautioning me not to speak, he led the way into
+the hall. Through the glass paneling I caught a glimpse of a large and
+luxurious room, in which a considerable number of men were sitting about
+and reading papers, each in his own little nook. Holmes showed me into a
+small chamber which looked out into Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for
+a minute, he came back with a companion whom I knew could only be his
+brother.
+
+Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock. His body
+was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had preserved
+something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that
+of his brother. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery gray,
+seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had
+only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.
+
+“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said he, putting out a broad, fat hand
+like the flipper of a seal. “I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you
+became his chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I expected to see you round
+last week, to consult me over that Manor House case. I thought you might
+be a little out of your depth.”
+
+“No, I solved it,” said my friend, smiling.
+
+“It was Adams, of course.”
+
+“Yes, it was Adams.”
+
+“I was sure of it from the first.” The two sat down together in the
+bow-window of the club. “To any one who wishes to study mankind this is
+the spot,” said Mycroft. “Look at the magnificent types! Look at these
+two men who are coming towards us, for example.”
+
+“The billiard-marker and the other?”
+
+“Precisely. What do you make of the other?”
+
+The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk marks over the
+waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which I could see
+in one of them. The other was a very small, dark fellow, with his hat
+pushed back and several packages under his arm.
+
+“An old soldier, I perceive,” said Sherlock.
+
+“And very recently discharged,” remarked the brother.
+
+“Served in India, I see.”
+
+“And a non-commissioned officer.”
+
+“Royal Artillery, I fancy,” said Sherlock.
+
+“And a widower.”
+
+“But with a child.”
+
+“Children, my dear boy, children.”
+
+“Come,” said I, laughing, “this is a little too much.”
+
+“Surely,” answered Holmes, “it is not hard to say that a man with that
+bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a soldier, is
+more than a private, and is not long from India.”
+
+“That he has not left the service long is shown by his still wearing his
+ammunition boots, as they are called,” observed Mycroft.
+
+“He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as
+is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow. His weight is
+against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery.”
+
+“Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some one
+very dear. The fact that he is doing his own shopping looks as though
+it were his wife. He has been buying things for children, you perceive.
+There is a rattle, which shows that one of them is very young. The wife
+probably died in childbed. The fact that he has a picture-book under his
+arm shows that there is another child to be thought of.”
+
+I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his brother
+possessed even keener faculties that he did himself. He glanced across
+at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and
+brushed away the wandering grains from his coat front with a large, red
+silk handkerchief.
+
+“By the way, Sherlock,” said he, “I have had something quite after your
+own heart--a most singular problem--submitted to my judgment. I really
+had not the energy to follow it up save in a very incomplete fashion,
+but it gave me a basis for some pleasing speculation. If you would care
+to hear the facts--”
+
+“My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted.”
+
+The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,
+ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.
+
+“I have asked Mr. Melas to step across,” said he. “He lodges on the
+floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him, which led
+him to come to me in his perplexity. Mr. Melas is a Greek by extraction,
+as I understand, and he is a remarkable linguist. He earns his living
+partly as interpreter in the law courts and partly by acting as guide to
+any wealthy Orientals who may visit the Northumberland Avenue hotels. I
+think I will leave him to tell his very remarkable experience in his own
+fashion.”
+
+A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose olive
+face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin, though his
+speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook hands eagerly
+with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when he
+understood that the specialist was anxious to hear his story.
+
+“I do not believe that the police credit me--on my word, I do not,” said
+he in a wailing voice. “Just because they have never heard of it before,
+they think that such a thing cannot be. But I know that I shall never
+be easy in my mind until I know what has become of my poor man with the
+sticking-plaster upon his face.”
+
+“I am all attention,” said Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“This is Wednesday evening,” said Mr. Melas. “Well then, it was Monday
+night--only two days ago, you understand--that all this happened. I am
+an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbor there has told you. I interpret
+all languages--or nearly all--but as I am a Greek by birth and with a
+Grecian name, it is with that particular tongue that I am principally
+associated. For many years I have been the chief Greek interpreter in
+London, and my name is very well known in the hotels.
+
+“It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange hours by
+foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who arrive late
+and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore, on Monday night
+when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed young man, came up to my
+rooms and asked me to accompany him in a cab which was waiting at the
+door. A Greek friend had come to see him upon business, he said, and
+as he could speak nothing but his own tongue, the services of an
+interpreter were indispensable. He gave me to understand that his house
+was some little distance off, in Kensington, and he seemed to be in a
+great hurry, bustling me rapidly into the cab when we had descended to
+the street.
+
+“I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether it was not
+a carriage in which I found myself. It was certainly more roomy than
+the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London, and the fittings, though
+frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer seated himself opposite to me
+and we started off through Charing Cross and up the Shaftesbury Avenue.
+We had come out upon Oxford Street and I had ventured some remark as to
+this being a roundabout way to Kensington, when my words were arrested
+by the extraordinary conduct of my companion.
+
+“He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded with lead
+from his pocket, and switching it backward and forward several times,
+as if to test its weight and strength. Then he placed it without a word
+upon the seat beside him. Having done this, he drew up the windows on
+each side, and I found to my astonishment that they were covered with
+paper so as to prevent my seeing through them.
+
+“'I am sorry to cut off your view, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'The fact is
+that I have no intention that you should see what the place is to which
+we are driving. It might possibly be inconvenient to me if you could
+find your way there again.'
+
+“As you can imagine, I was utterly taken aback by such an address. My
+companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young fellow, and, apart from
+the weapon, I should not have had the slightest chance in a struggle
+with him.
+
+“'This is very extraordinary conduct, Mr. Latimer,' I stammered. 'You
+must be aware that what you are doing is quite illegal.'
+
+“'It is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,' said he, 'but we'll make it
+up to you. I must warn you, however, Mr. Melas, that if at any time
+to-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything which is against
+my interests, you will find it a very serious thing. I beg you to
+remember that no one knows where you are, and that, whether you are in
+this carriage or in my house, you are equally in my power.'
+
+“His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them which
+was very menacing. I sat in silence wondering what on earth could be
+his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion. Whatever it
+might be, it was perfectly clear that there was no possible use in my
+resisting, and that I could only wait to see what might befall.
+
+“For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to
+where we were going. Sometimes the rattle of the stones told of a paved
+causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course suggested asphalt;
+but, save by this variation in sound, there was nothing at all which
+could in the remotest way help me to form a guess as to where we were.
+The paper over each window was impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain
+was drawn across the glass work in front. It was a quarter-past seven
+when we left Pall Mall, and my watch showed me that it was ten minutes
+to nine when we at last came to a standstill. My companion let down
+the window, and I caught a glimpse of a low, arched doorway with a lamp
+burning above it. As I was hurried from the carriage it swung open, and
+I found myself inside the house, with a vague impression of a lawn
+and trees on each side of me as I entered. Whether these were private
+grounds, however, or bona-fide country was more than I could possibly
+venture to say.
+
+“There was a colored gas-lamp inside which was turned so low that I
+could see little save that the hall was of some size and hung with
+pictures. In the dim light I could make out that the person who had
+opened the door was a small, mean-looking, middle-aged man with rounded
+shoulders. As he turned towards us the glint of the light showed me that
+he was wearing glasses.
+
+“'Is this Mr. Melas, Harold?' said he.
+
+“'Yes.'
+
+“'Well done, well done! No ill-will, Mr. Melas, I hope, but we could not
+get on without you. If you deal fair with us you'll not regret it,
+but if you try any tricks, God help you!' He spoke in a nervous, jerky
+fashion, and with little giggling laughs in between, but somehow he
+impressed me with fear more than the other.
+
+“'What do you want with me?' I asked.
+
+“'Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is visiting us,
+and to let us have the answers. But say no more than you are told to
+say, or--' here came the nervous giggle again--'you had better never
+have been born.'
+
+“As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which
+appeared to be very richly furnished, but again the only light was
+afforded by a single lamp half-turned down. The chamber was certainly
+large, and the way in which my feet sank into the carpet as I stepped
+across it told me of its richness. I caught glimpses of velvet chairs, a
+high white marble mantel-piece, and what seemed to be a suit of Japanese
+armor at one side of it. There was a chair just under the lamp, and the
+elderly man motioned that I should sit in it. The younger had left
+us, but he suddenly returned through another door, leading with him
+a gentleman clad in some sort of loose dressing-gown who moved slowly
+towards us. As he came into the circle of dim light which enables me to
+see him more clearly I was thrilled with horror at his appearance. He
+was deadly pale and terribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant
+eyes of a man whose spirit was greater than his strength. But what
+shocked me more than any signs of physical weakness was that his face
+was grotesquely criss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large
+pad of it was fastened over his mouth.
+
+“'Have you the slate, Harold?' cried the older man, as this strange
+being fell rather than sat down into a chair. 'Are his hands loose? Now,
+then, give him the pencil. You are to ask the questions, Mr. Melas, and
+he will write the answers. Ask him first of all whether he is prepared
+to sign the papers?'
+
+“The man's eyes flashed fire.
+
+“'Never!' he wrote in Greek upon the slate.
+
+“'On no condition?' I asked, at the bidding of our tyrant.
+
+“'Only if I see her married in my presence by a Greek priest whom I
+know.'
+
+“The man giggled in his venomous way.
+
+“'You know what awaits you, then?'
+
+“'I care nothing for myself.'
+
+“These are samples of the questions and answers which made up our
+strange half-spoken, half-written conversation. Again and again I had to
+ask him whether he would give in and sign the documents. Again and again
+I had the same indignant reply. But soon a happy thought came to me. I
+took to adding on little sentences of my own to each question, innocent
+ones at first, to test whether either of our companions knew anything
+of the matter, and then, as I found that they showed no signs I played a
+more dangerous game. Our conversation ran something like this:
+
+“'You can do no good by this obstinacy. Who are you?'
+
+“'I care not. I am a stranger in London.'
+
+“'Your fate will be upon your own head. How long have you been here?'
+
+“'Let it be so. Three weeks.'
+
+“'The property can never be yours. What ails you?'
+
+“'It shall not go to villains. They are starving me.'
+
+“'You shall go free if you sign. What house is this?'
+
+“'I will never sign. I do not know.'
+
+“'You are not doing her any service. What is your name?'
+
+“'Let me hear her say so. Kratides.'
+
+“'You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?'
+
+“'Then I shall never see her. Athens.'
+
+“Another five minutes, Mr. Holmes, and I should have wormed out the
+whole story under their very noses. My very next question might have
+cleared the matter up, but at that instant the door opened and a woman
+stepped into the room. I could not see her clearly enough to know more
+than that she was tall and graceful, with black hair, and clad in some
+sort of loose white gown.
+
+“'Harold,' said she, speaking English with a broken accent. 'I could not
+stay away longer. It is so lonely up there with only--Oh, my God, it is
+Paul!'
+
+“These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the man with
+a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out
+'Sophy! Sophy!' rushed into the woman's arms. Their embrace was but for
+an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and pushed
+her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his emaciated
+victim, and dragged him away through the other door. For a moment I was
+left alone in the room, and I sprang to my feet with some vague idea
+that I might in some way get a clue to what this house was in which I
+found myself. Fortunately, however, I took no steps, for looking up I
+saw that the older man was standing in the door-way with his eyes fixed
+upon me.
+
+“'That will do, Mr. Melas,' said he. 'You perceive that we have taken
+you into our confidence over some very private business. We should not
+have troubled you, only that our friend who speaks Greek and who began
+these negotiations has been forced to return to the East. It was
+quite necessary for us to find some one to take his place, and we were
+fortunate in hearing of your powers.'
+
+“I bowed.
+
+“'There are five sovereigns here,' said he, walking up to me, 'which
+will, I hope, be a sufficient fee. But remember,' he added, tapping me
+lightly on the chest and giggling, 'if you speak to a human soul about
+this--one human soul, mind--well, may God have mercy upon your soul!”
+
+“I cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this
+insignificant-looking man inspired me. I could see him better now as the
+lamp-light shone upon him. His features were peaky and sallow, and his
+little pointed beard was thready and ill-nourished. He pushed his face
+forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were continually twitching
+like a man with St. Vitus's dance. I could not help thinking that his
+strange, catchy little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady.
+The terror of his face lay in his eyes, however, steel gray, and
+glistening coldly with a malignant, inexorable cruelty in their depths.
+
+“'We shall know if you speak of this,' said he. 'We have our own means
+of information. Now you will find the carriage waiting, and my friend
+will see you on your way.'
+
+“I was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again obtaining
+that momentary glimpse of trees and a garden. Mr. Latimer followed
+closely at my heels, and took his place opposite to me without a word.
+In silence we again drove for an interminable distance with the windows
+raised, until at last, just after midnight, the carriage pulled up.
+
+“'You will get down here, Mr. Melas,' said my companion. 'I am sorry
+to leave you so far from your house, but there is no alternative. Any
+attempt upon your part to follow the carriage can only end in injury to
+yourself.'
+
+“He opened the door as he spoke, and I had hardly time to spring out
+when the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage rattled away. I
+looked around me in astonishment. I was on some sort of a heathy common
+mottled over with dark clumps of furze-bushes. Far away stretched a
+line of houses, with a light here and there in the upper windows. On the
+other side I saw the red signal-lamps of a railway.
+
+“The carriage which had brought me was already out of sight. I stood
+gazing round and wondering where on earth I might be, when I saw some
+one coming towards me in the darkness. As he came up to me I made out
+that he was a railway porter.
+
+“'Can you tell me what place this is?' I asked.
+
+“'Wandsworth Common,' said he.
+
+“'Can I get a train into town?'
+
+“'If you walk on a mile or so to Clapham Junction,' said he, 'you'll
+just be in time for the last to Victoria.'
+
+“So that was the end of my adventure, Mr. Holmes. I do not know where I
+was, nor whom I spoke with, nor anything save what I have told you. But
+I know that there is foul play going on, and I want to help that unhappy
+man if I can. I told the whole story to Mr. Mycroft Holmes next morning,
+and subsequently to the police.”
+
+We all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this
+extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock looked across at his brother.
+
+“Any steps?” he asked.
+
+Mycroft picked up the Daily News, which was lying on the side-table.
+
+“'Anybody supplying any information to the whereabouts of a Greek
+gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak
+English, will be rewarded. A similar reward paid to any one giving
+information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.' That
+was in all the dailies. No answer.”
+
+“How about the Greek Legation?”
+
+“I have inquired. They know nothing.”
+
+“A wire to the head of the Athens police, then?”
+
+“Sherlock has all the energy of the family,” said Mycroft, turning to
+me. “Well, you take the case up by all means, and let me know if you do
+any good.”
+
+“Certainly,” answered my friend, rising from his chair. “I'll let you
+know, and Mr. Melas also. In the meantime, Mr. Melas, I should certainly
+be on my guard, if I were you, for of course they must know through
+these advertisements that you have betrayed them.”
+
+As we walked home together, Holmes stopped at a telegraph office and
+sent off several wires.
+
+“You see, Watson,” he remarked, “our evening has been by no means
+wasted. Some of my most interesting cases have come to me in this way
+through Mycroft. The problem which we have just listened to, although
+it can admit of but one explanation, has still some distinguishing
+features.”
+
+“You have hopes of solving it?”
+
+“Well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed if we fail
+to discover the rest. You must yourself have formed some theory which
+will explain the facts to which we have listened.”
+
+“In a vague way, yes.”
+
+“What was your idea, then?”
+
+“It seemed to me to be obvious that this Greek girl had been carried off
+by the young Englishman named Harold Latimer.”
+
+“Carried off from where?”
+
+“Athens, perhaps.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes shook his head. “This young man could not talk a word of
+Greek. The lady could talk English fairly well. Inference--that she had
+been in England some little time, but he had not been in Greece.”
+
+“Well, then, we will presume that she had come on a visit to England,
+and that this Harold had persuaded her to fly with him.”
+
+“That is more probable.”
+
+“Then the brother--for that, I fancy, must be the relationship--comes
+over from Greece to interfere. He imprudently puts himself into the
+power of the young man and his older associate. They seize him and use
+violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to make over
+the girl's fortune--of which he may be trustee--to them. This he refuses
+to do. In order to negotiate with him they have to get an interpreter,
+and they pitch upon this Mr. Melas, having used some other one before.
+The girl is not told of the arrival of her brother, and finds it out by
+the merest accident.”
+
+“Excellent, Watson!” cried Holmes. “I really fancy that you are not far
+from the truth. You see that we hold all the cards, and we have only to
+fear some sudden act of violence on their part. If they give us time we
+must have them.”
+
+“But how can we find where this house lies?”
+
+“Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl's name is or was Sophy
+Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her. That must be our
+main hope, for the brother is, of course, a complete stranger. It is
+clear that some time has elapsed since this Harold established these
+relations with the girl--some weeks, at any rate--since the brother in
+Greece has had time to hear of it and come across. If they have been
+living in the same place during this time, it is probable that we shall
+have some answer to Mycroft's advertisement.”
+
+We had reached our house in Baker Street while we had been talking.
+Holmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the door of our room
+he gave a start of surprise. Looking over his shoulder, I was equally
+astonished. His brother Mycroft was sitting smoking in the arm-chair.
+
+“Come in, Sherlock! Come in, sir,” said he blandly, smiling at our
+surprised faces. “You don't expect such energy from me, do you,
+Sherlock? But somehow this case attracts me.”
+
+“How did you get here?”
+
+“I passed you in a hansom.”
+
+“There has been some new development?”
+
+“I had an answer to my advertisement.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes, it came within a few minutes of your leaving.”
+
+“And to what effect?”
+
+Mycroft Holmes took out a sheet of paper.
+
+“Here it is,” said he, “written with a J pen on royal cream paper by a
+middle-aged man with a weak constitution. 'Sir,' he says, 'in answer to
+your advertisement of to-day's date, I beg to inform you that I know the
+young lady in question very well. If you should care to call upon me I
+could give you some particulars as to her painful history. She is living
+at present at The Myrtles, Beckenham. Yours faithfully, J. Davenport.'
+
+“He writes from Lower Brixton,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Do you not think
+that we might drive to him now, Sherlock, and learn these particulars?”
+
+“My dear Mycroft, the brother's life is more valuable than the sister's
+story. I think we should call at Scotland Yard for Inspector Gregson,
+and go straight out to Beckenham. We know that a man is being done to
+death, and every hour may be vital.”
+
+“Better pick up Mr. Melas on our way,” I suggested. “We may need an
+interpreter.”
+
+“Excellent,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Send the boy for a four-wheeler, and
+we shall be off at once.” He opened the table-drawer as he spoke, and I
+noticed that he slipped his revolver into his pocket. “Yes,” said he, in
+answer to my glance; “I should say from what we have heard, that we are
+dealing with a particularly dangerous gang.”
+
+It was almost dark before we found ourselves in Pall Mall, at the rooms
+of Mr. Melas. A gentleman had just called for him, and he was gone.
+
+“Can you tell me where?” asked Mycroft Holmes.
+
+“I don't know, sir,” answered the woman who had opened the door; “I only
+know that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage.”
+
+“Did the gentleman give a name?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“He wasn't a tall, handsome, dark young man?”
+
+“Oh, no, sir. He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the face,
+but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time that he
+was talking.”
+
+“Come along!” cried Sherlock Holmes, abruptly. “This grows serious,”
+ he observed, as we drove to Scotland Yard. “These men have got hold of
+Melas again. He is a man of no physical courage, as they are well
+aware from their experience the other night. This villain was able to
+terrorize him the instant that he got into his presence. No doubt
+they want his professional services, but, having used him, they may be
+inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his treachery.”
+
+Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham as soon
+or sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it was
+more than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and comply with
+the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the house. It was a
+quarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and half past before the
+four of us alighted on the Beckenham platform. A drive of half a mile
+brought us to The Myrtles--a large, dark house standing back from the
+road in its own grounds. Here we dismissed our cab, and made our way up
+the drive together.
+
+“The windows are all dark,” remarked the inspector. “The house seems
+deserted.”
+
+“Our birds are flown and the nest empty,” said Holmes.
+
+“Why do you say so?”
+
+“A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the last
+hour.”
+
+The inspector laughed. “I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of the
+gate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?”
+
+“You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way. But
+the outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we can
+say for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on the
+carriage.”
+
+“You get a trifle beyond me there,” said the inspector, shrugging his
+shoulder. “It will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if we
+cannot make some one hear us.”
+
+He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but without
+any success. Holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few minutes.
+
+“I have a window open,” said he.
+
+“It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not against
+it, Mr. Holmes,” remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way in
+which my friend had forced back the catch. “Well, I think that under the
+circumstances we may enter without an invitation.”
+
+One after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which was
+evidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself. The inspector
+had lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, the
+curtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as he had described
+them. On the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and the
+remains of a meal.
+
+“What is that?” asked Holmes, suddenly.
+
+We all stood still and listened. A low moaning sound was coming from
+somewhere over our heads. Holmes rushed to the door and out into the
+hall. The dismal noise came from upstairs. He dashed up, the inspector
+and I at his heels, while his brother Mycroft followed as quickly as his
+great bulk would permit.
+
+Three doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the central
+of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking sometimes into a
+dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine. It was locked, but the
+key had been left on the outside. Holmes flung open the door and rushed
+in, but he was out again in an instant, with his hand to his throat.
+
+“It's charcoal,” he cried. “Give it time. It will clear.”
+
+Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from a
+dull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod in the centre.
+It threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in the shadows
+beyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which crouched against the
+wall. From the open door there reeked a horrible poisonous exhalation
+which set us gasping and coughing. Holmes rushed to the top of the
+stairs to draw in the fresh air, and then, dashing into the room, he
+threw up the window and hurled the brazen tripod out into the garden.
+
+“We can enter in a minute,” he gasped, darting out again. “Where is a
+candle? I doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere. Hold the
+light at the door and we shall get them out, Mycroft, now!”
+
+With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into the
+well-lit hall. Both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, with
+swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes. Indeed, so distorted were
+their features that, save for his black beard and stout figure, we might
+have failed to recognize in one of them the Greek interpreter who had
+parted from us only a few hours before at the Diogenes Club. His hands
+and feet were securely strapped together, and he bore over one eye
+the marks of a violent blow. The other, who was secured in a similar
+fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of emaciation, with several
+strips of sticking-plaster arranged in a grotesque pattern over his
+face. He had ceased to moan as we laid him down, and a glance showed
+me that for him at least our aid had come too late. Mr. Melas, however,
+still lived, and in less than an hour, with the aid of ammonia and
+brandy I had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes, and of
+knowing that my hand had drawn him back from that dark valley in which
+all paths meet.
+
+It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did but
+confirm our own deductions. His visitor, on entering his rooms, had
+drawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him with
+the fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him for
+the second time. Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect which this
+giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate linguist, for he
+could not speak of him save with trembling hands and a blanched cheek.
+He had been taken swiftly to Beckenham, and had acted as interpreter in
+a second interview, even more dramatic than the first, in which the two
+Englishmen had menaced their prisoner with instant death if he did not
+comply with their demands. Finally, finding him proof against every
+threat, they had hurled him back into his prison, and after
+reproaching Melas with his treachery, which appeared from the newspaper
+advertisement, they had stunned him with a blow from a stick, and he
+remembered nothing more until he found us bending over him.
+
+And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the
+explanation of which is still involved in some mystery. We were able
+to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the
+advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy Grecian
+family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in England.
+While there she had met a young man named Harold Latimer, who had
+acquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded her to fly
+with him. Her friends, shocked at the event, had contented themselves
+with informing her brother at Athens, and had then washed their hands
+of the matter. The brother, on his arrival in England, had imprudently
+placed himself in the power of Latimer and of his associate, whose name
+was Wilson Kemp--a man of the foulest antecedents. These two, finding
+that through his ignorance of the language he was helpless in their
+hands, had kept him a prisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty and
+starvation to make him sign away his own and his sister's property. They
+had kept him in the house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster
+over the face had been for the purpose of making recognition difficult
+in case she should ever catch a glimpse of him. Her feminine perception,
+however, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the occasion
+of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first time. The
+poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was no one about
+the house except the man who acted as coachman, and his wife, both of
+whom were tools of the conspirators. Finding that their secret was out,
+and that their prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with the
+girl had fled away at a few hours' notice from the furnished house which
+they had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance both upon
+the man who had defied and the one who had betrayed them.
+
+Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us from
+Buda-Pesth. It told how two Englishmen who had been traveling with a
+woman had met with a tragic end. They had each been stabbed, it seems,
+and the Hungarian police were of opinion that they had quarreled and had
+inflicted mortal injuries upon each other. Holmes, however, is, I fancy,
+of a different way of thinking, and holds to this day that, if one could
+find the Grecian girl, one might learn how the wrongs of herself and her
+brother came to be avenged.
+
+
+
+
+Adventure X. The Naval Treaty
+
+
+The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable
+by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being
+associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them
+recorded in my notes under the headings of “The Adventure of the Second
+Stain,” “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” and “The Adventure of the
+Tired Captain.” The first of these, however, deals with interest of such
+importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom
+that for many years it will be impossible to make it public. No case,
+however, in which Holmes was engaged has ever illustrated the value
+of his analytical methods so clearly or has impressed those who were
+associated with him so deeply. I still retain an almost verbatim report
+of the interview in which he demonstrated the true facts of the case
+to Monsieur Dubugue of the Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the
+well-known specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies
+upon what proved to be side-issues. The new century will have come,
+however, before the story can be safely told. Meanwhile I pass on to
+the second on my list, which promised also at one time to be of national
+importance, and was marked by several incidents which give it a quite
+unique character.
+
+During my school-days I had been intimately associated with a lad named
+Percy Phelps, who was of much the same age as myself, though he was two
+classes ahead of me. He was a very brilliant boy, and carried away every
+prize which the school had to offer, finished his exploits by winning
+a scholarship which sent him on to continue his triumphant career at
+Cambridge. He was, I remember, extremely well connected, and even when
+we were all little boys together we knew that his mother's brother
+was Lord Holdhurst, the great conservative politician. This gaudy
+relationship did him little good at school. On the contrary, it seemed
+rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit
+him over the shins with a wicket. But it was another thing when he
+came out into the world. I heard vaguely that his abilities and the
+influences which he commanded had won him a good position at the Foreign
+Office, and then he passed completely out of my mind until the following
+letter recalled his existence:
+
+
+Briarbrae, Woking. My dear Watson,--I have no doubt that you can
+remember “Tadpole” Phelps, who was in the fifth form when you were in
+the third. It is possible even that you may have heard that through my
+uncle's influence I obtained a good appointment at the Foreign Office,
+and that I was in a situation of trust and honor until a horrible
+misfortune came suddenly to blast my career.
+
+There is no use writing of the details of that dreadful event. In the
+event of your acceding to my request it is probable that I shall have
+to narrate them to you. I have only just recovered from nine weeks of
+brain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. Do you think that you could
+bring your friend Mr. Holmes down to see me? I should like to have his
+opinion of the case, though the authorities assure me that nothing more
+can be done. Do try to bring him down, and as soon as possible. Every
+minute seems an hour while I live in this state of horrible suspense.
+Assure him that if I have not asked his advice sooner it was not because
+I did not appreciate his talents, but because I have been off my head
+ever since the blow fell. Now I am clear again, though I dare not think
+of it too much for fear of a relapse. I am still so weak that I have to
+write, as you see, by dictating. Do try to bring him.
+
+Your old school-fellow,
+
+Percy Phelps.
+
+
+There was something that touched me as I read this letter, something
+pitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring Holmes. So moved was I
+that even had it been a difficult matter I should have tried it, but
+of course I knew well that Holmes loved his art, so that he was ever
+as ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it. My wife
+agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the matter
+before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found myself back
+once more in the old rooms in Baker Street.
+
+Holmes was seated at his side-table clad in his dressing-gown, and
+working hard over a chemical investigation. A large curved retort
+was boiling furiously in the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the
+distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. My friend
+hardly glanced up as I entered, and I, seeing that his investigation
+must be of importance, seated myself in an arm-chair and waited. He
+dipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few drops of each with
+his glass pipette, and finally brought a test-tube containing a solution
+over to the table. In his right hand he held a slip of litmus-paper.
+
+“You come at a crisis, Watson,” said he. “If this paper remains blue,
+all is well. If it turns red, it means a man's life.” He dipped it into
+the test-tube and it flushed at once into a dull, dirty crimson. “Hum!
+I thought as much!” he cried. “I will be at your service in an instant,
+Watson. You will find tobacco in the Persian slipper.” He turned to his
+desk and scribbled off several telegrams, which were handed over to the
+page-boy. Then he threw himself down into the chair opposite, and drew
+up his knees until his fingers clasped round his long, thin shins.
+
+“A very commonplace little murder,” said he. “You've got something
+better, I fancy. You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson. What is
+it?”
+
+I handed him the letter, which he read with the most concentrated
+attention.
+
+“It does not tell us very much, does it?” he remarked, as he handed it
+back to me.
+
+“Hardly anything.”
+
+“And yet the writing is of interest.”
+
+“But the writing is not his own.”
+
+“Precisely. It is a woman's.”
+
+“A man's surely,” I cried.
+
+“No, a woman's, and a woman of rare character. You see, at the
+commencement of an investigation it is something to know that your
+client is in close contact with some one who, for good or evil, has an
+exceptional nature. My interest is already awakened in the case. If you
+are ready we will start at once for Woking, and see this diplomatist who
+is in such evil case, and the lady to whom he dictates his letters.”
+
+We were fortunate enough to catch an early train at Waterloo, and in
+a little under an hour we found ourselves among the fir-woods and
+the heather of Woking. Briarbrae proved to be a large detached house
+standing in extensive grounds within a few minutes' walk of the station.
+On sending in our cards we were shown into an elegantly appointed
+drawing-room, where we were joined in a few minutes by a rather stout
+man who received us with much hospitality. His age may have been nearer
+forty than thirty, but his cheeks were so ruddy and his eyes so merry
+that he still conveyed the impression of a plump and mischievous boy.
+
+“I am so glad that you have come,” said he, shaking our hands with
+effusion. “Percy has been inquiring for you all morning. Ah, poor old
+chap, he clings to any straw! His father and his mother asked me to see
+you, for the mere mention of the subject is very painful to them.”
+
+“We have had no details yet,” observed Holmes. “I perceive that you are
+not yourself a member of the family.”
+
+Our acquaintance looked surprised, and then, glancing down, he began to
+laugh.
+
+“Of course you saw the J H monogram on my locket,” said he. “For a
+moment I thought you had done something clever. Joseph Harrison is my
+name, and as Percy is to marry my sister Annie I shall at least be a
+relation by marriage. You will find my sister in his room, for she has
+nursed him hand-and-foot this two months back. Perhaps we'd better go in
+at once, for I know how impatient he is.”
+
+The chamber in which we were shown was on the same floor as the
+drawing-room. It was furnished partly as a sitting and partly as a
+bedroom, with flowers arranged daintily in every nook and corner. A
+young man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open
+window, through which came the rich scent of the garden and the balmy
+summer air. A woman was sitting beside him, who rose as we entered.
+
+“Shall I leave, Percy?” she asked.
+
+He clutched her hand to detain her. “How are you, Watson?” said he,
+cordially. “I should never have known you under that moustache, and I
+dare say you would not be prepared to swear to me. This I presume is
+your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+I introduced him in a few words, and we both sat down. The stout young
+man had left us, but his sister still remained with her hand in that of
+the invalid. She was a striking-looking woman, a little short and
+thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large, dark,
+Italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. Her rich tints made the
+white face of her companion the more worn and haggard by the contrast.
+
+“I won't waste your time,” said he, raising himself upon the sofa.
+“I'll plunge into the matter without further preamble. I was a happy
+and successful man, Mr. Holmes, and on the eve of being married, when a
+sudden and dreadful misfortune wrecked all my prospects in life.
+
+“I was, as Watson may have told you, in the Foreign Office, and
+through the influences of my uncle, Lord Holdhurst, I rose rapidly to
+a responsible position. When my uncle became foreign minister in this
+administration he gave me several missions of trust, and as I always
+brought them to a successful conclusion, he came at last to have the
+utmost confidence in my ability and tact.
+
+“Nearly ten weeks ago--to be more accurate, on the 23d of May--he called
+me into his private room, and, after complimenting me on the good work
+which I had done, he informed me that he had a new commission of trust
+for me to execute.
+
+“'This,' said he, taking a gray roll of paper from his bureau, 'is the
+original of that secret treaty between England and Italy of which, I
+regret to say, some rumors have already got into the public press. It is
+of enormous importance that nothing further should leak out. The French
+or the Russian embassy would pay an immense sum to learn the contents
+of these papers. They should not leave my bureau were it not that it
+is absolutely necessary to have them copied. You have a desk in your
+office?”
+
+“'Yes, sir.'
+
+“'Then take the treaty and lock it up there. I shall give directions
+that you may remain behind when the others go, so that you may copy
+it at your leisure without fear of being overlooked. When you have
+finished, relock both the original and the draft in the desk, and hand
+them over to me personally to-morrow morning.'
+
+“I took the papers and--”
+
+“Excuse me an instant,” said Holmes. “Were you alone during this
+conversation?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“In a large room?”
+
+“Thirty feet each way.”
+
+“In the centre?”
+
+“Yes, about it.”
+
+“And speaking low?”
+
+“My uncle's voice is always remarkably low. I hardly spoke at all.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Holmes, shutting his eyes; “pray go on.”
+
+“I did exactly what he indicated, and waited until the other clerks had
+departed. One of them in my room, Charles Gorot, had some arrears
+of work to make up, so I left him there and went out to dine. When I
+returned he was gone. I was anxious to hurry my work, for I knew that
+Joseph--the Mr. Harrison whom you saw just now--was in town, and that he
+would travel down to Woking by the eleven-o'clock train, and I wanted if
+possible to catch it.
+
+“When I came to examine the treaty I saw at once that it was of such
+importance that my uncle had been guilty of no exaggeration in what
+he had said. Without going into details, I may say that it defined the
+position of Great Britain towards the Triple Alliance, and fore-shadowed
+the policy which this country would pursue in the event of the
+French fleet gaining a complete ascendancy over that of Italy in the
+Mediterranean. The questions treated in it were purely naval. At the end
+were the signatures of the high dignitaries who had signed it. I glanced
+my eyes over it, and then settled down to my task of copying.
+
+“It was a long document, written in the French language, and containing
+twenty-six separate articles. I copied as quickly as I could, but at
+nine o'clock I had only done nine articles, and it seemed hopeless for
+me to attempt to catch my train. I was feeling drowsy and stupid, partly
+from my dinner and also from the effects of a long day's work. A cup of
+coffee would clear my brain. A commissionnaire remains all night in a
+little lodge at the foot of the stairs, and is in the habit of making
+coffee at his spirit-lamp for any of the officials who may be working
+over time. I rang the bell, therefore, to summon him.
+
+“To my surprise, it was a woman who answered the summons, a large,
+coarse-faced, elderly woman, in an apron. She explained that she was the
+commissionnaire's wife, who did the charing, and I gave her the order
+for the coffee.
+
+“I wrote two more articles and then, feeling more drowsy than ever, I
+rose and walked up and down the room to stretch my legs. My coffee had
+not yet come, and I wondered what the cause of the delay could be.
+Opening the door, I started down the corridor to find out. There was a
+straight passage, dimly lighted, which led from the room in which I
+had been working, and was the only exit from it. It ended in a curving
+staircase, with the commissionnaire's lodge in the passage at the
+bottom. Half way down this staircase is a small landing, with another
+passage running into it at right angles. This second one leads by means
+of a second small stair to a side door, used by servants, and also as
+a short cut by clerks when coming from Charles Street. Here is a rough
+chart of the place.”
+
+“Thank you. I think that I quite follow you,” said Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“It is of the utmost importance that you should notice this point.
+I went down the stairs and into the hall, where I found the
+commissionnaire fast asleep in his box, with the kettle boiling
+furiously upon the spirit-lamp. I took off the kettle and blew out the
+lamp, for the water was spurting over the floor. Then I put out my hand
+and was about to shake the man, who was still sleeping soundly, when a
+bell over his head rang loudly, and he woke with a start.
+
+“'Mr. Phelps, sir!' said he, looking at me in bewilderment.
+
+“'I came down to see if my coffee was ready.'
+
+“'I was boiling the kettle when I fell asleep, sir.' He looked at me and
+then up at the still quivering bell with an ever-growing astonishment
+upon his face.
+
+“'If you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?' he asked.
+
+“'The bell!' I cried. 'What bell is it?'
+
+“'It's the bell of the room you were working in.'
+
+“A cold hand seemed to close round my heart. Some one, then, was in that
+room where my precious treaty lay upon the table. I ran frantically up
+the stair and along the passage. There was no one in the corridors, Mr.
+Holmes. There was no one in the room. All was exactly as I left it, save
+only that the papers which had been committed to my care had been taken
+from the desk on which they lay. The copy was there, and the original
+was gone.”
+
+Holmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. I could see that the
+problem was entirely to his heart. “Pray, what did you do then?” he
+murmured.
+
+“I recognized in an instant that the thief must have come up the stairs
+from the side door. Of course I must have met him if he had come the
+other way.”
+
+“You were satisfied that he could not have been concealed in the room
+all the time, or in the corridor which you have just described as dimly
+lighted?”
+
+“It is absolutely impossible. A rat could not conceal himself either in
+the room or the corridor. There is no cover at all.”
+
+“Thank you. Pray proceed.”
+
+“The commissionnaire, seeing by my pale face that something was to be
+feared, had followed me upstairs. Now we both rushed along the corridor
+and down the steep steps which led to Charles Street. The door at the
+bottom was closed, but unlocked. We flung it open and rushed out. I can
+distinctly remember that as we did so there came three chimes from a
+neighboring clock. It was quarter to ten.”
+
+“That is of enormous importance,” said Holmes, making a note upon his
+shirt-cuff.
+
+“The night was very dark, and a thin, warm rain was falling. There was
+no one in Charles Street, but a great traffic was going on, as usual, in
+Whitehall, at the extremity. We rushed along the pavement, bare-headed
+as we were, and at the far corner we found a policeman standing.
+
+“'A robbery has been committed,' I gasped. 'A document of immense value
+has been stolen from the Foreign Office. Has any one passed this way?'
+
+“'I have been standing here for a quarter of an hour, sir,' said he;
+'only one person has passed during that time--a woman, tall and elderly,
+with a Paisley shawl.'
+
+“'Ah, that is only my wife,' cried the commissionnaire; 'has no one else
+passed?'
+
+“'No one.'
+
+“'Then it must be the other way that the thief took,' cried the fellow,
+tugging at my sleeve.
+
+“'But I was not satisfied, and the attempts which he made to draw me
+away increased my suspicions.
+
+“'Which way did the woman go?' I cried.
+
+“'I don't know, sir. I noticed her pass, but I had no special reason for
+watching her. She seemed to be in a hurry.'
+
+“'How long ago was it?'
+
+“'Oh, not very many minutes.'
+
+“'Within the last five?'
+
+“'Well, it could not be more than five.'
+
+“'You're only wasting your time, sir, and every minute now is of
+importance,' cried the commissionnaire; 'take my word for it that my old
+woman has nothing to do with it, and come down to the other end of the
+street. Well, if you won't, I will.' And with that he rushed off in the
+other direction.
+
+“But I was after him in an instant and caught him by the sleeve.
+
+“'Where do you live?' said I.
+
+“'16 Ivy Lane, Brixton,' he answered. 'But don't let yourself be drawn
+away upon a false scent, Mr. Phelps. Come to the other end of the street
+and let us see if we can hear of anything.'
+
+“Nothing was to be lost by following his advice. With the policeman we
+both hurried down, but only to find the street full of traffic, many
+people coming and going, but all only too eager to get to a place of
+safety upon so wet a night. There was no lounger who could tell us who
+had passed.
+
+“Then we returned to the office, and searched the stairs and the passage
+without result. The corridor which led to the room was laid down with
+a kind of creamy linoleum which shows an impression very easily. We
+examined it very carefully, but found no outline of any footmark.”
+
+“Had it been raining all evening?”
+
+“Since about seven.”
+
+“How is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine left
+no traces with her muddy boots?”
+
+“I am glad you raised the point. It occurred to me at the time.
+The charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the
+commissionnaire's office, and putting on list slippers.”
+
+“That is very clear. There were no marks, then, though the night was a
+wet one? The chain of events is certainly one of extraordinary interest.
+What did you do next?
+
+“We examined the room also. There is no possibility of a secret door,
+and the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. Both of them
+were fastened on the inside. The carpet prevents any possibility of a
+trap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. I will
+pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come through
+the door.”
+
+“How about the fireplace?”
+
+“They use none. There is a stove. The bell-rope hangs from the wire just
+to the right of my desk. Whoever rang it must have come right up to the
+desk to do it. But why should any criminal wish to ring the bell? It is
+a most insoluble mystery.”
+
+“Certainly the incident was unusual. What were your next steps? You
+examined the room, I presume, to see if the intruder had left any
+traces--any cigar-end or dropped glove or hairpin or other trifle?”
+
+“There was nothing of the sort.”
+
+“No smell?”
+
+“Well, we never thought of that.”
+
+“Ah, a scent of tobacco would have been worth a great deal to us in such
+an investigation.”
+
+“I never smoke myself, so I think I should have observed it if there had
+been any smell of tobacco. There was absolutely no clue of any kind. The
+only tangible fact was that the commissionnaire's wife--Mrs. Tangey was
+the name--had hurried out of the place. He could give no explanation
+save that it was about the time when the woman always went home. The
+policeman and I agreed that our best plan would be to seize the woman
+before she could get rid of the papers, presuming that she had them.
+
+“The alarm had reached Scotland Yard by this time, and Mr. Forbes, the
+detective, came round at once and took up the case with a great deal of
+energy. We hired a hansom, and in half an hour we were at the address
+which had been given to us. A young woman opened the door, who proved to
+be Mrs. Tangey's eldest daughter. Her mother had not come back yet, and
+we were shown into the front room to wait.
+
+“About ten minutes later a knock came at the door, and here we made the
+one serious mistake for which I blame myself. Instead of opening the
+door ourselves, we allowed the girl to do so. We heard her say, 'Mother,
+there are two men in the house waiting to see you,' and an instant
+afterwards we heard the patter of feet rushing down the passage. Forbes
+flung open the door, and we both ran into the back room or kitchen, but
+the woman had got there before us. She stared at us with defiant
+eyes, and then, suddenly recognizing me, an expression of absolute
+astonishment came over her face.
+
+“'Why, if it isn't Mr. Phelps, of the office!' she cried.
+
+“'Come, come, who did you think we were when you ran away from us?'
+asked my companion.
+
+“'I thought you were the brokers,' said she, 'we have had some trouble
+with a tradesman.'
+
+“'That's not quite good enough,' answered Forbes. 'We have reason to
+believe that you have taken a paper of importance from the Foreign
+Office, and that you ran in here to dispose of it. You must come back
+with us to Scotland Yard to be searched.'
+
+“It was in vain that she protested and resisted. A four-wheeler was
+brought, and we all three drove back in it. We had first made an
+examination of the kitchen, and especially of the kitchen fire, to see
+whether she might have made away with the papers during the instant that
+she was alone. There were no signs, however, of any ashes or scraps.
+When we reached Scotland Yard she was handed over at once to the female
+searcher. I waited in an agony of suspense until she came back with her
+report. There were no signs of the papers.
+
+“Then for the first time the horror of my situation came in its full
+force. Hitherto I had been acting, and action had numbed thought. I had
+been so confident of regaining the treaty at once that I had not dared
+to think of what would be the consequence if I failed to do so. But
+now there was nothing more to be done, and I had leisure to realize
+my position. It was horrible. Watson there would tell you that I was a
+nervous, sensitive boy at school. It is my nature. I thought of my uncle
+and of his colleagues in the Cabinet, of the shame which I had brought
+upon him, upon myself, upon every one connected with me. What though I
+was the victim of an extraordinary accident? No allowance is made
+for accidents where diplomatic interests are at stake. I was ruined,
+shamefully, hopelessly ruined. I don't know what I did. I fancy I must
+have made a scene. I have a dim recollection of a group of officials who
+crowded round me, endeavoring to soothe me. One of them drove down with
+me to Waterloo, and saw me into the Woking train. I believe that he
+would have come all the way had it not been that Dr. Ferrier, who lives
+near me, was going down by that very train. The doctor most kindly took
+charge of me, and it was well he did so, for I had a fit in the station,
+and before we reached home I was practically a raving maniac.
+
+“You can imagine the state of things here when they were roused from
+their beds by the doctor's ringing and found me in this condition. Poor
+Annie here and my mother were broken-hearted. Dr. Ferrier had just heard
+enough from the detective at the station to be able to give an idea of
+what had happened, and his story did not mend matters. It was evident to
+all that I was in for a long illness, so Joseph was bundled out of this
+cheery bedroom, and it was turned into a sick-room for me. Here I have
+lain, Mr. Holmes, for over nine weeks, unconscious, and raving with
+brain-fever. If it had not been for Miss Harrison here and for the
+doctor's care I should not be speaking to you now. She has nursed me by
+day and a hired nurse has looked after me by night, for in my mad fits
+I was capable of anything. Slowly my reason has cleared, but it is only
+during the last three days that my memory has quite returned. Sometimes
+I wish that it never had. The first thing that I did was to wire to
+Mr. Forbes, who had the case in hand. He came out, and assures me that,
+though everything has been done, no trace of a clue has been discovered.
+The commissionnaire and his wife have been examined in every way without
+any light being thrown upon the matter. The suspicions of the police
+then rested upon young Gorot, who, as you may remember, stayed over time
+in the office that night. His remaining behind and his French name were
+really the only two points which could suggest suspicion; but, as a
+matter of fact, I did not begin work until he had gone, and his people
+are of Huguenot extraction, but as English in sympathy and tradition as
+you and I are. Nothing was found to implicate him in any way, and there
+the matter dropped. I turn to you, Mr. Holmes, as absolutely my last
+hope. If you fail me, then my honor as well as my position are forever
+forfeited.”
+
+The invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long recital,
+while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating medicine.
+Holmes sat silently, with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, in
+an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but which I knew
+betokened the most intense self-absorption.
+
+“You statement has been so explicit,” said he at last, “that you have
+really left me very few questions to ask. There is one of the very
+utmost importance, however. Did you tell any one that you had this
+special task to perform?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+“Not Miss Harrison here, for example?”
+
+“No. I had not been back to Woking between getting the order and
+executing the commission.”
+
+“And none of your people had by chance been to see you?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Did any of them know their way about in the office?”
+
+“Oh, yes, all of them had been shown over it.”
+
+“Still, of course, if you said nothing to any one about the treaty these
+inquiries are irrelevant.”
+
+“I said nothing.”
+
+“Do you know anything of the commissionnaire?”
+
+“Nothing except that he is an old soldier.”
+
+“What regiment?”
+
+“Oh, I have heard--Coldstream Guards.”
+
+“Thank you. I have no doubt I can get details from Forbes. The
+authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not always
+use them to advantage. What a lovely thing a rose is!”
+
+He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping
+stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and
+green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before
+seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
+
+“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,”
+ said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built
+up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the
+goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other
+things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for
+our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its
+smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.
+It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have
+much to hope from the flowers.”
+
+Percy Phelps and his nurse looked at Holmes during this demonstration
+with surprise and a good deal of disappointment written upon their
+faces. He had fallen into a reverie, with the moss-rose between his
+fingers. It had lasted some minutes before the young lady broke in upon
+it.
+
+“Do you see any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr. Holmes?” she
+asked, with a touch of asperity in her voice.
+
+“Oh, the mystery!” he answered, coming back with a start to the
+realities of life. “Well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is
+a very abstruse and complicated one, but I can promise you that I will
+look into the matter and let you know any points which may strike me.”
+
+“Do you see any clue?”
+
+“You have furnished me with seven, but, of course, I must test them
+before I can pronounce upon their value.”
+
+“You suspect some one?”
+
+“I suspect myself.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.”
+
+“Then go to London and test your conclusions.”
+
+“Your advice is very excellent, Miss Harrison,” said Holmes, rising. “I
+think, Watson, we cannot do better. Do not allow yourself to indulge in
+false hopes, Mr. Phelps. The affair is a very tangled one.”
+
+“I shall be in a fever until I see you again,” cried the diplomatist.
+
+“Well, I'll come out by the same train to-morrow, though it's more than
+likely that my report will be a negative one.”
+
+“God bless you for promising to come,” cried our client. “It gives me
+fresh life to know that something is being done. By the way, I have had
+a letter from Lord Holdhurst.”
+
+“Ha! What did he say?”
+
+“He was cold, but not harsh. I dare say my severe illness prevented
+him from being that. He repeated that the matter was of the utmost
+importance, and added that no steps would be taken about my future--by
+which he means, of course, my dismissal--until my health was restored
+and I had an opportunity of repairing my misfortune.”
+
+“Well, that was reasonable and considerate,” said Holmes. “Come, Watson,
+for we have a good day's work before us in town.”
+
+Mr. Joseph Harrison drove us down to the station, and we were soon
+whirling up in a Portsmouth train. Holmes was sunk in profound thought,
+and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed Clapham Junction.
+
+“It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines
+which run high, and allow you to look down upon the houses like this.”
+
+I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon
+explained himself.
+
+“Look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the
+slates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea.”
+
+“The board-schools.”
+
+“Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of
+bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise, better
+England of the future. I suppose that man Phelps does not drink?”
+
+“I should not think so.”
+
+“Nor should I, but we are bound to take every possibility into account.
+The poor devil has certainly got himself into very deep water, and it's
+a question whether we shall ever be able to get him ashore. What did you
+think of Miss Harrison?”
+
+“A girl of strong character.”
+
+“Yes, but she is a good sort, or I am mistaken. She and her brother are
+the only children of an iron-master somewhere up Northumberland way. He
+got engaged to her when traveling last winter, and she came down to
+be introduced to his people, with her brother as escort. Then came
+the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother Joseph,
+finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too. I've been making a few
+independent inquiries, you see. But to-day must be a day of inquiries.”
+
+“My practice--” I began.
+
+“Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine--” said
+Holmes, with some asperity.
+
+“I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day
+or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.”
+
+“Excellent,” said he, recovering his good-humor. “Then we'll look into
+this matter together. I think that we should begin by seeing Forbes.
+He can probably tell us all the details we want until we know from what
+side the case is to be approached.”
+
+“You said you had a clue?”
+
+“Well, we have several, but we can only test their value by further
+inquiry. The most difficult crime to track is the one which is
+purposeless. Now this is not purposeless. Who is it who profits by it?
+There is the French ambassador, there is the Russian, there is whoever
+might sell it to either of these, and there is Lord Holdhurst.”
+
+“Lord Holdhurst!”
+
+“Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in
+a position where he was not sorry to have such a document accidentally
+destroyed.”
+
+“Not a statesman with the honorable record of Lord Holdhurst?”
+
+“It is a possibility and we cannot afford to disregard it. We shall see
+the noble lord to-day and find out if he can tell us anything. Meanwhile
+I have already set inquiries on foot.”
+
+“Already?”
+
+“Yes, I sent wires from Woking station to every evening paper in London.
+This advertisement will appear in each of them.”
+
+He handed over a sheet torn from a note-book. On it was scribbled in
+pencil: “L10 reward. The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or
+about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten
+in the evening of May 23d. Apply 221 B, Baker Street.”
+
+“You are confident that the thief came in a cab?”
+
+“If not, there is no harm done. But if Mr. Phelps is correct in stating
+that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the corridors, then
+the person must have come from outside. If he came from outside on so
+wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon the linoleum, which
+was examined within a few minutes of his passing, then it is exceeding
+probable that he came in a cab. Yes, I think that we may safely deduce a
+cab.”
+
+“It sounds plausible.”
+
+“That is one of the clues of which I spoke. It may lead us to something.
+And then, of course, there is the bell--which is the most distinctive
+feature of the case. Why should the bell ring? Was it the thief who did
+it out of bravado? Or was it some one who was with the thief who did it
+in order to prevent the crime? Or was it an accident? Or was it--?” He
+sank back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he
+had emerged; but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood,
+that some new possibility had dawned suddenly upon him.
+
+It was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after a hasty
+luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to Scotland Yard. Holmes
+had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to receive us--a
+small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable expression. He
+was decidedly frigid in his manner to us, especially when he heard the
+errand upon which we had come.
+
+“I've heard of your methods before now, Mr. Holmes,” said he, tartly.
+“You are ready enough to use all the information that the police can lay
+at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself and bring
+discredit on them.”
+
+“On the contrary,” said Holmes, “out of my last fifty-three cases my
+name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit
+in forty-nine. I don't blame you for not knowing this, for you are young
+and inexperienced, but if you wish to get on in your new duties you will
+work with me and not against me.”
+
+“I'd be very glad of a hint or two,” said the detective, changing his
+manner. “I've certainly had no credit from the case so far.”
+
+“What steps have you taken?”
+
+“Tangey, the commissionnaire, has been shadowed. He left the Guards with
+a good character and we can find nothing against him. His wife is a bad
+lot, though. I fancy she knows more about this than appears.”
+
+“Have you shadowed her?”
+
+“We have set one of our women on to her. Mrs. Tangey drinks, and our
+woman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get
+nothing out of her.”
+
+“I understand that they have had brokers in the house?”
+
+“Yes, but they were paid off.”
+
+“Where did the money come from?”
+
+“That was all right. His pension was due. They have not shown any sign
+of being in funds.”
+
+“What explanation did she give of having answered the bell when Mr.
+Phelps rang for the coffee?”
+
+“She said that her husband was very tired and she wished to relieve him.”
+
+“Well, certainly that would agree with his being found a little later
+asleep in his chair. There is nothing against them then but the woman's
+character. Did you ask her why she hurried away that night? Her haste
+attracted the attention of the police constable.”
+
+“She was later than usual and wanted to get home.”
+
+“Did you point out to her that you and Mr. Phelps, who started at least
+twenty minutes after her, got home before her?”
+
+“She explains that by the difference between a 'bus and a hansom.”
+
+“Did she make it clear why, on reaching her house, she ran into the back
+kitchen?”
+
+“Because she had the money there with which to pay off the brokers.”
+
+“She has at least an answer for everything. Did you ask her whether in
+leaving she met any one or saw any one loitering about Charles Street?”
+
+“She saw no one but the constable.”
+
+“Well, you seem to have cross-examined her pretty thoroughly. What else
+have you done?”
+
+“The clerk Gorot has been shadowed all these nine weeks, but without
+result. We can show nothing against him.”
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“Well, we have nothing else to go upon--no evidence of any kind.”
+
+“Have you formed a theory about how that bell rang?”
+
+“Well, I must confess that it beats me. It was a cool hand, whoever it
+was, to go and give the alarm like that.”
+
+“Yes, it was a queer thing to do. Many thanks to you for what you have
+told me. If I can put the man into your hands you shall hear from me.
+Come along, Watson.”
+
+“Where are we going to now?” I asked, as we left the office.
+
+“We are now going to interview Lord Holdhurst, the cabinet minister and
+future premier of England.”
+
+We were fortunate in finding that Lord Holdhurst was still in his
+chambers in Downing Street, and on Holmes sending in his card we were
+instantly shown up. The statesman received us with that old-fashioned
+courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant
+lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us,
+with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and
+curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that
+not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.
+
+“Your name is very familiar to me, Mr. Holmes,” said he, smiling. “And,
+of course, I cannot pretend to be ignorant of the object of your visit.
+There has only been one occurrence in these offices which could call for
+your attention. In whose interest are you acting, may I ask?”
+
+“In that of Mr. Percy Phelps,” answered Holmes.
+
+“Ah, my unfortunate nephew! You can understand that our kinship makes
+it the more impossible for me to screen him in any way. I fear that the
+incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.”
+
+“But if the document is found?”
+
+“Ah, that, of course, would be different.”
+
+“I had one or two questions which I wished to ask you, Lord Holdhurst.”
+
+“I shall be happy to give you any information in my power.”
+
+“Was it in this room that you gave your instructions as to the copying
+of the document?”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“Then you could hardly have been overheard?”
+
+“It is out of the question.”
+
+“Did you ever mention to any one that it was your intention to give any
+one the treaty to be copied?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“You are certain of that?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“Well, since you never said so, and Mr. Phelps never said so, and nobody
+else knew anything of the matter, then the thief's presence in the room
+was purely accidental. He saw his chance and he took it.”
+
+The statesman smiled. “You take me out of my province there,” said he.
+
+Holmes considered for a moment. “There is another very important
+point which I wish to discuss with you,” said he. “You feared, as I
+understand, that very grave results might follow from the details of
+this treaty becoming known.”
+
+A shadow passed over the expressive face of the statesman. “Very grave
+results indeed.”
+
+“And have they occurred?”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“If the treaty had reached, let us say, the French or Russian Foreign
+Office, you would expect to hear of it?”
+
+“I should,” said Lord Holdhurst, with a wry face.
+
+“Since nearly ten weeks have elapsed, then, and nothing has been heard,
+it is not unfair to suppose that for some reason the treaty has not
+reached them.”
+
+Lord Holdhurst shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“We can hardly suppose, Mr. Holmes, that the thief took the treaty in
+order to frame it and hang it up.”
+
+“Perhaps he is waiting for a better price.”
+
+“If he waits a little longer he will get no price at all. The treaty
+will cease to be secret in a few months.”
+
+“That is most important,” said Holmes. “Of course, it is a possible
+supposition that the thief has had a sudden illness--”
+
+“An attack of brain-fever, for example?” asked the statesman, flashing a
+swift glance at him.
+
+“I did not say so,” said Holmes, imperturbably. “And now, Lord
+Holdhurst, we have already taken up too much of your valuable time, and
+we shall wish you good-day.”
+
+“Every success to your investigation, be the criminal who it may,”
+ answered the nobleman, as he bowed us out the door.
+
+“He's a fine fellow,” said Holmes, as we came out into Whitehall. “But
+he has a struggle to keep up his position. He is far from rich and has
+many calls. You noticed, of course, that his boots had been resoled.
+Now, Watson, I won't detain you from your legitimate work any longer.
+I shall do nothing more to-day, unless I have an answer to my cab
+advertisement. But I should be extremely obliged to you if you would
+come down with me to Woking to-morrow, by the same train which we took
+yesterday.”
+
+
+I met him accordingly next morning and we traveled down to Woking
+together. He had had no answer to his advertisement, he said, and no
+fresh light had been thrown upon the case. He had, when he so willed
+it, the utter immobility of countenance of a red Indian, and I could
+not gather from his appearance whether he was satisfied or not with
+the position of the case. His conversation, I remember, was about the
+Bertillon system of measurements, and he expressed his enthusiastic
+admiration of the French savant.
+
+We found our client still under the charge of his devoted nurse, but
+looking considerably better than before. He rose from the sofa and
+greeted us without difficulty when we entered.
+
+“Any news?” he asked, eagerly.
+
+“My report, as I expected, is a negative one,” said Holmes. “I have seen
+Forbes, and I have seen your uncle, and I have set one or two trains of
+inquiry upon foot which may lead to something.”
+
+“You have not lost heart, then?”
+
+“By no means.”
+
+“God bless you for saying that!” cried Miss Harrison. “If we keep our
+courage and our patience the truth must come out.”
+
+“We have more to tell you than you have for us,” said Phelps, reseating
+himself upon the couch.
+
+“I hoped you might have something.”
+
+“Yes, we have had an adventure during the night, and one which might
+have proved to be a serious one.” His expression grew very grave as he
+spoke, and a look of something akin to fear sprang up in his eyes. “Do
+you know,” said he, “that I begin to believe that I am the unconscious
+centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is aimed at as
+well as my honor?”
+
+“Ah!” cried Holmes.
+
+“It sounds incredible, for I have not, as far as I know, an enemy in
+the world. Yet from last night's experience I can come to no other
+conclusion.”
+
+“Pray let me hear it.”
+
+“You must know that last night was the very first night that I have ever
+slept without a nurse in the room. I was so much better that I thought
+I could dispense with one. I had a night-light burning, however. Well,
+about two in the morning I had sunk into a light sleep when I was
+suddenly aroused by a slight noise. It was like the sound which a mouse
+makes when it is gnawing a plank, and I lay listening to it for some
+time under the impression that it must come from that cause. Then it
+grew louder, and suddenly there came from the window a sharp metallic
+snick. I sat up in amazement. There could be no doubt what the sounds
+were now. The first ones had been caused by some one forcing an
+instrument through the slit between the sashes, and the second by the
+catch being pressed back.
+
+“There was a pause then for about ten minutes, as if the person were
+waiting to see whether the noise had awakened me. Then I heard a gentle
+creaking as the window was very slowly opened. I could stand it no
+longer, for my nerves are not what they used to be. I sprang out of bed
+and flung open the shutters. A man was crouching at the window. I could
+see little of him, for he was gone like a flash. He was wrapped in some
+sort of cloak which came across the lower part of his face. One thing
+only I am sure of, and that is that he had some weapon in his hand. It
+looked to me like a long knife. I distinctly saw the gleam of it as he
+turned to run.”
+
+“This is most interesting,” said Holmes. “Pray what did you do then?”
+
+“I should have followed him through the open window if I had been
+stronger. As it was, I rang the bell and roused the house. It took me
+some little time, for the bell rings in the kitchen and the servants all
+sleep upstairs. I shouted, however, and that brought Joseph down, and he
+roused the others. Joseph and the groom found marks on the bed outside
+the window, but the weather has been so dry lately that they found it
+hopeless to follow the trail across the grass. There's a place, however,
+on the wooden fence which skirts the road which shows signs, they tell
+me, as if some one had got over, and had snapped the top of the rail in
+doing so. I have said nothing to the local police yet, for I thought I
+had best have your opinion first.”
+
+This tale of our client's appeared to have an extraordinary effect upon
+Sherlock Holmes. He rose from his chair and paced about the room in
+uncontrollable excitement.
+
+“Misfortunes never come single,” said Phelps, smiling, though it was
+evident that his adventure had somewhat shaken him.
+
+“You have certainly had your share,” said Holmes. “Do you think you
+could walk round the house with me?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I should like a little sunshine. Joseph will come, too.”
+
+“And I also,” said Miss Harrison.
+
+“I am afraid not,” said Holmes, shaking his head. “I think I must ask
+you to remain sitting exactly where you are.”
+
+The young lady resumed her seat with an air of displeasure. Her brother,
+however, had joined us and we set off all four together. We passed round
+the lawn to the outside of the young diplomatist's window. There were,
+as he had said, marks upon the bed, but they were hopelessly blurred and
+vague. Holmes stopped over them for an instant, and then rose shrugging
+his shoulders.
+
+“I don't think any one could make much of this,” said he. “Let us go
+round the house and see why this particular room was chosen by the
+burglar. I should have thought those larger windows of the drawing-room
+and dining-room would have had more attractions for him.”
+
+“They are more visible from the road,” suggested Mr. Joseph Harrison.
+
+“Ah, yes, of course. There is a door here which he might have attempted.
+What is it for?”
+
+“It is the side entrance for trades-people. Of course it is locked at
+night.”
+
+“Have you ever had an alarm like this before?”
+
+“Never,” said our client.
+
+“Do you keep plate in the house, or anything to attract burglars?”
+
+“Nothing of value.”
+
+Holmes strolled round the house with his hands in his pockets and a
+negligent air which was unusual with him.
+
+“By the way,” said he to Joseph Harrison, “you found some place, I
+understand, where the fellow scaled the fence. Let us have a look at
+that!”
+
+The plump young man led us to a spot where the top of one of the wooden
+rails had been cracked. A small fragment of the wood was hanging down.
+Holmes pulled it off and examined it critically.
+
+“Do you think that was done last night? It looks rather old, does it
+not?”
+
+“Well, possibly so.”
+
+“There are no marks of any one jumping down upon the other side. No, I
+fancy we shall get no help here. Let us go back to the bedroom and talk
+the matter over.”
+
+Percy Phelps was walking very slowly, leaning upon the arm of his future
+brother-in-law. Holmes walked swiftly across the lawn, and we were at
+the open window of the bedroom long before the others came up.
+
+“Miss Harrison,” said Holmes, speaking with the utmost intensity of
+manner, “you must stay where you are all day. Let nothing prevent you
+from staying where you are all day. It is of the utmost importance.”
+
+“Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Holmes,” said the girl in astonishment.
+
+“When you go to bed lock the door of this room on the outside and keep
+the key. Promise to do this.”
+
+“But Percy?”
+
+“He will come to London with us.”
+
+“And am I to remain here?”
+
+“It is for his sake. You can serve him. Quick! Promise!”
+
+She gave a quick nod of assent just as the other two came up.
+
+“Why do you sit moping there, Annie?” cried her brother. “Come out into
+the sunshine!”
+
+“No, thank you, Joseph. I have a slight headache and this room is
+deliciously cool and soothing.”
+
+“What do you propose now, Mr. Holmes?” asked our client.
+
+“Well, in investigating this minor affair we must not lose sight of our
+main inquiry. It would be a very great help to me if you would come up
+to London with us.”
+
+“At once?”
+
+“Well, as soon as you conveniently can. Say in an hour.”
+
+“I feel quite strong enough, if I can really be of any help.”
+
+“The greatest possible.”
+
+“Perhaps you would like me to stay there to-night?”
+
+“I was just going to propose it.”
+
+“Then, if my friend of the night comes to revisit me, he will find the
+bird flown. We are all in your hands, Mr. Holmes, and you must tell us
+exactly what you would like done. Perhaps you would prefer that Joseph
+came with us so as to look after me?”
+
+“Oh, no; my friend Watson is a medical man, you know, and he'll look
+after you. We'll have our lunch here, if you will permit us, and then we
+shall all three set off for town together.”
+
+It was arranged as he suggested, though Miss Harrison excused herself
+from leaving the bedroom, in accordance with Holmes's suggestion. What
+the object of my friend's manoeuvres was I could not conceive, unless it
+were to keep the lady away from Phelps, who, rejoiced by his
+returning health and by the prospect of action, lunched with us in the
+dining-room. Holmes had a still more startling surprise for us, however,
+for, after accompanying us down to the station and seeing us into
+our carriage, he calmly announced that he had no intention of leaving
+Woking.
+
+“There are one or two small points which I should desire to clear up
+before I go,” said he. “Your absence, Mr. Phelps, will in some ways
+rather assist me. Watson, when you reach London you would oblige me by
+driving at once to Baker Street with our friend here, and remaining
+with him until I see you again. It is fortunate that you are old
+school-fellows, as you must have much to talk over. Mr. Phelps can
+have the spare bedroom to-night, and I will be with you in time for
+breakfast, for there is a train which will take me into Waterloo at
+eight.”
+
+“But how about our investigation in London?” asked Phelps, ruefully.
+
+“We can do that to-morrow. I think that just at present I can be of more
+immediate use here.”
+
+“You might tell them at Briarbrae that I hope to be back to-morrow
+night,” cried Phelps, as we began to move from the platform.
+
+“I hardly expect to go back to Briarbrae,” answered Holmes, and waved
+his hand to us cheerily as we shot out from the station.
+
+Phelps and I talked it over on our journey, but neither of us could
+devise a satisfactory reason for this new development.
+
+“I suppose he wants to find out some clue as to the burglary last night,
+if a burglar it was. For myself, I don't believe it was an ordinary
+thief.”
+
+“What is your own idea, then?”
+
+“Upon my word, you may put it down to my weak nerves or not, but I
+believe there is some deep political intrigue going on around me, and
+that for some reason that passes my understanding my life is aimed at
+by the conspirators. It sounds high-flown and absurd, but consider the
+facts! Why should a thief try to break in at a bedroom window, where
+there could be no hope of any plunder, and why should he come with a
+long knife in his hand?”
+
+“You are sure it was not a house-breaker's jimmy?”
+
+“Oh, no, it was a knife. I saw the flash of the blade quite distinctly.”
+
+“But why on earth should you be pursued with such animosity?”
+
+“Ah, that is the question.”
+
+“Well, if Holmes takes the same view, that would account for his action,
+would it not? Presuming that your theory is correct, if he can lay his
+hands upon the man who threatened you last night he will have gone a
+long way towards finding who took the naval treaty. It is absurd to
+suppose that you have two enemies, one of whom robs you, while the other
+threatens your life.”
+
+“But Holmes said that he was not going to Briarbrae.”
+
+“I have known him for some time,” said I, “but I never knew him do
+anything yet without a very good reason,” and with that our conversation
+drifted off on to other topics.
+
+But it was a weary day for me. Phelps was still weak after his long
+illness, and his misfortune made him querulous and nervous. In vain
+I endeavored to interest him in Afghanistan, in India, in social
+questions, in anything which might take his mind out of the groove.
+He would always come back to his lost treaty, wondering, guessing,
+speculating, as to what Holmes was doing, what steps Lord Holdhurst was
+taking, what news we should have in the morning. As the evening wore on
+his excitement became quite painful.
+
+“You have implicit faith in Holmes?” he asked.
+
+“I have seen him do some remarkable things.”
+
+“But he never brought light into anything quite so dark as this?”
+
+“Oh, yes; I have known him solve questions which presented fewer clues
+than yours.”
+
+“But not where such large interests are at stake?”
+
+“I don't know that. To my certain knowledge he has acted on behalf of
+three of the reigning houses of Europe in very vital matters.”
+
+“But you know him well, Watson. He is such an inscrutable fellow that I
+never quite know what to make of him. Do you think he is hopeful? Do you
+think he expects to make a success of it?”
+
+“He has said nothing.”
+
+“That is a bad sign.”
+
+“On the contrary, I have noticed that when he is off the trail he
+generally says so. It is when he is on a scent and is not quite
+absolutely sure yet that it is the right one that he is most taciturn.
+Now, my dear fellow, we can't help matters by making ourselves nervous
+about them, so let me implore you to go to bed and so be fresh for
+whatever may await us to-morrow.”
+
+I was able at last to persuade my companion to take my advice, though I
+knew from his excited manner that there was not much hope of sleep for
+him. Indeed, his mood was infectious, for I lay tossing half the night
+myself, brooding over this strange problem, and inventing a hundred
+theories, each of which was more impossible than the last. Why had
+Holmes remained at Woking? Why had he asked Miss Harrison to remain
+in the sick-room all day? Why had he been so careful not to inform the
+people at Briarbrae that he intended to remain near them? I cudgelled
+my brains until I fell asleep in the endeavor to find some explanation
+which would cover all these facts.
+
+It was seven o'clock when I awoke, and I set off at once for Phelps's
+room, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. His first
+question was whether Holmes had arrived yet.
+
+“He'll be here when he promised,” said I, “and not an instant sooner or
+later.”
+
+And my words were true, for shortly after eight a hansom dashed up to
+the door and our friend got out of it. Standing in the window we saw
+that his left hand was swathed in a bandage and that his face was very
+grim and pale. He entered the house, but it was some little time before
+he came upstairs.
+
+“He looks like a beaten man,” cried Phelps.
+
+I was forced to confess that he was right. “After all,” said I, “the
+clue of the matter lies probably here in town.”
+
+Phelps gave a groan.
+
+“I don't know how it is,” said he, “but I had hoped for so much from his
+return. But surely his hand was not tied up like that yesterday. What
+can be the matter?”
+
+“You are not wounded, Holmes?” I asked, as my friend entered the room.
+
+“Tut, it is only a scratch through my own clumsiness,” he answered,
+nodding his good-mornings to us. “This case of yours, Mr. Phelps, is
+certainly one of the darkest which I have ever investigated.”
+
+“I feared that you would find it beyond you.”
+
+“It has been a most remarkable experience.”
+
+“That bandage tells of adventures,” said I. “Won't you tell us what has
+happened?”
+
+“After breakfast, my dear Watson. Remember that I have breathed thirty
+miles of Surrey air this morning. I suppose that there has been no
+answer from my cabman advertisement? Well, well, we cannot expect to
+score every time.”
+
+The table was all laid, and just as I was about to ring Mrs. Hudson
+entered with the tea and coffee. A few minutes later she brought in
+three covers, and we all drew up to the table, Holmes ravenous, I
+curious, and Phelps in the gloomiest state of depression.
+
+“Mrs. Hudson has risen to the occasion,” said Holmes, uncovering a dish
+of curried chicken. “Her cuisine is a little limited, but she has
+as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotch-woman. What have you here,
+Watson?”
+
+“Ham and eggs,” I answered.
+
+“Good! What are you going to take, Mr. Phelps--curried fowl or eggs, or
+will you help yourself?”
+
+“Thank you. I can eat nothing,” said Phelps.
+
+“Oh, come! Try the dish before you.”
+
+“Thank you, I would really rather not.”
+
+“Well, then,” said Holmes, with a mischievous twinkle, “I suppose that
+you have no objection to helping me?”
+
+Phelps raised the cover, and as he did so he uttered a scream, and sat
+there staring with a face as white as the plate upon which he looked.
+Across the centre of it was lying a little cylinder of blue-gray paper.
+He caught it up, devoured it with his eyes, and then danced madly about
+the room, pressing it to his bosom and shrieking out in his delight.
+Then he fell back into an arm-chair so limp and exhausted with his own
+emotions that we had to pour brandy down his throat to keep him from
+fainting.
+
+“There! there!” said Holmes, soothing, patting him upon the shoulder.
+“It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will tell
+you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.”
+
+Phelps seized his hand and kissed it. “God bless you!” he cried. “You
+have saved my honor.”
+
+“Well, my own was at stake, you know,” said Holmes. “I assure you it is
+just as hateful to me to fail in a case as it can be to you to blunder
+over a commission.”
+
+Phelps thrust away the precious document into the innermost pocket of
+his coat.
+
+“I have not the heart to interrupt your breakfast any further, and yet I
+am dying to know how you got it and where it was.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes swallowed a cup of coffee, and turned his attention to
+the ham and eggs. Then he rose, lit his pipe, and settled himself down
+into his chair.
+
+“I'll tell you what I did first, and how I came to do it afterwards,”
+ said he. “After leaving you at the station I went for a charming walk
+through some admirable Surrey scenery to a pretty little village called
+Ripley, where I had my tea at an inn, and took the precaution of filling
+my flask and of putting a paper of sandwiches in my pocket. There I
+remained until evening, when I set off for Woking again, and found
+myself in the high-road outside Briarbrae just after sunset.
+
+“Well, I waited until the road was clear--it is never a very frequented
+one at any time, I fancy--and then I clambered over the fence into the
+grounds.”
+
+“Surely the gate was open!” ejaculated Phelps.
+
+“Yes, but I have a peculiar taste in these matters. I chose the place
+where the three fir-trees stand, and behind their screen I got over
+without the least chance of any one in the house being able to see me.
+I crouched down among the bushes on the other side, and crawled from one
+to the other--witness the disreputable state of my trouser knees--until
+I had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite to your bedroom
+window. There I squatted down and awaited developments.
+
+“The blind was not down in your room, and I could see Miss Harrison
+sitting there reading by the table. It was quarter-past ten when she
+closed her book, fastened the shutters, and retired.
+
+“I heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turned the
+key in the lock.”
+
+“The key!” ejaculated Phelps.
+
+“Yes; I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the
+outside and take the key with her when she went to bed. She carried out
+every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without her
+cooperation you would not have that paper in your coat-pocket. She
+departed then and the lights went out, and I was left squatting in the
+rhododendron-bush.
+
+“The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course it
+has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when he
+lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. It was very
+long, though--almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited in that
+deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the Speckled Band.
+There was a church-clock down at Woking which struck the quarters, and I
+thought more than once that it had stopped. At last however about two
+in the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle sound of a bolt being pushed
+back and the creaking of a key. A moment later the servants' door was
+opened, and Mr. Joseph Harrison stepped out into the moonlight.”
+
+“Joseph!” ejaculated Phelps.
+
+“He was bare-headed, but he had a black coat thrown over his shoulder so
+that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any alarm. He
+walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he reached the
+window he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and pushed back
+the catch. Then he flung open the window, and putting his knife through
+the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and swung them open.
+
+“From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and of
+every one of his movements. He lit the two candles which stood upon the
+mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner of the carpet
+in the neighborhood of the door. Presently he stopped and picked out a
+square piece of board, such as is usually left to enable plumbers to get
+at the joints of the gas-pipes. This one covered, as a matter of
+fact, the T joint which gives off the pipe which supplies the kitchen
+underneath. Out of this hiding-place he drew that little cylinder
+of paper, pushed down the board, rearranged the carpet, blew out the
+candles, and walked straight into my arms as I stood waiting for him
+outside the window.
+
+“Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has
+Master Joseph. He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him
+twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand of
+him. He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when we had
+finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers. Having
+got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to Forbes this
+morning. If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well and good. But
+if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty before he gets there,
+why, all the better for the government. I fancy that Lord Holdhurst for
+one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very much rather that the
+affair never got as far as a police-court.
+
+“My God!” gasped our client. “Do you tell me that during these long ten
+weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with me all
+the time?”
+
+“So it was.”
+
+“And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!”
+
+“Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more
+dangerous one than one might judge from his appearance. From what I
+have heard from him this morning, I gather that he has lost heavily in
+dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth to
+better his fortunes. Being an absolutely selfish man, when a chance
+presented itself he did not allow either his sister's happiness or your
+reputation to hold his hand.”
+
+Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. “My head whirls,” said he. “Your
+words have dazed me.”
+
+“The principal difficulty in your case,” remarked Holmes, in his
+didactic fashion, “lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.
+What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant. Of all
+the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which we
+deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their order, so
+as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. I had already
+begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had intended to travel
+home with him that night, and that therefore it was a likely enough
+thing that he should call for you, knowing the Foreign Office well, upon
+his way. When I heard that some one had been so anxious to get into the
+bedroom, in which no one but Joseph could have concealed anything--you
+told us in your narrative how you had turned Joseph out when you arrived
+with the doctor--my suspicions all changed to certainties, especially as
+the attempt was made on the first night upon which the nurse was absent,
+showing that the intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the
+house.”
+
+“How blind I have been!”
+
+“The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these:
+this Joseph Harrison entered the office through the Charles Street door,
+and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the instant after
+you left it. Finding no one there he promptly rang the bell, and at
+the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper upon the table.
+A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a State document of
+immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it into his pocket and
+was gone. A few minutes elapsed, as you remember, before the sleepy
+commissionnaire drew your attention to the bell, and those were just
+enough to give the thief time to make his escape.
+
+“He made his way to Woking by the first train, and having examined his
+booty and assured himself that it really was of immense value, he
+had concealed it in what he thought was a very safe place, with the
+intention of taking it out again in a day or two, and carrying it to the
+French embassy, or wherever he thought that a long price was to be
+had. Then came your sudden return. He, without a moment's warning, was
+bundled out of his room, and from that time onward there were always at
+least two of you there to prevent him from regaining his treasure. The
+situation to him must have been a maddening one. But at last he thought
+he saw his chance. He tried to steal in, but was baffled by your
+wakefulness. You remember that you did not take your usual draught that
+night.”
+
+“I remember.”
+
+“I fancy that he had taken steps to make that draught efficacious,
+and that he quite relied upon your being unconscious. Of course, I
+understood that he would repeat the attempt whenever it could be done
+with safety. Your leaving the room gave him the chance he wanted. I kept
+Miss Harrison in it all day so that he might not anticipate us. Then,
+having given him the idea that the coast was clear, I kept guard as
+I have described. I already knew that the papers were probably in the
+room, but I had no desire to rip up all the planking and skirting in
+search of them. I let him take them, therefore, from the hiding-place,
+and so saved myself an infinity of trouble. Is there any other point
+which I can make clear?”
+
+“Why did he try the window on the first occasion,” I asked, “when he
+might have entered by the door?”
+
+“In reaching the door he would have to pass seven bedrooms. On the other
+hand, he could get out on to the lawn with ease. Anything else?”
+
+“You do not think,” asked Phelps, “that he had any murderous intention?
+The knife was only meant as a tool.”
+
+“It may be so,” answered Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “I can only
+say for certain that Mr. Joseph Harrison is a gentleman to whose mercy I
+should be extremely unwilling to trust.”
+
+
+
+
+Adventure XI. The Final Problem
+
+
+It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last
+words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In an incoherent and, as I deeply
+feel, an entirely inadequate fashion, I have endeavored to give some
+account of my strange experiences in his company from the chance which
+first brought us together at the period of the “Study in Scarlet,” up
+to the time of his interference in the matter of the “Naval Treaty”--an
+interference which had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious
+international complication. It was my intention to have stopped there,
+and to have said nothing of that event which has created a void in my
+life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill. My hand
+has been forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel James
+Moriarty defends the memory of his brother, and I have no choice but to
+lay the facts before the public exactly as they occurred. I alone know
+the absolute truth of the matter, and I am satisfied that the time has
+come when no good purpose is to be served by its suppression. As far as
+I know, there have been only three accounts in the public press: that
+in the Journal de Geneve on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter's despatch in the
+English papers on May 7th, and finally the recent letter to which I have
+alluded. Of these the first and second were extremely condensed, while
+the last is, as I shall now show, an absolute perversion of the facts.
+It lies with me to tell for the first time what really took place
+between Professor Moriarty and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
+
+It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in
+private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between
+Holmes and myself became to some extent modified. He still came to me
+from time to time when he desired a companion in his investigation, but
+these occasions grew more and more seldom, until I find that in the year
+1890 there were only three cases of which I retain any record. During
+the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the
+papers that he had been engaged by the French government upon a matter
+of supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from
+Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered that his stay in France
+was likely to be a long one. It was with some surprise, therefore, that
+I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of April 24th.
+It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.
+
+“Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely,” he remarked, in
+answer to my look rather than to my words; “I have been a little pressed
+of late. Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?”
+
+The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I
+had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the wall and flinging the
+shutters together, he bolted them securely.
+
+“You are afraid of something?” I asked.
+
+“Well, I am.”
+
+“Of what?”
+
+“Of air-guns.”
+
+“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”
+
+“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am
+by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than
+courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you. Might
+I trouble you for a match?” He drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if
+the soothing influence was grateful to him.
+
+“I must apologize for calling so late,” said he, “and I must further beg
+you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently
+by scrambling over your back garden wall.”
+
+“But what does it all mean?” I asked.
+
+He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his
+knuckles were burst and bleeding.
+
+“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling. “On the
+contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is Mrs.
+Watson in?”
+
+“She is away upon a visit.”
+
+“Indeed! You are alone?”
+
+“Quite.”
+
+“Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away
+with me for a week to the Continent.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Oh, anywhere. It's all the same to me.”
+
+There was something very strange in all this. It was not Holmes's nature
+to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn face told
+me that his nerves were at their highest tension. He saw the question in
+my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his
+knees, he explained the situation.
+
+“You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?” said he.
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!” he cried. “The
+man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That's what puts
+him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. I tell you, Watson, in all
+seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I could free society
+of him, I should feel that my own career had reached its summit, and
+I should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in life. Between
+ourselves, the recent cases in which I have been of assistance to the
+royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French republic, have left me in
+such a position that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion
+which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon my
+chemical researches. But I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet
+in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were
+walking the streets of London unchallenged.”
+
+“What has he done, then?”
+
+“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and
+excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical
+faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the Binomial
+Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won
+the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to
+all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had
+hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain
+ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and
+rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.
+Dark rumors gathered round him in the university town, and eventually he
+was compelled to resign his chair and to come down to London, where he
+set up as an army coach. So much is known to the world, but what I am
+telling you now is what I have myself discovered.
+
+“As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal
+world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been
+conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing
+power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield
+over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying
+sorts--forgery cases, robberies, murders--I have felt the presence of
+this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered
+crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have
+endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last
+the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led
+me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of
+mathematical celebrity.
+
+“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that
+is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a
+genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first
+order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but
+that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of
+each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are
+numerous and splendidly organized. Is there a crime to be done, a
+paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be
+removed--the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized
+and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found
+for his bail or his defence. But the central power which uses the agent
+is never caught--never so much as suspected. This was the organization
+which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing
+and breaking up.
+
+“But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised
+that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which would
+convict in a court of law. You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet
+at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last
+met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes
+was lost in my admiration at his skill. But at last he made a trip--only
+a little, little trip--but it was more than he could afford when I was
+so close upon him. I had my chance, and, starting from that point, I
+have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close. In three
+days--that is to say, on Monday next--matters will be ripe, and the
+Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the
+hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the
+century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all
+of them; but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may
+slip out of our hands even at the last moment.
+
+“Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor
+Moriarty, all would have been well. But he was too wily for that. He saw
+every step which I took to draw my toils round him. Again and again
+he strove to break away, but I as often headed him off. I tell you,
+my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest could
+be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of
+thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection. Never have I risen to
+such a height, and never have I been so hard pressed by an opponent. He
+cut deep, and yet I just undercut him. This morning the last steps were
+taken, and three days only were wanted to complete the business. I was
+sitting in my room thinking the matter over, when the door opened and
+Professor Moriarty stood before me.
+
+“My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when
+I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on
+my threshhold. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is extremely
+tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two
+eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and
+ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features.
+His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes
+forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a
+curiously reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his
+puckered eyes.
+
+“'You have less frontal development than I should have expected,' said
+he, at last. 'It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the
+pocket of one's dressing-gown.'
+
+“The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognized the
+extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceivable escape for
+him lay in silencing my tongue. In an instant I had slipped the revolver
+from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through the cloth.
+At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table.
+He still smiled and blinked, but there was something about his eyes
+which made me feel very glad that I had it there.
+
+“'You evidently don't know me,' said he.
+
+“'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I think it is fairly evident that I do.
+Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to
+say.'
+
+“'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.
+
+“'Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' I replied.
+
+“'You stand fast?'
+
+“'Absolutely.'
+
+“He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from
+the table. But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had
+scribbled some dates.
+
+“'You crossed my path on the 4th of January,' said he. 'On the 23d you
+incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced
+by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and
+now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position
+through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of
+losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.'
+
+“'Have you any suggestion to make?' I asked.
+
+“'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face about. 'You
+really must, you know.'
+
+“'After Monday,' said I.
+
+“'Tut, tut,' said he. 'I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence
+will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is
+necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a
+fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual
+treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair,
+and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced
+to take any extreme measure. You smile, sir, but I assure you that it
+really would.'
+
+“'Danger is part of my trade,' I remarked.
+
+“'That is not danger,' said he. 'It is inevitable destruction. You stand
+in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization,
+the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable
+to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.'
+
+“'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this
+conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me
+elsewhere.'
+
+“He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.
+
+“'Well, well,' said he, at last. 'It seems a pity, but I have done
+what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before
+Monday. It has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to
+place me in the dock. I tell you that I will never stand in the dock.
+You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are
+clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do
+as much to you.'
+
+“'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I. 'Let me
+pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former
+eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept
+the latter.'
+
+“'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so
+turned his rounded back upon me, and went peering and blinking out of
+the room.
+
+“That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty. I confess that
+it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind. His soft, precise fashion
+of speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could
+not produce. Of course, you will say: 'Why not take police precautions
+against him?' the reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his
+agents the blow will fall. I have the best proofs that it would be so.”
+
+“You have already been assaulted?”
+
+“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow
+under his feet. I went out about mid-day to transact some business in
+Oxford Street. As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street
+on to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van furiously driven
+whizzed round and was on me like a flash. I sprang for the foot-path
+and saved myself by the fraction of a second. The van dashed round by
+Marylebone Lane and was gone in an instant. I kept to the pavement after
+that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from
+the roof of one of the houses, and was shattered to fragments at my
+feet. I called the police and had the place examined. There were slates
+and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to some repairs, and they
+would have me believe that the wind had toppled over one of these. Of
+course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that
+and reached my brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now
+I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough with a
+bludgeon. I knocked him down, and the police have him in custody; but
+I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible
+connection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front
+teeth I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who
+is, I dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles away.
+You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act on entering your rooms
+was to close your shutters, and that I have been compelled to ask your
+permission to leave the house by some less conspicuous exit than the
+front door.”
+
+I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now, as he
+sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined
+to make up a day of horror.
+
+“You will spend the night here?” I said.
+
+“No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans
+laid, and all will be well. Matters have gone so far now that they can
+move without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my presence is
+necessary for a conviction. It is obvious, therefore, that I cannot do
+better than get away for the few days which remain before the police are
+at liberty to act. It would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you
+could come on to the Continent with me.”
+
+“The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbor.
+I should be glad to come.”
+
+“And to start to-morrow morning?”
+
+“If necessary.”
+
+“Oh yes, it is most necessary. Then these are your instructions, and I
+beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are
+now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and
+the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe. Now listen! You
+will dispatch whatever luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger
+unaddressed to Victoria to-night. In the morning you will send for a
+hansom, desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which
+may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive
+to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the address to the
+cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that he will not throw it
+away. Have your fare ready, and the instant that your cab stops,
+dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other side at a
+quarter-past nine. You will find a small brougham waiting close to the
+curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar
+with red. Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time
+for the Continental express.”
+
+“Where shall I meet you?”
+
+“At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front will be
+reserved for us.”
+
+“The carriage is our rendezvous, then?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening. It was
+evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he was
+under, and that that was the motive which impelled him to go. With a few
+hurried words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and came out with
+me into the garden, clambering over the wall which leads into Mortimer
+Street, and immediately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him
+drive away.
+
+In the morning I obeyed Holmes's injunctions to the letter. A hansom was
+procured with such precaution as would prevent its being one which was
+placed ready for us, and I drove immediately after breakfast to the
+Lowther Arcade, through which I hurried at the top of my speed. A
+brougham was waiting with a very massive driver wrapped in a dark cloak,
+who, the instant that I had stepped in, whipped up the horse and rattled
+off to Victoria Station. On my alighting there he turned the carriage,
+and dashed away again without so much as a look in my direction.
+
+So far all had gone admirably. My luggage was waiting for me, and I had
+no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes had indicated, the
+less so as it was the only one in the train which was marked “Engaged.”
+ My only source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of Holmes. The
+station clock marked only seven minutes from the time when we were
+due to start. In vain I searched among the groups of travellers and
+leave-takers for the lithe figure of my friend. There was no sign of
+him. I spent a few minutes in assisting a venerable Italian priest, who
+was endeavoring to make a porter understand, in his broken English,
+that his luggage was to be booked through to Paris. Then, having taken
+another look round, I returned to my carriage, where I found that the
+porter, in spite of the ticket, had given me my decrepit Italian friend
+as a traveling companion. It was useless for me to explain to him that
+his presence was an intrusion, for my Italian was even more limited than
+his English, so I shrugged my shoulders resignedly, and continued to
+look out anxiously for my friend. A chill of fear had come over me, as I
+thought that his absence might mean that some blow had fallen during the
+night. Already the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when--
+
+“My dear Watson,” said a voice, “you have not even condescended to say
+good-morning.”
+
+I turned in uncontrollable astonishment. The aged ecclesiastic had
+turned his face towards me. For an instant the wrinkles were smoothed
+away, the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased to protrude
+and the mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their fire, the drooping
+figure expanded. The next the whole frame collapsed again, and Holmes
+had gone as quickly as he had come.
+
+“Good heavens!” I cried; “how you startled me!”
+
+“Every precaution is still necessary,” he whispered. “I have reason to
+think that they are hot upon our trail. Ah, there is Moriarty himself.”
+
+The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glancing back, I
+saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving
+his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped. It was too late,
+however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later
+had shot clear of the station.
+
+“With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine,”
+ said Holmes, laughing. He rose, and throwing off the black cassock and
+hat which had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a hand-bag.
+
+“Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You haven't' seen about Baker Street, then?”
+
+“Baker Street?”
+
+“They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was done.”
+
+“Good heavens, Holmes! this is intolerable.”
+
+“They must have lost my track completely after their bludgeon-man was
+arrested. Otherwise they could not have imagined that I had returned
+to my rooms. They have evidently taken the precaution of watching you,
+however, and that is what has brought Moriarty to Victoria. You could
+not have made any slip in coming?”
+
+“I did exactly what you advised.”
+
+“Did you find your brougham?”
+
+“Yes, it was waiting.”
+
+“Did you recognize your coachman?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a
+case without taking a mercenary into your confidence. But we must plan
+what we are to do about Moriarty now.”
+
+“As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, I
+should think we have shaken him off very effectively.”
+
+“My dear Watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning when I said
+that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual plane
+as myself. You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I should allow
+myself to be baffled by so slight an obstacle. Why, then, should you
+think so meanly of him?”
+
+“What will he do?”
+
+“What I should do?”
+
+“What would you do, then?”
+
+“Engage a special.”
+
+“But it must be late.”
+
+“By no means. This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at
+least a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat. He will catch us there.”
+
+“One would think that we were the criminals. Let us have him arrested on
+his arrival.”
+
+“It would be to ruin the work of three months. We should get the big
+fish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net. On
+Monday we should have them all. No, an arrest is inadmissible.”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“We shall get out at Canterbury.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to Newhaven, and so
+over to Dieppe. Moriarty will again do what I should do. He will get on
+to Paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot.
+In the meantime we shall treat ourselves to a couple of carpet-bags,
+encourage the manufactures of the countries through which we travel, and
+make our way at our leisure into Switzerland, via Luxembourg and Basle.”
+
+At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should have
+to wait an hour before we could get a train to Newhaven.
+
+I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing
+luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled my sleeve
+and pointed up the line.
+
+“Already, you see,” said he.
+
+Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin spray of smoke.
+A minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying along the open
+curve which leads to the station. We had hardly time to take our place
+behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a rattle and a roar,
+beating a blast of hot air into our faces.
+
+“There he goes,” said Holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and
+rock over the points. “There are limits, you see, to our friend's
+intelligence. It would have been a coup-de-maitre had he deduced what I
+would deduce and acted accordingly.”
+
+“And what would he have done had he overtaken us?”
+
+“There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous
+attack upon me. It is, however, a game at which two may play. The
+question now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run
+our chance of starving before we reach the buffet at Newhaven.”
+
+
+We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there, moving
+on upon the third day as far as Strasburg. On the Monday morning Holmes
+had telegraphed to the London police, and in the evening we found a
+reply waiting for us at our hotel. Holmes tore it open, and then with a
+bitter curse hurled it into the grate.
+
+“I might have known it!” he groaned. “He has escaped!”
+
+“Moriarty?”
+
+“They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him. He has
+given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the country there was no
+one to cope with him. But I did think that I had put the game in their
+hands. I think that you had better return to England, Watson.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because you will find me a dangerous companion now. This man's
+occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London. If I read his
+character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself
+upon me. He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy that he
+meant it. I should certainly recommend you to return to your practice.”
+
+It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an
+old campaigner as well as an old friend. We sat in the Strasburg
+salle-à-manger arguing the question for half an hour, but the same night
+we had resumed our journey and were well on our way to Geneva.
+
+For a charming week we wandered up the Valley of the Rhone, and then,
+branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep
+in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen. It was a lovely
+trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white of the
+winter above; but it was clear to me that never for one instant did
+Holmes forget the shadow which lay across him. In the homely Alpine
+villages or in the lonely mountain passes, I could tell by his quick
+glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us,
+that he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not walk
+ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps.
+
+Once, I remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked along
+the border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock which had been
+dislodged from the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared into
+the lake behind us. In an instant Holmes had raced up on to the ridge,
+and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction.
+It was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of stones was a
+common chance in the spring-time at that spot. He said nothing, but
+he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the fulfillment of that
+which he had expected.
+
+And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed. On the
+contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant
+spirits. Again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could
+be assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty he would
+cheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.
+
+“I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived
+wholly in vain,” he remarked. “If my record were closed to-night I could
+still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my
+presence. In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used
+my powers upon the wrong side. Of late I have been tempted to look into
+the problems furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones
+for which our artificial state of society is responsible. Your memoirs
+will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by
+the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in
+Europe.”
+
+I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me to
+tell. It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell, and yet I am
+conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.
+
+It was on the 3d of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen,
+where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the
+elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, and spoke excellent English,
+having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in
+London. At his advice, on the afternoon of the 4th we set off together,
+with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the
+hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account
+to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill,
+without making a small detour to see them.
+
+It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow,
+plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the
+smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself
+is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing
+into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and
+shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green
+water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray
+hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and
+clamor. We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking
+water far below us against the black rocks, and listening to the
+half-human shout which came booming up with the spray out of the abyss.
+
+The path has been cut half-way round the fall to afford a complete view,
+but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he came. We had
+turned to do so, when we saw a Swiss lad come running along it with
+a letter in his hand. It bore the mark of the hotel which we had just
+left, and was addressed to me by the landlord. It appeared that within a
+very few minutes of our leaving, an English lady had arrived who was in
+the last stage of consumption. She had wintered at Davos Platz, and was
+journeying now to join her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage
+had overtaken her. It was thought that she could hardly live a few
+hours, but it would be a great consolation to her to see an English
+doctor, and, if I would only return, etc. The good Steiler assured me
+in a postscript that he would himself look upon my compliance as a very
+great favor, since the lady absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician,
+and he could not but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.
+
+The appeal was one which could not be ignored. It was impossible to
+refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land. Yet
+I had my scruples about leaving Holmes. It was finally agreed, however,
+that he should retain the young Swiss messenger with him as guide and
+companion while I returned to Meiringen. My friend would stay some
+little time at the fall, he said, and would then walk slowly over the
+hill to Rosenlaui, where I was to rejoin him in the evening. As I turned
+away I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded,
+gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever
+destined to see of him in this world.
+
+When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back. It was
+impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could see the
+curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill and leads to it.
+Along this a man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.
+
+I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green behind
+him. I noted him, and the energy with which he walked but he passed from
+my mind again as I hurried on upon my errand.
+
+It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen. Old
+Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.
+
+“Well,” said I, as I came hurrying up, “I trust that she is no worse?”
+
+A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver of his
+eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.
+
+“You did not write this?” I said, pulling the letter from my pocket.
+“There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?”
+
+“Certainly not!” he cried. “But it has the hotel mark upon it! Ha, it
+must have been written by that tall Englishman who came in after you had
+gone. He said--”
+
+But I waited for none of the landlord's explanations. In a tingle of
+fear I was already running down the village street, and making for the
+path which I had so lately descended. It had taken me an hour to come
+down. For all my efforts two more had passed before I found myself at
+the fall of Reichenbach once more. There was Holmes's Alpine-stock still
+leaning against the rock by which I had left him. But there was no sign
+of him, and it was in vain that I shouted. My only answer was my own
+voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the cliffs around me.
+
+It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick.
+He had not gone to Rosenlaui, then. He had remained on that three-foot
+path, with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the other, until his
+enemy had overtaken him. The young Swiss had gone too. He had probably
+been in the pay of Moriarty, and had left the two men together. And then
+what had happened? Who was to tell us what had happened then?
+
+I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the
+horror of the thing. Then I began to think of Holmes's own methods and
+to try to practise them in reading this tragedy. It was, alas, only too
+easy to do. During our conversation we had not gone to the end of the
+path, and the Alpine-stock marked the place where we had stood. The
+blackish soil is kept forever soft by the incessant drift of spray,
+and a bird would leave its tread upon it. Two lines of footmarks were
+clearly marked along the farther end of the path, both leading away from
+me. There were none returning. A few yards from the end the soil was
+all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the branches and ferns which
+fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled. I lay upon my face and
+peered over with the spray spouting up all around me. It had darkened
+since I left, and now I could only see here and there the glistening of
+moisture upon the black walls, and far away down at the end of the shaft
+the gleam of the broken water. I shouted; but only the same half-human
+cry of the fall was borne back to my ears.
+
+But it was destined that I should after all have a last word of greeting
+from my friend and comrade. I have said that his Alpine-stock had been
+left leaning against a rock which jutted on to the path. From the top of
+this bowlder the gleam of something bright caught my eye, and, raising
+my hand, I found that it came from the silver cigarette-case which he
+used to carry. As I took it up a small square of paper upon which it
+had lain fluttered down on to the ground. Unfolding it, I found that it
+consisted of three pages torn from his note-book and addressed to me. It
+was characteristic of the man that the direction was a precise, and the
+writing as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his study.
+
+My dear Watson [it said], I write these few lines through the courtesy
+of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of
+those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch
+of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself
+informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion
+which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall
+be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though
+I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and
+especially, my dear Watson, to you. I have already explained to you,
+however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that
+no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.
+Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced
+that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart
+on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort
+would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs
+to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope
+and inscribed “Moriarty.” I made every disposition of my property before
+leaving England, and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my
+greetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,
+
+Very sincerely yours,
+
+Sherlock Holmes
+
+
+A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains. An examination
+by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two
+men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their
+reeling over, locked in each other's arms. Any attempt at recovering the
+bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful
+caldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the
+most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their
+generation. The Swiss youth was never found again, and there can be no
+doubt that he was one of the numerous agents whom Moriarty kept in his
+employ. As to the gang, it will be within the memory of the public
+how completely the evidence which Holmes had accumulated exposed their
+organization, and how heavily the hand of the dead man weighed
+upon them. Of their terrible chief few details came out during the
+proceedings, and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement
+of his career it is due to those injudicious champions who have
+endeavored to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever
+regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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+Project Gutenberg’s The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you’ll
+have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
+this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: The Merchant of Venice
+
+Author: William Shakespeare
+
+Release Date: November, 1998 [Etext #1515]
+Last Updated: March 9, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ***
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by the PG Shakespeare Team,
+a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers.
+
+
+
+cover 
+
+
+
+THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
+
+
+
+by William Shakespeare
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ACT I
+Scene I. Venice. A street.
+Scene II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+Scene III. Venice. A public place.
+
+
+ACT II
+Scene I. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+Scene II. Venice. A street.
+Scene III. The same. A room in Shylock’s house.
+Scene IV. The same. A street.
+Scene V. The same. Before Shylock’s house.
+Scene VI. The same.
+Scene VII. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+Scene VIII. Venice. A street.
+Scene IX. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+
+ACT III
+Scene I. Venice. A street.
+Scene II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+Scene III. Venice. A street.
+Scene IV. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+Scene V. The same. A garden.
+
+
+ACT IV
+Scene I. Venice. A court of justice.
+Scene II. The same. A street.
+
+
+ACT V
+Scene I. Belmont. The avenue to Portia’s house.
+
+
+
+Dramatis Personæ
+
+THE DUKE OF VENICE
+THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia
+THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON, suitor to Portia
+ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice
+BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia
+GRATIANO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
+SOLANIO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
+SALARINO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
+LORENZO, in love with Jessica
+SHYLOCK, a rich Jew
+TUBAL, a Jew, his friend
+LAUNCELET GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock
+OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelet
+LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio
+BALTHAZAR, servant to Portia
+STEPHANO, servant to Portia
+SALERIO, a messenger from Venice
+
+PORTIA, a rich heiress
+NERISSA, her waiting-woman
+JESSICA, daughter to Shylock
+
+Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, a Gaoler,
+Servants and other Attendants
+
+SCENE: Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia on
+the Continent
+
+
+ACT I
+
+SCENE I. Venice. A street.
+
+ Enter Antonio, Salarino and Solanio.
+
+ANTONIO.
+In sooth I know not why I am so sad,
+It wearies me. you say it wearies you;
+But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
+What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
+I am to learn.
+And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
+That I have much ado to know myself.
+
+SALARINO.
+Your mind is tossing on the ocean,
+There where your argosies, with portly sail
+Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
+Or as it were the pageants of the sea,
+Do overpeer the petty traffickers
+That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
+As they fly by them with their woven wings.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
+The better part of my affections would
+Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
+Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,
+Peering in maps for ports, and piers and roads;
+And every object that might make me fear
+Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
+Would make me sad.
+
+SALARINO.
+My wind cooling my broth
+Would blow me to an ague when I thought
+What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
+I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
+But I should think of shallows and of flats,
+And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand,
+Vailing her high top lower than her ribs
+To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
+And see the holy edifice of stone
+And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
+Which, touching but my gentle vessel’s side,
+Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
+Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
+And, in a word, but even now worth this,
+And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
+To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
+That such a thing bechanc’d would make me sad?
+But tell not me, I know Antonio
+Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Believe me, no. I thank my fortune for it,
+My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
+Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
+Upon the fortune of this present year.
+Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
+
+SALARINO.
+Why then you are in love.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Fie, fie!
+
+SALARINO.
+Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad
+Because you are not merry; and ’twere as easy
+For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry
+Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
+Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time:
+Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
+And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper.
+And other of such vinegar aspect
+That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile
+Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
+
+ Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo and Gratiano.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
+Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well.
+We leave you now with better company.
+
+SALARINO.
+I would have stay’d till I had made you merry,
+If worthier friends had not prevented me.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Your worth is very dear in my regard.
+I take it your own business calls on you,
+And you embrace th’ occasion to depart.
+
+SALARINO.
+Good morrow, my good lords.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when?
+You grow exceeding strange. Must it be so?
+
+SALARINO.
+We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.
+
+ [_Exeunt Salarino and Solanio._]
+
+LORENZO.
+My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
+We two will leave you, but at dinner-time
+I pray you have in mind where we must meet.
+
+BASSANIO.
+I will not fail you.
+
+GRATIANO.
+You look not well, Signior Antonio,
+You have too much respect upon the world.
+They lose it that do buy it with much care.
+Believe me, you are marvellously chang’d.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
+A stage, where every man must play a part,
+And mine a sad one.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Let me play the fool,
+With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
+And let my liver rather heat with wine
+Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
+Why should a man whose blood is warm within
+Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
+Sleep when he wakes? And creep into the jaundice
+By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
+(I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks):
+There are a sort of men whose visages
+Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
+And do a wilful stillness entertain,
+With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion
+Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
+As who should say, “I am Sir Oracle,
+And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.”
+O my Antonio, I do know of these
+That therefore only are reputed wise
+For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
+If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
+Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
+I’ll tell thee more of this another time.
+But fish not with this melancholy bait
+For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
+Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well a while.
+I’ll end my exhortation after dinner.
+
+LORENZO.
+Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.
+I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
+For Gratiano never lets me speak.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Well, keep me company but two years moe,
+Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Fare you well. I’ll grow a talker for this gear.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Thanks, i’ faith, for silence is only commendable
+In a neat’s tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
+
+ [_Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo._]
+
+ANTONIO.
+Is that anything now?
+
+BASSANIO.
+Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all
+Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of
+chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them
+they are not worth the search.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Well, tell me now what lady is the same
+To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
+That you today promis’d to tell me of?
+
+BASSANIO.
+’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
+How much I have disabled mine estate
+By something showing a more swelling port
+Than my faint means would grant continuance.
+Nor do I now make moan to be abridg’d
+From such a noble rate, but my chief care
+Is to come fairly off from the great debts
+Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
+Hath left me gag’d. To you, Antonio,
+I owe the most in money and in love,
+And from your love I have a warranty
+To unburden all my plots and purposes
+How to get clear of all the debts I owe.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
+And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
+Within the eye of honour, be assur’d
+My purse, my person, my extremest means
+Lie all unlock’d to your occasions.
+
+BASSANIO.
+In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
+I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
+The self-same way, with more advised watch
+To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
+I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof
+Because what follows is pure innocence.
+I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
+That which I owe is lost. But if you please
+To shoot another arrow that self way
+Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
+As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
+Or bring your latter hazard back again,
+And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
+
+ANTONIO.
+You know me well, and herein spend but time
+To wind about my love with circumstance;
+And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
+In making question of my uttermost
+Than if you had made waste of all I have.
+Then do but say to me what I should do
+That in your knowledge may by me be done,
+And I am prest unto it. Therefore, speak.
+
+BASSANIO.
+In Belmont is a lady richly left,
+And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
+Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
+I did receive fair speechless messages:
+Her name is Portia, nothing undervalu’d
+To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia.
+Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
+For the four winds blow in from every coast
+Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
+Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,
+Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strond,
+And many Jasons come in quest of her.
+O my Antonio, had I but the means
+To hold a rival place with one of them,
+I have a mind presages me such thrift
+That I should questionless be fortunate.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;
+Neither have I money nor commodity
+To raise a present sum, therefore go forth
+Try what my credit can in Venice do;
+That shall be rack’d even to the uttermost,
+To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.
+Go presently inquire, and so will I,
+Where money is, and I no question make
+To have it of my trust or for my sake.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Enter Portia with her waiting-woman Nerissa.
+
+PORTIA.
+By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
+
+NERISSA.
+You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance
+as your good fortunes are. And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick
+that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no
+mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity come
+sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
+
+PORTIA.
+Good sentences, and well pronounc’d.
+
+NERISSA.
+They would be better if well followed.
+
+PORTIA.
+If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been
+churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine
+that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were
+good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own
+teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper
+leaps o’er a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip
+o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not
+in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word “choose”! I may
+neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of
+a living daughter curb’d by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
+Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?
+
+NERISSA.
+Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good
+inspirations. Therefore the lott’ry that he hath devised in these three
+chests of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning
+chooses you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one who
+you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection
+towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?
+
+PORTIA.
+I pray thee over-name them, and as thou namest them, I will describe
+them, and according to my description level at my affection.
+
+NERISSA.
+First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
+
+PORTIA.
+Ay, that’s a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse,
+and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he can
+shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother play’d false with
+a smith.
+
+NERISSA.
+Then is there the County Palatine.
+
+PORTIA.
+He doth nothing but frown, as who should say “And you will not have me,
+choose.” He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the
+weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly
+sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death’s-head with a
+bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these
+two!
+
+NERISSA.
+How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?
+
+PORTIA.
+God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it
+is a sin to be a mocker, but he! why, he hath a horse better than the
+Neapolitan’s, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine.
+He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight
+a-cap’ring. He will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I
+should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive
+him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.
+
+NERISSA.
+What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?
+
+PORTIA.
+You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he
+hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the
+court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a
+proper man’s picture; but alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How
+oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
+hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.
+
+NERISSA.
+What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?
+
+PORTIA.
+That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the
+ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was
+able. I think the Frenchman became his surety, and seal’d under for
+another.
+
+NERISSA.
+How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?
+
+PORTIA.
+Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the
+afternoon when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than
+a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. And the
+worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.
+
+NERISSA.
+If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should
+refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept
+him.
+
+PORTIA.
+Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of
+Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and
+that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything,
+Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.
+
+NERISSA.
+You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They have
+acquainted me with their determinations, which is indeed to return to
+their home, and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won
+by some other sort than your father’s imposition, depending on the
+caskets.
+
+PORTIA.
+If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana,
+unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. I am glad this
+parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but
+I dote on his very absence. And I pray God grant them a fair departure.
+
+NERISSA.
+Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a Venetian, a scholar
+and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of
+Montferrat?
+
+PORTIA.
+Yes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, so was he call’d.
+
+NERISSA.
+True, madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes look’d upon,
+was the best deserving a fair lady.
+
+PORTIA.
+I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.
+
+ Enter a Servingman.
+
+How now! what news?
+
+SERVINGMAN.
+The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave. And there
+is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings
+word the Prince his master will be here tonight.
+
+PORTIA.
+If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the
+other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach. If he have the
+condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he
+should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles
+we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE III. Venice. A public place.
+
+ Enter Bassanio with Shylock the Jew.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Three thousand ducats, well.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Ay, sir, for three months.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+For three months, well.
+
+BASSANIO.
+For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Antonio shall become bound, well.
+
+BASSANIO.
+May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your answer?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Your answer to that.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Antonio is a good man.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Ho, no, no, no, no: my meaning in saying he is a good man is to have
+you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in
+supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the
+Indies. I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at
+Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered
+abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats
+and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves—I mean pirates—and then
+there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks. The man is,
+notwithstanding, sufficient. Three thousand ducats. I think I may take
+his bond.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Be assured you may.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I will be assured I may. And that I may be assured, I will bethink me.
+May I speak with Antonio?
+
+BASSANIO.
+If it please you to dine with us.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the
+Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you,
+talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with
+you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is
+he comes here?
+
+ Enter Antonio.
+
+BASSANIO.
+This is Signior Antonio.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+[_Aside._] How like a fawning publican he looks!
+I hate him for he is a Christian,
+But more for that in low simplicity
+He lends out money gratis, and brings down
+The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
+If I can catch him once upon the hip,
+I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
+He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
+Even there where merchants most do congregate,
+On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
+Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe
+If I forgive him!
+
+BASSANIO.
+Shylock, do you hear?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I am debating of my present store,
+And by the near guess of my memory
+I cannot instantly raise up the gross
+Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?
+Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
+Will furnish me. But soft! how many months
+Do you desire? [_To Antonio._] Rest you fair, good signior,
+Your worship was the last man in our mouths.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow
+By taking nor by giving of excess,
+Yet to supply the ripe wants of my friend,
+I’ll break a custom. [_To Bassanio._] Is he yet possess’d
+How much ye would?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.
+
+ANTONIO.
+And for three months.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I had forgot, three months, you told me so.
+Well then, your bond. And let me see, but hear you,
+Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow
+Upon advantage.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I do never use it.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+When Jacob graz’d his uncle Laban’s sheep,—
+This Jacob from our holy Abram was
+As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,
+The third possessor; ay, he was the third.
+
+ANTONIO.
+And what of him? Did he take interest?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+No, not take interest, not, as you would say,
+Directly interest; mark what Jacob did.
+When Laban and himself were compromis’d
+That all the eanlings which were streak’d and pied
+Should fall as Jacob’s hire, the ewes being rank
+In end of autumn turned to the rams,
+And when the work of generation was
+Between these woolly breeders in the act,
+The skilful shepherd pill’d me certain wands,
+And in the doing of the deed of kind,
+He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,
+Who then conceiving did in eaning time
+Fall parti-colour’d lambs, and those were Jacob’s.
+This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
+And thrift is blessing if men steal it not.
+
+ANTONIO.
+This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv’d for,
+A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
+But sway’d and fashion’d by the hand of heaven.
+Was this inserted to make interest good?
+Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.
+But note me, signior.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Mark you this, Bassanio,
+The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
+An evil soul producing holy witness
+Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
+A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
+O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Three thousand ducats, ’tis a good round sum.
+Three months from twelve, then let me see the rate.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
+In the Rialto you have rated me
+About my moneys and my usances.
+Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
+(For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.)
+You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
+And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine,
+And all for use of that which is mine own.
+Well then, it now appears you need my help.
+Go to, then, you come to me, and you say
+“Shylock, we would have moneys.” You say so:
+You that did void your rheum upon my beard,
+And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
+Over your threshold, moneys is your suit.
+What should I say to you? Should I not say
+“Hath a dog money? Is it possible
+A cur can lend three thousand ducats?” Or
+Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key,
+With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness,
+Say this:
+“Fair sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last;
+You spurn’d me such a day; another time
+You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies
+I’ll lend you thus much moneys”?
+
+ANTONIO.
+I am as like to call thee so again,
+To spet on thee again, to spurn thee too.
+If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
+As to thy friends, for when did friendship take
+A breed for barren metal of his friend?
+But lend it rather to thine enemy,
+Who if he break, thou mayst with better face
+Exact the penalty.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Why, look you how you storm!
+I would be friends with you, and have your love,
+Forget the shames that you have stain’d me with,
+Supply your present wants, and take no doit
+Of usance for my moneys, and you’ll not hear me,
+This is kind I offer.
+
+BASSANIO.
+This were kindness.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+This kindness will I show.
+Go with me to a notary, seal me there
+Your single bond; and in a merry sport,
+If you repay me not on such a day,
+In such a place, such sum or sums as are
+Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit
+Be nominated for an equal pound
+Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
+In what part of your body pleaseth me.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Content, in faith, I’ll seal to such a bond,
+And say there is much kindness in the Jew.
+
+BASSANIO.
+You shall not seal to such a bond for me,
+I’ll rather dwell in my necessity.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Why, fear not, man, I will not forfeit it,
+Within these two months, that’s a month before
+This bond expires, I do expect return
+Of thrice three times the value of this bond.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+O father Abram, what these Christians are,
+Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
+The thoughts of others. Pray you, tell me this,
+If he should break his day, what should I gain
+By the exaction of the forfeiture?
+A pound of man’s flesh, taken from a man,
+Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
+As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,
+To buy his favour, I extend this friendship.
+If he will take it, so. If not, adieu,
+And for my love I pray you wrong me not.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Then meet me forthwith at the notary’s,
+Give him direction for this merry bond,
+And I will go and purse the ducats straight,
+See to my house left in the fearful guard
+Of an unthrifty knave, and presently
+I’ll be with you.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Hie thee, gentle Jew.
+
+ [_Exit Shylock._]
+
+This Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.
+
+BASSANIO.
+I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Come on; in this there can be no dismay;
+My ships come home a month before the day.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT II
+
+SCENE I. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Flourish of cornets. Enter the Prince of Morocco, a tawny Moor all in
+ white, and three or four followers accordingly, with Portia, Nerissa
+ and their train.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+Mislike me not for my complexion,
+The shadowed livery of the burnish’d sun,
+To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.
+Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
+Where Phœbus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,
+And let us make incision for your love
+To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
+I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
+Hath fear’d the valiant; by my love I swear
+The best-regarded virgins of our clime
+Have lov’d it too. I would not change this hue,
+Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.
+
+PORTIA.
+In terms of choice I am not solely led
+By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes;
+Besides, the lott’ry of my destiny
+Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.
+But if my father had not scanted me
+And hedg’d me by his wit to yield myself
+His wife who wins me by that means I told you,
+Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair
+As any comer I have look’d on yet
+For my affection.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+Even for that I thank you.
+Therefore I pray you lead me to the caskets
+To try my fortune. By this scimitar
+That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,
+That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,
+I would o’erstare the sternest eyes that look,
+Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,
+Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,
+Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey,
+To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!
+If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
+Which is the better man, the greater throw
+May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
+So is Alcides beaten by his rage,
+And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
+Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
+And die with grieving.
+
+PORTIA.
+You must take your chance,
+And either not attempt to choose at all,
+Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong
+Never to speak to lady afterward
+In way of marriage. Therefore be advis’d.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+Nor will not. Come, bring me unto my chance.
+
+PORTIA.
+First, forward to the temple. After dinner
+Your hazard shall be made.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+Good fortune then,
+To make me blest or cursed’st among men!
+
+ [_Cornets. Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. Venice. A street.
+
+ Enter Launcelet Gobbo, the clown, alone.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew my master.
+The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me “Gobbo,
+Launcelet Gobbo, good Launcelet” or “good Gobbo,” or “good Launcelet
+Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.” My conscience says
+“No; take heed, honest Launcelet, take heed, honest Gobbo” or, as
+aforesaid, “honest Launcelet Gobbo, do not run, scorn running with thy
+heels.” Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack. “Fia!” says the
+fiend, “away!” says the fiend. “For the heavens, rouse up a brave
+mind,” says the fiend “and run.” Well, my conscience, hanging about the
+neck of my heart, says very wisely to me “My honest friend Launcelet,
+being an honest man’s son”—or rather an honest woman’s son, for indeed
+my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a kind of
+taste;—well, my conscience says “Launcelet, budge not.” “Budge,” says
+the fiend. “Budge not,” says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “you
+counsel well.” “Fiend,” say I, “you counsel well.” To be ruled by my
+conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who, (God bless the
+mark) is a kind of devil; and, to run away from the Jew, I should be
+ruled by the fiend, who (saving your reverence) is the devil himself.
+Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation, and, in my conscience,
+my conscience is but a kind of hard conscience, to offer to counsel me
+to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly counsel. I will
+run, fiend, my heels are at your commandment, I will run.
+
+ Enter Old Gobbo with a basket.
+
+GOBBO.
+Master young man, you, I pray you; which is the way to Master Jew’s?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+[_Aside._] O heavens, this is my true-begotten father, who being more
+than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not. I will try confusions
+with him.
+
+GOBBO.
+Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to Master Jew’s?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but at the next turning
+of all on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand,
+but turn down indirectly to the Jew’s house.
+
+GOBBO.
+Be God’s sonties, ’twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell me whether
+one Launcelet, that dwells with him, dwell with him or no?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Talk you of young Master Launcelet? [_Aside._] Mark me now, now will I
+raise the waters. Talk you of young Master Launcelet?
+
+GOBBO.
+No master, sir, but a poor man’s son, his father, though I say’t, is an
+honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well to live.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Well, let his father be what he will, we talk of young Master
+Launcelet.
+
+GOBBO.
+Your worship’s friend, and Launcelet, sir.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+But I pray you, _ergo_, old man, _ergo_, I beseech you, talk you of
+young Master Launcelet?
+
+GOBBO.
+Of Launcelet, an’t please your mastership.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+_Ergo_, Master Launcelet. Talk not of Master Launcelet, father, for the
+young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies, and such odd
+sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of learning, is indeed
+deceased, or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.
+
+GOBBO.
+Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+[_Aside._] Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a prop?
+Do you know me, father?
+
+GOBBO.
+Alack the day! I know you not, young gentleman, but I pray you tell me,
+is my boy, God rest his soul, alive or dead?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Do you not know me, father?
+
+GOBBO.
+Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it
+is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell
+you news of your son. Give me your blessing, truth will come to light,
+murder cannot be hid long, a man’s son may, but in the end truth will
+out.
+
+GOBBO.
+Pray you, sir, stand up, I am sure you are not Launcelet my boy.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Pray you, let’s have no more fooling about it, but give me your
+blessing. I am Launcelet, your boy that was, your son that is, your
+child that shall be.
+
+GOBBO.
+I cannot think you are my son.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+I know not what I shall think of that; but I am Launcelet, the Jew’s
+man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother.
+
+GOBBO.
+Her name is Margery, indeed. I’ll be sworn if thou be Launcelet, thou
+art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped might he be, what a beard
+hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my
+fill-horse has on his tail.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+It should seem, then, that Dobbin’s tail grows backward. I am sure he
+had more hair on his tail than I have on my face when I last saw him.
+
+GOBBO.
+Lord, how art thou changed! How dost thou and thy master agree? I have
+brought him a present. How ’gree you now?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Well, well. But for mine own part, as I have set up my rest to run
+away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground. My master’s a
+very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I am famished in his
+service. You may tell every finger I have with my ribs. Father, I am
+glad you are come, give me your present to one Master Bassanio, who
+indeed gives rare new liveries. If I serve not him, I will run as far
+as God has any ground. O rare fortune, here comes the man! To him,
+father; for I am a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer.
+
+ Enter Bassanio with Leonardo and a follower or two.
+
+BASSANIO.
+You may do so, but let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the
+farthest by five of the clock. See these letters delivered, put the
+liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to come anon to my lodging.
+
+ [_Exit a Servant._]
+
+LAUNCELET.
+To him, father.
+
+GOBBO.
+God bless your worship!
+
+BASSANIO.
+Gramercy, wouldst thou aught with me?
+
+GOBBO.
+Here’s my son, sir, a poor boy.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew’s man, that would, sir, as my
+father shall specify.
+
+GOBBO.
+He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and have a desire,
+as my father shall specify.
+
+GOBBO.
+His master and he (saving your worship’s reverence) are scarce
+cater-cousins.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done me wrong, doth
+cause me, as my father, being I hope an old man, shall frutify unto
+you.
+
+GOBBO.
+I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your worship, and
+my suit is—
+
+LAUNCELET.
+In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as your worship shall
+know by this honest old man, and though I say it, though old man, yet
+poor man, my father.
+
+BASSANIO.
+One speak for both. What would you?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Serve you, sir.
+
+GOBBO.
+That is the very defect of the matter, sir.
+
+BASSANIO.
+I know thee well; thou hast obtain’d thy suit.
+Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,
+And hath preferr’d thee, if it be preferment
+To leave a rich Jew’s service to become
+The follower of so poor a gentleman.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you,
+sir: you have “the grace of God”, sir, and he hath “enough”.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Thou speak’st it well. Go, father, with thy son.
+Take leave of thy old master, and inquire
+My lodging out. [_To a Servant._] Give him a livery
+More guarded than his fellows’; see it done.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne’er a tongue in my
+head! [_Looking on his palm._] Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer
+table which doth offer to swear upon a book, I shall have good fortune;
+go to, here’s a simple line of life. Here’s a small trifle of wives,
+alas, fifteen wives is nothing; eleven widows and nine maids is a
+simple coming-in for one man. And then to scape drowning thrice, and to
+be in peril of my life with the edge of a feather-bed; here are simple
+’scapes. Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.
+Father, come; I’ll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.
+
+ [_Exeunt Launcelet and Old Gobbo._]
+
+BASSANIO.
+I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.
+These things being bought and orderly bestow’d,
+Return in haste, for I do feast tonight
+My best esteem’d acquaintance; hie thee, go.
+
+LEONARDO.
+My best endeavours shall be done herein.
+
+ Enter Gratiano.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Where’s your master?
+
+LEONARDO.
+Yonder, sir, he walks.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+GRATIANO.
+Signior Bassanio!
+
+BASSANIO.
+Gratiano!
+
+GRATIANO.
+I have suit to you.
+
+BASSANIO.
+You have obtain’d it.
+
+GRATIANO.
+You must not deny me, I must go with you to Belmont.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano,
+Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice,
+Parts that become thee happily enough,
+And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;
+But where thou art not known, why there they show
+Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain
+To allay with some cold drops of modesty
+Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behaviour
+I be misconst’red in the place I go to,
+And lose my hopes.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Signior Bassanio, hear me.
+If I do not put on a sober habit,
+Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,
+Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,
+Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes
+Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say “amen”;
+Use all the observance of civility
+Like one well studied in a sad ostent
+To please his grandam, never trust me more.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Well, we shall see your bearing.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Nay, but I bar tonight, you shall not gauge me
+By what we do tonight.
+
+BASSANIO.
+No, that were pity.
+I would entreat you rather to put on
+Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends
+That purpose merriment. But fare you well,
+I have some business.
+
+GRATIANO.
+And I must to Lorenzo and the rest,
+But we will visit you at supper-time.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE III. The same. A room in Shylock’s house.
+
+ Enter Jessica and Launcelet.
+
+JESSICA.
+I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.
+Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
+Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
+But fare thee well, there is a ducat for thee,
+And, Launcelet, soon at supper shalt thou see
+Lorenzo, who is thy new master’s guest.
+Give him this letter, do it secretly.
+And so farewell. I would not have my father
+See me in talk with thee.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue, most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew!
+If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee, I am much deceived.
+But, adieu! These foolish drops do something drown my manly spirit.
+Adieu!
+
+JESSICA.
+Farewell, good Launcelet.
+
+ [_Exit Launcelet._]
+
+Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
+To be ashamed to be my father’s child!
+But though I am a daughter to his blood,
+I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,
+If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
+Become a Christian and thy loving wife.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE IV. The same. A street.
+
+ Enter Gratiano, Lorenzo, Salarino and Solanio.
+
+LORENZO.
+Nay, we will slink away in supper-time,
+Disguise us at my lodging, and return
+All in an hour.
+
+GRATIANO.
+We have not made good preparation.
+
+SALARINO.
+We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.
+
+SOLANIO.
+’Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly order’d,
+And better in my mind not undertook.
+
+LORENZO.
+’Tis now but four o’clock, we have two hours
+To furnish us.
+
+ Enter Launcelet with a letter.
+
+Friend Launcelet, what’s the news?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+And it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem to signify.
+
+LORENZO.
+I know the hand, in faith ’tis a fair hand,
+And whiter than the paper it writ on
+Is the fair hand that writ.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Love news, in faith.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+By your leave, sir.
+
+LORENZO.
+Whither goest thou?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Marry, sir, to bid my old master the Jew to sup tonight with my new
+master the Christian.
+
+LORENZO.
+Hold here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica
+I will not fail her, speak it privately.
+Go, gentlemen,
+
+ [_Exit Launcelet._]
+
+Will you prepare you for this masque tonight?
+I am provided of a torch-bearer.
+
+SALARINO.
+Ay, marry, I’ll be gone about it straight.
+
+SOLANIO.
+And so will I.
+
+LORENZO.
+Meet me and Gratiano
+At Gratiano’s lodging some hour hence.
+
+SALARINO.
+’Tis good we do so.
+
+ [_Exeunt Salarino and Solanio._]
+
+GRATIANO.
+Was not that letter from fair Jessica?
+
+LORENZO.
+I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed
+How I shall take her from her father’s house,
+What gold and jewels she is furnish’d with,
+What page’s suit she hath in readiness.
+If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven,
+It will be for his gentle daughter’s sake;
+And never dare misfortune cross her foot,
+Unless she do it under this excuse,
+That she is issue to a faithless Jew.
+Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;
+Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE V. The same. Before Shylock’s house.
+
+ Enter Shylock the Jew and Launcelet his man that was the clown.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,
+The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.—
+What, Jessica!—Thou shalt not gormandize
+As thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!—
+And sleep, and snore, and rend apparel out.
+Why, Jessica, I say!
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Why, Jessica!
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing without bidding.
+
+ Enter Jessica.
+
+JESSICA.
+Call you? What is your will?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I am bid forth to supper, Jessica.
+There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
+I am not bid for love, they flatter me.
+But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon
+The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
+Look to my house. I am right loath to go;
+There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
+For I did dream of money-bags tonight.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+I beseech you, sir, go. My young master doth expect your reproach.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+So do I his.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+And they have conspired together. I will not say you shall see a
+masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell
+a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o’clock i’ th’ morning, falling
+out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four year in th’ afternoon.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica,
+Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum
+And the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife,
+Clamber not you up to the casements then,
+Nor thrust your head into the public street
+To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces,
+But stop my house’s ears, I mean my casements.
+Let not the sound of shallow fopp’ry enter
+My sober house. By Jacob’s staff I swear
+I have no mind of feasting forth tonight.
+But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah.
+Say I will come.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+I will go before, sir.
+Mistress, look out at window for all this.
+    There will come a Christian by
+    Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.
+
+ [_Exit Launcelet._]
+
+SHYLOCK.
+What says that fool of Hagar’s offspring, ha?
+
+JESSICA.
+His words were “Farewell, mistress,” nothing else.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,
+Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
+More than the wild-cat. Drones hive not with me,
+Therefore I part with him, and part with him
+To one that I would have him help to waste
+His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in.
+Perhaps I will return immediately:
+Do as I bid you, shut doors after you,
+“Fast bind, fast find.”
+A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+JESSICA.
+Farewell, and if my fortune be not crost,
+I have a father, you a daughter, lost.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SCENE VI. The same.
+
+ Enter the masquers, Gratiano and Salarino.
+
+GRATIANO.
+This is the penthouse under which Lorenzo
+Desired us to make stand.
+
+SALARINO.
+His hour is almost past.
+
+GRATIANO.
+And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,
+For lovers ever run before the clock.
+
+SALARINO.
+O ten times faster Venus’ pigeons fly
+To seal love’s bonds new-made than they are wont
+To keep obliged faith unforfeited!
+
+GRATIANO.
+That ever holds: who riseth from a feast
+With that keen appetite that he sits down?
+Where is the horse that doth untread again
+His tedious measures with the unbated fire
+That he did pace them first? All things that are,
+Are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d.
+How like a younger or a prodigal
+The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
+Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind!
+How like the prodigal doth she return
+With over-weather’d ribs and ragged sails,
+Lean, rent, and beggar’d by the strumpet wind!
+
+ Enter Lorenzo.
+
+SALARINO.
+Here comes Lorenzo, more of this hereafter.
+
+LORENZO.
+Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode.
+Not I but my affairs have made you wait.
+When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,
+I’ll watch as long for you then. Approach.
+Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who’s within?
+
+ Enter Jessica above, in boy’s clothes.
+
+JESSICA.
+Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
+Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.
+
+LORENZO.
+Lorenzo, and thy love.
+
+JESSICA.
+Lorenzo certain, and my love indeed,
+For who love I so much? And now who knows
+But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?
+
+LORENZO.
+Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.
+
+JESSICA.
+Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
+I am glad ’tis night, you do not look on me,
+For I am much asham’d of my exchange.
+But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
+The pretty follies that themselves commit,
+For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
+To see me thus transformed to a boy.
+
+LORENZO.
+Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.
+
+JESSICA.
+What! must I hold a candle to my shames?
+They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.
+Why, ’tis an office of discovery, love,
+And I should be obscur’d.
+
+LORENZO.
+So are you, sweet,
+Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.
+But come at once,
+For the close night doth play the runaway,
+And we are stay’d for at Bassanio’s feast.
+
+JESSICA.
+I will make fast the doors, and gild myself
+With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.
+
+ [_Exit above._]
+
+GRATIANO.
+Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.
+
+LORENZO.
+Beshrew me but I love her heartily,
+For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
+And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
+And true she is, as she hath prov’d herself.
+And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,
+Shall she be placed in my constant soul.
+
+ Enter Jessica.
+
+What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away!
+Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.
+
+ [_Exit with Jessica and Salarino._]
+
+ Enter Antonio.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Who’s there?
+
+GRATIANO.
+Signior Antonio!
+
+ANTONIO.
+Fie, fie, Gratiano! where are all the rest?
+’Tis nine o’clock, our friends all stay for you.
+No masque tonight, the wind is come about;
+Bassanio presently will go aboard.
+I have sent twenty out to seek for you.
+
+GRATIANO.
+I am glad on’t. I desire no more delight
+Than to be under sail and gone tonight.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE VII. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Flourish of cornets. Enter Portia with the Prince of Morocco and both
+ their trains.
+
+PORTIA.
+Go, draw aside the curtains and discover
+The several caskets to this noble prince.
+Now make your choice.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+The first, of gold, who this inscription bears,
+“Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”
+The second, silver, which this promise carries,
+“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”
+This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,
+“Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”
+How shall I know if I do choose the right?
+
+PORTIA.
+The one of them contains my picture, prince.
+If you choose that, then I am yours withal.
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+Some god direct my judgment! Let me see.
+I will survey the inscriptions back again.
+What says this leaden casket?
+“Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”
+Must give, for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!
+This casket threatens; men that hazard all
+Do it in hope of fair advantages:
+A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross,
+I’ll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
+What says the silver with her virgin hue?
+“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”
+As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,
+And weigh thy value with an even hand.
+If thou be’st rated by thy estimation
+Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough
+May not extend so far as to the lady.
+And yet to be afeard of my deserving
+Were but a weak disabling of myself.
+As much as I deserve! Why, that’s the lady:
+I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
+In graces, and in qualities of breeding;
+But more than these, in love I do deserve.
+What if I stray’d no farther, but chose here?
+Let’s see once more this saying grav’d in gold:
+“Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”
+Why, that’s the lady, all the world desires her.
+From the four corners of the earth they come
+To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint.
+The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
+Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now
+For princes to come view fair Portia.
+The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
+Spets in the face of heaven, is no bar
+To stop the foreign spirits, but they come
+As o’er a brook to see fair Portia.
+One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
+Is’t like that lead contains her? ’Twere damnation
+To think so base a thought. It were too gross
+To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
+Or shall I think in silver she’s immur’d
+Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?
+O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem
+Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
+A coin that bears the figure of an angel
+Stamped in gold; but that’s insculp’d upon;
+But here an angel in a golden bed
+Lies all within. Deliver me the key.
+Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may.
+
+PORTIA.
+There, take it, prince, and if my form lie there,
+Then I am yours.
+
+ [_He unlocks the golden casket._]
+
+PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
+O hell! what have we here?
+A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
+There is a written scroll. I’ll read the writing.
+
+     _All that glisters is not gold,
+     Often have you heard that told.
+     Many a man his life hath sold
+     But my outside to behold.
+     Gilded tombs do worms infold.
+     Had you been as wise as bold,
+     Young in limbs, in judgment old,
+     Your answer had not been inscroll’d,
+     Fare you well, your suit is cold._
+
+   Cold indeed and labour lost,
+   Then farewell heat, and welcome frost.
+Portia, adieu! I have too griev’d a heart
+To take a tedious leave. Thus losers part.
+
+ [_Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets._]
+
+PORTIA.
+A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.
+Let all of his complexion choose me so.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE VIII. Venice. A street.
+
+ Enter Salarino and Solanio.
+
+SALARINO.
+Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;
+With him is Gratiano gone along;
+And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.
+
+SOLANIO.
+The villain Jew with outcries rais’d the Duke,
+Who went with him to search Bassanio’s ship.
+
+SALARINO.
+He came too late, the ship was under sail;
+But there the Duke was given to understand
+That in a gondola were seen together
+Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica.
+Besides, Antonio certified the Duke
+They were not with Bassanio in his ship.
+
+SOLANIO.
+I never heard a passion so confus’d,
+So strange, outrageous, and so variable
+As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.
+“My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
+Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
+Justice! the law! my ducats and my daughter!
+A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
+Of double ducats, stol’n from me by my daughter!
+And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones,
+Stol’n by my daughter! Justice! find the girl,
+She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.”
+
+SALARINO.
+Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,
+Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Let good Antonio look he keep his day
+Or he shall pay for this.
+
+SALARINO.
+Marry, well rememb’red.
+I reason’d with a Frenchman yesterday,
+Who told me, in the narrow seas that part
+The French and English, there miscarried
+A vessel of our country richly fraught.
+I thought upon Antonio when he told me,
+And wish’d in silence that it were not his.
+
+SOLANIO.
+You were best to tell Antonio what you hear,
+Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.
+
+SALARINO.
+A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
+I saw Bassanio and Antonio part,
+Bassanio told him he would make some speed
+Of his return. He answered “Do not so,
+Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
+But stay the very riping of the time,
+And for the Jew’s bond which he hath of me,
+Let it not enter in your mind of love:
+Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
+To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
+As shall conveniently become you there.”
+And even there, his eye being big with tears,
+Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
+And with affection wondrous sensible
+He wrung Bassanio’s hand, and so they parted.
+
+SOLANIO.
+I think he only loves the world for him.
+I pray thee, let us go and find him out
+And quicken his embraced heaviness
+With some delight or other.
+
+SALARINO.
+Do we so.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE IX. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Enter Nerissa and a Servitor.
+
+NERISSA.
+Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight.
+The Prince of Arragon hath ta’en his oath,
+And comes to his election presently.
+
+ Flourish of cornets. Enter the Prince of Arragon, his train, and
+ Portia.
+
+PORTIA.
+Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince,
+If you choose that wherein I am contain’d,
+Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz’d.
+But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
+You must be gone from hence immediately.
+
+ARRAGON.
+I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things:
+First, never to unfold to anyone
+Which casket ’twas I chose; next, if I fail
+Of the right casket, never in my life
+To woo a maid in way of marriage;
+Lastly,
+If I do fail in fortune of my choice,
+Immediately to leave you and be gone.
+
+PORTIA.
+To these injunctions everyone doth swear
+That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
+
+ARRAGON.
+And so have I address’d me. Fortune now
+To my heart’s hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.
+“Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”
+You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.
+What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:
+“Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”
+What many men desire! that “many” may be meant
+By the fool multitude, that choose by show,
+Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
+Which pries not to th’ interior, but like the martlet
+Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
+Even in the force and road of casualty.
+I will not choose what many men desire,
+Because I will not jump with common spirits
+And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
+Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house,
+Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.
+“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”
+And well said too; for who shall go about
+To cozen fortune, and be honourable
+Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
+To wear an undeserved dignity.
+O that estates, degrees, and offices
+Were not deriv’d corruptly, and that clear honour
+Were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer!
+How many then should cover that stand bare?
+How many be commanded that command?
+How much low peasantry would then be gleaned
+From the true seed of honour? And how much honour
+Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times,
+To be new varnish’d? Well, but to my choice.
+“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”
+I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
+And instantly unlock my fortunes here.
+
+ [_He opens the silver casket._]
+
+PORTIA.
+Too long a pause for that which you find there.
+
+ARRAGON.
+What’s here? The portrait of a blinking idiot
+Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
+How much unlike art thou to Portia!
+How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
+“Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.”
+Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?
+Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?
+
+PORTIA.
+To offend and judge are distinct offices,
+And of opposed natures.
+
+ARRAGON.
+What is here?
+
+     _The fire seven times tried this;
+     Seven times tried that judgment is
+     That did never choose amiss.
+     Some there be that shadows kiss;
+     Such have but a shadow’s bliss.
+     There be fools alive, I wis,
+     Silver’d o’er, and so was this.
+     Take what wife you will to bed,
+     I will ever be your head:
+     So be gone; you are sped._
+
+Still more fool I shall appear
+By the time I linger here.
+With one fool’s head I came to woo,
+But I go away with two.
+Sweet, adieu! I’ll keep my oath,
+Patiently to bear my wroth.
+
+ [_Exit Aragon with his train._]
+
+PORTIA.
+Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.
+O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,
+They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
+
+NERISSA.
+The ancient saying is no heresy:
+Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
+
+PORTIA.
+Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.
+
+ Enter a Messenger.
+
+MESSENGER.
+Where is my lady?
+
+PORTIA.
+Here, what would my lord?
+
+MESSENGER.
+Madam, there is alighted at your gate
+A young Venetian, one that comes before
+To signify th’ approaching of his lord,
+From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;
+To wit (besides commends and courteous breath)
+Gifts of rich value; yet I have not seen
+So likely an ambassador of love.
+A day in April never came so sweet,
+To show how costly summer was at hand,
+As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
+
+PORTIA.
+No more, I pray thee. I am half afeard
+Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,
+Thou spend’st such high-day wit in praising him.
+Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see
+Quick Cupid’s post that comes so mannerly.
+
+NERISSA.
+Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT III
+
+SCENE I. Venice. A street.
+
+ Enter Solanio and Salarino.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Now, what news on the Rialto?
+
+SALARINO.
+Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich
+lading wrack’d on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the
+place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a
+tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest
+woman of her word.
+
+SOLANIO.
+I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or
+made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband.
+But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain
+highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I
+had a title good enough to keep his name company!—
+
+SALARINO.
+Come, the full stop.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.
+
+SALARINO.
+I would it might prove the end of his losses.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Let me say “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he
+comes in the likeness of a Jew.
+
+ Enter Shylock.
+
+How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.
+
+SALARINO.
+That’s certain, I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she
+flew withal.
+
+SOLANIO.
+And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it
+is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+She is damn’d for it.
+
+SALARINO.
+That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+My own flesh and blood to rebel!
+
+SOLANIO.
+Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
+
+SALARINO.
+There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet
+and ivory, more between your bloods than there is between red wine and
+Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at
+sea or no?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+There I have another bad match, a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce
+show his head on the Rialto, a beggar that used to come so smug upon
+the mart; let him look to his bond. He was wont to call me usurer; let
+him look to his bond: he was wont to lend money for a Christian cur’sy;
+let him look to his bond.
+
+SALARINO.
+Why, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh! What’s that
+good for?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my
+revenge. He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a million, laugh’d
+at my losses, mock’d at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
+bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies. And what’s his
+reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
+dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt
+with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
+means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian
+is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not
+laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
+not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in
+that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a
+Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian
+example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it
+shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
+
+ Enter a man from Antonio.
+
+SERVANT.
+Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with
+you both.
+
+SALARINO.
+We have been up and down to seek him.
+
+ Enter Tubal.
+
+SOLANIO.
+Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match’d, unless the
+devil himself turn Jew.
+
+ [_Exeunt Solanio, Salarino and the Servant._]
+
+SHYLOCK.
+How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my daughter?
+
+TUBAL.
+I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone cost me two thousand
+ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now, I
+never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in that, and other
+precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot,
+and the jewels in her ear; would she were hearsed at my foot, and the
+ducats in her coffin. No news of them? Why so? And I know not what’s
+spent in the search. Why, thou—loss upon loss! The thief gone with so
+much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction, no revenge,
+nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but
+o’ my breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding.
+
+TUBAL.
+Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—
+
+SHYLOCK.
+What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?
+
+TUBAL.
+—hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I thank God! I thank God! Is it true, is it true?
+
+TUBAL.
+I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! Ha, ha, heard in Genoa?
+
+TUBAL.
+Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore ducats.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Thou stick’st a dagger in me. I shall never see my gold again.
+Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!
+
+TUBAL.
+There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice that
+swear he cannot choose but break.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I am very glad of it. I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him. I am glad of
+it.
+
+TUBAL.
+One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise, I had it
+of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a
+wilderness of monkeys.
+
+TUBAL.
+But Antonio is certainly undone.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer;
+bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him if he
+forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will.
+Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good Tubal, at our
+synagogue, Tubal.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa and all their trains.
+
+PORTIA.
+I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
+Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
+I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
+There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
+I would not lose you, and you know yourself
+Hate counsels not in such a quality.
+But lest you should not understand me well,—
+And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,—
+I would detain you here some month or two
+Before you venture for me. I could teach you
+How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.
+So will I never be. So may you miss me.
+But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
+That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
+They have o’erlook’d me and divided me.
+One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
+Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
+And so all yours. O these naughty times
+Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
+And so though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
+Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
+I speak too long, but ’tis to peise the time,
+To eche it, and to draw it out in length,
+To stay you from election.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Let me choose,
+For as I am, I live upon the rack.
+
+PORTIA.
+Upon the rack, Bassanio! Then confess
+What treason there is mingled with your love.
+
+BASSANIO.
+None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
+Which makes me fear th’ enjoying of my love.
+There may as well be amity and life
+’Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.
+
+PORTIA.
+Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack
+Where men enforced do speak anything.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.
+
+PORTIA.
+Well then, confess and live.
+
+BASSANIO.
+“Confess and love”
+Had been the very sum of my confession:
+O happy torment, when my torturer
+Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
+But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
+
+PORTIA.
+Away, then! I am lock’d in one of them.
+If you do love me, you will find me out.
+Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
+Let music sound while he doth make his choice.
+Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
+Fading in music. That the comparison
+May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
+And wat’ry death-bed for him. He may win,
+And what is music then? Then music is
+Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
+To a new-crowned monarch. Such it is
+As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
+That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
+And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
+With no less presence, but with much more love
+Than young Alcides when he did redeem
+The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
+To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice;
+The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
+With bleared visages come forth to view
+The issue of th’ exploit. Go, Hercules!
+Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
+I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.
+
+ A song, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself.
+
+     _Tell me where is fancy bred,
+     Or in the heart or in the head?
+     How begot, how nourished?
+        Reply, reply.
+     It is engend’red in the eyes,
+     With gazing fed, and fancy dies
+     In the cradle where it lies.
+        Let us all ring fancy’s knell:
+        I’ll begin it.—Ding, dong, bell._
+
+ALL.
+     _Ding, dong, bell._
+
+BASSANIO.
+So may the outward shows be least themselves.
+The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
+In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
+But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
+Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
+What damned error but some sober brow
+Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
+Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
+There is no vice so simple but assumes
+Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
+How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
+As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
+The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
+Who inward search’d, have livers white as milk,
+And these assume but valour’s excrement
+To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
+And you shall see ’tis purchas’d by the weight,
+Which therein works a miracle in nature,
+Making them lightest that wear most of it:
+So are those crisped snaky golden locks
+Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
+Upon supposed fairness, often known
+To be the dowry of a second head,
+The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
+Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
+To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
+Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
+The seeming truth which cunning times put on
+To entrap the wisest. Therefore thou gaudy gold,
+Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee,
+Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
+’Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead,
+Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
+Thy palenness moves me more than eloquence,
+And here choose I, joy be the consequence!
+
+PORTIA.
+[_Aside._] How all the other passions fleet to air,
+As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,
+And shudd’ring fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.
+O love, be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,
+In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess!
+I feel too much thy blessing, make it less,
+For fear I surfeit.
+
+BASSANIO.
+What find I here? [_Opening the leaden casket_.]
+Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
+Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
+Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
+Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips,
+Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar
+Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
+The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
+A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men
+Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes!—
+How could he see to do them? Having made one,
+Methinks it should have power to steal both his
+And leave itself unfurnish’d. Yet look how far
+The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
+In underprizing it, so far this shadow
+Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,
+The continent and summary of my fortune.
+
+     _You that choose not by the view
+     Chance as fair and choose as true!
+     Since this fortune falls to you,
+     Be content and seek no new.
+     If you be well pleas’d with this,
+     And hold your fortune for your bliss,
+     Turn to where your lady is,
+     And claim her with a loving kiss._
+
+A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave, [_Kissing her_.]
+I come by note to give and to receive.
+Like one of two contending in a prize
+That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
+Hearing applause and universal shout,
+Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
+Whether those peals of praise be his or no,
+So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
+As doubtful whether what I see be true,
+Until confirm’d, sign’d, ratified by you.
+
+PORTIA.
+You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
+Such as I am; though for myself alone
+I would not be ambitious in my wish
+To wish myself much better, yet for you
+I would be trebled twenty times myself,
+A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
+More rich,
+That only to stand high in your account,
+I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
+Exceed account. But the full sum of me
+Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
+Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
+Happy in this, she is not yet so old
+But she may learn; happier than this,
+She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
+Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
+Commits itself to yours to be directed,
+As from her lord, her governor, her king.
+Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
+Is now converted. But now I was the lord
+Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
+Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,
+This house, these servants, and this same myself
+Are yours,—my lord’s. I give them with this ring,
+Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
+Let it presage the ruin of your love,
+And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
+Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
+And there is such confusion in my powers
+As after some oration fairly spoke
+By a beloved prince, there doth appear
+Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
+Where every something being blent together,
+Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
+Express’d and not express’d. But when this ring
+Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.
+O then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead!
+
+NERISSA.
+My lord and lady, it is now our time,
+That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,
+To cry, good joy. Good joy, my lord and lady!
+
+GRATIANO.
+My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
+I wish you all the joy that you can wish;
+For I am sure you can wish none from me.
+And when your honours mean to solemnize
+The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
+Even at that time I may be married too.
+
+BASSANIO.
+With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.
+
+GRATIANO.
+I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
+My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
+You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid.
+You lov’d, I lov’d; for intermission
+No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
+Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
+And so did mine too, as the matter falls.
+For wooing here until I sweat again,
+And swearing till my very roof was dry
+With oaths of love, at last, (if promise last)
+I got a promise of this fair one here
+To have her love, provided that your fortune
+Achiev’d her mistress.
+
+PORTIA.
+Is this true, Nerissa?
+
+NERISSA.
+Madam, it is, so you stand pleas’d withal.
+
+BASSANIO.
+And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?
+
+GRATIANO.
+Yes, faith, my lord.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
+
+GRATIANO.
+We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.
+
+NERISSA.
+What! and stake down?
+
+GRATIANO.
+No, we shall ne’er win at that sport and stake down.
+But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
+What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!
+
+ Enter Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
+If that the youth of my new int’rest here
+Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
+I bid my very friends and countrymen,
+Sweet Portia, welcome.
+
+PORTIA.
+So do I, my lord,
+They are entirely welcome.
+
+LORENZO.
+I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
+My purpose was not to have seen you here,
+But meeting with Salerio by the way,
+He did entreat me, past all saying nay,
+To come with him along.
+
+SALERIO.
+I did, my lord,
+And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio
+Commends him to you.
+
+ [_Gives Bassanio a letter._]
+
+BASSANIO.
+Ere I ope his letter,
+I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.
+
+SALERIO.
+Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind,
+Nor well, unless in mind. His letter there
+Will show you his estate.
+
+ [_Bassanio opens the letter._]
+
+GRATIANO.
+Nerissa, cheer yond stranger, bid her welcome.
+Your hand, Salerio. What’s the news from Venice?
+How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
+I know he will be glad of our success.
+We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
+
+SALERIO.
+I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.
+
+PORTIA.
+There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
+That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek.
+Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
+Could turn so much the constitution
+Of any constant man. What, worse and worse?
+With leave, Bassanio, I am half yourself,
+And I must freely have the half of anything
+That this same paper brings you.
+
+BASSANIO.
+O sweet Portia,
+Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
+That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady,
+When I did first impart my love to you,
+I freely told you all the wealth I had
+Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman.
+And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,
+Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
+How much I was a braggart. When I told you
+My state was nothing, I should then have told you
+That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
+I have engag’d myself to a dear friend,
+Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy,
+To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
+The paper as the body of my friend,
+And every word in it a gaping wound
+Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?
+Hath all his ventures fail’d? What, not one hit?
+From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
+From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
+And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
+Of merchant-marring rocks?
+
+SALERIO.
+Not one, my lord.
+Besides, it should appear, that if he had
+The present money to discharge the Jew,
+He would not take it. Never did I know
+A creature that did bear the shape of man
+So keen and greedy to confound a man.
+He plies the Duke at morning and at night,
+And doth impeach the freedom of the state
+If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
+The Duke himself, and the magnificoes
+Of greatest port have all persuaded with him,
+But none can drive him from the envious plea
+Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.
+
+JESSICA.
+When I was with him, I have heard him swear
+To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
+That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
+Than twenty times the value of the sum
+That he did owe him. And I know, my lord,
+If law, authority, and power deny not,
+It will go hard with poor Antonio.
+
+PORTIA.
+Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?
+
+BASSANIO.
+The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
+The best condition’d and unwearied spirit
+In doing courtesies, and one in whom
+The ancient Roman honour more appears
+Than any that draws breath in Italy.
+
+PORTIA.
+What sum owes he the Jew?
+
+BASSANIO.
+For me three thousand ducats.
+
+PORTIA.
+What, no more?
+Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond.
+Double six thousand, and then treble that,
+Before a friend of this description
+Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
+First go with me to church and call me wife,
+And then away to Venice to your friend.
+For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
+With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
+To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
+When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
+My maid Nerissa and myself meantime,
+Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!
+For you shall hence upon your wedding day.
+Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;
+Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
+But let me hear the letter of your friend.
+
+BASSANIO.
+_Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel,
+my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit, and since in
+paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are clear’d
+between you and I, if I might but see you at my death. Notwithstanding,
+use your pleasure. If your love do not persuade you to come, let not my
+letter._
+
+PORTIA.
+O love, dispatch all business and be gone!
+
+BASSANIO.
+Since I have your good leave to go away,
+I will make haste; but, till I come again,
+No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
+Nor rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE III. Venice. A street.
+
+ Enter Shylock, Salarino, Antonio and Gaoler.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy.
+This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
+Gaoler, look to him.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Hear me yet, good Shylock.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I’ll have my bond, speak not against my bond.
+I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.
+Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
+But since I am a dog, beware my fangs;
+The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,
+Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond
+To come abroad with him at his request.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I pray thee hear me speak.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak.
+I’ll have my bond, and therefore speak no more.
+I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,
+To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield
+To Christian intercessors. Follow not,
+I’ll have no speaking, I will have my bond.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+SALARINO.
+It is the most impenetrable cur
+That ever kept with men.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Let him alone.
+I’ll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
+He seeks my life, his reason well I know:
+I oft deliver’d from his forfeitures
+Many that have at times made moan to me.
+Therefore he hates me.
+
+SALARINO.
+I am sure the Duke
+Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.
+
+ANTONIO.
+The Duke cannot deny the course of law,
+For the commodity that strangers have
+With us in Venice, if it be denied,
+’Twill much impeach the justice of the state,
+Since that the trade and profit of the city
+Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go.
+These griefs and losses have so bated me
+That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
+Tomorrow to my bloody creditor.
+Well, gaoler, on, pray God Bassanio come
+To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE IV. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
+
+ Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica and Balthazar.
+
+LORENZO.
+Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
+You have a noble and a true conceit
+Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly
+In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
+But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
+How true a gentleman you send relief,
+How dear a lover of my lord your husband,
+I know you would be prouder of the work
+Than customary bounty can enforce you.
+
+PORTIA.
+I never did repent for doing good,
+Nor shall not now; for in companions
+That do converse and waste the time together,
+Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
+There must be needs a like proportion
+Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit;
+Which makes me think that this Antonio,
+Being the bosom lover of my lord,
+Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
+How little is the cost I have bestowed
+In purchasing the semblance of my soul
+From out the state of hellish cruelty!
+This comes too near the praising of myself;
+Therefore no more of it. Hear other things.
+Lorenzo, I commit into your hands
+The husbandry and manage of my house
+Until my lord’s return. For mine own part,
+I have toward heaven breath’d a secret vow
+To live in prayer and contemplation,
+Only attended by Nerissa here,
+Until her husband and my lord’s return.
+There is a monastery two miles off,
+And there we will abide. I do desire you
+Not to deny this imposition,
+The which my love and some necessity
+Now lays upon you.
+
+LORENZO.
+Madam, with all my heart
+I shall obey you in all fair commands.
+
+PORTIA.
+My people do already know my mind,
+And will acknowledge you and Jessica
+In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.
+So fare you well till we shall meet again.
+
+LORENZO.
+Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!
+
+JESSICA.
+I wish your ladyship all heart’s content.
+
+PORTIA.
+I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas’d
+To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.
+
+ [_Exeunt Jessica and Lorenzo._]
+
+Now, Balthazar,
+As I have ever found thee honest-true,
+So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
+And use thou all th’ endeavour of a man
+In speed to Padua, see thou render this
+Into my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellario;
+And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,
+Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin’d speed
+Unto the traject, to the common ferry
+Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,
+But get thee gone. I shall be there before thee.
+
+BALTHAZAR.
+Madam, I go with all convenient speed.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+PORTIA.
+Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
+That you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbands
+Before they think of us.
+
+NERISSA.
+Shall they see us?
+
+PORTIA.
+They shall, Nerissa, but in such a habit
+That they shall think we are accomplished
+With that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wager,
+When we are both accoutered like young men,
+I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
+And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
+And speak between the change of man and boy
+With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
+Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
+Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies
+How honourable ladies sought my love,
+Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
+I could not do withal. Then I’ll repent,
+And wish for all that, that I had not kill’d them.
+And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,
+That men shall swear I have discontinued school
+About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
+Which I will practise.
+
+NERISSA.
+Why, shall we turn to men?
+
+PORTIA.
+Fie, what a question’s that,
+If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
+But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device
+When I am in my coach, which stays for us
+At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
+For we must measure twenty miles today.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE V. The same. A garden.
+
+ Enter Launcelet and Jessica.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Yes, truly, for look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon
+the children, therefore, I promise you, I fear you. I was always plain
+with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter. Therefore be
+of good cheer, for truly I think you are damn’d. There is but one hope
+in it that can do you any good, and that is but a kind of bastard hope
+neither.
+
+JESSICA.
+And what hope is that, I pray thee?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are
+not the Jew’s daughter.
+
+JESSICA.
+That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my mother
+should be visited upon me.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Truly then I fear you are damn’d both by father and mother; thus when I
+shun Scylla your father, I fall into Charybdis your mother. Well, you
+are gone both ways.
+
+JESSICA.
+I shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Truly the more to blame he, we were Christians enow before, e’en as
+many as could well live one by another. This making of Christians will
+raise the price of hogs; if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not
+shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.
+
+ Enter Lorenzo.
+
+JESSICA.
+I’ll tell my husband, Launcelet, what you say. Here he comes.
+
+LORENZO.
+I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelet, if you thus get my wife
+into corners!
+
+JESSICA.
+Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo. Launcelet and I are out. He tells
+me flatly there’s no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew’s
+daughter; and he says you are no good member of the commonwealth, for
+in converting Jews to Christians you raise the price of pork.
+
+LORENZO.
+I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting
+up of the negro’s belly! The Moor is with child by you, Launcelet.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but if she be less
+than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for.
+
+LORENZO.
+How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit
+will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none
+only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+That is done, sir, they have all stomachs.
+
+LORENZO.
+Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them prepare dinner.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+That is done too, sir, only “cover” is the word.
+
+LORENZO.
+Will you cover, then, sir?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Not so, sir, neither. I know my duty.
+
+LORENZO.
+Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of
+thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a plain man in his plain
+meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover the table, serve in the
+meat, and we will come in to dinner.
+
+LAUNCELET.
+For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall
+be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as
+humours and conceits shall govern.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+LORENZO.
+O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
+The fool hath planted in his memory
+An army of good words, and I do know
+A many fools that stand in better place,
+Garnish’d like him, that for a tricksy word
+Defy the matter. How cheer’st thou, Jessica?
+And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
+How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio’s wife?
+
+JESSICA.
+Past all expressing. It is very meet
+The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,
+For having such a blessing in his lady,
+He finds the joys of heaven here on earth,
+And if on earth he do not merit it,
+In reason he should never come to heaven.
+Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
+And on the wager lay two earthly women,
+And Portia one, there must be something else
+Pawn’d with the other, for the poor rude world
+Hath not her fellow.
+
+LORENZO.
+Even such a husband
+Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.
+
+JESSICA.
+Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.
+
+LORENZO.
+I will anon. First let us go to dinner.
+
+JESSICA.
+Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.
+
+LORENZO.
+No pray thee, let it serve for table-talk.
+Then howsome’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things
+I shall digest it.
+
+JESSICA.
+Well, I’ll set you forth.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+SCENE I. Venice. A court of justice.
+
+ Enter the Duke, the Magnificoes, Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Salerio
+ and others.
+
+DUKE.
+What, is Antonio here?
+
+ANTONIO.
+Ready, so please your Grace.
+
+DUKE.
+I am sorry for thee, thou art come to answer
+A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
+Uncapable of pity, void and empty
+From any dram of mercy.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I have heard
+Your Grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify
+His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,
+And that no lawful means can carry me
+Out of his envy’s reach, I do oppose
+My patience to his fury, and am arm’d
+To suffer with a quietness of spirit
+The very tyranny and rage of his.
+
+DUKE.
+Go one and call the Jew into the court.
+
+SALARINO.
+He is ready at the door. He comes, my lord.
+
+ Enter Shylock.
+
+DUKE.
+Make room, and let him stand before our face.
+Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
+That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice
+To the last hour of act, and then, ’tis thought,
+Thou’lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange
+Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;
+And where thou now exacts the penalty,
+Which is a pound of this poor merchant’s flesh,
+Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,
+But, touch’d with human gentleness and love,
+Forgive a moiety of the principal,
+Glancing an eye of pity on his losses
+That have of late so huddled on his back,
+Enow to press a royal merchant down,
+And pluck commiseration of his state
+From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
+From stubborn Turks and Tartars never train’d
+To offices of tender courtesy.
+We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I have possess’d your Grace of what I purpose,
+And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
+To have the due and forfeit of my bond.
+If you deny it, let the danger light
+Upon your charter and your city’s freedom!
+You’ll ask me why I rather choose to have
+A weight of carrion flesh than to receive
+Three thousand ducats. I’ll not answer that,
+But say it is my humour. Is it answer’d?
+What if my house be troubled with a rat,
+And I be pleas’d to give ten thousand ducats
+To have it ban’d? What, are you answer’d yet?
+Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
+Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
+And others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose,
+Cannot contain their urine; for affection
+Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
+Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
+As there is no firm reason to be render’d
+Why he cannot abide a gaping pig,
+Why he a harmless necessary cat,
+Why he a woollen bagpipe, but of force
+Must yield to such inevitable shame
+As to offend, himself being offended,
+So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
+More than a lodg’d hate and a certain loathing
+I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
+A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
+
+BASSANIO.
+This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
+To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Do all men kill the things they do not love?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
+
+BASSANIO.
+Every offence is not a hate at first.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
+
+ANTONIO.
+I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
+You may as well go stand upon the beach
+And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
+You may as well use question with the wolf,
+Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
+You may as well forbid the mountain pines
+To wag their high tops and to make no noise
+When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
+You may as well do anything most hard
+As seek to soften that—than which what’s harder?—
+His Jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,
+Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
+But with all brief and plain conveniency.
+Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.
+
+BASSANIO.
+For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+If every ducat in six thousand ducats
+Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
+I would not draw them, I would have my bond.
+
+DUKE.
+How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend’ring none?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
+You have among you many a purchas’d slave,
+Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,
+You use in abject and in slavish parts,
+Because you bought them. Shall I say to you
+“Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
+Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds
+Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
+Be season’d with such viands”? You will answer
+“The slaves are ours.” So do I answer you:
+The pound of flesh which I demand of him
+Is dearly bought; ’tis mine and I will have it.
+If you deny me, fie upon your law!
+There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
+I stand for judgment. Answer; shall I have it?
+
+DUKE.
+Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
+Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
+Whom I have sent for to determine this,
+Come here today.
+
+SALARINO.
+My lord, here stays without
+A messenger with letters from the doctor,
+New come from Padua.
+
+DUKE.
+Bring us the letters. Call the messenger.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
+The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,
+Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I am a tainted wether of the flock,
+Meetest for death, the weakest kind of fruit
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
+You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
+Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.
+
+ Enter Nerissa dressed like a lawyer’s clerk.
+
+DUKE.
+Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
+
+NERISSA.
+From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.
+
+ [_Presents a letter._]
+
+BASSANIO.
+Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Not on thy sole but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
+Thou mak’st thy knife keen. But no metal can,
+No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
+Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.
+
+GRATIANO.
+O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!
+And for thy life let justice be accus’d;
+Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith,
+To hold opinion with Pythagoras
+That souls of animals infuse themselves
+Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit
+Govern’d a wolf who, hang’d for human slaughter,
+Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
+And whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,
+Infus’d itself in thee; for thy desires
+Are wolfish, bloody, starv’d and ravenous.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
+Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud.
+Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
+To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.
+
+DUKE.
+This letter from Bellario doth commend
+A young and learned doctor to our court.
+Where is he?
+
+NERISSA.
+He attendeth here hard by,
+To know your answer, whether you’ll admit him.
+
+DUKE OF VENICE.
+With all my heart: some three or four of you
+Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
+Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario’s letter.
+
+[_Reads._] _Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt of your
+letter I am very sick, but in the instant that your messenger came, in
+loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome. His name is
+Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the
+Jew and Antonio the merchant. We turn’d o’er many books together. He is
+furnished with my opinion, which, bettered with his own learning (the
+greatness whereof I cannot enough commend), comes with him at my
+importunity to fill up your Grace’s request in my stead. I beseech you
+let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend
+estimation, for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I
+leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish
+his commendation._
+
+You hear the learn’d Bellario what he writes,
+And here, I take it, is the doctor come.
+
+ Enter Portia dressed like a doctor of laws.
+
+Give me your hand. Come you from old Bellario?
+
+PORTIA.
+I did, my lord.
+
+DUKE.
+You are welcome. Take your place.
+Are you acquainted with the difference
+That holds this present question in the court?
+
+PORTIA.
+I am informed throughly of the cause.
+Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?
+
+DUKE.
+Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.
+
+PORTIA.
+Is your name Shylock?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Shylock is my name.
+
+PORTIA.
+Of a strange nature is the suit you follow,
+Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
+Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
+[_To Antonio_.] You stand within his danger, do you not?
+
+ANTONIO.
+Ay, so he says.
+
+PORTIA.
+Do you confess the bond?
+
+ANTONIO.
+I do.
+
+PORTIA.
+Then must the Jew be merciful.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.
+
+PORTIA.
+The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
+It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
+Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest,
+It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
+’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
+The throned monarch better than his crown.
+His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
+The attribute to awe and majesty,
+Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
+But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
+It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
+It is an attribute to God himself;
+And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
+When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
+Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
+That in the course of justice none of us
+Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
+And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
+The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
+To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
+Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
+Must needs give sentence ’gainst the merchant there.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
+The penalty and forfeit of my bond.
+
+PORTIA.
+Is he not able to discharge the money?
+
+BASSANIO.
+Yes, here I tender it for him in the court,
+Yea, twice the sum, if that will not suffice,
+I will be bound to pay it ten times o’er
+On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart.
+If this will not suffice, it must appear
+That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you,
+Wrest once the law to your authority.
+To do a great right, do a little wrong,
+And curb this cruel devil of his will.
+
+PORTIA.
+It must not be, there is no power in Venice
+Can alter a decree established;
+’Twill be recorded for a precedent,
+And many an error by the same example
+Will rush into the state. It cannot be.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
+O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!
+
+PORTIA.
+I pray you let me look upon the bond.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Here ’tis, most reverend doctor, here it is.
+
+PORTIA.
+Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.
+Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?
+No, not for Venice.
+
+PORTIA.
+Why, this bond is forfeit,
+And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
+A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
+Nearest the merchant’s heart. Be merciful,
+Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+When it is paid according to the tenour.
+It doth appear you are a worthy judge;
+You know the law; your exposition
+Hath been most sound. I charge you by the law,
+Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
+Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear
+There is no power in the tongue of man
+To alter me. I stay here on my bond.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Most heartily I do beseech the court
+To give the judgment.
+
+PORTIA.
+Why then, thus it is:
+You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+O noble judge! O excellent young man!
+
+PORTIA.
+For the intent and purpose of the law
+Hath full relation to the penalty,
+Which here appeareth due upon the bond.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+’Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,
+How much more elder art thou than thy looks!
+
+PORTIA.
+Therefore lay bare your bosom.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Ay, his breast
+So says the bond, doth it not, noble judge?
+“Nearest his heart”: those are the very words.
+
+PORTIA.
+It is so. Are there balance here to weigh
+The flesh?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I have them ready.
+
+PORTIA.
+Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,
+To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Is it so nominated in the bond?
+
+PORTIA.
+It is not so express’d, but what of that?
+’Twere good you do so much for charity.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I cannot find it; ’tis not in the bond.
+
+PORTIA.
+You, merchant, have you anything to say?
+
+ANTONIO.
+But little. I am arm’d and well prepar’d.
+Give me your hand, Bassanio. Fare you well,
+Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you,
+For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
+Than is her custom: it is still her use
+To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
+To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
+An age of poverty, from which ling’ring penance
+Of such misery doth she cut me off.
+Commend me to your honourable wife,
+Tell her the process of Antonio’s end,
+Say how I lov’d you, speak me fair in death.
+And when the tale is told, bid her be judge
+Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
+Repent but you that you shall lose your friend
+And he repents not that he pays your debt.
+For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
+I’ll pay it instantly with all my heart.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Antonio, I am married to a wife
+Which is as dear to me as life itself,
+But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
+Are not with me esteem’d above thy life.
+I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
+Here to this devil, to deliver you.
+
+PORTIA.
+Your wife would give you little thanks for that
+If she were by to hear you make the offer.
+
+GRATIANO.
+I have a wife who I protest I love.
+I would she were in heaven, so she could
+Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.
+
+NERISSA.
+’Tis well you offer it behind her back,
+The wish would make else an unquiet house.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+These be the Christian husbands! I have a daughter—
+Would any of the stock of Barabbas
+Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!
+We trifle time, I pray thee, pursue sentence.
+
+PORTIA.
+A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine,
+The court awards it and the law doth give it.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Most rightful judge!
+
+PORTIA.
+And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.
+The law allows it and the court awards it.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.
+
+PORTIA.
+Tarry a little, there is something else.
+This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.
+The words expressly are “a pound of flesh”:
+Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh,
+But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
+One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
+Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
+Unto the state of Venice.
+
+GRATIANO.
+O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Is that the law?
+
+PORTIA.
+Thyself shalt see the act.
+For, as thou urgest justice, be assur’d
+Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir’st.
+
+GRATIANO.
+O learned judge! Mark, Jew, a learned judge!
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I take this offer then. Pay the bond thrice
+And let the Christian go.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Here is the money.
+
+PORTIA.
+Soft!
+The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! no haste!
+He shall have nothing but the penalty.
+
+GRATIANO.
+O Jew, an upright judge, a learned judge!
+
+PORTIA.
+Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
+Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more,
+But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak’st more
+Or less than a just pound, be it but so much
+As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
+Or the division of the twentieth part
+Of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn
+But in the estimation of a hair,
+Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
+
+GRATIANO.
+A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
+Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
+
+PORTIA.
+Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Give me my principal, and let me go.
+
+BASSANIO.
+I have it ready for thee. Here it is.
+
+PORTIA.
+He hath refus’d it in the open court,
+He shall have merely justice and his bond.
+
+GRATIANO.
+A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!
+I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Shall I not have barely my principal?
+
+PORTIA.
+Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture
+To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Why, then the devil give him good of it!
+I’ll stay no longer question.
+
+PORTIA.
+Tarry, Jew.
+The law hath yet another hold on you.
+It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
+If it be proved against an alien
+That by direct or indirect attempts
+He seek the life of any citizen,
+The party ’gainst the which he doth contrive
+Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
+Comes to the privy coffer of the state,
+And the offender’s life lies in the mercy
+Of the Duke only, ’gainst all other voice.
+In which predicament I say thou stand’st;
+For it appears by manifest proceeding
+That indirectly, and directly too,
+Thou hast contrived against the very life
+Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr’d
+The danger formerly by me rehears’d.
+Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself,
+And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,
+Thou hast not left the value of a cord;
+Therefore thou must be hang’d at the state’s charge.
+
+DUKE.
+That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,
+I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
+For half thy wealth, it is Antonio’s;
+The other half comes to the general state,
+Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.
+
+PORTIA.
+Ay, for the state, not for Antonio.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.
+You take my house when you do take the prop
+That doth sustain my house; you take my life
+When you do take the means whereby I live.
+
+PORTIA.
+What mercy can you render him, Antonio?
+
+GRATIANO.
+A halter gratis, nothing else, for God’s sake!
+
+ANTONIO.
+So please my lord the Duke and all the court
+To quit the fine for one half of his goods,
+I am content, so he will let me have
+The other half in use, to render it
+Upon his death unto the gentleman
+That lately stole his daughter.
+Two things provided more, that for this favour,
+He presently become a Christian;
+The other, that he do record a gift,
+Here in the court, of all he dies possess’d
+Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.
+
+DUKE.
+He shall do this, or else I do recant
+The pardon that I late pronounced here.
+
+PORTIA.
+Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I am content.
+
+PORTIA.
+Clerk, draw a deed of gift.
+
+SHYLOCK.
+I pray you give me leave to go from hence;
+I am not well; send the deed after me
+And I will sign it.
+
+DUKE.
+Get thee gone, but do it.
+
+GRATIANO.
+In christ’ning shalt thou have two god-fathers.
+Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,
+To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.
+
+ [_Exit Shylock._]
+
+DUKE.
+Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.
+
+PORTIA.
+I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon,
+I must away this night toward Padua,
+And it is meet I presently set forth.
+
+DUKE.
+I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.
+Antonio, gratify this gentleman,
+For in my mind you are much bound to him.
+
+ [_Exeunt Duke and his train._]
+
+BASSANIO.
+Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend
+Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted
+Of grievous penalties, in lieu whereof,
+Three thousand ducats due unto the Jew
+We freely cope your courteous pains withal.
+
+ANTONIO.
+And stand indebted, over and above
+In love and service to you evermore.
+
+PORTIA.
+He is well paid that is well satisfied,
+And I delivering you, am satisfied,
+And therein do account myself well paid,
+My mind was never yet more mercenary.
+I pray you know me when we meet again,
+I wish you well, and so I take my leave.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further.
+Take some remembrance of us as a tribute,
+Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,
+Not to deny me, and to pardon me.
+
+PORTIA.
+You press me far, and therefore I will yield.
+[_To Antonio_.] Give me your gloves, I’ll wear them for your sake.
+[_To Bassanio_.] And, for your love, I’ll take this ring from you.
+Do not draw back your hand; I’ll take no more,
+And you in love shall not deny me this.
+
+BASSANIO.
+This ring, good sir? Alas, it is a trifle,
+I will not shame myself to give you this.
+
+PORTIA.
+I will have nothing else but only this,
+And now methinks I have a mind to it.
+
+BASSANIO.
+There’s more depends on this than on the value.
+The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,
+And find it out by proclamation,
+Only for this I pray you pardon me.
+
+PORTIA.
+I see, sir, you are liberal in offers.
+You taught me first to beg, and now methinks
+You teach me how a beggar should be answer’d.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife,
+And when she put it on, she made me vow
+That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.
+
+PORTIA.
+That ’scuse serves many men to save their gifts.
+And if your wife be not a mad-woman,
+And know how well I have deserv’d this ring,
+She would not hold out enemy for ever
+For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!
+
+ [_Exeunt Portia and Nerissa._]
+
+ANTONIO.
+My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.
+Let his deservings and my love withal
+Be valued ’gainst your wife’s commandment.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;
+Give him the ring, and bring him if thou canst
+Unto Antonio’s house. Away, make haste.
+
+ [_Exit Gratiano._]
+
+Come, you and I will thither presently,
+And in the morning early will we both
+Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+SCENE II. The same. A street.
+
+ Enter Portia and Nerissa.
+
+PORTIA.
+Inquire the Jew’s house out, give him this deed,
+And let him sign it, we’ll away tonight,
+And be a day before our husbands home.
+This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.
+
+ Enter Gratiano.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Fair sir, you are well o’erta’en.
+My Lord Bassanio upon more advice,
+Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat
+Your company at dinner.
+
+PORTIA.
+That cannot be;
+His ring I do accept most thankfully,
+And so I pray you tell him. Furthermore,
+I pray you show my youth old Shylock’s house.
+
+GRATIANO.
+That will I do.
+
+NERISSA.
+Sir, I would speak with you.
+[_Aside to Portia_.]
+I’ll see if I can get my husband’s ring,
+Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.
+
+PORTIA.
+[_To Nerissa_.] Thou mayst, I warrant. We shall have old swearing
+That they did give the rings away to men;
+But we’ll outface them, and outswear them too.
+Away! make haste! Thou know’st where I will tarry.
+
+NERISSA.
+Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+ACT V
+
+SCENE I. Belmont. The avenue to Portia’s house.
+
+ Enter Lorenzo and Jessica.
+
+LORENZO.
+The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
+When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
+And they did make no noise, in such a night,
+Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls,
+And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents
+Where Cressid lay that night.
+
+JESSICA.
+In such a night
+Did Thisby fearfully o’ertrip the dew,
+And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself,
+And ran dismay’d away.
+
+LORENZO.
+In such a night
+Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
+Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
+To come again to Carthage.
+
+JESSICA.
+In such a night
+Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
+That did renew old Æson.
+
+LORENZO.
+In such a night
+Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
+And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
+As far as Belmont.
+
+JESSICA.
+In such a night
+Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
+Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
+And ne’er a true one.
+
+LORENZO.
+In such a night
+Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
+Slander her love, and he forgave it her.
+
+JESSICA.
+I would out-night you did no body come;
+But hark, I hear the footing of a man.
+
+ Enter Stephano.
+
+LORENZO.
+Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
+
+STEPHANO.
+A friend.
+
+LORENZO.
+A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?
+
+STEPHANO.
+Stephano is my name, and I bring word
+My mistress will before the break of day
+Be here at Belmont. She doth stray about
+By holy crosses where she kneels and prays
+For happy wedlock hours.
+
+LORENZO.
+Who comes with her?
+
+STEPHANO.
+None but a holy hermit and her maid.
+I pray you is my master yet return’d?
+
+LORENZO.
+He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
+But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
+And ceremoniously let us prepare
+Some welcome for the mistress of the house.
+
+ Enter Launcelet.
+
+LAUNCELET. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!
+
+LORENZO.
+Who calls?
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola, sola!
+
+LORENZO.
+Leave holloaing, man. Here!
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Sola! Where, where?
+
+LORENZO.
+Here!
+
+LAUNCELET.
+Tell him there’s a post come from my master with his horn full of good
+news. My master will be here ere morning.
+
+ [_Exit._]
+
+LORENZO.
+Sweet soul, let’s in, and there expect their coming.
+And yet no matter; why should we go in?
+My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
+Within the house, your mistress is at hand,
+And bring your music forth into the air.
+
+ [_Exit Stephano._]
+
+How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
+Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
+Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
+Become the touches of sweet harmony.
+Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
+Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
+There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
+But in his motion like an angel sings,
+Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
+Such harmony is in immortal souls,
+But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
+Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
+
+ Enter Musicians.
+
+Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn.
+With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,
+And draw her home with music.
+
+ [_Music._]
+
+JESSICA.
+I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
+
+LORENZO.
+The reason is, your spirits are attentive.
+For do but note a wild and wanton herd
+Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
+Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
+Which is the hot condition of their blood,
+If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
+Or any air of music touch their ears,
+You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
+Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze
+By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
+Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods,
+Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
+But music for the time doth change his nature.
+The man that hath no music in himself,
+Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,
+Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
+The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
+And his affections dark as Erebus.
+Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
+
+ Enter Portia and Nerissa.
+
+PORTIA.
+That light we see is burning in my hall.
+How far that little candle throws his beams!
+So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
+
+NERISSA.
+When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
+
+PORTIA.
+So doth the greater glory dim the less.
+A substitute shines brightly as a king
+Until a king be by, and then his state
+Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
+Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
+
+NERISSA.
+It is your music, madam, of the house.
+
+PORTIA.
+Nothing is good, I see, without respect.
+Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
+
+NERISSA.
+Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
+
+PORTIA.
+The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
+When neither is attended; and I think
+The nightingale, if she should sing by day
+When every goose is cackling, would be thought
+No better a musician than the wren.
+How many things by season season’d are
+To their right praise and true perfection!
+Peace! How the moon sleeps with Endymion,
+And would not be awak’d!
+
+ [_Music ceases._]
+
+LORENZO.
+That is the voice,
+Or I am much deceiv’d, of Portia.
+
+PORTIA.
+He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
+By the bad voice.
+
+LORENZO.
+Dear lady, welcome home.
+
+PORTIA.
+We have been praying for our husbands’ welfare,
+Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
+Are they return’d?
+
+LORENZO.
+Madam, they are not yet;
+But there is come a messenger before
+To signify their coming.
+
+PORTIA.
+Go in, Nerissa.
+Give order to my servants, that they take
+No note at all of our being absent hence,
+Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.
+
+ [_A tucket sounds._]
+
+LORENZO.
+Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet.
+We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.
+
+PORTIA.
+This night methinks is but the daylight sick,
+It looks a little paler. ’Tis a day
+Such as the day is when the sun is hid.
+
+ Enter Bassanio, Antonio, Gratiano and their Followers.
+
+BASSANIO.
+We should hold day with the Antipodes,
+If you would walk in absence of the sun.
+
+PORTIA.
+Let me give light, but let me not be light,
+For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
+And never be Bassanio so for me.
+But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.
+
+BASSANIO.
+I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend.
+This is the man, this is Antonio,
+To whom I am so infinitely bound.
+
+PORTIA.
+You should in all sense be much bound to him,
+For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.
+
+ANTONIO.
+No more than I am well acquitted of.
+
+PORTIA.
+Sir, you are very welcome to our house.
+It must appear in other ways than words,
+Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
+
+GRATIANO.
+[_To Nerissa_.] By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong,
+In faith, I gave it to the judge’s clerk.
+Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
+Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
+
+PORTIA.
+A quarrel, ho, already! What’s the matter?
+
+GRATIANO.
+About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
+That she did give me, whose posy was
+For all the world like cutlers’ poetry
+Upon a knife, “Love me, and leave me not.”
+
+NERISSA.
+What talk you of the posy, or the value?
+You swore to me when I did give it you,
+That you would wear it till your hour of death,
+And that it should lie with you in your grave.
+Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
+You should have been respective and have kept it.
+Gave it a judge’s clerk! No, God’s my judge,
+The clerk will ne’er wear hair on’s face that had it.
+
+GRATIANO.
+He will, and if he live to be a man.
+
+NERISSA.
+Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,
+A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,
+No higher than thyself, the judge’s clerk,
+A prating boy that begg’d it as a fee,
+I could not for my heart deny it him.
+
+PORTIA.
+You were to blame,—I must be plain with you,—
+To part so slightly with your wife’s first gift,
+A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
+And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
+I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
+Never to part with it, and here he stands.
+I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it
+Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth
+That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
+You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief,
+An ’twere to me I should be mad at it.
+
+BASSANIO.
+[_Aside._] Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
+And swear I lost the ring defending it.
+
+GRATIANO.
+My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away
+Unto the judge that begg’d it, and indeed
+Deserv’d it too. And then the boy, his clerk,
+That took some pains in writing, he begg’d mine,
+And neither man nor master would take aught
+But the two rings.
+
+PORTIA.
+What ring gave you, my lord?
+Not that, I hope, which you receiv’d of me.
+
+BASSANIO.
+If I could add a lie unto a fault,
+I would deny it, but you see my finger
+Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.
+
+PORTIA.
+Even so void is your false heart of truth.
+By heaven, I will ne’er come in your bed
+Until I see the ring.
+
+NERISSA.
+Nor I in yours
+Till I again see mine!
+
+BASSANIO.
+Sweet Portia,
+If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
+If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
+And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
+And how unwillingly I left the ring,
+When nought would be accepted but the ring,
+You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
+
+PORTIA.
+If you had known the virtue of the ring,
+Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
+Or your own honour to contain the ring,
+You would not then have parted with the ring.
+What man is there so much unreasonable,
+If you had pleas’d to have defended it
+With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
+To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
+Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
+I’ll die for’t but some woman had the ring.
+
+BASSANIO.
+No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,
+No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
+Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
+And begg’d the ring, the which I did deny him,
+And suffer’d him to go displeas’d away,
+Even he that had held up the very life
+Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
+I was enforc’d to send it after him.
+I was beset with shame and courtesy.
+My honour would not let ingratitude
+So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
+For by these blessed candles of the night,
+Had you been there, I think you would have begg’d
+The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.
+
+PORTIA.
+Let not that doctor e’er come near my house,
+Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
+And that which you did swear to keep for me,
+I will become as liberal as you,
+I’ll not deny him anything I have,
+No, not my body, nor my husband’s bed.
+Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.
+Lie not a night from home. Watch me like Argus,
+If you do not, if I be left alone,
+Now by mine honour which is yet mine own,
+I’ll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.
+
+NERISSA.
+And I his clerk. Therefore be well advis’d
+How you do leave me to mine own protection.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Well, do you so. Let not me take him then,
+For if I do, I’ll mar the young clerk’s pen.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I am th’ unhappy subject of these quarrels.
+
+PORTIA.
+Sir, grieve not you. You are welcome notwithstanding.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong,
+And in the hearing of these many friends
+I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
+Wherein I see myself—
+
+PORTIA.
+Mark you but that!
+In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,
+In each eye one. Swear by your double self,
+And there’s an oath of credit.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Nay, but hear me.
+Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
+I never more will break an oath with thee.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I once did lend my body for his wealth,
+Which but for him that had your husband’s ring
+Had quite miscarried. I dare be bound again,
+My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
+Will never more break faith advisedly.
+
+PORTIA.
+Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,
+And bid him keep it better than the other.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.
+
+BASSANIO.
+By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
+
+PORTIA.
+I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio,
+For by this ring, the doctor lay with me.
+
+NERISSA.
+And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,
+For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor’s clerk,
+In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Why, this is like the mending of highways
+In summer, where the ways are fair enough.
+What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv’d it?
+
+PORTIA.
+Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz’d.
+Here is a letter; read it at your leisure.
+It comes from Padua from Bellario.
+There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
+Nerissa there, her clerk. Lorenzo here
+Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,
+And even but now return’d. I have not yet
+Enter’d my house. Antonio, you are welcome,
+And I have better news in store for you
+Than you expect: unseal this letter soon.
+There you shall find three of your argosies
+Are richly come to harbour suddenly.
+You shall not know by what strange accident
+I chanced on this letter.
+
+ANTONIO.
+I am dumb.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?
+
+GRATIANO.
+Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?
+
+NERISSA.
+Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
+Unless he live until he be a man.
+
+BASSANIO.
+Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow.
+When I am absent, then lie with my wife.
+
+ANTONIO.
+Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;
+For here I read for certain that my ships
+Are safely come to road.
+
+PORTIA.
+How now, Lorenzo!
+My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
+
+NERISSA.
+Ay, and I’ll give them him without a fee.
+There do I give to you and Jessica,
+From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
+After his death, of all he dies possess’d of.
+
+LORENZO.
+Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
+Of starved people.
+
+PORTIA.
+It is almost morning,
+And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
+Of these events at full. Let us go in,
+And charge us there upon inter’gatories,
+And we will answer all things faithfully.
+
+GRATIANO.
+Let it be so. The first inter’gatory
+That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
+Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
+Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.
+But were the day come, I should wish it dark
+Till I were couching with the doctor’s clerk.
+Well, while I live, I’ll fear no other thing
+So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.
+
+ [_Exeunt._]
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
+
+Author: Agatha Christie
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #863]
+Last Updated: September 29, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Mysterious Affair at Styles
+
+by Agatha Christie
+
+Contents
+
+
+CHAPTER I. I GO TO STYLES
+CHAPTER II. THE 16TH AND 17TH OF JULY
+CHAPTER III. THE NIGHT OF THE TRAGEDY
+CHAPTER IV. POIROT INVESTIGATES
+CHAPTER V. “IT ISN’T STRYCHNINE, IS IT?”
+CHAPTER VI. THE INQUEST
+CHAPTER VII. POIROT PAYS HIS DEBTS
+CHAPTER VIII. FRESH SUSPICIONS
+CHAPTER IX. DR. BAUERSTEIN
+CHAPTER X. THE ARREST
+CHAPTER XI. THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
+CHAPTER XII. THE LAST LINK
+CHAPTER XIII. POIROT EXPLAINS
+
+
+CHAPTER I. I GO TO STYLES
+
+The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the
+time as “The Styles Case” has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in
+view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked,
+both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account
+of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the
+sensational rumours which still persist.
+
+I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my
+being connected with the affair.
+
+I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some
+months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a month’s
+sick leave. Having no near relations or friends, I was trying to make
+up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish. I had seen
+very little of him for some years. Indeed, I had never known him
+particularly well. He was a good fifteen years my senior, for one
+thing, though he hardly looked his forty-five years. As a boy, though,
+I had often stayed at Styles, his mother’s place in Essex.
+
+We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me
+down to Styles to spend my leave there.
+
+“The mater will be delighted to see you again—after all those years,”
+he added.
+
+“Your mother keeps well?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?”
+
+I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs. Cavendish, who
+had married John’s father when he was a widower with two sons, had been
+a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered her. She certainly could
+not be a day less than seventy now. I recalled her as an energetic,
+autocratic personality, somewhat inclined to charitable and social
+notoriety, with a fondness for opening bazaars and playing the Lady
+Bountiful. She was a most generous woman, and possessed a considerable
+fortune of her own.
+
+Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr. Cavendish
+early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife’s
+ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her
+lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that
+was distinctly unfair to his two sons. Their step-mother, however, had
+always been most generous to them; indeed, they were so young at the
+time of their father’s remarriage that they always thought of her as
+their own mother.
+
+Lawrence, the younger, had been a delicate youth. He had qualified as a
+doctor but early relinquished the profession of medicine, and lived at
+home while pursuing literary ambitions; though his verses never had any
+marked success.
+
+John practised for some time as a barrister, but had finally settled
+down to the more congenial life of a country squire. He had married two
+years ago, and had taken his wife to live at Styles, though I
+entertained a shrewd suspicion that he would have preferred his mother
+to increase his allowance, which would have enabled him to have a home
+of his own. Mrs. Cavendish, however, was a lady who liked to make her
+own plans, and expected other people to fall in with them, and in this
+case she certainly had the whip hand, namely: the purse strings.
+
+John noticed my surprise at the news of his mother’s remarriage and
+smiled rather ruefully.
+
+“Rotten little bounder too!” he said savagely. “I can tell you,
+Hastings, it’s making life jolly difficult for us. As for Evie—you
+remember Evie?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose she was after your time. She’s the mater’s factotum,
+companion, Jack of all trades! A great sport—old Evie! Not precisely
+young and beautiful, but as game as they make them.”
+
+“You were going to say——?”
+
+“Oh, this fellow! He turned up from nowhere, on the pretext of being a
+second cousin or something of Evie’s, though she didn’t seem
+particularly keen to acknowledge the relationship. The fellow is an
+absolute outsider, anyone can see that. He’s got a great black beard,
+and wears patent leather boots in all weathers! But the mater cottoned
+to him at once, took him on as secretary—you know how she’s always
+running a hundred societies?”
+
+I nodded.
+
+“Well, of course the war has turned the hundreds into thousands. No
+doubt the fellow was very useful to her. But you could have knocked us
+all down with a feather when, three months ago, she suddenly announced
+that she and Alfred were engaged! The fellow must be at least twenty
+years younger than she is! It’s simply bare-faced fortune hunting; but
+there you are—she is her own mistress, and she’s married him.”
+
+“It must be a difficult situation for you all.”
+
+“Difficult! It’s damnable!”
+
+Thus it came about that, three days later, I descended from the train
+at Styles St. Mary, an absurd little station, with no apparent reason
+for existence, perched up in the midst of green fields and country
+lanes. John Cavendish was waiting on the platform, and piloted me out
+to the car.
+
+“Got a drop or two of petrol still, you see,” he remarked. “Mainly
+owing to the mater’s activities.”
+
+The village of Styles St. Mary was situated about two miles from the
+little station, and Styles Court lay a mile the other side of it. It
+was a still, warm day in early July. As one looked out over the flat
+Essex country, lying so green and peaceful under the afternoon sun, it
+seemed almost impossible to believe that, not so very far away, a great
+war was running its appointed course. I felt I had suddenly strayed
+into another world. As we turned in at the lodge gates, John said:
+
+“I’m afraid you’ll find it very quiet down here, Hastings.”
+
+“My dear fellow, that’s just what I want.”
+
+“Oh, it’s pleasant enough if you want to lead the idle life. I drill
+with the volunteers twice a week, and lend a hand at the farms. My wife
+works regularly ‘on the land’. She is up at five every morning to milk,
+and keeps at it steadily until lunchtime. It’s a jolly good life taking
+it all round—if it weren’t for that fellow Alfred Inglethorp!” He
+checked the car suddenly, and glanced at his watch. “I wonder if we’ve
+time to pick up Cynthia. No, she’ll have started from the hospital by
+now.”
+
+“Cynthia! That’s not your wife?”
+
+“No, Cynthia is a protégée of my mother’s, the daughter of an old
+schoolfellow of hers, who married a rascally solicitor. He came a
+cropper, and the girl was left an orphan and penniless. My mother came
+to the rescue, and Cynthia has been with us nearly two years now. She
+works in the Red Cross Hospital at Tadminster, seven miles away.”
+
+As he spoke the last words, we drew up in front of the fine old house.
+A lady in a stout tweed skirt, who was bending over a flower bed,
+straightened herself at our approach.
+
+“Hullo, Evie, here’s our wounded hero! Mr. Hastings—Miss Howard.”
+
+Miss Howard shook hands with a hearty, almost painful, grip. I had an
+impression of very blue eyes in a sunburnt face. She was a
+pleasant-looking woman of about forty, with a deep voice, almost manly
+in its stentorian tones, and had a large sensible square body, with
+feet to match—these last encased in good thick boots. Her conversation,
+I soon found, was couched in the telegraphic style.
+
+“Weeds grow like house afire. Can’t keep even with ’em. Shall press you
+in. Better be careful.”
+
+“I’m sure I shall be only too delighted to make myself useful,” I
+responded.
+
+“Don’t say it. Never does. Wish you hadn’t later.”
+
+“You’re a cynic, Evie,” said John, laughing. “Where’s tea to-day—inside
+or out?”
+
+“Out. Too fine a day to be cooped up in the house.”
+
+“Come on then, you’ve done enough gardening for to-day. ‘The labourer
+is worthy of his hire’, you know. Come and be refreshed.”
+
+“Well,” said Miss Howard, drawing off her gardening gloves, “I’m
+inclined to agree with you.”
+
+She led the way round the house to where tea was spread under the shade
+of a large sycamore.
+
+A figure rose from one of the basket chairs, and came a few steps to
+meet us.
+
+“My wife, Hastings,” said John.
+
+I shall never forget my first sight of Mary Cavendish. Her tall,
+slender form, outlined against the bright light; the vivid sense of
+slumbering fire that seemed to find expression only in those wonderful
+tawny eyes of hers, remarkable eyes, different from any other woman’s
+that I have ever known; the intense power of stillness she possessed,
+which nevertheless conveyed the impression of a wild untamed spirit in
+an exquisitely civilised body—all these things are burnt into my
+memory. I shall never forget them.
+
+She greeted me with a few words of pleasant welcome in a low clear
+voice, and I sank into a basket chair feeling distinctly glad that I
+had accepted John’s invitation. Mrs. Cavendish gave me some tea, and
+her few quiet remarks heightened my first impression of her as a
+thoroughly fascinating woman. An appreciative listener is always
+stimulating, and I described, in a humorous manner, certain incidents
+of my Convalescent Home, in a way which, I flatter myself, greatly
+amused my hostess. John, of course, good fellow though he is, could
+hardly be called a brilliant conversationalist.
+
+At that moment a well remembered voice floated through the open French
+window near at hand:
+
+“Then you’ll write to the Princess after tea, Alfred? I’ll write to
+Lady Tadminster for the second day, myself. Or shall we wait until we
+hear from the Princess? In case of a refusal, Lady Tadminster might
+open it the first day, and Mrs. Crosbie the second. Then there’s the
+Duchess—about the school fête.”
+
+There was the murmur of a man’s voice, and then Mrs. Inglethorp’s rose
+in reply:
+
+“Yes, certainly. After tea will do quite well. You are so thoughtful,
+Alfred dear.”
+
+The French window swung open a little wider, and a handsome
+white-haired old lady, with a somewhat masterful cast of features,
+stepped out of it on to the lawn. A man followed her, a suggestion of
+deference in his manner.
+
+Mrs. Inglethorp greeted me with effusion.
+
+“Why, if it isn’t too delightful to see you again, Mr. Hastings, after
+all these years. Alfred, darling, Mr. Hastings—my husband.”
+
+I looked with some curiosity at “Alfred darling”. He certainly struck a
+rather alien note. I did not wonder at John objecting to his beard. It
+was one of the longest and blackest I have ever seen. He wore
+gold-rimmed pince-nez, and had a curious impassivity of feature. It
+struck me that he might look natural on a stage, but was strangely out
+of place in real life. His voice was rather deep and unctuous. He
+placed a wooden hand in mine and said:
+
+“This is a pleasure, Mr. Hastings.” Then, turning to his wife: “Emily
+dearest, I think that cushion is a little damp.”
+
+She beamed fondly on him, as he substituted another with every
+demonstration of the tenderest care. Strange infatuation of an
+otherwise sensible woman!
+
+With the presence of Mr. Inglethorp, a sense of constraint and veiled
+hostility seemed to settle down upon the company. Miss Howard, in
+particular, took no pains to conceal her feelings. Mrs. Inglethorp,
+however, seemed to notice nothing unusual. Her volubility, which I
+remembered of old, had lost nothing in the intervening years, and she
+poured out a steady flood of conversation, mainly on the subject of the
+forthcoming bazaar which she was organizing and which was to take place
+shortly. Occasionally she referred to her husband over a question of
+days or dates. His watchful and attentive manner never varied. From the
+very first I took a firm and rooted dislike to him, and I flatter
+myself that my first judgments are usually fairly shrewd.
+
+Presently Mrs. Inglethorp turned to give some instructions about
+letters to Evelyn Howard, and her husband addressed me in his
+painstaking voice:
+
+“Is soldiering your regular profession, Mr. Hastings?”
+
+“No, before the war I was in Lloyd’s.”
+
+“And you will return there after it is over?”
+
+“Perhaps. Either that or a fresh start altogether.”
+
+Mary Cavendish leant forward.
+
+“What would you really choose as a profession, if you could just
+consult your inclination?”
+
+“Well, that depends.”
+
+“No secret hobby?” she asked. “Tell me—you’re drawn to something?
+Everyone is—usually something absurd.”
+
+“You’ll laugh at me.”
+
+She smiled.
+
+“Perhaps.”
+
+“Well, I’ve always had a secret hankering to be a detective!”
+
+“The real thing—Scotland Yard? Or Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+“Oh, Sherlock Holmes by all means. But really, seriously, I am awfully
+drawn to it. I came across a man in Belgium once, a very famous
+detective, and he quite inflamed me. He was a marvellous little fellow.
+He used to say that all good detective work was a mere matter of
+method. My system is based on his—though of course I have progressed
+rather further. He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but
+wonderfully clever.”
+
+“Like a good detective story myself,” remarked Miss Howard. “Lots of
+nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last chapter. Everyone
+dumbfounded. Real crime—you’d know at once.”
+
+“There have been a great number of undiscovered crimes,” I argued.
+
+“Don’t mean the police, but the people that are right in it. The
+family. You couldn’t really hoodwink them. They’d know.”
+
+“Then,” I said, much amused, “you think that if you were mixed up in a
+crime, say a murder, you’d be able to spot the murderer right off?”
+
+“Of course I should. Mightn’t be able to prove it to a pack of lawyers.
+But I’m certain I’d know. I’d feel it in my fingertips if he came near
+me.”
+
+“It might be a ‘she’,” I suggested.
+
+“Might. But murder’s a violent crime. Associate it more with a man.”
+
+“Not in a case of poisoning.” Mrs. Cavendish’s clear voice startled me.
+“Dr. Bauerstein was saying yesterday that, owing to the general
+ignorance of the more uncommon poisons among the medical profession,
+there were probably countless cases of poisoning quite unsuspected.”
+
+“Why, Mary, what a gruesome conversation!” cried Mrs. Inglethorp. “It
+makes me feel as if a goose were walking over my grave. Oh, there’s
+Cynthia!”
+
+A young girl in V.A.D. uniform ran lightly across the lawn.
+
+“Why, Cynthia, you are late to-day. This is Mr. Hastings—Miss Murdoch.”
+
+Cynthia Murdoch was a fresh-looking young creature, full of life and
+vigour. She tossed off her little V.A.D. cap, and I admired the great
+loose waves of her auburn hair, and the smallness and whiteness of the
+hand she held out to claim her tea. With dark eyes and eyelashes she
+would have been a beauty.
+
+She flung herself down on the ground beside John, and as I handed her a
+plate of sandwiches she smiled up at me.
+
+“Sit down here on the grass, do. It’s ever so much nicer.”
+
+I dropped down obediently.
+
+“You work at Tadminster, don’t you, Miss Murdoch?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“For my sins.”
+
+“Do they bully you, then?” I asked, smiling.
+
+“I should like to see them!” cried Cynthia with dignity.
+
+“I have got a cousin who is nursing,” I remarked. “And she is terrified
+of ‘Sisters’.”
+
+“I don’t wonder. Sisters _are_, you know, Mr. Hastings. They simp-ly
+_are_! You’ve no idea! But I’m not a nurse, thank heaven, I work in the
+dispensary.”
+
+“How many people do you poison?” I asked, smiling.
+
+Cynthia smiled too.
+
+“Oh, hundreds!” she said.
+
+“Cynthia,” called Mrs. Inglethorp, “do you think you could write a few
+notes for me?”
+
+“Certainly, Aunt Emily.”
+
+She jumped up promptly, and something in her manner reminded me that
+her position was a dependent one, and that Mrs. Inglethorp, kind as she
+might be in the main, did not allow her to forget it.
+
+My hostess turned to me.
+
+“John will show you your room. Supper is at half-past seven. We have
+given up late dinner for some time now. Lady Tadminster, our Member’s
+wife—she was the late Lord Abbotsbury’s daughter—does the same. She
+agrees with me that one must set an example of economy. We are quite a
+war household; nothing is wasted here—every scrap of waste paper, even,
+is saved and sent away in sacks.”
+
+I expressed my appreciation, and John took me into the house and up the
+broad staircase, which forked right and left half-way to different
+wings of the building. My room was in the left wing, and looked out
+over the park.
+
+John left me, and a few minutes later I saw him from my window walking
+slowly across the grass arm in arm with Cynthia Murdoch. I heard Mrs.
+Inglethorp call “Cynthia” impatiently, and the girl started and ran
+back to the house. At the same moment, a man stepped out from the
+shadow of a tree and walked slowly in the same direction. He looked
+about forty, very dark with a melancholy clean-shaven face. Some
+violent emotion seemed to be mastering him. He looked up at my window
+as he passed, and I recognized him, though he had changed much in the
+fifteen years that had elapsed since we last met. It was John’s younger
+brother, Lawrence Cavendish. I wondered what it was that had brought
+that singular expression to his face.
+
+Then I dismissed him from my mind, and returned to the contemplation of
+my own affairs.
+
+The evening passed pleasantly enough; and I dreamed that night of that
+enigmatical woman, Mary Cavendish.
+
+The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and I was full of the
+anticipation of a delightful visit.
+
+I did not see Mrs. Cavendish until lunch-time, when she volunteered to
+take me for a walk, and we spent a charming afternoon roaming in the
+woods, returning to the house about five.
+
+As we entered the large hall, John beckoned us both into the
+smoking-room. I saw at once by his face that something disturbing had
+occurred. We followed him in, and he shut the door after us.
+
+“Look here, Mary, there’s the deuce of a mess. Evie’s had a row with
+Alfred Inglethorp, and she’s off.”
+
+“Evie? Off?”
+
+John nodded gloomily.
+
+“Yes; you see she went to the mater, and—Oh,—here’s Evie herself.”
+
+Miss Howard entered. Her lips were set grimly together, and she carried
+a small suit-case. She looked excited and determined, and slightly on
+the defensive.
+
+“At any rate,” she burst out, “I’ve spoken my mind!”
+
+“My dear Evelyn,” cried Mrs. Cavendish, “this can’t be true!”
+
+Miss Howard nodded grimly.
+
+“True enough! Afraid I said some things to Emily she won’t forget or
+forgive in a hurry. Don’t mind if they’ve only sunk in a bit. Probably
+water off a duck’s back, though. I said right out: ‘You’re an old
+woman, Emily, and there’s no fool like an old fool. The man’s twenty
+years younger than you, and don’t you fool yourself as to what he
+married you for. Money! Well, don’t let him have too much of it. Farmer
+Raikes has got a very pretty young wife. Just ask your Alfred how much
+time he spends over there.’ She was very angry. Natural! I went on,
+‘I’m going to warn you, whether you like it or not. That man would as
+soon murder you in your bed as look at you. He’s a bad lot. You can say
+what you like to me, but remember what I’ve told you. He’s a bad lot!’”
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+Miss Howard made an extremely expressive grimace.
+
+“‘Darling Alfred’—‘dearest Alfred’—‘wicked calumnies’ —‘wicked
+lies’—‘wicked woman’—to accuse her ‘dear husband!’ The sooner I left
+her house the better. So I’m off.”
+
+“But not now?”
+
+“This minute!”
+
+For a moment we sat and stared at her. Finally John Cavendish, finding
+his persuasions of no avail, went off to look up the trains. His wife
+followed him, murmuring something about persuading Mrs. Inglethorp to
+think better of it.
+
+As she left the room, Miss Howard’s face changed. She leant towards me
+eagerly.
+
+“Mr. Hastings, you’re honest. I can trust you?”
+
+I was a little startled. She laid her hand on my arm, and sank her
+voice to a whisper.
+
+“Look after her, Mr. Hastings. My poor Emily. They’re a lot of
+sharks—all of them. Oh, I know what I’m talking about. There isn’t one
+of them that’s not hard up and trying to get money out of her. I’ve
+protected her as much as I could. Now I’m out of the way, they’ll
+impose upon her.”
+
+“Of course, Miss Howard,” I said, “I’ll do everything I can, but I’m
+sure you’re excited and overwrought.”
+
+She interrupted me by slowly shaking her forefinger.
+
+“Young man, trust me. I’ve lived in the world rather longer than you
+have. All I ask you is to keep your eyes open. You’ll see what I mean.”
+
+The throb of the motor came through the open window, and Miss Howard
+rose and moved to the door. John’s voice sounded outside. With her hand
+on the handle, she turned her head over her shoulder, and beckoned to
+me.
+
+“Above all, Mr. Hastings, watch that devil—her husband!”
+
+There was no time for more. Miss Howard was swallowed up in an eager
+chorus of protests and good-byes. The Inglethorps did not appear.
+
+As the motor drove away, Mrs. Cavendish suddenly detached herself from
+the group, and moved across the drive to the lawn to meet a tall
+bearded man who had been evidently making for the house. The colour
+rose in her cheeks as she held out her hand to him.
+
+“Who is that?” I asked sharply, for instinctively I distrusted the man.
+
+“That’s Dr. Bauerstein,” said John shortly.
+
+“And who is Dr. Bauerstein?”
+
+“He’s staying in the village doing a rest cure, after a bad nervous
+breakdown. He’s a London specialist; a very clever man—one of the
+greatest living experts on poisons, I believe.”
+
+“And he’s a great friend of Mary’s,” put in Cynthia, the irrepressible.
+
+John Cavendish frowned and changed the subject.
+
+“Come for a stroll, Hastings. This has been a most rotten business. She
+always had a rough tongue, but there is no stauncher friend in England
+than Evelyn Howard.”
+
+He took the path through the plantation, and we walked down to the
+village through the woods which bordered one side of the estate.
+
+As we passed through one of the gates on our way home again, a pretty
+young woman of gipsy type coming in the opposite direction bowed and
+smiled.
+
+“That’s a pretty girl,” I remarked appreciatively.
+
+John’s face hardened.
+
+“That is Mrs. Raikes.”
+
+“The one that Miss Howard——”
+
+“Exactly,” said John, with rather unnecessary abruptness.
+
+I thought of the white-haired old lady in the big house, and that vivid
+wicked little face that had just smiled into ours, and a vague chill of
+foreboding crept over me. I brushed it aside.
+
+“Styles is really a glorious old place,” I said to John.
+
+He nodded rather gloomily.
+
+“Yes, it’s a fine property. It’ll be mine some day—should be mine now
+by rights, if my father had only made a decent will. And then I
+shouldn’t be so damned hard up as I am now.”
+
+“Hard up, are you?”
+
+“My dear Hastings, I don’t mind telling you that I’m at my wits’ end
+for money.”
+
+“Couldn’t your brother help you?”
+
+“Lawrence? He’s gone through every penny he ever had, publishing rotten
+verses in fancy bindings. No, we’re an impecunious lot. My mother’s
+always been awfully good to us, I must say. That is, up to now. Since
+her marriage, of course——” he broke off, frowning.
+
+For the first time I felt that, with Evelyn Howard, something
+indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt
+security. Now that security was removed—and the air seemed rife with
+suspicion. The sinister face of Dr. Bauerstein recurred to me
+unpleasantly. A vague suspicion of everyone and everything filled my
+mind. Just for a moment I had a premonition of approaching evil.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE 16TH AND 17TH OF JULY
+
+I had arrived at Styles on the 5th of July. I come now to the events of
+the 16th and 17th of that month. For the convenience of the reader I
+will recapitulate the incidents of those days in as exact a manner as
+possible. They were elicited subsequently at the trial by a process of
+long and tedious cross-examinations.
+
+I received a letter from Evelyn Howard a couple of days after her
+departure, telling me she was working as a nurse at the big hospital in
+Middlingham, a manufacturing town some fifteen miles away, and begging
+me to let her know if Mrs. Inglethorp should show any wish to be
+reconciled.
+
+The only fly in the ointment of my peaceful days was Mrs. Cavendish’s
+extraordinary, and, for my part, unaccountable preference for the
+society of Dr. Bauerstein. What she saw in the man I cannot imagine,
+but she was always asking him up to the house, and often went off for
+long expeditions with him. I must confess that I was quite unable to
+see his attraction.
+
+The 16th of July fell on a Monday. It was a day of turmoil. The famous
+bazaar had taken place on Saturday, and an entertainment, in connection
+with the same charity, at which Mrs. Inglethorp was to recite a War
+poem, was to be held that night. We were all busy during the morning
+arranging and decorating the Hall in the village where it was to take
+place. We had a late luncheon and spent the afternoon resting in the
+garden. I noticed that John’s manner was somewhat unusual. He seemed
+very excited and restless.
+
+After tea, Mrs. Inglethorp went to lie down to rest before her efforts
+in the evening and I challenged Mary Cavendish to a single at tennis.
+
+About a quarter to seven, Mrs. Inglethorp called us that we should be
+late as supper was early that night. We had rather a scramble to get
+ready in time; and before the meal was over the motor was waiting at
+the door.
+
+The entertainment was a great success, Mrs. Inglethorp’s recitation
+receiving tremendous applause. There were also some tableaux in which
+Cynthia took part. She did not return with us, having been asked to a
+supper party, and to remain the night with some friends who had been
+acting with her in the tableaux.
+
+The following morning, Mrs. Inglethorp stayed in bed to breakfast, as
+she was rather overtired; but she appeared in her briskest mood about
+12.30, and swept Lawrence and myself off to a luncheon party.
+
+“Such a charming invitation from Mrs. Rolleston. Lady Tadminster’s
+sister, you know. The Rollestons came over with the Conqueror—one of
+our oldest families.”
+
+Mary had excused herself on the plea of an engagement with Dr.
+Bauerstein.
+
+We had a pleasant luncheon, and as we drove away Lawrence suggested
+that we should return by Tadminster, which was barely a mile out of our
+way, and pay a visit to Cynthia in her dispensary. Mrs. Inglethorp
+replied that this was an excellent idea, but as she had several letters
+to write she would drop us there, and we could come back with Cynthia
+in the pony-trap.
+
+We were detained under suspicion by the hospital porter, until Cynthia
+appeared to vouch for us, looking very cool and sweet in her long white
+overall. She took us up to her sanctum, and introduced us to her fellow
+dispenser, a rather awe-inspiring individual, whom Cynthia cheerily
+addressed as “Nibs.”
+
+“What a lot of bottles!” I exclaimed, as my eye travelled round the
+small room. “Do you really know what’s in them all?”
+
+“Say something original,” groaned Cynthia. “Every single person who
+comes up here says that. We are really thinking of bestowing a prize on
+the first individual who does _not_ say: ‘What a lot of bottles!’ And I
+know the next thing you’re going to say is: ‘How many people have you
+poisoned?’”
+
+I pleaded guilty with a laugh.
+
+“If you people only knew how fatally easy it is to poison someone by
+mistake, you wouldn’t joke about it. Come on, let’s have tea. We’ve got
+all sorts of secret stories in that cupboard. No, Lawrence—that’s the
+poison cupboard. The big cupboard—that’s right.”
+
+We had a very cheery tea, and assisted Cynthia to wash up afterwards.
+We had just put away the last tea-spoon when a knock came at the door.
+The countenances of Cynthia and Nibs were suddenly petrified into a
+stern and forbidding expression.
+
+“Come in,” said Cynthia, in a sharp professional tone.
+
+A young and rather scared looking nurse appeared with a bottle which
+she proffered to Nibs, who waved her towards Cynthia with the somewhat
+enigmatical remark:
+
+“_I_’m not really here to-day.”
+
+Cynthia took the bottle and examined it with the severity of a judge.
+
+“This should have been sent up this morning.”
+
+“Sister is very sorry. She forgot.”
+
+“Sister should read the rules outside the door.”
+
+I gathered from the little nurse’s expression that there was not the
+least likelihood of her having the hardihood to retail this message to
+the dreaded “Sister”.
+
+“So now it can’t be done until to-morrow,” finished Cynthia.
+
+“Don’t you think you could possibly let us have it to-night?”
+
+“Well,” said Cynthia graciously, “we are very busy, but if we have time
+it shall be done.”
+
+The little nurse withdrew, and Cynthia promptly took a jar from the
+shelf, refilled the bottle, and placed it on the table outside the
+door.
+
+I laughed.
+
+“Discipline must be maintained?”
+
+“Exactly. Come out on our little balcony. You can see all the outside
+wards there.”
+
+I followed Cynthia and her friend and they pointed out the different
+wards to me. Lawrence remained behind, but after a few moments Cynthia
+called to him over her shoulder to come and join us. Then she looked at
+her watch.
+
+“Nothing more to do, Nibs?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“All right. Then we can lock up and go.”
+
+I had seen Lawrence in quite a different light that afternoon. Compared
+to John, he was an astoundingly difficult person to get to know. He was
+the opposite of his brother in almost every respect, being unusually
+shy and reserved. Yet he had a certain charm of manner, and I fancied
+that, if one really knew him well, one could have a deep affection for
+him. I had always fancied that his manner to Cynthia was rather
+constrained, and that she on her side was inclined to be shy of him.
+But they were both gay enough this afternoon, and chatted together like
+a couple of children.
+
+As we drove through the village, I remembered that I wanted some
+stamps, so accordingly we pulled up at the post office.
+
+As I came out again, I cannoned into a little man who was just
+entering. I drew aside and apologised, when suddenly, with a loud
+exclamation, he clasped me in his arms and kissed me warmly.
+
+“_Mon ami_ Hastings!” he cried. “It is indeed _mon ami_ Hastings!”
+
+“Poirot!” I exclaimed.
+
+I turned to the pony-trap.
+
+“This is a very pleasant meeting for me, Miss Cynthia. This is my old
+friend, Monsieur Poirot, whom I have not seen for years.”
+
+“Oh, we know Monsieur Poirot,” said Cynthia gaily. “But I had no idea
+he was a friend of yours.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Poirot seriously. “I know Mademoiselle Cynthia. It
+is by the charity of that good Mrs. Inglethorp that I am here.” Then,
+as I looked at him inquiringly: “Yes, my friend, she had kindly
+extended hospitality to seven of my countrypeople who, alas, are
+refugees from their native land. We Belgians will always remember her
+with gratitude.”
+
+Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than
+five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His
+head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little
+on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of
+his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have
+caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified
+little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his
+time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a
+detective, his _flair_ had been extraordinary, and he had achieved
+triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day.
+
+He pointed out to me the little house inhabited by him and his fellow
+Belgians, and I promised to go and see him at an early date. Then he
+raised his hat with a flourish to Cynthia, and we drove away.
+
+“He’s a dear little man,” said Cynthia. “I’d no idea you knew him.”
+
+“You’ve been entertaining a celebrity unawares,” I replied.
+
+And, for the rest of the way home, I recited to them the various
+exploits and triumphs of Hercule Poirot.
+
+We arrived back in a very cheerful mood. As we entered the hall, Mrs.
+Inglethorp came out of her boudoir. She looked flushed and upset.
+
+“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
+
+“Is there anything the matter, Aunt Emily?” asked Cynthia.
+
+“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Inglethorp sharply. “What should there be?”
+Then catching sight of Dorcas, the parlourmaid, going into the
+dining-room, she called to her to bring some stamps into the boudoir.
+
+“Yes, m’m.” The old servant hesitated, then added diffidently: “Don’t
+you think, m’m, you’d better get to bed? You’re looking very tired.”
+
+“Perhaps you’re right, Dorcas—yes—no—not now. I’ve some letters I must
+finish by post-time. Have you lighted the fire in my room as I told
+you?”
+
+“Yes, m’m.”
+
+“Then I’ll go to bed directly after supper.”
+
+She went into the boudoir again, and Cynthia stared after her.
+
+“Goodness gracious! I wonder what’s up?” she said to Lawrence.
+
+He did not seem to have heard her, for without a word he turned on his
+heel and went out of the house.
+
+I suggested a quick game of tennis before supper and, Cynthia agreeing,
+I ran upstairs to fetch my racquet.
+
+Mrs. Cavendish was coming down the stairs. It may have been my fancy,
+but she, too, was looking odd and disturbed.
+
+“Had a good walk with Dr. Bauerstein?” I asked, trying to appear as
+indifferent as I could.
+
+“I didn’t go,” she replied abruptly. “Where is Mrs. Inglethorp?”
+
+“In the boudoir.”
+
+Her hand clenched itself on the banisters, then she seemed to nerve
+herself for some encounter, and went rapidly past me down the stairs
+across the hall to the boudoir, the door of which she shut behind her.
+
+As I ran out to the tennis court a few moments later, I had to pass the
+open boudoir window, and was unable to help overhearing the following
+scrap of dialogue. Mary Cavendish was saying in the voice of a woman
+desperately controlling herself:
+
+“Then you won’t show it to me?”
+
+To which Mrs. Inglethorp replied:
+
+“My dear Mary, it has nothing to do with that matter.”
+
+“Then show it to me.”
+
+“I tell you it is not what you imagine. It does not concern you in the
+least.”
+
+To which Mary Cavendish replied, with a rising bitterness:
+
+“Of course, I might have known you would shield him.”
+
+Cynthia was waiting for me, and greeted me eagerly with:
+
+“I say! There’s been the most awful row! I’ve got it all out of
+Dorcas.”
+
+“What kind of a row?”
+
+“Between Aunt Emily and _him_. I do hope she’s found him out at last!”
+
+“Was Dorcas there, then?”
+
+“Of course not. She ‘happened to be near the door’. It was a real old
+bust-up. I do wish I knew what it was all about.”
+
+I thought of Mrs. Raikes’s gipsy face, and Evelyn Howard’s warnings,
+but wisely decided to hold my peace, whilst Cynthia exhausted every
+possible hypothesis, and cheerfully hoped, “Aunt Emily will send him
+away, and will never speak to him again.”
+
+I was anxious to get hold of John, but he was nowhere to be seen.
+Evidently something very momentous had occurred that afternoon. I tried
+to forget the few words I had overheard; but, do what I would, I could
+not dismiss them altogether from my mind. What was Mary Cavendish’s
+concern in the matter?
+
+Mr. Inglethorp was in the drawing-room when I came down to supper. His
+face was impassive as ever, and the strange unreality of the man struck
+me afresh.
+
+Mrs. Inglethorp came down last. She still looked agitated, and during
+the meal there was a somewhat constrained silence. Inglethorp was
+unusually quiet. As a rule, he surrounded his wife with little
+attentions, placing a cushion at her back, and altogether playing the
+part of the devoted husband. Immediately after supper, Mrs. Inglethorp
+retired to her boudoir again.
+
+“Send my coffee in here, Mary,” she called. “I’ve just five minutes to
+catch the post.”
+
+Cynthia and I went and sat by the open window in the drawing-room. Mary
+Cavendish brought our coffee to us. She seemed excited.
+
+“Do you young people want lights, or do you enjoy the twilight?” she
+asked. “Will you take Mrs. Inglethorp her coffee, Cynthia? I will pour
+it out.”
+
+“Do not trouble, Mary,” said Inglethorp. “I will take it to Emily.” He
+poured it out, and went out of the room carrying it carefully.
+
+Lawrence followed him, and Mrs. Cavendish sat down by us.
+
+We three sat for some time in silence. It was a glorious night, hot and
+still. Mrs. Cavendish fanned herself gently with a palm leaf.
+
+“It’s almost too hot,” she murmured. “We shall have a thunderstorm.”
+
+Alas, that these harmonious moments can never endure! My paradise was
+rudely shattered by the sound of a well known, and heartily disliked,
+voice in the hall.
+
+“Dr. Bauerstein!” exclaimed Cynthia. “What a funny time to come.”
+
+I glanced jealously at Mary Cavendish, but she seemed quite
+undisturbed, the delicate pallor of her cheeks did not vary.
+
+In a few moments, Alfred Inglethorp had ushered the doctor in, the
+latter laughing, and protesting that he was in no fit state for a
+drawing-room. In truth, he presented a sorry spectacle, being literally
+plastered with mud.
+
+“What have you been doing, doctor?” cried Mrs. Cavendish.
+
+“I must make my apologies,” said the doctor. “I did not really mean to
+come in, but Mr. Inglethorp insisted.”
+
+“Well, Bauerstein, you are in a plight,” said John, strolling in from
+the hall. “Have some coffee, and tell us what you have been up to.”
+
+“Thank you, I will.” He laughed rather ruefully, as he described how he
+had discovered a very rare species of fern in an inaccessible place,
+and in his efforts to obtain it had lost his footing, and slipped
+ignominiously into a neighbouring pond.
+
+“The sun soon dried me off,” he added, “but I’m afraid my appearance is
+very disreputable.”
+
+At this juncture, Mrs. Inglethorp called to Cynthia from the hall, and
+the girl ran out.
+
+“Just carry up my despatch-case, will you, dear? I’m going to bed.”
+
+The door into the hall was a wide one. I had risen when Cynthia did,
+John was close by me. There were therefore three witnesses who could
+swear that Mrs. Inglethorp was carrying her coffee, as yet untasted, in
+her hand.
+
+My evening was utterly and entirely spoilt by the presence of Dr.
+Bauerstein. It seemed to me the man would never go. He rose at last,
+however, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+“I’ll walk down to the village with you,” said Mr. Inglethorp. “I must
+see our agent over those estate accounts.” He turned to John. “No one
+need sit up. I will take the latch-key.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE NIGHT OF THE TRAGEDY
+
+To make this part of my story clear, I append the following plan of the
+first floor of Styles. The servants’ rooms are reached through the door
+B. They have no communication with the right wing, where the
+Inglethorps’ rooms were situated.
+
+
+
+
+       01
+
+
+
+It seemed to be the middle of the night when I was awakened by Lawrence
+Cavendish. He had a candle in his hand, and the agitation of his face
+told me at once that something was seriously wrong.
+
+“What’s the matter?” I asked, sitting up in bed, and trying to collect
+my scattered thoughts.
+
+“We are afraid my mother is very ill. She seems to be having some kind
+of fit. Unfortunately she has locked herself in.”
+
+“I’ll come at once.”
+
+I sprang out of bed; and, pulling on a dressing-gown, followed Lawrence
+along the passage and the gallery to the right wing of the house.
+
+John Cavendish joined us, and one or two of the servants were standing
+round in a state of awe-stricken excitement. Lawrence turned to his
+brother.
+
+“What do you think we had better do?”
+
+Never, I thought, had his indecision of character been more apparent.
+
+John rattled the handle of Mrs. Inglethorp’s door violently, but with
+no effect. It was obviously locked or bolted on the inside. The whole
+household was aroused by now. The most alarming sounds were audible
+from the interior of the room. Clearly something must be done.
+
+“Try going through Mr. Inglethorp’s room, sir,” cried Dorcas. “Oh, the
+poor mistress!”
+
+Suddenly I realized that Alfred Inglethorp was not with us—that he
+alone had given no sign of his presence. John opened the door of his
+room. It was pitch dark, but Lawrence was following with the candle,
+and by its feeble light we saw that the bed had not been slept in, and
+that there was no sign of the room having been occupied.
+
+We went straight to the connecting door. That, too, was locked or
+bolted on the inside. What was to be done?
+
+“Oh, dear, sir,” cried Dorcas, wringing her hands, “what ever shall we
+do?”
+
+“We must try and break the door in, I suppose. It’ll be a tough job,
+though. Here, let one of the maids go down and wake Baily and tell him
+to go for Dr. Wilkins at once. Now then, we’ll have a try at the door.
+Half a moment, though, isn’t there a door into Miss Cynthia’s rooms?”
+
+“Yes, sir, but that’s always bolted. It’s never been undone.”
+
+“Well, we might just see.”
+
+He ran rapidly down the corridor to Cynthia’s room. Mary Cavendish was
+there, shaking the girl—who must have been an unusually sound
+sleeper—and trying to wake her.
+
+In a moment or two he was back.
+
+“No good. That’s bolted too. We must break in the door. I think this
+one is a shade less solid than the one in the passage.”
+
+We strained and heaved together. The framework of the door was solid,
+and for a long time it resisted our efforts, but at last we felt it
+give beneath our weight, and finally, with a resounding crash, it was
+burst open.
+
+We stumbled in together, Lawrence still holding his candle. Mrs.
+Inglethorp was lying on the bed, her whole form agitated by violent
+convulsions, in one of which she must have overturned the table beside
+her. As we entered, however, her limbs relaxed, and she fell back upon
+the pillows.
+
+John strode across the room, and lit the gas. Turning to Annie, one of
+the housemaids, he sent her downstairs to the dining-room for brandy.
+Then he went across to his mother whilst I unbolted the door that gave
+on the corridor.
+
+I turned to Lawrence, to suggest that I had better leave them now that
+there was no further need of my services, but the words were frozen on
+my lips. Never have I seen such a ghastly look on any man’s face. He
+was white as chalk, the candle he held in his shaking hand was
+sputtering onto the carpet, and his eyes, petrified with terror, or
+some such kindred emotion, stared fixedly over my head at a point on
+the further wall. It was as though he had seen something that turned
+him to stone. I instinctively followed the direction of his eyes, but I
+could see nothing unusual. The still feebly flickering ashes in the
+grate, and the row of prim ornaments on the mantelpiece, were surely
+harmless enough.
+
+The violence of Mrs. Inglethorp’s attack seemed to be passing. She was
+able to speak in short gasps.
+
+“Better now—very sudden—stupid of me—to lock myself in.”
+
+A shadow fell on the bed and, looking up, I saw Mary Cavendish standing
+near the door with her arm around Cynthia. She seemed to be supporting
+the girl, who looked utterly dazed and unlike herself. Her face was
+heavily flushed, and she yawned repeatedly.
+
+“Poor Cynthia is quite frightened,” said Mrs. Cavendish in a low clear
+voice. She herself, I noticed, was dressed in her white land smock.
+Then it must be later than I thought. I saw that a faint streak of
+daylight was showing through the curtains of the windows, and that the
+clock on the mantelpiece pointed to close upon five o’clock.
+
+A strangled cry from the bed startled me. A fresh access of pain seized
+the unfortunate old lady. The convulsions were of a violence terrible
+to behold. Everything was confusion. We thronged round her, powerless
+to help or alleviate. A final convulsion lifted her from the bed, until
+she appeared to rest upon her head and her heels, with her body arched
+in an extraordinary manner. In vain Mary and John tried to administer
+more brandy. The moments flew. Again the body arched itself in that
+peculiar fashion.
+
+At that moment, Dr. Bauerstein pushed his way authoritatively into the
+room. For one instant he stopped dead, staring at the figure on the
+bed, and, at the same instant, Mrs. Inglethorp cried out in a strangled
+voice, her eyes fixed on the doctor:
+
+“Alfred—Alfred——” Then she fell back motionless on the pillows.
+
+With a stride, the doctor reached the bed, and seizing her arms worked
+them energetically, applying what I knew to be artificial respiration.
+He issued a few short sharp orders to the servants. An imperious wave
+of his hand drove us all to the door. We watched him, fascinated,
+though I think we all knew in our hearts that it was too late, and that
+nothing could be done now. I could see by the expression on his face
+that he himself had little hope.
+
+Finally he abandoned his task, shaking his head gravely. At that
+moment, we heard footsteps outside, and Dr. Wilkins, Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+own doctor, a portly, fussy little man, came bustling in.
+
+In a few words Dr. Bauerstein explained how he had happened to be
+passing the lodge gates as the car came out, and had run up to the
+house as fast as he could, whilst the car went on to fetch Dr. Wilkins.
+With a faint gesture of the hand, he indicated the figure on the bed.
+
+“Ve—ry sad. Ve—ry sad,” murmured Dr. Wilkins. “Poor dear lady. Always
+did far too much—far too much—against my advice. I warned her. Her
+heart was far from strong. ‘Take it easy,’ I said to her,
+‘Take—it—easy’. But no—her zeal for good works was too great. Nature
+rebelled. Na—ture—re—belled.”
+
+Dr. Bauerstein, I noticed, was watching the local doctor narrowly. He
+still kept his eyes fixed on him as he spoke.
+
+“The convulsions were of a peculiar violence, Dr. Wilkins. I am sorry
+you were not here in time to witness them. They were quite—tetanic in
+character.”
+
+“Ah!” said Dr. Wilkins wisely.
+
+“I should like to speak to you in private,” said Dr. Bauerstein. He
+turned to John. “You do not object?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+We all trooped out into the corridor, leaving the two doctors alone,
+and I heard the key turned in the lock behind us.
+
+We went slowly down the stairs. I was violently excited. I have a
+certain talent for deduction, and Dr. Bauerstein’s manner had started a
+flock of wild surmises in my mind. Mary Cavendish laid her hand upon my
+arm.
+
+“What is it? Why did Dr. Bauerstein seem so—peculiar?”
+
+I looked at her.
+
+“Do you know what I think?”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Listen!” I looked round, the others were out of earshot. I lowered my
+voice to a whisper. “I believe she has been poisoned! I’m certain Dr.
+Bauerstein suspects it.”
+
+“_What?_” She shrank against the wall, the pupils of her eyes dilating
+wildly. Then, with a sudden cry that startled me, she cried out: “No,
+no—not that—not that!” And breaking from me, fled up the stairs. I
+followed her, afraid that she was going to faint. I found her leaning
+against the bannisters, deadly pale. She waved me away impatiently.
+
+“No, no—leave me. I’d rather be alone. Let me just be quiet for a
+minute or two. Go down to the others.”
+
+I obeyed her reluctantly. John and Lawrence were in the dining-room. I
+joined them. We were all silent, but I suppose I voiced the thoughts of
+us all when I at last broke it by saying:
+
+“Where is Mr. Inglethorp?”
+
+John shook his head.
+
+“He’s not in the house.”
+
+Our eyes met. Where _was_ Alfred Inglethorp? His absence was strange
+and inexplicable. I remembered Mrs. Inglethorp’s dying words. What lay
+beneath them? What more could she have told us, if she had had time?
+
+At last we heard the doctors descending the stairs. Dr. Wilkins was
+looking important and excited, and trying to conceal an inward
+exultation under a manner of decorous calm. Dr. Bauerstein remained in
+the background, his grave bearded face unchanged. Dr. Wilkins was the
+spokesman for the two. He addressed himself to John:
+
+“Mr. Cavendish, I should like your consent to a post-mortem.”
+
+“Is that necessary?” asked John gravely. A spasm of pain crossed his
+face.
+
+“Absolutely,” said Dr. Bauerstein.
+
+“You mean by that——?”
+
+“That neither Dr. Wilkins nor myself could give a death certificate
+under the circumstances.”
+
+John bent his head.
+
+“In that case, I have no alternative but to agree.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Dr. Wilkins briskly. “We propose that it should take
+place to-morrow night—or rather to-night.” And he glanced at the
+daylight. “Under the circumstances, I am afraid an inquest can hardly
+be avoided—these formalities are necessary, but I beg that you won’t
+distress yourselves.”
+
+There was a pause, and then Dr. Bauerstein drew two keys from his
+pocket, and handed them to John.
+
+“These are the keys of the two rooms. I have locked them and, in my
+opinion, they would be better kept locked for the present.”
+
+The doctors then departed.
+
+I had been turning over an idea in my head, and I felt that the moment
+had now come to broach it. Yet I was a little chary of doing so. John,
+I knew, had a horror of any kind of publicity, and was an easygoing
+optimist, who preferred never to meet trouble half-way. It might be
+difficult to convince him of the soundness of my plan. Lawrence, on the
+other hand, being less conventional, and having more imagination, I
+felt I might count upon as an ally. There was no doubt that the moment
+had come for me to take the lead.
+
+“John,” I said, “I am going to ask you something.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You remember my speaking of my friend Poirot? The Belgian who is here?
+He has been a most famous detective.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I want you to let me call him in—to investigate this matter.”
+
+“What—now? Before the post-mortem?”
+
+“Yes, time is an advantage if—if—there has been foul play.”
+
+“Rubbish!” cried Lawrence angrily. “In my opinion the whole thing is a
+mare’s nest of Bauerstein’s! Wilkins hadn’t an idea of such a thing,
+until Bauerstein put it into his head. But, like all specialists,
+Bauerstein’s got a bee in his bonnet. Poisons are his hobby, so of
+course he sees them everywhere.”
+
+I confess that I was surprised by Lawrence’s attitude. He was so seldom
+vehement about anything.
+
+John hesitated.
+
+“I can’t feel as you do, Lawrence,” he said at last. “I’m inclined to
+give Hastings a free hand, though I should prefer to wait a bit. We
+don’t want any unnecessary scandal.”
+
+“No, no,” I cried eagerly, “you need have no fear of that. Poirot is
+discretion itself.”
+
+“Very well, then, have it your own way. I leave it in your hands.
+Though, if it is as we suspect, it seems a clear enough case. God
+forgive me if I am wronging him!”
+
+I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock. I determined to lose no time.
+
+Five minutes’ delay, however, I allowed myself. I spent it in
+ransacking the library until I discovered a medical book which gave a
+description of strychnine poisoning.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. POIROT INVESTIGATES
+
+The house which the Belgians occupied in the village was quite close to
+the park gates. One could save time by taking a narrow path through the
+long grass, which cut off the detours of the winding drive. So I,
+accordingly, went that way. I had nearly reached the lodge, when my
+attention was arrested by the running figure of a man approaching me.
+It was Mr. Inglethorp. Where had he been? How did he intend to explain
+his absence?
+
+He accosted me eagerly.
+
+“My God! This is terrible! My poor wife! I have only just heard.”
+
+“Where have you been?” I asked.
+
+“Denby kept me late last night. It was one o’clock before we’d
+finished. Then I found that I’d forgotten the latch-key after all. I
+didn’t want to arouse the household, so Denby gave me a bed.”
+
+“How did you hear the news?” I asked.
+
+“Wilkins knocked Denby up to tell him. My poor Emily! She was so
+self-sacrificing—such a noble character. She over-taxed her strength.”
+
+A wave of revulsion swept over me. What a consummate hypocrite the man
+was!
+
+“I must hurry on,” I said, thankful that he did not ask me whither I
+was bound.
+
+In a few minutes I was knocking at the door of Leastways Cottage.
+
+Getting no answer, I repeated my summons impatiently. A window above me
+was cautiously opened, and Poirot himself looked out.
+
+He gave an exclamation of surprise at seeing me. In a few brief words,
+I explained the tragedy that had occurred, and that I wanted his help.
+
+“Wait, my friend, I will let you in, and you shall recount to me the
+affair whilst I dress.”
+
+In a few moments he had unbarred the door, and I followed him up to his
+room. There he installed me in a chair, and I related the whole story,
+keeping back nothing, and omitting no circumstance, however
+insignificant, whilst he himself made a careful and deliberate toilet.
+
+I told him of my awakening, of Mrs. Inglethorp’s dying words, of her
+husband’s absence, of the quarrel the day before, of the scrap of
+conversation between Mary and her mother-in-law that I had overheard,
+of the former quarrel between Mrs. Inglethorp and Evelyn Howard, and of
+the latter’s innuendoes.
+
+I was hardly as clear as I could wish. I repeated myself several times,
+and occasionally had to go back to some detail that I had forgotten.
+Poirot smiled kindly on me.
+
+“The mind is confused? Is it not so? Take time, _mon ami_. You are
+agitated; you are excited—it is but natural. Presently, when we are
+calmer, we will arrange the facts, neatly, each in his proper place. We
+will examine—and reject. Those of importance we will put on one side;
+those of no importance, pouf!”—he screwed up his cherub-like face, and
+puffed comically enough—“blow them away!”
+
+“That’s all very well,” I objected, “but how are you going to decide
+what is important, and what isn’t? That always seems the difficulty to
+me.”
+
+Poirot shook his head energetically. He was now arranging his moustache
+with exquisite care.
+
+“Not so. _Voyons!_ One fact leads to another—so we continue. Does the
+next fit in with that? _A merveille!_ Good! We can proceed. This next
+little fact—no! Ah, that is curious! There is something missing—a link
+in the chain that is not there. We examine. We search. And that little
+curious fact, that possibly paltry little detail that will not tally,
+we put it here!” He made an extravagant gesture with his hand. “It is
+significant! It is tremendous!”
+
+“Y—es——”
+
+“Ah!” Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely at me that I quailed
+before it. “Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small—it
+does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.’ That way lies
+confusion! Everything matters.”
+
+“I know. You always told me that. That’s why I have gone into all the
+details of this thing whether they seemed to me relevant or not.”
+
+“And I am pleased with you. You have a good memory, and you have given
+me the facts faithfully. Of the order in which you present them, I say
+nothing—truly, it is deplorable! But I make allowances—you are upset.
+To that I attribute the circumstance that you have omitted one fact of
+paramount importance.”
+
+“What is that?” I asked.
+
+“You have not told me if Mrs. Inglethorp ate well last night.”
+
+I stared at him. Surely the war had affected the little man’s brain. He
+was carefully engaged in brushing his coat before putting it on, and
+seemed wholly engrossed in the task.
+
+“I don’t remember,” I said. “And, anyway, I don’t see——”
+
+“You do not see? But it is of the first importance.”
+
+“I can’t see why,” I said, rather nettled. “As far as I can remember,
+she didn’t eat much. She was obviously upset, and it had taken her
+appetite away. That was only natural.”
+
+“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “it was only natural.”
+
+He opened a drawer, and took out a small despatch-case, then turned to
+me.
+
+“Now I am ready. We will proceed to the château, and study matters on
+the spot. Excuse me, _mon ami_, you dressed in haste, and your tie is
+on one side. Permit me.” With a deft gesture, he rearranged it.
+
+“_Ça y est!_ Now, shall we start?”
+
+We hurried up the village, and turned in at the lodge gates. Poirot
+stopped for a moment, and gazed sorrowfully over the beautiful expanse
+of park, still glittering with morning dew.
+
+“So beautiful, so beautiful, and yet, the poor family, plunged in
+sorrow, prostrated with grief.”
+
+He looked at me keenly as he spoke, and I was aware that I reddened
+under his prolonged gaze.
+
+Was the family prostrated by grief? Was the sorrow at Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+death so great? I realized that there was an emotional lack in the
+atmosphere. The dead woman had not the gift of commanding love. Her
+death was a shock and a distress, but she would not be passionately
+regretted.
+
+Poirot seemed to follow my thoughts. He nodded his head gravely.
+
+“No, you are right,” he said, “it is not as though there was a blood
+tie. She has been kind and generous to these Cavendishes, but she was
+not their own mother. Blood tells—always remember that—blood tells.”
+
+“Poirot,” I said, “I wish you would tell me why you wanted to know if
+Mrs. Inglethorp ate well last night? I have been turning it over in my
+mind, but I can’t see how it has anything to do with the matter?”
+
+He was silent for a minute or two as we walked along, but finally he
+said:
+
+“I do not mind telling you—though, as you know, it is not my habit to
+explain until the end is reached. The present contention is that Mrs.
+Inglethorp died of strychnine poisoning, presumably administered in her
+coffee.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Well, what time was the coffee served?”
+
+“About eight o’clock.”
+
+“Therefore she drank it between then and half-past eight—certainly not
+much later. Well, strychnine is a fairly rapid poison. Its effects
+would be felt very soon, probably in about an hour. Yet, in Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s case, the symptoms do not manifest themselves until five
+o’clock the next morning: nine hours! But a heavy meal, taken at about
+the same time as the poison, might retard its effects, though hardly to
+that extent. Still, it is a possibility to be taken into account. But,
+according to you, she ate very little for supper, and yet the symptoms
+do not develop until early the next morning! Now that is a curious
+circumstance, my friend. Something may arise at the autopsy to explain
+it. In the meantime, remember it.”
+
+As we neared the house, John came out and met us. His face looked weary
+and haggard.
+
+“This is a very dreadful business, Monsieur Poirot,” he said. “Hastings
+has explained to you that we are anxious for no publicity?”
+
+“I comprehend perfectly.”
+
+“You see, it is only suspicion so far. We have nothing to go upon.”
+
+“Precisely. It is a matter of precaution only.”
+
+John turned to me, taking out his cigarette-case, and lighting a
+cigarette as he did so.
+
+“You know that fellow Inglethorp is back?”
+
+“Yes. I met him.”
+
+John flung the match into an adjacent flower bed, a proceeding which
+was too much for Poirot’s feelings. He retrieved it, and buried it
+neatly.
+
+“It’s jolly difficult to know how to treat him.”
+
+“That difficulty will not exist long,” pronounced Poirot quietly.
+
+John looked puzzled, not quite understanding the portent of this
+cryptic saying. He handed the two keys which Dr. Bauerstein had given
+him to me.
+
+“Show Monsieur Poirot everything he wants to see.”
+
+“The rooms are locked?” asked Poirot.
+
+“Dr. Bauerstein considered it advisable.”
+
+Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
+
+“Then he is very sure. Well, that simplifies matters for us.”
+
+We went up together to the room of the tragedy. For convenience I
+append a plan of the room and the principal articles of furniture in
+it.
+
+
+
+
+       02
+
+
+
+Poirot locked the door on the inside, and proceeded to a minute
+inspection of the room. He darted from one object to the other with the
+agility of a grasshopper. I remained by the door, fearing to obliterate
+any clues. Poirot, however, did not seem grateful to me for my
+forbearance.
+
+“What have you, my friend,” he cried, “that you remain there like—how
+do you say it?—ah, yes, the stuck pig?”
+
+I explained that I was afraid of obliterating any foot-marks.
+
+“Foot-marks? But what an idea! There has already been practically an
+army in the room! What foot-marks are we likely to find? No, come here
+and aid me in my search. I will put down my little case until I need
+it.”
+
+He did so, on the round table by the window, but it was an ill-advised
+proceeding; for, the top of it being loose, it tilted up, and
+precipitated the despatch-case on the floor.
+
+“_Eh voilà une table!_” cried Poirot. “Ah, my friend, one may live in a
+big house and yet have no comfort.”
+
+After which piece of moralizing, he resumed his search.
+
+A small purple despatch-case, with a key in the lock, on the
+writing-table, engaged his attention for some time. He took out the key
+from the lock, and passed it to me to inspect. I saw nothing peculiar,
+however. It was an ordinary key of the Yale type, with a bit of twisted
+wire through the handle.
+
+Next, he examined the framework of the door we had broken in, assuring
+himself that the bolt had really been shot. Then he went to the door
+opposite leading into Cynthia’s room. That door was also bolted, as I
+had stated. However, he went to the length of unbolting it, and opening
+and shutting it several times; this he did with the utmost precaution
+against making any noise. Suddenly something in the bolt itself seemed
+to rivet his attention. He examined it carefully, and then, nimbly
+whipping out a pair of small forceps from his case, he drew out some
+minute particle which he carefully sealed up in a tiny envelope.
+
+On the chest of drawers there was a tray with a spirit lamp and a small
+saucepan on it. A small quantity of a dark fluid remained in the
+saucepan, and an empty cup and saucer that had been drunk out of stood
+near it.
+
+I wondered how I could have been so unobservant as to overlook this.
+Here was a clue worth having. Poirot delicately dipped his finger into
+liquid, and tasted it gingerly. He made a grimace.
+
+“Cocoa—with—I think—rum in it.”
+
+He passed on to the debris on the floor, where the table by the bed had
+been overturned. A reading-lamp, some books, matches, a bunch of keys,
+and the crushed fragments of a coffee-cup lay scattered about.
+
+“Ah, this is curious,” said Poirot.
+
+“I must confess that I see nothing particularly curious about it.”
+
+“You do not? Observe the lamp—the chimney is broken in two places; they
+lie there as they fell. But see, the coffee-cup is absolutely smashed
+to powder.”
+
+“Well,” I said wearily, “I suppose someone must have stepped on it.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Poirot, in an odd voice. “Someone stepped on it.”
+
+He rose from his knees, and walked slowly across to the mantelpiece,
+where he stood abstractedly fingering the ornaments, and straightening
+them—a trick of his when he was agitated.
+
+“_Mon ami_,” he said, turning to me, “somebody stepped on that cup,
+grinding it to powder, and the reason they did so was either because it
+contained strychnine or—which is far more serious—because it did not
+contain strychnine!”
+
+I made no reply. I was bewildered, but I knew that it was no good
+asking him to explain. In a moment or two he roused himself, and went
+on with his investigations. He picked up the bunch of keys from the
+floor, and twirling them round in his fingers finally selected one,
+very bright and shining, which he tried in the lock of the purple
+despatch-case. It fitted, and he opened the box, but after a moment’s
+hesitation, closed and relocked it, and slipped the bunch of keys, as
+well as the key that had originally stood in the lock, into his own
+pocket.
+
+“I have no authority to go through these papers. But it should be
+done—at once!”
+
+He then made a very careful examination of the drawers of the
+wash-stand. Crossing the room to the left-hand window, a round stain,
+hardly visible on the dark brown carpet, seemed to interest him
+particularly. He went down on his knees, examining it minutely—even
+going so far as to smell it.
+
+Finally, he poured a few drops of the cocoa into a test tube, sealing
+it up carefully. His next proceeding was to take out a little notebook.
+
+“We have found in this room,” he said, writing busily, “six points of
+interest. Shall I enumerate them, or will you?”
+
+“Oh, you,” I replied hastily.
+
+“Very well, then. One, a coffee-cup that has been ground into powder;
+two, a despatch-case with a key in the lock; three, a stain on the
+floor.”
+
+“That may have been done some time ago,” I interrupted.
+
+“No, for it is still perceptibly damp and smells of coffee. Four, a
+fragment of some dark green fabric—only a thread or two, but
+recognizable.”
+
+“Ah!” I cried. “That was what you sealed up in the envelope.”
+
+“Yes. It may turn out to be a piece of one of Mrs. Inglethorp’s own
+dresses, and quite unimportant. We shall see. Five, _this_!” With a
+dramatic gesture, he pointed to a large splash of candle grease on the
+floor by the writing-table. “It must have been done since yesterday,
+otherwise a good housemaid would have at once removed it with
+blotting-paper and a hot iron. One of my best hats once—but that is not
+to the point.”
+
+“It was very likely done last night. We were very agitated. Or perhaps
+Mrs. Inglethorp herself dropped her candle.”
+
+“You brought only one candle into the room?”
+
+“Yes. Lawrence Cavendish was carrying it. But he was very upset. He
+seemed to see something over here”—I indicated the mantelpiece—“that
+absolutely paralysed him.”
+
+“That is interesting,” said Poirot quickly. “Yes, it is suggestive”—his
+eye sweeping the whole length of the wall—“but it was not his candle
+that made this great patch, for you perceive that this is white grease;
+whereas Monsieur Lawrence’s candle, which is still on the
+dressing-table, is pink. On the other hand, Mrs. Inglethorp had no
+candlestick in the room, only a reading-lamp.”
+
+“Then,” I said, “what do you deduce?”
+
+To which my friend only made a rather irritating reply, urging me to
+use my own natural faculties.
+
+“And the sixth point?” I asked. “I suppose it is the sample of cocoa.”
+
+“No,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “I might have included that in the six,
+but I did not. No, the sixth point I will keep to myself for the
+present.”
+
+He looked quickly round the room. “There is nothing more to be done
+here, I think, unless”—he stared earnestly and long at the dead ashes
+in the grate. “The fire burns—and it destroys. But by chance—there
+might be—let us see!”
+
+Deftly, on hands and knees, he began to sort the ashes from the grate
+into the fender, handling them with the greatest caution. Suddenly, he
+gave a faint exclamation.
+
+“The forceps, Hastings!”
+
+I quickly handed them to him, and with skill he extracted a small piece
+of half charred paper.
+
+“There, _mon ami!_” he cried. “What do you think of that?”
+
+I scrutinized the fragment. This is an exact reproduction of it:—
+
+
+
+
+       03
+
+
+I was puzzled. It was unusually thick, quite unlike ordinary notepaper.
+Suddenly an idea struck me.
+
+“Poirot!” I cried. “This is a fragment of a will!”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+I looked up at him sharply.
+
+“You are not surprised?”
+
+“No,” he said gravely, “I expected it.”
+
+I relinquished the piece of paper, and watched him put it away in his
+case, with the same methodical care that he bestowed on everything. My
+brain was in a whirl. What was this complication of a will? Who had
+destroyed it? The person who had left the candle grease on the floor?
+Obviously. But how had anyone gained admission? All the doors had been
+bolted on the inside.
+
+“Now, my friend,” said Poirot briskly, “we will go. I should like to
+ask a few questions of the parlourmaid—Dorcas, her name is, is it not?”
+
+We passed through Alfred Inglethorp’s room, and Poirot delayed long
+enough to make a brief but fairly comprehensive examination of it. We
+went out through that door, locking both it and that of Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s room as before.
+
+I took him down to the boudoir which he had expressed a wish to see,
+and went myself in search of Dorcas.
+
+When I returned with her, however, the boudoir was empty.
+
+“Poirot,” I cried, “where are you?”
+
+“I am here, my friend.”
+
+He had stepped outside the French window, and was standing, apparently
+lost in admiration, before the various shaped flower beds.
+
+“Admirable!” he murmured. “Admirable! What symmetry! Observe that
+crescent; and those diamonds—their neatness rejoices the eye. The
+spacing of the plants, also, is perfect. It has been recently done; is
+it not so?”
+
+“Yes, I believe they were at it yesterday afternoon. But come in—Dorcas
+is here.”
+
+“_Eh bien, eh bien!_ Do not grudge me a moment’s satisfaction of the
+eye.”
+
+“Yes, but this affair is more important.”
+
+“And how do you know that these fine begonias are not of equal
+importance?”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. There was really no arguing with him if he
+chose to take that line.
+
+“You do not agree? But such things have been. Well, we will come in and
+interview the brave Dorcas.”
+
+Dorcas was standing in the boudoir, her hands folded in front of her,
+and her grey hair rose in stiff waves under her white cap. She was the
+very model and picture of a good old-fashioned servant.
+
+In her attitude towards Poirot, she was inclined to be suspicious, but
+he soon broke down her defences. He drew forward a chair.
+
+“Pray be seated, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Thank you, sir.”
+
+“You have been with your mistress many years, is it not so?”
+
+“Ten years, sir.”
+
+“That is a long time, and very faithful service. You were much attached
+to her, were you not?”
+
+“She was a very good mistress to me, sir.”
+
+“Then you will not object to answering a few questions. I put them to
+you with Mr. Cavendish’s full approval.”
+
+“Oh, certainly, sir.”
+
+“Then I will begin by asking you about the events of yesterday
+afternoon. Your mistress had a quarrel?”
+
+“Yes, sir. But I don’t know that I ought——” Dorcas hesitated.
+
+Poirot looked at her keenly.
+
+“My good Dorcas, it is necessary that I should know every detail of
+that quarrel as fully as possible. Do not think that you are betraying
+your mistress’s secrets. Your mistress lies dead, and it is necessary
+that we should know all—if we are to avenge her. Nothing can bring her
+back to life, but we do hope, if there has been foul play, to bring the
+murderer to justice.”
+
+“Amen to that,” said Dorcas fiercely. “And, naming no names, there’s
+_one_ in this house that none of us could ever abide! And an ill day it
+was when first _he_ darkened the threshold.”
+
+Poirot waited for her indignation to subside, and then, resuming his
+business-like tone, he asked:
+
+“Now, as to this quarrel? What is the first you heard of it?”
+
+“Well, sir, I happened to be going along the hall outside yesterday——”
+
+“What time was that?”
+
+“I couldn’t say exactly, sir, but it wasn’t tea-time by a long way.
+Perhaps four o’clock—or it may have been a bit later. Well, sir, as I
+said, I happened to be passing along, when I heard voices very loud and
+angry in here. I didn’t exactly mean to listen, but—well, there it is.
+I stopped. The door was shut, but the mistress was speaking very sharp
+and clear, and I heard what she said quite plainly. ‘You have lied to
+me, and deceived me,’ she said. I didn’t hear what Mr. Inglethorp
+replied. He spoke a good bit lower than she did—but she answered: ‘How
+dare you? I have kept you and clothed you and fed you! You owe
+everything to me! And this is how you repay me! By bringing disgrace
+upon our name!’ Again I didn’t hear what he said, but she went on:
+‘Nothing that you can say will make any difference. I see my duty
+clearly. My mind is made up. You need not think that any fear of
+publicity, or scandal between husband and wife will deter me.’ Then I
+thought I heard them coming out, so I went off quickly.”
+
+“You are sure it was Mr. Inglethorp’s voice you heard?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir, whose else’s could it be?”
+
+“Well, what happened next?”
+
+“Later, I came back to the hall; but it was all quiet. At five o’clock,
+Mrs. Inglethorp rang the bell and told me to bring her a cup of
+tea—nothing to eat—to the boudoir. She was looking dreadful—so white
+and upset. ‘Dorcas,’ she says, ‘I’ve had a great shock.’ ‘I’m sorry for
+that, m’m,’ I says. ‘You’ll feel better after a nice hot cup of tea,
+m’m.’ She had something in her hand. I don’t know if it was a letter,
+or just a piece of paper, but it had writing on it, and she kept
+staring at it, almost as if she couldn’t believe what was written
+there. She whispered to herself, as though she had forgotten I was
+there: ‘These few words—and everything’s changed.’ And then she says to
+me: ‘Never trust a man, Dorcas, they’re not worth it!’ I hurried off,
+and got her a good strong cup of tea, and she thanked me, and said
+she’d feel better when she’d drunk it. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she
+says. ‘Scandal between husband and wife is a dreadful thing, Dorcas.
+I’d rather hush it up if I could.’ Mrs. Cavendish came in just then, so
+she didn’t say any more.”
+
+“She still had the letter, or whatever it was, in her hand?”
+
+
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What would she be likely to do with it afterwards?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know, sir, I expect she would lock it up in that purple
+case of hers.”
+
+“Is that where she usually kept important papers?”
+
+“Yes, sir. She brought it down with her every morning, and took it up
+every night.”
+
+“When did she lose the key of it?”
+
+“She missed it yesterday at lunch-time, sir, and told me to look
+carefully for it. She was very much put out about it.”
+
+“But she had a duplicate key?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir.”
+
+Dorcas was looking very curiously at him and, to tell the truth, so was
+I. What was all this about a lost key? Poirot smiled.
+
+“Never mind, Dorcas, it is my business to know things. Is this the key
+that was lost?” He drew from his pocket the key that he had found in
+the lock of the despatch-case upstairs.
+
+Dorcas’s eyes looked as though they would pop out of her head.
+
+“That’s it, sir, right enough. But where did you find it? I looked
+everywhere for it.”
+
+“Ah, but you see it was not in the same place yesterday as it was
+to-day. Now, to pass to another subject, had your mistress a dark green
+dress in her wardrobe?”
+
+Dorcas was rather startled by the unexpected question.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Are you quite sure?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir.”
+
+“Has anyone else in the house got a green dress?”
+
+Dorcas reflected.
+
+“Miss Cynthia has a green evening dress.”
+
+“Light or dark green?”
+
+“A light green, sir; a sort of chiffon, they call it.”
+
+“Ah, that is not what I want. And nobody else has anything green?”
+
+“No, sir—not that I know of.”
+
+Poirot’s face did not betray a trace of whether he was disappointed or
+otherwise. He merely remarked:
+
+“Good, we will leave that and pass on. Have you any reason to believe
+that your mistress was likely to take a sleeping powder last night?”
+
+“Not _last_ night, sir, I know she didn’t.”
+
+“Why do you know so positively?”
+
+“Because the box was empty. She took the last one two days ago, and she
+didn’t have any more made up.”
+
+“You are quite sure of that?”
+
+“Positive, sir.”
+
+“Then that is cleared up! By the way, your mistress didn’t ask you to
+sign any paper yesterday?”
+
+“To sign a paper? No, sir.”
+
+“When Mr. Hastings and Mr. Lawrence came in yesterday evening, they
+found your mistress busy writing letters. I suppose you can give me no
+idea to whom these letters were addressed?”
+
+“I’m afraid I couldn’t, sir. I was out in the evening. Perhaps Annie
+could tell you, though she’s a careless girl. Never cleared the
+coffee-cups away last night. That’s what happens when I’m not here to
+look after things.”
+
+Poirot lifted his hand.
+
+“Since they have been left, Dorcas, leave them a little longer, I pray
+you. I should like to examine them.”
+
+“Very well, sir.”
+
+“What time did you go out last evening?”
+
+“About six o’clock, sir.”
+
+“Thank you, Dorcas, that is all I have to ask you.” He rose and
+strolled to the window. “I have been admiring these flower beds. How
+many gardeners are employed here, by the way?”
+
+“Only three now, sir. Five, we had, before the war, when it was kept as
+a gentleman’s place should be. I wish you could have seen it then, sir.
+A fair sight it was. But now there’s only old Manning, and young
+William, and a new-fashioned woman gardener in breeches and such-like.
+Ah, these are dreadful times!”
+
+“The good times will come again, Dorcas. At least, we hope so. Now,
+will you send Annie to me here?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
+
+“How did you know that Mrs. Inglethorp took sleeping powders?” I asked,
+in lively curiosity, as Dorcas left the room. “And about the lost key
+and the duplicate?”
+
+“One thing at a time. As to the sleeping powders, I knew by this.” He
+suddenly produced a small cardboard box, such as chemists use for
+powders.
+
+“Where did you find it?”
+
+“In the wash-stand drawer in Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom. It was Number
+Six of my catalogue.”
+
+“But I suppose, as the last powder was taken two days ago, it is not of
+much importance?”
+
+“Probably not, but do you notice anything that strikes you as peculiar
+about this box?”
+
+I examined it closely.
+
+“No, I can’t say that I do.”
+
+“Look at the label.”
+
+I read the label carefully: “‘One powder to be taken at bedtime, if
+required. Mrs. Inglethorp.’ No, I see nothing unusual.”
+
+“Not the fact that there is no chemist’s name?”
+
+“Ah!” I exclaimed. “To be sure, that is odd!”
+
+“Have you ever known a chemist to send out a box like that, without his
+printed name?”
+
+“No, I can’t say that I have.”
+
+I was becoming quite excited, but Poirot damped my ardour by remarking:
+
+“Yet the explanation is quite simple. So do not intrigue yourself, my
+friend.”
+
+An audible creaking proclaimed the approach of Annie, so I had no time
+to reply.
+
+Annie was a fine, strapping girl, and was evidently labouring under
+intense excitement, mingled with a certain ghoulish enjoyment of the
+tragedy.
+
+Poirot came to the point at once, with a business-like briskness.
+
+“I sent for you, Annie, because I thought you might be able to tell me
+something about the letters Mrs. Inglethorp wrote last night. How many
+were there? And can you tell me any of the names and addresses?”
+
+Annie considered.
+
+“There were four letters, sir. One was to Miss Howard, and one was to
+Mr. Wells, the lawyer, and the other two I don’t think I remember,
+sir—oh, yes, one was to Ross’s, the caterers in Tadminster. The other
+one, I don’t remember.”
+
+“Think,” urged Poirot.
+
+Annie racked her brains in vain.
+
+“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s clean gone. I don’t think I can have noticed
+it.”
+
+“It does not matter,” said Poirot, not betraying any sign of
+disappointment. “Now I want to ask you about something else. There is a
+saucepan in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room with some cocoa in it. Did she have
+that every night?”
+
+“Yes, sir, it was put in her room every evening, and she warmed it up
+in the night—whenever she fancied it.”
+
+“What was it? Plain cocoa?”
+
+“Yes, sir, made with milk, with a teaspoonful of sugar, and two
+teaspoonfuls of rum in it.”
+
+“Who took it to her room?”
+
+“I did, sir.”
+
+“Always?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“At what time?”
+
+“When I went to draw the curtains, as a rule, sir.”
+
+“Did you bring it straight up from the kitchen then?”
+
+“No, sir, you see there’s not much room on the gas stove, so cook used
+to make it early, before putting the vegetables on for supper. Then I
+used to bring it up, and put it on the table by the swing door, and
+take it into her room later.”
+
+“The swing door is in the left wing, is it not?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And the table, is it on this side of the door, or on the
+farther—servants’ side?”
+
+“It’s this side, sir.”
+
+“What time did you bring it up last night?”
+
+“About quarter-past seven, I should say, sir.”
+
+“And when did you take it into Mrs. Inglethorp’s room?”
+
+“When I went to shut up, sir. About eight o’clock. Mrs. Inglethorp came
+up to bed before I’d finished.”
+
+“Then, between seven-fifteen and eight o’clock, the cocoa was standing
+on the table in the left wing?”
+
+“Yes, sir.” Annie had been growing redder and redder in the face, and
+now she blurted out unexpectedly:
+
+“And if there _was_ salt in it, sir, it wasn’t me. I never took the
+salt near it.”
+
+“What makes you think there was salt in it?” asked Poirot.
+
+“Seeing it on the tray, sir.”
+
+“You saw some salt on the tray?”
+
+“Yes. Coarse kitchen salt, it looked. I never noticed it when I took
+the tray up, but when I came to take it into the mistress’s room I saw
+it at once, and I suppose I ought to have taken it down again, and
+asked cook to make some fresh. But I was in a hurry, because Dorcas was
+out, and I thought maybe the cocoa itself was all right, and the salt
+had only gone on the tray. So I dusted it off with my apron, and took
+it in.”
+
+I had the utmost difficulty in controlling my excitement. Unknown to
+herself, Annie had provided us with an important piece of evidence. How
+she would have gaped if she had realized that her “coarse kitchen salt”
+was strychnine, one of the most deadly poisons known to mankind. I
+marvelled at Poirot’s calm. His self-control was astonishing. I awaited
+his next question with impatience, but it disappointed me.
+
+“When you went into Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, was the door leading into
+Miss Cynthia’s room bolted?”
+
+“Oh! Yes, sir; it always was. It had never been opened.”
+
+“And the door into Mr. Inglethorp’s room? Did you notice if that was
+bolted too?”
+
+Annie hesitated.
+
+“I couldn’t rightly say, sir; it was shut but I couldn’t say whether it
+was bolted or not.”
+
+“When you finally left the room, did Mrs. Inglethorp bolt the door
+after you?”
+
+“No, sir, not then, but I expect she did later. She usually did lock it
+at night. The door into the passage, that is.”
+
+“Did you notice any candle grease on the floor when you did the room
+yesterday?”
+
+“Candle grease? Oh, no, sir. Mrs. Inglethorp didn’t have a candle, only
+a reading-lamp.”
+
+“Then, if there had been a large patch of candle grease on the floor,
+you think you would have been sure to have seen it?”
+
+“Yes, sir, and I would have taken it out with a piece of blotting-paper
+and a hot iron.”
+
+Then Poirot repeated the question he had put to Dorcas:
+
+“Did your mistress ever have a green dress?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nor a mantle, nor a cape, nor a—how do you call it?—a sports coat?”
+
+“Not green, sir.”
+
+“Nor anyone else in the house?”
+
+Annie reflected.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You are sure of that?”
+
+“Quite sure.”
+
+“_Bien!_ That is all I want to know. Thank you very much.”
+
+With a nervous giggle, Annie took herself creakingly out of the room.
+My pent-up excitement burst forth.
+
+“Poirot,” I cried, “I congratulate you! This is a great discovery.”
+
+“What is a great discovery?”
+
+“Why, that it was the cocoa and not the coffee that was poisoned. That
+explains everything! Of course it did not take effect until the early
+morning, since the cocoa was only drunk in the middle of the night.”
+
+“So you think that the cocoa—mark well what I say, Hastings, the
+_cocoa_—contained strychnine?”
+
+“Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?”
+
+“It might have been salt,” replied Poirot placidly.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. If he was going to take the matter that way,
+it was no good arguing with him. The idea crossed my mind, not for the
+first time, that poor old Poirot was growing old. Privately I thought
+it lucky that he had associated with him someone of a more receptive
+type of mind.
+
+Poirot was surveying me with quietly twinkling eyes.
+
+“You are not pleased with me, _mon ami?_”
+
+“My dear Poirot,” I said coldly, “it is not for me to dictate to you.
+You have a right to your own opinion, just as I have to mine.”
+
+“A most admirable sentiment,” remarked Poirot, rising briskly to his
+feet. “Now I have finished with this room. By the way, whose is the
+smaller desk in the corner?”
+
+“Mr. Inglethorp’s.”
+
+“Ah!” He tried the roll top tentatively. “Locked. But perhaps one of
+Mrs. Inglethorp’s keys would open it.” He tried several, twisting and
+turning them with a practiced hand, and finally uttering an ejaculation
+of satisfaction. “_Voilà !_ It is not the key, but it will open it at a
+pinch.” He slid back the roll top, and ran a rapid eye over the neatly
+filed papers. To my surprise, he did not examine them, merely remarking
+approvingly as he relocked the desk: “Decidedly, he is a man of method,
+this Mr. Inglethorp!”
+
+A “man of method” was, in Poirot’s estimation, the highest praise that
+could be bestowed on any individual.
+
+I felt that my friend was not what he had been as he rambled on
+disconnectedly:
+
+“There were no stamps in his desk, but there might have been, eh, _mon
+ami?_ There might have been? Yes”—his eyes wandered round the
+room—“this boudoir has nothing more to tell us. It did not yield much.
+Only this.”
+
+He pulled a crumpled envelope out of his pocket, and tossed it over to
+me. It was rather a curious document. A plain, dirty looking old
+envelope with a few words scrawled across it, apparently at random. The
+following is a facsimile of it.
+
+
+
+
+       04
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. “IT ISN’T STRYCHNINE, IS IT?”
+
+“Where did you find this?” I asked Poirot, in lively curiosity.
+
+“In the waste-paper basket. You recognise the handwriting?”
+
+“Yes, it is Mrs. Inglethorp’s. But what does it mean?”
+
+Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I cannot say—but it is suggestive.”
+
+A wild idea flashed across me. Was it possible that Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+mind was deranged? Had she some fantastic idea of demoniacal
+possession? And, if that were so, was it not also possible that she
+might have taken her own life?
+
+I was about to expound these theories to Poirot, when his own words
+distracted me.
+
+“Come,” he said, “now to examine the coffee-cups!”
+
+“My dear Poirot! What on earth is the good of that, now that we know
+about the cocoa?”
+
+“Oh, _là là !_ That miserable cocoa!” cried Poirot flippantly.
+
+He laughed with apparent enjoyment, raising his arms to heaven in mock
+despair, in what I could not but consider the worst possible taste.
+
+“And, anyway,” I said, with increasing coldness, “as Mrs. Inglethorp
+took her coffee upstairs with her, I do not see what you expect to
+find, unless you consider it likely that we shall discover a packet of
+strychnine on the coffee tray!”
+
+Poirot was sobered at once.
+
+“Come, come, my friend,” he said, slipping his arms through mine. “_Ne
+vous fâchez pas!_ Allow me to interest myself in my coffee-cups, and I
+will respect your cocoa. There! Is it a bargain?”
+
+He was so quaintly humorous that I was forced to laugh; and we went
+together to the drawing-room, where the coffee-cups and tray remained
+undisturbed as we had left them.
+
+Poirot made me recapitulate the scene of the night before, listening
+very carefully, and verifying the position of the various cups.
+
+“So Mrs. Cavendish stood by the tray—and poured out. Yes. Then she came
+across to the window where you sat with Mademoiselle Cynthia. Yes. Here
+are the three cups. And the cup on the mantelpiece, half drunk, that
+would be Mr. Lawrence Cavendish’s. And the one on the tray?”
+
+“John Cavendish’s. I saw him put it down there.”
+
+“Good. One, two, three, four, five—but where, then, is the cup of Mr.
+Inglethorp?”
+
+“He does not take coffee.”
+
+“Then all are accounted for. One moment, my friend.”
+
+With infinite care, he took a drop or two from the grounds in each cup,
+sealing them up in separate test tubes, tasting each in turn as he did
+so. His physiognomy underwent a curious change. An expression gathered
+there that I can only describe as half puzzled, and half relieved.
+
+“_Bien!_” he said at last. “It is evident! I had an idea—but clearly I
+was mistaken. Yes, altogether I was mistaken. Yet it is strange. But no
+matter!”
+
+And, with a characteristic shrug, he dismissed whatever it was that was
+worrying him from his mind. I could have told him from the beginning
+that this obsession of his over the coffee was bound to end in a blind
+alley, but I restrained my tongue. After all, though he was old, Poirot
+had been a great man in his day.
+
+“Breakfast is ready,” said John Cavendish, coming in from the hall.
+“You will breakfast with us, Monsieur Poirot?”
+
+Poirot acquiesced. I observed John. Already he was almost restored to
+his normal self. The shock of the events of the last night had upset
+him temporarily, but his equable poise soon swung back to the normal.
+He was a man of very little imagination, in sharp contrast with his
+brother, who had, perhaps, too much.
+
+Ever since the early hours of the morning, John had been hard at work,
+sending telegrams—one of the first had gone to Evelyn Howard—writing
+notices for the papers, and generally occupying himself with the
+melancholy duties that a death entails.
+
+“May I ask how things are proceeding?” he said. “Do your investigations
+point to my mother having died a natural death—or—or must we prepare
+ourselves for the worst?”
+
+“I think, Mr. Cavendish,” said Poirot gravely, “that you would do well
+not to buoy yourself up with any false hopes. Can you tell me the views
+of the other members of the family?”
+
+“My brother Lawrence is convinced that we are making a fuss over
+nothing. He says that everything points to its being a simple case of
+heart failure.”
+
+“He does, does he? That is very interesting—very interesting,” murmured
+Poirot softly. “And Mrs. Cavendish?”
+
+A faint cloud passed over John’s face.
+
+“I have not the least idea what my wife’s views on the subject are.”
+
+The answer brought a momentary stiffness in its train. John broke the
+rather awkward silence by saying with a slight effort:
+
+“I told you, didn’t I, that Mr. Inglethorp has returned?”
+
+Poirot bent his head.
+
+“It’s an awkward position for all of us. Of course one has to treat him
+as usual—but, hang it all, one’s gorge does rise at sitting down to eat
+with a possible murderer!”
+
+Poirot nodded sympathetically.
+
+“I quite understand. It is a very difficult situation for you, Mr.
+Cavendish. I would like to ask you one question. Mr. Inglethorp’s
+reason for not returning last night was, I believe, that he had
+forgotten the latch-key. Is not that so?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I suppose you are quite sure that the latch-key _was_ forgotten—that
+he did not take it after all?”
+
+“I have no idea. I never thought of looking. We always keep it in the
+hall drawer. I’ll go and see if it’s there now.”
+
+Poirot held up his hand with a faint smile.
+
+“No, no, Mr. Cavendish, it is too late now. I am certain that you would
+find it. If Mr. Inglethorp did take it, he has had ample time to
+replace it by now.”
+
+“But do you think——”
+
+“I think nothing. If anyone had chanced to look this morning before his
+return, and seen it there, it would have been a valuable point in his
+favour. That is all.”
+
+John looked perplexed.
+
+“Do not worry,” said Poirot smoothly. “I assure you that you need not
+let it trouble you. Since you are so kind, let us go and have some
+breakfast.”
+
+Everyone was assembled in the dining-room. Under the circumstances, we
+were naturally not a cheerful party. The reaction after a shock is
+always trying, and I think we were all suffering from it. Decorum and
+good breeding naturally enjoined that our demeanour should be much as
+usual, yet I could not help wondering if this self-control were really
+a matter of great difficulty. There were no red eyes, no signs of
+secretly indulged grief. I felt that I was right in my opinion that
+Dorcas was the person most affected by the personal side of the
+tragedy.
+
+I pass over Alfred Inglethorp, who acted the bereaved widower in a
+manner that I felt to be disgusting in its hypocrisy. Did he know that
+we suspected him, I wondered. Surely he could not be unaware of the
+fact, conceal it as we would. Did he feel some secret stirring of fear,
+or was he confident that his crime would go unpunished? Surely the
+suspicion in the atmosphere must warn him that he was already a marked
+man.
+
+But did everyone suspect him? What about Mrs. Cavendish? I watched her
+as she sat at the head of the table, graceful, composed, enigmatic. In
+her soft grey frock, with white ruffles at the wrists falling over her
+slender hands, she looked very beautiful. When she chose, however, her
+face could be sphinx-like in its inscrutability. She was very silent,
+hardly opening her lips, and yet in some queer way I felt that the
+great strength of her personality was dominating us all.
+
+And little Cynthia? Did she suspect? She looked very tired and ill, I
+thought. The heaviness and languor of her manner were very marked. I
+asked her if she were feeling ill, and she answered frankly:
+
+“Yes, I’ve got the most beastly headache.”
+
+“Have another cup of coffee, mademoiselle?” said Poirot solicitously.
+“It will revive you. It is unparalleled for the _mal de tête_.” He
+jumped up and took her cup.
+
+“No sugar,” said Cynthia, watching him, as he picked up the
+sugar-tongs.
+
+“No sugar? You abandon it in the war-time, eh?”
+
+“No, I never take it in coffee.”
+
+“_Sacré!_” murmured Poirot to himself, as he brought back the
+replenished cup.
+
+Only I heard him, and glancing up curiously at the little man I saw
+that his face was working with suppressed excitement, and his eyes were
+as green as a cat’s. He had heard or seen something that had affected
+him strongly—but what was it? I do not usually label myself as dense,
+but I must confess that nothing out of the ordinary had attracted _my_
+attention.
+
+In another moment, the door opened and Dorcas appeared.
+
+“Mr. Wells to see you, sir,” she said to John.
+
+I remembered the name as being that of the lawyer to whom Mrs.
+Inglethorp had written the night before.
+
+John rose immediately.
+
+“Show him into my study.” Then he turned to us. “My mother’s lawyer,”
+he explained. And in a lower voice: “He is also Coroner—you understand.
+Perhaps you would like to come with me?”
+
+We acquiesced and followed him out of the room. John strode on ahead
+and I took the opportunity of whispering to Poirot:
+
+“There will be an inquest then?”
+
+Poirot nodded absently. He seemed absorbed in thought; so much so that
+my curiosity was aroused.
+
+“What is it? You are not attending to what I say.”
+
+“It is true, my friend. I am much worried.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because Mademoiselle Cynthia does not take sugar in her coffee.”
+
+“What? You cannot be serious?”
+
+“But I am most serious. Ah, there is something there that I do not
+understand. My instinct was right.”
+
+“What instinct?”
+
+“The instinct that led me to insist on examining those coffee-cups.
+_Chut!_ no more now!”
+
+We followed John into his study, and he closed the door behind us.
+
+Mr. Wells was a pleasant man of middle-age, with keen eyes, and the
+typical lawyer’s mouth. John introduced us both, and explained the
+reason of our presence.
+
+“You will understand, Wells,” he added, “that this is all strictly
+private. We are still hoping that there will turn out to be no need for
+investigation of any kind.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so,” said Mr. Wells soothingly. “I wish we could have
+spared you the pain and publicity of an inquest, but of course it’s
+quite unavoidable in the absence of a doctor’s certificate.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so.”
+
+“Clever man, Bauerstein. Great authority on toxicology, I believe.”
+
+“Indeed,” said John with a certain stiffness in his manner. Then he
+added rather hesitatingly: “Shall we have to appear as witnesses—all of
+us, I mean?”
+
+“You, of course—and ah—er—Mr.—er—Inglethorp.”
+
+A slight pause ensued before the lawyer went on in his soothing manner:
+
+“Any other evidence will be simply confirmatory, a mere matter of
+form.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+A faint expression of relief swept over John’s face. It puzzled me, for
+I saw no occasion for it.
+
+“If you know of nothing to the contrary,” pursued Mr. Wells, “I had
+thought of Friday. That will give us plenty of time for the doctor’s
+report. The post-mortem is to take place to-night, I believe?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then that arrangement will suit you?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“I need not tell you, my dear Cavendish, how distressed I am at this
+most tragic affair.”
+
+“Can you give us no help in solving it, monsieur?” interposed Poirot,
+speaking for the first time since we had entered the room.
+
+“I?”
+
+“Yes, we heard that Mrs. Inglethorp wrote to you last night. You should
+have received the letter this morning.”
+
+“I did, but it contains no information. It is merely a note asking me
+to call upon her this morning, as she wanted my advice on a matter of
+great importance.”
+
+“She gave you no hint as to what that matter might be?”
+
+“Unfortunately, no.”
+
+“That is a pity,” said John.
+
+“A great pity,” agreed Poirot gravely.
+
+There was silence. Poirot remained lost in thought for a few minutes.
+Finally he turned to the lawyer again.
+
+“Mr. Wells, there is one thing I should like to ask you—that is, if it
+is not against professional etiquette. In the event of Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s death, who would inherit her money?”
+
+The lawyer hesitated a moment, and then replied:
+
+“The knowledge will be public property very soon, so if Mr. Cavendish
+does not object——”
+
+“Not at all,” interpolated John.
+
+“I do not see any reason why I should not answer your question. By her
+last will, dated August of last year, after various unimportant
+legacies to servants, etc., she gave her entire fortune to her stepson,
+Mr. John Cavendish.”
+
+“Was not that—pardon the question, Mr. Cavendish—rather unfair to her
+other stepson, Mr. Lawrence Cavendish?”
+
+“No, I do not think so. You see, under the terms of their father’s
+will, while John inherited the property, Lawrence, at his stepmother’s
+death, would come into a considerable sum of money. Mrs. Inglethorp
+left her money to her elder stepson, knowing that he would have to keep
+up Styles. It was, to my mind, a very fair and equitable distribution.”
+
+Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
+
+“I see. But I am right in saying, am I not, that by your English law
+that will was automatically revoked when Mrs. Inglethorp remarried?”
+
+Mr. Wells bowed his head.
+
+“As I was about to proceed, Monsieur Poirot, that document is now null
+and void.”
+
+“_Hein!_” said Poirot. He reflected for a moment, and then asked: “Was
+Mrs. Inglethorp herself aware of that fact?”
+
+“I do not know. She may have been.”
+
+“She was,” said John unexpectedly. “We were discussing the matter of
+wills being revoked by marriage only yesterday.”
+
+“Ah! One more question, Mr. Wells. You say ‘her last will.’ Had Mrs.
+Inglethorp, then, made several former wills?”
+
+“On an average, she made a new will at least once a year,” said Mr.
+Wells imperturbably. “She was given to changing her mind as to her
+testamentary dispositions, now benefiting one, now another member of
+her family.”
+
+“Suppose,” suggested Poirot, “that, unknown to you, she had made a new
+will in favour of someone who was not, in any sense of the word, a
+member of the family—we will say Miss Howard, for instance—would you be
+surprised?”
+
+“Not in the least.”
+
+“Ah!” Poirot seemed to have exhausted his questions.
+
+I drew close to him, while John and the lawyer were debating the
+question of going through Mrs. Inglethorp’s papers.
+
+“Do you think Mrs. Inglethorp made a will leaving all her money to Miss
+Howard?” I asked in a low voice, with some curiosity.
+
+Poirot smiled.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then why did you ask?”
+
+“Hush!”
+
+John Cavendish had turned to Poirot.
+
+“Will you come with us, Monsieur Poirot? We are going through my
+mother’s papers. Mr. Inglethorp is quite willing to leave it entirely
+to Mr. Wells and myself.”
+
+“Which simplifies matters very much,” murmured the lawyer. “As
+technically, of course, he was entitled——” He did not finish the
+sentence.
+
+“We will look through the desk in the boudoir first,” explained John,
+“and go up to her bedroom afterwards. She kept her most important
+papers in a purple despatch-case, which we must look through
+carefully.”
+
+“Yes,” said the lawyer, “it is quite possible that there may be a later
+will than the one in my possession.”
+
+“There _is_ a later will.” It was Poirot who spoke.
+
+“What?” John and the lawyer looked at him startled.
+
+“Or, rather,” pursued my friend imperturbably, “there _was_ one.”
+
+“What do you mean—there was one? Where is it now?”
+
+“Burnt!”
+
+“Burnt?”
+
+“Yes. See here.” He took out the charred fragment we had found in the
+grate in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, and handed it to the lawyer with a
+brief explanation of when and where he had found it.
+
+“But possibly this is an old will?”
+
+“I do not think so. In fact I am almost certain that it was made no
+earlier than yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“What?” “Impossible!” broke simultaneously from both men.
+
+Poirot turned to John.
+
+“If you will allow me to send for your gardener, I will prove it to
+you.”
+
+“Oh, of course—but I don’t see——”
+
+Poirot raised his hand.
+
+“Do as I ask you. Afterwards you shall question as much as you please.”
+
+“Very well.” He rang the bell.
+
+Dorcas answered it in due course.
+
+“Dorcas, will you tell Manning to come round and speak to me here.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Dorcas withdrew.
+
+We waited in a tense silence. Poirot alone seemed perfectly at his
+ease, and dusted a forgotten corner of the bookcase.
+
+The clumping of hobnailed boots on the gravel outside proclaimed the
+approach of Manning. John looked questioningly at Poirot. The latter
+nodded.
+
+“Come inside, Manning,” said John, “I want to speak to you.”
+
+Manning came slowly and hesitatingly through the French window, and
+stood as near it as he could. He held his cap in his hands, twisting it
+very carefully round and round. His back was much bent, though he was
+probably not as old as he looked, but his eyes were sharp and
+intelligent, and belied his slow and rather cautious speech.
+
+“Manning,” said John, “this gentleman will put some questions to you
+which I want you to answer.”
+
+“Yessir,” mumbled Manning.
+
+Poirot stepped forward briskly. Manning’s eye swept over him with a
+faint contempt.
+
+“You were planting a bed of begonias round by the south side of the
+house yesterday afternoon, were you not, Manning?”
+
+“Yes, sir, me and Willum.”
+
+“And Mrs. Inglethorp came to the window and called you, did she not?”
+
+“Yes, sir, she did.”
+
+“Tell me in your own words exactly what happened after that.”
+
+“Well, sir, nothing much. She just told Willum to go on his bicycle
+down to the village, and bring back a form of will, or such-like—I
+don’t know what exactly—she wrote it down for him.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, he did, sir.”
+
+“And what happened next?”
+
+“We went on with the begonias, sir.”
+
+“Did not Mrs. Inglethorp call you again?”
+
+“Yes, sir, both me and Willum, she called.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“She made us come right in, and sign our names at the bottom of a long
+paper—under where she’d signed.”
+
+“Did you see anything of what was written above her signature?” asked
+Poirot sharply.
+
+“No, sir, there was a bit of blotting paper over that part.”
+
+“And you signed where she told you?”
+
+“Yes, sir, first me and then Willum.”
+
+“What did she do with it afterwards?”
+
+“Well, sir, she slipped it into a long envelope, and put it inside a
+sort of purple box that was standing on the desk.”
+
+“What time was it when she first called you?”
+
+“About four, I should say, sir.”
+
+“Not earlier? Couldn’t it have been about half-past three?”
+
+“No, I shouldn’t say so, sir. It would be more likely to be a bit after
+four—not before it.”
+
+“Thank you, Manning, that will do,” said Poirot pleasantly.
+
+The gardener glanced at his master, who nodded, whereupon Manning
+lifted a finger to his forehead with a low mumble, and backed
+cautiously out of the window.
+
+We all looked at each other.
+
+“Good heavens!” murmured John. “What an extraordinary coincidence.”
+
+“How—a coincidence?”
+
+“That my mother should have made a will on the very day of her death!”
+
+Mr. Wells cleared his throat and remarked drily:
+
+“Are you so sure it is a coincidence, Cavendish?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Your mother, you tell me, had a violent quarrel with—someone yesterday
+afternoon——”
+
+“What do you mean?” cried John again. There was a tremor in his voice,
+and he had gone very pale.
+
+“In consequence of that quarrel, your mother very suddenly and
+hurriedly makes a new will. The contents of that will we shall never
+know. She told no one of its provisions. This morning, no doubt, she
+would have consulted me on the subject—but she had no chance. The will
+disappears, and she takes its secret with her to her grave. Cavendish,
+I much fear there is no coincidence there. Monsieur Poirot, I am sure
+you agree with me that the facts are very suggestive.”
+
+“Suggestive, or not,” interrupted John, “we are most grateful to
+Monsieur Poirot for elucidating the matter. But for him, we should
+never have known of this will. I suppose, I may not ask you, monsieur,
+what first led you to suspect the fact?”
+
+Poirot smiled and answered:
+
+“A scribbled over old envelope, and a freshly planted bed of begonias.”
+
+John, I think, would have pressed his questions further, but at that
+moment the loud purr of a motor was audible, and we all turned to the
+window as it swept past.
+
+“Evie!” cried John. “Excuse me, Wells.” He went hurriedly out into the
+hall.
+
+Poirot looked inquiringly at me.
+
+“Miss Howard,” I explained.
+
+“Ah, I am glad she has come. There is a woman with a head and a heart
+too, Hastings. Though the good God gave her no beauty!”
+
+I followed John’s example, and went out into the hall, where Miss
+Howard was endeavouring to extricate herself from the voluminous mass
+of veils that enveloped her head. As her eyes fell on me, a sudden pang
+of guilt shot through me. This was the woman who had warned me so
+earnestly, and to whose warning I had, alas, paid no heed! How soon,
+and how contemptuously, I had dismissed it from my mind. Now that she
+had been proved justified in so tragic a manner, I felt ashamed. She
+had known Alfred Inglethorp only too well. I wondered whether, if she
+had remained at Styles, the tragedy would have taken place, or would
+the man have feared her watchful eyes?
+
+I was relieved when she shook me by the hand, with her well remembered
+painful grip. The eyes that met mine were sad, but not reproachful;
+that she had been crying bitterly, I could tell by the redness of her
+eyelids, but her manner was unchanged from its old gruffness.
+
+“Started the moment I got the wire. Just come off night duty. Hired
+car. Quickest way to get here.”
+
+“Have you had anything to eat this morning, Evie?” asked John.
+
+“No.”
+
+“I thought not. Come along, breakfast’s not cleared away yet, and
+they’ll make you some fresh tea.” He turned to me. “Look after her,
+Hastings, will you? Wells is waiting for me. Oh, here’s Monsieur
+Poirot. He’s helping us, you know, Evie.”
+
+Miss Howard shook hands with Poirot, but glanced suspiciously over her
+shoulder at John.
+
+“What do you mean—helping us?”
+
+“Helping us to investigate.”
+
+“Nothing to investigate. Have they taken him to prison yet?”
+
+“Taken who to prison?”
+
+“Who? Alfred Inglethorp, of course!”
+
+“My dear Evie, do be careful. Lawrence is of the opinion that my mother
+died from heart seizure.”
+
+“More fool, Lawrence!” retorted Miss Howard. “Of course Alfred
+Inglethorp murdered poor Emily—as I always told you he would.”
+
+“My dear Evie, don’t shout so. Whatever we may think or suspect, it is
+better to say as little as possible for the present. The inquest isn’t
+until Friday.”
+
+“Not until fiddlesticks!” The snort Miss Howard gave was truly
+magnificent. “You’re all off your heads. The man will be out of the
+country by then. If he’s any sense, he won’t stay here tamely and wait
+to be hanged.”
+
+John Cavendish looked at her helplessly.
+
+“I know what it is,” she accused him, “you’ve been listening to the
+doctors. Never should. What do they know? Nothing at all—or just enough
+to make them dangerous. I ought to know—my own father was a doctor.
+That little Wilkins is about the greatest fool that even I have ever
+seen. Heart seizure! Sort of thing he would say. Anyone with any sense
+could see at once that her husband had poisoned her. I always said he’d
+murder her in her bed, poor soul. Now he’s done it. And all you can do
+is to murmur silly things about ‘heart seizure’ and ‘inquest on
+Friday.’ You ought to be ashamed of yourself, John Cavendish.”
+
+“What do you want me to do?” asked John, unable to help a faint smile.
+“Dash it all, Evie, I can’t haul him down to the local police station
+by the scruff of his neck.”
+
+“Well, you might do something. Find out how he did it. He’s a crafty
+beggar. Dare say he soaked fly papers. Ask cook if she’s missed any.”
+
+It occurred to me very forcibly at that moment that to harbour Miss
+Howard and Alfred Inglethorp under the same roof, and keep the peace
+between them, was likely to prove a Herculean task, and I did not envy
+John. I could see by the expression of his face that he fully
+appreciated the difficulty of the position. For the moment, he sought
+refuge in retreat, and left the room precipitately.
+
+Dorcas brought in fresh tea. As she left the room, Poirot came over
+from the window where he had been standing, and sat down facing Miss
+Howard.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said gravely, “I want to ask you something.”
+
+“Ask away,” said the lady, eyeing him with some disfavour.
+
+“I want to be able to count upon your help.”
+
+“I’ll help you to hang Alfred with pleasure,” she replied gruffly.
+“Hanging’s too good for him. Ought to be drawn and quartered, like in
+good old times.”
+
+“We are at one then,” said Poirot, “for I, too, want to hang the
+criminal.”
+
+“Alfred Inglethorp?”
+
+“Him, or another.”
+
+“No question of another. Poor Emily was never murdered until _he_ came
+along. I don’t say she wasn’t surrounded by sharks—she was. But it was
+only her purse they were after. Her life was safe enough. But along
+comes Mr. Alfred Inglethorp—and within two months—hey presto!”
+
+“Believe me, Miss Howard,” said Poirot very earnestly, “if Mr.
+Inglethorp is the man, he shall not escape me. On my honour, I will
+hang him as high as Haman!”
+
+“That’s better,” said Miss Howard more enthusiastically.
+
+“But I must ask you to trust me. Now your help may be very valuable to
+me. I will tell you why. Because, in all this house of mourning, yours
+are the only eyes that have wept.”
+
+Miss Howard blinked, and a new note crept into the gruffness of her
+voice.
+
+“If you mean that I was fond of her—yes, I was. You know, Emily was a
+selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always
+wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for
+them—and, that way she missed love. Don’t think she ever realized it,
+though, or felt the lack of it. Hope not, anyway. I was on a different
+footing. I took my stand from the first. ‘So many pounds a year I’m
+worth to you. Well and good. But not a penny piece besides—not a pair
+of gloves, nor a theatre ticket.’ She didn’t understand—was very
+offended sometimes. Said I was foolishly proud. It wasn’t that—but I
+couldn’t explain. Anyway, I kept my self-respect. And so, out of the
+whole bunch, I was the only one who could allow myself to be fond of
+her. I watched over her. I guarded her from the lot of them, and then a
+glib-tongued scoundrel comes along, and pooh! all my years of devotion
+go for nothing.”
+
+Poirot nodded sympathetically.
+
+“I understand, mademoiselle, I understand all you feel. It is most
+natural. You think that we are lukewarm—that we lack fire and
+energy—but trust me, it is not so.”
+
+John stuck his head in at this juncture, and invited us both to come up
+to Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, as he and Mr. Wells had finished looking
+through the desk in the boudoir.
+
+As we went up the stairs, John looked back to the dining-room door, and
+lowered his voice confidentially:
+
+“Look here, what’s going to happen when these two meet?”
+
+I shook my head helplessly.
+
+“I’ve told Mary to keep them apart if she can.”
+
+“Will she be able to do so?”
+
+“The Lord only knows. There’s one thing, Inglethorp himself won’t be
+too keen on meeting her.”
+
+“You’ve got the keys still, haven’t you, Poirot?” I asked, as we
+reached the door of the locked room.
+
+Taking the keys from Poirot, John unlocked it, and we all passed in.
+The lawyer went straight to the desk, and John followed him.
+
+“My mother kept most of her important papers in this despatch-case, I
+believe,” he said.
+
+Poirot drew out the small bunch of keys.
+
+“Permit me. I locked it, out of precaution, this morning.”
+
+“But it’s not locked now.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“See.” And John lifted the lid as he spoke.
+
+“_Milles tonnerres!_” cried Poirot, dumbfounded. “And I—who have both
+the keys in my pocket!” He flung himself upon the case. Suddenly he
+stiffened. “_Eh voilà une affaire!_ This lock has been forced.”
+
+“What?”
+
+Poirot laid down the case again.
+
+“But who forced it? Why should they? When? But the door was locked?”
+These exclamations burst from us disjointedly.
+
+Poirot answered them categorically—almost mechanically.
+
+“Who? That is the question. Why? Ah, if I only knew. When? Since I was
+here an hour ago. As to the door being locked, it is a very ordinary
+lock. Probably any other of the doorkeys in this passage would fit it.”
+
+We stared at one another blankly. Poirot had walked over to the
+mantelpiece. He was outwardly calm, but I noticed his hands, which from
+long force of habit were mechanically straightening the spill vases on
+the mantelpiece, were shaking violently.
+
+“See here, it was like this,” he said at last. “There was something in
+that case—some piece of evidence, slight in itself perhaps, but still
+enough of a clue to connect the murderer with the crime. It was vital
+to him that it should be destroyed before it was discovered and its
+significance appreciated. Therefore, he took the risk, the great risk,
+of coming in here. Finding the case locked, he was obliged to force it,
+thus betraying his presence. For him to take that risk, it must have
+been something of great importance.”
+
+“But what was it?”
+
+“Ah!” cried Poirot, with a gesture of anger. “That, I do not know! A
+document of some kind, without doubt, possibly the scrap of paper
+Dorcas saw in her hand yesterday afternoon. And I—” his anger burst
+forth freely—“miserable animal that I am! I guessed nothing! I have
+behaved like an imbecile! I should never have left that case here. I
+should have carried it away with me. Ah, triple pig! And now it is
+gone. It is destroyed—but is it destroyed? Is there not yet a chance—we
+must leave no stone unturned—”
+
+He rushed like a madman from the room, and I followed him as soon as I
+had sufficiently recovered my wits. But, by the time I had reached the
+top of the stairs, he was out of sight.
+
+Mary Cavendish was standing where the staircase branched, staring down
+into the hall in the direction in which he had disappeared.
+
+“What has happened to your extraordinary little friend, Mr. Hastings?
+He has just rushed past me like a mad bull.”
+
+“He’s rather upset about something,” I remarked feebly. I really did
+not know how much Poirot would wish me to disclose. As I saw a faint
+smile gather on Mrs. Cavendish’s expressive mouth, I endeavoured to try
+and turn the conversation by saying: “They haven’t met yet, have they?”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Mr. Inglethorp and Miss Howard.”
+
+She looked at me in rather a disconcerting manner.
+
+“Do you think it would be such a disaster if they did meet?”
+
+“Well, don’t you?” I said, rather taken aback.
+
+“No.” She was smiling in her quiet way. “I should like to see a good
+flare up. It would clear the air. At present we are all thinking so
+much, and saying so little.”
+
+“John doesn’t think so,” I remarked. “He’s anxious to keep them apart.”
+
+“Oh, John!”
+
+Something in her tone fired me, and I blurted out:
+
+“Old John’s an awfully good sort.”
+
+She studied me curiously for a minute or two, and then said, to my
+great surprise:
+
+“You are loyal to your friend. I like you for that.”
+
+“Aren’t you my friend too?”
+
+“I am a very bad friend.”
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because it is true. I am charming to my friends one day, and forget
+all about them the next.”
+
+I don’t know what impelled me, but I was nettled, and I said foolishly
+and not in the best of taste:
+
+“Yet you seem to be invariably charming to Dr. Bauerstein!”
+
+Instantly I regretted my words. Her face stiffened. I had the
+impression of a steel curtain coming down and blotting out the real
+woman. Without a word, she turned and went swiftly up the stairs,
+whilst I stood like an idiot gaping after her.
+
+I was recalled to other matters by a frightful row going on below. I
+could hear Poirot shouting and expounding. I was vexed to think that my
+diplomacy had been in vain. The little man appeared to be taking the
+whole house into his confidence, a proceeding of which I, for one,
+doubted the wisdom. Once again I could not help regretting that my
+friend was so prone to lose his head in moments of excitement. I
+stepped briskly down the stairs. The sight of me calmed Poirot almost
+immediately. I drew him aside.
+
+“My dear fellow,” I said, “is this wise? Surely you don’t want the
+whole house to know of this occurrence? You are actually playing into
+the criminal’s hands.”
+
+“You think so, Hastings?”
+
+“I am sure of it.”
+
+“Well, well, my friend, I will be guided by you.”
+
+“Good. Although, unfortunately, it is a little too late now.”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+He looked so crestfallen and abashed that I felt quite sorry, though I
+still thought my rebuke a just and wise one.
+
+“Well,” he said at last, “let us go, _mon ami_.”
+
+“You have finished here?”
+
+“For the moment, yes. You will walk back with me to the village?”
+
+“Willingly.”
+
+He picked up his little suit-case, and we went out through the open
+window in the drawing-room. Cynthia Murdoch was just coming in, and
+Poirot stood aside to let her pass.
+
+“Excuse me, mademoiselle, one minute.”
+
+“Yes?” she turned inquiringly.
+
+“Did you ever make up Mrs. Inglethorp’s medicines?”
+
+A slight flush rose in her face, as she answered rather constrainedly:
+
+“No.”
+
+“Only her powders?”
+
+The flush deepened as Cynthia replied:
+
+“Oh, yes, I did make up some sleeping powders for her once.”
+
+“These?”
+
+Poirot produced the empty box which had contained powders.
+
+She nodded.
+
+“Can you tell me what they were? Sulphonal? Veronal?”
+
+“No, they were bromide powders.”
+
+“Ah! Thank you, mademoiselle; good morning.”
+
+As we walked briskly away from the house, I glanced at him more than
+once. I had often before noticed that, if anything excited him, his
+eyes turned green like a cat’s. They were shining like emeralds now.
+
+“My friend,” he broke out at last, “I have a little idea, a very
+strange, and probably utterly impossible idea. And yet—it fits in.”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. I privately thought that Poirot was rather too
+much given to these fantastic ideas. In this case, surely, the truth
+was only too plain and apparent.
+
+“So that is the explanation of the blank label on the box,” I remarked.
+“Very simple, as you said. I really wonder that I did not think of it
+myself.”
+
+Poirot did not appear to be listening to me.
+
+“They have made one more discovery, _là -bas_,” he observed, jerking his
+thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Styles. “Mr. Wells told me
+as we were going upstairs.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Locked up in the desk in the boudoir, they found a will of Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s, dated before her marriage, leaving her fortune to Alfred
+Inglethorp. It must have been made just at the time they were engaged.
+It came quite as a surprise to Wells—and to John Cavendish also. It was
+written on one of those printed will forms, and witnessed by two of the
+servants—not Dorcas.”
+
+“Did Mr. Inglethorp know of it?”
+
+“He says not.”
+
+“One might take that with a grain of salt,” I remarked sceptically.
+“All these wills are very confusing. Tell me, how did those scribbled
+words on the envelope help you to discover that a will was made
+yesterday afternoon?”
+
+Poirot smiled.
+
+“_Mon ami_, have you ever, when writing a letter, been arrested by the
+fact that you did not know how to spell a certain word?”
+
+“Yes, often. I suppose everyone has.”
+
+“Exactly. And have you not, in such a case, tried the word once or
+twice on the edge of the blotting-paper, or a spare scrap of paper, to
+see if it looked right? Well, that is what Mrs. Inglethorp did. You
+will notice that the word ‘possessed’ is spelt first with one ‘s’ and
+subsequently with two—correctly. To make sure, she had further tried it
+in a sentence, thus: ‘I am possessed.’ Now, what did that tell me? It
+told me that Mrs. Inglethorp had been writing the word ‘possessed’ that
+afternoon, and, having the fragment of paper found in the grate fresh
+in my mind, the possibility of a will—(a document almost certain to
+contain that word)—occurred to me at once. This possibility was
+confirmed by a further circumstance. In the general confusion, the
+boudoir had not been swept that morning, and near the desk were several
+traces of brown mould and earth. The weather had been perfectly fine
+for some days, and no ordinary boots would have left such a heavy
+deposit.
+
+“I strolled to the window, and saw at once that the begonia beds had
+been newly planted. The mould in the beds was exactly similar to that
+on the floor of the boudoir, and also I learnt from you that they _had_
+been planted yesterday afternoon. I was now sure that one, or possibly
+both of the gardeners—for there were two sets of footprints in the
+bed—had entered the boudoir, for if Mrs. Inglethorp had merely wished
+to speak to them she would in all probability have stood at the window,
+and they would not have come into the room at all. I was now quite
+convinced that she had made a fresh will, and had called the two
+gardeners in to witness her signature. Events proved that I was right
+in my supposition.”
+
+“That was very ingenious,” I could not help admitting. “I must confess
+that the conclusions I drew from those few scribbled words were quite
+erroneous.”
+
+He smiled.
+
+“You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good
+servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most
+likely.”
+
+“Another point—how did you know that the key of the despatch-case had
+been lost?”
+
+“I did not know it. It was a guess that turned out to be correct. You
+observed that it had a piece of twisted wire through the handle. That
+suggested to me at once that it had possibly been wrenched off a flimsy
+key-ring. Now, if it had been lost and recovered, Mrs. Inglethorp would
+at once have replaced it on her bunch; but on her bunch I found what
+was obviously the duplicate key, very new and bright, which led me to
+the hypothesis that somebody else had inserted the original key in the
+lock of the despatch-case.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “Alfred Inglethorp, without doubt.”
+
+Poirot looked at me curiously.
+
+“You are very sure of his guilt?”
+
+“Well, naturally. Every fresh circumstance seems to establish it more
+clearly.”
+
+“On the contrary,” said Poirot quietly, “there are several points in
+his favour.”
+
+“Oh, come now!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I see only one.”
+
+“And that?”
+
+“That he was not in the house last night.”
+
+“‘Bad shot!’ as you English say! You have chosen the one point that to
+my mind tells against him.”
+
+“How is that?”
+
+“Because if Mr. Inglethorp knew that his wife would be poisoned last
+night, he would certainly have arranged to be away from the house. His
+excuse was an obviously trumped up one. That leaves us two
+possibilities: either he knew what was going to happen or he had a
+reason of his own for his absence.”
+
+“And that reason?” I asked sceptically.
+
+Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“How should I know? Discreditable, without doubt. This Mr. Inglethorp,
+I should say, is somewhat of a scoundrel—but that does not of necessity
+make him a murderer.”
+
+I shook my head, unconvinced.
+
+“We do not agree, eh?” said Poirot. “Well, let us leave it. Time will
+show which of us is right. Now let us turn to other aspects of the
+case. What do you make of the fact that all the doors of the bedroom
+were bolted on the inside?”
+
+“Well——” I considered. “One must look at it logically.”
+
+“True.”
+
+“I should put it this way. The doors _were_ bolted—our own eyes have
+told us that—yet the presence of the candle grease on the floor, and
+the destruction of the will, prove that during the night someone
+entered the room. You agree so far?”
+
+“Perfectly. Put with admirable clearness. Proceed.”
+
+“Well,” I said, encouraged, “as the person who entered did not do so by
+the window, nor by miraculous means, it follows that the door must have
+been opened from inside by Mrs. Inglethorp herself. That strengthens
+the conviction that the person in question was her husband. She would
+naturally open the door to her own husband.”
+
+Poirot shook his head.
+
+“Why should she? She had bolted the door leading into his room—a most
+unusual proceeding on her part—she had had a most violent quarrel with
+him that very afternoon. No, he was the last person she would admit.”
+
+“But you agree with me that the door must have been opened by Mrs.
+Inglethorp herself?”
+
+“There is another possibility. She may have forgotten to bolt the door
+into the passage when she went to bed, and have got up later, towards
+morning, and bolted it then.”
+
+“Poirot, is that seriously your opinion?”
+
+“No, I do not say it is so, but it might be. Now, to turn to another
+feature, what do you make of the scrap of conversation you overheard
+between Mrs. Cavendish and her mother-in-law?”
+
+“I had forgotten that,” I said thoughtfully. “That is as enigmatical as
+ever. It seems incredible that a woman like Mrs. Cavendish, proud and
+reticent to the last degree, should interfere so violently in what was
+certainly not her affair.”
+
+“Precisely. It was an astonishing thing for a woman of her breeding to
+do.”
+
+“It is certainly curious,” I agreed. “Still, it is unimportant, and
+need not be taken into account.”
+
+A groan burst from Poirot.
+
+“What have I always told you? Everything must be taken into account. If
+the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.”
+
+“Well, we shall see,” I said, nettled.
+
+“Yes, we shall see.”
+
+We had reached Leastways Cottage, and Poirot ushered me upstairs to his
+own room. He offered me one of the tiny Russian cigarettes he himself
+occasionally smoked. I was amused to notice that he stowed away the
+used matches most carefully in a little china pot. My momentary
+annoyance vanished.
+
+Poirot had placed our two chairs in front of the open window which
+commanded a view of the village street. The fresh air blew in warm and
+pleasant. It was going to be a hot day.
+
+Suddenly my attention was arrested by a weedy looking young man rushing
+down the street at a great pace. It was the expression on his face that
+was extraordinary—a curious mingling of terror and agitation.
+
+“Look, Poirot!” I said.
+
+He leant forward.
+
+“_Tiens!_” he said. “It is Mr. Mace, from the chemist’s shop. He is
+coming here.”
+
+The young man came to a halt before Leastways Cottage, and, after
+hesitating a moment, pounded vigorously at the door.
+
+“A little minute,” cried Poirot from the window. “I come.”
+
+Motioning to me to follow him, he ran swiftly down the stairs and
+opened the door. Mr. Mace began at once.
+
+“Oh, Mr. Poirot, I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I heard that
+you’d just come back from the Hall?”
+
+“Yes, we have.”
+
+The young man moistened his dry lips. His face was working curiously.
+
+“It’s all over the village about old Mrs. Inglethorp dying so suddenly.
+They do say—” he lowered his voice cautiously—“that it’s poison?”
+
+Poirot’s face remained quite impassive.
+
+“Only the doctors can tell us that, Mr. Mace.”
+
+“Yes, exactly—of course——” The young man hesitated, and then his
+agitation was too much for him. He clutched Poirot by the arm, and sank
+his voice to a whisper: “Just tell me this, Mr. Poirot, it isn’t—it
+isn’t strychnine, is it?”
+
+I hardly heard what Poirot replied. Something evidently of a
+non-committal nature. The young man departed, and as he closed the door
+Poirot’s eyes met mine.
+
+“Yes,” he said, nodding gravely. “He will have evidence to give at the
+inquest.”
+
+We went slowly upstairs again. I was opening my lips, when Poirot
+stopped me with a gesture of his hand.
+
+“Not now, not now, _mon ami_. I have need of reflection. My mind is in
+some disorder—which is not well.”
+
+For about ten minutes he sat in dead silence, perfectly still, except
+for several expressive motions of his eyebrows, and all the time his
+eyes grew steadily greener. At last he heaved a deep sigh.
+
+“It is well. The bad moment has passed. Now all is arranged and
+classified. One must never permit confusion. The case is not clear
+yet—no. For it is of the most complicated! It puzzles _me_. _Me_,
+Hercule Poirot! There are two facts of significance.”
+
+“And what are they?”
+
+“The first is the state of the weather yesterday. That is very
+important.”
+
+“But it was a glorious day!” I interrupted. “Poirot, you’re pulling my
+leg!”
+
+“Not at all. The thermometer registered 80 degrees in the shade. Do not
+forget that, my friend. It is the key to the whole riddle!”
+
+“And the second point?” I asked.
+
+“The important fact that Monsieur Inglethorp wears very peculiar
+clothes, has a black beard, and uses glasses.”
+
+“Poirot, I cannot believe you are serious.”
+
+“I am absolutely serious, my friend.”
+
+“But this is childish!”
+
+“No, it is very momentous.”
+
+“And supposing the Coroner’s jury returns a verdict of Wilful Murder
+against Alfred Inglethorp. What becomes of your theories, then?”
+
+“They would not be shaken because twelve stupid men had happened to
+make a mistake! But that will not occur. For one thing, a country jury
+is not anxious to take responsibility upon itself, and Mr. Inglethorp
+stands practically in the position of local squire. Also,” he added
+placidly, “_I_ should not allow it!”
+
+“_You_ would not allow it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+I looked at the extraordinary little man, divided between annoyance and
+amusement. He was so tremendously sure of himself. As though he read my
+thoughts, he nodded gently.
+
+“Oh, yes, _mon ami_, I would do what I say.” He got up and laid his
+hand on my shoulder. His physiognomy underwent a complete change. Tears
+came into his eyes. “In all this, you see, I think of that poor Mrs.
+Inglethorp who is dead. She was not extravagantly loved—no. But she was
+very good to us Belgians—I owe her a debt.”
+
+I endeavoured to interrupt, but Poirot swept on.
+
+“Let me tell you this, Hastings. She would never forgive me if I let
+Alfred Inglethorp, her husband, be arrested _now_—when a word from me
+could save him!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE INQUEST
+
+In the interval before the inquest, Poirot was unfailing in his
+activity. Twice he was closeted with Mr. Wells. He also took long walks
+into the country. I rather resented his not taking me into his
+confidence, the more so as I could not in the least guess what he was
+driving at.
+
+It occurred to me that he might have been making inquiries at Raikes’s
+farm; so, finding him out when I called at Leastways Cottage on
+Wednesday evening, I walked over there by the fields, hoping to meet
+him. But there was no sign of him, and I hesitated to go right up to
+the farm itself. As I walked away, I met an aged rustic, who leered at
+me cunningly.
+
+“You’m from the Hall, bain’t you?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. I’m looking for a friend of mine whom I thought might have walked
+this way.”
+
+“A little chap? As waves his hands when he talks? One of them Belgies
+from the village?”
+
+“Yes,” I said eagerly. “He has been here, then?”
+
+“Oh, ay, he’s been here, right enough. More’n once too. Friend of
+yours, is he? Ah, you gentlemen from the Hall—you’m a pretty lot!” And
+he leered more jocosely than ever.
+
+“Why, do the gentlemen from the Hall come here often?” I asked, as
+carelessly as I could.
+
+He winked at me knowingly.
+
+“_One_ does, mister. Naming no names, mind. And a very liberal
+gentleman too! Oh, thank you, sir, I’m sure.”
+
+I walked on sharply. Evelyn Howard had been right then, and I
+experienced a sharp twinge of disgust, as I thought of Alfred
+Inglethorp’s liberality with another woman’s money. Had that piquant
+gipsy face been at the bottom of the crime, or was it the baser
+mainspring of money? Probably a judicious mixture of both.
+
+On one point, Poirot seemed to have a curious obsession. He once or
+twice observed to me that he thought Dorcas must have made an error in
+fixing the time of the quarrel. He suggested to her repeatedly that it
+was four-thirty, and not four o’clock when she had heard the voices.
+
+But Dorcas was unshaken. Quite an hour, or even more, had elapsed
+between the time when she had heard the voices and five o’clock, when
+she had taken tea to her mistress.
+
+The inquest was held on Friday at the Stylites Arms in the village.
+Poirot and I sat together, not being required to give evidence.
+
+The preliminaries were gone through. The jury viewed the body, and John
+Cavendish gave evidence of identification.
+
+Further questioned, he described his awakening in the early hours of
+the morning, and the circumstances of his mother’s death.
+
+The medical evidence was next taken. There was a breathless hush, and
+every eye was fixed on the famous London specialist, who was known to
+be one of the greatest authorities of the day on the subject of
+toxicology.
+
+In a few brief words, he summed up the result of the post-mortem. Shorn
+of its medical phraseology and technicalities, it amounted to the fact
+that Mrs. Inglethorp had met her death as the result of strychnine
+poisoning. Judging from the quantity recovered, she must have taken not
+less than three-quarters of a grain of strychnine, but probably one
+grain or slightly over.
+
+“Is it possible that she could have swallowed the poison by accident?”
+asked the Coroner.
+
+“I should consider it very unlikely. Strychnine is not used for
+domestic purposes, as some poisons are, and there are restrictions
+placed on its sale.”
+
+“Does anything in your examination lead you to determine how the poison
+was administered?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You arrived at Styles before Dr. Wilkins, I believe?”
+
+“That is so. The motor met me just outside the lodge gates, and I
+hurried there as fast as I could.”
+
+“Will you relate to us exactly what happened next?”
+
+“I entered Mrs. Inglethorp’s room. She was at that moment in a typical
+tetanic convulsion. She turned towards me, and gasped out:
+‘Alfred—Alfred——’”
+
+“Could the strychnine have been administered in Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+after-dinner coffee which was taken to her by her husband?”
+
+“Possibly, but strychnine is a fairly rapid drug in its action. The
+symptoms appear from one to two hours after it has been swallowed. It
+is retarded under certain conditions, none of which, however, appear to
+have been present in this case. I presume Mrs. Inglethorp took the
+coffee after dinner about eight o’clock, whereas the symptoms did not
+manifest themselves until the early hours of the morning, which, on the
+face of it, points to the drug having been taken much later in the
+evening.”
+
+“Mrs. Inglethorp was in the habit of drinking a cup of cocoa in the
+middle of the night. Could the strychnine have been administered in
+that?”
+
+“No, I myself took a sample of the cocoa remaining in the saucepan and
+had it analysed. There was no strychnine present.”
+
+I heard Poirot chuckle softly beside me.
+
+“How did you know?” I whispered.
+
+“Listen.”
+
+“I should say”—the doctor was continuing—“that I would have been
+considerably surprised at any other result.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Simply because strychnine has an unusually bitter taste. It can be
+detected in a solution of one in seventy thousand, and can only be
+disguised by some strongly flavoured substance. Cocoa would be quite
+powerless to mask it.”
+
+One of the jury wanted to know if the same objection applied to coffee.
+
+“No. Coffee has a bitter taste of its own which would probably cover
+the taste of strychnine.”
+
+“Then you consider it more likely that the drug was administered in the
+coffee, but that for some unknown reason its action was delayed.”
+
+“Yes, but, the cup being completely smashed, there is no possibility of
+analyzing its contents.”
+
+This concluded Dr. Bauerstein’s evidence. Dr. Wilkins corroborated it
+on all points. Sounded as to the possibility of suicide, he repudiated
+it utterly. The deceased, he said, suffered from a weak heart, but
+otherwise enjoyed perfect health, and was of a cheerful and
+well-balanced disposition. She would be one of the last people to take
+her own life.
+
+Lawrence Cavendish was next called. His evidence was quite unimportant,
+being a mere repetition of that of his brother. Just as he was about to
+step down, he paused, and said rather hesitatingly:
+
+“I should like to make a suggestion if I may?”
+
+He glanced deprecatingly at the Coroner, who replied briskly:
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Cavendish, we are here to arrive at the truth of this
+matter, and welcome anything that may lead to further elucidation.”
+
+“It is just an idea of mine,” explained Lawrence. “Of course I may be
+quite wrong, but it still seems to me that my mother’s death might be
+accounted for by natural means.”
+
+“How do you make that out, Mr. Cavendish?”
+
+“My mother, at the time of her death, and for some time before it, was
+taking a tonic containing strychnine.”
+
+“Ah!” said the Coroner.
+
+The jury looked up, interested.
+
+“I believe,” continued Lawrence, “that there have been cases where the
+cumulative effect of a drug, administered for some time, has ended by
+causing death. Also, is it not possible that she may have taken an
+overdose of her medicine by accident?”
+
+“This is the first we have heard of the deceased taking strychnine at
+the time of her death. We are much obliged to you, Mr. Cavendish.”
+
+Dr. Wilkins was recalled and ridiculed the idea.
+
+“What Mr. Cavendish suggests is quite impossible. Any doctor would tell
+you the same. Strychnine is, in a certain sense, a cumulative poison,
+but it would be quite impossible for it to result in sudden death in
+this way. There would have to be a long period of chronic symptoms
+which would at once have attracted my attention. The whole thing is
+absurd.”
+
+“And the second suggestion? That Mrs. Inglethorp may have inadvertently
+taken an overdose?”
+
+“Three, or even four doses, would not have resulted in death. Mrs.
+Inglethorp always had an extra large amount of medicine made up at a
+time, as she dealt with Coot’s, the Cash Chemists in Tadminster. She
+would have had to take very nearly the whole bottle to account for the
+amount of strychnine found at the post-mortem.”
+
+“Then you consider that we may dismiss the tonic as not being in any
+way instrumental in causing her death?”
+
+“Certainly. The supposition is ridiculous.”
+
+The same juryman who had interrupted before here suggested that the
+chemist who made up the medicine might have committed an error.
+
+“That, of course, is always possible,” replied the doctor.
+
+But Dorcas, who was the next witness called, dispelled even that
+possibility. The medicine had not been newly made up. On the contrary,
+Mrs. Inglethorp had taken the last dose on the day of her death.
+
+So the question of the tonic was finally abandoned, and the Coroner
+proceeded with his task. Having elicited from Dorcas how she had been
+awakened by the violent ringing of her mistress’s bell, and had
+subsequently roused the household, he passed to the subject of the
+quarrel on the preceding afternoon.
+
+Dorcas’s evidence on this point was substantially what Poirot and I had
+already heard, so I will not repeat it here.
+
+The next witness was Mary Cavendish. She stood very upright, and spoke
+in a low, clear, and perfectly composed voice. In answer to the
+Coroner’s question, she told how, her alarm clock having aroused her at
+four-thirty as usual, she was dressing, when she was startled by the
+sound of something heavy falling.
+
+“That would have been the table by the bed?” commented the Coroner.
+
+“I opened my door,” continued Mary, “and listened. In a few minutes a
+bell rang violently. Dorcas came running down and woke my husband, and
+we all went to my mother-in-law’s room, but it was locked——”
+
+The Coroner interrupted her.
+
+“I really do not think we need trouble you further on that point. We
+know all that can be known of the subsequent happenings. But I should
+be obliged if you would tell us all you overheard of the quarrel the
+day before.”
+
+“I?”
+
+There was a faint insolence in her voice. She raised her hand and
+adjusted the ruffle of lace at her neck, turning her head a little as
+she did so. And quite spontaneously the thought flashed across my mind:
+“She is gaining time!”
+
+“Yes. I understand,” continued the Coroner deliberately, “that you were
+sitting reading on the bench just outside the long window of the
+boudoir. That is so, is it not?”
+
+This was news to me and glancing sideways at Poirot, I fancied that it
+was news to him as well.
+
+There was the faintest pause, the mere hesitation of a moment, before
+she answered:
+
+“Yes, that is so.”
+
+“And the boudoir window was open, was it not?”
+
+Surely her face grew a little paler as she answered:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you cannot have failed to hear the voices inside, especially as
+they were raised in anger. In fact, they would be more audible where
+you were than in the hall.”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“Will you repeat to us what you overheard of the quarrel?”
+
+“I really do not remember hearing anything.”
+
+“Do you mean to say you did not hear voices?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I heard the voices, but I did not hear what they said.” A
+faint spot of colour came into her cheek. “I am not in the habit of
+listening to private conversations.”
+
+The Coroner persisted.
+
+“And you remember nothing at all? _Nothing_, Mrs. Cavendish? Not one
+stray word or phrase to make you realize that it _was_ a private
+conversation?”
+
+She paused, and seemed to reflect, still outwardly as calm as ever.
+
+“Yes; I remember. Mrs. Inglethorp said something—I do not remember
+exactly what—about causing scandal between husband and wife.”
+
+“Ah!” the Coroner leant back satisfied. “That corresponds with what
+Dorcas heard. But excuse me, Mrs. Cavendish, although you realized it
+was a private conversation, you did not move away? You remained where
+you were?”
+
+I caught the momentary gleam of her tawny eyes as she raised them. I
+felt certain that at that moment she would willingly have torn the
+little lawyer, with his insinuations, into pieces, but she replied
+quietly enough:
+
+“No. I was very comfortable where I was. I fixed my mind on my book.”
+
+“And that is all you can tell us?”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+The examination was over, though I doubted if the Coroner was entirely
+satisfied with it. I think he suspected that Mary Cavendish could tell
+more if she chose.
+
+Amy Hill, shop assistant, was next called, and deposed to having sold a
+will form on the afternoon of the 17th to William Earl, under-gardener
+at Styles.
+
+William Earl and Manning succeeded her, and testified to witnessing a
+document. Manning fixed the time at about four-thirty, William was of
+the opinion that it was rather earlier.
+
+Cynthia Murdoch came next. She had, however, little to tell. She had
+known nothing of the tragedy, until awakened by Mrs. Cavendish.
+
+“You did not hear the table fall?”
+
+“No. I was fast asleep.”
+
+The Coroner smiled.
+
+“A good conscience makes a sound sleeper,” he observed. “Thank you,
+Miss Murdoch, that is all.”
+
+“Miss Howard.”
+
+Miss Howard produced the letter written to her by Mrs. Inglethorp on
+the evening of the 17th. Poirot and I had, of course already seen it.
+It added nothing to our knowledge of the tragedy. The following is a
+facsimile:
+
+STYLES COURT
+ESSEX
+hand written note:
+
+     July 17th
+     My dear Evelyn
+     Can we not bury
+     the hachet? I have
+     found it hard to forgive
+     the things you said
+     against my dear husband
+     but I am an old woman
+     & very fond of you
+     Yours affectionately,
+    Emily Inglethorpe
+
+
+It was handed to the jury who scrutinized it attentively.
+
+“I fear it does not help us much,” said the Coroner, with a sigh.
+“There is no mention of any of the events of that afternoon.”
+
+“Plain as a pikestaff to me,” said Miss Howard shortly. “It shows
+clearly enough that my poor old friend had just found out she’d been
+made a fool of!”
+
+“It says nothing of the kind in the letter,” the Coroner pointed out.
+
+“No, because Emily never could bear to put herself in the wrong. But
+_I_ know her. She wanted me back. But she wasn’t going to own that I’d
+been right. She went round about. Most people do. Don’t believe in it
+myself.”
+
+Mr. Wells smiled faintly. So, I noticed, did several of the jury. Miss
+Howard was obviously quite a public character.
+
+“Anyway, all this tomfoolery is a great waste of time,” continued the
+lady, glancing up and down the jury disparagingly. “Talk—talk—talk!
+When all the time we know perfectly well——”
+
+The Coroner interrupted her in an agony of apprehension:
+
+“Thank you, Miss Howard, that is all.”
+
+I fancy he breathed a sigh of relief when she complied.
+
+Then came the sensation of the day. The Coroner called Albert Mace,
+chemist’s assistant.
+
+It was our agitated young man of the pale face. In answer to the
+Coroner’s questions, he explained that he was a qualified pharmacist,
+but had only recently come to this particular shop, as the assistant
+formerly there had just been called up for the army.
+
+These preliminaries completed, the Coroner proceeded to business.
+
+“Mr. Mace, have you lately sold strychnine to any unauthorized person?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“When was this?”
+
+“Last Monday night.”
+
+“Monday? Not Tuesday?”
+
+“No, sir, Monday, the 16th.”
+
+“Will you tell us to whom you sold it?”
+
+You could have heard a pin drop.
+
+“Yes, sir. It was to Mr. Inglethorp.”
+
+Every eye turned simultaneously to where Alfred Inglethorp was sitting,
+impassive and wooden. He started slightly, as the damning words fell
+from the young man’s lips. I half thought he was going to rise from his
+chair, but he remained seated, although a remarkably well acted
+expression of astonishment rose on his face.
+
+“You are sure of what you say?” asked the Coroner sternly.
+
+“Quite sure, sir.”
+
+“Are you in the habit of selling strychnine indiscriminately over the
+counter?”
+
+The wretched young man wilted visibly under the Coroner’s frown.
+
+“Oh, no, sir—of course not. But, seeing it was Mr. Inglethorp of the
+Hall, I thought there was no harm in it. He said it was to poison a
+dog.”
+
+Inwardly I sympathized. It was only human nature to endeavour to please
+“The Hall”—especially when it might result in custom being transferred
+from Coot’s to the local establishment.
+
+“Is it not customary for anyone purchasing poison to sign a book?”
+
+“Yes, sir, Mr. Inglethorp did so.”
+
+“Have you got the book here?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+It was produced; and, with a few words of stern censure, the Coroner
+dismissed the wretched Mr. Mace.
+
+Then, amidst a breathless silence, Alfred Inglethorp was called. Did he
+realize, I wondered, how closely the halter was being drawn around his
+neck?
+
+The Coroner went straight to the point.
+
+“On Monday evening last, did you purchase strychnine for the purpose of
+poisoning a dog?”
+
+Inglethorp replied with perfect calmness:
+
+“No, I did not. There is no dog at Styles, except an outdoor sheepdog,
+which is in perfect health.”
+
+“You deny absolutely having purchased strychnine from Albert Mace on
+Monday last?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Do you also deny _this_?”
+
+The Coroner handed him the register in which his signature was
+inscribed.
+
+“Certainly I do. The hand-writing is quite different from mine. I will
+show you.”
+
+He took an old envelope out of his pocket, and wrote his name on it,
+handing it to the jury. It was certainly utterly dissimilar.
+
+“Then what is your explanation of Mr. Mace’s statement?”
+
+Alfred Inglethorp replied imperturbably:
+
+“Mr. Mace must have been mistaken.”
+
+The Coroner hesitated for a moment, and then said:
+
+“Mr. Inglethorp, as a mere matter of form, would you mind telling us
+where you were on the evening of Monday, July 16th?”
+
+“Really—I cannot remember.”
+
+“That is absurd, Mr. Inglethorp,” said the Coroner sharply. “Think
+again.”
+
+Inglethorp shook his head.
+
+“I cannot tell you. I have an idea that I was out walking.”
+
+“In what direction?”
+
+“I really can’t remember.”
+
+The Coroner’s face grew graver.
+
+“Were you in company with anyone?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you meet anyone on your walk?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That is a pity,” said the Coroner dryly. “I am to take it then that
+you decline to say where you were at the time that Mr. Mace positively
+recognized you as entering the shop to purchase strychnine?”
+
+“If you like to take it that way, yes.”
+
+“Be careful, Mr. Inglethorp.”
+
+Poirot was fidgeting nervously.
+
+“_Sacré!_” he murmured. “Does this imbecile of a man _want_ to be
+arrested?”
+
+Inglethorp was indeed creating a bad impression. His futile denials
+would not have convinced a child. The Coroner, however, passed briskly
+to the next point, and Poirot drew a deep breath of relief.
+
+“You had a discussion with your wife on Tuesday afternoon?”
+
+“Pardon me,” interrupted Alfred Inglethorp, “you have been misinformed.
+I had no quarrel with my dear wife. The whole story is absolutely
+untrue. I was absent from the house the entire afternoon.”
+
+“Have you anyone who can testify to that?”
+
+“You have my word,” said Inglethorp haughtily.
+
+The Coroner did not trouble to reply.
+
+“There are two witnesses who will swear to having heard your
+disagreement with Mrs. Inglethorp.”
+
+“Those witnesses were mistaken.”
+
+I was puzzled. The man spoke with such quiet assurance that I was
+staggered. I looked at Poirot. There was an expression of exultation on
+his face which I could not understand. Was he at last convinced of
+Alfred Inglethorp’s guilt?
+
+“Mr. Inglethorp,” said the Coroner, “you have heard your wife’s dying
+words repeated here. Can you explain them in any way?”
+
+“Certainly I can.”
+
+“You can?”
+
+“It seems to me very simple. The room was dimly lighted. Dr. Bauerstein
+is much of my height and build, and, like me, wears a beard. In the dim
+light, and suffering as she was, my poor wife mistook him for me.”
+
+“Ah!” murmured Poirot to himself. “But it is an idea, that!”
+
+“You think it is true?” I whispered.
+
+“I do not say that. But it is truly an ingenious supposition.”
+
+“You read my wife’s last words as an accusation”—Inglethorp was
+continuing—“they were, on the contrary, an appeal to me.”
+
+The Coroner reflected a moment, then he said:
+
+“I believe, Mr. Inglethorp, that you yourself poured out the coffee,
+and took it to your wife that evening?”
+
+“I poured it out, yes. But I did not take it to her. I meant to do so,
+but I was told that a friend was at the hall door, so I laid down the
+coffee on the hall table. When I came through the hall again a few
+minutes later, it was gone.”
+
+This statement might, or might not, be true, but it did not seem to me
+to improve matters much for Inglethorp. In any case, he had had ample
+time to introduce the poison.
+
+At that point, Poirot nudged me gently, indicating two men who were
+sitting together near the door. One was a little, sharp, dark,
+ferret-faced man, the other was tall and fair.
+
+I questioned Poirot mutely. He put his lips to my ear.
+
+“Do you know who that little man is?”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“That is Detective Inspector James Japp of Scotland Yard—Jimmy Japp.
+The other man is from Scotland Yard too. Things are moving quickly, my
+friend.”
+
+I stared at the two men intently. There was certainly nothing of the
+policeman about them. I should never have suspected them of being
+official personages.
+
+I was still staring, when I was startled and recalled by the verdict
+being given:
+
+“Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. POIROT PAYS HIS DEBTS
+
+As we came out of the Stylites Arms, Poirot drew me aside by a gentle
+pressure of the arm. I understood his object. He was waiting for the
+Scotland Yard men.
+
+In a few moments, they emerged, and Poirot at once stepped forward, and
+accosted the shorter of the two.
+
+“I fear you do not remember me, Inspector Japp.”
+
+“Why, if it isn’t Mr. Poirot!” cried the Inspector. He turned to the
+other man. “You’ve heard me speak of Mr. Poirot? It was in 1904 he and
+I worked together—the Abercrombie forgery case—you remember, he was run
+down in Brussels. Ah, those were great days, moosier. Then, do you
+remember ‘Baron’ Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded
+the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in
+Antwerp—thanks to Mr. Poirot here.”
+
+As these friendly reminiscences were being indulged in, I drew nearer,
+and was introduced to Detective-Inspector Japp, who, in his turn,
+introduced us both to his companion, Superintendent Summerhaye.
+
+“I need hardly ask what you are doing here, gentlemen,” remarked
+Poirot.
+
+Japp closed one eye knowingly.
+
+“No, indeed. Pretty clear case I should say.”
+
+But Poirot answered gravely:
+
+“There I differ from you.”
+
+“Oh, come!” said Summerhaye, opening his lips for the first time.
+“Surely the whole thing is clear as daylight. The man’s caught
+red-handed. How he could be such a fool beats me!”
+
+But Japp was looking attentively at Poirot.
+
+“Hold your fire, Summerhaye,” he remarked jocularly. “Me and Moosier
+here have met before—and there’s no man’s judgment I’d sooner take than
+his. If I’m not greatly mistaken, he’s got something up his sleeve.
+Isn’t that so, moosier?”
+
+Poirot smiled.
+
+“I have drawn certain conclusions—yes.”
+
+Summerhaye was still looking rather sceptical, but Japp continued his
+scrutiny of Poirot.
+
+“It’s this way,” he said, “so far, we’ve only seen the case from the
+outside. That’s where the Yard’s at a disadvantage in a case of this
+kind, where the murder’s only out, so to speak, after the inquest. A
+lot depends on being on the spot first thing, and that’s where Mr.
+Poirot’s had the start of us. We shouldn’t have been here as soon as
+this even, if it hadn’t been for the fact that there was a smart doctor
+on the spot, who gave us the tip through the Coroner. But you’ve been
+on the spot from the first, and you may have picked up some little
+hints. From the evidence at the inquest, Mr. Inglethorp murdered his
+wife as sure as I stand here, and if anyone but you hinted the contrary
+I’d laugh in his face. I must say I was surprised the jury didn’t bring
+it in Wilful Murder against him right off. I think they would have, if
+it hadn’t been for the Coroner—he seemed to be holding them back.”
+
+“Perhaps, though, you have a warrant for his arrest in your pocket
+now,” suggested Poirot.
+
+A kind of wooden shutter of officialdom came down from Japp’s
+expressive countenance.
+
+“Perhaps I have, and perhaps I haven’t,” he remarked dryly.
+
+Poirot looked at him thoughtfully.
+
+“I am very anxious, Messieurs, that he should not be arrested.”
+
+“I dare say,” observed Summerhaye sarcastically.
+
+Japp was regarding Poirot with comical perplexity.
+
+“Can’t you go a little further, Mr. Poirot? A wink’s as good as a
+nod—from you. You’ve been on the spot—and the Yard doesn’t want to make
+any mistakes, you know.”
+
+Poirot nodded gravely.
+
+“That is exactly what I thought. Well, I will tell you this. Use your
+warrant: Arrest Mr. Inglethorp. But it will bring you no kudos—the case
+against him will be dismissed at once! _Comme ça!_” And he snapped his
+fingers expressively.
+
+Japp’s face grew grave, though Summerhaye gave an incredulous snort.
+
+As for me, I was literally dumb with astonishment. I could only
+conclude that Poirot was mad.
+
+Japp had taken out a handkerchief, and was gently dabbing his brow.
+
+“I daren’t do it, Mr. Poirot. _I_’d take your word, but there’s others
+over me who’ll be asking what the devil I mean by it. Can’t you give me
+a little more to go on?”
+
+Poirot reflected a moment.
+
+“It can be done,” he said at last. “I admit I do not wish it. It forces
+my hand. I would have preferred to work in the dark just for the
+present, but what you say is very just—the word of a Belgian policeman,
+whose day is past, is not enough! And Alfred Inglethorp must not be
+arrested. That I have sworn, as my friend Hastings here knows. See,
+then, my good Japp, you go at once to Styles?”
+
+“Well, in about half an hour. We’re seeing the Coroner and the doctor
+first.”
+
+“Good. Call for me in passing—the last house in the village. I will go
+with you. At Styles, Mr. Inglethorp will give you, or if he refuses—as
+is probable—I will give you such proofs that shall satisfy you that the
+case against him could not possibly be sustained. Is that a bargain?”
+
+“That’s a bargain,” said Japp heartily. “And, on behalf of the Yard,
+I’m much obliged to you, though I’m bound to confess I can’t at present
+see the faintest possible loop-hole in the evidence, but you always
+were a marvel! So long, then, moosier.”
+
+The two detectives strode away, Summerhaye with an incredulous grin on
+his face.
+
+“Well, my friend,” cried Poirot, before I could get in a word, “what do
+you think? _Mon Dieu!_ I had some warm moments in that court; I did not
+figure to myself that the man would be so pig-headed as to refuse to
+say anything at all. Decidedly, it was the policy of an imbecile.”
+
+“H’m! There are other explanations besides that of imbecility,” I
+remarked. “For, if the case against him is true, how could he defend
+himself except by silence?”
+
+“Why, in a thousand ingenious ways,” cried Poirot. “See; say that it is
+I who have committed this murder, I can think of seven most plausible
+stories! Far more convincing than Mr. Inglethorp’s stony denials!”
+
+I could not help laughing.
+
+“My dear Poirot, I am sure you are capable of thinking of seventy! But,
+seriously, in spite of what I heard you say to the detectives, you
+surely cannot still believe in the possibility of Alfred Inglethorp’s
+innocence?”
+
+“Why not now as much as before? Nothing has changed.”
+
+“But the evidence is so conclusive.”
+
+“Yes, too conclusive.”
+
+We turned in at the gate of Leastways Cottage, and proceeded up the now
+familiar stairs.
+
+“Yes, yes, too conclusive,” continued Poirot, almost to himself. “Real
+evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory. It has to be
+examined—sifted. But here the whole thing is cut and dried. No, my
+friend, this evidence has been very cleverly manufactured—so cleverly
+that it has defeated its own ends.”
+
+“How do you make that out?”
+
+“Because, so long as the evidence against him was vague and intangible,
+it was very hard to disprove. But, in his anxiety, the criminal has
+drawn the net so closely that one cut will set Inglethorp free.”
+
+I was silent. And in a minute or two, Poirot continued:
+
+“Let us look at the matter like this. Here is a man, let us say, who
+sets out to poison his wife. He has lived by his wits as the saying
+goes. Presumably, therefore, he has some wits. He is not altogether a
+fool. Well, how does he set about it? He goes boldly to the village
+chemist’s and purchases strychnine under his own name, with a trumped
+up story about a dog which is bound to be proved absurd. He does not
+employ the poison that night. No, he waits until he has had a violent
+quarrel with her, of which the whole household is cognisant, and which
+naturally directs their suspicions upon him. He prepares no defence—no
+shadow of an alibi, yet he knows the chemist’s assistant must
+necessarily come forward with the facts. Bah! Do not ask me to believe
+that any man could be so idiotic! Only a lunatic, who wished to commit
+suicide by causing himself to be hanged, would act so!”
+
+“Still—I do not see——” I began.
+
+“Neither do I see. I tell you, _mon ami_, it puzzles me. _Me_—Hercule
+Poirot!”
+
+“But if you believe him innocent, how do you explain his buying the
+strychnine?”
+
+“Very simply. He did _not_ buy it.”
+
+“But Mace recognized him!”
+
+“I beg your pardon, he saw a man with a black beard like Mr.
+Inglethorp’s, and wearing glasses like Mr. Inglethorp, and dressed in
+Mr. Inglethorp’s rather noticeable clothes. He could not recognize a
+man whom he had probably only seen in the distance, since, you
+remember, he himself had only been in the village a fortnight, and Mrs.
+Inglethorp dealt principally with Coot’s in Tadminster.”
+
+“Then you think——”
+
+“_Mon ami_, do you remember the two points I laid stress upon? Leave
+the first one for the moment, what was the second?”
+
+“The important fact that Alfred Inglethorp wears peculiar clothes, has
+a black beard, and uses glasses,” I quoted.
+
+“Exactly. Now suppose anyone wished to pass himself off as John or
+Lawrence Cavendish. Would it be easy?”
+
+“No,” I said thoughtfully. “Of course an actor——”
+
+But Poirot cut me short ruthlessly.
+
+“And why would it not be easy? I will tell you, my friend: Because they
+are both clean-shaven men. To make up successfully as one of these two
+in broad daylight, it would need an actor of genius, and a certain
+initial facial resemblance. But in the case of Alfred Inglethorp, all
+that is changed. His clothes, his beard, the glasses which hide his
+eyes—those are the salient points about his personal appearance. Now,
+what is the first instinct of the criminal? To divert suspicion from
+himself, is it not so? And how can he best do that? By throwing it on
+someone else. In this instance, there was a man ready to his hand.
+Everybody was predisposed to believe in Mr. Inglethorp’s guilt. It was
+a foregone conclusion that he would be suspected; but, to make it a
+sure thing there must be tangible proof—such as the actual buying of
+the poison, and that, with a man of the peculiar appearance of Mr.
+Inglethorp, was not difficult. Remember, this young Mace had never
+actually spoken to Mr. Inglethorp. How should he doubt that the man in
+his clothes, with his beard and his glasses, was not Alfred
+Inglethorp?”
+
+“It may be so,” I said, fascinated by Poirot’s eloquence. “But, if that
+was the case, why does he not say where he was at six o’clock on Monday
+evening?”
+
+“Ah, why indeed?” said Poirot, calming down. “If he were arrested, he
+probably would speak, but I do not want it to come to that. I must make
+him see the gravity of his position. There is, of course, something
+discreditable behind his silence. If he did not murder his wife, he is,
+nevertheless, a scoundrel, and has something of his own to conceal,
+quite apart from the murder.”
+
+“What can it be?” I mused, won over to Poirot’s views for the moment,
+although still retaining a faint conviction that the obvious deduction
+was the correct one.
+
+“Can you not guess?” asked Poirot, smiling.
+
+“No, can you?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I had a little idea sometime ago—and it has turned out to be
+correct.”
+
+“You never told me,” I said reproachfully.
+
+Poirot spread out his hands apologetically.
+
+“Pardon me, _mon ami_, you were not precisely _sympathique_.” He turned
+to me earnestly. “Tell me—you see now that he must not be arrested?”
+
+“Perhaps,” I said doubtfully, for I was really quite indifferent to the
+fate of Alfred Inglethorp, and thought that a good fright would do him
+no harm.
+
+Poirot, who was watching me intently, gave a sigh.
+
+“Come, my friend,” he said, changing the subject, “apart from Mr.
+Inglethorp, how did the evidence at the inquest strike you?”
+
+“Oh, pretty much what I expected.”
+
+“Did nothing strike you as peculiar about it?”
+
+My thoughts flew to Mary Cavendish, and I hedged:
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“Well, Mr. Lawrence Cavendish’s evidence for instance?”
+
+I was relieved.
+
+“Oh, Lawrence! No, I don’t think so. He’s always a nervous chap.”
+
+“His suggestion that his mother might have been poisoned accidentally
+by means of the tonic she was taking, that did not strike you as
+strange— _hein?_”
+
+“No, I can’t say it did. The doctors ridiculed it of course. But it was
+quite a natural suggestion for a layman to make.”
+
+“But Monsieur Lawrence is not a layman. You told me yourself that he
+had started by studying medicine, and that he had taken his degree.”
+
+“Yes, that’s true. I never thought of that.” I was rather startled. “It
+_is_ odd.”
+
+Poirot nodded.
+
+“From the first, his behaviour has been peculiar. Of all the household,
+he alone would be likely to recognize the symptoms of strychnine
+poisoning, and yet we find him the only member of the family to uphold
+strenuously the theory of death from natural causes. If it had been
+Monsieur John, I could have understood it. He has no technical
+knowledge, and is by nature unimaginative. But Monsieur Lawrence—no!
+And now, to-day, he puts forward a suggestion that he himself must have
+known was ridiculous. There is food for thought in this, _mon ami!_”
+
+“It’s very confusing,” I agreed.
+
+“Then there is Mrs. Cavendish,” continued Poirot. “That’s another who
+is not telling all she knows! What do you make of her attitude?”
+
+“I don’t know what to make of it. It seems inconceivable that she
+should be shielding Alfred Inglethorp. Yet that is what it looks like.”
+
+Poirot nodded reflectively.
+
+“Yes, it is queer. One thing is certain, she overheard a good deal more
+of that ‘private conversation’ than she was willing to admit.”
+
+“And yet she is the last person one would accuse of stooping to
+eavesdrop!”
+
+“Exactly. One thing her evidence _has_ shown me. I made a mistake.
+Dorcas was quite right. The quarrel did take place earlier in the
+afternoon, about four o’clock, as she said.”
+
+I looked at him curiously. I had never understood his insistence on
+that point.
+
+“Yes, a good deal that was peculiar came out to-day,” continued Poirot.
+“Dr. Bauerstein, now, what was _he_ doing up and dressed at that hour
+in the morning? It is astonishing to me that no one commented on the
+fact.”
+
+“He has insomnia, I believe,” I said doubtfully.
+
+“Which is a very good, or a very bad explanation,” remarked Poirot. “It
+covers everything, and explains nothing. I shall keep my eye on our
+clever Dr. Bauerstein.”
+
+“Any more faults to find with the evidence?” I inquired satirically.
+
+“_Mon ami_,” replied Poirot gravely, “when you find that people are not
+telling you the truth—look out! Now, unless I am much mistaken, at the
+inquest to-day only one—at most, two persons were speaking the truth
+without reservation or subterfuge.”
+
+“Oh, come now, Poirot! I won’t cite Lawrence, or Mrs. Cavendish. But
+there’s John—and Miss Howard, surely they were speaking the truth?”
+
+“Both of them, my friend? One, I grant you, but both——!”
+
+His words gave me an unpleasant shock. Miss Howard’s evidence,
+unimportant as it was, had been given in such a downright
+straightforward manner that it had never occurred to me to doubt her
+sincerity. Still, I had a great respect for Poirot’s sagacity—except on
+the occasions when he was what I described to myself as “foolishly
+pig-headed.”
+
+“Do you really think so?” I asked. “Miss Howard had always seemed to me
+so essentially honest—almost uncomfortably so.”
+
+Poirot gave me a curious look, which I could not quite fathom. He
+seemed to speak, and then checked himself.
+
+“Miss Murdoch too,” I continued, “there’s nothing untruthful about
+_her_.”
+
+“No. But it was strange that she never heard a sound, sleeping next
+door; whereas Mrs. Cavendish, in the other wing of the building,
+distinctly heard the table fall.”
+
+“Well, she’s young. And she sleeps soundly.”
+
+“Ah, yes, indeed! She must be a famous sleeper, that one!”
+
+I did not quite like the tone of his voice, but at that moment a smart
+knock reached our ears, and looking out of the window we perceived the
+two detectives waiting for us below.
+
+Poirot seized his hat, gave a ferocious twist to his moustache, and,
+carefully brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, motioned
+me to precede him down the stairs; there we joined the detectives and
+set out for Styles.
+
+I think the appearance of the two Scotland Yard men was rather a
+shock—especially to John, though of course after the verdict, he had
+realized that it was only a matter of time. Still, the presence of the
+detectives brought the truth home to him more than anything else could
+have done.
+
+Poirot had conferred with Japp in a low tone on the way up, and it was
+the latter functionary who requested that the household, with the
+exception of the servants, should be assembled together in the
+drawing-room. I realized the significance of this. It was up to Poirot
+to make his boast good.
+
+Personally, I was not sanguine. Poirot might have excellent reasons for
+his belief in Inglethorp’s innocence, but a man of the type of
+Summerhaye would require tangible proofs, and these I doubted if Poirot
+could supply.
+
+Before very long we had all trooped into the drawing-room, the door of
+which Japp closed. Poirot politely set chairs for everyone. The
+Scotland Yard men were the cynosure of all eyes. I think that for the
+first time we realized that the thing was not a bad dream, but a
+tangible reality. We had read of such things—now we ourselves were
+actors in the drama. To-morrow the daily papers, all over England,
+would blazon out the news in staring headlines:
+
+“MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN ESSEX”
+
+    “WEALTHY LADY POISONED”
+
+
+There would be pictures of Styles, snap-shots of “The family leaving
+the Inquest”—the village photographer had not been idle! All the things
+that one had read a hundred times—things that happen to other people,
+not to oneself. And now, in this house, a murder had been committed. In
+front of us were “the detectives in charge of the case.” The well-known
+glib phraseology passed rapidly through my mind in the interval before
+Poirot opened the proceedings.
+
+I think everyone was a little surprised that it should be he and not
+one of the official detectives who took the initiative.
+
+“_Mesdames_ and _messieurs_,” said Poirot, bowing as though he were a
+celebrity about to deliver a lecture, “I have asked you to come here
+all together, for a certain object. That object, it concerns Mr. Alfred
+Inglethorp.”
+
+Inglethorp was sitting a little by himself—I think, unconsciously,
+everyone had drawn his chair slightly away from him—and he gave a faint
+start as Poirot pronounced his name.
+
+“Mr. Inglethorp,” said Poirot, addressing him directly, “a very dark
+shadow is resting on this house—the shadow of murder.”
+
+Inglethorp shook his head sadly.
+
+“My poor wife,” he murmured. “Poor Emily! It is terrible.”
+
+“I do not think, monsieur,” said Poirot pointedly, “that you quite
+realize how terrible it may be—for you.” And as Inglethorp did not
+appear to understand, he added: “Mr. Inglethorp, you are standing in
+very grave danger.”
+
+The two detectives fidgeted. I saw the official caution “Anything you
+say will be used in evidence against you,” actually hovering on
+Summerhaye’s lips. Poirot went on.
+
+“Do you understand now, monsieur?”
+
+“No. What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean,” said Poirot deliberately, “that you are suspected of
+poisoning your wife.”
+
+A little gasp ran round the circle at this plain speaking.
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Inglethorp, starting up. “What a monstrous idea!
+_I_—poison my dearest Emily!”
+
+“I do not think”—Poirot watched him narrowly—“that you quite realize
+the unfavourable nature of your evidence at the inquest. Mr.
+Inglethorp, knowing what I have now told you, do you still refuse to
+say where you were at six o’clock on Monday afternoon?”
+
+With a groan, Alfred Inglethorp sank down again and buried his face in
+his hands. Poirot approached and stood over him.
+
+“Speak!” he cried menacingly.
+
+With an effort, Inglethorp raised his face from his hands. Then, slowly
+and deliberately, he shook his head.
+
+“You will not speak?”
+
+“No. I do not believe that anyone could be so monstrous as to accuse me
+of what you say.”
+
+Poirot nodded thoughtfully, like a man whose mind is made up.
+
+“_Soit!_” he said. “Then I must speak for you.”
+
+Alfred Inglethorp sprang up again.
+
+“You? How can you speak? You do not know——” he broke off abruptly.
+
+Poirot turned to face us. “_Mesdames_ and _messieurs_! I speak! Listen!
+I, Hercule Poirot, affirm that the man who entered the chemist’s shop,
+and purchased strychnine at six o’clock on Monday last was not Mr.
+Inglethorp, for at six o’clock on that day Mr. Inglethorp was escorting
+Mrs. Raikes back to her home from a neighbouring farm. I can produce no
+less than five witnesses to swear to having seen them together, either
+at six or just after and, as you may know, the Abbey Farm, Mrs.
+Raikes’s home, is at least two and a half miles distant from the
+village. There is absolutely no question as to the alibi!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FRESH SUSPICIONS
+
+There was a moment’s stupefied silence. Japp, who was the least
+surprised of any of us, was the first to speak.
+
+“My word,” he cried, “you’re the goods! And no mistake, Mr. Poirot!
+These witnesses of yours are all right, I suppose?”
+
+“_Voilà !_ I have prepared a list of them—names and addresses. You must
+see them, of course. But you will find it all right.”
+
+“I’m sure of that.” Japp lowered his voice. “I’m much obliged to you. A
+pretty mare’s nest arresting him would have been.” He turned to
+Inglethorp. “But, if you’ll excuse me, sir, why couldn’t you say all
+this at the inquest?”
+
+“I will tell you why,” interrupted Poirot. “There was a certain
+rumour——”
+
+“A most malicious and utterly untrue one,” interrupted Alfred
+Inglethorp in an agitated voice.
+
+“And Mr. Inglethorp was anxious to have no scandal revived just at
+present. Am I right?”
+
+“Quite right.” Inglethorp nodded. “With my poor Emily not yet buried,
+can you wonder I was anxious that no more lying rumours should be
+started.”
+
+“Between you and me, sir,” remarked Japp, “I’d sooner have any amount
+of rumours than be arrested for murder. And I venture to think your
+poor lady would have felt the same. And, if it hadn’t been for Mr.
+Poirot here, arrested you would have been, as sure as eggs is eggs!”
+
+“I was foolish, no doubt,” murmured Inglethorp. “But you do not know,
+inspector, how I have been persecuted and maligned.” And he shot a
+baleful glance at Evelyn Howard.
+
+“Now, sir,” said Japp, turning briskly to John, “I should like to see
+the lady’s bedroom, please, and after that I’ll have a little chat with
+the servants. Don’t you bother about anything. Mr. Poirot, here, will
+show me the way.”
+
+As they all went out of the room, Poirot turned and made me a sign to
+follow him upstairs. There he caught me by the arm, and drew me aside.
+
+“Quick, go to the other wing. Stand there—just this side of the baize
+door. Do not move till I come.” Then, turning rapidly, he rejoined the
+two detectives.
+
+I followed his instructions, taking up my position by the baize door,
+and wondering what on earth lay behind the request. Why was I to stand
+in this particular spot on guard? I looked thoughtfully down the
+corridor in front of me. An idea struck me. With the exception of
+Cynthia Murdoch’s, everyone’s room was in this left wing. Had that
+anything to do with it? Was I to report who came or went? I stood
+faithfully at my post. The minutes passed. Nobody came. Nothing
+happened.
+
+It must have been quite twenty minutes before Poirot rejoined me.
+
+“You have not stirred?”
+
+“No, I’ve stuck here like a rock. Nothing’s happened.”
+
+“Ah!” Was he pleased, or disappointed? “You’ve seen nothing at all?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But you have probably heard something? A big bump—eh, _mon ami?_”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Is it possible? Ah, but I am vexed with myself! I am not usually
+clumsy. I made but a slight gesture”—I know Poirot’s gestures—“with the
+left hand, and over went the table by the bed!”
+
+He looked so childishly vexed and crest-fallen that I hastened to
+console him.
+
+“Never mind, old chap. What does it matter? Your triumph downstairs
+excited you. I can tell you, that was a surprise to us all. There must
+be more in this affair of Inglethorp’s with Mrs. Raikes than we
+thought, to make him hold his tongue so persistently. What are you
+going to do now? Where are the Scotland Yard fellows?”
+
+“Gone down to interview the servants. I showed them all our exhibits. I
+am disappointed in Japp. He has no method!”
+
+“Hullo!” I said, looking out of the window. “Here’s Dr. Bauerstein. I
+believe you’re right about that man, Poirot. I don’t like him.”
+
+“He is clever,” observed Poirot meditatively.
+
+“Oh, clever as the devil! I must say I was overjoyed to see him in the
+plight he was in on Tuesday. You never saw such a spectacle!” And I
+described the doctor’s adventure. “He looked a regular scarecrow!
+Plastered with mud from head to foot.”
+
+“You saw him, then?”
+
+“Yes. Of course, he didn’t want to come in—it was just after dinner—but
+Mr. Inglethorp insisted.”
+
+“What?” Poirot caught me violently by the shoulders. “Was Dr.
+Bauerstein here on Tuesday evening? Here? And you never told me? Why
+did you not tell me? Why? Why?”
+
+He appeared to be in an absolute frenzy.
+
+“My dear Poirot,” I expostulated, “I never thought it would interest
+you. I didn’t know it was of any importance.”
+
+“Importance? It is of the first importance! So Dr. Bauerstein was here
+on Tuesday night—the night of the murder. Hastings, do you not see?
+That alters everything—everything!”
+
+I had never seen him so upset. Loosening his hold of me, he
+mechanically straightened a pair of candlesticks, still murmuring to
+himself: “Yes, that alters everything—everything.”
+
+Suddenly he seemed to come to a decision.
+
+“_Allons!_” he said. “We must act at once. Where is Mr. Cavendish?”
+
+John was in the smoking-room. Poirot went straight to him.
+
+“Mr. Cavendish, I have some important business in Tadminster. A new
+clue. May I take your motor?”
+
+“Why, of course. Do you mean at once?”
+
+“If you please.”
+
+John rang the bell, and ordered round the car. In another ten minutes,
+we were racing down the park and along the high road to Tadminster.
+
+“Now, Poirot,” I remarked resignedly, “perhaps you will tell me what
+all this is about?”
+
+“Well, _mon ami_, a good deal you can guess for yourself. Of course you
+realize that, now Mr. Inglethorp is out of it, the whole position is
+greatly changed. We are face to face with an entirely new problem. We
+know now that there is one person who did not buy the poison. We have
+cleared away the manufactured clues. Now for the real ones. I have
+ascertained that anyone in the household, with the exception of Mrs.
+Cavendish, who was playing tennis with you, could have personated Mr.
+Inglethorp on Monday evening. In the same way, we have his statement
+that he put the coffee down in the hall. No one took much notice of
+that at the inquest—but now it has a very different significance. We
+must find out who did take that coffee to Mrs. Inglethorp eventually,
+or who passed through the hall whilst it was standing there. From your
+account, there are only two people whom we can positively say did not
+go near the coffee—Mrs. Cavendish, and Mademoiselle Cynthia.”
+
+“Yes, that is so.” I felt an inexpressible lightening of the heart.
+Mary Cavendish could certainly not rest under suspicion.
+
+“In clearing Alfred Inglethorp,” continued Poirot, “I have been obliged
+to show my hand sooner than I intended. As long as I might be thought
+to be pursuing him, the criminal would be off his guard. Now, he will
+be doubly careful. Yes—doubly careful.” He turned to me abruptly. “Tell
+me, Hastings, you yourself—have you no suspicions of anybody?”
+
+I hesitated. To tell the truth, an idea, wild and extravagant in
+itself, had once or twice that morning flashed through my brain. I had
+rejected it as absurd, nevertheless it persisted.
+
+“You couldn’t call it a suspicion,” I murmured. “It’s so utterly
+foolish.”
+
+“Come now,” urged Poirot encouragingly. “Do not fear. Speak your mind.
+You should always pay attention to your instincts.”
+
+“Well then,” I blurted out, “it’s absurd—but I suspect Miss Howard of
+not telling all she knows!”
+
+“Miss Howard?”
+
+“Yes—you’ll laugh at me——”
+
+“Not at all. Why should I?”
+
+“I can’t help feeling,” I continued blunderingly; “that we’ve rather
+left her out of the possible suspects, simply on the strength of her
+having been away from the place. But, after all, she was only fifteen
+miles away. A car would do it in half an hour. Can we say positively
+that she was away from Styles on the night of the murder?”
+
+“Yes, my friend,” said Poirot unexpectedly, “we can. One of my first
+actions was to ring up the hospital where she was working.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, I learnt that Miss Howard had been on afternoon duty on Tuesday,
+and that—a convoy coming in unexpectedly—she had kindly offered to
+remain on night duty, which offer was gratefully accepted. That
+disposes of that.”
+
+“Oh!” I said, rather nonplussed. “Really,” I continued, “it’s her
+extraordinary vehemence against Inglethorp that started me off
+suspecting her. I can’t help feeling she’d do anything against him. And
+I had an idea she might know something about the destroying of the
+will. She might have burnt the new one, mistaking it for the earlier
+one in his favour. She is so terribly bitter against him.”
+
+“You consider her vehemence unnatural?”
+
+“Y—es. She is so very violent. I wondered really whether she is quite
+sane on that point.”
+
+Poirot shook his head energetically.
+
+“No, no, you are on a wrong tack there. There is nothing weak-minded or
+degenerate about Miss Howard. She is an excellent specimen of
+well-balanced English beef and brawn. She is sanity itself.”
+
+“Yet her hatred of Inglethorp seems almost a mania. My idea was—a very
+ridiculous one, no doubt—that she had intended to poison him—and that,
+in some way, Mrs. Inglethorp got hold of it by mistake. But I don’t at
+all see how it could have been done. The whole thing is absurd and
+ridiculous to the last degree.”
+
+“Still you are right in one thing. It is always wise to suspect
+everybody until you can prove logically, and to your own satisfaction,
+that they are innocent. Now, what reasons are there against Miss
+Howard’s having deliberately poisoned Mrs. Inglethorp?”
+
+“Why, she was devoted to her!” I exclaimed.
+
+“Tcha! Tcha!” cried Poirot irritably. “You argue like a child. If Miss
+Howard were capable of poisoning the old lady, she would be quite
+equally capable of simulating devotion. No, we must look elsewhere. You
+are perfectly correct in your assumption that her vehemence against
+Alfred Inglethorp is too violent to be natural; but you are quite wrong
+in the deduction you draw from it. I have drawn my own deductions,
+which I believe to be correct, but I will not speak of them at
+present.” He paused a minute, then went on. “Now, to my way of
+thinking, there is one insuperable objection to Miss Howard’s being the
+murderess.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“That in no possible way could Mrs. Inglethorp’s death benefit Miss
+Howard. Now there is no murder without a motive.”
+
+I reflected.
+
+“Could not Mrs. Inglethorp have made a will in her favour?”
+
+Poirot shook his head.
+
+“But you yourself suggested that possibility to Mr. Wells?”
+
+Poirot smiled.
+
+“That was for a reason. I did not want to mention the name of the
+person who was actually in my mind. Miss Howard occupied very much the
+same position, so I used her name instead.”
+
+“Still, Mrs. Inglethorp might have done so. Why, that will, made on the
+afternoon of her death may——”
+
+But Poirot’s shake of the head was so energetic that I stopped.
+
+“No, my friend. I have certain little ideas of my own about that will.
+But I can tell you this much—it was not in Miss Howard’s favour.”
+
+I accepted his assurance, though I did not really see how he could be
+so positive about the matter.
+
+“Well,” I said, with a sigh, “we will acquit Miss Howard, then. It is
+partly your fault that I ever came to suspect her. It was what you said
+about her evidence at the inquest that set me off.”
+
+Poirot looked puzzled.
+
+“What did I say about her evidence at the inquest?”
+
+“Don’t you remember? When I cited her and John Cavendish as being above
+suspicion?”
+
+“Oh—ah—yes.” He seemed a little confused, but recovered himself. “By
+the way, Hastings, there is something I want you to do for me.”
+
+“Certainly. What is it?”
+
+“Next time you happen to be alone with Lawrence Cavendish, I want you
+to say this to him. ‘I have a message for you, from Poirot. He says:
+“Find the extra coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace!”’ Nothing more.
+Nothing less.”
+
+“‘Find the extra coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace.’ Is that
+right?” I asked, much mystified.
+
+“Excellent.”
+
+“But what does it mean?”
+
+“Ah, that I will leave you to find out. You have access to the facts.
+Just say that to him, and see what he says.”
+
+“Very well—but it’s all extremely mysterious.”
+
+We were running into Tadminster now, and Poirot directed the car to the
+“Analytical Chemist.”
+
+Poirot hopped down briskly, and went inside. In a few minutes he was
+back again.
+
+“There,” he said. “That is all my business.”
+
+“What were you doing there?” I asked, in lively curiosity.
+
+“I left something to be analysed.”
+
+“Yes, but what?”
+
+“The sample of cocoa I took from the saucepan in the bedroom.”
+
+“But that has already been tested!” I cried, stupefied. “Dr. Bauerstein
+had it tested, and you yourself laughed at the possibility of there
+being strychnine in it.”
+
+“I know Dr. Bauerstein had it tested,” replied Poirot quietly.
+
+“Well, then?”
+
+“Well, I have a fancy for having it analysed again, that is all.”
+
+And not another word on the subject could I drag out of him.
+
+This proceeding of Poirot’s, in respect of the cocoa, puzzled me
+intensely. I could see neither rhyme nor reason in it. However, my
+confidence in him, which at one time had rather waned, was fully
+restored since his belief in Alfred Inglethorp’s innocence had been so
+triumphantly vindicated.
+
+The funeral of Mrs. Inglethorp took place the following day, and on
+Monday, as I came down to a late breakfast, John drew me aside, and
+informed me that Mr. Inglethorp was leaving that morning, to take up
+his quarters at the Stylites Arms until he should have completed his
+plans.
+
+“And really it’s a great relief to think he’s going, Hastings,”
+continued my honest friend. “It was bad enough before, when we thought
+he’d done it, but I’m hanged if it isn’t worse now, when we all feel
+guilty for having been so down on the fellow. The fact is, we’ve
+treated him abominably. Of course, things did look black against him. I
+don’t see how anyone could blame us for jumping to the conclusions we
+did. Still, there it is, we were in the wrong, and now there’s a
+beastly feeling that one ought to make amends; which is difficult, when
+one doesn’t like the fellow a bit better than one did before. The whole
+thing’s damned awkward! And I’m thankful he’s had the tact to take
+himself off. It’s a good thing Styles wasn’t the mater’s to leave to
+him. Couldn’t bear to think of the fellow lording it here. He’s welcome
+to her money.”
+
+“You’ll be able to keep up the place all right?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, yes. There are the death duties, of course, but half my father’s
+money goes with the place, and Lawrence will stay with us for the
+present, so there is his share as well. We shall be pinched at first,
+of course, because, as I once told you, I am in a bit of a hole
+financially myself. Still, the Johnnies will wait now.”
+
+In the general relief at Inglethorp’s approaching departure, we had the
+most genial breakfast we had experienced since the tragedy. Cynthia,
+whose young spirits were naturally buoyant, was looking quite her
+pretty self again, and we all, with the exception of Lawrence, who
+seemed unalterably gloomy and nervous, were quietly cheerful, at the
+opening of a new and hopeful future.
+
+The papers, of course, had been full of the tragedy. Glaring headlines,
+sandwiched biographies of every member of the household, subtle
+innuendoes, the usual familiar tag about the police having a clue.
+Nothing was spared us. It was a slack time. The war was momentarily
+inactive, and the newspapers seized with avidity on this crime in
+fashionable life: “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” was the topic of
+the moment.
+
+Naturally it was very annoying for the Cavendishes. The house was
+constantly besieged by reporters, who were consistently denied
+admission, but who continued to haunt the village and the grounds,
+where they lay in wait with cameras, for any unwary members of the
+household. We all lived in a blast of publicity. The Scotland Yard men
+came and went, examining, questioning, lynx-eyed and reserved of
+tongue. Towards what end they were working, we did not know. Had they
+any clue, or would the whole thing remain in the category of
+undiscovered crimes?
+
+After breakfast, Dorcas came up to me rather mysteriously, and asked if
+she might have a few words with me.
+
+“Certainly. What is it, Dorcas?”
+
+“Well, it’s just this, sir. You’ll be seeing the Belgian gentleman
+to-day perhaps?” I nodded. “Well, sir, you know how he asked me so
+particular if the mistress, or anyone else, had a green dress?”
+
+“Yes, yes. You have found one?” My interest was aroused.
+
+“No, not that, sir. But since then I’ve remembered what the young
+gentlemen”—John and Lawrence were still the “young gentlemen” to
+Dorcas—“call the ‘dressing-up box.’ It’s up in the front attic, sir. A
+great chest, full of old clothes and fancy dresses, and what not. And
+it came to me sudden like that there might be a green dress amongst
+them. So, if you’d tell the Belgian gentleman——”
+
+“I will tell him, Dorcas,” I promised.
+
+“Thank you very much, sir. A very nice gentleman he is, sir. And quite
+a different class from them two detectives from London, what goes
+prying about, and asking questions. I don’t hold with foreigners as a
+rule, but from what the newspapers say I make out as how these brave
+Belges isn’t the ordinary run of foreigners, and certainly he’s a most
+polite spoken gentleman.”
+
+Dear old Dorcas! As she stood there, with her honest face upturned to
+mine, I thought what a fine specimen she was of the old-fashioned
+servant that is so fast dying out.
+
+I thought I might as well go down to the village at once, and look up
+Poirot; but I met him half-way, coming up to the house, and at once
+gave him Dorcas’s message.
+
+“Ah, the brave Dorcas! We will look at the chest, although—but no
+matter—we will examine it all the same.”
+
+We entered the house by one of the windows. There was no one in the
+hall, and we went straight up to the attic.
+
+Sure enough, there was the chest, a fine old piece, all studded with
+brass nails, and full to overflowing with every imaginable type of
+garment.
+
+Poirot bundled everything out on the floor with scant ceremony. There
+were one or two green fabrics of varying shades; but Poirot shook his
+head over them all. He seemed somewhat apathetic in the search, as
+though he expected no great results from it. Suddenly he gave an
+exclamation.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Look!”
+
+The chest was nearly empty, and there, reposing right at the bottom,
+was a magnificent black beard.
+
+“_Ohó!_” said Poirot. “_Ohó!_” He turned it over in his hands,
+examining it closely. “New,” he remarked. “Yes, quite new.”
+
+After a moment’s hesitation, he replaced it in the chest, heaped all
+the other things on top of it as before, and made his way briskly
+downstairs. He went straight to the pantry, where we found Dorcas
+busily polishing her silver.
+
+Poirot wished her good morning with Gallic politeness, and went on:
+
+“We have been looking through that chest, Dorcas. I am much obliged to
+you for mentioning it. There is, indeed, a fine collection there. Are
+they often used, may I ask?”
+
+“Well, sir, not very often nowadays, though from time to time we do
+have what the young gentlemen call ‘a dress-up night.’ And very funny
+it is sometimes, sir. Mr. Lawrence, he’s wonderful. Most comic! I shall
+never forget the night he came down as the Char of Persia, I think he
+called it—a sort of Eastern King it was. He had the big paper knife in
+his hand, and ‘Mind, Dorcas,’ he says, ‘you’ll have to be very
+respectful. This is my specially sharpened scimitar, and it’s off with
+your head if I’m at all displeased with you!’ Miss Cynthia, she was
+what they call an Apache, or some such name—a Frenchified sort of
+cut-throat, I take it to be. A real sight she looked. You’d never have
+believed a pretty young lady like that could have made herself into
+such a ruffian. Nobody would have known her.”
+
+“These evenings must have been great fun,” said Poirot genially. “I
+suppose Mr. Lawrence wore that fine black beard in the chest upstairs,
+when he was Shah of Persia?”
+
+“He did have a beard, sir,” replied Dorcas, smiling. “And well I know
+it, for he borrowed two skeins of my black wool to make it with! And
+I’m sure it looked wonderfully natural at a distance. I didn’t know as
+there was a beard up there at all. It must have been got quite lately,
+I think. There was a red wig, I know, but nothing else in the way of
+hair. Burnt corks they use mostly—though ‘tis messy getting it off
+again. Miss Cynthia was a nigger once, and, oh, the trouble she had.”
+
+“So Dorcas knows nothing about that black beard,” said Poirot
+thoughtfully, as we walked out into the hall again.
+
+“Do you think it is _the_ one?” I whispered eagerly.
+
+Poirot nodded.
+
+“I do. You notice it had been trimmed?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Yes. It was cut exactly the shape of Mr. Inglethorp’s, and I found one
+or two snipped hairs. Hastings, this affair is very deep.”
+
+“Who put it in the chest, I wonder?”
+
+“Someone with a good deal of intelligence,” remarked Poirot dryly. “You
+realize that he chose the one place in the house to hide it where its
+presence would not be remarked? Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be
+more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us
+of being intelligent at all.”
+
+I acquiesced.
+
+“There, _mon ami_, you will be of great assistance to me.”
+
+I was pleased with the compliment. There had been times when I hardly
+thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.
+
+“Yes,” he continued, staring at me thoughtfully, “you will be
+invaluable.”
+
+This was naturally gratifying, but Poirot’s next words were not so
+welcome.
+
+“I must have an ally in the house,” he observed reflectively.
+
+“You have me,” I protested.
+
+“True, but you are not sufficient.”
+
+I was hurt, and showed it. Poirot hurried to explain himself.
+
+“You do not quite take my meaning. You are known to be working with me.
+I want somebody who is not associated with us in any way.”
+
+“Oh, I see. How about John?”
+
+“No, I think not.”
+
+“The dear fellow isn’t perhaps very bright,” I said thoughtfully.
+
+“Here comes Miss Howard,” said Poirot suddenly. “She is the very
+person. But I am in her black books, since I cleared Mr. Inglethorp.
+Still, we can but try.”
+
+With a nod that was barely civil, Miss Howard assented to Poirot’s
+request for a few minutes’ conversation.
+
+We went into the little morning-room, and Poirot closed the door.
+
+“Well, Monsieur Poirot,” said Miss Howard impatiently, “what is it? Out
+with it. I’m busy.”
+
+“Do you remember, mademoiselle, that I once asked you to help me?”
+
+“Yes, I do.” The lady nodded. “And I told you I’d help you with
+pleasure—to hang Alfred Inglethorp.”
+
+“Ah!” Poirot studied her seriously. “Miss Howard, I will ask you one
+question. I beg of you to reply to it truthfully.”
+
+“Never tell lies,” replied Miss Howard.
+
+“It is this. Do you still believe that Mrs. Inglethorp was poisoned by
+her husband?”
+
+“What do you mean?” she asked sharply. “You needn’t think your pretty
+explanations influence me in the slightest. I’ll admit that it wasn’t
+he who bought strychnine at the chemist’s shop. What of that? I dare
+say he soaked fly paper, as I told you at the beginning.”
+
+“That is arsenic—not strychnine,” said Poirot mildly.
+
+“What does that matter? Arsenic would put poor Emily out of the way
+just as well as strychnine. If I’m convinced he did it, it doesn’t
+matter a jot to me _how_ he did it.”
+
+“Exactly. _If_ you are convinced he did it,” said Poirot quietly. “I
+will put my question in another form. Did you ever in your heart of
+hearts believe that Mrs. Inglethorp was poisoned by her husband?”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Miss Howard. “Haven’t I always told you the man
+is a villain? Haven’t I always told you he would murder her in her bed?
+Haven’t I always hated him like poison?”
+
+“Exactly,” said Poirot. “That bears out my little idea entirely.”
+
+“What little idea?”
+
+“Miss Howard, do you remember a conversation that took place on the day
+of my friend’s arrival here? He repeated it to me, and there is a
+sentence of yours that has impressed me very much. Do you remember
+affirming that if a crime had been committed, and anyone you loved had
+been murdered, you felt certain that you would know by instinct who the
+criminal was, even if you were quite unable to prove it?”
+
+“Yes, I remember saying that. I believe it too. I suppose you think it
+nonsense?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“And yet you will pay no attention to my instinct against Alfred
+Inglethorp.”
+
+“No,” said Poirot curtly. “Because your instinct is not against Mr.
+Inglethorp.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“No. You wish to believe he committed the crime. You believe him
+capable of committing it. But your instinct tells you he did not commit
+it. It tells you more—shall I go on?”
+
+She was staring at him, fascinated, and made a slight affirmative
+movement of the hand.
+
+“Shall I tell you why you have been so vehement against Mr. Inglethorp?
+It is because you have been trying to believe what you wish to believe.
+It is because you are trying to drown and stifle your instinct, which
+tells you another name——”
+
+“No, no, no!” cried Miss Howard wildly, flinging up her hands. “Don’t
+say it! Oh, don’t say it! It isn’t true! It can’t be true. I don’t know
+what put such a wild—such a dreadful—idea into my head!”
+
+“I am right, am I not?” asked Poirot.
+
+“Yes, yes; you must be a wizard to have guessed. But it can’t be
+so—it’s too monstrous, too impossible. It _must_ be Alfred Inglethorp.”
+
+Poirot shook his head gravely.
+
+“Don’t ask me about it,” continued Miss Howard, “because I shan’t tell
+you. I won’t admit it, even to myself. I must be mad to think of such a
+thing.”
+
+Poirot nodded, as if satisfied.
+
+“I will ask you nothing. It is enough for me that it is as I thought.
+And I—I, too, have an instinct. We are working together towards a
+common end.”
+
+“Don’t ask me to help you, because I won’t. I wouldn’t lift a finger
+to—to——” She faltered.
+
+“You will help me in spite of yourself. I ask you nothing—but you will
+be my ally. You will not be able to help yourself. You will do the only
+thing that I want of you.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“You will watch!”
+
+Evelyn Howard bowed her head.
+
+“Yes, I can’t help doing that. I am always watching—always hoping I
+shall be proved wrong.”
+
+“If we are wrong, well and good,” said Poirot. “No one will be more
+pleased than I shall. But, if we are right? If we are right, Miss
+Howard, on whose side are you then?”
+
+“I don’t know, I don’t know——”
+
+“Come now.”
+
+“It could be hushed up.”
+
+“There must be no hushing up.”
+
+“But Emily herself——” She broke off.
+
+“Miss Howard,” said Poirot gravely, “this is unworthy of you.”
+
+Suddenly she took her face from her hands.
+
+“Yes,” she said quietly, “that was not Evelyn Howard who spoke!” She
+flung her head up proudly. “_This_ is Evelyn Howard! And she is on the
+side of Justice! Let the cost be what it may.” And with these words,
+she walked firmly out of the room.
+
+“There,” said Poirot, looking after her, “goes a very valuable ally.
+That woman, Hastings, has got brains as well as a heart.”
+
+I did not reply.
+
+“Instinct is a marvellous thing,” mused Poirot. “It can neither be
+explained nor ignored.”
+
+“You and Miss Howard seem to know what you are talking about,” I
+observed coldly. “Perhaps you don’t realize that _I_ am still in the
+dark.”
+
+“Really? Is that so, _mon ami?_”
+
+“Yes. Enlighten me, will you?”
+
+Poirot studied me attentively for a moment or two. Then, to my intense
+surprise, he shook his head decidedly.
+
+“No, my friend.”
+
+“Oh, look here, why not?”
+
+“Two is enough for a secret.”
+
+“Well, I think it is very unfair to keep back facts from me.”
+
+“I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your
+possession. You can draw your own deductions from them. This time it is
+a question of ideas.”
+
+“Still, it would be interesting to know.”
+
+Poirot looked at me very earnestly, and again shook his head.
+
+“You see,” he said sadly, “_you_ have no instincts.”
+
+“It was intelligence you were requiring just now,” I pointed out.
+
+“The two often go together,” said Poirot enigmatically.
+
+The remark seemed so utterly irrelevant that I did not even take the
+trouble to answer it. But I decided that if I made any interesting and
+important discoveries—as no doubt I should—I would keep them to myself,
+and surprise Poirot with the ultimate result.
+
+There are times when it is one’s duty to assert oneself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. DR. BAUERSTEIN
+
+I had had no opportunity as yet of passing on Poirot’s message to
+Lawrence. But now, as I strolled out on the lawn, still nursing a
+grudge against my friend’s high-handedness, I saw Lawrence on the
+croquet lawn, aimlessly knocking a couple of very ancient balls about,
+with a still more ancient mallet.
+
+It struck me that it would be a good opportunity to deliver my message.
+Otherwise, Poirot himself might relieve me of it. It was true that I
+did not quite gather its purport, but I flattered myself that by
+Lawrence’s reply, and perhaps a little skillful cross-examination on my
+part, I should soon perceive its significance. Accordingly I accosted
+him.
+
+“I’ve been looking for you,” I remarked untruthfully.
+
+“Have you?”
+
+“Yes. The truth is, I’ve got a message for you—from Poirot.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“He told me to wait until I was alone with you,” I said, dropping my
+voice significantly, and watching him intently out of the corner of my
+eye. I have always been rather good at what is called, I believe,
+creating an atmosphere.
+
+“Well?”
+
+There was no change of expression in the dark melancholic face. Had he
+any idea of what I was about to say?
+
+“This is the message.” I dropped my voice still lower. “‘Find the extra
+coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace.’”
+
+“What on earth does he mean?” Lawrence stared at me in quite unaffected
+astonishment.
+
+“Don’t you know?”
+
+“Not in the least. Do you?”
+
+I was compelled to shake my head.
+
+“What extra coffee-cup?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“He’d better ask Dorcas, or one of the maids, if he wants to know about
+coffee-cups. It’s their business, not mine. I don’t know anything about
+the coffee-cups, except that we’ve got some that are never used, which
+are a perfect dream! Old Worcester. You’re not a connoisseur, are you,
+Hastings?”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“You miss a lot. A really perfect bit of old china—it’s pure delight to
+handle it, or even to look at it.”
+
+“Well, what am I to tell Poirot?”
+
+“Tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about. It’s double Dutch to
+me.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I was moving off towards the house again when he suddenly called me
+back.
+
+“I say, what was the end of that message? Say it over again, will you?”
+
+“‘Find the extra coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace.’ Are you sure
+you don’t know what it means?” I asked him earnestly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“No,” he said musingly, “I don’t. I—I wish I did.”
+
+The boom of the gong sounded from the house, and we went in together.
+Poirot had been asked by John to remain to lunch, and was already
+seated at the table.
+
+By tacit consent, all mention of the tragedy was barred. We conversed
+on the war, and other outside topics. But after the cheese and biscuits
+had been handed round, and Dorcas had left the room, Poirot suddenly
+leant forward to Mrs. Cavendish.
+
+“Pardon me, madame, for recalling unpleasant memories, but I have a
+little idea”—Poirot’s “little ideas” were becoming a perfect
+byword—“and would like to ask one or two questions.”
+
+“Of me? Certainly.”
+
+“You are too amiable, madame. What I want to ask is this: the door
+leading into Mrs. Inglethorp’s room from that of Mademoiselle Cynthia,
+it was bolted, you say?”
+
+“Certainly it was bolted,” replied Mary Cavendish, rather surprised. “I
+said so at the inquest.”
+
+“Bolted?”
+
+“Yes.” She looked perplexed.
+
+“I mean,” explained Poirot, “you are sure it was bolted, and not merely
+locked?”
+
+“Oh, I see what you mean. No, I don’t know. I said bolted, meaning that
+it was fastened, and I could not open it, but I believe all the doors
+were found bolted on the inside.”
+
+“Still, as far as you are concerned, the door might equally well have
+been locked?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+“You yourself did not happen to notice, madame, when you entered Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s room, whether that door was bolted or not?”
+
+“I—I believe it was.”
+
+“But you did not see it?”
+
+“No. I—never looked.”
+
+“But _I_ did,” interrupted Lawrence suddenly. “I happened to notice
+that it _was_ bolted.”
+
+“Ah, that settles it.” And Poirot looked crestfallen.
+
+I could not help rejoicing that, for once, one of his “little ideas”
+had come to naught.
+
+After lunch Poirot begged me to accompany him home. I consented rather
+stiffly.
+
+“You are annoyed, is it not so?” he asked anxiously, as we walked
+through the park.
+
+“Not at all,” I said coldly.
+
+“That is well. That lifts a great load from my mind.”
+
+This was not quite what I had intended. I had hoped that he would have
+observed the stiffness of my manner. Still, the fervour of his words
+went towards the appeasing of my just displeasure. I thawed.
+
+“I gave Lawrence your message,” I said.
+
+“And what did he say? He was entirely puzzled?”
+
+“Yes. I am quite sure he had no idea of what you meant.”
+
+I had expected Poirot to be disappointed; but, to my surprise, he
+replied that that was as he had thought, and that he was very glad. My
+pride forbade me to ask any questions.
+
+Poirot switched off on another tack.
+
+“Mademoiselle Cynthia was not at lunch to-day? How was that?”
+
+“She is at the hospital again. She resumed work to-day.”
+
+“Ah, she is an industrious little demoiselle. And pretty too. She is
+like pictures I have seen in Italy. I would rather like to see that
+dispensary of hers. Do you think she would show it to me?”
+
+“I am sure she would be delighted. It’s an interesting little place.”
+
+“Does she go there every day?”
+
+“She has all Wednesdays off, and comes back to lunch on Saturdays.
+Those are her only times off.”
+
+“I will remember. Women are doing great work nowadays, and Mademoiselle
+Cynthia is clever—oh, yes, she has brains, that little one.”
+
+“Yes. I believe she has passed quite a stiff exam.”
+
+“Without doubt. After all, it is very responsible work. I suppose they
+have very strong poisons there?”
+
+“Yes, she showed them to us. They are kept locked up in a little
+cupboard. I believe they have to be very careful. They always take out
+the key before leaving the room.”
+
+“Indeed. It is near the window, this cupboard?”
+
+“No, right the other side of the room. Why?”
+
+Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I wondered. That is all. Will you come in?”
+
+We had reached the cottage.
+
+“No. I think I’ll be getting back. I shall go round the long way
+through the woods.”
+
+The woods round Styles were very beautiful. After the walk across the
+open park, it was pleasant to saunter lazily through the cool glades.
+There was hardly a breath of wind, the very chirp of the birds was
+faint and subdued. I strolled on a little way, and finally flung myself
+down at the foot of a grand old beech-tree. My thoughts of mankind were
+kindly and charitable. I even forgave Poirot for his absurd secrecy. In
+fact, I was at peace with the world. Then I yawned.
+
+I thought about the crime, and it struck me as being very unreal and
+far off.
+
+I yawned again.
+
+Probably, I thought, it really never happened. Of course, it was all a
+bad dream. The truth of the matter was that it was Lawrence who had
+murdered Alfred Inglethorp with a croquet mallet. But it was absurd of
+John to make such a fuss about it, and to go shouting out: “I tell you
+I won’t have it!”
+
+I woke up with a start.
+
+At once I realized that I was in a very awkward predicament. For, about
+twelve feet away from me, John and Mary Cavendish were standing facing
+each other, and they were evidently quarrelling. And, quite as
+evidently, they were unaware of my vicinity, for before I could move or
+speak John repeated the words which had aroused me from my dream.
+
+“I tell you, Mary, I won’t have it.”
+
+Mary’s voice came, cool and liquid:
+
+“Have _you_ any right to criticize my actions?”
+
+“It will be the talk of the village! My mother was only buried on
+Saturday, and here you are gadding about with the fellow.”
+
+“Oh,” she shrugged her shoulders, “if it is only village gossip that
+you mind!”
+
+“But it isn’t. I’ve had enough of the fellow hanging about. He’s a
+Polish Jew, anyway.”
+
+“A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the”—she looked
+at him—“stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman.”
+
+Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood
+rose to John’s face in a crimson tide.
+
+“Mary!”
+
+“Well?” Her tone did not change.
+
+The pleading died out of his voice.
+
+“Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my
+express wishes?”
+
+“If I choose.”
+
+“You defy me?”
+
+“No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no
+friends of whom I should disapprove?”
+
+John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face.
+
+“What do you mean?” he said, in an unsteady voice.
+
+“You see!” said Mary quietly. “You _do_ see, don’t you, that _you_ have
+no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?”
+
+John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face.
+
+“No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?” he said unsteadily. He stretched
+out his hands. “Mary——”
+
+For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her
+face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away.
+
+“None!”
+
+She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the
+arm.
+
+“Mary”—his voice was very quiet now—“are you in love with this fellow
+Bauerstein?”
+
+She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange
+expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about
+it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled.
+
+She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder.
+
+“Perhaps,” she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade,
+leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone.
+
+Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches
+with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted
+that I had only just come upon the scene.
+
+“Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his
+cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?”
+
+“He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day.”
+
+“Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten
+world it is, though!”
+
+“You find it so?” I asked.
+
+“Good Lord, yes! There’s this terrible business to start with. Scotland
+Yard men in and out of the house like a jack-in-the-box! Never know
+where they won’t turn up next. Screaming headlines in every paper in
+the country—damn all journalists, I say! Do you know there was a whole
+crowd staring in at the lodge gates this morning. Sort of Madame
+Tussaud’s chamber of horrors business that can be seen for nothing.
+Pretty thick, isn’t it?”
+
+“Cheer up, John!” I said soothingly. “It can’t last for ever.”
+
+“Can’t it, though? It can last long enough for us never to be able to
+hold up our heads again.”
+
+“No, no, you’re getting morbid on the subject.”
+
+“Enough to make a man morbid, to be stalked by beastly journalists and
+stared at by gaping moon-faced idiots, wherever he goes! But there’s
+worse than that.”
+
+“What?”
+
+John lowered his voice:
+
+“Have you ever thought, Hastings—it’s a nightmare to me—who did it? I
+can’t help feeling sometimes it must have been an accident.
+Because—because—who could have done it? Now Inglethorp’s out of the
+way, there’s no one else; no one, I mean, except—one of us.”
+
+Yes, indeed, that was nightmare enough for any man! One of us? Yes,
+surely it must be so, unless——-
+
+A new idea suggested itself to my mind. Rapidly, I considered it. The
+light increased. Poirot’s mysterious doings, his hints—they all fitted
+in. Fool that I was not to have thought of this possibility before, and
+what a relief for us all.
+
+“No, John,” I said, “it isn’t one of us. How could it be?”
+
+“I know, but, still, who else is there?”
+
+“Can’t you guess?”
+
+“No.”
+
+I looked cautiously round, and lowered my voice.
+
+“Dr. Bauerstein!” I whispered.
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“But what earthly interest could he have in my mother’s death?”
+
+“That I don’t see,” I confessed, “but I’ll tell you this: Poirot thinks
+so.”
+
+“Poirot? Does he? How do you know?”
+
+I told him of Poirot’s intense excitement on hearing that Dr.
+Bauerstein had been at Styles on the fatal night, and added:
+
+“He said twice: ‘That alters everything.’ And I’ve been thinking. You
+know Inglethorp said he had put down the coffee in the hall? Well, it
+was just then that Bauerstein arrived. Isn’t it possible that, as
+Inglethorp brought him through the hall, the doctor dropped something
+into the coffee in passing?”
+
+“H’m,” said John. “It would have been very risky.”
+
+“Yes, but it was possible.”
+
+“And then, how could he know it was her coffee? No, old fellow, I don’t
+think that will wash.”
+
+But I had remembered something else.
+
+“You’re quite right. That wasn’t how it was done. Listen.” And I then
+told him of the cocoa sample which Poirot had taken to be analysed.
+
+John interrupted just as I had done.
+
+“But, look here, Bauerstein had had it analysed already?”
+
+“Yes, yes, that’s the point. I didn’t see it either until now. Don’t
+you understand? Bauerstein had it analysed—that’s just it! If
+Bauerstein’s the murderer, nothing could be simpler than for him to
+substitute some ordinary cocoa for his sample, and send that to be
+tested. And of course they would find no strychnine! But no one would
+dream of suspecting Bauerstein, or think of taking another
+sample—except Poirot,” I added, with belated recognition.
+
+“Yes, but what about the bitter taste that cocoa won’t disguise?”
+
+“Well, we’ve only his word for that. And there are other possibilities.
+He’s admittedly one of the world’s greatest toxicologists——”
+
+“One of the world’s greatest what? Say it again.”
+
+“He knows more about poisons than almost anybody,” I explained. “Well,
+my idea is, that perhaps he’s found some way of making strychnine
+tasteless. Or it may not have been strychnine at all, but some obscure
+drug no one has ever heard of, which produces much the same symptoms.”
+
+“H’m, yes, that might be,” said John. “But look here, how could he have
+got at the cocoa? That wasn’t downstairs?”
+
+“No, it wasn’t,” I admitted reluctantly.
+
+And then, suddenly, a dreadful possibility flashed through my mind. I
+hoped and prayed it would not occur to John also. I glanced sideways at
+him. He was frowning perplexedly, and I drew a deep breath of relief,
+for the terrible thought that had flashed across my mind was this: that
+Dr. Bauerstein might have had an accomplice.
+
+Yet surely it could not be! Surely no woman as beautiful as Mary
+Cavendish could be a murderess. Yet beautiful women had been known to
+poison.
+
+And suddenly I remembered that first conversation at tea on the day of
+my arrival, and the gleam in her eyes as she had said that poison was a
+woman’s weapon. How agitated she had been on that fatal Tuesday
+evening! Had Mrs. Inglethorp discovered something between her and
+Bauerstein, and threatened to tell her husband? Was it to stop that
+denunciation that the crime had been committed?
+
+Then I remembered that enigmatical conversation between Poirot and
+Evelyn Howard. Was this what they had meant? Was this the monstrous
+possibility that Evelyn had tried not to believe?
+
+Yes, it all fitted in.
+
+No wonder Miss Howard had suggested “hushing it up.” Now I understood
+that unfinished sentence of hers: “Emily herself——” And in my heart I
+agreed with her. Would not Mrs. Inglethorp have preferred to go
+unavenged rather than have such terrible dishonour fall upon the name
+of Cavendish.
+
+“There’s another thing,” said John suddenly, and the unexpected sound
+of his voice made me start guiltily. “Something which makes me doubt if
+what you say can be true.”
+
+“What’s that?” I asked, thankful that he had gone away from the subject
+of how the poison could have been introduced into the cocoa.
+
+“Why, the fact that Bauerstein demanded a post-mortem. He needn’t have
+done so. Little Wilkins would have been quite content to let it go at
+heart disease.”
+
+“Yes,” I said doubtfully. “But we don’t know. Perhaps he thought it
+safer in the long run. Someone might have talked afterwards. Then the
+Home Office might have ordered exhumation. The whole thing would have
+come out, then, and he would have been in an awkward position, for no
+one would have believed that a man of his reputation could have been
+deceived into calling it heart disease.”
+
+“Yes, that’s possible,” admitted John. “Still,” he added, “I’m blest if
+I can see what his motive could have been.”
+
+I trembled.
+
+“Look here,” I said, “I may be altogether wrong. And, remember, all
+this is in confidence.”
+
+“Oh, of course—that goes without saying.”
+
+We had walked, as we talked, and now we passed through the little gate
+into the garden. Voices rose near at hand, for tea was spread out under
+the sycamore-tree, as it had been on the day of my arrival.
+
+Cynthia was back from the hospital, and I placed my chair beside her,
+and told her of Poirot’s wish to visit the dispensary.
+
+“Of course! I’d love him to see it. He’d better come to tea there one
+day. I must fix it up with him. He’s such a dear little man! But he
+_is_ funny. He made me take the brooch out of my tie the other day, and
+put it in again, because he said it wasn’t straight.”
+
+I laughed.
+
+“It’s quite a mania with him.”
+
+“Yes, isn’t it?”
+
+We were silent for a minute or two, and then, glancing in the direction
+of Mary Cavendish, and dropping her voice, Cynthia said:
+
+“Mr. Hastings.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“After tea, I want to talk to you.”
+
+Her glance at Mary had set me thinking. I fancied that between these
+two there existed very little sympathy. For the first time, it occurred
+to me to wonder about the girl’s future. Mrs. Inglethorp had made no
+provisions of any kind for her, but I imagined that John and Mary would
+probably insist on her making her home with them—at any rate until the
+end of the war. John, I knew, was very fond of her, and would be sorry
+to let her go.
+
+John, who had gone into the house, now reappeared. His good-natured
+face wore an unaccustomed frown of anger.
+
+“Confound those detectives! I can’t think what they’re after! They’ve
+been in every room in the house—turning things inside out, and upside
+down. It really is too bad! I suppose they took advantage of our all
+being out. I shall go for that fellow Japp, when I next see him!”
+
+“Lot of Paul Prys,” grunted Miss Howard.
+
+Lawrence opined that they had to make a show of doing something.
+
+Mary Cavendish said nothing.
+
+After tea, I invited Cynthia to come for a walk, and we sauntered off
+into the woods together.
+
+“Well?” I inquired, as soon as we were protected from prying eyes by
+the leafy screen.
+
+With a sigh, Cynthia flung herself down, and tossed off her hat. The
+sunlight, piercing through the branches, turned the auburn of her hair
+to quivering gold.
+
+“Mr. Hastings—you are always so kind, and you know such a lot.”
+
+It struck me at this moment that Cynthia was really a very charming
+girl! Much more charming than Mary, who never said things of that kind.
+
+“Well?” I asked benignantly, as she hesitated.
+
+“I want to ask your advice. What shall I do?”
+
+“Do?”
+
+“Yes. You see, Aunt Emily always told me I should be provided for. I
+suppose she forgot, or didn’t think she was likely to die—anyway, I am
+_not_ provided for! And I don’t know what to do. Do you think I ought
+to go away from here at once?”
+
+“Good heavens, no! They don’t want to part with you, I’m sure.”
+
+Cynthia hesitated a moment, plucking up the grass with her tiny hands.
+Then she said: “Mrs. Cavendish does. She hates me.”
+
+“Hates you?” I cried, astonished.
+
+Cynthia nodded.
+
+“Yes. I don’t know why, but she can’t bear me; and _he_ can’t, either.”
+
+“There I know you’re wrong,” I said warmly. “On the contrary, John is
+very fond of you.”
+
+“Oh, yes—_John_. I meant Lawrence. Not, of course, that I care whether
+Lawrence hates me or not. Still, it’s rather horrid when no one loves
+you, isn’t it?”
+
+“But they do, Cynthia dear,” I said earnestly. “I’m sure you are
+mistaken. Look, there is John—and Miss Howard——”
+
+Cynthia nodded rather gloomily. “Yes, John likes me, I think, and of
+course Evie, for all her gruff ways, wouldn’t be unkind to a fly. But
+Lawrence never speaks to me if he can help it, and Mary can hardly
+bring herself to be civil to me. She wants Evie to stay on, is begging
+her to, but she doesn’t want me, and—and—I don’t know what to do.”
+Suddenly the poor child burst out crying.
+
+I don’t know what possessed me. Her beauty, perhaps, as she sat there,
+with the sunlight glinting down on her head; perhaps the sense of
+relief at encountering someone who so obviously could have no
+connection with the tragedy; perhaps honest pity for her youth and
+loneliness. Anyway, I leant forward, and taking her little hand, I said
+awkwardly:
+
+“Marry me, Cynthia.”
+
+Unwittingly, I had hit upon a sovereign remedy for her tears. She sat
+up at once, drew her hand away, and said, with some asperity:
+
+“Don’t be silly!”
+
+I was a little annoyed.
+
+“I’m not being silly. I am asking you to do me the honour of becoming
+my wife.”
+
+To my intense surprise, Cynthia burst out laughing, and called me a
+“funny dear.”
+
+“It’s perfectly sweet of you,” she said, “but you know you don’t want
+to!”
+
+“Yes, I do. I’ve got——”
+
+“Never mind what you’ve got. You don’t really want to—and I don’t
+either.”
+
+“Well, of course, that settles it,” I said stiffly. “But I don’t see
+anything to laugh at. There’s nothing funny about a proposal.”
+
+“No, indeed,” said Cynthia. “Somebody might accept you next time.
+Good-bye, you’ve cheered me up _very_ much.”
+
+And, with a final uncontrollable burst of merriment, she vanished
+through the trees.
+
+Thinking over the interview, it struck me as being profoundly
+unsatisfactory.
+
+It occurred to me suddenly that I would go down to the village, and
+look up Bauerstein. Somebody ought to be keeping an eye on the fellow.
+At the same time, it would be wise to allay any suspicions he might
+have as to his being suspected. I remembered how Poirot had relied on
+my diplomacy. Accordingly, I went to the little house with the
+“Apartments” card inserted in the window, where I knew he lodged, and
+tapped on the door.
+
+An old woman came and opened it.
+
+“Good afternoon,” I said pleasantly. “Is Dr. Bauerstein in?”
+
+She stared at me.
+
+“Haven’t you heard?”
+
+“Heard what?”
+
+“About him.”
+
+“What about him?”
+
+“He’s took.”
+
+“Took? Dead?”
+
+“No, took by the perlice.”
+
+“By the police!” I gasped. “Do you mean they’ve arrested him?”
+
+“Yes, that’s it, and——”
+
+I waited to hear no more, but tore up the village to find Poirot.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE ARREST
+
+To my extreme annoyance, Poirot was not in, and the old Belgian who
+answered my knock informed me that he believed he had gone to London.
+
+I was dumbfounded. What on earth could Poirot be doing in London! Was
+it a sudden decision on his part, or had he already made up his mind
+when he parted from me a few hours earlier?
+
+I retraced my steps to Styles in some annoyance. With Poirot away, I
+was uncertain how to act. Had he foreseen this arrest? Had he not, in
+all probability, been the cause of it? Those questions I could not
+resolve. But in the meantime what was I to do? Should I announce the
+arrest openly at Styles, or not? Though I did not acknowledge it to
+myself, the thought of Mary Cavendish was weighing on me. Would it not
+be a terrible shock to her? For the moment, I set aside utterly any
+suspicions of her. She could not be implicated—otherwise I should have
+heard some hint of it.
+
+Of course, there was no possibility of being able permanently to
+conceal Dr. Bauerstein’s arrest from her. It would be announced in
+every newspaper on the morrow. Still, I shrank from blurting it out. If
+only Poirot had been accessible, I could have asked his advice. What
+possessed him to go posting off to London in this unaccountable way?
+
+In spite of myself, my opinion of his sagacity was immeasurably
+heightened. I would never have dreamt of suspecting the doctor, had not
+Poirot put it into my head. Yes, decidedly, the little man was clever.
+
+After some reflecting, I decided to take John into my confidence, and
+leave him to make the matter public or not, as he thought fit.
+
+He gave vent to a prodigious whistle, as I imparted the news.
+
+“Great Scott! You _were_ right, then. I couldn’t believe it at the
+time.”
+
+“No, it is astonishing until you get used to the idea, and see how it
+makes everything fit in. Now, what are we to do? Of course, it will be
+generally known to-morrow.”
+
+John reflected.
+
+“Never mind,” he said at last, “we won’t say anything at present. There
+is no need. As you say, it will be known soon enough.”
+
+But to my intense surprise, on getting down early the next morning, and
+eagerly opening the newspapers, there was not a word about the arrest!
+There was a column of mere padding about “The Styles Poisoning Case,”
+but nothing further. It was rather inexplicable, but I supposed that,
+for some reason or other, Japp wished to keep it out of the papers. It
+worried me just a little, for it suggested the possibility that there
+might be further arrests to come.
+
+After breakfast, I decided to go down to the village, and see if Poirot
+had returned yet; but, before I could start, a well-known face blocked
+one of the windows, and the well-known voice said:
+
+“_Bonjour, mon ami!_”
+
+“Poirot,” I exclaimed, with relief, and seizing him by both hands, I
+dragged him into the room. “I was never so glad to see anyone. Listen,
+I have said nothing to anybody but John. Is that right?”
+
+“My friend,” replied Poirot, “I do not know what you are talking
+about.”
+
+“Dr. Bauerstein’s arrest, of course,” I answered impatiently.
+
+“Is Bauerstein arrested, then?”
+
+“Did you not know it?”
+
+“Not the least in the world.” But, pausing a moment, he added: “Still,
+it does not surprise me. After all, we are only four miles from the
+coast.”
+
+“The coast?” I asked, puzzled. “What has that got to do with it?”
+
+Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Surely, it is obvious!”
+
+“Not to me. No doubt I am very dense, but I cannot see what the
+proximity of the coast has got to do with the murder of Mrs.
+Inglethorp.”
+
+“Nothing at all, of course,” replied Poirot, smiling. “But we were
+speaking of the arrest of Dr. Bauerstein.”
+
+“Well, he is arrested for the murder of Mrs. Inglethorp——”
+
+“What?” cried Poirot, in apparently lively astonishment. “Dr.
+Bauerstein arrested for the murder of Mrs. Inglethorp?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Impossible! That would be too good a farce! Who told you that, my
+friend?”
+
+“Well, no one exactly told me,” I confessed. “But he is arrested.”
+
+“Oh, yes, very likely. But for espionage, _mon ami_.”
+
+“Espionage?” I gasped.
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“Not for poisoning Mrs. Inglethorp?”
+
+“Not unless our friend Japp has taken leave of his senses,” replied
+Poirot placidly.
+
+“But—but I thought you thought so too?”
+
+Poirot gave me one look, which conveyed a wondering pity, and his full
+sense of the utter absurdity of such an idea.
+
+“Do you mean to say,” I asked, slowly adapting myself to the new idea,
+“that Dr. Bauerstein is a spy?”
+
+Poirot nodded.
+
+“Have you never suspected it?”
+
+“It never entered my head.”
+
+“It did not strike you as peculiar that a famous London doctor should
+bury himself in a little village like this, and should be in the habit
+of walking about at all hours of the night, fully dressed?”
+
+“No,” I confessed, “I never thought of such a thing.”
+
+“He is, of course, a German by birth,” said Poirot thoughtfully,
+“though he has practised so long in this country that nobody thinks of
+him as anything but an Englishman. He was naturalized about fifteen
+years ago. A very clever man—a Jew, of course.”
+
+“The blackguard!” I cried indignantly.
+
+“Not at all. He is, on the contrary, a patriot. Think what he stands to
+lose. I admire the man myself.”
+
+But I could not look at it in Poirot’s philosophical way.
+
+“And this is the man with whom Mrs. Cavendish has been wandering about
+all over the country!” I cried indignantly.
+
+“Yes. I should fancy he had found her very useful,” remarked Poirot.
+“So long as gossip busied itself in coupling their names together, any
+other vagaries of the doctor’s passed unobserved.”
+
+“Then you think he never really cared for her?” I asked eagerly—rather
+too eagerly, perhaps, under the circumstances.
+
+“That, of course, I cannot say, but—shall I tell you my own private
+opinion, Hastings?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, it is this: that Mrs. Cavendish does not care, and never has
+cared one little jot about Dr. Bauerstein!”
+
+“Do you really think so?” I could not disguise my pleasure.
+
+“I am quite sure of it. And I will tell you why.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Because she cares for someone else, _mon ami_.”
+
+“Oh!” What did he mean? In spite of myself, an agreeable warmth spread
+over me. I am not a vain man where women are concerned, but I
+remembered certain evidences, too lightly thought of at the time,
+perhaps, but which certainly seemed to indicate——
+
+My pleasing thoughts were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Miss
+Howard. She glanced round hastily to make sure there was no one else in
+the room, and quickly produced an old sheet of brown paper. This she
+handed to Poirot, murmuring as she did so the cryptic words:
+
+“On top of the wardrobe.” Then she hurriedly left the room.
+
+Poirot unfolded the sheet of paper eagerly, and uttered an exclamation
+of satisfaction. He spread it out on the table.
+
+“Come here, Hastings. Now tell me, what is that initial—J. or L.?”
+
+It was a medium sized sheet of paper, rather dusty, as though it had
+lain by for some time. But it was the label that was attracting
+Poirot’s attention. At the top, it bore the printed stamp of Messrs.
+Parkson’s, the well-known theatrical costumiers, and it was addressed
+to “—(the debatable initial) Cavendish, Esq., Styles Court, Styles St.
+Mary, Essex.”
+
+“It might be T., or it might be L.,” I said, after studying the thing
+for a minute or two. “It certainly isn’t a J.”
+
+“Good,” replied Poirot, folding up the paper again. “I, also, am of
+your way of thinking. It is an L., depend upon it!”
+
+“Where did it come from?” I asked curiously. “Is it important?”
+
+“Moderately so. It confirms a surmise of mine. Having deduced its
+existence, I set Miss Howard to search for it, and, as you see, she has
+been successful.”
+
+“What did she mean by ‘On the top of the wardrobe’?”
+
+“She meant,” replied Poirot promptly, “that she found it on top of a
+wardrobe.”
+
+“A funny place for a piece of brown paper,” I mused.
+
+“Not at all. The top of a wardrobe is an excellent place for brown
+paper and cardboard boxes. I have kept them there myself. Neatly
+arranged, there is nothing to offend the eye.”
+
+“Poirot,” I asked earnestly, “have you made up your mind about this
+crime?”
+
+“Yes—that is to say, I believe I know how it was committed.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Unfortunately, I have no proof beyond my surmise, unless——” With
+sudden energy, he caught me by the arm, and whirled me down the hall,
+calling out in French in his excitement: “Mademoiselle Dorcas,
+Mademoiselle Dorcas, _un moment, s’il vous plaît!_”
+
+Dorcas, quite flurried by the noise, came hurrying out of the pantry.
+
+“My good Dorcas, I have an idea—a little idea—if it should prove
+justified, what magnificent chance! Tell me, on Monday, not Tuesday,
+Dorcas, but Monday, the day before the tragedy, did anything go wrong
+with Mrs. Inglethorp’s bell?”
+
+Dorcas looked very surprised.
+
+“Yes, sir, now you mention it, it did; though I don’t know how you came
+to hear of it. A mouse, or some such, must have nibbled the wire
+through. The man came and put it right on Tuesday morning.”
+
+With a long drawn exclamation of ecstasy, Poirot led the way back to
+the morning-room.
+
+“See you, one should not ask for outside proof—no, reason should be
+enough. But the flesh is weak, it is consolation to find that one is on
+the right track. Ah, my friend, I am like a giant refreshed. I run! I
+leap!”
+
+And, in very truth, run and leap he did, gambolling wildly down the
+stretch of lawn outside the long window.
+
+“What is your remarkable little friend doing?” asked a voice behind me,
+and I turned to find Mary Cavendish at my elbow. She smiled, and so did
+I. “What is it all about?”
+
+“Really, I can’t tell you. He asked Dorcas some question about a bell,
+and appeared so delighted with her answer that he is capering about as
+you see!”
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+“How ridiculous! He’s going out of the gate. Isn’t he coming back
+to-day?”
+
+“I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to guess what he’ll do next.”
+
+“Is he quite mad, Mr. Hastings?”
+
+“I honestly don’t know. Sometimes, I feel sure he is as mad as a
+hatter; and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is method
+in his madness.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+In spite of her laugh, Mary was looking thoughtful this morning. She
+seemed grave, almost sad.
+
+It occurred to me that it would be a good opportunity to tackle her on
+the subject of Cynthia. I began rather tactfully, _I_ thought, but I
+had not gone far before she stopped me authoritatively.
+
+“You are an excellent advocate, I have no doubt, Mr. Hastings, but in
+this case your talents are quite thrown away. Cynthia will run no risk
+of encountering any unkindness from me.”
+
+I began to stammer feebly that I hoped she hadn’t thought—— But again
+she stopped me, and her words were so unexpected that they quite drove
+Cynthia, and her troubles, out of my mind.
+
+“Mr. Hastings,” she said, “do you think I and my husband are happy
+together?”
+
+I was considerably taken aback, and murmured something about it’s not
+being my business to think anything of the sort.
+
+“Well,” she said quietly, “whether it is your business or not, I will
+tell you that we are _not_ happy.”
+
+I said nothing, for I saw that she had not finished.
+
+She began slowly, walking up and down the room, her head a little bent,
+and that slim, supple figure of hers swaying gently as she walked. She
+stopped suddenly, and looked up at me.
+
+“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” she asked. “Where I come
+from, who I was before I married John—anything, in fact? Well, I will
+tell you. I will make a father confessor of you. You are kind, I
+think—yes, I am sure you are kind.”
+
+Somehow, I was not quite as elated as I might have been. I remembered
+that Cynthia had begun her confidences in much the same way. Besides, a
+father confessor should be elderly, it is not at all the role for a
+young man.
+
+“My father was English,” said Mrs. Cavendish, “but my mother was a
+Russian.”
+
+“Ah,” I said, “now I understand——”
+
+“Understand what?”
+
+“A hint of something foreign—different—that there has always been about
+you.”
+
+“My mother was very beautiful, I believe. I don’t know, because I never
+saw her. She died when I was quite a little child. I believe there was
+some tragedy connected with her death—she took an overdose of some
+sleeping draught by mistake. However that may be, my father was
+broken-hearted. Shortly afterwards, he went into the Consular Service.
+Everywhere he went, I went with him. When I was twenty-three, I had
+been nearly all over the world. It was a splendid life—I loved it.”
+
+There was a smile on her face, and her head was thrown back. She seemed
+living in the memory of those old glad days.
+
+“Then my father died. He left me very badly off. I had to go and live
+with some old aunts in Yorkshire.” She shuddered. “You will understand
+me when I say that it was a deadly life for a girl brought up as I had
+been. The narrowness, the deadly monotony of it, almost drove me mad.”
+She paused a minute, and added in a different tone: “And then I met
+John Cavendish.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“You can imagine that, from my aunts’ point of view, it was a very good
+match for me. But I can honestly say it was not this fact which weighed
+with me. No, he was simply a way of escape from the insufferable
+monotony of my life.”
+
+I said nothing, and after a moment, she went on:
+
+“Don’t misunderstand me. I was quite honest with him. I told him, what
+was true, that I liked him very much, that I hoped to come to like him
+more, but that I was not in any way what the world calls ‘in love’ with
+him. He declared that that satisfied him, and so—we were married.”
+
+She waited a long time, a little frown had gathered on her forehead.
+She seemed to be looking back earnestly into those past days.
+
+“I think—I am sure—he cared for me at first. But I suppose we were not
+well matched. Almost at once, we drifted apart. He—it is not a pleasing
+thing for my pride, but it is the truth—tired of me very soon.” I must
+have made some murmur of dissent, for she went on quickly: “Oh, yes, he
+did! Not that it matters now—now that we’ve come to the parting of the
+ways.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+She answered quietly:
+
+“I mean that I am not going to remain at Styles.”
+
+“You and John are not going to live here?”
+
+“John may live here, but I shall not.”
+
+“You are going to leave him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+She paused a long time, and said at last:
+
+“Perhaps—because I want to be—free!”
+
+And, as she spoke, I had a sudden vision of broad spaces, virgin tracts
+of forests, untrodden lands—and a realization of what freedom would
+mean to such a nature as Mary Cavendish. I seemed to see her for a
+moment as she was, a proud wild creature, as untamed by civilization as
+some shy bird of the hills. A little cry broke from her lips:
+
+“You don’t know, you don’t know, how this hateful place has been prison
+to me!”
+
+“I understand,” I said, “but—but don’t do anything rash.”
+
+“Oh, rash!” Her voice mocked at my prudence.
+
+Then suddenly I said a thing I could have bitten out my tongue for:
+
+“You know that Dr. Bauerstein has been arrested?”
+
+An instant coldness passed like a mask over her face, blotting out all
+expression.
+
+“John was so kind as to break that to me this morning.”
+
+“Well, what do you think?” I asked feebly.
+
+“Of what?”
+
+“Of the arrest?”
+
+“What should I think? Apparently he is a German spy; so the gardener
+had told John.”
+
+Her face and voice were absolutely cold and expressionless. Did she
+care, or did she not?
+
+She moved away a step or two, and fingered one of the flower vases.
+
+“These are quite dead. I must do them again. Would you mind
+moving—thank you, Mr. Hastings.” And she walked quietly past me out of
+the window, with a cool little nod of dismissal.
+
+No, surely she could not care for Bauerstein. No woman could act her
+part with that icy unconcern.
+
+Poirot did not make his appearance the following morning, and there was
+no sign of the Scotland Yard men.
+
+But, at lunch-time, there arrived a new piece of evidence—or rather
+lack of evidence. We had vainly tried to trace the fourth letter, which
+Mrs. Inglethorp had written on the evening preceding her death. Our
+efforts having been in vain, we had abandoned the matter, hoping that
+it might turn up of itself one day. And this is just what did happen,
+in the shape of a communication, which arrived by the second post from
+a firm of French music publishers, acknowledging Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+cheque, and regretting they had been unable to trace a certain series
+of Russian folksongs. So the last hope of solving the mystery, by means
+of Mrs. Inglethorp’s correspondence on the fatal evening, had to be
+abandoned.
+
+Just before tea, I strolled down to tell Poirot of the new
+disappointment, but found, to my annoyance, that he was once more out.
+
+“Gone to London again?”
+
+“Oh, no, monsieur, he has but taken the train to Tadminster. ‘To see a
+young lady’s dispensary,’ he said.”
+
+“Silly ass!” I ejaculated. “I told him Wednesday was the one day she
+wasn’t there! Well, tell him to look us up to-morrow morning, will
+you?”
+
+“Certainly, monsieur.”
+
+But, on the following day, no sign of Poirot. I was getting angry. He
+was really treating us in the most cavalier fashion.
+
+After lunch, Lawrence drew me aside, and asked if I was going down to
+see him.
+
+“No, I don’t think I shall. He can come up here if he wants to see us.”
+
+“Oh!” Lawrence looked indeterminate. Something unusually nervous and
+excited in his manner roused my curiosity.
+
+“What is it?” I asked. “I could go if there’s anything special.”
+
+“It’s nothing much, but—well, if you are going, will you tell him——” he
+dropped his voice to a whisper—“I think I’ve found the extra
+coffee-cup!”
+
+I had almost forgotten that enigmatical message of Poirot’s, but now my
+curiosity was aroused afresh.
+
+Lawrence would say no more, so I decided that I would descend from my
+high horse, and once more seek out Poirot at Leastways Cottage.
+
+This time I was received with a smile. Monsieur Poirot was within.
+Would I mount? I mounted accordingly.
+
+Poirot was sitting by the table, his head buried in his hands. He
+sprang up at my entrance.
+
+“What is it?” I asked solicitously. “You are not ill, I trust?”
+
+“No, no, not ill. But I decide an affair of great moment.”
+
+“Whether to catch the criminal or not?” I asked facetiously.
+
+But, to my great surprise, Poirot nodded gravely.
+
+“‘To speak or not to speak,’ as your so great Shakespeare says, ‘that
+is the question.’”
+
+I did not trouble to correct the quotation.
+
+“You are not serious, Poirot?”
+
+“I am of the most serious. For the most serious of all things hangs in
+the balance.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“A woman’s happiness, _mon ami_,” he said gravely.
+
+I did not quite know what to say.
+
+“The moment has come,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “and I do not know
+what to do. For, see you, it is a big stake for which I play. No one
+but I, Hercule Poirot, would attempt it!” And he tapped himself proudly
+on the breast.
+
+After pausing a few minutes respectfully, so as not to spoil his
+effect, I gave him Lawrence’s message.
+
+“Aha!” he cried. “So he has found the extra coffee-cup. That is good.
+He has more intelligence than would appear, this long-faced Monsieur
+Lawrence of yours!”
+
+I did not myself think very highly of Lawrence’s intelligence; but I
+forebore to contradict Poirot, and gently took him to task for
+forgetting my instructions as to which were Cynthia’s days off.
+
+“It is true. I have the head of a sieve. However, the other young lady
+was most kind. She was sorry for my disappointment, and showed me
+everything in the kindest way.”
+
+“Oh, well, that’s all right, then, and you must go to tea with Cynthia
+another day.”
+
+I told him about the letter.
+
+“I am sorry for that,” he said. “I always had hopes of that letter. But
+no, it was not to be. This affair must all be unravelled from within.”
+He tapped his forehead. “These little grey cells. It is ‘up to them’—as
+you say over here.” Then, suddenly, he asked: “Are you a judge of
+finger-marks, my friend?”
+
+“No,” I said, rather surprised, “I know that there are no two
+finger-marks alike, but that’s as far as my science goes.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+He unlocked a little drawer, and took out some photographs which he
+laid on the table.
+
+“I have numbered them, 1, 2, 3. Will you describe them to me?”
+
+I studied the proofs attentively.
+
+“All greatly magnified, I see. No. 1, I should say, are a man’s
+finger-prints; thumb and first finger. No. 2 are a lady’s; they are
+much smaller, and quite different in every way. No. 3”—I paused for
+some time—“there seem to be a lot of confused finger-marks, but here,
+very distinctly, are No. 1’s.”
+
+“Overlapping the others?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You recognize them beyond fail?”
+
+“Oh, yes; they are identical.”
+
+Poirot nodded, and gently taking the photographs from me locked them up
+again.
+
+“I suppose,” I said, “that as usual, you are not going to explain?”
+
+“On the contrary. No. 1 were the finger-prints of Monsieur Lawrence.
+No. 2 were those of Mademoiselle Cynthia. They are not important. I
+merely obtained them for comparison. No. 3 is a little more
+complicated.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“It is, as you see, highly magnified. You may have noticed a sort of
+blur extending all across the picture. I will not describe to you the
+special apparatus, dusting powder, etc., which I used. It is a
+well-known process to the police, and by means of it you can obtain a
+photograph of the finger-prints of any object in a very short space of
+time. Well, my friend, you have seen the finger-marks—it remains to
+tell you the particular object on which they had been left.”
+
+“Go on—I am really excited.”
+
+“_Eh bien!_ Photo No. 3 represents the highly magnified surface of a
+tiny bottle in the top poison cupboard of the dispensary in the Red
+Cross Hospital at Tadminster—which sounds like the house that Jack
+built!”
+
+“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “But what were Lawrence Cavendish’s
+finger-marks doing on it? He never went near the poison cupboard the
+day we were there!”
+
+“Oh, yes, he did!”
+
+“Impossible! We were all together the whole time.”
+
+Poirot shook his head.
+
+“No, my friend, there was a moment when you were not all together.
+There was a moment when you could not have been all together, or it
+would not have been necessary to call to Monsieur Lawrence to come and
+join you on the balcony.”
+
+“I’d forgotten that,” I admitted. “But it was only for a moment.”
+
+“Long enough.”
+
+“Long enough for what?”
+
+Poirot’s smile became rather enigmatical.
+
+“Long enough for a gentleman who had once studied medicine to gratify a
+very natural interest and curiosity.”
+
+Our eyes met. Poirot’s were pleasantly vague. He got up and hummed a
+little tune. I watched him suspiciously.
+
+“Poirot,” I said, “what was in this particular little bottle?”
+
+Poirot looked out of the window.
+
+“Hydro-chloride of strychnine,” he said, over his shoulder, continuing
+to hum.
+
+“Good heavens!” I said it quite quietly. I was not surprised. I had
+expected that answer.
+
+“They use the pure hydro-chloride of strychnine very little—only
+occasionally for pills. It is the official solution, Liq. Strychnine
+Hydro-clor. that is used in most medicines. That is why the
+finger-marks have remained undisturbed since then.”
+
+“How did you manage to take this photograph?”
+
+“I dropped my hat from the balcony,” explained Poirot simply. “Visitors
+were not permitted below at that hour, so, in spite of my many
+apologies, Mademoiselle Cynthia’s colleague had to go down and fetch it
+for me.”
+
+“Then you knew what you were going to find?”
+
+“No, not at all. I merely realized that it was possible, from your
+story, for Monsieur Lawrence to go to the poison cupboard. The
+possibility had to be confirmed, or eliminated.”
+
+“Poirot,” I said, “your gaiety does not deceive me. This is a very
+important discovery.”
+
+“I do not know,” said Poirot. “But one thing does strike me. No doubt
+it has struck you too.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“Why, that there is altogether too much strychnine about this case.
+This is the third time we run up against it. There was strychnine in
+Mrs. Inglethorp’s tonic. There is the strychnine sold across the
+counter at Styles St. Mary by Mace. Now we have more strychnine,
+handled by one of the household. It is confusing; and, as you know, I
+do not like confusion.”
+
+Before I could reply, one of the other Belgians opened the door and
+stuck his head in.
+
+“There is a lady below, asking for Mr Hastings.”
+
+“A lady?”
+
+I jumped up. Poirot followed me down the narrow stairs. Mary Cavendish
+was standing in the doorway.
+
+“I have been visiting an old woman in the village,” she explained, “and
+as Lawrence told me you were with Monsieur Poirot I thought I would
+call for you.”
+
+“Alas, madame,” said Poirot, “I thought you had come to honour me with
+a visit!”
+
+“I will some day, if you ask me,” she promised him, smiling.
+
+“That is well. If you should need a father confessor, madame”—she
+started ever so slightly—“remember, Papa Poirot is always at your
+service.”
+
+She stared at him for a few minutes, as though seeking to read some
+deeper meaning into his words. Then she turned abruptly away.
+
+“Come, will you not walk back with us too, Monsieur Poirot?”
+
+“Enchanted, madame.”
+
+All the way to Styles, Mary talked fast and feverishly. It struck me
+that in some way she was nervous of Poirot’s eyes.
+
+The weather had broken, and the sharp wind was almost autumnal in its
+shrewishness. Mary shivered a little, and buttoned her black sports
+coat closer. The wind through the trees made a mournful noise, like
+some great giant sighing.
+
+We walked up to the great door of Styles, and at once the knowledge
+came to us that something was wrong.
+
+Dorcas came running out to meet us. She was crying and wringing her
+hands. I was aware of other servants huddled together in the
+background, all eyes and ears.
+
+“Oh, m’am! Oh, m’am! I don’t know how to tell you——”
+
+“What is it, Dorcas?” I asked impatiently. “Tell us at once.”
+
+“It’s those wicked detectives. They’ve arrested him—they’ve arrested
+Mr. Cavendish!”
+
+“Arrested Lawrence?” I gasped.
+
+I saw a strange look come into Dorcas’s eyes.
+
+“No, sir. Not Mr. Lawrence—Mr. John.”
+
+Behind me, with a wild cry, Mary Cavendish fell heavily against me, and
+as I turned to catch her I met the quiet triumph in Poirot’s eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
+
+The trial of John Cavendish for the murder of his stepmother took place
+two months later.
+
+Of the intervening weeks I will say little, but my admiration and
+sympathy went out unfeignedly to Mary Cavendish. She ranged herself
+passionately on her husband’s side, scorning the mere idea of his
+guilt, and fought for him tooth and nail.
+
+I expressed my admiration to Poirot, and he nodded thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes, she is of those women who show at their best in adversity. It
+brings out all that is sweetest and truest in them. Her pride and her
+jealousy have——”
+
+“Jealousy?” I queried.
+
+“Yes. Have you not realized that she is an unusually jealous woman? As
+I was saying, her pride and jealousy have been laid aside. She thinks
+of nothing but her husband, and the terrible fate that is hanging over
+him.”
+
+He spoke very feelingly, and I looked at him earnestly, remembering
+that last afternoon, when he had been deliberating whether or not to
+speak. With his tenderness for “a woman’s happiness,” I felt glad that
+the decision had been taken out of his hands.
+
+“Even now,” I said, “I can hardly believe it. You see, up to the very
+last minute, I thought it was Lawrence!”
+
+Poirot grinned.
+
+“I know you did.”
+
+“But John! My old friend John!”
+
+“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,” observed Poirot
+philosophically. “You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”
+
+“I must say I think you might have given me a hint.”
+
+“Perhaps, _mon ami_, I did not do so, just because he _was_ your old
+friend.”
+
+I was rather disconcerted by this, remembering how I had busily passed
+on to John what I believed to be Poirot’s views concerning Bauerstein.
+He, by the way, had been acquitted of the charge brought against him.
+Nevertheless, although he had been too clever for them this time, and
+the charge of espionage could not be brought home to him, his wings
+were pretty well clipped for the future.
+
+I asked Poirot whether he thought John would be condemned. To my
+intense surprise, he replied that, on the contrary, he was extremely
+likely to be acquitted.
+
+“But, Poirot——” I protested.
+
+“Oh, my friend, have I not said to you all along that I have no proofs.
+It is one thing to know that a man is guilty, it is quite another
+matter to prove him so. And, in this case, there is terribly little
+evidence. That is the whole trouble. I, Hercule Poirot, know, but I
+lack the last link in my chain. And unless I can find that missing
+link——” He shook his head gravely.
+
+“When did you first suspect John Cavendish?” I asked, after a minute or
+two.
+
+“Did you not suspect him at all?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“Not after that fragment of conversation you overheard between Mrs.
+Cavendish and her mother-in-law, and her subsequent lack of frankness
+at the inquest?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you not put two and two together, and reflect that if it was not
+Alfred Inglethorp who was quarrelling with his wife—and you remember,
+he strenuously denied it at the inquest—it must be either Lawrence or
+John. Now, if it was Lawrence, Mary Cavendish’s conduct was just as
+inexplicable. But if, on the other hand, it was John, the whole thing
+was explained quite naturally.”
+
+“So,” I cried, a light breaking in upon me, “it was John who quarrelled
+with his mother that afternoon?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“And you have known this all along?”
+
+“Certainly. Mrs. Cavendish’s behaviour could only be explained that
+way.”
+
+“And yet you say he may be acquitted?”
+
+Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Certainly I do. At the police court proceedings, we shall hear the
+case for the prosecution, but in all probability his solicitors will
+advise him to reserve his defence. That will be sprung upon us at the
+trial. And—ah, by the way, I have a word of caution to give you, my
+friend. I must not appear in the case.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“No. Officially, I have nothing to do with it. Until I have found that
+last link in my chain, I must remain behind the scenes. Mrs. Cavendish
+must think I am working for her husband, not against him.”
+
+“I say, that’s playing it a bit low down,” I protested.
+
+“Not at all. We have to deal with a most clever and unscrupulous man,
+and we must use any means in our power—otherwise he will slip through
+our fingers. That is why I have been careful to remain in the
+background. All the discoveries have been made by Japp, and Japp will
+take all the credit. If I am called upon to give evidence at all”—he
+smiled broadly—“it will probably be as a witness for the defence.”
+
+I could hardly believe my ears.
+
+“It is quite _en règle_,” continued Poirot. “Strangely enough, I can
+give evidence that will demolish one contention of the prosecution.”
+
+“Which one?”
+
+“The one that relates to the destruction of the will. John Cavendish
+did not destroy that will.”
+
+Poirot was a true prophet. I will not go into the details of the police
+court proceedings, as it involves many tiresome repetitions. I will
+merely state baldly that John Cavendish reserved his defence, and was
+duly committed for trial.
+
+September found us all in London. Mary took a house in Kensington,
+Poirot being included in the family party.
+
+I myself had been given a job at the War Office, so was able to see
+them continually.
+
+As the weeks went by, the state of Poirot’s nerves grew worse and
+worse. That “last link” he talked about was still lacking. Privately, I
+hoped it might remain so, for what happiness could there be for Mary,
+if John were not acquitted?
+
+On September 15th John Cavendish appeared in the dock at the Old
+Bailey, charged with “The Wilful Murder of Emily Agnes Inglethorp,” and
+pleaded “Not Guilty.”
+
+Sir Ernest Heavywether, the famous K.C., had been engaged to defend
+him.
+
+Mr. Philips, K.C., opened the case for the Crown.
+
+The murder, he said, was a most premeditated and cold-blooded one. It
+was neither more nor less than the deliberate poisoning of a fond and
+trusting woman by the stepson to whom she had been more than a mother.
+Ever since his boyhood, she had supported him. He and his wife had
+lived at Styles Court in every luxury, surrounded by her care and
+attention. She had been their kind and generous benefactress.
+
+He proposed to call witnesses to show how the prisoner, a profligate
+and spendthrift, had been at the end of his financial tether, and had
+also been carrying on an intrigue with a certain Mrs. Raikes, a
+neighbouring farmer’s wife. This having come to his stepmother’s ears,
+she taxed him with it on the afternoon before her death, and a quarrel
+ensued, part of which was overheard. On the previous day, the prisoner
+had purchased strychnine at the village chemist’s shop, wearing a
+disguise by means of which he hoped to throw the onus of the crime upon
+another man—to wit, Mrs. Inglethorp’s husband, of whom he had been
+bitterly jealous. Luckily for Mr. Inglethorp, he had been able to
+produce an unimpeachable alibi.
+
+On the afternoon of July 17th, continued Counsel, immediately after the
+quarrel with her son, Mrs. Inglethorp made a new will. This will was
+found destroyed in the grate of her bedroom the following morning, but
+evidence had come to light which showed that it had been drawn up in
+favour of her husband. Deceased had already made a will in his favour
+before her marriage, but—and Mr. Philips wagged an expressive
+forefinger—the prisoner was not aware of that. What had induced the
+deceased to make a fresh will, with the old one still extant, he could
+not say. She was an old lady, and might possibly have forgotten the
+former one; or—this seemed to him more likely—she may have had an idea
+that it was revoked by her marriage, as there had been some
+conversation on the subject. Ladies were not always very well versed in
+legal knowledge. She had, about a year before, executed a will in
+favour of the prisoner. He would call evidence to show that it was the
+prisoner who ultimately handed his stepmother her coffee on the fatal
+night. Later in the evening, he had sought admission to her room, on
+which occasion, no doubt, he found an opportunity of destroying the
+will which, as far as he knew, would render the one in his favour
+valid.
+
+The prisoner had been arrested in consequence of the discovery, in his
+room, by Detective Inspector Japp—a most brilliant officer—of the
+identical phial of strychnine which had been sold at the village
+chemist’s to the supposed Mr. Inglethorp on the day before the murder.
+It would be for the jury to decide whether or not these damning facts
+constituted an overwhelming proof of the prisoner’s guilt.
+
+And, subtly implying that a jury which did not so decide, was quite
+unthinkable, Mr. Philips sat down and wiped his forehead.
+
+The first witnesses for the prosecution were mostly those who had been
+called at the inquest, the medical evidence being again taken first.
+
+Sir Ernest Heavywether, who was famous all over England for the
+unscrupulous manner in which he bullied witnesses, only asked two
+questions.
+
+“I take it, Dr. Bauerstein, that strychnine, as a drug, acts quickly?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And that you are unable to account for the delay in this case?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+Mr. Mace identified the phial handed him by Counsel as that sold by him
+to “Mr. Inglethorp.” Pressed, he admitted that he only knew Mr.
+Inglethorp by sight. He had never spoken to him. The witness was not
+cross-examined.
+
+Alfred Inglethorp was called, and denied having purchased the poison.
+He also denied having quarrelled with his wife. Various witnesses
+testified to the accuracy of these statements.
+
+The gardeners’ evidence, as to the witnessing of the will was taken,
+and then Dorcas was called.
+
+Dorcas, faithful to her “young gentlemen,” denied strenuously that it
+could have been John’s voice she heard, and resolutely declared, in the
+teeth of everything, that it was Mr. Inglethorp who had been in the
+boudoir with her mistress. A rather wistful smile passed across the
+face of the prisoner in the dock. He knew only too well how useless her
+gallant defiance was, since it was not the object of the defence to
+deny this point. Mrs. Cavendish, of course, could not be called upon to
+give evidence against her husband.
+
+After various questions on other matters, Mr. Philips asked:
+
+“In the month of June last, do you remember a parcel arriving for Mr.
+Lawrence Cavendish from Parkson’s?”
+
+Dorcas shook her head.
+
+“I don’t remember, sir. It may have done, but Mr. Lawrence was away
+from home part of June.”
+
+“In the event of a parcel arriving for him whilst he was away, what
+would be done with it?”
+
+“It would either be put in his room or sent on after him.”
+
+“By you?”
+
+“No, sir, I should leave it on the hall table. It would be Miss Howard
+who would attend to anything like that.”
+
+Evelyn Howard was called and, after being examined on other points, was
+questioned as to the parcel.
+
+“Don’t remember. Lots of parcels come. Can’t remember one special one.”
+
+“You do not know if it was sent after Mr. Lawrence Cavendish to Wales,
+or whether it was put in his room?”
+
+“Don’t think it was sent after him. Should have remembered it if it
+was.”
+
+“Supposing a parcel arrived addressed to Mr. Lawrence Cavendish, and
+afterwards it disappeared, should you remark its absence?”
+
+“No, don’t think so. I should think someone had taken charge of it.”
+
+“I believe, Miss Howard, that it was you who found this sheet of brown
+paper?” He held up the same dusty piece which Poirot and I had examined
+in the morning-room at Styles.
+
+“Yes, I did.”
+
+“How did you come to look for it?”
+
+“The Belgian detective who was employed on the case asked me to search
+for it.”
+
+“Where did you eventually discover it?”
+
+“On the top of—of—a wardrobe.”
+
+“On top of the prisoner’s wardrobe?”
+
+“I—I believe so.”
+
+“Did you not find it yourself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you must know where you found it?”
+
+“Yes, it was on the prisoner’s wardrobe.”
+
+“That is better.”
+
+An assistant from Parkson’s, Theatrical Costumiers, testified that on
+June 29th, they had supplied a black beard to Mr. L. Cavendish, as
+requested. It was ordered by letter, and a postal order was enclosed.
+No, they had not kept the letter. All transactions were entered in
+their books. They had sent the beard, as directed, to “L. Cavendish,
+Esq., Styles Court.”
+
+Sir Ernest Heavywether rose ponderously.
+
+“Where was the letter written from?”
+
+“From Styles Court.”
+
+“The same address to which you sent the parcel?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the letter came from there?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Like a beast of prey, Heavywether fell upon him:
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“I—I don’t understand.”
+
+“How do you know that letter came from Styles? Did you notice the
+postmark?”
+
+“No—but——”
+
+“Ah, you did _not_ notice the postmark! And yet you affirm so
+confidently that it came from Styles. It might, in fact, have been any
+postmark?”
+
+“Y—es.”
+
+“In fact, the letter, though written on stamped notepaper, might have
+been posted from anywhere? From Wales, for instance?”
+
+The witness admitted that such might be the case, and Sir Ernest
+signified that he was satisfied.
+
+Elizabeth Wells, second housemaid at Styles, stated that after she had
+gone to bed she remembered that she had bolted the front door, instead
+of leaving it on the latch as Mr. Inglethorp had requested. She had
+accordingly gone downstairs again to rectify her error. Hearing a
+slight noise in the West wing, she had peeped along the passage, and
+had seen Mr. John Cavendish knocking at Mrs. Inglethorp’s door.
+
+Sir Ernest Heavywether made short work of her, and under his unmerciful
+bullying she contradicted herself hopelessly, and Sir Ernest sat down
+again with a satisfied smile on his face.
+
+With the evidence of Annie, as to the candle grease on the floor, and
+as to seeing the prisoner take the coffee into the boudoir, the
+proceedings were adjourned until the following day.
+
+As we went home, Mary Cavendish spoke bitterly against the prosecuting
+counsel.
+
+“That hateful man! What a net he has drawn around my poor John! How he
+twisted every little fact until he made it seem what it wasn’t!”
+
+“Well,” I said consolingly, “it will be the other way about to-morrow.”
+
+“Yes,” she said meditatively; then suddenly dropped her voice. “Mr.
+Hastings, you do not think—surely it could not have been Lawrence—Oh,
+no, that could not be!”
+
+But I myself was puzzled, and as soon as I was alone with Poirot I
+asked him what he thought Sir Ernest was driving at.
+
+“Ah!” said Poirot appreciatively. “He is a clever man, that Sir
+Ernest.”
+
+“Do you think he believes Lawrence guilty?”
+
+“I do not think he believes or cares anything! No, what he is trying
+for is to create such confusion in the minds of the jury that they are
+divided in their opinion as to which brother did it. He is endeavouring
+to make out that there is quite as much evidence against Lawrence as
+against John—and I am not at all sure that he will not succeed.”
+
+Detective-inspector Japp was the first witness called when the trial
+was reopened, and gave his evidence succinctly and briefly. After
+relating the earlier events, he proceeded:
+
+“Acting on information received, Superintendent Summerhaye and myself
+searched the prisoner’s room, during his temporary absence from the
+house. In his chest of drawers, hidden beneath some underclothing, we
+found: first, a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez similar to those worn by
+Mr. Inglethorp”—these were exhibited—“secondly, this phial.”
+
+The phial was that already recognized by the chemist’s assistant, a
+tiny bottle of blue glass, containing a few grains of a white
+crystalline powder, and labelled: “Strychnine Hydro-chloride. POISON.”
+
+A fresh piece of evidence discovered by the detectives since the police
+court proceedings was a long, almost new piece of blotting-paper. It
+had been found in Mrs. Inglethorp’s cheque book, and on being reversed
+at a mirror, showed clearly the words: “. . . erything of which I die
+possessed I leave to my beloved husband Alfred Ing...” This placed
+beyond question the fact that the destroyed will had been in favour of
+the deceased lady’s husband. Japp then produced the charred fragment of
+paper recovered from the grate, and this, with the discovery of the
+beard in the attic, completed his evidence.
+
+But Sir Ernest’s cross-examination was yet to come.
+
+“What day was it when you searched the prisoner’s room?”
+
+“Tuesday, the 24th of July.”
+
+“Exactly a week after the tragedy?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You found these two objects, you say, in the chest of drawers. Was the
+drawer unlocked?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Does it not strike you as unlikely that a man who had committed a
+crime should keep the evidence of it in an unlocked drawer for anyone
+to find?”
+
+“He might have stowed them there in a hurry.”
+
+“But you have just said it was a whole week since the crime. He would
+have had ample time to remove them and destroy them.”
+
+“Perhaps.”
+
+“There is no perhaps about it. Would he, or would he not have had
+plenty of time to remove and destroy them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Was the pile of underclothes under which the things were hidden heavy
+or light?”
+
+“Heavyish.”
+
+“In other words, it was winter underclothing. Obviously, the prisoner
+would not be likely to go to that drawer?”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“Kindly answer my question. Would the prisoner, in the hottest week of
+a hot summer, be likely to go to a drawer containing winter
+underclothing. Yes, or no?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“In that case, is it not possible that the articles in question might
+have been put there by a third person, and that the prisoner was quite
+unaware of their presence?”
+
+“I should not think it likely.”
+
+“But it is possible?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+More evidence followed. Evidence as to the financial difficulties in
+which the prisoner had found himself at the end of July. Evidence as to
+his intrigue with Mrs. Raikes—poor Mary, that must have been bitter
+hearing for a woman of her pride. Evelyn Howard had been right in her
+facts, though her animosity against Alfred Inglethorp had caused her to
+jump to the conclusion that he was the person concerned.
+
+Lawrence Cavendish was then put into the box. In a low voice, in answer
+to Mr. Philips’ questions, he denied having ordered anything from
+Parkson’s in June. In fact, on June 29th, he had been staying away, in
+Wales.
+
+Instantly, Sir Ernest’s chin was shooting pugnaciously forward.
+
+“You deny having ordered a black beard from Parkson’s on June 29th?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Ah! In the event of anything happening to your brother, who will
+inherit Styles Court?”
+
+The brutality of the question called a flush to Lawrence’s pale face.
+The judge gave vent to a faint murmur of disapprobation, and the
+prisoner in the dock leant forward angrily.
+
+Heavywether cared nothing for his client’s anger.
+
+“Answer my question, if you please.”
+
+“I suppose,” said Lawrence quietly, “that I should.”
+
+“What do you mean by you ‘suppose’? Your brother has no children. You
+_would_ inherit it, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Ah, that’s better,” said Heavywether, with ferocious geniality. “And
+you’d inherit a good slice of money too, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Really, Sir Ernest,” protested the judge, “these questions are not
+relevant.”
+
+Sir Ernest bowed, and having shot his arrow proceeded.
+
+“On Tuesday, the 17th July, you went, I believe, with another guest, to
+visit the dispensary at the Red Cross Hospital in Tadminster?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you—while you happened to be alone for a few seconds—unlock the
+poison cupboard, and examine some of the bottles?”
+
+“I—I—may have done so.”
+
+“I put it to you that you did do so?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Sir Ernest fairly shot the next question at him.
+
+“Did you examine one bottle in particular?”
+
+“No, I do not think so.”
+
+“Be careful, Mr. Cavendish. I am referring to a little bottle of
+Hydro-chloride of Strychnine.”
+
+Lawrence was turning a sickly greenish colour.
+
+“N—o—I am sure I didn’t.”
+
+“Then how do you account for the fact that you left the unmistakable
+impress of your finger-prints on it?”
+
+The bullying manner was highly efficacious with a nervous disposition.
+
+“I—I suppose I must have taken up the bottle.”
+
+“I suppose so too! Did you abstract any of the contents of the bottle?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Then why did you take it up?”
+
+“I once studied to be a doctor. Such things naturally interest me.”
+
+“Ah! So poisons ‘naturally interest’ you, do they? Still, you waited to
+be alone before gratifying that ‘interest’ of yours?”
+
+“That was pure chance. If the others had been there, I should have done
+just the same.”
+
+“Still, as it happens, the others were not there?”
+
+“No, but——”
+
+“In fact, during the whole afternoon, you were only alone for a couple
+of minutes, and it happened—I say, it happened—to be during those two
+minutes that you displayed your ‘natural interest’ in Hydro-chloride of
+Strychnine?”
+
+Lawrence stammered pitiably.
+
+“I—I——”
+
+With a satisfied and expressive countenance, Sir Ernest observed:
+
+“I have nothing more to ask you, Mr. Cavendish.”
+
+This bit of cross-examination had caused great excitement in court. The
+heads of the many fashionably attired women present were busily laid
+together, and their whispers became so loud that the judge angrily
+threatened to have the court cleared if there was not immediate
+silence.
+
+There was little more evidence. The hand-writing experts were called
+upon for their opinion of the signature of “Alfred Inglethorp” in the
+chemist’s poison register. They all declared unanimously that it was
+certainly not his hand-writing, and gave it as their view that it might
+be that of the prisoner disguised. Cross-examined, they admitted that
+it might be the prisoner’s hand-writing cleverly counterfeited.
+
+Sir Ernest Heavywether’s speech in opening the case for the defence was
+not a long one, but it was backed by the full force of his emphatic
+manner. Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he
+known a charge of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it
+entirely circumstantial, but the greater part of it was practically
+unproved. Let them take the testimony they had heard and sift it
+impartially. The strychnine had been found in a drawer in the
+prisoner’s room. That drawer was an unlocked one, as he had pointed
+out, and he submitted that there was no evidence to prove that it was
+the prisoner who had concealed the poison there. It was, in fact, a
+wicked and malicious attempt on the part of some third person to fix
+the crime on the prisoner. The prosecution had been unable to produce a
+shred of evidence in support of their contention that it was the
+prisoner who ordered the black beard from Parkson’s. The quarrel which
+had taken place between prisoner and his stepmother was freely
+admitted, but both it and his financial embarrassments had been grossly
+exaggerated.
+
+His learned friend—Sir Ernest nodded carelessly at Mr. Philips—had
+stated that if the prisoner were an innocent man, he would have come
+forward at the inquest to explain that it was he, and not Mr.
+Inglethorp, who had been the participator in the quarrel. He thought
+the facts had been misrepresented. What had actually occurred was this.
+The prisoner, returning to the house on Tuesday evening, had been
+authoritatively told that there had been a violent quarrel between Mr.
+and Mrs. Inglethorp. No suspicion had entered the prisoner’s head that
+anyone could possibly have mistaken his voice for that of Mr.
+Inglethorp. He naturally concluded that his stepmother had had two
+quarrels.
+
+The prosecution averred that on Monday, July 16th, the prisoner had
+entered the chemist’s shop in the village, disguised as Mr. Inglethorp.
+The prisoner, on the contrary, was at that time at a lonely spot called
+Marston’s Spinney, where he had been summoned by an anonymous note,
+couched in blackmailing terms, and threatening to reveal certain
+matters to his wife unless he complied with its demands. The prisoner
+had, accordingly, gone to the appointed spot, and after waiting there
+vainly for half an hour had returned home. Unfortunately, he had met
+with no one on the way there or back who could vouch for the truth of
+his story, but luckily he had kept the note, and it would be produced
+as evidence.
+
+As for the statement relating to the destruction of the will, the
+prisoner had formerly practised at the Bar, and was perfectly well
+aware that the will made in his favour a year before was automatically
+revoked by his stepmother’s remarriage. He would call evidence to show
+who did destroy the will, and it was possible that that might open up
+quite a new view of the case.
+
+Finally, he would point out to the jury that there was evidence against
+other people besides John Cavendish. He would direct their attention to
+the fact that the evidence against Mr. Lawrence Cavendish was quite as
+strong, if not stronger than that against his brother.
+
+He would now call the prisoner.
+
+John acquitted himself well in the witness-box. Under Sir Ernest’s
+skilful handling, he told his tale credibly and well. The anonymous
+note received by him was produced, and handed to the jury to examine.
+The readiness with which he admitted his financial difficulties, and
+the disagreement with his stepmother, lent value to his denials.
+
+At the close of his examination, he paused, and said:
+
+“I should like to make one thing clear. I utterly reject and disapprove
+of Sir Ernest Heavywether’s insinuations against my brother. My
+brother, I am convinced, had no more to do with the crime than I have.”
+
+Sir Ernest merely smiled, and noted with a sharp eye that John’s
+protest had produced a very favourable impression on the jury.
+
+Then the cross-examination began.
+
+“I understand you to say that it never entered your head that the
+witnesses at the inquest could possibly have mistaken your voice for
+that of Mr. Inglethorp. Is not that very surprising?”
+
+“No, I don’t think so. I was told there had been a quarrel between my
+mother and Mr. Inglethorp, and it never occurred to me that such was
+not really the case.”
+
+“Not when the servant Dorcas repeated certain fragments of the
+conversation—fragments which you must have recognized?”
+
+“I did not recognize them.”
+
+“Your memory must be unusually short!”
+
+“No, but we were both angry, and, I think, said more than we meant. I
+paid very little attention to my mother’s actual words.”
+
+Mr. Philips’ incredulous sniff was a triumph of forensic skill. He
+passed on to the subject of the note.
+
+“You have produced this note very opportunely. Tell me, is there
+nothing familiar about the hand-writing of it?”
+
+“Not that I know of.”
+
+“Do you not think that it bears a marked resemblance to your own
+hand-writing—carelessly disguised?”
+
+“No, I do not think so.”
+
+“I put it to you that it is your own hand-writing!”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I put it to you that, anxious to prove an alibi, you conceived the
+idea of a fictitious and rather incredible appointment, and wrote this
+note yourself in order to bear out your statement!”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Is it not a fact that, at the time you claim to have been waiting
+about at a solitary and unfrequented spot, you were really in the
+chemist’s shop in Styles St. Mary, where you purchased strychnine in
+the name of Alfred Inglethorp?”
+
+“No, that is a lie.”
+
+“I put it to you that, wearing a suit of Mr. Inglethorp’s clothes, with
+a black beard trimmed to resemble his, you were there—and signed the
+register in his name!”
+
+“That is absolutely untrue.”
+
+“Then I will leave the remarkable similarity of hand-writing between
+the note, the register, and your own, to the consideration of the
+jury,” said Mr. Philips, and sat down with the air of a man who has
+done his duty, but who was nevertheless horrified by such deliberate
+perjury.
+
+After this, as it was growing late, the case was adjourned till Monday.
+
+Poirot, I noticed, was looking profoundly discouraged. He had that
+little frown between the eyes that I knew so well.
+
+“What is it, Poirot?” I inquired.
+
+“Ah, _mon ami_, things are going badly, badly.”
+
+In spite of myself, my heart gave a leap of relief. Evidently there was
+a likelihood of John Cavendish being acquitted.
+
+When we reached the house, my little friend waved aside Mary’s offer of
+tea.
+
+“No, I thank you, madame. I will mount to my room.”
+
+I followed him. Still frowning, he went across to the desk and took out
+a small pack of patience cards. Then he drew up a chair to the table,
+and, to my utter amazement, began solemnly to build card houses!
+
+My jaw dropped involuntarily, and he said at once:
+
+“No, _mon ami_, I am not in my second childhood! I steady my nerves,
+that is all. This employment requires precision of the fingers. With
+precision of the fingers goes precision of the brain. And never have I
+needed that more than now!”
+
+“What is the trouble?” I asked.
+
+With a great thump on the table, Poirot demolished his carefully built
+up edifice.
+
+“It is this, _mon ami!_ That I can build card houses seven stories
+high, but I cannot”—thump—“find”—thump—“ that last link of which I
+spoke to you.”
+
+I could not quite tell what to say, so I held my peace, and he began
+slowly building up the cards again, speaking in jerks as he did so.
+
+“It is done—so! By placing—one card—on another—with
+mathematical—precision!”
+
+I watched the card house rising under his hands, story by story. He
+never hesitated or faltered. It was really almost like a conjuring
+trick.
+
+“What a steady hand you’ve got,” I remarked. “I believe I’ve only seen
+your hand shake once.”
+
+“On an occasion when I was enraged, without doubt,” observed Poirot,
+with great placidity.
+
+“Yes indeed! You were in a towering rage. Do you remember? It was when
+you discovered that the lock of the despatch-case in Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+bedroom had been forced. You stood by the mantelpiece, twiddling the
+things on it in your usual fashion, and your hand shook like a leaf! I
+must say——”
+
+But I stopped suddenly. For Poirot, uttering a hoarse and inarticulate
+cry, again annihilated his masterpiece of cards, and putting his hands
+over his eyes swayed backwards and forwards, apparently suffering the
+keenest agony.
+
+“Good heavens, Poirot!” I cried. “What is the matter? Are you taken
+ill?”
+
+“No, no,” he gasped. “It is—it is—that I have an idea!”
+
+“Oh!” I exclaimed, much relieved. “One of your ‘little ideas’?”
+
+“Ah, _ma foi_, no!” replied Poirot frankly. “This time it is an idea
+gigantic! Stupendous! And you—_you_, my friend, have given it to me!”
+
+Suddenly clasping me in his arms, he kissed me warmly on both cheeks,
+and before I had recovered from my surprise ran headlong from the room.
+
+Mary Cavendish entered at that moment.
+
+“What _is_ the matter with Monsieur Poirot? He rushed past me crying
+out: ‘A garage! For the love of Heaven, direct me to a garage, madame!’
+And, before I could answer, he had dashed out into the street.”
+
+I hurried to the window. True enough, there he was, tearing down the
+street, hatless, and gesticulating as he went. I turned to Mary with a
+gesture of despair.
+
+“He’ll be stopped by a policeman in another minute. There he goes,
+round the corner!”
+
+Our eyes met, and we stared helplessly at one another.
+
+“What can be the matter?”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“I don’t know. He was building card houses, when suddenly he said he
+had an idea, and rushed off as you saw.”
+
+“Well,” said Mary, “I expect he will be back before dinner.”
+
+But night fell, and Poirot had not returned.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE LAST LINK
+
+Poirot’s abrupt departure had intrigued us all greatly. Sunday morning
+wore away, and still he did not reappear. But about three o’clock a
+ferocious and prolonged hooting outside drove us to the window, to see
+Poirot alighting from a car, accompanied by Japp and Summerhaye. The
+little man was transformed. He radiated an absurd complacency. He bowed
+with exaggerated respect to Mary Cavendish.
+
+“Madame, I have your permission to hold a little _réunion_ in the
+_salon_? It is necessary for everyone to attend.”
+
+Mary smiled sadly.
+
+“You know, Monsieur Poirot, that you have _carte blanche_ in every
+way.”
+
+“You are too amiable, madame.”
+
+Still beaming, Poirot marshalled us all into the drawing-room, bringing
+forward chairs as he did so.
+
+“Miss Howard—here. Mademoiselle Cynthia. Monsieur Lawrence. The good
+Dorcas. And Annie. _Bien!_ We must delay our proceedings a few minutes
+until Mr. Inglethorp arrives. I have sent him a note.”
+
+Miss Howard rose immediately from her seat.
+
+“If that man comes into the house, I leave it!”
+
+“No, no!” Poirot went up to her and pleaded in a low voice.
+
+Finally Miss Howard consented to return to her chair. A few minutes
+later Alfred Inglethorp entered the room.
+
+The company once assembled, Poirot rose from his seat with the air of a
+popular lecturer, and bowed politely to his audience.
+
+“_Messieurs, mesdames_, as you all know, I was called in by Monsieur
+John Cavendish to investigate this case. I at once examined the bedroom
+of the deceased which, by the advice of the doctors, had been kept
+locked, and was consequently exactly as it had been when the tragedy
+occurred. I found: first, a fragment of green material; second, a stain
+on the carpet near the window, still damp; thirdly, an empty box of
+bromide powders.
+
+“To take the fragment of green material first, I found it caught in the
+bolt of the communicating door between that room and the adjoining one
+occupied by Mademoiselle Cynthia. I handed the fragment over to the
+police who did not consider it of much importance. Nor did they
+recognize it for what it was—a piece torn from a green land armlet.”
+
+There was a little stir of excitement.
+
+“Now there was only one person at Styles who worked on the land—Mrs.
+Cavendish. Therefore it must have been Mrs. Cavendish who entered the
+deceased’s room through the door communicating with Mademoiselle
+Cynthia’s room.”
+
+“But that door was bolted on the inside!” I cried.
+
+“When I examined the room, yes. But in the first place we have only her
+word for it, since it was she who tried that particular door and
+reported it fastened. In the ensuing confusion she would have had ample
+opportunity to shoot the bolt across. I took an early opportunity of
+verifying my conjectures. To begin with, the fragment corresponds
+exactly with a tear in Mrs. Cavendish’s armlet. Also, at the inquest,
+Mrs. Cavendish declared that she had heard, from her own room, the fall
+of the table by the bed. I took an early opportunity of testing that
+statement by stationing my friend Monsieur Hastings in the left wing of
+the building, just outside Mrs. Cavendish’s door. I myself, in company
+with the police, went to the deceased’s room, and whilst there I,
+apparently accidentally, knocked over the table in question, but found
+that, as I had expected, Monsieur Hastings had heard no sound at all.
+This confirmed my belief that Mrs. Cavendish was not speaking the truth
+when she declared that she had been dressing in her room at the time of
+the tragedy. In fact, I was convinced that, far from having been in her
+own room, Mrs. Cavendish was actually in the deceased’s room when the
+alarm was given.”
+
+I shot a quick glance at Mary. She was very pale, but smiling.
+
+“I proceeded to reason on that assumption. Mrs. Cavendish is in her
+mother-in-law’s room. We will say that she is seeking for something and
+has not yet found it. Suddenly Mrs. Inglethorp awakens and is seized
+with an alarming paroxysm. She flings out her arm, overturning the bed
+table, and then pulls desperately at the bell. Mrs. Cavendish,
+startled, drops her candle, scattering the grease on the carpet. She
+picks it up, and retreats quickly to Mademoiselle Cynthia’s room,
+closing the door behind her. She hurries out into the passage, for the
+servants must not find her where she is. But it is too late! Already
+footsteps are echoing along the gallery which connects the two wings.
+What can she do? Quick as thought, she hurries back to the young girl’s
+room, and starts shaking her awake. The hastily aroused household come
+trooping down the passage. They are all busily battering at Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s door. It occurs to nobody that Mrs. Cavendish has not
+arrived with the rest, but—and this is significant—I can find no one
+who saw her come from the other wing.” He looked at Mary Cavendish. “Am
+I right, madame?”
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+“Quite right, monsieur. You understand that, if I had thought I would
+do my husband any good by revealing these facts, I would have done so.
+But it did not seem to me to bear upon the question of his guilt or
+innocence.”
+
+“In a sense, that is correct, madame. But it cleared my mind of many
+misconceptions, and left me free to see other facts in their true
+significance.”
+
+“The will!” cried Lawrence. “Then it was you, Mary, who destroyed the
+will?”
+
+She shook her head, and Poirot shook his also.
+
+“No,” he said quietly. “There is only one person who could possibly
+have destroyed that will—Mrs. Inglethorp herself!”
+
+“Impossible!” I exclaimed. “She had only made it out that very
+afternoon!”
+
+“Nevertheless, _mon ami_, it was Mrs. Inglethorp. Because, in no other
+way can you account for the fact that, on one of the hottest days of
+the year, Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire to be lighted in her room.”
+
+I gave a gasp. What idiots we had been never to think of that fire as
+being incongruous! Poirot was continuing:
+
+“The temperature on that day, messieurs, was 80 degrees in the shade.
+Yet Mrs. Inglethorp ordered a fire! Why? Because she wished to destroy
+something, and could think of no other way. You will remember that, in
+consequence of the War economics practiced at Styles, no waste paper
+was thrown away. There was therefore no means of destroying a thick
+document such as a will. The moment I heard of a fire being lighted in
+Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, I leaped to the conclusion that it was to
+destroy some important document—possibly a will. So the discovery of
+the charred fragment in the grate was no surprise to me. I did not, of
+course, know at the time that the will in question had only been made
+this afternoon, and I will admit that, when I learnt that fact, I fell
+into a grievous error. I came to the conclusion that Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+determination to destroy her will arose as a direct consequence of the
+quarrel she had that afternoon, and that therefore the quarrel took
+place after, and not before the making of the will.
+
+“Here, as we know, I was wrong, and I was forced to abandon that idea.
+I faced the problem from a new standpoint. Now, at four o’clock, Dorcas
+overheard her mistress saying angrily: ‘You need not think that any
+fear of publicity, or scandal between husband and wife will deter me.”
+I conjectured, and conjectured rightly, that these words were
+addressed, not to her husband, but to Mr. John Cavendish. At five
+o’clock, an hour later, she uses almost the same words, but the
+standpoint is different. She admits to Dorcas, ‘I don’t know what to
+do; scandal between husband and wife is a dreadful thing.’ At four
+o’clock she has been angry, but completely mistress of herself. At five
+o’clock she is in violent distress, and speaks of having had a great
+shock.
+
+“Looking at the matter psychologically, I drew one deduction which I
+was convinced was correct. The second ‘scandal’ she spoke of was not
+the same as the first—and it concerned herself!
+
+“Let us reconstruct. At four o’clock, Mrs. Inglethorp quarrels with her
+son, and threatens to denounce him to his wife—who, by the way,
+overheard the greater part of the conversation. At four-thirty, Mrs.
+Inglethorp, in consequence of a conversation on the validity of wills,
+makes a will in favour of her husband, which the two gardeners witness.
+At five o’clock, Dorcas finds her mistress in a state of considerable
+agitation, with a slip of paper—‘a letter,’ Dorcas thinks—in her hand,
+and it is then that she orders the fire in her room to be lighted.
+Presumably, then, between four-thirty and five o’clock, something has
+occurred to occasion a complete revolution of feeling, since she is now
+as anxious to destroy the will, as she was before to make it. What was
+that something?
+
+“As far as we know, she was quite alone during that half-hour. Nobody
+entered or left that boudoir. What then occasioned this sudden change
+of sentiment?
+
+“One can only guess, but I believe my guess to be correct. Mrs.
+Inglethorp had no stamps in her desk. We know this, because later she
+asked Dorcas to bring her some. Now in the opposite corner of the room
+stood her husband’s desk—locked. She was anxious to find some stamps,
+and, according to my theory, she tried her own keys in the desk. That
+one of them fitted I know. She therefore opened the desk, and in
+searching for the stamps she came across something else—that slip of
+paper which Dorcas saw in her hand, and which assuredly was never meant
+for Mrs. Inglethorp’s eyes. On the other hand, Mrs. Cavendish believed
+that the slip of paper to which her mother-in-law clung so tenaciously
+was a written proof of her own husband’s infidelity. She demanded it
+from Mrs. Inglethorp who assured her, quite truly, that it had nothing
+to do with that matter. Mrs. Cavendish did not believe her. She thought
+that Mrs. Inglethorp was shielding her stepson. Now Mrs. Cavendish is a
+very resolute woman, and, behind her mask of reserve, she was madly
+jealous of her husband. She determined to get hold of that paper at all
+costs, and in this resolution chance came to her aid. She happened to
+pick up the key of Mrs. Inglethorp’s despatch-case, which had been lost
+that morning. She knew that her mother-in-law invariably kept all
+important papers in this particular case.
+
+“Mrs. Cavendish, therefore, made her plans as only a woman driven
+desperate through jealousy could have done. Some time in the evening
+she unbolted the door leading into Mademoiselle Cynthia’s room.
+Possibly she applied oil to the hinges, for I found that it opened
+quite noiselessly when I tried it. She put off her project until the
+early hours of the morning as being safer, since the servants were
+accustomed to hearing her move about her room at that time. She dressed
+completely in her land kit, and made her way quietly through
+Mademoiselle Cynthia’s room into that of Mrs. Inglethorp.”
+
+He paused a moment, and Cynthia interrupted:
+
+“But I should have woken up if anyone had come through my room?”
+
+“Not if you were drugged, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Drugged?”
+
+“_Mais, oui!_”
+
+“You remember”—he addressed us collectively again—“that through all the
+tumult and noise next door Mademoiselle Cynthia slept. That admitted of
+two possibilities. Either her sleep was feigned—which I did not
+believe—or her unconsciousness was indeed by artificial means.
+
+“With this latter idea in my mind, I examined all the coffee-cups most
+carefully, remembering that it was Mrs. Cavendish who had brought
+Mademoiselle Cynthia her coffee the night before. I took a sample from
+each cup, and had them analysed—with no result. I had counted the cups
+carefully, in the event of one having been removed. Six persons had
+taken coffee, and six cups were duly found. I had to confess myself
+mistaken.
+
+“Then I discovered that I had been guilty of a very grave oversight.
+Coffee had been brought in for seven persons, not six, for Dr.
+Bauerstein had been there that evening. This changed the face of the
+whole affair, for there was now one cup missing. The servants noticed
+nothing, since Annie, the housemaid, who took in the coffee, brought in
+seven cups, not knowing that Mr. Inglethorp never drank it, whereas
+Dorcas, who cleared them away the following morning, found six as
+usual—or strictly speaking she found five, the sixth being the one
+found broken in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room.
+
+“I was confident that the missing cup was that of Mademoiselle Cynthia.
+I had an additional reason for that belief in the fact that all the
+cups found contained sugar, which Mademoiselle Cynthia never took in
+her coffee. My attention was attracted by the story of Annie about some
+‘salt’ on the tray of cocoa which she took every night to Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s room. I accordingly secured a sample of that cocoa, and
+sent it to be analysed.”
+
+“But that had already been done by Dr. Bauerstein,” said Lawrence
+quickly.
+
+“Not exactly. The analyst was asked by him to report whether strychnine
+was, or was not, present. He did not have it tested, as I did, for a
+narcotic.”
+
+“For a narcotic?”
+
+“Yes. Here is the analyst’s report. Mrs. Cavendish administered a safe,
+but effectual, narcotic to both Mrs. Inglethorp and Mademoiselle
+Cynthia. And it is possible that she had a _mauvais quart d’heure_ in
+consequence! Imagine her feelings when her mother-in-law is suddenly
+taken ill and dies, and immediately after she hears the word ‘Poison’!
+She has believed that the sleeping draught she administered was
+perfectly harmless, but there is no doubt that for one terrible moment
+she must have feared that Mrs. Inglethorp’s death lay at her door. She
+is seized with panic, and under its influence she hurries downstairs,
+and quickly drops the coffee-cup and saucer used by Mademoiselle
+Cynthia into a large brass vase, where it is discovered later by
+Monsieur Lawrence. The remains of the cocoa she dare not touch. Too
+many eyes are upon her. Guess at her relief when strychnine is
+mentioned, and she discovers that after all the tragedy is not her
+doing.
+
+“We are now able to account for the symptoms of strychnine poisoning
+being so long in making their appearance. A narcotic taken with
+strychnine will delay the action of the poison for some hours.”
+
+Poirot paused. Mary looked up at him, the colour slowly rising in her
+face.
+
+“All you have said is quite true, Monsieur Poirot. It was the most
+awful hour of my life. I shall never forget it. But you are wonderful.
+I understand now——”
+
+“What I meant when I told you that you could safely confess to Papa
+Poirot, eh? But you would not trust me.”
+
+“I see everything now,” said Lawrence. “The drugged cocoa, taken on top
+of the poisoned coffee, amply accounts for the delay.”
+
+“Exactly. But was the coffee poisoned, or was it not? We come to a
+little difficulty here, since Mrs. Inglethorp never drank it.”
+
+“What?” The cry of surprise was universal.
+
+“No. You will remember my speaking of a stain on the carpet in Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s room? There were some peculiar points about that stain. It
+was still damp, it exhaled a strong odour of coffee, and imbedded in
+the nap of the carpet I found some little splinters of china. What had
+happened was plain to me, for not two minutes before I had placed my
+little case on the table near the window, and the table, tilting up,
+had deposited it upon the floor on precisely the identical spot. In
+exactly the same way, Mrs. Inglethorp had laid down her cup of coffee
+on reaching her room the night before, and the treacherous table had
+played her the same trick.
+
+“What happened next is mere guess work on my part, but I should say
+that Mrs. Inglethorp picked up the broken cup and placed it on the
+table by the bed. Feeling in need of a stimulant of some kind, she
+heated up her cocoa, and drank it off then and there. Now we are faced
+with a new problem. We know the cocoa contained no strychnine. The
+coffee was never drunk. Yet the strychnine must have been administered
+between seven and nine o’clock that evening. What third medium was
+there—a medium so suitable for disguising the taste of strychnine that
+it is extraordinary no one has thought of it?” Poirot looked round the
+room, and then answered himself impressively. “Her medicine!”
+
+“Do you mean that the murderer introduced the strychnine into her
+tonic?” I cried.
+
+“There was no need to introduce it. It was already there—in the
+mixture. The strychnine that killed Mrs. Inglethorp was the identical
+strychnine prescribed by Dr. Wilkins. To make that clear to you, I will
+read you an extract from a book on dispensing which I found in the
+Dispensary of the Red Cross Hospital at Tadminster:
+
+“‘The following prescription has become famous in text books:
+
+
+          Strychninae Sulph. . . . . . 1 gr.
+
+          Potass Bromide . . . . . . . 3vi
+
+          Aqua ad. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3viii
+
+          Fiat Mistura
+
+
+_This solution deposits in a few hours the greater part of the
+strychnine salt as an insoluble bromide in transparent crystals. A lady
+in England lost her life by taking a similar mixture: the precipitated
+strychnine collected at the bottom, and in taking the last dose she
+swallowed nearly all of it!_
+
+“Now there was, of course, no bromide in Dr. Wilkins’ prescription, but
+you will remember that I mentioned an empty box of bromide powders. One
+or two of those powders introduced into the full bottle of medicine
+would effectually precipitate the strychnine, as the book describes,
+and cause it to be taken in the last dose. You will learn later that
+the person who usually poured out Mrs. Inglethorp’s medicine was always
+extremely careful not to shake the bottle, but to leave the sediment at
+the bottom of it undisturbed.
+
+“Throughout the case, there have been evidences that the tragedy was
+intended to take place on Monday evening. On that day, Mrs.
+Inglethorp’s bell wire was neatly cut, and on Monday evening
+Mademoiselle Cynthia was spending the night with friends, so that Mrs.
+Inglethorp would have been quite alone in the right wing, completely
+shut off from help of any kind, and would have died, in all
+probability, before medical aid could have been summoned. But in her
+hurry to be in time for the village entertainment Mrs. Inglethorp
+forgot to take her medicine, and the next day she lunched away from
+home, so that the last—and fatal—dose was actually taken twenty-four
+hours later than had been anticipated by the murderer; and it is owing
+to that delay that the final proof—the last link of the chain—is now in
+my hands.”
+
+Amid breathless excitement, he held out three thin strips of paper.
+
+“A letter in the murderer’s own hand-writing, _mes amis!_ Had it been a
+little clearer in its terms, it is possible that Mrs. Inglethorp,
+warned in time, would have escaped. As it was, she realized her danger,
+but not the manner of it.”
+
+In the deathly silence, Poirot pieced together the slips of paper and,
+clearing his throat, read:
+
+Dearest Evelyn:
+
+    ‘You will be anxious at hearing nothing. It is all right—only it
+    will be to-night instead of last night. You understand. There’s a
+    good time coming once the old woman is dead and out of the way. No
+    one can possibly bring home the crime to me. That idea of yours
+    about the bromides was a stroke of genius! But we must be very
+    circumspect. A false step——’
+
+
+“Here, my friends, the letter breaks off. Doubtless the writer was
+interrupted; but there can be no question as to his identity. We all
+know this hand-writing and——”
+
+A howl that was almost a scream broke the silence.
+
+“You devil! How did you get it?”
+
+A chair was overturned. Poirot skipped nimbly aside. A quick movement
+on his part, and his assailant fell with a crash.
+
+“_Messieurs, mesdames_,” said Poirot, with a flourish, “let me
+introduce you to the murderer, Mr. Alfred Inglethorp!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. POIROT EXPLAINS
+
+“Poirot, you old villain,” I said, “I’ve half a mind to strangle you!
+What do you mean by deceiving me as you have done?”
+
+We were sitting in the library. Several hectic days lay behind us. In
+the room below, John and Mary were together once more, while Alfred
+Inglethorp and Miss Howard were in custody. Now at last, I had Poirot
+to myself, and could relieve my still burning curiosity.
+
+Poirot did not answer me for a moment, but at last he said:
+
+“I did not deceive you, _mon ami_. At most, I permitted you to deceive
+yourself.”
+
+“Yes, but why?”
+
+“Well, it is difficult to explain. You see, my friend, you have a
+nature so honest, and a countenance so transparent, that—_enfin_, to
+conceal your feelings is impossible! If I had told you my ideas, the
+very first time you saw Mr. Alfred Inglethorp that astute gentleman
+would have—in your so expressive idiom—‘smelt a rat’! And then,
+_bonjour_ to our chances of catching him!”
+
+“I think that I have more diplomacy than you give me credit for.”
+
+“My friend,” besought Poirot, “I implore you, do not enrage yourself!
+Your help has been of the most invaluable. It is but the extremely
+beautiful nature that you have, which made me pause.”
+
+“Well,” I grumbled, a little mollified. “I still think you might have
+given me a hint.”
+
+“But I did, my friend. Several hints. You would not take them. Think
+now, did I ever say to you that I believed John Cavendish guilty? Did I
+not, on the contrary, tell you that he would almost certainly be
+acquitted?”
+
+“Yes, but——”
+
+“And did I not immediately afterwards speak of the difficulty of
+bringing the murderer to justice? Was it not plain to you that I was
+speaking of two entirely different persons?”
+
+“No,” I said, “it was not plain to me!”
+
+“Then again,” continued Poirot, “at the beginning, did I not repeat to
+you several times that I didn’t want Mr. Inglethorp arrested _now_?
+That should have conveyed something to you.”
+
+“Do you mean to say you suspected him as long ago as that?”
+
+“Yes. To begin with, whoever else might benefit by Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+death, her husband would benefit the most. There was no getting away
+from that. When I went up to Styles with you that first day, I had no
+idea as to how the crime had been committed, but from what I knew of
+Mr. Inglethorp I fancied that it would be very hard to find anything to
+connect him with it. When I arrived at the château, I realized at once
+that it was Mrs. Inglethorp who had burnt the will; and there, by the
+way, you cannot complain, my friend, for I tried my best to force on
+you the significance of that bedroom fire in midsummer.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently. “Go on.”
+
+“Well, my friend, as I say, my views as to Mr. Inglethorp’s guilt were
+very much shaken. There was, in fact, so much evidence against him that
+I was inclined to believe that he had not done it.”
+
+“When did you change your mind?”
+
+“When I found that the more efforts I made to clear him, the more
+efforts he made to get himself arrested. Then, when I discovered that
+Inglethorp had nothing to do with Mrs. Raikes and that in fact it was
+John Cavendish who was interested in that quarter, I was quite sure.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Simply this. If it had been Inglethorp who was carrying on an intrigue
+with Mrs. Raikes, his silence was perfectly comprehensible. But, when I
+discovered that it was known all over the village that it was John who
+was attracted by the farmer’s pretty wife, his silence bore quite a
+different interpretation. It was nonsense to pretend that he was afraid
+of the scandal, as no possible scandal could attach to him. This
+attitude of his gave me furiously to think, and I was slowly forced to
+the conclusion that Alfred Inglethorp wanted to be arrested. _Eh bien!_
+from that moment, I was equally determined that he should not be
+arrested.”
+
+“Wait a minute. I don’t see why he wished to be arrested?”
+
+“Because, _mon ami_, it is the law of your country that a man once
+acquitted can never be tried again for the same offence. Aha! but it
+was clever—his idea! Assuredly, he is a man of method. See here, he
+knew that in his position he was bound to be suspected, so he conceived
+the exceedingly clever idea of preparing a lot of manufactured evidence
+against himself. He wished to be arrested. He would then produce his
+irreproachable alibi—and, hey presto, he was safe for life!”
+
+“But I still don’t see how he managed to prove his alibi, and yet go to
+the chemist’s shop?”
+
+Poirot stared at me in surprise.
+
+“Is it possible? My poor friend! You have not yet realized that it was
+Miss Howard who went to the chemist’s shop?”
+
+“Miss Howard?”
+
+“But, certainly. Who else? It was most easy for her. She is of a good
+height, her voice is deep and manly; moreover, remember, she and
+Inglethorp are cousins, and there is a distinct resemblance between
+them, especially in their gait and bearing. It was simplicity itself.
+They are a clever pair!”
+
+“I am still a little fogged as to how exactly the bromide business was
+done,” I remarked.
+
+“_Bon!_ I will reconstruct for you as far as possible. I am inclined to
+think that Miss Howard was the master mind in that affair. You remember
+her once mentioning that her father was a doctor? Possibly she
+dispensed his medicines for him, or she may have taken the idea from
+one of the many books lying about when Mademoiselle Cynthia was
+studying for her exam. Anyway, she was familiar with the fact that the
+addition of a bromide to a mixture containing strychnine would cause
+the precipitation of the latter. Probably the idea came to her quite
+suddenly. Mrs. Inglethorp had a box of bromide powders, which she
+occasionally took at night. What could be easier than quietly to
+dissolve one or more of those powders in Mrs. Inglethorp’s large sized
+bottle of medicine when it came from Coot’s? The risk is practically
+nil. The tragedy will not take place until nearly a fortnight later. If
+anyone has seen either of them touching the medicine, they will have
+forgotten it by that time. Miss Howard will have engineered her
+quarrel, and departed from the house. The lapse of time, and her
+absence, will defeat all suspicion. Yes, it was a clever idea! If they
+had left it alone, it is possible the crime might never have been
+brought home to them. But they were not satisfied. They tried to be too
+clever—and that was their undoing.”
+
+Poirot puffed at his tiny cigarette, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
+
+“They arranged a plan to throw suspicion on John Cavendish, by buying
+strychnine at the village chemist’s, and signing the register in his
+hand-writing.
+
+“On Monday Mrs. Inglethorp will take the last dose of her medicine. On
+Monday, therefore, at six o’clock, Alfred Inglethorp arranges to be
+seen by a number of people at a spot far removed from the village. Miss
+Howard has previously made up a cock and bull story about him and Mrs.
+Raikes to account for his holding his tongue afterwards. At six
+o’clock, Miss Howard, disguised as Alfred Inglethorp, enters the
+chemist’s shop, with her story about a dog, obtains the strychnine, and
+writes the name of Alfred Inglethorp in John’s handwriting, which she
+had previously studied carefully.
+
+“But, as it will never do if John, too, can prove an alibi, she writes
+him an anonymous note—still copying his hand-writing—which takes him to
+a remote spot where it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone will see
+him.
+
+“So far, all goes well. Miss Howard goes back to Middlingham. Alfred
+Inglethorp returns to Styles. There is nothing that can compromise him
+in any way, since it is Miss Howard who has the strychnine, which,
+after all, is only wanted as a blind to throw suspicion on John
+Cavendish.
+
+“But now a hitch occurs. Mrs. Inglethorp does not take her medicine
+that night. The broken bell, Cynthia’s absence—arranged by Inglethorp
+through his wife—all these are wasted. And then—he makes his slip.
+
+“Mrs. Inglethorp is out, and he sits down to write to his accomplice,
+who, he fears, may be in a panic at the non-success of their plan. It
+is probable that Mrs. Inglethorp returned earlier than he expected.
+Caught in the act, and somewhat flurried he hastily shuts and locks his
+desk. He fears that if he remains in the room he may have to open it
+again, and that Mrs. Inglethorp might catch sight of the letter before
+he could snatch it up. So he goes out and walks in the woods, little
+dreaming that Mrs. Inglethorp will open his desk, and discover the
+incriminating document.
+
+“But this, as we know, is what happened. Mrs. Inglethorp reads it, and
+becomes aware of the perfidy of her husband and Evelyn Howard, though,
+unfortunately, the sentence about the bromides conveys no warning to
+her mind. She knows that she is in danger—but is ignorant of where the
+danger lies. She decides to say nothing to her husband, but sits down
+and writes to her solicitor, asking him to come on the morrow, and she
+also determines to destroy immediately the will which she has just
+made. She keeps the fatal letter.”
+
+“It was to discover that letter, then, that her husband forced the lock
+of the despatch-case?”
+
+“Yes, and from the enormous risk he ran we can see how fully he
+realized its importance. That letter excepted, there was absolutely
+nothing to connect him with the crime.”
+
+“There’s only one thing I can’t make out, why didn’t he destroy it at
+once when he got hold of it?”
+
+“Because he did not dare take the biggest risk of all—that of keeping
+it on his own person.”
+
+“I don’t understand.”
+
+“Look at it from his point of view. I have discovered that there were
+only five short minutes in which he could have taken it—the five
+minutes immediately before our own arrival on the scene, for before
+that time Annie was brushing the stairs, and would have seen anyone who
+passed going to the right wing. Figure to yourself the scene! He enters
+the room, unlocking the door by means of one of the other doorkeys—they
+were all much alike. He hurries to the despatch-case—it is locked, and
+the keys are nowhere to be seen. That is a terrible blow to him, for it
+means that his presence in the room cannot be concealed as he had
+hoped. But he sees clearly that everything must be risked for the sake
+of that damning piece of evidence. Quickly, he forces the lock with a
+penknife, and turns over the papers until he finds what he is looking
+for.
+
+“But now a fresh dilemma arises: he dare not keep that piece of paper
+on him. He may be seen leaving the room—he may be searched. If the
+paper is found on him, it is certain doom. Probably, at this minute,
+too, he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the
+boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of
+paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case,
+are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it; and he
+dare not keep it. He looks round, and he sees—what do you think, _mon
+ami?_”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“In a moment, he has torn the letter into long thin strips, and rolling
+them up into spills he thrusts them hurriedly in amongst the other
+spills in the vase on the mantle-piece.”
+
+I uttered an exclamation.
+
+“No one would think of looking there,” Poirot continued. “And he will
+be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece
+of evidence against him.”
+
+“Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp’s
+bedroom, under our very noses?” I cried.
+
+Poirot nodded.
+
+“Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my ‘last link,’ and I owe
+that very fortunate discovery to you.”
+
+“To me?”
+
+“Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was
+straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?”
+
+“Yes, but I don’t see——”
+
+“No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in
+the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all
+the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened,
+there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the
+meantime, someone else had touched them.”
+
+“Dear me,” I murmured, “so that is the explanation of your
+extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still
+there?”
+
+“Yes, and it was a race for time.”
+
+“But I still can’t understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to
+leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it.”
+
+“Ah, but he had no opportunity. _I_ saw to that.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes. Do you remember reproving me for taking the household into my
+confidence on the subject?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, my friend, I saw there was just one chance. I was not sure then
+if Inglethorp was the criminal or not, but if he was I reasoned that he
+would not have the paper on him, but would have hidden it somewhere,
+and by enlisting the sympathy of the household I could effectually
+prevent his destroying it. He was already under suspicion, and by
+making the matter public I secured the services of about ten amateur
+detectives, who would be watching him unceasingly, and being himself
+aware of their watchfulness he would not dare seek further to destroy
+the document. He was therefore forced to depart from the house, leaving
+it in the spill vase.”
+
+“But surely Miss Howard had ample opportunities of aiding him.”
+
+“Yes, but Miss Howard did not know of the paper’s existence. In
+accordance with their prearranged plan, she never spoke to Alfred
+Inglethorp. They were supposed to be deadly enemies, and until John
+Cavendish was safely convicted they neither of them dared risk a
+meeting. Of course I had a watch kept on Mr. Inglethorp, hoping that
+sooner or later he would lead me to the hiding-place. But he was too
+clever to take any chances. The paper was safe where it was; since no
+one had thought of looking there in the first week, it was not likely
+they would do so afterwards. But for your lucky remark, we might never
+have been able to bring him to justice.”
+
+“I understand that now; but when did you first begin to suspect Miss
+Howard?”
+
+“When I discovered that she had told a lie at the inquest about the
+letter she had received from Mrs. Inglethorp.”
+
+“Why, what was there to lie about?”
+
+“You saw that letter? Do you recall its general appearance?”
+
+“Yes—more or less.”
+
+“You will recollect, then, that Mrs. Inglethorp wrote a very
+distinctive hand, and left large clear spaces between her words. But if
+you look at the date at the top of the letter you will notice that
+‘July 17th’ is quite different in this respect. Do you see what I
+mean?”
+
+“No,” I confessed, “I don’t.”
+
+“You do not see that that letter was not written on the 17th, but on
+the 7th—the day after Miss Howard’s departure? The ‘1’ was written in
+before the ‘7’ to turn it into the ‘17th’.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“That is exactly what I asked myself. Why does Miss Howard suppress the
+letter written on the 17th, and produce this faked one instead? Because
+she did not wish to show the letter of the 17th. Why, again? And at
+once a suspicion dawned in my mind. You will remember my saying that it
+was wise to beware of people who were not telling you the truth.”
+
+“And yet,” I cried indignantly, “after that, you gave me two reasons
+why Miss Howard could not have committed the crime!”
+
+“And very good reasons too,” replied Poirot. “For a long time they were
+a stumbling-block to me until I remembered a very significant fact:
+that she and Alfred Inglethorp were cousins. She could not have
+committed the crime single-handed, but the reasons against that did not
+debar her from being an accomplice. And, then, there was that rather
+over-vehement hatred of hers! It concealed a very opposite emotion.
+There was, undoubtedly, a tie of passion between them long before he
+came to Styles. They had already arranged their infamous plot—that he
+should marry this rich, but rather foolish old lady, induce her to make
+a will leaving her money to him, and then gain their ends by a very
+cleverly conceived crime. If all had gone as they planned, they would
+probably have left England, and lived together on their poor victim’s
+money.
+
+“They are a very astute and unscrupulous pair. While suspicion was to
+be directed against him, she would be making quiet preparations for a
+very different _dénouement_. She arrives from Middlingham with all the
+compromising items in her possession. No suspicion attaches to her. No
+notice is paid to her coming and going in the house. She hides the
+strychnine and glasses in John’s room. She puts the beard in the attic.
+She will see to it that sooner or later they are duly discovered.”
+
+“I don’t quite see why they tried to fix the blame on John,” I
+remarked. “It would have been much easier for them to bring the crime
+home to Lawrence.”
+
+“Yes, but that was mere chance. All the evidence against him arose out
+of pure accident. It must, in fact, have been distinctly annoying to
+the pair of schemers.”
+
+“His manner was unfortunate,” I observed thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes. You realize, of course, what was at the back of that?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You did not understand that he believed Mademoiselle Cynthia guilty of
+the crime?”
+
+“No,” I exclaimed, astonished. “Impossible!”
+
+“Not at all. I myself nearly had the same idea. It was in my mind when
+I asked Mr. Wells that first question about the will. Then there were
+the bromide powders which she had made up, and her clever male
+impersonations, as Dorcas recounted them to us. There was really more
+evidence against her than anyone else.”
+
+“You are joking, Poirot!”
+
+“No. Shall I tell you what made Monsieur Lawrence turn so pale when he
+first entered his mother’s room on the fatal night? It was because,
+whilst his mother lay there, obviously poisoned, he saw, over your
+shoulder, that the door into Mademoiselle Cynthia’s room was unbolted.”
+
+“But he declared that he saw it bolted!” I cried.
+
+“Exactly,” said Poirot dryly. “And that was just what confirmed my
+suspicion that it was not. He was shielding Mademoiselle Cynthia.”
+
+“But why should he shield her?”
+
+“Because he is in love with her.”
+
+I laughed.
+
+“There, Poirot, you are quite wrong! I happen to know for a fact that,
+far from being in love with her, he positively dislikes her.”
+
+“Who told you that, _mon ami?_”
+
+“Cynthia herself.”
+
+“_La pauvre petite!_ And she was concerned?”
+
+“She said that she did not mind at all.”
+
+“Then she certainly did mind very much,” remarked Poirot. “They are
+like that—_les femmes!_”
+
+“What you say about Lawrence is a great surprise to me,” I said.
+
+“But why? It was most obvious. Did not Monsieur Lawrence make the sour
+face every time Mademoiselle Cynthia spoke and laughed with his
+brother? He had taken it into his long head that Mademoiselle Cynthia
+was in love with Monsieur John. When he entered his mother’s room, and
+saw her obviously poisoned, he jumped to the conclusion that
+Mademoiselle Cynthia knew something about the matter. He was nearly
+driven desperate. First he crushed the coffee-cup to powder under his
+feet, remembering that _she_ had gone up with his mother the night
+before, and he determined that there should be no chance of testing its
+contents. Thenceforward, he strenuously, and quite uselessly, upheld
+the theory of ‘Death from natural causes’.”
+
+“And what about the ‘extra coffee-cup’?”
+
+“I was fairly certain that it was Mrs. Cavendish who had hidden it, but
+I had to make sure. Monsieur Lawrence did not know at all what I meant;
+but, on reflection, he came to the conclusion that if he could find an
+extra coffee-cup anywhere his lady love would be cleared of suspicion.
+And he was perfectly right.”
+
+“One thing more. What did Mrs. Inglethorp mean by her dying words?”
+
+“They were, of course, an accusation against her husband.”
+
+“Dear me, Poirot,” I said with a sigh, “I think you have explained
+everything. I am glad it has all ended so happily. Even John and his
+wife are reconciled.”
+
+“Thanks to me.”
+
+“How do you mean—thanks to you?”
+
+“My dear friend, do you not realize that it was simply and solely the
+trial which has brought them together again? That John Cavendish still
+loved his wife, I was convinced. Also, that she was equally in love
+with him. But they had drifted very far apart. It all arose from a
+misunderstanding. She married him without love. He knew it. He is a
+sensitive man in his way, he would not force himself upon her if she
+did not want him. And, as he withdrew, her love awoke. But they are
+both unusually proud, and their pride held them inexorably apart. He
+drifted into an entanglement with Mrs. Raikes, and she deliberately
+cultivated the friendship of Dr. Bauerstein. Do you remember the day of
+John Cavendish’s arrest, when you found me deliberating over a big
+decision?”
+
+“Yes, I quite understood your distress.”
+
+“Pardon me, _mon ami_, but you did not understand it in the least. I
+was trying to decide whether or not I would clear John Cavendish at
+once. I could have cleared him—though it might have meant a failure to
+convict the real criminals. They were entirely in the dark as to my
+real attitude up to the very last moment—which partly accounts for my
+success.”
+
+“Do you mean that you could have saved John Cavendish from being
+brought to trial?”
+
+“Yes, my friend. But I eventually decided in favour of ‘a woman’s
+happiness’. Nothing but the great danger through which they have passed
+could have brought these two proud souls together again.”
+
+I looked at Poirot in silent amazement. The colossal cheek of the
+little man! Who on earth but Poirot would have thought of a trial for
+murder as a restorer of conjugal happiness!
+
+“I perceive your thoughts, _mon ami_,” said Poirot, smiling at me. “No
+one but Hercule Poirot would have attempted such a thing! And you are
+wrong in condemning it. The happiness of one man and one woman is the
+greatest thing in all the world.”
+
+His words took me back to earlier events. I remembered Mary as she lay
+white and exhausted on the sofa, listening, listening. There had come
+the sound of the bell below. She had started up. Poirot had opened the
+door, and meeting her agonized eyes had nodded gently. “Yes, madame,”
+he said. “I have brought him back to you.” He had stood aside, and as I
+went out I had seen the look in Mary’s eyes, as John Cavendish had
+caught his wife in his arms.
+
+“Perhaps you are right, Poirot,” I said gently. “Yes, it is the
+greatest thing in the world.”
+
+Suddenly, there was a tap at the door, and Cynthia peeped in.
+
+“I—I only——”
+
+“Come in,” I said, springing up.
+
+She came in, but did not sit down.
+
+“I—only wanted to tell you something——”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+Cynthia fidgeted with a little tassel for some moments, then, suddenly
+exclaiming: “You dears!” kissed first me and then Poirot, and rushed
+out of the room again.
+
+“What on earth does this mean?” I asked, surprised.
+
+It was very nice to be kissed by Cynthia, but the publicity of the
+salute rather impaired the pleasure.
+
+“It means that she has discovered Monsieur Lawrence does not dislike
+her as much as she thought,” replied Poirot philosophically.
+
+“But——”
+
+“Here he is.”
+
+Lawrence at that moment passed the door.
+
+“Eh! Monsieur Lawrence,” called Poirot. “We must congratulate you, is
+it not so?”
+
+Lawrence blushed, and then smiled awkwardly. A man in love is a sorry
+spectacle. Now Cynthia had looked charming.
+
+I sighed.
+
+“What is it, _mon ami?_”
+
+“Nothing,” I said sadly. “They are two delightful women!”
+
+“And neither of them is for you?” finished Poirot. “Never mind. Console
+yourself, my friend. We may hunt together again, who knows? And then——”
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/themysteryoforcival b/files/books/unrelated/themysteryoforcival
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8239da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/themysteryoforcival
@@ -0,0 +1,13414 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mystery of Orcival, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mystery of Orcival
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2006 [EBook #1651]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF ORCIVAL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Mystery of Orcival
+
+                                 By
+
+                           Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On Thursday, the 9th of July, 186-, Jean Bertaud and his son, well known
+at Orcival as living by poaching and marauding, rose at three o'clock in
+the morning, just at daybreak, to go fishing.
+
+Taking their tackle, they descended the charming pathway, shaded by
+acacias, which you see from the station at Evry, and which leads from
+the burg of Orcival to the Seine.
+
+They made their way to their boat, moored as usual some fifty yards
+above the wire bridge, across a field adjoining Valfeuillu, the imposing
+estate of the Count de Tremorel.
+
+Having reached the river-bank, they laid down their tackle, and Jean
+jumped into the boat to bail out the water in the bottom.
+
+While he was skilfully using the scoop, he perceived that one of the
+oar-pins of the old craft, worn by the oar, was on the point of
+breaking.
+
+"Philippe," cried he, to his son, who was occupied in unravelling a net,
+"bring me a bit of wood to make a new oar-pin."
+
+"All right," answered Philippe.
+
+There was no tree in the field. The young man bent his steps toward the
+park of Valfeuillu, a few rods distant; and, neglectful of Article 391
+of the Penal Code, jumped across the wide ditch which surrounds M. de
+Tremorel's domain. He thought he would cut off a branch of one of the
+old willows, which at this place touch the water with their drooping
+branches.
+
+He had scarcely drawn his knife from his pocket, while looking about him
+with the poacher's unquiet glance, when he uttered a low cry, "Father!
+Here! Father!"
+
+"What's the matter?" responded the old marauder, without pausing from
+his work.
+
+"Father, come here!" continued Philippe. "In Heaven's name, come here,
+quick!"
+
+Jean knew by the tone of his son's voice that something unusual had
+happened. He threw down his scoop, and, anxiety quickening him, in three
+leaps was in the park. He also stood still, horror-struck, before the
+spectacle which had terrified Philippe.
+
+On the bank of the river, among the stumps and flags, was stretched a
+woman's body. Her long, dishevelled locks lay among the water-shrubs;
+her dress--of gray silk--was soiled with mire and blood. All the upper
+part of the body lay in shallow water, and her face had sunk in the mud.
+
+"A murder!" muttered Philippe, whose voice trembled.
+
+"That's certain," responded Jean, in an indifferent tone. "But who can
+this woman be? Really one would say, the countess."
+
+"We'll see," said the young man. He stepped toward the body; his father
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"What would you do, fool?" said he. "You ought never to touch the body
+of a murdered person without legal authority."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Certainly. There are penalties for it."
+
+"Then, come along and let's inform the Mayor."
+
+"Why? as if people hereabouts were not against us enough already! Who
+knows that they would not accuse us--"
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"If we go and inform Monsieur Courtois, he will ask us how and why we
+came to be in Monsieur de Tremorel's park to find this out. What is it
+to you, that the countess has been killed? They'll find her body without
+you. Come, let's go away."
+
+But Philippe did not budge. Hanging his head, his chin resting upon his
+palm, he reflected.
+
+"We must make this known," said he, firmly. "We are not savages; we will
+tell Monsieur Courtois that in passing along by the park in our boat, we
+perceived the body."
+
+Old Jean resisted at first; then, seeing that his son would, if need be,
+go without him, yielded.
+
+They re-crossed the ditch, and leaving their fishing-tackle in the
+field, directed their steps hastily toward the mayor's house.
+
+Orcival, situated a mile or more from Corbeil, on the right bank of the
+Seine, is one of the most charming villages in the environs of Paris,
+despite the infernal etymology of its name. The gay and thoughtless
+Parisian, who, on Sunday, wanders about the fields, more destructive
+than the rook, has not yet discovered this smiling country. The
+distressing odor of the frying from coffee-gardens does not there stifle
+the perfume of the honeysuckles. The refrains of bargemen, the brazen
+voices of boat-horns, have never awakened echoes there. Lazily situated
+on the gentle slopes of a bank washed by the Seine, the houses of
+Orcival are white, and there are delicious shades, and a bell-tower
+which is the pride of the place. On all sides vast pleasure domains,
+kept up at great cost, surround it. From the upper part, the
+weathercocks of twenty chateaux may be seen. On the right is the forest
+of Mauprevoir, and the pretty country-house of the Countess de la
+Breche; opposite, on the other side of the river, is Mousseaux and
+Petit-Bourg, the ancient domain of Aguado, now the property of a famous
+coach-maker; on the left, those beautiful copses belong to the Count de
+Tremorel, that large park is d'Etiolles, and in the distance beyond is
+Corbeil; that vast building, whose roofs are higher than the oaks, is
+the Darblay mill.
+
+The mayor of Orcival occupies a handsome, pleasant mansion, at the upper
+end of the village. Formerly a manufacturer of dry goods, M. Courtois
+entered business without a penny, and after thirty years of absorbing
+toil, he retired with four round millions of francs.
+
+Then he proposed to live tranquilly with his wife and children, passing
+the winter at Paris and the summer at his country-house.
+
+But all of a sudden he was observed to be disturbed and agitated.
+Ambition stirred his heart. He took vigorous measures to be forced to
+accept the mayoralty of Orcival. And he accepted it, quite in
+self-defence, as he will himself tell you. This office was at once his
+happiness and his despair; apparent despair, interior and real
+happiness.
+
+It quite befits him, with clouded brow, to rail at the cares of power;
+he appears yet better when, his waist encircled with the gold-laced
+scarf, he goes in triumph at the head of the municipal body.
+
+Everybody was sound asleep at the mayor's when the two Bertauds rapped
+the heavy knocker of the door. After a moment, a servant, half asleep,
+appeared at one of the ground-floor windows.
+
+"What's the matter, you rascals?" asked he, growling.
+
+Jean did not think it best to revenge an insult which his reputation in
+the village too well justified.
+
+"We want to speak to Monsieur the Mayor," he answered. "There is
+terrible need of it. Go call him, Monsieur Baptiste; he won't blame
+you."
+
+"I'd like to see anybody blame me," snapped out Baptiste.
+
+It took ten minutes of talking and explaining to persuade the servant.
+Finally, the Bertauds were admitted to a little man, fat and red, very
+much annoyed at being dragged from his bed so early. It was M. Courtois.
+
+They had decided that Philippe should speak.
+
+"Monsieur Mayor," he said, "we have come to announce to you a great
+misfortune. A crime has been committed at Monsieur de Tremorel's."
+
+M. Courtois was a friend of the count's; he became whiter than his shirt
+at this sudden news.
+
+"My God!" stammered he, unable to control his emotion, "what do you
+say--a crime!"
+
+"Yes; we have just discovered a body; and as sure as you are here, I
+believe it to be that of the countess."
+
+The worthy man raised his arms heavenward, with a wandering air.
+
+"But where, when?"
+
+"Just now, at the foot of the park, as we were going to take up our
+nets."
+
+"It is horrible!" exclaimed the good M. Courtois; "what a calamity! So
+worthy a lady! But it is not possible--you must be mistaken; I should
+have been informed--"
+
+"We saw it distinctly, Monsieur Mayor."
+
+"Such a crime in my village! Well, you have done wisely to come here. I
+will dress at once, and will hasten off--no, wait." He reflected a
+moment, then called:
+
+"Baptiste!"
+
+The valet was not far off. With ear and eye alternately pressed against
+the key-hole, he heard and looked with all his might. At the sound of
+his master's voice he had only to stretch out his hand and open the
+door.
+
+"Monsieur called me?"
+
+"Run to the justice of the peace," said the mayor. "There is not a
+moment to lose. A crime has been committed--perhaps a murder--you must
+go quickly. And you," addressing the poachers, "await me here while I
+slip on my coat."
+
+The justice of the peace at Orcival, M. Plantat--"Papa Plantat," as he
+was called--was formerly an attorney at Melun. At fifty, Mr. Plantat,
+whose career had been one of unbroken prosperity, lost in the same
+month, his wife, whom he adored, and his two sons, charming youths, one
+eighteen, the other twenty-two years old. These successive losses
+crushed a man whom thirty years of happiness left without defence
+against misfortune. For a long time his reason was despaired of. Even
+the sight of a client, coming to trouble his grief, to recount stupid
+tales of self-interest, exasperated him. It was not surprising that he
+sold out his professional effects and good-will at half price. He wished
+to establish himself at his ease in his grief, with the certainty of not
+being disturbed in its indulgence.
+
+But the intensity of his mourning diminished, and the ills of idleness
+came. The justiceship of the peace at Orcival was vacant, and M. Plantat
+applied for and obtained it. Once installed in this office, he suffered
+less from ennui. This man, who saw his life drawing to an end, undertook
+to interest himself in the thousand diverse cases which came before him.
+He applied to these all the forces of a superior intelligence, the
+resources of a mind admirably fitted to separate the false from the true
+among the lies he was forced to hear. He persisted, besides, in living
+alone, despite the urging of M. Courtois; pretending that society
+fatigued him, and that an unhappy man is a bore in company.
+
+Misfortune, which modifies characters, for good or bad, had made him,
+apparently, a great egotist. He declared that he was only interested in
+the affairs of life as a critic tired of its active scenes. He loved to
+make a parade of his profound indifference for everything, swearing that
+a rain of fire descending upon Paris, would not even make him turn his
+head. To move him seemed impossible. "What's that to me?" was his
+invariable exclamation.
+
+Such was the man who, a quarter of an hour after Baptiste's departure,
+entered the mayor's house.
+
+M. Plantat was tall, thin, and nervous. His physiognomy was not
+striking. His hair was short, his restless eyes seemed always to be
+seeking something, his very long nose was narrow and sharp. After his
+affliction, his mouth, formerly well shaped, became deformed; his lower
+lip had sunk, and gave him a deceptive look of simplicity.
+
+"They tell me," said he, at the threshold, "that Madame de Tremorel has
+been murdered."
+
+"These men here, at least, pretend so," answered the mayor, who had just
+reappeared.
+
+M. Courtois was no longer the same man. He had had time to make his
+toilet a little. His face attempted to express a haughty coldness. He
+had been reproaching himself for having been wanting in dignity, in
+showing his grief before the Bertauds. "Nothing ought to agitate a man
+in my position," said he to himself. And, being terribly agitated, he
+forced himself to be calm, cold, and impassible.
+
+M. Plantat was so naturally.
+
+"This is a very sad event," said he, in a tone which he forced himself
+to make perfectly disinterested; "but after all, how does it concern us?
+We must, however, hurry and ascertain whether it is true. I have sent
+for the brigadier, and he will join us."
+
+"Let us go," said M. Courtois; "I have my scarf in my pocket."
+
+They hastened off. Philippe and his father went first, the young man
+eager and impatient, the old one sombre and thoughtful. The mayor, at
+each step, made some exclamation.
+
+"I can't understand it," muttered he; "a murder in my commune! a commune
+where, in the memory of men, no crime has been committed!"
+
+And he directed a suspicious glance toward the two Bertauds. The road
+which led toward the chateau of M. de Tremorel was an unpleasant one,
+shut in by walls a dozen feet high. On one side is the park of the
+Marchioness de Lanascol; on the other the spacious garden of Saint
+Jouan. The going and coming had taken time; it was nearly eight o'clock
+when the mayor, the justice, and their guides stopped before the gate of
+M. de Tremorel.
+
+The mayor rang. The bell was very large; only a small gravelled court of
+five or six yards separated the gate from the house; nevertheless no one
+appeared.
+
+The mayor rang more vigorously, then with all his strength; but in vain.
+
+Before the gate of Mme. de Lanascol's chateau, nearly opposite, a groom
+was standing, occupied in cleaning and polishing a bridle-bit. "It's of
+no use to ring, gentlemen," said this man; "there's nobody in the
+chateau."
+
+"How! nobody?" asked the mayor, surprised.
+
+"I mean," said the groom, "that there is no one there but the master and
+mistress. The servants all went away last evening by the 8.40 train to
+Paris, to the wedding of the old cook, Madame Denis. They ought to
+return this morning by the first train. I was invited myself--"
+
+"Great God!" interrupted M. Courtois, "then the count and countess
+remained alone last night?"
+
+"Entirely alone, Monsieur Mayor."
+
+"It is horrible!"
+
+M. Plantat seemed to grow impatient during this dialogue. "Come," said
+he, "we cannot stay forever at the gate. The gendarmes do not come; let
+us send for the locksmith." Philippe was about to hasten off, when, at
+the end of the road, singing and laughing were heard. Five persons,
+three women and two men, soon appeared.
+
+"Ah, there are the people of the chateau," cried the groom, whom this
+morning visit seemed to annoy, "they ought to have a key."
+
+The domestics, seeing the group about the gate, became silent and
+hastened their steps. One of them began to run ahead of the others; it
+was the count's valet de chambre.
+
+"These gentlemen perhaps wish to speak to Monsieur the Count?" asked he,
+having bowed to M. Plantat.
+
+"We have rung five times, as hard as we could," said the mayor.
+
+"It is surprising," said the valet de chambre, "the count sleeps very
+lightly. Perhaps he has gone out."
+
+"Horror!" cried Philippe. "Both of them have been murdered!" These words
+shocked the servants, whose gayety announced a reasonable number of
+healths drunk to the happiness of the newly wedded pair. M. Courtois
+seemed to be studying the attitude of old Bertaud.
+
+"A murder!" muttered the valet de chambre. "It was for money then; it
+must have been known--"
+
+"What?" asked the mayor.
+
+"Monsieur the Count received a very large sum yesterday morning."
+
+"Large! yes," added a chambermaid. "He had a large package of
+bank-bills. Madame even said to Monsieur that she should not shut her
+eyes the whole night, with this immense sum in the house."
+
+There was a silence; each one looked at the others with a frightened
+air. M. Courtois reflected.
+
+"At what hour did you leave the chateau last evening?" asked he of the
+servants.
+
+"At eight o'clock; we had dinner early."
+
+"You went away all together?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You did not leave each other?"
+
+"Not a minute."
+
+"And you returned all together?"
+
+The servants exchanged a significant look.
+
+"All," responded a chambermaid--"that is to say, no. One left us on
+reaching the Lyons station at Paris; it was Guespin."
+
+"Yes, sir; he went away, saying that he would rejoin us at Wepler's, in
+the Batignolles, where the wedding took place." The mayor nudged the
+justice with his elbow, as if to attract his attention, and continued to
+question the chambermaid.
+
+"And this Guespin, as you call him--did you see him again?"
+
+"No, sir. I asked several times during the evening in vain, what had
+become of him; his absence seemed to me suspicious." Evidently the
+chambermaid tried to show superior perspicacity. A little more, and she
+would have talked of presentiments.
+
+"Has this Guespin been long in the house?"
+
+"Since spring."
+
+"What were his duties?"
+
+"He was sent from Paris by the house of the 'Skilful Gardener,' to take
+care of the rare flowers in Madame's conservatory."
+
+"And did he know of this money?"
+
+The domestics again exchanged significant glances.
+
+"Yes," they answered in chorus, "we had talked a great deal about it
+among ourselves."
+
+The chambermaid added: "He even said to me, 'To think that Monsieur the
+Count has enough money in his cabinet to make all our fortunes.'"
+
+"What kind of a man is this?"
+
+This question absolutely extinguished the talkativeness of the servants.
+No one dared to speak, perceiving that the least word might serve as the
+basis of a terrible accusation. But the groom of the house opposite, who
+burned to mix himself up in the affair, had none of these scruples.
+"Guespin," answered he, "is a good fellow. Lord, what jolly things he
+knows! He knows everything you can imagine. It appears he has been rich
+in times past, and if he wished--But dame! he loves to have his work all
+finished, and go off on sprees. He's a crack billiard-player, I can tell
+you."
+
+Papa Plantat, while listening in an apparently absent-minded way to
+these depositions, or rather these scandals, carefully examined the wall
+and the gate. He now turned, and interrupting the groom:
+
+"Enough of this," said he, to the great scandal of M. Courtois. "Before
+pursuing this interrogatory, let us ascertain the crime, if crime there
+is; for it is not proved. Let whoever has the key, open the gate."
+
+The valet de chambre had the key; he opened the gate, and all entered
+the little court. The gendarmes had just arrived. The mayor told the
+brigadier to follow him, and placed two men at the gate, ordering them
+not to permit anyone to enter or go out, unless by his orders. Then the
+valet de chambre opened the door of the house.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+If there had been no crime, at least something extraordinary had taken
+place at the chateau; the impassible justice might have been convinced
+of it, as soon as he had stepped into the vestibule. The glass door
+leading to the garden was wide open, and three of the panes were
+shattered into a thousand pieces. The carpeting of waxed canvas between
+the doors had been torn up, and on the white marble slabs large drops of
+blood were visible. At the foot of the staircase was a stain larger than
+the rest, and upon the lowest step a splash hideous to behold.
+
+Unfitted for such spectacles, or for the mission he had now to perform,
+M. Courtois became faint. Luckily, he borrowed from the idea of his
+official importance, an energy foreign to his character. The more
+difficult the preliminary examination of this affair seemed, the more
+determined he was to carry it on with dignity.
+
+"Conduct us to the place where you saw the body," said he to Bertaud.
+But Papa Plantat intervened.
+
+"It would be wiser, I think," he objected, "and more methodical, to
+begin by going through the house."
+
+"Perhaps--yes--true, that's my own view," said the mayor, grasping at
+the other's counsel, as a drowning man clings to a plank. And he made
+all retire excepting the brigadier and the valet de chambre, the latter
+remaining to serve as guide. "Gendarmes," cried he to the men guarding
+the gate, "see to it that no one goes out; prevent anybody from entering
+the house, and above all, let no one go into the garden."
+
+Then they ascended the staircase. Drops of blood were sprinkled all
+along the stairs. There was also blood on the baluster, and M. Courtois
+perceived, with horror, that his hands were stained.
+
+When they had reached the first landing-stage, the mayor said to the
+valet de chambre:
+
+"Tell me, my friend, did your master and mistress occupy the same
+chamber?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And where is their chamber?"
+
+"There, sir."
+
+As he spoke, the valet de chambre staggered back terrified, and pointed
+to a door, the upper panel of which betrayed the imprint of a bloody
+hand. Drops of perspiration overspread the poor mayor's forehead. He too
+was terrified, and could hardly keep on his feet. Alas, authority brings
+with it terrible obligations! The brigadier, an old soldier of the
+Crimea, visibly moved, hesitated.
+
+M. Plantat alone, as tranquil as if he were in his garden, retained his
+coolness, and looked around upon the others.
+
+"We must decide," said he.
+
+He entered the room; the rest followed.
+
+There was nothing unusual in the apartment; it was a boudoir hung in
+blue satin, furnished with a couch and four arm-chairs, covered also
+with blue satin. One of the chairs was overturned.
+
+They passed on to the bed-chamber.
+
+A frightful disorder appeared in this room. There was not an article of
+furniture, not an ornament, which did not betray that a terrible,
+enraged and merciless struggle had taken place between the assassins and
+their victims. In the middle of the chamber a small table was
+overturned, and all about it were scattered lumps of sugar, vermilion
+cups, and pieces of porcelain.
+
+"Ah!" said the valet de chambre, "Monsieur and Madame were taking tea
+when the wretches came in!"
+
+The mantel ornaments had been thrown upon the floor; the clock, in
+falling, had stopped at twenty minutes past three. Near the clock were
+the lamps; the globes were in pieces, the oil had been spilled.
+
+The canopy of the bed had been torn down, and covered the bed. Someone
+must have clutched desperately at the draperies. All the furniture was
+overturned. The coverings of the chairs had been hacked by strokes of a
+knife, and in places the stuffing protruded. The secretary had been
+broken open; the writing-slide, dislocated, hung by its hinges; the
+drawers were open and empty, and everywhere, blood--blood upon the
+carpet, the furniture, the curtains--above all, upon the bed-curtains.
+
+"Poor wretches!" stammered the mayor. "They were murdered here."
+
+Every one for a moment was appalled. But meanwhile, the justice of the
+peace devoted himself to a minute scrutiny, taking notes upon his
+tablets, and looking into every corner. When he had finished:
+
+"Come," said he, "let us go into the other rooms."
+
+Everywhere there was the same disorder. A band of furious maniacs, or
+criminals seized with a frenzy, had certainly passed the night in the
+house.
+
+The count's library, especially, had been turned topsy-turvy. The
+assassins had not taken the trouble to force the locks; they had gone to
+work with a hatchet. Surely they were confident of not being overheard;
+for they must have struck tremendous blows to make the massive oaken
+bureau fly in pieces.
+
+Neither parlor nor smoking-room had been respected. Couches, chairs,
+canopies were cut and torn as if they had been lunged at with swords.
+Two spare chambers for guests were all in confusion.
+
+They then ascended to the second story.
+
+There, in the first room which they penetrated, they found, beside a
+trunk which had been assaulted, but which was not opened, a hatchet for
+splitting wood which the valet de chambre recognized as belonging to the
+house.
+
+"Do you understand now?" said the mayor to M. Plantat. "The assassins
+were in force, that's clear. The murder accomplished, they scattered
+through the chateau, seeking everywhere the money they knew they would
+find here. One of them was engaged in breaking open this trunk, when the
+others, below, found the money; they called him; he hastened down, and
+thinking all further search useless, he left the hatchet here."
+
+"I see it," said the brigadier, "just as if I had been here."
+
+The ground-floor, which they next visited, had been respected. Only,
+after the crime had been committed, and the money secured, the murderers
+had felt the necessity of refreshing themselves. They found the remains
+of their supper in the dining-room. They had eaten up all the cold meats
+left in the cupboard. On the table, beside eight empty bottles of wine
+and liqueurs, were ranged five glasses.
+
+"There were five of them," said the mayor.
+
+By force of will, M. Courtois had recovered his self-possession.
+
+"Before going to view the bodies," said he, "I will send word to the
+procureur of Corbeil. In an hour, we will have a judge of instruction,
+who will finish our painful task."
+
+A gendarme was instructed to harness the count's buggy, and to hasten to
+the procureur. Then the mayor and the justice, followed by the
+brigadier, the valet de chambre, and the two Bertauds, took their way
+toward the river.
+
+The park of Valfeuillu was very wide from right to left. From the house
+to the Seine it was almost two hundred steps. Before the house was a
+grassy lawn, interspersed with flower-beds. Two paths led across the
+lawn to the river-bank.
+
+But the murderers had not followed the paths. Making a short cut, they
+had gone straight across the lawn. Their traces were perfectly visible.
+The grass was trampled and stamped down as if a heavy load had been
+dragged over it. In the midst of the lawn they perceived something red;
+M. Plantat went and picked it up. It was a slipper, which the valet de
+chambre recognized as the count's. Farther on, they found a white silk
+handkerchief, which the valet declared he had often seen around the
+count's neck. This handkerchief was stained with blood.
+
+At last they arrived at the river-bank, under the willows from which
+Philippe had intended to cut off a branch; there they saw the body. The
+sand at this place was much indented by feet seeking a firm support.
+Everything indicated that here had been the supreme struggle.
+
+M. Courtois understood all the importance of these traces.
+
+"Let no one advance," said he, and, followed by the justice of the
+peace, he approached the corpse. Although the face could not be
+distinguished, both recognized the countess. Both had seen her in this
+gray robe, adorned with blue trimmings.
+
+Now, how came she there?
+
+The mayor thought that having succeeded in escaping from the hands of
+the murderers, she had fled wildly. They had pursued her, had caught up
+with her there, and she had fallen to rise no more. This version
+explained the traces of the struggle. It must have been the count's body
+that they had dragged across the lawn.
+
+M. Courtois talked excitedly, trying to impose his ideas on the justice.
+But M. Plantat hardly listened; you might have thought him a hundred
+leagues from Valfeuillu; he only responded by monosyllables--yes, no,
+perhaps. And the worthy mayor gave himself great pains; he went and
+came, measured steps, minutely scrutinized the ground.
+
+There was not at this place more than a foot of water. A mud-bank, upon
+which grew some clumps of flags and some water-lilies, descended by a
+gentle decline from the bank to the middle of the river. The water was
+very clear, and there was no current; the slippery and slimy mire could
+be distinctly seen.
+
+M. Courtois had gone thus far in his investigations, when he was struck
+by a sudden idea.
+
+"Bertaud," said he, "come here."
+
+The old poacher obeyed.
+
+"You say that you saw the body from your boat?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Mayor."
+
+"Where is your boat?"
+
+"There, hauled up to that field."
+
+"Well, lead us to it."
+
+It was clear to all that this order had a great effect upon the man. He
+trembled and turned pale under his rough skin, tanned as it was by sun
+and storm. He was even seen to cast a menacing look toward his son.
+
+"Let us go," said he at last.
+
+They were returning to the house when the valet proposed to pass over
+the ditch. "That will be the quickest way," said he, "I will go for a
+ladder which we will put across."
+
+He went off, and quickly reappeared with his improvised foot-bridge. But
+at the moment he was adjusting it, the mayor cried out to him:
+
+"Stop!"
+
+The imprints left by the Bertauds on both sides of the ditch had just
+caught his eye.
+
+"What is this?" said he; "evidently someone has crossed here, and not
+long ago; for the traces of the steps are quite fresh."
+
+After an examination of some minutes he ordered that the ladder should
+be placed farther off. When they had reached the boat, he said to Jean,
+"Is this the boat with which you went to take up your nets this
+morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then," resumed M. Courtois, "what implements did you use? your cast net
+is perfectly dry; this boat-hook and these oars have not been wet for
+twenty-four hours."
+
+The distress of the father and son became more and more evident.
+
+"Do you persist in what you say, Bertaud?" said the mayor.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And you, Philippe?"
+
+"Monsieur," stammered the young man, "we have told the truth."
+
+"Really!" said M. Courtois, in an ironical tone. "Then you will explain
+to the proper authorities how it was that you could see anything from a
+boat which you had not entered. It will be proved to you, also, that the
+body is in a position where it is impossible to see it from the middle
+of the river. Then you will still have to tell what these foot-prints on
+the grass are, which go from your boat to the place where the ditch has
+been crossed several times and by several persons."
+
+The two Bertauds hung their heads.
+
+"Brigadier," ordered the mayor, "arrest these two men in the name of the
+law, and prevent all communication between them."
+
+Philippe seemed to be ill. As for old Jean, he contented himself with
+shrugging his shoulders and saying to his son:
+
+"Well, you would have it so, wouldn't you?"
+
+While the brigadier led the two poachers away, and shut them up
+separately, and under the guard of his men, the justice and the mayor
+returned to the park. "With all this," muttered M. Courtois, "no traces
+of the count."
+
+They proceeded to take up the body of the countess. The mayor sent for
+two planks, which, with a thousand precautions, they placed on the
+ground, being able thus to move the countess without effacing the
+imprints necessary for the legal examination. Alas! it was indeed she
+who had been the beautiful, the charming Countess de Tremorel! Here were
+her smiling face, her lovely, speaking eyes, her fine, sensitive mouth.
+
+There remained nothing of her former self. The face was unrecognizable,
+so soiled and wounded was it. Her clothes were in tatters. Surely a
+furious frenzy had moved the monsters who had slain the poor lady! She
+had received more than twenty knife-wounds, and must have been struck
+with a stick, or rather with a hammer; she had been dragged by her feet
+and by her hair!
+
+In her left hand she grasped a strip of common cloth, torn, doubtless,
+from the clothes of one of the assassins. The mayor, in viewing the
+spectacle, felt his legs fail him, and supported himself on the arm of
+the impassible Plantat.
+
+"Let us carry her to the house," said the justice, "and then we will
+search for the count."
+
+The valet and brigadier (who had now returned) called on the domestics
+for assistance. The women rushed into the garden. There was then a
+terrible concert of cries, lamentations, and imprecations.
+
+"The wretches! So noble a mistress! So good a lady!"
+
+M. and Mme. de Tremorel, one could see, were adored by their people.
+
+The countess had just been laid upon the billiard-table, on the
+ground-floor, when the judge of instruction and a physician were
+announced.
+
+"At last!" sighed the worthy mayor; and in a lower tone he added, "the
+finest medals have their reverse."
+
+For the first time in his life, he seriously cursed his ambition, and
+regretted being the most important personage in Orcival.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The judge of instruction of the tribunal at Corbeil, was M. Antoine
+Domini, a remarkable man, since called to higher functions. He was forty
+years of age, of a prepossessing person, and endowed with a very
+expressive, but too grave physiognomy. In him seemed typified the
+somewhat stiff solemnity of the magistracy. Penetrated with the dignity
+of his office, he sacrificed his life to it, rejecting the most simple
+distractions, and the most innocent pleasures.
+
+He lived alone, seldom showing himself abroad; rarely received his
+friends, not wishing, as he said, that the weaknesses of the man should
+derogate from the sacred character of the judge. This latter reason had
+deterred him from marrying, though he felt the need of a domestic
+sphere.
+
+Always and everywhere he was the magistrate--that is, the
+representative, even to fanaticism, of what he thought the most august
+institution on the earth. Naturally gay, he would double-lock himself in
+when he wished to laugh. He was witty; but if a bright sally escaped
+him, you may be sure he repented of it. Body and soul he gave to his
+vocation; and no one could bring more conscientiousness to the discharge
+of what he thought to be his duty. He was also inflexible. It was
+monstrous, in his eyes, to discuss an article of the code. The law
+spoke; it was enough; he shut his eyes, covered his ears, and obeyed.
+
+From the day when a legal investigation commenced, he did not sleep, and
+he employed every means to discover the truth. Yet he was not regarded
+as a good judge of instruction; to contend by tricks with a prisoner was
+repugnant to him; to lay a snare for a rogue he thought debasing; in
+short, he was obstinate--obstinate to foolishness, sometimes to
+absurdity; even to denying the existence of the sun at mid-day.
+
+The mayor and Papa Plantat hastened to meet M. Domini. He bowed to them
+gravely, as if he had not known them, and presenting to them a man of
+some sixty years who accompanied him:
+
+"Messieurs," said he, "this is Doctor Gendron."
+
+Papa Plantat shook hands with the doctor; the mayor smiled graciously at
+him, for Dr. Gendron was well-known in those parts; he was even
+celebrated, despite the nearness of Paris. Loving his art and exercising
+it with a passionate energy, he yet owed his renown less to his science
+than his manners. People said: "He is an original;" they admired his
+affectation of independence, of scepticism, and rudeness. He made his
+visits from five to nine in the morning--all the worse for those for
+whom these hours were inconvenient. After nine o'clock the doctor was
+not to be had. The doctor was working for himself, the doctor was in his
+laboratory, the doctor was inspecting his cellar. It was rumored that he
+sought for secrets of practical chemistry, to augment still more his
+twenty thousand livres of income. And he did not deny it; for in truth
+he was engaged on poisons, and was perfecting an invention by which
+could be discovered traces of all the alkaloids which up to that time
+had escaped analysis. If his friends reproached him, even jokingly, on
+sending away sick people in the afternoon, he grew red with rage.
+
+"Parbleu!" he answered, "I find you superb! I am a doctor four hours in
+the day. I am paid by hardly a quarter of my patients--that's three
+hours I give daily to humanity, which I despise. Let each of you do as
+much, and we shall see."
+
+The mayor conducted the new-comers into the drawing-room, where he
+installed himself to write down the results of his examination.
+
+"What a misfortune for my town, this crime!" said he to M. Domini. "What
+shame! Orcival has lost its reputation."
+
+"I know nothing of the affair," returned the judge. "The gendarme who
+went for me knew little about it."
+
+M. Courtois recounted at length what his investigation had discovered,
+not forgetting the minutest detail, dwelling especially on the excellent
+precautions which he had had the sagacity to take. He told how the
+conduct of the Bertauds had at first awakened his suspicions; how he had
+detected them, at least in a pointblank lie; how, finally, he had
+determined to arrest them. He spoke standing, his head thrown back, with
+wordy emphasis. The pleasure of speaking partially rewarded him for his
+recent distress.
+
+"And now," he concluded, "I have just ordered the most exact search, so
+that doubtless we shall find the count's body. Five men, detailed by me,
+and all the people of the house, are searching the park. If their
+efforts are not crowned with success, I have here some fishermen who
+will drag the river."
+
+M. Domini held his tongue, only nodding his head from time to time, as a
+sign of approbation. He was studying, weighing the details told him,
+building up in his mind a plan of proceeding.
+
+"You have acted wisely," said he, at last. "The misfortune is a great
+one, but I agree with you that we are on the track of the criminals.
+These poachers, or the gardener who has disappeared, have something,
+perhaps, to do with this abominable crime."
+
+Already, for some minutes, M. Plantat had rather awkwardly concealed
+some signs of impatience.
+
+"The misfortune is," said he, "that if Guespin is guilty, he will not be
+such a fool as to show himself here."
+
+"Oh, we'll find him," returned M. Domini. "Before leaving Corbeil, I
+sent a despatch to the prefecture of police at Paris, to ask for a
+police agent, who will doubtless be here shortly."
+
+"While waiting," proposed the mayor, "perhaps you would like to see the
+scene of the crime?"
+
+M. Domini made a motion as if to rise; then sat down again.
+
+"In fact, no," said he; "we will see nothing till the agent arrives. But
+I must have some information concerning the Count and Countess de
+Tremorel."
+
+The worthy mayor again triumphed.
+
+"Oh, I can give it to you," answered he quickly, "better than anybody.
+Ever since their advent here, I may say, I have been one of their best
+friends. Ah, sir, what charming people! excellent, and affable, and
+devoted--"
+
+And at the remembrance of all his friends' good qualities, M. Courtois
+choked in his utterance.
+
+"The Count de Tremorel," he resumed, "was a man of thirty-four years,
+handsome, witty to the tips of his nails. He had sometimes, however,
+periods of melancholy, during which he did not wish to see anybody; but
+he was ordinarily so affable, so polite, so obliging; he knew so well
+how to be noble without haughtiness, that everybody here esteemed and
+loved him."
+
+"And the countess?" asked the judge of instruction.
+
+"An angel, Monsieur, an angel on earth! Poor lady! You will soon see her
+remains, and surely you would not guess that she has been the queen of
+the country, by reason of her beauty."
+
+"Were they rich?"
+
+"Yes; they must have had, together, more than a hundred thousand francs
+income--oh, yes, much more; for within five or six months the count, who
+had not the bucolic tastes of poor Sauvresy, sold some lands to buy
+consols."
+
+"Have they been married long?"
+
+M. Courtois scratched his head; it was his appeal to memory.
+
+"Faith," he answered, "it was in September of last year; just six months
+ago. I married them myself. Poor Sauvresy had been dead a year."
+
+The judge of instruction looked up from his notes with a surprised air.
+
+"Who is this Sauvresy," he inquired, "of whom you speak?"
+
+Papa Plantat, who was furiously biting his nails in a corner, apparently
+a stranger to what was passing, rose abruptly.
+
+"Monsieur Sauvresy," said he, "was the first husband of Madame de
+Tremorel. My friend Courtois has omitted this fact."
+
+"Oh!" said the mayor, in a wounded tone, "it seems to me that under
+present circumstances--"
+
+"Pardon me," interrupted the judge. "It is a detail such as may well
+become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and at the first
+view, insignificant."
+
+"Hum!" grunted Papa Plantat. "Insignificant--foreign to it!"
+
+His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was struck
+by it.
+
+"Do you share," he asked, "the opinion of the mayor regarding the
+Tremorels?"
+
+Plantat shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I haven't any opinions," he answered: "I live alone--see nobody; don't
+disturb myself about anything. But--"
+
+"It seems to me," said M. Courtois, "that nobody should be better
+acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself."
+
+"Then, you are telling the story clumsily," said M. Plantat, dryly.
+
+The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself. So M. Plantat,
+without more ado, to the great scandal of the mayor, who was thus put
+into the background, proceeded to dilate upon the main features of the
+count's and countess's biography.
+
+"The Countess de Tremorel, nee Bertha Lechaillu, was the daughter of a
+poor village school-master. At eighteen, her beauty was famous for three
+leagues around, but as she only had for dowry her great blue eyes and
+blond ringlets, but few serious lovers presented themselves. Already
+Bertha, by advice of her family, had resigned herself to take a place as
+a governess--a sad position for so beautiful a maid--when the heir of
+one of the richest domains in the neighborhood happened to see her, and
+fell in love with her.
+
+"Clement Sauvresy was just thirty; he had no longer any family, and
+possessed nearly a hundred thousand livres income from lands absolutely
+free of incumbrance. Clearly, he had the best right in the world to
+choose a wife to his taste. He did not hesitate. He asked for Bertha's
+hand, won it, and, a month after, wedded her at mid-day, to the great
+scandal of the neighboring aristocracy, who went about saying: 'What
+folly! what good is there in being rich, if it is not to double one's
+fortune by a good marriage!'
+
+"Nearly a month before the marriage, Sauvresy set the laborers to work
+at Valfeuillu, and in no long time had spent, in repairs and furniture,
+a trifle of thirty thousand crowns. The newly married pair chose this
+beautiful spot in which to spend their honeymoon. They were so
+well-contented there that they established themselves permanently at
+Valfeuillu, to the great satisfaction of the neighborhood.
+
+"Bertha was one of those persons, it seemed, who are born especially to
+marry millionnaires. Without awkwardness or embarrassment, she passed
+easily from the humble school-room, where she had assisted her father,
+to the splendid drawing-room of Valfeuillu. And when she did the honors
+of her chateau to all the neighboring aristocracy, it seemed as though
+she had never done anything else. She knew how to remain simple,
+approachable, modest, all the while that she took the tone of the
+highest society. She was beloved."
+
+"But it appears to me," interrupted the mayor, "that I said the same
+thing, and it was really not worth while--"
+
+A gesture from M. Domini closed his mouth, and M. Plantat continued:
+
+"Sauvresy was also liked, for he was one of those golden hearts which
+know not how to suspect evil. He was one of those men with a robust
+faith, with obstinate illusions, whom doubts never disturb. He was one
+of those who thoroughly confide in the sincerity of their friends, in
+the love of their mistresses. This new domestic household ought to be
+happy; it was so. Bertha adored her husband--that frank man, who, before
+speaking to her a word of love, offered her his hand. Sauvresy professed
+for his wife a worship which few thought foolish. They lived in great
+style at Valfeuillu. They received a great deal. When autumn came all
+the numerous spare chambers were filled. The turnouts were magnificent.
+
+"Sauvresy had been married two years, when one evening he brought from
+Paris one of his old and intimate friends, a college comrade of whom he
+had often spoken, Count Hector de Tremorel. The count intended to remain
+but a short time at Valfeuillu; but weeks passed and then months, and he
+still remained. It was not surprising. Hector had passed a very stormy
+youth, full of debauchery, of clubs, of gambling, and of amours. He had
+thrown to the winds of his caprices an immense fortune; the relatively
+calm life of Valfeuillu was a relief. At first people said to him, 'You
+will soon have enough of the country.' He smiled, but said nothing. It
+was then thought, and rightly, perhaps, that having become poor, he
+cared little to display his ruin before those who had obscured his
+splendor. He absented himself rarely, and then only to go to Corbeil,
+almost always on foot. There he frequented the Belle Image hotel, the
+best in the town, and met, as if by chance, a young lady from Paris.
+They spent the afternoon together, and separated when the last train
+left."
+
+"Peste!" growled the mayor, "for a man who lives alone, who sees nobody,
+who would not for the world have anything to do with other people's
+business, it seems to me our dear Monsieur Plantat is pretty well
+informed."
+
+Evidently M. Courtois was jealous. How was it that he, the first
+personage in the place, had been absolutely ignorant of these meetings?
+His ill-humor was increasing, when Dr. Gendron answered:
+
+"Pah! all Corbeil prated about that at the time."
+
+M. Plantat made a movement with his lips as if to say, "I know other
+things besides." He went on, however, with his story.
+
+"The visit of Count Hector made no change in the habits at the chateau.
+Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy had a brother; that was all. Sauvresy at
+this time made several journeys to Paris, where, as everybody knew, he
+was engaged in arranging his friend's affairs.
+
+"This charming existence lasted a year. Happiness seemed to be fixed
+forever beneath the delightful shades of Valfeuillu. But alas! one
+evening on returning from the hunt, Sauvresy became so ill that he was
+forced to take to his bed. A doctor was called; inflammation of the
+chest had set in. Sauvresy was young, vigorous as an oak; his state did
+not at first cause anxiety. A fortnight afterward, in fact, he was up
+and about. But he was imprudent and had a relapse. He again nearly
+recovered; a week afterward there was another relapse, and this time so
+serious, that a fatal end of his illness was foreseen. During this long
+sickness, the love of Bertha and the affection of Tremorel for Sauvresy
+were tenderly shown. Never was an invalid tended with such
+solicitude--surrounded with so many proofs of the purest devotion. His
+wife and his friend were always at his couch, night and day. He had
+hours of suffering, but never a second of weariness. He repeated to all
+who went to see him, that he had come to bless his illness. He said to
+himself, 'If I had not fallen ill, I should never have known how much I
+was beloved.'"
+
+"He said the same thing to me," interrupted the mayor, "more than a
+hundred times. He also said so to Madame Courtois, to Laurence, my
+eldest daughter--"
+
+"Naturally," continued M. Plantat. "But Sauvresy's distemper was one
+against which the science of the most skilful physicians and the most
+constant care contend in vain.
+
+"He said that he did not suffer much, but he faded perceptibly, and was
+no more than the shadow of his former self. At last, one night, toward
+two or three o'clock, he died in the arms of his wife and his friend. Up
+to the last moment, he had preserved the full force of his faculties.
+Less than an hour before expiring, he wished everyone to be awakened,
+and that all the servants of the castle should be summoned. When they
+were all gathered about the bedside, he took his wife's hand, placed it
+in that of the Count de Tremorel, and made them swear to marry each
+other when he was no more. Bertha and Hector began to protest, but he
+insisted in such a manner as to compel assent, praying and adjuring
+them, and declaring that their refusal would embitter his last moments.
+This idea of the marriage between his widow and his friend seems,
+besides, to have singularly possessed his thoughts toward the close of
+his life. In the preamble of his will, dictated the night before his
+death, to M. Bury, notary of Orcival, he says formally that their union
+is his dearest wish, certain as he is of their happiness, and knowing
+well that his memory will be piously kept."
+
+"Had Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy no children?" asked the judge of
+instruction.
+
+"No," answered the mayor.
+
+M. Plantat continued:
+
+"The grief of the count and the young widow was intense. M. de Tremorel,
+especially, seemed absolutely desperate, and acted like a madman. The
+countess shut herself up, forbidding even those whom she loved best from
+entering her chamber--even Madame Courtois. When the count and Madame
+Bertha reappeared, they were scarcely to be recognized, so much had both
+changed. Monsieur Hector seemed to have grown twenty years older. Would
+they keep the oath made at the death-bed of Sauvresy, of which everyone
+was apprised? This was asked with all the more curiosity, because their
+profound sorrow for a man who well merited it, was admired."
+
+The judge of instruction stopped M. Plantat with a motion of his hand.
+
+"Do you know," asked he, "whether the rendezvous at the Hotel Belle
+Image had ceased?"
+
+"I suppose so, sir; I think so."
+
+"I am almost sure of it," said Dr. Gendron. "I have often heard it
+said--they know everything at Corbeil--that there was a heated
+explanation between M. de Tremorel and the pretty Parisian lady. After
+this quarrel, they were no longer seen at the Belle Image."
+
+The old justice of the peace smiled.
+
+"Melun is not at the end of the world," said he, "and there are hotels
+at Melun. With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau, at
+Versailles, even at Paris. Madame de Tremorel might have been jealous;
+her husband had some first-rate trotters in his stables."
+
+Did M. Plantat give an absolutely disinterested opinion, or did he make
+an insinuation? The judge of instruction looked at him attentively, to
+reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing but a profound
+serenity. He told the story as he would any other, no matter what.
+
+"Please go on, Monsieur," resumed M. Domini.
+
+"Alas!" said M. Plantat, "nothing here below is eternal, not even grief.
+I know it better than anybody. Soon, to the tears of the first days, to
+violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and Madame Bertha, a
+reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy. And in one year after
+Sauvresy's death Monsieur de Tremorel espoused his widow."
+
+During this long narrative the mayor had several times exhibited marks
+of impatience. At the end, being able to hold in no longer, he
+exclaimed:
+
+"There, those are surely exact details; but I question whether they have
+advanced us a step in this grave matter which occupies us all--to find
+the murderers of the count and countess."
+
+M. Plantat, at these words, bent on the judge of instruction his clear
+and deep look, as if to search his conscience to the bottom.
+
+"These details were indispensable," returned M. Domini, "and they are
+very clear. Those rendezvous at the hotel struck me; one knows not to
+what extremities jealousy might lead a woman--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, seeking, no doubt, some connection between the
+pretty Parisian and the murderers; then resumed:
+
+"Now that I know the Tremorels as if I had lived with them intimately,
+let us proceed to the actual facts."
+
+The brilliant eye of M. Plantat immediately grew dim; he opened his lips
+as if to speak; but kept his peace. The doctor alone, who had not ceased
+to study the old justice of the peace, remarked the sudden change of his
+features.
+
+"It only remains," said M. Domini, "to know how the new couple lived."
+
+M. Courtois thought it due to his dignity to anticipate M. Plantat.
+
+"You ask how the new couple lived," said he hastily; "they lived in
+perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most
+intimate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of happiness
+between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I often talked of
+him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector--I called him so,
+familiarly, this poor, dear count--gave his wife the tender attentions
+of a lover; those delicate cares, which I fear most married people soon
+dispense with."
+
+"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to be
+ironical.
+
+"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor--"she permitted me to call her thus,
+paternally--I have cited her many and many a time as an example and
+model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector and of Sauvresy, the
+two most worthy men I have ever met!"
+
+Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers, he
+added, more softly:
+
+"I have my reasons for expressing myself thus; and I do not hesitate to
+do so before men whose profession and character will justify my
+discretion. Sauvresy, when living, did me a great service--when I was
+forced to take the mayoralty. As for Hector, I knew well that he had
+departed--from the dissipations of his youth, and thought I discerned
+that he was not indifferent to my eldest daughter, Laurence; and I
+dreamed of a marriage all the more proper, as, if the Count Hector had a
+great name, I would give to my daughter a dowry large enough to gild any
+escutcheon. Only events modified my projects."
+
+The mayor would have gone on singing the praises of the Tremorels, and
+his own family, if the judge of instruction had not interposed.
+
+"Here I am fixed," he commenced, "now, it seems to me--"
+
+He was interrupted by a loud noise in the vestibule. It seemed like a
+struggle, and cries and shouts reached the drawing-room. Everybody rose.
+
+"I know what it is," said the mayor, "only too well. They have just
+found the body of the Count de Tremorel."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The mayor was mistaken. The drawing-room door opened suddenly, and a man
+of slender form, who was struggling furiously, and with an energy which
+would not have been suspected, appeared, held on one side by a gendarme,
+and on the other by a domestic.
+
+The struggle had already lasted long, and his clothes were in great
+disorder. His new coat was torn, his cravat floated in strips, the
+button of his collar had been wrenched off, and his open shirt left his
+breast bare. In the vestibule and court were heard the frantic cries of
+the servants and the curious crowd--of whom there were more than a
+hundred, whom the news of the crime had collected about the gate, and
+who burned to hear, and above all to see.
+
+This enraged crowd cried:
+
+"It is he! Death to the assassin! It is Guespin! See him!"
+
+And the wretch, inspired by an immense fright, continued to struggle.
+
+"Help!" shouted he hoarsely. "Leave me alone. I am innocent!"
+
+He had posted himself against the drawing-room door, and they could not
+force him forward.
+
+"Push him," ordered the mayor, "push him."
+
+It was easier to command than to execute. Terror lent to Guespin
+enormous force. But it occurred to the doctor to open the second wing of
+the door; the support failed the wretch, and he fell, or rather rolled
+at the foot of the table at which the judge of instruction was seated.
+He was straightway on his feet again, and his eyes sought a chance to
+escape. Seeing none--for the windows and doors were crowded with the
+lookers-on--he fell into a chair. The fellow appeared the image of
+terror, wrought up to paroxysm. On his livid face, black and blue, were
+visible the marks of the blows he had received in the struggle; his
+white lips trembled, and he moved his jaws as if he sought a little
+saliva for his burning tongue; his staring eyes were bloodshot, and
+expressed the wildest distress; his body was bent with convulsive
+spasms. So terrible was this spectacle, that the mayor thought it might
+be an example of great moral force. He turned toward the crowd, and
+pointing to Guespin, said in a tragic tone:
+
+"See what crime is!"
+
+The others exchanged surprised looks.
+
+"If he is guilty," muttered M. Plantat, "why on earth has he returned?"
+
+It was with difficulty that the crowd was kept back; the brigadier was
+forced to call in the aid of his men. Then he returned and placed
+himself beside Guespin, thinking it not prudent to leave him alone with
+unarmed men.
+
+But the man was little to be feared. The reaction came; his over-excited
+energy became exhausted, his strained muscles flaccid, and his
+prostration resembled the agony of brain fever. Meanwhile the brigadier
+recounted what had happened.
+
+"Some of the servants of the chateau and the neighboring houses were
+chatting near the gate, about the crime, and the disappearance of
+Guespin last night, when all of a sudden, someone perceived him at a
+distance, staggering, and singing boisterously, as if he were drunk."
+
+"Was he really drunk?" asked M. Domini.
+
+"Very," returned the brigadier.
+
+"Then we owe it to the wine that we have caught him, and thus all will
+be explained."
+
+"On perceiving this wretch," pursued the gendarme, who seemed not to
+have the shadow of a doubt of Guespin's guilt, "Francois, the count's
+valet de chambre, and Baptiste, the mayor's servant, who were there,
+hastened to meet him, and seized him. He was so tipsy that he thought
+they were fooling with him. When he saw my men, he was undeceived. Just
+then one of the women cried out, 'Brigand, it was you who have this
+night assassinated the count and the countess!' He immediately became
+paler than death, and remained motionless and dumb. Then he began to
+struggle so violently that he nearly escaped. Ah! he's strong, the
+rogue, although he does not look like it."
+
+"And he said nothing?" said Plantat.
+
+"Not a word; his teeth were so tightly shut with rage that I'm sure he
+couldn't say 'bread.' But we've got him. I've searched him, and this is
+what I have found in his pockets: a handkerchief, a pruning-knife, two
+small keys, a scrap of paper covered with figures, and an address of the
+establishment of 'Vulcan's Forges.' But that's not all--"
+
+The brigadier took a step, and eyed his auditors mysteriously; he was
+preparing his effect.
+
+"That's not all. While they were bringing him along in the court-yard,
+he tried to get rid of his wallet. Happily I had my eyes open, and saw
+the dodge. I picked up the wallet, which he had thrown among the flowers
+near the door; here it is. In it are a one-hundred-franc note, three
+napoleons, and seven francs in change. Yesterday the rascal hadn't a
+sou--"
+
+"How do you know that?" asked M. Domini.
+
+"Dame! Monsieur Judge, he borrowed of the valet Francois (who told me of
+it) twenty-five francs, pretending that it was to pay his share of the
+wedding expenses."
+
+"Tell Francois to come here," said the judge of instruction. "Now, sir,"
+he continued, when the valet presented himself, "do you know whether
+Guespin had any money yesterday?"
+
+"He had so little, Monsieur," answered Francois promptly, "that he asked
+me to lend him twenty-five francs during the day, saying that otherwise
+he could not go to the wedding, not having enough even to pay his
+railway fare."
+
+"But he might have some savings--a hundred-franc note, for instance,
+which he didn't like to change."
+
+Francois shook his head with an incredulous smile.
+
+"Guespin isn't the man to have savings," said he; "Women and cards
+exhaust all his wages. No longer ago than last week, the keeper of the
+Cafe du Commerce came here and made a row on account of what he owed
+him, and threatened to go to the count about it."
+
+Perceiving the effect of what he said, the valet, as if to correct
+himself, hastened to add:
+
+"I have no ill-will toward Guespin; before to-day I've always considered
+him a clever fellow, though he was too much of a practical joker; he
+was, perhaps, a little proud, considering his bringing up--"
+
+"You may go," said the judge, cutting the disquisition of M. Francois
+short; the valet retired.
+
+During this colloquy, Guespin had little by little come to himself. The
+judge of instruction, Plantat, and the mayor narrowly watched the play
+of his countenance, which he had not the coolness to compose, while the
+doctor held his pulse and counted its beating.
+
+"Remorse, and fear of punishment," muttered the mayor.
+
+"Innocence, and the impossibility of proving it," responded Plantat in a
+low tone.
+
+M. Domini heard both these exclamations, but did not appear to take
+notice of them. His opinion was not formed, and he did not wish that
+anyone should be able to foretell, by any word of his, what it would be.
+
+"Are you better, my friend?" asked Dr. Gendron, of Guespin.
+
+The poor fellow made an affirmative sign. Then, having looked around
+with the anxious glance of a man who calculates a precipice over which
+he has fallen, he passed his hand across his eyes and stammered:
+
+"Something to drink!"
+
+A glass of water was brought, and he drank it at a draught, with an
+expression of intense satisfaction. Then he got upon his feet.
+
+"Are you now in a fit state to answer me?" asked the judge.
+
+Guespin staggered a little, then drew himself up. He continued erect
+before the judge, supporting himself against a table. The nervous
+trembling of his hands diminished, the blood returned to his cheeks, and
+as he listened, he arranged the disorder of his clothes.
+
+"You know the events of this night, don't you?" commenced the judge;
+"the Count and Countess de Tremorel have been murdered. You went away
+yesterday with all the servants of the chateau; you left them at the
+Lyons station about nine o'clock; you have just returned, alone. Where
+have you passed the night?"
+
+Guespin hung his head and remained silent.
+
+"That is not all," continued M. Domini; "yesterday you had no money, the
+fact is well known; one of your fellow-servants has just proved it.
+To-day, one hundred and sixty-seven francs are found in your wallet.
+Where did you get this money?"
+
+The unhappy creature's lip moved as if he wished to answer; a sudden
+thought seemed to check him, for he did not speak.
+
+"More yet. What is this card of a hardware establishment that has been
+found in your pocket?"
+
+Guespin made a sign of desperation, and stammered:
+
+"I am innocent."
+
+"I have not as yet accused you," said the judge of instruction, quickly.
+"You knew, perhaps, that the count received a considerable sum
+yesterday?"
+
+A bitter smile parted Guespin's lips as he answered:
+
+"I know well enough that everything is against me."
+
+There was a profound silence. The doctor, the mayor, and Plantat, seized
+with a keen curiosity, dared not move. Perhaps nothing in the world is
+more thrilling than one of these merciless duels between justice and a
+man suspected of a crime. The questions may seem insignificant, the
+answers irrelevant; both questions and answers envelop terrible, hidden
+meanings. The smallest gesture, the most rapid movement of physiognomy
+may acquire deep significance, a fugitive light in the eye betray an
+advantage gained; an imperceptible change in the voice may be
+confession.
+
+The coolness of M. Domini was disheartening.
+
+"Let us see," said he after a pause: "where did you pass the night? How
+did you get this money? And what does this address mean?"
+
+"Eh!" cried Guespin, with the rage of powerlessness, "I should tell you
+what you would not believe."
+
+The judge was about to ask another question, but Guespin cut him short.
+
+"No; you wouldn't believe me," he repeated, his eyes glistening with
+anger. "Do men like you believe men like me? I have a past, you know, of
+antecedents, as you would say. The past! They throw that in my face, as
+if, the future depended on the past. Well, yes; it's true, I'm a
+debauchee, a gambler, a drunkard, an idler, but what of it? It's true I
+have been before the police court, and condemned for night
+poaching--what does that prove? I have wasted my life, but whom have I
+wronged if not myself? My past! Have I not sufficiently expiated it?"
+
+Guespin was self-possessed, and finding in himself sensations which
+awoke a sort of eloquence, he expressed himself with a savage energy
+well calculated to strike his hearers.
+
+"I have not always served others," he continued; "my father was in easy
+circumstances--almost rich. He had large gardens, near Saumur, and he
+passed for one of the best gardeners of that region. I was educated, and
+when sixteen years old, began to study law. Four years later they
+thought me a talented youth. Unhappily for me, my father died. He left
+me a landed property worth a hundred thousand francs: I sold it out for
+sixty thousand and went to Paris. I was a fool then. I had the fever of
+pleasure-seeking, a thirst for all sorts of pastimes, perfect health,
+plenty of money. I found Paris a narrow limit for my vices; it seemed to
+me that the objects of my desires were wanting. I thought my sixty
+thousand francs would last forever."
+
+Guespin paused; a thousand memories of those times rushed into his
+thoughts and he muttered:
+
+"Those were good times."
+
+"My sixty thousand francs," he resumed, "held out eight years. Then I
+hadn't a sou, yet I longed to continue my way of living. You understand,
+don't you? About this time, the police, one night, arrested me. I was
+'detained' six months. You will find the records of the affair at the
+prefecture. Do you know what it will tell you? It will tell you that on
+leaving prison I fell into that shameful and abominable misery which
+exists in Paris. It will tell you that I have lived among the worst and
+lowest outcasts of Paris--and it is the truth."
+
+The worthy mayor was filled with consternation.
+
+"Good Heaven!" thought he, "what an audacious and cynical rascal! and to
+think that one is liable at any time to admit such servants into his
+house!"
+
+The judge held his tongue. He knew that Guespin was in such a state
+that, under the irresistible impulse of passion, he might betray his
+innermost thoughts.
+
+"But there is one thing," continued the suspected man, "that the record
+will not tell you; that, disgusted with this abject life, I was tempted
+to suicide. It will not tell you anything of my desperate attempts, my
+repentance, my relapses. At last, I was able in part to reform. I got
+work; and after being in four situations, engaged myself here. I found
+myself well off. I always spent my month's wages in advance, it's
+true--but what would you have? And ask if anyone has ever had to
+complain of me."
+
+It is well known that among the most intelligent criminals, those who
+have had a certain degree of education, and enjoyed some good fortune,
+are the most redoubtable. According to this, Guespin was decidedly
+dangerous. So thought those who heard him. Meanwhile, exhausted by his
+excitement, he paused and wiped his face, covered with perspiration.
+
+M. Domini had not lost sight of his plan of attack.
+
+"All that is very well," said he, "we will return to your confession at
+the proper time and place. But just now the question is, how you spent
+your night, and where you got this money."
+
+This persistency seemed to exasperate Guespin.
+
+"Eh!" cried he, "how do you want me to answer? The truth? You wouldn't
+credit it. As well keep silent. It is a fatality."
+
+"I warn you for your own sake," resumed the judge, "that if you persist
+in refusing to answer, the charges which weigh upon you are such that I
+will have you arrested as suspected of this murder."
+
+This menace seemed to have a remarkable effect on Guespin. Great tears
+filled his eyes, up to that time dry and flashing, and silently rolled
+down his cheeks. His energy was exhausted; he fell on his knees, crying:
+
+"Mercy! I beg you, Monsieur, not to arrest me; I swear I am innocent, I
+swear it!"
+
+"Speak, then."
+
+"You wish it," said Guespin, rising. Then he suddenly changed his tone.
+"No, I will not speak, I cannot! One man alone could save me; it is the
+count; and he is dead. I am innocent; yet if the guilty are not found, I
+am lost. Everything is against me. I know it too well. Now, do with me
+as you please; I will not say another word."
+
+Guespin's determination, confirmed by his look, did not surprise the
+judge.
+
+"You will reflect," said he, quietly, "only, when you have reflected, I
+shall not have the same confidence in what you say as I should have now.
+Possibly," and the judge spoke slowly and with emphasis, "you have only
+had an indirect part in this crime; if so--"
+
+"Neither indirect nor direct," interrupted Guespin; and he added,
+violently, "what misery! To be innocent, and not able to defend myself."
+
+"Since it is so," resumed M. Domini, "you should not object to be placed
+before Mme. de Tremorel's body?"
+
+The accused did not seem affected by this menace. He was conducted into
+the hall whither they had fetched the countess. There, he examined the
+body with a cold and calm eye. He said, simply:
+
+"She is happier than I; she is dead, she suffers no longer; and I, who
+am not guilty, am accused of her death."
+
+M. Domini made one more effort.
+
+"Come, Guespin; if in any way you know of this crime, I conjure you,
+tell me. If you know the murderers, name them. Try to merit some
+indulgence for your frankness and repentance."
+
+Guespin made a gesture as if resigned to persecution. "By all that is
+most sacred," he answered, "I am innocent. Yet I see clearly that if the
+murderer is not found, I am lost."
+
+Little by little M. Domini's conviction was formed and confirmed. An
+inquest of this sort is not so difficult as may be imagined. The
+difficulty is to seize at the beginning; in the entangled skein, the
+main thread, which must lead to the truth through all the mazes, the
+ruses, silence, falsehoods of the guilty. M. Domini was certain that he
+held this precious thread. Having one of the assassins, he knew well
+that he would secure the others. Our prisons, where good soup is eaten,
+and good beds are provided, have tongues, as well as the dungeons of the
+medieval ages.
+
+The judge ordered the brigadier to arrest Guespin, and told him not to
+lose sight of him. He then sent for old Bertaud. This worthy personage
+was not one of the people who worry themselves. He had had so many
+affairs with the men of law, that one inquisition the more disturbed him
+little.
+
+"This man has a bad reputation in my commune," whispered the mayor to M.
+Domini.
+
+Bertaud heard it, however, and smiled.
+
+Questioned by the judge of instruction, he recounted very clearly and
+exactly what had happened in the morning, his resistance, and his son's
+determination. He explained the reason for the falsehood they told; and
+here again the chapter of antecedents came up.
+
+"Look here; I'm better than my reputation, after all," said he. "There
+are many folks who can't say as much. You see many things when you go
+about at night--enough."
+
+He was urged to explain his allusions, but in vain.
+
+When he was asked where and how he had passed the night, he answered,
+that having left the cabaret at ten o'clock, he went to put down some
+traps in Mauprevoir wood; and had gone home and to bed about one
+o'clock.
+
+"By the bye," added he, "there ought to be some game in those traps by
+this time."
+
+"Can you bring a witness to prove that you went home at one?" asked the
+mayor, who bethought him of the count's clock, stopped at twenty minutes
+past three.
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure," carelessly responded the poacher, "it's quite
+likely that my son didn't wake up when I went to bed."
+
+He added, seeing the judge reflect:
+
+"I suspect that you are going to imprison me until the murderers are
+discovered. If it was winter, I wouldn't complain much; a fellow is well
+off in prison then, for it's warm there. But just at the time for
+hunting, it's provoking. It will be a good lesson for that Philippe;
+it'll teach him what it costs to render a service to gentlefolks."
+
+"Enough!" interrupted M. Domini, sternly. "Do you know Guespin?"
+
+This name suddenly subdued the careless insolence of the marauder; his
+little gray eyes experienced a singular restlessness.
+
+"Certainly," he answered in an embarrassed tone, "we have often made a
+party at cards, you understand, while sipping our 'gloria.'"*
+
+[* Coffee and brandy.]
+
+The man's inquietude struck the four who heard him. Plantat, especially,
+betrayed profound surprise. The old vagabond was too shrewd not to
+perceive the effect which he produced.
+
+"Faith, so much the worse!" cried he: "I'll tell you everything. Every
+man for himself, isn't it? If Guespin has done the deed, it will not
+blacken him any more, nor make him any the worse off. I know him, simply
+because he used to sell me the grapes and strawberries from the count's
+conservatories; I suppose he stole them; we divided the money, and I
+left."
+
+Plantat could not refrain from an exclamation of satisfaction, as if to
+say, "Good luck! I knew it well enough!"
+
+When he said he would be sent to prison, Bertaud was not wrong. The
+judge ordered his arrest.
+
+It was now Philippe's turn.
+
+The poor fellow was in a pitiable state; he was crying bitterly.
+
+"To accuse me of such a crime, me!" he kept repeating.
+
+On being questioned he told the pure and simple truth, excusing himself,
+however, for having dared to penetrate into the park. When he was asked
+at what hour his father reached home, he said he knew nothing about it;
+he had gone to bed about nine, and had not awoke until morning. He knew
+Guespin, from having seen him at his father's several times. He knew
+that the old man had some transactions with the gardener, but he was
+ignorant as to what they were. He had never spoken four times to
+Guespin. The judge ordered Philippe to be set at liberty, not that he
+was wholly convinced of his innocence, but because if the crime had been
+committed by several persons, it was well to have one of them free; he
+could be watched, and he would betray the whereabouts of the rest.
+
+Meanwhile the count's body was nowhere to be found. The park had been
+rigidly searched, but in vain. The mayor suggested that he had been
+thrown into the river, which was also M. Domini's opinion; and some
+fishermen were sent to drag the Seine, commencing their search a little
+above the place where the countess was found.
+
+It was then nearly three o'clock. M. Plantat remarked that probably no
+one had eaten anything during the day. Would it not be wise to take
+something, he suggested, if the investigations were to be pursued till
+night? This appeal to the trivial necessities of our frail humanity
+highly displeased the worthy mayor; but the rest readily assented to the
+suggestion, and M. Courtois, though not in the least hungry, followed
+the general example. Around the table which was yet wet with the wine
+spilt by the assassins, the judge, M. Plantat, the mayor, and the doctor
+sat down, and partook of an improvised collation.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The staircase had been put under guard, but the vestibule had remained
+free. People were heard coming and going, tramping and coughing; then
+rising above this continuous noise, the oaths of the gendarmes trying to
+keep back the crowd. From time to time, a scared face passed by the
+dining-room door, which was ajar. These were curious folks who, more
+daring than the rest, wished to see the "men of justice" eating, and
+tried to hear a word or two, to report them, and so become important in
+the eyes of the others. But the "men of justice"--as they said at
+Orcival--took care to say nothing of moment while the doors were open,
+and while a servant was passing to and fro. Greatly moved by this
+frightful crime, disturbed by the mystery which surrounded it, they hid
+their impressions. Each, on his part, studied the probability of his
+suspicions, and kept his opinion to himself.
+
+M. Domini, as he ate, put his notes in order, numbering the leaves,
+marking certain peculiarly significant answers of the suspected persons
+with a cross. He was, perhaps, the least tormented of the four
+companions at this funereal repast. The crime did not seem to him one of
+those which keep judges of instruction sleepless through the night; he
+saw clearly the motive of it; and he had Bertaud and Guespin, two of the
+assassins, or at least accomplices, secure.
+
+M. Plantat and Dr. Gendron, seated next each other, were talking of the
+illness which carried off Sauvresy. M. Courtois listened to the hubbub
+without.
+
+The news of the double murder was soon noised about the neighborhood,
+and the crowd increased every minute. It filled the court, and became
+bolder and bolder; the gendarmes were overwhelmed. Then or never was the
+time for the mayor to show his authority. "I am going to make these
+people listen to reason," said he, "and make them retire." And at once,
+wiping his mouth, he threw his tumbled napkin on the table, and went
+out.
+
+It was time. The brigadier's injunctions were no longer heeded. Some
+curious people, more eager than the rest, had flanked the position and
+were forcing an entrance through the gate leading to the garden. The
+mayor's presence did not perhaps intimidate the crowd much, but it
+redoubled the energy of the gendarmes; the vestibule was cleared, amid
+murmurings against the arm of the law. What a chance for a speech! M.
+Courtois was not wanting to the occasion. He believed that his
+eloquence, endowed with the virtues of a cold showerbath, would calm
+this unwonted effervescence of his constituency. He stepped forward upon
+the steps, his left hand resting in the opening of his vest, gesturing
+with his right in the proud and impassible attitude which the sculptor
+lends to great orators. It was thus that he posed before his council
+when, finding unexpected opposition, he undertook to impose his will
+upon them, and recall the recalcitrant members to their duty.
+
+His speech, in fragments, penetrated to the dining-room. According as he
+turned to the right or to the left, his voice was clear and distinct, or
+was lost in space. He said:
+
+"Fellow-citizens, an atrocious crime, unheard of before in our commune,
+has shocked our peaceable and honest neighborhood. I understand and
+excuse your feverish emotion, your natural indignation. As well as you,
+my friends, more than you--I cherished and esteemed the noble Count de
+Tremorel, and his virtuous wife. We mourn them together--"
+
+"I assure you," said Dr. Gendron to M. Plantat, "that the symptoms you
+describe are not uncommon after pleurisy. From the acute state, the
+inflammation passes to the chronic state, and becomes complicated with
+pneumonia."
+
+"But nothing," pursued the mayor, "can justify a curiosity, which by its
+importunate attempts to be satisfied, embarrasses the investigation, and
+is, at all events, a punishable interference with the cause of justice.
+Why this unwonted gathering? Why these rumors and noises? These
+premature conjectures?"
+
+"There were several consultations," said M. Plantat, "which did not have
+favorable results. Sauvresy suffered altogether strange and
+unaccountable tortures. He complained of troubles so unwonted, so
+absurd, if you'll excuse the word, that he discouraged all the
+conjectures of the most experienced physicians."
+
+"Was it not R---, of Paris, who attended him?"
+
+"Exactly. He came daily, and often remained overnight. Many times I have
+seen him ascending the principal street of the village, with troubled
+countenance, as he went to give his prescription to the apothecary.
+
+"Be wise enough," cried M. Courtois, "to moderate your just anger; be
+calm; be dignified."
+
+"Surely," continued Dr. Gendron, "your apothecary is an intelligent man;
+but you have at Orcival a fellow who quite outdoes him, a fellow who
+knows how to make money; one Robelot--"
+
+"Robelot, the bone-setter?"
+
+"That's the man. I suspect him of giving consultations, and prescribing
+sub rosa. He is very clever. In fact I educated him. Five or six years
+ago, he was my laboratory boy, and even now I employ him when I have a
+delicate operation on hand--"
+
+The doctor stopped, struck by the alteration in the impassible Plantat's
+features.
+
+"What is the matter, my friend?" he asked. "Are you ill?"
+
+The judge left his notes, to look at him. "Why," said he, "Monsieur
+Plantat is very pale--"
+
+But M. Plantat speedily resumed his habitual expression.
+
+"'Tis nothing," he answered, "really nothing. With my abominable
+stomach, as soon as I change my hour of eating--"
+
+Having reached his peroration, M. Courtois raised his voice.
+
+"Return," said he, "to your peaceable homes, your quiet avocations. Rest
+assured the law protects you. Already justice has begun its work; two of
+the criminals are in its power, and we are on the track of their
+accomplices."
+
+"Of all the servants of the chateau," remarked M. Plantat, "there
+remains not one who knew Sauvresy. The domestics have one by one been
+replaced."
+
+"No doubt," answered the doctor, "the sight of the old servants would be
+disagreeable to Monsieur de Tremorel."
+
+He was interrupted by the mayor, who re-entered, his eyes glowing, his
+face animated, wiping his forehead.
+
+"I have let the people know," said he, "the indecency of their
+curiosity. They have all gone away. They were anxious to get at Philippe
+Bertaud, the brigadier says; public opinion has a sharp scent."
+
+Hearing the door open, he turned, and found himself face to face with a
+man whose features were scarcely visible, so profoundly did he bow, his
+hat pressed against his breast.
+
+"What do you wish?" sternly asked M. Courtois. "By what right have you
+come in here?--Who are you?"
+
+The man drew himself up.
+
+"I am Monsieur Lecoq," he replied, with a gracious smile. "Monsieur
+Lecoq of the detective force, sent by the prefect of police in reply to
+a telegram, for this affair."
+
+This declaration clearly surprised all present, even the judge of
+instruction.
+
+In France, each profession has its special externals, as it were,
+insignia, which betray it at first view. Each profession has its
+conventional type, and when public opinion has adopted a type, it does
+not admit it possible that the type should be departed from. What is a
+doctor? A grave man, all in black, with a white cravat. A gentleman with
+a capacious stomach, adorned with heavy gold seals, can only be a
+banker. Everybody knows that the artist is a merry liver, with a peaked
+hat, a velvet vest, and enormous ruffles. By virtue of this rule, the
+detective of the prefecture ought to have an eye full of mystery,
+something suspicious about him, a negligence of dress, and imitation
+jewelry. The most obtuse shopkeeper is sure that he can scent a
+detective at twenty paces a big man with mustaches, and a shining felt
+hat, his throat imprisoned by a collar of hair, dressed in a black,
+threadbare surtout, carefully buttoned up on account of the entire
+absence of linen. Such is the type. But, according to this, M. Lecoq, as
+he entered the dining-room at Valfeuillu, had by no means the air of a
+detective. True, M. Lecoq can assume whatever air he pleases. His
+friends declare that he has a physiognomy peculiar to himself, which he
+resumes when he enters his own house, and which he retains by his own
+fireside, with his slippers on; but the fact is not well proved. What is
+certain, is that his mobile face lends itself to strange metamorphoses;
+that he moulds his features according to his will, as the sculptor
+moulds clay for modelling. He changes everything, even his look.
+
+"So," said the judge of instruction, "the prefect has sent you to me, in
+case certain investigations become necessary."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, quite at your service."
+
+M. Lecoq had on this day assumed a handsome wig of lank hair, of that
+vague color called Paris blonde, parted on the side by a line
+pretentiously fanciful; whiskers of the same color puffed out with bad
+pomade, encircled a pallid face. His big eyes seemed congealed within
+their red border, an open smile rested on his thick lips, which, in
+parting, discovered a range of long yellow teeth. His face, otherwise,
+expressed nothing in particular. It was a nearly equal mixture of
+timidity, self-sufficiency, and contentment. It was quite impossible to
+concede the least intelligence to the possessor of such a phiz. One
+involuntarily looked for a goitre. The retail haberdashers, who, having
+cheated for thirty years in their threads and needles, retire with large
+incomes, should have such heads as this. His apparel was as dull as his
+person. His coat resembled all coats, his trousers all trousers. A hair
+chain, the same color as his whiskers, was attached to a large silver
+watch, which bulged out his left waistcoat pocket. While speaking, he
+fumbled with a confection-box made of transparent horn, full of little
+square lozenges, and adorned by a portrait of a very homely,
+well-dressed woman--"the defunct," no doubt. As the conversation
+proceeded, according as he was satisfied or disturbed, M. Lecoq munched
+a lozenge, or directed glances toward the portrait which were quite a
+poem in themselves.
+
+Having examined the man a long time, the judge of instruction shrugged
+his shoulders. "Well," said M. Domini, finally, "now that you are here,
+we will explain to you what has occurred."
+
+"Oh, that's quite useless," responded Lecoq, with a satisfied air,
+"perfectly useless, sir."
+
+"Nevertheless, it is necessary that you should know--"
+
+"What? that which monsieur the judge knows?" interrupted the detective,
+"for that I already know. Let us agree there has been a murder, with
+theft as its motive; and start from that point. The countess's body has
+been found--not so that of the count. What else? Bertaud, an
+acknowledged rogue, is arrested; he merits a little punishment,
+doubtless. Guespin came back drunk; ah, there are sad charges against
+this Guespin! His past is deplorable; it is not known where he passed
+the night, he refuses to answer, he brings no alibi--this is indeed
+grave!"
+
+M. Plantat gazed at the detective with visible pleasure.
+
+"Who has told you about these things?" asked M. Domini.
+
+"Well--everybody has told me a little."
+
+"But where?"
+
+"Here: I've already been here two hours, and even heard the mayor's
+speech."
+
+And, satisfied with the effect he had produced, M. Lecoq munched a
+lozenge.
+
+"You were not aware, then," resumed the judge, "that I was waiting for
+you?"
+
+"Pardon me," said the detective; "I hope you will be kind enough to hear
+me. You see, it is indispensable to study the ground; one must look
+about, establish his batteries. I am anxious to catch the general
+rumor--public opinion, as they say, so as to distrust it."
+
+"All this," answered M. Domini, severely, "does not justify your delay."
+
+M. Lecoq glanced tenderly at the portrait.
+
+"Monsieur the judge," said he, "has only to inquire at the prefecture,
+and he will learn that I know my profession. The great thing requisite,
+in order to make an effective search, is to remain unknown. The police
+are not popular. Now, if they knew who I was, and why I was here, I
+might go out, but nobody would tell me anything; I might ask
+questions--they'd serve me a hundred lies; they would distrust me, and
+hold their tongues."
+
+"Quite true--quite true," murmured Plantat, coming to the support of the
+detective.
+
+M. Lecoq went on:
+
+"So that when I was told that I was going into the country, I put on my
+country face and clothes. I arrive here and everybody, on seeing me,
+says to himself, 'Here's a curious bumpkin, but not a bad fellow.' Then
+I slip about, listen, talk, make the rest talk! I ask this question and
+that, and am answered frankly; I inform myself, gather hints, no one
+troubles himself about me. These Orcival folks are positively charming;
+why, I've already made several friends, and am invited to dine this very
+evening."
+
+M. Domini did not like the police, and scarcely concealed it. He rather
+submitted to their co-operation than accepted it, solely because he
+could not do without them. While listening to M. Lecoq, he could not but
+approve of what he said; yet he looked at him with an eye by no means
+friendly.
+
+"Since you know so much about the matter," observed he, dryly, "we will
+proceed to examine the scene of the crime."
+
+"I am quite at Monsieur the judge's orders," returned the detective,
+laconically. As everyone was getting up, he took the opportunity to
+offer M. Plantat his lozenge-box.
+
+"Monsieur perhaps uses them?"
+
+Plantat, unwilling to decline, appropriated a lozenge, and the
+detective's face became again serene. Public sympathy was necessary to
+him, as it is to all great comedians.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+M. Lecoq was the first to reach the staircase, and the spots of blood at
+once caught his eye.
+
+"Oh," cried he, at each spot he saw, "oh, oh, the wretches!"
+
+M. Courtois was much moved to find so much sensibility in a detective.
+The latter, as he continued to ascend, went on:
+
+"The wretches! They don't often leave traces like this everywhere--or at
+least they wipe them out."
+
+On gaining the first landing, and the door of the boudoir which led into
+the chamber, he stopped, eagerly scanning, before he entered, the
+position of the rooms.
+
+Then he entered the boudoir, saying:
+
+"Come; I don't see my way clear yet."
+
+"But it seems to me," remarked the judge, "that we have already
+important materials to aid your task. It is clear that Guespin, if he is
+not an accomplice, at least knew something about the crime."
+
+M. Lecoq had recourse to the portrait in the lozenge-box. It was more
+than a glance, it was a confidence. He evidently said something to the
+dear defunct, which he dared not say aloud.
+
+"I see that Guespin is seriously compromised," resumed he. "Why didn't
+he want to tell where he passed the night? But, then, public opinion is
+against him, and I naturally distrust that."
+
+The detective stood alone in the middle of the room, the rest, at his
+request, remained at the threshold, and looking keenly about him,
+searched for some explanation of the frightful disorder of the
+apartment.
+
+"Fools!" cried he, in an irritated tone, "double brutes! Because they
+murder people so as to rob them, is no reason why they should break
+everything in the house. Sharp folks don't smash up furniture; they
+carry pretty picklocks, which work well and make no noise. Idiots! one
+would say--"
+
+He stopped with his mouth wide open.
+
+"Eh! Not so bungling, after all, perhaps."
+
+The witnesses of this scene remained motionless at the door, following,
+with an interest mingled with surprise, the detective's movements.
+
+Kneeling down, he passed his flat palm over the thick carpet, among the
+broken porcelain.
+
+"It's damp; very damp. The tea was not all drunk, it seems, when the
+cups were broken."
+
+"Some tea might have remained in the teapot," suggested Plantat.
+
+"I know it," answered M. Lecoq, "just what I was going to say. So that
+this dampness cannot tell us the exact moment when the crime was
+committed."
+
+"But the clock does, and very exactly," interrupted the mayor.
+
+"The mayor," said M. Domini, "in his notes, well explains that the
+movements of the clock stopped when it fell."
+
+"But see here," said M. Plantat, "it was the odd hour marked by that
+clock that struck me. The hands point to twenty minutes past three; yet
+we know that the countess was fully dressed, when she was struck. Was
+she up taking tea at three in the morning? It's hardly probable."
+
+"I, too, was struck with that circumstance," returned M. Lecoq, "and
+that's why I said, 'not so stupid!' Well, let's see."
+
+He lifted the clock with great care, and replaced it on the mantel,
+being cautious to set it exactly upright. The hands continued to point
+to twenty minutes past three.
+
+"Twenty past three!" muttered he, while slipping a little wedge under
+the stand. "People don't take tea at that hour. Still less common is it
+that people are murdered at daylight."
+
+He opened the clock-case with some difficulty, and pushed the longer
+hand to the figure of half-past three.
+
+The clock struck eleven!
+
+"Good," cried M. Lecoq, triumphantly. "That is the truth!" and drawing
+the lozenge-box from his pocket, he excitedly crushed a lozenge between
+his teeth.
+
+The simplicity of this discovery surprised the spectators; the idea of
+trying the clock in this way had occurred to no one. M. Courtois,
+especially, was bewildered.
+
+"There's a fellow," whispered he to the doctor, "who knows what he's
+about."
+
+"Ergo," resumed M. Lecoq (who knew Latin), "we have here, not brutes, as
+I thought at first, but rascals who looked beyond the end of their
+knife. They intended to put us off the scent, by deceiving us as to the
+hour."
+
+"I don't see their object very clearly," said M. Courtois, timidly.
+
+"Yet it is easy to see it," answered M. Domini. "Was it not for their
+interest to make it appear that the crime was committed after the last
+train for Paris had left? Guespin, leaving his companions at the Lyons
+station at nine, might have reached here at ten, murdered the count and
+countess, seized the money which he knew to be in the count's
+possession, and returned to Paris by the last train."
+
+"These conjectures are very shrewd," interposed M. Plantat; "but how is
+it that Guespin did not rejoin his comrades in the Batignolles? For in
+that way, to a certain degree, he might have provided a kind of alibi."
+
+Dr. Gendron had been sitting on the only unbroken chair in the chamber,
+reflecting on Plantat's sudden embarrassment, when he had spoken of
+Robelot the bone-setter. The remarks of the judge drew him from his
+revery; he got up, and said:
+
+"There is another point; putting forward the time was perhaps useful to
+Guespin, but it would greatly damage Bertaud, his accomplice."
+
+"But," answered M. Domini, "it might be that Bertaud was not consulted.
+As to Guespin, he had no doubt good reasons for not returning to the
+wedding. His restlessness, after such a deed, would possibly have
+betrayed him."
+
+M. Lecoq had not thought fit to speak as yet. Like a doctor at a sick
+bedside, he wanted to be sure of his diagnosis. He had returned to the
+mantel, and again pushed forward the hands of the clock. It sounded,
+successively, half-past eleven, then twelve, then half-past twelve, then
+one.
+
+As he moved the hands, he kept muttering:
+
+"Apprentices--chance brigands! You are malicious, parbleu, but you don't
+think of everything. You give a push to the hands, but don't remember to
+put the striking in harmony with them. Then comes along a detective, an
+old rat who knows things, and the dodge is discovered."
+
+M. Domini and Plantat held their tongues. M. Lecoq walked up to them.
+
+"Monsieur the Judge," said he, "is perhaps now convinced that the deed
+was done at half-past ten."
+
+"Unless," interrupted M. Plantat, "the machinery of the clock has been
+out of order."
+
+"That often happens," added M. Courtois. "The clock in my drawing-room
+is in such a state that I never know the time of day."
+
+M. Lecoq reflected.
+
+"It is possible," said he, "that Monsieur Plantat is right. The
+probability is in favor of my theory; but probability, in such an
+affair, is not sufficient; we must have certainty. There happily remains
+a mode of testing the matter--the bed; I'll wager it is rumpled up."
+Then addressing the mayor, "I shall need a servant to lend me a hand."
+
+"I'll help you," said Plantat, "that will be a quicker way."
+
+They lifted the top of the bed and set it on the floor, at the same time
+raising the curtains.
+
+"Hum!" cried M. Lecoq, "was I right?"
+
+"True," said M. Domini, surprised, "the bed is rumpled."
+
+"Yes; and yet no one has lain in it."
+
+"But--" objected M. Courtois.
+
+"I am sure of what I say," interrupted the detective. "The sheets, it is
+true, have been thrown back, perhaps someone has rolled about in the
+bed; the pillows have been tumbled, the quilts and curtains ruffled, but
+this bed has not the appearance of having been slept in. It is, perhaps,
+more difficult to rumple up a bed than to put it in order again. To make
+it up, the coverings must be taken off, and the mattresses turned. To
+disarrange it, one must actually lie down in it, and warm it with the
+body. A bed is one of those terrible witnesses which never misguide, and
+against which no counter testimony can be given. Nobody has gone to bed
+in this--"
+
+"The countess," remarked Plantat, "was dressed; but the count might have
+gone to bed first."
+
+"No," answered M. Lecoq, "I'll prove to the contrary. The proof is easy,
+indeed, and a child of ten, having heard it, wouldn't think of being
+deceived by this intentional disorder of the bedclothes."
+
+M. Lecoq's auditors drew up to him. He put the coverings back upon the
+middle of the bed, and went on:
+
+"Both of the pillows are much rumpled, are they not? But look under the
+bolster--it is all smooth, and you find none of those wrinkles which are
+made by the weight of the head and the moving about of the arms. That's
+not all; look at the bed from the middle to the foot. The sheets being
+laid carefully, the upper and under lie close together everywhere. Slip
+your hand underneath--there--you see there is a resistance to your hand
+which would not occur if the legs had been stretched in that place. Now
+Monsieur de Tremorel was tall enough to extend the full length of the
+bed."
+
+This demonstration was so clear, its proof so palpable, that it could
+not be gainsaid.
+
+"This is nothing," continued M. Lecoq. "Let us examine the second
+mattress. When a person purposely disarranges a bed, he does not think
+of the second mattress."
+
+He lifted up the upper mattress, and observed that the covering of the
+under one was perfectly even.
+
+"H'm, the second mattress," muttered M. Lecoq, as if some memory crossed
+his mind.
+
+"It appears to be proved," observed the judge, "that Monsieur de
+Tremorel had not gone to bed."
+
+"Besides," added the doctor, "if he had been murdered in his bed, his
+clothes would be lying here somewhere."
+
+"Without considering," suggested M. Lecoq, "that some blood must have
+been found on the sheets. Decidedly, these criminals were not shrewd."
+
+"What seems to me surprising," M. Plantat observed to the judge, "is
+that anybody would succeed in killing, except in his sleep, a young man
+so vigorous as Count Hector."
+
+"And in a house full of weapons," added Dr. Gendron; "for the count's
+cabinet is full of guns, swords and hunting knives; it's a perfect
+arsenal."
+
+"Alas!" sighed M. Courtois, "we know of worse catastrophes. There is not
+a week that the papers don't--"
+
+He stopped, chagrined, for nobody was listening to him. Plantat claimed
+the general attention, and continued:
+
+"The confusion in the house seems to you surprising; well now, I'm
+surprised that it is not worse than it is. I am, so to speak, an old
+man; I haven't the energy of a young man of thirty-five; yet it seems to
+me that if assassins should get into my house, when I was there, and up,
+it would go hard with them. I don't know what I would do; probably I
+should be killed; but surely I would give the alarm. I would defend
+myself, and cry out, and open the windows, and set the house afire."
+
+"Let us add," insisted the doctor, "that it is not easy to surprise a
+man who is awake. There is always an unexpected noise which puts one on
+his guard. Perhaps it is a creaking door, or a cracking stair. However
+cautious the murderer, he does not surprise his victim."
+
+"They may have used fire-arms;" struck in the worthy mayor, "that has
+been done. You are quietly sitting in your chamber; it is summer, and
+your windows are open; you are chatting with your wife, and sipping a
+cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with a short ladder; one
+ascends to a level with the window, sights you at his ease, presses the
+trigger, the bullet speeds--"
+
+"And," continued the doctor, "the whole neighborhood, aroused by it,
+hastens to the spot."
+
+"Permit me, pardon, permit me," said M. Courtois, testily, "that would
+be so in a populous town. Here, in the midst of a vast park, no. Think,
+doctor, of the isolation of this house. The nearest neighbor is a long
+way off, and between there are many large trees, intercepting the sound.
+Let us test it by experience. I will fire a pistol in this room, and
+I'll wager that you will not hear the echo in the road."
+
+"In the daytime, perhaps, but not in the night."
+
+"Well," said M. Domini, who had been reflecting while M. Courtois was
+talking, "if against all hope, Guespin does not decide to speak
+to-night, or to-morrow, the count's body will afford us a key to the
+mystery."
+
+During this discussion, M. Lecoq had continued his investigations,
+lifting the furniture, studying the fractures, examining the smallest
+pieces, as if they might betray the truth. Now and then, he took out an
+instrument-case, from which he produced a shank, which he introduced and
+turned in the locks. He found several keys on the carpet, and on a rack,
+a towel, which he carefully put one side, as if he deemed it important.
+He came and went from the bedroom to the count's cabinet, without losing
+a word that was said; noting in his memory, not so much the phrases
+uttered, as the diverse accents and intonations with which they were
+spoken. In an inquest such as that of the crime of Orcival, when several
+officials find themselves face to face, they hold a certain reserve
+toward each other. They know each other to have nearly equal experience,
+to be shrewd, clear-headed, equally interested in discovering the truth,
+not disposed to confide in appearances, difficult to surprise. Each one,
+likely enough, gives a different interpretation to the facts revealed;
+each may have a different theory of the deed; but a superficial observer
+would not note these differences. Each, while dissimulating his real
+thoughts, tries to penetrate those of his neighbor, and if they are
+opposed to his own, to convert him to his opinion. The great importance
+of a single word justifies this caution. Men who hold the liberty and
+lives of others in their hands, a scratch of whose pen condemns to
+death, are apt to feel heavily the burden of their responsibility. It is
+an ineffable solace, to feel that this burden is shared by others. This
+is, why no one dares take the initiative, or express himself openly; but
+each awaits other opinions, to adopt or oppose them. They exchange fewer
+affirmations than suggestions. They proceed by insinuation; then they
+utter commonplaces, ridiculous suppositions, asides, provocative, as it
+were, of other explanations.
+
+In this instance, the judge of instruction and Plantat were far from
+being of the same opinion; they knew it before speaking a word. But M.
+Domini, whose opinion rested on material and palpable facts, which
+appeared to him indisputable, was not disposed to provoke contradiction.
+Plantat, on the contrary, whose system seemed to rest on impressions, on
+a series of logical deductions, would not clearly express himself,
+without a positive and pressing invitation. His last speech,
+impressively uttered, had not been replied to; he judged that he had
+advanced far enough to sound the detective.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Lecoq," asked he, "have you found any new traces?"
+
+M. Lecoq was at that moment curiously examining a large portrait of the
+Count Hector, which hung opposite the bed. Hearing M. Plantat's
+question, he turned.
+
+"I have found nothing decisive," answered he, "and I have found nothing
+to refute my conjectures. But--"
+
+He did not finish; perhaps he too, recoiled before his share of the
+responsibility.
+
+"What?" insisted M. Domini, sternly.
+
+"I was going to say," resumed M. Lecoq, "that I am not yet satisfied. I
+have my lantern and a candle in it; I only need a match--"
+
+"Please preserve your decorum," interrupted the judge severely.
+
+"Very well, then," continued M. Lecoq, in a tone too humble to be
+serious, "I still hesitate. If the doctor, now, would kindly proceed to
+examine the countess's body, he would do me a great service."
+
+"I was just going to ask the same favor, Doctor," said M. Domini.
+
+The doctor answering, "Willingly," directed his steps toward the door.
+
+M. Lecoq caught him by the arm.
+
+"If you please," said he, in a tone totally unlike that he had used up
+to this time, "I would like to call your attention to the wounds on the
+head, made by a blunt instrument, which I suppose to be a hammer. I have
+studied these wounds, and though I am no doctor, they seem to me
+suspicious."
+
+"And to me," M. Plantat quickly added. "It seemed to me, that in the
+places struck, there was no emission of blood in the cutaneous vessels."
+
+"The nature of these wounds," continued M. Lecoq, "will be a valuable
+indication, which will fix my opinion." And, as he felt keenly the
+brusque manner of the judge, he added:
+
+"It is you, Doctor, who hold the match."
+
+M. Gendron was about to leave the room, when Baptiste, the mayor's
+servant--the man who wouldn't be scolded--appeared. He bowed and said:
+
+"I have come for Monsieur the Mayor."
+
+"For me? why?" asked M. Courtois. "What's the matter? They don't give me
+a minute's rest! Answer that I am busy."
+
+"It's on account of madame," resumed the placid Baptiste; "she isn't at
+all well." The excellent mayor grew slightly pale.
+
+"My wife!" cried he, alarmed. "What do you mean? Explain yourself."
+
+"The postman arrived just now," returned Baptiste with a most tranquil
+air, "and I carried the letters to madame, who was in the drawing-room.
+Hardly had I turned on my heels when I heard a shriek, and the noise of
+someone falling to the floor." Baptiste spoke slowly, taking artful
+pains to prolong his master's anguish.
+
+"Speak! go on!" cried the mayor, exasperated. "Speak, won't you?"
+
+"I naturally opened the drawing-room door again. What did I see? madame,
+at full length on the floor. I called for help; the chambermaid, cook,
+and others came hastening up, and we carried madame to her bed. Justine
+said that it was a letter from Mademoiselle Laurence which overcame my
+mistress--"
+
+At each word Baptiste hesitated, reflected; his eyes, giving the lie to
+his solemn face, betrayed the great satisfaction he felt in relating his
+master's misfortunes.
+
+His master was full of consternation. As it is with all of us, when we
+know not exactly what ill is about to befall us, he dared not ask any
+questions. He stood still, crushed; lamenting, instead of hastening
+home. M. Plantat profited by the pause to question the servant, with a
+look which Baptiste dared not disobey.
+
+"What, a letter from Mademoiselle Laurence? Isn't she here, then?"
+
+"No, sir: she went away a week ago, to pass a month with one of her
+aunts."
+
+"And how is madame?"
+
+"Better, sir; only she cries piteously."
+
+The unfortunate mayor had now somewhat recovered his presence of mind.
+He seized Baptiste by the arm.
+
+"Come along," cried he, "come along!"
+
+They hastened off.
+
+"Poor man!" said the judge of instruction. "Perhaps his daughter is
+dead."
+
+M. Plantat shook his head.
+
+"If it were only that!" muttered he. He added, turning to M. Domini:
+
+"Do you recall the allusions of Bertaud, monsieur?"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The judge of instruction, the doctor, and M. Plantat exchanged a
+significant look. What misfortune had befallen M. Courtois, this worthy,
+and despite his faults, excellent person? Decidedly, this was an
+ill-omened day!
+
+"If we are to speak of Bertaud's allusions," said M. Lecoq, "I have
+heard two very curious stories, though I have been here but a few hours.
+It seems that this Mademoiselle Laurence--"
+
+M. Plantat abruptly interrupted the detective.
+
+"Calumnies! odious calumnies! The lower classes, to annoy the rich, do
+not hesitate to say all sorts of things against them. Don't you know it?
+Is it not always so? The gentry, above all, those of a provincial town,
+live in glass houses. The lynx eyes of envy watch them steadily night
+and day, spy on them, surprise what they regard as their most secret
+actions to arm themselves against them. The bourgeois goes on, proud and
+content; his business prospers; he possesses the esteem and friendship
+of his own class; all this while, he is vilified by the lower classes,
+his name dragged in the dust, soiled by suppositions the most
+mischievous. Envy, Monsieur, respects nothing, no one."
+
+"If Laurence has been slandered," observed Dr. Gendron, smiling, "she
+has a good advocate to defend her."
+
+The old justice of the peace (the man of bronze, as M. Courtois called
+him) blushed slightly, a little embarrassed.
+
+"There are causes," said he, quietly, "which defend themselves.
+Mademoiselle Courtois is one of those young girls who has a right to all
+respect. But there are evils which no laws can cure, and which revolt
+me. Think of it, monsieurs, our reputations, the honor of our wives and
+daughters, are at the mercy of the first petty rascal who has
+imagination enough to invent a slander. It is not believed, perhaps; but
+it is repeated, and spreads. What can be done? How can we know what is
+secretly said against us; will we ever know it?"
+
+"Eh!" replied the doctor, "what matters it? There is only one voice, to
+my mind, worth listening to--that of conscience. As to what is called
+'public opinion,' as it is the aggregate opinion of thousands of fools
+and rogues, I only despise it."
+
+This discussion might have been prolonged, if the judge of instruction
+had not pulled out his watch, and made an impatient gesture.
+
+"While we are talking, time is flying," said he. "We must hasten to the
+work that still remains."
+
+It was then agreed that while the doctor proceeded to his autopsy, the
+judge should draw up his report of the case. M. Plantat was charged with
+watching Lecoq's investigations.
+
+As soon as the detective found himself alone with M. Plantat:
+
+"Well," he said, drawing a long breath, as if relieved of a heavy
+burden, "now we can get on."
+
+Plantat smiled; the detective munched a lozenge, and added:
+
+"It was very annoying to find the investigation already going on when I
+reached here. Those who were here before me have had time to get up a
+theory, and if I don't adopt it at once, there is the deuce to pay!"
+
+M. Domini's voice was heard in the entry, calling out to his clerk.
+
+"Now there's the judge of instruction," continued Lecoq, "who thinks
+this a very simple affair; while I, Lecoq, the equal at least of Gevrol,
+the favorite pupil of Papa Tabaret--I do not see it at all clearly yet."
+
+He stopped; and after apparently going over in his mind the result of
+his discoveries, went on: "No; I'm off the track, and have almost lost
+my way. I see something underneath all this--but what? what?"
+
+M. Plantat's face remained placid, but his eyes shone.
+
+"Perhaps you are right," said he, carelessly; "perhaps there is
+something underneath." The detective looked at him; he didn't stir. His
+face seemed the most undisturbed in the world. There was a long silence,
+by which M. Lecoq profited to confide to the portrait of the defunct the
+reflections which burdened his brain.
+
+"See here, my dear darling," said he, "this worthy person seems a shrewd
+old customer, and I must watch his actions and gestures carefully. He
+does not argue with the judge; he's got an idea that he doesn't dare to
+tell, and we must find it out. At the very first he guessed me out,
+despite these pretty blond locks. As long as he thought he could, by
+misleading me, make me follow M. Domini's tack, he followed and aided me
+showing me the way. Now that he sees me on the scent, he crosses his
+arms and retires. He wants to leave me the honor of the discovery. Why?
+He lives here--perhaps he is afraid of making enemies. No. He isn't a
+man to fear much of anything. What then? He shrinks from his own
+thoughts. He has found something so amazing, that he dares not explain
+himself."
+
+A sudden reflection changed the course of M. Lecoq's confidences.
+
+"A thousand imps!" thought he. "Suppose I'm wrong! Suppose this old
+fellow is not shrewd at all! Suppose he hasn't discovered anything, and
+only obeys the inspirations of chance! I've seen stranger things. I've
+known so many of these folks whose eyes seem so very mysterious, and
+announce such wonders; after all, I found nothing, and was cheated. But
+I intend to sound this old fellow well."
+
+And, assuming his most idiotic manner, he said aloud:
+
+"On reflection, Monsieur, little remains to be done. Two of the
+principals are in custody, and when they make up their minds to
+talk--they'll do it, sooner or later, if the judge is determined they
+shall--we shall know all."
+
+A bucket of ice-water falling on M. Plantat's head could not have
+surprised him more, or more disagreeably, than this speech.
+
+"What!" stammered he, with an air of frank amazement, "do you, a man of
+experience, who--"
+
+Delighted with the success of his ruse, Lecoq could not keep his
+countenance, and Plantat, who perceived that he had been caught in the
+snare, laughed heartily. Not a word, however, was exchanged between
+these two men, both subtle in the science of life, and equally cunning
+in its mysteries. They quite understood each other.
+
+"My worthy old buck," said the detective to himself, "you've got
+something in your sack; only it's so big, so monstrous, that you won't
+exhibit it, not for a cannon-ball. You wish your hand forced, do you?
+Ve-ry well!"
+
+"He's sly," thought M. Plantat. "He knows that I've got an idea; he's
+trying to get at it--and I believe he will."
+
+M. Lecoq had restored his lozenge-box to his pocket, as he always did
+when he went seriously to work. His amour-propre was enlisted; he played
+a part--and he was a rare comedian.
+
+"Now," cried he, "let's to horse. According to the mayor's account, the
+instrument with which all these things were broken has been found."
+
+"In the room in the second story," answered M. Plantat, "overlooking the
+garden, we found a hatchet on the floor, near a piece of furniture which
+had been assailed, but not broken open; I forbade anyone to touch it."
+
+"And you did well. Is it a heavy hatchet?"
+
+"It weighs about two pounds."
+
+"Good. Let's see it."
+
+They ascended to the room in question, and M. Lecoq, forgetting his part
+of a haberdasher, and regardless of his clothes, went down flat on his
+stomach, alternately scrutinizing the hatchet--which was a heavy,
+terrible weapon--and the slippery and well-waxed oaken floor.
+
+"I suppose," observed M. Plantat, "that the assassins brought this
+hatchet up here and assailed this cupboard, for the sole purpose of
+putting us off our scent, and to complicate the mystery. This weapon,
+you see, was by no means necessary for breaking open the cupboard, which
+I could smash with my fist. They gave one blow--only one--and quietly
+put the hatchet down."
+
+The detective got up and brushed himself.
+
+"I think you are mistaken," said he. "This hatchet wasn't put on the
+floor gently; it was thrown with a violence betraying either great
+terror or great anger. Look here; do you see these three marks, near
+each other, on the floor? When the assassin threw the hatchet, it first
+fell on the edge--hence this sharp cut; then it fell over on one side;
+and the flat, or hammer end left this mark here, under my finger.
+Therefore, it was thrown with such violence that it turned over itself
+and that its edge a second time cut in the floor, where you see it now."
+
+"True," answered M. Plantat. The detective's conjectures doubtless
+refuted his own theory, for he added, with a perplexed air:
+
+"I don't understand anything about it."
+
+M. Lecoq went on:
+
+"Were the windows open this morning as they are now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah! The wretches heard some noise or other in the garden, and they went
+and looked out. What did they see? I can't tell. But I do know that what
+they saw terrified them, that they threw down the hatchet furiously, and
+made off. Look at the position of these cuts--they are slanting of
+course--and you will see that the hatchet was thrown by a man who was
+standing, not by the cupboard, but close by the open window."
+
+Plantat in his turn knelt down, and looked long and carefully. The
+detective was right. He got up confused, and after meditating a moment,
+said:
+
+"This perplexes me a little; however--"
+
+He stopped, motionless, in a revery, with one of his hands on his
+forehead.
+
+"All might yet be explained," he muttered, mentally searching for a
+solution of the mystery, "and in that case the time indicated by the
+clock would be true."
+
+M. Lecoq did not think of questioning his companion. He knew that he
+would not answer, for pride's sake.
+
+"This matter of the hatchet puzzles me, too," said he. "I thought that
+these assassins had worked leisurely; but that can't be so. I see they
+were surprised and interrupted."
+
+Plantat was all ears.
+
+"True," pursued M. Lecoq, slowly, "we ought to divide these indications
+into two classes. There are the traces left on purpose to mislead
+us--the jumbled-up bed, for instance; then there are the real traces,
+undesigned, as are these hatchet cuts. But here I hesitate. Is the trace
+of the hatchet true or false, good or bad? I thought myself sure of the
+character of these assassins: but now--" He paused; the wrinkles on his
+face, the contraction of his mouth, betrayed his mental effort.
+
+"But now?" asked M. Plantat.
+
+M. Lecoq, at this question, seemed like a man just roused from sleep.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he. "I forgot myself. I've a bad habit of
+reflecting aloud. That's why I almost always insist on working alone. My
+uncertainty, hesitation, the vacillation of my suspicions, lose me the
+credit of being an astute detective--of being an agent for whom there's
+no such thing as a mystery."
+
+Worthy M. Plantat gave the detective an indulgent smile.
+
+"I don't usually open my mouth," pursued M. Lecoq, "until my mind is
+satisfied; then I speak in a peremptory tone, and say--this is thus, or
+this is so. But to-day I am acting without too much restraint, in the
+company of a man who knows that a problem such as this seems to me to
+be, is not solved at the first attempt. So I permit my gropings to be
+seen without shame. You cannot always reach the truth at a bound, but by
+a series of diverse calculations, by deductions and inductions. Well,
+just now my logic is at fault."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, it's very simple. I thought I understood the rascals, and knew them
+by heart; and yet I have only recognized imaginary adversaries. Are they
+fools, or are they mighty sly? That's what I ask myself. The tricks
+played with the bed and clock had, I supposed, given me the measure and
+extent of their intelligence and invention. Making deductions from the
+known to the unknown, I arrived, by a series of very simple
+consequences, at the point of foreseeing all that they could have
+imagined, to throw us off the scent. My point of departure admitted, I
+had only, in order to reach the truth, to take the contrary of that
+which appearances indicated. I said to myself:
+
+"A hatchet has been found in the second story; therefore the assassins
+carried it there, and designedly forgot it.
+
+"They left five glasses on the dining-room table; therefore they were
+more or less than five, but they were not five.
+
+"There were the remains of a supper on the table; therefore they neither
+drank nor ate.
+
+"The countess's body was on the river-bank; therefore it was placed
+there deliberately. A piece of cloth was found in the victim's hand;
+therefore it was put there by the murderers themselves.
+
+"Madame de Tremorel's body is disfigured by many dagger-strokes, and
+horribly mutilated; therefore she was killed by a single blow--"
+
+"Bravo, yes, bravo," cried M. Plantat, visibly charmed.
+
+"Eh! no, not bravo yet," returned M. Lecoq. "For here my thread is
+broken; I have reached a gap. If my deductions were sound, this hatchet
+would have been very carefully placed on the floor."
+
+"Once more, bravo," added the other, "for this does not at all affect
+our general theory. It is clear, nay certain, that the assassins
+intended to act as you say. An unlooked-for event interrupted them."
+
+"Perhaps; perhaps that's true. But I see something else--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing--at least, for the moment. Before all, I must see the
+dining-room and the garden."
+
+They descended at once, and Plantat pointed out the glasses and bottles,
+which he had put one side. The detective took the glasses, one after
+another, held them level with his eye, toward the light, and scrutinized
+the moist places left on them.
+
+"No one has drank from these glasses," said he, firmly.
+
+"What, from neither one of them?"
+
+The detective fixed a penetrating look upon his companion, and in a
+measured tone, said:
+
+"From neither one."
+
+M. Plantat only answered by a movement of the lips, as if to say, "You
+are going too far."
+
+The other smiled, opened the door, and called:
+
+"Francois!"
+
+The valet hastened to obey the call. His face was suffused with tears;
+he actually bewailed the loss of his master.
+
+"Hear what I've got to say, my lad," said M. Lecoq, with true
+detective-like familiarity. "And be sure and answer me exactly, frankly,
+and briefly."
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+"Was it customary here at the chateau, to bring up the wine before it
+was wanted?"
+
+"No, sir; before each meal, I myself went down to the cellar for it."
+
+"Then no full bottles were ever kept in the dining-room?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"But some of the wine might sometimes remain in draught?"
+
+"No; the count permitted me to carry the dessert wine to the servants'
+table."
+
+"And where were the empty bottles put?"
+
+"I put them in this corner cupboard, and when they amounted to a certain
+number, I carried them down cellar."
+
+"When did you last do so?"
+
+"Oh"--Francois reflected--"at least five or six days ago."
+
+"Good. Now, what liqueurs did the count drink?"
+
+"The count scarcely ever drank liqueurs. If, by chance, he took a notion
+to have a small glass of eau-de-vie, he got it from the liqueur closet,
+there, over the stove."
+
+"There were no decanters of rum or cognac in any of the cupboards?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Thanks; you may retire."
+
+As Francois was going out, M. Lecoq called him back.
+
+"While we are about it, look in the bottom of the closet, and see if you
+find the right number of empty bottles."
+
+The valet obeyed, and looked into the closet.
+
+"There isn't one there."
+
+"Just so," returned M. Lecoq. "This time, show us your heels for good."
+
+As soon as Francois had shut the door, M. Lecoq turned to Plantat and
+asked:
+
+"What do you think now?"
+
+"You were perfectly right."
+
+The detective then smelt successively each glass and bottle.
+
+"Good again! Another proof in aid of my guess."
+
+"What more?"
+
+"It was not wine that was at the bottom of these glasses. Among all the
+empty bottles put away in the bottom of that closet, there was one--here
+it is--which contained vinegar; and it was from this bottle that they
+turned what they thought to be wine into the glasses."
+
+Seizing a glass, he put it to M. Plantat's nose, adding:
+
+"See for yourself."
+
+There was no disputing it; the vinegar was good, its odor of the
+strongest; the villains, in their haste, had left behind them an
+incontestable proof of their intention to mislead the officers of
+justice. While they were capable of shrewd inventions, they did not have
+the art to perform them well. All their oversights could, however, be
+accounted for by their sudden haste, caused by the occurrence of an
+unlooked-for incident. "The floors of a house where a crime has just
+been committed," said a famous detective, "burn the feet." M. Lecoq
+seemed exasperated, like a true artist, before the gross, pretentious,
+and ridiculous work of some green and bungling scholar.
+
+"These are a parcel of vulgar ruffians, truly! able ones, certainly; but
+they don't know their trade yet, the wretches."
+
+M. Lecoq, indignant, ate three or four lozenges at a mouthful.
+
+"Come, now," said Plantat, in a paternally severe tone. "Don't let's get
+angry. The people have failed in address, no doubt; but reflect that
+they could not, in their calculations, take account of the craft of a
+man like you."
+
+M. Lecoq, who had the vanity which all actors possess, was flattered by
+the compliment, and but poorly dissimulated an expression of pleasure.
+
+"We must be indulgent; come now," pursued Plantat. "Besides," he paused
+a moment to give more weight to what he was going to say, "besides, you
+haven't seen everything yet."
+
+No one could tell when M. Lecoq was playing a comedy. He did not always
+know, himself. This great artist, devoted to his art, practised the
+feigning of all the emotions of the human soul, just as he accustomed
+himself to wearing all sorts of costumes. He was very indignant against
+the assassins, and gesticulated about in great excitement; but he never
+ceased to watch Plantat slyly, and the last words of the latter made him
+prick up his ears.
+
+"Let's see the rest, then," said he.
+
+As he followed his worthy comrade to the garden, he renewed his
+confidences to the dear defunct.
+
+"Confound this old bundle of mystery! We can't take this obstinate
+fellow by surprise, that's clear. He'll give us the word of the riddle
+when we have guessed it; not before. He is as strong as we, my darling;
+he only needs a little practice. But look you--if he has found something
+which has escaped us, he must have previous information, that we don't
+know of."
+
+Nothing had been disturbed in the garden.
+
+"See here, Monsieur Lecoq," said the old justice of the peace, as he
+followed a winding pathway which led to the river. "It was here that one
+of the count's slippers was found; below there, a little to the right of
+these geraniums, his silk handkerchief was picked up."
+
+They reached the river-bank, and lifted, with great care, the planks
+which had been placed there to preserve the foot-prints.
+
+"We suppose," said M. Plantat, "that the countess, in her flight,
+succeeded in getting to this spot; and that here they caught up with her
+and gave her a finishing blow."
+
+Was this really Plantat's opinion, or did he only report the morning's
+theory? M. Lecoq could not tell.
+
+"According to my calculations," he said, "the countess could not have
+fled, but was brought here already dead, or logic is not logic. However,
+let us examine this spot carefully."
+
+He knelt down and studied the sand on the path, the stagnant water, and
+the reeds and water-plants. Then going along a little distance, he threw
+a stone, approaching again to see the effect produced on the mud. He
+next returned to the house, and came back again under the willows,
+crossing the lawn, where were still clearly visible traces of a heavy
+burden having been dragged over it. Without the least respect for his
+pantaloons, he crossed the lawn on all-fours, scrutinizing the smallest
+blades of grass, pulling away the thick tufts to see the earth better,
+and minutely observing the direction of the broken stems. This done, he
+said:
+
+"My conclusions are confirmed. The countess was carried across here."
+
+"Are you sure of it?" asked Plantat.
+
+There was no mistaking the old man's hesitation this time; he was
+clearly undecided, and leaned on the other's judgment for guidance.
+
+"There can be no error, possibly."
+
+The detective smiled, as he added:
+
+"Only, as two heads are better than one, I will ask you to listen to me,
+and then, you will tell me what you think."
+
+M. Lecoq had, in searching about, picked up a little flexible stick, and
+while he talked, he used it to point out this and that object, like the
+lecturer at the panorama.
+
+"No," said he, "Madame de Tremorel did not fly from her murderers. Had
+she been struck down here, she would have fallen violently; her weight,
+therefore, would have made the water spirt to some distance, as well as
+the mud; and we should certainly have found some splashes."
+
+"But don't you think that, since morning, the sun--"
+
+"The sun would have absorbed the water; but the stain of dry mud would
+have remained. I have found nothing of the sort anywhere. You might
+object, that the water and mud would have spirted right and left; but
+just look at the tufts of these flags, lilies, and stems of cane--you
+find a light dust on every one. Do you find the least trace of a drop of
+water? No. There was then no splash, therefore no violent fall;
+therefore the countess was not killed here; therefore her body was
+brought here, and carefully deposited where you found it."
+
+M. Plantat did not seem to be quite convinced yet.
+
+"But there are the traces of a struggle in the sand," said he.
+
+His companion made a gesture of protest.
+
+"Monsieur deigns to have his joke; those marks would not deceive a
+school-boy."
+
+"It appears to me, however--"
+
+"There can be no mistake, Monsieur Plantat. Certain it is that the sand
+has been disturbed and thrown about. But all these trails that lay bare
+the earth which was covered by the sand, were made by the same foot.
+Perhaps you don't believe it. They were made, too, with the end of the
+foot; that you may see for yourself."
+
+"Yes, I perceive it."
+
+"Very well, then; when there has been a struggle on ground like this,
+there are always two distinct kinds of traces--those of the assailant
+and those of the victim. The assailant, throwing himself forward,
+necessarily supports himself on his toes, and imprints the fore part of
+his feet on the earth. The victim, on the contrary, falling back, and
+trying to avoid the assault, props himself on his heels, and therefore
+buries the heels in the soil. If the adversaries are equally strong, the
+number of imprints of the toes and the heels will be nearly equal,
+according to the chances of the struggle. But what do we find here?"
+
+M. Plantat interrupted:
+
+"Enough; the most incredulous would now be convinced." After thinking a
+moment, he added:
+
+"No, there is no longer any possible doubt of it."
+
+M. Lecoq thought that his argument deserved a reward, and treated
+himself to two lozenges at a mouthful.
+
+"I haven't done yet," he resumed. "Granted, that the countess could not
+have been murdered here; let's add that she was not carried hither, but
+dragged along. There are only two ways of dragging a body; by the
+shoulders, and in this case the feet, scraping along the earth, leave
+two parallel trails; or by the legs--in which case the head, lying on
+the earth, leaves a single furrow, and that a wide one."
+
+Plantat nodded assent.
+
+"When I examined the lawn," pursued M. Lecoq, "I found the parallel
+trails of the feet, but yet the grass was crushed over a rather wide
+space. How was that? Because it was the body, not of a man, but of a
+woman, which was dragged across the lawn--of a woman full-dressed, with
+heavy petticoats; that, in short, of the countess, and not of the
+count."
+
+M. Lecoq paused, in expectation of a question, or a remark.
+
+But the old justice of the peace did not seem to be listening, and
+appeared to be plunged in the deepest meditation. Night was falling; a
+light fog hung like smoke over the Seine.
+
+"We must go in," said M. Plantat, abruptly, "and see how the doctor has
+got on with his autopsy."
+
+They slowly approached the house. The judge of instruction awaited them
+on the steps. He appeared to have a satisfied air.
+
+"I am going to leave you in charge," said he to M. Plantat, "for if I am
+to see the procureur, I must go at once. When you sent for him this
+morning, he was absent."
+
+M. Plantat bowed.
+
+"I shall be much obliged if you will watch this affair to the end. The
+doctor will have finished in a few minutes, he says, and will report
+to-morrow morning. I count on your co-operation to put seals wherever
+they are necessary, and to select the guard over the chateau. I shall
+send an architect to draw up an exact plan of the house and garden.
+Well, sir," asked M. Domini, turning to the detective, "have you made
+any fresh discoveries?"
+
+"I have found some important facts; but I cannot speak decisively till I
+have seen everything by daylight. If you will permit me, I will postpone
+making my report till to-morrow afternoon. I think I may say, however,
+that complicated as this affair is--"
+
+M. Domini did not let him finish.
+
+"I see nothing complicated in the affair at all; everything strikes me
+as very simple."
+
+"But," objected M. Lecoq, "I thought--"
+
+"I sincerely regret," continued the judge, "that you were so hastily
+called, when there was really no serious reason for it. The evidences
+against the arrested men are very conclusive."
+
+Plantat and Lecoq exchanged a long look, betraying their great surprise.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the former, "have, you discovered any new
+indications?"
+
+"More than indications, I believe," responded M. Domini. "Old Bertaud,
+whom I have again questioned, begins to be uneasy. He has quite lost his
+arrogant manner. I succeeded in making him contradict himself several
+times, and he finished by confessing that he saw the assassins."
+
+"The assassins!" exclaimed M. Plantat. "Did he say assassins?"
+
+"He saw at least one of them. He persists in declaring that he did not
+recognize him. That's where we are. But prison walls have salutary
+terrors. To-morrow after a sleepless night, the fellow will be more
+explicit, if I mistake not."
+
+"But Guespin," anxiously asked the old man, "have you questioned him?"
+
+"Oh, as for him, everything is clear."
+
+"Has he confessed?" asked M. Lecoq, stupefied.
+
+The judge half turned toward the detective, as if he were displeased
+that M. Lecoq should dare to question him.
+
+"Guespin has not confessed," he answered, "but his case is none the
+better for that. Our searchers have returned. They haven't yet found the
+count's body, and I think it has been carried down by the current. But
+they found at the end of the park, the count's other slipper, among the
+roses; and under the bridge, in the middle of the river, they discovered
+a thick vest which still bears the marks of blood."
+
+"And that vest is Guespin's?"
+
+"Exactly so. It was recognized by all the domestics, and Guespin himself
+did not hesitate to admit that it belonged to him. But that is not
+all--"
+
+M. Domini stopped as if to take breath, but really to keep Plantat in
+suspense. As they differed in their theories, he thought Plantat
+betrayed a stupid opposition to him; and he was not sorry to have a
+chance for a little triumph.
+
+"That is not all," he went on; "this vest had, in the right pocket, a
+large rent, and a piece of it had been torn off. Do you know what became
+of that piece of Guespin's vest?"
+
+"Ah," muttered M. Plantat, "it was that which we found in the countess's
+hand."
+
+"You are right, Monsieur. And what think you of this proof, pray, of the
+prisoner's guilt?"
+
+M. Plantat seemed amazed; his arms fell at his side. As for M. Lecoq,
+who, in presence of the judge, had resumed his haberdasher manner, he
+was so much surprised that he nearly strangled himself with a lozenge.
+
+"A thousand devils!" exclaimed he. "That's tough, that is!" He smiled
+sillily, and added in a low tone, meant only for Plantat's ear.
+
+"Mighty tough! Though quite foreseen in our calculations. The countess
+held a piece of cloth tightly in her hand; therefore it was put there,
+intentionally, by the murderers."
+
+M. Domini did not hear this remark. He shook hands with M. Plantat and
+made an appointment to meet him on the morrow, at the court-house. Then
+he went away with his clerk.
+
+Guespin and old Bertaud, handcuffed, had a few minutes before being led
+off to the prison of Corbeil, under the guard of the Orcival gendarmes.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Dr. Gendron had just finished his sad task in the billiard-room. He had
+taken off his long coat, and pulled up his shirt-sleeves above his
+elbows. His instruments lay on a table near him; he had covered the body
+with a long white sheet. Night had come, and a large lamp, with a
+crystal globe, lighted up the gloomy scene. The doctor, leaning over a
+water-basin, was washing his hands, when the old justice of the peace
+and the detective entered.
+
+"Ah, it's you, Plantat," said the doctor in a suppressed tone; "where is
+Monsieur Domini?"
+
+"Gone."
+
+The doctor did not take the trouble to repress a vexed motion.
+
+"I must speak with him, though," said he, "it's absolutely
+necessary--and the sooner the better; for perhaps I am wrong--I may be
+mistaken--"
+
+M. Lecoq and M. Plantat approached him, having carefully closed the
+door. The doctor was paler than the corpse which lay under the sheet.
+His usually calm features betrayed great distress. This change could not
+have been caused by the task in which he had been engaged. Of course it
+was a painful one; but M. Gendron was one of those experienced
+practitioners who have felt the pulse of every human misery, and whose
+disgust had become torpid by the most hideous spectacles. He must have
+discovered something extraordinary.
+
+"I am going to ask you what you asked me a while ago," said M. Plantat.
+"Are you ill or suffering?"
+
+M. Gendron shook his head sorrowfully, and answered, slowly and
+emphatically:
+
+"I will answer you, as you did me; 'tis nothing, I am already better."
+
+Then these two, equally profound, turned away their heads, as if fearing
+to exchange their ideas; they doubted lest their looks should betray
+them.
+
+M. Lecoq advanced and spoke.
+
+"I believe I know the cause of the doctor's emotion. He has just
+discovered that Madame de Tremorel was killed by a single blow, and that
+the assassins afterward set themselves to disfiguring the body, when it
+was nearly cold."
+
+The doctor's eyes fastened on the detective, with a stupefied
+expression.
+
+"How could you divine that?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I didn't guess it alone; I ought to share the honor of the theory
+which has enabled us to foresee this fact, with Monsieur Plantat."
+
+"Oh," cried the doctor, striking his forehead, "now, I recollect your
+advice; in my worry, I must say, I had quite forgotten it.
+
+"Well," he added, "your foresight is confirmed. Perhaps not so much time
+as you suppose elapsed between the first blow and the rest; but I am
+convinced that the countess had ceased to live nearly three hours, when
+the last blows were struck."
+
+M. Gendron went to the billiard-table, and slowly raised the sheet,
+discovering the head and part of the bust.
+
+"Let us inform ourselves, Plantat," he said.
+
+The old justice of the peace took the lamp, and passed to the other side
+of the table. His hand trembled so that the globe tingled. The
+vacillating light cast gloomy shadows upon the walls. The countess's
+face had been carefully bathed, the blood and mud effaced. The marks of
+the blows were thus more visible, but they still found upon that livid
+countenance, the traces of its beauty. M. Lecoq stood at the head of the
+table, leaning over to see more clearly.
+
+"The countess," said Dr. Gendron, "received eighteen blows from a
+dagger. Of these, but one is mortal; it is this one, the direction of
+which is nearly vertical--a little below the shoulder, you see." He
+pointed out the wound, sustaining the body in his left arm. The eyes had
+preserved a frightful expression. It seemed as if the half-open mouth
+were about to cry "Help! Help!"
+
+Plantat, the man with a heart of stone, turned away his head, and the
+doctor, having mastered his first emotion, continued in a professionally
+apathetic tone:
+
+"The blade must have been an inch wide, and eight inches long. All the
+other wounds--those on the arms, breast, and shoulders, are
+comparatively slight. They must have been inflicted at least two hours
+after that which caused death."
+
+"Good," said M. Lecoq.
+
+"Observe that I am not positive," returned the doctor quickly. "I merely
+state a probability. The phenomena on which I base my own conviction are
+too fugitive, too capricious in their nature, to enable me to be
+absolutely certain."
+
+This seemed to disturb M. Lecoq.
+
+"But, from the moment when--"
+
+"What I can affirm," interrupted Dr. Gendron, "what I would affirm under
+oath, is, that all the wounds on the head, excepting one, were inflicted
+after death. No doubt of that whatever--none whatever. Here, above the
+eye, is the blow given while the countess was alive."
+
+"It seems to me, Doctor," observed M. Lecoq, "that we may conclude from
+the proved fact that the countess, after death, was struck by a flat
+implement, that she had also ceased to live when she was mutilated by
+the knife."
+
+M. Gendron reflected a moment.
+
+"It is possible that you are right; as for me, I am persuaded of it.
+Still the conclusions in my report will not be yours. The physician
+consulted by the law, should only pronounce upon patent, demonstrated
+facts. If he has a doubt, even the slightest, he should hold his tongue.
+I will say more; if there is any uncertainty, my opinion is that the
+accused, and not the prosecution, should have the benefit of it."
+
+This was certainly not the detective's opinion, but he was cautious not
+to say so. He had followed Dr. Gendron with anxious attention, and the
+contraction of his face showed the travail of his mind.
+
+"It seems to me now possible," said he, "to determine how and where the
+countess was struck."
+
+The doctor had covered the body, and Plantat had replaced the lamp on
+the little table. Both asked M. Lecoq to explain himself.
+
+"Very well," resumed the detective. "The direction of the wound proves
+to me that the countess was in her chamber taking tea, seated, her body
+inclined a little forward, when she was murdered. The assassin came up
+behind her with his arm raised; he chose his position coolly, and struck
+her with terrific force. The violence of the blow was such that the
+victim fell forward, and in the fall, her forehead struck the end of the
+table; she thus gave herself the only fatal blow which we have
+discovered on the head."
+
+M. Gendron looked from one to the other of his companions, who exchanged
+significant glances. Perhaps he suspected the game they were playing.
+
+"The crime must evidently have been committed as you say," said he.
+
+There was another embarrassing silence. M. Lecoq's obstinate muteness
+annoyed Plantat, who finally asked him:
+
+"Have you seen all you want to see?"
+
+"All for to-day; I shall need daylight for what remains. I am confident,
+indeed, that with the exception of one detail that worries me, I have
+the key to the mystery."
+
+"We must be here, then, early to-morrow morning."
+
+"I will be here at any hour you will name."
+
+"Your search finished, we will go together to Monsieur Domini, at
+Corbeil."
+
+"I am quite at your orders."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+M. Plantat perceived that M. Lecoq guessed his thoughts; and did not
+understand the detective's capriciousness; a little while before, he had
+been very loquacious, but now held his tongue. M. Lecoq, on the other
+hand, was delighted to puzzle the old man a little, and formed the
+intention to astonish him the next morning, by giving him a report which
+should faithfully reflect all his ideas. Meanwhile he had taken out his
+lozenge-box, and was intrusting a hundred secrets to the portrait.
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "there remains nothing more to be done except
+to retire."
+
+"I was just going to ask permission to do so," said M. Lecoq. "I have
+been fasting ever since morning."
+
+M. Plantat now took a bold step.
+
+"Shall you return to Paris to-night, Monsieur Lecoq?" asked he,
+abruptly.
+
+"No; I came prepared to remain over-night; I've brought my night-gown,
+which I left, before coming up here, at the little roadside inn below. I
+shall sup and sleep there."
+
+"You will be poorly off at the Faithful Grenadier," said the old justice
+of the peace. "You will do better to come and dine with me."
+
+"You are really too good, Monsieur--"
+
+"Besides, we have a good deal to say, and so you must remain the night
+with me; we will get your night-clothes as we pass along."
+
+M. Lecoq bowed, flattered and grateful for the invitation.
+
+"And I shall carry you off, too, Doctor," continued M. Plantat, "whether
+you will or not. Now, don't say no. If you insist on going to Corbeil
+to-night, we will carry you over after supper."
+
+The operation of fixing the seals was speedily concluded; narrow strips
+of parchment, held by large waxen seals, were affixed to all the doors,
+as well as to the bureau in which the articles gathered for the purposes
+of the investigation had been deposited.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Despite the haste they made, it was nearly ten o'clock when M. Plantat
+and his guests quitted the chateau of Valfeuillu. Instead of taking the
+high road, they cut across a pathway which ran along beside Mme. de
+Lanascol's park, and led diagonally to the wire bridge; this was the
+shortest way to the inn where M. Lecoq had left his slight baggage. As
+they went along, M. Plantat grew anxious about his good friend, M.
+Courtois.
+
+"What misfortune can have happened to him?" said he to Dr. Gendron.
+
+"Thanks to the stupidity of that rascal of a servant, we learned nothing
+at all. This letter from Mademoiselle Laurence has caused the trouble,
+somehow."
+
+They had now reached the Faithful Grenadier.
+
+A big red-faced fellow was smoking a long pipe at the door, his back
+against the house. He was talking with a railway employee. It was the
+landlord.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Plantat," he cried, "what a horrible affair this is!
+Come in, come in; there are several folks in the hall who saw the
+assassins. What a villain old Bertaud is! And that Guespin; ah, I would
+willingly trudge to Corbeil to see them put up the scaffold!"
+
+"A little charity, Master Lenfant; you forget that both these men were
+among your best customers."
+
+Master Lenfant was confused by this reply; but his native impudence soon
+regained the mastery.
+
+"Fine customers, parbleu!" he answered, "this thief of a Guespin has got
+thirty francs of mine which I'll never see again."
+
+"Who knows?" said Plantat, ironically. "Besides, you are going to make
+more than that to-night, there's so much company at the Orcival
+festival."
+
+During this brief conversation, M. Lecoq entered the inn for his
+night-gown. His office being no longer a secret, he was not now welcomed
+as when he was taken for a simple retired haberdasher. Mme. Lenfant, a
+lady who had no need of her husband's aid to show penniless sots the
+door, scarcely deigned to answer him. When he asked how much he owed,
+she responded, with a contemptuous gesture, "Nothing." When he returned
+to the door, his night-gown in hand, M. Plantat said:
+
+"Let's hurry, for I want to get news of our poor mayor."
+
+The three hastened their steps, and the old justice of the peace,
+oppressed with sad presentiments, and trying to combat them, continued:
+
+"If anything had happened at the mayor's, I should certainly have been
+informed of it by this time. Perhaps Laurence has written that she is
+ill, or a little indisposed. Madame Courtois, who is the best woman in
+the world, gets excited about nothing; she probably wanted to send her
+husband for Laurence at once. You'll see that it's some false alarm."
+
+No; some catastrophe had happened. A number of the village women were
+standing before the mayor's gate. Baptiste, in the midst of the group,
+was ranting and gesticulating. But at M. Plantat's approach, the women
+fled like a troop of frightened gulls. The old man's unexpected
+appearance annoyed the placid Baptiste not a little, for he was
+interrupted, by the sudden departure of his audience, in the midst of a
+superb oratorical flight. As he had a great fear of M. Plantat, however,
+he dissimulated his chagrin with his habitual smile.
+
+"Ah, sir," cried he, when M. Plantat was three steps off, "ah, what an
+affair! I was going for you--"
+
+"Does your master wish me?"
+
+"More than you can think. He ran so fast from Valfeuillu here, that I
+could scarcely keep up with him. He's not usually fast, you know; but
+you ought to have seen him this time, fat as he is!"
+
+M. Plantat stamped impatiently.
+
+"Well, we got here at last," resumed the man, "and monsieur rushed into
+the drawing-room, where he found madame sobbing like a Magdalene. He was
+so out of breath he could scarcely speak. His eyes stuck out of his
+head, and he stuttered like this--'What's-the-matter? What's
+the-matter?' Madame, who couldn't speak either, held out mademoiselle's
+letter, which she had in her hand."
+
+The three auditors were on coals of fire; the rogue perceived it, and
+spoke more and more slowly.
+
+"Then monsieur took the letter, went to the window, and at a glance read
+it through. He cried out hoarsely, thus: 'Oh!' then he went to beating
+the air with his hands, like a swimming dog; then he walked up and down
+and fell, pouf! like a bag, his face on the floor. That was all."
+
+"Is he dead?" cried all three in the same breath.
+
+"Oh, no; you shall see," responded Baptiste, with a placid smile.
+
+M. Lecoq was a patient man, but not so patient as you might think.
+Irritated by the manner of Baptiste's recital, he put down his bundle,
+seized the man's arm with his right hand, while with the left he whisked
+a light flexible cane, and said:
+
+"Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know."
+
+That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little
+blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice. He went
+on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M. Lecoq's rattan.
+
+"Monsieur had an attack of vertigo. All the house was in confusion;
+everybody except I, lost their heads; it occurred to me to go for a
+doctor, and I started off for one--for Doctor Gendron, whom I knew to be
+at the chateau, or the doctor near by, or the apothecary--it mattered
+not who. By good luck, at the street corner, I came upon Robelot, the
+bone-setter--'Come, follow me,' said I. He did so; sent away those who
+were tending monsieur, and bled him in both arms. Shortly after, he
+breathed, then he opened his eyes, and then he spoke. Now he is quite
+restored, and is lying on one of the drawing-room lounges, crying with
+all his might. He told me he wanted to see Monsieur Plantat, and I--"
+
+"And--Mademoiselle Laurence?" asked M. Plantat, with a trembling voice.
+Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.
+
+"Ah, gentlemen," said he, "don't ask me about her--'tis heartrending!"
+
+The doctor and M. Plantat heard no more, but hurried in; M. Lecoq
+followed, having confided his night-gown to Baptiste, with, "Carry that
+to M. Plantat's--quick!"
+
+Misfortune, when it enters a house, seems to leave its fatal imprint on
+the very threshold. Perhaps it is not really so, but it is the feeling
+which those who are summoned to it experience. As the physician and the
+justice of the peace traversed the court-yard, this house, usually so
+gay and hospitable, presented a mournful aspect. Lights were seen coming
+and going in the upper story. Mlle. Lucile, the mayor's youngest
+daughter, had had a nervous attack, and was being tended. A young girl,
+who served as Laurence's maid, was seated in the vestibule, on the lower
+stair, weeping bitterly. Several domestics were there also, frightened,
+motionless, not knowing what to do in all this fright. The drawing-room
+door was wide open; the room was dimly lighted by two candles; Mme.
+Courtois lay rather than sat in a large arm-chair near the fireplace.
+Her husband was reclining on a lounge near the windows at the rear of
+the apartment. They had taken off his coat and had torn away his
+shirt-sleeves and flannel vest, when he was to be bled. There were
+strips of cotton wrapped about his naked arms. A small man, habited like
+a well-to-do Parisian artisan, stood near the door, with an embarrassed
+expression of countenance. It was Robelot, who had remained, lest any
+new exigency for his services should arise.
+
+The entrance of his friend startled M. Courtois from the sad stupor into
+which he had been plunged. He got up and staggered into the arms of the
+worthy Plantat, saying, in a broken voice:
+
+"Ah, my friend, I am most miserable--most wretched!"
+
+The poor mayor was so changed as scarcely to be recognizable. He was no
+longer the happy man of the world, with smiling face, firm look, the
+pride of which betrayed plainly his self-importance and prosperity. In a
+few hours he had grown twenty years older. He was broken, overwhelmed;
+his thoughts wandered in a sea of bitterness. He could only repeat,
+vacantly, again and again:
+
+"Wretched! most wretched!"
+
+M. Plantat was the right sort of a friend for such a time. He led M.
+Courtois back to the sofa and sat down beside him, and taking his hand
+in his own, forced him to calm his grief. He recalled to him that his
+wife, the companion of his life, remained to him, to mourn the dear
+departed with him. Had he not another daughter to cherish? But the poor
+man was in no state to listen to all this.
+
+"Ah, my friend," said he shuddering, "you do not know all! If she had
+died here, in the midst of us, comforted by our tender care, my despair
+would be great; but nothing compared with that which now tortures me. If
+you only knew--"
+
+M. Plantat rose, as if terrified by what he was about to hear.
+
+"But who can tell," pursued the wretched man, "where or how she died?
+Oh, my Laurence, was there no one to hear your last agony and save you?
+What has become of you, so young and happy?"
+
+He rose, shaking with anguish and cried:
+
+"Let us go, Plantat, and look for her at the Morgue." Then he fell back
+again, muttering the lugubrious word, "the Morgue."
+
+The witnesses of this scene remained, mute, motionless, rigid, holding
+their breath. The stifled sobs and groans of Mme. Courtois and the
+little maid alone broke the silence.
+
+"You know that I am your friend--your best friend," said M. Plantat,
+softly; "confide in me--tell me all."
+
+"Well," commenced M. Courtois, "know"--but his tears choked his
+utterance, and he could not go on. Holding out a crumpled letter, wet
+with tears, he stammered:
+
+"Here, read--it is her last letter."
+
+M. Plantat approached the table, and, not without difficulty, read:
+
+"DEARLY BELOVED PARENTS--
+
+"Forgive, forgive, I beseech you, your unhappy daughter, the distress
+she is about to cause you. Alas! I have been very guilty, but the
+punishment is terrible! In a day of wandering, I forgot all--the example
+and advice of my dear, sainted mother, my most sacred duty, and your
+tenderness. I could not, no, I could not resist him who wept before me
+in swearing for me an eternal love--and who has abandoned me. Now, all
+is over; I am lost, lost. I cannot long conceal my dreadful sin. Oh,
+dear parents, do not curse me. I am your daughter--I cannot bear to face
+contempt, I will not survive my dishonor.
+
+"When this letter reaches you, I shall have ceased to live; I shall have
+quitted my aunt's, and shall have gone far away, where no one will find
+me. There I shall end my misery and despair. Adieu, then, oh, beloved
+parents, adieu! I would that I could, for the last time, beg your
+forgiveness on my knees. My dear mother, my good father, have pity on a
+poor wanderer; pardon me, forgive me. Never let my sister Lucile know.
+Once more, adieu--I have courage--honor commands! For you is the last
+prayer and supreme thought of your poor LAURENCE."
+
+
+Great tears rolled silently down the old man's cheeks as he deciphered
+this sad letter. A cold, mute, terrible anger shrivelled the muscles of
+his face. When he had finished, he said, in a hoarse voice:
+
+"Wretch!"
+
+M. Courtois heard this exclamation.
+
+"Ah, yes, wretch indeed," he cried, "this vile villain who has crept in
+in the dark, and stolen my dearest treasure, my darling child! Alas, she
+knew nothing of life. He whispered into her ear those fond words which
+make the hearts of all young girls throb; she had faith in him; and now
+he abandons her. Oh, if I knew who he was--if I knew--"
+
+He suddenly interrupted himself. A ray of intelligence had just
+illumined the abyss of despair into which he had fallen.
+
+"No," said he, "a young girl is not thus abandoned, when she has a dowry
+of a million, unless for some good reason. Love passes away; avarice
+remains. The infamous wretch was not free--he was married. He could only
+be the Count de Tremorel. It is he who has killed my child."
+
+The profound silence which succeeded proved to him that his conjecture
+was shared by those around him.
+
+"I was blind, blind!" cried he. "For I received him at my house, and
+called him my friend. Oh, have I not a right to a terrible vengeance?"
+
+But the crime at Valfeuillu occurred to him; and it was with a tone of
+deep disappointment that he resumed:
+
+"And not to be able to revenge myself! I could riot, then, kill him with
+my own hands, see him suffer for hours, hear him beg for mercy! He is
+dead. He has fallen under the blows of assassins, less vile than
+himself."
+
+The doctor and M. Plantat strove to comfort the unhappy man; but he went
+on, excited more and more by the sound of his own voice.
+
+"Oh, Laurence, my beloved, why did you not confide in me? You feared my
+anger, as if a father would ever cease to love his child. Lost,
+degraded, fallen to the ranks of the vilest, I would still love thee.
+Were you not my own? Alas! you knew not a father's heart. A father does
+not pardon; he forgets. You might still have been happy, my lost love."
+
+He wept; a thousand memories of the time when Laurence was a child and
+played about his knees recurred to his mind; it seemed as though it were
+but yesterday.
+
+"Oh, my daughter, was it that you feared the world--the wicked,
+hypocritical world? But we should have gone away. I should have left
+Orcival, resigned my office. We should have settled down far away, in
+the remotest corner of France, in Germany, in Italy. With money all is
+possible. All? No! I have millions, and yet my daughter has killed
+herself."
+
+He concealed his face in his hands; his sobs choked him.
+
+"And not to know what has become of her!" he continued. "Is it not
+frightful? What death did she choose? You remember, Doctor, and you,
+Plantat, her beautiful curls about her pure forehead, her great,
+trembling eyes, her long curved lashes? Her smile--do you know, it was
+the sun's ray of my life. I so loved her voice, and her mouth so fresh,
+which gave me such warm, loving kisses. Dead! Lost! And not to know what
+has become of her sweet form--perhaps abandoned in the mire of some
+river. Do you recall the countess's body this morning? It will kill me!
+Oh, my child--that I might see her one hour--one minute--that I might
+give her cold lips one last kiss!"
+
+M. Lecoq strove in vain to prevent a warm tear which ran from his eyes,
+from falling. M. Lecoq was a stoic on principle, and by profession. But
+the desolate words of the poor father overcame him. Forgetting that his
+emotion would be seen, he came out from the shadow where he had stood,
+and spoke to M. Courtois:
+
+"I, Monsieur Lecoq, of the detectives, give you my honor that I will
+find Mademoiselle Laurence's body."
+
+The poor mayor grasped desperately at this promise, as a drowning man to
+a straw.
+
+"Oh, yes, we will find her, won't we? You will help me. They say that to
+the police nothing is impossible--that they see and know everything. We
+will see what has become of my child."
+
+He went toward M. Lecoq, and taking him by the hand:
+
+"Thank you," added he, "you are a good man. I received you ill a while
+ago, and judged you with foolish pride: forgive me. We will succeed--you
+will see, we will aid each other, we will put all the police on the
+scent, we will search through France, money will do it--I have it--I
+have millions--take them--"
+
+His energies were exhausted: he staggered and fell heavily on the
+lounge.
+
+"He must not remain here long," muttered the doctor in Plantat's ear,
+"he must get to bed. A brain fever, after such excitement, would not
+surprise me."
+
+The old justice of the peace at once approached Mme. Courtois, who still
+reclined in the arm-chair, apparently having seen or heard nothing of
+what had passed, and oblivious in her grief.
+
+"Madame!" said he, "Madame!"
+
+She shuddered and rose, with a wandering air.
+
+"It is my fault," said she, "my miserable fault! A mother should read
+her daughter's heart as in a book. I did not suspect Laurence's secret;
+I am a most unhappy mother."
+
+The doctor also came to her.
+
+"Madame," said he, in an imperious tone, "your husband must be persuaded
+to go to bed at once. His condition is very serious, and a little sleep
+is absolutely necessary. I will have a potion prepared--"
+
+"Oh, my God!" cried the poor lady, wringing her hands, in the fear of a
+new misfortune, as bitter as the first; which, however, restored her to
+her presence of mind. She called the servants, who assisted the mayor to
+regain his chamber. Mme. Courtois also retired, followed by the doctor.
+Three persons only remained in the drawing-room--Plantat, Lecoq, and
+Robelot, who still stood near the door.
+
+"Poor Laurence!" murmured Plantat. "Poor girl!"
+
+"It seems to me that her father is most to be pitied," remarked M.
+Lecoq. "Such a blow, at his age, may be more than he can bear. Even
+should he recover, his life is broken."
+
+"I had a sort of presentiment," said the other, "that this misfortune
+would come. I had guessed Laurence's secret, but I guessed it too late."
+
+"And you did not try--"
+
+"What? In a delicate case like this, when the honor of a family depends
+on a word, one must be circumspect. What could I do? Put Courtois on his
+guard? Clearly not. He would have refused to believe me. He is one of
+those men who will listen to nothing, and whom the brutal fact alone can
+undeceive."
+
+"You might have dealt with the Count de Tremorel."
+
+"The count would have denied all. He would have asked what right I had
+to interfere in his affairs."
+
+"But the girl?"
+
+M. Plantat sighed heavily.
+
+"Though I detest mixing up with what does not concern me, I did try one
+day to talk with her. With infinite precaution and delicacy, and without
+letting her see that I knew all, I tried to show her the abyss near
+which she was drawing."
+
+"And what did she reply?"
+
+"Nothing. She laughed and joked, as women who have a secret which they
+wish to conceal, do. Besides, I could not get a quarter of an hour alone
+with her, and it was necessary to act, I knew--for I was her best
+friend--before committing this imprudence of speaking to her. Not a day
+passed that she did not come to my garden and cull my rarest
+flowers--and I would not, look you, give one of my flowers to the Pope
+himself. She had instituted me her florist in ordinary. For her sake I
+collected my briars of the Cape--"
+
+He was talking on so wide of his subject that M. Lecoq could not repress
+a roguish smile. The old man was about to proceed when he heard a noise
+in the hall, and looking up he observed Robelot for the first time. His
+face at once betrayed his great annoyance.
+
+"You were there, were you?" he said.
+
+The bone-setter smiled obsequiously.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, quite at your service."
+
+"You have been listening, eh?"
+
+"Oh, as to that, I was waiting to see if Madame Courtois had any
+commands for me."
+
+A sudden reflection occurred to M. Plantat; the expression of his eye
+changed. He winked at M. Lecoq to call his attention, and addressing the
+bone-setter in a milder tone, said: "Come here, Master Robelot."
+
+Lecoq had read the man at a glance. Robelot was a small,
+insignificant-looking man, but really of herculean strength. His hair,
+cut short behind, fell over his large, intelligent forehead. His eyes
+shone with the fire of covetousness, and expressed, when he forgot to
+guard them, a cynical boldness. A sly smile was always playing about his
+thin lips, beneath which there was no beard. A little way off, with his
+slight figure and his beardless face, he looked like a Paris gamin--one
+of those little wretches who are the essence of all corruption, whose
+imagination is more soiled than the gutters where they search for lost
+pennies.
+
+Robelot advanced several steps, smiling and bowing. "Perhaps," said he,
+"Monsieur has, by chance, need of me?"
+
+"None whatever, Master Robelot, I only wish to congratulate you on
+happening in so apropos, to bleed Monsieur Courtois. Your lancet has,
+doubtless, saved his life."
+
+"It's quite possible."
+
+"Monsieur Courtois is generous--he will amply recompense this great
+service."
+
+"Oh, I shall ask him nothing. Thank God, I want nobody's help. If I am
+paid my due, I am content."
+
+"I know that well enough; you are prosperous--you ought to be
+satisfied."
+
+M. Plantat's tone was friendly, almost paternal. He was deeply
+interested, evidently, in Robelot's prosperity.
+
+"Satisfied!" resumed the bone-setter. "Not so much as you might think.
+Life is very dear for poor people."
+
+"But, haven't you just purchased an estate near d'Evry?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And a nice place, too, though a trifle damp. Happily you have stone to
+fill it in with, on the land that you bought of the widow Frapesle."
+
+Robelot had never seen the old justice of the peace so talkative, so
+familiar; he seemed a little surprised.
+
+"Three wretched pieces of land!" said he.
+
+"Not so bad as you talk about. Then you've also bought something in the
+way of mines, at auction, haven't you?"
+
+"Just a bunch of nothing at all."
+
+"True, but it pays well. It isn't so bad, you see, to be a doctor
+without a diploma."
+
+Robelot had been several times prosecuted for illegal practicing; so he
+thought he ought to protest against this.
+
+"If I cure people," said he, "I'm not paid for it."
+
+"Then your trade in herbs isn't what has enriched you."
+
+The conversation was becoming a cross-examination. The bone-setter was
+beginning to be restless.
+
+"Oh, I make something out of the herbs," he answered.
+
+"And as you are thrifty, you buy land."
+
+"I've also got some cattle and horses, which bring in something. I raise
+horses, cows, and sheep."
+
+"Also without diploma?"
+
+Robelot waxed disdainful.
+
+"A piece of parchment does not make science. I don't fear the men of the
+schools. I study animals in the fields and the stable, without bragging.
+I haven't my equal for raising them, nor for knowing their diseases."
+
+M. Plantat's tone became more and more winning.
+
+"I know that you are a bright fellow, full of experience. Doctor
+Gendron, with whom you served, was praising your cleverness a moment
+ago."
+
+The bone-setter shuddered, not so imperceptibly as to escape Plantat,
+who continued: "Yes, the good doctor said he never had so intelligent an
+assistant. 'Robelot,' said he, 'has such an aptitude for chemistry, and
+so much taste for it besides, that he understands as well as I many of
+the most delicate operations.'"
+
+"Parbleu! I did my best, for I was well paid, and I was always fond of
+learning."
+
+"And you were an apt scholar at Doctor Gendron's, Master Robelot; he
+makes some very curious studies. His work and experience on poisons are
+above all remarkable."
+
+Robelot's uneasiness became apparent; his look wavered.
+
+"Yes;" returned he, "I have seen some strange experiments."
+
+"Well, you see, you may think yourself lucky--for the doctor is going to
+have a splendid chance to study this sort of thing, and he will
+undoubtedly want you to assist him."
+
+But Robelot was too shrewd not to have already guessed that this
+cross-examination had a purpose. What was M. Plantat after? he asked
+himself, not without a vague terror. And, going over in his mind the
+questions which had been asked, and the answers he had given, and to
+what these questions led, he trembled. He thought to escape further
+questioning by saying:
+
+"I am always at my old master's orders when he needs me."
+
+"He'll need you, be assured," said M. Plantat, who added, in a careless
+tone, which his rapid glance at Robelot belied, "The interest attaching
+to this case will be intense, and the task difficult. Monsieur
+Sauvresy's body is to be disinterred."
+
+Robelot was certainly prepared for something strange, and he was armed
+with all his audacity. But the name of Sauvresy fell upon his head like
+the stroke of a club, and he stammered, in a choked voice:
+
+"Sauvresy!"
+
+M. Plantat had already turned his head, and continued in an indifferent
+tone:
+
+"Yes, Sauvresy is to be exhumed. It is suspected that his death was not
+wholly a natural one. You see, justice always has its suspicions."
+
+Robelot leaned against the wall so as not to fall. M. Plantat proceeded:
+
+"So Doctor Gendron has been applied to. He has, as you know, found
+reactive drugs which betray the presence of an alkaloid, whatever it may
+be, in the substances submitted to him for analysis. He has spoken to me
+of a certain sensitive paper--"
+
+Appealing to all his energy, Robelot forced himself to stand up and
+resume a calm countenance.
+
+"I know Doctor Gendron's process," said he, "but I don't see who could
+be capable of the suspicions of which you speak."
+
+"I think there are more than suspicions," resumed M. Plantat. "Madame de
+Tremorel, you know, has been murdered: her papers have, of course, been
+examined; letters have been found, with very damaging revelations,
+receipts, and so on."
+
+Robelot, apparently, was once more self-possessed; he forced himself to
+answer:
+
+"Bast! let us hope that justice is in the wrong."
+
+Then, such was this man's self-control, despite a nervous trembling
+which shook his whole body as the wind does the leaves, that he added,
+constraining his thin lips to form a smile:
+
+"Madame Courtois does not come down; I am waited for at home, and will
+drop in again to-morrow. Good-evening, gentlemen."
+
+He walked away, and soon the sand in the court was heard creaking with
+his steps. As he went, he staggered like a drunken man.
+
+M. Lecoq went up to M. Plantat, and taking off his hat:
+
+"I surrender," said he, "and bow to you; you are great, like my master,
+the great Tabaret."
+
+The detective's amour-propre was clearly aroused; his professional zeal
+was inspired; he found himself before a great crime--one of those crimes
+which triple the sale of the Gazette of the Courts. Doubtless many of
+its details escaped him: he was ignorant of the starting-point; but he
+saw the way clearing before him. He had surprised Plantat's theory, and
+had followed the train of his thought step by step; thus he discovered
+the complications of the crime which seemed so simple to M. Domini. His
+subtle mind had connected together all the circumstances which had been
+disclosed to him during the day, and now he sincerely admired the old
+justice of the peace. As he gazed at his beloved portrait, he thought,
+"Between the two of us--this old fox and I--we will unravel the whole
+web." He would not, however, show himself to be inferior to his
+companion.
+
+"Monsieur," said he, "while you were questioning this rogue, who will be
+very useful to us, I did not lose any time. I've been looking about,
+under the furniture and so on, and have found this slip of paper."
+
+"Let's see."
+
+"It is the envelope of the young lady's letter. Do you know where her
+aunt, whom she was visiting, lives?"
+
+"At Fontainebleau, I believe."
+
+"Ah; well, this envelope is stamped 'Paris,' Saint-Lazare branch
+post-office. I know this stamp proves nothing--"
+
+"It is, of course, an indication."
+
+"That is not all; I have read the letter itself--it was here on the
+table."
+
+M. Plantat frowned involuntarily.
+
+"It was, perhaps, a liberty," resumed M. Lecoq, "but the end justifies
+the means. Well, you have read this letter; but have you studied it,
+examined the hand-writing, weighed the words, remarked the context of
+the sentences?"
+
+"Ah," cried Plantat, "I was not mistaken then--you had the same idea
+strike you that occurred to me!"
+
+And, in the energy of his excitement he seized the detective's hands and
+pressed them as if he were an old friend. They were about to resume
+talking when a step was heard on the staircase; and presently Dr.
+Gendron appeared.
+
+"Courtois is better," said he, "he is in a doze, and will recover."
+
+"We have nothing more, then, to keep us here," returned M. Plantat.
+"Let's be off. Monsieur Lecoq must be half dead with hunger."
+
+As they went away, M. Lecoq slipped Laurence's letter, with the
+envelope, into his pocket.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+M. Plantat's house was small and narrow; a philosopher's house. Three
+large rooms on the ground-floor, four chambers in the first story, an
+attic under the roof for the servants, composed all its apartments.
+Everywhere the carelessness of a man who has withdrawn from the world
+into himself, for years, ceasing to have the least interest in the
+objects which surround him, was apparent. The furniture was shabby,
+though it had been elegant; the mouldings had come off, the clocks had
+ceased to keep time, the chairs showed the stuffing of their cushions,
+the curtains, in places, were faded by the sun. The library alone
+betrayed a daily care and attention.
+
+Long rows of books in calf and gilt were ranged on the carved oaken
+shelves, a movable table near the fireplace contained M. Plantat's
+favorite books, the discreet friends of his solitude. A spacious
+conservatory, fitted with every accessory and convenience, was his only
+luxury. In it flourished one hundred and thirty-seven varieties of
+briars.
+
+Two servants, the widow Petit, cook and house-keeper, and Louis,
+gardener, inhabited the house. If they did not make it a noisy one, it
+was because Plantat, who talked little, detested also to hear others
+talk. Silence was there a despotic law. It was very hard for Mme. Petit,
+especially at first. She was very talkative, so talkative that when she
+found no one to chat with, she went to confession; to confess was to
+chat. She came near leaving the place twenty times; but the thought of
+an assured pension restrained her. Gradually she became accustomed to
+govern her tongue, and to this cloistral silence. But she revenged
+herself outside for the privations of the household, and regained among
+the neighbors the time lost at home.
+
+She was very much wrought up on the day of the murder. At eleven
+o'clock, after going out for news, she had prepared monsieur's dinner;
+but he did not appear. She waited one, two hours, five hours, keeping
+her water boiling for the eggs; no monsieur. She wanted to send Louis to
+look for him, but Louis being a poor talker and not curious, asked her
+to go herself. The house was besieged by the female neighbors, who,
+thinking that Mme. Petit ought to be well posted, came for news; no news
+to give.
+
+Toward five o'clock, giving up all thought of breakfast, she began to
+prepare for dinner. But when the village bell struck eight o'clock,
+monsieur had not made his appearance. At nine, the good woman was beside
+herself, and began to scold Louis, who had just come in from watering
+the garden, and, seated at the kitchen table, was soberly eating a plate
+of soup.
+
+The bell rung.
+
+"Ah, there's monsieur, at last."
+
+No, it was not monsieur, but a little boy, whom M. Plantat had sent from
+Valfeuillu to apprise Mme. Petit that he would soon return, bringing
+with him two guests who would dine and sleep at the house. The worthy
+woman nearly fainted. It was the first time that M. Plantat had invited
+anyone to dinner for five years. There was some mystery at the bottom of
+it--so thought Mme. Petit, and her anger doubled with her curiosity.
+
+"To order a dinner at this hour," she grumbled. "Has he got
+common-sense, then?" But reflecting that time pressed, she continued:
+
+"Go along, Louis; this is not the moment for two feet to stay in one
+shoe. Hurry up, and wring three chickens' heads; see if there ain't some
+ripe grapes in the conservatory; bring on some preserves; fetch some
+wine from the cellar!" The dinner was well advanced when the bell rung
+again. This time Baptiste appeared, in exceeding bad humor, bearing M.
+Lecoq's night-gown.
+
+"See here," said he to the cook, "what the person, who is with your
+master, gave me to bring here."
+
+"What person?"
+
+"How do I know? He's a spy sent down from Paris about this Valfeuillu
+affair; not much good, probably--ill-bred--a brute--and a wretch."
+
+"But he's not alone with monsieur?"
+
+"No; Doctor Gendron is with them."
+
+Mme. Petit burned to get some news out of Baptiste; but Baptiste also
+burned to get back and know what was taking place at his master's--so
+off he went, without having left any news behind.
+
+An hour or more passed, and Mme. Petit had just angrily declared to
+Louis that she was going to throw the dinner out the window, when her
+master at last appeared, followed by his guests. They had not exchanged
+a word after they left the mayor's. Aside from the fatigues of the
+evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme.
+Petit found it useless to question their faces--they told her nothing.
+But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him
+good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the
+dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the
+events of the day. No one would ever have thought that they had just
+been witnesses of, almost actors in, the Valfeuillu drama, they were so
+calm, and talked so glibly of indifferent things. From time to time,
+indeed, a question remained unanswered, or a reply came tardily; but
+nothing of the sensations and thoughts, which were concealed beneath the
+uttered commonplaces, appeared on the surface.
+
+Louis passed to and fro behind the diners, his white cloth on his arm,
+carving and passing the wine. Mme. Petit brought in the dishes, and came
+in thrice as often as was necessary, her ears wide open, leaving the
+door ajar as often as she dared. Poor woman! she had prepared an
+excellent dinner, and nobody paid any attention to it.
+
+M. Lecoq was fond of tit-bits; yet, when Louis placed on the table a
+dish of superb grapes--quite out of season--his mouth did not so much as
+expand into a smile. Dr. Gendron would have been puzzled to say what he
+had eaten. The dinner was nearly over, when M. Plantat began to be
+annoyed by the constraint which the presence of the servants put upon
+the party. He called to the cook:
+
+"You will give us our coffee in the library, and may then retire, as
+well as Louis."
+
+"But these gentlemen do not know their rooms," insisted Mme. Petit,
+whose eavesdropping projects were checked by this order. "They will,
+perhaps, need something."
+
+"I will show them their rooms," said M. Plantat, dryly. "And if they
+need anything, I shall be here."
+
+They went into the library. M. Plantat brought out a box of cigars and
+passed them round:
+
+"It will be healthful to smoke a little before retiring."
+
+M. Lecoq lit an aromatic weed, and remarked:
+
+"You two may go to bed if you like; I am condemned, I see, to a
+sleepless night. But before I go to writing, I wish to ask you a few
+things, Monsieur Plantat."
+
+M. Plantat bowed in token of assent.
+
+"We must resume our conversation," continued the detective, "and compare
+our inferences. All our lights are not too much to throw a little
+daylight upon this affair, which is one of the darkest I have ever met
+with. The situation is dangerous, and time presses. On our acuteness
+depends the fate of several innocent persons, upon whom rest very
+serious charges. We have a theory: but Monsieur Domini also has one, and
+his, let us confess, is based upon material facts, while ours rests upon
+very disputable sensations and logic."
+
+"We have more than sensations," responded M. Plantat.
+
+"I agree with you," said the doctor, "but we must prove it."
+
+"And I will prove it, parbleu," cried M. Lecoq, eagerly. "The affair is
+complicated and difficult--so much the better. Eh! If it were simple, I
+would go back to Paris instanter, and to-morrow I would send you one of
+my men. I leave easy riddles to infants. What I want is the inexplicable
+enigmas, so as to unravel it; a struggle, to show my strength;
+obstacles, to conquer them."
+
+M. Plantat and the doctor looked steadily at the speaker. He was as if
+transfigured. It was the same yellow-haired and whiskered man, in a long
+overcoat: yet the voice, the physiognomy, the very features, had
+changed. His eyes shone with the fire of his enthusiasm, his voice was
+metallic and vibrating, his imperious gesture affirmed the audacity and
+energy of his resolution.
+
+"If you think, my friends," pursued he, "that they don't manufacture
+detectives like me at so much a year, you are right. When I was twenty
+years old, I took service with an astronomer, as his calculator, after a
+long course of study. He gave me my breakfasts and seventy francs a
+month; by means of which I dressed well, and covered I know not how many
+square feet with figures daily."
+
+M. Lecoq puffed vigorously at his cigar a moment, casting a curious
+glance at M. Plantat. Then he resumed:
+
+"Well, you may imagine that I wasn't the happiest of men. I forgot to
+mention that I had two little vices: I loved the women, and I loved
+play. All are not perfect. My salary seemed too small, and while I added
+up my columns of figures, I was looking about for a way to make a rapid
+fortune. There is, indeed, but one means; to appropriate somebody else's
+money, shrewdly enough not to be found out. I thought about it day and
+night. My mind was fertile in expedients, and I formed a hundred
+projects, each more practicable than the others. I should frighten you
+if I were to tell you half of what I imagined in those days. If many
+thieves of my calibre existed, you'd have to blot the word 'property'
+out of the dictionary. Precautions, as well as safes, would be useless.
+Happily for men of property, criminals are idiots."
+
+"What is he coming to?" thought the doctor.
+
+"One day, I became afraid of my own thoughts. I had just been inventing
+a little arrangement by which a man could rob any banker whatever of
+200,000 francs without any more danger or difficulty than I raise this
+cup. So I said to myself, 'Well, my boy, if this goes on a little
+longer, a moment will come when, from the idea, you will naturally
+proceed to the practice.' Having, however, been born an honest lad--a
+mere chance--and being determined to use the talents which nature had
+given me, eight days afterward I bid my astronomer good-morning, and
+went to the prefecture. My fear of being a burglar drove me into the
+police."
+
+"And you are satisfied with the exchange?" asked Dr. Gendron.
+
+"I' faith, Doctor, my first regret is yet to come. I am happy, because I
+am free to exercise my peculiar faculties with usefulness to my race.
+Existence has an enormous attraction for me, because I have still a
+passion which overrides all others--curiosity."
+
+The detective smiled, and continued:
+
+"There are people who have a mania for the theatre. It is like my own
+mania. Only, I can't understand how people can take pleasure in the
+wretched display of fictions, which are to real life what a tallow dip
+is to the sun. It seems to me monstrous that people can be interested in
+sentiments which, though well represented, are fictitious. What! can you
+laugh at the witticisms of a comedian, whom you know to be the
+struggling father of a family? Can you pity the sad fate of the poor
+actress who poisons herself, when you know that on going out you will
+meet her on the boulevards? It's pitiable!"
+
+"Let's shut up the theatres," suggested Dr. Gendron.
+
+"I am more difficult to please than the public," returned M. Lecoq. "I
+must have veritable comedies, or real dramas. My theatre is--society. My
+actors laugh honestly, or weep with genuine tears. A crime is
+committed--that is the prologue; I reach the scene, the first act
+begins. I seize at a glance the minutest shades of the scenery. Then I
+try to penetrate the motives, I group the characters, I link the
+episodes to the central fact, I bind in a bundle all the circumstances.
+The action soon reaches the crisis, the thread of my inductions conducts
+me to the guilty person; I divine him, arrest him, deliver him up. Then
+comes the great scene; the accused struggles, tries tricks, splits
+straws; but the judge, armed with the arms I have forged for him,
+overwhelms the wretch; he does not confess, but he is confounded. And
+how many secondary personages, accomplices, friends, enemies, witnesses
+are grouped about the principal criminal! Some are terrible, frightful,
+gloomy--others grotesque. And you know not what the ludicrous in the
+horrible is. My last scene is the court of assize. The prosecutor
+speaks, but it is I who furnished his ideas; his phrases are
+embroideries set around the canvas of my report. The president submits
+his questions to the jury; what emotion! The fate of my drama is being
+decided. The jury, perhaps, answers, 'Not guilty;' very well, my piece
+was bad, I am hissed. If 'Guilty,' on the contrary, the piece was good,
+I am applauded, and victorious. The next day I can go and see my hero,
+and slapping him on the shoulder, say to him, 'You have lost, old
+fellow, I am too much for you!'"
+
+Was M. Lecoq in earnest now, or was he playing a part? What was the
+object of this autobiography? Without appearing to notice the surprise
+of his companions, he lit a fresh cigar; then, whether designedly or
+not, instead of replacing the lamp with which he lit it on the table, he
+put it on one corner of the mantel. Thus M. Plantat's face was in full
+view, while that of M. Lecoq remained in shadow.
+
+"I ought to confess," he continued, "without false modesty, that I have
+rarely been hissed. Like every man I have my Achilles heel. I have
+conquered the demon of play, but I have not triumphed over my passion
+for woman."
+
+He sighed heavily, with the resigned gesture of a man who has chosen his
+path. "It's this way. There is a woman, before whom I am but an idiot.
+Yes, I the detective, the terror of thieves and murderers, who have
+divulged the combinations of all the sharpers of all the nations, who
+for ten years have swum amid vice and crime; who wash the dirty linen of
+all the corruptions, who have measured the depths of human infamy; I who
+know all, who have seen and heard all; I, Lecoq, am before her, more
+simple and credulous than an infant. She deceives me--I see it--and she
+proves that I have seen wrongly. She lies--I know it, I prove it to
+her--and I believe her. It is because this is one of those passions," he
+added, in a low, mournful tone, "that age, far from extinguishing, only
+fans, and to which the consciousness of shame and powerlessness adds
+fire. One loves, and the certainty that he cannot be loved in return is
+one of those griefs which you must have felt to know its depth. In a
+moment of reason, one sees and judges himself; he says, no, it's
+impossible, she is almost a child, I almost an old man. He says
+this--but always, in the heart, more potent than reason, than will, than
+experience, a ray of hope remains, and he says to himself, 'who
+knows--perhaps!' He awaits, what--a miracle? There are none, nowadays.
+No matter, he hopes on."
+
+M. Lecoq stopped, as if his emotion prevented his going on. M. Plantat
+had continued to smoke mechanically, puffing the smoke out at regular
+intervals; but his face seemed troubled, his glance was unsteady, his
+hands trembled. He got up, took the lamp from the mantel and replaced it
+on the table, and sat down again. The significance of this scene at last
+struck Dr. Gendron.
+
+In short, M. Lecoq, without departing widely from the truth, had just
+attempted one of the most daring experiments of his repertoire, and he
+judged it useless to go further. He knew now what he wished to know.
+After a moment's silence, he shuddered as though awaking from a dream,
+and pulling out his watch, said:
+
+"Par le Dieu! How I chat on, while time flies!"
+
+"And Guespin is in prison," remarked the doctor.
+
+"We will have him out," answered the detective, "if, indeed, he is
+innocent; for this time I have mastered the mystery, my romance, if you
+wish, and without any gap. There is, however, one fact of the utmost
+importance, that I by myself cannot explain."
+
+"What?" asked M. Plantat.
+
+"Is it possible that Monsieur de Tremorel had a very great interest in
+finding something--a deed, a letter, a paper of some sort--something of
+a small size, secreted in his own house?"
+
+"Yes--that is possible," returned the justice of the peace.
+
+"But I must know for certain."
+
+M. Plantat reflected a moment.
+
+"Well then," he went on, "I am sure, perfectly sure, that if Madame de
+Tremorel had died suddenly, the count would have ransacked the house to
+find a certain paper, which he knew to be in his wife's possession, and
+which I myself have had in my hands."
+
+"Then," said M. Lecoq, "there's the drama complete. On reaching
+Valfeuillu, I, like you, was struck with the frightful disorder of the
+rooms. Like you, I thought at first that this disorder was the result of
+design. I was wrong; a more careful scrutiny has convinced me of it. The
+assassin, it is true, threw everything into disorder, broke the
+furniture, hacked the chairs in order to make us think that some furious
+villains had been there. But amid these acts of premeditated violence I
+have followed up the involuntary traces of an exact, minute, and I may
+say patient search. Everything seemed turned topsy-turvy by chance;
+articles were broken open with the hatchet, which might have been opened
+with the hands; drawers had been forced which were not shut, and the
+keys of which were in the locks. Was this folly? No. For really no
+corner or crevice where a letter might be hid has been neglected. The
+table and bureau-drawers had been thrown here and there, but the narrow
+spaces between the drawers had been examined--I saw proofs of it, for I
+found the imprints of fingers on the dust which lay in these spaces. The
+books had been thrown pell-mell upon the floor, but every one of them
+had been handled, and some of them with such violence that the bindings
+were torn off. We found the mantel-shelves in their places, but every
+one had been lifted up. The chairs were not hacked with a sword, for the
+mere purpose of ripping the cloth--the seats were thus examined. My
+conviction of the certainty that there had been a most desperate search,
+at first roused my suspicions. I said to myself, 'The villains have been
+looking for the money which was concealed; therefore they did not belong
+to the household.'"
+
+"But," observed the doctor, "they might belong to the house, and yet not
+know the money was hidden; for Guespin--"
+
+"Permit me," interrupted M. Lecoq, "I will explain myself. On the other
+hand, I found indications that the assassin must have been closely
+connected with Madame de Tremorel--her lover, or her husband. These were
+the ideas that then struck me."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Now," responded the detective, "with the certainty that something
+besides booty might have been the object of the search, I am not far
+from thinking that the guilty man is he whose body is being searched
+for--the Count Hector de Tremorel."
+
+M. Plantat and Dr. Gendron had divined the name; but neither had as yet
+dared to utter his suspicions. They awaited this name of Tremorel; and
+yet, pronounced as it was in the middle of the night, in this great
+sombre room, by this at least strange personage, it made them shudder
+with an indescribable fright.
+
+"Observe," resumed M. Lecoq, "what I say; I believe it to be so. In my
+eyes, the count's guilt is only as yet extremely probable. Let us see if
+we three can reach the certainty of it. You see, gentlemen, the inquest
+of a crime is nothing more nor less than the solution of a problem.
+Given the crime, proved, patent, you commence by seeking out all the
+circumstances, whether serious or superficial; the details and the
+particulars. When these have been carefully gathered, you classify them,
+and put them in their order and date. You thus know the victim, the
+crime, and the circumstances; it remains to find the third term of the
+problem, that is, x, the unknown quantity--the guilty party. The task is
+a difficult one, but not so difficult as is imagined. The object is to
+find a man whose guilt explains all the circumstances, all the details
+found--all, understand me. Find such a man, and it is probable--and in
+nine cases out of ten, the probability becomes a reality--that you hold
+the perpetrator of the crime."
+
+So clear had been M. Lecoq's exposition, so logical his argument, that
+his hearers could not repress an admiring exclamation:
+
+"Very good! Very good!"
+
+"Let us then examine together if the assumed guilt of the Count de
+Tremorel explains all the circumstances of the crime at Valfeuillu."
+
+He was about to continue when Dr. Gendron, who sat near the window, rose
+abruptly.
+
+"There is someone in the garden," said he.
+
+All approached the window. The weather was glorious, the night very
+clear, and a large open space lay before the library window; they looked
+out, but saw no one.
+
+"You are mistaken, Doctor," said Plantat, resuming his arm-chair.
+
+M. Lecoq continued:
+
+"Now let us suppose that, under the influence of certain events that we
+will examine presently, Monsieur de Tremorel had made up his mind to get
+rid of his wife. The crime once resolved upon, it was clear that the
+count must have reflected, and sought out the means of committing it
+with impunity; he must have weighed the circumstances, and estimated the
+perils of his act. Let us admit, also, that the events which led him to
+this extremity were such that he feared to be disturbed, and that he
+also feared that a search would be made for certain things, even should
+his wife die a natural death."
+
+"That is true," said M. Plantat, nodding his head.
+
+"Monsieur de Tremorel, then, determined to kill his wife, brutally, with
+a knife, with the idea of so arranging everything, as to make it
+believed that he too had been assassinated; and he also decided to
+endeavor to thrust suspicion on an innocent person, or at least, an
+accomplice infinitely less guilty than he.
+
+"He made up his mind in advance, in adopting this course, to disappear,
+fly, conceal himself, change his personality; to suppress, in short,
+Count Hector de Tremorel, and make for himself, under another name, a
+new position and identity. These hypotheses, easily admitted, suffice to
+explain the whole series of otherwise inconsistent circumstances. They
+explain to us in the first place, how it was that on the very night of
+the murder, there was a large fortune in ready money at Valfeuillu; and
+this seems to me decisive. Why, when a man receives sums like this,
+which he proposes to keep by him, he conceals the fact as carefully as
+possible. Monsieur de Tremorel had not this common prudence. He shows
+his bundles of bank-notes freely, handles them, parades them; the
+servants see them, almost touch them. He wants everybody to know and
+repeat that there is a large sum in the house, easy to take, carry off,
+and conceal. And what time of all times, does he choose for this
+display? Exactly the moment when he knows, and everyone in the
+neighborhood knows, that he is going to pass the night at the chateau,
+alone with Madame de Tremorel.
+
+"For he is aware that all his servants are invited, on the evening of
+July 8th to the wedding of the former cook. So well aware of it is he,
+that he defrays the wedding expenses, and himself names the day. You
+will perhaps say that it was by chance that this money was sent to
+Valfeuillu on the very night of the crime. At the worst that might be
+admitted. But believe me, there was no chance about it, and I will prove
+it. We will go to-morrow to the count's banker, and will inquire whether
+the count did not ask him, by letter or verbally, to send him these
+funds precisely on July 8th. Well, if he says yes, if he shows us such a
+letter, or if he declares that the money was called for in person, you
+will confess, no doubt, that I have more than a probability in favor of
+my theory."
+
+Both his hearers bowed in token of assent.
+
+"So far, then, there is no objection."
+
+"Not the least," said M. Plantat.
+
+"My conjectures have also the advantage of shedding light on Guespin's
+position. Honestly, his appearance is against him, and justifies his
+arrest. Was he an accomplice or entirely innocent? We certainly cannot
+yet decide. But it is a fact that he has fallen into an admirably
+well-laid trap. The count, in selecting him for his victim, took all
+care that every doubt possible should weigh upon him. I would wager that
+Monsieur de Tremorel, who knew this fellow's history, thought that his
+antecedents would add probability to the suspicions against him, and
+would weigh with a terrible weight in the scales of justice. Perhaps,
+too, he said to himself that Guespin would be sure to prove his
+innocence in the end, and he only wished to gain time to elude the first
+search. It is impossible that we can be deceived. We know that the
+countess died of the first blow, as if thunderstruck. She did not
+struggle; therefore she could not have torn a piece of cloth off the
+assassin's vest. If you admit Guespin's guilt, you admit that he was
+idiot enough to put a piece of his vest in his victim's hand; you admit
+that he was such a fool as to go and throw this torn and bloody vest
+into the Seine, from a bridge, in a place where he might know search
+would be made--and all this, without taking the common precaution of
+attaching it to a stone to carry it to the bottom. That would be absurd.
+
+"To me, then, this piece of cloth, this smeared vest, indicate at once
+Guespin's innocence and the count's guilt."
+
+"But," objected Dr. Gendron, "if Guespin is innocent, why don't he talk?
+Why don't he prove an alibi? How was it he had his purse full of money?"
+
+"Observe," resumed the detective, "that I don't say he is innocent; we
+are still among the probabilities. Can't you suppose that the count,
+perfidious enough to set a trap for his servant, was shrewd enough to
+deprive him of every means of proving an alibi?"
+
+"But you yourself deny the count's shrewdness."
+
+"I beg your pardon; please hear me. The count's plan was excellent, and
+shows a superior kind of perversity; the execution alone was defective.
+This is because the plan was conceived and perfected in safety, while
+when the crime had been committed, the murderer, distressed, frightened
+at his danger, lost his coolness and only half executed his project. But
+there are other suppositions. It might be asked whether, while Madame de
+Tremorel was being murdered, Guespin might not have been committing some
+other crime elsewhere."
+
+This conjecture seemed so improbable to the doctor that he could not
+avoid objecting to it. "Oh!" muttered he.
+
+"Don't forget," replied Lecoq, "that the field of conjectures has no
+bounds. Imagine whatever complication of events you may, I am ready to
+maintain that such a complication has occurred or will present itself.
+Lieuben, a German lunatic, bet that he would succeed in turning up a
+pack of cards in the order stated in the written agreement. He turned
+and turned ten hours per day for twenty years. He had repeated the
+operation 4,246,028 times, when he succeeded."
+
+M. Lecoq was about to proceed with another illustration, when M. Plantat
+interrupted him by a gesture.
+
+"I admit your hypotheses; I think they are more than probable--they are
+true."
+
+M. Lecoq, as he spoke, paced up and down between the window and the
+book-shelves, stopping at emphatic words, like a general who dictates to
+his aides the plan of the morrow's battle. To his auditors, he seemed a
+new man, with serious features, an eye bright with intelligence, his
+sentences clear and concise--the Lecoq, in short, which the magistrates
+who have employed his talents, would recognize.
+
+"Now," he resumed, "hear me. It is ten o'clock at night. No noise
+without, the road deserted, the village lights extinguished, the chateau
+servants away at Paris. The count and countess are alone at Valfeuillu.
+
+"They have gone to their bedroom.
+
+"The countess has seated herself at the table where tea has been served.
+The count, as he talks with her, paces up and down the chamber.
+
+"Madame de Tremorel has no ill presentiment; her husband, the past few
+days, has been more amiable, more attentive than ever. She mistrusts
+nothing, and so the count can approach her from behind, without her
+thinking of turning her head.
+
+"When she hears him coming up softly, she imagines that he is going to
+surprise her with a kiss. He, meanwhile, armed with a long dagger,
+stands beside his wife. He knows where to strike that the wound may be
+mortal. He chooses the place at a glance; takes aim; strikes a terrible
+blow--so terrible that the handle of the dagger imprints itself on both
+sides of the wound. The countess falls without a sound, bruising her
+forehead on the edge of the table, which is overturned. Is not the
+position of the terrible wound below the left shoulder thus explained--a
+wound almost vertical, its direction being from right to left?"
+
+The doctor made a motion of assent.
+
+"And who, besides a woman's lover or her husband is admitted to her
+chamber, or can approach her when she is seated without her turning
+round?"
+
+"That's clear," muttered M. Plantat.
+
+"The countess is now dead," pursued M. Lecoq. "The assassin's first
+emotion is one of triumph. He is at last rid of her who was his wife,
+whom he hated enough to murder her, and to change his happy, splendid,
+envied existence for a frightful life, henceforth without country,
+friend, or refuge, proscribed by all nations, tracked by all the police,
+punishable by the laws of all the world! His second thought is of this
+letter or paper, this object of small size which he knows to be in his
+wife's keeping, which he has demanded a hundred times, which she would
+not give up to him, and which he must have."
+
+"Add," interrupted M. Plantat, "that this paper was one of the motives
+of the crime."
+
+"The count thinks he knows where it is. He imagines that he can put his
+hand on it at once. He is mistaken. He looks into all the drawers and
+bureaus used by his wife--and finds nothing. He searches every corner,
+he lifts up the shelves, overturns everything in the chamber--nothing.
+An idea strikes him. Is this letter under the mantel-shelf? By a turn of
+the arm he lifts it--down the clock tumbles and stops. It is not yet
+half-past ten."
+
+"Yes," murmured the doctor, "the clock betrays that."
+
+"The count finds nothing under the mantel-shelf except the dust, which
+has retained traces of his fingers. Then he begins to be anxious. Where
+can this paper be, for which he has risked his life? He grows angry. How
+search the locked drawers? The keys are on the carpet--I found them
+among the debris of the tea service--but he does not see them. He must
+have some implement with which to break open everything. He goes
+downstairs for a hatchet. The drunkenness of blood and vengeance is
+dissipated on the staircase; his terrors begin. All the dark corners are
+peopled, now, with those spectres which form the cortege of assassins;
+he is frightened, and hurries on. He soon goes up again, armed with a
+large hatchet--that found on the second story--and makes the pieces of
+wood fly about him. He goes about like a maniac, rips up the furniture
+at hazard; but he pursues a desperate search, the traces of which I have
+followed, among the debris. Nothing, always nothing! Everything in the
+room is topsy-turvy; he goes into his cabinet and continues the
+destruction; the hatchet rises and falls without rest. He breaks his own
+bureau, since he may find something concealed there of which he is
+ignorant. This bureau belonged to the first husband--to Sauvresy. He
+takes out all the books in the library, one by one, shakes them
+furiously, and throws them about the floor. The infernal paper is
+undiscoverable. His distress is now too great for him to pursue the
+search with the least method. His wandering reason no longer guides him.
+He staggers, without calculation, from one thing to another, fumbling a
+dozen times in the same drawer, while he completely forgets others just
+by him. Then he thinks that this paper may have been hid in the stuffing
+of a chair. He seizes a sword, and to be certain, he slashes up the
+drawing-room chairs and sofas and those in the other rooms."
+
+M. Lecoq's voice, accent, gestures, gave a vivid character to his
+recital. The hearer might imagine that he saw the crime committed, and
+was present at the terrible scenes which he described. His companions
+held their breath, unwilling by a movement to distract his attention.
+
+"At this moment," pursued he, "the count's rage and terror were at their
+height. He had said to himself, when he planned the murder, that he
+would kill his wife, get possession of the letter, execute his plan
+quickly, and fly. And now all his projects were baffled! How much time
+was being lost, when each minute diminished the chances of escape! Then
+the probability of a thousand dangers which had not occurred to him,
+entered his mind. What if some friend should suddenly arrive, expecting
+his hospitality, as had occurred twenty times? What if a passer-by on
+the road should notice a light flying from room to room? Might not one
+of the servants return? When he is in the drawing-room, he thinks he
+hears someone ring at the gate; such is his terror, that he lets his
+candle fall--for I have found the marks of it on the carpet. He hears
+strange noises, such as never before assailed his ears; he thinks he
+hears walking in the next room; the floor creaks. Is his wife really
+dead; will she not suddenly rise up, run to the window, and scream for
+help? Beset by these terrors, he returns to the bedroom, seizes his
+dagger, and again strikes the poor countess. But his hand is so unsteady
+that the wounds are light. You have observed, doctor, that all these
+wounds take the same direction. They form right angles with the body,
+proving that the victim was lying down when they were inflicted. Then,
+in the excess of his frenzy, he strikes the body with his feet, and his
+heels form the contusions discovered by the autopsy."
+
+M. Lecoq paused to take breath. He not only narrated the drama, he acted
+it, adding gesture to word; and each of his phrases made a scene,
+explained a fact, and dissipated a doubt. Like all true artists who wrap
+themselves up in the character they represent, the detective really felt
+something of the sensations which he interpreted, and his expressive
+face was terrible in its contortions.
+
+"That," he resumed, "is the first act of the drama. An irresistible
+prostration succeeds the count's furious passion. The various
+circumstances which I am describing to you are to be noticed in nearly
+all great crimes. The assassin is always seized, after the murder, with
+a horrible and singular hatred against his victim, and he often
+mutilates the body. Then comes the period of a prostration so great, of
+torpor so irresistible, that murderers have been known literally to go
+to sleep in the blood, that they have been surprised sleeping, and that
+it was with great difficulty that they were awakened. The count, when he
+has frightfully disfigured the poor lady, falls into an arm-chair;
+indeed, the cloth of one of the chairs has retained some wrinkles, which
+shows that someone had sat in it. What are then the count's thoughts? He
+reflects on the long hours which have elapsed, upon the few hours which
+remain to him. He reflects that he has found nothing; that he will
+hardly have time, before day, to execute his plans for turning suspicion
+from him, and assure his safety, by creating an impression that he, too,
+has been murdered. And he must fly at once--fly, without that accursed
+paper. He summons up his energies, rises, and do you know what he does?
+He seizes a pair of scissors and cuts off his long, carefully cultivated
+beard."
+
+"Ah!" interrupted M. Plantat, "that's why you examined the portrait so
+closely."
+
+M. Lecoq was too intent on following the thread of his deductions to
+note the interruption.
+
+"This is one of those vulgar details," pursued he, "whose very
+insignificance makes them terrible, when they are attended by certain
+circumstances. Now imagine the Count de Tremorel, pale, covered with his
+wife's blood, shaving himself before his glass; rubbing the soap over
+his face, in that room all topsy-turvy, while three steps off lies the
+still warm and palpitating body! It was an act of terrible courage,
+believe me, to look at himself in the glass after a murder--one of which
+few criminals are capable. The count's hands, however, trembled so
+violently that he could scarcely hold his razor, and his face must have
+been cut several times."
+
+"What!" said Dr. Gendron, "do you imagine that the count spared the time
+to shave?"
+
+"I am positively sure of it, pos-i-tive-ly. A towel on which I have
+found one of those marks which a razor leaves when it is wiped--and one
+only--has put me on the track of this fact. I looked about, and found a
+box of razors, one of which had recently been used, for it was still
+moist; and I have carefully preserved both the towel and the box. And if
+these proofs are not enough, I will send to Paris for two of my men, who
+will find, somewhere in the house or the garden, both the count's beard
+and the cloth with which he wiped his razor. As to the fact which
+surprises you, Doctor, it seems to me very natural; more, it is the
+necessary result of the plan he adopted. Monsieur de Tremorel has always
+worn his full beard: he cuts it off, and his appearance is so entirely
+altered, that if he met anyone in his flight, he would not be
+recognized."
+
+The doctor was apparently convinced, for he cried:
+
+"It's clear--it's evident,"
+
+"Once thus disguised, the count hastens to carry out the rest of his
+plan, to arrange everything to throw the law off the scent, and to make
+it appear that he, as well as his wife, has been murdered. He hunts up
+Guespin's vest, tears it out at the pocket, and puts a piece of it in
+the countess's hand. Then taking the body in his arms, crosswise, he
+goes downstairs. The wounds bleed frightfully--hence the numerous stains
+discovered all along his path. Reaching the foot of the staircase he is
+obliged to put the countess down, in order to open the garden-door. This
+explains the large stain in the vestibule. The count, having opened the
+door, returns for the body and carries it in his arms as far as the edge
+of the lawn; there he stops carrying it, and drags it by the shoulders,
+walking backward, trying thus to create the impression that his own body
+has been dragged across there and thrown into the Seine. But the wretch
+forgot two things which betray him to us. He did not reflect that the
+countess's skirts, in being dragged along the grass, pressing it down
+and breaking it for a considerable space, spoiled his trick. Nor did he
+think that her elegant and well-curved feet, encased in small
+high-heeled boots, would mould themselves in the damp earth of the lawn,
+and thus leave against him a proof clearer than the day."
+
+M. Plantat rose abruptly.
+
+"Ah," said he, "you said nothing of this before."
+
+"Nor of several other things, either. But I was before ignorant of some
+facts which I now know; and as I had reason to suppose that you were
+better informed than I, I was not sorry to avenge myself for a caution
+which seemed to me mysterious."
+
+"Well, you are avenged," remarked the doctor, smiling.
+
+"On the other side of the lawn," continued M. Lecoq, "the count again
+took up the countess's body. But forgetting the effect of water when it
+spirts, or--who knows?--disliking to soil himself, instead of throwing
+her violently in the river, he put her down softly, with great
+precaution. That's not all. He wished it to appear that there had been a
+terrible struggle. What does he do? Stirs up the sand with the end of
+his foot. And he thinks that will deceive the police!"
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Plantat, "exactly so--I saw it."
+
+"Having got rid of the body, the count returns to the house. Time
+presses, but he is still anxious to find the paper. He hastens to take
+the last measures to assure his safety. He smears his slippers and
+handkerchief with blood. He throws his handkerchief and one of his
+slippers on the sward, and the other slipper into the river. His haste
+explains the incomplete execution of his manoeuvres. He hurries--and
+commits blunder after blunder. He does not reflect that his valet will
+explain about the empty bottles which he puts on the table. He thinks he
+is turning wine into the five glasses--it is vinegar, which will prove
+that no one has drunk out of them. He ascends, puts forward the hands of
+the clock, but forgets to put the hands and the striking bell in
+harmony. He rumples up the bed, but he does it awkwardly--and it is
+impossible to reconcile these three facts, the bed crumpled, the clock
+showing twenty minutes past three, and the countess dressed as if it
+were mid-day. He adds as much as he can to the disorder of the room. He
+smears a sheet with blood; also the bed-curtains and furniture. Then he
+marks the door with the imprint of a bloody hand, too distinct and
+precise not to be done designedly. Is there so far a circumstance or
+detail of the crime, which does not explain the count's guilt?"
+
+"There's the hatchet," answered M. Plantat, "found on the second story,
+the position of which seemed so strange to you."
+
+"I am coming to that. There is one point in this mysterious affair,
+which, thanks to you, is now clear. We know that Madame de Tremorel,
+known to her husband, possessed and concealed a paper or a letter, which
+he wanted, and which she obstinately refused to give up in spite of all
+his entreaties. You have told us that the anxiety--perhaps the
+necessity--to have this paper, was a powerful motive of the crime. We
+will not be rash then in supposing that the importance of this paper was
+immense--entirely beyond an ordinary affair. It must have been, somehow,
+very damaging to one or the other. To whom? To both, or only the count?
+Here I am reduced to conjectures. It is certain that it was a
+menace--capable of being executed at any moment--suspended over the head
+of him or them concerned by it. Madame de Tremorel surely regarded this
+paper either as a security, or as a terrible arm which put her husband
+at her mercy. It was surely to deliver himself from this perpetual
+menace that the count killed his wife."
+
+The logic was so clear, the last words brought the evidence out so
+lucidly and forcibly, that his hearers were struck with admiration. They
+both cried:
+
+"Very good!"
+
+"Now," resumed M. Lecoq, "from the various elements which have served to
+form our conviction, we must conclude that the contents of this letter,
+if it can be found, will clear away our last doubts, will explain the
+crime, and will render the assassin's precautions wholly useless. The
+count, therefore, must do everything in the world, must attempt the
+impossible, not to leave this danger behind him. His preparations for
+flight ended, Hector, in spite of his deadly peril, of the speeding
+time, of the coming day, instead of flying recommences with more
+desperation than ever his useless search. Again he goes through all the
+furniture, the books, the papers--in vain. Then he determines to search
+the second story, and armed with his hatchet, goes up to it. He has
+already attacked a bureau, when he hears a cry in the garden. He runs to
+the window--what does he see? Philippe and old Bertaud are standing on
+the river-bank under the willows, near the corpse. Can you imagine his
+immense terror? Now, there's not a second to lose--he has already
+delayed too long. The danger is near, terrible. Daylight has come, the
+crime is discovered, they are coming, he sees himself lost beyond hope.
+He must fly, fly at once, at the peril of being seen, met, arrested. He
+throws the hatchet down violently--it cuts the floor. He rushes down,
+slips the bank-notes in his pocket, seizes Guespin's torn and smeared
+vest, which he will throw into the river from the bridge, and saves
+himself by the garden. Forgetting all caution, confused, beside himself,
+covered with blood, he runs, clears the ditch, and it is he whom old
+Bertaud sees making for the forest of Mauprevoir, where he intends to
+arrange the disorder of his clothes. For the moment he is safe. But he
+leaves behind him this letter, which is, believe me, a formidable
+witness, which will enlighten justice and will betray his guilt and the
+perfidy of his projects. For he has not found it, but we will find it;
+it is necessary for us to have it to defeat Monsieur Domini, and to
+change our doubts into certainty."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+A long silence followed the detective's discourse. Perhaps his hearers
+were casting about for objections. At last Dr. Gendron spoke:
+
+"I don't see Guespin's part in all this."
+
+"Nor I, very clearly," answered M. Lecoq. "And here I ought to confess
+to you not only the strength, but the weakness also, of the theory I
+have adopted. By this method, which consists of reconstructing the crime
+before discovering the criminal, I can be neither right nor wrong by
+halves. Either all my inferences are correct, or not one of them is.
+It's all, or nothing. If I am right, Guespin has not been mixed up with
+this crime, at least directly; for there isn't a single circumstance
+which suggests outside aid. If, on the other hand, I am wrong--"
+
+M. Lecoq paused. He seemed to have heard some unexpected noise in the
+garden.
+
+"But I am not wrong. I have still another charge against the count, of
+which I haven't spoken, but which seems to be conclusive."
+
+"Oh," cried the doctor, "what now?"
+
+"Two certainties are better than one, and I always doubt. When I was
+left alone a moment with Francois, the valet, I asked him if he knew
+exactly the number of the count's shoes; he said yes, and took me to a
+closet where the shoes are kept. A pair of boots, with green Russia
+leather tops, which Francois was sure the count had put on the previous
+morning, was missing. I looked for them carefully everywhere, but could
+not find them. Again, the blue cravat with white stripes which the count
+wore on the 8th, had also disappeared."
+
+"There," cried M. Plantat, "that is indisputable proof that your
+supposition about the slippers and handkerchief was right."
+
+"I think that the facts are sufficiently established to enable us to go
+forward. Let's now consider the events which must have decided--"
+
+M. Lecoq again stopped, and seemed to be listening. All of a sudden,
+without a word he jumped on the window-sill and from thence into the
+garden, with the bound of a cat which pounces on a mouse. The noise of a
+fall, a stifled cry, an oath, were heard, and then a stamping as if a
+struggle were going on. The doctor and M. Plantat hastened to the
+window. Day was breaking, the trees shivered in the fresh wind of the
+early morning,--objects were vaguely visible without distinct forms
+across the white mist which hangs, on summer nights, over the valley of
+the Seine. In the middle of the lawn, at rapid intervals, they heard the
+blunt noise of a clinched fist striking a living body, and saw two men,
+or rather two phantoms, furiously swinging their arms. Presently the two
+shapes formed but one, then they separated, again to unite; one of the
+two fell, rose at once, and fell again.
+
+"Don't disturb yourselves," cried M. Lecoq's voice. "I've got the
+rogue."
+
+The shadow of the detective, which was upright, bent over, and the
+conflict was recommenced. The shadow stretched on the ground defended
+itself with the dangerous strength of despair; his body formed a large
+brown spot in the middle of the lawn, and his legs, kicking furiously,
+convulsively stretched and contracted. Then there was a moment when the
+lookers-on could not make out which was the detective. They rose again
+and struggled; suddenly a cry of pain escaped, with a ferocious oath.
+
+"Ah, wretch!"
+
+And almost immediately a loud shout rent the air, and the detective's
+mocking tones were heard:
+
+"There he is! I've persuaded him to pay his respects to us--light me up
+a little."
+
+The doctor and his host hastened to the lamp; their zeal caused a delay,
+and at the moment that the doctor raised the lamp, the door was rudely
+pushed open.
+
+"I beg to present to you," said M. Lecoq, "Master Robelot, bone-setter
+of Orcival, herborist by prudence, and poisoner by vocation."
+
+The stupefaction of the others was such that neither could speak.
+
+It was really the bone-setter, working his jaws nervously. His adversary
+had thrown him down by the famous knee-stroke which is the last resort
+of the worst prowlers about the Parisian barriers. But it was not so
+much Robelot's presence which surprised M. Plantat and his friend. Their
+stupor was caused by the detective's appearance; who, with his wrist of
+steel--as rigid as handcuffs--held the doctor's ex-assistant, and pushed
+him forward. The voice was certainly Lecoq's; there was his costume, his
+big-knotted cravat, his yellow-haired watch-chain--still it was no
+longer Lecoq. He was blond, with highly cultivated whiskers, when he
+jumped out the window; he returned, brown, with a smooth face. The man
+who had jumped out was a middle-aged person, with an expressive face
+which was in turn idiotic and intelligent; the man who returned by the
+door was a fine young fellow of thirty-five, with a beaming eye and a
+sensitive lip; a splendid head of curly black hair, brought out vividly
+the pallor of his complexion, and the firm outline of his head and face.
+A wound appeared on his neck, just below the chin.
+
+"Monsieur Lecoq!" cried M. Plantat, recovering his voice.
+
+"Himself," answered the detective, "and this time the true Lecoq."
+Turning to Robelot, he slapped him on the shoulder and added:
+
+"Go on, you."
+
+Robelot fell upon a sofa, but the detective continued to hold him fast.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "this rascal has robbed me of my blond locks.
+Thanks to him and in spite of myself, you see me as I am, with the head
+the Creator gave me, and which is really my own." He gave a careless
+gesture, half angry, half good-humored. "I am the true Lecoq; and to
+tell the truth, only three persons besides yourselves really know
+him--two trusted friends, and one who is infinitely less so--she of whom
+I spoke a while ago."
+
+The eyes of the other two met as if to question each other, and M. Lecoq
+continued:
+
+"What can a fellow do? All is not rose color in my trade. We run such
+dangers, in protecting society, as should entitle us to the esteem, if
+not the affection of our fellow-men: Why, I am condemned to death, at
+this moment, by seven of the most dangerous criminals in France. I have
+caught them, you see, and they have sworn--they are men of their word,
+too--that I should only die by their hands. Where are these wretches?
+Four at Cayenne, one at Brest; I've had news of them. But the other two?
+I've lost their track. Who knows whether one of them hasn't followed me
+here, and whether to-morrow, at the turning of some obscure road, I
+shall not get six inches of cold steel in my stomach?"
+
+He smiled sadly.
+
+"And no reward," pursued he, "for the perils which we brave. If I should
+fall to-morrow, they would take up my body, carry it to my house, and
+that would be the end." The detective's tone had become bitter, the
+irritation of his voice betrayed his rancor. "My precautions happily are
+taken. While I am performing my duties, I suspect everything, and when I
+am on my guard I fear no one. But there are days when one is tired of
+being on his guard, and would like to be able to turn a street corner
+without looking for a dagger. On such days I again become myself; I take
+off my false beard, throw down my mask, and my real self emerges from
+the hundred disguises which I assume in turn. I have been a detective
+fifteen years, and no one at the prefecture knows either my true face or
+the color of my hair."
+
+Master Robelot, ill at ease on his lounge, attempted to move.
+
+"Ah, look out!" cried M. Lecoq, suddenly changing his tone. "Now get up
+here, and tell us what you were about in the garden?"
+
+"But you are wounded!" exclaimed Plantat, observing stains of blood on
+M. Lecoq's shirt.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing--only a scratch that this fellow gave me with a big
+cutlass he had."
+
+M. Plantat insisted on examining the wound, and was not satisfied until
+the doctor declared it to be a very slight one.
+
+"Come, Master Robelot," said the old man, "what were you doing here?"
+
+The bone-setter did not reply.
+
+"Take care," insisted M. Plantat, "your silence will confirm us in the
+idea that you came with the worst designs."
+
+But it was in vain that M. Plantat wasted his persuasive eloquence.
+Robelot shut himself up in a ferocious and dogged silence. M. Gendron,
+hoping, not without reason, that he might have some influence over his
+former assistant, spoke:
+
+"Answer us; what did you come for?"
+
+Robelot made an effort; it was painful, with his broken jaw, to speak.
+
+"I came to rob; I confess it."
+
+"To rob--what?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you didn't scale a wall and risk the jail without a definite
+object?"
+
+"Well, then, I wanted--"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"What? Go on."
+
+"To get some rare flowers in the conservatory."
+
+"With your cutlass, hey?" said M. Lecoq. Robelot gave him a terrible
+look; the detective continued:
+
+"You needn't look at me that way--you don't scare me. And don't talk
+like a fool, either. If you think we are duller than you, you are
+mistaken--I warn you of it."
+
+"I wanted the flower-pots," stammered the man.
+
+"Oh, come now," cried M. Lecoq, shrugging his shoulders, "don't repeat
+such nonsense. You, a man that buys large estates for cash, steal
+flower-pots! Tell that to somebody else. You've been turned over
+to-night, my boy, like an old glove. You've let out in spite of yourself
+a secret that tormented you furiously, and you came here to get it back
+again. You thought that perhaps Monsieur Plantat had not told it to
+anybody, and you wanted to prevent him from speaking again forever."
+
+Robelot made a sign of protesting.
+
+"Shut up now," said M. Lecoq. "And your cutlass?"
+
+While this conversation was going on, M. Plantat reflected.
+
+"Perhaps," he murmured, "I've spoken too soon."
+
+"Why so?" asked M. Lecoq. "I wanted a palpable proof for Monsieur
+Domini; we'll give him this rascal, and if he isn't satisfied, he's
+difficult to please."
+
+"But what shall we do with him?"
+
+"Shut him up somewhere in the house; if necessary, I'll tie him up."
+
+"Here's a dark closet."
+
+"Is it secure?"
+
+"There are thick walls on three sides of it, and the fourth is closed
+with a double door; no openings, no windows, nothing."
+
+"Just the place."
+
+M. Plantat opened the closet, a black-looking hole, damp, narrow, and
+full of old books and papers.
+
+"There," said M. Lecoq to his prisoner, "in here you'll be like a little
+king," and he pushed him into the closet. Robelot did not resist, but he
+asked for some water and a light. They gave him a bottle of water and a
+glass.
+
+"As for a light," said M. Lecoq, "you may dispense with it. You'll be
+playing us some dirty trick."
+
+M. Plantat, having shut the closet-door, took the detective's hand.
+
+"Monsieur," said he, earnestly, "you have probably just saved my life at
+the peril of your own; I will not thank you. The day will come, I trust,
+when I may--"
+
+The detective interrupted him with a gesture.
+
+"You know how I constantly expose myself," said he, "once more or less
+does not matter much. Besides, it does not always serve a man to save
+his life." He was pensive a moment, then added: "You will thank me after
+awhile, when I have gained other titles to your gratitude."
+
+M. Gendron also cordially shook the detective's hand, saying:
+
+"Permit me to express my admiration of you. I had no idea what the
+resources of such a man as you were. You got here this morning without
+information, without details, and by the mere scrutiny of the scene of
+the crime, by the sole force of reasoning, have found the criminal:
+more, you have proved to us that the criminal could be no other than he
+whom you have named."
+
+M. Lecoq bowed modestly. These praises evidently pleased him greatly.
+
+"Still," he answered, "I am not yet quite satisfied. The guilt of the
+Count de Tremorel is of course abundantly clear to me. But what motives
+urged him? How was he led to this terrible impulse to kill his wife, and
+make it appear that he, too, had been murdered?"
+
+"Might we not conclude," remarked the doctor, "that, disgusted with
+Madame de Tremorel, he has got rid of her to rejoin another woman,
+adored by him to madness?"
+
+M. Lecoq shook his head.
+
+"People don't kill their wives for the sole reason that they are tired
+of them and love others. They quit their wives, live with the new
+loves--that's all. That happens every day, and neither the law nor
+public opinion condemns such people with great severity."
+
+"But it was the wife who had the fortune."
+
+"That wasn't the case here. I have been posting myself up. M. de
+Tremorel had a hundred thousand crowns, the remains of a colossal
+fortune saved by his friend Sauvresy; and his wife by the marriage
+contract made over a half million to him. A man can live in ease
+anywhere on eight hundred thousand francs. Besides, the count was master
+of all the funds of the estate. He could sell, buy, realize, borrow,
+deposit, and draw funds at will."
+
+The doctor had nothing to reply. M. Lecoq went on, speaking with a
+certain hesitation, while his eyes interrogated M. Plantat.
+
+"We must find the reasons of this murder, and the motives of the
+assassin's terrible resolution--in the past. Some crime so indissolubly
+linked the count and countess, that only the death of one of them could
+free the other. I suspected this crime the first thing this morning, and
+have seen it all the way through; and the man that we have just shut up
+in there--Robelot--who wanted to murder Monsieur Plantat, was either the
+agent or the accomplice of this crime."
+
+The doctor had not been present at the various episodes which, during
+the day at Valfeuillu and in the evening at the mayor's, had established
+a tacit understanding between Plantat and Lecoq. He needed all the
+shrewdness he possessed to fill up the gaps and understand the hidden
+meanings of the conversation to which he had been listening for two
+hours. M. Lecoq's last words shed a ray of light upon it all, and the
+doctor cried, "Sauvresy!"
+
+"Yes--Sauvresy," answered M. Lecoq. "And the paper which the murderer
+hunted for so eagerly, for which he neglected his safety and risked his
+life, must contain the certain proof of the crime."
+
+M. Plantat, despite the most significant looks and the direct
+provocation to make an explanation, was silent. He seemed a hundred
+leagues off in his thoughts, and his eyes, wandering in space, seemed to
+follow forgotten episodes in the mists of the past. M. Lecoq, after a
+brief pause, decided to strike a bold blow.
+
+"What a past that must have been," exclaimed he, "which could drive a
+young, rich, happy man like Hector de Tremorel to plan in cool blood
+such a crime, to resign himself to disappear after it, to cease to
+exist, as it were to lose all at once his personality, his position, his
+honor and his name! What a past must be that which drives a young girl
+of twenty to suicide!"
+
+M. Plantat started up, pale, more moved than he had yet appeared.
+
+"Ah," cried he, in an altered voice, "you don't believe what you say!
+Laurence never knew about it, never!"
+
+The doctor, who was narrowly watching the detective, thought he saw a
+faint smile light up his mobile features. The old justice of the peace
+went on, now calmly and with dignity, in a somewhat haughty tone:
+
+"You didn't need tricks or subterfuge, Monsieur Lecoq, to induce me to
+tell what I know. I have evinced enough esteem and confidence in you to
+deprive you of the right to arm yourself against me with the sad secret
+which you have surprised."
+
+M. Lecoq, despite his cool-headedness, was disconcerted.
+
+"Yes," pursued M. Plantat, "your astonishing genius for penetrating
+dramas like this has led you to the truth. But you do not know all, and
+even now I would hold my tongue, had not the reasons which compelled me
+to be silent ceased to exist."
+
+He opened a secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace and
+took out a large paper package, which he laid on the table.
+
+"For four years," he resumed, "I have followed, day by day--I might say,
+hour by hour--the various phases of the dreadful drama which ended in
+blood last night at Valfeuillu. At first, the curiosity of an old
+retired attorney prompted me. Later, I hoped to save the life and honor
+of one very dear to me. Why did I say nothing of my discoveries? That,
+my friends, is the secret of my conscience--it does not reproach me.
+Besides, I shut my eyes to the evidence even up to yesterday; I needed
+the brutal testimony of this deed!"
+
+Day had come. The frightened blackbirds flew whistling by. The pavement
+resounded with the wooden shoes of the workmen going fieldward. No noise
+troubled the sad stillness of the library, unless it were the rustling
+of the leaves which M. Plantat was turning over, or now and then a groan
+from Robelot.
+
+"Before commencing," said the old man, "I ought to consider your
+weariness; we have been up twenty-four hours--"
+
+But the others protested that they did not need repose. The fever of
+curiosity had chased away their exhaustion. They were at last to know
+the key of the mystery.
+
+"Very well," said their host, "listen to me."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The Count Hector de Tremorel, at twenty-six, was the model and ideal of
+the polished man of the world, proper to our age; a man useless alike to
+himself and to others, harmful even, seeming to have been placed on
+earth expressly to play at the expense of all. Young, noble, elegant,
+rich by millions, endowed with vigorous health, this last descendant of
+a great family squandered most foolishly and ignobly both his youth and
+his patrimony. He acquired by excesses of all kinds a wide and
+unenviable celebrity. People talked of his stables, his carriages, his
+servants, his furniture, his dogs, his favorite loves. His cast-off
+horses still took prizes, and a jade distinguished by his notice was
+eagerly sought by the young bloods of the town. Do not think, however,
+that he was naturally vicious; he had a warm heart, and even generous
+emotions at twenty. Six years of unhealthy pleasures had spoiled him to
+the marrow. Foolishly vain, he was ready to do anything to maintain his
+notoriety. He had the bold and determined egotism of one who has never
+had to think of anyone but himself, and has never suffered. Intoxicated
+by the flatteries of the so-called friends who drew his money from him,
+he admired himself, mistaking his brutal cynicism for wit, and his lofty
+disdain of all morality and his idiotic scepticism, for character. He
+was also feeble; he had caprices, but never a will; feeble as a child, a
+woman, a girl. His biography was to be found in the petty journals of
+the day, which retailed his sayings--or what he might have said; his
+least actions and gestures were reported.
+
+One night when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he threw all the
+plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs. Bravo! One
+morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to
+Italy with the wife of X---, the banker, a lady nineteen years married.
+He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he was wounded in
+another. He was a hero! On one occasion he went to Baden, where he broke
+the bank. Another time, after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose
+one hundred and twenty thousand francs--won by a Russian prince.
+
+He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who long for applause,
+but who care not for what they are applauded. Count Hector was more than
+ravished by the noise he made in the world. It seemed to him the acme of
+honor and glory to have his name or initials constantly in the columns
+of the Parisian World. He did not betray this, however, but said, with
+charming modesty, after each new adventure:
+
+"When will they stop talking about me?"
+
+On great occasions, he borrowed from Louis XIV the epigram:
+
+"After me the deluge."
+
+The deluge came in his lifetime.
+
+One April morning, his valet, a villainous fellow, drilled and dressed
+up by the count--woke him at nine o'clock with this speech:
+
+"Monsieur, a bailiff is downstairs in the ante-chamber, and has come to
+seize your furniture."
+
+Hector turned on his pillow, yawned, stretched, and replied:
+
+"Well, tell him to begin operations with the stables and carriage-house;
+and then come up and dress me."
+
+He did not seem disturbed, and the servant retired amazed at his
+master's coolness. The count had at least sense enough to know the state
+of his finances; and he had foreseen, nay, expected the bailiff's visit.
+Three years before, when he had been laid up for six weeks in
+consequence of a fall from his horse, he had measured the depth of the
+gulf toward which he was hastening. Then, he might yet have saved
+himself. But he must have changed his whole course of life, reformed his
+household, learned that twenty-one franc pieces made a napoleon. Fie,
+never! After mature reflection he had said to himself that he would go
+on to the end. When the last hour came, he would fly to the other end of
+France, erase his name from his linen, and blow his brains out in some
+forest.
+
+This hour had now come.
+
+By contracting debts, signing bills, renewing obligations, paying
+interests and compound interests, giving commissions by always
+borrowing, and never paying, Hector had consumed the princely
+heritage--nearly four millions in lands--which he had received at his
+father's death. The winter just past had cost him fifty thousand crowns.
+He had tried eight days before to borrow a hundred thousand francs, and
+had failed. He had been refused, not because his property was not as
+much as he owed, but because it was known that property sold by a
+bankrupt does not bring its value.
+
+Thus it was that when the valet came in and said, "The bailiff is here,"
+he seemed like a spectre commanding suicide.
+
+Hector took the announcement coolly and said, as he got up:
+
+"Well, here's an end of it."
+
+He was very calm, though a little confused. A little confusion is
+excusable when a man passes from wealth to beggary. He thought he would
+make his last toilet with especial care. Parbleu! The French nobility
+goes into battle in court costume! He was ready in less than an hour. He
+put on his bejewelled watch-chain; then he put a pair of little pistols,
+of the finest quality, in his overcoat pocket; then he sent the valet
+away, and opening his desk, he counted up what funds he had left. Ten
+thousand and some hundreds of francs remained. He might with this sum
+take a journey, prolong his life two or three months; but he repelled
+with disdain the thought of a miserable subterfuge, of a reprieve in
+disguise. He imagined that with this money he might make a great show of
+generosity, which would be talked of in the world; it would be
+chivalrous to breakfast with his inamorata and make her a present of
+this money at dessert. During the meal he would be full of nervous
+gayety, of cynical humor, and then he would announce his intention to
+kill himself. The girl would not fail to narrate the scene everywhere;
+she would repeat his last conversation, his last will and gift; all the
+cafes would buzz with it at night; the papers would be full of it.
+
+This idea strangely excited him, and comforted him at once. He was going
+out, when his eyes fell upon the mass of papers in his desk. Perhaps
+there was something there which might dim the positiveness of his
+resolution. He emptied all the drawers without looking or choosing, and
+put all the papers in the fire. He looked with pride upon this
+conflagration; there were bills, love letters, business letters, bonds,
+patents of nobility, deeds of property. Was it not his brilliant past
+which flickered and consumed in the fireplace?
+
+The bailiff occurred to him, and he hastily descended. He was the most
+polite of bailiffs, a man of taste and wit, a friend of artists, himself
+a poet at times. He had already seized eight horses in the stables with
+all their harness and trappings, and five carriages with their equipage,
+in the carriage-house.
+
+"I'm going on slowly, Count," said he bowing. "Perhaps you wish to
+arrest the execution. The sum is large, to be sure, but a man in your
+position--"
+
+"Believe that you are here because it suits me," interrupted Hector,
+proudly, "this house doesn't suit me; I shall never enter it again. So,
+as you are master, go on."
+
+And wheeling round on his heel he went off.
+
+The astonished bailiff proceeded with his work. He went from room to
+room, admiring and seizing. He seized cups gained at the races,
+collections of pipes and arms, and the library, containing many
+sporting-books, superbly bound.
+
+Meanwhile the Count de Tremorel, who was resolved more than ever on
+suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his inamorata's house, which
+was near the Madeleine. He had introduced her some six months before
+into the demi-monde as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was Pelagie Taponnet,
+and although the count did not know it, she was his valet's sister. She
+was pretty and lively, with delicate hands and a tiny foot, superb
+chestnut hair, white teeth, and great impertinent black eyes, which were
+languishing, caressing, or provoking, at will. She had passed suddenly
+from the most abject poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This
+brilliant change did not astonish her as much as you might think.
+Forty-eight hours after her removal to her new apartments, she had
+established order among the servants; she made them obey a glance or a
+gesture; and she made her dress-makers and milliners submit with good
+grace to her orders. Jenny soon began to languish, in her fine rooms,
+for new excitement; her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman's
+happiness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of rivals.
+Jenny's rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near the barrier; they
+could not envy her splendor, for they did not know her, and she was
+strictly forbidden to associate with and so dazzle them. As for
+Tremorel, Jenny submitted to him from necessity. He seemed to her the
+most tiresome of men. She thought his friends the dreariest of beings.
+Perhaps she perceived beneath their ironically polite manner, a contempt
+for her, and understood of how little consequence she was to these rich
+people, these high livers, gamblers, men of the world. Her pleasures
+comprised an evening with someone of her own class, card-playing, at
+which she won, and a midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered
+ennui. She was wearied to death: A hundred times she was on the point of
+discarding Tremorel, abandoning all this luxury, money, servants, and
+resuming her old life. Many a time she packed up; her vanity always
+checked her at the last moment.
+
+Hector de Tremorel rang at her door at eleven on the morning in
+question. She did not expect him so early, and she was evidently
+surprised when he told her he had come to breakfast, and asked her to
+hasten the cook, as he was in a great hurry.
+
+She had never, she thought, seen him so amiable, so gay. All through
+breakfast he sparkled, as he promised himself he would, with spirit and
+fun. At last, while they were sipping their coffee, Hector spoke:
+
+"All this, my dear, is only a preface, intended to prepare you for a
+piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ruined man."
+
+She looked at him with amazement, not seeming to comprehend him.
+
+"I said--ruined," said he, laughing bitterly, "as ruined as man can be."
+
+"Oh, you are making fun of me, joking--"
+
+"I never spoke so seriously in my life. It seems strange to you, doesn't
+it? Yet it's sober truth."
+
+Jenny's large eyes continued to interrogate him.
+
+"Why," he continued, with lofty carelessness, "life, you know, is like a
+bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by piece, or
+squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp. I've chosen the latter
+way. My grape was four million francs; they are drunk up to the dregs. I
+don't regret them, I've had a jolly life for my money. But now I can
+flatter myself that I am as much of a beggar as any beggar in France.
+Everything at my house is in the bailiff's hands--I am without a
+domicile, without a penny."
+
+He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse thoughts
+passed each other tumultuously in his brain. And he was not playing a
+part. He was speaking in all good faith.
+
+"But--then--" stammered Jenny.
+
+"What? Are you free? Just so--"
+
+She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "I give you back your liberty."
+
+Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.
+
+"Oh! be quiet," he added quickly, "I sha'n't leave you thus; I would not
+desert you in a state of need. This furniture is yours, and I have
+provided for you besides. Here in my pocket are five hundred napoleons;
+it is my all; I have brought it to give to you."
+
+He passed the money over to her on a plate, laughingly, imitating the
+restaurant waiters. She pushed it back with a shudder.
+
+"Oh, well," said he, "that's a good sign, my dear; very good, very good.
+I've always thought and said that you were a good girl--in fact, too
+good; you needed correcting."
+
+She did, indeed, have a good heart; for instead of taking Hector's
+bank-notes and turning him out of doors, she tried to comfort and
+console him. Since he had confessed to her that he was penniless, she
+ceased to hate him, and even commenced to love him. Hector, homeless,
+was no longer the dreaded man who paid to be master, the millionnaire
+who, by a caprice, had raised her from the gutter. He was no longer the
+execrated tyrant. Ruined, he descended from his pedestal, he became a
+man like others, to be preferred to others, as a handsome and gallant
+youth. Then Jenny mistook the last artifice of a discarded vanity for a
+generous impulse of the heart, and was deeply touched by this splendid
+last gift.
+
+"You are not as poor as you say," she said, "for you still have so large
+a sum."
+
+"But, dear child, I have several times given as much for diamonds which
+you envied."
+
+She reflected a moment, then as if an idea had struck her, exclaimed:
+
+"That's true enough; but I can spend, oh, a great deal less, and yet be
+just as happy. Once, before I knew you, when I was young (she was now
+nineteen), ten thousand francs seemed to me to be one of those fabulous
+sums which were talked about, but which few men ever saw in one pile,
+and fewer still held in their hands."
+
+She tried to slip the money into the count's pocket; but he prevented
+it.
+
+"Come, take it back, keep it--"
+
+"What shall I do with it?"
+
+"I don't know, but wouldn't this money bring in more? Couldn't you
+speculate on the Bourse, bet at the races, play at Baden, or something?
+I've heard of people that are now rich as kings, who commenced with
+nothing, and hadn't your talents either. Why don't you do as they did?"
+
+She spoke excitedly, as a woman does who is anxious to persuade. He
+looked at her, astonished to find her so sensitive, so disinterested.
+
+"You will, won't you?" she insisted, "now, won't you?"
+
+"You are a good girl," said he, charmed with her, "but you must take
+this money. I give it to you, don't be worried about anything."
+
+"But you--have you still any money? What have you?"
+
+"I have yet--"
+
+He stopped, searched his pockets, and counted the money in his purse.
+
+"Faith, here's three hundred and forty francs--more than I need. I must
+give some napoleons to your servants before I go."
+
+"And what for Heaven's sake will become of you?"
+
+He sat back in his chair, negligently stroked his handsome beard, and
+said:
+
+"I am going to blow my brains out."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Hector thought that she doubted what he said. He took his pistols out of
+his pockets, showed them to her, and went on:
+
+"You see these toys? Well, when I leave you, I shall go somewhere--no
+matter where--put the muzzle to my temple, thus, press the trigger--and
+all will be over!"
+
+She gazed at him, her eyes dilated with terror, pale, breathing hard and
+fast. But at the same time, she admired him. She marvelled at so much
+courage, at this calm, this careless railing tone. What superb disdain
+of life! To exhaust his fortune and then kill himself, without a cry, a
+tear, or a regret, seemed to her an act of heroism unheard of,
+unexampled. It seemed to her that a new, unknown, beautiful, radiant man
+stood before her. She loved him as she had never loved before!
+
+"No!" she cried, "no! It shall not be!"
+
+And rising suddenly, she rushed to him and seized him by the arm.
+
+"You will not kill yourself, will you? Promise me, swear it to me. It
+isn't possible, you would not! I love you--I couldn't bear you before.
+Oh, I did not know you, but now--come, we will be happy. You, who have
+lived with millions don't know how much ten thousand francs are--but I
+know. We can live a long time on that, and very well, too. Then, if we
+are obliged to sell the useless things--the horses, carriages, my
+diamonds, my green cashmere, we can have three or four times that sum.
+Thirty thousand francs--it's a fortune! Think how many happy days--"
+
+The Count de Tremorel shook his head, smilingly. He was ravished; his
+vanity was flattered by the heat of the passion which beamed from the
+poor girl's eyes. How he was beloved! How he would be regretted! What a
+hero the world was about to lose!
+
+"For we will not stay here," Jenny went on, "we will go and conceal
+ourselves far from Paris, in a little cottage. Why, on the other side of
+Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for a thousand
+francs a year. How well off we should be there! You would never leave
+me, for I should be jealous--oh, so jealous! We wouldn't have any
+servants, and you should see that I know how to keep house."
+
+Hector said nothing.
+
+"While the money lasts," continued Jenny, "we'll laugh away the days.
+When it's all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill
+yourself--that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with a
+pistol--No! We'll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another's arms,
+and that will be the end. They say one doesn't suffer that way at all."
+
+This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a recollection
+which ruffled all his vanity.
+
+Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of the
+suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had bravely
+suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had written a most
+touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of killing himself like
+a cook made him shudder. He saw the possibility of the horrible
+comparison. How ridiculous! And the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome
+fear of ridicule. To suffocate himself, at Belleville, with a grisette,
+how dreadful! He almost rudely pushed Jenny's arms away, and repulsed
+her.
+
+"Enough of that sort of thing," said he, in his careless tone. "What you
+say, child, is all very pretty, but utterly absurd. A man of my name
+dies, and doesn't choke." And taking the bank-notes from his pocket,
+where Jenny had slipped them, he threw them on the table.
+
+"Now, good-by."
+
+He would have gone, but Jenny, red and with glistening eyes, barred the
+door with her body.
+
+"You shall not go!" she cried, "I won't have you; you are mine--for I
+love you; if you take one step, I will scream."
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"But we must end all this!"
+
+"You sha'n't go!"
+
+"Well, then, I'll blow my brains out here." And taking out one of his
+pistols, he held it to his forehead, adding, "If you call out and don't
+let me pass, I shall fire." He meant the threat for earnest.
+
+But Jenny did not call out; she could not; she uttered a deep groan and
+fainted.
+
+"At last!" muttered Hector, replacing the pistol in his pocket.
+
+He went out, not taking time to lift her from the floor where she had
+fallen, and shut the door. Then he called the servants into the
+vestibule, gave them ten napoleons to divide among them, and hastened
+away.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The Count de Tremorel, having reached the street, ascended the
+boulevard. All of a sudden he bethought him of his friends. The story of
+the execution must have already spread.
+
+"No; not that way," he muttered.
+
+This was because, on the boulevard, he would certainly meet some of his
+very dear cronies, and he desired to escape their condolence and offers
+of service. He pictured to himself their sorry visages, concealing a
+hidden and delicious satisfaction. He had wounded so many vanities that
+he must look for terrible revenges. The friends of an insolently
+prosperous man are rejoiced in his downfall.
+
+Hector crossed the street, went along the Rue Duphot, and reached the
+quays. Where was he going? He did not know, and did not even ask
+himself. He walked at random, enjoying the physical content which
+follows a good meal, happy to find himself still in the land of the
+living, in the soft April sunlight.
+
+The weather was superb, and all Paris was out of doors. There was a
+holiday air about the town. The flower-women at the corners of the
+bridges had their baskets full of odorous violets. The count bought a
+bouquet near the Pont Neuf and stuck it in his button-hole, and without
+waiting for his change, passed on. He reached the large square at the
+end of the Bourdon boulevard, which is always full of jugglers and
+curiosity shows; here the noise, the music, drew him from his torpor,
+and brought his thoughts back to his present situation.
+
+"I must leave Paris," thought he.
+
+He crossed toward the Orleans station at a quicker pace. He entered the
+waiting-room, and asked what time the train left for Etampes. Why did he
+choose Etampes? A train had just gone, and there would not be another
+one for two hours. He was much annoyed at this, and as he could not wait
+there two hours, he wended his way, to kill time, toward the Jardin des
+Plantes. He had not been there for ten or twelve years--not since, when
+at school, his teachers had brought him there to look at the animals.
+Nothing had changed. There were the groves and parterres, the lawns and
+lanes, the beasts and birds, as before. The principal avenue was nearly
+deserted. He took a seat opposite the mineralogical museum. He reflected
+on his position. He glanced back through the departed years, and did not
+find one day among those many days which had left him one of those
+gracious memories which delight and console. Millions had slipped
+through his prodigal hands, and he could not recall a single useful
+expenditure, a really generous one, amounting to twenty francs. He, who
+had had so many friends, searched his memory in vain for the name of a
+single friend whom he regretted to part from. The past seemed to him
+like a faithful mirror; he was surprised, startled at the folly of the
+pleasures, the inane delights, which had been the end and aim of his
+existence. For what had he lived? For others.
+
+"Ah, what a fool I was!" he muttered, "what a fool!"
+
+After living for others, he was going to kill himself for others. His
+heart became softened. Who would think of him, eight days hence? Not one
+living being. Yes--Jenny, perhaps. Yet, no. She would be consoled with a
+new lover in less than a week.
+
+The bell for closing the garden rang. Night had come, and a thick and
+damp mist had covered the city. The count, chilled to the bones, left
+his seat.
+
+"To the station again," muttered he.
+
+It was a horrible idea to him now--this of shooting himself in the
+silence and obscurity of the forest. He pictured to himself his
+disfigured body, bleeding, lying on the edge of some ditch. Beggars or
+robbers would despoil him. And then? The police would come and take up
+this unknown body, and doubtless would carry it, to be identified, to
+the Morgue. "Never!" cried he, at this thought, "no, never!"
+
+How die, then? He reflected, and it struck him that he would kill
+himself in some second-class hotel on the left bank of the Seine.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said he to himself.
+
+Leaving the garden with the last of the visitors, he wended his way
+toward the Latin Quarter. The carelessness which he had assumed in the
+morning gave way to a sad resignation. He was suffering; his head was
+heavy, and he was cold.
+
+"If I shouldn't die to-night," he thought, "I shall have a terrible cold
+in the morning."
+
+This mental sally did not make him smile, but it gave him the
+consciousness of being firm and determined. He went into the Rue
+Dauphine and looked about for a hotel. Then it occurred to him that it
+was not yet seven o'clock, and it might arouse suspicions if he asked
+for a room at that early hour. He reflected that he still had over one
+hundred francs, and resolved to dine. It should be his last meal. He
+went into a restaurant and ordered it. But he in vain tried to throw off
+the anxious sadness which filled him. He drank, and consumed three
+bottles of wine without changing the current of his thoughts.
+
+The waiters were surprised to see him scarcely touch the dishes set
+before him, and growing more gloomy after each potation. His dinner cost
+ninety francs; he threw his last hundred-franc note on the table, and
+went out. As it was not yet late, he went into another restaurant where
+some students were drinking, and sat down at a table in the farther
+corner of the room. He ordered coffee and rapidly drank three or four
+cups. He wished to excite himself, to screw up his courage to do what he
+had resolved upon; but he could not; the drink seemed only to make him
+more and more irresolute.
+
+A waiter, seeing him alone at the table, offered him a newspaper. He
+took it mechanically, opened it, and read:
+
+"Just as we are going to press, we learn that a well-known person has
+disappeared, after announcing his intention to commit suicide. The
+statements made to us are so strange, that we defer details till
+to-morrow, not having time to send for fuller information now."
+
+These lines startled Hector. They were his death sentence, not to be
+recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had always
+been--public opinion.
+
+"They will never cease talking about me," he muttered angrily. Then he
+added, firmly, "Come, I must make an end of this."
+
+He soon reached the Hotel Luxembourg. He rapped at the door, and was
+speedily conducted to the best room in the house. He ordered a fire to
+be lighted. He also asked for sugar and water, and writing materials. At
+this moment he was as firm as in the morning.
+
+"I must not hesitate," he muttered, "nor recoil from my fate."
+
+He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm hand a
+declaration which he destined for the police.
+
+"No one must be accused of my death," he commenced; and he went on by
+asking that the hotel-keeper should be indemnified.
+
+The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his
+pistols on the mantel.
+
+"I will shoot myself at midnight," thought he. "I have yet an hour to
+live."
+
+The count threw himself in an arm-chair and buried his face in his
+hands. Why did he not kill himself at once? Why impose on himself this
+hour of waiting, of anguish and torture? He could not have told. He
+began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on the
+headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to that
+wretched room. How time had passed! It seemed but yesterday that he
+first began to borrow. It does little good, however, to a man who has
+fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes why he fell.
+
+The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.
+
+He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read. Who furnished
+the information? Doubtless it was Jenny. She had come to her senses,
+tearfully hastened after him. When she failed to find him on the
+boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to his club, then to
+some of his friends. So that to-night, at this very moment, the world
+was discussing him.
+
+"Have you heard the news?"
+
+"Ah, yes, poor Tremorel! What a romance! A good fellow, only--"
+
+He thought he heard this "only" greeted with laughter and innuendoes.
+Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour
+had come.
+
+The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the bed,
+so as not to fall on the floor.
+
+The first stroke of twelve; he did not fire.
+
+Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high. He had
+fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground had always
+been admiringly remarked. One day he had killed a man, and that night he
+slept very soundly.
+
+But he did not fire.
+
+There are two kinds of courage. One, false courage, is that meant for
+the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the stimulus
+of rage, and the applause of lookers-on. The other, true courage,
+despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion; success does not
+sway it, it does its work noiselessly.
+
+Two minutes after twelve--Hector still held the pistol against his
+forehead.
+
+"Am I going to be afraid?" he asked himself.
+
+He was afraid, but would not confess it to himself. He put his pistols
+back on the table and returned to his seat near the fire. All his limbs
+were trembling.
+
+"It's nervousness," he muttered. "It'll pass off."
+
+He gave himself till one o'clock. He tried to convince himself of the
+necessity of committing suicide. If he did not, what would become of
+him? How would he live? Must he make up his mind to work? Besides, could
+he appear in the world, when all Paris knew of his intention? This
+thought goaded him to fury; he had a sudden courage, and grasped his
+pistols. But the sensation which the touch of the cold steel gave him,
+caused him to drop his arm and draw away shuddering.
+
+"I cannot," repeated he, in his anguish. "I cannot!"
+
+The idea of the physical pain of shooting himself filled him with
+horror. Why had he not a gentler death? Poison, or perhaps
+charcoal--like the little cook? He did not fear the ludicrousness of
+this now; all that he feared was, that the courage to kill himself would
+fail him.
+
+He went on extending his time of grace from half-hour to half-hour. It
+was a horrible night, full of the agony of the last night of the
+criminal condemned to the scaffold. He wept with grief and rage and
+wrung his hands and prayed. Toward daylight he fell exhausted into an
+uneasy slumber, in his arm-chair. He was awakened by three or four heavy
+raps on the door, which he hastily opened. It was the waiter, who had
+come to take his order for breakfast, and who started back with
+amazement on seeing Hector, so disordered was his clothing and so livid
+the pallor of his features.
+
+"I want nothing," said the count. "I'm going down."
+
+He had just enough money left to pay his bill, and six sous for the
+waiter. He quitted the hotel where he had suffered so much, without end
+or aim in view. He was more resolved than ever to die, only he yearned
+for several days of respite to nerve himself for the deed. But how could
+he live during these days? He had not so much as a centime left. An idea
+struck him--the pawnbrokers!
+
+He knew that at the Monte-de-Piete* a certain amount would be advanced
+to him on his jewelry. But where find a branch office? He dared not ask,
+but hunted for one at hazard. He now held his head up, walked with a
+firmer step; he was seeking something, and had a purpose to accomplish.
+He at last saw the sign of the Monte-de-Piete on a house in the Rue
+Conde, and entered. The hall was small, damp, filthy, and full of
+people. But if the place was gloomy, the borrowers seemed to take their
+misfortunes good-humoredly. They were mostly students and women, talking
+gayly as they waited for their turns. The Count de Tremorel advanced
+with his watch, chain, and a brilliant diamond that he had taken from
+his finger. He was seized with the timidity of misery, and did not know
+how to open his business. A young woman pitied his embarrassment.
+
+[* The public pawnbroker establishment of Paris, which has branch
+bureaus through the city.]
+
+"See," said she, "put your articles on this counter, before that window
+with green curtains."
+
+A moment after he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the next
+room:
+
+"Twelve hundred francs for the watch and ring."
+
+This large amount produced such a sensation as to arrest all the
+conversation. All eyes were turned toward the millionnaire who was going
+to pocket such a fortune. The millionnaire made no response.
+
+The same woman who had spoken before nudged his arm.
+
+"That's for you," said she. "Answer whether you will take it or not."
+
+"I'll take it," cried Hector.
+
+He was filled with a joy which made him forget the night's torture.
+Twelve hundred francs! How many days it would last! Had he not heard
+there were clerks who hardly got that in a year?
+
+Hector waited a long time, when one of the clerks, who was writing at a
+desk, called out:
+
+"Whose are the twelve hundred francs?"
+
+The count stepped forward.
+
+"Mine," said he.
+
+"Your name?"
+
+Hector hesitated. He would never give his name aloud in such a place as
+this. He gave the first name that occurred to him.
+
+"Durand."
+
+"Where are your papers?"
+
+"What papers?"
+
+"A passport, a receipt for lodgings, a license to hunt--"
+
+"I haven't any."
+
+"Go for them, or bring two well-known witnesses."
+
+"But--"
+
+"There is no 'but.' The next--"
+
+Hector was provoked by the clerk's abrupt manner.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "give me back the jewelry."
+
+The clerk looked at him jeeringly.
+
+"Can't be done. No goods that are registered, can be returned without
+proof of rightful possession." So saying, he went on with his work. "One
+French shawl, thirty-five francs, whose is it?"
+
+Hector meanwhile went out of the establishment. He had never suffered so
+much, had never imagined that one could suffer so much. After this ray
+of hope, so abruptly put out, the clouds lowered over him thicker and
+more hopelessly. He was worse off than the shipwrecked sailor; the
+pawnbroker had taken his last resources. All the romance with which he
+had invested the idea of his suicide now vanished, leaving bare the
+stern and ignoble reality. He must kill himself, not like the gay
+gamester who voluntarily leaves upon the roulette table the remains of
+his fortune, but like the Greek, who surprised and hunted, knows that
+every door will be shut upon him. His death would not be voluntary; he
+could neither hesitate nor choose the fatal hour; he must kill himself
+because he had not the means of living one day longer.
+
+And life never before seemed to him so sweet a thing as now. He never
+felt so keenly the exuberance of his youth and strength. He suddenly
+discovered all about him a crowd of pleasures each more enviable than
+the others, which he had never tasted. He who flattered himself that he
+had squeezed life to press out its pleasures, had not really lived. He
+had had all that is to be bought or sold, nothing of what is given or
+achieved. He already not only regretted giving the ten thousand francs
+to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants--nay the six sous
+given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on
+the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded
+and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had
+paid for it--! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not
+drive away the thought of that wasted franc!
+
+True, he might, if he chose, find plenty of money still, and easily. He
+had only to return quietly to his house, to discharge the bailiffs, and
+to resume the possession of his remaining effects. But he would thus
+confront the world, and confess his terrors to have overcome him at the
+last moment; he would have to suffer glances more cruel than the
+pistol-ball. The world must not be deceived; when a man announces that
+he is going to kill himself--he must kill himself.
+
+So Hector was going to die because he had said he would, because the
+newspapers had announced the fact. He confessed this to himself as he
+went along, and bitterly reproached himself.
+
+He remembered a pretty spot in Viroflay forest, where he had once fought
+a duel; he would commit the deed there. He hastened toward it. The
+weather was fine and he met many groups of young people going into the
+country for a good time. Workmen were drinking and clinking their
+glasses under the trees along the river-bank. All seemed happy and
+contented, and their gayety seemed to insult Hector's wretchedness. He
+left the main road at the Sevres bridge, and descending the embankment
+reached the borders of the Seine. Kneeling down, he took up some water
+in the palm of his hand, and drank--an invincible lassitude crept over
+him. He sat, or rather fell, upon the sward. The fever of despair came,
+and death now seemed to him a refuge, which he could almost welcome with
+joy. Some feet above him the windows of a Sevres restaurant opened
+toward the river. He could be seen from there, as well as from the
+bridge; but he did not mind this, nor anything else.
+
+"As well here, as elsewhere," he said to himself.
+
+He had just drawn his pistol out, when he heard someone call:
+
+"Hector! Hector!"
+
+He jumped up at a bound, concealed the pistol, and looked about. A man
+was running down the embankment toward him with outstretched arms. This
+was a man of his own age, rather stout, but well shaped, with a fine
+open face and, large black eyes in which one read frankness and
+good-nature; one of those men who are sympathetic at first sight, whom
+one loves on a week's acquaintance.
+
+Hector recognized him. It was his oldest friend, a college mate; they
+had once been very intimate, but the count not finding the other fast
+enough for him, had little by little dropped his intimacy, and had now
+lost sight of him for two years.
+
+"Sauvresy!" he exclaimed, stupefied.
+
+"Yes," said the young man, hot, and out of breath, "I've been watching
+you the last two minutes; what were you doing here?"
+
+"Why--nothing."
+
+"How! What they told me at your house this morning was true, then! I
+went there."
+
+"What did they say?"
+
+"That nobody knew what had become of you, and that you declared to Jenny
+when you left her the night before that you were going to blow your
+brains out. The papers have already announced your death, with details."
+
+This news seemed to have a great effect on the count.
+
+"You see, then," he answered tragically, "that I must kill myself!"
+
+"Why? In order to save the papers from the inconvenience of correcting
+their error."
+
+"People will say that I shrunk--"
+
+"Oh, 'pon my word now! According to you, a man must make a fool of
+himself because it has been reported that he would do it. Absurd, old
+fellow. What do you want to kill yourself for?"
+
+Hector reflected; he almost saw the possibility of living.
+
+"I am ruined," answered he, sadly.
+
+"And it's for this that--stop, my friend, let me tell you, you are an
+ass! Ruined! It's a misfortune, but when a man is of your age he
+rebuilds his fortune. Besides, you aren't as ruined as you say, because
+I've got an income of a hundred thousand francs."
+
+"A hundred thousand francs--"
+
+"Well, my fortune is in land, which brings in about four per cent."
+
+Tremorel knew that his friend was rich, but not that he was as rich as
+this. He answered with a tinge of envy in his tone:
+
+"Well, I had more than that; but I had no breakfast this morning."
+
+"And you did not tell me! But true, you are in a pitiable state; come
+along, quick!"
+
+And he led him toward the restaurant.
+
+Tremorel reluctantly followed this friend, who had just saved his life.
+He was conscious of having been surprised in a distressingly ridiculous
+situation. If a man who is resolved to blow his brains out is accosted,
+he presses the trigger, he doesn't conceal his pistol. There was one
+alone, among all his friends, who loved him enough not to see the
+ludicrousness of his position; one alone generous enough not to torture
+him with raillery; it was Sauvresy.
+
+But once seated before a well-filled table, Hector could not preserve
+his rigidity. He felt the joyous expansion of spirit which follows
+assured safety after terrible peril. He was himself, young again, once
+more strong. He told Sauvresy everything; his vain boasting, his terror
+at the last moment, his agony at the hotel, his fury, remorse, and
+anguish at the pawnbroker's.
+
+"Ah!" said he. "You have saved me! You are my friend, my only friend, my
+brother."
+
+They talked for more than two hours.
+
+"Come," said Sauvresy at last, "let us arrange our plans. You want to
+disappear awhile; I see that. But to-night you must write four lines to
+the papers. To-morrow I propose to take your affairs in hand, that's a
+thing I know how to do. I don't know exactly how you stand; but I will
+agree to save something from the wreck. We've got money, you see; your
+creditors will be easy with us."
+
+"But where shall I go?" asked Hector, whom the mere idea of isolation
+terrified.
+
+"What? You'll come home with me, parbleu, to Valfeuillu. Don't you know
+that I am married? Ah, my friend, a happier man than I does not exist!
+I've married--for love--the loveliest and best of women. You will be a
+brother to us. But come, my carriage is right here near the door."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+M. Plantat stopped. His companions had not suffered a gesture or a word
+to interrupt him. M. Lecoq, as he listened, reflected. He asked himself
+where M. Plantat could have got all these minute details. Who had
+written Tremorel's terrible biography? As he glanced at the papers from
+which Plantat read, he saw that they were not all in the same
+handwriting.
+
+The old justice of the peace pursued the story:
+
+Bertha Lechaillu, though by an unhoped-for piece of good fortune she had
+become Madame Sauvresy, did not love her husband. She was the daughter
+of a poor country school-master, whose highest ambition had been to be
+an assistant teacher in a Versailles school; yet she was not now
+satisfied. Absolute queen of one of the finest domains in the land,
+surrounded by every luxury, spending as she pleased, beloved, adored,
+she was not content. Her life, so well regulated, so constantly smooth,
+without annoyances and disturbance, seemed to her insipid. There were
+always the same monotonous pleasures, always recurring each in its
+season. There were parties and receptions, horse rides, hunts,
+drives--and it was always thus! Alas, this was not the life she had
+dreamed of; she was born for more exciting pleasures. She yearned for
+unknown emotions and sensations, the unforeseen, abrupt transitions,
+passions, adventures. She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she
+saw him, and her secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her
+influence over him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar,
+ridiculous. She thought the simplicity of his manners, silliness. She
+looked at him, and saw nothing in him to admire. She did not listen to
+him when he spoke, having already decided in her wisdom that he could
+say nothing that was not tedious or commonplace. She was angry that he
+had not been a wild young man, the terror of his family.
+
+He had, however, done as other young men do. He had gone to Paris and
+tried the sort of life which his friend Tremorel led. He had enough of
+it in six months, and hastily returned to Valfeuillu, to rest after such
+laborious pleasures. The experience cost him a hundred thousand francs,
+but he said he did not regret purchasing it at this price.
+
+Bertha was wearied with the constancy and adoration of her husband. She
+had only to express a desire to be at once obeyed, and this blind
+submission to all her wishes appeared to her servile in a man. A man is
+born, she thought, to command, and not to obey; to be master, and not
+slave. She would have preferred a husband who would come in in the
+middle of the night, still warm from his orgy, having lost at play, and
+who would strike her if she upbraided him. A tyrant, but a man. Some
+months after her marriage she suddenly took it into her head to have
+absurd freaks and extravagant caprices. She wished to prove him, and see
+how far his constant complacence would go. She thought she would tire
+him out. It was intolerable to feel absolutely sure of her husband, to
+know that she so filled his heart that he had room for no other, to have
+nothing to fear, not even the caprice of an hour. Perhaps there was yet
+more than this in Bertha's aversion. She knew herself, and confessed to
+herself that had Sauvresy wished, she would have been his without being
+his wife. She was so lonely at her father's, so wretched in her poverty,
+that she would have fled from her home, even for this. And she despised
+her husband because he had not despised her enough!
+
+People were always telling her that she was the happiest of women.
+Happy! And there were days when she wept when she thought that she was
+married. Happy! There were times when she longed to fly, to seek
+adventure and pleasure, all that she yearned for, what she had not had
+and never would have. The fear of poverty--which she knew
+well--restrained her. This fear was caused in part by a wise precaution
+which her father, recently dead, had taken. Sauvresy wished to insert in
+the marriage-contract a settlement of five hundred thousand francs on
+his affianced. The worthy Lechailin had opposed this generous act.
+
+"My daughter," he said, "brings you nothing. Settle forty thousand
+francs on her if you will, not a sou more; otherwise there shall be no
+marriage."
+
+As Sauvresy insisted, the old man added:
+
+"I hope that she will be a good and worthy wife; if so, your fortune
+will be hers. But if she is not, forty thousand francs will be none too
+little for her. Of course, if you are afraid that you will die first,
+you can make a will."
+
+Sauvresy was forced to yield. Perhaps the worthy school-master knew his
+daughter; if so he was the only one. Never did so consummate a hypocrisy
+minister to so profound a perversity, and a depravity so inconceivable
+in a young and seemingly innocent girl. If, at the bottom of her heart,
+she thought herself the most wretched of women, there was nothing of it
+apparent--it was a well-kept secret. She knew how to show to her
+husband, in place of the love she did not feel, the appearance of a
+passion at once burning and modest, betraying furtive glances and a
+flush as of pleasure, when he entered the room.
+
+All the world said:
+
+"Bertha is foolishly fond of her husband."
+
+Sauvresy was sure of it, and he was the first to say, not caring to
+conceal his joy:
+
+"My wife adores me."
+
+Such were man and wife at Valfeuillu when Sauvresy found Tremorel on the
+banks of the Seine with a pistol in his hand. Sauvresy missed his dinner
+that evening for the first time since his marriage, though he had
+promised to be prompt, and the meal was kept waiting for him. Bertha
+might have been anxious about this delay; she was only indignant at what
+she called inconsiderateness. She was asking herself how she should
+punish her husband, when, at ten o'clock at night, the drawing-room door
+was abruptly thrown open, and Sauvresy stood smiling upon the threshold.
+
+"Bertha," said he, "I've brought you an apparition."
+
+She scarcely deigned to raise her head. Sauvresy continued:
+
+"An apparition whom you know, of whom I have often spoken to you, whom
+you will like because I love him, and because he is my oldest comrade,
+my best friend."
+
+And standing aside, he gently pushed Hector into the room.
+
+"Madame Sauvresy, permit me to present to you Monsieur the Count de
+Tremorel."
+
+Bertha rose suddenly, blushing, confused, agitated by an indefinable
+emotion, as if she saw in reality an apparition. For the first time in
+her life she was abashed, and did not dare to raise her large, clear
+blue eyes.
+
+"Monsieur," she stammered, "you are welcome."
+
+She knew Tremorel's name well. Sauvresy had often mentioned it, and she
+had seen it often in the papers, and had heard it in the drawing-rooms
+of all her friends. He who bore it seemed to her, after what she had
+heard a great personage. He was, according to his reputation, a hero of
+another age, a social Don Quixote, a terribly fast man of the world. He
+was one of those men whose lives astonish common people, whom the
+well-to-do citizen thinks faithless and lawless, whose extravagant
+passions overleap the narrow bounds of social prejudice; a man who
+tyrannizes over others, whom all fear, who fights on the slightest
+provocation, who scatters gold with a prodigal hand, whose iron health
+resists the most terrible excesses. She had often in her miserable
+reveries tried to imagine what kind of man this Count de Tremorel was.
+She awarded him with such qualities as she desired for her fancied hero,
+with whom she could fly from her husband in search of new adventures.
+And now, of a sudden, he appeared before her.
+
+"Give Hector your hand, dear," said Sauvresy. She held out her hand,
+which Tremorel lightly pressed, and his touch seemed to give her an
+electric shock.
+
+Sauvresy threw himself into an arm-chair.
+
+"You see, Bertha," said he, "our friend Hector is exhausted with the
+life he has been leading. He has been advised to rest, and has come to
+seek it here, with us."
+
+"But, dear," responded Bertha, "aren't you afraid that the count will be
+bored a little here?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Valfeuillu is very quiet, and we are but dull country folks."
+
+Bertha talked for the sake of talking, to break a silence which
+embarrassed her, to make Tremorel speak, and hear his voice. As she
+talked she observed him, and studied the impression she made on him. Her
+radiant beauty usually struck those who saw her for the first time with
+open admiration. He remained impassible. She recognized the worn-out
+rake of title, the fast man who has tried, experienced, exhausted all
+things, in his coldness and superb indifference. And because he did not
+admire her she admired him the more.
+
+"What a difference," thought she, "between him and that vulgar Sauvresy,
+who is surprised at everything, whose face shows all that he thinks,
+whose eye betrays what he is going to say before he opens his mouth."
+
+Bertha was mistaken. Hector was not as cold and indifferent as she
+imagined. He was simply wearied, utterly exhausted. He could scarcely
+sit up after the terrible excitements of the last twenty-four hours. He
+soon asked permission to retire. Sauvresy, when left alone with his
+wife, told her all that happened, and the events which resulted in
+Tremorel's coming to Valfeuillu; but like a true friend omitted
+everything that would cast ridicule upon his old comrade.
+
+"He's a big child," said he, "a foolish fellow, whose brain is weak but
+we'll take care of him and cure him."
+
+Bertha never listened to her husband so attentively before. She seemed
+to agree with him, but she really admired Tremorel. Like Jenny, she was
+struck with the heroism which could squander a fortune and then commit
+suicide.
+
+"Ah!" sighed she, "Sauvresy would not have done it!"
+
+No, Sauvresy was quite a different man from the Count de Tremorel. The
+next day he declared his intention to adjust his friend's affairs.
+Hector had slept well, having spent the night on an excellent bed,
+undisturbed by pressing anxieties; and he appeared in the morning sleek
+and well-dressed, the disorder and desperation of the previous evening
+having quite disappeared. He had a nature not deeply impressible by
+events; twenty-four hours consoled him for the worst catastrophes, and
+he soon forgot the severest lessons of life. If Sauvresy had bid him
+begone, he would not have known where to go; yet he had already resumed
+the haughty carelessness of the millionnaire, accustomed to bend men and
+circumstances to his will. He was once more calm and cold, coolly
+joking, as if years had passed since that night at the hotel, and as if
+all the disasters to his fortune had been repaired. Bertha was amazed at
+this tranquillity after such great reverses, and thought this childish
+recklessness force of character.
+
+"Now," said Sauvresy, "as I've become your man of business, give me my
+instructions, and some valuable hints. What is, or was, the amount of
+your fortune?"
+
+"I haven't the least idea."
+
+Sauvresy provided himself with a pencil and a large sheet of paper,
+ready to set down the figures. He seemed a little surprised.
+
+"All right," said he, "we'll put x down as the unknown quantity of the
+assets: now for the liabilities."
+
+Hector made a superbly disdainful gesture.
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure, what they are."
+
+"What, can't you give a rough guess?"
+
+"Oh, perhaps. For instance, I owe between five and six hundred thousand
+francs to Clair & Co., five hundred thousand to Dervoy; about as much to
+Dubois, of Orleans--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I can't remember any more."
+
+"But you must have a memorandum of your loans somewhere?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You have at least kept your bonds, bills, and the sums of your various
+debts?"
+
+"None of them. I burnt up all my papers yesterday."
+
+Sauvresy jumped up from his chair in astonishment; such a method of
+doing business seemed to him monstrous; he could not suppose that Hector
+was lying. Yet he was lying, and this affectation of ignorance was a
+conceit of the aristocratic man of the world. It was very noble, very
+distingue, to ruin one's self without knowing how!
+
+"But, my dear fellow," cried Sauvresy, "how can we clear up your
+affairs?"
+
+"Oh, don't clear them up at all; do as I do--let the creditors act as
+they please, they will know how to settle it all, rest assured; let them
+sell out my property."
+
+"Never! Then you would be ruined, indeed!"
+
+"Well, it's only a little more or a little less."
+
+"What splendid disinterestedness!" thought Bertha; "what coolness, what
+admirable contempt of money, what noble disdain of the petty details
+which annoy common people! Was Sauvresy capable of all this?"
+
+She could not at least accuse him of avarice, since for her he was as
+prodigal as a thief; he had never refused her anything; he anticipated
+her most extravagant fancies. Still he had a strong appetite for gain,
+and despite his large fortune, he retained the hereditary respect for
+money. When he had business with one of his farmers, he would rise very
+early, mount his horse, though it were mid-winter, and go several
+leagues in the snow to get a hundred crowns. He would have ruined
+himself for her if she had willed it, this she was convinced of; but he
+would have ruined himself economically, in an orderly way.
+
+Sauvresy reflected.
+
+"You are right," said he to Hector, "your creditors ought to know your
+exact position. Who knows that they are not acting in concert? Their
+simultaneous refusal to lend you a hundred thousand makes me suspect it.
+I will go and see them."
+
+"Clair & Co., from whom I received my first loans, ought to be the best
+informed."
+
+"Well, I will see Clair & Co. But look here, do you know what you would
+do if you were reasonable?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You would go to Paris with me, and both of us--"
+
+Hector turned very pale, and his eyes shone.
+
+"Never!" he interrupted, violently, "never!"
+
+His "dear friends" still terrified him. What! Reappear on the theatre of
+his glory, now that he was fallen, ruined, ridiculous by his
+unsuccessful suicide? Sauvresy had held out his arms to him. Sauvresy
+was a noble fellow, and loved Hector sufficiently not to perceive the
+falseness of his position, and not to judge him a coward because he
+shrank from suicide. But the others!--
+
+"Don't talk to me about Paris," said he in a calmer tone. "I shall never
+set my foot in it again."
+
+"All right--so much the better; stay with us; I sha'n't complain of it,
+nor my wife either. Some fine day we'll find you a pretty heiress in the
+neighborhood. But," added Sauvresy, consulting his watch, "I must go if
+I don't want to lose the train."
+
+"I'll go to the station with you," said Tremorel.
+
+This was not solely from a friendly impulse. He wanted to ask Sauvresy
+to look after the articles left at the pawnbroker's in the Rue de Condo,
+and to call on Jenny. Bertha, from her window, followed with her eyes
+the two friends; who, with arms interlocked, ascended the road toward
+Orcival. "What a difference," thought she, "between these two men! My
+husband said he wished to be his friend's steward; truly he has the air
+of a steward. What a noble gait the count has, what youthful ease, what
+real distinction! And yet I'm sure that my husband despises him, because
+he has ruined himself by dissipation. He affected--I saw it--an air of
+protection. Poor youth! But everything about the count betrays an innate
+or acquired superiority; even his name, Hector--how it sounds!" And she
+repeated "Hector" several times, as if it pleased her, adding,
+contemptuously, "My husband's name is Clement!"
+
+M. de Tremorel returned alone from the station, as gayly as a
+convalescent taking his first airing. As soon as Bertha saw him she left
+the window. She wished to remain alone, to reflect upon this event which
+had happened so suddenly, to analyze her sensations, listen to her
+presentiments, study her impressions and decide, if possible, upon her
+line of conduct. She only reappeared when the tea was set for her
+husband, who returned at eleven in the evening. Sauvresy was faint from
+hunger, thirst, and fatigue, but his face glowed with satisfaction.
+
+"Victory!" exclaimed he, as he ate his soup. "We'll snatch you from the
+hands of the Philistines yet. Parbleu! The finest feathers of your
+plumage will remain, after all, and you will be able to save enough for
+a good cosey nest."
+
+Bertha glanced at her husband.
+
+"How is that?" said she.
+
+"It's very simple. At the very first, I guessed the game of our friend's
+creditors. They reckoned on getting a sale of his effects; would have
+bought them in a lump dirt cheap, as it always happens, and then sold
+them in detail, dividing the profits of the operation."
+
+"And can you prevent that?" asked Tremorel, incredulously.
+
+"Certainly. Ah, I've completely checkmated these gentlemen. I've
+succeeded by chance--I had the good luck to get them all together this
+evening. I said to them, you'll let us sell this property as we please,
+voluntarily, or I'll outbid you all, and spoil your cards. They looked
+at me in amazement. My notary, who was with me, remarked that I was
+Monsieur Sauvresy, worth two millions. Our gentlemen opened their eyes
+very wide, and consented to grant my request."
+
+Hector, notwithstanding what he had said, knew enough about his affairs
+to see that this action would save him a fortune--a small one, as
+compared with what he had possessed, yet a fortune.
+
+The certainty of this delighted him, and moved by a momentary and
+sincere gratitude, he grasped both of Sauvresy's hands in his.
+
+"Ah, my friend," cried he, "you give me my honor, after saving my life!
+How can I ever repay you?"
+
+"By committing no imprudences or foolishnesses, except reasonable ones.
+Such as this," added Sauvresy, leaning toward Bertha and embracing her.
+
+"And there is nothing more to fear?"
+
+"Nothing! Why I could have borrowed the two millions in an hour, and
+they knew it. But that's not all. The search for you is suspended. I
+went to your house, took the responsibility of sending away all your
+servants except your valet and a groom. If you agree, we'll send the
+horses to be sold to-morrow, and they'll fetch a good price; your own
+saddle-horse shall be brought here."
+
+These details annoyed Bertha. She thought her husband exaggerated his
+services, carrying them even to servility.
+
+"Really," thought she, "he was born to be a steward."
+
+"Do you know what else I did?" pursued Sauvresy. "Thinking that perhaps
+you were in want of a wardrobe, I had three or four trunks filled with
+your clothes, sent them out by rail, and one of the servants has just
+gone after them."
+
+Hector, too, began to find Sauvresy's services excessive, and thought he
+treated him too much like a child who could foresee nothing. The idea of
+having it said before a woman that he was in want of clothes irritated
+him. He forgot that he had found it a very simple thing in the morning
+to ask his friend for some linen.
+
+Just then a noise was heard in the vestibule. Doubtless the trunks had
+come. Bertha went out to give the necessary orders.
+
+"Quick!" cried Sauvresy. "Now that we are alone, here are your trinkets.
+I had some trouble in getting them. They are suspicious at the
+pawnbroker's. I think they began to suspect that I was one of a band of
+thieves."
+
+"You didn't mention my name, did you?"
+
+"That would have been useless. My notary was with me, fortunately. One
+never knows how useful one's notary may be. Don't you think society is
+unjust toward notaries?"
+
+Tremorel thought his friend talked very lightly about a serious matter,
+and this flippancy vexed him.
+
+"To finish up, I paid a visit to Miss Jenny. She has been abed since
+last evening, and her chambermaid told me she had not ceased sobbing
+bitterly ever since your departure."
+
+"Had she seen no one?"
+
+"Nobody at all. She really thought you dead, and when I told her you
+were here with me, alive and well, I thought she would go mad for joy.
+Do you know, Hector, she's really pretty."
+
+"Yes--not bad."
+
+"And a very good little body, I imagine. She told me some very touching
+things. I would wager, my friend, that she don't care so much for your
+money as she does for yourself."
+
+Hector smiled superciliously.
+
+"In short, she was anxious to follow me, to see and speak to you. I had
+to swear with terrible oaths that she should see you to-morrow, before
+she would let me go; not at Paris, as you said you would never go there,
+but at Corbeil."
+
+"Ah, as for that--"
+
+"She will be at the station to-morrow at twelve. We will go down
+together, and I will take the train for Paris. You can get into the
+Corbeil train, and breakfast with Miss Jenny at the hotel of the Belle
+Image."
+
+Hector began to offer an objection. Sauvresy stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"Not a word," said he. "Here is my wife."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+On going to bed, that night, the count was less enchanted than ever with
+the devotion of his friend Sauvresy. There is not a diamond on which a
+spot cannot be found with a microscope.
+
+"Here he is," thought he, "abusing his privileges as the saver of my
+life. Can't a man do you a service, without continually making you feel
+it? It seems as though because he prevented me from blowing my brains
+out, I had somehow become something that belongs to him! He came very
+near upbraiding me for Jenny's extravagance. Where will he stop?"
+
+The next day at breakfast he feigned indisposition so as not to eat, and
+suggested to Sauvresy that he would lose the train.
+
+Bertha, as on the evening before, crouched at the window to see them go
+away. Her troubles during the past eight-and-forty hours had been so
+great that she hardly recognized herself. She scarcely dared to reflect
+or to descend to the depths of her heart. What mysterious power did this
+man possess, to so violently affect her life? She wished that he would
+go, never to return, while at the same time she avowed to herself that
+in going he would carry with him all her thoughts. She struggled under
+the charm, not knowing whether she ought to rejoice or grieve at the
+inexpressible emotions which agitated her, being irritated to submit to
+an influence stronger than her own will.
+
+She decided that to-day she would go down to the drawing-room. He would
+not fail--were it only for politeness--to go in there; and then, she
+thought, by seeing him nearer, talking with him, knowing him better, his
+influence over her would vanish. Doubtless he would return, and so she
+watched for him, ready to go down as soon as she saw him approaching.
+She waited with feverish shudderings, anxiously believing that this
+first tete-a-tete in her husband's absence would be decisive. Time
+passed; it was more than two hours since he had gone out with Sauvresy,
+and he had not reappeared. Where could he be?
+
+At this moment, Hector was awaiting Jenny at the Corbeil station. The
+train arrived, and Jenny soon appeared. Her grief, joy, emotion had not
+made her forget her toilet, and never had she been so rollickingly
+elegant and pretty. She wore a green dress with a train, a velvet
+mantle, and the jauntiest little hat in the world. As soon as she saw
+Hector standing near the door, she uttered a cry, pushed the people
+aside, and rushed into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time.
+She spoke quite loud, with wild gestures, so that everyone could hear
+what she said.
+
+"You didn't kill yourself, after all," said she. "Oh, how I have
+suffered; but what happiness I feel to-day!"
+
+Tremorel struggled with her as he could, trying to calm her enthusiastic
+exclamations, softly repelling her, charmed and irritated at once, and
+exasperated at all these eyes rudely fixed on him. For none of the
+passengers had gone out. They were all there, staring and gazing. Hector
+and Jenny were surrounded by a circle of curious folks.
+
+"Come along," said Hector, his patience exhausted. He drew her out of
+the door, hoping to escape this prying curiosity; but he did not
+succeed. They were persistently followed. Some of the Corbeil people who
+were on the top of the omnibus begged the conductor to walk his horses,
+that this singular couple might not be lost to view, and the horses did
+not get into a trot until they had disappeared in the hotel.
+
+Sauvresy's foresight in recommending the place of meeting had thus been
+disconcerted by Jenny's sensational arrival. Questions were asked; the
+hostess was adroitly interrogated, and it was soon known that this
+person, who waited for eccentric young ladies at the Corbeil station,
+was an intimate friend of the owner of Valfeuillu. Neither Hector nor
+Jenny doubted that they formed the general topic of conversation. They
+breakfasted gayly in the best room at the Belle Image, during which
+Tremorel recounted a very pretty story about his restoration to life, in
+which he played a part, the heroism of which was well calculated to
+redouble the little lady's admiration. Then Jenny in her turn unfolded
+her plans for the future, which were, to do her justice, most
+reasonable. She had resolved more than ever to remain faithful to Hector
+now that he was ruined, to give up her elegant rooms, sell her
+furniture, and undertake some honest trade. She had found one of her old
+friends, who was now an accomplished dressmaker, and who was anxious to
+obtain a partner who had some money, while she herself furnished the
+experience. They would purchase an establishment in the Breda quarter,
+and between them could scarcely fail to prosper. Jenny talked with a
+pretty, knowing, business-like air, which made Hector laugh. These
+projects seemed very comic to him; yet he was touched by this
+unselfishness on the part of a young and pretty woman, who was willing
+to work in order to please him.
+
+But, unhappily, they were forced to part. Jenny had gone to Corbeil
+intending to stay a week; but the count told her this was absolutely
+impossible. She cried bitterly at first, then got angry, and finally
+consoled herself with a plan to return on the following Tuesday.
+
+"Good-by," said she, embracing Hector, "think of me." She smilingly
+added, "I ought to be jealous; for they say your friend's wife is
+perhaps the handsomest woman in France. Is it true?"
+
+"Upon my word, I don't know. I've forgotten to look at her."
+
+Hector told the truth. Although he did not betray it, he was still under
+the surprise of his chagrin at the failure of his attempt at suicide. He
+felt the dizziness which follows great moral crises as well as a heavy
+blow on the head, and which distracts the attention from exterior
+things. But Jenny's words, "the handsomest woman in France," attracted
+his notice, and he could, that very evening, repair his forgetfulness.
+When he returned to Valfeuillu, his friend had not returned; Mme.
+Sauvresy was alone reading, in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room.
+Hector seated himself opposite her, a little aside, and was thus able to
+observe her at his ease, while engaging her in conversation. His first
+impression was an unfavorable one. He found her beauty too sculptural
+and polished. He sought for imperfections, and finding none, was almost
+terrified by this lovely, motionless face, these clear, cold eyes.
+Little by little, however, he accustomed himself to pass the greater
+part of the afternoon with Bertha, while Sauvresy was away arranging his
+affairs--selling, negotiating, using his time in cutting down interests
+and discussing with agents and attorneys. He soon perceived that she
+listened to him with pleasure, and he judged from this that she was a
+decidedly superior woman, much better than her husband. He had no wit,
+but possessed an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes and adventures. He had
+seen so many things and known so many people that he was as interesting
+as a chronicle. He had a sort of frothy fervor, not wanting in
+brilliancy, and a polite cynicism which, at first, surprised one. Had
+Bertha been unimpassioned, she might have judged him at his value; but
+she had lost her power of insight. She heard him, plunged in a foolish
+ecstasy, as one hears a traveller who has returned from far and
+dangerous countries, who has visited peoples of whose language the
+hearer is ignorant, and lived in the midst of manners and customs
+incomprehensible to ourselves.
+
+Days, weeks, months passed on, and the Count de Tremorel did not find
+life at Valfeuillu as dull as he had thought. He insensibly slipped
+along the gentle slope of material well-being, which leads directly to
+brutishness. A physical and moral torpor had succeeded the fever of the
+first days, free from disagreeable sensations, though wanting in
+excitement. He ate and drank much, and slept twelve round hours. The
+rest of the time, when he did not talk with Bertha, he wandered in the
+park, lounged in a rocking-chair, or took a jaunt in the saddle. He even
+went fishing under the willows at the foot of the garden; and grew fat.
+His best days were those which he spent at Corbeil with Jenny. He found
+in her something of his past, and she always quarrelled with him, which
+woke him up. Besides, she brought him the gossip of Paris and the small
+talk of the boulevards. She came regularly every week, and her love for
+Hector, far from diminishing, seemed to grow with each interview. The
+poor girl's affairs were in a troubled condition. She had bought her
+establishment at too high a price, and her partner at the end of the
+first month decamped, carrying off three thousand francs. She knew
+nothing about the trade which she had undertaken, and she was robbed
+without mercy on all sides. She said nothing of these troubles to
+Hector, but she intended to ask him to come to her assistance. It was
+the least that he could do.
+
+At first, the visitors to Valfeuillu were somewhat astonished at the
+constant presence there of a young man of leisure; but they got
+accustomed to him. Hector assumed a melancholy expression of
+countenance, such as a man ought to have who had undergone unheard-of
+misfortunes, and whose life had failed of its promise. He appeared
+inoffensive; people said:
+
+"The count has a charming simplicity."
+
+But sometimes, when alone, he had sudden and terrible relapses. "This
+life cannot last," thought he; and he was overcome with childish rage
+when he contrasted the past with the present. How could he shake off
+this dull existence, and rid himself of these stiffly good people who
+surrounded him, these friends of Sauvresy? Where should he take refuge?
+He was not tempted to return to Paris; what could he do there? His house
+had been sold to an old leather merchant; and he had no money except
+that which he borrowed of Sauvresy. Yet Sauvresy, to Hector's mind, was
+a most uncomfortable, wearisome, implacable friend; he did not
+understand half-way measures in desperate situations.
+
+"Your boat is foundering," he said to Hector; "let us begin by throwing
+all that is superfluous into the sea. Let us keep nothing of the past;
+that is dead; we will bury it, and nothing shall recall it. When your
+situation is relieved, we will see."
+
+The settlement of Hector's affairs was very laborious. Creditors sprung
+up at every step, on every side, and the list of them seemed never to be
+finished. Some had even come from foreign lands. Several of them had
+been already paid, but their receipts could not be found, and they were
+clamorous. Others, whose demands had been refused as exorbitant,
+threatened to go to law, hoping to frighten Sauvresy into paying.
+Sauvresy wearied his friend by his incessant activity. Every two or
+three days he went to Paris, and he attended the sales of the property
+in Burgundy and Orleans. The count at last detested and hated him;
+Sauvresy's happy, cheerful air annoyed him; jealousy stung him. One
+thought--that a wretched one--consoled him a little. "Sauvresy's
+happiness," said he to himself, "is owing to his imbecility. He thinks
+his wife dead in love with him, whereas she can't bear him."
+
+Bertha had, indeed, permitted Hector to perceive her aversion to her
+husband. She no longer studied the emotions of her heart; she loved
+Tremorel, and confessed it to herself. In her eyes he realized the ideal
+of her dreams. At the same time she was exasperated to see in him no
+signs of love for her. Her beauty was not, then, irresistible, as she
+had often been told. He was gallant and courteous to her--nothing more.
+
+"If he loved me," thought she, "he would tell me so, for he is bold with
+women and fears no one."
+
+Then she began to hate the girl, her rival, whom Hector went to meet at
+Corbeil every week. She wished to see her, to know her. Who could she
+be? Was she handsome? Hector had been very reticent about Jenny. He
+evaded all questions about her, not sorry to let Bertha's imagination
+work on his mysterious visits.
+
+The day at last came when she could no longer resist the intensity of
+her curiosity. She put on the simplest of her toilets, in black, threw a
+thick veil over her head, and hastened to the Corbeil station at the
+hour that she thought the unknown girl would present herself there. She
+took a seat on a bench in the rear of the waiting-room. She had not long
+to wait. She soon perceived the count and a young girl coming along the
+avenue, which she could see from where she sat. They were arm in arm,
+and seemed to be in a very happy mood. They passed within a few steps of
+her, and as they walked very slowly, she was able to scrutinize Jenny at
+her ease. She saw that she was pretty, but that was all. Having seen
+that which she wished, and become satisfied that Jenny was not to be
+feared (which showed her inexperience) Bertha directed her steps
+homeward. But she chose her time of departure awkwardly; for as she was
+passing along behind the cabs, which concealed her, Hector came out of
+the station. They crossed each other's paths at the gate, and their eyes
+met. Did he recognize her? His face expressed great surprise, yet he did
+not bow to her. "Yes, he recognized me," thought Bertha, as she returned
+home by the river-road; and surprised, almost terrified by her boldness,
+she asked herself whether she ought to rejoice or mourn over this
+meeting. What would be its result? Hector cautiously followed her at a
+little distance. He was greatly astonished. His vanity, always on the
+watch, had already apprised him of what was passing in Bertha's heart,
+but, though modesty was no fault of his, he was far from guessing that
+she was so much enamoured of him as to take such a step.
+
+"She loves me!" he repeated to himself, as he went along. "She loves
+me!"
+
+He did not yet know what to do. Should he fly? Should he still appear
+the same in his conduct toward her, pretending not to have seen her? He
+ought to fly that very evening, without hesitation, without turning his
+head; to fly as if the house were about to tumble about his head. This
+was his first thought. It was quickly stifled under the explosion of the
+base passions which fermented in him. Ah, Sauvresy had saved him when he
+was dying! Sauvresy, after saving him, had welcomed him, opened to him
+his heart, purse, house; at this very moment he was making untiring
+efforts to restore his fortunes. Men like Tremorel can only receive such
+services as outrages. Had not his sojourn at Valfeuillu been a continual
+suffering? Was not his self-conceit tortured from morning till night? He
+might count the days by their humiliations. What! Must he always submit
+to--if he was not grateful for--the superiority of a man whom he had
+always been wont to treat as his inferior?
+
+"Besides," thought he, judging his friend by himself, "he only acts thus
+from pride and ostentation. What am I at his house, but a living witness
+of his generosity and devotion? He seems to live for me--it's Tremorel
+here and Tremorel there! He triumphs over my misfortunes, and makes his
+conduct a glory and title to the public admiration."
+
+He could not forgive his friend for being so rich, so happy, so highly
+respected, for having known how to regulate his life, while he had
+exhausted his own fortune at thirty. And should he not seize so good an
+opportunity to avenge himself for the favors which overwhelmed him?
+
+"Have I run after his wife?" said he to himself, trying to impose
+silence on his conscience. "She comes to me of her own will, herself,
+without the least temptation from me. I should be a fool if I repelled
+her."
+
+Conceit has irresistible arguments. Hector, when he entered the house,
+had made up his mind. He did not fly. Yet he had the excuse neither of
+passion nor of temptation; he did not love her, and his infamy was
+deliberate, coldly premeditated. Between her and him a chain more solid
+than mutual attraction was riveted; their common hatred of Sauvresy.
+They owed too much to him. His hand had held both from degradation.
+
+The first hours of their mutual understanding were spent in angry words,
+rather than the cooings of love. They perceived too clearly the disgrace
+of their conduct not to try to reassure each other against their
+remorse. They tried to prove to each other that Sauvresy was ridiculous
+and odious; as if they were absolved by his deficiencies, if
+deficiencies he had. If indeed trustfulness is foolishness, Sauvresy was
+indeed a fool, because he could be deceived under his own eyes, in his
+own house, because he had perfect faith in his wife and his friend. He
+suspected nothing, and every day he rejoiced that he had been able to
+keep Tremorel by him. He often repeated to his wife:
+
+"I am too happy."
+
+Bertha employed all her art to encourage these joyous illusions. She who
+had before been so capricious, so nervous, wilful, became little by
+little submissive to the degree of an angelic softness. The future of
+her love depended on her husband, and she spared no pains to prevent the
+slightest suspicion from ruffling his calm confidence. Such was their
+prudence that no one in the house suspected their state. And yet Bertha
+was not happy. Her love did not yield her the joys she had expected. She
+hoped to be transported to the clouds, and she remained on the earth,
+hampered by all the miserable ties of a life of lies and deceit.
+
+Perhaps she perceived that she was Hector's revenge on her husband, and
+that he only loved in her the dishonored wife of an envied friend. And
+to crown all, she was jealous. For several months she tried to persuade
+Tremorel to break with Jenny. He always had the same reply, which,
+though it might be prudent, was irritating.
+
+"Jenny is our security--you must think of that."
+
+The fact was, however, that he was trying to devise some means of
+getting rid of Jenny. It was a difficult matter. The poor girl, having
+fallen into comparative poverty, became more and more tenacious of
+Hector's affection. She often gave him trouble by telling him that he
+was no longer the same, that he was changed; she was sad, and wept, and
+had red eyes.
+
+One evening, in a fit of anger, she menaced him with a singular threat.
+
+"You love another," she said. "I know it, for I have proofs of it. Take
+care! If you ever leave me, my anger will fall on her head, and I will
+not have any mercy on her."
+
+The count foolishly attached no importance to these words; they only
+hastened the separation.
+
+"She is getting very troublesome," thought he. "If some day I shouldn't
+go when she was expecting me, she might come up to Valfeuillu, and make
+a wretched scandal."
+
+He armed himself with all his courage, which was assisted by Bertha's
+tears and entreaties, and started for Corbeil resolved to break off with
+Jenny. He took every precaution in declaring his intentions, giving the
+best reasons for his decision that he could think of.
+
+"We must be careful, you know, Jenny," said he, "and cease to meet for a
+while. I am ruined, you know, and the only thing that can save me is
+marriage."
+
+Hector had prepared himself for an explosion of fury, piercing cries,
+hysterics, fainting-fits. To his great surprise, Jenny did not answer a
+word. She became as white as her collar, her ruddy lips blanched, her
+eyes stared.
+
+"So," said she, with her teeth tightly shut to contain herself, "so you
+are going to get married?"
+
+"Alas, I must," he answered with a hypocritical sigh. "You know that
+lately I have only been able to get money for you by borrowing from my
+friend; his purse will not be at my service forever."
+
+Jenny took Hector by the hand, and led him to the window. There, looking
+intently at him, as if her gaze could frighten the truth out of him, she
+said, slowly:
+
+"It is really true, is it, that you are going to leave me to get
+married?"
+
+Hector disengaged one of his hands, and placed it on his heart.
+
+"I swear it on my honor," said he.
+
+"I ought to believe you, then."
+
+Jenny returned to the middle of the room. Standing erect before the
+mirror, she put on her hat, quietly disposing its ribbons as if nothing
+had occurred. When she was ready to go, she went up to Tremorel. "For
+the last time," said she, in a tone which she forced to be firm, and
+which belied her tearful, glistening eyes. "For the last time, Hector,
+are we really to part?"
+
+"We must."
+
+Jenny made a gesture which Tremorel did not see; her face had a
+malicious expression; her lips parted to utter some sarcastic response;
+but she recovered herself almost immediately.
+
+"I am going, Hector," said she, after a moment's reflection; "If you are
+really leaving me to get married, you shall never hear of me again."
+
+"Why, Jenny, I hope I shall still remain your friend."
+
+"Well, only if you abandon me for another reason, remember what I tell
+you; you will be a dead man, and she, a lost woman."
+
+She opened the door; he tried to take her hand; she repulsed him.
+
+"Adieu!"
+
+Hector ran to the window to assure himself of her departure. She was
+ascending the avenue leading to the station.
+
+"Well, that's over," thought he, with a sigh of relief. "Jenny was a
+good girl."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The count told half a truth when he spoke to Jenny of his marriage.
+Sauvresy and he had discussed the subject, and if the matter was not as
+ripe as he had represented, there was at least some prospect of such an
+event. Sauvresy had proposed it in his anxiety to complete his work of
+restoring Hector to fortune and society.
+
+One evening, about a month before the events just narrated, he had led
+Hector into the library, saying:
+
+"Give me your ear for a quarter of an hour, and don't answer me hastily.
+What I am going to propose to you deserves serious reflection."
+
+"Well, I can be serious when it is necessary."
+
+"Let's begin with your debts. Their payment is not yet completed, but
+enough has been done to enable us to foresee the end. It is certain that
+you will have, after all debts are paid, from three to four hundred
+thousand francs."
+
+Hector had never, in his wildest hopes, expected such success.
+
+"Why, I'm going to be rich," exclaimed he joyously.
+
+"No, not rich, but quite above want. There is, too, a mode in which you
+can regain your lost position."
+
+"A mode? what?"
+
+Sauvresy paused a moment, and looked steadily at his friend.
+
+"You must marry," said he at last.
+
+This seemed to surprise Hector, but not disagreeably.
+
+"I, marry? It's easier to give that advice than to follow it."
+
+"Pardon me--you ought to know that I do not speak rashly. What would you
+say to a young girl of good family, pretty, well brought up, so charming
+that, excepting my own wife, I know of no one more attractive, and who
+would bring with her a dowry of a million?"
+
+"Ah, my friend, I should say that I adore her! And do you know such an
+angel?"
+
+"Yes, and you too, for the angel is Mademoiselle Laurence Courtois."
+
+Hector's radiant face overclouded at this name, and he made a
+discouraged gesture.
+
+"Never," said he. "That stiff and obstinate old merchant, Monsieur
+Courtois, would never consent to give his daughter to a man who has been
+fool enough to waste his fortune."
+
+Sauvresy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Now, there's what it is to have eyes, and not see. Know that this
+Courtois, whom you think so obstinate, is really the most romantic of
+men, and an ambitious old fellow to boot. It would seem to him a grand
+good speculation to give his daughter to the Count Hector de Tremorel,
+cousin of the Duke of Samblemeuse, the relative of the Commarins, even
+though you hadn't a sou. What wouldn't he give to have the delicious
+pleasure of saying, Monsieur the Count, my son-in-law; or my daughter,
+Madame the Countess Hector! And you aren't ruined, you know, you are
+going to have an income of twenty thousand francs, and perhaps enough
+more to raise your capital to a million."
+
+Hector was silent. He had thought his life ended, and now, all of a
+sudden, a splendid perspective unrolled itself before him. He might then
+rid himself of the patronizing protection of his friend; he would be
+free, rich, would have a better wife, as he thought, than Bertha; his
+house would outshine Sauvresy's. The thought of Bertha crossed his mind,
+and it occurred to him that he might thus escape a lover who although
+beautiful and loving was proud and bold, and whose domineering temper
+began to be burdensome to him.
+
+"I may say," said he, seriously to his friend, "that I have always
+thought Monsieur Courtois an excellent and honorable man, and
+Mademoiselle Laurence seems to me so accomplished a young lady, that a
+man might be happy in marrying her even without a dowry."
+
+"So much the better, my dear Hector, so much the better. But you know,
+the first thing is to engage Laurence's affections; her father adores
+her, and would not, I am sure, give her to a man whom she herself had
+not chosen."
+
+"Don't disturb yourself," answered Hector, with a gesture of triumph,
+"she will love me."
+
+The next day he took occasion to encounter M. Courtois, who invited him
+to dinner. The count employed all his practised seductions on Laurence,
+which were so brilliant and able that they were well fitted to surprise
+and dazzle a young girl. It was not long before the count was the hero
+of the mayor's household. Nothing formal had been said, nor any direct
+allusion or overture made; yet M. Courtois was sure that Hector would
+some day ask his daughter's hand, and that he should freely answer,
+"yes;" while he thought it certain that Laurence would not say "no."
+
+Bertha suspected nothing; she was now very much worried about Jenny, and
+saw nothing else. Sauvresy, after spending an evening with the count at
+the mayor's, during which Hector had not once quitted the whist-table,
+decided to speak to his wife of the proposed marriage, which he thought
+would give her an agreeable surprise. At his first words, she grew pale.
+Her emotion was so great that, seeing she would betray herself, she
+hastily retired to her boudoir. Sauvresy, quietly seated in one of the
+bedroom arm-chairs, continued to expatiate on the advantages of such a
+marriage--raising his voice, so that Bertha might hear him in the
+neighboring room.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "that our friend has an income of sixty thousand
+crowns? We'll find an estate for him near by, and then we shall see him
+and his wife every day. They will be very pleasant society for us in the
+autumn months. Hector is a fine fellow, and you've often told me how
+charming Laurence is."
+
+Bertha did not reply. This unexpected blow was so terrible that she
+could not think clearly, and her brain whirled.
+
+"You don't say anything," pursued Sauvresy. "Don't you approve of my
+project? I thought you'd be enchanted with it."
+
+She saw that if she were silent any longer, her husband would go in and
+find her sunk upon a chair, and would guess all. She made an effort and
+said, in a strangled voice, without attaching any sense to her words:
+
+"Yes, yes; it is a capital idea."
+
+"How you say that! Do you see any objections?"
+
+She was trying to find some objection, but could not.
+
+"I have a little fear of Laurence's future," said she at last.
+
+"Bah! Why?"
+
+"I only say what I've heard you say. You told me that Monsieur Tremorel
+has been a libertine, a gambler, a prodigal--"
+
+"All the more reason for trusting him. His past follies guarantee his
+future prudence. He has received a lesson which he will not forget.
+Besides, he will love his wife."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Parbleu, he loves her already."
+
+"Who told you so?"
+
+"Himself."
+
+And Sauvresy began to laugh about Hector's passion, which he said was
+becoming quite pastoral.
+
+"Would you believe," said he, laughing, "that he thinks our worthy
+Courtois a man of wit? Ah, what spectacles these lovers look through! He
+spends two or three hours every day with the mayor. What do you suppose
+he does there?"
+
+Bertha, by great effort, succeeded in dissembling her grief; she
+reappeared with a smiling face. She went and came, apparently calm,
+though suffering the bitterest anguish a woman can endure. And she could
+not run to Hector, and ask him if it were true!
+
+For Sauvresy must be deceiving her. Why? She knew not. No matter. She
+felt her hatred of him increasing to disgust; for she excused and
+pardoned her lover, and she blamed her husband alone. Whose idea was
+this marriage? His. Who had awakened Hector's hopes, and encouraged
+them? He, always he. While he had been harmless, she had been able to
+pardon him for having married her; she had compelled herself to bear
+him, to feign a love quite foreign to her heart. But now he became
+hateful; should she submit to his interference in a matter which was
+life or death to her?
+
+She did not close her eyes all night; she had one of those horrible
+nights in which crimes are conceived. She did not find herself alone
+with Hector until after breakfast the next day, in the billiard-hall.
+
+"Is it true?" she asked.
+
+The expression of her face was so menacing that he quailed before it. He
+stammered:
+
+"True--what?"
+
+"Your marriage."
+
+He was silent at first, asking himself whether he should tell the truth
+or equivocate. At last, irritated by Bertha's imperious tone, he
+replied:
+
+"Yes."
+
+She was thunderstruck at this response. Till then, she had a glimmer of
+hope. She thought that he would at least try to reassure her, to deceive
+her. There are times when a falsehood is the highest homage. But no--he
+avowed it. She was speechless; words failed her.
+
+Tremorel began to tell her the motives which prompted his conduct. He
+could not live forever at Valfeuillu. What could he, with his habits and
+tastes, do with a few thousand crowns a year? He was thirty; he must,
+now or never, think of the future. M. Courtois would give his daughter a
+million, and at his death there would be a great deal more. Should he
+let this chance slip? He cared little for Laurence, it was the dowry he
+wanted. He took no pains to conceal his meanness; he rather gloried in
+it, speaking of the marriage as simply a bargain, in which he gave his
+name and title in exchange for riches. Bertha stopped him with a look
+full of contempt.
+
+"Spare yourself," said she. "You love Laurence."
+
+He would have protested; he really disliked her.
+
+"Enough," resumed Bertha. "Another woman would have reproached you; I
+simply tell you that this marriage shall not be; I do not wish it.
+Believe me, give it up frankly, don't force me to act."
+
+She retired, shutting the door violently; Hector was furious.
+
+"How she treats me!" said he to himself. "Just as a queen would speak to
+a serf. Ah, she don't want me to marry Laurence!" His coolness returned,
+and with it serious reflections. If he insisted on marrying, would not
+Bertha carry out her threats? Evidently; for he knew well that she was
+one of those women who shrink from nothing, whom no consideration could
+arrest. He guessed what she would do, from what she had said in a
+quarrel with him about Jenny. She had told him, "I will confess
+everything to Sauvresy, and we will be the more bound together by shame
+than by all the ceremonies of the church."
+
+This was surely the mode she would adopt to break a marriage which was
+so hateful to her; and Tremorel trembled at the idea of Sauvresy knowing
+all.
+
+"What would he do," thought he, "if Bertha told him? He would kill me
+off-hand--that's what I would do in his place. Suppose he didn't; I
+should have to fight a duel with him, and if I killed him, quit the
+country. Whatever would happen, my marriage is irrevocably broken, and
+Bertha seems to be on my hands for all time."
+
+He saw no possible way out of the horrible situation in which he had put
+himself.
+
+"I must wait," thought he.
+
+And he waited, going secretly to the mayor's, for he really loved
+Laurence. He waited, devoured by anxiety, struggling between Sauvresy's
+urgency and Bertha's threats. How he detested this woman who held him,
+whose will weighed so heavily on him! Nothing could curb her ferocious
+obstinacy. She had one fixed idea. He had thought to conciliate her by
+dismissing Jenny. It was a mistake. When he said to her:
+
+"Bertha, I shall never see Jenny again."
+
+She answered, ironically:
+
+"Mademoiselle Courtois will be very grateful to you!"
+
+That evening, while Sauvresy was crossing the court-yard, he saw a
+beggar at the gate, making signs to him.
+
+"What do you want, my good man?"
+
+The beggar looked around to see that no one was listening.
+
+"I have brought you a note," said he, rapidly, and in a low tone. "I was
+told to give it, only to you, and to ask you to read it when you are
+alone."
+
+He mysteriously slipped a note, carefully sealed, into Sauvresy's hand.
+
+"It comes from pretty girl," added he, winking.
+
+Sauvresy, turning his back to the house, opened it and read:
+
+"SIR--You will do a great favor to a poor and unhappy girl, if you will
+come to-morrow to the Belle Image, at Corbeil, where you will be awaited
+all day.
+
+"Your humble servant, "JENNY F---."
+
+There was also a postscript.
+
+"Please, sir, don't say a word of this to the Count de Tremorel."
+
+"Ah ha," thought Sauvresy, "there's some trouble about Hector, that's
+bad for the marriage."
+
+"I was told, sir," said the beggar, "there would be an answer."
+
+"Say that I will come," answered Sauvresy, throwing him a franc piece.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The next day was cold and damp. A fog, so thick that one could not
+discern objects ten steps off, hung over the earth. Sauvresy, after
+breakfast, took his gun and whistled to his dogs.
+
+"I'm going to take a turn in Mauprevoir wood," said he.
+
+"A queer idea," remarked Hector, "for you won't see the end of your
+gun-barrel in the woods."
+
+"No matter, if I see some pheasants."
+
+This was only a pretext, for Sauvresy, on leaving Valfeuillu, took the
+direct road to Corbeil, and half an hour later, faithful to his promise,
+he entered the Belle Image tavern.
+
+Jenny was waiting for him in the large room which had always been
+reserved for her since she became a regular customer of the house. Her
+eyes were red with recent tears; she was very pale, and her marble color
+showed that she had not slept. Her breakfast lay untouched on the table
+near the fireplace, where a bright fire was burning. When Sauvresy came
+in, she rose to meet him, and took him by the hand with a friendly
+motion.
+
+"Thank you for coming," said she. "Ah, you are very good."
+
+Jenny was only a girl, and Sauvresy detested girls; but her grief was so
+sincere and seemed so deep, that he was touched.
+
+"You are suffering, Madame?" asked he.
+
+"Oh, yes, very much."
+
+Her tears choked her, and she concealed her face in her handkerchief.
+
+"I guessed right," thought Sauvresy. "Hector has deserted her. Now I
+must smooth the wound, and yet make future meetings between them
+impossible."
+
+He took the weeping Jenny's hand, and softly pulled away the
+handkerchief.
+
+"Have courage," said he.
+
+She lifted her tearful eyes to him, and said:
+
+"You know, then?"
+
+"I know nothing, for, as you asked me, I have said nothing to Tremorel;
+but I can imagine what the trouble is."
+
+"He will not see me any more," murmured Jenny. "He has deserted me."
+
+Sauvresy summoned up all his eloquence. The moment to be persuasive and
+paternal had come. He drew a chair up to Jenny's, and sat down.
+
+"Come, my child," pursued he, "be resigned. People are not always young,
+you know. A time comes when the voice of reason must be heard. Hector
+does not desert you, but he sees the necessity of assuring his future,
+and placing his life on a domestic foundation; he feels the need of a
+home."
+
+Jenny stopped crying. Nature took the upper hand, and her tears were
+dried by the fire of anger which took possession of her. She rose,
+overturning her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.
+
+"Do you believe that?" said she. "Do you believe that Hector troubles
+himself about his future? I see you don't know his character. He dream
+of a home, or a family? He never has and never will think of anything
+but himself. If he had any heart, would he have gone to live with you as
+he has? He had two arms to gain his bread and mine. I was ashamed to ask
+money of him, knowing that what he gave me came from you."
+
+"But he is my friend, my dear child."
+
+"Would you do as he has done?"
+
+Sauvresy did not know what to say; he was embarrassed by the logic of
+this daughter of the people, judging her lover rudely, but justly.
+
+"Ah, I know him, I do," continued Jenny, growing more excited as her
+mind reverted to the past. "He has only deceived me once--the morning he
+came and told me he was going to kill himself. I was stupid enough to
+think him dead, and to cry about it. He, kill himself? Why, he's too
+much of a coward to hurt himself! Yes, I love him, but I don't esteem
+him. That's our fate, you see, only to love the men we despise."
+
+Jenny talked loud, gesticulating, and every now and then thumping the
+table with her fist so that the bottles and glasses jingled. Sauvresy
+was somewhat fearful lest the hotel people should hear her; they knew
+him, and had seen him come in. He began to be sorry that he had come,
+and tried to calm the girl.
+
+"But Hector is not deserting you," repeated he. "He will assure you a
+good position."
+
+"Humph! I should laugh at such a thing! Have I any need of him? As long
+as I have ten fingers and good eyes, I shall not be at the mercy of any
+man. He made me change my name, and wanted to accustom me to luxury! And
+now there is neither a Miss Jenny, nor riches, but there is a Pelagie,
+who proposes to get her fifty sous a day, without much trouble."
+
+"No," said Sauvresy, "you will not need--"
+
+"What? To work? But I like work; I am not a do-nothing. I will go back
+to my old life. I used to breakfast on a sou's worth of biscuit and a
+sou's worth of potatoes, and was well and happy. On Sundays, I dined at
+the Turk for thirty sous. I laughed more then in one afternoon, than in
+all the years I have known Tremorel."
+
+She no longer cried, nor was she angry; she was laughing. She was
+thinking of her old breakfasts, and her feasts at the Turk.
+
+Sauvresy was stupefied. He had no idea of this Parisian nature,
+detestable and excellent, emotional to excess, nervous, full of
+transitions, which laughs and cries, caresses and strikes in the same
+minute, which a passing idea whirls a hundred leagues from the present
+moment.
+
+"So," said Jenny, more calmly, "I snap my fingers at Hector,"--she had
+just said exactly the contrary, and had forgotten it--"I don't care for
+him, but I will not let him leave me in this way. It sha'n't be said
+that he left me for another. I won't have it."
+
+Jenny was one of those women who do not reason, but who feel; with whom
+it is folly to argue, for their fixed idea is impregnable to the most
+victorious arguments. Sauvresy asked himself why she had asked him to
+come, and said to himself that the part he had intended to play would be
+a difficult one. But he was patient.
+
+"I see, my child," he commenced, "that you haven't understood or even
+heard me. I told you that Hector was intending to marry."
+
+"He!" answered Jenny, with an ironical gesture. "He get married."
+
+She reflected a moment, and added:
+
+"If it were true, though--"
+
+"I tell you it is so."
+
+"No," cried Jenny, "no, that can't be possible. He loves another, I am
+sure of it, for I have proofs."
+
+Sauvresy smiled; this irritated her.
+
+"What does this letter mean," cried she warmly, "which I found in his
+pocket, six months ago? It isn't signed to be sure, but it must have
+come from a woman."
+
+"A letter?"
+
+"Yes, one that destroys all doubts. Perhaps you ask, why I did not speak
+to him about it? Ah, you see, I did not dare. I loved him. I was afraid
+if I said anything, and it was true he loved another, I should lose him.
+And so I resigned myself to humiliation, I concealed myself to weep, for
+I said to myself, he will come back to me. Poor fool!"
+
+"Well, but what will you do?"
+
+"Me? I don't know--anything. I didn't say anything about the letter, but
+I kept it; it is my weapon--I will make use of it. When I want to, I
+shall find out who she is, and then--"
+
+"You will compel Tremorel, who is kindly disposed toward you, to use
+violence."
+
+"He? What can he do to me? Why, I will follow him like his shadow--I
+will cry out everywhere the name of this other. Will he have me put in
+St. Lazare prison? I will invent the most dreadful calumnies against
+him. They will not believe me at first; later, part of it will be
+believed. I have nothing to fear--I have no parents, no friends, nobody
+on earth who cares for me. That's what it is to raise girls from the
+gutter. I have fallen so low that I defy him to push me lower. So, if
+you are his friend, sir, advise him to come back to me."
+
+Sauvresy was really alarmed; he saw clearly how real and earnest Jenny's
+menaces were. There are persecutions against which the law is powerless.
+But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest air he could assume.
+
+"Hear me, my child," said he. "If I give you my word of honor to tell
+you the truth, you'll believe me, won't you?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, and said:
+
+"Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you."
+
+"Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who is
+immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future."
+
+"He tells you so; he wants you to believe it."
+
+"Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no other
+affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he were my
+brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you how he spends
+his time every hour of every day as well as what I do myself."
+
+Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the words
+on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently, looking at
+Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not observe this, being
+inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity. This proof, which Jenny
+talked about, worried him.
+
+"Suppose," said he, "you should show me this letter."
+
+She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.
+
+"To you?" she said, shuddering. "Never!"
+
+If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts, it
+often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at a
+certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect's wing
+awakens one.
+
+Jenny's shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister
+light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his happiness,
+his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing eye and trembling
+lips.
+
+"Give me the letter," said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled with
+terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn the matter
+into a joke.
+
+"Not to-day," said she. "Another time; you are too curious."
+
+But Sauvresy's anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had had
+a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:
+
+"The letter, I demand the letter."
+
+"Impossible," said Jenny. "Because," she added, struck with an idea, "I
+haven't got it here."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"At my room, in Paris."
+
+"Come, then, let us go there."
+
+She saw that she was caught; and she could find no more excuses,
+quick-witted as she was. She might, however, easily have followed
+Sauvresy, put his suspicions to sleep with her gayety, and when once in
+the Paris streets, might have eluded him and fled. But she did not think
+of that. It occurred to her that she might have time to reach the door,
+open it, and rush downstairs. She started to do so. Sauvresy caught her
+at a bound, shut the door, and said, in a low, hoarse voice:
+
+"Wretched girl! Do you wish me to strike you?"
+
+He pushed her into a chair, returned to the door, double locked it, and
+put the keys in his pocket. "Now," said he, returning to the girl, "the
+letter."
+
+Jenny had never been so terrified in her life. This man's rage made her
+tremble; she saw that he was beside himself, that she was completely at
+his mercy; yet she still resisted him.
+
+"You have hurt me very much," said she, crying, "but I have done you no
+harm."
+
+He grasped her hands in his, and bending over her, repeated:
+
+"For the last time, the letter; give it to me, or I will take it by
+force."
+
+It would have been folly to resist longer. "Leave me alone," said she.
+"You shall have it."
+
+He released her, remaining, however, close by her side, while she
+searched in all her pockets. Her hair had been loosened in the struggle,
+her collar was torn, she was tired, her teeth chattered, but her eyes
+shone with a bold resolution.
+
+"Wait--here it is--no. It's odd--I am sure I've got it though--I had it
+a minute ago--"
+
+And, suddenly, with a rapid gesture, she put the letter, rolled into a
+ball, into her mouth, and tried to swallow it. But Sauvresy as quickly
+grasped her by the throat, and she was forced to disgorge it.
+
+He had the letter at last. His hands trembled so that he could scarcely
+open it.
+
+It was, indeed, Bertha's writing.
+
+Sauvresy tottered with a horrible sensation of dizziness; he could not
+see clearly; there was a red cloud before his eyes; his legs gave way
+under him, he staggered, and his hands stretched out for a support.
+Jenny, somewhat recovered, hastened to give him help; but her touch made
+him shudder, and he repulsed her. What had happened he could not tell.
+Ah, he wished to read this letter and could not. He went to the table,
+turned out and drank two large glasses of water one after another. The
+cold draught restored him, his blood resumed its natural course, and he
+could see. The note was short, and this was what he read:
+
+"Don't go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg; or rather, return before breakfast.
+He has just told me that he must go to Melun, and that he should return
+late. A whole day!"
+
+"He"--that was himself. This other lover of Hector's was Bertha, his
+wife. For a moment he saw nothing but that; all thought was crushed
+within him. His temples beat furiously, he heard a dreadful buzzing in
+his ears, it seemed to him as if the earth were about to swallow him up.
+He fell into a chair; from purple he became ashy white. Great tears
+trickled down his cheeks.
+
+Jenny understood the miserable meanness of her conduct when she saw this
+great grief, this silent despair, this man with a broken heart. Was she
+not the cause of all? She had guessed who the writer of the note was.
+She thought when she asked Sauvresy to come to her, that she could tell
+him all, and thus avenge herself at once upon Hector and her rival.
+Then, on seeing this man refusing to comprehend her hints, she had been
+full of pity for him. She had said to herself that he would be the one
+who would be most cruelly punished; and then she had recoiled--but too
+late--and he had snatched the secret from her.
+
+She approached Sauvresy and tried to take his hands; he still repulsed
+her.
+
+"Let me alone," said he.
+
+"Pardon me, sir--I am a wretch, I am horrified at myself."
+
+He rose suddenly; he was gradually coming to himself.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"That letter--I guessed--"
+
+He burst into a loud, bitter, discordant laugh, and replied:
+
+"God forgive me! Why, my dear, did you dare to suspect my wife?"
+
+While Jenny was muttering confused excuses, he drew out his pocket-book
+and took from it all the money it contained--some seven or eight hundred
+francs--which he put on the table.
+
+"Take this, from Hector," said he, "he will not permit you to suffer for
+anything; but, believe me, you had best let him get married."
+
+Then he mechanically took up his gun, opened the door, and went out. His
+dogs leaped upon him to caress him; he kicked them off. Where was he
+going? What was he going to do?
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+A small, fine, chilly rain had succeeded the morning fog; but Sauvresy
+did not perceive it. He went across the fields with his head bare,
+wandering at hazard, without aim or discretion. He talked aloud as he
+went, stopping ever and anon, then resuming his course. The peasants who
+met him--they all knew him--turned to look at him after having saluted
+him, asking themselves whether the master of Valfeuillu had not gone
+mad. Unhappily he was not mad. Overwhelmed by an unheard-of,
+unlooked-for catastrophe, his brain had been for a moment paralyzed. But
+one by one he collected his scattered ideas and acquired the faculty of
+thinking and of suffering. Each one of his reflections increased his
+mortal anguish. Yes, Bertha and Hector had deceived, had dishonored him.
+She, beloved to idolatry; he, his best and oldest friend, a wretch that
+he had snatched from misery, who owed him everything. And it was in his
+house, under his own roof, that this infamy had taken place. They had
+taken advantage of his noble trust, had made a dupe of him. The
+frightful discovery not only embittered the future, but also the past.
+He longed to blot out of his life these years passed with Bertha, with
+whom, but the night before, he had recalled these "happiest years of his
+life." The memory of his former happiness filled his soul with disgust.
+But how had this been done? When? How was it he had seen nothing of it?
+And now things came into his mind which should have warned him had he
+not been blind. He recalled certain looks of Bertha, certain tones of
+voice, which were an avowal. At times, he tried to doubt. There are
+misfortunes so great that to be believed there must be more than
+evidence.
+
+"It is not possible!" muttered he.
+
+Seating himself upon a prostrate tree in the midst of Mauprevoir forest,
+he studied the fatal letter for the tenth time within four hours.
+
+"It proves all," said he, "and it proves nothing."
+
+And he read once more.
+
+"Do not go to-morrow to Petit-Bourg--"
+
+Well, had he not again and again, in his idiotic confidence, said to
+Hector:
+
+"I shall be away to-morrow, stay here and keep Bertha company."
+
+This sentence, then, had no positive signification. But why add:
+
+"Or rather, return before breakfast."
+
+This was what betrayed fear, that is, the fault. To go away and return
+again anon, was to be cautious, to avoid suspicion. Then, why "he,"
+instead of, "Clement?" This word was striking. "He"--that is, the dear
+one, or else, the master that one hates. There is no medium--'tis the
+husband, or the lover. "He," is never an indifferent person. A husband
+is lost when his wife, in speaking of him, says, "He."
+
+But when had Bertha written these few lines? Doubtless some evening
+after they had retired to their room. He had said to her, "I'm going
+to-morrow to Melun," and then she had hastily scratched off this note
+and given it, in a book, to Hector.
+
+Alas! the edifice of his happiness, which had seemed to him strong
+enough to defy every tempest of life, had crumbled, and he stood there
+lost in the midst of its debris. No more happiness, joys,
+hopes--nothing! All his plans for the future rested on Bertha; her name
+was mingled in his every dream, she was at once the future and the
+dream. He had so loved her that she had become something of himself,
+that he could not imagine himself without her. Bertha lost to him, he
+saw no direction in life to take, he had no further reason for living.
+He perceived this so vividly that the idea of suicide came to him. He
+had his gun, powder and balls; his death would be attributed to a
+hunting accident, and all would be over.
+
+Oh, but the guilty ones!
+
+They would doubtless go on in their infamous comedy--would seem to mourn
+for him, while really their hearts would bound with joy. No more
+husband, no more hypocrisies or terrors. His will giving his fortune to
+Bertha, they would be rich. They would sell everything, and would depart
+rejoicing to some distant clime. As to his memory, poor man, it would
+amuse them to think of him as the cheated and despised husband.
+
+"Never!" cried he, drunk with fury, "never! I must kill myself, but
+first, I must avenge my dishonor!"
+
+But he tried in vain to imagine a punishment cruel or terrible enough.
+What chastisement could expiate the horrible tortures which he endured?
+He said to himself that, in order to assure his vengeance, he must
+wait--and he swore that he would wait. He would feign the same stolid
+confidence, and resigned himself to see and hear everything.
+
+"My hypocrisy will equal theirs," thought he.
+
+Indeed a cautious duplicity was necessary. Bertha was most cunning, and
+at the first suspicion would fly with her lover. Hector had
+already--thanks to him--several hundred thousand francs. The idea that
+they might escape his vengeance gave him energy and a clear head.
+
+It was only then that he thought of the flight of time, the rain falling
+in torrents, and the state of his clothes.
+
+"Bah!" thought he, "I will make up some story to account for myself."
+
+He was only a league from Valfeuillu, but he was an hour and a half
+reaching home. He was broken, exhausted; he felt chilled to the marrow
+of his bones. But when he entered the gate, he had succeeded in assuming
+his usual expression, and the gayety which so well hinted his perfect
+trustfulness. He had been waited for, but in spite of his resolutions,
+he could not sit at table between this man and woman, his two most cruel
+enemies. He said that he had taken cold, and would go to bed. Bertha
+insisted in vain that he should take at least a bowl of broth and a
+glass of claret.
+
+"Really," said he, "I don't feel well."
+
+When he had retired, Bertha said:
+
+"Did you notice, Hector?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Something unusual has happened to him."
+
+"Very likely, after being all day in the rain."
+
+"No. His eye had a look I never saw before."
+
+"He seemed to be very cheerful, as he always is."
+
+"Hector, my husband suspects!"
+
+"He? Ah, my poor good friend has too much confidence in us to think of
+being jealous."
+
+"You deceive yourself, Hector; he did not embrace me when he came in,
+and it is the first time since our marriage."
+
+Thus, at the very first, he had made a blunder. He knew it well; but it
+was beyond his power to embrace Bertha at that moment; and he was
+suffering more than he thought he should. When his wife and his friend
+ascended to his room, after dinner, they found him shivering under the
+sheets, red, his forehead burning, his throat dry, and his eyes shining
+with an unusual brilliancy. A fever soon came on, attended by delirium.
+A doctor was called, who at first said he would not answer for him. The
+next day he was worse. From this time both Hector and Bertha conceived
+for him the most tender devotion. Did they think they should thus in
+some sort expiate their crime? It is doubtful. More likely they tried to
+impose on the people about them; everyone was anxious for Sauvresy. They
+never deserted him for a moment, passing the night by turns near his
+bed. And it was painful to watch over him; a furious delirium never left
+him. Several times force had to be used to keep him on the bed; he tried
+to throw himself out of the window. The third day he had a strange
+fancy; he did not wish to stay in his chamber. He kept crying out:
+
+"Carry me away from here, carry me away from here."
+
+The doctor advised that he should be humored; so a bed was made up for
+him in a little room on the ground-floor, overlooking the garden. His
+wanderings did not betray anything of his suspicions; perhaps the firm
+will was able even to control the delirium. The fever finally yielded on
+the ninth day. His breathing became calmer, and he slept. When he awoke,
+reason had returned. That was a frightful moment. He had, so to speak,
+to take up the burden of his misery. At first he thought it the memory
+of a horrid night-mare; but no. He had not dreamed. He recalled the
+Belle Image, Jenny, the forest, the letter. What had become of the
+letter? Then, having the vague impression of a serious illness, he asked
+himself if he had said anything to betray the source of his misery. This
+anxiety prevented his making the slightest movement, and he opened his
+eyes softly and cautiously. It was eleven at night, and all the servants
+had gone to bed. Hector and Bertha alone were keeping watch; he was
+reading a paper, she was crocheting. Sauvresy saw by their placid
+countenances that he had betrayed nothing. He moved slightly; Bertha at
+once arose and came to him.
+
+"How are you, dear Clement?" asked she, kissing him fondly on the
+forehead.
+
+"I am no longer in pain."
+
+"You see the result of being careless."
+
+"How many days have I been sick?"
+
+"Eight days."
+
+"Why was I brought here?"
+
+"Because you wished it."
+
+Tremorel had approached the bedside.
+
+"You refused to stay upstairs," said he, "you were ungovernable till we
+had you brought here."
+
+"But don't tire yourself," resumed Hector. "Go to sleep again, and you
+will be well by to-morrow. And good-night, for I am going to bed now,
+and shall return and wake your wife at four o'clock."
+
+He went out, and Bertha, having given Sauvresy something to drink,
+returned to her seat.
+
+"What a friend Tremorel is," murmured she. Sauvresy did not answer this
+terribly ironical exclamation. He shut his eyes, pretended to sleep, and
+thought of the letter. What had he done with it? He remembered that he
+had carefully folded it and put it in the right-hand pocket of his vest.
+He must have this letter. It would balk his vengeance, should it fall
+into his wife's hands; and this might happen at any moment. It was a
+miracle that his valet had not put it on the mantel, as he was
+accustomed to do with the things which he found in his master's pockets.
+He was reflecting on some means of getting it, of the possibility of
+going up to his bedroom, where his vest ought to be, when Bertha got up
+softly. She came to the bed and whispered gently:
+
+"Clement, Clement!"
+
+He did not open his eyes, and she, persuaded that he was sleeping,
+though very lightly, stole out of the room, holding her breath as she
+went.
+
+"Oh, the wretch!" muttered Sauvresy, "she is going to him!"
+
+At the same time the necessity of recovering the letter occurred to him
+more vividly than ever.
+
+"I can get to my room," thought he, "without being seen, by the garden
+and back-stairs. She thinks I'm asleep; I shall get back and abed before
+she returns."
+
+Then, without asking himself whether he were not too feeble, or what
+danger there might be in exposing himself to the cold, he got up, threw
+a gown around him, put on his slippers and went toward the door.
+
+"If anyone sees me, I will feign delirium," said he to himself.
+
+The vestibule lamp was out and he found some difficulty in opening the
+door; finally, he descended into the garden. It was intensely cold, and
+snow had fallen. The wind shook the limbs of the trees crusted with ice.
+The front of the house was sombre. One window only was lighted--that of
+Tremorel's room; that was lighted brilliantly, by a lamp and a great
+blazing fire. The shadow of a man--of Hector--rested on the muslin
+curtains; the shape was distinct. He was near the window, and his
+forehead was pressed against the panes. Sauvresy instinctively stopped
+to look at his friend, who was so at home in his house, and who, in
+exchange for the most brotherly hospitality, had brought dishonor,
+despair and death.
+
+Hector made a sudden movement, and turned around as if he was surprised
+by an unwonted noise. What was it? Sauvresy only knew too well. Another
+shadow appeared on the curtain--that of Bertha. And he had forced
+himself to doubt till now! Now proofs had come without his seeking. What
+had brought her to that room, at that hour? She seemed to be talking
+excitedly. He thought he could hear that full, sonorous voice, now as
+clear as metal, now soft and caressing, which had made all the chords of
+passion vibrate in him. He once more saw those beautiful eyes which had
+reigned so despotically over his heart, and whose expressions he knew so
+well. But what was she doing? Doubtless she had gone to ask Hector
+something, which he refused her, and she was pleading with him; Sauvresy
+saw that she was supplicating, by her motions; he knew the gesture well.
+She lifted her clasped hands as high as her forehead, bent her head,
+half shut her eyes. What languor had been in her voice when she used to
+say:
+
+"Say, dear Clement, you will, will you not?"
+
+And now she was using the same blandishments on another. Sauvresy was
+obliged to support himself against a tree. Hector was evidently refusing
+what she wished; then she shook her finger menacingly, and tossed her
+head angrily, as if she were saying:
+
+"You won't? You shall see, then."
+
+And then she returned to her supplications.
+
+"Ah," thought Sauvresy, "he can resist her prayers; I never had such
+courage. He can preserve his coolness, his will, when she looks at him;
+I never said no to her; rather, I never waited for her to ask anything
+of me; I have passed my life in watching her lightest fancies, to
+gratify them. Perhaps that is what has ruined me!"
+
+Hector was obstinate, and Bertha was roused little by little; she must
+be angry. She recoiled, holding out her arms, her head thrown back; she
+was threatening him. At last he was conquered; he nodded, "Yes." Then
+she flung herself upon him, and the two shadows were confounded in a
+long embrace.
+
+Sauvresy could not repress an agonized cry, which was lost amid the
+noises of the night. He had asked for certainty; here it was. The truth,
+indisputable, evident, was clear to him. He had to seek for nothing
+more, now, except for the means to punish surely and terribly. Bertha
+and Hector were talking amicably. Sauvresy saw that she was about to go
+downstairs, and that he could not now go for the letter. He went in
+hurriedly, forgetting, in his fear of being discovered, to lock the
+garden door. He did not perceive that he had been standing with naked
+feet in the snow, till he had returned to his bedroom again; he saw some
+flakes on his slippers, and they were damp; quickly he threw them under
+the bed, and jumped in between the clothes, and pretended to be asleep.
+
+It was time, for Bertha soon came in. She went to the bed, and thinking
+that he had not woke up, returned to her embroidery by the fire.
+Tremorel also soon reappeared; he had forgotten to take his paper, and
+had come back for it. He seemed uneasy.
+
+"Have you been out to-night, Madame?" asked he, in a low voice.
+
+"No."
+
+"Have all the servants gone to bed?"
+
+"I suppose so; but why do you ask?"
+
+"Since I have been upstairs, somebody has gone out into the garden, and
+come back again."
+
+Bertha looked at him with a troubled glance.
+
+"Are you sure of what you say?"
+
+"Certainly. Snow is falling, and whoever went out brought some back on
+his shoes. This has melted in the vestibule--"
+
+Mme. Sauvresy seized the lamp, and interrupting Hector, said:
+
+"Come."
+
+Tremorel was right. Here and there on the vestibule pavement were little
+puddles.
+
+"Perhaps this water has been here some time," suggested Bertha.
+
+"No. It was not there an hour ago, I could swear. Besides, see, here is
+a little snow that has not melted yet."
+
+"It must have been one of the servants."
+
+Hector went to the door and examined it.
+
+"I do not think so," said he. "A servant would have shut the bolts; here
+they are, drawn back. Yet I myself shut the door to-night, and
+distinctly recollect fastening the bolts."
+
+"It's very strange!"
+
+"And all the more so, look you, because the traces of the water do not
+go much beyond the drawing-room door."
+
+They remained silent, and exchanged anxious looks. The same terrible
+thought occurred to them both.
+
+"If it were he?"
+
+But why should he have gone into the garden? It could not have been to
+spy on them.
+
+They did not think of the window.
+
+"It couldn't have been Clement," said Bertha, at last. "He was asleep
+when I went back, and he is in a calm and deep slumber now."
+
+Sauvresy, stretched upon his bed, heard what his enemies were saying. He
+cursed his imprudence.
+
+"Suppose," thought he, "they should think of looking at my gown and
+slippers!"
+
+Happily this simple idea did not occur to them; after reassuring each
+other as well as they were able, they separated; but each heart carried
+an anxious doubt. Sauvresy on that night had a terrible crisis in his
+illness. Delirium, succeeding this ray of reason, renewed its possession
+of his brain. The next morning Dr. R--- pronounced him in more danger
+than ever; and sent a despatch to Paris, saying that he would be
+detained at Valfeuillu three or four days. The distemper redoubled in
+violence; very contradictory symptoms appeared. Each day brought some
+new phase of it, which confounded the foresight of the doctors. Every
+time that Sauvresy had a moment of reason, the scene at the window
+recurred to him, and drove him to madness again.
+
+On that terrible night when he had gone out into the snow, he had not
+been mistaken; Bertha was really begging something of Hector. This was
+it:
+
+M. Courtois, the mayor, had invited Hector to accompany himself and his
+family on an excursion to Fontainebleau on the following day. Hector had
+cordially accepted the invitation. Bertha could not bear the idea of his
+spending the day in Laurence's company, and begged him not to go. She
+told him there were plenty of excuses to relieve him from his promise;
+for instance, he might urge that it would not be seemly for him to go
+when his friend lay dangerously ill. At first he positively refused to
+grant her prayer, but by her supplications and menaces she persuaded
+him, and she did not go downstairs until he had sworn that he would
+write to M. Courtois that very evening declining the invitation. He kept
+his word, but he was disgusted by her tyrannical behavior. He was tired
+of forever sacrificing his wishes and his liberty, so that he could plan
+nothing, say or promise nothing without consulting this jealous woman,
+who would scarcely let him wander out of her sight. The chain became
+heavier and heavier to bear, and he began to see that sooner or later it
+must be wrenched apart. He had never loved either Bertha or Jenny, or
+anyone, probably; but he now loved the mayor's daughter. Her dowry of a
+million had at first dazzled him, but little by little he had been
+subdued by Laurence's charms of mind and person. He, the dissipated
+rake, was seduced by such grave and naive innocence, such frankness and
+beauty; he would have married Laurence had she been poor--as Sauvresy
+married Bertha. But he feared Bertha too much to brave her suddenly, and
+so he waited. The next day after the quarrel about Fontainebleau, he
+declared that he was indisposed, attributed it to the want of exercise,
+and took to the saddle for several hours every day afterward. But he did
+not go far; only to the mayor's. Bertha at first did not perceive
+anything suspicious in Tremorel's rides; it reassured her to see him go
+off on his horse. After some days, however, she thought she saw in him a
+certain feeling of satisfaction concealed under the semblance of
+fatigue. She began to have doubts, and these increased every time he
+went out; all sorts of conjectures worried her while he was away. Where
+did he go? Probably to see Laurence, whom she feared and detested. The
+suspicion soon became a certainty with her. One evening Hector appeared,
+carrying in his button-hole a flower which Laurence herself had put
+there, and which he had forgotten to take out. Bertha took it gently,
+examined it, smelt it, and, compelling herself to smile:
+
+"Why," said she, "what a pretty flower!"
+
+"So I thought," answered Hector, carelessly, "though I don't know what
+it is called."
+
+"Would it be bold to ask who gave it to you?"
+
+"Not at all. It's a present from our good Plantat."
+
+All Orcival knew that M. Plantat, a monomaniac on flowers, never gave
+them away to anyone except Mme. Laurence. Hector's evasion was an
+unhappy one, and Bertha was not deceived.
+
+"You promised me, Hector," said she, "not to see Laurence any more, and
+to give up this marriage."
+
+He tried to reply.
+
+"Let me speak," she continued, "and explain yourself afterward. You have
+broken your word--you are deceiving my confidence! But I tell you, you
+shall not marry her!" Then, without awaiting his reply, she overwhelmed
+him with reproaches. Why had he come here at all? She was happy in her
+home before she knew him. She did not love Sauvresy, it was true; but
+she esteemed him, and he was good to her. Ignorant of the happiness of
+true love, she did not desire it. But he had come, and she could not
+resist his fascination. And now, after having engaged her affection, he
+was going to desert her, to marry another! Tremorel listened to her,
+perfectly amazed at her audacity. What! She dared to pretend that it was
+he who had abused her innocence, when, on the contrary, he had sometimes
+been astonished at her persistency! Such was the depth of her
+corruption, as it seemed to him, that he wondered whether he were her
+first or her twentieth lover. And she had so led him on, and had so
+forcibly made him feel the intensity of her will, that he had been fain
+still to submit to this despotism. But he had now determined to resist
+on the first opportunity; and he resisted.
+
+"Well, yes," said he, frankly, "I did deceive you; I have no
+fortune--this marriage will give me one; I shall get married." He went
+on to say that he loved Laurence less than ever, but that he coveted her
+money more and more every day. "To prove this," he pursued, "if you will
+find me to-morrow a girl who has twelve hundred thousand francs instead
+of a million, I will marry her in preference to Mademoiselle Courtois."
+
+She had never suspected he had so much courage. She had so long moulded
+him like soft wax, and this unexpected conduct disconcerted her. She was
+indignant, but at the same time she felt that unhealthy satisfaction
+that some women feel, when they meet a master who subdues them; and she
+admired Tremorel more than ever before. This time, he had taken a tone
+which conquered her; she despised him enough to think him quite capable
+of marrying for money. When he had done, she said:
+
+"It's really so, then; you only care for the million of dowry?"
+
+"I've sworn it to you a hundred times."
+
+"Truly now, don't you love Laurence?"
+
+"I have never loved her, and never shall." He thought that he would thus
+secure his peace until the wedding-day; once married, he cared not what
+would happen. What cared he for Sauvresy? Life is only a succession of
+broken friendships. What is a friend, after all? One who can and ought
+to serve you. Ability consists in breaking with people, when they cease
+to be useful to you.
+
+Bertha reflected.
+
+"Hear me, Hector," said she at last. "I cannot calmly resign myself to
+the sacrifice which you demand. Let me have but a few days, to accustom
+myself to this dreadful blow. You owe me as much--let Clement get well,
+first."
+
+He did not expect to see her so gentle and subdued; who would have
+looked for such concessions, so easily obtained? The idea of a snare did
+not occur to him. In his delight he betrayed how he rejoiced in his
+liberty, which ought to have undeceived Bertha; but she did not perceive
+it. He grasped her hand, and cried:
+
+"Ah, you are very good--you really love me."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+The Count de Tremorel did not anticipate that the respite which Bertha
+begged would last long. Sauvresy had seemed better during the last week.
+He got up every day, and commenced to go about the house; he even
+received numerous visits from the neighbors; without apparent fatigue.
+But alas, the master of Valfeuillu was only the shadow of himself. His
+friends would never have recognized in that emaciated form and white
+face, and burning, haggard eye, the robust young man with red lips and
+beaming visage whom they remembered. He had suffered so! He did not wish
+to die before avenging himself on the wretches who had filched his
+happiness and his life. But what punishment should he inflict? This
+fixed idea burning in his brain, gave his look a fiery eagerness.
+Ordinarily, there are three modes in which a betrayed husband may avenge
+himself. He has the right, and it is almost a duty--to deliver the
+guilty ones up to the law, which is on his side. He may adroitly watch
+them, surprise them and kill them. There is a law which does not
+absolve, but excuses him, in this. Lastly, he may affect a stolid
+indifference, laugh the first and loudest at his misfortune, drive his
+wife from his roof, and leave her to starve. But what poor, wretched
+methods of vengeance. Give up his wife to the law? Would not that be to
+offer his name, honor, and life to public ridicule? To put himself at
+the mercy of a lawyer, who would drag him through the mire. They do not
+defend the erring wife, they attack her husband. And what satisfaction
+would he get? Bertha and Tremorel would be condemned to a year's
+imprisonment, perhaps eighteen months, possibly two years. It seemed to
+him simpler to kill them. He might go in, fire a revolver at them, and
+they would not have time to comprehend it, for their agony would be but
+for a moment; and then? Then, he must become a prisoner, submit to a
+trial, invoke the judge's mercy, and risk conviction. As to turning his
+wife out of doors, that was to hand her over quietly to Hector. He
+imagined them leaving Valfeuillu, hand in hand, happy and smiling, and
+laughing in his face. At this thought he had a fit of cold rage; his
+self-esteem adding the sharpest pains to the wounds in his heart. None
+of these vulgar methods could satisfy him. He longed for some revenge
+unheard-of, strange, monstrous, as his tortures were. Then he thought of
+all the horrible tales he had read, seeking one to his purpose; he had a
+right to be particular, and he was determined to wait until he was
+satisfied. There was only one thing that could balk his
+progress--Jenny's letter. What had become of it? Had he lost it in the
+woods? He had looked for it everywhere, and could not find it.
+
+He accustomed himself, however, to feign, finding a sort of fierce
+pleasure in the constraint. He learned to assume a countenance which
+completely hid his thoughts. He submitted to his wife's caresses without
+an apparent shudder; and shook Hector by the hand as heartily as ever.
+In the evening, when they were gathered about the drawing-room table, he
+was the gayest of the three. He built a hundred air-castles, pictured a
+hundred pleasure-parties, when he was able to go abroad again. Hector
+rejoiced at his returning health.
+
+"Clement is getting on finely," said he to Bertha, one evening.
+
+She understood only too well what he meant.
+
+"Always thinking of Laurence?"
+
+"Did you not permit me to hope?"
+
+"I asked you to wait, Hector, and you have done well not to be in a
+hurry. I know a young girl who would bring you, not one, but three
+millions as dowry."
+
+This was a painful surprise. He really had no thoughts for anyone but
+Laurence, and now a new obstacle presented itself.
+
+"And who is that?"
+
+She leaned over, and whispered tremblingly in his ear:
+
+"I am Clement's sole heiress; perhaps he'll die; I might be a widow
+to-morrow."
+
+Hector was petrified.
+
+"But Sauvresy, thank God! is getting well fast."
+
+Bertha fixed her large, clear eyes upon him, and with frightful calmness
+said:
+
+"What do you know about it?"
+
+Tremorel dared not ask what these strange words meant. He was one of
+those men who shun explanations, and who, rather than put themselves on
+their guard in time, permit themselves to be drawn on by circumstances;
+soft and feeble beings, who deliberately bandage their eyes so as not to
+see the danger which threatens them, and who prefer the sloth of doubt,
+and acts of uncertainty to a definite and open position, which they have
+not the courage to face.
+
+Besides, Hector experienced a childish satisfaction in seeing Bertha's
+distress, though he feared and detested her. He conceived a great
+opinion of his own value and merit, when he saw the persistency and
+desperation with which she insisted on keeping her hold on him.
+
+"Poor woman!" thought he. "In her grief at losing me, and seeing me
+another's, she has begun to wish for her husband's death!"
+
+Such was the torpor of his moral sense that he did not see the vileness
+of Bertha's and his own thoughts.
+
+Meanwhile Sauvresy's state was not reassuring for Hector's hopes and
+plans. On the very day when he had this conversation with Bertha, her
+husband was forced to take to his bed again. This relapse took place
+after he had drank a glass of quinine and water, which he had been
+accustomed to take just before supper; only, this time, the symptoms
+changed entirely, as if one malady had yielded to another of a very
+different kind. He complained of a pricking in his skin, of vertigo, of
+convulsive twitches which contracted and twisted his limbs, especially
+his arms. He cried out with excruciating neuralgic pains in the face. He
+was seized with a violent, persistent, tenacious craving for pepper,
+which nothing could assuage. He was sleepless, and morphine in large
+doses failed to bring him slumber; while he felt an intense chill within
+him, as if the body's temperature were gradually diminishing. Delirium
+had completely disappeared, and the sick man retained perfectly the
+clearness of his mind. Sauvresy bore up wonderfully under his pains, and
+seemed to take a new interest in the business of his estates. He was
+constantly in consultation with bailiffs and agents, and shut himself up
+for days together with notaries and attorneys. Then, saying that he must
+have distractions, he received all his friends, and when no one called,
+he sent for some acquaintance to come and chat with him in order to
+forget his illness. He gave no hint of what he was doing and thinking,
+and Bertha was devoured by anxiety. She often watched for her husband's
+agent, when, after a conference of several hours, he came out of his
+room; and making herself as sweet and fascinating as possible, she used
+all her cunning to find out something which would enlighten her as to
+what he was about. But no one could, or at least would, satisfy her
+curiosity; all gave evasive replies, as if Sauvresy had cautioned them,
+or as if there were nothing to tell.
+
+No complaints were heard from Sauvresy. He talked constantly of Bertha
+and Hector; he wished all the world to know their devotion to him; he
+called them his "guardian angels," and blessed Heaven that had given him
+such a wife and such a friend. Sauvresy's illness now became so serious
+that Tremorel began to despair; he became alarmed; what position would
+his friend's death leave him in? Bertha, having become a widow, would be
+implacable. He resolved to find out her inmost thoughts at the first
+opportunity; she anticipated him, and saved him the trouble of broaching
+the subject. One afternoon, when they were alone, M. Plantat being in
+attendance at the sick man's bedside, Bertha commenced.
+
+"I want some advice, Hector, and you alone can give it to me. How can I
+find out whether Clement, within the past day or two, has not changed
+his will in regard to me?"
+
+"His will?"
+
+"Yes, I've already told you that by a will of which I myself have a
+copy, Sauvresy has left me his whole fortune. I fear that he may perhaps
+revoke it."
+
+"What an idea!"
+
+"Ah, I have reasons for my apprehensions. What are all these agents and
+attorneys doing at Valfeuillu? A stroke of this man's pen may ruin me.
+Don't you see that he can deprive me of his millions, and reduce me to
+my dowry of fifty thousand francs?"
+
+"But he will not do it; he loves you--"
+
+"Are you sure of it? I've told you, there are three millions; I must
+have this fortune--not for myself, but for you; I want it, I must have
+it! But how can I find out--how? how?"
+
+Hector was very indignant. It was to this end, then, that his delays had
+conducted him! She thought that she had a right now to dispose of him in
+spite of himself, and, as it were, to purchase him. And he could not,
+dared not, say anything!
+
+"We must be patient," said he, "and wait--"
+
+"Wait--for what? Till he's dead?"
+
+"Don't speak so."
+
+"Why not?" Bertha went up to him, and in a low voice, muttered:
+
+"He has only a week to live; and see here--"
+
+She drew a little vial from her pocket, and held it up to him.
+
+"That is what convinces me that I am not mistaken."
+
+Hector became livid, and could not stifle a cry of horror. He
+comprehended all now--he saw how it was that Bertha had been so easily
+subdued, why she had refrained from speaking of Laurence, her strange
+words, her calm confidence.
+
+"Poison!" stammered he, confounded.
+
+"Yes, poison."
+
+"You have not used it?"
+
+She fixed a hard, stern look upon him--the look which had subdued his
+will, against which he had struggled in vain--and in a calm voice,
+emphasizing each word, answered:
+
+"I have used it."
+
+The count was, indeed, a dangerous man, unscrupulous, not recoiling from
+any wickedness when his passions were to be indulged, capable of
+everything; but this horrible crime awoke in him all that remained of
+honest energy.
+
+"Well," he cried, in disgust, "you will not use it again!"
+
+He hastened toward the door, shuddering; she stopped him.
+
+"Reflect before you act," said she, coldly. "I will betray the fact of
+your relations with me; who will then believe that you are not my
+accomplice?"
+
+He saw the force of this terrible menace, coming from Bertha.
+
+"Come," said she, ironically, "speak--betray me if you choose. Whatever
+happens, for happiness or misery, we shall no longer be separated; our
+destinies will be the same."
+
+Hector fell heavily into a chair, more overwhelmed than if he had been
+struck with a hammer. He held his bursting forehead between his hands;
+he saw himself shut up in an infernal circle, without outlet.
+
+"I am lost!" he stammered, without knowing what he said, "I am lost!"
+
+He was to be pitied; his face was terribly haggard, great drops of
+perspiration stood at the roots of his hair, his eyes wandered as if he
+were insane. Bertha shook him rudely by the arm, for his cowardice
+exasperated her.
+
+"You are afraid," she said. "You are trembling! Lost? You would not say
+so, if you loved me as I do you. Will you be lost because I am to be
+your wife, because we shall be free to love in the face of all the
+world? Lost! Then you have no idea of what I have endured? You don't
+know, then, that I am tired of suffering, fearing, feigning."
+
+"Such a crime!"
+
+She burst out with a laugh that made him shudder.
+
+"You ought to have said so," said she, with a look full of contempt,
+"the day you won me from Sauvresy--the day that you stole the wife of
+this friend who saved your life. Do you think that was a less horrid
+crime? You knew as well as I did how much my husband loved me, and that
+he would have preferred to die, rather than lose me thus."
+
+"But he knows nothing, suspects nothing of it."
+
+"You are mistaken; Sauvresy knows all."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"All, I tell you--and he has known all since that day when he came home
+so late from hunting. Don't you remember that I noticed his strange
+look, and said to you that my husband suspected something? You shrugged
+your shoulders. Do you forget the steps in the vestibule the night I
+went to your room? He had been spying on us. Well, do you want a more
+certain proof? Look at this letter, which I found, crumpled up and wet,
+in one of his vest pockets."
+
+She showed him the letter which Sauvresy had forcibly taken from Jenny,
+and he recognized it well.
+
+"It is a fatality," said he, overwhelmed. "But we can separate and break
+off with each other. Bertha, I can go away."
+
+"It's too late. Believe me, Hector, we are to-day defending our lives.
+Ah, you don't know Clement! You don't know what the fury of a man like
+him can be, when he sees that his confidence has been outrageously
+abused, and his trust vilely betrayed. If he has said nothing to me, and
+has not let us see any traces of his implacable anger, it is because he
+is meditating some frightful vengeance."
+
+This was only too probable, and Hector saw it clearly.
+
+"What shall we do?" he asked, in a hoarse voice; he was almost
+speechless.
+
+"Find out what change he has made in his will."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"I don't know yet. I came to ask your advice, and I find you more
+cowardly than a woman. Let me act, then; don't do anything yourself; I
+will do all."
+
+He essayed an objection.
+
+"Enough," said she. "He must not ruin us after all--I will see--I will
+think."
+
+Someone below called her. She went down, leaving Hector overcome with
+despair.
+
+That evening, during which Bertha seemed happy and smiling, his face
+finally betrayed so distinctly the traces of his anguish, that Sauvresy
+tenderly asked him if he were not ill?
+
+"You exhaust yourself tending on me, my good Hector," said he. "How can
+I ever repay your devotion?"
+
+Tremorel had not the strength to reply.
+
+"And that man knows all," thought he. "What courage! What fate can he be
+reserving for us?"
+
+The scene which was passing before Hector's eyes made his flesh creep.
+Every time that Bertha gave her husband his medicine, she took a
+hair-pin from her tresses, and plunged it into the little vial which she
+had shown him, taking up thus some small, white grains, which she
+dissolved in the potions prescribed by the doctor.
+
+It might be supposed that Tremorel, enslaved by his horrid position, and
+harassed by increasing terror, would renounce forever his proposed
+marriage with Laurence. Not so. He clung to that project more
+desperately than ever. Bertha's threats, the great obstacles now
+intervening, his anguish, crime, only augmented the violence of his love
+for her, and fed the flame of his ambition to secure her as his wife. A
+small and flickering ray of hope which lighted the darkness of his
+despair, consoled and revived him, and made the present more easy to
+bear. He said to himself that Bertha could not be thinking of marrying
+him the day after her husband's death. Months, a whole year must pass,
+and thus he would gain time; then some day he would declare his will.
+What would she have to say? Would she divulge the crime, and try to hold
+him as her accomplice? Who would believe her? How could she prove that
+he, who loved and had married another woman, had any interest in
+Sauvresy's death? People don't kill their friends for the mere pleasure
+of it. Would she provoke the law to exhume her husband? She was now in a
+position, thought he, wherein she could, or would not exercise her
+reason. Later on, she would reflect, and then she would be arrested by
+the probability of those dangers, the certainty of which did not now
+terrify her.
+
+He did not wish that she should ever be his wife at any price. He would
+have detested her had she possessed millions; he hated her now that she
+was poor, ruined, reduced to her own narrow means. And that she was so,
+there was no doubt, Sauvresy indeed knew all. He was content to wait; he
+knew that Laurence loved him enough to wait for him one, or three years,
+if necessary. He already had such absolute power over her, that she did
+not try to combat the thoughts of him, which gently forced themselves on
+her, penetrated to her soul, and filled her mind and heart. Hector said
+to himself that in the interest of his designs, perhaps it was well that
+Bertha was acting as she did. He forced himself to stifle his conscience
+in trying to prove that he was not guilty. Who thought of this crime?
+Bertha. Who was executing it? She alone. He could only be reproached
+with moral complicity in it, a complicity involuntary, forced upon him,
+imposed somehow by the care for his own life. Sometimes, however, a
+bitter remorse seized him. He could have understood a sudden, violent,
+rapid murder; could have explained to himself a knife-stroke; but this
+slow death, given drop by drop, horribly sweetened by tenderness, veiled
+under kisses, appeared to him unspeakably hideous. He was mortally
+afraid of Bertha, as of a reptile, and when she embraced him he
+shuddered from head to foot.
+
+She was so calm, so engaging, so natural; her voice had the same soft
+and caressing tones, that he could not forget it. She plunged her
+hair-pin into the fatal vial without ceasing her conversation, and he
+did not surprise her in any shrinking or shuddering, nor even a
+trembling of the eyelids. She must have been made of brass. Yet he
+thought that she was not cautious enough; and that she put herself in
+danger of discovery; and he told her of these fears, and how she made
+him tremble every moment.
+
+"Have confidence in me," she answered. "I want to succeed--I am
+prudent."
+
+"But you may be suspected."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Eh! How do I know? Everyone--the servants, the doctor."
+
+"No danger. And suppose they did suspect?"
+
+"They would make examinations, Bertha; they would make a minute
+scrutiny."
+
+She gave a smile of the most perfect security.
+
+"They might examine and experiment as much as they pleased, they would
+find nothing. Do you think I am such a fool as to use arsenic?"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, hush!"
+
+"I have procured one of those poisons which are as yet unknown, and
+which defy all analysis; one of which many doctors--and learned ones,
+too--could not even tell the symptoms!"
+
+"But where did you get this--this--"
+
+He dared not say, "poison."
+
+"Who gave you that?" resumed he.
+
+"What matters it? I have taken care that he who gave it to me should run
+the same danger as myself, and he knows it. There's nothing to fear from
+that quarter. I've paid him enough to smother all his regrets."
+
+An objection came to his lips; he wanted to say, "It's too slow;" but he
+had not the courage, though she read his thought in his eyes.
+
+"It is slow, because that suits me," said she. "Before all, I must know
+about the will--and that I am trying to find out."
+
+She occupied herself constantly about this will, and during the long
+hours that she passed at Sauvresy's bedside, she gradually, with the
+greatest craft and delicacy, led her husband's mind in the direction of
+his last testament, with such success that he himself mentioned the
+subject which so absorbed Bertha.
+
+He said that he did not comprehend why people did not always have their
+worldly affairs in order, and their wishes fully written down, in case
+of accident. What difference did it make whether one were ill or well?
+At these words Bertha attempted to stop him. Such ideas, she said,
+pained her too much. She even shed real tears, which fell down her
+cheeks and made her more beautiful and irresistible than before; real
+tears which moistened her handkerchief.
+
+"You dear silly creature," said Sauvresy, "do you think that makes one
+die?"
+
+"No; but I do not wish it."
+
+"But, dear, have we been any the less happy because, on the day after
+our marriage, I made a will bequeathing you all my fortune? And, stop;
+you have a copy of it, haven't you? If you were kind, you would go and
+fetch it for me."
+
+She became very red, then very pale. Why did he ask for this copy? Did
+he want to tear it up? A sudden thought reassured her; people do not
+tear up a document which can be cancelled by a scratch of the pen on
+another sheet of paper. Still, she hesitated a moment.
+
+"I don't know where it can be."
+
+"But I do. It is in the left-hand drawer of the glass cupboard; come,
+please me by getting it."
+
+While she was gone, Sauvresy said to Hector:
+
+"Poor girl! Poor dear Bertha! If I died, she never would survive me!"
+
+Tremorel thought of nothing to reply; his anxiety was intense and
+visible.
+
+"And this man," thought he, "suspects something! No; it is not
+possible."
+
+Bertha returned.
+
+"I have found it," said she.
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+He took the copy of his will, and read it with evident satisfaction,
+nodding his head at certain passages in which he referred to his love
+for his wife. When he had finished reading, he said:
+
+"Now give me a pen and some ink."
+
+Hector and Bertha reminded him that it would fatigue him to write; but
+he insisted. The two guilty ones, seated at the foot of the bed and out
+of Sauvresy's sight, exchanged looks of alarm. What was he going to
+write? But he speedily finished it.
+
+"Take this," said he to Tremorel, "and read aloud what I have just
+added."
+
+Hector complied with his friend's request, with trembling voice:
+
+"This day, being sound in mind, though much suffering, I declare that I
+do not wish to change a line of this will. Never have I loved my wife
+more--never have I so much desired to leave her the heiress of all I
+possess, should I die before her.
+
+"CLEMENT SAUVRESY."
+
+
+Mistress of herself as Bertha was, she succeeded in concealing the
+unspeakable satisfaction with which she was filled. All her wishes were
+accomplished, and yet she was able to veil her delight under an apparent
+sadness.
+
+"Of what good is this?" said she, with a sigh.
+
+She said this, but half an hour afterward, when she was alone with
+Hector, she gave herself up to the extravagance of her delight.
+
+"Nothing more to fear," exclaimed she. "Nothing! Now we shall have
+liberty, fortune, love, pleasure, life! Why, Hector, we shall have at
+least three millions; you see, I've got this will myself, and I shall
+keep it. No more agents or notaries shall be admitted into this house
+henceforth. Now I must hasten!"
+
+The count certainly felt a satisfaction in knowing her to be rich, for
+he could much more easily get rid of a millionnaire widow than of a poor
+penniless woman. Sauvresy's conduct thus calmed many sharp anxieties.
+Her restless gayety, however, her confident security, seemed monstrous
+to Hector. He would have wished for more solemnity in the execution of
+the crime; he thought that he ought at least to calm Bertha's delirium.
+
+"You will think more than once of Sauvresy," said he, in a graver tone.
+
+She answered with a "prrr," and added vivaciously:
+
+"Of him? when and why? Oh, his memory will not weigh on me very heavily.
+I trust that we shall be able to live still at Valfeuillu, for the place
+pleases me; but we must also have a house at Paris--or we will buy yours
+back again. What happiness, Hector!"
+
+The mere prospect of this anticipated felicity so shocked Hector, that
+his better self for the moment got the mastery; he essayed to move
+Bertha.
+
+"For the last time," said he, "I implore you to renounce this terrible,
+dangerous project. You see that you were mistaken--that Sauvresy
+suspects nothing, but loves you as well as ever."
+
+The expression of Bertha's face suddenly changed; she sat quite still,
+in a pensive revery.
+
+"Don't let's talk any more of that," said she, at last. "Perhaps I was
+mistaken. Perhaps he only had doubts--perhaps, although he has
+discovered something, he hopes to win me back by his goodness. But you
+see--"
+
+She stopped. Doubtless she did not wish to alarm him.
+
+He was already much alarmed. The next day he went off to Melun without a
+word; being unable to bear the sight of this agony, and fearing to
+betray himself. But he left his address, and when she sent word that
+Sauvresy was always crying out for him, he hastily returned. Her letter
+was most imprudent and absurd, and made his hair stand on end. He had
+intended, on his arrival, to reproach her; but it was she who upbraided
+him.
+
+"Why this flight?"
+
+"I could not stay here--I suffered, trembled, felt as if I were dying."
+
+"What a coward you are!"
+
+He would have replied, but she put her finger on his mouth, and pointed
+with her other hand to the door of the next room.
+
+"Sh! Three doctors have been in consultation there for the past hour,
+and I haven't been able to hear a word of what they said. Who knows what
+they are about? I shall not be easy till they go away."
+
+Bertha's fears were not without foundation. When Sauvresy had his last
+relapse, and complained of a severe neuralgia in the face and an
+irresistible craving for pepper, Dr. R--- had uttered a significant
+exclamation. It was nothing, perhaps--yet Bertha had heard it, and she
+thought she surprised a sudden suspicion on the doctor's part; and this
+now disturbed her, for she thought that it might be the subject of the
+consultation. The suspicion, however, if there had ever been any,
+quickly vanished. The symptoms entirely changed twelve hours later, and
+the next day the sick man felt pains quite the opposite of those which
+had previously distressed him. This very inconstancy of the distemper
+served to puzzle the doctor's conclusions. Sauvresy, in these latter
+days, had scarcely suffered at all, he said, and had slept well at
+night; but he had, at times, strange and often distressing sensations.
+He was evidently failing hourly; he was dying--everyone perceived it.
+And now Dr. R--- asked for a consultation, the result of which had not
+been reached when Tremorel returned.
+
+The drawing-room door at last swung open, and the calm faces of the
+physicians reassured the poisoner. Their conclusions were that the case
+was hopeless; everything had been tried and exhausted; no human
+resources had been neglected; the only hope was in Sauvresy's strong
+constitution.
+
+Bertha, colder than marble, motionless, her eyes full of tears, seemed
+so full of grief on hearing this cruel decision, that all the doctors
+were touched.
+
+"Is there no hope then? Oh, my God!" cried she, in agonizing tones.
+
+Dr. R--- hardly dared to attempt to comfort her; he answered her
+questions evasively.
+
+"We must never despair," said he, "when the invalid is of Sauvresy's age
+and constitution; nature often works miracles when least expected."
+
+The doctor, however, lost no time in taking Hector apart and begging him
+to prepare the poor, devoted, loving young lady for the terrible blow
+about to ensue.
+
+"For you see," added he, "I don't think Monsieur Sauvresy can live more
+than two days!"
+
+Bertha, with her ear at the keyhole, had heard the doctor's prediction;
+and when Hector returned from conducting the physician to the door, he
+found her radiant. She rushed into his arms.
+
+"Now" cried she, "the future truly belongs to us. Only one black point
+obscured our horizon, and it has cleared away. It is for me to realize
+Doctor R--- 's prediction." They dined together, as usual, in the
+dining-room, while one of the chambermaids remained beside the sick-bed.
+Bertha was full of spirits which she could scarcely control. The
+certainty of success and safety, the assurance of reaching the end, made
+her imprudently gay. She spoke aloud, even in the presence of the
+servants, of her approaching liberty. During the evening she was more
+reckless than ever. If any of the servants should have a suspicion, or a
+shadow of one she might be discovered and lost. Hector constantly nudged
+her under the table and frowned at her, to keep her quiet; he felt his
+blood run cold at her conduct; all in vain. There are times when the
+armor of hypocrisy becomes so burdensome that one is forced, cost what
+it may, to throw it off if only for an instant.
+
+While Hector was smoking his cigar, Bertha was more freely pursuing her
+dream. She was thinking that she could spend the period of her mourning
+at Valfeuillu, and Hector, for the sake of appearances, would hire a
+pretty little house somewhere in the suburbs. The worst of it all was
+that she would be forced to seem to mourn for Sauvresy, as she had
+pretended to love him during his lifetime. But at last a day would come
+when, without scandal, she might throw off her mourning clothes, and
+then they would get married. Where? At Paris or Orcival?
+
+Hector's thoughts ran in the same channel. He, too, wished to see his
+friend under the ground to end his own terrors, and to submit to
+Bertha's terrible yoke.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Time passed. Hector and Bertha repaired to Sauvresy's room; he was
+asleep. They noiselessly took chairs beside the fire, as usual, and the
+maid retired. In order that the sick man might not be disturbed by the
+light of the lamp, curtains had been hung so that, when lying down, he
+could not see the fireplace and mantel. In order to see these, he must
+have raised himself on his pillow and leaned forward on his right arm.
+But now he was asleep, breathing painfully, feverish, and shuddering
+convulsively. Bertha and Hector did not speak; the solemn and sinister
+silence was only broken by the ticking of the clock, or by the leaves of
+the book which Hector was reading. Ten o'clock struck; soon after
+Sauvresy moved, turned over, and awoke. Bertha was at his side in an
+instant; she saw that his eyes were open.
+
+"Do you feel a little better, dear Clement?" she asked.
+
+"Neither better nor worse."
+
+"Do you want anything?"
+
+"I am thirsty."
+
+Hector, who had raised his eyes when his friend spoke, suddenly resumed
+his reading.
+
+Bertha, standing by the mantel, began to prepare with great care Dr.
+R--- 's last prescription; when it was ready, she took out the fatal
+little vial as usual, and thrust one of her hair-pins into it.
+
+She had not time to draw it out before she felt a light touch upon her
+shoulder. A shudder shook her from head to foot; she suddenly turned and
+uttered a loud scream, a cry of terror and horror.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The hand which had touched her was her husband's. While she was busied
+with the poison at the mantel, Sauvresy had softly raised himself; more
+softly still, he had pulled the curtain aside, and had stretched out his
+arm and touched her. His eyes glittered with hate and anger.
+
+Bertha's cry was answered by another dull cry, or rather groan; Tremorel
+had seen and comprehended all; he was overwhelmed.
+
+"All is discovered!" Their eyes spoke these three words to each other.
+They saw them everywhere, written in letters of fire. There was a moment
+of stupor, of silence so profound that Hector heard his temples beat.
+Sauvresy had got back under the bed-clothes again. He laughed loudly,
+wildly, just as a skeleton might have laughed whose jaws and teeth
+rattled together.
+
+But Bertha was not one of those persons who are overcome by a single
+blow, terrible as it might be. She trembled like a leaf; her legs
+staggered; but her mind was already at work seeking a subterfuge. What
+had Sauvresy seen--anything? What did he know? For even had he seen the
+vial, this might be explained. It could only have been by simple chance
+that he had touched her at the moment when she was using the poison. All
+these thoughts flashed across her mind in a moment, as rapid as
+lightning shooting between the clouds. And then she dared to approach
+the bed, and, with a frightfully constrained smile, to say:
+
+"How you frightened me then!"
+
+He looked at her a moment, which seemed to her an age--and simply
+replied:
+
+"I understand it."
+
+There was no longer any uncertainty. Bertha saw only too well in her
+husband's eyes that he knew something. But what--how much? She nerved
+herself to go on:
+
+"Are you still suffering?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why did you get up?"
+
+He raised himself upon his pillow, and with a sudden strength, he
+continued:
+
+"I got up to tell you that I have had enough of these tortures, that I
+have reached the limits of human energy, that I cannot endure one day
+longer the agony of seeing myself put to death slowly, drop by drop, by
+the hands of my wife and my best friend!"
+
+He stopped. Hector and Bertha were thunderstruck. "I wanted to tell you
+also, that I have had enough of your cruel caution, and that I suffer.
+Ah, don't you see that I suffer horribly? Hurry, cut short my agony!
+Kill me, and kill me at a blow--poisoners!"
+
+At the last word, the Count de Tremorel sprang up as if he had moved by
+a spring, his eyes haggard, his arms stretched out. Sauvresy, seeing
+this, quickly slipped his hand under the pillow, pulled out a revolver,
+and pointed the barrel at Hector, crying out:
+
+"Don't advance a step!"
+
+He thought that Tremorel, seeing that they were discovered, was going to
+rush upon him and strangle him; but he was mistaken. It seemed to Hector
+as though he were losing his mind. He fell down as heavily as if he were
+a log. Bertha was more self-possessed; she tried to resist the torpor of
+terror which she felt coming on.
+
+"You are worse, my Clement," said she. "This is that dreadful fever
+which frightens me so. Delirium--"
+
+"Have I really been delirious?" interrupted he, with a surprised air.
+
+"Alas, yes, dear, that is what haunts you, and fills your poor sick head
+with horrid visions."
+
+He looked at her curiously. He was really stupefied by this boldness,
+which constantly grew more bold.
+
+"What! you think that we, who are so dear to you, your friends, I,
+your--"
+
+Her husband's implacable look forced her to stop, and the words expired
+on her lips.
+
+"Enough of these lies, Bertha," resumed Sauvresy, "they are useless. No,
+I have not been dreaming, nor have I been delirious. The poison is only
+too real, and I could tell you what it is without your taking it out of
+your pocket."
+
+She recoiled as if she had seen her husband's hand stretched out to
+snatch the blue vial.
+
+"I guessed it and recognized it at the very first; for you have chosen
+one of those poisons which, it is true, leave scarcely any trace of
+themselves, but the symptoms of which are not deceptive. Do you remember
+the day when I complained of a morbid taste for pepper? The next day I
+was certain of it, and I was not the only one. Doctor R---, too, had a
+suspicion."
+
+Bertha tried to stammer something; her husband interrupted her.
+
+"People ought to try their poisons," pursued he, in an ironical tone,
+"before they use them. Didn't you understand yours, or what its effects
+were? Why, your poison gives intolerable neuralgia, sleeplessness, and
+you saw me without surprise, sleeping soundly all night long! I
+complained of a devouring fire within me, while your poison freezes the
+blood and the entrails, and yet you are not astonished. You see all the
+symptoms change and disappear, and that does not enlighten you. You are
+fools, then. Now see what I had to do to divert Doctor R--- 's
+suspicions. I hid the real pains which your poison caused, and
+complained of imaginary, ridiculous ones. I described sensations just
+the opposite of those which I felt. You were lost, then--and I saved
+you."
+
+Bertha's malignant energy staggered beneath so many successive blows.
+She wondered whether she were not going mad; had she heard aright? Was
+it really true that her husband had perceived that he was being
+poisoned, and yet said nothing; nay, that he had even deceived the
+doctor? Why? What was his purpose?
+
+Sauvresy paused several minutes, and then went on:
+
+"I have held my tongue and so saved you, because the sacrifice of my
+life had already been made. Yes, I had been fatally wounded in the heart
+on the day that I learned that you were faithless to me."
+
+He spoke of his death without apparent emotion; but at the words, "You
+were faithless to me," his voice faltered and trembled.
+
+"I would not, could not believe it at first. I doubted the evidence of
+my senses, rather than doubt you. But I was forced to believe at last. I
+was no longer anything in my house but a laughing-stock. But I was in
+your way. You and your lover needed more room and liberty. You were
+tired of constraint and hypocrisy. Then it was that, believing that my
+death would make you free and rich, you brought in poison to rid
+yourselves of me."
+
+Bertha had at least the heroism of crime. All was discovered; well, she
+threw down the mask. She tried to defend her accomplice, who lay
+unconscious in a chair.
+
+"It is I that have done it all," cried she. "He is innocent."
+
+Sauvresy turned pale with rage.
+
+"Ah, really," said he, "my friend Hector is innocent! It wasn't he,
+then, who, to pay me up--not for his life, for he was too cowardly to
+kill himself; but for his honor, which he owes to me--took my wife from
+me? Wretch! I hold out my hand to him when he is drowning, I welcome him
+like a brother, and in return, he desolates my hearth!... And you
+knew what you were doing, my friend Hector--for I told you a hundred
+times that my wife was my all here below, my present and my future, my
+dream and happiness and hope and very life! You knew that for me to lose
+her was to die. But if you had loved her--no, it was not that you loved
+her; you hated me. Envy devoured you, and you could not tell me to my
+face, 'You are too happy.' Then, like a coward, you dishonored me in the
+dark. Bertha was only the instrument of your rancor; and she weighs upon
+you to-day--you despise and fear her. My friend, Hector, you have been
+in this house the vile lackey who thinks to avenge his baseness by
+spitting upon the meats which he puts on his master's table!"
+
+The count only responded by a shudder. The dying man's terrible words
+fell more cruelly on his conscience than blows upon his cheek.
+
+"See, Bertha," continued Sauvresy, "that's the man whom you have
+preferred to me, and for whom you have betrayed me. You never loved
+me--I see it now--your heart was never Mine. And I--I loved you so! From
+the day I first saw you, you were my only thought; as if your heart had
+beaten in place of Mine. Everything about you was dear and precious to
+me; I adored your whims, caprices, even your faults. There was nothing I
+would not do for a smile from you, so that you would say to me, Thank
+you, between two kisses. You don't know that for years after our
+marriage it was my delight to wake up first so as to gaze upon you as
+you lay asleep, to admire and touch your lovely hair, lying dishevelled
+across the pillow. Bertha!"
+
+He softened at the remembrance of these past joys, which would not come
+again. He forgot their presence, the infamous treachery, the poison;
+that he was about to die, murdered by this beloved wife; and his eyes
+filled with tears, his voice choked.
+
+Bertha, more motionless and pallid than marble, listened to him
+breathlessly.
+
+"It is true, then," continued the sick man, "that these lovely eyes
+conceal a soul of filth! Ah, who would not have been deceived, as I was?
+Bertha, what did you dream of when you were sleeping in my arms?
+Tremorel came, and you thought you saw in him the ideal of your dreams.
+You admired the precocious wrinkles which betrayed an exhausted life,
+like the fatal seal which marks the fallen archangel's forehead. Your
+love, without thought of mine, rushed toward him, though he did not
+think of you. You went to evil as if it were your nature. And yet I
+thought you more immaculate than the Alpine snows. You did not even have
+a struggle with yourself; you betrayed no confusion which would reveal
+your first fault to me. You brought me your forehead soiled with his
+kisses without blushing."
+
+Weariness overcame his energies; his voice became little by little
+feebler and less distinct.
+
+"You had your happiness in your hands, Bertha, and you carelessly
+destroyed it, as the child breaks the toy of whose value he is ignorant.
+What did you expect from this wretch for whom you had the frightful
+courage to kill me, with a kiss upon your lips, slowly, hour by hour?
+You thought you loved him, but disgust ought to have come at last. Look
+at him, and judge between us. See which is the--man--I, extended on this
+bed where I shall soon die, or he shivering there in a corner. You have
+the energy of crime, but he has only the baseness of it. Ah, if my name
+was Hector de Tremorel, and a man had spoken as I have just done, that
+man should live no longer, even if he had ten revolvers like this I am
+holding to defend himself with!"
+
+Hector, thus taunted, tried to get up and reply; but his legs would not
+support him, and his throat only gave hoarse, unintelligible sounds.
+Bertha, as she looked at the two men, recognized her error with rage and
+indignation. Her husband, at this moment, seemed to her sublime; his
+eyes gleamed, his face was radiant; while the other--the other! She felt
+sick with disgust when she but glanced toward him.
+
+Thus all these deceptive chimeras after which she had run, love,
+passion, poetry, were already hers; she had held them in her hands and
+she had not been able to perceive it. But what was Sauvresy's purpose?
+
+He continued, painfully:
+
+"This then, is our situation; you have killed me, you are going to be
+free, yet you hate and despise each other--"
+
+He stopped, and seemed to be suffocating; he tried to raise himself on
+his pillow and to sit up in bed, but found himself too feeble.
+
+"Bertha," said he, "help me get up."
+
+She leaned over the bed, and taking her husband in her arms, succeeded
+in placing him as he wished. He appeared more at ease in his new
+position, and took two or three long breaths.
+
+"Now," he said, "I should like something to drink. The doctor lets me
+take a little old wine, if I have a fancy for it; give me some."
+
+She hastened to bring him a glass of wine, which he emptied and handed
+back to her.
+
+"There wasn't any poison in it, was there?" he asked.
+
+This ghastly question and the smile which accompanied it, melted
+Bertha's callousness; remorse had already taken possession of her, as
+her disgust of Tremorel increased.
+
+"Poison?" she cried, eagerly, "never!"
+
+"You must give me some, though, presently, so as to help me to die."
+
+"You die, Clement? No; I want you to live, so that I may redeem the
+past. I am a wretch, and have committed a hideous crime--but you are
+good. You will live; I don't ask to be your wife, but only your servant.
+I will love you, humiliate myself, serve you on my knees, so that some
+day, after ten, twenty years of expiation, you will forgive me!"
+
+Hector in his mortal terror and anguish, was scarcely able to
+distinguish what was taking place. But he saw a dim ray of hope in
+Bertha's gestures and accent, and especially in her last words; he
+thought that perhaps it was all going to end and be forgotten, and that
+Sauvresy would pardon them. Half-rising, he stammered:
+
+"Yes, forgive us, forgive us!"
+
+Sauvresy's eyes glittered, and his angry voice vibrated as if it came
+from a throat of metal.
+
+"Forgive!" cried he, "pardon! Did you have pity on me during all this
+year that you have been playing with my happiness, during this fortnight
+that you have been mixing poison in all my potions? Pardon? What, are
+you fools? Why do you think I held my tongue, when I discovered your
+infamy, and let myself be poisoned, and threw the doctors off the scent?
+Do you really hope that I did this to prepare a scene of heartrending
+farewells, and to give you my benediction at the end? Ah, know me
+better!"
+
+Bertha was sobbing; she tried to take her husband's hand, but he rudely
+repulsed her.
+
+"Enough of these falsehoods," said he. "Enough of these perfidies. I
+hate you! You don't seem to perceive that hate is all that is still
+living in me."
+
+Sauvresy's expression was at this moment ferocious. "It is almost two
+months since I learned the truth; it broke me up, soul and body. Ah, it
+cost me a good deal to keep quiet--it almost killed me. But one thought
+sustained me; I longed to avenge myself. My mind was always bent on
+that; I searched for a punishment as great as this crime; I found none,
+could find none. Then you resolved to poison me. Mark this--that the
+very day when I guessed about the poison I had a thrill of joy, for I
+had discovered my vengeance!"
+
+A constantly increasing terror possessed Bertha, and now stupefied her,
+as well as Tremorel.
+
+"Why do you wish for my death? To be free and marry each other? Very
+well; I wish that also. The Count de Tremorel will be Madame Sauvresy's
+second husband."
+
+"Never!" cried Bertha. "No, never!"
+
+"Never!" echoed Hector.
+
+"It shall be so; nevertheless because I wish it. Oh, my precautions have
+been well taken, and you can't escape me. Now hear me. When I became
+certain that I was being poisoned, I began to write a minute history of
+all three of us; I did more--I have kept a journal day by day and hour
+by hour, narrating all the particulars of my illness; then I kept some
+of the poison which you gave me--"
+
+Bertha made a gesture of denial. Sauvresy proceeded:
+
+"Certainly, I kept it, and I will tell you how. Every time that Bertha
+gave me a suspicious potion, I kept a portion of it in my mouth, and
+carefully ejected it into a bottle which I kept hid under the bolster.
+Ah, you ask how I could have done all this without your suspecting it,
+or without being seen by any of the servants. Know that hate is stronger
+than love, be sure that I have left nothing to chance, nor have I
+forgotten anything."
+
+Hector and Bertha looked at Sauvresy with a dull, fixed gaze. They
+forced themselves to understand him, but could scarcely do so.
+
+"Let's finish," resumed the dying man, "my strength is waning. This very
+morning, the bottle containing the poison I have preserved, our
+biographies, and the narrative of my poisoning, have been put in the
+hands of a trustworthy and devoted person, whom, even if you knew him,
+you could not corrupt. He does not know the contents of what has been
+confided to him. The day that you get married this friend will give them
+all up to you. If, however, you are not married in a year from to-day,
+he has instructions to put these papers and this bottle into the hands
+of the officers of the law."
+
+A double cry of horror and anguish told Sauvresy that he had well chosen
+his vengeance.
+
+"And reflect," added he, "that this package once delivered up to
+justice, means the galleys, if not the scaffold for both of you."
+
+Sauvresy had overtasked his strength. He fell panting upon the bed, his
+mouth open, his eyes filmy, and his features so distorted that he seemed
+to be on the point of death. But neither Bertha nor Tremorel thought of
+trying to relieve him. They remained opposite each other with dilated
+eyes, stupefied, as if their thoughts were bent upon the torments of
+that future which the implacable vengeance of the man whom they had
+outraged imposed upon them. They were indissolubly united, confounded in
+a common destiny; nothing could separate them but death. A chain
+stronger and harder than that of the galley-slave bound them together; a
+chain of infamies and crimes, of which the first link was a kiss, and
+the last a murder by poison. Now Sauvresy might die; his vengeance was
+on their heads, casting a cloud upon their sun. Free in appearance, they
+would go through life crushed by the burden of the past, more slaves
+than the blacks in the American rice-fields. Separated by mutual hate
+and contempt, they saw themselves riveted together by the common terror
+of punishment, condemned to an eternal embrace.
+
+Bertha at this moment admired her husband. Now that he was so feeble
+that he breathed as painfully as an infant, she looked upon him as
+something superhuman. She had had no idea of such constancy and courage
+allied with so much dissimulation and genius. How cunningly he had found
+them out! How well he had known how to avenge himself! To be the master,
+he had only to will it. In a certain way she rejoiced in the strange
+atrocity of this scene; she felt something like a bitter pride in being
+one of the actors in it. At the same time she was transported with rage
+and sorrow in thinking that she had had this man in her power, that he
+had been at her feet. She almost loved him. Of all men, it was he whom
+she would have chosen were she mistress of her destinies; and he was
+going to escape her.
+
+Tremorel, while these strange ideas crowded upon Bertha's mind, began to
+come to himself. The certainty that Laurence was now forever lost for
+him occurred to him, and his despair was without bounds. The silence
+continued a full quarter of an hour. Sauvresy at last subdued the spasm
+which had exhausted him, and spoke.
+
+"I have not said all yet," he commenced.
+
+His voice was as feeble as a murmur, and yet it seemed terrible to his
+hearers.
+
+"You shall see whether I have reckoned and foreseen well. Perhaps, when
+I was dead, the idea of flying and going abroad would strike you. I
+shall not permit that. You must stay at Orcival--at Valfeuillu.
+A--friend--not he with the package--is charged, without knowing the
+reason for it, with the task of watching you. Mark well what I say--if
+either of you should disappear for eight days, on the ninth, the man who
+has the package would receive a letter which would cause him to resort
+at once to the police."
+
+Yes, he had foreseen all, and Tremorel, who had already thought of
+flight, was overwhelmed.
+
+"I have so arranged, besides, that the idea of flight shall not tempt
+you too much. It is true I have left all my fortune to Bertha, but I
+only give her the use of it; the property itself will not be hers until
+the day after your marriage."
+
+Bertha made a gesture of repugnance which her husband misinterpreted.
+
+"You are thinking of the copy of my will which is in your possession. It
+is a useless one, and I only added to it some valueless words because I
+wanted to put your suspicions to sleep. My true will is in the notary's
+hands, and bears a date two days later. I can read you the rough draft
+of it."
+
+He took a sheet of paper from a portfolio which was concealed; like the
+revolver, under the bolster, and read:
+
+"Being stricken with a fatal malady, I here set down freely, and in the
+fulness of my faculties, my last wishes:
+
+"My dearest wish is that my well-beloved widow, Bertha, should espouse,
+as soon as the delay enjoined by law has expired, my dear friend, the
+Count Hector de Tremorel. Having appreciated the grandeur of soul and
+nobleness of sentiment which belong to my wife and friend, I know that
+they are worthy of each other, and that each will be happy in the other.
+I die the more peacefully, as I leave my Bertha to a protector whose--"
+
+It was impossible for Bertha to hear more.
+
+"For pity's sake," cried she, "enough."
+
+"Enough? Well, let it be so," responded Sauvresy. "I have read this
+paper to you to show you that while I have arranged everything to insure
+the execution of my will; I have also done all that can preserve to you
+the world's respect. Yes, I wish that you should be esteemed and
+honored, for it is you alone upon whom I rely for my vengeance. I have
+knit around you a net-work which you can never burst asunder. You
+triumph; my tombstone shall be, as you hoped, the altar of your
+nuptials, or else--the galleys."
+
+Tremorel's pride at last revolted against so many humiliations, so many
+whip-strokes lashing his face.
+
+"You have only forgotten one thing, Sauvresy; that a man can die."
+
+"Pardon me," replied the sick man, coldly. "I have foreseen that also,
+and was just going to tell you so. Should one of you die suddenly before
+the marriage, the police will be called in."
+
+"You misunderstood me; I meant that a man can kill himself."
+
+"You kill yourself? Humph! Jenny, who disdains you almost as much as I
+do, has told me about your threats to kill yourself. You! See here; here
+is my revolver; shoot yourself, and I will forgive my wife!"
+
+Hector made a gesture of anger, but did not take the pistol.
+
+"You see," said Sauvresy, "I knew it well. You are afraid." Turning to
+Bertha, he added, "This is your lover."
+
+Extraordinary situations like this are so unwonted and strange that the
+actors in them almost always remain composed and natural, as if
+stupefied. Bertha, Hector, and Sauvresy accepted, without taking note of
+it, the strange position in which they found themselves; and they talked
+naturally, as if of matters of every-day life, and not of terrible
+events. But the hours flew, and Sauvresy perceived his life to be ebbing
+from him.
+
+"There only remains one more act to play," said he. "Hector, go and call
+the servants, have those who have gone to bed aroused, I want to see
+them before dying."
+
+Tremorel hesitated.
+
+"Come, go along; or shall I ring, or fire a pistol to bring them here?"
+
+Hector went out; Bertha remained alone with her husband--alone! She had
+a hope that perhaps she might succeed in making him change his purpose,
+and that she might obtain his forgiveness. She knelt beside the bed.
+Never had she been so beautiful, so seductive, so irresistible. The keen
+emotions of the evening had brought her whole soul into her face, and
+her lovely eyes supplicated, her breast heaved, her mouth was held out
+as if for a kiss, and her new-born passion for Sauvresy burst out into
+delirium.
+
+"Clement," she stammered, in a voice full of tenderness, "my husband,
+Clement!"
+
+He directed toward her a glance of hatred.
+
+"What do you wish?"
+
+She did not know how to begin--she hesitated, trembled and sobbed.
+
+"Hector would not kill himself," said she, "but I--"
+
+"Well, what do you wish to say? Speak!"
+
+"It was I, a wretch, who have killed you. I will not survive you."
+
+An inexpressible anguish distorted Sauvresy's features. She kill
+herself! If so, his vengeance was vain; his own death would then appear
+only ridiculous and absurd. And he knew that Bertha would not be wanting
+in courage at the critical moment.
+
+She waited, while he reflected.
+
+"You are free," said he, at last, "this would merely be a sacrifice to
+Hector. If you died, he would marry Laurence Courtois, and in a year
+would forget even our name."
+
+Bertha sprang to her feet; she pictured Hector to herself married and
+happy. A triumphant smile, like a sun's ray, brightened Sauvresy's pale
+face. He had touched the right chord. He might sleep in peace as to his
+vengeance. Bertha would live. He knew how hateful to each other were
+these enemies whom he left linked together.
+
+The servants came in one by one; nearly all of them had been long in
+Sauvresy's service, and they loved him as a good master. They wept and
+groaned to see him lying there so pale and haggard, with the stamp of
+death already on his forehead. Sauvresy spoke to them in a feeble voice,
+which was occasionally interrupted by distressing hiccoughs. He thanked
+them, he said, for their attachment and fidelity, and wished to apprise
+them that he had left each of them a goodly sum in his will. Then
+turning to Bertha and Hector, he resumed:
+
+"You have witnessed, my people, the care and solicitude with which my
+bedside has been surrounded by this incomparable friend and my adored
+Bertha. You have seen their devotion. Alas, I know how keen their sorrow
+will be! But if they wish to soothe my last moments and give me a happy
+death, they will assent to the prayer which I earnestly make, to them,
+and will swear to espouse each other after I am gone. Oh, my beloved
+friends, this seems cruel to you now; but you know not how all human
+pain is dulled in me. You are young, life has yet much happiness in
+store for you. I conjure you yield to a dying man's entreaties!"
+
+They approached the bed, and Sauvresy put Bertha's hand into Hector's.
+
+"Do you swear to obey me?" asked he.
+
+They shuddered to hold each other's hands, and seemed near fainting; but
+they answered, and were heard to murmur:
+
+"We swear it."
+
+The servants retired, grieved at this distressing scene, and Bertha
+muttered:
+
+"Oh, 'tis infamous, 'tis horrible!"
+
+"Infamous--yes," returned Sauvresy, "but not more so than your caresses,
+Bertha, or than your hand-pressures, Hector; not more horrible than your
+plans, than your hopes--"
+
+His voice sank into a rattle. Soon the agony commenced. Horrible
+convulsions distorted his limbs; twice or thrice he cried out:
+
+"I am cold; I am cold!"
+
+His body was indeed stiff, and nothing could warm it.
+
+Despair filled the house, for a death so sudden was not looked for. The
+domestics came and went, whispering to each other, "He is going, poor
+monsieur; poor madame!"
+
+Soon the convulsions ceased. He lay extended on his back, breathing so
+feebly that twice they thought his breath had ceased forever. At last, a
+little before ten o'clock, his cheeks suddenly colored and he shuddered.
+He rose up in bed, his eye staring, his arm stretched out toward the
+window, and he cried:
+
+"There--behind the curtain--I see them--I see them!"
+
+A last convulsion stretched him again on his pillow.
+
+Clement Sauvresy was dead!
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The old justice of the peace ceased reading his voluminous record. His
+hearers, the detective and the doctor remained silent under the
+influence of this distressing narrative. M. Plantat had read it
+impressively, throwing himself into the recital as if he had been
+personally an actor in the scenes described.
+
+M. Lecoq was the first to recover himself.
+
+"A strange man, Sauvresy," said he.
+
+It was Sauvresy's extraordinary idea of vengeance which struck him in
+the story. He admired his "good playing" in a drama in which he knew he
+was going to yield up his life.
+
+"I don't know many people," pursued the detective, "capable of so
+fearful a firmness. To let himself be poisoned so slowly and gently by
+his wife! Brrr! It makes a man shiver all over!"
+
+"He knew how to avenge himself," muttered the doctor.
+
+"Yes," answered M. Plantat, "yes, Doctor; he knew how to avenge himself,
+and more terribly than he supposed, or than you can imagine."
+
+The detective rose from his seat. He had remained motionless, glued to
+his chair for more than three hours, and his legs were benumbed.
+
+"For my part," said he, "I can very well conceive what an infernal
+existence the murderers began to suffer the day after their victim's
+death. You have depicted them, Monsieur Plantat, with the hand of a
+master. I know them as well after your description as if I had studied
+them face to face for ten years."
+
+He spoke deliberately, and watched for the effect of what he said in M.
+Plantat's countenance.
+
+"Where on earth did this old fellow get all these details?" he asked
+himself. "Did he write this narrative, and if not, who did? How was it,
+if he had all this information, that he has said nothing?"
+
+M. Plantat appeared to be unconscious of the detective's searching look.
+
+"I know that Sauvresy's body was not cold," said he, "before his
+murderers began to threaten each other with death."
+
+"Unhappily for them," observed Dr. Gendron, "Sauvresy had foreseen the
+probability of his widow's using up the rest of the vial of poison."
+
+"Ah, he was shrewd," said M. Lecoq, in a tone of conviction, "very
+shrewd."
+
+"Bertha could not pardon Hector," continued M. Plantat, "for refusing to
+take the revolver and blow his brains out; Sauvresy, you see, had
+foreseen that. Bertha thought that if her lover were dead, her husband
+would have forgotten all; and it is impossible to tell whether she was
+mistaken or not."
+
+"And nobody knew anything of this horrible struggle that was going on in
+the house?"
+
+"No one ever suspected anything."
+
+"It's marvellous!"
+
+"Say, Monsieur Lecoq, that is scarcely credible. Never was dissimulation
+so crafty, and above all, so wonderfully sustained. If you should
+question the first person you met in Orcival, he would tell you, as our
+worthy Courtois this morning told Monsieur Domini, that the count and
+countess were a model pair and adored each other. Why I, who knew--or
+suspected, I should say--what had passed, was deceived myself."
+
+Promptly as M. Plantat had corrected himself, his slip of the tongue did
+not escape M. Lecoq.
+
+"Was it really a slip, or not?" he asked himself.
+
+"These wretches have been terribly punished," pursued M. Plantat, "and
+it is impossible to pity them; all would have gone rightly if Sauvresy,
+intoxicated by his hatred, had not committed a blunder which was almost
+a crime."
+
+"A crime!" exclaimed the doctor.
+
+M. Lecoq smiled and muttered in a low tone:
+
+"Laurence."
+
+But low as he had spoken, M. Plantat heard him.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Lecoq," said he severely. "Yes, Laurence. Sauvresy did a
+detestable thing when he thought of making this poor girl the
+accomplice, or I should say, the instrument of his wrath. He piteously
+threw her between these two wretches, without asking himself whether she
+would be broken. It was by using Laurence's name that he persuaded
+Bertha not to kill herself. Yet he knew of Tremorel's passion for her,
+he knew her love for him, and he knew that his friend was capable of
+anything. He, who had so well foreseen all that could serve his
+vengeance, did not deign to foresee that Laurence might be dishonored;
+and yet he left her disarmed before this most cowardly and infamous of
+men!"
+
+The detective reflected.
+
+"There is one thing," said he, "that I can't explain. Why was it that
+these two, who execrated each other, and whom the implacable will of
+their victim chained together despite themselves, did not separate of
+one accord the day after their marriage, when they had fulfilled the
+condition which had established their crime?"
+
+The old justice of the peace shook his head.
+
+"I see," he answered, "that I have not yet made you understand Bertha's
+resolute character. Hector would have been delighted with a separation;
+his wife could not consent to it. Ah, Sauvresy knew her well! She saw
+her life ruined, a horrible remorse lacerated her; she must have a
+victim upon whom to expiate her errors and crimes; this victim was
+Hector. Ravenous for her prey, she would not let him go for anything in
+the world."
+
+"I' faith," observed Dr. Gendron, "your Tremorel was a chicken-hearted
+wretch. What had he to fear when Sauvresy's manuscript was once
+destroyed?"
+
+"Who told you it had been destroyed?" interrupted M. Plantat.
+
+M. Lecoq at this stopped promenading up and down the room, and sat down
+opposite M. Plantat.
+
+"The whole case lies there," said he. "Whether these proofs have or have
+not been destroyed."
+
+M. Plantat did not choose to answer directly.
+
+"Do you know," asked he, "to whom Sauvresy confided them for keeping?"
+
+"Ah," cried the detective, as if a sudden idea had enlightened him, "it
+was you."
+
+He added to himself, "Now, my good man, I begin to see where all your
+information comes from."
+
+"Yes, it was I," resumed M. Plantat. "On the day of the marriage of
+Madame Sauvresy and Count Hector, in conformity with the last wishes of
+my dying friend, I went to Valfeuillu and asked to see Monsieur and
+Madame de Tremorel. Although they were full of company, they received me
+at once in the little room on the ground-floor where Sauvresy was
+murdered. They were both very pale and terribly troubled. They evidently
+guessed the purpose of my visit, for they lost no time in admitting me
+to an interview. After saluting them I addressed myself to Bertha, being
+enjoined to do so by the written instructions I had received; this was
+another instance of Sauvresy's foresight. 'Madame,' said I, 'I was
+charged by your late husband to hand to you, on the day of your second
+marriage, this package, which he confided to my care.' She took the
+package, in which the bottle and the manuscript were enclosed, with a
+smiling, even joyous air, thanked me warmly, and went out. The count's
+expression instantly changed; he appeared very restless and agitated; he
+seemed to be on coals. I saw well enough that he burned to rush after
+his wife, but dared not; I was going to retire; but he stopped me.
+'Pardon me,' said he, abruptly, 'you will permit me, will you not? I
+will return immediately,' with which he ran out. When I saw him and his
+wife a few minutes afterward, they were both very red; their eyes had a
+strange expression and their voices trembled, as they accompanied me to
+the door. They had certainly been having a violent altercation."
+
+"The rest may be conjectured," interrupted M. Lecoq. "She had gone to
+secrete the manuscript in some safe place; and when her new husband
+asked her to give it up to him, she replied, 'Look for it.'"
+
+"Sauvresy had enjoined on me to give it only into her hands."
+
+"Oh, he knew how to work his revenge. He had it given to his wife so
+that she might hold a terrible arm against Tremorel, all ready to crush
+him. If he revolted, she always had this instrument of torture at hand.
+Ah, the man was a miserable wretch, and she must have made him suffer
+terribly."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gendron, "up to the very day he killed her."
+
+The detective had resumed his promenade up and down the library.
+
+"The question as to the poison," said he, "remains. It is a simple one
+to resolve, because we've got the man who sold it to her in that
+closet."
+
+"Besides," returned the doctor, "I can tell something about the poison.
+This rascal of a Robelot stole it from my laboratory, and I know only
+too well what it is, even if the symptoms, so well described by our
+friend Plantat, had not indicated its name to me. I was at work upon
+aconite when Sauvresy died; and he was poisoned with aconitine."
+
+"Ah, with aconitine," said M. Lecoq, surprised. "It's the first time
+that I ever met with that poison. Is it a new thing?"
+
+"Not exactly. Medea is said to have extracted her deadliest poisons from
+aconite, and it was employed in Rome and Greece in criminal executions."
+
+"And I did not know of it! But I have very little time to study.
+Besides, this poison of Medea's was perhaps lost, as was that of the
+Borgias; so many of these things are!"
+
+"No, it was not lost, be assured. But we only know of it nowadays by
+Mathiole's experiments on felons sentenced to death, in the sixteenth
+century; by Hers, who isolated the active principle, the alkaloid, in
+1833 and lastly by certain experiments made by Bouchardat, who
+pretends--"
+
+Unfortunately, when Dr. Gendron was set agoing on poisons, it was
+difficult to stop him; but M. Lecoq, on the other hand, never lost sight
+of the end he had in view.
+
+"Pardon me for interrupting you, Doctor," said he. "But would traces of
+aconitine be found in a body which had been two years buried? For
+Monsieur Domini is going to order the exhumation of Sauvresy."
+
+"The tests of aconitine are not sufficiently well known to permit of the
+isolation of it in a body. Bouchardat tried ioduret of potassium, but
+his experiment was not successful."
+
+"The deuce!" said M. Lecoq. "That's annoying."
+
+The doctor smiled benignly.
+
+"Reassure yourself," said he. "No such process was in existence--so I
+invented one."
+
+"Ah," cried Plantat. "Your sensitive paper!"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"And could you find aconitine in Sauvresy's body?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+M. Lecoq was radiant, as if he were now certain of fulfilling what had
+seemed to him a very difficult task.
+
+"Very well," said he. "Our inquest seems to be complete. The history of
+the victims imparted to us by Monsieur Plantat gives us the key to all
+the events which have followed the unhappy Sauvresy's death. Thus, the
+hatred of this pair, who were in appearance so united, is explained; and
+it is also clear why Hector has ruined a charming young girl with a
+splendid dowry, instead of making her his wife. There is nothing
+surprising in Tremorel's casting aside his name and personality to
+reappear under another guise; he killed his wife because he was
+constrained to do so by the logic of events. He could not fly while she
+was alive, and yet he could not continue to live at Valfeuillu. And
+above all, the paper for which he searched with such desperation, when
+every moment was an affair of life and death to him, was none other than
+Sauvresy's manuscript, his condemnation and the proof of his first
+crime."
+
+M. Lecoq talked eagerly, as if he had a personal animosity against the
+Count de Tremorel; such was his nature; and he always avowed laughingly
+that he could not help having a grudge against the criminals whom he
+pursued. There was an account to settle between him and them; hence the
+ardor of his pursuit. Perhaps it was a simple matter of instinct with
+him, like that which impels the hunting hound on the track of his game.
+
+"It is clear enough now," he went on, "that it was Mademoiselle Courtois
+who put an end to his hesitation and eternal delay. His passion for her,
+irritated by obstacles, goaded him to delirium. On learning her
+condition, he lost his head and forgot all prudence and reason. He was
+wearied, too, of a punishment which began anew each morning; he saw
+himself lost, and his wife sacrificing herself for the malignant
+pleasure of sacrificing him. Terrified, he took the resolution to commit
+this murder."
+
+Many of the circumstances which had established M. Lecoq's conviction
+had escaped Dr. Gendron.
+
+"What!" cried he, stupefied. "Do you believe in Mademoiselle Laurence's
+complicity?"
+
+The detective earnestly protested by a gesture.
+
+"No, Doctor, certainly not; heaven forbid that I should have such an
+idea. Mademoiselle Courtois was and is still ignorant of this crime. But
+she knew that Tremorel would abandon his wife for her. This flight had
+been discussed, planned, and agreed upon between them; they made an
+appointment to meet at a certain place, on a certain day."
+
+"But this letter," said the doctor.
+
+M. Plantat could scarcely conceal his emotion when Laurence was being
+talked about.
+
+"This letter," cried he, "which has plunged her family into the deepest
+grief, and which will perhaps kill poor Courtois, is only one more scene
+of the infamous drama which the count has planned."
+
+"Oh," said the doctor, "is it possible?"
+
+"I am firmly of Monsieur Plantat's opinion," said the detective. "Last
+evening we had the same suspicion at the same moment at the mayor's. I
+read and re-read her letter, and could have sworn that it did not
+emanate from herself. The count gave her a rough draft from which she
+copied it. We mustn't deceive ourselves; this letter was meditated,
+pondered on, and composed at leisure. Those were not the expressions of
+an unhappy young girl of twenty who was going to kill herself to escape
+dishonor."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," remarked the doctor visibly moved. "But how can
+you imagine that Tremorel succeeded in persuading her to do this
+wretched act?"
+
+"How? See here, Doctor, I am not much experienced in such things, having
+seldom had occasion to study the characters of well-brought-up young
+girls; yet it seems to me very simple. Mademoiselle Courtois saw the
+time coming when her disgrace would be public, and so prepared for it,
+and was even ready to die if necessary."
+
+M. Plantat shuddered; a conversation which he had had with Laurence
+occurred to him. She had asked him, he remembered, about certain
+poisonous plants which he was cultivating, and had been anxious to know
+how the poisonous juices could be extracted from them.
+
+"Yes," said he, "she has thought of dying."
+
+"Well," resumed the detective, "the count took her in one of the moods
+when these sad thoughts haunted the poor girl, and was easily able to
+complete his work of ruin. She undoubtedly told him that she preferred
+death to shame, and he proved to her that, being in the condition in
+which she was, she had no right to kill herself. He said that he was
+very unhappy; and that not being free, he could not repair his fault;
+but he offered to sacrifice his life for her. What should she do to save
+both of them? Abandon her parents, make them believe that she had
+committed suicide, while he, on his side, would desert his house and his
+wife. Doubtless she resisted for awhile; but she finally consented to
+everything; she fled, and copied and posted the infamous letter dictated
+by her lover."
+
+The doctor was convinced.
+
+"Yes," he muttered, "those are doubtless the means he employed."
+
+"But what an idiot he was," resumed M. Lecoq, "not to perceive that the
+strange coincidence between his disappearance and Laurence's suicide
+would be remarked! He said to himself, 'Probably people will think that
+I, as well as my wife, have been murdered; and the law, having its
+victim in Guespin, will not look for any other.'"
+
+M. Plantat made a gesture of impotent rage.
+
+"Ah," cried he, "and we know not where the wretch has hid himself and
+Laurence."
+
+The detective took him by the arm and pressed it.
+
+"Reassure yourself," said he, coolly. "We'll find him, or my name's not
+Lecoq; and to be honest, I must say that our task does not seem to me a
+difficult one."
+
+Several timid knocks at the door interrupted the speaker. It was late,
+and the household was already awake and about. Mme. Petit in her anxiety
+and curiosity had put her ear to the key-hole at least ten times, but in
+vain.
+
+"What can they be up to in there?" said she to Louis. "Here they've been
+shut up these twelve hours without eating or drinking. At all events
+I'll get breakfast."
+
+It was not Mme. Petit, however, who dared to knock on the door; but
+Louis, the gardener, who came to tell his master of the ravages which
+had been made in his flower-pots and shrubs. At the same time he brought
+in certain singular articles which he had picked up on the sward, and
+which M. Lecoq recognized at once.
+
+"Heavens!" cried he, "I forgot myself. Here I go on quietly talking with
+my face exposed, as if it was not broad daylight; and people might come
+in at any moment!" And turning to Louis, who was very much surprised to
+see this dark young man whom he had certainly not admitted the night
+before, he added:
+
+"Give me those little toilet articles, my good fellow; they belong to
+me."
+
+Then, by a turn of his hand, he readjusted his physiognomy of last
+night, while the master of the house went out to give some orders, which
+M. Lecoq did so deftly, that when M. Plantat returned, he could scarcely
+believe his eyes.
+
+They sat down to breakfast and ate their meal as silently as they had
+done the dinner of the evening before, losing no time about it. They
+appreciated the value of the passing moments; M. Domini was waiting for
+them at Corbeil, and was doubtless getting impatient at their delay.
+
+Louis had just placed a sumptuous dish of fruit upon the table, when it
+occurred to M. Lecoq that Robelot was still shut up in the closet.
+
+"Probably the rascal needs something," said he.
+
+M. Plantat wished to send his servant to him; but M. Lecoq objected.
+
+"He's a dangerous rogue," said he. "I'll go myself."
+
+He went out, but almost instantly his voice was heard:
+
+"Messieurs! Messieurs, see here!"
+
+The doctor and M. Plantat hastened into the library.
+
+Across the threshold of the closet was stretched the body of the
+bone-setter. He had killed himself.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+Robelot must have had rare presence of mind and courage to kill himself
+in that obscure closet, without making enough noise to arouse the
+attention of those in the library. He had wound a string tightly around
+his neck, and had used a piece of pencil as a twister, and so had
+strangled himself. He did not, however, betray the hideous look which
+the popular belief attributes to those who have died by strangulation.
+His face was pale, his eyes and mouth half open, and he had the
+appearance of one who has gradually and without much pain lost his
+consciousness by congestion of the brain.
+
+"Perhaps he is not quite dead yet," said the doctor. He quickly pulled
+out his case of instruments and knelt beside the motionless body.
+
+This incident seemed to annoy M. Lecoq very much; just as everything
+was, as he said, "running on wheels," his principal witness, whom he had
+caught at the peril of his life, had escaped him. M. Plantat, on the
+contrary, seemed tolerably well satisfied, as if the death of Robelot
+furthered projects which he was secretly nourishing, and fulfilled his
+secret hopes. Besides, it little mattered if the object was to oppose M.
+Domini's theories and induce him to change his opinion. This corpse had
+more eloquence in it than the most explicit of confessions.
+
+The doctor, seeing the uselessness of his pains, got up.
+
+"It's all over," said he. "The asphyxia was accomplished in a very few
+moments."
+
+The bone-setter's body was carefully laid on the floor in the library.
+
+"There is nothing more to be done," said M. Plantat, "but to carry him
+home; we will follow on so as to seal up his effects, which perhaps
+contain important papers. Run to the mairie," he added, turning to his
+servant, "and get a litter and two stout men."
+
+Dr. Gendron's presence being no longer necessary, he promised M. Plantat
+to rejoin him at Robelot's, and started off to inquire after M.
+Courtois's condition.
+
+Louis lost no time, and soon reappeared followed, not by two, but ten
+men. The body was placed on a litter and carried away. Robelot occupied
+a little house of three rooms, where he lived by himself; one of the
+rooms served as a shop, and was full of plants, dried herbs, grain, and
+other articles appertaining to his vocation as an herbist. He slept in
+the back room, which was better furnished than most country rooms. His
+body was placed upon the bed. Among the men who had brought it was the
+"drummer of the town," who was at the same time the grave-digger. This
+man, expert in everything pertaining to funerals, gave all the necessary
+instructions on the present occasion, himself taking part in the
+lugubrious task.
+
+Meanwhile M. Plantat examined the furniture, the keys of which had been
+taken from the deceased's pocket. The value of the property found in the
+possession of this man, who had, two years before, lived from day to day
+on what he could pick up, were an over-whelming proof against him in
+addition to the others already discovered. But M. Plantat looked in vain
+for any new indications of which he was ignorant. He found deeds of the
+Morin property and of the Frapesle and Peyron lands; there were also two
+bonds, for one hundred and fifty and eight hundred and twenty francs,
+signed by two Orcival citizens in Robelot's favor. M. Plantat could
+scarcely conceal his disappointment.
+
+"Nothing of importance," whispered he in M. Lecoq's ear. "How do you
+explain that?"
+
+"Perfectly," responded the detective. "He was a sly rogue, this Robelot,
+and he was cunning enough to conceal his sudden fortune and patient
+enough to appear to be years accumulating it. You only find in his
+secretary effects which he thought he could avow without danger. How
+much is there in all?"
+
+Plantat rapidly added up the different sums, and said:
+
+"About fourteen thousand five hundred francs."
+
+"Madame Sauvresy gave him more than that," said the detective,
+positively. "If he had no more than this, he would not have been such a
+fool as to put it all into land. He must have a hoard of money concealed
+somewhere."
+
+"Of course he must. But where?"
+
+"Ah, let me look."
+
+He began to rummage about, peering into everything in the room, moving
+the furniture, sounding the floor with his heels, and rapping on the
+wall here and there. Finally he came to the fireplace, before which he
+stopped.
+
+"This is July," said he. "And yet there are cinders here in the
+fireplace."
+
+"People sometimes neglect to clean them out in the spring."
+
+"True; but are not these very clean and distinct? I don't find any of
+the light dust and soot on them which ought to be there after they have
+lain several months."
+
+He went into the second room whither he had sent the men after they had
+completed their task, and said:
+
+"I wish one of you would get me a pickaxe."
+
+All the men rushed out; M. Lecoq returned to his companion.
+
+"Surely," muttered he, as if apart, "these cinders have been disturbed
+recently, and if they have been--"
+
+He knelt down, and pushing the cinders away, laid bare the stones of the
+fireplace. Then taking a thin piece of wood, he easily inserted it into
+the cracks between the stones.
+
+"See here, Monsieur Plantat," said he. "There is no cement between these
+stones, and they are movable; the treasure must be here."
+
+When the pickaxe was brought, he gave a single blow with it; the stones
+gaped apart, and betrayed a wide and deep hole between them.
+
+"Ah," cried he, with a triumphant air, "I knew it well enough."
+
+The hole was full of rouleaux of twenty-franc pieces; on counting them,
+M. Lecoq found that there were nineteen thousand five hundred francs.
+
+The old justice's face betrayed an expression of profound grief.
+
+"That," thought he, "is the price of my poor Sauvresy's life."
+
+M. Lecoq found a small piece of paper, covered with figures, deposited
+with the gold; it seemed to be Robelot's accounts. He had put on the
+left hand the sum of forty thousand francs; on the right hand, various
+sums were inscribed, the total of which was twenty-one thousand five
+hundred francs. It was only too clear; Mme. Sauvresy had paid Robelot
+forty thousand francs for the bottle of poison. There was nothing more
+to learn at his house. They locked the money up in the secretary, and
+affixed seals everywhere, leaving two men on guard.
+
+But M. Lecoq was not quite satisfied yet. What was the manuscript which
+Plantat had read? At first he had thought that it was simply a copy of
+the papers confided to him by Sauvresy; but it could not be that;
+Sauvresy couldn't have thus described the last agonizing scenes of his
+life. This mystery mightily worried the detective and dampened the joy
+he felt at having solved the crime at Valfeuillu. He made one more
+attempt to surprise Plantat into satisfying his curiosity. Taking him by
+the coat-lapel, he drew him into the embrasure of a window, and with his
+most innocent air, said:
+
+"I beg your pardon, are we going back to your house?"
+
+"Why should we? You know the doctor is going to meet us here."
+
+"I think we may need the papers you read to us, to convince Monsieur
+Domini."
+
+M. Plantat smiled sadly, and looking steadily at him, replied:
+
+"You are very sly, Monsieur Lecoq; but I too am sly enough to keep the
+last key of the mystery of which you hold all the others."
+
+"Believe me--" stammered M. Lecoq.
+
+"I believe," interrupted his companion, "that you would like very well
+to know the source of my information. Your memory is too good for you to
+forget that when I began last evening I told you that this narrative was
+for your ear alone, and that I had only one object in disclosing it--to
+aid our search. Why should you wish the judge of instruction to see
+these notes, which are purely personal, and have no legal or authentic
+character?"
+
+He reflected a few moments, and added:
+
+"I have too much confidence in you, Monsieur Lecoq, and esteem you too
+much, not to have every trust that you will not divulge these strict
+confidences. What you will say will be of as much weight as anything I
+might divulge--especially now that you have Robelot's body to back your
+assertions, as well as the money found in his possession. If Monsieur
+Domini still hesitates to believe you, you know that the doctor promises
+to find the poison which killed Sauvresy."
+
+M. Plantat stopped and hesitated.
+
+"In short," he resumed, "I think you will be able to keep silence as to
+what you have heard from me."
+
+M. Lecoq took him by the hand, and pressing it significantly, said:
+
+"Count on me, Monsieur."
+
+At this moment Dr. Gendron appeared at the door.
+
+"Courtois is better," said he. "He weeps like a child; but he will come
+out of it."
+
+"Heaven be praised!" cried the old justice of the peace. "Now, since
+you've come, let us hurry off to Corbeil; Monsieur Domini, who is
+waiting for us this morning, must be mad with impatience."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+M. Plantat, in speaking of M. Domini's impatience, did not exaggerate
+the truth. That personage was furious; he could not comprehend the
+reason of the prolonged absence of his three fellow-workers of the
+previous evening. He had installed himself early in the morning in his
+cabinet, at the court-house, enveloped in his judicial robe; and he
+counted the minutes as they passed. His reflections during the night,
+far from shaking, had only confirmed his opinion. As he receded from the
+period of the crime, he found it very simple and natural--indeed, the
+easiest thing in the world to account for. He was annoyed that the rest
+did not share his convictions, and he awaited their report in a state of
+irritation which his clerk only too well perceived. He had eaten his
+breakfast in his cabinet, so as to be sure and be beforehand with M.
+Lecoq. It was a useless precaution; for the hours passed on and no one
+arrived.
+
+To kill time, he sent for Guespin and Bertaud and questioned them anew,
+but learned nothing more than he had extracted from them the night
+before. One of the prisoners swore by all things sacred that he knew
+nothing except what he had already told; the other preserved an
+obstinate and ferocious silence, confining himself to the remark: "I
+know that I am lost; do with me what you please."
+
+M. Domini was just going to send a mounted gendarme to Orcival to find
+out the cause of the delay, when those whom he awaited were announced.
+He quickly gave the order to admit them, and so keen was his curiosity,
+despite what he called his dignity, that he got up and went forward to
+meet them.
+
+"How late you are!" said he.
+
+"And yet we haven't lost a minute," replied M. Plantat. "We haven't even
+been in bed."
+
+"There is news, then? Has the count's body been found?"
+
+"There is much news, Monsieur," said M. Lecoq. "But the count's body has
+not been found, and I dare even say that it will not be found--for the
+very simple fact that he has not been killed. The reason is that he was
+not one of the victims, as at first supposed, but the assassin."
+
+At this distinct declaration on M. Lecoq's part, the judge started in
+his seat.
+
+"Why, this is folly!" cried he.
+
+M. Lecoq never smiled in a magistrate's presence. "I do not think so,"
+said he, coolly; "I am persuaded that if Monsieur Domini will grant me
+his attention for half an hour I will have the honor of persuading him
+to share my opinion."
+
+M. Domini's slight shrug of the shoulders did not escape the detective,
+but he calmly continued:
+
+"More; I am sure that Monsieur Domini will not permit me to leave his
+cabinet without a warrant to arrest Count Hector de Tremorel, whom at
+present he thinks to be dead."
+
+"Possibly," said M. Domini. "Proceed."
+
+M. Lecoq then rapidly detailed the facts gathered by himself and M.
+Plantat from the beginning of the inquest. He narrated them not as if he
+had guessed or been told of them, but in their order of time and in such
+a manner that each new incident which, he mentioned followed naturally
+from the preceding one. He had completely resumed his character of a
+retired haberdasher, with a little piping voice, and such obsequious
+expressions as, "I have the honor," and "If Monsieur the Judge will
+deign to permit me;" he resorted to the candy-box with the portrait,
+and, as the night before at Valfeuillu, chewed a lozenge when he came to
+the more striking points. M. Domini's surprise increased every minute as
+he proceeded; while at times, exclamations of astonishment passed his
+lips: "Is it possible?" "That is hard to believe!"
+
+M. Lecoq finished his recital; he tranquilly munched a lozenge, and
+added:
+
+"What does Monsieur the Judge of Instruction think now?"
+
+M. Domini was fain to confess that he was almost satisfied. A man,
+however, never permits an opinion deliberately and carefully formed to
+be refuted by one whom he looks on as an inferior, without a secret
+chagrin. But in this case the evidence was too abundant, and too
+positive to be resisted.
+
+"I am convinced," said he, "that a crime was committed on Monsieur
+Sauvresy with the dearly paid assistance of this Robelot. To-morrow I
+shall give instructions to Doctor Gendron to proceed at once to an
+exhumation and autopsy of the late master of Valfeuillu."
+
+"And you may be sure that I shall find the poison," chimed in the
+doctor.
+
+"Very well," resumed M. Domini. "But does it necessarily follow that
+because Monsieur Tremorel poisoned his friend to marry his widow, he
+yesterday killed his wife and then fled? I don't think so."
+
+"Pardon me," objected Lecoq, gently. "It seems to me that Mademoiselle
+Courtois's supposed suicide proves at least something."
+
+"That needs clearing up. This coincidence can only be a matter of pure
+chance."
+
+"But I am sure that Monsieur Tremorel shaved himself--of that we have
+proof; then, we did not find the boots which, according to the valet, he
+put on the morning of the murder."
+
+"Softly, softly," interrupted the judge. "I don't pretend that you are
+absolutely wrong; it must be as you say; only I give you my objections.
+Let us admit that Tremorel killed his wife, that he fled and is alive.
+Does that clear Guespin, and show that he took no part in the murder?"
+
+This was evidently the flaw in Lecoq's case; but being convinced of
+Hector's guilt, he had given little heed to the poor gardener, thinking
+that his innocence would appear of itself when the real criminal was
+arrested. He was about to reply, when footsteps and voices were heard in
+the corridor.
+
+"Stop," said M. Domini. "Doubtless we shall now hear something important
+about Guespin."
+
+"Are you expecting some new witness?" asked M. Plantat.
+
+"No; I expect one of the Corbeil police to whom I have given an
+important mission."
+
+"Regarding Guespin?"
+
+"Yes. Very early this morning a young working-woman of the town, whom
+Guespin has been courting, brought me an excellent photograph of him. I
+gave this portrait to the agent with instructions to go to the Vulcan's
+Forges and ascertain if Guespin had been seen there, and whether he
+bought anything there night before last."
+
+M. Lecoq was inclined to be jealous; the judge's proceeding ruffled him,
+and he could not conceal an expressive grimace.
+
+"I am truly grieved," said he, dryly, "that Monsieur the Judge has so
+little confidence in me that he thinks it necessary to give me
+assistance."
+
+This sensitiveness aroused M. Domini, who replied:
+
+"Eh! my dear man, you can't be everywhere at once. I think you very
+shrewd, but you were not here, and I was in a hurry."
+
+"A false step is often irreparable."
+
+"Make yourself easy; I've sent an intelligent man." At this moment the
+door opened, and the policeman referred to by the judge appeared on the
+threshold. He was a muscular man about forty years old, with a military
+pose, a heavy mustache, and thick brows, meeting over the nose. He had a
+sly rather than a shrewd expression, so that his appearance alone seemed
+to awake all sorts of suspicions and put one instinctively on his guard.
+
+"Good news!" said he in a big voice: "I didn't make the journey to Paris
+for the King of Prussia; we are right on the track of this rogue of a
+Guespin."
+
+M. Domini encouraged him with an approving gesture.
+
+"See here, Goulard," said he, "let us go on in order if we can. You went
+then, according to my instructions, to the Vulcan's Forges?"
+
+"At once, Monsieur."
+
+"Precisely. Had they seen the prisoner there?"
+
+"Yes; on the evening of Wednesday, July 8th."
+
+"At what hour?"
+
+"About ten o'clock, a few minutes before they shut up; so that he was
+remarked, and the more distinctly observed."
+
+The judge moved his lips as if to make an objection, but was stopped by
+a gesture from M. Lecoq.
+
+"And who recognized the photograph?"
+
+"Three of the clerks. Guespin's manner first attracted their attention.
+It was strange, so they said, and they thought he was drunk, or at least
+tipsy. Then their recollection was fixed by his talking very fast,
+saying that he was going to patronize them a great deal, and that if
+they would make a reduction in their prices he would procure for them
+the custom of an establishment whose confidence he possessed, the Gentil
+Jardinier, which bought a great many gardening tools."
+
+M. Domini interrupted the examination to consult some papers which lay
+before him on his desk. It was, he found, the Gentil Jardinier which had
+procured Guespin his place in Tremorel's household. The judge remarked
+this aloud, and added:
+
+"The question of identity seems to be settled. Guespin was undoubtedly
+at the Vulcan's Forges on Wednesday night."
+
+"So much the better for him," M. Lecoq could not help muttering.
+
+The judge heard him, but though the remark seemed singular to him he did
+not notice it, and went on questioning the agent.
+
+"Well, did they tell you what Guespin went there to obtain?"
+
+"The clerks recollected it perfectly. He first bought a hammer, a cold
+chisel, and a file."
+
+"I knew it," exclaimed the judge. "And then?"
+
+"Then--"
+
+Here the man, ambitious to make a sensation among his hearers, rolled
+his eyes tragically, and in a dramatic tone, added:
+
+"Then he bought a dirk knife!"
+
+The judge felt that he was triumphing over M. Lecoq.
+
+"Well," said he to the detective in his most ironical tone, "what do you
+think of your friend now? What do you say to this honest and worthy
+young man, who, on the very night of the crime, leaves a wedding where
+he would have had a good time, to go and buy a hammer, a chisel, and a
+dirk--everything, in short, used in the murder and the mutilation of the
+body?"
+
+Dr. Gendron seemed a little disconcerted at this, but a sly smile
+overspread M. Plantat's face. As for M. Lecoq, he had the air of one who
+is shocked by objections which he knows he ought to annihilate by a
+word, and yet who is fain to be resigned to waste time in useless talk,
+which he might put to great profit.
+
+"I think, Monsieur," said he, very humbly, "that the murderers at
+Valfeuillu did not use either a hammer or a chisel, or a file, and that
+they brought no instrument at all from outside--since they used a
+hammer."
+
+"And didn't they have a dirk besides?" asked the judge in a bantering
+tone, confident that he was on the right path.
+
+"That is another question, I confess; but it is a difficult one to
+answer."
+
+He began to lose patience. He turned toward the Corbeil policeman, and
+abruptly asked him:
+
+"Is this all you know?"
+
+The big man with the thick eyebrows superciliously eyed this little
+Parisian who dared to question him thus. He hesitated so long that M.
+Lecoq, more rudely than before, repeated his question.
+
+"Yes, that's all," said Goulard at last, "and I think it's sufficient;
+the judge thinks so too; and he is the only person who gives me orders,
+and whose approbation I wish for."
+
+M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded:
+
+"Let's see; did you ask what was the shape of the dirk bought by
+Guespin? Was it long or short, wide or narrow?"
+
+"Faith, no. What was the use?"
+
+"Simply, my brave fellow, to compare this weapon with the victim's
+wounds, and to see whether its handle corresponds to that which left a
+distinct and visible imprint between the victim's shoulders."
+
+"I forgot it; but it is easily remedied."
+
+"An oversight may, of course, be pardoned; but you can at least tell us
+in what sort of money Guespin paid for his purchases?"
+
+The poor man seemed so embarrassed, humiliated, and vexed, that the
+judge hastened to his assistance.
+
+"The money is of little consequence, it seems to me," said he.
+
+"I beg you to excuse me I don't agree with you," returned M. Lecoq.
+"This matter may be a very grave one. What is the most serious evidence
+against Guespin? The money found in his pocket. Let us suppose for a
+moment that night before last, at ten o'clock, he changed a
+one-thousand-franc note in Paris. Could the obtaining of that note have
+been the motive of the crime at Valfeuillu? No, for up to that hour the
+crime had not been committed. Where could it have come from? That is no
+concern of mine, at present. But if my theory is correct, justice will
+be forced to agree that the several hundred francs found in Guespin's
+possession can and must be the change for the note."
+
+"That is only a theory," urged M. Domini in an irritated tone.
+
+"That is true; but one which may turn out a certainty. It remains for me
+to ask this man how Guespin carried away the articles which he bought?
+Did he simply slip them into his pocket, or did he have them done up in
+a bundle, and if so, how?"
+
+The detective spoke in a sharp, hard, freezing tone, with a bitter
+raillery in it, frightening his Corbeil colleague out of his assurance.
+
+"I don't know," stammered the latter. "They didn't tell me--I thought--"
+
+M. Lecoq raised his hands as if to call the heavens to witness: in his
+heart, he was charmed with this fine occasion to revenge himself for M.
+Domini's disdain. He could not, dared not say anything to the judge; but
+he had the right to banter the agent and visit his wrath upon him.
+
+"Ah so, my lad," said he, "what did you go to Paris for? To show
+Guespin's picture and detail the crime to the people at Vulcan's Forges?
+They ought to be very grateful to you; but Madame Petit, Monsieur
+Plantat's housekeeper, would have done as much."
+
+At this stroke the man began to get angry; he frowned, and in his
+bluffest tone, began:
+
+"Look here now, you--"
+
+"Ta, ta, ta," interrupted M. Lecoq. "Let me alone, and know who is
+talking to you. I am Monsieur Lecoq."
+
+The effect of the famous detective's name on his antagonist was magical.
+He naturally laid down his arms and surrendered, straightway becoming
+respectful and obsequious. It almost flattered him to be roughly handled
+by such a celebrity. He muttered, in an abashed and admiring tone:
+
+"What, is it possible? You, Monsieur Lecoq!"
+
+"Yes, it is I, young man; but console yourself; I bear no grudge against
+you. You don't know your trade, but you have done me a service and you
+have brought us a convincing proof of Guespin's innocence."
+
+M. Domini looked on at this scene with secret chagrin. His recruit went
+over to the enemy, yielding without a struggle to a confessed
+superiority. M. Lecoq's presumption, in speaking of a prisoner's
+innocence whose guilt seemed to the judge indisputable, exasperated him.
+
+"And what is this tremendous proof, if you please?" asked he.
+
+"It is simple and striking," answered M. Lecoq, putting on his most
+frivolous air as his conclusions narrowed the field of probabilities.
+
+"You doubtless recollect that when we were at Valfeuillu we found the
+hands of the clock in the bedroom stopped at twenty minutes past three.
+Distrusting foul play, I put the striking apparatus in motion--do you
+recall it? What happened? The clock struck eleven. That convinced us
+that the crime was committed before that hour. But don't you see that if
+Guespin was at the Vulcan's Forges at ten he could not have got back to
+Valfeuillu before midnight? Therefore it was not--he who did the deed."
+
+The detective, as he came to this conclusion, pulled out the inevitable
+box and helped himself to a lozenge, at the same time bestowing upon the
+judge a smile which said:
+
+"Get out of that, if you can."
+
+The judge's whole theory tumbled to pieces if M. Lecoq's deductions were
+right; but he could not admit that he had been so much deceived; he
+could not renounce an opinion formed by deliberate reflection.
+
+"I don't pretend that Guespin is the only criminal," said he. "He could
+only have been an accomplice; and that he was."
+
+"An accomplice? No, Judge, he was a victim. Ah, Tremorel is a great
+rascal! Don't you see now why he put forward the hands? At first I
+didn't perceive the object of advancing the time five hours; now it is
+clear. In order to implicate Guespin the crime must appear to have been
+committed after midnight, and--"
+
+He suddenly checked himself and stopped with open mouth and fixed eyes
+as a new idea crossed his mind. The judge, who was bending over his
+papers trying to find something to sustain his position, did not
+perceive this.
+
+"But then," said the latter, "how do you explain Guespin's refusal to
+speak and to give an account of where he spent the night?"
+
+M. Lecoq had now recovered from his emotion, and Dr. Gendron and M.
+Plantat, who were watching him with the deepest attention, saw a
+triumphant light in his eyes. Doubtless he had just found a solution of
+the problem which had been put to him.
+
+"I understand," replied he, "and can explain Guespin's obstinate
+silence. I should be perfectly amazed if he decided to speak just now."
+
+M. Domini misconstrued the meaning of this; he thought he saw in it a
+covert intention to banter him.
+
+"He has had a night to reflect upon it," he answered. "Is not twelve
+hours enough to mature a system of defence?"
+
+The detective shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"It is certain that he does not need it," said he. "Our prisoner doesn't
+trouble himself about a system of defence, that I'll swear to."
+
+"He keeps quiet, because he hasn't been able to get up a plausible
+story."
+
+"No, no; believe me, he isn't trying to get up one. In my opinion,
+Guespin is a victim; that is, I suspect Tremorel of having set an
+infamous trap for him, into which he has fallen, and in which he sees
+himself so completely caught that he thinks it useless to struggle. The
+poor wretch is convinced that the more he resists the more surely he
+will tighten the web that is woven around him."
+
+"I think so, too," said M. Plantat.
+
+"The true criminal, Count Hector," resumed the detective, "lost his
+presence of mind at the last moment, and thus lost all the advantages
+which his previous caution had gained. Don't let us forget that he is an
+able man, perfidious enough to mature the most infamous stratagems, and
+unscrupulous enough to execute them. He knows that justice must have its
+victims, one for every crime; he does not forget that the police, as
+long as it has not the criminal, is always on the search with eye and
+ear open; and he has thrown us Guespin as a huntsman, closely pressed,
+throws his glove to the bear that is close upon him. Perhaps he thought
+that the innocent man would not be in danger of his life; at all events
+he hoped to gain time by this ruse; while the bear is smelling and
+turning over the glove, the huntsman gains ground, escapes and reaches
+his place of refuge; that was what Tremorel proposed to do."
+
+The Corbeil policeman was now undoubtedly Lecoq's most enthusiastic
+listener. Goulard literally drank in his chief's words. He had never
+heard any of his colleagues express themselves with such fervor and
+authority; he had had no idea of such eloquence, and he stood erect, as
+if some of the admiration which he saw in all the faces were reflected
+back on him. He grew in his own esteem as he thought that he was a
+soldier in an army commanded by such generals. He had no longer any
+opinion excepting that of his superior. It was not so easy to persuade,
+subjugate, and convince the judge.
+
+"But," objected the latter, "you saw Guespin's countenance?"
+
+"Ah, what matters the countenance--what does that prove? Don't we know
+if you and I were arrested to-morrow on a terrible charge, what our
+bearing would be?"
+
+M. Domini gave a significant start; this hypothesis scarcely pleased
+him.
+
+"And yet you and I are familiar with the machinery of justice. When I
+arrested Lanscot, the poor servant in the Rue Marignan, his first words
+were: 'Come on, my account is good.' The morning that Papa Tabaret and I
+took the Viscount de Commarin as he was getting out of bed, on the
+accusation of having murdered the widow Lerouge, he cried: 'I am lost.'
+Yet neither of them were guilty; but both of them, the viscount and the
+valet, equal before the terror of a possible mistake of justice, and
+running over in their thoughts the charges which would be brought
+against them, had a moment of overwhelming discouragement."
+
+"But such discouragement does not last two days," said M. Domini.
+
+M. Lecoq did not answer this; he went on, growing more animated as he
+proceeded.
+
+"You and I have seen enough prisoners to know how deceitful appearances
+are, and how little they are to be trusted. It would be foolish to base
+a theory upon a prisoner's bearing. He who talked about 'the cry of
+innocence' was an idiot, just as the man was who prated about the 'pale
+stupor' of guilt. Neither crime nor virtue have, unhappily, any especial
+countenance. The Simon girl, who was accused of having killed her
+father, absolutely refused to answer any questions for twenty-two days;
+on the twenty-third, the murderer was caught. As to the Sylvain
+affair--"
+
+M. Domini rapped lightly on his desk to check the detective. As a man,
+the judge held too obstinately to his opinions; as a magistrate he was
+equally obstinate, but was at the same time ready to make any sacrifice
+of his self-esteem if the voice of duty prompted it. M. Lecoq's
+arguments had not shaken his convictions, but they imposed on him the
+duty of informing himself at once, and to either conquer the detective
+or avow himself conquered.
+
+"You seem to be pleading," said he to M. Lecoq. "There is no need of
+that here. We are not counsel and judge; the same honorable intentions
+animate us both. Each, in his sphere, is searching after the truth. You
+think you see it shining where I only discern clouds; and you may be
+mistaken as well as I."
+
+Then by an act of heroism, he condescended to add:
+
+"What do you think I ought to do?"
+
+The judge was at least rewarded for the effort he made by approving
+glances from M. Plantat and the doctor. But M. Lecoq did not hasten to
+respond; he had many weighty reasons to advance; that, he saw, was not
+what was necessary. He ought to present the facts, there and at once,
+and produce one of those proofs which can be touched with the finger.
+How should he do it? His active mind searched eagerly for such a proof.
+
+"Well?" insisted M. Domini.
+
+"Ah," cried the detective. "Why can't I ask Guespin two or three
+questions?"
+
+The judge frowned; the suggestion seemed to him rather presumptuous. It
+is formally laid down that the questioning of the accused should be done
+in secret, and by the judge alone, aided by his clerk. On the other hand
+it is decided, that after he has once been interrogated he may be
+confronted with witnesses. There are, besides, exceptions in favor of
+the members of the police force. M. Domini reflected whether there were
+any precedents to apply to the case.
+
+"I don't know," he answered at last, "to what point the law permits me
+to consent to what you ask. However, as I am convinced the interests of
+truth outweigh all rules, I shall take it on myself to let you question
+Guespin."
+
+He rang; a bailiff appeared.
+
+"Has Guespin been carried back to prison?"
+
+"Not yet, Monsieur."
+
+"So much the better; have him brought in here."
+
+M. Lecoq was beside himself with joy; he had not hoped to achieve such a
+victory over one so determined as M. Domini.
+
+"He will speak now," said he, so full of confidence that his eyes shone,
+and he forgot the portrait of the dear defunct, "for I have three means
+of unloosening his tongue, one of which is sure to succeed. But before
+he comes I should like to know one thing. Do you know whether Tremorel
+saw Jenny after Sauvresy's death?"
+
+"Jenny?" asked M. Plantat, a little surprised.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Certainly he did."
+
+"Several times?"
+
+"Pretty often. After the scene at the Belle Image the poor girl plunged
+into terrible dissipation. Whether she was smitten with remorse, or
+understood that it was her conduct which had killed Sauvresy, or
+suspected the crime, I don't know. She began, however, to drink
+furiously, falling lower and lower every week--"
+
+"And the count really consented to see her again?"
+
+"He was forced to do so; she tormented him, and he was afraid of her.
+When she had spent all her money she sent to him for more, and he gave
+it. Once he refused; and that very evening she went to him the worse for
+wine, and he had the greatest difficulty in the world to send her away
+again. In short, she knew what his relations with Madame Sauvresy had
+been, and she threatened him; it was a regular black-mailing operation.
+He told me all about the trouble she gave him, and added that he would
+not be able to get rid of her without shutting her up, which he could
+not bring himself to do."
+
+"How long ago was their last interview?"
+
+"Why," answered the doctor, "not three weeks ago, when I had a
+consultation at Melun, I saw the count and this demoiselle at a hotel
+window; when he saw me he suddenly drew back."
+
+"Then," said the detective, "there is no longer any doubt--"
+
+He stopped. Guespin came in between two gendarmes.
+
+The unhappy gardener had aged twenty years in twenty-four hours. His
+eyes were haggard, his dry lips were bordered with foam.
+
+"Let us see," said the judge. "Have you changed your mind about
+speaking?"
+
+The prisoner did not answer.
+
+"Have you decided to tell us about yourself?"
+
+Guespin's rage made him tremble from head to foot, and his eyes became
+fiery.
+
+"Speak!" said he hoarsely. "Why should I?"
+
+He added with the gesture of a desperate man who abandons himself,
+renounces all struggling and all hope:
+
+"What have I done to you, my God, that you torture me this way? What do
+you want me to say? That I did this crime--is that what you want? Well,
+then--yes--it was I. Now you are satisfied. Now cut my head off, and do
+it quick--for I don't want to suffer any longer."
+
+A mournful silence welcomed Guespin's declaration. What, he confessed
+it!
+
+M. Domini had at least the good taste not to exult; he kept still, and
+yet this avowal surprised him beyond all expression.
+
+M. Lecoq alone, although surprised, was not absolutely put out of
+countenance. He approached Guespin and tapping him on the shoulder, said
+in a paternal tone:
+
+"Come, comrade, what you are telling us is absurd. Do you think the
+judge has any secret grudge against you? No, eh? Do you suppose I am
+interested to have you guillotined? Not at all. A crime has been
+committed, and we are trying to find the assassin. If you are innocent,
+help us to find the man who isn't: What were you doing from Wednesday
+evening till Thursday morning?"
+
+But Guespin persisted in his ferocious and stupid obstinacy.
+
+"I've said what I have to say," said he.
+
+M. Lecoq changed his tone to one of severity, stepping back to watch the
+effect he was about to produce upon Guespin.
+
+"You haven't any right to hold your tongue. And even if you do, you
+fool, the police know everything. Your master sent you on an errand,
+didn't he, on Wednesday night; what did he give you? A
+one-thousand-franc note?"
+
+The prisoner looked at M. Lecoq in speechless amazement.
+
+"No," he stammered. "It was a five-hundred-franc note."
+
+The detective, like all great artists in a critical scene, was really
+moved. His surprising genius for investigation had just inspired him
+with a bold stroke, which, if it succeeded, would assure him the
+victory.
+
+"Now," said he, "tell me the woman's name."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You are only a fool then. She is short, isn't she, quite pretty, brown
+and pale, with very large eyes?"
+
+"You know her, then?" said Guespin, in a voice trembling with emotion.
+
+"Yes, comrade, and if you want to know her name, to put in your prayers,
+she is called--Jenny."
+
+Men who are really able in some specialty, whatever it may be, never
+uselessly abuse their superiority; their satisfaction at seeing it
+recognized is sufficient reward. M. Lecoq softly enjoyed his triumph,
+while his hearers wondered at his perspicacity. A rapid chain of
+reasoning had shown him not only Tremorel's thoughts, but also the means
+he had employed to accomplish his purpose.
+
+Guespin's astonishment soon changed to anger. He asked himself how this
+man could have been informed of things which he had every reason to
+believe were secret. Lecoq continued:
+
+"Since I have told you the woman's name, tell me now, how and why the
+count gave you a five-hundred-franc note."
+
+"It was just as I was going out. The count had no change, and did not
+want to send me to Orcival for it. I was to bring back the rest."
+
+"And why didn't you rejoin your companions at the wedding in the
+Batignolles?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"What was the errand which you were to do for the count?"
+
+Guespin hesitated. His eyes wandered from one to another of those
+present, and he seemed to discover an ironical expression on all the
+faces. It occurred to him that they were making sport of him, and had
+set a snare into which he had fallen. A great despair took possession of
+him.
+
+"Ah," cried he, addressing M. Lecoq, "you have deceived me. You have
+been lying so as to find out the truth. I have been such a fool as to
+answer you, and you are going to turn it all against me."
+
+"What? Are you going to talk nonsense again?"
+
+"No, but I see just how it is, and you won't catch me again! Now I'd
+rather die than say a word."
+
+The detective tried to reassure him; but he added:
+
+"Besides, I'm as sly as you; I've told you nothing but lies."
+
+This sudden whim surprised no one. Some prisoners intrench themselves
+behind a system of defence, and nothing can divert them from it; others
+vary with each new question, denying what they have just affirmed, and
+constantly inventing some new absurdity which anon they reject again. M.
+Lecoq tried in vain to draw Guespin from his silence; M. Domini made the
+same attempt, and also failed; to all questions he only answered, "I
+don't know."
+
+At last the detective waxed impatient.
+
+"See here," said he to Guespin, "I took you for a young man of sense,
+and you are only an ass. Do you imagine that we don't know anything?
+Listen: On the night of Madame Denis's wedding, you were getting ready
+to go off with your comrades, and had just borrowed twenty francs from
+the valet, when the count called you. He made you promise absolute
+secrecy (a promise which, to do you justice, you kept); he told you to
+leave the other servants at the station and go to Vulcan's Forges, where
+you were to buy for him a hammer, a file, a chisel, and a dirk; these
+you were to carry to a certain woman. Then he gave you this famous
+five-hundred-franc note, telling you to bring him back the change when
+you returned next day. Isn't that so?"
+
+An affirmative response glistened in the prisoner's eyes; still, he
+answered, "I don't recollect it."
+
+"Now," pursued M. Lecoq, "I'm going to tell you what happened
+afterwards. You drank something and got tipsy, and in short spent a part
+of the change of the note. That explains your fright when you were
+seized yesterday morning, before anybody said a word to you. You thought
+you were being arrested for spending that money. Then, when you learned
+that the count had been murdered during the night, recollecting that on
+the evening before you had bought all kinds of instruments of theft and
+murder, and that you didn't know either the address or the name of the
+woman to whom you gave up the package, convinced that if you explained
+the source of the money found in your pocket, you would not be
+believed--then, instead of thinking of the means to prove your
+innocence, you became afraid, and thought you would save yourself by
+holding your tongue."
+
+The prisoner's countenance visibly changed; his nerves relaxed; his
+tight lips fell apart; his mind opened itself to hope. But he still
+resisted.
+
+"Do with me as you like," said he.
+
+"Eh! What should we do with such a fool as you?" cried M. Lecoq angrily.
+"I begin to think you are a rascal too. A decent fellow would see that
+we wanted to get him out of a scrape, and he'd tell us the truth. You
+are prolonging your imprisonment by your own will. You'd better learn
+that the greatest shrewdness consists in telling the truth. A last time,
+will you answer?"
+
+Guespin shook his head; no.
+
+"Go back to prison, then; since it pleases you," concluded the
+detective. He looked at the judge for his approval, and added:
+
+"Gendarmes, remove the prisoner."
+
+The judge's last doubt was dissipated like the mist before the sun. He
+was, to tell the truth, a little uneasy at having treated the detective
+so rudely; and he tried to repair it as much as he could.
+
+"You are an able man, Monsieur Lecoq," said he. "Without speaking of
+your clearsightedness, which is so prompt as to seem almost like second
+sight, your examination just now was a master-piece of its kind. Receive
+my congratulations, to say nothing of the reward which I propose to
+recommend in your favor to your chiefs."
+
+The detective at these compliments cast down his eyes with the abashed
+air of a virgin. He looked tenderly at the dear defunct's portrait, and
+doubtless said to it:
+
+"At last, darling, we have defeated him--this austere judge who so
+heartily detests the force of which we are the brightest ornament, makes
+his apologies; he recognizes and applauds our services."
+
+He answered aloud:
+
+"I can only accept half of your eulogies, Monsieur; permit me to offer
+the other half to my friend Monsieur Plantat."
+
+M. Plantat tried to protest.
+
+"Oh," said he, "only for some bits of information! You would have
+ferreted out the truth without me all the same."
+
+The judge arose and graciously, but not without effort, extended his
+hand to M. Lecoq, who respectfully pressed it.
+
+"You have spared me," said the judge, "a great remorse. Guespin's
+innocence would surely sooner or later have been recognized; but the
+idea of having imprisoned an innocent man and harassed him with my
+interrogatories, would have disturbed my sleep and tormented my
+conscience for a long time."
+
+"God knows this poor Guespin is not an interesting youth," returned the
+detective. "I should be disposed to press him hard were I not certain
+that he's half a fool."
+
+M. Domini gave a start.
+
+"I shall discharge him this very day," said he, "this very hour."
+
+"It will be an act of charity," said M. Lecoq; "but confound his
+obstinacy; it was so easy for him to simplify my task. I might be able,
+by the aid of chance, to collect the principal facts--the errand, and a
+woman being mixed up in the affair; but as I'm no magician, I couldn't
+guess all the details. How is Jenny mixed up in this affair? Is she an
+accomplice, or has she only been made to play an ignorant part in it?
+Where did she meet Guespin and whither did she lead him? It is clear
+that she made the poor fellow tipsy so as to prevent his going to the
+Batignolles. Tremorel must have told her some false story--but what?"
+
+"I don't think Tremorel troubled his head about so small a matter," said
+M. Plantat. "He gave Guespin and Jenny some task, without explaining it
+at all."
+
+M. Lecoq reflected a moment.
+
+"Perhaps you are right. But Jenny must have had special orders to
+prevent Guespin from putting in an alibi."
+
+"But," said M. Domini, "Jenny will explain it all to us."
+
+"That is what I rely on; and I hope that within forty-eight hours I
+shall have found her and brought her safely to Corbeil."
+
+He rose at these words, took his cane and hat, and turning to the judge,
+said:
+
+"Before retiring--"
+
+"Yes, I know," interrupted M. Domini, "you want a warrant to arrest
+Hector de Tremorel."
+
+"I do, as you are now of my opinion that he is still alive."
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+M. Domini opened his portfolio and wrote off a warrant as follows:
+
+"By the law: "We, judge of instruction of the first tribunal, etc.,
+considering articles 91 and 94 of the code of criminal instruction,
+command and ordain to all the agents of the police to arrest, in
+conformity with the law, one Hector de Tremorel, etc."
+
+When he had finished, he said:
+
+"Here it is, and may you succeed in speedily finding this great
+criminal."
+
+"Oh, he'll find him," cried the Corbeil policeman.
+
+"I hope so, at least. As to how I shall go to work, I don't know yet. I
+will arrange my plan of battle to-night."
+
+The detective then took leave of M. Domini and retired, followed by M.
+Plantat. The doctor remained with the judge to make arrangements for
+Sauvresy's exhumation.
+
+M. Lecoq was just leaving the court-house when he felt himself pulled by
+the arm. He turned and found that it was Goulard who came to beg his
+favor and to ask him to take him along, persuaded that after having
+served under so great a captain he must inevitably become a famous man
+himself. M. Lecoq had some difficulty in getting rid of him; but he at
+length found himself alone in the street with the old justice of the
+peace.
+
+"It is late," said the latter. "Would it be agreeable to you to partake
+of another modest dinner with me, and accept my cordial hospitality?"
+
+"I am chagrined to be obliged to refuse you," replied M. Lecoq. "But I
+ought to be in Paris this evening."
+
+"But I--in fact, I--was very anxious to talk to you--about--"
+
+"About Mademoiselle Laurence?"
+
+"Yes; I have a plan, and if you would help me--"
+
+M. Lecoq affectionately pressed his friend's hand.
+
+"I have only known you a few hours," said he, "and yet I am as devoted
+to you as I would be to an old friend. All that is humanly possible for
+me to do to serve you, I shall certainly do."
+
+"But where shall I see you? They expect me to-day at Orcival."
+
+"Very well; to-morrow morning at nine, at my rooms. No--Rue Montmartre."
+
+"A thousand thanks; I shall be there."
+
+When they had reached the Belle Image they separated.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Nine o'clock had just struck in the belfry of the church of St.
+Eustache, when M. Plantat reached Rue Montmartre, and entered the house
+bearing the number which M. Lecoq had given him.
+
+"Monsieur Lecoq?" said he to an old woman who was engaged in getting
+breakfast for three large cats which were mewing around her. The woman
+scanned him with a surprised and suspicious air. M. Plantat, when he was
+dressed up, had much more the appearance of a fine old gentleman than of
+a country attorney; and though the detective received many visits from
+all sorts of people, it was rarely that the denizens of the Faubourg
+Saint Germaine rung his bell.
+
+"Monsieur Lecoq's apartments," answered the old woman, "are on the third
+story, the door facing the stairs."
+
+The justice of the peace slowly ascended the narrow, ill-lighted
+staircase, which in its dark corners was almost dangerous. He was
+thinking of the strange step he was about to take. An idea had occurred
+to him, but he did not know whether it were practicable, and at all
+events he needed the aid and advice of the detective. He was forced to
+disclose his most secret thoughts, as it were, to confess himself; and
+his heart beat fast. The door opposite the staircase on the third story
+was not like other doors; it was of plain oak, thick, without mouldings,
+and fastened with iron bars. It would have looked like a prison door had
+not its sombreness been lightened by a heavily colored engraving of a
+cock crowing, with the legend "Always Vigilant." Had the detective put
+his coat of arms up there? Was it not more likely that one of his men
+had done it? After examining the door more than a minute, and hesitating
+like a youth before his beloved's gate, he rang the bell. A creaking of
+locks responded, and through the narrow bars of the peephole he saw the
+hairy face of an old crone.
+
+"What do you want?" said the woman, in a deep, bass voice.
+
+"Monsieur Lecoq."
+
+"What do you want of him?"
+
+"He made an appointment with me for this morning."
+
+"Your name and business?"
+
+"Monsieur Plantat, justice of the peace at Orcival."
+
+"All right. Wait."
+
+The peephole was closed and the old man waited.
+
+"Peste!" growled he. "Everybody can't get in here, it seems." Hardly had
+this reflection passed through his mind when the door opened with a
+noise as of chains and locks. He entered, and the old crone, after
+leading him through a dining-room whose sole furniture was a table and
+six chairs, introduced him to a large room, half toilet-room and half
+working-room, lighted by two windows looking on the court, and guarded
+by strong, close bars.
+
+"If you will take the trouble to sit," said the servant, "Monsieur Lecoq
+will soon be here; he is giving orders to one of his men."
+
+But M. Plantat did not take a seat; he preferred to examine the curious
+apartment in which he found himself. The whole of one side of the wall
+was taken up with a long rack, where hung the strangest and most
+incongruous suits of clothes. There were costumes belonging to all
+grades of society; and on some wooden pegs above, wigs of all colors
+were hanging; while boots and shoes of various styles were ranged on the
+floor. A toilet-table, covered with powders, essences, and paints, stood
+between the fireplace and the window. On the other side of the room was
+a bookcase full of scientific works, especially of physic and chemistry.
+The most singular piece of furniture in the apartment, however, was a
+large ball, shaped like a lozenge, in black velvet, suspended beside the
+looking-glass. A quantity of pins were stuck in this ball, so as to form
+the letters composing these two names: HECTOR-JENNY.
+
+These names glittering on the black background attracted the old man's
+attention at once. This must have been M. Lecoq's reminder. The ball was
+meant to recall to him perpetually the people of whom he was in pursuit.
+Many names, doubtless, had in turn glittered on that velvet, for it was
+much frayed and perforated. An unfinished letter lay open upon the
+bureau.
+
+M. Plantat leaned over to read it; but he took his trouble for nothing,
+for it was written in cipher.
+
+He had no sooner finished his inspection of the room than the noise of a
+door opening made him turn round. He saw before him a man of his own
+age, of respectable mien, and polite manners, a little bald, with gold
+spectacles and a light-colored flannel dressing-gown.
+
+M. Plantat bowed, saying:
+
+"I am waiting here for Monsieur Lecoq."
+
+The man in gold spectacles burst out laughing, and clapped his hands
+with glee.
+
+"What, dear sir," said he, "don't you know me? Look at me well--it is
+I--Monsieur Lecoq!" And to convince him, he took off his spectacles.
+Those might, indeed, be Lecoq's eyes, and that his voice; M. Plantat was
+confounded.
+
+"I never should have recognized you," said he.
+
+"It's true, I have changed a little--but what would you have? It's my
+trade."
+
+And pushing a chair toward his visitor, he pursued:
+
+"I have to beg a thousand pardons for the formalities you've had to
+endure to get in here; it's a dire necessity, but one I can't help. I
+have told you of the dangers to which I am exposed; they pursue me to my
+very door. Why, last week a railway porter brought a package here
+addressed to me. Janouille--that's my old woman--suspected nothing,
+though she has a sharp nose, and told him to come in. He held out the
+package, I went up to take it, when pif! paf! off went two pistol-shots.
+The package was a revolver wrapped up in oilcloth, and the porter was a
+convict escaped from Cayenne, caught by me last year. Ah, I put him
+through for this though!"
+
+He told this adventure carelessly, as if it were the most natural thing
+in the world.
+
+"But let's not starve ourselves to death," he continued, ringing the
+bell. The old hag appeared, and he ordered her to bring on breakfast
+forthwith, and above all, some good wine.
+
+"You are observing my Janouille," remarked he, seeing that M. Plantat
+looked curiously at the servant. "She's a pearl, my dear friend, who
+watches over me as if I were her child, and would go through the fire
+for me. I had a good deal of trouble the other day to prevent her
+strangling the false railway porter. I picked her out of three or four
+thousand convicts. She had been convicted of infanticide and arson. I
+would bet a hundred to one that, during the three years that she has
+been in my service, she has not even thought of robbing me of so much as
+a centime."
+
+But M. Plantat only listened to him with one ear; he was trying to find
+an excuse for cutting Janouille's story short, and to lead the
+conversation to the events of the day before.
+
+"I have, perhaps, incommoded you a little this morning, Monsieur Lecoq?"
+
+"Me? then you did not see my motto--'always vigilant?' Why, I've been
+out ten times this morning; besides marking out work for three of my
+men. Ah, we have little time to ourselves, I can tell you. I went to the
+Vulcan's Forges to see what news I could get of that poor devil of a
+Guespin."
+
+"And what did you hear?"
+
+"That I had guessed right. He changed a five-hundred-franc note there
+last Wednesday evening at a quarter before ten."
+
+"That is to say, he is saved?"
+
+"Well, you may say so. He will be, as soon as we have found Miss Jenny."
+
+The old justice of the peace could not avoid showing his uneasiness.
+
+"That will, perhaps, be long and difficult?"
+
+"Bast! Why so? She is on my black ball there--we shall have her,
+accidents excepted, before night."
+
+"You really think so?"
+
+"I should say I was sure, to anybody but you. Reflect that this girl has
+been connected with the Count de Tremorel, a man of the world, a prince
+of the mode. When a girl falls to the gutter, after having, as they say,
+dazzled all Paris for six months with her luxury, she does not disappear
+entirely, like a stone in the mud. When she has lost all her friends
+there are still her creditors, who follow and watch her, awaiting the
+day when fortune will smile on her once more. She doesn't trouble
+herself about them, she thinks they've forgotten her; a mistake! I know
+a milliner whose head is a perfect dictionary of the fashionable world;
+she has often done me a good turn. We will go and see her if you say so,
+after breakfast, and in two hours she will give us Jenny's address. Ah,
+if I were only as sure of pinching Tremorel!"
+
+M. Plantat gave a sigh of relief. The conversation at last took the turn
+he wished.
+
+"You are thinking of him, then?" asked he.
+
+"Am I?" shouted M. Lecoq, who started from his seat at the question.
+"Now just look at my black ball there. I haven't thought of anybody
+else, mark you, since yesterday; I haven't had a wink of sleep all night
+for thinking of him. I must have him, and I will!"
+
+"I don't doubt it; but when?"
+
+"Ah, there it is! Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps in a month; it depends on
+the correctness of my calculations and the exactness of my plan."
+
+"What, is your plan made?"
+
+"And decided on."
+
+M. Plantat became attention itself.
+
+"I start from the principle that it is impossible for a man, accompanied
+by a woman, to hide from the police. In this case, the woman is young,
+pretty, and in a noticeable condition; three impossibilities more. Admit
+this, and we'll study Hector's character. He isn't a man of superior
+shrewdness, for we have found out all his dodges. He isn't a fool,
+because his dodges deceived people who are by no means fools. He is then
+a medium sort of a man, and his education, reading, relations, and daily
+conversation have procured him a number of acquaintances whom he will
+try to use. Now for his mind. We know the weakness of his character;
+soft, feeble, vacillating, only acting in the last extremity. We have
+seen him shrinking from decisive steps, trying always to delay matters.
+He is given to being deceived by illusions, and to taking his desires
+for accomplished events. In short, he is a coward. And what is his
+situation? He has killed his wife, he hopes he has created a belief in
+his own death, he has eloped with a young girl, and he has got nearly or
+quite a million of francs in his pocket. Now, this position admitted, as
+well as the man's character and mind, can we by an effort of thought,
+reasoning from his known actions, discover what he has done in such and
+such a case? I think so, and I hope I shall prove it to you."
+
+M. Lecoq rose and promenaded, as his habit was, up and down the room.
+"Now let's see," he continued, "how I ought to proceed in order to
+discover the probable conduct of a man whose antecedents, traits, and
+mind are known to me. To begin with, I throw off my own individuality
+and try to assume his. I substitute his will for my own. I cease to be a
+detective and become this man, whatever he is. In this case, for
+instance, I know very well what I should do if I were Tremorel. I should
+take such measures as would throw all the detectives in the universe off
+the scent. But I must forget Monsieur Lecoq in order to become Hector de
+Tremorel. How would a man reason who was base enough to rob his friend
+of his wife, and then see her poison her husband before his very eyes?
+We already know that Tremorel hesitated a good while before deciding to
+commit this crime. The logic of events, which fools call fatality, urged
+him on. It is certain that he looked upon the murder in every point of
+view, studied its results, and tried to find means to escape from
+justice. All his acts were determined on long beforehand, and neither
+immediate necessity nor unforeseen circumstances disturbed his mind. The
+moment he had decided on the crime, he said to himself: 'Grant that
+Bertha has been murdered; thanks to my precautions, they think that I
+have been killed too; Laurence, with whom I elope, writes a letter in
+which she announces her suicide; I have money, what must I do?' The
+problem, it seems to me, is fairly put in this way."
+
+"Perfectly so," approved M. Plantat.
+
+"Naturally, Tremorel would choose from among all the methods of flight
+of which he had ever heard, or which he could imagine, that which seemed
+to him the surest and most prompt. Did he meditate leaving the country?
+That is more than probable. Only, as he was not quite out of his senses,
+he saw that it was most difficult, in a foreign country, to put justice
+off the track. If a man flies from France to escape punishment, he acts
+absurdly. Fancy a man and woman wandering about a country of whose
+language they are ignorant; they attract attention at once, are
+observed, talked about, followed. They do not make a purchase which is
+not remarked; they cannot make any movement without exciting curiosity.
+The further they go the greater their danger. If they choose to cross
+the ocean and go to free America, they must go aboard a vessel; and the
+moment they do that they may be considered as good as lost. You might
+bet twenty to one they would find, on landing on the other side, a
+detective on the pier armed with a warrant to arrest them. I would
+engage to find a Frenchman in eight days, even in London, unless he
+spoke pure enough English to pass for a citizen of the United Kingdom.
+Such were Tremorel's reflections. He recollected a thousand futile
+attempts, a hundred surprising adventures, narrated by the papers; and
+it is certain that he gave up the idea of going abroad."
+
+"It's clear," cried M. Plantat, "perfectly plain and precise. We must
+look for the fugitives in France."
+
+"Yes," replied M. Lecoq. "Now let's find out where and how people can
+hide themselves in France. Would it be in the provinces? Evidently not.
+In Bordeaux, one of our largest cities, people stare at a man who is not
+a Bordelais. The shopkeepers on the quays say to their neighbors: 'Eh!
+do you know that man?' There are two cities, however, where a man may
+pass unnoticed--Marseilles and Lyons; but both of these are distant, and
+to reach them a long journey must be risked--and nothing is so dangerous
+as the railway since the telegraph was established. One can fly quickly,
+it's true; but on entering a railway carriage a man shuts himself in,
+and until he gets out of it he remains under the thumb of the police.
+Tremorel knows all this as well as we do. We will put all the large
+towns, including Lyons and Marseilles, out of the question."
+
+"In short, it's impossible to hide in the provinces."
+
+"Excuse me--there is one means; that is, simply to buy a modest little
+place at a distance from towns and railways, and to go and reside on it
+under a false name. But this excellent project is quite above Tremorel's
+capacity, and requires preparatory steps which he could not risk,
+watched as he was by his wife. The field of investigation is thus much
+narrowed. Putting aside foreign parts, the provinces, the cities, the
+country, Paris remains. It is in Paris that we must look for Tremorel."
+
+M. Lecoq spoke with the certainty and positiveness of a mathematical
+professor; the old justice of the peace listened, as do the professor's
+scholars. But he was already accustomed to the detective's surprising
+clearness, and was no longer astonished. During the four-and-twenty
+hours that he had been witnessing M. Lecoq's calculations and gropings,
+he had seized the process and almost appropriated it to himself. He
+found this method of reasoning very simple, and could now explain to
+himself certain exploits of the police which had hitherto seemed to him
+miraculous. But M. Lecoq's "narrow field" of observation appeared still
+immense.
+
+"Paris is a large place," observed the old justice.
+
+M. Lecoq smiled loftily.
+
+"Perhaps so; but it is mine. All Paris is under the eye of the police,
+just as an ant is under that of the naturalist with his microscope. How
+is it, you may ask, that Paris still holds so many professional rogues?
+Ah, that is because we are hampered by legal forms. The law compels us
+to use only polite weapons against those to whom all weapons are
+serviceable. The courts tie our hands. The rogues are clever, but be
+sure that our cleverness is much greater than theirs."
+
+"But," interrupted M. Plantat, "Tremorel is now outside the law; we have
+the warrant."
+
+"What matters it? Does the warrant give me the right to search any house
+in which I may have reason to suppose he is hiding himself? No. If I
+should go to the house of one of Hector's old friends he would kick me
+out of doors. You must know that in France the police have to contend
+not only with the rogues, but also with the honest people."
+
+M. Lecoq always waxed warm on this subject; he felt a strong resentment
+against the injustice practised on his profession. Fortunately, at the
+moment when he was most excited, the black ball suddenly caught his eye.
+
+"The devil!" exclaimed he, "I was forgetting Hector."
+
+M. Plantat, though listening patiently to his companion's indignant
+utterances, could not help thinking of the murderer.
+
+"You said that we must look for Tremorel in Paris," he remarked.
+
+"And I said truly," responded M. Lecoq in a calmer tone. "I have come to
+the conclusion that here, perhaps within two streets of us, perhaps in
+the next house, the fugitives are hid. But let's go on with our
+calculation of probabilities. Hector knows Paris too well to hope to
+conceal himself even for a week in a hotel or lodging-house; he knows
+these are too sharply watched by the police. He had plenty of time
+before him, and so arranged to hire apartments in some convenient
+house."
+
+"He came to Paris three or four times some weeks ago."
+
+"Then there's no longer any doubt about it. He hired some apartments
+under a false name, paid in advance, and to-day he is comfortably
+ensconced in his new residence."
+
+M. Plantat seemed to feel extremely distressed at this.
+
+"I know it only too well, Monsieur Lecoq," said he, sadly. "You must be
+right. But is not the wretch thus securely hidden from us? Must we wait
+till some accident reveals him to us? Can you search one by one all the
+houses in Paris?"
+
+The detective's nose wriggled under his gold spectacles, and the justice
+of the peace, who observed it, and took it for a good sign, felt all his
+hopes reviving in him.
+
+"I've cudgelled my brain in vain--" he began.
+
+"Pardon me," interrupted M. Lecoq. "Having hired apartments, Tremorel
+naturally set about furnishing them."
+
+"Evidently."
+
+"Of course he would furnish them sumptuously, both because he is fond of
+luxury and has plenty of money, and because he couldn't carry a young
+girl from a luxurious home to a garret. I'd wager that they have as fine
+a drawing-room as that at Valfeuillu."
+
+"Alas! How can that help us?"
+
+"Peste! It helps us much, my dear friend, as you shall see. Hector, as
+he wished for a good deal of expensive furniture, did not have recourse
+to a broker; nor had he time to go to the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+Therefore, he simply went to an upholsterer."
+
+"Some fashionable upholsterer--"
+
+"No, he would have risked being recognized. It is clear that he assumed
+a false name, the same in which he had hired his rooms. He chose some
+shrewd and humble upholsterer, ordered his goods, made sure that they
+would be delivered on a certain day, and paid for them."
+
+M. Plantat could not repress a joyful exclamation; he began to see M.
+Lecoq's drift.
+
+"This merchant," pursued the latter, "must have retained his rich
+customer in his memory, this customer who did not beat him down, and
+paid cash. If he saw him again, he would recognize him."
+
+"What an idea!" cried M. Plantat, delighted. "Let's get photographs and
+portraits of Tremorel as quick as we can--let's send a man to Orcival
+for them."
+
+M. Lecoq smiled shrewdly and proceeded:
+
+"Keep yourself easy; I have done what was necessary. I slipped three of
+the count's cartes-de-visite in my pocket yesterday during the inquest.
+This morning I took down, out of the directory, the names of all the
+upholsterers in Paris, and made three lists of them. At this moment
+three of my men, each with a list and a photograph, are going from
+upholsterer to upholsterer showing them the picture and asking them if
+they recognize it as the portrait of one of their customers. If one of
+them answers 'yes,' we've got our man."
+
+"And we will get him!" cried the old man, pale with emotion.
+
+"Not yet; don't shout victory too soon. It is possible that Hector was
+prudent enough not to go to the upholsterer's himself. In this case we
+are beaten in that direction. But no, he was not so sly as that--"
+
+M. Lecoq checked himself. Janouille, for the third time, opened the
+door, and said, in a deep bass voice:
+
+"Breakfast is ready."
+
+Janouille was a remarkable cook; M. Plantat had ample experience of the
+fact when he began upon her dishes. But he was not hungry, and could not
+force himself to eat; he could not think of anything but a plan which he
+had to propose to his host, and he had that oppressive feeling which is
+experienced when one is about to do something which has been decided on
+with hesitation and regret. The detective, who, like all men of great
+activity, was a great eater, vainly essayed to entertain his guest, and
+filled his glass with the choicest Chateau Margaux; the old man sat
+silent and sad, and only responded by monosyllables. He tried to speak
+out and to struggle against the hesitation he felt. He did not think,
+when he came, that he should have this reluctance; he had said to
+himself that he would go in and explain himself. Did he fear to be
+ridiculed? No. His passion was above the fear of sarcasm or irony. And
+what did he risk? Nothing. Had not M. Lecoq already divined the secret
+thoughts he dared not impart to him, and read his heart from the first?
+He was reflecting thus when the door-bell rang. Janouille went to the
+door, and speedily returned with the announcement that Goulard begged to
+speak with M. Lecoq, and asked if she should admit him.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+The chains clanked and the locks scraped, and presently Goulard made his
+appearance. He had donned his best clothes, with spotless linen, and a
+very high collar. He was respectful, and stood as stiffly as a
+well-drilled grenadier before his sergeant.
+
+"What the deuce brought you here?" said M. Lecoq, sternly. "And who
+dared to give you my address?"
+
+"Monsieur," said Goulard, visibly intimidated by his reception, "please
+excuse me; I was sent by Doctor Gendron with this letter for Monsieur
+Plantat."
+
+"Oh," cried M. Plantat, "I asked the doctor, last evening, to let me
+know the result of the autopsy, and not knowing where I should put up,
+took the liberty of giving your address."
+
+M. Lecoq took the letter and handed it to his guest. "Read it, read it,"
+said the latter. "There is nothing in it to conceal."
+
+"All right; but come into the other room. Janouille, give this man some
+breakfast. Make yourself at home, Goulard, and empty a bottle to my
+health."
+
+When the door of the other room was closed, M. Lecoq broke the seal of
+the letter, and read:
+
+"MY DEAR PLANTAT:
+
+"You asked me for a word, so I scratch off a line or two which I shall
+send to our sorcerer's--"
+
+"Oh, ho," cried M. Lecoq. "Monsieur Gendron is too good, too flattering,
+really!"
+
+No matter, the compliment touched his heart. He resumed the letter:
+
+"At three this morning we exhumed poor Sauvresy's body. I certainly
+deplore the frightful circumstances of this worthy man's death as much
+as anyone; but on the other hand, I cannot help rejoicing at this
+excellent opportunity to test the efficacy of my sensitive paper--"
+
+"Confound these men of science," cried the indignant Plantat. "They are
+all alike!"
+
+"Why so? I can very well comprehend the doctor's involuntary sensations.
+Am I not ravished when I encounter a fine crime?"
+
+And without waiting for his guest's reply, he continued reading the
+letter:
+
+"The experiments promised to be all the more conclusive as aconitine is
+one of those drugs which conceal themselves most obstinately from
+analysis. I proceed thus: After heating the suspected substances in
+twice their weight of alcohol, I drop the liquid gently into a vase with
+edges a little elevated, at the bottom of which is a piece of paper on
+which I have placed my tests. If my paper retains its color, there is no
+poison; if it changes, the poison is there. In this case my paper was of
+a light yellow color, and if we were not mistaken, it ought either to
+become covered with brown spots, or completely brown. I explained this
+experiment beforehand to the judge of instruction and the experts who
+were assisting me. Ah, my friend, what a success I had! When the first
+drops of alcohol fell, the paper at once became a dark brown; your
+suspicions are thus proved to be quite correct. The substances which I
+submitted to the test were liberally saturated with aconitine. I never
+obtained more decisive results in my laboratory. I expect that my
+conclusions will be disputed in court; but I have means of verifying
+them, so that I shall surely confound all the chemists who oppose me. I
+think, my dear friend, that you will not be indifferent to the
+satisfaction I feel--"
+
+M. Plantat lost patience.
+
+"This is unheard-of!" cried he. "Incredible! Would you say, now, that
+this poison which he found in Sauvresy's body was stolen from his own
+laboratory? Why, that body is nothing more to him than 'suspected
+matter!' And he already imagines himself discussing the merits of his
+sensitive paper in court!"
+
+"He has reason to look for antagonists in court."
+
+"And meanwhile he makes his experiments, and analyzes with the coolest
+blood in the world; he continues his abominable cooking, boiling and
+filtering, and preparing his arguments--!"
+
+M. Lecoq did not share in his friend's indignation; he was not sorry at
+the prospect of a bitter struggle in court, and he imagined a great
+scientific duel, like that between Orfila and Raspail, the provincial
+and Parisian chemists.
+
+"If Tremorel has the face to deny his part in Sauvresy's murder," said
+he, "we shall have a superb trial of it."
+
+This word "trial" put an end to M. Plantat's long hesitation.
+
+"We mustn't have any trial," cried he.
+
+The old man's violence, from one who was usually so calm and
+self-possessed, seemed to amaze M. Lecoq.
+
+"Ah ha," thought he, "I'm going to know all." He added aloud:
+
+"What, no trial?"
+
+M. Plantat had turned whiter than a sheet; he was trembling, and his
+voice was hoarse, as if broken by sobs.
+
+"I would give my fortune," resumed he "to avoid a trial--every centime
+of it, though it doesn't amount to much. But how can we secure this
+wretch Tremorel from a conviction? What subterfuge shall we invent? You
+alone, my friend, can advise me in the frightful extremity to which you
+see me reduced, and aid me to accomplish what I wish. If there is any
+way in the world, you will find it and save me--"
+
+"But, my--"
+
+"Pardon--hear me, and you will comprehend me. I am going to be frank
+with you, as I would be with myself; and you will see the reason of my
+hesitation, my silence, in short, of all my conduct since the discovery
+of the crime."
+
+"I am listening."
+
+"It's a sad history, Lecoq. I had reached an age at which a man's career
+is, as they say, finished, when I suddenly lost my wife and my two sons,
+my whole joy, my whole hope in this world. I found myself alone in life,
+more lost than the shipwrecked man in the midst of the sea, without a
+plank to sustain me. I was a soulless body, when chance brought me to
+settle down at Orcival. There I saw Laurence; she was just fifteen, and
+never lived there a creature who united in herself so much intelligence,
+grace, innocence, and beauty. Courtois became my friend, and soon
+Laurence was like a daughter to me. I doubtless loved her then, but I
+did not confess it to myself, for I did not read my heart clearly. She
+was so young, and I had gray hairs! I persuaded myself that my love for
+her was like that of a father, and it was as a father that she cherished
+me. Ah, I passed many a delicious hour listening to her gentle prattle
+and her innocent confidences; I was happy when I saw her skipping about
+in my garden, picking the roses I had reared for her, and laying waste
+my parterres; and I said to myself that existence is a precious gift
+from God. My dream then was to follow her through life. I fancied her
+wedded to some good man who made her happy, while I remained the friend
+of the wife, after having been the confidant of the maiden. I took good
+care of my fortune, which is considerable, because I thought of her
+children, and wished to hoard up treasures for them. Poor, poor
+Laurence!"
+
+M. Lecoq fidgeted in his chair, rubbed his face with his handkerchief,
+and seemed ill at ease. He was really much more touched than he wished
+to appear.
+
+"One day," pursued the old man, "my friend Courtois spoke to me of her
+marriage with Tremorel; then I measured the depth of my love. I felt
+terrible agonies which it is impossible to describe; it was like a
+long-smothered fire which suddenly breaks forth and devours everything.
+To be old, and to love a child! I thought I was going crazy; I tried to
+reason, to upbraid myself, but it was of no avail. What can reason or
+irony do against passion? I kept silent and suffered. To crown all,
+Laurence selected me as her confidant--what torture! She came to me to
+talk of Hector; she admired in him all that seemed to her superior to
+other men, so that none could be compared with him. She was enchanted
+with his bold horseback riding, and thought everything he said sublime."
+
+"Did you know what a wretch Tremorel was?"
+
+"Alas, I did not yet know it. What was this man who lived at Valfeuillu
+to me? But from the day that I learned that he was going to deprive me
+of my most precious treasure, I began to study him. I should have been
+somewhat consoled if I had found him worthy of her; so I dogged him, as
+you, Monsieur Lecoq, cling to the criminal whom you are pursuing. I went
+often to Paris to learn what I could of his past life; I became a
+detective, and went about questioning everybody who had known him, and
+the more I heard of him the more I despised him. It was thus that I
+found out his interviews with Jenny and his relations with Bertha."
+
+"Why didn't you divulge them?"
+
+"Honor commanded silence. Had I a right to dishonor my friend and ruin
+his happiness and life, because of this ridiculous, hopeless love? I
+kept my own counsel after speaking to Courtois about Jenny, at which he
+only laughed. When I hinted something against Hector to Laurence, she
+almost ceased coming to see me."
+
+"Ah! I shouldn't have had either your patience or your generosity."
+
+"Because you are not as old as I, Monsieur Lecoq. Oh, I cruelly hated
+this Tremorel! I said to myself, when I saw three women of such
+different characters smitten with him, 'what is there in him to be so
+loved?'"
+
+"Yes," answered M. Lecoq, responding to a secret thought, "women often
+err; they don't judge men as we do."
+
+"Many a time," resumed the justice of the peace, "I thought of provoking
+him to fight with me, that I might kill him; but then Laurence would not
+have looked at me any more. However, I should perhaps have spoken at
+last, had not Sauvresy fallen ill and died. I knew that he had made his
+wife and Tremorel swear to marry each other; I knew that a terrible
+reason forced them to keep their oath; and I thought Laurence saved.
+Alas, on the contrary she was lost! One evening, as I was passing the
+mayor's house, I saw a man getting over the wall into the garden; it was
+Tremorel. I recognized him perfectly. I was beside myself with rage, and
+swore that I would wait and murder him. I did wait, but he did not come
+out that night."
+
+M. Plantat hid his face in his hands; his heart bled at the recollection
+of that night of anguish, the whole of which he had passed in waiting
+for a man in order to kill him. M. Lecoq trembled with indignation.
+
+"This Tremorel," cried he, "is the most abominable of scoundrels. There
+is no excuse for his infamies and crimes. And yet you want to save him
+from trial, the galleys, the scaffold which await him."
+
+The old man paused a moment before replying. Of the thoughts which now
+crowded tumultuously in his mind, he did not know which to utter first.
+Words seemed powerless to betray his sensations; he wanted to express
+all that he felt in a single sentence.
+
+"What matters Tremorel to me?" said he at last. "Do you think I care
+about him? I don't care whether he lives or dies, whether he succeeds in
+flying or ends his life some morning in the Place Roquette."
+
+"Then why have you such a horror of a trial?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"Are you a friend to his family, and anxious to preserve the great name
+which he has covered with mud and devoted to infamy?"
+
+"No, but I am anxious for Laurence, my friend; the thought of her never
+leaves me."
+
+"But she is not his accomplice; she is totally ignorant--there's no
+doubt of it--that he has killed his wife."
+
+"Yes," resumed M. Plantat, "Laurence is innocent; she is only the victim
+of an odious villain. It is none the less true, though, that she would
+be more cruelly punished than he. If Tremorel is brought before the
+court, she will have to appear too, as a witness if not as a prisoner.
+And who knows that her truth will not be suspected? She will be asked
+whether she really had no knowledge of the project to murder Bertha, and
+whether she did not encourage it. Bertha was her rival; it is natural to
+suppose that she hated her. If I were the judge I should not hesitate to
+include Laurence in the indictment."
+
+"With our aid she will prove victoriously that she was ignorant of all,
+and has been outrageously deceived."
+
+"May be; but will she be any the less dishonored and forever lost? Must
+she not, in that case, appear in public, answer the judge's questions,
+and narrate the story of her shame and misfortunes? Must not she say
+where, when, and how she fell, and repeat the villain's words to her?
+Can you imagine that of her own free will she compelled herself to
+announce her suicide at the risk of killing her parents with grief? No.
+Then she must explain what menaces forced her to do this, which surely
+was not her own idea. And worse than all, she will be compelled to
+confess her love for Tremorel."
+
+"No," answered the detective. "Let us not exaggerate anything. You know
+as well as I do that justice is most considerate with the innocent
+victims of affairs of this sort."
+
+"Consideration? Eh! Could justice protect her, even if it would, from
+the publicity in which trials are conducted? You might touch the
+magistrates' hearts; but there are fifty journalists who, since this
+crime, have been cutting their pens and getting their paper ready. Do
+you think that, to please us, they would suppress the scandalous
+proceedings which I am anxious to avoid, and which the noble name of the
+murderer would make a great sensation? Does not this case unite every
+feature which gives success to judicial dramas? Oh, there's nothing
+wanting, neither unworthy passion, nor poison, nor vengeance, nor
+murder. Laurence represents in it the romantic and sentimental element;
+she--my darling girl--will become a heroine of the assizes; it is she
+who will attract the readers of the Police Gazette; the reporters will
+tell when she blushes and when she weeps; they will rival each other in
+describing her toilet and bearing. Then there will be the photographers
+besieging her, and if she refuses to sit, portraits of some hussy of the
+street will be sold as hers. She will yearn to hide herself--but where?
+Can a few locks and bars shelter her from eager curiosity? She will
+become famous. What shame and misery! If she is to be saved, Monsieur
+Lecoq, her name must not be spoken. I ask of you, is it possible? Answer
+me."
+
+The old man was very violent, yet his speech was simple, devoid of the
+pompous phrases of passion. Anger lit up his eyes with a strange fire;
+he seemed young again--he loved, and defended his beloved.
+
+M. Lecoq was silent; his companion insisted.
+
+"Answer me."
+
+"Who knows?"
+
+"Why seek to mislead me? Haven't I as well as you had experience in
+these things? If Tremorel is brought to trial, all is over with
+Laurence! And I love her! Yes, I dare to confess it to you, and let you
+see the depth of my grief, I love her now as I have never loved her. She
+is dishonored, an object of contempt, perhaps still adores this
+wretch--what matters it? I love her a thousand times more than before
+her fall, for then I loved her without hope, while now--"
+
+He stopped, shocked at what he was going to say. His eyes fell before M.
+Lecoq's steady gaze, and he blushed for this shameful yet human hope
+that he had betrayed.
+
+"You know all, now," resumed he, in a calmer tone; "consent to aid me,
+won't you? Ah, if you only would, I should not think I had repaid you
+were I to give you half my fortune--and I am rich--"
+
+M. Lecoq stopped him with a haughty gesture.
+
+"Enough, Monsieur Plantat," said he, in a bitter tone, "I can do a
+service to a person whom I esteem, love and pity with all my soul; but I
+cannot sell such a service."
+
+"Believe that I did not wish--"
+
+"Yes, yes, you wished to pay me. Oh, don't excuse yourself, don't deny
+it. There are professions, I know, in which manhood and integrity seem
+to count for nothing. Why offer me money? What reason have you for
+judging me so mean as to sell my favors? You are like the rest, who
+can't fancy what a man in my position is. If I wanted to be rich--richer
+than you--I could be so in a fortnight. Don't you see that I hold in my
+hands the honor and lives of fifty people? Do you think I tell all I
+know? I have here," added he, tapping his forehead, "twenty secrets that
+I could sell to-morrow, if I would, for a plump hundred thousand
+apiece."
+
+He was indignant, but beneath his anger a certain sad resignation might
+be perceived. He had often to reject such offers.
+
+"If you go and resist this prejudice established for ages, and say that
+a detective is honest and cannot be otherwise, that he is tenfold more
+honest than any merchant or notary, because he has tenfold the
+temptations, without the benefits of his honesty; if you say this,
+they'll laugh in your face. I could get together to-morrow, with
+impunity, without any risk, at least a million. Who would mistrust it? I
+have a conscience, it's true; but a little consideration for these
+things would not be unpleasant. When it would be so easy for me to
+divulge what I know of those who have been obliged to trust me, or
+things which I have surprised, there is perhaps a merit in holding my
+tongue. And still, the first man who should come along to-morrow--a
+defaulting banker, a ruined merchant, a notary who has gambled on
+'change--would feel himself compromised by walking up the boulevard with
+me! A policeman--fie! But old Tabaret used to say to me, that the
+contempt of such people was only one form of fear."
+
+M. Plantat was dismayed. How could he, a man of delicacy, prudence and
+finesse, have committed such an awkward mistake? He had just cruelly
+wounded this man, who was so well disposed toward him, and he had
+everything to fear from his resentment.
+
+"Far be it from me, dear friend," he commenced, "to intend the offence
+you imagine. You have misunderstood an insignificant phrase, which I let
+escape carelessly, and had no meaning at all."
+
+M. Lecoq grew calmer.
+
+"Perhaps so. You will forgive my being so susceptible, as I am more
+exposed to insults than most people. Let's leave the subject, which is a
+painful one, and return to Tremorel."
+
+M. Plantat was just thinking whether he should dare to broach his
+projects again, and he was singularly touched by M. Lecoq's delicately
+resuming the subject of them.
+
+"I have only to await your decision," said the justice of the peace.
+
+"I will not conceal from you," resumed M. Lecoq, "that you are asking a
+very difficult thing, and one which is contrary to my duty, which
+commands me to search for Tremorel, to arrest him, and deliver him up to
+justice. You ask me to protect him from the law--"
+
+"In the name of an innocent creature whom you will thereby save."
+
+"Once in my life I sacrificed my duty. I could not resist the tears of a
+poor old mother, who clung to my knees and implored pardon for her son.
+To-day I am going to exceed my right, and to risk an attempt for which
+my conscience will perhaps reproach me. I yield to your entreaty."
+
+"Oh, my dear Lecoq, how grateful I am!" cried M. Plantat, transported
+with joy.
+
+But the detective remained grave, almost sad, and reflected.
+
+"Don't let us encourage a hope which may be disappointed," he resumed.
+"I have but one means of keeping a criminal like Tremorel out of the
+courts; will it succeed?"
+
+"Yes, yes. If you wish it, it will!"
+
+M. Lecoq could not help smiling at the old man's faith.
+
+"I am certainly a clever detective," said he. "But I am only a man after
+all, and I can't answer for the actions of another man. All depends upon
+Hector. If it were another criminal, I should say I was sure. I am
+doubtful about him, I frankly confess. We ought, above all, to count
+upon the firmness of Mademoiselle Courtois; can we, think you?"
+
+"She is firmness itself."
+
+"Then there's hope. But can we really suppress this affair? What will
+happen when Sauvresy's narrative is found? It must be concealed
+somewhere in Valfeuillu, and Tremorel, at least, did not find it."
+
+"It will not be found," said M. Plantat, quickly.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+M. Lecoq gazed intently at his companion, and simply said:
+
+"Ah!"
+
+But this is what he thought: "At last I am going to find out where the
+manuscript which we heard read the other night, and which is in two
+handwritings, came from."
+
+After a moment's hesitation, M. Plantat went on:
+
+"I have put my life in your hands, Monsieur Lecoq; I can, of course,
+confide my honor to you. I know you. I know that, happen what may--"
+
+"I shall keep my mouth shut, on my honor."
+
+"Very well. The day that I caught Tremorel at the mayor's, I wished to
+verify the suspicions I had, and so I broke the seal of Sauvresy's
+package of papers."
+
+"And you did not use them?"
+
+"I was dismayed at my abuse of confidence. Besides, had I the right to
+deprive poor Sauvresy, who was dying in order to avenge himself, of his
+vengeance?"
+
+"But you gave the papers to Madame de Tremorel?"
+
+"True; but Bertha had a vague presentiment of the fate that was in store
+for her. About a fortnight before her death she came and confided to me
+her husband's manuscript, which she had taken care to complete. I broke
+the seals and read it, to see if he had died a violent death."
+
+"Why, then, didn't you tell me? Why did you let me hunt, hesitate, grope
+about--"
+
+"I love Laurence, Monsieur Lecoq, and to deliver up Tremorel was to open
+an abyss between her and me."
+
+The detective bowed. "The deuce," thought he, "the old justice is
+shrewd--as shrewd as I am. Well, I like him, and I'm going to give him a
+surprise."
+
+M. Plantat yearned to question his host and to know what the sole means
+of which he spoke were, which might be successful in preventing a trial
+and saving Laurence, but he did not dare to do so.
+
+The detective bent over his desk lost in thought. He held a pencil in
+his hand and mechanically drew fantastic figures on a large sheet of
+white paper which lay before him. He suddenly came out of his revery. He
+had just solved a last difficulty; his plan was now entire and complete.
+He glanced at the clock.
+
+"Two o'clock," cried he, "and I have an appointment between three and
+four with Madame Charman about Jenny."
+
+"I am at your disposal," returned his guest.
+
+"All right. When Jenny is disposed of we must look after Tremorel; so
+let's take our measures to finish it up to-day."
+
+"What! do you hope to do everything to-day--"
+
+"Certainly. Rapidity is above all necessary in our profession. It often
+takes a month to regain an hour lost. We've a chance now of catching
+Hector by surprise; to-morrow it will be too late. Either we shall have
+him within four-and-twenty hours or we must change our batteries. Each
+of my three men has a carriage and a good horse; they may be able to
+finish with the upholsterers within an hour from now. If I calculate
+aright, we shall have the address in an hour, or at most in two hours,
+and then we will act."
+
+Lecoq, as he spoke, took a sheet of paper surmounted by his arms out of
+his portfolio, and rapidly wrote several lines.
+
+"See here," said he, "what I've written to one of my lieutenants."
+
+"MONSIEUR JOB--"Get together six or eight of our men at once and take
+them to the wine merchant's at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs and the
+Rue Lamartine; await my orders there."
+
+"Why there and not here?"
+
+"Because we must avoid needless excursions. At the place I have
+designated we are only two steps from Madame Charman's and near
+Tremorel's retreat; for the wretch has hired his rooms in the quarter of
+Notre Dame de Lorette."
+
+M. Plantat gave an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+The detective smiled, as if the question seemed foolish to him.
+
+"Don't you recollect that the envelope of the letter addressed by
+Mademoiselle Courtois to her family to announce her suicide bore the
+Paris postmark, and that of the branch office of Rue St. Lazare? Now
+listen to this: On leaving her aunt's house, Laurence must have gone
+directly to Tremorel's apartments, the address of which he had given
+her, and where he had promised to meet her on Thursday morning. She
+wrote the letter, then, in his apartments. Can we admit that she had the
+presence of mind to post the letter in another quarter than that in
+which she was? It is at least probable that she was ignorant of the
+terrible reasons which Tremorel had to fear a search and pursuit. Had
+Hector foresight enough to suggest this trick to her? No, for if he
+wasn't a fool he would have told her to post the letter somewhere
+outside of Paris. It is therefore scarcely possible that it was posted
+anywhere else than at the nearest branch office."
+
+These suppositions were so simple that M. Plantat wondered he had not
+thought of them before. But men do not see clearly in affairs in which
+they are deeply interested; passion dims the eyes, as heat in a room
+dims a pair of spectacles. He had lost, with his coolness, a part of his
+clearsightedness. His anxiety was very great; for he thought M. Lecoq
+had a singular mode of keeping his promise.
+
+"It seems to me," he could not help remarking, "that if you wish to keep
+Hector from trial, the men you have summoned together will be more
+embarrassing than useful."
+
+M. Lecoq thought that his guest's tone and look betrayed a certain
+doubt, and was irritated by it.
+
+"Do you distrust me, Monsieur Plantat?"
+
+The old man tried to protest.
+
+"Believe me--"
+
+"You have my word," resumed M. Lecoq, "and if you knew me better you
+would know that I always keep it when I have given it. I have told you
+that I would do my best to save Mademoiselle Laurence; but remember that
+I have promised you my assistance, not absolute success. Let me, then,
+take such measures as I think best."
+
+So saying, he rang for Janouille.
+
+"Here's a letter," said he when she appeared, "which must be sent to Job
+at once."
+
+"I will carry it."
+
+"By no means. You will be pleased to remain here and wait for the men
+that I sent out this morning. As they come in, send them to the wine
+merchant's at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs; you know it--opposite
+the church. They'll find a numerous company there."
+
+As he gave his orders, he took off his gown, assumed a long black coat,
+and carefully adjusted his wig.
+
+"Will Monsieur be back this evening?" asked Janouille.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"And if anybody comes from over yonder?"
+
+"Over yonder" with a detective, always means "the house"--otherwise the
+prefecture of police.
+
+"Say that I am out on the Corbeil affair."
+
+M. Lecoq was soon ready. He had the air, physiognomy, and manners of a
+highly respectable chief clerk of fifty. Gold spectacles, an umbrella,
+everything about him exhaled an odor of the ledger.
+
+"Now," said he to M. Plantat. "Let's hurry away." Goulard, who had made
+a hearty breakfast, was waiting for his hero in the dining-room.
+
+"Ah ha, old fellow," said M. Lecoq. "So you've had a few words with my
+wine. How do you find it?"
+
+"Delicious, my chief; perfect--that is to say, a true nectar."
+
+"It's cheered you up, I hope."
+
+"Oh, yes, my chief."
+
+"Then you may follow us a few steps and mount guard at the door of the
+house where you see us go in. I shall probably have to confide a pretty
+little girl to your care whom you will carry to Monsieur Domini. And
+open your eyes; for she's a sly creature, and very apt to inveigle you
+on the way and slip through your fingers."
+
+They went out, and Janouille stoutly barricaded herself behind them.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Whosoever needs a loan of money, or a complete suit of clothes in the
+top of the fashion, a pair of ladies' boots, or an Indian cashmere; a
+porcelain table service or a good picture; whosoever desires diamonds,
+curtains, laces, a house in the country, or a provision of wood for
+winter fires--may procure all these, and many other things besides, at
+Mme. Charman's.
+
+Mme. Charman lives at 136, Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, on the first story
+above the ground-floor. Her customers must give madame some guarantee of
+their credit; a woman, if she be young and pretty, may be accommodated
+at madame's at the reasonable rate of two hundred per cent interest.
+Madame has, at these rates, considerable custom, and yet has not made a
+large fortune. She must necessarily risk a great deal, and bears heavy
+losses as well as receives large profits. Then she is, as she is pleased
+to say, too honest; and true enough, she is honest--she would rather
+sell her dress off her back than let her signature go to protest.
+
+Madame is a blonde, slight, gentle, and not wanting in a certain
+distinction of manner; she invariably wears, whether it be summer or
+winter, a black silk dress. They say she has a husband, but no one has
+ever seen him, which does not prevent his reputation for good conduct
+from being above suspicion. However, honorable as may be Mme. Charman's
+profession, she has more than once had business with M. Lecoq; she has
+need of him and fears him as she does fire. She, therefore, welcomed the
+detective and his companion--whom she took for one of his
+colleagues--somewhat as the supernumerary of a theatre would greet his
+manager if the latter chanced to pay him a visit in his humble lodgings.
+
+She was expecting them. When they rang, she advanced to meet them in the
+ante-chamber, and greeted M. Lecoq graciously and smilingly. She
+conducted them into her drawing-room, invited them to sit in her best
+arm-chairs, and pressed some refreshments upon them.
+
+"I see, dear Madame," began M. Lecoq, "that you have received my little
+note."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Lecoq, early this morning; I was not up."
+
+"Very good. And have you been so kind as to do the service I asked?"
+
+"How can you ask me, when you know that I would go through the fire for
+you? I set about it at once, getting up expressly for the purpose."
+
+"Then you've got the address of Pelagie Taponnet, called Jenny?"
+
+"Yes, I have," returned Mme. Charman, with an obsequious bow. "If I were
+the kind of woman to magnify my services, I would tell you what trouble
+it cost me to find this address, and how I ran all over Paris and spent
+ten francs in cab hire."
+
+"Well, let's come to the point."
+
+"The truth is, I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Jenny day before
+yesterday."
+
+"You are joking!"
+
+"Not the least in the world. And let me tell you that she is a very
+courageous and honest girl."
+
+"Really!"
+
+"She is, indeed. Why, she has owed me four hundred and eighty francs for
+two years. I hardly thought the debt worth much, as you may imagine. But
+Jenny came to me day before yesterday all out of breath and told me that
+she had inherited some money, and had brought me what she owed me. And
+she was not joking, either; for her purse was full of bank notes, and
+she paid me the whole of my bill. She's a good girl!" added Mme.
+Charman, as if profoundly convinced of the truth of her encomium.
+
+M. Lecoq exchanged a significant glance with the old justice; the same
+idea struck them both at the same moment. These bank-notes could only be
+the payment for some important service rendered by Jenny to Tremorel. M.
+Lecoq, however, wished for more precise information.
+
+"What was Jenny's condition before this windfall?" asked he.
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Lecoq, she was in a dreadful condition. Since the count
+deserted her she has been constantly falling lower and lower. She sold
+all she had piece by piece. At last, she mixed with the worst kind of
+people, drank absinthe, they say, and had nothing to put to her back.
+When she got any money she spent it on a parcel of hussies instead of
+buying clothes."
+
+"And where is she living?"
+
+"Right by, in a house in the Rue Vintimille."
+
+"If that is so," replied M. Lecoq, severely, "I am astonished that she
+is not here."
+
+"It's not my fault, dear Monsieur Lecoq; I know where the nest is, but
+not where the bird is. She was away this morning when I sent for her."
+
+"The deuce! But then--it's very annoying; I must hunt her up at once."
+
+"You needn't disturb yourself. Jenny ought to return before four
+o'clock, and one of my girls is waiting for her with orders to bring her
+here as soon as she comes in, without even letting her go up to her
+room."
+
+"We'll wait for her then."
+
+M. Lecoq and his friend waited about a quarter of an hour, when Mme.
+Charman suddenly got up.
+
+"I hear my girl's step on the stairs," said she.
+
+"Listen to me," answered M. Lecoq, "if it is she, manage to make Jenny
+think that it was you who sent for her; we will seem to have come in by
+the merest chance."
+
+Mme. Charman responded by a gesture of assent. She was going towards the
+door when the detective detained her by the arm.
+
+"One word more. When you see me fairly engaged in conversation with her,
+please be so good as to go and overlook your work-people in the shops.
+What I have to say will not interest you in the least."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"But no trickery, you know. I know where the closet of your bedroom is,
+well enough to be sure that everything that is said here may be
+overheard in it."
+
+Mme. Charman's emissary opened the door; there was a loud rustling of
+silks along the corridor; and Jenny appeared in all her glory. She was
+no longer the fresh and pretty minx whom Hector had known--the provoking
+large-eyed Parisian demoiselle, with haughty head and petulant grace. A
+single year had withered her, as a too hot summer does the roses, and
+had destroyed her fragile beauty beyond recall. She was not twenty, and
+still it was hard to discern that she had been charming, and was yet
+young. For she had grown old like vice; her worn features and hollow
+cheeks betrayed the dissipations of her life; her eyes had lost their
+long, languishing lids; her mouth had a pitiful expression of
+stupefaction; and absinthe had broken the clear tone of her voice. She
+was richly dressed in a new robe, with a great deal of lace and a jaunty
+hat; yet she had a wretched expression; she was all besmeared with rouge
+and paint.
+
+When she came in she seemed very angry.
+
+"What an idea!" she cried, without taking the trouble to bow to anyone;
+"what sense is there in sending for me to come here in this way, almost
+by force, and by a very impudent young woman?"
+
+Mme. Charman hastened to meet her old customer, embraced her in spite of
+herself, and pressed her to her heart.
+
+"Why, don't be so angry, dear--I thought you would be delighted and
+overwhelm me with thanks."
+
+"I? What for?"
+
+"Because, my dear girl, I had a surprise in store for you. Ah, I'm not
+ungrateful; you came here yesterday and settled your account with me,
+and to-day I mean to reward you for it. Come, cheer up; you're going to
+have a splendid chance, because just at this moment I happen to have a
+piece of exquisite velvet--"
+
+"A pretty thing to bring me here for!"
+
+"All silk, my dear, at thirty francs the yard. Ha, 'tis wonderfully
+cheap, the best--"
+
+"Eh! What care I for your 'chance?' Velvet in July--are you making fun
+of me?"
+
+"Let me show it to you, now."
+
+"Never! I am expected to dinner at Asnieres, and so--"
+
+She was about to go away despite Mme. Charman's attempts to detain her,
+when M. Lecoq thought it was time to interfere.
+
+"Why, am I mistaken?" cried he, as if amazed; "is it really Miss Jenny
+whom I have the honor of seeing?"
+
+She scanned him with a half-angry, half-surprised air, and said:
+
+"Yes, it is I; what of it?"
+
+"What! Are you so forgetful? Don't you recognize me?"
+
+"No, not at all."
+
+"Yet I was one of your admirers once, my dear, and used to breakfast
+with you when you lived near the Madeleine; in the count's time, you
+know."
+
+He took off his spectacles as if to wipe them, but really to launch a
+furious look at Mme. Charman, who, not daring to resist, beat a hasty
+retreat.
+
+"I knew Tremorel well in other days," resumed the detective. "And--by
+the bye, have you heard any news of him lately?"
+
+"I saw him about a week ago."
+
+"Stop, though--haven't you heard of that horrible affair?"
+
+"No. What was it?"
+
+"Really, now, haven't you heard? Don't you read the papers? It was a
+dreadful thing, and has been the talk of all Paris for the past
+forty-eight hours."
+
+"Tell me about it, quick!"
+
+"You know that he married the widow of one of his friends. He was
+thought to be very happy at home; not at all; he has murdered his wife
+with a knife."
+
+Jenny grew pale under her paint.
+
+"Is it possible?" stammered she. She seemed much affected, but not very
+greatly surprised, which M. Lecoq did not fail to remark.
+
+"It is so possible," he resumed, "that he is at this moment in prison,
+will soon be tried, and without a doubt will be convicted."
+
+M. Plantat narrowly observed Jenny; he looked for an explosion of
+despair, screams, tears, at least a light nervous attack; he was
+mistaken.
+
+Jenny now detested Tremorel. Sometimes she felt the weight of her
+degradation, and she accused Hector of her present ignominy. She
+heartily hated him, though she smiled when she saw him, got as much
+money out of him as she could, and cursed him behind his back. Instead
+of bursting into tears, she therefore laughed aloud.
+
+"Well done for Tremorel," said she. "Why did he leave me? Good for her
+too."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"What did she deceive her husband for? It was she who took Hector from
+me--she, a rich, married woman! But I've always said Hector was a poor
+wretch."
+
+"Frankly, that's my notion too. When a man acts as Tremorel has toward
+you, he's a villain."
+
+"It's so, isn't it?"
+
+"Parbleu! But I'm not surprised at his conduct. For his wife's murder is
+the least of his crimes; why, he tried to put it off upon somebody
+else!"
+
+"That doesn't surprise me."
+
+"He accused a poor devil as innocent as you or I, who might have been
+condemned to death if he hadn't been able to tell where he was on
+Wednesday night."
+
+M. Lecoq said this lightly, with intended deliberation, so as to watch
+the impression he produced on Jenny.
+
+"Do you know who the man was?" asked she in a tremulous voice.
+
+"The papers said it was a poor lad who was his gardener."
+
+"A little man, wasn't he, thin, very dark, with black hair?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And whose name was--wait now--was--Guespin."
+
+"Ah ha, you know him then?"
+
+Jenny hesitated. She was trembling very much, and evidently regretted
+that she had gone so far.
+
+"Bah!" said she at last. "I don't see why I shouldn't tell what I know.
+I'm an honest girl, if Tremorel is a rogue; and I don't want them to
+condemn a poor wretch who is innocent."
+
+"You know something about it, then?"
+
+"Well, I know nearly all about it--that's honest, ain't it? About a week
+ago Hector wrote to me to meet him at Melun; I went, found him, and we
+breakfasted together. Then he told me that he was very much annoyed
+about his cook's marriage; for one of his servants was deeply in love
+with her, and might go and raise a rumpus at the wedding."
+
+"Ah, he spoke to you about the wedding, then?"
+
+"Wait a minute. Hector seemed very much embarrassed, not knowing how to
+avoid the disturbance he feared. Then I advised him to send the servant
+off out of the way on the wedding-day. He thought a moment, and said
+that my advice was good. He added that he had found a means of doing
+this; on the evening of the marriage he would send the man on an errand
+for me, telling him that the affair was to be concealed from the
+countess. I was to dress up--as a chambermaid, and wait for the man at
+the cafe in the Place du Chatelet, between half-past nine and ten that
+evening; I was to sit at the table nearest the entrance on the right,
+with a bouquet in my hand, so that he should recognize me. He would come
+in and give me a package; then I was to ask him to take something, and
+so get him tipsy if possible, and then walk about Paris with him till
+morning."
+
+Jenny expressed herself with difficulty, hesitating, choosing her words,
+and trying to remember exactly what Tremorel said.
+
+"And you," interrupted M. Lecoq, "did you believe all this story about a
+jealous servant?"
+
+"Not quite; but I fancied that he had some intrigue on foot, and I
+wasn't sorry to help him deceive a woman whom I detested, and who had
+wronged me."
+
+"So you did as he told you?"
+
+"Exactly, from beginning to end; everything happened just as Hector had
+foreseen. The man came along at just ten o'clock, took me for a maid,
+and gave me the package. I naturally offered him a glass of beer; he
+took it and proposed another, which I also accepted. He is a very nice
+fellow, this gardener, and I passed a very pleasant evening with him. He
+knew lots of queer things, and--"
+
+"Never mind that. What did you do then?"
+
+"After the beer we had some wine, then some beer again, then some punch,
+then some more wine--the gardener had his pockets full of money. He was
+very tipsy by eleven and invited me to go and have a dance with him at
+the Batignolles. I refused, and asked him to escort me back to my
+mistress at the upper end of the Champs Elysees. We went out of the cafe
+and walked up the Rue de Rivoli, stopping every now and then for more
+wine and beer. By two o'clock the fellow was so far gone that he fell
+like a lump on a bench near the Arc de Triomphe, where he went to sleep;
+and there I left him."
+
+"Well, where did you go?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"What has become of the package?"
+
+"Oh, I intended to throw it into the Seine, as Hector wished, but I
+forgot it; you see, I had drunk almost as much as the gardener--so I
+carried it back home with me, and it is in my room now."
+
+"Have you opened it?"
+
+"Well--what do you think?"
+
+"What did it contain?"
+
+"A hammer, two other tools and a large knife."
+
+Guespin's innocence was now evident, and the detective's foresight was
+realized.
+
+"Guespin's all right," said M. Plantat. "But we must know--"
+
+M. Lecoq interrupted him; he knew now all he wished. Jenny could tell
+him nothing more, so he suddenly changed his tone from a wheedling one
+to abrupt severity.
+
+"My fine young woman," said he, "you have saved an innocent man, but you
+must repeat what you have just said to the judge of instruction at
+Corbeil. And as you might lose yourself on the way, I'll give you a
+guide."
+
+He went to the window and opened it; perceiving Goulard on the sidewalk,
+he cried out to him:
+
+"Goulard, come up here."
+
+He turned to the astonished Jenny, who was so frightened that she dared
+not either question him or get angry, and said:
+
+"Tell me how much Tremorel paid you for the service you rendered him."
+
+"Ten thousand francs; but it is my due, I swear to you; for he promised
+it to me long ago, and owed it to me."
+
+"Very good; it can't be taken away from you." He added, pointing out
+Goulard who entered just then: "Go with this man to your room, take the
+package which Guespin brought you, and set out at once for Corbeil.
+Above all, no tricks, Miss--or beware of me!"
+
+Mme. Charman came in just in time to see Jenny leave the room with
+Goulard.
+
+"Lord, what's the matter?" she asked M. Lecoq.
+
+"Nothing, my dear Madame, nothing that concerns you in the least. And
+so, thank you and good-evening; we are in a great hurry."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+When M. Lecoq was in a hurry he walked fast. He almost ran down the Rue
+Notre Dame de Lorette, so that Plantat had great difficulty in keeping
+up with him; and as he went along he pursued his train of reflection,
+half aloud, so that his companion caught here and there a snatch of it.
+
+"All goes well," he muttered, "and we shall succeed. It's seldom that a
+campaign which commences so well ends badly. If Job is at the wine
+merchant's, and if one of my men has succeeded in his search, the crime
+of Valfeuillu is solved, and in a week people will have forgotten it."
+
+He stopped short on reaching the foot of the street opposite the church.
+
+"I must ask you to pardon me," said he to the old justice, "for hurrying
+you on so and making you one of my trade; but your assistance might have
+been very useful at Madame Charman's, and will be indispensable when we
+get fairly on Tremorel's track."
+
+They went across the square and into the wine shop at the corner of the
+Rue des Martyrs. Its keeper was standing behind his counter turning wine
+out of a large jug into some litres, and did not seem much astonished at
+seeing his new visitors. M. Lecoq was quite at home (as he was
+everywhere), and spoke to the man with an air of easy familiarity.
+
+"Aren't there six or eight men waiting for somebody here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, they came about an hour ago."
+
+"Are they in the big back room?"
+
+"Just so, Monsieur," responded the wine merchant, obsequiously.
+
+He didn't exactly know who was talking to him, but he suspected him to
+be some superior officer from the prefecture; and he was not surprised
+to see that this distinguished personage knew the ins and outs of his
+house. He opened the door of the room referred to without hesitation.
+Ten men in various guises were drinking there and playing cards. On M.
+Lecoq's entrance with M. Plantat, they respectfully got up and took off
+their hats.
+
+"Good for you, Job," said M. Lecoq to him who seemed to be their chief,
+"you are prompt, and it pleases me. Your ten men will be quite enough,
+for I shall have the three besides whom I sent out this morning."
+
+M. Job bowed, happy at having pleased a master who was not very prodigal
+in his praises.
+
+"I want you to wait here a while longer," resumed M. Lecoq, "for my
+orders will depend on a report which I am expecting." He turned to the
+men whom he had sent out among the upholsterers:
+
+"Which of you was successful?"
+
+"I, Monsieur," replied a big white-faced fellow, with insignificant
+mustaches.
+
+"What, you again, Palot? really, my lad, you are lucky. Step into this
+side room--first, though, order a bottle of wine, and ask the proprietor
+to see to it that we are not disturbed."
+
+These orders were soon executed, and M. Plantat being duly ensconced
+with them in the little room, the detective turned the key.
+
+"Speak up now," said he to Palot, "and be brief."
+
+"I showed the photograph to at least a dozen upholsterers without any
+result; but at last a merchant in the Faubourg St. Germain, named Rech,
+recognized it."
+
+"Tell me just what he said, if you can."
+
+"He told me that it was the portrait of one of his customers. A month
+ago this customer came to him to buy a complete set of
+furniture--drawing-room, dining-room, bed-room, and the rest--for a
+little house which he had just rented. He did not beat him down at all,
+and only made one condition to the purchase, and that was, that
+everything should be ready and in place, and the curtains and carpets
+put in, within three weeks from that time; that is a week ago last
+Monday."
+
+"And what was the sum-total of the purchase?"
+
+"Eighteen thousand francs, half paid down in advance, and half on the
+day of delivery."
+
+"And who carried the last half of the money to the upholsterer?"
+
+"A servant."
+
+"What name did this customer give?"
+
+"He called himself Monsieur James Wilson; but Monsieur Rech said he did
+not seem like an English-man."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"The furniture was carried to a small house, No. 34 Rue St. Lazare, near
+the Havre station."
+
+M. Lecoq's face, which had up to that moment worn an anxious expression,
+beamed with joy. He felt the natural pride of a captain who has
+succeeded in his plans for the enemy's destruction. He tapped the old
+justice of the peace familiarly on the shoulder, and pronounced a single
+word:
+
+"Nipped!"
+
+Palot shook his head.
+
+"It isn't certain," said he.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You may imagine, Monsieur Lecoq, that when I got the address, having
+some time on my hands, I went to reconnoitre the house."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The tenant's name is really Wilson, but it's not the man of the
+photograph, I'm certain."
+
+M. Plantat gave a groan of disappointment, but M. Lecoq was not so
+easily discouraged.
+
+"How did you find out?"
+
+"I pumped one of the servants."
+
+"Confound you!" cried M. Plantat. "Perhaps you roused suspicions."
+
+"Oh, no," answered M. Lecoq. "I'll answer for him. Palot is a pupil of
+mine. Explain yourself, Palot."
+
+"Recognizing the house--an elegant affair it is, too--I said to myself:
+'I' faith, here's the cage; let's see if the bird is in it.' I luckily
+happened to have a napoleon in my pocket; and I slipped it without
+hesitation into the drain which led from the house to the
+street-gutter."
+
+"Then you rang?"
+
+"Exactly. The porter--there is a porter--opened the door, and with my
+most vexed air I told him how, in pulling out my handkerchief, I had
+dropped a twenty-franc piece in the drain, and begged him to lend me
+something to try to get it out. He lent me a poker and took another
+himself, and we got the money out with no difficulty; I began to jump
+about as if I were delighted, and begged him to let me treat him to a
+glass of wine."
+
+"Not bad."
+
+"Oh, Monsieur Lecoq, it is one of your tricks, you know. My porter
+accepted my invitation, and we soon got to be the best friends in the
+world over some wine in a shop just across the street from the house. We
+were having a jolly talk together when, all of a sudden, I leaned over
+as if I had just espied something on the floor, and picked up--the
+photograph, which I had dropped and soiled a little with my foot.
+'What,' cried I, 'a portrait?' My new friend took it, looked at it, and
+didn't seem to recognize it. Then, to be certain, I said, 'He's a very
+good-looking fellow, ain't he now? Your master must be some such a man.'
+But he said no, that the photograph was of a man who was bearded, while
+his master was as clean-faced as an abbe. 'Besides,' he added, 'my
+master is an American; he gives us our orders in French, but Madame and
+he always talk English together.'"
+
+M. Lecoq's eye glistened as Palot proceeded.
+
+"Tremorel speaks English, doesn't he?" asked he of M. Plantat.
+
+"Quite well; and Laurence too."
+
+"If that is so, we are on the right track, for we know that Tremorel
+shaved his beard off on the night of the murder. We can go on--"
+
+Palot meanwhile seemed a little uneasy at not receiving the praise he
+expected.
+
+"My lad," said M. Lecoq, turning to him, "I think you have done
+admirably, and a good reward shall prove it to you. Being ignorant of
+what we know, your conclusions were perfectly right. But let's go to the
+house at once; have you got a plan of the ground-floor?"
+
+"Yes, and also of the first floor above. The porter was not dumb, and so
+he gave me a good deal of information about his master and mistress,
+though he has only been there two days. The lady is dreadfully
+melancholy, and cries all the time."
+
+"We know it; the plan--"
+
+"Below, there is a large and high paved arch for the carriages to pass
+through; on the other side is a good-sized courtyard, at the end of
+which are the stable and carriage-house. The porter's lodge is on the
+left of the arch; on the right a glass door opens on a staircase with
+six steps, which conducts to a vestibule into which the drawing-room,
+dining-room, and two other little rooms open. The chambers are on the
+first floor, a study, a--"
+
+"Enough," M. Lecoq said, "my plan is made."
+
+And rising abruptly, he opened the door, and followed by M. Plantat and
+Palot, went into the large room. All the men rose at his approach as
+before.
+
+"Monsieur Job," said the detective, "listen attentively to what I have
+to say. As soon as I am gone, pay up what you owe here, and then, as I
+must have you all within reach, go and install yourselves in the first
+wine-shop on the right as you go up the Rue d'Amsterdam. Take your
+dinner there, for you will have time--but soberly, you understand."
+
+He took two napoleons out of his pocket and placed them on the table,
+adding:
+
+"That's for the dinner."
+
+M. Lecoq and the old justice went into the street, followed closely by
+Palot. The detective was anxious above all to see for himself the house
+inhabited by Tremorel. He saw at a glance that the interior must be as
+Palot had described.
+
+"That's it, undoubtedly," said he to M. Plantat; "we've got the game in
+our hands. Our chances at this moment are ninety to ten."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked the justice, whose emotion increased
+as the decisive moment approached.
+
+"Nothing, just yet, I must wait for night before I act. As it is two
+hours yet before dark, let's imitate my men; I know a restaurant just by
+here where you can dine capitally; we'll patronize it."
+
+And without awaiting a reply, he led M. Plantat to a restaurant in the
+Passage du Havre. But at the moment he was about to open the door, he
+stopped and made a signal. Palot immediately appeared.
+
+"I give you two hours to get yourself up so that the porter won't
+recognize you, and to have some dinner. You are an upholsterer's
+apprentice. Now clear out; I shall wait for you here."
+
+M. Lecoq was right when he said that a capital dinner was to be had in
+the Passage du Havre; unfortunately M. Plantat was not in a state to
+appreciate it. As in the morning, he found it difficult to swallow
+anything, he was so anxious and depressed. He longed to know the
+detective's plans; but M. Lecoq remained impenetrable, answering all
+inquiries with:
+
+"Let me act, and trust me."
+
+M. Plantat's confidence was indeed very great; but the more he
+reflected, the more perilous and difficult seemed the attempt to save
+Tremorel from a trial. The most poignant doubts troubled and tortured
+his mind. His own life was at stake; for he had sworn to himself that he
+would not survive the ruin of Laurence in being forced to confess in
+full court her dishonor and her love for Hector.
+
+M. Lecoq tried hard to make his companion eat something, to take at
+least some soup and a glass of old Bordeaux; but he soon saw the
+uselessness of his efforts and went on with his dinner as if he were
+alone. He was very thoughtful, but any uncertainty of the result of his
+plans never entered his head. He drank much and often, and soon emptied
+his bottle of Leoville. Night having now come on the waiters began to
+light the chandeliers, and the two friends found themselves almost
+alone.
+
+"Isn't it time to begin?" asked the old justice, timidly.
+
+"We have still nearly an hour," replied M. Lecoq, consulting his watch;
+"but I shall make my preparations now."
+
+He called a waiter, and ordered a cup of coffee and writing materials.
+
+"You see," said he, while they were waiting to be served, "we must try
+to get at Laurence without Tremorel's knowing it. We must have a ten
+minutes' talk with her alone, and in the house. That is a condition
+absolutely necessary to our success."
+
+M. Plantat had evidently been expecting some immediate and decisive
+action, for M. Lecoq's remark filled him with alarm.
+
+"If that's so," said he mournfully, "it's all over with our project."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Because Tremorel will not leave Laurence by herself for a moment."
+
+"Then I'll try to entice him out."
+
+"And you, you who are usually so clear-sighted, really think that he
+will let himself be taken in by a trick! You don't consider his
+situation at this moment. He must be a prey to boundless terrors. We
+know that Sauvresy's declaration will not be found, but he does not; he
+thinks that perhaps it has been found, that suspicions have been
+aroused, and that he is already being searched for and pursued by the
+police."
+
+"I've considered all that," responded M. Lecoq with a triumphant smile,
+"and many other things besides. Well, it isn't easy to decoy Tremorel
+out of the house. I've been cudgelling my brain about it a good deal,
+and have found a way at last. The idea occurred to me just as we were
+coming in here. The Count de Tremorel, in an hour from now, will be in
+the Faubourg St. Germain. It's true it will cost me a forgery, but you
+will forgive me under the circumstances. Besides, he who seeks the end
+must use the means."
+
+He took up a pen, and as he smoked his cigar, rapidly wrote the
+following:
+
+"MONSIEUR WILSON:
+
+"Four of the thousand-franc notes which you paid me are counterfeits; I
+have just found it out by sending them to my banker's. If you are not
+here to explain the matter before ten o'clock, I shall be obliged to put
+in a complaint this evening before the procureur.
+
+"RECH."
+
+"Now," said M. Lecoq, passing the letter to his companion. "Do you
+comprehend?"
+
+The old justice read it at a glance and could not repress a joyful
+exclamation, which caused the waiters to turn around and stare at him.
+
+"Yes," said he, "this letter will catch him; it'll frighten him out of
+all his other terrors. He will say to himself that he might have slipped
+some counterfeit notes among those paid to the upholsterer, that a
+complaint against him will provoke an inquiry, and that he will have to
+prove that he is really Monsieur Wilson or he is lost."
+
+"So you think he'll come out?"
+
+"I'm sure of it, unless he has become a fool."
+
+"I tell you we shall succeed then, for this is the only serious
+obstacle--"
+
+He suddenly interrupted himself. The restaurant door opened ajar, and a
+man passed his head in and withdrew it immediately.
+
+"That's my man," said M. Lecoq, calling the waiter to pay for the
+dinner, "he is waiting for us in the passage; let us go."
+
+A young man dressed like a journeyman upholsterer was standing in the
+passage looking in at the shop-windows. He had long brown locks, and his
+mustache and eyebrows were coal-black. M. Plantat certainly did not
+recognize him as Palot, but M. Lecoq did, and even seemed dissatisfied
+with his get-up.
+
+"Bad," growled he, "pitiable. Do you think it is enough, in order to
+disguise yourself, to change the color of your beard? Look in that
+glass, and tell me if the expression of your face is not just what it
+was before? Aren't your eye and smile the same? Then your cap is too
+much on one side, it is not natural; and your hand is put in your pocket
+awkwardly."
+
+"I'll try to do better another time, Monsieur Lecoq," Palot modestly
+replied.
+
+"I hope so; but I guess your porter won't recognize you to-night, and
+that is all we want."
+
+"And now what must I do?"
+
+"I'll give you your orders; and be very careful not to blunder. First,
+hire a carriage, with a good horse; then go to the wine-shop for one of
+our men, who will accompany you to Monsieur Wilson's house. When you get
+there ring, enter alone and give the porter this letter, saying that it
+is of the utmost importance. This done, put yourself with your companion
+in ambuscade before the house. If Monsieur Wilson goes out--and he will
+go out or I am not Lecoq--send your comrade to me at once. As for you,
+you will follow Monsieur Wilson and not lose sight of him. He will take
+a carriage, and you will follow him with yours, getting up on the
+hackman's seat and keeping a lookout from there. Have your eyes open,
+for he is a rascal who may feel inclined to jump out of his cab and
+leave you in pursuit of an empty vehicle."
+
+"Yes, and the moment I am informed--"
+
+"Silence, please, when I am speaking. He will probably go to the
+upholsterer's in the Rue des Saints-Peres, but I may be mistaken. He may
+order himself to be carried to one of the railway stations, and may take
+the first train which leaves. In this case, you must get into the same
+railway carriage that he does, and follow him everywhere he goes; and be
+sure and send me a despatch as soon as you can."
+
+"Very well, Monsieur Lecoq; only if I have to take a train--"
+
+"What, haven't you any money?"
+
+"Well--no, my chief."
+
+"Then take this five-hundred-franc note; that's more than is necessary
+to make the tour of the world. Do you comprehend everything?"
+
+"I beg your pardon--what shall I do if Monsieur Wilson simply returns to
+his house?"
+
+"In that case I will finish with him. If he returns, you will come back
+with him, and the moment his cab stops before the house give two loud
+whistles, you know. Then wait for me in the street, taking care to
+retain your cab, which you will lend to Monsieur Plantat if he needs
+it."
+
+"All right," said Palot, who hastened off without more ado.
+
+M. Plantat and the detective, left alone, began to walk up and down the
+gallery; both were grave and silent, as men are at a decisive moment;
+there is no chatting about a gaming-table. M. Lecoq suddenly started; he
+had just seen his agent at the end of the gallery. His impatience was so
+great that he ran toward him, saying:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Monsieur, the game has flown, and Palot after him!"
+
+"On foot or in a cab?"
+
+"In a cab."
+
+"Enough. Return to your comrades, and tell them to hold themselves
+ready."
+
+Everything was going as Lecoq wished, and he grasped the old justice's
+hand, when he was struck by the alteration in his features.
+
+"What, are you ill?" asked he, anxiously.
+
+"No, but I am fifty-five years old, Monsieur Lecoq, and at that age
+there are emotions which kill one. Look, I am trembling at the moment
+when I see my wishes being realized, and I feel as if a disappointment
+would be the death of me. I'm afraid, yes, I'm afraid. Ah, why can't I
+dispense with following you?"
+
+"But your presence is indispensable; without your help I can do
+nothing:"
+
+"What could I do?"
+
+"Save Laurence, Monsieur Plantat."
+
+This name restored a part of his courage.
+
+"If that is so--" said he. He began to walk firmly toward the street,
+but M. Lecoq stopped him.
+
+"Not yet," said the detective, "not yet; the battle now depends on the
+precision of our movements. A single fault miserably upsets all my
+combinations, and then I shall be forced to arrest and deliver up the
+criminal. We must have a ten minutes' interview with Mademoiselle
+Laurence, but not much more, and it is absolutely necessary that this
+interview should be suddenly interrupted by Tremorel's return. Let's
+make our calculations. It will take the rascal half an hour to go to the
+Rue des Saints-Peres, where he will find nobody; as long to get back;
+let us throw in fifteen minutes as a margin; in all, an hour and a
+quarter. There are forty minutes left us."
+
+M. Plantat did not reply, but his companion said that he could not stay
+so long on his feet after the fatigues of the day, agitated as he was,
+and having eaten nothing since the evening before. He led him into a
+neighboring cafe, and forced him to eat a biscuit and drink a glass of
+wine. Then seeing that conversation would be annoying to the unhappy old
+man, he took up an evening paper and soon seemed to be absorbed in the
+latest news from Germany. The old justice, his head leaning on the back
+of his chair and his eyes wandering over the ceiling, passed in mental
+review the events of the past four years. It seemed to him but yesterday
+that Laurence, still a child, ran up his garden-path and picked his
+roses and honeysuckles. How pretty she was, and how divine were her
+great eyes! Then, as it seemed, between dusk and dawn, as a rose blooms
+on a June night, the pretty child had become a sweet and radiant young
+girl. She was timid and reserved with all but him--was he not her old
+friend, the confidant of all her little griefs and her innocent hopes?
+How frank and pure she was then; what a heavenly ignorance of evil!
+
+Nine o'clock struck; M. Lecoq laid down his paper.
+
+"Let us go," said he.
+
+M. Plantat followed him with a firmer step, and they soon reached M.
+Wilson's house, accompanied by Job and his men.
+
+"You men," said M. Lecoq, "wait till I call before you go in; I will
+leave the door ajar."
+
+He rang; the door swung open; and M. Plantat and the detective went in
+under the arch. The porter was on the threshold of his lodge.
+
+"Monsieur Wilson?" asked M. Lecoq.
+
+"He is out."
+
+"I will speak to Madame, then."
+
+"She is also out."
+
+"Very well. Only, as I must positively speak with Madame Wilson, I'm
+going upstairs."
+
+The porter seemed about to resist him by force; but, as Lecoq now called
+in his men, he thought better of it and kept quiet.
+
+M. Lecoq posted six of his men in the court, in such a position that
+they could be easily seen from the windows on the first floor, and
+instructed the others to place themselves on the opposite sidewalk,
+telling them to look ostentatiously at the house. These measures taken,
+he returned to the porter.
+
+"Attend to me, my man. When your master, who has gone out, comes in
+again, beware that you don't tell him that we are upstairs; a single
+word would get you into terribly hot water--"
+
+"I am blind," he answered, "and deaf."
+
+"How many servants are there in the house?"
+
+"Three; but they have all gone out."
+
+The detective then took M. Plantat by the arm, and holding him firmly:
+
+"You see, my dear friend," said he, "the game is ours. Come along--and
+in Laurence's name, have courage!"
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+All M. Lecoq's anticipations were realized. Laurence was not dead, and
+her letter to her parents was an odious trick. It was really she who
+lived in the house as Mme. Wilson. How had the lovely young girl, so
+much beloved by the old justice, come to such a dreadful extremity? The
+logic of life, alas, fatally enchains all our determinations to each
+other. Often an indifferent action, little wrongful in itself, is the
+beginning of an atrocious crime. Each of our new resolutions depends
+upon those which have preceded it, and is their logical sequence just as
+the sum-total is the product of the added figures. Woe to him who, being
+seized with a dizziness at the brink of the abyss, does not fly as fast
+as possible, without turning his head; for soon, yielding to an
+irresistible attraction, he approaches, braves the danger, slips, and is
+lost. Whatever thereafter he does or attempts he will roll down the
+faster, until he reaches the very bottom of the gulf.
+
+Tremorel had by no means the implacable character of an assassin; he was
+only feeble and cowardly; yet he had committed abominable crimes. All
+his guilt came from the first feeling of envy with which he regarded
+Sauvresy, and which he had not taken the pains to subdue. Laurence,
+when, on the day that she became enamoured of Tremorel, she permitted
+him to press her hand, and kept it from her mother, was lost. The
+hand-pressure led to the pretence of suicide in order to fly with her
+lover. It might also lead to infanticide.
+
+Poor Laurence, when she was left alone by Hector's departure to the
+Faubourg St. Germain, on receiving M. Lecoq's letter, began to reflect
+upon the events of the past year. How unlooked-for and rapidly
+succeeding they had been! It seemed to her that she had been whirled
+along in a tempest, without a second to think or act freely. She asked
+herself if she were not a prey to some hideous nightmare, and if she
+should not presently awake in her pretty maidenly chamber at Orcival.
+Was it really she who was there in a strange house, dead to everyone,
+leaving behind a withered memory, reduced to live under a false name,
+without family or friends henceforth, or anyone in the world to help her
+feebleness, at the mercy of a fugitive like herself, who was free to
+break to-morrow the bonds of caprice which to-day bound him to her? Was
+it she, too, who was about to become a mother, and found herself
+suffering from the excessive misery of blushing for that maternity which
+is the pride of pure young wives? A thousand memories of her past life
+flocked through her brain and cruelly revived her despair. Her heart
+sank as she thought of her old friendships, of her mother, her sister,
+the pride of her innocence, and the pure joys of the home fireside.
+
+As she half reclined on a divan in Hector's library, she wept freely.
+She bewailed her life, broken at twenty, her lost youth, her vanished,
+once radiant hopes, the world's esteem, and her own self-respect, which
+she should never recover.
+
+Of a sudden the door was abruptly opened.
+
+Laurence thought it was Hector returned, and she hastily rose, passing
+her handkerchief across her face to try to conceal her tears.
+
+A man whom she did not know stood upon the threshold, respectfully
+bowing. She was afraid, for Tremorel had said to her many times within
+the past two days, "We are pursued; let us hide well;" and though it
+seemed to her that she had nothing to fear, she trembled without knowing
+why.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked, haughtily, "and who has admitted you here?
+What do you want?"
+
+M. Lecoq left nothing to chance or inspiration; he foresaw everything,
+and regulated affairs in real life as he would the scenes in a theatre.
+He expected this very natural indignation and these questions, and was
+prepared for them. The only reply he made was to step one side, thus
+revealing M. Plantat behind him.
+
+Laurence was so much overcome on recognizing her old friend, that, in
+spite of her resolution, she came near falling.
+
+"You!" she stammered; "you!"
+
+The old justice was, if possible, more agitated than Laurence. Was that
+really his Laurence there before him? Grief had done its work so well
+that she seemed old.
+
+"Why did you seek for me?" she resumed. "Why add another grief to my
+life? Ah, I told Hector that the letter he dictated to me would not be
+believed. There are misfortunes for which death is the only refuge."
+
+M. Plantat was about to reply, but Lecoq was determined to take the lead
+in the interview.
+
+"It is not you, Madame, that we seek," said he, "but Monsieur de
+Tremorel."
+
+"Hector! And why, if you please? Is he not free?"
+
+M. Lecoq hesitated before shocking the poor girl, who had been but too
+credulous in trusting to a scoundrel's oaths of fidelity. But he thought
+that the cruel truth is less harrowing than the suspense of intimations.
+
+"Monsieur de Tremorel," he answered, "has committed a great crime."
+
+"He! You lie, sir."
+
+The detective sorrowfully shook his head.
+
+"Unhappily I have told you the truth. Monsieur de Tremorel murdered his
+wife on Wednesday night. I am a detective and I have a warrant to arrest
+him."
+
+He thought this terrible charge would overwhelm Laurence; he was
+mistaken. She was thunderstruck, but she stood firm. The crime horrified
+her, but it did not seem to her entirely improbable, knowing as she did
+the hatred with which Hector was inspired by Bertha.
+
+"Well, perhaps he did," cried she, sublime in her energy and despair; "I
+am his accomplice, then--arrest me."
+
+This cry, which seemed to proceed from the most senseless passion,
+amazed the old justice, but did not surprise M. Lecoq.
+
+"No, Madame," he resumed, "you are not this man's accomplice. Besides,
+the murder of his wife is the least of his crimes. Do you know why he
+did not marry you? Because in concert with Bertha, he poisoned Monsieur
+Sauvresy, who saved his life and was his best friend. We have the proof
+of it."
+
+This was more than poor Laurence could bear; she staggered and fell upon
+a sofa. But she did not doubt the truth of what M. Lecoq said. This
+terrible revelation tore away the veil which, till then, had hidden the
+past from her. The poisoning of Sauvresy explained all Hector's conduct,
+his position, his fears, his promises, his lies, his hate, his
+recklessness, his marriage, his flight. Still she tried not to defend
+him, but to share the odium of his crimes.
+
+"I knew it," she stammered, in a voice broken by sobs, "I knew it all."
+
+The old justice was in despair.
+
+"How you love him, poor child!" murmured he.
+
+This mournful exclamation restored to Laurence all her energy; she made
+an effort and rose, her eyes glittering with indignation:
+
+"I love him!" cried she. "I! Ah, I can explain my conduct to you, my old
+friend, for you are worthy of hearing it. Yes, I did love him, it is
+true--loved him to the forgetfulness of duty, to self-abandonment. But
+one day he showed himself to me as he was; I judged him, and my love did
+not survive my contempt. I was ignorant of Sauvresy's horrible death.
+Hector confessed to me that his life and honor were in Bertha's
+hands--and that she loved him. I left him free to abandon me, to marry,
+thus sacrificing more than my life to what I thought was his happiness;
+yet I was not deceived. When I fled with him I once more sacrificed
+myself, when I saw that it was impossible to conceal my shame. I wanted
+to die. I lived, and wrote an infamous letter to my mother, and yielded
+to Hector's prayers, because he pleaded with me in the name of my--of
+our child!"
+
+M. Lecoq, impatient at the loss of time, tried to say something; but
+Laurence would not listen to him.
+
+"But what matter?" she continued. "I loved him, followed him, and am
+his! Constancy at all hazards is the only excuse for a fault like mine.
+I will do my duty. I cannot be innocent when Hector has committed a
+crime; I desire to suffer half the punishment."
+
+She spoke with such remarkable animation that the detective despaired of
+calming her, when two whistles in the street struck his ear. Tremorel
+was returning and there was not a moment to be lost. He suddenly seized
+Laurence by the arm.
+
+"You will tell all this to the judges, Madame," said he, sternly. "My
+orders are only for M. de Tremorel. Here is the warrant to arrest him."
+
+He took out the warrant and laid it upon the table. Laurence, by the
+force of her will, had become almost calm.
+
+"You will let me speak five minutes with the Count de Tremorel, will you
+not?" she asked.
+
+M. Lecoq was delighted; he had looked for this request, and expected it.
+
+"Five minutes? Yes," he replied. "But abandon all hope, Madame, of
+saving the prisoner; the house is watched; if you look in the court and
+in the street you will see my men in ambuscade. Besides, I am going to
+stay here in the next room."
+
+The count was heard ascending the stairs.
+
+"There's Hector!" cried Laurence, "quick, quick! conceal yourselves!"
+
+She added, as they were retiring, in a low tone, but not so low as to
+prevent the detective from hearing her:
+
+"Be sure, we will not try to escape."
+
+She let the door-curtain drop; it was time. Hector entered. He was paler
+than death, and his eyes had a fearful, wandering expression.
+
+"We are lost!" said he, "they are pursuing us. See, this letter which I
+received just now is not from the man whose signature it professes to
+bear; he told me so himself. Come, let us go, let us leave this house--"
+
+Laurence overwhelmed him with a look full of hate and contempt, and
+said:
+
+"It is too late."
+
+Her countenance and voice were so strange that Tremorel, despite his
+distress, was struck by it, and asked:
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"Everything is known; it is known that you killed your wife."
+
+"It's false!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Well, then, it is true," he added, "for I loved you so--"
+
+"Really! And it was for love of me that you poisoned Sauvresy?"
+
+He saw that he was discovered, that he had been caught in a trap, that
+they had come, in his absence, and told Laurence all. He did not attempt
+to deny anything.
+
+"What shall I do?" cried he, "what shall I do?"
+
+Laurence drew him to her, and muttered in a shuddering voice:
+
+"Save the name of Tremorel; there are pistols here."
+
+He recoiled, as if he had seen death itself.
+
+"No," said he. "I can yet fly and conceal myself; I will go alone, and
+you can rejoin me afterward."
+
+"I have already told you that it is too late. The police have surrounded
+the house. And--you know--it is the galleys, or--the scaffold!"
+
+"I can get away by the courtyard."
+
+"It is guarded; look."
+
+He ran to the window, saw M. Lecoq's men, and returned half mad and
+hideous with terror.
+
+"I can at least try," said he, "by disguising myself--"
+
+"Fool! A detective is in there, and it was he who left that warrant to
+arrest you on the table."
+
+He saw that he was lost beyond hope.
+
+"Must I die, then?" he muttered.
+
+"Yes, you must; but before you die write a confession of your crimes,
+for the innocent may be suspected--"
+
+He sat down mechanically, took the pen which Laurence held out to him,
+and wrote:
+
+"Being about to appear before God, I declare that I alone, and without
+accomplices, poisoned Sauvresy and murdered the Countess de Tremorel, my
+wife."
+
+When he had signed and dated this, Laurence opened a bureau drawer;
+Hector seized one of the brace of pistols which were lying in it, and
+she took the other. But Tremorel, as before at the hotel, and then in
+the dying Sauvresy's chamber, felt his heart fail him as he placed the
+pistol against his forehead. He was livid, his teeth chattered, and he
+trembled so violently that he let the pistol drop.
+
+"Laurence, my love," he stammered, "what will--become of you?"
+
+"Me! I have sworn that I will follow you always and everywhere. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Ah, 'tis horrible!" said he. "It was not I who poisoned Sauvresy--it
+was she--there are proofs of it; perhaps, with a good advocate--"
+
+M. Lecoq did not lose a word or a gesture of this tragical scene. Either
+purposely or by accident, he pushed the door-curtain, which made a
+slight noise.
+
+Laurence thought the door was being opened, that the detective was
+returning, and that Hector would fall alive into their hands.
+
+"Miserable coward!" she cried, pointing her pistol at him, "shoot, or
+else--"
+
+He hesitated; there was another rustle at the door; she fired.
+
+Tremorel fell dead.
+
+Laurence, with a rapid movement, took up the other pistol, and was
+turning it against herself, when M. Lecoq sprung upon her and tore the
+weapon from her grasp.
+
+"Unhappy girl!" cried he, "what would you do?"
+
+"Die. Can I live now?"
+
+"Yes, you can live," responded M. Lecoq. "And more, you ought to live."
+
+"I am a lost woman--"
+
+"No, you are a poor child lured away by a wretch. You say you are very
+guilty; perhaps so; live to repent of it. Great sorrows like yours have
+their missions in this world, one of devotion and charity. Live, and the
+good you do will attach you once more to life. You have yielded to the
+deceitful promises of a villain. Remember, when you are rich, that there
+are poor innocent girls forced to lead a life of miserable shame for a
+morsel of bread. Go to these unhappy creatures, rescue them from
+debauchery, and their honor will be yours."
+
+M. Lecoq narrowly watched Laurence as he spoke, and perceived that he
+had touched her. Still, her eyes were dry, and were lit up with a
+strange light.
+
+"Besides, your life is not your own--you know."
+
+"Ah," she returned, "I must die now, even for my child, if I would not
+die of shame when he asks for his father--"
+
+"You will reply, Madame, by showing him an honest man and an old friend,
+who is ready to give him his name--Monsieur Plantat."
+
+The old justice was broken with grief; yet he had the strength to say:
+
+"Laurence, my beloved child, I beg you accept me--"
+
+These simple words, pronounced with infinite gentleness and sweetness,
+at last melted the unhappy young girl, and determined her. She burst
+into tears.
+
+She was saved.
+
+M. Lecoq hastened to throw a shawl which he saw on a chair about her
+shoulders, and passed her arm through M. Plantat's, saying to the
+latter:
+
+"Go, lead her away; my men have orders to let you pass, and Palot will
+lend you his carriage."
+
+"But where shall we go?"
+
+"To Orcival; Monsieur Courtois has been informed by a letter from me
+that his daughter is living, and he is expecting her. Come, lose no
+time."
+
+M. Lecoq, when he was left alone, listened to the departure of the
+carriage which took M. Plantat and Laurence away; then he returned to
+Tremorel's body.
+
+"There," said he to himself, "lies a wretch whom I have killed instead
+of arresting and delivering him up to justice. Have I done my duty? No;
+but my conscience will not reproach me, because I have acted rightly."
+
+And running to the staircase, he called his men.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+The day after Tremorel's death, old Bertaud and Guespin were set at
+liberty, and received, the former four thousand francs to buy a boat and
+new tackle, and the latter ten thousand francs, with a promise of a like
+sum at the end of the year, if he would go and live in his own province.
+Fifteen days later, to the great surprise of the Orcival gossips, who
+had never learned the details of these events, M. Plantat wedded Mlle.
+Laurence Courtois; and the groom and bride departed that very evening
+for Italy, where it was announced they would linger at least a year.
+
+As for Papa Courtois, he has offered his beautiful domain at Orcival for
+sale; he proposes to settle in the middle of France, and is on the
+lookout for a commune in need of a good mayor.
+
+M. Lecoq, like everybody else, would, doubtless, have forgotten the
+Valfeuillu affair, had it not been that a notary called on him
+personally the other morning with a very gracious letter from Laurence,
+and an enormous sheet of stamped paper. This was no other than a title
+deed to M. Plantat's pretty estate at Orcival, "with furniture, stable,
+carriage-house, garden, and other dependencies and appurtenances
+thereunto belonging," and some neighboring acres of pleasant fields.
+
+"Prodigious!" cried M. Lecoq. "I didn't help ingrates, after all! I am
+willing to become a landed proprietor, just for the rarity of the
+thing."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Orcival, by Emile Gaboriau
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thephantomoftheopera b/files/books/unrelated/thephantomoftheopera
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Phantom of the Opera
+
+Author: Gaston Leroux
+
+Release Date: June 9, 2008 [EBook #175]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The footnotes have been incrementally numbered in [ ] marks, and placed
+after the paragraph in which they appear
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Phantom of the Opera
+
+
+by
+
+Gaston Leroux
+
+
+
+Author of "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady
+in Black"
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Chapter
+
+        PROLOGUE
+     I  IS IT A GHOST?
+    II  THE NEW MARGARITA
+   III  THE MYSTERIOUS REASON
+    IV  BOX FIVE
+     V  THE ENCHANTED VIOLIN
+    VI  A VISIT TO BOX FIVE
+   VII  FAUST AND WHAT FOLLOWED
+  VIII  THE MYSTERIOUS BROUGHAM
+    IX  AT THE MASKED BALL
+     X  FORGET THE NAME OF THE MAN'S VOICE
+    XI  ABOVE THE TRAP-DOORS
+   XII  APOLLO'S LYRE
+  XIII  A MASTER-STROKE OF THE TRAP-DOOR LOVER
+   XIV  THE SINGULAR ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY-PIN
+    XV  CHRISTINE!  CHRISTINE!
+   XVI  MME. GIRY'S REVELATIONS
+  XVII  THE SAFETY-PIN AGAIN
+ XVIII  THE COMMISSARY, THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
+   XIX  THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
+    XX  IN THE CELLARS OF THE OPERA
+   XXI  INTERESTING VICISSITUDES
+  XXII  IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER
+ XXIII  THE TORTURES BEGIN
+  XXIV  BARRELS!  BARRELS!
+   XXV  THE SCORPION OR THE GRASSHOPPER:  WHICH
+  XXVI  THE END OF THE GHOST'S LOVE STORY
+        EPILOGUE
+
+{plus a "bonus chapter" called "THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE"}
+
+
+
+
+The Phantom of the Opera
+
+
+
+Prologue
+
+
+IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THIS SINGULAR WORK INFORMS THE READER HOW HE
+ACQUIRED THE CERTAINTY THAT THE OPERA GHOST REALLY EXISTED
+
+The Opera ghost really existed.  He was not, as was long believed, a
+creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the
+managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the
+young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the
+cloak-room attendants or the concierge.  Yes, he existed in flesh and
+blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;
+that is to say, of a spectral shade.
+
+When I began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music I
+was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the phenomena
+ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and fantastic
+tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes; and I soon conceived
+the idea that this tragedy might reasonably be explained by the
+phenomena in question.  The events do not date more than thirty years
+back; and it would not be difficult to find at the present day, in the
+foyer of the ballet, old men of the highest respectability, men upon
+whose word one could absolutely rely, who would remember as though they
+happened yesterday the mysterious and dramatic conditions that attended
+the kidnapping of Christine Daae, the disappearance of the Vicomte de
+Chagny and the death of his elder brother, Count Philippe, whose body
+was found on the bank of the lake that exists in the lower cellars of
+the Opera on the Rue-Scribe side.  But none of those witnesses had
+until that day thought that there was any reason for connecting the
+more or less legendary figure of the Opera ghost with that terrible
+story.
+
+The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry that at
+every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight, might be
+looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of
+abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in the hopeless
+pursuit of a vain image.  At last, I received the proof that my
+presentiments had not deceived me, and I was rewarded for all my
+efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost
+was more than a mere shade.
+
+On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER, the
+light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who, during
+his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious behavior of
+the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he could at the
+very moment when he became the first victim of the curious financial
+operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."
+
+I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful
+acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a landing
+with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he introduced me
+gaily.  The acting-manager knew all about my investigations and how
+eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover the
+whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case, M.
+Faure.  Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead; and here he
+was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen years, and the first
+thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to come to the
+secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.  The little
+old man was M. Faure himself.
+
+We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole
+Chagny case as he had understood it at the time.  He was bound to
+conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidental
+death of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary; but
+he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken place
+between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae.  He could
+not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount.  When I mentioned
+the ghost, he only laughed.  He, too, had been told of the curious
+manifestations that seemed to point to the existence of an abnormal
+being, residing in one of the most mysterious corners of the Opera, and
+he knew the story of the envelope; but he had never seen anything in it
+worthy of his attention as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case, and
+it was as much as he had done to listen to the evidence of a witness
+who appeared of his own accord and declared that he had often met the
+ghost.  This witness was none other than the man whom all Paris called
+the "Persian" and who was well-known to every subscriber to the Opera.
+The magistrate took him for a visionary.
+
+I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian.  I wanted, if
+there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.  My
+luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat in the
+Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died five
+months after my visit.  I was at first inclined to be suspicious; but
+when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor, all that he knew
+about the ghost and had handed me the proofs of the ghost's
+existence--including the strange correspondence of Christine Daae--to
+do as I pleased with, I was no longer able to doubt.  No, the ghost was
+not a myth!
+
+I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have been forged
+from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainly been fed on
+the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discovered some of
+Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and, on a
+comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed.  I also went
+into the past history of the Persian and found that he was an upright
+man, incapable of inventing a story that might have defeated the ends
+of justice.
+
+This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who, at one
+time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were friends of
+the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents and set forth all
+my inferences.  In this connection, I should like to print a few lines
+which I received from General D----:
+
+SIR:
+
+I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.
+I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance of that
+great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy which threw the whole of
+the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning, there was a great deal of
+talk, in the foyer of the ballet, on the subject of the "ghost;" and I
+believe that it only ceased to be discussed in consequence of the later
+affair that excited us all so greatly.  But, if it be possible--as,
+after hearing you, I believe--to explain the tragedy through the ghost,
+then I beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.
+
+Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more
+easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have
+tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each
+other all their lives.
+
+Believe me, etc.
+
+Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the
+ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom.
+All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the
+Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my
+labors in a very definite fashion.  It will be remembered that, later,
+when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the
+phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a
+corpse.  Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that of
+the Opera ghost.  I made the acting-manager put this proof to the test
+with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me
+if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.
+
+The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of
+the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their
+skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt
+which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions.  I
+came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the
+Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the
+unheard-of chance described above.
+
+But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.
+For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by
+thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for the
+first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae), M.
+Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager, M.
+Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne
+de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg" of the story (and
+who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable
+corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now
+deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box.  All these were of
+the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able to
+reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest
+details, before the reader's eyes.
+
+And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the
+threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present
+management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my
+inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the
+acting-manager, and that most amiable of men, the architect intrusted
+with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me
+the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would
+never return them to him.  Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the
+generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who
+allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow
+the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.
+
+GASTON LEROUX.
+
+
+
+Chapter I  Is it the Ghost?
+
+
+It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
+the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their
+retirement.  Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the
+principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the
+ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte.  They
+rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and
+unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror.  Sorelli, who wished to
+be alone for a moment to "run through" the speech which she was to make
+to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and
+tumultuous crowd.  It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted
+nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
+neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:
+
+"It's the ghost!"  And she locked the door.
+
+Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace
+elegance.  A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two
+provided the necessary furniture.  On the walls hung a few engravings,
+relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the
+Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini.  But
+the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were
+lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their time singing,
+quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers and buying one
+another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until the call-boy's
+bell rang.
+
+Sorelli was very superstitious.  She shuddered when she heard little
+Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then,
+as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and the Opera
+ghost in particular, at once asked for details:
+
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were
+giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.
+
+Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes, hair black as
+ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor
+little bones--little Giry added:
+
+"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.
+
+And they all began to talk together.  The ghost had appeared to them in
+the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood
+before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.
+He seemed to have come straight through the wall.
+
+"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.  "You see
+the ghost everywhere!"
+
+And it was true.  For several months, there had been nothing discussed
+at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the
+building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to
+whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one
+knowing how or where.  As became a real ghost, he made no noise in
+walking.  People began by laughing and making fun of this specter
+dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend
+soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet.  All
+the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less
+often.  And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at ease.
+When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence or his passing
+by accident, comic or serious, for which the general superstition held
+him responsible.  Had any one met with a fall, or suffered a practical
+joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or lost a powderpuff, it
+was at once the fault of the ghost, of the Opera ghost.
+
+After all, who had seen him?  You meet so many men in dress-clothes at
+the Opera who are not ghosts.  But this dress-suit had a peculiarity of
+its own.  It covered a skeleton.  At least, so the ballet-girls said.
+And, of course, it had a death's head.
+
+Was all this serious?  The truth is that the idea of the skeleton came
+from the description of the ghost given by Joseph Buquet, the chief
+scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost.  He had run up against
+the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights, which leads to
+"the cellars."  He had seen him for a second--for the ghost had
+fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him he said:
+
+"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton
+frame.  His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.
+You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull.  His skin,
+which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but
+a nasty yellow.  His nose is so little worth talking about that you
+can't see it side-face; and THE ABSENCE of that nose is a horrible
+thing TO LOOK AT.  All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks
+on his forehead and behind his ears."
+
+This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man, very slow at
+imagining things.  His words were received with interest and amazement;
+and soon there were other people to say that they too had met a man in
+dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.  Sensible men who
+had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph Buquet had been the
+victim of a joke played by one of his assistants.  And then, one after
+the other, there came a series of incidents so curious and so
+inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to feel uneasy.
+
+For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow!  He fears nothing, least of
+all fire!  Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round
+of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little
+farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, scared,
+trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically
+fainted in the arms of the proud mother of little Jammes.[1]  And why?
+Because he had seen coming toward him, AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT
+WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT, A HEAD OF FIRE!  And, as I said, a
+fireman is not afraid of fire.
+
+The fireman's name was Pampin.
+
+The corps de ballet was flung into consternation.  At first sight, this
+fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's description of
+the ghost.  But the young ladies soon persuaded themselves that the
+ghost had several heads, which he changed about as he pleased.  And, of
+course, they at once imagined that they were in the greatest danger.
+Once a fireman did not hesitate to faint, leaders and front-row and
+back-row girls alike had plenty of excuses for the fright that made
+them quicken their pace when passing some dark corner or ill-lighted
+corridor.  Sorelli herself, on the day after the adventure of the
+fireman, placed a horseshoe on the table in front of the
+stage-door-keeper's box, which every one who entered the Opera
+otherwise than as a spectator must touch before setting foot on the
+first tread of the staircase.  This horse-shoe was not invented by
+me--any more than any other part of this story, alas!--and may still be
+seen on the table in the passage outside the stage-door-keeper's box,
+when you enter the Opera through the court known as the Cour de
+l'Administration.
+
+To return to the evening in question.
+
+"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried.
+
+An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing-room. Nothing was
+heard but the hard breathing of the girls.  At last, Jammes, flinging
+herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every mark of real
+terror on her face, whispered:
+
+"Listen!"
+
+Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door.  There was no
+sound of footsteps.  It was like light silk sliding over the panel.
+Then it stopped.
+
+Sorelli tried to show more pluck than the others.  She went up to the
+door and, in a quavering voice, asked:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+But nobody answered.  Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her last
+movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly:
+
+"Is there any one behind the door?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!  Of course there is!" cried that little dried plum of a
+Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt.
+"Whatever you do, don't open the door!  Oh, Lord, don't open the door!"
+
+But Sorelli, armed with a dagger that never left her, turned the key
+and drew back the door, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner
+dressing-room and Meg Giry sighed:
+
+"Mother!  Mother!"
+
+Sorelli looked into the passage bravely.  It was empty; a gas-flame, in
+its glass prison, cast a red and suspicious light into the surrounding
+darkness, without succeeding in dispelling it.  And the dancer slammed
+the door again, with a deep sigh.
+
+"No," she said, "there is no one there."
+
+"Still, we saw him!"  Jammes declared, returning with timid little
+steps to her place beside Sorelli.  "He must be somewhere prowling
+about.  I shan't go back to dress.  We had better all go down to the
+foyer together, at once, for the 'speech,' and we will come up again
+together."
+
+And the child reverently touched the little coral finger-ring which she
+wore as a charm against bad luck, while Sorelli, stealthily, with the
+tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross on the
+wooden ring which adorned the fourth finger of her left hand.  She said
+to the little ballet-girls:
+
+"Come, children, pull yourselves together!  I dare say no one has ever
+seen the ghost."
+
+"Yes, yes, we saw him--we saw him just now!" cried the girls.  "He had
+his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared to Joseph
+Buquet!"
+
+"And Gabriel saw him too!" said Jammes.  "Only yesterday!  Yesterday
+afternoon--in broad day-light----"
+
+"Gabriel, the chorus-master?"
+
+"Why, yes, didn't you know?"
+
+"And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight?"
+
+"Who?  Gabriel?"
+
+"Why, no, the ghost!"
+
+"Certainly!  Gabriel told me so himself.  That's what he knew him by.
+Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office.  Suddenly the door opened
+and the Persian entered.  You know the Persian has the evil eye----"
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered the little ballet-girls in chorus, warding off
+ill-luck by pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent
+Persian, while their second and third fingers were bent on the palm and
+held down by the thumb.
+
+"And you know how superstitious Gabriel is," continued Jammes.
+"However, he is always polite.  When he meets the Persian, he just puts
+his hand in his pocket and touches his keys.  Well, the moment the
+Persian appeared in the doorway, Gabriel gave one jump from his chair
+to the lock of the cupboard, so as to touch iron!  In doing so, he tore
+a whole skirt of his overcoat on a nail.  Hurrying to get out of the
+room, he banged his forehead against a hat-peg and gave himself a huge
+bump; then, suddenly stepping back, he skinned his arm on the screen,
+near the piano; he tried to lean on the piano, but the lid fell on his
+hands and crushed his fingers; he rushed out of the office like a
+madman, slipped on the staircase and came down the whole of the first
+flight on his back.  I was just passing with mother.  We picked him up.
+He was covered with bruises and his face was all over blood.  We were
+frightened out of our lives, but, all at once, he began to thank
+Providence that he had got off so cheaply.  Then he told us what had
+frightened him.  He had seen the ghost behind the Persian, THE GHOST
+WITH THE DEATH'S HEAD just like Joseph Buquet's description!"
+
+Jammes had told her story ever so quickly, as though the ghost were at
+her heels, and was quite out of breath at the finish.  A silence
+followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement.  It was
+broken by little Giry, who said:
+
+"Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue."
+
+"Why should he hold his tongue?" asked somebody.
+
+"That's mother's opinion," replied Meg, lowering her voice and looking
+all about her as though fearing lest other ears than those present
+might overhear.
+
+"And why is it your mother's opinion?"
+
+"Hush!  Mother says the ghost doesn't like being talked about."
+
+"And why does your mother say so?"
+
+"Because--because--nothing--"
+
+This reticence exasperated the curiosity of the young ladies, who
+crowded round little Giry, begging her to explain herself.  They were
+there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously in one movement of
+entreaty and fear, communicating their terror to one another, taking a
+keen pleasure in feeling their blood freeze in their veins.
+
+"I swore not to tell!" gasped Meg.
+
+But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg,
+burning to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:
+
+"Well, it's because of the private box."
+
+"What private box?"
+
+"The ghost's box!"
+
+"Has the ghost a box?  Oh, do tell us, do tell us!"
+
+"Not so loud!" said Meg.  "It's Box Five, you know, the box on the
+grand tier, next to the stage-box, on the left."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"I tell you it is.  Mother has charge of it.  But you swear you won't
+say a word?"
+
+"Of course, of course."
+
+"Well, that's the ghost's box.  No one has had it for over a month,
+except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office that it
+must never be sold."
+
+"And does the ghost really come there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then somebody does come?"
+
+"Why, no!  The ghost comes, but there is nobody there."
+
+The little ballet-girls exchanged glances.  If the ghost came to the
+box, he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death's head.
+This was what they tried to make Meg understand, but she replied:
+
+"That's just it!  The ghost is not seen.  And he has no dress-coat and
+no head!  All that talk about his death's head and his head of fire is
+nonsense!  There's nothing in it.  You only hear him when he is in the
+box.  Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him.  Mother knows,
+because she gives him his program."
+
+Sorelli interfered.
+
+"Giry, child, you're getting at us!"
+
+Thereupon little Giry began to cry.
+
+"I ought to have held my tongue--if mother ever came to know!  But I
+was quite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk of things that
+don't concern him--it will bring him bad luck--mother was saying so
+last night----"
+
+There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage and a
+breathless voice cried:
+
+"Cecile!  Cecile!  Are you there?"
+
+"It's mother's voice," said Jammes.  "What's the matter?"
+
+She opened the door.  A respectable lady, built on the lines of a
+Pomeranian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning
+into a vacant arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly in her brick-dust
+colored face.
+
+"How awful!" she said.  "How awful!"
+
+"What?  What?"
+
+"Joseph Buquet!"
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"Joseph Buquet is dead!"
+
+The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished outcries,
+with scared requests for explanations.
+
+"Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!"
+
+"It's the ghost!" little Giry blurted, as though in spite of herself;
+but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:
+"No, no!--I, didn't say it!--I didn't say it!----"
+
+All around her, her panic-stricken companions repeated under their
+breaths:
+
+"Yes--it must be the ghost!"
+
+Sorelli was very pale.
+
+"I shall never be able to recite my speech," she said.
+
+Ma Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of liqueur that
+happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have something to do
+with it.
+
+The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death.
+The verdict at the inquest was "natural suicide."  In his Memoirs of
+Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded MM.
+Debienne and Poligny, describes the incident as follows:
+
+"A grievous accident spoiled the little party which MM.  Debienne and
+Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement.  I was in the manager's
+office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly came darting in.  He
+seemed half mad and told me that the body of a scene-shifter had been
+found hanging in the third cellar under the stage, between a farm-house
+and a scene from the Roi de Lahore.  I shouted:
+
+"'Come and cut him down!'
+
+"By the time I had rushed down the staircase and the Jacob's ladder,
+the man was no longer hanging from his rope!"
+
+So this is an event which M. Moncharmin thinks natural.  A man hangs at
+the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope has disappeared.
+Oh, M. Moncharmin found a very simple explanation!  Listen to him:
+
+"It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost no
+time in taking their precautions against the evil eye."
+
+There you are!  Picture the corps de ballet scuttling down the Jacob's
+ladder and dividing the suicide's rope among themselves in less time
+than it takes to write!  When, on the other hand, I think of the exact
+spot where the body was discovered--the third cellar underneath the
+stage!--imagine that SOMEBODY must have been interested in seeing that
+the rope disappeared after it had effected its purpose; and time will
+show if I am wrong.
+
+The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was
+very popular.  The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls,
+crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess, made
+for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases, trotting as
+fast as their little pink legs could carry them.
+
+
+[1] I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro
+Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II  The New Margarita
+
+
+On the first landing, Sorelli ran against the Comte de Chagny, who was
+coming up-stairs. The count, who was generally so calm, seemed greatly
+excited.
+
+"I was just going to you," he said, taking off his hat.  "Oh, Sorelli,
+what an evening!  And Christine Daae:  what a triumph!"
+
+"Impossible!" said Meg Giry.  "Six months ago, she used to sing like a
+CROCK!  But do let us get by, my dear count," continues the brat, with
+a saucy curtsey.  "We are going to inquire after a poor man who was
+found hanging by the neck."
+
+Just then the acting-manager came fussing past and stopped when he
+heard this remark.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed roughly.  "Have you girls heard already?  Well,
+please forget about it for tonight--and above all don't let M. Debienne
+and M. Poligny hear; it would upset them too much on their last day."
+
+They all went on to the foyer of the ballet, which was already full of
+people.  The Comte de Chagny was right; no gala performance ever
+equalled this one.  All the great composers of the day had conducted
+their own works in turns.  Faure and Krauss had sung; and, on that
+evening, Christine Daae had revealed her true self, for the first time,
+to the astonished and enthusiastic audience.  Gounod had conducted the
+Funeral March of a Marionnette; Reyer, his beautiful overture to
+Siguar; Saint Saens, the Danse Macabre and a Reverie Orientale;
+Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian march; Guiraud, his Carnaval;
+Delibes, the Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia.
+Mlle. Krauss had sung the bolero in the Vespri Siciliani; and Mlle.
+Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia.
+
+But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by
+singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet.  It was the first time
+that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod, which had not been
+transferred to the Opera and which was revived at the Opera Comique
+after it had been produced at the old Theatre Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho.
+Those who heard her say that her voice, in these passages, was
+seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman notes that she gave
+forth in the prison scene and the final trio in FAUST, which she sang
+in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill.  No one had ever heard or
+seen anything like it.
+
+Daae revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor, a
+radiance hitherto unsuspected.  The whole house went mad, rising to its
+feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted
+in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her
+dressing-room. A few subscribers, however, protested.  Why had so great
+a treasure been kept from them all that time?  Till then, Christine
+Daae had played a good Siebel to Carlotta's rather too splendidly
+material Margarita.  And it had needed Carlotta's incomprehensible and
+inexcusable absence from this gala night for the little Daae, at a
+moment's warning, to show all that she could do in a part of the
+program reserved for the Spanish diva!  Well, what the subscribers
+wanted to know was, why had Debienne and Poligny applied to Daae, when
+Carlotta was taken ill?  Did they know of her hidden genius?  And, if
+they knew of it, why had they kept it hidden?  And why had she kept it
+hidden?  Oddly enough, she was not known to have a professor of singing
+at that moment.  She had often said she meant to practise alone for the
+future.  The whole thing was a mystery.
+
+The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this
+frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding.  Philippe Georges
+Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age.  He was a great
+aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with
+attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold
+eyes.  He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to
+the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.
+He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience.  On the
+death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest
+and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the
+fourteenth century.  The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and,
+when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for
+Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate.  His two
+sisters and his brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived
+their claim to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's
+hands, as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.
+When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their
+portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging to
+them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.
+
+The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in
+giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder
+brother.  At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years
+of age.  Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's
+education.  He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters
+and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived
+at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea.  The lad entered the
+Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made
+his trip round the world.  Thanks to powerful influence, he had just
+been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin,
+which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of
+the D'Artoi's expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three
+years.  Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be
+over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate
+stripling for the hard work in store for him.
+
+The shyness of the sailor-lad--I was almost saying his innocence--was
+remarkable.  He seemed to have but just left the women's apron-strings.
+As a matter of fact, petted as he was by his two sisters and his old
+aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine education manners that
+were almost candid and stamped with a charm that nothing had yet been
+able to sully.  He was a little over twenty-one years of age and looked
+eighteen.  He had a small, fair mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a
+complexion like a girl's.
+
+Philippe spoiled Raoul.  To begin with, he was very proud of him and
+pleased to foresee a glorious career for his junior in the navy in
+which one of their ancestors, the famous Chagny de La Roche, had held
+the rank of admiral.  He took advantage of the young man's leave of
+absence to show him Paris, with all its luxurious and artistic
+delights.  The count considered that, at Raoul's age, it is not good to
+be too good.  Philippe himself had a character that was very
+well-balanced in work and pleasure alike; his demeanor was always
+faultless; and he was incapable of setting his brother a bad example.
+He took him with him wherever he went.  He even introduced him to the
+foyer of the ballet.  I know that the count was said to be "on terms"
+with Sorelli.  But it could hardly be reckoned as a crime for this
+nobleman, a bachelor, with plenty of leisure, especially since his
+sisters were settled, to come and spend an hour or two after dinner in
+the company of a dancer, who, though not so very, very witty, had the
+finest eyes that ever were seen!  And, besides, there are places where
+a true Parisian, when he has the rank of the Comte de Chagny, is bound
+to show himself; and at that time the foyer of the ballet at the Opera
+was one of those places.
+
+Lastly, Philippe would perhaps not have taken his brother behind the
+scenes of the Opera if Raoul had not been the first to ask him,
+repeatedly renewing his request with a gentle obstinacy which the count
+remembered at a later date.
+
+On that evening, Philippe, after applauding the Daae, turned to Raoul
+and saw that he was quite pale.
+
+"Don't you see," said Raoul, "that the woman's fainting?"
+
+"You look like fainting yourself," said the count.  "What's the matter?"
+
+But Raoul had recovered himself and was standing up.
+
+"Let's go and see," he said, "she never sang like that before."
+
+The count gave his brother a curious smiling glance and seemed quite
+pleased. They were soon at the door leading from the house to the
+stage.  Numbers of subscribers were slowly making their way through.
+Raoul tore his gloves without knowing what he was doing and Philippe
+had much too kind a heart to laugh at him for his impatience.  But he
+now understood why Raoul was absent-minded when spoken to and why he
+always tried to turn every conversation to the subject of the Opera.
+
+They reached the stage and pushed through the crowd of gentlemen,
+scene-shifters, supers and chorus-girls, Raoul leading the way, feeling
+that his heart no longer belonged to him, his face set with passion,
+while Count Philippe followed him with difficulty and continued to
+smile.  At the back of the stage, Raoul had to stop before the inrush
+of the little troop of ballet-girls who blocked the passage which he
+was trying to enter.  More than one chaffing phrase darted from little
+made-up lips, to which he did not reply; and at last he was able to
+pass, and dived into the semi-darkness of a corridor ringing with the
+name of "Daae!  Daae!"  The count was surprised to find that Raoul knew
+the way.  He had never taken him to Christine's himself and came to the
+conclusion that Raoul must have gone there alone while the count stayed
+talking in the foyer with Sorelli, who often asked him to wait until it
+was her time to "go on" and sometimes handed him the little gaiters in
+which she ran down from her dressing-room to preserve the spotlessness
+of her satin dancing-shoes and her flesh-colored tights.  Sorelli had
+an excuse; she had lost her mother.
+
+Postponing his usual visit to Sorelli for a few minutes, the count
+followed his brother down the passage that led to Daae's dressing-room
+and saw that it had never been so crammed as on that evening, when the
+whole house seemed excited by her success and also by her fainting fit.
+For the girl had not yet come to; and the doctor of the theater had
+just arrived at the moment when Raoul entered at his heels.  Christine,
+therefore, received the first aid of the one, while opening her eyes in
+the arms of the other.  The count and many more remained crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor, that those gentlemen had better clear the
+room?" asked Raoul coolly.  "There's no breathing here."
+
+"You're quite right," said the doctor.
+
+And he sent every one away, except Raoul and the maid, who looked at
+Raoul with eyes of the most undisguised astonishment.  She had never
+seen him before and yet dared not question him; and the doctor imagined
+that the young man was only acting as he did because he had the right
+to.  The viscount, therefore, remained in the room watching Christine
+as she slowly returned to life, while even the joint managers, Debienne
+and Poligny, who had come to offer their sympathy and congratulations,
+found themselves thrust into the passage among the crowd of dandies.
+The Comte de Chagny, who was one of those standing outside, laughed:
+
+"Oh, the rogue, the rogue!"  And he added, under his breath: "Those
+youngsters with their school-girl airs!  So he's a Chagny after all!"
+
+He turned to go to Sorelli's dressing-room, but met her on the way,
+with her little troop of trembling ballet-girls, as we have seen.
+
+Meanwhile, Christine Daae uttered a deep sigh, which was answered by a
+groan.  She turned her head, saw Raoul and started.  She looked at the
+doctor, on whom she bestowed a smile, then at her maid, then at Raoul
+again.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, in a voice not much above a whisper, "who are
+you?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," replied the young man, kneeling on one knee and
+pressing a fervent kiss on the diva's hand, "I AM THE LITTLE BOY WHO
+WENT INTO THE SEA TO RESCUE YOUR SCARF."
+
+Christine again looked at the doctor and the maid; and all three began
+to laugh.
+
+Raoul turned very red and stood up.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, "since you are pleased not to recognize me, I
+should like to say something to you in private, something very
+important."
+
+"When I am better, do you mind?"  And her voice shook.  "You have been
+very good."
+
+"Yes, you must go," said the doctor, with his pleasantest smile.
+"Leave me to attend to mademoiselle."
+
+"I am not ill now," said Christine suddenly, with strange and
+unexpected energy.
+
+She rose and passed her hand over her eyelids.
+
+"Thank you, Doctor.  I should like to be alone.  Please go away, all of
+you.  Leave me.  I feel very restless this evening."
+
+The doctor tried to make a short protest, but, perceiving the girl's
+evident agitation, he thought the best remedy was not to thwart her.
+And he went away, saying to Raoul, outside:
+
+"She is not herself to-night. She is usually so gentle."
+
+Then he said good night and Raoul was left alone.  The whole of this
+part of the theater was now deserted.  The farewell ceremony was no
+doubt taking place in the foyer of the ballet.  Raoul thought that Daae
+might go to it and he waited in the silent solitude, even hiding in the
+favoring shadow of a doorway.  He felt a terrible pain at his heart and
+it was of this that he wanted to speak to Daae without delay.
+
+Suddenly the dressing-room door opened and the maid came out by
+herself, carrying bundles.  He stopped her and asked how her mistress
+was.  The woman laughed and said that she was quite well, but that he
+must not disturb her, for she wished to be left alone.  And she passed
+on.  One idea alone filled Raoul's burning brain:  of course, Daae
+wished to be left alone FOR HIM!  Had he not told her that he wanted to
+speak to her privately?
+
+Hardly breathing, he went up to the dressing-room and, with his ear to
+the door to catch her reply, prepared to knock.  But his hand dropped.
+He had heard A MAN'S VOICE in the dressing-room, saying, in a curiously
+masterful tone:
+
+"Christine, you must love me!"
+
+And Christine's voice, infinitely sad and trembling, as though
+accompanied by tears, replied:
+
+"How can you talk like that?  WHEN I SING ONLY FOR YOU!"
+
+Raoul leaned against the panel to ease his pain.  His heart, which had
+seemed gone for ever, returned to his breast and was throbbing loudly.
+The whole passage echoed with its beating and Raoul's ears were
+deafened.  Surely, if his heart continued to make such a noise, they
+would hear it inside, they would open the door and the young man would
+be turned away in disgrace.  What a position for a Chagny!  To be
+caught listening behind a door!  He took his heart in his two hands to
+make it stop.
+
+The man's voice spoke again:  "Are you very tired?"
+
+"Oh, to-night I gave you my soul and I am dead!"  Christine replied.
+
+"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child," replied the grave man's voice,
+"and I thank you.  No emperor ever received so fair a gift.  THE ANGELS
+WEPT TONIGHT."
+
+Raoul heard nothing after that.  Nevertheless, he did not go away, but,
+as though he feared lest he should be caught, he returned to his dark
+corner, determined to wait for the man to leave the room.  At one and
+the same time, he had learned what love meant, and hatred.  He knew
+that he loved.  He wanted to know whom he hated.  To his great
+astonishment, the door opened and Christine Daae appeared, wrapped in
+furs, with her face hidden in a lace veil, alone.  She closed the door
+behind her, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it.  She passed
+him.  He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his eyes were fixed
+on the door, which did not open again.
+
+When the passage was once more deserted, he crossed it, opened the door
+of the dressing-room, went in and shut the door.  He found himself in
+absolute darkness.  The gas had been turned out.
+
+"There is some one here!" said Raoul, with his back against the closed
+door, in a quivering voice.  "What are you hiding for?"
+
+All was darkness and silence.  Raoul heard only the sound of his own
+breathing.  He quite failed to see that the indiscretion of his conduct
+was exceeding all bounds.
+
+"You shan't leave this until I let you!" he exclaimed.  "If you don't
+answer, you are a coward!  But I'll expose you!"
+
+And he struck a match.  The blaze lit up the room.  There was no one in
+the room!  Raoul, first turning the key in the door, lit the gas-jets.
+He went into the dressing-closet, opened the cupboards, hunted about,
+felt the walls with his moist hands.  Nothing!
+
+"Look here!" he said, aloud.  "Am I going mad?"
+
+He stood for ten minutes listening to the gas flaring in the silence of
+the empty room; lover though he was, he did not even think of stealing
+a ribbon that would have given him the perfume of the woman he loved.
+He went out, not knowing what he was doing nor where he was going.  At
+a given moment in his wayward progress, an icy draft struck him in the
+face.  He found himself at the bottom of a staircase, down which,
+behind him, a procession of workmen were carrying a sort of stretcher,
+covered with a white sheet.
+
+"Which is the way out, please?" he asked of one of the men.
+
+"Straight in front of you, the door is open.  But let us pass."
+
+Pointing to the stretcher, he asked mechanically:  "What's that?"
+
+The workmen answered:
+
+"'That' is Joseph Buquet, who was found in the third cellar, hanging
+between a farm-house and a scene from the ROI DE LAHORE."
+
+He took off his hat, fell back to make room for the procession and went
+out.
+
+
+
+Chapter III The Mysterious Reason
+
+
+During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place.  I have
+already said that this magnificent function was being given on the
+occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny, who had
+determined to "die game," as we say nowadays.  They had been assisted
+in the realization of their ideal, though melancholy, program by all
+that counted in the social and artistic world of Paris.  All these
+people met, after the performance, in the foyer of the ballet, where
+Sorelli waited for the arrival of the retiring managers with a glass of
+champagne in her hand and a little prepared speech at the tip of her
+tongue.  Behind her, the members of the Corps de Ballet, young and old,
+discussed the events of the day in whispers or exchanged discreet
+signals with their friends, a noisy crowd of whom surrounded the
+supper-tables arranged along the slanting floor.
+
+A few of the dancers had already changed into ordinary dress; but most
+of them wore their skirts of gossamer gauze; and all had thought it the
+right thing to put on a special face for the occasion:  all, that is,
+except little Jammes, whose fifteen summers--happy age!--seemed already
+to have forgotten the ghost and the death of Joseph Buquet.  She never
+ceased to laugh and chatter, to hop about and play practical jokes,
+until Mm. Debienne and Poligny appeared on the steps of the foyer, when
+she was severely called to order by the impatient Sorelli.
+
+Everybody remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful, as is
+the Paris way.  None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned
+to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom
+or indifference over his inward joy.  You know that one of your friends
+is in trouble; do not try to console him: he will tell you that he is
+already comforted; but, should he have met with good fortune, be
+careful how you congratulate him:  he thinks it so natural that he is
+surprised that you should speak of it.  In Paris, our lives are one
+masked ball; and the foyer of the ballet is the last place in which two
+men so "knowing" as M. Debienne and M. Poligny would have made the
+mistake of betraying their grief, however genuine it might be.  And
+they were already smiling rather too broadly upon Sorelli, who had
+begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from that little madcap
+of a Jammes broke the smile of the managers so brutally that the
+expression of distress and dismay that lay beneath it became apparent
+to all eyes:
+
+"The Opera ghost!"
+
+Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her
+finger pointed, among the crowd of dandies, to a face so pallid, so
+lugubrious and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities under the
+straddling eyebrows, that the death's head in question immediately
+scored a huge success.
+
+"The Opera ghost!  The Opera ghost!"  Everybody laughed and pushed his
+neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he was gone.
+He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him,
+while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes and while little
+Giry stood screaming like a peacock.
+
+Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; the
+managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost
+himself.  No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were
+to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the foyer of the
+singers, and that finally they were themselves to receive their
+personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the
+managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.
+
+Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin
+Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were lavish in
+protestations of friendship and received a thousand flattering
+compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had feared that
+they had a rather tedious evening in store for them at once put on
+brighter faces.  The supper was almost gay and a particularly clever
+speech of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
+the past with the successes of the future, caused the greatest
+cordiality to prevail.
+
+The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the
+two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--of
+the Opera house.  And those little keys, the object of general
+curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of
+some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end of the
+table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the hollow eyes,
+which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet and been greeted
+by little Jammes' exclamation:
+
+"The Opera ghost!"
+
+There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither ate
+nor drank.  Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended by
+turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked the
+most funereal thoughts.  No one repeated the joke of the foyer, no one
+exclaimed:
+
+"There's the Opera ghost!"
+
+He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have
+stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them; but every
+one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at the table of the
+living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure.  The friends of
+Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny
+guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's, while Debienne's
+and Poligny's friends believed that the cadaverous individual belonged
+to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin's party.
+
+The result was that no request was made for an explanation; no
+unpleasant remark; no joke in bad taste, which might have offended this
+visitor from the tomb.  A few of those present who knew the story of
+the ghost and the description of him given by the chief
+scene-shifter--they did not know of Joseph Buquet's death--thought, in
+their own minds, that the man at the end of the table might easily have
+passed for him; and yet, according to the story, the ghost had no nose
+and the person in question had.  But M. Moncharmin declares, in his
+Memoirs, that the guest's nose was transparent:  "long, thin and
+transparent" are his exact words.  I, for my part, will add that this
+might very well apply to a false nose.  M. Moncharmin may have taken
+for transparency what was only shininess.  Everybody knows that
+orthopaedic science provides beautiful false noses for those who have
+lost their noses naturally or as the result of an operation.
+
+Did the ghost really take a seat at the managers' supper-table that
+night, uninvited?  And can we be sure that the figure was that of the
+Opera ghost himself?  Who would venture to assert as much?  I mention
+the incident, not because I wish for a second to make the reader
+believe--or even to try to make him believe--that the ghost was capable
+of such a sublime piece of impudence; but because, after all, the thing
+is impossible.
+
+M. Armand Moncharmin, in chapter eleven of his Memoirs, says:
+
+"When I think of this first evening, I can not separate the secret
+confided to us by MM. Debienne and Poligny in their office from the
+presence at our supper of that GHOSTLY person whom none of us knew."
+
+What happened was this:  Mm. Debienne and Poligny, sitting at the
+center of the table, had not seen the man with the death's head.
+Suddenly he began to speak.
+
+"The ballet-girls are right," he said.  "The death of that poor Buquet
+is perhaps not so natural as people think."
+
+Debienne and Poligny gave a start.
+
+"Is Buquet dead?" they cried.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, or the shadow of a man, quietly.  "He was
+found, this evening, hanging in the third cellar, between a farm-house
+and a scene from the Roi de Lahore."
+
+The two managers, or rather ex-managers, at once rose and stared
+strangely at the speaker.  They were more excited than they need have
+been, that is to say, more excited than any one need be by the
+announcement of the suicide of a chief scene-shifter. They looked at
+each other.  They, had both turned whiter than the table-cloth.  At
+last, Debienne made a sign to Mm. Richard and Moncharmin; Poligny
+muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four went into
+the managers' office.  I leave M. Moncharmin to complete the story.  In
+his Memoirs, he says:
+
+"Mm. Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited, and
+they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us.  First, they
+asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table, who had
+told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered in the
+negative, they looked still more concerned.  They took the master-keys
+from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised us to have new
+locks made, with the greatest secrecy, for the rooms, closets and
+presses that we might wish to have hermetically closed.  They said this
+so funnily that we began to laugh and to ask if there were thieves at
+the Opera.  They replied that there was something worse, which was the
+GHOST.  We began to laugh again, feeling sure that they were indulging
+in some joke that was intended to crown our little entertainment.
+Then, at their request, we became 'serious,' resolving to humor them
+and to enter into the spirit of the game.  They told us that they never
+would have spoken to us of the ghost, if they had not received formal
+orders from the ghost himself to ask us to be pleasant to him and to
+grant any request that he might make.  However, in their relief at
+leaving a domain where that tyrannical shade held sway, they had
+hesitated until the last moment to tell us this curious story, which
+our skeptical minds were certainly not prepared to entertain.  But the
+announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal
+reminder that, whenever they had disregarded the ghost's wishes, some
+fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their
+dependence.
+
+"During these unexpected utterances made in a tone of the most secret
+and important confidence, I looked at Richard.  Richard, in his student
+days, had acquired a great reputation for practical joking, and he
+seemed to relish the dish which was being served up to him in his turn.
+He did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning was a little
+gruesome because of the death of Buquet.  He nodded his head sadly,
+while the others spoke, and his features assumed the air of a man who
+bitterly regretted having taken over the Opera, now that he knew that
+there was a ghost mixed up in the business.  I could think of nothing
+better than to give him a servile imitation of this attitude of
+despair.  However, in spite of all our efforts, we could not, at the
+finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces of MM. Debienne and
+Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from the gloomiest state of mind
+to one of the most insolent merriment, acted as though they thought
+that we had gone mad.
+
+"The joke became a little tedious; and Richard asked half-seriously and
+half in jest:
+
+"'But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?'
+
+"M. Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the
+memorandum-book. The memorandum-book begins with the well-known words
+saying that 'the management of the Opera shall give to the performance
+of the National Academy of Music the splendor that becomes the first
+lyric stage in France' and ends with Clause 98, which says that the
+privilege can be withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions
+stipulated in the memorandum-book.  This is followed by the conditions,
+which are four in number.
+
+"The copy produced by M. Poligny was written in black ink and exactly
+similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it
+contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer, labored handwriting,
+as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the
+ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the down-strokes
+and has not learned to join its letters.  This paragraph ran, word for
+word, as follows:
+
+"'5. Or if the manager, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight
+the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost, an
+allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two hundred and forty
+thousand francs a year.'
+
+"M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which
+we certainly did not expect.
+
+"'Is this all?  Does he not want anything else?' asked Richard, with
+the greatest coolness.
+
+"'Yes, he does,' replied Poligny.
+
+"And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he came to
+the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to
+be reserved for the free use of the president of the republic, the
+ministers and so on.  At the end of this clause, a line had been added,
+also in red ink:
+
+"'Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal of the
+Opera ghost for every performance.'
+
+"When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise from
+our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly by the hand and
+congratulate them on thinking of this charming little joke, which
+proved that the old French sense of humor was never likely to become
+extinct.  Richard added that he now understood why MM.  Debienne and
+Poligny were retiring from the management of the National Academy of
+Music.  Business was impossible with so unreasonable a ghost.
+
+"'Certainly, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not be picked up
+for the asking,' said M. Poligny, without moving a muscle of his face.
+'And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us?  We
+did not sell it once; and not only that, but we had to return the
+subscription:  why, it's awful!  We really can't work to keep ghosts!
+We prefer to go away!'
+
+"'Yes,' echoed M. Debienne, 'we prefer to go away.  Let us go.'"
+
+"And he stood up.  Richard said:  'But, after all all, it seems to me
+that you were much too kind to the ghost.  If I had such a troublesome
+ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.'
+
+"'But how?  Where?' they cried, in chorus.  'We have never seen him!'
+
+"'But when he comes to his box?'
+
+"'WE HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM IN HIS BOX.'
+
+"'Then sell it.'
+
+"'Sell the Opera ghost's box!  Well, gentlemen, try it.'
+
+"Thereupon we all four left the office.  Richard and I had 'never
+laughed so much in our lives.'"
+
+
+
+Chapter IV  Box Five
+
+
+Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long
+period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found time
+to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by telling what
+went on there.  M. Moncharmin did not know a note of music, but he
+called the minister of education and fine arts by his Christian name,
+had dabbled a little in society journalism and enjoyed a considerable
+private income.  Lastly, he was a charming fellow and showed that he
+was not lacking in intelligence, for, as soon as he made up his mind to
+be a sleeping partner in the Opera, he selected the best possible
+active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.
+
+Firmin Richard was a very distinguished composer, who had published a
+number of successful pieces of all kinds and who liked nearly every
+form of music and every sort of musician.  Clearly, therefore, it was
+the duty of every sort of musician to like M. Firmin Richard.  The only
+things to be said against him were that he was rather masterful in his
+ways and endowed with a very hasty temper.
+
+The first few days which the partners spent at the Opera were given
+over to the delight of finding themselves the head of so magnificent an
+enterprise; and they had forgotten all about that curious, fantastic
+story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that proved to them that
+the joke--if joke it were--was not over.  M. Firmin Richard reached his
+office that morning at eleven o'clock. His secretary, M. Remy, showed
+him half a dozen letters which he had not opened because they were
+marked "private." One of the letters had at once attracted Richard's
+attention not only because the envelope was addressed in red ink, but
+because he seemed to have seen the writing before.  He soon remembered
+that it was the red handwriting in which the memorandum-book had been
+so curiously completed.  He recognized the clumsy childish hand.  He
+opened the letter and read:
+
+DEAR MR.  MANAGER:
+
+I am sorry to have to trouble you at a time when you must be so very
+busy, renewing important engagements, signing fresh ones and generally
+displaying your excellent taste.  I know what you have done for
+Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes and for a few others whose
+admirable qualities of talent or genius you have suspected.
+
+Of course, when I use these words, I do not mean to apply them to La
+Carlotta, who sings like a squirt and who ought never to have been
+allowed to leave the Ambassadeurs and the Cafe Jacquin; nor to La
+Sorelli, who owes her success mainly to the coach-builders; nor to
+little Jammes, who dances like a calf in a field.  And I am not
+speaking of Christine Daae either, though her genius is certain,
+whereas your jealousy prevents her from creating any important part.
+When all is said, you are free to conduct your little business as you
+think best, are you not?
+
+All the same, I should like to take advantage of the fact that you have
+not yet turned Christine Daae out of doors by hearing her this evening
+in the part of Siebel, as that of Margarita has been forbidden her
+since her triumph of the other evening; and I will ask you not to
+dispose of my box to-day nor on the FOLLOWING DAYS, for I can not end
+this letter without telling you how disagreeably surprised I have been
+once or twice, to hear, on arriving at the Opera, that my box had been
+sold, at the box-office, by your orders.
+
+I did not protest, first, because I dislike scandal, and, second,
+because I thought that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny, who
+were always charming to me, had neglected, before leaving, to mention
+my little fads to you.  I have now received a reply from those
+gentlemen to my letter asking for an explanation, and this reply proves
+that you know all about my Memorandum-Book and, consequently, that you
+are treating me with outrageous contempt.  IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN
+PEACE, YOU MUST NOT BEGIN BY TAKING AWAY MY PRIVATE BOX.
+
+Believe me to be, dear Mr. Manager, without prejudice to these little
+observations,
+
+        Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,
+                                OPERA GHOST.
+
+The letter was accompanied by a cutting from the agony-column of the
+Revue Theatrale, which ran:
+
+O. G.--There is no excuse for R. and M.  We told them and left your
+memorandum-book in their hands.  Kind regards.
+
+M. Firmin Richard had hardly finished reading this letter when M.
+Armand Moncharmin entered, carrying one exactly similar.  They looked
+at each other and burst out laughing.
+
+"They are keeping up the joke," said M. Richard, "but I don't call it
+funny."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked M. Moncharmin.  "Do they imagine that,
+because they have been managers of the Opera, we are going to let them
+have a box for an indefinite period?"
+
+"I am not in the mood to let myself be laughed at long," said Firmin
+Richard.
+
+"It's harmless enough," observed Armand Moncharmin.  "What is it they
+really want?  A box for to-night?"
+
+M. Firmin Richard told his secretary to send Box Five on the grand tier
+to Mm. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not sold.  It was not.  It was
+sent off to them.  Debienne lived at the corner of the Rue Scribe and
+the Boulevard des Capucines; Poligny, in the Rue Auber.  O. Ghost's two
+letters had been posted at the Boulevard des Capucines post-office, as
+Moncharmin remarked after examining the envelopes.
+
+"You see!" said Richard.
+
+They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age
+should amuse themselves with such childish tricks.
+
+"They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.  "Did you
+notice how they treat us with regard to Carlotta, Sorelli and Little
+Jammes?"
+
+"Why, my dear fellow, these two are mad with jealousy!  To think that
+they went to the expense of, an advertisement in the Revue Theatrale!
+Have they nothing better to do?"
+
+"By the way," said Moncharmin, "they seem to be greatly interested in
+that little Christine Daae!"
+
+"You know as well as I do that she has the reputation of being quite
+good," said Richard.
+
+"Reputations are easily obtained," replied Moncharmin.  "Haven't I a
+reputation for knowing all about music?  And I don't know one key from
+another."
+
+"Don't be afraid:  you never had that reputation," Richard declared.
+
+Thereupon he ordered the artists to be shown in, who, for the last two
+hours, had been walking up and down outside the door behind which fame
+and fortune--or dismissal--awaited them.
+
+The whole day was spent in discussing, negotiating, signing or
+cancelling contracts; and the two overworked managers went to bed
+early, without so much as casting a glance at Box Five to see whether
+M. Debienne and M. Poligny were enjoying the performance.
+
+Next morning, the managers received a card of thanks from the ghost:
+
+DEAR, MR.  MANAGER:
+
+Thanks.  Charming evening.  Daae exquisite.  Choruses want waking up.
+Carlotta a splendid commonplace instrument.  Will write you soon for
+the 240,000 francs, or 233,424 fr. 70 c., to be correct.  Mm. Debienne
+and Poligny have sent me the 6,575 fr. 30 c. representing the first ten
+days of my allowance for the current year; their privileges finished on
+the evening of the tenth inst.
+
+Kind regards.  O. G.
+
+On the other hand, there was a letter from Mm. Debienne and Poligny:
+
+GENTLEMEN:
+
+We are much obliged for your kind thought of us, but you will easily
+understand that the prospect of again hearing Faust, pleasant though it
+is to ex-managers of the Opera, can not make us forget that we have no
+right to occupy Box Five on the grand tier, which is the exclusive
+property of HIM of whom we spoke to you when we went through the
+memorandum-book with you for the last time.  See Clause 98, final
+paragraph.
+
+Accept, gentlemen, etc.
+
+"Oh, those fellows are beginning to annoy me!" shouted Firmin Richard,
+snatching up the letter.
+
+And that evening Box Five was sold.
+
+The next morning, Mm. Richard and Moncharmin, on reaching their office,
+found an inspector's report relating to an incident that had happened,
+the night before, in Box Five.  I give the essential part of the report:
+
+I was obliged to call in a municipal guard twice, this evening, to
+clear Box Five on the grand tier, once at the beginning and once in the
+middle of the second act.  The occupants, who arrived as the curtain
+rose on the second act, created a regular scandal by their laughter and
+their ridiculous observations.  There were cries of "Hush!" all around
+them and the whole house was beginning to protest, when the box-keeper
+came to fetch me.  I entered the box and said what I thought necessary.
+The people did not seem to me to be in their right mind; and they made
+stupid remarks.  I said that, if the noise was repeated, I should be
+compelled to clear the box.  The moment I left, I heard the laughing
+again, with fresh protests from the house.  I returned with a municipal
+guard, who turned them out.  They protested, still laughing, saying
+they would not go unless they had their money back.  At last, they
+became quiet and I allowed them to enter the box again.  The laughter
+at once recommenced; and, this time, I had them turned out definitely.
+
+"Send for the inspector," said Richard to his secretary, who had
+already read the report and marked it with blue pencil.
+
+M. Remy, the secretary, had foreseen the order and called the inspector
+at once.
+
+"Tell us what happened," said Richard bluntly.
+
+The inspector began to splutter and referred to the report.
+
+"Well, but what were those people laughing at?" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"They must have been dining, sir, and seemed more inclined to lark
+about than to listen to good music.  The moment they entered the box,
+they came out again and called the box-keeper, who asked them what they
+wanted.  They said, 'Look in the box:  there's no one there, is there?'
+'No,' said the woman.  'Well,' said they, 'when we went in, we heard a
+voice saying THAT THE BOX WAS TAKEN!'"
+
+M. Moncharmin could not help smiling as he looked at M. Richard; but M.
+Richard did not smile.  He himself had done too much in that way in his
+time not to recognize, in the inspector's story, all the marks of one
+of those practical jokes which begin by amusing and end by enraging the
+victims.  The inspector, to curry favor with M. Moncharmin, who was
+smiling, thought it best to give a smile too.  A most unfortunate
+smile!  M. Richard glared at his subordinate, who thenceforth made it
+his business to display a face of utter consternation.
+
+"However, when the people arrived," roared Richard, "there was no one
+in the box, was there?"
+
+"Not a soul, sir, not a soul!  Nor in the box on the right, nor in the
+box on the left: not a soul, sir, I swear!  The box-keeper told it me
+often enough, which proves that it was all a joke."
+
+"Oh, you agree, do you?" said Richard.  "You agree!  It's a joke!  And
+you think it funny, no doubt?"
+
+"I think it in very bad taste, sir."
+
+"And what did the box-keeper say?"
+
+"Oh, she just said that it was the Opera ghost.  That's all she said!"
+
+And the inspector grinned.  But he soon found that he had made a
+mistake in grinning, for the words had no sooner left his mouth than M.
+Richard, from gloomy, became furious.
+
+"Send for the box-keeper!" he shouted.  "Send for her!  This minute!
+This minute!  And bring her in to me here!  And turn all those people
+out!"
+
+The inspector tried to protest, but Richard closed his mouth with an
+angry order to hold his tongue.  Then, when the wretched man's lips
+seemed shut for ever, the manager commanded him to open them once more.
+
+"Who is this 'Opera ghost?'" he snarled.
+
+But the inspector was by this time incapable of speaking a word.  He
+managed to convey, by a despairing gesture, that he knew nothing about
+it, or rather that he did not wish to know.
+
+"Have you ever seen him, have you seen the Opera ghost?"
+
+The inspector, by means of a vigorous shake of the head, denied ever
+having seen the ghost in question.
+
+"Very well!" said M. Richard coldly.
+
+The inspector's eyes started out of his head, as though to ask why the
+manager had uttered that ominous "Very well!"
+
+"Because I'm going to settle the account of any one who has not seen
+him!" explained the manager.  "As he seems to be everywhere, I can't
+have people telling me that they see him nowhere.  I like people to
+work for me when I employ them!"
+
+Having said this, M. Richard paid no attention to the inspector and
+discussed various matters of business with his acting-manager, who had
+entered the room meanwhile.  The inspector thought he could go and was
+gently--oh, so gently!--sidling toward the door, when M. Richard nailed
+the man to the floor with a thundering:
+
+"Stay where you are!"
+
+M. Remy had sent for the box-keeper to the Rue de Provence, close to
+the Opera, where she was engaged as a porteress.  She soon made her
+appearance.
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Mme. Giry.  You know me well enough, sir; I'm the mother of little
+Giry, little Meg, what!"
+
+This was said in so rough and solemn a tone that, for a moment, M.
+Richard was impressed.  He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her
+worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet.  It was quite
+evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know or
+could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even
+"little Meg!"  But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that the celebrated
+box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her.
+
+"Never heard of her!" the manager declared.  "But that's no reason,
+Mme. Giry, why I shouldn't ask you what happened last night to make you
+and the inspector call in a municipal guard."
+
+"I was just wanting to see you, sir, and talk to you about it, so that
+you mightn't have the same unpleasantness as M. Debienne and M.
+Poligny.  They wouldn't listen to me either, at first."
+
+"I'm not asking you about all that.  I'm asking what happened last
+night."
+
+Mme. Giry turned purple with indignation.  Never had she been spoken to
+like that.  She rose as though to go, gathering up the folds of her
+skirt and waving the feathers of her dingy bonnet with dignity, but,
+changing her mind, she sat down again and said, in a haughty voice:
+
+"I'll tell you what happened.  The ghost was annoyed again!"
+
+Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M.
+Moncharmin interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it
+appeared that Mme. Giry thought it quite natural that a voice should be
+heard to say that a box was taken, when there was nobody in the box.
+She was unable to explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her,
+except by the intervention of the ghost.  Nobody could see the ghost in
+his box, but everybody could hear him.  She had often heard him; and
+they could believe her, for she always spoke the truth.  They could ask
+M. Debienne and M. Poligny, and anybody who knew her; and also M.
+Isidore Saack, who had had a leg broken by the ghost!
+
+"Indeed!" said Moncharmin, interrupting her.  "Did the ghost break poor
+Isidore Saack's leg?"
+
+Mme. Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance.
+However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents.  The
+thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny's time, also in Box
+Five and also during a performance of FAUST.  Mme. Giry coughed,
+cleared her throat--it sounded as though she were preparing to sing the
+whole of Gounod's score--and began:
+
+"It was like this, sir.  That night, M. Maniera and his lady, the
+jewelers in the Rue Mogador, were sitting in the front of the box, with
+their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera.
+Mephistopheles was singing"--Mme. Giry here burst into song
+herself--"'Catarina, while you play at sleeping,' and then M. Maniera
+heard a voice in his right ear (his wife was on his left) saying, 'Ha,
+ha!  Julie's not playing at sleeping!'  His wife happened to be called
+Julie.  So.  M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking to
+him like that.  Nobody there!  He rubs his ear and asks himself, if
+he's dreaming.  Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade...  But,
+perhaps I'm boring you gentlemen?"
+
+"No, no, go on."
+
+"You are too good, gentlemen," with a smirk.  "Well, then,
+Mephistopheles went on with his serenade"--Mme. Giry, burst into song
+again--"'Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss, to a
+mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.' And then M. Maniera again
+hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, 'Ha, ha!  Julie
+wouldn't mind according a kiss to Isidore!'  Then he turns round again,
+but, this time, to the left; and what do you think he sees?  Isidore,
+who had taken his lady's hand and was covering it with kisses through
+the little round place in the glove--like this, gentlemen"--rapturously
+kissing the bit of palm left bare in the middle of her thread gloves.
+"Then they had a lively time between them!  Bang!  Bang!  M. Maniera,
+who was big and strong, like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M.
+Isidore Saack, who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin, saving his
+presence.  There was a great uproar.  People in the house shouted,
+'That will do!  Stop them!  He'll kill him!'  Then, at last, M. Isidore
+Saack managed to run away."
+
+"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin, a little
+vexed that his figure had made so little impression on Mme. Giry.
+
+"He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily.  "He broke
+it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir, and
+it will be long before the poor gentleman will be able to go up it
+again!"
+
+"Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?" asked
+M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.
+
+"No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself.  So----"
+
+"But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?"
+
+"As I'm speaking to you now, my good sir!"  Mme. Giry replied.
+
+"And, when the ghost speaks to you, what does he say?"
+
+"Well, he tells me to bring him a footstool!"
+
+This time, Richard burst out laughing, as did Moncharmin and Remy, the
+secretary.  Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful not
+to laugh, while Mme. Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that was
+positively threatening.
+
+"Instead of laughing," she cried indignantly, "you'd do better to do as
+M. Poligny did, who found out for himself."
+
+"Found out about what?" asked Moncharmin, who had never been so much
+amused in his life.
+
+"About the ghost, of course! ... Look here ..."
+
+She suddenly calmed herself, feeling that this was a solemn moment in
+her life:
+
+"LOOK HERE," she repeated.  "They were playing La Juive.  M. Poligny
+thought he would watch the performance from the ghost's box... Well,
+when Leopold cries, 'Let us fly!'--you know--and Eleazer stops them and
+says, 'Whither go ye?' ... well, M. Poligny--I was watching him from
+the back of the next box, which was empty--M. Poligny got up and walked
+out quite stiffly, like a statue, and before I had time to ask him,
+'Whither go ye?' like Eleazer, he was down the staircase, but without
+breaking his leg.
+
+"Still, that doesn't let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask you
+for a footstool," insisted M. Moncharmin.
+
+"Well, from that evening, no one tried to take the ghost's private box
+from him.  The manager gave orders that he was to have it at each
+performance.  And, whenever he came, he asked me for a footstool."
+
+"Tut, tut!  A ghost asking for a footstool!  Then this ghost of yours
+is a woman?"
+
+"No, the ghost is a man."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"He has a man's voice, oh, such a lovely man's voice!  This is what
+happens:  When he comes to the opera, it's usually in the middle of the
+first act.  He gives three little taps on the door of Box Five.  The
+first time I heard those three taps, when I knew there was no one in
+the box, you can think how puzzled I was!  I opened the door, listened,
+looked; nobody!  And then I heard a voice say, 'Mme. Jules' my poor
+husband's name was Jules--'a footstool, please.' Saving your presence,
+gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like.  But the voice went on,
+'Don't be frightened, Mme. Jules, I'm the Opera ghost!'  And the voice
+was so soft and kind that I hardly felt frightened.  THE VOICE WAS
+SITTING IN THE CORNER CHAIR, ON THE RIGHT, IN THE FRONT ROW."
+
+"Was there any one in the box on the right of Box Five?" asked
+Moncharmin.
+
+"No; Box Seven, and Box Three, the one on the left, were both empty.
+The curtain had only just gone up."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Well, I brought the footstool.  Of course, it wasn't for himself he
+wanted it, but for his lady!  But I never heard her nor saw her."
+
+"Eh?  What?  So now the ghost is married!"  The eyes of the two
+managers traveled from Mme. Giry to the inspector, who, standing behind
+the box-keeper, was waving his arms to attract their attention.  He
+tapped his forehead with a distressful forefinger, to convey his
+opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad, a piece of
+pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination to get rid of
+an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service.  Meanwhile, the worthy
+lady went on about her ghost, now painting his generosity:
+
+"At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs,
+sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days without
+coming.  Only, since people have begun to annoy him again, he gives me
+nothing at all.
+
+"Excuse me, my good woman," said Moncharmin, while Mme. Giry tossed the
+feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity, "excuse me,
+how does the ghost manage to give you your two francs?"
+
+"Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course.  I find
+them with the program, which I always give him.  Some evenings, I find
+flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his lady's
+bodice ... for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day, they left
+a fan behind them."
+
+"Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he?  And what did you do with it?"
+
+"Well, I brought it back to the box next night."
+
+Here the inspector's voice was raised.
+
+"You've broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mme. Giry."
+
+"Hold your tongue, you fool!" muttered M. Firmin Richard.
+
+"You brought back the fan.  And then?"
+
+"Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there at the
+end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box of English
+sweets, which I'm very fond of.  That's one of the ghost's pretty
+thoughts."
+
+"That will do, Mme. Giry.  You can go."
+
+When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never
+deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to
+dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he had gone in
+his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make up the inspector's
+accounts.  Left alone, the managers told each other of the idea which
+they both had in mind, which was that they should look into that little
+matter of Box Five themselves.
+
+
+
+Chapter V The Enchanted Violin
+
+
+Christine Daae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did
+not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera.  After the famous
+gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's; but this was the
+last occasion on which she was heard in private.  She refused, without
+plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert to which she had
+promised her assistance.  She acted throughout as though she were no
+longer the mistress of her own destiny and as though she feared a fresh
+triumph.
+
+She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done his
+best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him and also
+to ask him to cease speaking in her favor.  Her reason for this curious
+attitude was never known.  Some pretended that it was due to
+overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty.  But people on
+the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think that I shall not
+be far from the truth if I ascribe her action simply to fear.  Yes, I
+believe that Christine Daae was frightened by what had happened to her.
+I have a letter of Christine's (it forms part of the Persian's
+collection), relating to this period, which suggests a feeling of
+absolute dismay:
+
+"I don't know myself when I sing," writes the poor child.
+
+She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried in vain to
+meet her.  He wrote to her, asking to call upon her, but despaired of
+receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent him the following note:
+
+MONSIEUR:
+
+I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue my
+scarf.  I feel that I must write to you to-day, when I am going to
+Perros, in fulfilment of a sacred duty.  To-morrow is the anniversary
+of the death of my poor father, whom you knew and who was very fond of
+you.  He is buried there, with his violin, in the graveyard of the
+little church, at the bottom of the slope where we used to play as
+children, beside the road where, when we were a little bigger, we said
+good-by for the last time.
+
+The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide, dressed as
+quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet to take to his
+brother and jumped into a cab which brought him to the Gare
+Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train.  He spent a dismal
+day in town and did not recover his spirits until the evening, when he
+was seated in his compartment in the Brittany express.  He read
+Christine's note over and over again, smelling its perfume, recalling
+the sweet pictures of his childhood, and spent the rest of that tedious
+night journey in feverish dreams that began and ended with Christine
+Daae.  Day was breaking when he alighted at Lannion.  He hurried to the
+diligence for Perros-Guirec.  He was the only passenger.  He questioned
+the driver and learned that, on the evening of the previous day, a
+young lady who looked like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at
+the inn known as the Setting Sun.
+
+The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story of
+the little Swedish singer.  Most of the details are still unknown to
+the public.
+
+There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala, a peasant
+who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and
+singing in the choir on Sundays.  This peasant had a little daughter to
+whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read.
+Daae's father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it.  Not a
+fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he
+did.  His reputation was widespread and he was always invited to set
+the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals.  His wife died
+when Christine was entering upon her sixth year.  Then the father, who
+cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his patch of ground and
+went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune.  He found nothing but
+poverty.
+
+He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, strumming his
+Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never left his side,
+listened to him in ecstasy or sang to his playing.  One day, at Ljimby
+Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg.  He
+maintained that the father was the first violinist in the world and
+that the daughter had the making of a great artist.  Her education and
+instruction were provided for.  She made rapid progress and charmed
+everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her genuine
+eagerness to please.
+
+When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and
+Christine with them.  "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her
+daughter.  As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness.  He
+never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he
+kept up with his violin.  For hours at a time, he remained locked up in
+his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing, very, very softly.
+Sometimes Mamma Valerius would come and listen behind the door, wipe
+away a tear and go down-stairs again on tiptoe, sighing for her
+Scandinavian skies.
+
+Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the
+whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of
+Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his own country.
+Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the
+sea stopped its roaring to listen to them.  And then he induced Mamma
+Valerius to indulge a queer whim of his.  At the time of the "pardons,"
+or Breton pilgrimages, the village festival and dances, he went off
+with his fiddle, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his
+daughter with him for a week.  They gave the smallest hamlets music to
+last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at
+the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor
+in Sweden.  At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no
+collection, refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around
+could not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped
+the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven.
+They followed them from village to village.
+
+One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take a
+longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from the
+little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her.  They
+came to the shore of an inlet which is still called Trestraou, but
+which now, I believe, harbors a casino or something of the sort.  At
+that time, there was nothing but sky and sea and a stretch of golden
+beach.  Only, there was also a high wind, which blew Christine's scarf
+out to sea.  Christine gave a cry and put out her arms, but the scarf
+was already far on the waves.  Then she heard a voice say:
+
+"It's all right, I'll go and fetch your scarf out of the sea."
+
+And she saw a little boy running fast, in spite of the outcries and the
+indignant protests of a worthy lady in black.  The little boy ran into
+the sea, dressed as he was, and brought her back her scarf.  Boy and
+scarf were both soaked through.  The lady in black made a great fuss,
+but Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy, who was none
+other than the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, staying at Lannion with his
+aunt.
+
+During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every
+day.  At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius, Daae
+consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons.  In this way,
+Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's
+childhood.  They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of
+mind.  They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their
+favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like
+beggars:
+
+"Ma'am ..." or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us,
+please?"
+
+And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for
+nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen
+the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
+
+But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the
+evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daae came and sat down
+by them on the roadside and, in a low voice, as though fearing lest he
+should frighten the ghosts whom he evoked, told them the legends of the
+land of the North.  And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask
+for more.
+
+There was one story that began:
+
+"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep, still lakes that
+open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains ..."
+
+And another:
+
+"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing.  Her hair was golden
+as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes.  She
+wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock
+and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved, when
+she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music."
+
+While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue
+eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky
+to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep.  The Angel of Music
+played a part in all Daddy Daae's tales; and he maintained that every
+great musician, every great artist received a visit from the Angel at
+least once in his life.  Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle,
+as happened to Lotte, and that is how there are little prodigies who
+play the fiddle at six better than men at fifty, which, you must admit,
+is very wonderful.  Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the
+children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practise their
+scales.  And, sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children
+have a bad heart or a bad conscience.
+
+No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to
+hear him.  He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad
+and disheartened.  Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial
+harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives.
+Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to
+the rest of mankind.  And they can not touch an instrument, or open
+their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human
+sounds to shame.  Then people who do not know that the Angel has
+visited those persons say that they have genius.
+
+Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music.
+But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up, as he
+said:
+
+"You will hear him one day, my child!  When I am in Heaven, I will send
+him to you!"
+
+Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.
+
+Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros.  Professor
+Valerius was dead, but his widow remained in France with Daddy Daae and
+his daughter, who continued to play the violin and sing, wrapping in
+their dream of harmony their kind patroness, who seemed henceforth to
+live on music alone.  The young man, as he now was, had come to Perros
+on the chance of finding them and went straight to the house in which
+they used to stay.  He first saw the old man; and then Christine
+entered, carrying the tea-tray. She flushed at the sight of Raoul, who
+went up to her and kissed her.  She asked him a few questions,
+performed her duties as hostess prettily, took up the tray again and
+left the room.  Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a
+bench, a prey to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first
+time.  Raoul followed her and they talked till the evening, very shyly.
+They were quite changed, cautious as two diplomatists, and told each
+other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments.
+When they took leave of each other by the roadside, Raoul, pressing a
+kiss on Christine's trembling hand, said:
+
+"Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you!"
+
+And he went away regretting his words, for he knew that Christine could
+not be the wife of the Vicomte de Chagny.
+
+As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself
+wholly to her art.  She made wonderful progress and those who heard her
+prophesied that she would be the greatest singer in the world.
+Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost,
+with him, her voice, her soul and her genius.  She retained just, but
+only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she did not
+distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without enthusiasm
+and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius, with whom she
+continued to live.
+
+The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by
+the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which it evoked,
+but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art.  He returned
+to listen to her.  He followed her in the wings.  He waited for her
+behind a Jacob's ladder.  He tried to attract her attention.  More than
+once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she did not see
+him.  She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody.  She was all
+indifference.  Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful and he was
+shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself.  And then came the
+lightning-flash of the gala performance: the heavens torn asunder and
+an angel's voice heard upon earth for the delight of mankind and the
+utter capture of his heart.
+
+And then ... and then there was that man's voice behind the door--"You
+must love me!"--and no one in the room...
+
+Why did she laugh when he reminded her of the incident of the scarf?
+Why did she not recognize him?  And why had she written to him? ...
+
+Perros was reached at last.  Raoul walked into the smoky sitting-room
+of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him,
+smiling and showing no astonishment.
+
+"So you have come," she said.  "I felt that I should find you here,
+when I came back from mass.  Some one told me so, at the church."
+
+"Who?" asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.
+
+"Why, my poor father, who is dead."
+
+There was a silence; and then Raoul asked:
+
+"Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I can
+not live without you?"
+
+Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head.  In a trembling
+voice, she said:
+
+"Me?  You are dreaming, my friend!"
+
+And she burst out laughing, to put herself in countenance.
+
+"Don't laugh, Christine; I am quite serious," Raoul answered.
+
+And she replied gravely:  "I did not make you come to tell me such
+things as that."
+
+"You 'made me come,' Christine; you knew that your letter would not
+leave me indignant and that I should hasten to Perros.  How can you
+have thought that, if you did not think I loved you?"
+
+"I thought you would remember our games here, as children, in which my
+father so often joined.  I really don't know what I thought...  Perhaps
+I was wrong to write to you ... This anniversary and your sudden
+appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening, reminded me of
+the time long past and made me write to you as the little girl that I
+then was..."
+
+There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul not
+natural.  He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it: the
+distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that.  But why was
+this affection distressed?  That was what he wished to know and what
+was irritating him.
+
+"When you saw me in your dressing-room, was that the first time you
+noticed me, Christine?"
+
+She was incapable of lying.
+
+"No," she said, "I had seen you several times in your brother's box.
+And also on the stage."
+
+"I thought so!" said Raoul, compressing his lips.  "But then why, when
+you saw me in your room, at your feet, reminding you that I had rescued
+your scarf from the sea, why did you answer as though you did not know
+me and also why did you laugh?"
+
+The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared at Raoul
+without replying.  The young man himself was aghast at the sudden
+quarrel which he had dared to raise at the very moment when he had
+resolved to speak words of gentleness, love and submission to
+Christine.  A husband, a lover with all rights, would talk no
+differently to a wife, a mistress who had offended him.  But he had
+gone too far and saw no other way out of the ridiculous position than
+to behave odiously.
+
+"You don't answer!" he said angrily and unhappily.  "Well, I will
+answer for you.  It was because there was some one in the room who was
+in your way, Christine, some one that you did not wish to know that you
+could be interested in any one else!"
+
+"If any one was in my way, my friend," Christine broke in coldly, "if
+any one was in my way, that evening, it was yourself, since I told you
+to leave the room!"
+
+"Yes, so that you might remain with the other!"
+
+"What are you saying, monsieur?" asked the girl excitedly.  "And to
+what other do you refer?"
+
+"To the man to whom you said, 'I sing only for you! ... to-night I gave
+you my soul and I am dead!'"
+
+Christine seized Raoul's arm and clutched it with a strength which no
+one would have suspected in so frail a creature.
+
+"Then you were listening behind the door?"
+
+"Yes, because I love you everything ... And I heard everything ..."
+
+"You heard what?"
+
+And the young girl, becoming strangely calm, released Raoul's arm.
+
+"He said to you, 'Christine, you must love me!'"
+
+At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face, dark
+rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the point of
+swooning.  Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched, but Christine
+had overcome her passing faintness and said, in a low voice:
+
+"Go on!  Go on!  Tell me all you heard!"
+
+At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered:  "I heard him reply,
+when you said you had given him your soul, 'Your soul is a beautiful
+thing, child, and I thank you.  No emperor ever received so fair a
+gift.  The angels wept tonight.'"
+
+Christine carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable
+emotion.  Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul was
+terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened and two great
+tears trickled, like two pearls, down her ivory cheeks.
+
+"Christine!"
+
+"Raoul!"
+
+The young man tried to take her in his arms, but she escaped and fled
+in great disorder.
+
+While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul was at his wit's end
+what to do.  He refused to breakfast.  He was terribly concerned and
+bitterly grieved to see the hours, which he had hoped to find so sweet,
+slip past without the presence of the young Swedish girl.  Why did she
+not come to roam with him through the country where they had so many
+memories in common?  He heard that she had had a mass said, that
+morning, for the repose of her father's soul and spent a long time
+praying in the little church and on the fiddler's tomb.  Then, as she
+seemed to have nothing more to do at Perros and, in fact, was doing
+nothing there, why did she not go back to Paris at once?
+
+Raoul walked away, dejectedly, to the graveyard in which the church
+stood and was indeed alone among the tombs, reading the inscriptions;
+but, when he turned behind the apse, he was suddenly struck by the
+dazzling note of the flowers that straggled over the white ground.
+They were marvelous red roses that had blossomed in the morning, in the
+snow, giving a glimpse of life among the dead, for death was all around
+him.  It also, like the flowers, issued from the ground, which had
+flung back a number of its corpses.  Skeletons and skulls by the
+hundred were heaped against the wall of the church, held in position by
+a wire that left the whole gruesome stack visible.  Dead men's bones,
+arranged in rows, like bricks, to form the first course upon which the
+walls of the sacristy had been built.  The door of the sacristy opened
+in the middle of that bony structure, as is often seen in old Breton
+churches.
+
+Raoul said a prayer for Daae and then, painfully impressed by all those
+eternal smiles on the mouths of skulls, he climbed the slope and sat
+down on the edge of the heath overlooking the sea.  The wind fell with
+the evening.  Raoul was surrounded by icy darkness, but he did not feel
+the cold.  It was here, he remembered, that he used to come with little
+Christine to see the Korrigans dance at the rising of the moon.  He had
+never seen any, though his eyes were good, whereas Christine, who was a
+little shortsighted, pretended that she had seen many.  He smiled at
+the thought and then suddenly gave a start.  A voice behind him said:
+
+"Do you think the Korrigans will come this evening?"
+
+It was Christine.  He tried to speak.  She put her gloved hand on his
+mouth.
+
+"Listen, Raoul.  I have decided to tell you something serious, very
+serious ... Do you remember the legend of the Angel of Music?"
+
+"I do indeed," he said.  "I believe it was here that your father first
+told it to us."
+
+"And it was here that he said, 'When I am in Heaven, my child, I will
+send him to you.'  Well, Raoul, my father is in Heaven, and I have been
+visited by the Angel of Music."
+
+"I have no doubt of it," replied the young man gravely, for it seemed
+to him that his friend, in obedience to a pious thought, was connecting
+the memory of her father with the brilliancy of her last triumph.
+
+Christine appeared astonished at the Vicomte de Chagny's coolness:
+
+"How do you understand it?" she asked, bringing her pale face so close
+to his that he might have thought that Christine was going to give him
+a kiss; but she only wanted to read his eyes in spite of the dark.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that no human being can sing as you sang the
+other evening without the intervention of some miracle.  No professor
+on earth can teach you such accents as those.  You have heard the Angel
+of Music, Christine."
+
+"Yes," she said solemnly, "IN MY DRESSING-ROOM. That is where he comes
+to give me my lessons daily."
+
+"In your dressing-room?" he echoed stupidly.
+
+"Yes, that is where I have heard him; and I have not been the only one
+to hear him."
+
+"Who else heard him, Christine?"
+
+"You, my friend."
+
+"I?  I heard the Angel of Music?"
+
+"Yes, the other evening, it was he who was talking when you were
+listening behind the door.  It was he who said, 'You must love me.' But
+I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice.  Imagine my
+astonishment when you told me, this morning, that you could hear him
+too."
+
+Raoul burst out laughing.  The first rays of the moon came and shrouded
+the two young people in their light.  Christine turned on Raoul with a
+hostile air.  Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire.
+
+"What are you laughing at?  YOU think you heard a man's voice, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Well! ..." replied the young man, whose ideas began to grow confused
+in the face of Christine's determined attitude.
+
+"It's you, Raoul, who say that?  You, an old playfellow of my own!  A
+friend of my father's! But you have changed since those days.  What are
+you thinking of?  I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I
+don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.  If you had
+opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody in the room!"
+
+"That's true!  I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found no
+one in the room."
+
+"So you see! ... Well?"
+
+The viscount summoned up all his courage.
+
+"Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you."
+
+She gave a cry and ran away.  He ran after her, but, in a tone of
+fierce anger, she called out:  "Leave me!  Leave me!" And she
+disappeared.
+
+Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited and
+very sad.  He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying
+that she would not be down to dinner.  Raoul dined alone, in a very
+gloomy mood.  Then he went to his room and tried to read, went to bed
+and tried to sleep.  There was no sound in the next room.
+
+The hours passed slowly.  It was about half-past eleven when he
+distinctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step, in the
+room next to his.  Then Christine had not gone to bed!  Without
+troubling for a reason, Raoul dressed, taking care not to make a sound,
+and waited.  Waited for what?  How could he tell?  But his heart
+thumped in his chest when he heard Christine's door turn slowly on its
+hinges.  Where could she be going, at this hour, when every one was
+fast asleep at Perros?  Softly opening the door, he saw Christine's
+white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage.  She went
+down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her.  Suddenly he
+heard two voices in rapid conversation.  He caught one sentence: "Don't
+lose the key."
+
+It was the landlady's voice.  The door facing the sea was opened and
+locked again.  Then all was still.
+
+Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window.  Christine's
+white form stood on the deserted quay.
+
+The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree
+growing against the wall held out its branches to Raoul's impatient
+arms and enabled him to climb down unknown to the landlady.  Her
+amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the
+young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead than alive,
+and when she learned that he had been found stretched at full length on
+the steps of the high altar of the little church.  She ran at once to
+tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady,
+did her best to revive him.  He soon opened his eyes and was not long
+in recovering when he saw his friend's charming face leaning over him.
+
+A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the
+intervention of the public prosecutor, M. Mifroid, the commissary of
+police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touching the events of the night
+at Perros.  I quote the questions and answers as given in the official
+report pp. 150 et seq.:
+
+Q. "Did Mlle. Daae not see you come down from your room by the curious
+road which you selected?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur, no, although, when walking behind her, I took no
+pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps.  In fact, I was anxious that
+she should turn round and see me.  I realized that I had no excuse for
+following her and that this way of spying on her was unworthy of me.
+But she seemed not to hear me and acted exactly as though I were not
+there.  She quietly left the quay and then suddenly walked quickly up
+the road.  The church-clock had struck a quarter to twelve and I
+thought that this must have made her hurry, for she began almost to run
+and continued hastening until she came to the church."
+
+Q. "Was the gate open?"
+
+R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem to surprise
+Mlle. Daae."
+
+Q. "Was there no one in the churchyard?"
+
+R. "I did not see any one; and, if there had been, I must have seen
+him.  The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light."
+
+Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur.  They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly
+hidden under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the
+ground.  The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves.  The
+church stood out quite brightly.  I never saw so clear a night.  It was
+very fine and very cold and one could see everything."
+
+Q. "Are you at all superstitious?"
+
+R. "No, monsieur, I am a practising Catholic,"
+
+Q. "In what condition of mind were you?"
+
+R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you.  Mlle. Daae's curious
+action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon
+as I saw her go to the churchyard, I thought that she meant to fulfil
+some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural
+that I recovered all my calmness.  I was only surprised that she had
+not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite audible on
+the hard snow.  But she must have been taken up with her intentions and
+I resolved not to disturb her.  She knelt down by her father's grave,
+made the sign of the cross and began to pray.  At that moment, it
+struck midnight.  At the last stroke, I saw Mlle. Daae life{sic} her
+eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms as though in ecstasy.  I was
+wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and
+everything within me seemed drawn toward the invisible, WHICH WAS
+PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC!  Christine and I knew that music; we
+had heard it as children.  But it had never been executed with such
+divine art, even by M. Daae.  I remembered all that Christine had told
+me of the Angel of Music.  The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus,
+which old M. Daae used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of
+faith.  If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played
+better, that night, on the late musician's violin.  When the music
+stopped, I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;
+it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering."
+
+Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding behind
+that very heap of bones?"
+
+R. "It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so
+that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked
+slowly to the gate.  She was so much absorbed just then that I am not
+surprised that she did not see me."
+
+Q. "Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying
+half-dead on the steps of the high altar?"
+
+R. "First a skull rolled to my feet ... then another ... then another
+... It was as if I were the mark of that ghastly game of bowls.  And I
+had an idea that false step must have destroyed the balance of the
+structure behind which our musician was concealed.  This surmise seemed
+to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly glide along the sacristy
+wall.  I ran up.  The shadow had already pushed open the door and
+entered the church.  But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold
+of a corner of its cloak.  At that moment, we were just in front of the
+high altar; and the moonbeams fell straight upon us through the
+stained-glass windows of the apse.  As I did not let go of the cloak,
+the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death's head, which
+darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes.  I felt as if I were
+face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly
+apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me ... and I remember
+nothing more until I recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun."
+
+
+
+Chapter VI  A Visit to Box Five
+
+
+We left M. Firmin Richard and M. Armand Moncharmin at the moment when
+they were deciding "to look into that little matter of Box Five."
+
+Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby
+outside the managers' offices to the stage and its dependencies, they
+crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers' door and entered the
+house through the first little passage on the left.  Then they made
+their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at Box Five on
+the grand tier, They could not see it well, because it was half in
+darkness and because great covers were flung over the red velvet of the
+ledges of all the boxes.
+
+They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence
+surrounded them.  It was the time when most of the stage-hands go out
+for a drink.  The staff had left the boards for the moment, leaving a
+scene half set.  A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light, that
+seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some
+opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard
+battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted
+a fantastic shape.  In the orchestra stalls, the drugget covering them
+looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous waves had been suddenly
+rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as
+everybody knows, is called Adamastor.  MM. Moncharmin and Richard were
+the shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea.
+They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave
+their ship and try to struggle to the shore.  The eight great polished
+columns stood up in the dusk like so many huge piles supporting the
+threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were
+represented by the circular, parallel, waving lines of the balconies of
+the grand, first and second tiers of boxes.  At the top, right on top
+of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu's copper ceiling, figures grinned and
+grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin's distress.
+And yet these figures were usually very serious.  Their names were
+Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne,
+Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa.  Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom
+we all know by her box, looked down upon the two new managers of the
+Opera, who ended by clutching at some piece of wreckage and from there
+stared silently at Box Five on the grand tier.
+
+I have said that they were distressed.  At least, I presume so.  M.
+Moncharmin, in any case, admits that he was impressed.  To quote his
+own words, in his Memoirs:
+
+"This moonshine about the Opera ghost in which, since we first took
+over the duties of MM. Poligny and Debienne, we had been so nicely
+steeped"--Moncharmin's style is not always irreproachable--"had no
+doubt ended by blinding my imaginative and also my visual faculties.
+It may be that the exceptional surroundings in which we found
+ourselves, in the midst of an incredible silence, impressed us to an
+unusual extent.  It may be that we were the sport of a kind of
+hallucination brought about by the semi-darkness of the theater and the
+partial gloom that filled Box Five.  At any rate, I saw and Richard
+also saw a shape in the box.  Richard said nothing, nor I either.  But
+we spontaneously seized each other's hand.  We stood like that for some
+minutes, without moving, with our eyes fixed on the same point; but the
+figure had disappeared.  Then we went out and, in the lobby,
+communicated our impressions to each other and talked about 'the
+shape.'  The misfortune was that my shape was not in the least like
+Richard's. I had seen a thing like a death's head resting on the ledge
+of the box, whereas Richard saw the shape of an old woman who looked
+like Mme. Giry.  We soon discovered that we had really been the victims
+of an illusion, whereupon, without further delay and laughing like
+madmen, we ran to Box Five on the grand tier, went inside and found no
+shape of any kind."
+
+Box Five is just like all the other grand tier boxes.  There is nothing
+to distinguish it from any of the others.  M. Moncharmin and M.
+Richard, ostensibly highly amused and laughing at each other, moved the
+furniture of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs and particularly
+examined the arm-chair in which "the man's voice" used to sit.  But
+they saw that it was a respectable arm-chair, with no magic about it.
+Altogether, the box was the most ordinary box in the world, with its
+red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge covered in red
+velvet.  After, feeling the carpet in the most serious manner possible,
+and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else, they went down to
+the corresponding box on the pit tier below.  In Box Five on the pit
+tier, which is just inside the first exit from the stalls on the left,
+they found nothing worth mentioning either.
+
+"Those people are all making fools of us!"  Firmin Richard ended by
+exclaiming.  "It will be FAUST on Saturday:  let us both see the
+performance from Box Five on the grand tier!"
+
+
+
+Chapter VII  Faust and What Followed
+
+
+On the Saturday morning, on reaching their office, the joint managers
+found a letter from O. G. worded in these terms:
+
+MY DEAR MANAGERS:
+
+So it is to be war between us?
+
+If you still care for peace, here is my ultimatum.  It consists of the
+four following conditions:
+
+1.  You must give me back my private box; and I wish it to be at my
+free disposal from henceforward.
+
+2.  The part of Margarita shall be sung this evening by Christine Daae.
+Never mind about Carlotta; she will be ill.
+
+3.  I absolutely insist upon the good and loyal services of Mme. Giry,
+my box-keeper, whom you will reinstate in her functions forthwith.
+
+4.  Let me know by a letter handed to Mme. Giry, who will see that it
+reaches me, that you accept, as your predecessors did, the conditions
+in my memorandum-book relating to my monthly allowance.  I will inform
+you later how you are to pay it to me.
+
+If you refuse, you will give FAUST to-night in a house with a curse
+upon it.
+
+Take my advice and be warned in time.  O. G.
+
+"Look here, I'm getting sick of him, sick of him!" shouted Richard,
+bringing his fists down on his office-table.
+
+Just then, Mercier, the acting-manager, entered.
+
+"Lachenel would like to see one of you gentlemen," he said.  "He says
+that his business is urgent and he seems quite upset."
+
+"Who's Lachenel?" asked Richard.
+
+"He's your stud-groom."
+
+"What do you mean?  My stud-groom?"
+
+"Yes, sir," explained Mercier, "there are several grooms at the Opera
+and M. Lachenel is at the head of them."
+
+"And what does this groom do?"
+
+"He has the chief management of the stable."
+
+"What stable?"
+
+"Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera."
+
+"Is there a stable at the Opera?  Upon my word, I didn't know.  Where
+is it?"
+
+"In the cellars, on the Rotunda side.  It's a very important
+department; we have twelve horses."
+
+"Twelve horses!  And what for, in Heaven's name?"
+
+"Why, we want trained horses for the processions in the Juive, The
+Profeta and so on; horses 'used to the boards.'  It is the grooms'
+business to teach them.  M. Lachenel is very clever at it.  He used to
+manage Franconi's stables."
+
+"Very well ... but what does he want?"
+
+"I don't know; I never saw him in such a state."
+
+"He can come in."
+
+M. Lachenel came in, carrying a riding-whip, with which he struck his
+right boot in an irritable manner.
+
+"Good morning, M. Lachenel," said Richard, somewhat impressed.  "To
+what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
+
+"Mr. Manager, I have come to ask you to get rid of the whole stable."
+
+"What, you want to get rid of our horses?"
+
+"I'm not talking of the horses, but of the stablemen."
+
+"How many stablemen have you, M. Lachenel?"
+
+"Six stablemen!  That's at least two too many."
+
+"These are 'places,'" Mercier interposed, "created and forced upon us
+by the under-secretary for fine arts.  They are filled by protegees of
+the government and, if I may venture to ..."
+
+"I don't care a hang for the government!" roared Richard.  "We don't
+need more than four stablemen for twelve horses."
+
+"Eleven," said the head riding-master, correcting him.
+
+"Twelve," repeated Richard.
+
+"Eleven," repeated Lachenel.
+
+"Oh, the acting-manager told me that you had twelve horses!"
+
+"I did have twelve, but I have only eleven since Cesar was stolen."
+
+And M. Lachenel gave himself a great smack on the boot with his whip.
+
+"Has Cesar been stolen?" cried the acting-manager. "Cesar, the white
+horse in the Profeta?"
+
+"There are not two Cesars," said the stud-groom dryly.  "I was ten
+years at Franconi's and I have seen plenty of horses in my time.  Well,
+there are not two Cesars.  And he's been stolen."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know.  Nobody knows.  That's why I have come to ask you to
+sack the whole stable."
+
+"What do your stablemen say?"
+
+"All sorts of nonsense.  Some of them accuse the supers.  Others
+pretend that it's the acting-manager's doorkeeper ..."
+
+"My doorkeeper?  I'll answer for him as I would for myself!" protested
+Mercier.
+
+"But, after all, M. Lachenel," cried Richard, "you must have some idea."
+
+"Yes, I have," M. Lachenel declared.  "I have an idea and I'll tell you
+what it is.  There's no doubt about it in my mind." He walked up to the
+two managers and whispered.  "It's the ghost who did the trick!"
+
+Richard gave a jump.
+
+"What, you too!  You too!"
+
+"How do you mean, I too?  Isn't it natural, after what I saw?"
+
+"What did you see?"
+
+"I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white
+horse that was as like Cesar as two peas!"
+
+"And did you run after them?"
+
+"I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared in
+the darkness of the underground gallery."
+
+M. Richard rose.  "That will do, M. Lachenel.  You can go ...  We will
+lodge a complaint against THE GHOST."
+
+"And sack my stable?"
+
+"Oh, of course!  Good morning."
+
+M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew.  Richard foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Settle that idiot's account at once, please."
+
+"He is a friend of the government representative's!" Mercier ventured
+to say.
+
+"And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni's with Lagrene, Scholl and
+Pertuiset, the lion-hunter," added Moncharmin.  "We shall have the
+whole press against us!  He'll tell the story of the ghost; and
+everybody will be laughing at our expense!  We may as well be dead as
+ridiculous!"
+
+"All right, say no more about it."
+
+At that moment the door opened.  It must have been deserted by its
+usual Cerberus, for Mme. Giry entered without ceremony, holding a
+letter in her hand, and said hurriedly:
+
+"I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this
+morning from the Opera ghost.  He told me to come to you, that you had
+something to ..."
+
+She did not complete the sentence.  She saw Firmin Richard's face; and
+it was a terrible sight.  He seemed ready to burst.  He said nothing,
+he could not speak.  But suddenly he acted.  First, his left arm seized
+upon the quaint person of Mme. Giry and made her describe so unexpected
+a semicircle that she uttered a despairing cry.  Next, his right foot
+imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which certainly had
+never before undergone a similar outrage in a similar place.  The thing
+happened so quickly that Mme. Giry, when in the passage, was still
+quite bewildered and seemed not to understand.  But, suddenly, she
+understood; and the Opera rang with her indignant yells, her violent
+protests and threats.
+
+About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own in the
+Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought her letters
+to her bed.  Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink,
+in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:
+
+If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune at
+the moment when you open your mouth to sing ... a misfortune worse than
+death.
+
+The letter took away Carlotta's appetite for breakfast.  She pushed
+back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought hard.  It was not the
+first letter of the kind which she had received, but she never had one
+couched in such threatening terms.
+
+She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous
+attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had
+sworn to ruin her.  She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched
+against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but
+she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.
+
+The truth is that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself
+against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it.  Carlotta had never
+forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had achieved when taking
+her place at a moment's notice.  When Carlotta heard of the astounding
+reception bestowed upon her understudy, she was at once cured of an
+incipient attack of bronchitis and a bad fit of sulking against the
+management and lost the slightest inclination to shirk her duties.
+From that time, she worked with all her might to "smother" her rival,
+enlisting the services of influential friends to persuade the managers
+not to give Christine an opportunity for a fresh triumph.  Certain
+newspapers which had begun to extol the talent of Christine now
+interested themselves only in the fame of Carlotta.  Lastly, in the
+theater itself, the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva made
+the most scandalous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her
+endless minor unpleasantnesses.
+
+When Carlotta had finished thinking over the threat contained in the
+strange letter, she got up.
+
+"We shall see," she said, adding a few oaths in her native Spanish with
+a very determined air.
+
+The first thing she saw, when looking out of her window, was a hearse.
+She was very superstitious; and the hearse and the letter convinced her
+that she was running the most serious dangers that evening.  She
+collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened at that
+evening's performance with a plot organized by Christine Daae and
+declared that they must play a trick upon that chit by filling the
+house with her, Carlotta's, admirers.  She had no lack of them, had
+she?  She relied upon them to hold themselves prepared for any
+eventuality and to silence the adversaries, if, as she feared, they
+created a disturbance.
+
+M. Richard's private secretary called to ask after the diva's health
+and returned with the assurance that she was perfectly well and that,
+"were she dying," she would sing the part of Margarita that evening.
+The secretary urged her, in his chief's name, to commit no imprudence,
+to stay at home all day and to be careful of drafts; and Carlotta could
+not help, after he had gone, comparing this unusual and unexpected
+advice with the threats contained in the letter.
+
+It was five o'clock when the post brought a second anonymous letter in
+the same hand as the first.  It was short and said simply:
+
+You have a bad cold.  If you are wise, you will see that it is madness
+to try to sing to-night.
+
+Carlotta sneered, shrugged her handsome shoulders and sang two or three
+notes to reassure herself.
+
+Her friends were faithful to their promise.  They were all at the Opera
+that night, but looked round in vain for the fierce conspirators whom
+they were instructed to suppress.  The only unusual thing was the
+presence of M. Richard and M. Moncharmin in Box Five.  Carlotta's
+friends thought that, perhaps, the managers had wind, on their side, of
+the proposed disturbance and that they had determined to be in the
+house, so as to stop it then and there; but this was unjustifiable
+supposition, as the reader knows.  M. Richard and M. Moncharmin were
+thinking of nothing but their ghost.
+
+"Vain!  In vain do I call, through my vigil weary, On creation and its
+Lord!  Never reply will break the silence dreary!  No sign!  No single
+word!"
+
+The famous baritone, Carolus Fonta, had hardly finished Doctor Faust's
+first appeal to the powers of darkness, when M. Firmin Richard, who was
+sitting in the ghost's own chair, the front chair on the right, leaned
+over to his partner and asked him chaffingly:
+
+"Well, has the ghost whispered a word in your ear yet?"
+
+"Wait, don't be in such a hurry," replied M. Armand Moncharmin, in the
+same gay tone.  "The performance has only begun and you know that the
+ghost does not usually come until the middle of the first act."
+
+The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise
+Carlotta's friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act.  As
+for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell.
+
+"That's one!" said Moncharmin.
+
+"Yes, the ghost is late," said Firmin Richard.
+
+"It's not a bad house," said Moncharmin, "for 'a house with a curse on
+it.'"
+
+M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman, dressed in
+black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium with a man in
+a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her.
+
+"Who on earth are 'those?'" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"'Those,' my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and her
+brother."
+
+"Did you give them their tickets?"
+
+"I did ... My concierge had never been to the Opera--this is, the first
+time--and, as she is now going to come every night, I wanted her to
+have a good seat, before spending her time showing other people to
+theirs."
+
+Moncharmin asked what he meant and Richard answered that he had
+persuaded his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to
+come and take Mme. Giry's place.  Yes, he would like to see if, with
+that woman instead of the old lunatic, Box Five would continue to
+astonish the natives?
+
+"By the way," said Moncharmin, "you know that Mother Giry is going to
+lodge a complaint against you."
+
+"With whom?  The ghost?"
+
+The ghost!  Moncharmin had almost forgotten him.  However, that
+mysterious person did nothing to bring himself to the memory of the
+managers; and they were just saying so to each other for the second
+time, when the door of the box suddenly opened to admit the startled
+stage-manager.
+
+"What's the matter?" they both asked, amazed at seeing him there at
+such a time.
+
+"It seems there's a plot got up by Christine Daae's friends against
+Carlotta.  Carlotta's furious."
+
+"What on earth ... ?" said Richard, knitting his brows.
+
+But the curtain rose on the kermess scene and Richard made a sign to
+the stage-manager to go away.  When the two were alone again,
+Moncharmin leaned over to Richard:
+
+"Then Daae has friends?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, she has."
+
+"Whom?"
+
+Richard glanced across at a box on the grand tier containing no one but
+two men.
+
+"The Comte de Chagny?"
+
+"Yes, he spoke to me in her favor with such warmth that, if I had not
+known him to be Sorelli's friend ..."
+
+"Really?  Really?" said Moncharmin.  "And who is that pale young man
+beside him?"
+
+"That's his brother, the viscount."
+
+"He ought to be in his bed.  He looks ill."
+
+The stage rang with gay song:
+
+            "Red or white liquor,
+            Coarse or fine!
+            What can it matter,
+            So we have wine?"
+
+Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly
+before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign.  Siebel made her
+entrance.  Christine Daae looked charming in her boy's clothes; and
+Carlotta's partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation which
+would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends.  But
+nothing happened.
+
+On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang the only
+two lines allotted her in this second act:
+
+         "No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty,
+         And do not need an arm to help me on my way,"
+
+Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause.  It was so unexpected
+and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about the rumors looked
+at one another and asked what was happening.  And this act also was
+finished without incident.
+
+Then everybody said:  "Of course, it will be during the next act."
+
+Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that the
+"row" would begin with the ballad of the KING OF THULE and rushed to
+the subscribers' entrance to warn Carlotta.  The managers left the box
+during the entr'acte to find out more about the cabal of which the
+stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats,
+shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly.
+
+The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English
+sweets on the little shelf of the ledge.  Who had put it there?  They
+asked the box-keepers, but none of them knew.  Then they went back to
+the shelf and, next to the box of sweets, found an opera glass.  They
+looked at each other.  They had no inclination to laugh.  All that Mme.
+Giry had told them returned to their memory ... and then ... and then
+... they seemed to feel a curious sort of draft around them ... They
+sat down in silence.
+
+The scene represented Margarita's garden:
+
+            "Gentle flow'rs in the dew,
+                Be message from me ..."
+
+As she sang these first two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs
+in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny in
+his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure, less
+crystal-clear than usual.  Something seemed to deaden and dull her
+singing...
+
+"What a queer girl she is!" said one of Carlotta's friends in the
+stalls, almost aloud.  "The other day she was divine; and to-night
+she's simply bleating.  She has no experience, no training."
+
+            "Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there
+                And tell her from me ..."
+
+The viscount put his head under his hands and wept.  The count, behind
+him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.
+For him, usually so cold and correct, to betray his inner feelings like
+that, by outward signs, the count must be very angry.  He was.  He had
+seen his brother return from a rapid and mysterious journey in an
+alarming state of health.  The explanation that followed was
+unsatisfactory and the count asked Christine Daae for an appointment.
+She had the audacity to reply that she could not see either him or his
+brother...
+
+            "Would she but deign to hear me
+            And with one smile to cheer me ..."
+
+"The little baggage!" growled the count.
+
+And he wondered what she wanted.  What she was hoping for... She was a
+virtuous girl, she was said to have no friend, no protector of any sort
+...  That angel from the North must be very artful!
+
+Raoul, behind the curtain of his hands that veiled his boyish tears,
+thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris,
+where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night, had
+arrived before him:
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE PLAYFELLOW:
+
+You must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak of me
+again.  If you love me just a little, do this for me, for me who will
+never forget you, my dear Raoul.  My life depends upon it.  Your life
+depends upon it.  YOUR LITTLE CHRISTINE.
+
+Thunders of applause.  Carlotta made her entrance.
+
+           "I wish I could but know who was he
+           That addressed me,
+           If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is ..."
+
+When Margarita had finished singing the ballad of the KING OF THULE,
+she was loudly cheered and again when she came to the end of the jewel
+song:
+
+            "Ah, the joy of past compare
+            These jewels bright to wear! ..."
+
+Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house,
+certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung
+herself into her part without restraint of modesty ...  She was no
+longer Margarita, she was Carmen.  She was applauded all the more; and
+her debut with Faust seemed about to bring her a new success, when
+suddenly ... a terrible thing happened.
+
+Faust had knelt on one knee:
+
+         "Let me gaze on the form below me,
+             While from yonder ether blue
+         Look how the star of eve, bright and tender,
+                lingers o'er me,
+             To love thy beauty too!"
+
+And Margarita replied:
+
+         "Oh, how strange!
+             Like a spell does the evening bind me!
+         And a deep languid charm
+         I feel without alarm
+             With its melody enwind me
+         And all my heart subdue."
+
+At that moment, at that identical moment, the terrible thing
+happened... Carlotta croaked like a toad:
+
+"Co-ack!"
+
+There was consternation on Carlotta's face and consternation on the
+faces of all the audience.  The two managers in their box could not
+suppress an exclamation of horror.  Every one felt that the thing was
+not natural, that there was witchcraft behind it.  That toad smelt of
+brimstone.  Poor, wretched, despairing, crushed Carlotta!
+
+The uproar in the house was indescribable.  If the thing had happened
+to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted.  But everybody
+knew how perfect an instrument her voice was; and there was no display
+of anger, but only of horror and dismay, the sort of dismay which men
+would have felt if they had witnessed the catastrophe that broke the
+arms of the Venus de Milo...  And even then they would have seen ...
+and understood ...
+
+But here that toad was incomprehensible!  So much so that, after some
+seconds spent in asking herself if she had really heard that note, that
+sound, that infernal noise issue from her throat, she tried to persuade
+herself that it was not so, that she was the victim of an illusion, an
+illusion of the ear, and not of an act of treachery on the part of her
+voice....
+
+Meanwhile, in Box Five, Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale.
+This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread
+which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while, they
+had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost.  They had felt his
+breath.  Moncharmin's hair stood on end.  Richard wiped the
+perspiration from his forehead.  Yes, the ghost was there, around them,
+behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him,
+they heard his breath, close, close, close to them! ... They were sure
+that there were three people in the box ...  They trembled ...  They
+thought of running away ...  They dared not ...  They dared not make a
+movement or exchange a word that would have told the ghost that they
+knew that he was there! ... What was going to happen?
+
+This happened.
+
+"Co-ack!" Their joint exclamation of horror was heard all over the
+house.  THEY FELT THAT THEY WERE SMARTING UNDER THE GHOST'S ATTACKS.
+Leaning over the ledge of their box, they stared at Carlotta as though
+they did not recognize her.  That infernal girl must have given the
+signal for some catastrophe.  Ah, they were waiting for the
+catastrophe!  The ghost had told them it would come!  The house had a
+curse upon it!  The two managers gasped and panted under the weight of
+the catastrophe.  Richard's stifled voice was heard calling to Carlotta:
+
+"Well, go on!"
+
+No, Carlotta did not go on ...  Bravely, heroically, she started afresh
+on the fatal line at the end of which the toad had appeared.
+
+An awful silence succeeded the uproar.  Carlotta's voice alone once
+more filled the resounding house:
+
+"I feel without alarm ..."
+
+The audience also felt, but not without alarm. ..
+
+        "I feel without alarm ...
+        I feel without alarm--co-ack!
+        With its melody enwind me--co-ack!
+        And all my heart sub--co-ack!"
+
+The toad also had started afresh!
+
+The house broke into a wild tumult.  The two managers collapsed in
+their chairs and dared not even turn round; they had not the strength;
+the ghost was chuckling behind their backs!  And, at last, they
+distinctly heard his voice in their right ears, the impossible voice,
+the mouthless voice, saying:
+
+"SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!"
+
+With one accord, they raised their eyes to the ceiling and uttered a
+terrible cry.  The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was
+slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice.
+Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing
+into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror.  A
+wild rush for the doors followed.
+
+The papers of the day state that there were numbers wounded and one
+killed.  The chandelier had crashed down upon the head of the wretched
+woman who had come to the Opera for the first time in her life, the one
+whom M. Richard had appointed to succeed Mme. Giry, the ghost's
+box-keeper, in her functions!  She died on the spot and, the next
+morning, a newspaper appeared with this heading:
+
+TWO HUNDRED KILOS ON THE HEAD OF A CONCIERGE
+
+That was her sole epitaph!
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII  The Mysterious Brougham
+
+
+That tragic evening was bad for everybody.  Carlotta fell ill.  As for
+Christine Daae, she disappeared after the performance.  A fortnight
+elapsed during which she was seen neither at the Opera nor outside.
+
+Raoul, of course, was the first to be astonished at the prima donna's
+absence.  He wrote to her at Mme. Valerius' flat and received no reply.
+His grief increased and he ended by being seriously alarmed at never
+seeing her name on the program.  FAUST was played without her.
+
+One afternoon he went to the managers' office to ask the reason of
+Christine's disappearance.  He found them both looking extremely
+worried.  Their own friends did not recognize them: they had lost all
+their gaiety and spirits.  They were seen crossing the stage with
+hanging heads, care-worn brows, pale cheeks, as though pursued by some
+abominable thought or a prey to some persistent sport of fate.
+
+The fall of the chandelier had involved them in no little
+responsibility; but it was difficult to make them speak about it.  The
+inquest had ended in a verdict of accidental death, caused by the wear
+and tear of the chains by which the chandelier was hung from the
+ceiling; but it was the duty of both the old and the new managers to
+have discovered this wear and tear and to have remedied it in time.
+And I feel bound to say that MM. Richard and Moncharmin at this time
+appeared so changed, so absent-minded, so mysterious, so
+incomprehensible that many of the subscribers thought that some event
+even more horrible than the fall of the chandelier must have affected
+their state of mind.
+
+In their daily intercourse, they showed themselves very impatient,
+except with Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions.  And
+their reception of the Vicomte de Chagny, when he came to ask about
+Christine, was anything but cordial.  They merely told him that she was
+taking a holiday.  He asked how long the holiday was for, and they
+replied curtly that it was for an unlimited period, as Mlle. Daae had
+requested leave of absence for reasons of health.
+
+"Then she is ill!" he cried.  "What is the matter with her?"
+
+"We don't know."
+
+"Didn't you send the doctor of the Opera to see her?"
+
+"No, she did not ask for him; and, as we trust her, we took her word."
+
+Raoul left the building a prey to the gloomiest thoughts.  He resolved,
+come what might, to go and inquire of Mamma Valerius.  He remembered
+the strong phrases in Christine's letter, forbidding him to make any
+attempt to see her.  But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heard
+behind the dressing-room door, his conversation with Christine at the
+edge of the moor made him suspect some machination which, devilish
+though it might be, was none the less human.  The girl's highly strung
+imagination, her affectionate and credulous mind, the primitive
+education which had surrounded her childhood with a circle of legends,
+the constant brooding over her dead father and, above all, the state of
+sublime ecstasy into which music threw her from the moment that this
+art was made manifest to her in certain exceptional conditions, as in
+the churchyard at Perros; all this seemed to him to constitute a moral
+ground only too favorable for the malevolent designs of some mysterious
+and unscrupulous person.  Of whom was Christine Daae the victim?  This
+was the very reasonable question which Raoul put to himself as he
+hurried off to Mamma Valerius.
+
+He trembled as he rang at a little flat in the Rue
+Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.  The door was opened by the maid whom he had
+seen coming out of Christine's dressing-room one evening.  He asked if
+he could speak to Mme. Valerius.  He was told that she was ill in bed
+and was not receiving visitors.
+
+"Take in my card, please," he said.
+
+The maid soon returned and showed him into a small and scantily
+furnished drawing-room, in which portraits of Professor Valerius and
+old Daae hung on opposite walls.
+
+"Madame begs Monsieur le Vicomte to excuse her," said the servant.
+"She can only see him in her bedroom, because she can no longer stand
+on her poor legs."
+
+Five minutes later, Raoul was ushered into an ill-lit room where he at
+once recognized the good, kind face of Christine's benefactress in the
+semi-darkness of an alcove.  Mamma Valerius' hair was now quite white,
+but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary, had their
+expression been so bright, so pure, so child-like.
+
+"M. de Chagny!" she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to her
+visitor.  "Ah, it's Heaven that sends you here! ... We can talk of HER."
+
+This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man's ears.  He
+at once asked:
+
+"Madame ... where is Christine?"
+
+And the old lady replied calmly:
+
+"She is with her good genius!"
+
+"What good genius?" exclaimed poor Raoul.
+
+"Why, the Angel of Music!"
+
+The viscount dropped into a chair.  Really?  Christine was with the
+Angel of Music?  And there lay Mamma Valerius in bed, smiling to him
+and putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent!  And she
+added:
+
+"You must not tell anybody!"
+
+"You can rely on me," said Raoul.
+
+He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine,
+already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled; and it
+seemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him, around the
+room, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair and
+forget-me-not eyes.
+
+"I know!  I know I can!" she said, with a happy laugh.  "But why don't
+you come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy?  Give
+me your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte, which
+Daddy Daae had told you.  I am very fond of you, M. Raoul, you know.
+And so is Christine too!"
+
+"She is fond of me!" sighed the young man.  He found a difficulty in
+collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius'
+"good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken to
+him so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort of
+nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost,
+whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behind
+the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who were
+repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet,
+had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.
+
+He asked in a low voice:  "What makes you think that Christine is fond
+of me, madame?"
+
+"She used to speak of you every day."
+
+"Really? ... And what did she tell you?"
+
+"She told me that you had made her a proposal!"
+
+And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly.  Raoul sprang from
+his chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.
+
+"What's this?  Where are you going?  Sit down again at once, will you?
+... Do you think I will let you go like that? ... If you're angry with
+me for laughing, I beg your pardon... After all, what has happened
+isn't your fault... Didn't you know? ... Did you think that Christine
+was free? ..."
+
+"Is Christine engaged to be married?" the wretched Raoul asked, in a
+choking voice.
+
+"Why no!  Why no! ... You know as well as I do that Christine couldn't
+marry, even if she wanted to!"
+
+"But I don't know anything about it! ... And why can't Christine marry?"
+
+"Because of the Angel of Music, of course! ..."
+
+"I don't follow ..."
+
+"Yes, he forbids her to! ..."
+
+"He forbids her! ... The Angel of Music forbids her to marry!"
+
+"Oh, he forbids her ... without forbidding her.  It's like this: he
+tells her that, if she got married, she would never hear him again.
+That's all! ... And that he would go away for ever! ... So, you
+understand, she can't let the Angel of Music go.  It's quite natural."
+
+"Yes, yes," echoed Raoul submissively, "it's quite natural."
+
+"Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she met you
+at Perros, where she went with her good genius."
+
+"Oh, she went to Perros with her good genius, did she?"
+
+"That is to say, he arranged to meet her down there, in Perros
+churchyard, at Daae's grave.  He promised to play her The Resurrection
+of Lazarus on her father's violin!"
+
+Raoul de Chagny rose and, with a very authoritative air, pronounced
+these peremptory words:
+
+"Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives."
+
+The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command.  She
+raised her eyes and said:
+
+"In Heaven!"
+
+Such simplicity baffled him.  He did not know what to say in the
+presence of this candid and perfect faith in a genius who came down
+nightly from Heaven to haunt the dressing-rooms at the Opera.
+
+He now realized the possible state of mind of a girl brought up between
+a superstitious fiddler and a visionary old lady and he shuddered when
+he thought of the consequences of it all.
+
+"Is Christine still a good girl?" he asked suddenly, in spite of
+himself.
+
+"I swear it, as I hope to be saved!" exclaimed the old woman, who, this
+time, seemed to be incensed.  "And, if you doubt it, sir, I don't know
+what you are here for!"
+
+Raoul tore at his gloves.
+
+"How long has she known this 'genius?'"
+
+"About three months ...  Yes, it's quite three months since he began to
+give her lessons."
+
+The viscount threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.
+
+"The genius gives her lessons! ... And where, pray?"
+
+"Now that she has gone away with him, I can't say; but, up to a
+fortnight ago, it was in Christine's dressing-room. It would be
+impossible in this little flat.  The whole house would hear them.
+Whereas, at the Opera, at eight o'clock in the morning, there is no one
+about, do you see!"
+
+"Yes, I see!  I see!" cried the viscount.
+
+And he hurriedly took leave of Mme. Valerius, who asked herself if the
+young nobleman was not a little off his head.
+
+He walked home to his brother's house in a pitiful state.  He could
+have struck himself, banged his head against the walls!  To think that
+he had believed in her innocence, in her purity!  The Angel of Music!
+He knew him now!  He saw him!  It was beyond a doubt some unspeakable
+tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang!
+He thought himself as absurd and as wretched as could be.  Oh, what a
+miserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was M. le Vicomte de
+Chagny! thought Raoul, furiously.  And she, what a bold and damnable
+sly creature!
+
+His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms, like a
+child.  The count consoled him, without asking for explanations; and
+Raoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him the story
+of the Angel of Music.  His brother suggested taking him out to dinner.
+Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably have refused any
+invitation that evening, if the count had not, as an inducement, told
+him that the lady of his thoughts had been seen, the night before, in
+company of the other sex in the Bois.  At first, the viscount refused
+to believe; but he received such exact details that he ceased
+protesting.  She had been seen, it appeared, driving in a brougham,
+with the window down.  She seemed to be slowly taking in the icy night
+air.  There was a glorious moon shining.  She was recognized beyond a
+doubt.  As for her companion, only his shadowy outline was
+distinguished leaning back in the dark.  The carriage was going at a
+walking pace in a lonely drive behind the grand stand at Longchamp.
+
+Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress by
+flinging himself, as people say, into "the vortex of pleasure." Alas,
+he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early, found
+himself, by ten o'clock in the evening, in a cab, behind the Longchamp
+race-course.
+
+It was bitterly cold.  The road seemed deserted and very bright under
+the moonlight.  He told the driver to wait for him patiently at the
+corner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could, stood
+stamping his feet to keep warm.  He had been indulging in this healthy
+exercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage turned the corner of
+the road and came quietly in his direction, at a walking pace.
+
+As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from the
+window.  And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.
+
+"Christine!"
+
+The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips.  He
+could not keep it back... He would have given anything to withdraw it,
+for that name, proclaimed in the stillness of the night, had acted as
+though it were the preconcerted signal for a furious rush on the part
+of the whole turn-out, which dashed past him before he could put into
+execution his plan of leaping at the horses' heads.  The carriage
+window had been closed and the girl's face had disappeared.  And the
+brougham, behind which he was now running, was no more than a black
+spot on the white road.
+
+He called out again:  "Christine!"
+
+No reply.  And he stopped in the midst of the silence.
+
+With a lack-luster eye, he stared down that cold, desolate road and
+into the pale, dead night.  Nothing was colder than his heart, nothing
+half so dead:  he had loved an angel and now he despised a woman!
+
+Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you!  Was it
+really, was it really necessary to have so fresh and young a face, a
+forehead so shy and always ready to cover itself with the pink blush of
+modesty in order to pass in the lonely night, in a carriage and pair,
+accompanied by a mysterious lover?  Surely there should be some limit
+to hypocrisy and lying! ...
+
+She had passed without answering his cry ...  And he was thinking of
+dying; and he was twenty years old! ...
+
+His valet found him in the morning sitting on his bed.  He had not
+undressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that some
+disaster had occurred.  Raoul snatched his letters from the man's
+hands.  He had recognized Christine's paper and hand-writing. She said:
+
+DEAR:
+
+Go to the masked ball at the Opera on the night after to-morrow.  At
+twelve o'clock, be in the little room behind the chimney-place of the
+big crush-room. Stand near the door that leads to the Rotunda.  Don't
+mention this appointment to any one on earth.  Wear a white domino and
+be carefully masked.  As you love me, do not let yourself be
+recognized.  CHRISTINE.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX  At the Masked Ball
+
+
+The envelope was covered with mud and unstamped.  It bore the words "To
+be handed to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny," with the address in
+pencil.  It must have been flung out in the hope that a passer-by would
+pick up the note and deliver it, which was what happened.  The note had
+been picked up on the pavement of the Place de l'Opera.
+
+Raoul read it over again with fevered eyes.  No more was needed to
+revive his hope.  The somber picture which he had for a moment imagined
+of a Christine forgetting her duty to herself made way for his original
+conception of an unfortunate, innocent child, the victim of imprudence
+and exaggerated sensibility.  To what extent, at this time, was she
+really a victim?  Whose prisoner was she?  Into what whirlpool had she
+been dragged?  He asked himself these questions with a cruel anguish;
+but even this pain seemed endurable beside the frenzy into which he was
+thrown at the thought of a lying and deceitful Christine.  What had
+happened?  What influence had she undergone?  What monster had carried
+her off and by what means? ...
+
+By what means indeed but that of music?  He knew Christine's story.
+After her father's death, she acquired a distaste of everything in
+life, including her art.  She went through the CONSERVATOIRE like a
+poor soulless singing-machine.  And, suddenly, she awoke as though
+through the intervention of a god.  The Angel of Music appeared upon
+the scene!  She sang Margarita in FAUST and triumphed! ...
+
+The Angel of Music! ... For three months the Angel of Music had been
+giving Christine lessons ...  Ah, he was a punctual singing-master! ...
+And now he was taking her for drives in the Bois! ...
+
+Raoul's fingers clutched at his flesh, above his jealous heart.  In his
+inexperience, he now asked himself with terror what game the girl was
+playing?  Up to what point could an opera-singer make a fool of a
+good-natured young man, quite new to love?  O misery! ...
+
+Thus did Raoul's thoughts fly from one extreme to the other.  He no
+longer knew whether to pity Christine or to curse her; and he pitied
+and cursed her turn and turn about.  At all events, he bought a white
+domino.
+
+The hour of the appointment came at last.  With his face in a mask
+trimmed with long, thick lace, looking like a pierrot in his white
+wrap, the viscount thought himself very ridiculous.  Men of the world
+do not go to the Opera ball in fancy-dress! It was absurd.  One
+thought, however, consoled the viscount:  he would certainly never be
+recognized!
+
+This ball was an exceptional affair, given some time before Shrovetide,
+in honor of the anniversary of the birth of a famous draftsman; and it
+was expected to be much gayer, noisier, more Bohemian than the ordinary
+masked ball.  Numbers of artists had arranged to go, accompanied by a
+whole cohort of models and pupils, who, by midnight, began to create a
+tremendous din.  Raoul climbed the grand staircase at five minutes to
+twelve, did not linger to look at the motley dresses displayed all the
+way up the marble steps, one of the richest settings in the world,
+allowed no facetious mask to draw him into a war of wits, replied to no
+jests and shook off the bold familiarity of a number of couples who had
+already become a trifle too gay.  Crossing the big crush-room and
+escaping from a mad whirl of dancers in which he was caught for a
+moment, he at last entered the room mentioned in Christine's letter.
+He found it crammed; for this small space was the point where all those
+who were going to supper in the Rotunda crossed those who were
+returning from taking a glass of champagne.  The fun, here, waxed fast
+and furious.
+
+Raoul leaned against a door-post and waited.  He did not wait long.  A
+black domino passed and gave a quick squeeze to the tips of his
+fingers.  He understood that it was she and followed her:
+
+"Is that you, Christine?" he asked, between his teeth.
+
+The black domino turned round promptly and raised her finger to her
+lips, no doubt to warn him not to mention her name again.  Raoul
+continued to follow her in silence.
+
+He was afraid of losing her, after meeting her again in such strange
+circumstances.  His grudge against her was gone.  He no longer doubted
+that she had "nothing to reproach herself with," however peculiar and
+inexplicable her conduct might seem.  He was ready to make any display
+of clemency, forgiveness or cowardice.  He was in love.  And, no doubt,
+he would soon receive a very natural explanation of her curious absence.
+
+The black domino turned back from time to time to see if the white
+domino was still following.
+
+As Raoul once more passed through the great crush-room, this time in
+the wake of his guide, he could not help noticing a group crowding
+round a person whose disguise, eccentric air and gruesome appearance
+were causing a sensation.  It was a man dressed all in scarlet, with a
+huge hat and feathers on the top of a wonderful death's head.  From his
+shoulders hung an immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the
+floor like a king's train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold
+letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, "Don't touch me!  I
+am Red Death stalking abroad!"
+
+Then one, greatly daring, did try to touch him ... but a skeleton hand
+shot out of a crimson sleeve and violently seized the rash one's wrist;
+and he, feeling the clutch of the knucklebones, the furious grasp of
+Death, uttered a cry of pain and terror.  When Red Death released him
+at last, he ran away like a very madman, pursued by the jeers of the
+bystanders.
+
+It was at this moment that Raoul passed in front of the funereal
+masquerader, who had just happened to turn in his direction.  And he
+nearly exclaimed:
+
+"The death's head of Perros-Guirec!"
+
+He had recognized him! ... He wanted to dart forward, forgetting
+Christine; but the black domino, who also seemed a prey to some strange
+excitement, caught him by the arm and dragged him from the crush-room,
+far from the mad crowd through which Red Death was stalking...
+
+The black domino kept on turning back and, apparently, on two occasions
+saw something that startled her, for she hurried her pace and Raoul's
+as though they were being pursued.
+
+They went up two floors.  Here, the stairs and corridors were almost
+deserted.  The black domino opened the door of a private box and
+beckoned to the white domino to follow her.  Then Christine, whom he
+recognized by the sound of her voice, closed the door behind them and
+warned him, in a whisper, to remain at the back of the box and on no
+account to show himself.  Raoul took off his mask.  Christine kept hers
+on.  And, when Raoul was about to ask her to remove it, he was
+surprised to see her put her ear to the partition and listen eagerly
+for a sound outside.  Then she opened the door ajar, looked out into
+the corridor and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"He must have gone up higher."  Suddenly she exclaimed:  "He is coming
+down again!"
+
+She tried to close the door, but Raoul prevented her; for he had seen,
+on the top step of the staircase that led to the floor above, A RED
+FOOT, followed by another ... and slowly, majestically, the whole
+scarlet dress of Red Death met his eyes.  And he once more saw the
+death's head of Perros-Guirec.
+
+"It's he!" he exclaimed.  "This time, he shall not escape me! ..."
+
+But Christian{sic} had slammed the door at the moment when Raoul was on
+the point of rushing out.  He tried to push her aside.
+
+"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" she asked, in a changed voice.  "Who shall
+not escape you?"
+
+Raoul tried to overcome the girl's resistance by force, but she
+repelled him with a strength which he would not have suspected in her.
+He understood, or thought he understood, and at once lost his temper.
+
+"Who?" he repeated angrily.  "Why, he, the man who hides behind that
+hideous mask of death! ... The evil genius of the churchyard at Perros!
+... Red Death! ... In a word, madam, your friend ...  your Angel of
+Music! ... But I shall snatch off his mask, as I shall snatch off my
+own; and, this time, we shall look each other in the face, he and I,
+with no veil and no lies between us; and I shall know whom you love and
+who loves you!"
+
+He burst into a mad laugh, while Christine gave a disconsolate moan
+behind her velvet mask.  With a tragic gesture, she flung out her two
+arms, which fixed a barrier of white flesh against the door.
+
+"In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass! ..."
+
+He stopped.  What had she said? ... In the name of their love? ...
+Never before had she confessed that she loved him.  And yet she had had
+opportunities enough ...  Pooh, her only object was to gain a few
+seconds! ... She wished to give the Red Death time to escape ...  And,
+in accents of childish hatred, he said:
+
+"You lie, madam, for you do not love me and you have never loved me!
+What a poor fellow I must be to let you mock and flout me as you have
+done!  Why did you give me every reason for hope, at Perros ...  for
+honest hope, madam, for I am an honest man and I believed you to be an
+honest woman, when your only intention was to deceive me!  Alas, you
+have deceived us all!  You have taken a shameful advantage of the
+candid affection of your benefactress herself, who continues to believe
+in your sincerity while you go about the Opera ball with Red Death! ...
+I despise you! ..."
+
+And he burst into tears.  She allowed him to insult her.  She thought
+of but one thing, to keep him from leaving the box.
+
+"You will beg my pardon, one day, for all those ugly words, Raoul, and
+when you do I shall forgive you!"
+
+He shook his head.  "No, no, you have driven me mad!  When I think that
+I had only one object in life:  to give my name to an opera wench!"
+
+"Raoul! ... How can you?"
+
+"I shall die of shame!"
+
+"No, dear, live!" said Christine's grave and changed voice.  "And ...
+good-by. Good-by, Raoul ..."
+
+The boy stepped forward, staggering as he went.  He risked one more
+sarcasm:
+
+"Oh, you must let me come and applaud you from time to time!"
+
+"I shall never sing again, Raoul! ..."
+
+"Really?" he replied, still more satirically.  "So he is taking you off
+the stage:  I congratulate you! ... But we shall meet in the Bois, one
+of these evenings!"
+
+"Not in the Bois nor anywhere, Raoul:  you shall not see me again ..."
+
+"May one ask at least to what darkness you are returning? ... For what
+hell are you leaving, mysterious lady ... or for what paradise?"
+
+"I came to tell you, dear, but I can't tell you now ... you would not
+believe me!  You have lost faith in me, Raoul; it is finished!"
+
+She spoke in such a despairing voice that the lad began to feel remorse
+for his cruelty.
+
+"But look here!" he cried.  "Can't you tell me what all this means!
+...  You are free, there is no one to interfere with you...  You go
+about Paris ...  You put on a domino to come to the ball...  Why do you
+not go home? ... What have you been doing this past fortnight? ... What
+is this tale about the Angel of Music, which you have been telling
+Mamma Valerius?  Some one may have taken you in, played upon your
+innocence.  I was a witness of it myself, at Perros ... but you know
+what to believe now!  You seem to me quite sensible, Christine.  You
+know what you are doing ...  And meanwhile Mamma Valerius lies waiting
+for you at home and appealing to your 'good genius!' ... Explain
+yourself, Christine, I beg of you!  Any one might have been deceived as
+I was.  What is this farce?"
+
+Christine simply took off her mask and said:  "Dear, it is a tragedy!"
+
+Raoul now saw her face and could not restrain an exclamation of
+surprise and terror.  The fresh complexion of former days was gone.  A
+mortal pallor covered those features, which he had known so charming
+and so gentle, and sorrow had furrowed them with pitiless lines and
+traced dark and unspeakably sad shadows under her eyes.
+
+"My dearest!  My dearest!" he moaned, holding out his arms.  "You
+promised to forgive me ..."
+
+"Perhaps! ... Some day, perhaps!" she said, resuming her mask; and she
+went away, forbidding him, with a gesture, to follow her.
+
+He tried to disobey her; but she turned round and repeated her gesture
+of farewell with such authority that he dared not move a step.
+
+He watched her till she was out of sight.  Then he also went down among
+the crowd, hardly knowing what he was doing, with throbbing temples and
+an aching heart; and, as he crossed the dancing-floor, he asked if
+anybody had seen Red Death.  Yes, every one had seen Red Death; but
+Raoul could not find him; and, at two o'clock in the morning, he turned
+down the passage, behind the scenes, that led to Christine Daae's
+dressing-room.
+
+His footsteps took him to that room where he had first known suffering.
+He tapped at the door.  There was no answer.  He entered, as he had
+entered when he looked everywhere for "the man's voice." The room was
+empty.  A gas-jet was burning, turned down low.  He saw some
+writing-paper on a little desk.  He thought of writing to Christine,
+but he heard steps in the passage.  He had only time to hide in the
+inner room, which was separated from the dressing-room by a curtain.
+
+Christine entered, took off her mask with a weary movement and flung it
+on the table.  She sighed and let her pretty head fall into her two
+hands.  What was she thinking of?  Of Raoul?  No, for Raoul heard her
+murmur:  "Poor Erik!"
+
+At first, he thought he must be mistaken.  To begin with, he was
+persuaded that, if any one was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul.  It
+would have been quite natural if she had said, "Poor Raoul," after what
+had happened between them.  But, shaking her head, she repeated:  "Poor
+Erik!"
+
+What had this Erik to do with Christine's sighs and why was she pitying
+Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?
+
+Christine began to write, deliberately, calmly and so placidly that
+Raoul, who was still trembling from the effects of the tragedy that
+separated them, was painfully impressed.
+
+"What coolness!" he said to himself.
+
+She wrote on, filling two, three, four sheets.  Suddenly, she raised
+her head and hid the sheets in her bodice ... She seemed to be
+listening ...  Raoul also listened ...  Whence came that strange sound,
+that distant rhythm? ... A faint singing seemed to issue from the walls
+... yes, it was as though the walls themselves were singing! ... The
+song became plainer ... the words were now distinguishable ... he heard
+a voice, a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice ... but,
+for all its softness, it remained a male voice ... The voice came
+nearer and nearer ... it came through the wall ... it approached ...
+and now the voice was IN THE ROOM, in front of Christine.  Christine
+rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to some one:
+
+"Here I am, Erik," she said.  "I am ready.  But you are late."
+
+Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes,
+which showed him nothing.  Christine's face lit up.  A smile of
+happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that of sick
+people when they receive the first hope of recovery.
+
+The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had never
+in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet, more
+gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short, more
+irresistibly triumphant.  He listened to it in a fever and he now began
+to understand how Christine Daae was able to appear one evening, before
+the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a
+superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the
+mysterious and invisible master.
+
+The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet.
+Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done,
+in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing The Resurrection
+of Lazarus.  And nothing could describe the passion with which the
+voice sang:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+The strains went through Raoul's heart.  Struggling against the charm
+that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and of
+almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most, he
+succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to
+where Christine stood.  She herself was moving to the back of the room,
+the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected
+her image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered
+by her.
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came
+toward her.  The two Christines--the real one and the reflection--ended
+by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one
+embrace.  But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent him staggering,
+Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept over his face;
+he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines spinning round him,
+laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he could not touch one of
+them.  At last, everything stood still again; and he saw himself in the
+glass.  But Christine had disappeared.
+
+He rushed up to the glass.  He struck at the walls.  Nobody!  And
+meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+Which way, which way had Christine gone? ... Which way would she
+return? ...
+
+Would she return?  Alas, had she not declared to him that everything
+was finished?  And was the voice not repeating:
+
+"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
+
+To me?  To whom?
+
+Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair which
+Christine had just left.  Like her, he let his head fall into his
+hands.  When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his young
+cheeks, real, heavy tears like those which jealous children shed, tears
+that wept for a sorrow which was in no way fanciful, but which is
+common to all the lovers on earth and which he expressed aloud:
+
+"Who is this Erik?" he said.
+
+
+
+Chapter X  Forget the Name of the Man's Voice
+
+
+The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort of
+dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses, M. le
+Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valerius'.  He came upon a
+charming picture.  Christine herself was seated by the bedside of the
+old lady, who was sitting up against the pillows, knitting.  The pink
+and white had returned to the young girl's cheeks.  The dark rings
+round her eyes had disappeared.  Raoul no longer recognized the tragic
+face of the day before.  If the veil of melancholy over those adorable
+features had not still appeared to the young man as the last trace of
+the weird drama in whose toils that mysterious child was struggling, he
+could have believed that Christine was not its heroine at all.
+
+She rose, without showing any emotion, and offered him her hand.  But
+Raoul's stupefaction was so great that he stood there dumfounded,
+without a gesture, without a word.
+
+"Well, M. de Chagny," exclaimed Mamma Valerius, "don't you know our
+Christine?  Her good genius has sent her back to us!"
+
+"Mamma!" the girl broke in promptly, while a deep blush mantled to her
+eyes.  "I thought, mamma, that there was to be no more question of
+that! ... You know there is no such thing as the Angel of Music!"
+
+"But, child, he gave you lessons for three months!"
+
+"Mamma, I have promised to explain everything to you one of these days;
+and I hope to do so but you have promised me, until that day, to be
+silent and to ask me no more questions whatever!"
+
+"Provided that you promised never to leave me again!  But have you
+promised that, Christine?"
+
+"Mamma, all this can not interest M. de Chagny."
+
+"On the contrary, mademoiselle," said the young man, in a voice which
+he tried to make firm and brave, but which still trembled, "anything
+that concerns you interests me to an extent which perhaps you will one
+day understand.  I do not deny that my surprise equals my pleasure at
+finding you with your adopted mother and that, after what happened
+between us yesterday, after what you said and what I was able to guess,
+I hardly expected to see you here so soon.  I should be the first to
+delight at your return, if you were not so bent on preserving a secrecy
+that may be fatal to you ... and I have been your friend too long not
+to be alarmed, with Mme. Valerius, at a disastrous adventure which will
+remain dangerous so long as we have not unraveled its threads and of
+which you will certainly end by being the victim, Christine."
+
+At these words, Mamma Valerius tossed about in her bed.
+
+"What does this mean?" she cried.  "Is Christine in danger?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said Raoul courageously, notwithstanding the signs which
+Christine made to him.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed the good, simple old woman, gasping for breath.
+"You must tell me everything, Christine!  Why did you try to reassure
+me?  And what danger is it, M. de Chagny?"
+
+"An impostor is abusing her good faith."
+
+"Is the Angel of Music an impostor?"
+
+"She told you herself that there is no Angel of Music."
+
+"But then what is it, in Heaven's name?  You will be the death of me!"
+
+"There is a terrible mystery around us, madame, around you, around
+Christine, a mystery much more to be feared than any number of ghosts
+or genii!"
+
+Mamma Valerius turned a terrified face to Christine, who had already
+run to her adopted mother and was holding her in her arms.
+
+"Don't believe him, mummy, don't believe him," she repeated.
+
+"Then tell me that you will never leave me again," implored the widow.
+
+Christine was silent and Raoul resumed.
+
+"That is what you must promise, Christine.  It is the only thing that
+can reassure your mother and me.  We will undertake not to ask you a
+single question about the past, if you promise us to remain under our
+protection in future."
+
+"That is an undertaking which I have not asked of you and a promise
+which I refuse to make you!" said the young girl haughtily.  "I am
+mistress of my own actions, M. de Chagny: you have no right to control
+them, and I will beg you to desist henceforth.  As to what I have done
+during the last fortnight, there is only one man in the world who has
+the right to demand an account of me: my husband!  Well, I have no
+husband and I never mean to marry!"
+
+She threw out her hands to emphasize her words and Raoul turned pale,
+not only because of the words which he had heard, but because he had
+caught sight of a plain gold ring on Christine's finger.
+
+"You have no husband and yet you wear a wedding-ring."
+
+He tried to seize her hand, but she swiftly drew it back.
+
+"That's a present!" she said, blushing once more and vainly striving to
+hide her embarrassment.
+
+"Christine!  As you have no husband, that ring can only have been given
+by one who hopes to make you his wife!  Why deceive us further?  Why
+torture me still more?  That ring is a promise; and that promise has
+been accepted!"
+
+"That's what I said!" exclaimed the old lady.
+
+"And what did she answer, madame?"
+
+"What I chose," said Christine, driven to exasperation.  "Don't you
+think, monsieur, that this cross-examination has lasted long enough?
+As far as I am concerned ..."
+
+Raoul was afraid to let her finish her speech.  He interrupted her:
+
+"I beg your pardon for speaking as I did, mademoiselle.  You know the
+good intentions that make me meddle, just now, in matters which, you no
+doubt think, have nothing to do with me.  But allow me to tell you what
+I have seen--and I have seen more than you suspect, Christine--or what
+I thought I saw, for, to tell you the truth, I have sometimes been
+inclined to doubt the evidence of my eyes."
+
+"Well, what did you see, sir, or think you saw?"
+
+"I saw your ecstasy AT THE SOUND OF THE VOICE, Christine:  the voice
+that came from the wall or the next room to yours ... yes, YOUR
+ECSTASY!  And that is what makes me alarmed on your behalf.  You are
+under a very dangerous spell.  And yet it seems that you are aware of
+the imposture, because you say to-day THAT THERE IS NO ANGEL OF MUSIC!
+In that case, Christine, why did you follow him that time?  Why did you
+stand up, with radiant features, as though you were really hearing
+angels? ... Ah, it is a very dangerous voice, Christine, for I myself,
+when I heard it, was so much fascinated by it that you vanished before
+my eyes without my seeing which way you passed!  Christine, Christine,
+in the name of Heaven, in the name of your father who is in Heaven now
+and who loved you so dearly and who loved me too, Christine, tell us,
+tell your benefactress and me, to whom does that voice belong?  If you
+do, we will save you in spite of yourself.  Come, Christine, the name
+of the man!  The name of the man who had the audacity to put a ring on
+your finger!"
+
+"M. de Chagny," the girl declared coldly, "you shall never know!"
+
+Thereupon, seeing the hostility with which her ward had addressed the
+viscount, Mamma Valerius suddenly took Christine's part.
+
+"And, if she does love that man, Monsieur le Vicomte, even then it is
+no business of yours!"
+
+"Alas, madame," Raoul humbly replied, unable to restrain his tears,
+"alas, I believe that Christine really does love him! ... But it is not
+only that which drives me to despair; for what I am not certain of,
+madame, is that the man whom Christine loves is worthy of her love!"
+
+"It is for me to be the judge of that, monsieur!" said Christine,
+looking Raoul angrily in the face.
+
+"When a man," continued Raoul, "adopts such romantic methods to entice
+a young girl's affections. .."
+
+"The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool:  is that it?"
+
+"Christine!"
+
+"Raoul, why do you condemn a man whom you have never seen, whom no one
+knows and about whom you yourself know nothing?"
+
+"Yes, Christine ...  Yes ...  I at least know the name that you thought
+to keep from me for ever ...  The name of your Angel of Music,
+mademoiselle, is Erik!"
+
+Christine at once betrayed herself.  She turned as white as a sheet and
+stammered:  "Who told you?"
+
+"You yourself!"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"By pitying him the other night, the night of the masked ball.  When
+you went to your dressing-room, did you not say, 'Poor Erik?' Well,
+Christine, there was a poor Raoul who overheard you."
+
+"This is the second time that you have listened behind the door, M. de
+Chagny!"
+
+"I was not behind the door ... I was in the dressing-room, in the inner
+room, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh, unhappy man!" moaned the girl, showing every sign of unspeakable
+terror.  "Unhappy man!  Do you want to be killed?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+Raoul uttered this "perhaps" with so much love and despair in his voice
+that Christine could not keep back a sob.  She took his hands and
+looked at him with all the pure affection of which she was capable:
+
+"Raoul," she said, "forget THE MAN'S VOICE and do not even remember its
+name... You must never try to fathom the mystery of THE MAN'S VOICE."
+
+"Is the mystery so very terrible?"
+
+"There is no more awful mystery on this earth.  Swear to me that you
+will make no attempt to find out," she insisted.  "Swear to me that you
+will never come to my dressing-room, unless I send for you."
+
+"Then you promise to send for me sometimes, Christine?"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Then I swear to do as you ask."
+
+He kissed her hands and went away, cursing Erik and resolving to be
+patient.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI  Above the Trap-Doors
+
+
+The next day, he saw her at the Opera.  She was still wearing the plain
+gold ring.  She was gentle and kind to him.  She talked to him of the
+plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career.
+
+He told her that the date of the Polar expedition had been put forward
+and that he would leave France in three weeks, or a month at latest.
+She suggested, almost gaily, that he must look upon the voyage with
+delight, as a stage toward his coming fame.  And when he replied that
+fame without love was no attraction in his eyes, she treated him as a
+child whose sorrows were only short-lived.
+
+"How can you speak so lightly of such serious things?" he asked.
+"Perhaps we shall never see each other again!  I may die during that
+expedition."
+
+"Or I," she said simply.
+
+She no longer smiled or jested.  She seemed to be thinking of some new
+thing that had entered her mind for the first time.  Her eyes were all
+aglow with it.
+
+"What are you thinking of, Christine?"
+
+"I am thinking that we shall not see each other again ..."
+
+"And does that make you so radiant?"
+
+"And that, in a month, we shall have to say good-by for ever!"
+
+"Unless, Christine, we pledge our faith and wait for each other for
+ever."
+
+She put her hand on his mouth.
+
+"Hush, Raoul! ... You know there is no question of that ...  And we
+shall never be married:  that is understood!"
+
+She seemed suddenly almost unable to contain an overpowering gaiety.
+She clapped her hands with childish glee.  Raoul stared at her in
+amazement.
+
+"But ... but," she continued, holding out her two hands to Raoul, or
+rather giving them to him, as though she had suddenly resolved to make
+him a present of them, "but if we can not be married, we can ... we can
+be engaged!  Nobody will know but ourselves, Raoul.  There have been
+plenty of secret marriages:  why not a secret engagement? ... We are
+engaged, dear, for a month!  In a month, you will go away, and I can be
+happy at the thought of that month all my life long!"
+
+She was enchanted with her inspiration.  Then she became serious again.
+
+"This," she said, "IS A HAPPINESS THAT WILL HARM NO ONE."
+
+Raoul jumped at the idea.  He bowed to Christine and said:
+
+"Mademoiselle, I have the honor to ask for your hand."
+
+"Why, you have both of them already, my dear betrothed! ...  Oh, Raoul,
+how happy we shall be! ... We must play at being engaged all day long."
+
+It was the prettiest game in the world and they enjoyed it like the
+children that they were.  Oh, the wonderful speeches they made to each
+other and the eternal vows they exchanged!  They played at hearts as
+other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two
+hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to
+catch them, each time, without hurting them.
+
+One day, about a week after the game began, Raoul's heart was badly
+hurt and he stopped playing and uttered these wild words:
+
+"I shan't go to the North Pole!"
+
+Christine, who, in her innocence, had not dreamed of such a
+possibility, suddenly discovered the danger of the game and reproached
+herself bitterly.  She did not say a word in reply to Raoul's remark
+and went straight home.
+
+This happened in the afternoon, in the singer's dressing-room, where
+they met every day and where they amused themselves by dining on three
+biscuits, two glasses of port and a bunch of violets.  In the evening,
+she did not sing; and he did not receive his usual letter, though they
+had arranged to write to each other daily during that month.  The next
+morning, he ran off to Mamma Valerius, who told him that Christine had
+gone away for two days.  She had left at five o'clock the day before.
+
+Raoul was distracted.  He hated Mamma Valerius for giving him such news
+as that with such stupefying calmness.  He tried to sound her, but the
+old lady obviously knew nothing.
+
+Christine returned on the following day.  She returned in triumph.  She
+renewed her extraordinary success of the gala performance.  Since the
+adventure of the "toad," Carlotta had not been able to appear on the
+stage.  The terror of a fresh "co-ack" filled her heart and deprived
+her of all her power of singing; and the theater that had witnessed her
+incomprehensible disgrace had become odious to her.  She contrived to
+cancel her contract.  Daae was offered the vacant place for the time.
+She received thunders of applause in the Juive.
+
+The viscount, who, of course, was present, was the only one to suffer
+on hearing the thousand echoes of this fresh triumph; for Christine
+still wore her plain gold ring.  A distant voice whispered in the young
+man's ear:
+
+"She is wearing the ring again to-night; and you did not give it to
+her.  She gave her soul again tonight and did not give it to you...  If
+she will not tell you what she has been doing the past two days ... you
+must go and ask Erik!"
+
+He ran behind the scenes and placed himself in her way.  She saw him
+for her eyes were looking for him.  She said:
+
+"Quick!  Quick! ... Come!"
+
+And she dragged him to her dressing-room.
+
+Raoul at once threw himself on his knees before her.  He swore to her
+that he would go and he entreated her never again to withhold a single
+hour of the ideal happiness which she had promised him.  She let her
+tears flow.  They kissed like a despairing brother and sister who have
+been smitten with a common loss and who meet to mourn a dead parent.
+
+Suddenly, she snatched herself from the young man's soft and timid
+embrace, seemed to listen to something, and, with a quick gesture,
+pointed to the door.  When he was on the threshold, she said, in so low
+a voice that the viscount guessed rather than heard her words:
+
+"To-morrow, my dear betrothed!  And be happy, Raoul:  I sang for you
+to-night!"
+
+He returned the next day.  But those two days of absence had broken the
+charm of their delightful make-believe. They looked at each other, in
+the dressing-room, with their sad eyes, without exchanging a word.
+Raoul had to restrain himself not to cry out:
+
+"I am jealous!  I am jealous!  I am jealous!"
+
+But she heard him all the same.  Then she said:
+
+"Come for a walk, dear.  The air will do you good."
+
+Raoul thought that she would propose a stroll in the country, far from
+that building which he detested as a prison whose jailer he could feel
+walking within the walls ... the jailer Erik ...  But she took him to
+the stage and made him sit on the wooden curb of a well, in the
+doubtful peace and coolness of a first scene set for the evening's
+performance.
+
+On another day, she wandered with him, hand in, hand, along the
+deserted paths of a garden whose creepers had been cut out by a
+decorator's skilful hands.  It was as though the real sky, the real
+flowers, the real earth were forbidden her for all time and she
+condemned to breathe no other air than that of the theater.  An
+occasional fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from
+afar.  And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent
+disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running in
+front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes
+fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst of a
+regular forest of yards and masts.  If he hesitated, she said, with an
+adorable pout of her lips:
+
+"You, a sailor!"
+
+And then they returned to terra firma, that is to say, to some passage
+that led them to the little girls' dancing-school, where brats between
+six and ten were practising their steps, in the hope of becoming great
+dancers one day, "covered with diamonds ..." Meanwhile, Christine gave
+them sweets instead.
+
+She took him to the wardrobe and property-rooms, took him all over her
+empire, which was artificial, but immense, covering seventeen stories
+from the ground-floor to the roof and inhabited by an army of subjects.
+She moved among them like a popular queen, encouraging them in their
+labors, sitting down in the workshops, giving words of advice to the
+workmen whose hands hesitated to cut into the rich stuffs that were to
+clothe heroes.  There were inhabitants of that country who practised
+every trade.  There were cobblers, there were goldsmiths.  All had
+learned to know her and to love her, for she always interested herself
+in all their troubles and all their little hobbies.
+
+She knew unsuspected corners that were secretly occupied by little old
+couples.  She knocked at their door and introduced Raoul to them as a
+Prince Charming who had asked for her hand; and the two of them,
+sitting on some worm-eaten "property," would listen to the legends of
+the Opera, even as, in their childhood, they had listened to the old
+Breton tales.  Those old people remembered nothing outside the Opera.
+They had lived there for years without number.  Past managements had
+forgotten them; palace revolutions had taken no notice of them; the
+history of France had run its course unknown to them; and nobody
+recollected their existence.
+
+The precious days sped in this way; and Raoul and Christine, by
+affecting excessive interest in outside matters, strove awkwardly to
+hide from each other the one thought of their hearts.  One fact was
+certain, that Christine, who until then had shown herself the stronger
+of the two, became suddenly inexpressibly nervous.  When on their
+expeditions, she would start running without reason or else suddenly
+stop; and her hand, turning ice-cold in a moment, would hold the young
+man back.  Sometimes her eyes seemed to pursue imaginary shadows.  She
+cried, "This way," and "This way," and "This way," laughing a
+breathless laugh that often ended in tears.  Then Raoul tried to speak,
+to question her, in spite of his promises.  But, even before he had
+worded his question, she answered feverishly:
+
+"Nothing ... I swear it is nothing."
+
+Once, when they were passing before an open trapdoor on the stage,
+Raoul stopped over the dark cavity.
+
+"You have shown me over the upper part of your empire, Christine, but
+there are strange stories told of the lower part.  Shall we go down?"
+
+She caught him in her arms, as though she feared to see him disappear
+down the black hole, and, in a trembling voice, whispered:
+
+"Never! ... I will not have you go there! ... Besides, it's not mine
+... EVERYTHING THAT IS UNDERGROUND BELONGS TO HIM!"
+
+Raoul looked her in the eyes and said roughly:
+
+"So he lives down there, does he?"
+
+"I never said so ...  Who told you a thing like that?  Come away!  I
+sometimes wonder if you are quite sane, Raoul ...  You always take
+things in such an impossible way ...  Come along!  Come!"
+
+And she literally dragged him away, for he was obstinate and wanted to
+remain by the trap-door; that hole attracted him.
+
+Suddenly, the trap-door was closed and so quickly that they did not
+even see the hand that worked it; and they remained quite dazed.
+
+"Perhaps HE was there," Raoul said, at last.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, but did not seem easy.
+
+"No, no, it was the 'trap-door-shutters.' They must do something, you
+know ...  They open and shut the trap-doors without any particular
+reason ...  It's like the 'door-shutters:' they must spend their time
+somehow."
+
+"But suppose it were HE, Christine?"
+
+"No, no!  He has shut himself up, he is working."
+
+"Oh, really!  He's working, is he?"
+
+"Yes, he can't open and shut the trap-doors and work at the same time."
+She shivered.
+
+"What is he working at?"
+
+"Oh, something terrible! ... But it's all the better for us... When
+he's working at that, he sees nothing; he does not eat, drink, or
+breathe for days and nights at a time ... he becomes a living dead man
+and has no time to amuse himself with the trap-doors." She shivered
+again.  She was still holding him in her arms.  Then she sighed and
+said, in her turn:
+
+"Suppose it were HE!"
+
+"Are you afraid of him?"
+
+"No, no, of course not," she said.
+
+For all that, on the next day and the following days, Christine was
+careful to avoid the trap-doors. Her agitation only increased as the
+hours passed.  At last, one afternoon, she arrived very late, with her
+face so desperately pale and her eyes so desperately red, that Raoul
+resolved to go to all lengths, including that which he foreshadowed
+when he blurted out that he would not go on the North Pole expedition
+unless she first told him the secret of the man's voice.
+
+"Hush!  Hush, in Heaven's name! Suppose HE heard you, you unfortunate
+Raoul!"
+
+And Christine's eyes stared wildly at everything around her.
+
+"I will remove you from his power, Christine, I swear it.  And you
+shall not think of him any more."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+She allowed herself this doubt, which was an encouragernent, while
+dragging the young man up to the topmost floor of the theater, far,
+very far from the trap-doors.
+
+"I shall hide you in some unknown corner of the world, where HE can not
+come to look for you.  You will be safe; and then I shall go away ...
+as you have sworn never to marry."
+
+Christine seized Raoul's hands and squeezed them with incredible
+rapture.  But, suddenly becoming alarmed again, she turned away her
+head.
+
+"Higher!" was all she said.  "Higher still!"
+
+And she dragged him up toward the summit.
+
+He had a difficulty in following her.  They were soon under the very
+roof, in the maze of timber-work. They slipped through the buttresses,
+the rafters, the joists; they ran from beam to beam as they might have
+run from tree to tree in a forest.
+
+And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every
+moment, she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own
+shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she
+did and which made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should.
+As for Raoul, he saw nothing either; for, when he had Christine in
+front of him, nothing interested him that happened behind.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII  Apollo's Lyre
+
+
+On this way, they reached the roof.  Christine tripped over it as
+lightly as a swallow.  Their eyes swept the empty space between the
+three domes and the triangular pediment.  She breathed freely over
+Paris, the whole valley of which was seen at work below.  She called
+Raoul to come quite close to her and they walked side by side along the
+zinc streets, in the leaden avenues; they looked at their twin shapes
+in the huge tanks, full of stagnant water, where, in the hot weather,
+the little boys of the ballet, a score or so, learn to swim and dive.
+
+The shadow had followed behind them clinging to their steps; and the
+two children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down,
+trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a great
+bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.
+
+It was a gorgeous spring evening.  Clouds, which had just received
+their gossamer robe of gold and purple from the setting sun, drifted
+slowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:
+
+"Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of the
+world, and then you will leave me, Raoul.  But, if, when the moment
+comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you--well you must
+carry me off by force!"
+
+"Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, shaking her head in an odd fashion.  "He is a
+demon!"  And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan.  "I am
+afraid now of going back to live with him ... in the ground!"
+
+"What compels you to go back, Christine?"
+
+"If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen! ...  But
+I can't do it, I can't do it! ... I know one ought to be sorry for
+people who live underground ...  But he is too horrible!  And yet the
+time is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he will
+come and fetch me with his voice.  And he will drag me with him,
+underground, and go on his knees before me, with his death's head.  And
+he will tell me that he loves me!  And he will cry!  Oh, those tears,
+Raoul, those tears in the two black eye-sockets of the death's head!  I
+can not see those tears flow again!"
+
+She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.
+
+"No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you!
+You shall not see his tears!  Let us fly, Christine, let us fly at
+once!"
+
+And he tried to drag her away, then and there.  But she stopped him.
+
+"No, no," she said, shaking her head sadly.  "Not now! ... It would be
+too cruel ... let him hear me sing to-morrow evening ... and then we
+will go away.  You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at
+midnight exactly.  He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room by
+the lake ... we shall be free and you shall take me away ...  You must
+promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go back
+this time, I shall perhaps never return."
+
+And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind
+her, replied.
+
+"Didn't you hear?"
+
+Her teeth chattered.
+
+"No," said Raoul, "I heard nothing."
+
+"It is too terrible," she confessed, "to be always trembling like this!
+... And yet we run no danger here; we are at home, in the sky, in the
+open air, in the light.  The sun is flaming; and night-birds can not
+bear to look at the sun.  I have never seen him by daylight ... it must
+be awful! ... Oh, the first time I saw him! ... I thought that he was
+going to die."
+
+"Why?" asked Raoul, really frightened at the aspect which this strange
+confidence was taking.
+
+"BECAUSE I HAD SEEN HIM!"
+
+This time, Raoul and Christine turned round at the same time:
+
+"There is some one in pain," said Raoul.  "Perhaps some one has been
+hurt.  Did you hear?"
+
+"I can't say," Christine confessed.  "Even when he is not there, my
+ears are full of his sighs.  Still, if you heard ..."
+
+They stood up and looked around them.  They were quite alone on the
+immense lead roof.  They sat down again and Raoul said:
+
+"Tell me how you saw him first."
+
+"I had heard him for three months without seeing him.  The first time I
+heard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing
+in another room.  I went out and looked everywhere; but, as you know,
+Raoul, my dressing-room is very much by itself; and I could not find
+the voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside.  And it
+not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like a
+real man's voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful as the
+voice of an angel.  I had never got the Angel of Music whom my poor
+father had promised to send me as soon as he was dead.  I really think
+that Mamma Valerius was a little bit to blame.  I told her about it;
+and she at once said, 'It must be the Angel; at any rate, you can do no
+harm by asking him.'  I did so; and the man's voice replied that, yes,
+it was the Angel's voice, the voice which I was expecting and which my
+father had promised me.  From that time onward, the voice and I became
+great friends.  It asked leave to give me lessons every day.  I agreed
+and never failed to keep the appointment which it gave me in my
+dressing-room. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of
+what those lessons were like."
+
+"No, I have no idea," said Raoul.  "What was your accompaniment?"
+
+"We were accompanied by a music which I do not know:  it was behind the
+wall and wonderfully accurate.  The voice seemed to understand mine
+exactly, to know precisely where my father had left off teaching me.
+In a few weeks' time, I hardly knew myself when I sang.  I was even
+frightened.  I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft behind it; but
+Mamma Valerius reassured me.  She said that she knew I was much too
+simple a girl to give the devil a hold on me ...  My progress, by the
+voice's own order, was kept a secret between the voice, Mamma Valerius
+and myself.  It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I
+sang with my ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything.  I
+did all that the voice asked.  It said, 'Wait and see:  we shall
+astonish Paris!' And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream.
+It was then that I saw you for the first time one evening, in the
+house.  I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delight
+when I reached my dressing-room.  Unfortunately, the voice was there
+before me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened.  It
+asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story
+secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart.  Then the
+voice was silent.  I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged and
+entreated, but in vain.  I was terrified lest it had gone for good.  I
+wish to Heaven it had, dear!  ... That night, I went home in a
+desperate condition.  I told Mamma Valerius, who said, 'Why, of course,
+the voice is jealous!'  And that, dear, first revealed to me that I
+loved you."
+
+Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder.  They sat like
+that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not perceive
+the movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping shadow of two
+great black wings, a shadow that came along the roof so near, so near
+them that it could have stifled them by closing over them.
+
+"The next day," Christine continued, with a sigh, "I went back to my
+dressing-room in a very pensive frame of mind.  The voice was there,
+spoke to me with great sadness and told me plainly that, if I must
+bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice to do but to
+go back to Heaven.  And it said this with such an accent of HUMAN
+sorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected and begun to
+believe that I was the victim of my deluded senses.  But my faith in
+the voice, with which the memory of my father was so closely
+intermingled, remained undisturbed.  I feared nothing so much as that I
+might never hear it again; I had thought about my love for you and
+realized all the useless danger of it; and I did not even know if you
+remembered me.  Whatever happened, your position in society forbade me
+to contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you; and I swore to the
+voice that you were no more than a brother to me nor ever would be and
+that my heart was incapable of any earthly love.  And that, dear, was
+why I refused to recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or in
+the passages.  Meanwhile, the hours during which the voice taught me
+were spent in a divine frenzy, until, at last, the voice said to me,
+'You can now, Christine Daae, give to men a little of the music of
+Heaven.' I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the
+theater that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; but
+I sang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a moment
+as if my soul were leaving my body!"
+
+"Oh, Christine," said Raoul, "my heart quivered that night at every
+accent of your voice.  I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and I
+wept with you.  How could you sing, sing like that while crying?"
+
+"I felt myself fainting," said Christine, "I closed my eyes.  When I
+opened them, you were by my side.  But the voice was there also, Raoul!
+I was afraid for your sake and again I would not recognize you and
+began to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf in
+the sea! ... Alas, there is no deceiving the voice! ... The voice
+recognized you and the voice was jealous! ... It said that, if I did
+not love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other old
+friend.  It made me scene upon scene.  At last, I said to the voice,
+'That will do!  I am going to Perros to-morrow, to pray on my father's
+grave, and I shall ask M. Raoul de Chagny to go with me.'  'Do as you
+please,' replied the voice, 'but I shall be at Perros too, for I am
+wherever you are, Christine; and, if you are still worthy of me, if you
+have not lied to me, I will play you The Resurrection of Lazarus, on
+the stroke of midnight, on your father's tomb and on your father's
+violin.'  That, dear, was how I came to write you the letter that
+brought you to Perros.  How could I have been so beguiled?  How was it,
+when I saw the personal, the selfish point of view of the voice, that I
+did not suspect some impostor?  Alas, I was no longer mistress of
+myself:  I had become his thing!"
+
+"But, after all," cried Raoul, "you soon came to know the truth!  Why
+did you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?"
+
+"Know the truth, Raoul?  Rid myself of that nightmare?  But, my poor
+boy, I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned the
+truth! ... Pity me, Raoul, pity me! ... You remember the terrible
+evening when Carlotta thought that she had been turned into a toad on
+the stage and when the house was suddenly plunged in darkness through
+the chandelier crashing to the floor?  There were killed and wounded
+that night and the whole theater rang with terrified screams.  My first
+thought was for you and the voice.  I was at once easy, where you were
+concerned, for I had seen you in your brother's box and I knew that you
+were not in danger.  But the voice had told me that it would be at the
+performance and I was really afraid for it, just as if it had been an
+ordinary person who was capable of dying.  I thought to myself, 'The
+chandelier may have come down upon the voice.'  I was then on the stage
+and was nearly running into the house, to look for the voice among the
+killed and wounded, when I thought that, if the voice was safe, it
+would be sure to be in my dressing-room and I rushed to my room.  The
+voice was not there.  I locked my door and, with tears in my eyes,
+besought it, if it were still alive, to manifest itself to me.  The
+voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail which
+I knew well.  It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound of the
+Redeemer's voice, he begins to open his eyes and see the light of day.
+It was the music which you and I, Raoul, heard at Perros.  And then the
+voice began to sing the leading phrase, 'Come!  And believe in me!
+Whoso believes in me shall live!  Walk!  Whoso hath believed in me
+shall never die! ...'  I can not tell you the effect which that music
+had upon me.  It seemed to command me, personally, to come, to stand up
+and come to it.  It retreated and I followed.  'Come! And believe in
+me!'  I believed in it, I came ...  I came and--this was the
+extraordinary thing--my dressing-room, as I moved, seemed to lengthen
+out ... to lengthen out ...  Evidently, it must have been an effect of
+mirrors ... for I had the mirror in front of me ...  And, suddenly, I
+was outside the room without knowing how!"
+
+"What!  Without knowing how?  Christine, Christine, you must really
+stop dreaming!"
+
+"I was not dreaming, dear, I was outside my room without knowing how.
+You, who saw me disappear from my room one evening, may be able to
+explain it; but I can not.  I can only tell you that, suddenly, there
+was no mirror before me and no dressing-room.  I was in a dark passage,
+I was frightened and I cried out.  It was quite dark, but for a faint
+red glimmer at a distant corner of the wall.  I tried out.  My voice
+was the only sound, for the singing and the violin had stopped.  And,
+suddenly, a hand was laid on mine ... or rather a stone-cold, bony
+thing that seized my wrist and did not let go.  I cried out again.  An
+arm took me round the waist and supported me.  I struggled for a little
+while and then gave up the attempt.  I was dragged toward the little
+red light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in a
+large cloak and wearing a mask that hid his whole face.  I made one
+last effort; my limbs stiffened, my mouth opened to scream, but a hand
+closed it, a hand which I felt on my lips, on my skin ... a hand that
+smelt of death.  Then I fainted away.
+
+"When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness.  A
+lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well.  The water
+splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on
+which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black
+cloak and the black mask.  He was bathing my temples and his hands
+smelt of death.  I tried to push them away and asked, 'Who are you?
+Where is the voice?'  His only answer was a sigh.  Suddenly, a hot
+breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the
+man's black shape, in the darkness.  The black shape lifted me on to
+the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I
+murmured, 'Cesar!' The animal quivered.  Raoul, I was lying half back
+on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA,
+which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets.  I remembered that, one
+evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had
+disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost.  I believed
+in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost.  Now, however, I
+began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost's prisoner.  I
+called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that
+the voice and the ghost were one.  You have heard about the Opera
+ghost, have you not, Raoul?"
+
+"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the
+Profeta?"
+
+"I made no movement and let myself go.  The black shape held me up, and
+I made no effort to escape.  A curious feeling of peacefulness came
+over me and I thought that I must be under the influence of some
+cordial.  I had the full command of my senses; and my eyes became used
+to the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams.  I
+calculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably running
+all round the Opera, which is immense, underground.  I had once been
+down into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor, though
+there were two lower still, large enough to hold a town.  But the
+figures of which I caught sight had made me run away.  There are demons
+down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wield
+shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames and, if you
+come too near them, they frighten you by suddenly opening the red
+mouths of their furnaces ...  Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying me
+on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quite
+small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came into
+sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our winding
+way.  At last, they disappeared altogether.  The shape was still
+holding me up and Cesar walked on, unled and sure-footed. I could not
+tell you, even approximately, how long this ride lasted; I only know
+that we seemed to turn and turn and often went down a spiral stair into
+the very heart of the earth.  Even then, it may be that my head was
+turning, but I don't think so: no, my mind was quite clear.  At last,
+Cesar raised his nostrils, sniffed the air and quickened his pace a
+little.  I felt a moistness in the air and Cesar stopped.  The darkness
+had lifted.  A sort of bluey light surrounded us.  We were on the edge
+of a lake, whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into the
+darkness; but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat
+fastened to an iron ring on the wharf!"
+
+"A boat!"
+
+"Yes, but I knew that all that existed and that there was nothing
+supernatural about that underground lake and boat.  But think of the
+exceptional conditions in which I arrived upon that shore!  I don't
+know whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man's
+shape lifted me into the boat, but my terror began all over again.  My
+gruesome escort must have noticed it, for he sent Cesar back and I
+heard his hoofs trampling up a staircase while the man jumped into the
+boat, untied the rope that held it and seized the oars.  He rowed with
+a quick, powerful stroke; and his eyes, under the mask, never left me.
+We slipped across the noiseless water in the bluey light which I told
+you of; then we were in the dark again and we touched shore.  And I was
+once more taken up in the man's arms.  I cried aloud.  And then,
+suddenly, I was silent, dazed by the light... Yes, a dazzling light in
+the midst of which I had been put down.  I sprang to my feet.  I was in
+the middle of a drawing-room that seemed to me to be decorated, adorned
+and furnished with nothing but flowers, flowers both magnificent and
+stupid, because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like
+those which they sell in the shops on the boulevards.  They were much
+too civilized flowers, like those which I used to find in my
+dressing-room after a first night.  And, in the midst of all these
+flowers, stood the black shape of the man in the mask, with arms
+crossed, and he said, 'Don't be afraid, Christine; you are in no
+danger.' IT WAS THE VOICE!
+
+"My anger equaled my amazement.  I rushed at the mask and tried to
+snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice.  The man said, 'You
+are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.' And, taking me
+gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down on
+his knees before me and said nothing more!  His humility gave me back
+some of my courage; and the light restored me to the realties of life.
+However extraordinary the adventure might be, I was now surrounded by
+mortal, visible, tangible things.  The furniture, the hangings, the
+candles, the vases and the very flowers in their baskets, of which I
+could almost have told whence they came and what they cost, were bound
+to confine my imagination to the limits of a drawing-room quite as
+commonplace as any that, at least, had the excuse of not being in the
+cellars of the Opera.  I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible,
+eccentric person, who, in some mysterious fashion, had succeeded in
+taking up his abode there, under the Opera house, five stories below
+the level of the ground.  And the voice, the voice which I had
+recognized under the mask, was on its knees before me, WAS A MAN!  And
+I began to cry...  The man, still kneeling, must have understood the
+cause of my tears, for he said, 'It is true, Christine! ... I am not an
+Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost ... I am Erik!'"
+
+Christine's narrative was again interrupted.  An echo behind them
+seemed to repeat the word after her.
+
+"Erik!"
+
+What echo? ... They both turned round and saw that night had fallen.
+Raoul made a movement as though to rise, but Christine kept him beside
+her.
+
+"Don't go," she said.  "I want you to know everything HERE!"
+
+"But why here, Christine?  I am afraid of your catching cold."
+
+"We have nothing to fear except the trap-doors, dear, and here we are
+miles away from the trap-doors ... and I am not allowed to see you
+outside the theater.  This is not the time to annoy him.  We must not
+arouse his suspicion."
+
+"Christine!  Christine!  Something tells me that we are wrong to wait
+till to-morrow evening and that we ought to fly at once."
+
+"I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will cause
+him infinite pain."
+
+"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him for
+good."
+
+"You are right in that, Raoul, for certainly he will die of my flight."
+And she added in a dull voice, "But then it counts both ways ...  for
+we risk his killing us."
+
+"Does he love you so much?"
+
+"He would commit murder for me."
+
+"But one can find out where he lives.  One can go in search of him.
+Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him and
+force him to answer!"
+
+Christine shook her head.
+
+"No, no!  There is nothing to be done with Erik except to run away!"
+
+"Then why, when you were able to run away, did you go back to him?"
+
+"Because I had to.  And you will understand that when I tell you how I
+left him."
+
+"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul.  "And you, Christine, tell me, do you
+hate him too?"
+
+"No," said Christine simply.
+
+"No, of course not ...  Why, you love him!  Your fear, your terror, all
+of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind
+which people do not admit even to themselves," said Raoul bitterly.
+"The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it...  Picture it:
+a man who lives in a palace underground!" And he gave a leer.
+
+"Then you want me to go back there?" said the young girl cruelly.
+"Take care, Raoul; I have told you:  I should never return!"
+
+There was an appalling silence between the three of them: the two who
+spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.
+
+"Before answering that," said Raoul, at last, speaking very slowly, "I
+should like to know with what feeling he inspires you, since you do not
+hate him."
+
+"With horror!" she said.  "That is the terrible thing about it.  He
+fills me with horror and I do not hate him.  How can I hate him, Raoul?
+Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground.  He
+accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! ... He
+confesses his cheat.  He loves me!  He lays at my feet an immense and
+tragic love...  He has carried me off for love! ... He has imprisoned
+me with him, underground, for love! ... But he respects me:  he crawls,
+he moans, he weeps! ... And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that
+I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my
+liberty ... he offered it ... he offered to show me the mysterious road
+... Only ... only he rose too ... and I was made to remember that,
+though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the
+voice ... for he sang.  And I listened ... and stayed! ... That night,
+we did not exchange another word.  He sang me to sleep.
+
+"When I woke up, I was alone, lying on a sofa in a simply furnished
+little bedroom, with an ordinary mahogany bedstead, lit by a lamp
+standing on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers.
+I soon discovered that I was a prisoner and that the only outlet from
+my room led to a very comfortable bath-room. On returning to the
+bedroom, I saw on the chest of drawers a note, in red ink, which said,
+'My dear Christine, you need have no concern as to your fate.  You have
+no better nor more respectful friend in the world than myself.  You are
+alone, at present, in this home which is yours.  I am going out
+shopping to fetch you all the things that you can need.' I felt sure
+that I had fallen into the hands of a madman.  I ran round my little
+apartment, looking for a way of escape which I could not find.  I
+upbraided myself for my absurd superstition, which had caused me to
+fall into the trap.  I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the same
+time.
+
+"This was the state of mind in which Erik found me.  After giving three
+taps on the wall, he walked in quietly through a door which I had not
+noticed and which he left open.  He had his arms full of boxes and
+parcels and arranged them on the bed, in a leisurely fashion, while I
+overwhelmed him with abuse and called upon him to take off his mask, if
+it covered the face of an honest man.  He replied serenely, 'You shall
+never see Erik's face.'  And he reproached me with not having finished
+dressing at that time of day: he was good enough to tell me that it was
+two o'clock in the afternoon.  He said he would give me half an hour
+and, while he spoke, wound up my watch and set it for me.  After which,
+he asked me to come to the dining-room, where a nice lunch was waiting
+for us.
+
+"I was very angry, slammed the door in his face and went to the
+bath-room ...  When I came out again, feeling greatly refreshed, Erik
+said that he loved me, but that he would never tell me so except when I
+allowed him and that the rest of the time would be devoted to music.
+'What do you mean by the rest of the time?' I asked.  'Five days,' he
+said, with decision.  I asked him if I should then be free and he said,
+'You will be free, Christine, for, when those five days are past, you
+will have learned not to see me; and then, from time to time, you will
+come to see your poor Erik!' He pointed to a chair opposite him, at a
+small table, and I sat down, feeling greatly perturbed.  However, I ate
+a few prawns and the wing of a chicken and drank half a glass of tokay,
+which he had himself, he told me, brought from the Konigsberg cellars.
+Erik did not eat or drink.  I asked him what his nationality was and if
+that name of Erik did not point to his Scandinavian origin.  He said
+that he had no name and no country and that he had taken the name of
+Erik by accident.
+
+"After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he
+would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and
+gave a cry.  What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony;
+and I remembered that his hands smelt of death.  'Oh, forgive me!' he
+moaned.  And he opened a door before me.  'This is my bedroom, if you
+care to see it.  It is rather curious.' His manners, his words, his
+attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation.  I felt
+as if I were entering the room of a dead person.  The walls were all
+hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set
+off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with
+the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated.  In the middle of the
+room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and,
+under the canopy, an open coffin.  'That is where I sleep,' said Erik.
+'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.'  The
+sight upset me so much that I turned away my head.
+
+"Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the
+walls.  On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes.  I asked
+leave to look at it and read, 'Don Juan Triumphant.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I
+compose sometimes.'  I began that work twenty years ago.  When I have
+finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up
+again.'  'You must work at it as seldom as you can,' I said.  He
+replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together,
+during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a
+time.'  'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?' I
+asked, thinking to please him.  'You must never ask me that,' he said,
+in a gloomy voice.  'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will
+only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is
+not struck by fire from Heaven.'  Thereupon we returned to the
+drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole
+apartment.  I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat
+down to the piano.  He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music
+that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it.
+Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose
+all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to
+Paris.  Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.' He spoke
+these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words.  We at
+once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us.
+I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed
+before.  As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at
+every note.  Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing
+cries.  Erik's black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor
+of Venice.  He was Othello himself.  Suddenly, I felt a need to see
+beneath the mask.  I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a
+movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore
+away the mask.  Oh, horror, horror, horror!"
+
+Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her,
+while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now
+thrice moaned the cry:
+
+"Horror! ... Horror! ... Horror!"
+
+Raoul and Christine, clasping each other closely, raised their eyes to
+the stars that shone in a clear and peaceful sky.  Raoul said:
+
+"Strange, Christine, that this calm, soft night should be so full of
+plaintive sounds.  One would think that it was sorrowing with us."
+
+"When you know the secret, Raoul, your ears, like mine, will be full of
+lamentations."
+
+She took Raoul's protecting hands in hers and, with a long shiver,
+continued:
+
+"Yes, if I lived to be a hundred, I should always hear the superhuman
+cry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appeared
+before my eyes ...  Raoul, you have seen death's heads, when they have
+been dried and withered by the centuries, and, perhaps, if you were not
+the victim of a nightmare, you saw HIS death's head at Perros.  And
+then you saw Red Death stalking about at the last masked ball.  But all
+those death's heads were motionless and their dumb horror was not
+alive.  But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming to
+life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its
+nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; AND
+NOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later, you can
+not see his blazing eyes except in the dark.
+
+"I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his teeth,
+and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words and
+curses at me.  Leaning over me, he cried, 'Look! You want to see!  See!
+Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness!  Look at Erik's
+face!  Now you know the face of the voice!  You were not content to
+hear me, eh?  You wanted to know what I looked like!  Oh, you women are
+so inquisitive!  Well, are you satisfied?  I'm a very good-looking
+fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to
+me.  She loves me for ever.  I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!'  And,
+drawing himself up to his full height, with his hand on his hip,
+wagging the hideous thing that was his head on his shoulders, he
+roared, 'Look at me!  I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turned
+away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally,
+twisting his dead fingers into my hair."
+
+"Enough!  Enough!" cried Raoul.  "I will kill him.  In Heaven's name,
+Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is!  I must kill
+him!"
+
+"Oh, be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know!"
+
+"Yes, I want to know how and why you went back; I must know! ...  But,
+in any case, I will kill him!"
+
+"Oh, Raoul, listen, listen! ... He dragged me by my hair and then ...
+and then ... Oh, it is too horrible!"
+
+"Well, what?  Out with it!" exclaimed Raoul fiercely.  "Out with it,
+quick!"
+
+"Then he hissed at me.  'Ah, I frighten you, do I? ... I dare say! ...
+Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... this
+... my head is a mask?  Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the
+other!  Come!  Come along!  I insist!  Your hands!  Your hands!  Give
+me your hands!'  And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful
+face.  He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh
+with my nails! ... 'Know,' he shouted, while his throat throbbed and
+panted like a furnace, 'know that I am built up of death from head to
+foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will
+never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying,
+crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore
+can never leave me again! ... As long as you thought me handsome, you
+could have come back, I know you would have come back ... but, now that
+you know my hideousness, you would run away for good... So I shall keep
+you here! ... Why did you want to see me?  Oh, mad Christine, who
+wanted to see me! ... When my own father never saw me and when my
+mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!'
+
+"He had let go of me at last and was dragging himself about on the
+floor, uttering terrible sobs. And then he crawled away like a snake,
+went into his room, closed the door and left me alone to my
+reflections.  Presently I heard the sound of the organ; and then I
+began to understand Erik's contemptuous phrase when he spoke about
+Opera music.  What I now heard was utterly different from what I had
+heard up to then.  His Don Juan Triumphant (for I had not a doubt but
+that he had rushed to his masterpiece to forget the horror of the
+moment) seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob.  But,
+little by little, it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which
+mankind is capable.  It intoxicated me; and I opened the door that
+separated us.  Erik rose, as I entered, BUT DARED NOT TURN IN MY
+DIRECTION.  'Erik,' I cried, 'show me your face without fear!  I swear
+that you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I
+shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the
+splendor of your genius!'  Then Erik turned round, for he believed me,
+and I also had faith in myself.  He fell at my feet, with words of love
+...  with words of love in his dead mouth ... and the music had ceased
+...  He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my
+eyes.
+
+"What more can I tell you, dear?  You now know the tragedy.  It went on
+for a fortnight--a fortnight during which I lied to him.  My lies were
+as hideous as the monster who inspired them; but they were the price of
+my liberty.  I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even when
+he was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its
+master.  He was my faithful slave and paid me endless little
+attentions.  Gradually, I gave him such confidence that he ventured to
+take me walking on the banks of the lake and to row me in the boat on
+its leaden waters; toward the end of my captivity he let me out through
+the gates that closed the underground passages in the Rue Scribe.  Here
+a carriage awaited us and took us to the Bois.  The night when we met
+you was nearly fatal to me, for he is terribly jealous of you and I had
+to tell him that you were soon going away ...  Then, at last, after a
+fortnight of that horrible captivity, during which I was filled with
+pity, enthusiasm, despair and horror by turns, he believed me when I
+said, 'I WILL COME BACK!'"
+
+"And you went back, Christine," groaned Raoul.
+
+"Yes, dear, and I must tell you that it was not his frightful threats
+when setting me free that helped me to keep my word, but the harrowing
+sob which he gave on the threshold of the tomb.  ...  That sob attached
+me to the unfortunate man more than I myself suspected when saying
+good-by to him.  Poor Erik!  Poor Erik!"
+
+"Christine," said Raoul, rising, "you tell me that you love me; but you
+had recovered your liberty hardly a few hours before you returned to
+Erik!  Remember the masked ball!"
+
+"Yes; and do you remember those hours which I passed with you, Raoul
+... to the great danger of both of us?"
+
+"I doubted your love for me, during those hours."
+
+"Do you doubt it still, Raoul? ... Then know that each of my visits to
+Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of
+calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love!  And I am so
+frightened, so frightened! ..."
+
+"You are frightened ... but do you love me?  If Erik were good-looking,
+would you love me, Christine?"
+
+She rose in her turn, put her two trembling arms round the young man's
+neck and said:
+
+"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give you
+my lips!  Take them, for the first time and the last."
+
+He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent
+asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes, filled
+with dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared, high up above
+them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes
+and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII  A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover
+
+
+Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof and the blazing
+eyes that showed only in the dark; and they did not stop before they
+came to the eighth floor on the way down.
+
+There was no performance at the Opera that night and the passages were
+empty.  Suddenly, a queer-looking form stood before them and blocked
+the road:
+
+"No, not this way!"
+
+And the form pointed to another passage by which they were to reach the
+wings.  Raoul wanted to stop and ask for an explanation.  But the form,
+which wore a sort of long frock-coat and a pointed cap, said:
+
+"Quick!  Go away quickly!"
+
+Christine was already dragging Raoul, compelling him to start running
+again.
+
+"But who is he?  Who is that man?" he asked.
+
+Christine replied:  "It's the Persian."
+
+"What's he doing here?"
+
+"Nobody knows.  He is always in the Opera."
+
+"You are making me run away, for the first time in my life.  If we
+really saw Erik, what I ought to have done was to nail him to Apollo's
+lyre, just as we nail the owls to the walls of our Breton farms; and
+there would have been no more question of him."
+
+"My dear Raoul, you would first have had to climb up to Apollo's lyre:
+that is no easy matter."
+
+"The blazing eyes were there!"
+
+"Oh, you are getting like me now, seeing him everywhere!  What I took
+for blazing eyes was probably a couple of stars shining through the
+strings of the lyre."
+
+And Christine went down another floor, with Raoul following her.
+
+"As you have quite made up your mind to go, Christine, I assure you it
+would be better to go at once.  Why wait for to-morrow? He may have
+heard us to-night."
+
+"No, no, he is working, I tell you, at his Don Juan Triumphant and not
+thinking of us."
+
+"You're so sure of that you keep on looking behind you!"
+
+"Come to my dressing-room."
+
+"Hadn't we better meet outside the Opera?"
+
+"Never, till we go away for good!  It would bring us bad luck, if I did
+not keep my word.  I promised him to see you only here."
+
+"It's a good thing for me that he allowed you even that.  Do you know,"
+said Raoul bitterly, "that it was very plucky of you to let us play at
+being engaged?"
+
+"Why, my dear, he knows all about it!  He said, 'I trust you,
+Christine.  M. de Chagny is in love with you and is going abroad.
+Before he goes, I want him to be as happy as I am.'  Are people so
+unhappy when they love?"
+
+"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved."
+
+They came to Christine's dressing-room.
+
+"Why do you think that you are safer in this room than on the stage?"
+asked Raoul.  "You heard him through the walls here, therefore he can
+certainly hear us."
+
+"No. He gave me his word not to be behind the walls of my dressing-room
+again and I believe Erik's word.  This room and my bedroom on the lake
+are for me, exclusively, and not to be approached by him."
+
+"How can you have gone from this room into that dark passage,
+Christine?  Suppose we try to repeat your movements; shall we?"
+
+"It is dangerous, dear, for the glass might carry me off again; and,
+instead of running away, I should be obliged to go to the end of the
+secret passage to the lake and there call Erik."
+
+"Would he hear you?"
+
+"Erik will hear me wherever I call him.  He told me so.  He is a very
+curious genius.  You must not think, Raoul, that he is simply a man who
+amuses himself by living underground.  He does things that no other man
+could do; he knows things which nobody in the world knows."
+
+"Take care, Christine, you are making a ghost of him again!"
+
+"No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all."
+
+"A man of Heaven and earth ... that is all! ... A nice way to speak of
+him! ... And are you still resolved to run away from him?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow, you will have no resolve left!"
+
+"Then, Raoul, you must run away with me in spite of myself; is that
+understood?"
+
+"I shall be here at twelve to-morrow night; I shall keep my promise,
+whatever happens.  You say that, after listening to the performance, he
+is to wait for you in the dining-room on the lake?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And how are you to reach him, if you don't know how to go out by the
+glass?"
+
+"Why, by going straight to the edge of the lake."
+
+Christine opened a box, took out an enormous key and showed it to Raoul.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The key of the gate to the underground passage in the Rue Scribe."
+
+"I understand, Christine.  It leads straight to the lake.  Give it to
+me, Christine, will you?"
+
+"Never!" she said.  "That would be treacherous!"
+
+Suddenly Christine changed color.  A mortal pallor overspread her
+features.
+
+"Oh heavens!" she cried.  "Erik!  Erik!  Have pity on me!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" said Raoul.  "You told me he could hear you!"
+
+But the singer's attitude became more and more inexplicable.  She wrung
+her fingers, repeating, with a distraught air:
+
+"Oh, Heaven!  Oh, Heaven!"
+
+"But what is it?  What is it?"  Raoul implored.
+
+"The ring ... the gold ring he gave me."
+
+"Oh, so Erik gave you that ring!"
+
+"You know he did, Raoul!  But what you don't know is that, when he gave
+it to me, he said, 'I give you back your liberty, Christine, on
+condition that this ring is always on your finger.  As long as you keep
+it, you will be protected against all danger and Erik will remain your
+friend.  But woe to you if you ever part with it, for Erik will have
+his revenge!' ... My dear, my dear, the ring is gone! ... Woe to us
+both!"
+
+They both looked for the ring, but could not find it.  Christine
+refused to be pacified.
+
+"It was while I gave you that kiss, up above, under Apollo's lyre," she
+said.  "The ring must have slipped from my finger and dropped into the
+street!  We can never find it.  And what misfortunes are in store for
+us now!  Oh, to run away!"
+
+"Let us run away at once," Raoul insisted, once more.
+
+She hesitated.  He thought that she was going to say yes...  Then her
+bright pupils became dimmed and she said:
+
+"No!  To-morrow!"
+
+And she left him hurriedly, still wringing and rubbing her fingers, as
+though she hoped to bring the ring back like that.
+
+Raoul went home, greatly perturbed at all that he had heard.
+
+[Illustration: They Sat Like that for a Moment in Silence]
+
+"If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as
+he went to bed, "she is lost.  But I shall save her."
+
+He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark.  Thrice
+over, he shouted:
+
+"Humbug! ... Humbug! ... Humbug!"
+
+But, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow.  A cold sweat poured
+from his temples.  Two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared at the
+foot of his bed.  They stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the darkness
+of the night.
+
+Raoul was no coward; and yet he trembled.  He put out a groping,
+hesitating hand toward the table by his bedside.  He found the matches
+and lit his candle.  The eyes disappeared.
+
+Still uneasy in his mind, he thought to himself:
+
+"She told me that HIS eyes only showed in the dark.  His eyes have
+disappeared in the light, but HE may be there still."
+
+And he rose, hunted about, went round the room.  He looked under his
+bed, like a child.  Then he thought himself absurd, got into bed again
+and blew out the candle.  The eyes reappeared.
+
+He sat up and stared back at them with all the courage he possessed.
+Then he cried:
+
+"Is that you, Erik?  Man, genius, or ghost, is it you?"
+
+He reflected:  "If it's he, he's on the balcony!"
+
+Then he ran to the chest of drawers and groped for his revolver.  He
+opened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and closed the
+window again.  He went back to bed, shivering, for the night was cold,
+and put the revolver on the table within his reach.
+
+The eyes were still there, at the foot of the bed.  Were they between
+the bed and the window-pane or behind the pane, that is to say, on the
+balcony?  That was what Raoul wanted to know.  He also wanted to know
+if those eyes belonged to a human being... He wanted to know
+everything.  Then, patiently, calmly, he seized his revolver and took
+aim.  He aimed a little above the two eyes.  Surely, if they were eyes
+and if above those two eyes there was a forehead and if Raoul was not
+too clumsy ...
+
+The shot made a terrible din amid the silence of the slumbering house.
+And, while footsteps came hurrying along the passages, Raoul sat up
+with outstretched arm, ready to fire again, if need be.
+
+This time, the two eyes had disappeared.
+
+Servants appeared, carrying lights; Count Philippe, terribly anxious:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I think I have been dreaming," replied the young man.  "I fired at two
+stars that kept me from sleeping."
+
+"You're raving!  Are you ill?  For God's sake, tell me, Raoul: what
+happened?"
+
+And the count seized hold of the revolver.
+
+"No, no, I'm not raving...  Besides, we shall soon see ..."
+
+He got out of bed, put on a dressing-gown and slippers, took a light
+from the hands of a servant and, opening the window, stepped out on the
+balcony.
+
+The count saw that the window had been pierced by a bullet at a man's
+height.  Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle: "Aha!" he
+said.  "Blood! ... Blood! ... Here, there, more blood!  ...  That's a
+good thing!  A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!" he grinned.
+
+"Raoul!  Raoul!  Raoul!"
+
+The count was shaking him as though he were trying to waken a
+sleep-walker.
+
+"But, my dear brother, I'm not asleep!"  Raoul protested impatiently.
+"You can see the blood for yourself.  I thought I had been dreaming and
+firing at two stars.  It was Erik's eyes ... and here is his blood! ...
+After all, perhaps I was wrong to shoot; and Christine is quite capable
+of never forgiving me ...  All this would not have happened if I had
+drawn the curtains before going to bed."
+
+"Raoul, have you suddenly gone mad?  Wake up!"
+
+"What, still?  You would do better to help me find Erik ... for, after
+all, a ghost who bleeds can always be found."
+
+The count's valet said:
+
+"That is so, sir; there is blood on the balcony."
+
+The other man-servant brought a lamp, by the light of which they
+examined the balcony carefully.  The marks of blood followed the rail
+till they reached a gutter-spout; then they went up the gutter-spout.
+
+"My dear fellow," said Count Philippe, "you have fired at a cat."
+
+"The misfortune is," said Raoul, with a grin, "that it's quite
+possible.  With Erik, you never know.  Is it Erik?  Is it the cat?  Is
+it the ghost?  No, with Erik, you can't tell!"
+
+Raoul went on making this strange sort of remarks which corresponded so
+intimately and logically with the preoccupation of his brain and which,
+at the same time, tended to persuade many people that his mind was
+unhinged.  The count himself was seized with this idea; and, later, the
+examining magistrate, on receiving the report of the commissary of
+police, came to the same conclusion.
+
+"Who is Erik?" asked the count, pressing his brother's hand.
+
+"He is my rival.  And, if he's not dead, it's a pity."
+
+He dismissed the servants with a wave of the hand and the two Chagnys
+were left alone.  But the men were not out of earshot before the
+count's valet heard Raoul say, distinctly and emphatically:
+
+"I shall carry off Christine Daae to-night."
+
+This phrase was afterward repeated to M. Faure, the
+examining-magistrate.  But no one ever knew exactly what passed between
+the two brothers at this interview.  The servants declared that this
+was not their first quarrel.  Their voices penetrated the wall; and it
+was always an actress called Christine Daae that was in question.
+
+At breakfast--the early morning breakfast, which the count took in his
+study--Philippe sent for his brother.  Raoul arrived silent and gloomy.
+The scene was a very short one.  Philippe handed his brother a copy of
+the Epoque and said:
+
+"Read that!"
+
+The viscount read:
+
+"The latest news in the Faubourg is that there is a promise of marriage
+between Mlle. Christine Daae, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte Raoul
+de Chagny.  If the gossips are to be credited, Count Philippe has sworn
+that, for the first time on record, the Chagnys shall not keep their
+promise.  But, as love is all-powerful, at the Opera as--and even more
+than--elsewhere, we wonder how Count Philippe intends to prevent the
+viscount, his brother, from leading the new Margarita to the altar.
+The two brothers are said to adore each other; but the count is
+curiously mistaken if he imagines that brotherly love will triumph over
+love pure and simple."
+
+"You see, Raoul," said the count, "you are making us ridiculous!  That
+little girl has turned your head with her ghost-stories."
+
+The viscount had evidently repeated Christine's narrative to his
+brother, during the night.  All that he now said was:
+
+"Good-by, Philippe."
+
+"Have you quite made up your mind?  You are going to-night? With her?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Surely you will not do anything so foolish?  I SHALL know how to
+prevent you!"
+
+"Good-by, Philippe," said the viscount again and left the room.
+
+This scene was described to the examining-magistrate by the count
+himself, who did not see Raoul again until that evening, at the Opera,
+a few minutes before Christine's disappearance.
+
+Raoul, in fact, devoted the whole day to his preparations for the
+flight.  The horses, the carriage, the coachman, the provisions, the
+luggage, the money required for the journey, the road to be taken (he
+had resolved not to go by train, so as to throw the ghost off the
+scent): all this had to be settled and provided for; and it occupied
+him until nine o'clock at night.
+
+At nine o'clock, a sort of traveling-barouche with the curtains of its
+windows close-down, took its place in the rank on the Rotunda side.  It
+was drawn by two powerful horses driven by a coachman whose face was
+almost concealed in the long folds of a muffler.  In front of this
+traveling-carriage were three broughams, belonging respectively to
+Carlotta, who had suddenly returned to Paris, to Sorelli and, at the
+head of the rank, to Comte Philippe de Chagny.  No one left the
+barouche.  The coachman remained on his box, and the three other
+coachmen remained on theirs.
+
+A shadow in a long black cloak and a soft black felt hat passed along
+the pavement between the Rotunda and the carriages, examined the
+barouche carefully, went up to the horses and the coachman and then
+moved away without saying a word, The magistrate afterward believed
+that this shadow was that of the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny; but I do not
+agree, seeing that that evening, as every evening, the Vicomte de
+Chagny was wearing a tall hat, which hat, besides, was subsequently
+found.  I am more inclined to think that the shadow was that of the
+ghost, who knew all about the whole affair, as the reader will soon
+perceive.
+
+They were giving FAUST, as it happened, before a splendid house.  The
+Faubourg was magnificently represented; and the paragraph in that
+morning's EPOQUE had already produced its effect, for all eyes were
+turned to the box in which Count Philippe sat alone, apparently in a
+very indifferent and careless frame of mind.  The feminine element in
+the brilliant audience seemed curiously puzzled; and the viscount's
+absence gave rise to any amount of whispering behind the fans.
+Christine Daae met with a rather cold reception.  That special audience
+could not forgive her for aiming so high.
+
+The singer noticed this unfavorable attitude of a portion of the house
+and was confused by it.
+
+The regular frequenters of the Opera, who pretended to know the truth
+about the viscount's love-story, exchanged significant smiles at
+certain passages in Margarita's part; and they made a show of turning
+and looking at Philippe de Chagny's box when Christine sang:
+
+        "I wish I could but know who was he
+        That addressed me,
+        If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is."
+
+The count sat with his chin on his hand and seemed to pay no attention
+to these manifestations.  He kept his eyes fixed on the stage; but his
+thoughts appeared to be far away.
+
+Christine lost her self-assurance more and more.  She trembled.  She
+felt on the verge of a breakdown ...  Carolus Fonta wondered if she was
+ill, if she could keep the stage until the end of the Garden Act.  In
+the front of the house, people remembered the catastrophe that had
+befallen Carlotta at the end of that act and the historic "co-ack"
+which had momentarily interrupted her career in Paris.
+
+Just then, Carlotta made her entrance in a box facing the stage, a
+sensational entrance.  Poor Christine raised her eyes upon this fresh
+subject of excitement.  She recognized her rival.  She thought she saw
+a sneer on her lips.  That saved her.  She forgot everything, in order
+to triumph once more.
+
+From that moment the prima donna sang with all her heart and soul.  She
+tried to surpass all that she had done till then; and she succeeded.
+In the last act when she began the invocation to the angels, she made
+all the members of the audience feel as though they too had wings.
+
+In the center of the amphitheater a man stood up and remained standing,
+facing the singer.  It was Raoul.
+
+"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed ..."
+
+And Christine, her arms outstretched, her throat filled with music, the
+glory of her hair falling over her bare shoulders, uttered the divine
+cry:
+
+"My spirit longs with thee to rest!"
+
+It was at that moment that the stage was suddenly plunged in darkness.
+It happened so quickly that the spectators hardly had time to utter a
+sound of stupefaction, for the gas at once lit up the stage again.  But
+Christine Daae was no longer there!
+
+What had become of her?  What was that miracle?  All exchanged glances
+without understanding, and the excitement at once reached its height.
+Nor was the tension any less great on the stage itself.  Men rushed
+from the wings to the spot where Christine had been singing that very
+instant.  The performance was interrupted amid the greatest disorder.
+
+Where had Christine gone?  What witchcraft had snatched her, away
+before the eyes of thousands of enthusiastic onlookers and from the
+arms of Carolus Fonta himself?  It was as though the angels had really
+carried her up "to rest."
+
+Raoul, still standing up in the amphitheater, had uttered a cry.  Count
+Philippe had sprung to his feet in his box.  People looked at the
+stage, at the count, at Raoul, and wondered if this curious event was
+connected in any way with the paragraph in that morning's paper.  But
+Raoul hurriedly left his seat, the count disappeared from his box and,
+while the curtain was lowered, the subscribers rushed to the door that
+led behind the scenes.  The rest of the audience waited amid an
+indescribable hubbub.  Every one spoke at once.  Every one tried to
+suggest an explanation of the extraordinary incident.
+
+At last, the curtain rose slowly and Carolus Fonta stepped to the
+conductor's desk and, in a sad and serious voice, said:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has taken place and
+thrown us into a state of the greatest alarm.  Our sister-artist,
+Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and nobody can tell us
+how!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV  The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin
+
+
+Behind the curtain, there was an indescribable crowd.  Artists,
+scene-shifters, dancers, supers, choristers, subscribers were all
+asking questions, shouting and hustling one another.
+
+"What became of her?"
+
+"She's run away."
+
+"With the Vicomte de Chagny, of course!"
+
+"No, with the count!"
+
+"Ah, here's Carlotta!  Carlotta did the trick!"
+
+"No, it was the ghost!"  And a few laughed, especially as a careful
+examination of the trap-doors and boards had put the idea of an
+accident out of the question.
+
+Amid this noisy throng, three men stood talking in a low voice and with
+despairing gestures.  They were Gabriel, the chorus-master; Mercier,
+the acting-manager; and Remy, the secretary.  They retired to a corner
+of the lobby by which the stage communicates with the wide passage
+leading to the foyer of the ballet.  Here they stood and argued behind
+some enormous "properties."
+
+"I knocked at the door," said Remy.  "They did not answer.  Perhaps
+they are not in the office.  In any case, it's impossible to find out,
+for they took the keys with them."
+
+"They" were obviously the managers, who had given orders, during the
+last entr'acte, that they were not to be disturbed on any pretext
+whatever.  They were not in to anybody.
+
+"All the same," exclaimed Gabriel, "a singer isn't run away with, from
+the middle of the stage, every day!"
+
+"Did you shout that to them?" asked Mercier, impatiently.
+
+"I'll go back again," said Remy, and disappeared at a run.
+
+Thereupon the stage-manager arrived.
+
+"Well, M. Mercier, are you coming?  What are you two doing here?
+You're wanted, Mr. Acting-Manager."
+
+"I refuse to know or to do anything before the commissary arrives,"
+declared Mercier.  "I have sent for Mifroid.  We shall see when he
+comes!"
+
+"And I tell you that you ought to go down to the organ at once."
+
+"Not before the commissary comes."
+
+"I've been down to the organ myself already."
+
+"Ah!  And what did you see?"
+
+"Well, I saw nobody!  Do you hear--nobody!"
+
+"What do you want me to do down there for{sic}?"
+
+"You're right!" said the stage-manager, frantically pushing his hands
+through his rebellious hair.  "You're right!  But there might be some
+one at the organ who could tell us how the stage came to be suddenly
+darkened.  Now Mauclair is nowhere to be found.  Do you understand
+that?"
+
+Mauclair was the gas-man, who dispensed day and night at will on the
+stage of the Opera.
+
+"Mauclair is not to be found!" repeated Mercier, taken aback.  "Well,
+what about his assistants?"
+
+"There's no Mauclair and no assistants!  No one at the lights, I tell
+you!  You can imagine," roared the stage-manager, "that that little
+girl must have been carried off by somebody else:  she didn't run away
+by herself!  It was a calculated stroke and we have to find out about
+it ...  And what are the managers doing all this time?  ...  I gave
+orders that no one was to go down to the lights and I posted a fireman
+in front of the gas-man's box beside the organ.  Wasn't that right?"
+
+"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right.  And now let's wait for the
+commissary."
+
+The stage-manager walked away, shrugging his shoulders, fuming,
+muttering insults at those milksops who remained quietly squatting in a
+corner while the whole theater was topsyturvy{sic}.
+
+Gabriel and Mercier were not so quiet as all that.  Only they had
+received an order that paralyzed them.  The managers were not to be
+disturbed on any account.  Remy had violated that order and met with no
+success.
+
+At that moment he returned from his new expedition, wearing a curiously
+startled air.
+
+"Well, have you seen them?" asked Mercier.
+
+"Moncharmin opened the door at last.  His eyes were starting out of his
+head.  I thought he meant to strike me.  I could not get a word in; and
+what do you think he shouted at me?  'Have you a safety-pin?' 'No!'
+'Well, then, clear out!'  I tried to tell him that an unheard-of thing
+had happened on the stage, but he roared, 'A safety-pin! Give me a
+safety-pin at once!'  A boy heard him--he was bellowing like a
+bull--ran up with a safety-pin and gave it to him; whereupon Moncharmin
+slammed the door in my face, and there you are!"
+
+"And couldn't you have said, 'Christine Daae.'"
+
+"I should like to have seen you in my place.  He was foaming at the
+mouth.  He thought of nothing but his safety-pin. I believe, if they
+hadn't brought him one on the spot, he would have fallen down in a fit!
+... Oh, all this isn't natural; and our managers are going mad! ...
+Besides, it can't go on like this!  I'm not used to being treated in
+that fashion!"
+
+Suddenly Gabriel whispered:
+
+"It's another trick of O. G.'s."
+
+Rimy gave a grin, Mercier a sigh and seemed about to speak ... but,
+meeting Gabriel's eye, said nothing.
+
+However, Mercier felt his responsibility increased as the minutes
+passed without the managers' appearing; and, at last, he could stand it
+no longer.
+
+"Look here, I'll go and hunt them out myself!"
+
+Gabriel, turning very gloomy and serious, stopped him.
+
+"Be careful what you're doing, Mercier!  If they're staying in their
+office, it's probably because they have to!  O. G. has more than one
+trick in his bag!"
+
+But Mercier shook his head.
+
+"That's their lookout!  I'm going!  If people had listened to me, the
+police would have known everything long ago!"
+
+And he went.
+
+"What's everything?" asked Remy.  "What was there to tell the police?
+Why don't you answer, Gabriel? ... Ah, so you know something!  Well,
+you would do better to tell me, too, if you don't want me to shout out
+that you are all going mad! ... Yes, that's what you are:  mad!"
+
+Gabriel put on a stupid look and pretended not to understand the
+private secretary's unseemly outburst.
+
+"What 'something' am I supposed to know?" he said.  "I don't know what
+you mean."
+
+Remy began to lose his temper.
+
+"This evening, Richard and Moncharmin were behaving like lunatics,
+here, between the acts."
+
+"I never noticed it," growled Gabriel, very much annoyed.
+
+"Then you're the only one! ... Do you think that I didn't see them? ...
+And that M. Parabise, the manager of the Credit Central, noticed
+nothing? ... And that M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, has no eyes to
+see with? ... Why, all the subscribers were pointing at our managers!"
+
+"But what were our managers doing?" asked Gabriel, putting on his most
+innocent air.
+
+"What were they doing?  You know better than any one what they were
+doing! ... You were there! ... And you were watching them, you and
+Mercier! ... And you were the only two who didn't laugh."
+
+"I don't understand!"
+
+Gabriel raised his arms and dropped them to his sides again, which
+gesture was meant to convey that the question did not interest him in
+the least.  Remy continued:
+
+"What is the sense of this new mania of theirs?  WHY WON'T THEY HAVE
+ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM NOW?"
+
+"What?  WON'T THEY HAVE ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM?"
+
+"AND THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH THEM!"
+
+"Really?  Have you noticed THAT THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH THEM?
+That is certainly odd!"
+
+"Oh, so you admit it!  And high time, too!  And THEN, THEY WALK
+BACKWARD!"
+
+"BACKWARD!  You have seen our managers WALK BACKWARD?  Why, I thought
+that only crabs walked backward!"
+
+"Don't laugh, Gabriel; don't laugh!"
+
+"I'm not laughing," protested Gabriel, looking as solemn as a judge.
+
+"Perhaps you can tell me this, Gabriel, as you're an intimate friend of
+the management:  When I went up to M. Richard, outside the foyer,
+during the Garden interval, with my hand out before me, why did M.
+Moncharmin hurriedly whisper to me, 'Go away!  Go away!  Whatever you
+do, don't touch M. le Directeur!'  Am I supposed to have an infectious
+disease?"
+
+"It's incredible!"
+
+"And, a little later, when M. de La Borderie went up to M. Richard,
+didn't you see M. Moncharmin fling himself between them and hear him
+exclaim, 'M. l'Ambassadeur I entreat you not to touch M. le Directeur'?"
+
+"It's terrible! ... And what was Richard doing meanwhile?"
+
+"What was he doing?  Why, you saw him!  He turned about, BOWED IN FRONT
+OF HIM, THOUGH THERE WAS NOBODY IN FRONT OF HIM, AND WITHDREW BACKWARD."
+
+"BACKWARD?"
+
+"And Moncharmin, behind Richard, also turned about; that is, he
+described a semicircle behind Richard and also WALKED BACKWARD! ... And
+they went LIKE THAT to the staircase leading to the managers' office:
+BACKWARD, BACKWARD, BACKWARD!  ...  Well, if they are not mad, will you
+explain what it means?"
+
+"Perhaps they were practising a figure in the ballet," suggested
+Gabriel, without much conviction in his voice.
+
+The secretary was furious at this wretched joke, made at so dramatic a
+moment.  He knit his brows and contracted his lips.  Then he put his
+mouth to Gabriel's ear:
+
+"Don't be so sly, Gabriel.  There are things going on for which you and
+Mercier are partly responsible."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gabriel.
+
+"Christine Daae is not the only one who suddenly disappeared to-night."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"There's no nonsense about it.  Perhaps you can tell me why, when
+Mother Giry came down to the foyer just now, Mercier took her by the
+hand and hurried her away with him?"
+
+"Really?" said Gabriel, "I never saw it."
+
+"You did see it, Gabriel, for you went with Mercier and Mother Giry to
+Mercier's office.  Since then, you and Mercier have been seen, but no
+one has seen Mother Giry."
+
+"Do you think we've eaten her?"
+
+"No, but you've locked her up in the office; and any one passing the
+office can hear her yelling, 'Oh, the scoundrels!  Oh, the scoundrels!'"
+
+At this point of this singular conversation, Mercier arrived, all out
+of breath.
+
+"There!" he said, in a gloomy voice.  "It's worse than ever! ...  I
+shouted, 'It's a serious matter!  Open the door!  It's I, Mercier.' I
+heard footsteps.  The door opened and Moncharmin appeared.  He was very
+pale.  He said, 'What do you want?'  I answered, 'Some one has run away
+with Christine Daae.'  What do you think he said?  'And a good job,
+too!'  And he shut the door, after putting this in my hand."
+
+Mercier opened his hand; Remy and Gabriel looked.
+
+"The safety-pin!" cried Remy.
+
+"Strange!  Strange!" muttered Gabriel, who could not help shivering.
+
+Suddenly a voice made them all three turn round.
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen.  Could you tell me where Christine Daae
+is?"
+
+In spite of the seriousness of the circumstances, the absurdity of the
+question would have made them roar with laughter, if they had not
+caught sight of a face so sorrow-stricken that they were at once seized
+with pity.  It was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.
+
+
+
+Chapter XV  Christine!  Christine!
+
+
+Raoul's first thought, after Christine Daae's fantastic disappearance,
+was to accuse Erik.  He no longer doubted the almost supernatural
+powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in which he
+had set up his empire.  And Raoul rushed on the stage, in a mad fit of
+love and despair.
+
+"Christine!  Christine!" he moaned, calling to her as he felt that she
+must be calling to him from the depths of that dark pit to which the
+monster had carried her.  "Christine!  Christine!"
+
+And he seemed to hear the girl's screams through the frail boards that
+separated him from her.  He bent forward, he listened, ... he wandered
+over the stage like a madman.  Ah, to descend, to descend into that pit
+of darkness every entrance to which was closed to him, ... for the
+stairs that led below the stage were forbidden to one and all that
+night!
+
+"Christine!  Christine! ..."
+
+People pushed him aside, laughing.  They made fun of him.  They thought
+the poor lover's brain was gone!
+
+By what mad road, through what passages of mystery and darkness known
+to him alone had Erik dragged that pure-souled child to the awful
+haunt, with the Louis-Philippe room, opening out on the lake?
+
+"Christine!  Christine! ... Why don't you answer? ... Are you alive?
+..."
+
+Hideous thoughts flashed through Raoul's congested brain.  Of course,
+Erik must have discovered their secret, must have known that Christine
+had played him false.  What a vengeance would be his!
+
+And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come, the night
+before, and roamed over his balcony.  Why had he not put them out for
+good?  There were some men's eyes that dilated in the darkness and
+shone like stars or like cats' eyes.  Certainly Albinos, who seemed to
+have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night: everybody knew
+that! ... Yes, yes, he had undoubtedly fired at Erik.  Why had he not
+killed him?  The monster had fled up the gutter-spout like a cat or a
+convict who--everybody knew that also--would scale the very skies, with
+the help of a gutter-spout ...  No doubt Erik was at that time
+contemplating some decisive step against Raoul, but he had been wounded
+and had escaped to turn against poor Christine instead.
+
+Such were the cruel thoughts that haunted Raoul as he ran to the
+singer's dressing-room.
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+Bitter tears scorched the boy's eyelids as he saw scattered over the
+furniture the clothes which his beautiful bride was to have worn at the
+hour of their flight.  Oh, why had she refused to leave earlier?
+
+Why had she toyed with the threatening catastrophe?  Why toyed with the
+monster's heart?  Why, in a final access of pity, had she insisted on
+flinging, as a last sop to that demon's soul, her divine song:
+
+            "Holy angel, in Heaven blessed,
+            My spirit longs with thee to rest!"
+
+Raoul, his throat filled with sobs, oaths and insults, fumbled
+awkwardly at the great mirror that had opened one night, before his
+eyes, to let Christine pass to the murky dwelling below.  He pushed,
+pressed, groped about, but the glass apparently obeyed no one but Erik
+...  Perhaps actions were not enough with a glass of the kind?  Perhaps
+he was expected to utter certain words?  When he was a little boy, he
+had heard that there were things that obeyed the spoken word!
+
+Suddenly, Raoul remembered something about a gate opening into the Rue
+Scribe, an underground passage running straight to the Rue Scribe from
+the lake ...  Yes, Christine had told him about that...  And, when he
+found that the key was no longer in the box, he nevertheless ran to the
+Rue Scribe.  Outside, in the street, he passed his trembling hands over
+the huge stones, felt for outlets ... met with iron bars ... were those
+they? ... Or these? ...  Or could it be that air-hole? ... He plunged
+his useless eyes through the bars ...  How dark it was in there! ... He
+listened ...  All was silence! ... He went round the building ... and
+came to bigger bars, immense gates! ... It was the entrance to the Cour
+de l'Administration.
+
+Raoul rushed into the doorkeeper's lodge.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame, could you tell me where to find a gate or
+door, made of bars, iron bars, opening into the Rue Scribe ...  and
+leading to the lake? ... You know the lake I mean? ... Yes, the
+underground lake ... under the Opera."
+
+"Yes, sir, I know there is a lake under the Opera, but I don't know
+which door leads to it.  I have never been there!"
+
+"And the Rue Scribe, madame, the Rue Scribe?  Have you never been to
+the Rue Scribe?"
+
+The woman laughed, screamed with laughter!  Raoul darted away, roaring
+with anger, ran up-stairs, four stairs at a time, down-stairs, rushed
+through the whole of the business side of the opera-house, found
+himself once more in the light of the stage.
+
+He stopped, with his heart thumping in his chest:  suppose Christine
+Daae had been found?  He saw a group of men and asked:
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen.  Could you tell me where Christine Daae
+is?"
+
+And somebody laughed.
+
+At the same moment the stage buzzed with a new sound and, amid a crowd
+of men in evening-dress, all talking and gesticulating together,
+appeared a man who seemed very calm and displayed a pleasant face, all
+pink and chubby-cheeked, crowned with curly hair and lit up by a pair
+of wonderfully serene blue eyes.  Mercier, the acting-manager, called
+the Vicomte de Chagny's attention to him and said:
+
+"This is the gentleman to whom you should put your question, monsieur.
+Let me introduce Mifroid, the commissary of police."
+
+"Ah, M. le Vicomte de Chagny!  Delighted to meet you, monsieur," said
+the commissary.  "Would you mind coming with me? ... And now where are
+the managers? ... Where are the managers?"
+
+Mercier did not answer, and Remy, the secretary, volunteered the
+information that the managers were locked up in their office and that
+they knew nothing as yet of what had happened.
+
+"You don't mean to say so!  Let us go up to the office!"
+
+And M. Mifroid, followed by an ever-increasing crowd, turned toward the
+business side of the building.  Mercier took advantage of the confusion
+to slip a key into Gabriel's hand:
+
+"This is all going very badly," he whispered.  "You had better let
+Mother Giry out."
+
+And Gabriel moved away.
+
+They soon came to the managers' door.  Mercier stormed in vain: the
+door remained closed.
+
+"Open in the name of the law!" commanded M. Mifroid, in a loud and
+rather anxious voice.
+
+At last the door was opened.  All rushed in to the office, on the
+commissary's heels.
+
+Raoul was the last to enter.  As he was about to follow the rest into
+the room, a hand was laid on his shoulder and he heard these words
+spoken in his ear:
+
+"ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!"
+
+He turned around, with a stifled exclamation.  The hand that was laid
+on his shoulder was now placed on the lips of a person with an ebony
+skin, with eyes of jade and with an astrakhan cap on his head: the
+Persian!  The stranger kept up the gesture that recommended discretion
+and then, at the moment when the astonished viscount was about to ask
+the reason of his mysterious intervention, bowed and disappeared.
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI  Mme. Giry's Astounding Revelations as to Her Personal
+Relations with the Opera Ghost
+
+
+Before following the commissary into the manager's office I must
+describe certain extraordinary occurrences that took place in that
+office which Remy and Mercier had vainly tried to enter and into which
+MM. Richard and Moncharmin had locked themselves with an object which
+the reader does not yet know, but which it is my duty, as an historian,
+to reveal without further postponement.
+
+I have had occasion to say that the managers' mood had undergone a
+disagreeable change for some time past and to convey the fact that this
+change was due not only to the fall of the chandelier on the famous
+night of the gala performance.
+
+The reader must know that the ghost had calmly been paid his first
+twenty thousand francs.  Oh, there had been wailing and gnashing of
+teeth, indeed!  And yet the thing had happened as simply as could be.
+
+One morning, the managers found on their table an envelope addressed to
+"Monsieur O. G. (private)" and accompanied by a note from O. G. himself:
+
+The time has come to carry out the clause in the memorandum-book.
+Please put twenty notes of a thousand francs each into this envelope,
+seal it with your own seal and hand it to Mme. Giry, who will do what
+is necessary.
+
+The managers did not hesitate; without wasting time in asking how these
+confounded communications came to be delivered in an office which they
+were careful to keep locked, they seized this opportunity of laying
+hands, on the mysterious blackmailer.  And, after telling the whole
+story, under the promise of secrecy, to Gabriel and Mercier, they put
+the twenty thousand francs into the envelope and without asking for
+explanations, handed it to Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her
+functions.  The box-keeper displayed no astonishment.  I need hardly
+say that she was well watched.  She went straight to the ghost's box
+and placed the precious envelope on the little shelf attached to the
+ledge.  The two managers, as well as Gabriel and Mercier, were hidden
+in such a way that they did not lose sight of the envelope for a second
+during the performance and even afterward, for, as the envelope had not
+moved, those who watched it did not move either; and Mme. Giry went
+away while the managers, Gabriel and Mercier were still there.  At
+last, they became tired of waiting and opened the envelope, after
+ascertaining that the seals had not been broken.
+
+At first sight, Richard and Moncharmin thought that the notes were
+still there; but soon they perceived that they were not the same.  The
+twenty real notes were gone and had been replaced by twenty notes, of
+the "Bank of St. Farce"![1]
+
+The managers' rage and fright were unmistakable.  Moncharmin wanted to
+send for the commissary of police, but Richard objected.  He no doubt
+had a plan, for he said:
+
+"Don't let us make ourselves ridiculous!  All Paris would laugh at us.
+O. G. has won the first game:  we will win the second."
+
+He was thinking of the next month's allowance.
+
+Nevertheless, they had been so absolutely tricked that they were bound
+to suffer a certain dejection.  And, upon my word, it was not difficult
+to understand.  We must not forget that the managers had an idea at the
+back of their minds, all the time, that this strange incident might be
+an unpleasant practical joke on the part of their predecessors and that
+it would not do to divulge it prematurely.  On the other hand,
+Moncharmin was sometimes troubled with a suspicion of Richard himself,
+who occasionally took fanciful whims into his head.  And so they were
+content to await events, while keeping an eye on Mother Giry.  Richard
+would not have her spoken to.
+
+"If she is a confederate," he said, "the notes are gone long ago.  But,
+in my opinion, she is merely an idiot."
+
+"She's not the only idiot in this business," said Moncharmin pensively.
+
+"Well, who could have thought it?" moaned Richard.  "But don't be
+afraid ... next time, I shall have taken my precautions."
+
+The next time fell on the same day that beheld the disappearance of
+Christine Daae.  In the morning, a note from the ghost reminded them
+that the money was due.  It read:
+
+Do just as you did last time.  It went very well.  Put the twenty
+thousand in the envelope and hand it to our excellent Mme. Giry.
+
+And the note was accompanied by the usual envelope.  They had only to
+insert the notes.
+
+This was done about half an hour before the curtain rose on the first
+act of Faust.  Richard showed the envelope to Moncharmin.  Then he
+counted the twenty thousand-franc notes in front of him and put the
+notes into the envelope, but without closing it.
+
+"And now," he said, "let's have Mother Giry in."
+
+The old woman was sent for.  She entered with a sweeping courtesy.  She
+still wore her black taffeta dress, the color of which was rapidly
+turning to rust and lilac, to say nothing of the dingy bonnet.  She
+seemed in a good temper.  She at once said:
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen!  It's for the envelope, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, Mme. Giry," said Richard, most amiably.  "For the envelope ...
+and something else besides."
+
+"At your service, M. Richard, at your service.  And what is the
+something else, please?"
+
+"First of all, Mme. Giry, I have a little question to put to you."
+
+"By all means, M. Richard:  Mme. Giry is here to answer you."
+
+"Are you still on good terms with the ghost?"
+
+"Couldn't be better, sir; couldn't be better."
+
+"Ah, we are delighted ...  Look here, Mme. Giry," said Richard, in the
+tone of making an important confidence.  "We may just as well tell you,
+among ourselves ... you're no fool!"
+
+"Why, sir," exclaimed the box-keeper, stopping the pleasant nodding of
+the black feathers in her dingy bonnet, "I assure you no one has ever
+doubted that!"
+
+"We are quite agreed and we shall soon understand one another.  The
+story of the ghost is all humbug, isn't it? ... Well, still between
+ourselves, ... it has lasted long enough."
+
+Mme. Giry looked at the managers as though they were talking Chinese.
+She walked up to Richard's table and asked, rather anxiously:
+
+"What do you mean?  I don't understand."
+
+"Oh, you, understand quite well.  In any case, you've got to
+understand...  And, first of all, tell us his name."
+
+"Whose name?"
+
+"The name of the man whose accomplice you are, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"I am the ghost's accomplice?  I? ... His accomplice in what, pray?"
+
+"You do all he wants."
+
+"Oh!  He's not very troublesome, you know."
+
+"And does he still tip you?"
+
+"I mustn't complain."
+
+"How much does he give you for bringing him that envelope?"
+
+"Ten francs."
+
+"You poor thing!  That's not much, is it?
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'll tell you that presently, Mme. Giry.  Just now we should like to
+know for what extraordinary reason you have given yourself body and
+soul, to this ghost ... Mme. Giry's friendship and devotion are not to
+be bought for five francs or ten francs."
+
+"That's true enough ...  And I can tell you the reason, sir.  There's
+no disgrace about it...  on the contrary."
+
+"We're quite sure of that, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"Well, it's like this ... only the ghost doesn't like me to talk about
+his business."
+
+"Indeed?" sneered Richard.
+
+"But this is a matter that concerns myself alone ...  Well, it was in
+Box Five one evening, I found a letter addressed to myself, a sort of
+note written in red ink.  I needn't read the letter to you sir; I know
+it by heart, and I shall never forget it if I live to be a hundred!"
+
+And Mme. Giry, drawing herself up, recited the letter with touching
+eloquence:
+
+MADAM:
+
+1825.  Mlle. Menetrier, leader of the ballet, became Marquise de Cussy.
+
+1832.  Mlle. Marie Taglioni, a dancer, became Comtesse Gilbert des
+Voisins.
+
+1846.  La Sota, a dancer, married a brother of the King of Spain.
+
+1847.  Lola Montes, a dancer, became the morganatic wife of King Louis
+of Bavaria and was created Countess of Landsfeld.
+
+1848.  Mlle. Maria, a dancer, became Baronne d'Herneville.
+
+1870.  Theresa Hessier, a dancer, married Dom Fernando, brother to the
+King of Portugal.
+
+Richard and Moncharmin listened to the old woman, who, as she proceeded
+with the enumeration of these glorious nuptials, swelled out, took
+courage and, at last, in a voice bursting with pride, flung out the
+last sentence of the prophetic letter:
+
+1885.  Meg Giry, Empress!
+
+Exhausted by this supreme effort, the box-keeper fell into a chair,
+saying:
+
+"Gentlemen, the letter was signed, 'Opera Ghost.'  I had heard much of
+the ghost, but only half believed in him.  From the day when he
+declared that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit of my
+womb, would be empress, I believed in him altogether."
+
+And really it was not necessary to make a long study of Mme. Giry's
+excited features to understand what could be got out of that fine
+intellect with the two words "ghost" and "empress."
+
+But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet?  That was the
+question.
+
+"You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he
+says?" asked Moncharmin.
+
+"Yes.  To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted
+to be the leader of a row.  I said to the ghost, 'If she is to be
+empress in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at
+once.' He said, 'Look upon it as done.'  And he had only a word to say
+to M. Poligny and the thing was done."
+
+"So you see that M. Poligny saw him!"
+
+"No, not any more than I did; but he heard him.  The ghost said a word
+in his ear, you know, on the evening when he left Box Five, looking so
+dreadfully pale."
+
+Moncharmin heaved a sigh.  "What a business!" he groaned.
+
+"Ah!" said Mme. Giry.  "I always thought there were secrets between the
+ghost and M. Poligny.  Anything that the ghost asked M. Poligny to do
+M. Poligny did.  M. Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
+
+"You hear, Richard:  Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
+
+"Yes, yes, I hear!" said Richard.  "M. Poligny is a friend of the
+ghost; and, as Mme. Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, there we are!  ...
+But I don't care a hang about M. Poligny," he added roughly.  "The only
+person whose fate really interests me is Mme. Giry...  Mme. Giry, do
+you know what is in this envelope?"
+
+"Why, of course not," she said.
+
+"Well, look."
+
+Mine.  Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye, which soon
+recovered its brilliancy.
+
+"Thousand-franc notes!" she cried.
+
+"Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes!  And you knew it!"
+
+"I, sir?  I? ... I swear ..."
+
+"Don't swear, Mme. Giry! ... And now I will tell you the second reason
+why I sent for you.  Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested."
+
+The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected the
+attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes of
+exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace on the old
+lady's tempestuous chignon.  Surprise, indignation, protest and dismay
+were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother in a sort of
+extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound, half slide, that
+brought her right under the nose of M. Richard, who could not help
+pushing back his chair.
+
+"HAVE ME ARRESTED!"
+
+The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth that
+were left to it into Richard's face.
+
+M. Richard behaved like a hero.  He retreated no farther.  His
+threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out the keeper of
+Box Five to the absent magistrates.
+
+"I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!"
+
+"Say that again!"
+
+And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear,
+before Mr. Manager Moncharmin had time to intervene.  But it was not
+the withered hand of the angry old beldame that fell on the managerial
+ear, but the envelope itself, the cause of all the trouble, the magic
+envelope that opened with the blow, scattering the bank-notes, which
+escaped in a fantastic whirl of giant butterflies.
+
+The two managers gave a shout, and the same thought made them both go
+on their knees, feverishly, picking up and hurriedly examining the
+precious scraps of paper.
+
+"Are they still genuine, Moncharmin?"
+
+"Are they still genuine, Richard?"
+
+"Yes, they are still genuine!"
+
+Above their heads, Mme. Giry's three teeth were clashing in a noisy
+contest, full of hideous interjections.  But all that could be clearly
+distinguished was this LEIT-MOTIF:
+
+"I, a thief! ... I, a thief, I?"
+
+She choked with rage.  She shouted:
+
+"I never heard of such a thing!"
+
+And, suddenly, she darted up to Richard again.
+
+"In any case," she yelped, "you, M. Richard, ought to know better than
+I where the twenty thousand francs went to!"
+
+"I?" asked Richard, astounded.  "And how should I know?"
+
+Moncharmin, looking severe and dissatisfied, at once insisted that the
+good lady should explain herself.
+
+"What does this mean, Mme. Giry?" he asked.  "And why do you say that
+M. Richard ought to know better than you where the twenty-thousand
+francs went to?"
+
+As for Richard, who felt himself turning red under Moncharmin's eyes,
+he took Mme. Giry by the wrist and shook it violently.  In a voice
+growling and rolling like thunder, he roared:
+
+"Why should I know better than you where the twenty-thousand francs
+went to?  Why?  Answer me!"
+
+"Because they went into your pocket!" gasped the old woman, looking at
+him as if he were the devil incarnate.
+
+Richard would have rushed upon Mme. Giry, if Moncharmin had not stayed
+his avenging hand and hastened to ask her, more gently:
+
+"How can you suspect my partner, M. Richard, of putting twenty-thousand
+francs in his pocket?"
+
+"I never said that," declared Mme. Giry, "seeing that it was myself who
+put the twenty-thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket." And she
+added, under her voice, "There!  It's out! ... And may the ghost
+forgive me!"
+
+Richard began bellowing anew, but Moncharmin authoritatively ordered
+him to be silent.
+
+"Allow me!  Allow me!  Let the woman explain herself.  Let me question
+her."  And he added:  "It is really astonishing that you should take up
+such a tone! ... We are on the verge of clearing up the whole mystery.
+And you're in a rage! ... You're wrong to behave like that...  I'm
+enjoying myself immensely."
+
+Mme. Giry, like the martyr that she was, raised her head, her face
+beaming with faith in her own innocence.
+
+"You tell me there were twenty-thousand francs in the envelope which I
+put into M. Richard's pocket; but I tell you again that I knew nothing
+about it ...  Nor M. Richard either, for that matter!"
+
+"Aha!" said Richard, suddenly assuming a swaggering air which
+Moncharmin did not like.  "I knew nothing either!  You put
+twenty-thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing either!  I am
+very glad to hear it, Mme. Giry!"
+
+"Yes," the terrible dame agreed, "yes, it's true.  We neither of us
+knew anything.  But you, you must have ended by finding out!"
+
+Richard would certainly have swallowed Mme. Giry alive, if Moncharmin
+had not been there!  But Moncharmin protected her.  He resumed his
+questions:
+
+"What sort of envelope did you put in M. Richard's pocket?  It was not
+the one which we gave you, the one which you took to Box Five before
+our eyes; and yet that was the one which contained the twenty-thousand
+francs."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  The envelope which M. le Directeur gave me was the
+one which I slipped into M. le Directeur's pocket," explained Mme.
+Giry.  "The one which I took to the ghost's box was another envelope,
+just like it, which the ghost gave me beforehand and which I hid up my
+sleeve."
+
+So saying, Mme. Giry took from her sleeve an envelope ready prepared
+and similarly addressed to that containing the twenty-thousand francs.
+The managers took it from her.  They examined it and saw that it was
+fastened with seals stamped with their own managerial seal.  They
+opened it.  It contained twenty Bank of St. Farce notes like those
+which had so much astounded them the month before.
+
+"How simple!" said Richard.
+
+"How simple!" repeated Moncharmin.  And he continued with his eyes
+fixed upon Mme. Giry, as though trying to hypnotize her.
+
+"So it was the ghost who gave you this envelope and told you to
+substitute it for the one which we gave you?  And it was the ghost who
+told you to put the other into M. Richard's pocket?"
+
+"Yes, it was the ghost."
+
+"Then would you mind giving us a specimen of your little talents?  Here
+is the envelope.  Act as though we knew nothing."
+
+"As you please, gentlemen."
+
+Mme. Giry took the envelope with the twenty notes inside it and made
+for the door.  She was on the point of going out when the two managers
+rushed at her:
+
+"Oh, no!  Oh, no!  We're not going to be 'done' a second time!  Once
+bitten, twice shy!"
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the old woman, in self-excuse,
+"you told me to act as though you knew nothing ...  Well, if you knew
+nothing, I should go away with your envelope!"
+
+"And then how would you slip it into my pocket?" argued Richard, whom
+Moncharmin fixed with his left eye, while keeping his right on Mme.
+Giry:  a proceeding likely to strain his sight, but Moncharmin was
+prepared to go to any length to discover the truth.
+
+"I am to slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, sir.  You
+know that I always take a little turn behind the scenes, in the course
+of the evening, and I often go with my daughter to the ballet-foyer,
+which I am entitled to do, as her mother; I bring her her shoes, when
+the ballet is about to begin ... in fact, I come and go as I please ...
+The subscribers come and go too...  So do you, sir ...  There are lots
+of people about ...  I go behind you and slip the envelope into the
+tail-pocket of your dress-coat ...  There's no witchcraft about that!"
+
+"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.
+"No witchcraft!  Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"
+
+Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.
+
+"And why, may I ask?"
+
+"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope
+which you put there.  I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."
+
+"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at the
+next performance ... on the evening when the under-secretary of state
+for fine arts ..."
+
+At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry:
+
+"Yes, that's true, I remember now!  The under-secretary went behind the
+scenes.  He asked for me.  I went down to the ballet-foyer for a
+moment.  I was on the foyer steps ...  The under-secretary and his
+chief clerk were in the foyer itself.  I suddenly turned around ... you
+had passed behind me, Mme. Giry ...  You seemed to push against me ...
+Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"
+
+"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it.  I had just finished my little
+business.  That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"
+
+And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed
+behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed
+by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails of M.
+Richard's dress-coat.
+
+"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale.  "It's very
+clever of O. G.  The problem which he had to solve was this: how to do
+away with any dangerous intermediary between the man who gives the
+twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it.  And by far the
+best thing he could hit upon was to come and take the money from my
+pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not know that it was
+there.  It's wonderful!"
+
+"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!"  Moncharmin agreed.  "Only, you forget,
+Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that
+nobody put anything in my pocket!"
+
+
+
+[1] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond
+with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--Translator's
+Note.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII  The Safety-Pin Again
+
+
+Moncharmin's last phrase so dearly expressed the suspicion in which he
+now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation,
+at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yield to all
+Moncharmin's wishes, with the object of helping him to discover the
+miscreant who was victimizing them.
+
+This brings us to the interval after the Garden Act, with the strange
+conduct observed by M. Remy and those curious lapses from the dignity
+that might be expected of the managers.  It was arranged between
+Richard and Moncharmin, first, that Richard should repeat the exact
+movements which he had made on the night of the disappearance of the
+first twenty-thousand francs; and, second, that Moncharmin should not
+for an instant lose sight of Richard's coat-tail pocket, into which
+Mme. Giry was to slip the twenty-thousand francs.
+
+M. Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he had
+stood when he bowed to the under-secretary for fine arts.  M.
+Moncharmin took up his position a few steps behind him.
+
+Mme. Giry passed, rubbed up against M. Richard, got rid of her
+twenty-thousand francs in the manager's coat-tail pocket and
+disappeared ...  Or rather she was conjured away.  In accordance with
+the instructions received from Moncharmin a few minutes earlier,
+Mercier took the good lady to the acting-manager's office and turned
+the key on her, thus making it impossible for her to communicate with
+her ghost.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Richard was bending and bowing and scraping and walking
+backward, just as if he had that high and mighty minister, the
+under-secretary for fine arts, before him.  Only, though these marks of
+politeness would have created no astonishment if the under-secretary of
+state had really been in front of M. Richard, they caused an easily
+comprehensible amazement to the spectators of this very natural but
+quite inexplicable scene when M. Richard had no body in front of him.
+
+M. Richard bowed ... to nobody; bent his back ... before nobody; and
+walked backward ... before nobody ...  And, a few steps behind him, M.
+Moncharmin did the same thing that he was doing in addition to pushing
+away M. Remy and begging M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, and the
+manager of the Credit Central "not to touch M. le Directeur."
+
+Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come to him
+presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone, and say:
+
+"Perhaps it was the ambassador ... or the manager of the Credit Central
+... or Remy."
+
+The more so as, at the time of the first scene, as Richard himself
+admitted, Richard had met nobody in that part of the theater after Mme.
+Giry had brushed up against him...
+
+Having begun by walking backward in order to bow, Richard continued to
+do so from prudence, until he reached the passage leading to the
+offices of the management.  In this way, he was constantly watched by
+Moncharmin from behind and himself kept an eye on any one approaching
+from the front.  Once more, this novel method of walking behind the
+scenes, adopted by the managers of our National Academy of Music,
+attracted attention; but the managers themselves thought of nothing but
+their twenty-thousand francs.
+
+On reaching the half-dark passage, Richard said to Moncharmin, in a low
+voice:
+
+"I am sure that nobody has touched me ...  You had now better keep at
+some distance from me and watch me till I come to door of the office:
+it is better not to arouse suspicion and we can see anything that
+happens."
+
+But Moncharmin replied.  "No, Richard, no!  You walk ahead and I'll
+walk immediately behind you!  I won't leave you by a step!"
+
+"But, in that case," exclaimed Richard, "they will never steal our
+twenty-thousand francs!"
+
+"I should hope not, indeed!" declared Moncharmin.
+
+"Then what we are doing is absurd!"
+
+"We are doing exactly what we did last time ...  Last time, I joined
+you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind you down
+this passage."
+
+"That's true!" sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying
+Moncharmin.
+
+Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into their
+office.  Moncharmin himself put the key in his pocket:
+
+"We remained locked up like this, last time," he said, "until you left
+the Opera to go home."
+
+"That's so.  No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"Then," said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, "then I
+must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera."
+
+"No," said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, "no, that's
+impossible.  For I dropped you in my cab.  The twenty-thousand francs
+disappeared at your place:  there's not a shadow of a doubt about that."
+
+"It's incredible!" protested Richard.  "I am sure of my servants ...
+and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since."
+
+Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he did not
+wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think that Moncharmin
+was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.
+
+"Moncharmin, I've had enough of this!"
+
+"Richard, I've had too much of it!"
+
+"Do you dare to suspect me?"
+
+"Yes, of a silly joke."
+
+"One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs."
+
+"That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper and
+ostentatiously studying its contents.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked Richard.  "Are you going to read the paper
+next?"
+
+"Yes, Richard, until I take you home."
+
+"Like last time?"
+
+"Yes, like last time."
+
+Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands.  Moncharmin stood
+up, more irritated than ever, and found himself faced by an exasperated
+Richard, who, crossing his arms on his chest, said:
+
+"Look here, I'm thinking of this, I'M THINKING OF WHAT I MIGHT THINK
+if, like last time, after my spending the evening alone with you, you
+brought me home and if, at the moment of parting, I perceived that
+twenty-thousand francs had disappeared from my coat-pocket ... like
+last time."
+
+"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.
+
+"I might think that, as you hadn't left me by a foot's breadth and as,
+by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me, like last time,
+I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs was no longer in my
+pocket, it stood a very good chance of being in yours!"
+
+Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion.
+
+"Oh!" he shouted.  "A safety-pin!"
+
+"What do you want a safety-pin for?"
+
+"To fasten you up with! ... A safety-pin! ... A safety-pin!"
+
+"You want to fasten me with a safety-pin?"
+
+"Yes, to fasten you to the twenty-thousand francs!  Then, whether it's
+here, or on the drive from here to your place, or at your place, you
+will feel the hand that pulls at your pocket and you will see if it's
+mine!  Oh, so you're suspecting me now, are you?  A safety-pin!"
+
+And that was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door on the passage
+and shouted:
+
+"A safety-pin! ... somebody give me a safety-pin!"
+
+And we also know how, at the same moment, Remy, who had no safety-pin,
+was received by Moncharmin, while a boy procured the pin so eagerly
+longed for.  And what happened was this:  Moncharmin first locked the
+door again.  Then he knelt down behind Richard's back.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that the notes are still there?"
+
+"So do I," said Richard.
+
+"The real ones?" asked Moncharmin, resolved not to be "had" this time.
+
+"Look for yourself," said Richard.  "I refuse to touch them."
+
+Moncharmin took the envelope from Richard's pocket and drew out the
+bank-notes with a trembling hand, for, this time, in order frequently
+to make sure of the presence of the notes, he had not sealed the
+envelope nor even fastened it.  He felt reassured on finding that they
+were all there and quite genuine.  He put them back in the tail-pocket
+and pinned them with great care.  Then he sat down behind Richard's
+coat-tails and kept his eyes fixed on them, while Richard, sitting at
+his writing-table, did not stir.
+
+"A little patience, Richard," said Moncharmin.  "We have only a few
+minutes to wait ...  The clock will soon strike twelve.  Last time, we
+left at the last stroke of twelve."
+
+"Oh, I shall have all the patience necessary!"
+
+The time passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling.  Richard tried to
+laugh.
+
+"I shall end by believing in the omnipotence of the ghost," he said.
+"Just now, don't you find something uncomfortable, disquieting,
+alarming in the atmosphere of this room?"
+
+"You're quite right," said Moncharmin, who was really impressed.
+
+"The ghost!" continued Richard, in a low voice, as though fearing lest
+he should be overheard by invisible ears.  "The ghost!  Suppose, all
+the same, it were a ghost who puts the magic envelopes on the table ...
+who talks in Box Five ... who killed Joseph Buquet ...  who unhooked
+the chandelier ... and who robs us!  For, after all, after all, after
+all, there is no one here except you and me, and, if the notes
+disappear and neither you nor I have anything to do with it, well, we
+shall have to believe in the ghost ... in the ghost."
+
+At that moment, the clock on the mantlepiece gave its warning click and
+the first stroke of twelve struck.
+
+The two managers shuddered.  The perspiration streamed from their
+foreheads.  The twelfth stroke sounded strangely in their ears.
+
+When the clock stopped, they gave a sigh and rose from their chairs.
+
+"I think we can go now," said Moncharmin.
+
+"I think so," Richard a agreed.
+
+"Before we go, do you mind if I look in your pocket?"
+
+"But, of course, Moncharmin, YOU MUST! ... Well?" he asked, as
+Moncharmin was feeling at the pocket.
+
+"Well, I can feel the pin."
+
+"Of course, as you said, we can't be robbed without noticing it."
+
+But Moncharmin, whose hands were still fumbling, bellowed:
+
+"I can feel the pin, but I can't feel the notes!"
+
+"Come, no joking, Moncharmin! ... This isn't the time for it."
+
+"Well, feel for yourself."
+
+Richard tore off his coat.  The two managers turned the pocket inside
+out.  THE POCKET WAS EMPTY.  And the curious thing was that the pin
+remained, stuck in the same place.
+
+Richard and Moncharmin turned pale.  There was no longer any doubt
+about the witchcraft.
+
+"The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin.
+
+But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner.
+
+"No one but you has touched my pocket!  Give me back my twenty-thousand
+francs! ... Give me back my twenty-thousand francs! ..."
+
+"On my soul," sighed Moncharmin, who was ready to swoon, "on my soul, I
+swear that I haven't got it!"
+
+Then somebody knocked at the door.  Moncharmin opened it automatically,
+seemed hardly to recognize Mercier, his business-manager, exchanged a
+few words with him, without knowing what he was saying and, with an
+unconscious movement, put the safety-pin, for which he had no further
+use, into the hands of his bewildered subordinate ...
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII  The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian
+
+
+The first words of the commissary of police, on entering the managers'
+office, were to ask after the missing prima donna.
+
+"Is Christine Daae here?"
+
+"Christine Daae here?" echoed Richard.  "No. Why?"
+
+As for Moncharmin, he had not the strength left to utter a word.
+
+Richard repeated, for the commissary and the compact crowd which had
+followed him into the office observed an impressive silence.
+
+"Why do you ask if Christine Daae is here, M. LE COMMISSAIRE?"
+
+"Because she has to be found," declared the commissary of police
+solemnly.
+
+"What do you mean, she has to be found?  Has she disappeared?"
+
+"In the middle of the performance!"
+
+"In the middle of the performance?  This is extraordinary!"
+
+"Isn't it?  And what is quite as extraordinary is that you should first
+learn it from me!"
+
+"Yes," said Richard, taking his head in his hands and muttering.  "What
+is this new business?  Oh, it's enough to make a man send in his
+resignation!"
+
+And he pulled a few hairs out of his mustache without even knowing what
+he was doing.
+
+"So she ... so she disappeared in the middle of the performance?" he
+repeated.
+
+"Yes, she was carried off in the Prison Act, at the moment when she was
+invoking the aid of the angels; but I doubt if she was carried off by
+an angel."
+
+"And I am sure that she was!"
+
+Everybody looked round.  A young man, pale and trembling with
+excitement, repeated:
+
+"I am sure of it!"
+
+"Sure of what?" asked Mifroid.
+
+"That Christine Daae was carried off by an angel, M. LE COMMISSAIRE and
+I can tell you his name."
+
+"Aha, M. le Vicomte de Chagny!  So you maintain that Christine Daae was
+carried off by an angel:  an angel of the Opera, no doubt?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur, by an angel of the Opera; and I will tell you where he
+lives ... when we are alone."
+
+"You are right, monsieur."
+
+And the commissary of police, inviting Raoul to take a chair, cleared
+the room of all the rest, excepting the managers.
+
+Then Raoul spoke:
+
+"M. le Commissaire, the angel is called Erik, he lives in the Opera and
+he is the Angel of Music!"
+
+"The Angel of Music!  Really!  That is very curious! ... The Angel of
+Music!"  And, turning to the managers, M. Mifroid asked, "Have you an
+Angel of Music on the premises, gentlemen?"
+
+Richard and Moncharmin shook their heads, without even speaking.
+
+"Oh," said the viscount, "those gentlemen have heard of the Opera
+ghost.  Well, I am in a position to state that the Opera ghost and the
+Angel of Music are one and the same person; and his real name is Erik."
+
+M. Mifroid rose and looked at Raoul attentively.
+
+"I beg your pardon, monsieur but is it your intention to make fun of
+the law?  And, if not, what is all this about the Opera ghost?"
+
+"I say that these gentlemen have heard of him."
+
+"Gentlemen, it appears that you know the Opera ghost?"
+
+Richard rose, with the remaining hairs of his mustache in his hand.
+
+"No, M. Commissary, no, we do not know him, but we wish that we did,
+for this very evening he has robbed us of twenty-thousand francs!"
+
+And Richard turned a terrible look on Moncharmin, which seemed to say:
+
+"Give me back the twenty-thousand francs, or I'll tell the whole story."
+
+Moncharmin understood what he meant, for, with a distracted gesture, he
+said:
+
+"Oh, tell everything and have done with it!"
+
+As for Mifroid, he looked at the managers and at Raoul by turns and
+wondered whether he had strayed into a lunatic asylum.  He passed his
+hand through his hair.
+
+"A ghost," he said, "who, on the same evening, carries off an
+opera-singer and steals twenty-thousand francs is a ghost who must have
+his hands very full!  If you don't mind, we will take the questions in
+order.  The singer first, the twenty-thousand francs after.  Come, M.
+de Chagny, let us try to talk seriously.  You believe that Mlle.
+Christine Daae has been carried off by an individual called Erik.  Do
+you know this person?  Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In a church yard."
+
+M. Mifroid gave a start, began to scrutinize Raoul again and said:
+
+"Of course! ... That's where ghosts usually hang out! ... And what were
+you doing in that churchyard?"
+
+"Monsieur," said Raoul, "I can quite understand how absurd my replies
+must seem to you.  But I beg you to believe that I am in full
+possession of my faculties.  The safety of the person dearest to me in
+the world is at stake.  I should like to convince you in a few words,
+for time is pressing and every minute is valuable.  Unfortunately, if I
+do not tell you the strangest story that ever was from the beginning,
+you will not believe me.  I will tell you all I know about the Opera
+ghost, M. Commissary.  Alas, I do not know much! ..."
+
+"Never mind, go on, go on!" exclaimed Richard and Moncharmin, suddenly
+greatly interested.
+
+Unfortunately for their hopes of learning some detail that could put
+them on the track of their hoaxer, they were soon compelled to accept
+the fact that M. Raoul de Chagny had completely lost his head.  All
+that story about Perros-Guirec, death's heads and enchanted violins,
+could only have taken birth in the disordered brain of a youth mad with
+love.  It was evident, also, that Mr. Commissary Mifroid shared their
+view; and the magistrate would certainly have cut short the incoherent
+narrative if circumstances had not taken it upon themselves to
+interrupt it.
+
+The door opened and a man entered, curiously dressed in an enormous
+frock-coat and a tall hat, at once shabby and shiny, that came down to
+his ears.  He went up to the commissary and spoke to him in a whisper.
+It was doubtless a detective come to deliver an important communication.
+
+During this conversation, M. Mifroid did not take his eyes off Raoul.
+At last, addressing him, he said:
+
+"Monsieur, we have talked enough about the ghost.  We will now talk
+about yourself a little, if you have no objection: you were to carry
+off Mlle. Christine Daae to-night?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"After the performance?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"All your arrangements were made?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"The carriage that brought you was to take you both away...  There were
+fresh horses in readiness at every stage ..."
+
+"That is true, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"And nevertheless your carriage is still outside the Rotunda awaiting
+your orders, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Commissaire."
+
+"Did you know that there were three other carriages there, in addition
+to yours?"
+
+"I did not pay the least attention."
+
+"They were the carriages of Mlle. Sorelli, which could not find room in
+the Cour de l'Administration; of Carlotta; and of your brother, M. le
+Comte de Chagny..."
+
+"Very likely..."
+
+"What is certain is that, though your carriage and Sorelli's and
+Carlotta's are still there, by the Rotunda pavement, M. le Comte de
+Chagny's carriage is gone."
+
+"This has nothing to say to ..."
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Was not M. le Comte opposed to your marriage with
+Mlle. Daae?"
+
+"That is a matter that only concerns the family."
+
+"You have answered my question:  he was opposed to it ... and that was
+why you were carrying Christine Daae out of your brother's reach...
+Well, M. de Chagny, allow me to inform you that your brother has been
+smarter than you!  It is he who has carried off Christine Daae!"
+
+"Oh, impossible!" moaned Raoul, pressing his hand to his heart.  "Are
+you sure?"
+
+"Immediately after the artist's disappearance, which was procured by
+means which we have still to ascertain, he flung into his carriage,
+which drove right across Paris at a furious pace."
+
+"Across Paris?" asked poor Raoul, in a hoarse voice.  "What do you mean
+by across Paris?"
+
+"Across Paris and out of Paris ... by the Brussels road."
+
+"Oh," cried the young man, "I shall catch them!"  And he rushed out of
+the office.
+
+"And bring her back to us!" cried the commisary gaily ...  "Ah, that's
+a trick worth two of the Angel of Music's!"
+
+And, turning to his audience, M. Mifroid delivered a little lecture on
+police methods.
+
+"I don't know for a moment whether M. le Comte de Chagny has really
+carried Christine Daae off or not ... but I want to know and I believe
+that, at this moment, no one is more anxious to inform us than his
+brother ...  And now he is flying in pursuit of him!  He is my chief
+auxiliary!  This, gentlemen, is the art of the police, which is
+believed to be so complicated and which, nevertheless appears so simple
+as soon its you see that it consists in getting your work done by
+people who have nothing to do with the police."
+
+But M. le Commissaire de Police Mifroid would not have been quite so
+satisfied with himself if he had known that the rush of his rapid
+emissary was stopped at the entrance to the very first corridor.  A
+tall figure blocked Raoul's way.
+
+"Where are you going so fast, M. de Chagny?" asked a voice.
+
+Raoul impatiently raised his eyes and recognized the astrakhan cap of
+an hour ago.  He stopped:
+
+"It's you!" he cried, in a feverish voice.  "You, who know Erik's
+secrets and don't want me to speak of them.  Who are you?"
+
+"You know who I am! ... I am the Persian!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX  The Viscount and the Persian
+
+
+Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that
+mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a
+Persian and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue de
+Rivoli.
+
+The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan cap
+bent over Raoul.
+
+"I hope, M. de Chagny," he said, "that you have not betrayed Erik's
+secret?"
+
+"And why should I hesitate to betray that monster, sir?" Raoul rejoined
+haughtily, trying to shake off the intruder.  "Is he your friend, by
+any chance?"
+
+"I hope that you said nothing about Erik, sir, because Erik's secret is
+also Christine Daae's and to talk about one is to talk about the other!"
+
+"Oh, sir," said Raoul, becoming more and more impatient, "you seem to
+know about many things that interest me; and yet I have no time to
+listen to you!"
+
+"Once more, M. de Chagny, where are you going so fast?"
+
+"Can not you guess?  To Christine Daae's assistance..."
+
+"Then, sir, stay here, for Christine Daae is here!"
+
+"With Erik?"
+
+"With Erik."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I was at the performance and no one in the world but Erik could
+contrive an abduction like that! ... Oh," he said, with a deep sigh, "I
+recognized the monster's touch! ..."
+
+"You know him then?"
+
+The Persian did not reply, but heaved a fresh sigh.
+
+"Sir," said Raoul, "I do not know what your intentions are, but can you
+do anything to help me?  I mean, to help Christine Daae?"
+
+"I think so, M. de Chagny, and that is why I spoke to you."
+
+"What can you do?"
+
+"Try to take you to her ... and to him."
+
+"If you can do me that service, sir, my life is yours! ... One word
+more:  the commissary of police tells me that Christine Daae has been
+carried off by my brother, Count Philippe."
+
+"Oh, M. de Chagny, I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"It's not possible, is it?"
+
+"I don't know if it is possible or not; but there are ways and ways of
+carrying people off; and M. le Comte Philippe has never, as far as I
+know, had anything to do with witchcraft."
+
+"Your arguments are convincing, sir, and I am a fool! ... Oh, let us
+make haste!  I place myself entirely in your hands! ...  How should I
+not believe you, when you are the only one to believe me ... when you
+are the only one not to smile when Erik's name is mentioned?"
+
+And the young man impetuously seized the Persian's hands.  They were
+ice-cold.
+
+"Silence!" said the Persian, stopping and listening to the distant
+sounds of the theater.  "We must not mention that name here.  Let us
+say 'he' and 'him;' then there will be less danger of attracting his
+attention."
+
+"Do you think he is near us?"
+
+"It is quite possible, Sir, if he is not, at this moment, with his
+victim, IN THE HOUSE ON THE LAKE."
+
+"Ah, so you know that house too?"
+
+"If he is not there, he may be here, in this wall, in this floor, in
+this ceiling! ... Come!"
+
+And the Persian, asking Raoul to deaden the sound of his footsteps, led
+him down passages which Raoul had never seen before, even at the time
+when Christine used to take him for walks through that labyrinth.
+
+"If only Darius has come!" said the Persian.
+
+"Who is Darius?"
+
+"Darius?  My servant."
+
+They were now in the center of a real deserted square, an immense
+apartment ill-lit by a small lamp.  The Persian stopped Raoul and, in
+the softest of whispers, asked:
+
+"What did you say to the commissary?"
+
+"I said that Christine Daae's abductor was the Angel of Music, ALIAS
+the Opera ghost, and that the real name was ..."
+
+"Hush! ... And did he believe you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He attached no importance to what you said?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He took you for a bit of a madman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So much the better!" sighed the Persian.
+
+And they continued their road.  After going up and down several
+staircases which Raoul had never seen before, the two men found
+themselves in front of a door which the Persian opened with a
+master-key. The Persian and Raoul were both, of course, in
+dress-clothes; but, whereas Raoul had a tall hat, the Persian wore the
+astrakhan cap which I have already mentioned.  It was an infringement
+of the rule which insists upon the tall hat behind the scenes; but in
+France foreigners are allowed every license: the Englishman his
+traveling-cap, the Persian his cap of astrakhan.
+
+"Sir," said the Persian, "your tall hat will be in your way: you would
+do well to leave it in the dressing-room."
+
+"What dressing-room?" asked Raoul.
+
+"Christine Daae's."
+
+And the Persian, letting Raoul through the door which he had just
+opened, showed him the actress' room opposite.  They were at the end of
+the passage the whole length of which Raoul had been accustomed to
+traverse before knocking at Christine's door.
+
+"How well you know the Opera, sir!"
+
+"Not so well as 'he' does!" said the Persian modestly.
+
+And he pushed the young man into Christine's dressing-room, which was
+as Raoul had left it a few minutes earlier.
+
+Closing the door, the Persian went to a very thin partition that
+separated the dressing-room from a big lumber-room next to it.  He
+listened and then coughed loudly.
+
+There was a sound of some one stirring in the lumber-room; and, a few
+seconds later, a finger tapped at the door.
+
+"Come in," said the Persian.
+
+A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and dressed in a long
+overcoat.  He bowed and took a richly carved case from under his coat,
+put it on the dressing-table, bowed once again and went to the door.
+
+"Did no one see you come in, Darius?"
+
+"No, master."
+
+"Let no one see you go out."
+
+The servant glanced down the passage and swiftly disappeared.
+
+The Persian opened the case.  It contained a pair of long pistols.
+
+"When Christine Daae was carried off, sir, I sent word to my servant to
+bring me these pistols.  I have had them a long time and they can be
+relied upon."
+
+"Do you mean to fight a duel?" asked the young man.
+
+"It will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight," said the
+other, examining the priming of his pistols.  "And what a duel!"
+Handing one of the pistols to Raoul, he added, "In this duel, we shall
+be two to one; but you must be prepared for everything, for we shall be
+fighting the most terrible adversary that you can imagine.  But you
+love Christine Daae, do you not?"
+
+"I worship the ground she stands on!  But you, sir, who do not love
+her, tell me why I find you ready to risk your life for her!  You must
+certainly hate Erik!"
+
+"No, sir," said the Persian sadly, "I do not hate him.  If I hated him,
+he would long ago have ceased doing harm."
+
+"Has he done you harm?"
+
+"I have forgiven him the harm which he has done me."
+
+"I do not understand you.  You treat him as a monster, you speak of his
+crime, he has done you harm and I find in you the same inexplicable
+pity that drove me to despair when I saw it in Christine!"
+
+The Persian did not reply.  He fetched a stool and set it against the
+wall facing the great mirror that filled the whole of the wall-space
+opposite.  Then he climbed on the stool and, with his nose to the
+wallpaper, seemed to be looking for something.
+
+"Ah," he said, after a long search, "I have it!"  And, raising his
+finger above his head, he pressed against a corner in the pattern of
+the paper.  Then he turned round and jumped off the stool:
+
+"In half a minute," he said, "he shall be ON HIS ROAD!" and crossing
+the whole of the dressing-room he felt the great mirror.
+
+"No, it is not yielding yet," he muttered.
+
+"Oh, are we going out by the mirror?" asked Raoul.  "Like Christine
+Daae."
+
+"So you knew that Christine Daae went out by that mirror?"
+
+"She did so before my eyes, sir!  I was hidden behind the curtain of
+the inner room and I saw her vanish not by the glass, but in the glass!"
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I thought it was an aberration of my senses, a mad dream.
+
+"Or some new fancy of the ghost's!" chuckled the Persian.  "Ah, M. de
+Chagny," he continued, still with his hand on the mirror, "would that
+we had to do with a ghost!  We could then leave our pistols in their
+case ...  Put down your hat, please ... there ... and now cover your
+shirt-front as much as you can with your coat ... as I am doing ...
+Bring the lapels forward ... turn up the collar ...  We must make
+ourselves as invisible as possible."
+
+Bearing against the mirror, after a short silence, he said:
+
+"It takes some time to release the counterbalance, when you press on
+the spring from the inside of the room.  It is different when you are
+behind the wall and can act directly on the counterbalance.  Then the
+mirror turns at once and is moved with incredible rapidity."
+
+"What counterbalance?" asked Raoul.
+
+"Why, the counterbalance that lifts the whole of this wall on to its
+pivot.  You surely don't expect it to move of itself, by enchantment!
+If you watch, you will see the mirror first rise an inch or two and
+then shift an inch or two from left to right.  It will then be on a
+pivot and will swing round."
+
+"It's not turning!" said Raoul impatiently.
+
+"Oh, wait!  You have time enough to be impatient, sir!  The mechanism
+has obviously become rusty, or else the spring isn't working... Unless
+it is something else," added the Persian, anxiously.
+
+"What?"
+
+"He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and blocked the
+whole apparatus."
+
+"Why should he?  He does not know that we are coming this way!"
+
+"I dare say he suspects it, for he knows that I understand the system."
+
+"It's not turning! ... And Christine, sir, Christine?"
+
+The Persian said coldly:
+
+"We shall do all that it is humanly possible to do! ... But he may stop
+us at the first step! ... He commands the walls, the doors and the
+trapdoors.  In my country, he was known by a name which means the
+'trap-door lover.'"
+
+"But why do these walls obey him alone?  He did not build them!"
+
+"Yes, sir, that is just what he did!"
+
+Raoul looked at him in amazement; but the Persian made a sign to him to
+be silent and pointed to the glass ...  There was a sort of shivering
+reflection.  Their image was troubled as in a rippling sheet of water
+and then all became stationary again.
+
+"You see, sir, that it is not turning!  Let us take another road!"
+
+"To-night, there is no other!" declared the Persian, in a singularly
+mournful voice.  "And now, look out!  And be ready to fire."
+
+He himself raised his pistol opposite the glass.  Raoul imitated his
+movement.  With his free arm, the Persian drew the young man to his
+chest and, suddenly, the mirror turned, in a blinding daze of
+cross-lights: it turned like one of those revolving doors which have
+lately been fixed to the entrances of most restaurants, it turned,
+carrying Raoul and the Persian with it and suddenly hurling them from
+the full light into the deepest darkness.
+
+
+
+Chapter XX  In the Cellars of the Opera
+
+
+"Your hand high, ready to fire!" repeated Raoul's companion quickly.
+
+The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it described
+upon itself, closed again; and the two men stood motionless for a
+moment, holding their breath.
+
+At last, the Persian decided to make a movement; and Raoul heard him
+slip on his knees and feel for something in the dark with his groping
+hands.  Suddenly, the darkness was made visible by a small dark lantern
+and Raoul instinctively stepped backward as though to escape the
+scrutiny of a secret enemy.  But he soon perceived that the light
+belonged to the Persian, whose movements he was closely observing.  The
+little red disk was turned in every direction and Raoul saw that the
+floor, the walls and the ceiling were all formed of planking.  It must
+have been the ordinary road taken by Erik to reach Christine's
+dressing-room and impose upon her innocence.  And Raoul, remembering
+the Persian's remark, thought that it had been mysteriously constructed
+by the ghost himself.  Later, he learned that Erik had found, all
+prepared for him, a secret passage, long known to himself alone and
+contrived at the time of the Paris Commune to allow the jailers to
+convey their prisoners straight to the dungeons that had been
+constructed for them in the cellars; for the Federates had occupied the
+opera-house immediately after the eighteenth of March and had made a
+starting-place right at the top for their Mongolfier balloons, which
+carried their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and a state
+prison right at the bottom.
+
+The Persian went on his knees and put his lantern on the ground.  He
+seemed to be working at the floor; and suddenly he turned off his
+light.  Then Raoul heard a faint click and saw a very pale luminous
+square in the floor of the passage.  It was as though a window had
+opened on the Opera cellars, which were still lit.  Raoul no longer saw
+the Persian, but he suddenly felt him by his side and heard him whisper:
+
+"Follow me and do all that I do."
+
+Raoul turned to the luminous aperture.  Then he saw the Persian, who
+was still on his knees, hang by his hands from the rim of the opening,
+with his pistol between his teeth, and slide into the cellar below.
+
+Curiously enough, the viscount had absolute confidence in the Persian,
+though he knew nothing about him.  His emotion when speaking of the
+"monster" struck him as sincere; and, if the Persian had cherished any
+sinister designs against him, he would not have armed him with his own
+hands.  Besides, Raoul must reach Christine at all costs.  He therefore
+went on his knees also and hung from the trap with both hands.
+
+"Let go!" said a voice.
+
+And he dropped into the arms of the Persian, who told him to lie down
+flat, closed the trap-door above him and crouched down beside him.
+Raoul tried to ask a question, but the Persian's hand was on his mouth
+and he heard a voice which he recognized as that of the commissary of
+police.
+
+Raoul and the Persian were completely hidden behind a wooden partition.
+Near them, a small staircase led to a little room in which the
+commissary appeared to be walking up and down, asking questions.  The
+faint light was just enough to enable Raoul to distinguish the shape of
+things around him.  And he could not restrain a dull cry: there were
+three corpses there.
+
+The first lay on the narrow landing of the little staircase; the two
+others had rolled to the bottom of the staircase.  Raoul could have
+touched one of the two poor wretches by passing his fingers through the
+partition.
+
+"Silence!" whispered the Persian.
+
+He too had seen the bodies and he gave one word in explanation:
+
+"HE!"
+
+The commissary's voice was now heard more distinctly.  He was asking
+for information about the system of lighting, which the stage-manager
+supplied.  The commissary therefore must be in the "organ" or its
+immediate neighborhood.
+
+Contrary to what one might think, especially in connection with an
+opera-house, the "organ" is not a musical instrument.  At that time,
+electricity was employed only for a very few scenic effects and for the
+bells.  The immense building and the stage itself were still lit by
+gas; hydrogen was used to regulate and modify the lighting of a scene;
+and this was done by means of a special apparatus which, because of the
+multiplicity of its pipes, was known as the "organ." A box beside the
+prompter's box was reserved for the chief gas-man, who from there gave
+his orders to his assistants and saw that they were executed.  Mauclair
+stayed in this box during all the performances.
+
+But now Mauclair was not in his box and his assistants not in their
+places.
+
+"Mauclair!  Mauclair!"
+
+The stage-manager's voice echoed through the cellars.  But Mauclair did
+not reply.
+
+I have said that a door opened on a little staircase that led to the
+second cellar.  The commissary pushed it, but it resisted.
+
+"I say," he said to the stage-manager, "I can't open this door: is it
+always so difficult?"
+
+The stage-manager forced it open with his shoulder.  He saw that, at
+the same time, he was pushing a human body and he could not keep back
+an exclamation, for he recognized the body at once:
+
+"Mauclair!  Poor devil!  He is dead!"
+
+But Mr. Commissary Mifroid, whom nothing surprised, was stooping over
+that big body.
+
+"No," he said, "he is dead-drunk, which is not quite the same thing."
+
+"It's the first time, if so," said the stage-manager
+
+"Then some one has given him a narcotic.  That is quite possible."
+
+Mifroid went down a few steps and said:
+
+"Look!"
+
+By the light of a little red lantern, at the foot of the stairs, they
+saw two other bodies.  The stage-manager recognized Mauclair's
+assistants.  Mifroid went down and listened to their breathing.
+
+"They are sound asleep," he said.  "Very curious business!  Some person
+unknown must have interfered with the gas-man and his staff ... and
+that person unknown was obviously working on behalf of the kidnapper
+...  But what a funny idea to kidnap a performer on the stage! ... Send
+for the doctor of the theater, please." And Mifroid repeated, "Curious,
+decidedly curious business!"
+
+Then he turned to the little room, addressing the people whom Raoul and
+the Persian were unable to see from where they lay.
+
+"What do you say to all this, gentlemen?  You are the only ones who
+have not given your views.  And yet you must have an opinion of some
+sort."
+
+Thereupon, Raoul and the Persian saw the startled faces of the joint
+managers appear above the landing--and they heard Moncharmin's excited
+voice:
+
+"There are things happening here, Mr. Commissary, which we are unable
+to explain."
+
+And the two faces disappeared.
+
+"Thank you for the information, gentlemen," said Mifroid, with a jeer.
+
+But the stage-manager, holding his chin in the hollow of his right
+hand, which is the attitude of profound thought, said:
+
+"It is not the first time that Mauclair has fallen asleep in the
+theater.  I remember finding him, one evening, snoring in his little
+recess, with his snuff-box beside him."
+
+"Is that long ago?" asked M. Mifroid, carefully wiping his eye-glasses.
+
+"No, not so very long ago ...  Wait a bit! ... It was the night ... of
+course, yes ... It was the night when Carlotta--you know, Mr.
+Commissary--gave her famous 'co-ack'!"
+
+"Really?  The night when Carlotta gave her famous 'co-ack'?"
+
+And M. Mifroid, replacing his gleaming glasses on his nose, fixed the
+stage-manager with a contemplative stare.
+
+"So Mauclair takes snuff, does he?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"'Yes, Mr. Commissary ...  Look, there is his snuff-box on that little
+shelf ...  Oh! he's a great snuff-taker!"
+
+"So am I," said Mifroid and put the snuff-box in his pocket.
+
+Raoul and the Persian, themselves unobserved, watched the removal of
+the three bodies by a number of scene-shifters, who were followed by
+the commissary and all the people with him.  Their steps were heard for
+a few minutes on the stage above.  When they were alone the Persian
+made a sign to Raoul to stand up.  Raoul did so; but, as he did not
+lift his hand in front of his eyes, ready to fire, the Persian told him
+to resume that attitude and to continue it, whatever happened.
+
+"But it tires the hand unnecessarily," whispered Raoul.  "If I do fire,
+I shan't be sure of my aim."
+
+"Then shift your pistol to the other hand," said the Persian.
+
+"I can't shoot with my left hand."
+
+Thereupon, the Persian made this queer reply, which was certainly not
+calculated to throw light into the young man's flurried brain:
+
+"It's not a question of shooting with the right hand or the left; it's
+a question of holding one of your hands as though you were going to
+pull the trigger of a pistol with your arm bent.  As for the pistol
+itself, when all is said, you can put that in your pocket!"  And he
+added, "Let this be clearly understood, or I will answer for nothing.
+It is a matter of life and death.  And now, silence and follow me!"
+
+The cellars of the Opera are enormous and they are five in number.
+Raoul followed the Persian and wondered what he would have done without
+his companion in that extraordinary labyrinth.  They went down to the
+third cellar; and their progress was still lit by some distant lamp.
+
+The lower they went, the more precautions the Persian seemed to take.
+He kept on turning to Raoul to see if he was holding his arm properly,
+showing him how he himself carried his hand as if always ready to fire,
+though the pistol was in his pocket.
+
+Suddenly, a loud voice made them stop.  Some one above them shouted:
+
+"All the door-shutters on the stage!  The commissary of police wants
+them!"
+
+Steps were heard and shadows glided through the darkness.  The Persian
+drew Raoul behind a set piece.  They saw passing before and above them
+old men bent by age and the past burden of opera-scenery.  Some could
+hardly drag themselves along; others, from habit, with stooping bodies
+and outstretched hands, looked for doors to shut.
+
+They were the door-shutters, the old, worn-out scene-shifters, on whom
+a charitable management had taken pity, giving them the job of shutting
+doors above and below the stage.  They went about incessantly, from top
+to bottom of the building, shutting the doors; and they were also
+called "The draft-expellers," at least at that time, for I have little
+doubt that by now they are all dead.  Drafts are very bad for the
+voice, wherever they may come from.[1]
+
+The two men might have stumbled over them, waking them up and provoking
+a request for explanations.  For the moment, M. Mifroid's inquiry saved
+them from any such unpleasant encounters.
+
+The Persian and Raoul welcomed this incident, which relieved them of
+inconvenient witnesses, for some of those door-shutters, having nothing
+else to do or nowhere to lay their heads, stayed at the Opera, from
+idleness or necessity, and spent the night there.
+
+But they were not left to enjoy their solitude for long.  Other shades
+now came down by the same way by which the door-shutters had gone up.
+Each of these shades carried a little lantern and moved it about,
+above, below and all around, as though looking for something or
+somebody.
+
+"Hang it!" muttered the Persian.  "I don't know what they are looking
+for, but they might easily find us ...  Let us get away, quick! ...
+Your hand up, sir, ready to fire! ... Bend your arm ... more ... that's
+it! ... Hand at the level of your eye, as though you were fighting a
+duel and waiting for the word to fire!  Oh, leave your pistol in your
+pocket.  Quick, come along, down-stairs.  Level of your eye!  Question
+of life or death! ...  Here, this way, these stairs!"  They reached the
+fifth cellar.  "Oh, what a duel, sir, what a duel!"
+
+Once in the fifth cellar, the Persian drew breath.  He seemed to enjoy
+a rather greater sense of security than he had displayed when they both
+stopped in the third; but he never altered the attitude of his hand.
+And Raoul, remembering the Persian's observation--"I know these pistols
+can be relied upon"--was more and more astonished, wondering why any
+one should be so gratified at being able to rely upon a pistol which he
+did not intend to use!
+
+But the Persian left him no time for reflection.  Telling Raoul to stay
+where he was, he ran up a few steps of the staircase which they had
+just left and then returned.
+
+"How stupid of us!" he whispered.  "We shall soon have seen the end of
+those men with their lanterns.  It is the firemen going their
+rounds."[2]
+
+The two men waited five minutes longer.  Then the Persian took Raoul up
+the stairs again; but suddenly he stopped him with a gesture.
+Something moved in the darkness before them.
+
+"Flat on your stomach!" whispered the Persian.
+
+The two men lay flat on the floor.
+
+They were only just in time.  A shade, this time carrying no light,
+just a shade in the shade, passed.  It passed close to them, near
+enough to touch them.
+
+They felt the warmth of its cloak upon them.  For they could
+distinguish the shade sufficiently to see that it wore a cloak which
+shrouded it from head to foot.  On its head it had a soft felt hat ...
+
+It moved away, drawing its feet against the walls and sometimes giving
+a kick into a corner.
+
+"Whew!" said the Persian.  "We've had a narrow escape; that shade knows
+me and has twice taken me to the managers' office."
+
+"Is it some one belonging to the theater police?" asked Raoul.
+
+"It's some one much worse than that!" replied the Persian, without
+giving any further explanation.[3]
+
+"It's not ... he?"
+
+"He? ... If he does not come behind us, we shall always see his yellow
+eyes!  That is more or less our safeguard to-night. But he may come
+from behind, stealing up; and we are dead men if we do not keep our
+hands as though about to fire, at the level of our eyes, in front!"
+
+The Persian had hardly finished speaking, when a fantastic face came in
+sight ... a whole fiery face, not only two yellow eyes!
+
+Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no
+body attached to it.  The face shed fire, looked in the darkness like a
+flame shaped as a man's face.
+
+"Oh," said the Persian, between his teeth.  "I have never seen this
+before! ... Pampin was not mad, after all: he had seen it! ...  What
+can that flame be?  It is not HE, but he may have sent it!  ... Take
+care! ... Take care!  Your hand at the level of your eyes, in Heaven's
+name, at the level of your eyes! ... know most of his tricks ...  but
+not this one ...  Come, let us run ...  it is safer.  Hand at the level
+of your eyes!"
+
+And they fled down the long passage that opened before them.
+
+After a few seconds, that seemed to them like long minutes, they
+stopped.
+
+"He doesn't often come this way," said the Persian.  "This side has
+nothing to do with him.  This side does not lead to the lake nor to the
+house on the lake ...  But perhaps he knows that we are at his heels
+... although I promised him to leave him alone and never to meddle in
+his business again!"
+
+So saying, he turned his head and Raoul also turned his head; and they
+again saw the head of fire behind their two heads.  It had followed
+them.  And it must have run also, and perhaps faster than they, for it
+seemed to be nearer to them.
+
+At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they
+could not guess the nature.  They simply noticed that the sound seemed
+to move and to approach with the fiery face.  It was a noise as though
+thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard, the perfectly
+unendurable noise that is sometimes made by a little stone inside the
+chalk that grates on the blackboard.
+
+They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining
+on them.  They could see its features clearly now.  The eyes were round
+and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a
+hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when
+the moon is quite red, bright red.
+
+How did that red moon manage to glide through the darkness, at a man's
+height, with nothing to support it, at least apparently?  And how did
+it go so fast, so straight ahead, with such staring, staring eyes?  And
+what was that scratching, scraping, grating sound which it brought with
+it?
+
+The Persian and Raoul could retreat no farther and flattened themselves
+against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen because of that
+incomprehensible head of fire, and especially now, because of the more
+intense, swarming, living, "numerous" sound, for the sound was
+certainly made up of hundreds of little sounds that moved in the
+darkness, under the fiery face.
+
+And the fiery face came on ... with its noise ... came level with them!
+...
+
+And the two companions, flat against their wall, felt their hair stand
+on end with horror, for they now knew what the thousand noises meant.
+They came in a troop, hustled along in the shadow by innumerable little
+hurried waves, swifter than the waves that rush over the sands at high
+tide, little night-waves foaming under the moon, under the fiery head
+that was like a moon.  And the little waves passed between their legs,
+climbing up their legs, irresistibly, and Raoul and the Persian could
+no longer restrain their cries of horror, dismay and pain.  Nor could
+they continue to hold their hands at the level of their eyes: their
+hands went down to their legs to push back the waves, which were full
+of little legs and nails and claws and teeth.
+
+Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the
+fireman.  But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries,
+and spoke to them:
+
+"Don't move!  Don't move! ... Whatever you do, don't come after me!
+...  I am the rat-catcher! ... Let me pass, with my rats! ..."
+
+And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness, while the
+passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change which the
+rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern.  Before, so as not to scare
+the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on himself,
+lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight, he lit the dark
+space in front of him.  And he jumped along, dragging with him the
+waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.
+
+Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.
+
+"I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the
+rat-catcher," said the Persian.  "But he never told me that he looked
+like that ...  and it's funny that I should never have met him before
+...  Of course, Erik never comes to this part!"
+
+[Illustration: two page color illustration]
+
+"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul.  "When shall we get
+there? ... Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake! ...  When we
+are at the lake, we will call out! ... Christine will hear us! ... And
+HE will hear us, too! ... And, as you know him, we shall talk to him!"
+"Baby!" said the Persian.  "We shall never enter the house on the lake
+by the lake! ... I myself have never landed on the other bank ... the
+bank on which the house stands.  ... You have to cross the lake first
+... and it is well guarded!  ... I fear that more than one of those
+men--old scene-shifters, old door-shutters--who have never been seen
+again were simply tempted to cross the lake ...  It is terrible ...  I
+myself would have been nearly killed there ... if the monster had not
+recognized me in time!  ... One piece of advice, sir; never go near the
+lake... And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing
+under the water, the siren's voice!"
+
+"But then, what are we here for?" asked Raoul, in a transport of fever,
+impatience and rage.  "If you can do nothing for Christine, at least
+let me die for her!"  The Persian tried to calm the young man.
+
+"We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me, which is
+to enter the house unperceived by the monster."
+
+"And is there any hope of that, sir?"
+
+"Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!"
+
+"And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing the lake?"
+
+"From the third cellar, from which we were so unluckily driven away.
+We will go back there now ...  I will tell you," said the Persian, with
+a sudden change in his voice, "I will tell you the exact place, sir: it
+is between a set piece and a discarded scene from ROI DE LAHORE,
+exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died...  Come, sir, take
+courage and follow me!  And hold your hand at the level of your eyes!
+... But where are we?"
+
+The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous
+corridors that crossed each other at right angles.
+
+"We must be," he said, "in the part used more particularly for the
+waterworks.  I see no fire coming from the furnaces."
+
+He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road, stopping abruptly when he
+was afraid of meeting some waterman.  Then they had to protect
+themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge, which the
+men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized the demons whom
+Christine had seen at the time of her first captivity.
+
+In this way, they gradually arrived beneath the huge cellars below the
+stage.  They must at this time have been at the very bottom of the
+"tub" and at an extremely great depth, when we remember that the earth
+was dug out at fifty feet below the water that lay under the whole of
+that part of Paris.[4]
+
+The Persian touched a partition-wall and said:
+
+"If I am not mistaken, this is a wall that might easily belong to the
+house on the lake."
+
+He was striking a partition-wall of the "tub," and perhaps it would be
+as well for the reader to know how the bottom and the partition-walls
+of the tub were built.  In order to prevent the water surrounding the
+building-operations from remaining in immediate contact with the walls
+supporting the whole of the theatrical machinery, the architect was
+obliged to build a double case in every direction.  The work of
+constructing this double case took a whole year.  It was the wall of
+the first inner case that the Persian struck when speaking to Raoul of
+the house on the lake.  To any one understanding the architecture of
+the edifice, the Persian's action would seem to indicate that Erik's
+mysterious house had been built in the double case, formed of a thick
+wall constructed as an embankment or dam, then of a brick wall, a
+tremendous layer of cement and another wall several yards in thickness.
+
+At the Persian's words, Raoul flung himself against the wall and
+listened eagerly.  But he heard nothing ... nothing ... except distant
+steps sounding on the floor of the upper portions of the theater.
+
+The Persian darkened his lantern again.
+
+"Look out!" he said.  "Keep your hand up!  And silence!  For we shall
+try another way of getting in."
+
+And he led him to the little staircase by which they had come down
+lately.
+
+They went up, stopping at each step, peering into the darkness and the
+silence, till they came to the third cellar.  Here the Persian motioned
+to Raoul to go on his knees; and, in this way, crawling on both knees
+and one hand--for the other hand was held in the position
+indicated--they reached the end wall.
+
+Against this wall stood a large discarded scene from the ROI DE LAHORE.
+Close to this scene was a set piece.  Between the scene and the set
+piece there was just room for a body ... for a body which one day was
+found hanging there.  The body of Joseph Buquet.
+
+The Persian, still kneeling, stopped and listened.  For a moment, he
+seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul; then he turned his eyes upward,
+toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint glimmer of a
+lantern, through a cranny between two boards.  This glimmer seemed to
+trouble the Persian.
+
+At last, he tossed his head and made up his mind to act.  He slipped
+between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE, with Raoul
+close upon his heels.  With his free hand, the Persian felt the wall.
+Raoul saw him bear heavily upon the wall, just as he had pressed
+against the wall in Christine's dressing-room. Then a stone gave way,
+leaving a hole in the wall.
+
+This time, the Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made a sign
+to Raoul to do as he did.  He cocked the pistol.
+
+And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole in the
+wall.  Raoul, who had wished to pass first, had to be content to follow
+him.
+
+The hole was very narrow.  The Persian stopped almost at once.  Raoul
+heard him feeling the stones around him.  Then the Persian took out his
+dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath him and
+immediately extinguished his lantern.  Raoul heard him say, in a
+whisper:
+
+"We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise; take off
+your boots."
+
+The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.
+
+"Put them outside the wall," he said.  "We shall find them there when
+we leave."[5]
+
+He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round and
+said:
+
+"I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and let
+myself drop INTO HIS HOUSE.  You must do exactly the same.  Do not be
+afraid.  I will catch you in my arms."
+
+Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall of the
+Persian, and then dropped down.
+
+He felt himself clasped in the Persian's arms.
+
+"Hush!" said the Persian.
+
+And they stood motionless, listening.
+
+The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.
+
+Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,
+turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which
+they had come, and failing to find it:
+
+"Oh!" he said.  "The stone has closed of itself!"
+
+And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.
+
+The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he
+examined for a second and flung away with horror.
+
+"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.
+
+"What is it?" asked Raoul.
+
+The Persian shivered.  "It might very well be the rope by which the man
+was hanged, and which was looked for so long."
+
+And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk
+of his lantern over the walls.  In this way, he lit up a curious thing:
+the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves;
+and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared in
+the ceiling.
+
+Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at
+first to make out the appearance of things:  they saw a corner of a
+branch ... and a leaf ... and another leaf ... and, next to it, nothing
+at all, nothing but the ray of light that seemed to reflect itself ...
+Raoul passed his hand over that nothing, over that reflection.
+
+"Hullo!" he said.  "The wall is a looking-glass!"
+
+"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion.
+And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead, he
+added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!"
+
+What the Persian knew of this torture-chamber and what there befell him
+and his companion shall be told in his own words, as set down in a
+manuscript which he left behind him, and which I copy VERBATIM.
+
+
+
+[1] M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few
+additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom he was
+unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera.
+
+[2] In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch
+over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances; but this
+service has since been suppressed.  I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the
+reason, and he replied:
+
+"It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter
+inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set fire to
+the building!"
+
+[3] Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the
+apparition of this shade.  Whereas, in this historic narrative,
+everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal the course
+of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly to understand
+what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one much worse than
+that!"  The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M.
+Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret
+regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the
+wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the
+cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on
+gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage.  I
+am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no
+more.
+
+[4] All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera.
+To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell
+the reader that it represented the area of the courtyard of the Louvre
+and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame.  And
+nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake.
+
+[5] These two pairs of boots, which were placed, according to the
+Persian's papers, just between the set piece and the scene from the ROI
+DE LAHORE, on the spot where Joseph Buquet was found hanging, were
+never discovered.  They must have been taken by some stage-carpenter or
+"door-shutter."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI  Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in
+the Cellars of the Opera
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE
+
+It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake.  I had
+often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my
+country, to open its mysterious doors to me.  He always refused.  I
+made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance.  Watch him
+as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent
+abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to
+see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake.  One day, when I
+thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that
+part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear.  It was then
+that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and
+whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.
+
+I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I
+floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that
+hovered all around me.  It was half breath, half music; it rose softly
+from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew
+not what artifice.  It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that
+it did not alarm me.  On the contrary, in my longing to approach the
+source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little
+boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing
+came from the water itself.  By this time, I was alone in the boat in
+the middle of the lake; the voice--for it was now distinctly a
+voice--was beside me, on the water.  I leaned over, leaned still
+farther.  The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed
+through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely nothing on
+its surface, which was smooth and black as ink.  I shook my ears to get
+rid of a possible humming; but I soon had to accept the fact that there
+was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that
+followed and now attracted me.
+
+Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought
+that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the
+traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake.
+Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic
+things not to know them through and through; and I had no doubt but
+that I was face to face with some new invention of Erik's. But this
+invention was so perfect that, as I leaned out of the boat, I was
+impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its
+charm; and I leaned out, leaned out until I almost overturned the boat.
+
+Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and
+seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible
+force.  I should certainly have been lost, if I had not had time to
+give a cry by which Erik knew me.  For it was he; and, instead of
+drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and
+laid me gently on the bank:
+
+"How imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with
+water.  "Why try to enter my house?  I never invited you!  I don't want
+you there, nor anybody!  Did you save my life only to make it
+unbearable to me?  However great the service you rendered him, Erik may
+end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not
+even Erik himself."
+
+He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already
+called the trick of the siren.  He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik,
+who is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas--is
+also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited,
+and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to
+prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.
+
+He laughed and showed me a long reed.
+
+"It's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful
+for breathing and singing in the water.  I learned it from the Tonkin
+pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the
+rivers."[1]
+
+I spoke to him severely.
+
+"It's a trick that nearly killed me!"  I said.  "And it may have been
+fatal to others!  You know what you promised me, Erik?  No more
+murders!"
+
+"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most
+amiable air.
+
+"Wretched man!"  I cried.  "Have you forgotten the rosy hours of
+Mazenderan?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them.  I used
+to make the little sultana laugh, though!"
+
+"All that belongs to the past," I declared; "but there is the present
+... and you are responsible to me for the present, because, if I had
+wished, there would have been none at all for you.  Remember that,
+Erik:  I saved your life!"
+
+And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him of
+something that had long been on my mind:
+
+"Erik," I asked, "Erik, swear that ..."
+
+"What?" he retorted.  "You know I never keep my oaths.  Oaths are made
+to catch gulls with."
+
+"Tell me ... you can tell me, at any rate..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, the chandelier ... the chandelier, Erik? ..."
+
+"What about the chandelier?"
+
+"You know what I mean."
+
+"Oh," he sniggered, "I don't mind telling you about the chandelier!
+... IT WASN'T I! ... The chandelier was very old and worn."
+
+When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever.  He jumped into the
+boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.
+
+"Very old and worn, my dear daroga![2]  Very old and worn, the
+chandelier! ... It fell of itself! ... It came down with a smash! ...
+And now, daroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you'll
+catch a cold in the head! ...  And never get into my boat again ...
+And, whatever you do, don't try to enter my house:  I'm not always
+there ... daroga!  And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem
+Mass to you!"
+
+So saying, swinging to and fro, like a monkey, and still chuckling, he
+pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.
+
+From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by
+the lake.  That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially
+since he had learned that I knew about it.  But I felt that there must
+be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik disappear in the third
+cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.
+
+Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a
+perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was
+concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.[3]
+
+And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought
+to myself, "I should not be surprised if that were Erik," even as
+others used to say, "It's the ghost!"  How often have I not heard
+people utter that phrase with a smile!  Poor devils!  If they had known
+that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they would not have
+laughed!
+
+Although Erik announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and
+that he had become the most virtuous of men SINCE HE WAS LOVED FOR
+HIMSELF--a sentence that, at first, perplexed me most terribly--I could
+not help shuddering when I thought of the monster.  His horrible,
+unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pale of
+humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason, he no longer
+believed that he had any duty toward the human race.  The way in which
+he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm, for I foresaw the
+cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this event to which he
+alluded so boastfully.
+
+On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic
+established between the monster and Christine Daae.  Hiding in the
+lumber-room next to the young prima donna's dressing-room, I listened
+to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine into
+marvelous ecstasy; but, all the same, I would never have thought that
+Erik's voice--which was loud as thunder or soft as angels' voices, at
+will--could have made her forget his ugliness.  I understood all when I
+learned that Christine had not yet seen him!  I had occasion to go to
+the dressing-room and, remembering the lessons he had once given me, I
+had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made the wall with the
+mirror swing round and I ascertained the means of hollow bricks and so
+on--by which he made his voice carry to Christine as though she heard
+it close beside her.  In this way also I discovered the road that led
+to the well and the dungeon--the Communists' dungeon--and also the
+trap-door that enabled Erik to go straight to the cellars below the
+stage.
+
+A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes and
+ears that Erik and Christine Daae saw each other and to catch the
+monster stooping over the little well, in the Communists' road and
+sprinkling the forehead of Christine Daae, who had fainted.  A white
+horse, the horse out of the PROFETA, which had disappeared from the
+stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them.  I showed
+myself.  It was terrible.  I saw sparks fly from those yellow eyes and,
+before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that
+stunned me.
+
+When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had
+disappeared.  I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the
+house on the lake.  Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the
+bank, notwithstanding the attendant danger.  For twenty-four hours, I
+lay in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out,
+driven by the need of obtaining provisions.  And, in this connection, I
+may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show
+himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache attached
+to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.  This did not quite
+take away his corpse-like air, but it made him almost, I say almost,
+endurable to look at.
+
+I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting,
+was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door, the
+door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in the dark,
+I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon the boat
+touched shore.  Erik jumped out and walked up to me:
+
+"You've been here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're annoying
+me.  I tell you, all this will end very badly.  And you will have
+brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily patient with
+you.  You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I
+who am following you; and I know all that you know about me, here.  I
+spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD; but I warn you,
+seriously, don't let me catch you there again!  Upon my word, you don't
+seem able to take a hint!"
+
+He was so furious that I did not think, for the moment, of interrupting
+him.  After puffing and blowing like a walrus, he put his horrible
+thought into words:
+
+"Yes, you must learn, once and for all--once and for all, I say--to
+take a hint!  I tell you that, with your recklessness--for you have
+already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not
+know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers,
+who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage
+mechanism and life behind the scenes:  I know all about it, I was
+there, in the office; you know I am everywhere--well, I tell you that,
+with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what you are after
+here ... and they will end by knowing that you are after Erik ... and
+then they will be after Erik themselves and they will discover the
+house on the lake ...  If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you,
+old chap, a bad lookout! ...  I won't answer for anything."
+
+Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.
+
+"I won't answer for anything! ... If Erik's secrets cease to be Erik's
+secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBER OF THE HUMAN
+RACE!  That's all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby,
+it ought to be enough for you ... except that you don't know how to
+take a hint."
+
+He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels
+against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.  I simply
+said:
+
+"It's not Erik that I'm after here!"
+
+"Who then?"
+
+"You know as well as I do:  it's Christine Daae," I answered.
+
+He retorted:  "I have every right to see her in my own house.  I am
+loved for my own sake."
+
+"That's not true," I said.  "You have carried her off and are keeping
+her locked up."
+
+"Listen," he said.  "Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs
+again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?"
+
+"Yes, I promise you," I replied, without hesitation, for I felt
+convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.
+
+"Well, then, it's quite simple ...  Christine Daae shall leave this as
+she pleases and come back again! ... Yes, come back again, because she
+wishes ... come back of herself, because she loves me for myself! ..."
+
+"Oh, I doubt if she will come back! ... But it is your duty to let her
+go."  "My duty, you great booby! ... It is my wish ...  my wish to let
+her go; and she will come back again ... for she loves me! ... All this
+will end in a marriage ... a marriage at the Madeleine, you great
+booby!  Do you believe me now?  When I tell you that my nuptial mass is
+written ... wait till you hear the KYRIE..."
+
+He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:
+
+"KYRIE! ... KYRIE! ... KYRIE ELEISON! ... Wait till you hear, wait till
+you hear that mass."
+
+"Look here," I said.  "I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae come
+out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord."
+
+"And you won't meddle any more in my affairs?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Very well, you shall see that to-night. Come to the masked ball.
+Christine and I will go and have a look round.  Then you can hide in
+the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her
+dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists' road... And,
+now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!"
+
+To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.
+Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several
+times, without, apparently, being forced to do so.  It was very
+difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik.  However, I resolved to be
+extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the
+shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists' road.  But the idea
+of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly
+went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which
+had been left there for some reason or other.  At last my patience was
+rewarded.  One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees.  I
+was certain that he could not see me.  He passed between the scene
+behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a
+spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.  He passed
+through this, and the stone closed behind him.
+
+I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my
+turn.  Everything happened as with Erik.  But I was careful not to go
+through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside.  On the other
+hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of
+the death of Joseph Buquet.  I did not wish to jeopardize the
+advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many
+people, "to a goodly number of the human race," in Erik's words; and I
+left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.
+
+I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and
+Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the
+terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of
+anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake,
+as he imagined.  I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the
+Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love-affair.
+
+He filled Christine's mind, through the terror with which he inspired
+her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de
+Chagny.  While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on
+the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little
+suspected that some one was watching over them.  I was prepared to do
+anything:  to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police
+afterward.  But Erik did not show himself; and I felt none the more
+comfortable for that.
+
+I must explain my whole plan.  I thought that the monster, being driven
+from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to enter it, without
+danger, through the passage in the third cellar.  It was important, for
+everybody's sake, that I should know exactly what was inside.  One day,
+tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved the stone and at once
+heard an astounding music: the monster was working at his Don Juan
+Triumphant, with every door in his house wide open.  I knew that this
+was the work of his life.  I was careful not to stir and remained
+prudently in my dark hole.
+
+He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place,
+like a madman.  And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:
+
+"It must be finished FIRST!  Quite finished!"
+
+This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the music
+recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.
+
+On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come to the
+theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I should hear
+bad news.  I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading in a morning
+paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and
+the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do
+better to denounce the monster.  But reason returned to me, and I was
+persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible
+catastrophe.
+
+When, my cab set me down before the Opera, I was really almost
+astonished to see it still standing!  But I am something of a fatalist,
+like all good Orientals, and I entered ready, for anything.
+
+Christine Daae's abduction in the Prison Act, which naturally surprised
+everybody, found me prepared.  I was quite certain that she had been
+juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers.  And I thought
+positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps of everybody,
+so much so that I thought of advising all these people who were staying
+on at the theater to make good their escape.  I felt, however, that
+they would be sure to look upon me as mad and I refrained.
+
+On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay, as far as I
+was concerned.  The chances were in my favor that Erik, at that moment,
+was thinking only of his captive.  This was the moment to enter his
+house through the third cellar; and I resolved to take with me that
+poor little desperate viscount, who, at the first suggestion, accepted,
+with an amount of confidence in myself that touched me profoundly.  I
+had sent my servant for my pistols.  I gave one to the viscount and
+advised him to hold himself ready to fire, for, after all, Erik might
+be waiting for us behind the wall.  We were to go by the Communists'
+road and through the trap-door.
+
+Seeing my pistols, the little viscount asked me if we were going to
+fight a duel.  I said:
+
+"Yes; and what a duel!"  But, of course, I had no time to explain
+anything to him.  The little viscount is a brave fellow, but he knew
+hardly anything about his adversary; and it was so much the better.  My
+great fear was that he was already somewhere near us, preparing the
+Punjab lasso.  No one knows better than he how to throw the Punjab
+lasso, for he is the king of stranglers even as he is the prince of
+conjurors.  When he had finished making the little sultana laugh, at
+the time of the "rosy hours of Mazenderan," she herself used to ask him
+to amuse her by giving her a thrill.  It was then that he introduced
+the sport of the Punjab lasso.
+
+He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art of
+strangulation.  He would make them lock him into a courtyard to which
+they brought a warrior--usually, a man condemned to death--armed with a
+long pike and broadsword.  Erik had only his lasso; and it was always
+just when the warrior thought that he was going to fell Erik with a
+tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistle through the air.  With
+a turn of the wrist, Erik tightened the noose round his adversary's
+neck and, in this fashion, dragged him before the little sultana and
+her women, who sat looking from a window and applauding.  The little
+sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab lasso and killed several of
+her women and even of the friends who visited her.  But I prefer to
+drop this terrible subject of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  I have
+mentioned it only to explain why, on arriving with the Vicomte de
+Chagny in the cellars of the Opera, I was bound to protect my companion
+against the ever-threatening danger of death by strangling.  My pistols
+could serve no purpose, for Erik was not likely to show himself; but
+Erik could always strangle us.  I had no time to explain all this to
+the viscount; besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating
+the position.  I simply told M. de Chagny to keep his hand at the level
+of his eyes, with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to
+fire.  With his victim in this attitude, it is impossible even for the
+most expert strangler to throw the lasso with advantage.  It catches
+you not only round the neck, but also round the arm or hand.  This
+enables you easily to unloose the lasso, which then becomes harmless.
+
+After avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door-shutters and
+the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher and passing the man in the
+felt hat unperceived, the viscount and I arrived without obstacle in
+the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene from the Roi de
+Lahore.  I worked the stone, and we jumped into the house which Erik
+had built himself in the double case of the foundation-walls of the
+Opera.  And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do,
+because Erik was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Garnier,
+the architect of the Opera, and continued to work by himself when the
+works were officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and
+the Commune.
+
+I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into his
+house.  I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan.
+From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into
+a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word but it was
+overheard or repeated by an echo.  With his trap-doors the monster was
+responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds.  He hit upon
+astonishing inventions.  Of these, the most curious, horrible and
+dangerous was the so-called torture-chamber. Except in special cases,
+when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting suffering upon
+some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it but wretches condemned
+to death.  And, even then, when these had "had enough," they were
+always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or
+bowstring, left for their use at the foot of an iron tree.
+
+My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into which M.
+le Vicomte de Chagny and I had dropped was an exact copy of the
+torture-chamber of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  At our feet, I found
+the Punjab lasso which I had been dreading all the evening.  I was
+convinced that this rope had already done duty for Joseph Buquet, who,
+like myself, must have caught Erik one evening working the stone in the
+third cellar.  He probably tried it in his turn, fell into the
+torture-chamber and only left it hanged.  I can well imagine Erik
+dragging the body, in order to get rid of it, to the scene from the Roi
+de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the
+superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to
+his lair!  Then, upon reflection, Erik went back to fetch the Punjab
+lasso, which is very curiously made out of catgut, and which might have
+set an examining magistrate thinking.  This explains the disappearance
+of the rope.
+
+And now I discovered the lasso, at our feet, in the torture-chamber!
+...  I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved
+the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.
+
+M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:
+
+"What is the matter, sir?"
+
+I made him a violent sign to be silent.
+
+
+
+[1] An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end of
+July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham was tracked,
+together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded
+in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.
+
+[2] DAROGA is Persian for chief of police.
+
+[3] The Persian might easily have admitted that Erik's fate also
+interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government of
+Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have been all
+up with the modest pension of the erstwhile daroga.  It is only fair,
+however, to add that the Persian had a noble and generous heart; and I
+do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes which he feared for
+others greatly occupied his mind.  His conduct, throughout this
+business, proves it and is above all praise.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII  In the Torture Chamber
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
+
+We were in the middle of a little six-cornered room, the sides of which
+were covered with mirrors from top to bottom.  In the corners, we could
+clearly see the "joins" in the glasses, the segments intended to turn
+on their gear; yes, I recognized them and I recognized the iron tree in
+the corner, at the bottom of one of those segments ... the iron tree,
+with its iron branch, for the hanged men.
+
+I seized my companion's arm:  the Vicomte de Chagny was all a-quiver,
+eager to shout to his betrothed that he was bringing her help.  I
+feared that he would not be able to contain himself.
+
+Suddenly, we heard a noise on our left.  It sounded at first like a
+door opening and shutting in the next room; and then there was a dull
+moan.  I clutched M. de Chagny's arm more firmly still; and then we
+distinctly heard these words:
+
+"You must make your choice!  The wedding mass or the requiem mass!" I
+recognized the voice of the monster.
+
+There was another moan, followed by a long silence.
+
+I was persuaded by now that the monster was unaware of our presence in
+his house, for otherwise he would certainly have managed not to let us
+hear him.  He would only have had to close the little invisible window
+through which the torture-lovers look down into the torture-chamber.
+Besides, I was certain that, if he had known of our presence, the
+tortures would have begun at once.
+
+The important thing was not to let him know; and I dreaded nothing so
+much as the impulsiveness of the Vicomte de Chagny, who wanted to rush
+through the walls to Christine Daae, whose moans we continued to hear
+at intervals.
+
+"The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed, "whereas
+the wedding mass--you can take my word for it--is magnificent!  You
+must take a resolution and know your own mind!  I can't go on living
+like this, like a mole in a burrow!  Don Juan Triumphant is finished;
+and now I want to live like everybody else.  I want to have a wife like
+everybody else and to take her out on Sundays.  I have invented a mask
+that makes me look like anybody.  People will not even turn round in
+the streets.  You will be the happiest of women.  And we will sing, all
+by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight.  You are crying!  You
+are afraid of me!  And yet I am not really wicked.  Love me and you
+shall see!  All I wanted was to be loved for myself.  If you loved me I
+should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that
+you pleased."
+
+Soon the moans that accompanied this sort of love's litany increased
+and increased.  I have never heard anything more despairing; and M. de
+Chagny and I recognized that this terrible lamentation came from Erik
+himself.  Christine seemed to be standing dumb with horror, without the
+strength to cry out, while the monster was on his knees before her.
+
+Three times over, Erik fiercely bewailed his fate:
+
+"You don't love me!  You don't love me!  You don't love me!"
+
+And then, more gently:
+
+"Why do you cry?  You know it gives me pain to see you cry!"
+
+A silence.
+
+Each silence gave us fresh hope.  We said to ourselves:
+
+"Perhaps he has left Christine behind the wall."
+
+And we thought only of the possibility of warning Christine Daae of our
+presence, unknown to the monster.  We were unable to leave the
+torture-chamber now, unless Christine opened the door to us; and it was
+only on this condition that we could hope to help her, for we did not
+even know where the door might be.
+
+Suddenly, the silence in the next room was disturbed by the ringing of
+an electric bell.  There was a bound on the other side of the wall and
+Erik's voice of thunder:
+
+"Somebody ringing!  Walk in, please!"
+
+A sinister chuckle.
+
+"Who has come bothering now?  Wait for me here ...  I AM GOING TO TELL
+THE SIREN TO OPEN THE DOOR."
+
+Steps moved away, a door closed.  I had no time to think of the fresh
+horror that was preparing; I forgot that the monster was only going out
+perhaps to perpetrate a fresh crime; I understood but one thing:
+Christine was alone behind the wall!
+
+The Vicomte de Chagny was already calling to her:
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+As we could hear what was said in the next room, there was no reason
+why my companion should not be heard in his turn.  Nevertheless, the
+viscount had to repeat his cry time after time.
+
+At last, a faint voice reached us.
+
+"I am dreaming!" it said.
+
+"Christine, Christine, it is I, Raoul!"
+
+A silence.
+
+"But answer me, Christine! ... In Heaven's name, if you are alone,
+answer me!"
+
+Then Christine's voice whispered Raoul's name.
+
+"Yes!  Yes!  It is I!  It is not a dream! ... Christine, trust me! ...
+We are here to save you ... but be prudent!  When you hear the monster,
+warn us!"
+
+Then Christine gave way to fear.  She trembled lest Erik should
+discover where Raoul was hidden; she told us in a few hurried words
+that Erik had gone quite mad with love and that he had decided TO KILL
+EVERYBODY AND HIMSELF WITH EVERYBODY if she did not consent to become
+his wife.  He had given her till eleven o'clock the next evening for
+reflection.  It was the last respite.  She must choose, as he said,
+between the wedding mass and the requiem.
+
+And Erik had then uttered a phrase which Christine did not quite
+understand:
+
+"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"
+
+But I understood the sentence perfectly, for it corresponded in a
+terrible manner with my own dreadful thought.
+
+"Can you tell us where Erik is?"  I asked.
+
+She replied that he must have left the house.
+
+"Could you make sure?"
+
+"No. I am fastened.  I can not stir a limb."
+
+When we heard this, M. de Chagny and I gave a yell of fury.  Our
+safety, the safety of all three of us, depended on the girl's liberty
+of movement.
+
+"But where are you?" asked Christine.  "There are only two doors in my
+room, the Louis-Philippe room of which I told you, Raoul; a door
+through which Erik comes and goes, and another which he has never
+opened before me and which he has forbidden me ever to go through,
+because he says it is the most dangerous of the doors, the door of the
+torture-chamber!"
+
+"Christine, that is where we are!"
+
+"You are in the torture-chamber?"
+
+"Yes, but we can not see the door."
+
+"Oh, if I could only drag myself so far!  I would knock at the door and
+that would tell you where it is."
+
+"Is it a door with a lock to it?"  I asked.
+
+"Yes, with a lock."
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said, "it is absolutely necessary, that you should
+open that door to us!"
+
+"But how?" asked the poor girl tearfully.
+
+We heard her straining, trying to free herself from the bonds that held
+her.
+
+"I know where the key is," she said, in a voice that seemed exhausted
+by the effort she had made.  "But I am fastened so tight ...  Oh, the
+wretch!"
+
+And she gave a sob.
+
+"Where is the key?"  I asked, signing to M. de Chagny not to speak and
+to leave the business to me, for we had not a moment to lose.
+
+"In the next room, near the organ, with another little bronze key,
+which he also forbade me to touch.  They are both in a little leather
+bag which he calls the bag of life and death...  Raoul!  Raoul!  Fly!
+Everything is mysterious and terrible here, and Erik will soon have
+gone quite mad, and you are in the torture-chamber! ... Go back by the
+way you came.  There must be a reason why the room is called by that
+name!"
+
+"Christine," said the young man.  "We will go from here together or die
+together!"
+
+"We must keep cool," I whispered.  "Why has he fastened you,
+mademoiselle?  You can't escape from his house; and he knows it!"
+
+"I tried to commit suicide!  The monster went out last night, after
+carrying me here fainting and half chloroformed.  He was going TO HIS
+BANKER, so he said! ... When he returned he found me with my face
+covered with blood ...  I had tried to kill myself by striking my
+forehead against the walls."
+
+"Christine!" groaned Raoul; and he began to sob.
+
+"Then he bound me ...  I am not allowed to die until eleven o'clock
+to-morrow evening."
+
+"Mademoiselle," I declared, "the monster bound you ... and he shall
+unbind you.  You have only to play the necessary part!  Remember that
+he loves you!"
+
+"Alas!" we heard.  "Am I likely to forget it!"
+
+"Remember it and smile to him ... entreat him ... tell him that your
+bonds hurt you."
+
+But Christine Daae said:
+
+"Hush! ... I hear something in the wall on the lake! ... It is he! ...
+Go away!  Go away!  Go away!"
+
+"We could not go away, even if we wanted to," I said, as impressively
+as I could.  "We can not leave this!  And we are in the
+torture-chamber!"
+
+"Hush!" whispered Christine again.
+
+Heavy steps sounded slowly behind the wall, then stopped and made the
+floor creak once more.  Next came a tremendous sigh, followed by a cry
+of horror from Christine, and we heard Erik's voice:
+
+"I beg your pardon for letting you see a face like this!  What a state
+I am in, am I not?  It's THE OTHER ONE'S FAULT!  Why did he ring?  Do I
+ask people who pass to tell me the time?  He will never ask anybody the
+time again!  It is the siren's fault."
+
+[Illustration: two page color illustration]
+
+Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal
+depths of a soul.
+
+"Why did you cry out, Christine?"
+
+"Because I am in pain, Erik."
+
+"I thought I had frightened you."
+
+"Erik, unloose my bonds ...  Am I not your prisoner?"
+
+"You will try to kill yourself again."
+
+"You have given me till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening, Erik."
+
+The footsteps dragged along the floor again.
+
+"After all, as we are to die together ... and I am just as eager as you
+... yes, I have had enough of this life, you know...  Wait, don't move,
+I will release you ...  You have only one word to say:  'NO!' And it
+will at once be over WITH EVERYBODY!  ... You are right, you are right;
+why wait till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening?  True, it would have
+been grander, finer ...  But that is childish nonsense ...  We should
+only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death ... the rest
+doesn't matter...  YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET? ...  Oh,
+my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside! ... Apart from that,
+Christine, I think I am subject to hallucinations ...  You know, the
+man who rang at the siren's door just now--go and look if he's ringing
+at the bottom of the lake-well, he was rather like...  There, turn
+round ... are you glad?  You're free now...  Oh, my poor Christine,
+look at your wrists:  tell me, have I hurt them? ... That alone
+deserves death ...  Talking of death, I MUST SING HIS REQUIEM!"
+
+Hearing these terrible remarks, I received an awful presentiment ... I
+too had once rung at the monster's door ... and, without knowing it,
+must have set some warning current in motion.
+
+And I remembered the two arms that had emerged from the inky waters...
+What poor wretch had strayed to that shore this time?  Who was 'the
+other one,' the one whose requiem we now heard sung?
+
+Erik sang like the god of thunder, sang a DIES IRAE that enveloped us
+as in a storm.  The elements seemed to rage around us.  Suddenly, the
+organ and the voice ceased so suddenly that M. de Chagny sprang back,
+on the other side of the wall, with emotion.  And the voice, changed
+and transformed, distinctly grated out these metallic syllables: "WHAT
+HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAG?"
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII  The Tortures Begin
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.
+
+The voice repeated angrily:  "What have you done with my bag?  So it
+was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!"
+
+We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe
+room, as though to seek shelter on the other side of our wall.
+
+"What are you running away for?" asked the furious voice, which had
+followed her.  "Give me back my bag, will you?  Don't you know that it
+is the bag of life and death?"
+
+"Listen to me, Erik," sighed the girl.  "As it is settled that we are
+to live together ... what difference can it make to you?"
+
+"You know there are only two keys in it," said the monster.  "What do
+you want to do?"
+
+"I want to look at this room which I have never seen and which you have
+always kept from me ...  It's woman's curiosity!" she said, in a tone
+which she tried to render playful.
+
+But the trick was too childish for Erik to be taken in by it.
+
+"I don't like curious women," he retorted, "and you had better remember
+the story of BLUE-BEARD and be careful ...  Come, give me back my bag!
+... Give me back my bag! ... Leave the key alone, will you, you
+inquisitive little thing?"
+
+And he chuckled, while Christine gave a cry of pain.  Erik had
+evidently recovered the bag from her.
+
+At that moment, the viscount could not help uttering an exclamation of
+impotent rage.
+
+"Why, what's that?" said the monster.  "Did you hear, Christine?"
+
+"No, no," replied the poor girl.  "I heard nothing."
+
+"I thought I heard a cry."
+
+"A cry!  Are you going mad, Erik?  Whom do you expect to give a cry, in
+this house? ... I cried out, because you hurt me!  I heard nothing."
+
+"I don't like the way you said that! ... You're trembling...  You're
+quite excited ...  You're lying! ... That was a cry, there was a cry!
+... There is some one in the torture-chamber! ...  Ah, I understand
+now!"
+
+"There is no one there, Erik!"
+
+"I understand!"
+
+"No one!"
+
+"The man you want to marry, perhaps!"
+
+"I don't want to marry anybody, you know I don't."
+
+Another nasty chuckle.  "Well, it won't take long to find out.
+Christine, my love, we need not open the door to see what is happening
+in the torture-chamber. Would you like to see?  Would you like to see?
+Look here!  If there is some one, if there is really some one there,
+you will see the invisible window light up at the top, near the
+ceiling.  We need only draw the black curtain and put out the light in
+here.  There, that's it ...  Let's put out the light!  You're not
+afraid of the dark, when you're with your little husband!"
+
+Then we heard Christine's voice of anguish:
+
+"No! ... I'm frightened! ... I tell you, I'm afraid of the dark! ...  I
+don't care about that room now ...  You're always frightening me, like
+a child, with your torture-chamber! ... And so I became inquisitive...
+But I don't care about it now ... not a bit ... not a bit!"
+
+And that which I feared above all things began, AUTOMATICALLY.  We were
+suddenly flooded with light!  Yes, on our side of the wall, everything
+seemed aglow.  The Vicomte de Chagny was so much taken aback that he
+staggered.  And the angry voice roared:
+
+"I told you there was some one!  Do you see the window now?  The
+lighted window, right up there?  The man behind the wall can't see it!
+But you shall go up the folding steps:  that is what they are there
+for! ... You have often asked me to tell you; and now you know! ...
+They are there to give a peep into the torture-chamber ... you
+inquisitive little thing!"
+
+"What tortures? ... Who is being tortured? ... Erik, Erik, say you are
+only trying to frighten me! ... Say it, if you love me, Erik! ... There
+are no tortures, are there?"
+
+"Go and look at the little window, dear!"
+
+I do not know if the viscount heard the girl's swooning voice, for he
+was too much occupied by the astounding spectacle that now appeared
+before his distracted gaze.  As for me, I had seen that sight too
+often, through the little window, at the time of the rosy hours of
+Mazenderan; and I cared only for what was being said next door, seeking
+for a hint how to act, what resolution to take.
+
+"Go and peep through the little window!  Tell me what he looks like!"
+
+We heard the steps being dragged against the wall.
+
+"Up with you! ... No! ... No, I will go up myself, dear!"
+
+"Oh, very well, I will go up.  Let me go!"
+
+"Oh, my darling, my darling! ... How sweet of you! ... How nice of you
+to save me the exertion at my age! ... Tell me what he looks like!"
+
+At that moment, we distinctly heard these words above our heads:
+
+"There is no one there, dear!"
+
+"No one? ... Are you sure there is no one?"
+
+"Why, of course not ... no one!"
+
+"Well, that's all right! ... What's the matter, Christine?  You're not
+going to faint, are you ... as there is no one there? ...  Here ...
+come down ... there! ... Pull yourself together ... as there is no one
+there! ... BUT HOW DO YOU LIKE THE LANDSCAPE?"
+
+"Oh, very much!"
+
+"There, that's better! ... You're better now, are you not? ...  That's
+all right, you're better! ... No excitement! ... And what a funny
+house, isn't it, with landscapes like that in it?"
+
+"Yes, it's like the Musee Grevin ...  But, say, Erik ... there are no
+tortures in there! ... What a fright you gave me!"
+
+"Why ... as there is no one there?"
+
+"Did you design that room?  It's very handsome.  You're a great artist,
+Erik."
+
+"Yes, a great artist, in my own line."
+
+"But tell me, Erik, why did you call that room the torture-chamber?"
+
+"Oh, it's very simple.  First of all, what did you see?"
+
+"I saw a forest."
+
+"And what is in a forest?"
+
+"Trees."
+
+"And what is in a tree?"
+
+"Birds."
+
+"Did you see any birds?"
+
+"No, I did not see any birds."
+
+"Well, what did you see?  Think!  You saw branches And what are the
+branches?" asked the terrible voice.  "THERE'S A GIBBET!  That is why I
+call my wood the torture-chamber! ... You see, it's all a joke.  I
+never express myself like other people.  But I am very tired of it! ...
+I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house
+and of living like a mountebank, in a house with a false bottom! ...
+I'm tired of it!  I want to have a nice, quiet flat, with ordinary
+doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else!  A wife whom
+I could love and take out on Sundays and keep amused on week-days ...
+Here, shall I show you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a
+few minutes, while waiting for eleven o'clock to-morrow evening ...  My
+dear little Christine! ... Are you listening to me? ... Tell me you
+love me! ...  No, you don't love me ... but no matter, you will! ...
+Once, you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind...
+And now you don't mind looking at it and you forget what is behind! ...
+One can get used to everything ... if one wishes...  Plenty of young
+people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each
+other since!  Oh, I don't know what I am talking about!  But you would
+have lots of fun with me.  For instance, I am the greatest
+ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the
+world! ... You're laughing ...  Perhaps you don't believe me?  Listen."
+
+The wretch, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world, was
+only trying to divert the child's attention from the torture-chamber;
+but it was a stupid scheme, for Christine thought of nothing but us!
+She repeatedly besought him, in the gentlest tones which she could
+assume:
+
+"Put out the light in the little window! ... Erik, do put out the light
+in the little window!"
+
+For she saw that this light, which appeared so suddenly and of which
+the monster had spoken in so threatening a voice, must mean something
+terrible.  One thing must have pacified her for a moment; and that was
+seeing the two of us, behind the wall, in the midst of that resplendent
+light, alive and well.  But she would certainly have felt much easier
+if the light had been put out.
+
+Meantime, the other had already begun to play the ventriloquist.  He
+said:
+
+"Here, I raise my mask a little ...  Oh, only a little! ...  You see my
+lips, such lips as I have?  They're not moving! ... My mouth is
+closed--such mouth as I have--and yet you hear my voice... Where will
+you have it?  In your left ear?  In your right ear?  In the table?  In
+those little ebony boxes on the mantelpiece? ...  Listen, dear, it's in
+the little box on the right of the mantelpiece: what does it say?
+'SHALL I TURN THE SCORPION?' ... And now, crack!  What does it say in
+the little box on the left?  'SHALL I TURN THE GRASSHOPPER?' ... And
+now, crack!  Here it is in the little leather bag ...  What does it
+say?  'I AM THE LITTLE BAG OF LIFE AND DEATH!' ...  And now, crack!  It
+is in Carlotta's throat, in Carlotta's golden throat, in Carlotta's
+crystal throat, as I live!  What does it say?  It says, 'It's I, Mr.
+Toad, it's I singing!  I FEEL WITHOUT ALARM--CO-ACK--WITH ITS MELODY
+ENWIND ME--CO-ACK!' ...  And now, crack!  It is on a chair in the
+ghost's box and it says, 'MADAME CARLOTTA IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING
+THE CHANDELIER DOWN!' ... And now, crack!  Aha!  Where is Erik's voice
+now?  Listen, Christine, darling!  Listen!  It is behind the door of
+the torture-chamber! Listen!  It's myself in the torture-chamber! And
+what do I say?  I say, 'Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose, and
+come to look round the torture-chamber! Aha, aha, aha!'"
+
+Oh, the ventriloquist's terrible voice!  It was everywhere, everywhere.
+It passed through the little invisible window, through the walls.  It
+ran around us, between us.  Erik was there, speaking to us!  We made a
+movement as though to fling ourselves upon him.  But, already, swifter,
+more fleeting than the voice of the echo, Erik's voice had leaped back
+behind the wall!
+
+Soon we heard nothing more at all, for this is what happened:
+
+"Erik!  Erik!" said Christine's voice.  "You tire me with your voice.
+Don't go on, Erik!  Isn't it very hot here?"
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Erik's voice, "the heat is unendurable!"
+
+"But what does this mean? ... The wall is really getting quite hot! ...
+The wall is burning!"
+
+"I'll tell you, Christine, dear:  it is because of the forest next
+door."
+
+"Well, what has that to do with it?  The forest?"
+
+"WHY, DIDN'T YOU SEE THAT IT WAS AN AFRICAN FOREST?"
+
+And the monster laughed so loudly and hideously that we could no longer
+distinguish Christine's supplicating cries!  The Vicomte de Chagny
+shouted and banged against the walls like a madman.  I could not
+restrain him.  But we heard nothing except the monster's laughter, and
+the monster himself can have heard nothing else.  And then there was
+the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along and a
+door slammed and then nothing, nothing more around us save the
+scorching silence of the south in the heart of a tropical forest!
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV  "Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any Barrels to Sell?"
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
+
+I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I were
+imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors.  Plenty
+of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: they are
+called "palaces of illusion," or some such name.  But the invention
+belongs entirely to Erik, who built the first room of this kind under
+my eyes, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.  A decorative
+object, such as a column, for instance, was placed in one of the
+corners and immediately produced a hall of a thousand columns; for,
+thanks to the mirrors, the real room was multiplied by six hexagonal
+rooms, each of which, in its turn, was multiplied indefinitely.  But
+the little sultana soon tired of this infantile illusion, whereupon
+Erik altered his invention into a "torture-chamber." For the
+architectural motive placed in one corner, he substituted an iron tree.
+This tree, with its painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and was
+made of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the "patient" who was
+locked into the torture-chamber.  We shall see how the scene thus
+obtained was twice altered instantaneously into two successive other
+scenes, by means of the automatic rotation of the drums or rollers in
+the corners.  These were divided into three sections, fitting into the
+angles of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative scheme that came
+into sight as the roller revolved upon its axis.
+
+The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay hold of,
+because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were simply
+furnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught of the
+victim, who was flung into the chamber empty-handed and barefoot.
+
+There was no furniture.  The ceiling was capable of being lit up.  An
+ingenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated,
+allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will.
+
+I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention,
+producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion of an
+equatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no one may
+doubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled to say that I am
+mad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[1]
+
+I now return to the facts where I left them.  When the ceiling lit up
+and the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefaction
+was immense.  That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks and
+branches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation.  He passed
+his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyes
+blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.
+
+I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise me at
+all; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was happening
+next door.  Lastly, my attention was especially attracted, not so much
+to the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it.  These mirrors were
+broken in parts.  Yes, they were marked and scratched; they had been
+"starred," in spite of their solidity; and this proved to me that the
+torture-chamber in which we now were HAD ALREADY SERVED A PURPOSE.
+
+Yes, some wretch, whose feet were not bare like those of the victims of
+the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had certainly fallen into this "mortal
+illusion" and, mad with rage, had kicked against those mirrors which,
+nevertheless, continued to reflect his agony.  And the branch of the
+tree on which he had put an end to his own sufferings was arranged in
+such a way that, before dying, he had seen, for his last consolation, a
+thousand men writhing in his company.
+
+Yes, Joseph Buquet had undoubtedly been through all this!  Were we to
+die as he had done?  I did not think so, for I knew that we had a few
+hours before us and that I could employ them to better purpose than
+Joseph Buquet was able to do.  After all, I was thoroughly acquainted
+with most of Erik's "tricks;" and now or never was the time to turn my
+knowledge to account.
+
+To begin with, I gave up every idea of returning to the passage that
+had brought us to that accursed chamber.  I did not trouble about the
+possibility of working the inside stone that closed the passage; and
+this for the simple reason that to do so was out of the question.  We
+had dropped from too great a height into the torture-chamber; there was
+no furniture to help us reach that passage; not even the branch of the
+iron tree, not even each other's shoulders were of any avail.
+
+There was only one possible outlet, that opening into the
+Louis-Philippe room in which Erik and Christine Daae were.  But, though
+this outlet looked like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it was
+absolutely invisible to us.  We must therefore try to open it without
+even knowing where it was.
+
+When I was quite sure that there was no hope for us from Christine
+Daae's side, when I had heard the monster dragging the poor girl from
+the Louis-Philippe room LEST SHE SHOULD INTERFERE WITH OUR TORTURES, I
+resolved to set to work without delay.
+
+But I had first to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking about
+like a madman, uttering incoherent cries.  The snatches of conversation
+which he had caught between Christine and the monster had contributed
+not a little to drive him beside himself: add to that the shock of the
+magic forest and the scorching heat which was beginning to make the
+prespiration{sic} stream down his temples and you will have no
+difficulty in understanding his state of mind.  He shouted Christine's
+name, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass in
+his endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest.  In short,
+the torture was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared for
+it.
+
+I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason.  I made
+him touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches and explained
+to him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery by which we were
+surrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves to be the victims,
+like ordinary, ignorant people.
+
+"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying to
+yourself.  And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found the
+door."
+
+And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me by
+shouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick of the
+door in less than an hour's time.
+
+Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared that
+he would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there was
+nothing better to do!  And he added that, from where he was, "the view
+was splendid!"  The torture was working, in spite of all that I had
+said.
+
+Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began to
+finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which to
+press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system of
+pivots.  This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass, no larger
+than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden.  I hunted and hunted.  I
+felt as high as my hands could reach.  Erik was about the same height
+as myself and I thought that he would not have placed the spring higher
+than suited his stature.
+
+While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care, I
+endeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and more
+overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that blazing
+forest.
+
+I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished three
+panels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round on hearing a
+muttered exclamation from the viscount.
+
+"I am stifling," he said.  "All those mirrors are sending out an
+infernal heat!  Do you think you will find that spring soon?  If you
+are much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"
+
+I was not sorry to hear him talk like this.  He had not said a word of
+the forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold out some
+time longer against the torture.  But he added:
+
+"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until eleven
+to-morrow evening.  If we can't get out of here and go to her
+assistance, at least we shall be dead before her!  Then Erik's mass can
+serve for all of us!"
+
+And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.
+
+As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for accepting
+death, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement, to my
+panel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while speaking
+and, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer able to find
+my panel for certain!  I had to begin all over again, at random,
+feeling, fumbling, groping.
+
+Now the fever laid hold of me in my turn ... for I found nothing,
+absolutely nothing.  In the next room, all was silence.  We were quite
+lost in the forest, without an outlet, a compass, a guide or anything.
+Oh, I knew what awaited us if nobody came to our aid ...  or if I did
+not find the spring!  But, look as I might, I found nothing but
+branches, beautiful branches that stood straight up before me, or
+spread gracefully over my head.  But they gave no shade.  And this was
+natural enough, as we were in an equatorial forest, with the sun right
+above our heads, an African forest.
+
+M. de Chagny and I had repeatedly taken off our coats and put them on
+again, finding at one time that they made us feel still hotter and at
+another that they protected us against the heat.  I was still making a
+moral resistance, but M. de Chagny seemed to me quite "gone." He
+pretended that he had been walking in that forest for three days and
+nights, without stopping, looking for Christine Daae!  From time to
+time, he thought he saw her behind the trunk of a tree, or gliding
+between the branches; and he called to her with words of supplication
+that brought the tears to my eyes.  And then, at last:
+
+"Oh, how thirsty I am!" he cried, in delirious accents.
+
+I too was thirsty.  My throat was on fire.  And, yet, squatting on the
+floor, I went on hunting, hunting, hunting for the spring of the
+invisible door ... especially as it was dangerous to remain in the
+forest as evening drew nigh.  Already the shades of night were
+beginning to surround us.  It had happened very quickly: night falls
+quickly in tropical countries ... suddenly, with hardly any twilight.
+
+Now night, in the forests of the equator, is always dangerous,
+particularly when, like ourselves, one has not the materials for a fire
+to keep off the beasts of prey.  I did indeed try for a moment to break
+off the branches, which I would have lit with my dark lantern, but I
+knocked myself also against the mirrors and remembered, in time, that
+we had only images of branches to do with.
+
+The heat did not go with the daylight; on the contrary, it was now
+still hotter under the blue rays of the moon.  I urged the viscount to
+hold our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from camp, while I went
+on looking for my spring.
+
+Suddenly, we heard a lion roaring a few yards away.
+
+"Oh," whispered the viscount, "he is quite close! ... Don't you see
+him? ... There ... through the trees ... in that thicket!  If he roars
+again, I will fire! ..."
+
+And the roaring began again, louder than before.  And the viscount
+fired, but I do not think that he hit the lion; only, he smashed a
+mirror, as I perceived the next morning, at daybreak.  We must have
+covered a good distance during the night, for we suddenly found
+ourselves on the edge of the desert, an immense desert of sand, stones
+and rocks.  It was really not worth while leaving the forest to come
+upon the desert.  Tired out, I flung myself down beside the viscount,
+for I had had enough of looking for springs which I could not find.
+
+I was quite surprised--and I said so to the viscount--that we had
+encountered no other dangerous animals during the night.  Usually,
+after the lion came the leopard and sometimes the buzz of the tsetse
+fly.  These were easily obtained effects; and I explained to M. de
+Chagny that Erik imitated the roar of a lion on a long tabour or
+timbrel, with an ass's skin at one end.  Over this skin he tied a
+string of catgut, which was fastened at the middle to another similar
+string passing through the whole length of the tabour.  Erik had only
+to rub this string with a glove smeared with resin and, according to
+the manner in which he rubbed it, he imitated to perfection the voice
+of the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly.
+
+The idea that Erik was probably in the room beside us, working his
+trick, made me suddenly resolve to enter into a parley with him, for we
+must obviously give up all thought of taking him by surprise.  And by
+this time he must be quite aware who were the occupants of his
+torture-chamber. I called him:  "Erik!  Erik!"
+
+I shouted as loudly as I could across the desert, but there was no
+answer to my voice.  All around us lay the silence and the bare
+immensity of that stony desert.  What was to become of us in the midst
+of that awful solitude?
+
+We were beginning literally to die of heat, hunger and thirst ...  of
+thirst especially.  At last, I saw M. de Chagny raise himself on his
+elbow and point to a spot on the horizon.  He had discovered an oasis!
+
+Yes, far in the distance was an oasis ... an oasis with limpid water,
+which reflected the iron trees! ... Tush, it was the scene of the
+mirage ...  I recognized it at once ... the worst of the three! ... No
+one had been able to fight against it ... no one...  I did my utmost to
+keep my head AND NOT TO HOPE FOR WATER, because I knew that, if a man
+hoped for water, the water that reflected the iron tree, and if, after
+hoping for water, he struck against the mirror, then there was only one
+thing for him to do: to hang himself on the iron tree!
+
+So I cried to M. de Chagny:
+
+"It's the mirage! ... It's the mirage! ... Don't believe in the water!
+... It's another trick of the mirrors! ..."
+
+Then he flatly told me to shut up, with my tricks of the mirrors, my
+springs, my revolving doors and my palaces of illusions!  He angrily
+declared that I must be either blind or mad to imagine that all that
+water flowing over there, among those splendid, numberless trees, was
+not real water! ... And the desert was real!  ... And so was the
+forest! ... And it was no use trying to take him in ... he was an old,
+experienced traveler ... he had been all over the place!
+
+And he dragged himself along, saying:  "Water!  Water!"
+
+And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.
+
+And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.
+
+For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT! ... We heard it flow,
+we heard it ripple! ... Do you understand that word "ripple?" ... IT IS
+A SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE!  ... You put your tongue out
+of your mouth to listen to it better!
+
+Lastly--and this was the most pitiless torture of all--we heard the
+rain and it was not raining!  This was an infernal invention...  Oh, I
+knew well enough how Erik obtained it!  He filled with little stones a
+very long and narrow box, broken up inside with wooden and metal
+projections.  The stones, in falling, struck against these projections
+and rebounded from one to another; and the result was a series of
+pattering sounds that exactly imitated a rainstorm.
+
+Ah, you should have seen us putting out our tongues and dragging
+ourselves toward the rippling river-bank! Our eyes and ears were full
+of water, but our tongues were hard and dry as horn!
+
+When we reached the mirror, M. de Chagny licked it ... and I also
+licked the glass.
+
+It was burning hot!
+
+Then we rolled on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair.  M. de Chagny
+put the one pistol that was still loaded to his temple; and I stared at
+the Punjab lasso at the foot of the iron tree.  I knew why the iron
+tree had returned, in this third change of scene! ...  The iron tree
+was waiting for me! ...
+
+But, as I stared at the Punjab lasso, I saw a thing that made me start
+so violently that M. de Chagny delayed his attempt at suicide.  I took
+his arm.  And then I caught the pistol from him ... and then I dragged
+myself on my knees toward what I had seen.
+
+I had discovered, near the Punjab lasso, in a groove in the floor, a
+black-headed nail of which I knew the use.  At last I had discovered
+the spring!  I felt the nail ...  I lifted a radiant face to M. de
+Chagny ...  The black-headed nail yielded to my pressure ...
+
+And then ...
+
+And then we saw not a door opened in the wall, but a cellar-flap
+released in the floor.  Cool air came up to us from the black hole
+below.  We stooped over that square of darkness as though over a limpid
+well.  With our chins in the cool shade, we drank it in.  And we bent
+lower and lower over the trap-door. What could there be in that cellar
+which opened before us?  Water?  Water to drink?
+
+I thrust my arm into the darkness and came upon a stone and another
+stone ... a staircase ... a dark staircase leading into the cellar.
+The viscount wanted to fling himself down the hole; but I, fearing a
+new trick of the monster's, stopped him, turned on my dark lantern and
+went down first.
+
+The staircase was a winding one and led down into pitchy darkness.  But
+oh, how deliciously cool were the darkness and the stairs?  The lake
+could not be far away.
+
+We soon reached the bottom.  Our eyes were beginning to accustom
+themselves to the dark, to distinguish shapes around us ...  circular
+shapes ... on which I turned the light of my lantern.
+
+Barrels!
+
+We were in Erik's cellar:  it was here that he must keep his wine and
+perhaps his drinking-water. I knew that Erik was a great lover of good
+wine.  Ah, there was plenty to drink here!
+
+M. de Chagny patted the round shapes and kept on saying:
+
+"Barrels!  Barrels!  What a lot of barrels! ..."
+
+Indeed, there was quite a number of them, symmetrically arranged in two
+rows, one on either side of us.  They were small barrels and I thought
+that Erik must have selected them of that size to facilitate their
+carriage to the house on the lake.
+
+We examined them successively, to see if one of them had not a funnel,
+showing that it had been tapped at some time or another.  But all the
+barrels were hermetically closed.
+
+Then, after half lifting one to make sure it was full, we went on our
+knees and, with the blade of a small knife which I carried, I prepared
+to stave in the bung-hole.
+
+At that moment, I seemed to hear, coming from very far, a sort of
+monotonous chant which I knew well, from often hearing it in the
+streets of Paris:
+
+"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell?"
+
+My hand desisted from its work.  M. de Chagny had also heard.  He said:
+
+"That's funny!  It sounds as if the barrel were singing!"
+
+The song was renewed, farther away:
+
+"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell? ..."
+
+"Oh, I swear," said the viscount, "that the tune dies away in the
+barrel! ..."
+
+We stood up and went to look behind the barrel.
+
+"It's inside," said M. de Chagny, "it's inside!"
+
+But we heard nothing there and were driven to accuse the bad condition
+of our senses.  And we returned to the bung-hole. M. de Chagny put his
+two hands together underneath it and, with a last effort, I burst the
+bung.
+
+"What's this?" cried the viscount.  "This isn't water!"
+
+The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ...  I stooped
+to look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence that
+it broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness.
+
+What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!
+
+
+
+[1] It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing,
+he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on
+the part of those who were likely to read his narrative.  Nowadays,
+when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would be
+superfluous.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV  The Scorpion or the Grasshopper:  Which?
+
+
+THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED
+
+The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all
+our past and present sufferings.  We now knew all that the monster
+meant to convey when he said to Christine Daae:
+
+"Yes or no!  If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"
+
+Yes, buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera!
+
+The monster had given her until eleven o'clock in the evening.  He had
+chosen his time well.  There would be many people, many "members of the
+human race," up there, in the resplendent theater.  What finer retinue
+could be expected for his funeral?  He would go down to the tomb
+escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest
+jewels.
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
+
+We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance ...  if
+Christine Daae said no!
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening! ...
+
+And what else could Christine say but no?  Would she not prefer to
+espouse death itself rather than that living corpse?  She did not know
+that on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many
+members of the human race!
+
+Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
+
+And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the
+stone steps, for the light in the trap-door overhead that led to the
+room of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:
+
+"Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!"
+
+At last, I found the staircase.  But, suddenly I drew myself up on the
+first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:
+
+"What is the time?"
+
+Ah, what was the time? ... For, after all, eleven o'clock to-morrow
+evening might be now, might be this very moment!  Who could tell us the
+time?  We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days
+... for years ... since the beginning of the world.  Perhaps we should
+be blown up then and there!  Ah, a sound!  A crack!  "Did you hear
+that? ... There, in the corner ... good heavens! ...  Like a sound of
+machinery! ... Again! ... Oh, for a light! ...  Perhaps it's the
+machinery that is to blow everything up! ...  I tell you, a cracking
+sound:  are you deaf?"
+
+M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen.  Fear spurred us on.  We
+rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything
+to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of
+mirrors!
+
+We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the room
+of mirrors as in the cellar which we had left.  We dragged ourselves
+along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated us
+from the powder-magazine. What was the time?  We shouted, we called: M.
+de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik.  I reminded him that I had saved his
+life.  But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness: what
+was the time?  We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we had
+spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning.  If only we could see
+the face of a watch! ...  Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagny's was
+still going ...  He told me that he had wound it up before dressing for
+the Opera ...  We had not a match upon us ...  And yet we must know ...
+M. de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands... He
+questioned the hands of the watch with his finger-tips, going by the
+position of the ring of the watch ...  Judging by the space between the
+hands, he thought it might be just eleven o'clock!
+
+But perhaps it was not the eleven o'clock of which we stood in dread.
+Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!
+
+Suddenly, I exclaimed:  "Hush!"
+
+I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room.  Some one tapped against
+the wall.  Christine Daae's voice said:
+
+"Raoul!  Raoul!"  We were now all talking at once, on either side of
+the wall.  Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. de
+Chagny alive.  The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done
+nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the "yes" which she
+refused.  And yet she had promised him that "yes," if he would take her
+to the torture-chamber. But he had obstinately declined, and had
+uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race!  At
+last, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out,
+leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.
+
+"Hours and hours?  What is the time now?  What is the time, Christine?"
+
+"It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!"
+
+"But which eleven o'clock?"
+
+"The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death! ... He told me so
+just before he went ...  He is terrible ...  He is quite mad: he tore
+off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames! ... He did nothing but
+laugh! ... He said, 'I give you five minutes to spare your blushes!
+Here,' he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death,
+'here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the
+mantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room...  In one of the caskets, you
+will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly
+imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you.  If you
+turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you
+have said yes.  The grasshopper will mean no.'  And he laughed like a
+drunken demon.  I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the
+key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me
+that request ...  But he told me that there was no future need for that
+key and that he was going to throw it into the lake! ...  And he again
+laughed like a drunken demon and left me.  Oh, his last words were,
+'The grasshopper!  Be careful of the grasshopper!  A grasshopper does
+not only turn:  it hops!  It hops!  And it hops jolly high!'"
+
+The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the
+grasshopper were scratching at my brain.  Nevertheless, I had
+sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were
+turned, it would hop ... and with it many members of the human race!
+There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric
+current intended to blow up the powder-magazine!
+
+M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from
+hearing Christine's voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words,
+the situation in which we and all the Opera were.  He told her to turn
+the scorpion at once.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Christine," I cried, "where are you?"
+
+"By the scorpion."
+
+"Don't touch it!"
+
+The idea had come to me--for I knew my Erik--that the monster had
+perhaps deceived the girl once more.  Perhaps it was the scorpion that
+would blow everything up.  After all, why wasn't he there?  The five
+minutes were long past ... and he was not back...  Perhaps he had taken
+shelter and was waiting for the explosion!  ... Why had he not
+returned? ... He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to
+become his voluntary prey! ... Why had he not returned?
+
+"Don't touch the scorpion!"  I said.
+
+"Here he comes!" cried Christine.  "I hear him!  Here he is!"
+
+We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room.  He came up to
+Christine, but did not speak.  Then I raised my voice:
+
+"Erik!  It is I!  Do you know me?"
+
+With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:
+
+"So you are not dead in there?  Well, then, see that you keep quiet."
+
+I tried to speak, but he said coldly:
+
+"Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up."  And he added,
+"The honor rests with mademoiselle ...  Mademoiselle has not touched
+the scorpion"--how deliberately he spoke!--"mademoiselle has not
+touched the grasshopper"--with that composure!--"but it is not too late
+to do the right thing.  There, I open the caskets without a key, for I
+am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please.
+I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dears
+inside.  Aren't they pretty?  If you turn the grasshopper,
+mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up.  There is enough gun-powder
+under our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris.  If you turn the
+scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned.
+Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome
+present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a
+poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's ... you shall make them a present of
+their lives ...  For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the
+scorpion ...  And merrily, merrily, we will be married!"
+
+A pause; and then:
+
+"If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I
+shall turn the grasshopper ... and the grasshopper, I tell you, HOPS
+JOLLY HIGH!"
+
+The terrible silence began anew.  The Vicomte de Chagny, realizing that
+there was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees and
+prayed.  As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take my
+heart in both hands, lest it should burst.  At last, we heard Erik's
+voice:
+
+"The two minutes are past ...  Good-by, mademoiselle...  Hop,
+grasshopper!  "Erik," cried Christine, "do you swear to me, monster, do
+you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?
+
+"Yes, to hop at our wedding."
+
+"Ah, you see!  You said, to hop!"
+
+"At our wedding, ingenuous child! ... The scorpion opens the ball...
+But that will do! ... You won't have the scorpion?  Then I turn the
+grasshopper!"
+
+"Erik!"
+
+"Enough!"
+
+I was crying out in concert with Christine.  M. de Chagny was still on
+his knees, praying.
+
+"Erik!  I have turned the scorpion!"
+
+Oh, the second through which we passed!
+
+Waiting!  Waiting to find ourselves in fragments, amid the roar and the
+ruins!
+
+Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss
+through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket!
+
+It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud.  But it was not
+the hiss of fire.  It was more like the hiss of water.  And now it
+became a gurgling sound:  "Guggle!  Guggle!"
+
+We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when the
+terror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.
+
+The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, the
+powder-barrels--"Barrels! ...  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"--and we
+went down to it with parched throats.  It rose to our chins, to our
+mouths. And we drank.  We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank.
+And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up with
+the water.
+
+The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor of
+the room.  If, this went on, the whole house on the lake would be
+swamped.  The floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regular
+little lake, in which our feet splashed.  Surely there was water enough
+now!  Erik must turn off the tap!
+
+"Erik!  Erik!  That is water enough for the gunpowder!  Turn off the
+tap!  Turn off the scorpion!"
+
+But Erik did not reply.  We heard nothing but the water rising: it was
+half-way to our waists!
+
+"Christine!" cried M. de Chagny.  "Christine!  The water is up to our
+knees!"
+
+But Christine did not reply ...  We heard nothing but the water rising.
+
+No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turn
+the scorpion!
+
+We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us and
+clasped us and froze us!
+
+"Erik!  Erik!"
+
+"Christine!  Christine!"
+
+By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in the
+water, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned with
+us and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again;
+and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.
+
+Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seen
+that.  Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had never
+shown me that, through the little invisible window.
+
+"Erik!  Erik!"  I cried.  "I saved your life!  Remember! ... You were
+sentenced to death!  But for me, you would be dead now! ...  Erik!"
+
+We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage.  But, suddenly,
+my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree!  I called M. de
+Chagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.
+
+And the water rose still higher.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Can you remember?  How much space is there between the
+branch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling?  Do try to remember!
+...  After all, the water may stop, it must find its level! ... There,
+I think it is stopping! ... No, no, oh, horrible! ... Swim!  Swim for
+your life!"
+
+Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we
+fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air
+above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear
+escaping through some vent-hole or other.
+
+"Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and then
+glue our mouths to it!"
+
+But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls!  Oh, how
+those glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers! ... We whirled
+round again! ... We began to sink!  ... One last effort! ... A last
+cry:  "Erik! ... Christine! ..."
+
+"Guggle, guggle, guggle!" in our ears.  "Guggle!  Guggle!"  At the
+bottom of the dark water, our ears went, "Guggle!  Guggle!"
+
+And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, between
+two guggles:
+
+"Barrels!  Barrels!  Any barrels to sell?"
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI  The End of the Ghost's Love Story
+
+
+The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative
+which the Persian left behind him.
+
+Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to
+abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and his companion were saved
+by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae.  And I had the rest of the
+story from the lips of the daroga himself.
+
+When I went to see him, he was still living in his little flat in the
+Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries.  He was very ill, and it
+required all my ardor as an historian pledged to the truth to persuade
+him to live the incredible tragedy over again for my benefit.  His
+faithful old servant Darius showed me in to him.  The daroga received
+me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries.  He still had
+his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn.  He had
+shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with an
+astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused himself
+by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves; but his mind
+was quite clear, and he told me his story with perfect lucidity.
+
+It seems that, when he opened his eyes, the daroga found himself lying
+on a bed.  M. de Chagny was on a sofa, beside the wardrobe.  An angel
+and a devil were watching over them.
+
+After the deceptions and illusions of the torture-chamber, the
+precision of the details of that quiet little middle-class room seemed
+to have been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of
+the mortal rash enough to stray into that abode of living nightmare.
+The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the chest of drawers,
+those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed on the
+backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the
+harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot
+filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats
+and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded
+lamp standing on a small round table:  this collection of ugly,
+peaceable, reasonable furniture, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OPERA CELLARS,
+bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings.
+
+And the figure of the masked man seemed all the more formidable in this
+old-fashioned, neat and trim little frame.  It bent down over the
+Persian and said, in his ear:
+
+"Are you better, daroga? ... You are looking at my furniture? ...  It
+is all that I have left of my poor unhappy mother."
+
+Christine Daae did not say a word:  she moved about noiselessly, like a
+sister of charity, who had taken a vow of silence.  She brought a cup
+of cordial, or of hot tea, he did not remember which.  The man in the
+mask took it from her hands and gave it to the Persian.  M. de Chagny
+was still sleeping.
+
+Erik poured a drop of rum into the daroga's cup and, pointing to the
+viscount, said:
+
+"He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive,
+daroga.  He is quite well.  He is asleep.  We must not wake him."
+
+Erik left the room for a moment, and the Persian raised himself on his
+elbow, looked around him and saw Christine Daae sitting by the
+fireside.  He spoke to her, called her, but he was still very weak and
+fell back on his pillow.  Christine came to him, laid her hand on his
+forehead and went away again.  And the Persian remembered that, as she
+went, she did not give a glance at M. de Chagny, who, it is true, was
+sleeping peacefully; and she sat down again in her chair by the
+chimney-corner, silent as a sister of charity who had taken a vow of
+silence.
+
+Erik returned with some little bottles which he placed on the
+mantelpiece.  And, again in a whisper, so as not to wake M. de Chagny,
+he said to the Persian, after sitting down and feeling his pulse:
+
+"You are now saved, both of you.  And soon I shall take you up to the
+surface of the earth, TO PLEASE MY WIFE."
+
+Thereupon he rose, without any further explanation, and disappeared
+once more.
+
+The Persian now looked at Christine's quiet profile under the lamp.
+She was reading a tiny book, with gilt edges, like a religious book.
+There are editions of THE IMITATION that look like that.  The Persian
+still had in his ears the natural tone in which the other had said, "to
+please my wife."  Very gently, he called her again; but Christine was
+wrapped up in her book and did not hear him.
+
+Erik returned, mixed the daroga a draft and advised him not to speak to
+"his wife" again nor to any one, BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE VERY DANGEROUS TO
+EVERYBODY'S HEALTH.
+
+Eventually, the Persian fell asleep, like M. de Chagny, and did not
+wake until he was in his own room, nursed by his faithful Darius, who
+told him that, on the night before, he was found propped against the
+door of his flat, where he had been brought by a stranger, who rang the
+bell before going away.
+
+As soon as the daroga recovered his strength and his wits, he sent to
+Count Philippe's house to inquire after the viscount's health.  The
+answer was that the young man had not been seen and that Count Philippe
+was dead.  His body was found on the bank of the Opera lake, on the
+Rue-Scribe side.  The Persian remembered the requiem mass which he had
+heard from behind the wall of the torture-chamber, and had no doubt
+concerning the crime and the criminal.  Knowing Erik as he did, he
+easily reconstructed the tragedy.  Thinking that his brother had run
+away with Christine Daae, Philippe had dashed in pursuit of him along
+the Brussels Road, where he knew that everything was prepared for the
+elopement.  Failing to find the pair, he hurried back to the Opera,
+remembered Raoul's strange confidence about his fantastic rival and
+learned that the viscount had made every effort to enter the cellars of
+the theater and that he had disappeared, leaving his hat in the prima
+donna's dressing-room beside an empty pistol-case. And the count, who
+no longer entertained any doubt of his brother's madness, in his turn
+darted into that infernal underground maze.  This was enough, in the
+Persian's eyes, to explain the discovery of the Comte de Chagny's
+corpse on the shore of the lake, where the siren, Erik's siren, kept
+watch.
+
+The Persian did not hesitate.  He determined to inform the police.  Now
+the case was in the hands of an examining-magistrate called Faure, an
+incredulous, commonplace, superficial sort of person, (I write as I
+think), with a mind utterly unprepared to receive a confidence of this
+kind.  M. Faure took down the daroga's depositions and proceeded to
+treat him as a madman.
+
+Despairing of ever obtaining a hearing, the Persian sat down to write.
+As the police did not want his evidence, perhaps the press would be
+glad of it; and he had just written the last line of the narrative I
+have quoted in the preceding chapters, when Darius announced the visit
+of a stranger who refused his name, who would not show his face and
+declared simply that he did not intend to leave the place until he had
+spoken to the daroga.
+
+The Persian at once felt who his singular visitor was and ordered him
+to be shown in.  The daroga was right.  It was the ghost, it was Erik!
+
+He looked extremely weak and leaned against the wall, as though he were
+afraid of falling.  Taking off his hat, he revealed a forehead white as
+wax.  The rest of the horrible face was hidden by the mask.
+
+The Persian rose to his feet as Erik entered.
+
+"Murderer of Count Philippe, what have you done with his brother and
+Christine Daae?"
+
+Erik staggered under this direct attack, kept silent for a moment,
+dragged himself to a chair and heaved a deep sigh.  Then, speaking in
+short phrases and gasping for breath between the words:
+
+"Daroga, don't talk to me ... about Count Philippe ...  He was dead ...
+by the time ... I left my house ... he was dead ... when ...  the siren
+sang ...  It was an ... accident ... a sad ... a very sad ... accident.
+He fell very awkwardly ... but simply and naturally ...  into the lake!
+..."
+
+"You lie!" shouted the Persian.
+
+Erik bowed his head and said:
+
+"I have not come here ... to talk about Count Philippe ...  but to tell
+you that ... I am going ... to die..."
+
+"Where are Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae?"
+
+"I am going to die."
+
+"Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae?"
+
+"Of love ... daroga ... I am dying ... of love ... That is how it is
+... loved her so! ... And I love her still ... daroga ... and I am
+dying of love for her, I ... I tell you! ... If you knew how beautiful
+she was ...  when she let me kiss her ... alive ... It was the first
+... time, daroga, the first ... time I ever kissed a woman ...  Yes,
+alive ...  I kissed her alive ... and she looked as beautiful as if she
+had been dead!"
+
+The Persian shook Erik by the arm:
+
+"Will you tell me if she is alive or dead."
+
+"Why do you shake me like that?" asked Erik, making an effort to speak
+more connectedly.  "I tell you that I am going to die...  Yes, I kissed
+her alive ..."
+
+"And now she is dead?"
+
+"I tell you I kissed her just like that, on her forehead ...  and she
+did not draw back her forehead from my lips! ... Oh, she is a good
+girl! ... As to her being dead, I don't think so; but it has nothing to
+do with me ...  No, no, she is not dead!  And no one shall touch a hair
+of her head!  She is a good, honest girl, and she saved your life,
+daroga, at a moment when I would not have given twopence for your
+Persian skin.  As a matter of fact, nobody bothered about you.  Why
+were you there with that little chap?  You would have died as well as
+he!  My word, how she entreated me for her little chap!  But I told her
+that, as she had turned the scorpion, she had, through that very fact,
+and of her own free will, become engaged to me and that she did not
+need to have two men engaged to her, which was true enough.
+
+"As for you, you did not exist, you had ceased to exist, I tell you,
+and you were going to die with the other! ... Only, mark me, daroga,
+when you were yelling like the devil, because of the water, Christine
+came to me with her beautiful blue eyes wide open, and swore to me, as
+she hoped to be saved, that she consented to be MY LIVING WIFE! ...
+Until then, in the depths of her eyes, daroga, I had always seen my
+dead wife; it was the first time I saw MY LIVING WIFE there.  She was
+sincere, as she hoped to be saved.  She would not kill herself.  It was
+a bargain ...  Half a minute later, all the water was back in the lake;
+and I had a hard job with you, daroga, for, upon my honor, I thought
+you were done for! ...  However! ... There you were! ... It was
+understood that I was to take you both up to the surface of the earth.
+When, at last, I cleared the Louis-Philippe room of you, I came back
+alone ..."
+
+"What have you done with the Vicomte de Chagny?" asked the Persian,
+interrupting him.
+
+"Ah, you see, daroga, I couldn't carry HIM up like that, at once.  ...
+He was a hostage ...  But I could not keep him in the house on the
+lake, either, because of Christine; so I locked him up comfortably, I
+chained him up nicely--a whiff of the Mazenderan scent had left him as
+limp as a rag--in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most
+deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no
+one ever comes, and where no one ever hears you.  Then I came back to
+Christine, she was waiting for me."
+
+Erik here rose solemnly.  Then he continued, but, as he spoke, he was
+overcome by all his former emotion and began to tremble like a leaf:
+
+"Yes, she was waiting for me ... waiting for me erect and alive, a
+real, living bride ... as she hoped to be saved ...  And, when I ...
+came forward, more timid than ... a little child, she did not run away
+... no, no ... she stayed ... she waited for me ...  I even believe ...
+daroga ... that she put out her forehead ... a little ... oh, not much
+... just a little ...  like a living bride ...  And ... and ... I ...
+kissed her! ...  I! ... I! ... I! ... And she did not die! ... Oh, how
+good it is, daroga, to kiss somebody on the forehead! ... You can't
+tell! ...  But I!  I! ... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother
+would never ... let me kiss her ...  She used to run away ... and throw
+me my mask!  ... Nor any other woman ... ever, ever! ... Ah, you can
+understand, my happiness was so great, I cried.  And I fell at her
+feet, crying ... and I kissed her feet ... her little feet ... crying.
+You're crying, too, daroga ... and she cried also ... the angel cried!
+..." Erik sobbed aloud and the Persian himself could not retain his
+tears in the presence of that masked man, who, with his shoulders
+shaking and his hands clutched at his chest, was moaning with pain and
+love by turns.
+
+"Yes, daroga ... I felt her tears flow on my forehead ... on mine,
+mine! ... They were soft ... they were sweet! ... They trickled under
+my mask ... they mingled with my tears in my eyes ... yes ... they
+flowed between my lips ...  Listen, daroga, listen to what I did ...  I
+tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears ... and she did not
+run away! ... And she did not die! ...  She remained alive, weeping
+over me, with me.  We cried together!  I have tasted all the happiness
+the world can offer!"
+
+And Erik fell into a chair, choking for breath:
+
+"Ah, I am not going to die yet ... presently I shall ... but let me
+cry! ... Listen, daroga ... listen to this ...  While I was at her feet
+... I heard her say, 'Poor, unhappy Erik!' ...  AND SHE TOOK MY HAND!
+... I had become no more, you know, than a poor dog ready to die for
+her ...  I mean it, daroga! ...  I held in my hand a ring, a plain gold
+ring which I had given her ... which she had lost ... and which I had
+found again ...  a wedding-ring, you know ...  I slipped it into her
+little hand and said, 'There! ... Take it! ... Take it for you ... and
+him!  ... It shall be my wedding-present a present from your poor,
+unhappy Erik ...  I know you love the boy ... don't cry any more!  ...
+She asked me, in a very soft voice, what I meant ...  Then I made her
+understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready
+to die for her ... but that she could marry the young man when she
+pleased, because she had cried with me and mingled her tears with mine!
+..."
+
+Erik's emotion was so great that he had to tell the Persian not to look
+at him, for he was choking and must take off his mask.  The daroga went
+to the window and opened it.  His heart was full of pity, but he took
+care to keep his eyes fixed on the trees in the Tuileries gardens, lest
+he should see the monster's face.
+
+"I went and released the young man," Erik continued, "and told him to
+come with me to Christine ...  They kissed before me in the
+Louis-Philippe room ...  Christine had my ring ...  I made Christine
+swear to come back, one night, when I was dead, crossing the lake from
+the Rue-Scribe side, and bury me in the greatest secrecy with the gold
+ring, which she was to wear until that moment.  ... I told her where
+she would find my body and what to do with it...  Then Christine kissed
+me, for the first time, herself, here, on the forehead--don't look,
+daroga!--here, on the forehead ... on my forehead, mine--don't look,
+daroga!--and they went off together...  Christine had stopped crying
+...  I alone cried ...  Daroga, daroga, if Christine keeps her promise,
+she will come back soon! ..."
+
+The Persian asked him no questions.  He was quite reassured as to the
+fate of Raoul Chagny and Christine Daae; no one could have doubted the
+word of the weeping Erik that night.
+
+The monster resumed his mask and collected his strength to leave the
+daroga.  He told him that, when he felt his end to be very near at
+hand, he would send him, in gratitude for the kindness which the
+Persian had once shown him, that which he held dearest in the world:
+all Christine Daae's papers, which she had written for Raoul's benefit
+and left with Erik, together with a few objects belonging to her, such
+as a pair of gloves, a shoe-buckle and two pocket-handkerchiefs. In
+reply to the Persian's questions, Erik told him that the two young
+people, at soon as they found themselves free, had resolved to go and
+look for a priest in some lonely spot where they could hide their
+happiness and that, with this object in view, they had started from
+"the northern railway station of the world."  Lastly, Erik relied on
+the Persian, as soon as he received the promised relics and papers, to
+inform the young couple of his death and to advertise it in the EPOQUE.
+
+That was all.  The Persian saw Erik to the door of his flat, and Darius
+helped him down to the street.  A cab was waiting for him.  Erik
+stepped in; and the Persian, who had gone back to the window, heard him
+say to the driver:
+
+"Go to the Opera."
+
+And the cab drove off into the night.
+
+The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time.
+Three weeks later, the Epoque published this advertisement:
+
+"Erik is dead."
+
+
+
+Epilogue.
+
+
+I have now told the singular, but veracious story of the Opera ghost.
+As I declared on the first page of this work, it is no longer possible
+to deny that Erik really lived.  There are to-day so many proofs of his
+existence within the reach of everybody that we can follow Erik's
+actions logically through the whole tragedy of the Chagnys.
+
+There is no need to repeat here how greatly the case excited the
+capital.  The kidnapping of the artist, the death of the Comte de
+Chagny under such exceptional conditions, the disappearance of his
+brother, the drugging of the gas-man at the Opera and of his two
+assistants: what tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded
+the idyll of Raoul and the sweet and charming Christine! ... What had
+become of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was
+never, never to hear again? ... She was represented as the victim of a
+rivalry between the two brothers; and nobody suspected what had really
+happened, nobody understood that, as Raoul and Christine had both
+disappeared, both had withdrawn far from the world to enjoy a happiness
+which they would not have cared to make public after the inexplicable
+death of Count Philippe ...  They took the train one day from "the
+northern railway station of the world." ... Possibly, I too shall take
+the train at that station, one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O
+Norway, O silent Scandinavia, for the perhaps still living traces of
+Raoul and Christine and also of Mamma Valerius, who disappeared at the
+same time! ... Possibly, some day, I shall hear the lonely echoes of
+the North repeat the singing of her who knew the Angel of Music! ...
+
+Long after the case was pigeonholed by the unintelligent care of M. le
+Juge d'Instruction Faure, the newspapers made efforts, at intervals, to
+fathom the mystery.  One evening paper alone, which knew all the gossip
+of the theaters, said:
+
+"We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost."
+
+And even that was written by way of irony.
+
+The Persian alone knew the whole truth and held the main proofs, which
+came to him with the pious relics promised by the ghost.  It fell to my
+lot to complete those proofs with the aid of the daroga himself.  Day
+by day, I kept him informed of the progress of my inquiries; and he
+directed them.  He had not been to the Opera for years and years, but
+he had preserved the most accurate recollection of the building, and
+there was no better guide than he possible to help me discover its most
+secret recesses.  He also told me where to gather further information,
+whom to ask; and he sent me to call on M. Poligny, at a moment when the
+poor man was nearly drawing his last breath.  I had no idea that he was
+so very ill, and I shall never forget the effect which my questions
+about the ghost produced upon him.  He looked at me as if I were the
+devil and answered only in a few incoherent sentences, which showed,
+however--and that was the main thing--the extent of the perturbation
+which O. G., in his time, had brought into that already very restless
+life (for M. Poligny was what people call a man of pleasure).
+
+When I came and told the Persian of the poor result of my visit to M.
+Poligny, the daroga gave a faint smile and said:
+
+"Poligny never knew how far that extraordinary blackguard of an Erik
+humbugged him."--The Persian, by the way, spoke of Erik sometimes as a
+demigod and sometimes as the lowest of the low--"Poligny was
+superstitious and Erik knew it.  Erik knew most things about the public
+and private affairs of the Opera.  When M. Poligny heard a mysterious
+voice tell him, in Box Five, of the manner in which he used to spend
+his time and abuse his partner's confidence, he did not wait to hear
+any more.  Thinking at first that it was a voice from Heaven, he
+believed himself damned; and then, when the voice began to ask for
+money, he saw that he was being victimized by a shrewd blackmailer to
+whom Debienne himself had fallen a prey.  Both of them, already tired
+of management for various reasons, went away without trying to
+investigate further into the personality of that curious O. G., who had
+forced such a singular memorandum-book upon them.  They bequeathed the
+whole mystery to their successors and heaved a sigh of relief when they
+were rid of a business that had puzzled them without amusing them in
+the least."
+
+I then spoke of the two successors and expressed my surprise that, in
+his Memoirs of a Manager, M. Moncharmin should describe the Opera
+ghost's behavior at such length in the first part of the book and
+hardly mention it at all in the second.  In reply to this, the Persian,
+who knew the MEMOIRS as thoroughly as if he had written them himself,
+observed that I should find the explanation of the whole business if I
+would just recollect the few lines which Moncharmin devotes to the
+ghost in the second part aforesaid.  I quote these lines, which are
+particularly interesting because they describe the very simple manner
+in which the famous incident of the twenty-thousand francs was closed:
+
+"As for O. G., some of whose curious tricks I have related in the first
+part of my Memoirs, I will only say that he redeemed by one spontaneous
+fine action all the worry which he had caused my dear friend and
+partner and, I am bound to say, myself.  He felt, no doubt, that there
+are limits to a joke, especially when it is so expensive and when the
+commissary of police has been informed, for, at the moment when we had
+made an appointment in our office with M. Mifroid to tell him the whole
+story, a few days after the disappearance of Christine Daae, we found,
+on Richard's table, a large envelope, inscribed, in red ink, "WITH O.
+G.'S COMPLIMENTS."  It contained the large sum of money which he had
+succeeded in playfully extracting, for the time being, from the
+treasury.  Richard was at once of the opinion that we must be content
+with that and drop the business.  I agreed with Richard.  All's well
+that ends well.  What do you say, O. G.?"
+
+Of course, Moncharmin, especially after the money had been restored,
+continued to believe that he had, for a short while, been the butt of
+Richard's sense of humor, whereas Richard, on his side, was convinced
+that Moncharmin had amused himself by inventing the whole of the affair
+of the Opera ghost, in order to revenge himself for a few jokes.
+
+I asked the Persian to tell me by what trick the ghost had taken
+twenty-thousand francs from Richard's pocket in spite of the
+safety-pin. He replied that he had not gone into this little detail,
+but that, if I myself cared to make an investigation on the spot, I
+should certainly find the solution to the riddle in the managers'
+office by remembering that Erik had not been nicknamed the trap-door
+lover for nothing.  I promised the Persian to do so as soon as I had
+time, and I may as well tell the reader at once that the results of my
+investigation were perfectly satisfactory; and I hardly believed that I
+should ever discover so many undeniable proofs of the authenticity of
+the feats ascribed to the ghost.
+
+The Persian's manuscript, Christine Daae's papers, the statements made
+to me by the people who used to work under MM. Richard and Moncharmin,
+by little Meg herself (the worthy Madame Giry, I am sorry to say, is no
+more) and by Sorelli, who is now living in retirement at Louveciennes:
+all the documents relating to the existence of the ghost, which I
+propose to deposit in the archives of the Opera, have been checked and
+confirmed by a number of important discoveries of which I am justly
+proud.  I have not been able to find the house on the lake, Erik having
+blocked up all the secret entrances.[1]  On the other hand, I have
+discovered the secret passage of the Communists, the planking of which
+is falling to pieces in parts, and also the trap-door through which
+Raoul and the Persian penetrated into the cellars of the opera-house.
+In the Communists' dungeon, I noticed numbers of initials traced on the
+walls by the unfortunate people confined in it; and among these were an
+"R" and a "C." R. C.: Raoul de Chagny.  The letters are there to this
+day.
+
+If the reader will visit the Opera one morning and ask leave to stroll
+where he pleases, without being accompanied by a stupid guide, let him
+go to Box Five and knock with his fist or stick on the enormous column
+that separates this from the stage-box. He will find that the column
+sounds hollow.  After that, do not be astonished by the suggestion that
+it was occupied by the voice of the ghost:  there is room inside the
+column for two men.  If you are surprised that, when the various
+incidents occurred, no one turned round to look at the column, you must
+remember that it presented the appearance of solid marble, and that the
+voice contained in it seemed rather to come from the opposite side,
+for, as we have seen, the ghost was an expert ventriloquist.
+
+The column was elaborately carved and decorated with the sculptor's
+chisel; and I do not despair of one day discovering the ornament that
+could be raised or lowered at will, so as to admit of the ghost's
+mysterious correspondence with Mme. Giry and of his generosity.
+
+However, all these discoveries are nothing, to my mind, compared with
+that which I was able to make, in the presence of the acting-manager,
+in the managers' office, within a couple of inches from the desk-chair,
+and which consisted of a trap-door, the width of a board in the
+flooring and the length of a man's fore-arm and no longer; a trap-door
+that falls back like the lid of a box; a trap-door through which I can
+see a hand come and dexterously fumble at the pocket of a swallow-tail
+coat.
+
+That is the way the forty-thousand francs went! ...  And that also is
+the way by which, through some trick or other, they were returned.
+
+Speaking about this to the Persian, I said:
+
+"So we may take it, as the forty-thousand francs were returned, that
+Erik was simply amusing himself with that memorandum-book of his?"
+
+"Don't you believe it!" he replied.  "Erik wanted money.  Thinking
+himself without the pale of humanity, he was restrained by no scruples
+and he employed his extraordinary gifts of dexterity and imagination,
+which he had received by way of compensation for his extraordinary
+uglinesss, to prey upon his fellow-men. His reason for restoring the
+forty-thousand francs, of his own accord, was that he no longer wanted
+it.  He had relinquished his marriage with Christine Daae.  He had
+relinquished everything above the surface of the earth."
+
+According to the Persian's account, Erik was born in a small town not
+far from Rouen.  He was the son of a master-mason. He ran away at an
+early age from his father's house, where his ugliness was a subject of
+horror and terror to his parents.  For a time, he frequented the fairs,
+where a showman exhibited him as the "living corpse." He seems to have
+crossed the whole of Europe, from fair to fair, and to have completed
+his strange education as an artist and magician at the very
+fountain-head of art and magic, among the Gipsies.  A period of Erik's
+life remained quite obscure.  He was seen at the fair of
+Nijni-Novgorod, where he displayed himself in all his hideous glory.
+He already sang as nobody on this earth had ever sung before; he
+practised ventriloquism and gave displays of legerdemain so
+extraordinary that the caravans returning to Asia talked about it
+during the whole length of their journey.  In this way, his reputation
+penetrated the walls of the palace at Mazenderan, where the little
+sultana, the favorite of the Shah-in-Shah, was boring herself to death.
+A dealer in furs, returning to Samarkand from Nijni-Novgorod, told of
+the marvels which he had seen performed in Erik's tent.  The trader was
+summoned to the palace and the daroga of Mazenderan was told to
+question him.  Next the daroga was instructed to go and find Erik.  He
+brought him to Persia, where for some months Erik's will was law.  He
+was guilty of not a few horrors, for he seemed not to know the
+difference between good and evil.  He took part calmly in a number of
+political assassinations; and he turned his diabolical inventive powers
+against the Emir of Afghanistan, who was at war with the Persian
+empire.  The Shah took a liking to him.
+
+This was the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, of which the
+daroga's narrative has given us a glimpse.  Erik had very original
+ideas on the subject of architecture and thought out a palace much as a
+conjuror contrives a trick-casket. The Shah ordered him to construct an
+edifice of this kind.  Erik did so; and the building appears to have
+been so ingenious that His Majesty was able to move about in it unseen
+and to disappear without a possibility of the trick's being discovered.
+When the Shah-in-Shah found himself the possessor of this gem, he
+ordered Erik's yellow eyes to be put out.  But he reflected that, even
+when blind, Erik would still be able to build so remarkable a house for
+another sovereign; and also that, as long as Erik was alive, some one
+would know the secret of the wonderful palace.  Erik's death was
+decided upon, together with that of all the laborers who had worked
+under his orders.  The execution of this abominable decree devolved
+upon the daroga of Mazenderan.  Erik had shown him some slight services
+and procured him many a hearty laugh.  He saved Erik by providing him
+with the means of escape, but nearly paid with his head for his
+generous indulgence.
+
+Fortunately for the daroga, a corpse, half-eaten by the birds of prey,
+was found on the shore of the Caspian Sea, and was taken for Erik's
+body, because the daroga's friends had dressed the remains in clothing
+that belonged to Erik.  The daroga was let off with the loss of the
+imperial favor, the confiscation of his property and an order of
+perpetual banishment.  As a member of the Royal House, however, he
+continued to receive a monthly pension of a few hundred francs from the
+Persian treasury; and on this he came to live in Paris.
+
+As for Erik, he went to Asia Minor and thence to Constantinople, where
+he entered the Sultan's employment.  In explanation of the services
+which he was able to render a monarch haunted by perpetual terrors, I
+need only say that it was Erik who constructed all the famous
+trap-doors and secret chambers and mysterious strong-boxes which were
+found at Yildiz-Kiosk after the last Turkish revolution.  He also
+invented those automata, dressed like the Sultan and resembling the
+Sultan in all respects,[2] which made people believe that the
+Commander of the Faithful was awake at one place, when, in reality, he
+was asleep elsewhere.
+
+Of course, he had to leave the Sultan's service for the same reasons
+that made him fly from Persia:  he knew too much.  Then, tired of his
+adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one
+"like everybody else."  And he became a contractor, like any ordinary
+contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks.  He tendered
+for part of the foundations in the Opera.  His estimate was accepted.
+When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his
+artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand.  Besides,
+was he not as ugly as ever?  He dreamed of creating for his own use a
+dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from
+men's eyes for all time.
+
+The reader knows and guesses the rest.  It is all in keeping with this
+incredible and yet veracious story.  Poor, unhappy Erik!  Shall we pity
+him?  Shall we curse him?  He asked only to be "some one," like
+everybody else.  But he was too ugly!  And he had to hide his genius OR
+USE IT TO PLAY TRICKS WITH, when, with an ordinary face, he would have
+been one of the most distinguished of mankind!  He had a heart that
+could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to
+content himself with a cellar.  Ah, yes, we must needs pity the Opera
+ghost.
+
+I have prayed over his mortal remains, that God might show him mercy
+notwithstanding his crimes.  Yes, I am sure, quite sure that I prayed
+beside his body, the other day, when they took it from the spot where
+they were burying the phonographic records.  It was his skeleton.  I
+did not recognize it by the ugliness of the head, for all men are ugly
+when they have been dead as long as that, but by the plain gold ring
+which he wore and which Christine Daae had certainly slipped on his
+finger, when she came to bury him in accordance with her promise.
+
+The skeleton was lying near the little well, in the place where the
+Angel of Music first held Christine Daae fainting in his trembling
+arms, on the night when he carried her down to the cellars of the
+opera-house.
+
+And, now, what do they mean to do with that skeleton?  Surely they will
+not bury it in the common grave! ... I say that the place of the
+skeleton of the Opera ghost is in the archives of the National Academy
+of Music.  It is no ordinary skeleton.
+
+
+
+[1] Even so, I am convinced that it would be easy to reach it by
+draining the lake, as I have repeatedly requested the Ministry of Fine
+Arts to do.  I was speaking about it to M. Dujardin-Beaumetz, the
+under-secretary for fine arts, only forty-eight hours before the
+publication of this book.  Who knows but that the score of DON JUAN
+TRIUMPHANT might yet be discovered in the house on the lake?
+
+[2] See the interview of the special correspondent of the MATIN, with
+Mohammed-Ali Bey, on the day after the entry of the Salonika troops
+into Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+The Paris Opera House
+
+
+THE SCENE OF GASTON LEROUX'S NOVEL, "THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA"
+
+That Mr. Leroux has used, for the scene of his story, the Paris Opera
+House as it really is and has not created a building out of his
+imagination, is shown by this interesting description of it taken from
+an article which appeared in Scribner's Magazine in 1879, a short time
+after the building was completed:
+
+"The new Opera House, commenced under the Empire and finished under the
+Republic, is the most complete building of the kind in the world and in
+many respects the most beautiful.  No European capital possesses an
+opera house so comprehensive in plan and execution, and none can boast
+an edifice equally vast and splendid.
+
+"The site of the Opera House was chosen in 1861.  It was determined to
+lay the foundation exceptionally deep and strong.  It was well known
+that water would be met with, but it was impossible to foresee at what
+depth or in what quantity it would be found.  Exceptional depth also
+was necessary, as the stage arrangements were to be such as to admit a
+scene fifty feet high to be lowered on its frame.  It was therefore
+necessary to lay a foundation in a soil soaked with water which should
+be sufficiently solid to sustain a weight of 22,000,000 pounds, and at
+the same time to be perfectly dry, as the cellars were intended for the
+storage of scenery and properties.  While the work was in progress, the
+excavation was kept free from water by means of eight pumps, worked by
+steam power, and in operation, without interruption, day and night,
+from March second to October thirteenth.  The floor of the cellar was
+covered with a layer of concrete, then with two coats of cement,
+another layer of concrete and a coat of bitumen.  The wall includes an
+outer wall built as a coffer-dam, a brick wall, a coat of cement, and a
+wall proper, a little over a yard thick.  After all this was done the
+whole was filled with water, in order that the fluid, by penetrating
+into the most minute interstices, might deposit a sediment which would
+close them more surely and perfectly than it would be possible to do by
+hand.  Twelve years elapsed before the completion of the building, and
+during that time it was demonstrated that the precautions taken secured
+absolute impermeability and solidity.
+
+"The events of 1870 interrupted work just as it was about to be
+prosecuted most vigorously, and the new Opera House was put to new and
+unexpected uses.  During the siege, it was converted into a vast
+military storehouse and filled with a heterogeneous mass of goods.
+After the siege the building fell into the hands of the Commune and the
+roof was turned into a balloon station.  The damage done, however, was
+slight.
+
+"The fine stone employed in the construction was brought from quarries
+in Sweden, Scotland, Italy, Algeria, Finland, Spain, Belgium and
+France.  While work on the exterior was in progress, the building was
+covered in by a wooden shell, rendered transparent by thousands of
+small panes of glass.  In 1867 a swarm of men, supplied with hammers
+and axes, stripped the house of its habit, and showed in all its
+splendor the great structure.  No picture can do justice to the rich
+colors of the edifice or to the harmonious tone resulting from the
+skilful use of many diverse materials.  The effect of the frontage is
+completed by the cupola of the auditorium, topped with a cap of bronze
+sparingly adorned with gilding.  Farther on, on a level with the towers
+of Notre-Dame, is the gable end of the roof of the stage, a 'Pegasus',
+by M. Lequesne, rising at either end of the roof, and a bronze group by
+M. Millet, representing 'Apollo lifting his golden lyre', commanding
+the apex.  Apollo, it may here be mentioned, is useful as well as
+ornamental, for his lyre is tipped with a metal point which does duty
+as a lightning-rod, and conducts the fluid to the body and down the
+nether limbs of the god.
+
+"The spectator, having climbed ten steps and left behind him a gateway,
+reaches a vestibule in which are statues of Lully, Rameau, Gluck, and
+Handel.  Ten steps of green Swedish marble lead to a second vestibule
+for ticket-sellers. Visitors who enter by the pavilion reserved for
+carriages pass through a hallway where ticket offices are situated.
+The larger number of the audience, before entering the auditorium,
+traverse a large circular vestibule located exactly beneath it.  The
+ceiling of this portion of the building is upheld by sixteen fluted
+columns of Jura stone, with white marble capitals, forming a portico.
+Here servants are to await their masters, and spectators may remain
+until their carriages are summoned.  The third entrance, which is quite
+distinct from the others, is reserved for the Executive.  The section
+of the building set aside for the use of the Emperor Napoleon was to
+have included an antechamber for the bodyguards; a salon for the
+aides-de-camp; a large salon and a smaller one for the Empress; hat and
+cloak rooms, etc.  Moreover, there were to be in close proximity to the
+entrance, stables for three coaches, for the outriders' horses, and for
+the twenty-one horsemen acting as an escort; a station for a squad of
+infantry of thirty-one men and ten cent-gardes, and a stable for the
+horses of the latter; and, besides, a salon for fifteen or twenty
+domestics.  Thus arrangements had to be made to accommodate in this
+part of the building about one hundred persons, fifty horses, and
+half-a-dozen carriages.  The fall of the Empire suggested some changes,
+but ample provision still exists for emergencies.
+
+"Its novel conception, perfect fitness, and rare splendor of material,
+make the grand stairway unquestionably one of the most remarkable
+features of the building.  It presents to the spectator, who has just
+passed through the subscribers' pavilion, a gorgeous picture.  From
+this point he beholds the ceiling formed by the central landing; this
+and the columns sustaining it, built of Echaillon stone, are
+honeycombed with arabesques and heavy with ornaments; the steps are of
+white marble, and antique red marble balusters rest on green marble
+sockets and support a balustrade of onyx.  To the right and to the left
+of this landing are stairways to the floor, on a plane with the first
+row of boxes.  On this floor stand thirty monolith columns of
+Sarrancolin marble, with white marble bases and capitals.  Pilasters of
+peach-blossom and violet stone are against the corresponding walls.
+More than fifty blocks had to be extracted from the quarry to find
+thirty perfect monoliths.
+
+"The foyer de la danse has particular interest for the habitues of the
+Opera.  It is a place of reunion to which subscribers to three
+performances a week are admitted between the acts in accordance with a
+usage established in 1870.  Three immense looking-glasses cover the
+back wall of the FOYER, and a chandelier with one hundred and seven
+burners supplies it with light.  The paintings include twenty oval
+medallions, in which are portrayed the twenty danseuses of most
+celebrity since the opera has existed in France, and four panels by M.
+Boulanger, typifying 'The War Dance', 'The Rustic Dance', 'The Dance of
+Love' and 'The Bacchic Dance.' While the ladies of the ballet receive
+their admirers in this foyer, they can practise their steps.
+Velvet-cushioned bars have to this end been secured at convenient
+points, and the floor has been given the same slope as that of the
+stage, so that the labor expended may be thoroughly profitable to the
+performance. The singers' foyer, on the same floor, is a much less
+lively resort than the foyer de la danse, as vocalists rarely leave
+their dressing-rooms before they are summoned to the stage.  Thirty
+panels with portraits of the artists of repute in the annals of the
+Opera adorn this foyer.
+
+"Some estimate ... may be arrived at by sitting before the concierge an
+hour or so before the representation commences.  First appear the stage
+carpenters, who are always seventy, and sometimes, when L'Africaine,
+for example, with its ship scene, is the opera, one hundred and ten
+strong.  Then come stage upholsterers, whose sole duty is to lay
+carpets, hang curtains, etc.; gas-men, and a squad of firemen.
+Claqueurs, call-boys, property-men, dressers, coiffeurs,
+supernumeraries, and artists, follow.  The supernumeraries number about
+one hundred; some are hired by the year, but the 'masses' are generally
+recruited at the last minute and are generally working-men who seek to
+add to their meagre earnings.  There are about a hundred choristers,
+and about eighty musicians.
+
+"Next we behold equeries, whose horses are hoisted on the stage by
+means of an elevator; electricians who manage the light-producing
+batteries; hydrauliciens to take charge of the water-works in ballets
+like La Source; artificers who prepare the conflagration in Le Profeta;
+florists who make ready Margarita's garden, and a host of minor
+employees.  This personnel is provided for as follows:  Eighty
+dressing-rooms are reserved for the artists, each including a small
+antechamber, the dressing-room proper, and a little closet.  Besides
+these apartments, the Opera has a dressing-room for sixty male, and
+another for fifty female choristers; a third for thirty-four male
+dancers; four dressing-rooms for twenty female dancers of different
+grades; a dressing-room for one hundred and ninety supernumeraries,
+etc."
+
+A few figures taken from the article will suggest the enormous capacity
+and the perfect convenience of the house.  "There are 2,531 doors and
+7,593 keys; 14 furnaces and grates heat the house; the gaspipes if
+connected would form a pipe almost 16 miles long; 9 reservoirs, and two
+tanks hold 22,222 gallons of water and distribute their contents
+through 22,829 2-5 feet of piping; 538 persons have places assigned
+wherein to change their attire.  The musicians have a foyer with 100
+closets for their instruments."
+
+The author remarks of his visit to the Opera House that it "was almost
+as bewildering as it was agreeable.  Giant stairways and colossal
+halls, huge frescoes and enormous mirrors, gold and marble, satin and
+velvet, met the eye at every turn."
+
+In a recent letter Mr. Andre Castaigne, whose remarkable pictures
+illustrate the text, speaks of a river or lake under the Opera House
+and mentions the fact that there are now also three metropolitan
+railway tunnels, one on top of the other.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux
+
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thepirates'who'swho b/files/books/unrelated/thepirates'who'swho
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c089667
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thepirates'who'swho
@@ -0,0 +1,11623 @@
+THE PIRATES'
+
+WHO'S WHO
+
+_Giving Particulars of the Lives & Deaths of the Pirates & Buccaneers_
+
+BY PHILIP GOSSE
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+BURT FRANKLIN: RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES 119
+
+Essays in History, Economics & Social Science 51
+
+
+BURT FRANKLIN
+
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+  Published by BURT FRANKLIN
+  235 East 44th St., New York 10017
+  Originally Published: 1924
+  Printed in the U.S.A.
+
+  Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 68-56594
+  Burt Franklin: Research & Source Works Series 119
+  Essays in History, Economics & Social Science 51
+
+
+
+
+  I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+  TO
+
+  MY FELLOW-MEMBERS OF
+
+  THE FOUNTAIN CLUB
+
+  WITH THE EARNEST HOPE THAT NOTHING
+  IT CONTAINS MAY INCITE THEM TO
+  EMULATE ITS HEROES
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                               TO FACE PAGE
+
+  A PAGE FROM THE LOG-BOOK OF CAPTAIN DAMPIER            98
+
+  PRESSING A PIRATE TO PLEAD                            140
+
+  A PIRATE BEING HANGED AT EXECUTION DOCK, WAPPING      182
+
+  ANNE BONNY AND MARY READ, CONVICTED OF
+  PIRACY NOVEMBER 28TH, 1720, IN JAMAICA                256
+
+  CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS                           262
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Let it be made clear at the very outset of this Preface that the pages
+which follow do not pretend to be a history of piracy, but are simply an
+attempt to gather together, from various sources, particulars of those
+redoubtable pirates and buccaneers whose names have been handed down to us
+in a desultory way.
+
+I do not deal here with the children of fancy; I believe that every man,
+or woman too--since certain of the gentler sex cut no small figure at the
+game--mentioned in this volume actually existed.
+
+A time has come when every form of learning, however preposterous it may
+seem, is made as unlaborious as possible for the would-be student.
+Knowledge, which is after all but a string of facts, is being arranged,
+sorted, distilled, and set down in compact form, ready for rapid
+assimilation. There is little fear that the student who may wish in the
+future to become master of any subject will have to delve into the
+original sources in his search after facts and dates.
+
+Surely pirates, taking them in their broadest sense, are as much entitled
+to a biographical dictionary of their own as are clergymen, race-horses,
+or artists in ferro-concrete, who all, I am assured, have their own "Who's
+Who"? Have not the medical men their Directory, the lawyers their List,
+the peers their Peerage? There are books which record the names and the
+particulars of musicians, schoolmasters, stockbrokers, saints and
+bookmakers, and I dare say there is an average adjuster's almanac. A peer,
+a horse, dog, cat, and even a white mouse, if of blood sufficiently blue,
+has his pedigree recorded somewhere. Above all, there is that astounding
+and entertaining volume, "Who's Who," found in every club smoking-room,
+and which grows more bulky year by year, stuffed with information about
+the careers, the hobbies, and the marriages of all the most distinguished
+persons in every profession, including very full details about the lives
+and doings of all our journalists. But on the club table where these books
+of ready reference stand with "Whitaker," "ABC," and "Ruff's Guide to the
+Turf," there is just one gap that the compiler of this work has for a long
+while felt sorely needed filling. There has been until now no work that
+gives immediate and trustworthy information about the lives, and--so sadly
+important in their cases--the deaths of our pirates and buccaneers.
+
+In delving in the volumes of the "Dictionary of National Biography," it
+has been a sad disappointment to the writer to find so little space
+devoted to the careers of these picturesque if, I must admit, often
+unseemly persons. There are, of course, to be found a few pirates with
+household names such as Kidd, Teach, and Avery. A few, too, of the
+buccaneers, headed by the great Sir Henry Morgan, come in for their share.
+But I compare with indignation the meagre show of pirates in that
+monumental work with the rich profusion of divines! Even during the years
+when piracy was at its height--say from 1680 until 1730--the pirates are
+utterly swamped by the theologians. Can it be that these two professions
+flourished most vigorously side by side, and that when one began to
+languish, the other also began to fade?
+
+Even so there can be no excuse for the past and present neglect of these
+sea-adventurers. But a change is beginning to show itself. Increasing
+evidence is to be found that the more intelligent portions of the
+population of this country, and even more so the enlightened of the great
+United States of America, are beginning to show a proper interest in the
+lives of the pirates and buccaneers. That this should be so amongst the
+Americans is quite natural, when it is remembered what a close intimacy
+existed between their Puritan forefathers of New England and the pirates,
+both by blood relation and by trade, since the pirates had no more
+obliging and ready customers for their spoils of gold dust, stolen slaves,
+or church ornaments, than the early settlers of New York, Massachusetts,
+and Carolina.
+
+In beginning to compile such a list as is to be found in this volume, a
+difficulty is met at once. My original intention was that only pirates and
+buccaneers should be included. To admit privateers, corsairs, and other
+sea-rovers would have meant the addition of a vast number of names, and
+would have made the work unwieldy, and the very object of this volume as a
+book of ready reference would not have been achieved. But the difficulty
+has been to define the exact meaning of a pirate and of a buccaneer. In
+the dictionary a pirate is defined as "a sea-robber, marauder, one who
+infringes another's copyright"; while a buccaneer is described as "a
+sea-robber, a pirate, especially of the Spanish-American coasts." This
+seems explicit, but a pirate was not a pirate from the cradle to the
+gallows. He usually began his life at sea as an honest mariner in the
+merchant service. He perhaps mutinied with other of the ship's crew,
+killed or otherwise disposed of the captain, seized the ship, elected a
+new commander, and sailed off "on the account." Many an honest seaman was
+captured with the rest of his ship's crew by a pirate, and either
+voluntarily joined the freebooters by signing their articles, or, being a
+good navigator or "sea-artist," was compelled by the pirates to lend them
+his services. Others, again, were in privateer ships, which carried on a
+legitimate warfare against the shipping of hostile countries, under a
+commission or letter of marque.
+
+Often the very commission or letter of marque carried about so jealously
+by some shady privateer was not worth the paper it was written on, nor the
+handful of dubloons paid for it. One buccaneer sailed about the South
+Seas, plundering Spanish ships and sacking churches and burning towns,
+under a commission issued to him, for a consideration, by the Governor of
+a Danish West India island, himself an ex-pirate. This precious document,
+adorned with florid scrolls and a big, impressive seal, was written in
+Danish. Someone with a knowledge of that language had an opportunity and
+the curiosity to translate it, when he found that all it entitled the
+bearer to do was to hunt for goats and pigs on the Island of Hispaniola,
+and nothing more.
+
+When, at the conclusion of hostilities, peace was declared, the crew of a
+privateer found it exceedingly irksome to give up the roving life, and
+were liable to drift into piracy. Often it happened that, after a long
+naval war, crews were disbanded, ships laid up, and navies reduced, thus
+flooding the countryside with idle mariners, and filling the roads with
+begging and starving seamen. These were driven to go to sea if they could
+find a berth, often half starved and brutally treated, and always
+underpaid, and so easily yielded to the temptation of joining some vessel
+bound vaguely for the "South Sea," where no questions were asked and no
+wages paid, but every hand on board had a share in the adventure.
+
+The buccaneers were a great source of piracy also. When a war was on hand
+the English Government was only too glad to have the help of these daring
+and skilful seamen; but when peace was declared these allies began to lead
+to international complications, and means had to be taken to abolish them,
+and to try and turn them into honest settlers in the islands. But when a
+man has for years lived the free life, sailed out from Jamaica a pauper,
+to return in six weeks or less with, perhaps, a bag of gold worth two,
+three, or four thousand pounds, which he has prided himself on spending in
+the taverns and gambling-hells of Port Royal in a week, how can he settle
+down to humdrum uneventful toil, with its small profits? Thus he goes back
+"on the account" and sails to some prearranged rendezvous of the "brethren
+of the coast."
+
+To write a whole history of piracy would be a great undertaking, but a
+very interesting one. Piracy must have begun in the far, dim ages, and
+perhaps when some naked savage, paddling himself across a tropical river,
+met with another adventurer on a better tree-trunk, or carrying a bigger
+bunch of bananas, the first act of piracy was committed. Indeed, piracy
+must surely be the third oldest profession in the world, if we give the
+honour of the second place to the ancient craft of healing. If such a
+history were to include the whole of piracy, it would have to refer to the
+Phoenicians, to the Mediterranean sea-rovers of the days of Rome, who, had
+they but known it, held the future destiny of the world in their grasp
+when they, a handful of pirates, took prisoner the young Julius Cæsar, to
+ransom him and afterwards to be caught and crucified by him. The Arabs in
+the Red Sea were for many years past-masters of the art of piracy, as were
+the Barbary corsairs of Algiers and Tunis, who made the Mediterranean a
+place of danger for many generations of seamen. All this while the Chinese
+and Malays were active pirates, while the Pirate coast of the Persian Gulf
+was feared by all mariners. Then arose the great period, beginning in the
+reign of Henry VIII., advancing with rapid strides during the adventurous
+years of Queen Elizabeth, when many West of England squires were wont to
+sell their estates and invest all in a ship in which to go cruising on
+the Spanish Main, in the hope of taking a rich Spanish galleon homeward
+bound from Cartagena and Porto Bello, deep laden with the riches of Peru
+and Mexico.
+
+Out of these semi-pirate adventurers developed the buccaneers, a
+ruffianly, dare-devil lot, who feared neither God, man, nor death.
+
+By the middle of the eighteenth century piracy was on the wane, and
+practically had died out by the beginning of the nineteenth, the final
+thrust that destroyed it being given by the American and English Navies in
+the North Atlantic and West Indian Seas. But by this time piracy had
+degenerated to mere sea-robbing, the days of gallant and ruthless
+sea-battles had passed, and the pirate of those decadent days was
+generally a Spanish-American half-breed, with no courage, a mere robber
+and murderer.
+
+The advent of the telegraph and of steam-driven ships settled for ever the
+account of the pirates, except in China, when even to this day accounts
+reach us, through the Press, of piratical enterprises; but never again
+will the black, rakish-looking craft of the pirate, with the Jolly Roger
+flying, be liable to pounce down upon the unsuspecting and harmless
+merchantman.
+
+The books devoted to the lives and exploits of buccaneers and pirates are
+few. Indeed, but two stand out prominently, both masterpieces of their
+kind. One, "The Bucaniers of America, or a True Account of the Most
+Remarkable Assaults Committed of Late Years upon the Coasts of the West
+Indies," etc., was written by a sea-surgeon to the buccaneers, A.O.
+Exquemelin, a Dutchman, and was published at Amsterdam in 1679.
+
+Many translations were made, the first one in English being published in
+1684 by William Crooke, at the Green Dragon, without Temple Bar, in
+London. The publication of this book was the cause of a libel action
+brought by Sir Henry Morgan against the publisher; the buccaneer commander
+won his case and was granted £200 damages and a public apology. In this
+book Morgan was held up as a perfect monster for his cruel treatment to
+his prisoners, but although Morgan resented this very much, the statement
+that annoyed him much more was that which told the reader that Morgan came
+of very humble stock and was sold by his parents when a boy, to serve as a
+labourer in Barbadoes.
+
+The greatest work on pirates was written in 1726 by Captain Charles
+Johnson. The original edition, now exceedingly rare, is called "A General
+History of the Pyrates, from Their First Rise and Settlement in the Island
+of Providence, to the Present Time," and is illustrated by interesting
+engravings.
+
+Another edition, in 1734, is a handsome folio called "A General History of
+the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen," etc., "To which
+is added a Genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the Most
+Notorious Pyrates," and contains many full-page copperplates by J. Basire
+and others. The pirates are given only a share in the pages of this book,
+but it has some very fine engravings of such famous pirates as Avery,
+Roberts, Low, Lowther, and "Blackbeard."
+
+The third edition of the "History of Pirates," of 1725, has a quaint
+frontispiece, showing the two women pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, in
+action with their swords drawn, upon the deck of a ship. While the fourth
+edition, published in 1726, in two volumes, contains the stories of the
+less well-known South-Sea Rovers.
+
+After studying the subject of piracy at all closely, one cannot but be
+struck by the number of pirates who came from Wales. Welshmen figure not
+only amongst the rank and file, but amongst the leaders. Morgan, of
+course, stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is curious how
+certain races show particular adaptability for certain callings. Up to two
+hundred years ago the chief pirates were Welshmen; to-day most of our
+haberdashers hail from the same land of the leek. It would be interesting
+to try and fathom the reason why these two callings, at first sight so
+dissimilar, should call forth the qualities in a particular race. Perhaps
+some of our leading haberdashers and linen drapers will be willing to
+supply the answer.
+
+I sometimes wonder what happens to the modern pirates; I mean the men who,
+had they lived 200 years ago, would have been pirates. What do they find
+to exercise their undoubted, if unsocial, talents and energies to-day?
+Many, I think, find openings of an adventurous financial kind in the City.
+
+Politics, again, surely has its buccaneers. One can imagine, for example,
+some leading modern politician--let us say a Welshman--who, like Morgan,
+being a brilliant public speaker, is able by his eloquence to sway vast
+crowds of listeners, whether buccaneers or electors, a man of quick and
+subtle mind, able to recognize and seize upon the main chance, perfectly
+ruthless in his methods when necessity requires, and one who, having
+achieved the goal on which he had set his ambition, discards his party or
+followers, as Morgan did his buccaneers after the sacking of Panama. Nor
+is Europe to-day without a counterpart to the ruffian crews who arrogantly
+"defied the world and declared war on all nations."
+
+One great difficulty which the author of this work is met with is to
+decide who was, and who was not, a pirate.
+
+Certain friends who have taken a kindly, if somewhat frivolous, interest
+in the compilation of this work have inquired if Sir Francis Drake was to
+be included; and it must be admitted that the question is not an easy one
+to answer. The most fervent patriot must admit that the early voyages of
+Drake were, to put it mildly, of a buccaneering kind, although his late
+voyages were more nearly akin to privateering cruises than piracy. But if,
+during the reign of King Philip, a Spaniard had been asked if Drake was a
+pirate, he would certainly have answered, "Yes," and that without any
+hesitation whatever. So much depends upon the point of view.
+
+In the 1814 edition of Johnson's "History of Highwaymen and Pirates," the
+famous Paul Jones holds a prominent place as a pirate, and is described in
+no half measures as a traitor; yet I doubt if in the schools of America
+to-day the rising young citizens of "God's Own Country" are told any such
+thing, but are probably, and quite naturally, taught to look upon Paul
+Jones as a true patriot and a brave sailor. Again, there is Christopher
+Columbus, the greatest of all explorers, about whom no breath of scandal
+in the piratical way was ever breathed, who only escaped being a pirate by
+the fact that his was the first ship to sail in the Caribbean Sea; for
+there is little doubt that had the great navigator found an English ship
+lying at anchor when he first arrived at the Island of San Salvador, an
+act of piracy would have immediately taken place.
+
+For the student who is interested there are other writers who have dealt
+with the subject of piracy, such as the buccaneers Ringrose, Cooke,
+Funnell, Dampier, and Cowley; Woodes Rogers, with his "Voyage to the South
+Seas"; Wafer, who wrote an amusing little book in 1699 describing his
+hardships and adventures on the Isthmus of Darien. Of modern writers may
+be recommended Mr. John Masefield's "Spanish Main," "The Buccaneers in the
+West Indies," by C.H. Haring, and the latest publication of the Marine
+Research Society of Massachusetts, entitled "The Pirates of the New
+England Coast," and last, but far from least, the works of Mr. A. Hyatt
+Verrill.
+
+The conditions of life on a pirate ship appear to have been much the same
+in all vessels. On procuring a craft by stealing or by mutiny of the crew,
+the first thing to do was to elect a commander. This was done by vote
+amongst the crew, who elected whoever they considered the most daring
+amongst them, and the best navigator. The next officer chosen was the
+quartermaster. The captain and quartermaster once elected, the former
+could appoint any junior officers he chose, and the shares in any plunder
+they took was divided according to the rank of each pirate. The crew were
+then searched for a pirate who could write, and, when found, this scholar
+would be taken down to the great cabin, given pen, ink, and paper, and
+after the articles had been discussed and decided upon, they were written
+down, to be signed by each member of the crew. As an example, the articles
+drawn up by the crew of Captain John Phillips on board the _Revenge_ are
+given below in full:
+
+                                1.
+
+    Every man shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one
+    full Share and a half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter,
+    Boatswain and Gunner shall have one Share and quarter.
+
+                                2.
+
+    If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from
+    the Company, he shall be marroon'd with one Bottle of Powder,
+    one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.
+
+                                3.
+
+    If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game, to
+    the value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be Marroon'd or shot.
+
+                                4.
+
+    If at any Time we should meet another Marrooner (that is,
+    Pyrate,) that Man that shall sign his Articles without the
+    Consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the
+    Captain and Company shall think fit.
+
+                                5.
+
+    That Man that shall strike another whilst these Articles are
+    in force, shall receive Moses's Law (that is 40 Stripes
+    lacking one) on the bare Back.
+
+                                6.
+
+    That Man that shall snap his Arms, or smoak Tobacco in the
+    Hold, without a cap to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted
+    without a Lanthorn, shall suffer the same Punishment as in the
+    former Article.
+
+                                7.
+
+    That Man that shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an
+    Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut off from his
+    Share, and suffer such other Punishment as the Captain and the
+    Company shall think fit.
+
+                                8.
+
+    If any Man shall lose a Joint in time of an Engagement, shall
+    have 400 Pieces of Eight; if a limb, 800.
+
+                                9.
+
+    If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that
+    offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer
+    present Death.
+
+These formalities took time and much argument and the drinking of many
+bowls of punch, and, when once settled, the next business was to make a
+flag. The Jolly Roger, consisting of a human skull and two crossed
+thigh-bones, was generally portrayed in black and white. Some crews
+preferred a study in red and white. More enterprising captains with
+imagination and taste, such as Captain Bartholomew Roberts, who was a
+truly remarkable man and the greatest pirate who ever "declared war upon
+all the world," aimed at something more elaborate. Roberts flew several
+flags, all made to his own design.
+
+On one was depicted a "human anatomy," holding a rummer, or glass, of
+punch in one bony hand, and a flaming sword in the other. Another
+favourite flag of Roberts had a huge portrait of himself, sword in hand,
+and two skulls.
+
+Another had a "skellington" standing with either foot firmly placed on a
+skull, and under one skull were embroidered the letters A.B.H., under the
+other A.M.H., which letters stood for a Barbadian's head and a
+Martinican's head, to warn any inhabitant of either of these islands what
+to expect if he was so unfortunate as to be taken prisoner by Bartholomew,
+who never forgot nor forgave two occasions on which he was very roughly
+handled by ships from Barbadoes and Martinique.
+
+The weak point in all pirate ships was the lack of discipline. Time and
+again some successful enterprise, almost completed, was thrown away by
+lack of discipline. No captain could be certain of his command or crew. If
+he did anything they disapproved of, the crew would throw him in chains
+into the hold, or as likely overboard, and elect another. It is on record
+that one ship had elected thirteen different commanders in a few months.
+Some of the big men retained their commands, Roberts holding the record,
+for a pirate, of four years, until his death; while Bartholomew Sharp
+holds the record for a buccaneer.
+
+Having procured a vessel, perhaps little more than a fishing-boat,
+sometimes only an open row-boat, the embryo pirates would paddle along
+some coast until they came across an unsuspecting craft, one not too big
+for the desperadoes to attack. Hiding their arms, they would row
+alongside, and then suddenly, with shouts and curses, board the vessel,
+kill any who resisted, and start a cruise in their new ship, their number
+being increased by volunteers or forced men from amongst the prize's crew.
+Cruising thus, the pirates would gradually get together a small fleet of
+the fastest and best sailing vessels among their prizes and increase their
+crew as they went along.
+
+Both the buccaneers and the pirates had their favourite haunts and places
+of rendezvous. These had to be within easy sailing distance of one or more
+regular trade routes, and at the same time had to be in some quiet spot
+unlikely to be visited by strange craft, and, besides being sheltered
+from storms, must have a suitable beach on which their vessels could be
+careened and the hulls scraped of barnacles and weeds. The greatest
+stronghold of the buccaneers was at Tortuga, or Turtle Island, a small
+island lying off the west coast of Hispaniola. Here in their most piping
+days flourished a buccaneer republic, where the seamen made their own laws
+and cultivated the land for sugar-cane and yams. Occasionally the
+Spaniards or the French, without any warning, would swoop down on the
+settlement and break up the small republic, but sooner or later the
+buccaneers would be back once again in possession.
+
+The favourite and most flourishing headquarters of the West India pirates
+was at New Providence Island in the Bahama Islands, occupied to-day by the
+flourishing town of Nassau, now the headquarters of those worthy
+descendants of the pirates, the bootleggers, who from the old port carry
+on their exciting and profitable smuggling of whisky into the United
+States.
+
+The numerous bays and islands lying off the coast of South Carolina were
+very popular with the free booters in the late seventeenth and early
+eighteenth centuries; while Port Royal, in Jamaica, was noted from early
+days as the port from which the most famous buccaneers sailed for the
+Spanish Main, and to which they returned with their plunder.
+
+The French filibusters and pirates mostly used the Virgin Islands, while
+the Dutch patronized their own islands of Curaçao, Saba, and St.
+Eustatius. But the buccaneers did not allow the chance of nationality to
+divide them, for Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Dutchmen, all "brethren of the
+coast," sailed together and plundered the Spaniard in open and equal
+friendship.
+
+An entirely different group of pirates arose in the South Seas, with their
+headquarters in Madagascar. Here the pirates went farther towards forming
+a permanent society than at any other time during their history, with the
+exception of the Barbary corsairs, who had their strongly fortified
+settlements for many years at Algiers, Tunis, and Sallee.
+
+The origin of the buccaneers is interesting, and I cannot do better than
+quote the opening chapter of Clark Russell's "Life of William Dampier," in
+the English Men of Action Series, published by Messrs. Macmillan in 1889.
+He writes:
+
+"In or about the middle of the seventeenth century, the Island of San
+Domingo, or Hispaniola as it was then called, was haunted and overrun by a
+singular community of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men. They were
+chiefly composed of French colonists, whose ranks had from time to time
+been enlarged by liberal contributions from the slums and alleys of more
+than one European city and town. These people went dressed in shirts and
+pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which they steeped in the blood of the
+animals they slaughtered. They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn
+over their naked feet, and belts of raw hide, in which they stuck their
+sabres and knives. They also armed themselves with firelocks, which threw
+a couple of balls, each weighing two ounces. The places where they dried
+and salted their meat were called _boucans_, and from this term they came
+to be styled bucaniers, or buccaneers, as we spell it. They were hunters
+by trade, and savages in their habits. They chased and slaughtered horned
+cattle and trafficked with the flesh, and their favourite food was raw
+marrow from the bones of the beasts which they shot. They ate and slept on
+the ground, their table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree,
+and their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the Antilles."
+
+The Spaniards, who were jealous of any other nation than their own having
+a foothold in America, determined to get rid of these wild but hitherto
+harmless buccaneers. This they accomplished, and in time drove the
+cattle-hunters out of Hispaniola; and to make sure that the unwelcome
+visitors should not return, they exterminated all the wild cattle. This
+was the worst mistake the Spaniards could have made, for these wild men
+had to look for other means of supporting themselves, and they joined the
+freebooters and thus began the great period of piracy which was the cause
+of the ultimate breaking-up of the Spanish power in the West Indies.
+
+Of the life on board buccaneer and pirate ships a somewhat hazy and
+incomplete picture reaches us. The crews were usually large compared with
+the number of men carried in other ships, and a state of crowded
+discomfort must have been the result, especially in some crazy old vessel
+cruising in the tropics or rounding the Horn in winter. Of the
+relationship between the sea-rovers and the fair sex it would be best,
+perhaps, to draw a discreet veil. The pirates and the buccaneers looked
+upon women simply as the spoils of war, and were as profligate with these
+as with the rest of their plunder. I do not know if I am disclosing a
+secret when I mention that my friend Mr. Hyatt Verrill, who is an
+authority on the subject of the lives of the pirates, is about to publish
+a book devoted to the love affairs of these gentry. I confess to looking
+forward with pleasure and a certain degree of trepidation to reading his
+book and to seeing how he will deal with so delicate a subject.
+
+We know that Sir Henry Morgan was married and provided for his widow in
+his will.
+
+Captain Kidd, wife, and child, resided in New York, in the utmost conjugal
+happiness and respectability, but then Kidd was a martyr and no pirate.
+
+Captain Rackam, the dashing "Calico Jack," ran away to sea with the woman
+pirate, Mrs. Anne Bonny, and they lived together happily on board ship
+and on land, as did Captain and Mrs. Cobham. The only other pirate I know
+of who took a "wife" to sea with him was Captain Pease, who flourished in
+a half-hearted way--half-hearted in the piratical, but not the matrimonial
+sense--in the middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+A certain settler in New Zealand in the "early days" describes a visit he
+paid to Captain Pease and his family on board that pirate's handy little
+schooner, lying at anchor in a quiet cove at that island.
+
+On stepping aboard, the guest was warmly welcomed by a short, red-faced
+man, bald of head and rotund in figure, of about fifty-five years of age.
+His appearance suggested a successful grocer rather than a pirate. On the
+deck were seated two ladies, one nearing middle age, the other young and
+undoubtedly pretty. At the feet of these ladies sprawled several small
+children. Captain Pease proceeded to introduce his guest to these as Mrs.
+Pease No. 1 and Mrs. Pease No. 2. The ladies continued their sewing while
+a conversation took place on various subjects. Presently, taking out his
+watch, the pirate turned to the younger lady, observing that it was
+nearing teatime. Mrs. Pease No. 2, laying down her sewing, went to the
+cabin, from which the rattle of teacups and the hiss of a boiling kettle
+were soon heard. Tea being announced as ready, the party entered the
+cabin, Mrs. Pease senior taking the place at the head of the table and
+pouring out the tea while the younger Mrs. Pease very prettily handed
+round the cups and bread and butter, the guest particularly noticing with
+what respect and thoughtfulness she looked after the wants of the elder
+Mrs. Pease.
+
+As a pirate Captain Pease was second or even third rate, confining his
+daring to seizing small unarmed native craft, or robbing the stores of
+lonely white traders on out-of-the-way atolls. But as a married man he
+showed himself to be a master; matrimony was his strong suit, domesticity
+his trump card. He gave one valuable hint to his guest, which was this:
+"Never take more than two wives with you on a voyage, _and choose 'em with
+care_."
+
+One is apt to disassociate serious matrimony, and still less responsible
+paternity, with the calling of piracy, but with Captain Pease this was far
+from being the case. Every one of his wives--for he had others on
+shore--contributed her mite, or two, to the growing family, and the
+Captain really could not say which of his offspring he was most proud of.
+It seems at first strange that a man of Captain Pease's appearance,
+figure, and settled habits, almost humdrum, should have been such an
+undoubted success with the ladies; but that he was a success there can be
+no doubt. Perhaps his calling had a good deal to do with this attraction
+he had for them.
+
+Before bringing this Preface to a conclusion, there is one other aspect of
+piracy upon which I will touch.
+
+Death, portrayed by a skeleton, was the device on the flag beneath which
+they fought; and a skeleton was for ever threatening to emerge from its
+cupboard aboard every pirate vessel.
+
+The end of most of the pirates and a large proportion of the buccaneers
+was a sudden and violent one, and few of them died in their beds. Many
+were killed in battle, numbers of them were drowned. Not a few drank
+themselves to death with strong Jamaica rum, while many of the buccaneers
+died of malaria and yellow fever contracted in the jungles of Central
+America, and most of the pirates who survived these perils lived only to
+be hanged.
+
+It is recorded of a certain ex-prizefighter and pirate, Dennis McCarthy,
+who was about to be hanged at New Providence Island in 1718, that, as he
+stood on the gallows, all bedecked with coloured ribbons, as became a
+boxer, he told his admiring audience that his friends had often, in joke,
+told him he would die in his shoes; and so, to prove them liars, he kicked
+off his shoes amongst the crowd, and so died without them.
+
+The trial of a pirate was usually a rough and ready business, and the
+culprit seldom received the benefit of any doubt that might exist.
+
+If he made any defence at all, it was usually to plead that he had been
+forced to join the pirates against his wish, and that he had long been
+waiting for an opportunity to escape.
+
+Once condemned to death, and the date of execution decided, the prisoner,
+if at Newgate, was handed over to the good offices of the prison Ordinary;
+or, if in New England, to such vigorous apostles of Christianity as the
+Rev. Cotton or the Rev. Increase Mather. The former of these two famous
+theologians was pastor of the North Church in Boston, and the author of a
+very rare work published in 1695, called "An History of Some Criminals
+Executed in This Land." Cotton Mather preached many a "hanging" sermon to
+condemned pirates, a few of which can still be read. One of these,
+preached in 1704, is called "A Brief Discourse occasioned by a Tragical
+Spectacle of a Number of Miserables under Sentence of Death for Piracy."
+
+The Reverend Doctor made a speciality of these "hanging" sermons, and was
+a thorough master of his subject, as is shown by the following passage
+taken from the above "Brief Discourse":
+
+"The Privateering Stroke so easily degenerates into the Piratical; and the
+Privateering Trade is usually carried on with an Unchristian Temper, and
+proves an Inlet unto so much Debauchery and Iniquity."
+
+On the Sunday previous to an execution the condemned pirates were taken to
+church to listen to a sermon while they were "exhibited" to the crowded
+and gaping congregation. On the day of the execution a procession was
+formed, which marched from the gaol to the gallows.
+
+At the head was carried a silver oar, the emblem from very early days of a
+pirate execution. Arrived at the gibbet, the prisoner, who always dressed
+himself in his, or someone else's, best clothes, would doff his hat and
+make a speech.
+
+Sometimes the bolder spirits would speak in a defiant and unrepentant way;
+but most of them professed a deep repentance for their sins and warned
+their listeners to guard against the temptation of drink and avarice.
+After the prisoner's death the bodies of the more notorious pirates were
+taken down and hanged in chains at some prominent spot where ships passed,
+in order to be a warning to any mariners who had piratical leanings.
+
+The number of pirates or buccaneers who died in their beds must have been
+very small, particularly amongst the former; and I have been able to trace
+but a single example of a tombstone marking the burial-place of a pirate.
+This is, or was until recently, to be found in the graveyard at Dartmouth,
+and records the resting-place of the late Captain Thomas Goldsmith, who
+commanded the _Snap Dragon_, of Dartmouth, in which vessel he amassed much
+riches during the reign of Queen Anne, and died, apparently not regretted,
+in 1714. Engraved upon his headstone are the following lines:
+
+    Men that are virtuous serve the Lord;
+    And the Devil's by his friends ador'd;
+    And as they merit get a place
+    Amidst the bless'd or hellish race;
+    Pray then ye learned clergy show
+    Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go?
+    Whose life was one continual evil
+    Striving to cheat God, Man and Devil.
+
+
+
+
+THE PIRATES' WHO'S WHO
+
+
+AISA. Barbary corsair.
+
+A famous Mediterranean pirate, and one of Dragut's admirals in the
+sixteenth century.
+
+
+ALCANTRA, CAPTAIN MANSEL.
+
+A Spaniard. Commanded a pirate brig, the _Macrinarian_. Committed many
+outrages. Took the Liverpool packet _Topaz_, from Calcutta to Boston, in
+1829, near St. Helena, murdering the whole crew. In the same year he took
+the _Candace_, from Marblehead, and plundered her. The supercargo of the
+_Candace_ was an amateur actor, and had on board a priest's black gown and
+broad brimmed hat. These he put on and sat in his cabin pretending to tell
+his beads. On the pirates coming to rob him, they all crossed themselves
+and left him, so that he alone of the whole company was not robbed.
+
+
+ALEXANDER, JOHN.
+
+A Scotch buccaneer; one of Captain Sharp's crew. Drowned on May 9th, 1681.
+Captain Sharp, with a party of twenty-four men, had landed on the Island
+of Chiva, off the coast of Peru, and taken several prisoners, amongst whom
+was a shipwright and his man, who were actually at work building two great
+ships for the Spaniards. Sharp, thinking these men would be very useful to
+him, took them away, with all their tools and a quantity of ironwork, in a
+dory, to convey them off to his ship. But the dory, being overladen,
+sank, and Alexander was drowned. On the evening of May 12th his body was
+found; which they took up, and next day "threw him overboard, giving him
+three French vollies for his customary ceremony."
+
+
+ALI BASHA.
+
+Of Algiers. Barbary corsair.
+
+Conquered the Kingdom of Tunis in the sixteenth century, and captured many
+Maltese galleys. He brought the development of organized piracy to its
+greatest perfection.
+
+In 1571 Ali Basha commanded a fleet of no fewer than 250 Moslem galleys in
+the battle of Lepanto, when he was severely defeated, but escaped with his
+life.
+
+
+ALLESTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a vessel of eighteen tons, no guns, and a crew of twenty-four.
+In March, 1679, sailed in company with eight other vessels, under command
+of Captain Harris, to the Coast of Darien, and marched on foot across the
+isthmus, on his way attacking and sacking Santa Maria.
+
+
+AMAND or ANNAND, ALEXANDER.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged on November
+8th, 1718, at White Point, Charleston, South Carolina, and buried in the
+marsh below low-water mark.
+
+
+AMEER, IBRAHIM.
+
+An admiral of an Arabian fleet of Red Sea pirates. In 1816 he captured
+four British merchant vessels on their way to Surat.
+
+
+ANDRESON, CAPTAIN CORNELIUS.
+
+A Dutch pirate. Sailed from Boston in 1674 with Captain Roderigo to
+plunder English ships along the coast of Maine, in a vessel called the
+_Penobscot Shallop_.
+
+Tried at Cambridge, Massachusetts, sentenced to death, but later on
+pardoned. Afterwards fought very bravely for the English colonists against
+the Indians.
+
+
+ANDROEAS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Chief or Captain of the Darien Indians, who in 1679 conducted the
+buccaneers under Coxon and Harris across the isthmus to attack Santa Maria
+and afterwards to make an attempt on Panama.
+
+Captain Androeas had a great esteem for the English, partly because the
+buccaneers were kind to the Indians, and partly because of the Indians'
+fear and hatred of the Spaniards. He afterwards led back a party of
+malcontents under Captain Coxon from the Pacific side of the isthmus.
+
+
+ANGORA, Sultan of Timor.
+
+Refusing to allow the East India Company to station garrisons on Timor, he
+was driven out of the whole of his island except the chief town, also
+called Angora.
+
+Deciding to take revenge, he turned pirate and went to sea in command of a
+small fleet of five well-armed prows and several galleys. His first prize
+was a packet brig carrying despatches from Calcutta to the English General
+before Angora. Captain Hastings, the commander, a near relation of Warren
+Hastings, and a gallant officer, had thrown the despatches overboard, for
+which he was hanged, while the crew were sent to prison at Angora and
+afterwards poisoned. His next prize was an East Indian ship, the _Edward_,
+Captain Harford, the crew of which were also poisoned. Cruising off Bombay
+he defeated a vessel sent out by the Government to attack him. After
+taking other English vessels, Angora met with a richly laden ship from
+Burmah, a country whose sovereign he was on friendly terms with, but the
+Sultan-pirate took this ship and drowned every soul on board except one
+woman, who, owing to her great beauty, he kept for himself. His next
+victim was a well-armed Malay praam, which he captured after a severe
+fight. The crew he shackled and threw overboard, while he burnt the
+vessel. Paying another visit to Bombay, he caught the garrison unprepared,
+blew up the fort, and sailed off with some sheep, cows, and pigs. A few
+days later the pirate seized an English packet, _St. George_, and after he
+had tortured to death the captain, the terrified crew joined his service.
+Returning to Timor with his plunder, he was surprised by the arrival off
+the port of H.M.S. _Victorious_, seventy-four guns, which had been sent to
+take him. Slipping out of harbour unobserved in the night in his fastest
+sailing praam, he escaped to Trincomalee in Ceylon, where the East India
+Company decided to allow him to remain undisturbed.
+
+
+ANGRIA.
+
+Brother of a famous pirate, Angora, Sultan of Timor. When the Sultan
+retired from practice to the Island of Ceylon he gave his brother his
+praam, a fast vessel armed with thirty-eight guns.
+
+Angria's brother Angora had been dethroned from the Island of Timor by the
+English Government, and this had prevented the former from all hope of
+succeeding as Sultan. Owing to this, Angria, a very vindictive man,
+nursed against the English Government a very real grievance. Declaring
+himself Sultan of another smaller island, Little Timor, he sailed out to
+look for spoil. His first victim was the _Elphinston_, which he took some
+eighty miles off Bombay. Putting the crew of forty-seven men into an open
+boat, without water, and with scarcely room to move, he left them. It was
+in the hottest month of the year, and only twenty-eight of them reached
+Bombay alive.
+
+Angria, being broad-minded on the subject of his new profession, did not
+limit himself to taking only English vessels, for meeting with two Chinese
+junks, laden with spices and riches, he plundered them both, and tying the
+crew back to back threw them into the sea to drown. One of the Chinamen,
+while watching his companions being drowned, managed to get a hand free
+from his ropes, and, taking his dagger, stabbed Angria, but, missing his
+heart, only wounded him in the shoulder. To punish him the pirate had the
+skin cut off his back and then had him beaten with canes. Then lashing him
+firmly down to a raft he was thrown overboard. After drifting about for
+three days and nights he was picked up, still alive, by a fishing-boat and
+carried to Bombay, where, fully recovered, he lived the rest of his days.
+
+Angria continued his activities for three years, during which space he was
+said to have murdered in cold blood over 500 Englishmen. He was eventually
+chased by Commander Jones in H.M.S. _Asia_, sixty-four guns, into Timor,
+and after a close siege of the town for twelve months, Angria was shot by
+one of the mob while haranguing them from a balcony.
+
+After Commander Jones's death his widow built a tower at Shooter's Hill,
+by Woolwich Common, to perpetuate the memory of her husband who had rid
+the Indian Ocean of the tyrant Angria.
+
+The following lines are from the pen of Robert Bloomfield, and allude to
+this monument:
+
+    Yon far-famed monumental tower
+    Records the achievements of the brave,
+    And Angria's subjugated power,
+    Who plunder'd on the Eastern Wave.
+
+
+ANSTIS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+The first mention of the name of this notorious pirate occurs in the year
+1718, when we hear of him shipping himself at Providence in a sloop called
+the _Buck_ in company with five other rascals who were conspiring together
+to seize the vessel and with her go "a-pyrating."
+
+Of these five, one was Howel Davis, who was afterwards killed in an affair
+at the Island of Princes; another, Denman Topping, who was killed in the
+taking of a rich Portuguese ship on the coast of Brazil; a third, Walter
+Kennedy, was eventually hanged at Execution Dock, while the two others,
+who escaped the usual end of pirates--that is, by hanging, shooting, or
+drowning in saltwater or rum--disappeared into respectable obscurity in
+employment of some sort in the City of London.
+
+This party of six conspirators was the nucleus of a very powerful
+combination of pirates, which eventually came under the command of the
+famous Captain Roberts.
+
+Anstis's pirate career began as did most others. They cruised about
+amongst the West India Islands, seizing and plundering all merchant ships
+they chanced upon, and, if we are to believe some of the stories that were
+circulated at the time of their treatment of their prisoners, they appear
+to have been an even rougher lot of scoundrels than was usual.
+
+Before long they seized a very stout ship, the _Morning Star_, bound from
+Guinea to Carolina, and fitted her up with thirty-two cannons taken from
+another prize; manned her with a crew of one hundred men, and put Captain
+John Fenn in command. Anstis, as the elder officer, could have had command
+of this newer and larger ship, but he was so in love with his own vessel,
+the _Good Fortune_, which was an excellent sailer, that he preferred to
+remain in her.
+
+The party now had two stout ships, but, as so often happened, trouble
+began to ferment amongst the crew. A large number of these had been more
+or less forced to "go a-pyrating," and were anxious to avoid the
+consequences, so they decided to send a round-robin--that is, a
+petition--signed by all with their names in a circle so that no rogue
+could be held to be more prominent than any other, to ask for the King's
+pardon.
+
+This round-robin was addressed to "his most sacred Majesty George, by the
+Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the
+Faith," etc.
+
+This petition was sent to England by a merchant vessel then sailing from
+Jamaica, while the crews hid their ships amongst the mangrove swamps of a
+small uninhabited island off the coast of Cuba. Here they waited for nine
+months for an answer to their petition to the King, living on turtle,
+fish, rice, and, of course, rum _ad lib._ as long as it lasted.
+
+To pass the time various diversions were instigated, particularly
+dancing--a pastime in great favour amongst pirates. We have a most amusing
+account left us of a mock court of justice held by them to try one another
+of piracy, and he who was on one day tried as the prisoner would next day
+take his turn at being Judge.
+
+This shows a grim sense of humour, as most of those who took part in these
+mock trials were certain to end their careers before a real trial unless
+they came to a sudden and violent end beforehand.
+
+Here is an account of one such mock-trial as given to Captain Johnson, the
+historian of the pirates, by an eyewitness:
+
+"The Court and Criminals being both appointed, as also Council to plead,
+the Judge got up in a Tree, and had a dirty Taurpaulin hung over his
+shoulder; this was done by Way of Robe, with a Thrum Cap on his Head, and
+a large Pair of Spectacles upon his Nose. Thus equipp'd, he settled
+himself in his Place; and abundance of Officers attending him below, with
+Crows, Handspikes, etc., instead of Wands, Tipstaves, and such like....
+The Criminals were brought out, making a thousand sour Faces; and one who
+acted as Attorney-General opened the Charge against them; their Speeches
+were very laconick, and their whole Proceedings concise. We shall give it
+by Way of Dialogue.
+
+"Attor. Gen.: 'An't please your Lordship, and you Gentlemen of the Jury,
+here is a Fellow before you that is a sad Dog, a sad sad Dog; and I humbly
+hope your Lordship will order him to be hang'd out of the Way
+immediately.... He has committed Pyracy upon the High Seas, and we shall
+prove, an't please your Lordship, that this Fellow, this sad Dog before
+you, has escaped a thousand Storms, nay, has got safe ashore when the Ship
+has been cast away, which was a certain Sign he was not born to be
+drown'd; yet not having the Fear of hanging before his Eyes, he went on
+robbing and ravishing Man, Woman and Child, plundering Ships Cargoes fore
+and aft, burning and sinking Ship, Bark and Boat, as if the Devil had been
+in him. But this is not all, my Lord, he has committed worse Villanies
+than all these, for we shall prove, that he has been guilty of drinking
+Small-Beer; and your Lordship knows, there never was a sober Fellow but
+what was a Rogue. My Lord, I should have spoke much finer than I do now,
+but that as your Lordship knows our Rum is all out, and how should a Man
+speak good Law that has not drank a Dram.... However, I hope, your
+Lordship will order the Fellow to be hang'd.'
+
+"Judge: '... Hearkee me, Sirrah ... you lousy, pittiful, ill-look'd Dog;
+what have you to say why you should not be tuck'd up immediately, and set
+a Sun-drying like a Scare-crow?... Are you guilty, or not guilty?'
+
+"Pris.: 'Not guilty, an't please your Worship.'
+
+"Judge: 'Not guilty! say so again, Sirrah, and I'll have you hang'd
+without any Tryal.'
+
+"Pris.: 'An't please your Worship's Honour, my Lord, I am as honest a poor
+Fellow as ever went between Stem and Stern of a Ship, and can hand, reef,
+steer, and clap two Ends of a Rope together, as well as e'er a He that
+ever cross'd salt Water; but I was taken by one George Bradley' (the Name
+of him that sat as Judge,) 'a notorious Pyrate, a sad Rogue as ever was
+unhang'd, and he forc'd me, an't please your Honour.'
+
+"Judge: 'Answer me, Sirrah.... How will you be try'd?'
+
+"Pris.: 'By G---- and my Country.'
+
+"Judge: 'The Devil you will.... Why then, Gentlemen of the Jury, I think
+we have nothing to do but to proceed to Judgement.'
+
+"Attor. Gen.: 'Right, my Lord; for if the Fellow should be suffered to
+speak, he may clear himself, and that's an Affront to the Court.'
+
+"Pris.: 'Pray, my Lord, I hope your Lordship will consider ...'
+
+"Judge: 'Consider!... How dare you talk of considering?... Sirrah, Sirrah,
+I never consider'd in all my Life.... I'll make it Treason to consider.'
+
+"Pris.: 'But, I hope, your Lordship will hear some reason.'
+
+"Judge: 'D'ye hear how the Scoundrel prates?... What have we to do with
+the Reason?... I'd have you to know, Raskal, we don't sit here to hear
+Reason ... we go according to Law.... Is our Dinner ready?'
+
+"Attor. Gen.: 'Yes, my Lord.'
+
+"Judge: 'Then heark'ee you Raskal at the Bar; hear me, Sirrah, hear me....
+You must suffer, for three reasons; first, because it is not fit I should
+sit here as Judge, and no Body be hanged.... Secondly, you must be hanged,
+because you have a damn'd hanging Look.... And thirdly, you must be
+hanged, because I am hungry; for, know, Sirrah, that 'tis a Custom, that
+whenever the Judge's Dinner is ready before the Tryal is over, the
+Prisoner is to be hanged of Course.... There's Law for you, ye Dog.... So
+take him away Gaoler.'"
+
+In August, 1722, the pirates sailed out from their hiding-place and
+waylaid the ship which was returning to Jamaica with the answer to the
+petition, but to their disappointment heard that no notice had been taken
+of their round-robin by the Government at home.
+
+No time was lost in returning to their old ways, for the very next day
+both pirate ships left their hiding-place and sailed out on the "grand
+account."
+
+But now their luck deserted them, for the _Morning Star_ was run aground
+on a reef by gross neglect on the part of the officers and wrecked. Most
+of the crew escaped on to an island, where Captain Anstis found them next
+day, and no sooner had he taken aboard Captain Fenn, Phillips, the
+carpenter, and a few others, than all of a sudden down upon them came two
+men-of-war, the _Hector_ and the _Adventure_, so that Anstis had barely
+time to cut his cables and get away to sea, hotly pursued by the
+_Adventure_. The latter, in a stiff breeze, was slowly gaining on the
+brigantine when all of a sudden the wind dropped, the pirates got out the
+sweeps, and thus managed, for the time being, to escape. In the meantime
+the _Hector_ took prisoner the forty pirates remaining on the island.
+
+Anstis soon got to work again, and captured several prizes. He then sailed
+to the Island of Tobago to clean and refit his ship. Just when all the
+guns and stores had been landed and the ship heeled, as ill-luck would
+have it, the _Winchester_, man-of-war, put into the bay; and the pirates
+had barely time to set their ship on fire and to escape into the woods.
+Anstis had by now lost all authority over his discontented crew, and one
+night was shot while asleep in his hammock.
+
+
+ANTONIO.
+
+Captain of the Darien Indians and friend to the English buccaneers.
+
+
+ARCHER, JOHN ROSE.
+
+He learnt his art as a pirate in the excellent school of the notorious
+Blackbeard.
+
+In 1723 he was, for the time being, in honest employment in a Newfoundland
+fishing-boat, which was captured by Phillips and his crew. As Phillips was
+only a beginner at piracy, he was very glad to get the aid of such an old
+hand at the game as John Archer, whom he promptly appointed to the office
+of quartermaster in the pirate ship. This quick promotion caused some
+murmuring amongst Phillips's original crew, the carpenter, Fern, being
+particularly outspoken against it.
+
+Archer ended his days on the gallows at Boston on June 2nd, 1724, and we
+read that he "dy'd very penitent, with the assistance of two grave Divines
+to attend him."
+
+
+ARGALL.
+
+Licensed and titled buccaneer.
+
+Believed to have buried a rich treasure in the Isles of Shoals, off
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the seventeenth century.
+
+
+ARMSTRONG.
+
+Born in London. A deserter from the Royal Navy. One of Captain Roberts's
+crew taken by H.M.S. _Swallow_, from which ship he had previously
+deserted.
+
+In an account of his execution on board H.M.S. _Weymouth_ we read: "Being
+on board a Man of War there was no Body to press him to an Acknowledgement
+of the Crime he died for, nor of sorrowing in particular for it, which
+would have been exemplary, and made suitable Impressions on seamen; so
+that his last Hour was spent in lamenting and bewailing his Sins in
+general, exhorting the Spectators to an honest and good life, in which
+alone they could find Satisfaction."
+
+This painful scene ended by the condemned singing with the spectators a
+few verses of the 140th Psalm: at the conclusion of which, at the firing
+of a gun, "he was tric'd up at the Fore Yard."
+
+Died at the age of 34.
+
+
+ARNOLD, SION.
+
+A Madagascar pirate, who was brought to New England by Captain Shelley in
+1699.
+
+
+ASHPLANT, VALENTINE.
+
+Born in the Minories, London. He served with Captain Howell Davis, and
+later with Bartholomew Roberts. He was one of the leading lights of
+Roberts's crew, a member of the "House of Lords."
+
+He took part in the capture and plundering of the _King Solomon_ at Cape
+Apollonia, North-West Coast of Africa, in January, 1719, when the pirates,
+in an open boat, attacked the ship while at anchor. Ashplant was taken
+prisoner two years later by H.M.S. _Swallow_. Tried for piracy at Cape
+Coast Castle and found guilty in March, 1722, and hanged in chains there
+at the age of 32.
+
+
+ATWELL.
+
+A hand aboard the brig _Vineyard_ in 1830, he took part with Charles Gibbs
+and others in a mutiny in which both the captain and mate was murdered.
+
+
+AUGUR, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+A pirate of New Providence, Bahama Islands. He accepted the royal pardon
+in 1718, and impressed the Governor, Woodes Rogers, so favourably that he
+was placed in command of a sloop to go and trade amongst the islands. A
+few days out Augur met with two sloops, "the sight of which dispelled all
+memory of their late good intention," and turning pirates once more, they
+seized the two sloops and took out of them money and goods to the value of
+£500.
+
+The pirates now sailed for Hispaniola, but with bad luck, or owing to
+retribution, a sudden hurricane arose which drove them back to the one
+spot in the West Indies they must have been most anxious to avoid--that
+is, the Bahama Islands. Here the sloop became a total wreck, but the crew
+got ashore and for a while lay hidden in a wood. Rogers, hearing where
+they were, sent an armed sloop to the island, and the captain by fair
+promises induced the eleven marooned pirates to come aboard. Taking these
+back to Providence, Rogers had them all tried before a court of lately
+converted pirates, and they were condemned to be hanged. While standing
+on the gallows platform the wretched culprits reproached the crowd of
+spectators, so lately their fellow-brethren in piracy, for allowing their
+old comrades to be hanged, and urging them to come to the rescue. But
+virtue was still strong in these recent converts, and all the comfort the
+criminals got was to be told "it was their Business to turn their Minds to
+another World, and sincerely to repent of what Wickedness they had done in
+this." "Yes," answered the now irritated and in no-wise abashed Augur, "I
+_do_ heartily repent: I repent I have not done more Mischief, and that we
+did not cut the Throats of them that took us, and I am extremely sorry
+that you an't all hang'd as well as we."
+
+
+AUSTIN, JAMES.
+
+Captured with the rest of Captain John Quelch's crew in the brigantine
+_Charles_. Escaped for a time, but was caught and secured in the gaol at
+Piscataqua, and later on tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston in
+June, 1704.
+
+
+AVERY, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ HENRY EVERY, _alias_ CAPTAIN BRIDGEMAN.
+Nicknamed "Long Ben," or the "Arch-Pirate."
+
+In the year 1695, when at the height of his career, Avery caught the
+public's fancy as no other pirate ever did, with the possible exception of
+Captain Kidd. So much so that his achievements, or supposed achievements,
+formed the plot of several popular novels and plays.
+
+Charles Johnson wrote a play called "The Successful Pyrate," which work
+ran into several editions, and was acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury
+Lane.
+
+The scene in this play was laid in the Island of Madagascar, and the hero
+was modelled on Captain Avery.
+
+This pirate was a Devonshire man, being born near Plymouth about the year
+1665, and was bred to the sea. He sailed on several voyages as mate aboard
+a merchantman. He was later appointed first officer in an armed privateer
+_The Duke_, Commander Captain Gibson, which sailed from Bristol for Spain,
+being hired by the Spaniards for service in the West Indies against the
+French pirates.
+
+Avery soon plotted a mutiny, which was carried out while _The Duke_ lay at
+anchor in Cadiz Harbour; the ship was seized, and the captain put ashore.
+Avery was elected captain, and he renamed the ship the _Charles the
+Second_. For more than a year Avery sailed in this vessel, preying without
+distinction upon persons of all nations and religions.
+
+After leaving Spain he first sailed to the Isle of May, holding the
+Portuguese governor for ransom till provisions were sent on board. He took
+near here three English ships, then sailed to the coast of Guinea to
+procure slaves. To catch these Avery would anchor off a village and hoist
+English colours. The trusting negroes would then paddle off to the ship in
+canoes, bringing gold to traffic with. At a given signal these natives
+would be seized, clapped in irons, and thrown into the hold.
+
+Avery next sailed to the Island of Princes, where he attacked two Danish
+ships, and took them both. The next place the pirates touched at was
+Madagascar, from there they sailed to the Red Sea to await the fleet
+expected from Mocha. To pass the time and to earn an honest penny the
+pirates called in at a town called Meat, there to sell to the natives some
+of their stolen merchandise. But the cautious inhabitants refused to do
+any business with these suspicious looking merchants, so in order to
+punish them the pirates burnt down their town. They next visited Aden,
+where they met two other English pirate ships, and were soon joined by
+three others from America, all on the same enterprise.
+
+Expecting the Mocha fleet to come along, they waited here, but the fleet
+slipped past the pirates in the night. Avery was after them the next
+morning, and catching them up, singled out the largest ship, fought her
+for two hours, and took her. She proved to be the _Gunsway_, belonging to
+the Great Mogul himself, and a very valuable prize, as out of her they
+took 100,000 pieces of eight and a like number of chequins, as well as
+several of the highest persons of the court who were passengers on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca. It was rumoured that a daughter of the Great Mogul
+was also on board. Accounts of this exploit eventually reached England,
+and created great excitement, so that it soon became the talk of the town
+that Captain Avery had taken the beautiful young princess to Madagascar,
+where he had married her and was living in royal state, the proud father
+of several small princes and princesses.
+
+The Mogul was naturally infuriated at this outrage on his ship, and
+threatened in retaliation to lay waste all the East India Company's
+settlements.
+
+Having got a vast booty, Avery and his friends sailed towards Madagascar,
+and on the way there Avery, as admiral of the little fleet, signalled to
+the captain of the other sloops to come aboard his vessel. When they
+arrived Avery put before them the following ingenious scheme. He proposed
+that the treasures in the two sloops should, for safety, be put into his
+keeping till they all three arrived in Madagascar. This, being agreed to,
+was done, but during the night, after Avery had explained matters to his
+own men, he altered his course and left the sloops, and never saw them
+again. He now sailed away with all the plunder to the West Indies,
+arriving safely at New Providence Island in the Bahamas, where he offered
+the Governor a bribe of twenty pieces of eight and two pieces of gold to
+get him a pardon. Avery arrived in 1696 at Boston, where he appears to
+have successfully bribed the Quaker Governor to let him and some of his
+crew land with their spoils unmolested. But the pirate did not feel quite
+safe, and also thought it would be wellnigh impossible to sell his
+diamonds in the colony without being closely questioned as to how he came
+by them. So, leaving America, he sailed to the North of Ireland, where he
+sold the sloop. Here the crew finally dispersed, and Avery stopped some
+time in Dublin, but was still unable to dispose of his stolen diamonds.
+Thinking England would be a better place for this transaction, he went
+there, and settled at Bideford in Devon. Here he lived very quietly under
+a false name, and through a friend communicated with certain merchants in
+Bristol. These came to see him, accepted his diamonds and some gold cups,
+giving him a few pounds for his immediate wants, and took the valuables to
+Bristol to sell, promising to send him the money procured for them. Time
+dragged on, but nothing came from the Bristol merchants, and at last it
+began to dawn on Avery that there were pirates on land as well as at sea.
+His frequent letters to the merchants brought at the most but a few
+occasional shillings, which were immediately swallowed up by the payment
+of his debts for the bare necessities of life at Bideford. At length, when
+matters were becoming desperate, Avery was taken ill and died "not being
+worth as much as would buy him a coffin." Thus ended Avery, "the Grand
+Pirate," whose name was known all over Europe, and who was supposed to be
+reigning as a king in Madagascar when all the while he was hiding and
+starving in a cottage at Bideford.
+
+
+AYLETT, CAPTAIN.
+
+This buccaneer was killed by an explosion of gunpowder on board the
+_Oxford_ during a banquet of Morgan's captains off Hispaniola in 1669.
+
+
+BAILY, JOB, or BAYLEY.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at Charleston in 1718.
+
+
+BAKER, CAPTAIN.
+
+One of Gasparilla's gang up to 1822, when they were broken up by the
+United States Navy. His favourite hunting-ground was the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+
+BALL, ROGER.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew's crew in the _Royal Fortune_. Captured by
+H.M.S. _Swallow_ off the West Coast of Africa. He had been terribly burnt
+by an explosion of a barrel of gunpowder, and while seated "in a private
+corner, with a look as sullen as winter," a surgeon of the king's ship
+came up and asked him how he came to be blown up in that frightful manner.
+"Why," says he, "John Morris fired a pistol into the powder, and if he had
+not done it, I would." The surgeon, with great kindness, offered to dress
+the prisoner's wounds, but Ball, although in terrible pain, refused to
+allow them to be touched. He died the same night.
+
+
+BALLET, JOHN. Buccaneer.
+
+Third mate on board Woodes Rogers's ship, the _Duke_, but was by
+profession a surgeon, in which latter capacity he had sailed on a previous
+voyage with Dampier.
+
+
+BALTIZAR, CAPTAIN.
+
+A terror to all shipping in the Gulf of Mexico in the early part of the
+nineteenth century. Brought to Boston as a prisoner in 1823, taken thence
+to Kingston, Jamaica, and there hanged. For some extraordinary reason the
+American juries seldom would condemn a pirate to death, so that whenever
+possible the pirate prisoners were handed over to the English, who made
+short shift with them.
+
+
+BANNISTER, CAPTAIN.
+
+Ran away from Port Royal, Jamaica, in June, 1684, on a "privateering"
+venture in a ship of thirty guns. Caught and brought back by the frigate
+_Ruby_, and put on trial by the Lieutenant-Governor Molesworth, who was at
+that time very active in his efforts to stamp out piracy in the West
+Indies.
+
+Bannister entirely escaped punishment, capital or otherwise, as he was
+released by the grand jury on a technical point, surely most rare good
+fortune for the captain in days when the law was elastic enough to fit
+most crimes, and was far from lenient on piracy. Six months later the
+indefatigable captain again eluded the forts, and for two years succeeded
+in dodging the frigates sent out by Governor Molesworth to capture him.
+Finally, in January, 1687, Captain Spragge sailed victoriously into Port
+Royal with Bannister and three other buccaneers hanging at the yard-arm,
+"a spectacle of great satisfaction to all good people, and of terror to
+the favourers of pirates."
+
+
+BARBAROSSA, or "REDBEARD" (his real name was URUJ). Barbary Corsair.
+
+Son of a Turkish renegade and a Christian mother. Born in the Island of
+Lesbon in the Ægean Sea, a stronghold of the Mediterranean pirates.
+
+In 1504 Barbarossa made his headquarters at Tunis, in return for which he
+paid the Sultan one-fifth of all the booty he took. One of his first and
+boldest exploits was the capture of two richly laden galleys belonging to
+Pope Julius II., on their way from Genoa to Civita Vecchia. Next year he
+captured a Spanish ship with 500 soldiers on board. In 1512 he was invited
+by the Moors to assist them in an attempt to retake the town and port of
+Bujeya from the Spaniards. After eight days of fighting, Barbarossa lost
+an arm, and the siege was given up, but he took away with him a large
+Genoese ship. In 1516 Barbarossa changed his headquarters to Jijil, and
+took command of an army of 6,000 men and sixteen galliots, with which he
+attacked and captured the Spanish fortress of Algiers, of which he became
+Sultan. Barbarossa was by now vastly rich and powerful, his fleets
+bringing in prizes from Genoa, Naples, Venice, and Spain.
+
+Eventually Charles V. of Spain sent an army of 10,000 troops to North
+Africa, defeated the corsairs, and Barbarossa was slain in battle.
+
+
+BARBE, CAPTAIN NICHOLAS.
+
+Master of a Breton ship, the _Mychell_, of St. Malo, owned by Hayman
+Gillard. Captured by an English ship in 1532. Her crew was made up of nine
+Bretons and five Scots.
+
+
+BARNARD, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In June, 1663, this buccaneer sailed from Port Royal to the Orinoco. He
+took and plundered the town of Santo Tomas, and returned the following
+March.
+
+
+BARNES, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1677 several English privateers surprised and sacked the town of Santa
+Marta in the Spanish Main. To save the town from being burnt, the
+Governor and Bishop became hostages until a ransom had been paid. These
+the pirates, under the command of Captains Barnes and Coxon, carried back
+to Jamaica and delivered up to Lord Vaughan, the Governor of the island.
+Vaughan treated the Bishop well, and hired a vessel specially to send him
+back to Castagona, for which kindness "the good old man was exceedingly
+pleased."
+
+
+BARNES, HENRY.
+
+Of Barbadoes.
+
+Tried for piracy at Newport in 1723, but found to be not guilty.
+
+
+BARROW, JAMES.
+
+Taken by Captain Roberts out of the _Martha_ snow (Captain Lady). Turned
+pirate and served in the _Ranger_ in 1721.
+
+
+BELLAMY, CAPTAIN CHARLES. Pirate, Socialist, and orator. A famous West
+Indian filibuster.
+
+He began life as a wrecker in the West Indies, but this business being
+uncertain in its profits, and Bellamy being an ambitious young man, he
+decided with his partner, Paul Williams, to aim at higher things, and to
+enter the profession of piracy. Bellamy had now chosen a calling that lent
+itself to his undoubted talents, and his future career, while it lasted,
+was a brilliant one.
+
+Procuring a ship, he sailed up and down the coast of Carolina and New
+England, taking and plundering numerous vessels; and when this
+neighbourhood became too hot for him he would cruise for a while in the
+cooler climate of Newfoundland.
+
+Bellamy had considerable gifts for public speaking, and seldom missed an
+opportunity of addressing the assembled officers and crews of the ships
+he took, before liberating or otherwise disposing of them.
+
+His views were distinctly Socialistic. On one occasion, in an address to a
+Captain Beer, who had pleaded to have his sloop returned to him, Captain
+Bellamy, after clearing his throat, began as follows: "I am sorry," he
+said, "that you can't have your sloop again, for I scorn to do anyone any
+mischief--when it is not to my advantage--though you are a sneaking puppy,
+and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men
+have made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the
+courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn ye
+altogether for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a
+parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls! They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when
+there is the only difference that they rob the poor under cover of the
+law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own
+courage. Had you not better make one of us than sneak after these villains
+for employment?"
+
+Bellamy's fall came at last at the hands of a whaler captain. At the time
+he was in command of the _Whidaw_ and a small fleet of other pirate craft,
+which was lying at anchor in the Bay of Placentia in Newfoundland. Sailing
+from Placentia for Nantucket Shoals, he seized a whaling vessel, the _Mary
+Anne_. As the skipper of the whaler knew the coast well, Bellamy made him
+pilot of his small fleet. The cunning skipper one night ran his ship on to
+a sand-bank near Eastman, Massachusetts, and the rest of the fleet
+followed his stern light on to the rocks. Almost all the crews perished,
+only seven of the pirates being saved. These were seized and brought to
+trial, condemned, and hanged at Boston in 1726. The days spent between the
+sentence and the hanging were not wasted, for we read in a contemporary
+account that "by the indefatigable pains of a pious and learned divine,
+who constantly attended them, they were at length, by the special grace of
+God, made sensible of and truly penitent for the enormous crimes they had
+been guilty of."
+
+
+BELVIN, JAMES.
+
+Bo'son to Captain Gow, the pirate. He had the reputation of being a good
+sailor but a bloodthirsty fellow. Was hanged at Wapping in June, 1725.
+
+
+BEME, FRANCIS.
+
+In 1539 this Baltic pirate was cruising off Antwerp, waiting to waylay
+English merchant vessels.
+
+
+BENDALL, GEORGE, or BENDEALL.
+
+A flourishing pirate, whose headquarters, in the early eighteenth century,
+were in New Providence Island.
+
+In the year 1717, King George offered a free pardon to all freebooters who
+would come in and give themselves up. But the call of the brotherhood was
+too strong for a few of the "old hands," and Bendall, amongst others, was
+off once again to carry on piracy around the Bahama and Virgin Islands.
+Within a few years these last "die-hards" were all killed, drowned,
+caught, or hanged.
+
+
+BENNETT, WILLIAM.
+
+An English soldier, who deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Marne, in
+1689, and joined the pirate Pounds. Was sent to prison at Boston, where he
+died.
+
+
+BILL, PHILIP.
+
+Belonged to the Island of St. Thomas.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged at the age of 27.
+
+
+BISHOP.
+
+An Irishman. Chief mate to the pirate Captain Cobham.
+
+
+BISHOP, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1613, Bishop and a few other English seamen set up as pirates at
+Marmora on the Barbary Coast.
+
+
+BISHOP, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Avery's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock in 1691.
+
+
+BLADS, WILLIAM.
+
+Born in Rhode Island.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport on July 19th,
+1723. Age 28.
+
+
+BLAKE, BENJAMIN.
+
+A Boston boy, taken prisoner with Captain Pounds's crew at Tarpaulin Cove.
+
+
+BLAKE, JAMES.
+
+One of Captain Teach's crew. Hanged in 1718 at Virginia.
+
+
+BLEWFIELD, CAPTAIN, or BLAUVELT.
+
+In 1649 this Dutch pirate brought a prize into Newport, Rhode Island. In
+1663 was known to be living among the friendly Indians at Cape Gratia de
+Dios on the Spanish Main. He commanded a barque carrying three guns and a
+crew of fifty men. He was very active in the logwood cutting in Honduras.
+Whether the town and river of Bluefield take their name from this pirate
+is uncertain, but the captain must many a time have gone up the river into
+the forests of Nicaragua on his logwood cutting raids.
+
+
+BLOT, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+In 1684 was in command of _La Quagone_, ninety men, eight guns.
+
+
+BOLIVAR, LIEUTENANT.
+
+This Portuguese pirate was first officer to Captain Jonnia. He was a
+stout, well-built man of swarthy complexion and keen, ferocious eyes, huge
+black whiskers and beard, and a tremendously loud voice. He took the
+Boston schooner _Exertion_ at Twelve League Key on December 17th, 1821.
+
+
+BOND, CAPTAIN.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+In 1682 arrived at the Cape Verde Islands. Having procured leave to land
+on Mayo Island, on the pretence of being an honest merchant in need of
+provisions, particularly of beef and goats, Bond and his crew seized and
+carried away some of the principal inhabitants. A year later John Cooke
+and Cowley arrived at Mayo in the _Revenge_, but were prevented by the
+inhabitants from landing owing to their recent treatment at the hands of
+Bond.
+
+
+BONNET, MAJOR STEDE, _alias_ CAPTAIN THOMAS, _alias_ EDWARDS.
+
+The history of this pirate is both interesting and unique. He was not
+brought up to the seafaring life; in fact, before he took to piracy, he
+had already retired from the Army, with the rank of Major. He owned
+substantial landed property in Barbadoes, lived in a fine house, was
+married, and much respected by the quality and gentry of that island. His
+turning pirate naturally greatly scandalized his neighbours, and they
+found it difficult at first to imagine whatever had caused this sudden and
+extraordinary resolution, particularly in a man of his position in
+Society. But when the cause at last came to be known, he was more pitied
+than blamed, for it was understood that the Major's mind had become
+unbalanced owing to the unbridled nagging of Mrs. Bonnet. Referring to
+this, the historian Captain Johnson writes as follows: "He was afterwards
+rather pitty'd than condemned, by those that were acquainted with him,
+believing that this Humour of going a-pyrating proceeded from a Disorder
+in his Mind, which had been but too visible in him, some Time before this
+wicked Undertaking; and which is said to have been occasioned by some
+Discomforts he found in a married State; be that as it will, the Major was
+but ill qualified for the Business, as not understanding maritime
+Affairs." Whatever the cause of the Major's "disorder of mind," the fact
+remains that at his own expense he fitted out a sloop armed with ten guns
+and a crew of seventy men. The fact that he honestly paid in cash for this
+ship is highly suspicious of a deranged mind, since no other pirate, to
+the writer's knowledge, ever showed such a nicety of feeling, but always
+stole the ship in which to embark "on the account." The Major, to satisfy
+the curious, gave out that he intended to trade between the islands, but
+one night, without a word of farewell to Mrs. Bonnet, he sailed out of
+harbour in the _Revenge_, as he called his ship, and began to cruise off
+the coast of Virginia. For a rank amateur, Bonnet met with wonderful
+success, as is shown by a list of the prizes he took and plundered in this
+first period of his piracy:
+
+The _Anne_, of Glasgow (Captain Montgomery).
+
+The _Turbet_, of Barbadoes, which, after plundering, he burnt, as he did
+all prizes from Barbadoes.
+
+The _Endeavour_ (Captain Scott).
+
+The _Young_, of Leith.
+
+The plunder out of these ships he sold at Gardiner Island, near New York.
+
+Cruising next off the coast of Carolina, Bonnet took a brace of prizes,
+but began to have trouble with his unruly crew, who, seeing that their
+captain knew nothing whatever of sea affairs, took advantage of the fact
+and commenced to get out of hand. Unluckily for Bonnet, he at this time
+met with the famous Captain Teach, or Blackbeard, and the latter, quickly
+appreciating how matters stood, ordered the Major to come aboard his own
+ship, while he put his lieutenant, Richards, to command Bonnet's vessel.
+The poor Major was most depressed by this undignified change in his
+affairs, until Blackbeard lost his ship in Topsail Inlet, and finding
+himself at a disadvantage, promptly surrendered to the King's proclamation
+and allowed Bonnet to reassume command of his own sloop. But Major Bonnet
+had been suffering from qualms of conscience latterly, so he sailed to
+Bath Town in North Carolina, where he, too, surrendered to the Governor
+and received his certificate of pardon. Almost at once news came of war
+being declared between England and France with Spain, so Bonnet hurried
+back to Topsail, and was granted permission to take back his sloop and
+sail her to St. Thomas's Island, to receive a commission as a privateer
+from the French Governor of that island. But in the meanwhile Teach had
+robbed everything of any value out of Bonnet's ship, and had marooned
+seventeen of the crew on a sandy island, but these were rescued by the
+Major before they died of starvation. Just as the ship was ready to sail,
+a bumboat came alongside to sell apples and cider to the sloop's crew, and
+from these they got an interesting piece of news. They learnt that Teach,
+with a crew of eighteen men, was at that moment lying at anchor in
+Ocricock Inlet. The Major, longing to revenge the insult he had suffered
+from Blackbeard, and his crew remembering how he had left them to die on a
+desert island, went off in search of Teach, but failed to find him. Stede
+Bonnet having received his pardon in his own name, now called himself
+Captain Thomas and again took to piracy, and evidently had benefited by
+his apprenticeship with Blackbeard, for he was now most successful, taking
+many prizes off the coast of Virginia, and later in Delaware Bay.
+
+Bonnet now sailed in a larger ship, the _Royal James_, so named from
+feelings of loyalty to the Crown. But she proved to be very leaky, and the
+pirates had to take her to the mouth of Cape Fear River for repairs. News
+of this being carried to the Council of South Carolina, arrangements were
+made to attempt to capture the pirate, and a Colonel William Rhet, at his
+own expense, fitted out two armed sloops, the _Henry_ (eight guns and
+seventy men) and the _Sea Nymph_ (eight guns and sixty men), both sailing
+under the direct command of the gallant Colonel. On September 25th, 1718,
+the sloops arrived at Cape Fear River, and there sure enough was the
+_Royal James_, with three sloops lying at anchor behind the bar. The
+pirate tried to escape by sailing out, but was followed by the Colonel's
+two vessels until all three ran aground within gunshot of each other. A
+brisk fight took place for five hours, when the Major struck his colours
+and surrendered. There was great public rejoicing in Charleston when, on
+October 3rd, Colonel Rhet sailed victoriously into the harbour with his
+prisoners. But next day Bonnet managed to escape out of prison and sailed
+to Swillivant's Island. The indefatigable Colonel Rhet again set out after
+the Major, and again caught him and brought him back to Charleston.
+
+The trial of Stede Bonnet and his crew began on October 28th, 1718, at
+Charleston, and continued till November 12th, the Judge being Nicholas
+Trot. Bonnet was found guilty and condemned to be hanged. Judge Trot made
+a speech of overwhelming length to the condemned, full of Biblical
+quotations, to each of which the learned magistrate gave chapter and
+verse. In November, 1718, the gallant, if unfortunate, Major was hanged at
+White Point, Charleston.
+
+Apart from the unusual cause for his turning pirate, Bonnet is interesting
+as being almost the only case known, otherwise than in books of romance,
+of a pirate making his prisoners walk the plank.
+
+
+BONNY, ANNE. Female pirate.
+
+Anne was born in County Cork, and her father was an Attorney-at-Law, who
+practised his profession in that city, her mother being lady's maid to the
+attorney's lawful wife.
+
+The story of the events which led to the existence of Anne may be read in
+Johnson's "History of the Pyrates," where it is recounted in a style quite
+suggestive of Fielding. In spite of its sad deficiency in moral tone, the
+narrative is highly diverting. But as this work is strictly confined to
+the history of the pirates and not to the amorous intrigues of their
+forbears, we will skip these pre-natal episodes and come to the time when
+the attorney, having lost a once flourishing legal practice, sailed from
+Ireland to Carolina to seek a fortune there, taking his little daughter
+Anne with him. In new surroundings fortune favoured the attorney, and he
+soon owned a rich plantation, and his daughter kept house for him.
+
+Anne was now grown up and a fine young woman, but had a "fierce and
+courageous temper," which more than once led her into scrapes, as, on one
+occasion, when in a sad fit of temper, she slew her English servant-maid
+with a case-knife. But except for these occasional outbursts of passion
+she was a good and dutiful girl. Her father now began to think of finding
+a suitable young man to be a husband for Anne, which would not be hard to
+do, since Anne, besides her good looks, was his heir and would be well
+provided for by him. But Anne fell in love with a good-looking young
+sailor who arrived one day at Charleston, and, knowing her father would
+never consent to such a match, the lovers were secretly married, in the
+expectation that, the deed being done, the father would soon become
+reconciled to it. But on the contrary, the attorney, on being told the
+news, turned his daughter out of doors and would have nothing more to do
+with either of them. The bridegroom, finding his heiress worth not a
+groat, did what other sailors have done before and since, and slipped away
+to sea without so much as saying good-bye to his bride. But a more gallant
+lover soon hove in sight, the handsome, rich, dare-devil pirate, Captain
+John Rackam, known up and down the coast as "Calico Jack." Jack's methods
+of courting and taking a ship were similar--no time wasted, straight up
+alongside, every gun brought to play, and the prize seized. Anne was soon
+swept off her feet by her picturesque and impetuous lover, and consented
+to go to sea with him in his ship, but disguised herself in sailor's
+clothes before going on board. The lovers sailed together on a piratical
+honeymoon until certain news being conveyed to Captain Rackam by his
+bride, he sailed to Cuba and put Anne ashore at a small cove, where he had
+a house and also friends, who he knew would take good care of her. But
+before long Anne was back in the pirate ship, as active as any of her male
+shipmates with cutlass and marlinspike, always one of the leaders in
+boarding a prize.
+
+However, the day of retribution was at hand. While cruising near Jamaica
+in October, 1720, the pirates were surprised by the sudden arrival of an
+armed sloop, which had been sent out by the Governor of that island for
+the express purpose of capturing Rackam and his crew. A fight followed, in
+which the pirates behaved in a most cowardly way, and were soon driven
+below decks, all but Anne Bonny and another woman pirate, Mary Read, who
+fought gallantly till taken prisoners, all the while flaunting their male
+companions on their cowardly conduct. The prisoners were carried to
+Jamaica and tried for piracy at St. Jago de la Vega, and convicted on
+November 28th, 1720. Anne pleaded to have her execution postponed for
+reasons of her condition of health, and this was allowed, and she never
+appears to have been hanged, though what her ultimate fate was is unknown.
+On the day that her lover Rackam was hanged he obtained, by special
+favour, permission to see Anne, but must have derived little comfort from
+the farewell interview, for all he got in the way of sympathy from his
+lady love were these words--that "she was sorry to see him there, but if
+he had fought like a Man, he need not have been hang'd like a Dog."
+
+
+BOON, JOHN.
+
+Member of the Council of Carolina under Governor Colleton, and expelled
+from it "for holding correspondence with pirates," 1687.
+
+
+BOOTH, SAMUEL.
+
+Of Charleston, Carolina.
+
+One of Major Bonnet's crew. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+BOURNANO, CAPTAIN, or DE BERNANOS.
+
+In 1679 this famous French filibuster commanded a ship of ninety tons,
+armed with six guns, and manned by a crew of eighty-six French sailors.
+Joined Captain Bartholomew Sharp when he was preparing his expedition to
+assault the town of Santa Maria. Bournano was a useful ally, as he was
+much liked by the Darien Indians, but his crew quarrelled with the English
+buccaneers, and they left Sharp's company. In the year 1684, Bournano,
+known by then as Le Sieur de Bernanos, commanded a ship, _La Schite_,
+carrying a crew of sixty men and armed with eight guns.
+
+
+LA BOUSE, CAPTAIN OLIVER, or DE LA BOUCHE.
+
+French pirate.
+
+When Captain Howel Davis had taken and sacked the fort at Gambia and with
+his crew was spending a day in revelry, a ship was reported, bearing down
+on them in full sail. The pirates prepared to fight her, when she ran up
+the Black Flag and proved to be a French pirate ship of fourteen guns and
+sixty-four hands, half French and half negroes, commanded by Captain La
+Bouse. A great many civilities passed between the two captains, and they
+agreed to sail down the coast together. Arriving at Sierra Leone, they
+found a tall ship lying at anchor. This ship they attacked, firing a
+broadside, when she also ran up the Black Flag, being the vessel of the
+notorious Captain Cocklyn. For the next two days the three captains and
+their crews "spent improving their acquaintance and friendship," which was
+the pirate expression for getting gloriously drunk. On the third day they
+attacked and took the African Company's Fort. Shortly afterwards the three
+captains quarrelled, and each went his own way. In 1718 La Bouse was at
+New Providence Island. In 1720 this pirate commanded the _Indian Queen_,
+250 tons, armed with twenty-eight guns, and a crew of ninety men. Sailing
+from the Guinea Coast to the East Indies, de la Bouche lost his ship on
+the Island of Mayotta, near Madagascar.
+
+The captain and forty men set about building a new vessel, while the
+remainder went off in canoes to join Captain England's pirates at Johanna.
+
+
+BOWEN.
+
+A Bristol man. In 1537, when the Breton pirates were becoming very daring
+along the south coast of England and Wales, Bowen contrived to capture
+fourteen of these robbers, who had landed near Tenby, and had them put in
+prison.
+
+
+BOWEN, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+The practice of this South Sea pirate extended from Madagascar to Bengal.
+He commanded a good ship, the _Speaker_, a French vessel, owned by an
+English company interested in the slave trade, which Bowen had captured by
+a cunning ruse. He afterwards lost his ship off Mauritius, but was well
+treated by the Dutch Governor, who supplied doctors, medicine, and food to
+the shipwrecked pirates. After three months' hospitality on the island,
+Bowen procured a sloop, and in March, 1701, sailed for Madagascar. As a
+parting friendly gift to the Governor, he gave him 2,500 pieces of eight
+and the wreck of the _Speaker_, with all the guns and stores. On arriving
+at Madagascar, Bowen erected a fort and built a town. Shortly after this a
+ship, the _Speedy Return_, and a brigantine were so very thoughtless as to
+put into the port, and paid for this thoughtlessness by being promptly
+seized by Bowen. With these two vessels Bowen and his merry men went
+"a-pyrating" again, and with great success, for in a short time they had
+gathered together over a million dollars in coin, as well as vast
+quantities of valuable merchandise. The pirates then, most wisely,
+considering that they had succeeded well enough, settled down amongst
+their Dutch friends in the Island of Mauritius to a quiet and comfortable
+life on shore.
+
+
+BOWMAN, WILLIAM.
+
+A seaman; one of the party which crossed the Isthmus of Darien on foot
+with Dampier in 1681. Wafer records that Bowman, "a weakly Man, a Taylor
+by trade," slipped while crossing a swollen river, and was carried off by
+the swift current, and nearly drowned by the weight of a satchel he
+carried containing 400 pieces of eight.
+
+
+BOYD, ROBERT.
+
+Of Bath Town, North Carolina.
+
+Sailed with Major Stede Bonnet in the _Royal James_. Hanged on November
+8th, 1718, at Charleston.
+
+
+BOYZA.
+
+A Columbian.
+
+One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the _Panda_. Hanged at Boston in June,
+1835.
+
+
+BRADISH, CAPTAIN JOSEPH.
+
+A notorious pirate. Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 28th,
+1672. In March, 1689, was in London out of a berth, and shipped as mate in
+the hake-boat _Adventure_, bound for Borneo on an interloping trade.
+
+In September, 1698, when most of the officers and passengers were ashore
+at the Island of Polonais, Bradish and the crew cut the cable and ran away
+with the ship. The crew shared the money which was found in the
+bread-room, and which filled nine chests, amounting to about 3,700 Spanish
+dollars.
+
+Bradish sailed the _Adventure_ to Long Island, arriving there on March
+19th, 1699. After leaving their money and jewels on Nassau Island, they
+sank their ship. Most of the crew bought horses at the neighbouring
+farmhouses and disappeared. Bradish and a few others were rash enough to
+go to Massachusetts, where they were promptly arrested and placed in the
+Boston Gaol. But the gaolkeeper, one Caleb Ray, was a relation of Bradish,
+and allowed him to escape. An offer of a reward of £200 brought the
+escaped prisoner back, and he sailed in irons on H.M.S. _Advice_, with
+Kidd and other pirates, to England, and was hanged in chains in London at
+Hope Dock in 1700.
+
+
+BRADLEY, GEORGE.
+
+Master of Captain Fenn's ship, the _Morning Star_, wrecked on the Grand
+Caymans in August, 1722. The crew got ashore on an island and hid in the
+woods. Bradley and the other pirates afterwards surrendered themselves to
+an English sloop, and were carried to Bermuda. Bradley escaped to England,
+and was last heard of at Bristol.
+
+
+BREAKES, CAPTAIN HIRAM.
+
+This Dutch pirate was the second son of a well-to-do councillor of the
+Island of Saba in the West Indies. Hiram was appointed in the year 1764 to
+a ship which traded between that island and Amsterdam. In the latter port,
+Hiram, who was now 19 years of age and a handsome fellow standing over six
+feet in height, fell in love with a certain Mrs. Snyde.
+
+Getting command of a small ship that traded between Schiedam, in Holland,
+and Lisbon, Breakes for some time sailed between these ports. Returning to
+Amsterdam, he and Mrs. Snyde murdered that lady's husband, but at the
+trial managed to get acquitted.
+
+Breakes's next exploit was to steal his employer's ship and cargo and go
+out as a pirate, naming his vessel the _Adventure_. His first exploit was
+a daring one. Sailing into Vigo Harbour in full view of the forts, he
+seized a vessel, the _Acapulco_, lately come from Valparaiso, and took her
+off. On plundering her they found 200,000 small bars of gold, each about
+the size of a man's finger. The captain and crew of this Chilian vessel
+were all murdered. Breakes preferred the _Acapulco_ to his own ship, so he
+fitted her up and sailed in her to the Mediterranean.
+
+Breakes was one of the religious variety of pirate, for after six days of
+robbing and throat-slitting he would order his crew to clean themselves on
+the Sabbath and gather on the quarter-deck, where he would read prayers to
+them and would often preach a sermon "after the Lutheran style," thus
+fortifying the brave fellows for another week of toil and bloodshed.
+
+Gifted with unlimited boldness, Breakes called in at Gibraltar and
+requested the Governor to grant him a British privateer's commission,
+which the Governor did "for a consideration." Sailing in the neighbourhood
+of the Balearic Islands, he took a few ships, when one day, spying a
+nunnery by the sea-shore in Minorca, he proposed to his crew that they
+should fit themselves out with a wife apiece.
+
+This generous offer was eagerly accepted, and the crew, headed by Captain
+Breakes, marched up to the nunnery unopposed, and were welcomed at the
+door by the lady abbess. Having entered the peaceful cloister, each pirate
+chose a nun and marched back to the ship with their spoils. Soon after
+this Breakes decided to retire from piracy, and returned to Amsterdam to
+claim Mrs. Snyde. But he found that she had but lately been hanged for
+poisoning her little son, of which the pirate was father. This tragedy so
+preyed upon the mind of Captain Breakes that he turned "melancholy mad"
+and drowned himself in one of the many dykes with which that city abounds.
+
+
+BRECK, JOHN.
+
+One of the crew of the brigantine _Charles_ (Captain John Quelch). Tried
+for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+BREHA, CAPTAIN, _alias_ LANDRESSON.
+
+
+BRENNINGHAM, CAPTAIN.
+
+Of Jamaica and Tortuga.
+
+In 1663 commanded a frigate of six guns and seventy men.
+
+
+BRIERLY, JOHN, _alias_ TIMBERHEAD.
+
+Of Bath Town in North Carolina.
+
+One of the crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged at Charleston in November,
+1718.
+
+
+BRIGHT, JOHN.
+
+Of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
+
+One of the crew of Captain Charles Harris. Hanged at Newport, Rhode
+Island, in July, 1723, at the age of 25.
+
+
+BRINKLEY, JAMES.
+
+Of Suffolk, England.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode
+Island, on July 19th, 1723. Age 28.
+
+
+BRODLEY, CAPTAIN JOSEPH, or BRADLEY, sometimes called
+"Lieutenant-Colonel." "An ancient and expert pirate."
+
+Appointed Vice-Admiral by Morgan in his expedition up the Chagre River. He
+was a tough old pirate, and had proved himself a terror to the Spaniards,
+particularly when Mansvelt took the Isle of St. Catharine. In 1676 Brodley
+was sent by Morgan to capture the Castle of Chagre, a very strongly
+garrisoned fort. All day the pirates kept up a furious attack, but were
+driven back. At last, when it seemed impossible for the pirates ever to
+succeed in entering the castle, a remarkable accident happened which
+altered the whole issue. One of the pirates was wounded by an arrow in his
+back, which pierced his body and came out the opposite side. This he
+instantly pulled out at the side of his breast; then, taking a little
+cotton, he wound it about the arrow, and, putting it into his musket, he
+shot it back into the castle. The cotton, kindled by the powder, set fire
+to several houses within the castle, which, being thatched with
+palm-leaves, took fire very easily. This fire at last reached the powder
+magazine, and a great explosion occurred. Owing to this accident of the
+arrow the pirates were eventually able to take the Castle of Chagre. This
+was one of the finest and bravest defences ever made by the Spaniards. Out
+of 314 Spanish soldiers in the castle, only thirty survived, all the rest,
+including the Governor, being killed. Brodley was himself severely wounded
+in this action and died as a consequence ten days later.
+
+
+BROOKS, JOSEPH (senior).
+
+One of Blackbeard's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed on November
+22nd, 1718, at North Carolina.
+
+
+BROOKS, JOSEPH (junior).
+
+One of Blackbeard's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Taken prisoner by
+Lieutenant Maynard on November 22nd, 1718. Carried to Virginia, where he
+was tried and hanged.
+
+
+BROWN, CAPTAIN.
+
+A notorious latter-day pirate, who "worked" the east coast of Central
+America in the early part of the nineteenth century.
+
+
+BROWN, CAPTAIN.
+
+On July 24th, 1702, sailed from Jamaica in command of the _Blessing_--ten
+guns and crew of seventy-nine men, with the famous Edward Davis on
+board--to attack the town of Tolu on the Spanish Main. The town was taken
+and plundered, but Brown was killed, being shot through the head.
+
+
+BROWN, CAPTAIN NICHOLAS.
+
+Surrendered to the King's pardon for pirates at New Providence, Bahamas,
+in 1718. Soon afterwards he surrendered to the Spanish Governor of Cuba,
+embraced the Catholic faith, and turned pirate once more; and was very
+active in attacking English ships off the Island of Jamaica.
+
+
+BROWN, JOHN.
+
+Of Durham, England.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at the age of 29 years at
+Newport, Rhode Island, in 1723.
+
+
+BROWN, JOHN.
+
+Of Liverpool.
+
+One of Captain Harris's crew. Found guilty of piracy at Newport, Rhode
+Island, in 1723, but recommended to the King's favour, perhaps in view of
+his age, being but 17 years old.
+
+
+BROWNE, CAPTAIN JAMES.
+
+A Scotchman.
+
+In 1677, when in command of a mixed crew of English, Dutch, and French
+pirates, he took a Dutch ship trading in negroes off the coast of
+Cartagena. The Dutch captain and several of his crew were killed, while
+the cargo of 150 negroes was landed in a remote bay on the coast of
+Jamaica.
+
+Lord Vaughan sent a frigate, which captured about a hundred of the negro
+slaves and also Browne and eight of his pirate crew. The captain and crew
+were tried for piracy and condemned. The crew were pardoned, but Browne
+was ordered to be executed. The captain appealed to the Assembly to have
+the benefit of the Act of Privateers, and the House of Assembly twice sent
+a committee to the Governor to beg a reprieve. Lord Vaughan refused this
+and ordered the immediate execution of Browne. Half an hour after the
+hanging the provost-marshal appeared with an order, signed by the Speaker,
+to stop the execution.
+
+
+BROWNE, EDWARD.
+
+Of York River, Virginia.
+
+One of Captain Pounds's crew. Wounded at Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.
+
+
+BROWNE, JOHN, _alias_ MAMME.
+
+An English sailor who joined the Barbary pirates at Algiers and turned
+Mohammedan. Taken in the _Exchange_ in 1622 and carried a prisoner to
+Plymouth.
+
+
+BROWNE, RICHARD. Surgeon.
+
+Surgeon-General in Morgan's fleet which carried the buccaneers to the
+Spanish Main. He wrote an account of the disastrous explosion on board the
+_Oxford_ during a banquet given to Morgan and the buccaneer commanders on
+January 2nd, 1669, off Cow Island to the south of Hispaniola, at which the
+details were being discussed for an attack on Cartagena.
+
+Browne writes: "I was eating my dinner with the rest when the mainmasts
+blew out and fell upon Captains Aylett and Bigford and others and knocked
+them on the head. I saved myself by getting astride the mizzenmast." Only
+Morgan and those who sat on his side of the dinner-table were saved.
+
+Browne, who certainly was not biased towards Morgan in his accounts of his
+exploits, is one of the few narrators who gives the buccaneer Admiral
+credit for moderation towards his prisoners, particularly women.
+
+
+BUCK, ELEAZER.
+
+One of Captain Pounds's crew. Tried at Boston in 1689 for piracy and found
+guilty, but pardoned on payment of a fine of twenty marks.
+
+
+BUCKENHAM, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1679 sailed from England to the West Indies. He was taken by the
+Spaniards off Campeachy and carried to Mexico. A seaman, Russel, also a
+prisoner there, and who escaped afterwards, reported to Lionel Wafer that
+he last saw Captain Buckenham with a log chained to his leg and a basket
+on his back, crying bread about the streets of the city of Mexico for his
+master, a baker.
+
+
+BULL, CAPTAIN DIXEY.
+
+Born in London of a respectable family, and in 1631 went to Boston, where
+he received a grant of land at York on the coast of Maine. Became a
+"trader for bever" in New England. In June, 1632, while in Penobscot Bay,
+a French pinnace arrived and seized his shallop and stock of "coats,
+ruggs, blanketts, bisketts, etc." Annoyed by this high-handed behaviour,
+Bull collected together a small crew and turned pirate, thus being the
+very first pirate on the New England coast. Bull took several small
+vessels, and was not caught by the authorities, who sent out small armed
+sloops to search for him, and nothing more was heard of this pioneer
+pirate after 1633, although rumour said that he had reached England in
+safety.
+
+
+BULL, MR.
+
+A member of the crew of Coxon's canoe, he was killed in the famous attack
+by the buccaneers on the Spanish Fleet off Panama in 1680.
+
+
+BULLOCK. Surgeon.
+
+One of the crew at the second disastrous attack by Captain Sharp on the
+town of Arica, when the buccaneers were driven out of the town. All
+escaped who could, except the surgeons, who, in a most unprofessional way,
+had been indulging somewhat freely in the wines of the country during the
+battle, and consequently were in no condition to take their places with
+the retreating force. The surgeons, after being taken prisoner, were
+persuaded to disclose to the Spaniards the prearranged signals by smoke
+from two fires, which was to be given in case of a successful taking of
+the town, to bring up the boats that were hiding on the shore, ready to
+take the buccaneers back to their ships. Fortunately the buccaneers on the
+shore arrived just as the canoes were getting under way, otherwise the
+whole remnant of them would have perished. The only one of these
+disreputable surgeons whose name we know is Dr. Bullock. Some months
+afterwards it was ascertained, through a prisoner, that the Spaniards
+"civilly entertained these surgeons, more especially the women." Surgeons,
+even such surgeons as these, were considered to be valuable in those days
+in the out-of-the-way Spanish colonies.
+
+
+BUNCE, CHARLES.
+
+Born at Exeter; died at the age of 26.
+
+Taken by Captain Roberts out of a Dutch galley in 1721, he joined the
+pirates, to be eventually hanged in 1722. He made a moving speech from the
+gallows, "disclaiming against the guilded Bates of Power, Liberty, and
+Wealth that had ensnared him amongst the pirates," earnestly exhorting the
+spectators to remember his youth, and ending by declaring that "he stood
+there as a beacon upon a Rock" (the gallows standing on one) "to warn
+erring Marriners of Danger."
+
+
+BURDER, WILLIAM.
+
+Mayor of Dover.
+
+It may seem strange to accuse the mayor of so important a seaport as Dover
+of being a pirate, but it is difficult to see how William Burder is to
+escape the accusation when we learn that in the year 1563 he captured 600
+French vessels and a large number of neutral craft, which he plundered,
+and also no fewer than sixty-one Spanish ships, to the very natural
+annoyance of the King of Spain, whose country was at this time at peace
+with England.
+
+
+BURGESS, CAPTAIN SAMUEL SOUTH.
+
+Born and bred in New York, he was a man of good education, and began his
+career on a privateer in the West Indies. Later on he was sent by a Mr.
+Philips, owner and shipbuilder, to trade with the pirates in Madagascar.
+This business Burgess augmented with a little piracy on his own account,
+and after taking several prizes he returned to the West Indies, where he
+disposed of his loot. He then proceeded to New York, and, purposely
+wrecking his vessel at Sandy Hook, landed in the guise of an honest
+shipwrecked mariner.
+
+Burgess settled down for a time to a well-earned rest, and married a
+relative of his employer, Mr. Philips.
+
+Philips sent him on two further voyages, both of which were run on
+perfectly honest lines, and were most successful both to owner and
+captain. But a later voyage had an unhappy ending. After successfully
+trading with the pirates in Madagascar, Burgess was returning home,
+carrying several pirates as passengers, who were returning to settle in
+America, having made their fortunes. The ship was captured off the Cape of
+Good Hope by an East Indiaman, and taken to Madras. Here the captain and
+passengers were put in irons and sent to England to be tried. The case
+against Burgess fell through, and he was liberated. Instead of at once
+getting away, he loitered about London until one unlucky day he ran across
+an old pirate associate called Culliford, on whose evidence Burgess was
+again arrested, tried, and condemned to death, but pardoned at the last
+moment by the Queen, through the intercession of the Bishop of London.
+After a while he procured the post of mate in the _Neptune_, a Scotch
+vessel, which was to go to Madagascar to trade liquors with the pirates
+who had their headquarters in that delectable island. On arrival at
+Madagascar a sudden hurricane swept down, dismasted the _Neptune_, and
+sank two pirate ships. The chief pirate, Halsey, as usual, proved himself
+a man of resource. Seeing that without a ship his activities were severely
+restricted, he promptly, with the help of his faithful and willing crew,
+seized the _Neptune_, this satisfactory state of affairs being largely
+facilitated by the knowledge that the mate, Burgess, was all ripe to go on
+the main chance once more. The first venture of this newly formed crew was
+most successful, as they seized a ship, the _Greyhound_, which lay in the
+bay, the owners of which had but the previous day bought--and paid for--a
+valuable loading of merchandise from the pirates. This was now taken back
+by the pirates, who, having refitted the _Neptune_, set forth seeking
+fresh adventures and prizes. The further history of Burgess is one of
+constant change and disappointment.
+
+While serving under a Captain North, he was accused of betraying some of
+his associates, and was robbed of all his hard-earned savings. For several
+years after this he lived ashore at a place in Madagascar called
+Methalage, until captured by some Dutch rovers, who soon after were
+themselves taken by French pirates. Burgess, with his former Dutch
+captain, was put ashore at Johanna, where, under the former's expert
+knowledge, a ship was built and sailed successfully to Youngoul, where
+Burgess got a post as third mate on a ship bound to the West Indies.
+Before sailing, Burgess was sent, on account of his knowledge of the
+language, as ambassador to the local King. Burgess, unfortunately for
+himself, had in the past said some rather unkind things about this
+particular ruler, and the offended monarch, in revenge, gave Burgess some
+poisoned liquor to drink, which quickly brought to an end an active if
+chequered career.
+
+
+BURGESS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+One of the pirates of the Bahama Islands who surrendered to King George in
+1718 and received the royal pardon. He was afterwards drowned at sea.
+
+
+BURK, CAPTAIN.
+
+An Irishman, who committed many piracies on the coast of Newfoundland.
+Drowned in the Atlantic during a hurricane in 1699.
+
+
+CACHEMARÉE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+Commanded the _St. Joseph_, of six guns and a crew of seventy men. In 1684
+had his headquarters at San Domingo.
+
+
+CÆSAR.
+
+A negro. One of Teach's crew hanged at Virginia in 1718. Cæsar, who was
+much liked and trusted by Blackbeard, had orders from him to blow up the
+_Queen Ann's Revenge_ by dropping a lighted match into the powder magazine
+in case the ship was taken by Lieutenant Maynard. Cæsar attempted to carry
+out his instructions, but was prevented from doing so by two of the
+surrendered pirates.
+
+
+CÆSAR, CAPTAIN.
+
+One of Gasparilla's gang of pirates who hunted in the Gulf of Mexico. His
+headquarters were on Sanibel Island.
+
+
+CALLES, CAPTAIN JOHN, or CALLIS.
+
+A notorious Elizabethan pirate, whose activities were concentrated on the
+coast of Wales.
+
+We quote Captain John Smith, the founder of Virginia, who writes: "This
+Ancient pirate Callis, who most refreshed himselfe upon the Coast of
+Wales, who grew famous, till Queene Elizabeth of Blessed Memory, hanged
+him at Wapping."
+
+Calles did not die on the gallows without an attempt at getting let off.
+He wrote a long and ingenious letter to Lord Walsyngham, bewailing his
+former wicked life and promising, if spared, to assist in ridding the
+coast of pirates by giving particulars of "their roads, haunts, creeks,
+and maintainers." One of the chief of these "maintainers," or receivers of
+stolen property, was Lord O'Sullivan, or the Sulivan Bere of Berehaven.
+In spite of a long and very plausible plea for pity, this "ancient and
+wicked pyrate" met his fate on the gibbet at Wapping.
+
+
+CAMMOCK, WILLIAM.
+
+A seaman under Captain Bartholomew Sharp. He died at sea on December 14th,
+1679, off the coast of Chile. "His disease was occasioned by a sunfit,
+gained by too much drinking on shore at La Serena; which produced in him a
+_celenture_, or malignant fever and a hiccough." He was buried at sea with
+the usual honours of "three French vollies."
+
+
+CANDOR, RALPH.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Captain Lowther's crew at St. Kitts in
+March, 1723, and acquitted.
+
+
+CANNIS, _alias_ CANNIS MARCY.
+
+A Dutch pirate who acted as interpreter to Captain Bartholomew Sharp's
+South Sea Expedition. Captain Cox and Basil Ringmore took him with them
+after the sacking of Hilo in 1679, to come to terms with the Spanish
+cavalry over the ransoming of a sugar mill. On Friday, May 27th, 1680,
+while ashore with a watering party in the Gulf of Nicoya, the interpreter,
+having had, no doubt, his fill of buccaneering, ran away.
+
+
+CARACCIOLI, SIGNOR, _alias_ D'AUBIGNY.
+
+An Italian renegade priest, who became an atheist, Socialist, and
+revolutionist, and was living at Naples when Captain Fourbin arrived there
+in the French man-of-war _Victoire_.
+
+Caraccioli met and made great friends with a young French apprentice in
+the ship, called Misson, and a place was found for him on board. The
+ex-priest proved himself to be a brave man in several engagements with
+the Moors and with an English warship, and was quickly promoted to be a
+petty officer.
+
+Caraccioli, by his eloquence, soon converted most of the crew to believe
+in his theories, and when Captain Fourbin was killed in an action off
+Martinique with an English ship, Misson took command and appointed the
+Italian to be his Lieutenant, and continued to fight the English ship to a
+finish. The victorious crew then elected Misson to be their captain, and
+decided to "bid defiance to all nations" and to settle on some
+out-of-the-way island. Capturing another English ship off the Cape of Good
+Hope, Caraccioli was put in command of her, and the whole of the English
+crew voluntarily joined the pirates, and sailed to Madagascar. Here they
+settled, and the Italian married the daughter of a black Island King; an
+ideal republic was formed, and our hero was appointed Secretary of State.
+
+Eventually Caraccioli died fighting during a sudden attack made on the
+settlement by a neighbouring tribe.
+
+
+CARMAN, THOMAS.
+
+Of Maidstone in Kent.
+
+Hanged at Charleston in 1718 with the rest of Major Bonnet's crew.
+
+
+CARNES, JOHN.
+
+One of Blackbeard's crew. Hanged at Virginia in 1718.
+
+
+CARR, JOHN.
+
+A Massachusetts pirate, one of Hore's crew, who was hiding in Rhode Island
+in 1699.
+
+
+CARTER, DENNIS.
+
+Tried for piracy in June, 1704, at the Star Tavern in Boston. One of John
+Quelch's crew.
+
+
+CARTER, JOHN.
+
+Captured by Major Sewall in the _Larimore_ galley, and brought into Salem.
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+CASTILLO.
+
+A Columbian sailor in the schooner _Panda_. Hanged for piracy at Boston on
+June 11th, 1835.
+
+
+LA CATA.
+
+A most blood-thirsty pirate and one of the last of the West Indian gangs.
+
+In 1824, when La Cata was cruising off the Isle of Pines, his ship was
+attacked by an English cutter only half his size. After a furious fight
+the cutter was victorious, and returned in triumph to Jamaica with the
+three survivors of the pirates as prisoners. One of these was found out at
+the trial to be La Cata himself. Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica.
+
+
+CHANDLER, HENRY, _alias_ RAMMETHAM RISE.
+
+Born in Devonshire, his father kept a chandler's shop in Southwark. An
+English _renegado_ at Algiers, who had turned Mohammedan and had become an
+overseer in the pirates' shipyards. He was a man of some authority amongst
+the Moors, and in 1621 he appointed a slave called Goodale to become
+master of one of the pirate ships, the _Exchange_, in which one Rawlins
+also sailed. Owing to the courage and ingenuity of the latter, the
+European slaves afterwards seized the ship and brought her into Plymouth;
+Chandler being thrown into gaol and afterwards hanged.
+
+
+CHEESMAN, EDWARD.
+
+Taken prisoner out of the _Dolphin_, on the Banks of Newfoundland, by the
+Pirate Phillips in 1724. With the help of a fisherman called Fillmore, he
+killed Phillips and ten other pirates and brought the ship into Boston
+Harbour.
+
+
+CHEVALLE, DANIEL.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+CHILD, THOMAS.
+
+In the year 1723, at the age of 15, he was tried for piracy at Newport,
+Rhode Island. This child must have seen scores of cold-blooded murders
+committed while he sailed with Low and Harris. Found to be not guilty.
+
+
+CHRISTIAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1702 the town of Tolu was sacked by Captain Brown of the _Blessing_.
+Brown was killed, and Christian was elected to be captain in his stead.
+Davis tells us that "Christian was an old experienced soldier and
+privateer, very brave and just in all his actions." He had lived for a
+long while amongst the Darien Indians, with whom he was on very friendly
+terms.
+
+
+CHULY, DANIEL.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1706.
+
+
+CHURCH, CHARLES.
+
+Of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged on July 19th, 1723, at
+Newport, Rhode Island. Age
+
+
+CHURCH, EDWARD.
+
+In 1830 he served in the brig _Vineyard_, from New Orleans to
+Philadelphia. Took part in the mutiny which was planned by the notorious
+pirate Charles Gibbs.
+
+
+CHURCH, WILLIAM.
+
+Of the _Gertrwycht_ of Holland.
+
+At the trial at West Africa in 1722 of the crew of Bartholomew Roberts's,
+four of the prisoners--W. Church, Phil. Haak, James White, and Nicholas
+Brattle--were proved to have "served as Musick on board the _Royal
+Fortune_, being taken out of several merchant ships, having had an uneasy
+life of it, having sometimes their Fiddles, and often their Heads broke,
+only for excusing themselves, as saying they were tired, when any Fellow
+took it in his Head to demand a Tune." Acquitted.
+
+
+CHURCHILL, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain George Lowther's crew. Captured by the _Eagle_ sloop at the
+Island of Blanco, not far from Tortuga.
+
+Hanged on March 11th, 1722, at St. Kitts.
+
+
+CLARKE, JONATHAN.
+
+Of Charleston, South Carolina.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried for piracy at Charleston in 1718,
+and found to be not guilty.
+
+
+CLARKE, RICHARD, _alias_ JAFAR.
+
+A renegade English sailor, who turned "Turk"--that is, became a
+Mohammedan--and was appointed chief gunner on one of the Barbary pirate
+ships. Captured in the _Exchange_, and brought into Plymouth in 1622. He
+was hanged.
+
+
+CLARKE, ROBERT.
+
+Governor of New Providence, Bahama Islands. Instead of trying to stamp out
+the pirates, he did all he could to encourage them, by granting letters of
+marque to such men as Coxon, to go privateering, these letters being quite
+illegal. The proprietors of the Bahama Islands turned Clarke out and
+appointed in his place Robert Lilburne in 1682.
+
+
+CLIFFORD, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew; tried at the Star Tavern at Boston in
+1704 for piracy. All the accused pleaded "Not guilty" except Clifford and
+two others who turned Queen's evidence.
+
+
+CLINTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+One of the notorious sixteenth century pirates "who grew famous until
+Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping."
+
+
+COBHAM, CAPTAIN.
+
+Of Poole in Dorsetshire.
+
+At the age of 18 he took to smuggling. His biographer tells us that even
+at this comparatively early age Cobham "was cautious and prudent, and
+though he intrigued with the ladies, he managed to keep it secret." Cobham
+was very successful as a smuggler, on one occasion landing a cargo of ten
+thousand gallons of brandy at Poole. But a little later on his vessel was
+captured by a King's cutter. This annoyed the young captain, and he bought
+a cutter at Bridport, mounted fourteen guns in her, and turned pirate.
+Out of his very first prize, an Indiaman, which he boarded off the Mersey,
+he took a sum of £40,000, and then scuttled the ship and drowned the crew.
+
+Cobham, calling in at Plymouth, met a damsel called Maria, whom he took on
+board with him, which at first caused some murmuring amongst his crew, who
+were jealous because they themselves were not able to take lady companions
+with them on their voyages, for, as the same biographer sagely remarks,
+"where a man is married the case is altered, no man envies him his
+happiness; but where he only keeps a girl, every man says, 'I have as much
+right to one as he has.'" Nevertheless, Maria proved herself a great
+success, for when any member of the crew was to be punished Maria would
+use her influence with the captain to get him excused or his punishment
+lessened, thus winning the affection of all on board. The English Channel
+becoming too dangerous for Cobham, he sailed across the Atlantic and lay
+in wait for vessels between Cape Breton and Prince Edward Isle, and took
+several prizes. In one of these he placed all the crew in sacks and threw
+them into the sea. Maria, too, took her part in these affairs, and once
+stabbed to the heart, with her own little dirk, the captain of a Liverpool
+brig, the _Lion_, and on another occasion, to indulge her whim, a captain
+and his two mates were tied up to the windlass while Maria shot them with
+her pistol. Maria always wore naval uniform, both at sea and when in port;
+in fact, she entered thoroughly into the spirit of the enterprise.
+
+Cobham now wished to retire from the sea, but Maria urged him to further
+efforts, as she had set her heart on his buying her a beautiful place in
+England called Mapleton Hall, near Poole.
+
+Maria's last act at sea was to poison the whole crew of an Indiaman, who
+were prisoners in irons aboard the pirate ship.
+
+Cobham having made a vast fortune, at last decided to settle down, and he
+bought a large estate near Havre from the Duc de Chartres. It was on the
+coast, and had a snug little harbour of its own, where the retired pirate
+kept a small pleasure yacht in which he and Maria used to go for fishing
+expeditions. One day, when they were out on one of these picnics, a West
+India brig lay becalmed near by, and Cobham and his crew went on board to
+visit the captain of the merchant ship. But the temptation proved too
+strong, and Cobham suddenly shooting the captain, Maria and the yacht's
+crew quickly despatched the rest. Carrying the prize to Bordeaux, he sold
+her for a good price. This was Cobham's last act of piracy, and soon
+afterwards he was made a magistrate, and presided at the county courts.
+Maria, it was thought, possibly owing to remorse, poisoned herself with
+laudanum and died. Cobham lived to a good old age, and eventually passed
+away, leaving many descendants, who, a hundred years ago, "were moving in
+the first grade at Havre."
+
+
+COBHAM, MRS. MARIA.
+
+A bloodthirsty and ambitious woman pirate, the wife of Captain Cobham,
+late of Poole in Dorset.
+
+
+COCKLYN, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+In 1717 was in the Bahama Islands when Woodes Rogers arrived at New
+Providence Island with King George's offer of pardon to those pirates who
+came in and surrendered themselves. Cocklyn, like many others, after
+surrendering, fell again into their wicked ways, and ended by being
+hanged. Only a year after receiving the royal pardon we hear of him being
+in company with Davis and La Bouse and several other notorious pirates at
+Sierra Leone, when he was in command of a tall ship of twenty-four guns.
+
+Cocklyn ended his life on the gallows.
+
+
+COFRECINA, CAPTAIN.
+
+A notorious Spanish-American pirate who was very troublesome in the South
+Atlantic in the early part of the last century. Eventually captured by
+Midshipman Hull Foot of the U.S. Navy in March, 1825, at St. Thomas Isle.
+Executed in Porto Rico by the terrible Spanish method of the garotte.
+
+
+COLE, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+Commander of the _Eagle_, _alias_ the _New York Revenge's Revenge_. Tried,
+condemned, and hanged in 1718 at Charleston. His was a brilliant career
+while it lasted, but was cut short after a brief and meteoric spell.
+
+
+COLE, SAMUEL.
+
+One of Captain Fly's crew. Tried and condemned for piracy at Boston in
+1726. On the way to the gallows the culprits were taken to church, where
+they had to listen to a long sermon from Dr. Colman, bringing home to the
+wretched creatures their dreadful sins and their awful future.
+
+
+COLLIER, CAPTAIN EDWARD.
+
+Commanded the _Oxford_, a King's ship, which was sent from England to
+Jamaica at the earnest request of Governor Modyford, for a "nimble
+frigate," to help keep control over the increasingly turbulent buccaneers.
+Collier's first act was to seize a French man-of-war, a privateer called
+the _Cour Volent_, of La Rochelle, commanded by M. la Vivon, his excuse
+being that the Frenchmen had robbed an English vessel of provisions.
+Collier was appointed to be Morgan's Vice-Admiral, and a few days later
+the _Oxford_ was blown up accidentally while a conference of buccaneer
+captains was taking place.
+
+In 1670, with six ships and 400 men, the buccaneers sailed for the Spanish
+Main and sacked the city of Rio de la Hacha. Collier led the left wing in
+the famous and successful attack on Panama City with the rank of colonel.
+
+Richard Brown reports that Collier could on occasions be very cruel, and
+that he even executed a Spanish friar on the battlefield after quarter had
+been given to the vanquished. On their return to the coast after the
+sacking of Panama, Collier was accused, with Morgan and the other
+commanders, of having cheated the seamen of their fair share of the
+plunder, and of deserting them, and then sailing off in the ships with the
+supplies of food as well as the plunder.
+
+
+COLLINS, THOMAS.
+
+This Madagascar pirate was a carpenter by trade, who had by 1716 retired
+from the sea and lived in splendour in that island. Collins was made
+Governor of the pirate colony, and built a small fort for its defence,
+which the pirates armed with the guns taken out of their ship, which had
+by long use grown old and crazy, and was of no further use to them.
+
+
+COMRY, ADAM.
+
+Surgeon to the ship _Elizabeth_, taken by Captain Bartholomew Roberts's
+squadron. Gave evidence at the trial of George Wilson and another
+sea-surgeon, Scudamore, that the former had borrowed from Comry a "clean
+shirt and drawers, for his better appearance and reception." When visiting
+Captain Bartholomew Roberts's ship, Comry was forced to serve as surgeon
+on board one of Roberts's vessels.
+
+
+CONDENT, CAPTAIN, _also_ CONGDON or CONDEN.
+
+Born at Plymouth in Devonshire.
+
+Condent was quartermaster in a New York sloop, at the Island of New
+Providence, when Governor Woodes Rogers arrived there in 1718. The captain
+of the sloop seems to have thought best to leave rather than wait to
+welcome the new Governor. When only a few days out, one of the crew, an
+Indian, who had been cruelly treated, attempted, in revenge, to blow up
+the ship. This was prevented by Condent, who with great courage leapt into
+the hold and shot the Indian, but not before the latter had fired at him
+and broken his arm. The crew, to show the relief they felt at being saved
+from a sudden death, hacked to pieces the body of the Indian, while the
+gunner, ripping open the dead man's belly, tore out his heart, which he
+boiled and ate.
+
+Turning their attention from cannibalism to piracy, the pirates took a
+prize, the _Duke of York_, but disputes arising, the captain and part of
+the crew sailed in the prize, while Condent was elected captain of the
+sloop, and headed across the Atlantic for the Cape Verde Islands, where he
+found the salt fleet, of twenty small vessels, lying at anchor off the
+Island of Mayo, all of which he took. Sailing next to the Island of St.
+Jago, he took a Dutch ship. This proving a better ship than the sloop,
+Condent transferred himself and crew into her, and named her the _Flying
+Dragon_, presenting the sloop to the mate of an English prize, who he had
+forced to go with him. From thence Condent sailed away for the coast of
+Brazil, taking several Portuguese ships which, after plundering, he let
+go. After cleaning the _Flying Dragon_ on Ferdinando Island, the pirates
+took several more prizes, and then one day met with a Portuguese
+man-of-war of seventy guns. Coming up with her, the Portuguese hailed the
+pirates, and they answered "from London bound for Buenos Ayres." The
+man-of-war, to pay a compliment to the ship of her English ally, manned
+the shrouds and cheered him, and while this amicable demonstration of
+marine brotherly feeling was taking place, Captain Condent came up
+alongside and suddenly fired a broadside and a volley of small arms into
+the man-of-war, and a smart engagement followed, in which the pirates were
+worsted, and were lucky to escape.
+
+Sailing away round the Cape of Good Hope, Condent arrived at the pirate
+stronghold at the Island of Johanna, where he took on board some of
+Captain Halsey's crew, and, reinforced by these skilled masters in the
+craft of piracy, took several rich East Indiamen off the Malabar coast.
+
+Calling in at the Isle of St. Mary, one of the Mascerenas group, he met
+with another Portuguese ship of seventy guns, which he was fortunate
+enough to make a prize of. In this ship they found amongst the passengers
+the Viceroy of Goa. Carrying this rich prize to Zanzibar, they plundered
+her of a large amount of money.
+
+Having now gathered a vast fortune, they thought it time to give up
+piracy, so they returned to the Island of St. Mary, where they made a
+share of their plunder, and the company broke up, many of them settling
+down amongst the natives. Captain Condent and some others sent from here a
+petition to the Governor of Mauritius asking for a pardon, and received
+answer that he would take them into his protection if they would destroy
+their ships. Having done this, they sailed to Mauritius, where they
+settled down, and Captain Condent married the Governor's sister-in-law.
+
+A few years later the captain and his wife left the island and sailed to
+France, settling at St. Malo, where Condent drove a considerable trade as
+a merchant.
+
+
+COOK, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or EDMUND.
+
+Was on the Pacific coast with Captains Sharp and Sawkins, 1680. Being
+unable to keep order amongst his unruly crew, he resigned his ship and
+command to Captain John Cox, a New Englander. He commanded a barque in the
+successful sacking of Porto Bello in the same year in company with Sharp,
+Coxon, and others.
+
+On land engagements his flag was a red one striped with yellow, on which
+was a device of a hand and sword.
+
+
+COOK, GEORGE, _alias_ RAMEDAM.
+
+An English renegade amongst the Barbary pirates of Algiers. Was gunner's
+mate when captured in the _Exchange_ in 1622. Brought to Plymouth and
+hanged.
+
+
+COOK, WILLIAM.
+
+Servant to Captain Edmund Cook, and was found, on being searched, to have
+on him a paper with the names of all his fellow pirates written on it, and
+was suspected of having prepared it to give to some of the Spanish
+prisoners. For this, Captain Walters put him in irons on January 7th,
+1681.
+
+He died on board ship on Monday, February 14th, 1681, off the coast of
+Chile.
+
+
+COOKE, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+This buccaneer was born in the Island of St. Christopher. "A brisk, bold
+man," he was promoted to the rank of quartermaster by Captain Yankey. On
+taking a Spanish ship, Cooke claimed the command of her, which he was
+entitled to, and would have gone in her with an English crew had not the
+French members of the crew, through jealousy, sacked the ship and marooned
+the Englishmen on the Island of Avache. Cooke and his men were rescued by
+another French buccaneer, Captain Tristram, and taken to the Island of
+Dominica. Here the English managed to get away with the ship, leaving
+Tristram and his Frenchmen behind on land. Cooke, now with a ship of his
+own, took two French ships loaded with wine. With this valuable cargo he
+steered northward, and reached Virginia in April, 1683. He had no
+difficulty in selling his wine for a good price to the New Englanders, and
+with the profits prepared for a long voyage in his ship, the _Revenge_. He
+took on board with him several famous buccaneers, including Dampier and
+Cowley, the latter as sailing master. They first sailed to Sierra Leone,
+then round the Horn to the Island of Juan Fernandez. Here Cooke was taken
+ill. His next stop was at the Galapagos Islands. Eventually Cooke died a
+mile or two off the coast of Cape Blanco in Mexico. His body was rowed
+ashore to be buried, accompanied by an armed guard of twelve seamen. While
+his grave was being dug three Spanish Indians came up, and asked so many
+questions as to rouse the suspicions of the pirates, who seized them as
+spies, but one escaping, he raised the whole countryside.
+
+
+COOPER, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a pirate sloop, the _Night Rambler_. On November 14th, 1725, he
+took the _Perry_ galley (Captain King, commander), three days out from
+Barbadoes, and the following day a French sloop, and carried both prizes
+to a small island called Aruba, near Curaçao, where they plundered them
+and divided the spoil amongst the crew. The crews of the two prizes were
+kept on the island by Cooper for seventeen days, and would have starved if
+the pirate's doctor had not taken compassion on them and procured them
+food.
+
+Upton, boatswain in the _Perry_, joined the pirates, and was afterwards
+tried and hanged in England.
+
+
+COOPER, CAPTAIN.
+
+On October 19th, 1663, he brought into Port Royal, Jamaica, two Spanish
+prizes, one the _Maria of Seville_, a royal azogue carrying 1,000 quintals
+of quicksilver for the King of Spain's mines in Mexico, besides oil, wine,
+and olives. Also a number of prisoners were taken, including several
+friars on their way to Campeachy and Vera Cruz. The buccaneers always
+rejoiced at capturing a priest or a friar, and these holy men generally
+experienced very rough treatment at the hands of the pirates.
+
+Cooper's ship was a frigate of ten guns, and a crew of eighty men.
+
+
+CORBET, CAPTAIN.
+
+Sailed with Captain Heidon from Bantry Bay in the _John of Sandwich_ in
+1564 to search for a good prize in which he might go a-pirating on his own
+account. The ship was wrecked on the Island of Alderney, and all the crew
+arrested. Corbett and several others escaped in a small boat.
+
+
+CORNELIUS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A contemporary of Howard Burgess North and other Madagascar pirates.
+
+
+DE COSSEY, STEPHEN JAMES.
+
+With three other pirates was tried and convicted in June, 1717, before the
+Vice-Admiralty Court at Charleston. The President of the Court was Judge
+Trot, a terror to all pirates, as he never failed to hang a guilty one. De
+Cossey and the other prisoners were found guilty of piratically taking the
+vessels _Turtle Dove_, _Penelope_, and the _Virgin Queen_.
+
+
+COWARD, WILLIAM.
+
+In November, 1689, with three men and a boy he rowed out to the ketch
+_Elinor_ (William Shortrigs, master), lying at anchor in Boston Harbour,
+and seized the vessel and took her to Cape Cod. The crew of the ketch
+could make no resistance as they were all down with the smallpox. The
+pirates were caught and locked up in the new stone gaol in Boston. Hanged
+on January 27th, 1690.
+
+
+COWLEY, CAPTAIN C.
+
+M.A. Cantab.
+
+A man of high intelligence and an able navigator. In the year 1683 he
+sailed from Achamach or Cape Charles in Virginia for Dominica as sailing
+master of a privateer, the _Revenge_ (eight guns and fifty-two men), in
+company with Dampier and Captain John Cooke. As soon as they were away
+from the land, they turned buccaneers or pirates, and sailed to Sierra
+Leone in West Africa. Thence to the coast of Brazil, round the Horn, where
+Cowley mentions that owing to the intense cold weather the crew were able,
+each man, to drink three quarts of burnt brandy a day without becoming
+drunk.
+
+On February 14th the buccaneers were abreast of Cape Horn, and in his
+diary Cowley writes: "We were choosing valentines and discoursing on the
+Intrigues of Woman, when there arose a prodigious storm," which lasted
+till the end of the month, driving them farther south than any ship had
+ever been before; "so that we concluded the discoursing of Women at sea
+was very unlucky and occasioned the storm." Cowley, who was addicted to
+giving new names to islands, not only named one Pepys Island, but when he
+arrived at the Galapagos Islands, he rechristened them most thoroughly,
+naming one King Charles Island, while others he named after the Dukes of
+York, Norfolk, and Albemarle, and Sir John Narborough. Feeling, no doubt,
+that he had done enough to honour the great, and perhaps to have insured
+himself against any future trouble with the authorities when he returned
+home, he named one small island "Cowley's Enchanted Isle."
+
+The Earl of Alington, Lord Culpepper, Lord Wenman, all had islands in this
+group christened with their names and titles.
+
+In September, 1684, Cowley, now in the _Nicholas_, separated from Davis,
+and sailed from Ampalla for San Francisco, and then started west to cross
+the Pacific Ocean. On March 14th, 1685, at seven o'clock in the morning,
+after a voyage of 7,646 miles, land was at last seen, which proved to be
+the Island of Guan.
+
+The Spanish Governor was most friendly to the visitors, and when complaint
+was made to him that the buccaneers had killed some of his Indian subjects
+he "gave us a Toleration to kill them all if we would." Presents were
+exchanged, Cowley giving the Governor a valuable diamond ring, one, no
+doubt, taken off the hand of some other loyal subject of the King of
+Spain. Here the pirates committed several atrocious cruelties on the
+Indians, who wished to be friends with the foreigners.
+
+In April they arrived at Canton to refit, and while there, thirteen Tartar
+ships arrived laden with Chinese merchandise, chiefly valuable silks.
+Cowley wanted to attack and plunder them, but his crew refused to do so,
+saying "they came for gold and silver, and not to be made pedlars, to
+carry packs on their backs," to Cowley's disgust, for he complains, "had
+Reason but ruled them, we might all have made our Fortunes and have done
+no Christian Prince nor their subjects any harm at all." Thence they
+sailed to Borneo, the animals and birds of which island Cowley describes.
+Sailing next to Timor, the crew mutinied, and Cowley and eighteen others
+bought a boat and sailed in her to Java, some 300 leagues. Here they heard
+of the death of King Charles II., which caused Cowley to get out his map
+of the Galapagos Islands, and to change the name of Duke of York Island to
+King James Island. At Batavia Cowley procured a passage in a Dutch ship to
+Cape Town. In June, 1686, he sailed for Holland after much health drinking
+and salutes of 300 guns, arriving in that country in September, and
+reaching London, "through the infinite Mercy of God," on October 12th,
+1686.
+
+
+COX, CAPTAIN JOHN. Buccaneer.
+
+Born in New England, and considered by some of his fellow buccaneers "to
+have forced kindred upon Captain Sharp"--the leader of the fleet--"out of
+old acquaintance, only to advance himself." Thus he was made Vice-Admiral
+to Captain Sharp, in place of Captain Cook, whose crew had mutinied and
+refused to sail any longer under his command. Cox began his captaincy by
+getting lost, but after a fortnight rejoined the fleet off the Island of
+Plate, on the coast of Peru, "to the great joy of us all." This island
+received its name from the fact that Sir Francis Drake had here made a
+division of his spoils, distributing to each man of his company sixteen
+bowlfuls of doubloons and pieces of eight. The buccaneers rechristened it
+Drake's Island.
+
+Cox took part in the attack on the town of Hilo in October, 1679, sacked
+the town and burnt down the large sugar factory outside. He led a mutiny
+against his relative and benefactor, Captain Sharp, on New Year's Day,
+1681, being the "main promoter of their design" to turn him out. Sharp
+afterwards described his old friend as a "true-hearted dissembling
+New-England Man," who he had promoted captain "merely for old
+acquaintance-sake."
+
+
+COXON, CAPTAIN JOHN. Buccaneer.
+
+One of the most famous of the "Brethren of the Coast."
+
+In the spring of 1677, in company of other English buccaneers, he
+surprised and plundered the town of Santa Marta on the Spanish Main,
+carrying away the Governor and the Bishop to Jamaica.
+
+In 1679 Coxon, with Sharp and others, was fitting out an expedition in
+Jamaica to make a raid in the Gulf of Honduras, which proved very
+successful, as they brought back 500 chests of indigo, besides cocoa,
+cochineal, tortoiseshell, money, and plate.
+
+Coxon was soon out again upon a much bolder design, for in December, 1679,
+he met Sharp, Essex, Allinson, Row, and other buccaneer chiefs at Point
+Morant, and in January set sail for Porto Bello. Landing some twenty
+leagues from the town, they marched for four days, arriving in sight of
+the town on February 17th, "many of them being weak, being three days
+without any food, and their feet cut with the rocks for want of shoes."
+They quickly took and plundered the town, hurrying off with their spoils
+before the arrival of strong Spanish reinforcements. The share of each man
+in this enterprise came to one hundred pieces of eight. A warrant was
+issued by Lord Carlisle, the Governor of Jamaica, for the apprehension of
+Coxon for plundering Porto Bello, and another was issued soon after by
+Morgan, when acting as Governor, but nothing seems to have resulted from
+these. Sailing north to Boca del Toro, they careened their ships, and were
+joined by Sawkins and Harris. From this place the buccaneers began, in
+April, 1680, to land and cross the Isthmus of Darien, taking the town of
+Santa Maria on the way. Quarrels took place between Coxon, who was, no
+doubt, a hot-tempered man, and Harris, which led to blows. Coxon was also
+jealous of the popular young Captain Sawkins, and refused to go further
+unless he was allowed to lead one of the companies. After sacking the town
+of Santa Maria, the adventurers proceeded in canoes down the river to the
+Pacific. Seizing two small vessels they found there, and accompanied by a
+flotilla of canoes, they steered for Panama, and, with the utmost daring,
+attacked, and eventually took, the Spanish fleet of men-of-war--one of the
+most remarkable achievements in the history of the buccaneers.
+
+Coxon now quarrelled again with his brother leaders, and began a march
+back across the isthmus; his party of seventy malcontents including
+Dampier and Wafer, who each published accounts of their journey. By 1682
+Coxon seems to have so ingratiated himself with the Jamaican authorities
+as to be sent in quest of a troublesome French pirate, Jean Hamlin, who
+was playing havoc with the English shipping in his vessel, _La Trompeuse_.
+
+Later in the same year Coxon procured letters of marque from Robert
+Clarke, the Governor of New Providence Island, himself nothing better than
+a pirate, to go cruising as a "privateer." Coxon was continually being
+arrested and tried for piracy, but each time he managed to escape the
+gallows. We do not know the name of the ship Coxon commanded at this date,
+but it was a vessel of eighty tons, armed with eight guns, and carrying a
+crew of ninety-seven men.
+
+
+COYLE, CAPTAIN RICHARD.
+
+Born at Exeter in Devonshire.
+
+An honest seafaring man until, when sailing as mate with Captain Benjamin
+Hartley, they arrived at Ancona with a cargo of pilchards. Here the
+captain took on board a new carpenter, called Richardson, who soon became
+a close friend of the mate's. These two brought about a mutiny, attacked
+the captain, and threw him, still alive, over the side to drown. Coyle was
+elected captain, and they sailed as pirates, in which capacity they were a
+disgrace to an ancient calling. After a visit to Minorca, which ended with
+ignominy, they sailed to Tunis, where Coyle told such a plausible yarn as
+to deceive the Governor into believing that he had been the master of a
+vessel lost in a storm off the coast of Sardinia. The pirates were
+supplied with money by the British Consul in Tunis; but Coyle, while in
+his cups, talked too freely, so that the true story of his doings got to
+the Consul's ears, who had him arrested and sent to London to be lodged in
+the Marshalsea Prison. Tried at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to death,
+and was hanged at Execution Dock on January 25th, 1738.
+
+
+CRACKERS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A retired pirate who settled at Sierra Leone, and was living there in
+1721. He had been famous in his day, having robbed and plundered many a
+ship. He owned the best house in the settlement, and was distinguished by
+having three cannons placed before his door, which he was accustomed to
+fire salutes from whenever a pirate ship arrived or left the port. He was
+the soul of hospitality and good fellowship, and kept open-house for all
+pirates, buccaneers, and privateersmen.
+
+
+CRISS, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ "JACK THE BACHELOR."
+
+A native of Lorne in the North of Ireland.
+
+His father was a fisherman, and little Jack used to go out with him, and
+then help him sell his fish at Londonderry. The lad grew up into a bold
+and handsome young fellow, "and many a girl cocked cap at him and he had
+great success amongst the ladies, and intrigued with every woman that gave
+him any encouragement."
+
+Tiring of the monotony and low profits of a fisherman's calling, Jack
+turned smuggler, carrying cargoes of contraband goods from Guernsey to
+Ireland. Making a tidy sum at this, he bought himself a French galliot,
+and sailing from Cork, he began to take vessels off the coast of France,
+selling them at Cherbourg. The young pirate took no risks of information
+leaking out, for he drowned all his prisoners. Cruising in the
+Mediterranean, Criss met with his usual success, and, not content with
+taking ships, he plundered the seaport of Amalfi on the coast of Calabria.
+Calling at Naples, Criss put up at the Ferdinand Hotel, where one morning
+he was found dead in his bed. It was discovered afterwards that, in spite
+of his nickname, he was married to three wives.
+
+
+CULLEN, ANDREW.
+
+Of Cork in Ireland.
+
+Brother of Pierce Cullen. One of the crew of Captain Roche's ship. After
+the crew had mutinied and turned pirate he posed as the supercargo.
+
+
+CULLEN, PIERCE.
+
+Of Cork in Ireland.
+
+One of Captain Philip Roche's gang.
+
+
+CULLIFORD, CAPTAIN, of the _Mocha_.
+
+A Madagascar pirate.
+
+Little is known of him except that one day in the streets of London he
+recognized and denounced another pirate called Burgess.
+
+
+CUMBERLAND, GEORGE, THIRD EARL OF, 1558-1605.
+
+M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge.
+
+After taking his degree at Cambridge he migrated to Oxford for the purpose
+of studying geography.
+
+So many books have been written about this picturesque and daring
+adventurer that it is not necessary to do more than mention his name here,
+as being perhaps the finest example of a buccaneer that ever sacked a
+Spanish town.
+
+He led twelve voyages to the Spanish Main, fitting them out at his own
+expense, and encountering the same dangers and hardships as his meanest
+seaman.
+
+He married in 1577 at the age of nineteen, and sailed on his first voyage
+in 1586. Cumberland was greatly esteemed by Queen Elizabeth, and always
+wore in his hat a glove which she had given him.
+
+There is sufficient evidence to show that the Earl was not prompted to
+spend his life and fortune on buccaneering voyages merely by greed of
+plunder, but was chiefly inspired by intense love of his country, loyalty
+to his Queen, and bitter hatred of the Spaniards.
+
+
+CUNNINGHAM, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+Had his headquarters at New Providence Island, in the Bahamas. Refused the
+royal offer of pardon to the pirates in 1717, and was later caught and
+hanged.
+
+
+CUNNINGHAM, PATRICK.
+
+Found guilty at Newport in 1723, but reprieved.
+
+
+CURTICE, JOSEPH.
+
+One of Captain Teach's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed on
+November 22nd, 1718, off the coast of North Carolina.
+
+
+DAMPIER, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Buccaneer, explorer, and naturalist.
+
+Born at East Coker in the year 1652.
+
+Brought up at first to be a shopkeeper, a life he detested, he was in 1669
+apprenticed to a ship belonging to Weymouth, and his first voyage was to
+France. In the same year he sailed to Newfoundland, but finding the bitter
+cold unbearable, he returned to England. His next voyage, which he called
+"a warm one," was to the East Indies, in the _John and Martha_, and suited
+him better.
+
+Many books have been written recounting the voyages of Dampier, but none
+of these are better reading than his own narrative, published by James and
+John Knapton in London. This popular book ran into many editions, the best
+being the fourth, published in 1729, in four volumes. These volumes are
+profusely illustrated by maps and rough charts, and also with crude cuts,
+which are intended to portray the more interesting and strange animals,
+birds, fishes, and insects met with in his voyages round the globe.
+
+In 1673 Dampier enlisted as a seaman in the _Royal Prince_, commanded by
+the famous Sir Edward Spragge, and fought in the Dutch war.
+
+A year later he sailed to Jamaica in the _Content_, to take up a post as
+manager of a plantation belonging to a Colonel Hellier. His restless
+spirit soon revolted against this humdrum life on a plantation, and
+Dampier again went to sea, sailing in a small trading vessel amongst the
+islands.
+
+Dampier's first step towards buccaneering was taken when he shipped
+himself on a small ketch which was sailing from Port Royal to load logwood
+at the Bay of Campeachy. This was an illegal business, as the Spanish
+Government claimed the ownership of all that coast, and did their best to
+prevent the trade. Dampier found some 250 Englishmen engaged in cutting
+the wood, which they exchanged for rum. Most of these men were buccaneers
+or privateers, who made a living in this way when out of a job afloat.
+When a ship came into the coast, these men would think nothing of coming
+aboard and spending thirty and forty pounds on rum and punch at a single
+drinking bout.
+
+Dampier returned afterwards to take up logwood cutting himself, but met
+with little success, and went off to Beef Island. He had by this time
+begun to take down notes of all that appeared to him of interest,
+particularly objects of natural history. For example, he described, in his
+own quaint style, an animal he found in this island.
+
+"The Squash is a four-footed Beast, bigger than a Cat. Its Head is much
+like a Foxes, with short Ears and a long Nose. It has pretty short Legs
+and sharp Claws, by which it will run up trees like a Cat. The flesh is
+good, sweet, wholesome Meat. We commonly skin and roast it; and then we
+call it pig; and I think it eats as well. It feeds on nothing but good
+Fruit; therefore we find them most among the Sapadillo-Trees. This
+Creature never rambles very far, and being taken young, will become as
+tame as a Dog, and be as roguish as a Monkey."
+
+Dampier's first act of actual piracy was when he joined in an attack on
+the Spanish fort of Alvarado, but although the fort was taken, the
+townspeople had time to escape with all their valuables before the pirates
+could reach them. Returning to England in 1678, he did not remain long at
+home, for in the beginning of 1679 he sailed for Jamaica in a vessel named
+the _Loyal Merchant_. Shortly after reaching the West Indies, he chanced
+to meet with several well-known buccaneers, including Captains Coxon,
+Sawkins, and Sharp. Joining with these, he sailed on March 25th, 1679, for
+the Province of Darien, "to pillage and plunder these parts." Dampier says
+strangely little about his adventures for the next two years, but a full
+description of them is given by Ringrose in his "Dangerous Voyage and Bold
+Adventures of Captain Sharp and Others in the South Sea," published as an
+addition to the "History of the Buccaneers of America" in 1684.
+
+This narrative tells how the buccaneers crossed the isthmus and attacked
+and defeated the Spanish Fleet off Panama City. After the death of their
+leader, Sawkins, the party split up, and Dampier followed Captain Sharp on
+his "dangerous and bold voyage" in May, 1680.
+
+In April, 1681, after various adventures up and down the coast of Peru and
+Chile, further quarrels arose amongst the buccaneers, and a party of
+malcontents, of which number Dampier was one, went off on their own
+account in a launch and two canoes from the Island of Plate, made famous
+by Drake, and landed on the mainland near Cape San Lorenzo. The march
+across the Isthmus of Darien has been amusingly recounted by the surgeon
+of the party, Lionel Wafer, in his book entitled "A New Voyage and
+Description of the Isthmus of America," published in London in 1699.
+
+[Illustration: A PAGE FROM THE LOG-BOOK OF CAPTAIN DAMPIER.
+
+To face p. 98.]
+
+On reaching the Atlantic, Dampier found some buccaneer ships and joined
+them, arriving at Virginia in July, 1682. In this country he resided for a
+year, but tells little about it beyond hinting that great troubles befell
+him. In April, 1683, he joined a privateer vessel, the _Revenge_, but
+directly she was out of sight of land the crew turned pirates, which had
+been their intention all along. Two good narratives have been written of
+this voyage, one by Dampier, and the other by Cowley, the sailing-master.
+This venture ended in the famous circumnavigation of the world, and
+Dampier described every object of interest he met with, including the
+country and natives of the north coast of Australia, which had never been
+visited before by Europeans. Dampier must have found it very difficult to
+keep his journal so carefully and regularly, particularly in his early
+voyages, when he was merely a seaman before the mast or a petty officer.
+He tells us that he carried about with him a long piece of hollow bamboo,
+in which he placed his manuscript for safe keeping, waxing the ends to
+keep out the sea water.
+
+After almost endless adventures and hardships, he arrived back in England
+in September, 1691, after a voyage of eight years, and an absence from
+England of twelve, without a penny piece in his pocket, nor any other
+property except his unfortunate friend Prince Jeoly, whom he sold on his
+arrival in the Thames, to supply his own immediate wants. Dampier's next
+voyage was in the year 1699, when he was appointed to command H.M.S.
+_Roebuck_, of twelve guns and a crew of fifty men and boys, and victualled
+for twenty months' cruise. The object of this voyage was to explore and
+map the new continent to the south of the East Indies which Dampier had
+discovered on his previous voyage. Had he in this next voyage taken the
+westward course, as he originally intended, and sailed to Australia round
+the Horn, it is possible that Dampier would have made many of the
+discoveries for which James Cook afterwards became so famous, and by
+striking the east coast of Australia would very likely have antedated the
+civilisation of that continent by fifty years. But he was persuaded,
+partly by his timid crew, and perhaps in some measure by his own dislike
+of cold temperatures, to sail by the eastward route and to double the Cape
+of Good Hope. The story of this voyage is given by Dampier in his book,
+published in 1709, "A Voyage to New Holland, etc., in the Year 1699."
+
+After spending some unprofitable weeks on the north coast of Australia,
+failing to find water or to make friends with the aboriginals, scurvy
+broke out amongst his somewhat mutinous crew, and he sailed to New Guinea,
+the coast of which he saw on New Year's Day, 1700.
+
+By this time the _Roebuck_ was falling to pieces, her wood rotten, her
+hull covered with barnacles. Eventually, using the pumps day and night,
+they arrived, on February 21st, 1701, at Ascension Island, where the old
+ship sank at her anchors. Getting ashore with their belongings, they
+waited on this desolate island until April 3rd, when four ships arrived,
+three of them English men-of-war.
+
+I was told, only the other day, by a friend who lives in the Island of St.
+Helena, and whose duties take him at least once each year to Ascension
+Island, that a story still survives amongst the inhabitants of these
+islands that there is hidden somewhere in the sandhills a treasure, which
+Dampier is believed to have put there for safe keeping, but for some
+reason never removed. But poor Dampier never came by a treasure in this or
+any other of his voyages, and though the legend is a pleasant one, it is a
+legend and nothing more. Dampier went on board one of the men-of-war, the
+_Anglesea_, with thirty-five of his crew. Taken to Barbadoes, he there
+procured a berth in another vessel, the _Canterbury_, in which he sailed
+to England.
+
+Dampier had now made so great a name for himself by his two voyages round
+the globe that he was granted a commission by Prince George of Denmark to
+sail as a privateer in the _St. George_, to prey on French and Spanish
+ships, the terms being: "No purchase, no pay." Sailing as his consort was
+the _Cinque Ports_, whose master was Alexander Selkirk, the original of
+Robinson Crusoe. This voyage, fully recounted in Dampier's book, is a long
+tale of adventure, hardship, and disaster, and the explorer eventually
+returned to England a beggar. However, his travels made a great stir, and
+he was allowed to kiss the Queen's hand and to have the honour of relating
+his adventures to her.
+
+Dampier's last voyage was in the capacity of pilot or navigating officer
+to Captain Woodes Rogers in the _Duke_, which sailed with another Bristol
+privateer, the _Duchess_, in 1708. The interesting narrative of this
+successful voyage is told by Rogers in his book, "A Cruising Voyage Round
+the World," etc., published in 1712. Another account was written by the
+captain of the _Duchess_, Edward Cooke, and published in the same year.
+This last voyage round the world ended at Erith on October 14th, 1711, and
+was the only one in which Dampier returned with any profit other than to
+his reputation as an explorer and navigator.
+
+Dampier was now fifty-nine years of age, and apparently never went to sea
+again. In fact, he henceforth disappears from the stage altogether, and is
+supposed to have died in Colman Street in London, in the year 1715. Of
+Dampier's early life in England little is known, except that he owned, at
+one time, a small estate in Somersetshire, and that in 1678 he married "a
+young woman out of the family of the Duchess of Grafton." There is an
+interesting picture of Dampier in the National Portrait Gallery, painted
+by T. Murray, and I take this opportunity to thank the directors for
+their kind permission to reproduce this portrait.
+
+One other book Dampier wrote, called a "Discourse of Winds," an
+interesting work, and one which added to the author's reputation as a
+hydrographer. There is little doubt that Defoe was inspired by the
+experiences and writings of Dampier, not only in his greatest work,
+"Robinson Crusoe," but also in "Captain Singleton," "Colonel Jack," "A New
+Voyage Round the World," and many of the maritime incidents in "Roxana"
+and "Moll Flanders."
+
+
+DAN, JOSEPH.
+
+One of Avery's crew. Turned King's witness at his trial in 1696, and was
+not hanged.
+
+
+DANIEL, CAPTAIN. A French filibuster.
+
+The name of this bloodthirsty pirate will go down to fame as well as
+notoriety by his habit of combining piracy with strict Church discipline.
+Harling recounts an example of this as follows, the original account of
+the affair being written by a priest, M. Labat, who seems to have had
+rather a weak spot in his heart for the buccaneer fraternity:
+
+"Captain Daniel, in need of provisions, anchored one night off one of the
+'Saintes,' small islands near Dominica, and landing without opposition,
+took possession of the house of the curé and of some other inhabitants of
+the neighbourhood. He carried the curé and his people on board his ship
+without offering them the least violence, and told them that he merely
+wished to buy some wine, brandy and fowls. While these were being
+gathered, Daniel requested the curé to celebrate Mass, which the poor
+priest dared not refuse. So the necessary sacred vessels were sent for and
+an altar improvised on the deck for the service, which they chanted to the
+best of their ability. As at Martinique, the Mass was begun by a
+discharge of artillery, and after the Exaudiat and prayer for the King,
+was closed by a loud 'Vive la Roi!' from the throats of the buccaneers. A
+single incident, however, somewhat disturbed the devotions. One of the
+buccaneers, remaining in an indecent attitude during the Elevation, was
+rebuked by the captain, and instead of heeding the correction, replied
+with an impertinence and a fearful oath. Quick as a flash Daniel whipped
+out his pistol and shot the buccaneer through the head, adjuring God that
+he would do as much to the first who failed in his respect to the Holy
+Sacrifice. The shot was fired close by the priest, who, as we can readily
+imagine, was considerably agitated. 'Do not be troubled, my father,' said
+Daniel; 'he is a rascal lacking in his duty and I have punished him to
+teach him better.'" A very efficacious means, remarks Labat, of preventing
+his falling into another like mistake. After the Mass the body of the dead
+man was thrown into the sea, and the curé was recompensed for his pains by
+some goods out of their stock and the present of a negro slave.
+
+
+DANIEL, STEPHEN.
+
+One of Captain Teach's crew. Hanged for piracy in Virginia in 1718.
+
+
+DANSKER, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Dutch pirate who cruised in the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century,
+using the North African coast as his base. He joined the Moors and turned
+Mohammedan. In 1671 Admiral Sir Edward Spragge was with a fleet at Bougie
+Bay, near Algiers, where, after a sharp fight, he burnt and destroyed a
+big fleet of the Moorish pirates, amongst those killed being the renegade
+Dansker.
+
+
+DARBY, JOHN.
+
+A Marblehead fisherman, one of the crew of the ketch _Mary_, of Salem,
+captured by Captain Pound. He joined the pirates, and was killed at
+Tarpaulin Cove.
+
+
+DAVIS, CAPTAIN EDWARD. Buccaneer and pirate.
+
+Flourished from 1683-1702. According to Esquemiling, who knew Davis
+personally, his name was John, but some authorities call him Edward, the
+name he is given in the "Dictionary of National Biography."
+
+In 1683 Davis was quartermaster to Captain Cook when he took the ship of
+Captain Tristian, a French buccaneer, of Petit Guave in the West Indies.
+Sailed north to cruise off the coast of Virginia. From there he sailed
+across the Atlantic to West Africa, and at Sierra Leone came upon a Danish
+ship of thirty-six guns, which he attacked and took. The pirates shifted
+their crew into this ship, christening her the _Bachelor's Delight_, and
+sailed for Juan Fernandez in the South Pacific, arriving there in March,
+1684. Here they met with Captain Brown, in the _Nicholas_, and together
+sailed to the Galapagos Islands. About this time Captain Cook died, and
+Davis was elected captain in his place. Cruising along the coasts of Chile
+and Peru, they sacked towns and captured Spanish ships. On November 3rd
+Davis landed, and burnt the town of Paita. Their principal plan was to
+waylay the Spanish Fleet on its voyage to Panama. This fleet arrived off
+the Bay of Panama on May 28th, 1685, but the buccaneers were beaten and
+were lucky to escape with their lives. At the Gulf of Ampalla, Davis had
+to put his sick on shore, as spotted fever raged amongst the crew. Davis
+then cruised for a while with the buccaneer Knight, sacking several
+towns.
+
+Deciding to return to the West Indies with their plunder, several of the
+crew, who had lost all their share by gambling, were left, at their own
+request, on the Island of Juan Fernandez. Davis then sailed round the
+Horn, arriving safely at Jamaica with a booty of more than 50,000 pieces
+of eight, besides quantities of plate and jewels.
+
+At Port Royal, after he had accepted the offer of pardon of King James
+II., Davis sailed to Virginia and settled down at Point Comfort. We hear
+no more of him for the next fourteen years, until July 24th, 1702, when he
+sailed from Jamaica in the _Blessing_ (Captain Brown; twenty guns,
+seventy-nine men), to attack the town of Tolu on the Spanish Main, which
+was plundered and burnt. Davis next sailed to the Samballoes, and, guided
+by the Indians, who were friendly to the buccaneers, but hated the
+Spaniards, they attacked the gold-mines, where, in spite of most cruel
+tortures, they got but little gold. The crew next attacked Porto Bello,
+but found little worth stealing in that much harassed town.
+
+Davis is chiefly remarkable for having commanded his gang of ruffians in
+the Pacific for nearly four years. To do this he must have been a man of
+extraordinary personality and bravery, for no other buccaneer or pirate
+captain ever remained in uninterrupted power for so long a while, with the
+exception of Captain Bartholomew Roberts.
+
+
+DAVIS, CAPTAIN HOWEL.
+
+This Welsh pirate was born at Milford in Monmouthshire. He went to sea as
+a boy, and eventually sailed as chief mate in the _Cadogan_ snow, of
+Bristol, to the Guinea Coast. His ship was taken off Sierra Leone by the
+pirate England, and the captain murdered. Davis turned pirate, and was
+given command of this old vessel, the _Cadogan_, in which to go "on the
+account." But the crew refused to turn pirate, and sailed the ship to
+Barbadoes, and there handed Davis over to the Governor, who imprisoned him
+for three months and then liberated him. As no one on the island would
+offer him employment, Davis went to New Providence Island, the stronghold
+of the West India pirates.
+
+Arrived there, he found that Captain Woodes Rogers had only lately come
+from England with an offer of a royal pardon, which most of the pirates
+had availed themselves of. Davis got employment under the Governor, on
+board the sloop, the _Buck_, to trade goods with the French and Spanish
+settlements. The crew was composed of the very recently reformed pirates,
+and no sooner was the sloop out of sight of land than they mutinied and
+seized the vessel, Davis being voted captain, on which occasion, over a
+bowl of punch in the great cabin, the new captain made an eloquent speech,
+finishing by declaring war against the whole world. Davis proved himself
+an enterprising and successful pirate chief, but preferred, whenever
+possible, to use strategy and cunning rather than force to gain his ends.
+His first prize was a big French ship, which, although Davis had only a
+small sloop and a crew of but thirty-five men, he managed to take by a
+bold and clever trick. After taking a few more ships in the West Indies,
+Davies sailed across the Atlantic to the Island of St. Nicholas in the
+Cape Verde Islands. Here he and his crew were a great social success,
+spending weeks on shore as the guests of the Governor and chief
+inhabitants. When Davis reluctantly left this delightful spot, five of his
+crew were missing, "being so charmed with the Luxuries of the Place, and
+the Conversation of some Women, that they stayed behind."
+
+Davis now went cruising and took a number of vessels, and arrived
+eventually at St. Jago. The Portuguese Governor of this island did not
+take at all kindly to his bold visitor, and was blunt enough to say he
+suspected Davis of being a pirate. This suspicion his crew took exception
+to, and they decided they could not let such an insult pass, so that very
+night they made a sudden attack on the fort, taking and plundering it.
+
+Davis sailed away next morning to the coast and anchored off the Castle of
+Gambia, which was strongly held for the African Company by the Governor
+and a garrison of English soldiers. Davis, nothing daunted, proposed to
+his merry men a bold and ingenious stratagem by which they could take the
+castle, and, the crew agreeing, it was carried out with so much success
+that they soon had the castle, Governor, and soldiers in their possession,
+as well as a rich spoil of bars of gold; and all these without a solitary
+casualty on either side. After this brilliant coup, many of the soldiers
+joined the pirates. The pirates were attacked shortly afterwards by a
+French ship commanded by Captain La Bouse, but on both ships hoisting
+their colours, the Jolly Roger, they understood each other and
+fraternized, and then sailed together to Sierra Leone, where they attacked
+a tall ship they found lying there at anchor. This ship also proved to be
+a pirate, commanded by one Captain Cocklyn, so the three joined forces and
+assaulted the fort, which, after a sharp bombardment, surrendered. Davis
+was then elected commander of the pirate fleet, but one night, when
+entertaining the other captains in his cabin, all having drunk freely of
+punch, they started to quarrel, and blows were threatened, when Davis,
+with true Celtic eloquence, hiccupped out the following speech:
+
+"Hearke ye, you Cocklyn and La Bouse. I find by strengthening you I have
+put a rod into your Hands to whip myself, but I'm still able to deal with
+you both; but since we met in Love, let us part in Love, for I find that
+three of a Trade can never agree." Alone once more, Davis had prodigious
+success, taking prize after prize, amongst others the _Princess_, the
+second mate in which was one Roberts, soon to become a most famous pirate.
+Off Anamaboe he took a very rich prize, a Hollander ship, on board of
+which was the Governor of Accra and his retinue, as well as £15,000
+sterling and rich merchandise. Arriving next at the Portuguese Island of
+Princes, Davis posed as an English man-of-war in search of pirates, and
+was most warmly welcomed by the Governor, who received him in person with
+a guard of honour and entertained him most hospitably. Davis heard that
+the Governor and the chief persons of the island had sent their wives to a
+village a few miles away, so the pirate and a few chosen spirits decided
+to pay a surprise visit on these ladies. However, the ladies, on
+perceiving their gallant callers, shrieked and ran into the woods and, in
+fact, made such a hullabaloo that the English Don Juans were glad to slink
+away, and "the Thing made some noise, but not being known was passed
+over."
+
+Davis, ever a cunning rogue, now formed a pretty scheme to take the
+Governor and chief inhabitants prisoners and to hold them for a big
+ransom. This plan was spoilt by a Portuguese slave swimming to shore and
+telling the Governor all about it, and worse, telling him about the little
+affair of Davis and his visit to the ladies in the wood. The Governor now
+laid his plans, and with such success that Davis walked unsuspecting into
+the trap, and was "shot in the bowels," but it is some consolation to know
+that he "dyed like a game Cock," as he shot two of the Portuguese with his
+pistols as he fell.
+
+Thus died a man noted during his lifetime by his contemporaries for his
+"affability and good nature," which only goes to show how one's point of
+view is apt to be influenced by circumstances.
+
+
+DAVIS, GABRIEL.
+
+Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1704.
+
+
+DAVIS, WILLIAM.
+
+A Welshman.
+
+Arrived at Sierra Leone in honest employ in the _Ann_ galley. Quarrelling
+with the mate, whom he beat, he deserted his ship and went to live ashore
+with the negroes, one of whom he married, with whom he settled down. One
+evening, the weather being hot, and Davis being very thirsty, he sold his
+bride for some punch. His wife's relations, being indignant, seized Davis,
+who told them, being, perhaps, still a little under the influence of the
+punch, that he did not care if they took his head off. But his "in-laws"
+knew a more profitable way of being revenged than that, and sold him to
+Seignior Joffee, a Christian black. Soon afterwards Captain Roberts, in
+the _Royal Fortune_, arrived in the bay, and Davis ran away and joined the
+pirates.
+
+Hanged at the age of 23.
+
+
+DAWES. Corsair.
+
+An English renegade.
+
+When Roberts was cast away on June 12th, 1692, in Nio, a small island in
+the Grecian Archipelago, in His Majesty's hired ship the _Arcana_ galley,
+most of the crew escaped in a French prize they had taken. Roberts
+remained behind, hoping to save some of his valuables, which were in the
+_Arcana_. But on June 15th a crusal, or corsair, appeared in the harbour,
+which Roberts's five companions went on board of. Various designs were
+made by the corsair captain to induce Roberts to come aboard. Eventually
+an Englishman named Dawes (a native of Saltash in Cornwall) was sent
+ashore. He had served for eight years in the corsair until taken out of
+her a short time previously by the _Arcana_. Roberts writes, in his frank
+style: "But Dawes, like a Dog returning to his Vomit, went on Board
+again." Eventually a party of the corsair's landed under the leadership of
+Dawes, and captured Roberts and carried him on board the pirate craft,
+where for many years he worked as a slave.
+
+
+DAWES, ROBERT.
+
+One of the mutineers on the brig _Vineyard_ in 1830. It was the full
+confession of Dawes that brought about the conviction and execution of the
+ringleader, Charles Gibbs.
+
+
+DAWSON, JOSEPH.
+
+One of Captain Avery's crew of the _Charles the Second_. Tried at the Old
+Bailey in 1696 for piracy, and convicted. He pleaded to be spared and to
+be sent to servitude in India, but was hanged at Execution Dock.
+
+
+DEAL, CAPTAIN ROBERT.
+
+Mate to Captain Vane in 1718. He was very active off the coast of Carolina
+and New England, taking many prizes. In November, 1718, when cruising
+between Cape Meise and Cape Nicholas, on the lookout for ships, he met
+with and fired on a vessel that appeared to be a merchantman, at the same
+time running up the Jolly Roger. The apparently peaceful merchantman
+replied with a broadside, and proved to be a French man-of-war. A quarrel
+took place amongst the pirates, Vane and some of the crew, including
+Deal, being for running away for safety, while the rest, headed by Rackam,
+were in favour of fighting it out. Vane insisted on their escaping, which
+they did, but next day he, Deal, and some others were turned out of the
+ship and sent away on their own in a small sloop. Deal was put in command
+of this sloop, but was soon afterwards captured by an English man-of-war
+and brought to Jamaica, where he was tried, convicted, and hanged.
+
+
+DEANE, CAPTAIN JOHN. Buccaneer.
+
+Commanded the _St. David_. He was accused by the Governor of Jamaica in
+1676 of having held up a ship called the _John Adventure_ and of taking
+out of her several pipes of wine and a cable worth £100, and of forcibly
+carrying the vessel to Jamaica. Deane was also reported for wearing Dutch,
+French, and Spanish colours without commission, and was tried and
+condemned to suffer death as a pirate. Owing to various legal, or illegal,
+quibbles, Deane was reprieved.
+
+
+DEDRAN, LE CAPITAINE. A French filibuster of French Domingo.
+
+Commanded, in 1684, the _Chasseur_ (120 men, 20 guns).
+
+
+DEIGLE, RICHARD.
+
+An Elizabethan pirate. Wrecked in the _John of Sandwich_ at Alderney in
+1564, when he was arrested, but escaped in a small boat.
+
+
+DELANDER, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Commanded a _chatas_, or small coasting craft. He was sent by Morgan ahead
+of the main body when, in January, 1671, he marched from San Lorenzo on
+his great assault on Panama.
+
+
+DELIZUFF. Barbary corsair.
+
+In 1553, while Barbarossa was sailing from Algiers to Constantinople, he
+was joined by Delizuff with a fleet of eighteen pirate vessels.
+
+Delizuff was killed in an affair at the Island of Biba, and, the crews of
+the two corsairs quarrelling, the ships of Delizuff stole away one dark
+night.
+
+
+DELVE, JONATHAN.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew in the _Happy Delivery_. Was hanged at St.
+Kitts in 1722.
+
+
+DEMPSTER, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1668 he was in command of several vessels and 300 men, blockading
+Havana.
+
+
+DENNIS, HENRY.
+
+Of Bideford in Devonshire.
+
+At first a pirate with Captain Davis, he afterwards joined Captain
+Roberts's crew. Was tried for piracy at Cape Coast Castle in 1722, and
+found guilty, but for some reason was reprieved and sold for seven years
+to serve the Royal African Company on their plantations.
+
+
+DERDRAKE, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ JACK OF THE BALTIC. A Danish pirate, of
+Copenhagen.
+
+When a carpenter in the King's Dockyard at Copenhagen he was dismissed for
+drunkenness. After making a few voyages to London as a ship's carpenter,
+his parents died and left their son a fortune of 10,000 rix-dollars. With
+this money Derdrake built himself a fast sailing brig sheathed with
+copper, and for a while traded in wood between Norway and London. Becoming
+impatient of the smallness of the profits in this trade, he offered his
+services and ship to Peter the Great. This monarch, as was his custom,
+examined the ship in person, and, approving of her, bought her, and at the
+same time appointed Derdrake to be a master shipwright in the royal
+dockyards on the Neva. The carpenter, always a man of violent temper, one
+day quarrelled with one of his superiors, seized an axe, and slew him. His
+ship then happening to be in the roads, Derdrake hurried on board her and
+made sail, and went off with the cargo, which he sold in London. Arming
+his vessel with twelve guns, he sailed for Norway, but on the way he was
+attacked by a big Russian man-of-war. The Russian was defeated and
+surrendered, and Derdrake went into her in place of his own smaller ship,
+giving his new craft the ominous name of the _Sudden Death_. With a fine,
+well-armed ship and a crew of seventy desperadoes, one-half English, and
+the rest Norwegian and Danish, he now definitely turned pirate. Lying in
+wait for English and Russian ships carrying goods to Peter the Great, the
+pirates took many valuable prizes, with cargoes consisting of fittings for
+ships, arms, and warm woollen clothing. For these he found a ready market
+in Sweden, where no questions were asked and "cash on delivery" was the
+rule.
+
+Derdrake drowned all his prisoners, and was one of the very few pirates,
+other than those found in works of fiction, who forced his victims to
+"walk the plank." Not long afterwards the pirates met with and fought an
+armed Swedish vessel, which was defeated, but the captain and crew escaped
+in the long-boat, and, getting to shore, spread the tidings of the
+pirates' doings. On hearing the news, the Governor of St. Petersburg,
+General Shevelling, sent out two ships to search for and take the pirates,
+offering a reward of 4,000 rix-dollars for Derdrake's head. The pirates
+had just heard of this when they happened to take a Russian vessel bound
+for Cronstadt, on board of which was a passenger, a sister of the very
+General Shevelling. This poor lady, after being reproached by the pirates
+for her brother's doings, was stabbed to death in the back by Derdrake. At
+this time there was aboard the _Sudden Death_ a Danish sailor, who, having
+been severely flogged for being drunk at sea, shammed sickness and
+pretended to have lost the use of his limbs. The captain was deceived, and
+sent the sailor, well supplied with money, to a country house at Drontheim
+in Sweden, to recover. No sooner had Jack of the Baltic left than the
+Danish sailor set off post-haste for St. Petersburg, where he saw the
+Governor and told him of his sister's murder, and also that the pirates
+were to be found at Strothing in Sweden. Two well-armed vessels were
+immediately despatched, which, finding the _Sudden Death_ at anchor,
+fought and sunk her, though unfortunately Derdrake was on shore and so
+escaped; but the whole crew were hung up alive by hooks fixed in their
+ribs and sent to drift down the Volga. Derdrake, who had a large sum of
+money with him, bought an estate near Stralsund, and lived there in luxury
+for fourteen years, until one day, a servant having robbed him of a sum of
+money, Derdrake followed him to Stockholm, where he was recognized by the
+captain of the Swedish ship who had first given information against him,
+and the pirate was at once arrested, tried, and hanged.
+
+
+DEW, CAPTAIN GEORGE.
+
+Of Bermuda.
+
+He commanded a Bermuda ship and sailed in company with Captain Tew, when
+they were caught in a storm off that island, and Captain Dew, having
+sprung his mast, was compelled to put back to the island for repairs.
+Captain Tew continued his journey to Africa, but what became of Captain
+Dew is not known.
+
+
+DIABOLITO.
+
+A Central American pirate who became very famous in the early part of the
+last century. Commanded the _Catalina_ in 1823 off the coast of Cuba.
+
+
+DIEGO, or DIEGO GRILLO.
+
+A mulatto of Havana.
+
+After the general amnesty to pirates, given in 1670, Diego, Thurston, and
+others continued to attack Spanish ships and to carry their prizes to
+their lair at Tortuga Island. Diego commanded a vessel carrying fifteen
+guns. He succeeded in defeating three armed ships in the Bahama Channel,
+which had been sent to take him, and he massacred all the Spaniards of
+European birth that he found among the crews. He was caught in 1673 and
+hanged.
+
+
+DIPPER, HENRY.
+
+One of the English soldiers who deserted from the Fort Loyal, Falmouth,
+Maine, and joined Captain Pound, the pirate. Killed in the fight at
+Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.
+
+
+DOLE, FRANCIS.
+
+Was one of Hore's crew. Lived with his wife, when not "on the account," at
+his house at Charleston, near Boston. The pirate Gillam was found hiding
+there by the Governor's search-party on the night of November 11th, 1699.
+Dole was committed to gaol at Boston.
+
+
+DOROTHY, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in June,
+1704.
+
+
+DOVER, DOCTOR THOMAS.
+
+Born 1660; died 1742.
+
+This many-sided character was educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where
+he took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine. Many years afterwards, in
+1721, the Royal College of Physicians made him a licentiate. For many
+years Dover practised as a physician at Bristol, until the year 1708, when
+he sailed from Bristol as "second captain" to Captain Woodes Rogers, with
+the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_, two privateer ships fitted out for a South
+Sea cruise by some Bristol merchants. Dover had no knowledge whatever of
+navigation, but, having a considerable share in the adventure, he insisted
+on being given a command. Sailing round the Horn, the two ships arrived,
+on the night of February 1st, 1709, off the Island of Juan Fernandez,
+where they observed a light. Next morning Dover went ashore in a boat, to
+find and rescue the solitary inhabitant of the island, Alexander Selkirk,
+the original of Robinson Crusoe. Sailing north, a Spanish ship was taken
+and rechristened the _Bachelor_, and Dover was put in command of her. He
+sacked Guayaquil in April, 1709, many of the crew contracting plague from
+sleeping in a church where some bodies had recently been buried. Dover
+undertook to treat the sick with most heroic measures, bleeding each sick
+man and drawing off 100 ounces of blood.
+
+He also took the famous _Acapulco_ ship, with a booty worth more than a
+million pounds sterling. Dover returned to Bristol in October, 1711, with
+a prize of great value, after sailing round the world.
+
+Giving up piracy, he settled in practice in London, seeing his patients
+daily at the Jerusalem Coffee-house in Cecil Street, Strand. He wrote a
+book called "The Ancient Physician's Legacy to His Country," which ran
+into seven or eight editions, in which he strongly recommended the
+administration of large doses of quicksilver for almost every malady that
+man is subject to. This book won him the nickname of the "Quicksilver
+Doctor." He invented a diaphoretic powder containing ipecacuanha and
+opium, which is used to this day, and is still known as Dover's powder.
+
+Dover died at the age of 82, in the year 1742, and should always be
+remembered for having invented Dover's powders, commanded a company of
+Marines, rescued Alexander Selkirk, written a most extraordinary medical
+book, and for having been a successful pirate captain.
+
+
+DOWLING, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+Of New Providence, Bahamas.
+
+Hanged for piracy in the early part of the eighteenth century.
+
+
+DRAGUT. Barbary corsair.
+
+Started life as a pirate, and was eventually put in command of twelve
+large galleys by Kheyr-ed-din. Pillaged and burnt many towns on the
+Italian coast, and destroyed ships without number. Was taken prisoner by
+the younger Doria, and condemned to row in the galleys for four years
+until ransomed for 3,000 ducats by Kheyr-ed-din. Appointed Admiral of the
+Ottoman Fleet. Ended a bloodthirsty but very successful career in 1565 by
+being killed at the Siege of Malta.
+
+
+DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS.
+
+Born about 1540.
+
+The life of the famous Admiral is too well known to require more than a
+bare notice in these pages. Although the Spaniards called him "the
+Pirate," he was more strictly a buccaneer in his early voyages, when he
+sailed with the sole object of spoiling the Spaniards. His first command
+was the _Judith_, in John Hawkins's unfortunate expedition in 1567. Drake
+made several voyages from Plymouth to the West Indies and the Spanish
+Main.
+
+In 1572 he burnt Porto Bello, and a year later sacked Vera Cruz. He served
+with the English Army in Ireland under Lord Essex in 1574 and 1575. In
+1578 he sailed through the Straits of Magellan, plundered Valparaiso, and
+also captured a great treasure ship from Acapulco. Sailing from America,
+he crossed the Pacific Ocean, passed through the Indian Archipelago,
+rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Deptford in England in 1581.
+At the conclusion of this voyage he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, being
+the first Englishman to sail round the world. Drake's voyages after this
+were sailed under commission and letters of marque, and so lose any stigma
+of being buccaneering adventures.
+
+Drake died at Porto Bello in the year 1596.
+
+
+DROMYOWE, PETER. A Breton pirate.
+
+One of the crew of Captain du Laerquerac, who in 1537 took several English
+ships in the Bristol Channel.
+
+
+DRUMMOND, _alias_ TEACH, THATCH, or BLACKBEARD.
+
+
+DUNBAR, NICHOLAS. Pirate.
+
+One of the crew of the brigantine _Charles_ (Captain Quelch). Tried for
+piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+DUNKIN, GEORGE.
+
+Of Glasgow.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in
+November, 1718. Buried in the marsh below low-water mark.
+
+
+DUNN, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew.
+
+
+DUNTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+A citizen of London, taken prisoner by the Sallee pirates in 1636. Being a
+good navigator and seaman, and the Moorish pirates being as yet
+inexperienced in the management of sailing ships, Dunton was put into a
+Sallee ship as pilot and master, with a crew of twenty-one Moors and five
+Flemish renegadoes. He was ordered to go to the English coast to capture
+Christian prisoners. When off Hurst Castle, near the Needles in the Isle
+of Wight, his ship was seized and the crew carried to Winchester to stand
+their trial for piracy. Dunton was acquitted, but he never saw his little
+son of 10 years old, as he was still a slave in Algiers.
+
+
+EASTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Joined the Barbary pirates in the sixteenth century, succeeding so well as
+to become, according to John Smith, the Virginian, a "Marquesse in Savoy,"
+whatever that may have been.
+
+
+EASTON, CAPTAIN PETER.
+
+One of the most notorious of the English pirates during the reign of James
+I.
+
+In the year 1611 he had forty vessels under his command. The next year he
+was on the Newfoundland coast, where he plundered the shipping and fishing
+settlements, stealing provisions and munitions, as well as inducing one
+hundred men to join his fleet.
+
+A year later, in 1613, he appears to have joined the English pirates who
+had established themselves at Mamora on the Barbary coast.
+
+
+EATON, EDWARD.
+
+Of Wrexham in Wales.
+
+One of Captain Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, on July
+19th, 1723. Age 38.
+
+
+ECHLIN.
+
+An English pirate, of the _Two Brothers_, a Rhode Island built vessel,
+commanded in 1730 by a one-armed English pirate called Captain Johnson.
+
+
+EDDY, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Aberdeen.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
+Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+ENGLAND, CAPTAIN.
+
+Sailing in 1718 as mate in a sloop from Jamaica, he was taken prisoner by
+the pirate Captain Winter. England joined the pirates, and was given the
+command of a vessel. In this ship he sailed to the coast of West Africa,
+and the first prize he took was the _Cadogan_ snow (Captain Skinner), at
+Sierra Leone. Some of England's crew knew Skinner, having served in his
+ship, and, owing to some quarrel, had been handed over to a man-of-war,
+and deprived of the wages due to them. These men afterwards deserted the
+man-of-war and joined the pirates. On Captain Skinner coming aboard
+England's ship, these men took him and bound him to the windlass, and then
+pelted him with glass bottles, after which they whipped him up and down
+the deck, eventually one of them shooting him through the head. This
+brutal treatment was none of England's doing, who was generally kind to
+his prisoners.
+
+England's next prize was the _Pearl_, which he exchanged for his own
+sloop; fitted her up for the "pyratical Account," and christened her the
+_Royal James_. Captain England was most successful, taking a number of
+prizes, which he plundered. One ship he captured so took the eye of
+England that he fitted her up and changed into her, naming her the
+_Victory_. This he did in the harbour at Whydah, where he met with another
+pirate, called la Bouche. The two pirates and their crews spent a holiday
+at this place where, according to the well-informed Captain Johnson, "they
+liv'd very wantonly for several Weeks, making free with the Negroe Women
+and committing such outrageous Acts, that they came to an open Rupture
+with the Natives, several of whom they kill'd and one of their Towns they
+set on Fire." Leaving here, no doubt to the great relief of the negroes,
+it was put to the vote of the crew to decide where they should go, and the
+majority were for visiting the East Indies. Rounding the Cape of Good
+Hope, they arrived at Madagascar early in 1720, where they only stopped
+for water and provisions, and then sailed to the coast of Malabar in
+India. Here they took several country ships, and one Dutch one, but soon
+returned to Madagascar, where they went on shore, living in tents, and
+hunting hogs and deer. While on this island they looked for Captain
+Avery's crew, but failed to discover them. While the pirates were here
+they managed to take a ship commanded by a Captain Mackra, but not without
+a desperate fight. The pirates were for killing Mackra, but, owing to the
+efforts of Captain England, he managed to escape.
+
+The pirates had several times complained of the weakness, or humanity, of
+their commander towards his prisoners, and they now turned him out and
+elected a new captain, and marooned England and three others on the
+Island of Mauritius. The captain and his companions set about building a
+small boat of some old staves and pieces of deal they found washed up on
+the beach. When finished they sailed to Madagascar, where, when last heard
+of, they were living on the charity of some other pirates.
+
+
+ERNADOS, EMANUEL.
+
+A Carolina pirate who was hanged at Charleston in 1717.
+
+
+ESMIT, ADOLF.
+
+A Danish buccaneer, who afterwards became Governor of the Danish island of
+St. Thomas, one of the Virgin Islands. The population of this island
+consisted of some 350 persons, most of whom were English. Esmit did all he
+could to assist the pirates, paid to fit out their ships for them, gave
+sanctuary to runaway servants, seamen, and debtors, and refused to restore
+captured vessels. Adolf had taken advantage of his popularity with the
+inhabitants to turn out his brother, who was the rightful Governor
+appointed by the Danish Government.
+
+
+ESSEX, CAPTAIN CORNELIUS. Buccaneer.
+
+In December, 1679, he met with several other well-known buccaneers in four
+barques and two sloops at Point Morant, and on January 7th set sail for
+Porto Bello. The fleet was scattered by a terrible storm, but eventually
+they all arrived at the rendezvous. Some 300 men went in canoes and landed
+about twenty leagues from the town of Porto Bello, and marched for four
+days along the sea-coast.
+
+The buccaneers, "many of them were weak, being three days without any
+food, and their feet cut with the rocks for want of shoes," entered the
+town on February 17th, 1680. The buccaneers, with prisoners and spoil,
+left the town just in time, for a party of 700 Spanish soldiers was near
+at hand coming to the rescue. The share to each man came to one hundred
+pieces of eight. In 1679 Essex was brought a prisoner by a frigate, the
+_Hunter_, to Port Royal, and tried with some twenty of his crew for
+plundering on the Jamaican coast. Essex was acquitted, but two of his crew
+were hanged.
+
+
+EUCALLA, DOMINGO.
+
+A negro. Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, on February 7th, 1823. Made a moving
+harangue to the spectators from the gallows, ending with a prayer. Of the
+ten pirates executed this day, Eucalla showed the greatest courage.
+
+
+EVANS, CAPTAIN JOHN. Welsh pirate.
+
+Was master of a sloop belonging to the Island of Nevis. Afterwards being
+in Jamaica and out of employment, and berths being scarce, he decided to
+go "on the account," and in September, 1722, rowed out of Port Royal in a
+canoe with a few chosen companions. They began piracy in a small way, by
+paddling along the coast and landing at night to break into a house or two
+and robbing these of anything they could carry away.
+
+At last at Dun's Hole they found what they were looking for, a small
+Bermuda sloop lying at anchor. Evans stepped aboard and informed the crew
+of the sloop that he was captain of their vessel, "which was a piece of
+news they knew not before." Going on shore, Evans stood treat to his crew
+at the village inn, spending three pistols on liquid refreshment. He so
+took the fancy of the publican by his open-handed ways that he was invited
+to call again. This Evans and his companions did, in the middle of the
+same night, and rifled the house and took away all they could carry
+aboard their sloop.
+
+Mounting four guns and christening their little vessel the _Scowerer_,
+they set sail for Hispaniola. Good luck immediately followed, as on the
+very next day they took their first prize, a Spanish sloop, an
+extraordinarily rich prize for her size, for the crew were able to share a
+sum of £150 a man. For a while all was _coleur de rose_, prize after prize
+simply falling into their hands. But an unhappy accident was soon to bring
+an end to Evans's career. The boatswain was a noisy, surly fellow, and on
+several occasions the captain had words with him about his disrespectful
+behaviour. The boatswain on one of these occasions so far forgot himself
+as not only to use ill language to his captain but to challenge him to a
+fight on the next shore they came to with pistol and sword. On reaching
+land the cowardly boatswain refused to go ashore or to fight, whereupon
+the captain took his cane and gave him a hearty drubbing, when the
+boatswain, all of a sudden drawing a pistol, shot Evans through the head,
+so that he fell down dead. Thus was brought to a tragic and sudden end a
+career that showed early signs of great promise. The boatswain jumped
+overboard and swam for the shore, but a boat put off and brought him back
+to the vessel. A trial was at once held, but the chief gunner, unable to
+bear with the slow legal procedure any further, stepped forward and shot
+the prisoner dead.
+
+The crew of thirty men now shared their plunder of some £9,000 and broke
+up, each going his own way.
+
+
+EVERSON, CAPTAIN JACOB, _alias_ JACOBS.
+
+In January, 1681, Sir Henry Morgan, then Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica,
+received information that a famous Dutch buccaneer, Everson, was anchored
+off the coast in an armed sloop, in company with a brigantine which he had
+lately captured. This was more than the ex-pirate Governor could tolerate,
+so he at once set out in a small vessel with fifty picked men. The sloop
+was boarded at midnight, but Everson and a few others escaped by leaping
+overboard and swimming to the shore. Most of the prisoners were
+Englishmen, and were convicted of piracy and hanged.
+
+
+EXQUEMELIN, ALEXANDER OLIVIER, or ESQUEMELING in English, OEXMELIN in
+French. Buccaneer.
+
+A surgeon with the most famous buccaneers, Exquemelin will always be known
+as the historian who recorded the deeds of the buccaneers in his classic
+book, "Bucaniers of America, or a true account of the assaults committed
+upon the coasts of the West Indies, etc.," published by W. Cooke, London,
+1684. This book was first published in Dutch at Amsterdam in 1678, then in
+German in 1679, in Spanish in 1681. Since then almost innumerable editions
+and reprints have appeared.
+
+The author was a Fleming, who arrived at Tortuga Island in 1666 as an
+engagé of the French West India Company. After serving for three years
+under an inhuman master he became so ill that he was sold cheaply to a
+surgeon. By the kind treatment of his new master Exquemelin soon regained
+his health, and at the same time picked up the rudiments of the craft of
+barber surgeon. He was in all the great exploits of the buccaneers, and
+writes a clear, entertaining, and apparently perfectly accurate first-hand
+account of these adventures. He returned to Europe in 1674, and shortly
+afterwards published his book.
+
+
+FALL, JOHN.
+
+This buccaneer was one of Captain Sharp's crew. On the death of John
+Hilliard, the ship's master, Fall was promoted to the larboard watch.
+Nothing further is known of this man.
+
+
+FARRINGTON, THOMAS.
+
+One of John Quelch's crew on the brigantine _Charles_. Tried for piracy at
+Boston in June, 1704, at the Star Tavern.
+
+
+FENN, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+In the year 1721 Captain Anstis took prize a stout ship, the _Morning
+Star_, bound from Guiney to Carolina. This ship the pirates armed with
+thirty-two pieces of cannon, manned her with a crew of one hundred men,
+and placed Fenn in command, who had until then been gunner in Anstis's
+ship, the _Good Fortune_. Fenn was a one-handed man. By carelessness, or
+perhaps because of Fenn only having one hand, the _Morning Star_ was run
+on to a reef in the Grand Caymans and lost. Fenn and a few others had just
+been taken on board by his consort when two King's ships arrived, and the
+_Good Fortune_ barely escaped capture.
+
+Fenn was soon given another ship, one armed with twenty-four guns. In
+April, 1723, while cleaning their ship at the Island of Tobago, they were
+suddenly surprised by the arrival of a man-of-war, the _Winchelsea_.
+Setting fire to their ship, the crew ran to hide in the woods. Fenn was
+caught a few days later struggling through the jungle with his gunner.
+
+
+FERDINANDO, LEWIS.
+
+In 1699 he captured a sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda.
+
+
+FERN, THOMAS.
+
+A Newfoundland fish-splitter.
+
+In August, 1723, joined with John Phillips in stealing a small vessel,
+which they called the _Revenge_, and went "on the account." Fern was
+appointed carpenter. Fern gave trouble afterwards over the promotion of a
+prisoner, an old pirate called Rose Archer, to the rank of quartermaster.
+
+Later on Fern headed a mutiny and attempted to sail off on his own in one
+of the prize vessels. He was caught, brought back, and forgiven, but on
+attempting to run away a second time, Captain Phillips killed him,
+"pursuant to the pirates articles."
+
+
+FERNON, WILLIAM.
+
+A Somersetshire man.
+
+Taken from a Newfoundland ship, he became a seaman aboard Bartholomew
+Roberts's _Royal Fortune_. Died at the age of 22.
+
+
+FIFE, CAPTAIN JAMES.
+
+Surrendered to Governor Woodes Rogers at New Providence Island, Bahamas,
+in June, 1718, and received the royal pardon to pirates. Was afterwards
+killed by his own crew.
+
+
+FILLMORE, JOHN.
+
+A fisherman of Ipswich.
+
+Taken out of the _Dolphin_ when fishing for cod off the Banks of
+Newfoundland in 1724 by the pirate Captain Phillips, and forced to join
+the pirates. Having no other means of escape he, with two others, suddenly
+killed Phillips and two more pirates and brought the vessel into Boston
+Harbour. Millard Fillmore, thirteenth President of the United States, was
+the great grandson of John Fillmore.
+
+
+FITZERRALD, JOHN.
+
+Of Limerick.
+
+This Irish pirate was hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1723, at the age
+of 21.
+
+
+FLEMING, CAPTAIN. Pirate.
+
+This notorious Elizabethan pirate did his country a great service by
+bringing to Plymouth the first tidings of the approach of the Spanish
+Armada in 1585.
+
+To quote John Smith, the great Elizabethan traveller and the founder of
+the colony of Virginia, "Fleming was an expert and as much sought for as
+any pirate of the Queen's reign, yet such a friend to his Country, that
+discovering the Spanish Armada, he voluntarily came to Plymouth, yielded
+himself freely to my Lord Admirall, and gave him notice of the Spaniards
+coming: which good warning came so happily and unexpectedly, that he had
+his pardon, and a good reward."
+
+
+FLETCHER, JOHN.
+
+Of Edinburgh.
+
+Tried at Newport, Rhode Island, for piracy in 1723, found "not guilty."
+His age was only 17 years.
+
+
+FLY, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Pirate and prizefighter.
+
+He was boatswain in the _Elizabeth_, of Bristol, in 1726, bound for
+Guinea. Heading a mutiny on May 27th, he tossed the captain over the
+ship's side, and slaughtered all the officers except the ship's surgeon.
+Fly was unanimously elected captain by the crew. His first prize was the
+_John and Hannah_ off the coast of North Carolina. The next the _John and
+Betty_, Captain Gale, from Bardadoes to Guinea. After taking several other
+vessels, he cruised off the coast of Newfoundland where he took a whaler.
+Fly was caught by a piece of strategy on the part of the whaler captain,
+who carried him and his crew in chains in their own ship to Great
+Brewster, Massachusetts, in June, 1726. On July 4th Fly and the other
+pirates were brought to trial at Boston, and on the 16th were executed. On
+the day of execution Fly refused to go to church before the hanging to
+listen to a sermon by Dr. Coleman. On the way to the gallows he bore
+himself with great bravado, jumping briskly into the cart with a nosegay
+in his hands bedecked with coloured ribbons like a prizefighter, smiling
+and bowing to the spectators. He was hanged in chains at Nix's Mate, a
+small island in Boston Harbour, and thus was brought to a close a brief
+though brilliant piratical career of just one month.
+
+
+FORREST, WILLIAM.
+
+One of the mutinous crew of the _Antonio_ hanged at Boston in 1672.
+
+
+FORSEITH, EDWARD.
+
+One of Captain Avery's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock, 1696.
+
+
+FOSTER. Buccaneer and poet.
+
+Only two facts are known about this adventurer. One is that he was
+reproved on a certain occasion by Morgan (who thought nothing of torturing
+his captives) for "harshness" to his prisoners, and the other that he
+wrote sentimental verse, particularly one work entitled "Sonneyettes of
+Love."
+
+
+FRANKLYN, CHARLES.
+
+This Welsh pirate was a Monmouthshire man, and one of Captain Howel
+Davis's crew. While at the Cape Verde Islands, Franklyn "was so charmed
+with the luxuries of the place and the free conversation of the Women,"
+that he married and settled down there.
+
+
+FREEBARN, MATTHEW.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+FROGGE, WILLIAM. Buccaneer.
+
+Was with Morgan in his attacks on Porto Bello and Panama in 1670. He kept
+a diary of the chief events of these exploits, and distinctly states that
+the Spaniards, and not Morgan, set fire to the city. But he was greatly
+enraged against Morgan for cheating the buccaneers out of their plunder,
+and giving each man only about £10 as his share.
+
+
+FULWORTH, MRS. ANNE.
+
+This lady accompanied Anne Bonny to New Providence Island from Carolina in
+the guise of her mother. When Captain Rackam and Anne Bonny were
+intriguing to run away from the latter's husband, "a pardoned pirate, a
+likely young fellow and of a sober life," Mrs. Fulworth offered sympathy
+and advice to the lovers. The scandal being brought to the ears of
+Governor Woodes Rogers by a pirate called Richard Turnley, he sent for the
+two ladies, "and examining them both upon it, and finding they could not
+deny it, he threaten'd, if they proceeded further in it, to commit them
+both to Prison, and order them to be whipp'd, and that Rackam, himself,
+should be their Executioner."
+
+
+GARCIA.
+
+One of Gilbert's crew in the _Panda_. Hanged at Boston in June, 1835.
+
+
+GARDINER.
+
+Although at one time a pirate, by some means or other he became appointed
+to the office of Deputy Collector at Boston in 1699. Accepted a bribe of
+stolen gold from the pirate Gillam, which caused some gossip in the town.
+
+
+GASPAR, CAPTAIN JOSÉ, _alias_ "GASPARILLA" or "RICHARD COEUR DE LION."
+
+Was an officer of high rank in the Spanish Navy till 1782, when, having
+been detected in stealing some jewels belonging to the Crown, he stole a
+ship and turned pirate. Settling at Charlotte Harbour, he built a fort,
+where he kept his female prisoners, all the male ones being killed. Here
+he lived in regal state as king of the pirates, on Gasparilla Island. In
+1801 he took a big Spanish ship forty miles from Boca Grande, killed the
+crew, and took a quantity of gold and twelve young ladies. One of these
+was a Spanish princess, whom he kept for himself; the eleven Mexican girls
+he gave to his crew.
+
+Gaspar was described as having polished manners and a great love of
+fashionable clothes, and being fearless in fight; but in spite of all
+these attractive qualities, the little Spanish princess would have none of
+him, and was murdered.
+
+By the year 1821 the United States Government had made matters so hot for
+Gaspar that the pirate kingdom was broken up and their booty of 30,000,000
+dollars divided.
+
+As he was about to sail away, a big ship came into the bay, apparently an
+English merchantman. Gaspar at once prepared to attack her, when she ran
+up the Stars and Stripes, proving herself to be a heavily armed American
+man-of-war. The pirate ship was defeated, and Gaspar, winding a piece of
+anchor chain round his waist, jumped overboard and was drowned, his age
+being 65.
+
+
+GATES, THOMAS.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Edward Teach's crew.
+
+
+GAUTIER, FRANÇOIS, or GAUTIEZ, _alias_ GEORGE SADWELL.
+
+Native of Havre.
+
+Cook on board the _Jane_ schooner, commanded by Captain Thomas Johnson.
+While on a voyage from Gibraltar to Brazil with a valuable cargo, Gautier
+and the mate killed the captain and the helmsman and steered the vessel to
+Scotland, sinking her near Stornoway. Caught and tried at Edinburgh in
+November, 1821, found guilty, and hanged in January on the sands of Leith,
+his body being publicly dissected afterwards by the Professor of Anatomy
+to Edinburgh University. The age of this French pirate at his death was
+23.
+
+
+GAYNY, GEORGE, or GAINY.
+
+One of Wafer's little party lost in the jungle of Darien in 1681. In
+attempting to swim across a swollen river with a line, he got into
+difficulties, became entangled in the line which was tied round his neck,
+and having also a bag containing 300 Spanish silver dollars on his back,
+he sank and was swept away. Some time afterwards Wafer found Gayny lying
+dead in a creek with the rope twisted about him and his money at his neck.
+
+
+GENNINGS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A renegade English pirate who joined the Barbary corsairs, turned
+Mohammedan, and commanded a Moorish pirate vessel. Taken prisoner off the
+Irish coast, he was brought to London and hanged at Wapping.
+
+
+GERRARD, THOMAS.
+
+Of the Island of Antigua.
+
+One of Major Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy at
+Charleston in 1718, but found "not guilty."
+
+
+GIBBENS, GARRAT.
+
+Boatswain on board the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Was killed at the same time
+as Captain Teach.
+
+
+GIBBS, CHARLES.
+
+Born at Rhode Island in 1794, he was brought up on a farm there. Ran away
+to sea in the United States sloop-of-war _Harriet_. Was in action off
+Pernambuco against H.M.S. _Peacock_, afterwards serving with credit on
+board the _Chesapeake_ in her famous fight with the _Shannon_; but after
+his release from Dartmoor as a prisoner of war he opened a grocery shop in
+Ann Street, called the "Tin Pot," "a place full of abandoned women and
+dissolute fellows." Drinking up all the profits, he was compelled to go to
+sea again, and got a berth on a South American privateer. Gibbs led a
+mutiny, seized the ship and turned her into a pirate, and cruised about in
+the neighbourhood of Havana, plundering merchant vessels along the coast
+of Cuba. He slaughtered the crews of all the ships he took. In 1819
+returned to private life in New York with 30,000 dollars in gold. Taking a
+pleasure trip to Liverpool, he was entrapped by a designing female and
+lost all his money.
+
+In 1830 he took to piracy once more and shipped as a seaman in the brig
+_Vineyard_ (Captain W. Thornby), New Orleans to Philadelphia, with a cargo
+of cotton, molasses, and 54,000 dollars in specie.
+
+Gibbs again brought about a mutiny, murdering the captain and mate. After
+setting fire to and scuttling the ship, the crew took to their boats,
+landing at Barrow Island, where they buried their money in the sand.
+
+He was hanged at New York as recently as 1831.
+
+
+GIDDENS, PAUL.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+GIDDINGS, JOHN.
+
+Of York River, Virginia.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew. Wounded and taken prisoner at Tarpaulin Cove
+in 1689.
+
+
+GILBERT, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded the schooner _Panda_. On September 20th, 1832, he took and
+plundered a Salem brig, the _Mexican_, on her way from Salem to Rio de
+Janeiro. A few months later Gilbert and his crew were captured by Captain
+Trotter, of H.M. brig-of-war _Curlew_, and taken as prisoners to Salem and
+handed over to the United States authorities. Tried at Boston in December,
+1834. Hanged at the same place on June 11th, 1835. This was the last act
+of piracy committed upon the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+
+GILLAM, CAPTAIN JAMES, _alias_ KELLY.
+
+A notorious pirate. When serving on board the East Indiaman _Mocha_, he
+led a mutiny, and with his own hands murdered the commander, Captain
+Edgecomb, in his sleep. He came back to America with Captain Kidd, and was
+hiding, under the name of Kelly, when caught in 1699 at Charleston,
+opposite Boston, by the Governor of Massachusetts, who described him as
+"the most impudent, hardened villain I ever saw." It was said that Gillam
+had entered the service of the Mogul, turned Mohammedan, and been
+circumcised. To settle this last point, the prisoner was examined by a
+surgeon and a Jew, who both declared, on oath, that it was so.
+
+
+GILLS, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Teach's crew. Hanged in Virginia in 1718.
+
+
+GLASBY, HARRY.
+
+Sailed as mate in the _Samuel_, of London (Captain Cary), which was taken
+in 1720 by Roberts, who made Glasby master on board the _Royal Fortune_.
+
+Tried for piracy on the Guinea Coast in April and acquitted. Evidence was
+brought at his trial to show that Glasby was forced to serve with the
+pirates, for, being a "sea-artist" or sail-master, he was most useful to
+them. Twice he tried to escape in the West Indies, on one occasion being
+tried with two others by a drunken jury of pirates. The other deserters
+were shot, but Glasby was saved by one of his judges threatening to shoot
+anyone who made any attempt on him. Glasby befriended other prisoners and
+gave away his share of the plunder to them. When the _Royal Fortune_ was
+taken by the _Swallow_, several of the most desperate pirates,
+particularly one James Philips, took lighted matches with which to ignite
+the powder magazine and blow up the ship. Glasby prevented this by placing
+trusted sentinels below.
+
+
+GODEKINS, MASTER.
+
+This notorious Hanseatic pirate, with another called Stertebeker, did
+fearful damage to English and other merchant shipping in the North Sea in
+the latter part of the fourteenth century.
+
+On June 1st, 1395, he seized an English ship laden with salt fish off the
+coast of Denmark, her value being reckoned at £170. The master and crew of
+twenty-five men they slew, the only mariner saved being a boy, whom the
+pirates took with them to Wismar.
+
+These same men took another English ship, the _Dogger_ (Captain Gervase
+Cat). The _Dogger_ was at anchor, and the crew fishing, when the pirates
+attacked them. The captain and crew were wounded, and damage was done to
+the tune of 200 nobles.
+
+Another vessel taken was a Yarmouth barque, _Michael_ (master, Robert
+Rigweys), while off Plymouth, the owner, Hugh ap Fen, losing 800 nobles.
+In 1394 these Hanseatic pirates, with a large fleet, attacked the town of
+Norbern in Norway, plundering the town and taking away all they could
+carry, as well as the merchants, who they held for ransom. The houses they
+burnt.
+
+
+GOFFE, CHRISTOPHER.
+
+Originally one of Captain Woollery's crew of Rhode Island pirates. In
+November, 1687, he surrendered himself at Boston, and was pardoned. In
+August, 1691, was commissioned by the Governor to cruise with his ship,
+the _Swan_, between Cape Cod and Cape Ann, to protect the coast from
+pirates.
+
+
+GOLDSMITH, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+Of Dartmouth in Devon.
+
+During the reign of Queen Anne, Goldsmith commanded a privateer vessel,
+the _Snap Dragon_, of Dartmouth. He turned pirate and amassed great
+riches.
+
+This pirate would have been forgotten by now were it not that he died in
+his bed at Dartmouth, and was buried in the churchyard there. The lines
+engraved on his tombstone have been quoted in the Preface, but may be
+repeated here:
+
+    Men that are virtuous serve the Lord;
+    And the Devil's by his friends ador'd;
+    And as they merit get a place
+    Amidst the bless'd or hellish race;
+    Pray then, ye learned clergy show
+    Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go?
+    Whose life was one continual evil,
+    Striving to cheat God, Man, and Devil.
+
+
+GOMEZ, JOHN, _alias_ PANTHER KEY JOHN.
+
+Brother-in-law of the famous pirate Gasparilla.
+
+Died, credited with the great age of 120 years, at Panther Key in Florida
+in 1900.
+
+
+GOODALE, JOHN.
+
+A Devonshire man.
+
+Goodale, who was a renegade and had turned Mohammedan, held a position of
+importance and wealth amongst the Moors of Algiers. In the year 1621 he
+bought from the Moors a British prize called the _Exchange_, and also, for
+the sum of £7 10s., an English slave, lately captain of an English
+merchant ship, whom he got cheap owing to his having a deformed hand.
+
+
+GOODLY, CAPTAIN.
+
+An English buccaneer of Jamaica, who in the year 1663 was in command of a
+"junk" armed with six guns and carrying a crew of sixty men.
+
+
+GORDON, CAPTAIN NATHANIEL.
+
+Of Portland, Maine.
+
+Commanded and owned the _Evie_, a small, full-rigged ship, which was
+fitted up as a "slaver." Made four voyages to West Africa for slaves. On
+his last voyage he was captured by the United States sloop _Mohican_, with
+967 negroes on board. Tried in New York for piracy and found guilty and
+condemned to death. Great pressure was brought on President Lincoln to
+reprieve him, but without success, and Gordon was hanged at New York on
+February 22nd, 1862.
+
+
+GOSS, CUTHBERT.
+
+Born at Topsham in Devon.
+
+The compiler of these biographies regrets to have to record that this
+pirate was hanged, at the comparatively tender age of 21, outside the
+gates of Cape Coast Castle, within the flood-marks, in 1722. He was one of
+Captain Roberts's crew, having been taken prisoner by Roberts at Calabar
+in a prize called the _Mercy_ galley, of Bristol, in 1721.
+
+
+GOW, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ SMITH, _alias_ GOFFE. A Scotch pirate, born at
+Thurso.
+
+Although the short career of this pirate made a great noise at the time,
+he did little to merit the fame which he achieved. He had the honour of
+having an account of his piratical activities written by Defoe, and ninety
+years later was made the hero in a novel by Walter Scott, as Captain
+Cleveland.
+
+Gow sailed from Amsterdam as a foremast hand in the _George_ galley,
+commanded by Captain Ferneau, a Guernsey man. Being a brisk and
+intelligent man, he was soon promoted to be second mate. They called at
+Santa Cruz in Barbary to take in a cargo of beeswax to deliver at Genoa.
+Sailing from Santa Cruz on November 3rd, 1724, Gow and a few others
+conspired to mutiny and then to go "upon the account." The captain, as was
+his custom, had all hands, except the helmsman, into his cabin at eight
+o'clock each night for prayers. This particular night, after it was dark,
+the conspirators went below to the hammocks of the chief mate, the
+supercargo, and the surgeon and cut all their throats. They did the same
+to the captain, who was then thrown overboard though still alive.
+
+Gow being now elected captain and one Williams, a thorough rogue, mate,
+they renamed the vessel the _Revenge_, armed her with eighteen guns, and
+cruised off the coast of Spain, taking an English sloop with a cargo of
+fish from Newfoundland, commanded by Captain Thomas Wise of Poole. Their
+second prize was a Glasgow ship loaded with herrings and salmon.
+
+They next sailed to Madeira, where Gow presented the Governor with a box
+of Scotch herrings. About this time Williams, the first mate, insulted Gow
+by accusing him of cowardice because he had refused to attack a big French
+ship, and snapped his pistol at him. Two seamen standing near shot
+Williams, wounding him severely, and to get rid of him they put him aboard
+one of their prizes. Discussions now took place as to where to sail, and
+Gow, who was in love with a lass in the Orkney Islands, suggested sailing
+thither, as being a good place to traffic their stolen goods.
+
+On arriving at Carristown they sold most of their cargo, and one of the
+crew, going on shore, bought a horse for three pieces of eight and rode
+to Kirkwall and surrendered himself. Next day ten more men deserted,
+setting out in the long-boat for the mainland of Scotland, but were taken
+prisoners in the _Forth_, of Edinburgh. By now the whole countryside was
+alarmed. Gow's next move was to land his men and plunder the houses of the
+gentry. They visited a Mrs. Honnyman and her daughter, but these ladies
+managed to get their money and jewellery away in safety. Gow's crew
+marched back to their ship with a bagpiper playing at their head.
+
+They now sailed to Calfsound, seized three girls and took them aboard.
+Then to the Island of Eda to plunder the house of Mr. Fea, an old
+schoolmate of Gow's. Arriving there on February 13th, by bad management
+they ran their vessel on the rocks. The bo'son and five men went ashore
+and met Mr. Fea, who entertained them at the local public-house. By a
+simple stratagem, Mr. Fea seized first the bo'son and afterwards the five
+men. Soon after this, Fea trapped Gow and all the rest of his crew of
+twenty-eight men. Help was sent for, and eventually the _Greyhound_
+frigate arrived and took Gow and his crew to London, arriving off Woolwich
+on March 26th, 1725. The prisoners were taken to the Marshalsea Prison in
+Southwark, and there found their old companion, Lieutenant Williams. Four
+men turned King's evidence--viz., George Dobson, Job Phinnies, Tim Murphy,
+and William Booth.
+
+The trial at Newgate began on May 8th, when Gow was sullen and reserved
+and refused to plead. He was ordered to be pressed to death, which was the
+only form of torture still allowed by the law. At the last moment Gow
+yielded, and pleaded "not guilty." Gow was found guilty, and hanged on
+June 11th, 1725, but "as he was turned off, he fell down from the Gibbit,
+the rope breaking by the weight of some that pulled his leg. Although
+he had been hanging for four minutes, he was able to climb up the ladder a
+second time, which seemed to concern him very little, and he was hanged
+again."
+
+[Illustration: PRESSING A PIRATE TO PLEAD.
+
+To face p. 140.]
+
+His body was then taken to Greenwich and there hanged in chains, to be a
+warning to others.
+
+
+GRAFF, LE CAPITAINE LAURENS DE. Filibuster.
+
+Commanded _Le Neptune_, a ship armed with fifty-four guns and a crew of
+210 men, in the West Indies in the seventeenth century.
+
+
+GRAHAM, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a shallop, with a crew of fourteen men, in 1685. Sailed in
+company with Captain Veale up and down the coast of Virginia and New
+England.
+
+
+GRAMBO.
+
+Was "boss" of Barataria, the smugglers' stronghold off the Island of
+Grande Terre, near Louisiana, until shot by Jean Lafitte in 1811.
+
+
+GRAMMONT, SIEUR DE. French filibuster.
+
+One of the great buccaneers. Born in Paris, he entered the Royal Marines,
+in which he distinguished himself in several naval engagements.
+
+He commanded a frigate in the West Indies, and captured near Martinique a
+Dutch ship with a cargo worth £400,000, which he carried to Hispaniola,
+but there lost all of it through gambling, and, not daring to return to
+France, he joined the buccaneers.
+
+He sailed to Curaçoa in 1678 with the Count d'Estrees' fleet, which was
+wrecked on a coral reef off the Isle d'Aves. De Grammont was left behind
+to salve what he could from the wreck. After this, with 700 men he sailed
+to Maracaibo, spending six months on the lake, seizing the shipping and
+plundering all the settlements in the neighbourhood.
+
+In June, 1680, de Grammont, with an obsolete commission and a small party
+of men, made a brilliant night assault on La Guayra, the seaport of
+Caracas. Only forty-seven men took part in the actual attack on the town,
+which was guarded by two forts and by cannon upon the walls. The pirates
+were attacked next day by 2,000 Spaniards from Caracas, but with the
+greatest skill and bravery de Grammont got almost all his party away,
+though wounded himself in the throat. He carried away with him amongst his
+prisoners the Governor of the town.
+
+He retired to the Isle d'Aves to nurse his wound, and later went to Petit
+Goave.
+
+In 1683 took part in the successful English and French attack on Vera
+Cruz, and afterwards, when Vanhorn died of gangrene, de Grammont, his
+lieutenant, carried his ship back to Petit Goave. In 1685 he received a
+fresh commission from de Cossey, the Governor of Dominica, and joined
+forces with the famous buccaneer Laurens de Graff at the Isle of Vache,
+and sailed with 11,000 men for Campeachy. Taking the town, he reduced it
+to ashes and blew up the fortress, returning with the plunder to
+Hispaniola. Before leaving, however, to celebrate the Festival of St.
+Louis, they burnt a huge bonfire, using 200,000 crowns worth of logwood.
+
+Grammont at this time commanded a fine ship, _Le Hardy_ (fifty guns and a
+crew of 300 men).
+
+In 1686 de Grammont was granted a commission of "Lieutenant du Roi," in
+order to keep him from harassing the Spaniards, and yet not to lose his
+valuable services to his country.
+
+In order to have one last fling at the old free buccaneering life before
+settling down to the more sedate and respectable calling of an officer in
+the French King's navy, de Grammont sailed off with a party of 180
+desperadoes, but was never heard of again.
+
+
+GRAND, PIERRE LE.
+
+A native of Dieppe in Normandy.
+
+Le Grand was the man who, having made one great and successful exploit,
+had the good sense to retire. He was the first pirate to take up his
+quarters at Tortuga Island, and was known amongst the English as "Peter
+the Great." His name will go down to posterity for his "bold and insolent"
+action when in a small open boat with a handful of men he seized a great
+Spanish galleon.
+
+Pierre had been out on the "grand account" for a long while, meeting with
+no success. When almost starving and in despair, a great Spanish fleet
+hove in sight, and one ship, bigger than the rest, was observed sailing at
+some little distance behind the other vessels. The mad idea entered the
+head of the now desperate pirate to take this ship. The pirates all took
+an oath to their captain to fight without fear and never to surrender. It
+was dusk, and in these tropical latitudes night follows day very quickly.
+Before the attack, orders were given to the surgeon to bore a hole in the
+bottom of the boat so that it would quickly sink, thus taking away any
+hope of escape should the enterprise fail. This was done, and the boat was
+paddled quietly alongside the great warship, when the crew, armed only
+with a pistol and a sword a-piece, clambered up the sides and jumped
+aboard. Quickly and silently the sleeping helmsman was killed, while
+Pierre and a party of his men ran down into the great cabin, where they
+surprised the Spanish admiral playing cards with his officers. The
+admiral, suddenly confronted by a band of bearded desperadoes in his cabin
+with a pistol aimed at his head, ejaculated "Jesus bless us! are these
+devils or what are they?" While this was going on others of the pirates
+had hurried to the gun-room, seized the arms, killing every Spaniard who
+withstood them. Pierre knew, as scarcely any other successful pirate or
+gambler ever did, the right moment to stop. He at once put ashore all the
+prisoners he did not want for working the ship, and sailed straight back
+to France; where he lived the rest of his life in comfortable obscurity,
+and never again returned to piracy.
+
+The news of this exploit spread rapidly over the West Indies, and caused
+the greatest excitement amongst the pirate fraternity of Tortuga and
+Hispaniola.
+
+Men left their work of killing and drying beef, while others deserted
+their plantations to go a-pirating on the Spaniards, in much the same way
+as men went to a gold rush years after. Those who had no boat would
+venture forth in canoes looking for rich Spanish treasure ships.
+
+It was this wild deed of Pierre le Grand that was the beginning of piracy
+in the West Indies, towards the latter half of the seventeenth century.
+
+
+GRANGE, ROGER.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew of the _Happy Delivery_. Tried for piracy at
+St. Kitts in 1722, but acquitted.
+
+
+DE GRAVES, CAPTAIN HERBERT.
+
+This Dutch pirate sailed as captain of his own merchant vessel during the
+reign of King Charles II. He took to landing his crew on the south coast
+of England and raiding gentlemen's houses. The first he ever pillaged was
+that of a Mr. Sturt, in Sussex. In those days, when banks were almost
+unknown, the houses of the rich often contained great sums of money. De
+Graves was wont to sail along the Devonshire coast, sometimes landing and
+robbing a house, sometimes taking a ship, which he would carry to
+Rotterdam and sell. He made several daring raids into Cowes and Lowestoft,
+getting off with valuable plunder.
+
+In the war between England and the Dutch, Graves was given command of a
+fire-ship. This vessel he handled very capably, and in the action off the
+Downs he ran her on board the _Sandwich_, setting her on fire. James, Duke
+of York, escaped from the _Sandwich_ with great difficulty, while the Earl
+of Albemarle and most of the crew perished. At the conclusion of the war,
+De Graves returned to piracy, but his ship was wrecked in a storm close to
+Walmer Castle. The captain and a few of his crew were saved, and, being
+made prisoners, were hanged on a tree.
+
+
+GREAVES, CAPTAIN, _alias_ "RED LEGS." West Indian pirate.
+
+Born in Barbadoes of prisoners who had been sent there as slaves by
+Cromwell. Most of these slaves were natives of Scotland and Ireland, and,
+owing to their bare knees, generally went by the name of Red Legs. Young
+Greaves was left an orphan, but had a kind master and a good education.
+His master dying, the lad was sold to another and a cruel one. The boy ran
+away, swam across Carlisle Bay, but by mistake clambered on to the wrong
+ship, a pirate vessel, commanded by a notoriously cruel pirate called
+Captain Hawkins. Finding himself driven to the calling of piracy, Greaves
+became very efficient, and quickly rose to eminence. He was remarkable for
+his dislike of unnecessary bloodshed, torture of prisoners, and killing of
+non-combatants. These extraordinary views brought about a duel between
+himself and his captain, in which the former was victorious, and he was at
+once elected commander.
+
+Greaves now entered a period of the highest piratical success, but always
+preserved very strictly his reputation for humanity and morality. He never
+tortured his prisoners, nor ever robbed the poor, nor maltreated women.
+
+His greatest success of all was his capture of the Island of Margarita,
+off the coast of Venezuela.
+
+On this occasion, after capturing the Spanish Fleet, he turned the guns of
+their warships against the forts, which he then stormed, and was rewarded
+by a huge booty of pearls and gold.
+
+Red Legs then retired to the respectable life of a planter in the Island
+of Nevis, but was one day denounced as a pirate by an old seaman. He was
+cast into a dungeon to await execution, when the great earthquake came
+which destroyed and submerged the town in 1680, and one of the few
+survivors was Greaves. He was picked up by a whaler, on board of which he
+served with success, and later on, for his assistance in capturing a gang
+of pirates, he received pardon for his earlier crimes.
+
+He again retired to a plantation, and was noted for his many acts of piety
+and for his generous gifts to charities and public institutions,
+eventually dying universally respected and sorrowed.
+
+
+GREENSAIL, RICHARD.
+
+One of Blackbeard's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Hanged in Virginia
+in 1718.
+
+
+GREENVILLE, HENRY.
+
+Hanged at Boston in 1726 with Captain Fly and Samuel Cole.
+
+
+GRIFFIN, JACK.
+
+Chief mate of a Bristol vessel. One of the chief mutineers on board the
+_Bird_ galley in 1718, off Sierra Leone, when he befriended the captain of
+the _Bird_, with whom he had been at school. Took part in a feast to
+celebrate the success of the mutiny, the meal being cooked in a huge
+caldron in which the slaves' food was prepared. In this caldron were
+boiled, on this occasion, fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys, which were
+unplucked; several Westphalian hams were added, and a "large sow with
+young embowled." The health of King James III., the Pretender, was drunk
+with full honours.
+
+
+GRIFFIN, JOHN.
+
+Of Blackwall, Middlesex.
+
+Taken out of the _Mercy_ galley and appointed carpenter on board the
+_Royal Fortune_ by Captain Roberts. Condemned to be hanged at Cape Coast
+Castle, but pardoned and sold to the Royal African Company as a slave for
+seven years.
+
+
+GRIFFIN, RICHARD.
+
+A gunsmith of Boston.
+
+Sailed with Captain Pound. Wounded in a fight at Tarpaulin Cove, a bullet
+entering his ear and coming out through his eye.
+
+
+GROGNIET, CAPTAIN.
+
+A French buccaneer who in 1683 was in company with Captain L'Escayer, with
+a crew of some 200 French and 80 English freebooters. He joined Davis and
+Swan during the blockade of Panama in 1685, and was in the unsuccessful
+attempt in May, 1685, on the Spanish treasure fleet from Lima. In July of
+the same year Grogniet, with 340 French buccaneers, parted company from
+Davis at Quibo, plundered several towns, and then, foolishly, revisited
+Quibo, where they were discovered by a Spanish squadron in January, 1686,
+and their ship was burnt while the crew was on shore. They were rescued
+by Townley, with whom they went north to Nicaragua, and sacked Granada. In
+May, 1686, Grogniet and half the Frenchmen crossed the isthmus. In the
+January following, Grogniet reappeared, and, joining with the English,
+again plundered Guayaquil, where he was severely wounded, and died soon
+afterwards.
+
+
+GULLIMILLIT, BRETI.
+
+Taken with other South American pirates by H.M. sloop _Tyne_, and hanged
+at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.
+
+
+GUTTEREZ, JUAN.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, on February 7th, 1823.
+
+
+GUY, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded the frigate _James_ (fourteen guns, ninety men). Belonged to
+Tortuga Island and Jamaica in 1663.
+
+
+HAINS, RICHARD.
+
+One of Captain Low's crew. When Low took a Portuguese ship at St.
+Michael's in the Azores in 1723, he, with unusual kindness, simply burnt
+the ship and let the crew go to shore in a boat. While the prisoners were
+getting out the boat, Richard Hains happened to be drinking punch out of a
+silver tankard at one of the open ports, and took the opportunity to drop
+into the boat among the Portuguese and lie down in the bottom, so as to
+escape with them. Suddenly remembering his silver tankard, he climbed
+back, seized the tankard, and hid again in the boat, somehow, by great
+good fortune, being unobserved by those on the ship, and so escaped almost
+certain death both for himself and the Portuguese sailors.
+
+
+HALSEY, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+This famous South Sea pirate was born on March 1st, 1670, at Boston, and
+received a commission from the Governor of Massachusetts to cruise as a
+privateer on the Banks. No sooner was he out of sight of land than Halsey
+turned pirate. Taking a ship or two, he sailed to the Canary Islands,
+picking up a rich Spanish ship there. He next doubled the Cape of Good
+Hope, and paid a call on the "brethren" at Madagascar. He then sailed to
+the Red Sea, another happy hunting ground of the pirates, and met a big
+Dutch ship armed with sixty guns. Halsey astounded his men by announcing
+his sudden determination to attack only Moorish ships in the future. The
+indignant crew mutinied, threw Captain Halsey and his chief gunner in
+irons, and proceeded to attack the Dutchman. The mutinous pirates got the
+worst of the encounter, and released Halsey, who only just managed to get
+his ship away. Luck seems to have deserted Halsey for a while, for not a
+Moorish ship could he meet with, so much so that his scruples against
+taking Christian ships eased enough to permit him to bag a brace of
+English ships, the _Essex_ and the _Rising Eagle_.
+
+The captain of the former proved to be a very old and dear friend of
+Halsey's quartermaster, and to show a friendly feeling, Halsey allowed the
+captain to keep all his personal belongings. Nevertheless, they took a
+comfortable booty, comprising some fifty thousand pounds in English gold,
+out of the _Essex_, and another ten thousand out of the _Rising Eagle_.
+
+The pirates, being strict business men, produced invoices and sold the two
+ships back to their legal owners for cash, and having settled this affair
+to everybody's satisfaction, Halsey and his consort returned to
+Madagascar. Here they were visited by the captain of a Scotch ship, the
+_Neptune_, which had come to trade liquor, probably rum, but possibly
+whisky, with the pirates. A sudden hurricane arose, destroying both the
+pirate ships and damaging the _Neptune_. Halsey, ever a man of resource,
+thereupon seized the Scotch ship, and, with even greater enterprise, at
+once attacked a ship, the _Greyhound_, which lay at anchor, which was
+loaded with stolen merchandise which the pirates had only just sold to the
+captain of the _Greyhound_, and for which they had been paid.
+
+The end was now drawing near, for in 1716 Captain Halsey was taken ill of
+some tropical fever and died. He was a popular commander, respected, ever
+loved by his men, for he was a humane man, never killing his prisoners
+unless necessity compelled. A contemporary eyewitness of his funeral rites
+leaves the following account of his burial:
+
+"With great solemnity, the prayers of the Church of England being read
+over him and his sword and pistols laid on his coffin, which was covered
+with a ship's Jack. As many minute guns were fired as he was old--viz.,
+46--and three English vollies and one French volley of small arms." The
+chronicler continues: "His grave was made in a garden of watermelons and
+fenced in to prevent his being rooted up by wild pigs."
+
+This last a truly touching thought on the part of the bereaved.
+
+
+HAMAN, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+He lived all alone with his wife and family on a small and otherwise
+uninhabited island in the Bahamas.
+
+About the year 1720, he sailed into New Providence Harbour in his 40-ton
+sloop, intending to settle there. Captain Rackam and Anne Bonny stole this
+vessel and eloped in her.
+
+Writing of Captain Haman, Johnson tells us "his Livelihood and constant
+Employment was to plunder and pillage the Spaniards, whose Sloops and
+Launces he had often surprised about Cuba and Hispaniola, and sometimes
+brought off a considerable Booty, always escaping by a good Pair of Heels,
+insomuch that it became a Bye-Word to say, 'There goes John Haman, catch
+him if you can.' His Business to Providence now was to bring his Family
+there, in order to live and settle, being weary, perhaps, of living in
+that Solitude, or else apprehensive if any of the Spaniards should
+discover his Habitation, they might land, and be revenged of him for all
+his Pranks."
+
+
+HAMLIN, CAPTAIN JEAN.
+
+A famous French filibuster who turned pirate.
+
+Set out in 1682 from Jamaica in a sloop with 120 other desperadoes in
+pursuit of a French ship that was "wanted" by the Jamaican Governor.
+Having overtaken the ship, _La Trompeuse_, he seized her, fitted her up as
+a man-of-war, and then started out on a wild piratical cruise, taking
+eighteen Jamaican vessels, barbarously ill-treating the crews, and
+completely demoralizing the trade of the island. Two other ships were now
+sent to find and destroy the new _La Trompeuse_, but Hamlin escaped and
+sailed to the Virgin Islands, and was most hospitably received by the
+Governor of the Danish Island of St. Thomas, one Adolf Esmit, who was
+himself a retired pirate. Using this island as his headquarters Hamlin
+cruised about and took several English ships.
+
+In May, 1683, he appeared on the West Coast of Africa disguised as an
+English man-of-war. Off the coast of Sierra Leone, he took seventeen Dutch
+and English ships, returning to Dominica in July, 1683, finally reaching
+the friendly St. Thomas Island, being warmly welcomed back by the pirate
+Governor. Three days afterwards, H.M.S. _Francis_ arrived on the lookout
+for pirates, and attacked and burnt Hamlin's ship. Hamlin, with the help
+of the Governor, managed to escape with his life.
+
+
+HANDS, ISRAEL, also known as BASILICA HANDS.
+
+Sailing-master with the famous Teach or Blackbeard. One day when Teach was
+entertaining a pilot and Hands in his cabin, after they had been drinking
+and chatting awhile seated round the cabin table, on which stood a lighted
+candle, Blackbeard suddenly drew his pistols, blew out the candle, and
+crossing his arms, fired both his pistols under the table. Hands was shot
+in the knee, and crippled for life. Teach's explanation to the angry
+demands of his guests as to the reason for this extraordinary conduct
+produced the reply that "if he did not shoot one or two of them now and
+then, they'd forget who he was." Hands after this deserted, but was
+captured at Bath in Carolina by Brand. Hands, probably in revenge for
+being wantonly shot by Teach, turned King's evidence at the inquiry held
+at Charleston, and brought very serious accusations against one of the
+most prominent men in the colony, Knight, who was secretary to the Chief
+Justice, and a deputy collector of Customs.
+
+Hands was tried for piracy in Virginia in December, 1718, but pardoned.
+When last heard of was seen begging his bread in London.
+
+
+HANSEL, CAPTAIN.
+
+He behaved himself so courageously at the taking of Porto Bello in 1669,
+that a party of some 400 men, in four ships, chose Hansel to be their
+admiral in an attempt on the town of Comana, near Caracas. This attack was
+a most complete failure, the pirates being driven off "with great loss
+and in great confusion." When Hansel's party arrived back at Jamaica, they
+found the rest of Morgan's men had returned before them, who "ceased not
+to mock and jeer at them for their ill success at Comana, after telling
+them, 'Let us see what money you brought from Comana, and if it be as good
+silver as that which we bring from Maracaibo.'"
+
+
+HARDING, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+In 1653 he captured a rich prize, a Barbadoes vessel. For this he was
+tried for piracy at Boston.
+
+
+HARDY, RICHARD.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's crew. Hanged at Cape Coast Castle,
+West Coast of Africa, on April 6th, 1722, at the age of 25 years.
+
+It is recorded that, owing to the lack of expert knowledge in the niceties
+of carrying out executions, Hardy was led to the scaffold with his hands
+tied behind him. This annoyed Hardy very much, and it is mentioned in the
+official account of his execution that the prisoner indignantly declared
+"that he had seen many a Man hang'd, but this Way of the Hands being ty'd
+behind them, he was a Stranger to, and never saw before in his Life."
+
+
+HARPER, ABRAHAM.
+
+Born at Bristol.
+
+He was cooper on board Captain Roberts's _Royal Fortune_. When the pirates
+took a prize, it was Harper's duty to see that all the casks and coopers'
+tools were removed from the prize to the pirate craft.
+
+Hanged at the age of 23, with the rest of the crew, in 1722.
+
+
+HARRIS, CAPTAIN.
+
+Joined the Barbary corsairs during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, turned
+Mohammedan, and rose to command a Moorish pirate vessel. Cruised off the
+coast of Ireland, was taken prisoner by an English ship, and hanged at
+Wapping.
+
+
+HARRIS, HUGH.
+
+Of Corfe Castle, Dorsetshire.
+
+One of Roberts's crew; tried and condemned to be hanged in 1722, but
+reprieved and sold to the Royal African Company to serve for seven years
+in their plantations.
+
+
+HARRIS, JAMES.
+
+One of Roberts's crew.
+
+
+HARRIS, PETER.
+
+Born in Kent.
+
+This buccaneer was known amongst the brethren of the coast as "a brave and
+Stout Soldier."
+
+In 1680 he took a leading part in the march of the buccaneers across the
+Isthmus of Darien, but during the attack on the Spanish Fleet off Panama
+he was shot in both legs, and died of his wounds.
+
+
+HARRIS, RICHARD.
+
+A Cornishman.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew and the oldest, being 45 years of age when
+he was hanged, an unusually advanced age to reach in this most "unhealthy"
+profession.
+
+
+HARRISON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Sailed in October, 1670, in company with Captains Prince and Ludbury, into
+Port Royal, after a successful expedition with 170 men up the San Juan
+River in Nicaragua, when they plundered the unfortunate city of Granada.
+This city had suffered so much from previous attacks from the buccaneers
+that the plunder came to only some £20 per man on this occasion.
+
+Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica, "reproved the captains for acting
+without commissions, but did not deem it prudent to press the matter too
+far"; in fact, instead of arresting Harrison and his crew, he sent them to
+join Morgan the Buccaneer, who was then gathering together a great fleet
+of buccaneers at the Isle of Vache.
+
+
+HARVEY, CAPTAIN.
+
+Arrived at New London in 1685 in company with another pirate, Captain
+Veale; posed as an honest merchant, but, being recognized, left in great
+haste.
+
+
+HARVEY, WILLIAM.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Gow's crew at Newgate in 1725, and
+acquitted.
+
+
+HARWOOD, JOHN.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704. One of the crew of the brigantine
+_Charles_ (Captain John Quelch, Commander).
+
+
+HATTSELL, CAPTAIN.
+
+This buccaneer served as an officer with Mansfield in his successful and
+daring night attack on the Island of Providence, when, with only 200 men,
+the fort was captured and the Spanish Governor taken prisoner. Captain
+Hattsell was left behind with thirty-five men to hold the island, while
+Mansfield sailed to the mainland with his prisoners, who had surrendered
+on condition that they should be safely conducted there.
+
+
+HAWKINS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A seventeenth-century Barbadoes pirate. Notorious for his cruelty, which
+led to his fighting a duel with one of his crew, Greaves, _alias_ Red
+Legs, by whom he was defeated, his victor being elected captain in his
+place.
+
+
+HAWKINS, SIR JOHN.
+
+Born in 1532.
+
+This famous Elizabethan seaman sailed in 1561 to the Canary Islands, and
+traded in negro slaves between Africa and Hispaniola. Afterwards became an
+officer in the Royal Navy. Died at sea off Porto Bello, in 1595, when
+serving with Drake in the West Indies.
+
+
+HAWKINS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+In the year 1689 cruised off the coast of New England, burning and
+plundering the shipping. The Bay colony sent out an armed sloop, the
+_Mary_ (Samuel Pease, commander), in October of that year, to attempt to
+capture Hawkins. Pease found the pirate in Buzzard's Bay. Hawkins ran up a
+red flag and a furious engagement began. The crew of the _Mary_ at last
+boarded the pirates, and the captain, Pease, was so severely wounded that
+he died.
+
+
+HAWKINS, THOMAS.
+
+Born at Boston.
+
+Turned pirate and cruised with Captain Pound. Tried for piracy at Boston
+in 1690, but reprieved. Sent to England, but on the voyage was killed in a
+fight with a French privateer.
+
+
+HAYES, CAPTAIN, nicknamed "Bully Hayes." A South Sea pirate.
+
+In 1870 was arrested by the English Consul at Samoa for piracy. There
+being no prison in this delightful island, the Consul ran Hayes's ship on
+shore, and waited for a man-of-war to call and take his prisoner away.
+Hayes spent his time, while under open arrest, attending native picnic
+parties, at which he was the life and soul, being, when off duty, a man of
+great charm of manner and a favourite with the ladies. Presently another
+pirate arrived, one Captain Pease, in an armed ship with a Malay crew.
+Hayes and Pease quarrelled violently, and the Consul had great trouble to
+keep the two pirates from coming to blows. This animosity was all a sham
+to throw dust in the Consul's eyes, for one night Pease sailed away with
+Hayes, whom he had smuggled on board his ship.
+
+
+HAZEL, THOMAS.
+
+Of Westminster.
+
+Hanged in Rhode Island in 1723 at the advanced age, for a pirate, of 50.
+This is one of the longest lived pirates we have been able to hear of.
+
+
+HEAMAN, PETER, _alias_ ROGERS.
+
+A French pirate, born in 1787.
+
+Sailed from Gibraltar in May, 1821, as mate on board the schooner _Jane_
+(Captain Thomas Johnson), bound for Bahia, Brazil, with a very rich cargo
+of beeswax, silk, olives, and other goods, as well as eight barrels of
+Spanish dollars.
+
+When about seventeen days out, in the middle of the night, Heaman attacked
+one of the crew, James Paterson, and beat him to death. On the captain
+coming up on deck to find out what all the noise was about, Heaman beat
+him to death with a musket, being assisted by the cook, Francis Gautier,
+also a Frenchman. The two conspirators then proceeded to imprison the rest
+of the crew in the forecastle, and threw the dead bodies of the captain
+and the sailor overboard. For two days the murderers tried to suffocate
+the crew by burning pitch and blowing the smoke into the forecastle.
+Failing to accomplish this they let the crew out after each had sworn on
+the Bible not to inform on them. The course was now altered, and they
+sailed towards Scotland. The barrels of dollars were broken open and the
+coins placed in bags. In June they reached the Island of Barra, where
+Gautier went ashore, wearing the late captain's green coat, and bought a
+large boat. Next, they sailed to Stornoway, where they arrived in July,
+and here they sank their schooner. The crew rowed ashore in the long-boat,
+sharing out the dollars as they went, using an old tin as a measure, each
+man getting 6,300 dollars as his share. Their boat was smashed on the
+rocks when landing, but they got their plunder safely ashore and hid it
+amongst the stones on the beach. Early next morning the mutineers were
+visited by the Customs officer. After he had left, the cabin boy, a
+Maltese, ran after him and told him the true story of the murders and
+robbery. A party of islanders was got together, the mutineers arrested and
+taken to Edinburgh, where Heaman and Gautier were tried for piracy and
+murder, and on November 27th found guilty and condemned to death. They
+were both hanged on January 9th, 1822, on the sands of Leith, within the
+flood mark, and afterwards their bodies were delivered to Dr. Alexander
+Munro, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, to be publicly
+dissected by him.
+
+
+HEATH, PELEG.
+
+One of William Coward's crew. Condemned to be hanged at Boston in 1690,
+but afterwards reprieved.
+
+
+HEIDON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Arrested for piracy in 1564 for having captured a Flemish ship. This
+vessel he manned with thirteen Scotchmen in addition to his own crew, and
+sailed off the coast of Spain. Here he took a prize containing a cargo of
+wine, which he carried to the Island of Bere in Bantry Bay. The wine was
+sold to Lord O'Sullivan. Heidon now fitted up another ship, the _John of
+Sandwich_. Was wrecked in her on the Island of Alderney and Heidon was
+arrested, but managed to escape in a small boat with some others of the
+pirates.
+
+
+HENLEY, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1683 sailed from Boston "bound for the Rack," afterwards going to the
+Red Sea, where he plundered Arab and Malabar ships.
+
+
+HERDUE, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Commanded a frigate of four guns, crew of forty men, at Tortuga Island, in
+1663.
+
+
+HERNANDEZ, AUGUSTUS.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.
+
+
+HERNANDEZ, JUAN.
+
+Captured with nine other pirates by H.M. sloop-of-war _Tyne_ and taken to
+Jamaica. Hanged on February 7th, 1823, at Kingston.
+
+
+HERRIOTT, DAVID.
+
+Master of the _Adventure_, from Jamaica, taken by Teach in 1718. He joined
+the pirates, and later, when Major Stede Bonnet separated from Teach, he
+took Herriott to be his sailing-master. Taken prisoner with Bonnet and his
+crew of the _Royal James_ by Colonel Rhet, at Cape Fear, North Carolina,
+September 27th, 1718. Herriott and the boatswain, Ignatius Pell, turned
+King's evidence at the trial of the pirates held at Charleston. On October
+25th, Bonnet and Herriott escaped from prison, in spite of the fact that
+the latter had turned King's evidence. Herriott was shot on Sullivan
+Island a few days later.
+
+
+HEWETT, WILLIAM, or HEWET, or HEWIT.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried for piracy at Charleston in 1718,
+and hanged at White Point on November 8th, and buried in the marsh below
+low-water mark.
+
+
+HIDE, DANIEL.
+
+Of Virginia.
+
+One of the crew of Captain Charles Harris, who, with Captain Low, played
+havoc on the shipping off the American coast from New York to Charleston.
+Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in July, 1723, at the age of 23.
+
+
+HILL, CORPORAL JOHN.
+
+In charge of the guard at Fort Royal, Falmouth, Maine, which all deserted
+one night, and went to sea with the pirate Captain Pound. Killed at
+Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.
+
+
+HILLIARD, JOHN.
+
+Was "chief man" of the company of Captain Bartholomew Sharp on his
+"dangerous voyage" to the South Seas. Died on January 2nd, 1681, of
+dropsy; buried at sea with the usual buccaneers' honours.
+
+
+HINCHER, DR. JOHN.
+
+Of Edinburgh University.
+
+Tried for piracy in July, 1723, at Newport, Rhode Island, but acquitted.
+This young doctor, his age was only 22, was taken off a prize by Captain
+Low against his will, to act as ship's surgeon with the pirates.
+
+
+HIND, ISRAEL, or HYNDE.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722, at the
+age of 30.
+
+
+HINGSON, JOHN.
+
+One of Wafer's party left behind and lost in the forest when Dampier
+crossed the Isthmus of Darien on foot in 1681.
+
+
+HITCHENS, ROBERT.
+
+A Devonshire man, born in the year 1515.
+
+Took to piracy early in life. Sailed with the pirate Captain Heidon, and
+was wrecked on Alderney in the year 1564. Arrested and tried for piracy,
+and was hanged in chains at low-water mark at St. Martin's Point,
+Guernsey, in 1564, at the age of 50.
+
+
+HOLDING, ANTHONY.
+
+One of John Quelch's crew of the brigantine _Charles_. Tried for piracy at
+Boston in 1704.
+
+
+HOLFORD, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+An old friend of the notorious pirate Vane. In 1718 he happened to arrive
+in his ship at a small uninhabited island in the Bay of Honduras to find
+Vane on shore and destitute. Vane thought he would be saved by Holford,
+but the latter was quite frank in refusing, saying: "I shan't trust you
+aboard my ship unless I carry you a prisoner, for I shall have you
+caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
+a-pyrating." It was owing to Holford that Vane was eventually taken a
+prisoner to Jamaica and there hanged.
+
+
+HOLLAND, CAPTAIN RICHARD.
+
+An Irishman.
+
+Commanded a Spanish pirate vessel in the West Indies in 1724. The crew
+consisted of sixty Spaniards, eighteen French, and eighteen English
+sailors. Holland had originally belonged to the Royal Navy, but deserted
+from the _Suffolk_ at Naples, and took shelter in a convent in that city.
+In August, 1724, Holland's ship took as prizes the _John and Mary_, the
+_Prudent Hannah of Boston_, and the _Dolphin_, of Topsham, all on their
+way to Virginia. From out of the _John and Mary_ he took thirty-six men
+slaves, some gold dust, the captain's clothes, four great guns and small
+arms, and 400 gallons of rum.
+
+
+HOPKINS, MR. Buccaneer and apothecary.
+
+First lieutenant to Captain Dover (a doctor of physic) on board the
+_Duchess_ privateer, of Bristol. Mr. Hopkins was an apothecary by
+profession, not a sailor, but being a kinsman to the captain, no doubt was
+given promotion. He sailed from Bristol on August 2nd, 1708.
+
+
+HORE, CAPTAIN.
+
+About 1650 Hore turned from a privateer into a pirate, and was very active
+and successful in taking prizes between New York and Newport, occasionally
+sailing to Madagascar to waylay ships of the East India Company.
+
+
+HORNIGOLD, CAPTAIN BENJAMIN.
+
+Commanded a sloop in 1716 and cruised off the Guinea coast with Teach,
+taking a big French Guinea ship. He then sailed to the Bahama Islands,
+where, in 1718, Woodes Rogers had just arrived with the offer of a pardon
+to all pirates who surrendered themselves. Teach went off again "on the
+account," but Hornigold surrendered. Shortly afterwards Hornigold was
+wrecked on a reef and drowned.
+
+
+HOW, THOMAS.
+
+A native of Barnstaple in Devon.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's crew. Condemned to death for piracy,
+but reprieved and sold to the Royal African Company to work on their
+plantations for seven years.
+
+
+HOWARD, THOMAS.
+
+Born in London, the son of a Thames lighterman. Sailing to Jamaica, he
+deserted his ship and, with some companions of a like mind, stole a canoe
+and set off to the Grand Cayman Islands, and there met with some 200
+buccaneers and pirates. Joining with these, they took several vessels,
+lastly a well-armed Spanish ship. In her they cruised off the coast of
+Virginia, taking a large New England brigantine, of which Howard was
+appointed quartermaster. Their next prize was a fine Virginian galley,
+twenty-four guns, crowded with convicts being transplanted to America.
+These passengers were only too willing to join the pirates.
+
+Next, they sailed away to Guinea, where they took numerous prizes. Here
+they were attacked by a big Portuguese ship of thirty-six guns, which they
+defeated. Having by now got together a well appointed pirate fleet, they
+sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to Madagascar, the happy home of the
+South Sea pirates. Their ship, the _Alexander_, was wrecked and lost on a
+reef, and Howard, together with the English and Dutch members of the crew,
+seized the treasure, and drove off the Portuguese and Spanish sailors and
+also the captain, and got to shore in a boat. They then broke up their
+ship, and lived for a while by fishing and hunting. On one of these
+hunting parties, the men ran away and left Howard behind.
+
+Howard was found by the King of Anquala, who took care of him until he was
+picked up by a ship. Later on, Howard became captain of a fine vessel, the
+_Prosperous_, thirty-six guns, which he and some other pirates had seized
+at Madagascar. In her, Howard went cruising, eventually in company with
+Captain Bowen, attacking a Moorish fleet off St. John's Island. Howard
+followed the Moorish ships up a river, and, after a fierce fight, seized
+the largest and richest prize, a ship containing upward of a million
+dollars worth of goods. Howard, having now made a considerable fortune,
+retired from the piratical life and went to India, and there married a
+native woman and settled down. Howard, who was a morose, sour kind of man,
+ill-treated his wife, and he was at length murdered by some of her
+relations.
+
+
+HUGGIT, THOMAS.
+
+Of London.
+
+Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in July, 1723. Age 30.
+
+
+HULL, CAPTAIN EDWARD.
+
+Commanded the _Swallow_ "frigott" in which he sailed from Boston in 1653,
+and captured several French and Dutch ships. He afterwards sold his
+vessels and went with his share of the plunder to England, where he
+settled down.
+
+
+HUNTER, ANDREW.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+HUSK, JOHN.
+
+One of Blackbeard's crew in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed off North
+Carolina in 1718.
+
+
+HUTNOT, JOSEPH.
+
+One of the crew of the notorious brigantine _Charles_, commanded by
+Captain Quelch. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern, Boston, in 1704.
+
+
+HUTT, CAPTAIN GEORGE, or HOUT. Buccaneer.
+
+An Englishman who succeeded Captain Townley when the latter was killed
+during a gallant fight with three Spanish galleons in 1686 near Panama.
+
+
+INGRAM, GUNNER WILLIAM.
+
+Was one of Captain Anstis's crew in the _Good Fortune_ when that pirate
+took the _Morning Star_. After the prize had been converted to the
+pirates' use, Ingram was appointed gunner. Later, when Ingram came to be
+tried for piracy, evidence was produced to prove that he had joined the
+pirates of his own free will, and, in fact, had on all occasions been one
+of the forwardest in any action, and altogether "a very resolute hardened
+Fellow." He was hanged.
+
+
+IRELAND, JOHN. Pirate.
+
+"A wicked and ill-disposed person," according to the royal warrant of King
+William III. granted to "our truly and dearly beloved Captain William
+Kidd" to go in the year 1695 to seize this and other pirates who were
+doing great mischief to the ships trading off the coast of North America.
+
+
+IRVINE, CAPTAIN.
+
+One of the last pirates in the Atlantic. Very active in the early part of
+the nineteenth century.
+
+
+JACKMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1665 took part with Morris and Morgan in a very successful raid on
+Central America, ascending the river Tabasco in the province of Campeachy
+with only 107 men. Led by Indians by a detour of 300 miles, they surprised
+and sacked the town of Villa de Mosa. Dampier describes this small town as
+"standing on the starboard side of the river, inhabited chiefly by
+Indians, with some Spaniards." On their return to the mouth of the river,
+Jackman's party found the Spaniards had seized their ship, and some three
+hundred of them attacked the pirates, but the Spaniards were easily beaten
+off.
+
+The freebooters next attacked Rio Garta, and took it with only thirty men,
+crossed the Gulf of Honduras to rest on the Island of Roatan, and then
+proceeded to the Port of Truxillo, which they plundered. They next sailed
+down the Mosquito coast, burning and pillaging as they went.
+
+Anchoring in Monkey Bay, they ascended the San Juan River in canoes one
+hundred miles to Lake Nicaragua. The pirates described the Lake of
+Nicaragua as being a veritable paradise, which, indeed, it must have been
+prior to their visit. Hiding by day amongst the many islands and rowing by
+night, on the fifth night they landed near the city of Granada, just one
+year after Mansfield's visit. The buccaneers marched right into the
+central square of the city without being observed by the Spaniards, who
+were taken completely by surprise, so that the English were soon masters
+of the city, and for sixteen hours they plundered it. Some 1,000 Indians,
+driven to rebellion by the cruelty and oppression of the Spaniards,
+accompanied the marauders and wanted to massacre the prisoners,
+particularly "the religious," but when they understood that the buccaneers
+were not remaining in Granada, they thought better of it, having, no
+doubt, a shrewd inkling of what to expect in the future when their
+rescuers had left.
+
+
+JACKSON, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1642 he gathered together a crew of more than a thousand buccaneers in
+the Islands of St. Kitts and Barbadoes, and sailed with these in three
+ships to the Spanish Main, plundering Maracaibo and Truxillo.
+
+On March 25th, 1643, Jackson's little fleet dropped anchor in the harbour,
+what was afterwards to be known as Kingston, in the Island of Jamaica,
+which was then still in the possession of Spain. Landing 500 of his men,
+he attacked the town of St. Jago de la Vega, which he took after a hard
+fight and with the loss of some forty of his men. For sparing the town
+from fire he received ransom from the Spaniards of 200 beeves, 10,000
+pounds of cassava bread, and 7,000 pieces of eight. The English sailors
+were so delighted by the beauty of the island that in one night
+twenty-three of them deserted to the Spaniards.
+
+
+JACKSON, NATHANIEL.
+
+One of Captain Edward Teach's crew. Killed at North Carolina in 1718.
+
+
+JAMES, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Belonged to Jamaica and Tortuga. In 1663 was in command of a frigate, the
+_American_ (six guns, crew of seventy men).
+
+
+JAMES, CAPTAIN.
+
+A buccaneer captain who was in 1640 temporarily appointed "President" of
+Tortuga Island by the Providence Company, while their regular Governor,
+Captain Flood, was in London, clearing himself of charges preferred
+against him by the planters.
+
+
+JAMES, CAPTAIN.
+
+About 1709 commanded a pirate brigantine off Madagascar. Sailed for some
+time in company with a New York pirate called Ort Van Tyle.
+
+
+JAMES, CHARLES.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew taken in the _Larimore_ galley at Salem.
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+JAMISON, _alias_ MONACRE NICKOLA.
+
+Born at Greenock in Scotland, the son of a rich cloth merchant, he
+received a polite education, spoke several languages, and was described as
+being of gentlemanly deportment.
+
+He served as sailing-master to Captain Jonnia when he took the schooner
+_Exertion_. The captain and crew were eventually saved by Nickola. Years
+afterwards Nickola went to Boston, and lived with Captain Lincoln of the
+_Exertion_, and made a living by fishing for mackerel in the warm season,
+and during the winter by teaching navigation to young gentlemen.
+
+
+JANQUAIS, CAPTAIN.
+
+A French filibuster of San Domingo.
+
+His ship, _La Dauphine_, carried thirty guns and a crew of 180 men.
+
+
+JEFFERYS, BENJAMIN.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+Taken by Roberts in the _Norman_ galley in April, 1721. Roberts allowed
+those of the crew who did not wish to join the pirates to return to the
+_Norman_, but Jefferys had made such friends on the pirate ship that he
+was too drunk to go, and also was abusive in his cups, telling his hosts
+there was not one man amongst them. For this he received six lashes with
+the cat-o'-nine-tails from every member of the crew, "which disordered him
+for some weeks." But Jefferys eventually proved himself a brisk and
+willing lad, and was made bos'on's mate. He was hanged a year later at the
+age of 21.
+
+
+JENNINGS.
+
+A Welshman who in 1613 was settled on the Barbary coast with some thirty
+other British pirates.
+
+
+JENNINGS, CAPTAIN.
+
+This Welsh pirate had been a man of good position, education, and property
+before he took to piracy, which he did for the love of the life and not
+from necessity. He was held in high esteem by his fellow-pirates at their
+stronghold in the Bahamas. When notice was brought of King George's pardon
+in 1717, a meeting was held of all the pirates at which Jennings presided.
+After much discussion, Jennings boldly gave out that he himself meant to
+surrender, whereupon some hundred and fifty other pirates declared their
+intention of doing likewise. On the new Governor's arrival from England
+they received their certificates, though the greater part of them soon
+went back to piracy, or, to quote the expressive Captain Johnson,
+"returned again like the Dog to the Vomit."
+
+
+JOBSON, RICHARD, or COBSON or GOPSON.
+
+His original calling was that of a druggist's assistant in London. He
+combined piracy with the study of divinity. He was one of Dampier's party
+which crossed the Isthmus of Darien in 1681, and was left behind with
+Wafer, who tells us in his book that Gopson "was an ingenious man and a
+good scholar, and had with him a Greek testament which he frequently read
+and would translate extempore into English to such of the company as were
+disposed to hear him."
+
+After great sufferings in the tropical jungle in the wet season, Jobson
+and his friends reached the "North Sea" to find an English buccaneer
+vessel lying at anchor off the shore. On rowing out to the ship the canoe
+upset, and Jobson and his gun were thrown overboard, but the former was
+rescued, though he died a few days later on board the vessel owing to the
+exposure he had been subjected to. He was buried in the sand at Le Sounds
+Cay with full honours--that is, a volley of guns and colours flown at
+half-mast.
+
+
+JOCARD, LE CAPITAINE.
+
+A French filibuster who in 1684 had his headquarters in San Domingo.
+
+He commanded the _Irondelle_, a ship armed with eighteen guns and a crew
+of 120 men.
+
+
+JOHNSON, CAPTAIN. A successful and very bloody pirate.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+Immediately after the publication of peace by Sir Thomas Lynch, Governor
+of Jamaica in 1670, which included a general pardon to all privateers,
+Johnson fled from Port Royal with some ten followers, and shortly after,
+meeting with a Spanish ship of eighteen guns, managed to take her and kill
+the captain and fourteen of the crew. Gradually collecting together a
+party of a hundred or more English and French desperadoes he plundered
+many ships round the Cuban coast. Tiring of his quarrelsome French
+companions he sailed to Jamaica to make terms with the Governor, and
+anchored in Morant Bay, but his ship was blown ashore by a hurricane.
+Johnson was immediately arrested by Governor Lynch, who ordered Colonel
+Modyford to assemble the justices and to proceed to trial and immediate
+execution. Lynch had had bitter experiences of trying pirates, and knew
+that the sooner they were hanged the better. But Modyford, like many other
+Jamaicans, felt a strong sympathy for the pirates, and he managed to get
+Johnson acquitted in spite of the fact that Johnson "confessed enough to
+hang a hundred honester persons." It is interesting to read that half an
+hour after the dismissal of the court Johnson "came to drink with his
+judges." Governor Lynch, now thoroughly roused, took the matter into his
+own hands. He again placed Johnson under arrest, called a meeting of the
+council, from which he dismissed Colonel Modyford, and managed to have the
+former judgment reversed. The pirate was again tried, and in order that no
+mistake might happen, Lynch himself presided over the court. Johnson, as
+before, made a full confession, but was condemned and immediately
+executed, and was, writes Lynch, "as much regretted as if he had been as
+pious and as innocent as one of the primitive martyrs." This second trial
+was absolutely illegal, and Lynch was reproved by the King for his rash
+and high-handed conduct.
+
+
+JOHNSON, CAPTAIN BEN.
+
+When a lad he had served as a midshipman in an East Indiaman, the _Asia_,
+but having been caught red-handed robbing the purser of brandy and wine,
+he was flogged and sent to serve as a sailor before the mast. In 1750,
+while in the Red Sea, he deserted his ship and entered the service of the
+Sultan of Ormus. Finding Johnson to be a clever sailor, the Sultan
+appointed him admiral of his pirate fleet of fourteen vessels. The young
+admiral became a convert to Brahminism, and was ceremoniously blessed by
+the arch-priests of the Temple. Amongst his crew Johnson had some two
+hundred other Englishmen, who also became followers of Brahmin, each of
+whom was allowed, when in port, a dancing girl from the Temple.
+
+Johnson proved a most capable and bloodthirsty pirate, playing havoc with
+the shipping of the Red Sea, taking also several towns on the coast, and
+putting to death his prisoners, often after cruel tortures. His boldest
+exploit was to attack the fortified town of Busrah. This he did, putting
+the Sheik and most of the inhabitants to death, and taking back to his
+master, the Sultan, vast plunder of diamonds, pearls, and gold.
+
+On another occasion Johnson landed his crews on the Island of Omalee, at
+the entrance to the Persian Gulf, a favourite place of pilgrimage, and
+raided the temples of the Indian God Buddha. Putting to death all the two
+thousand priests, he cut off the noses and slit the upper lips of seven
+hundred dancing girls, only sparing a few of the best looking ones, whom
+he carried away with him along with plunder worth half a million rupees.
+
+On their way back to the Red Sea the pirates met with an English East
+Indiaman, which they took and plundered, and Johnson, remembering his
+previous sufferings in the same service, murdered the whole crew.
+
+Shortly afterwards Johnson and ten of his English officers contrived to
+run away from their master, the Sultan, in his best and fastest lateen
+vessel, with an enormous booty. Sailing up to the head of the Persian
+Gulf, Johnson managed to reach Constantinople with his share of the
+plunder, worth £800,000. With this as an introduction, he was hospitably
+received, and was made a bashaw, and at the end of a long life of
+splendour died a natural death.
+
+
+JOHNSON, CAPTAIN HENRY, _alias_ "HENRIQUES THE ENGLISHMAN."
+
+A West Indian pirate, born in the North of Ireland.
+
+Commanded the _Two Brothers_, a Rhode Island-built sloop, eighteen guns,
+crew of ninety, mostly Spaniards. On March 20th, 1730, he took the _John
+and Jane_ (Edward Burt, master), from Jamaica, off Swan Island. The _John
+and Jane_ was armed with eight carriage and ten swivel guns, and a crew of
+only twenty-five men. After a gallant resistance for five hours the
+pirates boarded and took the English ship. The few survivors were stripped
+naked, and preparations made to hang them in pairs. This was prevented by
+Captain Johnson and an English pirate called Echlin. There was a Mrs.
+Groves, a passenger, in the _John and Jane_, whose husband and the English
+surgeon had both been killed at the first onslaught of the pirates. This
+poor lady was hidden in the hold of the ship during the action, and was
+only informed afterwards of the death of her husband. The pirates now
+dragged her on deck, "stript her in a manner naked," and carried her as a
+prize to the Spanish captain, Pedro Poleas, who immediately took her to
+the "great cabin and there with horrible oaths and curses insolently
+assaulted her Chastity." Her loud cries of distress brought Captain
+Johnson into the cabin, who, seeing what was on hand, drew his pistol and
+threatened to blow out the brains of any man who attempted the least
+violence upon her. He next commanded everything belonging to Mrs. Groves
+to be returned to her, which was done--including her clothing. The gallant
+conduct of Johnson is the more surprising and pleasing since he had the
+reputation of being as bloody and ruthless a pirate as ever took a ship or
+cut an innocent throat. He only had one hand, and used to fire his piece
+with great skill, laying the barrel on his stump, and drawing the trigger
+with his right hand.
+
+In all the American "plantations" there were rewards offered for him alive
+or dead.
+
+The end of this "penny-dreadful" pirate is unrecorded, but was probably a
+violent one, as this type of pirate seldom, if ever, died in his bed.
+
+
+JOHNSON, ISAAC.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at
+Boston in 1704.
+
+
+JOHNSON, JACOB.
+
+Taken prisoner by Captain Roberts out of the _King Solomon_, he joined the
+pirates.
+
+
+JOHNSON, JOHN, or JAYNSON.
+
+Born "nigh Lancaster."
+
+Taken out of the _King Solomon_. One of Roberts's crew. Hanged in 1722 at
+the age of 22.
+
+
+JOHNSON, MARCUS.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged in 1722. Stated in his death warrant
+to be a native of Smyrna. Died at the age of 21.
+
+
+JOHNSON, ROBERT.
+
+From Whydah in West Africa.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Captain Roberts's crew, and hanged in
+1722 at the age of 32. At his trial he pleaded that he did not enter with
+the pirates of his own free will, and called witnesses to prove that at
+the time he was captured he was so very drunk that he had to be hoisted
+out of his own ship, the _Jeremiah and Ann_, into the pirate ship in
+tackles.
+
+
+JOHNSTON, THOMAS.
+
+Of Boston.
+
+Known as "the limping privateer." Sailed with Captain Pound. Wounded in
+the jaw in the fight at Tarpaulin Cove. Tried for piracy at Boston, and
+hanged on January 27th, 1690.
+
+
+JONES, CAPTAIN PAUL.
+
+Probably few persons, even in Great Britain, would to-day call Paul Jones
+a pirate, but this was not always the case. In all books on pirates
+written shortly after the American war, Paul Jones figured as a notorious
+character.
+
+This famous privateer, let us call him, was born at Kirkcudbright in
+Scotland in 1728, the son of Mr. Paul, head gardener to Lord Selkirk, and
+was christened John Paul. So much has been written about this man in
+books, easily procurable for reference, that little need be said about him
+here.
+
+Starting life as a sailor before the mast, he quickly showed abilities
+which led to his promotion to the rank of mate in an English ship trading
+in the West India Islands, and later he was made master. On the
+declaration of war with America, Jones joined the rebels, and was given
+command of a privateer, and from 1777 he became a terror to English
+shipping around the British Isles.
+
+One of his most startling exploits was his surprise visit in his ship, the
+_Ranger_, to his old home with the object of kidnapping his former
+employer, Lord Selkirk.
+
+On September 23rd, 1779, he fought his famous action off Scarborough
+against a British convoy from the Baltic under the command of Captain
+Pearson, in the _Serapis_, and Captain Piercy in the _Countess of
+Scarborough_. Jones had left the _Ranger_ for a frigate called the _Bonne
+Homme Richard_ of forty guns and a crew of three hundred and seventy men,
+and had also under his command four other ships of war. A furious
+engagement took place, the utmost bravery being shown on either side; the
+English ships at last being compelled to surrender, but not until the
+enemy had themselves suffered fearful damage to both their crews and
+ships. After the conclusion of peace, Paul Jones, once the darling of two
+continents, faded into obscurity and even poverty, and died in Paris in
+the year 1792 at the age of 64.
+
+
+JONES. SEAMAN.
+
+A mariner. "A brisk young fellow" who served with Captain Bartholomew
+Roberts's crew. On one occasion Captain Roberts had reason to think that
+one of his men had spoken disrespectfully to him, so, as a warning to the
+rest, he killed him. The dead man's greatest friend was Jones, who,
+hearing what had happened, had a fierce fight with Roberts. This severe
+breach of discipline was punished by Jones receiving two lashes on the
+back from every man on board. Jones after this sailed with Captain Anstis
+in the _Good Fortune_.
+
+
+JONES, THOMAS.
+
+Found to be "not guilty" at a trial for piracy at Newport, Rhode Island,
+in 1723. One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Age 17.
+
+
+JONES, WILLIAM.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston, 1704.
+
+
+JONES, WILLIAM.
+
+Of London.
+
+Age 28. Hanged at Rhode Island, 1723.
+
+
+JONNIA, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Spaniard.
+
+Commanded in 1821 a fast schooner, carrying a crew of forty men, armed
+with muskets, cutlasses, blunderbusses, long knives, dirks, two
+carronades--one a twelve, the other a six-pounder. They had aboard with
+them three Mexican negresses. The pirates took and plundered the Boston
+schooner _Exertion_, on December 17th, 1821, the crew being considerably
+drunk at the time. The plunder they took to Principe in the Island of
+Cuba. The pirates took everything from their prisoners, even their
+clothes, but as a parting gift sent the captain a copy of the "Family
+Prayer Book" by the Rev. Mr. Brooks. The prisoners were marooned on a
+small mangrove quay, but they eventually escaped. Jonnia and some of his
+crew were afterwards captured by an English ship and taken to Kingston,
+Jamaica, and there hanged.
+
+
+JOSE, MIGUEL.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February, 1823. This old man's last words
+on the scaffold were: "No he robado, no he matado ningune, muero
+innocente."
+
+
+JUDSON, RANDALL.
+
+One of Captain Roderigo's crew. Tried for piracy at Cambridge,
+Massachusetts, in June, 1675, and sentenced to be hanged; "presently after
+the lecture," which was delivered by the Rev. Increase Mather. Afterwards
+pardoned, but fined and banished from the colony.
+
+
+KELLWANTON.
+
+A notorious pirate in the sixteenth century. Was captured in the Isle of
+Man in 1531.
+
+
+KENNEDY, CAPTAIN.
+
+Began life as a pickpocket and housebreaker in London. He was Captain
+Roberts's lieutenant, and was afterwards given command of a prize, the
+_Rover_.
+
+Kennedy could never, even when a captain, forget his old trade. It is
+recorded that he stole a black suit of clothes from the captain of the
+_Bird_ at Sierra Leone in 1718. These he put on with the captain's best
+wig and sword. He then swaggered about on board in these till his
+fellow-pirates drenched him with buckets of claret, so that he had to
+disrobe and throw the garments overboard.
+
+Owing to a quarrel with Captain Roberts, Kennedy went off in his ship, the
+_Rover_, and sailed to Barbadoes. His first prize, a Boston ship, was a
+distinct novelty, being commanded by one Captain Knot, a Quaker, who lived
+up to the principles of his sect by allowing no pistol, sword, or cutlass,
+or other weapon aboard his vessel. The crew, finding Kennedy had no
+knowledge whatever of navigation, threatened to throw him overboard, but
+because he was a man of great personal courage they did not in the end
+carry out their threat. The crew next decided to give over piracy and to
+set sail for Ireland. This island they altogether missed through bad
+navigation, and they ran the ship ashore on the north of Scotland. The
+crew landed and passed themselves off as shipwrecked mariners, but owing
+to their drinking and rioting in each village they came to, the whole
+countryside was soon roused. Kennedy slipped away and reached Ireland.
+Having soon spent all his ill-gotten gains in Dublin, he came to Deptford
+and set up a house of ill-fame, adding occasionally to his income from
+this source by a little highwaymanry. One of the ladies of his house at
+Deptford, to be revenged for some slight or other, gave information to the
+watch, and Kennedy was imprisoned at Marshalsea and afterwards tried for
+robbery and piracy. Kennedy turned King's evidence against some of his old
+associates, but this did not save his neck, for he was condemned and
+hanged at Execution Dock.
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN. Corsair.
+
+Brother of the famous Barbarossa. When the latter was defeated and killed
+by the Spaniards, Kheyr-ed-din sent an ambassador to Constantinople,
+begging for help to protect Algiers. He was appointed Governor of Algiers
+by the Sultan of Turkey in 1519. Now greatly increased both in ships and
+power, he scoured the whole Mediterranean for Italian and Spanish prizes.
+He raided the Spanish coast and carried off slaves from the Balearic
+Islands. He next took and destroyed the fortress of Algiers, and employed
+7,000 Christian slaves to build a new one and also a great mole to protect
+the harbour. Invited by Solyman the Magnificent to help him against the
+Christian Admiral Andria Doria, in August, 1533, he sailed from Algiers
+with his fleet, being joined on the way by another noted corsair,
+Delizuff.
+
+A year afterwards, at the age of 73, Kheyr-ed-din set out from
+Constantinople with a vast fleet, sacking towns and burning all Christian
+ships that were so unfortunate as to fall in his way. He returned to the
+Bosphorus with huge spoil and 11,000 prisoners. He sacked Sardinia, then
+sailed to Tunis, which he vanquished.
+
+Charles V. of Spain now began to collect a large fleet and an army of
+25,000 men and sailed to Tunis. A fierce fight followed; the Christians
+broke into the town, massacred the inhabitants and rescued some 20,000
+Christian slaves. Kheyr-ed-din escaped with a few followers, but soon was
+in command of a fleet of pirate galleys once more. A terrific but
+undecisive naval battle took place off Prevesa between the Mohammedans and
+the Christians, the fleet of the latter being under the command of Andrea
+Doria; and Kheyr-ed-din died shortly afterwards at Constantinople at a
+great age.
+
+
+KIDD, CAPTAIN WILLIAM, sometimes ROBERT KIDD or KID.
+
+In the whole history of piracy there is no name that has so taken the
+world's fancy than has that of William Kidd. And yet, if he be judged by
+his actions as a pirate, he must be placed amongst the second- or even
+third-rate masters of that craft. He took but two or three ships, and
+these have been, after two hundred years, proved to be lawful prizes taken
+in his legal capacity as a privateer.
+
+Kidd was born at Greenock in Scotland about the year 1655, and was the son
+of the Rev. John Kidd. Of his early life little record is left, but we
+know that in August, 1689, he arrived at St. Nevis in the West Indies, in
+command of a privateer of sixteen guns. In 1691, while Kidd was on shore,
+his crew ran away with his ship, which was not surprising, as most of his
+crew were old pirates. But that Kidd was an efficient seaman and a capable
+captain is shown by the number of times he was given the command of
+different privateer vessels, both by the Government of New York and by
+privateer owners.
+
+In 1695 Kidd was in London, and on October 10th signed the articles which
+were to prove so fatal for him. In January, 1696, King William III. issued
+to his "beloved friend William Kidd" a commission to apprehend certain
+pirates, particularly Thomas Tew, of Rhode Island, Thomas Wake, and
+William Maze, of New York, John Ireland, and "all other Pirates,
+Free-booters, and Sea Rovers of what Nature soever."
+
+This privateer enterprise was financed chiefly by Lord Bellomont, but the
+other adventurers (on shore and in safety) were the Lord Chancellor; the
+Earl of Orford, the First Lord of the Admiralty; the Earl of Romney and
+the Duke of Shrewsbury, Secretaries of State; Robert Livingston, Esq., of
+New York; and lastly, Captain Kidd himself.
+
+The ship the _Adventure_ galley was bought and fitted up, and Kidd sailed
+away in her to suppress piracy, particularly on the coast of America.
+Nothing was heard of him till August, 1698, when ugly rumours began to get
+about of piracies committed by Kidd in the Indian Ocean. In December of
+the same year a general pardon was offered to all pirates who should
+surrender themselves, with two exceptions--namely, Captain Avery and
+Captain Kidd. In May, 1699, Kidd suddenly appeared in a small vessel at
+New York, with rich booty. His chief patron, Lord Bellomont, was now
+Governor, and was placed in the most awkward position of having to carry
+out his orders and arrest Kidd for piracy and send him in chains to
+England in H.M.S. _Advice_, which ship had been sent specially to New York
+to carry back Kidd, Bradish, and other pirates to England.
+
+The trial of Kidd proved a scandal, for someone had to suffer as scapegoat
+for the aristocratic company privateers, and the lot fell to the luckless
+Kidd. Kidd was charged with piracy and with murder. The first charge of
+seizing two ships of the Great Mogul could have been met by the production
+of two documents which Kidd had taken out of these ships, and which, he
+claimed, proved that the ships were sailing under commissions issued by
+the French East India Company, and made them perfectly lawful prizes.
+These commissions Kidd had most foolishly handed over to Lord Bellomont,
+and they could not be produced at the trial, although they had been
+exhibited before the House of Commons a little while previously.
+
+It is an extraordinary and tragic fact that these two documents, so vital
+to Kidd, were discovered only lately in the Public Records Office--too
+late, by some 200 years, to save an innocent man's life.
+
+As it happened, the charge of which Kidd was hanged for was murder, and
+ran thus: "Being moved and seduced by the instigations of the Devil he did
+make an assault in and upon William Moore upon the high seas with a
+certain wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops, of the value of eight pence,
+giving the said William Moore one mortal bruise of which the aforesaid
+William Moore did languish and die." This aforesaid William Moore was
+gunner in the _Adventure_ galley, and was mutinous, and Kidd, as captain,
+was perfectly justified in knocking him down and even of killing him; but
+as the court meant Kidd to "swing," this was quite good enough for finding
+him guilty. The unfortunate prisoner was executed at Wapping on May 23rd,
+1701, and his body afterwards hanged in chains at Tilbury.
+
+[Illustration: A PIRATE BEING HANGED AT EXECUTION DOCK, WAPPING.
+
+To face p. 182.]
+
+A popular ballad was sung to commemorate the life and death of Kidd, who,
+for some reason, was always called Robert Kidd by the populace. It
+consists of no less than twenty-four verses, and we here give fifteen of
+them:
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF CAPTAIN KIDD
+
+    My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+        My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed,
+            My name was Robert Kidd,
+            God's laws I did forbid,
+    And so wickedly I did, when I sailed.
+
+    My parents taught me well, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+        My parents taught me well, when I sailed,
+            My parents taught me well,
+            To shun the gates of hell,
+    But 'gainst them I rebelled, when I sailed.
+
+    I'd a Bible in my hand, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+        I'd a Bible in my hand, when I sailed,
+            I'd a Bible in my hand,
+            By my father's great command,
+    And sunk it in the sand, when I sailed.
+
+    I murdered William Moore, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        I murdered William Moore, as I sailed,
+            I murdered William Moore,
+            And laid him in his gore,
+    Not many leagues from shore, as I sailed.
+
+    I was sick and nigh to death, when I sailed, when I sailed,
+        I was sick and nigh to death, when I sailed,
+            I was sick and nigh to death,
+            And I vowed at every breath,
+    To walk in wisdom's ways, as I sailed.
+
+    I thought I was undone, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        I thought I was undone, as I sailed,
+            I thought I was undone,
+            And my wicked glass had run,
+    But health did soon return, as I sailed.
+
+    My repentance lasted not, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        My repentance lasted not, as I sailed,
+            My repentance lasted not,
+            My vows I soon forgot,
+    Damnation was my lot, as I sailed.
+
+    I spyed the ships from France, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        I spyed the ships of France, as I sailed,
+            I spyed the ships from France,
+            To them I did advance,
+    And took them all by chance, as I sailed.
+
+    I spyed the ships of Spain, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        I spyed the ships of Spain, as I sailed,
+            I spyed the ships of Spain,
+            I fired on them amain,
+    'Till most of them was slain, as I sailed.
+
+    I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed, as I sailed,
+        I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed,
+            I'd ninety bars of gold,
+            And dollars manifold,
+    With riches uncontrolled, as I sailed.
+
+    Thus being o'er-taken at last, I must die, I must die,
+        Thus being o'er-taken at last, I must die,
+            Thus being o'er-taken at last,
+            And into prison cast,
+    And sentence being passed, I must die.
+
+    Farewell, the raging main, I must die, I must die,
+        Farewell, the raging main, I must die,
+            Farewell, the raging main,
+            To Turkey, France and Spain,
+    I shall n'er see you again, I must die.
+
+    To Execution Dock I must go, I must go,
+        To Execution Dock I must go,
+            To Execution Dock,
+            Will many thousands flock,
+    But I must bear the shock, and must die.
+
+    Come all ye young and old, see me die, see me die,
+        Come all ye young and old, see me die,
+            Come all ye young and old,
+            You're welcome to my gold,
+    For by it I've lost my soul, and must die.
+
+    Take warning now by me, for I must die, for I must die,
+        Take warning now by me, for I must die,
+            Take warning now by me,
+            And shun bad company,
+    Lest you come to hell with me, for I die.
+
+
+KILLING, JAMES.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew, who gave evidence against him at his
+trial at Charleston in 1718.
+
+
+KING, CHARLES.
+
+Attempted to escape in the _Larimore_ galley, but was captured and brought
+into Salem. Tried at Boston with the rest of Quelch's crew in June, 1704.
+
+
+KING, FRANCIS.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew captured in the _Larimore_ galley by Major
+Sewall, and brought into Salem Harbour on June 11th, 1704. Tried at Boston
+and condemned to be hanged. Was reprieved while standing on the gallows.
+
+
+KING, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew taken out of the _Larimore_ galley. Tried at
+Boston in June, 1704.
+
+
+KING, MATTHEW.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Was hanged at Charleston, South
+Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+KNEEVES, PETER.
+
+Of Exeter in Devon.
+
+Sailed with Captain Charles Harris, and was tried for piracy with the rest
+of his crew at Rhode Island in 1723. Hanged at Newport at the age of 32.
+
+
+KNIGHT, CAPTAIN W. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1686 Knight was cruising off the coast of Peru and Chile with Swan,
+Townley, and Davis. At the end of that year, having got a fair quantity of
+plunder, he sailed round the Horn to the West Indies.
+
+
+KNIGHT, CHRISTOPHER.
+
+One of Captain Coward's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in January, 1690,
+and found guilty, but afterwards reprieved.
+
+
+KNOT, CAPTAIN.
+
+An old Massachusetts pirate who retired from the sea and was settled in
+Boston in 1699. His wife gave information to the Governor, the Earl of
+Bellomont, of the whereabouts of a pirate called Gillam, who was "wanted."
+
+
+KOXINGA. His real name was Kuo-hsing Yeh, Koxinga being the Portuguese
+version.
+
+The son of a Chinese pirate, Cheng Chih-lung, by a Japanese mother, he was
+born in 1623.
+
+From early youth Koxinga was inspired with a hatred of the Manchus, who
+had imprisoned his father.
+
+The young pirate soon became so successful in his raids along the coast of
+China that the Emperor resorted to the extraordinary expedient of ordering
+the inhabitants of more than eighty seaboard towns to migrate ten miles
+inland, after destroying their homes.
+
+There can be no doubt that Koxinga was a thorough-going cut-throat pirate,
+worked solely for his own ambitious ends and to satisfy his revengeful
+feelings, but the fact that he fought against the alien conquerors, the
+Dutch in Formosa, and defeated them, caused him to be regarded as a hero
+pirate.
+
+His father was executed at Peking, which only increased his bitterness
+against the reigning house. Koxinga made himself what was, to all intents
+and purposes, the ruler of Formosa, and the island became, through him,
+part of the Chinese Empire.
+
+After his death, which took place in 1662, he received official
+canonization.
+
+The direct descendant of Koxinga, the pirate, is one of the very few
+hereditary nobles in China.
+
+
+LACY, ABRAHAM.
+
+Of Devonshire.
+
+Hanged at the age of 21 at Rhode Island in 1723.
+
+
+DU LAERQUERAC, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+This Breton pirate was captured in 1537 by a Bristol seaman called John
+Wynter. Du Laerquerac, with other pirates from Brittany, had been holding
+up ships on their way to the great fair of St. James at Bristol. On being
+arrested, he denied that he had "spoiled" any English ships, but on being
+further pressed to confess, admitted that he had taken a few odds and
+ends, such as ropes, sailors' clothes, some wine, fish, a gold crown in
+money and eleven silver halfpence, as well as four daggers and a
+"couverture."
+
+
+LAFITTE, CAPTAIN JEAN.
+
+Jean and his brother first appeared in New Orleans in the year 1809.
+Though blacksmiths by profession, they soon took to smuggling goods
+brought by privateersmen and pirates. The headquarters of this trade was
+on the Island of Grande Terre in Barataria Bay. This island was inhabited
+and governed by ex-pirates; one Grambo being the acknowledged chief, until
+he was shot by Jean Lafitte.
+
+In 1813, the Baratarians were denounced by the Governor of Louisiana as
+pirates. This made no difference to the pirate smugglers, who grew more
+and more rich and insolent. The Governor then secured an indictment
+against Jean and his brother, Pierre, who retained the very best and most
+expensive lawyers in the State to defend them, and they were acquitted. In
+1814, war was declared with England, and Jean was invited by the English
+to fight on their side, with the offer of a commission in the navy and a
+large sum of money. He refused this, and eventually General Jackson
+accepted his offer of the services of himself and his Baratarians, who
+proved invaluable in the Battle of Orleans, serving the guns. He
+disappeared completely after the war until 1823, when a British sloop of
+war captured a pirate ship with a crew of sixty men under the command of
+the famous Lafitte, who was amongst those who fell fighting.
+
+
+LAGARDE, LE CAPITAINE.
+
+A French filibuster of San Domingo, who in 1684 commanded a small ship,
+_La Subtille_ (crew of thirty men and two guns).
+
+
+LAMBERT, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Hanged on Charles River, Boston Side,
+on Friday, June 30th, 1704. In a broadside published at Boston in July of
+the same year, Lambert's conduct on the gallows is described thus: "He
+appeared much hardened and pleaded much on his Innocency. He desired all
+men to beware of Bad Company and seemed to be in great Agony near his
+Execution."
+
+
+LANDER, DANIEL.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew.
+
+
+LANDRESSON, CAPTAIN MICHEL, _alias_ BREHA.
+
+Filibuster.
+
+Accompanied Pain in his expedition against St. Augustine in 1683. He was a
+constant source of annoyance to the Jamaicans. His ship was called _La
+Trompeuse_, but must not be confused with the famous ship of that name
+belonging to Hamlin. Landresson, when he had got a good booty of gold,
+jewels, cocoa, etc., would go to Boston to dispose of it to the godly
+merchants of New England. In 1684 a Royal proclamation was published in
+Massachusetts, warning all Governors that no succour or aid was to be
+given to any of the outlaws, but, in spite of this, Landresson was
+received with open arms and the proclamations in the streets torn down.
+
+In 1684 he was at San Domingo, in command of _La Fortune_ (crew of 100
+men and fourteen guns). At this time the filibuster was disguised under
+the _alias_ of Le Capitaine Breha.
+
+Captured in 1686 by the Armada de Barlorento, and hanged with several of
+his companions.
+
+
+LANE, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1720 Lane was one of Captain England's crew when he took the _Mercury_
+off the coast of West Africa. The _Mercury_ was fitted up as a pirate
+ship, named the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and Lane was voted captain of her.
+Lane left Captain England and sailed to Brazil, where he took several
+Portuguese ships and did a great deal of mischief.
+
+
+LARIMORE, CAPTAIN THOMAS, or LARRAMORE.
+
+Commanded the _Larimore_ galley. In 1704 was with the pirate Quelch and
+several other pirates, and, among other prizes, seized a Portuguese ship,
+the _Portugal_, from which they took gold dust, bar and coined gold, and
+other treasure, and at the same time "acted divers villainous Murders."
+For these Larimore was tried, condemned and hanged at Boston, June 11th,
+1704.
+
+
+LAWRENCE, NICHOLAS.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Quelch's crew at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+LAWRENCE, RICHARD.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+LAWSON, EDWARD.
+
+Born in the Isle of Man.
+
+One of Captain Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in July,
+1723, at the age of 20.
+
+
+L'ESCAYER. A French filibuster.
+
+In 1685, in company with Grogniet, Davis, and Swan, sacked Paita and
+Guayaquil and blockaded Panama. Afterwards sailed with Townley and his
+English pirates and again plundered Guayaquil. Suffered a severe defeat at
+the hands of the Spaniards at Quibo, afterwards being rescued by Townley,
+with whom he and his crew of buccaneers sacked Granada in Nicaragua.
+
+
+LESSONE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+In 1680 he joined Sharp, Coxon, and other English buccaneers in an attack
+on Porto Bello. Putting 300 men into canoes, they landed some sixty miles
+from the city and marched for four days, arriving in a weak state through
+hardship and lack of food, but in spite of this they took the city on
+February 17th, 1680.
+
+
+LEVERCOTT, SAM.
+
+Hanged in 1722 at the Island of St. Kitts, with the rest of Captain
+Lowther's crew.
+
+
+LEVIT, JOHN.
+
+Of North Carolina.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
+Carolina, on November 8th, 1723.
+
+
+LEWIS, JAMES.
+
+After being a prisoner in France, he managed to reach Spain, and was with
+Avery when he seized the ship _Charles the Second_. Tried for piracy at
+the Old Bailey in 1696 and hanged.
+
+
+LEWIS, NICHOLAS.
+
+One of Captain George Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th,
+1722.
+
+
+LEWIS, WILLIAM.
+
+The greatest triumph and most important exploit of this pirate was the
+attacking, and eventually taking, of a powerful French ship of twenty-four
+guns.
+
+Lewis enjoyed a longer career than most of the brethren, and by 1717 he
+was already one of the leading piratical lights of Nassau, and his end did
+not come till ten years later. In 1726, he spent several months on the
+coast of South Carolina and Virginia, trading with the inhabitants the
+spoils he had taken from vessels in the Atlantic. He learnt his trade
+under the daring pirate Bannister, who was brought into Port Royal,
+hanging dead from his own yard-arm. On this occasion, Lewis and another
+boy were triced up to the corvette's mizzen-peak like "two living flags."
+
+Lewis, amongst other accomplishments, was a born linguist, and could speak
+with fluency in several languages, even the dialect of the Mosquito
+Indians. He was once captured by the Spaniards, and taken to Havana, but
+escaped with a few other prisoners in a canoe, seized a piragua, and with
+this captured a sloop employed in the turtle trade, and by gradually
+taking larger and larger prizes, Lewis soon found himself master of a fine
+ship and a crew of more than fifty men. He renamed her the _Morning Star_,
+and made her his flagship.
+
+On one occasion when chasing a vessel off the Carolina coast, his fore and
+main topmasts were carried away. Lewis, in a frenzy of excitement,
+clambered up the main top, tore out a handful of his hair, which he tossed
+into the wind, crying: "Good devil, take this till I come." The ship, in
+spite of her damaged rigging, gained on the other ship, which they took.
+Lewis's sailors, superstitious at the best of times, considered this
+intimacy of their captain with Satan a little too much, and soon
+afterwards one of the Frenchmen aboard murdered Lewis in his sleep.
+
+
+LEYTON, FRANCIS.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode
+Island, on July 19th, 1723. Age 39.
+
+
+LIMA, MANUEL.
+
+Taken by H.M. sloop _Tyne_, and hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February,
+1823.
+
+
+LINCH, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of Port Royal, Jamaica.
+
+In 1680 Lionel Wafer, tiring of the life of a civil surgeon at Port Royal,
+left Jamaica to go on a voyage with Captains Linch and Cook to the Spanish
+Main.
+
+
+LING, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+A notorious pirate of New Providence. Captured and hanged shortly after
+accepting King George's pardon of 1718.
+
+
+LINISLER, THOMAS.
+
+Of Lancashire.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Rhode Island in 1723 at
+the age of 21.
+
+
+LITHGOW, CAPTAIN.
+
+Famous in his day for his activities in the West Indies, this pirate had
+his headquarters at New Providence in the Bahamas.
+
+
+LIVER, WILLIAM, _alias_ EVIS.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged for piracy at Charleston, South
+Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+LO, MRS. HON-CHO.
+
+This Chinese woman pirate was the widow of another noted pirate who was
+killed in 1921. She took command after the death of her husband, and soon
+became a terror to the countryside about Pakhoi, carrying on the work in
+the best traditions of the craft, being the Admiral of some sixty
+ocean-going junks. Although both young and pretty, she won a reputation
+for being a thorough-going murderess and pirate.
+
+During the late revolution, Mrs. Lo joined General Wong Min-Tong's forces,
+and received the rank of full Colonel. After the war, she resumed her
+piracies, occasionally for the sake of variety, surprising and sacking a
+village or two, and from these she usually carried away some fifty or
+sixty girls to sell as slaves.
+
+Her career ended quite suddenly in October, 1922.
+
+
+LODGE, THOMAS. Poet, buccaneer, and physician.
+
+Born about 1557, he was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, grocer, and Lord
+Mayor of London in 1563. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and
+Trinity College, Oxford. The poet engaged in more than one freebooting
+expedition to Spanish waters between 1584 and 1590, and he tells us that
+he accompanied Captain Clarke in an attack on the Azores and the Canaries.
+"Having," he tells his friend Lord Hunsdon, "with Captain Clarke made a
+voyage to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time
+with labour, I writ this book, rough, as hatched in the storms of the
+ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas." On August 26th,
+1591, Lodge sailed from Plymouth with Sir Thomas Cavendish in the
+_Desire_, a galleon of 140 tons. The freebooters sailed to Brazil and
+attacked the town of Santa, while the people were at Mass. They remained
+there from December 15th until January 22nd, 1592. Some of the Englishmen,
+of whom Lodge was one, took up their quarters in the College of the
+Jesuits, and this literary buccaneer spent his time amongst the books in
+the library of the Fathers.
+
+Leaving Brazil, the small fleet sailed south to the Straits of Magellan.
+While storm-bound amongst the icy cliffs of Patagonia, Lodge wrote his
+Arcadian romance "Margarite of America."
+
+From the point of view of plunder, this expedition was a dismal failure,
+and the _Desire_ returned and reached the coast of Ireland on June 11th,
+1593. The crew had been reduced to sixteen, and of these only five were
+even in tolerable health.
+
+At the age of 40, Lodge deserted literature and studied medicine, taking
+his degree of Doctor of Physics at Avignon in 1600. His last original work
+was a "Treatise on the Plague," published in 1603. After practising
+medicine with great success for many years, Thomas Lodge died, it is said,
+of the plague, in the year 1625, at the age of 68.
+
+
+LONG, ZACHARIAH.
+
+Of the Province of Holland.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, in
+1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water mark.
+
+
+LOPEZ, JOHN.
+
+Of Oporto.
+
+This Portuguese pirate sailed in the _Royal James_, and was hanged with
+the rest of the crew at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th,
+1718.
+
+
+LORD, JOHN.
+
+A soldier. Deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Killed at Tarpaulin
+Cove in 1689.
+
+
+LOW, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or LOE.
+
+Born in Westminster, he began in very early life to plunder the boys of
+their farthings, and as he grew bigger used to gamble with the footmen who
+waited in the lobby of the House of Commons. While still quite small one
+of his elder brothers used to carry little Edward hidden in a basket on
+his back, and when in a crowd the future pirate would, from above, snatch
+the hats and even the wigs off the heads of passing citizens and secret
+them in the basket and so get away with them. The Low family were the
+originators of this ingenious and fascinating trick, and for a time it was
+most successful, until the people of the city took to tying on their hats
+and wigs with bands to prevent their sudden removal. When he grew up, Ned
+went to Boston and earned an honest living as a rigger, but after a while
+he tired of this and sailed in a sloop to Honduras to steal log-wood. Here
+Low quarrelled with his captain, tried to shoot him, and then went off in
+an open boat with twelve other men, and the very next day they took a
+small vessel, in which they began their "war against all the world." Low
+soon happened to meet with Captain Lowther, the pirate, and the two agreed
+to sail in company. This partnership lasted until May 28th, 1722, when
+they took a prize, a brigantine from Boston, which Low went into with a
+crew of forty-four men. This vessel they armed with two guns, four
+swivels, and six quarter-casks of powder, and saying good-bye to Lowther,
+sailed off on their own account. A week later a prize fell into their
+hands, which was the first of several. Things soon became too hot for Low
+along the American coast and the West Indies, as several men-of-war were
+searching for him; so he sailed to the Azores, taking on his way a big
+French ship of thirty-four guns, and later, in the harbour of St. Michael,
+he seized several vessels which he found at anchor there. Here they burnt
+the French ship, but let the crew all go, except the cook, who, they said,
+"being a greasy fellow would fry well in the fire, so the poor man was
+bound to the main mast and burnt in the ship to the no small derision of
+Low and his Mirmidons."
+
+Low and his crew now began to treat their prisoners with great brutality.
+However, on one occasion the biter was bitten. It happened that one of the
+drunken crew, playfully cutting at a prisoner, missed his mark and
+accidentally slashed Captain Low across his lower jaw, the sword opening
+his cheek and laying bare his teeth. The surgeon was called, who at once
+stitched up the wound, but Low found some fault with the operation, as
+well he might, seeing that "the surgeon was tollerably drunk" at the time.
+The surgeon's professional pride was outraged by this criticism of his
+skill by a layman, and he showed his annoyance in a ready, if
+unprofessional, manner, by striking "Low such a blow with his Fists, that
+broke out all the Stitches, and then bid him sew up his Chops himself and
+be damned, so that the captain made a very pitiful Figure for some time
+after." Low took a large number of prizes, but he was not a sympathetic
+figure, and the list of his prizes and brutalities soon becomes irksome
+reading. Low, still in the _Fancy_, and accompanied by Captain Harris in
+the _Ranger_, then sailed back to the West Indies, and later to South
+Carolina, where he took several prizes, one the _Amsterdam Merchant_
+(Captain Willard), belonging to New England, and as Low never missed an
+opportunity of showing his dislike of all New Englanders, he sent the
+captain away with both his ears cut off and with various other wounds
+about his body.
+
+Low and Harris now made a most unfortunate mistake in giving chase to a
+ship which on close quarters proved to be not a merchant vessel, but
+H.M.S. _Greyhound_. After a short fight, the coward Low slipped away, and
+left his consort, Harris, to carry on an unequal contest until he was
+compelled to surrender his ship.
+
+Low's cruelties became more and more disgusting, and there can be little
+doubt that he was really by this time a lunatic.
+
+In July, 1723, Low took a new ship for himself, naming himself Admiral,
+and sporting a new black flag with a red skeleton upon it. He again
+cruised off the Azores, the Canaries, and the Guinea coast, but what the
+end was of this repulsive, uninteresting, and bloody pirate has never been
+known.
+
+
+LOWTHER, CAPTAIN GEORGE.
+
+Sailed as second mate from the Thames in the _Gambia Castle_, a ship
+belonging to the African Company, sixteen guns and a crew of thirty men.
+On board as passengers were Captain Massey and a number of soldiers.
+Arriving at their destination, Massey quarrelled with the merchants on
+shore, and, a few days later, with Lowther, seized the ship, which he
+renamed the _Delivery_. They now went a-pirating, their first prize being
+a Boston ship, and cruising about off the Island of Hispaniola, several
+more were taken, but nothing very rich. Lowther quarrelled with Captain
+Massey, who, being a soldier, wished to land on some island to plunder the
+French settlements, but this was not agreed to, and Massey and his
+followers were sent away in a sloop. Life for Lowther now became a series
+of successes, prizes being taken, and visits to land being occasionally
+made for the crew to enjoy a drunken revel.
+
+Having met with Captain Low, for a while the two sailed together, and
+took the _Greyhound_, a merchantman, and several more rich prizes. Lowther
+now commanded a small pirate fleet, and styled himself Admiral, his
+flagship being the _Happy Delivery_. While careening their ships in the
+Gulf of Matigue, they were suddenly attacked by the natives, and the
+pirates barely escaped in a sloop with their lives. Lowther soon improved
+himself by seizing a brigantine, and in her shaped his course to the coast
+of South Carolina, a favourite resort for the pirates. Here he attacked an
+English ship, but was so roughly handled that he was glad to run his ship
+ashore and escape.
+
+In 1723 he steered for Newfoundland, taking many small vessels there, and
+returning to the West Indies. While cleaning his ship at the Isle of
+Blanco, he was suddenly attacked by a South Sea Company's ship, the
+_Eagle_, and the pirates were compelled to surrender. Lowther and a dozen
+of his crew escaped by climbing out of the cabin window, and, reaching the
+island, hid themselves in the woods. All were caught except Lowther and
+three men and a boy. He was shortly afterwards found lying dead with a
+pistol by his side, and was supposed to have shot himself. Three of his
+crew who were caught were carried to St. Christopher's, and there tried
+for piracy and hanged.
+
+
+LUDBURY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Sailed in company with Captains Prince and Harrison in October, 1670,
+ascended the San Juan River in Nicaragua with a party of 170 men, and
+surprised and plundered the city of Granada.
+
+
+LUKE, CAPTAIN MATTHEW.
+
+This Italian pirate had his headquarters at Porto Rico, and specialized in
+attacking English ships. In 1718 he took four of these and murdered all
+the crews. In May, 1722, Luke made a terrible mistake. Perceiving what he
+thought to be a merchant ship, he attacked her, to find out all too late
+that she was an English man-of-war, the _Lauceston_. Luke and his crew
+were taken to Jamaica and hanged. One of his crew confessed to having
+killed twenty English sailors with his own hands.
+
+
+LUSHINGHAM, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1564 this pirate was at Berehaven in the South of Ireland, having just
+sold a cargo of wine out of a Spanish prize to the Lord O'Sullivan, when
+some of Queen Elizabeth's ships arrived in the bay in search of pirates.
+By Lord O'Sullivan's help the pirates escaped, but Lushingham was killed
+"by a piece of ordnance" as he was in the act of waving his cap towards
+the Queen's ships.
+
+
+LUSSAN, LE SIEUR RAVENEAU DE.
+
+This French filibuster was a man of much better birth and education than
+the usual buccaneer. Also, he was the author of a most entertaining book
+recording his adventures and exploits as a buccaneer, called "Journal du
+Voyage fait a la Mer de sud avec les Flibustiers de l'Amerique en 1684."
+
+Pressure from his creditors drove de Lussan into buccaneering, as being a
+rapid method of gaining enough money to satisfy them and to enable him to
+return to the fashionable life he loved so well in Paris. De Lussan was,
+according to his own account, a man of the highest principles, and very
+religious. He never allowed his crew to molest priests, nuns, or churches.
+After taking a Spanish town, the fighting being over, he would lead his
+crew of pirates to attend Mass in the church, and when this was done--and
+not until then--would he allow the plundering and looting to begin.
+
+De Lussan was surprised and grieved to find that his Spanish prisoners had
+a most exaggerated idea of the brutality of the buccaneers, and on one
+occasion when he was conducting a fair young Spanish lady, a prisoner, to
+a place of safety, he was overwhelmed when he discovered that the reason
+of her terror was that she believed she was shortly to be eaten by him and
+his crew. To remedy this erroneous impression, it was the custom of the
+French commander to gather together all his prisoners into the church or
+the plaza, and there to give them a lecture on the true life and character
+of the buccaneers.
+
+The student who wishes to learn more about the adventures of de Lussan can
+do so in his book. There he will read, amongst other interesting events,
+particulars about the filibuster's surprising and romantic affair with the
+beautiful and wealthy Spanish widow who fell so violently in love with
+him.
+
+It happened on one occasion that Raveneau and his crew, having taken a
+town on the West Coast of South America after a somewhat bloody battle,
+had, as usual, attended Mass in the Cathedral, before setting out to
+plunder the place.
+
+Entering one of the chief houses in the town, de Lussan discovered the
+widow of the late town treasurer dissolved in tears, upon which the tender
+buccaneer hastened, with profound apologies, discreetly to withdraw, but
+calling again next day to offer his sympathy he found the widow had
+forgotten all about the late treasurer, for she had fallen violently in
+love with her gallant, handsome, and fashionably dressed visitor.
+
+After various adventures, de Lussan arrived safely back in Paris with
+ample means in his possession not only to satisfy his creditors, but also
+to enable him to live there as a gentleman of fortune and fashion.
+
+
+MACHAULY, DANIEL, or MACCAWLY, or MCCAWLEY.
+
+A Scotch pirate. One of Captain Gow's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock at
+Wapping on June 11th, 1725.
+
+
+MACKDONALD, EDWARD.
+
+One of Captain George Lowther's crew in the _Happy Delivery_. Hanged at
+St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+MACKET, CAPTAIN, or MAGGOTT.
+
+On March 23rd, 1679, Macket, who commanded a small vessel of fourteen
+tons, with a crew of twenty men, was at Boca del Toro with Coxon, Hawkins,
+and other famous buccaneers, having just returned from the sacking of
+Porto Bello.
+
+Shortly afterwards the fleet sailed to Golden Island, off the coast of
+Darien, and from thence set out to attack Santa Maria and Panama.
+
+
+MACKINTOSH, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Canterbury in Kent.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722 at the
+age of 21.
+
+
+MAGNES, WILLIAM, or MAGNUS.
+
+Born at Minehead in Somersetshire in 1687. Quartermaster of the _Royal
+Fortune_ (Captain Bartholomew Roberts). Tried for piracy at Cape Coast
+Castle, and hanged in chains in 1718, for taking and plundering the _King
+Solomon_.
+
+
+MAIN, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged in April, 1722, at the age of 28
+years.
+
+
+MAIN, WILLIAM.
+
+Boatswain to Captain Bartholomew Roberts in the _Royal Fortune_. Was blown
+up, the explosion being caused by one of the crew firing his pistol into
+some gunpowder when the ship was taken by H.M.S. _Swallow_ in 1722.
+
+
+MAINTENON, MARQUIS DE.
+
+Arrived in the West Indies from France in 1676. In 1678 commanded _La
+Sorcière_, a frigate, and, in company with other French filibusters from
+Tortuga Island, cruised off the coast of Caracas. He ravaged the islands
+of Margarita and Trinidad. He met with but little success, and soon
+afterwards his fleet scattered.
+
+
+MAINWARING, CAPTAIN HENRY.
+
+A notorious Newfoundland pirate.
+
+On June 4th, 1614, when off the coast of that island, in command of eight
+vessels, he plundered the fishing fleet, stealing what provisions and
+stores he was in need of, also taking away with him all the carpenters and
+mariners he wanted for his own fleet.
+
+It was his custom, when taking seamen, to pick one out of every six. In
+all he took 400 men, some of whom joined him willingly, while others were
+"perforstmen." Sailing across the Atlantic to the coast of Spain,
+Mainwaring took a Portuguese ship and stole from out of her a good store
+of wine, and out of a French prize 10,000 dried fish. A few years later
+this pirate was pardoned and placed in command of a squadron and sent to
+the Barbary coast in an unsuccessful attempt to drive out the pirates who
+were settled there. Here he may well have met with his old friend Captain
+Peter Easton, who had also been a Newfoundland pirate, but in 1613 had
+joined the Barbary corsairs.
+
+
+EL MAJORCAM, CAPTAIN ANTONIO.
+
+At one time an officer in the Spanish Navy. Became a notorious West Indian
+pirate, but about 1824 he retired from the sea to become a highwayman on
+shore.
+
+
+MANSFIELD, JO.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's men. Must not be confused with Edward
+Mansfield, the famous buccaneer.
+
+A native of the Orkney Islands. At one time was a highwayman. Later on
+deserted from the _Rose_, man-of-war. Volunteered to join the pirates at
+the island of Dominica, and was always keen to do any mischief. He was a
+bully and a drunkard.
+
+When Roberts's ship was attacked by H.M.S. _Swallow_ and had surrendered
+after a sharp fight, Mansfield, who had been below all the while, very
+drunk, came staggering and swearing up on deck, with a drawn cutlass in
+his hand, crying out to know who would go on board the prize with him, and
+it was some time before his friends could persuade him of the true
+condition of things.
+
+At his trial at Cape Coast Castle he said little in his defence, but
+pleaded that the cause of his backsliding was drunkenness. Hanged in the
+year 1722 at the age of 30.
+
+
+MANSFIELD, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or MANSVELT.
+
+A Dutchman born in the Island of Curacao.
+
+He was the chief of the buccaneers, and at his death was succeeded by
+Henry Morgan. He was the first buccaneer to cross the Isthmus of Darien to
+the Pacific Ocean. Noted for his charm of manner, he was very popular with
+the buccaneers of all nationalities. In 1663 he commanded a brigantine
+carrying four guns and a crew of sixty men. Was chosen admiral of the
+fleet of buccaneers that gathered at Bleufields Bay in Jamaica in
+November, 1665, at the invitation of Modyford, the Governor, when he
+appointed young Henry Morgan to be his vice-admiral. This fleet was to
+sail and attempt to seize the Island of Curacao, and consisted of fifteen
+ships and a mixed crew of 500 buccaneers. On the way there they landed in
+Cuba, although England was at peace with Spain, and marched forty miles
+inland, to surprise and sack the town of Sancti Spiritus, from which they
+took a rich booty.
+
+Mansfield, "being resolved never to face the Governor of Jamaica until he
+had done some service to the King," next made a very daring attack on the
+Island of Old Providence, which the Spaniards had fortified and used as a
+penal settlement. This was successful, and Mansfield, with great humanity,
+landed all the prisoners on the mainland of America. For a long while it
+had been Mansfield's dream to make this island a permanent home of the
+buccaneers, as it was close to the Spanish Main, with the towns of Porto
+Bello and Vera Cruz, and on the trade route of the Spanish galleons,
+taking their rich cargoes to Spain.
+
+Mansfield's next exploit was to ascend the San Juan River and to sack
+Granada, the capital of Nicaragua. From there he coasted south along Costa
+Rica, burning plantations, smashing the images in the churches,
+ham-stringing cows and mules, and cutting down fruit-trees.
+
+He returned in June, 1665, to Port Royal, with a rich booty. For this
+inexcusable attack on a country at peace with England, Governor Modyford
+mildly reproved him!
+
+Mansfield, now an old man, died suddenly at the Island of Tortuga, off
+Hispaniola, when on a visit to the French pirates there. Another account
+says that he was captured by the Spaniards and taken by them to Porto
+Bello, and there put to death.
+
+
+MARTEEN, CAPTAIN DAVID. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1665 he had his headquarters in Jamaica.
+
+
+MARTEL, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+An old Jamaican privateer. After the Peace of Utrecht, being out of
+employment, he took to piracy. His career as a pirate was very successful
+so long as it lasted. Cruising off Jamaica, Cuba, and other islands, he
+continued taking ship after ship, with one particularly rich prize, a West
+African ship containing gold-dust, elephants' teeth, and slaves. His
+original command was a sloop of eight guns and a crew of eighty men, but
+after a short while he commanded a small fleet consisting of two ships
+(each armed with twenty guns), three sloops, and several armed prizes.
+With these Martel entered a bay in a small island called Santa Cruz, near
+Porto Rico, to careen and refit. This was in December, 1716, but news had
+leaked out of the pirate's whereabouts, and soon there arrived on the
+scene Captain Hume, of H.M.S. _Scarborough_. Martel tried to escape, but
+his ship ran aground, and many of the pirates were killed, but a few, with
+Martel, got ashore and hid on the island. None of them were heard of again
+except Martel, and it was supposed that they had died of hunger. In the
+space of three months Martel took and plundered thirteen vessels, all of
+considerable size. Two years later he was back in New Providence Island,
+when Governor Rogers arrived with King George's offer of pardon to the
+pirates, and Martel was one of those who surrendered.
+
+
+MARTIN, JOHN.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Blackbeard's crew.
+
+
+MASSEY, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+As a lieutenant, he "served with great applause" in the army in Flanders,
+under the command of the Duke of Marlborough.
+
+He afterwards sailed from the Thames in the _Gambia Castle_, a ship of the
+African Company, in command of a company of soldiers which was being sent
+to garrison the fort. The merchants of Gambia were supposed to victual
+this garrison, but the rations supplied were considered by Massey to be
+quite insufficient. He quarrelled with the Governor and merchants, and
+took his soldiers back on board the ship, and with Lowther, the second
+mate, seized the ship and turned pirate. Lowther and Massey eventually
+quarrelled, for the latter, being a soldier, "was solicitous to move in
+his own sphere"--that is, he wanted to land his troops and plunder the
+French West Indian settlements. In the end Massey and a few followers were
+permitted to go off in a captured sloop, and in this sailed for Port
+Royal, Jamaica. Arrived there, "with a bold countenance he went to the
+Governor" and told a long and plausible tale of how he had managed to
+escape from the pirates at the first opportunity. He deceived the
+sympathetic Governor, and was sent with Captain Laws to hunt for Lowther.
+Returning to Jamaica without finding Lowther, he was granted a
+"certificate of his surrender," and came to England as a passenger.
+
+On reaching London, he wrote a narrative of the whole affair--or as much
+as he deemed wise--to the African Company, who, receiving the story with
+far less credulity than the Governor of Jamaica, returned him answer "that
+he should be fairly hanged," and very shortly afterwards he was, at
+Tyburn on July 26th, 1723.
+
+
+MAY, WILLIAM.
+
+A London mariner. One of Captain Avery's crew, left behind in Madagascar
+very sick. A negro, hearing that an Englishman was there, came to him and
+nursed and fed him. This negro spoke good English, having lived at Bethnal
+Green.
+
+May was promoted afterwards to be captain of a ship in the Red Sea. He was
+described by a shipmate as being "a true cock of the Game and an old
+sportsman." Hanged at London in 1696.
+
+
+MAZE, CAPTAIN WILLIAM, or MACE, or MAISE.
+
+A notorious pirate; particularly mentioned in the royal warrant
+authorizing Captain Kidd to go and capture certain "wicked and
+ill-disposed persons."
+
+Arrived in command of a big ship at New York in 1699, loaded with booty
+taken in the Red Sea.
+
+
+McCARTHY, CAPTAIN DENNIS.
+
+Of New Providence, Bahama Islands.
+
+This pirate and prize-fighter was one of those who refused King George's
+pardon in 1717, and was eventually hanged by his late fellow-pirates. On
+the gallows he made the following dying speech:
+
+"Some friends of mine have often said I should die in my shoes, but I
+would rather make them liars." And so, kicking off his shoes, he was
+hanged.
+
+
+MEGHLYN, HANS VAN.
+
+A pirate of Antwerp, who owned a vessel of forty-five tons, painted black
+with pitch, and carried a crew of thirty. In 1539 he was cruising off
+Whitstable, on the lookout for vessels entering or leaving the Thames.
+Cromwell had been warned by Vaughan to look out for this pirate ship.
+
+
+DE MELTON.
+
+A well-known pirate in the sixteenth century. Was with Kellwanton when he
+was captured in the Isle of Man in 1531, but de Melton managed to escape
+with some of the crew and get away in their ship to Grimsby.
+
+
+MELVIN, WILLIAM.
+
+This Scotch pirate was hanged, with other members of Gow's crew, at
+Wapping in June, 1725.
+
+
+MENDOZA, ANTONIO.
+
+A Spaniard from San Domingo.
+
+Mention is made of this unlucky mariner in a very interesting document
+which Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill was fortunate enough to acquire quite recently
+in the island of St. Kitts. It runs as follows:
+
+"An assize and generall Gaole delivrie held at St. Christophers Colonie
+from ye nineteenthe daye of Maye to ye 22n. daye off ye same Monthe 1701
+Captaine Josias Pendringhame Magustrate &c. The Jurye of our Soveraigne
+Lord the Kinge Doe presente Antonio Mendoza of Hispaniola and a subjecte
+of ye Kinge of Spain for that ye said on or about ye 11 Daye of Apryl 1701
+feloneousely delibyrately and malliciousley and encontrarye to ye laws off
+Almightie God and our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge did in his cuppes saucely
+and arrogantyly speak of the Governour and Lord the Kinge and bye force
+and armies into ye tavernne of John Wilkes Esq. did entre and there did
+Horrible sware and cursse and did felonoslye use threatteninge words and
+did strike and cutte most murtherouslye severalle subjects of our
+Soveraigne Lord the Kinge. Of w'h Indictment he pleadeth not Guiltie
+butte onne presente Master Samuel Dunscombe mariner did sware that said
+Antonio Mendoza was of his knowenge a Blood-thirste piratte and Guiltie of
+diabolicalle practises & ye Grande Inquest findinge yt a trewe bill to be
+tryd by God and ye Countrye w'h beinge a Jurie of 12 men sworne finde him
+Guiltie & for the same he be adjuged to be carryd to ye Fort Prison to
+have both his earres cutt close by his head and be burnet throughe ye
+tongue with an Hot iron and to be caste chained in ye Dungon to awaitte ye
+plesyure of God and Our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge."
+
+
+MEYEURS.
+
+A South Sea pirate, killed when taking part with Captain Williams in a
+raid against an Arab settlement at Bayu.
+
+
+MICHEL, CAPITAINE. Filibuster.
+
+His ship, _La Mutine_, was armed with forty-four guns and carried a crew
+of 200 men.
+
+
+MICHEL LE BASQUE. A French filibuster.
+
+In company with the butcher L'Onnais and 650 other buccaneers, he pillaged
+the town of Maracaibo in Venezuela, in the year 1667. A very successful
+but ruthless buccaneer.
+
+
+DON MIGUEL.
+
+In 1830 commanded a squadron of small pirate vessels off the Azores. After
+seizing a Sardinian brig off St. Michael's, was himself captured by a
+British frigate.
+
+
+MIGUEL, FRANCESCO.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.
+
+
+MILLER, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Hanged at Boston on June 30th, 1704. A
+broadsheet published at the time, describing the scenes at the execution,
+tells us that Miller "seemed much concerned, and complained of a great
+Burden of Sins to answer for, expressing often: 'Lord, what shall I do to
+be Saved?'"
+
+
+MILLER, THOMAS.
+
+Quartermaster on the pirate ship _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and killed on
+November 22nd, 1718.
+
+
+MISNIL, SIEUR DU.
+
+A French filibuster who commanded a ship, _La Trompeuse_ (one hundred men
+and fourteen guns).
+
+
+MISSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+This unique pirate came of an ancient French family of Provence. He was
+the youngest of a large family, and received a good education. At the age
+of 15 he had already shown unusual distinction in the subjects of humanity
+and logic, and had passed quite tolerably in mathematics. Deciding to
+carve a fortune for himself with his sword, he was sent to the Academy at
+Angiers for a year, and at the conclusion of his military studies his
+father would have bought him a commission in a regiment of musketeers. But
+young Misson had been reading books of travel, and begged so earnestly to
+be allowed to go to sea that his father got him admitted as a volunteer on
+the French man-of-war _Victoire_, commanded by Monsieur Fourbin. Joining
+his ship at Marseilles, they cruised in the Mediterranean, and the young
+volunteer soon showed great keenness in his duties, and lost no
+opportunity of learning all he could about navigation and the
+construction of ships, even parting with his pocket-money to the boatswain
+and the carpenter to receive special instruction from them.
+
+Arriving one day at Naples, Misson obtained permission from the captain to
+visit Rome, a visit that eventually changed his whole career.
+
+It happened that while in Rome the young sailor met a priest, a Signor
+Caraccioli, a Dominican, who held most unclerical views about the
+priesthood; and, indeed, his ideas on life in general were, to say the
+least, unorthodox. A great friendship was struck up between these two,
+which at length led the priest to throw off his habit and join the crew of
+the _Victoire_. Two days out from port they met and fought a desperate
+hand-to-hand engagement with a Sallee pirate, in which the ex-priest and
+Misson both distinguished themselves by their bravery. Misson's next
+voyage was in a privateer, the _Triumph_, and, meeting one day an English
+ship, the _Mayflower_, between Guernsey and Start Point, the merchantman
+was defeated after a gallant resistance.
+
+Rejoining the _Victoire_, Misson sailed from Rochelle to the West Indies,
+and Caraccioli lost no opportunity of preaching to young Misson the gospel
+of atheism and communism, and with such success that the willing convert
+soon held views as extreme as those of his teacher. These two apostles now
+began to talk to the crew, and their views, particularly on the rights of
+private property, were soon held by almost all on board. A fortunate event
+happened just then to help the new "cause." Meeting with an English
+man-of-war, the _Winchester_, off the island of Martinique, a smart
+engagement took place between the two ships, at the very commencement of
+which Captain Fourbin and three of the officers on the French ship were
+killed. The fight ended by the English ship blowing up, and an era of
+speech-making may be said to have now begun.
+
+Firstly, Signor Caraccioli, stepping forward, made a long and eloquent
+address to Misson, inviting him to become captain of the _Victoire_, and
+calling upon him to follow the example of Alexander the Great with the
+Persians, and that of the Kings Henry IV. and VII. of England, reminding
+him how Mahomet, with but a few camel-drivers, founded the Ottoman Empire,
+also how Darius, with a handful of companions, got possession of Persia.
+Inflamed by this speech, young Misson showed what he could do, when,
+calling all hands up on deck, he made his first, but, as events proved, by
+far from last, speech. The result was a triumph of oratory, the excited
+French sailors crying out: "Vive le Capitaine Misson et son Lieutenant le
+Scavant Caraccioli!" Misson, returning thanks in a few graceful words,
+promised to do his utmost as their commander for their new marine
+republic. The newly elected officers retiring to the great cabin, a
+friendly discussion began as to their future arrangements. The first
+question that arose was to choose what colours they should sail under. The
+newly elected boatswain, Mathew le Tondu, a brave but simple mariner,
+advised a black one, as being the most terrifying. This brought down a
+full blast of eloquence from Caraccioli, the new lieutenant, who objected
+that "they were no pirates, but men who were resolved to affect the
+Liberty which God and Nature gave them," with a great deal about
+"guardians of the Peoples Rights and Liberties," etc., and, gradually
+becoming worked up, gave the wretched boatswain, who must have regretted
+his unfortunate remark, a heated lecture on the soul, on shaking "the Yoak
+of Tyranny" off their necks, on "Oppression and Poverty" and the miseries
+of life under these conditions as compared to those of "Pomp and
+Dignity." In the end he showed that their policy was not to be one of
+piracy, for pirates were men of no principle and led dissolute lives; but
+_their_ lives were to be brave, just, and innocent, and their cause the
+cause of Liberty; and therefore, instead of a black flag, they should live
+under a white ensign, with the motto "For God and Liberty" embroidered
+upon it.
+
+The simple sailors, debarred from these councils, had gathered outside the
+cabin, but were able to overhear this speech, and at its conclusion,
+carried away by enthusiasm, loud cries went up of "Liberty! Liberty! We
+are free men! Vive the brave Captain Misson and the noble Lieutenant
+Caraccioli!" Alas! it is impossible in the space of this work to do
+justice to the perfectly wonderful and idealistic conditions of this
+pirate crew. Their speeches and their kind acts follow each other in
+fascinating profusion. We can only recommend those who feel disposed to
+follow more closely the history of these delightful pirates, to read the
+account printed in English in 1726, if they are fortunate enough to come
+by a copy.
+
+The first prize taken by these pirates under the white flag was an English
+sloop commanded by one Captain Thomas Butler, only a day's sail out from
+St. Kitts. After helping themselves to a couple of puncheons of rum and a
+few other articles which the pirates needed, but without doing any
+unkindness to the crew, nor stripping them, as was the usual custom of
+pirates on such occasions, they let them go, greatly to the surprise of
+Captain Butler, who handsomely admitted that he had never before met with
+so much "candour" in any similar situation, and to further express his
+gratitude he ordered his crew to man ship, and at parting called for three
+rousing British cheers for the good pirate and his men, which were
+enthusiastically given.
+
+Sailing to the coast of Africa, Misson took a Dutch ship, the
+_Nieuwstadt_, of Amsterdam. The cargo was found to consist of gold dust
+and seventeen slaves. In the latter Captain Misson recognized a good text
+for one of his little sermons to his crew, so, calling all hands on deck,
+he made the following observations on the vile trade of slavery, telling
+his men:
+
+"That the Trading for those of our own Species, cou'd never be agreeable
+to the Eyes of divine Justice. That no Man had Power of the Liberty of
+another; and while those who profess a more enlightened Knowledge of the
+Deity, sold Men like Beasts; they prov'd that their Religion was no more
+than Grimace, and that they differ'd from the Barbarians in Name only,
+since their Practice was in nothing more humane. For his Part, and he
+hop'd he spoke the Sentiments of all his brave Companions, he had not
+exempted his Neck from the galling Yoak of Slavery, and asserted his own
+Liberty, to enslave others. That however, these Men, were distinguished
+from the Europeans by their Colour, Customs, or religious Rites, they were
+the Work of the same omnipotent Being, and endued with equal Reason.
+Wherefore, he desired they might be treated like Freemen (for he wou'd
+banish even the Name of Slavery from among them) and be divided into
+Messes among them, to the end they might the sooner learn their language,
+be sensible of the Obligations they had to them, and more capable and
+zealous to defend that Liberty they owed to their Justice and Humanity."
+This speech was met with general applause, and once again the good ship
+_Victoire_ rang with cries of "Vive le Capitaine Misson!" The negroes were
+freed of their irons, dressed up in the clothes of their late Dutch
+masters, and it is gratifying to read that "by their Gesticulations, they
+shew'd they were gratefully sensible of their being delivered from their
+Chains." But alas! a sad cloud was creeping insidiously over the fair
+reputation of these super-pirates. Out of the last slave ship they had
+taken, a number of Dutch sailors had volunteered to serve with Misson and
+had come aboard as members of his crew. Hitherto no swearword was ever
+heard, no loose or profane expression had pained the ears of Captain
+Misson or his ex-priestly lieutenant. But the Dutch mariners began to lead
+the crew into ways of swearing and drunkenness, which, coming to the
+captain's notice, he thought best to nip these weeds in the bud; so,
+calling both French and Dutch upon deck, and desiring the Dutch captain to
+translate his remarks into the Dutch language, he told them that--
+
+"Before he had the Misfortune of having them on Board, his Ears were never
+grated with hearing the Name of the great Creator profaned, tho' he, to
+his Sorrow, had often since heard his own Men guilty of that Sin, which
+administer'd neither Profit nor Pleasure, and might draw upon them a
+severe Punishment: That if they had a just Idea of that great Being, they
+wou'd never mention him, but they wou'd immediately reflect on his Purity,
+and their own Vileness. That we so easily took Impression from our
+Company, that the Spanish Proverb says: 'Let a Hermit and a Thief live
+together, the Thief wou'd become Hermit, or the Hermit thief': That he saw
+this verified in his ship, for he cou'd attribute the Oaths and Curses he
+had heard among his brave Companions, to nothing but the odious Example of
+the Dutch: That this was not the only Vice they had introduced, for before
+they were on Board, his Men were Men, but he found by their beastly
+Pattern they were degenerated into Brutes, by drowning that only Faculty,
+which distinguishes between Man and Beast, Reason. That as he had the
+Honour to command them, he could not see them run into these odious Vices
+without a sincere Concern, as he had a paternal Affection for them, and he
+should reproach himself as neglectful of the common Good, if he did not
+admonish them; and as by the Post which they had honour'd him, he was
+obliged to have a watchful Eye over their general Interest; he was obliged
+to tell them his Sentiments were, that the Dutch allured them to a
+dissolute Way of Life, that they might take some Advantage over them:
+Wherefore, as his brave Companions, he was assured, wou'd be guided by
+reason, he gave the Dutch Notice, that the first whom he catch'd either
+with an Oath in his Mouth or Liquor in his Head, should be brought to the
+Geers, whipped and pickled, for an Example to the rest of his Nation: As
+to his Friends, his Companions, his Children, those gallant, those
+generous, noble and heroick Souls he had the Honour to command, he
+entreated them to allow a small Time for Reflection, and to consider how
+little Pleasure, and how much Danger, might flow from imitating the Vices
+of their Enemies; and that they would among themselves, make a Law for the
+Suppression of what would otherwise estrange them from the Source of Life,
+and consequently leave them destitute of his Protection."
+
+This speech had the desired effect, and ever afterwards, when any one of
+the crew had reason to mention the name of his captain, he never failed to
+add the epithet "Good" before it.
+
+These chaste pirates soon took and plundered many rich merchant ships, but
+always in the most gentlemanly manner, so that none failed to be "not a
+little surprised at the Regularity, Tranquillity and Humanity of these
+new-fashioned Pyrates." From out of one of these, an English vessel, they
+took a sum of £60,000, but during the engagement the captain was killed.
+Poor Captain Misson was broken-hearted over this unfortunate mishap, and
+to show as best he could his regret, he buried the body on shore, and,
+finding that one of his men was by trade a stonecutter, raised a monument
+over the grave with, engraved upon it, the words: "Here lies a gallant
+English-Man." And at the conclusion of a very moving burial service he
+paid a final tribute by "a triple Discharge of 50 small Arms and fired
+Minute Guns."
+
+Misson now sailed to the Island of Johanna in the Indian Ocean, which
+became his future home. Misson married the sister of the local dusky
+queen, and his lieutenant led to the altar her niece, while many of the
+crew also were joined in holy wedlock to one or more ladies of more humble
+social standing.
+
+Already Misson has received more space than he is entitled to in a work of
+reference of this kind, but his career is so full of charming incidents
+that one is tempted to continue to unseemly length. Let it suffice to say
+that for some years Misson made speeches, robbed ships, and now and again,
+when unavoidably driven to it, would reluctantly slaughter his enemies.
+
+Finally, Misson took his followers to a sheltered bay in Madagascar, and
+on landing there made a little speech, telling them that here they could
+settle down, build a town, that here, in fact, "they might have some Place
+to call their own; and a Receptacle, when Age or Wounds had render'd them
+incapable of Hardship, where they might enjoy the Fruits of their Labour,
+and go to their Graves in Peace."
+
+This ideal colony was called Libertatia, and was run on strictly
+Socialistic lines, for no one owned any individual property; all money was
+kept in a common treasury, and no hedges bounded any man's particular plot
+of land. Docks were made and fortifications set up. Soon Misson had two
+ships built, called the _Childhood_ and the _Liberty_, and these were sent
+for a voyage round the island, to map and chart the coast, and to train
+the released slaves to be efficient sailors. A Session House was built,
+and a form of Government arranged. At the first meeting Misson was elected
+Lord Conservator, as they called the President, for a term of three years,
+and during that period he was to have "all the Ensigns of Royalty to
+attend him." Captain Tew, the English pirate, was elected Admiral of the
+Fleet of Libertatia, Caraccioli became Secretary of State, while the
+Council was formed of the ablest amongst the pirates, without distinction
+of nation or colour. The difficulty of language, as French, English,
+Portuguese, and Dutch were equally spoken, was overcome by the invention
+of a new language, a kind of Esperanto, which was built up of words from
+all four. For many years this ideally successful and happy pirate Utopia
+flourished; but at length misfortunes came, one on top of the other, and a
+sudden and unexpected attack by the hitherto friendly natives finally
+drove Misson and a few other survivors to seek safety at sea, but,
+overtaken by a hurricane, their vessel foundered, and Misson and all his
+crew were drowned; and thus ended the era of what may be called "piracy
+without tears."
+
+      He was the mildest-manner'd man
+    That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.
+                                            BYRON.
+
+
+MITCHELL, CAPTAIN.
+
+An English buccaneer of Jamaica, who flourished in 1663.
+
+
+MITCHELL, JOHN.
+
+Of Shadwell Parish, London.
+
+One of the crew of the _Ranger_. Condemned to death, but reprieved and
+sold to the Royal African Company.
+
+
+M'KINLIE, PETER. Irish pirate.
+
+Boatswain in a merchant ship which sailed from the Canaries to England in
+the year 1765. On board were three passengers, the adventurous Captain
+Glass and his wife and daughter. One night M'Kinlie and four other
+mutineers murdered the commander of the vessel, Captain Cockeran, and
+Captain Glass and his family, as well as all the crew except two
+cabin-boys. After throwing their bodies overboard, M'Kinlie steered for
+the coast of Ireland, and on December 3rd arrived in the neighbourhood of
+the harbour of Ross. Filling the long-boat with dollars, weighing some two
+tons, they rowed ashore, after killing the two boys and scuttling the
+ship. On landing, the pirates found they had much more booty than they
+could carry, so they buried 250 bags of dollars in the sand, and took what
+they could with them to a village called Fishertown. Here they regaled
+themselves, while one of the villagers relieved them of a bag containing
+1,200 dollars. Next day they walked into Ross, and there sold another bag
+of dollars, and with the proceeds each man bought a pair of pistols and a
+horse and rode to Dublin. In the meanwhile the ship, instead of sinking,
+was washed up on the shore. Strong suspicion being roused in the
+countryside, messengers were sent post-haste to inform the Lords of the
+Regency at Dublin that the supposed pirates were in the city. Three of
+them were arrested in the Black Bull Inn in Thomas Street, but M'Kinlie
+and another pirate, who had already taken a post-chaise for Cork,
+intending to embark there on a vessel for England, were arrested on the
+way.
+
+The five pirates were tried in Dublin, condemned and executed, their
+bodies being hung in chains, on December 19th, 1765.
+
+
+MONTBARS, THE EXTERMINATOR.
+
+A native of Languedoc. He joined the buccaneers after reading a book which
+recorded the cruelty of the Spaniards to the American natives, and this
+story inspired him with such a hatred of all Spaniards that he determined
+to go to the West Indies, throw in his lot with the buccaneers, and to
+devote his whole life and energies to punishing the Spaniards. He carried
+out his resolve most thoroughly, and treated all Spaniards who came into
+his power with such cruelty that he became known all up and down the
+Spanish Main as the Exterminator. Eventually Montbars became a notorious
+and successful buccaneer or pirate chief, having his headquarters at St.
+Bartholomew, one of the Virgin Islands, to which he used to bring all his
+prisoners and spoils taken out of Spanish ships and towns.
+
+
+MONTENEGRO.
+
+A Columbian. One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_.
+Hanged at Boston in 1835.
+
+
+DE MONT, FRANCIS.
+
+Captured in South Carolina in 1717. Tried at Charleston, and convicted of
+taking the _Turtle Dove_ and other vessels in the previous July. Hanged in
+June, 1717.
+
+
+MOODY, CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER.
+
+A notorious pirate. Very active off the coast of Carolina, 1717, with two
+ships under his command. In 1722 was with Roberts on board the _Royal
+Fortune_, being one of his chief men or "Lords." Taken prisoner, and tried
+at Cape Coast Castle, and hanged in chains at the age of 28.
+
+
+MOORE. Gunner.
+
+A gunner aboard Captain Kidd's ship the _Adventure_. When Kidd's mutinous
+crew were all for attacking a Dutch ship, Kidd refused to allow them to,
+and Moore threatened the captain, who seized a bucket and struck Moore on
+the head with it, the blow killing him. Kidd was perfectly justified in
+killing this mutinous sailor, but eventually it was for this act that he
+was hanged in London.
+
+
+MORGAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+This pirate must not be confused with the buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan.
+Little is known about him except that he was with Hamlin, the French
+pirate, in 1683, off the coast of West Africa, and helped to take several
+Danish and English ships. Soon the pirates quarrelled over the division of
+their plunder and separated into two companies, the English following
+Captain Morgan in one of the prizes.
+
+
+MORGAN, COLONEL BLODRE, or BLEDRY.
+
+This buccaneer was probably a relation of Sir Henry Morgan. He was an
+important person in Jamaica between 1660 and 1670. At the taking of Panama
+by Henry Morgan in 1670 the Colonel commanded the rearguard of 300 men. In
+May, 1671, he was appointed to act as Deputy Governor of Providence Island
+by Sir James Modyford.
+
+
+MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL EDWARD. Buccaneer.
+
+Uncle and father-in-law of Sir Henry Morgan.
+
+In 1665, when war had been declared on Holland, the Governor of Jamaica
+issued commissions to several pirates and buccaneers to sail to and attack
+the Dutch islands of St. Eustatius, Saba, and Curacao. Morgan was put in
+command of ten ships and some 500 men; most of them were "reformed
+prisoners," while some were condemned pirates who had been pardoned in
+order to let them join the expedition.
+
+Before leaving Jamaica the crews mutinied, but were pacified by the
+promise of an equal share of all the spoils that should be taken. Three
+ships out of the fleet slipped away on the voyage, but the rest arrived at
+St. Kitts, landed, and took the fort. Colonel Morgan, who was an old and
+corpulent man, died of the heat and exertion during the campaign.
+
+
+MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL THOMAS.
+
+Sailed with Colonel Edward Morgan to attack St. Eustatius and Saba
+Islands, and after these were surrendered by the Dutch, Thomas Morgan was
+left in charge.
+
+In 1686 he sailed in command of a company of buccaneers to assist Governor
+Wells, of St. Kitts, against the French. The defence of the island was
+disgraceful, and Morgan's company was the only one which displayed any
+courage or discipline, and most of them were killed or wounded, Colonel
+Morgan himself being shot in both legs.
+
+Often these buccaneer leaders altered their titles from colonel to
+captain, to suit the particular enterprise on which they were engaged,
+according if it took place on sea or land.
+
+
+MORGAN, SIR HENRY. Buccaneer.
+
+This, the greatest of all the "brethren of the coast," was a Welshman,
+born at Llanrhymmy in Monmouthshire in the year 1635. The son of a
+well-to-do farmer, Robert Morgan, he early took to the seafaring life.
+When quite a young man Morgan went to Barbadoes, but afterwards he
+settled at Jamaica, which was his home for the rest of his life.
+
+Morgan may have been induced to go to the West Indies by his uncle,
+Colonel Morgan, who was for a time Deputy Governor of Jamaica, a post Sir
+Henry Morgan afterwards held.
+
+Morgan was a man of great energy, and must have possessed great power of
+winning his own way with people. That he could be absolutely unscrupulous
+when it suited his ends there can be little doubt. He was cruel at times,
+but was not the inhuman monster that he is made out to be by Esquemeling
+in his "History of the Bucaniers." This was largely proved by the evidence
+given in the suit for libel brought and won by Morgan against the
+publishers, although Morgan was, if possible, more indignant over the
+statement in the same book that he had been kidnapped in Wales and sold,
+as a boy, and sent to be a slave in Barbadoes. That he could descend to
+rank dishonesty was shown when, returning from his extraordinary and
+successful assault on the city of Panama in 1670, to Chagres, he left most
+of his faithful followers behind, without ships or food, while he slipped
+off in the night with most of the booty to Jamaica. No doubt, young Morgan
+came to Jamaica with good credentials from his uncle, the Colonel, for the
+latter was held in high esteem by Modyford, then Governor of Barbadoes,
+who describes Colonel Morgan as "that honest privateer."
+
+Colonel Morgan did not live to see his nephew reach the pinnacle of his
+success, for in the year 1665 he was sent at the head of an expedition to
+attack the Dutch stronghold at St. Eustatius Island, but he was too old to
+stand the hardships of such an expedition and died shortly afterwards.
+
+By this time Morgan had made his name as a successful and resolute
+buccaneer by returning to Port Royal from a raiding expedition in Central
+America with a huge booty.
+
+In 1665 Morgan, with two other buccaneers, Jackman and Morris, plundered
+the province of Campeachy, and then, acting as Vice-Admiral to the most
+famous buccaneer of the day, Captain Mansfield, plundered Cuba, captured
+Providence Island, sacked Granada, burnt and plundered the coast of Costa
+Rica, bringing back another booty of almost fabulous wealth to Jamaica. In
+this year Morgan married a daughter of his uncle, Colonel Morgan.
+
+In 1668, when 33 years of age, Morgan was commissioned by the Jamaican
+Government to collect together the privateers, and by 1669 he was in
+command of a big fleet, when he was almost killed by a great explosion in
+the _Oxford_, which happened while Morgan was giving a banquet to his
+captains. About this time Morgan calmly took a fine ship, the _Cour
+Volant_, from a French pirate, and made her his own flagship, christening
+her the _Satisfaction_.
+
+In 1670 the greatest event of Morgan's life took place--the sacking of
+Panama. First landing a party which took the Castle of San Lorenzo at the
+mouth of the Chagres River, Morgan left a strong garrison there to cover
+his retreat and pushed on with 1,400 men in a fleet of canoes up the river
+on January 9th, 1671. The journey across the isthmus, through the tropical
+jungle, was very hard on the men, particularly as they had depended on
+finding provisions to supply their wants on the way, and carried no food
+with them. They practically starved until the sixth day, when they found a
+barn full of maize, which the fleeing Spaniards had neglected to destroy.
+On the evening of the ninth day a scout reported he had seen the steeple
+of a church in Panama. Morgan, with that touch of genius which so often
+brought him success, attacked the city from a direction the Spaniards had
+not thought possible, so that their guns were all placed where they were
+useless, and they were compelled to do just what the buccaneer leader
+wanted them to do--namely, to come out of their fortifications and fight
+him in the open. The battle raged fiercely for two hours between the brave
+Spanish defenders and the equally brave but almost exhausted buccaneers.
+When at last the Spaniards turned and ran, the buccaneers were too tired
+to immediately follow up their success, but after resting they advanced,
+and at the end of three hours' street fighting the city was theirs. The
+first thing Morgan now did was to assemble all his men and strictly forbid
+them to drink any wine, telling them that he had secret information that
+the wine had been poisoned by the Spaniards before they left the city.
+This was, of course, a scheme of Morgan's to stop his men from becoming
+drunk, when they would be at the mercy of the enemy, as had happened in
+many a previous buccaneer assault.
+
+Morgan now set about plundering the city, a large part of which was burnt
+to the ground, though whether this was done by his orders or by the
+Spanish Governor has never been decided. After three weeks the buccaneers
+started back on their journey to San Lorenzo, with a troop of 200
+pack-mules laden with gold, silver, and goods of all sorts, together with
+a large number of prisoners. The rearguard on the march was under the
+command of a kinsman of the Admiral, Colonel Bledry Morgan.
+
+On their arrival at Chagres the spoils were divided, amidst a great deal
+of quarrelling, and in March, 1671, Morgan sailed off to Port Royal with a
+few friends and the greater part of the plunder, leaving his faithful
+followers behind without ships or provisions, and with but £10 apiece as
+their share of the spoils.
+
+On May 31st, 1671, the Council of Jamaica passed a vote of thanks to
+Morgan for his successful expedition, and this in spite of the fact that
+in July, a year before, a treaty had been concluded at Madrid between
+Spain and England for "restraining depredations and establishing peace" in
+the New World.
+
+In April, 1672, Morgan was carried to England as a prisoner in the
+_Welcome_ frigate. But he was too popular to be convicted, and after being
+acquitted was appointed Deputy Governor of Jamaica, and in November, 1674,
+he was knighted and returned to the West Indies. In 1672 Major-General
+Banister, who was Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Jamaica, writing to
+Lord Arlington about Morgan, said: "He (Morgan) is a well deserving
+person, and one of great courage and conduct, who may, with His Majesty's
+pleasure, perform good public service at home, or be very advantageous to
+this island if war should again break forth with the Spaniards."
+
+While Morgan was in England he brought an action for libel against William
+Crooke, the publisher of the "History of the Bucaniers of America." The
+result of this trial was that Crooke paid £200 damages to Morgan and
+published a long and grovelling apology.
+
+Morgan was essentially a man of action, and a regular life on shore proved
+irksome to him, for we learn from a report sent home by Lord Vaughan in
+1674 that Morgan "frequented the taverns of Port Royal, drinking and
+gambling in unseemly fashion," but nevertheless the Jamaican Assembly had
+voted the Lieutenant-Governor a sum of £600 special salary. In 1676
+Vaughan brought definite charges against Morgan and another member of the
+Council, Robert Byndloss, of giving aid to certain Jamaica pirates.
+
+Morgan made a spirited defence and, no doubt largely owing to his
+popularity, got off, and in 1678 was granted a commission to be a captain
+of a company of 100 men.
+
+The Governor to succeed Vaughan was Lord Carlisle, who seems to have liked
+Morgan, in spite of his jovial "goings on" with his old buccaneer friends
+in the taverns of Port Royal, and in some of his letters speaks of
+Morgan's "generous manner," and hints that whatever allowances are made to
+him "he will be a beggar."
+
+In 1681 Sir Thomas Lynch was appointed to be Governor, and trouble at once
+began between him and his deputy. Amongst the charges the former brought
+against Morgan was one of his having been overheard to say, "God damn the
+Assembly!" for which he was suspended from that body.
+
+In April, 1688, the King, at the urgent request of the Duke of Albemarle,
+ordered Morgan to be reinstated in the Assembly, but Morgan did not live
+long to enjoy his restored honours, for he died on August 25th, 1688.
+
+An extract from the journal of Captain Lawrence Wright, commander of
+H.M.S. _Assistance_, dated August, 1688, describes the ceremonies held at
+Port Royal at the burial of Morgan, and shows how important and popular a
+man he was thought to be. It runs:
+
+"Saturday 25. This day about eleven hours noone Sir Henry Morgan died, &
+the 26th was brought over from Passage-fort to the King's house at Port
+Royall, from thence to the Church, & after a sermon was carried to the
+Pallisadoes & there buried. All the forts fired an equal number of guns,
+wee fired two & twenty & after wee & the Drake had fired, all the merchant
+men fired."
+
+Morgan was buried in Jamaica, and his will, which was filed in the Record
+Office at Spanish Town, makes provision for his wife and near relations.
+
+
+MORRICE, HUMPHREY.
+
+Of New Providence, Bahama Islands.
+
+Hanged at New Providence in 1718 by his lately reformed fellow-pirates,
+and on the gallows taxed them with "pusillanimity and cowardice" because
+they did not rescue him and his fellow-sufferers.
+
+
+MORRIS, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+A privateer until 1665, he afterwards became a buccaneer with Mansfield.
+Took part in successful raids in Central America, plundering Vildemo in
+the Bay of Campeachy; he also sacked Truxillo, and then, after a journey
+by canoe up the San Juan River to take Nicaragua, surprised and plundered
+the city of Granada in March, 1666.
+
+
+MORRIS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+One of the pirates of New Providence, Bahamas, who, on pardon being
+offered by King George in 1717, escaped, and for a while carried on piracy
+in the West Indian Islands. Caught and hanged a few years afterwards.
+
+
+MORRIS, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's crew. When the _Royal Fortune_
+surrendered to H.M.S. _Swallow_, Morris fired his pistol into the
+gunpowder in the steerage and caused an explosion that killed or maimed
+many of the pirates.
+
+
+MORRISON, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Scotch pirate, who lived on Prince Edward Island.
+
+For an account of his career, see Captain NELSON.
+
+
+MORRISON, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
+Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+MORTON, PHILIP.
+
+Gunner on board "Blackbeard's" ship, the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed on
+November 22nd, 1718, in North Carolina, during the fight with Lieutenant
+Maynard.
+
+
+MULLET, JAMES, _alias_ MILLET.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of the crew of the _Royal James_, in which vessel Major Stede Bonnet
+played havoc with the shipping along the coasts of South Carolina and New
+England. Hanged at Charleston in 1718.
+
+
+MULLINS, DARBY.
+
+This Irish pirate was born in the north of Ireland, not many miles from
+Londonderry. Being left an orphan at the age of 18, he was sold to a
+planter in the West Indies for a term of four years.
+
+After the great earthquake at Jamaica in 1691, Mullins built himself a
+house at Kingston and ran it as a punch-house--often a very profitable
+business when the buccaneers returned to Port Royal with good plunder.
+This business failing, he went to New York, where he met Captain Kidd, and
+was, according to his own story, persuaded to engage in piracy, it being
+urged that the robbing only of infidels, the enemies of Christianity, was
+an act, not only lawful, but one highly meritorious.
+
+At his trial later on in London his judges did not agree with this view of
+the rights of property, and Mullins was hanged at Execution Dock on May
+23rd, 1701.
+
+
+MUMPER, THOMAS.
+
+An Indian of Mather's Vineyard, New England.
+
+Tried for piracy with Captain Charles Harris and his men, but found to be
+"not guilty."
+
+
+MUNDON, STEPHEN.
+
+Of London.
+
+Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 19th, 1723, at the age
+of 20.
+
+
+MUSTAPHA. Turkish pirate.
+
+In 1558 he sailed, with a fleet of 140 vessels, to the Island of Minorca.
+Landed, and besieged the fortified town of Ciudadda, which at length
+surrendered. The Turks slew great numbers of the inhabitants, taking the
+rest away as slaves.
+
+
+NAU, CAPTAIN JEAN DAVID, _alias_ FRANCIS L'OLLONAIS.
+
+A Frenchman born at Les Sables d'Ollone.
+
+In his youth he was transported as an indented labourer to the French
+Island of Dominica in the West Indies. Having served his time L'Ollonais
+went to the Island of Hispaniola, and joined the buccaneers there, living
+by hunting wild cattle and drying the flesh or boucan.
+
+He then sailed for a few voyages as a sailor before the mast, and acted
+with such ability and courage that the Governor of Tortuga Island,
+Monsieur de la Place, gave him the command of a vessel and sent him out
+to seek his fortune.
+
+At first the young buccaneer was very successful, and he took many Spanish
+ships, but owing to his ferocious treatment of his prisoners he soon won a
+name for cruelty which has never been surpassed. But at the height of this
+success his ship was wrecked in a storm, and, although most of the pirates
+got ashore, they were at once attacked by a party of Spaniards, and all
+but L'Ollonais were killed. The captain escaped, after being wounded, by
+smearing blood and sand over his face and hiding himself amongst his dead
+companions. Disguised as a Spaniard he entered the city of Campeachy,
+where bonfires and other manifestations of public relief were being held,
+to express the joy of the citizens at the news of the death of their
+terror, L'Ollonais.
+
+Meeting with some French slaves, the fugitive planned with them to escape
+in the night in a canoe, this being successfully carried out, they
+eventually arrived back at Tortuga, the pirate stronghold. Here the
+enterprising captain stole a small vessel, and again started off "on the
+account," plundering a village called De los Cagos in Cuba. The Governor
+of Havana receiving word of the notorious and apparently resurrected
+pirate's arrival sent a well-armed ship to take him, adding to the ship's
+company a negro executioner, with orders to hang all the pirate crew with
+the exception of L'Ollonais, who was to be brought back to Havana alive
+and in chains.
+
+Instead of the Spaniards taking the Frenchman, the opposite happened, and
+everyone of them was murdered, including the negro hangman, with the
+exception of one man, who was sent with a written message to the Governor
+to tell him that in future L'Ollonais would kill every Spaniard he met
+with.
+
+Joining with a famous filibuster, Michael de Basco, L'Ollonais soon
+organized a more important expedition, consisting of a fleet of eight
+vessels and 400 men. Sailing to the Gulf of Venezuela in 1667, they
+entered the lake, destroying the fort that stood to guard the entrance.
+Thence sailing to the city of Maracaibo they found all the inhabitants had
+fled in terror. The filibusters caught many of the inhabitants hiding in
+the neighbouring woods, and killed numbers of them in their attempts to
+force from the rest the hiding-places of their treasure. They next marched
+upon and attacked the town of Gibraltar, which was valiantly defended by
+the Spaniards, until the evening, when, having lost 500 men killed, they
+surrendered. For four weeks this town was pillaged, the inhabitants
+murdered, while torture and rape were daily occurrences. At last, to the
+relief of the wretched inhabitants, the buccaneers, with a huge booty,
+sailed away to Corso Island, a place of rendezvous of the French
+buccaneers. Here they divided their spoil, which totalled the great sum of
+260,000 pieces of eight, which, when divided amongst them, gave each man
+above one hundred pieces of eight, as well as his share of plate, silk,
+and jewels.
+
+Also, a share was allotted for the next-of-kin of each man killed, and
+extra rewards for those pirates who had lost a limb or an eye. L'Ollonais
+had now become most famous amongst the "Brethren of the Coast," and began
+to make arrangements for an even more daring expedition to attack and
+plunder the coast of Nicaragua. Here he burnt and pillaged ruthlessly,
+committing the most revolting cruelties on the Spanish inhabitants. One
+example of this monster's inhuman deeds will more than suffice to tell of.
+It happened that during an attack on the town of San Pedros the buccaneers
+had been caught in an ambuscade and many of them killed, although the
+Spaniards had at last turned and fled. The pirates killed most of their
+prisoners, but kept a few to be questioned by L'Ollonais so as to find
+some other way to the town. As he could get no information out of these
+men, the Frenchman drew his cutlass and with it cut open the breast of one
+of the Spaniards, and pulling out his still beating heart he began to bite
+and gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to the other
+prisoners, "I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."
+
+Shortly after this, many of the buccaneers broke away from L'Ollonais and
+sailed under the command of Moses van Vin, the second in command.
+L'Ollonais, in his big ship, sailed to the coast of Honduras, but ran his
+vessel on a sand-bank and lost her. While building a new but small craft
+on one of the Las Pertas Islands, they cultivated beans and other
+vegetables, and also wheat, for which they baked bread in portable ovens
+which these French buccaneers carried about with them. It took them six
+months to build their long-boat, and when it was finished it would not
+carry more than half the number of buccaneers. Lots were drawn to settle
+who should sail and who remain behind. L'Ollonais steered the boat towards
+Cartagena, but was caught by the Indians, as described by Esquemeling.
+"Here suddenly his ill-fortune assailed him, which of a long time had been
+reserved for him as a punishment due to the multitude of horrible crimes,
+which in his licentious and wicked life he had committed. For God
+Almighty, the time of His divine justice being now already come, had
+appointed the Indians of Darien to be the instruments and executioners
+thereof."
+
+These "instruments of God," having caught L'Ollonais, tore him in pieces
+alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the
+air, to the intent "no trace nor memory might remain of such an infamous
+inhuman creature."
+
+Thus died a monster of cruelty, who would, had he lived to-day, have been
+confined in an asylum for lunatics.
+
+
+NEAL.
+
+A fisherman of Cork.
+
+Mutinied in a French ship sailing from Cork to Nantes in 1721, and, under
+the leadership of Philip Roche, murdered the captain and many of the crew
+and became a pirate.
+
+
+NEFF, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1667.
+
+A soldier, one of the guard at Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Deserted in
+1689 and went to sea with the pirate Captain Pound.
+
+
+NELSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Born on Prince Edward Island, where his father had a grant of land for
+services rendered in the American war. He was a wealthy man, a member of
+the Council and a Colonel of the Militia. In order to set his son up in
+life he bought him a captaincy in the Militia and a fine farm, where young
+Nelson married and settled down. Buying a schooner, he used to sail to
+Halifax with cargoes of potatoes and fruit. He seems to have liked these
+trips in which he combined business with pleasure, for we learn that on
+these visits to Halifax he "was very wild, and drank and intrigued with
+the girls in an extravagant manner." Getting into disgrace on Prince
+Edward Island, and losing his commission, he went to live near Halifax,
+and became a lieutenant in the Nova Scotia Fencibles, while his wife
+remained on the island to look after his estates, which brought him in
+£300 a year. Meeting with a Scotchman called Morrison, together they
+bought a "pretty little New York battleship," mounting ten guns. Manning
+this dangerous toy with a crew of ninety desperate characters, the
+partners went "on the account," and began well by taking a brig belonging
+to Mr. Hill, of Rotherhithe, which they took to New York, and there sold
+both ship and cargo.
+
+They next cruised in the West Indies, taking several English and Dutch
+ships, the crews of which they treated with the greatest brutality.
+
+Landing on St. Kitts Island, they burnt and plundered two Dutch
+plantations, murdering the owners and slaves. Sailing north to
+Newfoundland they took ten more vessels, which they sold in New York.
+After further successful voyages in the West Indies and off the coast of
+Brazil, Nelson felt the call of home ties becoming so strong that he
+ventured to return to Prince Edward Island to visit his wife and family,
+where no one dared to molest him.
+
+By this time Nelson had been a pirate for three years and had, by his
+industry, won for himself a fortune worth £150,000, but his Scotch
+partner, Morrison, being a frugal soul, had in the meantime saved an even
+larger sum. Eventually their ship was wrecked in a fog on a small barren
+island near Prince Edward Island, and Morrison and most of the crew were
+drowned, but Nelson and a few others were saved. At last he reached New
+York, where he lived the rest of his life in peaceful happiness with his
+wife and family.
+
+
+NICHOLLS, THOMAS, _alias_ NICHOLAS.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy at
+Charleston on November 8th, 1718, and found "not guilty."
+
+
+NONDRE, PEDRO.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February, 1823. At the time of execution
+it was observed that he was covered with the marks of deep wounds. On the
+scaffold he wept bitterly. An immensely heavy man, he broke the rope, and
+had to be hanged a second time.
+
+
+NORMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Served under Morgan in 1670, and after the fall of Chagres Fort, Norman
+was left in charge with 500 men to hold it, while Morgan crossed the
+isthmus to attack Panama. Norman soon "sent forth to sea two boats to
+exercise piracy." These hoisted Spanish colours and met a big Spanish
+merchant ship on the same day. They chased the ship, which fled for safety
+into the Chagres River, only to be caught there by Norman. She proved a
+valuable prize, being loaded with all kinds of provisions, of which the
+garrison was in sore need.
+
+
+NORTH, CAPTAIN NATHANIEL.
+
+Born in Bermuda, and by profession a lawyer, Captain North was a man of
+remarkable ability, and in his later calling of piracy he gained great
+notoriety, and was a born leader of men. His history has been written
+fully, and is well worth reading. He had many ups and downs in his early
+seafaring life in the West Indies; being no less than three times taken by
+the pressgang, each time escaping. He served in Dutch and Spanish
+privateers, and eventually rose to being a pirate captain, making his
+headquarters in Madagascar. From here he sailed out to the East Indies,
+and preyed on the ships of the East India Company. Several times he was
+wrecked, once he was the only survivor, and swam ashore at Madagascar
+stark naked. The unusual sight of a naked Englishman spread terror amongst
+the natives who were on the beach, and they all fled into the jungle
+except one, a woman, who from previous personal experience knew that this
+was but a human being and not a sea devil. She supplied him with clothes,
+of a sort, and led him to the nearest pirate settlement, some six miles
+away. On another occasion when the pirates were having a jollification
+ashore, having left their Moorish prisoners on the ship at anchor, North
+gave the prisoners a hint to clear off in the night with the ship,
+otherwise they would all be made slaves. This friendly hint was acted
+upon, and in the morning both ship and prisoners had vanished. The pirates
+having lost their ship took to the peaceful and harmless life of planters,
+with North as their ruler. He won the confidence of the natives, who
+abided by his decision in all quarrels and misunderstandings. Occasionally
+North and his men would join forces with a neighbouring friendly tribe and
+go to war, North leading the combined army, and victory always resulted.
+The call of piracy was too strong in his bones to resist, and after three
+years planting he was back to sea and the Jolly Roger once more. On one
+occasion he seized the opportunity, when in the neighbourhood of the
+Mascarenhas Islands, to go ashore and visit the Catholic priest and
+confess, and at the same time made suitable arrangements for his children
+to be educated by the Church. North evidently truly repented his former
+sins, for he returned to resume his simple life on his plantation. On
+arriving home he found the settlement in an uproar. He soon settled all
+the disputes, appeased the natives, and before long had this garden-city
+of pirates back in its previous peaceful and happy state. Beyond an
+occasional little voyage, taking a ship or two, or burning an Arab
+village, North's career as a pirate may be considered to have terminated,
+as, indeed, his life was shortly afterwards, being murdered in his bed by
+a treacherous native. North's friends the pirates, shocked at this
+cold-blooded murder, waged a ruthless war on the natives for seven years:
+thus in their simple way thinking to revenge the loss of this estimable
+man, who had always been the natives' best friend.
+
+
+NORTON, GEORGE.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy in June, 1704, at the
+Star Tavern at Boston.
+
+
+NUTT, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Phillip's original crew of five pirates in the
+_Revenge_ in 1723. Nutt was made master or navigator.
+
+
+OCHALI. Barbary renegade.
+
+In 1511 he sailed from Algiers with a fleet of twenty-two vessels and
+1,700 men to raid Majorca. The Moors landed at Soller and pillaged it.
+Before they could get back to their ship, the pirates were attacked by the
+Majorcans, headed by Miguel Angelats, and completely routed, 500 of them
+being killed.
+
+
+ODELL, SAMUEL.
+
+Taken prisoner by the pirate Captain Teach on November 21st, 1718, and on
+the very next day retaken by Lieutenant Maynard. Odell received no less
+than seventy wounds in the fight, but recovered, and was carried to
+Virginia to stand his trial for piracy, and was acquitted.
+
+
+OUGHTERLAUNEY, THOMAS.
+
+Acted as pilot in the _Royal Fortune_. Took an active part in taking and
+plundering the _King Solomon_ on the West Coast of Africa in 1721.
+
+Was tried for piracy with the rest of Roberts's crew, when one witness,
+Captain Trahern, deposed that the prisoner dressed himself up in the
+captain's best suit of clothes, his new tye wig, and called loudly for a
+bottle of wine, and then, very arrogantly, gave orders as to the steering
+of the captured ship.
+
+Hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722.
+
+
+PAIN, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Bahaman privateer who in 1683 turned pirate and attacked St. Augustine
+in Florida under French colours. Being driven off by the Spaniards, he had
+to content himself with looting some neighbouring settlements. On
+returning to New Providence, the Governor attempted, but without success,
+to arrest Pain and his crew. Pain afterwards appeared in Rhode Island, and
+when the authorities tried to seize him and his ship, he got off by
+exhibiting an old commission to hunt for pirates given him a long while
+before by Sir Thomas Lynch. When the West Indies became too hot for him,
+Pain made the coast of Carolina his headquarters.
+
+
+PAINE, CAPTAIN PETER, _alias_ LE PAIN. A French buccaneer.
+
+He brought into Port Royal in 1684 a merchant ship, _La Trompeuse_.
+Pretending to be the owner, he sold both ship and cargo, which brought
+about great trouble afterwards between the French and English Governments,
+because he had stolen the ship on the high seas. He was sent from Jamaica
+under arrest to France the same year, to answer for his crimes.
+
+
+PAINTER, PETER.
+
+This Carolina pirate retired and lived at Charleston. In August, 1710, he
+was recommended for the position of public powder-receiver, but was
+rejected by the Upper House. "Mr. Painter Having committed Piracy, and
+not having his Majesties Pardon for the same, Its resolved he is not fit
+for that Trust." Which only goes to show how hard it was for a man to live
+down a thing like piracy.
+
+
+PARDAL, CAPTAIN MANUEL RIVERO.
+
+Known to the Jamaicans as "the vapouring admiral of St. Jago," because in
+July, 1670, he had nailed a piece of canvas to a tree on the Jamaican
+coast with this curious challenge written both in English and Spanish:
+
+"I, Captain Manuel Rivero Pardal, to the chief of the squadron of
+privateers in Jamaica. I am he who this year have done that which follows.
+I went on shore at Caimanos, and burnt 20 houses and fought with Captain
+Ary, and took from him a catch laden with provisions and a canoe. And I am
+he who took Captain Baines and did carry the prize to Cartagena, and now
+am arrived to this coast, and have burnt it. And I come to seek General
+Morgan, with 2 ships of 20 guns, and having seen this, I crave he would
+come out upon the coast and seek me, that he might see the valour of the
+Spaniards. And because I had no time I did not come to the mouth of Port
+Royal to speak by word of mouth in the name of my king, whom God preserve.
+Dated the 5th of July, 1670."
+
+
+PARKER, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Buccaneer.
+
+Just after the city of Porto Bello had been made, as the Spanish thought,
+impregnable, by the building of the massive stone fort of San Jerome, the
+daring Parker, with but 200 English desperadoes, took the place by storm,
+burning part of the town and getting quickly and safely away with a huge
+amount of booty.
+
+
+PARKINS, BENJAMIN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew in the brigantine _Charles_. Tried at
+Boston for piracy in 1704.
+
+
+PARROT, JAMES.
+
+One of Quelch's crew, who turned King's evidence at the trial at Boston in
+1704, and thus escaped hanging.
+
+
+PATTERSON, NEAL.
+
+Of Aberdeen.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the
+marsh.
+
+
+PATTISON, JAMES.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+PEASE, CAPTAIN.
+
+A low down, latter-day South Sea pirate. Arrived in an armed ship with a
+Malay crew at Apia in Samoa in June, 1870, and rescued the pirate Bully
+Hayes, who was under arrest of the English Consul. He pleased the British
+inhabitants of the island by his display of loyalty to Queen Victoria by
+firing a salute of twenty-one guns on her Majesty's birthday.
+
+
+PELL, IGNATIUS.
+
+Boatswain of the _Royal James_, Major Stede Bonnet's ship. Turned King's
+evidence at trial of Bonnet and his crew at Charleston, Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+PENNER, MAJOR.
+
+We have been able to find out nothing of this pirate except that he was at
+New Providence Island in 1718 and took the King's pardon for pirates. He
+seems to have returned to the old life and was killed soon after, though
+how this came about is not recorded.
+
+
+PERKINS, BENJAMIN.
+
+One of Quelch's crew. Captured at Marblehead in 1704.
+
+
+PERRY, DANIEL.
+
+Of Guernsey.
+
+Tried for piracy in 1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and found guilty.
+Hanged on November 8th at White Point. Buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+PETERSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Of Newport, Rhode Island.
+
+In 1688 he arrived at Newport in a "barkalonga" armed with ten guns and
+seventy men. The Governor prosecuted him for piracy, but the grand jury,
+which consisted of friends and neighbours of Peterson, threw out the bill.
+Among other charges, Peterson was accused of selling some hides and
+elephants' teeth to a Boston merchant for £57, being part of the booty he
+had previously taken out of prizes in the West Indies.
+
+
+PETERSON, ERASMUS.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Captain Quelch's crew at Boston. Was
+hanged there on June 30th, 1704. When standing on the gallows "He cryed of
+injustice done him and said, 'It is very hard for so many lives to be
+taken away for a little Gold.' He said his peace was made with God, yet he
+found it extremely hard to forgive those who had wronged him. He told the
+Executioner 'he was a strong man and Prayed to be put out of his misery
+as soon as possible.'"
+
+
+PETERSON, JOHN.
+
+A Swedish pirate, one of Gow's crew. He was hanged at Wapping in June,
+1725.
+
+
+PETIT, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+Of San Domingo.
+
+In 1634 was in command of _Le Ruze_, crew of forty men and four guns.
+
+
+PETTY, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Deptford.
+
+A sailmaker in Captain Roberts's _Royal Fortune_ when the _King Solomon_
+was taken and plundered in West Africa. Petty, as sailmaker, had to see
+that all the sails and canvas aboard the prizes were removed to the pirate
+ship. Hanged at the age of 30.
+
+
+PHELIPP, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+In 1533 a Portuguese merchant, Peter Alves, engaged Phelipp to pilot his
+ship, the _Santa Maria Desaie_, from Tenby to Bastabill Haven. Off the
+Welsh coast the ship was attacked by a pirate vessel called the
+_Furtuskewys_, with a crew of thirty-five pirates. Alves was put ashore on
+the Welsh coast, and the two ships then sailed to Cork, where the ship and
+her cargo were sold to the mayor for 1,524 crowns.
+
+Alves complained to the King of England, and orders were sent to the Mayor
+of Cork, Richard Gowllys, to give up the ship, which he refused to do, but
+by way of excusing his actions he explained that he thought the ship was a
+Scotch one and not a Portuguese.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1723 this noted pirate took a sloop, the _Dolphin_, of Cape Ann, on the
+Banks of Newfoundland. The crew of the _Dolphin_ were compelled by
+Phillips to join the pirates. Amongst the prisoners was a fisherman, John
+Fillmore. Finding no opportunity to escape, Fillmore with another sailor,
+Edward Cheesman, and an Indian, suddenly seized and killed Phillips and
+the two other chief pirates. The rest of the crew agreeing, the ship was
+taken to Boston.
+
+
+PHILIPS, JAMES.
+
+Of the Island of Antigua.
+
+Formerly of the _Revenge_, and afterwards in the _Royal Fortune_ (Captain
+Roberts). When the _Royal Fortune_ surrendered in 1722 to H.M.S.
+_Swallow_, Philips seized a lighted match and attempted to blow up the
+ship, swearing he would "send them all to Hell together," but was
+prevented by the master, Glasby. Hanged at the age of 35.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, JOHN.
+
+A carpenter by trade, he sailed from the West Country for Newfoundland in
+a ship that was captured by the pirate Anstis in the _Good Fortune_.
+Phillips soon became reconciled to the life of a pirate, and, being a
+brisk fellow, he was appointed carpenter to the ship. Returning to England
+he soon found it necessary to quit the country again, and he shipped
+himself on board a vessel at Topsham for Newfoundland. On arriving at
+Peter Harbour he ran away, and hired himself as a splitter to the
+Newfoundland cod fishery.
+
+On the night of August 29th, 1723, with four others, he stole a vessel in
+the harbour and sailed away. Phillips was chosen captain. Articles were
+now drawn up and were sworn to upon a hatchet, because no Bible could be
+found on board. Amongst other laws was the punishment of "40 stripes
+lacking one, known as Moses's law, to be afflicted for striking a
+fellow-pirate." The last law of the nine casts a curious light on these
+murderers; it runs: "If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that
+Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer
+present Death." The pirates, fortified by these laws, met with instant
+success, taking several fishing vessels, from which they augmented their
+small crew by the addition of several likely and brisk seamen. Amongst
+these they had the good fortune to take prisoner an old pirate called John
+Rose Archer, who had served his pirate apprenticeship under the able
+tuition of the famous Blackbeard, and who they at once promoted to be
+quartermaster. This quick promotion caused trouble afterwards, for some of
+the original crew, particularly carpenter Fern, resented it. The pirates
+next sailed to Barbadoes, that happy hunting ground, but for three months
+never a sail did they meet with, so that they were almost starving for
+want of provisions, being reduced to a pound of dried meat a day amongst
+ten of them.
+
+At last they met with a French vessel, a Martinico ship, of twelve guns,
+and hunger drove them to attack even so big a ship as this, but the sight
+of the Black flag so terrified the French crew that they surrendered
+without firing a shot. After this, they took several vessels, and matters
+began to look much brighter. Phillips quickly developed into a most
+accomplished and bloody pirate, butchering his prisoners on very little or
+on no provocation whatever. But even this desperate pirate had an
+occasional "qualm of conscience come athwart his stomach," for when he
+captured a Newfoundland vessel and was about to scuttle her, he found out
+that she was the property of a Mr. Minors of that island, from whom they
+stole the original vessel in which they went a-pirating, so Phillips,
+telling his companions "We have done him enough injury already," ordered
+the vessel to be repaired and returned to the owner. On another occasion,
+they took a ship, the master of which was a "Saint" of New England, by
+name Dependance Ellery, who gave them a pretty chase before being
+overhauled, and so, as a punishment, the "Saint" was compelled to dance
+the deck until he fell down exhausted.
+
+This pirate's career ended with a mutiny of his unruly crew, Phillips
+being tripped up and then thrown overboard to drown off Newfoundland in
+April, 1724.
+
+During the nine months of Phillips's command as a pirate captain, he
+accounted for more than thirty ships.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, JOSEPH.
+
+One of Teach's crew. Hanged in Virginia in 1718.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Lower Shadwell.
+
+Boatswain in the _King Solomon_, a Guinea merchant ship. This ship, while
+lying at anchor in January, 1721, was attacked by a boatful of pirates
+from Bartholomew Roberts's ship, the _Royal Fortune_. The captain of the
+_King Solomon_ fired a musket at the approaching boat, and called upon his
+crew to do the same, but Phillips called for quarter and persuaded the
+rest of the crew to lay down their arms and surrender the ship. Phillips
+eagerly joined the pirates and signed the articles, and was "very forward
+and brisk" in helping to rob his own ship of provisions and stores.
+
+At his trial at Cape Coast Castle, he pleaded, as nearly all the prisoners
+did, that he was compelled to sign the pirates' articles, which were
+offered to him on a dish, on which lay a loaded pistol beside the copy of
+the articles.
+
+Found guilty and hanged in April, 1722, within the flood marks at Cape
+Coast Castle, in his 29th year.
+
+
+PHIPS, RICHARD.
+
+An English soldier who deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine, in 1689.
+Wounded by a bullet in the head at Tarpaulin Cove. Taken to Boston Prison,
+where he died.
+
+
+PICKERING, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
+
+Commanded the _Cinque Ports_ galley, sixteen guns, crew of sixty-three
+men, and accompanied Dampier on his voyage in 1703. Died off the coast of
+Brazil in the same year.
+
+
+PIERSE, GEORGE.
+
+Tried for piracy along with the rest of the crew of the brigantine
+_Charles_, at Boston, in 1704.
+
+
+PITMAN, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+POLEAS, PEDRO. Spanish pirate.
+
+Co-commander with Captain Johnson of a pirate sloop, the _Two Brothers_.
+In March, 1731, took a ship, the _John and Jane_ (Edward Burt, master),
+south of Jamaica, on board of which was a passenger, John Cockburn, who
+afterwards wrote a book relating his adventures on a journey on foot of
+240 miles on the mainland of America.
+
+
+PORTER, CAPTAIN.
+
+A West Indian pirate, who commanded a sloop, and, in company with a
+Captain Tuckerman in another sloop, came one day into Bennet's Key in
+Hispaniola. The two captains were but beginners at piracy, and finding
+the great Bartholomew Roberts in the bay, paid him a polite visit, hoping
+to pick up a few wrinkles from the "master." This scene is described by
+Captain Johnson, in his "Lives of the Pirates," when Porter and his friend
+"addressed the Pyrate, as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon, to wit, That
+having heard of his Fame and Achievements, they had put in there to learn
+his Art and Wisdom in the Business of pyrating, being Vessels on the same
+honourable Design with himself; and hoped with the Communication of his
+Knowledge, they should also receive his Charity, being in want of
+Necessaries for such Adventures. Roberts was won upon by the Peculiarity
+and Bluntness of these two Men and gave them Powder, Arms, and what ever
+else they had Occasion for, spent two or three merry Nights with them, and
+at parting, said, he hoped the L---- would Prosper their handy Works."
+
+
+POUND, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+On August 8th, 1689, this pirate, with five men and a boy, sailed out of
+Boston Harbour as passengers in a small vessel. When off Lovell's Island,
+five other armed men joined them. Pound now seized the craft and took
+command, and declared his intention of going on a piratical cruise. The
+first vessel they met with they decided to take. It was a fishing boat.
+Pound ran his craft alongside, but at the last moment his heart failed
+him, and he merely bought eight penn'o'th of mackerel from the surprised
+fishermen.
+
+He then sailed to Falmouth, Maine, where the corporal and soldiers of the
+guard at the fort deserted in the night and sailed off with Pound and his
+crew. Fortified by this addition to his crew, the pirate attacked a sloop,
+the _Good Speed_, off Cape Cod, and a brigantine, the _Merrimack_, and
+several other prizes. By this time, the Governor at Boston had heard of
+Pound's escapades, and sent an armed sloop, the _Mary_, to search for him.
+The pirate was discovered in Tarpaulin Cove, and a fierce and bloody fight
+took place before the pirates struck their "Red flagg." The prisoners were
+cast into Boston Gaol to await their trial. Pound had been wounded, being
+shot in the arm and side. The trial took place on January 13th, 1690.
+Pound was found guilty, but reprieved, and was sent to England, but was
+later on liberated. Afterwards he got command of a ship. He died in
+England in 1703.
+
+
+POWELL, THOMAS.
+
+Of Connecticut, New England.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, on
+July 19th, 1723, at the age of 21.
+
+
+POWER, JOHN.
+
+Born in the West of England.
+
+Served in a slave vessel, the _Polly_ (Captain Fox, commander), on a
+voyage to the coast of West Africa. While the captain was on shore, the
+crew ran away with the ship, turned pirates, called their vessel the
+_Bravo_, and elected Power to be captain and sailed to the West Indies.
+Arrived there, he tried to sell his cargo of slaves, but being suspected
+of having stolen them, he thought it best to sail to New York. Here the
+pirates got ashore, but the ship's surgeon informed the authorities, and
+Power was arrested and sent to England, where he was tried, and hanged at
+Execution Dock on March 10th, 1768.
+
+
+PRICE, THOMAS.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. One of Major
+Stede Bonnet's crew.
+
+
+PRIMER, MATTHEW.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Turned King's evidence at the trial for
+piracy held at the Star Tavern, Boston, in June, 1704.
+
+
+PRINCE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.
+
+In 1760 this buccaneer sacked the city of Granada in company with Captains
+Harris and Ludbury. Late in the same year, Prince, with the rank of
+Lieut.-Colonel, led the vanguard in the attack on Panama.
+
+
+PRO, CAPTAIN.
+
+This Dutch South Sea pirate owned a small plantation in Madagascar, and
+was joined there by the pirate Williams after he had escaped from slavery.
+Both were taken prisoner by an English frigate. In a fight with the
+natives, the pirate crew was defeated, but Pro and Williams managed to
+escape and to reach some friendly natives. Procuring a boat, they sailed
+away to join some other pirates at Methulage in Madagascar.
+
+
+PROWSE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.
+
+A Devon man, a noted sea captain, and a terror to the Spaniards. Was
+imprisoned by King James I. at the instance of the King of Spain for
+piracy and was to have been executed, but English public feeling ran so
+high that Prowse was discharged.
+
+
+PULLING, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+Commanded the _Fame_, which set out in 1703 in company with Dampier in the
+_St. George_ on a plundering expedition to the South Seas. Their
+commissions were to attack only Spanish and French ships. The two
+captains quarrelled at the very beginning of the voyage, while lying off
+the Downs, and Pulling slipped away by himself to go a-pirating amongst
+the Canary Islands.
+
+
+PURSSER, CAPTAIN.
+
+In the sixteenth century this pirate became notorious for his piracies off
+the coast of Wales, and with Calles and Clinton, two other pirates, "grew
+famous, till Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping."
+
+
+QUELCH, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+A native of Massachusetts Colony.
+
+In 1703 was one of the crew of the brigantine _Charles_, eighty tons,
+owned by some leading citizens of Boston, and fitted out to go
+privateering off the coasts of Arcadia and Newfoundland. On leaving
+Marblehead the crew mutinied, locked the captain in his cabin, and elected
+Quelch their commander. They sailed to the south, and shortly afterwards
+threw the captain overboard. They hoisted a flag, the "Old Roger,"
+described as having "in the middle of it an Anatomy with an Hourglars in
+one hand and a dart in the Heart with three drops of Blood proceeding from
+it in the other." They took nine Portuguese vessels off the coast of
+Brazil, out of which they took plunder of very great value.
+
+Quelch now had the audacity to sail back to Marblehead, where his crew
+landed and quickly scattered with their plunder. Within a week Quelch was
+in gaol, and was taken to Boston, where his trial began on June 17th,
+1704, and he was found guilty. The days between the sentence and the
+execution must have, indeed, been trying for the prisoner. We read in a
+pamphlet published at the time: "The Ministers of the Town used more than
+ordinary Endeavours to Instruct the Prisoners and bring them to
+Repentance. There were Sermons Preached in their hearing Every Day, and
+Prayer daily made with them. And they were Catechised, and they had many
+occasional Exhortations. And nothing was left that could be done for their
+Good."
+
+On Friday, June 30th, 1704, Quelch and his companions marched on foot
+through the town of Boston to Scarlil's Wharf with a strong armed guard of
+musketeers, accompanied by various officials and two ministers, while in
+front was carried a silver oar, the emblem of a pirate's execution. Before
+the last act the minister gave a long and fervent harangue to the wretched
+culprits, in all of whom were observed suitable signs of repentance except
+Quelch, who, stepping forward on the platform, his hat in his hand, and
+bowing left and right to the spectators, gave a short address, in which he
+warned them "They should take care how they brought Money into New England
+to be Hanged for it."
+
+
+QUITTANCE, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew of the brigantine _Charles_. Tried with the
+rest of that crew at the Star Tavern at Boston in June, 1704.
+
+
+RACKAM, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ CALICO JACK.
+
+Served as quartermaster in Captain Vane's company. On one occasion Vane
+refused to fight a big French ship, and in consequence was dismissed his
+ship and marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, while
+the crew elected Rackam to be their captain in his place. This was on
+November 24th, 1718, and on the very first day of his command he had the
+good fortune to take and plunder several small vessels.
+
+Off the Island of Jamaica they took a Madeira ship, and found an old
+friend on board as a passenger--a Mr. Hosea Tisdell, who kept a tavern in
+the island, and they treated him with great respect.
+
+Christmas Day coming, the pirates landed on a small island to celebrate
+this festival in a thorough manner, carousing and drinking as long as the
+liquor lasted, when they sailed away to seek more. Their next prize was a
+strange one. On coming alongside a ship, she surrendered, and the pirates
+boarding her to examine her cargo, found it to consist of thieves from
+Newgate on their way to the plantations. Taking two more vessels, Rackam
+sailed to the Bahama Islands, but the Governor, Captain Woodes Rogers,
+sent a sloop, which took away their prizes.
+
+Rackam now sailed his ship to a snug little cove he knew of in Cuba, where
+he had more than one lady acquaintance. Here the pirates were very happy
+until all their provisions and money was spent. Just as they were about to
+sail, in comes a Spanish Guarda del Costa with a small English sloop which
+they had recently taken. Rackam was now in a very awkward position, being
+unable to get past the Spaniard, and all he could do was to hide behind a
+small island. Night came on, and when it was dark Rackam put all his crew
+into a boat, rowed quietly up to the sloop, clambered aboard, threatening
+instant death to the Spanish guards if they cried out, then cut the cables
+and sailed out of the bay. As soon as it was light the Spanish ship
+commenced a furious bombardment of Rackam's empty vessel, thinking he was
+still aboard her.
+
+In the summer of 1720 he took numbers of small vessels and fishing boats,
+but nothing very rich, and was not above stealing the fishermen's nets and
+landing and taking cattle. In October Rackam was chased near Nigril Bay by
+a Government sloop commanded by a Captain Barret. After a short fight
+Rackam surrendered, and was carried a prisoner to Port Royal.
+
+On November 16th Rackam and his crew were tried at St. Jago de la Vega,
+convicted and sentenced to death. Amongst the crew were two women dressed
+as men, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The former was married, in pirate
+fashion, to Rackam.
+
+On the morning of his execution Rackam was allowed, as a special favour,
+to visit his Anne, but all the comfort he got from her was "that she was
+sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a man, he need not have
+been hanged like a Dog."
+
+Rackam was hanged on November 17th, 1720, at Gallows Point, at Port Royal,
+Jamaica.
+
+
+RAPHAELINA, CAPTAIN.
+
+Much dreaded by the merchant sailors navigating the South Atlantic. In
+1822 he controlled a fleet of pirate vessels in the vicinity of Cape
+Antonio.
+
+
+RAYNER, CAPTAIN.
+
+In a letter to the Lords of Trade, dated from Philadelphia, February 28th,
+1701, William Penn mentions that several of Captain Kidd's men had settled
+as planters in Carolina with Rayner as their captain.
+
+
+RAYNOR, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+READ, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a brigantine which had its headquarters at Madagascar. Rescued
+the pirate Thomas White. Read died at sea.
+
+
+READ, MARY. Woman pirate.
+
+Born in London of obscure parentage; all that is known for certain is that
+her mother was a "young and airy widow." Mary was brought up as a boy, and
+at the age of 13 was engaged as a footboy to wait on a French lady. Having
+a roving spirit, Mary ran away and entered herself on board a man-of-war.
+Deserting a few years later, she enlisted in a regiment of foot and fought
+in Flanders, showing on all occasions great bravery, but quitted the
+service to enlist in a regiment of horse. Her particular comrade in this
+regiment was a Fleming, with whom she fell in love and disclosed to him
+the secret of her sex. She now dressed as a woman, and the two troopers
+were married, "which made a great noise," and several of her officers
+attended the nuptials. She and her husband got their discharge and kept an
+eating house or ordinary, the Three Horseshoes, near the Castle of Breda.
+The husband died, and Mary once again donned male attire and enlisted in a
+regiment in Holland. Soon tiring of this, she deserted, and shipped
+herself aboard a vessel bound for the West Indies. This ship was taken by
+an English pirate, Captain Rackam, and Mary joined his crew as a seaman.
+
+She was at New Providence Island, Bahama, when Woodes Rogers came there
+with the royal pardon to all pirates, and she shipped herself aboard a
+privateer sent out by Rogers to cruise against the Spaniards. The crew
+mutinied and again became pirates. She now sailed under Captain Rackam,
+who had with him another woman pirate, Anne Bonny. They took a large
+number of ships belonging to Jamaica, and out of one of these took
+prisoner "a young fellow of engaging behaviour" with whom Mary fell deeply
+in love. This young fellow had a quarrel with one of the pirates, and as
+the ship lay at anchor they were to go to fight it out on shore according
+to pirate law. Mary, to save her lover, picked a quarrel with the same
+pirate, and managed to have her duel at once, and fighting with sword and
+pistol killed him on the spot.
+
+She now married the young man "of engaging behaviour," and not long after
+was taken prisoner with Captain Rackam and the rest of the crew to
+Jamaica. She was tried at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica, and on November
+28th, 1720, was convicted, but died in prison soon after of a violent
+fever.
+
+That Mary Read was a woman of great spirit is shown by her reply to
+Captain Rackam, who had asked her (thinking she was a young man) what
+pleasure she could find in a life continually in danger of death by fire,
+sword, or else by hanging; to which Mary replied "that as to hanging, she
+thought it no great Hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly
+Fellow would turn Pirate and so unfit the Seas, that Men of Courage must
+starve."
+
+
+READ, ROBERT.
+
+Tried for piracy with Gow's crew at Newgate in 1725, and acquitted.
+
+
+READ, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Londonderry, Ireland.
+
+One of Captain Harris's crew. Was hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in
+1723, at the age of 35.
+
+
+READHEAD, PHILIP.
+
+One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_,
+wrecked on Alderney Island in 1564. Was arrested and hanged at St.
+Martin's Point, Guernsey, in the same year.
+
+[Illustration: ANN BONNY AND MARY READ, CONVICTED OF PIRACY, NOVEMBER 28,
+1720, AT A COURT OF VICE-ADMIRALTY HELD AT ST. JAGO DE LA VEGA IN THE
+ISLAND OF JAMAICA.
+
+To face p. 256.]
+
+
+RHOADE, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+A Dutch coasting pilot of Boston.
+
+In 1674 appointed chief pilot to the Curacao privateer _Flying Horse_, and
+sailed along the coast of Maine and as far north as the St. John River.
+Afterwards attacked and plundered several small English craft occupied in
+bartering furs with the Indians. Condemned to be hanged at Cambridge,
+Massachusetts, in June, 1675.
+
+
+RICE, DAVID. Welsh pirate.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+Taken out of the Cornwall galley by Captain Roberts, he served in the
+_Royal Fortune_. Tried and found guilty of piracy and condemned to death,
+but was reprieved and sold to the Royal African Company to serve for seven
+years in their plantations.
+
+
+RICE, OWEN. Welsh pirate.
+
+Of South Wales.
+
+Hanged at the age of 27 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Captain Charles
+Harris's crew.
+
+
+RICHARDS, LIEUTENANT.
+
+Lieutenant to Blackbeard on board the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Cruised in
+the West Indies and along the coast of Carolina and Virginia.
+
+In 1717 Teach blockaded the harbour at Charleston and sent Richards with a
+party of pirates to the Governor to demand a medicine chest and all
+necessary medical supplies, with a threat that if these were not
+forthcoming he would cut the throats of all his prisoners, many of them
+the leading merchants of the town. While waiting for the Governor's reply,
+Richards and his companions scandalized the towns-folk of Charleston by
+their outrageous and swaggering conduct.
+
+
+RICHARDSON, JOHN.
+
+His father was a goldsmith at New York. John, tiring of the trade of
+cooper, to which he was apprenticed, ran away to sea. For many years he
+served both in men-of-war and in merchant ships. Although an unmitigated
+blackguard, he did not commit piracy nor murder until some years later,
+when, being at Ancona, he met a Captain Benjamin Hartley, who had come
+there with a loading of pilchards. Richardson was taken on board to serve
+as ship's carpenter, and sailed for Leghorn. With another sailor called
+Coyle, Richardson concocted a mutiny, murdered the captain in the most
+brutal manner, and was appointed mate in the pirate ship. As a pirate
+Richardson was beneath contempt. His life ended on the gallows at
+Execution Dock on January 25th, 1738.
+
+
+RICHARDSON, NICHOLAS.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Taken out of the brigantine _Charles_, and
+tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+RIDGE, JOHN.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
+Carolina.
+
+
+RINGROSE, BASIL. Buccaneer, pirate, and author.
+
+Sailed in 1679 to the West Indies. A year later Ringrose had joined the
+buccaneers at their rendezvous in the Gulf of Darien, where they were
+preparing for a bold enterprise on the Spanish Main. They landed and
+marched to the town of Santa Maria, which they plundered and burnt.
+Thence they travelled in canoes down the river to the Bay of Panama. After
+attacking the Spanish fleet and laying siege to the city, the buccaneers
+cruised up and down the West Coast of South America for eighteen months,
+sacking towns and attacking Spanish ships. All this while Ringrose kept a
+very full and graphic journal, in which he recorded not only their
+exploits, but also their hardships and quarrels, and gave descriptions as
+well of the various natives and their customs, and drew charts and
+sketches.
+
+In 1681 Ringrose was still with Captain Sharp, and sailed through the
+Straits of Magellan, and on January 30th of the same year anchored off
+Antigua. Here he got a passage in a ship to England, landing safely at
+Dartmouth on March 26th.
+
+A year later he published an account of his voyage, as a second volume to
+Esquemeling's, "Bucaniers of America." In 1684 he went to sea again in the
+_Cygnet_ (Captain Swan), to traffic with the Spanish colonies. But the
+Spaniards refused to trade with them. In October, 1684, they met the
+famous Captain Edward Davis at that favourite haunt of the buccaneers, the
+Isle of Plate. The two captains agreed to join forces and to go together
+"on the account," so all the cargo was thrown overboard the _Cygnet_, and
+the ships set out to make war on any Spanish ships they might meet with.
+
+In February, 1686, Ringrose with one hundred men took the town of Santiago
+in Mexico, but while returning with the plunder to their ship were caught
+by the Spaniards in an ambush, and Ringrose was killed.
+
+Ringrose never attained any rank among the buccaneers beyond occasionally
+being put in charge of a boat or a small company on shore, but as a
+recorder of the doings of his companions he proved both careful and
+painstaking. Dampier had a great regard for him, and in his book he
+writes: "My ingenious friend Ringrose had no mind to this voyage, but was
+necessitated to engage in it or starve."
+
+The title of Ringrose's book, first published in 1685, is "The Dangerous
+Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others."
+
+Written by Mr. Basil Ringrose.
+
+Printed for William Crooke, 1685.
+
+
+ROACH, PETER.
+
+When Captain Quelch was captured with his crew, Roach escaped near the
+Cape by Snake Island. He was afterwards captured and thrown into the gaol
+at Salem. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston, and on June 30th,
+1704, was hanged. At the place of execution Roach disappointed the
+onlooking crowd, as, instead of the expected and hoped-for repentant
+speech, "he seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at
+all."
+
+
+ROB, ALEXANDER.
+
+One of Captain Gow's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, in June,
+1724. He was not one of the original crew of the _George_ galley, but was
+taken out of a prize and joined the pirates of his own free-will.
+
+
+ROBBINS, JAMES.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 along with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+ROBBINS, JAMES.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of the crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
+Carolina.
+
+
+ROBERTS, CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW. Welsh pirate.
+
+Born 1682. Died 1722.
+
+If a pirate is to be reckoned by the amount of damage he does and the
+number of ships he takes there can be no doubt that Captain Roberts should
+be placed at the very head of his profession, for he is said to have taken
+over 400 vessels. The only man who can be said to rival him is Sir Henry
+Morgan, but Morgan, although in some ways an unmitigated blackguard, was a
+man of much greater breadth of outlook than Roberts ever was, and,
+moreover, was a buccaneer rather than a pirate.
+
+Roberts, like many other successful pirates, was born in Wales, not far
+from Haverfordwest. He is described as being "a tall black man," and was
+about 40 years of age at the time of his death. He was remarkable, even
+among his remarkable companions, for several things. First of all, he only
+drank tea--thus being the only total abstainer known to the fraternity.
+Also he was a strict disciplinarian, and on board his ships all lights had
+to be extinguished by 8 p.m., any of the crew who wished to continue
+drinking after that hour had to do so on the open deck. But try as he
+would this ardent apostle of abstemiousness was unable to put down
+drinking. If Roberts had lived to-day, no doubt he would have been on the
+council of the local vigilance committee. He would allow no women aboard
+his ships, in fact he made it a law that any man who brought a woman on
+board disguised as a man was to suffer death. Roberts allowed no games at
+cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of
+gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a
+rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a
+pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a
+tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect
+all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always
+the greatest competition amongst the worst characters in the ship to be
+appointed sentinel over a good-looking woman prisoner. All quarrels had to
+be settled on shore, pirate fashion, the duellists standing back to back
+armed with pistol and cutlass. Roberts would have no fighting among the
+crew on board his ship.
+
+Bartholomew must have looked the very part of a pirate when dressed for
+action. A tall, dark man, he used to wear a rich damask waistcoat and
+breeches, a red feather in his cap, a gold chain round his neck with a
+large diamond cross dangling from it, a sword in his hand, and two pairs
+of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders.
+
+We first hear of Roberts as sailing, in honest employ, as master of the
+_Princess_ (Captain Plumb), from London in November, 1719, bound for the
+coast of Guinea to pick up a cargo of "black ivory" at Anamaboe. Here his
+ship was taken by the Welsh pirate Howel Davis. At first Roberts was
+disinclined for the pirate life, but soon changed his mind.
+
+On the death of Davis there were several candidates for the post of
+commander, all brisk and lively men, distinguished by the title of
+"Lords," such as Sympson, Ashplant, Anstis, and others. One of these
+"Lords," Dennis, concluded an eloquent harangue over a bowl of punch with
+a strong appeal for Roberts to be the new chief. This proposal was
+acclaimed with but one dissenting voice, that of "Lord" Sympson, who had
+hopes of being elected himself, and who sullenly left the meeting swearing
+"he did not care who they chose captain so it was not a papist." So
+Roberts was elected after being a pirate only six weeks; thus was true
+merit quickly appreciated and rewarded amongst them.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS.
+
+To face p. 262.]
+
+Roberts's speech to his fellow-pirates was short but to the point, saying
+"that since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must be a pyrate,
+it was better being a commander than a common man," not perhaps a graceful
+nor grateful way of expressing his thanks, but one which was no doubt
+understood by his audience.
+
+Roberts began his career in a bright manner, for to revenge the perfectly
+justifiable death of their late captain he seized and razed the fort,
+bombarded the town, and setting on fire two Portuguese ships so as to act
+as torches, sailed away the same night. Sailing to Brazil they found in
+the Bay of Bahia a fleet of forty-two Portuguese ships ready laden and on
+the point of leaving for Lisbon, and Roberts, with the most astounding
+boldness, sailed right in amongst them until he found the deepest laden,
+which he attacked and boarded, although his was a much smaller ship. He
+sailed away with his prize from the harbour. This prize, amongst the
+merchandise, contained 40,000 moidors and a cross of diamonds designed for
+the King of Portugal.
+
+He then took a Dutch ship, and two days later an English one, and sailed
+back to Brazil, refitting and cleaning at the Island of Ferdinando.
+
+In a work such as this is, it is impossible to recount all, or even a few,
+of the daring adventures, or the piratical ups and downs of one pirate.
+Roberts sailed to the West Indies devastating the commerce of Jamaica and
+Barbadoes. When things grew too hot there, he went north to Newfoundland,
+and played the very devil with the English and French fishing fleets and
+settlements.
+
+His first ship he called the _Fortune_, his next, a bigger ship, the
+_Royal Fortune_, another the _Good Fortune_.
+
+On two occasions Roberts had been very roughly handled, once by a ship
+from Barbadoes and once by the inhabitants of Martinica, so when he
+designed his new flag, he portrayed on it a huge figure of himself
+standing sword in hand upon two skulls, and under these were the letters
+A.B.H. and A.M.H., signifying a Barbadian's and a Martinican's head.
+
+In April, 1721, Roberts was back again on the Guinea Coast, burning and
+plundering. Amongst the prisoners he took out of one of his prizes was a
+clergyman. The captain dearly wished to have a chaplain on board his ship
+to administer to the spiritual welfare of his crew, and tried all he could
+to persuade the parson to sign on, promising him that his only duties
+should be to say prayers and make punch. But the prelate begged to be
+excused, and was at length allowed to go with all his belongings, except
+three prayer-books and a corkscrew--articles which were sorely needed
+aboard the _Royal Fortune_.
+
+The end of Roberts's career was now in sight. A King's ship, the _Swallow_
+(Captain Chaloner Ogle), discovered Roberts's ships at Parrot Island, and,
+pretending to fly from them, was followed out to sea by one of the
+pirates. A fight took place, and after two hours the pirates struck,
+flinging overboard their black flag "that it might not rise in Judgement
+over them." The _Swallow_ returned in a few days to Parrot Island to look
+for Roberts in the _Royal Fortune_. Roberts being at breakfast, enjoying a
+savoury dish of solomongundy, was informed of the approach of the ship,
+but refused to take any notice of it. At last, thoroughly alarmed, he cut
+his cables and sailed out, but most of his crew being drunk, even at this
+early hour, the pirates did not make as good a resistance as if they had
+been sober. Early in the engagement Roberts was hit in the throat by a
+grape-shot and killed; this being on February 10th, 1722. His body, fully
+dressed, with his arms and ornaments, was thrown overboard according to
+his repeated request made during his lifetime. Thus the arch-pirate died,
+as he always said he wished to die, fighting. His motto had always been "A
+short life and a merry one." One good word can be said for Roberts, that
+he never forced a man to become a pirate against his wish.
+
+
+ROBERTS, OWEN. Welsh pirate.
+
+Carpenter in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and killed on November 22nd, 1718,
+off the North Carolina Coast.
+
+
+ROBINSON, EDWARD.
+
+Of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
+
+Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+ROCHE, CAPTAIN PHILIP, _alias_ JOHN EUSTACE.
+
+In company with three other mariners--Cullen, Wife, and Neale--this Irish
+pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721,
+for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and
+knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in
+charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took
+place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain,
+who pleaded for mercy, was also thrown into the sea. Driven by bad weather
+to Dartmouth, the new captain, Roche, had the ship repainted and
+disguised, and renamed her the _Mary_. Then sailing to Rotterdam he sold
+the cargo of beef and took on a fresh cargo with the owner, Mr. Annesly.
+The first night out of port they threw Mr. Annesly overboard, and he swam
+alongside for some while pleading to be taken in. On going into a French
+port, and hearing that an enquiry was being made about his ship, Roche ran
+away. The crew took the ship to Scotland, and there landed and
+disappeared, and the ship was seized and taken to the Thames.
+
+Later on Roche was arrested in London and committed to Newgate Prison,
+found guilty of piracy, and hanged on August 5th, 1723, at Execution Dock,
+at the age of 30. The hanging was not, from the public spectators point of
+view, a complete success, for the culprit "was so ill at the time that he
+could not make any public declaration of his abhorrence of the crime for
+which he suffered."
+
+
+RODERIGO, PETER.
+
+A "Flanderkin."
+
+Commanded a Dutch vessel, the _Edward and Thomas_, that sailed from Boston
+in 1674, and took several small English vessels along the coast of Maine.
+Tried for piracy at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and condemned to be hanged,
+but was afterwards pardoned.
+
+
+ROGERS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+Commanded a ship, the _Forlorn_. Routed the Spaniards at Venta Cruz in
+1671. One of Morgan's captains in his attack on Panama.
+
+
+ROGERS, CAPTAIN WOODES.
+
+As the life of this famous navigator and privateer is, very justly,
+treated fully in the "Dictionary of National Biography" it is unnecessary
+to mention more than a few incidents in his adventurous career. Woodes
+Rogers was not only a good navigator, for on many occasions he showed a
+remarkable gift for commanding mutinous crews in spite of having many
+officers on whom he could place little reliance. On leaving Cork in 1708,
+after an incompetent pilot had almost run his ship on two rocks off
+Kinsale called "The Sovereigne's Bollacks," Rogers describes his crew
+thus: "A third were foreigners, while of Her Majestie's subjects many were
+taylors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers, and hay-makers, with ten boys and one
+negro." It was with crews such as these that many of the boldest and most
+remarkable early voyages were made, and they required a man of Woodes
+Rogers stamp to knock them into sailors. Rogers had a gift for inspiring
+friendship wherever he went. On arriving at the coast of Brazil, his boat
+was fired on when trying to land at Angre de Reys. This settlement had but
+lately received several hostile visitors in the way of French pirates. But
+before a week was passed Woodes Rogers had so won the hearts of the
+Portuguese Governor and the settlers that he and his "musick" were invited
+to take part in an important religious function, or "entertainment," as
+Rogers calls it, "where," he says, "we waited on the Governour, Signior
+Raphael de Silva Lagos, in a body, being ten of us, with two trumpets and
+a hautboy, which he desir'd might play us to church, where our musick did
+the office of an organ, but separate from the singing, which was by the
+fathers well perform'd. Our musick played 'Hey, boys, up go we!' and all
+manner of noisy paltry tunes. And after service, our musicians, who were
+by that time more than half drunk, march'd at the head of the company;
+next to them an old father and two fryars carrying lamps of incense, then
+an image dressed with flowers and wax candles, then about forty priests,
+fryars, etc., followed by the Governor of the town, myself, and Capt.
+Courtney, with each of us a long wax candle lighted. The ceremony held
+about two hours; after which we were splendidly entertained by the
+fathers of the Convent, and then by the Governour. They unanimously told
+us they expected nothing from us but our Company, and they had no more but
+our musick."
+
+What a delightful picture this calls to the mind--the little Brazilian
+town, the tropical foliage, the Holy Procession, "wax figure" and priests,
+followed by the Governor with an English buccaneer on either side, and
+headed by a crew of drunken Protestant English sailors playing "Hey, boys,
+up go we!"
+
+Rogers, not to be outdone in hospitality, next day entertained the
+Governor and fathers on board the _Duke_, "when," he says, "they were very
+merry, and in their cups propos'd the Pope's health to us. But we were
+quits with 'em by toasting the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to keep up
+the humour, we also proposed William Pen's health, and they liked the
+liquor so well, that they refused neither." Alas! the good Governor and
+the fathers were not in a fit state to leave the ship when the end came to
+the entertainment, so slept on board, being put ashore in the morning,
+"when we saluted 'em with a huzza from each ship, because," as Rogers
+says, "we were not overstocked with powder."
+
+It was in March, 1710, that Rogers brought his little fleet into the
+harbour of Guam, one of the Ladrone Islands. Although at war with Spain,
+the captain soon became on his usual friendly terms with the Governor of
+this Spanish colony, and gave an entertainment on board his ship to him
+and four other Spanish gentlemen, making them "as welcome as time and
+place would afford, with musick and our sailors dancing." The Governor
+gave a return party on shore, to which Rogers and all his brother officers
+were invited, partaking of "sixty dishes of various sorts." After this
+feast Rogers gave his host a present, consisting of "two negro boys
+dress'd in liveries." One other instance of Woodes Rogers adaptability
+must suffice. In the year 1717 he was appointed Governor to the Bahama
+Islands, at New Providence, now called Nassau. His chief duty was to stamp
+out the West India pirates who had made this island their headquarters for
+many years, and were in complete power there, and numbered more than 2,000
+desperadoes, including such famous men as Vane and Teach. Rogers's only
+weapon, besides the man-of-war he arrived in, was a royal proclamation
+from King George offering free pardon to all pirates or buccaneers who
+would surrender at once to the new Governor. At first the pirates were
+inclined to resist his landing, but in the end the tactful Rogers got his
+own way, and not only landed, but was received by an armed guard of
+honour, and passed between two lines of pirates who fired salutes with
+their muskets.
+
+Most of the pirates surrendered and received their pardons, but some, who
+reverted shortly afterwards to piracy and were captured and brought back
+to New Providence, were tried and actually hanged by Rogers's late
+buccaneer subjects.
+
+Woodes Rogers eventually died in Nassau in the year 1729.
+
+He was the author of a delightful book entitled "A Cruising Voyage Round
+the World, begun in 1708 and finish'd in 1711, by Captain Woodes Rogers,
+Commander-in-Chief on this Expedition, with the ships _Duke_ and _Duchess_
+of Bristol."
+
+This was published in London in 1712.
+
+
+ROLLSON, PETER.
+
+Captain Gow's gunner in the _Revenge_. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping,
+in June, 1725.
+
+
+ROSS, GEORGE, or ROSE.
+
+Of Glasgow.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Was hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh
+below low-water mark.
+
+
+ROSSOE, FRANCIS.
+
+In June, 1717, in company with four other Carolina pirates, was placed on
+trial for his life. Convicted with De Cossey, De Mont, and Ernandos, of
+piratically taking the vessels the _Turtle Dove_, the _Penelope_, and the
+_Virgin Queen_ in July of the previous year, and, after being sentenced to
+death by Judge Trott, Rossoe and his fellow-pirates were promptly
+executed.
+
+
+ROUNDSIVEL, CAPTAIN GEORGE.
+
+Of the Bahama Islands.
+
+He refused to avail himself of King George's pardon to all pirates in
+1717, and went off again on the "main chance" till captured.
+
+
+ROW, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1679, at the Boca del Toro, was with the buccaneer fleet that attacked
+and sacked Santa Maria. Row commanded a small vessel of twenty tons, a
+crew of twenty-five men, and no guns.
+
+
+RUIZ.
+
+One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_, which
+plundered the Salem brig _Mexican_ in 1834. Tried in Boston and condemned
+to be hanged. Pleading insanity, he was respited for sixty days and then
+hanged on September 12th, 1835.
+
+
+RUPERT. Prince of the Rhine.
+
+After an adventurous life as a soldier on the Continent, he sailed from
+Ireland in 1648 with seven ships. His own ship was the _Swallow_. He was a
+man of boundless energy, who was never happy if not engaged in some
+enterprise, and as legitimate warfare gave him few opportunities he turned
+pirate. He spent five years at sea, largely in the West Indies, meeting
+with every kind of adventure.
+
+In 1653 he was caught in a storm in the Virgin Islands, and his fleet was
+wrecked. His brother, Prince Maurice, was lost with his ship, the
+_Defiance_, the only ship saved being the _Swallow_. Prince Rupert
+returned in the _Swallow_ to France in the same year. Hitherto the prince
+had been a restless, clever man, "very sparkish in his dress," but this
+catastrophe to his fleet and the loss of his brother broke his spirit, and
+he retired to England, where he died in his bed in 1682 at Spring Gardens.
+
+
+LE SAGE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+In 1684 was at San Domingo, in command of the _Tigre_, carrying thirty
+guns and a crew of 130 men.
+
+
+SALTER, EDWARD.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+SAMPLE, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.
+
+Was at New Providence Island in 1718, and received the royal pardon from
+King George, offered to those pirates who surrendered themselves to
+Governor Woodes Rogers. Like many another, he fell again into his former
+wicked ways, and ended his life by being hanged.
+
+
+SAMPLE, CAPTAIN ROBERT.
+
+One of England's crew in the _Royal James_. In 1720 they took a prize, the
+_Elizabeth and Katherine_, off the coast of West Africa. Fitting her out
+for a pirate, they named her the _Flying King_, and Sample was put in
+command. In company with Captain Low, he sailed to Brazil and did much
+mischief amongst the Portuguese shipping. In November of the same year the
+two pirate ships were attacked by a very powerful man-of-war. Lane got
+away, but Sample was compelled to run his ship ashore on the coast. Of his
+crew of seventy men, twelve were killed and the rest taken prisoners, of
+whom the Portuguese hanged thirty-eight. Of these, thirty-two were
+English, three Dutch, two French, and one Portuguese.
+
+
+SANDERS, THOMAS.
+
+An Elizabethan mariner who was taken prisoner by the Moors. He wrote a
+narrative of his life as a slave on a Barbary pirate galley.
+
+"I and sixe more of my fellowes," he wrote, "together with four-score
+Italians and Spaniards, were sent foorth in a Galeot to take a Greekish
+Carmosell, which came into Africa to steale Negroes. We were chained three
+and three to an oare, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the
+Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the masts, and his Mate afore the
+maste ... and when their develish choller rose, they would strike the
+Christians for no cause. And they allowed us but halfe a pound of bread a
+man in a day without any other kind of sustenance, water excepted.... We
+were then so cruelly manackled in such sort, that we could not put our
+hands the length of one foote asunder the one from the other, and every
+night they searched our chains three times, to see if they were fast
+riveted."
+
+
+SAWKINS, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.
+
+We know little of the early career of this remarkable buccaneer. He was
+loved by his crew, and had great influence over them. It is recorded that
+one Sunday morning, finding some of his men gambling, he threw the dice
+overboard, saying "he would have no gambling aboard his ship."
+
+We know that on one occasion he was caught in his vessel by H.M.S.
+_Success_ and brought to Port Royal, Jamaica, and that on December 1st,
+1679, he was in prison awaiting trial for piracy. Apparently he got off,
+for this brilliant young buccaneer is soon afterwards heard of as
+commanding a small vessel of sixteen tons, armed with but one gun and a
+crew of thirty-five men. He was one of a party of 330 buccaneers who,
+under the leadership of Coxon and Sharp, landed on the coast of Darien and
+marched through the jungle to attack and plunder the town of Santa Maria.
+The remainder of the journey across the isthmus was done in canoes, in
+which the pirates travelled down the Santa Maria River until they found
+themselves in the Pacific. On this expedition each captain had his company
+and had his own colours, Sawkins's flag being a red one with yellow
+stripes. Arrived at the sea, they captured two small Spanish vessels, and,
+the rest of the company being in the canoes, they boldly sailed towards
+Panama City. Meeting with the Spanish fleet of eight ships, the buccaneers
+attacked it, and, after a most furious battle, came off victorious. This
+was one of the most gallant episodes in the whole history of the "brethren
+of the coast," and was afterwards known as the Battle of Perico. Sawkins
+fought in the most brave and desperate manner, and took a large share in
+the successful enterprise. After this action some quarrelling took place,
+which ended by Captain Coxon going off with some seventy men, to return
+across the isthmus on foot. The company that remained in the Pacific
+elected Sawkins to be their leader, as Captain Sharp, a much older man,
+was away in his ship.
+
+The buccaneers, ever since they defeated the Spanish fleet, had blockaded
+the harbour, and a correspondence took place between the Governor of
+Panama and Sawkins, the former wishing to know what the pirates had come
+there for. To this message Sawkins sent back answer "that we came to
+assist the King of Darien, who was the true Lord of Panama and all the
+country thereabouts. And that since we were come so far, there was no
+reason but that we should have some satisfaction. So that if he pleased to
+send us five hundred pieces of eight for each man, and one thousand for
+each commander, and not any farther to annoy the Indians, but suffer them
+to use their own power and liberty, as became the true and natural lords
+of the country, that then we would desist from all further hostilities,
+and go away peaceably; otherwise that we should stay there, and get what
+we could, causing to them what damage was possible."
+
+This message was just bluff on Sawkins's part, but having heard that the
+Bishop of Santa Martha was in the city, Sawkins sent him two loaves of
+sugar as a present, and reminded the prelate that he had been his prisoner
+five years before, when Sawkins took that town. Further messengers
+returned from Panama next day, bringing a gold ring for Sawkins from the
+well-disposed Bishop, and a message from the Governor, in which he
+inquired "from whom we had our commission and to whom he ought to complain
+for the damage we had already done them?" To this Sawkins sent back answer
+"that as yet all his company were not come together; but that when they
+were come up we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our
+commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them
+as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them."
+
+After lying off Panama for some while without meeting with any plunder,
+and their victuals running short, the crews began to grumble, and
+persuaded Sawkins to sail south along the coast. This he did, and,
+arriving off the town of Puebla Nueva on May 22nd, 1679, Sawkins landed a
+party of sixty men and led them against the town. But the Spaniards had
+been warned in time, and had built up three strong breastworks.
+
+Sawkins, who never knew what fear meant, stormed the town at the head of
+his men, but was killed by a musket-ball.
+
+Basil Ringrose, the buccaneer who wrote the narrative of this voyage,
+describes Sawkins as being "a man who was as valiant and courageous as any
+man could be, and the best beloved of all our company"; and on another
+occasion he speaks of him as "a man whom nothing on earth could terrifie."
+
+
+SAWNEY, CAPTAIN.
+
+A pirate of New Providence Island in the Bahamas. In this pirate republic
+this old man lived in the best hut, and was playfully known as "Governor
+Sawney."
+
+
+DE SAYAS, FRANCISCO.
+
+A Spanish pirate hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.
+
+
+SCOT, LEWIS.
+
+Distinguished as being the first pirate to carry on the trade on land as
+well as at sea. Before this time pirates were never known to be anything
+but harmless drunkards when on shore, whatever they might be on board
+their ships. Scot changed all this when he sacked and pillaged the city of
+Campeachy. So successful was he that his example was quickly followed by
+Mansfield, John Davis, and other pirates.
+
+
+SCOT, ROGER.
+
+Born at Bristol.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Tried for piracy in April, 1722, at Cape
+Coast Castle, West Africa, after the great defeat of the pirates by H.M.S.
+_Swallow_. On this occasion no less than 267 pirates were accounted for.
+The finding of the Honourable the President and Judges of the Court of
+Admiralty for trying of pirates was as follows:
+
+  Acquitted                                 74
+  Executed                                  52
+  Respited                                   2
+  To Servitude                              20
+  To the Marshallsea                        17 for tryal
+
+The rest were accounted for as follows:
+
+  Killed { In the _Ranger_                  10
+         { In the _Fortune_                  3
+    Dy'd { In the passage to Cape Corso     15
+         { Afterwards in the castle          4
+  Negroes in both ships                     70
+                                          ----
+                                           267
+                                          ----
+
+A number of the prisoners signed a "humble petition" begging that, as
+they, being "unhappily and unwisely drawn into that wretched and
+detestable Crime of Piracy," they might be permitted to serve in the Royal
+African Company in the country for seven years, in remission of their
+crimes. This clemency was granted to twenty of the prisoners, of which
+Scot was one.
+
+A very impressive indenture was drawn up, according to which the prisoners
+were to become the slaves of the Company for seven years, and this was
+signed by the prisoners and by the President.
+
+
+SCOTT, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy in
+1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and hanged at White Point on November
+8th.
+
+
+SCUDAMORE, CHRISTOPHER.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern in
+Hanover Street, Boston, in 1704, and hanged on Charles River, Boston Side,
+on June 30th. A report of the trial and execution of these pirates,
+describing Scudamore's conduct on the gallows, says: "He appeared very
+Penitent since his Condemnation, was very diligent to improve his time
+going to, and at the place of Execution."
+
+
+SCUDAMORE, PETER.
+
+Belonging to Bristol.
+
+Surgeon in the _Mercy_ galley, and taken by Captain Roberts in 1721. It
+was a rule on all pirate vessels for the surgeon to be excused from
+signing the ship's articles. When the next prize was taken, if she carried
+a surgeon, he was taken in place of their present one, if the latter
+wished to leave. But when Scudamore came on board the _Royal Fortune_ he
+insisted on signing the pirate articles and boasted that he was the first
+surgeon that had ever done so, and he hoped, he said, to prove as great a
+rogue as any of them.
+
+When the African Company's Guinea ship, the _King Solomon_, was taken,
+Scudamore came aboard and helped himself to their surgeon's instruments
+and medicines. He also took a fancy for a backgammon board, but only kept
+it after a violent quarrel with another pirate. It came out at his trial
+that on a voyage from the Island of St. Thomas, in a prize, the _Fortune_,
+in which was a cargo of slaves, Scudamore had tried to bring about a
+mutiny of the blacks to kill the prize crew which was on board, and he was
+detected in the night going about amongst the negroes, talking to them in
+the Angolan language. He said that he knew enough about navigation to sail
+the ship himself, and he was heard to say that "this were better than to
+be taken to Cape Corso to be hanged and sun dried."
+
+The same witness told how he had approached the prisoner when he was
+trying to persuade a wounded pirate, one James Harris, to join him in his
+scheme, but fearing to be overheard, Scudamore turned the conversation to
+horse-racing.
+
+Scudamore was condemned to death, but allowed three days' grace before
+being hanged, which he spent in incessant prayers and reading of the
+Scriptures. On the gallows he sang, solo, the Thirty-first Psalm. Died at
+the age of 35.
+
+
+SEARLES, CAPTAIN ROBERT.
+
+In 1664 he brought in two Spanish prizes to Port Royal, but as orders had
+only lately come from England to the Governor to do all in his power to
+promote friendly relations with the Spanish islands, these prizes were
+returned to their owners. To prevent Searle's doing such things again, he
+was deprived of his ship's rudder and sails. In 1666, Searle, in company
+with a Captain Stedman and a party of only eighty men, took the Island of
+Tobago, near Trinidad, from the Dutch, destroying everything they could
+not carry away.
+
+
+SELKIRK, ALEXANDER. The original Robinson Crusoe.
+
+Born in 1676 at Largo in Fifeshire, he was the seventh son of John
+Selcraig, a shoemaker. In 1695 he was cited to appear before the Session
+for "indecent conduct in church," but ran away to sea. In 1701 he was back
+again in Largo, and was rebuked in the face of the congregation for
+quarrelling with his brothers. A year later Selkirk sailed to England, and
+in 1703 joined Dampier's expedition to the South Seas. Appointed
+sailing-master to the _Cinque Ports_, commanded by Captain Stradling.
+
+In September, 1704, he arrived at the uninhabited island of Juan
+Fernandez, in the South Pacific. Selkirk, having quarrelled with the
+captain, insisted on being landed on the island with all his belongings.
+He lived alone here for nearly four years, building himself two cabins,
+hunting the goats which abounded, and taming young goats and cats to be
+his companions.
+
+On the night of January 31st, 1709, seeing two ships, Selkirk lit a fire,
+and a boat was sent ashore. These ships were the _Duke_ and _Duchess_ of
+Bristol, under the command of Captain Woodes Rogers, while his old friend
+Dampier was acting as pilot. Selkirk was at once appointed sailing-master
+of the _Duchess_, and eventually arrived back in the Thames on October
+14th, 1711, with booty worth £800, having been away from England for eight
+years. While in England he met Steele, who described Selkirk as a "man of
+good sense, with strong but cheerful expression." Whether Selkirk ever met
+Defoe is uncertain, though the character of Robinson Crusoe was certainly
+founded on his adventures in Juan Fernandez. In 1712 he returned to Largo,
+living the life of a recluse, and we must be forgiven for suspecting that
+he rather acted up to the part, since it is recorded that he made a cave
+in his father's garden in which to meditate. This life of meditation in an
+artificial cave was soon rudely interrupted by the appearance of a certain
+Miss Sophia Bonce, with whom Selkirk fell violently in love, and they
+eloped together to Bristol, which must have proved indeed a sad scandal to
+the elders and other godly citizens of Largo. Beyond the fact that he was
+charged at Bristol with assaulting one Richard Nettle, a shipwright, we
+hear no more of Selkirk until his first will was drawn up in 1717, in
+which he leaves his fortune and house to "my loving friend Sophia Bonce,
+of the Pall Mall, London, Spinster." Shortly after this, Alexander basely
+deserted his loving friend and married a widow, one Mrs. Francis Candis,
+at Oarston in Devon.
+
+In 1720 he was appointed mate to H.M.S. _Weymouth_, on board of which he
+died a year later at the age of 45.
+
+Selkirk is immortalized in literature, not only by Defoe, but by Cowper in
+his "Lines on Solitude," beginning: "I am monarch of all I survey."
+
+
+SHARP, ROWLAND.
+
+Of Bath Town in North Carolina.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried for piracy at Charleston in 1718
+and found "not guilty."
+
+
+SHASTER, ROGER.
+
+One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_, which
+was wrecked on the coast of Alderney. Shaster was arrested and hanged at
+St. Martin's Point, Guernsey, in 1564.
+
+
+SHAW, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+SHERGALL, HENRY, or SHERRAL. Buccaneer.
+
+A seaman with Captain Bartholomew Sharp in his South Sea voyage. One
+October day he fell into the sea while going into the spritsail-top and
+was drowned. "This incident several of our company interpreted as a bad
+omen, which proved not so, through the providence of the Almighty."
+
+
+SHIRLEY, SIR ANTHONY.
+
+In January, 1597, headed an expedition to the Island of Jamaica. He met
+with little opposition from the Spaniards, and seized and plundered St.
+Jago de la Vega.
+
+
+SHIVERS, CAPTAIN.
+
+This South Sea pirate cruised in company with Culliford and Nathaniel
+North in the Red Sea, preying principally on Moorish ships, and also
+sailed about the Indian Ocean as far as the Malacca Islands. He accepted
+the royal pardon to pirates, which was brought out to Madagascar by
+Commodore Littleton, and apparently gave up his wicked ways thereafter.
+
+
+SHUTFIELD, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Lancaster.
+
+Hanged at Rhode Island in July, 1723, at the age of 40.
+
+
+SICCADAM, JOHN.
+
+Of Boston.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew. Found guilty of piracy, but pardoned.
+
+
+SIMMS, HENRY, _alias_ "GENTLEMAN HARRY." Pickpocket, highwayman, pirate,
+and Old Etonian.
+
+Born in 1716 at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sent while quite young to
+school at Eton, where he "shewed an early inclination to vice," and at the
+age of 14 was taken from school and apprenticed to a breeches-maker. No
+Old Etonian, either then or now, would stand that kind of treatment, so
+Simms ran away, becoming a pickpocket and later a highwayman. After
+numerous adventures and escapes from prison, he was pressed on board
+H.M.S. _Rye_, but he deserted his ship at Leith. After an "affair" at
+Croydon, Simms was transplanted with other convicts to Maryland, in the
+_Italian Merchant_. On the voyage he attempted, but without success, to
+raise a mutiny. On his arrival in America he was sold to the master of the
+_Two Sisters_, which was taken a few days out from Maryland by a Bayonne
+pirate. Carried to Spain, Simms got to Oporto, and there was pressed on
+board H.M.S. _King Fisher_. Eventually he reached Bristol, where he
+bought, with his share of booty, a horse and two pistols, with which to go
+on the highway.
+
+Hanged on June 17th, 1747, for stealing an old silver watch and 5s. from
+Mr. Francis Sleep at Dunstable.
+
+
+SKIPTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a pirate ship, in which he sailed in company with Captain
+Spriggs. Being chased by H.M.S. _Diamond_ off the coast of Cuba, Skipton
+ran his sloop on to the Florida Reef. Escaping with his crew to an island,
+they were attacked by the Indians, and many of them were captured and
+eaten. The survivors, embarking in a canoe, were caught by the man-of-war
+and taken prisoner.
+
+
+SKYRM, CAPTAIN JAMES. Welsh pirate.
+
+Hanged at the advanced age--for a pirate--of 44.
+
+Commanded the _Ranger_, one of Captain Roberts's ships that cruised in
+1721 and 1722 off the West Coast of Africa. In the fight with the King's
+ship that took him he was very active with a drawn sword in his hand, with
+which he beat any of his crew who were at all backward. One of his legs
+was shot away in this action, but he refused to leave the deck and go
+below as long as the action lasted. He was condemned to death and hanged
+in chains.
+
+
+SMITH, GEORGE. Welsh pirate.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's pirates. Hanged at the age of 25.
+
+
+SMITH, JOHN.
+
+One of the mutinous crew of the _Antonio_. Hanged at Boston in 1672.
+
+
+SMITH, JOHN WILLIAMS.
+
+Of Charleston, Carolina.
+
+Hanged in 1718 for piracy, at Charleston.
+
+
+SMITH, MAJOR SAMUEL. Buccaneer.
+
+At one time a buccaneer with the famous Mansfield.
+
+In 1641 he was sent, by the Governor of Jamaica, with a party to reinforce
+the troops which under Mansfield had recaptured the New Providence Island
+from the Spanish. In 1660 he was taken prisoner by the Spanish and carried
+to Panama and there kept in chains in a dungeon for seventeen months.
+
+
+DE SOTO, BERNADO.
+
+One of the crew of the schooner _Panda_ that took and plundered the Salem
+brig _Mexican_. The crew of the _Panda_ were captured by an English
+man-of-war and taken to Boston. De Soto was condemned to death, but
+eventually fully pardoned owing to his heroic conduct in rescuing the crew
+of an American vessel some time previously.
+
+
+DE SOTO, CAPTAIN BENITO.
+
+A Portuguese.
+
+A most notorious pirate in and about 1830.
+
+In 1827 he shipped at Buenos Ayres as mate in a slaver, named the
+_Defenser de Pedro_, and plotted to seize the ship off the African coast.
+The pirates took the cargo of slaves to the West Indies, where they sold
+them. De Soto plundered many vessels in the Caribbean Sea, then sailed to
+the South Atlantic, naming his ship the _Black Joke_. The fear of the
+_Black Joke_ became so great amongst the East Indiamen homeward bound that
+they used to make up convoys at St. Helena before heading north.
+
+In 1832 de Soto attacked the _Morning Star_, an East Indiaman, and took
+her, when he plundered the ship and murdered the captain. After taking
+several more ships, de Soto lost his own on the rocky coast of Spain, near
+Cadiz. His crew, although pretending to be honest shipwrecked sailors,
+were arrested, but de Soto managed to escape to Gibraltar. Here he was
+recognized by a soldier who had seen de Soto when he took the _Morning
+Star_, in which he had been a passenger. The pirate was arrested, and
+tried before Sir George Don, the Governor of Gibraltar, and sentenced to
+death. He was sent to Cadiz to be hanged with the rest of his crew. The
+gallows was erected at the water's edge, and de Soto, with his coffin, was
+conveyed there in a cart. He died bravely, arranging the noose around his
+own neck, stepping up into his coffin to do so; then, crying out, "Adios
+todos," he threw himself off the cart.
+
+This man must not be confused with one Bernado de Soto, who was tried for
+piracy at Boston in 1834.
+
+
+SOUND, JOSEPH.
+
+Of the city of Westminster.
+
+Hanged, at the age of 28, at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1723.
+
+
+SPARKS, JAMES.
+
+A Newfoundland fisherman.
+
+In August, 1723, with John Phillips and three others, ran away with a
+vessel to go "on the account." Sparks was appointed gunner.
+
+
+SPARKES, JOHN.
+
+A member of Captain Avery's crew, and described by one of his shipmates as
+being "a true cock of the game." A thief, he robbed his fellow-shipmates,
+and from one, Philip Middleton, he stole 270 pieces of gold.
+
+Hanged at Execution Dock in 1696.
+
+
+SPRATLIN, ROBERT.
+
+Was one of Dampier's party which in 1681 crossed the Isthmus of Darien,
+when he was left behind in the jungle with Wafer. Spratlin was lost when
+the little party attempted to ford the swollen Chagres River. He
+afterwards rejoined Wafer.
+
+
+SPRIGGS, CAPTAIN FRANCIS FARRINGTON.
+
+An uninteresting and bloody pirate without one single redeeming character.
+
+He learnt his art with the pirate Captain Lowther, afterwards serving as
+quartermaster with Captain Low and taking an active part in all the
+barbarities committed by the latter.
+
+About 1720 Low took a prize, a man-of-war called the _Squirrel_. This he
+handed over to some of the crew, who elected Spriggs their captain. The
+ship they renamed the _Delight_, and in the night altered their course and
+left Low. They made a flag, bearing upon it a white skeleton, holding in
+one hand a dart striking a bleeding heart, and in the other an hourglass.
+Sailing to the West Indies, Spriggs took several prizes, treating the
+crews with abominable cruelty. On one occasion the pirates chased what
+they believed to be a Spanish ship, and after a long while they came
+alongside and fired a broadside into her. The ship immediately
+surrendered, and turned out to be a vessel the pirate had plundered only a
+few days previously. This infuriated Spriggs and his crew, who showed
+their disappointment by half murdering the captain. After a narrow escape
+from being captured by a French man-of-war near the Island of St. Kitts,
+Spriggs sailed north to the Summer Isles, or Bermudas. Taking a ship
+coming from Rhode Island, they found her cargo to consist of horses.
+Several of the pirates mounted these and galloped up and down the deck
+until they were thrown. While plundering several small vessels of their
+cargo of logwood in the Bay of Honduras, Spriggs was surprised and
+attacked by an English man-of-war, and the pirates only escaped by using
+their sweeps. Spriggs now went for a cruise off the coast of South
+Carolina, returning again to Honduras. This was a rash proceeding on
+Spriggs's part, for as he was sailing off the west end of Cuba he again
+met the man-of-war which had so nearly caught him before in the bay.
+Spriggs clapped on all sail, but ran his ship on Rattan Island, where she
+was burnt by the _Spence_, while Captain Spriggs and his crew escaped to
+the woods.
+
+
+SPRINGER, CAPTAIN.
+
+He fought gallantly with Sawkins and Ringrose in the Battle of Perico off
+Panama on St. George's Day in 1680. He gave his name to Springer's Cay,
+one of the Samballoes Islands. This was the rendezvous chosen by the
+pirates, where Dampier and his party found the French pirate ship that
+rescued them after their famous trudge across the Isthmus of Darien.
+
+
+STANLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+With a few other buccaneers in their stronghold at New Providence Island
+in 1660, withstood an attack by a Spanish fleet for five days. The three
+English captains, Stanley, Sir Thomas Whetstone, and Major Smith, were
+carried to Panama and there cast into a dungeon and bound in irons for
+seventeen months.
+
+
+STEDMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1666, with Captain Searle and a party of only eighty men, he took and
+plundered the Dutch island of Tobago. Later on, after the outbreak of war
+with France, he was captured by a French frigate off the Island of
+Guadeloupe. Stedman had a small vessel and a crew of only 100 men, and
+found himself becalmed and unable to escape, so he boldly boarded the
+Frenchman and fought for two hours, being finally overcome.
+
+
+STEPHENS, WILLIAM.
+
+Died on January 14th, 1682, on board of Captain Sharp's ship a few days
+before their return to the Barbadoes from the South Seas. His death was
+supposed to have been caused by indulging too freely in mancanilla while
+ashore at Golfo Dulce. "Next morning we threw overboard our dead man and
+gave him two French vollies and one English one."
+
+
+STEPHENSON, JOHN.
+
+Sailed as an honest seaman in the _Onslow_ (Captain Gee) from Sestos.
+Taken in May, 1721, by the pirate Captain Roberts, he willingly joined the
+pirates. When Roberts was killed on board the _Royal Fortune_, Stephenson
+burst into tears, and declared that he wished the next shot might kill
+him. Hanged in 1722.
+
+
+STILES, RICHARD.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+STOREY, THOMAS.
+
+One of William Coward's crew which stole the ketch _Elinor_ in Boston
+Harbour. Condemned to be hanged on January 27th, 1690, but afterwards
+reprieved.
+
+
+ST. QUINTIN, RICHARD.
+
+A native of Yorkshire.
+
+One of M'Kinlie's crew that murdered Captain Glass and his family in the
+Canary ship. Afterwards arrested at Cork and hanged in chains near Dublin
+on March 19th, 1765.
+
+
+STURGES, CAPTAIN.
+
+An Elizabethan pirate, who had his headquarters at Rochelle. In company
+with the notorious pirate Calles, he in one year pillaged two Portuguese,
+one French, one Spanish, and also a Scotch ship. His end is not known.
+
+
+O'SULLIVAN, LORD. Receiver of pirate plunder.
+
+The Sulivan Bere, of Berehaven in Ireland.
+
+A notorious friend of the English pirates, he bought their spoils, which
+he stored in his castle. He helped to fit out pirate captains for their
+cruises, and protected them when Queen Elizabeth sent ships to try and
+arrest them.
+
+
+SUTTON, THOMAS.
+
+Born at Berwick in 1699.
+
+Gunner in Roberts's ship the _Royal Fortune_. At his trial he was proved
+to have been particularly active in helping to take a Dutch merchantman,
+the _Gertruycht_. Hanged in chains at Cape Coast Castle in April, 1722, at
+the age of 23.
+
+
+SWAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded the _Nicholas_, and met Dampier when in the _Batchelor's
+Delight_ at the Island of Juan Fernandez in 1684. The two captains cruised
+together off the west coast of South America, the _Nicholas_ leaving
+Dampier, who returned to England by way of the East Indies.
+
+
+SWAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of the _Cygnet_. Left England as an honest trader. Rounded the Horn and
+sailed up to the Bay of Nicoya, there taking on a crew of buccaneers who
+had crossed the Isthmus of Darien on foot. Dampier was appointed pilot or
+quartermaster to the _Cygnet_, a post analogous to that of a navigating
+officer on a modern man-of-war, while Ringrose was appointed supercargo.
+Swan had an adventurous and chequered voyage, sometimes meeting with
+successes, but often with reverses. Eventually he sailed to the Philippine
+Islands, where the crew mutinied and left Swan and thirty-six of the crew
+behind. After various adventures the _Cygnet_, by now in a very crazy
+state, just managed to reach Madagascar, where she sank at her anchorage.
+
+
+SWITZER, JOSEPH.
+
+Of Boston in New England.
+
+Tried for piracy at Rhode Island in 1723, but found to be "not guilty."
+
+
+SYMPSON, DAVID.
+
+Born at North Berwick.
+
+One of Roberts's crew. Tried and hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722. On
+the day of execution Sympson was among the first six prisoners to be
+brought up from the ship's hold to have their fetters knocked off and to
+be fitted with halters, and it was observed that none of the culprits
+appeared in the least dejected, except Sympson, who "spoke a little faint,
+but this was rather imputed to a Flux that had seized him two or three
+days before, than Fear." There being no clergyman in the colony, a kindly
+surgeon tried to take on the duties of the ordinary, but with ill-success,
+the hardened ruffians being quite unmoved by his attempts at exhortation.
+In fact, the spectators were considerably shocked, as indeed they well
+might be, by Sympson, suddenly recognizing among the crowd a woman whom he
+knew, calling out "he had lain with that B----h three times, and now she
+was come to see him hanged."
+
+Sympson died at the age of 36, which was considerably above the average
+age to which a pirate might expect to live.
+
+
+TAYLOR, CAPTAIN.
+
+This formidable South Sea pirate must indeed have looked, as well as
+acted, the part, since his appearance is described by Captain Johnson as
+follows: "A Fellow with a terrible pair of Whiskers, and a wooden Leg,
+being stuck round with Pistols, like the Man in the Almanack with Darts."
+
+This man Taylor it was who stirred up the crew of the _Victory_ to turn
+out and maroon Captain England, and elect himself in his place. He was a
+villain of the deepest dye, and burnt ships and houses and tortured his
+prisoners.
+
+The pirates sailed down the West Coast of India from Goa to Cochin, and
+returned to Mauritius. Thence sailing to the Island of Mascarine they
+found a big Portuguese ship, which they took. In her they discovered the
+Conde de Eviceira, Viceroy of Goa, and, even better, four million dollars
+worth of diamonds.
+
+Taylor, now sailing in the _Cassandra_, heard that there were four
+men-of-war on his tracks, so he sailed to Delagoa Bay and spent the
+winter of the year 1722 there. It was now decided that as they had a huge
+amount of plunder they had better give up piracy, so they sailed away to
+the West Indies and surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello.
+The crew broke up and each man, with a bag of diamonds, went whither he
+would; but Captain Taylor joined the Spanish service, and was put in
+command of a man-of-war, which was sent to attack the English logwood
+cutters in the Bay of Honduras.
+
+
+TAYLOR, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain Phillips's crew. Wounded in the leg while attempting to
+desert. There being no surgeon on board, a consultation was held over the
+patient by the whole crew, and these learned men were unanimous in
+agreeing that the leg should be amputated. Some dispute then arose as to
+who should act the part of surgeon, and at length the carpenter was chosen
+as the most proper person. "Upon which he fetch'd up the biggest saw, and
+taking the limb under his Arm, fell to Work, and separated it from the
+Body of the Patient in as little Time as he could have cut a Deal Board in
+two." This surgeon-carpenter evidently appreciated the importance of
+aseptics, for, "after that he had heated his Ax red hot in the Fire,
+cauteriz'd the Wound but not with so much Art as he perform'd the other
+Part for he so burnt the Flesh distant from the Place of Amputation that
+it had like to have mortify'd." Taylor was tried and condemned to death at
+Boston on May 12th, 1714, but for some reason not explained was reprieved.
+
+
+TEACH, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or THATCH, or THACH, _alias_ DRUMMOND, _alias_
+BLACKBEARD. Arch-pirate.
+
+A Bristol man who settled in Jamaica, sailing in privateers, but not in
+the capacity of an officer.
+
+In 1716, Teach took to piracy, being put in command of a sloop by the
+pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, Hornigold and Teach sailed together
+from Providence towards the American coast, taking a billop from Havana
+and several other prizes. After careening their vessels on the coast of
+Virginia, the pirates took a fine French Guineaman bound to Martinico;
+this ship they armed with forty guns, named her the _Queen Ann's Revenge_,
+and Blackbeard went aboard as captain. Teach now had a ship that allowed
+him to go for larger prizes, and he began by taking a big ship called the
+_Great Allen_, which he plundered and then set fire to. A few days later,
+Teach was attacked by H.M.S. _Scarborough_, of thirty guns, but after a
+sharp engagement lasting some hours, the pirate was able to drive off the
+King's ship.
+
+The next ship he met with was the sloop of that amateur pirate and
+landsman, Major Stede Bonnet. Teach and Bonnet became friends and sailed
+together for a few days, when Teach, finding that Bonnet was quite
+ignorant of maritime matters, ordered the Major, in the most high-handed
+way, to come aboard his ship, while he put another officer in command of
+Bonnet's vessel. Teach now took ship after ship, one of which, with the
+curious name of the _Protestant Cæsar_, the pirates burnt out of spite,
+not because of her name, but because she belonged to Boston, where there
+had lately been a hanging of pirates.
+
+Blackbeard now sailed north along the American coast, arriving off
+Charleston, South Carolina. Here he lay off the bar for several days,
+seizing every vessel that attempted to enter or leave the port, "striking
+great Terror to the whole Province of Carolina," the more so since the
+colony was scarcely recovered from a recent visit by another pirate, Vane.
+
+Being in want of medicines, Teach sent his lieutenant, Richards, on shore
+with a letter to the Governor demanding that he should instantly send off
+a medicine chest, or else Teach would murder all his prisoners, and
+threatening to send their heads to Government House; many of these
+prisoners being the chief persons of the colony.
+
+Teach, who was unprincipled, even for a pirate, now commanded three
+vessels, and he wanted to get rid of his crews and keep all the booty for
+himself and a few chosen friends. To do this, he contrived to wreck his
+own vessel and one of his sloops. Then with his friends and all the booty
+he sailed off, leaving the rest marooned on a small sandy island. Teach
+next sailed to North Carolina, and with the greatest coolness surrendered
+with twenty of his men to the Governor, Charles Eden, and received the
+Royal pardon. The ex-pirate spent the next few weeks in cultivating an
+intimate friendship with the Governor, who, no doubt, shared Teach's booty
+with him.
+
+A romantic episode took place at this time at Bath Town. The pirate fell
+in love, not by any means for the first time, with a young lady of 16
+years of age. To show his delight at this charming union, the Governor
+himself married the happy pair, this being the captain's fourteenth wife;
+though certain Bath Town gossips were heard to say that there were no
+fewer than twelve Mrs. Teach still alive at different ports up and down
+the West India Islands.
+
+In June, 1718, the bridegroom felt that the call of duty must be obeyed,
+so kissing good-bye to the new Mrs. Teach, he sailed away to the Bermudas,
+meeting on his way half a dozen ships, which he plundered, and then
+hurried back to share the spoils with the Governor of North Carolina and
+his secretary, Mr. Knight.
+
+For several months, Blackbeard remained in the river, exacting a toll from
+all the shipping, often going ashore to make merry at the expense of the
+planters. At length, things became so unbearable that the citizens and
+planters sent a request to the Governor of the neighbouring colony of
+Virginia for help to rid them of the presence of Teach. The Governor,
+Spotswood, an energetic man, at once made plans for taking the pirate, and
+commissioned a gallant young naval officer, Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of
+H.M.S. _Pearl_, to go in a sloop, the _Ranger_, in search of him. On
+November 17, 1718, the lieutenant sailed for Kicquetan in the James River,
+and on the 21st arrived at the mouth of Okerecock Inlet, where he
+discovered the pirate he was in search of. Blackbeard would have been
+caught unprepared had not his friend, Mr. Secretary Knight, hearing what
+was on foot, sent a letter warning him to be on his guard, and also any of
+Teach's crew whom he could find in the taverns of Bath Town. Maynard lost
+no time in attacking the pirate's ship, which had run aground. The fight
+was furious, Teach boarding the sloop and a terrific hand-to-hand struggle
+taking place, the lieutenant and Teach fighting with swords and pistols.
+Teach was wounded in twenty-five places before he fell dead, while the
+lieutenant escaped with nothing worse than a cut over the fingers.
+
+Maynard now returned in triumph in his sloop to Bath Town, with the head
+of Blackbeard hung up to the bolt-spit end, and received a tremendous
+ovation from the inhabitants.
+
+During his meteoric career as a pirate, the name of Blackbeard was one
+that created terror up and down the coast of America from Newfoundland to
+Trinidad. This was not only due to the number of ships Teach took, but in
+no small measure to his alarming appearance. Teach was a tall, powerful
+man, with a fierce expression, which was increased by a long, black beard
+which grew from below his eyes and hung down to a great length. This he
+plaited into many tails, each one tied with a coloured ribbon and turned
+back over his ears. When going into action, Teach wore a sling on his
+shoulders with three pairs of pistols, and struck lighted matches under
+the brim of his hat. These so added to his fearful appearance as to strike
+terror into all beholders. Teach had a peculiar sense of humour, and one
+that could at times cause much uneasiness amongst his friends. Thus we are
+told that one day on the deck of his ship, being at the time a little
+flushed with wine, Blackbeard addressed his crew, saying: "Come let us
+make a Hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it," whereupon Teach,
+with several others, descended to the hold, shut themselves in, and then
+set fire to several pots of brimstone. For a while they stood it, choking
+and gasping, but at length had to escape to save themselves from being
+asphyxiated, but the last to give up was the captain, who was wont to
+boast afterwards that he had outlasted all the rest.
+
+Then there was that little affair in the cabin, when Teach blew out the
+candle and in the dark fired his pistols under the table, severely
+wounding one of his guests in the knee, for no other reason, as he
+explained to them afterwards, than "if he did not shoot one or two of them
+now and then they'd forget who he was."
+
+Teach kept a log or journal, which unfortunately is lost, but the entries
+for two days have been preserved, and are worth giving, and seem to smack
+of Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island." The entries, written in
+Teach's handwriting, run as follows:
+
+"1718. Rum all out--Our Company somewhat sober--A damn'd Confusion amongst
+us!--Rogues a plotting--great Talk of Separation--so I look'd sharp for a
+Prize.
+
+"1718. Took one, with a great deal of Liquor on Board, so kept the Company
+hot, damned hot, then all Things went well again."
+
+
+TEAGUE, ROBERT.
+
+A Scotch pirate, one of Captain Gow's crew. On May 26th, 1725, the crew
+were tried in London and found guilty and sentenced to death, except
+Teague and two others who were acquitted.
+
+
+TEMPLETON, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew of the ship _Charles_. Tried for piracy
+at Boston in 1704, but, being discovered to be not yet 14 years of age and
+only a servant on board the pirate ship, was acquitted.
+
+
+TEW, Captain THOMAS, or Too.
+
+A famous pirate, whose headquarters were at Madagascar. He was mentioned
+by name in King William III.'s Royal Warrant to Captain Kidd to go hunting
+for pirates, as a specially "wicked and ill-disposed person."
+
+He sailed with Captain Dew from the Barbadoes with a Commission from the
+Governor to join with the Royal African Company in an attack on the French
+factory at Goori, at Gambia. Instead of going to West Africa, Tew and his
+crew turned pirates, and sailed to the Red Sea. Here he met with a great
+Indian ship, which he had the hardiness to attack, and soon took her, and
+each of his men received as his share £3,000, and with this booty they
+sailed to Madagascar. He was already held in high esteem by the pirates
+who resided in that favourite stronghold. At one time he joined Misson,
+the originator of "piracy-without-tears" at his garden city of Libertatia.
+A quarrel arose between Misson's French followers and Tew's English
+pirates. A duel was arranged between the two leaders, but by the tact of
+another pirate--an unfrocked Italian priest--all was settled amicably, Tew
+being appointed Admiral and the diplomatic ex-priest suitably chosen as
+Secretary of State to the little republic. Such a reputation for kindness
+had Tew that ships seldom resisted him, but on knowing who their assailant
+was they gave themselves up freely. Some of Tew's men started a daughter
+colony on their own account, and the Admiral sailed after them to try and
+persuade them to return to the fold at Libertatia. The men refused, and
+while Tew was arguing and trying to persuade them to change their minds,
+his ship was lost in a sudden storm. Tew was soon rescued by the ship
+_Bijoux_ with Misson on board, who, with a few men, had escaped being
+massacred by the natives. Misson, giving Tew an equal share of his gold
+and diamonds, sailed away, while Tew managed to return to Rhode Island in
+New England, where he settled down for a while. To show the honesty of
+this man, being now affluent, he kept a promise to the friends in Bermuda
+who originally set him up with a ship, by sending them fourteen times the
+original cost of the sloop as their just share of the profits.
+
+At last, Tew found the call of the sea and the lure of the "grand account"
+too great to resist, and he consented to take command of a pirate ship
+which was to go on a cruise in the Red Sea. Arrived there, Tew attacked a
+big ship belonging to the Great Mogul, and during the battle was mortally
+wounded.
+
+His historian tells us "a shot carried away the rim of Tew's belly, who
+held his bowels with his hands for some space. When he dropped, it struck
+such terror to his men that they suffered themselves to be taken without
+further resistance." Thus fell fighting a fine sailor, a brave man, and a
+successful pirate, and one who cheated the gallows awaiting him at
+Execution Dock.
+
+
+THOMAS, CAPTAIN, _alias_ STEDE BONNET.
+
+
+THOMAS, JOHN.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+This Welsh pirate was one of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal
+James_. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+THOMPSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+A renegade pirate who joined the Barbary corsairs, becoming a Mohammedan.
+Commanded a pirate vessel, and was taken prisoner off the coast of Ireland
+by an Elizabethan ship. Hanged at Wapping.
+
+
+THURBAR, RICHARD.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+THURSTON, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of Tortuga Island.
+
+Refused to accept the Royal offer of pardon of 1670, when all commissions
+to privateer on the Spanish were revoked. Thurston, with a mulatto, Diego,
+using obsolete commissions issued by the late Governor of Jamaica,
+Modyford, continued to prey upon Spanish shipping, carrying their prizes
+to Tortuga.
+
+
+THWAITES, CAPTAIN JOSEPH.
+
+Coxswain to Captain Hood, he was promoted in 1763 to be a midshipman in
+H.M.S. _Zealous_, cruising in the Mediterranean. Putting into Algiers,
+Thwaites was sent ashore by the captain to buy some sheep, but did not
+return to the boat and, it being supposed he had been assassinated, the
+ship sailed without him. The fact was that young Thwaites, who spoke
+Turkish and Greek, had accepted an invitation to enter the Ottoman
+service. Embracing the Mohammedan religion, Thwaites was put in command of
+a forty-four gun frigate.
+
+His first engagement was with the flagship of the Tunisian Admiral, which
+he took and carried to Algiers. He soon brought in another prize, and so
+pleased the Dey that he presented him with a scimitar, the hilt of which
+was set with diamonds.
+
+Thwaites, having soiled his hands with blood, now became the pirate
+indeed, taking vessels of any nation, and drowning all his prisoners by
+tying a double-headed shot round their necks and throwing them overboard.
+
+He stopped at no atrocity--even children were killed, and one prisoner, an
+English lieutenant and an old shipmate of his, called Roberts, he murdered
+without a second thought. When Thwaites happened to be near Gibraltar, he
+would go ashore and through his agents, Messrs. Ross and Co., transmit
+large sums of money to his wife and children in England. But Thwaites had
+another home at Algiers fitted with every luxury, including three Armenian
+girls.
+
+For several years this successful pirate plundered ships of all nations
+until such pressure was brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers that
+Thwaites thought it best to collect what valuables he could carry away and
+disappear.
+
+Landing at Gibraltar in 1796, dressed in European clothes, he procured a
+passage to New York in an American frigate, the _Constitution_. Arriving
+in the United States, he purchased an estate not far from New York and
+built himself a handsome mansion, but a year later retribution came from
+an unlooked-for quarter, for he was bitten by a rattlesnake and died in
+the most horrible agonies both of mind and body.
+
+
+TOMKINS, JOHN.
+
+Of Gloucestershire.
+
+Hanged at the age of 23 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Charles Harris's
+crew.
+
+
+TOPPING, DENNIS.
+
+He shipped on board the sloop _Buck_ at Providence in 1718, in company
+with Anstis and other famous pirates. Was killed at the taking of a rich
+Portuguese ship off the coast of Brazil.
+
+
+TOWNLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+A buccaneer who in the year 1684 was one of the mixed English and French
+fleet blockading Panama. On this occasion, he commanded a ship with a crew
+of 180 men. By the next year the quarrels between the English had reached
+such a pitch that Townley and Swan left Davis and sailed in search of
+their French friends. In May, 1685, Townley was amongst the company that
+took and sacked Guayaquil. In January, 1686, Townley rescued the French
+pirate Grogniet and some 350 Frenchmen who, when attacking the town of
+Quibo, were surprised by a Spanish squadron, which burnt their vessels
+while the crews were on shore. Townley then sailed north with his French
+comrades and sacked Granada.
+
+His next adventure was to take the town of Lavelia, near to Panama, where
+he found a rich cargo which the Viceroy had placed on shore because he was
+afraid to send it to sea when so many pirates were about.
+
+In August of the same year, Townley's ship was attacked by three Spanish
+men-of-war. A furious fight took place, which ended by two of the Spanish
+ships being captured and the third burnt. In this action the gallant
+Townley was gravely wounded, and died shortly afterwards.
+
+
+TRISTRIAN, CAPTAIN. French buccaneer.
+
+In the year 1681 Dampier, with other malcontents, broke away from Captain
+Sharp and marched on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. After undergoing
+terrible hardships for twenty-two days, the party arrived on the Atlantic
+seaboard, to find Captain Tristrian with his ship lying in La Sounds Cay.
+
+The buccaneers bought red, blue, and green beads, and knives, scissors,
+and looking-glasses from the French pirates to give to their faithful
+Indian guides as parting gifts.
+
+
+TRYER, MATTHEW.
+
+A Carolina pirate, accused and acquitted on a charge of having captured a
+sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda, in 1699.
+
+
+TUCKER, ROBERT.
+
+Of the Island of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried, condemned, and hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. The prisoners were not
+defended by counsel, because the members of the South Carolina Bar still
+deemed it "a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward." We
+understand that the barristers of South Carolina have since persuaded
+themselves to overcome this prejudice. The result was that, with the
+famous Judge Trott, a veritable terror to pirates, being President of the
+Court of Vice-Admiralty, the prisoners had short and ready justice, and
+all but four of the thirty-five pirates tried were found guilty.
+
+
+TUCKERMAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+Sailed with Captain Porter in the West Indies. Captain Johnson gives an
+account of the meeting between these two pirate novices and the great
+Captain Roberts at Hispaniola.
+
+
+TURNLEY, CAPTAIN RICHARD.
+
+A New Providence pirate who received the general pardon from Captain
+Woodes Rogers in 1718. When, a little later, the scandal of Captain
+Rackam's infatuation for Anne Bonny was causing such gossip among the two
+thousand ex-pirates who formed the population of the settlement, it was
+Turnley who brought news of the affair to the notice of the Governor. In
+revenge for this action, Rackam and his lady, one day hearing that Turnley
+had sailed to a neighbouring island to catch turtles, followed him. It
+happened that Turnley was on shore hunting wild pigs and so escaped, but
+Rackam sank his sloop and took his crew away with him as prisoners.
+
+
+TYLE, CAPTAIN ORT VAN.
+
+A Dutchman from New York.
+
+A successful pirate in the days of the Madagascan sea-rovers. For some
+time he sailed in company with Captain James, taking several prizes in the
+Indian Ocean.
+
+Van Tyle had a plantation at Madagascar and used to put his prisoners to
+work there as slaves, one in particular being the notorious Welsh pirate,
+David Williams, who toiled with Van Tyles's other slaves for six months
+before making his escape to a friendly tribe in the neighbourhood.
+
+
+UPTON, BOATSWAIN JOHN.
+
+Born in 1679 of honest parents at Deptford.
+
+Apprenticed to a waterman, he afterwards went to sea, serving on different
+men-of-war as a petty officer. Until July, 1723, when 40 years of age,
+Upton lived a perfectly honest life, but his wife dying, Upton found she
+had contracted various debts and that he was in danger of being arrested
+by the creditors. Leaving his four orphans, Upton hurried to Poole in
+Dorsetshire, and was taken on as boatswain in the _John and Elizabeth_
+(Captain Hooper), bound for Bonavista in Newfoundland. He seems to have
+continued to sail as an honest seaman until November 14th, 1725, when
+serving as boatswain in the _Perry_ galley, on a voyage between Barbadoes
+and Bristol, the vessel was taken by a pirate, Cooper, in the _Night
+Rambler_. At his subsequent trial witnesses declared that Upton willingly
+joined the pirates, signed their articles, and was afterwards one of their
+most active and cruel men.
+
+Upton kept a journal, which was his only witness for his defence, in which
+he described how he was forced to sign the pirates' articles under threats
+of instant death. If his journal is to be believed, Upton escaped from the
+pirates at the first opportunity, landing on the Mosquito coast. After
+being arrested by the Spaniards as a spy, he was sent from one prison to
+another in Central America, at last being put on board a galleon at Porto
+Bello, to be sent to Spain. Escaping, he got aboard a New York sloop and
+arrived at Jamaica in December, 1726. While at Port Royal he was pressed
+on board H.M.S. _Nottingham_, serving in her for more than two years as
+quartermaster, until one day he was accused of having been a pirate. Under
+this charge he was brought a prisoner to England in 1729, tried in London,
+and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.
+
+
+URUJ. See BARBAROSSA.
+
+
+VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Dominican.
+
+Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
+armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
+men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.
+
+
+VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.
+
+Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
+broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
+malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
+There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
+and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
+proving to be a poor place.
+
+
+VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
+
+Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
+specially the Carolinas.
+
+In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
+the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
+Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
+except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
+bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
+Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
+warm for them.
+
+Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
+Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
+Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
+down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
+last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
+sloop to try and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
+whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
+one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
+civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
+their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
+quiet creek on the coast.
+
+Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
+he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
+to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
+vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
+dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
+him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
+discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
+the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
+crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
+everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
+the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
+the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.
+
+At last a ship put in for water, commanded by one Captain Holford, who
+happened to be an old friend of Vane's. Vane naturally was pleased at this
+piece of good fortune, and asked his dear old friend to take him off the
+island in his ship, to which Holford replied: "Charles, I shan't trust you
+aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you
+caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
+a-pirating." No promises of good behaviour from Vane would prevail on his
+friend to rescue him; in fact, Captain Holford's parting remark was that
+he would be returning in a month, and that if he then found Vane still on
+the island he would carry him to Jamaica to be hanged.
+
+Soon after Holford's departure another ship put in for water, none of the
+crew of which knew Vane by sight, and he was too crafty to let them find
+out the notorious pirate he was. They consented to take off the
+shipwrecked mariner, when, just as all seemed to be going well, back came
+the ship of friend Holford. Holford, who seems to have been a sociable
+kind of man, was well acquainted with the captain who was befriending
+Vane, and Holford was invited to dine on board his ship. As the guest was
+passing along the deck of his host's ship on his way to the great cabin he
+chanced to glance down the open hold, and there who should he see but his
+dear old friend Vane hard at work; for he had already won his new master's
+good graces by being a "brisk hand." Holford at once informed his host
+that he was entertaining a notorious pirate, and with his consent clapped
+Vane in irons, and removed him to his own ship, and when he arrived in
+Jamaica handed his old friend to the justices, who quickly tried,
+convicted, and hanged him.
+
+
+VANHORN, CAPTAIN NICHOLAS. A Dutch filibuster.
+
+Of Hispaniola.
+
+Sailed from England in 1681 in command of the _Mary and Martha_, _alias_
+the _St. Nicholas_, a merchant ship. Vanhorn soon showed his hand by
+putting two of his merchants ashore at Cadiz and stealing four Spanish
+guns. Next he sailed to the Canary Islands, and then to the Guinea coast,
+plundering ships and stealing negroes, until November, 1682, when he
+arrived at the city of San Domingo. In April, 1683, he picked up some 300
+buccaneers at Petit Goave, and joined the filibuster Laurens in the Gulf
+of Honduras with six other buccaneer captains, who were planning an attack
+on the rich city of Vera Cruz. The fleet arrived off the city in May, and
+the pirates, hearing that the Spaniards were expecting the arrival of two
+ships from Caracas, they crowded a landing party of 800 men into two
+ships, and, displaying Spanish colours, stood in boldly for the city. The
+inhabitants, imagining these were the ships they were expecting, actually
+lit bonfires to pilot them into the harbour. Landing on May 17th two miles
+away, they soon found themselves masters of the town and forts, all the
+sentinels being asleep. For four days they plundered the churches,
+convents, and houses, and threatened to burn the cathedral, in which they
+had put all the prisoners, unless more booty was forthcoming. An
+Englishman found the Governor hiding in some hay in a loft, and he was
+ransomed for 70,000 pieces of eight. While this was taking place a Spanish
+fleet of fourteen ships had arrived from Cadiz, and anchored just outside
+the harbour, but would not venture to land nor to attack the buccaneer
+ships. The buccaneers, feeling it was time to depart, sailed right past
+the fleet without opposition to a cay not far off, and there divided the
+spoils; each of the 1,000 sailors getting 800 pieces of eight as his
+share, while Vanhorn's own share, was 24,000 pieces of eight. This
+division of the spoil did not take place without some bickering, and the
+two leaders, Vanhorn and Laurens, came to blows, and Vanhorn was wounded
+in the wrist. Although the wound was little more than a scratch, he died
+of gangrene a fortnight later.
+
+It is significant that Vanhorn had originally been sent out by the
+Governor of Hispaniola to hunt for pirates, but once out of sight of land
+and away from authority the temptation to get rich quickly was too great
+to resist, so that he joined the pirates in the expedition to sack Vera
+Cruz.
+
+
+VEALE, CAPTAIN.
+
+On July 1st, 1685, he arrived at New London in a sloop, but was compelled
+to hurry away, being recognized as a pirate by one of the crew of a ship
+he had previously taken in Virginia.
+
+
+VEALE, THOMAS.
+
+One of four New England pirates who in the middle of the seventeenth
+century rowed up the Saugus river and landed at a place called Lynn Woods.
+The boat contained, besides the pirates, a quantity of plunder and a
+beautiful young woman. They built a hut on Dungeon Rock, dug a well, and
+lived there until the woman died. Three of the pirates were captured, and
+ended their days on the gallows in England.
+
+Thomas Veale escaped and went to live in a cave, where he is supposed to
+have hidden his booty, but he continued to work as a cordwainer. In the
+earthquake of 1658 the cave was blocked up by pieces of rock, and Veale
+was never seen again.
+
+
+VERPRE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+His ship _Le Postillion_ carried a crew of twenty-five men and was armed
+with two guns.
+
+
+VIGERON, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+Of San Domingo.
+
+Commanded a bark, _La Louse_, thirty men and four guns.
+
+
+VILLA RISE.
+
+In the year 1621 this Moorish pirate commanded a small squadron of five
+vessels which took an English ship, the _George Bonaventure_ (Captain John
+Rawlins, Plymouth), in the Straits of Gibraltar. One of the finest deeds
+ever achieved by English sailors was the escape of Rawlins and some of his
+crew from the Moors at Alexandria in a stolen ship.
+
+
+VAN VIN, MOSES. Buccaneer.
+
+One of L'Ollonais's officers. After burning Puerto Cavallo and torturing
+and murdering the inhabitants, L'Ollonais marched away to attack the town
+of San Pedro with 300 of his crew, leaving van Vin as his lieutenant to
+govern the rest of his men during his absence.
+
+
+VIRGIN, HENRY.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged for piracy
+at White Point, Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and
+buried in the marsh below low-water mark.
+
+
+VIVON, CAPTAIN M. LA. French filibuster.
+
+Commanded the _Cour Valant_ of La Rochelle. In December, 1668, his ship
+was seized by Captain Collier for having robbed an English ship of
+provisions.
+
+
+WAFER, LIONEL. Surgeon, buccaneer, and author.
+
+Believed to have been born about the year 1660.
+
+He could speak Gaelic and also Erse, which languages he had learnt during
+his childhood, which was spent partly in the Highlands of Scotland and
+partly in Ireland.
+
+In 1677 he sailed as mate to the surgeon of the _Great Ann_, of London
+(Captain Zachary Browne), bound for Java.
+
+Two years later, he again sailed as surgeon's mate on a voyage to the West
+Indies. He deserted his ship at Jamaica and set himself up as a surgeon at
+Port Royal, but one day meeting with two noted buccaneers, Captain Linch
+and Captain Cook, he agreed to sail with them as ship's surgeon.
+
+Wafer's subsequent adventures are recounted by Basil Ringrose in his
+"Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and
+Others," and by William Dampier in his "New Voyage Round the World."
+After taking part in 1679 in the futile expedition of the buccaneers to
+Panama, Wafer joined the party of malcontents who left Captain Sharp and
+returned on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. Wafer was accidentally
+wounded in the knee by an explosion of gunpowder on May 5th, 1681, which
+he recounts in his narrative as follows: "I was sitting on the ground near
+one of our Men, who was drying of Gunpowder in a Silver Plate: But not
+managing it as he should, it blew up and scorch'd my knee to that degree,
+that the bone was left bare, the Flesh being torn away, and my Thigh burnt
+for a great way above it. I applied to it immediately such Remedies as I
+had in my knapsack: and being unwilling to be left behind by my
+companions, I made hard shift to jog on."
+
+The whole story of these adventures is told by Wafer in a book he wrote,
+and which was published in London in 1699. It is called "A New Voyage and
+Description of the Isthmus of America, giving an Account of the Author's
+Abode there," and is illustrated by some quaint copperplates.
+
+Wafer and his companions suffered extreme hardships as they struggled
+through the dense tropical jungle during the wettest season of the year.
+
+On one occasion when in danger of his life, Wafer was spared by the
+Indians owing to his skill as a phlebotomist, after he had been allowed to
+exhibit his skill to an Indian chief called Lacentra, when he bled one of
+his wives so successfully that the chief made Wafer his inseparable
+companion, to the no little discomfort of the buccaneer, who wished to
+reach the Atlantic and rejoin his companions who had left him behind.
+
+Wafer described the birds, animals, fishes, and insects with considerable
+minuteness, although it is obvious that he had no special training in, or
+great gift for, natural history. Wafer eventually reached Philadelphia,
+where he availed himself of King James's general pardon to pirates.
+
+
+WAKE, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+A notorious pirate, one of those particularly named in the Royal Warrant
+issued in 1695 to Captain Kidd, authorizing him to go in search of the
+American pirates.
+
+
+WALDEN, JOHN, _alias_ "MISS NANNEY."
+
+Born in Somersetshire.
+
+Taken in the _Blessing_, of Lymington, by Roberts in Newfoundland, he
+joined the pirates, and was later on hanged at the age of 24 in West
+Africa. Walden was one of Captain Roberts's most active men. On taking
+Captain Traher's ship, Walden carried a pole-axe with which he wrenched
+open locked doors and boxes. He was a bold and daring man, of violent
+temper, and was known amongst his shipmates by the nickname of Miss
+Nanney. He lost a leg during the attack on the _Swallow_. After the
+pirates took the _King Solomon_, Walden had to get up the anchor, but he
+cut the cable, explaining to the captain that the weather was too hot to
+go straining and crying "Yo Hope," and he could easily buy another anchor
+when he got to London.
+
+
+WANSLEY, THOMAS.
+
+A negro steward on the brig _Vineyard_, he mutinied and assisted to murder
+the captain and mate, afterwards becoming one of Captain Charles Gibbs's
+crew. Hanged at New York in February, 1831.
+
+
+WANT, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Carolina pirate who was referred to at the trial of Captain Avery's crew
+at London in 1696.
+
+
+WARD.
+
+One of the first English pirates to establish himself on the Barbary coast
+in North Africa. By the year 1613 some thirty others had their
+headquarters at the mouth of the Sebu River.
+
+
+WARD, CAPTAIN.
+
+As a poor English sailor he went to Barbary, turned Mohammedan, offered
+his services to the Moors, and became captain of a galley. He grew to be
+very rich, and "lived like a Bashaw in Barbary."
+
+
+WARREN, WILLIAM.
+
+Joined Captain Pound's crew from Lovell's Island.
+
+
+WATERS, JOHN.
+
+Of Devonshire.
+
+Quartermaster to Captain Charles Harris. Tried and hanged at Newport,
+Rhode Island, on July 19th, 1734. Aged 35.
+
+
+WATKINS, JOHN.
+
+An English soldier stationed at Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Deserted and
+sailed with the pirate Pound. Killed at Tarpaulin Cove in 1689.
+
+
+WATLING, CAPTAIN JOHN. Buccaneer.
+
+When Bartholomew Sharp's crew mutinied on New Year's Day in 1681 on the
+_Most Holy Trinity_, they clapped their captain in irons and put him down
+below on the ballast, and elected an old pirate and a "stout seaman," John
+Watling, in his place. One of the reasons for the revolt was said to be
+the ungodliness of Captain Sharp.
+
+Watling began his command by giving orders for the strict keeping of the
+Sabbath Day, and on January 9th the buccaneers observed Sunday as a day
+apart, the first for many months. One of the first acts of this godly
+Captain Watling was to cruelly shoot an old man, a prisoner, whom he
+suspected, quite wrongly, of not telling the truth.
+
+On January 30th Watling headed a surprise attack on the town of Arica in
+North Chile, but it turned out later that the Spaniards had three days'
+warning of the intended attack, and had gathered together no less than
+2,000 defenders. A furious attack was made, with great slaughter of the
+Spanish defenders and considerable loss amongst the pirates. In one attack
+Watling placed 100 of his prisoners in front of his storming party, hoping
+this would prevent the enemy firing at them. After taking the town, the
+buccaneers were driven out owing to the arrival of a number of Lima
+soldiers. During the retreat from the town Watling was shot in the liver
+and died. Perhaps he gave his name to Watling Island in the Bahama
+Islands, the first spot of America that Christopher Columbus ever saw, and
+a great resort of the buccaneers.
+
+
+WATSON, HENRY.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew in the _Happy Delivery_. Hanged at St. Kitts
+on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+WATTS, EDWARD.
+
+Born at Dunmore.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged in 1722 at the age of 22.
+
+
+WATTS, SAMUEL.
+
+Of Lovell's Island.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew.
+
+
+WATTS, WILLIAM.
+
+An Irishman.
+
+Hanged, at the age of 23, along with the rest of Roberts's crew.
+
+
+WAY, JOHN.
+
+Tried at Boston in 1704 for piracy with the rest of the crew of the
+_Charles_ brigantine.
+
+
+WEAVER, CAPTAIN BRIGSTOCK.
+
+Of Hereford, England.
+
+One of Captain Anstis's crew in the _Good Fortune_ when he took the
+_Morning Star_. After the prize had been converted for Anstis's use,
+Weaver was given command of the _Good Fortune_. He proved himself to be a
+capable pirate captain, taking between fifty and sixty sailing ships in
+the West Indies and on the Banks of Newfoundland.
+
+Here are particulars of a few of his prizes:
+
+In August, 1722, he took a Dutch ship, and out of her got 100 pieces of
+holland, value £800, and 1,000 pieces of eight. On November 20th in the
+same year he plundered the _Dolphin_, of London (Captain William Haddock),
+of 300 pieces of eight and forty gallons of rum.
+
+Out of the _Don Carlos_ (Lot Neekins, master) he stole 400 ounces of
+silver, fifty gallons of rum, 1,000 pieces of eight, 100 pistols, and
+other valuable goods.
+
+Out of the _Portland_, ten pipes of wine valued at £250.
+
+This period of prosperity came to an end, for in May, 1723, Weaver,
+dressed in rags, was begging charity at the door of a Mr. Thomas Smith in
+Bristol, telling a plausible tale of how he had been taken and robbed by
+some wicked pirates, but had lately managed to escape from them. The
+kindly Mr. Smith, together with a Captain Edwards, gave Weaver £10 and
+provided him with a lodging at the Griffin Inn. Being now dressed in good
+clothes, Weaver enjoyed walking about the streets of Bristol, until one
+day he met with a sea-captain who claimed former acquaintance and invited
+him into a neighbouring tavern to share a bottle of wine with him. Over
+this the captain reminded the pirate that he had been one of his victims,
+and that Weaver had once stolen from him a considerable quantity of
+liquor; but at the same time he had not forgotten that the pirate had used
+him very civilly, and that therefore, if he would give him four hogsheads
+of cider, nothing further would be said about the matter. Weaver would
+not, or could not, produce these, and was apprehended, brought to London,
+and there tried and sentenced to death, and hanged at Execution Dock.
+
+
+WELLS, LIEUTENANT JOSEPH.
+
+An officer on board Captain John Quelch's _Charles_ galley. Attempted to
+escape at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the _Larimore_, but was captured
+by Major Sewell and brought to Salem, and there secured in the town gaol
+until tried for piracy at Boston in June, 1704.
+
+
+WEST, RICHARD.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts in March, 1722.
+
+
+WETHERLEY, TEE.
+
+A Massachusetts pirate, with only one eye. Captured in 1699 with the
+pirate Joseph Bradish and put in prison. They escaped two months later. A
+reward of £200 was offered for the recapture of Wetherley, which was
+gained by a Kennekeck Indian called Essacambuit, who brought him back to
+prison. He was taken, in irons, to England in H.M.S. _Advice_ in 1700,
+and tried and hanged in London.
+
+
+WHETSTONE, SIR THOMAS, or WHITSTONE. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1663 he commanded a ship, a Spanish prize, armed with seven guns and
+carrying a crew of sixty men. In August, 1666, Sir Thomas was with a small
+English garrison of some sixty men in the buccaneer stronghold of New
+Providence in the Bahama Islands. Suddenly a Spanish fleet arrived from
+Porto Bello, and after a siege of three days the garrison capitulated. The
+three English captains were carried prisoners to Panama and there cast
+into a dungeon and bound in irons for seventeen months.
+
+
+WHITE, CAPTAIN THOMAS. South Sea pirate. An Englishman. Born at Plymouth.
+
+As a young man he was taken prisoner by a French pirate off the coast of
+Guinea. The French massacred their prisoners by painting targets on their
+chests and using them for rifle practice. White alone was saved by an
+heroic Frenchman throwing himself in front of him and receiving the volley
+in his own body. White sailed with the French pirates, who were wrecked on
+the coast of Madagascar. White himself managed to escape, and found safety
+with a native, King Bavaw, but the French pirates were all massacred.
+White not very long afterwards joined another pirate ship, commanded by a
+Captain Read, with whom he sailed, helping to take several prizes, amongst
+others a slave ship, the _Speaker_. White soon found himself possessed of
+a considerable fortune, and settled down with his crew at a place called
+Methelage in Madagascar, marrying a native woman, and leading the peaceful
+life of a planter. The call of piracy at length proving irresistible, he
+sailed before the mast with Captain Halsey, then returned to his native
+wife and home, shortly afterwards to die of fever.
+
+In his will, he left legacies to various relatives and friends, and
+appointed three guardians for his son, all of different nationalities,
+with instructions that the boy should be taken to England to be educated,
+which was duly done.
+
+White was buried with the full ceremonies of the Church of England, his
+sword and pistols being carried on his coffin, and three English and one
+French volley fired over his grave.
+
+
+WHITE, JAMES.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 along with the rest of Captain Edward Teach's
+crew.
+
+
+WHITE, ROBERT.
+
+One of Captain George Lowther's crew. Hanged on March 22nd, 1722, at St.
+Kitts.
+
+
+WHITE, WILLIAM.
+
+A Newfoundland fish-splitter. With John Phillips and three others, he
+stole a fishing-boat at St. Peter's Harbour in Newfoundland in August,
+1723. The other four were made officers in the pirate craft, White having
+the distinction of being the only private man in the crew of five. He
+appears to have been a man lacking in ambition, as he never showed any
+desire to become even a petty officer amongst the pirates; in fact, we
+hear no more of William until June 2nd, 1724, when he was hanged at Boston
+and "dy'd very penitently, with the Assistance of two grave Divines that
+attended him."
+
+
+WHITTING, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. In 1704 we read that he "lyes sick, like to
+dye, not yet examined" in the gaol at Marblehead, when awaiting trial for
+piracy.
+
+
+WIFE, FRANCIS.
+
+An unwilling mutineer with Philip Roche in a French vessel sailing from
+Cork in 1721.
+
+
+WILES, WILLIAM.
+
+One of John Quelch's crew of the brigantine _Charles_. Tried at Boston in
+1704.
+
+
+WILGRESS, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+Sent by the Governor of Jamaica in 1670 to search for, and capture or
+sink, a Dutchman called Captain Yallahs, who had entered the Spanish
+service to cruise against the English logwood cutters. But Wilgress,
+instead of carrying out his orders, went a-buccaneering on his own
+account, chasing a Spanish vessel ashore, stealing logwood, and burning
+Spanish houses along the coast.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ "YANKY." Buccaneer.
+
+In 1683, when the pirate Hamlin in his famous ship, _La Trompeuse_, was
+playing havoc with the English shipping around Jamaica, Governor Lynch
+offered Williams a free pardon, men, victuals, and naturalization, and
+£200 as well if he would catch the Frenchman.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, CAPTAIN MORRIS. Buccaneer.
+
+In November, 1664, he applied to Governor Modyford to be allowed to bring
+into Port Royal, Jamaica, a rich prize of logwood, indigo, and silver,
+and, in spite of the Governor's refusal, he brought the ship in. The goods
+were seized and sold in the interest of the Spanish owner. At this time
+the English Government was doing all it could to stamp out the pirates and
+buccaneers.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, CAPTAIN PAUL.
+
+A Carolina pirate, who began as a wrecker with the pirate Bellamy in the
+West Indies. He later on took to piracy and ended a not too glorious
+career by being hanged at Eastman, Massachusetts. Williams was one of the
+pirates who accepted King George's offer of pardon at New Providence
+Island in 1718.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, DAVID.
+
+This son of a Welsh farmer was a poor pirate but a born soldier. He was
+described by one who knew him as being morose, sour, unsociable, and
+ill-tempered, and that he "knew as little of the sea or of ships as he did
+of the Arts of Natural Philosophy." But it is recorded to his credit that
+he was not cruel. He started life in a merchant ship bound for India, and
+was accidentally left behind in Madagascar. Taken care of by friendly
+natives, he fought so well on the side of his benefactors in an
+inter-tribal battle that the King made him his intimate friend. A little
+later this tribe was wiped out and Williams taken prisoner. The King of
+this hostile tribe, knowing Williams to be a brave man, put him in charge
+of his army, for his success as a leader was known far and wide. He was
+next seized by a very powerful King, Dempaino, who made him
+Commander-in-Chief over his army of 6,000 men, and supplied him with
+slaves, clothes, and everything he could want. After several years as
+commander of Dempaino's army, a pirate ship, the _Mocha_ (Captain
+Culliford), arrived on the coast, and Williams escaped in her and went for
+a cruise. He was afterwards captured by the Dutch pirate Ort Van Tyle of
+New York, and made to work as a slave on his plantation. After six months
+he escaped and sought safety with a Prince Rebaiharang, with whom he lived
+for a year. He next joined a Dutchman, Pro, who had a small settlement,
+to be again taken prisoner by an English frigate. In a skirmish between
+the crew and some natives, Williams and Pro managed to escape, and,
+procuring a boat, joined Captain White's pirates at Methalage, in
+Madagascar.
+
+Williams now spent his time pirating, unsuccessfully, until one day in a
+sloop he attempted a raid on an Arab town at Boyn. This attempt proved a
+fiasco, and Williams was caught by the Arabs, cruelly tortured, and
+finally killed by a lance thrust. He was so loved and admired by the
+Madagascar natives that his friend and benefactor, King Dempaino, seized
+the Arab chief of Boyn and executed him in revenge for the death of
+Williams. Williams seems to have been as much beloved by the natives as he
+was hated by men of his own colour. As a pirate he was a failure, but as a
+soldier of fortune with the native tribes he was a great success.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, JOHN.
+
+A Cornish pirate, who sailed from Jamaica with Captain Morrice, and was
+captured by the Dutch. Eventually he reached Boston, and sailed with
+Captain Roderigo in 1674 in the _Edward and Thomas_, a Boston vessel.
+
+Tried for piracy, but acquitted.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, LIEUTENANT JAMES. Welsh pirate.
+
+Sailed as a hand on board the _George_ galley from Amsterdam in 1724.
+Conspiring with Gow to bring about a mutiny, he took an active part in
+murdering the captain, the chief mate, super cargo, and surgeon. Gow
+promoted him to be his mate. He was a violent, brutal man, and a bully. On
+one occasion, he accused Gow of cowardice, and snapped his pistol in Gow's
+face, but the weapon failed to go off, and two seamen standing by shot
+Williams, wounding him in the arm and belly. The next day Gow sent away a
+crew of prisoners in a sloop he had taken and plundered, and Williams,
+heavily manacled, was cast into the hold of this vessel, with orders that
+he should be given up as a pirate to the first English man-of-war they
+should meet with. He was taken to Lisbon and there put on board H.M.S.
+_Argyle_, and carried to London. When Gow and his crew eventually arrived
+in irons at the Marshalsea Prison, they found Williams already there
+awaiting trial. Hanged at Newgate on June 11th, 1725, his body being
+hanged in chains at Blackwall.
+
+
+WILLIAMS, WILLIAM.
+
+"Habitation--nigh Plymouth."
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Deserted the pirates at Sierra Leone, but
+was delivered up by the negroes, and as a punishment received two lashes
+from the whole ship's company. Hanged at the age of 40.
+
+
+WILLIS, ROBERT.
+
+One of Captain George Lowther's crew. Tried for piracy at St. Kitts in
+March, 1722, and acquitted.
+
+
+WILSON, ALEXANDER.
+
+One of the mutineers of the ship _Antonio_. Hanged at Boston in 1672.
+
+
+WILSON, GEORGE. Surgeon and pirate.
+
+Originally he sailed as surgeon in a Liverpool ship, the _Tarlton_, which
+was taken by the pirate Bartholomew Roberts. Wilson voluntarily joined the
+pirates. One day, being accidentally left on shore, he had to remain
+amongst the negroes at Sestos on the West Coast of Africa for five
+months, until he was eventually rescued by a Captain Sharp, of the
+_Elizabeth_, who ransomed Wilson for the value of £3 5s. in goods. Wilson
+was again captured by Roberts, and served with him as surgeon. At his
+trial for piracy at Cape Coast Castle in 1722, witnesses proved that
+Wilson was "very alert and cheerful at meeting with Roberts, hailed him,
+told him he was glad to see him, and would come on board presently,
+borrowing a clean Shirt and Drawers" from the witness "for his better
+Appearance and Reception: signed the Articles willingly," and tried to
+persuade him, the witness, to sign also, as then they would each get £600
+or £700 a man in the next voyage to Brazil.
+
+When the election of senior surgeon took place, Wilson wanted to be
+appointed, as then he would receive a bigger share of the booty. Wilson
+became very intimate with Captain Roberts, and told him that if ever they
+were taken by one of the "Turnip-Man's ships"--_i.e.,_ a man-of-war--they
+would blow up their ship and go to hell together. But the surgeon proved
+such a lazy ruffian, neglecting to dress the wounded crew, that Roberts
+threatened to cut his ears off.
+
+At the trial Wilson was found guilty and condemned to be hanged, but his
+execution was withheld until the King's pleasure was known, because it was
+believed that owing to information given by Wilson a mutiny of the
+prisoners was prevented.
+
+
+WILSON, JAMES.
+
+Of Dublin.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh
+below low-water mark.
+
+
+WILSON, JOHN.
+
+Of New London County.
+
+Tried for piracy in 1723 at Newport, Rhode Island, and acquitted.
+
+
+WINTER, CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER.
+
+Of New Providence Island.
+
+He took a sloop off the coast of Jamaica, the mate on board which was one
+Edward England, who, on Winter's persuasion, turned pirate and soon
+reached the summit of his new profession.
+
+In 1718 Winter accepted the King's offer of pardon to all pirates who
+surrendered. Winter soon afterwards not only returned to piracy, but did
+even worse, for he surrendered to the Spanish Governor of Cuba, and turned
+Papist. From Cuba he carried on piracy, chiefly preying on English
+vessels, and made raids on the coast of Jamaica, stealing slaves, which he
+took away to Cuba. The Governor of Jamaica, Sir Nicholas Laws, sent
+Lieutenant Joseph Laws, in H.M.S. _Happy_ snow, to demand the surrender of
+Winter and another renegade, Nicholas Brown, but nothing resulted but an
+exchange of acrimonious letters between the Lieutenant and the Governor of
+Cuba.
+
+
+WINTER, JOHN.
+
+One of Gow's crew in the _Revenge_. Hanged in 1725 at Wapping.
+
+
+WINTER, WILLIAM, _alias_ MUSTAPHA.
+
+A renegade English sailor amongst the Algiers pirates. Taken prisoner in
+the _Exchange_, on which vessel he was carpenter.
+
+
+WINTHROP.
+
+One of Fly's crew. Took an active part in the mutiny aboard the
+_Elizabeth_. Winthrop it was who chopped off the hand of Captain Green,
+and in a fight with Jenkins, the mate, severed his shoulder with an axe
+and then threw the still living officer overboard. He was hanged at Boston
+on July 4th, 1726.
+
+
+WITHERBORN, CAPTAIN FRANCIS.
+
+Captured, with his ship, by Major Beeston and brought to Jamaica. Tried
+for piracy at Port Royal, he was condemned to death, and sent a prisoner
+to England.
+
+
+WOLLERVY, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+A New England pirate who sailed in company with a Captain Henley in 1683
+off the Island of Elenthera. He burnt his vessel near Newport, Rhode
+Island, where he and his crew disappeared with their plunder.
+
+
+WOOD, WILLIAM.
+
+Native of York.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Hanged in April, 1722, at the age of 27.
+
+
+WORLEY, CAPTAIN.
+
+His reign was short, lasting but six months from start to finish. He was
+first heard of in September, 1718, when he set out, in company with eight
+other desperadoes, from New York in a small open boat "upon the account."
+They were provided with a few biscuits, a dried tongue, and a keg of
+water, half a dozen old muskets and some ammunition. They sailed down the
+coast for 150 miles, entered the river Delaware, and rowed up to
+Newcastle, and there seized a shallop. The news of this enterprise was
+quickly spread abroad, and roused the whole coast. Going down the river
+again, still in their open boat, they took another sloop belonging to a
+mulatto called Black Robbin. They changed into this sloop, and next day
+met with another sloop from Hull, which suited their purpose better. By
+now the country was much alarmed, and the Government sent out H.M.S.
+_Phoenix_, of twenty guns, to cruise in search of the pirates. In the
+meantime the latter sailed to the Bahama Islands and took another sloop
+and a brigantine. Worley now commanded a tidy craft of six guns and a crew
+of twenty-five men, and flew a black ensign with a white death's head upon
+it. So far all had gone well with the pirates, but one day, when cruising
+off the Cape of Virginia, Worley sighted two sloops as he thought making
+for the James River, but which were really armed vessels sent in search of
+him. Worley stood in to cut them off, little dreaming what they really
+were. The two sloops and the pirate ship all standing in together, Worley
+hoisted his black flag. This terrified the inhabitants of Jamestown, who
+thought that three pirates were about to attack them. Hurried preparations
+for defence were made, when all of a sudden the people on shore were
+surprised to see the supposed pirates fighting amongst themselves. No
+quarter was asked, and the pirates were all killed in hand-to-hand
+fighting except Captain Worley and one other pirate, who were captured
+alive but desperately wounded. The formalities were quickly got through
+for trying these two men, so that next day they were hanged before death
+from their wounds could save them from their just punishment. "Thus,"
+writes Captain Johnson, "Worley's beginning was bold and desperate, his
+course short and prosperous, and his end bloody and disgraceful."
+
+
+WORMALL, DANIEL.
+
+Master on the brigantine _Charles_, commanded by Captain John Quelch.
+Attempted to escape from Gloucester, Massachusetts, by sailing off in the
+_Larimore_ galley, but was followed and caught by Major Sewell and taken
+to Salem. Here he was kept in the town gaol until sent to Boston to be
+tried for piracy in June, 1704.
+
+
+YALLAHS, CAPTAIN, or YELLOWS. A Dutch buccaneer.
+
+In 1671 fled from Jamaica to Campeachy, there selling his frigate to the
+Spanish Governor for 7,000 pieces of eight. He entered the Spanish service
+to cruise against the English logwood cutters, at which business he was
+successful, taking more than a dozen of these vessels off the coast of
+Honduras.
+
+
+YEATES, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1718 this Carolina pirate commanded a sloop which acted as tender to
+Captain Vane. When at Sullivan Island, Carolina, Yeates, finding himself
+master of a fine sloop armed with several guns and a crew of fifteen men,
+and with a valuable cargo of slaves aboard, slipped his anchor in the
+middle of the night and sailed away.
+
+Yeates thought highly of himself as a pirate and had long resented the way
+Vane treated him as a subordinate, and was glad to get a chance of sailing
+on his own account. Yeates, having escaped, came to North Edisto River,
+some ten leagues off Charleston. There, sending hurried word to the
+Governor to ask for the Royal pardon, he surrendered himself, his crew,
+and two negro slaves. Yeates was pardoned, and his negroes were returned
+to Captain Thurston, from whom they had been stolen.
+
+
+ZEKERMAN, ANDREW.
+
+A Dutch pirate, one of Peter M'Kinlie's gang, who murdered Captain Glass
+and his family on board a ship sailing from the Canary Islands to England.
+Zekerman was the most brutal of the whole crew of mutineers.
+
+He was hanged in chains near Dublin on December 19th, 1765.
+
+
+
+
+SOME FAMOUS PIRATE SHIPS, WITH THEIR CAPTAINS
+
+  Black Joke                     Captain de Soto.
+  Bravo                            "   Power.
+  Flying Horse                     "   Rhoade.
+  Fortune                          "   Bartholomew Roberts.
+  Royal Fortune                    "   Bartholomew Roberts.
+  Good Fortune                     "   Bartholomew Roberts.
+  Batchelor's Delight              "   Dampier.
+  Delight                          "   Spriggs.
+  Flying King                      "   Sample.
+  Night Rambler                    "   Cooper.
+  Cour Valant                      "   La Vivon.
+  Most Holy Trinity                "   Bartholomew Sharp.
+  Flying Dragon                    "   Condent.
+  Sudden Death                     "   Derdrake.
+  Scowerer                         "   Evans.
+  Queen Ann's Revenge              "   Teach.
+  Happy Delivery                   "   Lowther.
+  Snap Dragon                      "   Goldsmith.
+  Revenge                        Captains Cowley, Bonnet, Gow,
+                                         Phillips, and others.
+  Bonne Homme Richard            Captain Paul Jones.
+  Blessing                         "   Brown.
+  New York Revenge's Revenge       "   Cole.
+  Mayflower                        "   Cox.
+  Childhood                        "   Caraccioli.
+  Liberty                          "   Tew.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Despite consuming (I suspect) large amounts of rum while writing this, the
+author saved none of it for me. I, therefore, refuse to correct any of his
+mistakes.
+
+... except this one on page 321: Wiliams corrected to Williams, as
+per rest of same entry.
+
+The entry on page 75 for "CHURCH, CHARLES" ends abruptly, as per original.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pirates' Who's Who, by Philip Gosse
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thereturnofsherlockholmes b/files/books/unrelated/thereturnofsherlockholmes
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+Project Gutenberg's The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
+       Magazine Edition
+
+Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Release Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #221]
+Original Release Date: February, 1995
+Last Updated: March 6, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller, Joanne Brown, Frank Sadowski,
+and Roger Squires
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+
+By Arthur Conan Doyle.
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+     The Adventure of the Empty House.
+     The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.
+     The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
+     The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.
+     The Adventure of the Priory School.
+     The Adventure of Black Peter.
+     The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.
+     The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.
+     The Adventure of the Three Students.
+     The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.
+     The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter.
+     The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.
+     The Adventure of the Second Stain.]
+
+
+
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 26  OCTOBER, 1903
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+I.--The Adventure of the Empty House.
+
+
+IT was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested,
+and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable
+Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The
+public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out
+in the police investigation; but a good deal was suppressed upon that
+occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so overwhelmingly
+strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all the facts. Only
+now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I allowed to supply those
+missing links which make up the whole of that remarkable chain. The
+crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to
+me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the greatest
+shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life. Even now,
+after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and
+feeling once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity
+which utterly submerged my mind. Let me say to that public which has
+shown some interest in those glimpses which I have occasionally given
+them of the thoughts and actions of a very remarkable man that they
+are not to blame me if I have not shared my knowledge with them, for I
+should have considered it my first duty to have done so had I not been
+barred by a positive prohibition from his own lips, which was only
+withdrawn upon the third of last month.
+
+It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes had
+interested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I never
+failed to read with care the various problems which came before
+the public, and I even attempted more than once for my own private
+satisfaction to employ his methods in their solution, though with
+indifferent success. There was none, however, which appealed to me like
+this tragedy of Ronald Adair. As I read the evidence at the inquest,
+which led up to a verdict of wilful murder against some person or
+persons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had ever done the loss
+which the community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. There
+were points about this strange business which would, I was sure, have
+specially appealed to him, and the efforts of the police would have been
+supplemented, or more probably anticipated, by the trained observation
+and the alert mind of the first criminal agent in Europe. All day as
+I drove upon my round I turned over the case in my mind, and found no
+explanation which appeared to me to be adequate. At the risk of telling
+a twice-told tale I will recapitulate the facts as they were known to
+the public at the conclusion of the inquest.
+
+The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth,
+at that time Governor of one of the Australian Colonies. Adair's mother
+had returned from Australia to undergo the operation for cataract, and
+she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at
+427, Park Lane. The youth moved in the best society, had, so far as was
+known, no enemies, and no particular vices. He had been engaged to Miss
+Edith Woodley, of Carstairs, but the engagement had been broken off by
+mutual consent some months before, and there was no sign that it had
+left any very profound feeling behind it. For the rest the man's life
+moved in a narrow and conventional circle, for his habits were quiet and
+his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat
+that death came in most strange and unexpected form between the hours of
+ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894.
+
+Ronald Adair was fond of cards, playing continually, but never for such
+stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish,
+and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that after dinner on the day
+of his death he had played a rubber of whist at the latter club. He had
+also played there in the afternoon. The evidence of those who had played
+with him--Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran--showed that
+the game was whist, and that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards.
+Adair might have lost five pounds, but not more. His fortune was a
+considerable one, and such a loss could not in any way affect him. He
+had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he was a cautious
+player, and usually rose a winner. It came out in evidence that in
+partnership with Colonel Moran he had actually won as much as four
+hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting some weeks before from Godfrey
+Milner and Lord Balmoral. So much for his recent history, as it came out
+at the inquest.
+
+On the evening of the crime he returned from the club exactly at ten.
+His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation. The
+servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the second
+floor, generally used as his sitting-room. She had lit a fire there, and
+as it smoked she had opened the window. No sound was heard from the room
+until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady Maynooth and her
+daughter. Desiring to say good-night, she had attempted to enter her
+son's room. The door was locked on the inside, and no answer could be
+got to their cries and knocking. Help was obtained and the door forced.
+The unfortunate young man was found lying near the table. His head had
+been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon
+of any sort was to be found in the room. On the table lay two bank-notes
+for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the
+money arranged in little piles of varying amount. There were some
+figures also upon a sheet of paper with the names of some club friends
+opposite to them, from which it was conjectured that before his death he
+was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at cards.
+
+A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the case
+more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given why the
+young man should have fastened the door upon the inside. There was the
+possibility that the murderer had done this and had afterwards escaped
+by the window. The drop was at least twenty feet, however, and a bed of
+crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. Neither the flowers nor the earth
+showed any sign of having been disturbed, nor were there any marks
+upon the narrow strip of grass which separated the house from the road.
+Apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had fastened the
+door. But how did he come by his death? No one could have climbed up to
+the window without leaving traces. Suppose a man had fired through the
+window, it would indeed be a remarkable shot who could with a
+revolver inflict so deadly a wound. Again, Park Lane is a frequented
+thoroughfare, and there is a cab-stand within a hundred yards of the
+house. No one had heard a shot. And yet there was the dead man, and
+there the revolver bullet, which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed
+bullets will, and so inflicted a wound which must have caused
+instantaneous death. Such were the circumstances of the Park Lane
+Mystery, which were further complicated by entire absence of motive,
+since, as I have said, young Adair was not known to have any enemy, and
+no attempt had been made to remove the money or valuables in the room.
+
+All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit upon
+some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that line
+of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the
+starting-point of every investigation. I confess that I made little
+progress. In the evening I strolled across the Park, and found myself
+about six o'clock at the Oxford Street end of Park Lane. A group of
+loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,
+directed me to the house which I had come to see. A tall, thin man with
+coloured glasses, whom I strongly suspected of being a plain-clothes
+detective, was pointing out some theory of his own, while the others
+crowded round to listen to what he said. I got as near him as I could,
+but his observations seemed to me to be absurd, so I withdrew again in
+some disgust. As I did so I struck against an elderly deformed man,
+who had been behind me, and I knocked down several books which he was
+carrying. I remember that as I picked them up I observed the title of
+one of them, “The Origin of Tree Worship,” and it struck me that the
+fellow must be some poor bibliophile who, either as a trade or as a
+hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes. I endeavoured to apologize
+for the accident, but it was evident that these books which I had so
+unfortunately maltreated were very precious objects in the eyes of their
+owner. With a snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel, and I saw his
+curved back and white side-whiskers disappear among the throng.
+
+My observations of No. 427, Park Lane did little to clear up the problem
+in which I was interested. The house was separated from the street by
+a low wall and railing, the whole not more than five feet high. It was
+perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to get into the garden, but the
+window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no water-pipe or
+anything which could help the most active man to climb it. More puzzled
+than ever I retraced my steps to Kensington. I had not been in my study
+five minutes when the maid entered to say that a person desired to
+see me. To my astonishment it was none other than my strange old
+book-collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of
+white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at least, wedged
+under his right arm.
+
+“You're surprised to see me, sir,” said he, in a strange, croaking
+voice.
+
+I acknowledged that I was.
+
+“Well, I've a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go into
+this house, as I came hobbling after you, I thought to myself, I'll just
+step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if I was a bit
+gruff in my manner there was not any harm meant, and that I am much
+obliged to him for picking up my books.”
+
+“You make too much of a trifle,” said I. “May I ask how you knew who I
+was?”
+
+“Well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of yours,
+for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church Street,
+and very happy to see you, I am sure. Maybe you collect yourself, sir;
+here's 'British Birds,' and 'Catullus,' and 'The Holy War'--a bargain
+every one of them. With five volumes you could just fill that gap on
+that second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not, sir?”
+
+I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again
+Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose
+to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then
+it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time
+in my life. Certainly a grey mist swirled before my eyes, and when it
+cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of
+brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his
+hand.
+
+“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand
+apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”
+
+I gripped him by the arm.
+
+“Holmes!” I cried. “Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are
+alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful
+abyss?”
+
+“Wait a moment,” said he. “Are you sure that you are really fit to
+discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily
+dramatic reappearance.”
+
+“I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes. Good
+heavens, to think that you--you of all men--should be standing in my
+study!” Again I gripped him by the sleeve and felt the thin, sinewy arm
+beneath it. “Well, you're not a spirit, anyhow,” said I. “My dear chap,
+I am overjoyed to see you. Sit down and tell me how you came alive out
+of that dreadful chasm.”
+
+He sat opposite to me and lit a cigarette in his old nonchalant manner.
+He was dressed in the seedy frock-coat of the book merchant, but the
+rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old books upon
+the table. Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but there
+was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his life
+recently had not been a healthy one.
+
+“I am glad to stretch myself, Watson,” said he. “It is no joke when a
+tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.
+Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations we have, if
+I may ask for your co-operation, a hard and dangerous night's work in
+front of us. Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of the
+whole situation when that work is finished.”
+
+“I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now.”
+
+“You'll come with me to-night?”
+
+“When you like and where you like.”
+
+“This is indeed like the old days. We shall have time for a mouthful of
+dinner before we need go. Well, then, about that chasm. I had no serious
+difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never
+was in it.”
+
+“You never were in it?”
+
+“No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely genuine.
+I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I
+perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty
+standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an
+inexorable purpose in his grey eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him,
+therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note
+which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my
+stick and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When
+I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me
+and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and
+was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon
+the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or
+the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very
+useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream
+kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands.
+But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.
+With my face over the brink I saw him fall for a long way. Then he
+struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water.”
+
+I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes delivered
+between the puffs of his cigarette.
+
+“But the tracks!” I cried. “I saw with my own eyes that two went down
+the path and none returned.”
+
+“It came about in this way. The instant that the Professor had
+disappeared it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance Fate
+had placed in my way. I knew that Moriarty was not the only man who
+had sworn my death. There were at least three others whose desire for
+vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their leader.
+They were all most dangerous men. One or other would certainly get me.
+On the other hand, if all the world was convinced that I was dead they
+would take liberties, these men, they would lay themselves open, and
+sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it would be time for me to
+announce that I was still in the land of the living. So rapidly does
+the brain act that I believe I had thought this all out before Professor
+Moriarty had reached the bottom of the Reichenbach Fall.
+
+“I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. In your picturesque
+account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months
+later, you assert that the wall was sheer. This was not literally
+true. A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some
+indication of a ledge. The cliff is so high that to climb it all was
+an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way
+along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true,
+have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the
+sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have
+suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should
+risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared
+beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that
+I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss. A
+mistake would have been fatal. More than once, as tufts of grass came
+out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I
+thought that I was gone. But I struggled upwards, and at last I reached
+a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I
+could lie unseen in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched when
+you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the
+most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.
+
+“At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally erroneous
+conclusions, you departed for the hotel and I was left alone. I had
+imagined that I had reached the end of my adventures, but a very
+unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises still in store
+for me. A huge rock, falling from above, boomed past me, struck the
+path, and bounded over into the chasm. For an instant I thought that
+it was an accident; but a moment later, looking up, I saw a man's head
+against the darkening sky, and another stone struck the very ledge upon
+which I was stretched, within a foot of my head. Of course, the meaning
+of this was obvious. Moriarty had not been alone. A confederate--and
+even that one glance had told me how dangerous a man that confederate
+was--had kept guard while the Professor had attacked me. From a
+distance, unseen by me, he had been a witness of his friend's death and
+of my escape. He had waited, and then, making his way round to the
+top of the cliff, he had endeavoured to succeed where his comrade had
+failed.
+
+“I did not take long to think about it, Watson. Again I saw that grim
+face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the precursor of
+another stone. I scrambled down on to the path. I don't think I could
+have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult than
+getting up. But I had no time to think of the danger, for another stone
+sang past me as I hung by my hands from the edge of the ledge. Halfway
+down I slipped, but by the blessing of God I landed, torn and bleeding,
+upon the path. I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains
+in the darkness, and a week later I found myself in Florence with the
+certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me.
+
+“I had only one confidant--my brother Mycroft. I owe you many apologies,
+my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be thought I
+was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have written so
+convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not yourself thought
+that it was true. Several times during the last three years I have taken
+up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate
+regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray
+my secret. For that reason I turned away from you this evening when
+you upset my books, for I was in danger at the time, and any show of
+surprise and emotion upon your part might have drawn attention to my
+identity and led to the most deplorable and irreparable results. As to
+Mycroft, I had to confide in him in order to obtain the money which
+I needed. The course of events in London did not run so well as I had
+hoped, for the trial of the Moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous
+members, my own most vindictive enemies, at liberty. I travelled for
+two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa
+and spending some days with the head Llama. You may have read of the
+remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure
+that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your
+friend. I then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a
+short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of
+which I have communicated to the Foreign Office. Returning to France I
+spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I
+conducted in a laboratory at Montpelier, in the South of France. Having
+concluded this to my satisfaction, and learning that only one of my
+enemies was now left in London, I was about to return when my movements
+were hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane Mystery,
+which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which seemed to
+offer some most peculiar personal opportunities. I came over at once to
+London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into
+violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my
+papers exactly as they had always been. So it was, my dear Watson, that
+at two o'clock to-day I found myself in my old arm-chair in my own old
+room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in
+the other chair which he has so often adorned.”
+
+Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that April
+evening--a narrative which would have been utterly incredible to me had
+it not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare figure and
+the keen, eager face, which I had never thought to see again. In some
+manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and his sympathy was
+shown in his manner rather than in his words. “Work is the best antidote
+to sorrow, my dear Watson,” said he, “and I have a piece of work for us
+both to-night which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will
+in itself justify a man's life on this planet.” In vain I begged him
+to tell me more. “You will hear and see enough before morning,” he
+answered. “We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice
+until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the
+empty house.”
+
+It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated
+beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket and the thrill of
+adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the
+gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere features I saw that
+his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed. I
+knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle
+of criminal London, but I was well assured from the bearing of this
+master huntsman that the adventure was a most grave one, while the
+sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom boded
+little good for the object of our quest.
+
+I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped
+the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped
+out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every
+subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was
+not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one. Holmes's knowledge
+of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he
+passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a network of mews and
+stables the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged at
+last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into
+Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he turned swiftly
+down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted
+yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered
+together and he closed it behind us.
+
+The place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty
+house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my
+outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in
+ribbons. Holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me
+forwards down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the
+door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves
+in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but
+faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There
+was no lamp near and the window was thick with dust, so that we could
+only just discern each other's figures within. My companion put his hand
+upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
+
+“Do you know where we are?” he whispered.
+
+“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim
+window.
+
+“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old
+quarters.”
+
+“But why are we here?”
+
+“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile. Might
+I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window,
+taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our
+old rooms--the starting-point of so many of our little adventures? We
+will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power
+to surprise you.”
+
+I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes
+fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down
+and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who
+was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the
+luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the
+head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features.
+The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of
+those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a
+perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my
+hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. He was
+quivering with silent laughter.
+
+“Well?” said he.
+
+“Good heavens!” I cried. “It is marvellous.”
+
+“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite
+variety,'” said he, and I recognised in his voice the joy and pride
+which the artist takes in his own creation. “It really is rather like
+me, is it not?”
+
+“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.”
+
+“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
+Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in
+wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this
+afternoon.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for
+wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really
+elsewhere.”
+
+“And you thought the rooms were watched?”
+
+“I KNEW that they were watched.”
+
+“By whom?”
+
+“By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies
+in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only
+they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that I
+should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and this
+morning they saw me arrive.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Because I recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He
+is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a
+remarkable performer upon the Jew's harp. I cared nothing for him. But
+I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind
+him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over
+the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is
+the man who is after me to-night, Watson, and that is the man who is
+quite unaware that we are after HIM.”
+
+My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this
+convenient retreat the watchers were being watched and the trackers
+tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait and we were the
+hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the
+hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was
+silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and
+that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was
+a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down the
+long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in
+their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen
+the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared
+to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house
+some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion's attention
+to them, but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience and continued
+to stare into the street. More than once he fidgeted with his feet and
+tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me
+that he was becoming uneasy and that his plans were not working out
+altogether as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and
+the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in
+uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him when
+I raised my eyes to the lighted window and again experienced almost as
+great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes's arm and pointed upwards.
+
+“The shadow has moved!” I cried.
+
+It was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned
+towards us.
+
+Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or
+his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.
+
+“Of course it has moved,” said he. “Am I such a farcical bungler,
+Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of
+the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in
+this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure
+eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it from the
+front so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!” He drew in his breath
+with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown
+forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside, the street
+was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the
+doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save
+only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure
+outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin,
+sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant
+later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I
+felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were
+quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark
+street still stretched lonely and motionless before us.
+
+But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already
+distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the
+direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which
+we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later steps
+crept down the passage--steps which were meant to be silent, but which
+reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes crouched back
+against the wall and I did the same, my hand closing upon the handle
+of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a
+man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for
+an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the
+room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had
+braced myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea
+of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the window,
+and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to
+the level of this opening the light of the street, no longer dimmed by
+the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside
+himself with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars and his
+features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin,
+projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache.
+An opera-hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress
+shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt
+and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what
+appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave
+a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky
+object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud,
+sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still
+kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and
+strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
+whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click. He
+straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was
+a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the
+breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-block. Then, crouching
+down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window,
+and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as
+it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as
+he cuddled the butt into his shoulder, and saw that amazing target, the
+black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his fore
+sight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger
+tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long,
+silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a
+tiger on to the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. He
+was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes
+by the throat; but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver
+and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him
+my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of
+running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one
+plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the
+room.
+
+“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in
+London, sir.”
+
+“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in
+one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with
+less than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly well.”
+
+We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
+stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had
+begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed
+it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles and the
+policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a
+good look at our prisoner.
+
+It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned
+towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a
+sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for
+good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with
+their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and
+the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature's plainest
+danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed
+upon Holmes's face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were
+equally blended. “You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever
+fiend!”
+
+“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar; “'journeys end
+in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. I don't think I have had the
+pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I
+lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”
+
+The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You
+cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.
+
+“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is
+Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best
+heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe
+I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains
+unrivalled?”
+
+The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion; with
+his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger
+himself.
+
+“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,”
+ said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a
+young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for
+the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you
+are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there
+should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim
+failing you. These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel
+is exact.”
+
+Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the constables
+dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.
+
+“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes. “I did
+not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and
+this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the
+street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.
+With that exception all has gone as I expected.”
+
+Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
+
+“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he, “but at
+least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this
+person. If I am in the hands of the law let things be done in a legal
+way.”
+
+“Well, that's reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further you
+have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?”
+
+Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor and was
+examining its mechanism.
+
+“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of tremendous
+power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it
+to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware
+of its existence, though I have never before had the opportunity of
+handling it. I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade,
+and also the bullets which fit it.”
+
+“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, as the
+whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to say?”
+
+“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?”
+
+“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes.”
+
+“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all. To
+you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which
+you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual
+happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him.”
+
+“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel
+Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding
+bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front
+of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th of last month. That's the charge,
+Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken
+window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford
+you some profitable amusement.”
+
+
+Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of
+Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I
+saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all
+in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,
+deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable
+scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens
+would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the
+pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco--all met
+my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room--one
+Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered; the other the
+strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening's
+adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done
+that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with
+an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round it that the illusion
+from the street was absolutely perfect.
+
+“I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes.
+
+“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.”
+
+“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where
+the bullet went?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed
+right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up
+from the carpet. Here it is!”
+
+Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,
+Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a
+thing fired from an air-gun. All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much obliged
+for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat
+once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss
+with you.”
+
+He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the Holmes of old
+in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy.
+
+“The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes
+their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered
+forehead of his bust.
+
+“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the
+brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few
+better in London. Have you heard the name?”
+
+“No, I have not.”
+
+“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember aright, you had not
+heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great
+brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from
+the shelf.”
+
+He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing
+great clouds from his cigar.
+
+“My collection of M's is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is
+enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner,
+and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left
+canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our
+friend of to-night.”
+
+He handed over the book, and I read: “MORAN, SEBASTIAN, COLONEL.
+Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bengalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of
+Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated
+Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab
+(despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of 'Heavy Game of the Western
+Himalayas,' 1881; 'Three Months in the Jungle,' 1884. Address: Conduit
+Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card
+Club.”
+
+On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand: “The second most
+dangerous man in London.”
+
+“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The man's
+career is that of an honourable soldier.”
+
+“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did well. He
+was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how
+he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some
+trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop
+some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have
+a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole
+procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or
+evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his
+pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of
+his own family.”
+
+“It is surely rather fanciful.”
+
+“Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began
+to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to
+hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name.
+It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty,
+to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him
+liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class
+jobs which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have
+some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887.
+Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it; but nothing could
+be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that even when the
+Moriarty gang was broken up we could not incriminate him. You remember
+at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the
+shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew
+exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable
+gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be
+behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty,
+and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the
+Reichenbach ledge.
+
+“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my
+sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the
+heels. So long as he was free in London my life would really not have
+been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and
+sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not
+shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use
+appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what
+would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But
+I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get
+him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at
+last! Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done
+it? He had played cards with the lad; he had followed him home from the
+club; he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of
+it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came
+over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct
+the Colonel's attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my
+sudden return with his crime and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that
+he would make an attempt to get me out of the way AT ONCE, and would
+bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an
+excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they
+might be needed--by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that
+doorway with unerring accuracy--I took up what seemed to me to be a
+judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the
+same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for
+me to explain?”
+
+“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's
+motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair.”
+
+“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture where
+the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis
+upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as
+mine.”
+
+“You have formed one, then?”
+
+“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out
+in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had between them won a
+considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul--of
+that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder
+Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken
+to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily
+resigned his membership of the club and promised not to play cards
+again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a
+hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself.
+Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean
+ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card gains. He therefore
+murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how
+much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his
+partner's foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise
+him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and
+coins. Will it pass?”
+
+“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.”
+
+“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what
+may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more, the famous air-gun of Von
+Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those
+interesting little problems which the complex life of London so
+plentifully presents.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 26  NOVEMBER, 1903
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+
+II.--The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.
+
+
+“FROM the point of view of the criminal expert,” said Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes, “London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the
+death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.”
+
+“I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree
+with you,” I answered.
+
+“Well, well, I must not be selfish,” said he, with a smile, as he pushed
+back his chair from the breakfast-table. “The community is certainly
+the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work specialist,
+whose occupation has gone. With that man in the field one's morning
+paper presented infinite possibilities. Often it was only the smallest
+trace, Watson, the faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me
+that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of
+the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the
+centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage--to the man
+who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the
+scientific student of the higher criminal world no capital in Europe
+offered the advantages which London then possessed. But now----” He
+shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state of things
+which he had himself done so much to produce.
+
+At the time of which I speak Holmes had been back for some months, and
+I, at his request, had sold my practice and returned to share the old
+quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my
+small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the
+highest price that I ventured to ask--an incident which only explained
+itself some years later when I found that Verner was a distant relation
+of Holmes's, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.
+
+Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had stated,
+for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case
+of the papers of Ex-President Murillo, and also the shocking affair of
+the Dutch steamship FRIESLAND, which so nearly cost us both our lives.
+His cold and proud nature was always averse, however, to anything in the
+shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms
+to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes--a
+prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been removed.
+
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes was leaning back in his chair after his whimsical
+protest, and was unfolding his morning paper in a leisurely fashion,
+when our attention was arrested by a tremendous ring at the bell,
+followed immediately by a hollow drumming sound, as if someone were
+beating on the outer door with his fist. As it opened there came a
+tumultuous rush into the hall, rapid feet clattered up the stair, and an
+instant later a wild-eyed and frantic young man, pale, dishevelled, and
+palpitating, burst into the room. He looked from one to the other of us,
+and under our gaze of inquiry he became conscious that some apology was
+needed for this unceremonious entry.
+
+“I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes,” he cried. “You mustn't blame me. I am nearly
+mad. Mr. Holmes, I am the unhappy John Hector McFarlane.”
+
+He made the announcement as if the name alone would explain both his
+visit and its manner; but I could see by my companion's unresponsive
+face that it meant no more to him than to me.
+
+“Have a cigarette, Mr. McFarlane,” said he, pushing his case across.
+“I am sure that with your symptoms my friend Dr. Watson here would
+prescribe a sedative. The weather has been so very warm these last few
+days. Now, if you feel a little more composed, I should be glad if you
+would sit down in that chair and tell us very slowly and quietly who you
+are and what it is that you want. You mentioned your name as if I should
+recognise it, but I assure you that, beyond the obvious facts that
+you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know
+nothing whatever about you.”
+
+Familiar as I was with my friend's methods, it was not difficult for me
+to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire, the
+sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which had
+prompted them. Our client, however, stared in amazement.
+
+“Yes, I am all that, Mr. Holmes, and in addition I am the most
+unfortunate man at this moment in London. For Heaven's sake don't
+abandon me, Mr. Holmes! If they come to arrest me before I have finished
+my story, make them give me time so that I may tell you the whole
+truth. I could go to gaol happy if I knew that you were working for me
+outside.”
+
+“Arrest you!” said Holmes. “This is really most grati--most interesting.
+On what charge do you expect to be arrested?”
+
+“Upon the charge of murdering Mr. Jonas Oldacre, of Lower Norwood.”
+
+My companion's expressive face showed a sympathy which was not, I am
+afraid, entirely unmixed with satisfaction.
+
+“Dear me,” said he; “it was only this moment at breakfast that I was
+saying to my friend, Dr. Watson, that sensational cases had disappeared
+out of our papers.”
+
+Our visitor stretched forward a quivering hand and picked up the DAILY
+TELEGRAPH, which still lay upon Holmes's knee.
+
+“If you had looked at it, sir, you would have seen at a glance what the
+errand is on which I have come to you this morning. I feel as if my name
+and my misfortune must be in every man's mouth.” He turned it over to
+expose the central page. “Here it is, and with your permission I
+will read it to you. Listen to this, Mr. Holmes. The head-lines are:
+'Mysterious Affair at Lower Norwood. Disappearance of a Well-known
+Builder. Suspicion of Murder and Arson. A Clue to the Criminal.' That is
+the clue which they are already following, Mr. Holmes, and I know that
+it leads infallibly to me. I have been followed from London Bridge
+Station, and I am sure that they are only waiting for the warrant to
+arrest me. It will break my mother's heart--it will break her heart!”
+ He wrung his hands in an agony of apprehension, and swayed backwards and
+forwards in his chair.
+
+I looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being the
+perpetrator of a crime of violence. He was flaxen-haired and handsome
+in a washed-out negative fashion, with frightened blue eyes and a
+clean-shaven face, with a weak, sensitive mouth. His age may have been
+about twenty-seven; his dress and bearing that of a gentleman. From the
+pocket of his light summer overcoat protruded the bundle of endorsed
+papers which proclaimed his profession.
+
+“We must use what time we have,” said Holmes. “Watson, would you
+have the kindness to take the paper and to read me the paragraph in
+question?”
+
+Underneath the vigorous head-lines which our client had quoted I read
+the following suggestive narrative:--
+
+
+Late last night, or early this morning, an incident occurred at Lower
+Norwood which points, it is feared, to a serious crime. Mr. Jonas
+Oldacre is a well-known resident of that suburb, where he has carried
+on his business as a builder for many years. Mr. Oldacre is a bachelor,
+fifty-two years of age, and lives in Deep Dene House, at the Sydenham
+end of the road of that name. He has had the reputation of being a
+man of eccentric habits, secretive and retiring. For some years he has
+practically withdrawn from the business, in which he is said to have
+amassed considerable wealth. A small timber-yard still exists, however,
+at the back of the house, and last night, about twelve o'clock, an alarm
+was given that one of the stacks was on fire. The engines were soon upon
+the spot, but the dry wood burned with great fury, and it was impossible
+to arrest the conflagration until the stack had been entirely consumed.
+Up to this point the incident bore the appearance of an ordinary
+accident, but fresh indications seem to point to serious crime. Surprise
+was expressed at the absence of the master of the establishment from
+the scene of the fire, and an inquiry followed, which showed that he had
+disappeared from the house. An examination of his room revealed that the
+bed had not been slept in, that a safe which stood in it was open,
+that a number of important papers were scattered about the room, and,
+finally, that there were signs of a murderous struggle, slight traces
+of blood being found within the room, and an oaken walking-stick, which
+also showed stains of blood upon the handle. It is known that Mr. Jonas
+Oldacre had received a late visitor in his bedroom upon that night, and
+the stick found has been identified as the property of this person, who
+is a young London solicitor named John Hector McFarlane, junior partner
+of Graham and McFarlane, of 426, Gresham Buildings, E.C. The police
+believe that they have evidence in their possession which supplies
+a very convincing motive for the crime, and altogether it cannot be
+doubted that sensational developments will follow.
+
+LATER.--It is rumoured as we go to press that Mr. John Hector McFarlane
+has actually been arrested on the charge of the murder of Mr. Jonas
+Oldacre. It is at least certain that a warrant has been issued. There
+have been further and sinister developments in the investigation at
+Norwood. Besides the signs of a struggle in the room of the unfortunate
+builder it is now known that the French windows of his bedroom (which is
+on the ground floor) were found to be open, that there were marks as
+if some bulky object had been dragged across to the wood-pile, and,
+finally, it is asserted that charred remains have been found among the
+charcoal ashes of the fire. The police theory is that a most sensational
+crime has been committed, that the victim was clubbed to death in his
+own bedroom, his papers rifled, and his dead body dragged across to
+the wood-stack, which was then ignited so as to hide all traces of the
+crime. The conduct of the criminal investigation has been left in
+the experienced hands of Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is
+following up the clues with his accustomed energy and sagacity.
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes listened with closed eyes and finger-tips together to
+this remarkable account.
+
+“The case has certainly some points of interest,” said he, in his
+languid fashion. “May I ask, in the first place, Mr. McFarlane, how
+it is that you are still at liberty, since there appears to be enough
+evidence to justify your arrest?”
+
+“I live at Torrington Lodge, Blackheath, with my parents, Mr. Holmes;
+but last night, having to do business very late with Mr. Jonas Oldacre,
+I stayed at an hotel in Norwood, and came to my business from there. I
+knew nothing of this affair until I was in the train, when I read what
+you have just heard. I at once saw the horrible danger of my position,
+and I hurried to put the case into your hands. I have no doubt that I
+should have been arrested either at my City office or at my home. A
+man followed me from London Bridge Station, and I have no doubt--Great
+Heaven, what is that?”
+
+It was a clang of the bell, followed instantly by heavy steps upon the
+stair. A moment later our old friend Lestrade appeared in the doorway.
+Over his shoulder I caught a glimpse of one or two uniformed policemen
+outside.
+
+“Mr. John Hector McFarlane?” said Lestrade.
+
+Our unfortunate client rose with a ghastly face.
+
+“I arrest you for the wilful murder of Mr. Jonas Oldacre, of Lower
+Norwood.”
+
+McFarlane turned to us with a gesture of despair, and sank into his
+chair once more like one who is crushed.
+
+“One moment, Lestrade,” said Holmes. “Half an hour more or less can make
+no difference to you, and the gentleman was about to give us an account
+of this very interesting affair, which might aid us in clearing it up.”
+
+“I think there will be no difficulty in clearing it up,” said Lestrade,
+grimly.
+
+“None the less, with your permission, I should be much interested to
+hear his account.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, it is difficult for me to refuse you anything, for
+you have been of use to the force once or twice in the past, and we owe
+you a good turn at Scotland Yard,” said Lestrade. “At the same time I
+must remain with my prisoner, and I am bound to warn him that anything
+he may say will appear in evidence against him.”
+
+“I wish nothing better,” said our client. “All I ask is that you should
+hear and recognise the absolute truth.”
+
+Lestrade looked at his watch. “I'll give you half an hour,” said he.
+
+“I must explain first,” said McFarlane, “that I knew nothing of Mr.
+Jonas Oldacre. His name was familiar to me, for many years ago my
+parents were acquainted with him, but they drifted apart. I was very
+much surprised, therefore, when yesterday, about three o'clock in the
+afternoon, he walked into my office in the City. But I was still more
+astonished when he told me the object of his visit. He had in his hand
+several sheets of a note-book, covered with scribbled writing--here they
+are--and he laid them on my table.
+
+“'Here is my will,' said he. 'I want you, Mr. McFarlane, to cast it into
+proper legal shape. I will sit here while you do so.'
+
+“I set myself to copy it, and you can imagine my astonishment when I
+found that, with some reservations, he had left all his property to me.
+He was a strange little, ferret-like man, with white eyelashes, and
+when I looked up at him I found his keen grey eyes fixed upon me with
+an amused expression. I could hardly believe my own senses as I read the
+terms of the will; but he explained that he was a bachelor with hardly
+any living relation, that he had known my parents in his youth, and that
+he had always heard of me as a very deserving young man, and was assured
+that his money would be in worthy hands. Of course, I could only stammer
+out my thanks. The will was duly finished, signed, and witnessed by
+my clerk. This is it on the blue paper, and these slips, as I have
+explained, are the rough draft. Mr. Jonas Oldacre then informed me
+that there were a number of documents--building leases, title-deeds,
+mortgages, scrip, and so forth--which it was necessary that I should see
+and understand. He said that his mind would not be easy until the whole
+thing was settled, and he begged me to come out to his house at
+Norwood that night, bringing the will with me, and to arrange matters.
+'Remember, my boy, not one word to your parents about the affair until
+everything is settled. We will keep it as a little surprise for
+them.' He was very insistent upon this point, and made me promise it
+faithfully.
+
+“You can imagine, Mr. Holmes, that I was not in a humour to refuse him
+anything that he might ask. He was my benefactor, and all my desire was
+to carry out his wishes in every particular. I sent a telegram home,
+therefore, to say that I had important business on hand, and that it was
+impossible for me to say how late I might be. Mr. Oldacre had told me
+that he would like me to have supper with him at nine, as he might not
+be home before that hour. I had some difficulty in finding his house,
+however, and it was nearly half-past before I reached it. I found him--”
+
+“One moment!” said Holmes. “Who opened the door?”
+
+“A middle-aged woman, who was, I suppose, his housekeeper.”
+
+“And it was she, I presume, who mentioned your name?”
+
+“Exactly,” said McFarlane.
+
+“Pray proceed.”
+
+McFarlane wiped his damp brow and then continued his narrative:--
+
+“I was shown by this woman into a sitting-room, where a frugal supper
+was laid out. Afterwards Mr. Jonas Oldacre led me into his bedroom, in
+which there stood a heavy safe. This he opened and took out a mass of
+documents, which we went over together. It was between eleven and twelve
+when we finished. He remarked that we must not disturb the housekeeper.
+He showed me out through his own French window, which had been open all
+this time.”
+
+“Was the blind down?” asked Holmes.
+
+“I will not be sure, but I believe that it was only half down. Yes, I
+remember how he pulled it up in order to swing open the window. I could
+not find my stick, and he said, 'Never mind, my boy; I shall see a good
+deal of you now, I hope, and I will keep your stick until you come back
+to claim it.' I left him there, the safe open, and the papers made up
+in packets upon the table. It was so late that I could not get back to
+Blackheath, so I spent the night at the Anerley Arms, and I knew nothing
+more until I read of this horrible affair in the morning.”
+
+“Anything more that you would like to ask, Mr. Holmes?” said Lestrade,
+whose eyebrows had gone up once or twice during this remarkable
+explanation.
+
+“Not until I have been to Blackheath.”
+
+“You mean to Norwood,” said Lestrade.
+
+“Oh, yes; no doubt that is what I must have meant,” said Holmes, with
+his enigmatical smile. Lestrade had learned by more experiences than he
+would care to acknowledge that that razor-like brain could cut through
+that which was impenetrable to him. I saw him look curiously at my
+companion.
+
+“I think I should like to have a word with you presently, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes,” said he. “Now, Mr. McFarlane, two of my constables are at the
+door and there is a four-wheeler waiting.” The wretched young man
+arose, and with a last beseeching glance at us walked from the room. The
+officers conducted him to the cab, but Lestrade remained.
+
+Holmes had picked up the pages which formed the rough draft of the will,
+and was looking at them with the keenest interest upon his face.
+
+“There are some points about that document, Lestrade, are there not?”
+ said he, pushing them over.
+
+The official looked at them with a puzzled expression.
+
+“I can read the first few lines, and these in the middle of the second
+page, and one or two at the end. Those are as clear as print,” said
+he; “but the writing in between is very bad, and there are three places
+where I cannot read it at all.”
+
+“What do you make of that?” said Holmes.
+
+“Well, what do YOU make of it?”
+
+“That it was written in a train; the good writing represents stations,
+the bad writing movement, and the very bad writing passing over points.
+A scientific expert would pronounce at once that this was drawn up on a
+suburban line, since nowhere save in the immediate vicinity of a great
+city could there be so quick a succession of points. Granting that his
+whole journey was occupied in drawing up the will, then the train was an
+express, only stopping once between Norwood and London Bridge.”
+
+Lestrade began to laugh.
+
+“You are too many for me when you begin to get on your theories, Mr.
+Holmes,” said he. “How does this bear on the case?”
+
+“Well, it corroborates the young man's story to the extent that the
+will was drawn up by Jonas Oldacre in his journey yesterday. It is
+curious--is it not?--that a man should draw up so important a document
+in so haphazard a fashion. It suggests that he did not think it was
+going to be of much practical importance. If a man drew up a will which
+he did not intend ever to be effective he might do it so.”
+
+“Well, he drew up his own death-warrant at the same time,” said
+Lestrade.
+
+“Oh, you think so?”
+
+“Don't you?”
+
+“Well, it is quite possible; but the case is not clear to me yet.”
+
+“Not clear? Well, if that isn't clear, what COULD be clear? Here is a
+young man who learns suddenly that if a certain older man dies he will
+succeed to a fortune. What does he do? He says nothing to anyone, but
+he arranges that he shall go out on some pretext to see his client that
+night; he waits until the only other person in the house is in bed, and
+then in the solitude of a man's room he murders him, burns his body in
+the wood-pile, and departs to a neighbouring hotel. The blood-stains in
+the room and also on the stick are very slight. It is probable that he
+imagined his crime to be a bloodless one, and hoped that if the
+body were consumed it would hide all traces of the method of his
+death--traces which for some reason must have pointed to him. Is all
+this not obvious?”
+
+“It strikes me, my good Lestrade, as being just a trifle too obvious,”
+ said Holmes. “You do not add imagination to your other great qualities;
+but if you could for one moment put yourself in the place of this young
+man, would you choose the very night after the will had been made to
+commit your crime? Would it not seem dangerous to you to make so very
+close a relation between the two incidents? Again, would you choose an
+occasion when you are known to be in the house, when a servant has let
+you in? And, finally, would you take the great pains to conceal the
+body and yet leave your own stick as a sign that you were the criminal?
+Confess, Lestrade, that all this is very unlikely.”
+
+“As to the stick, Mr. Holmes, you know as well as I do that a criminal
+is often flurried and does things which a cool man would avoid. He was
+very likely afraid to go back to the room. Give me another theory that
+would fit the facts.”
+
+“I could very easily give you half-a-dozen,” said Holmes. “Here, for
+example, is a very possible and even probable one. I make you a free
+present of it. The older man is showing documents which are of evident
+value. A passing tramp sees them through the window, the blind of which
+is only half down. Exit the solicitor. Enter the tramp! He seizes a
+stick, which he observes there, kills Oldacre, and departs after burning
+the body.”
+
+“Why should the tramp burn the body?”
+
+“For the matter of that why should McFarlane?”
+
+“To hide some evidence.”
+
+“Possibly the tramp wanted to hide that any murder at all had been
+committed.”
+
+“And why did the tramp take nothing?”
+
+“Because they were papers that he could not negotiate.”
+
+Lestrade shook his head, though it seemed to me that his manner was less
+absolutely assured than before.
+
+“Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you may look for your tramp, and while you
+are finding him we will hold on to our man. The future will show which
+is right. Just notice this point, Mr. Holmes: that so far as we know
+none of the papers were removed, and that the prisoner is the one man in
+the world who had no reason for removing them, since he was heir-at-law
+and would come into them in any case.”
+
+My friend seemed struck by this remark.
+
+“I don't mean to deny that the evidence is in some ways very strongly
+in favour of your theory,” said he. “I only wish to point out that there
+are other theories possible. As you say, the future will decide. Good
+morning! I dare say that in the course of the day I shall drop in at
+Norwood and see how you are getting on.”
+
+When the detective departed my friend rose and made his preparations
+for the day's work with the alert air of a man who has a congenial task
+before him.
+
+“My first movement, Watson,” said he, as he bustled into his frock-coat,
+“must, as I said, be in the direction of Blackheath.”
+
+“And why not Norwood?”
+
+“Because we have in this case one singular incident coming close to the
+heels of another singular incident. The police are making the mistake of
+concentrating their attention upon the second, because it happens to
+be the one which is actually criminal. But it is evident to me that the
+logical way to approach the case is to begin by trying to throw some
+light upon the first incident--the curious will, so suddenly made, and
+to so unexpected an heir. It may do something to simplify what followed.
+No, my dear fellow, I don't think you can help me. There is no prospect
+of danger, or I should not dream of stirring out without you. I trust
+that when I see you in the evening I will be able to report that I have
+been able to do something for this unfortunate youngster who has thrown
+himself upon my protection.”
+
+It was late when my friend returned, and I could see by a glance at his
+haggard and anxious face that the high hopes with which he had started
+had not been fulfilled. For an hour he droned away upon his violin,
+endeavouring to soothe his own ruffled spirits. At last he flung down
+the instrument and plunged into a detailed account of his misadventures.
+
+“It's all going wrong, Watson--all as wrong as it can go. I kept a bold
+face before Lestrade, but, upon my soul, I believe that for once the
+fellow is on the right track and we are on the wrong. All my instincts
+are one way and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that
+British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when
+they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts.”
+
+“Did you go to Blackheath?”
+
+“Yes, Watson, I went there, and I found very quickly that the late
+lamented Oldacre was a pretty considerable black-guard. The father was
+away in search of his son. The mother was at home--a little, fluffy,
+blue-eyed person, in a tremor of fear and indignation. Of course, she
+would not admit even the possibility of his guilt. But she would not
+express either surprise or regret over the fate of Oldacre. On
+the contrary, she spoke of him with such bitterness that she was
+unconsciously considerably strengthening the case of the police, for,
+of course, if her son had heard her speak of the man in this fashion it
+would predispose him towards hatred and violence. 'He was more like a
+malignant and cunning ape than a human being,' said she, 'and he always
+was, ever since he was a young man.'
+
+“'You knew him at that time?' said I.
+
+“'Yes, I knew him well; in fact, he was an old suitor of mine. Thank
+Heaven that I had the sense to turn away from him and to marry a better,
+if a poorer, man. I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I heard a
+shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary, and I was
+so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have nothing more to
+do with him.' She rummaged in a bureau, and presently she produced a
+photograph of a woman, shamefully defaced and mutilated with a knife.
+'That is my own photograph,' she said. 'He sent it to me in that state,
+with his curse, upon my wedding morning.'
+
+“'Well,' said I, 'at least he has forgiven you now, since he has left
+all his property to your son.'
+
+“'Neither my son nor I want anything from Jonas Oldacre, dead or alive,'
+she cried, with a proper spirit. 'There is a God in Heaven, Mr. Holmes,
+and that same God who has punished that wicked man will show in His own
+good time that my son's hands are guiltless of his blood.'
+
+“Well, I tried one or two leads, but could get at nothing which would
+help our hypothesis, and several points which would make against it. I
+gave it up at last and off I went to Norwood.
+
+“This place, Deep Dene House, is a big modern villa of staring brick,
+standing back in its own grounds, with a laurel-clumped lawn in front
+of it. To the right and some distance back from the road was the
+timber-yard which had been the scene of the fire. Here's a rough plan on
+a leaf of my note-book. This window on the left is the one which opens
+into Oldacre's room. You can look into it from the road, you see. That
+is about the only bit of consolation I have had to-day. Lestrade was
+not there, but his head constable did the honours. They had just made a
+great treasure-trove. They had spent the morning raking among the ashes
+of the burned wood-pile, and besides the charred organic remains they
+had secured several discoloured metal discs. I examined them with
+care, and there was no doubt that they were trouser buttons. I even
+distinguished that one of them was marked with the name of 'Hyams,' who
+was Oldacre's tailor. I then worked the lawn very carefully for signs
+and traces, but this drought has made everything as hard as iron.
+Nothing was to be seen save that some body or bundle had been dragged
+through a low privet hedge which is in a line with the wood-pile. All
+that, of course, fits in with the official theory. I crawled about the
+lawn with an August sun on my back, but I got up at the end of an hour
+no wiser than before.
+
+“Well, after this fiasco I went into the bedroom and examined that also.
+The blood-stains were very slight, mere smears and discolorations, but
+undoubtedly fresh. The stick had been removed, but there also the marks
+were slight. There is no doubt about the stick belonging to our client.
+He admits it. Footmarks of both men could be made out on the carpet,
+but none of any third person, which again is a trick for the other
+side. They were piling up their score all the time and we were at a
+standstill.
+
+“Only one little gleam of hope did I get--and yet it amounted to
+nothing. I examined the contents of the safe, most of which had been
+taken out and left on the table. The papers had been made up into sealed
+envelopes, one or two of which had been opened by the police. They were
+not, so far as I could judge, of any great value, nor did the bank-book
+show that Mr. Oldacre was in such very affluent circumstances. But it
+seemed to me that all the papers were not there. There were allusions to
+some deeds--possibly the more valuable--which I could not find. This, of
+course, if we could definitely prove it, would turn Lestrade's argument
+against himself, for who would steal a thing if he knew that he would
+shortly inherit it?
+
+“Finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent, I tried
+my luck with the housekeeper. Mrs. Lexington is her name, a little,
+dark, silent person, with suspicious and sidelong eyes. She could tell
+us something if she would--I am convinced of it. But she was as close as
+wax. Yes, she had let Mr. McFarlane in at half-past nine. She wished
+her hand had withered before she had done so. She had gone to bed at
+half-past ten. Her room was at the other end of the house, and she could
+hear nothing of what passed. Mr. McFarlane had left his hat, and to the
+best of her belief his stick, in the hall. She had been awakened by the
+alarm of fire. Her poor, dear master had certainly been murdered. Had he
+any enemies? Well, every man had enemies, but Mr. Oldacre kept himself
+very much to himself, and only met people in the way of business. She
+had seen the buttons, and was sure that they belonged to the clothes
+which he had worn last night. The wood-pile was very dry, for it had not
+rained for a month. It burned like tinder, and by the time she reached
+the spot nothing could be seen but flames. She and all the firemen
+smelled the burned flesh from inside it. She knew nothing of the papers,
+nor of Mr. Oldacre's private affairs.
+
+“So, my dear Watson, there's my report of a failure. And yet--and
+yet--“--he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction--“I KNOW
+it's all wrong. I feel it in my bones. There is something that has
+not come out, and that housekeeper knows it. There was a sort of sulky
+defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge. However,
+there's no good talking any more about it, Watson; but unless some lucky
+chance comes our way I fear that the Norwood Disappearance Case will not
+figure in that chronicle of our successes which I foresee that a patient
+public will sooner or later have to endure.”
+
+“Surely,” said I, “the man's appearance would go far with any jury?”
+
+“That is a dangerous argument, my dear Watson. You remember that
+terrible murderer, Bert Stevens, who wanted us to get him off in '87?
+Was there ever a more mild-mannered, Sunday-school young man?”
+
+“It is true.”
+
+“Unless we succeed in establishing an alternative theory this man is
+lost. You can hardly find a flaw in the case which can now be presented
+against him, and all further investigation has served to strengthen it.
+By the way, there is one curious little point about those papers which
+may serve us as the starting-point for an inquiry. On looking over the
+bank-book I found that the low state of the balance was principally due
+to large cheques which have been made out during the last year to Mr.
+Cornelius. I confess that I should be interested to know who this
+Mr. Cornelius may be with whom a retired builder has such very large
+transactions. Is it possible that he has had a hand in the affair?
+Cornelius might be a broker, but we have found no scrip to correspond
+with these large payments. Failing any other indication my researches
+must now take the direction of an inquiry at the bank for the gentleman
+who has cashed these cheques. But I fear, my dear fellow, that our
+case will end ingloriously by Lestrade hanging our client, which will
+certainly be a triumph for Scotland Yard.”
+
+I do not know how far Sherlock Holmes took any sleep that night, but
+when I came down to breakfast I found him pale and harassed, his bright
+eyes the brighter for the dark shadows round them. The carpet round his
+chair was littered with cigarette-ends and with the early editions of
+the morning papers. An open telegram lay upon the table.
+
+“What do you think of this, Watson?” he asked, tossing it across.
+
+It was from Norwood, and ran as follows:--
+
+     “IMPORTANT FRESH EVIDENCE TO HAND.  MCFARLANE'S GUILT
+     DEFINITELY ESTABLISHED.  ADVISE YOU TO ABANDON CASE.
+     --LESTRADE.”
+
+“This sounds serious,” said I.
+
+“It is Lestrade's little cock-a-doodle of victory,” Holmes answered,
+with a bitter smile. “And yet it may be premature to abandon the case.
+After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may
+possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade
+imagines. Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together and
+see what we can do. I feel as if I shall need your company and your
+moral support to-day.”
+
+My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his peculiarities
+that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I
+have known him presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from
+pure inanition. “At present I cannot spare energy and nerve force for
+digestion,” he would say in answer to my medical remonstrances. I was
+not surprised, therefore, when this morning he left his untouched meal
+behind him and started with me for Norwood. A crowd of morbid sightseers
+were still gathered round Deep Dene House, which was just such a
+suburban villa as I had pictured. Within the gates Lestrade met us, his
+face flushed with victory, his manner grossly triumphant.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you proved us to be wrong yet? Have you found
+your tramp?” he cried.
+
+“I have formed no conclusion whatever,” my companion answered.
+
+“But we formed ours yesterday, and now it proves to be correct; so you
+must acknowledge that we have been a little in front of you this time,
+Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“You certainly have the air of something unusual having occurred,” said
+Holmes.
+
+Lestrade laughed loudly.
+
+“You don't like being beaten any more than the rest of us do,” said he.
+“A man can't expect always to have it his own way, can he, Dr. Watson?
+Step this way, if you please, gentlemen, and I think I can convince you
+once for all that it was John McFarlane who did this crime.”
+
+He led us through the passage and out into a dark hall beyond.
+
+“This is where young McFarlane must have come out to get his hat
+after the crime was done,” said he. “Now, look at this.” With dramatic
+suddenness he struck a match and by its light exposed a stain of blood
+upon the whitewashed wall. As he held the match nearer I saw that it was
+more than a stain. It was the well-marked print of a thumb.
+
+“Look at that with your magnifying glass, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Yes, I am doing so.”
+
+“You are aware that no two thumb marks are alike?”
+
+“I have heard something of the kind.”
+
+“Well, then, will you please compare that print with this wax impression
+of young McFarlane's right thumb, taken by my orders this morning?”
+
+As he held the waxen print close to the blood-stain it did not take
+a magnifying glass to see that the two were undoubtedly from the same
+thumb. It was evident to me that our unfortunate client was lost.
+
+“That is final,” said Lestrade.
+
+“Yes, that is final,” I involuntarily echoed.
+
+“It is final,” said Holmes.
+
+Something in his tone caught my ear, and I turned to look at him. An
+extraordinary change had come over his face. It was writhing with inward
+merriment. His two eyes were shining like stars. It seemed to me that
+he was making desperate efforts to restrain a convulsive attack of
+laughter.
+
+“Dear me! Dear me!” he said at last. “Well, now, who would have thought
+it? And how deceptive appearances may be, to be sure! Such a nice young
+man to look at! It is a lesson to us not to trust our own judgment, is
+it not, Lestrade?”
+
+“Yes, some of us are a little too much inclined to be cocksure, Mr.
+Holmes,” said Lestrade. The man's insolence was maddening, but we could
+not resent it.
+
+“What a providential thing that this young man should press his right
+thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very
+natural action, too, if you come to think of it.” Holmes was outwardly
+calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed excitement as he
+spoke. “By the way, Lestrade, who made this remarkable discovery?”
+
+“It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Lexington, who drew the night constable's
+attention to it.”
+
+“Where was the night constable?”
+
+“He remained on guard in the bedroom where the crime was committed, so
+as to see that nothing was touched.”
+
+“But why didn't the police see this mark yesterday?”
+
+“Well, we had no particular reason to make a careful examination of the
+hall. Besides, it's not in a very prominent place, as you see.”
+
+“No, no, of course not. I suppose there is no doubt that the mark was
+there yesterday?”
+
+Lestrade looked at Holmes as if he thought he was going out of his mind.
+I confess that I was myself surprised both at his hilarious manner and
+at his rather wild observation.
+
+“I don't know whether you think that McFarlane came out of gaol in the
+dead of the night in order to strengthen the evidence against himself,”
+ said Lestrade. “I leave it to any expert in the world whether that is
+not the mark of his thumb.”
+
+“It is unquestionably the mark of his thumb.”
+
+“There, that's enough,” said Lestrade. “I am a practical man, Mr.
+Holmes, and when I have got my evidence I come to my conclusions. If
+you have anything to say you will find me writing my report in the
+sitting-room.”
+
+Holmes had recovered his equanimity, though I still seemed to detect
+gleams of amusement in his expression.
+
+“Dear me, this is a very sad development, Watson, is it not?” said he.
+“And yet there are singular points about it which hold out some hopes
+for our client.”
+
+“I am delighted to hear it,” said I, heartily. “I was afraid it was all
+up with him.”
+
+“I would hardly go so far as to say that, my dear Watson. The fact is
+that there is one really serious flaw in this evidence to which our
+friend attaches so much importance.”
+
+“Indeed, Holmes! What is it?”
+
+“Only this: that I KNOW that that mark was not there when I examined the
+hall yesterday. And now, Watson, let us have a little stroll round in
+the sunshine.”
+
+With a confused brain, but with a heart into which some warmth of hope
+was returning, I accompanied my friend in a walk round the garden.
+Holmes took each face of the house in turn and examined it with great
+interest. He then led the way inside and went over the whole building
+from basement to attics. Most of the rooms were unfurnished, but
+none the less Holmes inspected them all minutely. Finally, on the top
+corridor, which ran outside three untenanted bedrooms, he again was
+seized with a spasm of merriment.
+
+“There are really some very unique features about this case, Watson,”
+ said he. “I think it is time now that we took our friend Lestrade into
+our confidence. He has had his little smile at our expense, and perhaps
+we may do as much by him if my reading of this problem proves to be
+correct. Yes, yes; I think I see how we should approach it.”
+
+The Scotland Yard inspector was still writing in the parlour when Holmes
+interrupted him.
+
+“I understood that you were writing a report of this case,” said he.
+
+“So I am.”
+
+“Don't you think it may be a little premature? I can't help thinking
+that your evidence is not complete.”
+
+Lestrade knew my friend too well to disregard his words. He laid down
+his pen and looked curiously at him.
+
+“What do you mean, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Only that there is an important witness whom you have not seen.”
+
+“Can you produce him?”
+
+“I think I can.”
+
+“Then do so.”
+
+“I will do my best. How many constables have you?”
+
+“There are three within call.”
+
+“Excellent!” said Holmes. “May I ask if they are all large, able-bodied
+men with powerful voices?”
+
+“I have no doubt they are, though I fail to see what their voices have
+to do with it.”
+
+“Perhaps I can help you to see that and one or two other things as
+well,” said Holmes. “Kindly summon your men, and I will try.”
+
+Five minutes later three policemen had assembled in the hall.
+
+“In the outhouse you will find a considerable quantity of straw,” said
+Holmes. “I will ask you to carry in two bundles of it. I think it will
+be of the greatest assistance in producing the witness whom I require.
+Thank you very much. I believe you have some matches in your pocket,
+Watson. Now, Mr. Lestrade, I will ask you all to accompany me to the top
+landing.”
+
+As I have said, there was a broad corridor there, which ran outside
+three empty bedrooms. At one end of the corridor we were all marshalled
+by Sherlock Holmes, the constables grinning and Lestrade staring at
+my friend with amazement, expectation, and derision chasing each other
+across his features. Holmes stood before us with the air of a conjurer
+who is performing a trick.
+
+“Would you kindly send one of your constables for two buckets of water?
+Put the straw on the floor here, free from the wall on either side. Now
+I think that we are all ready.”
+
+Lestrade's face had begun to grow red and angry.
+
+“I don't know whether you are playing a game with us, Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes,” said he. “If you know anything, you can surely say it without
+all this tomfoolery.”
+
+“I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reason for
+everything that I do. You may possibly remember that you chaffed me a
+little some hours ago, when the sun seemed on your side of the hedge, so
+you must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony now. Might I ask you,
+Watson, to open that window, and then to put a match to the edge of the
+straw?”
+
+I did so, and, driven by the draught, a coil of grey smoke swirled down
+the corridor, while the dry straw crackled and flamed.
+
+“Now we must see if we can find this witness for you, Lestrade. Might I
+ask you all to join in the cry of 'Fire!'? Now, then; one, two, three--”
+
+“Fire!” we all yelled.
+
+“Thank you. I will trouble you once again.”
+
+“Fire!”
+
+“Just once more, gentlemen, and all together.”
+
+“Fire!” The shout must have rung over Norwood.
+
+It had hardly died away when an amazing thing happened. A door suddenly
+flew open out of what appeared to be solid wall at the end of the
+corridor, and a little, wizened man darted out of it, like a rabbit out
+of its burrow.
+
+“Capital!” said Holmes, calmly. “Watson, a bucket of water over the
+straw. That will do! Lestrade, allow me to present you with your
+principal missing witness, Mr. Jonas Oldacre.”
+
+The detective stared at the new-comer with blank amazement. The latter
+was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, and peering at us
+and at the smouldering fire. It was an odious face--crafty, vicious,
+malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.
+
+“What's this, then?” said Lestrade at last. “What have you been doing
+all this time, eh?”
+
+Oldacre gave an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furious red face
+of the angry detective.
+
+“I have done no harm.”
+
+“No harm? You have done your best to get an innocent man hanged. If it
+wasn't for this gentleman here, I am not sure that you would not have
+succeeded.”
+
+The wretched creature began to whimper.
+
+“I am sure, sir, it was only my practical joke.”
+
+“Oh! a joke, was it? You won't find the laugh on your side, I promise
+you. Take him down and keep him in the sitting-room until I come. Mr.
+Holmes,” he continued, when they had gone, “I could not speak before the
+constables, but I don't mind saying, in the presence of Dr. Watson,
+that this is the brightest thing that you have done yet, though it is a
+mystery to me how you did it. You have saved an innocent man's life,
+and you have prevented a very grave scandal, which would have ruined my
+reputation in the Force.”
+
+Holmes smiled and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder.
+
+“Instead of being ruined, my good sir, you will find that your
+reputation has been enormously enhanced. Just make a few alterations in
+that report which you were writing, and they will understand how hard it
+is to throw dust in the eyes of Inspector Lestrade.”
+
+“And you don't want your name to appear?”
+
+“Not at all. The work is its own reward. Perhaps I shall get the credit
+also at some distant day when I permit my zealous historian to lay out
+his foolscap once more--eh, Watson? Well, now, let us see where this rat
+has been lurking.”
+
+A lath-and-plaster partition had been run across the passage six feet
+from the end, with a door cunningly concealed in it. It was lit within
+by slits under the eaves. A few articles of furniture and a supply of
+food and water were within, together with a number of books and papers.
+
+“There's the advantage of being a builder,” said Holmes, as we came
+out. “He was able to fix up his own little hiding-place without any
+confederate--save, of course, that precious housekeeper of his, whom I
+should lose no time in adding to your bag, Lestrade.”
+
+“I'll take your advice. But how did you know of this place, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“I made up my mind that the fellow was in hiding in the house. When I
+paced one corridor and found it six feet shorter than the corresponding
+one below, it was pretty clear where he was. I thought he had not the
+nerve to lie quiet before an alarm of fire. We could, of course, have
+gone in and taken him, but it amused me to make him reveal himself;
+besides, I owed you a little mystification, Lestrade, for your chaff in
+the morning.”
+
+“Well, sir, you certainly got equal with me on that. But how in the
+world did you know that he was in the house at all?”
+
+“The thumb-mark, Lestrade. You said it was final; and so it was, in a
+very different sense. I knew it had not been there the day before. I pay
+a good deal of attention to matters of detail, as you may have observed,
+and I had examined the hall and was sure that the wall was clear.
+Therefore, it had been put on during the night.”
+
+“But how?”
+
+“Very simply. When those packets were sealed up, Jonas Oldacre got
+McFarlane to secure one of the seals by putting his thumb upon the soft
+wax. It would be done so quickly and so naturally that I dare say the
+young man himself has no recollection of it. Very likely it just so
+happened, and Oldacre had himself no notion of the use he would put it
+to. Brooding over the case in that den of his, it suddenly struck him
+what absolutely damning evidence he could make against McFarlane by
+using that thumb-mark. It was the simplest thing in the world for him to
+take a wax impression from the seal, to moisten it in as much blood as
+he could get from a pin-prick, and to put the mark upon the wall during
+the night, either with his own hand or with that of his housekeeper.
+If you examine among those documents which he took with him into
+his retreat I will lay you a wager that you find the seal with the
+thumb-mark upon it.”
+
+“Wonderful!” said Lestrade. “Wonderful! It's all as clear as crystal, as
+you put it. But what is the object of this deep deception, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had
+changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher.
+
+“Well, I don't think that is very hard to explain. A very deep,
+malicious, vindictive person is the gentleman who is now awaiting us
+downstairs. You know that he was once refused by McFarlane's mother?
+You don't! I told you that you should go to Blackheath first and Norwood
+afterwards. Well, this injury, as he would consider it, has rankled
+in his wicked, scheming brain, and all his life he has longed for
+vengeance, but never seen his chance. During the last year or two things
+have gone against him--secret speculation, I think--and he finds himself
+in a bad way. He determines to swindle his creditors, and for this
+purpose he pays large cheques to a certain Mr. Cornelius, who is, I
+imagine, himself under another name. I have not traced these cheques
+yet, but I have no doubt that they were banked under that name at some
+provincial town where Oldacre from time to time led a double existence.
+He intended to change his name altogether, draw this money, and vanish,
+starting life again elsewhere.”
+
+“Well, that's likely enough.”
+
+“It would strike him that in disappearing he might throw all pursuit off
+his track, and at the same time have an ample and crushing revenge upon
+his old sweetheart, if he could give the impression that he had been
+murdered by her only child. It was a masterpiece of villainy, and he
+carried it out like a master. The idea of the will, which would give
+an obvious motive for the crime, the secret visit unknown to his own
+parents, the retention of the stick, the blood, and the animal remains
+and buttons in the wood-pile, all were admirable. It was a net from
+which it seemed to me a few hours ago that there was no possible escape.
+But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to
+stop. He wished to improve that which was already perfect--to draw the
+rope tighter yet round the neck of his unfortunate victim--and so
+he ruined all. Let us descend, Lestrade. There are just one or two
+questions that I would ask him.”
+
+The malignant creature was seated in his own parlour with a policeman
+upon each side of him.
+
+“It was a joke, my good sir, a practical joke, nothing more,” he whined
+incessantly. “I assure you, sir, that I simply concealed myself in order
+to see the effect of my disappearance, and I am sure that you would not
+be so unjust as to imagine that I would have allowed any harm to befall
+poor young Mr. McFarlane.”
+
+“That's for a jury to decide,” said Lestrade. “Anyhow, we shall have you
+on a charge of conspiracy, if not for attempted murder.”
+
+“And you'll probably find that your creditors will impound the banking
+account of Mr. Cornelius,” said Holmes.
+
+The little man started and turned his malignant eyes upon my friend.
+
+“I have to thank you for a good deal,” said he. “Perhaps I'll pay my
+debt some day.”
+
+Holmes smiled indulgently.
+
+“I fancy that for some few years you will find your time very fully
+occupied,” said he. “By the way, what was it you put into the wood-pile
+besides your old trousers? A dead dog, or rabbits, or what? You won't
+tell? Dear me, how very unkind of you! Well, well, I dare say that a
+couple of rabbits would account both for the blood and for the charred
+ashes. If ever you write an account, Watson, you can make rabbits serve
+your turn.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 26  DECEMBER, 1903
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+III.--The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
+
+
+HOLMES had been seated for some hours in silence with his long,
+thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a
+particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk upon his breast, and
+he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with dull
+grey plumage and a black top-knot.
+
+“So, Watson,” said he, suddenly, “you do not propose to invest in South
+African securities?”
+
+I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes's curious
+faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was
+utterly inexplicable.
+
+“How on earth do you know that?” I asked.
+
+He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his hand
+and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.
+
+“Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,” said he.
+
+“I am.”
+
+“I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly
+simple.”
+
+“I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.”
+
+“You see, my dear Watson”--he propped his test-tube in the rack and
+began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class--“it
+is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each
+dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after
+doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents
+one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may
+produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was
+not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left
+forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest
+your small capital in the goldfields.”
+
+“I see no connection.”
+
+“Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here
+are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between
+your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night.
+2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the cue. 3. You
+never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me four weeks ago
+that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would
+expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. 5. Your
+cheque-book is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key.
+6. You do not propose to invest your money in this manner.”
+
+“How absurdly simple!” I cried.
+
+“Quite so!” said he, a little nettled. “Every problem becomes very
+childish when once it is explained to you. Here is an unexplained one.
+See what you can make of that, friend Watson.” He tossed a sheet of
+paper upon the table and turned once more to his chemical analysis.
+
+I looked with amazement at the absurd hieroglyphics upon the paper.
+
+“Why, Holmes, it is a child's drawing,” I cried.
+
+“Oh, that's your idea!”
+
+“What else should it be?”
+
+“That is what Mr. Hilton Cubitt, of Riding Thorpe Manor, Norfolk, is
+very anxious to know. This little conundrum came by the first post, and
+he was to follow by the next train. There's a ring at the bell, Watson.
+I should not be very much surprised if this were he.”
+
+A heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there
+entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and
+florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street. He
+seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast air
+with him as he entered. Having shaken hands with each of us, he was
+about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the curious
+markings, which I had just examined and left upon the table.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you make of these?” he cried. “They told me
+that you were fond of queer mysteries, and I don't think you can find a
+queerer one than that. I sent the paper on ahead so that you might have
+time to study it before I came.”
+
+“It is certainly rather a curious production,” said Holmes. “At first
+sight it would appear to be some childish prank. It consists of a number
+of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which they
+are drawn. Why should you attribute any importance to so grotesque an
+object?”
+
+“I never should, Mr. Holmes. But my wife does. It is frightening her to
+death. She says nothing, but I can see terror in her eyes. That's why I
+want to sift the matter to the bottom.”
+
+Holmes held up the paper so that the sunlight shone full upon it. It was
+a page torn from a note-book. The markings were done in pencil, and ran
+in this way:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+Holmes examined it for some time, and then, folding it carefully up, he
+placed it in his pocket-book.
+
+“This promises to be a most interesting and unusual case,” said he.
+“You gave me a few particulars in your letter, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, but I
+should be very much obliged if you would kindly go over it all again for
+the benefit of my friend, Dr. Watson.”
+
+“I'm not much of a story-teller,” said our visitor, nervously clasping
+and unclasping his great, strong hands. “You'll just ask me anything
+that I don't make clear. I'll begin at the time of my marriage last
+year; but I want to say first of all that, though I'm not a rich man, my
+people have been at Ridling Thorpe for a matter of five centuries, and
+there is no better known family in the County of Norfolk. Last year I
+came up to London for the Jubilee, and I stopped at a boarding-house in
+Russell Square, because Parker, the vicar of our parish, was staying in
+it. There was an American young lady there--Patrick was the name--Elsie
+Patrick. In some way we became friends, until before my month was up
+I was as much in love as a man could be. We were quietly married at
+a registry office, and we returned to Norfolk a wedded couple. You'll
+think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of a good old family should
+marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her
+people; but if you saw her and knew her it would help you to understand.
+
+“She was very straight about it, was Elsie. I can't say that she did not
+give me every chance of getting out of it if I wished to do so. 'I have
+had some very disagreeable associations in my life,' said she; 'I wish
+to forget all about them. I would rather never allude to the past, for
+it is very painful to me. If you take me, Hilton, you will take a woman
+who has nothing that she need be personally ashamed of; but you will
+have to be content with my word for it, and to allow me to be silent
+as to all that passed up to the time when I became yours. If these
+conditions are too hard, then go back to Norfolk and leave me to the
+lonely life in which you found me.' It was only the day before our
+wedding that she said those very words to me. I told her that I was
+content to take her on her own terms, and I have been as good as my
+word.
+
+“Well, we have been married now for a year, and very happy we have been.
+But about a month ago, at the end of June, I saw for the first time
+signs of trouble. One day my wife received a letter from America. I saw
+the American stamp. She turned deadly white, read the letter, and threw
+it into the fire. She made no allusion to it afterwards, and I made
+none, for a promise is a promise; but she has never known an easy hour
+from that moment. There is always a look of fear upon her face--a look
+as if she were waiting and expecting. She would do better to trust me.
+She would find that I was her best friend. But until she speaks I can
+say nothing. Mind you, she is a truthful woman, Mr. Holmes, and whatever
+trouble there may have been in her past life it has been no fault of
+hers. I am only a simple Norfolk squire, but there is not a man in
+England who ranks his family honour more highly than I do. She knows it
+well, and she knew it well before she married me. She would never bring
+any stain upon it--of that I am sure.
+
+“Well, now I come to the queer part of my story. About a week ago--it
+was the Tuesday of last week--I found on one of the window-sills a
+number of absurd little dancing figures, like these upon the paper. They
+were scrawled with chalk. I thought that it was the stable-boy who had
+drawn them, but the lad swore he knew nothing about it. Anyhow, they had
+come there during the night. I had them washed out, and I only mentioned
+the matter to my wife afterwards. To my surprise she took it very
+seriously, and begged me if any more came to let her see them. None did
+come for a week, and then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on
+the sun-dial in the garden. I showed it to Elsie, and down she dropped
+in a dead faint. Since then she has looked like a woman in a dream, half
+dazed, and with terror always lurking in her eyes. It was then that I
+wrote and sent the paper to you, Mr. Holmes. It was not a thing that
+I could take to the police, for they would have laughed at me, but you
+will tell me what to do. I am not a rich man; but if there is any danger
+threatening my little woman I would spend my last copper to shield her.”
+
+He was a fine creature, this man of the old English soil, simple,
+straight, and gentle, with his great, earnest blue eyes and broad,
+comely face. His love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his
+features. Holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention,
+and now he sat for some time in silent thought.
+
+“Don't you think, Mr. Cubitt,” said he, at last, “that your best plan
+would be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to share
+her secret with you?”
+
+Hilton Cubitt shook his massive head.
+
+“A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If Elsie wished to tell me she
+would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence. But I am
+justified in taking my own line--and I will.”
+
+“Then I will help you with all my heart. In the first place, have you
+heard of any strangers being seen in your neighbourhood?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I presume that it is a very quiet place. Any fresh face would cause
+comment?”
+
+“In the immediate neighbourhood, yes. But we have several small
+watering-places not very far away. And the farmers take in lodgers.”
+
+“These hieroglyphics have evidently a meaning. If it is a purely
+arbitrary one it may be impossible for us to solve it. If, on the other
+hand, it is systematic, I have no doubt that we shall get to the bottom
+of it. But this particular sample is so short that I can do nothing, and
+the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite that we have no
+basis for an investigation. I would suggest that you return to Norfolk,
+that you keep a keen look-out, and that you take an exact copy of any
+fresh dancing men which may appear. It is a thousand pities that we
+have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the
+window-sill. Make a discreet inquiry also as to any strangers in the
+neighbourhood. When you have collected some fresh evidence come to me
+again. That is the best advice which I can give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt.
+If there are any pressing fresh developments I shall be always ready to
+run down and see you in your Norfolk home.”
+
+The interview left Sherlock Holmes very thoughtful, and several times
+in the next few days I saw him take his slip of paper from his note-book
+and look long and earnestly at the curious figures inscribed upon it. He
+made no allusion to the affair, however, until one afternoon a fortnight
+or so later. I was going out when he called me back.
+
+“You had better stay here, Watson.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because I had a wire from Hilton Cubitt this morning--you remember
+Hilton Cubitt, of the dancing men? He was to reach Liverpool Street at
+one-twenty. He may be here at any moment. I gather from his wire that
+there have been some new incidents of importance.”
+
+We had not long to wait, for our Norfolk squire came straight from the
+station as fast as a hansom could bring him. He was looking worried and
+depressed, with tired eyes and a lined forehead.
+
+“It's getting on my nerves, this business, Mr. Holmes,” said he, as he
+sank, like a wearied man, into an arm-chair. “It's bad enough to feel
+that you are surrounded by unseen, unknown folk, who have some kind of
+design upon you; but when, in addition to that, you know that it is just
+killing your wife by inches, then it becomes as much as flesh and blood
+can endure. She's wearing away under it--just wearing away before my
+eyes.”
+
+“Has she said anything yet?”
+
+“No, Mr. Holmes, she has not. And yet there have been times when the
+poor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite bring herself
+to take the plunge. I have tried to help her; but I dare say I did
+it clumsily, and scared her off from it. She has spoken about my old
+family, and our reputation in the county, and our pride in our unsullied
+honour, and I always felt it was leading to the point; but somehow it
+turned off before we got there.”
+
+“But you have found out something for yourself?”
+
+“A good deal, Mr. Holmes. I have several fresh dancing men pictures for
+you to examine, and, what is more important, I have seen the fellow.”
+
+“What, the man who draws them?”
+
+“Yes, I saw him at his work. But I will tell you everything in order.
+When I got back after my visit to you, the very first thing I saw next
+morning was a fresh crop of dancing men. They had been drawn in chalk
+upon the black wooden door of the tool-house, which stands beside the
+lawn in full view of the front windows. I took an exact copy, and here
+it is.” He unfolded a paper and laid it upon the table. Here is a copy
+of the hieroglyphics:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“Excellent!” said Holmes. “Excellent! Pray continue.”
+
+“When I had taken the copy I rubbed out the marks; but two mornings
+later a fresh inscription had appeared. I have a copy of it here”:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+Holmes rubbed his hands and chuckled with delight.
+
+“Our material is rapidly accumulating,” said he.
+
+“Three days later a message was left scrawled upon paper, and placed
+under a pebble upon the sun-dial. Here it is. The characters are, as you
+see, exactly the same as the last one. After that I determined to lie in
+wait; so I got out my revolver and I sat up in my study, which overlooks
+the lawn and garden. About two in the morning I was seated by the
+window, all being dark save for the moonlight outside, when I heard
+steps behind me, and there was my wife in her dressing-gown. She
+implored me to come to bed. I told her frankly that I wished to see who
+it was who played such absurd tricks upon us. She answered that it was
+some senseless practical joke, and that I should not take any notice of
+it.
+
+“'If it really annoys you, Hilton, we might go and travel, you and I,
+and so avoid this nuisance.'
+
+“'What, be driven out of our own house by a practical joker?' said I.
+'Why, we should have the whole county laughing at us.'
+
+“'Well, come to bed,' said she, 'and we can discuss it in the morning.'
+
+“Suddenly, as she spoke, I saw her white face grow whiter yet in the
+moonlight, and her hand tightened upon my shoulder. Something was moving
+in the shadow of the tool-house. I saw a dark, creeping figure which
+crawled round the corner and squatted in front of the door. Seizing my
+pistol I was rushing out, when my wife threw her arms round me and held
+me with convulsive strength. I tried to throw her off, but she clung to
+me most desperately. At last I got clear, but by the time I had opened
+the door and reached the house the creature was gone. He had left a
+trace of his presence, however, for there on the door was the very same
+arrangement of dancing men which had already twice appeared, and which
+I have copied on that paper. There was no other sign of the fellow
+anywhere, though I ran all over the grounds. And yet the amazing thing
+is that he must have been there all the time, for when I examined the
+door again in the morning he had scrawled some more of his pictures
+under the line which I had already seen.”
+
+“Have you that fresh drawing?”
+
+“Yes; it is very short, but I made a copy of it, and here it is.”
+
+Again he produced a paper. The new dance was in this form:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“Tell me,” said Holmes--and I could see by his eyes that he was much
+excited--“was this a mere addition to the first, or did it appear to be
+entirely separate?”
+
+“It was on a different panel of the door.”
+
+“Excellent! This is far the most important of all for our purpose. It
+fills me with hopes. Now, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, please continue your most
+interesting statement.”
+
+“I have nothing more to say, Mr. Holmes, except that I was angry with
+my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught the
+skulking rascal. She said that she feared that I might come to harm. For
+an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she really feared
+was that HE might come to harm, for I could not doubt that she knew who
+this man was and what he meant by these strange signals. But there is a
+tone in my wife's voice, Mr. Holmes, and a look in her eyes which forbid
+doubt, and I am sure that it was indeed my own safety that was in her
+mind. There's the whole case, and now I want your advice as to what I
+ought to do. My own inclination is to put half-a-dozen of my farm lads
+in the shrubbery, and when this fellow comes again to give him such a
+hiding that he will leave us in peace for the future.”
+
+“I fear it is too deep a case for such simple remedies,” said Holmes.
+“How long can you stay in London?”
+
+“I must go back to-day. I would not leave my wife alone all night for
+anything. She is very nervous and begged me to come back.”
+
+“I dare say you are right. But if you could have stopped I might
+possibly have been able to return with you in a day or two. Meanwhile
+you will leave me these papers, and I think that it is very likely that
+I shall be able to pay you a visit shortly and to throw some light upon
+your case.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes preserved his calm professional manner until our visitor
+had left us, although it was easy for me, who knew him so well, to see
+that he was profoundly excited. The moment that Hilton Cubitt's broad
+back had disappeared through the door my comrade rushed to the table,
+laid out all the slips of paper containing dancing men in front of him,
+and threw himself into an intricate and elaborate calculation. For
+two hours I watched him as he covered sheet after sheet of paper with
+figures and letters, so completely absorbed in his task that he had
+evidently forgotten my presence. Sometimes he was making progress and
+whistled and sang at his work; sometimes he was puzzled, and would sit
+for long spells with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye. Finally he sprang
+from his chair with a cry of satisfaction, and walked up and down the
+room rubbing his hands together. Then he wrote a long telegram upon a
+cable form. “If my answer to this is as I hope, you will have a very
+pretty case to add to your collection, Watson,” said he. “I expect that
+we shall be able to go down to Norfolk to-morrow, and to take our friend
+some very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.”
+
+I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that Holmes
+liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own way; so I
+waited until it should suit him to take me into his confidence.
+
+But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of
+impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at every
+ring of the bell. On the evening of the second there came a letter from
+Hilton Cubitt. All was quiet with him, save that a long inscription had
+appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the sun-dial. He inclosed a
+copy of it, which is here reproduced:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, and then
+suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and dismay.
+His face was haggard with anxiety.
+
+“We have let this affair go far enough,” said he. “Is there a train to
+North Walsham to-night?”
+
+I turned up the time-table. The last had just gone.
+
+“Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the morning,”
+ said Holmes. “Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah! here is our
+expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson; there may be an answer. No,
+that is quite as I expected. This message makes it even more essential
+that we should not lose an hour in letting Hilton Cubitt know how
+matters stand, for it is a singular and a dangerous web in which our
+simple Norfolk squire is entangled.”
+
+So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion of a story
+which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre I experience once
+again the dismay and horror with which I was filled. Would that I had
+some brighter ending to communicate to my readers, but these are the
+chronicles of fact, and I must follow to their dark crisis the strange
+chain of events which for some days made Ridling Thorpe Manor a
+household word through the length and breadth of England.
+
+We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name of our
+destination, when the station-master hurried towards us. “I suppose that
+you are the detectives from London?” said he.
+
+A look of annoyance passed over Holmes's face.
+
+“What makes you think such a thing?”
+
+“Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through. But
+maybe you are the surgeons. She's not dead--or wasn't by last accounts.
+You may be in time to save her yet--though it be for the gallows.”
+
+Holmes's brow was dark with anxiety.
+
+“We are going to Ridling Thorpe Manor,” said he, “but we have heard
+nothing of what has passed there.”
+
+“It's a terrible business,” said the station-master. “They are shot,
+both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then herself--so
+the servants say. He's dead and her life is despaired of. Dear, dear,
+one of the oldest families in the County of Norfolk, and one of the most
+honoured.”
+
+Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven
+miles' drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen him so
+utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our journey from
+town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers with
+anxious attention; but now this sudden realization of his worst fears
+left him in a blank melancholy. He leaned back in his seat, lost in
+gloomy speculation. Yet there was much around to interest us, for we
+were passing through as singular a country-side as any in England, where
+a few scattered cottages represented the population of to-day, while on
+every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat,
+green landscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia.
+At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over the green edge
+of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with his whip to two old
+brick and timber gables which projected from a grove of trees. “That's
+Ridling Thorpe Manor,” said he.
+
+As we drove up to the porticoed front door I observed in front of
+it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled
+sun-dial with which we had such strange associations. A dapper little
+man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just
+descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced himself as Inspector
+Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he was considerably astonished
+when he heard the name of my companion.
+
+“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.
+How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I?”
+
+“I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.”
+
+“Then you must have important evidence of which we are ignorant, for
+they were said to be a most united couple.”
+
+“I have only the evidence of the dancing men,” said Holmes. “I will
+explain the matter to you later. Meanwhile, since it is too late to
+prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use the knowledge
+which I possess in order to ensure that justice be done. Will you
+associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer that I should act
+independently?”
+
+“I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr. Holmes,”
+ said the inspector, earnestly.
+
+“In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to examine the
+premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.”
+
+Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to do things
+in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefully noting the
+results. The local surgeon, an old, white-haired man, had just come down
+from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt's room, and he reported that her injuries were
+serious, but not necessarily fatal. The bullet had passed through the
+front of her brain, and it would probably be some time before she could
+regain consciousness. On the question of whether she had been shot or
+had shot herself he would not venture to express any decided opinion.
+Certainly the bullet had been discharged at very close quarters. There
+was only the one pistol found in the room, two barrels of which had
+been emptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had been shot through the heart. It was
+equally conceivable that he had shot her and then himself, or that
+she had been the criminal, for the revolver lay upon the floor midway
+between them.
+
+“Has he been moved?” asked Holmes.
+
+“We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leave her lying
+wounded upon the floor.”
+
+“How long have you been here, doctor?”
+
+“Since four o'clock.”
+
+“Anyone else?”
+
+“Yes, the constable here.”
+
+“And you have touched nothing?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“You have acted with great discretion. Who sent for you?”
+
+“The housemaid, Saunders.”
+
+“Was it she who gave the alarm?”
+
+“She and Mrs. King, the cook.”
+
+“Where are they now?”
+
+“In the kitchen, I believe.”
+
+“Then I think we had better hear their story at once.”
+
+The old hall, oak-panelled and high-windowed, had been turned into a
+court of investigation. Holmes sat in a great, old-fashioned chair, his
+inexorable eyes gleaming out of his haggard face. I could read in them
+a set purpose to devote his life to this quest until the client whom he
+had failed to save should at last be avenged. The trim Inspector Martin,
+the old, grey-headed country doctor, myself, and a stolid village
+policeman made up the rest of that strange company.
+
+The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been aroused
+from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been followed
+a minute later by a second one. They slept in adjoining rooms, and Mrs.
+King had rushed in to Saunders. Together they had descended the stairs.
+The door of the study was open and a candle was burning upon the table.
+Their master lay upon his face in the centre of the room. He was quite
+dead. Near the window his wife was crouching, her head leaning against
+the wall. She was horribly wounded, and the side of her face was red
+with blood. She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying anything.
+The passage, as well as the room, was full of smoke and the smell of
+powder. The window was certainly shut and fastened upon the inside. Both
+women were positive upon the point. They had at once sent for the
+doctor and for the constable. Then, with the aid of the groom and the
+stable-boy, they had conveyed their injured mistress to her room. Both
+she and her husband had occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress--he
+in his dressing-gown, over his night clothes. Nothing had been moved in
+the study. So far as they knew there had never been any quarrel between
+husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a very united
+couple.
+
+These were the main points of the servants' evidence. In answer to
+Inspector Martin they were clear that every door was fastened upon the
+inside, and that no one could have escaped from the house. In answer
+to Holmes they both remembered that they were conscious of the smell
+of powder from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon the
+top floor. “I commend that fact very carefully to your attention,” said
+Holmes to his professional colleague. “And now I think that we are in a
+position to undertake a thorough examination of the room.”
+
+The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with books,
+and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which looked out
+upon the garden. Our first attention was given to the body of the
+unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the room. His
+disordered dress showed that he had been hastily aroused from sleep.
+The bullet had been fired at him from the front, and had remained in
+his body after penetrating the heart. His death had certainly been
+instantaneous and painless. There was no powder-marking either upon his
+dressing-gown or on his hands. According to the country surgeon the lady
+had stains upon her face, but none upon her hand.
+
+“The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may
+mean everything,” said Holmes. “Unless the powder from a badly-fitting
+cartridge happens to spurt backwards, one may fire many shots without
+leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt's body may now be
+removed. I suppose, doctor, you have not recovered the bullet which
+wounded the lady?”
+
+“A serious operation will be necessary before that can be done. But
+there are still four cartridges in the revolver. Two have been fired and
+two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for.”
+
+“So it would seem,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can account also for the
+bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window?”
+
+He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a hole
+which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash about an inch
+above the bottom.
+
+“By George!” cried the inspector. “How ever did you see that?”
+
+“Because I looked for it.”
+
+“Wonderful!” said the country doctor. “You are certainly right, sir.
+Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must have
+been present. But who could that have been and how could he have got
+away?”
+
+“That is the problem which we are now about to solve,” said Sherlock
+Holmes. “You remember, Inspector Martin, when the servants said that on
+leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of powder I
+remarked that the point was an extremely important one?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you.”
+
+“It suggested that at the time of the firing the window as well as the
+door of the room had been open. Otherwise the fumes of powder could not
+have been blown so rapidly through the house. A draught in the room was
+necessary for that. Both door and window were only open for a very short
+time, however.”
+
+“How do you prove that?”
+
+“Because the candle has not guttered.”
+
+“Capital!” cried the inspector. “Capital!”
+
+“Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the tragedy
+I conceived that there might have been a third person in the affair, who
+stood outside this opening and fired through it. Any shot directed at
+this person might hit the sash. I looked, and there, sure enough, was
+the bullet mark!”
+
+“But how came the window to be shut and fastened?”
+
+“The woman's first instinct would be to shut and fasten the window. But,
+halloa! what is this?”
+
+It was a lady's hand-bag which stood upon the study table--a trim little
+hand-bag of crocodile-skin and silver. Holmes opened it and turned
+the contents out. There were twenty fifty-pound notes of the Bank of
+England, held together by an india-rubber band--nothing else.
+
+“This must be preserved, for it will figure in the trial,” said Holmes,
+as he handed the bag with its contents to the inspector. “It is now
+necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this third bullet,
+which has clearly, from the splintering of the wood, been fired from
+inside the room. I should like to see Mrs. King, the cook, again. You
+said, Mrs. King, that you were awakened by a LOUD explosion. When you
+said that, did you mean that it seemed to you to be louder than the
+second one?”
+
+“Well, sir, it wakened me from my sleep, and so it is hard to judge. But
+it did seem very loud.”
+
+“You don't think that it might have been two shots fired almost at the
+same instant?”
+
+“I am sure I couldn't say, sir.”
+
+“I believe that it was undoubtedly so. I rather think, Inspector Martin,
+that we have now exhausted all that this room can teach us. If you will
+kindly step round with me, we shall see what fresh evidence the garden
+has to offer.”
+
+A flower-bed extended up to the study window, and we all broke into an
+exclamation as we approached it. The flowers were trampled down, and the
+soft soil was imprinted all over with footmarks. Large, masculine feet
+they were, with peculiarly long, sharp toes. Holmes hunted about among
+the grass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird. Then, with
+a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and picked up a little brazen
+cylinder.
+
+“I thought so,” said he; “the revolver had an ejector, and here is the
+third cartridge. I really think, Inspector Martin, that our case is
+almost complete.”
+
+The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the
+rapid and masterful progress of Holmes's investigation. At first he
+had shown some disposition to assert his own position; but now he was
+overcome with admiration and ready to follow without question wherever
+Holmes led.
+
+“Whom do you suspect?” he asked.
+
+“I'll go into that later. There are several points in this problem which
+I have not been able to explain to you yet. Now that I have got so far
+I had best proceed on my own lines, and then clear the whole matter up
+once and for all.”
+
+“Just as you wish, Mr. Holmes, so long as we get our man.”
+
+“I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the moment
+of action to enter into long and complex explanations. I have the
+threads of this affair all in my hand. Even if this lady should never
+recover consciousness we can still reconstruct the events of last night
+and ensure that justice be done. First of all I wish to know whether
+there is any inn in this neighbourhood known as 'Elrige's'?”
+
+The servants were cross-questioned, but none of them had heard of such a
+place. The stable-boy threw a light upon the matter by remembering that
+a farmer of that name lived some miles off in the direction of East
+Ruston.
+
+“Is it a lonely farm?”
+
+“Very lonely, sir.”
+
+“Perhaps they have not heard yet of all that happened here during the
+night?”
+
+“Maybe not, sir.”
+
+Holmes thought for a little and then a curious smile played over his
+face.
+
+“Saddle a horse, my lad,” said he. “I shall wish you to take a note to
+Elrige's Farm.”
+
+He took from his pocket the various slips of the dancing men. With these
+in front of him he worked for some time at the study-table. Finally he
+handed a note to the boy, with directions to put it into the hands
+of the person to whom it was addressed, and especially to answer no
+questions of any sort which might be put to him. I saw the outside of
+the note, addressed in straggling, irregular characters, very unlike
+Holmes's usual precise hand. It was consigned to Mr. Abe Slaney,
+Elrige's Farm, East Ruston, Norfolk.
+
+“I think, inspector,” Holmes remarked, “that you would do well to
+telegraph for an escort, as, if my calculations prove to be correct, you
+may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey to the county gaol.
+The boy who takes this note could no doubt forward your telegram. If
+there is an afternoon train to town, Watson, I think we should do well
+to take it, as I have a chemical analysis of some interest to finish,
+and this investigation draws rapidly to a close.”
+
+When the youth had been dispatched with the note, Sherlock Holmes gave
+his instructions to the servants. If any visitor were to call asking for
+Mrs. Hilton Cubitt no information should be given as to her condition,
+but he was to be shown at once into the drawing-room. He impressed these
+points upon them with the utmost earnestness. Finally he led the way
+into the drawing-room with the remark that the business was now out of
+our hands, and that we must while away the time as best we might until
+we could see what was in store for us. The doctor had departed to his
+patients, and only the inspector and myself remained.
+
+“I think that I can help you to pass an hour in an interesting and
+profitable manner,” said Holmes, drawing his chair up to the table
+and spreading out in front of him the various papers upon which were
+recorded the antics of the dancing men. “As to you, friend Watson, I owe
+you every atonement for having allowed your natural curiosity to remain
+so long unsatisfied. To you, inspector, the whole incident may appeal
+as a remarkable professional study. I must tell you first of all the
+interesting circumstances connected with the previous consultations
+which Mr. Hilton Cubitt has had with me in Baker Street.” He then
+shortly recapitulated the facts which have already been recorded. “I
+have here in front of me these singular productions, at which one
+might smile had they not proved themselves to be the fore-runners of
+so terrible a tragedy. I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret
+writings, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the
+subject, in which I analyze one hundred and sixty separate ciphers;
+but I confess that this is entirely new to me. The object of those who
+invented the system has apparently been to conceal that these characters
+convey a message, and to give the idea that they are the mere random
+sketches of children.
+
+“Having once recognised, however, that the symbols stood for letters,
+and having applied the rules which guide us in all forms of secret
+writings, the solution was easy enough. The first message submitted to
+me was so short that it was impossible for me to do more than to say
+with some confidence that the symbol XXX stood for E. As you are aware,
+E is the most common letter in the English alphabet, and it predominates
+to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect
+to find it most often. Out of fifteen symbols in the first message four
+were the same, so it was reasonable to set this down as E. It is true
+that in some cases the figure was bearing a flag and in some cases not,
+but it was probable from the way in which the flags were distributed
+that they were used to break the sentence up into words. I accepted this
+as a hypothesis, and noted that E was represented by XXX.
+
+“But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The order of
+the English letters after E is by no means well marked, and any
+preponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet may be
+reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S,
+H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur; but T,
+A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it would be an
+endless task to try each combination until a meaning was arrived at. I,
+therefore, waited for fresh material. In my second interview with Mr.
+Hilton Cubitt he was able to give me two other short sentences and one
+message, which appeared--since there was no flag--to be a single word.
+Here are the symbols. Now, in the single word I have already got the
+two E's coming second and fourth in a word of five letters. It might
+be 'sever,' or 'lever,' or 'never.' There can be no question that
+the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable, and
+the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written by the lady.
+Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the symbols XXX
+stand respectively for N, V, and R.
+
+“Even now I was in considerable difficulty, but a happy thought put me
+in possession of several other letters. It occurred to me that if these
+appeals came, as I expected, from someone who had been intimate with the
+lady in her early life, a combination which contained two E's with
+three letters between might very well stand for the name 'ELSIE.' On
+examination I found that such a combination formed the termination of
+the message which was three times repeated. It was certainly some appeal
+to 'Elsie.' In this way I had got my L, S, and I. But what appeal could
+it be? There were only four letters in the word which preceded 'Elsie,'
+and it ended in E. Surely the word must be 'COME.' I tried all other
+four letters ending in E, but could find none to fit the case. So now I
+was in possession of C, O, and M, and I was in a position to attack the
+first message once more, dividing it into words and putting dots for
+each symbol which was still unknown. So treated it worked out in this
+fashion:--
+
+       .M .ERE ..E  SL.NE.
+
+“Now the first letter CAN only be A, which is a most useful discovery,
+since it occurs no fewer than three times in this short sentence, and
+the H is also apparent in the second word. Now it becomes:--
+
+        AM  HERE  A.E  SLANE.
+
+Or, filling in the obvious vacancies in the name:--
+
+        AM  HERE  ABE  SLANEY.
+
+I had so many letters now that I could proceed with considerable
+confidence to the second message, which worked out in this fashion:--
+
+        A.  ELRI.ES.
+
+Here I could only make sense by putting T and G for the missing letters,
+and supposing that the name was that of some house or inn at which the
+writer was staying.”
+
+Inspector Martin and I had listened with the utmost interest to the full
+and clear account of how my friend had produced results which had led to
+so complete a command over our difficulties.
+
+“What did you do then, sir?” asked the inspector.
+
+“I had every reason to suppose that this Abe Slaney was an American,
+since Abe is an American contraction, and since a letter from America
+had been the starting-point of all the trouble. I had also every cause
+to think that there was some criminal secret in the matter. The lady's
+allusions to her past and her refusal to take her husband into her
+confidence both pointed in that direction. I therefore cabled to my
+friend, Wilson Hargreave, of the New York Police Bureau, who has more
+than once made use of my knowledge of London crime. I asked him whether
+the name of Abe Slaney was known to him. Here is his reply: 'The most
+dangerous crook in Chicago.' On the very evening upon which I had his
+answer Hilton Cubitt sent me the last message from Slaney. Working with
+known letters it took this form:--
+
+         ELSIE .RE.ARE  TO  MEET  THY  GO.
+
+The addition of a P and a D completed a message which showed me that the
+rascal was proceeding from persuasion to threats, and my knowledge of
+the crooks of Chicago prepared me to find that he might very rapidly
+put his words into action. I at once came to Norfolk with my friend and
+colleague, Dr. Watson, but, unhappily, only in time to find that the
+worst had already occurred.”
+
+“It is a privilege to be associated with you in the handling of a case,”
+ said the inspector, warmly. “You will excuse me, however, if I speak
+frankly to you. You are only answerable to yourself, but I have to
+answer to my superiors. If this Abe Slaney, living at Elrige's, is
+indeed the murderer, and if he has made his escape while I am seated
+here, I should certainly get into serious trouble.”
+
+“You need not be uneasy. He will not try to escape.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“To fly would be a confession of guilt.”
+
+“Then let us go to arrest him.”
+
+“I expect him here every instant.”
+
+“But why should he come?”
+
+“Because I have written and asked him.”
+
+“But this is incredible, Mr. Holmes! Why should he come because you
+have asked him? Would not such a request rather rouse his suspicions and
+cause him to fly?”
+
+“I think I have known how to frame the letter,” said Sherlock Holmes.
+“In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, here is the gentleman himself
+coming up the drive.”
+
+A man was striding up the path which led to the door. He was a tall,
+handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel, with a Panama
+hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked nose, and
+flourishing a cane as he walked. He swaggered up the path as if the
+place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident peal at the
+bell.
+
+“I think, gentlemen,” said Holmes, quietly, “that we had best take up
+our position behind the door. Every precaution is necessary when dealing
+with such a fellow. You will need your handcuffs, inspector. You can
+leave the talking to me.”
+
+We waited in silence for a minute--one of those minutes which one can
+never forget. Then the door opened and the man stepped in. In an instant
+Holmes clapped a pistol to his head and Martin slipped the handcuffs
+over his wrists. It was all done so swiftly and deftly that the fellow
+was helpless before he knew that he was attacked. He glared from one to
+the other of us with a pair of blazing black eyes. Then he burst into a
+bitter laugh.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I seem to have
+knocked up against something hard. But I came here in answer to a letter
+from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt. Don't tell me that she is in this? Don't tell
+me that she helped to set a trap for me?”
+
+“Mrs. Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured and is at death's door.”
+
+The man gave a hoarse cry of grief which rang through the house.
+
+“You're crazy!” he cried, fiercely. “It was he that was hurt, not she.
+Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may have threatened her, God forgive
+me, but I would not have touched a hair of her pretty head. Take it
+back--you! Say that she is not hurt!”
+
+“She was found badly wounded by the side of her dead husband.”
+
+He sank with a deep groan on to the settee and buried his face in his
+manacled hands. For five minutes he was silent. Then he raised his face
+once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.
+
+“I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen,” said he. “If I shot the
+man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that. But if you
+think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or
+her. I tell you there was never a man in this world loved a woman more
+than I loved her. I had a right to her. She was pledged to me years ago.
+Who was this Englishman that he should come between us? I tell you that
+I had the first right to her, and that I was only claiming my own.”
+
+“She broke away from your influence when she found the man that you
+are,” said Holmes, sternly. “She fled from America to avoid you, and she
+married an honourable gentleman in England. You dogged her and followed
+her and made her life a misery to her in order to induce her to abandon
+the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly with you, whom
+she feared and hated. You have ended by bringing about the death of a
+noble man and driving his wife to suicide. That is your record in this
+business, Mr. Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law.”
+
+“If Elsie dies I care nothing what becomes of me,” said the American.
+He opened one of his hands and looked at a note crumpled up in his palm.
+“See here, mister,” he cried, with a gleam of suspicion in his eyes,
+“you're not trying to scare me over this, are you? If the lady is
+hurt as bad as you say, who was it that wrote this note?” He tossed it
+forwards on to the table.
+
+“I wrote it to bring you here.”
+
+“You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint who knew the
+secret of the dancing men. How came you to write it?”
+
+“What one man can invent another can discover,” said Holmes. There is
+a cab coming to convey you to Norwich, Mr. Slaney. But, meanwhile, you
+have time to make some small reparation for the injury you have wrought.
+Are you aware that Mrs. Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under grave
+suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was only my presence
+here and the knowledge which I happened to possess which has saved her
+from the accusation? The least that you owe her is to make it clear
+to the whole world that she was in no way, directly or indirectly,
+responsible for his tragic end.”
+
+“I ask nothing better,” said the American. “I guess the very best case I
+can make for myself is the absolute naked truth.”
+
+“It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,” cried the
+inspector, with the magnificent fair-play of the British criminal law.
+
+Slaney shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I'll chance that,” said he. “First of all, I want you gentlemen to
+understand that I have known this lady since she was a child. There were
+seven of us in a gang in Chicago, and Elsie's father was the boss of the
+Joint. He was a clever man, was old Patrick. It was he who invented that
+writing, which would pass as a child's scrawl unless you just happened
+to have the key to it. Well, Elsie learned some of our ways; but she
+couldn't stand the business, and she had a bit of honest money of her
+own, so she gave us all the slip and got away to London. She had been
+engaged to me, and she would have married me, I believe, if I had taken
+over another profession; but she would have nothing to do with anything
+on the cross. It was only after her marriage to this Englishman that I
+was able to find out where she was. I wrote to her, but got no answer.
+After that I came over, and, as letters were no use, I put my messages
+where she could read them.
+
+“Well, I have been here a month now. I lived in that farm, where I had
+a room down below, and could get in and out every night, and no one the
+wiser. I tried all I could to coax Elsie away. I knew that she read the
+messages, for once she wrote an answer under one of them. Then my temper
+got the better of me, and I began to threaten her. She sent me a letter
+then, imploring me to go away and saying that it would break her heart
+if any scandal should come upon her husband. She said that she would
+come down when her husband was asleep at three in the morning, and speak
+with me through the end window, if I would go away afterwards and leave
+her in peace. She came down and brought money with her, trying to bribe
+me to go. This made me mad, and I caught her arm and tried to pull
+her through the window. At that moment in rushed the husband with his
+revolver in his hand. Elsie had sunk down upon the floor, and we were
+face to face. I was heeled also, and I held up my gun to scare him off
+and let me get away. He fired and missed me. I pulled off almost at the
+same instant, and down he dropped. I made away across the garden, and as
+I went I heard the window shut behind me. That's God's truth, gentlemen,
+every word of it, and I heard no more about it until that lad came
+riding up with a note which made me walk in here, like a jay, and give
+myself into your hands.”
+
+A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking. Two uniformed
+policemen sat inside. Inspector Martin rose and touched his prisoner on
+the shoulder.
+
+“It is time for us to go.”
+
+“Can I see her first?”
+
+“No, she is not conscious. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I only hope that if ever
+again I have an important case I shall have the good fortune to have you
+by my side.”
+
+We stood at the window and watched the cab drive away. As I turned back
+my eye caught the pellet of paper which the prisoner had tossed upon the
+table. It was the note with which Holmes had decoyed him.
+
+“See if you can read it, Watson,” said he, with a smile.
+
+It contained no word, but this little line of dancing men:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“If you use the code which I have explained,” said Holmes, “you will
+find that it simply means 'Come here at once.' I was convinced that
+it was an invitation which he would not refuse, since he could never
+imagine that it could come from anyone but the lady. And so, my dear
+Watson, we have ended by turning the dancing men to good when they have
+so often been the agents of evil, and I think that I have fulfilled my
+promise of giving you something unusual for your note-book. Three-forty
+is our train, and I fancy we should be back in Baker Street for dinner.”
+
+
+Only one word of epilogue. The American, Abe Slaney, was condemned to
+death at the winter assizes at Norwich; but his penalty was changed to
+penal servitude in consideration of mitigating circumstances, and the
+certainty that Hilton Cubitt had fired the first shot. Of Mrs. Hilton
+Cubitt I only know that I have heard she recovered entirely, and that
+she still remains a widow, devoting her whole life to the care of the
+poor and to the administration of her husband's estate.
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                    Vol. 27  JANUARY, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.
+
+
+FROM the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very
+busy man. It is safe to say that there was no public case of any
+difficulty in which he was not consulted during those eight years, and
+there were hundreds of private cases, some of them of the most intricate
+and extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent part. Many
+startling successes and a few unavoidable failures were the outcome of
+this long period of continuous work. As I have preserved very full notes
+of all these cases, and was myself personally engaged in many of them,
+it may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I should select
+to lay before the public. I shall, however, preserve my former rule, and
+give the preference to those cases which derive their interest not so
+much from the brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic
+quality of the solution. For this reason I will now lay before the
+reader the facts connected with Miss Violet Smith, the solitary cyclist
+of Charlington, and the curious sequel of our investigation, which
+culminated in unexpected tragedy. It is true that the circumstances
+did not admit of any striking illustration of those powers for which my
+friend was famous, but there were some points about the case which made
+it stand out in those long records of crime from which I gather the
+material for these little narratives.
+
+On referring to my note-book for the year 1895 I find that it was upon
+Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith.
+Her visit was, I remember, extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for he was
+immersed at the moment in a very abstruse and complicated problem
+concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent Harden, the
+well-known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected. My friend, who
+loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented
+anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet
+without a harshness which was foreign to his nature it was impossible
+to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman, tall,
+graceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the
+evening and implored his assistance and advice. It was vain to urge that
+his time was already fully occupied, for the young lady had come with
+the determination to tell her story, and it was evident that nothing
+short of force could get her out of the room until she had done so. With
+a resigned air and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful
+intruder to take a seat and to inform us what it was that was troubling
+her.
+
+“At least it cannot be your health,” said he, as his keen eyes darted
+over her; “so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy.”
+
+She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight
+roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of
+the pedal.
+
+“Yes, I bicycle a good deal, Mr. Holmes, and that has something to do
+with my visit to you to-day.”
+
+My friend took the lady's ungloved hand and examined it with as close
+an attention and as little sentiment as a scientist would show to a
+specimen.
+
+“You will excuse me, I am sure. It is my business,” said he, as he
+dropped it. “I nearly fell into the error of supposing that you were
+typewriting. Of course, it is obvious that it is music. You observe the
+spatulate finger-end, Watson, which is common to both professions? There
+is a spirituality about the face, however”--he gently turned it towards
+the light--“which the typewriter does not generate. This lady is a
+musician.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes, I teach music.”
+
+“In the country, I presume, from your complexion.”
+
+“Yes, sir; near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey.”
+
+“A beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting
+associations. You remember, Watson, that it was near there that we took
+Archie Stamford, the forger. Now, Miss Violet, what has happened to you
+near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey?”
+
+The young lady, with great clearness and composure, made the following
+curious statement:--
+
+“My father is dead, Mr. Holmes. He was James Smith, who conducted the
+orchestra at the old Imperial Theatre. My mother and I were left without
+a relation in the world except one uncle, Ralph Smith, who went to
+Africa twenty-five years ago, and we have never had a word from him
+since. When father died we were left very poor, but one day we were
+told that there was an advertisement in the TIMES inquiring for our
+whereabouts. You can imagine how excited we were, for we thought that
+someone had left us a fortune. We went at once to the lawyer whose name
+was given in the paper. There we met two gentlemen, Mr. Carruthers and
+Mr. Woodley, who were home on a visit from South Africa. They said that
+my uncle was a friend of theirs, that he died some months before in
+great poverty in Johannesburg, and that he had asked them with his last
+breath to hunt up his relations and see that they were in no want. It
+seemed strange to us that Uncle Ralph, who took no notice of us when he
+was alive, should be so careful to look after us when he was dead; but
+Mr. Carruthers explained that the reason was that my uncle had just
+heard of the death of his brother, and so felt responsible for our
+fate.”
+
+“Excuse me,” said Holmes; “when was this interview?”
+
+“Last December--four months ago.”
+
+“Pray proceed.”
+
+“Mr. Woodley seemed to me to be a most odious person. He was for ever
+making eyes at me--a coarse, puffy-faced, red-moustached young man, with
+his hair plastered down on each side of his forehead. I thought that he
+was perfectly hateful--and I was sure that Cyril would not wish me to
+know such a person.”
+
+“Oh, Cyril is his name!” said Holmes, smiling.
+
+The young lady blushed and laughed.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes; Cyril Morton, an electrical engineer, and we hope
+to be married at the end of the summer. Dear me, how DID I get talking
+about him? What I wished to say was that Mr. Woodley was perfectly
+odious, but that Mr. Carruthers, who was a much older man, was more
+agreeable. He was a dark, sallow, clean-shaven, silent person; but he
+had polite manners and a pleasant smile. He inquired how we were left,
+and on finding that we were very poor he suggested that I should come
+and teach music to his only daughter, aged ten. I said that I did not
+like to leave my mother, on which he suggested that I should go home
+to her every week-end, and he offered me a hundred a year, which was
+certainly splendid pay. So it ended by my accepting, and I went down
+to Chiltern Grange, about six miles from Farnham. Mr. Carruthers was
+a widower, but he had engaged a lady-housekeeper, a very respectable,
+elderly person, called Mrs. Dixon, to look after his establishment. The
+child was a dear, and everything promised well. Mr. Carruthers was very
+kind and very musical, and we had most pleasant evenings together. Every
+week-end I went home to my mother in town.
+
+“The first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the red-moustached
+Mr. Woodley. He came for a visit of a week, and oh, it seemed three
+months to me! He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but to
+me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted of his
+wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest diamonds in
+London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized
+me in his arms one day after dinner--he was hideously strong--and he
+swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him. Mr. Carruthers
+came in and tore him off from me, on which he turned upon his own host,
+knocking him down and cutting his face open. That was the end of his
+visit, as you can imagine. Mr. Carruthers apologized to me next day,
+and assured me that I should never be exposed to such an insult again. I
+have not seen Mr. Woodley since.
+
+“And now, Mr. Holmes, I come at last to the special thing which has
+caused me to ask your advice to-day. You must know that every Saturday
+forenoon I ride on my bicycle to Farnham Station in order to get the
+12.22 to town. The road from Chiltern Grange is a lonely one, and at
+one spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile between
+Charlington Heath upon one side and the woods which lie round
+Charlington Hall upon the other. You could not find a more lonely tract
+of road anywhere, and it is quite rare to meet so much as a cart, or a
+peasant, until you reach the high road near Crooksbury Hill. Two
+weeks ago I was passing this place when I chanced to look back over my
+shoulder, and about two hundred yards behind me I saw a man, also on a
+bicycle. He seemed to be a middle-aged man, with a short, dark beard. I
+looked back before I reached Farnham, but the man was gone, so I thought
+no more about it. But you can imagine how surprised I was, Mr. Holmes,
+when on my return on the Monday I saw the same man on the same stretch
+of road. My astonishment was increased when the incident occurred again,
+exactly as before, on the following Saturday and Monday. He always kept
+his distance and did not molest me in any way, but still it certainly
+was very odd. I mentioned it to Mr. Carruthers, who seemed interested in
+what I said, and told me that he had ordered a horse and trap, so
+that in future I should not pass over these lonely roads without some
+companion.
+
+“The horse and trap were to have come this week, but for some reason
+they were not delivered, and again I had to cycle to the station.
+That was this morning. You can think that I looked out when I came to
+Charlington Heath, and there, sure enough, was the man, exactly as he
+had been the two weeks before. He always kept so far from me that I
+could not clearly see his face, but it was certainly someone whom I did
+not know. He was dressed in a dark suit with a cloth cap. The only thing
+about his face that I could clearly see was his dark beard. To-day I was
+not alarmed, but I was filled with curiosity, and I determined to find
+out who he was and what he wanted. I slowed down my machine, but he
+slowed down his. Then I stopped altogether, but he stopped also. Then
+I laid a trap for him. There is a sharp turning of the road, and I
+pedalled very quickly round this, and then I stopped and waited. I
+expected him to shoot round and pass me before he could stop. But he
+never appeared. Then I went back and looked round the corner. I
+could see a mile of road, but he was not on it. To make it the more
+extraordinary, there was no side road at this point down which he could
+have gone.”
+
+Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. “This case certainly presents
+some features of its own,” said he. “How much time elapsed between your
+turning the corner and your discovery that the road was clear?”
+
+“Two or three minutes.”
+
+“Then he could not have retreated down the road, and you say that there
+are no side roads?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Then he certainly took a footpath on one side or the other.”
+
+“It could not have been on the side of the heath or I should have seen
+him.”
+
+“So by the process of exclusion we arrive at the fact that he made his
+way towards Charlington Hall, which, as I understand, is situated in its
+own grounds on one side of the road. Anything else?”
+
+“Nothing, Mr. Holmes, save that I was so perplexed that I felt I should
+not be happy until I had seen you and had your advice.”
+
+Holmes sat in silence for some little time.
+
+“Where is the gentleman to whom you are engaged?” he asked, at last.
+
+“He is in the Midland Electrical Company, at Coventry.”
+
+“He would not pay you a surprise visit?”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Holmes! As if I should not know him!”
+
+“Have you had any other admirers?”
+
+“Several before I knew Cyril.”
+
+“And since?”
+
+“There was this dreadful man, Woodley, if you can call him an admirer.”
+
+“No one else?”
+
+Our fair client seemed a little confused.
+
+“Who was he?” asked Holmes.
+
+“Oh, it may be a mere fancy of mine; but it has seemed to me sometimes
+that my employer, Mr. Carruthers, takes a great deal of interest in me.
+We are thrown rather together. I play his accompaniments in the evening.
+He has never said anything. He is a perfect gentleman. But a girl always
+knows.”
+
+“Ha!” Holmes looked grave. “What does he do for a living?”
+
+“He is a rich man.”
+
+“No carriages or horses?”
+
+“Well, at least he is fairly well-to-do. But he goes into the City two
+or three times a week. He is deeply interested in South African gold
+shares.”
+
+“You will let me know any fresh development, Miss Smith. I am very busy
+just now, but I will find time to make some inquiries into your case. In
+the meantime take no step without letting me know. Good-bye, and I trust
+that we shall have nothing but good news from you.”
+
+“It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl should have
+followers,” said Holmes, as he pulled at his meditative pipe, “but for
+choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads. Some secretive lover,
+beyond all doubt. But there are curious and suggestive details about the
+case, Watson.”
+
+“That he should appear only at that point?”
+
+“Exactly. Our first effort must be to find who are the tenants of
+Charlington Hall. Then, again, how about the connection between
+Carruthers and Woodley, since they appear to be men of such a different
+type? How came they BOTH to be so keen upon looking up Ralph Smith's
+relations? One more point. What sort of a MENAGE is it which pays double
+the market price for a governess, but does not keep a horse although six
+miles from the station? Odd, Watson--very odd!”
+
+“You will go down?”
+
+“No, my dear fellow, YOU will go down. This may be some trifling
+intrigue, and I cannot break my other important research for the sake
+of it. On Monday you will arrive early at Farnham; you will conceal
+yourself near Charlington Heath; you will observe these facts for
+yourself, and act as your own judgment advises. Then, having inquired as
+to the occupants of the Hall, you will come back to me and report. And
+now, Watson, not another word of the matter until we have a few solid
+stepping-stones on which we may hope to get across to our solution.”
+
+We had ascertained from the lady that she went down upon the Monday by
+the train which leaves Waterloo at 9.50, so I started early and caught
+the 9.13. At Farnham Station I had no difficulty in being directed to
+Charlington Heath. It was impossible to mistake the scene of the young
+lady's adventure, for the road runs between the open heath on one side
+and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a park which is studded
+with magnificent trees. There was a main gateway of lichen-studded
+stone, each side pillar surmounted by mouldering heraldic emblems; but
+besides this central carriage drive I observed several points where
+there were gaps in the hedge and paths leading through them. The house
+was invisible from the road, but the surroundings all spoke of gloom and
+decay.
+
+The heath was covered with golden patches of flowering gorse, gleaming
+magnificently in the light of the bright spring sunshine. Behind one of
+these clumps I took up my position, so as to command both the gateway
+of the Hall and a long stretch of the road upon either side. It had been
+deserted when I left it, but now I saw a cyclist riding down it from the
+opposite direction to that in which I had come. He was clad in a dark
+suit, and I saw that he had a black beard. On reaching the end of the
+Charlington grounds he sprang from his machine and led it through a gap
+in the hedge, disappearing from my view.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed and then a second cyclist appeared. This
+time it was the young lady coming from the station. I saw her look
+about her as she came to the Charlington hedge. An instant later the man
+emerged from his hiding-place, sprang upon his cycle, and followed
+her. In all the broad landscape those were the only moving figures, the
+graceful girl sitting very straight upon her machine, and the man behind
+her bending low over his handle-bar, with a curiously furtive suggestion
+in every movement. She looked back at him and slowed her pace. He slowed
+also. She stopped. He at once stopped too, keeping two hundred yards
+behind her. Her next movement was as unexpected as it was spirited. She
+suddenly whisked her wheels round and dashed straight at him! He was as
+quick as she, however, and darted off in desperate flight. Presently she
+came back up the road again, her head haughtily in the air, not deigning
+to take any further notice of her silent attendant. He had turned also,
+and still kept his distance until the curve of the road hid them from my
+sight.
+
+I remained in my hiding-place, and it was well that I did so, for
+presently the man reappeared cycling slowly back. He turned in at the
+Hall gates and dismounted from his machine. For some few minutes I could
+see him standing among the trees. His hands were raised and he seemed to
+be settling his necktie. Then he mounted his cycle and rode away from
+me down the drive towards the Hall. I ran across the heath and peered
+through the trees. Far away I could catch glimpses of the old grey
+building with its bristling Tudor chimneys, but the drive ran through a
+dense shrubbery, and I saw no more of my man.
+
+However, it seemed to me that I had done a fairly good morning's work,
+and I walked back in high spirits to Farnham. The local house-agent
+could tell me nothing about Charlington Hall, and referred me to a
+well-known firm in Pall Mall. There I halted on my way home, and met
+with courtesy from the representative. No, I could not have Charlington
+Hall for the summer. I was just too late. It had been let about a month
+ago. Mr. Williamson was the name of the tenant. He was a respectable
+elderly gentleman. The polite agent was afraid he could say no more, as
+the affairs of his clients were not matters which he could discuss.
+
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes listened with attention to the long report which I
+was able to present to him that evening, but it did not elicit that
+word of curt praise which I had hoped for and should have valued. On
+the contrary, his austere face was even more severe than usual as he
+commented upon the things that I had done and the things that I had not.
+
+“Your hiding-place, my dear Watson, was very faulty. You should have
+been behind the hedge; then you would have had a close view of this
+interesting person. As it is you were some hundreds of yards away, and
+can tell me even less than Miss Smith. She thinks she does not know
+the man; I am convinced she does. Why, otherwise, should he be so
+desperately anxious that she should not get so near him as to see his
+features? You describe him as bending over the handle-bar. Concealment
+again, you see. You really have done remarkably badly. He returns to
+the house and you want to find out who he is. You come to a London
+house-agent!”
+
+“What should I have done?” I cried, with some heat.
+
+“Gone to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country
+gossip. They would have told you every name, from the master to the
+scullery-maid. Williamson! It conveys nothing to my mind. If he is an
+elderly man he is not this active cyclist who sprints away from that
+athletic young lady's pursuit. What have we gained by your expedition?
+The knowledge that the girl's story is true. I never doubted it. That
+there is a connection between the cyclist and the Hall. I never doubted
+that either. That the Hall is tenanted by Williamson. Who's the better
+for that? Well, well, my dear sir, don't look so depressed. We can do
+little more until next Saturday, and in the meantime I may make one or
+two inquiries myself.”
+
+Next morning we had a note from Miss Smith, recounting shortly and
+accurately the very incidents which I had seen, but the pith of the
+letter lay in the postscript:--
+
+“I am sure that you will respect my confidence, Mr. Holmes, when I tell
+you that my place here has become difficult owing to the fact that my
+employer has proposed marriage to me. I am convinced that his feelings
+are most deep and most honourable. At the same time my promise is, of
+course, given. He took my refusal very seriously, but also very gently.
+You can understand, however, that the situation is a little strained.”
+
+“Our young friend seems to be getting into deep waters,” said Holmes,
+thoughtfully, as he finished the letter. “The case certainly presents
+more features of interest and more possibility of development than I had
+originally thought. I should be none the worse for a quiet, peaceful day
+in the country, and I am inclined to run down this afternoon and test
+one or two theories which I have formed.”
+
+Holmes's quiet day in the country had a singular termination, for
+he arrived at Baker Street late in the evening with a cut lip and a
+discoloured lump upon his forehead, besides a general air of dissipation
+which would have made his own person the fitting object of a Scotland
+Yard investigation. He was immensely tickled by his own adventures, and
+laughed heartily as he recounted them.
+
+“I get so little active exercise that it is always a treat,” said he.
+“You are aware that I have some proficiency in the good old British
+sport of boxing. Occasionally it is of service. To-day, for example, I
+should have come to very ignominious grief without it.”
+
+I begged him to tell me what had occurred.
+
+“I found that country pub which I had already recommended to your
+notice, and there I made my discreet inquiries. I was in the bar, and
+a garrulous landlord was giving me all that I wanted. Williamson is a
+white-bearded man, and he lives alone with a small staff of servants at
+the Hall. There is some rumour that he is or has been a clergyman; but
+one or two incidents of his short residence at the Hall struck me as
+peculiarly unecclesiastical. I have already made some inquiries at a
+clerical agency, and they tell me that there WAS a man of that name in
+orders whose career has been a singularly dark one. The landlord further
+informed me that there are usually week-end visitors--'a warm lot,
+sir'--at the Hall, and especially one gentleman with a red moustache,
+Mr. Woodley by name, who was always there. We had got as far as this
+when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking
+his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole conversation. Who was
+I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine
+flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a
+string of abuse by a vicious back-hander which I failed to entirely
+avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left
+against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went
+home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that,
+however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much more
+profitable than your own.”
+
+The Thursday brought us another letter from our client.
+
+“You will not be surprised, Mr. Holmes,” said she, “to hear that I am
+leaving Mr. Carruthers's employment. Even the high pay cannot reconcile
+me to the discomforts of my situation. On Saturday I come up to town
+and I do not intend to return. Mr. Carruthers has got a trap, and so
+the dangers of the lonely road, if there ever were any dangers, are now
+over.
+
+“As to the special cause of my leaving, it is not merely the strained
+situation with Mr. Carruthers, but it is the reappearance of that odious
+man, Mr. Woodley. He was always hideous, but he looks more awful
+than ever now, for he appears to have had an accident and he is much
+disfigured. I saw him out of the window, but I am glad to say I did
+not meet him. He had a long talk with Mr. Carruthers, who seemed much
+excited afterwards. Woodley must be staying in the neighbourhood, for he
+did not sleep here, and yet I caught a glimpse of him again this morning
+slinking about in the shrubbery. I would sooner have a savage wild
+animal loose about the place. I loathe and fear him more than I can say.
+How CAN Mr. Carruthers endure such a creature for a moment? However, all
+my troubles will be over on Saturday.”
+
+“So I trust, Watson; so I trust,” said Holmes, gravely. “There is some
+deep intrigue going on round that little woman, and it is our duty to
+see that no one molests her upon that last journey. I think, Watson,
+that we must spare time to run down together on Saturday morning,
+and make sure that this curious and inconclusive investigation has no
+untoward ending.”
+
+I confess that I had not up to now taken a very serious view of
+the case, which had seemed to me rather grotesque and bizarre than
+dangerous. That a man should lie in wait for and follow a very handsome
+woman is no unheard-of thing, and if he had so little audacity that he
+not only dared not address her, but even fled from her approach, he
+was not a very formidable assailant. The ruffian Woodley was a very
+different person, but, except on one occasion, he had not molested our
+client, and now he visited the house of Carruthers without intruding
+upon her presence. The man on the bicycle was doubtless a member of
+those week-end parties at the Hall of which the publican had spoken; but
+who he was or what he wanted was as obscure as ever. It was the severity
+of Holmes's manner and the fact that he slipped a revolver into his
+pocket before leaving our rooms which impressed me with the feeling that
+tragedy might prove to lurk behind this curious train of events.
+
+A rainy night had been followed by a glorious morning, and the
+heath-covered country-side with the glowing clumps of flowering gorse
+seemed all the more beautiful to eyes which were weary of the duns and
+drabs and slate-greys of London. Holmes and I walked along the broad,
+sandy road inhaling the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the music of
+the birds and the fresh breath of the spring. From a rise of the road on
+the shoulder of Crooksbury Hill we could see the grim Hall bristling
+out from amidst the ancient oaks, which, old as they were, were still
+younger than the building which they surrounded. Holmes pointed down the
+long tract of road which wound, a reddish yellow band, between the brown
+of the heath and the budding green of the woods. Far away, a black
+dot, we could see a vehicle moving in our direction. Holmes gave an
+exclamation of impatience.
+
+“I had given a margin of half an hour,” said he. “If that is her trap
+she must be making for the earlier train. I fear, Watson, that she will
+be past Charlington before we can possibly meet her.”
+
+From the instant that we passed the rise we could no longer see the
+vehicle, but we hastened onwards at such a pace that my sedentary life
+began to tell upon me, and I was compelled to fall behind. Holmes,
+however, was always in training, for he had inexhaustible stores of
+nervous energy upon which to draw. His springy step never slowed until
+suddenly, when he was a hundred yards in front of me, he halted, and I
+saw him throw up his hand with a gesture of grief and despair. At the
+same instant an empty dog-cart, the horse cantering, the reins trailing,
+appeared round the curve of the road and rattled swiftly towards us.
+
+“Too late, Watson; too late!” cried Holmes, as I ran panting to his
+side. “Fool that I was not to allow for that earlier train! It's
+abduction, Watson--abduction! Murder! Heaven knows what! Block the road!
+Stop the horse! That's right. Now, jump in, and let us see if I can
+repair the consequences of my own blunder.”
+
+We had sprung into the dog-cart, and Holmes, after turning the horse,
+gave it a sharp cut with the whip, and we flew back along the road. As
+we turned the curve the whole stretch of road between the Hall and the
+heath was opened up. I grasped Holmes's arm.
+
+“That's the man!” I gasped.
+
+A solitary cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his
+shoulders rounded as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed
+on to the pedals. He was flying like a racer. Suddenly he raised his
+bearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his
+machine. That coal-black beard was in singular contrast to the pallor of
+his face, and his eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. He stared at
+us and at the dog-cart. Then a look of amazement came over his face.
+
+“Halloa! Stop there!” he shouted, holding his bicycle to block our road.
+“Where did you get that dog-cart? Pull up, man!” he yelled, drawing a
+pistol from his side pocket. “Pull up, I say, or, by George, I'll put a
+bullet into your horse.”
+
+Holmes threw the reins into my lap and sprang down from the cart.
+
+“You're the man we want to see. Where is Miss Violet Smith?” he said, in
+his quick, clear way.
+
+“That's what I am asking you. You're in her dog-cart. You ought to know
+where she is.”
+
+“We met the dog-cart on the road. There was no one in it. We drove back
+to help the young lady.”
+
+“Good Lord! Good Lord! what shall I do?” cried the stranger, in an
+ecstasy of despair. “They've got her, that hellhound Woodley and the
+blackguard parson. Come, man, come, if you really are her friend. Stand
+by me and we'll save her, if I have to leave my carcass in Charlington
+Wood.”
+
+He ran distractedly, his pistol in his hand, towards a gap in the hedge.
+Holmes followed him, and I, leaving the horse grazing beside the road,
+followed Holmes.
+
+“This is where they came through,” said he, pointing to the marks of
+several feet upon the muddy path. “Halloa! Stop a minute! Who's this in
+the bush?”
+
+It was a young fellow about seventeen, dressed like an ostler, with
+leather cords and gaiters. He lay upon his back, his knees drawn up, a
+terrible cut upon his head. He was insensible, but alive. A glance at
+his wound told me that it had not penetrated the bone.
+
+“That's Peter, the groom,” cried the stranger. “He drove her. The beasts
+have pulled him off and clubbed him. Let him lie; we can't do him any
+good, but we may save her from the worst fate that can befall a woman.”
+
+We ran frantically down the path, which wound among the trees. We had
+reached the shrubbery which surrounded the house when Holmes pulled up.
+
+“They didn't go to the house. Here are their marks on the left--here,
+beside the laurel bushes! Ah, I said so!”
+
+As he spoke a woman's shrill scream--a scream which vibrated with a
+frenzy of horror--burst from the thick green clump of bushes in front of
+us. It ended suddenly on its highest note with a choke and a gurgle.
+
+“This way! This way! They are in the bowling alley,” cried the
+stranger, darting through the bushes. “Ah, the cowardly dogs! Follow me,
+gentlemen! Too late! too late! by the living Jingo!”
+
+We had broken suddenly into a lovely glade of greensward surrounded by
+ancient trees. On the farther side of it, under the shadow of a mighty
+oak, there stood a singular group of three people. One was a woman, our
+client, drooping and faint, a handkerchief round her mouth. Opposite her
+stood a brutal, heavy-faced, red-moustached young man, his gaitered legs
+parted wide, one arm akimbo, the other waving a riding-crop, his whole
+attitude suggestive of triumphant bravado. Between them an elderly,
+grey-bearded man, wearing a short surplice over a light tweed suit,
+had evidently just completed the wedding service, for he pocketed his
+prayer-book as we appeared and slapped the sinister bridegroom upon the
+back in jovial congratulation.
+
+“They're married!” I gasped.
+
+“Come on!” cried our guide; “come on!” He rushed across the glade,
+Holmes and I at his heels. As we approached, the lady staggered against
+the trunk of the tree for support. Williamson, the ex-clergyman, bowed
+to us with mock politeness, and the bully Woodley advanced with a shout
+of brutal and exultant laughter.
+
+“You can take your beard off, Bob,” said he. “I know you right enough.
+Well, you and your pals have just come in time for me to be able to
+introduce you to Mrs. Woodley.”
+
+Our guide's answer was a singular one. He snatched off the dark beard
+which had disguised him and threw it on the ground, disclosing a long,
+sallow, clean-shaven face below it. Then he raised his revolver and
+covered the young ruffian, who was advancing upon him with his dangerous
+riding-crop swinging in his hand.
+
+“Yes,” said our ally, “I AM Bob Carruthers, and I'll see this woman
+righted if I have to swing for it. I told you what I'd do if you
+molested her, and, by the Lord, I'll be as good as my word!”
+
+“You're too late. She's my wife!”
+
+“No, she's your widow.”
+
+His revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of
+Woodley's waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his back,
+his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor. The
+old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a string of foul
+oaths as I have never heard, and pulled out a revolver of his own, but
+before he could raise it he was looking down the barrel of Holmes's
+weapon.
+
+“Enough of this,” said my friend, coldly. “Drop that pistol! Watson,
+pick it up! Hold it to his head! Thank you. You, Carruthers, give me
+that revolver. We'll have no more violence. Come, hand it over!”
+
+“Who are you, then?”
+
+“My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
+
+“Good Lord!”
+
+“You have heard of me, I see. I will represent the official police until
+their arrival. Here, you!” he shouted to a frightened groom who had
+appeared at the edge of the glade. “Come here. Take this note as hard as
+you can ride to Farnham.” He scribbled a few words upon a leaf from his
+note-book. “Give it to the superintendent at the police-station. Until
+he comes I must detain you all under my personal custody.”
+
+The strong, masterful personality of Holmes dominated the tragic scene,
+and all were equally puppets in his hands. Williamson and Carruthers
+found themselves carrying the wounded Woodley into the house, and I gave
+my arm to the frightened girl. The injured man was laid on his bed, and
+at Holmes's request I examined him. I carried my report to where he sat
+in the old tapestry-hung dining-room with his two prisoners before him.
+
+“He will live,” said I.
+
+“What!” cried Carruthers, springing out of his chair. “I'll go upstairs
+and finish him first. Do you tell me that that girl, that angel, is to
+be tied to Roaring Jack Woodley for life?”
+
+“You need not concern yourself about that,” said Holmes. “There are two
+very good reasons why she should under no circumstances be his wife. In
+the first place, we are very safe in questioning Mr. Williamson's right
+to solemnize a marriage.”
+
+“I have been ordained,” cried the old rascal.
+
+“And also unfrocked.”
+
+“Once a clergyman, always a clergyman.”
+
+“I think not. How about the license?”
+
+“We had a license for the marriage. I have it here in my pocket.”
+
+“Then you got it by a trick. But in any case a forced marriage is no
+marriage, but it is a very serious felony, as you will discover before
+you have finished. You'll have time to think the point out during the
+next ten years or so, unless I am mistaken. As to you, Carruthers, you
+would have done better to keep your pistol in your pocket.”
+
+“I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes; but when I thought of all the
+precaution I had taken to shield this girl--for I loved her, Mr. Holmes,
+and it is the only time that ever I knew what love was--it fairly drove
+me mad to think that she was in the power of the greatest brute and
+bully in South Africa, a man whose name is a holy terror from Kimberley
+to Johannesburg. Why, Mr. Holmes, you'll hardly believe it, but ever
+since that girl has been in my employment I never once let her go past
+this house, where I knew these rascals were lurking, without following
+her on my bicycle just to see that she came to no harm. I kept my
+distance from her, and I wore a beard so that she should not recognise
+me, for she is a good and high-spirited girl, and she wouldn't have
+stayed in my employment long if she had thought that I was following her
+about the country roads.”
+
+“Why didn't you tell her of her danger?”
+
+“Because then, again, she would have left me, and I couldn't bear to
+face that. Even if she couldn't love me it was a great deal to me just
+to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of her
+voice.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call
+it selfishness.”
+
+“Maybe the two things go together. Anyhow, I couldn't let her go.
+Besides, with this crowd about, it was well that she should have someone
+near to look after her. Then when the cable came I knew they were bound
+to make a move.”
+
+“What cable?”
+
+Carruthers took a telegram from his pocket.
+
+“That's it,” said he.
+
+It was short and concise:--
+
+“The old man is dead.”
+
+“Hum!” said Holmes. “I think I see how things worked, and I can
+understand how this message would, as you say, bring them to a head. But
+while we wait you might tell me what you can.”
+
+The old reprobate with the surplice burst into a volley of bad language.
+
+“By Heaven,” said he, “if you squeal on us, Bob Carruthers, I'll serve
+you as you served Jack Woodley. You can bleat about the girl to your
+heart's content, for that's your own affair, but if you round on your
+pals to this plain-clothes copper it will be the worst day's work that
+ever you did.”
+
+“Your reverence need not be excited,” said Holmes, lighting a cigarette.
+“The case is clear enough against you, and all I ask is a few details
+for my private curiosity. However, if there's any difficulty in your
+telling me I'll do the talking, and then you will see how far you have
+a chance of holding back your secrets. In the first place, three of you
+came from South Africa on this game--you Williamson, you Carruthers, and
+Woodley.”
+
+“Lie number one,” said the old man; “I never saw either of them until
+two months ago, and I have never been in Africa in my life, so you can
+put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!”
+
+“What he says is true,” said Carruthers.
+
+“Well, well, two of you came over. His reverence is our own home-made
+article. You had known Ralph Smith in South Africa. You had reason
+to believe he would not live long. You found out that his niece would
+inherit his fortune. How's that--eh?”
+
+Carruthers nodded and Williamson swore.
+
+“She was next-of-kin, no doubt, and you were aware that the old fellow
+would make no will.”
+
+“Couldn't read or write,” said Carruthers.
+
+“So you came over, the two of you, and hunted up the girl. The idea
+was that one of you was to marry her and the other have a share of the
+plunder. For some reason Woodley was chosen as the husband. Why was
+that?”
+
+“We played cards for her on the voyage. He won.”
+
+“I see. You got the young lady into your service, and there Woodley was
+to do the courting. She recognised the drunken brute that he was, and
+would have nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, your arrangement was
+rather upset by the fact that you had yourself fallen in love with the
+lady. You could no longer bear the idea of this ruffian owning her.”
+
+“No, by George, I couldn't!”
+
+“There was a quarrel between you. He left you in a rage, and began to
+make his own plans independently of you.”
+
+“It strikes me, Williamson, there isn't very much that we can tell this
+gentleman,” cried Carruthers, with a bitter laugh. “Yes, we quarreled,
+and he knocked me down. I am level with him on that, anyhow. Then I lost
+sight of him. That was when he picked up with this cast padre here. I
+found that they had set up house-keeping together at this place on the
+line that she had to pass for the station. I kept my eye on her after
+that, for I knew there was some devilry in the wind. I saw them from
+time to time, for I was anxious to know what they were after. Two days
+ago Woodley came up to my house with this cable, which showed that Ralph
+Smith was dead. He asked me if I would stand by the bargain. I said I
+would not. He asked me if I would marry the girl myself and give him a
+share. I said I would willingly do so, but that she would not have me.
+He said, 'Let us get her married first, and after a week or two she
+may see things a bit different.' I said I would have nothing to do with
+violence. So he went off cursing, like the foul-mouthed blackguard that
+he was, and swearing that he would have her yet. She was leaving me this
+week-end, and I had got a trap to take her to the station, but I was
+so uneasy in my mind that I followed her on my bicycle. She had got a
+start, however, and before I could catch her the mischief was done. The
+first thing I knew about it was when I saw you two gentlemen driving
+back in her dog-cart.”
+
+Holmes rose and tossed the end of his cigarette into the grate. “I have
+been very obtuse, Watson,” said he. “When in your report you said that
+you had seen the cyclist as you thought arrange his necktie in
+the shrubbery, that alone should have told me all. However, we may
+congratulate ourselves upon a curious and in some respects a unique
+case. I perceive three of the county constabulary in the drive, and I am
+glad to see that the little ostler is able to keep pace with them; so
+it is likely that neither he nor the interesting bridegroom will be
+permanently damaged by their morning's adventures. I think, Watson, that
+in your medical capacity you might wait upon Miss Smith and tell her
+that if she is sufficiently recovered we shall be happy to escort her to
+her mother's home. If she is not quite convalescent you will find that
+a hint that we were about to telegraph to a young electrician in the
+Midlands would probably complete the cure. As to you, Mr. Carruthers, I
+think that you have done what you could to make amends for your share in
+an evil plot. There is my card, sir, and if my evidence can be of help
+to you in your trial it shall be at your disposal.”
+
+
+In the whirl of our incessant activity it has often been difficult for
+me, as the reader has probably observed, to round off my narratives, and
+to give those final details which the curious might expect. Each case
+has been the prelude to another, and the crisis once over the actors
+have passed for ever out of our busy lives. I find, however, a short
+note at the end of my manuscripts dealing with this case, in which I
+have put it upon record that Miss Violet Smith did indeed inherit a
+large fortune, and that she is now the wife of Cyril Morton, the senior
+partner of Morton & Kennedy, the famous Westminster electricians.
+Williamson and Woodley were both tried for abduction and assault, the
+former getting seven years and the latter ten. Of the fate of Carruthers
+I have no record, but I am sure that his assault was not viewed very
+gravely by the Court, since Woodley had the reputation of being a most
+dangerous ruffian, and I think that a few months were sufficient to
+satisfy the demands of justice.
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 27  FEBRUARY, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+V.--The Adventure of the Priory School.
+
+
+WE have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at
+Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more sudden and startling
+than the first appearance of Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc.
+His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic
+distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered
+himself--so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very
+embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action
+when the door had closed behind him was to stagger against the table,
+whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic
+figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin hearthrug.
+
+We had sprung to our feet, and for a few moments we stared in silent
+amazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told of some sudden
+and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life. Then Holmes hurried with
+a cushion for his head and I with brandy for his lips. The heavy white
+face was seamed with lines of trouble, the hanging pouches under the
+closed eyes were leaden in colour, the loose mouth drooped dolorously at
+the corners, the rolling chins were unshaven. Collar and shirt bore
+the grime of a long journey, and the hair bristled unkempt from the
+well-shaped head. It was a sorely-stricken man who lay before us.
+
+“What is it, Watson?” asked Holmes.
+
+“Absolute exhaustion--possibly mere hunger and fatigue,” said I, with my
+finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life trickled thin and
+small.
+
+“Return ticket from Mackleton, in the North of England,” said Holmes,
+drawing it from the watch-pocket. “It is not twelve o'clock yet. He has
+certainly been an early starter.”
+
+The puckered eyelids had begun to quiver, and now a pair of vacant, grey
+eyes looked up at us. An instant later the man had scrambled on to his
+feet, his face crimson with shame.
+
+“Forgive this weakness, Mr. Holmes; I have been a little overwrought.
+Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a biscuit I have no doubt
+that I should be better. I came personally, Mr. Holmes, in order to
+ensure that you would return with me. I feared that no telegram would
+convince you of the absolute urgency of the case.”
+
+“When you are quite restored---”
+
+“I am quite well again. I cannot imagine how I came to be so weak. I
+wish you, Mr. Holmes, to come to Mackleton with me by the next train.”
+
+My friend shook his head.
+
+“My colleague, Dr. Watson, could tell you that we are very busy at
+present. I am retained in this case of the Ferrers Documents, and the
+Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial. Only a very important issue
+could call me from London at present.”
+
+“Important!” Our visitor threw up his hands. “Have you heard nothing of
+the abduction of the only son of the Duke of Holdernesse?”
+
+“What! the late Cabinet Minister?”
+
+“Exactly. We had tried to keep it out of the papers, but there was some
+rumour in the GLOBE last night. I thought it might have reached your
+ears.”
+
+Holmes shot out his long, thin arm and picked out Volume “H” in his
+encyclopaedia of reference.
+
+“'Holdernesse, 6th Duke, K.G., P.C.'--half the alphabet! 'Baron
+Beverley, Earl of Carston'--dear me, what a list! 'Lord Lieutenant
+of Hallamshire since 1900. Married Edith, daughter of Sir Charles
+Appledore, 1888. Heir and only child, Lord Saltire. Owns about two
+hundred and fifty thousand acres. Minerals in Lancashire and Wales.
+Address: Carlton House Terrace; Holdernesse Hall, Hallamshire; Carston
+Castle, Bangor, Wales. Lord of the Admiralty, 1872; Chief Secretary
+of State for--' Well, well, this man is certainly one of the greatest
+subjects of the Crown!”
+
+“The greatest and perhaps the wealthiest. I am aware, Mr. Holmes, that
+you take a very high line in professional matters, and that you are
+prepared to work for the work's sake. I may tell you, however, that his
+Grace has already intimated that a cheque for five thousand pounds will
+be handed over to the person who can tell him where his son is, and
+another thousand to him who can name the man, or men, who have taken
+him.”
+
+“It is a princely offer,” said Holmes. “Watson, I think that we shall
+accompany Dr. Huxtable back to the North of England. And now, Dr.
+Huxtable, when you have consumed that milk you will kindly tell me what
+has happened, when it happened, how it happened, and, finally, what Dr.
+Thorneycroft Huxtable, of the Priory School, near Mackleton, has to do
+with the matter, and why he comes three days after an event--the state
+of your chin gives the date--to ask for my humble services.”
+
+Our visitor had consumed his milk and biscuits. The light had come back
+to his eyes and the colour to his cheeks as he set himself with great
+vigour and lucidity to explain the situation.
+
+“I must inform you, gentlemen, that the Priory is a preparatory school,
+of which I am the founder and principal. 'Huxtable's Sidelights on
+Horace' may possibly recall my name to your memories. The Priory is,
+without exception, the best and most select preparatory school
+in England. Lord Leverstoke, the Earl of Blackwater, Sir Cathcart
+Soames--they all have entrusted their sons to me. But I felt that
+my school had reached its zenith when, three weeks ago, the Duke of
+Holdernesse sent Mr. James Wilder, his secretary, with the intimation
+that young Lord Saltire, ten years old, his only son and heir, was about
+to be committed to my charge. Little did I think that this would be the
+prelude to the most crushing misfortune of my life.
+
+“On May 1st the boy arrived, that being the beginning of the summer
+term. He was a charming youth, and he soon fell into our ways. I may
+tell you--I trust that I am not indiscreet, but half-confidences are
+absurd in such a case--that he was not entirely happy at home. It is an
+open secret that the Duke's married life had not been a peaceful one,
+and the matter had ended in a separation by mutual consent, the Duchess
+taking up her residence in the South of France. This had occurred very
+shortly before, and the boy's sympathies are known to have been strongly
+with his mother. He moped after her departure from Holdernesse Hall,
+and it was for this reason that the Duke desired to send him to my
+establishment. In a fortnight the boy was quite at home with us, and was
+apparently absolutely happy.
+
+“He was last seen on the night of May 13th--that is, the night of last
+Monday. His room was on the second floor, and was approached through
+another larger room in which two boys were sleeping. These boys saw and
+heard nothing, so that it is certain that young Saltire did not pass out
+that way. His window was open, and there is a stout ivy plant leading to
+the ground. We could trace no footmarks below, but it is sure that this
+is the only possible exit.
+
+“His absence was discovered at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning. His bed
+had been slept in. He had dressed himself fully before going off in his
+usual school suit of black Eton jacket and dark grey trousers. There
+were no signs that anyone had entered the room, and it is quite certain
+that anything in the nature of cries, or a struggle, would have been
+heard, since Caunter, the elder boy in the inner room, is a very light
+sleeper.
+
+“When Lord Saltire's disappearance was discovered I at once called a
+roll of the whole establishment, boys, masters, and servants. It was
+then that we ascertained that Lord Saltire had not been alone in his
+flight. Heidegger, the German master, was missing. His room was on the
+second floor, at the farther end of the building, facing the same way
+as Lord Saltire's. His bed had also been slept in; but he had apparently
+gone away partly dressed, since his shirt and socks were lying on the
+floor. He had undoubtedly let himself down by the ivy, for we could see
+the marks of his feet where he had landed on the lawn. His bicycle was
+kept in a small shed beside this lawn, and it also was gone.
+
+“He had been with me for two years, and came with the best references;
+but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular either with masters
+or boys. No trace could be found of the fugitives, and now on Thursday
+morning we are as ignorant as we were on Tuesday. Inquiry was, of
+course, made at once at Holdernesse Hall. It is only a few miles away,
+and we imagined that in some sudden attack of home-sickness he had
+gone back to his father; but nothing had been heard of him. The Duke is
+greatly agitated--and as to me, you have seen yourselves the state of
+nervous prostration to which the suspense and the responsibility have
+reduced me. Mr. Holmes, if ever you put forward your full powers, I
+implore you to do so now, for never in your life could you have a case
+which is more worthy of them.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the statement
+of the unhappy schoolmaster. His drawn brows and the deep furrow
+between them showed that he needed no exhortation to concentrate all
+his attention upon a problem which, apart from the tremendous interests
+involved, must appeal so directly to his love of the complex and the
+unusual. He now drew out his note-book and jotted down one or two
+memoranda.
+
+“You have been very remiss in not coming to me sooner,” said he,
+severely. “You start me on my investigation with a very serious
+handicap. It is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and this lawn
+would have yielded nothing to an expert observer.”
+
+“I am not to blame, Mr. Holmes. His Grace was extremely desirous to
+avoid all public scandal. He was afraid of his family unhappiness being
+dragged before the world. He has a deep horror of anything of the kind.”
+
+“But there has been some official investigation?”
+
+“Yes, sir, and it has proved most disappointing. An apparent clue was
+at once obtained, since a boy and a young man were reported to have been
+seen leaving a neighbouring station by an early train. Only last night
+we had news that the couple had been hunted down in Liverpool, and they
+prove to have no connection whatever with the matter in hand. Then it
+was that in my despair and disappointment, after a sleepless night, I
+came straight to you by the early train.”
+
+“I suppose the local investigation was relaxed while this false clue was
+being followed up?”
+
+“It was entirely dropped.”
+
+“So that three days have been wasted. The affair has been most
+deplorably handled.”
+
+“I feel it, and admit it.”
+
+“And yet the problem should be capable of ultimate solution. I shall be
+very happy to look into it. Have you been able to trace any connection
+between the missing boy and this German master?”
+
+“None at all.”
+
+“Was he in the master's class?”
+
+“No; he never exchanged a word with him so far as I know.”
+
+“That is certainly very singular. Had the boy a bicycle?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was any other bicycle missing?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Is that certain?”
+
+“Quite.”
+
+“Well, now, you do not mean to seriously suggest that this German rode
+off upon a bicycle in the dead of the night bearing the boy in his
+arms?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Then what is the theory in your mind?”
+
+“The bicycle may have been a blind. It may have been hidden somewhere
+and the pair gone off on foot.”
+
+“Quite so; but it seems rather an absurd blind, does it not? Were there
+other bicycles in this shed?”
+
+“Several.”
+
+“Would he not have hidden A COUPLE had he desired to give the idea that
+they had gone off upon them?”
+
+“I suppose he would.”
+
+“Of course he would. The blind theory won't do. But the incident is an
+admirable starting-point for an investigation. After all, a bicycle
+is not an easy thing to conceal or to destroy. One other question. Did
+anyone call to see the boy on the day before he disappeared?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did he get any letters?”
+
+“Yes; one letter.”
+
+“From whom?”
+
+“From his father.”
+
+“Do you open the boys' letters?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“How do you know it was from the father?”
+
+“The coat of arms was on the envelope, and it was addressed in the
+Duke's peculiar stiff hand. Besides, the Duke remembers having written.”
+
+“When had he a letter before that?”
+
+“Not for several days.”
+
+“Had he ever one from France?”
+
+“No; never.
+
+“You see the point of my questions, of course. Either the boy was
+carried off by force or he went of his own free will. In the latter case
+you would expect that some prompting from outside would be needed to
+make so young a lad do such a thing. If he has had no visitors, that
+prompting must have come in letters. Hence I try to find out who were
+his correspondents.”
+
+“I fear I cannot help you much. His only correspondent, so far as I
+know, was his own father.”
+
+“Who wrote to him on the very day of his disappearance. Were the
+relations between father and son very friendly?”
+
+“His Grace is never very friendly with anyone. He is completely immersed
+in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to all ordinary
+emotions. But he was always kind to the boy in his own way.”
+
+“But the sympathies of the latter were with the mother?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did he say so?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“The Duke, then?”
+
+“Good heavens, no!”
+
+“Then how could you know?”
+
+“I have had some confidential talks with Mr. James Wilder, his Grace's
+secretary. It was he who gave me the information about Lord Saltire's
+feelings.”
+
+“I see. By the way, that last letter of the Duke's--was it found in the
+boy's room after he was gone?”
+
+“No; he had taken it with him. I think, Mr. Holmes, it is time that we
+were leaving for Euston.”
+
+“I will order a four-wheeler. In a quarter of an hour we shall be at
+your service. If you are telegraphing home, Mr. Huxtable, it would
+be well to allow the people in your neighbourhood to imagine that
+the inquiry is still going on in Liverpool, or wherever else that red
+herring led your pack. In the meantime I will do a little quiet work at
+your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two old
+hounds like Watson and myself may get a sniff of it.”
+
+
+That evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak
+country, in which Dr. Huxtable's famous school is situated. It was
+already dark when we reached it. A card was lying on the hall table,
+and the butler whispered something to his master, who turned to us with
+agitation in every heavy feature.
+
+“The Duke is here,” said he. “The Duke and Mr. Wilder are in the study.
+Come, gentlemen, and I will introduce you.”
+
+I was, of course, familiar with the pictures of the famous statesman,
+but the man himself was very different from his representation. He was a
+tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn, thin face,
+and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. His complexion was
+of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast with a long,
+dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his white
+waistcoat, with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe. Such was
+the stately presence who looked stonily at us from the centre of
+Dr. Huxtable's hearthrug. Beside him stood a very young man, whom I
+understood to be Wilder, the private secretary. He was small, nervous,
+alert, with intelligent, light-blue eyes and mobile features. It was he
+who at once, in an incisive and positive tone, opened the conversation.
+
+“I called this morning, Dr. Huxtable, too late to prevent you from
+starting for London. I learned that your object was to invite Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes to undertake the conduct of this case. His Grace is
+surprised, Dr. Huxtable, that you should have taken such a step without
+consulting him.”
+
+“When I learned that the police had failed----”
+
+“His Grace is by no means convinced that the police have failed.”
+
+“But surely, Mr. Wilder----”
+
+“You are well aware, Dr. Huxtable, that his Grace is particularly
+anxious to avoid all public scandal. He prefers to take as few people as
+possible into his confidence.”
+
+“The matter can be easily remedied,” said the brow-beaten doctor; “Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes can return to London by the morning train.”
+
+“Hardly that, Doctor, hardly that,” said Holmes, in his blandest voice.
+“This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose to spend a
+few days upon your moors, and to occupy my mind as best I may. Whether
+I have the shelter of your roof or of the village inn is, of course, for
+you to decide.”
+
+I could see that the unfortunate doctor was in the last stage of
+indecision, from which he was rescued by the deep, sonorous voice of the
+red-bearded Duke, which boomed out like a dinner-gong.
+
+“I agree with Mr. Wilder, Dr. Huxtable, that you would have done wisely
+to consult me. But since Mr. Holmes has already been taken into your
+confidence, it would indeed be absurd that we should not avail ourselves
+of his services. Far from going to the inn, Mr. Holmes, I should be
+pleased if you would come and stay with me at Holdernesse Hall.”
+
+“I thank your Grace. For the purposes of my investigation I think that
+it would be wiser for me to remain at the scene of the mystery.”
+
+“Just as you like, Mr. Holmes. Any information which Mr. Wilder or I can
+give you is, of course, at your disposal.”
+
+“It will probably be necessary for me to see you at the Hall,” said
+Holmes. “I would only ask you now, sir, whether you have formed any
+explanation in your own mind as to the mysterious disappearance of your
+son?”
+
+“No, sir, I have not.”
+
+“Excuse me if I allude to that which is painful to you, but I have no
+alternative. Do you think that the Duchess had anything to do with the
+matter?”
+
+The great Minister showed perceptible hesitation.
+
+“I do not think so,” he said, at last.
+
+“The other most obvious explanation is that the child has been kidnapped
+for the purpose of levying ransom. You have not had any demand of the
+sort?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“One more question, your Grace. I understand that you wrote to your son
+upon the day when this incident occurred.”
+
+“No; I wrote upon the day before.”
+
+“Exactly. But he received it on that day?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Was there anything in your letter which might have unbalanced him or
+induced him to take such a step?”
+
+“No, sir, certainly not.”
+
+“Did you post that letter yourself?”
+
+The nobleman's reply was interrupted by his secretary, who broke in with
+some heat.
+
+“His Grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself,” said he.
+“This letter was laid with others upon the study table, and I myself put
+them in the post-bag.”
+
+“You are sure this one was among them?”
+
+“Yes; I observed it.”
+
+“How many letters did your Grace write that day?”
+
+“Twenty or thirty. I have a large correspondence. But surely this is
+somewhat irrelevant?”
+
+“Not entirely,” said Holmes.
+
+“For my own part,” the Duke continued, “I have advised the police to
+turn their attention to the South of France. I have already said that I
+do not believe that the Duchess would encourage so monstrous an action,
+but the lad had the most wrong-headed opinions, and it is possible that
+he may have fled to her, aided and abetted by this German. I think, Dr.
+Huxtable, that we will now return to the Hall.”
+
+I could see that there were other questions which Holmes would have
+wished to put; but the nobleman's abrupt manner showed that the
+interview was at an end. It was evident that to his intensely
+aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs
+with a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every
+fresh question would throw a fiercer light into the discreetly shadowed
+corners of his ducal history.
+
+When the nobleman and his secretary had left, my friend flung himself at
+once with characteristic eagerness into the investigation.
+
+The boy's chamber was carefully examined, and yielded nothing save the
+absolute conviction that it was only through the window that he could
+have escaped. The German master's room and effects gave no further clue.
+In his case a trailer of ivy had given way under his weight, and we saw
+by the light of a lantern the mark on the lawn where his heels had
+come down. That one dint in the short green grass was the only material
+witness left of this inexplicable nocturnal flight.
+
+Sherlock Holmes left the house alone, and only returned after eleven.
+He had obtained a large ordnance map of the neighbourhood, and this
+he brought into my room, where he laid it out on the bed, and, having
+balanced the lamp in the middle of it, he began to smoke over it, and
+occasionally to point out objects of interest with the reeking amber of
+his pipe.
+
+“This case grows upon me, Watson,” said he. “There are decidedly some
+points of interest in connection with it. In this early stage I want you
+to realize those geographical features which may have a good deal to do
+with our investigation.
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“Look at this map. This dark square is the Priory School. I'll put a pin
+in it. Now, this line is the main road. You see that it runs east and
+west past the school, and you see also that there is no side road for
+a mile either way. If these two folk passed away by road it was THIS
+road.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“By a singular and happy chance we are able to some extent to check
+what passed along this road during the night in question. At this point,
+where my pipe is now resting, a country constable was on duty from
+twelve to six. It is, as you perceive, the first cross road on the east
+side. This man declares that he was not absent from his post for an
+instant, and he is positive that neither boy nor man could have gone
+that way unseen. I have spoken with this policeman to-night, and he
+appears to me to be a perfectly reliable person. That blocks this end.
+We have now to deal with the other. There is an inn here, the Red Bull,
+the landlady of which was ill. She had sent to Mackleton for a doctor,
+but he did not arrive until morning, being absent at another case. The
+people at the inn were alert all night, awaiting his coming, and one or
+other of them seems to have continually had an eye upon the road. They
+declare that no one passed. If their evidence is good, then we are
+fortunate enough to be able to block the west, and also to be able to
+say that the fugitives did NOT use the road at all.”
+
+“But the bicycle?” I objected.
+
+“Quite so. We will come to the bicycle presently. To continue our
+reasoning: if these people did not go by the road, they must have
+traversed the country to the north of the house or to the south of the
+house. That is certain. Let us weigh the one against the other. On the
+south of the house is, as you perceive, a large district of arable land,
+cut up into small fields, with stone walls between them. There, I admit
+that a bicycle is impossible. We can dismiss the idea. We turn to the
+country on the north. Here there lies a grove of trees, marked as the
+'Ragged Shaw,' and on the farther side stretches a great rolling moor,
+Lower Gill Moor, extending for ten miles and sloping gradually upwards.
+Here, at one side of this wilderness, is Holdernesse Hall, ten miles by
+road, but only six across the moor. It is a peculiarly desolate plain. A
+few moor farmers have small holdings, where they rear sheep and cattle.
+Except these, the plover and the curlew are the only inhabitants until
+you come to the Chesterfield high road. There is a church there,
+you see, a few cottages, and an inn. Beyond that the hills become
+precipitous. Surely it is here to the north that our quest must lie.”
+
+“But the bicycle?” I persisted.
+
+“Well, well!” said Holmes, impatiently. “A good cyclist does not need
+a high road. The moor is intersected with paths and the moon was at the
+full. Halloa! what is this?”
+
+There was an agitated knock at the door, and an instant afterwards Dr.
+Huxtable was in the room. In his hand he held a blue cricket-cap, with a
+white chevron on the peak.
+
+“At last we have a clue!” he cried. “Thank Heaven! at last we are on the
+dear boy's track! It is his cap.”
+
+“Where was it found?”
+
+“In the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor. They left on Tuesday.
+To-day the police traced them down and examined their caravan. This was
+found.”
+
+“How do they account for it?”
+
+“They shuffled and lied--said that they found it on the moor on Tuesday
+morning. They know where he is, the rascals! Thank goodness, they are
+all safe under lock and key. Either the fear of the law or the Duke's
+purse will certainly get out of them all that they know.”
+
+“So far, so good,” said Holmes, when the doctor had at last left the
+room. “It at least bears out the theory that it is on the side of the
+Lower Gill Moor that we must hope for results. The police have really
+done nothing locally, save the arrest of these gipsies. Look here,
+Watson! There is a watercourse across the moor. You see it marked here
+in the map. In some parts it widens into a morass. This is particularly
+so in the region between Holdernesse Hall and the school. It is vain to
+look elsewhere for tracks in this dry weather; but at THAT point there
+is certainly a chance of some record being left. I will call you early
+to-morrow morning, and you and I will try if we can throw some little
+light upon the mystery.”
+
+The day was just breaking when I woke to find the long, thin form of
+Holmes by my bedside. He was fully dressed, and had apparently already
+been out.
+
+“I have done the lawn and the bicycle shed,” said he. “I have also had a
+ramble through the Ragged Shaw. Now, Watson, there is cocoa ready in the
+next room. I must beg you to hurry, for we have a great day before us.”
+
+His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of the
+master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. A very different
+Holmes, this active, alert man, from the introspective and pallid
+dreamer of Baker Street. I felt, as I looked upon that supple figure,
+alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day that
+awaited us.
+
+And yet it opened in the blackest disappointment. With high hopes we
+struck across the peaty, russet moor, intersected with a thousand sheep
+paths, until we came to the broad, light-green belt which marked the
+morass between us and Holdernesse. Certainly, if the lad had gone
+homewards, he must have passed this, and he could not pass it without
+leaving his traces. But no sign of him or the German could be seen. With
+a darkening face my friend strode along the margin, eagerly observant
+of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface. Sheep-marks there were
+in profusion, and at one place, some miles down, cows had left their
+tracks. Nothing more.
+
+“Check number one,” said Holmes, looking gloomily over the rolling
+expanse of the moor. “There is another morass down yonder and a narrow
+neck between. Halloa! halloa! halloa! what have we here?”
+
+We had come on a small black ribbon of pathway. In the middle of it,
+clearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a bicycle.
+
+“Hurrah!” I cried. “We have it.”
+
+But Holmes was shaking his head, and his face was puzzled and expectant
+rather than joyous.
+
+“A bicycle, certainly, but not THE bicycle,” said he. “I am familiar
+with forty-two different impressions left by tyres. This, as you
+perceive, is a Dunlop, with a patch upon the outer cover. Heidegger's
+tyres were Palmer's, leaving longitudinal stripes. Aveling, the
+mathematical master, was sure upon the point. Therefore, it is not
+Heidegger's track.”
+
+“The boy's, then?”
+
+“Possibly, if we could prove a bicycle to have been in his possession.
+But this we have utterly failed to do. This track, as you perceive, was
+made by a rider who was going from the direction of the school.”
+
+“Or towards it?”
+
+“No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of course,
+the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. You perceive several places
+where it has passed across and obliterated the more shallow mark of the
+front one. It was undoubtedly heading away from the school. It may or
+may not be connected with our inquiry, but we will follow it backwards
+before we go any farther.”
+
+We did so, and at the end of a few hundred yards lost the tracks as
+we emerged from the boggy portion of the moor. Following the path
+backwards, we picked out another spot, where a spring trickled across
+it. Here, once again, was the mark of the bicycle, though nearly
+obliterated by the hoofs of cows. After that there was no sign, but
+the path ran right on into Ragged Shaw, the wood which backed on to the
+school. From this wood the cycle must have emerged. Holmes sat down on
+a boulder and rested his chin in his hands. I had smoked two cigarettes
+before he moved.
+
+“Well, well,” said he, at last. “It is, of course, possible that a
+cunning man might change the tyre of his bicycle in order to leave
+unfamiliar tracks. A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a man
+whom I should be proud to do business with. We will leave this question
+undecided and hark back to our morass again, for we have left a good
+deal unexplored.”
+
+We continued our systematic survey of the edge of the sodden portion
+of the moor, and soon our perseverance was gloriously rewarded. Right
+across the lower part of the bog lay a miry path. Holmes gave a cry
+of delight as he approached it. An impression like a fine bundle of
+telegraph wires ran down the centre of it. It was the Palmer tyre.
+
+“Here is Herr Heidegger, sure enough!” cried Holmes, exultantly. “My
+reasoning seems to have been pretty sound, Watson.”
+
+“I congratulate you.”
+
+“But we have a long way still to go. Kindly walk clear of the path. Now
+let us follow the trail. I fear that it will not lead very far.”
+
+We found, however, as we advanced that this portion of the moor is
+intersected with soft patches, and, though we frequently lost sight of
+the track, we always succeeded in picking it up once more.
+
+“Do you observe,” said Holmes, “that the rider is now undoubtedly
+forcing the pace? There can be no doubt of it. Look at this impression,
+where you get both tyres clear. The one is as deep as the other.
+That can only mean that the rider is throwing his weight on to the
+handle-bar, as a man does when he is sprinting. By Jove! he has had a
+fall.”
+
+There was a broad, irregular smudge covering some yards of the track.
+Then there were a few footmarks, and the tyre reappeared once more.
+
+“A side-slip,” I suggested.
+
+Holmes held up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. To my horror I
+perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson. On the
+path, too, and among the heather were dark stains of clotted blood.
+
+“Bad!” said Holmes. “Bad! Stand clear, Watson! Not an unnecessary
+footstep! What do I read here? He fell wounded, he stood up, he
+remounted, he proceeded. But there is no other track. Cattle on this
+side path. He was surely not gored by a bull? Impossible! But I see no
+traces of anyone else. We must push on, Watson. Surely with stains as
+well as the track to guide us he cannot escape us now.”
+
+Our search was not a very long one. The tracks of the tyre began to
+curve fantastically upon the wet and shining path. Suddenly, as I
+looked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the thick gorse
+bushes. Out of them we dragged a bicycle, Palmer-tyred, one pedal bent,
+and the whole front of it horribly smeared and slobbered with blood. On
+the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting. We ran round, and
+there lay the unfortunate rider. He was a tall man, full bearded, with
+spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked out. The cause of his
+death was a frightful blow upon the head, which had crushed in part of
+his skull. That he could have gone on after receiving such an injury
+said much for the vitality and courage of the man. He wore shoes, but
+no socks, and his open coat disclosed a night-shirt beneath it. It was
+undoubtedly the German master.
+
+Holmes turned the body over reverently, and examined it with great
+attention. He then sat in deep thought for a time, and I could see
+by his ruffled brow that this grim discovery had not, in his opinion,
+advanced us much in our inquiry.
+
+“It is a little difficult to know what to do, Watson,” said he, at last.
+“My own inclinations are to push this inquiry on, for we have already
+lost so much time that we cannot afford to waste another hour. On the
+other hand, we are bound to inform the police of the discovery, and to
+see that this poor fellow's body is looked after.”
+
+“I could take a note back.”
+
+“But I need your company and assistance. Wait a bit! There is a fellow
+cutting peat up yonder. Bring him over here, and he will guide the
+police.”
+
+I brought the peasant across, and Holmes dispatched the frightened man
+with a note to Dr. Huxtable.
+
+“Now, Watson,” said he, “we have picked up two clues this morning. One
+is the bicycle with the Palmer tyre, and we see what that has led to.
+The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start to
+investigate that, let us try to realize what we DO know so as to make
+the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.”
+
+“First of all I wish to impress upon you that the boy certainly left of
+his own free will. He got down from his window and he went off, either
+alone or with someone. That is sure.”
+
+I assented.
+
+“Well, now, let us turn to this unfortunate German master. The boy was
+fully dressed when he fled. Therefore, he foresaw what he would do.
+But the German went without his socks. He certainly acted on very short
+notice.”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“Why did he go? Because, from his bedroom window, he saw the flight of
+the boy. Because he wished to overtake him and bring him back. He seized
+his bicycle, pursued the lad, and in pursuing him met his death.”
+
+“So it would seem.”
+
+“Now I come to the critical part of my argument. The natural action of
+a man in pursuing a little boy would be to run after him. He would know
+that he could overtake him. But the German does not do so. He turns to
+his bicycle. I am told that he was an excellent cyclist. He would not do
+this if he did not see that the boy had some swift means of escape.”
+
+“The other bicycle.”
+
+“Let us continue our reconstruction. He meets his death five miles
+from the school--not by a bullet, mark you, which even a lad might
+conceivably discharge, but by a savage blow dealt by a vigorous arm.
+The lad, then, HAD a companion in his flight. And the flight was a swift
+one, since it took five miles before an expert cyclist could overtake
+them. Yet we survey the ground round the scene of the tragedy. What do
+we find? A few cattle tracks, nothing more. I took a wide sweep round,
+and there is no path within fifty yards. Another cyclist could have
+had nothing to do with the actual murder. Nor were there any human
+footmarks.”
+
+“Holmes,” I cried, “this is impossible.”
+
+“Admirable!” he said. “A most illuminating remark. It IS impossible as I
+state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong. Yet
+you saw for yourself. Can you suggest any fallacy?”
+
+“He could not have fractured his skull in a fall?”
+
+“In a morass, Watson?”
+
+“I am at my wit's end.”
+
+“Tut, tut; we have solved some worse problems. At least we have plenty
+of material, if we can only use it. Come, then, and, having exhausted
+the Palmer, let us see what the Dunlop with the patched cover has to
+offer us.”
+
+We picked up the track and followed it onwards for some distance; but
+soon the moor rose into a long, heather-tufted curve, and we left the
+watercourse behind us. No further help from tracks could be hoped for.
+At the spot where we saw the last of the Dunlop tyre it might equally
+have led to Holdernesse Hall, the stately towers of which rose some
+miles to our left, or to a low, grey village which lay in front of us,
+and marked the position of the Chesterfield high road.
+
+As we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of a
+game-cock above the door, Holmes gave a sudden groan and clutched me
+by the shoulder to save himself from falling. He had had one of those
+violent strains of the ankle which leave a man helpless. With difficulty
+he limped up to the door, where a squat, dark, elderly man was smoking a
+black clay pipe.
+
+“How are you, Mr. Reuben Hayes?” said Holmes.
+
+“Who are you, and how do you get my name so pat?” the countryman
+answered, with a suspicious flash of a pair of cunning eyes.
+
+“Well, it's printed on the board above your head. It's easy to see a man
+who is master of his own house. I suppose you haven't such a thing as a
+carriage in your stables?”
+
+“No; I have not.”
+
+“I can hardly put my foot to the ground.”
+
+“Don't put it to the ground.”
+
+“But I can't walk.”
+
+“Well, then, hop.”
+
+Mr. Reuben Hayes's manner was far from gracious, but Holmes took it with
+admirable good-humour.
+
+“Look here, my man,” said he. “This is really rather an awkward fix for
+me. I don't mind how I get on.”
+
+“Neither do I,” said the morose landlord.
+
+“The matter is very important. I would offer you a sovereign for the use
+of a bicycle.”
+
+The landlord pricked up his ears.
+
+“Where do you want to go?”
+
+“To Holdernesse Hall.”
+
+“Pals of the Dook, I suppose?” said the landlord, surveying our
+mud-stained garments with ironical eyes.
+
+Holmes laughed good-naturedly.
+
+“He'll be glad to see us, anyhow.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because we bring him news of his lost son.”
+
+The landlord gave a very visible start.
+
+“What, you're on his track?”
+
+“He has been heard of in Liverpool. They expect to get him every hour.”
+
+Again a swift change passed over the heavy, unshaven face. His manner
+was suddenly genial.
+
+“I've less reason to wish the Dook well than most men,” said he, “for I
+was his head coachman once, and cruel bad he treated me. It was him that
+sacked me without a character on the word of a lying corn-chandler. But
+I'm glad to hear that the young lord was heard of in Liverpool, and I'll
+help you to take the news to the Hall.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Holmes. “We'll have some food first. Then you can
+bring round the bicycle.”
+
+“I haven't got a bicycle.”
+
+Holmes held up a sovereign.
+
+“I tell you, man, that I haven't got one. I'll let you have two horses
+as far as the Hall.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Holmes, “we'll talk about it when we've had something
+to eat.”
+
+When we were left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen it was astonishing
+how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was nearly nightfall, and
+we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we spent some time
+over our meal. Holmes was lost in thought, and once or twice he walked
+over to the window and stared earnestly out. It opened on to a squalid
+courtyard. In the far corner was a smithy, where a grimy lad was at
+work. On the other side were the stables. Holmes had sat down again
+after one of these excursions, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair
+with a loud exclamation.
+
+“By Heaven, Watson, I believe that I've got it!” he cried. “Yes, yes, it
+must be so. Watson, do you remember seeing any cow-tracks to-day?”
+
+“Yes, several.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Well, everywhere. They were at the morass, and again on the path, and
+again near where poor Heidegger met his death.”
+
+“Exactly. Well, now, Watson, how many cows did you see on the moor?”
+
+“I don't remember seeing any.”
+
+“Strange, Watson, that we should see tracks all along our line, but
+never a cow on the whole moor; very strange, Watson, eh?”
+
+“Yes, it is strange.”
+
+“Now, Watson, make an effort; throw your mind back! Can you see those
+tracks upon the path?”
+
+“Yes, I can.”
+
+“Can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, Watson”--he
+arranged a number of bread-crumbs in this fashion--:::::--“and sometimes
+like this”--:.:.:.:. --“and occasionally like this”--. '. '. '. “Can you
+remember that?”
+
+“No, I cannot.”
+
+“But I can. I could swear to it. However, we will go back at our
+leisure and verify it. What a blind beetle I have been not to draw my
+conclusion!”
+
+“And what is your conclusion?”
+
+“Only that it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops. By
+George, Watson, it was no brain of a country publican that thought out
+such a blind as that! The coast seems to be clear, save for that lad in
+the smithy. Let us slip out and see what we can see.”
+
+There were two rough-haired, unkempt horses in the tumble-down stable.
+Holmes raised the hind leg of one of them and laughed aloud.
+
+“Old shoes, but newly shod--old shoes, but new nails. This case deserves
+to be a classic. Let us go across to the smithy.”
+
+The lad continued his work without regarding us. I saw Holmes's eye
+darting to right and left among the litter of iron and wood which was
+scattered about the floor. Suddenly, however, we heard a step behind
+us, and there was the landlord, his heavy eyebrows drawn over his savage
+eyes, his swarthy features convulsed with passion. He held a short,
+metal-headed stick in his hand, and he advanced in so menacing a fashion
+that I was right glad to feel the revolver in my pocket.
+
+“You infernal spies!” the man cried. “What are you doing there?”
+
+“Why, Mr. Reuben Hayes,” said Holmes, coolly, “one might think that you
+were afraid of our finding something out.”
+
+The man mastered himself with a violent effort, and his grim mouth
+loosened into a false laugh, which was more menacing than his frown.
+
+“You're welcome to all you can find out in my smithy,” said he. “But
+look here, mister, I don't care for folk poking about my place without
+my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of this the
+better I shall be pleased.”
+
+“All right, Mr. Hayes--no harm meant,” said Holmes. “We have been having
+a look at your horses, but I think I'll walk after all. It's not far, I
+believe.”
+
+“Not more than two miles to the Hall gates. That's the road to the
+left.” He watched us with sullen eyes until we had left his premises.
+
+We did not go very far along the road, for Holmes stopped the instant
+that the curve hid us from the landlord's view.
+
+“We were warm, as the children say, at that inn,” said he. “I seem
+to grow colder every step that I take away from it. No, no; I can't
+possibly leave it.”
+
+“I am convinced,” said I, “that this Reuben Hayes knows all about it. A
+more self-evident villain I never saw.”
+
+“Oh! he impressed you in that way, did he? There are the horses, there
+is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting Cock. I
+think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive way.”
+
+A long, sloping hillside, dotted with grey limestone boulders, stretched
+behind us. We had turned off the road, and were making our way up
+the hill, when, looking in the direction of Holdernesse Hall, I saw a
+cyclist coming swiftly along.
+
+“Get down, Watson!” cried Holmes, with a heavy hand upon my shoulder. We
+had hardly sunk from view when the man flew past us on the road. Amid
+a rolling cloud of dust I caught a glimpse of a pale, agitated face--a
+face with horror in every lineament, the mouth open, the eyes staring
+wildly in front. It was like some strange caricature of the dapper James
+Wilder whom we had seen the night before.
+
+“The Duke's secretary!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson, let us see what he
+does.”
+
+We scrambled from rock to rock until in a few moments we had made
+our way to a point from which we could see the front door of the inn.
+Wilder's bicycle was leaning against the wall beside it. No one was
+moving about the house, nor could we catch a glimpse of any faces at the
+windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind the high
+towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then in the gloom we saw the two side-lamps
+of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn, and shortly afterwards
+heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out into the road and tore off
+at a furious pace in the direction of Chesterfield.
+
+“What do you make of that, Watson?” Holmes whispered.
+
+“It looks like a flight.”
+
+“A single man in a dog-cart, so far as I could see. Well, it certainly
+was not Mr. James Wilder, for there he is at the door.”
+
+A red square of light had sprung out of the darkness. In the middle of
+it was the black figure of the secretary, his head advanced, peering out
+into the night. It was evident that he was expecting someone. Then at
+last there were steps in the road, a second figure was visible for an
+instant against the light, the door shut, and all was black once more.
+Five minutes later a lamp was lit in a room upon the first floor.
+
+“It seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the Fighting
+Cock,” said Holmes.
+
+“The bar is on the other side.”
+
+“Quite so. These are what one may call the private guests. Now, what in
+the world is Mr. James Wilder doing in that den at this hour of night,
+and who is the companion who comes to meet him there? Come, Watson,
+we must really take a risk and try to investigate this a little more
+closely.”
+
+Together we stole down to the road and crept across to the door of the
+inn. The bicycle still leaned against the wall. Holmes struck a match
+and held it to the back wheel, and I heard him chuckle as the light fell
+upon a patched Dunlop tyre. Up above us was the lighted window.
+
+“I must have a peep through that, Watson. If you bend your back and
+support yourself upon the wall, I think that I can manage.”
+
+An instant later his feet were on my shoulders. But he was hardly up
+before he was down again.
+
+“Come, my friend,” said he, “our day's work has been quite long enough.
+I think that we have gathered all that we can. It's a long walk to the
+school, and the sooner we get started the better.”
+
+He hardly opened his lips during that weary trudge across the moor, nor
+would he enter the school when he reached it, but went on to Mackleton
+Station, whence he could send some telegrams. Late at night I heard him
+consoling Dr. Huxtable, prostrated by the tragedy of his master's death,
+and later still he entered my room as alert and vigorous as he had been
+when he started in the morning. “All goes well, my friend,” said he. “I
+promise that before to-morrow evening we shall have reached the solution
+of the mystery.”
+
+
+At eleven o'clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the
+famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the
+magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we
+found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that
+wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes and in
+his twitching features.
+
+“You have come to see his Grace? I am sorry; but the fact is that the
+Duke is far from well. He has been very much upset by the tragic news.
+We received a telegram from Dr. Huxtable yesterday afternoon, which told
+us of your discovery.”
+
+“I must see the Duke, Mr. Wilder.”
+
+“But he is in his room.”
+
+“Then I must go to his room.”
+
+“I believe he is in his bed.”
+
+“I will see him there.”
+
+Holmes's cold and inexorable manner showed the secretary that it was
+useless to argue with him.
+
+“Very good, Mr. Holmes; I will tell him that you are here.”
+
+After half an hour's delay the great nobleman appeared. His face was
+more cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he seemed to
+me to be an altogether older man than he had been the morning before. He
+greeted us with a stately courtesy and seated himself at his desk, his
+red beard streaming down on to the table.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes?” said he.
+
+But my friend's eyes were fixed upon the secretary, who stood by his
+master's chair.
+
+“I think, your Grace, that I could speak more freely in Mr. Wilder's
+absence.”
+
+The man turned a shade paler and cast a malignant glance at Holmes.
+
+“If your Grace wishes----”
+
+“Yes, yes; you had better go. Now, Mr. Holmes, what have you to say?”
+
+My friend waited until the door had closed behind the retreating
+secretary.
+
+“The fact is, your Grace,” said he, “that my colleague, Dr. Watson, and
+myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a reward had been offered
+in this case. I should like to have this confirmed from your own lips.”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“It amounted, if I am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds to
+anyone who will tell you where your son is?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“And another thousand to the man who will name the person or persons who
+keep him in custody?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those who
+may have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep him in his
+present position?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried the Duke, impatiently. “If you do your work well,
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly
+treatment.”
+
+My friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of avidity
+which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes.
+
+“I fancy that I see your Grace's cheque-book upon the table,” said he.
+“I should be glad if you would make me out a cheque for six thousand
+pounds. It would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross it. The Capital
+and Counties Bank, Oxford Street branch, are my agents.”
+
+His Grace sat very stern and upright in his chair, and looked stonily at
+my friend.
+
+“Is this a joke, Mr. Holmes? It is hardly a subject for pleasantry.”
+
+“Not at all, your Grace. I was never more earnest in my life.”
+
+“What do you mean, then?”
+
+“I mean that I have earned the reward. I know where your son is, and I
+know some, at least, of those who are holding him.”
+
+The Duke's beard had turned more aggressively red than ever against his
+ghastly white face.
+
+“Where is he?” he gasped.
+
+“He is, or was last night, at the Fighting Cock Inn, about two miles
+from your park gate.”
+
+The Duke fell back in his chair.
+
+“And whom do you accuse?”
+
+Sherlock Holmes's answer was an astounding one. He stepped swiftly
+forward and touched the Duke upon the shoulder.
+
+“I accuse YOU,” said he. “And now, your Grace, I'll trouble you for that
+cheque.”
+
+Never shall I forget the Duke's appearance as he sprang up and clawed
+with his hands like one who is sinking into an abyss. Then, with an
+extraordinary effort of aristocratic self-command, he sat down and sank
+his face in his hands. It was some minutes before he spoke.
+
+“How much do you know?” he asked at last, without raising his head.
+
+“I saw you together last night.”
+
+“Does anyone else besides your friend know?”
+
+“I have spoken to no one.”
+
+The Duke took a pen in his quivering fingers and opened his cheque-book.
+
+“I shall be as good as my word, Mr. Holmes. I am about to write your
+cheque, however unwelcome the information which you have gained may be
+to me. When the offer was first made I little thought the turn which
+events might take. But you and your friend are men of discretion, Mr.
+Holmes?”
+
+“I hardly understand your Grace.”
+
+“I must put it plainly, Mr. Holmes. If only you two know of this
+incident, there is no reason why it should go any farther. I think
+twelve thousand pounds is the sum that I owe you, is it not?”
+
+But Holmes smiled and shook his head.
+
+“I fear, your Grace, that matters can hardly be arranged so easily.
+There is the death of this schoolmaster to be accounted for.”
+
+“But James knew nothing of that. You cannot hold him responsible for
+that. It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the misfortune
+to employ.”
+
+“I must take the view, your Grace, that when a man embarks upon a crime
+he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from it.”
+
+“Morally, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. But surely not in the eyes
+of the law. A man cannot be condemned for a murder at which he was not
+present, and which he loathes and abhors as much as you do. The instant
+that he heard of it he made a complete confession to me, so filled was
+he with horror and remorse. He lost not an hour in breaking entirely
+with the murderer. Oh, Mr. Holmes, you must save him--you must save
+him! I tell you that you must save him!” The Duke had dropped the last
+attempt at self-command, and was pacing the room with a convulsed face
+and with his clenched hands raving in the air. At last he mastered
+himself and sat down once more at his desk. “I appreciate your conduct
+in coming here before you spoke to anyone else,” said he. “At least, we
+may take counsel how far we can minimize this hideous scandal.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Holmes. “I think, your Grace, that this can only be done
+by absolute and complete frankness between us. I am disposed to help
+your Grace to the best of my ability; but in order to do so I must
+understand to the last detail how the matter stands. I realize that your
+words applied to Mr. James Wilder, and that he is not the murderer.”
+
+“No; the murderer has escaped.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes smiled demurely.
+
+“Your Grace can hardly have heard of any small reputation which I
+possess, or you would not imagine that it is so easy to escape me. Mr.
+Reuben Hayes was arrested at Chesterfield on my information at eleven
+o'clock last night. I had a telegram from the head of the local police
+before I left the school this morning.”
+
+The Duke leaned back in his chair and stared with amazement at my
+friend.
+
+“You seem to have powers that are hardly human,” said he. “So Reuben
+Hayes is taken? I am right glad to hear it, if it will not react upon
+the fate of James.”
+
+“Your secretary?”
+
+“No, sir; my son.”
+
+It was Holmes's turn to look astonished.
+
+“I confess that this is entirely new to me, your Grace. I must beg you
+to be more explicit.”
+
+“I will conceal nothing from you. I agree with you that complete
+frankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in this
+desperate situation to which James's folly and jealousy have reduced
+us. When I was a very young man, Mr. Holmes, I loved with such a love
+as comes only once in a lifetime. I offered the lady marriage, but she
+refused it on the grounds that such a match might mar my career. Had she
+lived I would certainly never have married anyone else. She died, and
+left this one child, whom for her sake I have cherished and cared for.
+I could not acknowledge the paternity to the world; but I gave him the
+best of educations, and since he came to manhood I have kept him near
+my person. He surprised my secret, and has presumed ever since upon the
+claim which he has upon me and upon his power of provoking a scandal,
+which would be abhorrent to me. His presence had something to do
+with the unhappy issue of my marriage. Above all, he hated my young
+legitimate heir from the first with a persistent hatred. You may well
+ask me why, under these circumstances, I still kept James under my roof.
+I answer that it was because I could see his mother's face in his, and
+that for her dear sake there was no end to my long-suffering. All her
+pretty ways, too--there was not one of them which he could not suggest
+and bring back to my memory. I COULD not send him away. But I feared so
+much lest he should do Arthur--that is, Lord Saltire--a mischief that I
+dispatched him for safety to Dr. Huxtable's school.
+
+“James came into contact with this fellow Hayes because the man was a
+tenant of mine, and James acted as agent. The fellow was a rascal from
+the beginning; but in some extraordinary way James became intimate with
+him. He had always a taste for low company. When James determined
+to kidnap Lord Saltire it was of this man's service that he availed
+himself. You remember that I wrote to Arthur upon that last day. Well,
+James opened the letter and inserted a note asking Arthur to meet him
+in a little wood called the Ragged Shaw, which is near to the school.
+He used the Duchess's name, and in that way got the boy to come. That
+evening James bicycled over--I am telling you what he has himself
+confessed to me--and he told Arthur, whom he met in the wood, that his
+mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting him on the moor, and
+that if he would come back into the wood at midnight he would find a man
+with a horse, who would take him to her. Poor Arthur fell into the trap.
+He came to the appointment and found this fellow Hayes with a led pony.
+Arthur mounted, and they set off together. It appears--though this James
+only heard yesterday--that they were pursued, that Hayes struck the
+pursuer with his stick, and that the man died of his injuries. Hayes
+brought Arthur to his public-house, the Fighting Cock, where he was
+confined in an upper room, under the care of Mrs. Hayes, who is a kindly
+woman, but entirely under the control of her brutal husband.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw you
+two days ago. I had no more idea of the truth than you. You will ask me
+what was James's motive in doing such a deed. I answer that there was
+a great deal which was unreasoning and fanatical in the hatred which
+he bore my heir. In his view he should himself have been heir of all
+my estates, and he deeply resented those social laws which made it
+impossible. At the same time he had a definite motive also. He was eager
+that I should break the entail, and he was of opinion that it lay in my
+power to do so. He intended to make a bargain with me--to restore Arthur
+if I would break the entail, and so make it possible for the estate
+to be left to him by will. He knew well that I should never willingly
+invoke the aid of the police against him. I say that he would have
+proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not actually do so, for events
+moved too quickly for him, and he had not time to put his plans into
+practice.
+
+“What brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery of this
+man Heidegger's dead body. James was seized with horror at the news. It
+came to us yesterday as we sat together in this study. Dr. Huxtable had
+sent a telegram. James was so overwhelmed with grief and agitation that
+my suspicions, which had never been entirely absent, rose instantly to
+a certainty, and I taxed him with the deed. He made a complete voluntary
+confession. Then he implored me to keep his secret for three days
+longer, so as to give his wretched accomplice a chance of saving his
+guilty life. I yielded--as I have always yielded--to his prayers, and
+instantly James hurried off to the Fighting Cock to warn Hayes and
+give him the means of flight. I could not go there by daylight without
+provoking comment, but as soon as night fell I hurried off to see my
+dear Arthur. I found him safe and well, but horrified beyond expression
+by the dreadful deed he had witnessed. In deference to my promise, and
+much against my will, I consented to leave him there for three days
+under the charge of Mrs. Hayes, since it was evident that it was
+impossible to inform the police where he was without telling them also
+who was the murderer, and I could not see how that murderer could be
+punished without ruin to my unfortunate James. You asked for frankness,
+Mr. Holmes, and I have taken you at your word, for I have now told you
+everything without an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. Do you
+in turn be as frank with me.”
+
+“I will,” said Holmes. “In the first place, your Grace, I am bound to
+tell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious position in
+the eyes of the law. You have condoned a felony and you have aided the
+escape of a murderer; for I cannot doubt that any money which was taken
+by James Wilder to aid his accomplice in his flight came from your
+Grace's purse.”
+
+The Duke bowed his assent.
+
+“This is indeed a most serious matter. Even more culpable in my opinion,
+your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. You leave him in
+this den for three days.”
+
+“Under solemn promises----”
+
+“What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee that
+he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty elder son
+you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and unnecessary
+danger. It was a most unjustifiable action.”
+
+The proud lord of Holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated in
+his own ducal hall. The blood flushed into his high forehead, but his
+conscience held him dumb.
+
+“I will help you, but on one condition only. It is that you ring for the
+footman and let me give such orders as I like.”
+
+Without a word the Duke pressed the electric bell. A servant entered.
+
+“You will be glad to hear,” said Holmes, “that your young master is
+found. It is the Duke's desire that the carriage shall go at once to the
+Fighting Cock Inn to bring Lord Saltire home.
+
+“Now,” said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared, “having
+secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the past. I am
+not in an official position, and there is no reason, so long as the
+ends of justice are served, why I should disclose all that I know. As to
+Hayes I say nothing. The gallows awaits him, and I would do nothing
+to save him from it. What he will divulge I cannot tell, but I have
+no doubt that your Grace could make him understand that it is to his
+interest to be silent. From the police point of view he will have
+kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom. If they do not themselves
+find it out I see no reason why I should prompt them to take a broader
+point of view. I would warn your Grace, however, that the continued
+presence of Mr. James Wilder in your household can only lead to
+misfortune.”
+
+“I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he shall
+leave me for ever and go to seek his fortune in Australia.”
+
+“In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that any
+unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, I would
+suggest that you make such amends as you can to the Duchess, and
+that you try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily
+interrupted.”
+
+“That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes. I wrote to the Duchess this
+morning.”
+
+“In that case,” said Holmes, rising, “I think that my friend and I can
+congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our little
+visit to the North. There is one other small point upon which I desire
+some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his horses with shoes which
+counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it from Mr. Wilder that he learned
+so extraordinary a device?”
+
+The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense surprise
+on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a large room
+furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case in a corner, and
+pointed to the inscription.
+
+“These shoes,” it ran, “were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall.
+They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a cloven
+foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed
+to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the
+Middle Ages.”
+
+Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along the
+shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.
+
+“Thank you,” said he, as he replaced the glass. “It is the second most
+interesting object that I have seen in the North.”
+
+“And the first?”
+
+Holmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his note-book.
+“I am a poor man,” said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust it
+into the depths of his inner pocket.
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                     Vol. 27  MARCH, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+VI.--The Adventure of Black Peter.
+
+
+I HAVE never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and
+physical, than in the year '95. His increasing fame had brought with it
+an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an indiscretion if I
+were even to hint at the identity of some of the illustrious clients who
+crossed our humble threshold in Baker Street. Holmes, however, like all
+great artists, lived for his art's sake, and, save in the case of the
+Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim any large reward for
+his inestimable services. So unworldly was he--or so capricious--that
+he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the
+problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of
+most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case
+presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his
+imagination and challenged his ingenuity.
+
+In this memorable year '95 a curious and incongruous succession of cases
+had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous investigation of the
+sudden death of Cardinal Tosca--an inquiry which was carried out by him
+at the express desire of His Holiness the Pope--down to his arrest of
+Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from
+the East-End of London. Close on the heels of these two famous cases
+came the tragedy of Woodman's Lee, and the very obscure circumstances
+which surrounded the death of Captain Peter Carey. No record of the
+doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would be complete which did not include
+some account of this very unusual affair.
+
+During the first week of July my friend had been absent so often and so
+long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on hand. The fact
+that several rough-looking men called during that time and inquired for
+Captain Basil made me understand that Holmes was working somewhere under
+one of the numerous disguises and names with which he concealed his own
+formidable identity. He had at least five small refuges in different
+parts of London in which he was able to change his personality. He
+said nothing of his business to me, and it was not my habit to force a
+confidence. The first positive sign which he gave me of the direction
+which his investigation was taking was an extraordinary one. He had gone
+out before breakfast, and I had sat down to mine, when he strode into
+the room, his hat upon his head and a huge barbed-headed spear tucked
+like an umbrella under his arm.
+
+“Good gracious, Holmes!” I cried. “You don't mean to say that you have
+been walking about London with that thing?”
+
+“I drove to the butcher's and back.”
+
+“The butcher's?”
+
+“And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no question,
+my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. But I am
+prepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has
+taken.”
+
+“I will not attempt it.”
+
+He chuckled as he poured out the coffee.
+
+“If you could have looked into Allardyce's back shop you would have
+seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in
+his shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was that
+energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no exertion of my
+strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow. Perhaps you would
+care to try?”
+
+“Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?”
+
+“Because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the mystery of
+Woodman's Lee. Ah, Hopkins, I got your wire last night, and I have been
+expecting you. Come and join us.”
+
+Our visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age, dressed
+in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of one who was
+accustomed to official uniform. I recognised him at once as Stanley
+Hopkins, a young police inspector for whose future Holmes had high
+hopes, while he in turn professed the admiration and respect of a pupil
+for the scientific methods of the famous amateur. Hopkins's brow was
+clouded, and he sat down with an air of deep dejection.
+
+“No, thank you, sir. I breakfasted before I came round. I spent the
+night in town, for I came up yesterday to report.”
+
+“And what had you to report?”
+
+“Failure, sir; absolute failure.”
+
+“You have made no progress?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Dear me! I must have a look at the matter.”
+
+“I wish to heavens that you would, Mr. Holmes. It's my first big chance,
+and I am at my wit's end. For goodness' sake come down and lend me a
+hand.”
+
+“Well, well, it just happens that I have already read all the available
+evidence, including the report of the inquest, with some care. By the
+way, what do you make of that tobacco-pouch found on the scene of the
+crime? Is there no clue there?”
+
+Hopkins looked surprised.
+
+“It was the man's own pouch, sir. His initials were inside it. And it
+was of seal-skin--and he an old sealer.”
+
+“But he had no pipe.”
+
+“No, sir, we could find no pipe; indeed, he smoked very little. And yet
+he might have kept some tobacco for his friends.”
+
+“No doubt. I only mention it because if I had been handling the case
+I should have been inclined to make that the starting-point of my
+investigation. However, my friend Dr. Watson knows nothing of this
+matter, and I should be none the worse for hearing the sequence of
+events once more. Just give us some short sketch of the essentials.”
+
+Stanley Hopkins drew a slip of paper from his pocket.
+
+“I have a few dates here which will give you the career of the dead man,
+Captain Peter Carey. He was born in '45--fifty years of age. He was a
+most daring and successful seal and whale fisher. In 1883 he commanded
+the steam sealer SEA UNICORN, of Dundee. He had then had several
+successful voyages in succession, and in the following year, 1884, he
+retired. After that he travelled for some years, and finally he bought
+a small place called Woodman's Lee, near Forest Row, in Sussex. There he
+has lived for six years, and there he died just a week ago to-day.
+
+“There were some most singular points about the man. In ordinary life he
+was a strict Puritan--a silent, gloomy fellow. His household consisted
+of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and two female servants.
+These last were continually changing, for it was never a very cheery
+situation, and sometimes it became past all bearing. The man was an
+intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him he was a perfect
+fiend. He has been known to drive his wife and his daughter out of doors
+in the middle of the night, and flog them through the park until the
+whole village outside the gates was aroused by their screams.
+
+“He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, who had
+called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. In short,
+Mr. Holmes, you would go far before you found a more dangerous man than
+Peter Carey, and I have heard that he bore the same character when he
+commanded his ship. He was known in the trade as Black Peter, and the
+name was given him, not only on account of his swarthy features and the
+colour of his huge beard, but for the humours which were the terror of
+all around him. I need not say that he was loathed and avoided by every
+one of his neighbours, and that I have not heard one single word of
+sorrow about his terrible end.
+
+“You must have read in the account of the inquest about the man's cabin,
+Mr. Holmes; but perhaps your friend here has not heard of it. He had
+built himself a wooden outhouse--he always called it 'the cabin'--a few
+hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he slept every night.
+It was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet by ten. He kept the
+key in his pocket, made his own bed, cleaned it himself, and allowed no
+other foot to cross the threshold. There are small windows on each side,
+which were covered by curtains and never opened. One of these windows
+was turned towards the high road, and when the light burned in it at
+night the folk used to point it out to each other and wonder what Black
+Peter was doing in there. That's the window, Mr. Holmes, which gave us
+one of the few bits of positive evidence that came out at the inquest.
+
+“You remember that a stonemason, named Slater, walking from Forest Row
+about one o'clock in the morning--two days before the murder--stopped
+as he passed the grounds and looked at the square of light still shining
+among the trees. He swears that the shadow of a man's head turned
+sideways was clearly visible on the blind, and that this shadow was
+certainly not that of Peter Carey, whom he knew well. It was that of a
+bearded man, but the beard was short and bristled forwards in a way
+very different from that of the captain. So he says, but he had been two
+hours in the public-house, and it is some distance from the road to the
+window. Besides, this refers to the Monday, and the crime was done upon
+the Wednesday.
+
+“On the Tuesday Peter Carey was in one of his blackest moods, flushed
+with drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast. He roamed about the
+house, and the women ran for it when they heard him coming. Late in the
+evening he went down to his own hut. About two o'clock the following
+morning his daughter, who slept with her window open, heard a most
+fearful yell from that direction, but it was no unusual thing for him to
+bawl and shout when he was in drink, so no notice was taken. On rising
+at seven one of the maids noticed that the door of the hut was open, but
+so great was the terror which the man caused that it was midday before
+anyone would venture down to see what had become of him. Peeping into
+the open door they saw a sight which sent them flying with white faces
+into the village. Within an hour I was on the spot and had taken over
+the case.
+
+“Well, I have fairly steady nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but I
+give you my word that I got a shake when I put my head into that little
+house. It was droning like a harmonium with the flies and bluebottles,
+and the floor and walls were like a slaughter-house. He had called it a
+cabin, and a cabin it was sure enough, for you would have thought that
+you were in a ship. There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and
+charts, a picture of the SEA UNICORN, a line of log-books on a shelf,
+all exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain's room. And
+there in the middle of it was the man himself, his face twisted like a
+lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upwards in his
+agony. Right through his broad breast a steel harpoon had been driven,
+and it had sunk deep into the wood of the wall behind him. He was pinned
+like a beetle on a card. Of course, he was quite dead, and had been so
+from the instant that he had uttered that last yell of agony.
+
+“I know your methods, sir, and I applied them. Before I permitted
+anything to be moved I examined most carefully the ground outside, and
+also the floor of the room. There were no footmarks.”
+
+“Meaning that you saw none?”
+
+“I assure you, sir, that there were none.”
+
+“My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have never
+yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. As long as the
+criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some indentation,
+some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be detected by the
+scientific searcher. It is incredible that this blood-bespattered room
+contained no trace which could have aided us. I understand, however,
+from the inquest that there were some objects which you failed to
+overlook?”
+
+The young inspector winced at my companion's ironical comments.
+
+“I was a fool not to call you in at the time, Mr. Holmes. However,
+that's past praying for now. Yes, there were several objects in the room
+which called for special attention. One was the harpoon with which the
+deed was committed. It had been snatched down from a rack on the wall.
+Two others remained there, and there was a vacant place for the third.
+On the stock was engraved 'Ss. SEA UNICORN, Dundee.' This seemed to
+establish that the crime had been done in a moment of fury, and that
+the murderer had seized the first weapon which came in his way. The fact
+that the crime was committed at two in the morning, and yet Peter
+Carey was fully dressed, suggested that he had an appointment with the
+murderer, which is borne out by the fact that a bottle of rum and two
+dirty glasses stood upon the table.”
+
+“Yes,” said Holmes; “I think that both inferences are permissible. Was
+there any other spirit but rum in the room?”
+
+“Yes; there was a tantalus containing brandy and whisky on the
+sea-chest. It is of no importance to us, however, since the decanters
+were full, and it had therefore not been used.”
+
+“For all that its presence has some significance,” said Holmes.
+“However, let us hear some more about the objects which do seem to you
+to bear upon the case.”
+
+“There was this tobacco-pouch upon the table.”
+
+“What part of the table?”
+
+“It lay in the middle. It was of coarse seal-skin--the straight-haired
+skin, with a leather thong to bind it. Inside was 'P.C.' on the flap.
+There was half an ounce of strong ship's tobacco in it.”
+
+“Excellent! What more?”
+
+Stanley Hopkins drew from his pocket a drab-covered note-book. The
+outside was rough and worn, the leaves discoloured. On the first page
+were written the initials “J.H.N.” and the date “1883.” Holmes laid
+it on the table and examined it in his minute way, while Hopkins and I
+gazed over each shoulder. On the second page were the printed letters
+“C.P.R.,” and then came several sheets of numbers. Another heading was
+Argentine, another Costa Rica, and another San Paulo, each with pages of
+signs and figures after it.
+
+“What do you make of these?” asked Holmes.
+
+“They appear to be lists of Stock Exchange securities. I thought that
+'J.H.N.' were the initials of a broker, and that 'C.P.R.' may have been
+his client.”
+
+“Try Canadian Pacific Railway,” said Holmes.
+
+Stanley Hopkins swore between his teeth and struck his thigh with his
+clenched hand.
+
+“What a fool I have been!” he cried. “Of course, it is as you say. Then
+'J.H.N.' are the only initials we have to solve. I have already examined
+the old Stock Exchange lists, and I can find no one in 1883 either in
+the House or among the outside brokers whose initials correspond with
+these. Yet I feel that the clue is the most important one that I hold.
+You will admit, Mr. Holmes, that there is a possibility that these
+initials are those of the second person who was present--in other words,
+of the murderer. I would also urge that the introduction into the case
+of a document relating to large masses of valuable securities gives us
+for the first time some indication of a motive for the crime.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes's face showed that he was thoroughly taken aback by this
+new development.
+
+“I must admit both your points,” said he. “I confess that this
+note-book, which did not appear at the inquest, modifies any views which
+I may have formed. I had come to a theory of the crime in which I
+can find no place for this. Have you endeavoured to trace any of the
+securities here mentioned?”
+
+“Inquiries are now being made at the offices, but I fear that the
+complete register of the stockholders of these South American concerns
+is in South America, and that some weeks must elapse before we can trace
+the shares.”
+
+Holmes had been examining the cover of the note-book with his magnifying
+lens.
+
+“Surely there is some discolouration here,” said he.
+
+“Yes, sir, it is a blood-stain. I told you that I picked the book off
+the floor.”
+
+“Was the blood-stain above or below?”
+
+“On the side next the boards.”
+
+“Which proves, of course, that the book was dropped after the crime was
+committed.”
+
+“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. I appreciated that point, and I conjectured that
+it was dropped by the murderer in his hurried flight. It lay near the
+door.”
+
+“I suppose that none of these securities have been found among the
+property of the dead man?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Have you any reason to suspect robbery?”
+
+“No, sir. Nothing seemed to have been touched.”
+
+“Dear me, it is certainly a very interesting case. Then there was a
+knife, was there not?”
+
+“A sheath-knife, still in its sheath. It lay at the feet of the dead
+man. Mrs. Carey has identified it as being her husband's property.”
+
+Holmes was lost in thought for some time.
+
+“Well,” said he, at last, “I suppose I shall have to come out and have a
+look at it.”
+
+Stanley Hopkins gave a cry of joy.
+
+“Thank you, sir. That will indeed be a weight off my mind.”
+
+Holmes shook his finger at the inspector.
+
+“It would have been an easier task a week ago,” said he. “But even now
+my visit may not be entirely fruitless. Watson, if you can spare
+the time I should be very glad of your company. If you will call a
+four-wheeler, Hopkins, we shall be ready to start for Forest Row in a
+quarter of an hour.”
+
+
+Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles through
+the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that
+great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at bay--the
+impenetrable “weald,” for sixty years the bulwark of Britain. Vast
+sections of it have been cleared, for this is the seat of the first
+iron-works of the country, and the trees have been felled to smelt the
+ore. Now the richer fields of the North have absorbed the trade, and
+nothing save these ravaged groves and great scars in the earth show
+the work of the past. Here in a clearing upon the green slope of a hill
+stood a long, low stone house, approached by a curving drive running
+through the fields. Nearer the road, and surrounded on three sides by
+bushes, was a small outhouse, one window and the door facing in our
+direction. It was the scene of the murder!
+
+Stanley Hopkins led us first to the house, where he introduced us to a
+haggard, grey-haired woman, the widow of the murdered man, whose gaunt
+and deep-lined face, with the furtive look of terror in the depths of
+her red-rimmed eyes, told of the years of hardship and ill-usage which
+she had endured. With her was her daughter, a pale, fair-haired girl,
+whose eyes blazed defiantly at us as she told us that she was glad that
+her father was dead, and that she blessed the hand which had struck him
+down. It was a terrible household that Black Peter Carey had made for
+himself, and it was with a sense of relief that we found ourselves in
+the sunlight again and making our way along a path which had been worn
+across the fields by the feet of the dead man.
+
+The outhouse was the simplest of dwellings, wooden-walled,
+shingle-roofed, one window beside the door and one on the farther side.
+Stanley Hopkins drew the key from his pocket, and had stooped to the
+lock, when he paused with a look of attention and surprise upon his
+face.
+
+“Someone has been tampering with it,” he said.
+
+There could be no doubt of the fact. The woodwork was cut and the
+scratches showed white through the paint, as if they had been that
+instant done. Holmes had been examining the window.
+
+“Someone has tried to force this also. Whoever it was has failed to make
+his way in. He must have been a very poor burglar.”
+
+“This is a most extraordinary thing,” said the inspector; “I could swear
+that these marks were not here yesterday evening.”
+
+“Some curious person from the village, perhaps,” I suggested.
+
+“Very unlikely. Few of them would dare to set foot in the grounds, far
+less try to force their way into the cabin. What do you think of it, Mr.
+Holmes?”
+
+“I think that fortune is very kind to us.”
+
+“You mean that the person will come again?”
+
+“It is very probable. He came expecting to find the door open. He tried
+to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. He could not manage
+it. What would he do?”
+
+“Come again next night with a more useful tool.”
+
+“So I should say. It will be our fault if we are not there to receive
+him. Meanwhile, let me see the inside of the cabin.”
+
+The traces of the tragedy had been removed, but the furniture within the
+little room still stood as it had been on the night of the crime. For
+two hours, with most intense concentration, Holmes examined every object
+in turn, but his face showed that his quest was not a successful one.
+Once only he paused in his patient investigation.
+
+“Have you taken anything off this shelf, Hopkins?”
+
+“No; I have moved nothing.”
+
+“Something has been taken. There is less dust in this corner of the
+shelf than elsewhere. It may have been a book lying on its side. It may
+have been a box. Well, well, I can do nothing more. Let us walk in
+these beautiful woods, Watson, and give a few hours to the birds and the
+flowers. We shall meet you here later, Hopkins, and see if we can come
+to closer quarters with the gentleman who has paid this visit in the
+night.”
+
+It was past eleven o'clock when we formed our little ambuscade. Hopkins
+was for leaving the door of the hut open, but Holmes was of the opinion
+that this would rouse the suspicions of the stranger. The lock was a
+perfectly simple one, and only a strong blade was needed to push it
+back. Holmes also suggested that we should wait, not inside the hut, but
+outside it among the bushes which grew round the farther window. In this
+way we should be able to watch our man if he struck a light, and see
+what his object was in this stealthy nocturnal visit.
+
+It was a long and melancholy vigil, and yet brought with it something of
+the thrill which the hunter feels when he lies beside the water pool and
+waits for the coming of the thirsty beast of prey. What savage creature
+was it which might steal upon us out of the darkness? Was it a fierce
+tiger of crime, which could only be taken fighting hard with flashing
+fang and claw, or would it prove to be some skulking jackal, dangerous
+only to the weak and unguarded?
+
+In absolute silence we crouched amongst the bushes, waiting for whatever
+might come. At first the steps of a few belated villagers, or the sound
+of voices from the village, lightened our vigil; but one by one these
+interruptions died away and an absolute stillness fell upon us, save for
+the chimes of the distant church, which told us of the progress of the
+night, and for the rustle and whisper of a fine rain falling amid the
+foliage which roofed us in.
+
+Half-past two had chimed, and it was the darkest hour which precedes
+the dawn, when we all started as a low but sharp click came from the
+direction of the gate. Someone had entered the drive. Again there was a
+long silence, and I had begun to fear that it was a false alarm, when
+a stealthy step was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a moment
+later a metallic scraping and clinking. The man was trying to force the
+lock! This time his skill was greater or his tool was better, for there
+was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. Then a match was struck,
+and next instant the steady light from a candle filled the interior of
+the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all riveted upon the
+scene within.
+
+The nocturnal visitor was a young man, frail and thin, with a black
+moustache which intensified the deadly pallor of his face. He could not
+have been much above twenty years of age. I have never seen any human
+being who appeared to be in such a pitiable fright, for his teeth were
+visibly chattering and he was shaking in every limb. He was dressed like
+a gentleman, in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, with a cloth cap upon
+his head. We watched him staring round with frightened eyes. Then he
+laid the candle-end upon the table and disappeared from our view into
+one of the corners. He returned with a large book, one of the log-books
+which formed a line upon the shelves. Leaning on the table he rapidly
+turned over the leaves of this volume until he came to the entry which
+he sought. Then, with an angry gesture of his clenched hand, he closed
+the book, replaced it in the corner, and put out the light. He had
+hardly turned to leave the hut when Hopkins's hand was on the fellow's
+collar, and I heard his loud gasp of terror as he understood that he
+was taken. The candle was re-lit, and there was our wretched captive
+shivering and cowering in the grasp of the detective. He sank down upon
+the sea-chest, and looked helplessly from one of us to the other.
+
+“Now, my fine fellow,” said Stanley Hopkins, “who are you, and what do
+you want here?”
+
+The man pulled himself together and faced us with an effort at
+self-composure.
+
+“You are detectives, I suppose?” said he. “You imagine I am connected
+with the death of Captain Peter Carey. I assure you that I am innocent.”
+
+“We'll see about that,” said Hopkins. “First of all, what is your name?”
+
+“It is John Hopley Neligan.”
+
+I saw Holmes and Hopkins exchange a quick glance.
+
+“What are you doing here?”
+
+“Can I speak confidentially?”
+
+“No, certainly not.”
+
+“Why should I tell you?”
+
+“If you have no answer it may go badly with you at the trial.”
+
+The young man winced.
+
+“Well, I will tell you,” he said. “Why should I not? And yet I hate to
+think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. Did you ever hear
+of Dawson and Neligan?”
+
+I could see from Hopkins's face that he never had; but Holmes was keenly
+interested.
+
+“You mean the West-country bankers,” said he. “They failed for a
+million, ruined half the county families of Cornwall, and Neligan
+disappeared.”
+
+“Exactly. Neligan was my father.”
+
+At last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed a long gap
+between an absconding banker and Captain Peter Carey pinned against the
+wall with one of his own harpoons. We all listened intently to the young
+man's words.
+
+“It was my father who was really concerned. Dawson had retired. I was
+only ten years of age at the time, but I was old enough to feel the
+shame and horror of it all. It has always been said that my father stole
+all the securities and fled. It is not true. It was his belief that if
+he were given time in which to realize them all would be well and every
+creditor paid in full. He started in his little yacht for Norway just
+before the warrant was issued for his arrest. I can remember that last
+night when he bade farewell to my mother. He left us a list of the
+securities he was taking, and he swore that he would come back with his
+honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him would suffer. Well,
+no word was ever heard from him again. Both the yacht and he vanished
+utterly. We believed, my mother and I, that he and it, with the
+securities that he had taken with him, were at the bottom of the sea. We
+had a faithful friend, however, who is a business man, and it was he who
+discovered some time ago that some of the securities which my father
+had with him have reappeared on the London market. You can imagine our
+amazement. I spent months in trying to trace them, and at last, after
+many doublings and difficulties, I discovered that the original seller
+had been Captain Peter Carey, the owner of this hut.
+
+“Naturally, I made some inquiries about the man. I found that he had
+been in command of a whaler which was due to return from the Arctic seas
+at the very time when my father was crossing to Norway. The autumn of
+that year was a stormy one, and there was a long succession of southerly
+gales. My father's yacht may well have been blown to the north, and
+there met by Captain Peter Carey's ship. If that were so, what had
+become of my father? In any case, if I could prove from Peter Carey's
+evidence how these securities came on the market it would be a proof
+that my father had not sold them, and that he had no view to personal
+profit when he took them.
+
+“I came down to Sussex with the intention of seeing the captain, but
+it was at this moment that his terrible death occurred. I read at the
+inquest a description of his cabin, in which it stated that the old
+log-books of his vessel were preserved in it. It struck me that if I
+could see what occurred in the month of August, 1883, on board the SEA
+UNICORN, I might settle the mystery of my father's fate. I tried last
+night to get at these log-books, but was unable to open the door.
+To-night I tried again, and succeeded; but I find that the pages which
+deal with that month have been torn from the book. It was at that moment
+I found myself a prisoner in your hands.”
+
+“Is that all?” asked Hopkins.
+
+“Yes, that is all.” His eyes shifted as he said it.
+
+“You have nothing else to tell us?”
+
+He hesitated.
+
+“No; there is nothing.”
+
+“You have not been here before last night?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then how do you account for THAT?” cried Hopkins, as he held up the
+damning note-book, with the initials of our prisoner on the first leaf
+and the blood-stain on the cover.
+
+The wretched man collapsed. He sank his face in his hands and trembled
+all over.
+
+“Where did you get it?” he groaned. “I did not know. I thought I had
+lost it at the hotel.”
+
+“That is enough,” said Hopkins, sternly. “Whatever else you have to
+say you must say in court. You will walk down with me now to the
+police-station. Well, Mr. Holmes, I am very much obliged to you and to
+your friend for coming down to help me. As it turns out your presence
+was unnecessary, and I would have brought the case to this successful
+issue without you; but none the less I am very grateful. Rooms have been
+reserved for you at the Brambletye Hotel, so we can all walk down to the
+village together.”
+
+“Well, Watson, what do you think of it?” asked Holmes, as we travelled
+back next morning.
+
+“I can see that you are not satisfied.”
+
+“Oh, yes, my dear Watson, I am perfectly satisfied. At the same
+time Stanley Hopkins's methods do not commend themselves to me. I am
+disappointed in Stanley Hopkins. I had hoped for better things from him.
+One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against
+it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation.”
+
+“What, then, is the alternative?”
+
+“The line of investigation which I have myself been pursuing. It may
+give us nothing. I cannot tell. But at least I shall follow it to the
+end.”
+
+Several letters were waiting for Holmes at Baker Street. He snatched
+one of them up, opened it, and burst out into a triumphant chuckle of
+laughter.
+
+“Excellent, Watson. The alternative develops. Have you telegraph
+forms? Just write a couple of messages for me: 'Sumner, Shipping
+Agent, Ratcliff Highway. Send three men on, to arrive ten to-morrow
+morning.--Basil.' That's my name in those parts. The other is:
+'Inspector Stanley Hopkins, 46, Lord Street, Brixton. Come breakfast
+to-morrow at nine-thirty. Important. Wire if unable to come.--Sherlock
+Holmes.' There, Watson, this infernal case has haunted me for ten days.
+I hereby banish it completely from my presence. To-morrow I trust that
+we shall hear the last of it for ever.”
+
+Sharp at the hour named Inspector Stanley Hopkins appeared, and we sat
+down together to the excellent breakfast which Mrs. Hudson had prepared.
+The young detective was in high spirits at his success.
+
+“You really think that your solution must be correct?” asked Holmes.
+
+“I could not imagine a more complete case.”
+
+“It did not seem to me conclusive.”
+
+“You astonish me, Mr. Holmes. What more could one ask for?”
+
+“Does your explanation cover every point?”
+
+“Undoubtedly. I find that young Neligan arrived at the Brambletye Hotel
+on the very day of the crime. He came on the pretence of playing golf.
+His room was on the ground-floor, and he could get out when he liked.
+That very night he went down to Woodman's Lee, saw Peter Carey at
+the hut, quarrelled with him, and killed him with the harpoon. Then,
+horrified by what he had done, he fled out of the hut, dropping the
+note-book which he had brought with him in order to question Peter Carey
+about these different securities. You may have observed that some of
+them were marked with ticks, and the others--the great majority--were
+not. Those which are ticked have been traced on the London market; but
+the others presumably were still in the possession of Carey, and young
+Neligan, according to his own account, was anxious to recover them in
+order to do the right thing by his father's creditors. After his flight
+he did not dare to approach the hut again for some time; but at last
+he forced himself to do so in order to obtain the information which he
+needed. Surely that is all simple and obvious?”
+
+Holmes smiled and shook his head.
+
+“It seems to me to have only one drawback, Hopkins, and that is that it
+is intrinsically impossible. Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a
+body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these
+details. My friend Watson could tell you that I spent a whole morning in
+that exercise. It is no easy matter, and requires a strong and practised
+arm. But this blow was delivered with such violence that the head of the
+weapon sank deep into the wall. Do you imagine that this anaemic youth
+was capable of so frightful an assault? Is he the man who hobnobbed
+in rum and water with Black Peter in the dead of the night? Was it his
+profile that was seen on the blind two nights before? No, no, Hopkins;
+it is another and a more formidable person for whom we must seek.”
+
+The detective's face had grown longer and longer during Holmes's speech.
+His hopes and his ambitions were all crumbling about him. But he would
+not abandon his position without a struggle.
+
+“You can't deny that Neligan was present that night, Mr. Holmes. The
+book will prove that. I fancy that I have evidence enough to satisfy a
+jury, even if you are able to pick a hole in it. Besides, Mr. Holmes,
+I have laid my hand upon MY man. As to this terrible person of yours,
+where is he?”
+
+“I rather fancy that he is on the stair,” said Holmes, serenely. “I
+think, Watson, that you would do well to put that revolver where you can
+reach it.” He rose, and laid a written paper upon a side-table. “Now we
+are ready,” said he.
+
+There had been some talking in gruff voices outside, and now Mrs. Hudson
+opened the door to say that there were three men inquiring for Captain
+Basil.
+
+“Show them in one by one,” said Holmes.
+
+The first who entered was a little ribston-pippin of a man, with ruddy
+cheeks and fluffy white side-whiskers. Holmes had drawn a letter from
+his pocket.
+
+“What name?” he asked.
+
+“James Lancaster.”
+
+“I am sorry, Lancaster, but the berth is full. Here is half a sovereign
+for your trouble. Just step into this room and wait there for a few
+minutes.”
+
+The second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and sallow
+cheeks. His name was Hugh Pattins. He also received his dismissal, his
+half-sovereign, and the order to wait.
+
+The third applicant was a man of remarkable appearance. A fierce
+bull-dog face was framed in a tangle of hair and beard, and two bold
+dark eyes gleamed behind the cover of thick, tufted, overhung eyebrows.
+He saluted and stood sailor-fashion, turning his cap round in his hands.
+
+“Your name?” asked Holmes.
+
+“Patrick Cairns.”
+
+“Harpooner?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Twenty-six voyages.”
+
+“Dundee, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And ready to start with an exploring ship?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What wages?”
+
+“Eight pounds a month.”
+
+“Could you start at once?”
+
+“As soon as I get my kit.”
+
+“Have you your papers?”
+
+“Yes, sir.” He took a sheaf of worn and greasy forms from his pocket.
+Holmes glanced over them and returned them.
+
+“You are just the man I want,” said he. “Here's the agreement on the
+side-table. If you sign it the whole matter will be settled.”
+
+The seaman lurched across the room and took up the pen.
+
+“Shall I sign here?” he asked, stooping over the table.
+
+Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his neck.
+
+“This will do,” said he.
+
+I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The next
+instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. He
+was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs
+which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have
+very quickly overpowered my friend had Hopkins and I not rushed to
+his rescue. Only when I pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to his
+temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain. We lashed his
+ankles with cord and rose breathless from the struggle.
+
+“I must really apologize, Hopkins,” said Sherlock Holmes; “I fear that
+the scrambled eggs are cold. However, you will enjoy the rest of your
+breakfast all the better, will you not, for the thought that you have
+brought your case to a triumphant conclusion.”
+
+Stanley Hopkins was speechless with amazement.
+
+“I don't know what to say, Mr. Holmes,” he blurted out at last, with a
+very red face. “It seems to me that I have been making a fool of
+myself from the beginning. I understand now, what I should never have
+forgotten, that I am the pupil and you are the master. Even now I
+see what you have done, but I don't know how you did it, or what it
+signifies.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Holmes, good-humouredly. “We all learn by experience,
+and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the
+alternative. You were so absorbed in young Neligan that you could not
+spare a thought to Patrick Cairns, the true murderer of Peter Carey.”
+
+The hoarse voice of the seaman broke in on our conversation.
+
+“See here, mister,” said he, “I make no complaint of being man-handled
+in this fashion, but I would have you call things by their right names.
+You say I murdered Peter Carey; I say I KILLED Peter Carey, and there's
+all the difference. Maybe you don't believe what I say. Maybe you think
+I am just slinging you a yarn.”
+
+“Not at all,” said Holmes. “Let us hear what you have to say.”
+
+“It's soon told, and, by the Lord, every word of it is truth. I knew
+Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whipped a harpoon
+through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me. That's how he died.
+You can call it murder. Anyhow, I'd as soon die with a rope round my
+neck as with Black Peter's knife in my heart.”
+
+“How came you there?” asked Holmes.
+
+“I'll tell it you from the beginning. Just sit me up a little so as I
+can speak easy. It was in '83 that it happened--August of that year.
+Peter Carey was master of the SEA UNICORN, and I was spare harpooner. We
+were coming out of the ice-pack on our way home, with head winds and a
+week's southerly gale, when we picked up a little craft that had been
+blown north. There was one man on her--a landsman. The crew had thought
+she would founder, and had made for the Norwegian coast in the dinghy.
+I guess they were all drowned. Well, we took him on board, this man, and
+he and the skipper had some long talks in the cabin. All the baggage we
+took off with him was one tin box. So far as I know, the man's name was
+never mentioned, and on the second night he disappeared as if he had
+never been. It was given out that he had either thrown himself overboard
+or fallen overboard in the heavy weather that we were having. Only one
+man knew what had happened to him, and that was me, for with my own
+eyes I saw the skipper tip up his heels and put him over the rail in the
+middle watch of a dark night, two days before we sighted the Shetland
+lights.
+
+“Well, I kept my knowledge to myself and waited to see what would come
+of it. When we got back to Scotland it was easily hushed up, and nobody
+asked any questions. A stranger died by an accident, and it was nobody's
+business to inquire. Shortly after Peter Carey gave up the sea, and it
+was long years before I could find where he was. I guessed that he had
+done the deed for the sake of what was in that tin box, and that he
+could afford now to pay me well for keeping my mouth shut.
+
+“I found out where he was through a sailor man that had met him
+in London, and down I went to squeeze him. The first night he was
+reasonable enough, and was ready to give me what would make me free of
+the sea for life. We were to fix it all two nights later. When I came
+I found him three parts drunk and in a vile temper. We sat down and we
+drank and we yarned about old times, but the more he drank the less I
+liked the look on his face. I spotted that harpoon upon the wall, and I
+thought I might need it before I was through. Then at last he broke
+out at me, spitting and cursing, with murder in his eyes and a great
+clasp-knife in his hand. He had not time to get it from the sheath
+before I had the harpoon through him. Heavens! what a yell he gave; and
+his face gets between me and my sleep! I stood there, with his blood
+splashing round me, and I waited for a bit; but all was quiet, so I took
+heart once more. I looked round, and there was the tin box on a shelf. I
+had as much right to it as Peter Carey, anyhow, so I took it with me and
+left the hut. Like a fool I left my baccy-pouch upon the table.
+
+“Now I'll tell you the queerest part of the whole story. I had hardly
+got outside the hut when I heard someone coming, and I hid among the
+bushes. A man came slinking along, went into the hut, gave a cry as if
+he had seen a ghost, and legged it as hard as he could run until he was
+out of sight. Who he was or what he wanted is more than I can tell.
+For my part I walked ten miles, got a train at Tunbridge Wells, and so
+reached London, and no one the wiser.
+
+“Well, when I came to examine the box I found there was no money in it,
+and nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell. I had lost my hold
+on Black Peter, and was stranded in London without a shilling. There was
+only my trade left. I saw these advertisements about harpooners and high
+wages, so I went to the shipping agents, and they sent me here. That's
+all I know, and I say again that if I killed Black Peter the law should
+give me thanks, for I saved them the price of a hempen rope.”
+
+“A very clear statement,” said Holmes, rising and lighting his pipe. “I
+think, Hopkins, that you should lose no time in conveying your prisoner
+to a place of safety. This room is not well adapted for a cell, and Mr.
+Patrick Cairns occupies too large a proportion of our carpet.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes,” said Hopkins, “I do not know how to express my gratitude.
+Even now I do not understand how you attained this result.”
+
+“Simply by having the good fortune to get the right clue from the
+beginning. It is very possible if I had known about this note-book
+it might have led away my thoughts, as it did yours. But all I heard
+pointed in the one direction. The amazing strength, the skill in the use
+of the harpoon, the rum and water, the seal-skin tobacco-pouch, with the
+coarse tobacco--all these pointed to a seaman, and one who had been a
+whaler. I was convinced that the initials 'P.C.' upon the pouch were a
+coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and
+no pipe was found in his cabin. You remember that I asked whether whisky
+and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are
+there who would drink rum when they could get these other spirits? Yes,
+I was certain it was a seaman.”
+
+“And how did you find him?”
+
+“My dear sir, the problem had become a very simple one. If it were
+a seaman, it could only be a seaman who had been with him on the SEA
+UNICORN. So far as I could learn he had sailed in no other ship. I
+spent three days in wiring to Dundee, and at the end of that time I had
+ascertained the names of the crew of the SEA UNICORN in 1883. When I
+found Patrick Cairns among the harpooners my research was nearing its
+end. I argued that the man was probably in London, and that he would
+desire to leave the country for a time. I therefore spent some days in
+the East-end, devised an Arctic expedition, put forth tempting terms for
+harpooners who would serve under Captain Basil--and behold the result!”
+
+“Wonderful!” cried Hopkins. “Wonderful!”
+
+“You must obtain the release of young Neligan as soon as possible,” said
+Holmes. “I confess that I think you owe him some apology. The tin box
+must be returned to him, but, of course, the securities which Peter
+Carey has sold are lost for ever. There's the cab, Hopkins, and you can
+remove your man. If you want me for the trial, my address and that of
+Watson will be somewhere in Norway--I'll send particulars later.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                     Vol. 27  APRIL, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+VII.--The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.
+
+
+IT is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it
+is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even with the
+utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been impossible to make
+the facts public; but now the principal person concerned is beyond the
+reach of human law, and with due suppression the story may be told
+in such fashion as to injure no one. It records an absolutely unique
+experience in the career both of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and of myself. The
+reader will excuse me if I conceal the date or any other fact by which
+he might trace the actual occurrence.
+
+We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had
+returned about six o'clock on a cold, frosty winter's evening. As Holmes
+turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced
+at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor.
+I picked it up and read:--
+
+             CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON,
+                  APPLEDORE TOWERS,
+            AGENT.              HAMPSTEAD.
+
+“Who is he?” I asked.
+
+“The worst man in London,” Holmes answered, as he sat down and stretched
+his legs before the fire. “Is anything on the back of the card?”
+
+I turned it over.
+
+“Will call at 6.30--C.A.M.,” I read.
+
+“Hum! He's about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation,
+Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the
+slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and
+wicked, flattened faces? Well, that's how Milverton impresses me. I've
+had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never
+gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And yet I can't get
+out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at my invitation.”
+
+“But who is he?”
+
+“I'll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven
+help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come
+into the power of Milverton. With a smiling face and a heart of marble
+he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is
+a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury
+trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is
+prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of
+wealth or position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous
+valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians who have gained
+the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard
+hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman
+for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was
+the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and
+there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No
+one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too
+cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years
+in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning.
+I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how
+could one compare the ruffian who in hot blood bludgeons his mate with
+this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and
+wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?”
+
+I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.
+
+“But surely,” said I, “the fellow must be within the grasp of the law?”
+
+“Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit a
+woman, for example, to get him a few months' imprisonment if her own
+ruin must immediately follow? His victims dare not hit back. If ever he
+blackmailed an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him; but he
+is as cunning as the Evil One. No, no; we must find other ways to fight
+him.”
+
+“And why is he here?”
+
+“Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my hands.
+It is the Lady Eva Brackwell, the most beautiful DEBUTANTE of last
+season. She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt.
+This fiend has several imprudent letters--imprudent, Watson, nothing
+worse--which were written to an impecunious young squire in the country.
+They would suffice to break off the match. Milverton will send the
+letters to the Earl unless a large sum of money is paid him. I have been
+commissioned to meet him, and--to make the best terms I can.”
+
+At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street below.
+Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps
+gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts. A footman
+opened the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrachan overcoat
+descended. A minute later he was in the room.
+
+Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large,
+intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen
+smile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad,
+golden-rimmed glasses. There was something of Mr. Pickwick's benevolence
+in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the fixed smile and
+by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating eyes. His voice
+was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he advanced with a plump
+little hand extended, murmuring his regret for having missed us at his
+first visit. Holmes disregarded the outstretched hand and looked at him
+with a face of granite. Milverton's smile broadened; he shrugged his
+shoulders, removed his overcoat, folded it with great deliberation over
+the back of a chair, and then took a seat.
+
+“This gentleman?” said he, with a wave in my direction. “Is it discreet?
+Is it right?”
+
+“Dr. Watson is my friend and partner.”
+
+“Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your client's interests that I
+protested. The matter is so very delicate----”
+
+“Dr. Watson has already heard of it.”
+
+“Then we can proceed to business. You say that you are acting for Lady
+Eva. Has she empowered you to accept my terms?”
+
+“What are your terms?”
+
+“Seven thousand pounds.”
+
+“And the alternative?”
+
+“My dear sir, it is painful for me to discuss it; but if the money is
+not paid on the 14th there certainly will be no marriage on the 18th.”
+ His insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.
+
+Holmes thought for a little.
+
+“You appear to me,” he said, at last, “to be taking matters too much for
+granted. I am, of course, familiar with the contents of these letters.
+My client will certainly do what I may advise. I shall counsel her to
+tell her future husband the whole story and to trust to his generosity.”
+
+Milverton chuckled.
+
+“You evidently do not know the Earl,” said he.
+
+From the baffled look upon Holmes's face I could see clearly that he
+did.
+
+“What harm is there in the letters?” he asked.
+
+“They are sprightly--very sprightly,” Milverton answered. “The lady
+was a charming correspondent. But I can assure you that the Earl of
+Dovercourt would fail to appreciate them. However, since you think
+otherwise, we will let it rest at that. It is purely a matter of
+business. If you think that it is in the best interests of your client
+that these letters should be placed in the hands of the Earl, then you
+would indeed be foolish to pay so large a sum of money to regain them.”
+ He rose and seized his astrachan coat.
+
+Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.
+
+“Wait a little,” he said. “You go too fast. We would certainly make
+every effort to avoid scandal in so delicate a matter.”
+
+Milverton relapsed into his chair.
+
+“I was sure that you would see it in that light,” he purred.
+
+“At the same time,” Holmes continued, “Lady Eva is not a wealthy
+woman. I assure you that two thousand pounds would be a drain upon her
+resources, and that the sum you name is utterly beyond her power. I beg,
+therefore, that you will moderate your demands, and that you will return
+the letters at the price I indicate, which is, I assure you, the highest
+that you can get.”
+
+Milverton's smile broadened and his eyes twinkled humorously.
+
+“I am aware that what you say is true about the lady's resources,” said
+he. “At the same time, you must admit that the occasion of a lady's
+marriage is a very suitable time for her friends and relatives to
+make some little effort upon her behalf. They may hesitate as to an
+acceptable wedding present. Let me assure them that this little bundle
+of letters would give more joy than all the candelabra and butter-dishes
+in London.”
+
+“It is impossible,” said Holmes.
+
+“Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate!” cried Milverton, taking out a bulky
+pocket-book. “I cannot help thinking that ladies are ill-advised in
+not making an effort. Look at this!” He held up a little note with a
+coat-of-arms upon the envelope. “That belongs to--well, perhaps it is
+hardly fair to tell the name until to-morrow morning. But at that time
+it will be in the hands of the lady's husband. And all because she will
+not find a beggarly sum which she could get by turning her diamonds
+into paste. It IS such a pity. Now, you remember the sudden end of the
+engagement between the Honourable Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking? Only
+two days before the wedding there was a paragraph in the MORNING POST
+to say that it was all off. And why? It is almost incredible, but
+the absurd sum of twelve hundred pounds would have settled the whole
+question. Is it not pitiful? And here I find you, a man of sense,
+boggling about terms when your client's future and honour are at stake.
+You surprise me, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“What I say is true,” Holmes answered. “The money cannot be found.
+Surely it is better for you to take the substantial sum which I offer
+than to ruin this woman's career, which can profit you in no way?”
+
+“There you make a mistake, Mr. Holmes. An exposure would profit me
+indirectly to a considerable extent. I have eight or ten similar cases
+maturing. If it was circulated among them that I had made a severe
+example of the Lady Eva I should find all of them much more open to
+reason. You see my point?”
+
+Holmes sprang from his chair.
+
+“Get behind him, Watson! Don't let him out! Now, sir, let us see the
+contents of that note-book.”
+
+Milverton had glided as quick as a rat to the side of the room, and
+stood with his back against the wall.
+
+“Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes,” he said, turning the front of his coat and
+exhibiting the butt of a large revolver, which projected from the inside
+pocket. “I have been expecting you to do something original. This has
+been done so often, and what good has ever come from it? I assure you
+that I am armed to the teeth, and I am perfectly prepared to use my
+weapons, knowing that the law will support me. Besides, your supposition
+that I would bring the letters here in a note-book is entirely mistaken.
+I would do nothing so foolish. And now, gentlemen, I have one or two
+little interviews this evening, and it is a long drive to Hampstead.”
+ He stepped forward, took up his coat, laid his hand on his revolver, and
+turned to the door. I picked up a chair, but Holmes shook his head and
+I laid it down again. With bow, a smile, and a twinkle Milverton was out
+of the room, and a few moments after we heard the slam of the carriage
+door and the rattle of the wheels as he drove away.
+
+Holmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his trouser
+pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the glowing
+embers. For half an hour he was silent and still. Then, with the gesture
+of a man who has taken his decision, he sprang to his feet and passed
+into his bedroom. A little later a rakish young workman with a goatee
+beard and a swagger lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into
+the street. “I'll be back some time, Watson,” said he, and vanished into
+the night. I understood that he had opened his campaign against Charles
+Augustus Milverton; but I little dreamed the strange shape which that
+campaign was destined to take.
+
+For some days Holmes came and went at all hours in this attire, but
+beyond a remark that his time was spent at Hampstead, and that it was
+not wasted, I knew nothing of what he was doing. At last, however, on
+a wild, tempestuous evening, when the wind screamed and rattled against
+the windows, he returned from his last expedition, and having removed
+his disguise he sat before the fire and laughed heartily in his silent
+inward fashion.
+
+“You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?”
+
+“No, indeed!”
+
+“You'll be interested to hear that I am engaged.”
+
+“My dear fellow! I congrat----”
+
+“To Milverton's housemaid.”
+
+“Good heavens, Holmes!”
+
+“I wanted information, Watson.”
+
+“Surely you have gone too far?”
+
+“It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business,
+Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have
+talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I
+wanted. I know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand.”
+
+“But the girl, Holmes?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“You can't help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best you
+can when such a stake is on the table. However, I rejoice to say that
+I have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant that my
+back is turned. What a splendid night it is!”
+
+“You like this weather?”
+
+“It suits my purpose. Watson, I mean to burgle Milverton's house
+to-night.”
+
+I had a catching of the breath, and my skin went cold at the words,
+which were slowly uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a
+flash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail of
+a wide landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible result
+of such an action--the detection, the capture, the honoured career
+ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at
+the mercy of the odious Milverton.
+
+“For Heaven's sake, Holmes, think what you are doing,” I cried.
+
+“My dear fellow, I have given it every consideration. I am never
+precipitate in my actions, nor would I adopt so energetic and indeed so
+dangerous a course if any other were possible. Let us look at the matter
+clearly and fairly. I suppose that you will admit that the action is
+morally justifiable, though technically criminal. To burgle his house
+is no more than to forcibly take his pocket-book--an action in which you
+were prepared to aid me.”
+
+I turned it over in my mind.
+
+“Yes,” I said; “it is morally justifiable so long as our object is to
+take no articles save those which are used for an illegal purpose.”
+
+“Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable I have only to consider the
+question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress
+upon this when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?”
+
+“You will be in such a false position.”
+
+“Well, that is part of the risk. There is no other possible way of
+regaining these letters. The unfortunate lady has not the money, and
+there are none of her people in whom she could confide. To-morrow is
+the last day of grace, and unless we can get the letters to-night this
+villain will be as good as his word and will bring about her ruin. I
+must, therefore, abandon my client to her fate or I must play this
+last card. Between ourselves, Watson, it's a sporting duel between
+this fellow Milverton and me. He had, as you saw, the best of the first
+exchanges; but my self-respect and my reputation are concerned to fight
+it to a finish.”
+
+“Well, I don't like it; but I suppose it must be,” said I. “When do we
+start?”
+
+“You are not coming.”
+
+“Then you are not going,” said I. “I give you my word of honour--and
+I never broke it in my life--that I will take a cab straight to the
+police-station and give you away unless you let me share this adventure
+with you.”
+
+“You can't help me.”
+
+“How do you know that? You can't tell what may happen. Anyway, my
+resolution is taken. Other people beside you have self-respect and even
+reputations.”
+
+Holmes had looked annoyed, but his brow cleared, and he clapped me on
+the shoulder.
+
+“Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room
+for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the
+same cell. You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have
+always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal.
+This is the chance of my lifetime in that direction. See here!” He took
+a neat little leather case out of a drawer, and opening it he exhibited
+a number of shining instruments. “This is a first-class, up-to-date
+burgling kit, with nickel-plated jemmy, diamond-tipped glass-cutter,
+adaptable keys, and every modern improvement which the march of
+civilization demands. Here, too, is my dark lantern. Everything is in
+order. Have you a pair of silent shoes?”
+
+“I have rubber-soled tennis shoes.”
+
+“Excellent. And a mask?”
+
+“I can make a couple out of black silk.”
+
+“I can see that you have a strong natural turn for this sort of thing.
+Very good; do you make the masks. We shall have some cold supper before
+we start. It is now nine-thirty. At eleven we shall drive as far as
+Church Row. It is a quarter of an hour's walk from there to Appledore
+Towers. We shall be at work before midnight. Milverton is a heavy
+sleeper and retires punctually at ten-thirty. With any luck we should be
+back here by two, with the Lady Eva's letters in my pocket.”
+
+Holmes and I put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to be two
+theatre-goers homeward bound. In Oxford Street we picked up a hansom and
+drove to an address in Hampstead. Here we paid off our cab, and with our
+great-coats buttoned up, for it was bitterly cold and the wind seemed to
+blow through us, we walked along the edge of the Heath.
+
+“It's a business that needs delicate treatment,” said Holmes. “These
+documents are contained in a safe in the fellow's study, and the study
+is the ante-room of his bed-chamber. On the other hand, like all these
+stout, little men who do themselves well, he is a plethoric sleeper.
+Agatha--that's my FIANCEE--says it is a joke in the servants' hall that
+it's impossible to wake the master. He has a secretary who is devoted to
+his interests and never budges from the study all day. That's why we are
+going at night. Then he has a beast of a dog which roams the garden. I
+met Agatha late the last two evenings, and she locks the brute up so
+as to give me a clear run. This is the house, this big one in its own
+grounds. Through the gate--now to the right among the laurels. We might
+put on our masks here, I think. You see, there is not a glimmer of light
+in any of the windows, and everything is working splendidly.”
+
+With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the most
+truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent, gloomy house.
+A sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of it, lined by several
+windows and two doors.
+
+“That's his bedroom,” Holmes whispered. “This door opens straight into
+the study. It would suit us best, but it is bolted as well as locked,
+and we should make too much noise getting in. Come round here. There's a
+greenhouse which opens into the drawing-room.”
+
+The place was locked, but Holmes removed a circle of glass and turned
+the key from the inside. An instant afterwards he had closed the door
+behind us, and we had become felons in the eyes of the law. The thick,
+warm air of the conservatory and the rich, choking fragrance of exotic
+plants took us by the throat. He seized my hand in the darkness and led
+me swiftly past banks of shrubs which brushed against our faces. Holmes
+had remarkable powers, carefully cultivated, of seeing in the dark.
+Still holding my hand in one of his he opened a door, and I was vaguely
+conscious that we had entered a large room in which a cigar had been
+smoked not long before. He felt his way among the furniture, opened
+another door, and closed it behind us. Putting out my hand I felt
+several coats hanging from the wall, and I understood that I was in a
+passage. We passed along it, and Holmes very gently opened a door upon
+the right-hand side. Something rushed out at us and my heart sprang into
+my mouth, but I could have laughed when I realized that it was the cat.
+A fire was burning in this new room, and again the air was heavy with
+tobacco smoke. Holmes entered on tiptoe, waited for me to follow, and
+then very gently closed the door. We were in Milverton's study, and a
+PORTIERE at the farther side showed the entrance to his bedroom.
+
+It was a good fire, and the room was illuminated by it. Near the door I
+saw the gleam of an electric switch, but it was unnecessary, even if it
+had been safe, to turn it on. At one side of the fireplace was a heavy
+curtain, which covered the bay window we had seen from outside. On the
+other side was the door which communicated with the veranda. A desk
+stood in the centre, with a turning chair of shining red leather.
+Opposite was a large bookcase, with a marble bust of Athene on the top.
+In the corner between the bookcase and the wall there stood a tall green
+safe, the firelight flashing back from the polished brass knobs upon its
+face. Holmes stole across and looked at it. Then he crept to the door of
+the bedroom, and stood with slanting head listening intently. No sound
+came from within. Meanwhile it had struck me that it would be wise
+to secure our retreat through the outer door, so I examined it. To my
+amazement it was neither locked nor bolted! I touched Holmes on the arm,
+and he turned his masked face in that direction. I saw him start, and he
+was evidently as surprised as I.
+
+“I don't like it,” he whispered, putting his lips to my very ear. “I
+can't quite make it out. Anyhow, we have no time to lose.”
+
+“Can I do anything?”
+
+“Yes; stand by the door. If you hear anyone come, bolt it on the inside,
+and we can get away as we came. If they come the other way, we can
+get through the door if our job is done, or hide behind these window
+curtains if it is not. Do you understand?”
+
+I nodded and stood by the door. My first feeling of fear had passed
+away, and I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when
+we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. The high object
+of our mission, the consciousness that it was unselfish and chivalrous,
+the villainous character of our opponent, all added to the sporting
+interest of the adventure. Far from feeling guilty, I rejoiced and
+exulted in our dangers. With a glow of admiration I watched Holmes
+unrolling his case of instruments and choosing his tool with the calm,
+scientific accuracy of a surgeon who performs a delicate operation. I
+knew that the opening of safes was a particular hobby with him, and I
+understood the joy which it gave him to be confronted with this green
+and gold monster, the dragon which held in its maw the reputations of
+many fair ladies. Turning up the cuffs of his dress-coat--he had placed
+his overcoat on a chair--Holmes laid out two drills, a jemmy, and
+several skeleton keys. I stood at the centre door with my eyes glancing
+at each of the others, ready for any emergency; though, indeed, my plans
+were somewhat vague as to what I should do if we were interrupted. For
+half an hour Holmes worked with concentrated energy, laying down one
+tool, picking up another, handling each with the strength and delicacy
+of the trained mechanic. Finally I heard a click, the broad green door
+swung open, and inside I had a glimpse of a number of paper packets,
+each tied, sealed, and inscribed. Holmes picked one out, but it was hard
+to read by the flickering fire, and he drew out his little dark lantern,
+for it was too dangerous, with Milverton in the next room, to switch on
+the electric light. Suddenly I saw him halt, listen intently, and then
+in an instant he had swung the door of the safe to, picked up his
+coat, stuffed his tools into the pockets, and darted behind the window
+curtain, motioning me to do the same.
+
+It was only when I had joined him there that I heard what had alarmed
+his quicker senses. There was a noise somewhere within the house. A door
+slammed in the distance. Then a confused, dull murmur broke itself into
+the measured thud of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching. They were in
+the passage outside the room. They paused at the door. The door opened.
+There was a sharp snick as the electric light was turned on. The door
+closed once more, and the pungent reek of a strong cigar was borne
+to our nostrils. Then the footsteps continued backwards and forwards,
+backwards and forwards, within a few yards of us. Finally, there was a
+creak from a chair, and the footsteps ceased. Then a key clicked in a
+lock and I heard the rustle of papers.
+
+So far I had not dared to look out, but now I gently parted the division
+of the curtains in front of me and peeped through. From the pressure
+of Holmes's shoulder against mine I knew that he was sharing my
+observations. Right in front of us, and almost within our reach, was the
+broad, rounded back of Milverton. It was evident that we had entirely
+miscalculated his movements, that he had never been to his bedroom,
+but that he had been sitting up in some smoking or billiard room in the
+farther wing of the house, the windows of which we had not seen. His
+broad, grizzled head, with its shining patch of baldness, was in the
+immediate foreground of our vision. He was leaning far back in the red
+leather chair, his legs outstretched, a long black cigar projecting
+at an angle from his mouth. He wore a semi-military smoking jacket,
+claret-coloured, with a black velvet collar. In his hand he held a long
+legal document, which he was reading in an indolent fashion, blowing
+rings of tobacco smoke from his lips as he did so. There was no promise
+of a speedy departure in his composed bearing and his comfortable
+attitude.
+
+I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake, as
+if to say that the situation was within his powers and that he was
+easy in his mind. I was not sure whether he had seen what was only too
+obvious from my position, that the door of the safe was imperfectly
+closed, and that Milverton might at any moment observe it. In my own
+mind I had determined that if I were sure, from the rigidity of his
+gaze, that it had caught his eye, I would at once spring out, throw my
+great-coat over his head, pinion him, and leave the rest to Holmes. But
+Milverton never looked up. He was languidly interested by the papers in
+his hand, and page after page was turned as he followed the argument of
+the lawyer. At least, I thought, when he has finished the document and
+the cigar he will go to his room; but before he had reached the end of
+either there came a remarkable development which turned our thoughts
+into quite another channel.
+
+Several times I had observed that Milverton looked at his watch, and
+once he had risen and sat down again, with a gesture of impatience. The
+idea, however, that he might have an appointment at so strange an
+hour never occurred to me until a faint sound reached my ears from
+the veranda outside. Milverton dropped his papers and sat rigid in his
+chair. The sound was repeated, and then there came a gentle tap at the
+door. Milverton rose and opened it.
+
+“Well,” said he, curtly, “you are nearly half an hour late.”
+
+So this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the nocturnal
+vigil of Milverton. There was the gentle rustle of a woman's dress. I
+had closed the slit between the curtains as Milverton's face had turned
+in our direction, but now I ventured very carefully to open it once
+more. He had resumed his seat, the cigar still projecting at an insolent
+angle from the corner of his mouth. In front of him, in the full glare
+of the electric light, there stood a tall, slim, dark woman, a veil over
+her face, a mantle drawn round her chin. Her breath came quick and fast,
+and every inch of the lithe figure was quivering with strong emotion.
+
+“Well,” said Milverton, “you've made me lose a good night's rest,
+my dear. I hope you'll prove worth it. You couldn't come any other
+time--eh?”
+
+The woman shook her head.
+
+“Well, if you couldn't you couldn't. If the Countess is a hard mistress
+you have your chance to get level with her now. Bless the girl, what are
+you shivering about? That's right! Pull yourself together! Now, let us
+get down to business.” He took a note from the drawer of his desk. “You
+say that you have five letters which compromise the Countess d'Albert.
+You want to sell them. I want to buy them. So far so good. It only
+remains to fix a price. I should want to inspect the letters, of course.
+If they are really good specimens--Great heavens, is it you?”
+
+The woman without a word had raised her veil and dropped the mantle
+from her chin. It was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face which confronted
+Milverton, a face with a curved nose, strong, dark eyebrows shading
+hard, glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped mouth set in a
+dangerous smile.
+
+“It is I,” she said; “the woman whose life you have ruined.”
+
+Milverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. “You were so very
+obstinate,” said he. “Why did you drive me to such extremities? I
+assure you I wouldn't hurt a fly of my own accord, but every man has his
+business, and what was I to do? I put the price well within your means.
+You would not pay.”
+
+“So you sent the letters to my husband, and he--the noblest gentleman
+that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace--he broke
+his gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I came
+through that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you laughed in
+my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward heart cannot
+keep your lips from twitching? Yes, you never thought to see me here
+again, but it was that night which taught me how I could meet you face
+to face, and alone. Well, Charles Milverton, what have you to say?”
+
+“Don't imagine that you can bully me,” said he, rising to his feet. “I
+have only to raise my voice, and I could call my servants and have you
+arrested. But I will make allowance for your natural anger. Leave the
+room at once as you came, and I will say no more.”
+
+The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same deadly
+smile on her thin lips.
+
+“You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more
+hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing.
+Take that, you hound, and that!--and that!--and that!”
+
+She had drawn a little, gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after
+barrel into Milverton's body, the muzzle within two feet of his shirt
+front. He shrank away and then fell forward upon the table, coughing
+furiously and clawing among the papers. Then he staggered to his feet,
+received another shot, and rolled upon the floor. “You've done me,” he
+cried, and lay still. The woman looked at him intently and ground her
+heel into his upturned face. She looked again, but there was no sound
+or movement. I heard a sharp rustle, the night air blew into the heated
+room, and the avenger was gone.
+
+No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate;
+but as the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton's shrinking
+body I was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes's cold, strong grasp
+upon my wrist. I understood the whole argument of that firm, restraining
+grip--that it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a
+villain; that we had our own duties and our own objects which were not
+to be lost sight of. But hardly had the woman rushed from the room when
+Holmes, with swift, silent steps, was over at the other door. He turned
+the key in the lock. At the same instant we heard voices in the house
+and the sound of hurrying feet. The revolver shots had roused the
+household. With perfect coolness Holmes slipped across to the safe,
+filled his two arms with bundles of letters, and poured them all into
+the fire. Again and again he did it, until the safe was empty. Someone
+turned the handle and beat upon the outside of the door. Holmes looked
+swiftly round. The letter which had been the messenger of death for
+Milverton lay, all mottled with his blood, upon the table. Holmes tossed
+it in among the blazing papers. Then he drew the key from the outer
+door, passed through after me, and locked it on the outside. “This way,
+Watson,” said he; “we can scale the garden wall in this direction.”
+
+I could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so swiftly.
+Looking back, the huge house was one blaze of light. The front door
+was open, and figures were rushing down the drive. The whole garden was
+alive with people, and one fellow raised a view-halloa as we emerged
+from the veranda and followed hard at our heels. Holmes seemed to know
+the ground perfectly, and he threaded his way swiftly among a plantation
+of small trees, I close at his heels, and our foremost pursuer panting
+behind us. It was a six-foot wall which barred our path, but he sprang
+to the top and over. As I did the same I felt the hand of the man behind
+me grab at my ankle; but I kicked myself free and scrambled over a
+glass-strewn coping. I fell upon my face among some bushes; but Holmes
+had me on my feet in an instant, and together we dashed away across the
+huge expanse of Hampstead Heath. We had run two miles, I suppose, before
+Holmes at last halted and listened intently. All was absolute silence
+behind us. We had shaken off our pursuers and were safe.
+
+
+We had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe on the day after
+the remarkable experience which I have recorded when Mr. Lestrade, of
+Scotland Yard, very solemn and impressive, was ushered into our modest
+sitting-room.
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Holmes,” said he; “good morning. May I ask if you are
+very busy just now?”
+
+“Not too busy to listen to you.”
+
+“I thought that, perhaps, if you had nothing particular on hand, you
+might care to assist us in a most remarkable case which occurred only
+last night at Hampstead.”
+
+“Dear me!” said Holmes. “What was that?”
+
+“A murder--a most dramatic and remarkable murder. I know how keen you
+are upon these things, and I would take it as a great favour if you
+would step down to Appledore Towers and give us the benefit of your
+advice. It is no ordinary crime. We have had our eyes upon this Mr.
+Milverton for some time, and, between ourselves, he was a bit of a
+villain. He is known to have held papers which he used for blackmailing
+purposes. These papers have all been burned by the murderers. No article
+of value was taken, as it is probable that the criminals were men of
+good position, whose sole object was to prevent social exposure.”
+
+“Criminals!” said Holmes. “Plural!”
+
+“Yes, there were two of them. They were, as nearly as possible, captured
+red-handed. We have their foot-marks, we have their description; it's
+ten to one that we trace them. The first fellow was a bit too active,
+but the second was caught by the under-gardener and only got away after
+a struggle. He was a middle-sized, strongly-built man--square jaw, thick
+neck, moustache, a mask over his eyes.”
+
+“That's rather vague,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Why, it might be a
+description of Watson!”
+
+“It's true,” said the inspector, with much amusement. “It might be a
+description of Watson.”
+
+“Well, I am afraid I can't help you, Lestrade,” said Holmes. “The fact
+is that I knew this fellow Milverton, that I considered him one of the
+most dangerous men in London, and that I think there are certain crimes
+which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify
+private revenge. No, it's no use arguing. I have made up my mind. My
+sympathies are with the criminals rather than with the victim, and I
+will not handle this case.”
+
+
+Holmes had not said one word to me about the tragedy which we had
+witnessed, but I observed all the morning that he was in his most
+thoughtful mood, and he gave me the impression, from his vacant eyes and
+his abstracted manner, of a man who is striving to recall something to
+his memory. We were in the middle of our lunch when he suddenly sprang
+to his feet. “By Jove, Watson; I've got it!” he cried. “Take your hat!
+Come with me!” He hurried at his top speed down Baker Street and along
+Oxford Street, until we had almost reached Regent Circus. Here on the
+left hand there stands a shop window filled with photographs of the
+celebrities and beauties of the day. Holmes's eyes fixed themselves upon
+one of them, and following his gaze I saw the picture of a regal and
+stately lady in Court dress, with a high diamond tiara upon her noble
+head. I looked at that delicately-curved nose, at the marked eyebrows,
+at the straight mouth, and the strong little chin beneath it. Then I
+caught my breath as I read the time-honoured title of the great nobleman
+and statesman whose wife she had been. My eyes met those of Holmes, and
+he put his finger to his lips as we turned away from the window.
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                     Vol. 27  MAY, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.--The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.
+
+
+IT was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to
+look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock
+Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on
+at the police head-quarters. In return for the news which Lestrade would
+bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with attention to the
+details of any case upon which the detective was engaged, and was able
+occasionally, without any active interference, to give some hint or
+suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and experience.
+
+On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the
+newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his
+cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him.
+
+“Anything remarkable on hand?” he asked.
+
+“Oh, no, Mr. Holmes, nothing very particular.”
+
+“Then tell me about it.”
+
+Lestrade laughed.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, there is no use denying that there IS something on my
+mind. And yet it is such an absurd business that I hesitated to
+bother you about it. On the other hand, although it is trivial, it is
+undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is out
+of the common. But in my opinion it comes more in Dr. Watson's line than
+ours.”
+
+“Disease?” said I.
+
+“Madness, anyhow. And a queer madness too! You wouldn't think there was
+anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of Napoleon the
+First that he would break any image of him that he could see.”
+
+Holmes sank back in his chair.
+
+“That's no business of mine,” said he.
+
+“Exactly. That's what I said. But then, when the man commits burglary
+in order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away from
+the doctor and on to the policeman.”
+
+Holmes sat up again.
+
+“Burglary! This is more interesting. Let me hear the details.”
+
+Lestrade took out his official note-book and refreshed his memory from
+its pages.
+
+“The first case reported was four days ago,” said he. “It was at the
+shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and
+statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front shop
+for an instant when he heard a crash, and hurrying in he found a plaster
+bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the
+counter, lying shivered into fragments. He rushed out into the road,
+but, although several passers-by declared that they had noticed a man
+run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor could he find any
+means of identifying the rascal. It seemed to be one of those senseless
+acts of Hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was reported
+to the constable on the beat as such. The plaster cast was not worth
+more than a few shillings, and the whole affair appeared to be too
+childish for any particular investigation.
+
+“The second case, however, was more serious and also more singular. It
+occurred only last night.
+
+“In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse Hudson's
+shop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner, named Dr. Barnicot,
+who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of the Thames.
+His residence and principal consulting-room is at Kennington Road, but
+he has a branch surgery and dispensary at Lower Brixton Road, two miles
+away. This Dr. Barnicot is an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his
+house is full of books, pictures, and relics of the French Emperor. Some
+little time ago he purchased from Morse Hudson two duplicate plaster
+casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the French sculptor, Devine. One
+of these he placed in his hall in the house at Kennington Road, and the
+other on the mantelpiece of the surgery at Lower Brixton. Well, when Dr.
+Barnicot came down this morning he was astonished to find that his house
+had been burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save
+the plaster head from the hall. It had been carried out and had been
+dashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its splintered
+fragments were discovered.”
+
+Holmes rubbed his hands.
+
+“This is certainly very novel,” said he.
+
+“I thought it would please you. But I have not got to the end yet. Dr.
+Barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o'clock, and you can imagine
+his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the window had been
+opened in the night, and that the broken pieces of his second bust were
+strewn all over the room. It had been smashed to atoms where it stood.
+In neither case were there any signs which could give us a clue as to
+the criminal or lunatic who had done the mischief. Now, Mr. Holmes, you
+have got the facts.”
+
+“They are singular, not to say grotesque,” said Holmes. “May I ask
+whether the two busts smashed in Dr. Barnicot's rooms were the exact
+duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse Hudson's shop?”
+
+“They were taken from the same mould.”
+
+“Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks them
+is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering how many
+hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London, it is
+too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous iconoclast
+should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same bust.”
+
+“Well, I thought as you do,” said Lestrade. “On the other hand, this
+Morse Hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of London, and these
+three were the only ones which had been in his shop for years. So,
+although, as you say, there are many hundreds of statues in London, it
+is very probable that these three were the only ones in that district.
+Therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them. What do you think, Dr.
+Watson?”
+
+“There are no limits to the possibilities of monomania,” I answered.
+“There is the condition which the modern French psychologists have
+called the 'idee fixe,' which may be trifling in character, and
+accompanied by complete sanity in every other way. A man who had read
+deeply about Napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary
+family injury through the great war, might conceivably form such
+an 'idee fixe' and under its influence be capable of any fantastic
+outrage.”
+
+“That won't do, my dear Watson,” said Holmes, shaking his head; “for no
+amount of 'idee fixe' would enable your interesting monomaniac to find
+out where these busts were situated.”
+
+“Well, how do YOU explain it?”
+
+“I don't attempt to do so. I would only observe that there is a certain
+method in the gentleman's eccentric proceedings. For example, in Dr.
+Barnicot's hall, where a sound might arouse the family, the bust was
+taken outside before being broken, whereas in the surgery, where there
+was less danger of an alarm, it was smashed where it stood. The affair
+seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I
+reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising
+commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of
+the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which
+the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. I can't afford,
+therefore, to smile at your three broken busts, Lestrade, and I shall
+be very much obliged to you if you will let me hear of any fresh
+developments of so singular a chain of events.”
+
+
+The development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker and an
+infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined. I was still
+dressing in my bedroom next morning when there was a tap at the door and
+Holmes entered, a telegram in his hand. He read it aloud:--
+
+“Come instantly, 131, Pitt Street, Kensington.--Lestrade.”
+
+“What is it, then?” I asked.
+
+“Don't know--may be anything. But I suspect it is the sequel of the
+story of the statues. In that case our friend, the image-breaker, has
+begun operations in another quarter of London. There's coffee on the
+table, Watson, and I have a cab at the door.”
+
+In half an hour we had reached Pitt Street, a quiet little backwater
+just beside one of the briskest currents of London life. No. 131 was one
+of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, and most unromantic dwellings.
+As we drove up we found the railings in front of the house lined by a
+curious crowd. Holmes whistled.
+
+“By George! it's attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will hold
+the London message-boy. There's a deed of violence indicated in that
+fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck. What's this, Watson? The
+top steps swilled down and the other ones dry. Footsteps enough, anyhow!
+Well, well, there's Lestrade at the front window, and we shall soon know
+all about it.”
+
+The official received us with a very grave face and showed us into a
+sitting-room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated elderly
+man, clad in a flannel dressing-gown, was pacing up and down. He was
+introduced to us as the owner of the house--Mr. Horace Harker, of the
+Central Press Syndicate.
+
+“It's the Napoleon bust business again,” said Lestrade. “You seemed
+interested last night, Mr. Holmes, so I thought perhaps you would be
+glad to be present now that the affair has taken a very much graver
+turn.”
+
+“What has it turned to, then?”
+
+“To murder. Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what has
+occurred?”
+
+The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy face.
+
+“It's an extraordinary thing,” said he, “that all my life I have been
+collecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has
+come my own way I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two
+words together. If I had come in here as a journalist I should have
+interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper. As it is
+I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over to a
+string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself. However,
+I've heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and if you'll only explain
+this queer business I shall be paid for my trouble in telling you the
+story.”
+
+Holmes sat down and listened.
+
+“It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which I bought for
+this very room about four months ago. I picked it up cheap from Harding
+Brothers, two doors from the High Street Station. A great deal of my
+journalistic work is done at night, and I often write until the early
+morning. So it was to-day. I was sitting in my den, which is at the back
+of the top of the house, about three o'clock, when I was convinced that
+I heard some sounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated,
+and I concluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about five
+minutes later, there came a most horrible yell--the most dreadful sound,
+Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will ring in my ears as long as I
+live. I sat frozen with horror for a minute or two. Then I seized the
+poker and went downstairs. When I entered this room I found the window
+wide open, and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the
+mantelpiece. Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my
+understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value
+whatever.
+
+“You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window
+could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. This was clearly
+what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door. Stepping
+out into the dark I nearly fell over a dead man who was lying there. I
+ran back for a light, and there was the poor fellow, a great gash in his
+throat and the whole place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his
+knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my
+dreams. I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must
+have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman
+standing over me in the hall.”
+
+“Well, who was the murdered man?” asked Holmes.
+
+“There's nothing to show who he was,” said Lestrade. “You shall see the
+body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a
+tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He is poorly
+dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp
+knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him. Whether it was the weapon
+which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not
+know. There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save
+an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here
+it is.”
+
+It was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera. It
+represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows, and
+a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the muzzle
+of a baboon.
+
+“And what became of the bust?” asked Holmes, after a careful study of
+this picture.
+
+“We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the front
+garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was broken into
+fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you come?”
+
+“Certainly. I must just take one look round.” He examined the carpet and
+the window. “The fellow had either very long legs or was a most active
+man,” said he. “With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to reach
+that window-ledge and open that window. Getting back was comparatively
+simple. Are you coming with us to see the remains of your bust, Mr.
+Harker?”
+
+The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.
+
+“I must try and make something of it,” said he, “though I have no doubt
+that the first editions of the evening papers are out already with
+full details. It's like my luck! You remember when the stand fell at
+Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in the stand, and my journal
+the only one that had no account of it, for I was too shaken to write
+it. And now I'll be too late with a murder done on my own doorstep.”
+
+As we left the room we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the
+foolscap.
+
+The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a
+few hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes rested upon this
+presentment of the great Emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic
+and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown. It lay scattered in
+splintered shards upon the grass. Holmes picked up several of them and
+examined them carefully. I was convinced from his intent face and his
+purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.
+
+“Well?” asked Lestrade.
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“We have a long way to go yet,” said he. “And yet--and yet--well, we
+have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this trifling
+bust was worth more in the eyes of this strange criminal than a human
+life. That is one point. Then there is the singular fact that he did not
+break it in the house, or immediately outside the house, if to break it
+was his sole object.”
+
+“He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. He hardly knew
+what he was doing.”
+
+“Well, that's likely enough. But I wish to call your attention very
+particularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the
+bust was destroyed.”
+
+Lestrade looked about him.
+
+“It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed in
+the garden.”
+
+“Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he
+must have passed before he came to this one. Why did he not break it
+there, since it is evident that every yard that he carried it increased
+the risk of someone meeting him?”
+
+“I give it up,” said Lestrade.
+
+Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.
+
+“He could see what he was doing here and he could not there. That was
+his reason.”
+
+“By Jove! that's true,” said the detective. “Now that I come to think of
+it, Dr. Barnicot's bust was broken not far from his red lamp. Well, Mr.
+Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?”
+
+“To remember it--to docket it. We may come on something later which will
+bear upon it. What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?”
+
+“The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to identify
+the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that. When we have
+found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a good start
+in learning what he was doing in Pitt Street last night, and who it was
+who met him and killed him on the doorstep of Mr. Horace Harker. Don't
+you think so?”
+
+“No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I should approach
+the case.”
+
+“What would you do, then?”
+
+“Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way! I suggest that you
+go on your line and I on mine. We can compare notes afterwards, and each
+will supplement the other.”
+
+“Very good,” said Lestrade.
+
+“If you are going back to Pitt Street you might see Mr. Horace Harker.
+Tell him from me that I have quite made up my mind, and that it is
+certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with Napoleonic delusions was
+in his house last night. It will be useful for his article.”
+
+Lestrade stared.
+
+“You don't seriously believe that?”
+
+Holmes smiled.
+
+“Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't. But I am sure that it will interest Mr.
+Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate.
+Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that we have a long and rather
+complex day's work before us. I should be glad, Lestrade, if you could
+make it convenient to meet us at Baker Street at six o'clock this
+evening. Until then I should like to keep this photograph found in the
+dead man's pocket. It is possible that I may have to ask your company
+and assistance upon a small expedition which will have be undertaken
+to-night, if my chain of reasoning should prove to be correct. Until
+then, good-bye and good luck!”
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street, where he
+stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence the bust had been
+purchased. A young assistant informed us that Mr. Harding would be
+absent until after noon, and that he was himself a newcomer who could
+give us no information. Holmes's face showed his disappointment and
+annoyance.
+
+“Well, well, we can't expect to have it all our own way, Watson,” he
+said, at last. “We must come back in the afternoon if Mr. Harding
+will not be here until then. I am, as you have no doubt surmised,
+endeavouring to trace these busts to their source, in order to find if
+there is not something peculiar which may account for their remarkable
+fate. Let us make for Mr. Morse Hudson, of the Kennington Road, and see
+if he can throw any light upon the problem.”
+
+A drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer's establishment. He
+was a small, stout man with a red face and a peppery manner.
+
+“Yes, sir. On my very counter, sir,” said he. “What we pay rates and
+taxes for I don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's
+goods. Yes, sir, it was I who sold Dr. Barnicot his two statues.
+Disgraceful, sir! A Nihilist plot, that's what I make it. No one but an
+Anarchist would go about breaking statues. Red republicans, that's what
+I call 'em. Who did I get the statues from? I don't see what that has to
+do with it. Well, if you really want to know, I got them from Gelder
+and Co., in Church Street, Stepney. They are a well-known house in the
+trade, and have been this twenty years. How many had I? Three--two and
+one are three--two of Dr. Barnicot's and one smashed in broad daylight
+on my own counter. Do I know that photograph? No, I don't. Yes, I do,
+though. Why, it's Beppo. He was a kind of Italian piece-work man, who
+made himself useful in the shop. He could carve a bit and gild and
+frame, and do odd jobs. The fellow left me last week, and I've heard
+nothing of him since. No, I don't know where he came from nor where he
+went to. I have nothing against him while he was here. He was gone two
+days before the bust was smashed.”
+
+“Well, that's all we could reasonably expect to get from Morse Hudson,”
+ said Holmes, as we emerged from the shop. “We have this Beppo as a
+common factor, both in Kennington and in Kensington, so that is worth a
+ten-mile drive. Now, Watson, let us make for Gelder and Co., of Stepney,
+the source and origin of busts. I shall be surprised if we don't get
+some help down there.”
+
+In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London,
+hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London,
+and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a
+hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with
+the outcasts of Europe. Here, in a broad thoroughfare, once the abode
+of wealthy City merchants, we found the sculpture works for which we
+searched. Outside was a considerable yard full of monumental masonry.
+Inside was a large room in which fifty workers were carving or moulding.
+The manager, a big blond German, received us civilly, and gave a clear
+answer to all Holmes's questions. A reference to his books showed that
+hundreds of casts had been taken from a marble copy of Devine's head of
+Napoleon, but that the three which had been sent to Morse Hudson a year
+or so before had been half of a batch of six, the other three being sent
+to Harding Brothers, of Kensington. There was no reason why those six
+should be different to any of the other casts. He could suggest no
+possible cause why anyone should wish to destroy them--in fact, he
+laughed at the idea. Their wholesale price was six shillings, but the
+retailer would get twelve or more. The cast was taken in two moulds from
+each side of the face, and then these two profiles of plaster of Paris
+were joined together to make the complete bust. The work was usually
+done by Italians in the room we were in. When finished the busts were
+put on a table in the passage to dry, and afterwards stored. That was
+all he could tell us.
+
+But the production of the photograph had a remarkable effect upon the
+manager. His face flushed with anger, and his brows knotted over his
+blue Teutonic eyes.
+
+“Ah, the rascal!” he cried. “Yes, indeed, I know him very well. This has
+always been a respectable establishment, and the only time that we have
+ever had the police in it was over this very fellow. It was more than a
+year ago now. He knifed another Italian in the street, and then he came
+to the works with the police on his heels, and he was taken here. Beppo
+was his name--his second name I never knew. Serve me right for engaging
+a man with such a face. But he was a good workman, one of the best.”
+
+“What did he get?”
+
+“The man lived and he got off with a year. I have no doubt he is out
+now; but he has not dared to show his nose here. We have a cousin of his
+here, and I dare say he could tell you where he is.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Holmes, “not a word to the cousin--not a word, I beg
+you. The matter is very important, and the farther I go with it the more
+important it seems to grow. When you referred in your ledger to the sale
+of those casts I observed that the date was June 3rd of last year. Could
+you give me the date when Beppo was arrested?”
+
+“I could tell you roughly by the pay-list,” the manager answered. “Yes,”
+ he continued, after some turning over of pages, “he was paid last on May
+20th.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Holmes. “I don't think that I need intrude upon your
+time and patience any more.” With a last word of caution that he should
+say nothing as to our researches we turned our faces westward once more.
+
+The afternoon was far advanced before we were able to snatch a hasty
+luncheon at a restaurant. A news-bill at the entrance announced
+“Kensington Outrage. Murder by a Madman,” and the contents of the paper
+showed that Mr. Horace Harker had got his account into print after
+all. Two columns were occupied with a highly sensational and flowery
+rendering of the whole incident. Holmes propped it against the
+cruet-stand and read it while he ate. Once or twice he chuckled.
+
+“This is all right, Watson,” said he. “Listen to this: 'It is
+satisfactory to know that there can be no difference of opinion upon
+this case, since Mr. Lestrade, one of the most experienced members of
+the official force, and Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known consulting
+expert, have each come to the conclusion that the grotesque series of
+incidents, which have ended in so tragic a fashion, arise from lunacy
+rather than from deliberate crime. No explanation save mental aberration
+can cover the facts.' The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution
+if you only know how to use it. And now, if you have quite finished,
+we will hark back to Kensington and see what the manager of Harding
+Brothers has to say to the matter.”
+
+The founder of that great emporium proved to be a brisk, crisp little
+person, very dapper and quick, with a clear head and a ready tongue.
+
+“Yes, sir, I have already read the account in the evening papers. Mr.
+Horace Harker is a customer of ours. We supplied him with the bust some
+months ago. We ordered three busts of that sort from Gelder and Co., of
+Stepney. They are all sold now. To whom? Oh, I dare say by consulting
+our sales book we could very easily tell you. Yes, we have the entries
+here. One to Mr. Harker, you see, and one to Mr. Josiah Brown, of
+Laburnum Lodge, Laburnum Vale, Chiswick, and one to Mr. Sandeford, of
+Lower Grove Road, Reading. No, I have never seen this face which you
+show me in the photograph. You would hardly forget it, would you, sir,
+for I've seldom seen an uglier. Have we any Italians on the staff? Yes,
+sir, we have several among our workpeople and cleaners. I dare say
+they might get a peep at that sales book if they wanted to. There is no
+particular reason for keeping a watch upon that book. Well, well, it's
+a very strange business, and I hope that you'll let me know if anything
+comes of your inquiries.”
+
+Holmes had taken several notes during Mr. Harding's evidence, and I
+could see that he was thoroughly satisfied by the turn which affairs
+were taking. He made no remark, however, save that, unless we hurried,
+we should be late for our appointment with Lestrade. Sure enough, when
+we reached Baker Street the detective was already there, and we found
+him pacing up and down in a fever of impatience. His look of importance
+showed that his day's work had not been in vain.
+
+“Well?” he asked. “What luck, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“We have had a very busy day, and not entirely a wasted one,” my friend
+explained. “We have seen both the retailers and also the wholesale
+manufacturers. I can trace each of the busts now from the beginning.”
+
+“The busts!” cried Lestrade. “Well, well, you have your own methods, Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes, and it is not for me to say a word against them, but
+I think I have done a better day's work than you. I have identified the
+dead man.”
+
+“You don't say so?”
+
+“And found a cause for the crime.”
+
+“Splendid!”
+
+“We have an inspector who makes a specialty of Saffron Hill and the
+Italian quarter. Well, this dead man had some Catholic emblem round his
+neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he was from the
+South. Inspector Hill knew him the moment he caught sight of him. His
+name is Pietro Venucci, from Naples, and he is one of the greatest
+cut-throats in London. He is connected with the Mafia, which, as you
+know, is a secret political society, enforcing its decrees by murder.
+Now you see how the affair begins to clear up. The other fellow is
+probably an Italian also, and a member of the Mafia. He has broken
+the rules in some fashion. Pietro is set upon his track. Probably the
+photograph we found in his pocket is the man himself, so that he may not
+knife the wrong person. He dogs the fellow, he sees him enter a house,
+he waits outside for him, and in the scuffle he receives his own
+death-wound. How is that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+Holmes clapped his hands approvingly.
+
+“Excellent, Lestrade, excellent!” he cried. “But I didn't quite follow
+your explanation of the destruction of the busts.”
+
+“The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After all,
+that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It is the murder
+that we are really investigating, and I tell you that I am gathering all
+the threads into my hands.”
+
+“And the next stage?”
+
+“Is a very simple one. I shall go down with Hill to the Italian quarter,
+find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest him on the charge
+of murder. Will you come with us?”
+
+“I think not. I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I can't
+say for certain, because it all depends--well, it all depends upon
+a factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great
+hopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will come
+with us to-night I shall be able to help you to lay him by the heels.”
+
+“In the Italian quarter?”
+
+“No; I fancy Chiswick is an address which is more likely to find him. If
+you will come with me to Chiswick to-night, Lestrade, I'll promise to go
+to the Italian quarter with you to-morrow, and no harm will be done by
+the delay. And now I think that a few hours' sleep would do us all good,
+for I do not propose to leave before eleven o'clock, and it is unlikely
+that we shall be back before morning. You'll dine with us, Lestrade, and
+then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time for us to start. In
+the meantime, Watson, I should be glad if you would ring for an express
+messenger, for I have a letter to send, and it is important that it
+should go at once.”
+
+Holmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old daily
+papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. When at last he
+descended it was with triumph in his eyes, but he said nothing to
+either of us as to the result of his researches. For my own part, I had
+followed step by step the methods by which he had traced the various
+windings of this complex case, and, though I could not yet perceive the
+goal which we would reach, I understood clearly that Holmes expected
+this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon the two remaining busts,
+one of which, I remembered, was at Chiswick. No doubt the object of our
+journey was to catch him in the very act, and I could not but admire the
+cunning with which my friend had inserted a wrong clue in the evening
+paper, so as to give the fellow the idea that he could continue his
+scheme with impunity. I was not surprised when Holmes suggested that
+I should take my revolver with me. He had himself picked up the loaded
+hunting-crop which was his favourite weapon.
+
+A four-wheeler was at the door at eleven, and in it we drove to a spot
+at the other side of Hammersmith Bridge. Here the cabman was directed to
+wait. A short walk brought us to a secluded road fringed with pleasant
+houses, each standing in its own grounds. In the light of a street
+lamp we read “Laburnum Villa” upon the gate-post of one of them. The
+occupants had evidently retired to rest, for all was dark save for a
+fanlight over the hall door, which shed a single blurred circle on to
+the garden path. The wooden fence which separated the grounds from the
+road threw a dense black shadow upon the inner side, and here it was
+that we crouched.
+
+“I fear that you'll have a long wait,” Holmes whispered. “We may thank
+our stars that it is not raining. I don't think we can even venture to
+smoke to pass the time. However, it's a two to one chance that we get
+something to pay us for our trouble.”
+
+It proved, however, that our vigil was not to be so long as Holmes had
+led us to fear, and it ended in a very sudden and singular fashion. In
+an instant, without the least sound to warn us of his coming, the garden
+gate swung open, and a lithe, dark figure, as swift and active as an
+ape, rushed up the garden path. We saw it whisk past the light thrown
+from over the door and disappear against the black shadow of the house.
+There was a long pause, during which we held our breath, and then a very
+gentle creaking sound came to our ears. The window was being opened. The
+noise ceased, and again there was a long silence. The fellow was making
+his way into the house. We saw the sudden flash of a dark lantern inside
+the room. What he sought was evidently not there, for again we saw the
+flash through another blind, and then through another.
+
+“Let us get to the open window. We will nab him as he climbs out,”
+ Lestrade whispered.
+
+But before we could move the man had emerged again. As he came out into
+the glimmering patch of light we saw that he carried something white
+under his arm. He looked stealthily all round him. The silence of the
+deserted street reassured him. Turning his back upon us he laid down
+his burden, and the next instant there was the sound of a sharp tap,
+followed by a clatter and rattle. The man was so intent upon what he was
+doing that he never heard our steps as we stole across the grass plot.
+With the bound of a tiger Holmes was on his back, and an instant later
+Lestrade and I had him by either wrist and the handcuffs had been
+fastened. As we turned him over I saw a hideous, sallow face, with
+writhing, furious features, glaring up at us, and I knew that it was
+indeed the man of the photograph whom we had secured.
+
+But it was not our prisoner to whom Holmes was giving his attention.
+Squatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most carefully examining
+that which the man had brought from the house. It was a bust of Napoleon
+like the one which we had seen that morning, and it had been broken
+into similar fragments. Carefully Holmes held each separate shard to
+the light, but in no way did it differ from any other shattered piece of
+plaster. He had just completed his examination when the hall lights flew
+up, the door opened, and the owner of the house, a jovial, rotund figure
+in shirt and trousers, presented himself.
+
+“Mr. Josiah Brown, I suppose?” said Holmes.
+
+“Yes, sir; and you, no doubt, are Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I had the note
+which you sent by the express messenger, and I did exactly what you told
+me. We locked every door on the inside and awaited developments. Well,
+I'm very glad to see that you have got the rascal. I hope, gentlemen,
+that you will come in and have some refreshment.”
+
+However, Lestrade was anxious to get his man into safe quarters, so
+within a few minutes our cab had been summoned and we were all four upon
+our way to London. Not a word would our captive say; but he glared at us
+from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, when my hand seemed within
+his reach, he snapped at it like a hungry wolf. We stayed long enough
+at the police-station to learn that a search of his clothing revealed
+nothing save a few shillings and a long sheath knife, the handle of
+which bore copious traces of recent blood.
+
+“That's all right,” said Lestrade, as we parted. “Hill knows all these
+gentry, and he will give a name to him. You'll find that my theory of
+the Mafia will work out all right. But I'm sure I am exceedingly obliged
+to you, Mr. Holmes, for the workmanlike way in which you laid hands upon
+him. I don't quite understand it all yet.”
+
+“I fear it is rather too late an hour for explanations,” said Holmes.
+“Besides, there are one or two details which are not finished off, and
+it is one of those cases which are worth working out to the very end.
+If you will come round once more to my rooms at six o'clock to-morrow I
+think I shall be able to show you that even now you have not grasped the
+entire meaning of this business, which presents some features which make
+it absolutely original in the history of crime. If ever I permit you
+to chronicle any more of my little problems, Watson, I foresee that you
+will enliven your pages by an account of the singular adventure of the
+Napoleonic busts.”
+
+
+When we met again next evening Lestrade was furnished with much
+information concerning our prisoner. His name, it appeared, was Beppo,
+second name unknown. He was a well-known ne'er-do-well among the Italian
+colony. He had once been a skilful sculptor and had earned an honest
+living, but he had taken to evil courses and had twice already been
+in gaol--once for a petty theft and once, as we had already heard, for
+stabbing a fellow-countryman. He could talk English perfectly well. His
+reasons for destroying the busts were still unknown, and he refused to
+answer any questions upon the subject; but the police had discovered
+that these same busts might very well have been made by his own hands,
+since he was engaged in this class of work at the establishment of
+Gelder and Co. To all this information, much of which we already knew,
+Holmes listened with polite attention; but I, who knew him so well,
+could clearly see that his thoughts were elsewhere, and I detected a
+mixture of mingled uneasiness and expectation beneath that mask which
+he was wont to assume. At last he started in his chair and his eyes
+brightened. There had been a ring at the bell. A minute later we heard
+steps upon the stairs, and an elderly, red-faced man with grizzled
+side-whiskers was ushered in. In his right hand he carried an
+old-fashioned carpet-bag, which he placed upon the table.
+
+“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?”
+
+My friend bowed and smiled. “Mr. Sandeford, of Reading, I suppose?” said
+he.
+
+“Yes, sir, I fear that I am a little late; but the trains were awkward.
+You wrote to me about a bust that is in my possession.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“I have your letter here. You said, 'I desire to possess a copy of
+Devine's Napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds for the one
+which is in your possession.' Is that right?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“I was very much surprised at your letter, for I could not imagine how
+you knew that I owned such a thing.”
+
+“Of course you must have been surprised, but the explanation is very
+simple. Mr. Harding, of Harding Brothers, said that they had sold you
+their last copy, and he gave me your address.”
+
+“Oh, that was it, was it? Did he tell you what I paid for it?”
+
+“No, he did not.”
+
+“Well, I am an honest man, though not a very rich one. I only gave
+fifteen shillings for the bust, and I think you ought to know that
+before I take ten pounds from you.”
+
+“I am sure the scruple does you honour, Mr. Sandeford. But I have named
+that price, so I intend to stick to it.”
+
+“Well, it is very handsome of you, Mr. Holmes. I brought the bust up
+with me, as you asked me to do. Here it is!” He opened his bag, and at
+last we saw placed upon our table a complete specimen of that bust which
+we had already seen more than once in fragments.
+
+Holmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound note upon the
+table.
+
+“You will kindly sign that paper, Mr. Sandeford, in the presence of
+these witnesses. It is simply to say that you transfer every possible
+right that you ever had in the bust to me. I am a methodical man, you
+see, and you never know what turn events might take afterwards. Thank
+you, Mr. Sandeford; here is your money, and I wish you a very good
+evening.”
+
+When our visitor had disappeared Sherlock Holmes's movements were such
+as to rivet our attention. He began by taking a clean white cloth from
+a drawer and laying it over the table. Then he placed his newly-acquired
+bust in the centre of the cloth. Finally, he picked up his hunting-crop
+and struck Napoleon a sharp blow on the top of the head. The figure
+broke into fragments, and Holmes bent eagerly over the shattered
+remains. Next instant, with a loud shout of triumph, he held up one
+splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like a plum in a
+pudding.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he cried, “let me introduce you to the famous black pearl
+of the Borgias.”
+
+Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous
+impulse, we both broke out clapping as at the well-wrought crisis of a
+play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes's pale cheeks, and he bowed to
+us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his audience.
+It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning
+machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The
+same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain
+from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by
+spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.
+
+“Yes, gentlemen,” said he, “it is the most famous pearl now existing
+in the world, and it has been my good fortune, by a connected chain of
+inductive reasoning, to trace it from the Prince of Colonna's bedroom at
+the Dacre Hotel, where it was lost, to the interior of this, the last of
+the six busts of Napoleon which were manufactured by Gelder and Co.,
+of Stepney. You will remember, Lestrade, the sensation caused by the
+disappearance of this valuable jewel, and the vain efforts of the London
+police to recover it. I was myself consulted upon the case; but I was
+unable to throw any light upon it. Suspicion fell upon the maid of the
+Princess, who was an Italian, and it was proved that she had a brother
+in London, but we failed to trace any connection between them. The
+maid's name was Lucretia Venucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that
+this Pietro who was murdered two nights ago was the brother. I have been
+looking up the dates in the old files of the paper, and I find that the
+disappearance of the pearl was exactly two days before the arrest of
+Beppo for some crime of violence, an event which took place in the
+factory of Gelder and Co., at the very moment when these busts were
+being made. Now you clearly see the sequence of events, though you see
+them, of course, in the inverse order to the way in which they presented
+themselves to me. Beppo had the pearl in his possession. He may have
+stolen it from Pietro, he may have been Pietro's confederate, he
+may have been the go-between of Pietro and his sister. It is of no
+consequence to us which is the correct solution.
+
+“The main fact is that he HAD the pearl, and at that moment, when it was
+on his person, he was pursued by the police. He made for the factory in
+which he worked, and he knew that he had only a few minutes in which to
+conceal this enormously valuable prize, which would otherwise be found
+on him when he was searched. Six plaster casts of Napoleon were drying
+in the passage. One of them was still soft. In an instant Beppo, a
+skilful workman, made a small hole in the wet plaster, dropped in the
+pearl, and with a few touches covered over the aperture once more. It
+was an admirable hiding-place. No one could possibly find it. But Beppo
+was condemned to a year's imprisonment, and in the meanwhile his six
+busts were scattered over London. He could not tell which contained his
+treasure. Only by breaking them could he see. Even shaking would tell
+him nothing, for as the plaster was wet it was probable that the pearl
+would adhere to it--as, in fact, it has done. Beppo did not despair, and
+he conducted his search with considerable ingenuity and perseverance.
+Through a cousin who works with Gelder he found out the retail firms who
+had bought the busts. He managed to find employment with Morse Hudson,
+and in that way tracked down three of them. The pearl was not there.
+Then, with the help of some Italian EMPLOYEE, he succeeded in finding out
+where the other three busts had gone. The first was at Harker's. There
+he was dogged by his confederate, who held Beppo responsible for the
+loss of the pearl, and he stabbed him in the scuffle which followed.”
+
+“If he was his confederate why should he carry his photograph?” I asked.
+
+“As a means of tracing him if he wished to inquire about him from any
+third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after the murder
+I calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his
+movements. He would fear that the police would read his secret, and so
+he hastened on before they should get ahead of him. Of course, I could
+not say that he had not found the pearl in Harker's bust. I had not even
+concluded for certain that it was the pearl; but it was evident to me
+that he was looking for something, since he carried the bust past
+the other houses in order to break it in the garden which had a lamp
+overlooking it. Since Harker's bust was one in three the chances were
+exactly as I told you, two to one against the pearl being inside it.
+There remained two busts, and it was obvious that he would go for the
+London one first. I warned the inmates of the house, so as to avoid
+a second tragedy, and we went down with the happiest results. By that
+time, of course, I knew for certain that it was the Borgia pearl that we
+were after. The name of the murdered man linked the one event with the
+other. There only remained a single bust--the Reading one--and the pearl
+must be there. I bought it in your presence from the owner--and there it
+lies.”
+
+We sat in silence for a moment.
+
+“Well,” said Lestrade, “I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr.
+Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than
+that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very
+proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from
+the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to
+shake you by the hand.”
+
+“Thank you!” said Holmes. “Thank you!” and as he turned away it seemed
+to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I
+had ever seen him. A moment later he was the cold and practical thinker
+once more. “Put the pearl in the safe, Watson,” said he, “and get out
+the papers of the Conk-Singleton forgery case. Good-bye, Lestrade. If
+any little problem comes your way I shall be happy, if I can, to give
+you a hint or two as to its solution.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                       THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                       Vol. 27  JUNE, 1904
+                 THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                      By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+IX.--The Adventure of the Three Students.
+
+
+IT was in the year '95 that a combination of events, into which I need
+not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in
+one of our great University towns, and it was during this time that the
+small but instructive adventure which I am about to relate befell us. It
+will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly
+identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive.
+So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion
+the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to
+illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable.
+I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve
+to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the
+people concerned.
+
+We were residing at the time in furnished lodgings close to a library
+where Sherlock Holmes was pursuing some laborious researches in early
+English charters--researches which led to results so striking that they
+may be the subject of one of my future narratives. Here it was that one
+evening we received a visit from an acquaintance, Mr. Hilton Soames,
+tutor and lecturer at the College of St. Luke's. Mr. Soames was a tall,
+spare man, of a nervous and excitable temperament. I had always known
+him to be restless in his manner, but on this particular occasion he was
+in such a state of uncontrollable agitation that it was clear something
+very unusual had occurred.
+
+“I trust, Mr. Holmes, that you can spare me a few hours of your valuable
+time. We have had a very painful incident at St. Luke's, and really, but
+for the happy chance of your being in the town, I should have been at a
+loss what to do.”
+
+“I am very busy just now, and I desire no distractions,” my friend
+answered. “I should much prefer that you called in the aid of the
+police.”
+
+“No, no, my dear sir; such a course is utterly impossible. When once the
+law is evoked it cannot be stayed again, and this is just one of those
+cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most essential to
+avoid scandal. Your discretion is as well known as your powers, and you
+are the one man in the world who can help me. I beg you, Mr. Holmes, to
+do what you can.”
+
+My friend's temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the
+congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his
+chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man. He
+shrugged his shoulders in ungracious acquiescence, while our visitor
+in hurried words and with much excitable gesticulation poured forth his
+story.
+
+“I must explain to you, Mr. Holmes, that to-morrow is the first day
+of the examination for the Fortescue Scholarship. I am one of the
+examiners. My subject is Greek, and the first of the papers consists of
+a large passage of Greek translation which the candidate has not seen.
+This passage is printed on the examination paper, and it would naturally
+be an immense advantage if the candidate could prepare it in advance.
+For this reason great care is taken to keep the paper secret.
+
+“To-day about three o'clock the proofs of this paper arrived from the
+printers. The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides. I had
+to read it over carefully, as the text must be absolutely correct. At
+four-thirty my task was not yet completed. I had, however, promised to
+take tea in a friend's rooms, so I left the proof upon my desk. I was
+absent rather more than an hour.
+
+“You are aware, Mr. Holmes, that our college doors are double--a green
+baize one within and a heavy oak one without. As I approached my outer
+door I was amazed to see a key in it. For an instant I imagined that I
+had left my own there, but on feeling in my pocket I found that it was
+all right. The only duplicate which existed, so far as I knew, was that
+which belonged to my servant, Bannister, a man who has looked after my
+room for ten years, and whose honesty is absolutely above suspicion. I
+found that the key was indeed his, that he had entered my room to know
+if I wanted tea, and that he had very carelessly left the key in the
+door when he came out. His visit to my room must have been within a very
+few minutes of my leaving it. His forgetfulness about the key would
+have mattered little upon any other occasion, but on this one day it has
+produced the most deplorable consequences.
+
+“The moment I looked at my table I was aware that someone had rummaged
+among my papers. The proof was in three long slips. I had left them all
+together. Now, I found that one of them was lying on the floor, one was
+on the side table near the window, and the third was where I had left
+it.”
+
+Holmes stirred for the first time.
+
+“The first page on the floor, the second in the window, the third where
+you left it,” said he.
+
+“Exactly, Mr. Holmes. You amaze me. How could you possibly know that?”
+
+“Pray continue your very interesting statement.”
+
+“For an instant I imagined that Bannister had taken the unpardonable
+liberty of examining my papers. He denied it, however, with the utmost
+earnestness, and I am convinced that he was speaking the truth. The
+alternative was that someone passing had observed the key in the door,
+had known that I was out, and had entered to look at the papers. A large
+sum of money is at stake, for the scholarship is a very valuable one,
+and an unscrupulous man might very well run a risk in order to gain an
+advantage over his fellows.
+
+“Bannister was very much upset by the incident. He had nearly fainted
+when we found that the papers had undoubtedly been tampered with. I gave
+him a little brandy and left him collapsed in a chair while I made a
+most careful examination of the room. I soon saw that the intruder had
+left other traces of his presence besides the rumpled papers. On the
+table in the window were several shreds from a pencil which had been
+sharpened. A broken tip of lead was lying there also. Evidently the
+rascal had copied the paper in a great hurry, had broken his pencil, and
+had been compelled to put a fresh point to it.”
+
+“Excellent!” said Holmes, who was recovering his good-humour as his
+attention became more engrossed by the case. “Fortune has been your
+friend.”
+
+“This was not all. I have a new writing-table with a fine surface of red
+leather. I am prepared to swear, and so is Bannister, that it was
+smooth and unstained. Now I found a clean cut in it about three inches
+long--not a mere scratch, but a positive cut. Not only this, but on
+the table I found a small ball of black dough, or clay, with specks
+of something which looks like sawdust in it. I am convinced that
+these marks were left by the man who rifled the papers. There were no
+footmarks and no other evidence as to his identity. I was at my wits'
+ends, when suddenly the happy thought occurred to me that you were in
+the town, and I came straight round to put the matter into your hands.
+Do help me, Mr. Holmes! You see my dilemma. Either I must find the
+man or else the examination must be postponed until fresh papers are
+prepared, and since this cannot be done without explanation there
+will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a cloud not only on the
+college, but on the University. Above all things I desire to settle the
+matter quietly and discreetly.”
+
+“I shall be happy to look into it and to give you such advice as I
+can,” said Holmes, rising and putting on his overcoat. “The case is not
+entirely devoid of interest. Had anyone visited you in your room after
+the papers came to you?”
+
+“Yes; young Daulat Ras, an Indian student who lives on the same stair,
+came in to ask me some particulars about the examination.”
+
+“For which he was entered?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the papers were on your table?”
+
+“To the best of my belief they were rolled up.”
+
+“But might be recognised as proofs?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“No one else in your room?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did anyone know that these proofs would be there?”
+
+“No one save the printer.”
+
+“Did this man Bannister know?”
+
+“No, certainly not. No one knew.”
+
+“Where is Bannister now?”
+
+“He was very ill, poor fellow. I left him collapsed in the chair. I was
+in such a hurry to come to you.”
+
+“You left your door open?”
+
+“I locked up the papers first.”
+
+“Then it amounts to this, Mr. Soames, that unless the Indian student
+recognised the roll as being proofs, the man who tampered with them came
+upon them accidentally without knowing that they were there.”
+
+“So it seems to me.”
+
+Holmes gave an enigmatic smile.
+
+“Well,” said he, “let us go round. Not one of your cases,
+Watson--mental, not physical. All right; come if you want to. Now, Mr.
+Soames--at your disposal!”
+
+
+The sitting-room of our client opened by a long, low, latticed window on
+to the ancient lichen-tinted court of the old college. A Gothic arched
+door led to a worn stone staircase. On the ground floor was the tutor's
+room. Above were three students, one on each story. It was already
+twilight when we reached the scene of our problem. Holmes halted and
+looked earnestly at the window. Then he approached it, and, standing on
+tiptoe with his neck craned, he looked into the room.
+
+“He must have entered through the door. There is no opening except the
+one pane,” said our learned guide.
+
+“Dear me!” said Holmes, and he smiled in a singular way as he glanced at
+our companion. “Well, if there is nothing to be learned here we had best
+go inside.”
+
+The lecturer unlocked the outer door and ushered us into his room. We
+stood at the entrance while Holmes made an examination of the carpet.
+
+“I am afraid there are no signs here,” said he. “One could hardly hope
+for any upon so dry a day. Your servant seems to have quite recovered.
+You left him in a chair, you say; which chair?”
+
+“By the window there.”
+
+“I see. Near this little table. You can come in now. I have finished
+with the carpet. Let us take the little table first. Of course, what has
+happened is very clear. The man entered and took the papers, sheet by
+sheet, from the central table. He carried them over to the window table,
+because from there he could see if you came across the courtyard, and so
+could effect an escape.”
+
+“As a matter of fact he could not,” said Soames, “for I entered by the
+side door.”
+
+“Ah, that's good! Well, anyhow, that was in his mind. Let me see the
+three strips. No finger impressions--no! Well, he carried over this one
+first and he copied it. How long would it take him to do that, using
+every possible contraction? A quarter of an hour, not less. Then he
+tossed it down and seized the next. He was in the midst of that when
+your return caused him to make a very hurried retreat--VERY hurried,
+since he had not time to replace the papers which would tell you that he
+had been there. You were not aware of any hurrying feet on the stair as
+you entered the outer door?”
+
+“No, I can't say I was.”
+
+“Well, he wrote so furiously that he broke his pencil, and had, as you
+observe, to sharpen it again. This is of interest, Watson. The pencil
+was not an ordinary one. It was above the usual size, with a soft lead;
+the outer colour was dark blue, the maker's name was printed in silver
+lettering, and the piece remaining is only about an inch and a half
+long. Look for such a pencil, Mr. Soames, and you have got your man.
+When I add that he possesses a large and very blunt knife, you have an
+additional aid.”
+
+Mr. Soames was somewhat overwhelmed by this flood of information. “I can
+follow the other points,” said he, “but really, in this matter of the
+length----”
+
+Holmes held out a small chip with the letters NN and a space of clear
+wood after them.
+
+“You see?”
+
+“No, I fear that even now----”
+
+“Watson, I have always done you an injustice. There are others. What
+could this NN be? It is at the end of a word. You are aware that Johann
+Faber is the most common maker's name. Is it not clear that there is
+just as much of the pencil left as usually follows the Johann?” He held
+the small table sideways to the electric light. “I was hoping that if
+the paper on which he wrote was thin some trace of it might come through
+upon this polished surface. No, I see nothing. I don't think there is
+anything more to be learned here. Now for the central table. This small
+pellet is, I presume, the black, doughy mass you spoke of. Roughly
+pyramidal in shape and hollowed out, I perceive. As you say, there
+appear to be grains of sawdust in it. Dear me, this is very interesting.
+And the cut--a positive tear, I see. It began with a thin scratch and
+ended in a jagged hole. I am much indebted to you for directing my
+attention to this case, Mr. Soames. Where does that door lead to?”
+
+“To my bedroom.”
+
+“Have you been in it since your adventure?”
+
+“No; I came straight away for you.”
+
+“I should like to have a glance round. What a charming, old-fashioned
+room! Perhaps you will kindly wait a minute until I have examined the
+floor. No, I see nothing. What about this curtain? You hang your clothes
+behind it. If anyone were forced to conceal himself in this room he must
+do it there, since the bed is too low and the wardrobe too shallow. No
+one there, I suppose?”
+
+As Holmes drew the curtain I was aware, from some little rigidity and
+alertness of his attitude, that he was prepared for an emergency. As
+a matter of fact the drawn curtain disclosed nothing but three or four
+suits of clothes hanging from a line of pegs. Holmes turned away and
+stooped suddenly to the floor.
+
+“Halloa! What's this?” said he.
+
+It was a small pyramid of black, putty-like stuff, exactly like the one
+upon the table of the study. Holmes held it out on his open palm in the
+glare of the electric light.
+
+“Your visitor seems to have left traces in your bedroom as well as in
+your sitting-room, Mr. Soames.”
+
+“What could he have wanted there?”
+
+“I think it is clear enough. You came back by an unexpected way, and so
+he had no warning until you were at the very door. What could he do?
+He caught up everything which would betray him and he rushed into your
+bedroom to conceal himself.”
+
+“Good gracious, Mr. Holmes, do you mean to tell me that all the time I
+was talking to Bannister in this room we had the man prisoner if we had
+only known it?”
+
+“So I read it.”
+
+“Surely there is another alternative, Mr. Holmes. I don't know whether
+you observed my bedroom window?”
+
+“Lattice-paned, lead framework, three separate windows, one swinging on
+hinge and large enough to admit a man.”
+
+“Exactly. And it looks out on an angle of the courtyard so as to be
+partly invisible. The man might have effected his entrance there, left
+traces as he passed through the bedroom, and, finally, finding the door
+open have escaped that way.”
+
+Holmes shook his head impatiently.
+
+“Let us be practical,” said he. “I understand you to say that there are
+three students who use this stair and are in the habit of passing your
+door?”
+
+“Yes, there are.”
+
+“And they are all in for this examination?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have you any reason to suspect any one of them more than the others?”
+
+Soames hesitated.
+
+“It is a very delicate question,” said he. “One hardly likes to throw
+suspicion where there are no proofs.”
+
+“Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.”
+
+“I will tell you, then, in a few words the character of the three men
+who inhabit these rooms. The lower of the three is Gilchrist, a fine
+scholar and athlete; plays in the Rugby team and the cricket team for
+the college, and got his Blue for the hurdles and the long jump. He is
+a fine, manly fellow. His father was the notorious Sir Jabez Gilchrist,
+who ruined himself on the turf. My scholar has been left very poor, but
+he is hard-working and industrious. He will do well.
+
+“The second floor is inhabited by Daulat Ras, the Indian. He is a quiet,
+inscrutable fellow, as most of those Indians are. He is well up in his
+work, though his Greek is his weak subject. He is steady and methodical.
+
+“The top floor belongs to Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow when
+he chooses to work--one of the brightest intellects of the University,
+but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled
+over a card scandal in his first year. He has been idling all this term,
+and he must look forward with dread to the examination.”
+
+“Then it is he whom you suspect?”
+
+“I dare not go so far as that. But of the three he is perhaps the least
+unlikely.”
+
+“Exactly. Now, Mr. Soames, let us have a look at your servant,
+Bannister.”
+
+He was a little, white-faced, clean-shaven, grizzly-haired fellow of
+fifty. He was still suffering from this sudden disturbance of the quiet
+routine of his life. His plump face was twitching with his nervousness,
+and his fingers could not keep still.
+
+“We are investigating this unhappy business, Bannister,” said his
+master.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“I understand,” said Holmes, “that you left your key in the door?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Was it not very extraordinary that you should do this on the very day
+when there were these papers inside?”
+
+“It was most unfortunate, sir. But I have occasionally done the same
+thing at other times.”
+
+“When did you enter the room?”
+
+“It was about half-past four. That is Mr. Soames's tea time.”
+
+“How long did you stay?”
+
+“When I saw that he was absent I withdrew at once.”
+
+“Did you look at these papers on the table?”
+
+“No, sir; certainly not.”
+
+“How came you to leave the key in the door?”
+
+“I had the tea-tray in my hand. I thought I would come back for the key.
+Then I forgot.”
+
+“Has the outer door a spring lock?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Then it was open all the time?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Anyone in the room could get out?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“When Mr. Soames returned and called for you, you were very much
+disturbed?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Such a thing has never happened during the many years that I
+have been here. I nearly fainted, sir.”
+
+“So I understand. Where were you when you began to feel bad?”
+
+“Where was I, sir? Why, here, near the door.”
+
+“That is singular, because you sat down in that chair over yonder near
+the corner. Why did you pass these other chairs?”
+
+“I don't know, sir. It didn't matter to me where I sat.”
+
+“I really don't think he knew much about it, Mr. Holmes. He was looking
+very bad--quite ghastly.”
+
+“You stayed here when your master left?”
+
+“Only for a minute or so. Then I locked the door and went to my room.”
+
+“Whom do you suspect?”
+
+“Oh, I would not venture to say, sir. I don't believe there is any
+gentleman in this University who is capable of profiting by such an
+action. No, sir, I'll not believe it.”
+
+“Thank you; that will do,” said Holmes. “Oh, one more word. You have not
+mentioned to any of the three gentlemen whom you attend that anything is
+amiss?”
+
+“No, sir; not a word.”
+
+“You haven't seen any of them?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Very good. Now, Mr. Soames, we will take a walk in the quadrangle, if
+you please.”
+
+Three yellow squares of light shone above us in the gathering gloom.
+
+“Your three birds are all in their nests,” said Holmes, looking up.
+“Halloa! What's that? One of them seems restless enough.”
+
+It was the Indian, whose dark silhouette appeared suddenly upon his
+blind. He was pacing swiftly up and down his room.
+
+“I should like to have a peep at each of them,” said Holmes. “Is it
+possible?”
+
+“No difficulty in the world,” Soames answered. “This set of rooms is
+quite the oldest in the college, and it is not unusual for visitors to
+go over them. Come along, and I will personally conduct you.”
+
+“No names, please!” said Holmes, as we knocked at Gilchrist's door. A
+tall, flaxen-haired, slim young fellow opened it, and made us welcome
+when he understood our errand. There were some really curious pieces of
+mediaeval domestic architecture within. Holmes was so charmed with
+one of them that he insisted on drawing it on his note-book, broke his
+pencil, had to borrow one from our host, and finally borrowed a knife to
+sharpen his own. The same curious accident happened to him in the rooms
+of the Indian--a silent, little, hook-nosed fellow, who eyed us askance
+and was obviously glad when Holmes's architectural studies had come to
+an end. I could not see that in either case Holmes had come upon the
+clue for which he was searching. Only at the third did our visit prove
+abortive. The outer door would not open to our knock, and nothing more
+substantial than a torrent of bad language came from behind it. “I
+don't care who you are. You can go to blazes!” roared the angry voice.
+“To-morrow's the exam, and I won't be drawn by anyone.”
+
+“A rude fellow,” said our guide, flushing with anger as we withdrew
+down the stair. “Of course, he did not realize that it was I who was
+knocking, but none the less his conduct was very uncourteous, and,
+indeed, under the circumstances rather suspicious.”
+
+Holmes's response was a curious one.
+
+“Can you tell me his exact height?” he asked.
+
+“Really, Mr. Holmes, I cannot undertake to say. He is taller than the
+Indian, not so tall as Gilchrist. I suppose five foot six would be about
+it.”
+
+“That is very important,” said Holmes. “And now, Mr. Soames, I wish you
+good-night.”
+
+Our guide cried aloud in his astonishment and dismay. “Good gracious,
+Mr. Holmes, you are surely not going to leave me in this abrupt fashion!
+You don't seem to realize the position. To-morrow is the examination. I
+must take some definite action to-night. I cannot allow the examination
+to be held if one of the papers has been tampered with. The situation
+must be faced.”
+
+“You must leave it as it is. I shall drop round early to-morrow morning
+and chat the matter over. It is possible that I may be in a position
+then to indicate some course of action. Meanwhile you change
+nothing--nothing at all.”
+
+“Very good, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“You can be perfectly easy in your mind. We shall certainly find some
+way out of your difficulties. I will take the black clay with me, also
+the pencil cuttings. Good-bye.”
+
+When we were out in the darkness of the quadrangle we again looked up at
+the windows. The Indian still paced his room. The others were invisible.
+
+“Well, Watson, what do you think of it?” Holmes asked, as we came out
+into the main street. “Quite a little parlour game--sort of three-card
+trick, is it not? There are your three men. It must be one of them. You
+take your choice. Which is yours?”
+
+“The foul-mouthed fellow at the top. He is the one with the worst
+record. And yet that Indian was a sly fellow also. Why should he be
+pacing his room all the time?”
+
+“There is nothing in that. Many men do it when they are trying to learn
+anything by heart.”
+
+“He looked at us in a queer way.”
+
+“So would you if a flock of strangers came in on you when you were
+preparing for an examination next day, and every moment was of
+value. No, I see nothing in that. Pencils, too, and knives--all was
+satisfactory. But that fellow DOES puzzle me.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Why, Bannister, the servant. What's his game in the matter?”
+
+“He impressed me as being a perfectly honest man.”
+
+“So he did me. That's the puzzling part. Why should a perfectly
+honest man--well, well, here's a large stationer's. We shall begin our
+researches here.”
+
+There were only four stationers of any consequence in the town, and at
+each Holmes produced his pencil chips and bid high for a duplicate. All
+were agreed that one could be ordered, but that it was not a usual size
+of pencil and that it was seldom kept in stock. My friend did not
+appear to be depressed by his failure, but shrugged his shoulders in
+half-humorous resignation.
+
+“No good, my dear Watson. This, the best and only final clue, has run
+to nothing. But, indeed, I have little doubt that we can build up a
+sufficient case without it. By Jove! my dear fellow, it is nearly nine,
+and the landlady babbled of green peas at seven-thirty. What with your
+eternal tobacco, Watson, and your irregularity at meals, I expect that
+you will get notice to quit and that I shall share your downfall--not,
+however, before we have solved the problem of the nervous tutor, the
+careless servant, and the three enterprising students.”
+
+
+Holmes made no further allusion to the matter that day, though he sat
+lost in thought for a long time after our belated dinner. At eight in
+the morning he came into my room just as I finished my toilet.
+
+“Well, Watson,” said he, “it is time we went down to St. Luke's. Can you
+do without breakfast?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Soames will be in a dreadful fidget until we are able to tell him
+something positive.”
+
+“Have you anything positive to tell him?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“You have formed a conclusion?”
+
+“Yes, my dear Watson; I have solved the mystery.”
+
+“But what fresh evidence could you have got?”
+
+“Aha! It is not for nothing that I have turned myself out of bed at the
+untimely hour of six. I have put in two hours' hard work and covered at
+least five miles, with something to show for it. Look at that!”
+
+He held out his hand. On the palm were three little pyramids of black,
+doughy clay.
+
+“Why, Holmes, you had only two yesterday!”
+
+“And one more this morning. It is a fair argument that wherever No. 3
+came from is also the source of Nos. 1 and 2. Eh, Watson? Well, come
+along and put friend Soames out of his pain.”
+
+
+The unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation
+when we found him in his chambers. In a few hours the examination would
+commence, and he was still in the dilemma between making the facts
+public and allowing the culprit to compete for the valuable scholarship.
+He could hardly stand still, so great was his mental agitation, and he
+ran towards Holmes with two eager hands outstretched.
+
+“Thank Heaven that you have come! I feared that you had given it up in
+despair. What am I to do? Shall the examination proceed?”
+
+“Yes; let it proceed by all means.”
+
+“But this rascal----?”
+
+“He shall not compete.”
+
+“You know him?”
+
+“I think so. If this matter is not to become public we must give
+ourselves certain powers, and resolve ourselves into a small private
+court-martial. You there, if you please, Soames! Watson, you here! I'll
+take the arm-chair in the middle. I think that we are now sufficiently
+imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast. Kindly ring the bell!”
+
+Bannister entered, and shrunk back in evident surprise and fear at our
+judicial appearance.
+
+“You will kindly close the door,” said Holmes. “Now, Bannister, will you
+please tell us the truth about yesterday's incident?”
+
+The man turned white to the roots of his hair.
+
+“I have told you everything, sir.”
+
+“Nothing to add?”
+
+“Nothing at all, sir.”
+
+“Well, then, I must make some suggestions to you. When you sat down
+on that chair yesterday, did you do so in order to conceal some object
+which would have shown who had been in the room?”
+
+Bannister's face was ghastly.
+
+“No, sir; certainly not.”
+
+“It is only a suggestion,” said Holmes, suavely. “I frankly admit that
+I am unable to prove it. But it seems probable enough, since the moment
+that Mr. Soames's back was turned you released the man who was hiding in
+that bedroom.”
+
+Bannister licked his dry lips.
+
+“There was no man, sir.”
+
+“Ah, that's a pity, Bannister. Up to now you may have spoken the truth,
+but now I know that you have lied.”
+
+The man's face set in sullen defiance.
+
+“There was no man, sir.”
+
+“Come, come, Bannister!”
+
+“No, sir; there was no one.”
+
+“In that case you can give us no further information. Would you please
+remain in the room? Stand over there near the bedroom door. Now, Soames,
+I am going to ask you to have the great kindness to go up to the room of
+young Gilchrist, and to ask him to step down into yours.”
+
+An instant later the tutor returned, bringing with him the student. He
+was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy step
+and a pleasant, open face. His troubled blue eyes glanced at each of us,
+and finally rested with an expression of blank dismay upon Bannister in
+the farther corner.
+
+“Just close the door,” said Holmes. “Now, Mr. Gilchrist, we are all
+quite alone here, and no one need ever know one word of what passes
+between us. We can be perfectly frank with each other. We want to know,
+Mr. Gilchrist, how you, an honourable man, ever came to commit such an
+action as that of yesterday?”
+
+The unfortunate young man staggered back and cast a look full of horror
+and reproach at Bannister.
+
+“No, no, Mr. Gilchrist, sir; I never said a word--never one word!” cried
+the servant.
+
+“No, but you have now,” said Holmes. “Now, sir, you must see that after
+Bannister's words your position is hopeless, and that your only chance
+lies in a frank confession.”
+
+For a moment Gilchrist, with upraised hand, tried to control his
+writhing features. The next he had thrown himself on his knees beside
+the table and, burying his face in his hands, he had burst into a storm
+of passionate sobbing.
+
+“Come, come,” said Holmes, kindly; “it is human to err, and at least
+no one can accuse you of being a callous criminal. Perhaps it would be
+easier for you if I were to tell Mr. Soames what occurred, and you can
+check me where I am wrong. Shall I do so? Well, well, don't trouble to
+answer. Listen, and see that I do you no injustice.
+
+“From the moment, Mr. Soames, that you said to me that no one, not even
+Bannister, could have told that the papers were in your room, the case
+began to take a definite shape in my mind. The printer one could, of
+course, dismiss. He could examine the papers in his own office. The
+Indian I also thought nothing of. If the proofs were in a roll he
+could not possibly know what they were. On the other hand, it seemed an
+unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the room,
+and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the table. I
+dismissed that. The man who entered knew that the papers were there. How
+did he know?
+
+“When I approached your room I examined the window. You amused me by
+supposing that I was contemplating the possibility of someone having
+in broad daylight, under the eyes of all these opposite rooms, forced
+himself through it. Such an idea was absurd. I was measuring how tall
+a man would need to be in order to see as he passed what papers were on
+the central table. I am six feet high, and I could do it with an effort.
+No one less than that would have a chance. Already you see I had reason
+to think that if one of your three students was a man of unusual height
+he was the most worth watching of the three.
+
+“I entered and I took you into my confidence as to the suggestions of
+the side table. Of the centre table I could make nothing, until in
+your description of Gilchrist you mentioned that he was a long-distance
+jumper. Then the whole thing came to me in an instant, and I only needed
+certain corroborative proofs, which I speedily obtained.
+
+“What happened was this. This young fellow had employed his afternoon at
+the athletic grounds, where he had been practising the jump. He returned
+carrying his jumping shoes, which are provided, as you are aware, with
+several sharp spikes. As he passed your window he saw, by means of his
+great height, these proofs upon your table, and conjectured what they
+were. No harm would have been done had it not been that as he passed
+your door he perceived the key which had been left by the carelessness
+of your servant. A sudden impulse came over him to enter and see if they
+were indeed the proofs. It was not a dangerous exploit, for he could
+always pretend that he had simply looked in to ask a question.
+
+“Well, when he saw that they were indeed the proofs, it was then that
+he yielded to temptation. He put his shoes on the table. What was it you
+put on that chair near the window?”
+
+“Gloves,” said the young man.
+
+Holmes looked triumphantly at Bannister. “He put his gloves on the
+chair, and he took the proofs, sheet by sheet, to copy them. He thought
+the tutor must return by the main gate, and that he would see him. As we
+know, he came back by the side gate. Suddenly he heard him at the very
+door. There was no possible escape. He forgot his gloves, but he caught
+up his shoes and darted into the bedroom. You observe that the scratch
+on that table is slight at one side, but deepens in the direction of the
+bedroom door. That in itself is enough to show us that the shoe had been
+drawn in that direction and that the culprit had taken refuge there. The
+earth round the spike had been left on the table, and a second sample
+was loosened and fell in the bedroom. I may add that I walked out to the
+athletic grounds this morning, saw that tenacious black clay is used in
+the jumping-pit, and carried away a specimen of it, together with
+some of the fine tan or sawdust which is strewn over it to prevent the
+athlete from slipping. Have I told the truth, Mr. Gilchrist?”
+
+The student had drawn himself erect.
+
+“Yes, sir, it is true,” said he.
+
+“Good heavens, have you nothing to add?” cried Soames.
+
+“Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has
+bewildered me. I have a letter here, Mr. Soames, which I wrote to you
+early this morning in the middle of a restless night. It was before I
+knew that my sin had found me out. Here it is, sir. You will see that I
+have said, 'I have determined not to go in for the examination. I have
+been offered a commission in the Rhodesian Police, and I am going out to
+South Africa at once.”'
+
+“I am indeed pleased to hear that you did not intend to profit by your
+unfair advantage,” said Soames. “But why did you change your purpose?”
+
+Gilchrist pointed to Bannister.
+
+“There is the man who set me in the right path,” said he.
+
+“Come now, Bannister,” said Holmes. “It will be clear to you from what
+I have said that only you could have let this young man out, since you
+were left in the room, and must have locked the door when you went out.
+As to his escaping by that window, it was incredible. Can you not clear
+up the last point in this mystery, and tell us the reasons for your
+action?”
+
+“It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known; but with all your
+cleverness it was impossible that you could know. Time was, sir, when
+I was butler to old Sir Jabez Gilchrist, this young gentleman's father.
+When he was ruined I came to the college as servant, but I never forgot
+my old employer because he was down in the world. I watched his son all
+I could for the sake of the old days. Well, sir, when I came into this
+room yesterday when the alarm was given, the very first thing I saw was
+Mr. Gilchrist's tan gloves a-lying in that chair. I knew those gloves
+well, and I understood their message. If Mr. Soames saw them the game
+was up. I flopped down into that chair, and nothing would budge me until
+Mr. Soames he went for you. Then out came my poor young master, whom I
+had dandled on my knee, and confessed it all to me. Wasn't it natural,
+sir, that I should save him, and wasn't it natural also that I should
+try to speak to him as his dead father would have done, and make him
+understand that he could not profit by such a deed? Could you blame me,
+sir?”
+
+“No, indeed,” said Holmes, heartily, springing to his feet. “Well,
+Soames, I think we have cleared your little problem up, and our
+breakfast awaits us at home. Come, Watson! As to you, sir, I trust that
+a bright future awaits you in Rhodesia. For once you have fallen low.
+Let us see in the future how high you can rise.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                     Vol. 28  JULY, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+
+
+X.--The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.
+
+
+WHEN I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our
+work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me,
+out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most
+interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a
+display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. As I
+turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red
+leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I find an
+account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient
+British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also
+within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret, the
+Boulevard assassin--an exploit which won for Holmes an autograph letter
+of thanks from the French President and the Order of the Legion of
+Honour. Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on the whole I am
+of opinion that none of them unite so many singular points of interest
+as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes not only the
+lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also those subsequent
+developments which threw so curious a light upon the causes of the
+crime.
+
+It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November. Holmes
+and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with a
+powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon
+a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside the
+wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the
+windows. It was strange there in the very depths of the town, with ten
+miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of
+Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London
+was no more than the molehills that dot the fields. I walked to the
+window and looked out on the deserted street. The occasional lamps
+gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining pavement. A single cab
+was splashing its way from the Oxford Street end.
+
+“Well, Watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night,” said
+Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest. “I've done
+enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes. So far as I can
+make out it is nothing more exciting than an Abbey's accounts dating
+from the second half of the fifteenth century. Halloa! halloa! halloa!
+What's this?”
+
+Amid the droning of the wind there had come the stamping of a horse's
+hoofs and the long grind of a wheel as it rasped against the kerb. The
+cab which I had seen had pulled up at our door.
+
+“What can he want?” I ejaculated, as a man stepped out of it.
+
+“Want! He wants us. And we, my poor Watson, want overcoats and cravats
+and goloshes, and every aid that man ever invented to fight the weather.
+Wait a bit, though! There's the cab off again! There's hope yet. He'd
+have kept it if he had wanted us to come. Run down, my dear fellow, and
+open the door, for all virtuous folk have been long in bed.”
+
+When the light of the hall lamp fell upon our midnight visitor I had no
+difficulty in recognising him. It was young Stanley Hopkins, a promising
+detective, in whose career Holmes had several times shown a very
+practical interest.
+
+“Is he in?” he asked, eagerly.
+
+“Come up, my dear sir,” said Holmes's voice from above. “I hope you have
+no designs upon us on such a night as this.”
+
+
+The detective mounted the stairs, and our lamp gleamed upon his shining
+waterproof. I helped him out of it while Holmes knocked a blaze out of
+the logs in the grate.
+
+“Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes,” said he. “Here's
+a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a
+lemon which is good medicine on a night like this. It must be something
+important which has brought you out in such a gale.”
+
+“It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise you.
+Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the latest editions?”
+
+“I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day.”
+
+“Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you have not
+missed anything. I haven't let the grass grow under my feet. It's down
+in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three from the railway line. I was
+wired for at three-fifteen, reached Yoxley Old Place at five, conducted
+my investigation, was back at Charing Cross by the last train, and
+straight to you by cab.”
+
+“Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about your case?”
+
+“It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it. So far as I can
+see it is just as tangled a business as ever I handled, and yet at first
+it seemed so simple that one couldn't go wrong. There's no motive, Mr.
+Holmes. That's what bothers me--I can't put my hand on a motive. Here's
+a man dead--there's no denying that--but, so far as I can see, no reason
+on earth why anyone should wish him harm.”
+
+Holmes lit his cigar and leaned back in his chair.
+
+“Let us hear about it,” said he.
+
+“I've got my facts pretty clear,” said Stanley Hopkins. “All I want now
+is to know what they all mean. The story, so far as I can make it out,
+is like this. Some years ago this country house, Yoxley Old Place, was
+taken by an elderly man, who gave the name of Professor Coram. He was
+an invalid, keeping his bed half the time, and the other half hobbling
+round the house with a stick or being pushed about the grounds by the
+gardener in a bath-chair. He was well liked by the few neighbours who
+called upon him, and he has the reputation down there of being a very
+learned man. His household used to consist of an elderly housekeeper,
+Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Tarlton. These have both been with him
+since his arrival, and they seem to be women of excellent character. The
+Professor is writing a learned book, and he found it necessary about
+a year ago to engage a secretary. The first two that he tried were
+not successes; but the third, Mr. Willoughby Smith, a very young man
+straight from the University, seems to have been just what his employer
+wanted. His work consisted in writing all the morning to the Professor's
+dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references and
+passages which bore upon the next day's work. This Willoughby Smith has
+nothing against him either as a boy at Uppingham or as a young man at
+Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the first he was a
+decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot in him at all.
+And yet this is the lad who has met his death this morning in the
+Professor's study under circumstances which can point only to murder.”
+
+The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and I drew closer to
+the fire while the young inspector slowly and point by point developed
+his singular narrative.
+
+“If you were to search all England,” said he, “I don't suppose you could
+find a household more self-contained or free from outside influences.
+Whole weeks would pass and not one of them go past the garden gate. The
+Professor was buried in his work and existed for nothing else. Young
+Smith knew nobody in the neighbourhood, and lived very much as his
+employer did. The two women had nothing to take them from the
+house. Mortimer the gardener, who wheels the bath-chair, is an Army
+pensioner--an old Crimean man of excellent character. He does not live
+in the house, but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end of the
+garden. Those are the only people that you would find within the grounds
+of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the gate of the garden is a
+hundred yards from the main London to Chatham road. It opens with a
+latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from walking in.
+
+“Now I will give you the evidence of Susan Tarlton, who is the only
+person who can say anything positive about the matter. It was in the
+forenoon, between eleven and twelve. She was engaged at the moment in
+hanging some curtains in the upstairs front bedroom. Professor Coram was
+still in bed, for when the weather is bad he seldom rises before midday.
+The housekeeper was busied with some work in the back of the
+house. Willoughby Smith had been in his bedroom, which he uses as a
+sitting-room; but the maid heard him at that moment pass along the
+passage and descend to the study immediately below her. She did not
+see him, but she says that she could not be mistaken in his quick, firm
+tread. She did not hear the study door close, but a minute or so later
+there was a dreadful cry in the room below. It was a wild, hoarse
+scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come either from a
+man or a woman. At the same instant there was a heavy thud, which shook
+the old house, and then all was silence. The maid stood petrified for a
+moment, and then, recovering her courage, she ran downstairs. The study
+door was shut, and she opened it. Inside young Mr. Willoughby Smith was
+stretched upon the floor. At first she could see no injury, but as she
+tried to raise him she saw that blood was pouring from the underside of
+his neck. It was pierced by a very small but very deep wound, which had
+divided the carotid artery. The instrument with which the injury had
+been inflicted lay upon the carpet beside him. It was one of those small
+sealing-wax knives to be found on old-fashioned writing-tables, with
+an ivory handle and a stiff blade. It was part of the fittings of the
+Professor's own desk.
+
+“At first the maid thought that young Smith was already dead, but on
+pouring some water from the carafe over his forehead he opened his eyes
+for an instant. 'The Professor,' he murmured--'it was she.' The maid is
+prepared to swear that those were the exact words. He tried desperately
+to say something else, and he held his right hand up in the air. Then he
+fell back dead.
+
+“In the meantime the housekeeper had also arrived upon the scene, but
+she was just too late to catch the young man's dying words. Leaving
+Susan with the body, she hurried to the Professor's room. He was sitting
+up in bed horribly agitated, for he had heard enough to convince him
+that something terrible had occurred. Mrs. Marker is prepared to swear
+that the Professor was still in his night-clothes, and, indeed, it was
+impossible for him to dress without the help of Mortimer, whose orders
+were to come at twelve o'clock. The Professor declares that he heard the
+distant cry, but that he knows nothing more. He can give no explanation
+of the young man's last words, 'The Professor--it was she,' but imagines
+that they were the outcome of delirium. He believes that Willoughby
+Smith had not an enemy in the world, and can give no reason for the
+crime. His first action was to send Mortimer the gardener for the local
+police. A little later the chief constable sent for me. Nothing was
+moved before I got there, and strict orders were given that no one
+should walk upon the paths leading to the house. It was a splendid
+chance of putting your theories into practice, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
+There was really nothing wanting.”
+
+“Except Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said my companion, with a somewhat bitter
+smile. “Well, let us hear about it. What sort of job did you make of
+it?”
+
+“I must ask you first, Mr. Holmes, to glance at this rough plan, which
+will give you a general idea of the position of the Professor's study
+and the various points of the case. It will help you in following my
+investigation.”
+
+He unfolded the rough chart, which I here reproduce, and he laid it
+across Holmes's knee. I rose, and, standing behind Holmes, I studied it
+over his shoulder.
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“It is very rough, of course, and it only deals with the points
+which seem to me to be essential. All the rest you will see later for
+yourself. Now, first of all, presuming that the assassin entered the
+house, how did he or she come in? Undoubtedly by the garden path and the
+back door, from which there is direct access to the study. Any other way
+would have been exceedingly complicated. The escape must have also been
+made along that line, for of the two other exits from the room one was
+blocked by Susan as she ran downstairs and the other leads straight to
+the Professor's bedroom. I therefore directed my attention at once
+to the garden path, which was saturated with recent rain and would
+certainly show any footmarks.
+
+“My examination showed me that I was dealing with a cautious and expert
+criminal. No footmarks were to be found on the path. There could be no
+question, however, that someone had passed along the grass border which
+lines the path, and that he had done so in order to avoid leaving a
+track. I could not find anything in the nature of a distinct impression,
+but the grass was trodden down and someone had undoubtedly passed. It
+could only have been the murderer, since neither the gardener nor anyone
+else had been there that morning and the rain had only begun during the
+night.”
+
+“One moment,” said Holmes. “Where does this path lead to?”
+
+“To the road.”
+
+“How long is it?”
+
+“A hundred yards or so.”
+
+“At the point where the path passes through the gate you could surely
+pick up the tracks?”
+
+“Unfortunately, the path was tiled at that point.”
+
+“Well, on the road itself?”
+
+“No; it was all trodden into mire.”
+
+“Tut-tut! Well, then, these tracks upon the grass, were they coming or
+going?”
+
+“It was impossible to say. There was never any outline.”
+
+“A large foot or a small?”
+
+“You could not distinguish.”
+
+Holmes gave an ejaculation of impatience.
+
+“It has been pouring rain and blowing a hurricane ever since,” said
+he. “It will be harder to read now than that palimpsest. Well, well, it
+can't be helped. What did you do, Hopkins, after you had made certain
+that you had made certain of nothing?”
+
+“I think I made certain of a good deal, Mr. Holmes. I knew that someone
+had entered the house cautiously from without. I next examined the
+corridor. It is lined with cocoanut matting and had taken no
+impression of any kind. This brought me into the study itself. It is a
+scantily-furnished room. The main article is a large writing-table with
+a fixed bureau. This bureau consists of a double column of drawers
+with a central small cupboard between them. The drawers were open, the
+cupboard locked. The drawers, it seems, were always open, and nothing
+of value was kept in them. There were some papers of importance in the
+cupboard, but there were no signs that this had been tampered with, and
+the Professor assures me that nothing was missing. It is certain that no
+robbery has been committed.
+
+“I come now to the body of the young man. It was found near the bureau,
+and just to the left of it, as marked upon that chart. The stab was
+on the right side of the neck and from behind forwards, so that it is
+almost impossible that it could have been self-inflicted.”
+
+“Unless he fell upon the knife,” said Holmes.
+
+“Exactly. The idea crossed my mind. But we found the knife some feet
+away from the body, so that seems impossible. Then, of course, there are
+the man's own dying words. And, finally, there was this very important
+piece of evidence which was found clasped in the dead man's right hand.”
+
+From his pocket Stanley Hopkins drew a small paper packet. He unfolded
+it and disclosed a golden pince-nez, with two broken ends of black
+silk cord dangling from the end of it. “Willoughby Smith had excellent
+sight,” he added. “There can be no question that this was snatched from
+the face or the person of the assassin.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes took the glasses into his hand and examined them with
+the utmost attention and interest. He held them on his nose, endeavoured
+to read through them, went to the window and stared up the street with
+them, looked at them most minutely in the full light of the lamp, and
+finally, with a chuckle, seated himself at the table and wrote a few
+lines upon a sheet of paper, which he tossed across to Stanley Hopkins.
+
+“That's the best I can do for you,” said he. “It may prove to be of some
+use.”
+
+The astonished detective read the note aloud. It ran as follows:--
+
+“Wanted, a woman of good address, attired like a lady. She has a
+remarkably thick nose, with eyes which are set close upon either side
+of it. She has a puckered forehead, a peering expression, and probably
+rounded shoulders. There are indications that she has had recourse to an
+optician at least twice during the last few months. As her glasses are
+of remarkable strength and as opticians are not very numerous, there
+should be no difficulty in tracing her.”
+
+Holmes smiled at the astonishment of Hopkins, which must have been
+reflected upon my features.
+
+“Surely my deductions are simplicity itself,” said he. “It would be
+difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field for inference
+than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as these. That
+they belong to a woman I infer from their delicacy, and also, of course,
+from the last words of the dying man. As to her being a person of
+refinement and well dressed, they are, as you perceive, handsomely
+mounted in solid gold, and it is inconceivable that anyone who wore such
+glasses could be slatternly in other respects. You will find that the
+clips are too wide for your nose, showing that the lady's nose was very
+broad at the base. This sort of nose is usually a short and coarse one,
+but there are a sufficient number of exceptions to prevent me from being
+dogmatic or from insisting upon this point in my description. My own
+face is a narrow one, and yet I find that I cannot get my eyes into the
+centre, or near the centre, of these glasses. Therefore the lady's eyes
+are set very near to the sides of the nose. You will perceive, Watson,
+that the glasses are concave and of unusual strength. A lady whose
+vision has been so extremely contracted all her life is sure to have the
+physical characteristics of such vision, which are seen in the forehead,
+the eyelids, and the shoulders.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “I can follow each of your arguments. I confess, however,
+that I am unable to understand how you arrive at the double visit to the
+optician.”
+
+Holmes took the glasses in his hand.
+
+“You will perceive,” he said, “that the clips are lined with tiny
+bands of cork to soften the pressure upon the nose. One of these is
+discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new.
+Evidently one has fallen off and been replaced. I should judge that the
+older of them has not been there more than a few months. They
+exactly correspond, so I gather that the lady went back to the same
+establishment for the second.”
+
+“By George, it's marvellous!” cried Hopkins, in an ecstasy of
+admiration. “To think that I had all that evidence in my hand and
+never knew it! I had intended, however, to go the round of the London
+opticians.”
+
+“Of course you would. Meanwhile, have you anything more to tell us about
+the case?”
+
+“Nothing, Mr. Holmes. I think that you know as much as I do
+now--probably more. We have had inquiries made as to any stranger seen
+on the country roads or at the railway station. We have heard of none.
+What beats me is the utter want of all object in the crime. Not a ghost
+of a motive can anyone suggest.”
+
+“Ah! there I am not in a position to help you. But I suppose you want us
+to come out to-morrow?”
+
+“If it is not asking too much, Mr. Holmes. There's a train from Charing
+Cross to Chatham at six in the morning, and we should be at Yoxley Old
+Place between eight and nine.”
+
+“Then we shall take it. Your case has certainly some features of great
+interest, and I shall be delighted to look into it. Well, it's nearly
+one, and we had best get a few hours' sleep. I dare say you can manage
+all right on the sofa in front of the fire. I'll light my spirit-lamp
+and give you a cup of coffee before we start.”
+
+
+The gale had blown itself out next day, but it was a bitter morning when
+we started upon our journey. We saw the cold winter sun rise over the
+dreary marshes of the Thames and the long, sullen reaches of the river,
+which I shall ever associate with our pursuit of the Andaman Islander
+in the earlier days of our career. After a long and weary journey we
+alighted at a small station some miles from Chatham. While a horse was
+being put into a trap at the local inn we snatched a hurried breakfast,
+and so we were all ready for business when we at last arrived at Yoxley
+Old Place. A constable met us at the garden gate.
+
+“Well, Wilson, any news?”
+
+“No, sir, nothing.”
+
+“No reports of any stranger seen?”
+
+“No, sir. Down at the station they are certain that no stranger either
+came or went yesterday.”
+
+“Have you had inquiries made at inns and lodgings?”
+
+“Yes, sir; there is no one that we cannot account for.”
+
+“Well, it's only a reasonable walk to Chatham. Anyone might stay there,
+or take a train without being observed. This is the garden path of
+which I spoke, Mr. Holmes. I'll pledge my word there was no mark on it
+yesterday.”
+
+“On which side were the marks on the grass?”
+
+“This side, sir. This narrow margin of grass between the path and the
+flower-bed. I can't see the traces now, but they were clear to me then.”
+
+“Yes, yes; someone has passed along,” said Holmes, stooping over the
+grass border. “Our lady must have picked her steps carefully, must she
+not, since on the one side she would leave a track on the path, and on
+the other an even clearer one on the soft bed?”
+
+“Yes, sir, she must have been a cool hand.”
+
+I saw an intent look pass over Holmes's face.
+
+“You say that she must have come back this way?”
+
+“Yes, sir; there is no other.”
+
+“On this strip of grass?”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Hum! It was a very remarkable performance--very remarkable. Well, I
+think we have exhausted the path. Let us go farther. This garden door is
+usually kept open, I suppose? Then this visitor had nothing to do but
+to walk in. The idea of murder was not in her mind, or she would have
+provided herself with some sort of weapon, instead of having to pick
+this knife off the writing-table. She advanced along this corridor,
+leaving no traces upon the cocoanut matting. Then she found herself in
+this study. How long was she there? We have no means of judging.”
+
+“Not more than a few minutes, sir. I forgot to tell you that Mrs.
+Marker, the housekeeper, had been in there tidying not very long
+before--about a quarter of an hour, she says.”
+
+“Well, that gives us a limit. Our lady enters this room and what does
+she do? She goes over to the writing-table. What for? Not for anything
+in the drawers. If there had been anything worth her taking it would
+surely have been locked up. No; it was for something in that wooden
+bureau. Halloa! what is that scratch upon the face of it? Just hold a
+match, Watson. Why did you not tell me of this, Hopkins?”
+
+The mark which he was examining began upon the brass work on the
+right-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four inches,
+where it had scratched the varnish from the surface.
+
+“I noticed it, Mr. Holmes. But you'll always find scratches round a
+keyhole.”
+
+“This is recent, quite recent. See how the brass shines where it is
+cut. An old scratch would be the same colour as the surface. Look at it
+through my lens. There's the varnish, too, like earth on each side of a
+furrow. Is Mrs. Marker there?”
+
+A sad-faced, elderly woman came into the room.
+
+“Did you dust this bureau yesterday morning?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did you notice this scratch?”
+
+“No, sir, I did not.”
+
+“I am sure you did not, for a duster would have swept away these shreds
+of varnish. Who has the key of this bureau?”
+
+“The Professor keeps it on his watch-chain.”
+
+“Is it a simple key?”
+
+“No, sir; it is a Chubb's key.”
+
+“Very good. Mrs. Marker, you can go. Now we are making a little
+progress. Our lady enters the room, advances to the bureau, and either
+opens it or tries to do so. While she is thus engaged young Willoughby
+Smith enters the room. In her hurry to withdraw the key she makes this
+scratch upon the door. He seizes her, and she, snatching up the nearest
+object, which happens to be this knife, strikes at him in order to make
+him let go his hold. The blow is a fatal one. He falls and she escapes,
+either with or without the object for which she has come. Is Susan the
+maid there? Could anyone have got away through that door after the time
+that you heard the cry, Susan?”
+
+“No sir; it is impossible. Before I got down the stair I'd have seen
+anyone in the passage. Besides, the door never opened, for I would have
+heard it.”
+
+“That settles this exit. Then no doubt the lady went out the way she
+came. I understand that this other passage leads only to the Professor's
+room. There is no exit that way?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“We shall go down it and make the acquaintance of the Professor. Halloa,
+Hopkins! this is very important, very important indeed. The Professor's
+corridor is also lined with cocoanut matting.”
+
+“Well, sir, what of that?”
+
+“Don't you see any bearing upon the case? Well, well, I don't insist
+upon it. No doubt I am wrong. And yet it seems to me to be suggestive.
+Come with me and introduce me.”
+
+We passed down the passage, which was of the same length as that which
+led to the garden. At the end was a short flight of steps ending in
+a door. Our guide knocked, and then ushered us into the Professor's
+bedroom.
+
+It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes, which had
+overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners, or were
+stacked all round at the base of the cases. The bed was in the centre
+of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner of the
+house. I have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person. It was a
+gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing dark
+eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted brows. His
+hair and beard were white, save that the latter was curiously stained
+with yellow around his mouth. A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of
+white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with stale tobacco-smoke.
+As he held out his hand to Holmes I perceived that it also was stained
+yellow with nicotine.
+
+“A smoker, Mr. Holmes?” said he, speaking well-chosen English with a
+curious little mincing accent. “Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir? I
+can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides of
+Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say that I
+have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight. Bad, sir, very bad,
+but an old man has few pleasures. Tobacco and my work--that is all that
+is left to me.”
+
+Holmes had lit a cigarette, and was shooting little darting glances all
+over the room.
+
+“Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco,” the old man exclaimed.
+“Alas! what a fatal interruption! Who could have foreseen such a
+terrible catastrophe? So estimable a young man! I assure you that after
+a few months' training he was an admirable assistant. What do you think
+of the matter, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“I have not yet made up my mind.”
+
+“I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all is
+so dark to us. To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a blow
+is paralyzing. I seem to have lost the faculty of thought. But you are
+a man of action--you are a man of affairs. It is part of the everyday
+routine of your life. You can preserve your balance in every emergency.
+We are fortunate indeed in having you at our side.”
+
+Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old
+Professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking with extraordinary
+rapidity. It was evident that he shared our host's liking for the fresh
+Alexandrian cigarettes.
+
+“Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow,” said the old man. “That is my MAGNUM
+OPUS--the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It is my analysis of
+the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work
+which will cut deep at the very foundations of revealed religion.
+With my enfeebled health I do not know whether I shall ever be able to
+complete it now that my assistant has been taken from me. Dear me, Mr.
+Holmes; why, you are even a quicker smoker than I am myself.”
+
+Holmes smiled.
+
+“I am a connoisseur,” said he, taking another cigarette from the
+box--his fourth--and lighting it from the stub of that which he had
+finished. “I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination,
+Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in bed at the time of the
+crime and could know nothing about it. I would only ask this. What
+do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words: 'The
+Professor--it was she'?”
+
+The Professor shook his head.
+
+“Susan is a country girl,” said he, “and you know the incredible
+stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow murmured some
+incoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into this
+meaningless message.”
+
+“I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?”
+
+“Possibly an accident; possibly--I only breathe it among ourselves--a
+suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles--some affair of the heart,
+perhaps, which we have never known. It is a more probable supposition
+than murder.”
+
+“But the eye-glasses?”
+
+“Ah! I am only a student--a man of dreams. I cannot explain the
+practical things of life. But still, we are aware, my friend, that
+love-gages may take strange shapes. By all means take another cigarette.
+It is a pleasure to see anyone appreciate them so. A fan, a glove,
+glasses--who knows what article may be carried as a token or treasured
+when a man puts an end to his life? This gentleman speaks of footsteps
+in the grass; but, after all, it is easy to be mistaken on such a point.
+As to the knife, it might well be thrown far from the unfortunate man as
+he fell. It is possible that I speak as a child, but to me it seems that
+Willoughby Smith has met his fate by his own hand.”
+
+Holmes seemed struck by the theory thus put forward, and he continued to
+walk up and down for some time, lost in thought and consuming cigarette
+after cigarette.
+
+“Tell me, Professor Coram,” he said, at last, “what is in that cupboard
+in the bureau?”
+
+“Nothing that would help a thief. Family papers, letters from my poor
+wife, diplomas of Universities which have done me honour. Here is the
+key. You can look for yourself.”
+
+Holmes picked up the key and looked at it for an instant; then he handed
+it back.
+
+“No; I hardly think that it would help me,” said he. “I should prefer
+to go quietly down to your garden and turn the whole matter over in my
+head. There is something to be said for the theory of suicide which
+you have put forward. We must apologize for having intruded upon you,
+Professor Coram, and I promise that we won't disturb you until after
+lunch. At two o'clock we will come again and report to you anything
+which may have happened in the interval.”
+
+Holmes was curiously distrait, and we walked up and down the garden path
+for some time in silence.
+
+“Have you a clue?” I asked, at last.
+
+“It depends upon those cigarettes that I smoked,” said he. “It is
+possible that I am utterly mistaken. The cigarettes will show me.”
+
+“My dear Holmes,” I exclaimed, “how on earth----”
+
+“Well, well, you may see for yourself. If not, there's no harm done. Of
+course, we always have the optician clue to fall back upon, but I take
+a short cut when I can get it. Ah, here is the good Mrs. Marker! Let us
+enjoy five minutes of instructive conversation with her.”
+
+I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a peculiarly
+ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily established terms
+of confidence with them. In half the time which he had named he had
+captured the housekeeper's goodwill, and was chatting with her as if he
+had known her for years.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes, it is as you say, sir. He does smoke something
+terrible. All day and sometimes all night, sir. I've seen that room of
+a morning--well, sir, you'd have thought it was a London fog. Poor young
+Mr. Smith, he was a smoker also, but not as bad as the Professor. His
+health--well, I don't know that it's better nor worse for the smoking.”
+
+“Ah!” said Holmes, “but it kills the appetite.”
+
+“Well, I don't know about that, sir.”
+
+“I suppose the Professor eats hardly anything?”
+
+“Well, he is variable. I'll say that for him.”
+
+“I'll wager he took no breakfast this morning, and won't face his lunch
+after all the cigarettes I saw him consume.”
+
+“Well, you're out there, sir, as it happens, for he ate a remarkable big
+breakfast this morning. I don't know when I've known him make a
+better one, and he's ordered a good dish of cutlets for his lunch. I'm
+surprised myself, for since I came into that room yesterday and saw
+young Mr. Smith lying there on the floor I couldn't bear to look at
+food. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the Professor hasn't
+let it take his appetite away.”
+
+We loitered the morning away in the garden. Stanley Hopkins had gone
+down to the village to look into some rumours of a strange woman who had
+been seen by some children on the Chatham Road the previous morning. As
+to my friend, all his usual energy seemed to have deserted him. I had
+never known him handle a case in such a half-hearted fashion. Even the
+news brought back by Hopkins that he had found the children and that
+they had undoubtedly seen a woman exactly corresponding with Holmes's
+description, and wearing either spectacles or eye-glasses, failed to
+rouse any sign of keen interest. He was more attentive when Susan, who
+waited upon us at lunch, volunteered the information that she believed
+Mr. Smith had been out for a walk yesterday morning, and that he had
+only returned half an hour before the tragedy occurred. I could not
+myself see the bearing of this incident, but I clearly perceived that
+Holmes was weaving it into the general scheme which he had formed in his
+brain. Suddenly he sprang from his chair and glanced at his watch. “Two
+o'clock, gentlemen,” said he. “We must go up and have it out with our
+friend the Professor.”
+
+The old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly his empty dish
+bore evidence to the good appetite with which his housekeeper had
+credited him. He was, indeed, a weird figure as he turned his white mane
+and his glowing eyes towards us. The eternal cigarette smouldered in his
+mouth. He had been dressed and was seated in an arm-chair by the fire.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?” He shoved the
+large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him towards my
+companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at the same moment, and between
+them they tipped the box over the edge. For a minute or two we were all
+on our knees retrieving stray cigarettes from impossible places. When
+we rose again I observed that Holmes's eyes were shining and his cheeks
+tinged with colour. Only at a crisis have I seen those battle-signals
+flying.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “I have solved it.”
+
+Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement. Something like a sneer
+quivered over the gaunt features of the old Professor.
+
+“Indeed! In the garden?”
+
+“No, here.”
+
+“Here! When?”
+
+“This instant.”
+
+“You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You compel me to tell you
+that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such a fashion.”
+
+“I have forged and tested every link of my chain, Professor Coram, and
+I am sure that it is sound. What your motives are or what exact part you
+play in this strange business I am not yet able to say. In a few
+minutes I shall probably hear it from your own lips. Meanwhile I will
+reconstruct what is past for your benefit, so that you may know the
+information which I still require.
+
+“A lady yesterday entered your study. She came with the intention of
+possessing herself of certain documents which were in your bureau. She
+had a key of her own. I have had an opportunity of examining yours, and
+I do not find that slight discolouration which the scratch made upon the
+varnish would have produced. You were not an accessory, therefore, and
+she came, so far as I can read the evidence, without your knowledge to
+rob you.”
+
+The Professor blew a cloud from his lips. “This is most interesting and
+instructive,” said he. “Have you no more to add? Surely, having traced
+this lady so far, you can also say what has become of her.”
+
+“I will endeavour to do so. In the first place she was seized by your
+secretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. This catastrophe I am
+inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I am convinced that the
+lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous an injury. An assassin
+does not come unarmed. Horrified by what she had done she rushed wildly
+away from the scene of the tragedy. Unfortunately for her she had lost
+her glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely short-sighted she
+was really helpless without them. She ran down a corridor, which she
+imagined to be that by which she had come--both were lined with cocoanut
+matting--and it was only when it was too late that she understood that
+she had taken the wrong passage and that her retreat was cut off behind
+her. What was she to do? She could not go back. She could not remain
+where she was. She must go on. She went on. She mounted a stair, pushed
+open a door, and found herself in your room.”
+
+The old man sat with his mouth open staring wildly at Holmes. Amazement
+and fear were stamped upon his expressive features. Now, with an effort,
+he shrugged his shoulders and burst into insincere laughter.
+
+“All very fine, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “But there is one little flaw
+in your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I never left it
+during the day.”
+
+“I am aware of that, Professor Coram.”
+
+“And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not be aware
+that a woman had entered my room?”
+
+“I never said so. You WERE aware of it. You spoke with her. You
+recognised her. You aided her to escape.”
+
+Again the Professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risen to his
+feet and his eyes glowed like embers.
+
+“You are mad!” he cried. “You are talking insanely. I helped her to
+escape? Where is she now?”
+
+“She is there,” said Holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcase in the
+corner of the room.
+
+I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed over
+his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. At the same instant the
+bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upon a hinge, and a woman
+rushed out into the room. “You are right!” she cried, in a strange
+foreign voice. “You are right! I am here.”
+
+She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had come
+from the walls of her hiding-place. Her face, too, was streaked with
+grime, and at the best she could never have been handsome, for she had
+the exact physical characteristics which Holmes had divined, with, in
+addition, a long and obstinate chin. What with her natural blindness,
+and what with the change from dark to light, she stood as one dazed,
+blinking about her to see where and who we were. And yet, in spite of
+all these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman's
+bearing, a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head, which
+compelled something of respect and admiration. Stanley Hopkins had laid
+his hand upon her arm and claimed her as his prisoner, but she waved
+him aside gently, and yet with an overmastering dignity which compelled
+obedience. The old man lay back in his chair, with a twitching face, and
+stared at her with brooding eyes.
+
+“Yes, sir, I am your prisoner,” she said. “From where I stood I could
+hear everything, and I know that you have learned the truth. I confess
+it all. It was I who killed the young man. But you are right, you who
+say it was an accident. I did not even know that it was a knife which
+I held in my hand, for in my despair I snatched anything from the table
+and struck at him to make him let me go. It is the truth that I tell.”
+
+“Madam,” said Holmes, “I am sure that it is the truth. I fear that you
+are far from well.”
+
+She had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under the dark
+dust-streaks upon her face. She seated herself on the side of the bed;
+then she resumed.
+
+“I have only a little time here,” she said, “but I would have you to
+know the whole truth. I am this man's wife. He is not an Englishman. He
+is a Russian. His name I will not tell.”
+
+For the first time the old man stirred. “God bless you, Anna!” he cried.
+“God bless you!”
+
+She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. “Why should you
+cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?” said she. “It
+has done harm to many and good to none--not even to yourself. However,
+it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped before God's
+time. I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold
+of this cursed house. But I must speak or I shall be too late.
+
+“I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man's wife. He was fifty and I
+a foolish girl of twenty when we married. It was in a city of Russia, a
+University--I will not name the place.”
+
+“God bless you, Anna!” murmured the old man again.
+
+“We were reformers--revolutionists--Nihilists, you understand. He and I
+and many more. Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer was
+killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to save
+his own life and to earn a great reward my husband betrayed his own wife
+and his companions. Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession. Some
+of us found our way to the gallows and some to Siberia. I was among
+these last, but my term was not for life. My husband came to England
+with his ill-gotten gains, and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing
+well that if the Brotherhood knew where he was not a week would pass
+before justice would be done.”
+
+The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a
+cigarette. “I am in your hands, Anna,” said he. “You were always good to
+me.”
+
+“I have not yet told you the height of his villainy,” said she. “Among
+our comrades of the Order there was one who was the friend of my heart.
+He was noble, unselfish, loving--all that my husband was not. He hated
+violence. We were all guilty--if that is guilt--but he was not. He wrote
+for ever dissuading us from such a course. These letters would have
+saved him. So would my diary, in which from day to day I had entered
+both my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken. My
+husband found and kept both diary and letters. He hid them, and he tried
+hard to swear away the young man's life. In this he failed, but Alexis
+was sent a convict to Siberia, where now, at this moment, he works in
+a salt mine. Think of that, you villain, you villain; now, now, at this
+very moment, Alexis, a man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works
+and lives like a slave, and yet I have your life in my hands and I let
+you go.”
+
+“You were always a noble woman, Anna,” said the old man, puffing at his
+cigarette.
+
+She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.
+
+“I must finish,” she said. “When my term was over I set myself to get
+the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian Government, would
+procure my friend's release. I knew that my husband had come to England.
+After months of searching I discovered where he was. I knew that he
+still had the diary, for when I was in Siberia I had a letter from him
+once reproaching me and quoting some passages from its pages. Yet I was
+sure that with his revengeful nature he would never give it to me of his
+own free will. I must get it for myself. With this object I engaged an
+agent from a private detective firm, who entered my husband's house as
+secretary--it was your second secretary, Sergius, the one who left you
+so hurriedly. He found that papers were kept in the cupboard, and he got
+an impression of the key. He would not go farther. He furnished me with
+a plan of the house, and he told me that in the forenoon the study was
+always empty, as the secretary was employed up here. So at last I took
+my courage in both hands and I came down to get the papers for myself. I
+succeeded, but at what a cost!
+
+“I had just taken the papers and was locking the cupboard when the young
+man seized me. I had seen him already that morning. He had met me in
+the road and I had asked him to tell me where Professor Coram lived, not
+knowing that he was in his employ.”
+
+“Exactly! exactly!” said Holmes. “The secretary came back and told his
+employer of the woman he had met. Then in his last breath he tried to
+send a message that it was she--the she whom he had just discussed with
+him.”
+
+“You must let me speak,” said the woman, in an imperative voice, and
+her face contracted as if in pain. “When he had fallen I rushed from the
+room, chose the wrong door, and found myself in my husband's room. He
+spoke of giving me up. I showed him that if he did so his life was in my
+hands. If he gave me to the law I could give him to the Brotherhood. It
+was not that I wished to live for my own sake, but it was that I desired
+to accomplish my purpose. He knew that I would do what I said--that
+his own fate was involved in mine. For that reason and for no other he
+shielded me. He thrust me into that dark hiding-place, a relic of old
+days, known only to himself. He took his meals in his own room, and so
+was able to give me part of his food. It was agreed that when the police
+left the house I should slip away by night and come back no more. But in
+some way you have read our plans.” She tore from the bosom of her dress
+a small packet. “These are my last words,” said she; “here is the packet
+which will save Alexis. I confide it to your honour and to your love of
+justice. Take it! You will deliver it at the Russian Embassy. Now I have
+done my duty, and----”
+
+“Stop her!” cried Holmes. He had bounded across the room and had
+wrenched a small phial from her hand.
+
+“Too late!” she said, sinking back on the bed. “Too late! I took the
+poison before I left my hiding-place. My head swims! I am going! I
+charge you, sir, to remember the packet.”
+
+
+“A simple case, and yet in some ways an instructive one,” Holmes
+remarked, as we travelled back to town. “It hinged from the outset upon
+the pince-nez. But for the fortunate chance of the dying man having
+seized these I am not sure that we could ever have reached our solution.
+It was clear to me from the strength of the glasses that the wearer must
+have been very blind and helpless when deprived of them. When you asked
+me to believe that she walked along a narrow strip of grass without
+once making a false step I remarked, as you may remember, that it was
+a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set it down as an impossible
+performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a second pair of
+glasses. I was forced, therefore, to seriously consider the hypothesis
+that she had remained within the house. On perceiving the similarity of
+the two corridors it became clear that she might very easily have made
+such a mistake, and in that case it was evident that she must have
+entered the Professor's room. I was keenly on the alert, therefore,
+for whatever would bear out this supposition, and I examined the room
+narrowly for anything in the shape of a hiding-place. The carpet seemed
+continuous and firmly nailed, so I dismissed the idea of a trap-door.
+There might well be a recess behind the books. As you are aware, such
+devices are common in old libraries. I observed that books were piled
+on the floor at all other points, but that one bookcase was left clear.
+This, then, might be the door. I could see no marks to guide me, but the
+carpet was of a dun colour, which lends itself very well to examination.
+I therefore smoked a great number of those excellent cigarettes, and I
+dropped the ash all over the space in front of the suspected bookcase.
+It was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective. I then went downstairs
+and I ascertained, in your presence, Watson, without your perceiving
+the drift of my remarks, that Professor Coram's consumption of food had
+increased--as one would expect when he is supplying a second person. We
+then ascended to the room again, when, by upsetting the cigarette-box,
+I obtained a very excellent view of the floor, and was able to see quite
+clearly, from the traces upon the cigarette ash, that the prisoner had,
+in our absence, come out from her retreat. Well, Hopkins, here we are at
+Charing Cross, and I congratulate you on having brought your case to
+a successful conclusion. You are going to head-quarters, no doubt. I
+think, Watson, you and I will drive together to the Russian Embassy.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                     Vol. 28  AUGUST, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+XI.--The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter.
+
+
+WE were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street,
+but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy
+February morning some seven or eight years ago and gave Mr. Sherlock
+Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran
+thus:--
+
+“Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quarter missing;
+indispensable to morrow.--OVERTON.”
+
+“Strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six,” said Holmes, reading
+it over and over. “Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when
+he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence. Well, well, he will
+be here, I dare say, by the time I have looked through the TIMES, and
+then we shall know all about it. Even the most insignificant problem
+would be welcome in these stagnant days.”
+
+Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread
+such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion's
+brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without
+material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him
+from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable
+career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved
+for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was
+not dead, but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a light one
+and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn
+look upon Holmes's ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and
+inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might
+be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous
+calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his
+tempestuous life.
+
+As we had expected, the telegram was soon followed by its sender, and
+the card of Mr. Cyril Overton, of Trinity College, Cambridge, announced
+the arrival of an enormous young man, sixteen stone of solid bone and
+muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad shoulders and looked
+from one of us to the other with a comely face which was haggard with
+anxiety.
+
+“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
+
+My companion bowed.
+
+“I've been down to Scotland Yard, Mr. Holmes. I saw Inspector Stanley
+Hopkins. He advised me to come to you. He said the case, so far as he
+could see, was more in your line than in that of the regular police.”
+
+“Pray sit down and tell me what is the matter.”
+
+“It's awful, Mr. Holmes, simply awful! I wonder my hair isn't grey.
+Godfrey Staunton--you've heard of him, of course? He's simply the hinge
+that the whole team turns on. I'd rather spare two from the pack
+and have Godfrey for my three-quarter line. Whether it's passing, or
+tackling, or dribbling, there's no one to touch him; and then, he's got
+the head and can hold us all together. What am I to do? That's what I
+ask you, Mr. Holmes. There's Moorhouse, first reserve, but he is trained
+as a half, and he always edges right in on to the scrum instead of
+keeping out on the touch-line. He's a fine place-kick, it's true, but,
+then, he has no judgment, and he can't sprint for nuts. Why, Morton
+or Johnson, the Oxford fliers, could romp round him. Stevenson is
+fast enough, but he couldn't drop from the twenty-five line, and a
+three-quarter who can't either punt or drop isn't worth a place for
+pace alone. No, Mr. Holmes, we are done unless you can help me to find
+Godfrey Staunton.”
+
+My friend had listened with amused surprise to this long speech, which
+was poured forth with extraordinary vigour and earnestness, every point
+being driven home by the slapping of a brawny hand upon the speaker's
+knee. When our visitor was silent Holmes stretched out his hand and took
+down letter “S” of his commonplace book. For once he dug in vain into
+that mine of varied information.
+
+“There is Arthur H. Staunton, the rising young forger,” said he, “and
+there was Henry Staunton, whom I helped to hang, but Godfrey Staunton is
+a new name to me.”
+
+It was our visitor's turn to look surprised.
+
+“Why, Mr. Holmes, I thought you knew things,” said he. “I suppose, then,
+if you have never heard of Godfrey Staunton you don't know Cyril Overton
+either?”
+
+Holmes shook his head good-humouredly.
+
+“Great Scot!” cried the athlete. “Why, I was first reserve for England
+against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year. But that's
+nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who didn't know
+Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and
+five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. Holmes, where HAVE you lived?”
+
+Holmes laughed at the young giant's naive astonishment.
+
+“You live in a different world to me, Mr. Overton, a sweeter and
+healthier one. My ramifications stretch out into many sections of
+society, but never, I am happy to say, into amateur sport, which is the
+best and soundest thing in England. However, your unexpected visit this
+morning shows me that even in that world of fresh air and fair play
+there may be work for me to do; so now, my good sir, I beg you to sit
+down and to tell me slowly and quietly exactly what it is that has
+occurred, and how you desire that I should help you.”
+
+Young Overton's face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more
+accustomed to using his muscles than his wits; but by degrees, with many
+repetitions and obscurities which I may omit from his narrative, he laid
+his strange story before us.
+
+
+“It's this way, Mr. Holmes. As I have said, I am the skipper of the
+Rugger team of Cambridge 'Varsity, and Godfrey Staunton is my best man.
+To-morrow we play Oxford. Yesterday we all came up and we settled at
+Bentley's private hotel. At ten o'clock I went round and saw that all
+the fellows had gone to roost, for I believe in strict training and
+plenty of sleep to keep a team fit. I had a word or two with Godfrey
+before he turned in. He seemed to me to be pale and bothered. I asked
+him what was the matter. He said he was all right--just a touch of
+headache. I bade him good-night and left him. Half an hour later the
+porter tells me that a rough-looking man with a beard called with a note
+for Godfrey. He had not gone to bed and the note was taken to his room.
+Godfrey read it and fell back in a chair as if he had been pole-axed.
+The porter was so scared that he was going to fetch me, but Godfrey
+stopped him, had a drink of water, and pulled himself together. Then
+he went downstairs, said a few words to the man who was waiting in the
+hall, and the two of them went off together. The last that the porter
+saw of them, they were almost running down the street in the direction
+of the Strand. This morning Godfrey's room was empty, his bed had never
+been slept in, and his things were all just as I had seen them the night
+before. He had gone off at a moment's notice with this stranger, and no
+word has come from him since. I don't believe he will ever come back. He
+was a sportsman, was Godfrey, down to his marrow, and he wouldn't have
+stopped his training and let in his skipper if it were not for some
+cause that was too strong for him. No; I feel as if he were gone for
+good and we should never see him again.”
+
+
+Sherlock Holmes listened with the deepest attention to this singular
+narrative.
+
+“What did you do?” he asked.
+
+“I wired to Cambridge to learn if anything had been heard of him there.
+I have had an answer. No one has seen him.”
+
+“Could he have got back to Cambridge?”
+
+“Yes, there is a late train--quarter-past eleven.”
+
+“But so far as you can ascertain he did not take it?”
+
+“No, he has not been seen.”
+
+“What did you do next?”
+
+“I wired to Lord Mount-James.”
+
+“Why to Lord Mount-James?”
+
+“Godfrey is an orphan, and Lord Mount-James is his nearest relative--his
+uncle, I believe.”
+
+“Indeed. This throws new light upon the matter. Lord Mount-James is one
+of the richest men in England.”
+
+“So I've heard Godfrey say.”
+
+“And your friend was closely related?”
+
+“Yes, he was his heir, and the old boy is nearly eighty--cram full of
+gout, too. They say he could chalk his billiard-cue with his knuckles.
+He never allowed Godfrey a shilling in his life, for he is an absolute
+miser, but it will all come to him right enough.”
+
+“Have you heard from Lord Mount-James?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What motive could your friend have in going to Lord Mount-James?”
+
+“Well, something was worrying him the night before, and if it was to do
+with money it is possible that he would make for his nearest relative
+who had so much of it, though from all I have heard he would not have
+much chance of getting it. Godfrey was not fond of the old man. He would
+not go if he could help it.”
+
+“Well, we can soon determine that. If your friend was going to his
+relative, Lord Mount-James, you have then to explain the visit of this
+rough-looking fellow at so late an hour, and the agitation that was
+caused by his coming.”
+
+Cyril Overton pressed his hands to his head. “I can make nothing of it,”
+ said he.
+
+“Well, well, I have a clear day, and I shall be happy to look into the
+matter,” said Holmes. “I should strongly recommend you to make your
+preparations for your match without reference to this young gentleman.
+It must, as you say, have been an overpowering necessity which tore him
+away in such a fashion, and the same necessity is likely to hold him
+away. Let us step round together to this hotel, and see if the porter
+can throw any fresh light upon the matter.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble
+witness at his ease, and very soon, in the privacy of Godfrey Staunton's
+abandoned room, he had extracted all that the porter had to tell.
+The visitor of the night before was not a gentleman, neither was he
+a working man. He was simply what the porter described as a
+“medium-looking chap”; a man of fifty, beard grizzled, pale face,
+quietly dressed. He seemed himself to be agitated. The porter had
+observed his hand trembling when he had held out the note. Godfrey
+Staunton had crammed the note into his pocket. Staunton had not shaken
+hands with the man in the hall. They had exchanged a few sentences, of
+which the porter had only distinguished the one word “time.” Then they
+had hurried off in the manner described. It was just half-past ten by
+the hall clock.
+
+“Let me see,” said Holmes, seating himself on Staunton's bed. “You are
+the day porter, are you not?”
+
+“Yes, sir; I go off duty at eleven.”
+
+“The night porter saw nothing, I suppose?”
+
+“No, sir; one theatre party came in late. No one else.”
+
+“Were you on duty all day yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did you take any messages to Mr. Staunton?”
+
+“Yes, sir; one telegram.”
+
+“Ah! that's interesting. What o'clock was this?”
+
+“About six.”
+
+“Where was Mr. Staunton when he received it?”
+
+“Here in his room.”
+
+“Were you present when he opened it?”
+
+“Yes, sir; I waited to see if there was an answer.”
+
+“Well, was there?”
+
+“Yes, sir. He wrote an answer.”
+
+“Did you take it?”
+
+“No; he took it himself.”
+
+“But he wrote it in your presence?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I was standing by the door, and he with his back turned at
+that table. When he had written it he said, 'All right, porter, I will
+take this myself.'”
+
+“What did he write it with?”
+
+“A pen, sir.”
+
+“Was the telegraphic form one of these on the table?”
+
+“Yes, sir; it was the top one.”
+
+Holmes rose. Taking the forms he carried them over to the window and
+carefully examined that which was uppermost.
+
+“It is a pity he did not write in pencil,” said he, throwing them down
+again with a shrug of disappointment. “As you have no doubt frequently
+observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through--a fact which has
+dissolved many a happy marriage. However, I can find no trace here. I
+rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with a broad-pointed quill
+pen, and I can hardly doubt that we will find some impression upon this
+blotting-pad. Ah, yes, surely this is the very thing!”
+
+He tore off a strip of the blotting-paper and turned towards us the
+following hieroglyphic:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+Cyril Overton was much excited. “Hold it to the glass!” he cried.
+
+“That is unnecessary,” said Holmes. “The paper is thin, and the reverse
+will give the message. Here it is.” He turned it over and we read:--
+
+GRAPHIC
+
+“So that is the tail end of the telegram which Godfrey Staunton
+dispatched within a few hours of his disappearance. There are at least
+six words of the message which have escaped us; but what remains--'Stand
+by us for God's sake!'--proves that this young man saw a formidable
+danger which approached him, and from which someone else could protect
+him. 'US,' mark you! Another person was involved. Who should it be but
+the pale-faced, bearded man, who seemed himself in so nervous a state?
+What, then, is the connection between Godfrey Staunton and the bearded
+man? And what is the third source from which each of them sought for
+help against pressing danger? Our inquiry has already narrowed down to
+that.”
+
+“We have only to find to whom that telegram is addressed,” I suggested.
+
+“Exactly, my dear Watson. Your reflection, though profound, had already
+crossed my mind. But I dare say it may have come to your notice that if
+you walk into a post-office and demand to see the counterfoil of another
+man's message there may be some disinclination on the part of the
+officials to oblige you. There is so much red tape in these matters!
+However, I have no doubt that with a little delicacy and finesse the end
+may be attained. Meanwhile, I should like in your presence, Mr. Overton,
+to go through these papers which have been left upon the table.”
+
+There were a number of letters, bills, and note-books, which Holmes
+turned over and examined with quick, nervous fingers and darting,
+penetrating eyes. “Nothing here,” he said, at last. “By the way, I
+suppose your friend was a healthy young fellow--nothing amiss with him?”
+
+“Sound as a bell.”
+
+“Have you ever known him ill?”
+
+“Not a day. He has been laid up with a hack, and once he slipped his
+knee-cap, but that was nothing.”
+
+“Perhaps he was not so strong as you suppose. I should think he may have
+had some secret trouble. With your assent I will put one or two of these
+papers in my pocket, in case they should bear upon our future inquiry.”
+
+“One moment! one moment!” cried a querulous voice, and we looked up to
+find a queer little old man, jerking and twitching in the doorway. He
+was dressed in rusty black, with a very broad brimmed top-hat and a
+loose white necktie--the whole effect being that of a very rustic parson
+or of an undertaker's mute. Yet, in spite of his shabby and even absurd
+appearance, his voice had a sharp crackle, and his manner a quick
+intensity which commanded attention.
+
+“Who are you, sir, and by what right do you touch this gentleman's
+papers?” he asked.
+
+“I am a private detective, and I am endeavouring to explain his
+disappearance.”
+
+“Oh, you are, are you? And who instructed you, eh?”
+
+“This gentleman, Mr. Staunton's friend, was referred to me by Scotland
+Yard.”
+
+“Who are you, sir?”
+
+“I am Cyril Overton.”
+
+“Then it is you who sent me a telegram. My name is Lord Mount-James. I
+came round as quickly as the Bayswater 'bus would bring me. So you have
+instructed a detective?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And are you prepared to meet the cost?”
+
+“I have no doubt, sir, that my friend Godfrey, when we find him, will be
+prepared to do that.”
+
+“But if he is never found, eh? Answer me that!”
+
+“In that case no doubt his family----”
+
+“Nothing of the sort, sir!” screamed the little man. “Don't look to me
+for a penny--not a penny! You understand that, Mr. Detective! I am all
+the family that this young man has got, and I tell you that I am not
+responsible. If he has any expectations it is due to the fact that I
+have never wasted money, and I do not propose to begin to do so now. As
+to those papers with which you are making so free, I may tell you that
+in case there should be anything of any value among them you will be
+held strictly to account for what you do with them.”
+
+“Very good, sir,” said Sherlock Holmes. “May I ask in the meanwhile
+whether you have yourself any theory to account for this young man's
+disappearance?”
+
+“No, sir, I have not. He is big enough and old enough to look after
+himself, and if he is so foolish as to lose himself I entirely refuse to
+accept the responsibility of hunting for him.”
+
+“I quite understand your position,” said Holmes, with a mischievous
+twinkle in his eyes. “Perhaps you don't quite understand mine. Godfrey
+Staunton appears to have been a poor man. If he has been kidnapped it
+could not have been for anything which he himself possesses. The fame
+of your wealth has gone abroad, Lord Mount-James, and it is entirely
+possible that a gang of thieves have secured your nephew in order to
+gain from him some information as to your house, your habits, and your
+treasure.”
+
+The face of our unpleasant little visitor turned as white as his
+neckcloth.
+
+“Heavens, sir, what an idea! I never thought of such villainy! What
+inhuman rogues there are in the world! But Godfrey is a fine lad--a
+staunch lad. Nothing would induce him to give his old uncle away. I'll
+have the plate moved over to the bank this evening. In the meantime
+spare no pains, Mr. Detective! I beg you to leave no stone unturned to
+bring him safely back. As to money, well, so far as a fiver, or even a
+tenner, goes, you can always look to me.”
+
+Even in his chastened frame of mind the noble miser could give us no
+information which could help us, for he knew little of the private life
+of his nephew. Our only clue lay in the truncated telegram, and with a
+copy of this in his hand Holmes set forth to find a second link for
+his chain. We had shaken off Lord Mount-James, and Overton had gone to
+consult with the other members of his team over the misfortune which had
+befallen them.
+
+There was a telegraph-office at a short distance from the hotel. We
+halted outside it.
+
+“It's worth trying, Watson,” said Holmes. “Of course, with a warrant we
+could demand to see the counterfoils, but we have not reached that stage
+yet. I don't suppose they remember faces in so busy a place. Let us
+venture it.”
+
+“I am sorry to trouble you,” said he, in his blandest manner, to the
+young woman behind the grating; “there is some small mistake about a
+telegram I sent yesterday. I have had no answer, and I very much fear
+that I must have omitted to put my name at the end. Could you tell me if
+this was so?”
+
+The young woman turned over a sheaf of counterfoils.
+
+“What o'clock was it?” she asked.
+
+“A little after six.”
+
+“Whom was it to?”
+
+Holmes put his finger to his lips and glanced at me. “The last words
+in it were 'for God's sake,'” he whispered, confidentially; “I am very
+anxious at getting no answer.”
+
+The young woman separated one of the forms.
+
+“This is it. There is no name,” said she, smoothing it out upon the
+counter.
+
+“Then that, of course, accounts for my getting no answer,” said Holmes.
+“Dear me, how very stupid of me, to be sure! Good morning, miss, and
+many thanks for having relieved my mind.” He chuckled and rubbed his
+hands when we found ourselves in the street once more.
+
+“Well?” I asked.
+
+“We progress, my dear Watson, we progress. I had seven different schemes
+for getting a glimpse of that telegram, but I could hardly hope to
+succeed the very first time.”
+
+“And what have you gained?”
+
+“A starting-point for our investigation.” He hailed a cab. “King's Cross
+Station,” said he.
+
+“We have a journey, then?”
+
+“Yes; I think we must run down to Cambridge together. All the
+indications seem to me to point in that direction.”
+
+“Tell me,” I asked, as we rattled up Gray's Inn Road, “have you any
+suspicion yet as to the cause of the disappearance? I don't think that
+among all our cases I have known one where the motives are more obscure.
+Surely you don't really imagine that he may be kidnapped in order to
+give information against his wealthy uncle?”
+
+“I confess, my dear Watson, that that does not appeal to me as a very
+probable explanation. It struck me, however, as being the one which was
+most likely to interest that exceedingly unpleasant old person.”
+
+“It certainly did that. But what are your alternatives?”
+
+“I could mention several. You must admit that it is curious and
+suggestive that this incident should occur on the eve of this important
+match, and should involve the only man whose presence seems essential
+to the success of the side. It may, of course, be coincidence, but it
+is interesting. Amateur sport is free from betting, but a good deal of
+outside betting goes on among the public, and it is possible that it
+might be worth someone's while to get at a player as the ruffians of
+the turf get at a race-horse. There is one explanation. A second
+very obvious one is that this young man really is the heir of a great
+property, however modest his means may at present be, and it is not
+impossible that a plot to hold him for ransom might be concocted.”
+
+“These theories take no account of the telegram.”
+
+“Quite true, Watson. The telegram still remains the only solid thing
+with which we have to deal, and we must not permit our attention to
+wander away from it. It is to gain light upon the purpose of this
+telegram that we are now upon our way to Cambridge. The path of our
+investigation is at present obscure, but I shall be very much surprised
+if before evening we have not cleared it up or made a considerable
+advance along it.”
+
+It was already dark when we reached the old University city. Holmes took
+a cab at the station, and ordered the man to drive to the house of Dr.
+Leslie Armstrong. A few minutes later we had stopped at a large mansion
+in the busiest thoroughfare. We were shown in, and after a long wait
+were at last admitted into the consulting-room, where we found the
+doctor seated behind his table.
+
+It argues the degree in which I had lost touch with my profession that
+the name of Leslie Armstrong was unknown to me. Now I am aware that he
+is not only one of the heads of the medical school of the University,
+but a thinker of European reputation in more than one branch of science.
+Yet even without knowing his brilliant record one could not fail to be
+impressed by a mere glance at the man, the square, massive face, the
+brooding eyes under the thatched brows, and the granite moulding of the
+inflexible jaw. A man of deep character, a man with an alert mind, grim,
+ascetic, self-contained, formidable--so I read Dr. Leslie Armstrong. He
+held my friend's card in his hand, and he looked up with no very pleased
+expression upon his dour features.
+
+“I have heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I am aware of your
+profession, one of which I by no means approve.”
+
+“In that, doctor, you will find yourself in agreement with every
+criminal in the country,” said my friend, quietly.
+
+“So far as your efforts are directed towards the suppression of crime,
+sir, they must have the support of every reasonable member of the
+community, though I cannot doubt that the official machinery is amply
+sufficient for the purpose. Where your calling is more open to criticism
+is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals, when you rake
+up family matters which are better hidden, and when you incidentally
+waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself. At the present
+moment, for example, I should be writing a treatise instead of
+conversing with you.”
+
+“No doubt, doctor; and yet the conversation may prove more important
+than the treatise. Incidentally I may tell you that we are doing the
+reverse of what you very justly blame, and that we are endeavouring
+to prevent anything like public exposure of private matters which must
+necessarily follow when once the case is fairly in the hands of the
+official police. You may look upon me simply as an irregular pioneer who
+goes in front of the regular forces of the country. I have come to ask
+you about Mr. Godfrey Staunton.”
+
+“What about him?”
+
+“You know him, do you not?”
+
+“He is an intimate friend of mine.”
+
+“You are aware that he has disappeared?”
+
+“Ah, indeed!” There was no change of expression in the rugged features
+of the doctor.
+
+“He left his hotel last night. He has not been heard of.”
+
+“No doubt he will return.”
+
+“To-morrow is the 'Varsity football match.”
+
+“I have no sympathy with these childish games. The young man's fate
+interests me deeply, since I know him and like him. The football match
+does not come within my horizon at all.”
+
+“I claim your sympathy, then, in my investigation of Mr. Staunton's
+fate. Do you know where he is?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“You have not seen him since yesterday?”
+
+“No, I have not.”
+
+“Was Mr. Staunton a healthy man?”
+
+“Absolutely.”
+
+“Did you ever know him ill?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+Holmes popped a sheet of paper before the doctor's eyes. “Then perhaps
+you will explain this receipted bill for thirteen guineas, paid by Mr.
+Godfrey Staunton last month to Dr. Leslie Armstrong of Cambridge. I
+picked it out from among the papers upon his desk.”
+
+The doctor flushed with anger.
+
+“I do not feel that there is any reason why I should render an
+explanation to you, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+Holmes replaced the bill in his note-book. “If you prefer a public
+explanation it must come sooner or later,” said he. “I have already told
+you that I can hush up that which others will be bound to publish, and
+you would really be wiser to take me into your complete confidence.”
+
+“I know nothing about it.”
+
+“Did you hear from Mr. Staunton in London?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Dear me, dear me; the post-office again!” Holmes sighed, wearily.
+“A most urgent telegram was dispatched to you from London by Godfrey
+Staunton at six-fifteen yesterday evening--a telegram which is
+undoubtedly associated with his disappearance--and yet you have not had
+it. It is most culpable. I shall certainly go down to the office here
+and register a complaint.”
+
+Dr. Leslie Armstrong sprang up from behind his desk, and his dark face
+was crimson with fury.
+
+“I'll trouble you to walk out of my house, sir,” said he. “You can tell
+your employer, Lord Mount-James, that I do not wish to have anything to
+do either with him or with his agents. No, sir, not another word!” He
+rang the bell furiously. “John, show these gentlemen out!” A pompous
+butler ushered us severely to the door, and we found ourselves in the
+street. Holmes burst out laughing.
+
+“Dr. Leslie Armstrong is certainly a man of energy and character,” said
+he. “I have not seen a man who, if he turned his talents that way, was
+more calculated to fill the gap left by the illustrious Moriarty.
+And now, my poor Watson, here we are, stranded and friendless in this
+inhospitable town, which we cannot leave without abandoning our case.
+This little inn just opposite Armstrong's house is singularly adapted to
+our needs. If you would engage a front room and purchase the necessaries
+for the night, I may have time to make a few inquiries.”
+
+These few inquiries proved, however, to be a more lengthy proceeding
+than Holmes had imagined, for he did not return to the inn until nearly
+nine o'clock. He was pale and dejected, stained with dust, and exhausted
+with hunger and fatigue. A cold supper was ready upon the table, and
+when his needs were satisfied and his pipe alight he was ready to take
+that half comic and wholly philosophic view which was natural to him
+when his affairs were going awry. The sound of carriage wheels caused
+him to rise and glance out of the window. A brougham and pair of greys
+under the glare of a gas-lamp stood before the doctor's door.
+
+“It's been out three hours,” said Holmes; “started at half-past six, and
+here it is back again. That gives a radius of ten or twelve miles, and
+he does it once, or sometimes twice, a day.”
+
+“No unusual thing for a doctor in practice.”
+
+“But Armstrong is not really a doctor in practice. He is a lecturer and
+a consultant, but he does not care for general practice, which distracts
+him from his literary work. Why, then, does he make these long journeys,
+which must be exceedingly irksome to him, and who is it that he visits?”
+
+“His coachman----”
+
+“My dear Watson, can you doubt that it was to him that I first applied?
+I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the
+promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me.
+Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter
+fell through. Relations were strained after that, and further inquiries
+out of the question. All that I have learned I got from a friendly
+native in the yard of our own inn. It was he who told me of the doctor's
+habits and of his daily journey. At that instant, to give point to his
+words, the carriage came round to the door.”
+
+“Could you not follow it?”
+
+“Excellent, Watson! You are scintillating this evening. The idea did
+cross my mind. There is, as you may have observed, a bicycle shop next
+to our inn. Into this I rushed, engaged a bicycle, and was able to get
+started before the carriage was quite out of sight. I rapidly overtook
+it, and then, keeping at a discreet distance of a hundred yards or so, I
+followed its lights until we were clear of the town. We had got well out
+on the country road when a somewhat mortifying incident occurred. The
+carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked swiftly back to where I
+had also halted, and told me in an excellent sardonic fashion that
+he feared the road was narrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not
+impede the passage of my bicycle. Nothing could have been more admirable
+than his way of putting it. I at once rode past the carriage, and,
+keeping to the main road, I went on for a few miles, and then halted in
+a convenient place to see if the carriage passed. There was no sign of
+it, however, and so it became evident that it had turned down one of
+several side roads which I had observed. I rode back, but again saw
+nothing of the carriage, and now, as you perceive, it has returned after
+me. Of course, I had at the outset no particular reason to connect
+these journeys with the disappearance of Godfrey Staunton, and was only
+inclined to investigate them on the general grounds that everything
+which concerns Dr. Armstrong is at present of interest to us; but, now
+that I find he keeps so keen a look-out upon anyone who may follow him
+on these excursions, the affair appears more important, and I shall not
+be satisfied until I have made the matter clear.”
+
+“We can follow him to-morrow.”
+
+“Can we? It is not so easy as you seem to think. You are not familiar
+with Cambridgeshire scenery, are you? It does not lend itself to
+concealment. All this country that I passed over to-night is as flat and
+clean as the palm of your hand, and the man we are following is no fool,
+as he very clearly showed to-night. I have wired to Overton to let us
+know any fresh London developments at this address, and in the meantime
+we can only concentrate our attention upon Dr. Armstrong, whose name
+the obliging young lady at the office allowed me to read upon the
+counterfoil of Staunton's urgent message. He knows where the young man
+is--to that I'll swear--and if he knows, then it must be our own fault
+if we cannot manage to know also. At present it must be admitted that
+the odd trick is in his possession, and, as you are aware, Watson, it is
+not my habit to leave the game in that condition.”
+
+And yet the next day brought us no nearer to the solution of the
+mystery. A note was handed in after breakfast, which Holmes passed
+across to me with a smile.
+
+“Sir,” it ran, “I can assure you that you are wasting your time in
+dogging my movements. I have, as you discovered last night, a window at
+the back of my brougham, and if you desire a twenty-mile ride which will
+lead you to the spot from which you started, you have only to follow me.
+Meanwhile, I can inform you that no spying upon me can in any way help
+Mr. Godfrey Staunton, and I am convinced that the best service you can
+do to that gentleman is to return at once to London and to report to
+your employer that you are unable to trace him. Your time in Cambridge
+will certainly be wasted.
+
+“Yours faithfully,
+
+“LESLIE ARMSTRONG.”
+
+
+“An outspoken, honest antagonist is the doctor,” said Holmes. “Well,
+well, he excites my curiosity, and I must really know more before I
+leave him.”
+
+“His carriage is at his door now,” said I. “There he is stepping into
+it. I saw him glance up at our window as he did so. Suppose I try my
+luck upon the bicycle?”
+
+“No, no, my dear Watson! With all respect for your natural acumen I do
+not think that you are quite a match for the worthy doctor. I think that
+possibly I can attain our end by some independent explorations of my
+own. I am afraid that I must leave you to your own devices, as the
+appearance of TWO inquiring strangers upon a sleepy countryside might
+excite more gossip than I care for. No doubt you will find some sights
+to amuse you in this venerable city, and I hope to bring back a more
+favourable report to you before evening.”
+
+Once more, however, my friend was destined to be disappointed. He came
+back at night weary and unsuccessful.
+
+“I have had a blank day, Watson. Having got the doctor's general
+direction, I spent the day in visiting all the villages upon that side
+of Cambridge, and comparing notes with publicans and other local news
+agencies. I have covered some ground: Chesterton, Histon, Waterbeach,
+and Oakington have each been explored and have each proved
+disappointing. The daily appearance of a brougham and pair could hardly
+have been overlooked in such Sleepy Hollows. The doctor has scored once
+more. Is there a telegram for me?”
+
+“Yes; I opened it. Here it is: 'Ask for Pompey from Jeremy Dixon,
+Trinity College.' I don't understand it.”
+
+“Oh, it is clear enough. It is from our friend Overton, and is in answer
+to a question from me. I'll just send round a note to Mr. Jeremy Dixon,
+and then I have no doubt that our luck will turn. By the way, is there
+any news of the match?”
+
+“Yes, the local evening paper has an excellent account in its last
+edition. Oxford won by a goal and two tries. The last sentences of
+the description say: 'The defeat of the Light Blues may be entirely
+attributed to the unfortunate absence of the crack International,
+Godfrey Staunton, whose want was felt at every instant of the game. The
+lack of combination in the three-quarter line and their weakness both
+in attack and defence more than neutralized the efforts of a heavy and
+hard-working pack.'”
+
+“Then our friend Overton's forebodings have been justified,” said
+Holmes. “Personally I am in agreement with Dr. Armstrong, and football
+does not come within my horizon. Early to bed to-night, Watson, for I
+foresee that to-morrow may be an eventful day.”
+
+
+I was horrified by my first glimpse of Holmes next morning, for he
+sat by the fire holding his tiny hypodermic syringe. I associated that
+instrument with the single weakness of his nature, and I feared the
+worst when I saw it glittering in his hand. He laughed at my expression
+of dismay, and laid it upon the table.
+
+“No, no, my dear fellow, there is no cause for alarm. It is not upon
+this occasion the instrument of evil, but it will rather prove to be the
+key which will unlock our mystery. On this syringe I base all my hopes.
+I have just returned from a small scouting expedition and everything is
+favourable. Eat a good breakfast, Watson, for I propose to get upon Dr.
+Armstrong's trail to-day, and once on it I will not stop for rest or
+food until I run him to his burrow.”
+
+“In that case,” said I, “we had best carry our breakfast with us, for he
+is making an early start. His carriage is at the door.”
+
+“Never mind. Let him go. He will be clever if he can drive where I
+cannot follow him. When you have finished come downstairs with me, and
+I will introduce you to a detective who is a very eminent specialist in
+the work that lies before us.”
+
+When we descended I followed Holmes into the stable yard, where
+he opened the door of a loose-box and led out a squat, lop-eared,
+white-and-tan dog, something between a beagle and a foxhound.
+
+“Let me introduce you to Pompey,” said he. “Pompey is the pride of the
+local draghounds, no very great flier, as his build will show, but
+a staunch hound on a scent. Well, Pompey, you may not be fast, but
+I expect you will be too fast for a couple of middle-aged London
+gentlemen, so I will take the liberty of fastening this leather leash to
+your collar. Now, boy, come along, and show what you can do.” He led him
+across to the doctor's door. The dog sniffed round for an instant, and
+then with a shrill whine of excitement started off down the street,
+tugging at his leash in his efforts to go faster. In half an hour, we
+were clear of the town and hastening down a country road.
+
+“What have you done, Holmes?” I asked.
+
+“A threadbare and venerable device, but useful upon occasion. I walked
+into the doctor's yard this morning and shot my syringe full of aniseed
+over the hind wheel. A draghound will follow aniseed from here to John
+o' Groat's, and our friend Armstrong would have to drive through the Cam
+before he would shake Pompey off his trail. Oh, the cunning rascal! This
+is how he gave me the slip the other night.”
+
+The dog had suddenly turned out of the main road into a grass-grown
+lane. Half a mile farther this opened into another broad road, and the
+trail turned hard to the right in the direction of the town, which we
+had just quitted. The road took a sweep to the south of the town and
+continued in the opposite direction to that in which we started.
+
+“This DETOUR has been entirely for our benefit, then?” said Holmes. “No
+wonder that my inquiries among those villages led to nothing. The doctor
+has certainly played the game for all it is worth, and one would like to
+know the reason for such elaborate deception. This should be the village
+of Trumpington to the right of us. And, by Jove! here is the brougham
+coming round the corner. Quick, Watson, quick, or we are done!”
+
+He sprang through a gate into a field, dragging the reluctant Pompey
+after him. We had hardly got under the shelter of the hedge when the
+carriage rattled past. I caught a glimpse of Dr. Armstrong within, his
+shoulders bowed, his head sunk on his hands, the very image of distress.
+I could tell by my companion's graver face that he also had seen.
+
+“I fear there is some dark ending to our quest,” said he. “It cannot
+be long before we know it. Come, Pompey! Ah, it is the cottage in the
+field!”
+
+There could be no doubt that we had reached the end of our journey.
+Pompey ran about and whined eagerly outside the gate where the marks of
+the brougham's wheels were still to be seen. A footpath led across to
+the lonely cottage. Holmes tied the dog to the hedge, and we hastened
+onwards. My friend knocked at the little rustic door, and knocked again
+without response. And yet the cottage was not deserted, for a low sound
+came to our ears--a kind of drone of misery and despair, which was
+indescribably melancholy. Holmes paused irresolute, and then he glanced
+back at the road which we had just traversed. A brougham was coming down
+it, and there could be no mistaking those grey horses.
+
+“By Jove, the doctor is coming back!” cried Holmes. “That settles it. We
+are bound to see what it means before he comes.”
+
+He opened the door and we stepped into the hall. The droning sound
+swelled louder upon our ears until it became one long, deep wail of
+distress. It came from upstairs. Holmes darted up and I followed him. He
+pushed open a half-closed door and we both stood appalled at the sight
+before us.
+
+A woman, young and beautiful, was lying dead upon the bed. Her calm,
+pale face, with dim, wide-opened blue eyes, looked upward from amid a
+great tangle of golden hair. At the foot of the bed, half sitting, half
+kneeling, his face buried in the clothes, was a young man, whose frame
+was racked by his sobs. So absorbed was he by his bitter grief that he
+never looked up until Holmes's hand was on his shoulder.
+
+“Are you Mr. Godfrey Staunton?”
+
+“Yes, yes; I am--but you are too late. She is dead.”
+
+The man was so dazed that he could not be made to understand that we
+were anything but doctors who had been sent to his assistance. Holmes
+was endeavouring to utter a few words of consolation, and to explain the
+alarm which had been caused to his friends by his sudden disappearance,
+when there was a step upon the stairs, and there was the heavy, stern,
+questioning face of Dr. Armstrong at the door.
+
+“So, gentlemen,” said he, “you have attained your end, and have
+certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. I
+would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can assure you that if I
+were a younger man your monstrous conduct would not pass with impunity.”
+
+“Excuse me, Dr. Armstrong, I think we are a little at cross-purposes,”
+ said my friend, with dignity. “If you could step downstairs with us we
+may each be able to give some light to the other upon this miserable
+affair.”
+
+A minute later the grim doctor and ourselves were in the sitting-room
+below.
+
+“Well, sir?” said he.
+
+“I wish you to understand, in the first place, that I am not employed
+by Lord Mount-James, and that my sympathies in this matter are entirely
+against that nobleman. When a man is lost it is my duty to ascertain his
+fate, but having done so the matter ends so far as I am concerned; and
+so long as there is nothing criminal, I am much more anxious to hush up
+private scandals than to give them publicity. If, as I imagine, there is
+no breach of the law in this matter, you can absolutely depend upon my
+discretion and my co-operation in keeping the facts out of the papers.”
+
+Dr. Armstrong took a quick step forward and wrung Holmes by the hand.
+
+“You are a good fellow,” said he. “I had misjudged you. I thank Heaven
+that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in this plight
+caused me to turn my carriage back, and so to make your acquaintance.
+Knowing as much as you do, the situation is very easily explained.
+A year ago Godfrey Staunton lodged in London for a time, and became
+passionately attached to his landlady's daughter, whom he married. She
+was as good as she was beautiful, and as intelligent as she was good.
+No man need be ashamed of such a wife. But Godfrey was the heir to this
+crabbed old nobleman, and it was quite certain that the news of his
+marriage would have been the end of his inheritance. I knew the lad
+well, and I loved him for his many excellent qualities. I did all I
+could to help him to keep things straight. We did our very best to keep
+the thing from everyone, for when once such a whisper gets about it is
+not long before everyone has heard it. Thanks to this lonely cottage and
+his own discretion, Godfrey has up to now succeeded. Their secret was
+known to no one save to me and to one excellent servant who has at
+present gone for assistance to Trumpington. But at last there came a
+terrible blow in the shape of dangerous illness to his wife. It was
+consumption of the most virulent kind. The poor boy was half crazed with
+grief, and yet he had to go to London to play this match, for he could
+not get out of it without explanations which would expose his secret. I
+tried to cheer him up by a wire, and he sent me one in reply imploring
+me to do all I could. This was the telegram which you appear in some
+inexplicable way to have seen. I did not tell him how urgent the danger
+was, for I knew that he could do no good here, but I sent the truth to
+the girl's father, and he very injudiciously communicated it to Godfrey.
+The result was that he came straight away in a state bordering on
+frenzy, and has remained in the same state, kneeling at the end of her
+bed, until this morning death put an end to her sufferings. That is all,
+Mr. Holmes, and I am sure that I can rely upon your discretion and that
+of your friend.”
+
+Holmes grasped the doctor's hand.
+
+“Come, Watson,” said he, and we passed from that house of grief into the
+pale sunlight of the winter day.
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 28  SEPTEMBER, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+XII.--The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.
+
+
+It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning during the winter of '97
+that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The
+candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face and told me at a
+glance that something was amiss.
+
+“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into
+your clothes and come!”
+
+Ten minutes later we were both in a cab and rattling through the silent
+streets on our way to Charing Cross Station. The first faint winter's
+dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the occasional
+figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and indistinct in
+the opalescent London reek. Holmes nestled in silence into his heavy
+coat, and I was glad to do the same, for the air was most bitter and
+neither of us had broken our fast. It was not until we had consumed some
+hot tea at the station, and taken our places in the Kentish train, that
+we were sufficiently thawed, he to speak and I to listen. Holmes drew a
+note from his pocket and read it aloud:--
+
+               “Abbey Grange, Marsham, Kent,
+                            “3.30 a.m.
+   “MY DEAR MR. HOLMES,--I should be very glad of your immediate
+   assistance in what promises to be a most remarkable case.
+   It is something quite in your line.  Except for releasing the lady
+   I will see that everything is kept exactly as I have found it,
+   but I beg you not to lose an instant, as it is difficult to leave
+   Sir Eustace there.
+               “Yours faithfully, STANLEY HOPKINS.”
+
+“Hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion his summons
+has been entirely justified,” said Holmes. “I fancy that every one of
+his cases has found its way into your collection, and I must admit,
+Watson, that you have some power of selection which atones for much
+which I deplore in your narratives. Your fatal habit of looking at
+everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific
+exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even
+classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost
+finesse and delicacy in order to dwell upon sensational details which
+may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.”
+
+“Why do you not write them yourself?” I said, with some bitterness.
+
+“I will, my dear Watson, I will. At present I am, as you know, fairly
+busy, but I propose to devote my declining years to the composition of a
+text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume.
+Our present research appears to be a case of murder.”
+
+“You think this Sir Eustace is dead, then?”
+
+“I should say so. Hopkins's writing shows considerable agitation, and he
+is not an emotional man. Yes, I gather there has been violence, and
+that the body is left for our inspection. A mere suicide would not
+have caused him to send for me. As to the release of the lady, it would
+appear that she has been locked in her room during the tragedy. We
+are moving in high life, Watson; crackling paper, 'E.B.' monogram,
+coat-of-arms, picturesque address. I think that friend Hopkins will live
+up to his reputation and that we shall have an interesting morning. The
+crime was committed before twelve last night.”
+
+“How can you possibly tell?”
+
+“By an inspection of the trains and by reckoning the time. The local
+police had to be called in, they had to communicate with Scotland Yard,
+Hopkins had to go out, and he in turn had to send for me. All that makes
+a fair night's work. Well, here we are at Chislehurst Station, and we
+shall soon set our doubts at rest.”
+
+A drive of a couple of miles through narrow country lanes brought us
+to a park gate, which was opened for us by an old lodge-keeper, whose
+haggard face bore the reflection of some great disaster. The avenue ran
+through a noble park, between lines of ancient elms, and ended in a low,
+widespread house, pillared in front after the fashion of Palladio. The
+central part was evidently of a great age and shrouded in ivy, but the
+large windows showed that modern changes had been carried out, and one
+wing of the house appeared to be entirely new. The youthful figure and
+alert, eager face of Inspector Stanley Hopkins confronted us in the open
+doorway.
+
+“I'm very glad you have come, Mr. Holmes. And you too, Dr. Watson! But,
+indeed, if I had my time over again I should not have troubled you, for
+since the lady has come to herself she has given so clear an account of
+the affair that there is not much left for us to do. You remember that
+Lewisham gang of burglars?”
+
+“What, the three Randalls?”
+
+“Exactly; the father and two sons. It's their work. I have not a doubt
+of it. They did a job at Sydenham a fortnight ago, and were seen and
+described. Rather cool to do another so soon and so near, but it is
+they, beyond all doubt. It's a hanging matter this time.”
+
+“Sir Eustace is dead, then?”
+
+“Yes; his head was knocked in with his own poker.”
+
+“Sir Eustace Brackenstall, the driver tells me.”
+
+“Exactly--one of the richest men in Kent. Lady Brackenstall is in the
+morning-room. Poor lady, she has had a most dreadful experience. She
+seemed half dead when I saw her first. I think you had best see her
+and hear her account of the facts. Then we will examine the dining-room
+together.”
+
+Lady Brackenstall was no ordinary person. Seldom have I seen so graceful
+a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face. She was a
+blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and would, no doubt, have had the
+perfect complexion which goes with such colouring had not her recent
+experience left her drawn and haggard. Her sufferings were physical as
+well as mental, for over one eye rose a hideous, plum-coloured swelling,
+which her maid, a tall, austere woman, was bathing assiduously with
+vinegar and water. The lady lay back exhausted upon a couch, but her
+quick, observant gaze as we entered the room, and the alert expression
+of her beautiful features, showed that neither her wits nor her courage
+had been shaken by her terrible experience. She was enveloped in a
+loose dressing-gown of blue and silver, but a black sequin-covered
+dinner-dress was hung upon the couch beside her.
+
+“I have told you all that happened, Mr. Hopkins,” she said, wearily;
+“could you not repeat it for me? Well, if you think it necessary, I will
+tell these gentlemen what occurred. Have they been in the dining-room
+yet?”
+
+“I thought they had better hear your ladyship's story first.”
+
+“I shall be glad when you can arrange matters. It is horrible to me to
+think of him still lying there.” She shuddered and buried her face in
+her hands. As she did so the loose gown fell back from her forearms.
+Holmes uttered an exclamation.
+
+“You have other injuries, madam! What is this?” Two vivid red spots
+stood out on one of the white, round limbs. She hastily covered it.
+
+“It is nothing. It has no connection with the hideous business of last
+night. If you and your friend will sit down I will tell you all I can.
+
+“I am the wife of Sir Eustace Brackenstall. I have been married about
+a year. I suppose that it is no use my attempting to conceal that our
+marriage has not been a happy one. I fear that all our neighbours would
+tell you that, even if I were to attempt to deny it. Perhaps the fault
+may be partly mine. I was brought up in the freer, less conventional
+atmosphere of South Australia, and this English life, with its
+proprieties and its primness, is not congenial to me. But the main
+reason lies in the one fact which is notorious to everyone, and that is
+that Sir Eustace was a confirmed drunkard. To be with such a man for an
+hour is unpleasant. Can you imagine what it means for a sensitive
+and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and night? It is a
+sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a marriage is binding.
+I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the
+land--Heaven will not let such wickedness endure.” For an instant she
+sat up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes blazing from under the terrible
+mark upon her brow. Then the strong, soothing hand of the austere maid
+drew her head down on to the cushion, and the wild anger died away into
+passionate sobbing. At last she continued:--
+
+“I will tell you about last night. You are aware, perhaps, that in this
+house all servants sleep in the modern wing. This central block is made
+up of the dwelling-rooms, with the kitchen behind and our bedroom above.
+My maid Theresa sleeps above my room. There is no one else, and no sound
+could alarm those who are in the farther wing. This must have been well
+known to the robbers, or they would not have acted as they did.
+
+“Sir Eustace retired about half-past ten. The servants had already gone
+to their quarters. Only my maid was up, and she had remained in her room
+at the top of the house until I needed her services. I sat until after
+eleven in this room, absorbed in a book. Then I walked round to see
+that all was right before I went upstairs. It was my custom to do this
+myself, for, as I have explained, Sir Eustace was not always to be
+trusted. I went into the kitchen, the butler's pantry, the gun-room,
+the billiard-room, the drawing-room, and finally the dining-room. As I
+approached the window, which is covered with thick curtains, I suddenly
+felt the wind blow upon my face and realized that it was open. I flung
+the curtain aside and found myself face to face with a broad-shouldered,
+elderly man who had just stepped into the room. The window is a long
+French one, which really forms a door leading to the lawn. I held my
+bedroom candle lit in my hand, and, by its light, behind the first man I
+saw two others, who were in the act of entering. I stepped back, but the
+fellow was on me in an instant. He caught me first by the wrist and then
+by the throat. I opened my mouth to scream, but he struck me a savage
+blow with his fist over the eye, and felled me to the ground. I must
+have been unconscious for a few minutes, for when I came to myself I
+found that they had torn down the bell-rope and had secured me tightly
+to the oaken chair which stands at the head of the dining-room table. I
+was so firmly bound that I could not move, and a handkerchief round my
+mouth prevented me from uttering any sound. It was at this instant that
+my unfortunate husband entered the room. He had evidently heard some
+suspicious sounds, and he came prepared for such a scene as he found.
+He was dressed in his shirt and trousers, with his favourite blackthorn
+cudgel in his hand. He rushed at one of the burglars, but another--it
+was the elderly man--stooped, picked the poker out of the grate, and
+struck him a horrible blow as he passed. He fell without a groan, and
+never moved again. I fainted once more, but again it could only have
+been a very few minutes during which I was insensible. When I opened my
+eyes I found that they had collected the silver from the sideboard, and
+they had drawn a bottle of wine which stood there. Each of them had a
+glass in his hand. I have already told you, have I not, that one was
+elderly, with a beard, and the others young, hairless lads. They might
+have been a father with his two sons. They talked together in whispers.
+Then they came over and made sure that I was still securely bound.
+Finally they withdrew, closing the window after them. It was quite a
+quarter of an hour before I got my mouth free. When I did so my screams
+brought the maid to my assistance. The other servants were soon alarmed,
+and we sent for the local police, who instantly communicated with
+London. That is really all that I can tell you, gentlemen, and I trust
+that it will not be necessary for me to go over so painful a story
+again.”
+
+“Any questions, Mr. Holmes?” asked Hopkins.
+
+“I will not impose any further tax upon Lady Brackenstall's patience and
+time,” said Holmes. “Before I go into the dining-room I should like to
+hear your experience.” He looked at the maid.
+
+“I saw the men before ever they came into the house,” said she. “As I
+sat by my bedroom window I saw three men in the moonlight down by the
+lodge gate yonder, but I thought nothing of it at the time. It was more
+than an hour after that I heard my mistress scream, and down I ran, to
+find her, poor lamb, just as she says, and him on the floor with his
+blood and brains over the room. It was enough to drive a woman out of
+her wits, tied there, and her very dress spotted with him; but she never
+wanted courage, did Miss Mary Fraser of Adelaide, and Lady Brackenstall
+of Abbey Grange hasn't learned new ways. You've questioned her long
+enough, you gentlemen, and now she is coming to her own room, just with
+her old Theresa, to get the rest that she badly needs.”
+
+With a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her
+mistress and led her from the room.
+
+“She has been with her all her life,” said Hopkins. “Nursed her as
+a baby, and came with her to England when they first left Australia
+eighteen months ago. Theresa Wright is her name, and the kind of maid
+you don't pick up nowadays. This way, Mr. Holmes, if you please!”
+
+The keen interest had passed out of Holmes's expressive face, and I
+knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed. There
+still remained an arrest to be effected, but what were these commonplace
+rogues that he should soil his hands with them? An abstruse and learned
+specialist who finds that he has been called in for a case of measles
+would experience something of the annoyance which I read in my
+friend's eyes. Yet the scene in the dining-room of the Abbey Grange was
+sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and to recall his waning
+interest.
+
+It was a very large and high chamber, with carved oak ceiling, oaken
+panelling, and a fine array of deer's heads and ancient weapons around
+the walls. At the farther end from the door was the high French window
+of which we had heard. Three smaller windows on the right-hand side
+filled the apartment with cold winter sunshine. On the left was a large,
+deep fireplace, with a massive, over-hanging oak mantelpiece. Beside
+the fireplace was a heavy oaken chair with arms and cross-bars at the
+bottom. In and out through the open woodwork was woven a crimson cord,
+which was secured at each side to the crosspiece below. In releasing the
+lady the cord had been slipped off her, but the knots with which it had
+been secured still remained. These details only struck our attention
+afterwards, for our thoughts were entirely absorbed by the terrible
+object which lay upon the tiger-skin hearthrug in front of the fire.
+
+It was the body of a tall, well-made man, about forty years of age.
+He lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth grinning
+through his short black beard. His two clenched hands were raised
+above his head, and a heavy blackthorn stick lay across them. His dark,
+handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive
+hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression.
+He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he
+wore a foppish embroidered night-shirt, and his bare feet projected from
+his trousers. His head was horribly injured, and the whole room bore
+witness to the savage ferocity of the blow which had struck him down.
+Beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into a curve by the concussion.
+Holmes examined both it and the indescribable wreck which it had
+wrought.
+
+“He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall,” he remarked.
+
+“Yes,” said Hopkins. “I have some record of the fellow, and he is a
+rough customer.”
+
+“You should have no difficulty in getting him.”
+
+“Not the slightest. We have been on the look-out for him, and there was
+some idea that he had got away to America. Now that we know the gang are
+here I don't see how they can escape. We have the news at every seaport
+already, and a reward will be offered before evening. What beats me is
+how they could have done so mad a thing, knowing that the lady could
+describe them, and that we could not fail to recognise the description.”
+
+“Exactly. One would have expected that they would have silenced Lady
+Brackenstall as well.”
+
+“They may not have realized,” I suggested, “that she had recovered from
+her faint.”
+
+“That is likely enough. If she seemed to be senseless they would not
+take her life. What about this poor fellow, Hopkins? I seem to have
+heard some queer stories about him.”
+
+“He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend when
+he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom really
+went the whole way. The devil seemed to be in him at such times, and he
+was capable of anything. From what I hear, in spite of all his wealth
+and his title, he very nearly came our way once or twice. There was
+a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum and setting it on
+fire--her ladyship's dog, to make the matter worse--and that was only
+hushed up with difficulty. Then he threw a decanter at that maid,
+Theresa Wright; there was trouble about that. On the whole, and between
+ourselves, it will be a brighter house without him. What are you looking
+at now?”
+
+Holmes was down on his knees examining with great attention the
+knots upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured. Then he
+carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped off
+when the burglar had dragged it down.
+
+“When this was pulled down the bell in the kitchen must have rung
+loudly,” he remarked.
+
+“No one could hear it. The kitchen stands right at the back of the
+house.”
+
+“How did the burglar know no one would hear it? How dared he pull at a
+bell-rope in that reckless fashion?”
+
+“Exactly, Mr. Holmes, exactly. You put the very question which I have
+asked myself again and again. There can be no doubt that this fellow
+must have known the house and its habits. He must have perfectly
+understood that the servants would all be in bed at that comparatively
+early hour, and that no one could possibly hear a bell ring in the
+kitchen. Therefore he must have been in close league with one of the
+servants. Surely that is evident. But there are eight servants, and all
+of good character.”
+
+“Other things being equal,” said Holmes, “one would suspect the one
+at whose head the master threw a decanter. And yet that would involve
+treachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems devoted. Well,
+well, the point is a minor one, and when you have Randall you will
+probably find no difficulty in securing his accomplice. The lady's story
+certainly seems to be corroborated, if it needed corroboration, by every
+detail which we see before us.” He walked to the French window and threw
+it open. “There are no signs here, but the ground is iron hard, and one
+would not expect them. I see that these candles on the mantelpiece have
+been lighted.”
+
+“Yes; it was by their light and that of the lady's bedroom candle that
+the burglars saw their way about.”
+
+“And what did they take?”
+
+“Well, they did not take much--only half-a-dozen articles of plate off
+the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so
+disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the
+house as they would otherwise have done.”
+
+“No doubt that is true. And yet they drank some wine, I understand.”
+
+“To steady their own nerves.”
+
+“Exactly. These three glasses upon the sideboard have been untouched, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Yes; and the bottle stands as they left it.”
+
+“Let us look at it. Halloa! halloa! what is this?”
+
+The three glasses were grouped together, all of them tinged with wine,
+and one of them containing some dregs of bees-wing. The bottle stood
+near them, two-thirds full, and beside it lay a long, deeply-stained
+cork. Its appearance and the dust upon the bottle showed that it was no
+common vintage which the murderers had enjoyed.
+
+A change had come over Holmes's manner. He had lost his listless
+expression, and again I saw an alert light of interest in his keen,
+deep-set eyes. He raised the cork and examined it minutely.
+
+“How did they draw it?” he asked.
+
+Hopkins pointed to a half-opened drawer. In it lay some table linen and
+a large cork-screw.
+
+“Did Lady Brackenstall say that screw was used?”
+
+“No; you remember that she was senseless at the moment when the bottle
+was opened.”
+
+“Quite so. As a matter of fact that screw was NOT used. This bottle was
+opened by a pocket-screw, probably contained in a knife, and not more
+than an inch and a half long. If you examine the top of the cork you
+will observe that the screw was driven in three times before the cork
+was extracted. It has never been transfixed. This long screw would
+have transfixed it and drawn it with a single pull. When you catch this
+fellow you will find that he has one of these multiplex knives in his
+possession.”
+
+“Excellent!” said Hopkins.
+
+“But these glasses do puzzle me, I confess. Lady Brackenstall actually
+SAW the three men drinking, did she not?”
+
+“Yes; she was clear about that.”
+
+“Then there is an end of it. What more is to be said? And yet you must
+admit that the three glasses are very remarkable, Hopkins. What, you
+see nothing remarkable! Well, well, let it pass. Perhaps when a man has
+special knowledge and special powers like my own it rather encourages
+him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand. Of
+course, it must be a mere chance about the glasses. Well, good morning,
+Hopkins. I don't see that I can be of any use to you, and you appear
+to have your case very clear. You will let me know when Randall is
+arrested, and any further developments which may occur. I trust that I
+shall soon have to congratulate you upon a successful conclusion. Come,
+Watson, I fancy that we may employ ourselves more profitably at home.”
+
+During our return journey I could see by Holmes's face that he was much
+puzzled by something which he had observed. Every now and then, by an
+effort, he would throw off the impression and talk as if the matter were
+clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his
+knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone
+back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange in which
+this midnight tragedy had been enacted. At last, by a sudden impulse,
+just as our train was crawling out of a suburban station, he sprang on
+to the platform and pulled me out after him.
+
+“Excuse me, my dear fellow,” said he, as we watched the rear carriages
+of our train disappearing round a curve; “I am sorry to make you the
+victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life, Watson, I simply
+CAN'T leave that case in this condition. Every instinct that I possess
+cries out against it. It's wrong--it's all wrong--I'll swear that it's
+wrong. And yet the lady's story was complete, the maid's corroboration
+was sufficient, the detail was fairly exact. What have I to put against
+that? Three wine-glasses, that is all. But if I had not taken things for
+granted, if I had examined everything with the care which I would have
+shown had we approached the case DE NOVO and had no cut-and-dried story
+to warp my mind, would I not then have found something more definite
+to go upon? Of course I should. Sit down on this bench, Watson, until a
+train for Chislehurst arrives, and allow me to lay the evidence before
+you, imploring you in the first instance to dismiss from your mind the
+idea that anything which the maid or her mistress may have said must
+necessarily be true. The lady's charming personality must not be
+permitted to warp our judgment.
+
+“Surely there are details in her story which, if we looked at it in cold
+blood, would excite our suspicion. These burglars made a considerable
+haul at Sydenham a fortnight ago. Some account of them and of their
+appearance was in the papers, and would naturally occur to anyone who
+wished to invent a story in which imaginary robbers should play a part.
+As a matter of fact, burglars who have done a good stroke of business
+are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the proceeds in peace and quiet
+without embarking on another perilous undertaking. Again, it is unusual
+for burglars to operate at so early an hour; it is unusual for burglars
+to strike a lady to prevent her screaming, since one would imagine that
+was the sure way to make her scream; it is unusual for them to commit
+murder when their numbers are sufficient to overpower one man; it is
+unusual for them to be content with a limited plunder when there is
+much more within their reach; and finally I should say that it was very
+unusual for such men to leave a bottle half empty. How do all these
+unusuals strike you, Watson?”
+
+“Their cumulative effect is certainly considerable, and yet each of them
+is quite possible in itself. The most unusual thing of all, as it seems
+to me, is that the lady should be tied to the chair.”
+
+“Well, I am not so clear about that, Watson; for it is evident that they
+must either kill her or else secure her in such a way that she could
+not give immediate notice of their escape. But at any rate I have shown,
+have I not, that there is a certain element of improbability about
+the lady's story? And now on the top of this comes the incident of the
+wine-glasses.”
+
+“What about the wine-glasses?”
+
+“Can you see them in your mind's eye?”
+
+“I see them clearly.”
+
+“We are told that three men drank from them. Does that strike you as
+likely?”
+
+“Why not? There was wine in each glass.”
+
+“Exactly; but there was bees-wing only in one glass. You must have
+noticed that fact. What does that suggest to your mind?”
+
+“The last glass filled would be most likely to contain bees-wing.”
+
+“Not at all. The bottle was full of it, and it is inconceivable that
+the first two glasses were clear and the third heavily charged with it.
+There are two possible explanations, and only two. One is that after the
+second glass was filled the bottle was violently agitated, and so the
+third glass received the bees-wing. That does not appear probable. No,
+no; I am sure that I am right.”
+
+“What, then, do you suppose?”
+
+“That only two glasses were used, and that the dregs of both were poured
+into a third glass, so as to give the false impression that three people
+had been here. In that way all the bees-wing would be in the last glass,
+would it not? Yes, I am convinced that this is so. But if I have hit
+upon the true explanation of this one small phenomenon, then in
+an instant the case rises from the commonplace to the exceedingly
+remarkable, for it can only mean that Lady Brackenstall and her maid
+have deliberately lied to us, that not one word of their story is to be
+believed, that they have some very strong reason for covering the real
+criminal, and that we must construct our case for ourselves without any
+help from them. That is the mission which now lies before us, and here,
+Watson, is the Chislehurst train.”
+
+The household of the Abbey Grange were much surprised at our return, but
+Sherlock Holmes, finding that Stanley Hopkins had gone off to report to
+head-quarters, took possession of the dining-room, locked the door upon
+the inside, and devoted himself for two hours to one of those minute
+and laborious investigations which formed the solid basis on which his
+brilliant edifices of deduction were reared. Seated in a corner like an
+interested student who observes the demonstration of his professor,
+I followed every step of that remarkable research. The window, the
+curtains, the carpet, the chair, the rope--each in turn was minutely
+examined and duly pondered. The body of the unfortunate baronet had been
+removed, but all else remained as we had seen it in the morning. Then,
+to my astonishment, Holmes climbed up on to the massive mantelpiece. Far
+above his head hung the few inches of red cord which were still attached
+to the wire. For a long time he gazed upward at it, and then in an
+attempt to get nearer to it he rested his knee upon a wooden bracket on
+the wall. This brought his hand within a few inches of the broken end of
+the rope, but it was not this so much as the bracket itself which seemed
+to engage his attention. Finally he sprang down with an ejaculation of
+satisfaction.
+
+“It's all right, Watson,” said he. “We have got our case--one of the
+most remarkable in our collection. But, dear me, how slow-witted I have
+been, and how nearly I have committed the blunder of my lifetime! Now, I
+think that with a few missing links my chain is almost complete.”
+
+“You have got your men?”
+
+“Man, Watson, man. Only one, but a very formidable person. Strong as a
+lion--witness the blow that bent that poker. Six foot three in height,
+active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers; finally, remarkably
+quick-witted, for this whole ingenious story is of his concoction. Yes,
+Watson, we have come upon the handiwork of a very remarkable individual.
+And yet in that bell-rope he has given us a clue which should not have
+left us a doubt.”
+
+“Where was the clue?”
+
+“Well, if you were to pull down a bell-rope, Watson, where would you
+expect it to break? Surely at the spot where it is attached to the wire.
+Why should it break three inches from the top as this one has done?”
+
+“Because it is frayed there?”
+
+“Exactly. This end, which we can examine, is frayed. He was cunning
+enough to do that with his knife. But the other end is not frayed. You
+could not observe that from here, but if you were on the mantelpiece you
+would see that it is cut clean off without any mark of fraying whatever.
+You can reconstruct what occurred. The man needed the rope. He would not
+tear it down for fear of giving the alarm by ringing the bell. What did
+he do? He sprang up on the mantelpiece, could not quite reach it, put
+his knee on the bracket--you will see the impression in the dust--and so
+got his knife to bear upon the cord. I could not reach the place by at
+least three inches, from which I infer that he is at least three inches
+a bigger man than I. Look at that mark upon the seat of the oaken chair!
+What is it?”
+
+“Blood.”
+
+“Undoubtedly it is blood. This alone puts the lady's story out of court.
+If she were seated on the chair when the crime was done, how comes
+that mark? No, no; she was placed in the chair AFTER the death of her
+husband. I'll wager that the black dress shows a corresponding mark to
+this. We have not yet met our Waterloo, Watson, but this is our Marengo,
+for it begins in defeat and ends in victory. I should like now to have a
+few words with the nurse Theresa. We must be wary for awhile, if we are
+to get the information which we want.”
+
+She was an interesting person, this stern Australian nurse. Taciturn,
+suspicious, ungracious, it took some time before Holmes's pleasant
+manner and frank acceptance of all that she said thawed her into a
+corresponding amiability. She did not attempt to conceal her hatred for
+her late employer.
+
+“Yes, sir, it is true that he threw the decanter at me. I heard him call
+my mistress a name, and I told him that he would not dare to speak so if
+her brother had been there. Then it was that he threw it at me. He might
+have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird alone. He was for
+ever ill-treating her, and she too proud to complain. She will not even
+tell me all that he has done to her. She never told me of those marks on
+her arm that you saw this morning, but I know very well that they come
+from a stab with a hat-pin. The sly fiend--Heaven forgive me that I
+should speak of him so, now that he is dead, but a fiend he was if
+ever one walked the earth. He was all honey when first we met him, only
+eighteen months ago, and we both feel as if it were eighteen years. She
+had only just arrived in London. Yes, it was her first voyage--she had
+never been from home before. He won her with his title and his money
+and his false London ways. If she made a mistake she has paid for it,
+if ever a woman did. What month did we meet him? Well, I tell you it was
+just after we arrived. We arrived in June, and it was July. They were
+married in January of last year. Yes, she is down in the morning-room
+again, and I have no doubt she will see you, but you must not ask too
+much of her, for she has gone through all that flesh and blood will
+stand.”
+
+Lady Brackenstall was reclining on the same couch, but looked brighter
+than before. The maid had entered with us, and began once more to foment
+the bruise upon her mistress's brow.
+
+“I hope,” said the lady, “that you have not come to cross-examine me
+again?”
+
+“No,” Holmes answered, in his gentlest voice, “I will not cause you any
+unnecessary trouble, Lady Brackenstall, and my whole desire is to make
+things easy for you, for I am convinced that you are a much-tried woman.
+If you will treat me as a friend and trust me you may find that I will
+justify your trust.”
+
+“What do you want me to do?”
+
+“To tell me the truth.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes!”
+
+“No, no, Lady Brackenstall, it is no use. You may have heard of any
+little reputation which I possess. I will stake it all on the fact that
+your story is an absolute fabrication.”
+
+Mistress and maid were both staring at Holmes with pale faces and
+frightened eyes.
+
+“You are an impudent fellow!” cried Theresa. “Do you mean to say that my
+mistress has told a lie?”
+
+Holmes rose from his chair.
+
+“Have you nothing to tell me?”
+
+“I have told you everything.”
+
+“Think once more, Lady Brackenstall. Would it not be better to be
+frank?”
+
+For an instant there was hesitation in her beautiful face. Then some new
+strong thought caused it to set like a mask.
+
+“I have told you all I know.”
+
+Holmes took his hat and shrugged his shoulders. “I am sorry,” he said,
+and without another word we left the room and the house. There was a
+pond in the park, and to this my friend led the way. It was frozen
+over, but a single hole was left for the convenience of a solitary
+swan. Holmes gazed at it and then passed on to the lodge gate. There
+he scribbled a short note for Stanley Hopkins and left it with the
+lodge-keeper.
+
+“It may be a hit or it may be a miss, but we are bound to do something
+for friend Hopkins, just to justify this second visit,” said he. “I will
+not quite take him into my confidence yet. I think our next scene of
+operations must be the shipping office of the Adelaide-Southampton line,
+which stands at the end of Pall Mall, if I remember right. There is a
+second line of steamers which connect South Australia with England, but
+we will draw the larger cover first.”
+
+Holmes's card sent in to the manager ensured instant attention, and he
+was not long in acquiring all the information which he needed. In June
+of '95 only one of their line had reached a home port. It was the ROCK
+OF GIBRALTAR, their largest and best boat. A reference to the passenger
+list showed that Miss Fraser of Adelaide, with her maid, had made the
+voyage in her. The boat was now on her way to Australia, somewhere to
+the south of the Suez Canal. Her officers were the same as in '95,
+with one exception. The first officer, Mr. Jack Croker, had been made a
+captain and was to take charge of their new ship, the BASS ROCK, sailing
+in two days' time from Southampton. He lived at Sydenham, but he was
+likely to be in that morning for instructions, if we cared to wait for
+him.
+
+No; Mr. Holmes had no desire to see him, but would be glad to know more
+about his record and character.
+
+His record was magnificent. There was not an officer in the fleet to
+touch him. As to his character, he was reliable on duty, but a wild,
+desperate fellow off the deck of his ship, hot-headed, excitable, but
+loyal, honest, and kind-hearted. That was the pith of the information
+with which Holmes left the office of the Adelaide-Southampton company.
+Thence he drove to Scotland Yard, but instead of entering he sat in
+his cab with his brows drawn down, lost in profound thought. Finally he
+drove round to the Charing Cross telegraph office, sent off a message,
+and then, at last, we made for Baker Street once more.
+
+“No, I couldn't do it, Watson,” said he, as we re-entered our room.
+“Once that warrant was made out nothing on earth would save him. Once
+or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my
+discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have
+learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of
+England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before we
+act.”
+
+Before evening we had a visit from Inspector Stanley Hopkins. Things
+were not going very well with him.
+
+“I believe that you are a wizard, Mr. Holmes. I really do sometimes
+think that you have powers that are not human. Now, how on earth could
+you know that the stolen silver was at the bottom of that pond?”
+
+“I didn't know it.”
+
+“But you told me to examine it.”
+
+“You got it, then?”
+
+“Yes, I got it.”
+
+“I am very glad if I have helped you.”
+
+“But you haven't helped me. You have made the affair far more difficult.
+What sort of burglars are they who steal silver and then throw it into
+the nearest pond?”
+
+“It was certainly rather eccentric behaviour. I was merely going on the
+idea that if the silver had been taken by persons who did not want it,
+who merely took it for a blind as it were, then they would naturally be
+anxious to get rid of it.”
+
+“But why should such an idea cross your mind?”
+
+“Well, I thought it was possible. When they came out through the French
+window there was the pond, with one tempting little hole in the ice,
+right in front of their noses. Could there be a better hiding-place?”
+
+“Ah, a hiding-place--that is better!” cried Stanley Hopkins. “Yes, yes,
+I see it all now! It was early, there were folk upon the roads, they
+were afraid of being seen with the silver, so they sank it in the pond,
+intending to return for it when the coast was clear. Excellent, Mr.
+Holmes--that is better than your idea of a blind.”
+
+“Quite so; you have got an admirable theory. I have no doubt that my
+own ideas were quite wild, but you must admit that they have ended in
+discovering the silver.”
+
+“Yes, sir, yes. It was all your doing. But I have had a bad set-back.”
+
+“A set-back?”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes. The Randall gang were arrested in New York this
+morning.”
+
+“Dear me, Hopkins! That is certainly rather against your theory that
+they committed a murder in Kent last night.”
+
+“It is fatal, Mr. Holmes, absolutely fatal. Still, there are other gangs
+of three besides the Randalls, or it may be some new gang of which the
+police have never heard.”
+
+“Quite so; it is perfectly possible. What, are you off?”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes; there is no rest for me until I have got to the bottom
+of the business. I suppose you have no hint to give me?”
+
+“I have given you one.”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“Well, I suggested a blind.”
+
+“But why, Mr. Holmes, why?”
+
+“Ah, that's the question, of course. But I commend the idea to your
+mind. You might possibly find that there was something in it. You won't
+stop for dinner? Well, good-bye, and let us know how you get on.”
+
+Dinner was over and the table cleared before Holmes alluded to the
+matter again. He had lit his pipe and held his slippered feet to the
+cheerful blaze of the fire. Suddenly he looked at his watch.
+
+“I expect developments, Watson.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Now--within a few minutes. I dare say you thought I acted rather badly
+to Stanley Hopkins just now?”
+
+“I trust your judgment.”
+
+“A very sensible reply, Watson. You must look at it this way: what
+I know is unofficial; what he knows is official. I have the right to
+private judgment, but he has none. He must disclose all, or he is a
+traitor to his service. In a doubtful case I would not put him in so
+painful a position, and so I reserve my information until my own mind is
+clear upon the matter.”
+
+“But when will that be?”
+
+“The time has come. You will now be present at the last scene of a
+remarkable little drama.”
+
+There was a sound upon the stairs, and our door was opened to admit as
+fine a specimen of manhood as ever passed through it. He was a very
+tall young man, golden-moustached, blue-eyed, with a skin which had been
+burned by tropical suns, and a springy step which showed that the huge
+frame was as active as it was strong. He closed the door behind him, and
+then he stood with clenched hands and heaving breast, choking down some
+overmastering emotion.
+
+“Sit down, Captain Croker. You got my telegram?”
+
+Our visitor sank into an arm-chair and looked from one to the other of
+us with questioning eyes.
+
+“I got your telegram, and I came at the hour you said. I heard that you
+had been down to the office. There was no getting away from you. Let's
+hear the worst. What are you going to do with me? Arrest me? Speak out,
+man! You can't sit there and play with me like a cat with a mouse.”
+
+“Give him a cigar,” said Holmes. “Bite on that, Captain Croker, and
+don't let your nerves run away with you. I should not sit here smoking
+with you if I thought that you were a common criminal, you may be sure
+of that. Be frank with me, and we may do some good. Play tricks with me,
+and I'll crush you.”
+
+“What do you wish me to do?”
+
+“To give me a true account of all that happened at the Abbey Grange last
+night--a TRUE account, mind you, with nothing added and nothing taken
+off. I know so much already that if you go one inch off the straight
+I'll blow this police whistle from my window and the affair goes out of
+my hands for ever.”
+
+The sailor thought for a little. Then he struck his leg with his great,
+sun-burned hand.
+
+“I'll chance it,” he cried. “I believe you are a man of your word, and
+a white man, and I'll tell you the whole story. But one thing I will say
+first. So far as I am concerned I regret nothing and I fear nothing, and
+I would do it all again and be proud of the job. Curse the beast, if
+he had as many lives as a cat he would owe them all to me! But it's
+the lady, Mary--Mary Fraser--for never will I call her by that accursed
+name. When I think of getting her into trouble, I who would give my life
+just to bring one smile to her dear face, it's that that turns my soul
+into water. And yet--and yet--what less could I do? I'll tell you my
+story, gentlemen, and then I'll ask you as man to man what less could I
+do.
+
+“I must go back a bit. You seem to know everything, so I expect that you
+know that I met her when she was a passenger and I was first officer
+of the ROCK OF GIBRALTAR. From the first day I met her she was the only
+woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time
+since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed
+the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was
+never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated
+a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all
+good comradeship and friendship on hers. When we parted she was a free
+woman, but I could never again be a free man.
+
+“Next time I came back from sea I heard of her marriage. Well, why
+shouldn't she marry whom she liked? Title and money--who could carry
+them better than she? She was born for all that is beautiful and dainty.
+I didn't grieve over her marriage. I was not such a selfish hound as
+that. I just rejoiced that good luck had come her way, and that she had
+not thrown herself away on a penniless sailor. That's how I loved Mary
+Fraser.
+
+“Well, I never thought to see her again; but last voyage I was promoted,
+and the new boat was not yet launched, so I had to wait for a couple of
+months with my people at Sydenham. One day out in a country lane I met
+Theresa Wright, her old maid. She told me about her, about him, about
+everything. I tell you, gentlemen, it nearly drove me mad. This drunken
+hound, that he should dare to raise his hand to her whose boots he was
+not worthy to lick! I met Theresa again. Then I met Mary herself--and
+met her again. Then she would meet me no more. But the other day I had a
+notice that I was to start on my voyage within a week, and I determined
+that I would see her once before I left. Theresa was always my friend,
+for she loved Mary and hated this villain almost as much as I did. From
+her I learned the ways of the house. Mary used to sit up reading in her
+own little room downstairs. I crept round there last night and scratched
+at the window. At first she would not open to me, but in her heart I
+know that now she loves me, and she could not leave me in the frosty
+night. She whispered to me to come round to the big front window, and
+I found it open before me so as to let me into the dining-room. Again
+I heard from her own lips things that made my blood boil, and again
+I cursed this brute who mishandled the woman that I loved. Well,
+gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all
+innocence, as Heaven is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the
+room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and
+welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand. I had
+sprung for the poker, and it was a fair fight between us. See here on my
+arm where his first blow fell. Then it was my turn, and I went through
+him as if he had been a rotten pumpkin. Do you think I was sorry? Not I!
+It was his life or mine, but far more than that it was his life or hers,
+for how could I leave her in the power of this madman? That was how I
+killed him. Was I wrong? Well, then, what would either of you gentlemen
+have done if you had been in my position?”
+
+“She had screamed when he struck her, and that brought old Theresa down
+from the room above. There was a bottle of wine on the sideboard, and I
+opened it and poured a little between Mary's lips, for she was half dead
+with the shock. Then I took a drop myself. Theresa was as cool as
+ice, and it was her plot as much as mine. We must make it appear that
+burglars had done the thing. Theresa kept on repeating our story to her
+mistress, while I swarmed up and cut the rope of the bell. Then I lashed
+her in her chair, and frayed out the end of the rope to make it look
+natural, else they would wonder how in the world a burglar could have
+got up there to cut it. Then I gathered up a few plates and pots of
+silver, to carry out the idea of a robbery, and there I left them with
+orders to give the alarm when I had a quarter of an hour's start. I
+dropped the silver into the pond and made off for Sydenham, feeling that
+for once in my life I had done a real good night's work. And that's the
+truth and the whole truth, Mr. Holmes, if it costs me my neck.”
+
+Holmes smoked for some time in silence. Then he crossed the room and
+shook our visitor by the hand.
+
+“That's what I think,” said he. “I know that every word is true, for you
+have hardly said a word which I did not know. No one but an acrobat or a
+sailor could have got up to that bell-rope from the bracket, and no one
+but a sailor could have made the knots with which the cord was fastened
+to the chair. Only once had this lady been brought into contact with
+sailors, and that was on her voyage, and it was someone of her own class
+of life, since she was trying hard to shield him and so showing that she
+loved him. You see how easy it was for me to lay my hands upon you when
+once I had started upon the right trail.”
+
+“I thought the police never could have seen through our dodge.”
+
+“And the police haven't; nor will they, to the best of my belief. Now,
+look here, Captain Croker, this is a very serious matter, though I am
+willing to admit that you acted under the most extreme provocation to
+which any man could be subjected. I am not sure that in defence of your
+own life your action will not be pronounced legitimate. However, that is
+for a British jury to decide. Meanwhile I have so much sympathy for you
+that if you choose to disappear in the next twenty-four hours I will
+promise you that no one will hinder you.”
+
+“And then it will all come out?”
+
+“Certainly it will come out.”
+
+The sailor flushed with anger.
+
+“What sort of proposal is that to make a man? I know enough of law to
+understand that Mary would be had as accomplice. Do you think I would
+leave her alone to face the music while I slunk away? No, sir; let them
+do their worst upon me, but for Heaven's sake, Mr. Holmes, find some way
+of keeping my poor Mary out of the courts.”
+
+Holmes for a second time held out his hand to the sailor.
+
+“I was only testing you, and you ring true every time. Well, it is a
+great responsibility that I take upon myself, but I have given Hopkins
+an excellent hint, and if he can't avail himself of it I can do no more.
+See here, Captain Croker, we'll do this in due form of law. You are the
+prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was
+more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman
+of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner
+guilty or not guilty?”
+
+“Not guilty, my lord,” said I.
+
+“Vox populi, vox Dei. You are acquitted, Captain Croker. So long as the
+law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come back
+to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the
+judgment which we have pronounced this night.”
+
+
+*****
+
+
+                     THE STRAND MAGAZINE
+                   Vol. 28  DECEMBER, 1904
+                THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+                    By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.--The Adventure of the Second Stain.
+
+
+I HAD intended “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” to be the last of
+those exploits of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, which I should ever
+communicate to the public. This resolution of mine was not due to any
+lack of material, since I have notes of many hundreds of cases to which
+I have never alluded, nor was it caused by any waning interest on the
+part of my readers in the singular personality and unique methods of
+this remarkable man. The real reason lay in the reluctance which Mr.
+Holmes has shown to the continued publication of his experiences.
+So long as he was in actual professional practice the records of
+his successes were of some practical value to him; but since he
+has definitely retired from London and betaken himself to study and
+bee-farming on the Sussex Downs, notoriety has become hateful to him,
+and he has peremptorily requested that his wishes in this matter should
+be strictly observed. It was only upon my representing to him that I
+had given a promise that “The Adventure of the Second Stain” should be
+published when the times were ripe, and pointing out to him that it is
+only appropriate that this long series of episodes should culminate in
+the most important international case which he has ever been called
+upon to handle, that I at last succeeded in obtaining his consent that a
+carefully-guarded account of the incident should at last be laid before
+the public. If in telling the story I seem to be somewhat vague in
+certain details the public will readily understand that there is an
+excellent reason for my reticence.
+
+
+It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless,
+that upon one Tuesday morning in autumn we found two visitors of
+European fame within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street. The
+one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than
+the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain. The other,
+dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with
+every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney
+Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in
+the country. They sat side by side upon our paper-littered settee,
+and it was easy to see from their worn and anxious faces that it was
+business of the most pressing importance which had brought them. The
+Premier's thin, blue-veined hands were clasped tightly over the ivory
+head of his umbrella, and his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from
+Holmes to me. The European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache
+and fidgeted with the seals of his watch-chain.
+
+“When I discovered my loss, Mr. Holmes, which was at eight o'clock this
+morning, I at once informed the Prime Minister. It was at his suggestion
+that we have both come to you.”
+
+“Have you informed the police?”
+
+“No, sir,” said the Prime Minister, with the quick, decisive manner for
+which he was famous. “We have not done so, nor is it possible that we
+should do so. To inform the police must, in the long run, mean to inform
+the public. This is what we particularly desire to avoid.”
+
+“And why, sir?”
+
+“Because the document in question is of such immense importance that
+its publication might very easily--I might almost say probably--lead to
+European complications of the utmost moment. It is not too much to say
+that peace or war may hang upon the issue. Unless its recovery can be
+attended with the utmost secrecy, then it may as well not be recovered
+at all, for all that is aimed at by those who have taken it is that its
+contents should be generally known.”
+
+“I understand. Now, Mr. Trelawney Hope, I should be much obliged if
+you would tell me exactly the circumstances under which this document
+disappeared.”
+
+“That can be done in a very few words, Mr. Holmes. The letter--for it
+was a letter from a foreign potentate--was received six days ago. It
+was of such importance that I have never left it in my safe, but I have
+taken it across each evening to my house in Whitehall Terrace, and kept
+it in my bedroom in a locked despatch-box. It was there last night. Of
+that I am certain. I actually opened the box while I was dressing for
+dinner, and saw the document inside. This morning it was gone. The
+despatch-box had stood beside the glass upon my dressing-table all
+night. I am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. We are both prepared to
+swear that no one could have entered the room during the night. And yet
+I repeat that the paper is gone.”
+
+“What time did you dine?”
+
+“Half-past seven.”
+
+“How long was it before you went to bed?”
+
+“My wife had gone to the theatre. I waited up for her. It was half-past
+eleven before we went to our room.”
+
+“Then for four hours the despatch-box had lain unguarded?”
+
+“No one is ever permitted to enter that room save the housemaid in the
+morning, and my valet, or my wife's maid, during the rest of the day.
+They are both trusty servants who have been with us for some time.
+Besides, neither of them could possibly have known that there was
+anything more valuable than the ordinary departmental papers in my
+despatch-box.”
+
+“Who did know of the existence of that letter?”
+
+“No one in the house.”
+
+“Surely your wife knew?”
+
+“No, sir; I had said nothing to my wife until I missed the paper this
+morning.”
+
+The Premier nodded approvingly.
+
+“I have long known, sir, how high is your sense of public duty,” said
+he. “I am convinced that in the case of a secret of this importance it
+would rise superior to the most intimate domestic ties.”
+
+The European Secretary bowed.
+
+“You do me no more than justice, sir. Until this morning I have never
+breathed one word to my wife upon this matter.”
+
+“Could she have guessed?”
+
+“No, Mr. Holmes, she could not have guessed--nor could anyone have
+guessed.”
+
+“Have you lost any documents before?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Who is there in England who did know of the existence of this letter?”
+
+“Each member of the Cabinet was informed of it yesterday; but the pledge
+of secrecy which attends every Cabinet meeting was increased by the
+solemn warning which was given by the Prime Minister. Good heavens,
+to think that within a few hours I should myself have lost it!” His
+handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair, and his hands
+tore at his hair. For a moment we caught a glimpse of the natural man,
+impulsive, ardent, keenly sensitive. The next the aristocratic mask was
+replaced, and the gentle voice had returned. “Besides the members of
+the Cabinet there are two, or possibly three, departmental officials who
+know of the letter. No one else in England, Mr. Holmes, I assure you.”
+
+“But abroad?”
+
+“I believe that no one abroad has seen it save the man who wrote it. I
+am well convinced that his Ministers--that the usual official channels
+have not been employed.”
+
+Holmes considered for some little time.
+
+“Now, sir, I must ask you more particularly what this document is, and
+why its disappearance should have such momentous consequences?”
+
+The two statesmen exchanged a quick glance and the Premier's shaggy
+eyebrows gathered in a frown.
+
+“Mr. Holmes, the envelope is a long, thin one of pale blue colour. There
+is a seal of red wax stamped with a crouching lion. It is addressed in
+large, bold handwriting to--”
+
+“I fear, sir,” said Holmes, “that, interesting and indeed essential as
+these details are, my inquiries must go more to the root of things. What
+WAS the letter?”
+
+“That is a State secret of the utmost importance, and I fear that I
+cannot tell you, nor do I see that it is necessary. If by the aid of the
+powers which you are said to possess you can find such an envelope as
+I describe with its enclosure, you will have deserved well of your
+country, and earned any reward which it lies in our power to bestow.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes rose with a smile.
+
+“You are two of the most busy men in the country,” said he, “and in
+my own small way I have also a good many calls upon me. I regret
+exceedingly that I cannot help you in this matter, and any continuation
+of this interview would be a waste of time.”
+
+The Premier sprang to his feet with that quick, fierce gleam of his
+deep-set eyes before which a Cabinet has cowered. “I am not accustomed,
+sir----” he began, but mastered his anger and resumed his seat. For a
+minute or more we all sat in silence. Then the old statesman shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+“We must accept your terms, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right, and
+it is unreasonable for us to expect you to act unless we give you our
+entire confidence.”
+
+“I agree with you, sir,” said the younger statesman.
+
+“Then I will tell you, relying entirely upon your honour and that of
+your colleague, Dr. Watson. I may appeal to your patriotism also, for
+I could not imagine a greater misfortune for the country than that this
+affair should come out.”
+
+“You may safely trust us.”
+
+“The letter, then, is from a certain foreign potentate who has been
+ruffled by some recent Colonial developments of this country. It
+has been written hurriedly and upon his own responsibility entirely.
+Inquiries have shown that his Ministers know nothing of the matter.
+At the same time it is couched in so unfortunate a manner, and certain
+phrases in it are of so provocative a character, that its publication
+would undoubtedly lead to a most dangerous state of feeling in this
+country. There would be such a ferment, sir, that I do not hesitate to
+say that within a week of the publication of that letter this country
+would be involved in a great war.”
+
+Holmes wrote a name upon a slip of paper and handed it to the Premier.
+
+“Exactly. It was he. And it is this letter--this letter which may well
+mean the expenditure of a thousand millions and the lives of a hundred
+thousand men--which has become lost in this unaccountable fashion.”
+
+“Have you informed the sender?”
+
+“Yes, sir, a cipher telegram has been despatched.”
+
+“Perhaps he desires the publication of the letter.”
+
+“No, sir, we have strong reason to believe that he already understands
+that he has acted in an indiscreet and hot-headed manner. It would be a
+greater blow to him and to his country than to us if this letter were to
+come out.”
+
+“If this is so, whose interest is it that the letter should come out?
+Why should anyone desire to steal it or to publish it?”
+
+“There, Mr. Holmes, you take me into regions of high international
+politics. But if you consider the European situation you will have no
+difficulty in perceiving the motive. The whole of Europe is an armed
+camp. There is a double league which makes a fair balance of military
+power. Great Britain holds the scales. If Britain were driven into
+war with one confederacy, it would assure the supremacy of the other
+confederacy, whether they joined in the war or not. Do you follow?”
+
+“Very clearly. It is then the interest of the enemies of this potentate
+to secure and publish this letter, so as to make a breach between his
+country and ours?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“And to whom would this document be sent if it fell into the hands of an
+enemy?”
+
+“To any of the great Chancelleries of Europe. It is probably speeding on
+its way thither at the present instant as fast as steam can take it.”
+
+Mr. Trelawney Hope dropped his head on his chest and groaned aloud. The
+Premier placed his hand kindly upon his shoulder.
+
+“It is your misfortune, my dear fellow. No one can blame you. There is
+no precaution which you have neglected. Now, Mr. Holmes, you are in full
+possession of the facts. What course do you recommend?”
+
+Holmes shook his head mournfully.
+
+“You think, sir, that unless this document is recovered there will be
+war?”
+
+“I think it is very probable.”
+
+“Then, sir, prepare for war.”
+
+“That is a hard saying, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Consider the facts, sir. It is inconceivable that it was taken after
+eleven-thirty at night, since I understand that Mr. Hope and his wife
+were both in the room from that hour until the loss was found out.
+It was taken, then, yesterday evening between seven-thirty and
+eleven-thirty, probably near the earlier hour, since whoever took it
+evidently knew that it was there and would naturally secure it as early
+as possible. Now, sir, if a document of this importance were taken at
+that hour, where can it be now? No one has any reason to retain it. It
+has been passed rapidly on to those who need it. What chance have we now
+to overtake or even to trace it? It is beyond our reach.”
+
+The Prime Minister rose from the settee.
+
+“What you say is perfectly logical, Mr. Holmes. I feel that the matter
+is indeed out of our hands.”
+
+“Let us presume, for argument's sake, that the document was taken by the
+maid or by the valet----”
+
+“They are both old and tried servants.”
+
+“I understand you to say that your room is on the second floor, that
+there is no entrance from without, and that from within no one could go
+up unobserved. It must, then, be somebody in the house who has taken it.
+To whom would the thief take it? To one of several international spies
+and secret agents, whose names are tolerably familiar to me. There are
+three who may be said to be the heads of their profession. I will begin
+my research by going round and finding if each of them is at his post.
+If one is missing--especially if he has disappeared since last night--we
+will have some indication as to where the document has gone.”
+
+“Why should he be missing?” asked the European Secretary. “He would take
+the letter to an Embassy in London, as likely as not.”
+
+“I fancy not. These agents work independently, and their relations with
+the Embassies are often strained.”
+
+The Prime Minister nodded his acquiescence.
+
+“I believe you are right, Mr. Holmes. He would take so valuable a prize
+to head-quarters with his own hands. I think that your course of action
+is an excellent one. Meanwhile, Hope, we cannot neglect all our other
+duties on account of this one misfortune. Should there be any fresh
+developments during the day we shall communicate with you, and you will
+no doubt let us know the results of your own inquiries.”
+
+The two statesmen bowed and walked gravely from the room.
+
+When our illustrious visitors had departed Holmes lit his pipe in
+silence, and sat for some time lost in the deepest thought. I had opened
+the morning paper and was immersed in a sensational crime which had
+occurred in London the night before, when my friend gave an exclamation,
+sprang to his feet, and laid his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “there is no better way of approaching it. The situation
+is desperate, but not hopeless. Even now, if we could be sure which of
+them has taken it, it is just possible that it has not yet passed out of
+his hands. After all, it is a question of money with these fellows, and
+I have the British Treasury behind me. If it's on the market I'll buy
+it--if it means another penny on the income-tax. It is conceivable
+that the fellow might hold it back to see what bids come from this
+side before he tries his luck on the other. There are only those three
+capable of playing so bold a game; there are Oberstein, La Rothiere, and
+Eduardo Lucas. I will see each of them.”
+
+I glanced at my morning paper.
+
+“Is that Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You will not see him.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“He was murdered in his house last night.”
+
+My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures
+that it was with a sense of exultation that I realized how completely I
+had astonished him. He stared in amazement, and then snatched the
+paper from my hands. This was the paragraph which I had been engaged in
+reading when he rose from his chair:--
+
+
+                    “MURDER IN WESTMINSTER.
+
+“A crime of mysterious character was committed last night at 16,
+Godolphin Street, one of the old-fashioned and secluded rows of
+eighteenth-century houses which lie between the river and the Abbey,
+almost in the shadow of the great Tower of the Houses of Parliament.
+This small but select mansion has been inhabited for some years by Mr.
+Eduardo Lucas, well known in society circles both on account of his
+charming personality and because he has the well-deserved reputation
+of being one of the best amateur tenors in the country. Mr. Lucas is an
+unmarried man, thirty-four years of age, and his establishment consists
+of Mrs. Pringle, an elderly housekeeper, and of Mitton, his valet. The
+former retires early and sleeps at the top of the house. The valet was
+out for the evening, visiting a friend at Hammersmith. From ten o'clock
+onwards Mr. Lucas had the house to himself. What occurred during that
+time has not yet transpired, but at a quarter to twelve Police-constable
+Barrett, passing along Godolphin Street, observed that the door of No.
+16 was ajar. He knocked, but received no answer. Perceiving a light
+in the front room he advanced into the passage and again knocked, but
+without reply. He then pushed open the door and entered. The room was in
+a state of wild disorder, the furniture being all swept to one side, and
+one chair lying on its back in the centre. Beside this chair, and still
+grasping one of its legs, lay the unfortunate tenant of the house. He
+had been stabbed to the heart and must have died instantly. The knife
+with which the crime had been committed was a curved Indian dagger,
+plucked down from a trophy of Oriental arms which adorned one of the
+walls. Robbery does not appear to have been the motive of the crime, for
+there had been no attempt to remove the valuable contents of the room.
+Mr. Eduardo Lucas was so well known and popular that his violent and
+mysterious fate will arouse painful interest and intense sympathy in a
+wide-spread circle of friends.”
+
+“Well, Watson, what do you make of this?” asked Holmes, after a long
+pause.
+
+“It is an amazing coincidence.”
+
+“A coincidence! Here is one of the three men whom we had named as
+possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during the
+very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. The odds are
+enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them.
+No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected--MUST be connected. It
+is for us to find the connection.”
+
+“But now the official police must know all.”
+
+“Not at all. They know all they see at Godolphin Street. They know--and
+shall know--nothing of Whitehall Terrace. Only WE know of both events,
+and can trace the relation between them. There is one obvious point
+which would, in any case, have turned my suspicions against Lucas.
+Godolphin Street, Westminster, is only a few minutes' walk from
+Whitehall Terrace. The other secret agents whom I have named live in
+the extreme West-end. It was easier, therefore, for Lucas than for the
+others to establish a connection or receive a message from the
+European Secretary's household--a small thing, and yet where events are
+compressed into a few hours it may prove essential. Halloa! what have we
+here?”
+
+Mrs. Hudson had appeared with a lady's card upon her salver. Holmes
+glanced at it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it over to me.
+
+“Ask Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope if she will be kind enough to step up,”
+ said he.
+
+A moment later our modest apartment, already so distinguished that
+morning, was further honoured by the entrance of the most lovely woman
+in London. I had often heard of the beauty of the youngest daughter of
+the Duke of Belminster, but no description of it, and no contemplation
+of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the subtle, delicate
+charm and the beautiful colouring of that exquisite head. And yet as
+we saw it that autumn morning, it was not its beauty which would be the
+first thing to impress the observer. The cheek was lovely, but it was
+paled with emotion; the eyes were bright, but it was the brightness
+of fever; the sensitive mouth was tight and drawn in an effort after
+self-command. Terror--not beauty--was what sprang first to the eye as
+our fair visitor stood framed for an instant in the open door.
+
+“Has my husband been here, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Yes, madam, he has been here.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes, I implore you not to tell him that I came here.” Holmes
+bowed coldly, and motioned the lady to a chair.
+
+“Your ladyship places me in a very delicate position. I beg that you
+will sit down and tell me what you desire; but I fear that I cannot make
+any unconditional promise.”
+
+She swept across the room and seated herself with her back to the
+window. It was a queenly presence--tall, graceful, and intensely
+womanly.
+
+“Mr. Holmes,” she said, and her white-gloved hands clasped and unclasped
+as she spoke--“I will speak frankly to you in the hope that it may
+induce you to speak frankly in return. There is complete confidence
+between my husband and me on all matters save one. That one is politics.
+On this his lips are sealed. He tells me nothing. Now, I am aware that
+there was a most deplorable occurrence in our house last night. I know
+that a paper has disappeared. But because the matter is political my
+husband refuses to take me into his complete confidence. Now it is
+essential--essential, I say--that I should thoroughly understand it. You
+are the only other person, save only these politicians, who knows the
+true facts. I beg you, then, Mr. Holmes, to tell me exactly what has
+happened and what it will lead to. Tell me all, Mr. Holmes. Let no
+regard for your client's interests keep you silent, for I assure you
+that his interests, if he would only see it, would be best served by
+taking me into his complete confidence. What was this paper which was
+stolen?”
+
+“Madam, what you ask me is really impossible.”
+
+She groaned and sank her face in her hands.
+
+“You must see that this is so, madam. If your husband thinks fit to keep
+you in the dark over this matter, is it for me, who has only learned the
+true facts under the pledge of professional secrecy, to tell what he has
+withheld? It is not fair to ask it. It is him whom you must ask.”
+
+“I have asked him. I come to you as a last resource. But without your
+telling me anything definite, Mr. Holmes, you may do a great service if
+you would enlighten me on one point.”
+
+“What is it, madam?”
+
+“Is my husband's political career likely to suffer through this
+incident?”
+
+“Well, madam, unless it is set right it may certainly have a very
+unfortunate effect.”
+
+“Ah!” She drew in her breath sharply as one whose doubts are resolved.
+
+“One more question, Mr. Holmes. From an expression which my husband
+dropped in the first shock of this disaster I understood that terrible
+public consequences might arise from the loss of this document.”
+
+“If he said so, I certainly cannot deny it.”
+
+“Of what nature are they?”
+
+“Nay, madam, there again you ask me more than I can possibly answer.”
+
+“Then I will take up no more of your time. I cannot blame you, Mr.
+Holmes, for having refused to speak more freely, and you on your side
+will not, I am sure, think the worse of me because I desire, even
+against his will, to share my husband's anxieties. Once more I beg that
+you will say nothing of my visit.” She looked back at us from the door,
+and I had a last impression of that beautiful haunted face, the startled
+eyes, and the drawn mouth. Then she was gone.
+
+“Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department,” said Holmes, with a
+smile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts had ended in the slam
+of the front door. “What was the fair lady's game? What did she really
+want?”
+
+“Surely her own statement is clear and her anxiety very natural.”
+
+“Hum! Think of her appearance, Watson--her manner, her suppressed
+excitement, her restlessness, her tenacity in asking questions. Remember
+that she comes of a caste who do not lightly show emotion.”
+
+“She was certainly much moved.”
+
+“Remember also the curious earnestness with which she assured us that it
+was best for her husband that she should know all. What did she mean by
+that? And you must have observed, Watson, how she manoeuvred to have the
+light at her back. She did not wish us to read her expression.”
+
+“Yes; she chose the one chair in the room.”
+
+“And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the
+woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her
+nose--that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such
+a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most
+extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling-tongs. Good
+morning, Watson.”
+
+“You are off?”
+
+“Yes; I will wile away the morning at Godolphin Street with our friends
+of the regular establishment. With Eduardo Lucas lies the solution of
+our problem, though I must admit that I have not an inkling as to what
+form it may take. It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of
+the facts. Do you stay on guard, my good Watson, and receive any fresh
+visitors. I'll join you at lunch if I am able.”
+
+
+All that day and the next and the next Holmes was in a mood which his
+friends would call taciturn, and others morose. He ran out and ran in,
+smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into reveries,
+devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered the casual
+questions which I put to him. It was evident to me that things were not
+going well with him or his quest. He would say nothing of the case, and
+it was from the papers that I learned the particulars of the inquest,
+and the arrest with the subsequent release of John Mitton, the valet of
+the deceased. The coroner's jury brought in the obvious “Wilful Murder,”
+ but the parties remained as unknown as ever. No motive was suggested.
+The room was full of articles of value, but none had been taken. The
+dead man's papers had not been tampered with. They were carefully
+examined, and showed that he was a keen student of international
+politics, an indefatigable gossip, a remarkable linguist, and an
+untiring letter-writer. He had been on intimate terms with the leading
+politicians of several countries. But nothing sensational was discovered
+among the documents which filled his drawers. As to his relations with
+women, they appeared to have been promiscuous but superficial. He had
+many acquaintances among them, but few friends, and no one whom he
+loved. His habits were regular, his conduct inoffensive. His death was
+an absolute mystery, and likely to remain so.
+
+As to the arrest of John Mitton, the valet, it was a counsel of despair
+as an alternative to absolute inaction. But no case could be sustained
+against him. He had visited friends in Hammersmith that night. The ALIBI
+was complete. It is true that he started home at an hour which should
+have brought him to Westminster before the time when the crime was
+discovered, but his own explanation that he had walked part of the way
+seemed probable enough in view of the fineness of the night. He had
+actually arrived at twelve o'clock, and appeared to be overwhelmed
+by the unexpected tragedy. He had always been on good terms with his
+master. Several of the dead man's possessions--notably a small case of
+razors--had been found in the valet's boxes, but he explained that they
+had been presents from the deceased, and the housekeeper was able to
+corroborate the story. Mitton had been in Lucas's employment for three
+years. It was noticeable that Lucas did not take Mitton on the Continent
+with him. Sometimes he visited Paris for three months on end, but Mitton
+was left in charge of the Godolphin Street house. As to the housekeeper,
+she had heard nothing on the night of the crime. If her master had a
+visitor he had himself admitted him.
+
+So for three mornings the mystery remained, so far as I could follow it
+in the papers. If Holmes knew more he kept his own counsel, but, as he
+told me that Inspector Lestrade had taken him into his confidence in the
+case, I knew that he was in close touch with every development. Upon
+the fourth day there appeared a long telegram from Paris which seemed to
+solve the whole question.
+
+“A discovery has just been made by the Parisian police,” said the DAILY
+TELEGRAPH, “which raises the veil which hung round the tragic fate of
+Mr. Eduardo Lucas, who met his death by violence last Monday night
+at Godolphin Street, Westminster. Our readers will remember that
+the deceased gentleman was found stabbed in his room, and that some
+suspicion attached to his valet, but that the case broke down on an
+ALIBI. Yesterday a lady, who has been known as Mme. Henri Fournaye,
+occupying a small villa in the Rue Austerlitz, was reported to the
+authorities by her servants as being insane. An examination showed that
+she had indeed developed mania of a dangerous and permanent form.
+On inquiry the police have discovered that Mme. Henri Fournaye only
+returned from a journey to London on Tuesday last, and there is
+evidence to connect her with the crime at Westminster. A comparison of
+photographs has proved conclusively that M. Henri Fournaye and Eduardo
+Lucas were really one and the same person, and that the deceased had for
+some reason lived a double life in London and Paris. Mme. Fournaye,
+who is of Creole origin, is of an extremely excitable nature, and has
+suffered in the past from attacks of jealousy which have amounted to
+frenzy. It is conjectured that it was in one of these that she committed
+the terrible crime which has caused such a sensation in London. Her
+movements upon the Monday night have not yet been traced, but it is
+undoubted that a woman answering to her description attracted much
+attention at Charing Cross Station on Tuesday morning by the wildness
+of her appearance and the violence of her gestures. It is probable,
+therefore, that the crime was either committed when insane, or that
+its immediate effect was to drive the unhappy woman out of her mind. At
+present she is unable to give any coherent account of the past, and the
+doctors hold out no hopes of the re-establishment of her reason. There
+is evidence that a woman, who might have been Mme. Fournaye, was seen
+for some hours on Monday night watching the house in Godolphin Street.”
+
+“What do you think of that, Holmes?” I had read the account aloud to
+him, while he finished his breakfast.
+
+“My dear Watson,” said he, as he rose from the table and paced up and
+down the room, “you are most long-suffering, but if I have told you
+nothing in the last three days it is because there is nothing to tell.
+Even now this report from Paris does not help us much.”
+
+“Surely it is final as regards the man's death.”
+
+“The man's death is a mere incident--a trivial episode--in comparison
+with our real task, which is to trace this document and save a European
+catastrophe. Only one important thing has happened in the last three
+days, and that is that nothing has happened. I get reports almost hourly
+from the Government, and it is certain that nowhere in Europe is there
+any sign of trouble. Now, if this letter were loose--no, it CAN'T be
+loose--but if it isn't loose, where can it be? Who has it? Why is it
+held back? That's the question that beats in my brain like a hammer. Was
+it, indeed, a coincidence that Lucas should meet his death on the night
+when the letter disappeared? Did the letter ever reach him? If so, why
+is it not among his papers? Did this mad wife of his carry it off with
+her? If so, is it in her house in Paris? How could I search for it
+without the French police having their suspicions aroused? It is a case,
+my dear Watson, where the law is as dangerous to us as the criminals
+are. Every man's hand is against us, and yet the interests at stake are
+colossal. Should I bring it to a successful conclusion it will certainly
+represent the crowning glory of my career. Ah, here is my latest from
+the front!” He glanced hurriedly at the note which had been handed in.
+“Halloa! Lestrade seems to have observed something of interest. Put on
+your hat, Watson, and we will stroll down together to Westminster.”
+
+It was my first visit to the scene of the crime--a high, dingy,
+narrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which
+gave it birth. Lestrade's bulldog features gazed out at us from the
+front window, and he greeted us warmly when a big constable had opened
+the door and let us in. The room into which we were shown was that in
+which the crime had been committed, but no trace of it now remained,
+save an ugly, irregular stain upon the carpet. This carpet was a small
+square drugget in the centre of the room, surrounded by a broad expanse
+of beautiful, old-fashioned wood-flooring in square blocks highly
+polished. Over the fireplace was a magnificent trophy of weapons, one of
+which had been used on that tragic night. In the window was a sumptuous
+writing-desk, and every detail of the apartment, the pictures, the rugs,
+and the hangings, all pointed to a taste which was luxurious to the
+verge of effeminacy.
+
+“Seen the Paris news?” asked Lestrade.
+
+Holmes nodded.
+
+“Our French friends seem to have touched the spot this time. No doubt
+it's just as they say. She knocked at the door--surprise visit, I
+guess, for he kept his life in water-tight compartments. He let her
+in--couldn't keep her in the street. She told him how she had traced
+him, reproached him, one thing led to another, and then with that dagger
+so handy the end soon came. It wasn't all done in an instant, though,
+for these chairs were all swept over yonder, and he had one in his hand
+as if he had tried to hold her off with it. We've got it all clear as if
+we had seen it.”
+
+Holmes raised his eyebrows.
+
+“And yet you have sent for me?”
+
+“Ah, yes, that's another matter--a mere trifle, but the sort of thing
+you take an interest in--queer, you know, and what you might call
+freakish. It has nothing to do with the main fact--can't have, on the
+face of it.”
+
+“What is it, then?”
+
+“Well, you know, after a crime of this sort we are very careful to keep
+things in their position. Nothing has been moved. Officer in charge here
+day and night. This morning, as the man was buried and the investigation
+over--so far as this room is concerned--we thought we could tidy up
+a bit. This carpet. You see, it is not fastened down; only just laid
+there. We had occasion to raise it. We found----”
+
+“Yes? You found----”
+
+Holmes's face grew tense with anxiety.
+
+“Well, I'm sure you would never guess in a hundred years what we did
+find. You see that stain on the carpet? Well, a great deal must have
+soaked through, must it not?”
+
+“Undoubtedly it must.”
+
+“Well, you will be surprised to hear that there is no stain on the white
+woodwork to correspond.”
+
+“No stain! But there must----”
+
+“Yes; so you would say. But the fact remains that there isn't.”
+
+He took the corner of the carpet in his hand and, turning it over, he
+showed that it was indeed as he said.
+
+“But the underside is as stained as the upper. It must have left a
+mark.”
+
+Lestrade chuckled with delight at having puzzled the famous expert.
+
+“Now I'll show you the explanation. There IS a second stain, but it does
+not correspond with the other. See for yourself.” As he spoke he turned
+over another portion of the carpet, and there, sure enough, was a great
+crimson spill upon the square white facing of the old-fashioned floor.
+“What do you make of that, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Why, it is simple enough. The two stains did correspond, but the carpet
+has been turned round. As it was square and unfastened it was easily
+done.”
+
+“The official police don't need you, Mr. Holmes, to tell them that the
+carpet must have been turned round. That's clear enough, for the stains
+lie above each other--if you lay it over this way. But what I want to
+know is, who shifted the carpet, and why?”
+
+I could see from Holmes's rigid face that he was vibrating with inward
+excitement.
+
+“Look here, Lestrade,” said he, “has that constable in the passage been
+in charge of the place all the time?”
+
+“Yes, he has.”
+
+“Well, take my advice. Examine him carefully. Don't do it before us.
+We'll wait here. You take him into the back room. You'll be more likely
+to get a confession out of him alone. Ask him how he dared to admit
+people and leave them alone in this room. Don't ask him if he has done
+it. Take it for granted. Tell him you KNOW someone has been here. Press
+him. Tell him that a full confession is his only chance of forgiveness.
+Do exactly what I tell you!”
+
+“By George, if he knows I'll have it out of him!” cried Lestrade. He
+darted into the hall, and a few moments later his bullying voice sounded
+from the back room.
+
+“Now, Watson, now!” cried Holmes, with frenzied eagerness. All the
+demoniacal force of the man masked behind that listless manner burst out
+in a paroxysm of energy. He tore the drugget from the floor, and in an
+instant was down on his hands and knees clawing at each of the squares
+of wood beneath it. One turned sideways as he dug his nails into the
+edge of it. It hinged back like the lid of a box. A small black cavity
+opened beneath it. Holmes plunged his eager hand into it, and drew it
+out with a bitter snarl of anger and disappointment. It was empty.
+
+“Quick, Watson, quick! Get it back again!” The wooden lid was replaced,
+and the drugget had only just been drawn straight when Lestrade's voice
+was heard in the passage. He found Holmes leaning languidly against
+the mantelpiece, resigned and patient, endeavouring to conceal his
+irrepressible yawns.
+
+“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Holmes. I can see that you are bored to
+death with the whole affair. Well, he has confessed, all right. Come
+in here, MacPherson. Let these gentlemen hear of your most inexcusable
+conduct.”
+
+The big constable, very hot and penitent, sidled into the room.
+
+“I meant no harm, sir, I'm sure. The young woman came to the door last
+evening--mistook the house, she did. And then we got talking. It's
+lonesome, when you're on duty here all day.”
+
+“Well, what happened then?”
+
+“She wanted to see where the crime was done--had read about it in the
+papers, she said. She was a very respectable, well-spoken young woman,
+sir, and I saw no harm in letting her have a peep. When she saw that
+mark on the carpet, down she dropped on the floor, and lay as if she
+were dead. I ran to the back and got some water, but I could not bring
+her to. Then I went round the corner to the Ivy Plant for some brandy,
+and by the time I had brought it back the young woman had recovered and
+was off--ashamed of herself, I dare say, and dared not face me.”
+
+“How about moving that drugget?”
+
+“Well, sir, it was a bit rumpled, certainly, when I came back. You see,
+she fell on it, and it lies on a polished floor with nothing to keep it
+in place. I straightened it out afterwards.”
+
+“It's a lesson to you that you can't deceive me, Constable MacPherson,”
+ said Lestrade, with dignity. “No doubt you thought that your breach of
+duty could never be discovered, and yet a mere glance at that drugget
+was enough to convince me that someone had been admitted to the room.
+It's lucky for you, my man, that nothing is missing, or you would find
+yourself in Queer Street. I'm sorry to have called you down over such a
+petty business, Mr. Holmes, but I thought the point of the second stain
+not corresponding with the first would interest you.”
+
+“Certainly, it was most interesting. Has this woman only been here once,
+constable?”
+
+“Yes, sir, only once.”
+
+“Who was she?”
+
+“Don't know the name, sir. Was answering an advertisement about
+type-writing, and came to the wrong number--very pleasant, genteel young
+woman, sir.”
+
+“Tall? Handsome?”
+
+“Yes, sir; she was a well-grown young woman. I suppose you might say
+she was handsome. Perhaps some would say she was very handsome. 'Oh,
+officer, do let me have a peep!' says she. She had pretty, coaxing ways,
+as you might say, and I thought there was no harm in letting her just
+put her head through the door.”
+
+“How was she dressed?”
+
+“Quiet, sir--a long mantle down to her feet.”
+
+“What time was it?”
+
+“It was just growing dusk at the time. They were lighting the lamps as I
+came back with the brandy.”
+
+“Very good,” said Holmes. “Come, Watson, I think that we have more
+important work elsewhere.”
+
+As we left the house Lestrade remained in the front room, while the
+repentant constable opened the door to let us out. Holmes turned on the
+step and held up something in his hand. The constable stared intently.
+
+“Good Lord, sir!” he cried, with amazement on his face. Holmes put his
+finger on his lips, replaced his hand in his breast-pocket, and burst
+out laughing as we turned down the street. “Excellent!” said he. “Come,
+friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act. You will be
+relieved to hear that there will be no war, that the Right Honourable
+Trelawney Hope will suffer no set-back in his brilliant career, that the
+indiscreet Sovereign will receive no punishment for his indiscretion,
+that the Prime Minister will have no European complication to deal with,
+and that with a little tact and management upon our part nobody will be
+a penny the worse for what might have been a very ugly incident.”
+
+My mind filled with admiration for this extraordinary man.
+
+“You have solved it!” I cried.
+
+“Hardly that, Watson. There are some points which are as dark as ever.
+But we have so much that it will be our own fault if we cannot get the
+rest. We will go straight to Whitehall Terrace and bring the matter to a
+head.”
+
+When we arrived at the residence of the European Secretary it was for
+Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope that Sherlock Holmes inquired. We were shown
+into the morning-room.
+
+“Mr. Holmes!” said the lady, and her face was pink with her indignation,
+“this is surely most unfair and ungenerous upon your part. I desired,
+as I have explained, to keep my visit to you a secret, lest my husband
+should think that I was intruding into his affairs. And yet you
+compromise me by coming here and so showing that there are business
+relations between us.”
+
+“Unfortunately, madam, I had no possible alternative. I have been
+commissioned to recover this immensely important paper. I must therefore
+ask you, madam, to be kind enough to place it in my hands.”
+
+The lady sprang to her feet, with the colour all dashed in an instant
+from her beautiful face. Her eyes glazed--she tottered--I thought that
+she would faint. Then with a grand effort she rallied from the shock,
+and a supreme astonishment and indignation chased every other expression
+from her features.
+
+“You--you insult me, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Come, come, madam, it is useless. Give up the letter.”
+
+She darted to the bell.
+
+“The butler shall show you out.”
+
+“Do not ring, Lady Hilda. If you do, then all my earnest efforts to
+avoid a scandal will be frustrated. Give up the letter and all will be
+set right. If you will work with me I can arrange everything. If you
+work against me I must expose you.”
+
+She stood grandly defiant, a queenly figure, her eyes fixed upon his as
+if she would read his very soul. Her hand was on the bell, but she had
+forborne to ring it.
+
+“You are trying to frighten me. It is not a very manly thing, Mr.
+Holmes, to come here and browbeat a woman. You say that you know
+something. What is it that you know?”
+
+“Pray sit down, madam. You will hurt yourself there if you fall. I will
+not speak until you sit down. Thank you.”
+
+“I give you five minutes, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“One is enough, Lady Hilda. I know of your visit to Eduardo Lucas, of
+your giving him this document, of your ingenious return to the room
+last night, and of the manner in which you took the letter from the
+hiding-place under the carpet.”
+
+She stared at him with an ashen face and gulped twice before she could
+speak.
+
+“You are mad, Mr. Holmes--you are mad!” she cried, at last.
+
+He drew a small piece of cardboard from his pocket. It was the face of a
+woman cut out of a portrait.
+
+“I have carried this because I thought it might be useful,” said he.
+“The policeman has recognised it.”
+
+She gave a gasp and her head dropped back in the chair.
+
+“Come, Lady Hilda. You have the letter. The matter may still be
+adjusted. I have no desire to bring trouble to you. My duty ends when
+I have returned the lost letter to your husband. Take my advice and be
+frank with me; it is your only chance.”
+
+Her courage was admirable. Even now she would not own defeat.
+
+“I tell you again, Mr. Holmes, that you are under some absurd illusion.”
+
+Holmes rose from his chair.
+
+“I am sorry for you, Lady Hilda. I have done my best for you; I can see
+that it is all in vain.”
+
+He rang the bell. The butler entered.
+
+“Is Mr. Trelawney Hope at home?”
+
+“He will be home, sir, at a quarter to one.”
+
+Holmes glanced at his watch.
+
+“Still a quarter of an hour,” said he. “Very good, I shall wait.”
+
+The butler had hardly closed the door behind him when Lady Hilda
+was down on her knees at Holmes's feet, her hands out-stretched, her
+beautiful face upturned and wet with her tears.
+
+“Oh, spare me, Mr. Holmes! Spare me!” she pleaded, in a frenzy of
+supplication. “For Heaven's sake, don't tell him! I love him so! I would
+not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble
+heart.”
+
+Holmes raised the lady. “I am thankful, madam, that you have come to
+your senses even at this last moment! There is not an instant to lose.
+Where is the letter?”
+
+She darted across to a writing-desk, unlocked it, and drew out a long
+blue envelope.
+
+“Here it is, Mr. Holmes. Would to Heaven I had never seen it!”
+
+“How can we return it?” Holmes muttered. “Quick, quick, we must think of
+some way! Where is the despatch-box?”
+
+“Still in his bedroom.”
+
+“What a stroke of luck! Quick, madam, bring it here!”
+
+A moment later she had appeared with a red flat box in her hand.
+
+“How did you open it before? You have a duplicate key? Yes, of course
+you have. Open it!”
+
+From out of her bosom Lady Hilda had drawn a small key. The box flew
+open. It was stuffed with papers. Holmes thrust the blue envelope deep
+down into the heart of them, between the leaves of some other document.
+The box was shut, locked, and returned to the bedroom.
+
+“Now we are ready for him,” said Holmes; “we have still ten minutes.
+I am going far to screen you, Lady Hilda. In return you will spend
+the time in telling me frankly the real meaning of this extraordinary
+affair.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes, I will tell you everything,” cried the lady. “Oh, Mr.
+Holmes, I would cut off my right hand before I gave him a moment of
+sorrow! There is no woman in all London who loves her husband as I
+do, and yet if he knew how I have acted--how I have been compelled to
+act--he would never forgive me. For his own honour stands so high that
+he could not forget or pardon a lapse in another. Help me, Mr. Holmes!
+My happiness, his happiness, our very lives are at stake!”
+
+“Quick, madam, the time grows short!”
+
+“It was a letter of mine, Mr. Holmes, an indiscreet letter written
+before my marriage--a foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive, loving
+girl. I meant no harm, and yet he would have thought it criminal. Had he
+read that letter his confidence would have been for ever destroyed.
+It is years since I wrote it. I had thought that the whole matter was
+forgotten. Then at last I heard from this man, Lucas, that it had passed
+into his hands, and that he would lay it before my husband. I implored
+his mercy. He said that he would return my letter if I would bring him a
+certain document which he described in my husband's despatch-box. He had
+some spy in the office who had told him of its existence. He assured me
+that no harm could come to my husband. Put yourself in my position, Mr.
+Holmes! What was I to do?”
+
+“Take your husband into your confidence.”
+
+“I could not, Mr. Holmes, I could not! On the one side seemed certain
+ruin; on the other, terrible as it seemed to take my husband's paper,
+still in a matter of politics I could not understand the consequences,
+while in a matter of love and trust they were only too clear to me.
+I did it, Mr. Holmes! I took an impression of his key; this man Lucas
+furnished a duplicate. I opened his despatch-box, took the paper, and
+conveyed it to Godolphin Street.”
+
+“What happened there, madam?”
+
+“I tapped at the door as agreed. Lucas opened it. I followed him into
+his room, leaving the hall door ajar behind me, for I feared to be alone
+with the man. I remember that there was a woman outside as I entered.
+Our business was soon done. He had my letter on his desk; I handed him
+the document. He gave me the letter. At this instant there was a sound
+at the door. There were steps in the passage. Lucas quickly turned
+back the drugget, thrust the document into some hiding-place there, and
+covered it over.
+
+“What happened after that is like some fearful dream. I have a vision of
+a dark, frantic face, of a woman's voice, which screamed in French, 'My
+waiting is not in vain. At last, at last I have found you with her!'
+There was a savage struggle. I saw him with a chair in his hand, a knife
+gleamed in hers. I rushed from the horrible scene, ran from the house,
+and only next morning in the paper did I learn the dreadful result. That
+night I was happy, for I had my letter, and I had not seen yet what the
+future would bring.
+
+“It was the next morning that I realized that I had only exchanged one
+trouble for another. My husband's anguish at the loss of his paper went
+to my heart. I could hardly prevent myself from there and then kneeling
+down at his feet and telling him what I had done. But that again would
+mean a confession of the past. I came to you that morning in order to
+understand the full enormity of my offence. From the instant that I
+grasped it my whole mind was turned to the one thought of getting back
+my husband's paper. It must still be where Lucas had placed it, for it
+was concealed before this dreadful woman entered the room. If it had not
+been for her coming, I should not have known where his hiding-place was.
+How was I to get into the room? For two days I watched the place, but
+the door was never left open. Last night I made a last attempt. What I
+did and how I succeeded, you have already learned. I brought the paper
+back with me, and thought of destroying it since I could see no way of
+returning it, without confessing my guilt to my husband. Heavens, I hear
+his step upon the stair!”
+
+The European Secretary burst excitedly into the room.
+
+“Any news, Mr. Holmes, any news?” he cried.
+
+“I have some hopes.”
+
+“Ah, thank heaven!” His face became radiant. “The Prime Minister is
+lunching with me. May he share your hopes? He has nerves of steel, and
+yet I know that he has hardly slept since this terrible event. Jacobs,
+will you ask the Prime Minister to come up? As to you, dear, I fear that
+this is a matter of politics. We will join you in a few minutes in the
+dining-room.”
+
+The Prime Minister's manner was subdued, but I could see by the gleam
+of his eyes and the twitchings of his bony hands that he shared the
+excitement of his young colleague.
+
+“I understand that you have something to report, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Purely negative as yet,” my friend answered. “I have inquired at every
+point where it might be, and I am sure that there is no danger to be
+apprehended.”
+
+“But that is not enough, Mr. Holmes. We cannot live for ever on such a
+volcano. We must have something definite.”
+
+“I am in hopes of getting it. That is why I am here. The more I think of
+the matter the more convinced I am that the letter has never left this
+house.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes!”
+
+“If it had it would certainly have been public by now.”
+
+“But why should anyone take it in order to keep it in his house?”
+
+“I am not convinced that anyone did take it.”
+
+“Then how could it leave the despatch-box?”
+
+“I am not convinced that it ever did leave the despatch-box.”
+
+“Mr. Holmes, this joking is very ill-timed. You have my assurance that
+it left the box.”
+
+“Have you examined the box since Tuesday morning?”
+
+“No; it was not necessary.”
+
+“You may conceivably have overlooked it.”
+
+“Impossible, I say.”
+
+“But I am not convinced of it; I have known such things to happen. I
+presume there are other papers there. Well, it may have got mixed with
+them.”
+
+“It was on the top.”
+
+“Someone may have shaken the box and displaced it.”
+
+“No, no; I had everything out.”
+
+“Surely it is easily decided, Hope,” said the Premier. “Let us have the
+despatch-box brought in.”
+
+The Secretary rang the bell.
+
+“Jacobs, bring down my despatch-box. This is a farcical waste of time,
+but still, if nothing else will satisfy you, it shall be done. Thank
+you, Jacobs; put it here. I have always had the key on my watch-chain.
+Here are the papers, you see. Letter from Lord Merrow, report from Sir
+Charles Hardy, memorandum from Belgrade, note on the Russo-German grain
+taxes, letter from Madrid, note from Lord Flowers--good heavens! what is
+this? Lord Bellinger! Lord Bellinger!”
+
+The Premier snatched the blue envelope from his hand.
+
+“Yes, it is it--and the letter is intact. Hope, I congratulate you.”
+
+“Thank you! Thank you! What a weight from my heart. But this is
+inconceivable--impossible. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard, a sorcerer! How
+did you know it was there?”
+
+“Because I knew it was nowhere else.”
+
+“I cannot believe my eyes!” He ran wildly to the door. “Where is my
+wife? I must tell her that all is well. Hilda! Hilda!” we heard his
+voice on the stairs.
+
+The Premier looked at Holmes with twinkling eyes.
+
+“Come, sir,” said he. “There is more in this than meets the eye. How
+came the letter back in the box?”
+
+Holmes turned away smiling from the keen scrutiny of those wonderful
+eyes.
+
+“We also have our diplomatic secrets,” said he, and picking up his hat
+he turned to the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by
+Arthur Conan Doyle
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theseahawk b/files/books/unrelated/theseahawk
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theseahawk
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea-Hawk, by Raphael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Sea-Hawk
+
+Author: Raphael Sabatini
+
+Posting Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #3294]
+Release Date: June, 2002
+Last Updated: March 10, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-HAWK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Stuart Middleton
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEA-HAWK
+
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+Lord Henry Goade, who had, as we shall see, some personal acquaintance
+with Sir Oliver Tressilian, tells us quite bluntly that he was
+ill-favoured. But then his lordship is addicted to harsh judgments and
+his perceptions are not always normal. He says, for instance, of Anne of
+Cleves, that she was the “ugliest woman that ever I saw.” As far as we
+can glean from his own voluminous writings it would seem to be extremely
+doubtful whether he ever saw Anne of Cleves at all, and we suspect him
+here of being no more than a slavish echo of the common voice, which
+attributed Cromwell's downfall to the ugliness of this bride he procured
+for his Bluebeard master. To the common voice from the brush of Holbein,
+which permits us to form our own opinions and shows us a lady who
+is certainly very far from deserving his lordship's harsh stricture.
+Similarly, I like to believe that Lord Henry was wrong in his
+pronouncement upon Sir Oliver, and I am encouraged in this belief by the
+pen-portrait which he himself appends to it. “He was,” he says, “a tall,
+powerful fellow of a good shape, if we except that his arms were too
+long and that his feet and hands were of an uncomely bigness. In face he
+was swarthy, with black hair and a black forked beard; his nose was
+big and very high in the bridge, and his eyes sunk deep under beetling
+eyebrows were very pale-coloured and very cruel and sinister. He
+had--and this I have ever remarked to be the sign of great virility in
+a man--a big, deep, rough voice, better suited to, and no doubt oftener
+employed in, quarter-deck oaths and foulnesses than the worship of his
+Maker.”
+
+Thus my Lord Henry Goade, and you observe how he permits his lingering
+disapproval of the man to intrude upon his description of him. The
+truth is that--as there is ample testimony in his prolific writings--is
+lordship was something of a misanthropist. It was, in fact, his
+misanthropy which drove him, as it has driven many another, to
+authorship. He takes up the pen, not so much that he may carry out his
+professed object of writing a chronicle of his own time, but to the
+end that he may vent the bitterness engendered in him by his fall from
+favour. As a consequence he has little that is good to say of anyone,
+and rarely mentions one of his contemporaries but to tap the sources of
+a picturesque invective. After all, it is possible to make excuses for
+him. He was at once a man of thought and a man of action--a combination
+as rare as it is usually deplorable. The man of action in him might have
+gone far had he not been ruined at the outset by the man of thought. A
+magnificent seaman, he might have become Lord High Admiral of England
+but for a certain proneness to intrigue. Fortunately for him--since
+head where nature had placed it--he came betimes under a cloud of
+suspicion. His career suffered a check; but it was necessary to afford
+him some compensation since, after all, the suspicions could not be
+substantiated.
+
+Consequently he was removed from his command and appointed by the
+Queen's Grace her Lieutenant of Cornwall, a position in which it was
+judged that he could do little mischief. There, soured by this blighting
+of his ambitions, and living a life of comparative seclusion, he turned,
+as so many other men similarly placed have turned, to seek consolation
+in his pen. He wrote his singularly crabbed, narrow and superficial
+History of Lord Henry Goade: his own Times--which is a miracle of
+injuvenations, distortions, misrepresentations, and eccentric spelling.
+In the eighteen enormous folio volumes, which he filled with his minute
+and gothic characters, he gives his own version of the story of what
+he terms his downfall, and, having, notwithstanding his prolixity,
+exhausted this subject in the first five of the eighteen tomes, he
+proceeds to deal with so much of the history of his own day as came
+immediately under his notice in his Cornish retirement.
+
+For the purposes of English history his chronicles are entirely
+negligible, which is the reason why they have been allowed to remain
+unpublished and in oblivion. But to the student who attempts to follow
+the history of that extraordinary man, Sir Oliver Tressilian, they are
+entirely invaluable. And, since I have made this history my present
+task, it is fitting that I should here at the outset acknowledge my
+extreme indebtedness to those chronicles. Without them, indeed, it were
+impossible to reconstruct the life of that Cornish gentleman who
+became a renegade and a Barbary Corsair and might have become Basha of
+Algiers--or Argire, as his lordship terms it--but for certain matters
+which are to be set forth.
+
+Lord Henry wrote with knowledge and authority, and the tale he has to
+tell is very complete and full of precious detail. He was, himself, an
+eyewitness of much that happened; he pursued a personal acquaintance
+with many of those who were connected with Sir Oliver's affairs that he
+might amplify his chronicles, and he considered no scrap of gossip that
+was to be gleaned along the countryside too trivial to be recorded. I
+suspect him also of having received no little assistance from Jasper
+Leigh in the matter of those events that happened out of England, which
+seem to me to constitute by far the most interesting portion of his
+narrative.
+
+                                                               R. S.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+SIR OLIVER TRESSILIAN
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I.  THE HUCKSTER
+
+   II.  ROSAMUND
+
+  III.  THE FORGE
+
+   IV.  THE INTERVENER
+
+    V.  THE BUCKLER
+
+   VI.  JASPER LEIGH
+
+  VII.  TREPANNED
+
+ VIII.  THE SPANIARD
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+SAKR-EL-BAHR
+
+    I.  THE CAPTIVE
+
+   II.  THE RENEGADE
+
+  III.  HOMEWARD BOUND
+
+   IV.  THE RAID
+
+    V.  THE LION OF THE FAITH
+
+   VI.  THE CONVERT
+
+  VII.  MARZAK-BEN-ASAD
+
+ VIII.  MOTHER AND SON
+
+   IX.  COMPETITORS
+
+    X.  THE SLAVE-MARKET
+
+   XI.  THE TRUTH
+
+  XII.  THE SUBTLETY OF FENZILEH
+
+ XIII.  IN THE SIGHT OF ALLAH
+
+  XIV.  THE SIGN
+
+   XV.  THE VOYAGE
+
+  XVI.  THE PANNIER
+
+ XVII.  THE DUPE
+
+XVIII. SHEIK MAT
+
+  XIX.  THE MUTINEERS
+
+   XX.  THE MESSENGER
+
+  XXI.  MORITURUS
+
+ XXII.  THE SURRENDER
+
+XXIII. THE HEATHEN CREED
+
+ XXIV.  THE JUDGES
+
+  XXV.  THE ADVOCATE
+
+ XXVI.  THE JUDGMENT
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I. SIR OLIVER TRESSILIAN
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HUCKSTER
+
+
+Sir Oliver Tressilian sat at his ease in the lofty dining-room of the
+handsome house of Penarrow, which he owed to the enterprise of his
+father of lamented and lamentable memory and to the skill and invention
+of an Italian engineer named Bagnolo who had come to England half a
+century ago as one of the assistants of the famous Torrigiani.
+
+This house of such a startlingly singular and Italianate grace for so
+remote a corner of Cornwall deserves, together with the story of its
+construction, a word in passing.
+
+The Italian Bagnolo who combined with his salient artistic talents a
+quarrelsome, volcanic humour had the mischance to kill a man in a brawl
+in a Southwark tavern. As a result he fled the town, nor paused in his
+headlong flight from the consequences of that murderous deed until he
+had all but reached the very ends of England. Under what circumstances
+he became acquainted with Tressilian the elder I do not know. But
+certain it is that the meeting was a very timely one for both of them.
+To the fugitive, Ralph Tressilian--who appears to have been inveterately
+partial to the company of rascals of all denominations--afforded
+shelter; and Bagnolo repaid the service by offering to rebuild the
+decaying half-timbered house of Penarrow. Having taken the task in
+hand he went about it with all the enthusiasm of your true artist, and
+achieved for his protector a residence that was a marvel of grace
+in that crude age and outlandish district. There arose under the
+supervision of the gifted engineer, worthy associate of Messer
+Torrigiani, a noble two-storied mansion of mellow red brick, flooded
+with light and sunshine by the enormously tall mullioned windows that
+rose almost from base to summit of each pilastered facade. The main
+doorway was set in a projecting wing and was overhung by a massive
+balcony, the whole surmounted by a pillared pediment of extraordinary
+grace, now partly clad in a green mantle of creepers. Above the burnt
+red tiles of the roof soared massive twisted chimneys in lofty majesty.
+
+But the glory of Penarrow--that is, of the new Penarrow begotten of the
+fertile brain of Bagnolo--was the garden fashioned out of the tangled
+wilderness about the old house that had crowned the heights above
+Penarrow point. To the labours of Bagnolo, Time and Nature had added
+their own. Bagnolo had cut those handsome esplanades, had built
+those noble balustrades bordering the three terraces with their fine
+connecting flights of steps; himself he had planned the fountain, and
+with his own hands had carved the granite faun presiding over it and the
+dozen other statues of nymphs and sylvan gods in a marble that gleamed
+in white brilliance amid the dusky green. But Time and Nature had
+smoothed the lawns to a velvet surface, had thickened the handsome
+boxwood hedges, and thrust up those black spear-like poplars that
+completed the very Italianate appearance of that Cornish demesne.
+
+Sir Oliver took his ease in his dining-room considering all this as it
+was displayed before him in the mellowing September sunshine, and found
+it all very good to see, and life very good to live. Now no man has ever
+been known so to find life without some immediate cause, other than that
+of his environment, for his optimism. Sir Oliver had several causes.
+The first of these--although it was one which he may have been far from
+suspecting--was his equipment of youth, wealth, and good digestion; the
+second was that he had achieved honour and renown both upon the Spanish
+Main and in the late harrying of the Invincible Armada--or, more
+aptly perhaps might it be said, in the harrying of the late Invincible
+Armada--and that he had received in that the twenty-fifth year of his
+life the honour of knighthood from the Virgin Queen; the third and last
+contributor to his pleasant mood--and I have reserved it for the end as
+I account this to be the proper place for the most important factor--was
+Dan Cupid who for once seemed compounded entirely of benignity and who
+had so contrived matters that Sir Oliver's wooing Of Mistress Rosamund
+Godolphin ran an entirely smooth and happy course.
+
+So, then, Sir Oliver sat at his ease in his tall, carved chair, his
+doublet untrussed, his long legs stretched before him, a pensive smile
+about the firm lips that as yet were darkened by no more than a small
+black line of moustachios. (Lord Henry's portrait of him was drawn at
+a much later period.) It was noon, and our gentleman had just dined, as
+the platters, the broken meats and the half-empty flagon on the board
+beside him testified. He pulled thoughtfully at a long pipe--for he had
+acquired this newly imported habit of tobacco-drinking--and dreamed of
+his mistress, and was properly and gallantly grateful that fortune had
+used him so handsomely as to enable him to toss a title and some measure
+of renown into his Rosamund's lap.
+
+By nature Sir Oliver was a shrewd fellow (“cunning as twenty devils,” is
+my Lord Henry's phrase) and he was also a man of some not inconsiderable
+learning. Yet neither his natural wit nor his acquired endowments appear
+to have taught him that of all the gods that rule the destinies of
+mankind there is none more ironic and malicious than that same Dan Cupid
+in whose honour, as it were, he was now burning the incense of that pipe
+of his. The ancients knew that innocent-seeming boy for a cruel, impish
+knave, and they mistrusted him. Sir Oliver either did not know or did
+not heed that sound piece of ancient wisdom. It was to be borne in upon
+him by grim experience, and even as his light pensive eyes smiled upon
+the sunshine that flooded the terrace beyond the long mullioned window,
+a shadow fell athwart it which he little dreamed to be symbolic of the
+shadow that was even falling across the sunshine of his life.
+
+After that shadow came the substance--tall and gay of raiment under a
+broad black Spanish hat decked with blood-red plumes. Swinging a long
+beribboned cane the figure passed the windows, stalking deliberately as
+Fate.
+
+The smile perished on Sir Oliver's lips. His swarthy face grew
+thoughtful, his black brows contracted until no more than a single deep
+furrow stood between them. Then slowly the smile came forth again, but
+no longer that erstwhile gentle pensive smile. It was transformed into a
+smile of resolve and determination, a smile that tightened his lips even
+as his brows relaxed, and invested his brooding eyes with a gleam that
+was mocking, crafty and almost wicked.
+
+Came Nicholas his servant to announce Master Peter Godolphin, and close
+upon the lackey's heels came Master Godolphin himself, leaning upon
+his beribboned cane and carrying his broad Spanish hat. He was a tall,
+slender gentleman, with a shaven, handsome countenance, stamped with
+an air of haughtiness; like Sir Oliver, he had a high-bridged, intrepid
+nose, and in age he was the younger by some two or three years. He wore
+his auburn hair rather longer than was the mode just then, but in his
+apparel there was no more foppishness than is tolerable in a gentleman
+of his years.
+
+Sir Oliver rose and bowed from his great height in welcome. But a wave
+of tobacco-smoke took his graceful visitor in the throat and set him
+coughing and grimacing.
+
+“I see,” he choked, “that ye have acquired that filthy habit.”
+
+“I have known filthier,” said Sir Oliver composedly.
+
+“I nothing doubt it,” rejoined Master Godolphin, thus early giving
+indications of his humour and the object of his visit.
+
+Sir Oliver checked an answer that must have helped his visitor to his
+ends, which was no part of the knight's intent.
+
+“Therefore,” said he ironically, “I hope you will be patient with my
+shortcomings. Nick, a chair for Master Godolphin and another cup. I bid
+you welcome to Penarrow.”
+
+A sneer flickered over the younger man's white face. “You pay me a
+compliment, sir, which I fear me 'tis not mine to return to you.”
+
+“Time enough for that when I come to seek it,” said Sir Oliver, with
+easy, if assumed, good humour.
+
+“When you come to seek it?”
+
+“The hospitality of your house,” Sir Oliver explained.
+
+“It is on that very matter I am come to talk with you.”
+
+“Will you sit?” Sir Oliver invited him, and spread a hand towards the
+chair which Nicholas had set. In the same gesture he waved the servant
+away.
+
+Master Godolphin ignored the invitation. “You were,” he said, “at
+Godolphin Court but yesterday, I hear.” He paused, and as Sir Oliver
+offered no denial, he added stiffly: “I am come, sir, to inform you that
+the honour of your visits is one we shall be happy to forgo.”
+
+In the effort he made to preserve his self-control before so direct an
+affront Sir Oliver paled a little under his tan.
+
+“You will understand, Peter,” he replied slowly, “that you have said too
+much unless you add something more.” He paused, considering his visitor
+a moment. “I do not know whether Rosamund has told you that yesterday
+she did me the honour to consent to become my wife....”
+
+“She is a child that does not know her mind,” broke in the other.
+
+“Do you know of any good reason why she should come to change it?” asked
+Sir Oliver, with a slight air of challenge.
+
+Master Godolphin sat down, crossed his legs and placed his hat on his
+knee.
+
+“I know a dozen,” he answered. “But I need not urge them. Sufficient
+should it be to remind you that Rosamund is but seventeen and that she
+is under my guardianship and that of Sir John Killigrew. Neither Sir
+John nor I can sanction this betrothal.”
+
+“Good lack!” broke out Sir Oliver. “Who asks your sanction or Sir
+John's? By God's grace your sister will grow to be a woman soon and
+mistress of herself. I am in no desperate haste to get me wed, and by
+nature--as you may be observing--I am a wondrous patient man. I'll even
+wait,” And he pulled at his pipe.
+
+“Waiting cannot avail you in this, Sir Oliver. 'Tis best you should
+understand. We are resolved, Sir John and I.”
+
+“Are you so? God's light. Send Sir John to me to tell me of his resolves
+and I'll tell him something of mine. Tell him from me, Master Godolphin,
+that if he will trouble to come as far as Penarrow I'll do by him what
+the hangman should have done long since. I'll crop his pimpish ears for
+him, by this hand!”
+
+“Meanwhile,” said Master Godolphin whettingly, “will you not essay your
+rover's prowess upon me?”
+
+“You?” quoth Sir Oliver, and looked him over with good-humoured
+contempt. “I'm no butcher of fledgelings, my lad. Besides, you are your
+sister's brother, and 'tis no aim of mine to increase the obstacles
+already in my path.” Then his tone changed. He leaned across the table.
+“Come, now, Peter. What is at the root of all this matter? Can we not
+compose such differences as you conceive exist? Out with them. 'Tis
+no matter for Sir John. He's a curmudgeon who signifies not a finger's
+snap. But you, 'tis different. You are her brother. Out with your
+plaints, then. Let us be frank and friendly.”
+
+“Friendly?” The other sneered again. “Our fathers set us an example in
+that.”
+
+“Does it matter what our fathers did? More shame to them if, being
+neighbours, they could not be friends. Shall we follow so deplorable an
+example?”
+
+“You'll not impute that the fault lay with my father,” cried the other,
+with a show of ready anger.
+
+“I impute nothing, lad. I cry shame upon them both.”
+
+“'Swounds!” swore Master Peter. “Do you malign the dead?”
+
+“If I do, I malign them both. But I do not. I no more than condemn a
+fault that both must acknowledge could they return to life.”
+
+“Then, Sir, confine your condemnings to your own father with whom no man
+of honour could have lived at peace....”
+
+“Softly, softly, good Sir....”
+
+“There's no call to go softly. Ralph Tressilian was a dishonour, a
+scandal to the countryside. Not a hamlet between here and Truro, or
+between here and Helston, but swarms with big Tressilian noses like your
+own, in memory of your debauched parent.”
+
+Sir Oliver's eyes grew narrower: he smiled. “I wonder how you came by
+your own nose?” he wondered.
+
+Master Godolphin got to his feet in a passion, and his chair crashed
+over behind him. “Sir,” he blazed, “you insult my mother's memory!”
+
+Sir Oliver laughed. “I make a little free with it, perhaps, in return
+for your pleasantries on the score of my father.”
+
+Master Godolphin pondered him in speechless anger, then swayed by his
+passion he leaned across the board, raised his long cane and struck Sir
+Oliver sharply on the shoulder.
+
+That done, he strode off magnificently towards the door. Half-way
+thither he paused.
+
+“I shall expect your friends and the length of your sword,” said he.
+
+Sir Oliver laughed again. “I don't think I shall trouble to send them,”
+ said he.
+
+Master Godolphin wheeled, fully to face him again. “How? You will take a
+blow?”
+
+Sir Oliver shrugged. “None saw it given,” said he.
+
+“But I shall publish it abroad that I have caned you.”
+
+“You'll publish yourself a liar if you do; for none will believe you.”
+ Then he changed his tone yet again. “Come, Peter, we are behaving
+unworthily. As for the blow, I confess that I deserved it. A man's
+mother is more sacred than his father. So we may cry quits on that
+score. Can we not cry quits on all else? What can it profit us to
+perpetuate a foolish quarrel that sprang up between our fathers?”
+
+“There is more than that between us,” answered Master Godolphin. “I'll
+not have my sister wed a pirate.”
+
+“A pirate? God's light! I am glad there's none to hear you for since her
+grace has knighted me for my doings upon the seas, your words go very
+near to treason. Surely, lad, what the Queen approves, Master Peter
+Godolphin may approve and even your mentor Sir John Killigrew. You've
+been listening to him. 'Twas he sent you hither.”
+
+“I am no man's lackey,” answered the other hotly, resenting the
+imputation--and resenting it the more because of the truth in it.
+
+“To call me a pirate is to say a foolish thing. Hawkins with whom I
+sailed has also received the accolade, and who dubs us pirates insults
+the Queen herself. Apart from that, which, as you see, is a very empty
+charge, what else have you against me? I am, I hope, as good as any
+other here in Cornwall; Rosamund honours me with her affection and I am
+rich and shall be richer still ere the wedding bells are heard.”
+
+“Rich with the fruit of thieving upon the seas, rich with the treasures
+of scuttled ships and the price of slaves captured in Africa and sold to
+the plantations, rich as the vampire is glutted--with the blood of dead
+men.”
+
+“Does Sir John say that?” asked Sir Oliver, in a soft deadly voice.
+
+“I say it.”
+
+“I heard you; but I am asking where you learnt that pretty lesson. Is
+Sir John your preceptor? He is, he is. No need to tell me. I'll deal
+with him. Meanwhile let me disclose to you the pure and disinterested
+source of Sir John's rancour. You shall see what an upright and honest
+gentleman is Sir John, who was your father's friend and has been your
+guardian.”
+
+“I'll not listen to what you say of him.”
+
+“Nay, but you shall, in return for having made me listen to what he says
+of me. Sir John desires to obtain a licence to build at the mouth of the
+Fal. He hopes to see a town spring up above the haven there under the
+shadow of his own Manor of Arwenack. He represents himself as nobly
+disinterested and all concerned for the prosperity of the country, and
+he neglects to mention that the land is his own and that it is his own
+prosperity and that of his family which he is concerned to foster.
+We met in London by a fortunate chance whilst Sir John was about this
+business at the Court. Now it happens that I, too, have interests in
+Truro and Penryn; but, unlike Sir John, I am honest in the matter, and
+proclaim it. If any growth should take place about Smithick it follows
+from its more advantageous situation that Truro and Penryn must suffer,
+and that suits me as little as the other matter would suit Sir John. I
+told him so, for I can be blunt, and I told the Queen in the form of a
+counter-petition to Sir John's.” He shrugged. “The moment was
+propitious to me. I was one of the seamen who had helped to conquer the
+unconquerable Armada of King Philip. I was therefore not to be denied,
+and Sir John was sent home as empty-handed as he went to Court. D'ye
+marvel that he hates me? Knowing him for what he is, d'ye marvel that
+he dubs me pirate and worse? 'Tis natural enough so to misrepresent my
+doings upon the sea, since it is those doings have afforded me the
+power to hurt his profit. He has chosen the weapons of calumny for this
+combat, but those weapons are not mine, as I shall show him this very
+day. If you do not credit what I say, come with me and be present at the
+little talk I hope to have with that curmudgeon.”
+
+“You forget,” said Master Godolphin, “that I, too, have interests in the
+neighbourhood of Smithick, and that you are hurting those.”
+
+“Soho!” crowed Sir Oliver. “Now at last the sun of truth peeps forth
+from all this cloud of righteous indignation at my bad Tressilian blood
+and pirate's ways! You, too, are but a trafficker. Now see what a fool I
+am to have believed you sincere, and to have stood here in talk with
+you as with an honest man.” His voice swelled and his lip curled in a
+contempt that struck the other like a blow. “I swear I had not wasted
+breath with you had I known you for so mean and pitiful a fellow.”
+
+“These words....” began Master Godolphin, drawing himself up very
+stiffly.
+
+“Are a deal less than your deserts,” cut in the other, and he raised his
+voice to call--“Nick.”
+
+“You shall answer to them,” snapped his visitor.
+
+“I am answering now,” was the stern answer. “To come here and prate to
+me of my dead father's dissoluteness and of an ancient quarrel between
+him and yours, to bleat of my trumped-up course of piracy and my own
+ways of life as a just cause why I may not wed your sister whilst the
+real consideration in your mind, the real spur to your hostility is not
+more than the matter of some few paltry pounds a year that I hinder you
+from pocketing. A God's name get you gone.”
+
+Nick entered at that moment.
+
+“You shall hear from me again, Sir Oliver,” said the other, white with
+anger. “You shall account to me for these words.”
+
+“I do not fight with... with hucksters,” flashed Sir Oliver.
+
+“D'ye dare call me that?”
+
+“Indeed, 'tis to discredit an honourable class, I confess it. Nick, the
+door for Master Godolphin.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. ROSAMUND
+
+
+Anon, after his visitor had departed, Sir Oliver grew calm again. Then
+being able in his calm to consider his position, he became angry anew at
+the very thought of the rage in which he had been, a rage which had so
+mastered him that he had erected additional obstacles to the already
+considerable ones that stood between Rosamund and himself. In full
+blast, his anger swung round and took Sir John Killigrew for its
+objective. He would settle with him at once. He would so, by Heaven's
+light!
+
+He bellowed for Nick and his boots.
+
+“Where is Master Lionel? he asked when the boots had been fetched.
+
+“He be just ridden in, Sir Oliver.”
+
+“Bid him hither.”
+
+Promptly, in answer to that summons, came Sir Oliver's half-brother--a
+slender lad favouring his mother the dissolute Ralph Tressilian's second
+wife. He was as unlike Sir Oliver in body as in soul. He was comely in a
+very gentle, almost womanish way; his complexion was fair and delicate,
+his hair golden, and his eyes of a deep blue. He had a very charming
+stripling grace--for he was but in his twenty-first year--and he dressed
+with all the care of a Court-gallant.
+
+“Has that whelp Godolphin been to visit you?” he asked as he entered.
+
+“Aye,” growled Sir Oliver. “He came to tell me some things and to hear
+some others in return.”
+
+“Ha. I passed him just beyond the gates, and he was deaf to my greeting.
+'Tis a most cursed insufferable pup.”
+
+“Art a judge of men, Lal.” Sir Oliver stood up booted. “I am for
+Arwenack to exchange a compliment or two with Sir John.”
+
+His tight-pressed lips and resolute air supplemented his words so well
+that Lionel clutched his arm.
+
+“You're not... you're not...?”
+
+“I am.” And affectionately, as if to soothe the lad's obvious alarm,
+he patted his brother's shoulder. “Sir John,” he explained, “talks too
+much. 'Tis a fault that wants correcting. I go to teach him the virtue
+of silence.”
+
+“There will be trouble, Oliver.”
+
+“So there will--for him. If a man must be saying of me that I am a
+pirate, a slave-dealer, a murderer, and Heaven knows what else, he must
+be ready for the consequences. But you are late, Lal. Where have you
+been?”
+
+“I rode as far as Malpas.”
+
+“As far as Malpas?” Sir Oliver's eyes narrowed, as was the trick with
+him. “I hear it whispered what magnet draws you thither,” he said. “Be
+wary, boy. You go too much to Malpas.”
+
+“How?” quoth Lionel a trifle coldly.
+
+“I mean that you are your father's son. Remember it, and strive not to
+follow in his ways lest they bring you to his own end. I have just been
+reminded of these predilections of his by good Master Peter. Go not over
+often to Malpas, I say. No more.” But the arm which he flung about
+his younger brother's shoulders and the warmth of his embrace made
+resentment of his warning quite impossible.
+
+When he was gone, Lionel sat him down to dine, with Nick to wait on him.
+He ate but little, and never addressed the old servant in the course
+of that brief repast. He was very pensive. In thought he followed his
+brother on that avenging visit of his to Arwenack. Killigrew was no
+babe, but man of his hands, a soldier and a seaman. If any harm should
+come to Oliver...He trembled at the thought; and then almost despite him
+his mind ran on to calculate the consequences to himself. His fortune
+would be in a very different case, he refected. In a sort of horror, he
+sought to put so detestable a reflection from his mind; but it returned
+insistently. It would not be denied. It forced him to a consideration of
+his own circumstances.
+
+All that he had he owed to his brother's bounty. That dissolute father
+of theirs had died as such men commonly die, leaving behind him heavily
+encumbered estates and many debts; the very house of Penarrow was
+mortgaged, and the moneys raised on it had been drunk, or gambled, or
+spent on one or another of Ralph Tressilian's many lights o' love. Then
+Oliver had sold some little property near Helston, inherited from his
+mother; he had sunk the money into a venture upon the Spanish Main. He
+had fitted out and manned a ship, and had sailed with Hawkins upon one
+of those ventures, which Sir John Killigrew was perfectly entitled to
+account pirate raids. He had returned with enough plunder in specie and
+gems to disencumber the Tressilian patrimony. He had sailed again and
+returned still wealthier. And meanwhile, Lionel had remained at home
+taking his ease. He loved his ease. His nature was inherently indolent,
+and he had the wasteful extravagant tastes that usually go with
+indolence. He was not born to toil and struggle, and none had sought to
+correct the shortcomings of his character in that respect. Sometimes he
+wondered what the future might hold for him should Oliver come to marry.
+He feared his life might not be as easy as it was at present. But he did
+not seriously fear. It was not in his nature--it never is in the natures
+of such men--to give any excess of consideration to the future. When
+his thoughts did turn to it in momentary uneasiness, he would abruptly
+dismiss them with the reflection that when all was said Oliver loved
+him, and Oliver would never fail to provide adequately for all his
+wants.
+
+In this undoubtedly he was fully justified. Oliver was more parent than
+brother to him. When their father had been brought home to die from the
+wound dealt him by an outraged husband--and a shocking spectacle that
+sinner's death had been with its hasty terrified repentance--he had
+entrusted Lionel to his elder brother's care. At the time Oliver was
+seventeen and Lionel twelve. But Oliver had seemed by so many years
+older than his age, that the twice-widowed Ralph Tressilian had come
+to depend upon this steady, resolute, and masterful child of his first
+marriage. It was into his ear that the dying man had poured the wretched
+tale of his repentance for the life he had lived and the state in which
+he was leaving his affairs with such scant provision for his sons. For
+Oliver he had no fear. It was as if with the prescience that comes
+to men in his pass he had perceived that Oliver was of those who must
+prevail, a man born to make the world his oyster. His anxieties were
+all for Lionel, whom he also judged with that same penetrating insight
+vouchsafed a man in his last hours. Hence his piteous recommendation
+of him to Oliver, and Oliver's ready promise to be father, mother, and
+brother to the youngster.
+
+All this was in Lionel's mind as he sat musing there, and again he
+struggled with that hideous insistent thought that if things should
+go ill with his brother at Arwenack, there would be great profit to
+himself; that these things he now enjoyed upon another's bounty he
+would then enjoy in his own right. A devil seemed to mock him with
+the whispered sneer that were Oliver to die his own grief would not be
+long-lived. Then in revolt against that voice of an egoism so loathsome
+that in his better moments it inspired even himself with horror, he
+bethought him of Oliver's unvarying, unwavering affection; he pondered
+all the loving care and kindness that through these years past Oliver
+had ever showered upon him; and he cursed the rottenness of a mind that
+could even admit such thoughts as those which he had been entertaining.
+So wrought upon was he by the welter of his emotions, by that fierce
+strife between his conscience and his egotism, that he came abruptly to
+his feet, a cry upon his lips.
+
+“Vade retro, Sathanas!”
+
+Old Nicholas, looking up abruptly, saw the lad's face, waxen, his brow
+bedewed with sweat.
+
+“Master Lionel! Master Lionel!” he cried, his small bright eyes
+concernedly scanning his young master's face. “What be amiss?”
+
+Lionel mopped his brow. “Sir Oliver has gone to Arwenack upon a punitive
+business,” said he.
+
+“An' what be that, zur?” quoth Nicholas.
+
+“He has gone to punish Sir John for having maligned him.”
+
+A grin spread upon the weather-beaten countenance of Nicholas.
+
+“Be that so? Marry, 'twere time. Sir John he be over long i' th' tongue.”
+
+Lionel stood amazed at the man's easy confidence and supreme assurance
+of how his master must acquit himself.
+
+“You... you have no fear, Nicholas....” He did not add of what. But the
+servant understood, and his grin grew broader still.
+
+“Fear? Lackaday! I bain't afeeard for Sir Oliver, and doan't ee be
+afeeard. Sir Oliver'll be home to sup with a sharp-set appetite--'tis
+the only difference fighting ever made to he.”
+
+The servant was justified of his confidence by the events, though
+through a slight error of judgment Sir Oliver did not quite accomplish
+all that promised and intended. In anger, and when he deemed that he had
+been affronted, he was--as his chronicler never wearies of insisting,
+and as you shall judge before the end of this tale is reached--of a
+tigerish ruthlessness. He rode to Arwenack fully resolved to kill
+his calumniator. Nothing less would satisfy him. Arrived at that fine
+embattled castle of the Killigrews which commanded the entrance to the
+estuary of the Fal, and from whose crenels the country might be surveyed
+as far as the Lizard, fifteen miles away, he found Peter Godolphin
+there before him; and because of Peter's presence Sir Oliver was
+more deliberate and formal in his accusation of Sir John than he had
+intended. He desired, in accusing Sir John, also to clear himself in
+the eyes of Rosamund's brother, to make the latter realize how entirely
+odious were the calumnies which Sir John had permitted himself, and how
+basely prompted.
+
+Sir John, however, came halfway to meet the quarrel. His rancour against
+the Pirate of Penarrow--as he had come to dub Sir Oliver--endered him
+almost as eager to engage as was his visitor.
+
+They found a secluded corner of the deer-park for their business,
+and there Sir John--a slim, sallow gentleman of some thirty years of
+age--made an onslaught with sword and dagger upon Sir Oliver, full
+worthy of the onslaught he had made earlier with his tongue. But his
+impetuosity availed him less than nothing. Sir Oliver was come there
+with a certain purpose, and it was his way that he never failed to carry
+through a thing to which he set his hand.
+
+In three minutes it was all over and Sir Oliver was carefully wiping his
+blade, whilst Sir John lay coughing upon the turf tended by white-faced
+Peter Godolphin and a scared groom who had been bidden thither to make
+up the necessary tale of witnesses.
+
+Sir Oliver sheathed his weapons and resumed his coat, then came to stand
+over his fallen foe, considering him critically.
+
+“I think I have silenced him for a little time only,” he said. “And I
+confess that I intended to do better. I hope, however, that the lesson
+will suffice and that he will lie no more--at least concerning me.”
+
+“Do you mock a fallen man?” was Master Godolphin's angry protest.
+
+“God forbid!” said Sir Oliver soberly. “There is no mockery in my heart.
+There is, believe me, nothing but regret--regret that I should not have
+done the thing more thoroughly. I will send assistance from the house as
+I go. Give you good day, Master Peter.”
+
+From Arwenack he rode round by Penryn on his homeward way. But he did
+not go straight home. He paused at the Gates of Godolphin Court, which
+stood above Trefusis Point commanding the view of Carrick Roads. He
+turned in under the old gateway and drew up in the courtyard. Leaping
+to the kidney-stones that paved it, he announced himself a visitor to
+Mistress Rosamund.
+
+He found her in her bower--a light, turreted chamber on the mansion's
+eastern side, with windows that looked out upon that lovely sheet of
+water and the wooded slopes beyond. She was sitting with a book in
+her lap in the deep of that tall window when he entered, preceded and
+announced by Sally Pentreath, who, now her tire-woman, had once been her
+nurse.
+
+She rose with a little exclamation of gladness when he appeared under
+the lintel--scarce high enough to admit him without stooping--and stood
+regarding him across the room with brightened eyes and flushing cheeks.
+
+What need is there to describe her? In the blaze of notoriety into which
+she was anon to be thrust by Sir Oliver Tressilian there was scarce a
+poet in England who did not sing the grace and loveliness of Rosamund
+Godolphin, and in all conscience enough of those fragments have
+survived. Like her brother she was tawny headed and she was divinely
+tall, though as yet her figure in its girlishness was almost too slender
+for her height.
+
+“I had not looked for you so early....” she was beginning, when
+she observed that his countenance was oddly stern. “Why... what
+has happened?” she cried, her intuitions clamouring loudly of some
+mischance.
+
+“Naught to alarm you, sweet; yet something that may vex you.” He set an
+arm about that lissom waist of hers above the swelling farthingale,
+and gently led her back to her chair, then flung himself upon the
+window-seat beside her. “You hold Sir John Killigrew in some affection?”
+ he said between statement and inquiry.
+
+“Why, yes. He was our guardian until my brother came of full age.”
+
+Sir Oliver made a wry face. “Aye, there's the rub. Well, I've all but
+killed him.”
+
+She drew back into her chair, recoiling before him, and he saw horror
+leap to her eyes and blench her face. He made haste to explain the
+causes that had led to this, he told her briefly of the calumnies
+concerning him that Sir John had put about to vent his spite at having
+been thwarted in a matter of his coveted licence to build at Smithick.
+
+“That mattered little,” he concluded. “I knew these tales concerning
+me were abroad, and I held them in the same contempt as I hold their
+utterer. But he went further, Rose: he poisoned your brother's mind
+against me, and he stirred up in him the slumbering rancour that in my
+father's time was want to lie between our houses. To-day Peter came to
+me with the clear intent to make a quarrel. He affronted me as no man
+has ever dared.”
+
+She cried out at that, her already great alarm redoubled. He smiled.
+
+“Do not suppose that I could harm him. He is your brother, and, so,
+sacred to me. He came to tell me that no betrothal was possible between
+us, forbade me ever again to visit Godolphin Court, dubbed me pirate and
+vampire to my face and reviled my father's memory. I tracked the evil
+of all this to its source in Killigrew, and rode straight to Arwenack to
+dam that source of falsehood for all time. I did not accomplish quite
+so much as I intended. You see, I am frank, my Rose. It may be that Sir
+John will live; if so I hope that he may profit by this lesson. I have
+come straight to you,” he concluded, “that you may hear the tale from me
+before another comes to malign me with false stories of this happening.”
+
+“You... you mean Peter?” she cried.
+
+“Alas!” he sighed.
+
+She sat very still and white, looking straight before her and not at all
+at Sir Oliver. At length she spoke.
+
+“I am not skilled in reading men,” she said in a sad, small voice. “How
+should I be, that am but a maid who has led a cloistered life. I was
+told of you that you were violent and passionate, a man of bitter
+enmities, easily stirred to hatreds, cruel and ruthless in the
+persecution of them.”
+
+“You, too, have been listening to Sir John,” he muttered, and laughed
+shortly.
+
+“All this was I told,” she pursued as if he had not spoken, “and all
+did I refuse to believe because my heart was given to you. Yet... yet of
+what have you made proof to-day?”
+
+“Of forbearance,” said he shortly.
+
+“Forbearance?” she echoed, and her lips writhed in a smile of weary
+irony. “Surely you mock me!”
+
+He set himself to explain.
+
+“I have told you what Sir John had done. I have told you that the
+greater part of it--and matter all that touched my honour--I know Sir
+John to have done long since. Yet I suffered it in silence and contempt.
+Was that to show myself easily stirred to ruthlessness? What was it but
+forbearance? When, however, he carries his petty huckster's rancour so
+far as to seek to choke for me my source of happiness in life and sends
+your brother to affront me, I am still so forbearing that I recognize
+your brother to be no more than a tool and go straight to the hand that
+wielded him. Because I know of your affection for Sir John I gave him
+such latitude as no man of honour in England would have given him.”
+
+Then seeing that she still avoided his regard, still sat in that frozen
+attitude of horror at learning that the man she loved had imbrued
+his hands with the blood of another whom she also loved, his pleading
+quickened to a warmer note. He flung himself upon his knees beside her
+chair, and took in his great sinewy hands the slender fingers which she
+listlessly surrendered. “Rose,” he cried, and his deep voice quivered
+with intercession, “dismiss all that you have heard from out your mind.
+Consider only this thing that has befallen. Suppose that Lionel
+my brother came to you, and that, having some measure of power and
+authority to support him, he swore to you that you should never wed me,
+swore to prevent this marriage because he deemed you such a woman as
+could not bear my name with honour to myself; and suppose that to all
+this he added insult to the memory of your dead father, what answer
+would you return him? Speak, Rose! Be honest with thyself and me. Deem
+yourself in my place, and say in honesty if you can still condemn me for
+what I have done. Say if it differs much from what you would wish to do
+in such a case as I have named.”
+
+Her eyes scanned now his upturned face, every line of which was pleading
+to her and calling for impartial judgment. Her face grew troubled, and
+then almost fierce. She set her hands upon his shoulders, and looked
+deep into his eyes.
+
+“You swear to me, Noll, that all is as you have told it me--you have
+added naught, you have altered naught to make the tale more favourable
+to yourself?”
+
+“You need such oaths from me?” he asked, and she saw sorrow spread upon
+his countenance.
+
+“If I did I should not love thee, Noll. But in such an hour I need your
+own assurance. Will you not be generous and bear with me, strengthen me
+to withstand anything that may be said hereafter?”
+
+“As God's my witness, I have told you true in all,” he answered
+solemnly.
+
+She sank her head to his shoulder. She was weeping softly, overwrought
+by this climax to all that in silence and in secret she had suffered
+since he had come a-wooing her.
+
+“Then,” she said, “I believe you acted rightly. I believe with you that
+no man of honour could have acted otherwise. I must believe you, Noll,
+for did I not, then I could believe in naught and hope for naught. You
+are as a fire that has seized upon the better part of me and consumed it
+all to ashes that you may hold it in your heart. I am content so you be
+true.”
+
+“True I shall ever be, sweetheart,” he whispered fervently. “Could I be
+less since you are sent to make me so?”
+
+She looked at him again, and now she was smiling wistfully through her
+tears.
+
+“And you will bear with Peter?” she implored him.
+
+“He shall have no power to anger me,” he answered. “I swear that too. Do
+you know that but to-day he struck me?”
+
+“Struck you? You did not tell me that!”
+
+“My quarrel was not with him but with the rogue that sent him. I laughed
+at the blow. Was he not sacred to me?”
+
+“He is good at heart, Noll,” she pursued. “In time he will come to love
+you as you deserve, and you will come to know that he, too, deserves
+your love.”
+
+“He deserves it now for the love he bears to you.”
+
+“And you will think ever thus during the little while of waiting that
+perforce must lie before us?”
+
+“I shall never think otherwise, sweet. Meanwhile I shall avoid him, and
+that no harm may come should he forbid me Godolphin Court I'll even stay
+away. In less than a year you will be of full age, and none may hinder
+you to come and go. What is a year, with such hope as mine to still
+impatience?”
+
+She stroked his face. “Art very gentle with me ever, Noll,” she murmured
+fondly. “I cannot credit you are ever harsh to any, as they say.”
+
+“Heed them not,” he answered her. “I may have been something of all
+that, but you have purified me, Rose. What man that loved you could be
+aught but gentle.” He kissed her, and stood up. “I had best be going
+now,” he said. “I shall walk along the shore towards Trefusis Point
+to-morrow morning. If you should chance to be similarly disposed....”
+
+She laughed, and rose in her turn. “I shall be there, dear Noll.”
+
+“'Twere best so hereafter,” he assured her, smiling, and so took his
+leave.
+
+She followed him to the stair-head, and watched him as he descended
+with eyes that took pride in the fine upright carriage of that stalwart,
+masterful lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE FORGE
+
+
+Sir Oliver's wisdom in being the first to bear Rosamund the story
+of that day's happenings was established anon when Master Godolphin
+returned home. He went straight in quest of his sister; and in a frame
+of mind oppressed by fear and sorrow, for Sir John, by his general sense
+of discomfiture at the hands of Sir Oliver and by the anger begotten of
+all this he was harsh in manner and disposed to hector.
+
+“Madam,” he announced abruptly, “Sir John is like to die.”
+
+The astounding answer she returned him--that is, astounding to him--did
+not tend to soothe his sorely ruffled spirit.
+
+“I know,” she said. “And I believe him to deserve no less. Who deals in
+calumny should be prepared for the wages of it.”
+
+He stared at her in a long, furious silence, then exploded into oaths,
+and finally inveighed against her unnaturalness and pronounced her
+bewitched by that foul dog Tressilian.
+
+“It is fortunate for me,” she answered him composedly, “that he was here
+before you to give me the truth of this affair.” Then her assumed calm
+and the anger with which she had met his own all fell away from her.
+“Oh, Peter, Peter,” she cried in anguish, “I hope that Sir John will
+recover. I am distraught by this event. But be just, I implore you. Sir
+Oliver has told me how hard-driven he had been.”
+
+“He shall be driven harder yet, as God's my life! If you think this deed
+shall go unpunished....”
+
+She flung herself upon his breast and implored him to carry this quarrel
+no further. She spoke of her love for Sir Oliver and announced her firm
+resolve to marry him in despite of all opposition that could be made,
+all of which did not tend to soften her brother's humour. Yet because of
+the love that ever had held these two in closest bonds he went so far
+in the end as to say that should Sir John recover he would not himself
+pursue the matter further. But if Sir John should die--as was very
+likely--honour compelled him to seek vengeance of a deed to which he had
+himself so very largely contributed.
+
+“I read that man as if he were an open book,” the boy announced, with
+callow boastfulness. “He has the subtlety of Satan, yet he does not
+delude me. It was at me he struck through Killigrew. Because he desires
+you, Rosamund, he could not--as he bluntly told me--deal with me however
+I provoked him, not even though I went the length of striking him. He
+might have killed me for't; but he knew that to do so would place a
+barrier 'twixt him and you. Oh! he is calculating as all the fiends of
+Hell. So, to wipe out the dishonour which I did him, he shifts the blame
+of it upon Killigrew and goes out to kill him, which he further thinks
+may act as a warning to me. But if Killigrew dies....” And thus he
+rambled on, filling her gentle heart with anguish to see this feud
+increasing between the two men she loved best in all the world. If the
+outcome of it should be that either were to kill the other, she knew
+that she could never again look upon the survivor.
+
+She took heart at last in the memory of Sir Oliver's sworn promise that
+her brother's life should be inviolate to him, betide what might. She
+trusted him; she depended upon his word and that rare strength of his
+which rendered possible to him a course that no weaker man would dare
+pursue. And in this reflection her pride in him increased, and she
+thanked God for a lover who in all things was a giant among men.
+
+But Sir John Killigrew did not die. He hovered between this world and a
+better one for some seven days, at the end of which he began to recover.
+By October he was abroad again, gaunt and pale, reduced to half the bulk
+that had been his before, a mere shadow of a man.
+
+One of his first visits was to Godolphin Court. He went to remonstrate
+with Rosamund upon her betrothal, and he did so at the request of her
+brother. But his remonstrances were strangely lacking in the force that
+she had looked for.
+
+The odd fact is that in his near approach to death, and with his earthly
+interest dwindling, Sir John had looked matters frankly in the face,
+and had been driven to the conclusion--a conclusion impossible to him
+in normal health--that he had got no more than he deserved. He realized
+that he had acted unworthily, if unconscious at the time of the
+unworthiness of what he did; that the weapons with which he had fought
+Sir Oliver were not the weapons that become a Gentleman or in which
+there is credit to be won. He perceived that he had permitted his old
+enmity for the house of Tressilian, swollen by a sense of injury lately
+suffered in the matter of the licence to build at Smithick, to warp his
+judgment and to persuade him that Sir Oliver was all he had dubbed him.
+He realized that jealousy, too, had taken a hand in the matter. Sir
+Oliver's exploits upon the seas had brought him wealth, and with this
+wealth he was building up once more the Tressilian sway in those parts,
+which Ralph Tressilian had so outrageously diminished, so that he
+threatened to eclipse the importance of the Killigrews of Arwenack.
+
+Nevertheless, in the hour of reaction he did not go so far as to admit
+that Sir Oliver Tressilian was a fit mate for Rosamund Godolphin. She
+and her brother had been placed in his care by their late father, and he
+had nobly discharged his tutelage until such time as Peter had come to
+full age. His affection for Rosamund was tender as that of a lover,
+but tempered by a feeling entirely paternal. He went very near to
+worshipping her, and when all was said, when he had cleared his mind
+of all dishonest bias, he still found overmuch to dislike in Oliver
+Tressilian, and the notion of his becoming Rosamund's husband was
+repellent.
+
+First of all there was that bad Tressilian blood--notoriously bad,
+and never more flagrantly displayed than in the case of the late Ralph
+Tressilian. It was impossible that Oliver should have escaped the taint
+of it; nor could Sir John perceive any signs that he had done so. He
+displayed the traditional Tressilian turbulence. He was passionate and
+brutal, and the pirate's trade to which he had now set his hand was
+of all trades the one for which he was by nature best equipped. He was
+harsh and overbearing, impatient of correction and prone to trample
+other men's feelings underfoot. Was this, he asked himself in all
+honesty, a mate for Rosamund? Could he entrust her happiness to the care
+of such a man? Assuredly he could not.
+
+Therefore, being whole again, he went to remonstrate with her as he
+accounted it his duty and as Master Peter had besought him. Yet knowing
+the bias that had been his he was careful to understate rather than to
+overstate his reasons.
+
+“But, Sir John,” she protested, “if every man is to be condemned for the
+sins of his forbears, but few could escape condemnation, and wherever
+shall you find me a husband deserving your approval?”
+
+“His father....” began Sir John.
+
+“Tell me not of his father, but of himself,” she interrupted.
+
+He frowned impatiently--they were sitting in that bower of hers above
+the river.
+
+“I was coming to 't,” he answered, a thought testily, for these
+interruptions which made him keep to the point robbed him of his best
+arguments. “However, suffice it that many of his father's vicious
+qualities he has inherited, as we see in his ways of life; that he has
+not inherited others only the future can assure us.”
+
+“In other words,” she mocked him, yet very seriously, “I am to wait
+until he dies of old age to make quite sure that he has no such sins as
+must render him an unfitting husband?”
+
+“No, no,” he cried. “Good lack! what a perverseness is thine!”
+
+“The perverseness is your own, Sir John. I am but the mirror of it.”
+
+He shifted in his chair and grunted. “Be it so, then,” he snapped. “We
+will deal with the qualities that already he displays.” And Sir John
+enumerated them.
+
+“But this is no more than your judgment of him--no more than what you
+think him.”
+
+“'Tis what all the world thinks him.”
+
+“But I shall not marry a man for what others think of him, but for what
+I think of him myself. And in my view you cruelly malign him. I discover
+no such qualities in Sir Oliver.”
+
+“'Tis that you should be spared such a discovery that I am beseeching
+you not to wed him.”
+
+“Yet unless I wed him I shall never make such a discovery; and until I
+make it I shall ever continue to love him and to desire to wed him. Is
+all my life to be spent so?” She laughed outright, and came to stand
+beside him. She put an arm about his neck as she might have put it about
+the neck of her father, as she had been in the habit of doing any day in
+these past ten years--and thereby made him feel himself to have reached
+an unconscionable age. With her hand she rubbed his brow.
+
+“Why, here are wicked wrinkles of ill-humour,” she cried to him. “You
+are all undone, and by a woman's wit, and you do not like it.”
+
+“I am undone by a woman's wilfulness, by a woman's headstrong resolve
+not to see.”
+
+“You have naught to show me, Sir John.”
+
+“Naught? Is all that I have said naught?”
+
+“Words are not things; judgments are not facts. You say that he is so,
+and so and so. But when I ask you upon what facts you judge him,
+your only answer is that you think him to be what you say he is. Your
+thoughts may be honest, Sir John, but your logic is contemptible.” And
+she laughed again at his gaping discomfiture. “Come, now, deal like an
+honest upright judge, and tell me one act of his--one thing that he has
+ever done and of which you have sure knowledge--that will bear him out
+to be what you say he is. Now, Sir John!”
+
+He looked up at her impatiently. Then, at last he smiled.
+
+“Rogue!” he cried--and upon a distant day he was to bethink him of those
+words. “If ever he be brought to judgment I can desire him no better
+advocate than thou.”
+
+Thereupon following up her advantage swiftly, she kissed him. “Nor could
+I desire him a more honest judge than you.”
+
+What was the poor man to do thereafter? What he did. Live up to her
+pronouncement, and go forthwith to visit Sir Oliver and compose their
+quarrel.
+
+The acknowledgment of his fault was handsomely made, and Sir Oliver
+received it in a spirit no less handsome. But when Sir John came to the
+matter of Mistress Rosamund he was, out of his sense of duty to her,
+less generous. He announced that since he could not bring himself to
+look upon Sir Oliver as a suitable husband for her, nothing that he had
+now said must mislead Sir Oliver into supposing him a consenting party
+to any such union.
+
+“But that,” he added, “is not to say that I oppose it. I disapprove,
+but I stand aside. Until she is of full age her brother will refuse his
+sanction. After that, the matter will concern neither him nor myself.”
+
+“I hope,” said Sir Oliver, “he will take as wise a view. But whatever
+view he takes will be no matter. For the rest, Sir John, I thank you for
+your frankness, and I rejoice to know that if I may not count you for my
+friend, at least I need not reckon you among my enemies.”
+
+But if Sir John was thus won round to a neutral attitude, Master Peter's
+rancour abated nothing; rather it increased each day, and presently
+there came another matter to feed it, a matter of which Sir Oliver had
+no suspicion.
+
+He knew that his brother Lionel rode almost daily to Malpas, and he knew
+the object of those daily rides. He knew of the lady who kept a sort of
+court there for the rustic bucks of Truro, Penryn, and Helston, and he
+knew something of the ill-repute that had attached to her in town--a
+repute, in fact, which had been the cause of her withdrawal into the
+country. He told his brother some frank and ugly truths, concerning her,
+by way of warning him, and therein, for the first time, the twain went
+very near to quarrelling.
+
+After that he mentioned her no more. He knew that in his indolent way
+Lionel could be headstrong, and he knew human nature well enough to
+be convinced that interference here would but set up a breach between
+himself and his brother without in the least achieving its real object.
+So Oliver shrugged re-signedly, and held his peace.
+
+There he left the affair, nor ever spoke again of Malpas and the siren
+who presided there. And meanwhile the autumn faded into winter, and
+with the coming of stormy weather Sir Oliver and Rosamund had fewer
+opportunities of meeting. To Godolphin Court he would not go since she
+did not desire it; and himself he deemed it best to remain away since
+otherwise he must risk a quarrel with its master, who had forbidden him
+the place. In those days he saw Peter Godolphin but little, and on the
+rare occasions when they did meet they passed each other with a very
+meagre salute.
+
+Sir Oliver was entirely happy, and men noticed how gentler were his
+accents, how sunnier had become a countenance that they had known for
+haughty and forbidding. He waited for his coming happiness with the
+confidence of an immortal in the future. Patience was all the service
+Fate asked of him, and he gave that service blithely, depending upon the
+reward that soon now would be his own. Indeed, the year drew near its
+close; and ere another winter should come round Penarrow House would own
+a mistress. That to him seemed as inevitable as the season itself.
+And yet for all his supreme confidence, for all his patience and the
+happiness he culled from it, there were moments when he seemed oppressed
+by some elusive sense of overhanging doom, by some subconsciousness of
+an evil in the womb of Destiny. Did he challenge his oppression, did he
+seek to translate it into terms of reason, he found nothing upon which
+his wits could fasten--and he came ever to conclude that it was his very
+happiness by its excessiveness that was oppressing him, giving him at
+times that sense of premonitory weight about the heart as if to check
+its joyous soarings.
+
+One day, a week from Christmas, he had occasion to ride to Helston on
+some trifling affair. For half a week a blizzard had whirled about the
+coast, and he had been kept chafing indoors what time layer upon layer
+of snow was spread upon the countryside. On the fourth day, the storm
+being spent, the sun came forth, the skies were swept clear of clouds
+and all the countryside lay robed in a sun-drenched, dazzling whiteness.
+Sir Oliver called for his horse and rode forth alone through the crisp
+snow. He turned homeward very early in the afternoon, but when a couple
+of miles from Helston he found that his horse had cast a shoe. He
+dismounted, and bridle over arm tramped on through the sunlit vale
+between the heights of Pendennis and Arwenack, singing as he went. He
+came thus to Smithick and the door of the forge. About it stood a group
+of fishermen and rustics, for, in the absence of any inn just there,
+this forge was ever a point of congregation. In addition to the rustics
+and an itinerant merchant with his pack-horses, there were present Sir
+Andrew Flack, the parson from Penryn, and Master Gregory Baine, one of
+the Justices from the neighbourhood of Truro. Both were well known
+to Sir Oliver, and he stood in friendly gossip with them what time he
+waited for his horse.
+
+It was all very unfortunate, from the casting of that shoe to the
+meeting with those gentlemen; for as Sir Oliver stood there, down the
+gentle slope from Arwenack rode Master Peter Godolphin.
+
+It was said afterwards by Sir Andrew and Master Baine that Master Peter
+appeared to have been carousing, so flushed was his face, so unnatural
+the brightness of his eye, so thick his speech and so extravagant and
+foolish what he said. There can be little doubt that it was so. He was
+addicted to Canary, and so indeed was Sir John Killigrew, and he had
+been dining with Sir John. He was of those who turn quarrelsome in
+wine--which is but another way of saying that when the wine was in and
+the restraint out, his natural humour came uppermost untrammelled. The
+sight of Sir Oliver standing there gave the lad precisely what he needed
+to indulge that evil humour of his, and he may have been quickened
+in his purpose by the presence of those other gentlemen. In his
+half-fuddled state of mind he may have recalled that once he had struck
+Sir Oliver and Sir Oliver had laughed and told him that none would
+believe it.
+
+He drew rein suddenly as he came abreast of the group, so suddenly that
+he pulled his horse until it almost sat down like a cat; yet he retained
+his saddle. Then he came through the snow that was all squelched and
+mudded just about the forge, and leered at Sir Oliver.
+
+“I am from Arwenack,” he announced unnecessarily. “We have been talking
+of you.”
+
+“You could have had no better subject of discourse,” said Sir Oliver,
+smiling, for all that his eyes were hard and something scared--though
+his fears did not concern himself.
+
+“Marry, you are right; you make an engrossing topic--you and your
+debauched father.”
+
+“Sir,” replied Sir Oliver, “once already have I deplored your mother's
+utter want of discretion.”
+
+The words were out of him in a flash under the spur of the gross insult
+flung at him, uttered in the momentary blind rage aroused by that
+inflamed and taunting face above him. No sooner were they sped than he
+repented them, the more bitterly because they were greeted by a guffaw
+from the rustics. He would have given half his fortune in that moment to
+have recalled them.
+
+Master Godolphin's face had changed as utterly as if he had removed a
+mask. From flushed that it had been it was livid now and the eyes were
+blazing, the mouth twitching. Thus a moment he glowered upon his enemy.
+Then standing in his stirrups he swung aloft his whip.
+
+“You dog!” he cried, in a snarling sob. “You dog!” And his lash came
+down and cut a long red wheal across Sir Oliver's dark face.
+
+With cries of dismay and anger the others, the parson, the Justice
+and the rustics got between the pair, for Sir Oliver was looking very
+wicked, and all the world knew him for a man to be feared.
+
+“Master Godolphin, I cry shame upon you,” ex-claimed the parson. “If
+evil comes of this I shall testify to the grossness of your aggression.
+Get you gone from here!”
+
+“Go to the devil, sir,” said Master Godolphin thickly. “Is my mother's
+name to be upon the lips of that bastard? By God, man, the matter rests
+not here. He shall send his friends to me, or I will horse-whip him
+every time we meet. You hear, Sir Oliver?”
+
+Sir Oliver made him no reply.
+
+“You hear?” he roared. “There is no Sir John Killigrew this time upon
+whom you can shift the quarrel. Come you to me and get the punishment of
+which that whiplash is but an earnest.” Then with a thick laugh he drove
+spurs into his horse's flanks, so furiously that he all but sent the
+parson and another sprawling.
+
+“Stay but a little while for me,” roared Sir Oliver after him. “You'll
+ride no more, my drunken fool!”
+
+And in a rage he bellowed for his horse, flinging off the parson and
+Master Baine, who endeavoured to detain and calm him. He vaulted to
+the saddle when the nag was brought him, and whirled away in furious
+pursuit.
+
+The parson looked at the Justice and the Justice shrugged, his lips
+tight-pressed.
+
+“The young fool is drunk,” said Sir Andrew, shaking his white head.
+“He's in no case to meet his Maker.”
+
+“Yet he seems very eager,” quoth Master Justice Baine. “I doubt I shall
+hear more of the matter.” He turned and looked into the forge where the
+bellows now stood idle, the smith himself grimy and aproned in leather
+in the doorway, listening to the rustics account of the happening.
+Master Baine it seems had a taste for analogies. “Faith,” he said, “the
+place was excellently well chosen. They have forged here to-day a sword
+which it will need blood to temper.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVENER
+
+
+The parson had notions of riding after Sir Oliver, and begged Master
+Baine to join him. But the Justice looked down his long nose and opined
+that no good purpose was to be served; that Tressilians were ever wild
+and bloody men; and that an angry Tressilian was a thing to be avoided.
+Sir Andrew, who was far from valorous, thought there might be wisdom in
+the Justice's words, and remembered that he had troubles enough of his
+own with a froward wife without taking up the burdens of others. Master
+Godolphin and Sir Oliver between them, quoth the justice, had got up
+this storm of theirs. A God's name let them settle it, and if in the
+settling they should cut each other's throats haply the countryside
+would be well rid of a brace of turbulent fellows. The pedlar deemed
+them a couple of madmen, whose ways were beyond the understanding of a
+sober citizen. The others--the fishermen and the rustics--had not the
+means to follow even had they had the will.
+
+They dispersed to put abroad the news of that short furious quarrel
+and to prophesy that blood would be let in the adjusting of it. This
+prognostication the they based entirely upon their knowledge of the
+short Tressilian way. But it was a matter in which they were entirely
+wrong. It is true that Sir Oliver went galloping along that road that
+follows the Penryn river and that he pounded over the bridge in the town
+of Penryn in Master Godolphin's wake with murder in his heart. Men who
+saw him riding wildly thus with the red wheal across his white furious
+face said that he looked a very devil.
+
+He crossed the bridge at Penryn a half-hour after sunset, as dusk was
+closing into night, and it may be that the sharp, frosty air had a hand
+in the cooling of his blood. For as he reached the river's eastern
+bank he slackened his breakneck pace, even as he slackened the angry
+galloping of his thoughts. The memory of that oath he had sworn three
+months ago to Rosamund smote him like a physical blow. It checked his
+purpose, and, reflecting this, his pace fell to an amble. He shivered to
+think how near he had gone to wrecking all the happiness that lay ahead
+of him. What was a boy's whiplash, that his resentment of it; should
+set all his future life in jeopardy? Even though men should call him
+a coward for submitting to it and leaving the insult unavenged, what
+should that matter? Moreover, upon the body of him who did so proclaim
+him he could brand the lie of a charge so foolish. Sir Oliver raised
+his eyes to the deep sapphire dome of heaven where an odd star was
+glittering frostily, and thanked God from a swelling heart that he had
+not overtaken Peter Godolphin whilst his madness was upon him.
+
+A mile or so below Penryn, he turned up the road that ran down to the
+ferry there, and took his way home over the shoulder of the hill with
+a slack rein. It was not his usual way. He was wont ever to go round by
+Trefusis Point that he might take a glimpse at the walls of the house
+that harboured Rosamund and a glance at the window of her bower. But
+to-night he thought the shorter road over the hill would be the safer
+way. If he went by Godolphin Court he might chance to meet Peter again,
+and his past anger warned him against courting such a meeting, warned
+him to avoid it lest evil should betide. Indeed, so imperious was the
+warning, and such were his fears of himself after what had just passed,
+that he resolved to leave Penarrow on the next day. Whither he would go
+he did not then determine. He might repair to London, and he might even
+go upon another cruise--an idea which he had lately dismissed under
+Rosamund's earnest intercession. But it was imperative that he should
+quit the neighbourhood, and place a distance between Peter Godolphin and
+himself until such time as he might take Rosamund to wife. Eight months
+or so of exile; but what matter? Better so than that he should be driven
+into some deed that would compel him to spend his whole lifetime apart
+from her. He would write, and she would understand and approve when he
+told her what had passed that day.
+
+The resolve was firmly implanted in him by the time he reached Penarrow,
+and he felt himself uplifted by it and by the promise it afforded him
+that thus his future happiness would be assured.
+
+Himself he stabled his horse; for of the two grooms he kept, one had
+by his leave set out yesterday to spend Christmas in Devon with his
+parents, the other had taken a chill and had been ordered to bed that
+very day by Sir Oliver, who was considerate with those that served him.
+In the dining-room he found supper spread, and a great log fire blazed
+in the enormous cowled fire-place, diffusing a pleasant warmth through
+the vast room and flickering ruddily upon the trophies of weapons
+that adorned the walls, upon the tapestries and the portraits of dead
+Tressilians. Hearing his step, old Nicholas entered bearing a great
+candle-branch which he set upon the table.
+
+“You'm late, Sir Oliver,” said the servant, “and Master Lionel bain't
+home yet neither.”
+
+Sir Oliver grunted and scowled as he crunched a log and set it sizzling
+under his wet heel. He thought of Malpas and cursed Lionel's folly, as,
+without a word, he loosed his cloak and flung it on an oaken coffer
+by the wall where already he had cast his hat. Then he sat down, and
+Nicholas came forward to draw off his boots.
+
+When that was done and the old servant stood up again, Sir Oliver
+shortly bade him to serve supper.
+
+“Master Lionel cannot be long now,” said he. “And give me to drink,
+Nick. 'Tis what I most require.”
+
+“I've brewed ee a posset o' canary sack,” announced Nicholas; “there'm
+no better supping o' a frosty winter's night, Sir Oliver.”
+
+He departed to return presently with a black jack that was steaming
+fragrantly. He found his master still in the same attitude, staring at
+the fire, and frowning darkly. Sir Oliver's thoughts were still of his
+brother and Malpas, and so insistent were they that his own concerns
+were for the moment quite neglected; he was considering whether it was
+not his duty, after all, to attempt a word of remonstrance. At length
+he rose with a sigh and got to table. There he bethought him of his sick
+groom, and asked Nicholas for news of him. Nicholas reported the fellow
+to be much as he had been, whereupon Sir Oliver took up a cup and
+brimmed it with the steaming posset.
+
+“Take him that,” he said. “There's no better medicine for such an
+ailment.”
+
+Outside fell a clatter of hooves.
+
+“Here be Master Lionel at last,” said the servant.
+
+“No doubt,” agreed Sir Oliver. “No need to stay for him. Here is all he
+needs. Carry that to Tom ere it cools.”
+
+It was his object to procure the servant's absence when Lionel should
+arrive, resolved as he was to greet him with a sound rating for his
+folly. Reflection had brought him the assurance that this was become
+his duty in view of his projected absence from Penarrow; and in his
+brother's interest he was determined not to spare him.
+
+He took a deep draught of the posset, and as he set it down he heard
+Lionel's step without. Then the door was flung open, and his brother
+stood on the threshold a moment at gaze.
+
+Sir Oliver looked round with a scowl, the well-considered reproof
+already on his lips.
+
+“So....” he began, and got no further. The sight that met his eyes drove
+the ready words from his lips and mind; instead it was with a sharp gasp
+of dismay that he came immediately to his feet. “Lionel!”
+
+Lionel lurched in, closed the door, and shot home one of its bolts. Then
+he leaned against it, facing his brother again. He was deathly pale,
+with great dark stains under his eyes; his ungloved right hand was
+pressed to his side, and the fingers of it were all smeared with blood
+that was still oozing and dripping from between them. Over his yellow
+doublet on the right side there was a spreading dark stain whose nature
+did not intrigue Sir Oliver a moment.
+
+“My God!” he cried, and ran to his brother. “What's happened, Lal? Who
+has done this?”
+
+“Peter Godolphin,” came the answer from lips that writhed in a curious
+smile.
+
+Never a word said Sir Oliver, but he set his teeth and clenched his
+hands until the nails cut into his palms. Then he put an arm about this
+lad he loved above all save one in the whole world, and with anguish in
+his mind he supported him forward to the fire. There Lionel dropped to
+the chair that Sir Oliver had lately occupied.
+
+“What is your hurt, lad? Has it gone deep?” he asked, in terror almost.
+
+“'Tis naught--a flesh wound; but I have lost a mort of blood. I thought
+I should have been drained or ever I got me home.”
+
+With fearful speed Sir Oliver drew his dagger and ripped away doublet,
+vest, and shirt, laying bare the lad's white flesh. A moment's
+examination, and he breathed more freely.
+
+“Art a very babe, Lal,” he cried in his relief. “To ride without thought
+to stanch so simple a wound, and so lose all this blood--bad Tressilian
+blood though it be.” He laughed in the immensity of his reaction from
+that momentary terror. “Stay thou there whilst I call Nick to help us
+dress this scratch.”
+
+“No, no!” There was note of sudden fear in the lad's voice, and his hand
+clutched at his brother's sleeve. “Nick must not know. None must know,
+or I am undone else.”
+
+Sir Oliver stared, bewildered. Lionel smiled again that curious twisted,
+rather frightened smile.
+
+“I gave better than I took, Noll,” said he. “Master Godolphin is as cold
+by now as the snow on which I left him.”
+
+His brother's sudden start and the fixed stare from out of his slowly
+paling face scared Lionel a little. He observed, almost subconsciously,
+the dull red wheal that came into prominence as the colour faded out of
+Sir Oliver's face, yet never thought to ask how it came there. His own
+affairs possessed him too completely.
+
+“What's this?” quoth Oliver at last, hoarsely.
+
+Lionel dropped his eyes, unable longer to meet a glance that was
+becoming terrible.
+
+“He would have it,” he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach
+that was written in every line of his brother's taut body. “I had warned
+him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized
+upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond
+human power to endure, and....” He shrugged to complete his sentence.
+
+“Well, well,” said Oliver in a small voice. “First let us tend this
+wound of yours.”
+
+“Do not call Nick,” was the other's swift admonition. “Don't you see,
+Noll?” he explained in answer to the inquiry of his brother's stare,
+“don't you see that we fought there almost in the dark and without
+witnesses. It....” he swallowed, “it will be called murder, fair
+fight though it was; and should it be discovered that it was I....” He
+shivered and his glance grew wild; his lips twitched.
+
+“I see,” said Oliver, who understood at last, and he added bitterly:
+“You fool!”
+
+“I had no choice,” protested Lionel. “He came at me with his drawn
+sword. Indeed, I think he was half-drunk. I warned him of what must
+happen to the other did either of us fall, but he bade me not concern
+myself with the fear of any such consequences to himself. He was full
+of foul words of me and you and all whoever bore our name. He struck me
+with the flat of his blade and threatened to run me through as I stood
+unless I drew to defend myself. What choice had I? I did not mean to
+kill him--as God's my witness, I did not, Noll.”
+
+Without a word Oliver turned to a side-table, where stood a metal basin
+and ewer. He poured water, then came in the same silence to treat his
+brother's wound. The tale that Lionel told made blame impossible, at
+least from Oliver. He had but to recall the mood in which he himself
+had ridden after Peter Godolphin; he had but to remember, that only
+the consideration of Rosamund--only, indeed, the consideration of his
+future--had set a curb upon his own bloodthirsty humour.
+
+When he had washed the wound he fetched some table linen from a press
+and ripped it into strips with his dagger; he threaded out one of these
+and made a preliminary crisscross of the threads across the lips of the
+wound--for the blade had gone right through the muscles of the breast,
+grazing the ribs; these threads would help the formation of a clot.
+Then with the infinite skill and cunning acquired in the course of his
+rovings he proceeded to the bandaging.
+
+That done, he opened the window and flung out the blood-tinted water.
+The cloths with which he had mopped the wound and all other similar
+evidences of the treatment he cast upon the fire. He must remove all
+traces even from the eyes of Nicholas. He had the most implicit trust
+in the old servant's fidelity. But the matter was too grave to permit of
+the slightest risk. He realized fully the justice of Lionel's fears that
+however fair the fight might have been, a thing done thus in secret must
+be accounted murder by the law.
+
+Bidding Lionel wrap himself in his cloak, Sir Oliver unbarred the door,
+and went upstairs in quest of a fresh shirt and doublet for his brother.
+On the landing he met Nicholas descending. He held him a moment in
+talk of the sick man above, and outwardly at least he was now entirely
+composed. He dispatched him upstairs again upon a trumped-up errand that
+must keep him absent for some little time, whilst himself he went to get
+the things he needed.
+
+He returned below with them, and when he had assisted his brother into
+fresh garments with as little movement as possible so as not to disturb
+his dressing of the wound or set it bleeding afresh, he took the
+blood-stained doublet, vest, and shirt which he had ripped and flung
+them, too, into the great fire.
+
+When some moments later Nicholas entered the vast room he found the
+brothers sitting composedly at table. Had he faced Lionel he would have
+observed little amiss with him beyond the deep pallor of his face. But
+he did not even do so much. Lionel sat with his back to the door and
+the servant's advance into the room was checked by Sir Oliver with the
+assurance that they did not require him. Nicholas withdrew again, and
+the brothers were once more alone.
+
+Lionel ate very sparingly. He thirsted and would have emptied the
+measure of posset, but that Sir Oliver restrained him, and refused him
+anything but water lest he should contract a fever. Such a sparing meal
+as they made--for neither had much appetite--was made in silence. At
+last Sir Oliver rose, and with slow, heavy steps, suggestive of his
+humour, he crossed to the fire-place. He threw fresh logs on the blaze,
+and took from the tall mantelshelf his pipe and a leaden jar of tobacco.
+He filled the pipe pensively, then with the short iron tongs seized a
+fragment of glowing wood and applied it to the herb.
+
+He returned to the table, and standing over his brother, he broke at
+last the silence that had now endured some time.
+
+“What,” he asked gruffly, “was the cause of your quarrel?”
+
+Lionel started and shrank a little; between finger and thumb he kneaded
+a fragment of bread, his eyes upon it. “I scarce know,” he replied.
+
+“Lal, that is not the truth.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“'Tis not the truth. I am not to be put off with such an answer.
+Yourself you said that you had warned him not to cross your path. What
+path was in your mind?”
+
+Lionel leaned his elbows on the table and took his head in his hands.
+Weak from loss of blood, overwrought mentally as well, in a state of
+revulsion and reaction also from the pursuit which had been the cause of
+to-night's tragic affair, he had not strength to withhold the confidence
+his brother asked. On the contrary, it seemed to him that in making such
+a confidence, he would find a haven and refuge in Sir Oliver.
+
+“'Twas that wanton at Malpas was the cause of all,” he complained. And
+Sir Oliver's eye flashed at the words. “I deemed her quite other; I was
+a fool, a fool! I”--he choked, and a sob shook him--“I thought she loved
+me. I would have married her, I would so, by God.”
+
+Sir Oliver swore softly under his breath.
+
+“I believed her pure and good, and....” He checked. “After all, who am I
+to say even now that she was not? 'Twas no fault of hers. 'Twas he,
+that foul dog Godolphin, who perverted her. Until he came all was well
+between us. And then....”
+
+“I see,” said Sir Oliver quietly. “I think you have something for which
+to thank him, if he revealed to you the truth of that strumpet's nature.
+I would have warned thee, lad. But... Perhaps I have been weak in that.”
+
+“It was not so; it was not she....”
+
+“I say it was, and if I say so I am to be believed, Lionel. I'd smirch
+no woman's reputation without just cause. Be very sure of that.”
+
+Lionel stared up at him. “O God!” he cried presently, “I know not what
+to believe. I am a shuttle-cock flung this way and that way.”
+
+“Believe me,” said Sir Oliver grimly. “And set all doubts to rest.” Then
+he smiled. “So that was the virtuous Master Peter's secret pastime, eh?
+The hypocrisy of man! There is no plumbing the endless depths of it!”
+
+He laughed outright, remembering all the things that Master Peter had
+said of Ralph Tressilian--delivering himself as though he were some
+chaste and self-denying anchorite. Then on that laugh he caught his
+breath quite suddenly. “Would she know?” he asked fearfully. “Would that
+harlot know, would she suspect that 'twas your hand did this?”
+
+“Aye--would she,” replied the other. “I told her to-night, when she
+flouted me and spoke of him, that I went straight to find him and pay
+the score between us. I was on my way to Godolphin Court when I came
+upon him in the park.”
+
+“Then you lied to me again, Lionel. For you said 'twas he attacked you.”
+
+“And so he did.” Lionel countered instantly. “He never gave me time
+to speak, but flung down from his horse and came at me snarling like
+a cross-grained mongrel. Oh, he was as ready for the fight as I--as
+eager.”
+
+“But the woman at Malpas knows,” said Sir Oliver gloomily. “And if she
+tells....”
+
+“She'll not,” cried Lionel. “She dare not for her reputation's sake.”
+
+“Indeed, I think you are right,” agreed his brother with relief. “She
+dare not for other reasons, when I come to think of it. Her reputation
+is already such, and so well detested is she that were it known she had
+been the cause, however indirect, of this, the countryside would satisfy
+certain longings that it entertains concerning her. You are sure none
+saw you either going or returning?”
+
+“None.”
+
+Sir Oliver strode the length of the room and back, pulling at his pipe.
+“All should be well, then, I think,” said he at last. “You were best
+abed. I'll carry you thither.”
+
+He took up his stripling brother in his powerful arms and bore him
+upstairs as though he were a babe.
+
+When he had seen him safely disposed for slumber, he returned below,
+shut the door in the hall, drew up the great oaken chair to the fire,
+and sat there far into the night smoking and thinking.
+
+He had said to Lionel that all should be well. All should be well for
+Lionel. But what of himself with the burden of this secret on his soul?
+Were the victim another than Rosamund's brother the matter would have
+plagued him but little. The fact that Godolphin was slain, it must be
+confessed, was not in itself the source of his oppression. Godolphin had
+more than deserved his end, and he would have come by it months ago at
+Sir Oliver's own hand but for the fact that he was Rosamund's brother,
+as we know. There was the rub, the bitter, cruel rub. Her own brother
+had fallen by the hand of his. She loved her brother more than any
+living being next to himself, just as he loved Lionel above any other
+but herself. The pain that must be hers he knew; he experienced some of
+it in anticipation, participating it because it was hers and because all
+things that were hers he must account in some measure his own.
+
+He rose up at last, cursing that wanton at Malpas who had come to fling
+this fresh and terrible difficulty where already he had to face so many.
+He stood leaning upon the overmantel, his foot upon one of the dogs
+of the fender, and considered what to do. He must bear his burden in
+silence, that was all. He must keep this secret even from Rosamund. It
+split his heart to think that he must practise this deceit with her. But
+naught else was possible short of relinquishing her, and that was far
+beyond his strength.
+
+The resolve adopted, he took up a taper and went off to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE BUCKLER
+
+
+It was old Nicholas who brought the news next morning to the brothers as
+they were breaking their fast.
+
+Lionel should have kept his bed that day, but dared not, lest the fact
+should arouse suspicion. He had a little fever, the natural result both
+of his wound and of his loss of blood; he was inclined to welcome rather
+than deplore it, since it set a flush on cheeks that otherwise must have
+looked too pale.
+
+So leaning upon his brother's arm he came down to a breakfast of
+herrings and small ale before the tardy sun of that December morning was
+well risen.
+
+Nicholas burst in upon them with a white face and shaking limbs. He
+gasped out his tale of the event in a voice of terror, and both brothers
+affected to be shocked, dismayed and incredulous. But the worst part of
+that old man's news, the true cause of his terrible agitation, was yet
+to be announced.
+
+“And they do zay,” he cried with anger quivering through his fear, “they
+do zay that it were you that killed he, Sir Oliver.”
+
+“I?” quoth Sir Oliver, staring, and suddenly like a flood there burst
+upon his mind a hundred reasons overlooked until this moment, that
+inevitably must urge the countryside to this conclusion, and to this
+conclusion only. “Where heard you that foul lie?”
+
+In the tumult of his mind he never heeded what answer was returned by
+Nicholas. What could it matter where the fellow had heard the thing; by
+now it would be the accusation on the lips of every man. There was one
+course to take and he must take it instantly--as he had taken it once
+before in like case. He must straight to Rosamund to forestall the
+tale that others would carry to her. God send he did not come too late
+already.
+
+He stayed for no more than to get his boots and hat, then to the stables
+for a horse, and he was away over the short mile that divided Penarrow
+from Godolphin Court, going by bridle and track meadow straight to his
+goal. He met none until he fetched up in the courtyard at Godolphin
+Court. Thence a babble of excited voices had reached him as he
+approached. But at sight of him there fell a general silence, ominous
+and staring. A dozen men or more were assembled there, and their eyes
+considered him first with amazement and curiosity, then with sullen
+anger.
+
+He leapt down from his saddle, and stood a moment waiting for one of
+the three Godolphin grooms he had perceived in that assembly to take his
+reins. Seeing that none stirred--
+
+“How now?” he cried. “Does no one wait here? Hither, sirrah, and hold my
+horse.”
+
+The groom addressed hesitated a moment, then, under the stare of Sir
+Oliver's hard, commanding eye, he shuffled sullenly forward to do as
+he was bid. A murmur ran through the group. Sir Oliver flashed a glance
+upon it, and every tongue trembled into silence.
+
+In that silence he strode up the steps, and entered the rush-strewn
+hall. As he vanished he heard the hubbub behind him break out anew,
+fiercer than it had been before. But he nothing heeded it.
+
+He found himself face to face with a servant, who shrank before him,
+staring as those in the courtyard had stared. His heart sank. It was
+plain that he came a little late already; that the tale had got there
+ahead of him.
+
+“Where is your mistress?” said he.
+
+“I...I will tell her you are here, Sir Oliver,” the man replied in a
+voice that faltered; and he passed through a doorway on the right. Sir
+Oliver stood a moment tapping his boots with his whip, his face pale, a
+deep line between his brows. Then the man reappeared, closing the door
+after him.
+
+“Mistress Rosamund bids you depart, sir. She will not see you.”
+
+A moment Sir Oliver scanned the servant's face--or appeared to scan it,
+for it is doubtful if he saw the fellow at all. Then for only answer
+he strode forward towards the door from which the man had issued. The
+servant set his back to it, his face resolute.
+
+“Sir Oliver, my mistress will not see you.”
+
+“Out of my way!” he muttered in his angry, contemptuous fashion, and as
+the man persistent in his duty stood his ground, Sir Oliver took him by
+the breast of his jacket, heaved him aside and went in.
+
+She was standing in mid-apartment, dressed by an odd irony all in bridal
+white, that yet was not as white as was her face. Her eyes looked
+like two black stains, solemn and haunting as they fastened up on this
+intruder who would not be refused. Her lips parted, but she had no word
+for him. She just stared in a horror that routed all his audacity and
+checked the masterfulness of his advance. At last he spoke.
+
+“I see that you have heard,” said he, “the lie that runs the
+countryside. That is evil enough. But I see that you have lent an ear to
+it; and that is worse.”
+
+She continued to regard him with a cold look of loathing, this child
+that but two days ago had lain against his heart gazing up at him in
+trust and adoration.
+
+“Rosamund!” he cried, and approached her by another step. “Rosamund! I
+am here to tell you that it is a lie.”
+
+“You had best go,” she said, and her voice had in it a quality that made
+him tremble.
+
+“Go?” he echoed stupidly. “You bid me go? You will not hear me?”
+
+“I consented to hear you more than once; refused to hear others who knew
+better than I, and was heedless of their warnings. There is no more to
+be said between us. I pray God that they may take and hang you.”
+
+He was white to the lips, and for the first time in his life he knew
+fear and felt his great limbs trembling under him.
+
+“They may hang me and welcome since you believe this thing. They could
+not hurt me more than you are doing, nor by hanging me could they
+deprive me of aught I value, since your faith in me is a thing to be
+blown upon by the first rumour of the countryside.”
+
+He saw the pale lips twist themselves into a dreadful smile. “There is
+more than rumour, I think,” said she. “There is more than all your lies
+will ever serve to cloak.”
+
+“My lies?” he cried. “Rosamund, I swear to you by my honour that I have
+had no hand in the slaying of Peter. May God rot me where I stand if
+this be not true!”
+
+“It seems,” said a harsh voice behind him, “that you fear God as little
+as aught else.”
+
+He wheeled sharply to confront Sir John Killigrew, who had entered after
+him.
+
+“So,” he said slowly, and his eyes grew hard and bright as agates, “this
+is your work.” And he waved a hand towards Rosamund. It was plain to
+what he alluded.
+
+“My work?” quoth Sir John. He closed the door, and advanced into the
+room. “Sir, it seems your audacity, your shamelessness, transcends all
+bounds. Your....”
+
+“Have done with that,” Sir Oliver interrupted him and smote his great
+fist upon the table. He was suddenly swept by a gust of passion. “Leave
+words to fools, Sir John, and criticisms to those that can defend them
+better.”
+
+“Aye, you talk like a man of blood. You come hectoring it here in the
+very house of the dead--in the very house upon which you have cast this
+blight of sorrow and murder....”
+
+“Have done, I say, or murder there will be!”
+
+His voice was a roar, his mien terrific. And bold man though Sir John
+was, he recoiled. Instantly Sir Oliver had conquered himself again. He
+swung to Rosamund. “Ah, forgive me!” he pleaded. “I am mad--stark mad
+with anguish at the thing imputed. I have not loved your brother, it
+is true. But as I swore to you, so have I done. I have taken blows from
+him, and smiled; but yesterday in a public place he affronted me, lashed
+me across the face with his riding-whip, as I still bear the mark. The
+man who says I were not justified in having killed him for it is a liar
+and a hypocrite. Yet the thought of you, Rosamund, the thought that he
+was your brother sufficed to quench the rage in which he left me. And
+now that by some grim mischance he has met his death, my recompense for
+all my patience, for all my thought for you is that I am charged with
+slaying him, and that you believe this charge.”
+
+“She has no choice,” rasped Killigrew.
+
+“Sir John,” he cried, “I pray you do not meddle with her choice. That
+you believe it, marks you for a fool, and a fool's counsel is a rotten
+staff to lean upon at any time. Why God o' mercy! assume that I desired
+to take satisfaction for the affront he had put upon me; do you know so
+little of men, and of me of all men, that you suppose I should go about
+my vengeance in this hole-and-corner fashion to set a hangman's noose
+about my neck. A fine vengeance that, as God lives! Was it so I dealt
+with you, Sir John, when you permitted your tongue to wag too freely,
+as you have yourself confessed? Heaven's light, man; take a proper
+view; consider was this matter likely. I take it you are a more fearsome
+antagonist than was ever poor Peter Godolphin, yet when I sought
+satisfaction of you I sought it boldly and openly, as is my way. When we
+measured swords in your park at Arwenack we did so before witnesses in
+proper form, that the survivor might not be troubled with the Justices.
+You know me well, and what manner of man I am with my weapons. Should I
+not have done the like by Peter if I had sought his life? Should I
+not have sought it in the same open fashion, and so killed him at my
+pleasure and leisure, and without risk or reproach from any?”
+
+Sir John was stricken thoughtful. Here was logic hard and clear as ice;
+and the knight of Arwenack was no fool. But whilst he stood frowning and
+perplexed at the end of that long tirade, it was Rosamund who gave Sir
+Oliver his answer.
+
+“You ran no risk of reproach from any, do you say?”
+
+He turned, and was abashed. He knew the thought that was running in her
+mind.
+
+“You mean,” he said slowly, gently, his accents charged with reproachful
+incredulity, “that I am so base and false that I could in this fashion
+do what I dared not for your sake do openly? 'Tis what you mean.
+Rosamund! I burn with shame for you that you can think such thoughts of
+one whom... whom you professed to love.”
+
+Her coldness fell from her. Under the lash of his bitter, half-scornful
+accents, her anger mounted, whelming for a moment even her anguish in
+her brother's death.
+
+“You false deceiver!” she cried. “There are those who heard you vow his
+death. Your very words have been reported to me. And from where he lay
+they found a trail of blood upon the snow that ran to your own door.
+Will you still lie?”
+
+They saw the colour leave his face. They saw his arms drop limply to his
+sides, and his eyes dilate with obvious sudden fear.
+
+“A... a trail of blood?” he faltered stupidly.
+
+“Aye, answer that!” cut in Sir John, fetched suddenly from out his
+doubts by that reminder.
+
+Sir Oliver turned upon Killigrew again. The knight's words restored to
+him the courage of which Rosamund's had bereft him. With a man he could
+fight; with a man there was no need to mince his words.
+
+“I cannot answer it,” he said, but very firmly, in a tone that brushed
+aside all implications. “If you say it was so, so it must have been. Yet
+when all is said, what does it prove? Does it set it beyond doubt that
+it was I who killed him? Does it justify the woman who loved me to
+believe me a murderer and something worse?” He paused, and looked at her
+again, a world of reproach in his glance. She had sunk to a chair, and
+rocked there, her fingers locking and interlocking, her face a mask of
+pain unutterable.
+
+“Can you suggest what else it proves, sir?” quoth Sir John, and there
+was doubt in his voice.
+
+Sir Oliver caught the note of it, and a sob broke from him.
+
+“O God of pity!” he cried out. “There is doubt in your voice, and
+there is none in hers. You were my enemy once, and have since been in a
+mistrustful truce with me, yet you can doubt that I did this thing. But
+she... she who loved me has no room for any doubt!”
+
+“Sir Oliver,” she answered him, “the thing you have done has broken
+quite my heart. Yet knowing all the taunts by which you were brought to
+such a deed I could have forgiven it, I think, even though I could
+no longer be your wife; I could have forgiven it, I say, but for the
+baseness of your present denial.”
+
+He looked at her, white-faced an instant, then turned on his heel and
+made for the door. There he paused.
+
+“Your meaning is quite plain,” said he. “It is your wish that I shall
+take my trial for this deed.” He laughed. “Who will accuse me to the
+Justices? Will you, Sir John?”
+
+“If Mistress Rosamund so desires me,” replied the knight.
+
+“Ha! Be it so. But do not think I am the man to suffer myself to be sent
+to the gallows upon such paltry evidence as satisfies that lady. If any
+accuser comes to bleat of a trail of blood reaching to my door, and of
+certain words I spoke yesterday in anger, I will take my trial--but it
+shall be trial by battle upon the body of my accuser. That is my right,
+and I will have every ounce of it. Do you doubt how God will pronounce?
+I call upon him solemnly to pronounce between me and such an one. If I
+am guilty of this thing may He wither my arm when I enter the lists.”
+
+“Myself I will accuse you,” came Rosamund's dull voice. “And if you
+will, you may claim your rights against me and butcher me as you
+butchered him.”
+
+“God forgive you, Rosamund!” said Sir Oliver, and went out.
+
+He returned home with hell in his heart. He knew not what the future
+might hold in store for him; but such was his resentment against
+Rosamund that there was no room in his bosom for despair. They should
+not hang him. He would fight them tooth and claw, and yet Lionel should
+not suffer. He would take care of that. And then the thought of Lionel
+changed his mood a little. How easily could he have shattered their
+accusation, how easily have brought her to her proud knees imploring
+pardon of him! By a word he could have done it, yet he feared lest that
+word must jeopardize his brother.
+
+In the calm, still watches of that night, as he lay sleepless upon his
+bed and saw things without heat, there crept a change into his
+mental attitude. He reviewed all the evidence that had led her to her
+conclusions, and he was forced to confess that she was in some measure
+justified of them. If she had wronged him, he had wronged her yet more.
+For years she had listened to all the poisonous things that were said
+of him by his enemies--and his arrogance had made him not a few. She had
+disregarded all because she loved him; her relations with her brother
+had become strained on that account, yet now, all this returned to crush
+her; repentance played its part in her cruel belief that it was by his
+hand Peter Godolphin had fallen. It must almost seem to her that in a
+sense she had been a party to his murder by the headstrong course to
+which she had kept in loving the man her brother hated.
+
+He saw it now, and was more merciful in judging her. She had been more
+than human if she had not felt as he now saw that she must feel, and
+since reactions are to be measured by the mental exaltations from which
+they spring, so was it but natural that now she must hate him fiercely
+whom she had loved wellnigh as fiercely.
+
+It was a heavy cross to bear. Yet for Lionel's sake he must bear it with
+what fortitude he could. Lionel must not be sacrificed to his egoism for
+a deed that in Lionel he could not account other than justified. He were
+base indeed did he so much as contemplate such a way of escape as that.
+
+But if he did not contemplate it, Lionel did, and went in terror during
+those days, a terror that kept him from sleep and so fostered the fever
+in him that on the second day after that grim affair he had the look of
+a ghost, hollow-eyed and gaunt. Sir Oliver remonstrated with him and in
+such terms as to put heart into him anew. Moreover, there was other news
+that day to allay his terrors: the Justices, at Truro had been informed
+of the event and the accusation that was made; but they had refused
+point-blank to take action in the matter. The reason of it was that one
+of them was that same Master Anthony Baine who had witnessed the affront
+offered Sir Oliver. He declared that whatever had happened to Master
+Godolphin as a consequence was no more than he deserved, no more than
+he had brought upon himself, and he gave it as his decision that his
+conscience as a man of honour would not permit him to issue any warrant
+to the constable.
+
+Sir Oliver received this news from that other witness, the parson, who
+himself had suffered such rudeness at Godolphin's hands, and who, man of
+the Gospel and of peace though he was, entirely supported the Justice's
+decision--or so he declared.
+
+Sir Oliver thanked him, protesting that it was kind in him and in Master
+Baine to take such a view, but for the rest avowing that he had had no
+hand in the affair, however much appearances might point to him.
+
+When, however, it came to his knowledge two days later that the whole
+countryside was in a ferment against Master Baine as a consequence
+of the attitude he had taken up, Sir Oliver summoned the parson and
+straightway rode with him to the Justice's house at Truro, there to
+afford certain evidence which he had withheld from Rosamund and Sir John
+Killigrew.
+
+“Master Baine,” he said, when the three of them were closeted in that
+gentleman's library, “I have heard of the just and gallant pronouncement
+you have made, and I am come to thank you and to express my admiration
+of your courage.”
+
+Master Baine bowed gravely. He was a man whom Nature had made grave.
+
+“But since I would not that any evil consequences might attend your
+action, I am come to lay proof before you that you have acted more
+rightly even than you think, and that I am not the slayer.”
+
+“You are not?” ejaculated Master Baine in amazement.
+
+“Oh, I assure you I use no subterfuge with you, as you shall judge. I
+have proof to show you, as I say; and I am come to do so now before time
+might render it impossible. I do not desire it to be made public just
+yet, Master Baine; but I wish you to draw up some such document as
+would satisfy the courts at any future time should this matter be taken
+further, as well it may.”
+
+It was a shrewd plea. The proof that was not upon himself was upon
+Lionel; but time would efface it, and if anon publication were made
+of what he was now about to show, it would then be too late to look
+elsewhere.
+
+“I assure you, Sir Oliver, that had you killed him after what happened I
+could not hold you guilty of having done more than punish a boorish and
+arrogant offender.”
+
+“I know sir. But it was not so. One of the pieces of evidence against
+me--indeed the chief item--is that from Godolphin's body to my door
+there was a trail of blood.”
+
+The other two grew tensely interested. The parson watched him with
+unblinking eyes.
+
+“Now it follows logically, I think, inevitably indeed, that the murderer
+must have been wounded in the encounter. The blood could not possibly
+have been the victim's, therefore it must have been the slayer's.
+That the slayer was wounded indeed we know, since there was blood upon
+Godolphin's sword. Now, Master Baine, and you, Sir Andrew, shall be
+witnesses that there is upon my body not so much as a scratch of recent
+date. I will strip me here as naked as when first I had the mischance
+to stray into this world, and you shall satisfy yourselves of that.
+Thereafter I shall beg you, Master Baine, to indite the document I have
+mentioned.” And he removed his doublet as he spoke. “But since I will
+not give these louts who accuse me so much satisfaction, lest I seem
+to go in fear of them, I must beg, sirs, that you will keep this matter
+entirely private until such time as its publication may be rendered
+necessary by events.”
+
+They saw the reasonableness of his proposal, and they consented, still
+entirely sceptical. But when they had made their examination they were
+utterly dumbfounded to find all their notions entirely overset. Master
+Baine, of course, drew up the required document, and signed and sealed
+it, whilst Sir Andrew added his own signature and seal as witness
+thereunto.
+
+With this parchment that should be his buckler against any future need,
+Sir Oliver rode home, uplifted. For once it were safe to do so, that
+parchment should be spread before the eyes of Sir John Killigrew and
+Rosamund, and all might yet be well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. JASPER LEIGH
+
+
+If that Christmas was one of sorrow at Godolphin Court, it was nothing
+less at Penarrow.
+
+Sir Oliver was moody and silent in those days, given to sit for long
+hours staring into the heart of the fire and repeating to himself again
+and again every word of his interview with Rosamund, now in a mood of
+bitter resentment against her for having so readily believed his guilt,
+now in a gentler sorrowing humour which made full allowance for the
+strength of the appearances against him.
+
+His half-brother moved softly about the house now in a sort of
+self-effacement, never daring to intrude upon Sir Oliver's abstractions.
+He was well acquainted with their cause. He knew what had happened at
+Godolphin Court, knew that Rosamund had dismissed Sir Oliver for all
+time, and his heart smote him to think that he should leave his brother
+to bear this burden that rightly belonged to his own shoulders.
+
+The thing preyed so much upon his mind that in an expansive moment one
+evening he gave it tongue.
+
+“Noll,” he said, standing beside his brother's chair in the firelit
+gloom, and resting a hand upon his brother's shoulder, “were it not best
+to tell the truth?”
+
+Sir Oliver looked up quickly, frowning. “Art mad?” quoth he. “The truth
+would hang thee, Lal.”
+
+“It might not. And in any case you are suffering something worse than
+hanging. Oh, I have watched you every hour this past week, and I know
+the pain that abides in you. It is not just.” And he insisted--“We had
+best tell the truth.”
+
+Sir Oliver smiled wistfully. He put out a hand and took his brother's.
+
+“'Tis noble in you to propose it, Lal.”
+
+“Not half so noble as it is in you to bear all the suffering for a deed
+that was my own.”
+
+“Bah!” Sir Oliver shrugged impatiently; his glance fell away from
+Lionel's face and returned to the consideration of the fire. “After
+all, I can throw off the burden when I will. Such knowledge as that will
+enhearten a man through any trial.”
+
+He had spoken in a harsh, cynical tone, and Lionel had turned cold at
+his words. He stood a long while in silence there, turning them over in
+his mind and considering the riddle which they presented him. He thought
+of asking his brother bluntly for the key to it, for the precise meaning
+of his disconcerting statement, but courage failed him. He feared lest
+Sir Oliver should confirm his own dread interpretation of it.
+
+He drew away after a time, and soon after went to bed. For days
+thereafter the phrase rankled in his mind--“I can throw off the burden
+when I will.” Conviction grew upon him that Sir Oliver meant that he
+was enheartened by the knowledge that by speaking if he choose he
+could clear himself. That Sir Oliver would so speak he could not think.
+Indeed, he was entirely assured that Sir Oliver was very far from
+intending to throw off his burden. Yet he might come to change his
+mind. The burden might grow too heavy, his longings for Rosamund too
+clamorous, his grief at being in her eyes her brother's murderer too
+overwhelming.
+
+Lionel's soul shuddered to contemplate the consequences to himself. His
+fears were self-revelatory. He realized how far from sincere had been
+his proposal that they should tell the truth; he perceived that it had
+been no more than the emotional outburst of the moment, a proposal
+which if accepted he must most bitterly have repented. And then came the
+reflection that if he were guilty of emotional outbursts that could
+so outrageously play the traitor to his real desires, were not all men
+subject to the same? Might not his brother, too, come to fall a prey
+to one of those moments of mental storm when in a climax of despair he
+would find his burden altogether too overwhelming and in rebellion cast
+it from him?
+
+Lionel sought to assure himself that his brother was a man of stern
+fibres, a man who never lost control of himself. But against this he
+would argue that what had happened in the past was no guarantee of what
+might happen in the future; that a limit was set to the endurance of
+every man be he never so strong, and that it was far from impossible
+that the limit of Sir Oliver's endurance might be reached in this
+affair. If that happened in what case should he find himself? The answer
+to this was a picture beyond his fortitude to contemplate. The danger
+of his being sent to trial and made to suffer the extreme penalty of the
+law would be far greater now than if he had spoken at once. The tale
+he could then have told must have compelled some attention, for he
+was accounted a man of unsmirched honour and his word must carry some
+weight. But now none would believe him. They would argue from his
+silence and from his having suffered his brother to be unjustly accused
+that he was craven-hearted and dishonourable, and that if he had acted
+thus it was because he had no good defence to offer for his deed.
+Not only would he be irrevocably doomed, but he would be doomed with
+ignominy, he would be scorned by all upright men and become a thing of
+contempt over whose end not a tear would be shed.
+
+Thus he came to the dread conclusion that in his endeavours to screen
+himself he had but enmeshed himself the more inextricably. If Oliver but
+spoke he was lost. And back he came to the question: What assurance had
+he that Oliver would not speak?
+
+The fear of this from occurring to him occasionally began to haunt him
+day and night, and for all that the fever had left him and his wound was
+entirely healed, he remained pale and thin and hollow-eyed. Indeed
+the secret terror that was in his soul glared out of his eyes at every
+moment. He grew nervous and would start up at the least sound, and he
+went now in a perpetual mistrust of Oliver, which became manifest in a
+curious petulance of which there were outbursts at odd times.
+
+Coming one afternoon into the dining-room, which was ever Sir
+Oliver's favourite haunt in the mansion of Penarrow, Lionel found his
+half-brother in that brooding attitude, elbow on knee and chin on palm,
+staring into the fire. This was so habitual now in Sir Oliver that it
+had begun to irritate Lionel's tense nerves; it had come to seem to him
+that in this listlessness was a studied tacit reproach aimed at himself.
+
+“Why do you sit ever thus over the fire like some old crone?” he
+growled, voicing at last the irritability that so long had been growing
+in him.
+
+Sir Oliver looked round with mild surprise in his glance. Then from
+Lionel his eyes travelled to the long windows.
+
+“It rains,” he said.
+
+“It was not your wont to be driven to the fireside by rain. But rain or
+shine 'tis ever the same. You never go abroad.”
+
+“To what end?” quoth Sir Oliver, with the same mildness, but a wrinkle
+of bewilderment coming gradually between his dark brows. “Do you suppose
+I love to meet lowering glances, to see heads approach one another so
+that confidential curses of me may be muttered?”
+
+“Ha!” cried Lionel, short and sharp, his sunken eyes blazing suddenly.
+“It has come to this, then, that having voluntarily done this thing to
+shield me you now reproach me with it.”
+
+“I?” cried Sir Oliver, aghast.
+
+“Your very words are a reproach. D'ye think I do not read the meaning
+that lies under them?”
+
+Sir Oliver rose slowly, staring at his brother. He shook his head and
+smiled.
+
+“Lal, Lal!” he said. “Your wound has left you disordered, boy. With what
+have I reproached you? What was this hidden meaning of my words? If you
+will read aright you will see it to be that to go abroad is to involve
+myself in fresh quarrels, for my mood is become short, and I will not
+brook sour looks and mutterings. That is all.”
+
+He advanced and set his hands upon his brother's shoulders. Holding him
+so at arm's length he considered him, what time Lionel drooped his head
+and a slow flush overspread his cheeks. “Dear fool!” he said, and shook
+him. “What ails you? You are pale and gaunt, and not yourself at all. I
+have a notion. I'll furnish me a ship and you shall sail with me to my
+old hunting-grounds. There is life out yonder--life that will restore
+your vigour and your zest, and perhaps mine as well. How say you, now?”
+
+Lionel looked up, his eye brightening. Then a thought occurred to him;
+a thought so mean that again the colour flooded into his cheeks, for he
+was shamed by it. Yet it clung. If he sailed with Oliver, men would
+say that he was a partner in the guilt attributed to his brother. He
+knew--from more than one remark addressed him here or there, and left by
+him uncontradicted--that the belief was abroad on the countryside that a
+certain hostility was springing up between himself and Sir Oliver on
+the score of that happening in Godolphin Park. His pale looks and hollow
+eyes had contributed to the opinion that his brother's sin was weighing
+heavily upon him. He had ever been known for a gentle, kindly lad, in
+all things the very opposite of the turbulent Sir Oliver, and it was
+assumed that Sir Oliver in his present increasing harshness used his
+brother ill because the lad would not condone his crime. A deal of
+sympathy was consequently arising for Lionel and was being testified to
+him on every hand. Were he to accede to such a proposal as Oliver now
+made him, assuredly he must jeopardize all that.
+
+He realized to the full the contemptible quality of his thought
+and hated himself for conceiving it. But he could not shake off its
+dominion. It was stronger than his will.
+
+His brother observing this hesitation, and misreading it drew him to the
+fireside and made him sit.
+
+“Listen,” he said, as he dropped into the chair opposite. “There is a
+fine ship standing in the road below, off Smithick. You'll have seen
+her. Her master is a desperate adventurer named Jasper Leigh, who is
+to be found any afternoon in the alehouse at Penycumwick. I know him of
+old, and he and his ship are to be acquired. He is ripe for any venture,
+from scuttling Spaniards to trading in slaves, and so that the price be
+high enough we may buy him body and soul. His is a stomach that refuses
+nothing, so there be money in the venture. So here is ship and master
+ready found; the rest I will provide--the crew, the munitions, the
+armament, and by the end of March we shall see the Lizard dropping
+astern. What do you say, Lal? 'Tis surely better than to sit, moping
+here in this place of gloom.”
+
+“I'll...I'll think of it,” said Lionel, but so listlessly that all Sir
+Oliver's quickening enthusiasm perished again at once and no more was
+said of the venture.
+
+But Lionel did not altogether reject the notion. If on the one hand
+he was repelled by it, on the other he was attracted almost despite
+himself. He went so far as to acquire the habit of riding daily over
+to Penycumwick, and there he made the acquaintance of that hardy and
+scarred adventurer of whom Sir Oliver had spoken, and listened to
+the marvels the fellow had to tell--many of them too marvellous to be
+true--of hazards upon distant seas.
+
+But one day in early March Master Jasper Leigh had a tale of another
+kind for him, news that dispelled from Lionel's mind all interest in
+the captain's ventures on the Spanish Main. The seaman had followed the
+departing Lionel to the door of the little inn and stood by his stirrup
+after he had got to horse.
+
+“A word in your ear, good Master Tressilian,” said he. “D'ye know what
+is being concerted here against our brother?”
+
+“Against my brother?”
+
+“Ay--in the matter of the killing of Master Peter Godolphin last
+Christmas. Seeing that the Justices would not move of theirselves, some
+folk ha' petitioned the Lieutenant of Cornwall to command them to
+grant a warrant for Sir Oliver's arrest on a charge o' murder. But the
+Justices ha' refused to be driven by his lordship, answering that they
+hold their office direct from the Queen and that in such a matter they
+are answerable to none but her grace. And now I hear that a petition be
+gone to London to the Queen herself, begging her to command her Justices
+to perform their duty or quit their office.”
+
+Lionel drew a sharp breath, and with dilating eyes regarded the mariner,
+but made him no answer.
+
+Jasper laid a long finger against his nose and his eyes grew cunning. “I
+thought I'd warn you, sir, so as you may bid Sir Oliver look to hisself.
+'Tis a fine seaman and fine seamen be none so plentiful.”
+
+Lionel drew his purse from his pocket and without so much as looking
+into its contents dropped it into the seaman's ready hand, with a
+muttered word of thanks.
+
+He rode home in terror almost. It was come. The blow was about to fall,
+and his brother would at last be forced to speak. At Penarrow a fresh
+shock awaited him. He learnt from old Nicholas that Sir Oliver was from
+home, that he had ridden over to Godolphin Court.
+
+The instant conclusion prompted by Lionel's terror was that already the
+news had reached Sir Oliver and that he had instantly taken action; for
+he could not conceive that his brother should go to Godolphin Court upon
+any other business.
+
+But his fears on that score were very idle. Sir Oliver, unable longer
+to endure the present state of things, had ridden over to lay before
+Rosamund that proof with which he had taken care to furnish himself.
+He could do so at last without any fear of hurting Lionel. His journey,
+however, had been entirely fruitless. She had refused point-blank to
+receive him, and for all that with a humility entirely foreign to him he
+had induced a servant to return to her with a most urgent message, yet
+he had been denied. He returned stricken to Penarrow, there to find his
+brother awaiting him in a passion of impatience.
+
+“Well?” Lionel greeted him. “What will you do now?”
+
+Sir Oliver looked at him from under brows that scowled darkly in
+reflection of his thoughts.
+
+“Do now? Of what do you talk?” quoth he.
+
+“Have you not heard?” And Lionel told him the news.
+
+Sir Oliver stared long at him when he had done, then his lips tightened
+and he smote his brow.
+
+“So!” he cried. “Would that be why she refused to see me? Did she
+conceive that I went perhaps to plead? Could she think that? Could she?”
+
+He crossed to the fireplace and stirred the logs with his boot angrily.
+“Oh! 'Twere too unworthy. Yet of a certainty 'tis her doing, this.”
+
+“What shall you do?” insisted Lionel, unable to repress the question
+that was uppermost in his mind; and his voice shook.
+
+“Do?” Sir Oliver looked at him over his shoulder. “Prick this bubble,
+by heaven! Make an end of it for them, confound them and cover them with
+shame.”
+
+He said it roughly, angrily, and Lionel recoiled, deeming that roughness
+and anger aimed at himself. He sank into a chair, his knees loosened by
+his sudden fear. So it seemed that he had had more than cause for his
+apprehensions. This brother of his who boasted such affection for him
+was not equal to bearing this matter through. And yet the thing was so
+unlike Oliver that a doubt still lingered with him.
+
+“You... you will tell them the truth?” he said, in small, quavering
+voice.
+
+Sir Oliver turned and considered him more attentively.
+
+“A God's name, Lal, what's in thy mind now?” he asked, almost roughly.
+“Tell them the truth? Why, of course--but only as it concerns myself.
+You're not supposing that I shall tell them it was you? You'll not be
+accounting me capable of that?”
+
+“What other way is there?”
+
+Sir Oliver explained the matter. The explanation brought Lionel relief.
+But this relief was ephemeral. Further reflection presented a new fear
+to him. It came to him that if Sir Oliver cleared himself, of necessity
+his own implication must follow. His terrors very swiftly magnified a
+risk that in itself was so slender as to be entirely negligible. In his
+eyes it ceased to be a risk; it became a certain and inevitable danger.
+If Sir Oliver put forward this proof that the trail of blood had not
+proceeded from himself, it must, thought Lionel, inevitably be concluded
+that it was his own. As well might Sir Oliver tell them the whole truth,
+for surely they could not fail to infer it. Thus he reasoned in his
+terror, accounting himself lost irrevocably.
+
+Had he but gone with those fears of his to his brother, or had he but
+been able to abate them sufficiently to allow reason to prevail, he must
+have been brought to understand how much further they carried him than
+was at all justified by probability. Oliver would have shown him this,
+would have told him that with the collapsing of the charge against
+himself no fresh charge could be levelled against any there, that no
+scrap of suspicion had ever attached to Lionel, or ever could. But
+Lionel dared not seek his brother in this matter. In his heart he was
+ashamed of his fears; in his heart he knew himself for a craven. He
+realized to the full the hideousness of his selfishness, and yet, as
+before, he was not strong enough to conquer it. In short, his love of
+himself was greater than his love of his brother, or of twenty brothers.
+
+The morrow--a blustering day of late March found him again at that
+alehouse at Penycumwick in the company of Jasper Leigh. A course had
+occurred to him, as the only course now possible. Last night his brother
+had muttered something of going to Killigrew with his proofs since
+Rosamund refused to receive him. Through Killigrew he would reach her,
+he had said; and he would yet see her on her knees craving his pardon
+for the wrong she had done him, for the cruelty she had shown him.
+
+Lionel knew that Killigrew was absent from home just then; but he
+was expected to return by Easter, and to Easter there was but a week.
+Therefore he had little time in which to act, little time in which to
+execute the project that had come into his mind. He cursed himself for
+conceiving it, but held to it with all the strength of a weak nature.
+
+Yet when he came to sit face to face with Jasper Leigh in that little
+inn-parlour with the scrubbed table of plain deal between them, he
+lacked the courage to set his proposal forth. They drank sherry sack
+stiffly laced with brandy by Lionel's suggestion, instead of the more
+customary mulled ale. Yet not until he had consumed the best part of a
+pint of it did Lionel feel himself heartened to broaching his loathsome
+business. Through his head hummed the words his brother had said some
+time ago when first the name of Jasper Leigh had passed between
+them--“a desperate adventurer ripe for anything. So the price be high
+enough you may buy him body and soul.” Money enough to buy Jasper Leigh
+was ready to Lionel's hand; but it was Sir Oliver's money--the money
+that was placed at Lionel's disposal by his half-brother's open-handed
+bounty. And this money he was to employ for Oliver's utter ruin! He
+cursed himself for a filthy, contemptible hound; he cursed the foul
+fiend that whispered such suggestions into his mind; he knew himself,
+despised himself and reviled himself until he came to swear to be strong
+and to go through with whatever might await him sooner than be guilty of
+such a baseness; the next moment that same resolve would set him
+shuddering again as he viewed the inevitable consequences that must
+attend it.
+
+Suddenly the captain set him a question, very softly, that fired the
+train and blew all his lingering self-resistance into shreds.
+
+“You'll ha' borne my warning to Sir Oliver?” he asked, lowering his
+voice so as not to be overheard by the vintner who was stirring beyond
+the thin wooden partition.
+
+Master Lionel nodded, nervously fingering the jewel in his ear, his eyes
+shifting from their consideration of the seaman's coarse, weather-tanned
+and hairy countenance.
+
+“I did,” he said. “But Sir Oliver is headstrong. He will not stir.”
+
+“Will he not?” The captain stroked his bushy red beard and cursed
+profusely and horribly after the fashion of the sea. “Od's wounds! He's
+very like to swing if he bides him here.”
+
+“Ay,” said Lionel, “if he bides.” He felt his mouth turn dry as he
+spoke; his heart thudded, but its thuds were softened by a slight
+insensibility which the liquor had produced in him.
+
+He uttered the words in so curious a tone that the sailor's dark eyes
+peered at him from under his heavy sandy eyebrows. There was alert
+inquiry in that glance. Master Lionel got up suddenly.
+
+“Let us take a turn outside, captain,” said he.
+
+The captain's eyes narrowed. He scented business. There was something
+plaguily odd about this young gentleman's manner. He tossed off the
+remains of his sack, slapped down the pot and rose.
+
+“Your servant, Master Tressilian,” said he.
+
+Outside our gentleman untethered his horse from the iron ring to which
+he had attached the bridle; leading his horse he turned seaward and
+strode down the road that wound along the estuary towards Smithick.
+
+A sharp breeze from the north was whipping the water into white peaks
+of foam; the sky was of a hard brightness and the sun shone brilliantly.
+The tide was running out, and the rock in the very neck of the haven was
+thrusting its black crest above the water. A cable's length this side of
+it rode the black hull and naked spars of the Swallow--Captain Leigh's
+ship.
+
+Lionel stepped along in silence, very gloomy and pensive, hesitating
+even now. And the crafty mariner reading this hesitation, and anxious to
+conquer it for the sake of such profit as he conceived might lie in the
+proposal which he scented, paved the way for him at last.
+
+“I think that ye'll have some matter to propose to me.” said he slyly.
+“Out with it, sir, for there never was a man more ready to serve you.”
+
+“The fact is,” said Lionel, watching the other's face with a sidelong
+glance, “I am in a difficult position, Master Leigh.”
+
+“I've been in a many,” laughed the captain, “but never yet in one
+through which I could not win. Strip forth your own, and haply I can do
+as much for you as I am wont to do for myself.”
+
+“Why, it is this wise,” said the other. “My brother will assuredly hang
+as you have said if he bides him here. He is lost if they bring him to
+trial. And in that case, faith, I am lost too. It dishonours a man's
+family to have a member of it hanged. 'Tis a horrible thing to have
+happen.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed!” the sailor agreed encouragingly.
+
+“I would abstract him from this,” pursued Lionel, and at the same time
+cursed the foul fiend that prompted him such specious words to cloak
+his villainy. “I would abstract him from it, and yet 'tis against my
+conscience that he should go unpunished for I swear to you, Master
+Leigh, that I abhor the deed--a cowardly, murderous deed!”
+
+“Ah!” said the captain. And lest that grim ejaculation should check his
+gentleman he made haste to add--“To be sure! To be sure!”
+
+Master Lionel stopped and faced the other squarely, his shoulders to
+his horse. They were quite alone in as lonely a spot as any conspirator
+could desire. Behind him stretched the empty beach, ahead of him the
+ruddy cliffs that rise gently to the wooded heights of Arwenack.
+
+“I'll be quite plain and open with you, Master Leigh. Peter Godolphin
+was my friend. Sir Oliver is no more than my half-brother. I would give
+a deal to the man who would abstract Sir Oliver secretly from the doom
+that hangs over him, and yet do the thing in such a way that Sir Oliver
+should not thereby escape the punishment he deserves.”
+
+It was strange, he thought, even as he said it, that he could bring his
+lips so glibly to utter words that his heart detested.
+
+The captain looked grim. He laid a finger upon Master Lionel's velvet
+doublet in line with that false heart of his.
+
+“I am your man,” said he. “But the risk is great. Yet ye say that ye'ld
+give a deal....”
+
+“Yourself shall name the price,” said Lionel quickly, his eyes burning
+feverishly, his cheeks white.
+
+“Oh I can contrive it, never fear,” said the captain. “I know to a
+nicety what you require. How say you now: if I was to carry him overseas
+to the plantations where they lack toilers of just such thews as his?”
+ He lowered his voice and spoke with some slight hesitation, fearing
+that he proposed perhaps more than his prospective employer might
+desire.
+
+“He might return,” was the answer that dispelled all doubts on that
+score.
+
+“Ah!” said the skipper. “What o' the Barbary rovers, then! They lack
+slaves and are ever ready to trade, though they be niggardly payers. I
+never heard of none that returned once they had him safe aboard their
+galleys. I ha' done some trading with them, bartering human freights for
+spices and eastern carpets and the like.”
+
+Master Lionel breathed hard. “'Tis a horrible fate, is't not?”
+
+The captain stroked his beard. “Yet 'tis the only really safe bestowal,
+and when all is said 'tis not so horrible as hanging, and certainly less
+dishonouring to a man's kin. Ye'ld be serving Sir Oliver and yourself.”
+
+“'Tis so, tis so,” cried Master Lionel almost fiercely. “And the price?”
+
+The seaman shifted on his short, sturdy legs, and his face grew pensive.
+“A hundred pound?” he suggested tentatively.
+
+“Done with you for a hundred pounds,” was the prompt answer--so prompt
+that Captain Leigh realized he had driven a fool's bargain which it was
+incumbent upon him to amend.
+
+“That is, a hundred pound for myself,” he corrected slowly. “Then there
+be the crew to reckon for--to keep their counsel and lend a hand; 'twill
+mean another hundred at the least.”
+
+Master Lionel considered a moment. “It is more than I can lay my hands
+on at short notice. But, look you, you shall have a hundred and fifty
+pounds in coin and the balance in jewels. You shall not be the loser in
+that, I promise you. And when you come again, and bring me word that all
+is done as you now undertake there shall be the like again.”
+
+Upon that the bargain was settled. And when Lionel came to talk of ways
+and means he found that he had allied himself to a man who understood
+his business thoroughly. All the assistance that the skipper asked was
+that Master Lionel should lure his gentleman to some concerted spot
+conveniently near the waterside. There Leigh would have a boat and his
+men in readiness, and the rest might very safely be left to him.
+
+In a flash Lionel bethought him of the proper place for this. He swung
+round, and pointed across the water to Trefusis Point and the grey pile
+of Godolphin Court all bathed in sunshine now.
+
+“Yonder, at Trefusis Point in the shadow of Godolphin Court at eight
+to-morrow night, when there will be no moon. I'll see that he is there.
+But on your life do not miss him.”
+
+“Trust me,” said Master Leigh. “And the money?”
+
+“When you have him safely aboard come to me at Penarrow,” he replied,
+which showed that after all he did not trust Master Leigh any further
+than he was compelled.
+
+The captain was quite satisfied. For should his gentleman fail to
+disburse he could always return Sir Oliver to shore.
+
+On that they parted. Lionel mounted and rode away, whilst Master Leigh
+made a trumpet of his hands and hallooed to the ship.
+
+As he stood waiting for the boat that came off to fetch him, a smile
+slowly overspread the adventurer's rugged face. Had Master Lionel
+seen it he might have asked himself how far it was safe to drive
+such bargains with a rogue who kept faith only in so far as it was
+profitable. And in this matter Master Leigh saw a way to break faith
+with profit. He had no conscience, but he loved as all rogues love to
+turn the tables upon a superior rogue. He would play Master Lionel most
+finely, most poetically false; and he found a deal to chuckle over in
+the contemplation of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. TREPANNED
+
+
+Master Lionel was absent most of the following day from Penarrow, upon
+a pretext of making certain purchases in Truro. It would be half-past
+seven when he returned; and as he entered he met Sir Oliver in the hall.
+
+“I have a message for you from Godolphin Court,” he announced, and saw
+his brother stiffen and his face change colour. “A boy met me at the
+gates and bade me tell you that Mistress Rosamund desires a word with
+you forthwith.”
+
+Sir Oliver's heart almost stopped, then went off at a gallop. She asked
+for him! She had softened perhaps from her yesterday's relentlessness.
+She would consent at last to see him!
+
+“Be thou blessed for these good tidings!” he answered on a note of high
+excitement. “I go at once.” And on the instant he departed. Such was his
+eagerness, indeed, that under the hot spur of it he did not even stay
+to fetch that parchment which was to be his unanswerable advocate. The
+omission was momentous.
+
+Master Lionel said no word as his brother swept out. He shrank back a
+little into the shadows. He was white to the lips and felt as he would
+stifle. As the door closed he moved suddenly. He sprang to follow Sir
+Oliver. Conscience cried out to him that he could not do this thing.
+But Fear was swift to answer that outcry. Unless he permitted what was
+planned to take its course, his life might pay the penalty.
+
+He turned, and lurched into the dining-room upon legs that trembled.
+
+He found the table set for supper as on that other night when he had
+staggered in with a wound in his side to be cared for and sheltered by
+Sir Oliver. He did not approach the table; he crossed to the fire, and
+sat down there holding out his hands to the blaze. He was very cold and
+could not still his trembling. His very teeth chattered.
+
+Nicholas came in to know if he would sup. He answered unsteadily that
+despite the lateness of the hour he would await Sir Oliver's return.
+
+“Is Sir Oliver abroad?” quoth the servant in surprise.
+
+“He went out a moment since, I know not whither,” replied Lionel. “But
+since he has not supped he is not like to be long absent.”
+
+Upon that he dismissed the servant, and sat huddled there, a prey to
+mental tortures which were not to be repressed. His mind would turn upon
+naught but the steadfast, unwavering affection of which Sir Oliver ever
+had been prodigal towards him. In this very matter of Peter Godolphin's
+death, what sacrifices had not Sir Oliver made to shield him? From so
+much love and self-sacrifice in the past he inclined to argue now that
+not even in extreme peril would his brother betray him. And then that
+bad streak of fear which made a villain of him reminded him that to
+argue thus was to argue upon supposition, that it would be perilous to
+trust such an assumption; that if, after all, Sir Oliver should fail him
+in the crucial test, then was he lost indeed.
+
+When all is said, a man's final judgment of his fellows must be based
+upon his knowledge of himself; and Lionel, knowing himself incapable of
+any such sacrifice for Sir Oliver, could not believe Sir Oliver capable
+of persisting in such a sacrifice as future events might impose. He
+reverted to those words Sir Oliver had uttered in that very room two
+nights ago, and more firmly than ever he concluded that they could have
+but one meaning.
+
+Then came doubt, and, finally, assurance of another sort, assurance that
+this was not so and that he knew it; assurance that he lied to himself,
+seeking to condone the thing he did. He took his head in his hands and
+groaned loud. He was a villain, a black-hearted, soulless villain! He
+reviled himself again. There came a moment when he rose shuddering,
+resolved even in this eleventh hour to go after his brother and save him
+from the doom that awaited him out yonder in the night.
+
+But again that resolve was withered by the breath of selfish fear.
+Limply he resumed his seat, and his thoughts took a fresh turn. They
+considered now those matters which had engaged them on that day when
+Sir Oliver had ridden to Arwenack to claim satisfaction of Sir John
+Killigrew. He realized again that Oliver being removed, what he now
+enjoyed by his brother's bounty he would enjoy henceforth in his own
+unquestioned right. The reflection brought him a certain consolation. If
+he must suffer for his villainy, at least there would be compensations.
+
+The clock over the stables chimed the hour of eight. Master Lionel
+shrank back in his chair at the sound. The thing would be doing even
+now. In his mind he saw it all--saw his brother come running in his
+eagerness to the gates of Godolphin Court, and then dark forms resolve
+themselves from the surrounding darkness and fall silently upon him. He
+saw him struggling a moment on the ground, then, bound hand and foot, a
+gag thrust into his mouth, he beheld him in fancy borne swiftly down the
+slope to the beach and so to the waiting boat.
+
+Another half-hour sat he there. The thing was done by now, and this
+assurance seemed to quiet him a little.
+
+Then came Nicholas again to babble of some possible mischance having
+overtaken his master.
+
+“What mischance should have overtaken him?” growled Lionel, as if in
+scorn of the idea.
+
+“I pray none indeed,” replied the servant. “But Sir Oliver lacks not for
+enemies nowadays, and 'tis scarce zafe for he to be abroad after dark.”
+
+Master Lionel dismissed the notion contemptuously. For pretence's sake
+he announced that he would wait no longer, whereupon Nicholas brought in
+his supper, and left him again to go and linger about the door, looking
+out into the night and listening for his master's return. He paid a
+visit to the stables, and knew that Sir Oliver had gone forth afoot.
+
+Meanwhile Master Lionel must make pretence of eating though actual
+eating must have choked him. He smeared his platter, broke food, and
+avidly drank a bumper of claret. Then he, too, feigned a growing anxiety
+and went to join Nicholas. Thus they spent the weary night, watching for
+the return of one who Master Lionel knew would return no more.
+
+At dawn they roused the servants and sent them to scour the countryside
+and put the news of Sir Oliver's disappearance abroad. Lionel himself
+rode out to Arwenack to ask Sir John Killigrew bluntly if he knew aught
+of this matter.
+
+Sir John showed a startled face, but swore readily enough that he had
+not so much as seen Sir Oliver for days. He was gentle with Lionel, whom
+he liked, as everybody liked him. The lad was so mild and kindly in his
+ways, so vastly different from his arrogant overbearing brother, that
+his virtues shone the more brightly by that contrast.
+
+“I confess it is natural you should come to me,” said Sir John. “But,
+my word on it, I have no knowledge of him. It is not my way to beset my
+enemies in the dark.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed, Sir John, I had not supposed it in my heart,” replied
+the afflicted Lionel. “Forgive me that I should have come to ask a
+question so unworthy. Set it down to my distracted state. I have
+not been the same man these months, I think, since that happening in
+Godolphin Park. The thing has preyed upon my mind. It is a fearsome
+burden to know your own brother--though I thank God he is no more than
+my half-brother--guilty of so foul a deed.”
+
+“How?” cried Killigrew, amazed. “You say that? You believed it
+yourself?”
+
+Master Lionel looked confused, a look which Sir John entirely
+misunderstood and interpreted entirely in the young man's favour. And
+it was thus and in that moment that was sown the generous seed of
+the friendship that was to spring up between these two men, its roots
+fertilized by Sir John's pity that one so gentle-natured, so honest, and
+so upright should be cursed with so villainous a brother.
+
+“I see, I see,” he said. And he sighed. “You know that we are daily
+expecting an order from the Queen to her Justices to take the action
+which hitherto they have refused against your... against Sir Oliver.” He
+frowned thoughtfully. “D'ye think Sir Oliver had news of this?”
+
+At once Master Lionel saw the drift of what was in the other's mind.
+
+“I know it,” he replied. “Myself I bore it him. But why do you ask?”
+
+“Does it not help us perhaps to understand and explain Sir Oliver's
+disappearance? God lack! Surely, knowing that, he were a fool to have
+tarried here, for he would hang beyond all doubt did he stay for the
+coming of her grace's messenger.”
+
+“My God!” said Lionel, staring. “You... you think he is fled, then?”
+
+Sir John shrugged. “What else is to be thought?”
+
+Lionel hung his head. “What else, indeed?” said he, and took his leave
+like a man overwrought, as indeed he was. He had never considered that
+so obvious a conclusion must follow upon his work so fully to explain
+the happening and to set at rest any doubt concerning it.
+
+He returned to Penarrow, and bluntly told Nicholas what Sir John
+suspected and what he feared himself must be the true reason of Sir
+Oliver's disappearance. The servant, however, was none so easy to
+convince.
+
+“But do ee believe that he done it?” cried Nicholas. “Do ee believe it,
+Master Lionel?” There was reproach amounting to horror in the servant's
+voice.
+
+“God help me, what else can I believe now that he is fled.”
+
+Nicholas sidled up to him with tightened lips. He set two gnarled
+fingers on the young man's arm.
+
+“He'm not fled, Master Lionel,” he announced with grim impressiveness.
+“He'm never a turntail. Sir Oliver he don't fear neither man nor devil,
+and if so be him had killed Master Godolphin, he'd never ha' denied it.
+Don't ee believe Sir John Killigrew. Sir John ever hated he.”
+
+But in all that countryside the servant was the only one to hold this
+view. If a doubt had lingered anywhere of Sir Oliver's guilt, that
+doubt was now dispelled by this flight of his before the approach of the
+expected orders from the Queen.
+
+Later that day came Captain Leigh to Penarrow inquiring for Sir Oliver.
+
+Nicholas brought word of his presence and his inquiry to Master Lionel,
+who bade him be admitted.
+
+The thick-set little seaman rolled in on his bowed legs, and leered at
+his employer when they were alone.
+
+“He's snug and safe aboard,” he announced. “The thing were done as clean
+as peeling an apple, and as quiet.”
+
+“Why did you ask for him?” quoth Master Lionel.
+
+“Why?” Jasper leered again. “My business was with him. There was some
+talk between us of him going a voyage with me. I've heard the gossip
+over at Smithick. This will fit in with it.” He laid that finger of
+his to his nose. “Trust me to help a sound tale along. 'T were a clumsy
+business to come here asking for you, sir. Ye'll know now how to account
+for my visit.”
+
+Lionel paid him the price agreed and dismissed him upon receiving the
+assurance that the Swallow would put to sea upon the next tide.
+
+When it became known that Sir Oliver had been in treaty with Master
+Leigh for a passage overseas, and that it was but on that account that
+Master Leigh had tarried in that haven, even Nicholas began to doubt.
+
+Gradually Lionel recovered his tranquillity as the days flowed on. What
+was done was done, and, in any case, being now beyond recall, there was
+no profit in repining. He never knew how fortune aided him, as fortune
+will sometimes aid a villain. The royal pour-suivants arrived some six
+days later, and Master Baine was the recipient of a curt summons to
+render himself to London, there to account for his breach of trust
+in having refused to perform his sworn duty. Had Sir Andrew Flack but
+survived the chill that had carried him off a month ago, Master Justice
+Baine would have made short work of the accusation lodged against him.
+As it was, when he urged the positive knowledge he possessed, and told
+them how he had made the examination to which Sir Oliver had voluntarily
+submitted, his single word carried no slightest conviction. Not for a
+moment was it supposed that this was aught but the subterfuge of one
+who had been lax in his duty and who sought to save himself from
+the consequences of that laxity. And the fact that he cited as his
+fellow-witness a gentleman now deceased but served to confirm his judges
+in this opinion. He was deposed from his office and subjected to a heavy
+fine, and there the matter ended, for the hue-and-cry that was afoot
+entirely failed to discover any trace of the missing Sir Oliver.
+
+For Master Lionel a new existence set in from that day. Looked upon
+as one in danger of suffering for his brother's sins, the countryside
+determined to help him as far as possible to bear his burden. Great
+stress was laid upon the fact that after all he was no more than Sir
+Oliver's half-brother; some there were who would have carried their
+kindness to the lengths of suggesting that perhaps he was not even that,
+and that it was but natural that Ralph Tressilian's second wife should
+have repaid her husband in kind for his outrageous infidelities. This
+movement of sympathy was led by Sir John Killigrew, and it spread in
+so rapid and marked a manner that very soon Master Lionel was almost
+persuaded that it was no more than he deserved, and he began to sun
+himself in the favour of a countryside that hitherto had shown little
+but hostility for men of the Tressilian blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE SPANIARD
+
+
+The Swallow, having passed through a gale in the Bay of Biscay--a
+gale which she weathered like the surprisingly steady old tub she
+was--rounded Cape Finisterre and so emerged from tempest into peace,
+from leaden skies and mountainous seas into a sunny azure calm. It was
+like a sudden transition from winter into spring, and she ran along now,
+close hauled to the soft easterly breeze, with a gentle list to port.
+
+It had never been Master Leigh's intent to have got so far as this
+without coming to an understanding with his prisoner. But the wind had
+been stronger than his intentions, and he had been compelled to run
+before it and to head to southward until its fury should abate. Thus
+it fell out--and all marvellously to Master Lionel's advantage, as you
+shall see--that the skipper was forced to wait until they stood along
+the coast of Portugal--but well out to sea, for the coast of Portugal
+was none too healthy just then to English seamen--before commanding Sir
+Oliver to be haled into his presence.
+
+In the cramped quarters of the cabin in the poop of the little vessel
+sat her captain at a greasy table, over which a lamp was swinging
+faintly to the gentle heave of the ship. He was smoking a foul pipe,
+whose fumes hung heavily upon the air of that little chamber, and there
+was a bottle of Nantes at his elbow.
+
+To him, sitting thus in state, was Sir Oliver introduced--his wrists
+still pinioned behind him. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, and he
+carried a week's growth of beard on his chin. Also his garments were
+still in disorder from the struggle he had made when taken, and from the
+fact that he had been compelled to lie in them ever since.
+
+Since his height was such that it was impossible for him to stand
+upright in that low-ceilinged cabin, a stool was thrust forward for
+him by one of the ruffians of Leigh's crew who had haled him from his
+confinement beneath the hatchway.
+
+He sat down quite listlessly, and stared vacantly at the skipper. Master
+Leigh was somewhat discomposed by this odd calm when he had looked for
+angry outbursts. He dismissed the two seamen who fetched Sir Oliver,
+and when they had departed and closed the cabin door he addressed his
+captive.
+
+“Sir Oliver,” said he, stroking his red beard, “ye've been most foully
+abused.”
+
+The sunshine filtered through one of the horn windows and beat full upon
+Sir Oliver's expressionless face.
+
+“It was not necessary, you knave, to bring me hither to tell me so
+much.” he answered.
+
+“Quite so,” said Master Leigh. “But I have something more to add. Ye'll
+be thinking that I ha' done you a disservice. There ye wrong me.
+Through me you are brought to know true friends from secret enemies;
+henceforward ye'll know which to trust and which to mistrust.”
+
+Sir Oliver seemed to rouse himself a little from his passivity,
+stimulated despite himself by the impudence of this rogue. He stretched
+a leg and smiled sourly.
+
+“You'll end by telling me that I am in your debt,” said he.
+
+“You'll end by saying so yourself,” the captain assured him. “D'ye know
+what I was bidden do with you?”
+
+“Faith, I neither know nor care,” was the surprising answer, wearily
+delivered. “If it is for my entertainment that you propose to tell me, I
+beg you'll spare yourself the trouble.”
+
+It was not an answer that helped the captain. He pulled at his pipe a
+moment.
+
+“I was bidden,” said he presently, “to carry you to Barbary and sell
+you there into the service of the Moors. That I might serve you, I made
+believe to accept this task.”
+
+“God's death!” swore Sir Oliver. “You carry make-believe to an odd
+length.”
+
+“The weather has been against me. It were no intention o' mine to ha'
+come so far south with you. But we've been driven by the gale. That is
+overpast, and so that ye'll promise to bear no plaint against me, and
+to make good some of the loss I'll make by going out of my course, and
+missing a cargo that I wot of, I'll put about and fetch you home again
+within a week.”
+
+Sir Oliver looked at him and smiled grimly. “Now what a rogue are you
+that can keep faith with none!” he cried. “First you take money to carry
+me off; and then you bid me pay you to carry me back again.”
+
+“Ye wrong me, sir, I vow ye do! I can keep faith when honest men employ
+me, and ye should know it, Sir Oliver. But who keeps faith with rogues
+is a fool--and that I am not, as ye should also know. I ha' done this
+thing that a rogue might be revealed to you and thwarted, as well as
+that I might make some little profit out of this ship o' mine. I am
+frank with ye, Sir Oliver. I ha' had some two hundred pounds in money
+and trinkets from your brother. Give me the like and....”
+
+But now of a sudden Sir Oliver's listlessness was all dispelled. It fell
+from him like a cloak, and he sat forward, wide awake and with some show
+of anger even.
+
+“How do you say?” he cried, on a sharp, high note.
+
+The captain stared at him, his pipe neglected. “I say that if so be
+as ye'll pay me the same sum which your brother paid me to carry you
+off....”
+
+“My brother?” roared the knight. “Do you say my brother?”
+
+“I said your brother.”
+
+“Master Lionel?” the other demanded still.
+
+“What other brothers have you?” quoth Master Leigh.
+
+There fell a pause and Sir Oliver looked straight before him, his head
+sunken a little between his shoulders. “Let me understand,” he said at
+length. “Do you say that my brother Lionel paid you money to carry me
+off--in short, that my presence aboard this foul hulk of yours is due to
+him?”
+
+“Whom else had ye suspected? Or did ye think that I did it for my own
+personal diversion?”
+
+“Answer me,” bellowed Sir Oliver, writhing in his bonds.
+
+“I ha' answered you more than once already. Still, I tell you once
+again, since ye are slow to understand it, that I was paid a matter of
+two hundred pound by your brother, Master Lionel Tressilian, to carry
+you off to Barbary and there sell you for a slave. Is that plain to
+you?”
+
+“As plain as it is false. You lie, you dog!”
+
+“Softly, softly!” quoth Master Leigh, good-humouredly.
+
+“I say you lie!”
+
+Master Leigh considered him a moment. “Sets the wind so!” said he at
+length, and without another word he rose and went to a sea-chest ranged
+against the wooden wall of the cabin. He opened it and took thence a
+leather bag. From this he produced a handful of jewels. He thrust them
+under Sir Oliver's nose. “Haply,” said he, “ye'll be acquainted with
+some of them. They was given me to make up the sum since your brother
+had not the whole two hundred pound in coin. Take a look at them.”
+
+Sir Oliver recognized a ring and a long pear-shaped pearl earring that
+had been his brother's; he recognized a medallion that he himself had
+given Lionel two years ago; and so, one by one, he recognized every
+trinket placed before him.
+
+His head drooped to his breast, and he sat thus awhile like a man
+stunned. “My God!” he groaned miserably, at last. “Who, then, is left to
+me! Lionel too! Lionel!” A sob shook the great frame. Two tears slowly
+trickled down that haggard face and were lost in the stubble of beard
+upon his chin. “I am accursed!” he said.
+
+Never without such evidence could he have believed this thing. From the
+moment that he was beset outside the gates of Godolphin Court he had
+conceived it to be the work of Rosamund, and his listlessness was
+begotten of the thought that she could have suffered conviction of his
+guilt and her hatred of him to urge her to such lengths as these. Never
+for an instant had he doubted the message delivered him by Lionel that
+it was Mistress Rosamund who summoned him. And just as he believed
+himself to be going to Godolphin Court in answer to her summons, so did
+he conclude that the happening there was the real matter to which
+she had bidden him, a thing done by her contriving, her answer to his
+attempt on the previous day to gain speech with her, her manner of
+ensuring that such an impertinence should never be repeated.
+
+This conviction had been gall and wormwood to him; it had drugged his
+very senses, reducing him to a listless indifference to any fate that
+might be reserved him. Yet it had not been so bitter a draught as this
+present revelation. After all, in her case there were some grounds for
+the hatred that had come to take the place of her erstwhile love. But in
+Lionel's what grounds were possible? What motives could exist for
+such an action as this, other than a monstrous, a loathly egoism
+which desired perhaps to ensure that the blame for the death of Peter
+Godolphin should not be shifted from the shoulders that were unjustly
+bearing it, and the accursed desire to profit by the removal of the man
+who had been brother, father and all else to him? He shuddered in sheer
+horror. It was incredible, and yet beyond a doubt it was true. For all
+the love which he had showered upon Lionel, for all the sacrifices of
+self which he had made to shield him, this was Lionel's return. Were all
+the world against him he still must have believed Lionel true to him,
+and in that belief must have been enheartened a little. And now...His
+sense of loneliness, of utter destitution overwhelmed him. Then slowly
+of his sorrow resentment was begotten, and being begotten it grew
+rapidly until it filled his mind and whelmed in its turn all else. He
+threw back his great head, and his bloodshot, gleaming eyes fastened
+upon Captain Leigh, who seated now upon the sea-chest was quietly
+observing him and waiting patiently until he should recover the wits
+which this revelation had scattered.
+
+“Master Leigh,” said he, “what is your price to carry me home again to
+England?”
+
+“Why, Sir Oliver,” said he, “I think the price I was paid to carry you
+off would be a fair one. The one would wipe out t'other as it were.”
+
+“You shall have twice the sum when you land me on Trefusis Point again,”
+ was the instant answer.
+
+The captain's little eyes blinked and his shaggy red eyebrows came
+together in a frown. Here was too speedy an acquiescence. There must be
+guile behind it, or he knew naught of the ways of men.
+
+“What mischief are ye brooding?” he sneered.
+
+“Mischief, man? To you?” Sir Oliver laughed hoarsely. “God's light,
+knave, d'ye think I consider you in this matter, or d'ye think I've room
+in my mind for such petty resentments together with that other?”
+
+It was the truth. So absolute was the bitter sway of his anger against
+Lionel that he could give no thought to this rascally seaman's share in
+the adventure.
+
+“Will ye give me your word for that?”
+
+“My word? Pshaw, man! I have given it already. I swear that you shall be
+paid the sum I've named the moment you set me ashore again in England.
+Is that enough for you? Then cut me these bonds, and let us make an end
+of my present condition.”
+
+“Faith, I am glad to deal with so sensible a man! Ye take it in the
+proper spirit. Ye see that what I ha' done I ha' but done in the way of
+my calling, that I am but a tool, and that what blame there be belongs
+to them which hired me to this deed.”
+
+“Aye, ye're but a tool--a dirty tool, whetted with gold; no more. 'Tis
+admitted. Cut me these bonds, a God's name! I'm weary o' being trussed
+like a capon.”
+
+The captain drew his knife, crossed to Sir Oliver's side and slashed his
+bonds away without further word. Sir Oliver stood up so suddenly that
+he smote his head against the low ceiling of the cabin, and so sat down
+again at once. And in that moment from without and above there came a
+cry which sent the skipper to the cabin door. He flung it open, and
+so let out the smoke and let in the sunshine. He passed out on to
+the poop-deck, and Sir Oliver--conceiving himself at liberty to do
+so--followed him.
+
+In the waist below a little knot of shaggy seamen were crowding to
+the larboard bulwarks, looking out to sea; on the forecastle there was
+another similar assembly, all staring intently ahead and towards the
+land. They were off Cape Roca at the time, and when Captain Leigh saw by
+how much they had lessened their distance from shore since last he had
+conned the ship, he swore ferociously at his mate who had charge of the
+wheel. Ahead of them away on their larboard bow and in line with the
+mouth of the Tagus from which she had issued--and where not a doubt but
+she had been lying in wait for such stray craft as this--came a great
+tall-masted ship, equipped with top-gallants, running wellnigh before
+the wind with every foot of canvas spread.
+
+Close-hauled as was the Swallow and with her top-sails and mizzen reefed
+she was not making more than one knot to the Spaniard's five--for that
+she was a Spaniard was beyond all doubt judging by the haven whence she
+issued.
+
+“Luff alee!” bawled the skipper, and he sprang to the wheel, thrusting
+the mate aside with a blow of his elbow that almost sent him sprawling.
+
+“'Twas yourself set the course,” the fellow protested.
+
+“Thou lubberly fool,” roared the skipper. “I bade thee keep the same
+distance from shore. If the land comes jutting out to meet us, are we to
+keep straight on until we pile her up?” He spun the wheel round in his
+hands, and turned her down the wind. Then he relinquished the helm to
+the mate again. “Hold her thus,” he commanded, and bellowing orders as
+he went, he heaved himself down the companion to see them executed. Men
+sprang to the ratlines to obey him, and went swarming aloft to let
+out the reefs of the topsails; others ran astern to do the like by the
+mizzen and soon they had her leaping and plunging through the green
+water with every sheet unfurled, racing straight out to sea.
+
+From the poop Sir Oliver watched the Spaniard. He saw her veer a point
+or so to starboard, heading straight to intercept them, and he observed
+that although this manceuvre brought her fully a point nearer to the
+wind than the Swallow, yet, equipped as she was with half as much canvas
+again as Captain Leigh's piratical craft, she was gaining steadily upon
+them none the less.
+
+The skipper came back to the poop, and stood there moodily watching that
+other ship's approach, cursing himself for having sailed into such a
+trap, and cursing his mate more fervently still.
+
+Sir Oliver meanwhile took stock of so much of the Swallow's armament as
+was visible and wondered what like were those on the main-deck below.
+He dropped a question on that score to the captain, dispassionately, as
+though he were no more than an indifferently interested spectator, and
+with never a thought to his position aboard.
+
+“Should I be racing her afore the Wind if I as properly equipped?”
+ growled Leigh. “Am I the man to run before a Spaniard? As it is I do no
+more than lure her well away from land.”
+
+Sir Oliver understood, and was silent thereafter. He observed a bo'sun
+and his mates staggering in the waist under loads of cutlasses and small
+arms which they stacked in a rack about the mainmast. Then the gunner,
+a swarthy, massive fellow, stark to the waist with a faded scarf
+tied turban-wise about his head, leapt up the companion to the brass
+carronade on the larboard quarter, followed by a couple of his men.
+
+Master Leigh called up the bo'sun, bade him take the wheel, and
+dispatched the mate forward to the forecastle, where another gun was
+being prepared for action.
+
+Thereafter followed a spell of racing, the Spaniard ever lessening the
+distance between them, and the land dropping astern until it was no more
+than a hazy line above the shimmering sea. Suddenly from the Spaniard
+appeared a little cloud of white smoke, and the boom of a gun followed,
+and after it came a splash a cable's length ahead of the Swallow's bows.
+
+Linstock in hand the brawny gunner on the poop stood ready to answer
+them when the word should be given. From below came the gunner's mate
+to report himself ready for action on the main-deck and to receive his
+orders.
+
+Came another shot from the Spaniard, again across the bows of the
+Swallow.
+
+“'Tis a clear invitation to heave to,” said Sir Oliver.
+
+The skipper snarled in his fiery beard. “She has a longer range than
+most Spaniards,” said he. “But I'll not waste powder yet for all that.
+We've none to spare.”
+
+Scarcely had he spoken when a third shot boomed. There was a splintering
+crash overhead followed by a sough and a thud as the maintopmast came
+hurtling to the deck and in its fall stretched a couple of men in death.
+Battle was joined, it seemed. Yet Captain Leigh did nothing in a hurry.
+
+“Hold there!” he roared to the gunner who swung his linstock at that
+moment in preparation.
+
+She was losing way as a result of that curtailment of her mainmast, and
+the Spaniard came on swiftly now. At last the skipper accounted her near
+enough, and gave the word with an oath. The Swallow fired her first
+and last shot in that encounter. After the deafening thunder of it
+and through the cloud of suffocating smoke, Sir Oliver saw the high
+forecastle of the Spaniard rent open.
+
+Master Leigh was cursing his gunner for having aimed too high. Then he
+signalled to the mate to fire the culverin of which he had charge.
+That second shot was to be the signal for the whole broadside from the
+main-deck below. But the Spaniard anticipated them. Even as the skipper
+of the Swallow signalled the whole side of the Spaniard burst into flame
+and smoke.
+
+The Swallow staggered under the blow, recovered an instant, then listed
+ominously to larboard.
+
+“Hell!” roared Leigh. “She's bilging!” and Sir Oliver saw the Spaniard
+standing off again, as if satisfied with what she had done. The mate's
+gun was never fired, nor was the broadside from below. Indeed that
+sudden list had set the muzzles pointing to the sea; within three
+minutes of it they were on a level with the water. The Swallow had
+received her death-blow, and she was settling down.
+
+Satisfied that she could do no further harm, the Spaniard luffed and
+hove to, awaiting the obvious result and intent upon picking up what
+slaves she could to man the galleys of his Catholic Majesty on the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Thus the fate intended Sir Oliver by Lionel was to be fulfilled; and it
+was to be shared by Master Leigh himself, which had not been at all in
+that venal fellow's reckoning.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II. SAKR-EL-BAHR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE CAPTIVE
+
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr, the hawk of the sea, the scourge of the Mediterranean and
+the terror of Christian Spain, lay prone on the heights of Cape Spartel.
+
+Above him on the crest of the cliff ran the dark green line of the
+orange groves of Araish--the reputed Garden of the Hesperides of the
+ancients, where the golden apples grew. A mile or so to eastward were
+dotted the huts and tents of a Bedouin encampment on the fertile emerald
+pasture-land that spread away, as far as eye could range, towards Ceuta.
+Nearer, astride of a grey rock an almost naked goatherd, a lithe
+brown stripling with a cord of camel-hair about his shaven head,
+intermittently made melancholy and unmelodious sounds upon a reed pipe.
+From somewhere in the blue vault of heaven overhead came the joyous
+trilling of a lark, from below the silken rustling of the tideless sea.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr lay prone upon a cloak of woven camel-hair amid luxuriating
+fern and samphire, on the very edge of the shelf of cliff to which he
+had climbed. On either side of him squatted a negro from the Sus both
+naked of all save white loin-cloths, their muscular bodies glistening
+like ebony in the dazzling sunshine of mid-May. They wielded crude fans
+fashioned from the yellowing leaves of date palms, and their duty was
+to wave these gently to and fro above their lord's head, to give him air
+and to drive off the flies.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr was in the very prime of life, a man of a great length
+of body, with a deep Herculean torso and limbs that advertised a giant
+strength. His hawk-nosed face ending in a black forked beard was of a
+swarthiness accentuated to exaggeration by the snowy white turban wound
+about his brow. His eyes, by contrast, were singularly light. He wore
+over his white shirt a long green tunic of very light silk, woven along
+its edges with arabesques in gold; a pair of loose calico breeches
+reached to his knees; his brown muscular calves were naked, and his feet
+were shod in a pair of Moorish shoes of crimson leather, with up-curling
+and very pointed toes. He had no weapons other than the heavy-bladed
+knife with a jewelled hilt that was thrust into his girdle of plaited
+leather.
+
+A yard or two away on his left lay another supine figure, elbows on the
+ground, and hands arched above his brow to shade his eyes, gazing out to
+sea. He, too, was a tall and powerful man, and when he moved there was
+a glint of armour from the chain mail in which his body was cased,
+and from the steel casque about which he had swathed his green turban.
+Beside him lay an enormous curved scimitar in a sheath of brown leather
+that was heavy with steel ornaments. His face was handsome, and bearded,
+but swarthier far than his companion's, and the backs of his long fine
+hands were almost black.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr paid little heed to him. Lying there he looked down the
+slope, clad with stunted cork-trees and evergreen oaks; here and there
+was the golden gleam of broom; yonder over a spur of whitish rock
+sprawled the green and living scarlet of a cactus. Below him about the
+caves of Hercules was a space of sea whose clear depths shifted with its
+slow movement from the deep green of emerald to all the colours of
+the opal. A little farther off behind a projecting screen of rock that
+formed a little haven two enormous masted galleys, each of fifty oars,
+and a smaller galliot of thirty rode gently on the slight heave of the
+water, the vast yellow oars standing out almost horizontally from the
+sides of each vessel like the pinions of some gigantic bird. That they
+lurked there either in concealment or in ambush was very plain. Above
+them circled a flock of seagulls noisy and insolent.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr looked out to sea across the straits towards Tarifa and the
+faint distant European coastline just visible through the limpid summer
+air. But his glance was not concerned with that hazy horizon; it went no
+further than a fine white-sailed ship that, close-hauled, was beating
+up the straits some four miles off. A gentle breeze was blowing from
+the east, and with every foot of canvas spread to catch it she stood as
+close to it as was possible. Nearer she came on her larboard tack,
+and not a doubt but her master would be scanning the hostile African
+littoral for a sight of those desperate rovers who haunted it and who
+took toll of every Christian ship that ventured over-near. Sakr-el-Bahr
+smiled to think how little the presence of his galleys could be
+suspected, how innocent must look the sun-bathed shore of Africa to the
+Christian skipper's diligently searching spy-glass. And there from his
+height, like the hawk they had dubbed him, poised in the cobalt heavens
+to plumb down upon his prey, he watched the great white ship and waited
+until she should come within striking distance.
+
+A promontory to eastward made something of a lee that reached out almost
+a mile from shore. From the watcher's eyrie the line of demarcation was
+sharply drawn; they could see the point at which the white crests of the
+wind-whipped wavelets ceased and the water became smoother. Did she but
+venture as far southward on her present tack, she would be slow to go
+about again, and that should be their opportunity. And all unconscious
+of the lurking peril she held steadily to her course, until not half a
+mile remained between her and that inauspicious lee.
+
+Excitement stirred the mail-clad corsair; he kicked his heels in the
+air, then swung round to the impassive and watchful Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“She will come! She will come!” he cried in the Frankish jargon--the
+lingua franca of the African littoral.
+
+“Insh' Allah!” was the laconic answer--“If God will.”
+
+A tense silence fell between them again as the ship drew nearer so that
+now with each forward heave of her they caught a glint of the
+white belly under her black hull. Sakr-el-Bahr shaded his eyes,
+and concentrated his vision upon the square ensign flying from, her
+mainmast. He could make out not only the red and yellow quarterings, but
+the devices of the castle and the lion.
+
+“A Spanish ship, Biskaine,” he growled to his companion. “It is very
+well. The praise to the One!”
+
+“Will she venture in?” wondered the other.
+
+“Be sure she will venture,” was the confident answer. “She suspects
+no danger, and it is not often that our galleys are to be found so far
+westward. Aye, there she comes in all her Spanish pride.”
+
+Even as he spoke she reached that line of demarcation. She crossed it,
+for there was still a moderate breeze on the leeward side of it, intent
+no doubt upon making the utmost of that southward run.
+
+“Now!” cried Biskaine--Biskaine-el-Borak was he called from the
+lightning-like impetuousness in which he was wont to strike. He quivered
+with impatience, like a leashed hound.
+
+“Not yet,” was the calm, restraining answer. “Every inch nearer shore
+she creeps the more certain is her doom. Time enough to sound the charge
+when she goes about. Give me to drink, Abiad,” he said to one of his
+negroes, whom in irony he had dubbed “the White.”
+
+The slave turned aside, swept away a litter of ferns and produced an
+amphora of porous red clay; he removed the palm-leaves from the mouth
+of it and poured water into a cup. Sakr-el-Bahr drank slowly, his eyes
+never leaving the vessel, whose every ratline was clearly defined by
+now in the pellucid air. They could see men moving on her decks, and the
+watchman stationed in the foremast fighting-top. She was not more than
+half a mile away when suddenly came the manceuvre to go about.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr leapt instantly to his great height and waved a long green
+scarf. From one of the galleys behind the screen of rocks a trumpet rang
+out in immediate answer to that signal; it was followed by the shrill
+whistles of the bo'suns, and that again by the splash and creak of oars,
+as the two larger galleys swept out from their ambush. The long armoured
+poops were a-swarm with turbaned corsairs, their weapons gleaming in
+the sunshine; a dozen at least were astride of the crosstree of each
+mainmast, all armed with bows and arrows, and the ratlines on each side
+of the galleys were black with men who swarmed there like locusts ready
+to envelop and smother their prey.
+
+The suddenness of the attack flung the Spaniard into confusion. There
+was a frantic stir aboard her, trumpet blasts and shootings and wild
+scurryings of men hither and thither to the posts to which they were
+ordered by their too reckless captain. In that confusion her manceuvre
+to go about went all awry, and precious moments were lost during which
+she stood floundering, with idly flapping sails. In his desperate haste
+the captain headed her straight to leeward, thinking that by running
+thus before the wind he stood the best chance of avoiding the trap. But
+there was not wind enough in that sheltered spot to make the attempt
+successful. The galleys sped straight on at an angle to the direction
+in which the Spaniard was moving, their yellow dripping oars flashing
+furiously, as the bo'suns plied their whips to urge every ounce of sinew
+in the slaves.
+
+Of all this Sakr-el-Bahr gathered an impression as, followed by Biskaine
+and the negroes, he swiftly made his way down from that eyrie that
+had served him so well. He sprang from red oak to cork-tree and from
+cork-tree to red oak; he leapt from rock to rock, or lowered himself
+from ledge to ledge, gripping a handful of heath or a projecting stone,
+but all with the speed and nimbleness of an ape. He dropped at last to
+the beach, then sped across it at a run, and went bounding along a black
+reef until he stood alongside of the galliot which had been left behind
+by the other Corsair vessels. She awaited him in deep water, the length
+of her oars from the rock, and as he came alongside, these oars were
+brought to the horizontal, and held there firmly. He leapt down upon
+them, his companions following him, and using them as a gangway, reached
+the bulwarks. He threw a leg over the side, and alighted on a decked
+space between two oars and the two rows of six slaves that were manning
+each of them.
+
+Biskaine followed him and the negroes came last. They were still astride
+of the bulwarks when Sakr-el-Bahr gave the word. Up the middle
+gangway ran a bo'sun and two of his mates cracking their long whips of
+bullock-hide. Down went the oars, there was a heave, and they shot out
+in the wake of the other two to join the fight.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr, scimitar in hand, stood on the prow, a little in advance
+of the mob of eager babbling corsairs who surrounded him, quivering in
+their impatience to be let loose upon the Christian foe. Above, along
+the yardarm and up the ratlines swarmed his bowmen. From the mast-head
+floated out his standard, of crimson charged with a green crescent.
+
+The naked Christian slaves groaned, strained and sweated under the
+Moslem lash that drove them to the destruction of their Christian
+brethren.
+
+Ahead the battle was already joined. The Spaniard had fired one
+single hasty shot which had gone wide, and now one of the corsair's
+grappling-irons had seized her on the larboard quarter, a withering hail
+of arrows was pouring down upon her decks from the Muslim crosstrees;
+up her sides crowded the eager Moors, ever most eager when it was a
+question of tackling the Spanish dogs who had driven them from their
+Andalusian Caliphate. Under her quarter sped the other galley to take
+her on the starboard side, and even as she went her archers and stingers
+hurled death aboard the galleon.
+
+It was a short, sharp fight. The Spaniards in confusion from the
+beginning, having been taken utterly by surprise, had never been able
+to order themselves in a proper manner to receive the onslaught. Still,
+what could be done they did. They made a gallant stand against this
+pitiless assailant. But the corsairs charged home as gallantly, utterly
+reckless of life, eager to slay in the name of Allah and His Prophet
+and scarcely less eager to die if it should please the All-pitiful that
+their destinies should be here fulfilled. Up they went, and back fell
+the Castilians, outnumbered by at least ten to one.
+
+When Sakr-el-Bahr's galliot came alongside, that brief encounter was at
+an end, and one of his corsairs was aloft, hacking from the mainmast the
+standard of Spain and the wooden crucifix that was nailed below it.
+A moment later and to a thundering roar of “Al-hamdolliah!” the green
+crescent floated out upon the breeze.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr thrust his way through the press in the galleon's waist;
+his corsairs fell back before him, making way, and as he advanced they
+roared his name deliriously and waved their scimitars to acclaim him
+this hawk of the sea, as he was named, this most valiant of all the
+servants of Islam. True he had taken no actual part in the engagement.
+It had been too brief and he had arrived too late for that. But his had
+been the daring to conceive an ambush at so remote a western point, and
+his the brain that had guided them to this swift sweet victory in the
+name of Allah the One.
+
+The decks were slippery with blood, and strewn with wounded and dying
+men, whom already the Muslimeen were heaving overboard--dead and wounded
+alike when they were Christians, for to what end should they be troubled
+with maimed slaves?
+
+About the mainmast were huddled the surviving Spaniards, weaponless and
+broken in courage, a herd of timid, bewildered sheep.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr stood forward, his light eyes considering them grimly. They
+must number close upon a hundred, adventurers in the main who had set
+out from Cadiz in high hope of finding fortune in the Indies. Their
+voyage had been a very brief one; their fate they knew--to toil at the
+oars of the Muslim galleys, or at best, to be taken to Algiers or Tunis
+and sold there into the slavery of some wealthy Moor.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr's glance scanned them appraisingly, and rested finally on
+the captain, who stood slightly in advance, his face livid with rage
+and grief. He was richly dressed in the Castilian black, and his velvet
+thimble-shaped hat was heavily plumed and decked by a gold cross.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr salaamed ceremoniously to him. “Fortuna de guerra, senor
+capitan,” said he in fluent Spanish. “What is your name?”
+
+“I am Don Paulo de Guzman,” the man answered, drawing himself erect, and
+speaking with conscious pride in himself and manifest contempt of his
+interlocutor.
+
+“So! A gentleman of family! And well-nourished and sturdy, I should
+judge. In the sôk at Algiers you might fetch two hundred philips. You
+shall ransom yourself for five hundred.”
+
+“Por las Entranas de Dios!” swore Don Paulo who, like all pious Spanish
+Catholics, favoured the oath anatomical. What else he would have added
+in his fury is not known, for Sakr-el-Bahr waved him contemptuously
+away.
+
+“For your profanity and want of courtesy we will make the ransom a
+thousand philips, then,” said he. And to his followers--“Away with him!
+Let him have courteous entertainment against the coming of his ransom.”
+
+He was borne away cursing.
+
+Of the others Sakr-el-Bahr made short work. He offered the privilege
+of ransoming himself to any who might claim it, and the privilege was
+claimed by three. The rest he consigned to the care of Biskaine, who
+acted as his Kayla, or lieutenant. But before doing so he bade the
+ship's bo'sun stand forward, and demanded to know what slaves there
+might be on board. There were, he learnt, but a dozen, employed
+upon menial duties on the ship--three Jews, seven Muslimeen and two
+heretics--and they had been driven under the hatches when the peril
+threatened.
+
+By Sakr-el-Bahr's orders these were dragged forth from the blackness
+into which they had been flung. The Muslimeen upon discovering that they
+had fallen into the hands of their own people and that their slavery was
+at an end, broke into cries of delight, and fervent praise of Allah than
+whom they swore there was no other God. The three Jews, lithe, stalwart
+young men in black tunics that fell to their knees and black skull-caps
+upon their curly black locks, smiled ingratiatingly, hoping for the best
+since they were fallen into the hands of people who were nearer akin to
+them than Christians and allied to them, at least, by the bond of common
+enmity to Spain and common suffering at the hands of Spaniards. The two
+heretics stood in stolid apathy, realizing that with them it was but a
+case of passing from Charybdis to Scylla, and that they had as little
+to hope for from heathen as from Christian. One of these was a sturdy
+bowlegged fellow, whose garments were little better than rags; his
+weather-beaten face was of the colour of mahogany and his eyes of a dark
+blue under tufted eyebrows that once had been red--like his hair and
+beard--but were now thickly intermingled with grey. He was spotted like
+a leopard on the hands by enormous dark brown freckles.
+
+Of the entire dozen he was the only one that drew the attention of
+Sakr-el-Bahr. He stood despondently before the corsair, with bowed head
+and his eyes upon the deck, a weary, dejected, spiritless slave who
+would as soon die as live. Thus some few moments during which the
+stalwart Muslim stood regarding him; then as if drawn by that persistent
+scrutiny he raised his dull, weary eyes. At once they quickened, the
+dulness passed out of them; they were bright and keen as of old. He
+thrust his head forward, staring in his turn; then, in a bewildered way
+he looked about him at the ocean of swarthy faces under turbans of all
+colours, and back again at Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“God's light!” he said at last, in English, to vent his infinite
+amazement. Then reverting to the cynical manner that he had ever
+affected, and effacing all surprise--
+
+“Good day to you, Sir Oliver,” said he. “I suppose ye'll give yourself
+the pleasure of hanging me.”
+
+“Allah is great!” said Sakr-el-Bahr impassively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE RENEGADE
+
+
+How it came to happen that Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea, the Muslim
+rover, the scourge of the Mediterranean, the terror of Christians, and
+the beloved of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, would be one and the same
+as Sir Oliver Tressilian, the Cornish gentleman of Penarrow, is at long
+length set forth in the chronicles of Lord Henry Goade. His lordship
+conveys to us some notion of how utterly overwhelming he found that
+fact by the tedious minuteness with which he follows step by step this
+extraordinary metamorphosis. He devotes to it two entire volumes of
+those eighteen which he has left us. The whole, however, may with
+advantage be summarized into one short chapter.
+
+Sir Oliver was one of a score of men who were rescued from the sea by
+the crew of the Spanish vessel that had sunk the Swallow; another was
+Jasper Leigh, the skipper. All of them were carried to Lisbon, and there
+handed over to the Court of the Holy Office. Since they were heretics
+all--or nearly all--it was fit and proper that the Brethren of St.
+Dominic should undertake their conversion in the first place. Sir Oliver
+came of a family that never had been famed for rigidity in religious
+matters, and he was certainly not going to burn alive if the adoption of
+other men's opinions upon an extremely hypothetical future state would
+suffice to save him from the stake. He accepted Catholic baptism with
+an almost contemptuous indifference. As for Jasper Leigh, it will be
+conceived that the elasticity of the skipper's conscience was no less
+than Sir Oliver's, and he was certainly not the man to be roasted for a
+trifle of faith.
+
+No doubt there would be great rejoicings in the Holy House over the
+rescue of these two unfortunate souls from the certain perdition that
+had awaited them. It followed that as converts to the Faith they were
+warmly cherished, and tears of thanksgiving were profusely shed
+over them by the Hounds of God. So much for their heresy. They were
+completely purged of it, having done penance in proper form at an Auto
+held on the Rocio at Lisbon, candle in hand and sanbenito on their
+shoulders. The Church dismissed them with her blessing and an injunction
+to persevere in the ways of salvation to which with such meek kindness
+she had inducted them.
+
+Now this dismissal amounted to a rejection. They were, as a consequence,
+thrown back upon the secular authorities, and the secular authorities
+had yet to punish them for their offence upon the seas. No offence could
+be proved, it is true. But the courts were satisfied that this lack of
+offence was but the natural result of a lack of opportunity. Conversely,
+they reasoned, it was not to be doubted that with the opportunity the
+offence would have been forthcoming. Their assurance of this was based
+upon the fact that when the Spaniard fired across the bows of the
+Swallow as an invitation to heave to, she had kept upon her course.
+Thus, with unanswerable Castilian logic was the evil conscience of
+her skipper proven. Captain Leigh protested on the other hand that his
+action had been dictated by his lack of faith in Spaniards and his firm
+belief that all Spaniards were pirates to be avoided by every honest
+seaman who was conscious of inferior strength of armaments. It was a
+plea that won him no favour with his narrow-minded judges.
+
+Sir Oliver fervently urged that he was no member of the crew of the
+Swallow, that he was a gentleman who found himself aboard her very much
+against his will, being the victim of a villainous piece of trepanning
+executed by her venal captain. The court heard his plea with respect,
+and asked to know his name and rank. He was so very indiscreet as to
+answer truthfully. The result was extremely educative to Sir Oliver; it
+showed him how systematically conducted was the keeping of the Spanish
+archives. The court produced documents enabling his judges to recite to
+him most of that portion of his life that had been spent upon the seas,
+and many an awkward little circumstance which had slipped his memory
+long since, which he now recalled, and which certainly was not
+calculated to make his sentence lighter.
+
+Had he not been in the Barbados in such a year, and had he not there
+captured the galleon Maria de las Dolores? What was that but an act of
+villainous piracy? Had he not scuttled a Spanish carack four years ago
+in the bay of Funchal? Had he not been with that pirate Hawkins in the
+affair at San Juan de Ulloa? And so on. Questions poured upon him and
+engulfed him.
+
+He almost regretted that he had given himself the trouble to accept
+conversion and all that it entailed at the hands of the Brethren of
+St. Dominic. It began to appear to him that he had but wasted time and
+escaped the clerical fire to be dangled on a secular rope as an offering
+to the vengeful gods of outraged Spain.
+
+So much, however, was not done. The galleys in the Mediterranean were
+in urgent need of men at the time, and to this circumstance Sir Oliver,
+Captain Leigh, and some others of the luckless crew of the Swallow owed
+their lives, though it is to be doubted whether any of them found the
+matter one for congratulation. Chained each man to a fellow, ankle to
+ankle, with but a short length of links between, they formed part of a
+considerable herd of unfortunates, who were driven across Portugal
+into Spain and then southward to Cadiz. The last that Sir Oliver saw of
+Captain Leigh was on the morning on which he set out from the reeking
+Lisbon gaol. Thereafter throughout that weary march each knew the other
+to be somewhere in that wretched regiment of galley-slaves; but they
+never came face to face again.
+
+In Cadiz Sir Oliver spent a month in a vast enclosed space that was open
+to the sky, but nevertheless of an indescribable foulness, a place of
+filth, disease, and suffering beyond human conception, the details of
+which the curious may seek for himself in my Lord Henry's chronicles.
+They are too revolting by far to be retailed here.
+
+At the end of that month he was one of those picked out by an officer
+who was manning a galley that was to convey the Infanta to Naples. He
+owed this to his vigorous constitution which had successfully withstood
+the infections of that mephitic place of torments, and to the fine thews
+which the officer pummelled and felt as though he were acquiring a beast
+of burden--which, indeed, is precisely what he was doing.
+
+The galley to which our gentleman was dispatched was a vessel of
+fifty oars, each manned by seven men. They were seated upon a sort of
+staircase that followed the slope of the oar, running from the gangway
+in the vessel's middle down to the shallow bulwarks.
+
+The place allotted to Sir Oliver was that next the gangway. Here, stark
+naked as when he was born, he was chained to the bench, and in those
+chains, let us say at once, he remained, without a single moment's
+intermission, for six whole months.
+
+Between himself and the hard timbers of his seat there was naught but a
+flimsy and dirty sheepskin. From end to end the bench was not more than
+ten feet in length, whilst the distance separating it from the next one
+was a bare four feet. In that cramped space of ten feet by four, Sir
+Oliver and his six oar-mates had their miserable existence, waking and
+sleeping--for they slept in their chains at the oar without sufficient
+room in which to lie at stretch.
+
+Anon Sir Oliver became hardened and inured to that unspeakable
+existence, that living death of the galley-slave. But that first long
+voyage to Naples was ever to remain the most terrible experience of his
+life. For spells of six or eight endless hours at a time, and on one
+occasion for no less than ten hours, did he pull at his oar without a
+single moment's pause. With one foot on the stretcher, the other on
+the bench in front of him, grasping his part of that appallingly heavy
+fifteen-foot oar, he would bend his back to thrust forward--and upwards
+so to clear the shoulders of the groaning, sweating slaves in front of
+him--then he would lift the end so as to bring the blade down to the
+water, and having gripped he would rise from his seat to throw his full
+weight into the pull, and so fall back with clank of chain upon the
+groaning bench to swing forward once more, and so on until his senses
+reeled, his sight became blurred, his mouth parched and his whole body
+a living, straining ache. Then would come the sharp fierce cut of the
+boatswain's whip to revive energies that flagged however little, and
+sometimes to leave a bleeding stripe upon his naked back.
+
+Thus day in day out, now broiled and blistered by the pitiless southern
+sun, now chilled by the night dews whilst he took his cramped and
+unrefreshing rest, indescribably filthy and dishevelled, his hair and
+beard matted with endless sweat, unwashed save by the rains which
+in that season were all too rare, choked almost by the stench of his
+miserable comrades and infested by filthy crawling things begotten of
+decaying sheepskins and Heaven alone knows what other foulnesses of
+that floating hell. He was sparingly fed upon weevilled biscuit and vile
+messes of tallowy rice, and to drink he was given luke-warm water that
+was often stale, saving that sometimes when the spell of rowing was
+more than usually protracted the boatswains would thrust lumps of bread
+sodden in wine into the mouths of the toiling slaves to sustain them.
+
+The scurvy broke out on that voyage, and there were other diseases
+among the rowers, to say nothing of the festering sores begotten of
+the friction of the bench which were common to all, and which each must
+endure as best he could. With the slave whose disease conquered him or
+who, reaching the limit of his endurance, permitted himself to swoon,
+the boat-swains had a short way. The diseased were flung overboard; the
+swooning were dragged out upon the gangway or bridge and flogged there
+to revive them; if they did not revive they were flogged on until they
+were a horrid bleeding pulp, which was then heaved into the sea.
+
+Once or twice when they stood to windward the smell of the slaves being
+wafted abaft and reaching the fine gilded poop where the Infanta and her
+attendants travelled, the helmsmen were ordered to put about, and for
+long weary hours the slaves would hold the galley in position, backing
+her up gently against the wind so as not to lose way.
+
+The number that died in the first week of that voyage amounted to close
+upon a quarter of the total. But there were reserves in the prow, and
+these were drawn upon to fill the empty places. None but the fittest
+could survive this terrible ordeal.
+
+Of these was Sir Oliver, and of these too was his immediate neighbour at
+the oar, a stalwart, powerful, impassive, uncomplaining young Moor, who
+accepted his fate with a stoicism that aroused Sir Oliver's admiration.
+For days they exchanged no single word together, their religions marking
+them out, they thought, for enemies despite the fact that they were
+fellows in misfortune. But one evening when an aged Jew who had
+collapsed in merciful unconsciousness was dragged out and flogged in
+the usual manner, Sir Oliver, chancing to behold the scarlet prelate
+who accompanied the Infanta looking on from the poop-rail with hard
+unmerciful eyes, was filled with such a passion at all this inhumanity
+and at the cold pitilessness of that professed servant of the Gentle and
+Pitiful Saviour, that aloud he cursed all Christians in general and that
+scarlet Prince of the Church in particular.
+
+He turned to the Moor beside him, and addressing him in Spanish--
+
+“Hell,” he said, “was surely made for Christians, which may be why they
+seek to make earth like it.”
+
+Fortunately for him the creak and dip of the oars, the clank of chains,
+and the lashes beating sharply upon the wretched Jew were sufficient to
+muffle his voice. But the Moor heard him, and his dark eyes gleamed.
+
+“There is a furnace seven times heated awaiting them, ) my brother,” he
+replied, with a confidence which seemed to be the source of his present
+stoicism. “But art thou, then, not a Christian?”
+
+He spoke in that queer language of the North African seaboard, that
+lingua franca, which sounded like some French dialect interspersed with
+Arabic words. But Sir Oliver made out his meaning almost by intuition.
+He answered him in Spanish again, since although the Moor did not appear
+to speak it yet it was plain he understood it.
+
+“I renounce from this hour,” he answered in his passion. “I will
+acknowledge no religion in whose name such things are done. Look me at
+that scarlet fruit of hell up yonder. See how daintily he sniffs at his
+pomander lest his saintly nostrils be offended by the exhalations of
+our misery. Yet are we God's creatures made in God's image like himself.
+What does he know of God? Religion he knows as he knows good wine, rich
+food, and soft women. He preaches self-denial as the way to heaven, and
+by his own tenets is he damned.” He growled an obscene oath as he heaved
+the great oar forward. “A Christian I?” he cried, and laughed for the
+first time since he had been chained to that bench of agony. “I am done
+with Christians and Christianity!”
+
+“Verily we are God's, and to Him shall we return,” said the Moor.
+
+That was the beginning of a friendship between Sir Oliver and this man,
+whose name was Yusuf-ben-Moktar. The Muslim conceived that in Sir Oliver
+he saw one upon whom the grace of Allah had descended, one who was
+ripe to receive the Prophet's message. Yusuf was devout, and he applied
+himself to the conversion of his fellow-slave. Sir Oliver listened to
+him, however, with indifference. Having discarded one creed he would
+need a deal of satisfying on the score of another before he adopted
+it, and it seemed to him that all the glorious things urged by Yusuf in
+praise of Islam he had heard before in praise of Christianity. But he
+kept his counsel on that score, and meanwhile his intercourse with the
+Muslim had the effect of teaching him the lingua franca, so that at the
+end of six months he found himself speaking it like a Mauretanian with
+all the Muslim's imagery and with more than the ordinary seasoning of
+Arabic.
+
+It was towards the end of that six months that the event took place
+which was to restore Sir Oliver to liberty. In the meanwhile those limbs
+of his which had ever been vigorous beyond the common wont had acquired
+an elephantine strength. It was ever thus at the oar. Either you died
+under the strain, or your thews and sinews grew to be equal to their
+relentless task. Sir Oliver in those six months was become a man
+of steel and iron, impervious to fatigue, superhuman almost in his
+endurance.
+
+They were returning home from a trip to Genoa when one evening as they
+were standing off Minorca in the Balearic Isles they were surprised by
+a fleet of four Muslim galleys which came skimming round a promontory to
+surround and engage them.
+
+Aboard the Spanish vessel there broke a terrible cry of
+“Asad-ed-Din”--the name of the most redoubtable Muslim corsair since the
+Italian renegade Ochiali--the Ali Pasha who had been killed at Lepanto.
+Trumpets blared and drums beat on the poop, and the Spaniards in morion
+and corselet, armed with calivers and pikes, stood to defend their lives
+and liberty. The gunners sprang to the culverins. But fire had to
+be kindled and linstocks ignited, and in the confusion much time
+was lost--so much that not a single cannon shot was fired before
+the grappling irons of the first galley clanked upon and gripped the
+Spaniard's bulwarks. The shock of the impact was terrific. The armoured
+prow of the Muslim galley--Asad-ed-Din's own--smote the Spaniard a
+slanting blow amidships that smashed fifteen of the oars as if they had
+been so many withered twigs.
+
+There was a shriek from the slaves, followed by such piteous groans as
+the damned in hell may emit. Fully two score of them had been struck by
+the shafts of their oars as these were hurled back against them. Some
+had been killed outright, others lay limp and crushed, some with broken
+backs, others with shattered limbs and ribs.
+
+Sir Oliver would assuredly have been of these but for the warning,
+advice, and example of Yusuf, who was well versed in galley-fighting
+and who foresaw clearly what must happen. He thrust the oar upward and
+forward as far as it would go, compelling the others at his bench to
+accompany his movement. Then he slipped down upon his knees, released
+his hold of the timber, and crouched down until his shoulders were on
+a level with the bench. He had shouted to Sir Oliver to follow his
+example, and Sir Oliver without even knowing what the manoeuvre should
+portend, but gathering its importance from the other's urgency of tone,
+promptly obeyed. The oar was struck an instant later and ere it snapped
+off it was flung back, braining one of the slaves at the bench and
+mortally injuring the others, but passing clean over the heads of Sir
+Oliver and Yusuf. A moment later the bodies of the oarsmen of the bench
+immediately in front were flung back atop of them with yells and curses.
+
+When Sir Oliver staggered to his feet he found the battle joined. The
+Spaniards had fired a volley from their calivers and a dense cloud of
+smoke hung above the bulwarks; through this surged now the corsairs, led
+by a tall, lean, elderly man with a flowing white beard and a swarthy
+eagle face. A crescent of emeralds flashed from his snowy turban; above
+it rose the peak of a steel cap, and his body was cased in chain mail.
+He swung a great scimitar, before which Spaniards went down like wheat
+to the reaper's sickle. He fought like ten men, and to support him
+poured a never-ending stream of Muslimeen to the cry of “Din! Din!
+Allah, Y'Allah!” Back and yet back went the Spaniards before that
+irresistible onslaught.
+
+Sir Oliver found Yusuf struggling in vain to rid himself of his chain,
+and went to his assistance. He stooped, seized it in both hands, set his
+feet against the bench, exerted all his strength, and tore the staple
+from the wood. Yusuf was free, save, of course, that a length of heavy
+chain was dangling from his steel anklet. In his turn he did the like
+service by Sir Oliver, though not quite as speedily, for strong man
+though he was, either his strength was not equal to the Cornishman's
+or else the latter's staple had been driven into sounder timber. In the
+end, however, it yielded, and Sir Oliver too was free. Then he set the
+foot that was hampered by the chain upon the bench, and with the staple
+that still hung from the end of it he prised open the link that attached
+it to his anklet.
+
+That done he took his revenge. Crying “Din!” as loudly as any of the
+Muslimeen boarders, he flung himself upon the rear of the Spaniards
+brandishing his chain. In his hands it became a terrific weapon. He used
+it as a scourge, lashing it to right and left of him, splitting here a
+head and crushing there a face, until he had hacked a way clean through
+the Spanish press, which bewildered by this sudden rear attack made but
+little attempt to retaliate upon the escaped galley-slave. After him,
+whirling the remaining ten feet of the broken oar, came Yusuf.
+
+Sir Oliver confessed afterwards to knowing very little of what happened
+in those moments. He came to a full possession of his senses to find
+the fight at an end, a cloud of turbaned corsairs standing guard over a
+huddle of Spaniards, others breaking open the cabin and dragging thence
+the chests that it contained, others again armed with chisels and
+mallets passing along the benches liberating the surviving slaves, of
+whom the great majority were children of Islam.
+
+Sir Oliver found himself face to face with the white-bearded leader of
+the corsairs, who was leaning upon his scimitar and regarding him with
+eyes at once amused and amazed. Our gentleman's naked body was splashed
+from head to foot with blood, and in his right hand he still clutched
+that yard of iron links with which he had wrought such ghastly
+execution. Yusuf was standing at the corsair leader's elbow speaking
+rapidly.
+
+“By Allah, was ever such a lusty fighter seen!” cried the latter. “The
+strength of the Prophet is within him thus to smite the unbelieving
+pigs.”
+
+Sir Oliver grinned savagely.
+
+“I was returning them some of their whip-lashes--with interest,” said
+he.
+
+And those were the circumstances under which he came to meet the
+formidable Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, those the first words that
+passed between them.
+
+Anon, when aboard Asad's own galley he was being carried to Barbary, he
+was washed and his head was shaved all but the forelock, by which the
+Prophet should lift him up to heaven when his earthly destiny should
+come to be fulfilled. He made no protest. They washed and fed him and
+gave him ease; and so that they did these things to him they might do
+what else they pleased. At last arrayed in flowing garments that were
+strange to him, and with a turban wound about his head, he was conducted
+to the poop, where Asad sat with Yusuf under an awning, and he came to
+understand that it was in compliance with the orders of Yusuf that he
+had been treated as if he were a True-Believer.
+
+Yusuf-ben-Moktar was discovered as a person of great consequence, the
+nephew of Asad-ed-Din, and a favourite with that Exalted of Allah the
+Sublime Portal himself, a man whose capture by Christians had been a
+thing profoundly deplored. Accordingly his delivery from that thraldom
+was matter for rejoicing. Being delivered, he bethought him of his
+oar-mate, concerning whom indeed Asad-ed-Din manifested the greatest
+curiosity, for in all this world there was nothing the old corsair loved
+so much as a fighter, and in all his days, he vowed, never had he
+seen the equal of that stalwart galley-slave, never the like of his
+performance with that murderous chain. Yusuf had informed him that the
+man was a fruit ripe for the Prophet's plucking, that the grace of Allah
+was upon him, and in spirit already he must be accounted a good Muslim.
+
+When Sir Oliver, washed, perfumed, and arrayed in white caftan and
+turban, which gave him the air of being even taller than he was, came
+into the presence of Asad-ed-Din, it was conveyed to him that if he
+would enter the ranks of the Faithful of the Prophet's House and devote
+the strength and courage with which Allah the One had endowed him to
+the upholding of the true Faith and to the chastening of the enemies of
+Islam, great honour, wealth and dignity were in store for him.
+
+Of all that proposal, made at prodigious length and with great wealth
+of Eastern circumlocution, the only phrase that took root in his rather
+bewildered mind was that which concerned the chastening of the enemies
+of Islam. The enemies of Islam he conceived, were his own enemies; and
+he further conceived that they stood in great need of chastening, and
+that to take a hand in that chastening would be a singularly grateful
+task. So he considered the proposals made him. He considered, too, that
+the alternative--in the event of his refusing to make the protestations
+of Faith required of him--was that he must return to the oar of a
+galley, of a Muslim galley now. Now that was an occupation of which he
+had had more than his fill, and since he had been washed and restored
+to the normal sensations of a clean human being he found that whatever
+might be within the scope of his courage he could not envisage returning
+to the oar. We have seen the ease with which he had abandoned the
+religion in which he was reared for the Roman faith, and how utterly
+deluded he had found himself. With the same degree of ease did he now
+go over to Islam and with much greater profit. Moreover, he embraced the
+Religion of Mahomet with a measure of fierce conviction that had been
+entirely lacking from his earlier apostasy.
+
+He had arrived at the conclusion whilst aboard the galley of Spain,
+as we have seen, that Christianity as practised in his day was a grim
+mockery of which the world were better rid. It is not to be supposed
+that his convictions that Christianity was at fault went the length of
+making him suppose that Islam was right, or that his conversion to the
+Faith of Mahomet was anything more than superficial. But forced as he
+was to choose between the rower's bench and the poop-deck, the oar and
+the scimitar, he boldly and resolutely made the only choice that in his
+case could lead to liberty and life.
+
+Thus he was received into the ranks of the Faithful whose pavilions wait
+them in Paradise, set in an orchard of never-failing fruit, among
+rivers of milk, of wine, and of clarified honey. He became the Kayia or
+lieutenant to Yusuf on the galley of that corsair's command and seconded
+him in half a score of engagements with an ability and a conspicuity
+that made him swiftly famous throughout the ranks of the Mediterranean
+rovers. Some six months later in a fight off the coast of Sicily with
+one of the galleys of the Religion--as the vessels of the Knights of
+Malta were called--Yusuf was mortally wounded in the very moment of the
+victory. He died an hour later in the arms of Sir Oliver, naming the
+latter his successor in the command of the galley, and enjoining upon
+all implicit obedience to him until they should be returned to Algiers
+and the Basha should make known his further will in the matter.
+
+The Basha's will was to confirm his nephew's dying appointment of a
+successor, and Sir Oliver found himself in full command of a galley.
+From that hour he became Oliver-Reis, but very soon his valour and fury
+earned him the by-name of Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea. His fame
+grew rapidly, and it spread across the tideless sea to the very shores
+of Christendom. Soon he became Asad's lieutenant, the second in command
+of all the Algerine galleys, which meant in fact that he was the
+commander-in-chief, for Asad was growing old and took the sea more and
+more rarely now. Sakr-el-Bahr sallied forth in his name and his stead,
+and such was his courage, his address, and his good fortune that never
+did he go forth to return empty-handed.
+
+It was clear to all that the favour of Allah was upon him, that he had
+been singled out by Allah to be the very glory of Islam. Asad, who had
+ever esteemed him, grew to love him. An intensely devout man, could
+he have done less in the case of one for whom the Pitying the Pitiful
+showed so marked a predilection? It was freely accepted that when the
+destiny of Asad-ed-Din should come to be fulfilled, Sakr-el-Bahr must
+succeed him in the Bashalik of Algiers, and that thus Oliver-Reis would
+follow in the footsteps of Barbarossa, Ochiali, and other Christian
+renegades who had become corsair-princes of Islam.
+
+In spite of certain hostilities which his rapid advancement begot, and
+of which we shall hear more presently, once only did his power stand in
+danger of suffering a check. Coming one morning into the reeking bagnio
+at Algiers, some six months after he had been raised to his captaincy,
+he found there a score of countrymen of his own, and he gave orders that
+their letters should instantly be struck off and their liberty restored
+them.
+
+Called to account by the Basha for this action he took a high-handed
+way, since no other was possible. He swore by the beard of the Prophet
+that if he were to draw the sword of Mahomet and to serve Islam upon the
+seas, he would serve it in his own way, and one of his ways was that his
+own countrymen were to have immunity from the edge of that same sword.
+Islam, he swore, should not be the loser, since for every Englishman he
+restored to liberty he would bring two Spaniards, Frenchmen, Greeks, or
+Italians into bondage.
+
+He prevailed, but only upon condition that since captured slaves were
+the property of the state, if he desired to abstract them from the state
+he must first purchase them for himself. Since they would then be his
+own property he could dispose of them at his good pleasure. Thus did
+the wise and just Asad resolve the difficulty which had arisen, and
+Oliver-Reis bowed wisely to that decision.
+
+Thereafter what English slaves were brought to Algiers he purchased,
+manumitted, and found means to send home again. True, it cost him a
+fine price yearly, but he was fast amassing such wealth as could easily
+support this tax.
+
+As you read Lord Henry Goade's chronicles you might come to the
+conclusion that in the whorl of that new life of his Sir Oliver had
+entirely forgotten the happenings in his Cornish home and the woman he
+had loved, who so readily had believed him guilty of the slaying of her
+brother. You might believe this until you come upon the relation of how
+he found one day among some English seamen brought captive to Algiers
+by Biskaine-el-Borak--who was become his own second in command--a young
+Cornish lad from Helston named Pitt, whose father he had known.
+
+He took this lad home with him to the fine palace which he inhabited
+near the Bab-el-Oueb, treated him as an honoured guest, and sat through
+a whole summer night in talk with him, questioning him upon this person
+and that person, and thus gradually drawing from him all the little
+history of his native place during the two years that were sped since he
+had left it. In this we gather an impression of the wistful longings the
+fierce nostalgia that must have overcome the renegade and his endeavours
+to allay it by his endless questions. The Cornish lad had brought him up
+sharply and agonizingly with that past of his upon which he had closed
+the door when he became a Muslim and a corsair. The only possible
+inference is that in those hours of that summer's night repentance
+stirred in him, and a wild longing to return. Rosamund should reopen for
+him that door which, hard-driven by misfortune, he had slammed. That she
+would do so when once she knew the truth he had no faintest doubt. And
+there was now no reason why he should conceal the truth, why he should
+continue to shield that dastardly half-brother of his, whom he had come
+to hate as fiercely as he had erstwhile loved him.
+
+In secret he composed a long letter giving the history of all that had
+happened to him since his kidnapping, and setting forth the entire truth
+of that and of the deed that had led to it. His chronicler opines that
+it was a letter that must have moved a stone to tears. And, moreover,
+it was not a mere matter of passionate protestations of innocence, or of
+unsupported accusation of his brother. It told her of the existence of
+proofs that must dispel all doubt. It told her of that parchment indited
+by Master Baine and witnessed by the parson, which document was to be
+delivered to her together with the letter. Further, it bade her seek
+confirmation of that document's genuineness, did she doubt it, at the
+hands of Master Baine himself. That done, it besought her to lay the
+whole matter before the Queen, and thus secure him faculty to return to
+England and immunity from any consequences of his subsequent regenade
+act to which his sufferings had driven him. He loaded the young
+Cornishman with gifts, gave him that letter to deliver in person, and
+added instructions that should enable him to find the document he was
+to deliver with it. That precious parchment had been left between the
+leaves of an old book on falconry in the library at Penarrow, where it
+would probably be found still undisturbed since his brother would not
+suspect its presence and was himself no scholar. Pitt was to seek out
+Nicholas at Penarrow and enlist his aid to obtain possession of that
+document, if it still existed.
+
+Then Sakr-el-Bahr found means to conduct Pitt to Genoa, and there put
+him aboard an English vessel.
+
+Three months later he received an answer--a letter from Pitt, which
+reached him by way of Genoa--which was at peace with the Algerines, and
+served then as a channel of communication with Christianity. In this
+letter Pitt informed him that he had done all that Sir Oliver had
+desired him; that he had found the document by the help of Nicholas, and
+that in person he had waited upon Mistress Rosamund Godolphin, who dwelt
+now with Sir John Killigrew at Arwenack, delivering to her the letter
+and the parchment; but that upon learning on whose behalf he came she
+had in his presence flung both unopened upon the fire and dismissed him
+with his tale untold.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr spent the night under the skies in his fragrant orchard,
+and his slaves reported in terror that they had heard sobs and weeping.
+If indeed his heart wept, it was for the last time; thereafter he was
+more inscrutable, more ruthless, cruel and mocking than men had ever
+known him, nor from that day did he ever again concern himself to
+manumit a single English slave. His heart was become a stone.
+
+Thus five years passed, counting from that spring night when he was
+trepanned by Jasper Leigh, and his fame spread, his name became a terror
+upon the seas, and fleets put forth from Malta, from Naples, and from
+Venice to make an end of him and his ruthless piracy. But Allah kept
+watch over him, and Sakr-el-Bahr never delivered battle but he wrested
+victory to the scimitars of Islam.
+
+Then in the spring of that fifth year there came to him another letter
+from the Cornish Pitt, a letter which showed him that gratitude was
+not as dead in the world as he supposed it, for it was purely out of
+gratitude that the lad whom he had delivered from thraldom wrote to
+inform him of certain matters that concerned him. This letter reopened
+that old wound; it did more; it dealt him a fresh one. He learnt from it
+that the writer had been constrained by Sir John Killigrew to give such
+evidence of Sir Oliver's conversion to Islam as had enabled the courts
+to pronounce Sir Oliver as one to be presumed dead at law, granting the
+succession to his half-brother, Master Lionel Tressilian. Pitt professed
+himself deeply mortified at having been forced unwittingly to make Sir
+Oliver so evil a return for the benefits received from him, and added
+that sooner would he have suffered them to hang him than have spoken
+could he have foreseen the consequences of his testimony.
+
+So far Sir Oliver read unmoved by any feeling other than cold contempt.
+But there was more to follow. The letter went on to tell him that
+Mistress Rosamund was newly returned from a two years' sojourn in France
+to become betrothed to his half-brother Lionel, and that they were to
+be wed in June. He was further informed that the marriage had been
+contrived by Sir John Killigrew in his desire to see Rosamund settled
+and under the protection of a husband, since he himself was proposing
+to take the seas and was fitting out a fine ship for a voyage to the
+Indies. The writer added that the marriage was widely approved, and it
+was deemed to be an excellent measure for both houses, since it would
+weld into one the two contiguous estates of Penarrow and Godolphin
+Court.
+
+Oliver-Reis laughed when he had read thus far. The marriage was approved
+not for itself, it would seem, but because by means of it two stretches
+of earth were united into one. It was a marriage of two parks, of two
+estates, of two tracts of arable and forest, and that two human
+beings were concerned in it was apparently no more than an incidental
+circumstance.
+
+Then the irony of it all entered his soul and spread it with bitterness.
+After dismissing him for the supposed murder of her brother, she was
+to take the actual murderer to her arms. And he, that cur, that false
+villain!--out of what depths of hell did he derive the courage to go
+through with this mummery?--had he no heart, no conscience, no sense of
+decency, no fear of God?
+
+He tore the letter into fragments and set about effacing the matter from
+his thoughts. Pitt had meant kindly by him, but had dealt cruelly. In
+his efforts to seek distraction from the torturing images ever in his
+mind he took to the sea with three galleys, and thus some two weeks
+later came face to face with Master Jasper Leigh aboard the Spanish
+carack which he captured under Cape Spartel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. HOMEWARD BOUND
+
+
+In the cabin of the captured Spaniard, Jasper Leigh found himself that
+evening face to face with Sakr-el-Bahr, haled thither by the corsair's
+gigantic Nubians.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr had not yet pronounced his intentions concerning the
+piratical little skipper, and Master Leigh, full conscious that he was
+a villain, feared the worst, and had spent some miserable hours in the
+fore-castle awaiting a doom which he accounted foregone.
+
+“Our positions have changed, Master Leigh, since last we talked in a
+ship's cabin,” was the renegade's inscrutable greeting.
+
+“Indeed,” Master Leigh agreed. “But I hope ye'll remember that on that
+occasion I was your friend.”
+
+“At a price,” Sakr-el-Bahr reminded him. “And at a price you may find me
+your friend to-day.”
+
+The rascally skipper's heart leapt with hope.
+
+“Name it, Sir Oliver,” he answered eagerly. “And so that it ties within
+my wretched power I swear I'll never boggle at it. I've had enough of
+slavery,” he ran on in a plaintive whine. “Five years of it, and four
+of them spent aboard the galleys of Spain, and no day in all of them but
+that I prayed for death. Did you but know what I ha' suffered.”
+
+“Never was suffering more merited, never punishment more fitting,
+never justice more poetic,” said Sakr-el-Bahr in a voice that made the
+skipper's blood run cold. “You would have sold me, a man who did you no
+hurt, indeed a man who once befriended you--you would have sold me into
+slavery for a matter of two hundred pounds....”
+
+“Nay, nay,” cried the other fearfully, “as God's my witness, 'twas never
+part of my intent. Ye'll never ha' forgot the words I spoke to you, the
+offer that I made to carry you back home again.”
+
+“Ay, at a price, 'tis true,” Sakr-el-Bahr repeated. “And it is fortunate
+for you that you are to-day in a position to pay a price that
+should postpone your dirty neck's acquaintance with a rope. I need a
+navigator,” he added in explanation, “and what five years ago you would
+have done for two hundred pounds, you shall do to-day for your life. How
+say you: will you navigate this ship for me?”
+
+“Sir,” cried Jasper Leigh, who could scarce believe that this was all
+that was required of him, “I'll sail it to hell at your bidding.”
+
+“I am not for Spain this voyage,” answered Sakr-el-Bahr. “You shall sail
+me precisely as you would have done five years ago, back to the mouth of
+the Fal, and set me ashore there. Is that agreed?”
+
+“Ay, and gladly,” replied Master Leigh without a second's pause.
+
+“The conditions are that you shall have your life and your liberty,”
+ Sakr-el-Bahr explained. “But do not suppose that arrived in England you
+are to be permitted to depart. You must sail us back again, though once
+you have done that I shall find a way to send you home if you so desire
+it, and perhaps there will be some measure of reward for you if you
+serve me faithfully throughout. Follow the habits of a lifetime by
+playing me false and there's an end to you. You shall have for constant
+bodyguard these two lilies of the desert,” and he pointed to the
+colossal Nubians who stood there invisible almost in the shadow but for
+the flash of teeth and eyeballs. “They shall watch over you, and see
+that no harm befalls you so long as you are honest with me, and they
+shall strangle you at the first sign of treachery. You may go. You have
+the freedom of the ship, but you are not to leave it here or elsewhere
+save at my express command.”
+
+Jasper Leigh stumbled out counting himself fortunate beyond his
+expectations or deserts, and the Nubians followed him and hung behind
+him ever after like some vast twin shadow.
+
+To Sakr-el-Bahr entered now Biskaine with a report of the prize
+captured. Beyond the prisoners, however, and the actual vessel, which
+had suffered nothing in the fight, the cargo was of no account. Outward
+bound as she was it was not to be expected that any treasures would be
+discovered in her hold. They found great store of armaments and powder
+and a little money; but naught else that was worthy of the corsairs'
+attention.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr briefly issued his surprising orders.
+
+“Thou'lt set the captives aboard one of the galleys, Biskaine, and
+thyself convey them to Algiers, there to be sold. All else thou'lt leave
+aboard here, and two hundred picked corsairs to go a voyage with me
+overseas, men that will act as mariners and fighters.”
+
+“Art thou, then, not returning to Algiers, O Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+“Not yet. I am for a longer voyage. Convey my service to Asad-ed-Din,
+whom Allah guard and cherish, and tell him to look for me in some six
+weeks time.”
+
+This sudden resolve of Oliver-Reis created no little excitement aboard
+the galleys. The corsairs knew nothing of navigation upon the open seas,
+none of them had ever been beyond the Mediterranean, few of them indeed
+had ever voyaged as far west as Cape Spartel, and it is doubtful if
+they would have followed any other leader into the perils of the open
+Atlantic. But Sakr-el-Bahr, the child of Fortune, the protected of
+Allah, had never yet led them to aught but victory, and he had but to
+call them to heel and they would troop after him whithersoever he should
+think well to go. So now there was little trouble in finding the two
+hundred Muslimeen he desired for his fighting crew. Rather was the
+difficulty to keep the number of those eager for the adventure within
+the bounds he had indicated.
+
+You are not to suppose that in all this Sir Oliver was acting upon any
+preconcerted plan. Whilst he had lain on the heights watching that fine
+ship beating up against the wind it had come to him that with such a
+vessel under him it were a fond adventure to sail to England, to descend
+upon that Cornish coast abruptly as a thunderbolt, and present the
+reckoning to his craven dastard of a brother. He had toyed with the
+fancy, dreamily almost as men build their castles in Spain. Then in
+the heat of conflict it had entirely escaped his mind, to return in the
+shape of a resolve when he came to find himself face to face with Jasper
+Leigh.
+
+The skipper and the ship conjointly provided him with all the means to
+realize that dream he had dreamt. There was none to oppose his will,
+no reason not to indulge his cruel fancy. Perhaps, too, he might see
+Rosamund again, might compel her to hear the truth from him. And there
+was Sir John Killigrew. He had never been able to determine whether Sir
+John had been his friend or his foe in the past; but since it was Sir
+John who had been instrumental in setting up Lionel in Sir Oliver's
+place--by inducing the courts to presume Sir Oliver's death on the score
+that being a renegade he must be accounted dead at law--and since it was
+Sir John who was contriving this wedding between Lionel and Rosamund,
+why, Sir John, too, should be paid a visit and should be informed of the
+precise nature of the thing he did.
+
+With the forces at his disposal in those days of his absolute lordship
+of life and death along the African littoral, to conceive was with
+Oliver-Reis no more than the prelude to execution. The habit of swift
+realization of his every wish had grown with him, and that habit guided
+now his course.
+
+He made his preparations quickly, and on the morrow the Spanish
+carack--lately labelled Nuestra Senora de las Llagas, but with that
+label carefully effaced from her quarter--trimmed her sails and stood
+out for the open Atlantic, navigated by Captain Jasper Leigh. The three
+galleys under the command of Biskaine-el-Borak crept slowly eastward and
+homeward to Algiers, hugging the coast, as was the corsair habit. The
+wind favoured Oliver so well that within ten days of rounding Cape St.
+Vincent he had his first glimpse of the Lizard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE RAID
+
+
+In the estuary of the River Fal a splendid ship, on the building of which
+the most cunning engineers had been employed and no money spared, rode
+proudly at anchor just off Smithick under the very shadow of the heights
+crowned by the fine house of Arwenack. She was fitting out for a distant
+voyage and for days the work of bringing stores and munitions aboard had
+been in progress, so that there was an unwonted bustle about the little
+forge and the huddle of cottages that went to make up the fishing
+village, as if in earnest of the great traffic that in future days was
+to be seen about that spot. For Sir John Killigrew seemed at last to be
+on the eve of prevailing and of laying there the foundations of the fine
+port of his dreams.
+
+To this state of things his friendship with Master Lionel Tressilian
+had contributed not a little. The opposition made to his project by Sir
+Oliver--and supported, largely at Sir Oliver's suggestion, by Truro and
+Helston--had been entirely withdrawn by Lionel; more, indeed Lionel had
+actually gone so far in the opposite direction as to support Sir John in
+his representations to Parliament and the Queen. It followed naturally
+enough that just as Sir Oliver's opposition of that cherished project
+had been the seed of the hostility between Arwenack and Penarrow, so
+Lionel's support of it became the root of the staunch friendship that
+sprang up between himself and Sir John.
+
+What Lionel lacked of his brother's keen intelligence he made up for in
+cunning. He realized that although at some future time it was possible
+that Helston and Truro and the Tressilian property there might come
+to suffer as a consequence of the development of a port so much more
+advantageously situated, yet that could not be in his own lifetime;
+and meanwhile he must earn in return Sir John's support for his suit of
+Rosamund Godolphin and thus find the Godolphin estates merged with his
+own. This certain immediate gain was to Master Lionel well worth the
+other future possible loss.
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that Lionel's courtship had
+thenceforward run a smooth and easy course. The mistress of Godolphin
+Court showed him no favour and it was mainly that she might abstract
+herself from the importunities of his suit that she had sought and
+obtained Sir John Killigrew's permission to accompany the latter's
+sister to France when she went there with her husband, who was appointed
+English ambassador to the Louvre. Sir John's authority as her guardian
+had come into force with the decease of her brother.
+
+Master Lionel moped awhile in her absence; but cheered by Sir John's
+assurance that in the end he should prevail, he quitted Cornwall in his
+turn and went forth to see the world. He spent some time in London about
+the Court, where, however, he seems to have prospered little, and then
+he crossed to France to pay his devoirs to the lady of his longings.
+
+His constancy, the humility with which he made his suit, the obvious
+intensity of his devotion, began at last to wear away that gentlewoman's
+opposition, as dripping water wears away a stone. Yet she could not
+bring herself to forget that he was Sir Oliver's brother--the brother of
+the man she had loved, and the brother of the man who had killed her
+own brother. Between them stood, then, two things; the ghost of that old
+love of hers and the blood of Peter Godolphin.
+
+Of this she reminded Sir John on her return to Cornwall after an absence
+of some two years, urging these matters as reasons why an alliance
+between herself and Lionel Tressilian must be impossible.
+
+Sir John did not at all agree with her.
+
+“My dear,” he said, “there is your future to be thought of. You are now
+of full age and mistress of your own actions. Yet it is not well for a
+woman and a gentlewoman to dwell alone. As long as I live, or as long
+as I remain in England, all will be well. You may continue indefinitely
+your residence here at Arwenack, and you have been wise, I think, in
+quitting the loneliness of Godolphin Court. Yet consider that that
+loneliness may be yours again when I am not here.”
+
+“I should prefer that loneliness to the company you would thrust upon
+me,” she answered him.
+
+“Ungracious speech!” he protested. “Is this your gratitude for that
+lad's burning devotion, for his patience, his gentleness, and all the
+rest!”
+
+“He is Oliver Tressilian's brother,” she replied.
+
+“And has he not suffered enough for that already? Is there to be no end
+to the price that he must pay for his brother's sins? Besides,
+consider that when all is said they are not even brothers. They are but
+half-brothers.”
+
+“Yet too closely kin,” she said. “If you must have me wed I beg you'll
+find me another husband.”
+
+To this he would answer that expediently considered no husband could be
+better than the one he had chosen her. He pointed out the contiguity of
+their two estates, and how fine and advantageous a thing it would be to
+merge these two into one.
+
+He was persistent, and his persistence was increased when he came to
+conceive his notion to take the seas again. His conscience would not
+permit him to heave anchor until he had bestowed her safely in wedlock.
+Lionel too was persistent, in a quiet, almost self-effacing way that
+never set a strain upon her patience, and was therefore the more
+difficult to combat.
+
+In the end she gave way under the pressure of these men's wills, and
+did so with the best grace she could summon, resolved to drive from her
+heart and mind the one real obstacle of which, for very shame, she had
+made no mention to Sir John. The fact is that in spite of all, her love
+for Sir Oliver was not dead. It was stricken down, it is true, until she
+herself failed to recognize it for what it really was. But she caught
+herself thinking of him frequently and wistfully; she found herself
+comparing him with his brother; and for all that she had bidden Sir John
+find her some other husband than Lionel, she knew full well that any
+suitor brought before her must be submitted to that same comparison to
+his inevitable undoing. All this she accounted evil in herself. It was
+in vain that she lashed her mind with the reminder that Sir Oliver was
+Peter's murderer. As time went on she found herself actually making
+excuses for her sometime lover; she would admit that Peter had driven
+him to the step, that for her sake Sir Oliver had suffered insult upon
+insult from Peter, until, being but human, the cup of his endurance had
+overflowed in the end, and weary of submitting to the other's blows he
+had risen up in his anger and smitten in his turn.
+
+She would scorn herself for such thoughts as these, yet she could not
+dismiss them. In act she could be strong--as witness how she had dealt
+with that letter which Oliver sent her out of Barbary by the hand of
+Pitt--but her thoughts she could not govern, and her thoughts were full
+often traitors to her will. There were longings in her heart for Oliver
+which she could not stifle, and there was ever the hope that he would
+one day return, although she realized that from such a return she might
+look for nothing.
+
+When Sir John finally slew the hope of that return he did a wiser thing
+than he conceived. Never since Oliver's disappearance had they heard any
+news of him until Pitt came to Arwenack with that letter and his story.
+They had heard, as had all the world, of the corsair Sakr-el-Bahr, but
+they had been far indeed from connecting him with Oliver Tressilian. Now
+that his identity was established by Pitt's testimony, it was an easy
+matter to induce the courts to account him dead and to give Lionel the
+coveted inheritance.
+
+This to Rosamund was a small matter. But a great one was that Sir Oliver
+was dead at law, and must be so in fact, should he ever again set foot
+in England. It extinguished finally that curiously hopeless and almost
+subconscious hope of hers that one day he would return. Thus it helped
+her perhaps to face and accept the future which Sir John was resolved to
+thrust upon her.
+
+Her betrothal was made public, and she proved if not an ardently loving,
+at least a docile and gentle mistress to Lionel. He was content. He
+could ask no more in reason at the moment, and he was buoyed up by every
+lover's confidence that given opportunity and time he could find the way
+to awaken a response. And it must be confessed that already during their
+betrothal he gave some proof of his reason for his confidence. She had
+been lonely, and he dispelled her loneliness by his complete surrender
+of himself to her; his restraint and his cautious, almost insidious
+creeping along a path which a more clumsy fellow would have taken at
+a dash made companionship possible between them and very sweet to her.
+Upon this foundation her affection began gradually to rise, and seeing
+them together and such excellent friends, Sir John congratulated himself
+upon his wisdom and went about the fitting out of that fine ship of
+his--the Silver Heron--for the coming voyage.
+
+Thus they came within a week of the wedding, and Sir John all impatience
+now. The marriage bells were to be his signal for departure; as they
+fell silent the Silver Heron should spread her wings.
+
+It was the evening of the first of June; the peal of the curfew had
+faded on the air and lights were being set in the great dining-room at
+Arwenack where the company was to sup. It was a small party. Just Sir
+John and Rosamund and Lionel, who had lingered on that day, and Lord
+Henry Goade--our chronicler--the Queen's Lieutenant of Cornwall,
+together with his lady. They were visiting Sir John and they were to
+remain yet a week his guests at Arwenack that they might grace the
+coming nuptials.
+
+Above in the house there was great stir of preparation for the departure
+of Sir John and his ward, the latter into wedlock, the former into
+unknown seas. In the turret chamber a dozen sempstresses were at work
+upon the bridal outfit under the directions of that Sally Pentreath who
+had been no less assiduous in the preparation of swaddling clothes and
+the like on the eve of Rosamund's appearance in this world.
+
+At the very hour at which Sir John was leading his company to table Sir
+Oliver Tressilian was setting foot ashore not a mile away.
+
+He had deemed it wiser not to round Pendennis Point. So in the bay above
+Swanpool on the western side of that promontory he had dropped anchor
+as the evening shadows were deepening. He had launched the ship's two
+boats, and in these he had conveyed some thirty of his men ashore. Twice
+had the boats returned, until a hundred of his corsairs stood ranged
+along that foreign beach. The other hundred he left on guard aboard. He
+took so great a force upon an expedition for which a quarter of the
+men would have sufficed so as to ensure by overwhelming numbers the
+avoidance of all unnecessary violence.
+
+Absolutely unobserved he led them up the slope towards Arwenack through
+the darkness that had now closed in. To tread his native soil once
+more went near to drawing tears from him. How familiar was the path he
+followed with such confidence in the night; how well known each bush and
+stone by which he went with his silent multitude hard upon his heels.
+Who could have foretold him such a return as this.
+
+Who could have dreamt when he roamed amain in his youth here with dogs
+and fowling-piece that he would creep one night over these dunes a
+renegade Muslim leading a horde of infidels to storm the house of Sir
+John Killigrew of Arwenack?
+
+Such thoughts begot a weakness in him; but he made a quick recovery
+when his mind swung to all that he had so unjustly suffered, when he
+considered all that he came thus to avenge.
+
+First to Arwenack to Sir John and Rosamund to compel them to hear the
+truth at least, and then away to Penarrow for Master Lionel and the
+reckoning. Such was the project that warmed him, conquered his weakness
+and spurred him, relentless, onward and upward to the heights and the
+fortified house that dominated them.
+
+He found the massive iron-studded gates locked, as was to have been
+expected at that hour. He knocked, and presently the postern gaped, and
+a lantern was advanced. Instantly that lantern was dashed aside and Sir
+Oliver had leapt over the sill into the courtyard. With a hand gripping
+the porter's throat to choke all utterance, Sir Oliver heaved him out to
+his men, who swiftly gagged him.
+
+That done they poured silently through that black gap of the postern
+into the spacious gateway. On he led them, at a run almost, towards the
+tall mullioned windows whence a flood of golden light seemed invitingly
+to beckon them.
+
+With the servants who met them in the hall they dealt in the same swift
+silent fashion as they had dealt with the gatekeeper, and such was the
+speed and caution of their movements that Sir John and his company had
+no suspicion of their presence until the door of the dining-room crashed
+open before their eyes.
+
+The sight which they beheld was one that for some moments left them
+mazed and bewildered. Lord Henry tells us how at first he imagined that
+here was some mummery, some surprise prepared for the bridal couple by
+Sir John's tenants or the folk of Smithick and Penycumwick, and he adds
+that he was encouraged in this belief by the circumstance that not a
+single weapon gleamed in all that horde of outlandish intruders.
+
+Although they came full armed against any eventualities, yet by their
+leader's orders not a blade was bared. What was to do was to be done
+with their naked hands alone and without bloodshed. Such were the orders
+of Sakr-el-Bahr, and Sakr-el-Bahr's were not orders to be disregarded.
+
+Himself he stood forward at the head of that legion of brown-skinned
+men arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow, their heads swathed in
+turbans of every hue. He considered the company in grim silence, and the
+company in amazement considered this turbaned giant with the masterful
+face that was tanned to the colour of mahogany, the black forked beard,
+and those singularly light eyes glittering like steel under his black
+brows.
+
+Thus a little while in silence, then with a sudden gasp Lionel
+Tressilian sank back in his tall chair as if bereft of strength.
+
+The agate eyes flashed upon him smiling, cruelly.
+
+“I see that you, at least, I recognize me,” said Sakr-el-Bahr in his
+deep voice. “I was assured I could depend upon the eyes of brotherly
+love to pierce the change that time and stress have wrought in me.”
+
+Sir John was on his feet, his lean swarthy face flushing darkly, an oath
+on his lips. Rosamund sat on as if frozen with horror, considering Sir
+Oliver with dilating eyes, whilst her hands clawed the table before her.
+They too recognized him now, and realized that here was no mummery. That
+something sinister was intended Sir John could not for a moment doubt.
+But of what that something might be he could form no notion. It was the
+first time that Barbary rovers were seen in England. That famous raid
+of theirs upon Baltimore in Ireland did not take place until some thirty
+years after this date.
+
+“Sir Oliver Tressilian!” Killigrew gasped, and “Sir Oliver Tressilian!”
+ echoed Lord Henry Goade, to add “By God!”
+
+“Not Sir Oliver Tressilian, came the answer, but Sakr-el-Bahr, the
+scourge of the sea, the terror of Christendom, the desperate corsair
+your lies, cupidity, and false-heartedness have fashioned out of a
+sometime Cornish gentleman.” He embraced them all in his denunciatory
+gesture. “Behold me here with my sea-hawks to present a reckoning long
+overdue.”
+
+Writing now of what his own eyes beheld, Lord Henry tells us how Sir
+John leapt to snatch a weapon from the armoured walls; how Sakr-el-Bahr
+barked out a single word in Arabic, and how at that word a half-dozen
+of his supple blackamoors sprang upon the knight like greyhounds upon a
+hare and bore him writhing to the ground.
+
+Lady Henry screamed; her husband does not appear to have done anything,
+or else modesty keeps him silent on the score of it. Rosamund, white
+to the lips, continued to look on, whilst Lionel, overcome, covered his
+face with his hands in sheer horror. One and all of them expected to see
+some ghastly deed of blood performed there, coldly and callously as the
+wringing of a capon's neck. But no such thing took place. The corsairs
+merely turned Sir John upon his face, dragged his wrists behind him to
+make them fast, and having performed that duty with a speedy, silent
+dexterity they abandoned him.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr watched their performance with those grimly smiling eyes of
+his. When it was done he spoke again and pointed to Lionel, who leapt up
+in sudden terror, with a cry that was entirely inarticulate. Lithe brown
+arms encircled him like a legion of snakes. Powerless, he was lifted
+in the air and borne swiftly away. For an instant he found himself held
+face to face with his turbaned brother. Into that pallid terror-stricken
+human mask the renegade's eyes stabbed like two daggers. Then
+deliberately and after the fashion of the Muslim he was become he spat
+upon it.
+
+“Away!” he growled, and through the press of corsairs that thronged the
+hall behind him a lane was swiftly opened and Lionel was swallowed up,
+lost to the view of those within the room.
+
+“What murderous deed do you intend?” cried Sir John indomitably. He had
+risen and stood grimly dignified in his bonds.
+
+“Will you murder your own brother as you murdered mine?” demanded
+Rosamund, speaking now for the first time, and rising as she spoke, a
+faint flush coming to overspread her pallor. She saw him wince; she saw
+the mocking lustful anger perish in his face, leaving it vacant for a
+moment. Then it became grim again with a fresh resolve. Her words had
+altered all the current of his intentions. They fixed in him a dull,
+fierce rage. They silenced the explanations which he was come to offer,
+and which he scorned to offer here after that taunt.
+
+“It seems you love that--whelp, that thing that was my brother,” he
+said, sneering. “I wonder will you love him still when you come to be
+better acquainted with him? Though, faith, naught would surprise me in
+a woman and her love. Yet I am curious to see--curious to see.” He
+laughed. “I have a mind to gratify myself. I will not separate you--not
+just yet.”
+
+He advanced upon her. “Come thou with me, lady,” he commanded, and held
+out his hand.
+
+And now Lord Henry seems to have been stirred to futile action.
+
+“At that,” he writes, “I thrust myself between to shield her. 'Thou
+dog,' I cried, 'thou shalt be made to suffer!'
+
+“'Suffer?' quoth he, and mocked me with his deep laugh. 'I have suffered
+already. 'Tis for that reason I am here.'
+
+“'And thou shalt suffer again, thou pirate out of hell!' I warned him.
+'Thou shalt suffer for this outrage as God's my life!'
+
+“'Shall I so?' quoth he, very calm and sinister. 'And at whose hands, I
+pray you?'
+
+“'At mine, sir, I roared, being by now stirred to a great fury.
+
+“'At thine?' he sneered. 'Thou'lt hunt the hawk of the sea? Thou? Thou
+plump partridge! Away! Hinder me not!”'
+
+And he adds that again Sir Oliver spoke that short Arabic command,
+whereupon a dozen blackamoors whirled the Queen's Lieutenant aside and
+bound him to a chair.
+
+Face to face stood now Sir Oliver with Rosamund--face to face after
+five long years, and he realized that in every moment of that time the
+certainty had never departed from him of some such future meeting.
+
+“Come, lady,” he bade her sternly.
+
+A moment she looked at him with hate and loathing in the clear depths of
+her deep blue eyes. Then swiftly as lightning she snatched a knife from
+the board and drove it at his heart. But his hand moved as swiftly
+to seize her wrist, and the knife clattered to the ground, its errand
+unfulfilled.
+
+A shuddering sob escaped her then to express at once her horror of her
+own attempt and of the man who held her. That horror mounting until it
+overpowered her, she sank suddenly against him in a swoon.
+
+Instinctively his arms went round her, and a moment he held her thus,
+recalling the last occasion on which she had lain against his breast,
+on an evening five years and more ago under the grey wall of Godolphin
+Court above the river. What prophet could have told him that when next
+he so held her the conditions would be these? It was all grotesque and
+incredible, like the fantastic dream of some sick mind. But it was all
+true, and she was in his arms again.
+
+He shifted his grip to her waist, heaved her to his mighty shoulder,
+as though she were a sack of grain, and swung about, his business at
+Arwenack accomplished--indeed, more of it accomplished than had been his
+intent, and also something less.
+
+“Away, away!” he cried to his rovers, and away they sped as fleetly
+and silently as they had come, no man raising now so much as a voice to
+hinder them.
+
+Through the hall and across the courtyard flowed that human tide; out
+into the open and along the crest of the hill it surged, then away down
+the slope towards the beach where their boats awaited them. Sakr-el-Bahr
+ran as lightly as though the swooning woman he bore were no more than a
+cloak he had flung across his shoulder. Ahead of him went a half-dozen
+of his fellows carrying his gagged and pinioned brother.
+
+Once only before they dipped from the heights of Arwenack did Oliver
+check. He paused to look across the dark shimmering water to the woods
+that screened the house of Penarrow from his view. It had been part
+of his purpose to visit it, as we know. But the necessity had now been
+removed, and he was conscious of a pang of disappointment, of a hunger
+to look again upon his home. But to shift the current of his thoughts
+just then came two of his officers--Othmani and Ali, who had been
+muttering one with the other. As they overtook him, Othmani set now
+a hand upon his arm, and pointed down towards the twinkling lights of
+Smithick and Penycumwick.
+
+“My lord,” he cried, “there will be lads and maidens there should fetch
+fat prices in the sôk-el-Abeed.”
+
+“No doubt,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, scarce heeding him, heeding indeed little
+in this world but his longings to look upon Penarrow.
+
+“Why, then, my lord, shall I take fifty True-Believers and make a raid
+upon them? It were an easy task, all unsuspicious as they must be of our
+presence.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr came out of his musings. “Othmani,” said he, “art a fool,
+the very father of fools, else wouldst thou have come to know by now
+that those who once were of my own race, those of the land from which
+I am sprung, are sacred to me. Here we take no slave but these we have.
+On, then, in the name of Allah!”
+
+But Othmani was not yet silenced. “And is our perilous voyage across
+these unknown seas into this far heathen land to be rewarded by no more
+than just these two captives? Is that a raid worthy of Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+“Leave Sakr-el-Bahr to judge,” was the curt answer.
+
+“But reflect, my lord: there is another who will judge. How shall our
+Basha, the glorious Asad-ed-Din, welcome thy return with such poor
+spoils as these? What questions will he set thee, and what account
+shalt thou render him for having imperilled the lives of all these
+True-Believers upon the seas for so little profit?”
+
+“He shall ask me what he pleases, and I shall answer what I please and
+as Allah prompts me. On, I say!”
+
+And on they went, Sakr-el-Bahr conscious now of little but the warmth
+of that body upon his shoulder, and knowing not, so tumultuous were his
+emotions, whether it fired him to love or hate.
+
+They gained the beach; they reached the ship whose very presence had
+continued unsuspected. The breeze was fresh and they stood away at once.
+By sunrise there was no more sign of them than there had been at sunset,
+there was no more clue to the way they had taken than to the way they
+had come. It was as if they had dropped from the skies in the night upon
+that Cornish coast, and but for the mark of their swift, silent passage,
+but for the absence of Rosamund and Lionel Tressilian, the thing must
+have been accounted no more than a dream of those few who had witnessed
+it.
+
+Aboard the carack, Sakr-el-Bahr bestowed Rosamund in the cabin over
+the quarter, taking the precaution to lock the door that led to the
+stern-gallery. Lionel he ordered to be dropped into a dark hole under
+the hatchway, there to lie and meditate upon the retribution that had
+overtaken him until such time as his brother should have determined
+upon his fate--for this was a matter upon which the renegade was still
+undecided.
+
+Himself he lay under the stars that night and thought of many things.
+One of these things, which plays some part in the story, though it is
+probable that it played but a slight one in his thoughts, was begotten
+of the words Othmani had used. What, indeed, would be Asad's welcome of
+him on his return if he sailed into Algiers with nothing more to show
+for that long voyage and the imperilling of the lives of two hundred
+True-Believers than just those two captives whom he intended, moreover,
+to retain for himself? What capital would not be made out of that
+circumstance by his enemies in Algiers and by Asad's Sicilian wife who
+hated him with all the bitterness of a hatred that had its roots in the
+fertile soil of jealousy?
+
+This may have spurred him in the cool dawn to a very daring and
+desperate enterprise which Destiny sent his way in the shape of a
+tall-masted Dutchman homeward bound. He gave chase, for all that he was
+full conscious that the battle he invited was one of which his corsairs
+had no experience, and one upon which they must have hesitated to
+venture with another leader than himself. But the star of Sakr-el-Bahr
+was a star that never led to aught but victory, and their belief in
+him, the very javelin of Allah, overcame any doubts that may have
+been begotten of finding themselves upon an unfamiliar craft and on a
+rolling, unfamiliar sea.
+
+This fight is given in great detail by my Lord Henry from the
+particulars afforded him by Jasper Leigh. But it differs in no great
+particular from other sea-fights, and it is none of my purpose to
+surfeit you with such recitals. Enough to say that it was stern and
+fierce, entailing great loss to both combatants; that cannon played
+little part in it, for knowing the quality of his men Sakr-el-Bahr made
+haste to run in and grapple. He prevailed of course as he must ever
+pre-vail by the very force of his personality and the might of his
+example. He was the first to leap aboard the Dutchman, clad in mail and
+whirling his great scimitar, and his men poured after him shouting his
+name and that of Allah in a breath.
+
+Such was ever his fury in an engagement that it infected and inspired
+his followers. It did so now, and the shrewd Dutchmen came to perceive
+that this heathen horde was as a body to which he supplied the brain
+and soul. They attacked him fiercely in groups, intent at all costs upon
+cutting him down, convinced almost by instinct that were he felled the
+victory would easily be theirs. And in the end they succeeded. A Dutch
+pike broke some links of his mail and dealt him a flesh wound which went
+unheeded by him in his fury; a Dutch rapier found the breach thus made
+in his de-fences, and went through it to stretch him bleeding upon
+the deck. Yet he staggered up, knowing as full as did they that if he
+succumbed then all was lost. Armed now with a short axe which he had
+found under his hand when he went down, he hacked a way to the bulwarks,
+set his back against the timbers, and hoarse of voice, ghastly of face,
+spattered with the blood of his wound he urged on his men until the
+victory was theirs--and this was fortunately soon. And then, as if he
+had been sustained by no more than the very force of his will, he sank
+down in a heap among the dead and wounded huddled against the vessel's
+bulwarks.
+
+Grief-stricken his corsairs bore him back aboard the carack. Were he to
+die then was their victory a barren one indeed. They laid him on a couch
+prepared for him amidships on the main deck, where the vessel's
+pitching was least discomfiting. A Moorish surgeon came to tend him, and
+pronounced his hurt a grievous one, but not so grievous as to close the
+gates of hope.
+
+This pronouncement gave the corsairs all the assurance they required. It
+could not be that the Gardener could already pluck so fragrant a fruit
+from Allah's garden. The Pitiful must spare Sakr-el-Bahr to continue the
+glory of Islam.
+
+Yet they were come to the straits of Gibraltar before his fever abated
+and he recovered complete consciousness, to learn of the final issue
+of that hazardous fight into which he had led those children of the
+Prophet.
+
+The Dutchman, Othmani informed him, was following in their wake, with
+Ali and some others aboard her, steering ever in the wake of the carack
+which continued to be navigated by the Nasrani dog, Jasper Leigh. When
+Sakr-el-Bahr learnt the value of the capture, when he was informed that
+in addition to a hundred able-bodied men under the hatches, to be sold
+as slaves in the sôk-el-Abeed, there was a cargo of gold and silver,
+pearls, amber, spices, and ivory, and such lesser matters as gorgeous
+silken fabrics, rich beyond anything that had ever been seen upon the
+seas at any one time, he felt that the blood he had shed had not been
+wasted.
+
+Let him sail safely into Algiers with these two ships both captured
+in the name of Allah and his Prophet, one of them an argosy so richly
+fraught, a floating treasure-house, and he need have little fear of
+what his enemies and the crafty evil Sicilian woman might have wrought
+against him in his absence.
+
+Then he made inquiry touching his two English captives, to be informed
+that Othmani had taken charge of them, and that he had continued the
+treatment meted out to them by Sakr-el-Bahr himself when first they were
+brought aboard.
+
+He was satisfied, and fell into a gentle healing sleep, whilst, on the
+decks above, his followers rendered thanks to Allah the Pitying the
+Pitiful, the Master of the Day of Judgment, who Alone is All-Wise,
+All-Knowing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE LION OF THE FAITH
+
+
+Asad-ed-Din, the Lion of the Faith, Basha of Algiers, walked in the
+evening cool in the orchard of the Kasbah upon the heights above the
+city, and at his side, stepping daintily, came Fenzileh, his wife, the
+first lady of his hareem, whom eighteen years ago he had carried off in
+his mighty arms from that little whitewashed village above the Straits
+of Messina which his followers had raided.
+
+She had been a lissom maid of sixteen in those far-off days, the child
+of humble peasant-folk, and she had gone uncomplaining to the arms of
+her swarthy ravisher. To-day, at thirty-four, she was still beautiful,
+more beautiful indeed than when first she had fired the passion of
+Asad-Reis--as he then was, one of the captains of the famous Ali-Basha.
+There were streaks of red in her heavy black tresses, her skin was of
+a soft pearliness that seemed translucent, her eyes were large, of a
+golden-brown, agleam with sombre fires, her lips were full and sensuous.
+She was tall and of a shape that in Europe would have been accounted
+perfect, which is to say that she was a thought too slender for Oriental
+taste; she moved along beside her lord with a sinuous, languorous grace,
+gently stirring her fan of ostrich plumes. She was unveiled; indeed it
+was her immodest habit to go naked of face more often than was seemly,
+which is but the least of the many undesirable infidel ways which had
+survived her induction into the Faith of Islam--a necessary step before
+Asad, who was devout to the point of bigotry, would consent to make her
+his wife. He had found her such a wife as it is certain he could never
+have procured at home; a woman who, not content to be his toy, the
+plaything of his idle hour, insinuated herself into affairs, demanded
+and obtained his confidences, and exerted over him much the same
+influence as the wife of a European prince might exert over her consort.
+In the years during which he had lain under the spell of her ripening
+beauty he had accepted the situation willingly enough; later, when he
+would have curtailed her interferences, it was too late; she had taken
+a firm grip of the reins, and Asad was in no better case than many a
+European husband--an anomalous and outrageous condition this for a Basha
+of the Prophet's House. It was also a dangerous one for Fenzileh; for
+should the burden of her at any time become too heavy for her lord there
+was a short and easy way by which he could be rid of it. Do not suppose
+her so foolish as not to have realized this--she realized it fully; but
+her Sicilian spirit was daring to the point of recklessness; her very
+dauntlessness which had enabled her to seize a control so unprecedented
+in a Muslim wife urged her to maintain it in the face of all risks.
+
+Dauntless was she now, as she paced there in the cool of the orchard,
+under the pink and white petals of the apricots, the flaming scarlet of
+pomegranate blossoms, and through orange-groves where the golden fruit
+glowed and amid foliage of sombre green. She was at her eternal work of
+poisoning the mind of her lord against Sakr-el-Bahr, and in her maternal
+jealousy she braved the dangers of such an undertaking, fully aware of
+how dear to the heart of Asad-ed-Din was that absent renegade corsair.
+It was this very affection of the Basha's for his lieutenant that was
+the fomenter of her own hate of Sakr-el-Bahr, for it was an affection
+that transcended Asad's love for his own son and hers, and it led to
+the common rumour that for Sakr-el-Bahr was reserved the high destiny of
+succeeding Asad in the Bashalik.
+
+“I tell thee thou'rt abused by him, O source of my life.”
+
+“I hear thee,” answered Asad sourly. “And were thine own hearing less
+infirm, woman, thou wouldst have heard me answer thee that thy words
+weigh for naught with me against his deeds. Words may be but a mask upon
+our thoughts; deeds are ever the expression of them. Bear thou that in
+mind, O Fenzileh.”
+
+“Do I not bear in mind thine every word, O fount of wisdom?” she
+protested, and left him, as she often did, in doubt whether she fawned
+or sneered. “And it is his deeds I would have speak for him, not indeed
+my poor words and still less his own.”
+
+“Then, by the head of Allah, let those same deeds speak, and be thou
+silent.”
+
+The harsh tone of his reproof and the scowl upon his haughty face, gave
+her pause for a moment. He turned about.
+
+“Come!” he said. “Soon it will be the hour of prayer.” And he paced back
+towards the yellow huddle of walls of the Kasbah that overtopped the
+green of that fragrant place.
+
+He was a tall, gaunt man, stooping slightly at the shoulders under
+the burden of his years; but his eagle face was masterful, and
+some lingering embers of his youth still glowed in his dark eyes.
+Thoughtfully, with a jewelled hand, he stroked his long white beard;
+with the other he leaned upon her soft plump arm, more from habit than
+for support, for he was full vigorous still.
+
+High in the blue overhead a lark burst suddenly into song, and from
+the depths of the orchard came a gentle murmur of doves as if returning
+thanks for the lessening of the great heat now that the sun was sinking
+rapidly towards the world's edge and the shadows were lengthening.
+
+Came Fenzileh's voice again, more musical than either, yet laden with
+words of evil, poison wrapped in honey.
+
+“O my dear lord, thou'rt angered with me now. Woe me! that never may I
+counsel thee for thine own glory as my heart prompts me, but I must earn
+thy coldness.”
+
+“Abuse not him I love,” said the Basha shortly. “I have told thee so full
+oft already.”
+
+She nestled closer to him, and her voice grew softer, more akin to the
+amorous cooing of the doves. “And do I not love thee, O master of my
+soul? Is there in all the world a heart more faithful to thee than
+mine? Is not thy life my life? Have not my days been all devoted to the
+perfecting of thine happiness? And wilt thou then frown upon me if I
+fear for thee at the hands of an intruder of yesterday?”
+
+“Fear for me?” he echoed, and laughed jeeringly. “What shouldst thou
+fear for me from Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+“What all believers must ever fear from one who is no true Muslim, from
+one who makes a mock and travesty of the True Faith that he may gain
+advancement.”
+
+The Basha checked in his stride, and turned upon her angrily.
+
+“May thy tongue rot, thou mother of lies!”
+
+“I am as the dust beneath thy feet, O my sweet lord, yet am I not what
+thine heedless anger calls me.”
+
+“Heedless?” quoth he. “Not heedless but righteous to hear one whom the
+Prophet guards, who is the very javelin of Islam against the breast of
+the unbeliever, who carries the scourge of Allah against the infidel
+Frankish pigs, so maligned by thee! No more, I say! Lest I bid thee make
+good thy words, and pay the liar's price if thou shouldst fail.”
+
+“And should I fear the test?” she countered, nothing daunted. “I tell
+thee, O father of Marzak, that I should hail it gladly. Why, hear me
+now. Thou settest store by deeds, not words. Tell me, then, is it the
+deed of a True-Believer to waste substance upon infidel slaves, to
+purchase them that he may set them free?”
+
+Asad moved on in silence. That erstwhile habit of Sakr-el-Bahr's was one
+not easy to condone. It had occasioned him his moments of uneasiness,
+and more than once had he taxed his lieutenant with the practice ever to
+receive the same answer, the answer which he now made to Fenzileh. “For
+every slave that he so manumitted, he brought a dozen into bondage.”
+
+“Perforce, else would he be called to account. 'Twas so much dust
+he flung into the face of true Muslimeen. Those manumissions prove a
+lingering fondness for the infidel country whence he springs. Is there
+room for that in the heart of a true member of the Prophet's immortal
+House? Hast ever known me languish for the Sicilian shore from which in
+thy might thou wrested me, or have I ever besought of thee the life of
+a single Sicilian infidel in all these years that I have lived to serve
+thee? Such longings are betrayed, I say, by such a practice, and such
+longings could have no place in one who had uprooted infidelity from his
+heart. And now this voyage of his beyond the seas--risking a vessel that
+he captured from the arch-enemy of Islam, which is not his to risk but
+thine in whose name he captured it; and together with it he imperils the
+lives of two hundred True-Believers. To what end? To bear him overseas,
+perchance that he may look again upon the unhallowed land that gave him
+birth. So Biskaine reported. And what if he should founder on the way?”
+
+“Thou at least wouldst be content, thou fount of malice,” growled Asad.
+
+“Call me harsh names, O sun that warms me! Am I not thine to use and
+abuse at thy sweet pleasure? Pour salt upon the heart thou woundest;
+since it is thy hand I'll never murmur a complaint. But heed me--heed my
+words; or since words are of no account with thee, then heed his deeds
+which I am drawing to thy tardy notice. Heed them, I say, as my love
+bids me even though thou shouldst give me to be whipped or slain for my
+temerity.”
+
+“Woman, thy tongue is like the clapper of a bell with the devil swinging
+from the rope. What else dost thou impute?”
+
+“Naught else, since thou dost but mock me, withdrawing thy love from thy
+fond slave.”
+
+“The praise to Allah, then,” said he. “Come, it is the hour of prayer!”
+
+But he praised Allah too soon. Woman-like, though she protested she had
+done, she had scarce begun as yet.
+
+“There is thy son, O father of Marzak.”
+
+“There is, O mother of Marzak.”
+
+“And a man's son should be the partner of his soul. Yet is Marzak passed
+over for this foreign upstart; yet does this Nasrani of yesterday hold
+the place in thy heart and at thy side that should be Marzak's.”
+
+“Could Marzak fill that place,” he asked. “Could that beardless boy lead
+men as Sakr-el-Bahr leads them, or wield the scimitar against the
+foes of Islam and increase as Sakr-el-Bahr increases the glory of the
+Prophet's Holy Law upon the earth?”
+
+“If Sakr-el-Bahr does this, he does it by thy favour, O my lord. And
+so might Marzak, young though he be. Sakr-el-Bahr is but what thou hast
+made him--no more, no less.”
+
+“There art thou wrong, indeed, O mother of error. Sakr-el-Bahr is what
+Allah hath made him. He is what Allah wills. He shall become what Allah
+wills. Hast yet to learn that Allah has bound the fate of each man about
+his neck?”
+
+And then a golden glory suffused the deep sapphire of the sky heralding
+the setting of the sun and made an end of that altercation, conducted
+by her with a daring as singular as the patience that had endured it. He
+quickened his steps in the direction of the courtyard. That golden glow
+paled as swiftly as it had spread, and night fell as suddenly as if a
+curtain had been dropped.
+
+In the purple gloom that followed the white cloisters of the courtyard
+glowed with a faintly luminous pearliness. Dark forms of slaves stirred
+as Asad entered from the garden followed by Fenzileh, her head now
+veiled in a thin blue silken gauze. She flashed across the quadrangle
+and vanished through one of the archways, even as the distant voice of
+a Mueddin broke plaintively upon the brooding stillness reciting the
+Shehad--
+
+“La illaha, illa Allah! Wa Muhammad er Rasool Allah!”
+
+A slave spread a carpet, a second held a great silver bowl, into which
+a third poured water. The Basha, having washed, turned his face towards
+Mecca, and testified to the unity of Allah, the Compassionate, the
+Merciful, King of the Day of judgment, whilst the cry of the Mueddin
+went echoing over the city from minaret to minaret.
+
+As he rose from his devotions, there came a quick sound of steps
+without, and a sharp summons. Turkish janissaries of the Basha's guard,
+invisible almost in their flowing black garments, moved to answer that
+summons and challenge those who came.
+
+From the dark vaulted entrance of the courtyard leapt a gleam of
+lanterns containing tiny clay lamps in which burned a wick that was
+nourished by mutton fat. Asad, waiting to learn who came, halted at the
+foot of the white glistening steps, whilst from doors and lattices of
+the palace flooded light to suffuse the courtyard and set the marbles
+shimmering.
+
+A dozen Nubian javelin-men advanced, then ranged themselves aside whilst
+into the light stepped the imposing, gorgeously robed figure of Asad's
+wazeer, Tsamanni. After him came another figure in mail that clanked
+faintly and glimmered as he moved.
+
+“Peace and the Prophet's blessings upon thee, O mighty Asad!” was the
+wazeer's greeting.
+
+“And peace upon thee, Tsamanni,” was the answer. “Art the bearer of
+news?”
+
+“Of great and glorious tidings, O exalted one! Sakr-el-Bahr is
+returned.”
+
+“The praise to Him!” exclaimed the Basha, with uplifted hands; and there
+was no mistaking the thrill of his voice.
+
+There fell a soft step behind him and a shadow from the doorway. He
+turned. A graceful stripling in turban and caftan of cloth of gold
+salaamed to him from the topmast step. And as he came upright and the
+light of the lanterns fell full upon his face the astonishingly white
+fairness of it was revealed--a woman's face it might have been, so
+softly rounded was it in its beardlessness.
+
+Asad smiled wrily in his white beard, guessing that the boy had been
+sent by his ever-watchful mother to learn who came and what the tidings
+that they bore.
+
+“Thou hast heard, Marzak?” he said. “Sakr-el-Bahr is returned.”
+
+“Victoriously, I hope,” the lad lied glibly.
+
+“Victorious beyond aught that was ever known,” replied Tsamanni.
+“He sailed at sunset into the harbour, his company aboard two mighty
+Frankish ships, which are but the lesser part of the great spoil he
+brings.”
+
+“Allah is great,” was the Basha's glad welcome of this answer to those
+insidious promptings of his Sicilian wife. “Why does he not come in
+person with his news?”
+
+“His duty keeps him yet awhile aboard, my lord,” replied the wazeer.
+“But he hath sent his kayia Othmani here to tell the tale of it.”
+
+“Thrice welcome be thou, Othmani.” He beat his hands together, whereat
+slaves placed cushions for him upon the ground. He sat, and beckoned
+Marzak to his side. “And now thy tale!”
+
+And Othmani standing forth related how they had voyaged to distant
+England in the ship that Sakr-el-Bahr had captured, through seas that no
+corsair yet had ever crossed, and how on their return they had engaged
+a Dutchman that was their superior in strength and numbers; how none
+the less Sakr-el-Bahr had wrested victory by the help of Allah, his
+protector, how he had been dealt a wound that must have slain any but
+one miraculously preserved for the greater glory of Islam, and of the
+surpassing wealth of the booty which at dawn tomorrow should be laid at
+Asad's feet for his division of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CONVERT
+
+
+That tale of Othmani's being borne anon to Fenzileh by her son was gall
+and wormwood to her jealous soul. Evil enough to know that Sakr-el-Bahr
+was returned in spite of the fervent prayers for his foundering which
+she had addressed both to the God of her forefathers and to the God of
+her adoption. But that he should have returned in triumph bringing with
+him heavy spoils that must exalt him further in the affection of Asad
+and the esteem of the people was bitterness indeed. It left her mute and
+stricken, bereft even of the power to curse him.
+
+Anon, when her mind recovered from the shock she turned it to the
+consideration of what at first had seemed a trivial detail in Othmani's
+tale as reported by Marzak.
+
+“It is most singularly odd that he should have undertaken that long
+voyage to England to wrest thence just those two captives; that being
+there he should not have raided in true corsair fashion and packed his
+ship with slaves. Most singularly odd!”
+
+They were alone behind the green lattices through which filtered the
+perfumes of the garden and the throbbing of a nightingale's voice laden
+with the tale of its love for the rose. Fenzileh reclined upon a
+divan that was spread with silken Turkey carpets, and one of her
+gold-embroidered slippers had dropped from her henna-stained toes. Her
+lovely arms were raised to support her head, and she stared up at the
+lamp of many colours that hung from the fretted ceiling.
+
+Marzak paced the length of the chamber back and forth, and there was
+silence save for the soft swish of his slippers along the floor.
+
+“Well?” she asked him impatiently at last. “Does it not seem odd to
+thee?”
+
+“Odd, indeed, O my mother,” the youth replied, coming to a halt before
+her.
+
+“And canst think of naught that was the cause of it?”
+
+“The cause of it?” quoth he, his lovely young face, so closely modelled
+upon her own, looking blank and vacant.
+
+“Ay, the cause of it,” she cried impatiently. “Canst do naught but
+stare? Am I the mother of a fool? Wilt thou simper and gape and trifle
+away thy days whilst that dog-descended Frank tramples thee underfoot,
+using thee but as a stepping-stone to the power that should be thine
+own? And that be so, Marzak, I would thou hadst been strangled in my
+womb.”
+
+He recoiled before the Italian fury of her, was dully resentful even,
+suspecting that in such words from a woman were she twenty times his
+mother, there was something dishonouring to his manhood.
+
+“What can I do?” he cried.
+
+“Dost ask me? Art thou not a man to think and act? I tell thee that
+misbegotten son of a Christian and a Jew will trample thee in the dust.
+He is greedy as the locust, wily as the serpent, and ferocious as the
+panther. By Allah! I would I had never borne a son. Rather might men
+point at me the finger of scorn and call me mother of the wind than that
+I should have brought forth a man who knows not how to be a man.”
+
+“Show me the way,” he cried. “Set me a task; tell me what to do and
+thou shalt not find me lacking, O my mother. Until then spare me these
+insults, or I come no more to thee.”
+
+At this threat that strange woman heaved herself up from her soft couch.
+She ran to him and flung her arms about his neck, set her cheek against
+his own. Not eighteen years in the Basha's hareem had stifled the
+European mother in her, the passionate Sicilian woman, fierce as a tiger
+in her maternal love.
+
+“O my child, my lovely boy,” she almost sobbed. “It is my fear for thee
+that makes me harsh. If I am angry it is but my love that speaks, my
+rage for thee to see another come usurping the place beside thy father
+that should be thine. Ah! but we will prevail, sweet son of mine. I
+shall find a way to return that foreign offal to the dung-heap whence it
+sprang. Trust me, O Marzak! Sh! Thy father comes. Away! Leave me alone
+with him.”
+
+She was wise in that, for she knew that alone Asad was more easily
+controlled by her, since the pride was absent which must compel him to
+turn and rend her did she speak so before others. Marzak vanished behind
+the screen of fretted sandalwood that masked one doorway even as Asad
+loomed in the other.
+
+He came forward smiling, his slender brown fingers combing his long
+beard, his white djellaba trailing behind him along the ground.
+
+“Thou hast heard, not a doubt, O Fenzileh,” said he. “Art thou answered
+enough?”
+
+She sank down again upon her cushions and idly considered herself in a
+steel mirror set in silver.
+
+“Answered?” she echoed lazily, with infinite scorn and a hint of
+rippling contemptuous laughter running through the word. “Answered
+indeed. Sakr-el-Bahr risks the lives of two hundred children of Islam
+and a ship that being taken was become the property of the State upon
+a voyage to England that has no object but the capturing of two
+slaves--two slaves, when had his purpose been sincere, it might have
+been two hundred.”
+
+“Ha! And is that all that thou hast heard?” he asked her mocking in his
+turn.
+
+“All that signifies,” she replied, still mirroring herself. “I heard
+as a matter of lesser import that on his return, meeting fortuitously
+a Frankish ship that chanced to be richly laden, he seized it in thy
+name.”
+
+“Fortuitously, sayest thou?”
+
+“What else?” She lowered the mirror, and her bold, insolent eyes met his
+own quite fearlessly. “Thou'lt not tell me that it was any part of his
+design when he went forth?”
+
+He frowned; his head sank slowly in thought. Observing the advantage
+gained she thrust it home. “It was a lucky wind that blew that Dutchman
+into his path, and luckier still her being so richly fraught that he may
+dazzle thine eyes with the sight of gold and gems, and so blind thee to
+the real purpose of his voyage.”
+
+“Its real purpose?” he asked dully. “What was its real purpose?” She
+smiled a smile of infinite knowledge to hide her utter ignorance, her
+inability to supply even a reason that should wear an air of truth.
+
+“Dost ask me, O perspicuous Asad? Are not thine eyes as sharp, thy wits
+as keen at least as mine, that what is clear to me should be hidden
+from thee? Or hath this Sakr-el-Bahr bewitched thee with enchantments of
+Babyl?”
+
+He strode to her and caught her wrist in a cruelly rough grip of his
+sinewy old hand.
+
+“His purpose, thou jade! Pour out the foulness of thy mind. Speak!”
+
+She sat up, flushed and defiant.
+
+“I will not speak,” said she.
+
+“Thou wilt not? Now, by the Head of Allah! dost dare to stand before
+my face and defy me, thy Lord? I'll have thee whipped, Fenzileh. I
+have been too tender of thee these many years--so tender that thou hast
+forgot the rods that await the disobedient wife. Speak then ere thy
+flesh is bruised or speak thereafter, at thy pleasure.”
+
+“I will not,” she repeated. “Though I be flung to the hooks, not another
+word will I say of Sakr-el-Bahr. Shall I unveil the truth to be spurned
+and scorned and dubbed a liar and the mother of lies?” Then abruptly
+changing she fell to weeping. “O source of my life!” she cried to him,
+“how cruelly unjust to me thou art!” She was grovelling now, a thing of
+supplest grace, her lovely arms entwining his knees. “When my love for
+thee drives me to utter what I see, I earn but thy anger, which is more
+than I can endure. I swoon beneath the weight of it.”
+
+He flung her off impatiently. “What a weariness is a woman's tongue!” he
+cried, and stalked out again, convinced from past experiences that did
+he linger he would be whelmed in a torrent of words.
+
+But her poison was shrewdly administered, and slowly did its work. It
+abode in his mind to torture him with the doubts that were its very
+essence. No reason, however well founded, that she might have urged for
+Sakr-el-Bahr's strange conduct could have been half so insidious as
+her suggestion that there was a reason. It gave him something vague and
+intangible to consider. Something that he could not repel since it had
+no substance he could grapple with. Impatiently he awaited the morning
+and the coming of Sakr-el-Bahr himself, but he no longer awaited it with
+the ardent whole-hearted eagerness as of a father awaiting the coming of
+a beloved son.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr himself paced the poop deck of the carack and watched
+the lights perish one by one in the little town that straggled up the
+hillside before him. The moon came up and bathed it in a white hard
+light, throwing sharp inky shadows of rustling date palm and spearlike
+minaret, and flinging shafts of silver athwart the peaceful bay.
+
+His wound was healed and he was fully himself once more. Two days ago he
+had come on deck for the first time since the fight with the Dutchman,
+and he had spent there the greater portion of the time since then. Once
+only had he visited his captives. He had risen from his couch to repair
+straight to the cabin in the poop where Rosamund was confined. He had
+found her pale and very wistful, but with her courage entirely unbroken.
+The Godolphins were a stiff-necked race, and Rosamund bore in her frail
+body the spirit of a man. She looked up when he entered, started a
+little in surprise to see him at last, for it was the first time he
+stood before her since he had carried her off from Arwenack some four
+weeks ago. Then she had averted her eyes, and sat there, elbows on the
+table, as if carved of wood, as if blind to his presence and deaf to his
+words.
+
+To the expressions of regret--and they were sincere, for already he
+repented him his unpremeditated act so far as she was concerned--she
+returned no slightest answer, gave no sign indeed that she heard a
+word of it. Baffled, he stood gnawing his lip a moment, and gradually,
+unreasonably perhaps, anger welled up from his heart. He turned and went
+out again. Next he had visited his brother, to consider in silence a
+moment the haggard, wild-eyed, unshorn wretch who shrank and cowered
+before him in the consciousness of guilt. At last he returned to the
+deck, and there, as I have said, he spent the greater portion of the
+last three days of that strange voyage, reclining for the most part in
+the sun and gathering strength from its ardour.
+
+To-night as he paced under the moon a stealthy shadow crept up the
+companion to call him gently by his English name--
+
+“Sir Oliver!”
+
+He started as if a ghost had suddenly leapt up to greet him. It was
+Jasper Leigh who hailed him thus.
+
+“Come up,” he said. And when the fellow stood before him on the poop--“I
+have told you already that here is no Sir Oliver. I am Oliver-Reis or
+Sakr-el-Bahr, as you please, one of the Faithful of the Prophet's House.
+And now what is your will?”
+
+“Have I not served you faithfully and well?” quoth Captain Leigh.
+
+“Who has denied it?”
+
+“None. But neither has any acknowledged it. When you lay wounded below
+it had been an easy thing for me to ha' played the traitor. I might ha'
+sailed these ships into the mouth of Tagus. I might so by God!”
+
+“You'ld have been carved in pieces on the spot,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“I might have hugged the land and run the risk of capture and then
+claimed my liberation from captivity.”
+
+“And found yourself back on the galleys of his Catholic Majesty. But
+there! I grant that you have dealt loyally by me. You have kept your
+part of the bond. I shall keep mine, never doubt it.”
+
+“I do not. But your part of the bond was to send me home again.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The hell of it is that I know not where to find a home, I know not
+where home may be after all these years. If ye send me forth, I shall
+become a wanderer of no account.”
+
+“What else am I to do with you?”
+
+“Faith now I am as full weary of Christians and Christendom as you was
+yourself when the Muslims took the galley on which you toiled. I am a
+man of parts, Sir Ol-Sakr-el-Bahr. No better navigator ever sailed a
+ship from an English port, and I ha' seen a mort o' fighting and know
+the art of it upon the sea. Can ye make naught of me here?”
+
+“You would become a renegade like me?” His tone was bitter.
+
+“I ha' been thinking that 'renegade' is a word that depends upon which
+side you're on. I'd prefer to say that I've a wish to be converted to
+the faith of Mahound.”
+
+“Converted to the faith of piracy and plunder and robbery upon the seas
+is what you mean,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“Nay, now. To that I should need no converting, for all that I were
+afore,” Captain Leigh admitted frankly. “I ask but to sail under another
+flag than the Jolly Roger.”
+
+“You'll need to abjure strong drink,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“There be compensations,” said Master Leigh.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr considered. The rogue's appeal smote a responsive chord in
+his heart. It would be good to have a man of his own race beside him,
+even though it were but such a rascal as this.
+
+“Be it as you will,” he said at last. “You deserve to be hanged in spite
+of what promises I made you. But no matter for that. So that you become
+a Muslim I will take you to serve beside me, one of my own lieutenants
+to begin with, and so long as you are loyal to me, Jasper, all will be
+well. But at the first sign of faithlessness, a rope and the yard-arm,
+my friend, and an airy dance into hell for you.”
+
+The rascally skipper stooped in his emotion, caught up Sakr-el-Bahr's
+hand and bore it to his lips. “It is agreed,” he said. “Ye have shown me
+mercy who have little deserved it from you. Never fear for my loyalty.
+My life belongs to you, and worthless thing though it may be, ye may do
+with it as ye please.”
+
+Despite himself Sakr-el-Bahr tightened his grip upon the rogue's hand,
+and Jasper shuffled off and down the companion again, touched to the
+heart for once in his rough villainous life by a clemency that he knew
+to be undeserved, but which he swore should be deserved ere all was
+done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MARZAK-BEN-ASAD
+
+
+It took no less than forty camels to convey the cargo of that Dutch
+argosy from the mole to the Kasbah, and the procession--carefully
+marshalled by Sakr-el-Bahr, who knew the value of such pageants to
+impress the mob--was such as never yet had been seen in the narrow
+streets of Algiers upon the return of any corsair. It was full worthy
+of the greatest Muslim conqueror that sailed the seas, of one who, not
+content to keep to the tideless Mediterranean as had hitherto been the
+rule of his kind, had ventured forth upon the wider ocean.
+
+Ahead marched a hundred of his rovers in their short caftans of every
+conceivable colour, their waists swathed in gaudy scarves, some of which
+supported a very arsenal of assorted cutlery; many wore body armour of
+mail and the gleaming spike of a casque thrust up above their turbans.
+After them, dejected and in chains, came the five score prisoners
+taken aboard the Dutchman, urged along by the whips of the corsairs who
+flanked them. Then marched another regiment of corsairs, and after these
+the long line of stately, sneering camels, shuffling cumbrously along
+and led by shouting Saharowis. After them followed yet more corsairs,
+and then mounted, on a white Arab jennet, his head swathed in a turban
+of cloth of gold, came Sakr-el-Bahr. In the narrower streets, with their
+white and yellow washed houses, which presented blank windowless walls
+broken here and there by no more than a slit to admit light and air,
+the spectators huddled themselves fearfully into doorways to avoid being
+crushed to death by the camels, whose burdens bulging on either side
+entirely filled those narrow ways. But the more open spaces, such as the
+strand on either side of the mole, the square before the sôk, and the
+approaches of Asad's fortress, were thronged with a motley roaring
+crowd. There were stately Moors in flowing robes cheek by jowl with
+half-naked blacks from the Sus and the Draa; lean, enduring Arabs in
+their spotless white djellabas rubbed shoulders with Berbers from the
+highlands in black camel-hair cloaks; there were Levantine Turks, and
+Jewish refugees from Spain ostentatiously dressed in European garments,
+tolerated there because bound to the Moor by ties of common suffering
+and common exile from that land that once had been their own.
+
+Under the glaring African sun this amazing crowd stood assembled to
+welcome Sakr-el-Bahr; and welcome him it did, with such vocal thunder
+that an echo of it from the mole reached the very Kasbah on the hilltop
+to herald his approach.
+
+By the time, however, that he reached the fortress his procession had
+dwindled by more than half. At the sôk his forces had divided, and
+his corsairs, headed by Othmani, had marched the captives away to the
+bagnio--or banyard, as my Lord Henry calls it--whilst the camels had
+continued up the hill. Under the great gateway of the Kasbah they padded
+into the vast courtyard to be ranged along two sides of it by their
+Saharowi drivers, and there brought clumsily to their knees. After
+them followed but some two score corsairs as a guard of honour to their
+leader. They took their stand upon either side of the gateway after
+profoundly salaaming to Asad-ed-Din. The Basha sat in the shade of an
+awning enthroned upon a divan, attended by his wazeer Tsamanni and by
+Marzak, and guarded by a half-dozen janissaries, whose sable garments
+made an effective background to the green and gold of his jewelled
+robes. In his white turban glowed an emerald crescent.
+
+The Basha's countenance was dark and brooding as he watched the advent
+of that line of burdened camels. His thoughts were still labouring with
+the doubt of Sakr-el-Bahr which Fenzileh's crafty speech and craftier
+reticence had planted in them. But at sight of the corsair leader
+himself his countenance cleared suddenly, his eyes sparkled, and he rose
+to his feet to welcome him as a father might welcome a son who had been
+through perils on a service dear to both.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr entered the courtyard on foot, having dismounted at
+the gate. Tall and imposing, with his head high and his forked beard
+thrusting forward, he stalked with great dignity to the foot of
+the divan followed by Ali and a mahogany-faced fellow, turbaned and
+red-bearded, in whom it needed more than a glance to recognize the
+rascally Jasper Leigh, now in all the panoply of your complete renegado.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr went down upon his knees and prostrated himself solemnly
+before his prince.
+
+“The blessing of Allah and His peace upon thee, my lord,” was his
+greeting.
+
+And Asad, stooping to lift that splendid figure in his arms, gave him a
+welcome that caused the spying Fenzileh to clench her teeth behind the
+fretted lattice that concealed her.
+
+“The praise to Allah and to our Lord Mahomet that thou art returned and
+in health, my son. Already hath my old heart been gladdened by the news
+of thy victories in the service of the Faith.”
+
+Then followed the display of all those riches wrested from the Dutch,
+and greatly though Asad's expectations had been fed already by
+Othmani, the sight now spread before his eyes by far exceeded all those
+expectations.
+
+In the end all was dismissed to the treasury, and Tsamanni was bidden to
+go cast up the account of it and mark the share that fell to the portion
+of those concerned--for in these ventures all were partners, from the
+Basha himself, who represented the State down to the meanest corsair who
+had manned the victorious vessels of the Faith, and each had his share
+of the booty, greater or less according to his rank, one twentieth of
+the total falling to Sakr-el-Bahr himself.
+
+In the courtyard were left none but Asad, Marzak and the janissaries,
+and Sakr-el-Bahr with Ali and Jasper. It was then that Sakr-el-Bahr
+presented his new officer to the Bashal as one upon whom the grace
+of Allah had descended, a great fighter and a skilled seaman, who had
+offered up his talents and his life to the service of Islam, who had
+been accepted by Sakr-el-Bahr, and stood now before Asad to be confirmed
+in his office.
+
+Marzak interposed petulantly, to exclaim that already were there too
+many erstwhile Nasrani dogs in the ranks of the soldiers of the Faith,
+and that it was unwise to increase their number and presumptuous in
+Sakr-el-Bahr to take so much upon himself.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr measured him with an eye in which scorn and surprise were
+nicely blended.
+
+“Dost say that it is presumptuous to win a convert to the banner of Our
+Lord Mahomet?” quoth he. “Go read the Most Perspicuous Book and see what
+is there enjoined as a duty upon every True-Believer. And bethink thee,
+O son of Asad, that when thou dost in thy little wisdom cast scorn upon
+those whom Allah has blessed and led from the night wherein they dwelt
+into the bright noontide of Faith, thou dost cast scorn upon me and upon
+thine own mother, which is but a little matter, and thou dost blaspheme
+the Blessed name of Allah, which is to tread the ways that lead unto the
+Pit.”
+
+Angry but defeated and silenced, Marzak fell back a step and stood
+biting his lip and glowering upon the corsair, what time Asad nodded his
+head and smiled approval.
+
+“Verily art thou full learned in the True Belief, Sakr-el-Bahr,” he
+said. “Thou art the very father of wisdom as of valour.” And thereupon
+he gave welcome to Master Leigh, whom he hailed to the ranks of the
+Faithful under the designation of Jasper-Reis.
+
+That done, the renegade and Ali were both dismissed, as were also the
+janissaries, who, quitting their position behind Asad, went to take
+their stand on guard at the gateway. Then the Basha beat his hands
+together, and to the slaves who came in answer to his summons he gave
+orders to set food, and he bade Sakr-el-Bahr to come sit beside him on
+the divan.
+
+Water was brought that they might wash. That done, the slaves placed
+before them a savoury stew of meat and eggs with olives, limes, and
+spices.
+
+Asad broke bread with a reverently pronounced “Bismillah!” and dipped
+his fingers into the earthenware bowl, leading the way for Sakr-el-Bahr
+and Marzak, and as they ate he invited the corsair himself to recite the
+tale of his adventure.
+
+When he had done so, and again Asad had praised him in high and loving
+terms, Marzak set him a question.
+
+“Was it to obtain just these two English slaves that thou didst
+undertake this perilous voyage to that distant land?”
+
+“That was but a part of my design,” was the calm reply. “I went to rove
+the seas in the Prophet's service, as the result of my voyage gives
+proof.”
+
+“Thou didst not know that this Dutch argosy would cross thy path,” said
+Marzak, in the very words his mother had prompted him.
+
+“Did I not?” quoth Sakr-el-Bahr, and he smiled confidently, so
+confidently that Asad scarce needed to hear the words that so cunningly
+gave the lie to the innuendo. “Had I no trust in Allah the All-wise, the
+All-knowing?
+
+“Well answered, by the Koran!” Asad approved him heartily, the more
+heartily since it rebutted insinuations which he desired above all to
+hear rebutted.
+
+But Marzak did not yet own himself defeated. He had been soundly
+schooled by his guileful Sicilian mother.
+
+“Yet there is something in all this I do not understand,” he murmured,
+with false gentleness.
+
+“All things are possible to Allah!” said Sakr-el-Bahr, in tones of
+incredulity, as if he suggested--not without a suspicion of irony--that
+it was incredible there should be anything in all the world that could
+elude the penetration of Marzak.
+
+The youth bowed to him in acknowledgment. “Tell me, O mighty
+Sakr-el-Bahr,” he begged, “how it came to pass that having reached those
+distant shores thou wert content to take thence but two poor slaves,
+since with thy followers and the favour of the All-seeing thou might
+easily have taken fifty times that number.” And he looked ingenuously
+into the corsair's swarthy, rugged face, whilst Asad frowned
+thoughtfully, for the thought was one that had occurred to him already.
+
+It became necessary that Sakr-el-Bahr should lie to clear himself.
+Here no high-sounding phrase of Faith would answer. And explanation was
+unavoidable, and he was conscious that he could not afford one that did
+not go a little lame.
+
+“Why, as to that,” said he, “these prisoners were wrested from the
+first house upon which we came, and their capture occasioned some alarm.
+Moreover, it was night-time when we landed, and I dared not adventure
+the lives of my followers by taking them further from the ship and
+attacking a village which might have risen to cut off our good retreat.”
+
+The frown remained stamped upon the brow of Asad, as Marzak slyly
+observed.
+
+“Yet Othmani,” said he, “urged thee to fall upon a slumbering village
+all unconscious of thy presence, and thou didst refuse.”
+
+Asad looked up sharply at that, and Sakr-el-Bahr realized with a
+tightening about the heart something of the undercurrents at work
+against him and all the pains that had been taken to glean information
+that might be used to his undoing.
+
+“Is it so?” demanded Asad, looking from his son to his lieutenant with
+that lowering look that rendered his face evil and cruel.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr took a high tone. He met Asad's glance with an eye of
+challenge.
+
+“And if it were so my lord?” he demanded.
+
+“I asked thee is it so?”
+
+“Ay, but knowing thy wisdom I disbelieved my ears,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+“Shall it signify what Othmani may have said? Do I take my orders or am
+I to be guided by Othmani? If so, best set Othmani in my place, give
+him the command and the responsibility for the lives of the Faithful who
+fight beside him.” He ended with an indignant snort.
+
+“Thou art over-quick to anger,” Asad reproved him, scowling still
+
+“And by the Head of Allah, who will deny my right to it? Am I to conduct
+such an enterprise as this from which I am returned laden with spoils
+that might well be the fruits of a year's raiding, to be questioned by a
+beardless stripling as to why I was not guided by Othmani?”
+
+He heaved himself up and stood towering there in the intensity of a
+passion that was entirely simulated. He must bluster here, and crush
+down suspicion with whorling periods and broad, fierce gesture.
+
+“To what should Othmani have guided me?” he demanded scornfully. “Could
+he have guided me to more than I have this day laid at thy feet? What I
+have done speaks eloquently with its own voice. What he would have had
+me do might well have ended in disaster. Had it so ended, would the
+blame of it have fallen upon Othmani? Nay, by Allah! but upon me. And
+upon me rests then the credit, and let none dare question it without
+better cause.”
+
+Now these were daring words to address to the tyrant Asad, and still
+more daring was the tone, the light hard eyes aflash and the sweeping
+gestures of contempt with which they were delivered. But of his
+ascendancy over the Basha there was no doubt. And here now was proof of
+it.
+
+Asad almost cowered before his fury. The scowl faded from his face to be
+replaced by an expression of dismay.
+
+“Nay, nay, Sakr-el-Bahr, this tone!” he cried.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr, having slammed the door of conciliation in the face of the
+Basha, now opened it again. He became instantly submissive.
+
+“Forgive it,” he said. “Blame the devotion of thy servant to thee and
+to the Faith he serves with little reck to life. In this very expedition
+was I wounded nigh unto death. The livid scar of it is a dumb witness to
+my zeal. Where are thy scars, Marzak?”
+
+Marzak quailed before the sudden blaze of that question, and
+Sakr-el-Bahr laughed softly in contempt.
+
+“Sit,” Asad bade him. “I have been less than just.”
+
+“Thou art the very fount and spring of justice, O my lord, as this thine
+admission proves,” protested the corsair. He sat down again, folding
+his legs under him. “I will confess to you that being come so near to
+England in that cruise of mine I determined to land and seize one who
+some years ago did injure me, and between whom and me there was a score
+to settle. I exceeded my intentions in that I carried off two prisoners
+instead of one. These prisoners,” he ran on, judging that the moment of
+reaction in Asad's mind was entirely favourable to the preferment of the
+request he had to make, “are not in the bagnio with the others. They are
+still confined aboard the carack I seized.”
+
+“And why is this?” quoth Asad, but without suspicion now.
+
+“Because, my lord, I have a boon to ask in some reward for the service I
+have rendered.”
+
+“Ask it, my son.”
+
+“Give me leave to keep these captives for myself.”
+
+Asad considered him, frowning again slightly. Despite himself, despite
+his affection for Sakr-el-Bahr, and his desire to soothe him now that
+rankling poison of Fenzileh's infusing was at work again in his mind.
+
+“My leave thou hast,” said he. “But not the law's, and the law runs
+that no corsair shall subtract so much as the value of an asper from his
+booty until the division has been made and his own share allotted him,”
+ was the grave answer.
+
+“The law?” quoth Sakr-el-Bahr. “But thou art the law, exalted lord.”
+
+“Not so, my son. The law is above the Basha, who must himself conform to
+it so that he be just and worthy of his high office. And the law I
+have recited thee applies even should the corsair raider be the Basha
+himself. These slaves of thine must forthwith be sent to the bagnio to
+join the others that tomorrow all may be sold in the sôk. See it done,
+Sakr-el-Bahr.”
+
+The corsair would have renewed his pleadings, but that his eye caught
+the eager white face of Marzak and the gleaming expectant eyes, looking
+so hopefully for his ruin. He checked, and bowed his head with an
+assumption of indifference.
+
+“Name thou their price then, and forthwith will I pay it into thy
+treasury.”
+
+But Asad shook his head. “It is not for me to name their price, but for
+the buyers,” he replied. “I might set the price too high, and that were
+unjust to thee, or too low, and that were unjust to others who would
+acquire them. Deliver them over to the bagnio.”
+
+“It shall be done,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, daring to insist no further and
+dissembling his chagrin.
+
+Very soon thereafter he departed upon that errand, giving orders,
+however, that Rosamund and Lionel should be kept apart from the other
+prisoners until the hour of the sale on the morrow when perforce they
+must take their place with the rest.
+
+Marzak lingered with his father after Oliver had taken his leave, and
+presently they were joined there in the courtyard by Fenzileh--this
+woman who had brought, said many, the Frankish ways of Shaitan into
+Algiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. MOTHER AND SON
+
+
+Early on the morrow--so early that scarce had the Shehad been
+recited--came Biskaine-el-Borak to the Basha. He had just landed from a
+galley which had come upon a Spanish fishing boat, aboard of which there
+was a young Morisco who was being conducted over seas to Algiers. The
+news of which the fellow was the bearer was of such urgency that for
+twenty hours without intermission the slaves had toiled at the oars of
+Biskaine's vessel--the capitana of his fleet--to bring her swiftly home.
+
+The Morisco had a cousin--a New-Christian like himself, and like
+himself, it would appear, still a Muslim at heart--who was employed in
+the Spanish treasury at Malaga. This man had knowledge that a galley was
+fitting out for sea to convey to Naples the gold destined for the pay
+of the Spanish troops in garrison there. Through parsimony this
+treasure-galley was to be afforded no escort, but was under orders to
+hug the coast of Europe, where she should be safe from all piratical
+surprise. It was judged that she would be ready to put to sea in a week,
+and the Morisco had set out at once to bring word of it to his Algerine
+brethren that they might intercept and capture her.
+
+Asad thanked the young Morisco for his news, bade him be housed and
+cared for, and promised him a handsome share of the plunder should the
+treasure-galley be captured. That done he sent for Sakr-el-Bahr, whilst
+Marzak, who had been present at the interview, went with the tale of it
+to his mother, and beheld her fling into a passion when he added that it
+was Sakr-el-Bahr had been summoned that he might be entrusted with
+this fresh expedition, thus proving that all her crafty innuendoes and
+insistent warnings had been so much wasted labour.
+
+With Marzak following at her heels, she swept like a fury into the
+darkened room where Asad took his ease.
+
+“What is this I hear, O my lord?” she cried, in tone and manner more the
+European shrew than the submissive Eastern slave. “Is Sakr-el-Bahr to go
+upon this expedition against the treasure-galley of Spain?”
+
+Reclining on his divan he looked her up and down with a languid eye.
+“Dost know of any better fitted to succeed?” quoth he.
+
+“I know of one whom it is my lord's duty to prefer to that foreign
+adventurer. One who is entirely faithful and entirely to be trusted.
+One who does not attempt to retain for himself a portion of the booty
+garnered in the name of Islam.”
+
+“Bah!” said Asad. “Wilt thou talk forever of those two slaves? And who
+may be this paragon of thine?”
+
+“Marzak,” she answered fiercely, flinging out an arm to drag forward
+her son. “Is he to waste his youth here in softness and idleness? But
+yesternight that ribald mocked him with his lack of scars. Shall he take
+scars in the orchard of the Kasbah here? Is he to be content with those
+that come from the scratch of a bramble, or is he to learn to be a
+fighter and leader of the Children of the Faith that himself he may
+follow in the path his father trod?”
+
+“Whether he so follows,” said Asad, “is as the Sultan of Istambul, the
+Sublime Portal, shall decree. We are but his vicegerents here.”
+
+“But shall the Grand Sultan appoint him to succeed thee if thou hast
+not equipped him so to do? I cry shame on thee, O father of Marzakl, for
+that thou art lacking in due pride in thine own son.”
+
+“May Allah give me patience with thee! Have I not said that he is still
+over young.”
+
+“At his age thyself thou wert upon the seas, serving with the great
+Ochiali.”
+
+“At his age I was, by the favour of Allah, taller and stronger than is
+he. I cherish him too dearly to let him go forth and perchance be lost
+to me before his strength is full grown.”
+
+“Look at him,” she commanded. “He is a man, Asad, and such a son as
+another might take pride in. Is it not time he girt a scimitar about his
+waist and trod the poop of one of thy galleys?”
+
+“Indeed, indeed, O my father!” begged Marzak himself.
+
+“What?” barked the old Moor. “And is it so? And wouldst thou go forth
+then against the Spaniard? What knowledge hast thou that shall equip
+thee for such a task?”
+
+“What can his knowledge be since his father has never been concerned to
+school him?” returned Fenzileh. “Dost thou sneer at shortcomings that
+are the natural fruits of thine own omissions?”
+
+“I will be patient with thee,” said Asad, showing every sign of losing
+patience. “I will ask thee only if in thy judgment he is in case to win
+a victory for Islam? Answer me straightly now.”
+
+“Straightly I answer thee that he is not. And, as straightly, I tell
+thee that it is full time he were. Thy duty is to let him go upon this
+expedition that he may learn the trade that lies before him.”
+
+Asad considered a moment. Then: “Be it so,” he answered slowly. “Shalt
+set forth, then, with Sakr-el-Bahr, my son.”
+
+“With Sakr-el-Bahr?” cried Fenzilch aghast.
+
+“I could find him no better preceptor.”
+
+“Shall thy son go forth as the servant of another?”
+
+“As the pupil,” Asad amended. “What else?”
+
+“Were I a man, O fountain of my soul,” said she, “and had I a son, none
+but myself should be his preceptor. I should so mould and fashion him
+that he should be another me. That, O my dear lord, is thy duty to
+Marzak. Entrust not his training to another and to one whom despite thy
+love for him I cannot trust. Go forth thyself upon this expedition with
+Marzak here for thy kayia.”
+
+Asad frowned. “I grow too old,” he said. “I have not been upon the seas
+these two years past. Who can say that I may not have lost the art of
+victory. No, no.” He shook his head, and his face grew overcast and
+softened by wistfulness. “Sakr-el-Bahr commands this time, and if Marzak
+goes, he goes with him.”
+
+“My lord....” she began, then checked. A Nubian had entered to announce
+that Sakr-el-Bahr was come and was awaiting the orders of his lord in
+the courtyard. Asad rose instantly and for all that Fenzileh, greatly
+daring as ever, would still have detained him, he shook her off
+impatiently, and went out.
+
+She watched his departure with anger in those dark lovely eyes of hers,
+an anger that went near to filming them in tears, and after he had
+passed out into the glaring sunshine beyond the door, a silence dwelt in
+the cool darkened chamber--a silence disturbed only by distant trills of
+silvery laughter from the lesser women of the Basha's house. The sound
+jarred her taut nerves. She moved with an oath and beat her hands
+together. To answer her came a negress, lithe and muscular as a wrestler
+and naked to the waist; the slave ring in her ear was of massive gold.
+
+“Bid them make an end of that screeching,” she snapped to vent some of
+her fierce petulance. “Tell them I will have the rods to them if they
+again disturb me.”
+
+The negress went out, and silence followed, for those other lesser
+ladies of the Basha's hareem were more obedient to the commands of
+Fenzileh than to those of the Basha himself.
+
+Then she drew her son to the fretted lattice commanding the courtyard,
+a screen from behind which they could see and hear all that passed out
+yonder. Asad was speaking, informing Sakr-el-Bahr of what he had learnt,
+and what there was to do.
+
+“How soon canst thou put to sea again?” he ended
+
+“As soon as the service of Allah and thyself require,” was the prompt
+answer.
+
+“It is well, my son.” Asad laid a hand, affectionately upon the
+corsair's shoulder, entirely conquered by this readiness. “Best set out
+at sunrise to-morrow. Thou'lt need so long to make thee ready for the
+sea.”
+
+“Then by thy leave I go forthwith to give orders to prepare,” replied
+Sakr-el-Bahr, for all that he was a little troubled in his mind by this
+need to depart again so soon.
+
+“What galleys shalt thou take?”
+
+“To capture one galley of Spain? My own galeasse, no more; she will be
+full equal to such an enterprise, and I shall be the better able, then,
+to lurk and take cover--a thing which might well prove impossible with a
+fleet.”
+
+“Ay--thou art wise in thy daring,” Asad approved him. “May Allah prosper
+thee upon the voyage.”
+
+“Have I thy leave to go?”
+
+“A moment yet. There is my son Marzak. He is approaching manhood, and it
+is time he entered the service of Allah and the State. It is my desire
+that he sail as thy lieutenant on this voyage, and that thou be his
+preceptor even as I was thine of old.”
+
+Now here was something that pleased Sakr-el-Bahr as little as it pleased
+Marzak. Knowing the bitter enmity borne him by the son of Fenzileh he
+had every cause to fear trouble if this project of Asad's were realized.
+
+“As I was thine of old!” he answered with crafty wistfulness. “Wilt thou
+not put to sea with us to-morrow, O Asad? There is none like thee in all
+Islam, and what a joy were it not to stand beside thee on the prow as
+of old when we grapple with the Spaniard.”
+
+Asad considered him. “Dost thou, too, urge this?” quoth he.
+
+“Have others urged it?” The man's sharp wits, rendered still sharper by
+his sufferings, were cutting deeply and swiftly into this matter. “They
+did well, but none could have urged it more fervently than I, for none
+knows so well as I the joy of battle against the infidel under thy
+command and the glory of prevailing in thy sight. Come, then, my lord,
+upon this enterprise, and be thyself thine own son's preceptor since
+'tis the highest honour thou canst bestow upon him.”
+
+Thoughtfully Asad stroked his long white beard, his eagle eyes growing
+narrow. “Thou temptest me, by Allah!”
+
+“Let me do more....”
+
+“Nay, more thou canst not. I am old and worn, and I am needed here.
+Shall an old lion hunt a young gazelle? Peace, peace! The sun has set
+upon my fighting day. Let the brood of fighters I have raised up keep
+that which my arm conquered and maintain my name and the glory of the
+Faith upon the seas.” He leaned upon Sakr-el-Bahr's shoulder and sighed,
+his eyes wistfully dreamy. “It were a fond adventure in good truth. But
+no...I am resolved. Go thou and take Marzak with thee, and bring him
+safely home again.”
+
+“I should not return myself else,” was the answer. “But my trust is in
+the All-knowing.”
+
+Upon that he departed, dissembling his profound vexation both at the
+voyage and the company, and went to bid Othmani make ready his great
+galeasse, equipping it with carronades, three hundred slaves to row it,
+and three hundred fighting men.
+
+Asad-el-Din returned to that darkened room in the Kasbah overlooking
+the courtyard, where Fenzileh and Marzak still lingered. He went to tell
+them that in compliance with the desires of both Marzak should go forth
+to prove himself upon this expedition.
+
+But where he had left impatience he found thinly veiled wrath
+
+“O sun that warms me,” Fenzileh greeted him, and from long experience he
+knew that the more endearing were her epithets the more vicious was her
+mood, “do then my counsels weigh as naught with thee, are they but as
+the dust upon thy shoes?”
+
+“Less,” said Asad, provoked out of his habitual indulgence of her
+licences of speech.
+
+“That is the truth, indeed!” she cried, bowing her head, whilst behind
+her the handsome face of her son was overcast.
+
+“It is,” Asad agreed. “At dawn, Marzak, thou settest forth upon the
+galeasse of Sakr-el-Bahr to take the seas under his tutelage and to
+emulate the skill and valour that have rendered him the stoutest bulwark
+of Islam, the very javelin of Allah.”
+
+But Marzak felt that in this matter his mother was to be supported,
+whilst his detestation of this adventurer who threatened to usurp the
+place that should rightly be his own spurred him to mad lengths of
+daring.
+
+“When I take the seas with that dog-descended Nasrani,” he answered
+hoarsely, “he shall be where rightly he belongs--at the rowers' bench.”
+
+“How?” It was a bellow of rage. Upon the word Asad swung to confront
+his son, and his face, suddenly inflamed, was so cruel and evil in its
+expression that it terrified that intriguing pair. “By the beard of
+the Prophet! what words are these to me?” He advanced upon Marzak until
+Fenzileh in sudden terror stepped between and faced him, like a lioness
+springing to defend her cub. But the Basha, enraged now by this want of
+submission in his son, enraged both against that son and the mother who
+he knew had prompted him, caught her in his sinewy old hands, and flung
+her furiously aside, so that she stumbled and fell in a panting heap
+amid the cushions of her divan.
+
+“The curse of Allah upon thee!” he screamed, and Marzak recoiled before
+him. “Has this presumptuous hellcat who bore thee taught thee to stand
+before my face, to tell me what thou wilt and wilt not do? By the Koran!
+too long have I endured her evil foreign ways, and now it seems she
+has taught thee how to tread them after her and how to beard thy very
+father! To-morrow thou'lt take the sea with Sakr-el-Bahr, I have said
+it. Another word and thou'lt go aboard his galeasse even as thou saidst
+should be the case with him--at the rowers' bench, to learn submission
+under the slave master's whip.”
+
+Terrified, Marzak stood numb and silent, scarcely daring to draw breath.
+Never in all his life had he seen his father in a rage so royal. Yet
+it seemed to inspire no fear in Fenzileh, that congenital shrew whose
+tongue not even the threat of rods or hooks could silence.
+
+“I shall pray Allah to restore sight to thy soul, O father of Marzak,”
+ she panted, “to teach thee to discriminate between those that love thee
+and the self-seekers that abuse thy trust.”
+
+“How!” he roared at her. “Art not yet done?”
+
+“Nor ever shall be until I am lain dumb in death for having counselled
+thee out of my great love, O light of these poor eyes of mine.”
+
+“Maintain this tone,” he said, with concentrated anger, “and that will
+soon befall.”
+
+“I care not so that the sleek mask be plucked from the face of that
+dog-descended Sakr-el-Bahr. May Allah break his bones! What of those
+slaves of his--those two from England, O Asad? I am told that one is a
+woman, tall and of that white beauty which is the gift of Eblis to these
+Northerners. What is his purpose with her--that he would not show her in
+the suk as the law prescribes, but comes slinking here to beg thee set
+aside the law for him? Ha! I talk in vain. I have shown thee graver
+things to prove his vile disloyalty, and yet thou'lt fawn upon him
+whilst thy fangs are bared to thine own son.”
+
+He advanced upon her, stooped, caught her by the wrist, and heaved her
+up.
+
+His face showed grey under its deep tan. His aspect terrified her at
+last and made an end of her reckless forward courage.
+
+He raised his voice to call.
+
+“Ya anta! Ayoub!”
+
+She gasped, livid in her turn with sudden terror. “My lord, my lord!”
+ she whimpered. “Stream of my life, be not angry! What wilt thou do?”
+
+He smiled evilly. “Do?” he growled. “What I should have done ten years
+ago and more. We'll have the rods to thee.” And again he called, more
+insistently--“Ayoub!”
+
+“My lord, my lord!” she gasped in shuddering horror now that at last she
+found him set upon the thing to which so often she had dared him. “Pity!
+Pity!” She grovelled and embraced his knees. “In the name of the Pitying
+the Pitiful be merciful upon the excesses to which my love for thee
+may have driven this poor tongue of mine. O my sweet lord! O father of
+Marzak!”
+
+Her distress, her beauty, and perhaps, more than either, her unusual
+humility and submission may have moved him. For even as at that
+moment Ayoub--the sleek and portly eunuch, who was her wazeer and
+chamberlain--loomed in the inner doorway, salaaming, he vanished again
+upon the instant, dismissed by a peremptory wave of the Basha's hand.
+
+Asad looked down upon her, sneering. “That attitude becomes thee best,”
+ he said. “Continue it in future.” Contemptuously he shook himself free
+of her grasp, turned and stalked majestically out, wearing his anger
+like a royal mantle, and leaving behind him two terror-shaken beings,
+who felt as if they had looked over the very edge of death.
+
+There was a long silence between them. Then at long length Fenzileh rose
+and crossed to the meshra-biyah--the latticed window-box. She opened it
+and took from one of its shelves an earthenware jar, placed there so as
+to receive the slightest breeze. From it she poured water into a little
+cup and drank greedily. That she could perform this menial service
+for herself when a mere clapping of hands would have brought slaves to
+minister to her need betrayed something of her disordered state of mind.
+
+She slammed the inner lattice and turned to Marzak. “And now?” quoth
+she.
+
+“Now?” said the lad.
+
+“Ay, what now? What are we to do? Are we to lie crushed under his rage
+until we are ruined indeed? He is bewitched. That jackal has enchanted
+him, so that he must deem well done all that is done by him. Allah guide
+us here, Marzak, or thou'lt be trampled into dust by Sakr-el-Bahr.”
+
+Marzak hung his head; slowly he moved to the divan and flung himself
+down upon its pillows; there he lay prone, his hands cupping his chin,
+his heels in the air.
+
+“What can I do?” he asked at last.
+
+“That is what I most desire to know. Something must be done, and soon.
+May his bones rot! If he lives thou art destroyed.”
+
+“Ay,” said Marzak, with sudden vigour and significance. “If he lives!”
+ And he sat up. “Whilst we plan and plot, and our plans and plots come
+to naught save to provoke the anger of my father, we might be better
+employed in taking the shorter way.”
+
+She stood in the middle of the chamber, pondering him with gloomy eyes
+“I too have thought of that,” said she. “I could hire me men to do the
+thing for a handful of gold. But the risk of it....”
+
+“Where would be the risk once he is dead?”
+
+“He might pull us down with him, and then what would our profit be in
+his death? Thy father would avenge him terribly.”
+
+“If it were craftily done we should not be discovered.”
+
+“Not be discovered?” she echoed, and laughed without mirth. “How young
+and blind thou art, O Marzak! We should be the first to be suspected.
+I have made no secret of my hate of him, and the people do not love me.
+They would urge thy father to do justice even were he himself averse to
+it, which I will not credit would be the case. This Sakr-el-Bahr--may
+Allah wither him!--is a god in their eyes. Bethink thee of the welcome
+given him! What Basha returning in triumph was ever greeted by the like?
+These victories that fortune has vouchsafed him have made them account
+him divinely favoured and protected. I tell thee, Marzak, that did thy
+father die to-morrow Sakr-el-Bahr would be proclaimed Basha of Algiers
+in his stead, and woe betide us then. And Asad-el-Din grows old. True,
+he does not go forth to fight. He clings to life and may last long. But
+if he should not, and if Sakr-el-Bahr should still walk the earth when
+thy father's destiny is fulfilled, I dare not think what then will be
+thy fate and mine.”
+
+“May his grave be defiled!” growled Matzak.
+
+“His grave?” said she. “The difficulty is to dig it for him without hurt
+to ourselves. Shaitan protects the dog.”
+
+“May he make his bed in hell!” said Marzak.
+
+“To curse him will not help us. Up, Marzak, and consider how the thing
+is to be done.”
+
+Marzak came to his feet, nimble and supple as a greyhound. “Listen now,”
+ he said. “Since I must go this voyage with him, perchance upon the seas
+on some dark night opportunity may serve me.”
+
+“Wait! Let me consider it. Allah guide me to find some way!” She beat
+her hands together and bade the slave girl who answered her to summon
+her wazeer Ayoub, and bid a litter be prepared for her. “We'll to the
+sôk, O Marzak, and see these slaves of his. Who knows but that something
+may be done by means of them! Guile will serve us better than mere
+strength against that misbegotten son of shame.”
+
+“May his house be destroyed!” said Marzak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. COMPETITORS
+
+
+The open space before the gates of the sôk-el-Abeed was thronged with a
+motley, jostling, noisy crowd that at every moment was being swelled by
+the human streams pouring to mingle in it from the debauching labyrinth
+of narrow, unpaved streets.
+
+There were brown-skinned Berbers in black goat-hair cloaks that were
+made in one piece with a cowl and decorated by a lozenge of red or
+orange colour on the back, their shaven heads encased in skull-caps or
+simply bound in a cord of plaited camel-hair; there were black Saharowi
+who went almost naked, and stately Arabs who seemed overmuffled in
+their flowing robes of white with the cowls overshadowing their swarthy,
+finely featured faces; there were dignified and prosperous-looking Moors
+in brightly coloured selhams astride of sleek mules that were richly
+caparisoned; and there were Tagareenes, the banished Moors of Andalusia,
+most of whom followed the trade of slave-dealers; there were native Jews
+in sombre black djellabas, and Christian-Jews--so-called because bred
+in Christian countries, whose garments they still wore; there were
+Levantine Turks, splendid of dress and arrogant of demeanour, and there
+were humble Cololies, Kabyles and Biscaries. Here a water-seller,
+laden with his goatskin vessel, tinkled his little bell; there an
+orange-hawker, balancing a basket of the golden fruit upon his ragged
+turban, bawled his wares. There were men on foot and men on mules,
+men on donkeys and men on slim Arab horses, an ever-shifting medley of
+colours, all jostling, laughing, cursing in the ardent African sunshine
+under the blue sky where pigeons circled. In the shadow of the yellow
+tapia wall squatted a line of whining beggars and cripples soliciting
+alms; near the gates a little space had been cleared and an audience
+had gathered in a ring about a Meddah--a beggar-troubadour--who, to the
+accompaniment of gimbri and gaitah from two acolytes, chanted a doleful
+ballad in a thin, nasal voice.
+
+Those of the crowd who were patrons of the market held steadily amain,
+and, leaving their mounts outside, passed through the gates through
+which there was no admittance for mere idlers and mean folk. Within the
+vast quadrangular space of bare, dry ground, enclosed by dust-coloured
+walls, there was more space. The sale of slaves had not yet begun and
+was not due to begin for another hour, and meanwhile a little trading
+was being done by those merchants who had obtained the coveted right
+to set up their booths against the walls; they were vendors of wool, of
+fruit, of spices, and one or two traded in jewels and trinkets for the
+adornment of the Faithful.
+
+A well was sunk in the middle of the ground, a considerable octagon with
+a low parapet in three steps. Upon the nethermost of these sat an
+aged, bearded Jew in a black djellaba, his head swathed in a coloured
+kerchief. Upon his knees reposed a broad, shallow black box, divided
+into compartments, each filled with lesser gems and rare stones, which
+he was offering for sale; about him stood a little group of young Moors
+and one or two Turkish officers, with several of whom the old Israelite
+was haggling at once.
+
+The whole of the northern wall was occupied by a long penthouse, its
+contents completely masked by curtains of camel-hair; from behind it
+proceeded a subdued murmur of human voices. These were the pens in which
+were confined the slaves to be offered for sale that day. Before the
+curtains, on guard, stood some dozen corsairs with attendant negro
+slaves.
+
+Beyond and above the wall glistened the white dome of a zowia, flanked
+by a spear-like minaret and the tall heads of a few date palms whose
+long leaves hung motionless in the hot air.
+
+Suddenly in the crowd beyond the gates there was a commotion. From one
+of the streets six colossal Nubians advanced with shouts of--
+
+“Oak! Oak! Warda! Way! Make way!”
+
+They were armed with great staves, grasped in their two hands, and with
+these they broke a path through that motley press, hurling men to right
+and left and earning a shower of curses in return.
+
+“Balâk! Make way! Way for the Lord Asad-ed-Din, the exalted of Allah!
+Way!”
+
+The crowd, pressing back, went down upon its knees and grovelled as
+Asad-ed-Din on a milk-white mule rode forward, escorted by Tsamanni his
+wazeer and a cloud of black-robed janissaries with flashing scimitars.
+
+The curses that had greeted the violence of his negroes were suddenly
+silenced; instead, blessings as fervent filled the air.
+
+“May Allah increase thy might! May Allah lengthen thy days! The
+blessings of our Lord Mahomet upon thee! Allah send thee more
+victories!” were the benedictions that showered upon him on every hand.
+He returned them as became a man who was supremely pious and devout.
+
+“The peace of Allah upon the Faithful of the Prophet's House,” he would
+murmur in response from time to time, until at last he had reached
+the gates. There he bade Tsamanni fling a purse to the crouching
+beggars--for is it not written in the Most Perspicuous Book that of alms
+ye shall bestow what ye can spare, for such as are saved from their own
+greed shall prosper, and whatever ye give in alms, as seeking the face
+of Allah shall be doubled unto you?
+
+Submissive to the laws as the meanest of his subjects, Asad dismounted
+and passed on foot into the sôk. He came to a halt by the well, and,
+facing the curtained penthouse, he blessed the kneeling crowd and
+commanded all to rise.
+
+He beckoned Sakr-el-Bahr's officer Ali--who was in charge of the slaves
+of the corsair's latest raid and announced his will to inspect the
+captives. At a sign from Ali, the negroes flung aside the camel-hair
+curtains and let the fierce sunlight beat in upon those pent-up
+wretches; they were not only the captives taken by Sakr-el-Bahr, but
+some others who were the result of one or two lesser raids by Biskaine.
+
+Asad beheld a huddle of men and women--though the proportion of women
+was very small--of all ages, races, and conditions; there were pale
+fair-haired men from France or the North, olive-skinned Italians and
+swarthy Spaniards, negroes and half-castes; there were old men, young
+men and mere children, some handsomely dressed, some almost naked,
+others hung with rags. In the hopeless dejection of their countenances
+alone was there any uniformity. But it was not a dejection that could
+awaken pity in the pious heart of Asad. They were unbelievers who would
+never look upon the face of God's Prophet, accursed and unworthy of
+any tenderness from man. For a moment his glance was held by a lovely
+black-haired Spanish girl, who sat with her locked hands held fast
+between her knees, in an attitude of intense despair and suffering--the
+glory of her eyes increased and magnified by the dark brown stains of
+sleeplessness surrounding them. Leaning on Tsamanni's arm, he stood
+considering her for a little while; then his glance travelled on.
+Suddenly he tightened his grasp of Tsamanni's arm and a quick interest
+leapt into his sallow face.
+
+On the uppermost tier of the pen that he was facing sat a very glory
+of womanhood, such a woman as he had heard tell existed but the like
+of which he had never yet beheld. She was tall and graceful as
+a cypress-tree; her skin was white as milk, her eyes two darkest
+sapphires, her head of a coppery golden that seemed to glow like metal
+as the sunlight caught it. She was dressed in a close gown of white, the
+bodice cut low and revealing the immaculate loveliness of her neck.
+
+Asad-ed-Din turned to Ali. “What pearl is this that hath been cast upon
+this dung-heap?” he asked.
+
+“She is the woman our lord Sakr-el-Bahr carried off from England.”
+ Slowly the Basha's eyes returned to consider her, and insensible though
+she had deemed herself by now, he saw her cheeks slowly reddening under
+the cold insult of his steady, insistent glance. The glow heightened her
+beauty, effacing the weariness which the face had worn.
+
+“Bring her forth,” said the Basha shortly.
+
+She was seized by two of the negroes, and to avoid being roughly handled
+by them she came at once, bracing herself to bear with dignity whatever
+might await her. A golden-haired young man beside her, his face haggard
+and stubbled with a beard of some growth, looked up in alarm as she was
+taken from his side. Then, with a groan, he made as if to clutch her,
+but a rod fell upon his raised arms and beat them down.
+
+Asad was thoughtful. It was Fenzileh who had bidden him come look at
+the infidel maid whom Sakr-el-Bahr had risked so much to snatch from
+England, suggesting that in her he would behold some proof of the bad
+faith which she was forever urging against the corsair leader. He beheld
+the woman, but he discovered about her no such signs as Fenzileh had
+suggested he must find, nor indeed did he look for any. Out of curiosity
+had he obeyed her prompting. But that and all else were forgotten now
+in the contemplation of this noble ensample of Northern womanhood,
+statuesque almost in her terrible restraint.
+
+He put forth a hand to touch her arm, and she drew it back as if his
+fingers were of fire.
+
+He sighed. “How inscrutable are the ways of Allah, that He should suffer
+so luscious a fruit to hang from the foul tree of infidelity!”
+
+Tsamanni watching him craftily, a master-sycophant profoundly learned in
+the art of playing upon his master's moods, made answer:
+
+“Even so perchance that a Faithful of the Prophet's House may pluck it.
+Verily all things are possible to the One!”
+
+“Yet is it not set down in the Book to be Read that the daughters of the
+infidel are not for True-Believers?” And again he sighed.
+
+But Tsamanni knowing full well how the Basha would like to be answered,
+trimmed his reply to that desire.
+
+“Allah is great, and what hath befallen once may well befall again, my
+lord.”
+
+Asad's kindling eyes flashed a glance at his wazeer.
+
+“Thou meanest Fenzileh. But then, by the mercy of Allah, I was rendered
+the instrument of her enlightenment.”
+
+“It may well be written that thou shalt be the same again, my lord,”
+ murmured the insidious Tsamanni. There was more stirring in his mind
+than the mere desire to play the courtier now. 'Twixt Fenzileh and
+himself there had long been a feud begotten of the jealousy which each
+inspired in the other where Asad was concerned. Were Fenzileh removed
+the wazeer's influence must grow and spread to his own profit. It was
+a thing of which he had often dreamed, but a dream he feared that was
+never like to be realized, for Asad was ageing, and the fires that had
+burned so fiercely in his earlier years seemed now to have consumed in
+him all thought of women. Yet here was one as by a miracle, of a beauty
+so amazing and so diverse from any that ever yet had feasted the Basha's
+sight, that plainly she had acted as a charm upon his senses.
+
+“She is white as the snows upon the Atlas, luscious as the dates of
+Tafilalt,” he murmured fondly, his gleaming eyes considering her what
+time she stood immovable before him. Suddenly he looked about him, and
+wheeled upon Tsamanni, his manner swiftly becoming charged with anger.
+
+“Her face has been bared to a thousand eyes and more,” he cried.
+
+“Even that has been so before,” replied Tsamanni.
+
+And then quite suddenly at their elbow a voice that was naturally soft
+and musical of accent but now rendered harsh, cut in to ask:
+
+“What woman may this be?”
+
+Startled, both the Basha and his wazeer swung round. Fenzileh,
+becomingly veiled and hooded, stood before them, escorted by Marzak. A
+little behind them were the eunuchs and the litter in which, unperceived
+by Asad, she had been borne thither. Beside the litter stood her wazeer
+Ayoub-el-Samin.
+
+Asad scowled down upon her, for he had not yet recovered from the
+resentment she and Marzak had provoked in him. Moreover, that in private
+she should be lacking in the respect which was his due was evil enough,
+though he had tolerated it. But that she should make so bold as to
+thrust in and question him in this peremptory fashion before all the
+world was more than his dignity could suffer. Never yet had she dared
+so much nor would she have dared it now but that her sudden anxiety had
+effaced all caution from her mind. She had seen the look with which
+Asad had been considering that lovely slave, and not only jealousy but
+positive fear awoke in her. Her hold upon Asad was growing tenuous. To
+snap it utterly no more was necessary than that he who of late years had
+scarce bestowed a thought or glance upon a woman should be taken with
+the fancy to bring some new recruit to his hareem.
+
+Hence her desperate, reckless courage to stand thus before him now, for
+although her face was veiled there was hardy arrogance in every line of
+her figure. Of his scowl she took no slightest heed.
+
+“If this be the slave fetched by Sakr-el-Bahr from England, then rumour
+has lied to me,” she said. “I vow it was scarce worth so long a
+voyage and the endangering so many valuable Muslim lives to fetch this
+yellow-faced, long-shanked daughter of perdition into Barbary.”
+
+Asad's surprise beat down his anger. He was not subtle.
+
+“Yellow-faced? Long-shanked?” quoth he. Then reading Fenzileh at last,
+he displayed a slow, crooked smile. “Already have I observed thee
+to grow hard of hearing, and now thy sight is failing too, it seems.
+Assuredly thou art growing old.” And he looked her over with such an eye
+of displeasure that she recoiled.
+
+He stepped close up to her. “Too long already hast thou queened it in my
+hareem with thine infidel, Frankish ways,” he muttered, so that none but
+those immediately about overheard his angry words. “Thou art become a
+very scandal in the eyes of the Faithful,” he added very grimly. “It
+were well, perhaps, that we amended that.”
+
+Abruptly then he turned away, and by a gesture he ordered Ali to return
+the slave to her place among the others. Leaning on the arm of Tsamanni
+he took some steps towards the entrance, then halted, and turned again
+to Fenzileh:
+
+“To thy litter,” he bade her peremptorily, rebuking her thus before all,
+“and get thee to the house as becomes a seemly Muslim woman. Nor ever
+again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot.”
+
+She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at
+the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by
+Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to
+meet the angry eye of the Basha.
+
+Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
+
+“As her beauty wanes so her presumption waxes,” he growled. “She is
+growing old, Tsamanni--old and lean and shrewish, and no fit mate for a
+Member of the Prophet's House. It were perhaps a pleasing thing in the
+sight of Allah that we replaced her.” And then, referring obviously to
+that other one, his eye turning towards the penthouse the curtains of
+which were drawn again, he changed his tone.
+
+“Didst thou mark, O Tsamanni, with what a grace she moved?--lithely and
+nobly as a young gazelle. Verily, so much beauty was never created by
+the All-Wise to be cast into the Pit.”
+
+“May it not have been sent to comfort some True-Believer?” wondered the
+subtle wazeer. “To Allah all things are possible.”
+
+“Why else, indeed?” said Asad. “It was written; and even as none may
+obtain what is not written, so none may avoid what is. I am resolved.
+Stay thou here, Tsamanni. Remain for the outcry and purchase her. She
+shall be taught the True Faith. She shall be saved from the furnace.”
+ The command had come, the thing that Tsamanni had so ardently desired.
+
+He licked his lips. “And the price, my lord?” he asked, in a small
+voice.
+
+“Price?” quoth Asad. “Have I not bid thee purchase her? Bring her to me,
+though her price be a thousand philips.”
+
+“A thousand philips!” echoed Tsamanni amazed. “Allah is great!”
+
+But already Asad had left his side and passed out under the arched
+gateay, where the grovelling anew at the sight of him.
+
+It was a fine thing for Asad to bid him remain for the sale. But the
+dalal would part with no slave until the money was forthcoming, and
+Tsamanni had no considerable sum upon his person. Therefore in the wake
+of his master he set out forthwith to the Kasbah. It wanted still an
+hour before the sale would be held and he had time and to spare in which
+to go and return.
+
+It happened, however, that Tsamanni was malicious, and that the hatred
+of Fenzileh which so long he had consumed in silence and dissembled
+under fawning smiles and profound salaams included also her servants.
+There was none in all the world of whom he entertained a greater
+contempt than her sleek and greasy eunuch Ayoub-el-Samin of the
+majestic, rolling gait and fat, supercilious lips.
+
+It was written, too, that in the courtyard of the Kasbah he should
+stumble upon Ayoub, who indeed had by his mistress's commands been
+set to watch for the wazeer. The fat fellow rolled forward, his hands
+supporting his paunch, his little eyes agleam.
+
+“Allah increase thy health, Tsamanni,” was his courteous greeting. “Thou
+bearest news?”
+
+“News? What news?” quoth Tsamanni. “In truth none that will gladden thy
+mistress.”
+
+“Merciful Allah! What now? Doth it concern that Frankish slave-girl?”
+
+Tsamanni smiled, a thing that angered Ayoub, who felt that the ground he
+trod was becoming insecure; it followed that if his mistress fell from
+influence he fell with her, and became as the dust upon Tsamanni's
+slippers.
+
+“By the Koran thou tremblest, Ayoub!” Tsamanni mocked him. “Thy soft fat
+is all a-quivering; and well it may, for thy days are numbered, O father
+of nothing.”
+
+“Dost deride me, dog?” came the other's voice, shrill now with anger.
+
+“Callest me dog? Thou?” Deliberately Tsamanni spat upon his shadow. “Go
+tell thy mistress that I am bidden by my lord to buy the Frankish girl.
+Tell her that my lord will take her to wife, even as he took Fenzileh,
+that he may lead her into the True Belief and cheat Shaitan of so fair
+a jewel. Add that I am bidden to buy her though she cost my lord a
+thousand philips. Bear her that message, O father of wind, and may Allah
+increase thy paunch!” And he was gone, lithe, active, and mocking.
+
+“May thy sons perish and thy daughters become harlots,” roared the
+eunuch, maddened at once by this evil news and the insult with which it
+was accompanied.
+
+But Tsamanni only laughed, as he answered him over his shoulder--
+
+“May thy sons be sultans all, Ayoub!”
+
+Quivering still with a rage that entirely obliterated his alarm at what
+he had learnt, Ayoub rolled into the presence of his mistress with that
+evil message.
+
+She listened to him in a dumb white fury. Then she fell to reviling
+her lord and the slave-girl in a breath, and called upon Allah to break
+their bones and blacken their faces and rot their flesh with all the
+fervour of one born and bred in the True Faith. When she recovered from
+that burst of fury it was to sit brooding awhile. At length she sprang
+up and bade Ayoub see that none lurked to listen about the doorways.
+
+“We must act, Ayoub, and act swiftly, or I am destroyed and with me
+will be destroyed Marzak, who alone could not stand against his father's
+face. Sakr-el-Bahr will trample us into the dust.” She checked on a
+sudden thought. “By Allah it may have been a part of his design to have
+brought hither that white-faced wench. But we must thwart him and we
+must thwart Asad, or thou art ruined too, Ayoub.”
+
+“Thwart him?” quoth her wazeer, gaping at the swift energy of mind and
+body with which this woman was endowed, the like of which he had never
+seen in any woman yet. “Thwart him?” he repeated.
+
+“First, Ayoub, to place this Frankish girl beyond his reach.”
+
+“That is well thought--but how?”
+
+“How? Can thy wit suggest no way? Hast thou wits at all in that fat head
+of thine? Thou shalt outbid Tsamanni, or, better still, set someone else
+to do it for thee, and so buy the girl for me. Then we'll contrive that
+she shall vanish quietly and quickly before Asad can discover a trace of
+her.”
+
+His face blanched, and the wattles about his jaws were shaking. “And...
+and the cost? Hast thou counted the cost, O Fenzileh? What will happen
+when Asad gains knowledge of this thing?”
+
+“He shall gain no knowledge of it,” she answered him. “Or if he does,
+the girl being gone beyond recall, he shall submit him to what was
+written. Trust me to know how to bring him to it.”
+
+“Lady, lady!” he cried, and wrung his bunches of fat fingers. “I dare
+not engage in this!”
+
+“Engage in what? If I bid thee go buy this girl, and give thee the money
+thou'lt require, what else concerns thee, dog? What else is to be done,
+a man shall do. Come now, thou shalt have the money, all I have, which
+is a matter of some fifteen hundred philips, and what is not laid out
+upon this purchase thou shalt retain for thyself.”
+
+He considered an instant, and conceived that she was right. None could
+blame him for executing the commands she gave him. And there would be
+profit in it, clearly--ay, and it would be sweet to outbid that dog
+Tsamanni and send him empty-handed home to face the wrath of his
+frustrated master. He spread his hands and salaamed in token of complete
+acquiescence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE SLAVE-MARKET
+
+
+At the sôk-el-Abeed it was the hour of the outcry, announced by a blast
+of trumpets and the thudding of tom-toms. The traders that until then
+had been licensed to ply within the enclosure now put up the shutters
+of their little booths. The Hebrew pedlar of gems closed his box and
+effaced himself, leaving the steps about the well clear for the most
+prominent patrons of the market. These hastened to assemble there,
+surrounding it and facing outwards, whilst the rest of the crowd was
+ranged against the southern and western walls of the enclosure.
+
+Came negro water-carriers in white turbans with aspersers made of
+palmetto leaves to sprinkle the ground and lay the dust against the
+tramp of slaves and buyers. The trumpets ceased for an instant, then
+wound a fresh imperious blast and fell permanently silent. The crowd
+about the gates fell back to right and left, and very slowly and
+stately three tall dalals, dressed from head to foot in white and with
+immaculate turbans wound about their heads, advanced into the open
+space. They came to a halt at the western end of the long wall, the
+chief dalal standing slightly in advance of the other two.
+
+The chattering of voices sank upon their advent, it became a hissing
+whisper, then a faint drone like that of bees, and then utter silence.
+In the solemn and grave demeanour of the dalals there was something
+almost sacerdotal, so that when that silence fell upon the crowd the
+affair took on the aspect of a sacrament.
+
+The chief dalal stood forward a moment as if in an abstraction with
+downcast eyes; then with hands outstretched to catch a blessing he
+raised his voice and began to pray in a monotonous chant:
+
+“In the name of Allah the Pitying the Pitiful Who created man from clots
+of blood! All that is in the Heavens and in the Earth praiseth Allah,
+Who is the Mighty, the Wise! His the kingdom of the Heavens and of the
+Earth. He maketh alive and killeth, and He hath power over all things.
+He is the first and the last, the seen and the unseen, and He knoweth
+all things.”
+
+“Ameen,” intoned the crowd.
+
+“The praise to Him who sent us Mahomet His Prophet to give the world the
+True Belief, and curses upon Shaitan the stoned who wages war upon Allah
+and His children.”
+
+“Ameen.”
+
+“The blessings of Allah and our Lord Mahomet upon this market and upon
+all who may buy and sell herein, and may Allah increase their wealth and
+grant them length of days in which to praise Him.”
+
+“Ameen,” replied the crowd, as with a stir and rustle the close
+ranks relaxed from the tense attitude of prayer, and each man sought
+elbow-room.
+
+The dalal beat his hands together, whereupon the curtains were drawn
+aside and the huddled slaves displayed--some three hundred in all,
+occupying three several pens.
+
+In the front rank of the middle pen--the one containing Rosamund and
+Lionel--stood a couple of stalwart young Nubians, sleek and muscular,
+who looked on with completest indifference, no whit appalled by the
+fate which had haled them thither. They caught the eye of the dalal,
+and although the usual course was for a buyer to indicate a slave he
+was prepared to purchase, yet to the end that good beginning should be
+promptly made, the dalal himself pointed out that stalwart pair to the
+corsairs who stood on guard. In compliance the two negroes were brought
+forth.
+
+“Here is a noble twain,” the dalal announced, “strong of muscle and long
+of limb, as all may see, whom it were a shameful thing to separate. Who
+needs such a pair for strong labour let him say what he will give.”
+ He set out on a slow circuit of the well, the corsairs urging the two
+slaves to follow him that all buyers might see and inspect them.
+
+In the foremost ranks of the crowd near the gate stood Ali, sent thither
+by Othmani to purchase a score of stout fellows required to make up
+the contingent of the galeasse of Sakr-el-Bahr. He had been strictly
+enjoined to buy naught but the stoutest stuff the market could
+afford--with one exception. Aboard that galeasse they wanted no
+weaklings who would trouble the boatswain with their swoonings. Ali
+announced his business forthwith.
+
+“I need such tall fellows for the oars of Sakr-el-Bahr,” said he with
+loud importance, thus drawing upon himself the eyes of the assembly, and
+sunning himself in the admiring looks bestowed upon one of the officers
+of Oliver-Reis, one of the rovers who were the pride of Islam and a
+sword-edge to the infidel.
+
+“They were born to toil nobly at the oar, O Ali-Reis,” replied the dalal
+in all solemnity. “What wilt thou give for them?”
+
+“Two hundred philips for the twain.”
+
+The dalal paced solemnly on, the slaves following in his wake.
+
+“Two hundred philips am I offered for a pair of the lustiest slaves that
+by the favour of Allah were ever brought into this market. Who will say
+fifty philips more?”
+
+A portly Moor in a flowing blue selham rose from his seat on the step of
+the well as the dalal came abreast of him, and the slaves scenting here
+a buyer, and preferring any service to that of the galleys with which
+they were threatened, came each in turn to kiss his hands and fawn upon
+him, for all the world like dogs.
+
+Calm and dignified he ran his hands over them feeling their muscles, and
+then forced back their lips and examined their teeth and mouths.
+
+“Two hundred and twenty for the twain,” he said, and the dalal passed on
+with his wares, announcing the increased price he had been offered.
+
+Thus he completed the circuit and came to stand once more before Ali.
+
+“Two hundred and twenty is now the price, O Ali! By the Koran, they are
+worth three hundred at the least. Wilt say three hundred?”
+
+“Two hundred and thirty,” was the answer.
+
+Back to the Moor went the dalal. “Two hundred and thirty I am now
+offered, O Hamet. Thou wilt give another twenty?”
+
+“Not I, by Allah!” said Hamet, and resumed his seat. “Let him have
+them.”
+
+“Another ten philips?” pleaded the dalal.
+
+“Not another asper.”
+
+“They are thine, then, O Ali, for two hundred and thirty. Give thanks to
+Allah for so good a bargain.”
+
+The Nubians were surrendered to Ali's followers, whilst the dalal's two
+assistants advanced to settle accounts with the corsair.
+
+“Wait wait,” said he, “is not the name of Sakr-el-Bahr good warranty?”
+
+“The inviolable law is that the purchase money be paid ere a slave
+leaves the market, O valiant Ali.”
+
+“It shall be observed,” was the impatient answer, “and I will so pay
+before they leave. But I want others yet, and we will make one account
+an it please thee. That fellow yonder now. I have orders to buy him for
+my captain.” And he indicated Lionel, who stood at Rosamund's side, the
+very incarnation of woefulness and debility.
+
+Contemptuous surprise flickered an instant in the eyes of the dalal. But
+this he made haste to dissemble.
+
+“Bring forth that yellow-haired infidel,” he commanded.
+
+The corsairs laid hands on Lionel. He made a vain attempt to struggle,
+but it was observed that the woman leaned over to him and said something
+quickly, whereupon his struggles ceased and he suffered himself to be
+dragged limply forth into the full view of all the market.
+
+“Dost want him for the oar, Ali?” cried Ayoub-el-Samin across the
+quadrangle, a jest this that evoked a general laugh.
+
+“What else?” quoth Ali. “He should be cheap at least.”
+
+“Cheap?” quoth the dalal in an affectation of surprise. “Nay, now. 'Tis
+a comely fellow and a young one. What wilt thou give, now? a hundred
+philips?”
+
+“A hundred philips!” cried Ali derisively. “A hundred philips for that
+skinful of bones! Ma'sh'-Allah! Five philips is my price, O dalal.”
+
+Again laughter crackled through the mob. But the dalal stiffened with
+increasing dignity. Some of that laughter seemed to touch himself, and
+he was not a person to be made the butt of mirth.
+
+“'Tis a jest, my master,” said he, with a forgiving yet contemptuous
+wave. “Behold how sound he is.” He signed to one of the corsairs, and
+Lionel's doublet was slit from neck to girdle and wrenched away from his
+body, leaving him naked to the waist, and displaying better proportions
+than might have been expected. In a passion at that indignity Lionel
+writhed in the grip of his guards, until one of the corsairs struck him
+a light blow with a whip in earnest of what to expect if he continued
+to be troublesome. “Consider him now,” said the dalal, pointing to that
+white torso. “And behold how sound he is. See how excellent are his
+teeth.” He seized Lionel's head and forced the jaws apart.
+
+“Ay,” said Ali, “but consider me those lean shanks and that woman's
+arm.”
+
+“'Tis a fault the oar will mend,” the dalal insisted.
+
+“You filthy blackamoors!” burst from Lionel in a sob of rage.
+
+“He is muttering curses in his infidel tongue,” said Ali. “His temper is
+none too good, you see. I have said five philips. I'll say no more.”
+
+With a shrug the dalal began his circuit of the well, the corsairs
+thrusting Lionel after him. Here one rose to handle him, there another,
+but none seemed disposed to purchase.
+
+“Five philips is the foolish price offered me for this fine young
+Frank,” cried the dalal. “Will no True-Believer pay ten for such a
+slave? Wilt not thou, O Ayoub? Thou, Hamet--ten philips?”
+
+But one after another those to whom he was offered shook their heads.
+The haggardness of Lionel's face was too unprepossessing. They had seen
+slaves with that look before, and experience told them that no good was
+ever to be done with such fellows. Moreover, though shapely, his muscles
+were too slight, his flesh looked too soft and tender. Of what use a
+slave who must be hardened and nourished into strength, and who might
+very well die in the process? Even at five philips he would be dear. So
+the disgusted dalal came back to Ali.
+
+“He is thine, then, for five philips--Allah pardon thy avarice.”
+
+Ali grinned, and his men seized upon Lionel and bore him off into the
+background to join the two negroes previously purchased.
+
+And then, before Ali could bid for another of the slaves he desired to
+acquire, a tall, elderly Jew, dressed in black doublet and hose like a
+Castilian gentleman, with a ruffle at his neck, a plumed bonnet on his
+grey locks, and a serviceable dagger hanging from his girdle of hammered
+gold, had claimed the attention of the dalal.
+
+In the pen that held the captives of the lesser raids conducted by
+Biskaine sat an Andalusian girl of perhaps some twenty years, of a
+beauty entirely Spanish.
+
+Her face was of the warm pallor of ivory, her massed hair of an ebony
+black, her eyebrows were finely pencilled, and her eyes of deepest and
+softest brown. She was dressed in the becoming garb of the Castilian
+peasant, the folded kerchief of red and yellow above her bodice leaving
+bare the glories of her neck. She was very pale, and her eyes were wild
+in their look, but this detracted nothing from her beauty.
+
+She had attracted the jew's notice, and it is not impossible that there
+may have stirred in him a desire to avenge upon her some of the cruel
+wrongs, some of the rackings, burning, confiscations, and banishment
+suffered by the men of his race at the hands of the men of hers. He may
+have bethought him of invaded ghettos, of Jewish maidens ravished,
+and Jewish children butchered in the name of the God those Spanish
+Christians worshipped, for there was something almost of contemptuous
+fierceness in his dark eyes and in the hand he flung out to indicate
+her.
+
+“Yonder is a Castilian wench for whom I will give fifty Philips, O
+dalal,” he announced. The datal made a sign, whereupon the corsairs
+dragged her struggling forth.
+
+“So much loveliness may not be bought for fifty Philips, O Ibrahim,”
+ said he. “Yusuf here will pay sixty at least.” And he stood expectantly
+before a resplendent Moor.
+
+The Moor, however, shook his head.
+
+“Allah knows I have three wives who would destroy her loveliness within
+the hour and so leave me the loser.”
+
+The dalal moved on, the girl following him but contesting every step of
+the way with those who impelled her forward, and reviling them too
+in hot Castilian. She drove her nails into the arms of one and spat
+fiercely into the face of another of her corsair guards. Rosamund's
+weary eyes quickened to horror as she watched her--a horror prompted as
+much by the fate awaiting that poor child as by the undignified fury
+of the futile battle she waged against it. But it happened that her
+behaviour impressed a Levantine Turk quite differently. He rose, a short
+squat figure, from his seat on the steps of the well.
+
+“Sixty Philips will I pay for the joy of taming that wild cat,” said he.
+
+But Ibrahim was not to be outbidden. He offered seventy, the Turk
+countered with a bid of eighty, and Ibrahim again raised the price to
+ninety, and there fell a pause.
+
+The dalal spurred on the Turk. “Wilt thou be beaten then, and by
+an Israelite? Shall this lovely maid be given to a perverter of the
+Scriptures, to an inheritor of the fire, to one of a race that would not
+bestow on their fellow-men so much as the speck out of a date-stone? It
+were a shame upon a True-Believer.”
+
+Urged thus the Turk offered another five Philips, but with obvious
+reluctance. The Jew, however, entirely unabashed by a tirade against
+him, the like of which he heard a score of times a day in the course of
+trading, pulled forth a heavy purse from his girdle.
+
+“Here are one hundred Philips,” he announced. “'Tis overmuch. But I
+offer it.”
+
+Ere the dalal's pious and seductive tongue could urge him further the
+Turk sat down again with a gesture of finality.
+
+“I give him joy of her,” said he.
+
+“She is thine, then, O Ibrahim, for one hundred philips.”
+
+The Israelite relinquished the purse to the dalal's white-robed
+assistants and advanced to receive the girl. The corsairs thrust her
+forward against him, still vainly battling, and his arms closed about
+her for a moment.
+
+“Thou has cost me dear, thou daughter of Spain,” said he. “But I am
+content. Come.” And he made shift to lead her away. Suddenly, however,
+fierce as a tiger-cat she writhed her arms upwards and clawed at his
+face. With a scream of pain he relaxed his hold of her and in that
+moment, quick as lightning she plucked the dagger that hung from his
+girdle so temptingly within her reach.
+
+“Valga me Dios!” she cried, and ere a hand could be raised to prevent
+her she had buried the blade in her lovely breast and sank in a
+laughing, coughing, heap at his feet. A final convulsive heave and she
+lay there quite still, whilst Ibrahim glared down at her with eyes of
+dismay, and over all the market there hung a hush of sudden awe.
+
+Rosamund had risen in her place, and a faint colour came to warm her
+pallor, a faint light kindled in her eyes. God had shown her the way
+through this poor Spanish girl, and assuredly God would give her the
+means to take it when her own turn came. She felt herself suddenly
+uplifted and enheartened. Death was a sharp, swift severing, an easy
+door of escape from the horror that threatened her, and God in His
+mercy, she knew, would justify self-murder under such circumstances as
+were her own and that poor dead Andalusian maid's.
+
+At length Ibrahim roused himself from his momentary stupor. He stepped
+deliberately across the body, his face inflamed, and stood to beard the
+impassive dalal.
+
+“She is dead!” he bleated. “I am defrauded. Give me back my gold!”
+
+“Are we to give back the price of every slave that dies?” the dalal
+questioned him.
+
+“But she was not yet delivered to me,” raved the Jew. “My hands had not
+touched her. Give me back my gold.”
+
+“Thou liest, son of a dog,” was the answer, dispassionately delivered.
+“She was thine already. I had so pronounced her. Bear her hence, since
+she belongs to thee.”
+
+The Jew, his face empurpling, seemed to fight for breath
+
+“How?” he choked. “Am I to lose a hundred philips?”
+
+“What is written is written,” replied the serene dalal.
+
+Ibrahim was frothing at the lips, his eyes were blood-injected. “But it
+was never written that....”
+
+“Peace,” said the dalal. “Had it not been written it could not have come
+to pass. It is the will of Allah! Who dares rebel against it?”
+
+The crowd began to murmur.
+
+“I want my hundred philips,” the Jew insisted, whereupon the murmur
+swelled into a sudden roar.
+
+“Thou hearest?” said the dalal. “Allah pardon thee, thou art disturbing
+the peace of this market. Away, ere ill betide thee.”
+
+“Hence! hence!” roared the crowd, and some advanced threateningly upon
+the luckless Ibrahim. “Away, thou perverter of Holy Writ! thou filth!
+thou dog! Away!”
+
+Such was the uproar, such the menace of angry countenances and clenched
+fists shaken in his very face, that Ibrahim quailed and forgot his loss
+in fear.
+
+“I go, I go,” he said, and turned hastily to depart.
+
+But the dalal summoned him back. “Take hence thy property,” said he,
+and pointed to the body. And so Ibrahim was forced to suffer the further
+mockery of summoning his slaves to bear away the lifeless body for which
+he had paid in lively potent gold.
+
+Yet by the gates he paused again. “I will appeal me to the Basha,” he
+threatened. “Asad-ed-Din is just, and he will have my money restored to
+me.”
+
+“So he will,” said the dalal, “when thou canst restore the dead to life,”
+ and he turned to the portly Ayoub, who was plucking at his sleeve. He
+bent his head to catch the muttered words of Fenzileh's wazeer. Then, in
+obedience to them, he ordered Rosamund to be brought forward.
+
+She offered no least resistance, advancing in a singularly lifeless way,
+like a sleep-walker or one who had been drugged. In the heat and glare
+of the open market she stood by the dalal's side at the head of the
+well, whilst he dilated upon her physical merits in that lingua franca
+which he used since it was current coin among all the assorted races
+represented there--a language which the knowledge of French that her
+residence in France had taught her she was to her increasing horror and
+shame able to understand.
+
+The first to make an offer for her was that same portly Moor who had
+sought to purchase the two Nubeans. He rose to scrutinize her closely,
+and must have been satisfied, for the price he offered was a good one,
+and he offered it with contemptuous assurance that he would not be
+outbidden.
+
+“One hundred philips for the milk-faced girl.”
+
+“'Tis not enough. Consider me the moon-bright loveliness of her face,”
+ said the dalal as he moved on. “Chigil yields us fair women, but no woman
+of Chigil was ever half so fair.”
+
+“One hundred and fifty,” said the Levantine Turk with a snap.
+
+“Not yet enough. Behold the stately height which Allah hath vouchsafed
+her. See the noble carriage of her head, the lustre of her eye! By
+Allah, she is worthy to grace the Sultan's own hareem.”
+
+He said no more than the buyers recognized to be true, and excitement
+stirred faintly through their usually impassive ranks. A Tagareen Moor
+named Yusuf offered at once two hundred.
+
+But still the dalal continued to sing her praises. He held up one of her
+arms for inspection, and she submitted with lowered eyes, and no sign
+of resentment beyond the slow flush that spread across her face and
+vanished again.
+
+“Behold me these limbs, smooth as Arabian silks and whiter than ivory.
+Look at those lips like pomegranate blossoms. The price is now two
+hundred philips. What wilt thou give, O Hamet?”
+
+Hamet showed himself angry that his original bid should so speedily have
+been doubled. “By the Koran, I have purchased three sturdy girls from
+the Sus for less.”
+
+“Wouldst thou compare a squat-faced girl from the Sus with this
+narcissus-eyed glory of womanhood?” scoffed the dalal.
+
+“Two hundred and ten, then,” was Hamet's sulky grunt.
+
+The watchful Tsamanni considered that the time had come to buy her for
+his lord as he had been bidden.
+
+“Three hundred,” he said curtly, to make an end of matters, and--
+
+“Four hundred,” instantly piped a shrill voice behind him.
+
+He spun round in his amazement and met the leering face of Ayoub. A
+murmur ran through the ranks of the buyers, the people craned their
+necks to catch a glimpse of this open-handed purchaser.
+
+Yusuf the Tagareen rose up in a passion. He announced angrily that never
+again should the dust of the sôk of Algiers defile his slippers, that
+never again would he come there to purchase slaves.
+
+“By the Well of Zem-Zem,” he swore, “all men are bewitched in this
+market. Four hundred philips for a Frankish girl! May Allah increase
+your wealth, for verily you'll need it.” And in his supreme disgust
+he stalked to the gates, and elbowed his way through the crowd, and so
+vanished from the sôk.
+
+Yet ere he was out of earshot her price had risen further. Whilst
+Tsamanni was recovering from his surprise at the competitor that had
+suddenly appeared before him, the dalal had lured an increased offer
+from the Turk.
+
+“'Tis a madness,” the latter deplored. “But she pleaseth me, and should
+it seem good to Allah the Merciful to lead her into the True Faith she
+may yet become the light of my hareem. Four hundred and twenty philips,
+then, O dalal, and Allah pardon me my prodigality.”
+
+Yet scarcely was his little speech concluded than Tsamanni with laconic
+eloquence rapped out: “Five hundred.”
+
+“Y'Allah!” cried the Turk, raising his hands to heaven, and “Y'Allah!”
+ echoed the crowd.
+
+“Five hundred and fifty,” shrilled Ayoub's voice above the general din.
+
+“Six hundred,” replied Tsamanni, still unmoved.
+
+And now such was the general hubbub provoked by these unprecedented
+prices that the dalal was forced to raise his voice and cry for silence.
+
+When this was restored Ayoub at once raised the price to seven hundred.
+
+“Eight hundred,” snapped Tsamanni, showing at last a little heat.
+
+“Nine hundred,” replied Ayoub.
+
+Tsamanni swung round upon him again, white now with fury.
+
+“Is this a jest, O father of wind?” he cried, and excited laughter by
+the taunt implicit in that appellation.
+
+“And thou'rt the jester,” replied Ayoub with forced calm, “thou'lt find
+the jest a costly one.”
+
+With a shrug Tsamanni turned again to the dalal. “A thousand philips,”
+ said he shortly.
+
+“Silence there!” cried the dalal again. “Silence, and praise Allah who
+sends good prices.”
+
+“One thousand and one hundred,” said Ayoub the irrepressible
+
+And now Tsamanni not only found himself outbidden, but he had reached
+the outrageous limit appointed by Asad. He lacked authority to go
+further, dared not do so without first consulting the Basha. Yet if he
+left the sôk for that purpose Ayoub would meanwhile secure the girl.
+He found himself between sword and wall. On the one hand did he
+permit himself to be outbidden his master might visit upon him his
+disappointment. On the other, did he continue beyond the limit so idly
+mentioned as being far beyond all possibility, it might fare no less ill
+with him.
+
+He turned to the crowd, waving his arms in furious gesticulation. “By
+the beard of the Prophet, this bladder of wind and grease makes sport of
+us. He has no intent to buy. What man ever heard of the half of such a
+price for a slave girl?”
+
+Ayoub's answer was eloquent; he produced a fat bag and flung it on the
+ground, where it fell with a mellow chink. “There is my sponsor,” he
+made answer, grinning in the very best of humours, savouring to the
+full his enemy's rage and discomfiture, and savouring it at no cost
+to himself. “Shall I count out one thousand and one hundred philips, O
+dalal.”
+
+“If the wazeer Tsamanni is content.”
+
+“Dost thou know for whom I buy?” roared Tsamanni. “For the Basha
+himself, Asad-ed-Din, the exalted of Allah,” He advanced upon Ayoub with
+hands upheld. “What shalt thou say to him, O dog, when he calls thee to
+account for daring to outbid him.”
+
+But Ayoub remained unruffled before all this fury. He spread his fat
+hands, his eyes twinkling, his great lips pursed. “How should I know,
+since Allah has not made me all-knowing? Thou shouldst have said so
+earlier. 'Tis thus I shall answer the Basha should he question me, and
+the Basha is just.”
+
+“I would not be thee, Ayoub--not for the throne of Istambul.”
+
+“Nor I thee, Tsamanni; for thou art jaundiced with rage.”
+
+And so they stood glaring each at the other until the dalal called them
+back to the business that was to do.
+
+“The price is now one thousand and one hundred philips. Wilt thou suffer
+defeat, O wazeer?”
+
+“Since Allah wills. I have no authority to go further.”
+
+“Then at one thousand and one hundred philips, Ayoub, she is....”
+
+But the sale was not yet to be completed. From the dense and eager
+throng about the gates rang a crisp voice--
+
+“One thousand and two hundred philips for the Frankish girl.”
+
+The dalal, who had conceived that the limits of madness had been already
+reached, stood gaping now in fresh amazement. The mob crowed and cheered
+and roared between enthusiasm and derision, and even Tsamanni brightened
+to see another champion enter the lists who perhaps would avenge him
+upon Ayoub. The crowd parted quickly to right and left, and through it
+into the open strode Sakr-el-Bahr. They recognized him instantly, and
+his name was shouted in acclamation by that idolizing multitude.
+
+That Barbary name of his conveyed no information to Rosamund, and her
+back being turned to the entrance she did not see him. But she had
+recognized his voice, and she had shuddered at the sound. She could make
+nothing of the bidding, nor what the purpose that surely underlay it to
+account for the extraordinary excitement of the traders. Vaguely had she
+been wondering what dastardly purpose Oliver might intend to serve, but
+now that she heard his voice that wonder ceased and understanding took
+its place. He had hung there somewhere in the crowd waiting until all
+competitors but one should have been outbidden, and now he stepped forth
+to buy her for his own--his slave! She closed her eyes a moment and
+prayed God that he might not prevail in his intent. Any fate but that;
+she would rob him even of the satisfaction of driving her to sheathe
+a poniard in her heart as that poor Andalusian girl had done. A wave
+almost of unconsciousness passed over her in the intensity of her
+horror. For a moment the ground seemed to rock and heave under her feet.
+
+Then the dizziness passed, and she was herself again. She heard the
+crowd thundering “Ma'sh'Allah!” and “Sakr-el-Bahr!” and the dalal
+clamouring sternly for silence. When this was at last restored she heard
+his exclamation--
+
+“The glory to Allah who sends eager buyers! What sayest thou, O wazeer
+Ayoub?”
+
+“Ay!” sneered Tsamanni, “what now?”
+
+“One thousand and three hundred,” said Ayoub with a quaver of uneasy
+defiance.
+
+“Another hundred, O dalal,” came from Sakr-el-Bahr in a quiet voice.
+
+“One thousand and five hundred,” screamed Ayoub, thus reaching not only
+the limit imposed by his mistress, but the very limit of the resources
+at her immediate disposal. Gone, too, with that bid was all hope of
+profit to himself.
+
+But Sakr-el-Bahr, impassive as Fate, and without so much as deigning to
+bestow a look upon the quivering eunuch, said again--
+
+“Another hundred, O dalal.”
+
+“One thousand and six hundred philips!” cried the dalal, more in
+amazement than to announce the figure reached. Then controlling his
+emotions he bowed his head in reverence and made confession of his
+faith. “All things are possible if Allah wills them. The praise to Him
+who sends wealthy buyers.”
+
+He turned to the crestfallen Ayoub, so crestfallen that in the
+contemplation of him Tsamanni was fast gathering consolation for his own
+discomfiture, vicariously tasting the sweets of vengeance. “What say you
+now, O perspicuous wazeer?”
+
+“I say,” choked Ayoub, “that since by the favour of Shaitan he hath so
+much wealth he must prevail.”
+
+But the insulting words were scarcely uttered than Sakr-el-Bahr's great
+hand had taken the wazeer by the nape of his fat neck, a growl of anger
+running through the assembly to approve him.
+
+“By the favour of Shaitan, sayest thou, thou sex-less dog?” he growled,
+and tightened his grip so that the wazeer squirmed and twisted in an
+agony of pain. Down was his head thrust, and still down, until his fat
+body gave way and he lay supine and writhing in the dust of the sôk.
+“Shall I strangle thee, thou father of filth, or shall I fling thy soft
+flesh to the hooks to teach thee what is a man's due from thee?” And as
+he spoke he rubbed the too daring fellow's face roughly on the ground.
+
+“Mercy!” squealed the wazeer. “Mercy, O mighty Sakr-el-Bahr, as thou
+lookest for mercy!”
+
+“Unsay thy words, thou offal. Pronounce thyself a liar and a dog.”
+
+“I do unsay them. I have foully lied. Thy wealth is the reward sent thee
+by Allah for thy glorious victories over the unbelieving.”
+
+“Put out thine offending tongue,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, “and cleanse it in
+the dust. Put it forth, I say.”
+
+Ayoub obeyed him in fearful alacrity, whereupon Sakr-el-Bahr released
+his hold and allowed the unfortunate fellow to rise at last, half-choked
+with dirt, livid of face, and quaking like a jelly, an object of
+ridicule and cruel mockery to all assembled.
+
+“Now get thee hence, ere my sea-hawks lay their talons on thee. Go!”
+
+Ayoub departed in all haste to the increasing jeers of the multitude and
+the taunts of Tsamanni, whilst Sakr-el-Bahr turned him once more to the
+dalal.
+
+“At one thousand and six hundred philips this slave is thine, O
+Sakr-el-Bahr, thou glory of Islam. May Allah increase thy victories!”
+
+“Pay him, Ali,” said the corsair shortly, and he advanced to receive his
+purchase.
+
+Face to face stood he now with Rosamund, for the first time since that
+day before the encounter with the Dutch argosy when he had sought her in
+the cabin of the carack.
+
+One swift glance she bestowed on him, then, her senses reeling with
+horror at her circumstance she shrank back, her face of a deathly
+pallor. In his treatment of Ayoub she had just witnessed the lengths
+of brutality of which he was capable, and she was not to know that this
+brutality had been a deliberate piece of mummery calculated to strike
+terror into her.
+
+Pondering her now he smiled a tight-lipped cruel smile that only served
+to increase her terror.
+
+“Come,” he said in English.
+
+She cowered back against the dalal as if for protection. Sakr-el-Bahr
+reached forward, caught her by the wrists, and almost tossed her to his
+Nubians, Abiad and Zal-Zer, who were attending him.
+
+“Cover her face,” he bade them. “Bear her to my house. Away!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE TRUTH
+
+
+The sun was dipping swiftly to the world's rim when Sakr-el-Bahr with
+his Nubians and his little retinue of corsairs came to the gates of that
+white house of his on its little eminence outside the Bab-el-Oueb and
+beyond the walls of the city.
+
+When Rosamund and Lionel, brought in the wake of the corsair, found
+themselves in the spacious courtyard beyond the dark and narrow
+entrance, the blue of the sky contained but the paling embers of the
+dying day, and suddenly, sharply upon the evening stillness, came a
+mueddin's voice calling the faithful unto prayer.
+
+Slaves fetched water from the fountain that played in the middle of the
+quadrangle and tossed aloft a slender silvery spear of water to break
+into a myriad gems and so shower down into the broad marble basin.
+Sakr-el-Bahr washed, as did his followers, and then he went down upon
+the praying-mat that had been set for him, whilst his corsairs detached
+their cloaks and spread them upon the ground to serve them in like
+stead.
+
+The Nubians turned the two slaves about, lest their glances should
+defile the orisons of the faithful, and left them so facing the wall
+and the green gate that led into the garden whence were wafted on the
+cooling air the perfumes of jessamine and lavender. Through the laths of
+the gate they might have caught a glimpse of the riot of colour there,
+and they might have seen the slaves arrested by the Persian waterwheel
+at which they had been toiling and chanting until the call to prayer had
+come to strike them into statues.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr rose from his devotions, uttered a sharp word of command,
+and entered the house. The Nubians followed him, urging their captives
+before them up the narrow stairs, and so brought them out upon the
+terrace on the roof, that space which in Eastern houses is devoted to
+the women, but which no woman's foot had ever trodden since this house
+had been tenanted by Sakr-el-Bahr the wifeless.
+
+This terrace, which was surrounded by a parapet some four feet high,
+commanded a view of the city straggling up the hillside to eastward,
+from the harbour and of the island at the end of the mole which had been
+so laboriously built by the labour of Christian slaves from the stones
+of the ruined fortress--the Peñon, which Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa had
+wrested from the Spaniards. The deepening shroud of evening was now upon
+all, transmuting white and yellow walls alike to a pearly greyness. To
+westward stretched the fragrant gardens of the house, where the doves
+were murmuring fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a
+valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed
+with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically
+sailing came the harsh croak of frogs.
+
+An awning supported upon two gigantic spears hung out from the southern
+wall of the terrace which rose to twice the height of that forming the
+parapet on its other three sides. Under this was a divan and silken
+cushions, and near it a small Moorish table of ebony inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl and gold. Over the opposite parapet, where a lattice had
+been set, rioted a trailing rose-tree charged with blood-red blossoms,
+though now their colours were merged into the all-encompassing greyness.
+
+Here Lionel and Rosamund looked at each other in the dim light, their
+faces gleaming ghostly each to each, whilst the Nubians stood like twin
+statues by the door that opened from the stair-head.
+
+The man groaned, and clasped his hands before him. The doublet which had
+been torn from him in the sôk had since been restored and temporarily
+repaired by a strand of palmetto cord. But he was woefully bedraggled.
+Yet his thoughts, if his first words are to be taken as an indication of
+them were for Rosamund's condition rather than his own.
+
+“O God, that you should be subjected to this!” he cried. “That you
+should have suffered what you have suffered! The humiliation of it, the
+barbarous cruelty! Oh!” He covered his haggard face with his hands.
+
+She touched him gently on the arm.
+
+“What I have suffered is but a little thing,” she said, and her
+voice was wonderfully steady and soothing. Have I not said that these
+Godolphins were brave folk? Even their women were held to have something
+of the male spirit in their breasts; and to this none can doubt that
+Rosamund now bore witness. “Do not pity me, Lionel, for my sufferings
+are at an end or very nearly.” She smiled strangely, the smile of
+exaltation that you may see upon the martyr's face in the hour of doom.
+
+“How?” quoth he, in faint surprise.
+
+“How?” she echoed. “Is there not always a way to thrust aside life's
+burden when it grows too heavy--heavier than God would have us bear?”
+
+His only answer was a groan. Indeed, he had done little but groan in all
+the hours they had spent together since they were brought ashore from
+the carack; and had the season permitted her so much reflection, she
+might have considered that she had found him singularly wanting during
+those hours of stress when a man of worth would have made some effort,
+however desperate, to enhearten her rather than repine upon his own
+plight.
+
+Slaves entered bearing four enormous flaming torches which they set in
+iron sconces protruding from the wall of the house. Thence they shed
+a lurid ruddy glow upon the terrace. The slaves departed again, and
+presently, in the black gap of the doorway between the Nubians, a third
+figure appeared unheralded. It was Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+He stood a moment at gaze, his attitude haughty, his face
+expressionless; then slowly he advanced. He was dressed in a short white
+caftan that descended to his knees, and was caught about his waist in
+a shimmering girdle of gold that quivered like fire in the glow of the
+torches as he moved. His arms from the elbow and his legs from the knee
+were bare, and his feet were shod with gold-embroidered red Turkish
+slippers. He wore a white turban decked by a plume of osprey attached by
+a jewelled clasp.
+
+He signed to the Nubians and they vanished silently, leaving him alone
+with his captives.
+
+He bowed to Rosamund. “This, mistress,” he said, “is to be your domain
+henceforth which is to treat you more as wife than slave. For it is to
+Muslim wives that the housetops in Barbary are allotted. I hope you like
+it.”
+
+Lionel staring at him out of a white face, his conscience bidding him
+fear the very worst, his imagination painting a thousand horrid
+fates for him and turning him sick with dread, shrank back before his
+half-brother, who scarce appeared to notice him just then.
+
+But Rosamund confronted him, drawn to the full of her splendid height,
+and if her face was pale, yet it was as composed and calm as his own;
+if her bosom rose and fell to betray her agitations yet her glance was
+contemptuous and defiant, her voice calm and steady, when she answered
+him with the question--“What is your intent with me?”
+
+“My intent?” said he, with a little twisted smile. Yet for all that he
+believed he hated her and sought to hurt, to humble and to crush her,
+he could not stifle his admiration of her spirit's gallantry in such an
+hour as this.
+
+From behind the hills peeped the edge of the moon--a sickle of burnished
+copper.
+
+“My intent is not for you to question,” he replied. “There was a time,
+Rosamund, when in all the world you had no slave more utter than was I.
+Yourself in your heartlessness, and in your lack of faith, you broke the
+golden fetters of that servitude. You'll find it less easy to break the
+shackles I now impose upon you.”
+
+She smiled her scorn and quiet confidence. He stepped close to her. “You
+are my slave, do you understand?--bought in the market-place as I might
+buy me a mule, a goat, or a camel--and belonging to me body and soul.
+You are my property, my thing, my chattel, to use or abuse, to cherish
+or break as suits my whim, without a will that is not my will, holding
+your very life at my good pleasure.”
+
+She recoiled a step before the dull hatred that throbbed in his words,
+before the evil mockery of his swarthy bearded face.
+
+“You beast!” she gasped.
+
+“So now you understand the bondage into which you are come in exchange
+for the bondage which in your own wantonness you dissolved.”
+
+“May God forgive you,” she panted.
+
+“I thank you for that prayer,” said he. “May He forgive you no less.”
+
+And then from the background came an inarticulate sound, a strangled,
+snarling sob from Lionel.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr turned slowly. He eyed the fellow a moment in silence, then
+he laughed.
+
+“Ha! My sometime brother. A pretty fellow, as God lives is it not?
+Consider him Rosamund. Behold how gallantly misfortune is borne by this
+pillar of manhood upon which you would have leaned, by this stalwart
+husband of your choice. Look at him! Look at this dear brother of mine.”
+
+Under the lash of that mocking tongue Lionel's mood was stung to anger
+where before it had held naught but fear.
+
+“You are no brother of mine,” he retorted fiercely. “Your mother was a
+wanton who betrayed my father.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr quivered a moment as if he had been struck. Yet he
+controlled himself.
+
+“Let me hear my mother's name but once again on thy foul tongue, and
+I'll have it ripped out by the roots. Her memory, I thank God, is far
+above the insults of such a crawling thing as you. None the less, take
+care not to speak of the only woman whose name I reverence.”
+
+And then turning at bay, as even the rat will do, Lionel sprang
+upon him, with clawing hands outstretched to reach his throat. But
+Sakr-el-Bahr caught him in a grip that bent him howling to his knees.
+
+“You find me strong, eh?” he gibed. “Is it matter for wonder? Consider
+that for six endless months I toiled at the oar of a galley, and you'll
+understand what it was that turned my body into iron and robbed me of a
+soul.”
+
+He flung him off, and sent him crashing into the rosebush and the
+lattice over which it rambled.
+
+“Do you realize the horror of the rower's bench? to sit day in day out,
+night in night out, chained naked to the oar, amid the reek and stench
+of your fellows in misfortune, unkempt, unwashed save by the rain,
+broiled and roasted by the sun, festering with sores, lashed and cut
+and scarred by the boatswain's whip as you faint under the ceaseless,
+endless, cruel toil?”
+
+“Do you realize it?” From a tone of suppressed fury his voice rose
+suddenly to a roar. “You shall. For that horror which was mine by your
+contriving shall now be yours until you die.”
+
+He paused; but Lionel made no attempt to avail himself of this. His
+courage all gone out of him again, as suddenly as it had flickered up,
+he cowered where he had been flung.
+
+“Before you go there is something else,” Sakr-el-Bahr resumed,
+“something for which I have had you brought hither to-night.
+
+“Not content with having delivered me to all this, not content with
+having branded me a murderer, destroyed my good name, filched my
+possessions and driven me into the very path of hell, you must further
+set about usurping my place in the false heart of this woman I once
+loved.”
+
+“I hope,” he went on reflectively, “that in your own poor way you love
+her, too, Lionel. Thus to the torment that awaits your body shall be
+added torment for your treacherous soul--such torture of mind as only
+the damned may know. To that end have I brought you hither. That you may
+realize something of what is in store for this woman at my hands; that
+you may take the thought of it with you to be to your mind worse than
+the boatswain's lash to your pampered body.”
+
+“You devil!” snarled Lionel. “Oh, you fiend out of hell!”
+
+“If you will manufacture devils, little toad of a brother, do not
+upbraid them for being devils when next you meet them.”
+
+“Give him no heed, Lionel!” said Rosamund. “I shall prove him as much a
+boaster as he has proved himself a villain. Never think that he will be
+able to work his evil will.”
+
+“'Tis you are the boaster there,” said Sakr-el-Bahr. “And for the rest,
+I am what you and he, between you, have made me.”
+
+“Did we make you liar and coward?--for that is what you are indeed,” she
+answered.
+
+“Coward?” he echoed, in genuine surprise. “'Twill be some lie that he
+has told you with the others. In what, pray, was I ever a coward?”
+
+“In what? In this that you do now; in this taunting and torturing of two
+helpless beings in our power.”
+
+“I speak not of what I am,” he replied, “for I have told you that I am
+what you have made me. I speak of what I was. I speak of the past.”
+
+She looked at him and she seemed to measure him with her unwavering
+glance.
+
+“You speak of the past?” she echoed, her voice low. “You speak of the
+past and to me? You dare?”
+
+“It is that we might speak of it together that I have fetched you all
+the way from England; that at last I may tell you things I was a fool
+to have kept from you five years ago; that we may resume a conversation
+which you interrupted when you dismissed me.”
+
+“I did you a monstrous injury, no doubt,” she answered him, with bitter
+irony. “I was surely wanting in consideration. It would have become me
+better to have smiled and fawned upon my brother's murderer.”
+
+“I swore to you, then, that I was not his murderer,” he reminded her in
+a voice that shook.
+
+“And I answered you that you lied.”
+
+“Ay, and on that you dismissed me--the word of the man whom you
+professed to love, the word of the man to whom you had given your trust
+weighing for naught with you.”
+
+“When I gave you my trust,” she retorted, “I did so in ignorance of your
+true self, in a headstrong wilful ignorance that would not be guided
+by what all the world said of you and your wild ways. For that blind
+wilfulness I have been punished, as perhaps I deserved to be.”
+
+“Lies--all lies!” he stormed. “Those ways of mine--and God knows they
+were none so wild, when all is said--I abandoned when I came to love
+you. No lover since the world began was ever so cleansed, so purified,
+so sanctified by love as was I.”
+
+“Spare me this at least!” she cried on a note of loathing
+
+“Spare you?” he echoed. “What shall I spare you?”
+
+“The shame of it all; the shame that is ever mine in the reflection that
+for a season I believed I loved you.”
+
+He smiled. “If you can still feel shame, it shall overwhelm you ere I
+have done. For you shall hear me out. Here there are none to interrupt
+us, none to thwart my sovereign will. Reflect then, and remember.
+Remember what a pride you took in the change you had wrought in me. Your
+vanity welcomed that flattery, that tribute to the power of your beauty.
+Yet, all in a moment, upon the paltriest grounds, you believed me the
+murderer of your brother.”
+
+“The paltriest grounds?” she cried, protesting almost despite herself
+
+“So paltry that the justices at Truro would not move against me.”
+
+“Because,” she cut in, “they accounted that you had been sufficiently
+provoked. Because you had not sworn to them as you swore to me that no
+provocation should ever drive you to raise your hand against my brother.
+Because they did not realize how false and how forsworn you were.”
+
+He considered her a moment. Then he took a turn on the terrace. Lionel
+crouching ever by the rose-tree was almost entirely forgotten by him
+now.
+
+“God give me patience with you!” he said at length. “I need it. For I
+desire you to understand many things this night. I mean you to see how
+just is my resentment; how just the punishment that is to overtake you
+for what you have made of my life and perhaps of my hereafter. Justice
+Baine and another who is dead, knew me for innocent.”
+
+“They knew you for innocent?” There was scornful amazement in her tone.
+“Were they not witnesses of the quarrel betwixt you and Peter and of
+your oath that you would kill him?”
+
+“That was an oath sworn in the heat of anger. Afterwards I bethought me
+that he was your brother.”
+
+“Afterwards?” said she. “After you had murdered him?”
+
+“I say again,” Oliver replied calmly, “that I did not do this thing.”
+
+“And I say again that you lie.”
+
+He considered her for a long moment; then he laughed. “Have you ever,”
+ he asked, “known a man to lie without some purpose? Men lie for the sake
+of profit, they lie out of cowardice or malice, or else because they are
+vain and vulgar boasters. I know of no other causes that will drive
+a man to falsehood, save that--ah, yes!--” (and he flashed a sidelong
+glance at Lionel)--“save that sometimes a man will lie to shield
+another, out of self-sacrifice. There you have all the spurs that urge
+a man to falsehood. Can any of these be urging me to-night? Reflect!
+Ask yourself what purpose I could serve by lying to you now. Consider
+further that I have come to loathe you for your unfaith; that I
+desire naught so much as to punish you for that and for all its bitter
+consequences to me that I have brought you hither to exact payment from
+you to the uttermost farthing. What end then can I serve by falsehood?”
+
+“All this being so, what end could you serve by truth?” she countered.
+
+“To make you realize to the full the injustice that you did. To make you
+understand the wrongs for which you are called to pay. To prevent you
+from conceiving yourself a martyr; to make you perceive in all its
+deadly bitterness that what now comes to you is the inevitable fruit of
+your own faithlessness.”
+
+“Sir Oliver, do you think me a fool?” she asked him.
+
+“Madam, I do--and worse,” he answered.
+
+“Ay, that is clear,” she agreed scornfully, “since even now you waste
+breath in attempting to persuade me against my reason. But words
+will not blot out facts. And though you talk from now till the day of
+judgment no word of yours can efface those bloodstains in the snow that
+formed a trail from that poor murdered body to your own door; no word of
+yours can extinguish the memory of the hatred between him and you, and
+of your own threat to kill him; nor can it stifle the recollection of
+the public voice demanding your punishment. You dare to take such a tone
+as you are taking with me? You dare here under Heaven to stand and lie
+to me that you may give false gloze to the villainy of your present
+deed--for that is the purpose of your falsehood, since you asked me what
+purpose there could be for it. What had you to set against all that, to
+convince me that your hands were clean, to induce me to keep the troth
+which--God forgive me!--I had plighted to you?”
+
+“My word,” he answered her in a ringing voice.
+
+“Your lie,” she amended.
+
+“Do not suppose,” said he, “that I could not support my word by proofs if
+called upon to do so.”
+
+“Proofs?” She stared at him, wide-eyed a moment. Then her lip curled.
+“And that no doubt was the reason of your flight when you heard that the
+Queen's pursuivants were coming in response to the public voice to call
+you to account.”
+
+He stood at gaze a moment, utterly dumbfounded. “My flight?” he said.
+“What fable's that?”
+
+“You will tell me next that you did not flee. That that is another false
+charge against you?”
+
+“So,” he said slowly, “it was believed I fled!”
+
+And then light burst upon him, to dazzle and stun him. It was so
+inevitably what must have been believed, and yet it had never crossed
+his mind. O the damnable simplicity of it! At another time his
+disappearance must have provoked comment and investigation, perhaps.
+But, happening when it did, the answer to it came promptly and
+convincingly and no man troubled to question further. Thus was Lionel's
+task made doubly easy, thus was his own guilt made doubly sure in the
+eyes of all. His head sank upon his breast. What had he done? Could
+he still blame Rosamund for having been convinced by so overwhelming a
+piece of evidence? Could he still blame her if she had burnt unopened
+the letter which he had sent her by the hand of Pitt? What else indeed
+could any suppose, but that he had fled? And that being so, clearly such
+a flight must brand him irrefutably for the murderer he was alleged to
+be. How could he blame her if she had ultimately been convinced by the
+only reasonable assumption possible?
+
+A sudden sense of the wrong he had done rose now like a tide about him.
+
+“My God!” he groaned, like a man in pain. “My God!”
+
+He looked at her, and then averted his glance again, unable now to
+endure the haggard, strained yet fearless gaze of those brave eyes of
+hers.
+
+“What else, indeed, could you believe?” he muttered brokenly, thus
+giving some utterance to what was passing through his mind.
+
+“Naught else but the whole vile truth,” she answered fiercely, and
+thereby stung him anew, whipped him out of his sudden weakening back to
+his mood of resentment and vindictiveness.
+
+She had shown herself, he thought in that moment of reviving anger, too
+ready to believe what told against him.
+
+“The truth?” he echoed, and eyed her boldly now. “Do you know the truth
+when you see it? We shall discover. For by God's light you shall have
+the truth laid stark before you now, and you shall find it hideous
+beyond all your hideous imaginings.”
+
+There was something so compelling now in his tone and manner that
+it drove her to realize that some revelation was impending. She was
+conscious of a faint excitement, a reflection perhaps of the wild
+excitement that was astir in him.
+
+“Your brother,” he began, “met his death at the hands of a false
+weakling whom I loved, towards whom I had a sacred duty. Straight from
+the deed he fled to me for shelter. A wound he had taken in the struggle
+left that trail of blood to mark the way he had come.” He paused, and
+his tone became gentler, it assumed the level note of one who reasons
+impassively. “Was it not an odd thing, now, that none should ever
+have paused to seek with certainty whence that blood proceeded, and to
+consider that I bore no wound in those days? Master Baine knew it, for
+I submitted my body to his examination, and a document was drawn up and
+duly attested which should have sent the Queen's pursuivants back to
+London with drooping tails had I been at Penarrow to receive them.”
+
+Faintly through her mind stirred the memory that Master Baine had urged
+the existence of some such document, that in fact he had gone so far as
+to have made oath of this very circumstance now urged by Sir Oliver; and
+she remembered that the matter had been brushed aside as an invention of
+the justice's to answer the charge of laxity in the performance of his
+duty, particularly as the only co-witness he could cite was Sir Andrew
+Flack, the parson, since deceased. Sir Oliver's voice drew her attention
+from that memory.
+
+“But let that be,” he was saying. “Let us come back to the story itself.
+I gave the craven weakling shelter. Thereby I drew down suspicion upon
+myself, and since I could not clear myself save by denouncing him, I
+kept silent. That suspicion drew to certainty when the woman to whom I
+was betrothed, recking nothing of my oaths, freely believing the very
+worst of me, made an end of our betrothal and thereby branded me a
+murderer and a liar in the eyes of all. Indignation swelled against me.
+The Queen's pursuivants were on their way to do what the justices of
+Truro refused to do.
+
+“So far I have given you facts. Now I give you surmise--my own
+conclusions--but surmise that strikes, as you shall judge, the very
+bull's-eye of truth. That dastard to whom I had given sanctuary, to whom
+I had served as a cloak, measured my nature by his own and feared that
+I must prove unequal to the fresh burden to be cast upon me. He feared
+lest under the strain of it I should speak out, advance my proofs,
+and so destroy him. There was the matter of that wound, and there was
+something still more unanswerable he feared I might have urged. There
+was a certain woman--a wanton up at Malpas--who could have been made
+to speak, who could have revealed a rivalry concerning her betwixt the
+slayer and your brother. For the affair in which Peter Godolphin met his
+death was a pitifully, shamefully sordid one at bottom.”
+
+For the first time she interrupted him, fiercely. “Do you malign the
+dead?”
+
+“Patience, mistress,” he commanded. “I malign none. I speak the truth of
+a dead man that the truth may be known of two living ones. Hear me out,
+then! I have waited long and survived a deal that I might tell you this
+
+“That craven, then, conceived that I might become a danger to him; so
+he decided to remove me. He contrived to have me kidnapped one night and
+put aboard a vessel to be carried to Barbary and sold there as a slave.
+That is the truth of my disappearance. And the slayer, whom I had
+befriended and sheltered at my own bitter cost, profited yet further by
+my removal. God knows whether the prospect of such profit was a further
+temptation to him. In time he came to succeed me in my possessions, and
+at last to succeed me even in the affections of the faithless woman who
+once had been my affianced wife.”
+
+At last she started from the frozen patience in which she had listened
+hitherto. “Do you say that... that Lionel...?” she was beginning in a
+voice choked by indignation.
+
+And then Lionel spoke at last, straightening himself into a stiffly
+upright attitude.
+
+“He lies!” he cried. “He lies, Rosamund! Do not heed him.”
+
+“I do not,” she answered, turning away.
+
+A wave of colour suffused the swarthy face of Sakr-el-Bahr. A moment
+his eyes followed her as she moved away a step or two, then they turned
+their blazing light of anger upon Lionel. He strode silently across to
+him, his mien so menacing that Lionel shrank back in fresh terror.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr caught his brother's wrist in a grip that was as that of
+a steel manacle. “We'll have the truth this night if we have to tear it
+from you with red-hot pincers,” he said between his teeth.
+
+He dragged him forward to the middle of the terrace and held him
+there before Rosamund, forcing him down upon his knees into a cowering
+attitude by the violence of that grip upon his wrist.
+
+“Do you know aught of the ingenuity of Moorish torture?” he asked him.
+“You may have heard of the rack and the wheel and the thumbscrew at
+home. They are instruments of voluptuous delight compared with the
+contrivances of Barbary to loosen stubborn tongues.”
+
+White and tense, her hands clenched, Rosamund seemed to stiffen before
+him.
+
+“You coward! You cur! You craven renegade dog!” she branded him.
+
+Oliver released his brother's wrist and beat his hands together. Without
+heeding Rosamund he looked down upon Lionel, who cowered shuddering at
+his feet.
+
+“What do you say to a match between your fingers? Or do you think a pair
+of bracelets of living fire would answer better, to begin with?”
+
+A squat, sandy-bearded, turbaned fellow, rolling slightly in his gait,
+came--as had been prearranged--to answer the corsair's summons.
+
+With the toe of his slipper Sakr-el-Bahr stirred his brother.
+
+“Look up, dog,” he bade him. “Consider me that man, and see if you know
+him again. Look at him, I say!” And Lionel looked, yet since clearly
+he did so without recognition his brother explained: “His name among
+Christians was Jasper Leigh. He was the skipper you bribed to carry me
+into Barbary. He was taken in his own toils when his ship was sunk by
+Spaniards. Later he fell into my power, and because I forebore from
+hanging him he is to-day my faithful follower. I should bid him tell
+you what he knows,” he continued, turning to Rosamund, “if I thought
+you would believe his tale. But since I am assured you would not, I will
+take other means.” He swung round to Jasper again. “Bid Ali heat me a
+pair of steel manacles in a brazier and hold them in readiness against
+my need of them.” And he waved his hand.
+
+Jasper bowed and vanished.
+
+“The bracelets shall coax confession from your own lips, my brother.”
+
+“I have naught to confess,” protested Lionel. “You may force lies from
+me with your ruffianly tortures.”
+
+Oliver smiled. “Not a doubt but that lies will flow from you more
+readily than truth. But we shall have truth, too, in the end, never
+doubt it.” He was mocking, and there was a subtle purpose underlying his
+mockery. “And you shall tell a full story,” he continued, “in all its
+details, so that Mistress Rosamund's last doubt shall vanish. You shall
+tell her how you lay in wait for him that evening in Godolphin Park; how
+you took him unawares, and....”
+
+“That is false!” cried Lionel in a passion of sincerity that brought him
+to his feet.
+
+It was false, indeed, and Oliver knew it, and deliberately had recourse
+to falsehood, using it as a fulcrum upon which to lever out the truth.
+He was cunning as all the fiends, and never perhaps did he better
+manifest his cunning.
+
+“False?” he cried with scorn. “Come, now, be reasonable. The truth, ere
+torture sucks it out of you. Reflect that I know all--exactly as you
+told it me. How was it, now? Lurking behind a bush you sprang upon him
+unawares and ran him through before he could so much as lay a hand to
+his sword, and so....”
+
+“The lie of that is proven by the very facts themselves,” was the
+furious interruption. A subtle judge of tones might have realized that
+here was truth indeed, angry indignant truth that compelled conviction.
+“His sword lay beside him when they found him.”
+
+But Oliver was loftily disdainful. “Do I not know? Yourself you drew it
+after you had slain him.”
+
+The taunt performed its deadly work. For just one instant Lionel was
+carried off his feet by the luxury of his genuine indignation, and in
+that one instant he was lost.
+
+“As God's my witness, that is false!” he cried wildly. “And you know it.
+I fought him fair....”
+
+He checked on a long, shuddering, indrawn breath that was horrible to
+hear.
+
+Then silence followed, all three remaining motionless as statues:
+Rosamund white and tense, Oliver grim and sardonic, Lionel limp,
+and overwhelmed by the consciousness of how he had been lured into
+self-betrayal.
+
+At last it was Rosamund who spoke, and her voice shook and shifted from
+key to key despite her strained attempt to keep it level.
+
+“What... what did you say, Lionel?” she asked. Oliver laughed softly.
+“He was about to add proof of his statement, I think,” he jeered. “He
+was about to mention the wound he took in that fight, which left those
+tracks in the snow, thus to prove that I lied--as indeed I did--when I
+said that he took Peter unawares.
+
+“Lionel!” she cried. She advanced a step and made as if to hold out her
+arms to him, then let them fall again beside her. He stood stricken,
+answering nothing. “Lionel!” she cried again, her voice growing suddenly
+shrill. “Is this true?”
+
+“Did you not hear him say it?” quoth Oliver.
+
+She stood swaying a moment, looking at Lionel, her white face distorted
+into a mask of unutterable pain. Oliver stepped towards her, ready to
+support her, fearing that she was about to fall. But with an imperious
+hand she checked his advance, and by a supreme effort controlled her
+weakness. Yet her knees shook under her, refusing their office. She sank
+down upon the divan and covered her face with her hands.
+
+“God pity me!” she moaned, and sat huddled there, shaken with sobs.
+
+Lionel started at that heart-broken cry. Cowering, he approached her,
+and Oliver, grim and sardonic, stood back, a spectator of the scene he
+had precipitated. He knew that given rope Lionel would enmesh himself
+still further. There must be explanations that would damn him utterly.
+Oliver was well content to look on.
+
+“Rosamund!” came Lionel's piteous cry. “Rose! Have mercy! Listen ere you
+judge me. Listen lest you misjudge me!”
+
+“Ay, listen to him,” Oliver flung in, with his soft hateful laugh.
+“Listen to him. I doubt he'll be vastly entertaining.”
+
+That sneer was a spur to the wretched Lionel. “Rosamund, all that he has
+told you of it is false. I...I...It was done in self-defence. It is
+a lie that I took him unawares.” His words came wildly now. “We had
+quarrelled about... about... a certain matter, and as the devil would
+have it we met that evening in Godolphin Park, he and I. He taunted me;
+he struck me, and finally he drew upon me and forced me to draw that I
+might defend my life. That is the truth. I swear to you here on my knees
+in the sight of Heaven! And....”
+
+“Enough, sir! Enough!” she broke in, controlling herself to check these
+protests that but heightened her disgust.
+
+“Nay, hear me yet, I implore you; that knowing all you may be merciful
+in your judgment.”
+
+“Merciful?” she cried, and almost seemed to laugh
+
+“It was an accident that I slew him,” Lionel raved on. “I never meant
+it. I never meant to do more than ward and preserve my life. But when
+swords are crossed more may happen than a man intends. I take God to
+witness that his death was an accident resulting from his own fury.”
+
+She had checked her sobs, and she considered him now with eyes that were
+hard and terrible.
+
+“Was it also an accident that you left me and all the world in the
+belief that the deed was your brother's?” she asked him.
+
+He covered his face, as if unable to endure her glance. “Did you but
+know how I loved you--even in those days, in secret--you would perhaps
+pity me a little,” he whimpered.
+
+“Pity?” She leaned forward and seemed to spit the word at him. “'Sdeath,
+man! Do you sue for pity--you?”
+
+“Yet you must pity me did you know the greatness of the temptation to
+which I succumbed.”
+
+“I know the greatness of your infamy, of your falseness, of your
+cowardice, of your baseness. Oh!”
+
+He stretched out suppliant hands to her; there were tears now in his
+eyes. “Of your charity, Rosamund....” he was beginning, when at last
+Oliver intervened:
+
+“I think you are wearying the lady,” he said, and stirred him with his
+foot. “Relate to us instead some more of your astounding accidents.
+They are more diverting. Elucidate the accident, by which you had me
+kidnapped to be sold into slavery. Tell us of the accident by which
+you succeeded to my property. Expound to the full the accidental
+circumstances of which throughout you have been the unfortunate victim.
+Come, man, ply your wits. 'Twill make a pretty tale.”
+
+And then came Jasper to announce that Ali waited with the brazier and
+the heated manacles.
+
+“They are no longer needed,” said Oliver. “Take this slave hence with
+you. Bid Ali to take charge of him, and at dawn to see him chained to
+one of the oars of my galeasse. Away with him.”
+
+Lionel rose to his feet, his face ashen. “Wait! Ah, wait! Rosamund!” he
+cried.
+
+Oliver caught him by the nape of his neck, spun him round, and flung him
+into the arms of Jasper. “Take him away!” he growled, and Jasper took
+the wretch by the shoulders and urged him out, leaving Rosamund and
+Oliver alone with the truth under the stars of Barbary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE SUBTLETY OF FENZILEH
+
+
+Oliver considered the woman for a long moment as she sat half-crouching
+on the divan, her hands locked, her face set and stony, her eyes
+lowered. He sighed gently and turned away. He paced to the parapet and
+looked out upon the city bathed in the white glare of the full risen
+moon. There arose thence a hum of sound, dominated, however, by the
+throbbing song of a nightingale somewhere in his garden and the croaking
+of the frogs by the pool in the valley.
+
+Now that truth had been dragged from its well, and tossed, as it were,
+into Rosamund's lap, he felt none of the fierce exultation which he had
+conceived that such an hour as this must bring him. Rather, indeed, was
+he saddened and oppressed. To poison the unholy cup of joy which he
+had imagined himself draining with such thirsty zest there was that
+discovery of a measure of justification for her attitude towards him in
+her conviction that his disappearance was explained by flight.
+
+He was weighed down by a sense that he had put himself entirely in the
+wrong; that in his vengeance he had overreached himself; and he found
+the fruits of it, which had seemed so desirably luscious, turning to
+ashes in his mouth.
+
+Long he stood there, the silence between them entirely unbroken. Then at
+length he stirred, turned from the parapet, and paced slowly back until
+he came to stand beside the divan, looking down upon her from his great
+height.
+
+“At last you have heard the truth,” he said. And as she made no answer
+he continued: “I am thankful it was surprised out of him before the
+torture was applied, else you might have concluded that pain was
+wringing a false confession from him.” He paused, but still she did
+not speak; indeed, she made no sign that she had heard him. “That,” he
+concluded, “was the man whom you preferred to me. Faith, you did not
+flatter me, as perhaps you may have learnt.”
+
+At last she was moved from her silence, and her voice came dull and
+hard. “I have learnt how little there is to choose between you,” she
+said. “It was to have been expected. I might have known two brothers
+could not have been so dissimilar in nature. Oh, I am learning a deal,
+and swiftly!”
+
+It was a speech that angered him, that cast out entirely the softer mood
+that had been growing in him.
+
+“You are learning?” he echoed. “What are you learning?”
+
+“Knowledge of the ways of men.”
+
+His teeth gleamed in his wry smile. “I hope the knowledge will bring you
+as much bitterness as the knowledge of women--of one woman--has brought
+me. To have believed me what you believed me--me whom you conceived
+yourself to love!” He felt, perhaps the need to repeat it that he might
+keep the grounds of his grievance well before his mind.
+
+“If I have a mercy to beg of you it is that you will not shame me with
+the reminder.”
+
+“Of your faithlessness?” he asked. “Of your disloyal readiness to
+believe the worst evil of me?”
+
+“Of my ever having believed that I loved you. That is the thought that
+shames me, as nothing else in life could shame me, as not even the
+slave-market and all the insult to which you have submitted me could
+shame me. You taunt me with my readiness to believe evil of you....”
+
+“I do more than taunt you with it,” he broke in, his anger mounting
+under the pitiless lash of her scorn. “I lay to your charge the wasted
+years of my life, all the evil that has followed out of it, all that I
+have suffered, all that I have lost, all that I am become.”
+
+She looked up at him coldly, astonishingly mistress of herself. “You lay
+all this to my charge?” she asked him.
+
+“I do.” He was very vehement. “Had you not used me as you did, had you
+not lent a ready ear to lies, that whelp my brother would never
+have gone to such lengths, nor should I ever have afforded him the
+opportunity.”
+
+She shifted on the cushions of the divan and turned her shoulder to him.
+
+“All this is very idle,” she said coldly. Yet perhaps because she felt
+that she had need to justify herself she continued: “If, after all, I
+was so ready to believe evil of you, it is that my instincts must
+have warned me of the evil that was ever in you. You have proved to
+me to-night that it was not you who murdered Peter; but to attain that
+proof you have done a deed that is even fouler and more shameful, a
+deed that reveals to the full the blackness of your heart. Have you not
+proved yourself a monster of vengeance and impiety?” She rose and faced
+him again in her sudden passion. “Are you not--you that were born a
+Cornish Christian gentleman--become a heathen and a robber, a renegade
+and a pirate? Have you not sacrificed your very God to your vengeful
+lust?”
+
+He met her glance fully, never quailing before her denunciation, and
+when she had ended on that note of question he counter-questioned her.
+
+“And your instincts had forewarned you of all this? God's life, woman!
+can you invent no better tale than that?” He turned aside as two slaves
+entered bearing an earthenware vessel. “Here comes your supper. I hope
+your appetite is keener than your logic.”
+
+They set the vessel, from which a savoury smell proceeded, upon the
+little Moorish table by the divan. On the ground beside it they placed
+a broad dish of baked earth in which there were a couple of loaves and
+a red, short-necked amphora of water with a drinking-cup placed over the
+mouth of it to act as a stopper.
+
+They salaamed profoundly and padded softly out again.
+
+“Sup,” he bade her shortly.
+
+“I want no supper,” she replied, her manner sullen.
+
+His cold eye played over her. “Henceforth, girl, you will consider
+not what you want, but what I bid you do. I bid you eat; about it,
+therefore.”
+
+“I will not.”
+
+“Will not?” he echoed slowly. “Is that a speech from slave to master?
+Eat, I say.”
+
+“I cannot! I cannot!” she protested.
+
+“A slave may not live who cannot do her master's bidding.”
+
+“Then kill me,” she answered fiercely, leaping up to confront and dare
+him. “Kill me. You are used to killing, and for that at least I should
+be grateful.”
+
+“I will kill you if I please,” he said in level icy tones. “But not to
+please you. You don't yet understand. You are my slave, my thing, my
+property, and I will not suffer you to be damaged save at my own good
+pleasure. Therefore, eat, or my Nubians shall whip you to quicken
+appetite.”
+
+For a moment she stood defiant before him, white and resolute. Then
+quite suddenly, as if her will was being bent and crumpled under the
+insistent pressure of his own, she drooped and sank down again to the
+divan. Slowly, reluctantly she drew the dish nearer. Watching her, he
+laughed quite silently.
+
+She paused, appearing to seek for something. Failing to find it she
+looked up at him again, between scorn and intercession.
+
+“Am I to tear the meat with my fingers?” she demanded.
+
+His eyes gleamed with understanding, or at least with suspicion. But he
+answered her quite calmly--“It is against the Prophet's law to defile
+meat or bread by the contact of a knife. You must use the hands that God
+has given you.”
+
+“Do you mock me with the Prophet and his laws? What are the Prophet's
+laws to me? If eat I must, at least I will not eat like a heathen dog,
+but in Christian fashion.”
+
+To indulge her, as it seemed, he slowly drew the richly hilted dagger
+from his girdle. “Let that serve you, then,” he said; and carelessly he
+tossed it down beside her.
+
+With a quick indrawn breath she pounced upon it. “At last,” she said,
+“you give me something for which I can be grateful to you.” And on the
+words she laid the point of it against her breast.
+
+Like lightning he had dropped to one knee, and his hand had closed about
+her wrist with such a grip that all her arm felt limp and powerless. He
+was smiling into her eyes, his swarthy face close to her own.
+
+“Did you indeed suppose I trusted you? Did you really think me deceived
+by your sudden pretence of yielding? When will you learn that I am not a
+fool? I did it but to test your spirit.”
+
+“Then now you know its temper,” she replied. “You know my intention.”
+
+“Forewarned, forearmed,” said he.
+
+She looked at him, with something that would have been mockery but for
+the contempt that coloured it too deeply. “Is it so difficult a thing,”
+ she asked, “to snap the thread of life? Are there no ways of dying save
+by the knife? You boast yourself my master; that I am your slave; that,
+having bought me in the market-place, I belong to you body and soul. How
+idle is that boast. My body you may bind and confine; but my soul.... Be
+very sure that you shall be cheated of your bargain. You boast yourself
+lord of life and death. A lie! Death is all that you can command.”
+
+Quick steps came pattering up the stairs, and before he could answer
+her, before he had thought of words in which to do so, Ali confronted
+him with the astounding announcement that there was a woman below asking
+urgently to speak with him.
+
+“A woman?” he questioned, frowning. “A Nasrani woman, do you mean?”
+
+“No, my lord. A Muslim,” was the still more surprising information.
+
+“A Muslim woman, here? Impossible!”
+
+But even as he spoke a dark figure glided like a shadow across the
+threshold on to the terrace. She was in black from head to foot,
+including the veil that shrouded her, a veil of the proportions of a
+mantle, serving to dissemble her very shape.
+
+Ali swung upon her in a rage. “Did I not bid thee wait below, thou
+daughter of shame?” he stormed. “She has followed me up, my lord, to
+thrust herself in here upon you. Shall I drive her forth?”
+
+“Let her be,” said Sakr-el-Bahr. And he waved Ali away. “Leave us!”
+
+Something about that black immovable figure arrested his attention and
+fired his suspicions. Unaccountably almost it brought to his mind the
+thought of Ayoub-el-Sarnin and the bidding there had been for Rosamund
+in the sôk.
+
+He stood waiting for his visitor to speak and disclose herself. She
+on her side continued immovable until Ali's footsteps had faded in
+the distance. Then, with a boldness entirely characteristic, with the
+recklessness that betrayed her European origin, intolerant of the Muslim
+restraint imposed upon her sex, she did what no True-believing woman
+would have done. She tossed back that long black veil and disclosed the
+pale countenance and languorous eyes of Fenzileh.
+
+For all that it was no more than he had expected, yet upon beholding
+her--her countenance thus bared to his regard--he recoiled a step.
+
+“Fenzileh!” he cried. “What madness is this?”
+
+Having announced herself in that dramatic fashion she composedly
+readjusted her veil so that her countenance should once more be decently
+concealed.
+
+“To come here, to my house, and thus!” he protested. “Should this reach
+the ears of thy lord, how will it fare with thee and with me? Away,
+woman, and at once!” he bade her.
+
+“No need to fear his knowing of this unless, thyself, thou tell him,”
+ she answered. “To thee I need no excuse if thou'lt but remember that
+like thyself I was not born a Muslim.”
+
+“But Algiers is not thy native Sicily, and whatever thou wast born it
+were well to remember what thou art become.”
+
+He went on at length to tell her of the precise degree of her folly, but
+she cut in, stemming his protestation in full flow.
+
+“These are idle words that but delay me.”
+
+“To thy purpose then, in Allah's name, that thus thou mayest depart the
+sooner.”
+
+She came to it straight enough on that uncompromising summons. She
+pointed to Rosamund. “It concerns that slave,” said she. “I sent my
+wazeer to the sôk to-day with orders to purchase her for me.”
+
+“So I had supposed,” he said.
+
+“But it seems that she caught thy fancy, and the fool suffered himself
+to be outbidden.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Thou'lt relinquish her to me at the price she cost thee?” A faint note
+of anxiety trembled in her voice.
+
+“I am anguished to deny thee, O Fenzileh. She is not for sale.”
+
+“Ah, wait,” she cried. “The price paid was high--many times higher than
+I have ever heard tell was given for a slave, however lovely. Yet I
+covet her. 'Tis a whim of mine, and I cannot suffer to be thwarted in my
+whims. To gratify this one I will pay three thousand philips.”
+
+He looked at her and wondered what devilries might be stirring in her
+mind, what evil purpose she desired to serve.
+
+“Thou'lt pay three thousand philips?” he said slowly. Then bluntly asked
+her: “Why?”
+
+“To gratify a whim, to please a fancy.”
+
+“What is the nature of this costly whim?” he insisted.
+
+“The desire to possess her for my own,” she answered evasively.
+
+“And this desire to possess her, whence is it sprung?” he returned, as
+patient as he was relentless.
+
+“You ask too many questions,” she exclaimed with a flash of anger.
+
+He shrugged and smiled. “You answer too few.”
+
+She set her arms akimbo and faced him squarely. Faintly through her veil
+he caught the gleam of her eyes, and he cursed the advantage she had in
+that her face was covered from his reading.
+
+“In a word, Oliver-Reis,” said she, “wilt sell her for three thousand
+philips?”
+
+“In a word--no,” he answered her.
+
+“Thou'lt not? Not for three thousand philips?” Her voice was charged
+with surprise, and he wondered was it real or assumed.
+
+“Not for thirty thousand,” answered he. “She is mine, and I'll not
+relinquish her. So since I have proclaimed my mind, and since to tarry
+here is fraught with peril for us both, I beg thee to depart.”
+
+There fell a little pause, and neither of them noticed the alert
+interest stamped upon the white face of Rosamund. Neither of them
+suspected her knowledge of French which enabled her to follow most of
+what was said in the lingua franca they employed.
+
+Fenzileh drew close to him. “Thou'lt not relinquish her, eh?” she asked,
+and he was sure she sneered. “Be not so confident. Thou'lt be forced to
+it, my friend--if not to me, why then, to Asad. He is coming for her,
+himself, in person.”
+
+“Asad?” he cried, startled now.
+
+“Asad-ed-Din,” she answered, and upon that resumed her pleading. “Come,
+then! It were surely better to make a good bargain with me than a bad
+one with the Basha.”
+
+He shook his head and planted his feet squarely. “I intend to make no
+bargain with either of you. This slave is not for sale.”
+
+“Shalt thou dare resist Asad? I tell thee he will take her whether she
+be for sale or not.”
+
+“I see,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “And the fear of this, then, is
+the source of thy whim to acquire her for thyself. Thou art not subtle,
+O Fenzileh. The consciousness that thine own charms are fading sets thee
+trembling lest so much loveliness should entirely cast thee from thy
+lord's regard, eh?”
+
+If he could not see her face, and study there the effect of that thrust
+of his, at least he observed the quiver that ran through her muffled
+figure, he caught the note of anger that throbbed in her reply--“And if
+that were so, what is't to thee?”
+
+“It may be much or little,” he replied thoughtfully.
+
+“Indeed, it should be much,” she answered quickly, breathlessly. “Have I
+not ever been thy friend? Have I not ever urged thy valour on my
+lord's notice and wrought like a true friend for thine advancement,
+Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+He laughed outright. “Hast thou so?” quoth he.
+
+“Laugh as thou wilt, but it is true,” she insisted. “Lose me and thy
+most valuable ally is lost--one who has the ear and favour of her lord.
+For look, Sakr-el-Bahr, it is what would befall if another came to
+fill my place, another who might poison Asad's mind with lies against
+thee--for surely she cannot love thee, this Frankish girl whom thou hast
+torn from her home!”
+
+“Be not concerned for that,” he answered lightly, his wits striving in
+vain to plumb the depths and discover the nature of her purpose. “This
+slave of mine shall never usurp thy place beside Asad.”
+
+“O fool, Asad will take her whether she be for sale or not.”
+
+He looked down upon her, head on one side and arms akimbo. “If he can
+take her from me, the more easily can he take her from thee. No doubt
+thou hast considered that, and in some dark Sicilian way considered too
+how to provide against it. But the cost--hast thou counted that? What
+will Asad say to thee when he learns how thou hast thwarted him?”
+
+“What do I care for that?” she cried in sudden fury, her gestures
+becoming a little wild. “She will be at the bottom of the harbour by
+then with a stone about her neck. He may have me whipped. No doubt he
+will. But 'twill end there. He will require me to console him for his
+loss, and so all will be well again.”
+
+At last he had drawn her, pumped her dry, as he imagined. Indeed,
+indeed, he thought, he had been right to say she was not subtle. He had
+been a fool to have permitted himself to be intrigued by so shallow, so
+obvious a purpose. He shrugged and turned away from her.
+
+“Depart in peace, O Fenzileh,” he said. “I yield her to none--be his
+name Asad or Shaitan.”
+
+His tone was final, and her answer seemed to accept at last his
+determination. Yet she was very quick with that answer; so quick that he
+might have suspected it to be preconceived.
+
+“Then it is surely thine intent to wed her.” No voice could have been
+more innocent and guileless than was hers now. “If so,” she went on, “it
+were best done quickly, for marriage is the only barrier Asad will not
+overthrow. He is devout, and out of his deep reverence for the Prophet's
+law he would be sure to respect such a bond as that. But be very sure
+that he will respect nothing short of it.”
+
+Yet notwithstanding her innocence and assumed simplicity--because of
+it, perhaps--he read her as if she had been an open book; it no longer
+mattered that her face was veiled.
+
+“And thy purpose would be equally well served, eh?” he questioned her,
+sly in his turn.
+
+“Equally,” she admitted.
+
+“Say 'better,' Fenzileh,” he rejoined. “I said thou art not subtle. By
+the Koran, I lied. Thou art subtle as the serpent. Yet I see whither
+thou art gliding. Were I to be guided by thine advice a twofold purpose
+would be served. First, I should place her beyond Asad's reach, and
+second, I should be embroiled with him for having done so. What could
+more completely satisfy thy wishes?”
+
+“Thou dost me wrong,” she protested. “I have ever been thy friend. I
+would that....” She broke off suddenly to listen. The stillness of the
+night was broken by cries from the direction of the Bab-el-Oueb. She
+ran swiftly to the parapet whence the gate was to be seen and leaned far
+out.
+
+“Look, look!” she cried, and there was a tremor of fear in her voice.
+“It is he--Asad-ed-Din.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr crossed to her side and in a glare of torches saw a body of
+men coming forth from the black archway of the gate.
+
+“It almost seems as if, departing from thy usual custom, thou hast
+spoken truth, O Fenzileh.”
+
+She faced him, and he suspected the venomous glance darted at him
+through her veil. Yet her voice when she spoke was cold. “In a moment
+thou'lt have no single doubt of it. But what of me?” The question was
+added in a quickening tone. “He must not find me here. He would kill me,
+I think.”
+
+“I am sure he would,” Sakr-el-Bahr agreed. “Yet muffled thus, who should
+recognize thee? Away, then, ere he comes. Take cover in the courtyard
+until he shall have passed. Didst thou come alone?”
+
+“Should I trust anyone with the knowledge that I had visited thee?” she
+asked, and he admired the strong Sicilian spirit in her that not all
+these years in the Basha's hareem had sufficed to extinguish.
+
+She moved quickly to the door, to pause again on the threshold.
+
+“Thou'lt not relinquish her? Thou'lt not.”
+
+“Be at ease,” he answered her, on so resolved a note that she departed
+satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. IN THE SIGHT OF ALLAH
+
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr stood lost in thought after she had gone. Again he weighed
+her every word and considered precisely how he should meet Asad, and how
+refuse him, if the Basha's were indeed such an errand as Fenzileh had
+heralded.
+
+Thus in silence he remained waiting for Ali or another to summon him
+to the presence of the Basha. Instead, however, when Ali entered it
+was actually to announce Asad-ed-Din, who followed immediately upon his
+heels, having insisted in his impatience upon being conducted straight
+to the presence of Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“The peace of the Prophet upon thee, my son, was the Basha's greeting.
+
+“And upon thee, my lord.” Sakr-el-Bahr salaamed. “My house is honoured.”
+ With a gesture he dismissed Ali.
+
+“I come to thee a suppliant,” said Asad, advancing.
+
+“A suppliant, thou? No need, my lord. I have no will that is not the
+echo of thine own.”
+
+The Basha's questing eyes went beyond him and glowed as they rested upon
+Rosamund.
+
+“I come in haste,” he said, “like any callow lover, guided by my every
+instinct to the presence of her I seek--this Frankish pearl, this
+pen-faced captive of thy latest raid. I was away from the Kasbah when
+that pig Tsamanni returned thither from the sôk; but when at last I
+learnt that he had failed to purchase her as I commanded, I could have
+wept for very grief. I feared at first that some merchant from the
+Sus might have bought her and departed; but when I heard--blessed be
+Allah!--that thou wert the buyer, I was comforted again. For thou'lt
+yield her up to me, my son.”
+
+He spoke with such confidence that Oliver had a difficulty in choosing
+the words that were to disillusion him. Therefore he stood in hesitancy
+a moment.
+
+“I will make good thy, loss,” Asad ran on. “Thou shalt have the sixteen
+hundred philips paid and another five hundred to console thee. Say that
+will content thee; for I boil with impatience.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr smiled grimly. “It is an impatience well known to me, my
+lord, where she is concerned,” he answered slowly. “I boiled with
+it myself for five interminable years. To make an end of it I went a
+distant perilous voyage to England in a captured Frankish vessel. Thou
+didst not know, O Asad, else thou wouldst....”
+
+“Bah!” broke in the Basha. “Thou'rt a huckster born. There is none like
+thee, Sakr-el-Bahr, in any game of wits. Well, well, name thine own
+price, strike thine own profit out of my impatience and let us have
+done.”
+
+“My lord,” he said quietly, “it is not the profit that is in question.
+She is not for sale.”
+
+Asad blinked at him, speechless, and slowly a faint colour crept into
+his sallow cheeks.
+
+“Not... not for sale?” he echoed, faltering in his amazement.
+
+“Not if thou offered me thy Bashalik as the price of her,” was the
+solemn answer. Then more warmly, in a voice that held a note of
+intercession--“Ask anything else that is mine,” he continued, “and
+gladly will I lay it at thy feet in earnest of my loyalty and love for
+thee.”
+
+“But I want nothing else.” Asad's tone was impatient, petulant almost.
+“I want this slave.”
+
+“Then,” replied Oliver, “I cast myself upon thy mercy and beseech thee
+to turn thine eyes elsewhere.”
+
+Asad scowled upon him. “Dost thou deny me?” he demanded, throwing back
+his head.
+
+“Alas!” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+There fell a pause. Darker and darker grew the countenance of Asad,
+fiercer glowed the eyes he bent upon his lieutenant. “I see,” he said at
+last, with a calm so oddly at variance with his looks as to be sinister.
+“I see. It seems that there is more truth in Fenzileh than I suspected.
+So!” He considered the corsair a moment with his sunken smouldering
+eyes.
+
+Then he addressed him in a tone that vibrated with his suppressed anger.
+“Bethink thee, Sakr-el-Bahr, of what thou art, of what I have made thee.
+Bethink thee of all the bounty these hands have lavished on thee. Thou
+art my own lieutenant, and mayest one day be more. In Algiers there is
+none above thee save myself. Art, then, so thankless as to deny me the
+first thing I ask of thee? Truly is it written 'Ungrateful is Man.'”
+
+“Didst thou know,” began Sakr-el-Bahr, “all that is involved for me in
+this....”
+
+“I neither know nor care,” Asad cut in. “Whatever it may be, it should
+be as naught when set against my will.” Then he discarded anger for
+cajolery. He set a hand upon Sakr-el-Bahr's stalwart shoulder. “Come, my
+son. I will deal generously with thee out of my love, and I will put thy
+refusal from my mind.”
+
+“Be generous, my lord, to the point of forgetting that ever thou didst
+ask me for her.”
+
+“Dost still refuse?” The voice, honeyed an instant ago, rang harsh
+again. “Take care how far thou strain my patience. Even as I have raised
+thee from the dirt, so at a word can I cast thee down again. Even as
+I broke the shackles that chained thee to the rowers' bench, so can I
+rivet them on thee anew.”
+
+“All this canst thou do,” Sakr-el-Bahr agreed. “And since, knowing it,
+I still hold to what is doubly mine--by right of capture and of
+purchase--thou mayest conceive how mighty are my reasons. Be merciful,
+then, Asad....”
+
+“Must I take her by force in spite of thee?” roared the Basha.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr stiffened. He threw back his head and looked the Basha
+squarely in the eyes.
+
+“Whilst I live, not even that mayest thou do,” he answered.
+
+“Disloyal, mutinous dog! Wilt thou resist me--me?”
+
+“It is my prayer that thou'lt not be so ungenerous and unjust as to
+compel thy servant to a course so hateful.”
+
+Asad sneered. “Is that thy last word?” he demanded.
+
+“Save only that in all things else I am thy slave, O Asad.”
+
+A moment the Basha stood regarding him, his glance baleful. Then
+deliberately, as one who has taken his resolve, he strode to the door.
+On the threshold he paused and turned again. “Wait!” he said, and on
+that threatening word departed.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr remained a moment where he had stood during the interview,
+then with a shrug he turned. He met Rosamund's eyes fixed intently upon
+him, and invested with a look he could not read. He found himself unable
+to meet it, and he turned away. It was inevitable that in such a moment
+the earlier stab of remorse should be repeated. He had overreached
+himself indeed. Despair settled down upon him, a full consciousness of
+the horrible thing he had done, which seemed now so irrevocable. In his
+silent anguish he almost conceived that he had mistaken his feelings for
+Rosamund; that far from hating her as he had supposed, his love for her
+had not yet been slain, else surely he should not be tortured now by the
+thought of her becoming Asad's prey. If he hated her, indeed, as he had
+supposed, he would have surrendered her and gloated.
+
+He wondered was his present frame of mind purely the result of his
+discovery that the appearances against him had been stronger far than
+he imagined, so strong as to justify her conviction that he was her
+brother's slayer.
+
+And then her voice, crisp and steady, cut into his torture of
+consideration.
+
+“Why did you deny him?”
+
+He swung round again to face her, amazed, horror-stricken.
+
+“You understood?” he gasped.
+
+“I understood enough,” said she. “This lingua franca is none so
+different from French.” And again she asked--“Why did you deny him?”
+
+He paced across to her side and stood looking down at her.
+
+“Do you ask why?”
+
+“Indeed,” she said bitterly, “there is scarce the need perhaps. And yet
+can it be that your lust of vengeance is so insatiable that sooner than
+willingly forgo an ounce of it you will lose your head?”
+
+His face became grim again. “Of course,” he sneered, “it would be so
+that you'd interpret me.”
+
+“Nay. If I have asked it is because I doubt.”
+
+“Do you realize what it can mean to become the prey of Asad-ed-Din?”
+
+She shuddered, and her glance fell from his, yet her voice was composed
+when she answered him--“Is it so very much worse than becoming the prey
+of Oliver-Reis or Sakr-el-Bahr, or whatever they may call you?”
+
+“If you say that it is all one to you there's an end to my opposing
+him,” he answered coldly. “You may go to him. If I resisted him--like a
+fool, perhaps--it was for no sake of vengeance upon you. It was because
+the thought of it fills me with horror.”
+
+“Then it should fill you with horror of yourself no less,” said she.
+
+His answer startled her.
+
+“Perhaps it does,” he said, scarcely above a murmur. “Perhaps it does.”
+
+She flashed him an upward glance and looked as if she would have
+spoken. But he went on, suddenly passionate, without giving her time
+to interrupt him. “O God! It needed this to show me the vileness of the
+thing I have done. Asad has no such motives as had I. I wanted you that
+I might punish you. But he...O God!” he groaned, and for a moment put
+his face to his hands.
+
+She rose slowly, a strange agitation stirring in her, her bosom
+galloping. But in his overwrought condition he failed to observe it. And
+then like a ray of hope to illumine his despair came the counsel that
+Fenzileh had given him, the barrier which she had said that Asad, being
+a devout Muslim, would never dare to violate.
+
+“There is a way,” he cried. “There is the way suggested by Fenzileh
+at the promptings of her malice.” An instant he hesitated, his eyes
+averted. Then he made his plunge. “You must marry me.”
+
+It was almost as if he had struck her. She recoiled. Instantly suspicion
+awoke in her; swiftly it drew to a conviction that he had but sought to
+trick her by a pretended penitence.
+
+“Marry you!” she echoed.
+
+“Ay,” he insisted. And he set himself to explain to her how if she were
+his wife she must be sacred and inviolable to all good Muslimeen, that
+none could set a finger upon her without doing outrage to the Prophet's
+holy law, and that, whoever might be so disposed, Asad was not of those,
+since Asad was perfervidly devout. “Thus only,” he ended, “can I place
+you beyond his reach.”
+
+But she was still scornfully reluctant.
+
+“It is too desperate a remedy even for so desperate an ill,” said she,
+and thus drove him into a frenzy of impatience with her.
+
+“You must, I say,” he insisted, almost angrily. “You must--or else
+consent to be borne this very night to Asad's hareem--and not even as
+his wife, but as his slave. Oh, you must trust me for your own sake! You
+must!”
+
+“Trust you!” she cried, and almost laughed in the intensity of her
+scorn. “Trust you! How can I trust one who is a renegade and worse?”
+
+He controlled himself that he might reason with her, that by cold logic
+he might conquer her consent.
+
+“You are very unmerciful,” he said. “In judging me you leave out of
+all account the suffering through which I have gone and what yourself
+contributed to it. Knowing now how falsely I was accused and what other
+bitter wrongs I suffered, consider that I was one to whom the man and
+the woman I most loved in all this world had proven false. I had lost
+faith in man and in God, and if I became a Muslim, a renegade, and a
+corsair, it was because there was no other gate by which I could escape
+the unutterable toil of the oar to which I had been chained.” He looked
+at her sadly. “Can you find no excuse for me in all that?”
+
+It moved her a little, for if she maintained a hostile attitude, at
+least she put aside her scorn.
+
+“No wrongs,” she told him, almost with sorrow in her voice, “could
+justify you in outraging chivalry, in dishonouring your manhood, in
+abusing your strength to persecute a woman. Whatever the causes that may
+have led to it, you have fallen too low, sir, to make it possible that I
+should trust you.”
+
+He bowed his head under the rebuke which already he had uttered in his
+own heart. It was just and most deserved, and since he recognized its
+justice he found it impossible to resent it.
+
+“I know,” he said. “But I am not asking you to trust me to my profit,
+but to your own. It is for your sake alone that I implore you to do
+this.” Upon a sudden inspiration he drew the heavy dagger from his
+girdle and proffered it, hilt foremost. “If you need an earnest of my
+good faith,” he said, “take this knife with which to-night you attempted
+to stab yourself. At the first sign that I am false to my trust, use it
+as you will--upon me or upon yourself.”
+
+She pondered him in some surprise. Then slowly she put out her hand to
+take the weapon, as he bade her.
+
+“Are you not afraid,” she asked him, “that I shall use it now, and so
+make an end?”
+
+“I am trusting you,” he said, “that in return you may trust me. Further,
+I am arming you against the worst. For if it comes to choice between
+death and Asad, I shall approve your choice of death. But let me add
+that it were foolish to choose death whilst yet there is a chance of
+life.”
+
+“What chance?” she asked, with a faint return of her old scorn. “The
+chance of life with you?”
+
+“No,” he answered firmly. “If you will trust me, I swear that I will
+seek to undo the evil I have done. Listen. At dawn my galeasse sets out
+upon a raid. I will convey you secretly aboard and find a way to land
+you in some Christian country--Italy or France--whence you may make your
+way home again.”
+
+“But meanwhile,” she reminded him, “I shall have become your wife.”
+
+He smiled wistfully. “Do you still fear a trap? Can naught convince you
+of my sincerity? A Muslim marriage is not binding upon a Christian, and
+I shall account it no marriage. It will be no more than a pretence to
+shelter you until we are away.”
+
+“How can I trust your word in that?”
+
+“How?” He paused, baffled; but only for a moment. “You have the dagger,”
+ he answered pregnantly.
+
+She stood considering, her eyes upon the weapon's lividly gleaming
+blade. “And this marriage?” she asked. “How is it to take place?”
+
+He explained to her then that by the Muslim law all that was required
+was a declaration made before a kadi, or his superior, and in the
+presence of witnesses. He was still at his explanation when from below
+there came a sound of voices, the tramp of feet, and the flash of
+torches.
+
+“Here is Asad returning in force,” he cried, and his voice trembled. “Do
+you consent?”
+
+“But the kadi?” she inquired, and by the question he knew that she was
+won to his way of saving her.
+
+“I said the kadi or his superior. Asad himself shall be our priest, his
+followers our witnesses.”
+
+“And if he refuses? He will refuse!” she cried, clasping her hands
+before her in her excitement.
+
+“I shall not ask him. I shall take him by surprise.”
+
+“It... it must anger him. He may avenge himself for what he must deem a
+trick.”
+
+“Ay,” he answered, wild-eyed. “I have thought of that, too. But it is a
+risk we must run. If we do not prevail, then--”
+
+“I have the dagger,” she cried fearlessly.
+
+“And for me there will be the rope or the sword,” he answered. “Be calm!
+They come!”
+
+But the steps that pattered up the stairs were Ali's. He flung upon the
+terrace in alarm.
+
+“My lord, my lord! Asad-ed-Din is here in force. He has an armed
+following with him!”
+
+“There is naught to fear,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, with every show of calm.
+“All will be well.”
+
+Asad swept up the stairs and out upon that terrace to confront his
+rebellious lieutenant. After him came a dozen black-robed janissaries
+with scimitars along which the light of the torches rippled in little
+runnels as of blood.
+
+The Basha came to a halt before Sakr-el-Bahr, his arms majestically
+folded, his head thrown back, so that his long white beard jutted
+forward.
+
+“I am returned,” he said, “to employ force where gentleness will not
+avail. Yet I pray that Allah may have lighted thee to a wiser frame of
+mind.”
+
+“He has, indeed, my lord,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“The praise to Him!” exclaimed Asad in a voice that rang with joy. “The
+girl, then!” And he held out a hand.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr stepped back to her and took her hand in his as if to lead
+her forward. Then he spoke the fateful words.
+
+“In Allah's Holy Name and in His All-seeing eyes, before thee,
+Asad-ed-Din, and in the presence of these witnesses, I take this woman
+to be my wife by the merciful law of the Prophet of Allah the All-wise,
+the All-pitying.”
+
+The words were out and the thing was done before Asad had realized the
+corsair's intent. A gasp of dismay escaped him; then his visage grew
+inflamed, his eyes blazed.
+
+But Sakr-el-Bahr, cool and undaunted before that royal anger, took the
+scarf that lay about Rosamund's shoulders, and raising it, flung it over
+her head, so that her face was covered by it.
+
+“May Allah rot off the hand of him who in contempt of our Lord Mahomet's
+holy law may dare to unveil that face, and may Allah bless this union
+and cast into the pit of Gehenna any who shall attempt to dissolve a
+bond that is tied in His All-seeing eyes.”
+
+It was formidable. Too formidable for Asad-ed-Din. Behind him his
+janissaries like hounds in leash stood eagerly awaiting his command.
+But none came. He stood there breathing heavily, swaying a little, and
+turning from red to pale in the battle that was being fought within him
+between rage and vexation on the one hand and his profound piety on the
+other. And as he yet hesitated perhaps Sakr-el-Bahr assisted his piety
+to gain the day.
+
+“Now you will understand why I would not yield her, O mighty Asad,” he
+said. “Thyself hast thou oft and rightly reproached me with my celibacy,
+reminding me that it is not pleasing in the sight of Allah, that it is
+unworthy a good Muslim. At last it hath pleased the Prophet to send me
+such a maid as I could take to wife.”
+
+Asad bowed his head. “What is written is written,” he said in the voice
+of one who admonished himself. Then he raised his arms aloft. “Allah is
+All-knowing,” he declared. “His will be done!”
+
+“Ameen,” said Sakr-el-Bahr very solemnly and with a great surge of
+thankful prayer to his own long-forgotten God.
+
+The Basha stayed yet a moment, as if he would have spoken. Then abruptly
+he turned and waved a hand to his janissaries. “Away!” was all he said
+to them, and stalked out in their wake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE SIGN
+
+
+From behind her lattice, still breathless from the haste she had made,
+and with her whelp Marzak at her side, Fenzileh had witnessed that first
+angry return of the Basha from the house of Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+She had heard him bawling for Abdul Mohktar, the leader of his
+janissaries, and she had seen the hasty mustering of a score of these
+soldiers in the courtyard, where the ruddy light of torches mingled with
+the white light of the full moon. She had seen them go hurrying away
+with Asad himself at their head, and she had not known whether to weep
+or to laugh, whether to fear or to rejoice.
+
+“It is done,” Marzak had cried exultantly. “The dog hath withstood him
+and so destroyed himself. There will be an end to Sakr-el-Bahr this
+night.” And he had added: “The praise to Allah!”
+
+But from Fenzileh came no response to his prayer of thanksgiving. True,
+Sakr-el-Bahr must be destroyed, and by a sword that she herself had
+forged. Yet was it not inevitable that the stroke which laid him low
+must wound her on its repercussion? That was the question to which now
+she sought an answer. For all her eagerness to speed the corsair to his
+doom, she had paused sufficiently to weigh the consequences to herself;
+she had not overlooked the circumstance that an inevitable result of
+this must be Asad's appropriation of that Frankish slave-girl. But at
+the time it had seemed to her that even this price was worth paying to
+remove Sakr-el-Bahr definitely and finally from her son's path--which
+shows that, after all, Fenzileh the mother was capable of some
+self-sacrifice. She comforted herself now with the reflection that
+the influence, whose waning she feared might be occasioned by the
+introduction of a rival into Asad's hareem, would no longer be so
+vitally necessary to herself and Marzak once Sakr-el-Bahr were removed.
+The rest mattered none so much to her. Yet it mattered something, and
+the present state of things left her uneasy, her mind a cockpit of
+emotions. Her grasp could not encompass all her desires at once, it
+seemed; and whilst she could gloat over the gratification of one, she
+must bewail the frustration of another. Yet in the main she felt that
+she should account herself the gainer.
+
+In this state of mind she had waited, scarce heeding the savagely joyous
+and entirely selfish babblings of her cub, who cared little what might
+betide his mother as the price of the removal of that hated rival
+from his path. For him, at least, there was nothing but profit in the
+business, no cause for anything but satisfaction; and that satisfaction
+he voiced with a fine contempt for his mother's feelings.
+
+Anon they witnessed Asad's return. They saw the janissaries come
+swinging into the courtyard and range themselves there whilst the Basha
+made his appearance, walking slowly, with steps that dragged a little,
+his head sunk upon his breast, his hands behind him. They waited to see
+slaves following him, leading or carrying the girl he had gone to fetch.
+But they waited in vain, intrigued and uneasy.
+
+They heard the harsh voice in which Asad dismissed his followers, and
+the clang of the closing gate; and they saw him pacing there alone in
+the moonlight, ever in that attitude of dejection.
+
+What had happened? Had he killed them both? Had the girl resisted him to
+such an extent that he had lost all patience and in one of those rages
+begotten of such resistance made an end of her?
+
+Thus did Fenzileh question herself, and since she could not doubt but
+that Sakr-el-Bahr was slain, she concluded that the rest must be as she
+conjectured. Yet, the suspense torturing her, she summoned Ayoub and
+sent him to glean from Abdul Mohktar the tale of what had passed. In his
+own hatred of Sakr-el-Bahr, Ayoub went willingly enough and hoping for
+the worst. He returned disappointed, with a tale that sowed dismay in
+Fenzileh and Marzak.
+
+Fenzileh, however, made a swift recovery. After all, it was the best
+that could have happened. It should not be difficult to transmute that
+obvious dejection of Asad's into resentment, and to fan this into a
+rage that must end by consuming Sakr-el-Bahr. And so the thing could be
+accomplished without jeopardy to her own place at Asad's side. For
+it was inconceivable that he should now take Rosamund to his hareem.
+Already the fact that she had been paraded with naked face among the
+Faithful must in itself have been a difficult obstacle to his pride. But
+it was utterly impossible that he could so subject his self-respect to
+his desire as to take to himself a woman who had been the wife of his
+servant.
+
+Fenzileh saw her way very clearly. It was through Asad's devoutness--as
+she herself had advised, though scarcely expecting such rich results as
+these--that he had been thwarted by Sakr-el-Bahr. That same devoutness
+must further be played upon now to do the rest.
+
+Taking up a flimsy silken veil, she went out to him where he now sat
+on the divan under the awning, alone there in the tepid-scented summer
+night. She crept to his side with the soft, graceful, questing
+movements of a cat, and sat there a moment unheeded almost--such was his
+abstraction--her head resting lightly against his shoulder.
+
+“Lord of my soul,” she murmured presently, “thou art sorrowing.” Her
+voice was in itself a soft and soothing caress.
+
+He started, and she caught the gleam of his eyes turned suddenly upon
+her.
+
+“Who told thee so?” he asked suspiciously.
+
+“My heart,” she answered, her voice melodious as a viol. “Can sorrow
+burden thine and mine go light?” she wooed him. “Is happiness possible
+to me when thou art downcast? In there I felt thy melancholy, and thy
+need of me, and I am come to share thy burden, or to bear it all for
+thee.” Her arms were raised, and her fingers interlocked themselves upon
+his shoulder.
+
+He looked down at her, and his expression softened. He needed comfort,
+and never was she more welcome to him.
+
+Gradually and with infinite skill she drew from him the story of what
+had happened. When she had gathered it, she loosed her indignation.
+
+“The dog!” she cried. “The faithless, ungrateful hound! Yet have I
+warned thee against him, O light of my poor eyes, and thou hast scorned
+me for the warnings uttered by my love. Now at last thou knowest him,
+and he shall trouble thee no longer. Thou'lt cast him off, reduce him
+again to the dust from which thy bounty raised him.”
+
+But Asad did not respond. He sat there in a gloomy abstraction, staring
+straight before him. At last he sighed wearily. He was just, and he had
+a conscience, as odd a thing as it was awkward in a corsair Basha.
+
+“In what hath befallen,” he answered moodily, “there is naught to
+justify me in casting aside the stoutest soldier of Islam. My duty to
+Allah will not suffer it.”
+
+“Yet his duty to thee suffered him to thwart thee, O my lord,” she
+reminded him very softly.
+
+“In my desires--ay!” he answered, and for a moment his voice quivered
+with passion. Then he repressed it, and continued more calmly--“Shall
+my self-seeking overwhelm my duty to the Faith? Shall the matter of
+a slave-girl urge me to sacrifice the bravest soldier of Islam, the
+stoutest champion of the Prophet's law? Shall I bring down upon my
+head the vengeance of the One by destroying a man who is a scourge of
+scorpions unto the infidel--and all this that I may gratify my personal
+anger against him, that I may avenge the thwarting of a petty desire?”
+
+“Dost thou still say, O my life, that Sakr-el-Bahr is the stoutest
+champion of the Prophet's law?” she asked him softly, yet on a note of
+amazement.
+
+“It is not I that say it, but his deeds,” he answered sullenly.
+
+“I know of one deed no True-Believer could have wrought. If proof were
+needed of his infidelity he hath now afforded it in taking to himself
+a Nasrani wife. Is it not written in the Book to be Read: 'Marry not
+idolatresses'? Is not that the Prophet's law, and hath he not broken
+it, offending at once against Allah and against thee, O fountain of my
+soul?”
+
+Asad frowned. Here was truth indeed, something that he had entirely
+overlooked. Yet justice compelled him still to defend Sakr-el-Bahr, or
+else perhaps he but reasoned to prove to himself that the case against
+the corsair was indeed complete.
+
+“He may have sinned in thoughtlessness,” he suggested.
+
+At that she cried out in admiration of him. “What a fount of mercy
+and forbearance art thou, O father of Marzak! Thou'rt right as in all
+things. It was no doubt in thoughtlessness that he offended, but would
+such thoughtlessness be possible in a True-Believer--in one worthy to be
+dubbed by thee the champion of the Prophet's Holy Law?”
+
+It was a shrewd thrust, that pierced the armour of conscience in which
+he sought to empanoply himself. He sat very thoughtful, scowling darkly
+at the inky shadow of the wall which the moon was casting. Suddenly he
+rose.
+
+“By Allah, thou art right!” he cried. “So that he thwarted me and kept
+that Frankish woman for himself, he cared not how he sinned against the
+law.”
+
+She glided to her knees and coiled her arms about his waist, looking up
+at him. “Still art thou ever merciful, ever sparing in adverse judgment.
+Is that all his fault, O Asad?”
+
+“All?” he questioned, looking down at her. “What more is there?”
+
+“I would there were no more. Yet more there is, to which thy angelic
+mercy blinds thee. He did worse. Not merely was he reckless of how he
+sinned against the law, he turned the law to his own base uses and so
+defiled it.”
+
+“How?” he asked quickly, eagerly almost.
+
+“He employed it as a bulwark behind which to shelter himself and her.
+Knowing that thou who art the Lion and defender of the Faith wouldst
+bend obediently to what is written in the Book, he married her to place
+her beyond thy reach.”
+
+“The praise to Him who is All-wise and lent me strength to do naught
+unworthy!” he cried in a great voice, glorifying himself. “I might have
+slain him to dissolve the impious bond, yet I obeyed what is written.”
+
+“Thy forbearance hath given joy to the angels,” she answered him, “and
+yet a man was found so base as to trade upon it and upon thy piety, O
+Asad!”
+
+He shook off her clasp, and strode away from her a prey to agitation. He
+paced to and fro in the moonlight there, and she, well-content, reclined
+upon the cushions of the divan, a thing of infinite grace, her gleaming
+eyes discreetly veiled from him--waiting until her poison should have
+done its work.
+
+She saw him halt, and fling up his arms, as if apostrophizing Heaven, as
+if asking a question of the stars that twinkled in the wide-flung nimbus
+of the moon.
+
+Then at last he paced slowly back to her. He was still undecided. There
+was truth in what she had said; yet he knew and weighed her hatred of
+Sakr-el-Bahr, knew how it must urge her to put the worst construction
+upon any act of his, knew her jealousy for Marzak, and so he mistrusted
+her arguments and mistrusted himself. Also there was his own love
+of Sakr-el-Bahr that would insist upon a place in the balance of his
+judgment. His mind was in turmoil.
+
+“Enough,” he said almost roughly. “I pray that Allah may send me counsel
+in the night.” And upon that he stalked past her, up the steps, and so
+into the house.
+
+She followed him. All night she lay at his feet to be ready at the first
+peep of dawn to buttress a purpose that she feared was still weak, and
+whilst he slept fitfully, she slept not at all, but lay wide-eyed and
+watchful.
+
+At the first note of the mueddin's voice, he leapt from his couch
+obedient to its summons, and scarce had the last note of it died upon
+the winds of dawn than he was afoot, beating his hands together to
+summon slaves and issuing his orders, from which she gathered that he
+was for the harbour there and then.
+
+“May Allah have inspired thee, O my lord!” she cried. And asked him:
+“What is thy resolve?”
+
+“I go to seek a sign,” he answered her, and upon that departed, leaving
+her in a frame of mind that was far from easy.
+
+She summoned Marzak, and bade him accompany his father, breathed swift
+instructions of what he should do and how do it.
+
+“Thy fate has been placed in thine own hands,” she admonished him. “See
+that thou grip it firmly now.”
+
+In the courtyard Marzak found his father in the act of mounting a white
+mule that had been brought him.
+
+He was attended by his wazeer Tsamanni, Biskaine, and some other of his
+captains. Marzak begged leave to go with him. It was carelessly granted,
+and they set out, Marzak walking by his father's stirrup, a little in
+advance of the others. For a while there was silence between father and
+son, then the latter spoke.
+
+“It is my prayer, O my father, that thou art resolved to depose the
+faithless Sakr-el-Bahr from the command of this expedition.”
+
+Asad considered his son with a sombre eye. “Even now the galeasse
+should be setting out if the argosy is to be intercepted,” he said. “If
+Sakr-el-Bahr does not command, who shall, in Heaven's name?”
+
+“Try me, O my father,” cried Marzak.
+
+Asad smiled with grim wistfulness. “Art weary of life, O my son, that
+thou wouldst go to thy death and take the galeasse to destruction?”
+
+“Thou art less than just, O my father,” Marzak protested.
+
+“Yet more than kind, O my son,” replied Asad, and they went on in
+silence thereafter, until they came to the mole.
+
+The splendid galeasse was moored alongside, and all about her there was
+great bustle of preparation for departure. Porters moved up and down the
+gangway that connected her with the shore, carrying bales of provisions,
+barrels of water, kegs of gunpowder, and other necessaries for the
+voyage, and even as Asad and his followers reached the head of that
+gangway, four negroes were staggering down it under the load of a huge
+palmetto bale that was slung from staves yoked to their shoulders.
+
+On the poop stood Sakr-el-Bahr with Othmani, Ali, Jasper-Reis, and some
+other officers. Up and down the gangway paced Larocque and Vigitello,
+two renegade boatswains, one French and the other Italian, who had
+sailed with him on every voyage for the past two years. Larocque was
+superintending the loading of the vessel, bawling his orders for the
+bestowal of provisions here, of water yonder, and of powder about the
+mainmast. Vigitello was making a final inspection of the slaves at the
+oars.
+
+As the palmetto pannier was brought aboard, Larocque shouted to
+the negroes to set it down by the mainmast. But here Sakr-el-Bahr
+interfered, bidding them, instead, to bring it up to the stern and place
+it in the poop-house.
+
+Asad had dismounted, and stood with Marzak at his side at the head of
+the gangway when the youth finally begged his father himself to take
+command of this expedition, allowing him to come as his lieutenant and
+so learn the ways of the sea.
+
+Asad looked at him curiously, but answered nothing. He went aboard,
+Marzak and the others following him. It was at this moment that
+Sakr-el-Bahr first became aware of the Basha's presence, and he came
+instantly forward to do the honours of his galley. If there was a sudden
+uneasiness in his heart his face was calm and his glance as arrogant and
+steady as ever.
+
+“May the peace of Allah overshadow thee and thy house, O mighty Asad,”
+ was his greeting. “We are on the point of casting off, and I shall sail
+the more securely for thy blessing.”
+
+Asad considered him with eyes of wonder. So much effrontery, so much
+ease after their last scene together seemed to the Basha a thing
+incredible, unless, indeed, it were accompanied by a conscience entirely
+at peace.
+
+“It has been proposed to me that I shall do more than bless this
+expedition--that I shall command it,” he answered, watching Sakr-el-Bahr
+closely. He observed the sudden flicker of the corsair's eyes, the only
+outward sign of his inward dismay.
+
+“Command it?” echoed Sakr-el-Bahr. “'Twas proposed to thee?” And he
+laughed lightly as if to dismiss that suggestion.
+
+That laugh was a tactical error. It spurred Asad. He advanced slowly
+along the vessel's waist-deck to the mainmast--for she was rigged with
+main and foremasts. There he halted again to look into the face of
+Sakr-el-Bahr who stepped along beside him.
+
+“Why didst thou laugh?” he questioned shortly.
+
+“Why? At the folly of such a proposal,” said Sakr-el-Bahr in haste, too
+much in haste to seek a diplomatic answer.
+
+Darker grew the Basha's frown. “Folly?” quoth he. “Wherein lies the
+folly?”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr made haste to cover his mistake. “In the suggestion that
+such poor quarry as waits us should be worthy thine endeavour, should
+warrant the Lion of the Faith to unsheathe his mighty claws. Thou,” he
+continued with ringing scorn, “thou the inspirer of a hundred glorious
+fights in which whole fleets have been engaged, to take the seas upon so
+trivial an errand--one galeasse to swoop upon a single galley of Spain!
+It were unworthy thy great name, beneath the dignity of thy valour!” and
+by a gesture he contemptuously dismissed the subject.
+
+But Asad continued to ponder him with cold eyes, his face inscrutable.
+“Why, here's a change since yesterday!” he said.
+
+“A change, my lord?”
+
+“But yesterday in the market-place thyself didst urge me to join
+this expedition and to command it,” Asad reminded him, speaking with
+deliberate emphasis. “Thyself invoked the memory of the days that
+are gone, when, scimitar in hand, we charged side by side aboard the
+infidel, and thou didst beseech me to engage again beside thee. And
+now....” He spread his hands, anger gathered in his eyes. “Whence this
+change?” he demanded sternly.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr hesitated, caught in his own toils. He looked away from
+Asad a moment; he had a glimpse of the handsome flushed face of Marzak
+at his father's elbow, of Biskaine, Tsamanni, and the others all staring
+at him in amazement, and even of some grimy sunburned faces from the
+rowers' bench on his left that were looking on with dull curiosity.
+
+He smiled, seeming outwardly to remain entirely unruffled. “Why... it is
+that I have come to perceive thy reasons for refusing. For the rest, it
+is as I say, the quarry is not worthy of the hunter.”
+
+Marzak uttered a soft sneering laugh, as if the true reason of the
+corsair's attitude were quite clear to him. He fancied too, and he was
+right in this, that Sakr-el-Bahr's odd attitude had accomplished what
+persuasions addressed to Asad-ed-Din might to the end have failed to
+accomplish--had afforded him the sign he was come to seek. For it was in
+that moment that Asad determined to take command himself.
+
+“It almost seems,” he said slowly, smiling, “as if thou didst not want
+me. If so, it is unfortunate; for I have long neglected my duty to my
+son, and I am resolved at last to repair that error. We accompany thee
+upon this expedition, Sakr-el-Bahr. Myself I will command it, and Marzak
+shall be my apprentice in the ways of the sea.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr said not another word in protest against that proclaimed
+resolve. He salaamed, and when he spoke there was almost a note of
+gladness in his voice.
+
+“The praise to Allah, then, since thou'rt determined. It is not for me
+to urge further the unworthiness of the quarry since I am the gainer by
+thy resolve.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE VOYAGE
+
+
+His resolve being taken, Asad drew Tsamanni aside and spent some moments
+in talk with him, giving him certain instructions for the conduct of
+affairs ashore during his absence. That done, and the wazeer dismissed,
+the Basha himself gave the order to cast off, an order which there was
+no reason to delay, since all was now in readiness.
+
+The gangway was drawn ashore, the boatswains whistle sounded, and the
+steersmen leapt to their niches in the stern, grasping the shafts of the
+great steering-oars. A second blast rang out, and down the gangway-deck
+came Vigitello and two of his mates, all three armed with long whips
+of bullock-hide, shouting to the slaves to make ready. And then, on the
+note of a third blast of Larocque's whistle, the fifty-four poised oars
+dipped to the water, two hundred and fifty bodies bent as one, and when
+they heaved themselves upright again the great galeasse shot forward and
+so set out upon her adventurous voyage. From her mainmast the red flag
+with its green crescent was unfurled to the breeze, and from the crowded
+mole, and the beach where a long line of spectators had gathered, there
+burst a great cry of valediction.
+
+That breeze blowing stiffly from the desert was Lionel's friend that
+day. Without it his career at the oar might have been short indeed. He
+was chained, like the rest, stark naked, save for a loincloth, in the
+place nearest the gangway on the first starboard bench abaft the narrow
+waist-deck, and ere the galeasse had made the short distance between the
+mole and the island at the end of it, the boatswain's whip had coiled
+itself about his white shoulders to urge him to better exertion than
+he was putting forth. He had screamed under the cruel cut, but none had
+heeded him. Lest the punishment should be repeated, he had thrown all
+his weight into the next strokes of the oar, until by the time the
+Peñon was reached the sweat was running down his body and his heart
+was thudding against his ribs. It was not possible that it could have
+lasted, and his main agony lay in that he realized it, and saw himself
+face to face with horrors inconceivable that must await the exhaustion
+of his strength. He was not naturally robust, and he had led a soft and
+pampered life that was very far from equipping him for such a test as
+this.
+
+But as they reached the Peñon and felt the full vigour of that warm
+breeze, Sakr-el-Bahr, who by Asad's command remained in charge of the
+navigation, ordered the unfurling of the enormous lateen sails on
+main and foremasts. They ballooned out, swelling to the wind, and the
+galeasse surged forward at a speed that was more than doubled. The order
+to cease rowing followed, and the slaves were left to return thanks to
+Heaven for their respite, and to rest in their chains until such time as
+their sinews should be required again.
+
+The vessel's vast prow, which ended in a steel ram and was armed with a
+culverin on either quarter, was crowded with lounging corsairs, who
+took their ease there until the time to engage should be upon them. They
+leaned on the high bulwarks or squatted in groups, talking, laughing,
+some of them tailoring and repairing garments, others burnishing their
+weapons or their armour, and one swarthy youth there was who thrummed a
+gimri and sang a melancholy Shilha love-song to the delight of a
+score or so of bloodthirsty ruffians squatting about him in a ring of
+variegated colour.
+
+The gorgeous poop was fitted with a spacious cabin, to which admission
+was gained by two archways curtained with stout silken tapestries upon
+whose deep red ground the crescent was wrought in brilliant green. Above
+the cabin stood the three cressets or stern-lamps, great structures of
+gilded iron surmounted each by the orb and crescent. As if to continue
+the cabin forward and increase its size, a green awning was erected from
+it to shade almost half the poop-deck. Here cushions were thrown, and
+upon these squatted now Asad-ed-Din with Marzak, whilst Biskaine and
+some three or four other officers who had escorted him aboard and whom
+he had retained beside him for that voyage, were lounging upon the
+gilded balustrade at the poop's forward end, immediately above the
+rowers' benches.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr alone, a solitary figure, resplendent in caftan and turban
+that were of cloth of silver, leaned upon the bulwarks of the larboard
+quarter of the poop-deck, and looked moodily back upon the receding city
+of Algiers which by now was no more than an agglomeration of white cubes
+piled up the hillside in the morning sunshine.
+
+Asad watched him silently awhile from under his beetling brows, then
+summoned him. He came at once, and stood respectfully before his prince.
+
+Asad considered him a moment solemnly, whilst a furtive malicious smile
+played over the beautiful countenance of his son.
+
+“Think not, Sakr-el-Bahr,” he said at length, “that I bear thee
+resentment for what befell last night or that that happening is the
+sole cause of my present determination. I had a duty--a long-neglected
+duty--to Marzak, which at last I have undertaken to perform.” He seemed
+to excuse himself almost, and Marzak misliked both words and tone. Why,
+he wondered, must this fierce old man, who had made his name a terror
+throughout Christendom, be ever so soft and yielding where that stalwart
+and arrogant infidel was concerned?
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr bowed solemnly. “My lord,” he said, “it is not for me to
+question thy resolves or the thoughts that may have led to them. It
+suffices me to know thy wishes; they are my law.”
+
+“Are they so?” said Asad tartly. “Thy deeds will scarce bear out thy
+protestations.” He sighed. “Sorely was I wounded yesternight when thy
+marriage thwarted me and placed that Frankish maid beyond my reach. Yet
+I respect this marriage of thine, as all Muslims must--for all that
+in itself it was unlawful. But there!” he ended with a shrug. “We sail
+together once again to crush the Spaniard. Let no ill-will on either
+side o'er-cloud the splendour of our task.”
+
+“Ameen to that, my lord,” said Sakr-el-Bahr devoutly. “I almost
+feared....”
+
+“No more!” the Basha interrupted him. “Thou wert never a man to fear
+anything, which is why I have loved thee as a son.”
+
+But it suited Marzak not at all that the matter should be thus
+dismissed, that it should conclude upon a note of weakening from his
+father, upon what indeed amounted to a speech of reconciliation. Before
+Sakr-el-Bahr could make answer he had cut in to set him a question laden
+with wicked intent.
+
+“How will thy bride beguile the season of thine absence, O
+Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+“I have lived too little with women to be able to give thee an answer,”
+ said the corsair.
+
+Marzak winced before a reply that seemed to reflect upon himself. But he
+returned to the attack.
+
+“I compassionate thee that art the slave of duty, driven so soon to
+abandon the delight of her soft arms. Where hast thou bestowed her, O
+captain?”
+
+“Where should a Muslim bestow his wife but according to the biddings of
+the Prophet--in the house?”
+
+Marzak sneered. “Verily, I marvel at thy fortitude in quitting her so
+soon!”
+
+But Asad caught the sneer, and stared at his son. “What cause is there
+to marvel in that a true Muslim should sacrifice his inclinations to
+the service of the Faith?” His tone was a rebuke; but it left Marzak
+undismayed. The youth sprawled gracefully upon his cushions, one leg
+tucked under him.
+
+“Place no excess of faith in appearances, O my father!” he said.
+
+“No more!” growled the Basha. “Peace to thy tongue, Marzak, and may
+Allah the All-knowing smile upon our expedition, lending strength to
+our arms to smite the infidel to whom the fragrance of the garden is
+forbidden.”
+
+To this again Sakr-el-Bahr replied “Ameen,” but an uneasiness abode in
+his heart summoned thither by the questions Marzak had set him. Were
+they idle words calculated to do no more than plague him, and to keep
+fresh in Asad's mind the memory of Rosamund, or were they based upon
+some actual knowledge?
+
+His fears were to be quickened soon on that same score. He was leaning
+that afternoon upon the rail, idly observing the doling out of the
+rations to the slaves, when Marzak came to join him.
+
+For some moments he stood silently beside Sakr-el-Bahr watching
+Vigitello and his men as they passed from bench to bench serving out
+biscuits and dried dates to the rowers--but sparingly, for oars move
+sluggishly when stomachs are too well nourished--and giving each to
+drink a cup of vinegar and water in which floated a few drops of added
+oil.
+
+Then he pointed to a large palmetto bale that stood on the waist-deck
+near the mainmast about which the powder barrels were stacked.
+
+“That pannier,” he said, “seems to me oddly in the way yonder. Were
+it not better to bestow it in the hold, where it will cease to be an
+encumbrance in case of action?”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr experienced a slight tightening at the heart. He knew that
+Marzak had heard him command that bale to be borne into the poop-cabin,
+and that anon he had ordered it to be fetched thence when Asad had
+announced his intention of sailing with him. He realized that this in
+itself might be a suspicious circumstance; or, rather, knowing what
+the bale contained, he was too ready to fear suspicion. Nevertheless he
+turned to Marzak with a smile of some disdain.
+
+“I understood, Marzak, that thou art sailing with us as apprentice.”
+
+“What then?” quoth Marzak.
+
+“Why merely that it might become thee better to be content to observe
+and learn. Thou'lt soon be telling me how grapnels should be slung, and
+how an action should be fought.” Then he pointed ahead to what seemed
+to be no more than a low cloud-bank towards which they were rapidly
+skimming before that friendly wind. “Yonder,” he said, “are the
+Balearics. We are making good speed.”
+
+Although he said it without any object other than that of turning the
+conversation, yet the fact itself was sufficiently remarkable to be
+worth a comment. Whether rowed by her two hundred and fifty slaves, or
+sailed under her enormous spread of canvas, there was no swifter vessel
+upon the Mediterranean than the galeasse of Sakr-el-Bahr. Onward she
+leapt now with bellying tateens, her well-greased keel slipping through
+the wind-whipped water at a rate which perhaps could not have been
+bettered by any ship that sailed.
+
+“If this wind holds we shall be under the Point of Aguila before sunset,
+which will be something to boast of hereafter,” he promised.
+
+Marzak, however, seemed but indifferently interested; his eyes continued
+awhile to stray towards that palmetto bale by the mainmast. At length,
+without another word to Sakr-el-Bahr, he made his way abaft, and flung
+himself down under the awning, beside his father. Asad sat there in a
+moody abstraction, already regretting that he should have lent an ear
+to Fenzileh to the extent of coming upon this voyage, and assured by now
+that at least there was no cause to mistrust Sakr-el-Bahr. Marsak came
+to revive that drooping mistrust. But the moment was ill-chosen, and at
+the first words he uttered on the subject, he was growled into silence
+by his sire.
+
+“Thou dost but voice thine own malice,” Asad rebuked him. “And I am
+proven a fool in that I have permitted the malice of others to urge me
+in this matter. No more, I say.”
+
+Thereupon Marzak fell silent and sulking, his eyes ever following
+Sakr-el-Bahr, who had descended the three steps from the poop to the
+gangway and was pacing slowly down between the rowers' benches.
+
+The corsair was supremely ill at ease, as a man must be who has
+something to conceal, and who begins to fear that he may have been
+betrayed. Yet who was there could have betrayed him? But three men
+aboard that vessel knew his secret--Ali, his lieutenant, Jasper, and
+the Italian Vigitello. And Sakr-el-Bahr would have staked all his
+possessions that neither Ali nor Vigitello would have betrayed him,
+whilst he was fairly confident that in his own interests Jasper also
+must have kept faith. Yet Marzak's allusion to that palmetto bale had
+filled him with an uneasiness that sent him now in quest of his Italian
+boatswain whom he trusted above all others.
+
+“Vigitello,” said he, “is it possible that I have been betrayed to the
+Basha?”
+
+Vigitello looked up sharply at the question, then smiled with
+confidence. They were standing alone by the bulwarks on the waist-deck.
+
+“Touching what we carry yonder?” quoth he, his glance shifting to the
+bale. “Impossible. If Asad had knowledge he would have betrayed it
+before we left Algiers, or else he would never have sailed without a
+stouter bodyguard of his own.
+
+“What need of bodyguard for him?” returned Sakr-el-Bahr. “If it
+should come to grips between us--as well it may if what I suspect be
+true--there is no doubt as to the side upon which the corsairs would
+range themselves.”
+
+“Is there not?” quoth Vigitello, a smile upon his swarthy face. “Be
+not so sure. These men have most of them followed thee into a score of
+fights. To them thou art the Basha, their natural leader.”
+
+“Maybe. But their allegiance belongs to Asad-ed-Din, the exalted of
+Allah. Did it come to a choice between us, their faith would urge them
+to stand beside him in spite of any past bonds that may have existed
+between them and me.”
+
+“Yet there were some who murmured when thou wert superseded in the
+command of this expedition,” Vigitello informed him. “I doubt not that
+many would be influenced by their faith, but many would stand by
+thee against the Grand Sultan himself. And do not forget,” he added,
+instinctively lowering his voice, “that many of us are renegadoes like
+myself and thee, who would never know a moment's doubt if it came to
+a choice of sides. But I hope,” he ended in another tone, “there is no
+such danger here.”
+
+“And so do I, in all faith,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr, with fervour. “Yet
+I am uneasy, and I must know where I stand if the worst takes place. Go
+thou amongst the men, Vigitello, and probe their real feelings, gauge
+their humour and endeavour to ascertain upon what numbers I may count
+if I have to declare war upon Asad or if he declares it upon me. Be
+cautious.”
+
+Vigitello closed one of his black eyes portentously. “Depend upon it,”
+ he said, “I'll bring you word anon.”
+
+On that they parted, Vigitello to make his way to the prow and there
+engage in his investigations, Sakr-el-Bahr slowly to retrace his steps
+to the poop. But at the first bench abaft the gangway he paused, and
+looked down at the dejected, white-fleshed slave who sat shackled
+there. He smiled cruelly, his own anxieties forgotten in the savour of
+vengeance.
+
+“So you have tasted the whip already,” he said in English. “But that
+is nothing to what is yet to come. You are in luck that there is a wind
+to-day. It will not always be so. Soon shall you learn what it was that
+I endured by your contriving.”
+
+Lionel looked up at him with haggard, blood-injected eyes. He wanted
+to curse his brother, yet was he too overwhelmed by the sense of the
+fitness of this punishment.
+
+“For myself I care nothing,” he replied.
+
+“But you will, sweet brother,” was the answer. “You will care for
+yourself most damnably and pity yourself most poignantly. I speak from
+experience. 'Tis odds you will not live, and that is my chief regret. I
+would you had my thews to keep you alive in this floating hell.”
+
+“I tell you I care nothing for myself,” Lionel insisted. “What have you
+done with Rosamund?”
+
+“Will it surprise you to learn that I have played the gentleman and
+married her?” Oliver mocked him.
+
+“Married her?” his brother gasped, blenching at the very thought. “You
+hound!”
+
+“Why abuse me? Could I have done more?” And with a laugh he
+sauntered on, leaving Lionel to writhe there with the torment of his
+half-knowledge.
+
+An hour later, when the cloudy outline of the Balearic Isles had
+acquired density and colour, Sakr-el-Bahr and Vigitello met again on the
+waist-deck, and they exchanged some few words in passing.
+
+“It is difficult to say exactly,” the boatswain murmured, “but from what
+I gather I think the odds would be very evenly balanced, and it were
+rash in thee to precipitate a quarrel.”
+
+“I am not like to do so,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr. “I should not be like to
+do so in any case. I but desired to know how I stand in case a quarrel
+should be forced upon me.” And he passed on.
+
+Yet his uneasiness was no whit allayed; his difficulties were very far
+from solved. He had undertaken to carry Rosamund to France or Italy; he
+had pledged her his word to land her upon one or the other shore, and
+should he fail, she might even come to conclude that such had never
+been his real intention. Yet how was he to succeed, now, since Asad was
+aboard the galeasse? Must he be constrained to carry her back to Algiers
+as secretly as he had brought her thence, and to keep her there until
+another opportunity of setting her ashore upon a Christian country
+should present itself? That was clearly impracticable and fraught with
+too much risk of detection. Indeed, the risk of detection was very
+imminent now. At any moment her presence in that pannier might be
+betrayed. He could think of no way in which to redeem his pledged word.
+He could but wait and hope, trusting to his luck and to some opportunity
+which it was impossible to foresee.
+
+And so for a long hour and more he paced there moodily to and fro, his
+hands clasped behind him, his turbaned head bowed in thought, his heart
+very heavy within him. He was taken in the toils of the evil web which
+he had spun; and it seemed very clear to him now that nothing short of
+his life itself would be demanded as the price of it. That, however, was
+the least part of his concern. All things had miscarried with him and
+his life was wrecked. If at the price of it he could ensure safety to
+Rosamund, that price he would gladly pay. But his dismay and uneasiness
+all sprang from his inability to discover a way of achieving that most
+desired of objects even at such a sacrifice. And so he paced on alone
+and very lonely, waiting and praying for a miracle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE PANNIER
+
+
+He was still pacing there when an hour or so before sunset--some fifteen
+hours after setting out--they stood before the entrance of a long
+bottle-necked cove under the shadow of the cliffs of Aquila Point on
+the southern coast of the Island of Formentera. He was rendered aware of
+this and roused from his abstraction by the voice of Asad calling to him
+from the poop and commanding him to make the cove.
+
+Already the wind was failing them, and it became necessary to take to
+the oars, as must in any case have happened once they were through the
+coves narrow neck in the becalmed lagoon beyond. So Sakr-el-Bahr, in his
+turn, lifted up his voice, and in answer to his shout came Vigitello and
+Larocque.
+
+A blast of Vigitello's whistle brought his own men to heel, and they
+passed rapidly along the benches ordering the rowers to make ready,
+whilst Jasper and a half-dozen Muslim sailors set about furling
+the sails that already were beginning to flap in the shifting and
+intermittent gusts of the expiring wind. Sakr-el-Bahr gave the word to
+row, and Vigitello blew a second and longer blast. The oars dipped, the
+slaves strained and the galeasse ploughed forward, time being kept by
+a boatswain's mate who squatted on the waist-deck and beat a tomtom
+rhythmically. Sakr-el-Bahr, standing on the poop-deck, shouted his
+orders to the steersmen in their niches on either side of the stern, and
+skilfully the vessel was manoeuvred through the narrow passage into the
+calm lagoon whose depths were crystal clear. Here before coming to rest,
+Sakr-el-Bahr followed the invariable corsair practice of going about,
+so as to be ready to leave his moorings and make for the open again at a
+moment's notice.
+
+She came at last alongside the rocky buttresses of a gentle slope that
+was utterly deserted by all save a few wild goats browsing near the
+summit. There were clumps of broom, thick with golden flower, about
+the base of the hill. Higher, a few gnarled and aged olive trees reared
+their grey heads from which the rays of the westering sun struck a glint
+as of silver.
+
+Larocque and a couple of sailors went over the bulwarks on the larboard
+quarter, dropped lightly to the horizontal shafts of the oars, which
+were rigidly poised, and walking out upon them gained the rocks and
+proceeded to make fast the vessel by ropes fore and aft.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr's next task was to set a watch, and he appointed Larocque,
+sending him to take his station on the summit of the head whence a wide
+range of view was to be commanded.
+
+Pacing the poop with Marzak the Basha grew reminiscent of former days
+when roving the seas as a simple corsair he had used this cove both for
+purposes of ambush and concealment. There were, he said, few harbours
+in all the Mediterranean so admirably suited to the corsairs' purpose
+as this; it was a haven of refuge in case of peril, and an unrivalled
+lurking-place in which to lie in wait for the prey. He remembered
+once having lain there with the formidable Dragut-Reis, a fleet of six
+galleys, their presence entirely unsuspected by the Genoese admiral,
+Doria, who had passed majestically along with three caravels and seven
+galleys.
+
+Marzak, pacing beside his father, listened but half-heartedly to these
+reminiscences. His mind was all upon Sakr-el-Bahr, and his suspicions
+of that palmetto bale were quickened by the manner in which for the
+last two hours he had seen the corsair hovering thoughtfully in its
+neighbourhood.
+
+He broke in suddenly upon his father's memories with an expression of
+what was in his mind.
+
+“The thanks to Allah,” he said, “that it is thou who command this
+expedition, else might this coves advantages have been neglected.”
+
+“Not so,” said Asad. “Sakr-el-Bahr knows them as well as I do. He has
+used this vantage point afore-time. It was himself who suggested that
+this would be the very place in which to await this Spanish craft.”
+
+“Yet had he sailed alone I doubt if the Spanish argosy had concerned him
+greatly. There are other matters on his mind, O my father. Observe him
+yonder, all lost in thought. How many hours of this voyage has he spent
+thus. He is as a man trapped and desperate. There is some fear rankling
+in him. Observe him, I say.”
+
+“Allah pardon thee,” said his father, shaking his old head and sighing
+over so much impetuosity of judgment. “Must thy imagination be for ever
+feeding on thy malice? Yet I blame not thee, but thy Sicilian mother,
+who has fostered this hostility in thee. Did she not hoodwink me into
+making this unnecessary voyage?”
+
+“I see thou hast forgot last night and the Frankish slave-girl,” said
+his son.
+
+“Nay, then thou seest wrong. I have not forgot it. But neither have I
+forgot that since Allah hath exalted me to be Basha of Algiers, He looks
+to me to deal in justice. Come, Marzak, set an end to all this. Perhaps
+to-morrow thou shalt see him in battle, and after such a sight as that
+never again wilt thou dare say evil of him. Come, make thy peace with
+him, and let me see better relations betwixt you hereafter.”
+
+And raising his voice he called Sakr-el-Bahr, who immediately turned and
+came up the gangway. Marzak stood by in a sulky mood, with no notion of
+doing his father's will by holding out an olive branch to the man who
+was like to cheat him of his birthright ere all was done. Yet was it he
+who greeted Sakr-el-Bahr when the corsair set foot upon the poop.
+
+“Does the thought of the coming fight perturb thee, dog of war?” he
+asked.
+
+“Am I perturbed, pup of peace?” was the crisp answer.
+
+“It seems so. Thine aloofness, thine abstractions....”
+
+“Are signs of perturbation, dost suppose?”
+
+“Of what else?”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr laughed. “Thou'lt tell me next that I am afraid. Yet I
+should counsel thee to wait until thou hast smelt blood and powder, and
+learnt precisely what fear is.”
+
+The slight altercation drew the attention of Asad's officers who were
+idling there. Biskaine and some three others lounged forward to stand
+behind the Basha, looking, on in some amusement, which was shared by
+him.
+
+“Indeed, indeed,” said Asad, laying a hand upon Marzak's shoulder, “his
+counsel is sound enough. Wait, boy, until thou hast gone beside him
+aboard the infidel, ere thou judge him easily perturbed.”
+
+Petulantly Marzak shook off that gnarled old hand. “Dost thou, O my
+father, join with him in taunting me upon my lack of knowledge. My youth
+is a sufficient answer. But at least,” he added, prompted by a wicked
+notion suddenly conceived, “at least you cannot taunt me with lack of
+address with weapons.”
+
+“Give him room,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, with ironical good-humour, “and he
+will show us prodigies.”
+
+Marzak looked at him with narrowing, gleaming eyes. “Give me a
+cross-bow,” he retorted, “and I'll show thee how to shoot,” was his
+amazing boast.
+
+“Thou'lt show him?” roared Asad. “Thou'lt show him!” And his laugh rang
+loud and hearty. “Go smear the sun's face with clay, boy.”
+
+“Reserve thy judgment, O my father,” begged Marzak, with frosty dignity.
+
+“Boy, thou'rt mad! Why, Sakr-el-Bahr's quarrel will check a swallow in
+its flight.”
+
+“That is his boast, belike,” replied Marzak.
+
+“And what may thine be?” quoth Sakr-el-Bahr. “To hit the Island of
+Formentera at this distance?”
+
+“Dost dare to sneer at me?” cried Marzak, ruffling.
+
+“What daring would that ask?” wondered Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“By Allah, thou shalt learn.”
+
+“In all humility I await the lesson.”
+
+“And thou shalt have it,” was the answer viciously delivered. Marzak
+strode to the rail. “Ho there! Vigitello! A cross-bow for me, and
+another for Sakr-el-Bahr.”
+
+Vigitello sprang to obey him, whilst Asad shook his head and laughed
+again.
+
+“An it were not against the Prophet's law to make a wager....” he was
+beginning, when Marzak interrupted him.
+
+“Already should I have proposed one.”
+
+“So that,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, “thy purse would come to match thine head
+for emptiness.”
+
+Marzak looked at him and sneered. Then he snatched from Vigitello's
+hands one of the cross-bows that he bore and set a shaft to it. And then
+at last Sakr-el-Bahr was to learn the malice that was at the root of all
+this odd pretence.
+
+“Look now,” said the youth, “there is on that palmetto bale a speck of
+pitch scarce larger than the pupil of my eye. Thou'lt need to strain thy
+sight to see it. Observe how my shaft will find it. Canst thou better
+such a shot?”
+
+His eyes, upon Sakr-el-Bahr's face, watching it closely, observed the
+pallor by which it was suddenly overspread. But the corsair's recovery
+was almost as swift. He laughed, seeming so entirely careless that
+Marzak began to doubt whether he had paled indeed or whether his own
+imagination had led him to suppose it.
+
+“Ay, thou'lt choose invisible marks, and wherever the arrow enters
+thou'lt say 'twas there! An old trick, O Marzak. Go cozen women with
+it.”
+
+“Then,” said Marzak, “we will take instead the slender cord that binds
+the bale.” And he levelled his bow. But Sakr-el-Bahr's hand closed upon
+his arm in an easy yet paralyzing grip.
+
+“Wait,” he said. “Thou'lt choose another mark for several reasons. For
+one, I'll not have thy shaft blundering through my oarsmen and haply
+killing one of them. Most of them are slaves specially chosen for their
+brawn, and I cannot spare any. Another reason is that the mark is a
+foolish one. The distance is not more than ten paces. A childish test,
+which, maybe, is the reason why thou hast chosen it.”
+
+Marzak lowered his bow and Sakr-el-Bahr released his arm. They looked at
+each other, the corsair supremely master of himself and smiling easily,
+no faintest trace of the terror that was in his soul showing upon his
+swarthy bearded countenance or in his hard pale eyes.
+
+He pointed up the hillside to the nearest olive tree, a hundred paces
+distant. “Yonder,” he said, “is a man's mark. Put me a shaft through the
+long branch of that first olive.”
+
+Asad and his officers voiced approval.
+
+“A man's mark, indeed,” said the Basha, “so that he be a marksman.”
+
+But Marzak shrugged his shoulders with make-believe contempt. “I knew he
+would refuse the mark I set,” said he. “As for the olive-branch, it is
+so large a butt that a child could not miss it at this distance.”
+
+“If a child could not, then thou shouldst not,” said Sakr-el-Bahr,
+who had so placed himself that his body was now between Marzak and the
+palmetto bale. “Let us see thee hit it, O Marzak.” And as he spoke he
+raised his cross-bow, and scarcely seeming to take aim, he loosed his
+shaft. It flashed away to be checked, quivering, in the branch he had
+indicated.
+
+A chorus of applause and admiration greeted the shot, and drew the
+attention of all the crew to what was toward.
+
+Marzak tightened his lips, realizing how completely he had been
+outwitted. Willy-nilly he must now shoot at that mark. The choice had
+been taken out of his hands by Sakr-el-Bahr. He never doubted that he
+must cover himself with ridicule in the performance, and that there he
+would be constrained to abandon this pretended match.
+
+“By the Koran,” said Biskaine, “thou'lt need all thy skill to equal such
+a shot, Marzak.”
+
+“'Twas not the mark I chose,” replied Marzak sullenly.
+
+“Thou wert the challenger, O Marzak,” his father reminded him. “Therefore
+the choice of mark was his. He chose a man's mark, and by the beard of
+Mohammed, he showed us a man's shot.”
+
+Marzak would have flung the bow from him in that moment, abandoning
+the method he had chosen to investigate the contents of that suspicious
+palmetto bale; but he realized that such a course must now cover him
+with scorn. Slowly he levelled his bow at that distant mark.
+
+“Have a care of the sentinel on the hill-top,” Sakr-el-Bahr admonished
+him, provoking a titter.
+
+Angrily the youth drew the bow. The cord hummed, and the shaft sped to
+bury itself in the hill's flank a dozen yards from the mark.
+
+Since he was the son of the Basha none dared to laugh outright save
+his father and Sakr-el-Bahr. But there was no suppressing a titter to
+express the mockery to which the proven braggart must ever be exposed.
+
+Asad looked at him, smiling almost sadly. “See now,” he said, “what
+comes of boasting thyself against Sakr-el-Bahr.”
+
+“My will was crossed in the matter of a mark,” was the bitter answer.
+“You angered me and made my aim untrue.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr strode away to the starboard bulwarks, deeming the matter
+at an end. Marzak observed him.
+
+“Yet at that small mark,” he said, “I challenge him again.” As he spoke
+he fitted a second shaft to his bow. “Behold!” he cried, and took aim.
+
+But swift as thought, Sakr-el-Bahr--heedless now of all
+consequences--levelled at Marzak the bow which he still held.
+
+“Hold!” he roared. “Loose thy shaft at that bale, and I loose this at
+thy throat. I never miss!” he added grimly.
+
+There was a startled movement in the ranks of those who stood behind
+Marzak. In speechless amazement they stared at Sakr-el-Bahr, as he stood
+there, white-faced, his eyes aflash, his bow drawn taut and ready to
+launch that death-laden quarrel as he threatened.
+
+Slowly then, smiling with unutterable malice, Marzak lowered his bow.
+He was satisfied. His true aim was reached. He had drawn his enemy into
+self-betrayal.
+
+Asad's was the voice that shattered that hush of consternation.
+
+“Kellamullah!” he bellowed. “What is this? Art thou mad, too, O
+Sakr-el-Bahr?”
+
+“Ay, mad indeed,” said Marzak; “mad with fear.” And he stepped quickly
+aside so that the body of Biskaine should shield him from any sudden
+consequences of his next words. “Ask him what he keeps in that pannier,
+O my father.”
+
+“Ay, what, in Allah's name?” demanded the Basha, advancing towards his
+captain.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr lowered his bow, master of himself again. His composure was
+beyond all belief.
+
+“I carry in it goods of price, which I'll not see riddled to please a
+pert boy,” he said.
+
+“Goods of price?” echoed Asad, with a snort. “They'll need to be of
+price indeed that are valued above the life of my son. Let us see these
+goods of price.” And to the men upon the waist-deck he shouted, “Open me
+that pannier.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr sprang forward, and laid a hand upon the Basha's arm.
+
+“Stay, my lord!” he entreated almost fiercely. “Consider that this
+pannier is my own. That its contents are my property; that none has a
+right to....”
+
+“Wouldst babble of rights to me, who am thy lord?” blazed the Basha, now
+in a towering passion. “Open me that pannier, I say.”
+
+They were quick to his bidding. The ropes were slashed away, and the
+front of the pannier fell open on its palmetto hinges. There was a
+half-repressed chorus of amazement from the men. Sakr-el-Bahr stood
+frozen in horror of what must follow.
+
+“What is it? What have you found?” demanded Asad.
+
+In silence the men swung the bale about, and disclosed to the eyes of
+those upon the poop-deck the face and form of Rosamund Godolphin. Then
+Sakr-el-Bahr, rousing himself from his trance of horror, reckless of
+all but her, flung down the gangway to assist her from the pannier, and
+thrusting aside those who stood about her, took his stand at her side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE DUPE
+
+
+For a little while Asad stood at gaze, speechless in his incredulity.
+Then to revive the anger that for a moment had been whelmed in
+astonishment came the reflection that he had been duped by Sakr-el-Bahr,
+duped by the man he trusted most. He had snarled at Fenzileh and scorned
+Marzak when they had jointly warned him against his lieutenant; if at
+times he had been in danger of heeding them, yet sooner or later he
+had concluded that they but spoke to vent their malice. And yet it was
+proven now that they had been right in their estimate of this traitor,
+whilst he himself had been a poor, blind dupe, needing Marzak's wit to
+tear the bandage from his eyes.
+
+Slowly he went down the gangway, followed by Marzak, Biskaine, and the
+others. At the point where it joined the waist-deck he paused, and his
+dark old eyes smouldered under his beetling brows.
+
+“So,” he snarled. “These are thy goods of price. Thou lying dog, what
+was thine aim in this?”
+
+Defiantly Sakr-el-Bahr answered him: “She is my wife. It is my right to
+take her with me where I go.” He turned to her, and bade her veil her
+face, and she immediately obeyed him with fingers that shook a little in
+her agitation.
+
+“None questions thy right to that,” said Asad. “But being resolved to
+take her with thee, why not take her openly? Why was she not housed in
+the poop-house, as becomes the wife of Sakr-el-Bahr? Why smuggle her
+aboard in a pannier, and keep her there in secret?”
+
+“And why,” added Marzak, “didst thou lie to me when I questioned thee
+upon her whereabouts?--telling me she was left behind in thy house in
+Algiers?”
+
+“All this I did,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr, with a lofty--almost a
+disdainful--dignity, “because I feared lest I should be prevented from
+bearing her away with me,” and his bold glance, beating full upon Asad,
+drew a wave of colour into the gaunt old cheeks.
+
+“What could have caused that fear?” he asked. “Shall I tell thee?
+Because no man sailing upon such a voyage as this would have desired the
+company of his new-wedded wife. Because no man would take a wife with
+him upon a raid in which there is peril of life and peril of capture.”
+
+“Allah has watched over me his servant in the past,” said Sakr-el-Bahr,
+“and I put my trust in Him.”
+
+It was a specious answer. Such words--laying stress upon the victories
+Allah sent him--had afore-time served to disarm his enemies. But they
+served not now. Instead, they did but fan the flames of Asad's wrath.
+
+“Blaspheme not,” he croaked, and his tall form quivered with rage, his
+sallow old face grew vulturine. “She was brought thus aboard in secret
+out of fear that were her presence known thy true purpose too must stand
+revealed.”
+
+“And whatever that true purpose may have been,” put in Marzak, “it was
+not the task entrusted thee of raiding the Spanish treasure-galley.”
+
+“'Tis what I mean, my son,” Asad agreed. Then with a commanding gesture:
+“Wilt thou tell me without further lies what thy purpose was?” he asked.
+
+“How?” said Sakr-el-Bahr, and he smiled never so faintly. “Hast thou not
+said that this purpose was revealed by what I did? Rather, then, I think
+is it for me to ask thee for some such information. I do assure thee, my
+lord, that it was no part of my intention to neglect the task entrusted
+me. But just because I feared lest knowledge of her presence might lead
+my enemies to suppose what thou art now supposing, and perhaps persuade
+thee to forget all that I have done for the glory of Islam, I determined
+to bring her secretly aboard.
+
+“My real aim, since you must know it, was to land her somewhere on the
+coast of France, whence she might return to her own land, and her own
+people. That done, I should have set about intercepting the Spanish
+galley, and never fear but that by Allah's favour I should have
+succeeded.”
+
+“By the horns of Shaitan,” swore Marzak, thrusting himself forward, “he
+is the very father and mother of lies. Wilt thou explain this desire to
+be rid of a wife thou hadst but wed?” he demanded.
+
+“Ay,” growled Asad. “Canst answer that?”
+
+“Thou shalt hear the truth,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“The praise to Allah!” mocked Marzak.
+
+“But I warn you,” the corsair continued, “that to you it will seem less
+easy to believe by much than any falsehood I could invent. Years ago in
+England where I was born I loved this woman and should have taken her
+to wife. But there were men and circumstances that defamed me to her
+so that she would not wed me, and I went forth with hatred of her in my
+heart. Last night the love of her which I believed to be dead and turned
+to loathing, proved to be still a living force. Loving her, I came to
+see that I had used her unworthily, and I was urged by a desire above
+all others to undo the evil I had done.”
+
+On that he paused, and after an instant's silence Asad laughed angrily
+and contemptuously. “Since when has man expressed his love for a woman
+by putting her from him?” he asked in a voice of scorn that showed the
+precise value he set upon such a statement.
+
+“I warned thee it would seem incredible,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“Is it not plain, O my father, that this marriage of his was no more
+than a pretence?” cried Marzak.
+
+“As plain as the light of day,” replied Asad. “Thy marriage with that
+woman made an impious mock of the True Faith. It was no marriage. It was
+a blasphemous pretence, thine only aim to thwart me, abusing my regard
+for the Prophet's Holy Law, and to set her beyond my reach.” He turned
+to Vigitello, who stood a little behind Sakr-el-Bahr. “Bid thy men put
+me this traitor into irons,” he said.
+
+“Heaven hath guided thee to a wise decision, O my father!” cried Marzak,
+his voice jubilant. But his was the only jubilant note that was sounded,
+his the only voice that was raised.
+
+“The decision is more like to guide you both to Heaven,” replied
+Sakr-el-Bahr, undaunted. On the instant he had resolved upon his course.
+“Stay!” he said, raising his hand to Vigitello, who, indeed had shown no
+sign of stirring. He stepped close up to Asad, and what he said did not
+go beyond those who stood immediately about the Basha and Rosamund, who
+strained her ears that she might lose no word of it.
+
+“Do not think, Asad,” he said, “that I will submit me like a camel to
+its burden. Consider thy position well. If I but raise my voice to call
+my sea-hawks to me, only Allah can tell how many will be left to
+obey thee. Darest thou put this matter to the test?” he asked, his
+countenance grave and solemn, but entirely fearless, as of a man in whom
+there is no doubt of the issue as it concerns himself.
+
+Asad's eyes glittered dully, his colour faded to a deathly ashen
+hue. “Thou infamous traitor....” he began in a thick voice, his body
+quivering with anger.
+
+“Ah no,” Sakr-el-Bahr interrupted him. “Were I a traitor it is what I
+should have done already, knowing as I do that in any division of our
+forces, numbers will be heavily on my side. Let then my silence prove
+my unswerving loyalty, Asad. Let it weigh with thee in considering my
+conduct, nor permit thyself to be swayed by Marzak there, who recks
+nothing so that he vents his petty hatred of me.”
+
+“Do not heed him, O my father!” cried Marzak. “It cannot be that....”
+
+“Peace!” growled Asad, somewhat stricken on a sudden.
+
+And there was peace whilst the Basha stood moodily combing his white
+beard, his glittering eyes sweeping from Oliver to Rosamund and back
+again. He was weighing what Sakr-el-Bahr had said. He more than feared
+that it might be no more than true, and he realized that if he were to
+provoke a mutiny here he would be putting all to the test, setting all
+upon a throw in which the dice might well be cogged against him.
+
+If Sakr-el-Bahr prevailed, he would prevail not merely aboard this
+galley, but throughout Algiers, and Asad would be cast down never to
+rise again. On the other hand, if he bared his scimitar and called upon
+the faithful to support him, it might chance that recognizing in him the
+exalted of Allah to whom their loyalty was due, they would rally to
+him. He even thought it might be probable. Yet the stake he put upon
+the board was too vast. The game appalled him, whom nothing yet had
+appalled, and it scarce needed a muttered caution from Biskaine to
+determine him to hold his hand.
+
+He looked at Sakr-el-Bahr again, his glance now sullen. “I will consider
+thy words,” he announced in a voice that was unsteady. “I would not be
+unjust, nor steer my course by appearances alone. Allah forbid!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. SHEIK MAT
+
+
+Under the inquisitive gaping stare of all about them stood Rosamund and
+Sakr-el-Bahr regarding each other in silence for a little spell after
+the Basha's departure. The very galley-slaves, stirred from their
+habitual lethargy by happenings so curious and unusual, craned their
+sinewy necks to peer at them with a flicker of interest in their dull,
+weary eyes.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr's feelings as he considered Rosamunds's white face in the
+fading light were most oddly conflicting. Dismay at what had befallen
+and some anxious dread of what must follow were leavened by a certain
+measure of relief.
+
+He realized that in no case could her concealment have continued long.
+Eleven mortal hours had she spent in the cramped and almost suffocating
+space of that pannier, in which he had intended to do no more than
+carry her aboard. The uneasiness which had been occasioned him by the
+impossibility to deliver her from that close confinement when Asad had
+announced his resolve to accompany them upon that voyage, had steadily
+been increasing as hour succeeded hour, and still he found no way to
+release her from a situation in which sooner or later, when the limits
+of her endurance were reached, her presence must be betrayed. This
+release which he could not have contrived had been contrived for him
+by the suspicions and malice of Marzak. That was the one grain of
+consolation in the present peril--to himself who mattered nothing and
+to her, who mattered all. Adversity had taught him to prize benefits
+however slight and to confront perils however overwhelming. So he hugged
+the present slender benefit, and resolutely braced himself to deal
+with the situation as he found it, taking the fullest advantage of the
+hesitancy which his words had sown in the heart of the Basha. He hugged,
+too, the thought that as things had fallen out, from being oppressor and
+oppressed, Rosamund and he were become fellows in misfortune, sharing
+now a common peril. He found it a sweet thought to dwell on. Therefore
+was it that he faintly smiled as he looked into Rosamund's white,
+strained face.
+
+That smile evoked from her the question that had been burdening her
+mind.
+
+“What now? What now?” she asked huskily, and held out appealing hands to
+him.
+
+“Now,” said he coolly, “let us be thankful that you are delivered from
+quarters destructive both to comfort and to dignity. Let me lead you to
+those I had prepared for you, which you would have occupied long since
+but for the ill-timed coming of Asad. Come.” And he waved an inviting
+hand towards the gangway leading to the poop.
+
+She shrank back at that, for there on the poop sat Asad under his awning
+with Marzak, Biskaine, and his other officers in attendance.
+
+“Come,” he repeated, “there is naught to fear so that you keep a bold
+countenance. For the moment it is Sheik Mat--check to the king.”
+
+“Naught to fear?” she echoed, staring.
+
+“For the moment, naught,” he answered firmly. “Against what the future
+may hold, we must determine. Be sure that fear will not assist our
+judgment.”
+
+She stiffened as if he had charged her unjustly.
+
+“I do not fear,” she assured him, and if her face continued white, her
+eyes grew steady, her voice was resolute.
+
+“Then come,” he repeated, and she obeyed him instantly now as if to
+prove the absence of all fear.
+
+Side by side they passed up the gangway and mounted the steps of the
+companion to the poop, their approach watched by the group that was in
+possession of it with glances at once of astonishment and resentment.
+
+Asad's dark, smouldering eyes were all for the girl. They followed her
+every movement as she approached and never for a moment left her to turn
+upon her companion.
+
+Outwardly she bore herself with a proud dignity and an unfaltering
+composure under that greedy scrutiny; but inwardly she shrank and
+writhed in a shame and humiliation that she could hardly define. In some
+measure Oliver shared her feelings, but blent with anger; and urged
+by them he so placed himself at last that he stood between her and the
+Basha's regard to screen her from it as he would have screened her from
+a lethal weapon. Upon the poop he paused, and salaamed to Asad.
+
+“Permit, exalted lord,” said he, “that my wife may occupy the quarters
+I had prepared for her before I knew that thou wouldst honour this
+enterprise with thy presence.”
+
+Curtly, contemptuously, Asad waved a consenting hand without vouchsafing
+to reply in words. Sakr-el-Bahr bowed again, stepped forward, and put
+aside the heavy red curtain upon which the crescent was wrought in
+green. From within the cabin the golden light of a lamp came out to
+merge into the blue-gray twilight, and to set a shimmering radiance
+about the white-robed figure of Rosamund.
+
+Thus for a moment Asad's fierce, devouring eyes observed her, then she
+passed within. Sakr-el-Bahr followed, and the screening curtain swung
+back into its place.
+
+The small interior was furnished by a divan spread with silken carpets,
+a low Moorish table in coloured wood mosaics bearing the newly lighted
+lamp, and a tiny brazier in which aromatic gums were burning and
+spreading a sweetly pungent perfume for the fumigation of all
+True-Believers.
+
+Out of the shadows in the farther corners rose silently Sakr-el-Bahr's
+two Nubian slaves, Abiad and Zal-Zer, to salaam low before him. But for
+their turbans and loincloths in spotless white their dusky bodies must
+have remained invisible, shadowy among the shadows.
+
+The captain issued an order briefly, and from a hanging cupboard the
+slaves took meat and drink and set it upon the low table--a bowl of
+chicken cooked in rice and olives and prunes, a dish of bread, a melon,
+and a clay amphora of water. Then at another word from him, each took a
+naked scimitar and they passed out to place themselves on guard beyond
+the curtain. This was not an act in which there was menace or
+defiance, nor could Asad so interpret it. The acknowledged presence
+of Sakr-el-Balir's wife in that poop-house, rendered the place the
+equivalent of his hareem, and a man defends his hareem as he defends his
+honour; it is a spot sacred to himself which none may violate, and it is
+fitting that he take proper precaution against any impious attempt to do
+so.
+
+Rosamund sank down upon the divan, and sat there with bowed head, her
+hands folded in her lap. Sakr-el-Bahr stood by in silence for a long
+moment contemplating her.
+
+“Eat,” he bade her at last. “You will need strength and courage, and
+neither is possible to a fasting body.”
+
+She shook her head. Despite her long fast, food was repellent. Anxiety
+was thrusting her heart up into her throat to choke her.
+
+“I cannot eat,” she answered him. “To what end? Strength and courage
+cannot avail me now.”
+
+“Never believe that,” he said. “I have undertaken to deliver you alive
+from the perils into which I have brought you, and I shall keep my
+word.”
+
+So resolute was his tone that she looked up at him, and found his
+bearing equally resolute and confident.
+
+“Surely,” she cried, “all chance of escape is lost to me.”
+
+“Never count it lost whilst I am living,” he replied. She considered him
+a moment, and there was the faintest smile on her lips.
+
+“Do you think that you will live long now?” she asked him.
+
+“Just as long as God pleases,” he replied quite coolly. “What is written
+is written. So that I live long enough to deliver you, then... why,
+then, faith I shall have lived long enough.”
+
+Her head sank. She clasped and unclasped the hands in her lap. She
+shivered slightly.
+
+“I think we are both doomed,” she said in a dull voice. “For if you die,
+I have your dagger still, remember. I shall not survive you.”
+
+He took a sudden step forward, his eyes gleaming, a faint flush glowing
+through the tan of his cheeks. Then he checked. Fool! How could he so
+have misread her meaning even for a moment? Were not its exact limits
+abundantly plain, even without the words which she added a moment later?
+
+“God will forgive me if I am driven to it--if I choose the easier way of
+honour; for honour, sir,” she added, clearly for his benefit, “is ever
+the easier way, believe me.”
+
+“I know,” he replied contritely. “I would to God I had followed it.”
+
+He paused there, as if hoping that his expression of penitence might
+evoke some answer from her, might spur her to vouchsafe him some word
+of forgiveness. Seeing that she continued, mute and absorbed, he sighed
+heavily, and turned to other matters.
+
+“Here you will find all that you can require,” he said. “Should you lack
+aught you have but to beat your hands together, one or the other of
+my slaves will come to you. If you address them in French they will
+understand you. I would I could have brought a woman to minister to
+you, but that was impossible, as you'll perceive.” He stepped to the
+entrance.
+
+“You are leaving me?” she questioned him in sudden alarm.
+
+“Naturally. But be sure that I shall be very near at hand. And meanwhile
+be no less sure that you have no cause for immediate fear. At least,
+matters are no worse than when you were in the pannier. Indeed, much
+better, for some measure of ease and comfort is now possible to you. So
+be of good heart; eat and rest. God guard you! I shall return soon after
+sunrise.”
+
+Outside on the poop-deck he found Asad alone now with Marzak under the
+awning. Night had fallen, the great crescent lanterns on the stern rail
+were alight and cast a lurid glow along the vessel's length, picking out
+the shadowy forms and gleaming faintly on the naked backs of the slaves
+in their serried ranks along the benches, many of them bowed already in
+attitudes of uneasy slumber. Another lantern swung from the mainmast,
+and yet another from the poop-rail for the Basha's convenience. Overhead
+the clustering stars glittered in a cloudless sky of deepest purple. The
+wind had fallen entirely, and the world was wrapped in stillness broken
+only by the faint rustling break of waves upon the beach at the cove's
+end.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr crossed to Asad's side, and begged for a word alone with
+him.
+
+“I am alone,” said the Basha curtly.
+
+“Marzak is nothing, then,” said Sakr-el-Bahr. “I have long suspected
+it.”
+
+Marzak showed his teeth and growled inarticulately, whilst the Basha,
+taken aback by the ease reflected in the captain's careless, mocking
+words, could but quote a line of the Koran with which Fenzileh of late
+had often nauseated him.
+
+“A man's son is the partner of his soul. I have no secrets from Marzak.
+Speak, then, before him, or else be silent and depart.”
+
+“He may be the partner of thy soul, Asad,” replied the corsair with his
+bold mockery, “but I give thanks to Allah he is not the partner of mine.
+And what I have to say in some sense concerns my soul.”
+
+“I thank thee,” cut in Marzak, “for the justice of thy words. To be the
+partner of thy soul were to be an infidel unbelieving dog.”
+
+“Thy tongue, O Marzak, is like thine archery,” said Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“Ay--in that it pierces treachery,” was the swift retort.
+
+“Nay--in that it aims at what it cannot hit. Now, Allah, pardon me!
+Shall I grow angry at such words as thine? Hath not the One proven full
+oft that he who calls me infidel dog is a liar predestined to the Pit?
+Are such victories as mine over the fleets of the unbelievers vouchsafed
+by Allah to an infidel? Foolish blasphemer, teach thy tongue better ways
+lest the All-wise strike thee dumb.”
+
+“Peace!” growled Asad. “Thine arrogance is out of season.”
+
+“Haply so,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, with a laugh. “And my good sense, too,
+it seems. Since thou wilt retain beside thee this partner of thy soul, I
+must speak before him. Have I thy leave to sit?”
+
+Lest such leave should be denied him he dropped forthwith to the vacant
+place beside Asad and tucked his legs under him.
+
+“Lord,” he said, “there is a rift dividing us who should be united for
+the glory of Islam.”
+
+“It is of thy making, Sakr-el-Bahr,” was the sullen answer, “and it is
+for thee to mend it.”
+
+“To that end do I desire thine ear. The cause of this rift is yonder.”
+ And he jerked his thumb backward over his shoulder towards the
+poop-house. “If we remove that cause, of a surety the rift itself will
+vanish, and all will be well again between us.”
+
+He knew that never could all be well again between him and Asad. He knew
+that by virtue of his act of defiance he was irrevocably doomed,
+that Asad having feared him once, having dreaded his power to stand
+successfully against his face and overbear his will, would see to it
+that he never dreaded it again. He knew that if he returned to Algiers
+there would be a speedy end to him. His only chance of safety lay,
+indeed, in stirring up mutiny upon the spot and striking swiftly,
+venturing all upon that desperate throw. And he knew that this was
+precisely what Asad had cause to fear. Out of this assurance had he
+conceived his present plan, deeming that if he offered to heal the
+breach, Asad might pretend to consent so as to weather his present
+danger, making doubly sure of his vengeance by waiting until they should
+be home again.
+
+Asad's gleaming eyes considered him in silence for a moment.
+
+“How remove that cause?” he asked. “Wilt thou atone for the mockery of
+thy marriage, pronounce her divorced and relinquish her?”
+
+“That were not to remove her,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr. “Consider well,
+Asad, what is thy duty to the Faith. Consider that upon our unity
+depends the glory of Islam. Were it not sinful, then, to suffer the
+intrusion of aught that may mar such unity? Nay, nay, what I propose is
+that I should be permitted--assisted even--to bear out the project I
+had formed, as already I have frankly made confession. Let us put to sea
+again at dawn--or this very night if thou wilt--make for the coast of
+France, and there set her ashore that she may go back to her own people
+and we be rid of her disturbing presence. Then we will return--there is
+time and to spare--and here or elsewhere lurk in wait for this Spanish
+argosy, seize the booty and sail home in amity to Algiers, this
+incident, this little cloud in the splendour of our comradeship, behind
+us and forgotten as though it had never been. Wilt thou, Asad--for the
+glory of the Prophet's Law?”
+
+The bait was cunningly presented, so cunningly that not for a moment did
+Asad or even the malicious Marzak suspect it to be just a bait and no
+more. It was his own life, become a menace to Asad, that Sakr-el-Bahr
+was offering him in exchange for the life and liberty of that Frankish
+slave-girl, but offering it as if unconscious that he did so.
+
+Asad considered, temptation gripping, him. Prudence urged him to accept,
+so that affecting to heal the dangerous breach that now existed he
+might carry Sakr-el-Bahr back to Algiers, there, beyond the aid of any
+friendly mutineers, to have him strangled. It was the course to adopt
+in such a situation, the wise and sober course by which to ensure the
+overthrow of one who from an obedient and submissive lieutenant had
+suddenly shown that it was possible for him to become a serious and
+dangerous rival.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr watched the Basha's averted, gleaming eyes under their
+furrowed, thoughtful brows, he saw Marzak's face white, tense and eager
+in his anxiety that his father should consent. And since his father
+continued silent, Marzak, unable longer to contain himself, broke into
+speech.
+
+“He is wise, O my father!” was his crafty appeal. “The glory of Islam
+above all else! Let him have his way in this, and let the infidel woman
+go. Thus shall all be well between us and Sakr-el-Bahr!” He laid such a
+stress upon these words that it was obvious he desired them to convey a
+second meaning.
+
+Asad heard and understood that Marzak, too, perceived what was here to
+do; tighter upon him became temptation's grip; but tighter, too, became
+the grip of a temptation of another sort. Before his fierce eyes there
+arose a vision of a tall stately maiden with softly rounded bosom, a
+vision so white and lovely that it enslaved him. And so he found himself
+torn two ways at once. On the one hand, if he relinquished the woman, he
+could make sure of his vengeance upon Sakr-el-Bahr, could make sure of
+removing that rebel from his path. On the other hand, if he determined
+to hold fast to his desires and to be ruled by them, he must be prepared
+to risk a mutiny aboard the galeasse, prepared for battle and perhaps
+for defeat. It was a stake such as no sane Basha would have consented to
+set upon the board. But since his eyes had again rested upon Rosamund,
+Asad was no longer sane. His thwarted desires of yesterday were the
+despots of his wits.
+
+He leaned forward now, looking deep into the eyes of Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“Since for thyself thou dost not want her, why dost thou thwart me?”
+ he asked, and his voice trembled with suppressed passion. “So long as I
+deemed thee honest in taking her to wife I respected that bond as
+became a good Muslim; but since 'tis manifest that it was no more than
+a pretence, a mockery to serve some purpose hostile to myself, a
+desecration of the Prophet's Holy Law, I, before whom this blasphemous
+marriage was performed, do pronounce it to be no marriage. There is no
+need for thee to divorce her. She is no longer thine. She is for any
+Muslim who can take her.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr laughed unpleasantly. “Such a Muslim,” he announced, “will
+be nearer my sword than the Paradise of Mahomet.” And on the words he
+stood up, as if in token of his readiness.
+
+Asad rose with him in a bound of a vigour such as might scarce have been
+looked for in a man of his years.
+
+“Dost threaten?” he cried, his eyes aflash.
+
+“Threaten?” sneered Sakr-el-Bahr. “I prophesy.” And on that he turned,
+and stalked away down the gangway to the vessel's waist. There was no
+purpose in his going other than his perceiving that here argument were
+worse than useless, and that the wiser course were to withdraw at once,
+avoiding it and allowing his veiled threat to work upon the Basha's
+mind.
+
+Quivering with rage Asad watched his departure. On the point of
+commanding him to return, he checked, fearing lest in his present mood
+Sakr-el-Bahr should flout his authority and under the eyes of all refuse
+him the obedience due. He knew that it is not good to command where we
+are not sure of being obeyed or of being able to enforce obedience, that
+an authority once successfully flouted is in itself half-shattered.
+
+Whilst still he hesitated, Marzak, who had also risen, caught him by the
+arm and poured into his ear hot, urgent arguments enjoining him to yield
+to Sakr-el-Bahr's demand.
+
+“It is the sure way,” he cried insistently. “Shall all be jeopardized
+for the sake of that whey-faced daughter of perdition? In the name of
+Shaitan, let us be rid of her; set her ashore as he demands, as the
+price of peace between us and him, and in the security of that peace let
+him be strangled when we come again to our moorings in Algiers. It is
+the sure way--the sure way!”
+
+Asad turned at last to look into that handsome eager face. For a moment
+he was at a loss; then he had recourse to sophistry. “Am I a coward
+that I should refuse all ways but sure ones?” he demanded in a withering
+tone. “Or art thou a coward who can counsel none other?”
+
+“My anxiety is all for thee, O my father,” Marzak defended himself
+indignantly. “I doubt if it be safe to sleep, lest he should stir up
+mutiny in the night.”
+
+“Have no fear,” replied Asad. “Myself I have set the watch, and the
+officers are all trustworthy. Biskaine is even now in the forecastle
+taking the feeling of the men. Soon we shall know precisely where we
+stand.”
+
+“In thy place I would make sure. I would set a term to this danger of
+mutiny. I would accede to his demands concerning the woman, and settle
+after-wards with himself.”
+
+“Abandon that Frankish pearl?” quoth Asad. Slowly he shook his head.
+“Nay, nay! She is a garden that shall yield me roses. Together we shall
+yet taste the sweet sherbet of Kansar, and she shall thank me for having
+led her into Paradise. Abandon that rosy-limbed loveliness!” He laughed
+softly on a note of exaltation, whilst in the gloom Marzak frowned,
+thinking of Fenzileh.
+
+“She is an infidel,” his son sternly reminded him, “so forbidden thee by
+the Prophet. Wilt thou be as blind to that as to thine own peril?” Then
+his voice gathering vehemence and scorn as he proceeded: “She has gone
+naked of face through the streets of Algiers; she has been gaped at by
+the rabble in the sôk; this loveliness of hers has been deflowered by
+the greedy gaze of Jew and Moor and Turk; galley-slaves and negroes have
+feasted their eyes upon her unveiled beauty; one of thy captains hath
+owned her his wife.” He laughed. “By Allah, I do not know thee, O my
+father! Is this the woman thou wouldst take for thine own? This the
+woman for whose possession thou wouldst jeopardize thy life and perhaps
+the very Bashalik itself!”
+
+Asad clenched his hands until the nails bit into his flesh. Every word
+his son had uttered had been as a lash to his soul. The truth of it
+was not to be contested. He was humiliated and shamed. Yet was he not
+conquered of his madness, nor diverted from his course. Before he could
+make answer, the tall martial figure of Biskaine came up the companion.
+
+“Well?” the Basha greeted him eagerly, thankful for this chance to turn
+the subject.
+
+Biskaine was downcast. His news was to be read in his countenance. “The
+task appointed me was difficult,” said he. “I have done my best. Yet
+I could scarce go about it in such a fashion as to draw definite
+conclusions. But this I know, my lord, that he will be reckless indeed
+if he dares to take up arms against thee and challenge thine authority.
+So much at least I am permitted to conclude.”
+
+“No more than that?” asked Asad. “And if I were to take up arms against
+him, and to seek to settle this matter out of hand?”
+
+Biskaine paused a moment ere replying. “I cannot think but that Allah
+would vouchsafe thee victory,” he said. But his words did not delude the
+Basha. He recognized them to be no more than those which respect for him
+dictated to his officer. “Yet,” continued Biskaine, “I should judge thee
+reckless too, my lord, as reckless as I should judge him in the like
+circumstances.”
+
+“I see,” said Asad. “The matter stands so balanced that neither of us
+dare put it to the test.”
+
+“Thou hast said it.”
+
+“Then is thy course plain to thee!” cried Marzak, eager to renew his
+arguments. “Accept his terms, and....”
+
+But Asad broke in impatiently. “Every thing in its own hour and each
+hour is written. I will consider what to do.”
+
+Below on the waist-deck Sakr-el-Bahr was pacing with Vigitello, and
+Vigitello's words to him were of a tenor identical almost with those of
+Biskaine to the Basha.
+
+“I scarce can judge,” said the Italian renegade. “But I do think that it
+were not wise for either thou or Asad to take the first step against the
+other.”
+
+“Are matters, then, so equal between us?”
+
+“Numbers, I fear,” replied Vigitello, “would be in favour of Asad. No
+truly devout Muslim will stand against the Basha, the representative of
+the Sublime Portal, to whom loyalty is a question of religion. Yet they
+are accustomed to obey thee, to leap at thy command, and so Asad himself
+were rash to put it to the test.”
+
+“Ay--a sound argument,” said Sakr-el-Bahr. “It is as I had thought.”
+
+Upon that he quitted Vigitello, and slowly, thoughtfully, returned
+to the poop-deck. It was his hope--his only hope now--that Asad might
+accept the proposal he had made him. As the price of it he was fully
+prepared for the sacrifice of his own life, which it must entail. But,
+it was not for him to approach Asad again; to do so would be to argue
+doubt and anxiety and so to court refusal. He must possess his soul in
+what patience he could. If Asad persisted in his refusal undeterred by
+any fear of mutiny, then Sakr-el-Bahr knew not what course remained him
+to accomplish Rosamund's deliverance. Proceed to stir up mutiny he dared
+not. It was too desperate a throw. In his own view it offered him no
+slightest chance of success, and did it fail, then indeed all would be
+lost, himself destroyed, and Rosamund at the mercy of Asad. He was as
+one walking along a sword-edge. His only chance of present immunity for
+himself and Rosamund lay in the confidence that Asad would dare no more
+than himself to take the initiative in aggression. But that was only for
+the present, and at any moment Asad might give the word to put about
+and steer for Barbary again; in no case could that be delayed beyond the
+plundering of the Spanish argosy. He nourished the faint hope that in
+that coming fight--if indeed the Spaniards did show fight--some chance
+might perhaps present itself, some unexpected way out of the present
+situation.
+
+He spent the night under the stars, stretched across the threshold of
+the curtained entrance to the poop-house, making thus a barrier of
+his body whilst he slept, and himself watched over in his turn by his
+faithful Nubians who remained on guard. He awakened when the first
+violet tints of dawn were in the east, and quietly dismissing the weary
+slaves to their rest, he kept watch alone thereafter. Under the awning
+on the starboard quarter slept the Basha and his son, and near them
+Biskaine was snoring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE MUTINEERS
+
+
+Later that morning, some time after the galeasse had awakened to life
+and such languid movement as might be looked for in a waiting crew,
+Sakr-el-Bahr went to visit Rosamund.
+
+He found her brightened and refreshed by sleep, and he brought her
+reassuring messages that all was well, encouraging her with hopes which
+himself he was very far from entertaining. If her reception of him was
+not expressedly friendly, neither was it unfriendly. She listened to the
+hopes he expressed of yet effecting her safe deliverance, and whilst
+she had no thanks to offer him for the efforts he was to exert on
+her behalf--accepting them as her absolute due, as the inadequate
+liquidation of the debt that lay between them--yet there was now none of
+that aloofness amounting almost to scorn which hitherto had marked her
+bearing towards him.
+
+He came again some hours later, in the afternoon, by when his Nubians
+were once more at their post. He had no news to bring her beyond the
+fact that their sentinel on the heights reported a sail to westward,
+beating up towards the island before the very gentle breeze that was
+blowing. But the argosy they awaited was not yet in sight, and he
+confessed that certain proposals which he had made to Asad for landing
+her in France had been rejected. Still she need have no fear, he added
+promptly, seeing the sudden alarm that quickened in her eyes. A way
+would present itself. He was watching, and would miss no chance.
+
+“And if no chance should offer?” she asked him.
+
+“Why then I will make one,” he answered, lightly almost. “I have been
+making them all my life, and it would be odd if I should have lost the
+trick of it on my life's most important occasion.”
+
+This mention of his life led to a question from her.
+
+“How did you contrive the chance that has made you what you are?
+I mean,” she added quickly, as if fearing that the purport of that
+question might be misunderstood, “that has enabled you to become a
+corsair captain.”
+
+“'Tis a long story that,” he said. “I should weary you in the telling of
+it.”
+
+“No,” she replied, and shook her head, her clear eyes solemnly meeting
+his clouded glance. “You would not weary me. Chances may be few in which
+to learn it.”
+
+“And you would learn it?” quoth he, and added, “That you may judge me?”
+
+“Perhaps,” she said, and her eyes fell.
+
+With bowed head he paced the length of the small chamber, and back
+again. His desire was to do her will in this, which is natural
+enough--for if it is true that who knows all must perforce forgive
+all, never could it have been truer than in the case of Sir Oliver
+Tressilian.
+
+So he told his tale. Pacing there he related it at length, from the days
+when he had toiled at an oar on one of the galleys of Spain down to that
+hour in which aboard the Spanish vessel taken under Cape Spartel he had
+determined upon that voyage to England to present his reckoning to his
+brother. He told his story simply and without too great a wealth of
+detail, yet he omitted nothing of all that had gone to place him where
+he stood. And she, listening, was so profoundly moved that at one moment
+her eyes glistened with tears which she sought vainly to repress. Yet
+he, pacing there, absorbed, with head bowed and eyes that never once
+strayed in her direction, saw none of this.
+
+“And so,” he said, when at last that odd narrative had reached its end,
+“you know what the forces were that drove me. Another stronger than
+myself might have resisted and preferred to suffer death. But I was not
+strong enough. Or perhaps it is that stronger than myself was my desire
+to punish, to vent the bitter hatred into which my erstwhile love for
+Lionel was turned.”
+
+“And for me, too--as you have told me,” she added.
+
+“Not so,” he corrected her. “I hated you for your unfaith, and most of
+all for your having burnt unread the letter that I sent you by the hand
+of Pitt. In doing that you contributed to the wrongs I was enduring,
+you destroyed my one chance of establishing my innocence and seeking
+rehabilitation, you doomed me for life to the ways which I was treading.
+But I did not then know what ample cause you had to believe me what
+I seemed. I did not know that it was believed I had fled. Therefore I
+forgive you freely a deed for which at one time I confess that I hated
+you, and which spurred me to bear you off when I found you under my hand
+that night at Arwenack when I went for Lionel.”
+
+“You mean that it was no part of your intent to have done so?” she asked
+him.
+
+“To carry you off together with him?” he asked. “I swear to God I had
+not premeditated that. Indeed, it was done because not premeditated,
+for had I considered it, I do think I should have been proof against any
+such temptation. It assailed me suddenly when I beheld you there with
+Lionel, and I succumbed to it. Knowing what I now know I am punished
+enough, I think.”
+
+“I think I can understand,” she murmured gently, as if to comfort him,
+for quick pain had trembled in his voice.
+
+He tossed back his turbaned head. “To understand is something,” said
+he. “It is half-way at least to forgiveness. But ere forgiveness can be
+accepted the evil done must be atoned for to the full.”
+
+“If possible,” said she.
+
+“It must be made possible,” he answered her with heat, and on that he
+checked abruptly, arrested by a sound of shouting from without.
+
+He recognized the voice of Larocque, who at dawn had returned to his
+sentinel's post on the summit of the headland, relieving the man who had
+replaced him there during the night.
+
+“My lord! My lord!” was the cry, in a voice shaken by excitement, and
+succeeded by a shouting chorus from the crew.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr turned swiftly to the entrance, whisked aside the
+curtain, and stepped out upon the poop. Larocque was in the very act
+of clambering over the bulwarks amidships, towards the waist-deck where
+Asad awaited him in company with Marzak and the trusty Biskaine. The
+prow, on which the corsairs had lounged at ease since yesterday, was
+now a seething mob of inquisitive babbling men, crowding to the rail and
+even down the gangway in their eagerness to learn what news it was that
+brought the sentinel aboard in such excited haste.
+
+From where he stood Sakr-el-Bahr heard Larocque's loud announcement.
+
+“The ship I sighted at dawn, my lord!”
+
+“Well?” barked Asad.
+
+“She is here--in the bay beneath that headland. She has just dropped
+anchor.”
+
+“No need for alarm in that,” replied the Basha at once. “Since she has
+anchored there it is plain that she has no suspicion of our presence.
+What manner of ship is she?”
+
+“A tall galleon of twenty guns, flying the flag of England.
+
+“Of England!” cried Asad in surprise. “She'll need be a stout vessel to
+hazard herself in Spanish waters.”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr advanced to the rail.
+
+“Does she display no further device?” he asked.
+
+Larocque turned at the question. “Ay,” he answered, “a narrow blue
+pennant on her mizzen is charged with a white bird--a stork, I think.”
+
+“A stork?” echoed Sakr-el-Bahr thoughtfully. He could call to mind no
+such English blazon, nor did it seem to him that it could possibly be
+English. He caught the sound of a quickly indrawn breath behind him.
+He turned to find Rosamund standing in the entrance, not more than half
+concealed by the curtain. Her face showed white and eager, her eyes were
+wide.
+
+“What is't?” he asked her shortly.
+
+“A stork, he thinks,” she said, as though that were answer enough.
+
+“I' faith an unlikely bird,” he commented. “The fellow is mistook.”
+
+“Yet not by much, Sir Oliver.”
+
+“How? Not by much?” Intrigued by something in her tone and glance, he
+stepped quickly up to her, whilst below the chatter of voices increased.
+
+“That which he takes to be a stork is a heron--a white heron, and white
+is argent in heraldry, is't not?”
+
+“It is. What then?”
+
+“D'ye not see? That ship will be the Silver Heron.”
+
+He looked at her. “'S life!” said he, “I reck little whether it be the
+silver heron or the golden grasshopper. What odds?”
+
+“It is Sir John's ship--Sir John Killigrew's,” she explained. “She was
+all but ready to sail when... when you came to Arwenack. He was for the
+Indies. Instead--don't you see?--out of love for me he will have come
+after me upon a forlorn hope of overtaking you ere you could make
+Barbary.”
+
+“God's light!” said Sakr-el-Bahr, and fell to musing. Then he raised his
+head and laughed. “Faith, he's some days late for that!”
+
+But the jest evoked no response from her. She continued to stare at him
+with those eager yet timid eyes.
+
+“And yet,” he continued, “he comes opportunely enough. If the breeze
+that has fetched him is faint, yet surely it blows from Heaven.”
+
+“Were it...?” she paused, faltering a moment.
+
+Then, “Were it possible to communicate with him?” she asked, yet with
+hesitation.
+
+“Possible--ay,” he answered. “Though we must needs devise the means, and
+that will prove none so easy.”
+
+“And you would do it?” she inquired, an undercurrent of wonder in her
+question, some recollection of it in her face.
+
+“Why, readily,” he answered, “since no other way presents itself. No
+doubt 'twill cost some lives,” he added, “but then....” And he shrugged
+to complete the sentence.
+
+“Ah, no, no! Not at that price!” she protested. And how was he to know
+that all the price she was thinking of was his own life, which she
+conceived would be forfeited if the assistance of the Silver Heron were
+invoked?
+
+Before he could return her any answer his attention was diverted. A
+sullen threatening note had crept into the babble of the crew, and
+suddenly one or two voices were raised to demand insistently that Asad
+should put to sea at once and remove his vessel from a neighbourhood
+become so dangerous. Now, the fault of this was Marzak's. His was the
+voice that first had uttered that timid suggestion, and the infection of
+his panic had spread instantly through the corsair ranks.
+
+Asad, drawn to the full of his gaunt height, turned upon them the eyes
+that had quelled greater clamours, and raised the voice which in its
+day had hurled a hundred men straight into the jaws of death without a
+protest.
+
+“Silence!” he commanded. “I am your lord and need no counsellors save
+Allah. When I consider the time come, I will give the word to row, but
+not before. Back to your quarters, then, and peace!”
+
+He disdained to argue with them, to show them what sound reasons there
+were for remaining in this secret cove and against putting forth into
+the open. Enough for them that such should be his will. Not for them to
+question his wisdom and his decisions.
+
+But Asad-ed-Din had lain overlong in Algiers whilst his fleets under
+Sakr-el-Bahr and Biskaine had scoured the inland sea. The men were no
+longer accustomed to the goad of his voice, their confidence in his
+judgment was not built upon the sound basis of past experience. Never
+yet had he led into battle the men of this crew and brought them forth
+again in triumph and enriched by spoil.
+
+So now they set their own judgment against his. To them it seemed a
+recklessness--as, indeed, Marzak had suggested--to linger here, and his
+mere announcement of his purpose was far from sufficient to dispel their
+doubts.
+
+The murmurs swelled, not to be overborne by his fierce presence and
+scowling brow, and suddenly one of the renegades--secretly prompted by
+the wily Vigitello--raised a shout for the captain whom they knew and
+trusted.
+
+“Sakr-el-Bahr! Sakr-el-Bahr! Thou'lt not leave us penned in this cove to
+perish like rats!”
+
+It was as a spark to a train of powder. A score of voices instantly took
+up the cry; hands were flung out towards Sakr-el-Bahr, where he stood
+above them and in full view of all, leaning impassive and stern upon
+the poop-rail, whilst his agile mind weighed the opportunity thus thrust
+upon him, and considered what profit was to be extracted from it.
+
+Asad fell back a pace in his profound mortification. His face was livid,
+his eyes blared furiously, his hand flew to the jewelled hilt of his
+scimitar, yet forbore from drawing the blade. Instead he let loose upon
+Marzak the venom kindled in his soul by this evidence of how shrunken
+was his authority.
+
+“Thou fool!” he snarled. “Look on thy craven's work. See what a devil
+thou hast raised with thy woman's counsels. Thou to command a galley!
+Thou to become a fighter upon the seas! I would that Allah had stricken
+me dead ere I begat me such a son as thou!”
+
+Marzak recoiled before the fury of words that he feared might be
+followed by yet worse. He dared make no answer, offer no excuse; in that
+moment he scarcely dared breathe.
+
+Meanwhile Rosamund in her eagerness had advanced until she stood at
+Sakr-el-Bahr's elbow.
+
+“God is helping us!” she said in a voice of fervent gratitude. “This is
+your opportunity. The men will obey you.”
+
+He looked at her, and smiled faintly upon her eagerness. “Ay, mistress,
+they will obey me,” he said. But in the few moments that were sped he
+had taken his resolve. Whilst undoubtedly Asad was right, and the wise
+course was to lie close in this sheltering cove where the odds of their
+going unperceived were very heavily in their favour, yet the men's
+judgment was not altogether at fault. If they were to put to sea, they
+might by steering an easterly course pass similarly unperceived, and
+even should the splash of their oars reach the galleon beyond the
+headland, yet by the time she had weighed anchor and started in pursuit
+they would be well away straining every ounce of muscle at the oars,
+whilst the breeze--a heavy factor in his considerations--was become so
+feeble that they could laugh at pursuit by a vessel that depended upon
+wind alone. The only danger, then, was the danger of the galleon's
+cannon, and that danger was none so great as from experience
+Sakr-el-Bahr well knew.
+
+Thus was he reluctantly forced to the conclusion that in the main the
+wiser policy was to support Asad, and since he was full confident of
+the obedience of the men he consoled himself with the reflection that a
+moral victory might be in store for him out of which some surer profit
+might presently be made.
+
+In answer, then, to those who still called upon him, he leapt down the
+companion and strode along the gangway to the waist-deck to take
+his stand at the Basha's side. Asad watched his approach with angry
+misgivings; it was with him a foregone conclusion that things being as
+they were Sakr-el-Bahr would be ranged against him to obtain complete
+control of these mutineers and to cull the fullest advantage from
+the situation. Softly and slowly he unsheathed his scimitar, and
+Sakr-el-Bahr seeing this out of the corner of his eye, yet affected not
+to see, but stood forward to address the men.
+
+“How now?” he thundered wrathfully. “What shall this mean? Are ye all
+deaf that ye have not heard the commands of your Basha, the exalted
+of Allah, that ye dare raise your mutinous voices and say what is your
+will?”
+
+Sudden and utter silence followed that exhortation. Asad listened in
+relieved amazement; Rosamund caught her breath in sheer dismay.
+
+What could he mean, then? Had he but fooled and duped her? Were his
+intentions towards her the very opposite to his protestations? She leant
+upon the poop-rail straining to catch every syllable of that speech of
+his in the lingua franca, hoping almost that her indifferent knowledge
+of it had led her into error on the score of what he had said.
+
+She saw him turn with a gesture of angry command upon Larocque, who
+stood there by the bulwarks, waiting.
+
+“Back to thy post up yonder, and keep watch upon that vessel's
+movements, reporting them to us. We stir not hence until such be our
+lord Asad's good pleasure. Away with thee!”
+
+Larocque without a murmur threw a leg over the bulwarks and dropped to
+the oars, whence he clambered ashore as he had been bidden. And not a
+single voice was raised in protest.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr's dark glance swept the ranks of the corsairs crowding the
+forecastle.
+
+“Because this pet of the hareem,” he said, immensely daring, indicating
+Marzak by a contemptuous gesture, “bleats of danger into the ears of
+men, are ye all to grow timid and foolish as a herd of sheep? By Allah!
+What are ye? Are ye the fearless sea-hawks that have flown with me, and
+struck where the talons of my grappling-hooks were flung, or are ye but
+scavenging crows?”
+
+He was answered by an old rover whom fear had rendered greatly daring.
+
+“We are trapped here as Dragut was trapped at Jerba.”
+
+“Thou liest,” he answered. “Dragut was not trapped, for Dragut found a
+way out. And against Dragut there was the whole navy of Genoa, whilst
+against us there is but one single galleon. By the Koran, if she shows
+fight, have we no teeth? Will it be the first galleon whose decks we
+have overrun? But if ye prefer a coward's counsel, ye sons of shame,
+consider that once we take the open sea our discovery will be assured,
+and Larocque hath told you that she carries twenty guns. I tell you that
+if we are to be attacked by her, best be attacked at close quarters, and
+I tell you that if we lie close and snug in here it is long odds that we
+shall never be attacked at all. That she has no inkling of our presence
+is proven, since she has cast anchor round the headland. And consider
+that if we fly from a danger that doth not exist, and in our flight
+are so fortunate as not to render real that danger and to court it, we
+abandon a rich argosy that shall bring profit to us all.”
+
+“But I waste my breath in argument,” he ended abruptly. “You have heard
+the commands of your lord, Asad-ed-Din, and that should be argument
+enough. No more of this, then.”
+
+Without so much as waiting to see them disperse from the rail and return
+to their lounging attitudes about the forecastle, he turned to Asad.
+
+“It might have been well to hang the dog who spoke of Dragut and Jerba,”
+ he said. “But it was never in my nature to be harsh with those who
+follow me.” And that was all.
+
+Asad from amazement had passed quickly to admiration and a sort of
+contrition, into which presently there crept a poisonous tinge of
+jealousy to see Sakr-el-Bahr prevail where he himself alone must utterly
+have failed. This jealousy spread all-pervadingly, like an oil stain. If
+he had come to bear ill-will to Sakr-el-Bahr before, that ill-will was
+turned of a sudden into positive hatred for one in whom he now beheld a
+usurper of the power and control that should reside in the Basha alone.
+Assuredly there was no room for both of them in the Bashalik of Algiers.
+
+Therefore the words of commendation which had been rising to his lips
+froze there now that Sakr-el-Bahr and he stood face to face. In silence
+he considered his lieutenant through narrowing evil eyes, whose message
+none but a fool could have misunderstood.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr was not a fool, and he did not misunderstand it for a
+moment. He felt a tightening at the heart, and ill-will sprang to life
+within him responding to the call of that ill-will. Almost he repented
+him that he had not availed himself of that moment of weakness and
+mutiny on the part of the crew to attempt the entire superseding of the
+Basha.
+
+The conciliatory words he had in mind to speak he now suppressed. To
+that venomous glance he opposed his ever ready mockery. He turned to
+Biskaine.
+
+“Withdraw,” he curtly bade him, “and take that stout sea-warrior with
+thee.” And he indicated Marzak.
+
+Biskaine turned to the Basha. “Is it thy wish, my lord?” he asked.
+
+Asad nodded in silence, and motioned him away together with the cowed
+Marzak.
+
+“My lord,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, when they were alone, “yesterday I made
+thee a proposal for the healing of this breach between us, and it was
+refused. But now had I been the traitor and mutineer thou hast dubbed
+me I could have taken full advantage of the humour of my corsairs. Had I
+done that it need no longer have been mine to propose or to sue.
+Instead it would have been mine to dictate. Since I have given thee
+such crowning proof of my loyalty, it is my hope and trust that I may be
+restored to the place I had lost in thy confidence, and that this being
+so thou wilt accede now to that proposal of mine concerning the Frankish
+woman yonder.”
+
+It was unfortunate perhaps that she should have been standing there
+unveiled upon the poop within the range of Asad's glance; for the sight
+of her it may have been that overcame his momentary hesitation and
+stifled the caution which prompted him to accede. He considered her a
+moment, and a faint colour kindled in his cheeks which anger had made
+livid.
+
+“It is not for thee, Sakr-el-Bahr,” he answered at length, “to make me
+proposals. To dare it, proves thee far removed indeed from the loyalty
+thy lips profess. Thou knowest my will concerning her. Once hast thou
+thwarted and defied me, misusing to that end the Prophet's Holy Law.
+Continue a barrier in my path and it shall be at thy peril.” His voice
+was raised and it shook with anger.
+
+“Not so loud,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, his eyes gleaming with a response of
+anger. “For should my men overhear these threats of thine I will not
+answer for what may follow. I oppose thee at my peril sayest thou. Be
+it so, then.” He smiled grimly. “It is war between us, Asad, since
+thou hast chosen it. Remember hereafter when the consequences come to
+overwhelm thee that the choice was thine.”
+
+“Thou mutinous, treacherous son of a dog!” blazed Asad.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr turned on his heel. “Pursue the path of an old man's
+folly,” he said over his shoulder, “and see whither it will lead thee.”
+
+Upon that he strode away up the gangway to the poop, leaving the Basha
+alone with his anger and some slight fear evoked by that last bold
+menace. But notwithstanding that he menaced boldly the heart of
+Sakr-el-Bahr was surcharged with anxiety. He had conceived a plan; but
+between the conception and its execution he realized that much ill might
+lie.
+
+“Mistress,” he addressed Rosamund as he stepped upon the poop. “You are
+not wise to show yourself so openly.”
+
+To his amazement she met him with a hostile glance.
+
+“Not wise?” said she, her countenance scornful. “You mean that I may see
+more than was intended for me. What game do you play here, sir, that you
+tell me one thing and show me by your actions that you desire another?”
+
+He did not need to ask her what she meant. At once he perceived how she
+had misread the scene she had witnessed.
+
+“I'll but remind you,” he said very gravely, “that once before you did
+me a wrong by over-hasty judgment, as has been proven to you.”
+
+It overthrew some of her confidence. “But then....” she began.
+
+“I do but ask you to save your judgment for the end. If I live I shall
+deliver you. Meanwhile I beg that you will keep your cabin. It does not
+help me that you be seen.”
+
+She looked at him, a prayer for explanation trembling on her lips. But
+before the calm command of his tone and glance she slowly lowered her
+head and withdrew beyond the curtain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE MESSENGER
+
+
+For the rest of the day she kept the cabin, chafing with anxiety to know
+what was toward and the more racked by it because Sakr-el-Bahr refrained
+through all those hours from coming to her. At last towards evening,
+unable longer to contain herself, she went forth again, and as it
+chanced she did so at an untimely moment.
+
+The sun had set, and the evening prayer was being recited aboard the
+galeasse, her crew all prostrate. Perceiving this, she drew back again
+instinctively, and remained screened by the curtain until the prayer was
+ended. Then putting it aside, but without stepping past the Nubians
+who were on guard, she saw that on her left Asad-ed-Din, with Marzak,
+Biskaine, and one or two other officers, was again occupying the divan
+under the awning. Her eyes sought Sakr-el-Bahr, and presently they
+beheld him coming up the gangway with his long, swinging stride, in the
+wake of the boat-swain's mates who were doling out the meagre evening
+meal to the slaves.
+
+Suddenly he halted by Lionel, who occupied a seat at the head of his oar
+immediately next to the gangway. He addressed him harshly in the lingua
+franca, which Lionel did not understand, and his words rang clearly and
+were heard--as he intended that they should be--by all upon the poop.
+
+“Well, dog? How does galley-slave fare suit thy tender stomach?”
+
+Lionel looked up at him.
+
+“What are you saying?” he asked in English.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr bent over him, and his face as all could see was evil and
+mocking. No doubt he spoke to him in English also, but no more than
+a murmur reached the straining ears of Rosamund, though from his
+countenance she had no doubt of the purport of his words. And yet she
+was far indeed from a correct surmise. The mockery in his countenance
+was but a mask.
+
+“Take no heed of my looks,” he was saying. “I desire them up yonder
+to think that I abuse you. Look as a man would who were being abused.
+Cringe or snarl, but listen. Do you remember once when as lads we swam
+together from Penarrow to Trefusis Point?”
+
+“What do you mean?” quoth Lionel, and the natural sullenness of his mien
+was all that Sakr-el-Bahr could have desired.
+
+“I am wondering whether you could still swim as far. If so you might
+find a more appetizing supper awaiting you at the end--aboard Sir John
+Killigrew's ship. You had not heard? The Silver Heron is at anchor in
+the bay beyond that headland. If I afford you the means, could you swim
+to her do you think?”
+
+Lionel stared at him in profoundest amazement. “Do you mock me?” he
+asked at length.
+
+“Why should I mock you on such a matter?”
+
+“Is it not to mock me to suggest a way for my deliverance?”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr laughed, and he mocked now in earnest. He set his left foot
+upon the rowers' stretcher, and leaned forward and down his elbow upon
+his raised knee so that his face was close to Lionel's.
+
+“For your deliverance?” said he. “God's life! Lionel, your mind was ever
+one that could take in naught but your own self. 'Tis that has made
+a villain of you. Your deliverance! God's wounds! Is there none but
+yourself whose deliverance I might desire? Look you, now I want you to
+swim to Sir John's ship and bear him word of the presence here of
+this galeasse and that Rosamund is aboard it. 'Tis for her that I am
+concerned, and so little for you that should you chance to be drowned in
+the attempt my only regret will be that the message was not delivered.
+Will you undertake that swim? It is your one sole chance short of death
+itself of escaping from the rower's bench. Will you go?”
+
+“But how?” demanded Lionel, still mistrusting him.
+
+“Will you go?” his brother insisted.
+
+“Afford me the means and I will,” was the answer.
+
+“Very well.” Sakr-el-Bahr leaned nearer still. “Naturally it will
+be supposed by all who are watching us that I am goading you to
+desperation. Act, then, your part. Up, and attempt to strike me. Then
+when I return the blow--and I shall strike heavily that no make-believe
+may be suspected--collapse on your oar pretending to swoon. Leave the
+rest to me. Now,” he added sharply, and on the word rose with a final
+laugh of derision as if to take his departure.
+
+But Lionel was quick to follow the instructions. He leapt up in his
+bonds, and reaching out as far as they would permit him, he struck
+Sakr-el-Bahr heavily upon the face. On his side, too, there was to be no
+make-believe apparent. That done he sank down with a clank of shackles
+to the bench again, whilst every one of his fellow-slaves that faced his
+way looked on with fearful eyes.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr was seen to reel under the blow, and instantly there was
+a commotion on board. Biskaine leapt to his feet with a half-cry of
+astonishment; even Asad's eyes kindled with interest at so unusual a
+sight as that of a galley-slave attacking a corsair. Then with a snarl
+of anger, the snarl of an enraged beast almost, Sakr-el-Bahr's great arm
+was swung aloft and his fist descended like a hammer upon Lionel's head.
+
+Lionel sank forward under the blow, his senses swimming. Sakr-el-Bahr's
+arm swung up a second time.
+
+“Thou dog!” he roared, and then checked, perceiving that Lionel appeared
+to have swooned.
+
+He turned and bellowed for Vigitello and his mates in a voice that was
+hoarse with passion. Vigitello came at a run, a couple of his men at his
+heels.
+
+“Unshackle me this carrion, and heave it overboard,” was the harsh
+order. “Let that serve as an example to the others. Let them learn thus
+the price of mutiny in their lousy ranks. To it, I say.”
+
+Away sped a man for hammer and chisel. He returned with them at once.
+Four sharp metallic blows rang out, and Lionel was dragged forth from
+his place to the gangway-deck. Here he revived, and screamed for mercy
+as though he were to be drowned in earnest.
+
+Biskaine chuckled under the awning, Asad looked on approvingly, Rosamund
+drew back, shuddering, choking, and near to fainting from sheer horror.
+
+She saw Lionel borne struggling in the arms of the boatswain's men to
+the starboard quarter, and flung over the side with no more compunction
+or care than had he been so much rubbish. She heard the final scream of
+terror with which he vanished, the splash of his fall, and then in the
+ensuing silence the laugh of Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+For a spell she stood there with horror and loathing of that renegade
+corsair in her soul. Her mind was bewildered and confused. She sought
+to restore order in it, that she might consider this fresh deed of his,
+this act of wanton brutality and fratricide. And all that she could
+gather was the firm conviction that hitherto he had cheated her; he had
+lied when he swore that his aim was to effect her deliverance. It was
+not in such a nature to know a gentle mood of penitence for a wrong
+done. What might be his purpose she could not yet perceive, but that it
+was an evil one she never doubted, for no purpose of his could be aught
+but evil. So overwrought was she now that she forgot all Lionel's sins,
+and found her heart filled with compassion for him hurled in that brutal
+fashion to his death.
+
+And then, quite suddenly a shout rang out from the forecastle.
+
+“He is swimming!”
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr had been prepared for the chance of this.
+
+“Where? Where?” he cried, and sprang to the bulwarks.
+
+“Yonder!” A man was pointing. Others had joined him and were peering
+through the gathering gloom at the moving object that was Lionel's head
+and the faintly visible swirl of water about it which indicated that he
+swam.
+
+“Out to sea!” cried Sakr-el-Bahr. “He'll not swim far in any case. But
+we will shorten his road for him.” He snatched a cross-bow from the rack
+about the mainmast, fitted a shaft to it and took aim.
+
+On the point of loosing the bolt he paused.
+
+“Marzak!” he called. “Here, thou prince of marksmen, is a butt for
+thee!”
+
+From the poop-deck whence with his father he too was watching the
+swimmer's head, which at every moment became more faint in the failing
+light, Marzak looked with cold disdain upon his challenger, making no
+reply. A titter ran through the crew.
+
+“Come now,” cried Sakr-el-Bahr. “Take up thy bow!”
+
+“If thou delay much longer,” put in Asad, “he will be beyond thine aim.
+Already he is scarcely visible.”
+
+“The more difficult a butt, then,” answered Sakr-el-B ahr, who was but
+delaying to gain time. “The keener test. A hundred philips, Marzak, that
+thou'lt not hit me that head in three shots, and that I'll sink him at
+the first! Wilt take the wager?”
+
+“The unbeliever is for ever peeping forth from thee,” was Marzak's
+dignified reply. “Games of chance are forbidden by the Prophet.”
+
+“Make haste, man!” cried Asad. “Already I can scarce discern him. Loose
+thy quarrel.”
+
+“Pooh,” was the disdainful answer. “A fair mark still for such an eye as
+mine. I never miss--not even in the dark.”
+
+“Vain boaster,” said Marzak.
+
+“Am I so?” Sakr-el-Bahr loosed his shaft at last into the gloom, and
+peered after it following its flight, which was wide of the direction of
+the swimmer's head. “A hit!” he cried brazenly. “He's gone!”
+
+“I think I see him still,” said one.
+
+“Thine eyes deceive thee in this light. No man was ever known to swim
+with an arrow through his brain.”
+
+“Ay,” put in Jasper, who stood behind Sakr-el-Bahr. “He has vanished.”
+
+“'Tis too dark to see,” said Vigitello.
+
+And then Asad turned from the vessel's side. “Well, well--shot or
+drowned, he's gone,” he said, and there the matter ended.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr replaced the cross-bow in the rack, and came slowly up to
+the poop.
+
+In the gloom he found himself confronted by Rosamund's white face
+between the two dusky countenances of his Nubians. She drew back before
+him as he approached, and he, intent upon imparting his news to her,
+followed her within the poop-house, and bade Abiad bring lights.
+
+When these had been kindled they faced each other, and he perceived her
+profound agitation and guessed the cause of it. Suddenly she broke into
+speech.
+
+“You beast! You devil!” she panted. “God will punish you! I shall
+spend my every breath in praying Him to punish you as you deserve. You
+murderer! You hound! And I like a poor simpleton was heeding your false
+words. I was believing you sincere in your repentance of the wrong you
+have done me. But now you have shown me....”
+
+“How have I hurt you in what I have done to Lionel?” he cut in, a little
+amazed by so much vehemence.
+
+“Hurt me!” she cried, and on the words grew cold and calm again with
+very scorn. “I thank God it is beyond your power to hurt me. And I thank
+you for correcting my foolish misconception of you, my belief in your
+pitiful pretence that it was your aim to save me. I would not accept
+salvation at your murderer's hands. Though, indeed, I shall not be
+put to it. Rather,” she pursued, a little wildly now in her deep
+mortification, “are you like to sacrifice me to your own vile ends,
+whatever they may be. But I shall thwart you, Heaven helping me. Be
+sure I shall not want courage for that.” And with a shuddering moan she
+covered her face, and stood swaying there before him.
+
+He looked on with a faint, bitter smile, understanding her mood just as
+he understood her dark threat of thwarting him.
+
+“I came,” he said quietly, “to bring you the assurance that he has got
+safely away, and to tell you upon what manner of errand I have sent
+him.”
+
+Something compelling in his voice, the easy assurance with which he
+spoke, drew her to stare at him again.
+
+“I mean Lionel, of course,” he said, in answer to her questioning
+glance. “That scene between us--the blow and the swoon and the rest of
+it--was all make-believe. So afterwards the shooting. My challenge to
+Marzak was a ruse to gain time--to avoid shooting until Lionel's head
+should have become so dimly visible in the dusk that none could say
+whether it was still there or not. My shaft went wide of him, as I
+intended. He is swimming round the head with my message to Sir John
+Killigrew. He was a strong swimmer in the old days, and should easily
+reach his goal. That is what I came to tell you.”
+
+For a long spell she continued to stare at him in silence.
+
+“You are speaking the truth?” she asked at last, in a small voice.
+
+He shrugged. “You will have a difficulty in perceiving the object I
+might serve by falsehood.”
+
+She sat down suddenly upon the divan; it was almost as if she collapsed
+bereft of strength; and as suddenly she fell to weeping softly.
+
+“And... and I believed that you... that you....”
+
+“Just so,” he grimly interrupted. “You always did believe the best of
+me.”
+
+And on that he turned and went out abruptly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. MORITURUS
+
+
+He departed from her presence with bitterness in his heart, leaving a
+profound contrition in her own. The sense of this her last injustice to
+him so overwhelmed her that it became the gauge by which she measured
+that other earlier wrong he had suffered at her hands. Perhaps her
+overwrought mind falsified the perspective, exaggerating it until it
+seemed to her that all the suffering and evil with which this chronicle
+has been concerned were the direct fruits of her own sin of unfaith.
+
+Since all sincere contrition must of necessity bring forth an ardent
+desire to atone, so was it now with her. Had he but refrained from
+departing so abruptly he might have had her on her knees to him
+suing for pardon for all the wrongs which her thoughts had done him,
+proclaiming her own utter unworthiness and baseness. But since his
+righteous resentment had driven him from her presence she could but sit
+and brood upon it all, considering the words in which to frame her plea
+for forgiveness when next he should return.
+
+But the hours sped, and there was no sign of him. And then, almost
+with a shock of dread came the thought that ere long perhaps Sir John
+Killigrew's ship would be upon them. In her distraught state of mind she
+had scarcely pondered that contingency. Now that it occurred to her
+all her concern was for the result of it to Sir Oliver. Would there
+be fighting, and would he perhaps perish in that conflict at the hands
+either of the English or of the corsairs whom for her sake he had
+betrayed, perhaps without ever hearing her confession of penitence,
+without speaking those words of forgiveness of which her soul stood in
+such thirsty need?
+
+It would be towards midnight when unable longer to bear the suspense of
+it, she rose and softly made her way to the entrance. Very quietly she
+lifted the curtain, and in the act of stepping forth almost stumbled
+over a body that lay across the threshold. She drew back with a startled
+gasp; then stooped to look, and by the faint rays of the lanterns on
+mainmast and poop-rail she recognized Sir Oliver, and saw that he slept.
+She never heeded the two Nubians immovable as statues who kept guard.
+She continued to bend over him, and then gradually and very softly sank
+down on her knees beside him. There were tears in her eyes--tears
+wrung from her by a tender emotion of wonder and gratitude at so much
+fidelity. She did not know that he had slept thus last night. But it
+was enough for her to find him here now. It moved her oddly, profoundly,
+that this man whom she had ever mistrusted and misjudged should even
+when he slept make of his body a barrier for her greater security and
+protection.
+
+A sob escaped her, and at the sound, so lightly and vigilantly did he
+take his rest, he came instantly if silently to a sitting attitude; and
+so they looked into each other's eyes, his swarthy, bearded hawk face on
+a level with her white gleaming countenance.
+
+“What is it?” he whispered.
+
+She drew back instantly, taken with sudden panic at that question. Then
+recovering, and seeking womanlike to evade and dissemble the thing she
+was come to do, now that the chance of doing it was afforded her--“Do
+you think,” she faltered, “that Lionel will have reached Sir John's
+ship?”
+
+He flashed a glance in the direction of the divan under the awning where
+the Basha slept. There all was still. Besides, the question had been
+asked in English. He rose and held out a hand to help her to her feet.
+Then he signed to her to reenter the poop-house, and followed her
+within.
+
+“Anxiety keeps you wakeful?” he said, half-question, half-assertion.
+
+“Indeed,” she replied.
+
+“There is scarce the need,” he assured her. “Sir John will not be
+like to stir until dead of night, that he may make sure of taking us
+unawares. I have little doubt that Lionel would reach him. It is none
+so long a swim. Indeed, once outside the cove he could take to the land
+until he was abreast of the ship. Never doubt he will have done his
+errand.”
+
+She sat down, her glance avoiding his; but the light falling on her face
+showed him the traces there of recent tears.
+
+“There will be fighting when Sir John arrives?” she asked him presently.
+
+“Like enough. But what can it avail? We shall be caught--as was said
+to-day--in just such a trap as that in which Andrea Doria caught Dragut
+at Jerba, saving that whilst the wily Dragut found a way out for his
+galleys, here none is possible. Courage, then, for the hour of your
+deliverance is surely at hand.”
+
+He paused, and then in a softer voice, humbly almost, “It is my prayer,”
+ he added, “that hereafter in a happy future these last few weeks shall
+come to seem no more than an evil dream to you.”
+
+To that prayer she offered no response. She sat bemused, her brow
+wrinkled.
+
+“I would it might be done without fighting,” she said presently, and
+sighed wearily.
+
+“You need have no fear,” he assured her. “I shall take all precautions
+for you. You shall remain here until all is over and the entrance will
+be guarded by a few whom I can trust.”
+
+“You mistake me,” she replied, and looked up at him suddenly. “Do you
+suppose my fears are for myself?” She paused again, and then abruptly
+asked him, “What will befall you?”
+
+“I thank you for the thought,” he replied gravely. “No doubt I shall
+meet with my deserts. Let it but come swiftly when it comes.”
+
+“Ah, no, no!” she cried. “Not that!” And rose in her sudden agitation.
+
+“What else remains?” he asked, and smiled. “What better fate could
+anyone desire me?”
+
+“You shall live to return to England,” she surprised him by exclaiming.
+“The truth must prevail, and justice be done you.”
+
+He looked at her with so fierce and searching a gaze that she averted
+her eyes. Then he laughed shortly.
+
+“There's but one form of justice I can look for in England,” said he.
+“It is a justice administered in hemp. Believe me, mistress, I am grown
+too notorious for mercy. Best end it here to-night. Besides,” he added,
+and his mockery fell from him, his tone became gloomy, “bethink you of
+my present act of treachery to these men of mine, who, whatever they may
+be, have followed me into a score of perils and but to-day have shown
+their love and loyalty to me to be greater than their devotion to the
+Basha himself. I shall have delivered them to the sword. Could I survive
+with honour? They may be but poor heathens to you and yours, but to me
+they are my sea-hawks, my warriors, my faithful gallant followers, and I
+were a dog indeed did I survive the death to which I have doomed them.”
+
+As she listened and gathered from his words the apprehension of a thing
+that had hitherto escaped her, her eyes grew wide in sudden horror.
+
+“Is that to be the cost of my deliverance?” she asked him fearfully.
+
+“I trust not,” he replied. “I have something in mind that will perhaps
+avoid it.”
+
+“And save your own life as well?” she asked him quickly.
+
+“Why waste a thought upon so poor a thing? My life was forfeit already.
+If I go back to Algiers they will assuredly hang me. Asad will see to
+it, and not all my sea-hawks could save me from my fate.”
+
+She sank down again upon the divan, and sat there rocking her arms in a
+gesture of hopeless distress.
+
+“I see,” she said. “I see. I am bringing this fate upon you. When you
+sent Lionel upon that errand you voluntarily offered up your life to
+restore me to my own people. You had no right to do this without first
+consulting me. You had no right to suppose I would be a party to such a
+thing. I will not accept the sacrifice. I will not, Sir Oliver.”
+
+“Indeed, you have no choice, thank God!” he answered her. “But you are
+astray in your conclusions. It is I alone who have brought this fate
+upon myself. It is the very proper fruit of my insensate deed. It
+recoils upon me as all evil must upon him that does it.” He shrugged his
+shoulders as if to dismiss the matter. Then in a changed voice, a voice
+singularly timid, soft, and gentle, “it were perhaps too much to ask,”
+ said he, “that you should forgive me all the suffering I have brought
+you?”
+
+“I think,” she answered him, “that it is for me to beg forgiveness of
+you.”
+
+“Of me?”
+
+“For my unfaith, which has been the source of all. For my readiness to
+believe evil of you five years ago, for having burnt unread your letter
+and the proof of your innocence that accompanied it.”
+
+He smiled upon her very kindly. “I think you said your instinct guided
+you. Even though I had not done the thing imputed to me, your instinct
+knew me for evil; and your instinct was right, for evil I am--I must be.
+These are your own words. But do not think that I mock you with them. I
+have come to recognize their truth.”
+
+She stretched out her hands to him. “If... if I were to say that I have
+come to realize the falsehood of all that?”
+
+“I should understand it to be the charity which your pitiful heart
+extends to one in my extremity. Your instinct was not at fault.”
+
+“It was! It was!”
+
+But he was not to be driven out of his conviction. He shook his head,
+his countenance gloomy. “No man who was not evil could have done by you
+what I have done, however deep the provocation. I perceive it clearly
+now--as men in their last hour perceive hidden things.”
+
+“Oh, why are you so set on death?” she cried upon a despairing note.
+
+“I am not,” he answered with a swift resumption of his more habitual
+manner. “'Tis death that is so set on me. But at least I meet it without
+fear or regret. I face it as we must all face the inevitable--the gifts
+from the hands of destiny. And I am heart-ened--gladdened almost--by
+your sweet forgive-ness.”
+
+She rose suddenly, and came to him. She caught his arm, and standing
+very close to him, looked up now into his face.
+
+“We have need to forgive each other, you and I, Oliver,” she said. “And
+since forgiveness effaces all, let... let all that has stood between us
+these last five years be now effaced.”
+
+He caught his breath as he looked down into her white, straining face
+
+“Is it impossible for us to go back five years? Is it impossible for us
+to go back to where we stood in those old days at Godolphin Court?”
+
+The light that had suddenly been kindled in his face faded slowly,
+leaving it grey and drawn. His eyes grew clouded with sorrow and
+despair.
+
+“Who has erred must abide by his error--and so must the generations that
+come after him. There is no going back ever. The gates of the past are
+tight-barred against us.”
+
+“Then let us leave them so. Let us turn our backs upon that past, you
+and I, and let us set out afresh together, and so make amends to each
+other for what our folly has lost to us in those years.”
+
+He set his hands upon her shoulders, and held her so at arm's length
+from him considering her with very tender eyes.
+
+“Sweet lady!” he murmured, and sighed heavily. “God! How happy might
+we not have been but for that evil chance....” He checked abruptly. His
+hands fell from her shoulders to his sides, he half-turned away, brusque
+now in tone and manner. “I grow maudlin. Your sweet pity has so softened
+me that I had almost spoke of love; and what have I to do with that?
+Love belongs to life; love is life; whilst I... Moriturus te salutat!”
+
+“Ah, no, no!” She was clinging to him again with shaking hands, her eyes
+wild.
+
+“It is too late,” he answered her. “There is no bridge can span the pit
+I have dug myself. I must go down into it as cheerfully as God will let
+me.”
+
+“Then,” she cried in sudden exaltation, “I will go down with you. At the
+last, at least, we shall be together.”
+
+“Now here is midsummer frenzy!” he protested, yet there was a tenderness
+in the very impatience of his accents. He stroked the golden head that
+lay against his shoulder. “How shall that help me?” he asked her. “Would
+you embitter my last hour--rob death of all its glory? Nay, Rosamund,
+you can serve me better far by living. Return to England, and publish
+there the truth of what you have learnt. Be yours the task of clearing
+my honour of this stain upon it, proclaiming the truth of what drove
+me to the infamy of becoming a renegade and a corsair.” He started from
+her. “Hark! What's that?”
+
+From without had come a sudden cry, “Afoot! To arms! To arms! Holâ!
+Balâk! Balâk!”
+
+“It is the hour,” he said, and turning from her suddenly sprang to the
+entrance and plucked aside the curtain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE SURRENDER
+
+
+Up the gangway between the lines of slumbering slaves came a quick
+patter of feet. Ali, who since sunset had been replacing Larocque on the
+heights, sprang suddenly upon the poop still shouting.
+
+“Captain! Captain! My lord! Afoot! Up! or we are taken!”
+
+Throughout the vessel's length came the rustle and stir of waking men. A
+voice clamoured somewhere on the forecastle. Then the flap of the awning
+was suddenly whisked aside and Asad himself appeared with Marzak at his
+elbow.
+
+From the starboard side as suddenly came Biskaine and Othmani, and
+from the waist Vigitello, Jasper--that latest renegade--and a group of
+alarmed corsairs.
+
+“What now?” quoth the Basha.
+
+Ali delivered his message breathlessly. “The galleon has weighed anchor.
+She is moving out of the bay.”
+
+Asad clutched his beard, and scowled. “Now what may that portend? Can
+knowledge of our presence have reached them?”
+
+“Why else should she move from her anchorage thus in the dead of night?”
+ said Biskaine.
+
+“Why else, indeed?” returned Asad, and then he swung upon Oliver
+standing there in the entrance of the poop-house. “What sayest thou,
+Sakr-el-Bahr?” he appealed to him.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr stepped forward, shrugging. “What is there to say? What is
+there to do?” he asked. “We can but wait. If our presence is known to
+them we are finely trapped, and there's an end to all of us this night.”
+
+His voice was cool as ice, contemptuous almost, and whilst it struck
+anxiety into more than one it awoke terror in Marzak.
+
+“May thy bones rot, thou ill-omened prophet!” he screamed, and would
+have added more but that Sakr-el-Bahr silenced him.
+
+“What is written is written!” said he in a voice of thunder and reproof.
+
+“Indeed, indeed,” Asad agreed, grasping at the fatalist's consolation.
+“If we are ripe for the gardeners hand, the gardener will pluck us.”
+
+Less fatalistic and more practical was the counsel of Biskaine.
+
+“It were well to act upon the assumption that we are indeed discovered,
+and make for the open sea while yet there may be time.”
+
+“But that were to make certain what is still doubtful,” broke in Marzak,
+fearful ever. “It were to run to meet the danger.”
+
+“Not so!” cried Asad in a loud, confident voice. “The praise to Allah
+who sent us this calm night. There is scarce a breath of wind. We can
+row ten leagues while they are sailing one.”
+
+A murmur of quick approval sped through the ranks of officers and men.
+
+“Let us but win safely from this cove and they will never overtake us,”
+ announced Biskaine.
+
+“But their guns may,” Sakr-el-Bahr quietly reminded them to damp their
+confidence. His own alert mind had already foreseen this one chance of
+escaping from the trap, but he had hoped that it would not be quite so
+obvious to the others.
+
+“That risk we must take,” replied Asad. “We must trust to the night. To
+linger here is to await certain destruction.” He swung briskly about
+to issue his orders. “Ali, summon the steersmen. Hasten! Vigitello, set
+your whips about the slaves, and rouse them.” Then as the shrill whistle
+of the boatswain rang out and the whips of his mates went hissing and
+cracking about the shoulders of the already half-awakened slaves, to
+mingle with all the rest of the stir and bustle aboard the galeasse, the
+Basha turned once more to Biskaine. “Up thou to the prow,” he commanded,
+“and marshal the men. Bid them stand to their arms lest it should come
+to boarding. Go!” Biskaine salaamed and sprang down the companion. Above
+the rumbling din and scurrying toil of preparation rang Asad's voice.
+
+“Crossbowmen, aloft! Gunners to the carronades! Kindle your linstocks!
+Put out all lights!”
+
+An instant later the cressets on the poop-rail were extinguished, as was
+the lantern swinging from the rail, and even the lamp in the poop-house
+which was invaded by one of the Basha's officers for that purpose. The
+lantern hanging from the mast alone was spared against emergencies; but
+it was taken down, placed upon the deck, and muffled.
+
+Thus was the galeasse plunged into a darkness that for some moments
+was black and impenetrable as velvet. Then slowly, as the eyes became
+accustomed to it, this gloom was gradually relieved. Once more men and
+objects began to take shape in the faint, steely radiance of the summer
+night.
+
+After the excitement of that first stir the corsairs went about their
+tasks with amazing calm and silence. None thought now of reproaching the
+Basha or Sakr-el-Bahr with having delayed until the moment of peril
+to take the course which all of them had demanded should be taken when
+first they had heard of the neighbourhood of that hostile ship. In lines
+three deep they stood ranged along the ample fighting platform of the
+prow; in the foremost line were the archers, behind them stood the
+swordsmen, their weapons gleaming lividly in the darkness. They crowded
+to the bulwarks of the waist-deck and swarmed upon the rat-lines of
+the mainmast. On the poop three gunners stood to each of the two small
+cannon, their faces showing faintly ruddy in the glow of the ignited
+match.
+
+Asad stood at the head of the companion, issuing his sharp brief
+commands, and Sakr-el-Bahr, behind him, leaning against the timbers of
+the poop-house with Rosamund at his side, observed that the Basha
+had studiously avoided entrusting any of this work of preparation to
+himself.
+
+The steersmen climbed to their niches, and the huge steering oars
+creaked as they were swung out. Came a short word of command from Asad
+and a stir ran through the ranks of the slaves, as they threw forward
+their weight to bring the oars to the level. Thus a moment, then a
+second word, the premonitory crack of a whip in the darkness of the
+gangway, and the tomtom began to beat the time. The slaves heaved,
+and with a creak and splash of oars the great galeasse skimmed forward
+towards the mouth of the cove.
+
+Up and down the gangway ran the boatswain's mates, cutting fiercely with
+their whips to urge the slaves to the very utmost effort. The vessel
+gathered speed. The looming headland slipped by. The mouth of the cove
+appeared to widen as they approached it. Beyond spread the dark steely
+mirror of the dead-calm sea.
+
+Rosamund could scarcely breathe in the intensity of her suspense. She
+set a hand upon the arm of Sakr-el-Bahr.
+
+“Shall we elude them, after all?” she asked in a trembling whisper.
+
+“I pray that we may not,” he answered, muttering. “But this is the
+handiwork I feared. Look!” he added sharply, and pointed.
+
+They had shot clear to the headland. They were out of the cove, and
+suddenly they had a view of the dark bulk of the galleon, studded with a
+score of points of light, riding a cable's length away on their larboard
+quarter.
+
+“Faster!” cried the voice of Asad. “Row for your lives, you infidel
+swine! Lay me your whips upon these hides of theirs! Bend me these dogs
+to their oars, and they'll never overtake us now.”
+
+Whips sang and thudded below them in the waist, to be answered by more
+than one groan from the tormented panting slaves, who already were
+spending every ounce of strength in this cruel effort to elude their
+own chance of salvation and release. Faster beat the tomtom marking the
+desperate time, and faster in response to it came the creak and dip of
+oars and the panting, stertorous breathing of the rowers.
+
+“Lay on! Lay on!” cried Asad, inexorable. Let them burst their
+lungs--they were but infidel lungs!--so that for an hour they but
+maintained the present pace.
+
+“We are drawing away!” cried Marzak in jubilation. “The praise to
+Allah!”
+
+And so indeed they were. Visibly the lights of the galleon were
+receding. With every inch of canvas spread yet she appeared to be
+standing still, so faint was the breeze that stirred. And whilst
+she crawled, the galeasse raced as never yet she had raced since
+Sakr-el-Bahr had commanded her, for Sakr-el-Bahr had never yet turned
+tail upon the foe in whatever strength he found him.
+
+Suddenly over the water from the galleon came a loud hail. Asad laughed,
+and in the darkness shook his fist at them, cursing them in the name
+of Allah and his Prophet. And then, in answer to that curse of his, the
+galleon's side belched fire; the calm of the night was broken by a roar
+of thunder, and something smote the water ahead of the Muslim vessel
+with a resounding thudding splash.
+
+In fear Rosamund drew closer to Sakr-el-Bahr. But Asad laughed again.
+
+“No need to fear their marksmanship,” he cried. “They cannot see us.
+Their own lights dazzle them. On! On!”
+
+“He is right,” said Sakr-el-Bahr. “But the truth is that they will not
+fire to sink us because they know you to be aboard.”
+
+She looked out to sea again, and beheld those friendly lights falling
+farther and farther astern.
+
+“We are drawing steadily away,” she groaned. “They will never overtake
+us now.”
+
+So feared Sakr-el-Bahr. He more than feared it. He knew that save for
+some miraculous rising of the wind it must be as she said. And then out
+of his despair leapt inspiration--a desperate inspiration, true child of
+that despair of which it was begotten.
+
+“There is a chance,” he said to her. “But it is as a throw of the dice
+with life and death for stakes.”
+
+“Then seize it,” she bade him instantly. “For though it should go
+against us we shall not be losers.”
+
+“You are prepared for anything?” he asked her.
+
+“Have I not said that I will go down with you this night? Ah, don't
+waste time in words!”
+
+“Be it so, then,” he replied gravely, and moved away a step, then
+checked. “You had best come with me,” he said.
+
+Obediently she complied and followed him, and some there were who stared
+as these two passed down the gangway, yet none attempted to hinder her
+movements. Enough and to spare was there already to engage the thoughts
+of all aboard that vessel.
+
+He thrust a way for her, past the boatswain's mates who stood over the
+slaves ferociously plying tongues and whips, and so brought her to the
+waist. Here he took up the lantern which had been muffled, and as
+its light once more streamed forth, Asad shouted an order for its
+extinction. But Sakr-el-Bahr took no least heed of that command. He
+stepped to the mainmast, about which the powder kegs had been stacked.
+One of these had been broached against its being needed by the gunners
+on the poop. The unfastened lid rested loosely atop of it. That lid
+Sakr-el-Bahr knocked over; then he pulled one of the horn sides out of
+the lantern, and held the now half-naked flame immediately above the
+powder.
+
+A cry of alarm went up from some who had watched him. But above that cry
+rang his sharp command:
+
+“Cease rowing!”
+
+The tomtom fell instantly silent, but the slaves took yet another
+stroke.
+
+“Cease rowing!” he commanded again. “Asad!” he called. “Bid them pause,
+or I'll blow you all straight into the arms of Shaitan.” And he lowered
+the lantern until it rested on the very rim of the powder keg.
+
+At once the rowing ceased. Slaves, corsairs, officers, and Asad himself
+stood paralyzed, all at gaze upon that grim figure illumined by the
+lantern, threatening them with doom. It may have crossed the minds of
+some to throw themselves forthwith upon him; but to arrest them was the
+dread lest any movement towards him should precipitate the explosion
+that must blow them all into the next world.
+
+At last Asad addressed him, his voice half-choked with rage.
+
+“May Allah strike thee dead! Art thou djinn-possessed?”
+
+Marzak, standing at his father's side, set a quarrel to the bow which
+he had snatched up. “Why do you all stand and stare?” he cried. “Cut
+him down, one of you!” And even as he spoke he raised his bow. But his
+father checked him, perceiving what must be the inevitable result.
+
+“If any man takes a step towards me, the lantern goes straight into
+the gunpowder,” said Sakr-el-Bahr serenely. “And if you shoot me as you
+intend, Mar-zak, or if any other shoots, the same will happen of itself.
+Be warned unless you thirst for the Paradise of the Prophet.”
+
+“Sakr-el-Bahr!” cried Asad, and from its erstwhile anger his voice
+had now changed to a note of intercession. He stretched out his arms
+appealingly to the captain whose doom he had already pronounced in his
+heart and mind. “Sakr-el-Bahr, I conjure thee by the bread and salt we
+have eaten together, return to thy senses, my son.”
+
+“I am in my sense,” was the answer, “and being so I have no mind for the
+fate reserved me in Algiers--by the memory of that same bread and salt.
+I have no mind to go back with thee to be hanged or sent to toil at an
+oar again.”
+
+“And if I swear to thee that naught of this shall come to pass?”
+
+“Thou'lt be forsworn. I would not trust thee now, Asad. For thou art
+proven a fool, and in all my life I never found good in a fool and never
+trusted one--save once, and he betrayed me. Yesterday I pleaded
+with thee, showing thee the wise course, and affording thee thine
+opportunity. At a slight sacrifice thou mightest have had me and hanged
+me at thy leisure. 'Twas my own life I offered thee, and for all that
+thou knewest it, yet thou knewest not that I knew.” He laughed. “See now
+what manner of fool art thou? Thy greed hath wrought thy ruin. Thy hands
+were opened to grasp more than they could hold. See now the consequence.
+It comes yonder in that slowly but surely approaching galleon.”
+
+Every word of it sank into the brain of Asad thus tardily to enlighten
+him. He wrung his hands in his blended fury and despair. The crew stood
+in appalled silence, daring to make no movement that might precipitate
+their end.
+
+“Name thine own price,” cried the Basha at length, “and I swear to thee
+by the beard of the Prophet it shall be paid thee.”
+
+“I named it yesterday, but it was refused. I offered thee my liberty and
+my life if that were needed to gain the liberty of another.”
+
+Had he looked behind him he might have seen the sudden lighting of
+Rosamund's eyes, the sudden clutch at her bosom, which would have
+announced to him that his utterances were none so cryptic but that she
+had understood them.
+
+“I will make thee rich and honoured, Sakr-el-Bahr,” Asad continued
+urgently. “Thou shalt be as mine own son. The Bashalik itself shall
+be thine when I lay it down, and all men shall do thee honour in the
+meanwhile as to myself.”
+
+“I am not to be bought, O mighty Asad. I never was. Already wert
+thou set upon my death. Thou canst command it now, but only upon the
+condition that thou share the cup with me. What is written is written.
+We have sunk some tall ships together in our day, Asad. We'll sink
+together in our turn to-night if that be thy desire.”
+
+“May thou burn for evermore in hell, thou black-hearted traitor!” Asad
+cursed him, his anger bursting all the bonds he had imposed upon it.
+
+And then, of a sudden, upon that admission of defeat from their Basha,
+there arose a great clamour from the crew. Sakr-el-Bahr's sea-hawks
+called upon him, reminding him of their fidelity and love, and asking
+could he repay it now by dooming them all thus to destruction.
+
+“Have faith in me!” he answered them. “I have never led you into aught
+but victory. Be sure that I shall not lead you now into defeat--on this
+the last occasion that we stand together.”
+
+“But the galleon is upon us!” cried Vigitello. And so, indeed, it was,
+creeping up slowly under that faint breeze, her tall bulk loomed now
+above them, her prow ploughing slowly forward at an acute angle to the
+prow of the galeasse. Another moment and she was alongside, and with a
+swing and clank and a yell of victory from the English seamen lining
+her bulwarks her grappling irons swung down to seize the corsair ship
+at prow and stern and waist. Scarce had they fastened, than a torrent
+of men in breast-plates and morions poured over her side, to alight
+upon the prow of the galeasse, and not even the fear of the lantern
+held above the powder barrel could now restrain the corsairs from giving
+these hardy boarders the reception they reserved for all infidels. In an
+instant the fighting platform on the prow was become a raging, seething
+hell of battle luridly illumined by the ruddy glow from the lights
+aboard the Silver Heron. Foremost among those who had leapt down had
+been Lionel and Sir John Killigrew. Foremost among those to receive them
+had been Jasper Leigh, who had passed his sword through Lionel's body
+even as Lionel's feet came to rest upon the deck, and before the battle
+was joined.
+
+A dozen others went down on either side before Sakr-el-Bahr's ringing
+voice could quell the fighting, before his command to them to hear him
+was obeyed.
+
+“Hold there!” he had bellowed to his sea-hawks, using the lingua franca.
+“Back, and leave this to me. I will rid you of these foes.” Then
+in English he had summoned his countrymen also to desist. “Sir John
+Killigrew!” he called in a loud voice. “Hold your hand until you have
+heard me! Call your men back and let none others come aboard! Hold until
+you have heard me, I say, then wreak your will.”
+
+Sir John, perceiving him by the mainmast with Rosamund at his side, and
+leaping at the most inevitable conclusion that he meant to threaten
+her life, perhaps to destroy her if they continued their advance, flung
+himself before his men, to check them.
+
+Thus almost as suddenly as it had been joined the combat paused
+
+“What have you to say, you renegade dog?” Sir John demanded.
+
+“This, Sir John, that unless you order your men back aboard your ship,
+and make oath to desist from this encounter, I'll take you straight down
+to hell with us at once. I'll heave this lantern into the powder here,
+and we sink and you come down with us held by your own grappling hooks.
+Obey me and you shall have all that you have come to seek aboard this
+vessel. Mistress Rosamund shall be delivered up to you.”
+
+Sir John glowered upon him a moment from the poop, considering. Then--
+
+“Though not prepared to make terms with you,” he announced, “yet I will
+accept the conditions you impose, but only provided that I have all
+indeed that I am come to seek. There is aboard this galley an infamous
+renegade hound whom I am bound by my knightly oath to take and hang. He,
+too, must be delivered up to me. His name was Oliver Tressilian.”
+
+Instantly, unhesitatingly, came the answer--“Him, too, will I surrender
+to you upon your sworn oath that you will then depart and do here no
+further hurt.”
+
+Rosamund caught her breath, and clutched Sakr-el-Bahr's arm, the arm
+that held the lantern.
+
+“Have a care, mistress,” he bade her sharply, “or you will destroy us
+all.”
+
+“Better that!” she answered him.
+
+And then Sir John pledged him his word that upon his own surrender and
+that of Rosamund he would withdraw nor offer hurt to any there.
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr turned to his waiting corsairs, and briefly told them what
+the terms he had made.
+
+He called upon Asad to pledge his word that these terms would be
+respected, and no blood shed on his behalf, and Asad answered him,
+voicing the anger of all against him for his betrayal.
+
+“Since he wants thee that he may hang thee, he may have thee and so
+spare us the trouble, for 'tis no less than thy treachery deserves from
+us.”
+
+“Thus, then, I surrender,” he announced to Sir John, and flung the
+lantern overboard.
+
+One voice only was raised in his defence, and that voice was Rosamund's.
+But even that voice failed, conquered by weary nature. This last
+blow following upon all that lately she had endured bereft her of all
+strength. Half swooning she collapsed against Sakr-el-Bahr even as Sir
+John and a handful of his followers leapt down to deliver her and make
+fast their prisoner.
+
+The corsairs stood looking on in silence; the loyalty to their great
+captain, which would have made them spend their last drop of blood in
+his defence, was quenched by his own act of treachery which had brought
+the English ship upon them. Yet when they saw him pinioned and hoisted
+to the deck of the Silver Heron, there was a sudden momentary reaction
+in their ranks. Scimitars were waved aloft, and cries of menace burst
+forth. If he had betrayed them, yet he had so contrived that they should
+not suffer by that betrayal. And that was worthy of the Sakr-el-Bahr
+they knew and loved; so worthy that their love and loyalty leapt
+full-armed again upon the instant.
+
+But the voice of Asad called upon them to bear in mind what in their
+name he had promised, and since the voice of Asad alone might not have
+sufficed to quell that sudden spark of revolt, there came down to them
+the voice of Sakr-el-Bahr himself issuing his last command.
+
+“Remember and respect the terms I have made for you! Mektub! May Allah
+guard and prosper you!”
+
+A wail was his reply, and with that wail ringing in his ears to assure
+him that he did not pass unloved, he was hurried below to prepare him
+for his end.
+
+The ropes of the grapnels were cut, and slowly the galleon passed away
+into the night, leaving the galley to replace what slaves had been
+maimed in the encounter and to head back for Algiers, abandoning the
+expedition against the argosy of Spain.
+
+Under the awning upon the poop Asad now sat like a man who has awakened
+from an evil dream. He covered his head and wept for one who had been
+as a son to him, and whom through his madness he had lost. He cursed
+all women, and he cursed destiny; but the bitterest curse of all was for
+himself.
+
+In the pale dawn they flung the dead overboard and washed the decks,
+nor did they notice that a man was missing in token that the English
+captain, or else his followers, had not kept strictly to the letter of
+the bond.
+
+They returned in mourning to Algiers--mourning not for the Spanish
+argosy which had been allowed to go her ways unmolested, but for the
+stoutest captain that ever bared his scimitar in the service of Islam.
+The story of how he came to be delivered up was never clearly told; none
+dared clearly tell it, for none who had participated in the deed but
+took shame in it thereafter, however clear it might be that Sakr-el-Bahr
+had brought it all upon himself. But, at least, it was understood that
+he had not fallen in battle, and hence it was assumed that he was still
+alive. Upon that presumption there was built up a sort of legend that he
+would one day come back; and redeemed captives returning a half-century
+later related how in Algiers to that day the coming of Sakr-el-Bahr was
+still confidently expected and looked for by all true Muslimeen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE HEATHEN CREED
+
+
+Sakr-el-Bahr was shut up in a black hole in the forecastle of the Silver
+Heron to await the dawn and to spend the time in making his soul. No
+words had passed between him and Sir John since his surrender. With
+wrists pinioned behind him, he had been hoisted aboard the English ship,
+and in the waist of her he had stood for a moment face to face with an
+old acquaintance--our chronicler, Lord Henry Goade. I imagine the florid
+countenance of the Queen's Lieutenant wearing a preternaturally grave
+expression, his eyes forbidding as they rested upon the renegade. I
+know--from Lord Henry's own pen--that no word had passed between them
+during those brief moments before Sakr-el-Bahr was hurried away by his
+guards to be flung into those dark, cramped quarters reeking of tar and
+bilge.
+
+For a long hour he lay where he had fallen, believing himself alone; and
+time and place would no doubt conduce to philosophical reflection
+upon his condition. I like to think that he found that when all was
+considered, he had little with which to reproach himself. If he had done
+evil he had made ample amends. It can scarcely be pretended that he had
+betrayed those loyal Muslimeen followers of his, or, if it is, at least
+it must be added that he himself had paid the price of that betrayal.
+Rosamund was safe, Lionel would meet the justice due to him, and as for
+himself, being as good as dead already, he was worth little thought. He
+must have derived some measure of content from the reflection that he
+was spending his life to the very best advantage. Ruined it had been
+long since. True, but for his ill-starred expedition of vengeance he
+might long have continued to wage war as a corsair, might even have
+risen to the proud Muslim eminence of the Bashalik of Algiers and
+become a feudatory prince of the Grand Turk. But for one who was born a
+Christian gentleman that would have been an unworthy way to have ended
+his days. The present was the better course.
+
+A faint rustle in the impenetrable blackness of his prison turned
+the current of his thoughts. A rat, he thought, and drew himself to a
+sitting attitude, and beat his slippered heels upon the ground to drive
+away the loathly creature. Instead, a voice challenged him out of the
+gloom.
+
+“Who's there?”
+
+It startled him for a moment, in his complete assurance that he had been
+alone.
+
+“Who's there?” the voice repeated, querulously to add: “What black hell
+be this? Where am I?”
+
+And now he recognized the voice for Jasper Leigh's, and marvelled how
+that latest of his recruits to the ranks of Mohammed should be sharing
+this prison with him.
+
+“Faith,” said he, “you're in the forecastle of the Silver Heron; though
+how you come here is more than I can answer.”
+
+“Who are ye?” the voice asked.
+
+“I have been known in Barbary as Sakr-el-Bahr.”
+
+“Sir Oliver!”
+
+“I suppose that is what they will call me now. It is as well perhaps
+that I am to be buried at sea, else it might plague these Christian
+gentlemen what legend to inscribe upon my headstone. But you--how come
+you hither? My bargain with Sir John was that none should be molested,
+and I cannot think Sir John would be forsworn.”
+
+“As to that I know nothing, since I did not even know where I was
+bestowed until ye informed me. I was knocked senseless in the fight,
+after I had put my bilbo through your comely brother. That is the sum of
+my knowledge.”
+
+Sir Oliver caught his breath. “What do you say? You killed Lionel?”
+
+“I believe so,” was the cool answer. “At least I sent a couple of feet
+of steel through him--'twas in the press of the fight when first the
+English dropped aboard the galley; Master Lionel was in the van--the
+last place in which I should have looked to see him.”
+
+There fell a long silence. At length Sir Oliver spoke in a small voice.
+
+“Not a doubt but you gave him no more than he was seeking. You are
+right, Master Leigh; the van was the last place in which to look for
+him, unless he came deliberately to seek steel that he might escape a
+rope. Best so, no doubt. Best so! God rest him!”
+
+“Do you believe in God?” asked the sinful skipper on an anxious note.
+
+“No doubt they took you because of that,” Sir Oliver pursued, as if
+communing with himself. “Being in ignorance perhaps of his deserts,
+deeming him a saint and martyr, they resolved to avenge him upon you,
+and dragged you hither for that purpose.” He sighed. “Well, well, Master
+Leigh, I make no doubt that knowing yourself for a rascal you have all
+your life been preparing your neck for a noose; so this will come as no
+surprise to you.”
+
+The skipper stirred uneasily, and groaned. “Lord, how my head aches!” he
+complained.
+
+“They've a sure remedy for that,” Sir Oliver comforted him. “And you'll
+swing in better company than you deserve, for I am to be hanged in the
+morn-ing too. You've earned it as fully as have I, Master Leigh. Yet I
+am sorry for you--sorry you should suffer where I had not so intended.”
+
+Master Leigh sucked in a shuddering breath, and was silent for a while.
+
+Then he repeated an earlier question.
+
+“Do you believe in God, Sir Oliver?”
+
+“There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet,” was the answer,
+and from his tone Master Leigh could not be sure that he did not mock.
+
+“That's a heathen creed,” said he in fear and loathing.
+
+“Nay, now; it's a creed by which men live. They perform as they preach,
+which is more than can be said of any Christians I have ever met.”
+
+“How can you talk so upon the eve of death?” cried Leigh in protest.
+
+“Faith,” said Sir Oliver, “it's considered the season of truth above all
+others.”
+
+“Then ye don't believe in God?”
+
+“On the contrary, I do.”
+
+“But not in the real God?” the skipper insisted.
+
+“There can be no God but the real God--it matters little what men call
+Him.”
+
+“Then if ye believe, are ye not afraid?”
+
+“Of what?”
+
+“Of hell, damnation, and eternal fire,” roared the skipper, voicing his
+own belated terrors.
+
+“I have but fulfilled the destiny which in His Omniscience He marked out
+for me,” replied Sir Oliver. “My life hath been as He designed it, since
+naught may exist or happen save by His Will. Shall I then fear damnation
+for having been as God fashioned me?”
+
+“'Tis the heathen Muslim creed!” Master Leigh protested.
+
+“'Tis a comforting one,” said Sir Oliver, “and it should comfort such a
+sinner as thou.”
+
+But Master Leigh refused to be comforted. “Oh!” he groaned miserably. “I
+would that I did not believe in God!”
+
+“Your disbelief could no more abolish Him than can your fear create
+Him,” replied Sir Oliver. “But your mood being what it is, were it not
+best you prayed?”
+
+“Will not you pray with me?” quoth that rascal in his sudden fear of the
+hereafter.
+
+“I shall do better,” said Sir Oliver at last. “I shall pray for you--to
+Sir John Killigrew, that your life be spared.”
+
+“Sure he'll never heed you!” said Master Leigh with a catch in his
+breath.
+
+“He shall. His honour is concerned in it. The terms of my surrender were
+that none else aboard the galley should suffer any hurt.”
+
+“But I killed Master Lionel.”
+
+“True--but that was in the scrimmage that preceded my making terms. Sir
+John pledged me his word, and Sir John will keep to it when I have made
+it clear to him that honour demands it.”
+
+A great burden was lifted from the skipper's mind--that great shadow of
+the fear of death that had overhung him. With it, it is greatly to be
+feared that his desperate penitence also departed. At least he talked
+no more of damnation, nor took any further thought for Sir Oliver's
+opinions and beliefs concerning the hereafter. He may rightly have
+supposed that Sir Oliver's creed was Sir Oliver's affair, and that
+should it happen to be wrong he was scarcely himself a qualified person
+to correct it. As for himself, the making of his soul could wait until
+another day, when the necessity for it should be more imminent.
+
+Upon that he lay down and attempted to compose himself to sleep, though
+the pain in his head proved a difficulty. Finding slumber impossible
+after a while he would have talked again; but by that time his
+companion's regular breathing warned him that Sir Oliver had fallen
+asleep during the silence.
+
+Now this surprised and shocked the skipper. He was utterly at a loss to
+understand how one who had lived Sir Oliver's life, been a renegade and
+a heathen, should be able to sleep tranquilly in the knowledge that at
+dawn he was to hang. His belated Christian zeal prompted him to rouse
+the sleeper and to urge him to spend the little time that yet remained
+him in making his peace with God. Humane compassion on the other
+hand suggested to him that he had best leave him in the peace of that
+oblivion. Considering matters he was profoundly touched to reflect that
+in such a season Sir Oliver could have found room in his mind to think
+of him and his fate and to undertake to contrive that he should be saved
+from the rope. He was the more touched when he bethought him of the
+extent to which he had himself been responsible for all that happened to
+Sir Oliver. Out of the consideration of heroism, a certain heroism came
+to be begotten in him, and he fell to pondering how in his turn he might
+perhaps serve Sir Oliver by a frank confession of all that he knew
+of the influences that had gone to make Sir Oliver what he was. This
+resolve uplifted him, and oddly enough it uplifted him all the more when
+he reflected that perhaps he would be jeopardizing his own neck by the
+confession upon which he had determined.
+
+So through that endless night he sat, nursing his aching head, and
+enheartened by the first purpose he had ever conceived of a truly good
+and altruistic deed. Yet fate it seemed was bent upon frustrating that
+purpose of his. For when at dawn they came to hale Sir Oliver to his
+doom, they paid no heed to Jasper Leigh's demands that he, too, should
+be taken before Sir John.
+
+“Thee bean't included in our orders,” said a seaman shortly.
+
+“Maybe not,” retorted Master Leigh, “because Sir John little knows what
+it is in my power to tell him. Take me before him, I say, that he may
+hear from me the truth of certain matters ere it be too late.”
+
+“Be still,” the seaman bade him, and struck him heavily across the face,
+so that he reeled and collapsed into a corner. “Thee turn will come
+soon. Just now our business be with this other heathen.”
+
+“Naught that you can say would avail,” Sir Oliver assured him quietly.
+“But I thank you for the thought that marks you for my friend. My hands
+are bound, Jasper. Were it otherwise I would beg leave to clasp your
+own. Fare you well!”
+
+Sir Oliver was led out into the golden sunlight which almost blinded him
+after his long confinement in that dark hole. They were, he gathered,
+to conduct him to the cabin where a short mockery of a trial was to be
+held. But in the waist their progress was arrested by an officer, who
+bade them wait.
+
+Sir Oliver sat down upon a coil of rope, his guard about him, an object
+of curious inspection to the rude seamen. They thronged the forecastle
+and the hatchways to stare at this formidable corsair who once had been
+a Cornish gentleman and who had become a renegade Muslim and a terror to
+Christianity.
+
+Truth to tell, the sometime Cornish gentleman was difficult to discern
+in him as he sat there still wearing the caftan of cloth of silver over
+his white tunic and a turban of the same material swathed about his
+steel headpiece that ended in a spike. Idly he swung his brown sinewy
+legs, naked from knee to ankle, with the inscrutable calm of the
+fatalist upon his swarthy hawk face with its light agate eyes and black
+forked beard; and those callous seamen who had assembled there to jeer
+and mock him were stricken silent by the intrepidity and stoicism of his
+bearing in the face of death.
+
+If the delay chafed him, he gave no outward sign of it. If his hard,
+light eyes glanced hither and thither it was upon no idle quest. He was
+seeking Rosamund, hoping for a last sight of her before they launched
+him upon his last dread voyage.
+
+But Rosamund was not to be seen. She was in the cabin at the time. She
+had been there for this hour past, and it was to her that the present
+delay was due.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE JUDGES
+
+
+In the absence of any woman into whose care they might entrust her, Lord
+Henry, Sir John, and Master Tobias, the ship's surgeon, had amongst them
+tended Rosamund as best they could when numbed and half-dazed she was
+brought aboard the Silver Heron.
+
+Master Tobias had applied such rude restoratives as he commanded, and
+having made her as comfortable as possible upon a couch in the spacious
+cabin astern, he had suggested that she should be allowed the rest of
+which she appeared so sorely to stand in need. He had ushered out the
+commander and the Queen's Lieutenant, and himself had gone below to a
+still more urgent case that was demanding his attention--that of Lionel
+Tressilian, who had been brought limp and unconscious from the galeasse
+together with some four other wounded members of the Silver Heron's
+crew.
+
+At dawn Sir John had come below, seeking news of his wounded friend. He
+found the surgeon kneeling over Lionel.
+
+As he entered, Master Tobias turned aside, rinsed his hands in a metal
+basin placed upon the floor, and rose wiping them on a napkin.
+
+“I can do no more, Sir John,” he muttered in a desponding voice. “He is
+sped.”
+
+“Dead, d'ye mean?” cried Sir John, a catch in his voice.
+
+The surgeon tossed aside the napkin, and slowly drew down the upturned
+sleeves of his black doublet. “All but dead,” he answered. “The wonder
+is that any spark of life should still linger in a body with that hole
+in it. He is bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It
+must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count
+him dead already, Sir John.” He paused. “A merciful, painless end,” he
+added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave,
+for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. “Of the
+other four,” he continued, “Blair is dead; the other three should all
+recover.”
+
+But Sir John gave little heed to the matter of those others. His grief
+and dismay at this quenching of all hope for his friend precluded any
+other consideration at the moment.
+
+“And he will not even recover consciousness?” he asked insisting,
+although already he had been answered.
+
+“As I have said, you may count him dead already, Sir John. My skill can
+do nothing for him.”
+
+Sir John's head drooped, his countenance drawn and grave. “Nor can my
+justice,” he added gloomily. “Though it avenge him, it cannot give
+me back my friend.” He looked at the surgeon. “Vengeance, sir, is the
+hollowest of all the mockeries that go to make up life.”
+
+“Your task, Sir John,” replied the surgeon, “is one of justice, not
+vengeance.”
+
+“A quibble, when all is said.” He stepped to Lionel's side, and looked
+down at the pale handsome face over which the dark shadows of death
+were already creeping. “If he would but speak in the interests of this
+justice that is to do! If we might but have the evidence of his own
+words, lest I should ever be asked to justify the hanging of Oliver
+Tressilian.”
+
+“Surely, sir,” the surgeon ventured, “there can be no such question
+ever. Mistress Rosamund's word alone should suffice, if indeed so much
+as that even were required.”
+
+“Ay! His offenses against God and man are too notorious to leave grounds
+upon which any should ever question my right to deal with him out of
+hand.”
+
+There was a tap at the door and Sir John's own body servant entered with
+the announcement that Mistress Rosamund was asking urgently to see him.
+
+“She will be impatient for news of him,” Sir John concluded, and he
+groaned. “My God! How am I to tell her? To crush her in the very hour
+of her deliverance with such news as this! Was ever irony so cruel?”
+ He turned, and stepped heavily to the door. There he paused. “You will
+remain by him to the end?” he bade the surgeon interrogatively.
+
+Master Tobias bowed. “Of course, Sir John.” And he added, “'Twill not be
+long.”
+
+Sir John looked across at Lionel again--a glance of valediction. “God
+rest him!” he said hoarsely, and passed out.
+
+In the waist he paused a moment, turned to a knot of lounging seamen,
+and bade them throw a halter over the yard-arm, and hale the renegade
+Oliver Tressilian from his prison. Then with slow heavy step and heavier
+heart he went up the companion to the vessel's castellated poop.
+
+The sun, new risen in a faint golden haze, shone over a sea faintly
+rippled by the fresh clean winds of dawn to which their every stitch
+of canvas was now spread. Away on the larboard quarter, a faint cloudy
+outline, was the coast of Spain.
+
+Sir John's long sallow face was preternaturally grave when he entered
+the cabin, where Rosamund awaited him. He bowed to her with a grave
+courtesy, doffing his hat and casting it upon a chair. The last five
+years had brought some strands of white into his thick black hair,
+and at the temples in particular it showed very grey, giving him an
+appearance of age to which the deep lines in his brow contributed.
+
+He advanced towards her, as she rose to receive him. “Rosamund, my
+dear!” he said gently, and took both her hands. He looked with eyes of
+sorrow and concern into her white, agitated face.
+
+“Are you sufficiently rested, child?”
+
+“Rested?” she echoed on a note of wonder that he should suppose it.
+
+“Poor lamb, poor lamb!” he murmured, as a mother might have done, and
+drew her towards him, stroking that gleaming auburn head. “We'll speed
+us back to England with every stitch of canvas spread. Take heart then,
+and....”
+
+But she broke in impetuously, drawing away from him as she spoke, and
+his heart sank with foreboding of the thing she was about to inquire.
+
+“I overheard a sailor just now saying to another that it is your intent
+to hang Sir Oliver Tressilian out of hand--this morning.”
+
+He misunderstood her utterly. “Be comforted,” he said. “My justice shall
+be swift; my vengeance sure. The yard-arm is charged already with the
+rope on which he shall leap to his eternal punishment.”
+
+She caught her breath, and set a hand upon her bosom as if to repress
+its sudden tumult.
+
+“And upon what grounds,” she asked him with an air of challenge,
+squarely facing him, “do you intend to do this thing?”
+
+“Upon what grounds?” he faltered. He stared and frowned, bewildered by
+her question and its tone. “Upon what grounds?” he repeated, foolishly
+almost in the intensity of his amazement. Then he considered her more
+closely, and the wildness of her eyes bore to him slowly an explanation
+of words that at first had seemed beyond explaining.
+
+“I see!” he said in a voice of infinite pity; for the conviction to
+which he had leapt was that her poor wits were all astray after the
+horrors through which she had lately travelled. “You must rest,” he said
+gently, “and give no thought to such matters as these. Leave them to me,
+and be very sure that I shall avenge you as is due.”
+
+“Sir John, you mistake me, I think. I do not desire that you avenge me.
+I have asked you upon what grounds you intend to do this thing, and you
+have not answered me.”
+
+In increasing amazement he continued to stare. He had been wrong, then.
+She was quite sane and mistress of her wits. And yet instead of the fond
+inquiries concerning Lionel which he had been dreading came this amazing
+questioning of his grounds to hang his prisoner.
+
+“Need I state to you--of all living folk--the offences which that
+dastard has committed?” he asked, expressing thus the very question that
+he was setting himself.
+
+“You need to tell me,” she answered, “by what right you constitute
+yourself his judge and executioner; by what right you send him to his
+death in this peremptory fashion, without trial.” Her manner was as
+stern as if she were invested with all the authority of a judge.
+
+“But you,” he faltered in his ever-growing bewilderment, “you, Rosamund,
+against whom he has offended so grievously, surely you should be the
+last to ask me such a question! Why, it is my intention to proceed
+with him as is the manner of the sea with all knaves taken as Oliver
+Tressilian was taken. If your mood be merciful towards him--which as God
+lives, I can scarce conceive--consider that this is the greatest mercy
+he can look for.”
+
+“You speak of mercy and vengeance in a breath, Sir John.” She was
+growing calm, her agitation was quieting and a grim sternness was
+replacing it.
+
+He made a gesture of impatience. “What good purpose could it serve to
+take him to England?” he demanded. “There he must stand his trial, and
+the issue is foregone. It were unnecessarily to torture him.”
+
+“The issue may be none so foregone as you suppose,” she replied. “And
+that trial is his right.”
+
+Sir John took a turn in the cabin, his wits all confused. It was
+preposterous that he should stand and argue upon such a matter with
+Rosamund of all people, and yet she was compelling him to it against his
+every inclination, against common sense itself.
+
+“If he so urges it, we'll not deny him,” he said at last, deeming it
+best to humour her. “We'll take him back to England if he demands it,
+and let him stand his trial there. But Oliver Tressilian must realize
+too well what is in store for him to make any such demand.” He passed
+before her, and held out his hands in entreaty. “Come, Rosamund, my
+dear! You are distraught, you....”
+
+“I am indeed distraught, Sir John,” she answered, and took the hands
+that he extended. “Oh, have pity!” she cried with a sudden change to
+utter intercession. “I implore you to have pity!”
+
+“What pity can I show you, child? You have but to name....”
+
+“'Tis not pity for me, but pity for him that I am beseeching of you.”
+
+“For him?” he cried, frowning again.
+
+“For Oliver Tressilian.”
+
+He dropped her hands and stood away. “God's light!” he swore. “You sue
+for pity for Oliver Tressilian, for that renegade, that incarnate
+devil? Oh, you are mad!” he stormed. “Mad!” and he flung away from her,
+whirling his arms.
+
+“I love him,” she said simply.
+
+That answer smote him instantly still. Under the shock of it he just
+stood and stared at her again, his jaw fallen.
+
+“You love him!” he said at last below his breath. “You love him! You
+love a man who is a pirate, a renegade, the abductor of yourself and of
+Lionel, the man who murdered your brother!”
+
+“He did not.” She was fierce in her denial of it. “I have learnt the
+truth of that matter.”
+
+“From his lips, I suppose?” said Sir John, and he was unable to repress
+a sneer. “And you believed him?”
+
+“Had I not believed him I should not have married him.”
+
+“Married him?” Sudden horror came now to temper his bewilderment. Was
+there to be no end to these astounding revelations? Had they reached the
+climax yet, he wondered, or was there still more to come? “You married
+that infamous villain?” he asked, and his voice was expressionless.
+
+“I did--in Algiers on the night we landed there.” He stood gaping at her
+whilst a man might count to a dozen, and then abruptly he exploded. “It
+is enough!” he roared, shaking a clenched fist at the low ceiling of the
+cabin. “It is enough, as God's my Witness. If there were no other reason
+to hang him, that would be reason and to spare. You may look to me to
+make an end of this infamous marriage within the hour.”
+
+“Ah, if you will but listen to me!” she pleaded.
+
+“Listen to you?” He paused by the door to which he had stepped in his
+fury, intent upon giving the word that there and then should make an
+end, and summoning Oliver Tressilian before him, announce his fate to
+him and see it executed on the spot. “Listen to you?” he repeated,
+scorn and anger blending in his voice. “I have heard more than enough
+already!”
+
+It was the Killigrew way, Lord Henry Goade assures us, pausing here at
+long length for one of those digressions into the history of families
+whose members chance to impinge upon his chronicle. “They were,” he
+says, “ever an impetuous, short-reasoning folk, honest and upright
+enough so far as their judgment carried them, but hampered by a lack of
+penetration in that judgment.”
+
+Sir John, as much in his earlier commerce with the Tressilians as in
+this pregnant hour, certainly appears to justify his lordship of that
+criticism. There were a score of questions a man of perspicuity would
+not have asked, not one of which appears to have occurred to the knight
+of Arwenack. If anything arrested him upon the cabin's threshold,
+delayed him in the execution of the thing he had resolved upon, no doubt
+it was sheer curiosity as to what further extravagances Rosamund might
+yet have it in her mind to utter.
+
+“This man has suffered,” she told him, and was not put off by the hard
+laugh with which he mocked that statement. “God alone knows what he has
+suffered in body and in soul for sins which he never committed. Much
+of that suffering came to him through me. I know to-day that he did not
+murder Peter. I know that but for a disloyal act of mine he would be in
+a position incontestably to prove it without the aid of any man. I know
+that he was carried off, kidnapped before ever he could clear himself of
+the accusation, and that as a consequence no life remained him but the
+life of a renegade which he chose. Mine was the chief fault. And I must
+make amends. Spare him to me! If you love me....”
+
+But he had heard enough. His sallow face was flushed to a flaming
+purple.
+
+“Not another word!” he blazed at her. “It is because I do love you--love
+and pity you from my heart--that I will not listen. It seems I must save
+you not only from that knave, but from yourself. I were false to my duty
+by you, false to your dead father and murdered brother else. Anon, you
+shall thank me, Rosamund.” And again he turned to depart.
+
+“Thank you?” she cried in a ringing voice. “I shall curse you. All my
+life I shall loathe and hate you, holding you in horror for a murderer
+if you do this thing. You fool! Can you not see? You fool!”
+
+He recoiled. Being a man of position and importance, quick, fearless,
+and vindictive of temperament--and also, it would seem, extremely
+fortunate--it had never happened to him in all his life to be so
+uncompromisingly and frankly judged. She was by no means the first to
+account him a fool, but she was certainly the first to call him one to
+his face; and whilst to the general it might have proved her extreme
+sanity, to him it was no more than the culminating proof of her mental
+distemper.
+
+“Pish!” he said, between anger and pity, “you are mad, stark mad! Your
+mind's unhinged, your vision's all distorted. This fiend incarnate is
+become a poor victim of the evil of others; and I am become a murderer
+in your sight--a murderer and a fool. God's Life! Bah! Anon when you are
+rested, when you are restored, I pray that things may once again assume
+their proper aspect.”
+
+He turned, all aquiver still with indignation, and was barely in time to
+avoid being struck by the door which opened suddenly from without.
+
+Lord Henry Goade, dressed--as he tells us--entirely in black, and with
+his gold chain of office--an ominous sign could they have read it--upon
+his broad chest, stood in the doorway, silhouetted sharply against the
+flood of morning sunlight at his back. His benign face would, no doubt,
+be extremely grave to match the suit he had put on, but its expression
+will have lightened somewhat when his glance fell upon Rosamund standing
+there by the table's edge.
+
+“I was overjoyed,” he writes, “to find her so far recovered, and seeming
+so much herself again, and I expressed my satisfaction.”
+
+“She were better abed,” snapped Sir John, two hectic spots burning still
+in his sallow cheeks. “She is distempered, quite.”
+
+“Sir John is mistaken, my lord,” was her calm assurance, “I am very far
+from suffering as he conceives.”
+
+“I rejoice therein, my dear,” said his lordship, and I imagine his
+questing eyes speeding from one to the other of them, and marking the
+evidences of Sir John's temper, wondering what could have passed. “It
+happens,” he added sombrely, “that we may require your testimony in this
+grave matter that is toward.” He turned to Sir John. “I have bidden
+them bring up the prisoner for sentence. Is the ordeal too much for you,
+Rosamund?”
+
+“Indeed, no, my lord,” she replied readily. “I welcome it.” And threw
+back her head as one who braces herself for a trial of endurance.
+
+“No, no,” cut in Sir John, protesting fiercely. “Do not heed her, Harry.
+She....”
+
+“Considering,” she interrupted, “that the chief count against the
+prisoner must concern his... his dealings with myself, surely the matter
+is one upon which I should be heard.”
+
+“Surely, indeed,” Lord Henry agreed, a little bewildered, he confesses,
+“always provided you are certain it will not overtax your endurance and
+distress you overmuch. We could perhaps dispense with your testimony.”
+
+“In that, my lord, I assure you that you are mistaken,” she answered.
+“You cannot dispense with it.”
+
+“Be it so, then,” said Sir John grimly, and he strode back to the table,
+prepared to take his place there.
+
+Lord Henry's twinkling blue eyes were still considering Rosamund
+somewhat searchingly, his fingers tugging thoughtfully at his short
+tuft of ashen-coloured beard. Then he turned to the door. “Come in,
+gentlemen,” he said, “and bid them bring up the prisoner.”
+
+Steps clanked upon the deck, and three of Sir John's officers made their
+appearance to complete the court that was to sit in judgment upon the
+renegade corsair, a judgment whose issue was foregone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE ADVOCATE
+
+
+Chairs were set at the long brown table of massive oak, and the
+officers sat down, facing the open door and the blaze of sunshine on
+the poop-deck, their backs to the other door and the horn windows which
+opened upon the stern-gallery. The middle place was assumed by Lord
+Henry Goade by virtue of his office of Queen's Lieutenant, and the
+reason for his chain of office became now apparent. He was to preside
+over this summary court. On his right sat Sir John Killigrew, and
+beyond him an officer named Youldon. The other two, whose names have not
+survived, occupied his lordship's left.
+
+A chair had been set for Rosamund at the table's extreme right and
+across the head of it, so as to detach her from the judicial bench. She
+sat there now, her elbows on the polished board, her face resting in her
+half-clenched hands, her eyes scrutinizing the five gentlemen who formed
+this court.
+
+Steps rang on the companion, and a shadow fell athwart the sunlight
+beyond the open door. From the vessel's waist came a murmur of voices
+and a laugh. Then Sir Oliver appeared in the doorway guarded by two
+fighting seamen in corselet and morion with drawn swords.
+
+He paused an instant in the doorway, and his eyelids flickered as if he
+had received a shock when his glance alighted upon Rosamund. Then under
+the suasion of his guards he entered, and stood forward, his wrists
+still pinioned behind him, slightly in advance of the two soldiers.
+
+He nodded perfunctorily to the court, his face entirely calm.
+
+“A fine morning, sirs,” said he.
+
+The five considered him in silence, but Lord Henry's glance, as it
+rested upon the corsair's Muslim garb, was eloquent of the scorn which
+he tells us filled his heart.
+
+“You are no doubt aware, sir,” said Sir John after a long pause, “of the
+purpose for which you have been brought hither.”
+
+“Scarcely,” said the prisoner. “But I have no doubt whatever of the
+purpose for which I shall presently be taken hence. However,” he
+continued, cool and critical, “I can guess from your judicial attitudes
+the superfluous mockery that you intend. If it will afford you
+entertainment, faith, I do not grudge indulging you. I would observe
+only that it might be considerate in you to spare Mistress Rosamund the
+pain and weariness of the business that is before you.”
+
+“Mistress Rosamund herself desired to be present,” said Sir John,
+scowling.
+
+“Perhaps,” said Sir Oliver, “she does not realize....”
+
+“I have made it abundantly plain to her,” Sir John interrupted, almost
+vindictively.
+
+The prisoner looked at her as if in surprise, his brows knit. Then with
+a shrug he turned to his judges again.
+
+“In that case,” said he, “there's no more to be said. But before you
+proceed, there is another matter upon which I desire an understanding.
+
+“The terms of my surrender were that all others should be permitted to
+go free. You will remember, Sir John, that you pledged me your knightly
+word for that. Yet I find aboard here one who was lately with me upon my
+galeasse--a sometime English seaman, named Jasper Leigh, whom you hold a
+prisoner.”
+
+“He killed Master Lionel Tressilian,” said Sir John coldly
+
+“That may be, Sir John. But the blow was delivered before I made my
+terms with you, and you cannot violate these terms without hurt to your
+honour.”
+
+“D'ye talk of honour, sir?” said Lord Henry.
+
+“Of Sir John's honour, my lord,” said the prisoner, with mock humility.
+
+“You are here, sir, to take your trial,” Sir John reminded him.
+
+“So I had supposed. It is a privilege for which you agreed to pay
+a certain price, and now it seems you have been guilty of filching
+something back. It seems so, I say. For I cannot think but that the
+arrest was inadvertently effected, and that it will suffice that I draw
+your attention to the matter of Master Leigh's detention.”
+
+Sir John considered the table. It was beyond question that he was in
+honour bound to enlarge Master Leigh, whatever the fellow might have
+done; and, indeed, his arrest had been made without Sir John's knowledge
+until after the event.
+
+“What am I do with him?” he growled sullenly.
+
+“That is for yourself to decide, Sir John. But I can tell you what you
+may not do with him. You may not keep him a prisoner, or carry him to
+England or injure him in any way. Since his arrest was a pure error,
+as I gather, you must repair that error as best you can. I am satisfied
+that you will do so, and need say no more. Your servant, sirs,” he added
+to intimate that he was now entirely at their disposal, and he stood
+waiting.
+
+There was a slight pause, and then Lord Henry, his face inscrutable, his
+glance hostile and cold, addressed the prisoner.
+
+“We have had you brought hither to afford you an opportunity of urging
+any reasons why we should not hang you out of hand, as is our right.”
+
+Sir Oliver looked at him in almost amused surprise. “Faith!” he said at
+length. “It was never my habit to waste breath.”
+
+“I doubt you do not rightly apprehend me, sir,” returned his lordship,
+and his voice was soft and silken as became his judicial position.
+“Should you demand a formal trial, we will convey you to England that
+you may have it.”
+
+“But lest you should build unduly upon that,” cut in Sir John fiercely,
+“let me warn you that as the offences for which you are to suffer were
+chiefly committed within Lord Henry Goade's own jurisdiction, your trial
+will take place in Cornwall, where Lord Henry has the honour to be Her
+Majesty's Lieutenant and dispenser of justice.”
+
+“Her Majesty is to be congratulated,” said Sir Oliver elaborately.
+
+“It is for you to choose, sir,” Sir John ran on, “whether you will be
+hanged on sea or land.”
+
+“My only possible objection would be to being hanged in the air. But
+you're not likely to heed that,” was the flippant answer.
+
+Lord Henry leaned forward again. “Let me beg you, sir, in your own
+interests to be serious,” he admonished the prisoner.
+
+“I confess the occasion, my lord. For if you are to sit in judgment upon
+my piracy, I could not desire a more experienced judge of the matter on
+sea or land than Sir John Killigrew.”
+
+“I am glad to deserve your approval,” Sir John replied tartly. “Piracy,”
+ he added, “is but the least of the counts against you.”
+
+Sir Oliver's brows went up, and he stared at the row of solemn faces.
+
+“As God's my life, then, your other counts must needs be sound--or else,
+if there be any justice in your methods, you are like to be disappointed
+of your hopes of seeing me swing. Proceed, sirs, to the other counts. I
+vow you become more interesting than I could have hoped.”
+
+“Can you deny the piracy?” quoth Lord Henry.
+
+“Deny it? No. But I deny your jurisdiction in the matter, or that of any
+English court, since I have committed no piracy in English waters.”
+
+Lord Henry admits that the answer silenced and bewildered him, being
+utterly unexpected. Yet what the prisoner urged was a truth so obvious
+that it was difficult to apprehend how his lordship had come to overlook
+it. I rather fear that despite his judicial office, jurisprudence was
+not a strong point with his lordship. But Sir John, less perspicuous or
+less scrupulous in the matter, had his retort ready.
+
+“Did you not come to Arwenack and forcibly carry off thence....”
+
+“Nay, now, nay, now,” the corsair interrupted, good-humouredly. “Go back
+to school, Sir John, to learn that abduction is not piracy.”
+
+“Call it abduction, if you will,” Sir John admitted.
+
+“Not if I will, Sir John. We'll call it what it is, if you please.”
+
+“You are trifling, sir. But we shall mend that presently,” and Sir John
+banged the table with his fist, his face flushing slightly in anger.
+(Lord Henry very properly deplores this show of heat at such a time.)
+“You cannot pretend to be ignorant,” Sir John continued, “that abduction
+is punishable by death under the law of England.” He turned to his
+fellow-judges. “We will then, sirs, with your concurrence, say no more
+of the piracy.”
+
+“Faith,” said Lord Henry in his gentle tones, “in justice we cannot.”
+ And he shrugged the matter aside. “The prisoner is right in what he
+claims. We have no jurisdiction in that matter, seeing that he committed
+no piracy in English waters, nor--so far as our knowledge goes--against
+any vessel sailing under the English flag.”
+
+Rosamund stirred. Slowly she took her elbows from the table, and folded
+her arms resting them upon the edge of it. Thus leaning forward she
+listened now with an odd brightness in her eye, a slight flush in her
+cheeks reflecting some odd excitement called into life by Lord Henry's
+admission--an admission which sensibly whittled down the charges against
+the prisoner.
+
+Sir Oliver, watching her almost furtively, noted this and marvelled,
+even as he marvelled at her general composure. It was in vain that he
+sought to guess what might be her attitude of mind towards himself now
+that she was safe again among friends and protectors.
+
+But Sir John, intent only upon the business ahead, plunged angrily on.
+
+“Be it so,” he admitted impatiently. “We will deal with him upon the
+counts of abduction and murder. Have you anything to say?”
+
+“Nothing that would be like to weigh with you,” replied Sir Oliver. And
+then with a sudden change from his slightly derisive manner to one that
+was charged with passion: “Let us make an end of this comedy,” he cried,
+“of this pretence of judicial proceedings. Hang me, and have done,
+or set me to walk the plank. Play the pirate, for that is a trade you
+understand. But a' God's name don't disgrace the Queen's commission by
+playing the judge.”
+
+Sir John leapt to his feet, his face aflame. “Now, by Heaven, you
+insolent knave....”
+
+But Lord Henry checked him, placing a restraining hand upon his sleeve,
+and forcing him gently back into his seat. Himself he now addressed the
+prisoner.
+
+“Sir, your words are unworthy one who, whatever his crimes, has earned
+the repute of being a sturdy, valiant fighter. Your deeds are so
+notorious--particularly that which caused you to flee from England
+and take to roving, and that of your reappearance at Arwenack and
+the abduction of which you were then guilty--that your sentence in
+an English court is a matter foregone beyond all possible doubt.
+Nevertheless, it shall be yours, as I have said, for the asking.
+
+“Yet,” he added, and his voice was lowered and very earnest, “were I
+your friend, Sir Oliver, I would advise you that you rather choose to be
+dealt with in the summary fashion of the sea.”
+
+“Sirs,” replied Sir Oliver, “your right to hang me I have not disputed,
+nor do I. I have no more to say.”
+
+“But I have.”
+
+Thus Rosamund at last, startling the court with her crisp, sharp
+utterance. All turned to look at her as she rose, and stood tall and
+compelling at the table's end.
+
+“Rosamund!” cried Sir John, and rose in his turn. “Let me implore
+you....”
+
+She waved him peremptorily, almost contemptuously, into silence.
+
+“Since in this matter of the abduction with which Sir Oliver is
+charged,” she said, “I am the person said to have been abducted, it were
+perhaps well that before going further in this matter you should hear
+what I may hereafter have to say in an English court.”
+
+Sir John shrugged, and sat down again. She would have her way, he
+realized; just as he knew that its only result could be to waste their
+time and protract the agony of the doomed man.
+
+Lord Henry turned to her, his manner full of deference. “Since the
+prisoner has not denied the charge, and since wisely he refrains
+from demanding to be taken to trial, we need not harass you, Mistress
+Rosamund. Nor will you be called upon to say anything in an English
+court.”
+
+“There you are at fault, my lord,” she answered, her voice very level.
+“I shall be called upon to say something when I impeach you all for
+murder upon the high seas, as impeach you I shall if you persist in your
+intent.”
+
+“Rosamund!” cried Oliver in his sudden amazement--and it was a cry of
+joy and exultation.
+
+She looked at him, and smiled--a smile full of courage and friendliness
+and something more, a smile for which he considered that his impending
+hanging was but a little price to pay. Then she turned again to that
+court, into which her words had flung a sudden consternation.
+
+“Since he disdains to deny the accusation, I must deny it for him,” she
+informed them. “He did not abduct me, sirs, as is alleged. I love Oliver
+Tressilian. I am of full age and mistress of my actions, and I went
+willingly with him to Algiers where I became his wife.”
+
+Had she flung a bomb amongst them she could hardly have made a greater
+disorder of their wits. They sat back, and stared at her with blank
+faces, muttering incoherencies.
+
+“His... his wife?” babbled Lord Henry. “You became his....”
+
+And then Sir John cut in fiercely. “A lie! A lie to save that foul
+villain's neck!”
+
+Rosamund leaned towards him, and her smile was almost a sneer. “Your
+wits were ever sluggish, Sir John,” she said. “Else you would not need
+reminding that I could have no object in lying to save him if he had
+done me the wrong that is imputed to him.” Then she looked at the
+others. “I think, sirs, that in this matter my word will outweigh Sir
+John's or any man's in any court of justice.”
+
+“Faith, that's true enough!” ejaculated the bewildered Lord Henry. “A
+moment, Killigrew!” And again he stilled the impetuous Sir John. He
+looked at Sir Oliver, who in truth was very far from being the least
+bewildered in that company. “What do you say to that, sir?” he asked.
+
+“To that?” echoed the almost speechless corsair. “What is there left to
+say?” he evaded.
+
+“'Tis all false,” cried Sir John again. “We were witnesses of the
+event--you and I, Harry--and we saw....”
+
+“You saw,” Rosamund interrupted. “But you did not know what had been
+concerted.”
+
+For a moment that silenced them again. They were as men who stand upon
+crumbling ground, whose every effort to win to a safer footing but
+occasioned a fresh slide of soil. Then Sir John sneered, and made his
+riposte.
+
+“No doubt she will be prepared to swear that her betrothed, Master
+Lionel Tressilian, accompanied her willingly upon that elopement.”
+
+“No,” she answered. “As for Lionel Tressilian he was carried off that
+he might expiate his sins--sins which he had fathered upon his brother
+there, sins which are the subject of your other count against him.”
+
+“Now what can you mean by that?” asked his lordship.
+
+“That the story that Sir Oliver killed my brother is a calumny; that the
+murderer was Lionel Tressilian, who, to avoid detection and to complete
+his work, caused Sir Oliver to be kidnapped that he might be sold into
+slavery.”
+
+“This is too much!” roared Sir John. “She is trifling with us, she
+makes white black and black white. She has been bewitched by that crafty
+rogue, by Moorish arts that....”
+
+“Wait!” said Lord Henry, raising his hand. “Give me leave.” He
+confronted her very seriously. “This... this is a grave statement,
+mistress. Have you any proof--anything that you conceive to be a
+proof--of what you are saying?”
+
+But Sir John was not to be repressed. “'Tis but the lying tale this
+villain told her. He has bewitched her, I say. 'Tis plain as the
+sunlight yonder.”
+
+Sir Oliver laughed outright at that. His mood was growing exultant,
+buoyant, and joyous, and this was the first expression of it. “Bewitched
+her? You're determined never to lack for a charge. First 'twas piracy,
+then abduction and murder, and now 'tis witchcraft!”
+
+“Oh, a moment, pray!” cried Lord Henry, and he confesses to some heat
+at this point. “Do you seriously tell us, Mistress Rosamund, that it was
+Lionel Tressilian who murdered Peter Godolphin?”
+
+“Seriously?” she echoed, and her lips were twisted in a little smile of
+scorn. “I not merely tell it you, I swear it here in the sight of God.
+It was Lionel who murdered my brother and it was Lionel who put it about
+that the deed was Sir Oliver's. It was said that Sir Oliver had run away
+from the consequences of something discovered against him, and I to
+my shame believed the public voice. But I have since discovered the
+truth....”
+
+“The truth, do you say, mistress?” cried the impetuous Sir John in a
+voice of passionate contempt. “The truth....”
+
+Again his Lordship was forced to intervene.
+
+“Have patience, man,” he admonished the knight. “The truth will prevail
+in the end, never fear, Killigrew.”
+
+“Meanwhile we are wasting time,” grumbled Sir John, and on that fell
+moodily silent.
+
+“Are we further to understand you to say, mistress,” Lord Henry resumed,
+“that the prisoner's disappearance from Penarrow was due not to flight,
+as was supposed, but to his having been trepanned by order of his
+brother?”
+
+“That is the truth as I stand here in the sight of Heaven,” she replied
+in a voice that rang with sincerity and carried conviction to more than
+one of the officers seated at that table. “By that act the murderer
+sought not only to save himself from exposure, but to complete his work
+by succeeding to the Tressilian estates. Sir Oliver was to have been
+sold into slavery to the Moors of Barbary. Instead the vessel upon which
+he sailed was captured by Spaniards, and he was sent to the galleys by
+the Inquisition. When his galley was captured by Muslim corsairs he took
+the only way of escape that offered. He became a corsair and a leader of
+corsairs, and then....”
+
+“What else he did we know,” Lord Henry interrupted. “And I assure you it
+would all weigh very lightly with us or with any court if what else you
+say is true.”
+
+“It is true. I swear it, my lord,” she repeated.
+
+“Ay,” he answered, nodding gravely. “But can you prove it?”
+
+“What better proof can I offer you than that I love him, and have
+married him?”
+
+“Bah!” said Sir John.
+
+“That, mistress,” said Lord Henry, his manner extremely gentle, “is
+proof that yourself you believe this amazing story. But it is not proof
+that the story itself is true. You had it, I suppose,” he continued
+smoothly, “from Oliver Tressilian himself?”
+
+“That is so; but in Lionel's own presence, and Lionel himself confirmed
+it--admitting its truth.”
+
+“You dare say that?” cried Sir John, and stared at her in incredulous
+anger. “My God! You dare say that?”
+
+“I dare and do,” she answered him, giving him back look for look.
+
+Lord Henry sat back in his chair, and tugged gently at his ashen tuft of
+beard, his florid face overcast and thoughtful. There was something here
+he did not understand at all. “Mistress Rosamund,” he said quietly, “let
+me exhort you to consider the gravity of your words. You are virtually
+accusing one who is no longer able to defend himself; if your story
+is established, infamy will rest for ever upon the memory of Lionel
+Tressilian. Let me ask you again, and let me entreat you to answer
+scrupulously. Did Lionel Tressilian admit the truth of this thing with
+which you say that the prisoner charged him?”
+
+“Once more I solemnly swear that what I have spoken is true; that Lionel
+Tressilian did in my presence, when charged by Sir Oliver with the
+murder of my brother and the kidnapping of himself, admit those charges.
+Can I make it any plainer, sirs?”
+
+Lord Henry spread his hands. “After that, Killigrew, I do not think we
+can go further in this matter. Sir Oliver must go with us to England,
+and there take his trial.”
+
+But there was one present--that officer named Youldon--whose wits, it
+seems, were of keener temper.
+
+“By your leave, my lord,” he now interposed, and he turned to question
+the witness. “What was the occasion on which Sir Oliver forced this
+admission from his brother?”
+
+Truthfully she answered. “At his house in Algiers on the night he....”
+ She checked suddenly, perceiving then the trap that had been set for
+her. And the others perceived it also. Sir John leapt into the breach
+which Youldon had so shrewdly made in her defences.
+
+“Continue, pray,” he bade her. “On the night he....”
+
+“On the night we arrived there,” she answered desperately, the colour
+now receding slowly from her face.
+
+“And that, of course,” said Sir John slowly, mockingly almost, “was
+the first occasion on which you heard this explanation of Sir Oliver's
+conduct?”
+
+“It was,” she faltered--perforce.
+
+“So that,” insisted Sir John, determined to leave her no loophole
+whatsoever, “so that until that night you had naturally continued to
+believe Sir Oliver to be the murderer of your brother?”
+
+She hung her head in silence, realizing that the truth could not prevail
+here since she had hampered it with a falsehood, which was now being
+dragged into the light.
+
+“Answer me!” Sir John commanded.
+
+“There is no need to answer,” said Lord Henry slowly, in a voice of
+pain, his eyes lowered to the table. “There can, of course, be but
+one answer. Mistress Rosamund has told us that he did not abduct her
+forcibly; that she went with him of her own free will and married him;
+and she has urged that circumstance as a proof of her conviction of his
+innocence. Yet now it becomes plain that at the time she left England
+with him she still believed him to be her brother's slayer. Yet she asks
+us to believe that he did not abduct her.” He spread his hands again and
+pursed his lips in a sort of grieved contempt.
+
+“Let us make an end, a' God's name!” said Sir John, rising.
+
+“Ah, wait!” she cried. “I swear that all that I have told you is
+true--all but the matter of the abduction. I admit that, but I condoned
+it in view of what I have since learnt.”
+
+“She admits it!” mocked Sir John.
+
+But she went on without heeding him. “Knowing what he has suffered
+through the evil of others, I gladly own him my husband, hoping to make
+some amends to him for the part I had in his wrongs. You must believe
+me, sirs. But if you will not, I ask you is his action of yesterday to
+count for naught? Are you not to remember that but for him you would
+have had no knowledge of my whereabouts?”
+
+They stared at her in fresh surprise.
+
+“To what do you refer now, mistress? What action of his is responsible
+for this?”
+
+“Do you need to ask? Are you so set on murdering him that you affect
+ignorance? Surely you know that it was he dispatched Lionel to inform
+you of my whereabouts?”
+
+Lord Henry tells us that at this he smote the table with his open palm,
+displaying an anger he could no longer curb. “This is too much!” he
+cried. “Hitherto I have believed you sincere but misguided and mistaken.
+But so deliberate a falsehood transcends all bounds. What has come to
+you, girl? Why, Lionel himself told us the circumstances of his escape
+from the galeasse. Himself he told us how that villain had him flogged
+and then flung him into the sea for dead.”
+
+“Ah!” said Sir Oliver between his teeth. “I recognize Lionel there! He
+would be false to the end, of course. I should have thought of that.”
+
+Rosamund at bay, in a burst of regal anger leaned forward to face Lord
+Henry and the others. “He lied, the base, treacherous dog!” she cried.
+
+“Madam,” Sir John rebuked her, “you are speaking of one who is all but
+dead.”
+
+“And more than damned,” added Sir Oliver. “Sirs,” he cried, “you prove
+naught but your own stupidity when you accuse this gentle lady of
+falsehood.”
+
+“We have heard enough, sir,” Lord Henry interrupted.
+
+“Have you so, by God!” he roared, stung suddenly to anger. “You shall
+hear yet a little more. The truth will prevail, you have said yourself;
+and prevail the truth shall since this sweet lady so desires it.”
+
+He was flushed, and his light eyes played over them like points of
+steel, and like points of steel they carried a certain measure of
+compulsion. He had stood before them half-mocking and indifferent,
+resigned to hang and desiring the thing might be over and ended as
+speedily as possible. But all that was before he suspected that life
+could still have anything to offer him, whilst he conceived that
+Rosamund was definitely lost to him. True, he had the memory of a
+certain tenderness she had shown him yesternight aboard the galley, but
+he had deemed that tenderness to be no more than such as the situation
+itself begot. Almost he had deemed the same to be here the case until he
+had witnessed her fierceness and despair in fighting for his life, until
+he had heard and gauged the sincerity of her avowal that she loved him
+and desired to make some amends to him for all that he had suffered in
+the past. That had spurred him, and had a further spur been needed, it
+was afforded him when they branded her words with falsehood, mocked her
+to her face with what they supposed to be her lies. Anger had taken him
+at that to stiffen his resolve to make a stand against them and use the
+one weapon that remained him--that a merciful chance, a just God had
+placed within his power almost despite himself.
+
+“I little knew, sirs,” he said, “that Sir John was guided by the hand
+of destiny itself when last night, in violation of the terms of my
+surrender, he took a prisoner from my galeasse. That man is, as I have
+said, a sometime English seaman, named Jasper Leigh. He fell into my
+hands some months ago, and took the same road to escape from thraldom
+that I took myself under the like circumstances. I was merciful in that
+I permitted him to do so, for he is the very skipper who was suborned by
+Lionel to kidnap me and carry me into Barbary. With me he fell into the
+hands of the Spaniards. Have him brought hither, and question him.”
+
+In silence they all looked at him, but on more than one face he saw the
+reflection of amazement at his impudence, as they conceived it.
+
+It was Lord Henry who spoke at last. “Surely, sir, this is most oddly,
+most suspiciously apt,” he said, and there could be no doubt that he was
+faintly sneering. “The very man to be here aboard, and taken prisoner
+thus, almost by chance....”
+
+“Not quite by chance, though very nearly. He conceives that he has
+a grudge against Lionel, for it was through Lionel that misfortune
+overtook him. Last night when Lionel so rashly leapt aboard the galley,
+Jasper Leigh saw his opportunity to settle an old score and took it. It
+was as a consequence of that that he was arrested.”
+
+“Even so, the chance is still miraculous.”
+
+“Miracles, my lord, must happen sometimes if the truth is to prevail,”
+ Sir Oliver replied with a tinge of his earlier mockery. “Fetch him
+hither, and question him. He knows naught of what has passed here. It
+were a madness to suppose him primed for a situation which none could
+have foreseen. Fetch him hither, then.”
+
+Steps sounded outside but went unheeded at the moment.
+
+“Surely,” said Sir John, “we have been trifled with by liars long
+enough!”
+
+The door was flung open, and the lean black figure of the surgeon made
+its appearance.
+
+“Sir John!” he called urgently, breaking without ceremony into the
+proceedings, and never heeding Lord Henry's scowl. “Master Tressilian
+has recovered consciousness. He is asking for you and for his brother.
+Quick, sirs! He is sinking fast.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. THE JUDGMENT
+
+
+To that cabin below the whole company repaired in all speed in the
+surgeon's wake, Sir Oliver coming last between his guards. They
+assembled about the couch where Lionel lay, leaden-hued of face, his
+breathing laboured, his eyes dull and glazing.
+
+Sir John ran to him, went down upon one knee to put loving arms about
+that chilling clay, and very gently raised him in them, and held him so
+resting against his breast.
+
+“Lionel!” he cried in stricken accents. And then as if thoughts of
+vengeance were to soothe and comfort his sinking friend's last moments,
+he added: “We have the villain fast.”
+
+Very slowly and with obvious effort Lionel turned his head to the right,
+and his dull eyes went beyond Sir John and made quest in the ranks of
+those that stood about him.
+
+“Oliver?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Where is Oliver?”
+
+“There is not the need to distress you....” Sir John was beginning, when
+Lionel interrupted him.
+
+“Wait!” he commanded in a louder tone. “Is Oliver safe?”
+
+“I am here,” said Sir Oliver's deep voice, and those who stood between
+him and his brother drew aside that they might cease from screening him.
+
+Lionel looked at him for a long moment in silence, sitting up a little.
+Then he sank back again slowly against Sir John's breast.
+
+“God has been merciful to me a sinner,” he said, “since He accords me the
+means to make amends, tardily though it be.”
+
+Then he struggled up again, and held out his arms to Sir Oliver, and his
+voice came in a great pleading cry. “Noll! My brother! Forgive!”
+
+Oliver advanced, none hindering until, with his hands still pinioned
+behind him he stood towering there above his brother, so tall that his
+turban brushed the low ceiling of the cabin. His countenance was stern
+and grim.
+
+“What is it that you ask me to forgive?” he asked. Lionel struggled to
+answer, and sank back again into Sir John's arms, fighting for breath;
+there was a trace of blood-stained foam about his lips.
+
+“Speak! Oh, speak, in God's name!” Rosamund exhorted him from the other
+side, and her voice was wrung with agony.
+
+He looked at her, and smiled faintly. “Never fear,” he whispered, “I
+shall speak. God has spared me to that end. Take your arms from me,
+Killigrew. I am the... the vilest of men. It... it was I who killed
+Peter Godolphin.”
+
+“My God!” groaned Sir John, whilst Lord Henry drew a sharp breath of
+dismay and realization.
+
+“Ah, but that is not my sin,” Lionel continued. “There was no sin in
+that. We fought, and in self-defence I slew him--fighting fair. My sin
+came afterwards. When suspicion fell on Oliver, I nourished it...Oliver
+knew the deed was mine, and kept silent that he might screen me. I
+feared the truth might become known for all that... and... and I was
+jealous of him, and... and I had him kidnapped to be sold....”
+
+His fading voice trailed away into silence. A cough shook him, and the
+faint crimson foam on his lips was increased. But he rallied again, and
+lay there panting, his fingers plucking at the coverlet.
+
+“Tell them,” said Rosamund, who in her desperate fight for Sir Oliver's
+life kept her mind cool and steady and directed towards essentials,
+“tell them the name of the man you hired to kidnap him.”
+
+“Jasper Leigh, the skipper of the Swallow,” he answered, whereupon she
+flashed upon Lord Henry a look that contained a gleam of triumph for all
+that her face was ashen and her lips trembled.
+
+Then she turned again to the dying man, relentlessly almost in her
+determination to extract all vital truth from him ere he fell silent.
+
+“Tell them,” she bade him, “under what circumstances Sir Oliver sent you
+last night to the Silver Heron.”
+
+“Nay, there is no need to harass him,” Lord Henry interposed. “He has
+said enough already. May God forgive us our blindness, Killigrew!”
+
+Sir John bowed his head in silence over Lionel.
+
+“Is it you, Sir John?” whispered the dying man. “What? Still there? Ha!”
+ he seemed to laugh faintly, then checked. “I am going....” he muttered,
+and again his voice grew stronger, obeying the last flicker of his
+shrinking will. “Noll! I am going! I...I have made reparation... all
+that I could. Give me... give me thy hand!” Gropingly he put forth his
+right.
+
+“I should have given it you ere this but that my wrists are bound,”
+ cried Oliver in a sudden frenzy. And then exerting that colossal
+strength of his, he suddenly snapped the cords that pinioned him as if
+they had been thread. He caught his brother's extended hand, and dropped
+upon his knees beside him. “Lionel...Boy!” he cried. It was as if
+all that had befallen in the last five years had been wiped out of
+existence. His fierce relentless hatred of his half-brother, his burning
+sense of wrong, his parching thirst for vengeance, became on the instant
+all dead, buried, and forgotten. More, it was as if they had never been.
+Lionel in that moment was again the weak, comely, beloved brother whom
+he had cherished and screened and guarded, and for whom when the hour
+arrived he had sacrificed his good name, and the woman he loved, and
+placed his life itself in jeopardy.
+
+“Lionel, boy!” was all that for a moment he could say. Then: “Poor lad!
+Poor lad!” he added. “Temptation was too strong for thee.” And reaching
+forth he took the other white hand that lay beyond the couch, and so
+held both tight-clasped within his own.
+
+From one of the ports a ray of sunshine was creeping upwards towards the
+dying man's face. But the radiance that now overspread it was from an
+inward source. Feebly he returned the clasp of his brother's hands.
+
+“Oliver, Oliver!” he whispered. “There is none like thee! I ever knew
+thee as noble as I was base. Have I said enough to make you safe? Say
+that he will be safe now,” he appealed to the others, “that no....”
+
+“He will be safe,” said Lord Henry stoutly. “My word on't.”
+
+“It is well. The past is past. The future is in your hands, Oliver.
+God's blessing on't.” He seemed to collapse, to rally yet again. He
+smiled pensively, his mind already wandering. “That was a long swim last
+night--the longest I ever swam. From Penarrow to Trefusis--a fine long
+swim. But you were with me, Noll. Had my strength given out...I could
+have depended on you. I am still chill from it, for it was cold...
+cold... ugh!” He shuddered, and lay still.
+
+Gently Sir John lowered him to his couch. Beyond it Rosamund fell
+upon her knees and covered her face, whilst by Sir John's side Oliver
+continued to kneel, clasping in his own his brother's chilling hands.
+
+There ensued a long spell of silence. Then with a heavy sigh Sir Oliver
+folded Lionel's hands across his breast, and slowly, heavily rose to his
+feet.
+
+The others seemed to take this for a signal. It was as if they had
+but waited mute and still out of deference to Oliver. Lord Henry moved
+softly round to Rosamund and touched her lightly upon the shoulder. She
+rose and went out in the wake of the others, Lord Henry following her,
+and none remaining but the surgeon.
+
+Outside in the sunshine they checked. Sir John stood with bent head and
+hunched shoulders, his eyes upon the white deck. Timidly almost--a thing
+never seen before in this bold man--he looked at Sir Oliver.
+
+“He was my friend,” he said sorrowfully, and as if to excuse and explain
+himself, “and... and I was misled through love of him.”
+
+“He was my brother,” replied Sir Oliver solemnly. “God rest him!”
+
+Sir John, resolved, drew himself up into an attitude preparatory to
+receiving with dignity a rebuff should it be administered him.
+
+“Can you find it in your generosity, sir, to forgive me?” he asked, and
+his air was almost one of challenge.
+
+Silently Sir Oliver held out his hand. Sir John fell upon it almost in
+eagerness.
+
+“We are like to be neighbours again,” he said, “and I give you my word I
+shall strive to be a more neighbourly one than in the past.”
+
+“Then, sirs,” said Sir Oliver, looking from Sir John to Lord Henry, “I
+am to understand that I am no longer a prisoner.”
+
+“You need not hesitate to return with us to England, Sir Oliver,”
+ replied his lordship. “The Queen shall hear your story, and we have
+Jasper Leigh to confirm it if need be, and I will go warranty for your
+complete reinstatement. Count me your friend, Sir Oliver, I beg.” And
+he, too, held out his hand. Then turning to the others: “Come, sirs,” he
+said, “we have duties elsewhere, I think.”
+
+They tramped away, leaving Oliver and Rosamund alone. The twain looked
+long each at the other. There was so much to say, so much to ask,
+so much to explain, that neither knew with what words to begin. Then
+Rosamund suddenly came up to him, holding out her hands. “Oh, my dear!”
+ she said, and that, after all, summed up a deal.
+
+One or two over-inquisitive seamen, lounging on the forecastle and
+peeping through the shrouds, were disgusted to see the lady of Godolphin
+Court in the arms of a beturbaned bare-legged follower of Mahound.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea-Hawk, by Raphael Sabatini
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thesecretofsarek b/files/books/unrelated/thesecretofsarek
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..136364d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thesecretofsarek
@@ -0,0 +1,13078 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Secret of Sarek, by Maurice Leblanc,
+Translated by Alexander Teixera de Mattos
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Secret of Sarek
+
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2011  [eBook #34939]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF SAREK***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 34939-h.htm or 34939-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34939/34939-h/34939-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34939/34939-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET OF SAREK
+
+by
+
+MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+
+[Illustration: "We're Done For! They Are Aiming At Us!"]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FRONTISPIECE
+
+A. L. Burt Company
+Publishers  New York
+
+Published by arrangement with The Macaulay Company
+
+Copyright, 1920
+By The Macaulay Company
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+The war has led to so many upheavals that not many people now remember
+the Hergemont scandal of seventeen years ago. Let us recall the details
+in a few lines.
+
+One day in July 1902, M. Antoine d'Hergemont, the author of a series of
+well-known studies on the megalithic monuments of Brittany, was walking
+in the Bois with his daughter Véronique, when he was assaulted by four
+men, receiving a blow in the face with a walking-stick which felled him
+to the ground.
+
+After a short struggle and in spite of his desperate efforts,
+Véronique, the beautiful Véronique, as she was called by her friends,
+was dragged away and bundled into a motor-car which the spectators of
+this very brief scene saw making off in the direction of Saint-Cloud.
+
+It was a plain case of kidnapping. The truth became known next morning.
+Count Alexis Vorski, a young Polish nobleman of dubious reputation but
+of some social prominence and, by his own account, of royal blood, was
+in love with Véronique d'Hergemont and Véronique with him. Repelled and
+more than once insulted by the father, he had planned the incident
+entirely without Véronique's knowledge or complicity.
+
+Antoine d'Hergemont, who, as certain published letters showed, was a
+man of violent and morose disposition and who, thanks to his capricious
+temper, his ferocious egoism and his sordid avarice, had made his
+daughter exceedingly unhappy, swore openly that he would take the most
+ruthless revenge.
+
+He gave his consent to the wedding, which took place two months later,
+at Nice. But in the following year a series of sensational events
+transpired. Keeping his word and cherishing his hatred, M. d'Hergemont
+in his turn kidnapped the child born of the Vorski marriage and set sail
+in a small yacht which he had bought not long before.
+
+The sea was rough. The yacht foundered within sight of the Italian
+coast. The four sailors who formed the crew were picked up by a
+fishing-boat. According to their evidence M. d'Hergemont and the child
+had disappeared amid the waves.
+
+When Véronique received the proof of their death, she entered a
+Carmelite convent.
+
+These are the facts which, fourteen years later, were to lead to the
+most frightful and extraordinary adventure, a perfectly authentic
+adventure, though certain details, at first sight, assume a more or less
+fabulous aspect. But the war has complicated existence to such an extent
+that events which happen outside it, such as those related in the
+following narrative, borrow something abnormal, illogical and at times
+miraculous from the greater tragedy. It needs all the dazzling light of
+truth to restore to those events the character of a reality which, when
+all is said, is simple enough.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+   I       THE DESERTED CABIN                            11
+   II      ON THE EDGE OF THE ATLANTIC                   25
+   III     VORSKI'S SON                                  43
+   IV      THE POOR PEOPLE OF SAREK                      67
+   V       "FOUR WOMEN CRUCIFIED"                        87
+   VI      ALL'S WELL                                   113
+   VII     FRANÇOIS AND STÉPHANE                        133
+   VIII    ANGUISH                                      149
+   IX      THE DEATH-CHAMBER                            167
+   X       THE ESCAPE                                   181
+   XI      THE SCOURGE OF GOD                           200
+   XII     THE ASCENT OF GOLGOTHA                       221
+   XIII    "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!"              243
+   XIV     THE ANCIENT DRUID                            262
+   XV      THE HALL OF THE UNDERGROUND SACRIFICES       283
+   XVI     THE HALL OF THE KINGS OF BOHEMIA             309
+   XVII    "CRUEL PRINCE, OBEYING DESTINY"              328
+   XVIII   THE GOD-STONE                                349
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET OF SAREK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DESERTED CABIN
+
+
+Into the picturesque village of Le Faouet, situated in the very heart of
+Brittany, there drove one morning in the month of May a lady whose
+spreading grey cloak and the thick veil that covered her face failed to
+hide her remarkable beauty and perfect grace of figure.
+
+The lady took a hurried lunch at the principal inn. Then, at about
+half-past eleven, she begged the proprietor to look after her bag for
+her, asked for a few particulars about the neighbourhood and walked
+through the village into the open country.
+
+The road almost immediately branched into two, of which one led to
+Quimper and the other to Quimperlé. Selecting the latter, she went down
+into the hollow of a valley, climbed up again and saw on her right, at
+the corner of another road, a sign-post bearing the inscription,
+"Locriff, 3 kilometers."
+
+"This is the place," she said to herself.
+
+Nevertheless, after casting a glance around her, she was surprised not
+to find what she was looking for and wondered whether she had
+misunderstood her instructions.
+
+There was no one near her nor any one within sight, as far as the eye
+could reach over the Breton country-side, with its tree-lined meadows
+and undulating hills. Not far from the village, rising amid the budding
+greenery of spring, a small country house lifted its grey front, with
+the shutters to all the windows closed. At twelve o'clock, the
+angelus-bells pealed through the air and were followed by complete peace
+and silence.
+
+Véronique sat down on the short grass of a bank, took a letter from her
+pocket and smoothed out the many sheets, one by one.
+
+The first page was headed:
+
+     "DUTREILLIS' AGENCY.
+
+     _"Consulting Rooms._
+     _"Private Enquiries._
+     _"Absolute Discretion Guaranteed."_
+
+Next came an address:
+
+     _"Madame Véronique,_
+         _"Dressmaker,_
+             _"BESANÇON."_
+
+And the letter ran:
+
+      "MADAM,
+
+      "You will hardly believe the pleasure which it gave me
+      to fulfill the two commissions which you were good
+      enough to entrust to me in your last favour. I have
+      never forgotten the conditions under which I was able,
+      fourteen years ago, to give you my practical
+      assistance at a time when your life was saddened by
+      painful events. It was I who succeeded in obtaining
+      all the facts relating to the death of your honoured
+      father, M. Antoine d'Hergemont, and of your beloved
+      son François. This was my first triumph in a career
+      which was to afford so many other brilliant
+      victories.
+
+      "It was I also, you will remember, who, at your
+      request and seeing how essential it was to save you
+      from your husband's hatred and, if I may add, his
+      love, took the necessary steps to secure your
+      admission to the Carmelite convent. Lastly, it was I
+      who, when your retreat to the convent had shown you
+      that a life of religion did not agree with your
+      temperament, arranged for you a modest occupation as a
+      dressmaker at Besançon, far from the towns where the
+      years of your childhood and the months of your
+      marriage had been spent. You had the inclination and
+      the need to work in order to live and to escape your
+      thoughts. You were bound to succeed; and you
+      succeeded.
+
+      "And now let me come to the fact, to the two facts in
+      hand.
+
+      "To begin with your first question: what has become,
+      amid the whirlwind of war, of your husband, Alexis
+      Vorski, a Pole by birth, according to his papers, and
+      the son of a king, according to his own statement? I
+      will be brief. After being suspected at the
+      commencement of the war and imprisoned in an
+      internment-camp near Carpentras, Vorski managed to
+      escape, went to Switzerland, returned to France and
+      was re-arrested, accused of spying and convicted of
+      being a German. At the moment when it seemed
+      inevitable that he would be sentenced to death, he
+      escaped for the second time, disappeared in the Forest
+      of Fontainebleau and in the end was stabbed by some
+      person unknown.
+
+      "I am telling you the story quite crudely, Madam, well
+      knowing your contempt for this person, who had
+      deceived you abominably, and knowing also that you
+      have learnt most of these facts from the newspapers,
+      though you have not been able to verify their absolute
+      genuineness.
+
+      "Well, the proofs exist. I have seen them. There is no
+      doubt left. Alexis Vorski lies buried at
+      Fontainebleau.
+
+      "Permit me, in passing, Madam, to remark upon the
+      strangeness of this death. You will remember the
+      curious prophecy about Vorski which you mentioned to
+      me. Vorski, whose undoubted intelligence and
+      exceptional energy were spoilt by an insincere and
+      superstitious mind, readily preyed upon by
+      hallucinations and terrors, had been greatly impressed
+      by the prediction which overhung his life and which he
+      had heard from the lips of several people who
+      specialize in the occult sciences:
+
+      "'Vorski, son of a king, you will die by the hand of a
+      friend and your wife will be crucified!'
+
+      "I smile, Madam, as I write the last word. Crucified!
+      Crucifixion is a torture which is pretty well out of
+      fashion; and I am easy as regards yourself. But what
+      do you think of the dagger-stroke which Vorski
+      received in accordance with the mysterious orders of
+      destiny?
+
+      "But enough of reflections. I now come . . ."
+
+Véronique dropped the letter for a moment into her lap. M. Dutreillis'
+pretentious phrasing and familiar pleasantries wounded her fastidious
+reserve. Also she was obsessed by the tragic image of Alexis Vorski. A
+shiver of anguish passed through her at the hideous memory of that man.
+She mastered herself, however, and read on:
+
+      "I now come to my other commission, Madam, in your
+      eyes the more important of the two, because all the
+      rest belongs to the past.
+
+      "Let us state the facts precisely. Three weeks ago, on
+      one of those rare occasions when you consented to
+      break through the praiseworthy monotony of your
+      existence, on a Thursday evening when you took your
+      assistants to a cinema-theatre, you were struck by a
+      really incomprehensible detail. The principal film,
+      entitled 'A Breton Legend,' represented a scene which
+      occurred, in the course of a pilgrimage, outside a
+      little deserted road-side hut which had nothing to do
+      with the action. The hut was obviously there by
+      accident. But something really extraordinary attracted
+      your attention. On the tarred boards of the old door
+      were three letters, drawn by hand: 'V. d'H.,' and
+      those three letters were precisely your signature
+      before you were married, the initials with which you
+      used to sign your intimate letters and which you have
+      not used once during the last fourteen years!
+      Véronique d'Hergemont! There was no mistake possible.
+      Two capitals separated by the small 'd' and the
+      apostrophe. And, what is more, the bar of the letter
+      'H.', carried back under the three letters, served as
+      a flourish, exactly as it used to do with you!
+
+      "It was the stupefaction due to this surprising
+      coincidence that decided you, Madam, to invoke my
+      assistance. It was yours without the asking. And you
+      knew, without any telling, that it would be effective.
+
+      "As you anticipated, Madam, I have succeeded. And here
+      again I will be brief.
+
+      "What you must do, Madam, is to take the night express
+      from Paris which brings you the next morning to
+      Quimperlé. From there, drive to Le Faouet. If you have
+      time, before or after your luncheon, pay a visit to
+      the very interesting Chapel of St. Barbe, which stands
+      perched on the most fantastic site and which gave rise
+      to the 'Breton Legend' film. Then go along the Quimper
+      road on foot. At the end of the first ascent, a little
+      way short of the parish-road which leads to Locriff,
+      you will find, in a semicircle surrounded by trees,
+      the deserted hut with the inscription. It has nothing
+      remarkable about it. The inside is empty. It has not
+      even a floor. A rotten plank serves as a bench. The
+      roof consists of a worm-eaten framework, which admits
+      the rain. Once more, there is no doubt that it was
+      sheer accident that placed it within the range of the
+      cinematograph. I will end by adding that the 'Breton
+      Legend' film was taken in September last, which means
+      that the inscription is at least eight months old.
+
+      "That is all, Madam. My two commissions are completed.
+      I am too modest to describe to you the efforts and the
+      ingenious means which I employed in order to
+      accomplish them in so short a time, but for which you
+      will certainly think the sum of five hundred francs,
+      which is all that I propose to charge you for the
+      work done, almost ridiculous.
+
+        "I beg to remain,
+                "Madam, &c."
+
+Véronique folded up the letter and sat for a few minutes turning over
+the impressions which it aroused in her, painful impressions, like all
+those revived by the horrible days of her marriage. One in particular
+had survived and was still as powerful as at the time when she tried to
+escape it by taking refuge in the gloom of a convent. It was the
+impression, in fact the certainty, that all her misfortunes, the death
+of her father and the death of her son, were due to the fault which she
+had committed in loving Vorski. True, she had fought against the man's
+love and had not decided to marry him until she was obliged to, in
+despair and to save M. d'Hergemont from Vorski's vengeance.
+Nevertheless, she had loved that man. Nevertheless, at first, she had
+turned pale under his glance: and this, which now seemed to her an
+unpardonable example of weakness, had left her with a remorse which time
+had failed to weaken.
+
+"There," she said, "enough of dreaming. I have not come here to shed
+tears."
+
+The craving for information which had brought her from her retreat at
+Besançon restored her vigour; and she rose resolved to act.
+
+"A little way short of the parish-road which leads to Locriff . . . a
+semicircle surrounded by trees," said Dutreillis' letter. She had
+therefore passed the place. She quickly retraced her steps and at once
+perceived, on the right, the clump of trees which had hidden the cabin
+from her eyes. She went nearer and saw it.
+
+It was a sort of shepherd's or road-labourer's hut, which was crumbling
+and falling to pieces under the action of the weather. Véronique went up
+to it and perceived that the inscription, worn by the rain and sun, was
+much less clear than on the film. But the three letters were visible, as
+was the flourish; and she even distinguished, underneath, something
+which M. Dutreillis had not observed, a drawing of an arrow and a
+number, the number 9.
+
+Her emotion increased. Though no attempt had been made to imitate the
+actual form of her signature, it certainly was her signature as a girl.
+And who could have affixed it there, on a deserted cabin, in this
+Brittany where she had never been before?
+
+Véronique no longer had a friend in the world. Thanks to a succession of
+circumstances, the whole of her past girlhood had, so to speak,
+disappeared with the death of those whom she had known and loved. Then
+how was it possible for the recollection of her signature to survive
+apart from her and those who were dead and gone? And, above all, why was
+the inscription here, at this spot? What did it mean?
+
+Véronique walked round the cabin. There was no other mark visible there
+or on the surrounding trees. She remembered that M. Dutreillis had
+opened the door and had seen nothing inside. Nevertheless she determined
+to make certain that he was not mistaken.
+
+The door was closed with a mere wooden latch, which moved on a screw.
+She lifted it; and, strange to say, she had to make an effort, not a
+physical so much as a moral effort, an effort of will, to pull the door
+towards her. It seemed to her that this little act was about to usher
+her into a world of facts and events which she unconsciously dreaded.
+
+"Well," she said, "what's preventing me?"
+
+She gave a sharp pull.
+
+A cry of horror escaped her. There was a man's dead body in the cabin.
+And, at the moment, at the exact second when she saw the body, she
+became aware of a peculiar characteristic: one of the dead man's hands
+was missing.
+
+It was an old man, with a long, grey, fan-shaped beard and long white
+hair falling about his neck. The blackened lips and a certain colour of
+the swollen skin suggested to Véronique that he might have been
+poisoned, for no trace of an injury showed on his body, except the arm,
+which had been severed clean above the wrist, apparently some days
+before. His clothes were those of a Breton peasant, clean, but very
+threadbare. The corpse was seated on the ground, with the head resting
+against the bench and the legs drawn up.
+
+These were all things which Véronique noted in a sort of unconsciousness
+and which were rather to reappear in her memory at a later date, for, at
+the moment, she stood there all trembling, with her eyes staring before
+her, and stammering:
+
+"A dead body! . . . A dead body! . . ."
+
+Suddenly she reflected that she was perhaps mistaken and that the man
+was not dead. But, on touching his forehead, she shuddered at the
+contact of his icy skin.
+
+Nevertheless this movement roused her from her torpor. She resolved to
+act and, since there was no one in the immediate neighbourhood, to go
+back to Le Faouet and inform the authorities. She first examined the
+corpse for any clue which could tell her its identity.
+
+The pockets were empty. There were no marks on the clothes or linen.
+But, when she shifted the body a little in order to make her search, it
+came about that the head drooped forward, dragging with it the trunk,
+which fell over the legs, thus uncovering the lower side of the bench.
+
+Under this bench, she perceived a roll consisting of a sheet of very
+thin drawing-paper, crumpled, buckled and almost wrung into a twist. She
+picked up the roll and unfolded it. But she had not finished doing so
+before her hands began to tremble and she stammered:
+
+"Oh, God! . . . Oh, my God! . . ."
+
+She summoned all her energies to try and enforce upon herself the calm
+needed to look with eyes that could see and a brain that could
+understand.
+
+The most that she could do was to stand there for a few seconds. And
+during those few seconds, through an ever-thickening mist that seemed to
+shroud her eyes, she was able to make out a drawing in red, representing
+four women crucified on four tree-trunks.
+
+And, in the foreground, the first woman, the central figure, with the
+body stark under its clothing and the features distorted with the most
+dreadful pain, but still recognizable, the crucified woman was herself!
+Beyond the least doubt, it was she herself, Véronique d'Hergemont!
+
+Besides, above the head, the top of the post bore, after the ancient
+custom, a scroll with a plainly legible inscription. And this was the
+three initials, underlined with the flourish, of Véronique's maiden
+name, "V. d'H.", Véronique d'Hergemont.
+
+A spasm ran through her from head to foot. She drew herself up, turned
+on her heel and, reeling out of the cabin, fell on the grass in a dead
+faint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Véronique was a tall, energetic, healthy woman, with a wonderfully
+balanced mind; and hitherto no trial had been able to affect her fine
+moral sanity or her splendid physical harmony. It needed exceptional and
+unforeseen circumstances such as these, added to the fatigue of two
+nights spent in railway-travelling, to produce this disorder in her
+nerves and will.
+
+It did not last more than two or three minutes, at the end of which her
+mind once more became lucid and courageous. She stood up, went back to
+the cabin, picked up the sheet of drawing-paper and, certainly with
+unspeakable anguish, but this time with eyes that saw and a brain that
+understood, looked at it.
+
+She first examined the details, those which seemed insignificant, or
+whose significance at least escaped her. On the left was a narrow column
+of fifteen lines, not written, but composed of letters of no definite
+formation, the down-strokes of which were all of the same length, the
+object being evidently merely to fill up. However, in various places, a
+few words were visible. And Véronique read:
+
+      "Four women crucified."
+
+Lower down:
+
+      "Thirty coffins."
+
+And the bottom line of all ran:
+
+      "The God-Stone which gives life or death."
+
+The whole of this column was surrounded by a frame consisting of two
+perfectly straight lines, one ruled in black, the other in red ink; and
+there was also, likewise in red, above it, a sketch of two sickles
+fastened together with a sprig of mistletoe under the outline of a
+coffin.
+
+The right-hand side, by far the more important, was filled with the
+drawing, a drawing in red chalk, which gave the whole sheet, with its
+adjacent column of explanations, the appearance of a page, or rather of
+a copy of a page, from some large, ancient illuminated book, in which
+the subjects were treated rather in the primitive style, with a complete
+ignorance of the rules of drawing.
+
+And it represented four crucified women. Three of them showed in
+diminishing perspective against the horizon. They wore Breton costumes
+and their heads were surmounted by caps which were likewise Breton but
+of a special fashion that pointed to local usage and consisted chiefly
+of a large black bow, the two wings of which stood out as in the bows of
+the Alsatian women. And in the middle of the page was the dreadful thing
+from which Véronique could not take her terrified eyes. It was the
+principal cross, the trunk of a tree stripped of its lower branches,
+with the woman's two arms stretched to right and left of it.
+
+The hands and feet were not nailed but were fastened by cords which
+were wound as far as the shoulders and the upper part of the tied legs.
+Instead of the Breton costume, the woman wore a sort of winding-sheet
+which fell to the ground and lengthened the slender outline of a body
+emaciated by suffering.
+
+The expression on the face was harrowing, an expression of resigned
+martyrdom and melancholy grace. And it was certainly Véronique's face,
+especially as it looked when she was twenty years of age and as
+Véronique remembered seeing it at those gloomy hours when a woman gazes
+in a mirror at her hopeless eyes and her overflowing tears.
+
+And about the head was the very same wave of her thick hair, flowing to
+the waist in symmetrical curves:
+
+And above it the inscription, "V. d'H."
+
+Véronique long stayed thinking, questioning the past and gazing into the
+darkness in order to link the actual facts with the memory of her youth.
+But her mind remained without a glimmer of light. Of the words which she
+had read, of the drawing which she had seen, nothing whatever assumed
+the least meaning for her or seemed susceptible of the least
+explanation.
+
+She examined the sheet of paper again and again. Then, slowly, still
+pondering on it, she tore it into tiny pieces and threw them to the
+wind. When the last scrap had been carried away, her decision was taken.
+She pushed back the man's body, closed the door and walked quickly
+towards the village, in order to ensure that the incident should have
+the legal conclusion which was fitting for the moment.
+
+But, when she returned an hour later with the mayor of Le Faouet, the
+rural constable and a whole group of sightseers attracted by her
+statements, the cabin was empty. The corpse had disappeared.
+
+And all this was so strange, Véronique felt so plainly that, in the
+disordered condition of her ideas, it was impossible for her to answer
+the questions put to her, or to dispel the suspicions and doubts which
+these people might and must entertain of the truth of her evidence, the
+cause of her presence and even her very sanity, that she forthwith
+ceased to make any effort or struggle. The inn-keeper was there. She
+asked him which was the nearest village that she would reach by
+following the road and if, by so doing, she would come to a
+railway-station which would enable her to return to Paris. She retained
+the names of Scaër and Rosporden, ordered a carriage to bring her bag
+and overtake her on the road and set off, protected against any ill
+feeling by her great air of elegance and by her grave beauty.
+
+She set off, so to speak, at random. The road was long, miles and miles
+long. But such was her haste to have done with these incomprehensible
+events and to recover her tranquillity and to forget what had happened
+that she walked with great strides, quite oblivious of the fact that
+this wearisome exertion was superfluous, since she had a carriage
+following her.
+
+She went up hill and down dale and hardly thought at all, refusing to
+seek the solution of all the riddles that were put to her. It was the
+past which was reascending to the surface of her life; and she was
+horribly afraid of that past, which extended from her abduction by
+Vorski to the death of her father and her child. She wanted to think of
+nothing but the simple, humble life which she had contrived to lead at
+Besançon. There were no sorrows there, no dreams, no memories; and she
+did not doubt but that, amid the little daily habits which enfolded her
+in the modest house of her choice, she would forget the deserted cabin,
+the mutilated body of the man and the dreadful drawing with its
+mysterious inscription.
+
+But, a little while before she came to the big market-town of Scaër, as
+she heard the bell of a horse trotting behind her, she saw, at the
+junction of the road that led to Rosporden, a broken wall, one of the
+remnants of a half-ruined house.
+
+And on this broken wall, above an arrow and the number 10, she again
+read the fateful inscription, "V. d'H."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ON THE EDGE OF THE ATLANTIC
+
+
+Véronique's state of mind underwent a sudden alteration. Even as she had
+fled resolutely from the threat of danger that seemed to loom up before
+her from the evil past, so she was now determined to pursue to the end
+the dread road which was opening before her.
+
+This change was due to a tiny gleam which flashed abruptly through the
+darkness. She suddenly realized the fact, a simple matter enough, that
+the arrow denoted a direction and that the number 10 must be the tenth
+of a series of numbers which marked a course leading from one fixed
+point to another.
+
+Was it a sign set up by one person with the object of guiding the steps
+of another? It mattered little. The main thing was that there was here a
+clue capable of leading Véronique to the discovery of the problem which
+interested her: by what prodigy did the initials of her maiden name
+reappear amid this tangle of tragic circumstances?
+
+The carriage sent from Le Faouet overtook her. She stepped in and told
+the driver to go very slowly to Rosporden.
+
+She arrived in time for dinner; and her anticipations had not misled
+her. Twice she saw her signature, each time before a division in the
+road, accompanied by the numbers 11 and 12.
+
+Véronique slept at Rosporden and resumed her investigations on the
+following morning.
+
+The number 12, which she found on the wall of a church-yard, sent her
+along the road to Concarneau, which she had almost reached before she
+saw any further inscriptions. She fancied that she must have been
+mistaken, retraced her steps and wasted a whole day in useless
+searching.
+
+It was not until the next day that the number 13, very nearly
+obliterated, directed her towards Fouesnant. Then she abandoned this
+direction, to follow, still in obedience to the signs, some
+country-roads in which she once more lost her way.
+
+At last, four days after leaving Le Faouet, she found herself facing the
+Atlantic, on the great beach of Beg-Meil.
+
+She spent two nights in the village without gathering the least reply to
+the discreet questions which she put to the inhabitants. At last, one
+morning, after wandering among the half-buried groups of rocks which
+intersect the beach and upon the low cliffs, covered with trees and
+copses, which hem it in, she discovered, between two oaks stripped of
+their bark, a shelter built of earth and branches which must at one time
+have been used by custom-house officers. A small menhir stood at the
+entrance. The menhir bore the inscription, followed by the number 17. No
+arrow. A full stop underneath; and that was all.
+
+In the shelter were three broken bottles and some empty meat-tins.
+
+"This was the goal," thought Véronique. "Some one has been having a
+meal here. Food stored in advance, perhaps."
+
+Just then she noticed that, at no great distance, by the edge of a
+little bay which curved like a shell amid the neighbouring rocks, a boat
+was swinging to and fro, a motor-boat. And she heard voices coming from
+the village, a man's voice and a woman's.
+
+From the place where she stood, all that she could see at first was an
+elderly man carrying in his arms half-a-dozen bags of provisions, potted
+meats and dried vegetables. He put them on the ground and said:
+
+"Well, had a pleasant journey, M'ame Honorine?"
+
+"Fine!"
+
+"And where have you been?"
+
+"Why, Paris . . . a week of it . . . running errands for my master."
+
+"Glad to be back?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+"And you see, M'ame Honorine, you find your boat just where she was. I
+came to have a look at her every day. This morning I took away her
+tarpaulin. Does she run as well as ever?"
+
+"First-rate."
+
+"Besides, you're a master pilot, you are. Who'd have thought, M'ame
+Honorine, that you'd be doing a job like this?"
+
+"It's the war. All the young men in our island are gone and the old ones
+are fishing. Besides, there's no longer a fortnightly steamboat service,
+as there used to be. So I go the errands."
+
+"What about petrol?"
+
+"We've plenty to go on with. No fear of that."
+
+"Well, good-bye for the present, M'ame Honorine. Shall I help you put
+the things on board?"
+
+"Don't you trouble; you're in a hurry."
+
+"Well, good-bye for the present," the old fellow repeated. "Till next
+time, M'ame Honorine. I'll have the parcels ready for you."
+
+He went away, but, when he had gone a little distance, called out:
+
+"All the same, mind the jagged reefs round that blessed island of yours!
+I tell you, it's got a nasty name! It's not called Coffin Island, the
+island of the thirty coffins, for nothing! Good luck to you, M'ame
+Honorine!"
+
+He disappeared behind a rock.
+
+Véronique had shuddered. The thirty coffins! The very words which she
+had read in the margin of that horrible drawing!
+
+She leant forward. The woman had come a few steps nearer the boat and,
+after putting down some more provisions which she had been carrying,
+turned round.
+
+Véronique now saw her full-face. She wore a Breton costume; and her
+head-dress was crowned by two black wings.
+
+"Oh," stammered Véronique, "that head-dress in the drawing . . . the
+head-dress of the three crucified women!"
+
+The Breton woman looked about forty. Her strong face, tanned by the sun
+and the cold, was bony and rough-hewn but lit up by a pair of large,
+dark, intelligent, gentle eyes. A heavy gold chain hung down upon her
+breast. Her velvet bodice fitted her closely.
+
+She was humming in a very low voice as she took up her parcels and
+loaded the boat, which made her kneel on a big stone against which the
+boat was moored. When she had done, she looked at the horizon, which was
+covered with black clouds. She did not seem anxious about them, however,
+and, loosing the painter, continued her song, but in a louder voice,
+which enabled Véronique to hear the words. It was a slow melody, a
+children's lullaby; and she sang it with a smile which revealed a set of
+fine, white teeth.
+
+    "And the mother said,
+    Rocking her child a-bed:
+
+    'Weep not. If you do,
+    The Virgin Mary weeps with you.
+
+    Babes that laugh and sing
+    Smiles to the Blessed Virgin bring.
+
+    Fold your hands this way
+    And to sweet Mary pray.'"
+
+She did not complete the song. Véronique was standing before her, with
+her face drawn and very pale.
+
+Taken aback, the other asked:
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+Véronique, in a trembling voice, replied:
+
+"That song! Who taught it you? Where do you get it from? . . . It's a
+song my mother used to sing, a song of her own country, Savoy . . . .
+And I have never heard it since . . . since she died . . . . So I want
+. . . I should like . . ."
+
+She stopped. The Breton woman looked at her in silence, with an air of
+stupefaction, as though she too were on the point of asking questions.
+But Véronique repeated:
+
+"Who taught it you?"
+
+"Some one over there," the woman called Honorine answered, at last.
+
+"Over there?"
+
+"Yes, some one on my island."
+
+Véronique said, with a sort of dread:
+
+"Coffin Island?"
+
+"That's just a name they call it by. It's really the Isle of Sarek."
+
+They still stood looking at each other, with a look in which a certain
+doubt was mingled with a great need of speech and understanding. And at
+the same time they both felt that they were not enemies.
+
+Véronique was the first to continue:
+
+"Excuse me, but, you see, there are things which are so puzzling . . ."
+
+The Breton woman nodded her head in approval and Véronique continued:
+
+"So puzzling and so disconcerting! . . . For instance, do you know why
+I'm here? I must tell you. Perhaps you alone can explain . . . It's like
+this: an accident--quite a small accident, but really it all began with
+that--brought me to Brittany for the first time and showed me, on the
+door of an old, deserted, road-side cabin, the initials which I used to
+sign when I was a girl, a signature which I have not used for fourteen
+or fifteen years. As I went on, I discovered the same inscription many
+times repeated, with each time a different consecutive number. That was
+how I came here, to the beach at Beg-Meil and to this part of the
+beach, which appeared to be the end of a journey foreseen and arranged
+by . . . I don't know whom."
+
+"Is your signature here?" asked Honorine, eagerly. "Where?"
+
+"On that stone, above us, at the entrance to the shelter."
+
+"I can't see from here. What are the letters?"
+
+"V. d'H."
+
+The Breton woman suppressed a movement. Her bony face betrayed profound
+emotion, and, hardly opening her lips, she murmured:
+
+"Véronique . . . Véronique d'Hergemont."
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the younger woman, "so you know my name, you know my
+name!"
+
+Honorine took Véronique's two hands and held them in her own. Her
+weather-beaten face lit up with a smile. And her eyes grew moist with
+tears as she repeated:
+
+"Mademoiselle Véronique! . . . Madame Véronique! . . . So it's you,
+Véronique! . . . O Heaven, is it possible! The Blessed Virgin Mary be
+praised!"
+
+Véronique felt utterly confounded and kept on saying:
+
+"You know my name . . . you know who I am . . . . Then you can explain
+all this riddle to me?"
+
+After a long pause, Honorine replied:
+
+"I can explain nothing. I don't understand either. But we can try to
+find out together . . . . Tell me, what was the name of that Breton
+village?"
+
+"Le Faouet."
+
+"Le Faouet. I know. And where was the deserted cabin?"
+
+"A mile and a quarter away."
+
+"Did you look in?"
+
+"Yes; and that was the most terrible thing of all. Inside the cabin was
+. . ."
+
+"What was in the cabin?"
+
+"First of all, the dead body of a man, an old man, dressed in the local
+costume, with long white hair and a grey beard . . . . Oh, I shall never
+forget that dead man! . . . He must have been murdered, poisoned, I
+don't know what . . . ."
+
+Honorine listened greedily, but the murder seemed to give her no clue
+and she merely asked:
+
+"Who was it? Did they have an inquest?"
+
+"When I came back with the people from Le Faouet, the corpse had
+disappeared."
+
+"Disappeared? But who had removed it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"So that you know nothing?"
+
+"Nothing. Except that, the first time, I found in the cabin a drawing
+. . . a drawing which I tore up; but its memory haunts me like a
+nightmare that keeps on recurring. I can't get it out of my mind . . . .
+Listen, it was a roll of paper on which some one had evidently copied an
+old picture and it represented . . . Oh, a dreadful, dreadful thing,
+four women crucified! And one of the women was myself, with my name
+. . . . And the others wore a head-dress like yours."
+
+Honorine had squeezed her hands with incredible violence:
+
+"What's that you say?" she cried. "What's that you say? Four women
+crucified?"
+
+"Yes; and there was something about thirty coffins, consequently about
+your island."
+
+The Breton woman put her hands over Véronique's lips to silence them:
+
+"Hush! Hush! Oh, you mustn't speak of all that! No, no, you mustn't
+. . . . You see, there are devilish things . . . which it's a sacrilege
+to talk about . . . . We must be silent about that . . . . Later on,
+we'll see . . . another year, perhaps . . . . Later on . . . . Later on
+. . . ."
+
+She seemed shaken by terror, as by a gale which scourges the trees and
+overwhelms all living things. And suddenly she fell on her knees upon
+the rock and muttered a long prayer, bent in two, with her hands before
+her face, so completely absorbed that Véronique asked her no more
+questions.
+
+At last she rose and, presently, said:
+
+"Yes, this is all terrifying, but I don't see that it makes our duty any
+different or that we can hesitate at all."
+
+And, addressing Véronique, she said, gravely:
+
+"You must come over there with me."
+
+"Over there, to your island?" replied Véronique, without concealing her
+reluctance.
+
+Honorine again took her hands and continued, still in that same, rather
+solemn tone which appeared to Véronique to be full of secret and
+unspoken thoughts:
+
+"Your name is truly Véronique d'Hergemont?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who was your father?"
+
+"Antoine d'Hergemont."
+
+"You married a man called Vorski, who said he was a Pole?"
+
+"Yes, Alexis Vorski."
+
+"You married him after there was a scandal about his running off with
+you and after a quarrel between you and your father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You had a child by him?"
+
+"Yes, a son, François."
+
+"A son that you never knew, in a manner of speaking, because he was
+kidnapped by your father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you lost sight of the two after a shipwreck?"
+
+"Yes, they are both dead."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+It did not occur to Véronique to be astonished at this question, and she
+replied:
+
+"My personal enquiries and the police enquiries were both based upon the
+same indisputable evidence, that of the four sailors."
+
+"Who's to say they weren't telling lies?"
+
+"Why should they tell lies?" asked Véronique, in surprise.
+
+"Their evidence may have been bought; they may have been told what to
+say."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By your father."
+
+"But what an idea! . . . Besides, my father was dead!"
+
+"I say once more: how do you know that?"
+
+This time Véronique appeared stupefied:
+
+"What are you hinting?" she whispered.
+
+"One minute. Do you know the names of those four sailors?"
+
+"I did know them, but I don't remember them."
+
+"You don't remember that they were Breton names?"
+
+"Yes, I do. But I don't see that . . ."
+
+"If you never came to Brittany, your father often did, because of the
+books he used to write. He used to stay in Brittany during your mother's
+lifetime. That being so, he must have had relations with the men of the
+country. Suppose that he had known the four sailors a long time, that
+these men were devoted to him or bribed by him and that he engaged them
+specially for that adventure. Suppose that they began by landing your
+father and your son at some little Italian port and that then, being
+four good swimmers, they scuttled and sank their yacht in view of the
+coast. Just suppose it."
+
+"But the men are living!" cried Véronique, in growing excitement. "They
+can be questioned."
+
+"Two of them are dead; they died a natural death a few years ago. The
+third is an old man called Maguennoc; you will find him at Sarek. As for
+the fourth, you may have seen him just now. He used the money which he
+made out of that business to buy a grocer's shop at Beg-Meil."
+
+"Ah, we can speak to him at once!" cried Véronique, eagerly. "Let's go
+and fetch him."
+
+"Why should we? I know more than he does."
+
+"You know? You know?"
+
+"I know everything that you don't. I can answer all your questions. Ask
+me what you like."
+
+But Véronique dared not put the great question to her, the one which was
+beginning to quiver in the darkness of her consciousness. She was afraid
+of a truth which was perhaps not inconceivable, a truth of which she
+seemed to catch a faint glimpse; and she stammered, in mournful accents:
+
+"I don't understand, I don't understand . . . . Why should my father
+have behaved like that? Why should he wish himself and my poor child to
+be thought dead?"
+
+"Your father had sworn to have his revenge."
+
+"On Vorski, yes; but surely not on me, his daughter? . . . . And such a
+revenge!"
+
+"You loved your husband. Once you were in his power, instead of running
+away from him, you consented to marry him. Besides, the insult was a
+public one. And you know what your father was, with his violent,
+vindictive temperament and his rather . . . his rather unbalanced
+nature, to use his own expression."
+
+"But since then?"
+
+"Since then! Since then! He felt remorseful as he grew older, what with
+his affection for the child . . . and he tried everywhere to find you.
+The journeys I have taken, beginning with my journey to the Carmelites
+at Chartres! But you had left long ago . . . and where for? Where were
+you to be found?"
+
+"You could have advertised in the newspapers."
+
+"He did try advertising, once, very cautiously, because of the scandal.
+There was a reply. Some one made an appointment and he kept it. Do you
+know who came to meet him? Vorski, Vorski, who was looking for you too,
+who still loved you . . . and hated you. Your father became frightened
+and did not dare act openly."
+
+Véronique did not speak. She felt very faint and sat down on the stone,
+with her head bowed.
+
+Then she murmured:
+
+"You speak of my father as though he were still alive to-day."
+
+"He is."
+
+"And as though you saw him often."
+
+"Daily."
+
+"And on the other hand"--Véronique lowered her voice--"on the other hand
+you do not say a word of my son. And that suggests a horrible thought:
+perhaps he did not live? Perhaps he is dead since? Is that why you do
+not mention him?"
+
+She raised her head with an effort. Honorine was smiling.
+
+"Oh, please, please," Véronique entreated, "tell me the truth! It is
+terrible to hope more than one has a right to. Do tell me."
+
+Honorine put her arm round Véronique's neck:
+
+"Why, my poor, dear lady, would I have told you all this if my handsome
+François had been dead?"
+
+"He is alive, he is alive?" cried Véronique, wildly.
+
+"Why, of course he is and in the best of health! Oh, he's a fine, sturdy
+little chap, never fear, and so steady on his legs! And I have every
+right to be proud of him, because it's I who brought him up, your little
+François."
+
+She felt Véronique, who was leaning on her shoulder, give way to
+emotions which were too much for her and which certainly contained as
+much suffering as joy; and she said:
+
+"Cry, my dear lady, cry; it will do you good. It's a better sort of
+crying than it was, eh? Cry, until you've forgotten all your old
+troubles. I'm going back to the village. Have you a bag of any kind at
+the inn? They know me there. I'll bring it back with me and we'll be
+off."
+
+When the Breton woman returned, half an hour later, she saw Véronique
+standing and beckoning to her to hurry and heard her calling:
+
+"Quick, quick! Heavens, what a time you've been! We have not a minute to
+lose."
+
+Honorine, however, did not hasten her pace and did not reply. Her rugged
+face was without a smile.
+
+"Well, are we going to start?" asked Véronique, running up to her.
+"There's nothing to delay us, is there, no obstacle? What's the matter?
+You seem quite changed."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Then let's be quick."
+
+Honorine, with her assistance, put the bag and the provisions on board.
+Then, suddenly standing in front of Véronique, she said:
+
+"You're quite sure, are you, that the woman on the cross, as she was
+shown in the drawing, was yourself?"
+
+"Absolutely. Besides, there were my initials above the head."
+
+"That's a strange thing," muttered Honorine, "and it's enough to
+frighten anybody."
+
+"Why should it be? It must have been someone who used to know me and who
+amused himself by . . . It's merely a coincidence, a chance fancy
+reviving the past."
+
+"Oh, it's not the past that's worrying me! It's the future."
+
+"The future?"
+
+"Remember the prophecy."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Yes, yes, the prophecy made about you to Vorski."
+
+"Ah, you know?"
+
+"I know. And it is so horrible to think of that drawing and of other
+much more dreadful things which you don't know of."
+
+Véronique burst out laughing:
+
+"What! Is that why you hesitate to take me with you, for, after all,
+that's what we're concerned with?"
+
+"Don't laugh. People don't laugh when they see the flames of hell before
+them."
+
+Honorine crossed herself, closing her eyes as she spoke. Then she
+continued:
+
+"Of course . . . you scoff at me . . . you think I'm a superstitious
+Breton woman, who believes in ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns. I don't say
+you're altogether wrong. But there, there! There are some truths that
+blind one. You can talk it over with Maguennoc, if you get on the right
+side of him."
+
+"Maguennoc?"
+
+"One of the four sailors. He's an old friend of your boy's. He too
+helped to bring him up. Maguennoc knows more about it than the most
+learned men, more than your father. And yet . . ."
+
+"What?"
+
+"And yet Maguennoc tried to tempt fate and to get past what men are
+allowed to know."
+
+"What did he do?"
+
+"He tried to touch with his hand--you understand, with his own hand: he
+confessed it to me himself--the very heart of the mystery."
+
+"Well?" said Véronique, impressed in spite of herself.
+
+"Well, his hand was burnt by the flames. He showed me a hideous sore: I
+saw it with my eyes, something like the sore of a cancer; and he
+suffered to that degree . . ."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That it forced him to take a hatchet in his left hand and cut off his
+right hand himself."
+
+Véronique was dumbfounded. She remembered the corpse at Le Faouet and
+she stammered:
+
+"His right hand? You say that Maguennoc cut off his right hand?"
+
+"With a hatchet, ten days ago, two days before I left . . . . I dressed
+the wound myself . . . . Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because," said Véronique, in a husky voice, "because the dead man, the
+old man whom I found in the deserted cabin and who afterwards
+disappeared, had lately lost his right hand."
+
+Honorine gave a start. She still wore the sort of scared expression and
+betrayed the emotional disturbance which contrasted with her usually
+calm attitude. And she rapped out:
+
+"Are you sure? Yes, yes, you're right, it was he, Maguennoc . . . . He
+had long white hair, hadn't he? And a spreading beard? . . . Oh, how
+abominable!"
+
+She restrained herself and looked around her, frightened at having
+spoken so loud. She once more made the sign of the cross and said,
+slowly, almost under her breath:
+
+"He was the first of those who have got to die . . . he told me so
+himself . . . and old Maguennoc had eyes that read the book of the
+future as easily as the book of the past. He could see clearly where
+another saw nothing at all. 'The first victim will be myself, Ma'me
+Honorine. And, when the servant has gone, in a few days it will be the
+master's turn.'"
+
+"And the master was . . . ?" asked Véronique, in a whisper.
+
+Honorine drew herself up and clenched her fists violently:
+
+"I'll defend him! I will!" she declared. "I'll save him! Your father
+shall not be the second victim. No, no, I shall arrive in time! Let me
+go!"
+
+"We are going together," said Véronique, firmly.
+
+"Please," said Honorine, in a voice of entreaty, "please don't be
+persistent. Let me have my way. I'll bring your father and your son to
+you this very evening, before dinner."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"The danger is too great, over there, for your father . . . and
+especially for you. Remember the four crosses! It's over there that they
+are waiting . . . . Oh, you mustn't go there! . . . The island is under
+a curse."
+
+"And my son?"
+
+"You shall see him to-day, in a few hours."
+
+Véronique gave a short laugh:
+
+"In a few hours! Woman, you must be mad! Here am I, after mourning my
+son for fourteen years, suddenly hearing that he's alive; and you ask
+me to wait before I take him in my arms! Not one hour! I would rather
+risk death a thousand times than put off that moment."
+
+Honorine looked at her and seemed to realize that Véronique's was one of
+those resolves against which it is useless to fight, for she did not
+insist. She crossed herself for the third time and said, simply:
+
+"God's will be done."
+
+They both took their seats among the parcels which encumbered the narrow
+space. Honorine switched on the current, seized the tiller and skilfully
+steered the boat through the rocks and sandbanks which rose level with
+the water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+VORSKI'S SON
+
+
+Véronique smiled as she sat to starboard on a packing-case, with her
+face turned towards Honorine. Her smile was anxious still and undefined,
+full of reticence and flickering as a sunbeam that tries to pierce the
+last clouds of the storm; but it was nevertheless a happy smile.
+
+And happiness seemed the right expression for that wonderful face,
+stamped with dignity and with that particular modesty which gives to
+some women, whether stricken by excessive misfortune or preserved by
+love, the habit of gravity, combined with an absence of all feminine
+affectation.
+
+Her black hair, touched with grey at the temples, was knotted very low
+down on the neck. She had the dead-white complexion of a southerner and
+very light blue eyes, of which the white seemed almost of the same
+colour, pale as a winter sky. She was tall, with broad shoulders and a
+well-shaped bust.
+
+Her musical and somewhat masculine voice became light and cheerful when
+she spoke of the son whom she had found again. And Véronique could speak
+of nothing else. In vain the Breton woman tried to speak of the problems
+that harassed her and kept on interrupting Véronique:
+
+"Look here, there are two things which I cannot understand. Who laid the
+trail with the clues that brought you from Le Faouet to the exact spot
+where I always land? It almost makes one believe that someone had been
+from Le Faouet to the Isle of Sarek. And, on the other hand, how did old
+Maguennoc come to leave the island? Was it of his own free will? Or was
+it his dead body that they carried? If so, how?"
+
+"Is it worth troubling about?" Véronique objected.
+
+"Certainly it is. Just think! Besides me, who once a fortnight go either
+to Beg-Meil or Pont-l'Abbé in my motor-boat for provisions, there are
+only two fishing-boats, which always go much higher up the coast, to
+Audierne, where they sell their catch. Then how did Maguennoc get
+across? Then again, did he commit suicide? But, if so, how did his body
+disappear?"
+
+But Véronique protested:
+
+"Please don't! It doesn't matter for the moment. It'll all be cleared
+up. Tell me about François. You were saying that he came to Sarek . . ."
+
+Honorine yielded to Véronique's entreaties:
+
+"He arrived in poor Maguennoc's arms, a few days after he was taken from
+you. Maguennoc, who had been taught his lesson by your father, said that
+a strange lady had entrusted him with the child; and he had it nursed by
+his daughter, who has since died. I was away, in a situation with a
+Paris family. When I came home again, François had grown into a fine
+little fellow, running about the moors and cliffs. It was then that I
+took service with your father, who had settled in Sarek. When
+Maguennoc's daughter died, we took the child to live with us."
+
+"But under what name?"
+
+"François, just François. M. d'Hergemont was known as Monsieur Antoine.
+François called him grandfather. No one ever made any remark upon it."
+
+"And his character?" asked Véronique, with some anxiety.
+
+"Oh, as far as that's concerned, he's a blessing!" replied Honorine.
+"Nothing of his father about him . . . nor of his grandfather either, as
+M. d'Hergemont himself admits. A gentle, lovable, most willing child.
+Never a sign of anger; always good-tempered. That's what got over his
+grandfather and made M. d'Hergemont come round to you again, because his
+grandson reminded him so of the daughter he had cast off. 'He's the very
+image of his mother,' he used to say. 'Véronique was gentle and
+affectionate like him, with the same fond and coaxing ways.' And then he
+began his search for you, with me to help him; for he had come to
+confide in me."
+
+Véronique beamed with delight. Her son was like her! Her son was bright
+and kind-hearted!
+
+"But does he know about me?" she said. "Does he know that I'm alive?"
+
+"I should think he did! M. d'Hergemont tried to keep it from him at
+first. But I soon told him everything."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"No. He believes that his father is dead and that, after the shipwreck
+in which he, I mean François, and M. d'Hergemont disappeared, you became
+a nun and have been lost sight of since. And he is so eager for news,
+each time I come back from one of my trips! He too is so full of hope!
+Oh, you can take my word for it, he adores his mother! And he's always
+singing that song you heard just now, which his grandfather taught him."
+
+"My François, my own little François!"
+
+"Ah, yes, he loves you! There's Mother Honorine. But you're mother, just
+that. And he's in a great hurry to grow up and finish his schooling, so
+that he may go and look for you."
+
+"His schooling? Does he have lessons?"
+
+"Yes, with his grandfather and, since two years ago, with such a nice
+fellow that I brought back from Paris, Stéphane Maroux, a wounded
+soldier covered with medals and restored to health after an internal
+operation. François dotes on him."
+
+The boat was running quickly over the smooth sea, in which it ploughed a
+furrow of silvery foam. The clouds had dispersed on the horizon. The
+evening boded fair and calm.
+
+"More, tell me more!" said Véronique, listening greedily. "What does my
+boy wear?"
+
+"Knickerbockers and short socks, with his calves bare; a thick flannel
+shirt with gilt buttons; and a flat knitted cap, like his big friend, M.
+Stéphane; only his is red and suits him to perfection."
+
+"Has he any friends besides M. Maroux?"
+
+"All the growing lads of the island, formerly. But with the exception of
+three or four ship's boys, all the rest have left the island with their
+mothers, now that their fathers are at the war, and are working on the
+mainland, at Concarneau or Lorient, leaving the old people at Sarek by
+themselves. We are not more than thirty on the island now."
+
+"Whom does he play with? Whom does he go about with?"
+
+"Oh, as for that, he has the best of companions!"
+
+"Really? Who is it?"
+
+"A little dog that Maguennoc gave him."
+
+"A dog?"
+
+"Yes; and the funniest dog you ever saw: an ugly ridiculous-looking
+thing, a cross between a poodle and a fox-terrier, but so comical and
+amusing! Oh, there's no one like Master All's Well!"
+
+"All's Well?"
+
+"That's what François calls him; and you couldn't have a better name for
+him. He always looks happy and glad to be alive. He's independent, too,
+and he disappears for hours and even days at a time; but he's always
+there when he's wanted, if you're feeling sad, or if things aren't going
+as you might like them to. All's Well hates to see any one crying or
+scolding or quarrelling. The moment you cry, or pretend to cry, he comes
+and squats on his haunches in front of you, sits up, shuts one eye,
+half-opens the other and looks so exactly as if he was laughing that you
+begin to laugh yourself. 'That's right, old chap,' says François,
+'you're quite right: all's well. There's nothing to take on about, is
+there?' And, when you're consoled, All's Well just trots away. His task
+is done."
+
+Véronique laughed and cried in one breath. Then she was silent for a
+long time, feeling more and more gloomy and overcome by a despair which
+overwhelmed all her gladness. She thought of all the happiness that she
+had missed during the fourteen years of her childless motherhood,
+wearing her mourning for a son who was alive. All the cares that a
+mother lavishes upon the little creature new-born into the world, all
+the pride that she feels at seeing him grow and hearing him speak, all
+that delights a mother and uplifts her and makes her heart overflow with
+daily renewed affection: all this she had never known.
+
+"We are half-way across," said Honorine.
+
+They were running in sight of the Glenans Islands. On their right, the
+headland of Penmarch, whose coast-line they were following at a distance
+of fifteen miles, marked a darker line which was not always
+differentiated from the horizon.
+
+And Véronique thought of her sad past, of her mother, whom she hardly
+remembered, of her childhood spent with a selfish, disagreeable father,
+of her marriage, ah, above all of her marriage! She recalled her first
+meetings with Vorski, when she was only seventeen. How frightened she
+had been from the very beginning of that strange and unusual man, whom
+she dreaded while she submitted to his influence, as one does at that
+age submit to the influence of anything mysterious and incomprehensible!
+
+Next came the hateful day of the abduction and the other days, more
+hateful still, that followed, the weeks during which he had kept her
+imprisoned, threatening her and dominating her with all his evil
+strength, and the promise of marriage which he had forced from her, a
+pledge against which all the girl's instincts and all her will revolted,
+but to which it seemed to her that she was bound to agree after so great
+a scandal and also because her father was giving his consent.
+
+Her brain rebelled against the memories of her years of married life.
+Never that! Not even in the worst hours, when the nightmares of the past
+haunt one like spectres, never did she consent to revive, in the
+innermost recesses of her mind, that degrading past, with its
+mortifications, wounds and betrayals, and the disgraceful life led by
+her husband, who, shamelessly, with cynical pride, gradually revealed
+himself as the man he was, drinking, cheating at cards, robbing his boon
+companions, a swindler and blackmailer, giving his wife the impression,
+which she still retained and which made her shudder, of a sort of evil
+genius, cruel and unbalanced.
+
+"Have done with dreams, Madame Véronique," said Honorine.
+
+"It's not so much dreams and memories as remorse," she replied.
+
+"Remorse, Madame Véronique? You, whose life has been one long
+martyrdom?"
+
+"A martyrdom that was a punishment."
+
+"But all that is over and done with, Madame Véronique, seeing that you
+are going to meet your son and your father again. Come, come, you must
+think of nothing but being happy."
+
+"Happy? Can I be happy again?"
+
+"I should think so! You'll soon see! . . . Look, there's Sarek."
+
+Honorine took from a locker under her seat a large shell which she used
+as a trumpet, after the manner of the mariners of old, and, putting her
+lips to the mouthpiece and puffing out her cheeks, she blew a few
+powerful notes, which filled the air with a sound not unlike the lowing
+of an ox.
+
+Véronique gave her a questioning look.
+
+"It's him I'm calling," said Honorine.
+
+"François? You're calling François?"
+
+"Yes, it's the same every time I come back. He comes scrambling from the
+top of the cliffs where we live and runs down to the jetty."
+
+"So I shall see him?" exclaimed Véronique, turning very pale.
+
+"You will see him. Fold your veil double, so that he may not know you
+from your photographs. I'll speak to you as I would to a stranger who
+has come to look at Sarek."
+
+They could see the island distinctly, but the foot of the cliffs was
+hidden by a multitude of reefs.
+
+"Ah, yes, there's no lack of rocks! They swarm like a shoal of herring!"
+cried Honorine, who had been obliged to switch off the motor and was
+using two short paddles. "You know how calm the sea was just now. It's
+never calm here."
+
+Thousands and thousands of little waves were dashing and clashing
+against one another and waging an incessant and implacable war upon the
+rocks. The boat seemed to be passing through the backwater of a torrent.
+Nowhere was a strip of blue or green sea visible amid the bubbling foam.
+There was nothing but white froth, whipped up by the indefatigable swirl
+of the forces which desperately assailed the pointed teeth of the reefs.
+
+"And it's like that all round the island," said Honorine, "so much so
+that you may say that Sarek isn't accessible except in a small boat. Ah,
+the Huns could never have established a submarine base on our island! To
+make quite sure and remove all doubts, some officers came over from
+Lorient, two years ago, because of a few caves on the west, which can
+only be entered at low tide. It was waste of time. There was nothing
+doing here. Just think, it's like a sprinkle of rocks all around; and
+pointed rocks at that, which get at you treacherously from underneath.
+And, though these are the most dangerous, perhaps it is the others that
+are most to be feared, the big ones which you see and have got their
+name and their history from all sorts of crimes and shipwrecks. Oh, as
+to those! . . ."
+
+Her voice grew hollow. With a hesitating hand, which seemed afraid of
+the half-completed gesture, she pointed to some reefs which stood up in
+powerful masses of different shapes, crouching animals, crenellated
+keeps, colossal needles, sphynx-heads, jagged pyramids, all in black
+granite stained with red, as though soaked in blood.
+
+And she whispered:
+
+"Oh, as to those, they have been guarding the island for centuries and
+centuries, but like wild beasts that only care for doing harm and
+killing. They . . . they . . . no, it's better never to speak about them
+or even think of them. They are the thirty wild beasts. Yes, thirty,
+Madame Véronique, there are thirty of them . . . ."
+
+She made the sign of the cross and continued, more calmly:
+
+"There are thirty of them. Your father says that Sarek is called the
+island of the thirty coffins because the people instinctively ended in
+this case by confusing the two words _écueils_ and _cercueils_.[1]
+Perhaps . . . . It's very likely . . . . But, all the same, they are
+thirty real coffins, Madame Véronique; and, if we could open them, we
+should be sure to find them full of bones and bones and bones. M.
+d'Hergemont himself says that Sarek comes from the word Sarcophagus,
+which, according to him, is the learned way of saying coffin. Besides,
+there's more than that . . . ."
+
+[Footnote 1: "Reefs" and "coffins."--_Translator's Note._]
+
+Honorine broke off, as though she wanted to think of something else,
+and, pointing to a reef of rocks, said:
+
+"Look, Madame Véronique, past that big one right in our way there, you
+will see, through an opening, our little harbour and, on the quay,
+François in his red cap."
+
+Véronique had been listening absent-mindedly to Honorine's explanations.
+She leant her body farther out of the boat, in order to catch sight the
+sooner of her son, while the Breton woman, once more a victim to her
+obsession, continued, in spite of herself:
+
+"There's more than that. The Isle of Sarek--and that is why your father
+came to live here--contains a collection of dolmens which have nothing
+remarkable about them, but which are peculiar for one reason, that they
+are all nearly alike. Well, how many of them do you think there are?
+Thirty! Thirty, like the principal reefs. And those thirty are
+distributed round the islands, on the cliffs, exactly opposite the
+thirty reefs; and each of them bears the same name as the reef that
+corresponds to it: Dol-er-H'roeck, Dol-Kerlitu and so on. What do you
+say to that?"
+
+She had uttered these names in the same timid voice in which she spoke
+of all these things, as if she feared to be heard by the things
+themselves, to which she was attributing a formidable and sacred life.
+
+"What do you say to that, Madame Véronique? Oh, there's plenty of
+mystery about it all; and, once more, it's better to hold one's tongue!
+I'll tell you about it when we've left here, right away from the island,
+and when your little François is in your arms, between your father and
+you."
+
+Véronique sat silent, gazing into space at the spot to which Honorine
+had pointed. With her back turned to her companion and her two hands
+gripping the gunwale, she stared distractedly before her. It was there,
+through that narrow opening, that she was to see her child, long lost
+and now found; and she did not want to waste a single second after the
+moment when she would be able to catch sight of him.
+
+They reached the rock. One of Honorine's paddles grazed its side. They
+skirted and came to the end of it.
+
+"Oh," said Véronique, sorrowfully, "he is not there!"
+
+"François not there? Impossible!" cried Honorine.
+
+She in her turn saw, three or four hundred yards in front of them, the
+few big rocks on the beach which served as a jetty. Three women, a
+little girl and some old seafaring men were waiting for the boat, but no
+boy, no red cap.
+
+"That's strange," said Honorine, in a low voice. "It's the first time
+that he's failed to answer my call."
+
+"Perhaps he's ill?" Véronique suggested.
+
+"No, François is never ill."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But aren't you afraid?" asked Véronique, who was already becoming
+frightened.
+
+"For him, no . . . but for your father. Maguennoc said that I oughtn't
+to leave him. It's he who is threatened."
+
+"But François is there to defend him; and so is M. Maroux, his tutor.
+Come, answer me: what do you imagine?"
+
+After a moment's pause, Honorine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"A pack of nonsense! I get absurd, yes, absurd things into my head.
+Don't be angry with me. I can't help it: it's the Breton in me. Except
+for a few years, I have spent all my life here, with legends and stories
+in the very air I breathed. Don't let's talk about it."
+
+The Isle of Sarek appears in the shape of a long and undulating
+table-land, covered with ancient trees and standing on cliffs of medium
+height than which nothing more jagged could be imagined. It is as though
+the island were surrounded by a reef of uneven, diversified lacework,
+incessantly wrought upon by the rain, the wind, the sun, the snow, the
+frost, the mist and all the water that falls from the sky or oozes from
+the earth.
+
+The only accessible point is on the eastern side, at the bottom of a
+depression where a few houses, mostly abandoned since the war,
+constitute the village. A break in the cliffs opens here, protected by
+the little jetty. The sea at this spot is perfectly calm.
+
+Two boats lay moored to the quay.
+
+Before landing, Honorine made a last effort:
+
+"We're there, Madame Véronique, as you see. Now is it really worth your
+while to get out? Why not stay where you are? I'll bring your father and
+your son to you in two hours' time and we'll have dinner at Beg-Meil or
+at Pont-l'Abbé. Will that do?"
+
+Véronique rose to her feet and leapt on to the quay without replying.
+Honorine joined her and insisted no longer:
+
+"Well, children, where's young François? Hasn't he come?"
+
+"He was here about twelve," said one of the women. "Only he didn't
+expect you until to-morrow."
+
+"That's true enough . . . but still he must have heard me blow my horn.
+However, we shall see."
+
+And, as the man helped her to unload the boat, she said:
+
+"I shan't want all this taken up to the Priory. Nor the bags either.
+Unless . . . Look here, if I am not back by five o'clock, send a
+youngster after me with the bags."
+
+"No, I'll come myself," said one of the seamen.
+
+"As you please, Corréjou. Oh, by the way, where's Maguennoc?"
+
+"Maguennoc's gone. I took him across to Pont-l'Abbé myself."
+
+"When was that, Corréjou?"
+
+"Why, the day after you went, Madame Honorine."
+
+"What was he going over for?"
+
+"He told us he was going . . . I don't know where . . . . It had to do
+with the hand he lost . . . . a pilgrimage . . . ."
+
+"A pilgrimage? To Le Faouet, perhaps? To St. Barbe's Chapel?"
+
+"That's it . . . that's it exactly: St. Barbe's Chapel, that's what he
+said."
+
+Honorine asked no more. She could no longer doubt that Maguennoc was
+dead. She moved away, accompanied by Véronique, who had lowered her
+veil; and the two went along a rocky path, cut into steps, which ran
+through the middle of an oak-wood towards the southernmost point of the
+island.
+
+"After all," said Honorine, "I am not sure--and I may as well say
+so--that M. d'Hergemont will consent to leave. He treats all my stories
+as crotchets, though there's plenty of things that astonish even him
+. . . ."
+
+"Does he live far from here?" asked Véronique.
+
+"It's forty minutes' walk. As you will see, it's almost another island,
+joined to the first. The Benedictines built an abbey there."
+
+"But he's not alone there, is he, with François and M. Maroux?"
+
+"Before the war, there were two men besides. Lately, Maguennoc and I
+used to do pretty well all the work, with the cook, Marie Le Goff."
+
+"She remained, of course, while you were away?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They reached the top of the cliffs. The path, which followed the coast,
+rose and fell in steep gradients. On every hand were old oaks with their
+bunches of mistletoe, which showed among the as yet scanty leaves. The
+sea, grey-green in the distance, girded the island with a white belt.
+
+Véronique continued:
+
+"What do you propose to do, Honorine?"
+
+"I shall go in by myself and speak to your father. Then I shall come
+back and fetch you at the garden-gate; and in François' eyes you will
+pass for a friend of his mother's. He will guess the truth gradually."
+
+"And you think that my father will give me a good welcome?"
+
+"He will receive you with open arms, Madame Véronique," cried the Breton
+woman, "and we shall all be happy, provided . . . provided nothing has
+happened . . . It's so funny that François doesn't run out to meet me!
+He can see our boat from every part of the island . . . as far off as
+the Glenans almost."
+
+She relapsed into what M. d'Hergemont called her crotchets; and they
+pursued their road in silence. Véronique felt anxious and impatient.
+
+Suddenly Honorine made the sign of the cross:
+
+"You do as I'm doing, Madame Véronique," she said. "The monks have
+consecrated the place, but there's lots of bad, unlucky things remaining
+from the old days, especially in that wood, the wood of the Great Oak."
+
+The old days no doubt meant the period of the Druids and their human
+sacrifices; and the two women were now entering a wood in which the
+oaks, each standing in isolation on a mound of moss-grown stones, had a
+look of ancient gods, each with his own altar, his mysterious cult and
+his formidable power.
+
+Véronique, following Honorine's example, crossed herself and could not
+help shuddering as she said:
+
+"How melancholy it is! There's not a flower on this desolate plateau."
+
+"They grow most wonderfully when one takes the trouble. You shall see
+Maguennoc's, at the end of the island, to the right of the Fairies'
+Dolmen . . . a place called the Calvary of the Flowers."
+
+"Are they lovely?"
+
+"Wonderful, I tell you. Only he goes himself to get the mould from
+certain places. He prepares it. He works it up. He mixes it with some
+special leaves of which he knows the effect." And she repeated, "You
+shall see Maguennoc's flowers. There are no flowers like them in the
+world. They are miraculous flowers . . . ."
+
+After skirting a hill, the road descended a sudden declivity. A huge
+gash divided the island into two parts, the second of which now
+appeared, standing a little higher, but very much more limited in
+extent.
+
+"It's the Priory, that part," said Honorine.
+
+The same jagged cliffs surrounded the smaller islet with an even steeper
+rampart, which itself was hollowed out underneath like the hoop of a
+crown. And this rampart was joined to the main island by a strip of
+cliff fifty yards long and hardly thicker than a castle-wall, with a
+thin, tapering crest which looked as sharp as the edge of an axe.
+
+There was no thoroughfare possible along this ridge, inasmuch as it was
+split in the middle with a wide fissure, for which reason the abutments
+of a wooden bridge had been anchored to the two extremities. The bridge
+started flat on the rock and subsequently spanned the intervening
+crevice.
+
+They crossed it separately, for it was not only very narrow but also
+unstable, shaking under their feet and in the wind.
+
+"Look, over there, at the extreme point of the island," said Honorine,
+"you can see a corner of the Priory."
+
+The path that led to it ran through fields planted with small fir-trees
+arranged in quincunxes. Another path turned to the right and disappeared
+from view in some dense thickets.
+
+Véronique kept her eyes upon the Priory, whose low-storied front was
+lengthening gradually, when Honorine, after a few minutes, stopped
+short, with her face towards the thickets on the right, and called out:
+
+"Monsieur Stéphane!"
+
+"Whom are you calling?" asked Véronique. "M. Maroux?"
+
+"Yes, François' tutor. He was running towards the bridge: I caught sight
+of him through a clearing . . . Monsieur Stéphane! . . . But why doesn't
+he answer? Did you see a man running?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I declare it was he, with his white cap. At any rate, we can see the
+bridge behind us. Let us wait for him to cross."
+
+"Why wait? If anything's the matter, if there's a danger of any kind,
+it's at the Priory."
+
+"You're right. Let's hurry."
+
+They hastened their pace, overcome with forebodings; and then, for no
+definite reason, broke into a run, so greatly did their fears increase
+as they drew nearer to the reality.
+
+The islet grew narrower again, barred by a low wall which marked the
+boundaries of the Priory domain. At that moment, cries were heard,
+coming from the house.
+
+Honorine exclaimed:
+
+"They're calling! Did you hear? A woman's cries! It's the cook! It's
+Marie Le Goff! . . ."
+
+She made a dash for the gate and grasped the key, but inserted it so
+awkwardly that she jammed the lock and was unable to open it.
+
+"Through the gap!" she ordered. "This way, on the right!"
+
+They rushed along, scrambled through the wall and crossed a wide grassy
+space filled with ruins, in which the winding and ill-marked path
+disappeared at every moment under trailing creepers and moss.
+
+"Here we are! Here we are!" shouted Honorine. "We're coming!"
+
+And she muttered:
+
+"The cries have stopped! It's dreadful! Oh, poor Marie Le Goff!"
+
+She grasped Véronique's arm:
+
+"Let's go round. The front of the house is on the other side. On this
+side the doors are always locked and the window-shutters closed."
+
+But Véronique caught her foot in some roots, stumbled and fell to her
+knees. When she stood up again, the Breton woman had left her and was
+hurrying round the left wing. Unconsciously, Véronique, instead of
+following her, made straight for the house, climbed the step and was
+brought up short by the door, at which she knocked again and again.
+
+The idea of going round, as Honorine had done, seemed to her a waste of
+time which nothing could ever make good. However, realising the
+futility of her efforts, she was just deciding to go, when once more
+cries sounded from inside the house and above her head.
+
+It was a man's voice, which Véronique seemed to recognize as her
+father's. She fell back a few steps. Suddenly one of the windows on the
+first floor opened and she saw M. d'Hergemont, his features distorted
+with inexpressible terror, gasping:
+
+"Help! Help! Oh, the monster! Help!"
+
+"Father! Father!" cried Véronique, in despair. "It's I!"
+
+He lowered his head for an instant, appeared not to see his daughter and
+made a quick attempt to climb over the balcony. But a shot rang out
+behind him and one of the window-panes was blown into fragments.
+
+"Murderer, murderer!" he shouted, turning back into the room.
+
+Véronique, mad with fear and helplessness, looked around her. How could
+she rescue her father? The wall was too high and offered nothing to
+cling to. Suddenly, she saw a ladder, lying twenty yards away, beside
+the wall of the house. With a prodigious effort of will and strength,
+she managed to carry the ladder, heavy though it was, and to set it up
+under the open window.
+
+At the most tragic moment in life, when the mind is no more than a
+seething confusion, when the whole body is shaken by the tremor of
+anguish, a certain logic continues to connect our ideas: and Véronique
+wondered why she had not heard Honorine's voice and what could have
+delayed her coming.
+
+She also thought of François. Where was François? Had he followed
+Stéphane Maroux in his inexplicable flight? Had he gone in search of
+assistance? And who was it that M. d'Hergemont had apostrophized as a
+monster and a murderer?
+
+The ladder did not reach the window; and Véronique at once became aware
+of the effort which would be necessary if she was to climb over the
+balcony. Nevertheless she did not hesitate. They were fighting up there;
+and the struggle was mingled with stifled shouts uttered by her father.
+She went up the ladder. The most that she could do was to grasp the
+bottom rail of the balcony. But a narrow ledge enabled her to hoist
+herself on one knee, to put her head through and to witness the tragedy
+that was being enacted in the room.
+
+At that moment, M. d'Hergemont had once more retreated to the window and
+even a little beyond it, so that she almost saw him face to face. He
+stood without moving, haggard-eyed and with his arms hanging in an
+undecided posture, as though waiting for something terrible to happen.
+He stammered:
+
+"Murderer! Murderer! . . . Is it really you? Oh, curse you! François!
+François!"
+
+He was no doubt calling upon his grandson for help; and François no
+doubt was also exposed to some attack, was perhaps wounded, was possibly
+dead!
+
+Véronique summoned up all her strength and succeeded in setting foot on
+the ledge.
+
+"Here I am! Here I am!" she meant to cry.
+
+But her voice died away in her throat. She had seen! She saw! Facing
+her father, at a distance of five paces, against the opposite wall of
+the room, stood some one pointing a revolver at M. d'Hergemont and
+deliberately taking aim. And that some one was . . . oh, horror!
+Véronique recognized the red cap of which Honorine had spoken, the
+flannel shirt with the gilt buttons. And above all she beheld, in that
+young face convulsed with hideous emotions, the very expression which
+Vorski used to wear at times when his instincts, hatred and ferocity,
+gained the upper hand.
+
+The boy did not see her. His eyes were fixed on the mark which he
+proposed to hit; and he seemed to take a sort of savage joy in
+postponing the fatal act.
+
+Véronique herself was silent. Words or cries could not possibly avert
+the peril. What she had to do was to fling herself between her father
+and her son. She clutched hold of the railings, clambered up and climbed
+through the window.
+
+It was too late. The shot was fired. M. d'Hergemont fell with a groan of
+pain.
+
+And, at the same time, at that very moment, while the boy still had his
+arm outstretched and the old man was sinking into a huddled heap, a door
+opened at the back. Honorine appeared; and the abominable sight struck
+her, so to speak, full in the face.
+
+"François!" she screamed. "You! You!"
+
+The boy sprang at her. The woman tried to bar his way. There was not
+even a struggle. The boy took a step back, quickly raised his weapon and
+fired.
+
+Honorine's knees gave way beneath her and she fell across the
+threshold. And, as he jumped over her body and fled, she kept on
+repeating:
+
+"François . . . . François . . . . No, it's not true! . . . Oh, can it
+be possible? . . . François . . . ."
+
+There was a burst of laughter outside. Yes, the boy had laughed.
+Véronique heard that horrible, infernal laugh, so like Vorski's laugh;
+and it all agonized her with the same anguish which used to sear her in
+Vorski's days!
+
+She did not run after the murderer. She did not call out.
+
+A faint voice beside her was murmuring her name:
+
+"Véronique . . . . Véronique . . . ."
+
+M. d'Hergemont lay on the ground, staring at her with glassy eyes which
+were already filled with death.
+
+She knelt down by his side; but, when she tried to unbutton his
+waistcoat and his bloodstained shirt, in order to dress the wound of
+which he was dying, he gently pushed her hand aside. She understood that
+all aid was useless and that he wished to speak to her. She stooped
+still lower.
+
+"Véronique . . . forgive . . . Véronique . . . ."
+
+It was the first utterance of his failing thoughts.
+
+She kissed him on the forehead and wept:
+
+"Hush, father . . . . Don't tire yourself . . . ."
+
+But he had something else to say; and his mouth vainly emitted syllables
+which did not form words and to which she listened in despair. His life
+was ebbing away. His mind was fading into the darkness. Véronique glued
+her ear to the lips which exhausted themselves in a supreme effort and
+she caught the words:
+
+"Beware . . . beware . . . the God-Stone . . . ."
+
+Suddenly he half raised himself. His eyes flashed as though lit by the
+last flicker of an expiring flame. Véronique received the impression
+that her father, as he looked at her, now understood nothing but the
+full significance of her presence and foresaw all the dangers that
+threatened her; and, speaking in a hoarse and terrified but quite
+distinct voice, he said:
+
+"You mustn't stay . . . . It means death if you stay . . . . Escape this
+island . . . . Go . . . Go . . . ."
+
+His head fell back. He stammered a few more words which Véronique was
+just able to grasp:
+
+"Oh, the cross! . . . The four crosses of Sarek! . . . My daughter . . .
+my daughter . . . crucified! . . ."
+
+And that was all.
+
+There was a great silence, a vast silence which Véronique felt weighing
+upon her like a burden that grows heavier second after second.
+
+"You must escape from this island," a voice repeated. "Go, quickly. Your
+father bade you, Madame Véronique."
+
+Honorine was beside her, livid in the face, with her two hands clasping
+a napkin, rolled into a plug and red with blood, which she held to her
+chest.
+
+"But I must look after you first!" cried Véronique. "Wait a moment
+. . . . Let me see . . . ."
+
+"Later on . . . they'll attend to me presently," spluttered Honorine.
+"Oh, the monster! . . . If I had only come in time! But the door below
+was barricaded . . . ."
+
+"Do let me see to your wound," Véronique implored. "Lie down."
+
+"Presently . . . . First Marie Le Goff, the cook, at the top of the
+staircase . . . . She's wounded too . . . mortally perhaps . . . . Go
+and see."
+
+Véronique went out by the door at the back, the one through which her
+son had made his escape. There was a large landing here. On the top
+steps, curled into a heap, lay Marie Le Goff, with the death-rattle in
+her throat.
+
+She died almost at once, without recovering consciousness, the third
+victim of the incomprehensible tragedy. As foretold by old Maguennoc, M.
+d'Hergemont had been the second victim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE POOR PEOPLE OF SAREK
+
+
+Honorine's wound was deep but did not seem likely to prove fatal. When
+Véronique had dressed it and moved Marie Le Goff's body to the room
+filled with books and furnished like a study in which her father was
+lying, she closed M. d'Hergemont's eyes, covered him with a sheet and
+knelt down to pray. But the words of prayer would not come to her lips
+and her mind was incapable of dwelling on a single thought. She felt
+stunned by the repeated blows of misfortune. She sat down in a chair,
+holding her head in her hands. Thus she remained for nearly an hour,
+while Honorine slept a feverish sleep.
+
+With all her strength she rejected her son's image, even as she had
+always rejected Vorski's. But the two images became mingled together,
+whirling around her and dancing before her eyes like those lights which,
+when we close our eyelids tightly, pass and pass again and multiply and
+blend into one. And it was always one and the same face, cruel,
+sardonic, hideously grinning.
+
+She did not suffer, as a mother suffers when mourning the loss of a son.
+Her son had been dead these fourteen years; and the one who had come to
+life again, the one for whom all the wells of her maternal affection
+were ready to gush forth, had suddenly become a stranger and even worse:
+Vorski's son! How indeed could she have suffered?
+
+But ah, what a wound inflicted in the depths of her being! What an
+upheaval, like those cataclysms which shake the whole of a peaceful
+country-side! What a hellish spectacle! What a vision of madness and
+horror! What an ironical jest, a jest of the most hideous destiny! Her
+son killing her father at the moment when, after all these years of
+separation and sorrow, she was on the point of embracing them both and
+living with them in sweet and homely intimacy! Her son a murderer! Her
+son dispensing death and terror broadcast! Her son levelling that
+ruthless weapon, slaying with all his heart and soul and taking a
+perverse delight in it!
+
+The motives which might explain these actions interested her not at all.
+Why had her son done these things? Why had his tutor, Stéphane Maroux,
+doubtless an accomplice, possibly an instigator, fled before the
+tragedy? These were questions which she did not seek to solve. She
+thought only of the frightful scene of carnage and death. And she asked
+herself if death was not for her the only refuge and the only ending.
+
+"Madame Véronique," whispered Honorine.
+
+"What is it?" asked Véronique, roused from her stupor.
+
+"Don't you hear?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"A ring at the bell below. They must be bringing your luggage."
+
+She sprang to her feet.
+
+"But what am I to say? How can I explain? . . . If I accuse that boy
+. . ."
+
+"Not a word, please. Let me speak to them."
+
+"You're very weak, my poor Honorine."
+
+"No, no, I'm feeling better."
+
+Véronique went downstairs, crossed a broad entrance-hall paved with
+black and white flags and drew the bolts of a great door.
+
+It was, as they expected, one of the sailors:
+
+"I knocked at the kitchen-door first," said the man. "Isn't Marie Le
+Goff there? And Madame Honorine?"
+
+"Honorine is upstairs and would like to speak to you."
+
+The sailor looked at her, seemed impressed by this young woman, who
+looked so pale and serious, and followed her without a word.
+
+Honorine was waiting on the first floor, standing in front of the open
+door:
+
+"Ah, it's you, Corréjou? . . . Now listen to me . . . and no silly talk,
+please."
+
+"What's the matter, M'ame Honorine? Why, you're wounded! What is it?"
+
+She stepped aside from the doorway and, pointing to the two bodies under
+their winding-sheets, said simply:
+
+"Monsieur Antoine and Marie Le Goff . . . both of them murdered."
+
+The man's face became distorted. He stammered:
+
+"Murdered . . . you don't say so . . . . Why?"
+
+"I don't know; we arrived after it happened."
+
+"But . . . young François? . . . Monsieur Stéphane? . . ."
+
+"Gone . . . . They must have been killed too."
+
+"But . . . but . . . Maguennoc?"
+
+"Maguennoc? Why do you speak of Maguennoc?"
+
+"I speak of Maguennoc, I speak of Maguennoc . . . because, if he's alive
+. . . this is a very different business. Maguennoc always said that he
+would be the first. Maguennoc only says things of which he's certain.
+Maguennoc understands these things thoroughly."
+
+Honorine reflected and then said:
+
+"Maguennoc has been killed."
+
+This time Corréjou lost all his composure: and his features expressed
+that sort of insane terror which Véronique had repeatedly observed in
+Honorine. He made the sign of the cross and said, in a low whisper:
+
+"Then . . . then . . . it's happening, Ma'me Honorine? . . . Maguennoc
+said it would . . . . Only the other day, in my boat, he was saying, 'It
+won't be long now . . . . Everybody ought to get away.'"
+
+And suddenly the sailor turned on his heel and made for the staircase.
+
+"Stay where you are, Corréjou," said Honorine, in a voice of command.
+
+"We must get away. Maguennoc said so. Everybody has got to go."
+
+"Stay where you are," Honorine repeated.
+
+Corréjou stopped, undecidedly. And Honorine continued:
+
+"We are agreed. We must go. We shall start to-morrow, towards the
+evening. But first we must attend to Monsieur Antoine and to Marie Le
+Goff. Look here, you go to the sisters Archignat and send them to keep
+watch by the dead. They are bad women, but they are used to doing that.
+Say that two of the three must come. Each of them shall have double the
+ordinary fee."
+
+"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"
+
+"You and all the old men will see to the coffins; and at daybreak we
+will bury the bodies in consecrated ground, in the cemetery of the
+chapel."
+
+"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"
+
+"After that, you will be free and the others too. You can pack up and be
+off."
+
+"But you, Ma'me Honorine?"
+
+"I have the boat. That's enough talking. Are we agreed?"
+
+"Yes, we're agreed. It means one more night to spend here. But I suppose
+that nothing fresh will happen between this and to-morrow? . . ."
+
+"Why no, why no . . . Go, Corréjou. Hurry. And above all don't tell the
+others that Maguennoc is dead . . . or we shall never keep them here."
+
+"That's a promise, Ma'me Honorine."
+
+The man hastened away.
+
+An hour later, two of the sisters Archignat appeared, two skinny,
+shrivelled old hags, looking like witches in their dirty, greasy caps
+with the black-velvet bows. Honorine was taken to her own room on the
+same floor, at the end of the left wing.
+
+And the vigil of the dead began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Véronique spent the first part of the night beside her father's body and
+then went and sat with Honorine, whose condition seemed to grow worse.
+She ended by dozing off and was wakened by the Breton woman, who said to
+her, in one of those accesses of fever in which the brain still retains
+a certain lucidity:
+
+"François must be hiding . . . and M. Stéphane too . . . The island has
+safe hiding-places, which Maguennoc showed them. We shan't see them,
+therefore; and no one will know anything about them."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite. So listen to me. To-morrow, when everybody has left Sarek and
+when we two are alone, I shall blow the signal with my horn and he will
+come here."
+
+Véronique was horrified:
+
+"But I don't want to see him!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I loathe
+him! . . . Like my father, I curse him! . . . Have you forgotten? He
+killed my father, before our eyes! He killed Marie Le Goff! He tried to
+kill you! . . . No, what I feel for him is hatred and disgust! The
+monster!"
+
+The Breton woman took her hand, as she had formed a habit of doing, and
+murmured:
+
+"Don't condemn him yet . . . . He did not know what he was doing."
+
+"What do you mean? He didn't know? Why, I saw his eyes, Vorski's eyes!"
+
+"He did not know . . . he was mad."
+
+"Mad? Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, Madame Véronique. I know the boy. He's the kindest creature on
+earth. If he did all this, it was because he went mad suddenly . . . he
+and M. Stéphane. They must both be weeping in despair now."
+
+"It's impossible. I can't believe it."
+
+"You can't believe it because you know nothing of what is happening
+. . . and of what is going to happen . . . . But, if you did know . . .
+Oh, there are things . . . there are things!"
+
+Her voice was no longer audible. She was silent, but her eyes remained
+wide open and her lips moved without uttering a sound.
+
+Nothing occurred until the morning. At five o'clock Véronique heard them
+nailing down the coffins; and almost immediately afterwards the door of
+the room in which she sat was opened and the sisters Archignat entered
+like a whirlwind, both greatly excited.
+
+They had heard the truth from Corréjou, who, to give himself courage,
+had taken a drop too much to drink and was talking at random:
+
+"Maguennoc is dead!" they screamed. "Maguennoc is dead and you never
+told us! Give us our money, quick! We're going!"
+
+The moment they were paid, they ran away as fast as their legs would
+carry them; and, an hour later, some other women, informed by them, came
+hurrying to drag their men from their work. They all used the same
+words:
+
+"We must go! We must get ready to start! . . . It'll be too late
+afterwards. The two boats can take us all."
+
+Honorine had to intervene with all her authority and Véronique was
+obliged to distribute money. And the funeral was hurriedly conducted.
+Not far away was an old chapel, carefully restored by M. d'Hergemont,
+where a priest came once a month from Pont-l'Abbé to say mass. Beside it
+was the ancient cemetery of the abbots of Sarek. The two bodies were
+buried here; and an old man, who in ordinary times acted as sacristan,
+mumbled the blessing.
+
+All the people seemed smitten with madness. Their voices and movements
+were spasmodic. They were obsessed with the fixed idea of leaving the
+island and paid no attention to Véronique, who knelt a little way off,
+praying and weeping.
+
+It was all over before eight o'clock. Men and women made their way down
+across the island. Véronique, who felt as though she were living in a
+nightmare world where events followed upon one another without logic and
+with no connected sequence, went back to Honorine, whose feeble
+condition had prevented her from attending her master's funeral.
+
+"I'm feeling better," said the Breton woman. "We shall go to-day or
+to-morrow and we shall go with François."
+
+Véronique protested angrily; but Honorine repeated:
+
+"With François, I tell you, and with M. Stéphane. And as soon as
+possible. I also want to go . . . and to take you with me . . . and
+François too. There is death in the island. Death is the master here. We
+must leave Sarek. We shall all go."
+
+Véronique did not wish to thwart her. But at nine o'clock hurried steps
+were heard outside. It was Corréjou, coming from the village. On
+reaching the door he shouted:
+
+"They've stolen your motor-boat, Ma'me Honorine! She's disappeared!"
+
+"Impossible!" said Honorine.
+
+But the sailor, all out of breath, declared:
+
+"She's disappeared. I suspected something this morning early. But I
+expect I had had a glass too much; I did not give it another thought.
+Others have since seen what I did. The painter has been cut . . . . It
+happened during the night. And they've made off. No one saw or heard
+them."
+
+The two women exchanged glances; and the same thought occurred to both
+of them: François and Stéphane Maroux had taken to flight.
+
+Honorine muttered between her teeth:
+
+"Yes, yes, that's it: he understands how to work the boat."
+
+Véronique perhaps felt a certain relief at knowing that the boy had gone
+and that she would not see him again. But Honorine, seized with a
+renewed fear, exclaimed:
+
+"Then . . . then what are we to do?"
+
+"You must leave at once, Ma'me Honorine. The boats are ready . . .
+everybody's packing up. There'll be no one in the village by eleven
+o'clock."
+
+Véronique interposed:
+
+"Honorine's not in a condition to travel."
+
+"Yes, I am; I'm better," the Breton woman declared.
+
+"No, it would be ridiculous. Let us wait a day or two . . . . Come back
+in two days, Corréjou."
+
+She pushed the sailor towards the door. He, for that matter, was only
+too anxious to go:
+
+"Very well," he said, "that'll do: I'll come back the day after
+to-morrow. Besides, we can't take everything with us. We shall have to
+come back now and again to fetch our things . . . . Good-bye, Ma'me
+Honorine; take care of yourself."
+
+And he ran outside.
+
+"Corréjou! Corréjou!"
+
+Honorine was sitting up in bed and calling to him in despair:
+
+"No, no, don't go away, Corréjou! . . . Wait for me and carry me to your
+boat."
+
+She listened; and, as the man did not return, she tried to get up:
+
+"I'm frightened," she said. "I don't want to be left alone."
+
+Véronique held her down:
+
+"You're not going to be left alone, Honorine. I shan't leave you."
+
+There was an actual struggle between the two women; and Honorine, pushed
+back on her bed by main force, moaned, helplessly:
+
+"I'm frightened . . . . I'm frightened . . . . The island is accursed
+. . . . It's tempting Providence to remain behind . . . . Maguennoc's
+death was a warning . . . . I'm frightened . . . ."
+
+She was more or less delirious, but still retained a half-lucidity which
+enabled her to intersperse a few intelligible and reasonable remarks
+among the incoherent phrases which revealed her superstitious Breton
+soul.
+
+She gripped Véronique by her two shoulders and declared:
+
+"I tell you, the island's cursed. Maguennoc confessed as much himself
+one day: 'Sarek is one of the gates of hell,' he said. 'The gate is
+closed now, but, on the day when it opens, every misfortune you can
+think of will be upon it like a squall.'"
+
+She calmed herself a little, at Véronique's entreaty, and continued, in
+a lower voice, which grew fainter as she spoke:
+
+"He loved the island, though . . . as we all do. At such times he would
+speak of it in a way which I did not understand: 'The gate is a double
+one, Honorine, and it also opens on Paradise.' Yes, yes, the island was
+good to live in . . . . We loved it . . . . Maguennoc made flowers grow
+on it . . . . Oh, those flowers! They were enormous: three times as tall
+. . . and as beautiful . . ."
+
+The minutes passed slowly. The bedroom was at the extreme left of the
+house, just above the rocks which overhung the sea and separated from
+them only by the width of the road.
+
+Véronique sat down at the window, with her eyes fixed on the white waves
+which grew still more troubled as the wind blew more strongly. The sun
+was rising. In the direction of the village she saw nothing except a
+steep headland. But, beyond the belt of foam studded with the black
+points of the reefs, the view embraced the deserted plains of the
+Atlantic.
+
+Honorine murmured, drowsily:
+
+"They say that the gate is a stone . . . and that it comes from very far
+away, from a foreign country. It's the God-Stone. They also say that
+it's a precious stone . . . the colour of gold and silver mixed . . . .
+The God-Stone . . . . The stone that gives life or death . . . .
+Maguennoc saw it . . . . He opened the gate and put his arm through
+. . . . And his hand . . . his hand was burnt to a cinder."
+
+Véronique felt oppressed. Fear was gradually overcoming her also, like
+the oozing and soaking of stagnant water. The horrible events of the
+last few days, of which she had been a terrified witness, seemed to
+evoke others yet more dreadful, which she anticipated like an inevitable
+hurricane that is bound to carry off everything in its headlong course.
+
+She expected them. She had no doubt that they would come, unloosed by
+the fatal power which was multiplying its terrible assaults upon her.
+
+"Don't you see the boats?" asked Honorine.
+
+"No," she said, "you can't see them from here."
+
+"Yes, you can: they are sure to come this way. They are heavy boats: and
+there's a wider passage at the point."
+
+The next moment, Véronique saw the bow of a boat project beyond the end
+of the headland. The boat lay low in the water, being very heavily
+laden, crammed with crates and parcels on which women and children were
+seated. Four men were rowing lustily.
+
+"That's Corréjou's," said Honorine, who had left her bed, half-dressed.
+"And there's the other: look."
+
+The second boat came into view, equally burdened. Only three men were
+rowing, with a woman to help them.
+
+Both boats were too far away--perhaps seven or eight hundred yards--to
+allow the faces of the occupants to be seen. And no sound of voices rose
+from those heavy hulls with their cargoes of wretchedness, which were
+fleeing from death.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" moaned Honorine. "If only they escape this hell!"
+
+"What can you be afraid of, Honorine? They are in no danger."
+
+"Yes, they are, as long as they have not left the island."
+
+"But they have left it."
+
+"It's still the island all around the island. It's there that the
+coffins lurk and lie in wait."
+
+"But the sea is not rough."
+
+"There's more than the sea. It's not the sea that's the enemy."
+
+"Then what is?"
+
+"I don't know . . . . I don't know . . . ."
+
+The two boats veered round at the southern point. Before them lay two
+channels, which Honorine pointed out by the name of two reefs, the
+Devil's Rock and the Sarek Tooth.
+
+It at once became evident that Corréjou had chosen the Devil's Channel.
+
+"They're touching it," said Honorine. "They are there. Another hundred
+yards and they are safe."
+
+She almost gave a chuckle:
+
+"Ah, all the devil's machinations will be thwarted, Madame Véronique! I
+really believe that we shall be saved, you and I and all the people of
+Sarek."
+
+Véronique remained silent. Her depression continued and was all the more
+overwhelming because she could attribute it only to vague presentiments
+which she was powerless to fight against. She had drawn an imaginary
+line up to which the danger threatened, would continue to threaten, and
+where it still persisted; and this line Corréjou had not yet reached.
+
+Honorine was shivering with fever. She mumbled:
+
+"I'm frightened . . . . I'm frightened . . . ."
+
+"Nonsense," declared Véronique, pulling herself together, "It's absurd!
+Where can the danger come from?"
+
+"Oh," cried the Breton woman, "what's that? What does it mean?"
+
+"What? What is it?"
+
+They had both pressed their foreheads to the panes and were staring
+wildly before them. Down below, something had so to speak shot out from
+the Devil's Rock. And they at once recognized the motor-boat which they
+had used the day before and which according to Corréjou had disappeared.
+
+"François! François!" cried Honorine, in stupefaction. "François and
+Monsieur Stéphane!"
+
+Véronique recognized the boy. He was standing in the bow of the
+motor-boat and making signs to the people in the two rowing-boats. The
+men answered by waving their oars, while the women gesticulated. In
+spite of Véronique's opposition, Honorine opened both halves of the
+window; and they could hear the sound of voices above the throbbing of
+the motor, though they could not catch a single word.
+
+"What does it mean?" repeated Honorine. "François and M. Stéphane! . . .
+Why did they not make for the mainland?"
+
+"Perhaps," Véronique explained, "they were afraid of being observed and
+questioned on landing."
+
+"No, they are known, especially François, who often used to go with me.
+Besides, the identity-papers are in the boat. No, they were waiting
+there, hidden behind the rock."
+
+"But, Honorine, if they were hiding, why do they show themselves now?"
+
+"Ah, that's just it, that's just it! . . . I don't understand . . . and
+it strikes me as odd . . . . What must Corréjou and the others think?"
+
+The two boats, of which the second was now gliding in the wake of the
+first, had almost stopped. All the passengers seemed to be looking round
+at the motor-boat, which came rapidly in their direction and slackened
+speed when she was level with the second boat. In this way, she
+continued on a line parallel with that of the two boats and fifteen or
+twenty yards away.
+
+"I don't understand . . . . I don't understand," muttered Honorine.
+
+The motor had been cut off and the motor-boat now very slowly reached
+the space that separated the two fish-boats.
+
+And suddenly the two women saw François stoop and then stand up again
+and draw his right arm back, as though he were going to throw something.
+
+And at the same time Stéphane Maroux acted in the same way.
+
+Then the unexpected, terrifying thing happened.
+
+"Oh!" cried Véronique.
+
+She hid her eyes for a second, but at once raised her head again and saw
+the hideous sight in all its horror.
+
+Two things had been thrown across the little space, one from the bow,
+flung by François, the other from the stern, flung by Stéphane Maroux.
+
+And two bursts of fire at once shot up from the two boats, followed by
+two whirls of smoke.
+
+The explosions re-echoed. For a moment, nothing of what happened amid
+that black cloud was visible. Then the curtain parted, blown aside by
+the wind, and Véronique and Honorine saw the two boats swiftly sinking,
+while their occupants jumped into the sea.
+
+The sight, the infernal sight, did not last long. They saw, standing on
+one of the buoys that marked the channel, a woman holding a child in her
+arms, without moving: then some motionless bodies, no doubt killed by
+the explosion; then two men fighting, mad perhaps. And all this went
+down with the boats.
+
+A few eddies, some black specks floating on the surface; and that was
+all.
+
+Honorine and Véronique, struck dumb with terror, had not uttered a
+single word. The thing surpassed the worst that their anguished minds
+could have conceived.
+
+When it was all over, Honorine put her hand to her head and, in a hollow
+voice which Véronique was never to forget, said:
+
+"My head's bursting. Oh, the poor people of Sarek! They were my friends,
+the friends of my childhood; and I shall never see them again . . . .
+The sea never gives up its dead at Sarek: it keeps them. It has its
+coffins all ready: thousands and thousands of hidden coffins . . . . Oh,
+my head is bursting! . . . I shall go mad . . . mad like François, my
+poor François!"
+
+Véronique did not answer. She was grey in the face. With clutching
+fingers she clung to the balcony, gazing downwards as one gazes into an
+abyss into which one is about to fling oneself. What would her son do?
+Would he save those people, whose shouts of distress now reached her
+ears, would he save them without delay? One may have fits of madness;
+but the attacks pass away at the sight of certain things.
+
+The motor-boat had backed at first to avoid the eddies. François and
+Stéphane, whose red cap and white cap were still visible, were standing
+in the same positions at the bow and the stern; and they held in their
+hands . . . what? The two women could not see clearly, because of the
+distance, what they held in their hands. It looked like two rather long
+sticks.
+
+"Poles, to help them," suggested Véronique.
+
+"Or guns," said Honorine.
+
+The black specks were still floating. There were nine of them, the nine
+heads of the survivors, whose arms also the two women saw moving from
+time to time and whose cries for help they heard.
+
+Some were hurriedly moving away from the motor-boat, but four were
+swimming towards it; and, of those four, two could not fail to reach it.
+
+Suddenly François and Stéphane made the same movement, the movement of
+marksmen taking aim.
+
+There were two flashes, followed by the sound of a single report.
+
+The heads of the two swimmers disappeared.
+
+"Oh, the monsters!" stammered Véronique, almost swooning and falling on
+her knees.
+
+Honorine, beside her, began screaming:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+Her voice did not carry, first because it was too weak and then the wind
+was in her face. But she continued:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+She next stumbled across the room and into the corridor, in search of
+something, and returned to the window, still shouting:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+She had ended by finding the shell which she used as a signal. But, on
+lifting it to her mouth, she found that she could produce only dull and
+indistinct sounds from it:
+
+"Oh, curse the thing!" she cried, flinging the shell away. "I have no
+strength left . . . . François! François!"
+
+She was terrible to look at, with her hair all in disorder and her face
+covered with the sweat of fever. Véronique implored her:
+
+"Please, Honorine, please!"
+
+"But look at them, look at them!"
+
+The motor-boat was drifting forward down below, with the two marksmen at
+their posts, holding their guns ready for murder.
+
+The survivors fled. Two of them hung back in the rear.
+
+These two were aimed at. Their heads disappeared from view.
+
+"But look at them!" Honorine said, explosively, in a hoarse voice.
+"They're hunting them down! They're killing them like game! . . . Oh,
+the poor people of Sarek! . . ."
+
+Another shot. Another black speck vanished.
+
+Véronique was writhing in despair. She shook the rails of the balcony,
+as she might have shaken the bars of a cage in which she was imprisoned.
+
+"Vorski! Vorski!" she groaned, stricken by the recollection of her
+husband. "He's Vorski's son!"
+
+Suddenly she felt herself seized by the throat and saw, close to her own
+face, the distorted face of the Breton woman.
+
+"He's your son!" spluttered Honorine. "Curse you! You are the monster's
+mother and you shall be punished for it!"
+
+And she burst out laughing and stamping her feet, in an overpowering fit
+of hilarity.
+
+"The cross, yes, the cross! You shall be crucified, with nails through
+your hands! . . . What a punishment, nails through your hands!"
+
+She was mad.
+
+Véronique released herself and tried to hold the other motionless: but
+Honorine, filled with malicious rage, threw her off, making her lose
+balance, and began to climb into the balcony.
+
+She remained standing outside the window, lifting up her arms and once
+more shouting:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+The first floor was not so high on this side of the house, owing to the
+slope of the ground. Honorine jumped into the path below, crossed it,
+pushed her way through the shrubs that lined it and ran to the ridge of
+rocks which formed the cliff and overhung the sea.
+
+She stopped for a moment, thrice called out the name of the child whom
+she had reared and flung herself headlong into the deep.
+
+In the distance, the man-hunt drew to a finish.
+
+The heads sank one by one. The massacre was completed.
+
+Then the motor-boat with François and Stéphane on board fled towards the
+coast of Brittany, towards the beaches of Beg-Meil and Concarneau.
+
+Véronique was left alone on Coffin Island.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"FOUR WOMEN CRUCIFIED"
+
+
+Véronique was left alone on Coffin Island. Until the sun sank among the
+clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not
+move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her
+two arms resting on the sill.
+
+The dread reality passed through the darkness of her mind like pictures
+which she strove not to see, but which at times became so clearly
+defined that she imagined herself to be living through those atrocious
+scenes again.
+
+Still she sought no explanation of all this and formed no theories as to
+all the motives which might have thrown a light upon the tragedy. She
+admitted the madness of François and of Stéphane Maroux, being unable to
+suppose any other reasons for such actions as theirs. And, believing the
+two murderers to be mad, she did not even try to attribute to them any
+projects or definite wishes.
+
+Moreover, Honorine's madness, of which she had, so to speak, observed
+the outbreak, impelled her to look upon all that had happened as
+provoked by a sort of mental upset to which all the people of Sarek had
+fallen victims. She herself at moments felt that her brain was reeling,
+that her ideas were fading away in a mist, that invisible ghosts were
+hovering around her.
+
+She dozed off into a sleep which was haunted by these images and in
+which she felt so wretched that she began to sob. Also it seemed to her
+that she could hear a slight noise which, in her benumbed wits, assumed
+a hostile significance. Enemies were approaching. She opened her eyes.
+
+A couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a
+queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its
+fore-paws folded like a pair of arms.
+
+It was a dog; and she at once remembered François' dog, of which
+Honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature. She even
+remembered his name, All's-Well.
+
+As she uttered this name in an undertone, she felt an angry impulse and
+was almost driving away the animal endowed with such an ironical
+nickname. All's-Well! And she thought of all the victims of the horrible
+nightmare, of all the dead people of Sarek, of her murdered father, of
+Honorine killing herself, of François going mad. All's-Well, forsooth!
+
+Meanwhile the dog did not stir. He was sitting up as Honorine had
+described, with his head a little on one side, one eye closed, the
+corners of his mouth drawn back to his ears and his arms crossed in
+front of him; and there was really something very like a smile flitting
+over his face.
+
+Véronique now remembered: this was the manner in which All's-Well
+displayed his sympathy for those in trouble. All's-Well could not bear
+the sight of tears. When people wept, he sat up until they in their turn
+smiled and petted him.
+
+Véronique did not smile, but she pressed him against her and said:
+
+"No, my poor dog, all's not well; on the contrary, all's as bad as it
+can be. No matter: we must live, mustn't we, and we mustn't go mad
+ourselves like the others?"
+
+The necessities of life obliged her to act. She went down to the
+kitchen, found some food and gave the dog a good share of it. Then she
+went upstairs again.
+
+Night had fallen. She opened, on the first floor, the door of a bedroom
+which at ordinary times must have been unoccupied. She was weighed down
+with an immense fatigue, caused by all the efforts and violent emotions
+which she had undergone. She fell asleep almost at once. All's Well lay
+awake at the foot of her bed.
+
+Next morning she woke late, with a curious feeling of peace and
+security. It seemed to her that her present life was somehow connected
+with her calm and placid life at Besançon. The few days of horror which
+she had passed fell away from her like distant events whose return she
+had no need to fear. The men and women who had gone under in the great
+horror became to her mind almost like strangers whom one has met and
+does not expect to see again. Her heart ceased bleeding. Her sorrow for
+them did not reach the depths of her soul.
+
+It was due to the unforeseen and undisturbed rest, the consoling
+solitude. And all this seemed to her so pleasant that, when a steamer
+came and anchored on the spot of the disaster, she made no signal. No
+doubt yesterday, from the mainland, they had seen the flash of the
+explosions and heard the report of the shots. Véronique remained
+motionless.
+
+She saw a boat put off from the steamer and supposed that they were
+going to land and explore the village. But not only did she dread an
+enquiry in which her son might be involved: she herself did not wish to
+be found, to be questioned, to have her name, her identity, her story
+discovered and to be brought back into the infernal circle from which
+she had escaped. She preferred to wait a week or two, to wait until
+chance brought within hailing-distance of the island some fishing-boat
+which could pick her up.
+
+But no one came to the Priory. The steamer put off; and nothing
+disturbed her isolation.
+
+And so she remained for three days. Fate seemed to have reconsidered its
+intention of making fresh assaults upon her. She was alone and her own
+mistress. All's Well, whose company had done her a world of good,
+disappeared.
+
+The Priory domain occupied the whole end of the island, on the site of a
+Benedictine abbey, which had been abandoned in the fifteenth century and
+gradually fallen into ruin and decay.
+
+The house, built in the eighteenth century by a wealthy Breton
+ship-owner out of the materials of the old abbey and the stones of the
+chapel, was in no way interesting either outside or in. Véronique, for
+that matter, did not dare to enter any of the rooms. The memory of her
+father and son checked her before the closed doors.
+
+But, on the second day, in the bright spring sunshine, she explored the
+park. It extended to the point of the island and, like the sward in
+front of the house, was studded with ruins and covered with ivy. She
+noticed that all the paths ran towards a steep promontory crowned with a
+clump of enormous oaks. When she reached the spot, she found that these
+oaks stood round a crescent-shaped clearing which was open to the sea.
+
+In the centre of the clearing was a cromlech with a rather short, oval
+table upheld by two supports of rock, which were almost square. The spot
+possessed an impressive magnificence and commanded a boundless view.
+
+"The Fairies' Dolmen, of which Honorine spoke," thought Véronique. "I
+cannot be far from the Calvary and Maguennoc's flowers."
+
+She walked round the megalith. The inner surface of the two uprights
+bore a few illegible engraved signs. But the two outer surfaces facing
+the sea formed as it were two smooth slabs prepared to receive an
+inscription; and here she saw something that caused her to shudder with
+anguish. On the right, deeply encrusted, was an unskilful, primitive
+drawing of four crosses with four female figures writhing upon them. On
+the left was a column of lines of writing, whose characters,
+inadequately carved in the stone, had been almost obliterated by the
+weather, or perhaps even deliberately effaced by human hands. A few
+words remained, however, the very words which Véronique had read on the
+drawing which she found beside Maguennoc's corpse:
+
+"Four women crucified . . . . Thirty coffins . . . . The God-Stone which
+gives life or death."
+
+Véronique moved away, staggering. The mystery was once more before her,
+as everywhere in the island, and she was determined to escape from it
+until the moment when she could leave Sarek altogether.
+
+She took a path which started from the clearing and led past the last
+oak on the right. This oak appeared to have been struck by lightning,
+for all that remained of it was the trunk and a few dead branches.
+
+Farther on, she went down some stone steps, crossed a little meadow in
+which stood four rows of menhirs and stopped suddenly with a stifled
+cry, a cry of admiration and amazement, before the sight that presented
+itself to her eyes.
+
+"Maguennoc's flowers," she whispered.
+
+The last two menhirs of the central alley which she was following stood
+like the posts of a door that opened upon the most glorious spectacle, a
+rectangular space, fifty yards long at most, which was reached by a
+short descending flight of steps and bordered by two rows of menhirs all
+of the same height and placed at accurately measured intervals, like the
+columns of a temple. The nave and side-aisles of this temple were paved
+with wide, irregular, broken granite flag-stones, which the grass,
+growing in the cracks, marked with patterns similar to those of the lead
+which frames the pieces of a stained-glass window.
+
+In the middle was a small bed of flowers thronging around an ancient
+stone crucifix. But such flowers! Flowers which the wildest imagination
+or fancy never conceived, dream-flowers, miraculous flowers, flowers out
+of all proportion to ordinary flowers!
+
+Véronique recognized all of them; and yet she stood dumbfounded at their
+size and splendour. There were flowers of many varieties, but few of
+each variety. It was like a nosegay made to contain every colour, every
+perfume and every beauty that flowers can possess.
+
+And the strangest thing was that these flowers, which do not usually
+bloom at the same time and which open in successive months, were all
+growing and blossoming together! On one and the same day, these flowers,
+all perennial flowers whose time does not last much more than two or
+three weeks, were blooming and multiplying, full and heavy, vivid,
+sumptuous, proudly borne on their sturdy stems.
+
+There were spiderworts, there were ranunculi, tiger-lilies, columbines,
+blood-red potentillas, irises of a brighter violet than a bishop's
+cassock. There were larkspurs, phlox, fuchsias, monk's-hoods,
+montbretias. And, above all this, to Véronique's intense emotion, above
+the dazzling flower-bed, standing a little higher in a narrow border
+around the pedestal of the crucifix, with all their blue, white and
+violet clusters seeming to lift themselves so as to touch the Saviour's
+very form, were veronicas!
+
+She was faint with emotion. As she came nearer, she had read on a little
+label fastened to the pedestal these two words.
+
+"Mother's flowers."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Véronique did not believe in miracles. She was obliged to admit that the
+flowers were wonderful, beyond all comparison with the flowers of our
+climes. But she refused to think that this anomaly was not to be
+explained except by supernatural causes or by magic recipes of which
+Maguennoc held the secret. No, there was some reason, perhaps a very
+simple one, of which events would afford a full explanation.
+
+Meanwhile, amid the beautiful pagan setting, in the very centre of the
+miracle which it seemed to have wrought by its presence, the figure of
+Christ Crucified rose from the mass of flowers which offered Him their
+colours and their perfumes. Véronique knelt and prayed.
+
+Next day and the day after, she returned to the Calvary of the Flowers.
+Here the mystery that surrounded her on every side had manifested itself
+in the most charming fashion; and her son played a part in it that
+enabled Véronique to think of him, before her own flowers, without
+hatred or despair.
+
+But, on the fifth day, she perceived that her provisions were becoming
+exhausted; and in the middle of the afternoon she went down to the
+village.
+
+There she noticed that most of the houses had been left open, so certain
+had their owners been, on leaving, of coming back again and taking what
+they needed in a second trip.
+
+Sick at heart, she dared not cross the thresholds. There were geraniums
+on the window-ledges. Tall clocks with brass pendulums were ticking off
+the time in the empty rooms. She moved away.
+
+In a shed near the quay, however, she saw the sacks and boxes which
+Honorine had brought with her in the motor-boat.
+
+"Well," she thought, "I shan't starve. There's enough to last me for
+weeks; and by that time . . ."
+
+She filled a basket with chocolate, biscuits, a few tins of preserved
+meat, rice and matches; and she was on the point of returning to the
+Priory, when it occurred to her that she would continue her walk to the
+other end of the island. She would fetch her basket on the way back.
+
+A shady road climbed upwards on the right. The landscape seemed to be
+the same: the same flat stretches of moorland, without ploughed fields
+or pastures; the same clumps of ancient oaks. The island also became
+narrower, with no obstacle to block the view of the sea on either side
+or of the Penmarch headland in the distance.
+
+There was also a hedge which ran from one cliff to the other and which
+served to enclose a property, a shabby property, with a straggling,
+dilapidated, tumbledown house upon it, some out-houses with patched
+roofs and a dirty, badly-kept yard, full of scrap-iron and stacks of
+firewood.
+
+Véronique was already retracing her steps, when she stopped in alarm and
+surprise. It seemed to her that she heard some one moan. She listened,
+striving to plumb the vast silence, and once again the same sound, but
+this time more distinctly, reached her ears; and there were others:
+cries of pain, cries for help, women's cries. Then had not all the
+inhabitants taken to flight? She had a feeling of joy mingled with some
+sorrow, to know that she was not alone in Sarek, and of fear also, at
+the thought that events would perhaps drag her back again into the fatal
+cycle of death and horror.
+
+So far as Véronique was able to judge, the noise came not from the
+house, but from the buildings on the right of the yard. This yard was
+closed with a simple gate which she had only to push and which opened
+with the creaking sound of wood upon wood.
+
+The cries in the out-house at once increased in number. The people
+inside had no doubt heard Véronique approach. She hastened her steps.
+
+Though the roof of the out-buildings was gone in places, the walls were
+thick and solid, with old arched doors strengthened with iron bars.
+There was a knocking against one of these doors from the inside, while
+the cries became more urgent:
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+But there was a dispute; and another, less strident voice grated:
+
+"Be quiet, Clémence, can't you? It may be them!"
+
+"No, no, Gertrude, it's not! I don't hear them! . . . Open the door,
+will you? The key ought to be there."
+
+Véronique, who was seeking for some means of entering, now saw a big key
+in the lock. She turned it; and the door opened.
+
+She at once recognized the sisters Archignat, half-dressed, gaunt,
+evil-looking, witch-like. They were in a wash-house filled with
+implements; and Véronique saw at the back, lying on some straw, a third
+woman, who was bewailing her fate in an almost inaudible voice and who
+was obviously the third sister.
+
+At that moment, one of the first two collapsed from exhaustion; and the
+other, whose eyes were bright with fever, seized Véronique by the arm
+and began to gasp:
+
+"Did you see them, tell me? . . . Are they there? . . . How is it they
+didn't kill you? . . . They are the masters of Sarek since the others
+went off . . . . And it's our turn next . . . . We've been locked in
+here now for six days . . . . Listen, it was on the day when everybody
+left. We three came here, to the wash-house, to fetch our linen, which
+was drying. And then _they_ came . . . . We didn't hear them . . . . One
+never does hear them . . . . And then, suddenly, the door was locked on
+us . . . . A slam, a turn of the key . . . and the thing was done
+. . . . We had bread, apples and best of all, brandy . . . . We didn't
+do so badly . . . . Only, were they going to come back and kill us? Was
+it our turn next? . . . Oh, my dear good lady, how we strained our ears!
+And how we trembled with fear! . . . My eldest sister's gone crazy
+. . . . Hark, you can hear her raving . . . . The other, Clémence, has
+borne all she can . . . . And I . . . I . . . Gertrude . . ."
+
+Gertrude had plenty of strength left, for she was twisting Véronique's
+arm:
+
+"And Corréjou? He came back, didn't he, and went away again? Why didn't
+anyone come to look for us? It would have been easy enough: everybody
+knew where we were; and we called out at the least sound. So what does
+it all mean?"
+
+Véronique hesitated what to reply. Still, why should she conceal the
+truth?
+
+She replied:
+
+"The two boats went down."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The two boats sank in view of Sarek. All on board were drowned. It was
+opposite the Priory . . . after leaving the Devil's Passage."
+
+Véronique said no more, so as to avoid mentioning the names of François
+and his tutor or speaking of the part which these two had played. But
+Clémence now sat up, with distorted features. She had been leaning
+against the door and raised herself to her knees.
+
+Gertrude murmured:
+
+"And Honorine?"
+
+"Honorine is dead."
+
+"Dead!"
+
+The two sisters both cried out at once. Then they were silent and looked
+at each other. The same thought struck them both. They seemed to be
+reflecting. Gertrude was moving her fingers as though counting. And the
+terror on their two faces increased.
+
+Speaking in a very low voice, as though choking with fear, Gertrude,
+with her eyes fixed on Véronique, said:
+
+"That's it . . . that's it . . . I've got the total . . . . Do you know
+how many there were in the boats, without my sisters and me? Do you
+know? Twenty . . . . Well, reckon it up: twenty . . . and Maguennoc, who
+was the first to die . . . and M. Antoine, who died afterwards . . . and
+little François and M. Stéphane, who vanished, but who are dead too
+. . . and Honorine and Marie Le Goff, both dead . . . . So reckon it up:
+that makes twenty-six, twenty-six . . . The total's correct, isn't it?
+. . . Now take twenty-six from thirty . . . . You understand, don't you?
+The thirty coffins: they have to be filled . . . . So twenty-six from
+thirty . . . leaves four, doesn't it?"
+
+She could no longer speak; her tongue faltered. Nevertheless the
+terrible syllables came from her mouth; and Véronique heard her
+stammering:
+
+"Eh? Do you understand? . . . That leaves four . . . us four . . . the
+three sisters Archignat, who were kept behind and locked up . . . and
+yourself . . . . So--do you follow me?--the three crosses--you know, the
+'four women crucified'--the number's there . . . it's our four selves
+. . . there's no one besides us on the island . . . four women . . . ."
+
+Véronique had listened in silence. She broke out into a slight
+perspiration.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, however:
+
+"Well? And then? If there's no one except ourselves on the island, what
+are you afraid of?"
+
+"_Them_, of course! _Them!_"
+
+Véronique lost her patience:
+
+"But if everybody has gone!" she exclaimed.
+
+Gertrude took fright:
+
+"Speak low. Suppose they heard you!"
+
+"But who?"
+
+"_They_: the people of old."
+
+"The people of old?"
+
+"Yes, those who used to make sacrifices . . . the people who killed men
+and women . . . to please their gods."
+
+"But that's a thing of the past! The Druids: is that what you mean?
+Come, come; there are no Druids nowadays."
+
+"Speak quietly! Speak quietly! There are still . . . there are evil
+spirits . . ."
+
+"Then they're ghosts?" asked Véronique, horror-stricken by these
+superstitions.
+
+"Ghosts, yes, but ghosts of flesh and blood . . . with hands that lock
+doors and keep you imprisoned . . . creatures that sink boats, the same,
+I tell you, that killed M. Antoine, Marie Le Goff and the others . . .
+that killed twenty-six of us . . . ."
+
+Véronique did not reply. There was no reply to make. She knew, she knew
+only too well who had killed M. d'Hergemont, Marie Le Goff and the
+others and sunk the two boats.
+
+"What time was it when the three of you were locked in?" she asked.
+
+"Half-past ten . . . . We had arranged to meet Corréjou in the village
+at eleven."
+
+Véronique reflected. It was hardly possible that François and Stéphane
+should have had time to be at half-past ten in this place and an hour
+later to be behind the rock from which they had darted out upon the two
+boats. Was it to be presumed that one or more of their accomplices were
+left on the island?
+
+"In any case," she said, "you must come to a decision. You can't remain
+in this state. You must rest yourselves, eat something . . . ."
+
+The second sister had risen to her feet. She said, in the same hollow
+and violent tones as her sister:
+
+"First of all, we must hide . . . and be able to defend ourselves
+against _them_."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Véronique.
+
+She too, in spite of herself, felt this need of a refuge against a
+possible enemy.
+
+"What do I mean? I'll tell you. The thing has been talked about a lot in
+the island, especially this year; and Maguennoc decided that, at the
+first attack, everybody should take shelter in the Priory."
+
+"Why in the Priory?"
+
+"Because we could defend ourselves there. The cliffs are perpendicular.
+You're protected on every side."
+
+"What about the bridge?"
+
+"Maguennoc and Honorine thought of everything. There's a little hut
+fifteen yards to the left of the bridge. That's the place they hit on to
+keep their stock of petrol in. Empty three or four cans over the bridge,
+strike a match . . . and the thing's done. You're just as in your own
+home. You can't be got at and you can't be attacked."
+
+"Then why didn't they come to the Priory instead of taking to flight in
+the boats?"
+
+"It was safer to escape in the boats. But we no longer have the choice."
+
+"And when shall we start?"
+
+"At once. It's daylight still; and that's better than the dark."
+
+"But your sister, the one on her back?"
+
+"We have a barrow. We've got to wheel her. There's a direct road to the
+Priory, without passing through the village."
+
+Véronique could not help looking with repugnance upon the prospect of
+living in close intimacy with the sisters Archignat. She yielded,
+however, swayed by a fear which she was unable to overcome:
+
+"Very well," she said. "Let's go. I'll take you to the Priory and come
+back to the village to fetch some provisions."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't be away long!" protested one of the sisters. "As soon
+as the bridge is cut, we'll light a bonfire on Fairies' Dolmen Hill and
+they'll send a steamer from the mainland. To-day the fog is coming up;
+but to-morrow . . ."
+
+Véronique raised no objection. She now accepted the idea of leaving
+Sarek, even at the cost of an enquiry which would reveal her name.
+
+They started, after the two sisters had swallowed a glass of brandy. The
+madwoman sat huddled in the wheel-barrow, laughing softly and uttering
+little sentences which she addressed to Véronique as though she wanted
+her to laugh too:
+
+"We shan't meet them yet . . . . They're getting ready . . . ."
+
+"Shut up, you old fool!" said Gertrude. "You'll bring us bad luck."
+
+"Yes, yes, we shall see some sport . . . . It'll be great fun . . . . I
+have a cross of gold hung round my neck . . . and another cut into the
+skin of my head . . . . Look! . . . Crosses everywhere . . . . One ought
+to be comfortable on the cross . . . . One ought to sleep well there
+. . . ."
+
+"Shut up, will you, you old fool?" repeated Gertrude, giving her a box
+on the ear.
+
+"All right, all right! . . . But it's they who'll hit you; I see them
+hiding! . . ."
+
+The path, which was pretty rough at first, reached the table-land formed
+by the west cliffs, which were loftier, but less rugged and worn away
+than the others. The woods were scarcer; and the oaks were all bent by
+the wind from the sea.
+
+"We are coming to the heath which they call the Black Heath," said
+Clémence Archignat.
+
+"_They_ live underneath."
+
+Véronique once more shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"We know more than other people," said Gertrude. "They call us witches;
+and there's something in it. Maguennoc himself, who knew a great deal,
+used to ask our advice about anything that had to do with healing, lucky
+stones, the herbs you gather on St. John's Eve . . ."
+
+"Mugwort and vervain," chuckled the madwoman. "They are picked at
+sunset."
+
+"Or tradition too," continued Gertrude. "We know what's been said in the
+island for hundreds of years; and it's always been said that there was a
+whole town underneath, with streets and all, in which _they_ used to
+live of old. And there are some left still, I've seen them myself."
+
+Véronique did not reply.
+
+"Yes, my sister and I saw one. Twice, when the June moon was six days
+old. He was dressed in white . . . and he was climbing the Great Oak to
+gather the sacred mistletoe . . . with a golden sickle. The gold
+glittered in the moonlight. I saw it, I tell you, and others saw it too
+. . . . And he's not the only one. There are several of them left over
+from the old days to guard the treasure . . . . Yes, as I say, the
+treasure . . . . They say it's a stone which works miracles, which can
+make you die if you touch it and which makes you live if you lie down on
+it. That's all true, Maguennoc told us so, all perfectly true. _They_ of
+old guard the stone, the God-Stone, and _they_ are to sacrifice all of
+us this year . . . . yes, all of us, thirty dead people for the thirty
+coffins . . . ."
+
+"Four women crucified," crooned the madwoman.
+
+"And it will be soon. The sixth day of the moon is near at hand. We must
+be gone before _they_ climb the Great Oak to gather the mistletoe. Look,
+you can see the Great Oak from here. It's in the wood on this side of
+the bridge. It stands out above the others."
+
+"_They_ are hiding behind it," said the madwoman, turning round in her
+wheel-barrow. "_They_ are waiting for us."
+
+"That'll do; and don't you stir . . . . As I was saying, you see the
+Great Oak . . . over there . . . beyond the end of the heath. It is
+. . . it is . . ."
+
+She dropped the wheel-barrow, without finishing her sentence.
+
+"Well?" asked Clémence. "What's the matter?"
+
+"I've seen something," stammered Gertrude. "Something white, moving
+about."
+
+"Something? What do you mean? _They_ don't show themselves in broad
+daylight! You've gone cross-eyed."
+
+They both looked for a moment and then went on again. Soon the Great Oak
+was out of sight.
+
+The heath which they were now crossing was wild and rough, covered with
+stones lying flat like tombstones and all pointing in the same
+direction.
+
+"It's _their_ burying-ground," whispered Gertrude.
+
+They said nothing more. Gertrude repeatedly had to stop and rest.
+Clémence had not the strength to push the wheel-barrow. They were both
+of them tottering on their legs; and they gazed into the distance with
+anxious eyes.
+
+They went down a dip in the ground and up again. The path joined that
+which Véronique had taken with Honorine on the first day; and they
+entered the wood which preceded the bridge.
+
+Presently the growing excitement of the sisters Archignat made
+Véronique understand that they were approaching the Great Oak; and she
+saw it standing on a mound of earth and roots, bigger than the others
+and separated from them by wider intervals. She could not help thinking
+that it was possible for several men to hide behind that massive trunk
+and that perhaps several were hiding there now.
+
+Notwithstanding their fears, the sisters had quickened their pace; and
+they kept their eyes turned from the fatal tree.
+
+They left it behind. Véronique breathed more freely. All danger was
+passed; and she was just about to laugh at the sisters Archignat, when
+one of them, Clémence, spun on her heels and dropped with a moan.
+
+At the same time something fell to the ground, something that had struck
+Clémence in the back. It was an axe, a stone axe.
+
+"Oh, the thunder-stone, the thunder-stone!" cried Gertrude.
+
+She looked up for a second, as if, in accordance with the inveterate
+popular belief, she believed that the axe came from the sky and was an
+emanation of the thunder.
+
+But, at that moment, the madwoman, who had got out of her barrow, leapt
+from the ground and fell head forward. Something else had whizzed
+through the air. The madwoman was writhing with pain. Gertrude and
+Véronique saw an arrow which had been driven through her shoulder and
+was still vibrating.
+
+Then Gertrude fled screaming.
+
+Véronique hesitated. Clémence and the madwoman were rolling about on
+the ground. The madwoman giggled:
+
+"Behind the oak! They're hiding . . . I see them."
+
+Clémence stammered:
+
+"Help! . . . Lift me up . . . carry me . . . I'm terrified!"
+
+But another arrow whizzed past them and fell some distance farther.
+
+Véronique now also took to her heels, urged not so much by panic, though
+this would have been excusable, as by the eager longing to find a weapon
+and defend herself. She remembered that in her father's study there was
+a glass case filled with guns and revolvers, all bearing the word
+"loaded," no doubt as a warning to François; and it was one of these
+that she wished to seize in order to face the enemy. She did not even
+turn round. She was not interested to know whether she was being
+pursued. She ran for the goal, the only profitable goal.
+
+Being lighter and swifter of foot, she overtook Gertrude, who panted:
+
+"The bridge . . . . We must burn it . . . . The petrol's there . . . ."
+
+Véronique did not reply. Breaking down the bridge was a secondary matter
+and would even have been an obstacle to her plan of taking a gun and
+attacking the enemy.
+
+But, when she reached the bridge, Gertrude whirled about in such a way
+that she almost fell down the precipice. An arrow had struck her in the
+back.
+
+"Help! Help!" she screamed. "Don't leave me!"
+
+"I'm coming back," replied Véronique, who had not seen the arrow and
+thought that Gertrude had merely caught her foot in running. "I'm coming
+back, with two guns. You join me."
+
+She imagined in her mind that, once they were both armed, they would go
+back to the wood and rescue the other sisters. Redoubling her efforts,
+therefore, she reached the wall of the estate, ran across the grass and
+went up to her father's study. Here she stopped to recover her breath;
+and, after she had taken the two guns, her heart beat so fast that she
+had to go back at a slower pace.
+
+She was astonished at not meeting Gertrude, at not seeing her. She
+called her. No reply. And it was not till then that the thought occurred
+to her that Gertrude had been wounded like her sisters.
+
+She once more broke into a run. But, when she came within sight of the
+bridge, she heard shrill cries pierce through the buzzing in her ears
+and, on coming into the open opposite the sharp ascent that led to the
+wood of the Great Oak, she saw . . .
+
+What she saw rivetted her to the entrance to the bridge. On the other
+side, Gertrude was sprawling upon the ground, struggling, clutching at
+the roots, digging her nails into the grass and slowly, slowly, with an
+imperceptible and uninterrupted movement, moving along the slope.
+
+And Véronique became aware that the unfortunate woman was fastened under
+the arms and round the waist by a cord which was hoisting her up, like a
+bound and helpless prey, and which was pulled by invisible hands above.
+
+Véronique raised one of the guns to her shoulder. But at what enemy was
+she to take aim? What enemy was she to fight? Who was hiding behind the
+trees and stones that crowned the hill like a rampart?
+
+Gertrude slipped between those stones, between those trees. She had
+ceased screaming, no doubt she was exhausted and swooning. She
+disappeared from sight.
+
+Véronique had not moved. She realized the futility of any venture or
+enterprise. By rushing into a contest in which she was beaten beforehand
+she would not be able to rescue the sisters Archignat and would merely
+offer herself to the conqueror as a new and final victim.
+
+Besides, she was overcome with fear. Everything was happening in
+accordance with the ruthless logic of facts of which she did not grasp
+the meaning but which all seemed connected like the links of a chain.
+She was afraid, afraid of those beings, afraid of those ghosts,
+instinctively and unconsciously afraid, afraid like the sisters
+Archignat, like Honorine, like all the victims of the terrible scourge.
+
+She stooped, so as not to be seen from the Great Oak, and, bending
+forward and taking the shelter offered by some bramble-bushes, she
+reached the little hut of which the sisters Archignat had spoken, a sort
+of summer-house with a pointed roof and coloured tiles. Half the
+summer-house was filled with cans of petrol.
+
+From here she overlooked the bridge, on which no one could step without
+being seen by her. But no one came down from the wood.
+
+Night fell, a night of thick fog silvered by the moon which just
+allowed Véronique to see the opposite side.
+
+After an hour, feeling a little reassured, she made a first trip with
+two cans which she emptied on the outer beams of the bridge.
+
+Ten times, with her ears pricked up, carrying her gun slung over her
+shoulder and prepared at any moment to defend herself, she repeated the
+journey. She poured the petrol a little at random, groping her way and
+yet as far as possible selecting the places where her sense of touch
+seemed to tell her that the wood was most rotten.
+
+She had a box of matches, the only one that she had found in the house.
+She took out a match and hesitated a moment, frightened at the thought
+of the great light it would make:
+
+"Even so," she reflected, "if it could be seen from the mainland . . .
+But, with this fog . . ."
+
+Suddenly she struck the match and at once lit a paper torch which she
+had prepared by soaking it in petrol.
+
+A great flame blazed and burnt her fingers. Then she threw the paper in
+a pool of petrol which had formed in a hollow and fled back to the
+summer-house.
+
+The fire flared up immediately and, at one flash, spread over the whole
+part which she had sprinkled. The cliffs on the two islands, the strip
+of granite that united them, the big trees around, the hill, the wood of
+the Great Oak and the sea at the bottom of the ravine: these were all
+lit up.
+
+"_They_ know where I am . . . . _They_ are looking at the summer-house
+where I am hiding," thought Véronique, keeping her eyes fixed on the
+Great Oak.
+
+But not a shadow passed through the wood. Not a sound of voices reached
+her ears. Those concealed above did not leave their impenetrable
+retreat.
+
+In a few minutes, half the bridge collapsed, with a great crash and a
+gush of sparks. But the other half went on burning; and at every moment
+a piece of timber tumbled into the precipice, lighting up the depths of
+the night.
+
+Each time that this happened, Véronique had a sense of relief and her
+overstrung nerves grew relaxed. A feeling of security crept over her and
+became more and more justified as the gulf between her and her enemies
+widened. Nevertheless she remained inside the summer-house and resolved
+to wait for the dawn in order to make sure that no communication was
+henceforth possible.
+
+The fog increased. Everything was shrouded in darkness. About the middle
+of the night, she heard a sound on the other side, at the top of the
+hill, so far as she could judge. It was the sound of wood-cutters
+felling trees, the regular sound of an axe biting into branches which
+were finally removed by breaking.
+
+Véronique had an idea, absurd though she knew it to be, that they were
+perhaps building a foot-bridge; and she clutched her gun resolutely.
+
+About an hour later, she seemed to hear moans and even a stifled cry,
+followed, for some time, by the rustle of leaves and the sound of steps
+coming and going. This ceased. Once more there was a great silence which
+seemed to absorb in space every stirring, every restless, every
+quivering, every living thing.
+
+The numbness produced by the fatigue and hunger from which she was
+beginning to suffer left Véronique little power of thought. She
+remembered above all that, having failed to bring any provisions from
+the village, she had nothing to eat. She did not distress herself, for
+she was determined, as soon as the fog lifted--and this was bound to
+happen before long--to light bonfires with the cans of petrol. She
+reflected that the best place would be at the end of the island, at the
+spot where the dolmen stood.
+
+But suddenly a dreadful thought struck her: had she not left her box of
+matches on the bridge? She felt in her pockets but could not find it.
+All search was in vain.
+
+This also did not perturb her unduly. For the time being, the feeling
+that she had escaped the attacks of the enemy filled her with such
+delight that it seemed to her that all the difficulties would disappear
+of their own accord.
+
+The hours passed in this way, endlessly long hours, which the
+penetrating fog and the cold made more painful as the morning
+approached.
+
+Then a faint gleam overspread the sky. Things emerged from the gloom and
+assumed their actual forms. And Véronique now saw that the bridge had
+collapsed throughout its length. An interval of fifty yards separated
+the two islands, which were only joined below by the sharp, pointed,
+inaccessible ridge of the cliff.
+
+She was saved.
+
+But, on raising her eyes to the hill opposite, she saw, right at the
+top of the slope, a sight that made her utter a cry of horror. Three of
+the nearest trees of those which crowned the hill and belonged to the
+wood of the Great Oak had been stripped of their lower branches. And, on
+the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their
+legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn
+tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their
+caps, hung the three sisters Archignat.
+
+They were crucified.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ALL'S WELL
+
+
+Walking erect, with a stiff and mechanical gait, without turning round
+to look at the abominable spectacle, without recking of what might
+happen if she were seen, Véronique went back to the Priory.
+
+A single aim, a single hope sustained her: that of leaving the Isle of
+Sarek. She had had her fill of horror. Had she seen three corpses, three
+women who had had their throats cut, or been shot, or even hanged, she
+would not have felt, as she did now, that her whole being was in revolt.
+But this, this torture, was too much. It involved an ignominy, it was an
+act of sacrilege, a damnable performance which surpassed the bounds of
+wickedness.
+
+And then she was thinking of herself, the fourth and last victim. Fate
+seemed to be leading her towards that catastrophe as a person condemned
+to death is pushed on to the scaffold. How could she do other than
+tremble with fear? How could she fail to read a warning in the choice of
+the hill of the Great Oak for the torture of the three sisters
+Archignat?
+
+She tried to find comfort in words:
+
+"Everything will be explained. At the bottom of these hideous mysteries
+are quite simple causes, actions apparently fantastic but in reality
+performed by beings of the same species as myself, who behave as they
+do from criminal motives and in accordance with a determined plan. No
+doubt all this is only possible because of the war; the war brings about
+a peculiar state of affairs in which events of this kind are able to
+take place. But, all the same, there is nothing miraculous about it nor
+anything inconsistent with the rules of ordinary life."
+
+Useless phrases! Vain attempts at argument which her brain found
+difficulty in following! In reality, upset as she was by violent nervous
+shocks, she came to think and feel like all those people of Sarek whose
+death she had witnessed. She shared their weakness, she was shaken by
+the same terrors, besieged by the same nightmares, unbalanced by the
+persistence within her of the instincts of bygone ages and lingering
+superstitions ever ready to rise to the surface.
+
+Who were these invisible beings who persecuted her? Whose mission was it
+to fill the thirty coffins of Sarek? Who was it that was wiping out all
+the inhabitants of the luckless island? Who was it that lived in
+caverns, gathering at the fateful hours the sacred mistletoe and the
+herbs of St. John, using axes and arrows and crucifying women? And in
+view of what horrible task, of what monstrous duty? In accordance with
+what inconceivable plans? Were they spirits of darkness, malevolent
+genii, priests of a dead religion, sacrificing men, women and children
+to their blood-thirsty gods?
+
+"Enough, enough, or I shall go mad!" she said, aloud. "I must go! That
+must be my only thought: to get away from this hell!"
+
+But it was as though destiny were taking special pains to torture her!
+On beginning her search for a little food, she suddenly noticed, in her
+father's study, at the back of a cupboard, a drawing pinned to the wall,
+representing the same scene as the roll of paper which she had found
+near Maguennoc's body in the deserted cabin.
+
+A portfolio full of drawings lay on one of the shelves in the cupboard.
+She opened it. It contained a number of sketches of the same scene,
+likewise in red chalk. Each of them bore above the head of the first
+woman the inscription, "V. d'H." One of them was signed, "Antoine
+d'Hergemont."
+
+So it was her father who had made the drawing on Maguennoc's paper! It
+was her father who had tried in all these sketches to give the tortured
+woman a closer and closer resemblance to his own daughter!
+
+"Enough, enough!" repeated Véronique. "I won't think, I won't reflect!"
+
+Feeling very faint, she pursued her search but found nothing with which
+to stay her hunger.
+
+Nor did she find anything that would allow her to light a fire at the
+point of the island, though the fog had lifted and the signals would
+certainly have been observed.
+
+She tried rubbing two flints against each other, but she did not
+understand how to go to work and she did not succeed.
+
+For three days she kept herself alive with water and wild grapes
+gathered among the ruins. Feverish and utterly exhausted, she had fits
+of weeping which nearly every time produced the sudden appearance of
+All's Well; and her physical suffering was such that she felt angry with
+the poor dog for having that ridiculous name and drove him away. All's
+Well, greatly surprised, squatted on his haunches farther off and began
+to sit up again. She felt exasperated with him, as though he could help
+being François' dog!
+
+The least sound made her shake from head to foot and covered her with
+perspiration. What were the creatures in the Great Oak doing? From which
+side were they preparing to attack her? She hugged herself nervously,
+shuddering at the thought of falling into those monsters' hands, and
+could not keep herself from remembering that she was a beautiful woman
+and that they might be tempted by her good looks and her youth.
+
+But, on the fourth day, a great hope uplifted her. She had found in a
+drawer a powerful reading-glass. Taking advantage of the bright
+sunshine, she focussed the rays upon a piece of paper which ended by
+catching fire and enabling her to light a candle.
+
+She believed that she was saved. She had discovered quite a stock of
+candles, which allowed her, to begin with, to keep the precious flame
+alive until the evening. At eleven o'clock, she took a lantern and went
+towards the summer-house, intending to set fire to it. It was a fine
+night and the signal would be perceived from the coast.
+
+Fearing to be seen with her light, fearing above all the tragic vision
+of the sisters Archignat, whose tragic Calvary was flooded by the
+moonlight, she took, on leaving the Priory, another road, more to the
+left and bordered with thickets. She walked anxiously, taking care not
+to rustle the leaves or stumble over the roots. When she reached open
+country, not far from the summer-house, she felt so tired that she had
+to sit down. Her head was buzzing. Her heart almost refused to beat.
+
+She could not see the place of execution from here either. But, on
+turning her eyes, despite herself, in the direction of the hill, she
+received the impression that something resembling a white figure had
+moved. It was in the very heart of the wood, at the end of an avenue
+which intersected the thick mass of trees on that side.
+
+The figure appeared again, in the full moonlight; and Véronique saw,
+notwithstanding the considerable distance, that it was the figure of a
+person clad in a robe and perched amid the branches of a tree which
+stood alone and higher than the others.
+
+She remembered what the sisters Archignat had said:
+
+"The sixth day of the moon is near at hand. _They_ will climb the Great
+Oak and gather the sacred mistletoe."
+
+And she now remembered certain descriptions which she had read in books
+and different stories which her father had told her; and she felt as if
+she were present at one of those Druid ceremonies which had appealed to
+her imagination as a child. But at the same time she felt so weak that
+she was not convinced that she was awake or that the strange sight
+before her eyes was real. Four other figures formed a group at the foot
+of the tree and raised their arms as though to catch the bough ready to
+fall. A light flashed above. The high-priest's golden sickle had cut off
+the bunch of mistletoe.
+
+Then the high-priest climbed down from the oak; and all five figures
+glided along the avenue, skirted the wood and reached the top of the
+knoll.
+
+Véronique, who was unable to take her haggard eyes from those creatures,
+bent forward and saw the three corpses hanging each from its tree of
+torment. At the distance where she stood, the black bows of the caps
+looked like crows. The figures stopped opposite the victims as though to
+perform some incomprehensible rite. At last the high-priest separated
+himself from the group and, holding the bunch of mistletoe in his hand,
+came down the hill and went towards the spot where the first arch of the
+bridge was anchored.
+
+Véronique was almost fainting. Her wavering eyes, before which
+everything seemed to dance, fastened on to the glittering sickle which
+swung from side to side on the priest's chest, below his long white
+beard. What was he going to do? Though the bridge no longer existed,
+Véronique was convulsed with anguish. Her legs refused to carry her. She
+lay down on the ground, keeping her eyes fixed upon the terrifying
+sight.
+
+On reaching the edge of the chasm, the priest again stopped for a few
+seconds. Then he stretched out the arm in which he carried the mistletoe
+and, preceded by the sacred plant as by a talisman which altered the
+laws of nature in his favour, he took a step forward above the yawning
+gulf.
+
+And he walked thus in space, all white in the moonlight.
+
+What happened Véronique did not know, nor was she quite sure what had
+been happening, if she had not been the sport of an hallucination, nor
+at what stage of the strange ceremony this hallucination had originated
+in her enfeebled brain.
+
+She waited with closed eyes for events which did not take place and
+which, for that matter, she did not even try to foresee. But other, more
+real things preoccupied her mind. Her candle was going out inside the
+lantern. She was aware of this; and yet she had not the strength to pull
+herself together and return to the Priory. And she said to herself that,
+if the sun should not shine again within the next few days, she would
+not be able to light the flame and that she was lost.
+
+She resigned herself, weary of fighting and realizing that she was
+defeated beforehand in this unequal contest. The only ending that was
+not to be endured was that of being captured. But why not abandon
+herself to the death that offered, death from starvation, from
+exhaustion? If you suffer long enough, there must come a moment when the
+suffering decreases and when you pass, almost unconsciously, from life,
+which has grown too cruel, to death, which Véronique was gradually
+beginning to desire.
+
+"That's it, that's it," she murmured. "To go from Sarek or to die: it's
+all the same. What I want is to get away."
+
+A sound of leaves made her open her eyes. The flame of the candle was
+expiring. But behind the lantern All's Well was sitting, beating the air
+with his fore-paws.
+
+And Véronique saw that he carried a packet of biscuits, fastened round
+his neck by a string.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Tell me your story, you dear old All's Well," said Véronique, next
+morning, after a good night's rest in her bedroom at the Priory. "For,
+after all, I can't believe that you came to look for me and bring me
+food of your own accord. It was an accident, wasn't it? You were
+wandering in that direction, you heard me crying and you came to me. But
+who tied that little box of biscuits round your neck? Does it mean that
+we have a friend in the island, a friend who takes an interest in us?
+Why doesn't he show himself? Speak and tell me, All's Well."
+
+She kissed the dog and went on:
+
+"And whom were those biscuits intended for? For your master, for
+François? Or for Honorine? No? Then for Monsieur Stéphane perhaps?"
+
+The dog wagged his tail and moved towards the door. He really seemed to
+understand. Véronique followed him to Stéphane Maroux's room. All's Well
+slipped under the tutor's bed. There were three more cardboard boxes of
+biscuits, two packets of chocolate and two tins of preserved meat. And
+each parcel was supplied with a string ending in a wide loop, from which
+All's Well must have released his head.
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Véronique, bewildered. "Did you put them under
+there? But who gave them to you? Have we actually a friend in the
+island, who knows us and knows Stéphane Maroux? Can you take me to him?
+He must live on this side of the island, because there is no means of
+communicating with the other and you can't have been there."
+
+Véronique stopped to think. But, in addition to the provisions stowed
+away by All's Well, she also noticed a small canvas-covered satchel
+under the bed; and she wondered why Stéphane Maroux had hidden it. She
+thought that she had the right to open it and to look for some clue to
+the part played by the tutor, to his character, to his past perhaps, to
+his relations with M. d'Hergemont and François:
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is my right and even my duty."
+
+Without hesitation, she took a pair of big scissors and forced the frail
+lock.
+
+The satchel contained nothing but a manuscript-book, with a rubber band
+round it. But, the moment she opened the book, she stood amazed.
+
+On the first page was her own portrait, her photograph as a girl, with
+her signature in full and the inscription:
+
+      "To my friend Stéphane."
+
+"I don't understand, I don't understand," she murmured. "I remember the
+photograph: I must have been sixteen. But how did I come to give it to
+him? I must have known him!"
+
+Eager to learn more, she read the next page, a sort of preface worded as
+follows:
+
+      "Véronique, I wish to lead my life under your eyes. In
+      undertaking the education of your son, of that son
+      whom I ought to loathe, because he is the son of
+      another, but whom I love because he is your son, my
+      intention is that my life shall be in full harmony
+      with the secret feeling that has swayed it so long.
+      One day, I have no doubt, you will resume your place
+      as François' mother. On that day you will be proud of
+      him. I shall have effaced all that may survive in him
+      of his father and I shall have exalted all the fine
+      and noble qualities which he inherits from you. The
+      aim is great enough for me to devote myself to it body
+      and soul. I do so with gladness. Your smile shall be
+      my reward."
+
+Véronique's heart was flooded with a singular emotion. Her life was lit
+with a calmer radiance; and this new mystery, which she was unable to
+fathom any more than the others, was at least, like that of Maguennoc's
+flowers, gentle and comforting.
+
+As she continued to turn the pages, she followed her son's education
+from day to day. She beheld the pupil's progress and the master's
+methods. The pupil was engaging, intelligent, studious, zealous loving,
+sensitive, impulsive and at the same time thoughtful. The master was
+affectionate, patient and borne up by some profound feeling which showed
+through every line of the manuscript.
+
+And, little by little, there was a growing enthusiasm in the daily
+confession, which expressed itself in terms less and less restrained:
+
+      "François, my dearly-beloved son--for I may call you
+      so, may I not?--François, your mother lives once again
+      in you. Your eyes are pure and limpid as hers. Your
+      soul is grave and simple as her soul. You are
+      unacquainted with evil; and one might almost say that
+      you are unacquainted with good, so closely is it
+      blended with your beautiful nature."
+
+Some of the child's exercises were copied into the book, exercises in
+which he spoke of his mother with passionate affection and with the
+persistent hope that he would soon see her again.
+
+      "We shall see her again, François," Stéphane added,
+      "and you will then understand better what beauty means
+      and light and the charm of life and the delight of
+      beholding and admiring."
+
+Next came anecdotes about Véronique, minor details which she herself did
+not remember or which she thought that she alone knew:
+
+      "One day, at the Tuileries--she was only sixteen--a
+      circle was formed round her . . . by people who looked
+      at her and wondered at her loveliness. Her girl
+      friends laughed, happy at seeing her admired . . . .
+
+      "Open her right hand, François. You will see a long,
+      white scar in the middle of the palm. When she was
+      quite a little girl, she ran the point of an iron
+      railing into her hand . . . ."
+
+But the last pages were not written for the boy and had certainly not
+been read by him. The writer's love was no longer disguised beneath
+admiring phrases. It displayed itself without reserve, ardent, exalted,
+suffering, quivering with hope, though always respectful.
+
+Véronique closed the book. She could read no more.
+
+"Yes, I confess, All's Well," she said to the dog, who was already
+sitting up, "my eyes are wet with tears. Devoid of feminine weaknesses
+as I am, I will tell you what I would say to nobody else: that really
+touches me. Yes, I must try to recall the unknown features of the man
+who loves me like this . . . some friend of my childhood whose
+affection I never suspected and whose name has not left even a trace in
+my memory."
+
+She drew the dog to her:
+
+"Two kind hearts, are they not, All's Well? Neither the master nor the
+pupil is capable of the crimes which I saw them commit. If they are the
+accomplices of our enemies here, they are so in spite of themselves and
+without knowing it. I cannot believe in philtres and incantations and
+plants which deprive you of your reason. But, all the same, there is
+something, isn't there, you dear little dog? The boy who planted
+veronicas round the Calvary of Flowers and who wrote, 'Mother's
+flowers,' is not guilty, is he? And Honorine was right, when she spoke
+of a fit of madness, and he will come back to look for me, won't he?
+Stéphane and he are sure to come back."
+
+The hours that went by were full of soothing quiet. Véronique was no
+longer lonely. The present had no terrors for her; and she had faith in
+the future.
+
+Next morning, she said to All's Well, whom she had locked up to prevent
+his running away:
+
+"Will you take me there now my man? Where? Why, to the friend, of
+course, who sent provisions to Stéphane Maroux. Come along."
+
+All's Well was only waiting for Véronique's permission. He dashed off in
+the direction of the grassy sward that led to the dolmen; and he stopped
+half way. Véronique came up with him. He turned to the right and took a
+path which brought them to a huddle of ruins near the edge of the
+cliffs. Then he stopped again.
+
+"Is it here?" asked Véronique.
+
+The dog lay down flat. In front of him, at the foot of two blocks of
+stones leaning against each other and covered with the same growth of
+ivy, was a tangle of brambles with under it a little passage like the
+entrance to a rabbit-warren. All's Well slipped in, disappeared and then
+returned in search of Véronique, who had to go back to the Priory and
+fetch a bill-hook to cut down the brambles.
+
+She managed in half an hour to uncover the top step of a staircase,
+which she descended, feeling her way and preceded by All's Well, and
+which took her to a long tunnel, cut in the body of the rock and lighted
+on the left by little openings. She raised herself on tip-toe and saw
+that these openings overlooked the sea.
+
+She walked on the level for ten minutes and then went down some more
+steps. The tunnel grew narrower. The openings, which all looked towards
+the sky, no doubt so as not to be seen from below, now gave light from
+both the right and the left. Véronique began to understand how All's
+Well was able to communicate with the other part of the island. The
+tunnel followed the narrow strip of cliff which joined the Priory estate
+to Sarek. The waves lapped the rocks on either side.
+
+They next climbed by steps under the knoll of the Great Oak. Two tunnels
+opened at the top. All's Well chose the one on the left, which continued
+to skirt the sea.
+
+Then on the right there were two more passages, both quite dark. The
+island appeared to be riddled in this way with invisible communications;
+and Véronique felt something clutch at her heart as she reflected that
+she was making for the part which the sisters Archignat had described as
+the enemy's subterranean domains, under the Black Heath.
+
+All's Well trotted in front of her, turning round from time to time to
+see if she was following.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear, I'm coming," she whispered, "and I am not a bit afraid:
+I am sure that you are leading me to a friend . . . a friend who has
+taken shelter down here. But why has he not left his shelter? Why did
+you not show him the way?"
+
+The passage had been chipped smooth throughout, with a rounded ceiling
+and a very dry granite floor, which was amply ventilated by the
+openings. There was not a mark, not a scratch of any kind on the walls.
+Sometimes the point of a black flint projected.
+
+"Is it here?" asked Véronique, when All's Well stopped.
+
+The tunnel went no farther and widened into a chamber into which the
+light filtered more thinly through a narrower window.
+
+All's Well seemed undecided. He listened, with his ears pricked up,
+standing on his hind-legs and resting his fore-paws against the end wall
+of the tunnel.
+
+Véronique noticed that the wall, at this spot, was not formed throughout
+its length of the bare granite but consisted of an accumulation of
+stones of unequal size set in cement. The work evidently belonged to a
+different, doubtless more recent period.
+
+A regular partition-wall had been built, closing the underground
+passage, which was probably continued on the other side.
+
+She repeated:
+
+"It's here, isn't it?"
+
+But she said nothing more. She had heard the stifled sound of a voice.
+
+She went up to the wall and presently gave a start. The voice was raised
+higher. The sounds became more distinct. Some one, a child, was singing,
+and she caught the words:
+
+    "And the mother said,
+    Rocking her child abed:
+
+    'Weep not. If you do,
+    The Virgin Mary weeps with you.'"
+
+Véronique murmured:
+
+"The song . . . the song . . ."
+
+It was the same that Honorine had hummed at Beg-Meil. Who could be
+singing it now? A child, imprisoned in the island? A boy friend of
+François'?
+
+And the voice went on:
+
+    "'Babes that laugh and sing
+    Smiles to the Blessed Virgin bring.
+
+    Fold your hands this way
+    And to sweet Mary pray.'"
+
+The last verse was followed by a silence that lasted for a few minutes.
+All's Well appeared to be listening with increasing attention, as though
+something, which he knew of, was about to take place.
+
+Thereupon, just where he stood, there was a slight noise of stones
+carefully moved. All's Well wagged his tail frantically and barked, so
+to speak, in a whisper, like an animal that understands the danger of
+breaking the silence. And suddenly, about his head, one of the stones
+was drawn inward, leaving a fairly large aperture.
+
+All's Well leapt into the hole at a bound, stretched himself out and,
+helping himself with his hind-legs, twisting and crawling, disappeared
+inside.
+
+"Ah, there's Master All's Well!" said the young voice. "How are we,
+Master All's Well? And why didn't we come and pay our master a visit
+yesterday? Serious business, was it? A walk with Honorine? Oh, if you
+could talk, my dear old chap, what stories you would have to tell! And,
+first of all, look here . . ."
+
+Véronique, thrilled with excitement, had knelt down against the wall.
+Was it her son's voice that she heard? Was she to believe that he was
+back and in hiding? She tried in vain to see. The wall was thick; and
+there was a bend in the opening. But how clearly each syllable uttered,
+how plainly each intonation reached her ears!
+
+"Look here," repeated the boy, "why doesn't Honorine come to set me
+free? Why don't you bring her here? You managed to find me all right.
+And grandfather must be worried about me . . . . But _what_ an
+adventure! . . . So you're still of the same mind, eh, old chap? All's
+well, isn't it? All's as well as well can be!"
+
+Véronique could not understand. Her son--for there was no doubt that it
+was François--her son was speaking as if he knew nothing of what had
+happened. Had he forgotten? Had his memory lost every trace of the deeds
+done during his fit of madness?
+
+"Yes, a fit of madness," thought Véronique, obstinately. "He was mad.
+Honorine was quite right: he was undoubtedly mad. And his reason has
+returned. Oh, François, François! . . ."
+
+She listened, with all her tense being and all her trembling soul, to
+the words that might bring her so much gladness or such an added load of
+despair. Either the darkness would close in upon her more thickly and
+heavily than ever, or daylight was to pierce that endless night in which
+she had been struggling for fifteen years.
+
+"Why, yes," continued the boy, "I agree with you, All's Well. But all
+the same, I should be jolly glad if you could bring me some real proof
+of it. On the one hand, there's no news of grandfather or Honorine,
+though I've given you lots of messages for them; on the other hand,
+there's no news of Stéphane. And that's what alarms me. Where is he?
+Where have they locked him up? Won't he be starving by now? Come, All's
+Well, tell me: where did you take the biscuits yesterday? . . . But,
+look here, what's the matter with you? You seem to have something on
+your mind. What are you looking at over there? Do you want to go away?
+No? Then what is it?"
+
+The boy stopped. Then, after a moment, in a much lower voice:
+
+"Did you come with some one?" he asked. "Is there anybody behind the
+wall?"
+
+The dog gave a dull bark. Then there was a long pause, during which
+François also must have been listening.
+
+Véronique's emotion was so great that it seemed to her that François
+must hear the beating of her heart.
+
+He whispered:
+
+"Is that you, Honorine?"
+
+There was a fresh pause; and he continued:
+
+"Yes, I'm sure it's you . . . . I can hear you breathing . . . . Why
+don't you answer?"
+
+Véronique was carried away by a sudden impulse. Certain gleams of light
+had flashed upon her mind since she had understood that Stéphane was a
+prisoner, no doubt like François, therefore a victim of the enemy; and
+all sorts of vague suppositions flitted through her brain. Besides, how
+could she resist the appeal of that voice? Her son was asking her a
+question . . . her son!
+
+"François . . . François!" she stammered.
+
+"Ah," he said, "there's an answer! I knew it! Is it you, Honorine?"
+
+"No, François," she said.
+
+"Then who is it?"
+
+"A friend of Honorine's."
+
+"I don't know you, do I?"
+
+"No . . . but I am your friend."
+
+He hesitated. Was he on his guard?
+
+"Why didn't Honorine come with you?"
+
+Véronique was not prepared for this question, but she at once realized
+that, if the involuntary suppositions that were forcing themselves upon
+her were correct, the boy must not yet be told the truth.
+
+She therefore said:
+
+"Honorine came back from her journey, but has gone away again."
+
+"Gone to look for me?"
+
+"That's it, that's it," she said, quickly. "She thought that you had
+been carried away from Sarek and your tutor with you."
+
+"But grandfather?"
+
+"He's gone too: so have all the inhabitants of the island."
+
+"Ah! The old story of the coffins and the crosses, I suppose?"
+
+"Just so. They thought that your disappearance meant the beginning of
+the disasters; and their fear made them take to flight."
+
+"But you, madame?"
+
+"I have known Honorine for a long time. I came from Paris with her to
+take a holiday at Sarek. I have no reason to go away. All these
+superstitions have no terrors for me."
+
+The child was silent. The improbability and inadequacy of the replies
+must have been apparent to him: and his suspicions increased in
+consequence. He confessed as much, frankly:
+
+"Listen, madame, there's something I must tell you. It's ten days since
+I was imprisoned in this cell. During the first part of that time, I saw
+and heard nobody. But, since the day before yesterday, every morning a
+little wicket opens in the middle of my door and a woman's hand comes
+through and gives a fresh supply of water. A woman's hand . . . so . . .
+you see?"
+
+"So you want to know if that woman is myself?"
+
+"Yes, I am obliged to ask you."
+
+"Would you recognize that woman's hand?"
+
+"Yes, it is lean and bony, with a yellow arm."
+
+"Here's mine," said Véronique. "It can pass where All's Well did."
+
+She pulled up her sleeve; and by flexing her bare arm she easily passed
+it through.
+
+"Oh," said François, at once, "that's not the hand I saw!"
+
+And he added, in a lower voice:
+
+"How pretty this one is!"
+
+Suddenly Véronique felt him take it in his own with a quick movement;
+and he exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, it can't be true, it can't be true!"
+
+He had turned her hand over and was separating the fingers so as to
+uncover the palm entirely. And he whispered:
+
+"The scar! . . . It's there! . . . The white scar! . . ."
+
+Then Véronique became greatly agitated. She remembered Stéphane Maroux's
+diary and certain details set down by him which François must have
+heard. One of these details was this scar, which recalled an old and
+rather serious injury.
+
+She felt the boy's lips pressed to her hand, first gently and then with
+passionate ardour and a great flow of tears, and heard him stammering:
+
+"Oh, mother, mother darling! . . . My dear, dear mother! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FRANÇOIS AND STÉPHANE
+
+
+Long the mother and son remained thus, kneeling against the wall that
+divided them, yet as close together as though they were able to see each
+other with their frenzied eyes and to mingle their tears and kisses.
+They spoke both at once, asking each other questions and answering them
+at random. They were in a transport of delight. The life of each flowed
+over into the other's life and became swallowed up in it. No power on
+earth could now dissolve their union or break the bonds of love and
+confidence which unite mothers and sons.
+
+"Yes, All's Well, old man," said François, "you may sit up as much and
+as long as you like. We are really crying this time . . . and you will
+be the first to get tired, for one doesn't mind shedding such tears as
+these, does one, mother?"
+
+As for Véronique, her mind retained not a vestige of the terrible
+visions which had dismayed it. Her son a murderer, her son killing and
+massacring people: she no longer admitted any of that. She did not even
+admit the excuse of madness. Everything would be explained in some other
+way which she was not even in a hurry to understand. She thought only of
+her son. He was there. His eyes saw her through the wall. His heart beat
+against hers. He lived; and he was the same gentle, affectionate, pure
+and charming child that her maternal dreams had pictured.
+
+"My son, my son!" she kept on repeating, as though she could not utter
+those marvellous words often enough. "My son, it's you, it's you! I
+believed you dead, a thousand times dead, more dead than it is possible
+to be . . . . And you are alive! And you are here! And I am touching
+you! O Heaven, can it be true! I have a son . . . and my son is alive!
+. . ."
+
+And he, on his side, took up the refrain with the same passionate
+fervour:
+
+"Mother! Mother! I have waited for you so long! . . . To me you were not
+dead, but it was so sad to be a child and to have no mother . . . to see
+the years go by and to waste them in waiting for you."
+
+For an hour they talked at random, of the past, of the present, of a
+hundred subjects which at first appeared to them the most interesting
+things in the world and which they forthwith dropped to ask each other
+more questions and to try to know each other a little better and to
+enter more deeply into the secret of their lives and the privacy of
+their souls.
+
+It was François who first attempted to impart some little method to
+their conversation:
+
+"Listen, mother; we have so much to say to each other that we must give
+up trying to say it all to-day and even for days and days. Let us speak
+now of what is essential and in the fewest possible words, for we have
+perhaps not much time before us."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Véronique, instantly alarmed. "I have no
+intention of leaving you!"
+
+"But, mother, if we are not to leave each other, we must first be
+united. Now there are many obstacles to be overcome, even if it were
+only the wall that separates us. Besides, I am very closely watched; and
+I may be obliged at any moment to send you away, as I do All's Well, at
+the first sound of footsteps approaching."
+
+"Watched by whom?"
+
+"By those who fell upon Stéphane and me on the day when we discovered
+the entrance to these caves, under the heath on the table-land, the
+Black Heath."
+
+"Did you see them?"
+
+"No, it was too dark."
+
+"But who are they? Who are those enemies?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You suspect, of course?"
+
+"The Druids?" he said, laughing. "The people of old of whom the legends
+speak? Rather not! Ghosts? Not that either. They were just simply
+creatures of to-day, creatures of flesh and blood."
+
+"They live down here, though?"
+
+"Most likely."
+
+"And you took them by surprise?"
+
+"No, on the contrary. They seemed even to be expecting us and to be
+lying in wait for us. We had gone down a stone staircase and a very long
+passage, lined with perhaps eighty caves, or rather eighty cells. The
+doors, which were of wood, were open; and the cells overlooked the sea.
+It was on the way back, as we were going up the staircase again in the
+dark, that we were seized from one side, knocked down, bound,
+blindfolded and gagged. The whole thing did not take a minute. I
+suspect that we were carried back to the end of the long passage. When
+I succeeded in removing my bonds and my bandage, I found that I was
+locked in one of the cells, probably the last in the passage; and I have
+been here ten days."
+
+"My poor darling, how you must have suffered!"
+
+"No, mother, and in any case not from hunger. There was a whole stack of
+provisions in one corner and a truss of straw in another to lie on. So I
+waited quietly."
+
+"For whom?"
+
+"You promise not to laugh, mother?"
+
+"Laugh at what, dear?"
+
+"At what I'm going to tell you?"
+
+"How can you think . . . ?"
+
+"Well, I was waiting for some one who had heard of all the stories of
+Sarek and who promised grandfather to come."
+
+"But who was it?"
+
+The boy hesitated:
+
+"No, I am sure you will make fun of me, mother, I'll tell you later.
+Besides, he never came . . . though I thought for a moment . . . Yes,
+fancy, I had managed to remove two stones from the wall and to open this
+hole of which my gaolers evidently didn't know. All of a sudden, I heard
+a noise, someone scratching . . ."
+
+"It was All's Well?"
+
+"It was Master All's Well coming by the other road. You can imagine the
+welcome he received! Only what astonished me was that nobody followed
+him this way, neither Honorine nor grandfather. I had no pencil or paper
+to write to them; but, after all, they had only to follow All's Well."
+
+"That was impossible," said Véronique, "because they believed you to be
+far away from Sarek, carried off no doubt, and because your grandfather
+had left."
+
+"Just so: why believe anything of the sort? Grandfather knew, from a
+lately discovered document, where we were, for it was he who told us of
+the possible entrance to the underground passage. Didn't he speak to you
+about it?"
+
+Véronique had been very happy in listening to her son's story. As he had
+been carried off and imprisoned, he was not the atrocious monster who
+had killed M. d'Hergemont, Marie Le Goff, Honorine and Corréjou and his
+companions. The truth which she had already vaguely surmised now assumed
+a more definite form and, though still thickly shrouded, was visible in
+its essential part. François was not guilty. Some one had put on his
+clothes and impersonated him, even as some one else, in the semblance of
+Stéphane, had pretended to be Stéphane. Ah, what did all the rest
+matter, the improbabilities and inconsistencies, the proofs and
+certainties! Véronique did not even think about it. The only thing that
+counted was the innocence of her beloved son.
+
+And so she still refused to tell him anything that would sadden him and
+spoil his happiness; and she said:
+
+"No, I have not seen your grandfather. Honorine wanted to prepare him
+for my visit, but things happened so hurriedly . . ."
+
+"And you were left alone on the island, poor mother? So you hoped to
+find me here?"
+
+"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Alone, but with All's Well, of course."
+
+"Yes. I hardly paid any attention to him during the first days. It was
+not until this morning that I thought of following him."
+
+"And where does the road start from that brought you here?"
+
+"It's an underground passage the outlet of which is concealed between
+two stones near Maguennoc's garden."
+
+"What! Then the two islands communicate?"
+
+"Yes, by the cliff underneath the bridge."
+
+"How strange! That's what neither Stéphane not I guessed, nor anybody
+else, for that matter . . . except our dear All's Well, when it came to
+finding his master."
+
+He interrupted himself and then whispered:
+
+"Hark!"
+
+But, the next moment, he said:
+
+"No, it's not that yet. Still, we must hurry."
+
+"What am I to do?"
+
+"It's quite simple, mother. When I made this hole, I saw that it could
+be widened easily enough, if it were possible also to take out the three
+or four stones next to it. But these are firmly fixed; and we should
+need an implement of some kind."
+
+"Well, I'll go and . . ."
+
+"Yes, do, mother. Go back to the Priory. To the left of the house, in a
+basement, is a sort of workshop where Maguennoc kept his garden-tools.
+You will find a small pick-axe there, with a very short handle. Bring it
+me in the evening. I will work during the night; and to-morrow morning I
+shall give you a kiss, mother."
+
+"Oh, it sounds too good to be true!"
+
+"I promise you I shall. Then all that we shall have to do will be to
+release Stéphane."
+
+"Your tutor? Do you know where he is shut up?"
+
+"I do almost know. According to the particulars which grandfather gave
+us, the underground passages consist of two floors one above the other;
+and the last cell of each is fitted as a prison. I occupy one of them.
+Stéphane should occupy the other, below mine. What worries me . . ."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Well, it's this: according to grandfather again, these two cells were
+once torture-chambers . . . 'death chambers' was the word grandfather
+used."
+
+"Oh, but how alarming!"
+
+"Why alarm yourself, mother? You see that they are not thinking of
+torturing me. Only, on the off chance and not knowing what sort of fate
+was in store for Stéphane, I sent him something to eat by All's Well,
+who is sure to have found a way of getting to him."
+
+"No," she said, "All's Well did not understand."
+
+"How do you know, mother?"
+
+"He thought you were sending him to Stéphane Maroux's room and he heaped
+it all under the bed."
+
+"Oh!" said the boy, anxiously. "What can have become of Stéphane?" And
+he at once added, "You see, mother, that we must hurry, if we would save
+Stéphane and save ourselves."
+
+"What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Nothing, if you act quickly."
+
+"But still . . ."
+
+"Nothing, I assure you. I feel certain that we shall get the better of
+every obstacle."
+
+"And, if any others present themselves . . . dangers which we cannot
+foresee? . . ."
+
+"It is then," said François, laughing, "that the man whom I am expecting
+will come and protect us."
+
+"You see, my darling, you yourself admit the need of assistance . . . ."
+
+"Why, no, mother, I am trying to ease your mind, but nothing will
+happen. Come, how would you have a son who has just found his mother
+lose her again at once? It isn't possible. In real life, may be . . .
+but we are not living in real life. We are absolutely living in a
+romance; and in romances things always come right. You ask All's Well.
+It's so, old chap, isn't it: we shall win and be united and live happy
+ever after? That's what you think, All's Well? Then be off, old chap,
+and take mother with you. I'm going to fill up the hole, in case they
+come and inspect my cell. And be sure not to try and come in when the
+hole is stopped, eh, All's Well? That's when the danger is. Go, mother,
+and don't make a noise when you come back."
+
+Véronique was not long away. She found the pick-axe; and, forty minutes
+after, brought it and managed to slip it into the cell.
+
+"No one has been yet," said François, "but they are certain to come soon
+and you had better not stay. I may have a night's work before me,
+especially as I shall have to stop because of likely visits. So I shall
+expect you at seven o'clock to-morrow . . . . By the way, talking of
+Stéphane: I have been thinking it over. Some noises which I heard just
+now confirmed my notion that he is shut up more or less underneath me.
+The opening that lights my cell is too narrow for me to pass through.
+Is there a fairly wide window at the place where you are now?"
+
+"No, but it can be widened by removing the little stones round it."
+
+"Capital. You will find in Maguennoc's workshop a bamboo ladder, with
+iron hooks to it, which you can easily bring with you to-morrow morning.
+Next, take some provisions and some rugs and leave them in a thicket at
+the entrance to the tunnel."
+
+"What for, darling?"
+
+"You'll see. I have a plan. Good-bye, mother. Have a good night's rest
+and pick up your strength. We may have a hard day before us."
+
+Véronique followed her son's advice. The next morning, full of hope, she
+once more took the road to the cell. This time, All's Well, reverting to
+his instincts of independence, did not come with her.
+
+"Keep quite still, mother," said François, in so low a whisper that she
+could scarcely hear him. "I am very closely watched; and I think there's
+some one walking up and down in the passage. However, my work is nearly
+done; the stones are all loosened. I shall have finished in two hours.
+Have you the ladder?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Remove the stones from the window . . . that will save time . . . for
+really I am frightened about Stéphane . . . . And be sure not to make a
+noise . . . ."
+
+Véronique moved away.
+
+The window was not much more than three feet from the floor: and the
+small stones, as she had supposed, were kept in place only by their own
+weight and the way in which they were arranged. The opening which she
+thus contrived to make was very wide; and she easily passed the ladder
+which she had brought with her through and secured it by its iron hooks
+to the lower ledge.
+
+She was some hundred feet or so above the sea, which lay all white
+before her, guarded by the thousand reefs of Sarek. But she could not
+see the foot of the cliff, for there was under the window a slight
+projection of granite which jutted forward and on which the ladder
+rested instead of hanging perpendicularly.
+
+"That will help François," she thought.
+
+Nevertheless, the danger of the undertaking seemed great; and she
+wondered whether she herself ought not to take the risk, instead of her
+son, all the more so as François might be mistaken, as Stéphane's cell
+was perhaps not there at all and as perhaps there was no means of
+entering it by a similar opening. If so, what a waste of time! And what
+a useless danger for the boy to run!
+
+At that moment she felt so great a need of self-devotion, so intense a
+wish to prove her love for him by direct action, that she formed her
+resolution without pausing to reflect, even as one performs immediately
+a duty which there is no question of not performing. Nothing deterred
+her: neither her inspection of the ladder, whose hooks were not wide
+enough to grip the whole thickness of the ledge, nor the sight of the
+precipice, which gave an impression that everything was about to fall
+away from under her. She had to act; and she acted.
+
+Pinning up her skirt, she stepped across the wall, turned round,
+supported herself on the ledge, groped with her foot in space and found
+one of the rungs. Her whole body was trembling. Her heart was beating
+furiously, like the clapper of a bell. Nevertheless she had the mad
+courage to catch hold of the two uprights and go down.
+
+It did not take long. She knew that there were twenty rungs in all. She
+counted them. When she reached the twentieth, she looked to the left and
+murmured, with unspeakable joy:
+
+"Oh, François . . . my darling!"
+
+She had seen, three feet away at most, a recess, a hollow which appeared
+to be the entrance to a cavity cut in the rock itself.
+
+"Stéphane . . . Stéphane," she called, but in so faint a voice that
+Stéphane Maroux, if he were there, could not hear her.
+
+She hesitated a few seconds, but her legs were giving way and she no
+longer had the strength either to climb up again or to remain hanging
+where she was. Taking advantage of a few irregularities in the rock and
+thus shifting the ladder, at the risk of unhooking it, she succeeded, by
+a sort of miracle of which she was quite aware, in catching hold of a
+flint which projected from the granite and setting foot in the cave.
+Then, with fierce energy, she made one supreme effort and, recovering
+her balance with a jerk, she entered.
+
+She at once saw some one, fastened with cords, lying on a truss of
+straw.
+
+The cave was small and not very deep, especially in the upper portion,
+which pointed towards the sky rather than the sea and which must have
+looked, from a distance, like a mere fold in the cliff. There was no
+projection to bound it at the edge. The light entered freely.
+
+Véronique went nearer. The man did not move. He was asleep.
+
+She bent over him; though she did not recognize him for certain, it
+seemed to her that a memory was emerging from that dim past in which all
+the faces of our childhood gradually fade away. This one was surely not
+unknown to her: a gentle visage, with regular features, fair hair flung
+well back, a broad, white forehead and a slightly feminine countenance,
+which reminded Véronique of the charming face of a convent friend who
+had died before the war.
+
+She deftly unfastened the bonds with which the wrists were fastened
+together.
+
+The man, without waking immediately, stretched his arms, as though
+submitting himself to a familiar operation, not effected for the first
+time, which did not necessarily interfere with his sleep. Presumably he
+was released like this at intervals, perhaps in order to eat and at
+night, for he ended by muttering:
+
+"So early? . . . But I'm not hungry . . . and it's still light!"
+
+This last reflection astonished the man himself. He opened his eyes and
+at once sat up where he lay, so that he might see the person who was
+standing in front of him, no doubt for the first time in broad daylight.
+
+He was not greatly surprised, for the reason that the reality could not
+have been manifest to him at once. He probably thought that he was the
+sport of a dream or an hallucination; and he said, in an undertone:
+
+"Véronique . . . Véronique . . ."
+
+She felt a little embarrassed by his gaze, but finished releasing his
+bonds; and, when he distinctly felt her hand on his own hands and on his
+imprisoned limbs, he understood the wonderful event which her presence
+implied and he said, in a faltering voice:
+
+"You! You! . . . Can it be? . . . Oh, speak just one word, just one!
+. . . Can it possibly be you?" He continued, almost to himself, "Yes, it
+is she . . . it is certainly she . . . . She is here!" And, anxiously,
+aloud, "You . . . at night . . . on the other nights . . . it wasn't you
+who came then? It was another woman, wasn't it? An enemy? . . . Oh,
+forgive me for asking you! . . . It's because . . . because I don't
+understand . . . . How did you come here?"
+
+"I came this way," she said, pointing to the sea.
+
+"Oh," he said, "how wonderful!"
+
+He stared at her with dazed eyes, as he might have stared at some vision
+descended from Heaven; and the circumstances were so unusual that he did
+not think of suppressing the eagerness of his gaze.
+
+She repeated, utterly confused:
+
+"Yes, this way . . . . François suggested it."
+
+"I did not mention him," he said, "because, with you here, I felt sure
+that he was free."
+
+"Not yet," she said, "but he will be in an hour."
+
+A long pause ensued. She interrupted it to conceal her agitation:
+
+"He will be free . . . . You shall see him . . . . But we must not
+frighten him: there are things which he doesn't know."
+
+She perceived that he was listening not to the words uttered but to the
+voice that uttered them and that this voice seemed to plunge him into a
+sort of ecstasy, for he was silent and smiled. She thereupon smiled too
+and questioned him, thus obliging him to answer:
+
+"You called me by my name at once. So you knew me? I also seem to . . .
+Yes, you remind me of a friend of mine who died."
+
+"Madeleine Ferrand?"
+
+"Yes, Madeleine Ferrand."
+
+"Perhaps I also remind you of her brother, a shy schoolboy who used
+often to visit the parlour at the convent and who used to look at you
+from a distance."
+
+"Yes, yes," she declared. "I remember. We even spoke to each other
+sometimes; you used to blush. Yes, that's it: your name was Stéphane.
+But how do you come to be called Maroux?"
+
+"Madeleine and I were not children of the same father."
+
+"Ah," she said, "that was what misled me!"
+
+She gave him her hand:
+
+"Well, Stéphane," she said, "as we are old friends and have renewed our
+acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. For the
+moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. Have you the strength?"
+
+"The strength, yes: I have not had such a very bad time. But how are we
+to go from here?"
+
+"By the same road by which I came, a ladder communicating with the upper
+passage of cells."
+
+He was now standing up:
+
+"You had the courage, the pluck?" he asked, at last realizing what she
+had dared to do.
+
+"Oh, it was not very difficult!" she declared. "François was so anxious!
+He maintained that you were both occupying old torture-chambers . . .
+death-chambers . . . ."
+
+It was as though these words aroused him violently from a dream and made
+him suddenly see that it was madness to converse in such circumstances.
+
+"Go away!" he cried. "François is right! Oh, if you knew the risk you
+are running. Please, please go!"
+
+He was beside himself, as though convulsed by the thought of an
+immediate peril. She tried to calm him, but he entreated her:
+
+"Another second may be your undoing. Don't stay here . . . . I am
+condemned to death and to the most terrible death. Look at the ground on
+which we are standing, this sort of floor . . . . But it's no use
+talking about it. Oh, please do go!"
+
+"With you," she said.
+
+"Yes, with me. But save yourself first."
+
+She resisted and said, firmly:
+
+"For us both to be saved, Stéphane, we must above all things remain
+calm. What I did just now we can do again only by calculating all our
+actions and controlling our excitement. Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes," he said, overcome by her magnificent confidence.
+
+"Then follow me."
+
+She stepped to the very edge of the precipice and leant forward:
+
+"Give me your hand," she said, "to help me keep my balance."
+
+She turned round, flattened herself against the cliff and felt the
+surface with her free hand.
+
+Not finding the ladder, she leant outward slightly.
+
+The ladder had become displaced. No doubt, when Véronique, perhaps with
+too abrupt a movement, had set foot in the cave, the iron hook of the
+right-hand upright had slipped and the ladder, hanging only by the other
+hook, had swung like a pendulum.
+
+The bottom rungs were now out of reach.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ANGUISH
+
+
+Had Véronique been alone, she would have yielded to one of those moods
+of despondency which her nature, brave though it was, could not escape
+in the face of the unrelenting animosity of fate. But in the presence of
+Stéphane, who she felt to be the weaker and who was certainly exhausted
+by his captivity, she had the strength to restrain herself and announce,
+as though mentioning quite an ordinary incident:
+
+"The ladder has swung out of our reach."
+
+Stéphane looked at her in dismay:
+
+"Then . . . then we are lost!"
+
+"Why should we be lost?" she asked, with a smile.
+
+"There is no longer any hope of getting away."
+
+"What do you mean? Of course there is. What about François?"
+
+"François?"
+
+"Certainly. In an hour at most, François will have made his escape; and,
+when he sees the ladder and the way I came, he will call to us. We shall
+hear him easily. We have only to be patient."
+
+"To be patient!" he said, in terror. "To wait for an hour! But they are
+sure to be here in less than that. They keep a constant watch."
+
+"Well, we will manage somehow."
+
+He pointed to the wicket in the door:
+
+"Do you see that wicket?" he said. "They open it each time. They will
+see us through the grating."
+
+"There's a shutter to it. Let's close it."
+
+"They will come in."
+
+"Then we won't close it and we'll keep up our confidence, Stéphane."
+
+"I'm frightened for you, not for myself."
+
+"You mustn't be frightened either for me or for yourself . . . . If the
+worst comes to the worst, we are able to defend ourselves," she added,
+showing him a revolver which she had taken from her father's rack of
+arms and carried on her ever since.
+
+"Ah," he said, "what I fear is that we shall not even be called upon to
+defend ourselves! They have other means."
+
+"What means?"
+
+He did not answer. He had flung a quick glance at the floor; and
+Véronique for a moment examined its curious structure.
+
+All around, following the circumference of the walls, was the granite
+itself, rugged and uneven. But outlined in the granite was a large
+square. They could see, on each of the four sides, the deep crevice that
+divided it from the rest. The timbers of which it consisted were worn
+and grooved, full of cracks and gashes, but nevertheless massive and
+powerful. The fourth side almost skirted the edge of the precipice, from
+which it was divided by eight inches at most.
+
+"A trap-door?" she asked, with a shudder.
+
+"No, not that," he said. "It would be too heavy."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"I don't know. Very likely it is nothing but a remnant of some past
+contrivance which no longer works. Still . . ."
+
+"Still what?"
+
+"Last night . . . or rather this morning there was a creaking sound down
+below there. It seemed to suggest attempts, but they stopped at once
+. . . it's such a long time since! . . . No, the thing no longer works
+and they can't make use of it."
+
+"Who's _they_?"
+
+Without waiting for his answer, she continued:
+
+"Listen, Stéphane, we have a few minutes before us, perhaps fewer than
+we think. François will be free at any moment now and will come to our
+rescue. Let us make the most of the interval and tell each other the
+things which both of us ought to know. Let us discuss matters quietly.
+We are threatened with no immediate danger; and the time will be well
+employed."
+
+Véronique was pretending a sense of security which she did not feel.
+That François would make his escape she refused to doubt; but who could
+tell that the boy would go to the window and notice the hook of the
+hanging ladder? On failing to see his mother, would he not rather think
+of following the underground tunnel and running to the Priory?
+
+However, she mastered herself, feeling the need of the explanation for
+which she had asked, and, sitting down on a granite projection which
+formed a sort of bench, she at once began to tell Stéphane the events
+which she had witnessed and in which she had played a leading part, from
+the moment when her investigations led her to the deserted cabin
+containing Maguennoc's dead body.
+
+Stéphane listened to the terrifying narrative without attempting to
+interrupt her but with an alarm marked by his gestures of abhorrence and
+the despairing expression of his face. M. d'Hergemont's death in
+particular seemed to crush him, as did Honorine's. He had been greatly
+attached to both of them.
+
+"There, Stéphane," said Véronique, when she had described the anguish
+which she suffered after the execution of the sisters Archignat, the
+discovery of the underground passage and her interview with François.
+"That is all that I need absolutely tell you. I thought that you ought
+to know what I have kept from François, so that we may fight our enemies
+together."
+
+He shook his head:
+
+"Which enemies?" he said. "I, too, in spite of your explanations, am
+asking the very question which you asked me. I have a feeling that we
+are flung into the midst of a great tragedy which has continued for
+years, for centuries, and in which we have begun to play our parts only
+at the moment of the crisis, at the moment of the terrific cataclysm
+prepared by generations of men. I may be wrong. Perhaps there is nothing
+more than a disconnected series of sinister, weird and horrible
+coincidences amid which we are tossed from side to side, without being
+able to appeal to any other reasons than the whim of chance. In reality
+I know no more than you do. I am surrounded by the same obscurity,
+stricken by the same sorrows and the same losses. It's all just
+insanity, extravagant convulsions, unprecedent shocks, the crimes of
+savages, the fury of the barbaric ages."
+
+Véronique agreed:
+
+"Yes, of the barbaric ages; and that is what baffles me most and
+impresses me so much! What is the connection between the present and the
+past, between our persecutors of to-day and the men who lived in these
+caves in days of old and whose actions are prolonged into our own time,
+in a manner so impossible to understand? To what do they all refer,
+those legends of which I know nothing except from Honorine's delirium
+and the distress of the sisters Archignat?"
+
+They spoke low, with their ears always on the alert. Stéphane listened
+for sounds in the corridor, Véronique concentrated her attention on the
+cliff, in the hope of hearing François' signal.
+
+"They are very complicated legends," said Stéphane, "very obscure
+traditions in which we must abandon any attempt to distinguish between
+what is superstition and what might be truth. Out of this jumble of old
+wives' tales, the very most that we can disentangle is two sets of
+ideas, those referring to the prophecy of the thirty coffins and those
+relating to the existence of a treasure, or rather of a miraculous
+stone."
+
+"Then they take as a prophecy," said Véronique, "the words which I read
+on Maguennoc's drawing and again on the Fairies' Dolmen?"
+
+"Yes, a prophecy which dates back to an indeterminate period and which
+for centuries has governed the whole history and the whole life of
+Sarek. The belief has always prevailed that a day would come when,
+within a space of twelve months, the thirty principal reefs which
+surround the island and which are called the thirty coffins would
+receive their thirty victims, who were to die a violent death, and that
+those thirty victims would include four women who were to die crucified.
+It is an established and undisputed tradition, handed down from father
+to son: and everybody believes in it. It is expressed in the line and
+part of a line inscribed on the Fairies' Dolmen: 'Four women crucified,'
+and 'For thirty coffins victims thirty times!'"
+
+"Very well; but people have gone on living all the same, normally and
+peaceably. Why did the outburst of terror suddenly take place this
+year?"
+
+"Maguennoc was largely responsible. Maguennoc was a fantastic and rather
+mysterious person, a mixture of the wizard and the bone-setter, the
+healer and the charlatan, who had studied the stars in their courses and
+whom people liked to consult about the most remote events of the past as
+well as the future. Now Maguennoc announced not long ago that 1917 would
+be the fateful year."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Intuition perhaps, presentiment, divination, or subconscious knowledge:
+you can choose any explanation that you please. As for Maguennoc, who
+did not despise the practices of the most antiquated magic, _he_ would
+tell you that he knew it from the flight of a bird or the entrails of a
+fowl. However, his prophecy was based on something more serious. He
+pretended, quoting evidence collected in his childhood among the old
+people of Sarek, that, at the beginning of the last century, the first
+line of the inscription on the Fairies' Dolmen was not yet obliterated
+and that it formed this, which would rhyme with 'Four women shall be
+crucified on tree:' 'In Sarek's isle, in year fourteen and three.' The
+year fourteen and three is the year seventeen; and the prediction became
+more impressive for Maguennoc and his friends of late years, because the
+total number was divided into two numbers and the war broke out in 1914.
+From that day, Maguennoc grew more and more important and more and more
+sure of the truth of his previsions. For that matter, he also grew more
+and more anxious; and he even announced that his death, followed by the
+death of M. d'Hergemont, would give the signal for the catastrophe. Then
+the year 1917 arrived and produced a genuine terror in the island. The
+events were close at hand."
+
+"And still," said Véronique, "and still it was all absurd."
+
+"Absurd, yes; but it all acquired a curiously disturbing significance on
+the day when Maguennoc was able to compare the scraps of prophecy
+engraved on the dolmen with the complete prophecy."
+
+"Then he succeeded in doing so?"
+
+"Yes. He discovered under the abbey ruins, in a heap of stones which had
+formed a sort of protecting chamber round it, an old worn and tattered
+missal, which had a few of its pages in good condition, however, and one
+in particular, the one which you saw, or rather of which you saw a copy
+in the deserted cabin."
+
+"A copy made by my father?"
+
+"By your father, as were all those in the cupboard in his study. M.
+d'Hergemont, you must remember, was fond of drawing, of painting
+water-colours. He copied the illuminated page, but of the prophecy that
+accompanied the drawing he reproduced only the words inscribed on the
+Fairies' Dolmen."
+
+"How do you account for the resemblance between the crucified woman and
+myself?"
+
+"I never saw the original, which Maguennoc gave to M. d'Hergemont and
+which your father kept jealously in his room. But M. d'Hergemont
+maintained that the resemblance was there. In any case, he accentuated
+it in his drawing, in spite of himself, remembering all that you had
+suffered . . . and through his fault, he said."
+
+"Perhaps," murmured Véronique, "he was also thinking of the other
+prophecy that was once made to Vorski: 'You will perish by the hand of a
+friend and your wife will be crucified.' So I suppose the strange
+coincidence struck him . . . and even made him write the initials of my
+maiden name, 'V. d'H.', at the top." And she added, "And all this
+happened in accordance with the wording of the inscription . . . ."
+
+They were both silent. How could they do other than think of that
+inscription, of the words written ages ago on the pages of the missal
+and on the stone of the dolmen? If destiny had as yet provided only
+twenty-seven victims for the thirty coffins of Sarek, were the last
+three not there, ready to complete the sacrifice, all three imprisoned,
+all three captive and in the power of the sacrificial murderers? And if,
+at the top of the knoll, near the Grand Oak, there were as yet but three
+crosses, would the fourth not soon be prepared, to receive a fourth
+victim?
+
+"François is a very long time," said Véronique, presently.
+
+She went to the edge and looked over. The ladder had not moved and was
+still out of reach.
+
+"The others will soon be coming to my door," said Stéphane. "I am
+surprised that they haven't been yet."
+
+But they did not wish to confess their mutual anxiety; and Véronique put
+a further question, in a calm voice:
+
+"And the treasure? The God-Stone?"
+
+"That riddle is hardly less obscure," said Stéphane, "and also depends
+entirely on the last line of the inscription: 'The God-Stone which gives
+life or death.' What is this God-Stone? Tradition says that it is a
+miraculous stone; and, according to M. d'Hergemont, this belief dates
+back to the remotest periods. People at Sarek have always had faith in
+the existence of a stone capable of working wonders. In the middle ages
+they used to bring puny and deformed children and lay them on the stone
+for days and nights together, after which the children got up strong and
+healthy. Barren women resorted to this remedy with good results, as did
+old men, wounded men and all sorts of degenerates. Only it came about
+that the place of pilgrimage underwent changes, the stone, still
+according to tradition, having been moved and even, according to some,
+having disappeared. In the eighteenth century, people venerated the
+Fairies' Dolmen and used still sometimes to expose scrofulous children
+there."
+
+"But," said Véronique, "the stone also had harmful properties, for it
+gave death as well as life?"
+
+"Yes, if you touched it without the knowledge of those whose business it
+was to guard it and keep it sacred. But in this respect the mystery
+becomes still more complicated, for there is the question also of a
+precious stone, a sort of fantastic gem which shoots out flames, burns
+those who wear it and makes them suffer the tortures of the damned."
+
+"That's what happened to Maguennoc, by Honorine's account," said
+Véronique.
+
+"Yes," replied Stéphane, "but here we are entering upon the present. So
+far I have been speaking of the fabled past, the two legends, the
+prophecy and the God-Stone. Maguennoc's adventure opens up the period of
+the present day, which for that matter is hardly less obscure than the
+ancient period. What happened to Maguennoc? We shall probably never
+know. He had been keeping in the background for a week, gloomy and doing
+no work, when suddenly he burst into M. d'Hergemont's study roaring,
+'I've touched it! I'm done for! I've touched it! . . . I took it in my
+hand . . . . It burnt me like fire, but I wanted to keep it . . . . Oh,
+it's been gnawing into my bones for days! It's hell, it's hell!' And he
+showed us the palm of his hand. It was all burnt, as though eaten up
+with cancer. We tried to dress it for him, but he seemed quite mad and
+kept rambling on, 'I'm the first victim . . . . the fire will go to my
+heart . . . . And after me the others' turn will come . . . .' That same
+evening, he cut off his hand with a hatchet. And a week later, after
+infecting the whole island with terror, he went away."
+
+"Where did he go to?"
+
+"To the village of Le Faouet, on a pilgrimage to the Chapel of St.
+Barbe, near the place where you found his dead body."
+
+"Who killed him, do you think?"
+
+"Undoubtedly one of the creatures who used to correspond by means of
+signs written along the road, one of the creatures who live hidden in
+the cells and who are pursuing some purpose which I don't understand."
+
+"Those who attacked you and François, therefore?"
+
+"Yes; and immediately afterwards, having stolen and put on our clothes,
+played the parts of François and myself."
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"To enter the Priory more easily and then, if their attempt failed, to
+balk enquiry."
+
+"But haven't you seen them since they have kept you here?"
+
+"I have seen only a woman, or rather caught a glimpse of her. She comes
+at night. She brings me food and drink, unties my hands, loosens the
+fastenings round my legs a little and comes back two hours after."
+
+"Has she spoken to you?"
+
+"Once only, on the first night, in a low voice, to tell me that, if I
+called out or uttered a sound or tried to escape, François would pay the
+penalty."
+
+"But, when they attacked you, couldn't you then make out . . . ?"
+
+"No, I saw no more than François did."
+
+"And the attack was quite unexpected?"
+
+"Yes, quite. M. d'Hergemont had that morning received two important
+letters on the subject of the investigation which he was making into all
+these facts. One of the letters, written by an old Breton nobleman
+well-known for his royalist leanings, was accompanied by a curious
+document which he had found among his great-grandfather's papers, a plan
+of some underground cells which the Chouans used to occupy in Sarek. It
+was evidently the same Druid dwellings of which the legends tell us. The
+plan showed the entrance on the Black Heath and marked two stories, each
+ending in a torture-chamber. François and I went out exploring together;
+and we were attacked on our way back."
+
+"And you have made no discovery since?"
+
+"No, none at all."
+
+"But François spoke of a rescue which he was expecting, some one who had
+promised his assistance."
+
+"Oh, a piece of boyish nonsense, an idea of François', which, as it
+happened, was connected with the second letter which M. d'Hergemont
+received that morning!"
+
+"And what was it about?"
+
+Stéphane did not reply at once. Something made him think that they were
+being spied on through the door. But, on going to the wicket, he saw no
+one in the passage outside.
+
+"Ah," he said, "if we are to be rescued, the sooner it happens the
+better. _They_ may come at any moment now."
+
+"Is any help really possible?" asked Véronique.
+
+"Well," Stéphane answered, "we must not attach too much importance to
+it, but it's rather curious all the same. You know, Sarek has often been
+visited by officers or inspectors with a view to exploring the rocks and
+beaches around the island, which were quite capable of concealing a
+submarine base. Last time, the special delegate sent from Paris, a
+wounded officer, Captain Patrice Belval,[2] became friendly with M.
+d'Hergemont, who told him the legend of Sarek and the apprehension which
+we were beginning to feel in spite of everything; it was the day after
+Maguennoc went away. The story interested Captain Belval so much that he
+promised to speak of it to one of his friends in Paris, a Spanish or
+Portuguese nobleman, Don Luis Perenna,[2] an extraordinary person, it
+would seem, capable of solving the most complicated mysteries and of
+succeeding in the most reckless enterprises. A few days after Captain
+Belval's departure, M. d'Hergemont received from Don Luis Perenna the
+letter of which I spoke to you and of which he read us only the
+beginning. 'Sir,' it said, 'I look upon the Maguennoc incident as more
+than a little serious; and I beg you, at the least fresh alarm, to
+telegraph to Patrice Belval. If I can rely upon certain indications, you
+are standing on the brink of an abyss. But, even if you were at the
+bottom of that abyss, you would have nothing to fear, if only I hear
+from you in time. From that moment, I make myself responsible, whatever
+happens, even though everything may seem lost and though everything may
+be lost. As for the riddle of the God-Stone, it is simply childish and I
+am astonished that, with the very ample data which you gave Belval, it
+should for an instant be regarded as impossible of explanation. I will
+tell you in a few words what has puzzled so many generations of mankind
+. . . .'"
+
+[Footnote 2: See _The Golden Triangle_, by Maurice Leblanc.]
+
+"Well?" said Véronique, eager to know more.
+
+"As I said, M. d'Hergemont did not tell us the end of the letter. He
+read it in front of us, saying, with an air of amazement, 'Can that be
+it? . . . Why, of course, of course it is . . . . How wonderful!' And,
+when we asked him, he said, 'I'll tell you all about it this evening,
+when you come back from the Black Heath. Meanwhile you may like to know
+that this most extraordinary man--it's the only word for him--discloses
+to me, without more ado or further particulars, the secret of the
+God-Stone and the exact spot where it is to be found. And he does it so
+logically as to leave no room for doubt.'"
+
+"And in the evening?"
+
+"In the evening, François and I were carried off and M. d'Hergemont was
+murdered."
+
+Véronique paused to think:
+
+"I should not be surprised," she said, "if they wanted to steal that
+important letter from him. For, after all, the theft of the God-Stone
+seems to me the only motive that can explain all the machinations of
+which we are the victims."
+
+"I think so too: but M. d'Hergemont, on Don Luis Perenna's
+recommendation, tore up the letter before our eyes."
+
+"So, after all, Don Luis Perenna has not been informed?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet François . . ."
+
+"François does not know of his grandfather's death and does not suspect
+that M. d'Hergemont never heard of our disappearance and therefore never
+sent a message to Don Luis Perenna. If he had done so, Don Luis, to
+François' mind, must be on his way. Besides, François has another
+reason for expecting something . . . ."
+
+"A serious reason?"
+
+"No. François is still very much of a child. He has read a lot of books
+of adventure, which have worked upon his imagination. Now Captain Belval
+told him such fantastic stories about his friend Perenna and painted
+Perenna in such strange colours that François firmly believes Perenna to
+be none other than Arsène Lupin. Hence his absolute confidence and his
+certainty that, in case of danger, the miraculous intervention will take
+place at the very minute when it becomes necessary."
+
+Véronique could not help smiling:
+
+"He is a child, of course; but children sometimes have intuitions which
+we have to take into account. Besides, it keeps up his courage and his
+spirits. How could he have endured this ordeal, at his age, if he had
+not had that hope?"
+
+Her anguish returned. In a very low voice, she said:
+
+"No matter where the rescue comes from, so long as it comes in time and
+so long as my son is not the victim of those dreadful creatures!"
+
+They were silent for a long time. The enemy, present, though invisible,
+oppressed them with his formidable weight. He was everywhere; he was
+master of the island, master of the subterranean dwellings, master of
+the heaths and woods, master of the sea around them, master of the
+dolmens and the coffins. He linked together the monstrous ages of the
+past and the no less monstrous hours of the present. He was continuing
+history according to the ancient rites and striking blows which had
+been foretold a thousand times.
+
+"But why? With what object? What does it all mean?" asked Véronique, in
+a disheartened tone. "What connection can there be between the people of
+to-day and those of long ago? What is the explanation of the work
+resumed by such barbarous methods?"
+
+And, after a further pause, she said, for in her heart of hearts, behind
+every question and reply and every insoluble problem, the obsession
+never ceased to torment her:
+
+"Ah, if François were here! If we were all three fighting together! What
+has happened to him? What keeps him in his cell? Some obstacle which he
+did not foresee?"
+
+It was Stéphane's turn to comfort her:
+
+"An obstacle? Why should you suppose so? There is no obstacle. But it's
+a long job . . . ."
+
+"Yes, yes, you are right; a long, difficult job. Oh, I'm sure that he
+won't lose heart! He has such high spirits! And such confidence! 'A
+mother and son who have been brought together cannot be parted again,'
+he said. 'They may still persecute us, but separate us, never! We shall
+win in the end.' He was speaking truly, wasn't he, Stéphane? I've not
+found my son again, have I, only to lose him? No, no, it would be too
+unjust and it would be impossible . . ."
+
+Stéphane looked at her, surprised to hear her interrupt herself.
+Véronique was listening to something.
+
+"What is it?" asked Stéphane.
+
+"I hear sounds," she said.
+
+He also listened:
+
+"Yes, yes, you're right."
+
+"Perhaps it's François," she said. "Perhaps it's up there."
+
+She moved to rise. He held her back:
+
+"No, it's the sound of footsteps in the passage."
+
+"In that case . . . in that case . . . ?" said Véronique.
+
+They exchanged distraught glances, forming no decision, not knowing what
+to do.
+
+The sound came nearer. The enemy could not be suspecting anything, for
+the steps were those of one who is not afraid of being heard.
+
+Stéphane said, slowly:
+
+"They must not see me standing up. I will go back to my place. You must
+fasten me again as best you can."
+
+They remained hesitating, as though cherishing the absurd hope that the
+danger would pass of its own accord. Then, suddenly, releasing herself
+from the sort of stupor that seemed to paralyse her, Véronique made up
+her mind:
+
+"Quick! . . . Here they come! . . . Lie down!"
+
+He obeyed. In a few seconds, she had replaced the cords on and around
+him as she had found them, but without tying them.
+
+"Turn your face to the rock," she said. "Hide your hands. Your hands
+might betray you."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I shall be all right."
+
+She stooped and stretched herself at full length against the door, in
+which the spy-hole, barred with strips of iron, projected inwardly in
+such a way as to hide her from sight.
+
+At the same moment, the enemy stopped outside. Notwithstanding the
+thickness of the door, Véronique heard the rustle of a dress.
+
+And, above her, some one looked in.
+
+It was a terrible moment. The least indication would give the alarm.
+
+"Oh, why does she stay?" thought Véronique. "Is there anything to betray
+my presence? My clothes? . . ."
+
+She thought that it was more likely Stéphane, whose attitude did not
+appear natural and whose bonds did not wear their usual aspect.
+
+Suddenly there was a movement outside, followed by a whistle and a
+second whistle.
+
+Then from the far end of the passage came another sound of steps, which
+increased in the solemn silence and stopped, like the first, behind the
+door. Words were spoken. Those outside seemed to be concerting measures.
+
+Véronique managed to reach her pocket. She took out her revolver and put
+her finger on the trigger. If any one entered, she would stand up and
+fire shot after shot, without hesitating. Would not the least hesitation
+have meant François' death?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DEATH-CHAMBER
+
+
+Véronique's estimate was correct, provided that the door opened outwards
+and that her enemies were at once revealed to view. She therefore
+examined the door and suddenly observed that, against all logical
+expectation, it had a large strong bolt at the bottom. Should she make
+use of it?
+
+She had no time to weigh the advantages or drawbacks of this plan. She
+had heard a jingle of keys and, almost at the same time, the sound of a
+key grating in the lock.
+
+Véronique received a very clear vision of what was likely to happen.
+When the assailants burst in, she would be thrust aside, she would be
+hampered in her movements, her aim would be inaccurate and her shots
+would miss, whereupon _they_ would shut the door again and promptly
+hurry off to François' cell. The thought of it made her lose her head;
+and her action was instinctive and immediate. First, she pushed the bolt
+at the foot of the door. Next, half rising, she slammed the iron shutter
+over the wicket. A latch clicked. It was no longer possible either to
+enter or to look in.
+
+Then at once she realized the absurdity of her action, which had not
+opposed any obstacle to the menace of the enemy. Stéphane, leaping to
+her side, said:
+
+"Good heavens, what have you done? Why, they saw that I was not moving
+and they now know that I am not alone!"
+
+"Exactly," she answered, striving to defend herself. "They will try to
+break down the door, which will give us the time we want."
+
+"The time we want for what?"
+
+"To make our escape."
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"François will call out to us. François will . . ."
+
+She did not complete her sentence. They now heard the sound of footsteps
+moving swiftly down the passage. There was no doubt about it; the enemy,
+without troubling about Stéphane, whose flight appeared impossible, was
+making for the upper floor of cells. Moreover, might he not suppose that
+the two friends were acting in agreement and that it was the boy who was
+in Stéphane's cell and who had barred the door?
+
+Véronique therefore had precipitated events and given them a turn which
+she had so many reasons to dread; and François, up above, would be
+caught at the very moment when he was preparing to escape.
+
+She was utterly overwhelmed:
+
+"Why did I come here?" she muttered. "It would have been so simple to
+wait! The two of us would have saved you to a certainty."
+
+One idea flashed through the confusion of her mind: had she not sought
+to hasten Stéphane's release because of what she knew of this man's love
+for her? And was it not an unworthy curiosity that had prompted her to
+make the attempt? A horrible idea, which she at once rejected, saying:
+
+"No, I had to come. It is fate which is persecuting us."
+
+"Don't believe it," said Stéphane. "Everything will come right."
+
+"Too late!" said she, shaking her head.
+
+"Why? How do we know that François has not left his cell? You yourself
+thought so just now . . . ."
+
+She did not reply. Her face became drawn and very pale. By virtue of her
+sufferings she had acquired a kind of intuition of the evil that
+threatened her. This evil now surrounded her on every hand. A second
+series of ordeals was before her, more terrible than the first.
+
+"There's death all about us," she said.
+
+He tried to smile:
+
+"You are talking like the people of Sarek. You have the same fears . . ."
+
+"They were right to be afraid. And you yourself feel the horror of it
+all."
+
+She rushed to the door, drew the bolt, tried to open it; but what could
+she do against that massive, iron-clad door?
+
+Stéphane seized her by the arm:
+
+"One moment . . . . Listen . . . . It sounds as if . . ."
+
+"Yes," she said, "it's up there that they are knocking . . . above our
+heads . . . in François' cell . . . ."
+
+"Not at all, not at all: listen . . . ."
+
+There was a long silence; and then blows were heard in the thickness of
+the cliff. The sound came from below them.
+
+"The same blows that I heard this morning," said Stéphane, in dismay.
+"The same attempt of which I spoke to you . . . . Ah, I understand!
+. . ."
+
+"What? What do you mean?"
+
+The blows were repeated, at regular intervals, and then ceased, to be
+followed by a dull, continuous sound, pierced by shriller creakings and
+sudden cracks, like the straining of machinery newly started, or of one
+of those capstans which are used for hoisting boats up a beach.
+
+Véronique listened, desperately expectant of what was coming, trying to
+guess, seeking to find some clue in Stéphane's eyes. He stood in front
+of her, looking at her as a man, in the hour of danger, looks at the
+woman he loves.
+
+And suddenly she staggered and had to press her hand against the wall.
+It was as though the cave and indeed the whole cliff were bodily moving
+from its place.
+
+"Oh," she murmured, "is it I who am trembling like this? Is it from fear
+that I am shaking from head to foot?"
+
+Seizing Stéphane's hands, she said:
+
+"Tell me! I want to know! . . ."
+
+He did not answer. There was no fear in his eyes bedewed with tears,
+there was nothing but immense love and unbounded despair. He was
+thinking only of her.
+
+Besides, was it necessary for him to explain what was happening? Did not
+the reality itself become more and more apparent as the seconds passed?
+A strange reality indeed, having no connection with commonplace facts, a
+reality quite beyond anything that the imagination might invent in the
+domain of evil, a strange reality which Véronique, who was beginning to
+grasp its indication, still refused to believe.
+
+Acting like a trap-door, but like a trap-door working the reverse way,
+the square of enormous joists which was set in the middle of the cave
+rose, pivoting on the fixed axis by which it was hinged parallel with
+the cliff. The almost imperceptible movement was that of an enormous lid
+opening; and the thing already formed a sort of spring-board reaching
+from the edge to the back of the cave, a spring-board with as yet a very
+slight slope, on which it was easy enough to keep one's balance.
+
+At the first moment, Véronique thought that the enemy's object was to
+crush them between the implacable floor and the granite of the ceiling.
+But, almost immediately afterwards, she understood that the hateful
+mechanism, by standing erect like a draw-bridge when hoisted up, was
+intended to hurl them over the precipice. And it would carry out that
+intention inexorably. The result was fatal and inevitable. Whatever they
+might try, whatever efforts they might make to hold on, a minute would
+come when the floor of that draw-bridge would be absolutely vertical,
+forming an integral part of the perpendicular cliff.
+
+"It's horrible, it's horrible," she muttered.
+
+Their hands were still clasped. Stéphane was weeping silent tears.
+
+Presently she moaned:
+
+"There's nothing to be done, is there?"
+
+"Nothing," he replied.
+
+"Still, there is room beyond that wooden floor. The cave is round. We
+might . . ."
+
+"The space is too small. If we tried to stand between the sides of the
+square and the wall, we should be crushed to death. That has all been
+planned. I have often thought about it."
+
+"Then . . . ?"
+
+"We must wait."
+
+"For what? For whom?"
+
+"For François."
+
+"Oh, François!" she said, with a sob. "Perhaps he too is doomed . . . .
+Or perhaps he is looking for us and will fall into some trap. In any
+case, I shall not see him . . . . And he will know nothing . . . . And
+he will not even have seen his mother before dying . . . ."
+
+She pressed Stéphane's hands and said:
+
+"Stéphane, if one of us escapes death--and I hope it may be you . . ."
+
+"It will be you," he said, in a tone of conviction. "I am even surprised
+that the enemy should condemn you to the same torture as myself. But no
+doubt he doesn't know that it's you who are here with me."
+
+"It surprises me too!" said Véronique. "A different torture is set aside
+for me. But what does it matter, if I am not to see my son again! . . .
+Stéphane, I can safely leave him in your charge, can't I? I know all
+that you have already done for him."
+
+The floor continued to rise very slowly, with an uneven vibration and
+sudden jerks. The slope became more accentuated. A few minutes more and
+they would no longer be able to speak freely and quietly.
+
+Stéphane replied:
+
+"If I survive, I swear to fulfil my task to the end. I swear it in
+memory . . ."
+
+"In memory of me," she said, in a firm voice, "in memory of the
+Véronique whom you knew . . . and loved."
+
+He looked at her passionately:
+
+"So you know?"
+
+"Yes; and I tell you frankly, I have read your diary. I know your love
+for me . . . and I accept it." She gave a sad smile. "That poor love
+which you offered to the woman who was absent . . . and which you are
+now offering to the woman who is about to die."
+
+"No, no," he said, eagerly, "don't believe that . . . . Salvation may be
+near at hand . . . . I feel it. My love does not belong to the past but
+to the future."
+
+He stooped to put his lips to her hands.
+
+"Kiss me," she said, offering him her forehead.
+
+Each of them had been obliged to place one foot on the brink of the
+precipice, on the straight edge of granite which ran parallel with the
+fourth side of the spring-board.
+
+They kissed gravely.
+
+"Hold me firmly," said Véronique.
+
+She leant back as far as she could, raising her head, and called in a
+muffled voice:
+
+"François . . . . François . . . ."
+
+But there was no one at the upper opening, from which the ladder was
+still hanging by one of its hooks, well out of reach.
+
+Véronique bent over the sea. At this spot, the swell of the cliff did
+not project as much as elsewhere; and she saw, in between the
+foam-topped reefs, a little pool of still water, very calm and so deep
+that she could not see the bottom. She thought that death would be
+gentler there than on the sharp-pointed rocks and, yielding to a sudden
+longing to have done with it all and to avoid a lingering agony, she
+said to Stéphane:
+
+"Why wait for the end? Better die than suffer this torture."
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed, horrified at the thought that Véronique might
+disappear from his sight.
+
+"Then you are still hoping?"
+
+"Until the last second, since it's your life that's at stake."
+
+"I have no longer any hope."
+
+Nor was he borne up by hope; but he would have given anything to lull
+Véronique's sufferings and to bear the whole weight of the supreme
+ordeal himself.
+
+The floor continued to rise. The vibration had ceased and the slope
+became much more marked, already reaching the bottom of the wicket, half
+way up the door. Then there was a sound like a sudden stoppage of
+machinery, followed by a violent jolt, and the whole wicket was covered.
+It was becoming impossible for them to stand erect.
+
+They lay down on the slanting floor, bracing their feet against the
+granite edge.
+
+Two more jerks occurred, each time pushing the upper end still higher.
+The top of the inner wall was reached; and the enormous mechanism moved
+slowly forward, along the ceiling, towards the opening of the cave. They
+could see very plainly that it would fit this opening exactly and close
+it hermetically, like a draw-bridge. The rock had been hewn in such a
+way that the deadly task might be accomplished without leaving any
+loophole for chance.
+
+They did not utter a word. With hands tight-clasped, they resigned
+themselves to the inevitable. Their death was assuming the aspect of an
+event decreed by destiny. The machine had been constructed far back in
+the centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put in
+order at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked by
+invisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guilty
+men and innocent, of men of Armorica, Gaul, France or foreign lands.
+Prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegade
+Chouans and soldiers of the Revolution; one by one the monster had
+hurled them over the cliff.
+
+To-day it was their turn.
+
+They had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. Whom were they
+to hate? They were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile face
+emerging from that implacable night. They were dying in the
+accomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, so
+to speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecile
+intentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian gods and
+formulated by fanatical priests. They were--it was a thing unheard
+of--the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offered
+to the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed!
+
+The wall stood behind them. In a few more minutes it would be
+perpendicular. The end was approaching.
+
+Time after time Stéphane had to hold Véronique back. An increasing
+terror distracted her mind. She yearned to fling herself down.
+
+"Please, please," she stammered, "do let me . . . . I am suffering more
+than I can bear."
+
+Had she not found her son again, she would have retained her
+self-control to the end. But the thought of François was unsettling her.
+The boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too and
+immolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable gods.
+
+"No, no, he will come," Stéphane declared. "You will be saved . . . . I
+will have it so . . . . I know it."
+
+She replied, wildly:
+
+"He is imprisoned as we are . . . . They are burning him with torches,
+driving arrows into him, tearing his flesh . . . . Oh, my poor little
+son! . . ."
+
+"He will come, dear, he told you he would. Nothing can separate a mother
+and son who have been brought together again."
+
+"We have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. I wish
+it might be at once! I don't want him to suffer!"
+
+The agony was too great. With an effort she released her hands from
+Stéphane's and made a movement to fling herself down. But she
+immediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry of
+amazement which was echoed by Stéphane.
+
+Something had passed before their eyes and disappeared again. It came
+from the left.
+
+"The ladder!" exclaimed Stéphane. "It's the ladder, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it's François," said Véronique, catching her breath with joy and
+hope. "He is saved. He is coming to rescue us."
+
+At that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibrating
+implacably beneath their shoulders. The cave no longer existed behind
+them. The depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging to
+a narrow ledge.
+
+Véronique leant outwards again. The ladder swung back and then became
+stationary, fixed by its two hooks.
+
+Above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boy
+was smiling and making gestures:
+
+"Mother, mother . . . quick!"
+
+The call was eager and urgent. The two arms were outstretched towards
+the pair below. Véronique moaned:
+
+"Oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!"
+
+"Quick, mother, I'm holding the ladder! . . . Quick! . . . It's quite
+safe!"
+
+"I'm coming, darling, I'm coming."
+
+She had seized the nearest upright. This time, with Stéphane's
+assistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottom
+rung. But she said:
+
+"And you, Stéphane? You're coming with me, aren't you?"
+
+"I have plenty of time," he said. "Hurry."
+
+"No, you must promise."
+
+"I swear. Hurry."
+
+She climbed four rungs and stopped:
+
+"Are you coming, Stéphane?"
+
+He had already turned towards the cliff and slipped his left hand into a
+narrow fissure which remained between the draw-bridge and the rock. His
+right hand reached the ladder and he was able to set foot on the lowest
+rung. He too was saved.
+
+With what delight Véronique covered the rest of the distance! What
+mattered the void below her, now that her son was there, waiting for her
+to clasp him to her breast at last!
+
+"Here I am, here I am," she said. "Here I am, my darling."
+
+She swiftly put her head and shoulders in the window. He pulled her
+through; and she climbed over the ledge. At last she was with her son.
+
+They flung themselves into each other's arms:
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, is it really true? Mother!"
+
+But she had no sooner closed her arms about him than she drew back a
+little, she did not know why. An inexplicable discomfort checked her
+first outburst.
+
+"Come here," she said, dragging him to the light of the window. "Come
+and let me look at you."
+
+The boy did as she wished. She examined him for two or three seconds, no
+longer, and suddenly, giving a start of terror, ejaculated:
+
+"Then it's you? It's you, the murderer?"
+
+Oh, horror! She was once more looking on the face of the monster who had
+killed her father and Honorine before her eyes!
+
+"So you know me?" he chuckled.
+
+Véronique realised her mistake from the boy's very tone. This was not
+François but the other, the one who had played his devilish part in the
+clothes which François usually wore.
+
+He gave another chuckle:
+
+"Ah, you're beginning to see things as they are, ma'am! You know me now,
+don't you?"
+
+The hateful face contracted, became wicked and cruel, animated by the
+vilest expression.
+
+"Vorski! Vorski!" stammered Véronique. "It's Vorski I recognise in you."
+
+He burst out laughing:
+
+"Why not? Do you think I'm going to disown my father as you did?"
+
+"Vorski's son! His son!" Véronique repeated.
+
+"Lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't I be? Surely the good fellow
+had the right to have two sons! Me first and dear François next!"
+
+"Vorski's son!" Véronique exclaimed once more.
+
+"And one of the best, I tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father and
+brought up on the highest principles. I've shown you as much already,
+haven't I? But it's not finished, we're only at the beginning . . . .
+Here, would you like me to give you a fresh proof? Just take a squint at
+that stick-in-the-mud of a tutor! . . . No, but look how things go when
+I take a hand in them."
+
+He sprang to the window. Stéphane's head appeared. The boy picked up a
+stone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards.
+
+Véronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising the
+danger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. It was too late. The head
+vanished. The hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. There was a
+loud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below.
+
+Véronique ran to the window. The ladder was floating on the part of the
+little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of
+rocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stéphane had
+fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
+
+She called out:
+
+"Stéphane! Stéphane! . . ."
+
+No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are
+still and the sea asleep.
+
+"You villain, what have you done?" she cried.
+
+"Don't take on, missus," he said. "Master Stéphane brought up your kid
+to be a duffer. Come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us a
+kiss, won't you, daddy's missus? But, I say, what a face you're pulling!
+Surely you don't hate me as much as all that?"
+
+He went up to her, with his arms outstretched. Véronique swiftly covered
+him with her revolver:
+
+"Be off, be off, or I'll kill you as I would a mad dog! Be off!"
+
+The boy's face became more inhuman than ever. He fell back step by step,
+snarling:
+
+"Oh, I'll make you pay for this, my pretty lady! . . . What do you mean
+by it? I come up to give you a kiss . . . I'm full of kindly feelings
+. . . and you want to shoot me! You shall pay for it in blood . . . in
+nice red flowing blood . . . blood . . . blood . . . ."
+
+He seemed to love the sound of the word. He repeated it time after time,
+then once more gave a burst of evil laughter and fled down the tunnel
+which led to the Priory, shouting:
+
+"The blood of your son, Mother Véronique! . . . The blood of your
+darling François!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+
+Shuddering, uncertain how to act next, Véronique listened till she no
+longer heard the sound of his footsteps. What should she do? The murder
+of Stéphane had for a moment turned her thoughts from François; but she
+now once more fell a prey to anguish. What had become of her son? Should
+she go to him at the Priory and defend him against the dangers that
+threatened him?
+
+"Come, come," she said, "I'm losing my head . . . . Let me think things
+out . . . . A few hours ago, François was speaking to me through the
+wall of his prison . . . for it was certainly he then, it was certainly
+François who yesterday took my hand and covered it with his kisses
+. . . . A mother cannot be deceived; and I was quivering with love and
+tenderness . . . . But since . . . since this morning has he not left
+his prison?"
+
+She stopped to think and then said, slowly:
+
+"That's it . . . that's what happened . . . . Stéphane and I were
+discovered below, on the floor underneath. The alarm was given at once.
+The monster, Vorski's son, had gone up expressly to watch François. He
+found the cell empty and, seeing the opening which had been made,
+crawled out here. Yes, that's it . . . . If not, by what way did he
+come? . . . When he got here, it occurred to him to run to the window,
+knowing that it overlooked the sea and suspecting that François had
+chosen it to make his escape. He at once saw the hooks of the ladder.
+Then, on leaning over, he saw me, knew who I was and called out to me
+. . . . And now . . . now he is on his way to the Priory, where he is
+bound to meet François . . . ."
+
+Nevertheless Véronique did not stir. She had an instinct that the danger
+lay not at the Priory but here, by the cells. And she wondered whether
+François had really succeeded in escaping and whether, before his task
+was done, he had not been surprised by the other and attacked by him.
+
+It was a horrible doubt! She stooped quickly and, perceiving that the
+hole had been widened, tried to pass through it herself. But the outlet,
+at most large enough for a child, was too narrow for her; and her
+shoulders became fixed. She persisted in the attempt, however, tearing
+her bodice and bruising her skin against the rock, and at last, by dint
+of patience and wriggling, succeeded in slipping through.
+
+The cell was empty. But the door was open on the passages facing her;
+and Véronique had an impression--merely an impression, for the window
+admitted only a faint light--that some one was just leaving the cell
+through the open door. And from this confused impression of something
+that she had not absolutely seen she retained the certainty that it was
+a woman who was hiding there, in the passage, a woman surprised by her
+unexpected entrance.
+
+"It's their accomplice," thought Véronique. "She came up with the boy
+who killed Stéphane, and she has no doubt taken François away . . . .
+Perhaps François is even there still, quite near me, while she's
+watching me . . . ."
+
+Meanwhile Véronique's eyes were growing accustomed to the semidarkness
+and she distinctly saw a woman's hand upon the door, which opened
+inwardly. The hand was slowly pulling.
+
+"Why doesn't she shut it at once," Véronique wondered, "since she
+obviously wants to put a barrier between us?"
+
+Véronique received her answer when she heard a pebble grating under the
+door and interfering with its movement. If the pebble were not there,
+the door would be closed. Without hesitating, Véronique went up, took
+hold of a great iron handle and pulled it towards her. The hand
+disappeared, but the opposition continued. There was evidently a handle
+on the other side as well.
+
+Suddenly she heard a whistle. The woman was summoning assistance. And
+almost at the same time, in the passage, at some distance from the
+woman, there was a cry:
+
+"Mother! Mother!"
+
+Ah, with what deep emotion Véronique heard that cry! Her son, her real
+son was calling to her, her son, still a captive but alive! Oh, the
+superhuman delight of it!
+
+"I'm here, darling!"
+
+"Quick, mother! I'm tied up; and the whistle is their signal . . .
+they'll be coming."
+
+"I'm here . . . . I shall save you before they come!"
+
+She had no doubt of the result. It seemed to her as though her strength
+knew no limits and as though nothing could resist the exasperated
+tension of her whole being.
+
+Her adversary was in fact weakening and giving ground by inches. The
+opening became wider; and suddenly the contest was over. Véronique
+walked through.
+
+The woman had already fled down the passage and was dragging the boy by
+a rope in order to make him walk despite the cords with which he was
+bound. It was a vain attempt and she abandoned it forthwith. Véronique
+was close to her, with her revolver in her hand.
+
+The woman let go the boy and stood up in the light from the open cells.
+She was dressed in white serge, with a knotted girdle round her waist.
+Her arms were half bare. Her face was still young, but faded, thin and
+wrinkled. Her hair was fair, interspersed with strands of white. Her
+eyes gleamed with a feverish hatred.
+
+The two women looked at each other without a word, like two adversaries
+who have met before and are about to fight again. Véronique almost
+smiled, with a smile of mingled triumph and defiance. In the end she
+said:
+
+"If you dare to lay a finger on my child, I'll kill you. Go! Be off!"
+
+The woman was not frightened. She seemed to be reflecting and to be
+listening in the expectation of assistance. None come. Then she lowered
+her eyes to François and made a movement as though to seize upon her
+prey again.
+
+"Don't touch him!" Véronique exclaimed, violently. "Don't touch him, or
+I fire!"
+
+The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, in measured accents:
+
+"No threats, please! If I had wanted to kill that child of yours, I
+should have done so by now. But his hour has not come; and it is not by
+my hand that he is to die."
+
+Véronique, trembling all over, could not help asking:
+
+"By whose hand is he to die?"
+
+"By my son's: you know . . . the one you've seen."
+
+"Is he your son, the murderer, the monster?"
+
+"He's the son of . . ."
+
+"Silence! Silence!" Véronique commanded. She understood that the woman
+had been Vorski's mistress and feared that she would make some
+disclosure in François' presence. "Silence: that name is not to be
+spoken."
+
+"It will be when it has to be," said the woman. "Ah, I've suffered
+enough through you, Véronique: it's your turn now; and you're only at
+the beginning of it!"
+
+"Go!" cried Véronique, pointing her revolver.
+
+"Once more, no threats, please."
+
+"Go, or I fire! I swear it on the head of my son."
+
+The woman retreated, betraying a certain anxiety in spite of herself.
+But she was seized with a fresh access of rage. Impotently she raised
+her clenched fists and shouted, in a raucous, broken voice:
+
+"I will be revenged . . . You shall see. Véronique . . . . The cross--do
+you understand?--the cross is ready . . . . You are the fourth . . . .
+What, oh, what a revenge!"
+
+She shook her gnarled, bony fists. And she continued:
+
+"Oh, how I hate you! Fifteen years of hatred! But the cross will avenge
+me . . . . I shall string you up on it myself . . . . The cross is ready
+. . . you'll see . . . the cross is ready for you! . . ."
+
+She walked away slowly, holding herself erect under the threat of the
+revolver.
+
+"Don't kill her, mother, will you?" whispered François, suspecting the
+contest in his mother's mind.
+
+Véronique seemed to wake from a dream:
+
+"No, no," she replied, "don't be afraid . . . . And yet perhaps I ought
+to . . ."
+
+"Oh, please let her be, mother, and let us go away."
+
+She lifted him in her arms, even before the woman was out of sight,
+pressed him to her and carried him to the cell as though he weighed no
+more than a little child.
+
+"Mother, mother," he said.
+
+"Yes, darling, your own mother; and no one shall take you from me again,
+that I swear to you."
+
+Without troubling about the wounds inflicted by the stone she slipped,
+this time almost at the first attempt, through the gap made by François,
+drew him after her and then, but not before, released him from his
+bonds.
+
+"There is no danger here," she said, "at least for the moment, because
+they can hardly get at us except by the cell and I shall be able to
+defend the entrance."
+
+Mother and son exchanged the fondest of embraces. There was now no
+barrier to part their lips and their arms. They could see each other,
+could gaze into each other's eyes.
+
+"How handsome you are, my darling!" said Véronique.
+
+She saw no resemblance between him and the boy murderer and was
+astonished that Honorine could have taken one for the other. And she
+felt as if she would never weary of admiring the breeding, the frankness
+and the sweetness which she read in his face.
+
+"And you, mother," he said, "do you think that I ever pictured a mother
+as beautiful as you? No, not even in my dreams, when you seemed as
+lovely as a fairy. And yet Stéphane often used to tell me . . ."
+
+She interrupted him:
+
+"We must hurry, dearest, and take refuge from their pursuit. We must
+go."
+
+"Yes," he said, "and above all we must leave Sarek. I have invented a
+plan of escape which is bound to succeed. But, first of all, Stéphane:
+what has become of him? I heard the sound of which I spoke to you
+underneath my cell and I fear . . ."
+
+She dragged him along by the hand, without answering his question:
+
+"I have many things to tell you, darling, painful things which I must no
+longer keep from you. But presently will do . . . . For the moment we
+must take refuge in the Priory. That woman will go in search of help and
+come after us."
+
+"But she was not alone, mother, when she entered my cell suddenly and
+caught me in the act of digging at the wall. There was some one with
+her."
+
+"A boy, wasn't it? A boy of your own size?"
+
+"I could hardly see. He and the woman fell upon me, bound me and carried
+me into the passage. Then the woman left me for a moment and he went
+back to the cell. He therefore knows about this tunnel by now and about
+the exit in the Priory grounds."
+
+"Yes, I know. But we shall easily get the better of him; and we'll block
+up the exit."
+
+"But there remains the bridge which joins the two islands," François
+objected.
+
+"No," she said, "I burnt it down and the Priory is absolutely cut off."
+
+They were walking very quickly, Véronique pressing her pace, François a
+little anxious at the words spoken by his mother.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, "I see that there is a good deal which I don't know
+and which you have kept from me, mother, in order not to frighten me.
+For instance, when you burnt down the bridge . . . . It was with the
+petrol set aside for the purpose, wasn't it, and as arranged with
+Maguennoc in case of danger? So you were threatened too; and the first
+attack was made on you, mother? . . . And then there was something that
+woman said with such a hateful look on her face! . . . And then . . .
+and then, above all, what has become of Stéphane? They were whispering
+about him just now in my cell . . . . All this worries me . . . . Then
+again I don't see the ladder which you brought . . . ."
+
+"Please, dearest, don't let us wait a moment. The woman will have found
+assistance . . . ."
+
+The boy stopped short:
+
+"Mother."
+
+"What? Do you hear anything?"
+
+"Some one walking."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Some one coming this way."
+
+"Oh," she said, in a hollow voice, "it's the murderer coming back from
+the Priory!"
+
+She felt her revolver and prepared herself for anything that might
+happen. But suddenly she pushed François towards a dark corner on her
+left, formed by the entry to one of those tunnels, probably blocked,
+which she had noticed when she came.
+
+"Get in there," she said. "We shall be all right here: he will not see
+us."
+
+The sound approached.
+
+"Stand well back," she said, "and don't stir."
+
+The boy whispered:
+
+"What's that in your hand? A revolver? Mother, you're not going to
+fire?"
+
+"I ought to, I ought to," said Véronique. "He's such a monster! . . .
+It's as with his mother . . . I ought to have . . . we shall perhaps
+regret it." And she added, almost unconsciously, "He killed your
+grandfather."
+
+"Oh, mother, mother!"
+
+She supported him, to prevent his falling, and amid the silence she
+heard the boy sobbing on her breast and stammering:
+
+"Never mind . . . don't fire, mother . . . ."
+
+"Here he comes, darling, here he comes; look at him."
+
+The other passed. He was walking slowly, a little bent, listening for
+the least sound. He appeared to Véronique to be the exact same size as
+her son; and this time, when she looked at him with more attention, she
+was not so much surprised that Honorine and M. d'Hergemont had been
+taken in, for there were really some points of resemblance, which would
+have been accentuated by the fact that he was wearing the red cap stolen
+from François.
+
+He walked on.
+
+"Do you know him?" asked Véronique.
+
+"No, mother."
+
+"Are you sure that you never saw him?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"And it was he who fell upon you, with the woman, in your cell?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it, mother. He even hit me in the face, for no
+reason, with absolute hatred."
+
+"Oh," she said, "this is all incomprehensible! When shall we escape this
+awful nightmare?"
+
+"Quick, mother, the road's clear. Let's make the most of it."
+
+On returning to the light, she saw that he was very pale and felt his
+hand in hers like a lump of ice. Nevertheless he looked up at her with a
+smile of happiness.
+
+They set out again; and soon, after passing the strip of cliff that
+joined the two islands and climbing the staircases, they emerged in the
+open air, to the right of Maguennoc's garden. The daylight was beginning
+to wane.
+
+"We are saved," said Véronique.
+
+"Yes," replied the boy, "but only on condition that they cannot reach us
+by the same road. We shall have to bar it, therefore."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Wait for me here; I'll go and fetch some tools at the Priory."
+
+"Oh, don't let us leave each other, François!"
+
+"You can come with me, mother."
+
+"And suppose the enemy arrives in the meantime? No, we must defend this
+outlet."
+
+"Then help me, mother."
+
+A rapid inspection showed them that one of the two stones which formed a
+roof above the entrance was not very firmly rooted in its place. They
+found no difficulty in first shifting and then clearing it. The stone
+fell across the staircase and was at once covered by an avalanche of
+earth and pebbles which made the passage, if not impracticable, at least
+very hard to manage.
+
+"All the more so," said François, "as we shall stay here until we are
+able to carry out my plan. And be easy, mother; it's a sound scheme and
+we have nearly managed it."
+
+For that matter, they recognized above all, that rest was essential.
+They were both of them worn out.
+
+"Lie down, mother . . . look, just here: there's a bed of moss under
+this overhanging rock which makes a regular nest. You'll be as cosy as a
+queen there and sheltered from the cold."
+
+"Oh, my darling, my darling!" murmured Véronique, overcome with
+happiness.
+
+It was now the time for explanations; and Véronique did not hesitate to
+give them. The boy's grief at hearing of the death of all those whom he
+had known would be mitigated by the great joy which he felt at
+recovering his mother. She therefore spoke without reserve, cradling him
+in her lap, wiping away his tears, feeling plainly that she was enough
+to make up for all the lost affections and friendships. He was
+particularly afflicted by Stéphane's death.
+
+"But is it quite certain?" he asked. "For, after all, there is nothing
+to tell us that he is drowned. Stéphane is a perfect swimmer; and so
+. . . Yes, yes, mother, we must not despair . . . on the contrary
+. . . . Look, here's a friend who always comes at the worst times, to
+declare that everything is not lost."
+
+All's Well came trotting along. The sight of his master did not appear
+to surprise him. Nothing unduly surprised All's Well. Events, to his
+mind, always followed one another in a natural order which did not
+disturb either his habits or his occupations. Tears alone seemed to him
+worthy of special attention. And Véronique and François were not crying.
+
+"You see, mother? All's Well agrees with me; nothing is lost . . . .
+But, upon my word, All's Well, you're a sharp little fellow! What would
+you have said, eh, if we'd left the island without you?"
+
+Véronique looked at her son:
+
+"Left the island?"
+
+"Certainly: and the sooner the better. That's my plan. What do you say
+to it?"
+
+"But how are we to get away?"
+
+"In a boat."
+
+"Is there one here?"
+
+"Yes, mine."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Close by, at Sarek Point."
+
+"But how are we to get down? The cliff is perpendicular."
+
+"She's at the very place where the cliff is steepest, a place known as
+the Postern. The name puzzled Stéphane and myself. A postern suggests an
+entrance, a gate. Well, we ended by learning that, in the middle ages,
+at the time of the monks, the little isle on which the Priory stands was
+surrounded by ramparts. It was therefore to be presumed that there was a
+postern here which commanded an outlet on the sea. And in fact, after
+hunting about with Maguennoc, we discovered, on the flat top of the
+cliff, a sort of gully, a sandy depression reinforced at intervals by
+regular walls made of big building-stones. A path winds down the middle,
+with steps and windows on the side of the sea, and leads to a little
+bay. That is the Postern outlet. We repaired it: and my boat is hanging
+at the foot of the cliff."
+
+Véronique's features underwent a transformation:
+
+"Then we're safe now!"
+
+"There's no doubt of that."
+
+"And the enemy can't get there?"
+
+"How could he?"
+
+"He has the motor-boat at his disposal."
+
+"He has never been there, because he doesn't know of the bay nor of the
+way down to it either: you can't see them from the open sea. Besides,
+they are protected by a thousand sharp-pointed rocks."
+
+"And what's to prevent us from leaving at once?"
+
+"The darkness, mother. I'm a good mariner and accustomed to navigate
+all the channels that lead away from Sarek, but I should not be at all
+sure of not striking some reef or other. No, we must wait for daylight."
+
+"It seems so long!"
+
+"A few hours' patience, mother. And we are together, you and I! At break
+of dawn, we'll take the boat and begin by hugging the foot of the cliff
+till we are underneath the cells. Then we'll pick up Stéphane, who of
+course will be waiting for us on some strip of beach, and we'll all be
+off, won't we, All's Well? We'll land at Pont-l'Abbé at twelve o'clock
+or so. That's my plan."
+
+Véronique could not contain her delight and admiration. She was
+astonished to find so young a boy giving proofs of such self-possession.
+
+"It's splendid, darling, and you're right in everything. Luck is
+decidedly coming our way."
+
+The evening passed without incidents. An alarm, however, a noise under
+the rubbish which blocked the underground passage and a ray of light
+trickling through a slit obliged them to mount guard until the minute of
+their departure. But it did not affect their spirits.
+
+"Why, of course I'm easy in my mind," said François. "From the moment
+when I found you again, I felt that it was for good. Besides, if the
+worst came to the worst, have we not a last hope left? Stéphane spoke to
+you about it, I expect. And it makes you laugh, my confidence in a
+rescuer whom I have never seen . . . . Well, I tell you, mother, if I
+were to see a dagger about to strike me, I should be certain, absolutely
+certain, mind you, that a hand would come and ward off the blow."
+
+"Alas," she said, "that providential hand did not prevent all the
+misfortunes of which I told you!"
+
+"It will keep off those which threaten my mother," declared the boy.
+
+"How? This unknown friend has not been warned."
+
+"He will come all the same. He doesn't need to be warned to know how
+great the danger is. He will come. And, mother, promise me one thing:
+whatever happens, you must have confidence."
+
+"I will have confidence, darling, I promise you."
+
+"And you will be right," he said, laughing, "for I shall be the leader.
+And what a leader, eh, mother? Why, yesterday evening I foresaw that, to
+carry the enterprise through successfully and so that my mother should
+be neither cold nor hungry, in case we were not able to take the boat
+this afternoon, we must have food and rugs! Well, they will be of use to
+us to-night, seeing that for prudence's sake we mustn't abandon our post
+here and sleep at the Priory. Where did you put the parcel, mother?"
+
+They ate gaily and with a good appetite. Then François wrapped his
+mother up and tucked her in: and they both fell asleep, lying close
+together, happy and unafraid.
+
+When the keen air of the morning woke Véronique, a belt of rosy light
+streaked the sky. François was sleeping the peaceful sleep of a child
+that feels itself protected and is untroubled by dreams. For a long time
+she just sat gazing at him without wearying: and she was still looking
+at him when the sun was high above the horizon.
+
+"To work, mother," he said, after he had opened his eyes and given her a
+kiss. "No one in the tunnel? No. Then we have plenty of time to go on
+board."
+
+They took the rugs and provisions and, with brisk steps, went towards
+the descent leading to the Postern, at the extreme end of the island.
+Beyond this point the rocks were heaped up in formidable confusion: and
+the sea, though calm, lapped against them noisily.
+
+"I hope your boat's there still!" said Véronique.
+
+"Lean over a little, mother. You can see her down there, hanging in that
+crevice. We have only to work the pulley to get her afloat. Oh, it's all
+very well thought out, mother darling! We have nothing to fear . . . .
+Only . . . only . . ."
+
+He had interrupted himself and was thinking.
+
+"What? What is it?" asked Véronique.
+
+"Oh, nothing! A slight delay."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+He began to laugh:
+
+"Really, for the leader of an expedition, it's rather humiliating, I
+admit. Just fancy, I've forgotten one thing: the oars. They are at the
+Priory."
+
+"But this is terrible!" cried Véronique.
+
+"Why? I'll run to the Priory and I shall be back in ten minutes."
+
+All Véronique's apprehensions returned:
+
+"And suppose they make their way out of the tunnel meanwhile?"
+
+"Come, come, mother," he laughed, "you promised to have confidence. To
+get out of the tunnel would take them an hour's hard work; and we
+should hear them. Besides, what's the use of talking, mother? I'll be
+back at once."
+
+He ran off.
+
+"François! François!"
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"Oh," she thought, once more assailed by forebodings. "I had sworn not
+to leave him for a second!"
+
+She followed him at a distance and stopped on a hillock between the
+Fairies' Dolmen and the Calvary of the Flowers. From here she could see
+the entrance to the tunnel and also saw her son jogging along the grass.
+
+He first went into the basement of the Priory. But the oars seemed not
+to be there, for he came out almost at once and went to the main door,
+which he opened and disappeared from sight.
+
+"One minute ought to be plenty for him," said Véronique to herself. "The
+oars must be in the hall . . . or at any rate on the ground-floor
+. . . . Say two minutes, at the outside."
+
+She counted the seconds while watching the entrance to the tunnel.
+
+But three minutes, four minutes, five minutes passed: and the front-door
+did not open again.
+
+All Véronique's confidence vanished. She thought that it was mad of her
+not to have gone with her son and that she ought never to have submitted
+to a child's will. Without troubling about the tunnel or the dangers
+from that side, she began to walk towards the Priory. But she had the
+horrible feeling which people sometimes experience in dreams, when
+their legs seem paralysed and when they are unable to move, while the
+enemy advances to attack them.
+
+And suddenly, on reaching the Dolmen, she beheld a sight the meaning of
+which was immediately clear to her. The ground at the foot of the oaks
+round the right-hand part of the semi-circle was littered with lately
+cut branches, which still bore their green leaves.
+
+She raised her eyes and stood stupefied and dismayed.
+
+One oak alone had been stripped. And on the huge trunk, bare to a height
+of twelve or fifteen feet, there was a paper, transfixed by an arrow and
+bearing the inscription, "V. d'H."
+
+"The fourth cross," Véronique faltered, "the cross marked with my name!"
+
+She supposed that, as her father was dead, the initials of her maiden
+name must have been written by one of her enemies, the chief of them, no
+doubt; and for the first time, under the influence of recent events,
+remembering the woman and the boy who were persecuting her, she
+involuntarily attributed a definite set of features to that enemy.
+
+It was a fleeting impression, an improbable theory, of which she was not
+even conscious. She was overwhelmed by something much more terrible. She
+suddenly understood that the monsters, those creatures of the heath and
+the cells, the accomplices of the woman and the boy, must have been
+there, since the cross was prepared. No doubt they had built a
+foot-bridge and thrown it over the chasm to take the place of the bridge
+to which she had set fire. They were masters of the Priory. And
+François was once more in their hands!
+
+Then she rushed straight along, collecting all her strength. She in her
+turn ran over the turf, dotted with ruins, that sloped towards the front
+of the house.
+
+"François! François! François!"
+
+She called his name in a piercing voice. She announced her coming with
+loud cries. Thus did she reach the Priory.
+
+One half of the door stood ajar. She pushed it and darted into the hall,
+crying:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+The call rang from floor to attic and throughout the house, but remained
+unanswered:
+
+"François! François!"
+
+She went upstairs, opening doors at random, running into her son's room,
+into Stéphane's, into Honorine's. She found nobody.
+
+"François! François! . . . Don't you hear me? Are they hurting you?
+. . . Oh, François, do answer!"
+
+She went back to the landing. Opposite her was M. d'Hergemont's study.
+She flung herself upon the door and at once recoiled, as though stricken
+by a vision from hell.
+
+A man was standing there, with arms crossed and apparently waiting for
+her. And it was the man whom she had pictured for an instant when
+thinking of the woman and the boy. It was the third monster!
+
+She said, simply, but in a voice filled with inexpressible horror:
+
+"Vorski! . . . Vorski! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SCOURGE OF GOD
+
+
+Vorski! Vorski! The unspeakable creature, the thought of whom filled her
+with shame and horror, the monstrous Vorski, was not dead! The murder of
+the spy by one of his colleagues, his burial in the cemetery at
+Fontainebleau; all this was a fable, a delusion! The only real fact was
+that Vorski was alive!
+
+Of all the visions that could have haunted Véronique's brain, there was
+none so abominable as the sight before her; Vorski standing erect, with
+his arms crossed and his head up, alive! Vorski alive!
+
+She would have accepted anything with her usual courage, but not this.
+She had felt strong enough to face and defy no matter what enemy, but
+not this one. Vorski stood for ignominious disgrace, for insatiable
+wickedness, for boundless ferocity, for method mingled with madness in
+crime.
+
+And this man loved her.
+
+She suddenly blushed. Vorski was staring with greedy eyes at the bare
+flesh of her shoulders and arms, which showed through her tattered
+bodice, and looking upon this bare flesh as upon a prey which nothing
+could snatch from him. Nevertheless Véronique did not budge. She had no
+covering within reach. She pulled herself together under the insult of
+the man's desire and defied him with such a glance that he was
+embarrassed and for a moment turned away his eyes.
+
+Then she cried, with an uncontrollable outburst of feeling:
+
+"My son! Where's François? I want to see him."
+
+"_Our_ son is sacred, madame," he replied. "He has nothing to fear from
+his father."
+
+"I want to see him."
+
+He lifted his hand as one taking an oath:
+
+"You shall see him, I swear."
+
+"Dead, perhaps!" she said, in a hollow voice.
+
+"As much alive as you and I, madame."
+
+There was a fresh pause. Vorski was obviously seeking his words and
+preparing the speech with which the implacable conflict between them was
+to open.
+
+He was a man of athletic stature, with a powerful frame, legs slightly
+bowed, an enormous neck swollen by great bundles of muscles and a head
+unduly small, with fair hair plastered down and parted in the middle.
+That in him which at one time produced an impression of brute strength,
+combined with a certain distinction, had become with age the massive and
+vulgar aspect of a professional wrestler posturing on the hustings at a
+fair. The disquieting charm which once attracted the women had vanished;
+and all that remained was a harsh and cruel expression of which he tried
+to correct the hardness by means of an impassive smile.
+
+He unfolded his arms, drew up a chair and, bowing to Véronique, said:
+
+"Our conversation, madame, will be long and at times painful. Won't you
+sit down?"
+
+He waited for a moment and, receiving no reply, without allowing himself
+to be disconcerted, continued:
+
+"Perhaps you would rather first take some refreshment at the sideboard.
+Would you care for a biscuit and a thimbleful of old claret or a glass
+of champagne?"
+
+He affected an exaggerated politeness, the essentially Teutonic
+politeness of the semibarbarians who are anxious to prove that they are
+familiar with all the niceties of civilization and that they have been
+initiated into every refinement of courtesy, even towards a woman whom
+the right of conquest would permit them to treat more cavalierly. This
+was one of the points of detail which in the past had most vividly
+enlightened Véronique as to her husband's probable origin.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and remained silent.
+
+"Very well," he said, "but you must then authorize me to stand, as
+behooves a man of breeding who prides himself on possessing a certain
+amount of _savoir faire_. Also pray excuse me for appearing in your
+presence in this more than careless attire. Internment-camps and the
+caves of Sarek are hardly places in which it is easy to renew one's
+wardrobe."
+
+He was in fact wearing a pair of old patched trousers and a torn
+red-flannel waistcoat. But over these he had donned a white linen robe
+which was half-closed by a knotted girdle. It was a carefully studied
+costume; and he accentuated its eccentricity by adopting theatrical
+attitudes and an air of satisfied negligence.
+
+Pleased with his preamble, he began to walk up and down, with his hands
+behind his back, like a man who is in no hurry and who is taking time
+for reflection in very serious circumstances. Then he stopped and, in a
+leisurely tone:
+
+"I think, madame, that we shall gain time in the end by devoting a few
+indispensable minutes to a brief account of our past life together.
+Don't you agree?"
+
+Véronique did not reply. He therefore began, in the same deliberate
+tone:
+
+"In the days when you loved me . . ."
+
+She made a gesture of revolt. He insisted:
+
+"Nevertheless, Véronique . . ."
+
+"Oh," she said, in an accent of disgust, "I forbid you! . . . That name
+from your lips! . . . I will not allow it . . . ."
+
+He smiled and continued, in a tone of condescension:
+
+"Don't be annoyed with me, madame. Whatever formula I employ, you may be
+assured of my respect. I therefore resume my remarks. In the days when
+you loved me, I was, I must admit, a heartless libertine, a debauchee,
+not perhaps without a certain style and charm, for I always made the
+most of my advantages, but possessing none of the qualities of a married
+man. These qualities I should easily have acquired under your influence,
+for I loved you to distraction. You had about you a purity that
+enraptured me, a charm and a simplicity which I have never met with in
+any woman. A little patience on your part, an effort of kindness would
+have been enough to transform me. Unfortunately, from the very first
+moment, after a rather melancholy engagement, during which you thought
+of nothing but your father's grief and anger, from the first moment of
+our marriage there was a complete and irretrievable lack of harmony
+between us. You had accepted in spite of yourself the bridegroom who had
+thrust himself upon you. You entertained for your husband no feeling
+save hatred and repulsion. These are things which a man like Vorski does
+not forgive. So many women and among them some of the proudest had given
+me proof of my perfect delicacy that I had no cause to reproach myself.
+That the little middle-class person that you were chose to be offended
+was not my business. Vorski is one of those who obey their instincts and
+their passions. Those instincts and passions failed to meet with your
+approval. That, madame, was your affair; it was purely a matter of
+taste. I was free; I resumed my own life. Only . . ."
+
+He interrupted himself for a few seconds and then went on:
+
+"Only, I loved you. And, when, a year later, certain events followed
+close upon one another, when the loss of your son drove you into a
+convent, I was left with my love unassuaged, burning and torturing me.
+What my existence was you can guess for yourself; a series of orgies and
+violent adventures in which I vainly strove to forget you, followed by
+sudden fits of hope, clues which were suggested to me, in the pursuit of
+which I flung myself headlong, only to relapse into everlasting
+discouragement and loneliness. That was how I discovered the whereabouts
+of your father and your son, that was how I came to know their retreat
+here, to watch them, to spy upon them, either personally or with the aid
+of people who were entirely devoted to me. In this way I was hoping to
+reach yourself, the sole object of my efforts and the ruling motive of
+all my actions, when war was declared. A week later, having failed in an
+attempt to cross the frontier, I was imprisoned in an internment-camp."
+
+He stopped. His face became still harder; and he growled:
+
+"Oh, the hell that I went through there! Vorski! Vorski, the son of a
+king, mixed up with all the waiters and pickpockets of the Fatherland!
+Vorski a prisoner, scoffed at and loathed by all! Vorski unwashed and
+eaten up with vermin! My God, how I suffered! . . . But let us pass on.
+What I did, to escape from death, I was entitled to do. If some one else
+was stabbed in my stead, if some one else was buried in my name in a
+corner of France, I do not regret it. The choice lay between him and
+myself; I made my choice. And it was perhaps not only my persistent love
+of life that inspired my action; it was also--and this above all is a
+new thing--an unexpected dawn which broke in the darkness and which was
+already dazzling me with its glory. But this is my secret. We will speak
+of it later, if you force me to. For the moment . . ."
+
+In the face of all this rhetoric delivered with the emphasis of an actor
+rejoicing in his eloquence and applauding his own periods, Véronique had
+retained her impassive attitude. Not one of those lying declarations was
+able to touch her. She seemed to be thinking of other things.
+
+He went up to her and, to compel her attention, continued, in a more
+aggressive tone:
+
+"You do not appear to suspect, madame, that my words are extremely
+serious. They are, however, and they will become even more so. But,
+before approaching more formidable matters and in the hope of avoiding
+them altogether, I should like to make an appeal, not to your spirit of
+conciliation, for there is no conciliation possible with you, but to
+your reason, to your sense of reality. After all, you cannot be ignorant
+of your present position, of the position of your son . . . ."
+
+She was not listening, he was absolutely convinced of it. Doubtless
+absorbed by the thought of her son, she read not the least meaning into
+the words that reached her ears. Nevertheless, irritated and unable to
+conceal his impatience, he continued:
+
+"My offer is a simple one; and I hope and trust that you will not reject
+it. In François' name and because of my feelings of humanity and
+compassion, I ask you to link the present to the past of which I have
+sketched the main features. From the social point of view, the bond that
+unites us has never been shattered. You are still in name and in the
+eyes of the law . . ."
+
+He ceased, stared at Véronique and then, clapping his hand violently on
+her shoulder, shouted:
+
+"Listen, you baggage, can't you! It's Vorski speaking!"
+
+Véronique lost her balance, saved herself by catching at the back of a
+chair and once more stood erect before her adversary, with her arms
+folded and her eyes full of scorn.
+
+This time Vorski again succeeded in controlling himself. He had acted
+under impulse and against his will. His voice retained an imperious and
+malevolent intonation:
+
+"I repeat that the past still exists. Whether you like it or not,
+madame, you are Vorski's wife. And it is because of this undeniable
+fact that I am asking you, if you please, to consider yourself so
+to-day. Let us understand each other; if I do not aim at obtaining your
+love or even your friendship, I will not accept either that we should
+return to our former hostile relations. I do not want the scornful and
+distant wife that you have been. I want . . . I want a woman . . . a
+woman who will submit herself . . . who will be the devoted, attentive,
+faithful companion . . ."
+
+"The slave," murmured Véronique.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "the slave; you have said it. I don't shrink from
+words any more than I do from deeds. The slave; and why not? A slave
+understands her duty, which is blindly to obey, bound hand and foot,
+_perinde ac cadaver_; does the part appeal to you? Will you belong to me
+body and soul? As for your soul, I don't care a fig about that. What I
+want . . . what I want . . . you know well enough, don't you? What I
+want is what I have never had. Your husband? Ha, ha, have I ever been
+your husband? Look back into my life as I will, amid all my seething
+emotions and delights, I do not find a single memory to remind me that
+there was ever between us anything but the pitiless struggle of two
+enemies. When I look at you, I see a stranger, a stranger in the past as
+in the present. Well, since my luck has turned, since I once more have
+you in my clutches, it shall not be so in the future. It shall not be so
+to-morrow, nor even to-night, Véronique. I am the master; you must
+accept the inevitable. Do you accept?"
+
+He did not wait for her answer and, raising his voice still higher,
+roared:
+
+"Do you accept? No subterfuges or false promises. Do you accept? If so,
+go on your knees, make the sign of the cross and say, in a firm voice,
+'I accept. I will be a consenting wife. I will submit to all your orders
+and to all your whims. You are the master.'"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. Vorski gave a start. The
+veins in his forehead swelled up. However, he still contained himself:
+
+"Very well. For that matter, I was expecting this. But the consequences
+of your refusal will be so serious for you that I propose to make one
+last attempt. Perhaps, after all, your refusal is addressed to the
+fugitive that I am, to the poor beggar that I seem to be; and perhaps
+the truth will alter your ideas. That truth is dazzling and wonderful.
+As I told you, an unforeseen dawn has broken through my darkness; and
+Vorski, son of a king, is bathed in radiant light."
+
+He had a trick of speaking of himself in the third person which
+Véronique knew of old and which was the sign of his insupportable
+vanity. She also observed and recognized in his eyes a peculiar gleam
+which was always there at moments of exaltation, a gleam which was
+obviously due to his drinking habits but in which she seemed to see
+besides a sign of temporary aberration. Was he not indeed a sort of
+madman and had his madness not increased as the years passed?
+
+He continued, and this time Véronique listened.
+
+"I had therefore left here, at the time when the war broke out, a person
+who is attached to me and who continued the work of watching your father
+which I had begun. An accident revealed to us the existence of the
+caves dug under the heath and also one of the entrances to the caves. It
+was in this safe retreat that I took refuge after my last escape; and it
+was here that I learnt, through some intercepted letters, of your
+father's investigations into the secret of Sarek and the discoveries
+which he had made. You can understand how my vigilance was redoubled!
+Particularly because I found in all this story, as it became more and
+more clear to me, the strangest coincidences and an evident connection
+with certain details in my own life. Presently doubt was no longer
+possible. Fate had sent me here to accomplish a task which I alone was
+able to fulfil . . . and more, a task in which I alone had the right to
+assist. Do you understand what I mean? Long centuries ago, Vorski was
+predestined. Vorski was the man appointed by fate, Vorski's name was
+written in the book of time. Vorski had the necessary qualities, the
+indispensable means, the requisite titles . . . . I was ready, I set to
+work without delay, conforming ruthlessly to the decrees of destiny.
+There was no hesitation as to the road to be followed to the end; the
+beacon was lighted. I therefore followed the path marked out for me.
+Vorski has now only to gather the reward of his efforts. Vorski has only
+to put out his hand. Within reach of his hand fortune, glory, unlimited
+power. In a few hours, Vorski, son of a king, will be king of the world.
+It is this kingdom that he offers you."
+
+He was becoming more and more declamatory, more and more of the emphatic
+and pompous play-actor.
+
+He bent towards Véronique:
+
+"Will you be a queen, an empress, and soar above other women even as
+Vorski will dominate other men? Queen by right of gold and power even as
+you are already queen by right of beauty? Will you? . . . Vorski's
+slave, but mistress of all those over whom Vorski holds sway? Will you?
+. . . Understand me clearly; it is not a question of your making a
+single decision; you have to choose between two. There is, mark you, the
+alternative to your refusal. Either the kingdom which I am offering, or
+else . . ."
+
+He paused and then, in a grating tone, completed his sentence:
+
+"Or else the cross!"
+
+Véronique shuddered. The dreadful word, the dreadful thing appeared once
+more. And she now knew the name of the unknown executioner!
+
+"The cross!" he repeated, with an atrocious smile of content. "It is for
+you to choose. On the one hand all the joys and honours of life. On the
+other hand, death by the most barbarous torture. Choose. There is
+nothing between the two alternatives. You must select one or the other.
+And observe that there is no unnecessary cruelty on my part, no vain
+ostentation of authority. I am only the instrument. The order comes from
+a higher power than mine, it comes from destiny. For the divine will to
+be accomplished, Véronique d'Hergemont must die and die on the cross.
+This is explicitly stated. There is no remedy against fate. There is no
+remedy unless one is Vorski and, like Vorski, is capable of every
+audacity, of every form of cunning. If Vorski was able, in the forest of
+Fontainebleau, to substitute a sham Vorski for the real one, if Vorski
+thus succeeded in escaping the fate which condemned him, from his
+childhood, to die by the knife of a friend, he can certainly discover
+some stratagem by which the divine will is accomplished, while the woman
+he loves is left alive. But in that case she will have to submit. I
+offer safety to my bride or death to my foe. Which are you, my foe or my
+bride? Which do you choose? Life by my side, with all the joys and
+honours of life . . . or death?"
+
+"Death," Véronique replied, simply.
+
+He made a threatening gesture:
+
+"It is more than death. It is torture. Which do you choose?"
+
+"Torture."
+
+He insisted, malevolently:
+
+"But you are not alone! Pause to reflect! There is your son. When you
+are gone, he will remain. In dying, you leave an orphan behind you.
+Worse than that; in dying, you bequeath him to me. I am his father. I
+possess full rights. Which do you choose?"
+
+"Death," she said, once more.
+
+He became incensed:
+
+"Death for you, very well. But suppose it means death for him? Suppose I
+bring him here, before you, your François, and put the knife to his
+throat and ask you for the last time, what will your answer be?"
+
+Véronique closed her eyes. Never before had she suffered so intensely,
+and Vorski had certainly found the vulnerable spot. Nevertheless she
+murmured:
+
+"I wish to die."
+
+Vorski flew into a rage, and, resorting straightway to insults,
+throwing politeness and courtesy to the winds, he shouted:
+
+"Oh, the hussy, how she must hate me! Anything, anything, she accepts
+anything, even the death of her beloved son, rather than yield to me! A
+mother killing her son! For that's what it is; you're killing your son,
+so as not to belong to me. You are depriving him of his life, so as not
+to sacrifice yours to me. Oh, what hatred! No, no, it is impossible. I
+don't believe in such hatred. Hatred has its limits. A mother like you!
+No, no, there's something else . . . some love-affair, perhaps? No, no,
+Véronique's not in love . . . What then? My pity, a weakness on my part?
+Oh, how little you know me! Vorski show pity! Vorski show weakness! Why,
+you've seen me at work! Did I flinch in the performance of my terrible
+mission? Was Sarek not devastated as it was written? Were the boats not
+sunk and the people not drowned? Were the sisters Archignat not nailed
+to the ancient oak-trees? I, I flinch! Listen, when I was a child, with
+these two hands of mine I wrung the necks of dogs and birds, with these
+two hands I flayed goats alive and plucked the live chickens in the
+poultry-yard. Pity indeed! Do you know what my mother called me? Attila!
+And, when she was mystically inspired and read the future in these hands
+of mine or on the tarot-cards, 'Attila Vorski,' that great seer would
+say, 'you shall be the instrument of Providence. You shall be the sharp
+edge of the blade, the point of the dagger, the bullet in the rifle, the
+noose in the rope. Scourge of God! Scourge of God, your name is written
+at full length in the books of time! It blazes among the stars that
+shone at your birth. Scourge of God! Scourge of God!' And you, you hope
+that my eyes will be wet with tears? Nonsense! Does the hangman weep? It
+is the weak who weep, those who fear lest they be punished, lest their
+crimes be turned against themselves. But I, I! Our ancestors feared but
+one thing, that the sky should fall upon their heads. What have _I_ to
+fear? I am God's accomplice! He has chosen me among all men. It is God
+that has inspired me, the God of the fatherland, the old German God, for
+whom good and evil do not count where the greatness of his sons is at
+stake. The spirit of evil is within me. I love evil, I thirst after
+evil. So you shall die, Véronique, and I shall laugh when I see you
+suffering on the cross!"
+
+He was already laughing. He walked with great strides, stamping noisily
+on the floor. He lifted his arms to the ceiling; and Véronique,
+quivering with anguish, saw the red frenzy in his bloodshot eyes.
+
+He took a few more steps and then came up to her and, in a restrained
+voice, snarling with menace:
+
+"On your knees, Véronique, and beseech my love! It alone can save you.
+Vorski knows neither pity nor fear. But he loves you; and his love will
+stop at nothing. Take advantage of it, Véronique. Appeal to the past.
+Become the child that you once were; and perhaps one day I shall drag
+myself at your feet. Véronique, do not repel me; a man like me is not to
+be repelled. One who loves as I love you, Véronique, as I love you, is
+not to be defied."
+
+She suppressed a cry. She felt his hated hands on her bare arms. She
+tried to release herself; but he, much stronger than she, did not let
+go and continued, in a panting voice:
+
+"Do not repel me . . . it is absurd . . . it is madness . . . . You must
+know that I am capable of anything . . . Well? . . . The cross is
+horrible . . . . To see your son dying before your eyes; is that what
+you want? . . . Accept the inevitable. Vorski will save you. Vorski will
+give you the most beautiful life . . . . Oh, how you hate me! But no
+matter: I accept your hatred, I love your hatred, I love your disdainful
+mouth . . . . I love it more than if it offered itself of its own accord
+. . . ."
+
+He ceased speaking. An implacable struggle took place between them.
+Véronique's arms vainly resisted his closer and closer grip. Her
+strength was failing her; she felt helpless, doomed to defeat. Her knees
+gave way beneath her. Opposite her and quite close, Vorski's eyes seemed
+filled with blood; and she was breathing the monster's breath.
+
+Then, in her terror, she bit him with all her might; and, profiting by a
+second of discomfiture, she released herself with one great effort,
+leapt back, drew her revolver, and fired once and again.
+
+The two bullets whistled past Vorski's ears and sent fragments flying
+from the wall behind him. She had fired too quickly, at random.
+
+"Oh, the jade!" he roared. "She nearly did for me."
+
+In a second he had his arms round her body and, with an irresistible
+effort, bent her backwards, turned her round and laid her on a sofa.
+Then he took a cord from his pocket and bound her firmly and brutally.
+
+There was a moment's respite and silence. Vorski wiped the perspiration
+from his forehead, filled himself a tumbler of wine and drank it down at
+a gulp.
+
+"That's better," he said, placing his foot on his victim, "and confess
+that this is best all round. Each one in his place, my beauty; you
+trussed like a fowl and I treading on you at my pleasure. Aha, we're no
+longer enjoying ourselves so much! We're beginning to understand that
+it's a serious matter. Ah, you needn't be afraid, you baggage: Vorski's
+not the man to take advantage of a woman! No, no, that would be to play
+with fire and to burn with a longing which this time would kill me. I'm
+not such a fool as that. How should I forget you afterwards? One thing
+only can make me forget and give me my peace of mind; your death. And,
+since we understand each other on that subject, all's well. For it's
+settled, isn't it; you want to die?"
+
+"Yes," she said, as firmly as before.
+
+"And you want your son to die?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+He rubbed his hands:
+
+"Excellent! We are agreed; and the time is past for words that mean
+nothing. The real words remain to be spoken, those which count; for you
+admit that, so far, all that I have said is mere verbiage, what? Just as
+all the first part of the adventure, all that you saw happening at
+Sarek, is only child's play. The real tragedy is beginning, since you
+are involved in it body and soul; and that's the most terrifying part,
+my pretty one. Your beautiful eyes have wept, but it is tears of blood
+that are wanted, you poor darling! But what would you have? Once again,
+Vorski is not cruel. He obeys a higher power; and destiny is against
+you. Your tears? Nonsense! You've got to shed a thousand times as many
+as another. Your death? Fudge! You've got to die a thousand deaths
+before you die for good. Your poor heart must bleed as never woman's and
+mother's poor heart bled before. Are you ready, Véronique? You shall
+hear really cruel words, to be followed perhaps by words more cruel
+still. Oh, fate is not spoiling you, my pretty one! . . ."
+
+He poured himself out a second glass of wine and emptied it in the same
+gluttonous fashion; then he sat down beside her and, stooping, said,
+almost in her ear:
+
+"Listen, dearest, I have a confession to make to you. I was already
+married when I met you. Oh, don't be upset! There are greater
+catastrophes for a wife and greater crimes for a husband than bigamy.
+Well, by my first wife I had a son . . . whom I think you know; you
+exchanged a few amicable remarks with him in the passage of the cells
+. . . . Between ourselves, he's a regular bad lot, that excellent
+Raynold, a rascal of the worst, in whom I enjoy the pride of
+discovering, raised to their highest degree, some of my best instincts
+and some of my chief qualities. He is a second edition to myself, but he
+already outstrips me and now and then alarms me. Whew, what a devil! At
+his age, a little over fifteen, I was an angel compared with him. Now it
+so happens that this fine fellow has to take the field against my other
+son, against our dear François. Yes, such is the whim of destiny, which,
+once again, gives orders and of which, once again, I am the
+clear-sighted and subtle interpreter. Of course it is not a question of
+a protracted and daily struggle. On the contrary, something short,
+violent and decisive: a duel, for instance. That's it, a duel; you
+understand, a serious duel. Not a turn with the fists, ending in a few
+bruises; no, what you call a duel to the death, because one of the two
+adversaries must be left, on the ground, because there must be a victor
+and a victim, in short, a living combatant and a dead one."
+
+Véronique had turned her head a little and she saw that he was smiling.
+Never before had she so plainly perceived the madness of that man, who
+smiled at the thought of a mortal contest between two children both of
+whom were his sons. The whole thing was so extravagant that Véronique,
+so to speak, did not suffer. It was all outside the limits of suffering.
+
+"There is something better, Véronique," he said, gloating over every
+syllable. "There's something better. Yes, destiny has devised a
+refinement which I dislike, but to which, as a faithful servant, I have
+to give effect. It has devised that you should be present at the duel.
+Capital; you, François' mother, must see him fight. And, upon my word, I
+wonder whether that apparent malevolence is not a mercy in disguise. Let
+us say that you owe it to me, shall we, and that I myself am granting
+you this unexpected, I will even say, this unjust favour? For, when all
+is said, though Raynold is more powerful and experienced than François
+and though, logically, François ought to be beaten, how it must add to
+his courage and strength to know that he is fighting before his mother's
+eyes! He will feel like a knight errant who stakes all his pride on
+winning. He will be a son whose victory will save his mother . . . at
+least, so he will think. Really the advantage is too great; and you can
+thank me, Véronique, if this duel, as I am sure it will, does not--and I
+am sure that it will not--make your heart beat a little faster . . . .
+Unless . . . unless I carry out the infernal programme to the end
+. . . . Ah, in that case, you poor little thing! . . ."
+
+He gripped her once more and, lifting her to her feet in front of him,
+pressing his face against hers, he said, in a sudden fit of rage:
+
+"So you won't give in?"
+
+"No, no!" she cried.
+
+"You will never give in?"
+
+"Never! Never! Never!" she repeated, with increasing vehemence.
+
+"You hate me more than everything?"
+
+"I hate you more than I love my son."
+
+"You lie, you lie!" he snarled. "You lie! Nothing comes above your son!"
+
+"Yes, my hatred for you."
+
+All Véronique's passion of revolt, all the detestation which she had
+succeeded in restraining now burst forth; and, indifferent to what might
+come of it, she flung the words of hatred full in his face:
+
+"I hate you! I hate you! I would have my son die before my eyes, I would
+witness his agony, anything rather than the horror of your sight and
+presence. I hate you! You killed my father! You are an unclean murderer,
+a halfwitted, savage idiot, a criminal lunatic! I hate you!"
+
+He lifted her with an effort, carried her to the window and threw her on
+the ground, spluttering:
+
+"On your knees! On your knees! The punishment is beginning. You would
+scoff at me, you hussy, would you? Well, you shall see!"
+
+He forced her to her knees and then, pushing her against the lower wall
+and opening the window, he fastened her head to the rail of the balcony
+by means of a cord round her neck and under her arms. He ended by
+gagging her with a scarf:
+
+"And now look!" he cried. "The curtain's going up! Boy François doing
+his exercises! . . . Oh, you hate me, do you? Oh, you would rather have
+hell than a kiss from Vorski? Well, my darling, you shall have hell; and
+I'm arranging a little performance for you, one of my own composing and
+a highly original one at that! . . . Also, I may tell you, it's too late
+now to change your mind. The thing's irrevocable. You may beg and
+entreat for mercy as much as you like; it's too late! The duel, followed
+by the cross; that's the programme. Say your prayers, Véronique, and
+call on Heaven. Shout for assistance if it amuses you . . . . Listen, I
+know that your brat is expecting a rescuer, a professor of clap-trap, a
+Don Quixote of adventure. Let him come! Vorski will give him the
+reception he deserves! The more the merrier! We shall see some fun!
+. . . And, if the very gods join in the game and take up your defence, I
+shan't care! It's no longer their business, it's my business. It's no
+longer a question of Sarek and the treasure and the great secret and all
+the humbug of the God-Stone! It's a question of yourself! You have spat
+in Vorski's face and Vorski is taking his revenge. He is taking his
+revenge! It is the glorious hour. What exquisite joy! . . . To do evil
+as others do good, lavishly and profusely! To do evil! To kill,
+torture, break, ruin and destroy! . . . Oh, the fierce delight of being
+a Vorski!"
+
+He stamped across the room, striking the floor at each step and hustling
+the furniture. His haggard eyes roamed in all directions. He would have
+liked to begin his work of destruction at once, strangling some victim,
+giving work to his greedy fingers, executing the incoherent orders of
+his insane imagination.
+
+Suddenly, he drew a revolver and, brutishly, stupidly, fired bullets
+into the mirrors, the pictures, the window-panes.
+
+And, still gesticulating, still capering about, an ominous and sinister
+figure, he opened the door, bellowing:
+
+"Vorski's having his revenge! Vorski's having his revenge!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ASCENT OF GOLGOTHA
+
+
+Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed. Véronique was still alone. The cords
+cut into her flesh; and the rails of the balcony bruised her forehead.
+The gag choked her. Her knees, bent in two and doubled up beneath her,
+carried the whole weight of her body. It was an intolerable position, an
+unceasing torture . . . . Still, though she suffered, she was not very
+clearly aware of it. She was unconscious of her physical suffering; and
+she had already undergone such mental suffering that this supreme ordeal
+did not awaken her drowsing senses.
+
+She hardly thought. Sometimes she said to herself that she was about to
+die; and she already felt the repose of the after-life, as one
+sometimes, amidst a storm, feels in advance the wide peace of the
+harbour. Hideous things were sure to happen between the present moment
+and the conclusion which would set her free; but her brain refused to
+dwell on them; and her son's fate in particular elicited only momentary
+thoughts, which were immediately dispersed.
+
+At heart, as there was nothing to enlighten her as to her frame of mind,
+she was hoping for a miracle. Would the miracle occur in Vorski?
+Incapable of generosity though he was, would not the monster hesitate
+none the less in the presence of an utterly unnecessary crime? A father
+does not kill his son, or at least the act must be brought about by
+imperative reasons; and Vorski had no such reasons to allege against a
+mere child whom he did not know and whom he could not hate except with
+an artificial hatred.
+
+Her torpor was lulled by this hope of a miracle. All the sounds which
+reechoed through the house, sounds of discussions, sounds of hurrying
+footsteps, seemed to her to indicate not so much the preparations for
+the events foretold as the sign of interruptions which would ruin all
+Vorski's plans. Had not her dear François said that nothing could any
+longer separate them from each other and that, at the moment when
+everything might seem lost and even when everything would be really
+lost, they must keep their faith intact?
+
+"My François," she repeated, "my darling François, you shall not die
+. . . we shall see each other again . . . you promised me!"
+
+Out of doors, a blue sky, flecked with a few menacing clouds, hung
+outspread above the tall oaks. In front of her, beyond that same window
+at which her father had appeared to her, in the middle of the grass
+which she had crossed with Honorine on the day of her arrival, a site
+had been recently cleared and covered with sand, like an arena. Was it
+here that her son was to fight? She received the sudden intuition that
+it must be; and her heart contracted.
+
+"François," she said, "François, have no fear . . . . I shall save you
+. . . . Oh, forgive me, François darling, forgive me! . . . All this is
+a punishment for the wrong I once did . . . . It is the atonement
+. . . . The son is atoning for the mother . . . . Forgive me, forgive
+me! . . ."
+
+At that moment a door opened on the ground-floor and voices ascended
+from the doorstep. She recognized Vorski's voice among them.
+
+"So it's understood," he said. "We shall each go our own way; you two on
+the left, I on the right. You'll take this kid with you, I'll take the
+other and we'll meet in the lists. You'll be the seconds, so to speak,
+of yours and I'll be the second of mine, so that all the rules will be
+observed."
+
+Véronique shut her eyes, for she did not wish to see her son, who would
+no doubt be maltreated, led out to fight like a slave. She could hear
+the creaking of two sets of footsteps following the two circular paths.
+Vorski was laughing and speechifying.
+
+The groups turned and advanced in opposite directions.
+
+"Don't come any nearer," Vorski ordered. "Let the two adversaries take
+their places. Halt, both of you. Good. And not a word, do you hear? If
+either of you speaks, I shall cut him down without mercy. Are you ready?
+Begin!"
+
+So the terrible thing was commencing. In accordance with Vorski's will,
+the duel was about to take place before the mother, the son was about to
+fight before her face. How could she do other than look? She opened her
+eyes.
+
+She at once saw the two come to grips and hold each other off. But she
+did not at once understand what she saw, or at least she failed to
+understand its exact meaning. She saw the two boys, it was true; but
+which of them was François and which was Raynold?
+
+"Oh," she stammered, "it's horrible! . . . And yet . . . no, I must be
+mistaken . . . . It's not possible . . ."
+
+She was not mistaken. The two boys were dressed alike, in the same
+velvet knickerbockers, the same white-flannel shirts, the same leather
+belts. But each had his head wrapped in a red-silk scarf, with two holes
+for the eyes, as in a highwayman's mask.
+
+Which was François? Which was Raynold?
+
+Now she remembered Vorski's inexplicable threat. This was what he meant
+by the programme drawn up by himself, this was to what he alluded when
+he spoke of a little play of his composing. Not only was the son
+fighting before the mother, but she did not know which was her son.
+
+It was an infernal refinement of cruelty; Vorski himself had said so. No
+agony could add to Véronique's agony.
+
+The miracle which she had hoped for lay chiefly in herself and in the
+love which she bore her son. Because her son was fighting before her
+eyes, she felt certain that her son could not die. She would protect him
+against the blows and against the ruses of the foe. She would make the
+dagger swerve, she would ward off death from the head which she adored.
+She would inspire her boy with dauntless energy, with the will to
+attack, with indefatigable strength, with the spirit that foretells and
+seizes the propitious moment. But now that both of them were veiled, on
+which was she to exercise her good influence, for which to pray, against
+which to rebel?
+
+She knew nothing. There was no clue to enlighten her. One of them was
+taller, slimmer and lither in his movements. Was this François? The
+other was more thick-set, stronger and stouter in appearance. Was this
+Raynold? She could not tell. Nothing but a glimpse of a face, or even a
+fleeting expression, could have revealed the truth to her. But how was
+she to pierce the impenetrable mask?
+
+And the fight continued, more terrible for her than if she had seen her
+son with his face uncovered.
+
+"Bravo!" cried Vorski, applauding an attack.
+
+He seemed to be following the duel like a connoisseur, with the
+affectation of impartiality displayed by a good judge of fighting who
+above all things wants the best man to win. And yet it was one of his
+sons that he had condemned to death.
+
+Facing her stood the two accomplices, both of them men with brutal
+faces, pointed skulls and big noses with spectacles. One of them was
+extremely thin; the other was also thin, but with a swollen paunch like
+a leather bottle. These two did not applaud and remained indifferent, or
+perhaps even hostile, to the sight before them.
+
+"Capital!" cried Vorski, approvingly. "Well parried! Oh, you're a couple
+of sturdy fellows and I'm wondering to whom to award the palm."
+
+He pranced around the adversaries, urging them on in a hoarse voice in
+which Véronique, remembering certain scenes in the past, seemed to
+recognize the effects of drink. Nevertheless the poor thing made an
+effort to stretch out her bound hands towards him; and she moaned under
+her gag:
+
+"Mercy! Mercy! I can't bear it. Have pity!"
+
+It was impossible for her martyrdom to last. Her heart was beating so
+violently that it shook her from head to foot; and she was on the point
+of fainting when an incident occurred that gave her fresh life. One of
+the boys, after a fairly stubborn tussle, had jumped back and was
+swiftly bandaging his right wrist, from which a few drops of blood were
+trickling. Véronique seemed to remember seeing in her son's hand the
+small blue-and-white handkerchief which the boy was using.
+
+She was immediately and irresistibly convinced. The boy--it was the more
+slender and agile of the two--had more grace than the other, more
+distinction, greater elegance of movement.
+
+"It's François," she murmured. "Yes, yes, it's he . . . . It's you,
+isn't it, my darling? I recognize you now . . . . The other is common
+and heavy . . . . It's you, my darling! . . . Oh, my François, my
+dearest François!"
+
+In fact, though both were fighting with equal fierceness, this one
+displayed less savage fury and blind rage in his efforts. It was as
+though he were trying not so much to kill his adversary as to wound him
+and as though his attacks were directed rather to preserving himself
+from the death that lay in wait for him. Véronique felt alarmed and
+stammered, as though he could hear her:
+
+"Don't spare him, my darling! He's a monster, too! . . . Oh, dear, if
+you're generous, you're lost! . . . François, François, mind what you're
+doing!"
+
+The blade of the dagger had flashed over the head of the one whom she
+called her son; and she had cried out, under her gag, to warn him.
+François having avoided the blow, she felt persuaded that her cry had
+reached his ears; and she continued instinctively to put him on his
+guard and advise him:
+
+"Take a rest . . . . Get your breath . . . . Whatever you do, keep your
+eyes on him . . . . He's getting ready to do something . . . . He's
+going to rush at you . . . . Here he comes! Oh, my darling, another inch
+and he would have stabbed you in the neck! . . . Be careful, darling,
+he's treacherous . . . there's no trick too mean for him to play
+. . . ."
+
+But the unhappy mother felt, however reluctant she might yet be to admit
+it, that the one whom she called her son was beginning to lose strength.
+Certain signs proclaimed a reduced power of resistance, while the other,
+on the contrary, was gaining in eagerness and vigour. François retreated
+until he reached the edge of the arena.
+
+"Hi, you, boy!" grinned Vorski. "You're not thinking of running away,
+are you? Keep your nerve, damn it! Show some pluck! Remember the
+conditions!"
+
+The boy rushed forward with renewed zest; and it was the other's turn to
+fall back. Vorski clapped his hands, while Véronique murmured:
+
+"It's for me that he's risking his life. The monster must have told him,
+'Your mother's fate depends on you. If you win, she's saved.' And he has
+sworn to win. He knows that I am watching him. He guesses that I am
+here. He hears me. Bless you, my darling!"
+
+It was the last phase of the duel. Véronique trembled all over,
+exhausted by her emotion and by the too violent alternation of hope and
+anguish. Once again her son lost ground and once again he leapt
+forward. But, in the final struggle that followed, he lost his balance
+and fell on his back, with his right arm caught under his body.
+
+His adversary at once stooped, pressed his knee on the other's chest and
+raised his arm. The dagger gleamed in the air.
+
+"Help! Help!" Véronique gasped, choking under her gag.
+
+She flattened her breast against the wall, without thinking of the cords
+which tortured her. Her forehead was bleeding, cut by the sharp corner
+of the rail, and she felt that she was about to die of the death of her
+son. Vorski had approached and stood without moving, with a merciless
+look on his face.
+
+Twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed. With his outstretched left hand,
+François checked his adversary's attempt. But the victorious arm sank
+lower and lower, the dagger descended, the point was only an inch or two
+from the neck.
+
+Vorski stooped. Just then, he was behind Raynold, so that neither
+Raynold nor François could see him; and he was watching most
+attentively, as though intending to intervene at some given moment. But
+in whose favor would he intervene? Was it his plan to save François?
+
+Véronique no longer breathed; her eyes were enormously dilated; she hung
+between life and death.
+
+The point of the dagger touched the neck and must have pricked the
+flesh, but only very slightly, for it was still held back by François'
+resistance.
+
+Vorski bent lower. He stood over the fighters and did not take his eyes
+from the deadly point. Suddenly he took a pen-knife from his pocket,
+opened it and waited. A few more seconds elapsed. The dagger continued
+to descend. Then quickly he gashed Raynold's shoulder with the blade of
+his knife.
+
+The boy uttered a cry of pain. His grip at once became relaxed; and, at
+the same time, François, set free, his right arm released, half rose,
+resumed the offensive and, without seeing Vorski or understanding what
+had happened, in an instinctive impulse of his whole being escaped from
+death and revolting against his adversary, struck him full in the face.
+Raynold in his turn fell like a log.
+
+All this had certainly lasted no longer than ten seconds. But the
+incident was so unexpected and took Véronique so greatly aback that, not
+realizing, not knowing that she ought to rejoice, believing rather that
+she was mistaken and that the real François was dead, murdered by
+Vorski, the poor thing sank into a huddled heap and lost consciousness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long, long time elapsed. Then, gradually, Véronique became aware of
+certain sensations. She heard the clock strike four; and she said:
+
+"It's two hours since François died. For it was he who died."
+
+She had not a doubt that the duel had ended in this way. Vorski would
+never have allowed François to be the victor and his other son to be
+killed. And so it was against her own child that she had sent up wishes
+and for the monster that she had prayed!
+
+"François is dead," she repeated. "Vorski has killed him."
+
+The door opened and she heard Vorski's voice. He entered, with an
+unsteady gait:
+
+"A thousand pardons, dear lady, but I think Vorski must have fallen
+asleep. It's your father's fault, Véronique! He had hidden away in his
+cellar some confounded Saumur which Conrad and Otto discovered and which
+has fuddled me a bit! But don't cry; we shall make up for lost time
+. . . . Besides everything must be settled by midnight. So . . ."
+
+He had come nearer; and he now exclaimed:
+
+"What! Did that rascal of a Vorski leave you tied up? What a brute that
+Vorski is! And how uncomfortable you must be! . . . Hang it all, how
+pale you are! I say, look here, you're not dead, are you? That would be
+a nasty trick to play us!"
+
+He took Véronique's hand, which she promptly snatched away.
+
+"Capital! We still loathe our little Vorski! Then that's all right and
+there's plenty of reserve strength. You'll hold out to the end,
+Véronique."
+
+He listened:
+
+"What is it? Who's calling me? Is it you, Otto? Come up . . . . Well,
+Otto, what news? I've been asleep, you know. That damned Saumur wine!
+. . ."
+
+Otto, one of the two accomplices, entered the room at a run. He was the
+one whose paunch bulged so oddly.
+
+"What news?" he exclaimed. "Why, this: I've seen some one on the
+island!"
+
+Vorski began to laugh:
+
+"You're drunk, Otto. That damned Saumur wine . . ."
+
+"I'm not drunk. I saw . . . and so did Conrad . . ."
+
+"Oho," said Vorski, more seriously, "if Conrad was with you! Well, what
+did you see?"
+
+"A white figure, which hid when we came along."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Between the village and the heath, in a little wood of chestnut trees."
+
+"On the other side of the island then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right. We'll take our precautions."
+
+"How? There may be several of them."
+
+"I don't care if there are ten of them; it would make no difference.
+Where's Conrad?"
+
+"By the foot-bridge which we put in the place of the bridge that was
+burnt down. He's keeping watch from there."
+
+"Conrad is a clever one. When the bridge was burnt, we were kept on the
+other side; if the foot-bridge is burnt, it'll produce the same
+hindrance. Véronique, I really believe they're coming to rescue you.
+It's the miracle you expected, the assistance you hoped for. But it's
+too late, my beauty."
+
+He untied the bonds that fastened her to the balcony, carried her to the
+sofa and loosened the gag slightly:
+
+"Sleep, my wench," he said. "Get what rest you can. You're only half-way
+to Golgotha yet; and the last bit of the ascent will be the hardest."
+
+He went away jesting; and Véronique heard the two men exchange a few
+sentences which proved to her that Otto and Conrad were only supers who
+knew nothing of the business in hand:
+
+"Who's this wretched woman whom you're persecuting?" asked Otto.
+
+"That doesn't concern you."
+
+"Still, Conrad and I would like to know something about it."
+
+"Lord, why?"
+
+"Oh, just because!"
+
+"Conrad and you are a pair of fools," replied Vorski. "When I took you
+into my service and helped you to escape with me, I told you all I could
+of my plans. You accepted my conditions. It was your look-out. You've
+got to see this thing through now."
+
+"And if we don't?"
+
+"If you don't, beware of the consequences. I don't like shirkers
+. . . ."
+
+More hours passed. Nothing, it seemed to Véronique, could any longer
+save her from the end for which she craved with all her heart. She no
+longer hoped for the intervention of which Otto had spoken. In reality
+she was not thinking at all. Her son was dead; and she had no other wish
+than to join him without delay, even at the cost of the most dreadful
+suffering. What did that suffering matter to her? There are limits to
+the strength of those who are tortured; and she was so near to reaching
+those limits that her agony would not last long.
+
+She began to pray. Once more the memory of the past forced itself on her
+mind; and the fault which she had committed seemed to her the cause of
+all the misfortunes heaped upon her.
+
+And, while praying, exhausted, harassed, in a state of nervous
+extenuation which left her indifferent to anything that might happen,
+she fell asleep.
+
+Vorski's return did not even rouse her. He had to shake her:
+
+"The hour is at hand, my girl. Say your prayers."
+
+He spoke low, so that his assistants might not hear what he said; and,
+whispering in her ear, he told her things of long ago, insignificant
+trifles which he dribbled out in a thick tone. At last he called out:
+
+"It's still too light, Otto. Go and see what you can find in the larder,
+will you? I'm hungry."
+
+They sat down to table, but Vorski stood up again at once:
+
+"Don't look at me, my girl. Your eyes worry me. What do you expect? My
+conscience doesn't worry me when I'm alone, but it gets worked up when a
+fine pair of eyes like yours go right through me. Lower your lids, my
+pretty one."
+
+He bound Véronique's eyes with a handkerchief which he knotted behind
+her head. But this did not satisfy him; and he unhooked a muslin curtain
+from the window, wrapped her whole head in it and wound it round her
+neck. Then he sat down again to eat and drink.
+
+The three of them hardly spoke and said not a word of their trip across
+the island, nor of the duel of the afternoon. In any case, these were
+details which did not interest Véronique and which, even if she had paid
+attention to them, would not have aroused her. Everything had become
+indifferent to her. The words reached her ears but assumed no definite
+meaning. She thought of nothing but dying.
+
+When it was dark, Vorski gave the signal for departure.
+
+"Then you're still determined?" asked Otto, in a voice betraying a
+certain hostility.
+
+"More so than ever. What's your reason for asking?"
+
+"Nothing . . . . But, all the same . . ."
+
+"All the same what?"
+
+"Well, I may as well out with it, we only half like the job."
+
+"You don't mean to say so! And you only discover it now, my man, after
+stringing up the sisters Archignat and treating it as a lark!"
+
+"I was drunk that day. You made us drink."
+
+"Well, get boozed if you want to, old cock. Here, take the
+brandy-bottle. Fill your flask and shut up . . . . Conrad, is the
+stretcher ready?"
+
+He turned to his victim:
+
+"A polite attention for you, my dear . . . . Two old stilts of your
+brat's, fastened together with straps . . . . It's very practical and
+comfortable."
+
+At half-past eight, the grim procession set out, with Vorski at the
+head, carrying a lantern. The accomplices followed with the litter.
+
+The clouds which had been threatening all the afternoon had now gathered
+and were rolling, thick and black, over the island. The night was
+falling swiftly. A stormy wind was blowing and made the candle flicker
+in the lantern.
+
+"Brrrr!" muttered Vorski. "Dismal work! A regular Golgotha evening."
+
+He swerved and grunted at the sight of a little black shape bounding
+along by his side:
+
+"What's that? Look. It's a dog, isn't it?"
+
+"It's the boy's mongrel," said Otto.
+
+"Oh, of course, the famous All's Well! The brute's come in the nick of
+time. Everything's going jolly well! Just wait a bit, you mangy beast!"
+
+He aimed a kick at the dog. All's Well avoided it and keeping out of
+reach, continued to accompany the procession, giving a muffled bark at
+intervals.
+
+It was a rough ascent; and every moment one of the three men, leaving
+the invisible path that skirted the grass in front of the house and led
+to the open space by the Fairies' Dolmen, tripped in the brambles or in
+the runners of ivy.
+
+"Halt!" Vorski commanded. "Stop and take breath, my lads. Otto, hand us
+your flask. My heart's turning upside down."
+
+He took a long pull:
+
+"Your turn, Otto . . . . What, don't you want to? What's the matter with
+you?"
+
+"I'm thinking that there are people on the island who are looking for
+us."
+
+"Let them look!"
+
+"And suppose they come by boat and climb that path in the cliffs which
+the woman and the boy were trying to escape by this morning, the path we
+found?"
+
+"What we have to fear is an attack by land, not by sea. Well, the
+foot-bridge is burnt. There's no means of communication."
+
+"Unless they find the entrance to the cells, on the Black Heath, and
+follow the tunnel to this place."
+
+"Have they found the entrance?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, granting that they do find it, haven't we just blocked the exit
+on this side, broken down the staircase, thrown everything topsy-turvy?
+To clear it will take them half a day and more. Whereas at midnight the
+thing'll be done and by daybreak we shall be far away from Sarek."
+
+"It'll be done, it'll be done; that is to say, we shall have one more
+murder on our conscience. But . . ."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"What about the treasure?"
+
+"Ah, the treasure! You've got it out at last! Well, make your mind easy:
+your shares of it are as good as in your pockets."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Rather! Do you imagine that I'm staying here and doing all this dirty
+work for fun?"
+
+They resumed their progress. After a quarter of an hour, a few drops of
+rain began to fall. There was a clap of thunder. The storm still
+appeared to be some distance away.
+
+They had difficulty in completing the rough ascent: and Vorski had to
+help his companions.
+
+"At last!" he said. "We're there. Otto, hand me the flask. That's it.
+Thanks."
+
+They had laid their victim at the foot of the oak which had had its
+lower branches removed. A flash of light revealed the inscription,
+"V. d'H." Vorski picked up a rope, which had been left there in
+readiness, and set a ladder against the trunk of the tree:
+
+"We'll do as we did with the sisters Archignat," he said. "I'll pass the
+cord over the big branch which we left intact. That will serve as a
+pulley."
+
+He interrupted himself and jumped to one side. Something extraordinary
+had just happened.
+
+"What's that?" he whispered. "What was it? Did you hear that whistling
+sound?"
+
+"Yes," said Conrad, "it grazed my ear. One would have said it was a
+bullet."
+
+"You're mad."
+
+"I heard it too," said Otto, "and it seems to me that it hit the tree."
+
+"What tree?"
+
+"The oak, of course! It was as though somebody had fired at us."
+
+"There was no report."
+
+"A stone, then; a stone that must have hit the oak."
+
+"We'll soon see," said Vorski.
+
+He turned his lantern and at once let fly an oath:
+
+"Damn it! Look, there, under the lettering."
+
+They looked. An arrow was fixed at the spot to which he pointed. Its
+feathered end was still quivering.
+
+"An arrow!" gasped Conrad. "How is it possible? An arrow!"
+
+And Otto spluttered:
+
+"We're done for! It's us they were aiming at!"
+
+"The man who took aim at us can't be far off," Vorski observed. "Keep
+your eyes open. We'll have a look."
+
+He swung the light in a circle which penetrated the surrounding
+darkness.
+
+"Stop," said Conrad, eagerly. "A little more to the right. Do you see?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I see."
+
+Thirty yards from where they stood, in the direction of the Calvary of
+the Flowers, just beyond the blasted oak, they saw something white, a
+figure which was trying, at least so it seemed, to hide behind a clump
+of bushes.
+
+"Not a word, not a movement," Vorski ordered. "Do nothing to let him
+think that we've discovered him. Conrad, come with me. You, Otto, stay
+here, with your revolver in your hand, and keep a good watch. If they
+try to come near and to release her ladyship, fire two shots and we'll
+run back at once. Is that understood?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Vorski bent over Véronique and loosened the veil slightly. Her eyes and
+mouth were still concealed by their bandages. She was breathing with
+difficulty; the pulse was weak and slow.
+
+"We have time," he muttered, "but we must hurry if we want her to die
+according to plan. In any case she doesn't seem to be in pain. She has
+lost all consciousness."
+
+He put down the lantern and then softly, followed by his assistant,
+stole towards the white figure, both of them choosing the places where
+the shadow was densest.
+
+But he soon became aware, on the one hand, that the figure, which had
+seemed stationary, was moving as he himself moved forward, so that the
+space between them remained the same, and, on the other hand, that it
+was escorted by a small black figure frisking by its side.
+
+"It's that filthy mongrel!" growled Vorski.
+
+He quickened his pace: the distance did not decrease. He ran: the figure
+in front of him ran likewise. And the strangest part of it was that they
+heard no sound of leaves disturbed or of ground trampled by the
+mysterious person running ahead of them.
+
+"Damn it!" swore Vorski. "He's laughing at us. Suppose we fired at him,
+Conrad?"
+
+"He's too far. The bullets wouldn't reach him."
+
+"All the same, we're not going to . . ."
+
+The unknown individual led them to the end of the island and then down
+to the entrance of the tunnel, passed close to the Priory, skirted the
+west cliff and reached the foot-bridge, some of the planks of which were
+still smouldering. Then he branched off, passed back by the other side
+of the house and went up the grassy slope.
+
+From time to time the dog barked gaily.
+
+Vorski could not control his rage. However hard he tried, he was unable
+to gain an inch of ground: and the pursuit had lasted fifteen minutes.
+He ended by vituperating the enemy:
+
+"Stop, can't you? Show yourself a man! . . . What are you trying to do?
+Lead us into a trap? What for? . . . Is it her ladyship you're trying to
+save? It's not worth while, in the state she's in. Oh, you damned, smart
+bounder, if I could only get hold of you!"
+
+Suddenly Conrad seized him by the skirt of his robe.
+
+"What is it, Conrad?"
+
+"Look. He seems to be stopping."
+
+As Conrad suggested, the white figure for the first time was becoming
+more and more clearly visible in the darkness and they were able to
+distinguish, through the leaves of a thicket, its present attitude, with
+the arms slightly opened, the back bowed, the legs bent and apparently
+crossed on the ground.
+
+"He must have fallen," said Conrad.
+
+Vorski, after running forward, shouted:
+
+"Am I to shoot, you scum? I've got the drop on you. Hands up, or I
+fire."
+
+Nothing stirred.
+
+"It's your own look-out! If you show fight, you're a dead man. I shall
+count three and fire."
+
+He walked to twenty yards of the figure and counted, with outstretched
+arm:
+
+"One . . . two . . . . Are you ready, Conrad? Fire!"
+
+The two bullets were discharged at the same time.
+
+There was a cry of distress. The figure seemed to collapse. The two men
+rushed forward:
+
+"Ah, now you've got it, you rascal! I'll show you the stuff that
+Vorski's made of! You've given me a pretty run, you oaf! Well, your
+account's settled!"
+
+After the first few steps, he slackened his speed, for fear of a
+surprise. The figure did not move; and Vorski, on coming close, saw that
+it had the limp and misshapen look of a dead man, of a corpse. Nothing
+remained but to fall upon it. This was what Vorski did, laughing and
+jesting:
+
+"A good bag, Conrad! Let's pick up the game."
+
+But he was greatly surprised, on picking up the game, to feel in his
+hands nothing but an almost impalpable quarry, consisting, to tell the
+truth, of just a white robe, with no one inside it, the owner of the
+robe having taken flight in good time, after hooking it to the thorns of
+a thicket. As for the dog, he had disappeared.
+
+"Damn and blast it!" roared Vorski. "He's cheated us, the ruffian! But
+why, hang it, why?"
+
+Venting his rage in the stupid fashion that was his habit, he was
+stamping on the piece of stuff, when a thought struck him:
+
+"Why? Because, damn it, as I said just now, it's a trap: a trap to get
+us away from her ladyship while his friends went for Otto! Oh, what an
+ass I've been!"
+
+He started to go back in the dark and, as soon as he was able to see the
+dolmen, he called out:
+
+"Otto! Otto!"
+
+"Halt! Who goes there?" answered Otto, in a scared voice.
+
+"It's me . . . . Damn you, don't fire!"
+
+"Who's there? You?"
+
+"Yes, yes, you fool."
+
+"But the two shots?"
+
+"Nothing . . . . A mistake . . . . We'll tell you about it . . . ."
+
+He was now close to the oak and, at once, taking up the lantern, turned
+its rays upon his victim. She had not moved and lay stretched at the
+foot of the tree, with her head wrapped in the veil.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I breathe again! Hang it, how frightened I was!"
+
+"Frightened of what?"
+
+"Of their taking her from us, of course!"
+
+"Well, wasn't I here?"
+
+"Oh, you! You've got no more pluck than a louse . . . and, if they had
+gone for you . . ."
+
+"I should have fired, at any rate. You'd have heard the signal."
+
+"May be. Well, did nothing happen?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Her ladyship didn't carry on too much?"
+
+"She did at first. She moaned and groaned under her hood, until I lost
+all patience."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Oh, then! It didn't last long: I stunned her with a good blow of my
+fist."
+
+"You brute!" exclaimed Vorski. "If you've killed her, you're a dead
+man."
+
+He plumped down and glued his ear to his unfortunate victim's breast.
+
+"No," he said, presently, "her heart is still beating. But that may not
+last long. To work, lads. It must all be over in ten minutes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!"
+
+
+The preparations were soon made; and Vorski himself took an active part
+in them. Resting the ladder against the trunk of the tree, he passed one
+end of the rope round his victim and the other over one of the upper
+branches. Then, standing on the bottom rung, he instructed his
+accomplices:
+
+"Here, all you've got to do now is to pull. Get her on her feet first
+and one of you keep her from falling."
+
+He waited a moment. But Otto and Conrad were whispering to each other;
+and he exclaimed:
+
+"Look here, hurry up, will you? . . . Remember I'm making a pretty easy
+target, if they took it into their heads to send a bullet or an arrow at
+me. Are you ready?"
+
+The two assistants did not reply.
+
+"Well, this is a bit thick! What's the matter with you? Otto! Conrad!"
+
+He leapt to the ground and shook them:
+
+"You're a pair of nice ones, you are! At this rate, we should still be
+at it to-morrow morning . . . and the whole thing will miscarry . . . .
+Answer me, Otto, can't you?" He turned the light full on Otto's face.
+"Look here, what's all this about? Are you wriggling out of it? If so,
+you'd better say so! And you, Conrad? Are you both going on strike?"
+
+Otto wagged his head:
+
+"On strike . . . that's saying a lot. But Conrad and I would like a word
+or two of explanation?"
+
+"Explanation? What about, you pudding-head? About the lady we're
+executing? About either of the two brats? It's no use taking that line,
+my man. I said to you, when I first mentioned the business, 'Will you go
+to work blindfold? There'll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. But
+there's big money at the end of it.'"
+
+"That's the whole question," said Otto.
+
+"Say what you mean, you jackass!"
+
+"It's for you to say and repeat the terms of our agreement. What are
+they?"
+
+"You know as well as I do."
+
+"Exactly, it's to remind you of them that I'm asking you to repeat
+them."
+
+"I remember them exactly. I get the treasure; and out of the treasure I
+pay you two hundred thousand francs between the two of you."
+
+"That's so and it's not quite so. We'll come back to that. Let's begin
+by talking of this famous treasure. Here have we been grinding away for
+weeks, wallowing in blood, living in a nightmare of every sort of crime
+. . . and not a thing in sight!"
+
+Vorski shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You're getting denser and denser, my poor Otto! You know there were
+certain things to be done first. They're all done, except one. In a few
+minutes, this will be finished too and the treasure will be ours!"
+
+"How do we know?"
+
+"Do you think I'd have done all that I have done, if I wasn't sure of
+the result . . . as sure as I am that I'm alive? Everything has happened
+in a certain given order. It was all predetermined. The last thing will
+come at the hour foretold and will open the gate for me."
+
+"The gate of hell," sneered Otto, "as I heard Maguennoc call it."
+
+"Call it by that name or another, it opens on the treasure which I shall
+have won."
+
+"Very well," said Otto, impressed by Vorski's tone of conviction, "very
+well. I'm willing to believe you're right. But what's to tell us that we
+shall have our share?"
+
+"You shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession of
+the treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that I'm not
+likely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of a
+couple of hundred thousand francs."
+
+"So we have your word?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Your word that all the clauses of our agreement shall be respected."
+
+"Of course. What are you driving at?"
+
+"This, that you've begun to trick us in the meanest way by breaking one
+of the clauses of the agreement."
+
+"What's that? What are you talking about? Do you realize whom you're
+speaking to?"
+
+"I'm speaking to you, Vorski."
+
+Vorski laid violent hands on his accomplice:
+
+"What's this? You dare to insult me? To call me by my name, me, me?"
+
+"What of it, seeing that you've robbed me of what's mine by rights?"
+
+Vorski controlled himself and, in a voice trembling with anger:
+
+"Say what you have to say and be careful, my man, for you're playing a
+dangerous game. Speak out."
+
+"It's this," said Otto. "Apart from the treasure, apart from the two
+hundred thousand francs, it was arranged between us--you held up your
+hand and took your oath on it--that any loose cash found by either of us
+in the course of the business would be divided in equal shares: half for
+you, half for Conrad and myself. Is that so?"
+
+"That's so."
+
+"Then pay up," said Otto, holding out his hand.
+
+"Pay up what? I haven't found anything."
+
+"That's a lie. While we were settling the sisters Archignat, you
+discovered on one of them, tucked away in her bodice, the hoard which we
+couldn't find in their house."
+
+"Well, that's a likely story!" said Vorski, in a tone which betrayed his
+embarrassment.
+
+"It's absolutely the truth."
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"Just fish out that little parcel, tied up with string, which you've got
+pinned inside your shirt, just there," said Otto, touching Vorski's
+chest with his finger. "Fish it out and let's have a look at those fifty
+thousand-franc notes."
+
+Vorski made no reply. He was dazed, like a man who does not understand
+what is happening to him and who is trying to guess how his adversary
+procured a weapon against him.
+
+"Do you admit it?" asked Otto.
+
+"Why not?" he rejoined. "I meant to square up later, in the lump."
+
+"Square up now. We'd rather have it that way."
+
+"And suppose I refuse?"
+
+"You won't refuse."
+
+"Suppose I do?"
+
+"In that case, look out for yourself!"
+
+"I have nothing to fear. There's only two of you."
+
+"There's three of us, at least."
+
+"Where's the third?"
+
+"The third is a gentleman who seems cleverer than most, from what Conrad
+tells me: brrr! . . . The one who fooled you just now, the one with the
+arrow and the white robe!"
+
+"You propose to call him?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+Vorski felt that the game was not equal. The two assistants were
+standing on either side of him and pressing him hard. He had to yield:
+
+"Here, you thief! Here, you robber!" he shouted, taking out the parcel
+and unfolding the notes.
+
+"It's not worth while counting," said Otto, snatching the bundle from
+him unawares.
+
+"Hi! . . ."
+
+"We'll do it this way: half for Conrad, half for me."
+
+"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you double-dyed thief! I'll make you pay for
+this. I don't care a button about the money. But to rob me as though
+you'd decoyed me into a wood, so to speak! I shouldn't like to be in
+your skin, my lad!"
+
+He continued to insult the other and then, suddenly, burst into a laugh,
+a forced, malicious laugh:
+
+"After all, Otto, upon my word, well played! But where and how did you
+come to know it? You'll tell me that, won't you? . . . Meanwhile, we've
+not a minute to lose. We're agreed all round, aren't we? And you'll get
+on with the work?"
+
+"Willingly, since you're taking the thing so well," said Otto. And he
+added, obsequiously, "After all . . . you have a style about you, sir!
+You're a fine gentleman, you are!"
+
+"And you, you're a varlet whom I pay. You've had your money, so hurry
+up. The business is urgent."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "business," as the frightful creatures called it, was soon done.
+Climbing on his ladder, Vorski repeated his orders, which were executed
+in docile fashion by Conrad and Otto.
+
+They raised the victim to her feet and then, keeping her upright, hauled
+at the rope. Vorski seized the poor woman and, as her knees were bent,
+violently forced them straight. Thus flattened against the trunk of the
+tree, with her skirt tightened round her legs, her arms hanging to right
+and left at no great distance from her body, she was bound round the
+waist and under the arms.
+
+She seemed not to have recovered from her blow and uttered no sound of
+complaint. Vorski tried to speak a few words, but spluttered them,
+incapable of utterance. Then he tried to raise her head, but abandoned
+the attempt, lacking the courage to touch her who was about to die: and
+the head dropped low on the breast.
+
+He at once got down and stammered:
+
+"The brandy, Otto. Have you the flask? Oh, damn it, what a beastly
+business!"
+
+"There's time yet," Conrad suggested.
+
+Vorski took a few sips and cried:
+
+"Time . . . for what? To let her off? Listen to me, Conrad. Rather than
+let her off, I'd sooner . . . yes, I'd sooner die in her stead. Give up
+my task? Ah, you don't know what my task or what my object is! Besides
+. . ."
+
+He drank some more:
+
+"It's excellent brandy, but, to settle my heart, I'd rather have rum.
+Have you any, Conrad?"
+
+"A drain at the bottom of a flask."
+
+"Hand it over."
+
+They had screened the lantern lest they should be seen; and they sat
+close up to the tree, determined to keep silence. But this fresh drink
+went to their heads. Vorski began to hold forth very excitedly:
+
+"You've no need of any explanations. The woman who's dying up there,
+it's no use your knowing her name. It's enough if you know that she's
+the fourth of the women who were to die on the cross and was specially
+appointed by fate. But there's one thing I can say to you, now that
+Vorski's triumph is about to shine forth before your eyes. In fact I
+take a certain pride in telling you, for, while all that's happened so
+far has depended on me and my will, the thing that's going to happen
+directly depends on the mightiest of will, wills working for Vorski!"
+
+He repeated several times, as though smacking his lips over the name:
+
+"For Vorski . . . For Vorski!"
+
+And he stood up, impelled by the exuberance of his thoughts to walk up
+and down and wave his arms:
+
+"Vorski, son of a king, Vorski, the elect of destiny, prepare yourself!
+Your time has come! Either you are the lowest of adventurers and the
+guiltiest of all the great criminals dyed in the blood of their
+fellow-men, or else you are really the inspired prophet whom the gods
+crown with glory. A superman or a highwayman: that is fate's decree. The
+last heart-beats of the sacred victim sacrificed to the gods are marking
+the supreme seconds. Listen to them, you two!"
+
+Climbing the ladder, he tried to hear those poor beats of an exhausted
+heart. But the head, drooping to the left, prevented him from putting
+his ear to the breast; and he dared not touch it. The silence was broken
+only by a hoarse and irregular breath.
+
+He said, in a low whisper:
+
+"Véronique, do you hear me? Véronique . . . . Véronique . . . ."
+
+After a moment's hesitation:
+
+"I want you to know it . . . yes, I myself am terrified at what I'm
+doing. But it's fate . . . . You remember the prophecy? 'Your wife shall
+die on the cross.' Why, your very name, Véronique, demands it! . . .
+Remember St. Veronica wiping Christ's face with a handkerchief and the
+Saviour's sacred image remaining on the handkerchief . . . . Véronique,
+you can hear me, surely? Véronique . . ."
+
+He ran down hurriedly, snatched the flask of rum from Conrad's hands and
+emptied it at a draught.
+
+He was now seized with a sort of delirium which made him rave for a few
+moments in a language which his accomplices did not understand. Then he
+began to challenge the invisible enemy, to challenge the gods, to hurl
+forth imprecations and blasphemies:
+
+"Vorski is the mightiest of all men, Vorski governs fate. The elements
+and the mysterious powers of nature are compelled to obey him.
+Everything will fall out as he has determined; and the great secret will
+be declared to him in the mystic forms and according to the rules of the
+Kabala. Vorski is awaited as the prophet. Vorski will be welcomed with
+cries of joy and ecstasy; and one whom I know not, one whom I can only
+half see, will come to meet him with palms and benedictions. Let the
+unknown make ready! Let him arise from the darkness and ascend from
+hell! Here stands Vorski. To the sound of bells, to the singing of
+alleluias, let the fateful sign be revealed upon the face of the
+heavens, while the earth opens and sends forth whirling flames!"
+
+He fell silent, as though he had descried in the air the signs which he
+foretold. The hopeless death-rattle of the dying woman sounded from
+overhead. The storm growled in the distance; and the black clouds were
+rent by lightning. All nature seemed to be responding to the ruffian's
+appeal.
+
+His grandiloquent speech and his play-acting made a great impression on
+the two accomplices.
+
+"He frightens me," Otto muttered.
+
+"It's the rum," Conrad replied. "But all the same he's foretelling
+terrible things."
+
+"Things which prowl round us," shouted Vorski, whose ears noticed the
+least sound, "things which make part of the present moment and have been
+bequeathed to us by the pageant of the centuries. It's like a
+prodigious childbirth. And I tell the two of you, you will be the amazed
+witnesses of these things! Otto and Conrad, be prepared as I am: the
+earth will shake; and, at the very spot where Vorski is to win the
+God-Stone, a column of fire will rise up to the sky."
+
+"He doesn't know what he's saying," mumbled Conrad.
+
+"And there he is on the ladder again," whispered Otto. "It'll serve him
+right if he gets an arrow through him."
+
+But Vorski's exaltation knew no bounds. The end was at hand. Extenuated
+by pain, the victim was in her death-agony.
+
+Beginning very low, so as to be heard by none save her, but raising his
+voice gradually, Vorski said:
+
+"Véronique . . . . Véronique . . . . You are fulfilling your mission
+. . . . You are nearing the top of the ascent . . . . All honour to you!
+You deserve a share in my triumph . . . . All honour to you! Listen! You
+hear it already, don't you? The artillery of the heavens is drawing
+near. My enemies are vanquished; you can no longer hope for rescue! Here
+is the last beat of your heart . . . . Here is your last cry: '_Eloi,
+Eloi, lama sabachthani?_ My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'"
+
+He screamed with laughter, like a man laughing at the most riotous
+adventure. Then came silence. The roars of thunder ceased. Vorski bent
+forward and suddenly, from the top of the ladder, shouted:
+
+"_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!_ The gods have forsaken her. Death has
+done its work. The last of the four women is dead. Véronique is dead!"
+
+He was silent once again and then roared twice over:
+
+"Véronique is dead! Véronique is dead!"
+
+Once again there was a great, deep silence.
+
+And all of a sudden the earth shook, not with a vibration produced by
+the thunder, but with a deep inner convulsion, which came from the very
+bowels of the earth and was repeated several times, like a noise
+reechoing through the woods and hills.
+
+And almost at the same time, close by, at the other end of the
+semicircle of oaks, a fountain of fire shot forth and rose to the sky,
+in a whirl of smoke in which flared red, yellow and violet flames.
+
+Vorski did not speak a word. His companions stood aghast. One of them
+stammered:
+
+"It's the old rotten oak, the one which has already been struck by
+lightning."
+
+Though the fire had disappeared almost instantly, the three men retained
+the fantastic vision of the old oak, all aglow, vomiting flames and
+smoke of many colours.
+
+"This is the entrance leading to the God-Stone," said Vorski, solemnly.
+"Destiny has spoken, as I said it would: and it has spoken at the
+bidding of me who was once its servant and who am now its master."
+
+He advanced, carrying the lantern. They were surprised to see that the
+tree showed no trace of fire and that the mass of dry leaves, held as in
+a bowl where a few lower branches were outspread, had not caught fire.
+
+"Yet another miracle," said Vorski. "It is all an inconceivable
+miracle."
+
+"What are we going to do?" asked Conrad.
+
+"Go in by the entrance revealed to us . . . . Take the ladder, Conrad,
+and feel with your hand in that heap of leaves. The tree is hollow and
+we shall soon see . . ."
+
+"A tree can be as hollow as you please," said Otto, "but there are
+always roots to it; and I can hardly believe in a passage through the
+roots."
+
+"I repeat, we shall see. Move the leaves, Conrad, clear them away."
+
+"No, I won't," said Conrad, bluntly.
+
+"What do you mean, you won't? Why not?"
+
+"Have you forgotten Maguennoc? Have you forgotten that he tried to touch
+the God-Stone and had to cut his hand off?"
+
+"But this isn't the God-Stone!" Vorski snarled.
+
+"How do you know? Maguennoc was always speaking of the gate of hell.
+Isn't this what he meant when he talked like that?"
+
+Vorski shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"And you, Otto, are you afraid too?"
+
+Otto did not reply: and Vorski himself did not seem eager to risk the
+attempt, for he ended by saying:
+
+"After all, there's no hurry. Let's wait till daylight comes. We will
+cut down the tree with an axe: and that will show us better than
+anything how things stand and how to go to work."
+
+They agreed accordingly. But, as the signal had been seen by others
+besides themselves and as they must not allow themselves to be
+forestalled, they resolved to sit down opposite the tree, under the
+shelter offered by the huge table of the Fairies' Dolmen.
+
+"Otto," said Vorski, "go to the Priory, fetch us something to drink and
+also bring an axe, some ropes and anything else that we're likely to
+want."
+
+The rain was beginning to pour in torrents. They settled themselves
+under the dolmen and each in turn kept watch while the other slept.
+
+Nothing happened during the night. The storm was very violent. They
+could hear the waves roaring. Then gradually everything grew quiet.
+
+At daybreak they attacked the oak-tree, which they soon overthrew by
+pulling upon the ropes.
+
+They now saw that, inside the tree itself, amid the rubbish and the dry
+rot, a sort of trench had been dug, which extended through the mass of
+sand and stones packed about the roots.
+
+They cleared the ground with a pick-axe. Some steps at once came into
+sight: there was a sudden drop of earth: and they saw a staircase which
+followed a perpendicular wall and led down into the darkness. They threw
+the light of their lantern before them. A cavern opened beneath their
+feet.
+
+Vorski was the first to venture down. The others followed him
+cautiously.
+
+The steps, which at first consisted of earthen stairs reinforced by
+flints, were presently hewn out of the rock. The cave which they entered
+was in no way peculiar and seemed rather to be a vestibule. It
+communicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceiling
+and walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones.
+
+All around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each of
+which was surmounted by a horse's skull. Vorski touched one of these
+skulls; it crumbled into dust.
+
+"No one has been to this crypt," he said, "for twenty centuries. We are
+the first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the traces
+of the past which it contains."
+
+He added, with increasing emphasis:
+
+"It is the mortuary-chamber of a great chieftain. They used to bury his
+favourite horses with him . . . and his weapons too. Look, here are axes
+. . . and a flint knife; and we also find the remains of certain funeral
+rites, as this piece of charcoal shows and, over there, those charred
+bones . . . ."
+
+His voice was husky with emotion. He muttered: "I am the first to enter
+here. I was expected. A whole world awakens at my coming."
+
+Conrad interrupted him:
+
+"There are other doorways, another passage; and there's a sort of light
+showing in the distance."
+
+A narrow corridor brought them to a second chamber, through which they
+reached yet a third. The three crypts were exactly alike, with the same
+masonry, the same upright stones, the same horses' skulls.
+
+"The tombs of three great chieftains," said Vorski. "They evidently lead
+to the tomb of a king; and the chieftains must have been the king's
+guards, after being his companions during his lifetime. No doubt it's
+the next crypt."
+
+He hesitated to go farther, not from fear, but from excessive excitement
+and a sense of inflamed vanity which he was enjoying to the full:
+
+"I am on the verge of knowledge," he declaimed, in dramatic tones.
+"Vorski is approaching the goal and has only to put out his hand to be
+regally rewarded for his labours and his struggles. The God-Stone is
+there. For ages and ages men have sought to fathom the secret of the
+island and not one has succeeded. Vorski came and the God-Stone is his.
+So let it show itself to me and give me the promised power. There is
+nothing between it and Vorski, nothing but my will. And I declare my
+will! The prophet has risen out of the night. He is here. If there be,
+in this kingdom of the dead, a shade whose duty it is to lead me to the
+divine stone and place the golden crown upon my head, let that shade
+arise! Here stands Vorski."
+
+He went in.
+
+The fourth room was much larger and shaped like a dome with a slightly
+flattened summit. In the middle of the flattened part was a round hole,
+no wider than the hole left by a very small flue; and from it there fell
+a shaft of half-veiled light which formed a very plainly-defined disk on
+the floor.
+
+The centre of this disk was occupied by a little block of stones set
+together. And on this block, as though purposely displayed, lay a metal
+rod.
+
+In other respects, this crypt did not differ from the first three. Like
+them it was adorned with menhirs and horses' heads, like them it
+contained traces of sacrifices.
+
+Vorski did not take his eyes off the metal rod. Strange to say, the
+metal gleamed as though no dust had ever covered it. He put out his
+hand.
+
+"No, no," said Conrad, quickly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It may be the one Maguennoc touched and burnt his hand with."
+
+"You're mad."
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"Oh, I'm not afraid of anything!" Vorski declared taking hold of the
+rod.
+
+It was a leaden sceptre, very clumsily made, but nevertheless revealing
+a certain artistic intention. Round the handle was a snake, here
+encrusted in the lead, there standing out in relief. Its huge,
+disproportionate head formed the pommel and was studded with silver
+nails and little green pebbles transparent as emeralds.
+
+"Is it the God-Stone?" Vorski muttered.
+
+He handled the thing and examined it all over with respectful awe; and
+he soon observed that the pommel shifted almost loose. He fingered it,
+turned it to the left, to the right, until at length it gave a click and
+the snake's head became unfastened.
+
+There was a space inside, containing a stone, a tiny, pale-red stone,
+with yellow streaks that looked like veins of gold.
+
+"It's the God-Stone, it's the God-Stone!" said Vorski, greatly agitated.
+
+"Don't touch it!" Conrad repeated, filled with alarm.
+
+"What burnt Maguennoc will not burn me," replied Vorski, solemnly.
+
+And, in bravado, swelling with pride and delight, he kept the mysterious
+stone in the hollow of his hand, which he clenched with all his
+strength:
+
+"Let it burn me! I will let it! Let it sear my flesh! I shall be glad if
+it will!"
+
+Conrad made a sign to him and put his finger to his lips.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Vorski. "Do you hear anything?"
+
+"Yes," said the other.
+
+"So do I," said Otto.
+
+What they heard was a rhythmical, measured sound, which rose and fell
+and made a sort of irregular music.
+
+"Why, it's close by!" mumbled Vorski. "It sounds as if it were in the
+room."
+
+It was in the room, as they soon learnt for certain; and there was no
+doubt that the sound was very like a snore.
+
+Conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh at
+it; but Vorski said:
+
+"Upon my word, I'm inclined to think you're right. It _is_ a snore
+. . . . There must be some one here then?"
+
+"It comes from over there," said Otto, "from that corner in the dark."
+
+The light did not extend beyond the menhirs. Behind each of them opened
+a small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these and
+at once uttered a cry of amazement:
+
+"Some one . . . yes . . . there is some one . . . . Look . . . ."
+
+The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an
+angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and
+long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and
+hands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least a
+century must have passed over his head.
+
+He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to his
+feet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those
+sacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which are
+actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was a
+handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, in
+a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of
+green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel.
+
+The old man went on snoring.
+
+Vorski muttered:
+
+"The miracle continues . . . . It's a priest . . . a priest like those
+of the olden time . . . of the time of the Druids."
+
+"And then?" asked Otto.
+
+"Why, then he's waiting for me!"
+
+Conrad expressed his brutal opinion:
+
+"I suggest we break his head with his axe."
+
+But Vorski flew into a rage:
+
+"If you touch a single hair of his head, you're a dead man!"
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"Still what?"
+
+"He may be an enemy . . . he may be the one whom we were pursuing last
+night . . . . Remember . . . the white robe."
+
+"You're the biggest fool I ever met! Do you think that, at his age, he
+could have kept us on the run like that?"
+
+He bent over and took the old man gently by the arm, saying:
+
+"Wake up! . . . It's I!"
+
+There was no answer. The man did not wake up.
+
+Vorski insisted.
+
+The man moved on his bed of stones, mumbled a few words and went to
+sleep again.
+
+Vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but more
+vigorously, and raised his voice:
+
+"I say, what about it? We can't hang about all day, you know. Come on!"
+
+He shook the old man more roughly. The man made a movement of
+irritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a few
+seconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angry
+voice, growled:
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ANCIENT DRUID
+
+
+The three accomplices, who were perfectly acquainted with all the
+niceties of the French language and familiar with every slang phrase,
+did not for a moment mistake the true sense of that unexpected
+exclamation. They were astounded.
+
+Vorski put the question to Conrad and Otto.
+
+"Eh? What does he say?"
+
+"What you heard . . . . That's right," said Otto.
+
+Vorski ended by making a fresh attack on the shoulder of the stranger,
+who turned on his couch, stretched himself, yawned, seemed to fall
+asleep again, and, suddenly admitting himself defeated, half sat up and
+shouted:
+
+"When you've quite finished, please! Can't a man have a quiet snooze
+these days, in this beastly hole?"
+
+A ray of light blinded his eyes: and he spluttered, in alarm:
+
+"What is it? What do you want with me?"
+
+Vorski put down his lantern on a projection in the wall; and the face
+now stood clearly revealed. The old man, who had continued to vent his
+ill temper in incoherent complaints, looked at his visitor, became
+gradually calmer, even assumed an amiable and almost smiling expression
+and, holding out his hand, exclaimed:
+
+"Well, I never! Why, it's you, Vorski! How are you, old bean?"
+
+Vorski gave a start. That the old man should know him and call him by
+his name did not astonish him immensely, since he had the half-mystic
+conviction that he was expected as a prophet might be. But to a prophet,
+to a missionary clad in light and glory, entering the presence of a
+stranger crowned with the double majesty of age and sacerdotal rank, it
+was painful to be hailed by the name of "old bean!"
+
+Hesitating, ill at ease, not knowing with whom he was dealing, he asked:
+
+"Who are you? What are you here for? How did you get here?"
+
+And, when the other stared at him with a look of surprise, he repeated,
+in a louder voice:
+
+"Answer me, can't you? Who are you?"
+
+"Who am I?" replied the old man, in a husky and bleating voice. "Who am
+I? By Teutatès, god of the Gauls, is it you who ask me that question?
+Then you don't know me? Come, try and remember . . . . Good old
+Ségenax--eh, do you get me now--Velléda's father, good old Ségenax, the
+law-giver venerated by the Rhedons of whom Chateaubriand speaks in the
+first volume of his _Martyrs_? . . . Ah, I see your memory's reviving!"
+
+"What are you gassing about!" cried Vorski.
+
+"I'm not gassing. I'm explaining my presence here and the regrettable
+events which brought me here long ago. Disgusted by the scandalous
+behaviour of Velléda, who had gone wrong with that dismal blighter
+Eudorus, I became what we should call a Trappist nowadays, that is to
+say, I passed a brilliant exam, as a bachelor of Druid laws. Since that
+time, in consequence of a few sprees--oh, nothing to speak of: three or
+four jaunts to Paris, where I was attracted by Mabille and afterwards by
+the Moulin Rouge--I was obliged to accept the little berth which I fill
+here, a cushy job, as you see: guardian of the God-Stone, a shirker's
+job, what!"
+
+Vorski's amazement and uneasiness increased at each word. He consulted
+his companions.
+
+"Break his head," Conrad repeated. "That's what I say: and I stick to
+it."
+
+"And you, Otto?"
+
+"I think we ought to be on our guard."
+
+"Of course we must be on our guard."
+
+But the old Druid caught the word. Leaning on a staff, he helped himself
+up and exclaimed:
+
+"What's the meaning of this? Be on your guard . . . against me! That's
+really a bit thick! Treat me as a fake! Why, haven't you seen my axe,
+with the pattern of the swastika? The swastika, the leading cabalistic
+symbol, eh, what? . . . And this? What do you call this?" He lifted his
+string of beads. "What do you call it? Horse-chestnuts? You've got some
+cheek, you have, to give a name like that to serpents' eggs, 'eggs which
+they form out of slaver and the froth of their bodies mingled and which
+they cast into the air, hissing the while.' It's Pliny's own words I'm
+quoting! You're not going to treat Pliny also as a fake, I hope! . . .
+You're a pretty customer! Putting yourself on your guard against me,
+when I have all my degrees as an ancient Druid, all my diplomas, all my
+patents, all my certificates signed by Pliny and Chateaubriand! The
+cheek of you! . . . Upon my word, you won't find many ancient Druids of
+my sort, genuine, of the period, with the bloom of age upon them and a
+beard of centuries! I a fake, I, who boast every tradition and who
+juggle with the customs of antiquity! . . . Shall I dance the ancient
+Druid dance for you, as I did before Julius Caesar? Would you like me
+to?"
+
+And, without waiting for a reply, the old man, flinging aside his staff,
+began to cut the most extravagant capers and to execute the wildest of
+jigs with perfectly astounding agility. And it was the most laughable
+sight to see him jumping and twisting about, with his back bent, his
+arms outstretched, his legs shooting to right and left from under his
+robe, his beard following the evolutions of his frisking body, while the
+bleating voice announced the successive changes in the performance:
+
+"The ancient Druids' dance, or Caesar's delight! Hi-tiddly, hi-tiddly,
+hi-ti, hi! . . . The mistletoe dance, vulgarly known as the tickletoe!
+. . . The serpents' egg waltz, music by Pliny! Hullo there! Begone, dull
+care! . . . The Vorska, or the tango of the thirty coffins! . . . The
+hymn of the Red Prophet! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory be to the
+prophet!"
+
+He continued his furious jig a little longer and then suddenly halted
+before Vorski and, in a solemn tone, said:
+
+"Enough of this prattle! Let us talk seriously, I am commissioned to
+hand you the God-Stone. Now that you are here, are you ready to take
+delivery of the goods?"
+
+The three accomplices were absolutely flabbergasted. Vorski did not know
+what to do, was unable to make out who the infernal fellow was:
+
+"Oh, shut up!" he shouted, angrily. "What do you want? What's your
+object?"
+
+"What do you mean, my object? I've just told you; to hand you the
+God-Stone!"
+
+"But by what right? In what capacity?"
+
+The ancient Druid nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, I see what you're after. Things are not happening in the least as
+you thought they would. Of course, you came here feeling jolly spry,
+glad and proud of the work you had done. Just think; furnishings for
+thirty coffins, four women crucified, shipwrecks, hands steeped in
+blood, murders galore. Those things are no small beer; and you were
+expecting an imposing reception, with an official ceremony, solemn pomp
+and state, antique choirs, processions of bards and minstrels, human
+sacrifices and what not; the whole Gallic bag of tricks! Instead of
+which, a poor beggar of a Druid, snoozing in a corner, who just simply
+offers you the goods. What a come down, my lords! Can't be helped,
+Vorski; we do what we can and every man acts according to the means at
+his disposal. I'm not a millionaire, you know; and I've already advanced
+you, in addition to the washing of a few white robes, some thirty francs
+forty for Bengal lights, fountains of fire and a nocturnal earthquake."
+
+Vorski started, suddenly understanding and beside himself with rage:
+
+"What! So it was . . ."
+
+"Of course it was me! Who did you think it was? St. Augustine? Unless
+you believed in an intervention of the gods and supposed that they took
+the trouble last night to send an archangel to the island, arrayed in a
+white robe, to lead you to the hollow oak! . . . Really, you're asking
+too much!"
+
+Vorski clenched his fists. So the man in white whom he had pursued the
+night before was no other than this impostor!
+
+"Oh," he growled, "I'm not fond of having my leg pulled!"
+
+"Having your leg pulled!" cried the old man. "You've got a cheek, old
+chap! Who hunted me like a wild beast, till I was quite out of breath?
+And who drove bullets through my best Sunday robe? I never knew such a
+fellow! It'll teach me to put my back into a job again!"
+
+"That'll do!" roared Vorski. "That'll do. Once more and for the last
+time . . . what do you want with me?"
+
+"I'm sick of telling you. I am commissioned to hand you the God-Stone."
+
+"Commissioned by whom?"
+
+"Oh, hanged if I know! I've always been brought up to believe that some
+day a prince of Almain would appear at Sarek, one Vorski, who would slay
+his thirty victims and to whom I was to make an agreed signal when his
+thirtieth victim had breathed her last. Therefore, as I'm a slave to
+orders, I got together my little parcel, bought two Bengal lights at
+three francs seventy-five apiece at a hardware shop in Brest, _plus_ a
+few choice crackers, and, at the appointed hour, took up my perch in my
+observatory, taper in hand, all ready for work. When you started
+howling, in the top of the tree, 'She's dead! She's dead!' I thought
+that was the right moment, set fire to the lights and with my crackers
+shook the bowels of the earth. There! Now you know all about it."
+
+Vorski stepped forward, with his fists raised to strike. That torrent of
+words, that imperturbable composure, that calm, bantering voice put him
+beside himself.
+
+"Another word and I'll knock you down!" he cried. "I've had enough of
+it."
+
+"Is your name Vorski?"
+
+"Yes; and then?"
+
+"Are you a prince of Almain?"
+
+"Yes, yes; and then?"
+
+"Have you slain your thirty victims?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!"
+
+"Well, then you're my man. I have a God-Stone to hand you and I mean to
+hand it you, come what may. That's the sort of hairpin I am. You've got
+to pocket it, your miracle-stone."
+
+"But I don't care a hang for the God-Stone!" roared Vorski, stamping his
+foot. "And I don't care a hang for you! I want nobody. The God-Stone!
+Why, I've got it, it's mine. I've got it on me."
+
+"Let's have a look."
+
+"What do you call that?" said Vorski, taking from his pocket the little
+stone disk which he had found in the pommel of the sceptre.
+
+"That?" asked the old man, with an air of surprise. "Where did you get
+that from?"
+
+"From the pommel of this sceptre, when I unfastened it."
+
+"And what do you call it?"
+
+"It's a piece of the God-Stone."
+
+"You're mad."
+
+"Then what do you say it is?"
+
+"That's a trouser-button."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A trouser-button."
+
+"How do you make that out?"
+
+"A trouser-button with the shaft broken off, a button of the sort which
+the niggers in the Sahara wear. I've a whole set of them."
+
+"Prove it, damn you!"
+
+"I put it there."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To take the place of the precious stone which Maguennoc sneaked, the
+one which burnt him and obliged him to cut off his hand."
+
+Vorski was silent. He was nonplussed. He had no notion what to do next
+or how to behave towards this strange adversary.
+
+The ancient Druid went up to him and, gently, in a fatherly voice:
+
+"No, my lad," he said, "you can't do without me, you see. I alone hold
+the key of the safe and the secret of the casket. Why do you hesitate?"
+
+"I don't know you."
+
+"You baby! If I were suggesting something indelicate and incompatible
+with your honour, I could understand your scruples. But my offer is one
+of those which can't offend the nicest conscience. Well, is it a
+bargain? No? Not yet? But, by Teutatès, what more do you want, you
+unbelieving Vorski? A miracle perhaps? Lord, why didn't you say so
+before? Miracles, forsooth: I turn 'em out thirteen to the dozen. I work
+a little miracle before breakfast every morning. Just think, a Druid!
+Miracles? Why, I've got my shop full of 'em! I can't find room to sit
+down for them. Where will you try first? Resurrection department?
+Hair-restoring department? Revelation of the future department? You can
+choose where you like. Look here, at what time did your thirtieth victim
+breathe her last?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"Eleven fifty-two. Your excitement was so great that it stopped your
+watch. Look and see."
+
+It was ridiculous. The shock produced by excitement has no effect on the
+watch of the man who experiences the excitement. Nevertheless, Vorski
+involuntarily took out his watch: it marked eight minutes to twelve. He
+tried to wind it up: it was broken.
+
+The ancient Druid, without giving him time to recover his breath and
+reply, went on:
+
+"That staggers you, eh? And yet there's nothing simpler for a Druid who
+knows his business. A Druid sees the invisible. He does more: he makes
+anyone else see it if he wants to. Vorski, would you like to see
+something that doesn't exist? What's your name? I'm not speaking of your
+name Vorski, but of your real name, your governor's name."
+
+"Silence on that subject!" Vorski commanded. "It's a secret I've
+revealed to nobody."
+
+"Then why do you write it down?"
+
+"I've never written it down."
+
+"Vorski, your father's name is written in red pencil on the fourteenth
+page of the little note-book you carry on you. Look and see."
+
+Acting mechanically, like an automaton whose movements are controlled
+by an alien will, Vorski took from his inside pocket a case containing a
+small note-book. He turned the pages till he came to the fourteenth,
+when he muttered, with indescribable dismay:
+
+"Impossible! Who wrote this? And you know what's written here?"
+
+"Do you want me to prove it to you?"
+
+"Once more, silence! I forbid you . . ."
+
+"As you please, old chap! All that I do is meant for your edification.
+And it's no trouble to me! Once I start working miracles, I simply can't
+stop. Here's another funny little trick. You carry a locket hanging from
+a silver chain round your shirt, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Vorski, his eyes blazing with fever.
+
+"The locket consists of a frame, without the photograph which used to be
+set in it."
+
+"Yes, yes, a portrait of . . ."
+
+"Of your mother, I know: and you lost it."
+
+"Yes, I lost it last year."
+
+"You mean you _think_ you've lost the portrait."
+
+"Nonsense, the locket is empty."
+
+"You _think_ the locket's empty. It's not. Look and see."
+
+Still moving mechanically, with his eyes starting from his head, Vorski
+unfastened the button of his shirt and pulled out the chain. The locket
+appeared. There was the portrait of a woman in a round gold frame.
+
+"It's she, it's she," he muttered, completely taken aback.
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what do you say to it all, eh? There's no fake about it, no
+deception. The ancient Druid's a smart chap and you're coming with him,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Vorski was beaten. The man had subjugated him. His superstitious
+instincts, his inherited belief in the mysterious powers, his restless
+and unbalanced nature, all imposed absolute submission on him. His
+suspicion persisted, but did not prevent him from obeying.
+
+"Is it far?" he asked.
+
+"Next door, in the great hall."
+
+Otto and Conrad had been the astounded witnesses of this dialogue.
+Conrad tried to protest. But Vorski silenced him:
+
+"If you're afraid, go away. Besides," he added, with an affectation of
+assurance, "besides, we shall walk with our revolvers ready. At the
+slightest alarm, fire."
+
+"Fire on me?" chuckled the ancient Druid.
+
+"Fire on any enemy, no matter who it may be."
+
+"Well, you go first, Vorski . . . . What, won't you?"
+
+He had brought them to the very end of the crypt, in the darkest shadow,
+where the lantern showed them a recess hollowed at the foot of the wall
+and plunging into the rocks in a downward direction.
+
+Vorski hesitated and then entered. He had to crawl on his hands and
+knees in this narrow, winding passage, from which he emerged, a minute
+later, on the threshold of a large hall.
+
+The others joined him.
+
+"The hall of the God-Stone," the ancient Druid declared, solemnly.
+
+It was lofty and imposing, similar in shape and size to the broad walk
+under which it lay. The same number of upright stones, which seemed to
+be the columns of an immense temple, stood in the same place and formed
+the same rows as the menhirs on the walk overhead: stones hewn in the
+same uncouth way, with no regard for art or symmetry. The floor was
+composed of huge irregular flagstones, intersected with a network of
+gutters and covered with round patches of dazzling light, falling from
+above at some distance one from the other.
+
+In the centre, under Maguennoc's garden, rose a platform of unmortared
+stones, fourteen or fifteen feet high, with sides about twenty yards
+long. On the top was a dolmen with two sturdy supports and a long, oval
+granite table.
+
+"Is that it?" asked Vorski, in a husky voice.
+
+Without giving a direct answer, the ancient Druid said:
+
+"What do you think of it? They were dabs at building, those ancestors of
+ours! And what ingenuity they displayed! What precautions against prying
+eyes and profane enquiries! Do you know where the light comes from? For
+we are in the bowels of the island and there are no windows opening on
+to the sky. The light comes from the upper menhirs. They are pierced
+from the top to bottom with a channel which widens as it goes down and
+which sheds floods of light below. In the middle of the day, when the
+sun is shining, it's like fairyland. You, who are an artist, would shout
+with admiration."
+
+"Then that's _it_?" Vorski repeated.
+
+"At any rate, it's a sacred stone," declared the ancient Druid,
+impassively, "since it used to overlook the place of the underground
+sacrifices, which were the most important of all. But there is another
+one underneath, which is protected by the dolmen and which you can't see
+from here; and that is the one on which the selected victims were
+offered up. The blood used to flow from the platform and along all these
+gutters to the cliffs and down to the sea."
+
+Vorski muttered, more and more excited:
+
+"Then that's it? If so, let's go on."
+
+"No need to stir," said the old man, with exasperating coolness. "It's
+not that one either. There's a third; and to see that one you have only
+to lift your head a little."
+
+"Where? Are you sure?"
+
+"Of course! Take a good look . . . above the upper table, yes, in the
+very vault which forms the ceiling and which is like a mosaic made of
+great flagstones . . . . You can twig it from here, can't you? A
+flagstone forming a separate oblong, long and narrow like the lower
+table and shaped like it . . . . They might be two sisters . . . . But
+there's only one good one, stamped with the trademark . . . ."
+
+Vorski was disappointed. He had expected a more elaborate introduction
+to a more mysterious hiding-place.
+
+"Is that the God-Stone?" he asked. "Why, it has nothing particular about
+it."
+
+"From a distance, no; but wait till you see it close by. There are
+coloured veins in it, glittering lodes, a special grain: in short, the
+God-Stone. Besides, it's remarkable not so much for its substance as for
+its miraculous properties."
+
+"What are the miracles in question?" asked Vorski.
+
+"It gives life and death, as you know, and it gives a lot of other
+things."
+
+"What sort of things?"
+
+"Oh, hang it, you're asking me too much! I don't know anything about
+it."
+
+"How do you mean, you don't know?"
+
+The ancient Druid leant over and, in a confidential tone:
+
+"Listen, Vorski," he said, "I confess that I have been boasting a bit
+and that my function, though of the greatest importance--keeper of the
+God-Stone, you know, a first-class berth--is limited by a power which in
+a manner of speaking is higher than my own."
+
+"What power?"
+
+"Velléda's."
+
+Vorski eyed him with renewed uneasiness:
+
+"Velléda?"
+
+"Yes, or at least the woman whom I call Velléda, the last of the
+Druidesses: I don't know her real name."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Here."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Yes, on the sacrificial stone. She's asleep."
+
+"What, she's asleep?"
+
+"She's been sleeping for centuries, since all time. I've never seen her
+other than sleeping: a chaste and peaceful slumber. Like the Sleeping
+Beauty, Velléda is waiting for him whom the gods have appointed to
+awake her; and that is . . ."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"You, Vorski, you."
+
+Vorski knitted his brows. What was the meaning of this improbable story
+and what was his impenetrable interlocutor driving at?
+
+The ancient Druid continued:
+
+"That seems to ruffle you! Come, there's no reason, just because your
+hands are red with blood and because you have thirty coffins on your
+mind, why you shouldn't have the right to act as Prince Charming. You're
+too modest, my young friend. Look here, Velléda is marvellously
+beautiful: I tell you, hers is a superhuman beauty. Ah, my fine fellow,
+you're getting excited! What? Not yet?"
+
+Vorski hesitated. Really he was feeling the danger increase around him
+and rise like a swelling wave that is about to break. But the old man
+would not leave him alone:
+
+"One last word, Vorski; and I'm speaking low so that your friends shan't
+hear me. When you wrapped your mother in her shroud, you left on her
+fore-finger, in obedience to her formal wish, a ring which she had
+always worn, a magic ring made of a large turquoise surrounded by a
+circle of smaller turquoises set in gold. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes," gasped Vorski, taken aback, "yes, you're right: but I was alone
+and it is a secret which nobody knew."
+
+"Vorski, if that ring is on Velléda's finger, will you trust me and will
+you believe that your mother, in her grave, appointed Velléda to
+receive you, that she herself might hand you the miraculous stone?"
+
+Vorski was already walking towards the tumulus. He quickly climbed the
+first few steps. His head passed the level of the platform.
+
+"Oh," he said, staggering back, "the ring . . . the ring is on her
+finger!"
+
+Between the two supports of the dolmen, stretched on the sacrificial
+table and clad in a spotless gown that came down to her feet, lay the
+Druidess. Her body and face were turned the other way; and a veil
+hanging over her forehead hid her hair. Almost bare, her shapely arm lay
+along the table. On the forefinger was a turquoise ring.
+
+"Is that your mother's ring all right?" asked the ancient Druid.
+
+"Yes, there's no doubt about it."
+
+Vorski had hurried across the space between himself and the dolmen and,
+stooping, almost kneeling, was examining the turquoises.
+
+"The number is complete," he whispered. "One of them is cracked. Another
+is half covered by the gold setting which has worked down over it."
+
+"You needn't be so cautious," said the old man. "She won't hear you; and
+your voice can't wake her. What you had better do is to stand up and
+pass your hand lightly over her forehead. That is the magic caress which
+will rouse her from her slumber."
+
+Vorski stood up. Nevertheless he hesitated to approach the woman, who
+inspired him with ungovernable fear and respect.
+
+"Don't come any nearer, you two," said the ancient Druid, addressing
+Otto and Conrad. "When Velléda's eyes open, they must rest on no one
+but Vorski and behold no other sight. Well, Vorski, are you afraid?"
+
+"No, I'm not afraid."
+
+"Only you're not feeling comfortable. It's easier to murder people than
+to bring them to life, what? Come, show yourself a man! Put aside her
+veil and touch her forehead. The God-Stone is within your reach. Act and
+you will be the master of the world."
+
+Vorski acted. Standing against the sacrificial altar, he looked down
+upon the Druidess. He bent over the motionless bust. The white gown rose
+and fell to the regular rhythm of the breathing. With an undecided hand
+he drew back the veil and then stooped lower, so that his other hand
+might touch the uncovered forehead.
+
+But at that moment his action remained, so to speak, suspended and he
+stood without moving, like a man who does not understand but is vainly
+trying to understand.
+
+"Well, what's up, old chap?" exclaimed the Druid. "You look petrified.
+Another squabble? Something gone wrong? Must I come and help you?"
+
+Vorski did not answer. He was staring wildly, with an expression of
+stupefaction and affright which gradually changed into one of mad
+terror. Drops of perspiration trickled over his face. His haggard eyes
+seemed to be gazing upon the most horrible vision.
+
+The old man burst out laughing:
+
+"Lord love us, how ugly you are! I hope the last of the Druidesses won't
+raise her divine eyelids and see that hideous mug of yours! Sleep,
+Velléda, sleep your pure and dreamless sleep."
+
+Vorski stood muttering between his teeth incoherent words which conveyed
+the menace of an increasing anger. The truth became partly revealed to
+him in a series of flashes. A word rose to his lips which he refused to
+utter, as though, in uttering it, he feared lest he should give life to
+a being who was no more, to that woman who was dead, yes, dead though
+she lay breathing before him: she could not but be dead, because he had
+killed her. However, in the end and in spite of himself, he spoke; and
+every syllable cost him intolerable suffering:
+
+"Véronique . . . . Véronique . . . ."
+
+"So you think she's like her?" chuckled the ancient Druid. "Upon my
+word, may be you are right: there is a sort of family resemblance
+. . . . I dare say, if you hadn't crucified the other with your own
+hands and if you hadn't yourself received her last breath, you would be
+ready to swear that the two women are one and the same person . . . and
+that Véronique d'Hergemont is alive and that she's not even wounded
+. . . not even a scar . . . not so much as the mark of the cords round
+her wrists . . . . But just look, Vorski, what a peaceful face, what
+comforting serenity! Upon my word, I'm beginning to believe that you
+made a mistake and that it was another woman you crucified! Just think a
+bit! . . . Hullo, you're going to go for me now! Come to my rescue, O
+Teutatès! The prophet wants to have my blood!"
+
+Vorski had drawn himself up and was now facing the ancient Druid. His
+features, fashioned for hatred and fury, had surely never expressed
+more of either than at this moment. The ancient Druid was not merely the
+man who for an hour had been toying with him as with a child. He was the
+man who had performed the most extraordinary feat and who suddenly
+appeared to him as the most ruthless and dangerous foe. A man like that
+must be got rid of on the spot, since the opportunity presented itself.
+
+"I'm done!" said the old man. "He's going to eat me up! Crikey, what an
+ogre! . . . Help! Murder! Help! . . . Oh, look at his iron fingers! He's
+going to strangle me! . . . Unless he uses a dagger . . . or a rope
+. . . . No, a revolver! I prefer that, it's neater . . . . Fire away,
+Alexis. Two of the seven bullets have already made holes in my best
+Sunday robe. That leaves five. Fire away, Alexis."
+
+Each word aggravated Vorski's fury. He was eager to get the work over
+and he shouted:
+
+"Otto . . . Conrad . . . are you ready?"
+
+He raised his arm. The two assistants likewise took aim. Four paces in
+front of them stood the old man, laughingly pleading for mercy:
+
+"Please, kind gentlemen, have pity on a poor beggar . . . . I won't do
+it again . . . . I'll be a good boy . . . . Kind gentlemen, please
+. . . ."
+
+Vorski repeated:
+
+"Otto . . . Conrad . . . attention! . . . I'm counting three: one . . .
+two . . . three . . . fire!"
+
+The three shots rang out together. The Druid whirled round with one leg
+in the air, then drew himself up straight, opposite his adversaries, and
+cried, in a tragic voice:
+
+"A hit, a palpable hit! Shot through the body! Dead, for a ducat! . . .
+The ancient Druid's _kaput_! . . . A tragic development! Oh, the poor
+old Druid, who was so fond of his joke!"
+
+"Fire!" roared Vorski. "Shoot, can't you, you idiots? Fire!"
+
+"Fire! Fire!" repeated the Druid. "Bang! Bang! A bull's eye! . . . Two!
+. . . Three bull's eyes! . . . Your shot, Conrad: bang! . . . Yours,
+Otto: bang!"
+
+The shots rattled and echoed through the great resounding hall. The
+bewildered and furious accomplices were gesticulating before their
+target, while the invulnerable old man danced and kicked, now almost
+squatting on his heels, now leaping up with astounding agility:
+
+"Lord, what fun one can have in a cave! And what a fool you are, Vorski,
+my own! You blooming old prophet! . . . What a mug! But, I say, however
+could you take it all in? The Bengal lights! The crackers! And the
+trouser-button! And your old mother's ring! . . . You silly juggins!
+What a spoof!"
+
+Vorski stopped. He realized that the three revolvers had been made
+harmless, but how? By what unprecedented marvel? What was at the bottom
+of all this fantastic adventure? Who was that demon standing in front of
+him?
+
+He flung away his useless weapon and looked at the old man. Was he
+thinking of seizing him in his arms and crushing the life out of him? He
+also looked at the woman and seemed ready to fall upon her. But he
+obviously no longer felt equal to facing those two strange creatures,
+who appeared to him to be remote from the world and from actuality.
+
+Then, quickly, he turned on his heel and, calling to his accomplices,
+made for the crypts, followed by the ancient Druid's jeers:
+
+"Look at that now! He's slinging his hook! And the God-Stone, what about
+it? What do you want me to do with it? . . . I say, isn't he showing a
+clean pair of heels! . . . Hi! Are your trousers on fire? Yoicks,
+tally-ho, tally-ho! Proph--et Proph--et! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE HALL OF THE UNDERGROUND SACRIFICES
+
+
+Vorski had never known fear and he was perhaps not yielding to an actual
+sense of fear in taking to flight now. But he no longer knew what he was
+doing. His bewildered brain was filled with a whirl of contradictory and
+incoherent ideas in which the intuition of an irretrievable and to some
+extent supernatural defeat held the first place.
+
+Believing as he did in witchcraft and wonders, he had an impression that
+Vorski, the man of destiny, had fallen from his mission and been
+replaced by another chosen favourite of destiny. There were two
+miraculous forces opposed to each other, one emanating from him, Vorski,
+the other from the ancient Druid; and the second was absorbing the
+first. Véronique's resurrection, the ancient Druid's personality, the
+speeches, the jokes, the leaps and bounds, the actions, the
+invulnerability of that spring-heeled individual, all this seemed to him
+magical and fabulous; and it created, in these caves of the barbaric
+ages, a peculiar atmosphere which stifled and demoralized him.
+
+He was eager to return to the surface of the earth. He wanted to breathe
+and see. And what he wanted above all to see was the tree stripped of
+its branches to which he had tied Véronique and on which Véronique had
+expired.
+
+"For she _is_ dead," he snarled, as he crawled through the narrow
+passage which communicated with the third and largest of the crypts.
+"She _is_ dead. I know what death means. I have often held it in my
+hands and I make no mistakes. Then how did that demon manage to bring
+her to life again?"
+
+He stopped abruptly near the block on which he had picked up the
+sceptre:
+
+"Unless . . ." he said.
+
+Conrad, following him, cried:
+
+"Hurry up, instead of chattering."
+
+Vorski allowed himself to be pulled along; but, as he went, he
+continued:
+
+"Shall I tell you what I think, Conrad? Well, the woman he showed us,
+the one asleep, wasn't that one at all. Was she even alive? Oh, the old
+wizard is capable of anything! He'll have modelled a figure, a wax doll,
+and given it her likeness."
+
+"You're mad. Get on!"
+
+"I'm not mad. That woman was not alive. The one who died on the tree is
+properly dead. And you'll find her again up there, I warrant you.
+Miracles, yes, but not such a miracle as that!"
+
+Having left their lantern behind them, the three accomplices kept
+bumping against the wall and the upright stones. Their footsteps echoed
+from vault to vault. Conrad never ceased grumbling:
+
+"I warned you . . . . We ought to have broken his head."
+
+Otto, out of breath with walking, said nothing.
+
+Thus, groping their way, they reached the lobby which preceded the
+entrance-crypt; and they were not a little surprised to find that this
+first hall was dark, though the passage which they had dug in the upper
+part, under the roots of the dead oak, ought to have given a certain
+amount of light.
+
+"That's funny," said Conrad.
+
+"Pooh!" said Otto. "We've only got to find the ladder hooked to the
+wall. Here, I have it . . . here's a step . . . and the next . . . ."
+
+He climbed the rungs, but was pulled up almost at once:
+
+"Can't get any farther . . . . It's as if there had been a fall of
+earth."
+
+"Impossible!" Vorski protested. "However, wait a bit, I was forgetting:
+I have my pocket-lighter."
+
+He struck a light; and the same cry of anger escaped all three of them:
+the whole of the top of the staircase and half the room was buried under
+a heap of stones and sand, with the trunk of the dead oak fallen in the
+middle. Not a chance of escape remained.
+
+Vorski gave way to a fit of despair and collapsed on the stairs:
+
+"We're tricked. It's that old brute who has played us this trick . . .
+which shows that he's not alone."
+
+He bewailed his fate, raving, lacking the strength to continue the
+unequal struggle. But Conrad grew angry:
+
+"I say, Vorski, this isn't like you, you know."
+
+"There's nothing to be done against that fellow."
+
+"Nothing to be done! In the first place, there's this, as I've told you
+twenty times: wring his neck. Oh, why did I restrain myself?"
+
+"You couldn't even have laid a hand on him. Did any of our bullets touch
+him?"
+
+"Our bullets . . . our bullets," muttered Conrad. "All this strikes me
+as mighty queer. Hand me your lighter. I have another revolver, which
+comes from the Priory: and I loaded it myself yesterday morning. I'll
+soon see."
+
+He examined the weapon and was not long in discovering that the seven
+cartridges which he had put in the cylinder had been replaced by seven
+cartridges from which the bullets had been extracted and which could
+therefore fire nothing except blank shots.
+
+"That explains it," he said, "and your ancient Druid is no more of a
+wizard than I am. If our revolvers had been really loaded, we'd have
+shot him down like a dog."
+
+But the explanation only increased Vorski's alarm:
+
+"And how did he unload them? At what moment did he manage to take our
+revolvers from our pockets and put them back after drawing the charges?
+I did not leave go of mine for an instant."
+
+"No more did I," Conrad admitted.
+
+"And I defy any one to touch it without my knowing. So what then?
+Doesn't it prove that that demon has a special power? After all, we must
+look at things as they are. He's a man who possesses secrets of his own
+. . . and who has means at his disposal, means which . . ."
+
+Conrad shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Vorski, this business has shattered you. You were within reach of the
+goal and yet you let go at the first obstacle. You're turned into a
+dish-cloth. Well, I don't bow my head like you. Tricked? Why so? If he
+comes after us, there are three of us."
+
+"He won't come. He'll leave us here shut up in a burrow with no way out
+of it."
+
+"Then, if he doesn't come, I'll go back there, I will! I've got my
+knife; that's enough for me."
+
+"You're wrong, Conrad."
+
+"How am I wrong? I'm a match for any man, especially for that old
+blighter; and he's only got a sleeping woman to help him."
+
+"Conrad, he's not a man and she's not a woman. Be careful."
+
+"I'm careful and I'm going."
+
+"You're going, you're going; but what's your plan?"
+
+"I've no plan. Or rather, if I have, it's to out that beggar."
+
+"All the same, mind what you're doing. Don't go for him bull-headed; try
+to take him by surprise."
+
+"Well, of course!" said Conrad, moving away. "I'm not ass enough to risk
+his attacks. Be easy, I've got the bounder!"
+
+Conrad's daring comforted Vorski.
+
+"After all," he said, when his accomplice was gone, "he's right. If that
+old Druid didn't come after us, it's because he's got other ideas in his
+head. He certainly doesn't expect us to return on the offensive; and
+Conrad can very well take him by surprise. What do you say, Otto?"
+
+Otto shared his opinion:
+
+"He has only to bide his time," he replied.
+
+Fifteen minutes passed. Vorski gradually recovered his assurance. He had
+yielded to the reaction, after an excess of hope followed by
+disappointment too great for him to bear and also because of the
+weariness and depression produced by his drinking-bout. But the fighting
+spirit stimulated him once more; and he was anxious to have done with
+his adversary.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," he said, "if Conrad had finished him off by
+now."
+
+By this time he had acquired an exaggerated confidence which proved his
+unbalanced state of mind; and he wanted to go back again at once.
+
+"Come along, Otto, it's the last trip. An old beggar to get rid of; and
+the thing's done. You've got your dagger? Besides, it won't be wanted.
+My two hands will do the trick."
+
+"And suppose that blasted Druid has friends?"
+
+"We'll see."
+
+He once more went towards the crypts, moving cautiously and watching the
+opening of the passages which led from one to the other. No sound
+reached their ears. The light in the third crypt showed them the way.
+
+"Conrad must have succeeded," Vorski observed. "If not, he would have
+shirked the fight and come back to us."
+
+Otto agreed.
+
+"It's a good sign, of course, that we don't see him. The ancient Druid
+must have had a bad time of it. Conrad is a scorcher."
+
+They entered the third crypt. Things were in the places where they had
+left them: the sceptre on the block and the pommel, which Vorski had
+unfastened, a little way off, on the ground. But, when he cast his eyes
+towards the shadowy recess where the ancient Druid was sleeping when
+they first arrived, he was astounded to see the old fellow, not exactly
+at the same place, but between the recess and the exit to the passage.
+
+"Hang it, what's he doing?" he stammered, at once upset by that
+unexpected presence. "One would think he was asleep!"
+
+The ancient Druid, in fact, appeared to be asleep. Only, why on earth
+was he sleeping in that attitude, flat on his stomach, with his arms
+stretched out on either side and his face to the floor? No man on his
+guard, or at least aware that he was in some sort of danger, would
+expose himself in this way to the enemy's attack. Moreover--Vorski's
+eyes were gradually growing accustomed to the half-darkness of the end
+crypt--moreover the white robe was marked with stains which looked red,
+which undoubtedly were red. What did it mean?
+
+Otto said, in a low voice:
+
+"He's lying in a queer attitude."
+
+Vorski was thinking the same thing and put it more plainly:
+
+"Yes, the attitude of a corpse."
+
+"The attitude of a corpse," Otto agreed. "That's it, exactly."
+
+Vorski presently fell back a step:
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed, "can it be?"
+
+"What?" asked the other.
+
+"Between the two shoulders . . . . Look."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The knife."
+
+"What knife?"
+
+"Conrad's," Vorski declared. "Conrad's dagger. I recognise it. Driven in
+between the shoulders." And he added, with a shudder, "That's where the
+red stains come from . . . . It's blood . . . blood flowing from the
+wound."
+
+"In that case," Otto remarked, "he is dead?"
+
+"He's dead, yes, the ancient Druid is dead . . . . Conrad must have
+surprised him and killed him . . . . The ancient Druid is dead."
+
+Vorski remained undecided for a while, ready to fall upon the lifeless
+body and to stab it in his turn. But he dared no more touch it now that
+it was dead than when it was alive; and all that he had the courage to
+do was to run and wrench the dagger from the wound.
+
+"Ah," he cried, "you scoundrel, you've got what you deserve! And Conrad
+is a champion. I shan't forget you, Conrad, be sure of that."
+
+"Where can Conrad be?"
+
+"In the hall of the God-Stone. Ah, Otto, I'm itching to get back to the
+woman whom the ancient Druid put there and to settle her hash too!"
+
+"Then you believe that she's a live woman?" chuckled Otto.
+
+"And very much alive at that . . . like the ancient Druid! That wizard
+was only a fake, with a few tricks of his own, perhaps, but no real
+power. There's the proof!"
+
+"A fake, if you like," the accomplice objected. "But, all the same, he
+showed you by his signals the way to enter these caves. Now what was his
+object in that? And what was he doing here? Did he really know the
+secret of the God-Stone, the way to get possession of it and exactly
+where it is?"
+
+"You're right. It's all so many riddles," said Vorski, who preferred not
+to examine the details of the adventure too closely. "But it's so many
+riddles which'll answer themselves and which I'm not troubling about for
+the moment, because it's no longer that creepy individual who's putting
+them to me."
+
+For the third time they went through the narrow communicating passage.
+Vorski entered the great hall like a conqueror, with his head high and a
+confident glance. There was no longer any obstacle, no longer any enemy
+to overcome. Whether the God-Stone was suspended between the stones of
+the ceiling, or whether the God-Stone was elsewhere, he was sure to
+discover it. There remained the mysterious woman who looked like
+Véronique, but who could not be Véronique and whose real identity he was
+about to unmask.
+
+"Always presuming that she's still there," he muttered. "And I very much
+suspect that she's gone. She played her part in the ancient Druid's
+obscure schemes: and the ancient Druid, thinking me out of the way
+. . ."
+
+He stepped forward and climbed a few steps.
+
+The woman was there. She was there, lying on the lower table of the
+dolmen, shrouded in veils as before. The arm no longer hung towards the
+ground. There was only the hand emerging from the veils. The turquoise
+ring was on the finger.
+
+"She hasn't moved," said Otto. "She's still asleep."
+
+"Perhaps she is asleep," said Vorski. "I'll watch her. Leave me alone."
+
+He went nearer. He still had Conrad's dagger in his hand: and perhaps it
+was this that suggested killing to him, for his eyes fell upon the
+weapon and it was not till then that he seemed to realise that he was
+carrying it and that he might make use of it.
+
+He was not more than three paces from the woman, when he perceived that
+the wrist which was uncovered was all bruised and as it were mottled
+with black patches, which evidently came from the cords with which she
+had been bound. Now the ancient Druid had remarked, an hour ago, that
+the wrists showed no signs of a bruise!
+
+This detail confounded him anew, first, because it proved to him that
+this was really the woman whom he had crucified, who had been taken down
+and who was now before his eyes and, secondly, because he was suddenly
+reentering the domain of miracles; and Véronique's arm appeared to him,
+alternately, under two different aspects, as the arm of a living,
+uninjured woman and as the arm of a lifeless, tortured victim.
+
+His trembling hand clutched the dagger, clinging to it, in a manner of
+speaking, as the only instrument of salvation. Once more in his confused
+brain the idea arose of striking, not to kill, because the woman must be
+dead, but of striking the invisible enemy who persisted in thwarting him
+and of conjuring all the evil spells at one blow.
+
+He raised his arm. He chose the spot. His face assumed an expression of
+extreme savagery, lit up with the joy of murder. And suddenly he swooped
+down, striking, like a madman, at random, ten times, twenty times, with
+a frenzied unbridling of all his instincts.
+
+"Take that and die!" he spluttered. "Another! . . . Die! . . . And let's
+have an end of this . . . . You are the evil genius that's been
+resisting me . . . and now I'm killing you . . . . Die and leave me
+free! . . . Die so that I shall be the only master!"
+
+He stopped to take breath. He was exhausted. And while his haggard eyes
+stared blindly at the horrible spectacle of the lacerated corpse, he
+received the strange impression that a shadow was placing itself between
+him and the sunlight which came through the opening overhead.
+
+"Do you know what you remind me of?" said a voice.
+
+He was dumbfounded. The voice was not Otto's voice. And the voice
+continued, while he stood with his head lowered and stupidly holding his
+dagger planted in the dead woman's body:
+
+"Do you know what you remind me of, Vorski? You remind me of the bulls
+of my country. Let me tell you that I am a Spaniard and a great
+frequenter of the bull-ring. Well, when our bulls have gored some poor
+old cab-horse that is only fit for the knacker's yard, they go back to
+the body, from time to time, turn it over, gore it again, keep on
+killing it and killing it. You're like them, Vorski. You're seeing red.
+In order to defend yourself against the living enemy, you fall
+desperately on the enemy who is no longer alive; and it is death itself
+that you are trying to kill. What a silly beast you're making of
+yourself!"
+
+Vorski raised his head. A man was standing in front of him, leaning
+against one of the uprights of the dolmen. The man was of the average
+height, with a slender, well-built figure, and seemed to be still young,
+notwithstanding his hair, which was turning grey at the temples. He wore
+a blue-serge jacket with brass buttons and a yachting-cap with a black
+peak.
+
+"Don't trouble to rack your brains," he said. "You don't know me. Let me
+introduce myself: Don Luis Perenna, grandee of Spain, a noble of many
+countries and Prince of Sarek. Yes, don't be surprised: I've taken the
+title of Prince of Sarek, having a certain right to it."
+
+Vorski looked at him without understanding. The man continued:
+
+"You don't seem very familiar with the Spanish nobility. Still, just
+test your memory: I am the gentleman who was to come to the rescue of
+the d'Hergemont family and the people of Sarek, the one whom your son
+François was expecting with such simple faith . . . . Well, are you
+there? . . . Look, your companion, the trusty Otto, he seems to
+remember! . . . But perhaps my other name will convey more to you? It is
+well and favourably known. Lupin . . . . Arsène Lupin . . . ."
+
+Vorski watched him with increasing terror and with a misgiving which
+became more accentuated at each word and movement of this new adversary.
+Though he recognized neither the man nor the man's voice, he felt
+himself dominated by a will of which he had already felt the power and
+lashed by the same sort of implacable irony. But was it possible?
+
+"Everything is possible," Don Luis Perenna went on, "including even what
+you think. But I repeat, what a silly beast you're making of yourself!
+Here are you playing the bold highwayman, the dashing adventurer; and
+you're frightened the moment you set eyes on one of your crimes! As long
+as it was just a matter of happy-go-lucky killing, you went straight
+ahead. But the first little jolt throws you off the track. Vorski kills;
+but whom has he killed? He has no idea. Is Véronique d'Hergemont dead or
+alive? Is she fastened to the oak on which you crucified her? Or is she
+lying here, on the sacrificial table? Did you kill her up there or down
+here? You can't tell. You never even thought, before you stabbed, of
+looking to see what you were stabbing. The great thing for you is to
+slash away with all your might, to intoxicate yourself with the sight
+and smell of blood and to turn live flesh into a hideous pulp. But look,
+can't you, you idiot? When a man kills, he's not afraid of killing and
+he doesn't hide the face of his victim. Look, you idiot!"
+
+He himself stopped over the corpse and unwrapped the veil around the
+head.
+
+Vorski had closed his eyes. Kneeling, with his chest pressed against the
+dead woman's legs, he remained without moving and kept his eyes
+obstinately shut.
+
+"Are you there now?" chuckled Don Luis. "If you daren't look, it's
+because you've guessed or because you're on the point of guessing, you
+wretch: am I right? Your idiot brain is working it out: am I right?
+There were two women in the Isle of Sarek and two only, Véronique and
+the other . . . the other whose name was Elfride, I understand: am I
+right? Elfride and Véronique, your two wives, one the mother of
+Raynold, the other the mother of François. So, if it's not François'
+mother whom you tied on the cross and whom you've just stabbed, then
+it's Raynold's mother. If the woman lying here, with her wrists bruised
+by the torture, is not Véronique, then she's Elfride. There's no mistake
+possible: Elfride, your wife and your accomplice; Elfride, your willing
+and subservient tool. And you know it so well that you would rather take
+my word for it than risk a glance and see the livid face of that dead
+woman, of your obedient accomplice tortured by yourself. You miserable
+poltroon!"
+
+Vorski had hidden his head in his folded arms. He was not weeping.
+Vorski could not weep. Nevertheless, his shoulders were jerking
+convulsively; and his whole attitude expressed the wildest despair.
+
+This lasted for some time. Then the shaking of the shoulders ceased.
+Still Vorski did not stir.
+
+"Upon my word, you move me to pity, you poor old buffer!" said Don Luis.
+"Were you so fond of your Elfride as all that? She had become a habit,
+what? A mascot? Well, what can I say? People as a rule aren't such fools
+as you! They know what they're doing. They look before they leap! Hang
+it all, they stop to think! Whereas you go floundering about in crime
+like a new-born babe struggling in the water! No wonder you sink and go
+to the bottom . . . . The ancient Druid, for instance: is he dead or
+alive? Did Conrad stick a dagger into his back, or was I playing the
+part of that diabolical personage? In short, are there an ancient Druid
+and a Spanish grandee, or are the two individuals one and the same?
+This is all a sealed book to you, my poor fellow. And yet you'll want an
+explanation. Shall I help you?"
+
+If Vorski had acted without thinking, it was easy to see, when he raised
+his head, that on this occasion he had taken time to reflect; that he
+knew very well the desperate resolve which circumstances called upon him
+to take. He was certainly ready for an explanation, as Don Luis
+suggested, but he wanted it dagger in hand, with the implacable
+intention of using it. Slowly, with his eyes fixed on Don Luis and
+without concealing his purpose, he had freed his weapon and was rising
+to his feet.
+
+"Take care," said Don Luis. "Your knife is faked as your revolver was.
+It's made of tin-foil."
+
+Useless pleasantry! Nothing could either hasten or delay the methodical
+impulse which urged Vorski to the supreme contest. He walked round the
+sacred table and took up his stand in front of Don Luis.
+
+"You're sure it's you who have been thwarting all my plans these last
+few days?"
+
+"The last twenty-four hours, no longer. I arrived at Sarek twenty-four
+hours ago."
+
+"And you're determined to go on to the end?"
+
+"Yes; and farther still, if possible."
+
+"Why? And in what capacity?"
+
+"As a sportsman; and because you fill me with disgust."
+
+"So there's no arrangement to be made?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Would you refuse to go shares with me?"
+
+"Ah, now you're talking!"
+
+"You can have half, if you like."
+
+"I'd rather have the lot."
+
+"Meaning that the God-Stone . . ."
+
+"The God-Stone belongs to me."
+
+Further speech was idle. An adversary of that quality has to be made
+away with; if not, he makes away with you. Vorski had to choose between
+the two endings; there was not a third.
+
+Don Luis remained impassive, leaning against the pillar. Vorski towered
+a head above him: and at the same time Vorski had the profound
+impression that he was equally Don Luis' superior in every other
+respect, in strength, muscular power and weight. In these conditions,
+there was no need to hesitate. Moreover, it seemed out of the question
+that Don Luis could even attempt to defend himself or to evade the blow
+before the dagger fell. His parry was bound to come late unless he moved
+at once. And he did not move. Vorski therefore struck his blow with all
+certainty, as one strikes a quarry that is doomed beforehand.
+
+And yet--it all happened so quickly and so inexplicably that he could
+not tell what occurred to bring about his defeat--and yet, three or four
+seconds later, he was lying on the ground, disarmed, defeated, with his
+two legs feeling as though they had been broken with a stick and his
+right arm hanging limp and paining him till he cried out.
+
+Don Luis did not even trouble to bind him. With one foot on the big,
+helpless body, half-bending over his adversary, he said:
+
+"For the moment, no speeches. I'm keeping one in reserve for you. It'll
+strike you as a bit long, but it'll show you that I understand the whole
+business from start to finish, that is to say, much better than you do.
+There's one doubtful point: and you're going to clear it up. Where's
+your son François d'Hergemont?"
+
+Receiving no reply, he repeated:
+
+"Where's François d'Hergemont?"
+
+Vorski no doubt considered that chance had placed an unexpected trump in
+his hands and that the game was perhaps not absolutely lost, for he
+maintained an obstinate silence.
+
+"You refuse to answer?" asked Don Luis. "One . . . two . . . three
+times: do you refuse? . . . Very well!"
+
+He gave a low whistle.
+
+Four men appeared from a corner of the hall, four men with swarthy
+faces, resembling Moors. Like Don Luis, they wore jackets and sailor's
+caps with shiny peaks.
+
+A fifth person arrived almost immediately afterwards, a wounded French
+officer, who had lost his right leg and wore a wooden leg in its place.
+
+"Ah, is that you, Patrice?" said Don Luis.
+
+He introduced him formally:
+
+"Captain Patrice Belval, my greatest friend; Mr. Vorski, a Hun."
+
+Then he asked:
+
+"No news, captain? You haven't found François?"
+
+"No."
+
+"We shall have found him in an hour and then we'll be off. Are all our
+men on board?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Everything all right there?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+He turned to the three Moors:
+
+"Pick up the Hun," he ordered, "and carry him up to the dolmen outside.
+You needn't bind him: he couldn't move a limb if he tried. Oh, one
+minute!"
+
+He leant over Vorski's ear:
+
+"Before you start, have a good look at the God-Stone, between the flags
+in the ceiling. The ancient Druid wasn't lying to you. It _is_ the
+miraculous stone which people have been seeking for centuries . . . and
+which I discovered from a distance . . . by correspondence. Say good-bye
+to it, Vorski! You will never see it again, if indeed you are ever to
+see anything in this world."
+
+He made a sign with his hand.
+
+The four Moors briskly took up Vorski and carried him to the back of the
+hall, on the side opposite the communicating passage.
+
+Turning to Otto, who had stood throughout this scene without moving:
+
+"I see that you're a reasonable fellow, Otto, and that you understand
+the position. You won't get up to any tricks?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then we shan't touch you. You can come along without fear."
+
+He slipped his arm through Belval's and the two walked away, talking.
+
+They left the hall of the God-Stone through a series of three crypts,
+each of which was on a higher level than the one before. The last of
+them also led to a vestibule. At the far side of the vestibule, a ladder
+stood against a lightly-built wall in which an opening had been newly
+made. Through this they emerged into the open air, in the middle of a
+steep path, cut into steps, which wound about as it climbed upwards in
+the rock and which brought them to that part of the cliff to which
+François had taken Véronique on the previous morning. It was the Postern
+path. From above they saw, hanging from two iron davits, the boat in
+which Véronique and her son had intended to take flight. Not far away,
+in a little bay, was the long, tapering outline of a submarine.
+
+Turning their backs to the sea, Don Luis and Patrice Belval continued on
+their way towards the semicircle of oaks and stopped near the Fairies'
+Dolmen, where the Moors were waiting for them. They had set Vorski down
+at the foot of the tree on which his last victim had died. Nothing
+remained on the tree to bear witness to the abominable torture except
+the inscription, "V. d'H."
+
+"Not too tired, Vorski?" asked Don Luis. "Legs feeling better?"
+
+Vorski gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Don Luis. "You're pinning your faith to your last
+card. Still, I would have you know that I also hold a few trumps and
+that I have a rather artistic way of playing them. The tree behind you
+should be more than enough to tell you so. Would you like another
+instance? While you're getting muddled with all your murders and are no
+longer sure of the number of your victims, I bring them to life again.
+Look at that man coming from the Priory. Do you see him? He's wearing a
+blue reefer with brass buttons, like myself. He's one of your dead men,
+isn't he? You locked him up in one of the torture-chambers, intending
+to cast him into the sea; and it was your sweet cherub of a Raynold who
+hurled him down before Véronique's eyes. Do you remember? Stéphane
+Maroux his name was. He's dead, isn't he? No, not a bit of it! A wave of
+my magic wand; and he's alive again. Here he is. I take him by the hand.
+I speak to him."
+
+Going up to the newcomer, he shook hands with him and said:
+
+"You see, Stéphane? I told you that it would be all over at twelve
+o'clock precisely and that we should meet at the dolmen. Well, it is
+twelve o'clock precisely."
+
+Stéphane seemed in excellent health. He showed not a sign of a wound.
+Vorski looked at him in dismay and stammered:
+
+"The tutor . . . . Stéphane Maroux . . . ."
+
+"The man himself," said Don Luis. "What did you expect? Here again you
+behaved like an idiot. The adorable Raynold and you throw a man into the
+sea and don't even think of leaning over to see what becomes of him. I
+pick him up . . . . And don't be too badly staggered, old chap. It's
+only the beginning; and I have a few more tricks in my bag. Remember,
+I'm a pupil of the ancient Druid's! . . . Well, Stéphane, where do we
+stand? What's the result of your search?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"François?"
+
+"Not to be found."
+
+"And All's Well? Did you send him on his master's tracks, as we
+arranged?"
+
+"Yes, but he simply took me down the Postern path to François' boat."
+
+"There's no hiding-place on that side?"
+
+"Not one."
+
+Don Luis was silent and began to pace up and down before the dolmen. He
+seemed to be hesitating at the last moment, before beginning the series
+of actions upon which he had resolved. At last, addressing Vorski, he
+said:
+
+"I have no time to waste. I must leave the island in two hours. What's
+your price for setting François free at once?"
+
+"François fought a duel with Raynold," Vorski replied, "and was beaten."
+
+"You lie. François won."
+
+"How do you know? Did you see them fight?"
+
+"No, or I should have interfered. But I know who was the victor."
+
+"No one knows except myself. They were masked."
+
+"Then, if François is dead, it's all up with you."
+
+Vorski took time to think. The argument allowed of no debate. He put a
+question in his turn:
+
+"Well, what do you offer me?"
+
+"Your liberty."
+
+"And with it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Yes, the God-Stone."
+
+"_Never!_"
+
+Don Luis shouted the word, accompanying it with a vehement gesture of
+the hand, and he explained:
+
+"Never! Your liberty, yes, if the worst comes to the worst and because I
+know you and know that, denuded of all resources, you will simply go and
+get yourself hanged somewhere else. But the God-Stone would spell
+safety, wealth, the power to do evil . . ."
+
+"That's exactly why I want it," said Vorski; "and, by telling me what
+it's worth, you make me all the more difficult in the matter of
+François."
+
+"I shall find François all right. It's only a question of patience; and
+I shall stay two or three days longer, if necessary."
+
+"You will not find him; and, if you do, it will be too late."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has had nothing to eat since yesterday."
+
+This was said coldly and maliciously. There was a silence; and Don Luis
+retorted:
+
+"In that case, speak, if you don't want him to die."
+
+"What do I care? Anything rather than fail in my task and stop midway
+when I've got so far. The end is within sight: those who get in my way
+must look out for themselves."
+
+"You lie. You won't let that boy die."
+
+"I let the other die right enough!"
+
+Patrice and Stéphane made a movement of horror, while Don Luis laughed
+frankly:
+
+"Capital! There's no hypocrisy about you. Plain and convincing
+arguments. By Jingo, how beautiful to see a Hun laying bare his soul!
+What a glorious mixture of vanity and cruelty, of cynicism and
+mysticism! A Hun has always a mission to fulfil, even when he's
+satisfied with plundering and murdering. Well, you're better than a Hun:
+you're a Superhun!"
+
+And he added, still laughing:
+
+"So I propose to treat you as Superhun. Once more, will you tell me
+where François is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"All right."
+
+He turned to the four Moors and said, very calmly:
+
+"Go ahead, lads."
+
+It was a matter of a second. With really extraordinary precision of
+gesture and as though the act had been separated into a certain number
+of movements, learnt and rehearsed beforehand like a military drill,
+they picked up Vorski, fastened him to the rope which hung to the tree,
+hoisted him up without paying attention to his cries, his threats or his
+shouts and bound him firmly, as he had bound his victim.
+
+"Howl away, old chap," said Don Luis, serenely, "howl as much as you
+like! You can only wake the sisters Archignat and the others in the
+thirty coffins! Howl away, my lad! But, good Lord, how ugly you are!
+What a face!"
+
+He took a few steps back, to appreciate the sight better:
+
+"Excellent! You look very well there; it couldn't be better. Even the
+inscription fits: 'V. d'H.,' Vorski de Hohenzollern! For I presume that,
+as the son of a king, you are allied to that noble house. And now,
+Vorski, all you have to do is to lend me an attentive ear: I'm going to
+make you the little speech I promised you."
+
+Vorski was wriggling on the tree and trying to burst his bonds. But,
+since every effort merely served to increase his suffering, he kept
+still and, to vent his fury, began to swear and blaspheme most hideously
+and to inveigh against Don Luis:
+
+"Robber! Murderer! It's you that are the murderer, it's you that are
+condemning François to death! François was wounded by his brother; it's
+a bad wound and may be poisoned . . . ."
+
+Stéphane and Patrice pleaded with Don Luis. Stéphane expressed his
+alarm:
+
+"You can never tell," he said. "With a monster like that, anything is
+possible. And suppose the boy's ill?"
+
+"It's bunkum and blackmail!" Don Luis declared. "The boy's quite well."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Well enough, in any case, to wait an hour. In an hour the Superhun will
+have spoken. He won't hold out any longer. Hanging loosens the tongue."
+
+"And suppose he doesn't hold out at all?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Suppose he himself expires, from too violent an effort, heart-failure,
+a clot of blood to the head?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, his death would destroy the only hope we have of learning where
+François is hidden, his death would be François' undoing!"
+
+But Don Luis was inflexible:
+
+"He won't die!" he cried. "Vorski's sort doesn't die of a stroke! No,
+no, he'll talk, he'll talk within an hour. Just time enough to deliver
+my lecture."
+
+Patrice Belval began to laugh in spite of himself:
+
+"Have you a lecture to deliver?"
+
+"Rather! And such a lecture!" exclaimed Don Luis. "The whole adventure
+of the God-Stone! An historical treatise, a comprehensive view extending
+from prehistoric times to the thirty murders committed by the Superhun!
+By Jove, it's not every day that one has the opportunity of reading a
+paper like that; and I wouldn't miss it for a kingdom! Mount the
+platform, Don Luis, and fire away with your speech!"
+
+He took his stand opposite Vorski:
+
+"You lucky dog, you! You're in the front seats and you won't lose a
+word. I expect you're glad, eh, to have a little light thrown upon your
+darkness? We've been floundering about so long that it's time we had a
+definite lead. I assure you I'm beginning not to know where I am. Just
+think, a riddle which has lasted for centuries and centuries and which
+you've merely muddled still further."
+
+"Thief! Robber!" snarled Vorski.
+
+"Insults? Why? If you're not comfortable, let's talk about François."
+
+"Never! He shall die."
+
+"Not at all, you'll talk. I give you leave to interrupt me. When you
+want me to stop, all you've got to do is to whistle a tune: '_En
+r'venant de la r'vue_,' or _Tipperary_. I'll at once send to see; and,
+if you've told the truth, we'll leave you here quietly, Otto will untie
+you and you can be off in François' boat. Is it agreed?"
+
+He turned to Stéphane and Patrice Belval:
+
+"Sit down, my friends," he said, "for it will take rather long. But, if
+I am to be eloquent, I need an audience . . . and an audience who will
+also act as judges."
+
+"We're only two," said Patrice.
+
+"You're three."
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"Here's your third."
+
+It was All's Well. He came trotting along, without hurrying more than
+usual. He frisked round Stéphane, wagged his tail to Don Luis, as though
+to say, "I know you: you and I are pals," and squatted on his
+hind-quarters, with the air of one who does not wish to disturb people.
+
+"That's right, All's Well!" cried Don Luis. "You also want to hear all
+about the adventure. Your curiosity does you honour; and I won't
+disappoint you."
+
+Don Luis appeared to be delighted. He had an audience, a full bench of
+judges. Vorski was writhing on his tree. It was an exquisite moment.
+
+He cut a sort of caper which must have reminded Vorski of the ancient
+Druid's pirouettes and, drawing himself up, bowed, imitated a lecturer
+taking a sip of water from a tumbler, rested his hands on an imaginary
+table and at last began, in a deliberate voice:
+
+"Ladies and Gentlemen:
+
+"On the twenty-fifth of July, in the year seven hundred and thirty-two
+B. C. . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE HALL OF THE KINGS OF BOHEMIA
+
+
+Don Luis interrupted himself after delivering his opening sentence and
+stood enjoying the effect produced. Captain Belval, who knew his friend,
+was laughing heartily. Stéphane continued to look anxious. All's Well
+had not budged.
+
+Don Luis continued:
+
+"Let me begin by confessing, ladies and gentlemen, that my object in
+fixing my date so precisely was to some extent to stagger you. In
+reality I could not tell you within a few centuries the exact date of
+the scene which I shall have the honour of describing to you. But what I
+can guarantee is that it is laid in that country of Europe which to-day
+we call Bohemia and at the spot where the little industrial town of
+Joachimsthal now stands. That, I hope, is fairly circumstantial. Well,
+on the morning of the day when my story begins, there was great
+excitement among one of those Celtic tribes which had settled a century
+or two earlier between the banks of the Danube and the sources of the
+Elbe, amidst the Hyrcanian forests. The warriors, assisted by their
+wives, were striking their tents, collecting the sacred axes, the bows
+and arrows, gathering up the pottery, the bronze and tin implements,
+loading the horses and the oxen.
+
+"The chiefs were here, there and everywhere, attending to the smallest
+details. There was neither tumult nor disorder. They started early in
+the direction of a tributary of the Elbe, the Eger, which they reached
+towards the end of the day. Here boats were waiting, guarded by a
+hundred of the picked warriors who had been sent ahead. One of these
+boats was conspicuous for its size and the richness of its decoration. A
+long yellow cloth was stretched from side to side. The chief of chiefs,
+the King, if you prefer, climbed on the stern thwart and made a speech
+which I will spare you, because I do not wish to shorten my own, but
+which may be summed up as follows: the tribe was emigrating to escape
+the cupidity of the neighbouring populations. It is always sad to leave
+the places where one has dwelt. But it made no difference to the men of
+the tribe, because they were carrying with them their most valuable
+possession, the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the divinity that
+protected them and made them formidable and great among the greatest, in
+short, the stone that covered the tomb of their kings.
+
+"And the chief of chiefs, with a solemn gesture, drew the yellow cloth
+and revealed a block of granite in the shape of a slab about two yards
+by one, granular in appearance and dark in colour, with a few glittering
+scales gleaming in its substance.
+
+"There was a single shout raised by the crowd of men and women; and all,
+with outstretched arms, fell flat on their faces in the dust.
+
+"Then the chief of chiefs took up a metal sceptre with a jewelled
+handle, which lay on the block of granite, brandished it on high and
+spoke:
+
+"'The all-powerful staff shall not leave my hand until the miraculous
+stone is in a place of safety. The all-powerful staff is born of the
+miraculous stone. It also contains the fire of heaven, which gives life
+or death. While the miraculous stone was the tomb of my forefathers, the
+all-powerful staff never left their hands on days of disaster or of
+victory. May the fire of heaven lead us! May the Sun-god light our way!'
+
+"He spoke: and the whole tribe set out upon its journey."
+
+Don Luis struck an attitude and repeated, in a self-satisfied tone:
+
+"He spoke: and the whole tribe set out upon its journey."
+
+Patrice Belval was greatly amused; and Stéphane, infected by his
+hilarity, began to feel more cheerful. But Don Luis now addressed his
+remarks to them:
+
+"There's nothing to laugh at! All this is very serious. It's not a story
+for children who believe in conjuring tricks and sleight of hand, but a
+real history, all the details of which will, as you shall see, give rise
+to precise, natural and, in a sense, scientific explanations. Yes,
+ladies and gentlemen, scientific: I am not afraid of the word. We are
+here on scientific ground; and Vorski himself will regret his cynical
+merriment."
+
+Don Luis took a second sip of water and continued:
+
+"For weeks and months the tribe followed the course of the Elbe; and one
+evening, on the stroke of half-past nine, reached the sea-board, in the
+country which afterwards became the country of the Frisians. It
+remained there for weeks and months, without finding the requisite
+security. It therefore determined upon a fresh exodus.
+
+"This time it was a naval exodus. Thirty boats put out to sea--observe
+this number thirty, which was that of the families composing the
+tribe--and for weeks and months they wandered from shore to shore,
+settling first in Scandinavia, next among the Saxons, driven off,
+putting to sea again and continuing their voyage. And I assure you it
+was really a strange, moving, impressive sight to see this vagrant tribe
+dragging in its wake the tombstone of its kings and seeking a safe,
+inaccessible and final refuge in which to conceal its idol, protect it
+from the attack of its enemies, celebrate its worship and employ it to
+consolidate the tribal power.
+
+"The last stage was Ireland; and it was here that, one day, after they
+had dwelt in the green isle for half a century or perhaps a century,
+after their manners had acquired a certain softening by contact with
+nations which were already less barbarous, the grandson or
+great-grandson of the great chief, himself a great chief, received one
+of the emissaries whom he maintained in the neighbouring countries. This
+one came from the continent. He had discovered the miraculous refuge. It
+was an almost unapproachable island, protected by thirty rocks and
+having thirty granite monuments to guard it.
+
+"Thirty! The fateful number! It was an obvious summons and command from
+the mysterious deities. The thirty galleys were launched once more and
+the expedition set forth.
+
+"It succeeded. They took the island by assault. The natives they simply
+exterminated. The tribe settled down; and the tombstone of the Kings of
+Bohemia was installed . . . in the very place which it occupies to-day
+and which I showed to our friend Vorski. Here I must interpolate a few
+historical data of the greatest significance. I will be brief."
+
+Adopting a professorial tone, Don Luis explained:
+
+"The island of Sarek, like all France and all the western part of
+Europe, had been inhabited for thousands of years by a race known as the
+Liguri, the direct descendants of the cave-dwellers part of whose
+manners and customs they had retained. They were mighty builders, those
+Liguri, who, in the neolithic period, perhaps under the influence of the
+great civilizations of the east, had erected their huge blocks of
+granite and built their colossal funeral chambers.
+
+"It was here that our tribe found and made great use of a system of
+caves and natural crypts adapted by the patient hand of man and of a
+cluster of enormous monuments which struck the mystic and superstitious
+imagination of the Celts.
+
+"We find therefore that, after the first or wandering phase, there
+begins for the God-Stone a period of rest and worship which we will call
+the Druidical period. It lasted for a thousand or fifteen hundred years.
+The tribe became mingled with the neighbouring tribes and probably lived
+under the protection of some Breton king. But, little by little, the
+ascendancy had passed from the chiefs to the priests; and these priests,
+that is to say, the Druids, assumed an authority which increased in the
+course of the generations that followed.
+
+"They owed this authority, beyond all doubt, to the miraculous stone.
+True, they were the priests of a religion accepted by all and also the
+instructors of Gallic childhood (it seems certain, incidentally, that
+the cells under the Black Heath were those of a Druid convent, or rather
+a sort of university); true, in obedience to the practices of the time,
+they presided over human sacrifices and ordained the gathering of the
+mistletoe, the vervain and all the magic herbs; but, before all, in the
+island of Sarek, they were the guardians and the possessors of the stone
+which gave life or death. Placed above the hall of the underground
+sacrifices, it was at that time undoubtedly visible in the open air; and
+I have every reason to believe that the Fairies' Dolmen, which we now
+see here, then stood in the place known as the Calvary of the Flowers
+and sheltered the God-Stone. It was there that ailing and crippled
+persons and sickly children were laid to recover their health and
+strength. It was on the sacred slab that barren women became fruitful,
+on the sacred slab that old men felt their energies revive.
+
+"In my eyes it dominates the whole of the legendary and fabled past of
+Brittany. It is the radiating centre of all the superstitions, all the
+beliefs, all the fears and hopes of the country. By virtue of the stone
+or of the magic sceptre which the archdruid wielded and with which he
+burnt men's flesh or healed their sores at will, we see the beautiful
+tales of romance springing spontaneously into being, tales of the
+knights of the Round Table, tales of Merlin the wizard. The stone is at
+the bottom of every mystery, at the heart of every symbol. It is
+darkness and light in one, the great riddle and the great explanation."
+
+Don Luis uttered these last words with a certain exaltation. He smiled:
+
+"Don't let yourself be carried away, Vorski. We'll keep our enthusiasm
+for the narrative of your crimes. For the moment, we are at the climax
+of the Druidical period, a period which lasted far beyond the Druids
+through long centuries during which, after the Druids had gone, the
+miraculous stone was exploited by the sorcerers and soothsayers. And
+thus we come gradually to the third period, the religious period, that
+is to say, actually to the progressive decline of all that constituted
+the glory of Sarek: pilgrimages, commemorative festivals and so forth.
+
+"The Church in fact was unable to put up with that crude fetish-worship.
+As soon as she was strong enough, she was bound to fight against the
+block of granite which attracted so many believers and perpetuated so
+hateful a religion. The fight was an unequal one; and the past
+succumbed. The dolmen was moved to where we stand, the slab of the kings
+of Bohemia was buried under a layer of earth and a Calvary rose at the
+very spot where the sacrilegious miracles were once wrought.
+
+"And, over and above that, there was the great oblivion!
+
+"Let me explain. The practices were forgotten. The rites were forgotten
+and all that constituted the history of a vanished cult. But the
+God-Stone was not forgotten. Men no longer knew where it was. In time
+they even no longer knew what it was. But they never ceased to speak of
+and believe in the existence of something which they called the
+God-Stone. From mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, they
+handed down on to one another fabulous and terrible stories, which
+became farther and farther removed from reality, which formed a more and
+more vague and, for that matter, a more and more frightful legend, but
+which kept alive in their imaginations the recollection of the God-Stone
+and, above all, its name.
+
+"This persistence of an idea in men's memories, this survival of a fact
+in the annals of a country had the logical result that, from time to
+time, some enquiring person would try to reconstruct the prodigious
+truth. Two of these enquiring persons, Brother Thomas, a member of the
+Benedictine Order, who lived in the middle of the fifteenth century, and
+the man Maguennoc, in our own time, played an important part. Brother
+Thomas was a poet and an illuminator about whom we possess not many
+details, a very bad poet, to judge by his verses, but as an illuminator
+ingenuous and not devoid of talent. He left a sort of missal in which he
+related his life at Sarek Abbey and drew the thirty dolmens of the
+island, the whole accompanied by instances, religious quotations and
+predictions after the manner of Nostradamus. It was this missal,
+discovered by Maguennoc aforesaid, that contained the famous page with
+the crucified women and the prophecy relating to Sarek; it was this
+missal that I myself found and consulted last night in Maguennoc's
+bedroom.
+
+"He was an odd person, this Maguennoc, a belated descendant of the
+sorcerers of old; and I strongly suspect him of playing the ghost on
+more than one occasion. You may be sure that the white-robed,
+white-bearded Druid whom people declared that they had seen on the sixth
+day of the moon, gathering the mistletoe, was none other than Maguennoc.
+He too knew all about the good old recipes, the healing herbs, the way
+to work up the soil so as to make it yield enormous flowers. One thing
+is certain, that he explored the mortuary crypts and the hall of the
+sacrifices, that it was he who purloined the magic stone contained in
+the knob of the sceptre and that he used to enter these crypts by the
+opening through which we have just come, in the middle of the Postern
+path, of which he was obliged each time to replace the screen of stones
+and pebbles. It was he also who gave M. d'Hergemont the page from the
+missal. Whether he confided the result of his last explorations to him
+and how much exactly M. d'Hergemont knew does not matter now. Another
+figure looms into sight, one who is henceforth the embodiment of the
+whole affair and claims all our attention, an emissary dispatched by
+fate to solve the riddle of the centuries, to carry out the orders of
+the mysterious powers and to pocket the God-Stone. I am speaking of
+Vorski."
+
+Don Luis swallowed his third glass of water and, beckoning to the
+accomplice, said:
+
+"Otto, you had better give him a drink, if he's thirsty. Are you
+thirsty, Vorski?"
+
+Vorski on his tree seemed exhausted, incapable of further effort or
+resistance. Stéphane and Patrice once more intervened on his behalf,
+fearing an immediate consummation.
+
+"Not at all, not at all!" cried Don Luis. "He's all right and he'll hold
+out until I've finished my speech, if it were only because he wants to
+know. You're tremendously interested, aren't you, Vorski?"
+
+"Robber! Murderer!" spluttered the wretched man.
+
+"Splendid! So you still refuse to tell us where François is hidden?"
+
+"Murderer! Highwayman!"
+
+"Then stay where you are, old chap. As you please. There's nothing
+better for the health than a little suffering. Besides, you have caused
+so much suffering to others, you dirty scum!"
+
+Don Luis uttered these words harshly and in accents of anger which one
+would hardly have expected from a man who had already beheld so many
+crimes and battled with so many criminals. But then this last one was
+out of all proportion.
+
+Don Luis continued:
+
+"About thirty-five years ago, a very beautiful woman, who came from
+Bohemia but who was of Hungarian descent, visited the watering-places
+that swarm around the Bavarian lakes and soon achieved a great
+reputation as a fortune-teller palmist, seer and medium. She attracted
+the attention of King Louis II, Wagner's friend, the man who built
+Bayreuth, the crowned mad-man famed for his extravagant fancies. The
+intimacy between the king and the clairvoyant lasted for some years. It
+was a violent, restless intimacy, interrupted by the frequent whims of
+the king; and it ended tragically on the mysterious evening when Louis
+of Bavaria threw himself out of his boat into the Starnbergersee. Was it
+really, as the official version stated, suicide following on a fit of
+madness? Or was it a case of murder, as some have held? Why suicide?
+Why murder? These are questions that have never been answered. But one
+fact remains: the Bohemian woman was in the boat with Louis II and next
+day was escorted to the frontier and expelled from the country after her
+money and jewellery had been taken from her.
+
+"She brought back with her from this adventure a young monster, four
+years old, Alex Vorski by name, which young monster lived with his
+mother near the village of Joachimsthal in Bohemia. Here, in course of
+time, she instructed him in all the practices of hypnotic suggestion,
+extralucidity and trickery. Endowed with a character of unexampled
+violence but a very weak intellect, a prey to hallucinations and
+nightmares, believing in spells, in predictions, in dreams, in occult
+powers, he took legends for history and falsehoods for reality. One of
+the numerous legends of the mountains in particular had impressed his
+imagination: it was the one that describes the fabulous power of a stone
+which, in the dim recesses of the past, was carried away by evil genii
+and which was one day to be brought back by the son of a king. The
+peasants still show the cavity left by the stone in the side of a hill.
+
+"'The king's son is yourself,' his mother used to say. 'And, if you find
+the missing stone, you will escape the dagger that threatens you and
+will yourself become a king.'
+
+"This ridiculous prophecy and another, no less fantastic, in which the
+Bohemian woman announced that her son's wife would perish on the cross
+and that he himself would die by the hand of a friend, were among those
+which exercised the most direct influence on Vorski when the fateful
+hour struck. And I will go straight on to this fateful hour, without
+saying any more of what our conversations of yesterday and last night
+revealed to the three of us or of what we have been able to reconstruct.
+There is no reason to repeat in full the story which you, Stéphane, told
+Véronique d'Hergemont in your cell. There is no need to inform you,
+Patrice, you, Vorski, or you, All's Well, of events with which you are
+familiar, such as your marriage, Vorski, or rather your two marriages,
+first with Elfride and next with Véronique d'Hergemont, the kidnapping
+of François by his grandfather, the disappearance of Véronique, the
+searches which you set on foot to find her, your conduct at the outbreak
+of the war and your life in the internment-camps. These are mere trifles
+besides the events which are on the point of taking place. We have
+cleared up the history of the God-Stone. It is the modern adventure,
+which you, Vorski, have woven around the God-Stone, that we are now
+about to unravel.
+
+"In the beginning it appears like this: Vorski is imprisoned in an
+internment-camp near Pontivy in Brittany. He no longer calls himself
+Vorski, but Lauterbach. Fifteen months before, after a first escape and
+at the moment when the court martial was about to sentence him to death
+as a spy, he escaped again, spent some time in the Forest of
+Fontainebleau, there found one of his former servants, a man called
+Lauterbach, a German like himself and like himself an escaped prisoner,
+killed him, dressed the body in his clothes and made the face up in such
+a way as to give him the appearance of his murderer, Vorski. The
+military police were taken in and had the sham Vorski buried at
+Fontainebleau. As for the real Vorski, he had the bad luck to be
+arrested once more, under his new name of Lauterbach, and to be interned
+in the camp at Pontivy.
+
+"So much for Vorski. On the other hand, Elfride, his first wife, the
+formidable accomplice in all his crimes and herself a German--I have
+some particulars about her and their past life in common which are of no
+importance and need not be mentioned here--Elfride, I was saying, his
+accomplice, was hidden with their son Raynold in the cells of Sarek. He
+had left her there to spy on M. d'Hergemont and through him to ascertain
+Véronique d'Hergemont's whereabouts. The reasons which prompted the
+wretched woman's actions I do not know. It may have been blind devotion,
+fear of Vorski, an instinctive love of evil-doing, hatred of the rival
+who supplanted her. It doesn't matter. She has suffered the most
+terrible punishment. Let us speak only of the part she played, without
+seeking to understand how she had the courage to live for three years
+underground, never going out except at night, stealing food for herself
+and her son and patiently awaiting the day when she could serve and save
+her lord and master.
+
+"I am also ignorant of the series of events that enabled her to take
+action, nor do I know how Vorski and Elfride managed to communicate. But
+what I know most positively is that Vorski's escape was long and
+carefully prepared by his first wife. Every detail arranged. Every
+precaution was taken. On the fourteenth of September of last year,
+Vorski escaped, taking with him the two accomplices with whom he had
+made friends during his captivity and whom he had, so to speak,
+enrolled: the Otto and Conrad whom you know of.
+
+"It was an easy journey. At every cross-roads, an arrow, accompanied by
+a number, one of a series, and surmounted by the initials 'V. d'H.,'
+which initials were evidently selected by Vorski, pointed out the road
+which he was to follow. At intervals, in a deserted cabin, some
+provisions were hidden under a stone or in a truss of hay. The way led
+through Guémené, Le Faouet and Rosporden and ended on the beach at
+Beg-Meil.
+
+"Here Elfride and Raynold came by night to fetch the three fugitives in
+Honorine's motor-boat and to land them near the Druid cells under the
+Black Heath. They clambered up. Their lodgings were ready for them and,
+as you have seen, were fairly comfortable. The winter passed; and
+Vorski's plan, which as yet was very vague, became more precisely
+outlined from day to day.
+
+"Strange to say, at the time of his first visit to Sarek, before the
+war, he had not heard of the secret of the island. It was Elfride who
+told him the legend of the God-Stone in the letters which she wrote to
+him at Pontivy. You can imagine the effect produced by this revelation
+on a man like Vorski. The God-Stone was bound to be the miraculous stone
+wrested from the soil of his native land, the stone which was to be
+discovered by the son of a king and which, from that time onward, would
+give him power and royalty. Everything that he learnt later confirmed
+his conviction. But the great fact that dominates his subterranean life
+at Sarek was the discovery of Brother Thomas' prophecy in the course of
+the last month. Fragments of this prophecy were lingering on every hand,
+which he was able to pick up by listening to the conversations of the
+fisherfolk in the evenings, lurking under the windows of the cottages or
+on the roofs of the barns. Within mortal memory, the people of Sarek
+have always feared some terrible events, connected with the discovery
+and the disappearance of the invisible stone. There was likewise always
+a question of wrecks and of women crucified. Besides, Vorski was
+acquainted with the inscription on the Fairies' Dolmen, about the thirty
+victims destined for the thirty coffins, the martyrdom of the four
+women, the God-Stone which gives life or death. What a number of
+disturbing coincidences for a mind as weak as his!
+
+"But the prophecy itself, found by Maguennoc in the illuminated missal,
+constitutes the essential factor of the whole story. Remember that
+Maguennoc had torn out the famous page and that M. d'Hergemont, who was
+fond of drawing, had copied it several times and had unconsciously given
+to the principal woman the features of his daughter Véronique. Vorski
+became aware of the existence of the original and of one of the copies
+when he saw Maguennoc one night looking at them by the light of his
+lamp. Immediately, in the darkness, he contrived somehow to pencil in
+his note-book the fifteen lines of this precious document. He now knew
+and understood everything. He was dazzled by a blinding light. All the
+scattered elements were gathered into a whole, forming a compact and
+solid truth. There was no doubt possible: the prophecy concerned _him_!
+And it was _his_ mission to realize it!
+
+"This, I repeat, is the essence of the whole matter. From that moment,
+Vorski's path was lighted by a beacon. He held in his hand Ariadne's
+clue of thread. The prophecy represented to him an unimpeachable text.
+It was one of the Tables of the Law. It was the Bible. And yet think of
+the stupidity, of the unspeakable silliness of those fifteen lines
+scribbled at a venture, with no other motive than rhyme! Not a phrase
+showing a sign of inspiration! Not a spark, not a gleam! Not a trace of
+the sacred madness that uplifted the Delphian pythoness or provoked the
+delirious visions of a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel! Nothing! Syllables,
+rhymes! Nothing! Less than nothing! But quite enough to enlighten the
+gentle Vorski and to make him burn with all the enthusiasm of a
+neophyte!
+
+"Stéphane, Patrice, listen to the prophecy of Brother Thomas. The
+Superhun wrote it down on ten different pages of his note-book, so that
+he might wear it ten times next to his skin and engrave it in the very
+substance of his being. Here's one of the pages. Stéphane, Patrice,
+listen! Listen, O faithful Otto! And you yourself, Vorski, for the last
+time listen to the doggerel of Brother Thomas! Listen as I read!
+
+    "In Sarek's isle, in year fourteen and three,
+    There will be shipwrecks, terrors, grief and crimes,
+    Death-chambers, arrows, poison there will be
+    And woe, four women crucified on tree!
+    For thirty coffins victims thirty times.
+
+    "Before his mother's eyes, Abel kills Cain.
+    The father then, coming forth of Almain,
+    A cruel prince, obeying destiny,
+    By thousand deaths and lingering agony,
+    His wedded wife one night of June hath slain.
+
+    "Fire and loud noise will issue from the earth
+    In secrecy where the great treasure lies
+    And man again will on the stone set eyes
+    Once stolen from wild men in byegone days
+    O'er the sea; the God-Stone which gives life or death."
+
+Don Luis Perenna had begun to read in emphatic tones, bringing out the
+imbecility of the words and the triteness of the rhythm. He ended in a
+hollow voice, without resonance, which died away in an anguished
+silence. The whole adventure appeared in all its horror.
+
+He continued:
+
+"You understand how the facts are linked together, don't you Stéphane,
+you who were one of the victims and who knew or know the others? So do
+you, Patrice, don't you? In the fifteenth century, a poor monk, with a
+disordered imagination and a brain haunted by infernal visions,
+expresses his dreams in a prophecy which we will describe as bogus,
+which rests on no serious data, which consists of details depending on
+the exigencies of the rhyme or rhythm and which certainly, both in the
+poet's mind and from the standpoint of originality, possesses no more
+value than if the poet had drawn the words at random out of a bag. The
+story of the God-Stone, the legends and traditions, none of all this
+provides him with the least element of prophecy. The worthy man evolved
+the prophecy from his own consciousness, not intending any harm and
+simply to add a text of some sort to the margin of the devilish drawing
+which he had so painstakingly illuminated. And he is so pleased with it
+that he takes the trouble to take a pointed implement and engrave a few
+lines of it on one of the stones of the Fairies' Dolmen.
+
+"Well, four or five centuries later, the prophetic page falls into the
+hands of a Superhun, a criminal lunatic, a madman eaten up with vanity.
+What does the Superhun see in it? A diverting puerile fantasy? A
+meaningless caprice? Not a bit of it! He regards it as a document of the
+highest interest, one of those documents which the most Superhunnish of
+his fellowcountrymen love to pore over, with this difference, that the
+document to his mind possesses a miraculous origin. He looks upon it as
+the Old and New Testament, the Scriptures which explain and expound the
+Sarek law, the very gospel of the God-Stone. And this gospel designates
+him, Vorski, him, the Superhun, as the Messiah appointed to execute the
+decrees of Providence.
+
+"To Vorski, there is no possibility of mistake. No doubt he enjoys the
+business, because it is a matter of stealing wealth and power. But this
+question occupies a secondary position. He is above all obeying the
+mystic impulse of a race which believes itself to be marked out by
+destiny and which flatters itself that it is always fulfilling missions,
+a mission of regeneration as well as a mission of pillage, arson and
+murder. And Vorski reads his mission set out in full in Brother Thomas'
+prophecy. Brother Thomas says explicitly what has to be done and names
+him, Vorski, in the plainest terms, as the man of destiny. Is he not a
+king's son, in other words a 'prince of Almain?' Does he not come from
+the country where the stone was stolen from the 'wild men o'er the sea?'
+Has he not also a wife who is doomed, in the seer's prophecies, to the
+torture of the cross? Has he not two sons, one gentle and gracious as
+Abel, and the other wicked and uncontrolled as Cain?
+
+"These proofs are enough for him. He now has his mobilization-papers,
+his marching-orders in his pocket. The gods have indicated the objective
+upon which he is to march; and he marches. True, there are a few living
+people in his path. So much the better; it is all part of the programme.
+For it is after all these living people have been killed and, moreover,
+killed in the manner announced by Brother Thomas that the task will be
+done, the God-Stone released and Vorski, the instrument of destiny,
+crowned king. Therefore, let's turn up our sleeves, take our trusty
+butcher's knife in hand, and get to work! Vorski will translate Brother
+Thomas' nightmare into real life!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"CRUEL PRINCE, OBEYING DESTINY"
+
+
+Don Luis once more addressed himself to Vorski:
+
+"We're agreed, aren't we, Kamerad? All that I'm saying exactly expresses
+the truth?"
+
+Vorski had closed his eyes, his head was drooping, and the veins on his
+temple were immoderately swollen. To prevent any interference by
+Stéphane, Don Luis exclaimed:
+
+"You will speak, my fine fellow! Ah, the pain is beginning to grow
+serious, is it? The brain is giving way? . . . Remember, just one
+whistle, a bar or two of _Tipperary_ and I interrupt my speech . . . .
+You won't? You're not ripe yet? So much the worse for you! . . . And
+you, Stéphane, have no fear for François. I answer for everything. But
+no pity for this monster, please! No, no and again no! Don't forget that
+he prepared and contrived everything of his own free will! Don't forget
+. . . But I'm getting angry. What's the use?"
+
+Don Luis unfolded the page of the note-book on which Vorski had written
+down the prophecy and, holding it under his eyes, continued:
+
+"What remains to be said is not so important, once the general
+explanation is accepted. Nevertheless, we must go into detail to some
+slight extent, show the mechanism of the affair imagined and built up
+by Vorski and lastly come to the part played by our attractive ancient
+Druid . . . . So we are now in the month of June. This is the season
+fixed for the execution of the thirty victims. It was evidently
+appointed by Brother Thomas because the rhythm of his verse called for a
+month in one syllable, just as the year fourteen and three was selected
+because three rhymes with be and tree and just as Brother Thomas decided
+upon the number of thirty victims because thirty is the number of the
+Sarek reefs and coffins. But Vorski takes it as a definite command.
+Thirty victims are needed in June '17. They will be provided. They will
+be provided on condition that the twenty-nine inhabitants of Sarek--we
+shall see presently that Vorski has his thirtieth victim handy--consent
+to stay on the island and await their destruction. Well, Vorski suddenly
+hears of the departure of Honorine and Maguennoc. Honorine will come
+back in time. But how about Maguennoc? Vorski does not hesitate: he
+sends Elfride and Conrad on his tracks, with instructions to kill him
+and to wait. He hesitates the less because he believes, from certain
+words which he has overheard, that Maguennoc has taken with him the
+precious stone, the miraculous gem which must not be touched but which
+must be left in its leaden sheath (this is the actual phrase used by
+Maguennoc)!
+
+"Elfride and Conrad therefore set out. One morning, at an inn, Elfride
+mixes poison with the coffee which Maguennoc is drinking (the prophecy
+has stated that there will be poison). Maguennoc continues his journey.
+But in an hour or two he is seized with intolerable pain and dies,
+almost immediately, on the bank by the road-side. Elfride and Conrad
+come up and go through his pockets. They find nothing, no gem, no
+precious stone. Vorski's hopes have not been realized. All the same, the
+corpse is there. What are they to do with it? For the time being, they
+fling it into a half-demolished hut, which Vorski and his accomplices
+had visited some months before. Here Véronique d'Hergemont discovers the
+body . . . and an hour later fails to find it there. Elfride and Conrad,
+keeping watch close at hand, have taken it away and hidden it, still for
+the time being, in the cellars of a little empty country-house.
+
+"There's one victim accounted for. We may observe, in passing, that
+Maguennoc's predictions relating to the order in which the thirty
+victims are to be executed--beginning with himself--have no basis. The
+prophecy doesn't mention such a thing. In any case, Vorski goes to work
+at random. At Sarek he carries off François and Stéphane Maroux and
+then, both as a measure of precaution and in order to cross the island
+without attracting attention and to enter the Priory more easily, he
+dresses himself in Stéphane's clothes, while Raynold puts on François'.
+The job before them is an easy one. The only people in the house are an
+old man, M. d'Hergemont, and a woman, Marie Le Goff. As soon as these
+are got rid of, the rooms and Maguennoc's in particular will be
+searched. Vorski, as yet unaware of the result of Elfride's expedition,
+would not be surprised if Maguennoc had left the miraculous jewel at the
+Priory.
+
+"The first to fall is the cook, Marie Le Goff, whom Vorski takes by the
+throat and stabs with a knife. But it so happens that the ruffian's
+face gets covered with blood; and, seized with one of those fits of
+cowardice to which he is subject, he runs away, after loosing Raynold
+upon M. d'Hergemont.
+
+"The fight between the boy and the old man is a long one. It is
+continued through the house and, by a tragic chance, ends before
+Véronique d'Hergemont's eyes. M. d'Hergemont is killed. Honorine arrives
+at the same moment. She drops, making the fourth victim.
+
+"Matters now begin to go quickly. Panic sets in during the night. The
+people of Sarek, frightened out of their wits, seeing that Maguennoc's
+predictions are being fulfilled and that the hour of the disaster which
+has so long threatened their island is about to strike, make up their
+minds to go. This is what Vorski and his son are waiting for. Taking up
+their position in the motor-boat which they have stolen, they rush after
+the runaways and the abominable hunt begins, the great disaster foretold
+by Brother Thomas:
+
+"'There will be shipwrecks, terrors, grief and crimes.'
+
+"Honorine, who witnesses the scene and whose brain is already greatly
+upset, goes mad and throws herself from the cliff.
+
+"Thereupon we have a lull of a few days, during which Véronique
+d'Hergemont explores the Priory and the island without being disturbed.
+As a matter of fact, after their successful hunt, leaving only Otto, who
+spends his time drinking in the cells, the father and son have gone off
+in the boat to fetch Elfride and Conrad and to bring back Maguennoc's
+body and fling it in the water within sight of Sarek, since Maguennoc
+of necessity has one of the thirty coffins earmarked for his reception.
+
+"At that moment, that is when he returns to Sarek, Vorski's bag numbers
+twenty-four victims. Stéphane and François are prisoners, guarded by
+Otto. The rest consists of four women reserved for crucifixion,
+including the three sisters Archignat, all locked up in their
+wash-house. It is their turn next. Véronique d'Hergemont tries to
+release them, but it is too late. Waylaid by the band, shot at by
+Raynold, who is an expert archer, the sisters Archignat are wounded by
+arrows (for arrows, see the prophecy) and fall into the enemy's hands.
+That same evening they are strung up on the three oaks, after Vorski has
+first relieved them of the fifty thousand-franc notes which they carried
+concealed on their persons. Total: twenty-nine victims. Who will be the
+thirtieth? Who will be the fourth woman?"
+
+Don Luis paused and continued:
+
+"As to this, the prophecy speaks very plainly in two places, each of
+which complements the other:
+
+"'Before his mother's eyes, Abel kills Cain.'
+
+"And, a few lines lower down:
+
+"'His wedded wife one night in June hath slain.'
+
+"Vorski, from the moment when he became aware of this document, had
+interpreted the two lines in his own fashion. Being, in fact, unable at
+that time to dispose of Véronique, for whom he has vainly been hunting
+all over France, he temporizes with the decrees of destiny. The fourth
+woman to be tortured shall be a wife, but she shall be his first wife,
+Elfride. And this will not be absolutely contrary to the prophecy,
+which, if need be, can apply to the mother of Cain just as well as to
+the mother of Abel. And observe that the other prophecy, that which was
+communicated to him by word of mouth in the old days, also failed to
+specify the woman who was to die:
+
+"'Vorski's wife shall perish on the cross.'
+
+"Which wife? Elfride.
+
+"So his dear, devoted accomplice is to perish. It's terrible for Vorski;
+it breaks his heart. But the god Moloch must be obeyed; and, considering
+that Vorski, to accomplish his task, decided to sacrifice his son
+Raynold, it would be inexcusable if he refused to sacrifice his wife
+Elfride. So all will be well.
+
+"But, suddenly, a dramatic incident occurs. While pursuing the sisters
+Archignat, he sees and recognizes Véronique d'Hergemont!
+
+"A man like Vorski could not fail to behold in this yet another favour
+vouchsafed by the powers above. The woman whom he has never forgotten is
+sent to him at the very moment when she is to take her place in the
+great adventure. She is given to him as a miraculous victim which he can
+destroy . . . or conquer. What a prospect! And how the heavens brighten
+with unexpected light! Vorski loses his head. He becomes more and more
+convinced that he is the Messiah, the chosen one, the apostle,
+missionary, the man who is 'obeying destiny.' He is linked up with the
+line of the high-priests, the guardians of the God-Stone. He is a Druid,
+an arch-druid; and, as such, on the night when Véronique d'Hergemont
+burns the bridge, on the sixth night after the moon, he goes and cuts
+the sacred mistletoe with a golden sickle!
+
+"And the siege of the Priory begins. I will not linger over this.
+Véronique d'Hergemont has told you the whole story, Stéphane, and we
+know her sufferings, the part played by the delightful All's Well, the
+discovery of the underground passage and the cells, the fight for
+François, the fight for you, Stéphane, whom Vorski imprisoned in one of
+the torture-cells called 'death-chambers' in the prophecy. Here you are
+surprised with Madame d'Hergemont. The young monster, Raynold, hurls you
+into the sea. François and his mother escape. Unfortunately, Vorski and
+his band succeed in reaching the Priory. François is captured. His
+mother joins him. And then . . . and then the most tragic scenes ensue,
+scenes upon which I will not enlarge: the interview between Vorski and
+Véronique d'Hergemont, the duel between the two brothers, between Cain
+and Abel, before Véronique d'Hergemont's very eyes. For the prophecy
+insists upon it:
+
+"'Before his mother's eyes, Abel kills Cain.'
+
+"And the prophecy likewise demands that she shall suffer beyond
+expression and that Vorski shall be subtle in doing evil. 'A cruel
+prince,' he puts marks on the two combatants; and, when Abel is on the
+point of being defeated, he himself wounds Cain so that Cain may be
+killed.
+
+"The monster is mad. He's mad and drunk. The climax is close at hand. He
+drinks and drinks; for Véronique d'Hergemont's martyrdom is to take
+place that evening:
+
+    "'By thousand deaths and lingering agony,
+    His wedded wife one night of June hath slain.'
+
+"The thousand deaths Véronique has already undergone; and the agony will
+be lingering. The hour comes. Supper, funeral procession, preparations,
+the setting up of the ladder, the binding of the victim and then . . .
+and then the ancient Druid!"
+
+Don Luis gave a hearty laugh as he uttered the last words:
+
+"Here, upon my word, things begin to get amusing! From this moment
+onward, tragedy goes hand in hand with comedy, the gruesome with the
+burlesque. Oh, that ancient Druid, what a caution! To you, Stéphane, and
+you, Patrice, who were behind the scenes, the story is devoid of
+interest. But to you, Vorski, what exciting revelations! . . . I say,
+Otto, just put the ladder against the trunk of the tree, so that your
+employer can rest his feet on the top rung. Is that easier for you,
+Vorski? Mark you, my little attention does not come from any ridiculous
+feeling of pity. Oh, dear, no! But I'm afraid that you might go phut;
+and besides I want you to be in a comfortable position to listen to the
+ancient Druid's confession."
+
+He had another burst of laughter. There was no doubt about it: the
+ancient Druid was a great source of entertainment to Don Luis.
+
+"The ancient Druid's arrival," he said, "introduces order and reason
+into the adventure. What was loose and vague becomes more compact.
+Incoherent crime turns into logical punishment. We have no longer blind
+obedience to Brother Thomas' doggerel, but the submission to common
+sense, the rigorous method of a man who knows what he wants and who has
+no time to lose. Really, the ancient Druid deserves all our admiration.
+
+"The ancient Druid, whom we may call either Don Luis Perenna or Arsène
+Lupin--you suspect that, don't you?--knew very little of the story when
+the periscope of his submarine, the _Crystal Stopper_, emerged in sight
+of the coast of Sarek at mid-day yesterday."
+
+"Very little?" Stéphane Maroux cried, in spite of himself.
+
+"One might say, nothing," Don Luis declared.
+
+"What! All those facts about Vorski's past, all those precise details
+about what he did at Sarek, about his plans and the part played by
+Elfride and the poisoning of Maguennoc?"
+
+"I learnt all that here, yesterday," said Don Luis.
+
+"But from whom? We never left one another?"
+
+"Believe me when I say that the ancient Druid, when he landed yesterday
+on the coast of Sarek, knew nothing at all. But the ancient Druid lays
+claim to be at least as great a favourite of the gods as you are,
+Vorski. And in fact he at once had the luck to see, on a lonely little
+beach, our friend Stéphane, who himself had had the luck to fall into a
+pretty deep pool of water and thus to escape the fate which you and your
+son had prepared for him. Rescue-work, conversation. In half an hour,
+the ancient Druid had the facts. Forthwith, investigations. He ended by
+reaching the cells, where he found in yours, Vorski, a white robe which
+he needed for his own use and a scrap of paper with a copy of the
+prophecy written by yourself. Excellent. The ancient Druid knows the
+enemy's plans.
+
+"He begins by following the tunnel down which François and his mother
+fled, but is unable to pass because of the subsidence which has been
+produced. He retraces his steps and comes out on the Black Heath.
+Exploration of the island. Meeting with Otto and Conrad. The enemy burns
+the foot-bridge. It is six o'clock in the evening. Query: how to get to
+the Priory? Stéphane suggests, by the Postern path. The ancient Druid
+returns to the _Crystal Stopper_. They circumnavigate the island under
+the direction of Stéphane, who knows all the channels--and besides, my
+dear Vorski, the _Crystal Stopper_ is a very docile submarine. She can
+slip in anywhere; the ancient Druid had her built to his own
+designs--and at last they land at the spot where François' boat is
+hanging. Here, meeting with All's Well, who is sleeping under the boat,
+the ancient Druid introduces himself. Immediate display of sympathy.
+They make a start. But, half-way up the ascent, All's Well branches off.
+At this place the wall is the cliff is, so to speak, patched with
+movable blocks of stone. In the middle of these stones is an opening, an
+opening made by Maguennoc, as the ancient Druid discovered later, in
+order to enter the hall of sacrifices and the mortuary crypts. Thus, the
+ancient Druid finds himself in the thick of the plot, master above
+ground and below. Only, it is eight o'clock in the evening.
+
+"As regards François, there is no immediate anxiety. The prophecy says,
+'Abel kills Cain.' But Véronique d'Hergemont was to perish 'one night of
+June.' Had she undergone the horrible martyrdom? Was it too late to
+rescue her?"
+
+Don Luis turned to Stéphane:
+
+"You remember, Stéphane, the agony through which you and the ancient
+Druid passed and your relief at discovering the tree prepared with the
+inscription, 'V. d'H.' The tree has no victim on it yet. Véronique will
+be saved; and in fact we hear a sound of voices coming from the Priory.
+It is the grim procession. It slowly climbs the grassy slope amid the
+thickening darkness. The lantern is waved. A halt is called. Vorski
+spouts and holds forth. The last scene is at hand. Soon we shall rush to
+the assault and Véronique will be delivered.
+
+"But here an incident occurs which will amuse you, Vorski. Yes, we make
+a strange discovery, my friends and I: we find a woman prowling round
+the dolmen, who hides as we come up. We seize her. Stéphane recognizes
+her by the light of an electric torch. Do you know who it was, Vorski? I
+give you a hundred guesses. Elfride! Yes, Elfride, your accomplice, the
+one whom you meant to crucify at first! Curious, wasn't it? In an
+extreme state of excitement, half crazy, she tells us that she consented
+to the duel between the two boys on your promise that her son would be
+the victor and kill Véronique's son. But you had locked her up, in the
+morning; and, in the evening, when she succeeded in making her escape,
+it was Raynold's dead body that she found. She has now come to be
+present at the torture of the rival whom she detests and then to avenge
+herself on you and kill you, my poor old chap.
+
+"A capital idea! The ancient Druid approves; and, while you go up to the
+dolmen and Stéphane keeps an eye on you, he continues to question
+Elfride. But, lo and behold, Vorski, at the sound of your voice, the
+jade begins to kick! She veers round unexpectedly. Her master's voice
+stimulates her to an unparalleled display of ardour. She wants to see
+you, to warn you of your danger, to save you; and suddenly she makes a
+rush at the ancient Druid with a dagger in her hand. The ancient Druid
+is obliged, in self-defence, to knock her down, half-stunning her; and
+the sight of this moribund woman at once suggests to him a means of
+turning the incident to good account. The wretched creature is tied up
+in the twinkling of an eye. The ancient Druid intends you yourself to
+punish her, Vorski, and make her undergo the fate which you had reserved
+for her before. So he slips his robe on Stéphane, gives him his
+instructions, shoots an arrow in your direction the moment you come up
+and, while you go running in pursuit of a white robe, does a
+conjuring-trick and substitutes Elfride for Véronique, the first wife
+for the second. How? That's my business. All you need know is that the
+trick was played and succeeded to perfection!" Don Luis stopped to draw
+breath. One would really have thought, from his familiar and
+confidential tone, that he was telling Vorski an amusing story, a good
+joke, which Vorski ought to be the first to laugh at.
+
+"That's not all," he continued. "Patrice Belval and some of my
+Moors--you may as well know that we have eighteen of them on board--have
+been working in the underground rooms. There's no getting away from the
+prophecy. The moment the wife has expired
+
+    "'Fire and loud noise will issue from the earth.
+    In secrecy where the great treasure lies.'
+
+"Of course, Brother Thomas never knew where the great treasure lay, nor
+did any one else. But the ancient Druid has guessed; and he wants Vorski
+to receive his signal and to drop ready-roasted into his mouth. For this
+he needs an outlet issuing near the Fairies' Dolmen. Captain Belval
+looks for one and finds it. They clear an old stairway. They clear the
+inside of the dead tree. They take from the submarine some
+dynamite-cartridges and signal-rockets and place them in position. And,
+when you, Vorski, from your perch, start proclaiming like a herald,
+'She's dead! The fourth woman has died upon the cross!' bang, bang,
+bang! Thunder, flame, uproar, the whole bag of tricks. That does it: you
+are more and more the darling of the gods, the pet of destiny; and you
+burn with the noble longing to fling yourself down the chimney and
+gobble up the God-Stone. Next day, therefore, after sleeping off your
+brandy and your rum, you start to work again, smiling. You killed your
+thirty victims, according to the rites prescribed by Brother Thomas. You
+have surmounted every obstacle. The prophecy is fulfilled.
+
+    "'And man again will on the stone set eyes
+    Once stolen from wild men in bye-gone days
+    O'er sea: the God-stone which gives life or death.'
+
+"The ancient Druid has no choice but to give in and to hand you the key
+of Paradise. But first, of course, a little interlude, a few capers and
+wizard's tricks, just for a bit of fun. And then hey for the God-Stone
+guarded by the Sleeping Beauty!"
+
+Don Luis nimbly cut a few of those capers of which he seemed so fond.
+Then he said to Vorski:
+
+"Well, old chap, I have a vague impression that you've had enough of my
+speech and that you would prefer to reveal François' hiding-place to me
+at once, rather then stay here any longer. I'm awfully sorry, but you
+really must learn how the matter stands with the Sleeping Beauty and the
+unexpected presence of Véronique d'Hergemont. However, two minutes will
+be sufficient. Pardon me."
+
+Dropping the character of the ancient Druid and speaking in his own
+name, Don Luis continued:
+
+"What you want to know is why I took Véronique d'Hergemont to that place
+after snatching her from your clutches. The answer is very simple. Where
+would you have me take her? To the submarine? An absurd suggestion! The
+sea was rough that night and Véronique needed rest. To the Priory?
+Never! That would have been too far from the scene of operations and I
+should have had no peace of mind. In reality there was only one place
+sheltered from the storm and sheltered from attack; and that was the
+hall of sacrifices. That was why I took her there and why she was
+sleeping there, quietly, under the influence of a strong narcotic, when
+you saw her. I confess that the pleasure of treating you to this
+spectacle counted for something in my decision. And how splendidly I was
+rewarded! Oh, if you could have seen the face you pulled! Such a ghastly
+sight! Véronique raised from the dead! Véronique brought back to life!
+So horrible was the vision that you ran away helter-skelter.
+
+"But to cut a long story short: you find the exit blocked. Thereupon you
+change your mind. Conrad returns to the offensive. He attacks me by
+stealth while I am preparing to move Véronique d'Hergemont to the
+submarine. Conrad receives a mortal blow from one of the Moors. Second
+comic interlude. Conrad, dressed up in the ancient Druid's robe, is laid
+on the floor in one of the crypts; and of course your first thought is
+to leap on him and wreak your vengeance on him. And, when you see
+Elfride's body, which has taken the place of Véronique d'Hergemont in
+the sacred table, whoosh . . . you jump on that too and reduce the woman
+whom you have already crucified to a bleeding pulp! Blunder upon
+blunder! And the end of the whole story likewise strikes a comic note.
+You are strung up on the pillory while I deliver straight at you a
+speech which does for you and which proves that, if you have won the
+God-Stone by virtue of your thirty coffins, I am taking possession of it
+by my own intrinsic virtue. There's the whole adventure for you, my dear
+Vorski. Except for a few secondary incidents, or some others, of greater
+importance, which there is no need for you to know, you know as much as
+I do. You've been quite comfortable and have had lots of time to think.
+So I am confidently expecting your answer about François. Come, out with
+your little song:
+
+    "'It's a long, long way to Tipperary.
+    It's a long way to go . . . .'
+
+"Well? Are you feeling in a chatty mood?"
+
+Don Luis had climbed a few rungs. Stéphane and Patrice had come near and
+were anxiously listening. It was evident that Vorski meant to speak.
+
+He had opened his eyes and was staring at Don Luis with a look of
+mingled hatred and fear. This extraordinary man must have appeared to
+him as one of those persons against whom it is absolutely useless to
+fight and to whom it is equally useless to appeal for compassion. Don
+Luis represented the conqueror; and, in the presence of one stronger
+than yourself, there is nothing for it but to yield in all humility.
+Besides, Vorski was incapable of further resistance. The torture was
+becoming intolerable.
+
+He spoke a few words in an unintelligible voice.
+
+"A little louder, please," said Don Luis. "I can't hear. Where's
+François?"
+
+He climbed the ladder. Vorski stammered:
+
+"Shall I be free?"
+
+"On my word of honour. We shall all leave this place, except Otto, who
+will release you."
+
+"At once?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"Then . . ."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"Well, François is alive."
+
+"You mutton-head. I know that. But where is he?"
+
+"Tied into the boat."
+
+"The one hanging at the foot of the cliff?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Don Luis struck his forehead with his hand:
+
+"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! . . . Don't mind: I'm speaking of myself. Yes, I
+ought to have guessed that! Why, All's Well was sleeping under the boat,
+peacefully, like a good dog sleeping beside his master! Why, when we
+sent All's Well on François' trail, he led Stéphane straight to the
+boat. It's true enough, there are times when the cleverest of us behave
+like simpletons! But you, Vorski, did you know that there was a way down
+there and a boat?"
+
+"I knew it since yesterday."
+
+"And, you artful dog, you intended to skedaddle in her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Vorski, you shall skedaddle in her, with Otto. I'll leave her for
+you. Stéphane!"
+
+But Stéphane Maroux was already running towards the cliff, escorted by
+All's Well.
+
+"Release him, Stéphane," cried Don Luis.
+
+And he added, addressing the Moors:
+
+"Help him, you others. And get the submarine under way. We shall sail in
+ten minutes."
+
+He turned to Vorski:
+
+"Good-bye, my dear chap . . . . Oh, just one more word! Every
+well-regulated adventure contains a love-story. Ours appears to be
+without one, for I should never dare to allude to the feelings that
+urged you towards the sainted woman who bore your name. And yet I must
+tell you of a very pure and noble affection. Did you notice the
+eagerness with which Stéphane flew to François' assistance? Obviously he
+loves his young pupil, but he loves the mother still more. And, since
+everything that pleases Véronique d'Hergemont is bound to please you, I
+wish to admit that he is not indifferent to her, that his wonderful love
+has touched her heart, that it was with real joy that she saw him
+restored to her this morning and that this will all end in a wedding
+. . . as soon as she's a widow, of course. You follow me, don't you? The
+only obstacle to their happiness is yourself. Therefore, as you are a
+perfect little gentleman, you will not like to . . . But I need not go
+on. I rely on your good manners to die as soon as you can. Good-bye, old
+fellow, I won't offer you my hand, but my heart's with you. Otto, in ten
+minutes, unless you hear to the contrary, release your employer. You'll
+find the boat at the bottom of the cliff. Good luck, my friends!"
+
+It was finished. The battle between Don Luis and Vorski was ended: and
+the issue had not been in doubt for a single instant. From the first
+minute, one of the two adversaries had so consistently dominated the
+other, that the latter, in spite of all his daring and his training as a
+criminal, had been nothing more than a grotesque, absurd, disjointed
+puppet in his opponent's hands. After succeeding in the entire execution
+of his plan, after attaining and surpassing his object, he, the master
+of events, in the moment of victory, found himself suddenly strung up on
+the tree of torture; and there he remained, gasping and captive like an
+insect pinned to a strip of cork.
+
+Without troubling any further about his victims, Don Luis went off with
+Patrice Belval, who could not help saying to him:
+
+"All the same, you're letting those vile scoundrels down very lightly!"
+
+"Pooh, it won't be long before they get themselves nabbed elsewhere,"
+said Don Luis, chuckling. "What do you expect them to do?"
+
+"Well, first of all, to take the God-Stone."
+
+"Out of the question! It would need twenty men to do that, with a
+scaffolding and machinery. I myself am giving up the idea for the
+present. I shall come back after the war."
+
+"But, look here, Don Luis, what is this miraculous stone?"
+
+"Ah, now you're asking something!" said Don Luis, without making further
+reply.
+
+They set out; and Don Luis, rubbing his hands, said:
+
+"I worked the thing well. It's not much over twenty-four hours since we
+landed at Sarek. And the riddle had lasted twenty-four centuries. One
+century an hour. My congratulations, Lupin."
+
+"I should be glad to offer you mine, Don Luis," said Patrice Belval,
+"but they are not worth as much as those of an expert like yourself."
+
+When they reached the sands of the little beach, François' boat had
+already been lowered and was empty. Farther away, on the right, the
+_Crystal Stopper_ was floating on the calm sea. François came running up
+to them, stopped a few yards from Don Luis and looked at him with
+wide-open eyes:
+
+"I say," he murmured, "then it's you? It's you I was expecting?"
+
+"Faith," said Don Luis, laughing. "I don't know if you were expecting me
+. . . but I'm sure it's me!"
+
+"You . . . you . . . Don Luis Perenna! . . . That is to say . . ."
+
+"Hush, no other names! Perenna's enough for me . . . . Besides, we won't
+talk about me, if you don't mind. I was just a chance, a gentleman who
+happened to drop in at the right moment. Whereas you . . . by Jove,
+youngster, but you've done jolly well! . . . So you spent the night in
+the boat?"
+
+"Yes, under the tarpaulin, lashed to the bottom and tightly gagged."
+
+"Uncomfortable?"
+
+"Not at all. I hadn't been there ten minutes when All's Well appeared.
+So . . ."
+
+"But the man, the scoundrel: what had he threatened to do to you?"
+
+"Nothing. After the duel, while the others were attending to my
+opponent, he brought me down here, pretending that he was going to take
+me to mother and put us both on board the boat. Then, when we got to the
+boat, he laid hold of me without a word."
+
+"Do you know the man? Do you know his name?"
+
+"I know nothing about him. All I can say is that he was persecuting us,
+mother and me."
+
+"For reasons which I shall explain to you, François. In any case, you
+have nothing to fear from him now."
+
+"Oh, but you haven't killed him?"
+
+"No, but I have put it out of his power to do any more harm. This will
+all be explained to you; but I think that, for the moment, the most
+urgent thing is that we should go to your mother."
+
+"Stéphane told me that she was resting over there, in the submarine, and
+that you had saved her too. Does she expect me?"
+
+"Yes; we had a talk last night, she and I, and I promised to find you. I
+felt that she trusted me. All the same, Stéphane, you had better go
+ahead and prepare her."
+
+The _Crystal Stopper_ lay at the end of a reef of rocks which formed a
+sort of natural jetty. Some ten or twelve Moors were running to and fro.
+Two had drawn apart and were whispering together. Two of them were
+holding a gangway which Don Luis and François crossed a minute later.
+
+In one of the cabins, arranged as a drawing-room, Véronique lay
+stretched on a couch. Her pale face bore the marks of the unspeakable
+suffering which she had undergone. She seemed very weak, very weary. But
+her eyes, full of tears, were bright with happiness.
+
+François rushed into her arms. She burst into sobs, without speaking a
+word.
+
+Opposite them, All's Well, seated on his haunches, beat the air with his
+fore-paws and looked at them, with his head a little on one side:
+
+"Mother," said François, "Don Luis is here."
+
+She took Don Luis' hand and pressed a long kiss upon it, while François
+murmured:
+
+"You saved mother . . . . You saved us both . . . ."
+
+Don Luis interrupted him:
+
+"Will you give me pleasure, François? Well, don't thank me. If you
+really want to thank somebody, there, thank your friend All's Well. He
+does not look as if he had played a very important part in the piece.
+And yet, compared with the scoundrel who persecuted you, he was the good
+genius, always discreet, intelligent, modest and silent."
+
+"So are you!"
+
+"Oh, I am neither modest nor silent; and that's why I admire All's Well.
+Here, All's Well, come along with me and, for goodness' sake, stop
+sitting up! You might have to do it all night, for they will be shedding
+tears together for hours, the mother and son . . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE GOD-STONE
+
+
+The _Crystal Stopper_ was running on the surface of the water. Don Luis
+sat talking, with Stéphane, Patrice and All's Well, who were gathered
+round him:
+
+"What a swine that Vorski is!" he said. "I've seen that breed of monster
+before, but never one of his calibre."
+
+"Then, in that case . . ." Patrice Belval objected.
+
+"In that case?" echoed Don Luis.
+
+"I repeat what I've said already. You hold a monster in your hands and
+you let him go free! To say nothing of its being highly immoral, think
+of all the harm that he can do, that he inevitably will do! It's a heavy
+responsibility to take upon yourself, that of the crimes which he will
+still commit."
+
+"Do you think so too, Stéphane?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"I'm not quite sure what I think," replied Stéphane, "because, to save
+François, I was prepared to make any concession. But, all the same
+. . ."
+
+"All the same, you would rather have had another solution?"
+
+"Frankly, yes. So long as that man is alive and free, Madame d'Hergemont
+and her son will have everything to fear from him."
+
+"But what other solution was there? I promised him his liberty in return
+for François' immediate safety. Ought I to have promised him only his
+life and handed him over to the police?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Captain Belval.
+
+"Very well. But, in that case, the police would institute enquiries, and
+by discovering the fellow's real identity bring back to life the husband
+of Véronique d'Hergemont and the father of François. Is that what you
+want?"
+
+"No, no!" cried Stéphane, eagerly.
+
+"No, indeed," confessed Patrice Belval, a little uneasily. "No, that
+solution is no better; but what astonishes me is that you, Don Luis, did
+not hit upon the right one, the one which would have satisfied us all."
+
+"There was only one solution," Don Luis Perenna said, plainly. "There
+was only one."
+
+"Which was that?"
+
+"Death."
+
+There was a pause. Then Don Luis resumed:
+
+"My friends, I did not form you into a court simply as a joke; and you
+must not think that your parts as judges are played because the trial
+seems to you to be over. It is still going on; and the court has not
+risen. That is why I want you to answer me honestly: do you consider
+that Vorski deserves to die?"
+
+"Yes," declared Patrice.
+
+And Stéphane approved:
+
+"Yes, beyond a doubt."
+
+"My friends," Don Luis continued, "your verdict is not sufficiently
+solemn. I beseech you to utter it formally and conscientiously, as
+though you were in the presence of the culprit. I ask you once more:
+what penalty did Vorski deserve?"
+
+They raised their hands and, one after the other, answered:
+
+"Death."
+
+Don Luis whistled. One of the Moors ran up.
+
+"Two pairs of binoculars, Hadji."
+
+The man brought the glasses and Don Luis handed them to Stéphane and
+Patrice:
+
+"We are only a mile from Sarek," he said. "Look towards the point: the
+boat should have started."
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, presently.
+
+"Do you see her, Stéphane?"
+
+"Yes, only . . ."
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"There's only one passenger."
+
+"Yes," said Patrice, "only one passenger."
+
+They put down their binoculars and one of them said:
+
+"Only one has got away: Vorski evidently. He must have killed Otto, his
+accomplice."
+
+"Unless Otto, his accomplice, has killed him," chuckled Don Luis.
+
+"What makes you say that?"
+
+"Why, remember the prophecy made to Vorski in his youth: 'Your wife will
+die on the cross and you will be killed by a friend.'"
+
+"I doubt if a prediction is enough."
+
+"I have other proofs, though."
+
+"What proofs?"
+
+"They, my friends, form part of the last problem we shall have to
+elucidate together. For instance, what is your idea of the manner in
+which I substituted Elfride Vorski for Madame d'Hergemont?"
+
+Stéphane shook his head:
+
+"I confess that I never understood."
+
+"And yet it's so simple! When a gentleman in a drawing-room, in a white
+tie and a tail-coat, performs conjuring-tricks or guesses your thoughts,
+you say to yourself, don't you, that there must be some artifice beneath
+it all, the assistance of a confederate? Well, you need seek no farther
+where I'm concerned."
+
+"What, you had a confederate?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"But who was he?"
+
+"Otto."
+
+"Otto? But you never left us! You never spoke to him, surely?"
+
+"How could I have succeeded without his help? In reality, I had two
+confederates in this business, Elfride and Otto, both of whom betrayed
+Vorski, either out of revenge or out of greed. While you, Stéphane, were
+luring Vorski past the Fairies' Dolmen, I accosted Otto. We soon struck
+a bargain, at the cost of a few bank-notes and in return for a promise
+that he would come out of the adventure safe and sound. Moreover I
+informed him that Vorski had pouched the sisters Archignat's fifty
+thousand francs."
+
+"How did you know that?" asked Stéphane.
+
+"Through my confederate number one, through Elfride, whom I continued to
+question in a whisper while you were looking out for Vorski's coming and
+who also, in a few brief words, told me what she knew of Vorski's
+past."
+
+"When all is said, you only saw Otto that once."
+
+"Two hours later, after Elfride's death and after the fireworks in the
+hollow oak, we had a second interview, under the Fairies' Dolmen. Vorski
+was asleep, stupefied with drink, and Otto was mounting guard. You can
+imagine that I seized the opportunity to obtain particulars of the
+business and to complete my information about Vorski with the details
+which Otto for two years had been secretly collecting about a chief whom
+he detested. Then he unloaded Vorski's and Conrad's revolvers, or rather
+he removed the bullets, while leaving the cartridges. Then he handed me
+Vorski's watch and note-book, as well as an empty locket and a
+photograph of Vorski's mother which Otto had stolen from him some months
+before, things which helped me next day to play the wizard with the
+aforesaid Vorski in the crypt where he found me. That is how Otto and I
+collaborated."
+
+"Very well," said Patrice, "but still you didn't ask him to kill
+Vorski?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"In that case, how are we to know that . . ."
+
+"Do you think that Vorski did not end by discovering our collaboration,
+which is one of the obvious causes of his defeat? And do you imagine
+that Master Otto did not foresee this contingency? You may be sure that
+there was no doubt of this: Vorski, once unfastened from his tree, would
+have made away with his accomplice, both from motives of revenge and in
+order to recover the sisters Archignat's fifty thousand francs. Otto got
+the start of him. Vorski was there, helpless, lifeless, an easy prey. He
+struck him a blow. I will go farther and say that Otto, who is a
+coward, did not even strike him a blow. He will simply have left Vorski
+on his tree. And so the punishment is complete. Are you appeased now, my
+friends? Is your craving for justice satisfied?"
+
+Patrice and Stéphane were silent, impressed by the terrible vision which
+Don Luis was conjuring up before their eyes.
+
+"There," he said, laughing, "I was right not to make you pronounce
+sentence over there, when we were standing at the foot of the oak, with
+the live man in front of us! I can see that my two judges might have
+flinched a little at that moment. And so would my third judge, eh, All's
+Well, you sensitive, tearful fellow? And I am like you, my friends. We
+are not people who condemn and execute. But, all the same, think of what
+Vorski was, think of his thirty murders and his refinements of cruelty
+and congratulate me on having, in the last resort, chosen blind destiny
+as his judge and the loathsome Otto as his responsible executioner. The
+will of the gods be done!"
+
+The Sarek coast was making a thinner line on the horizon. It disappeared
+in the mist in which sea and sky were merged.
+
+The three men were silent. All three were thinking of the isle of the
+dead, laid waste by one man's madness, the isle of the dead where soon
+some visitor would find the inexplicable traces of the tragedy, the
+entrances to the tunnels, the cells with their "death-chambers," the
+hall of the God-Stone, the mortuary crypts, Elfride's body, Conrad's
+body, the skeletons of the sisters Archignat and, right at the end of
+the island, near the Fairies' Dolmen, where the prophecy of the thirty
+coffins and the four crosses was written for all to read, Vorski's great
+body, lonely and pitiable, mangled by the ravens and owls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A villa near Arcachon, in the pretty village of Les Moulleaux, whose
+pine-trees run down to the shores of the gulf.
+
+Véronique is sitting in the garden. A week's rest and happiness have
+restored the colour to her comely face and assuaged all evil memories.
+She is looking with a smile at her son, who, standing a little way off,
+is listening to and questioning Don Luis Perenna. She also looks at
+Stéphane; and their eyes meet gently.
+
+It is easy to see that the affection in which they both hold the boy is
+a link which unites them closely and which is strengthened by their
+secret thoughts and their unuttered feelings. Not once has Stéphane
+recalled the avowals which he made in the cell, under the Black Heath;
+but Véronique has not forgotten them; and the profound gratitude which
+she feels for the man who brought up her son is mingled with a special
+emotion and an agitation of which she unconsciously savours the charm.
+
+That day, Don Luis, who, on the evening when the _Crystal Stopper_
+brought them all to the Villa des Moulleaux, had taken the train for
+Paris, arrived unexpectedly at lunch-time, accompanied by Patrice
+Belval; and during the hour that they have been sitting in their
+rocking-chairs in the garden, the boy, his face all pink with
+excitement, has never ceased to question his rescuer:
+
+"And what did you do next? . . . But how did you know? . . . And what
+put you on the track of that?"
+
+"My darling," says Véronique, "aren't you afraid of boring Don Luis?"
+
+"No, madame," replies Don Luis, rising, going up to Véronique and
+speaking in such a way that the boy cannot hear, "no, François is not
+boring me; and in fact I like answering his questions. But I confess
+that he perplexes me a little and that I am afraid of saying something
+awkward. Tell me, how much exactly does he know of the whole story?"
+
+"As much as I know myself, except Vorski's name, of course."
+
+"But does he know the part which Vorski played?"
+
+"Yes, but with certain differences. He thinks that Vorski is an escaped
+prisoner who picked up the legend of Sarek and, in order to get hold of
+the God-Stone, proceeded to carry out the prophecy touching it. I have
+kept some of the lines of the prophecy from François."
+
+"And the part played by Elfride? Her hatred for you? The threats she
+made you?"
+
+"Madwoman's talk, I told François, of which I myself did not understand
+the meaning."
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"The explanation is a little arbitrary; and I have a notion that
+François quite well understands that certain parts of the tragedy remain
+and must remain obscure to him. The great thing, don't you think, is
+that he should not know that Vorski was his father?"
+
+"He does not know and he never will."
+
+"And then--and this is what I was coming to--what name will he bear
+himself?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Whose son will he believe himself to be? For you know as well as I do
+that the legal reality is this, that François Vorski died fifteen years
+ago, drowned in a shipwreck, and his grandfather with him. And Vorski
+died last year, stabbed by a fellow-prisoner. Neither of them is alive
+in the eyes of the law. So . . ."
+
+Véronique nodded her head and smiled:
+
+"So I don't know. The position seems to me, as you say, incapable of
+explanation. But everything will come out all right."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you're here to do it."
+
+It was his turn to smile:
+
+"I can no longer take credit for the actions which I perform or the
+steps which I take. Everything is arranging itself _a priori_. Then why
+worry?"
+
+"Am I not right to?"
+
+"Yes," he said, gravely. "The woman who has suffered all that you have
+must not be subjected to the least additional annoyance. And nothing
+shall happen to her after this, I swear. So what I suggest to you is
+this: long ago, you married against your father's wish a very distant
+cousin, who died after leaving you a son, François. This son your
+father, to be revenged upon you, kidnapped and brought to Sarek. At your
+father's death, the name of d'Hergemont became extinct and there is
+nothing to recall the events of your marriage."
+
+"But my name remains. Legally, in the official records, I am Véronique
+d'Hergemont."
+
+"Your maiden name disappears under your married name."
+
+"You mean under that of Vorski."
+
+"No, because you did not marry that fellow Vorski, but one of your
+cousins called . . ."
+
+"Called what?"
+
+"Jean Maroux. Here is a stamped certificate of your marriage to Jean
+Maroux, a marriage mentioned in your official records, as this other
+document shows."
+
+Véronique looked at Don Luis in amazement:
+
+"But why? Why that name?"
+
+"Why? So that your son may be neither d'Hergemont, which would have
+recalled past events, nor Vorski, which would have recalled the name of
+a traitor. Here is his birth-certificate, as François Maroux."
+
+She repeated, all blushing and confused:
+
+"But why did you choose just that name?"
+
+"It seemed easy for François. It's the name of Stéphane, with whom
+François will go on living for some time. We can say that Stéphane was a
+relation of your husband's; and this will explain the intimacy
+generally. That is my plan. It presents, believe me, no possible danger.
+When one is confronted by an inexplicable and painful position like
+yours, one must needs employ special means and resort to drastic and, I
+admit, very illegal measures. I did so without scruple, because I have
+the good fortune to dispose of resources which are not within
+everybody's reach. Do you approve of what I have done?"
+
+Véronique bent her head:
+
+"Yes," she said, "yes."
+
+He half-rose from his seat:
+
+"Besides," he added, "if there should be any drawbacks, the future will
+no doubt take upon itself the burden of removing them. It would be
+enough, for instance--there is no indiscretion, is there, in alluding to
+the feelings which Stéphane entertains for François' mother?--it would
+be enough if, one day or another, for reasons of common-sense, or
+reasons of gratitude, François' mother were moved to accept the homage
+of those feelings. How much simpler everything will be if François
+already bears the name of Maroux! How much more easily the past will be
+abolished, both for the outside world and for François, who will no
+longer be able to pry into the secret of bygone events which there will
+be nothing to recall to memory. It seemed to me that these were rather
+weighty arguments. I am glad to see that you share my opinion."
+
+Don Luis bowed to Véronique and, without insisting any further, without
+appearing to notice her confusion, turned to François and explained:
+
+"I'm at your orders now, young man. And, since you don't want to leave
+anything unexplained, let's go back to the God-Stone and the scoundrel
+who coveted its possession. Yes, the scoundrel," repeated Don Luis,
+seeing no reason not to speak of Vorski with absolute frankness, "and
+the most terrible scoundrel that I have ever met with, because he
+believed in his mission; in short, a sick-brained man, a lunatic . . ."
+
+"Well, first of all," François observed, "what I don't understand is
+that you waited all night to capture him, when he and his accomplices
+were sleeping under the Fairies' Dolmen."
+
+"Well done, youngster," said Don Luis, laughing, "you have put your
+finger on a weak point! If I had acted as you suggest, the tragedy would
+have been finished twelve or fifteen hours earlier. But think, would you
+have been released? Would the scoundrel have spoken and revealed your
+hiding-place? I don't think so. To loosen his tongue I had to keep him
+simmering. I had to make him dizzy, to drive him mad with apprehension
+and anguish and to convince him by means of a mass of proofs, that he
+was irretrievably defeated. Otherwise he would have held his tongue and
+we might perhaps not have found you. . . . . Besides, at that time, my
+plan was not very clear, I did not quite know how to wind up; and it was
+not until much later that I thought not of submitting him to violent
+torture--I am incapable of that--but of tying him to that tree on which
+he wanted to let your mother die. So that, in my perplexity and
+hesitation, I simply yielded, in the end, to the wish--the rather
+puerile wish, I blush to confess--to carry out the prophecy to the end,
+to see how the missionary would behave in the presence of the ancient
+Druid, in short to amuse myself. After all, the adventure was so dark
+and gloomy that a little fun seemed to me essential. And I laughed like
+blazes. That was wrong. I admit it and I apologize."
+
+The boy was laughing too. Don Luis, who was holding him between his
+knees, kissed him and asked:
+
+"Do you forgive me?"
+
+"Yes, on condition that you answer two more questions. The first is not
+important."
+
+"Ask away."
+
+"It's about the ring. Where did you get that ring which you put first on
+mother's finger and afterwards on Elfride's?"
+
+"I made it that same night, in a few minutes, out of an old wedding-ring
+and some coloured stones."
+
+"But the scoundrel recognized it as having belonged to his mother."
+
+"He thought he recognized it; and he thought it because the ring was
+like the other."
+
+"But how did you know that? And how did you learn the story?"
+
+"From himself."
+
+"You don't mean that?"
+
+"Certainly I do! From words that escaped him while he was sleeping under
+the Fairies' Dolmen. A drunkard's nightmare. Bit by bit he told the
+whole story of his mother. Elfride knew a good part of it besides. You
+see how simple it is and how my luck stood by me!"
+
+"But the riddle of the God-Stone is not simple," François cried, "and
+you deciphered it! People have been trying for centuries and you took a
+few hours!"
+
+"No, a few minutes, François. It was enough for me to read the letter
+which your grandfather wrote about it to Captain Belval. I sent your
+grandfather by post all the explanations as to the position and the
+marvellous nature of the God-Stone."
+
+"Well," cried the boy, "it's those explanations that I'm asking of you,
+Don Luis. This is my last question, I promise you. What made people
+believe in the power of the God-Stone? And what did that so-called power
+consist of exactly?"
+
+Stéphane and Patrice drew up their chairs. Véronique sat up and
+listened. They all understood that Don Luis had waited until they were
+together before rending the veil of the mystery before their eyes.
+
+He began to laugh:
+
+"You mustn't hope for anything sensational," he said. "A mystery is
+worth just as much as the darkness in which it is shrouded; and, as we
+have begun by dispelling the darkness, nothing remains but the fact
+itself in its naked reality. Nevertheless the facts in this case are
+strange and the reality is not denuded of a certain grandeur."
+
+"It must needs be so," said Patrice Belval, "seeing that the reality
+left so miraculous a legend in the isle of Sarek and even all over
+Brittany."
+
+"Yes," said Don Luis, "and a legend so persistent that it influences us
+to this day and that not one of you has escaped the obsession of the
+miraculous."
+
+"What do you mean?" protested Patrice. "I don't believe in miracles."
+
+"No more do I," said the boy.
+
+"Yes, you do, you believe in them, you accept miracles as possible. If
+not, you would long ago have seen the whole truth."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Don Luis picked a magnificent rose from a tree by his side and asked
+François:
+
+"Is it possible for me to transform this rose, whose proportions, as it
+is, are larger than those a rose often attains, into a flower double
+the size and this rose-tree into a shrub twice as tall?"
+
+"Certainly not," said François.
+
+"Then why did you admit, why did you all admit that Maguennoc could
+achieve that result, merely by digging up earth in certain parts of the
+island, at certain fixed hours? That was a miracle; and you accepted it
+without hesitation, unconsciously."
+
+Stéphane objected:
+
+"We accept what we saw with our eyes."
+
+"But you accepted it as a miracle, that is to say, as a phenomenon which
+Maguennoc produced by special and, truth to tell, by supernatural means.
+Whereas I, when I read this detail in M. d'Hergemont's letter, at
+once--what shall I say?--caught on. I at once established the connection
+between those monstrous blossoms and the name borne by the Calvary of
+the flowers. And my conviction was immediate: 'No, Maguennoc is not a
+wizard. He simply cleared a piece of uncultivated land around the
+Calvary; and all he had to do, to produce abnormal flowers, was to bring
+along a layer of mould. So the God-Stone is underneath; the God-Stone
+which, in the middle-ages, produced the same abnormal flowers; the
+God-Stone, which, in the days of the Druids, healed the sick and
+strengthened children.'"
+
+"Therefore," said Patrice, "there is a miracle."
+
+"There is a miracle if we accept the supernatural explanation. There is
+a natural phenomenon if we look for it and if we find the physical cause
+capable of giving rise to the apparent miracle."
+
+"But those physical causes don't exist! They are not present."
+
+"They exist, because you have seen monstrous flowers."
+
+"Then there is a stone," asked Patrice, almost chaffingly, "which can
+naturally give health and strength? And that stone is the God-Stone?"
+
+"There is not a particular, individual stone. But there are stones,
+blocks of stone, rocks, hills and mountains of rock, which contain
+mineral veins formed of various metals, oxides of uranium, silver, lead,
+copper, nickel, cobalt and so on. And among these metals are some which
+emit a special radiation, endowed with peculiar properties known as
+radioactivity. These veins are veins of pitchblende which are found
+hardly anywhere in Europe except in the north of Bohemia and which are
+worked near the little town of Joachimsthal. And those radioactive
+bodies are uranium, thorium, helium and chiefly, in the case which we
+are considering . . ."
+
+"Radium," François interrupted.
+
+"You've said it, my boy: radium. Phenomena of radioactivity occur more
+or less everywhere; and we may say that they are manifested throughout
+nature, as in the healing action of thermal springs. But plainly
+radioactive bodies like radium possess more definite properties. For
+instance, there is no doubt that the rays and the emanation of radium
+exercise a power over the life of plants, a power similar to that caused
+by the passage of an electric current. In both cases, the stimulation of
+the nutritive centres makes the elements required by the plant more easy
+to assimilate and promotes its growth. In the same way, there is no
+doubt that the radium rays are capable of exercising a physiological
+action on living tissues, by producing more or less profound
+modifications, destroying certain cells and contributing to develop
+other cells and even to control their evolution. Radiotherapy claims to
+have healed or improved numerous cases of rheumatism of the joints,
+nervous troubles, ulceration, eczema, tumours and adhesive cicatrices.
+In short radium is a really effective therapeutic agent."
+
+"So," said Stéphane, "you regard the God-Stone . . ."
+
+"I regard the God-Stone as a block of radiferous pitchblende originating
+from the Joachimsthal lodes. I have long known the Bohemian legend which
+speaks of a miraculous stone that was once removed from the side of a
+hill; and, when I was travelling in Bohemia, I saw the hole left by the
+stone. It corresponds pretty accurately with the dimensions of the
+God-Stone."
+
+"But," Stéphane objected, "radium is contained in rocks only in the form
+of infinitesimal particles. Remember that, after a mass of fourteen
+hundred tons of rock have been duly mined and washed and treated, there
+remains at the end of it all only a filtrate of some fifteen grains of
+radium. And you attribute a miraculous power to the God-Stone, which
+weighs two tons at most!"
+
+"But it evidently contains radium in appreciable quantities. Nature has
+not pledged herself to be always niggardly and invariably to dilute the
+radium. She was pleased to accumulate in the God-Stone a generous supply
+which enabled it to produce the apparently extraordinary phenomena which
+we know of . . . not forgetting that we have to allow for popular
+exaggeration."
+
+Stéphane seemed to be yielding to conviction. Nevertheless he said:
+
+"One last point. Apart from the God-Stone, there was the little chip of
+stone which Maguennoc found in the leaden sceptre, the prolonged touch
+of which burnt his hand. According to you, this was a particle of
+radium?"
+
+"Undoubtedly. And it is this perhaps that most clearly reveals the
+presence and the power of radium in all this adventure. When Henri
+Becquerel, the great physicist, kept a tube containing a salt of radium
+in his waistcoat-pocket, his skin became covered in a few days with
+suppurating ulcers. Curie repeated the experiment, with the same result.
+Maguennoc's case was more serious, because he held the particle of
+radium in his hand. A wound formed which had a cancerous appearance.
+Scared by all that he knew and all that he himself had said about the
+miraculous stone which burns like hell-fire and 'gives life or death,'
+he chopped off his hand."
+
+"Very well," said Stéphane, "but where did that particle of pure radium
+come from? It can't have been a chip of the God-Stone, because, once
+again, however rich a mineral may be, radium is incorporated in it, not
+in isolated grains, but in a soluble form, which has to be dissolved and
+afterwards collected, by a series of mechanical operations, into a
+solution rich enough to enable successive crystallizations and
+concentrations to isolate the active product which the solution
+contains. All this and a number of other later operations demand an
+enormous plant, with workshops, laboratories, expert chemists, in short,
+a very different state of civilization, you must admit, from the state
+of barbarism in which our ancestors the Celts were immersed."
+
+Don Luis smiled and tapped the young man on the shoulder:
+
+"Hear, hear, Stéphane! I am glad to see that François' friend and tutor
+has a far-seeing and logical mind. The objection is perfectly valid and
+suggested itself to me at once. I might reply by putting forward some
+quite legitimate theory, I might presume a natural means of isolating
+radium and imagine that, in a geological fault occurring in the granite,
+at the bottom of a big pocket containing radiferous ore, a fissure has
+opened through which the waters of the river slowly trickle, carrying
+with them infinitesimal quantities of radium; that the waters so charged
+flow for a long time in a narrow channel, combine again, become
+concentrated and, after centuries upon centuries, filter through in
+little drops, which evaporate at once, and form at the point of
+emergence a tiny stalactite, exceedingly rich in radium, the tip of
+which is broken off one day by some Gallic warrior. But is there any
+need to seek so far and to have recourse to hypotheses? Cannot we rely
+on the unaided genius and the inexhaustible resources of nature? Does it
+call for a more wonderful effort on her part to evolve by her own
+methods a particle of pure radium than to make a cherry ripen or to make
+this rose bloom . . . or to give life to our delightful All's Well? What
+do you say, young François? Do we agree?"
+
+"We always agree," replied the boy.
+
+"So you don't unduly regret the miracle of the God-Stone?"
+
+"Why, the miracle still exists!"
+
+"You're right, François, it still exists and a hundred times more
+beautiful and dazzling than before. Science does not kill miracles: it
+purifies them and ennobles them. What was that crafty, capricious,
+wicked, incomprehensible little power attached to the tip of a magic
+wand and acting at random, according to the ignorant fancy of a
+barbarian chief or Druid, what was it, I ask you, beside the beneficent,
+logical, reliable and quite as miraculous power which we behold to-day
+in a pinch of radium?"
+
+Don Luis suddenly interrupted himself and began to laugh:
+
+"Come, come, I'm allowing myself to be carried away and singing an ode
+to science! Forgive me, madame," he added, rising and going up to
+Véronique, "and tell me that I have not bored you too much with my
+explanations. I haven't, have I? Not too much? Besides, it's finished
+. . . or nearly finished. There is only one more point to make clear,
+one decision to take."
+
+He sat down beside her:
+
+"It's this. Now that we have won the God-Stone, in other words, an
+actual treasure, what are we going to do with it?"
+
+Véronique spoke with a heartfelt impulse:
+
+"Oh, as to that, don't let us speak of it! I don't want anything that
+may come from Sarek, or anything that's found in the Priory. We will
+work."
+
+"Still, the Priory belongs to you."
+
+"No, no, Véronique d'Hergemont no longer exists and the Priory no longer
+belongs to any one. Let it all be put up to auction. I don't want
+anything of that accursed past."
+
+"And how will you live?"
+
+"As I used to by my work. I am sure that François approves, don't you,
+darling?"
+
+And, with an instinctive movement, turning to Stéphane, as though he had
+a certain right to give his opinion, she added:
+
+"You too approve, don't you, dear Stéphane?"
+
+"Entirely," he said.
+
+She at once went on:
+
+"Besides, though I don't doubt my father's feelings of affection, I have
+no proof of his wishes towards me."
+
+"I have the proofs," said Don Luis.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Patrice and I went back to Sarek. In a writing-desk in Maguennoc's
+room, in a secret drawer, we found a sealed, but unaddressed envelope,
+and opened it. It contained a bond worth ten thousand francs a year and
+a sheet of paper which read as follows:
+
+"'After my death, Maguennoc will hand this bond to Stéphane Maroux, to
+whom I confide the charge of my grandson, François. When François is
+eighteen years of age, the bond will be his to do what he likes with. I
+hope and trust, however, that he will seek his mother and find her and
+that she will pray for my soul. I bless them both.'
+
+"Here is the bond," said Don Luis, "and here is the letter. It is dated
+April of this year."
+
+Véronique was astounded. She looked at Don Luis and the thought occurred
+to her that all this was perhaps merely a story invented by that strange
+man to place her and her son beyond the reach of want. It was a passing
+thought. When all was considered, it was a natural consequence.
+Everything said, M. d'Hergemont's action was very reasonable; and,
+foreseeing the difficulties that would crop up after his death, it was
+only right that he should think of his grandson. She murmured:
+
+"I have not the right to refuse."
+
+"You have so much the less right," said Don Luis, "in that the
+transaction excludes you altogether. Your father's wishes affect
+François and Stéphane directly. So we are agreed. There remains the
+God-Stone; and I repeat my question. What are we to do with it? To whom
+does it belong?"
+
+"To you," said Véronique, definitely.
+
+"To me?"
+
+"Yes, to you. You discovered it and you have given it a real
+signification."
+
+"I must remind you," said Don Luis, "that this block of stone possesses,
+beyond a doubt, an incalculable value. However great the miracles
+wrought by nature may be, it is only through a wonderful concourse of
+circumstances that she was able to perform the miracle of collecting so
+much precious matter in so small a volume. There are treasures and
+treasures there."
+
+"So much the better," said Véronique, "you will be able to make a better
+use of them than any one else."
+
+Don Luis thought for a moment and added:
+
+"You are quite right; and I confess that I prepared for this climax.
+First, because my right to the God-Stone seemed to me to be proved by
+adequate titles of ownership; and, next, because I have need of that
+block of stone. Yes, upon my word, the tombstone of the Kings of Bohemia
+has not exhausted its magic power; there are plenty of nations left on
+whom that power might produce as great an effect as on our ancestors the
+Gauls; and, as it happens, I am tackling a formidable undertaking in
+which an assistance of this kind will be invaluable to me. In a few
+years, when my task is completed, I will bring the God-Stone back to
+France and present it to a national laboratory which I intend to found.
+In this way science will purge any evil that the God-Stone may have done
+and the horrible adventure of Sarek will be atoned for. Do you approve,
+madame?"
+
+She gave him her hand:
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+There was a fairly long pause. Then Don Luis said:
+
+"Ah, yes, a horrible adventure, too terrible for words. I have had some
+gruesome adventures in my life which have left painful memories behind
+them. But this outdoes them all. It exceeds anything that is possible in
+reality or human in suffering. It was so excessively logical as to
+become illogical; and this because it was the act of a madman . . . and
+also because it came to pass at a season of madness and bewilderment. It
+was the war which facilitated the safe silent committal of an obscure
+crime prepared and executed by a monster. In times of peace, monsters
+have not the time to realize their stupid dreams. To-day, in that
+solitary island, this particular monster found special, abnormal
+conditions . . ."
+
+"Please don't let us talk about all this," murmured Véronique, in a
+trembling voice.
+
+Don Luis kissed her hand and then took All's Well and lifted him in his
+arms:
+
+"You're right. Don't let's talk about it, or else tears would come and
+All's Well would be sad. Therefore, All's Well, my delightful All's
+Well, let us talk no more of the dreadful adventure. But all the same
+let us recall certain episodes which were beautiful and picturesque. For
+instance, Maguennoc's garden with the gigantic flowers; you will
+remember it as I shall, won't you, All's Well? And the legend of the
+God-Stone, the idyll of the Celtic tribes wandering with the memorial
+stone of their kings, the stone all vibrant with radium, emitting an
+incessant bombardment of vivifying and miraculous atoms; all that, All's
+Well, possesses a certain charm, doesn't it? Only, my most exquisite
+All's Well, if I were a novelist and if it were my duty to tell the
+story of Coffin Island, I should not trouble too much about the horrid
+truth and I should give you a much more important part. I should do away
+with the intervention of that phrase-mongering humbug of a Don Luis and
+you would be the fearless and silent rescuer. You would fight the
+abominable monster, you would thwart his machinations and, in the end,
+you, with your marvellous instinct, would punish vice and make virtue
+triumph. And it would be much better so, because none would be more
+capable than you, my delightful All's Well, of demonstrating by a
+thousand proofs, each more convincing than the other, that in this life
+of ours all things come right and all's well."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Novels
+
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+Copyright Fiction
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+Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  By A. Conan Doyle.
+After House, The.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+Ailsa Paige.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Alton of Somasco.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Amateur Gentleman, The.  By Jeffery Farnol.
+Anna, the Adventuress.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Anne's House of Dreams.  By L. M. Montgomery.
+Around Old Chester.  By Margaret Deland.
+Athalie.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+At the Mercy of Tiberius.  By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+Auction Block, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Aunt Jane of Kentucky.  By Eliza C. Hall.
+Awakening of Helena Richie.  By Margaret Deland.
+
+Bab: a Sub-Deb.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+Barrier, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Barbarians.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Bargain True, The.  By Nalbro Bartley.
+Bar 20.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Bar 20 Days.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Bars of Iron, The.  By Ethel M. Dell.
+Beasts of Tarzan, The.  By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+Beloved Traitor, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Beltane the Smith.  By Jeffery Farnol.
+Betrayal, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Beyond the Frontier.  By Randall Parrish.
+Big Timber.  By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
+Black Is White.  By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Blind Man's Eyes, The.  By Wm. MacHarg and Edwin Balmer.
+Bob, Son of Battle.  By Alfred Ollivant.
+Boston Blackie.  By Jack Boyle.
+Boy with Wings, The.  By Berta Ruck.
+Brandon of the Engineers.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Broad Highway, The.  By Jeffery Farnol.
+Brown Study, The.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Bruce of the Circle, A.  By Harold Titus.
+Buck Peters, Ranchman.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Business of Life, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+Cabbages and Kings.  By O. Henry.
+Cabin Fever.  By B. M. Bower.
+Calling of Dan Matthews, The.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+Cape Cod Stories.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.  By James A. Cooper.
+Cap'n Dan's Daughter.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Cap'n Eri.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.  By James A. Cooper.
+Cap'n Warren's Wards.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Chain of Evidence, A.  By Carolyn Wells.
+Chief Legatee, The.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Cinderella Jane.  By Marjorie B. Cooke.
+Cinema Murder, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+City of Masks, The.  By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Cleek of Scotland Yard.  By T. W. Hanshew.
+Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.  By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+Cleek's Government Cases.  By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+Clipped Wings.  By Rupert Hughes.
+Clue, The.  By Carolyn Wells.
+Clutch of Circumstance, The.  By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+Coast of Adventure, The.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Coming of Cassidy, The.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Coming of the Law, The.  By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+Conquest of Canaan, The.  By Booth Tarkington.
+Conspirators, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Court of Inquiry, A.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Cow Puncher, The.  By Robert J. C. Stead.
+Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.  By Rex Beach.
+Cross Currents.  By Author of "Pollyanna."
+Cry in the Wilderness, A.  By Mary E. Waller.
+
+Danger, And Other Stories.  By A. Conan Doyle.
+Dark Hollow, The.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Dark Star, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Daughter Pays, The.  By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+Day of Days, The.  By Louis Joseph Vance.
+Depot Master, The.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Desired Woman, The.  By Will N. Harben.
+Destroying Angel, The.  By Louis Jos. Vance.
+Devil's Own, The.  By Randall Parrish.
+Double Traitor, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+Empty Pockets.  By Rupert Hughes.
+Eyes of the Blind, The.  By Arthur Somers Roche.
+Eye of Dread, The.  By Payne Erskine.
+Eyes of the World, The.  By Harold Bell Wright
+Extricating Obadiah.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+
+Felix O'Day.  By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+54-40 or Fight.  By Emerson Hough.
+Fighting Chance, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Fighting Shepherdess, The.  By Caroline Lockhart
+Financier, The.  By Theodore Dreiser.
+Flame, The.  By Olive Wadsley.
+Flamsted Quarries.  By Mary E. Wallar.
+Forfeit, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Four Million, The.  By O. Henry.
+Fruitful Vine, The.  By Robert Hichens.
+Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+
+Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.  By Payne Erskine.
+Girl from Keller's, The.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Girl Philippa, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Girls at His Billet, The.  By Berta Ruck.
+God's Country and the Woman.  By James Oliver Curwood.
+Going Some.  By Rex Beach.
+Golden Slipper, The.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Golden Woman, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Greater Love Hath No Man.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Greyfriars Bobby.  By Eleanor Atkinson.
+Gun Brand, The.  By James B. Hendryx.
+
+Halcyone.  By Elinor Glyn.
+Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.  By Sax Rohmer.
+Havoc.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Heart of the Desert The.  By Honoré Willsie.
+Heart of the Hills, The.  By John Fox, Jr.
+Heart of the Sunset.  By Rex Beach.
+Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.  By Edfrid A. Bingham.
+Her Weight in Gold.  By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+Hidden Children, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Hidden Spring, The.  By Clarence B. Kelland.
+Hillman, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Hills of Refuge, The.  By Will N. Harben.
+His Official Fiancee.  By Berta Ruck.
+Honor of the Big Snows.  By James Oliver Curwood.
+Hopalong Cassidy.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Hound from the North, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+House of the Whispering Pines, The.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.  By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+
+I Conquered.  By Harold Titus.
+Illustrious Prince, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+In Another Girl's Shoes.  By Berta Ruck.
+Indifference of Juliet, The.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Infelice.  By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+Initials Only.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Inner Law, The.  By Will N. Harben.
+Innocent.  By Marie Corelli.
+Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.  By Sax Rohmer.
+In the Brooding Wild.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Intriguers, The.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Iron Trail, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Iron Woman, The.  By Margaret Deland.
+I Spy.  By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+
+Japonette.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Jean of the Lazy A.  By B. M. Bower.
+Jeanne of the Marshes.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Jennie Gerhardt.  By Theodore Dreiser.
+Judgment House, The.  By Gilbert Parker.
+
+Keeper of the Door, The.  By Ethel M. Dell.
+Keith of the Border.  By Randall Parrish.
+Kent Knowles: Quahaug.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Kingdom of the Blind, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+King Spruce.  By Holman Day.
+King's Widow, The.  By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+Knave of Diamonds, The.  By Ethel M. Dell.
+
+Ladder of Swords.  By Gilbert Parker.
+Lady Betty Across the Water.  By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+Land-Girl's Love Story, A.  By Berta Ruck.
+Landloper, The.  By Holman Day.
+Land of Long Ago, The.  By Eliza Calvert Hall.
+Land of Strong Men, The.  By A. M. Chisholm.
+Last Trail, The.  By Zane Grey.
+Laugh and Live.  By Douglas Fairbanks.
+Laughing Bill Hyde.  By Rex Beach.
+Laughing Girl, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Law Breakers, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
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+Lin McLean.  By Owen Wister.
+Lonesome Land.  By B. M. Bower.
+Lone Wolf, The.  By Louis Joseph Vance.
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+Long Live the King.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+Long Roll, The.  By Mary Johnston.
+Lord Tony's Wife.  By Baroness Orczy.
+Lost Ambassador.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Lost Prince, The.  By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
+Lydia of the Pines.  By Honoré Willsie.
+
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+Maid of the Whispering Hills, The.  By Vingie E. Roe.
+Maids of Paradise, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Major, The.  By Ralph Connor.
+Maker of History, A.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Malefactor, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Man from Bar 20, The.  By Clarence E. Mulford.
+Man in Grey, The.  By Baroness Orczy.
+Man Trail, The.  By Henry Oyen.
+Man Who Couldn't Sleep, The.  By Arthur Stringer.
+Man with the Club Foot, The.  By Valentine Williams.
+Mary-'Gusta.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Mary Moreland.  By Marie Van Vorst.
+Mary Regan.  By Leroy Scott.
+Master Mummer, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  By A. Conan Doyle.
+Men Who Wrought, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Mischief Maker, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Missioner, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Miss Million's Maid.  By Berta Ruck.
+Molly McDonald.  By Randall Parrish.
+Money Master, The.  By Gilbert Parker.
+Money Moon, The.  By Jeffery Farnol.
+Mountain Girl, The.  By Payne Erskine.
+Moving Finger, The.  By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+Mr. Bingle.  By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Mr. Pratt.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Mr. Pratt's Patients.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Mrs. Belfame.  By Gertrude Atherton.
+Mrs. Red Pepper.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+My Lady Caprice.  By Jeffrey Farnol.
+My Lady of the North.  By Randall Parrish.
+My Lady of the South.  By Randall Parrish.
+Mystery of the Hasty Arrow, The.  By Anna K. Green.
+
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+Ne'er-Do-Well, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Nest Builders, The.  By Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale.
+Net, The.  By Rex Beach.
+New Clarion.  By Will N. Harben.
+Night Operator, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Night Riders, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Nobody.  By Louis Joseph Vance.
+
+Okewood of the Secret Service.  By the Author of "The Man with the
+    Club Foot."
+One Way Trail, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Open, Sesame.  By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
+Otherwise Phyllis.  By Meredith Nicholson.
+Outlaw, The.  By Jackson Gregory.
+
+Paradise Auction.  By Nalbro Bartley.
+Pardners.  By Rex Beach.
+Parrot & Co.  By Harold MacGrath.
+Partners of the Night.  By Leroy Scott.
+Partners of the Tide.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Passionate Friends, The.  By H. G. Wells.
+Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The.  By Ralph Connor.
+Paul Anthony, Christian.  By Hiram W. Hays.
+Pawns Count, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+People's Man, A.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Perch of the Devil.  By Gertrude Atherton.
+Peter Ruff and the Double Four.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Pidgin Island.  By Harold MacGrath.
+Place of Honeymoon, The.  By Harold MacGrath.
+Pool of Flame, The.  By Louis Joseph Vance.
+Postmaster, The.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Prairie Wife, The.  By Arthur Stringer.
+Price of the Prairie, The.  By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+Prince of Sinners, A.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Promise, The.  By J. B. Hendryx.
+Proof of the Pudding, The.  By Meredith Nicholson.
+
+Rainbow's End, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Ranch at the Wolverine, The.  By B. M. Bower.
+Ranching for Sylvia.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Ransom.  By Arthur Somers Roche.
+Reason Why, The.  By Elinor Glyn.
+Reclaimers, The.  By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+Red Mist, The.  By Randall Parrish.
+Red Pepper Burns.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Red Pepper's Patients.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The.  By Anne Warner.
+Restless Sex, The.  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.  By Sax Rohmer.
+Return of Tarzan, The.  By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+Riddle of Night, The.  By Thomas W. Hanshew.
+Rim of the Desert, The.  By Ada Woodruff Anderson.
+Rise of Roscoe Paine, The.  By J. C. Lincoln.
+Rising Tide, The.  By Margaret Deland.
+Rocks of Valpré, The.  By Ethel M. Dell.
+Rogue by Compulsion, A.  By Victor Bridges.
+Room Number 3.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+Rose in the Ring, The.  By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Rose of Old Harpeth, The.  By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+Round the Corner in Gay Street.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+
+Second Choice.  By Will N. Harben.
+Second Violin, The.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Secret History.  By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+Secret of the Reef, The.  By Harold Bindloss.
+Seven Darlings, The.  By Gouverneur Morris.
+Shavings.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Shepherd of the Hills, The.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Sherry.  By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Side of the Angels, The.  By Basil King.
+Silver Horde, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Sin That Was His, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Sixty-first Second, The.  By Owen Johnson.
+Soldier of the Legion, A.  By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+Son of His Father, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Son of Tarzan, The.  By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+Source, The.  By Clarence Buddington Kelland.
+Speckled Bird, A.  By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+Spirit in Prison, A.  By Robert Hichens.
+Spirit of the Border, The. (New Edition.) By Zane Grey.
+Spoilers, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Steele of the Royal Mounted.  By James Oliver Curwood.
+Still Jim.  By Honoré Willsie.
+Story of Foss River Ranch, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Story of Marco, The.  By Eleanor H. Porter.
+Strange Case of Cavendish, The.  By Randall Parrish.
+Strawberry Acres.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Sudden Jim.  By Clarence B. Kelland.
+
+Tales of Sherlock Holmes.  By A. Conan Doyle.
+Tarzan of the Apes.  By Edgar R. Burroughs.
+Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.  By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+Tempting of Tavernake, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  By Thos. Hardy.
+Thankful's Inheritance.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+That Affair Next Door.  By Anna Katharine Green.
+That Printer of Udell's.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+Their Yesterdays.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+Thirteenth Commandment, The.  By Rupert Hughes.
+Three of Hearts, The.  By Berta Ruck.
+Three Strings, The.  By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
+Threshold, The.  By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+Throwback, The.  By Alfred Henry Lewis.
+Tish.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed. Anon.
+Trail of the Axe, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Trail to Yesterday, The.  By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+Treasure of Heaven, The.  By Marie Corelli.
+Triumph, The.  By Will N. Harben.
+T. Tembarom.  By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
+Turn of the Tide.  By Author of "Pollyanna."
+Twenty-fourth of June, The.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Twins of Suffering Creek, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Two-Gun Man, The.  By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+
+Uncle William.  By Jeannette Lee.
+Under Handicap.  By Jackson Gregory.
+Under the Country Sky.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Unforgiving Offender, The.  By John Reed Scott.
+Unknown Mr. Kent, The.  By Roy Norton.
+Unpardonable Sin, The.  By Major Rupert Hughes.
+Up From Slavery.  By Booker T. Washington.
+
+Valiants of Virginia, The.  By Hallie Ermine Rives.
+Valley of Fear, The.  By Sir A. Conan Doyle.
+Vanished Messenger, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+Vanguards of the Plains.  By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+Vashti.  By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+Virtuous Wives.  By Owen Johnson.
+Visioning, The.  By Susan Glaspell.
+
+Waif-o'-the-Sea.  By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+Wall of Men, A.  By Margaret H. McCarter.
+Watchers of the Plans, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Way Home, The.  By Basil King.
+Way of an Eagle, The.  By E. M. Dell.
+Way of the Strong, The.  By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Way of These Women, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+We Can't Have Everything.  By Major Rupert Hughes.
+Weavers, The.  By Gilbert Parker.
+When a Man's a Man.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+When Wilderness Was King.  By Randall Parrish.
+Where the Trail Divides.  By Will Lillibridge.
+Where There's a Will.  By Mary R. Rinehart.
+White Sister, The.  By Marion Crawford.
+Who Goes There?  By Robert W. Chambers.
+Why Not.  By Margaret Widdemer.
+Window at the White Cat, The.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+Winds of Chance, The.  By Rex Beach.
+Wings of Youth, The.  By Elizabeth Jordan.
+Winning of Barbara Worth, The.  By Harold Bell Wright.
+Wire Devils, The.  By Frank L. Packard.
+Winning the Wilderness.  By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+Wishing Ring Man, The.  By Margaret Widdemer.
+With Juliet in England.  By Grace S. Richmond.
+Wolves of the Sea.  By Randall Parrish.
+Woman Gives, The.  By Owen Johnson.
+Woman Haters, The.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Woman in Question, The.  By John Reed Scott.
+Woman Thou Gavest Me, The.  By Hall Caine.
+Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The.  By Mary E. Waller.
+Wooing of Rosamond Fayre, The.  By Berta Ruck.
+World for Sale, The.  By Gilbert Parker.
+
+Years for Rachel, The.  By Berta Ruck.
+Yellow Claw, The.  By Sax Rohmer.
+You Never Know Your Luck.  By Gilbert Parker.
+
+Zeppelin's Passenger, The.  By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+The following typographical errors present in the original edition
+have been corrected.
+
+In Chapter I, "But the tree letters were visible" was changed to "But
+the three letters were visible", and "though an ever-thickening mist"
+was changed to "through an ever-thickening mist".
+
+In Chapter III, a missing period was added after "spluttered Honorine",
+and "You musn't stay" was changed to "You mustn't stay".
+
+In Chapter IV, "Then . . . then. . . it's happening" was changed to
+"Then . . . then . . . it's happening", and "slackened spend when she
+was level" was changed to "slackened speed when she was level".
+
+In Chapter V, a quotation mark was added after "They: the people of
+old.", and "that killed M. Antoine, Marie le Goff and the others" was
+changed to "that killed M. Antoine, Marie Le Goff and the others".
+
+In Chapter VI, quotation marks were added before "Did you put them under
+there?" and "and I am not a bit afraid", and after "Then what is it?".
+
+In Chapter VII, "one of the cells probably the last" was changed to "one
+of the cells, probably the last", and a missing period was added after
+"Yes, Madeleine Ferrand".
+
+In Chapter VIII, "Last night . . or rather this morning" was changed to
+"Last night . . . or rather this morning", and "painted Perenna is such
+strange colours" was changed to "painted Perenna in such strange
+colours".
+
+In Chapter X, a quotation mark was removed before "Véronique received
+her answer", "None come" was changed to "None came", a quotation mark
+was added after "my boat is hanging at the foot of the cliff.", and
+"We'll land at Pont-L'Abbé" was changed to "We'll land at Pont-l'Abbé".
+
+In Chapter XII, a quotation mark was removed after "Its feathered end
+was still quivering."
+
+In Chapter XIV, "The other joined him" was changed to "The others joined
+him", and a quotation mark was added after "At any rate, it's a sacred
+stone".
+
+In Chapter XV, a quotation mark was added before "She is dead",
+"yatching-cap" was changed to "yachting-cap", a comma was changed to a
+period after "There's no hypocrisy about you", and "Is is agreed" was
+changed to "Is it agreed".
+
+In Chapter XVI, "ascertain Véronique d'Hergemont's whereabout" was
+changed to "ascertain Véronique d'Hergemont's whereabouts", and "The
+worthy man envolved the prophecy from his own consciousness" was changed
+to "The worthy man evolved the prophecy from his own consciousness".
+
+In Chapter XVII, "The ancient Druid, whom we may call either Don Luis
+Perenna or Arséne Lupin" was changed to "The ancient Druid, whom we may
+call either Don Luis Perenna or Arsène Lupin".
+
+In Chapter XVIII, a period was changed to a comma after "one after the
+other", and quotation marks were added after "the boat should have
+started" and "he chopped off his hand".
+
+In the advertisements, Bruce of the Circle A was changed to Bruce of
+the Circle, A, in the entry for The Nameless Man "Nataile Sumner
+Lincoln" was changed to "Natalie Sumner Lincoln", and in the entry for
+The World for Sale "Gilbert-Parker" was changed to "Gilbert Parker".
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF SAREK***
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thesignofthefour b/files/books/unrelated/thesignofthefour
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7ac5593
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thesignofthefour
@@ -0,0 +1,4911 @@
+The Sign of the Four
+
+
+By
+
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+The Science of Deduction
+
+Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and
+his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long,
+white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back
+his left shirt-cuff.  For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully
+upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with
+innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home,
+pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined
+arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but
+custom had not reconciled my mind to it.  On the contrary, from day to
+day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled
+nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to
+protest.  Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver
+my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant
+air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would
+care to take anything approaching to a liberty.  His great powers, his
+masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many
+extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing
+him.
+
+Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken
+with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme
+deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no
+longer.
+
+"Which is it to-day?" I asked,--"morphine or cocaine?"
+
+He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he
+had opened.  "It is cocaine," he said,--"a seven-per-cent. solution.
+Would you care to try it?"
+
+"No, indeed," I answered, brusquely.  "My constitution has not got over
+the Afghan campaign yet.  I cannot afford to throw any extra strain
+upon it."
+
+He smiled at my vehemence.  "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said.
+"I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one.  I find it,
+however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that
+its secondary action is a matter of small moment."
+
+"But consider!" I said, earnestly.  "Count the cost!  Your brain may,
+as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid
+process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a
+permanent weakness.  You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon
+you.  Surely the game is hardly worth the candle.  Why should you, for
+a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which
+you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to
+another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to
+some extent answerable."
+
+He did not seem offended.  On the contrary, he put his finger-tips
+together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who
+has a relish for conversation.
+
+"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation.  Give me problems, give me
+work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate
+analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.  I can dispense then
+with artificial stimulants.  But I abhor the dull routine of existence.
+I crave for mental exaltation.  That is why I have chosen my own
+particular profession,--or rather created it, for I am the only one in
+the world."
+
+"The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows.
+
+"The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered.  "I am the
+last and highest court of appeal in detection.  When Gregson or
+Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths--which, by the way,
+is their normal state--the matter is laid before me.  I examine the
+data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion.  I claim no
+credit in such cases.  My name figures in no newspaper.  The work
+itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my
+highest reward.  But you have yourself had some experience of my
+methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said I, cordially.  "I was never so struck by anything
+in my life.  I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat
+fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet.'"
+
+He shook his head sadly.  "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I
+cannot congratulate you upon it.  Detection is, or ought to be, an
+exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional
+manner.  You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which
+produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an
+elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."
+
+"But the romance was there," I remonstrated.  "I could not tamper with
+the facts."
+
+"Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of
+proportion should be observed in treating them.  The only point in the
+case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from
+effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it."
+
+I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially
+designed to please him.  I confess, too, that I was irritated by the
+egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be
+devoted to his own special doings.  More than once during the years
+that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small
+vanity underlay my companion's quiet and didactic manner.  I made no
+remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg.  I had a Jezail bullet
+through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from
+walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.
+
+"My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes,
+after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe.  "I was consulted
+last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come
+rather to the front lately in the French detective service.  He has all
+the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide
+range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments
+of his art.  The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some
+features of interest.  I was able to refer him to two parallel cases,
+the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have
+suggested to him the true solution.  Here is the letter which I had
+this morning acknowledging my assistance."  He tossed over, as he
+spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down
+it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray
+"magnifiques," "coup-de-maitres," and "tours-de-force," all testifying
+to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman.
+
+"He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I.
+
+"Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly.
+"He has considerable gifts himself.  He possesses two out of the three
+qualities necessary for the ideal detective.  He has the power of
+observation and that of deduction.  He is only wanting in knowledge;
+and that may come in time.  He is now translating my small works into
+French."
+
+"Your works?"
+
+"Oh, didn't you know?" he cried, laughing.  "Yes, I have been guilty of
+several monographs.  They are all upon technical subjects.  Here, for
+example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various
+Tobaccoes.'  In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-,
+cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the
+difference in the ash.  It is a point which is continually turning up
+in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a
+clue.  If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has
+been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously
+narrows your field of search.  To the trained eye there is as much
+difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff
+of bird's-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato."
+
+"You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae," I remarked.
+
+"I appreciate their importance.  Here is my monograph upon the tracing
+of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a
+preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the
+influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the
+hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and
+diamond-polishers.  That is a matter of great practical interest to the
+scientific detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in
+discovering the antecedents of criminals.  But I weary you with my
+hobby."
+
+"Not at all," I answered, earnestly.  "It is of the greatest interest
+to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your
+practical application of it.  But you spoke just now of observation and
+deduction.  Surely the one to some extent implies the other."
+
+"Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair,
+and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe.  "For example,
+observation shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street
+Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know that when there
+you dispatched a telegram."
+
+"Right!" said I.  "Right on both points!  But I confess that I don't
+see how you arrived at it.  It was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I
+have mentioned it to no one."
+
+"It is simplicity itself," he remarked, chuckling at my surprise,--"so
+absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous; and yet it may
+serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.
+Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mould adhering to
+your instep.  Just opposite the Seymour Street Office they have taken
+up the pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in such a way that
+it is difficult to avoid treading in it in entering.  The earth is of
+this peculiar reddish tint which is found, as far as I know, nowhere
+else in the neighborhood.  So much is observation.  The rest is
+deduction."
+
+"How, then, did you deduce the telegram?"
+
+"Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat
+opposite to you all morning.  I see also in your open desk there that
+you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards.  What
+could you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire?
+Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the
+truth."
+
+"In this case it certainly is so," I replied, after a little thought.
+"The thing, however, is, as you say, of the simplest. Would you think
+me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?"
+
+"On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a
+second dose of cocaine.  I should be delighted to look into any problem
+which you might submit to me."
+
+"I have heard you say that it is difficult for a man to have any object
+in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it
+in such a way that a trained observer might read it.  Now, I have here
+a watch which has recently come into my possession.  Would you have the
+kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the
+late owner?"
+
+I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my
+heart, for the test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I
+intended it as a lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which he
+occasionally assumed.  He balanced the watch in his hand, gazed hard at
+the dial, opened the back, and examined the works, first with his naked
+eyes and then with a powerful convex lens.  I could hardly keep from
+smiling at his crestfallen face when he finally snapped the case to and
+handed it back.
+
+"There are hardly any data," he remarked.  "The watch has been recently
+cleaned, which robs me of my most suggestive facts."
+
+"You are right," I answered.  "It was cleaned before being sent to me."
+In my heart I accused my companion of putting forward a most lame and
+impotent excuse to cover his failure.  What data could he expect from
+an uncleaned watch?
+
+"Though unsatisfactory, my research has not been entirely barren," he
+observed, staring up at the ceiling with dreamy, lack-lustre eyes.
+"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to
+your elder brother, who inherited it from your father."
+
+"That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon the back?"
+
+"Quite so.  The W. suggests your own name.  The date of the watch is
+nearly fifty years back, and the initials are as old as the watch:  so
+it was made for the last generation.  Jewelry usually descends to the
+eldest son, and he is most likely to have the same name as the father.
+Your father has, if I remember right, been dead many years.  It has,
+therefore, been in the hands of your eldest brother."
+
+"Right, so far," said I.  "Anything else?"
+
+"He was a man of untidy habits,--very untidy and careless.  He was left
+with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time
+in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally,
+taking to drink, he died.  That is all I can gather."
+
+I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently about the room with
+considerable bitterness in my heart.
+
+"This is unworthy of you, Holmes," I said.  "I could not have believed
+that you would have descended to this.  You have made inquires into the
+history of my unhappy brother, and you now pretend to deduce this
+knowledge in some fanciful way.  You cannot expect me to believe that
+you have read all this from his old watch!  It is unkind, and, to speak
+plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it."
+
+"My dear doctor," said he, kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing
+the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and
+painful a thing it might be to you.  I assure you, however, that I
+never even knew that you had a brother until you handed me the watch."
+
+"Then how in the name of all that is wonderful did you get these facts?
+They are absolutely correct in every particular."
+
+"Ah, that is good luck.  I could only say what was the balance of
+probability.  I did not at all expect to be so accurate."
+
+"But it was not mere guess-work?"
+
+"No, no:  I never guess.  It is a shocking habit,--destructive to the
+logical faculty.  What seems strange to you is only so because you do
+not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which
+large inferences may depend.  For example, I began by stating that your
+brother was careless.  When you observe the lower part of that
+watch-case you notice that it is not only dinted in two places, but it
+is cut and marked all over from the habit of keeping other hard
+objects, such as coins or keys, in the same pocket.  Surely it is no
+great feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea watch so
+cavalierly must be a careless man.  Neither is it a very far-fetched
+inference that a man who inherits one article of such value is pretty
+well provided for in other respects."
+
+I nodded, to show that I followed his reasoning.
+
+"It is very customary for pawnbrokers in England, when they take a
+watch, to scratch the number of the ticket with a pin-point upon the
+inside of the case.  It is more handy than a label, as there is no risk
+of the number being lost or transposed.  There are no less than four
+such numbers visible to my lens on the inside of this case.
+Inference,--that your brother was often at low water.  Secondary
+inference,--that he had occasional bursts of prosperity, or he could
+not have redeemed the pledge. Finally, I ask you to look at the inner
+plate, which contains the key-hole.  Look at the thousands of scratches
+all round the hole,--marks where the key has slipped.  What sober man's
+key could have scored those grooves?  But you will never see a
+drunkard's watch without them.  He winds it at night, and he leaves
+these traces of his unsteady hand.  Where is the mystery in all this?"
+
+"It is as clear as daylight," I answered.  "I regret the injustice
+which I did you.  I should have had more faith in your marvellous
+faculty.  May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot
+at present?"
+
+"None.  Hence the cocaine.  I cannot live without brain-work. What else
+is there to live for?  Stand at the window here.  Was ever such a
+dreary, dismal, unprofitable world?  See how the yellow fog swirls down
+the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses.  What could be
+more hopelessly prosaic and material?  What is the use of having
+powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?  Crime
+is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those
+which are commonplace have any function upon earth."
+
+I had opened my mouth to reply to this tirade, when with a crisp knock
+our landlady entered, bearing a card upon the brass salver.
+
+"A young lady for you, sir," she said, addressing my companion.
+
+"Miss Mary Morstan," he read.  "Hum!  I have no recollection of the
+name.  Ask the young lady to step up, Mrs. Hudson.  Don't go, doctor.
+I should prefer that you remain."
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Statement of the Case
+
+Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure
+of manner.  She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved,
+and dressed in the most perfect taste.  There was, however, a plainness
+and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of
+limited means.  The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and
+unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved
+only by a suspicion of white feather in the side.  Her face had neither
+regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was
+sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual
+and sympathetic.  In an experience of women which extends over many
+nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face
+which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature. I could
+not but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed
+for her, her lip trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign
+of intense inward agitation.
+
+"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once enabled
+my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic
+complication.  She was much impressed by your kindness and skill."
+
+"Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully.  "I believe that I
+was of some slight service to her.  The case, however, as I remember
+it, was a very simple one."
+
+"She did not think so.  But at least you cannot say the same of mine.
+I can hardly imagine anything more strange, more utterly inexplicable,
+than the situation in which I find myself."
+
+Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened.  He leaned forward in
+his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his
+clear-cut, hawklike features.  "State your case," said he, in brisk,
+business tones.
+
+I felt that my position was an embarrassing one.  "You will, I am sure,
+excuse me," I said, rising from my chair.
+
+To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
+"If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he might be
+of inestimable service to me."
+
+I relapsed into my chair.
+
+"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these.  My father was an
+officer in an Indian regiment who sent me home when I was quite a
+child.  My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England.  I was
+placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh,
+and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age.  In the year
+1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained twelve
+months' leave and came home.  He telegraphed to me from London that he
+had arrived all safe, and directed me to come down at once, giving the
+Langham Hotel as his address.  His message, as I remember, was full of
+kindness and love.  On reaching London I drove to the Langham, and was
+informed that Captain Morstan was staying there, but that he had gone
+out the night before and had not yet returned. I waited all day without
+news of him.  That night, on the advice of the manager of the hotel, I
+communicated with the police, and next morning we advertised in all the
+papers.  Our inquiries led to no result; and from that day to this no
+word has ever been heard of my unfortunate father.  He came home with
+his heart full of hope, to find some peace, some comfort, and
+instead--"  She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short
+the sentence.
+
+"The date?" asked Holmes, opening his note-book.
+
+"He disappeared upon the 3d of December, 1878,--nearly ten years ago."
+
+"His luggage?"
+
+"Remained at the hotel.  There was nothing in it to suggest a
+clue,--some clothes, some books, and a considerable number of
+curiosities from the Andaman Islands.  He had been one of the officers
+in charge of the convict-guard there."
+
+"Had he any friends in town?"
+
+"Only one that we know of,--Major Sholto, of his own regiment, the 34th
+Bombay Infantry.  The major had retired some little time before, and
+lived at Upper Norwood.  We communicated with him, of course, but he
+did not even know that his brother officer was in England."
+
+"A singular case," remarked Holmes.
+
+"I have not yet described to you the most singular part.  About six
+years ago--to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882--an advertisement
+appeared in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan and
+stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward.  There was
+no name or address appended.  I had at that time just entered the
+family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess.  By her
+advice I published my address in the advertisement column.  The same
+day there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed to
+me, which I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl.  No word
+of writing was enclosed.  Since then every year upon the same date
+there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar pearl,
+without any clue as to the sender.  They have been pronounced by an
+expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value.  You can see
+for yourselves that they are very handsome."  She opened a flat box as
+she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I had ever seen.
+
+"Your statement is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes.  "Has
+anything else occurred to you?"
+
+"Yes, and no later than to-day.  That is why I have come to you. This
+morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for
+yourself."
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes.  "The envelope too, please.  Postmark,
+London, S.W.  Date, July 7.  Hum!  Man's thumb-mark on
+corner,--probably postman.  Best quality paper.  Envelopes at sixpence
+a packet.  Particular man in his stationery.  No address.  'Be at the
+third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre to-night at seven
+o'clock.  If you are distrustful, bring two friends.  You are a wronged
+woman, and shall have justice.  Do not bring police.  If you do, all
+will be in vain.  Your unknown friend.'  Well, really, this is a very
+pretty little mystery. What do you intend to do, Miss Morstan?"
+
+"That is exactly what I want to ask you."
+
+"Then we shall most certainly go.  You and I and--yes, why, Dr. Watson
+is the very man.  Your correspondent says two friends.  He and I have
+worked together before."
+
+"But would he come?" she asked, with something appealing in her voice
+and expression.
+
+"I should be proud and happy," said I, fervently, "if I can be of any
+service."
+
+"You are both very kind," she answered.  "I have led a retired life,
+and have no friends whom I could appeal to.  If I am here at six it
+will do, I suppose?"
+
+"You must not be later," said Holmes.  "There is one other point,
+however.  Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box
+addresses?"
+
+"I have them here," she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of
+paper.
+
+"You are certainly a model client.  You have the correct intuition.
+Let us see, now."  He spread out the papers upon the table, and gave
+little darting glances from one to the other. "They are disguised
+hands, except the letter," he said, presently, "but there can be no
+question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will
+break out, and see the twirl of the final s.  They are undoubtedly by
+the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss
+Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of
+your father?"
+
+"Nothing could be more unlike."
+
+"I expected to hear you say so.  We shall look out for you, then, at
+six.  Pray allow me to keep the papers.  I may look into the matter
+before then.  It is only half-past three.  Au revoir, then."
+
+"Au revoir," said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from
+one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and
+hurried away.  Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly
+down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a
+speck in the sombre crowd.
+
+"What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.
+
+He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping eyelids.
+"Is she?" he said, languidly.  "I did not observe."
+
+"You really are an automaton,--a calculating-machine!" I cried. "There
+is something positively inhuman in you at times."
+
+He smiled gently.  "It is of the first importance," he said, "not to
+allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities.  A client is to
+me a mere unit,--a factor in a problem.  The emotional qualities are
+antagonistic to clear reasoning.  I assure you that the most winning
+woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for
+their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is
+a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the
+London poor."
+
+"In this case, however--"
+
+"I never make exceptions.  An exception disproves the rule.  Have you
+ever had occasion to study character in handwriting?  What do you make
+of this fellow's scribble?"
+
+"It is legible and regular," I answered.  "A man of business habits and
+some force of character."
+
+Holmes shook his head.  "Look at his long letters," he said. "They
+hardly rise above the common herd.  That d might be an a, and that l an
+e.  Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however
+illegibly they may write.  There is vacillation in his k's and
+self-esteem in his capitals.  I am going out now.  I have some few
+references to make.  Let me recommend this book,--one of the most
+remarkable ever penned.  It is Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of Man.'  I
+shall be back in an hour."
+
+I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were
+far from the daring speculations of the writer.  My mind ran upon our
+late visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the
+strange mystery which overhung her life.  If she were seventeen at the
+time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,--a
+sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a
+little sobered by experience.  So I sat and mused, until such dangerous
+thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged
+furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology.  What was I, an army
+surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account, that I should
+dare to think of such things?  She was a unit, a factor,--nothing more.
+If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man
+than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the
+imagination.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+In Quest of a Solution
+
+It was half-past five before Holmes returned.  He was bright, eager,
+and in excellent spirits,--a mood which in his case alternated with
+fits of the blackest depression.
+
+"There is no great mystery in this matter," he said, taking the cup of
+tea which I had poured out for him.  "The facts appear to admit of only
+one explanation."
+
+"What! you have solved it already?"
+
+"Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive
+fact, that is all.  It is, however, VERY suggestive. The details are
+still to be added.  I have just found, on consulting the back files of
+the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th Bombay
+Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882."
+
+"I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests."
+
+"No?  You surprise me.  Look at it in this way, then.  Captain Morstan
+disappears.  The only person in London whom he could have visited is
+Major Sholto.  Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London.
+Four years later Sholto dies.  WITHIN A WEEK OF HIS DEATH Captain
+Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from
+year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a
+wronged woman.  What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation of
+her father?  And why should the presents begin immediately after
+Sholto's death, unless it is that Sholto's heir knows something of the
+mystery and desires to make compensation?  Have you any alternative
+theory which will meet the facts?"
+
+"But what a strange compensation!  And how strangely made!  Why, too,
+should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the
+letter speaks of giving her justice.  What justice can she have?  It is
+too much to suppose that her father is still alive.  There is no other
+injustice in her case that you know of."
+
+"There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties," said
+Sherlock Holmes, pensively.  "But our expedition of to-night will solve
+them all.  Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside.  Are
+you all ready?  Then we had better go down, for it is a little past the
+hour."
+
+I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes
+took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket.  It
+was clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious one.
+
+Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was
+composed, but pale.  She must have been more than woman if she did not
+feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were
+embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered
+the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her.
+
+"Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa's," she said. "His
+letters were full of allusions to the major.  He and papa were in
+command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a
+great deal together.  By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's
+desk which no one could understand.  I don't suppose that it is of the
+slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I
+brought it with me.  It is here."
+
+Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his knee.
+He then very methodically examined it all over with his double lens.
+
+"It is paper of native Indian manufacture," he remarked.  "It has at
+some time been pinned to a board.  The diagram upon it appears to be a
+plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and
+passages.  At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it
+is '3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand corner
+is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms
+touching.  Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters,
+'The sign of the four,--Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan,
+Dost Akbar.' No, I confess that I do not see how this bears upon the
+matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance.  It has been kept
+carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as clean as the other."
+
+"It was in his pocket-book that we found it."
+
+"Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of
+use to us.  I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be much
+deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must reconsider my
+ideas."  He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow
+and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently.  Miss Morstan and I
+chatted in an undertone about our present expedition and its possible
+outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetrable reserve until
+the end of our journey.
+
+It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had
+been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city.
+Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets.  Down the
+Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw
+a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement.  The yellow glare
+from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and
+threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare.
+There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless
+procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of
+light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry.  Like all human kind,
+they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom
+once more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy
+evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged, combined
+to make me nervous and depressed.  I could see from Miss Morstan's
+manner that she was suffering from the same feeling.  Holmes alone
+could rise superior to petty influences.  He held his open note-book
+upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted down figures and
+memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.
+
+At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the
+side-entrances.  In front a continuous stream of hansoms and
+four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of
+shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women.  We had hardly
+reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small,
+dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.
+
+"Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he asked.
+
+"I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends," said she.
+
+He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon us.
+"You will excuse me, miss," he said with a certain dogged manner, "but
+I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your companions
+is a police-officer."
+
+"I give you my word on that," she answered.
+
+He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a
+four-wheeler and opened the door.  The man who had addressed us mounted
+to the box, while we took our places inside.  We had hardly done so
+before the driver whipped up his horse, and we plunged away at a
+furious pace through the foggy streets.
+
+The situation was a curious one.  We were driving to an unknown place,
+on an unknown errand.  Yet our invitation was either a complete
+hoax,--which was an inconceivable hypothesis,--or else we had good
+reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey.
+Miss Morstan's demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever.  I
+endeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures in
+Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited at our
+situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories were
+slightly involved.  To this day she declares that I told her one moving
+anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night,
+and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it.  At first I had
+some idea as to the direction in which we were driving; but soon, what
+with our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of London, I lost
+my bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed to be going a very
+long way.  Sherlock Holmes was never at fault, however, and he muttered
+the names as the cab rattled through squares and in and out by tortuous
+by-streets.
+
+"Rochester Row," said he.  "Now Vincent Square.  Now we come out on the
+Vauxhall Bridge Road.  We are making for the Surrey side, apparently.
+Yes, I thought so.  Now we are on the bridge.  You can catch glimpses
+of the river."
+
+We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames with the
+lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on, and
+was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the other side.
+
+"Wordsworth Road," said my companion.  "Priory Road.  Lark Hall Lane.
+Stockwell Place.  Robert Street.  Cold Harbor Lane.  Our quest does not
+appear to take us to very fashionable regions."
+
+We had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbidding neighborhood.
+Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by the coarse glare
+and tawdry brilliancy of public houses at the corner.  Then came rows
+of two-storied villas each with a fronting of miniature garden, and
+then again interminable lines of new staring brick buildings,--the
+monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into the
+country.  At last the cab drew up at the third house in a new terrace.
+None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped
+was as dark as its neighbors, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen
+window.  On our knocking, however, the door was instantly thrown open
+by a Hindoo servant clad in a yellow turban, white loose-fitting
+clothes, and a yellow sash.  There was something strangely incongruous
+in this Oriental figure framed in the commonplace door-way of a
+third-rate suburban dwelling-house.
+
+"The Sahib awaits you," said he, and even as he spoke there came a high
+piping voice from some inner room.  "Show them in to me, khitmutgar,"
+it cried.  "Show them straight in to me."
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
+
+We followed the Indian down a sordid and common passage, ill lit and
+worse furnished, until he came to a door upon the right, which he threw
+open.  A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the centre
+of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle
+of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which
+shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees.  He writhed
+his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual
+jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose.
+Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a too visible line of yellow
+and irregular teeth, which he strove feebly to conceal by constantly
+passing his hand over the lower part of his face.  In spite of his
+obtrusive baldness, he gave the impression of youth.  In point of fact
+he had just turned his thirtieth year.
+
+"Your servant, Miss Morstan," he kept repeating, in a thin, high voice.
+"Your servant, gentlemen.  Pray step into my little sanctum.  A small
+place, miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of art in the
+howling desert of South London."
+
+We were all astonished by the appearance of the apartment into which he
+invited us.  In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond
+of the first water in a setting of brass.  The richest and glossiest of
+curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and there to
+expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental vase.  The carpet was
+of amber-and-black, so soft and so thick that the foot sank pleasantly
+into it, as into a bed of moss.  Two great tiger-skins thrown athwart
+it increased the suggestion of Eastern luxury, as did a huge hookah
+which stood upon a mat in the corner.  A lamp in the fashion of a
+silver dove was hung from an almost invisible golden wire in the centre
+of the room.  As it burned it filled the air with a subtle and aromatic
+odor.
+
+"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto," said the little man, still jerking and smiling.
+"That is my name.  You are Miss Morstan, of course. And these
+gentlemen--"
+
+"This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. Watson."
+
+"A doctor, eh?" cried he, much excited.  "Have you your stethoscope?
+Might I ask you--would you have the kindness?  I have grave doubts as
+to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good.  The aortic I may
+rely upon, but I should value your opinion upon the mitral."
+
+I listened to his heart, as requested, but was unable to find anything
+amiss, save indeed that he was in an ecstasy of fear, for he shivered
+from head to foot.  "It appears to be normal," I said.  "You have no
+cause for uneasiness."
+
+"You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan," he remarked, airily. "I am
+a great sufferer, and I have long had suspicions as to that valve.  I
+am delighted to hear that they are unwarranted.  Had your father, Miss
+Morstan, refrained from throwing a strain upon his heart, he might have
+been alive now."
+
+I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I at this
+callous and off-hand reference to so delicate a matter.  Miss Morstan
+sat down, and her face grew white to the lips.  "I knew in my heart
+that he was dead," said she.
+
+"I can give you every information," said he, "and, what is more, I can
+do you justice; and I will, too, whatever Brother Bartholomew may say.
+I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as an escort to you,
+but also as witnesses to what I am about to do and say.  The three of
+us can show a bold front to Brother Bartholomew.  But let us have no
+outsiders,--no police or officials.  We can settle everything
+satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference.  Nothing
+would annoy Brother Bartholomew more than any publicity."  He sat down
+upon a low settee and blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery
+blue eyes.
+
+"For my part," said Holmes, "whatever you may choose to say will go no
+further."
+
+I nodded to show my agreement.
+
+"That is well!  That is well!" said he.  "May I offer you a glass of
+Chianti, Miss Morstan?  Or of Tokay?  I keep no other wines. Shall I
+open a flask?  No?  Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to
+tobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odor of the Eastern tobacco.  I am
+a little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative."  He
+applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily
+through the rose-water.  We sat all three in a semicircle, with our
+heads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky
+little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in the
+centre.
+
+"When I first determined to make this communication to you," said he,
+"I might have given you my address, but I feared that you might
+disregard my request and bring unpleasant people with you. I took the
+liberty, therefore, of making an appointment in such a way that my man
+Williams might be able to see you first.  I have complete confidence in
+his discretion, and he had orders, if he were dissatisfied, to proceed
+no further in the matter.  You will excuse these precautions, but I am
+a man of somewhat retiring, and I might even say refined, tastes, and
+there is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman.  I have a natural
+shrinking from all forms of rough materialism. I seldom come in contact
+with the rough crowd.  I live, as you see, with some little atmosphere
+of elegance around me.  I may call myself a patron of the arts.  It is
+my weakness.  The landscape is a genuine Corot, and, though a
+connoisseur might perhaps throw a doubt upon that Salvator Rosa, there
+cannot be the least question about the Bouguereau.  I am partial to the
+modern French school."
+
+"You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto," said Miss Morstan, "but I am here at
+your request to learn something which you desire to tell me.  It is
+very late, and I should desire the interview to be as short as
+possible."
+
+"At the best it must take some time," he answered; "for we shall
+certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Bartholomew.  We shall
+all go and try if we can get the better of Brother Bartholomew.  He is
+very angry with me for taking the course which has seemed right to me.
+I had quite high words with him last night.  You cannot imagine what a
+terrible fellow he is when he is angry."
+
+"If we are to go to Norwood it would perhaps be as well to start at
+once," I ventured to remark.
+
+He laughed until his ears were quite red.  "That would hardly do," he
+cried.  "I don't know what he would say if I brought you in that sudden
+way.  No, I must prepare you by showing you how we all stand to each
+other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are several
+points in the story of which I am myself ignorant.  I can only lay the
+facts before you as far as I know them myself.
+
+"My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John Sholto, once of the
+Indian army.  He retired some eleven years ago, and came to live at
+Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood.  He had prospered in India, and
+brought back with him a considerable sum of money, a large collection
+of valuable curiosities, and a staff of native servants.  With these
+advantages he bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury.  My
+twin-brother Bartholomew and I were the only children.
+
+"I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the
+disappearance of Captain Morstan.  We read the details in the papers,
+and, knowing that he had been a friend of our father's, we discussed
+the case freely in his presence.  He used to join in our speculations
+as to what could have happened.  Never for an instant did we suspect
+that he had the whole secret hidden in his own breast,--that of all men
+he alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan.
+
+"We did know, however, that some mystery--some positive
+danger--overhung our father.  He was very fearful of going out alone,
+and he always employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at
+Pondicherry Lodge.  Williams, who drove you to-night, was one of them.
+He was once light-weight champion of England.  Our father would never
+tell us what it was he feared, but he had a most marked aversion to men
+with wooden legs.  On one occasion he actually fired his revolver at a
+wooden-legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for
+orders.  We had to pay a large sum to hush the matter up.  My brother
+and I used to think this a mere whim of my father's, but events have
+since led us to change our opinion.
+
+"Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which was a great
+shock to him.  He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table when he opened
+it, and from that day he sickened to his death. What was in the letter
+we could never discover, but I could see as he held it that it was
+short and written in a scrawling hand. He had suffered for years from
+an enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse, and towards the
+end of April we were informed that he was beyond all hope, and that he
+wished to make a last communication to us.
+
+"When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows and breathing
+heavily.  He besought us to lock the door and to come upon either side
+of the bed.  Then, grasping our hands, he made a remarkable statement
+to us, in a voice which was broken as much by emotion as by pain.  I
+shall try and give it to you in his own very words.
+
+"'I have only one thing,' he said, 'which weighs upon my mind at this
+supreme moment.  It is my treatment of poor Morstan's orphan.  The
+cursed greed which has been my besetting sin through life has withheld
+from her the treasure, half at least of which should have been hers.
+And yet I have made no use of it myself,--so blind and foolish a thing
+is avarice.  The mere feeling of possession has been so dear to me that
+I could not bear to share it with another.  See that chaplet dipped
+with pearls beside the quinine-bottle.  Even that I could not bear to
+part with, although I had got it out with the design of sending it to
+her. You, my sons, will give her a fair share of the Agra treasure. But
+send her nothing--not even the chaplet--until I am gone. After all, men
+have been as bad as this and have recovered.
+
+"'I will tell you how Morstan died,' he continued.  'He had suffered
+for years from a weak heart, but he concealed it from every one.  I
+alone knew it.  When in India, he and I, through a remarkable chain of
+circumstances, came into possession of a considerable treasure.  I
+brought it over to England, and on the night of Morstan's arrival he
+came straight over here to claim his share.  He walked over from the
+station, and was admitted by my faithful Lal Chowdar, who is now dead.
+Morstan and I had a difference of opinion as to the division of the
+treasure, and we came to heated words.  Morstan had sprung out of his
+chair in a paroxysm of anger, when he suddenly pressed his hand to his
+side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell backwards, cutting his
+head against the corner of the treasure-chest.  When I stooped over him
+I found, to my horror, that he was dead.
+
+"'For a long time I sat half distracted, wondering what I should do.
+My first impulse was, of course, to call for assistance; but I could
+not but recognize that there was every chance that I would be accused
+of his murder.  His death at the moment of a quarrel, and the gash in
+his head, would be black against me. Again, an official inquiry could
+not be made without bringing out some facts about the treasure, which I
+was particularly anxious to keep secret. He had told me that no soul
+upon earth knew where he had gone.  There seemed to be no necessity why
+any soul ever should know.
+
+"'I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my
+servant, Lal Chowdar, in the doorway.  He stole in and bolted the door
+behind him.  "Do not fear, Sahib," he said.  "No one need know that you
+have killed him.  Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?" "I did
+not kill him," said I.  Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled.  "I
+heard it all, Sahib," said he.  "I heard you quarrel, and I heard the
+blow.  But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house.  Let us put
+him away together." That was enough to decide me.  If my own servant
+could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good before
+twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box?  Lal Chowdar and I disposed of
+the body that night, and within a few days the London papers were full
+of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan.  You will see from
+what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the matter.  My fault lies in
+the fact that we concealed not only the body, but also the treasure,
+and that I have clung to Morstan's share as well as to my own.  I wish
+you, therefore, to make restitution.  Put your ears down to my mouth.
+The treasure is hidden in--'  At this instant a horrible change came
+over his expression; his eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped, and he
+yelled, in a voice which I can never forget, 'Keep him out!  For
+Christ's sake keep him out!'  We both stared round at the window behind
+us upon which his gaze was fixed.  A face was looking in at us out of
+the darkness.  We could see the whitening of the nose where it was
+pressed against the glass.  It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild
+cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated malevolence. My brother
+and I rushed towards the window, but the man was gone.  When we
+returned to my father his head had dropped and his pulse had ceased to
+beat.
+
+"We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the intruder,
+save that just under the window a single footmark was visible in the
+flower-bed.  But for that one trace, we might have thought that our
+imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face.  We soon, however,
+had another and a more striking proof that there were secret agencies
+at work all round us.  The window of my father's room was found open in
+the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been rifled, and upon his
+chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the words 'The sign of the
+four' scrawled across it.  What the phrase meant, or who our secret
+visitor may have been, we never knew.  As far as we can judge, none of
+my father's property had been actually stolen, though everything had
+been turned out.  My brother and I naturally associated this peculiar
+incident with the fear which haunted my father during his life; but it
+is still a complete mystery to us."
+
+The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully
+for a few moments.  We had all sat absorbed, listening to his
+extraordinary narrative.  At the short account of her father's death
+Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that
+she was about to faint.  She rallied however, on drinking a glass of
+water which I quietly poured out for her from a Venetian carafe upon
+the side-table.  Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an
+abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes.
+As I glanced at him I could not but think how on that very day he had
+complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life.  Here at least was
+a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost.  Mr. Thaddeus
+Sholto looked from one to the other of us with an obvious pride at the
+effect which his story had produced, and then continued between the
+puffs of his overgrown pipe.
+
+"My brother and I," said he, "were, as you may imagine, much excited as
+to the treasure which my father had spoken of.  For weeks and for
+months we dug and delved in every part of the garden, without
+discovering its whereabouts.  It was maddening to think that the
+hiding-place was on his very lips at the moment that he died.  We could
+judge the splendor of the missing riches by the chaplet which he had
+taken out.  Over this chaplet my brother Bartholomew and I had some
+little discussion.  The pearls were evidently of great value, and he
+was averse to part with them, for, between friends, my brother was
+himself a little inclined to my father's fault.  He thought, too, that
+if we parted with the chaplet it might give rise to gossip and finally
+bring us into trouble.  It was all that I could do to persuade him to
+let me find out Miss Morstan's address and send her a detached pearl at
+fixed intervals, so that at least she might never feel destitute."
+
+"It was a kindly thought," said our companion, earnestly.  "It was
+extremely good of you."
+
+The little man waved his hand deprecatingly.  "We were your trustees,"
+he said.  "That was the view which I took of it, though Brother
+Bartholomew could not altogether see it in that light.  We had plenty
+of money ourselves.  I desired no more. Besides, it would have been
+such bad taste to have treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion. 'Le
+mauvais gout mene au crime.'  The French have a very neat way of
+putting these things. Our difference of opinion on this subject went so
+far that I thought it best to set up rooms for myself:  so I left
+Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khitmutgar and Williams with me.
+Yesterday, however, I learn that an event of extreme importance has
+occurred.  The treasure has been discovered.  I instantly communicated
+with Miss Morstan, and it only remains for us to drive out to Norwood
+and demand our share.  I explained my views last night to Brother
+Bartholomew:  so we shall be expected, if not welcome, visitors."
+
+Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on his luxurious settee.
+We all remained silent, with our thoughts upon the new development
+which the mysterious business had taken.  Holmes was the first to
+spring to his feet.
+
+"You have done well, sir, from first to last," said he.  "It is
+possible that we may be able to make you some small return by throwing
+some light upon that which is still dark to you.  But, as Miss Morstan
+remarked just now, it is late, and we had best put the matter through
+without delay."
+
+Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his
+hookah, and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged
+topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs.  This he buttoned tightly up,
+in spite of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished his attire
+by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the
+ears, so that no part of him was visible save his mobile and peaky
+face.  "My health is somewhat fragile," he remarked, as he led the way
+down the passage.  "I am compelled to be a valetudinarian."
+
+Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our programme was evidently
+prearranged, for the driver started off at once at a rapid pace.
+Thaddeus Sholto talked incessantly, in a voice which rose high above
+the rattle of the wheels.
+
+"Bartholomew is a clever fellow," said he.  "How do you think he found
+out where the treasure was?  He had come to the conclusion that it was
+somewhere indoors:  so he worked out all the cubic space of the house,
+and made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be
+unaccounted for.  Among other things, he found that the height of the
+building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of
+all the separate rooms, and making every allowance for the space
+between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the total
+to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for.  These
+could only be at the top of the building.  He knocked a hole,
+therefore, in the lath-and-plaster ceiling of the highest room, and
+there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which
+had been sealed up and was known to no one.  In the centre stood the
+treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters.  He lowered it through the
+hole, and there it lies.  He computes the value of the jewels at not
+less than half a million sterling."
+
+At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared at one another
+open-eyed.  Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change from
+a needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it was the
+place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to
+say that selfishness took me by the soul, and that my heart turned as
+heavy as lead within me.  I stammered out some few halting words of
+congratulation, and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to
+the babble of our new acquaintance.  He was clearly a confirmed
+hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth
+interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the
+composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of which he
+bore about in a leather case in his pocket.  I trust that he may not
+remember any of the answers which I gave him that night.  Holmes
+declares that he overheard me caution him against the great danger of
+taking more than two drops of castor oil, while I recommended
+strychnine in large doses as a sedative. However that may be, I was
+certainly relieved when our cab pulled up with a jerk and the coachman
+sprang down to open the door.
+
+"This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge," said Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,
+as he handed her out.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of our
+night's adventures.  We had left the damp fog of the great city behind
+us, and the night was fairly fine.  A warm wind blew from the westward,
+and heavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a moon peeping
+occasionally through the rifts.  It was clear enough to see for some
+distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the side-lamps from the
+carriage to give us a better light upon our way.
+
+Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and was girt round with a
+very high stone wall topped with broken glass.  A single narrow
+iron-clamped door formed the only means of entrance. On this our guide
+knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat.
+
+"Who is there?" cried a gruff voice from within.
+
+"It is I, McMurdo.  You surely know my knock by this time."
+
+There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. The
+door swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in the
+opening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his
+protruded face and twinkling distrustful eyes.
+
+"That you, Mr. Thaddeus?  But who are the others?  I had no orders
+about them from the master."
+
+"No, McMurdo?  You surprise me!  I told my brother last night that I
+should bring some friends."
+
+"He ain't been out o' his room to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have no
+orders.  You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can let
+you in, but your friends must just stop where they are."
+
+This was an unexpected obstacle.  Thaddeus Sholto looked about him in a
+perplexed and helpless manner.  "This is too bad of you, McMurdo!" he
+said.  "If I guarantee them, that is enough for you. There is the young
+lady, too.  She cannot wait on the public road at this hour."
+
+"Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus," said the porter, inexorably.  "Folk may be
+friends o' yours, and yet no friends o' the master's.  He pays me well
+to do my duty, and my duty I'll do.  I don't know none o' your friends."
+
+"Oh, yes you do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes, genially.  "I don't
+think you can have forgotten me.  Don't you remember the amateur who
+fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your
+benefit four years back?"
+
+"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter.  "God's truth! how
+could I have mistook you?  If instead o' standin' there so quiet you
+had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw,
+I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted
+your gifts, you have!  You might have aimed high, if you had joined the
+fancy."
+
+"You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still one of the
+scientific professions open to me," said Holmes, laughing.  "Our friend
+won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure."
+
+"In you come, sir, in you come,--you and your friends," he answered.
+"Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had to be
+certain of your friends before I let them in."
+
+Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clump of
+a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a
+moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window.  The vast
+size of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a
+chill to the heart.  Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the
+lantern quivered and rattled in his hand.
+
+"I cannot understand it," he said.  "There must be some mistake. I
+distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is no
+light in his window.  I do not know what to make of it."
+
+"Does he always guard the premises in this way?" asked Holmes.
+
+"Yes; he has followed my father's custom.  He was the favorite son, you
+know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him more than
+he ever told me.  That is Bartholomew's window up there where the
+moonshine strikes.  It is quite bright, but there is no light from
+within, I think."
+
+"None," said Holmes.  "But I see the glint of a light in that little
+window beside the door."
+
+"Ah, that is the housekeeper's room.  That is where old Mrs. Bernstone
+sits.  She can tell us all about it.  But perhaps you would not mind
+waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together and she
+has no word of our coming she may be alarmed. But hush! what is that?"
+
+He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light
+flickered and wavered all round us.  Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and
+we all stood with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the great
+black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and most
+pitiful of sounds,--the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened woman.
+
+"It is Mrs. Bernstone," said Sholto.  "She is the only woman in the
+house.  Wait here.  I shall be back in a moment."  He hurried for the
+door, and knocked in his peculiar way.  We could see a tall old woman
+admit him, and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come!  I am so glad you
+have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!"  We heard her reiterated rejoicings
+until the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled
+monotone.
+
+Our guide had left us the lantern.  Holmes swung it slowly round, and
+peered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which
+cumbered the grounds.  Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand
+was in mine.  A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who
+had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even
+look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble
+our hands instinctively sought for each other.  I have marvelled at it
+since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should
+go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also
+the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection.  So we stood
+hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for
+all the dark things that surrounded us.
+
+"What a strange place!" she said, looking round.
+
+"It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it.
+I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat,
+where the prospectors had been at work."
+
+"And from the same cause," said Holmes.  "These are the traces of the
+treasure-seekers.  You must remember that they were six years looking
+for it.  No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit."
+
+At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto
+came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes.
+
+"There is something amiss with Bartholomew!" he cried.  "I am
+frightened!  My nerves cannot stand it."  He was, indeed, half
+blubbering with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out from
+the great Astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a
+terrified child.
+
+"Come into the house," said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way.
+
+"Yes, do!" pleaded Thaddeus Sholto.  "I really do not feel equal to
+giving directions."
+
+We all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood upon the
+left-hand side of the passage.  The old woman was pacing up and down
+with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of Miss
+Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.
+
+"God bless your sweet calm face!" she cried, with an hysterical sob.
+"It does me good to see you.  Oh, but I have been sorely tried this
+day!"
+
+Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few
+words of kindly womanly comfort which brought the color back into the
+others bloodless cheeks.
+
+"Master has locked himself in and will not answer me," she explained.
+"All day I have waited to hear from him, for he often likes to be
+alone; but an hour ago I feared that something was amiss, so I went up
+and peeped through the key-hole.  You must go up, Mr. Thaddeus,--you
+must go up and look for yourself.  I have seen Mr. Bartholomew Sholto
+in joy and in sorrow for ten long years, but I never saw him with such
+a face on him as that."
+
+Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto's
+teeth were chattering in his head.  So shaken was he that I had to pass
+my hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees were
+trembling under him.  Twice as we ascended Holmes whipped his lens out
+of his pocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be
+mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoa-nut matting which served
+as a stair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step, holding the
+lamp, and shooting keen glances to right and left.  Miss Morstan had
+remained behind with the frightened housekeeper.
+
+The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length,
+with a great picture in Indian tapestry upon the right of it and three
+doors upon the left.  Holmes advanced along it in the same slow and
+methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our long black
+shadows streaming backwards down the corridor.  The third door was that
+which we were seeking.  Holmes knocked without receiving any answer,
+and then tried to turn the handle and force it open.  It was locked on
+the inside, however, and by a broad and powerful bolt, as we could see
+when we set our lamp up against it.  The key being turned, however, the
+hole was not entirely closed.  Sherlock Holmes bent down to it, and
+instantly rose again with a sharp intaking of the breath.
+
+"There is something devilish in this, Watson," said he, more moved than
+I had ever before seen him.  "What do you make of it?"
+
+I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror.  Moonlight was streaming
+into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shifty radiance.
+Looking straight at me, and suspended, as it were, in the air, for all
+beneath was in shadow, there hung a face,--the very face of our
+companion Thaddeus.  There was the same high, shining head, the same
+circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance.  The
+features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural
+grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the
+nerves than any scowl or contortion.  So like was the face to that of
+our little friend that I looked round at him to make sure that he was
+indeed with us.  Then I recalled to mind that he had mentioned to us
+that his brother and he were twins.
+
+"This is terrible!" I said to Holmes.  "What is to be done?"
+
+"The door must come down," he answered, and, springing against it, he
+put all his weight upon the lock.  It creaked and groaned, but did not
+yield.  Together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and this time it
+gave way with a sudden snap, and we found ourselves within Bartholomew
+Sholto's chamber.
+
+It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory.  A double
+line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite the
+door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners, test-tubes,
+and retorts.  In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker baskets.
+One of these appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of
+dark-colored liquid had trickled out from it, and the air was heavy
+with a peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor.  A set of steps stood at one
+side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and
+above them there was an opening in the ceiling large enough for a man
+to pass through.  At the foot of the steps a long coil of rope was
+thrown carelessly together.
+
+By the table, in a wooden arm-chair, the master of the house was seated
+all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder, and that
+ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face.  He was stiff and cold, and
+had clearly been dead many hours.  It seemed to me that not only his
+features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most
+fantastic fashion.  By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar
+instrument,--a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a
+hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine.  Beside it was a torn sheet
+of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it.  Holmes glanced at it,
+and then handed it to me.
+
+"You see," he said, with a significant raising of the eyebrows.
+
+In the light of the lantern I read, with a thrill of horror, "The sign
+of the four."
+
+"In God's name, what does it all mean?" I asked.
+
+"It means murder," said he, stooping over the dead man.  "Ah, I
+expected it.  Look here!"  He pointed to what looked like a long, dark
+thorn stuck in the skin just above the ear.
+
+"It looks like a thorn," said I.
+
+"It is a thorn.  You may pick it out.  But be careful, for it is
+poisoned."
+
+I took it up between my finger and thumb.  It came away from the skin
+so readily that hardly any mark was left behind.  One tiny speck of
+blood showed where the puncture had been.
+
+"This is all an insoluble mystery to me," said I.  "It grows darker
+instead of clearer."
+
+"On the contrary," he answered, "it clears every instant.  I only
+require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case."
+
+We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the
+chamber.  He was still standing in the door-way, the very picture of
+terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly, however,
+he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.
+
+"The treasure is gone!" he said.  "They have robbed him of the
+treasure!  There is the hole through which we lowered it.  I helped him
+to do it!  I was the last person who saw him!  I left him here last
+night, and I heard him lock the door as I came down-stairs."
+
+"What time was that?"
+
+"It was ten o'clock.  And now he is dead, and the police will be called
+in, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh, yes, I am
+sure I shall.  But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely you don't
+think that it was I?  Is it likely that I would have brought you here
+if it were I?  Oh, dear! oh, dear!  I know that I shall go mad!"  He
+jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive frenzy.
+
+"You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes, kindly, putting
+his hand upon his shoulder.  "Take my advice, and drive down to the
+station to report this matter to the police.  Offer to assist them in
+every way.  We shall wait here until your return."
+
+The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard him
+stumbling down the stairs in the dark.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
+
+"Now, Watson," said Holmes, rubbing his hands, "we have half an hour to
+ourselves.  Let us make good use of it.  My case is, as I have told
+you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of
+over-confidence.  Simple as the case seems now, there may be something
+deeper underlying it."
+
+"Simple!" I ejaculated.
+
+"Surely," said he, with something of the air of a clinical professor
+expounding to his class.  "Just sit in the corner there, that your
+footprints may not complicate matters.  Now to work!  In the first
+place, how did these folk come, and how did they go?  The door has not
+been opened since last night.  How of the window?"  He carried the lamp
+across to it, muttering his observations aloud the while, but
+addressing them to himself rather than to me.  "Window is snibbed on
+the inner side. Framework is solid.  No hinges at the side.  Let us
+open it.  No water-pipe near.  Roof quite out of reach.  Yet a man has
+mounted by the window. It rained a little last night.  Here is the
+print of a foot in mould upon the sill.  And here is a circular muddy
+mark, and here again upon the floor, and here again by the table. See
+here, Watson!  This is really a very pretty demonstration."
+
+I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs.  "This is not a
+footmark," said I.
+
+"It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a
+wooden stump.  You see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot
+with the broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the timber-toe."
+
+"It is the wooden-legged man."
+
+"Quite so.  But there has been some one else,--a very able and
+efficient ally.  Could you scale that wall, doctor?"
+
+I looked out of the open window.  The moon still shone brightly on that
+angle of the house.  We were a good sixty feet from the ground, and,
+look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a crevice
+in the brick-work.
+
+"It is absolutely impossible," I answered.
+
+"Without aid it is so.  But suppose you had a friend up here who
+lowered you this good stout rope which I see in the corner, securing
+one end of it to this great hook in the wall.  Then, I think, if you
+were an active man, You might swarm up, wooden leg and all.  You would
+depart, of course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw up the
+rope, untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the inside,
+and get away in the way that he originally came.  As a minor point it
+may be noted," he continued, fingering the rope, "that our
+wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional
+sailor.  His hands were far from horny.  My lens discloses more than
+one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I
+gather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin
+off his hand."
+
+"This is all very well," said I, "but the thing becomes more
+unintelligible than ever.  How about this mysterious ally?  How came he
+into the room?"
+
+"Yes, the ally!" repeated Holmes, pensively.  "There are features of
+interest about this ally.  He lifts the case from the regions of the
+commonplace.  I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals
+of crime in this country,--though parallel cases suggest themselves
+from India, and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia."
+
+"How came he, then?"  I reiterated.  "The door is locked, the window is
+inaccessible.  Was it through the chimney?"
+
+"The grate is much too small," he answered.  "I had already considered
+that possibility."
+
+"How then?" I persisted.
+
+"You will not apply my precept," he said, shaking his head.  "How often
+have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible
+whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth?  We know that
+he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney.  We also
+know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no
+concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?"
+
+"He came through the hole in the roof," I cried.
+
+"Of course he did.  He must have done so. If you will have the kindness
+to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches to the room
+above,--the secret room in which the treasure was found."
+
+He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he swung
+himself up into the garret.  Then, lying on his face, he reached down
+for the lamp and held it while I followed him.
+
+The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way and
+six the other.  The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin
+lath-and-plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam
+to beam.  The roof ran up to an apex, and was evidently the inner shell
+of the true roof of the house.  There was no furniture of any sort, and
+the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.
+
+"Here you are, you see," said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand against
+the sloping wall.  "This is a trap-door which leads out on to the roof.
+I can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping at a gentle
+angle.  This, then, is the way by which Number One entered.  Let us see
+if we can find any other traces of his individuality."
+
+He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the
+second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his face.
+For myself, as I followed his gaze my skin was cold under my clothes.
+The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked foot,--clear,
+well defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the size of those of an
+ordinary man.
+
+"Holmes," I said, in a whisper, "a child has done the horrid thing."
+
+He had recovered his self-possession in an instant.  "I was staggered
+for the moment," he said, "but the thing is quite natural.  My memory
+failed me, or I should have been able to foretell it.  There is nothing
+more to be learned here.  Let us go down."
+
+"What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?" I asked, eagerly,
+when we had regained the lower room once more.
+
+"My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself," said he, with a touch
+of impatience.  "You know my methods.  Apply them, and it will be
+instructive to compare results."
+
+"I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts," I answered.
+
+"It will be clear enough to you soon," he said, in an off-hand way.  "I
+think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will look."
+He whipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about the room
+on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose
+only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes gleaming and
+deep-set like those of a bird.  So swift, silent, and furtive were his
+movements, like those of a trained blood-hound picking out a scent,
+that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made
+had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of
+exerting them in its defense.  As he hunted about, he kept muttering to
+himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight.
+
+"We are certainly in luck," said he.  "We ought to have very little
+trouble now.  Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the
+creosote.  You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here
+at the side of this evil-smelling mess.  The carboy has been cracked,
+You see, and the stuff has leaked out."
+
+"What then?" I asked.
+
+"Why, we have got him, that's all," said he.  "I know a dog that would
+follow that scent to the world's end.  If a pack can track a trailed
+herring across a shire, how far can a specially-trained hound follow so
+pungent a smell as this?  It sounds like a sum in the rule of three.
+The answer should give us the--But halloo! here are the accredited
+representatives of the law."
+
+Heavy steps and the clamor of loud voices were audible from below, and
+the hall door shut with a loud crash.
+
+"Before they come," said Holmes, "just put your hand here on this poor
+fellow's arm, and here on his leg.  What do you feel?"
+
+"The muscles are as hard as a board," I answered.
+
+"Quite so.  They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding
+the usual rigor mortis.  Coupled with this distortion of the face, this
+Hippocratic smile, or 'risus sardonicus,' as the old writers called it,
+what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?"
+
+"Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid," I answered,--"some
+strychnine-like substance which would produce tetanus."
+
+"That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the drawn
+muscles of the face.  On getting into the room I at once looked for the
+means by which the poison had entered the system. As you saw, I
+discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no great force
+into the scalp.  You observe that the part struck was that which would
+be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the man were erect in his
+chair.  Now examine the thorn."
+
+I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lantern. It was
+long, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though
+some gummy substance had dried upon it.  The blunt end had been trimmed
+and rounded off with a knife.
+
+"Is that an English thorn?" he asked.
+
+"No, it certainly is not."
+
+"With all these data you should be able to draw some just inference.
+But here are the regulars:  so the auxiliary forces may beat a retreat."
+
+As he spoke, the steps which had been coming nearer sounded loudly on
+the passage, and a very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily
+into the room.  He was red-faced, burly and plethoric, with a pair of
+very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen
+and puffy pouches. He was closely followed by an inspector in uniform,
+and by the still palpitating Thaddeus Sholto.
+
+"Here's a business!" he cried, in a muffled, husky voice. "Here's a
+pretty business!  But who are all these?  Why, the house seems to be as
+full as a rabbit-warren!"
+
+"I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney Jones," said Holmes,
+quietly.
+
+"Why, of course I do!" he wheezed.  "It's Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the
+theorist.  Remember you!  I'll never forget how you lectured us all on
+causes and inferences and effects in the Bishopgate jewel case.  It's
+true you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was more
+by good luck than good guidance."
+
+"It was a piece of very simple reasoning."
+
+"Oh, come, now, come!  Never be ashamed to own up.  But what is all
+this?  Bad business!  Bad business!  Stern facts here,--no room for
+theories.  How lucky that I happened to be out at Norwood over another
+case!  I was at the station when the message arrived.  What d'you think
+the man died of?"
+
+"Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over," said Holmes, dryly.
+
+"No, no.  Still, we can't deny that you hit the nail on the head
+sometimes.  Dear me!  Door locked, I understand.  Jewels worth half a
+million missing.  How was the window?"
+
+"Fastened; but there are steps on the sill."
+
+"Well, well, if it was fastened the steps could have nothing to do with
+the matter.  That's common sense.  Man might have died in a fit; but
+then the jewels are missing.  Ha!  I have a theory. These flashes come
+upon me at times.--Just step outside, sergeant, and you, Mr. Sholto.
+Your friend can remain.--What do you think of this, Holmes?  Sholto
+was, on his own confession, with his brother last night.  The brother
+died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure.  How's
+that?"
+
+"On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on
+the inside."
+
+"Hum!  There's a flaw there.  Let us apply common sense to the matter.
+This Thaddeus Sholto WAS with his brother; there WAS a quarrel; so much
+we know.  The brother is dead and the jewels are gone.  So much also we
+know.  No one saw the brother from the time Thaddeus left him.  His bed
+had not been slept in.  Thaddeus is evidently in a most disturbed state
+of mind.  His appearance is--well, not attractive.  You see that I am
+weaving my web round Thaddeus.  The net begins to close upon him."
+
+"You are not quite in possession of the facts yet," said Holmes. "This
+splinter of wood, which I have every reason to believe to be poisoned,
+was in the man's scalp where you still see the mark; this card,
+inscribed as you see it, was on the table; and beside it lay this
+rather curious stone-headed instrument.  How does all that fit into
+your theory?"
+
+"Confirms it in every respect," said the fat detective, pompously.
+"House is full of Indian curiosities.  Thaddeus brought this up, and if
+this splinter be poisonous Thaddeus may as well have made murderous use
+of it as any other man.  The card is some hocus-pocus,--a blind, as
+like as not.  The only question is, how did he depart?  Ah, of course,
+here is a hole in the roof."  With great activity, considering his
+bulk, he sprang up the steps and squeezed through into the garret, and
+immediately afterwards we heard his exulting voice proclaiming that he
+had found the trap-door.
+
+"He can find something," remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders.  "He
+has occasional glimmerings of reason.  _Il n'y a pas des sots si
+incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!_"
+
+"You see!" said Athelney Jones, reappearing down the steps again.
+"Facts are better than mere theories, after all.  My view of the case
+is confirmed.  There is a trap-door communicating with the roof, and it
+is partly open."
+
+"It was I who opened it."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  You did notice it, then?"  He seemed a little crestfallen
+at the discovery.  "Well, whoever noticed it, it shows how our
+gentleman got away.  Inspector!"
+
+"Yes, sir," from the passage.
+
+"Ask Mr. Sholto to step this way.--Mr. Sholto, it is my duty to inform
+you that anything which you may say will be used against you.  I arrest
+you in the queen's name as being concerned in the death of your
+brother."
+
+"There, now!  Didn't I tell you!" cried the poor little man, throwing
+out his hands, and looking from one to the other of us.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes.  "I think
+that I can engage to clear you of the charge."
+
+"Don't promise too much, Mr. Theorist,--don't promise too much!"
+snapped the detective.  "You may find it a harder matter than you
+think."
+
+"Not only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will make you a free
+present of the name and description of one of the two people who were
+in this room last night.  His name, I have every reason to believe, is
+Jonathan Small.  He is a poorly-educated man, small, active, with his
+right leg off, and wearing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the
+inner side.  His left boot has a coarse, square-toed sole, with an iron
+band round the heel.  He is a middle-aged man, much sunburned, and has
+been a convict.  These few indications may be of some assistance to
+you, coupled with the fact that there is a good deal of skin missing
+from the palm of his hand.  The other man--"
+
+"Ah! the other man--?" asked Athelney Jones, in a sneering voice, but
+impressed none the less, as I could easily see, by the precision of the
+other's manner.
+
+"Is a rather curious person," said Sherlock Holmes, turning upon his
+heel.  "I hope before very long to be able to introduce you to the pair
+of them.--A word with you, Watson."
+
+He led me out to the head of the stair.  "This unexpected occurrence,"
+he said, "has caused us rather to lose sight of the original purpose of
+our journey."
+
+"I have just been thinking so," I answered.  "It is not right that Miss
+Morstan should remain in this stricken house."
+
+"No.  You must escort her home.  She lives with Mrs. Cecil Forrester,
+in Lower Camberwell:  so it is not very far.  I will wait for you here
+if you will drive out again.  Or perhaps you are too tired?"
+
+"By no means.  I don't think I could rest until I know more of this
+fantastic business.  I have seen something of the rough side of life,
+but I give you my word that this quick succession of strange surprises
+to-night has shaken my nerve completely.  I should like, however, to
+see the matter through with you, now that I have got so far."
+
+"Your presence will be of great service to me," he answered.  "We shall
+work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult
+over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct.  When you have
+dropped Miss Morstan I wish you to go on to No. 3 Pinchin Lane, down
+near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the right-hand
+side is a bird-stuffer's: Sherman is the name.  You will see a weasel
+holding a young rabbit in the window.  Knock old Sherman up, and tell
+him, with my compliments, that I want Toby at once.  You will bring
+Toby back in the cab with you."
+
+"A dog, I suppose."
+
+"Yes,--a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent.  I would
+rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of
+London."
+
+"I shall bring him, then," said I.  "It is one now.  I ought to be back
+before three, if I can get a fresh horse."
+
+"And I," said Holmes, "shall see what I can learn from Mrs. Bernstone,
+and from the Indian servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tell me, sleeps in the
+next garret.  Then I shall study the great Jones's methods and listen
+to his not too delicate sarcasms. 'Wir sind gewohnt das die Menschen
+verhoehnen was sie nicht verstehen.'  Goethe is always pithy."
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Episode of the Barrel
+
+The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss
+Morstan back to her home.  After the angelic fashion of women, she had
+borne trouble with a calm face as long as there was some one weaker
+than herself to support, and I had found her bright and placid by the
+side of the frightened housekeeper.  In the cab, however, she first
+turned faint, and then burst into a passion of weeping,--so sorely had
+she been tried by the adventures of the night.  She has told me since
+that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey.  She little
+guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of self-restraint
+which held me back.  My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as
+my hand had in the garden.  I felt that years of the conventionalities
+of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave nature as had this
+one day of strange experiences.  Yet there were two thoughts which
+sealed the words of affection upon my lips.  She was weak and helpless,
+shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to
+obtrude love upon her at such a time.  Worse still, she was rich.  If
+Holmes's researches were successful, she would be an heiress.  Was it
+fair, was it honorable, that a half-pay surgeon should take such
+advantage of an intimacy which chance had brought about?  Might she not
+look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker?  I could not bear to risk
+that such a thought should cross her mind.  This Agra treasure
+intervened like an impassable barrier between us.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The
+servants had retired hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so
+interested by the strange message which Miss Morstan had received that
+she had sat up in the hope of her return.  She opened the door herself,
+a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how tenderly
+her arm stole round the other's waist and how motherly was the voice in
+which she greeted her. She was clearly no mere paid dependant, but an
+honored friend.  I was introduced, and Mrs. Forrester earnestly begged
+me to step in and tell her our adventures.  I explained, however, the
+importance of my errand, and promised faithfully to call and report any
+progress which we might make with the case.  As we drove away I stole a
+glance back, and I still seem to see that little group on the step, the
+two graceful, clinging figures, the half-opened door, the hall light
+shining through stained glass, the barometer, and the bright
+stair-rods.  It was soothing to catch even that passing glimpse of a
+tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark business which had
+absorbed us.
+
+And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and darker it
+grew.  I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I
+rattled on through the silent gas-lit streets.  There was the original
+problem:  that at least was pretty clear now. The death of Captain
+Morstan, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter,--we
+had had light upon all those events.  They had only led us, however, to
+a deeper and far more tragic mystery.  The Indian treasure, the curious
+plan found among Morstan's baggage, the strange scene at Major Sholto's
+death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the
+murder of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments to the
+crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, the words upon the card,
+corresponding with those upon Captain Morstan's chart,--here was indeed
+a labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed than my
+fellow-lodger might well despair of ever finding the clue.
+
+Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-storied brick houses in the lower
+quarter of Lambeth.  I had to knock for some time at No. 3 before I
+could make my impression.  At last, however, there was the glint of a
+candle behind the blind, and a face looked out at the upper window.
+
+"Go on, you drunken vagabone," said the face.  "If you kick up any more
+row I'll open the kennels and let out forty-three dogs upon you."
+
+"If you'll let one out it's just what I have come for," said I.
+
+"Go on!" yelled the voice.  "So help me gracious, I have a wiper in the
+bag, an' I'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it."
+
+"But I want a dog," I cried.
+
+"I won't be argued with!" shouted Mr. Sherman.  "Now stand clear, for
+when I say 'three,' down goes the wiper."
+
+"Mr. Sherlock Holmes--" I began, but the words had a most magical
+effect, for the window instantly slammed down, and within a minute the
+door was unbarred and open.  Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old man,
+with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck, and blue-tinted glasses.
+
+"A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome," said he.  "Step in, sir.
+Keep clear of the badger; for he bites.  Ah, naughty, naughty, would
+you take a nip at the gentleman?"  This to a stoat which thrust its
+wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage.  "Don't mind
+that, sir:  it's only a slow-worm.  It hain't got no fangs, so I gives
+it the run o' the room, for it keeps the beetles down.  You must not
+mind my bein' just a little short wi' you at first, for I'm guyed at by
+the children, and there's many a one just comes down this lane to knock
+me up.  What was it that Mr. Sherlock Holmes wanted, sir?"
+
+"He wanted a dog of yours."
+
+"Ah! that would be Toby."
+
+"Yes, Toby was the name."
+
+"Toby lives at No. 7 on the left here."  He moved slowly forward with
+his candle among the queer animal family which he had gathered round
+him.  In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see dimly that there were
+glancing, glimmering eyes peeping down at us from every cranny and
+corner.  Even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn fowls,
+who lazily shifted their weight from one leg to the other as our voices
+disturbed their slumbers.
+
+Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared creature, half spaniel
+and half lurcher, brown-and-white in color, with a very clumsy waddling
+gait.  It accepted after some hesitation a lump of sugar which the old
+naturalist handed to me, and, having thus sealed an alliance, it
+followed me to the cab, and made no difficulties about accompanying me.
+It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I found myself back
+once more at Pondicherry Lodge.  The ex-prize-fighter McMurdo had, I
+found, been arrested as an accessory, and both he and Mr. Sholto had
+been marched off to the station.  Two constables guarded the narrow
+gate, but they allowed me to pass with the dog on my mentioning the
+detective's name.
+
+Holmes was standing on the door-step, with his hands in his pockets,
+smoking his pipe.
+
+"Ah, you have him there!" said he.  "Good dog, then!  Atheney Jones has
+gone.  We have had an immense display of energy since you left.  He has
+arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the housekeeper,
+and the Indian servant.  We have the place to ourselves, but for a
+sergeant up-stairs.  Leave the dog here, and come up."
+
+We tied Toby to the hall table, and reascended the stairs.  The room
+was as he had left it, save that a sheet had been draped over the
+central figure.  A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the corner.
+
+"Lend me your bull's-eye, sergeant," said my companion.  "Now tie this
+bit of card round my neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank you.
+Now I must kick off my boots and stockings.--Just you carry them down
+with you, Watson.  I am going to do a little climbing.  And dip my
+handkerchief into the creasote.  That will do.  Now come up into the
+garret with me for a moment."
+
+We clambered up through the hole.  Holmes turned his light once more
+upon the footsteps in the dust.
+
+"I wish you particularly to notice these footmarks," he said. "Do you
+observe anything noteworthy about them?"
+
+"They belong," I said, "to a child or a small woman."
+
+"Apart from their size, though.  Is there nothing else?"
+
+"They appear to be much as other footmarks."
+
+"Not at all.  Look here!  This is the print of a right foot in the
+dust.  Now I make one with my naked foot beside it.  What is the chief
+difference?"
+
+"Your toes are all cramped together.  The other print has each toe
+distinctly divided."
+
+"Quite so.  That is the point.  Bear that in mind.  Now, would you
+kindly step over to that flap-window and smell the edge of the
+wood-work?  I shall stay here, as I have this handkerchief in my hand."
+
+I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong tarry
+smell.
+
+"That is where he put his foot in getting out.  If YOU can trace him, I
+should think that Toby will have no difficulty.  Now run down-stairs,
+loose the dog, and look out for Blondin."
+
+By the time that I got out into the grounds Sherlock Holmes was on the
+roof, and I could see him like an enormous glow-worm crawling very
+slowly along the ridge.  I lost sight of him behind a stack of
+chimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then vanished once more upon
+the opposite side.  When I made my way round there I found him seated
+at one of the corner eaves.
+
+"That you, Watson?" he cried.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is the place.  What is that black thing down there?"
+
+"A water-barrel."
+
+"Top on it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No sign of a ladder?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Confound the fellow!  It's a most break-neck place.  I ought to be
+able to come down where he could climb up.  The water-pipe feels pretty
+firm.  Here goes, anyhow."
+
+There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily
+down the side of the wall.  Then with a light spring he came on to the
+barrel, and from there to the earth.
+
+"It was easy to follow him," he said, drawing on his stockings and
+boots.  "Tiles were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he
+had dropped this.  It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express it."
+
+The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven out
+of colored grasses and with a few tawdry beads strung round it.  In
+shape and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside were half a
+dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other,
+like that which had struck Bartholomew Sholto.
+
+"They are hellish things," said he.  "Look out that you don't prick
+yourself.  I'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they
+are all he has.  There is the less fear of you or me finding one in our
+skin before long.  I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself.  Are
+you game for a six-mile trudge, Watson?"
+
+"Certainly," I answered.
+
+"Your leg will stand it?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Here you are, doggy!  Good old Toby!  Smell it, Toby, smell it!" He
+pushed the creasote handkerchief under the dog's nose, while the
+creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with a most comical
+cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing the bouquet of a famous
+vintage.  Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a
+stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot of the
+water-barrel.  The creature instantly broke into a succession of high,
+tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the ground, and his tail in the
+air, pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained his leash and
+kept us at the top of our speed.
+
+The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some
+distance in the cold gray light.  The square, massive house, with its
+black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and forlorn,
+behind us.  Our course led right across the grounds, in and out among
+the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and intersected.
+The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs,
+had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized with the black tragedy
+which hung over it.
+
+On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly,
+underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a
+young beech.  Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been
+loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the
+lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.
+Holmes clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over
+upon the other side.
+
+"There's the print of wooden-leg's hand," he remarked, as I mounted up
+beside him.  "You see the slight smudge of blood upon the white
+plaster.  What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy rain
+since yesterday!  The scent will lie upon the road in spite of their
+eight-and-twenty hours' start."
+
+I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great
+traffic which had passed along the London road in the interval.  My
+fears were soon appeased, however.  Toby never hesitated or swerved,
+but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion.  Clearly, the pungent
+smell of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.
+
+"Do not imagine," said Holmes, "that I depend for my success in this
+case upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his foot
+in the chemical.  I have knowledge now which would enable me to trace
+them in many different ways.  This, however, is the readiest and, since
+fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected
+it.  It has, however, prevented the case from becoming the pretty
+little intellectual problem which it at one time promised to be. There
+might have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for this too
+palpable clue."
+
+"There is credit, and to spare," said I.  "I assure you, Holmes, that I
+marvel at the means by which you obtain your results in this case, even
+more than I did in the Jefferson Hope Murder. The thing seems to me to
+be deeper and more inexplicable.  How, for example, could you describe
+with such confidence the wooden-legged man?"
+
+"Pshaw, my dear boy! it was simplicity itself.  I don't wish to be
+theatrical.  It is all patent and above-board.  Two officers who are in
+command of a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried
+treasure.  A map is drawn for them by an Englishman named Jonathan
+Small.  You remember that we saw the name upon the chart in Captain
+Morstan's possession.  He had signed it in behalf of himself and his
+associates,--the sign of the four, as he somewhat dramatically called
+it.  Aided by this chart, the officers--or one of them--gets the
+treasure and brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, some
+condition under which he received it unfulfilled.  Now, then, why did
+not Jonathan Small get the treasure himself?  The answer is obvious.
+The chart is dated at a time when Morstan was brought into close
+association with convicts.  Jonathan Small did not get the treasure
+because he and his associates were themselves convicts and could not
+get away."
+
+"But that is mere speculation," said I.
+
+"It is more than that.  It is the only hypothesis which covers the
+facts.  Let us see how it fits in with the sequel.  Major Sholto
+remains at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his
+treasure.  Then he receives a letter from India which gives him a great
+fright.  What was that?"
+
+"A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free."
+
+"Or had escaped.  That is much more likely, for he would have known
+what their term of imprisonment was.  It would not have been a surprise
+to him.  What does he do then?  He guards himself against a
+wooden-legged man,--a white man, mark you, for he mistakes a white
+tradesman for him, and actually fires a pistol at him.  Now, only one
+white man's name is on the chart.  The others are Hindoos or
+Mohammedans.  There is no other white man. Therefore we may say with
+confidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan Small.
+Does the reasoning strike you as being faulty?"
+
+"No:  it is clear and concise."
+
+"Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small. Let us
+look at it from his point of view.  He comes to England with the double
+idea of regaining what he would consider to be his rights and of having
+his revenge upon the man who had wronged him.  He found out where
+Sholto lived, and very possibly he established communications with some
+one inside the house.  There is this butler, Lal Rao, whom we have not
+seen.  Mrs. Bernstone gives him far from a good character. Small could
+not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no one ever
+knew, save the major and one faithful servant who had died.  Suddenly
+Small learns that the major is on his death-bed.  In a frenzy lest the
+secret of the treasure die with him, he runs the gauntlet of the
+guards, makes his way to the dying man's window, and is only deterred
+from entering by the presence of his two sons.  Mad with hate, however,
+against the dead man, he enters the room that night, searches his
+private papers in the hope of discovering some memorandum relating to
+the treasure, and finally leaves a momento of his visit in the short
+inscription upon the card.  He had doubtless planned beforehand that
+should he slay the major he would leave some such record upon the body
+as a sign that it was not a common murder, but, from the point of view
+of the four associates, something in the nature of an act of justice.
+Whimsical and bizarre conceits of this kind are common enough in the
+annals of crime, and usually afford valuable indications as to the
+criminal.  Do you follow all this?"
+
+"Very clearly."
+
+"Now, what could Jonathan Small do?  He could only continue to keep a
+secret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure. Possibly he
+leaves England and only comes back at intervals. Then comes the
+discovery of the garret, and he is instantly informed of it.  We again
+trace the presence of some confederate in the household.  Jonathan,
+with his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty room of
+Bartholomew Sholto.  He takes with him, however, a rather curious
+associate, who gets over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot into
+creasote, whence comes Toby, and a six-mile limp for a half-pay officer
+with a damaged tendo Achillis."
+
+"But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who committed the crime."
+
+"Quite so.  And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way he
+stamped about when he got into the room.  He bore no grudge against
+Bartholomew Sholto, and would have preferred if he could have been
+simply bound and gagged.  He did not wish to put his head in a halter.
+There was no help for it, however:  the savage instincts of his
+companion had broken out, and the poison had done its work:  so
+Jonathan Small left his record, lowered the treasure-box to the ground,
+and followed it himself.  That was the train of events as far as I can
+decipher them.  Of course as to his personal appearance he must be
+middle-aged, and must be sunburned after serving his time in such an
+oven as the Andamans. His height is readily calculated from the length
+of his stride, and we know that he was bearded.  His hairiness was the
+one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus Sholto when he saw him
+at the window.  I don't know that there is anything else."
+
+"The associate?"
+
+"Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that.  But you will know all
+about it soon enough.  How sweet the morning air is!  See how that one
+little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo.
+Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank.
+It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a
+stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty
+ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces
+of nature!  Are you well up in your Jean Paul?"
+
+"Fairly so.  I worked back to him through Carlyle."
+
+"That was like following the brook to the parent lake.  He makes one
+curious but profound remark.  It is that the chief proof of man's real
+greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you
+see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a
+proof of nobility.  There is much food for thought in Richter.  You
+have not a pistol, have you?"
+
+"I have my stick."
+
+"It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get
+to their lair.  Jonathan I shall leave to you, but if the other turns
+nasty I shall shoot him dead."  He took out his revolver as he spoke,
+and, having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back into the
+right-hand pocket of his jacket.
+
+We had during this time been following the guidance of Toby down the
+half-rural villa-lined roads which lead to the metropolis. Now,
+however, we were beginning to come among continuous streets, where
+laborers and dockmen were already astir, and slatternly women were
+taking down shutters and brushing door-steps.  At the square-topped
+corner public houses business was just beginning, and rough-looking men
+were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after their
+morning wet.  Strange dogs sauntered up and stared wonderingly at us as
+we passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither to the right nor to
+the left, but trotted onwards with his nose to the ground and an
+occasional eager whine which spoke of a hot scent.
+
+We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camberwell, and now found
+ourselves in Kennington Lane, having borne away through the
+side-streets to the east of the Oval.  The men whom we pursued seemed
+to have taken a curiously zigzag road, with the idea probably of
+escaping observation.  They had never kept to the main road if a
+parallel side-street would serve their turn.  At the foot of Kennington
+Lane they had edged away to the left through Bond Street and Miles
+Street.  Where the latter street turns into Knight's Place, Toby ceased
+to advance, but began to run backwards and forwards with one ear cocked
+and the other drooping, the very picture of canine indecision.  Then he
+waddled round in circles, looking up to us from time to time, as if to
+ask for sympathy in his embarrassment.
+
+"What the deuce is the matter with the dog?" growled Holmes. "They
+surely would not take a cab, or go off in a balloon."
+
+"Perhaps they stood here for some time," I suggested.
+
+"Ah! it's all right.  He's off again," said my companion, in a tone of
+relief.
+
+He was indeed off, for after sniffing round again he suddenly made up
+his mind, and darted away with an energy and determination such as he
+had not yet shown.  The scent appeared to be much hotter than before,
+for he had not even to put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his
+leash and tried to break into a run.  I cold see by the gleam in
+Holmes's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of our journey.
+
+Our course now ran down Nine Elms until we came to Broderick and
+Nelson's large timber-yard, just past the White Eagle tavern. Here the
+dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side-gate into
+the enclosure, where the sawyers were already at work.  On the dog
+raced through sawdust and shavings, down an alley, round a passage,
+between two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp, sprang
+upon a large barrel which still stood upon the hand-trolley on which it
+had been brought.  With lolling tongue and blinking eyes, Toby stood
+upon the cask, looking from one to the other of us for some sign of
+appreciation.  The staves of the barrel and the wheels of the trolley
+were smeared with a dark liquid, and the whole air was heavy with the
+smell of creasote.
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each other, and then burst
+simultaneously into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Baker Street Irregulars
+
+"What now?" I asked.  "Toby has lost his character for infallibility."
+
+"He acted according to his lights," said Holmes, lifting him down from
+the barrel and walking him out of the timber-yard.  "If you consider
+how much creasote is carted about London in one day, it is no great
+wonder that our trail should have been crossed.  It is much used now,
+especially for the seasoning of wood.  Poor Toby is not to blame."
+
+"We must get on the main scent again, I suppose."
+
+"Yes.  And, fortunately, we have no distance to go.  Evidently what
+puzzled the dog at the corner of Knight's Place was that there were two
+different trails running in opposite directions. We took the wrong one.
+It only remains to follow the other."
+
+There was no difficulty about this.  On leading Toby to the place where
+he had committed his fault, he cast about in a wide circle and finally
+dashed off in a fresh direction.
+
+"We must take care that he does not now bring us to the place where the
+creasote-barrel came from," I observed.
+
+"I had thought of that.  But you notice that he keeps on the pavement,
+whereas the barrel passed down the roadway.  No, we are on the true
+scent now."
+
+It tended down towards the river-side, running through Belmont Place
+and Prince's Street.  At the end of Broad Street it ran right down to
+the water's edge, where there was a small wooden wharf.  Toby led us to
+the very edge of this, and there stood whining, looking out on the dark
+current beyond.
+
+"We are out of luck," said Holmes.  "They have taken to a boat here."
+Several small punts and skiffs were lying about in the water and on the
+edge of the wharf.  We took Toby round to each in turn, but, though he
+sniffed earnestly, he made no sign.
+
+Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick house, with a wooden
+placard slung out through the second window.  "Mordecai Smith" was
+printed across it in large letters, and, underneath, "Boats to hire by
+the hour or day."  A second inscription above the door informed us that
+a steam launch was kept,--a statement which was confirmed by a great
+pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes looked slowly round, and
+his face assumed an ominous expression.
+
+"This looks bad," said he.  "These fellows are sharper than I expected.
+They seem to have covered their tracks.  There has, I fear, been
+preconcerted management here."
+
+He was approaching the door of the house, when it opened, and a little,
+curly-headed lad of six came running out, followed by a stoutish,
+red-faced woman with a large sponge in her hand.
+
+"You come back and be washed, Jack," she shouted.  "Come back, you
+young imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that, he'll
+let us hear of it."
+
+"Dear little chap!" said Holmes, strategically.  "What a rosy-cheeked
+young rascal!  Now, Jack, is there anything you would like?"
+
+The youth pondered for a moment.  "I'd like a shillin'," said he.
+
+"Nothing you would like better?"
+
+"I'd like two shillin' better," the prodigy answered, after some
+thought.
+
+"Here you are, then!  Catch!--A fine child, Mrs. Smith!"
+
+"Lor' bless you, sir, he is that, and forward.  He gets a'most too much
+for me to manage, 'specially when my man is away days at a time."
+
+"Away, is he?" said Holmes, in a disappointed voice.  "I am sorry for
+that, for I wanted to speak to Mr. Smith."
+
+"He's been away since yesterday mornin', sir, and, truth to tell, I am
+beginnin' to feel frightened about him.  But if it was about a boat,
+sir, maybe I could serve as well."
+
+"I wanted to hire his steam launch."
+
+"Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch that he has gone.
+That's what puzzles me; for I know there ain't more coals in her than
+would take her to about Woolwich and back.  If he'd been away in the
+barge I'd ha' thought nothin'; for many a time a job has taken him as
+far as Gravesend, and then if there was much doin' there he might ha'
+stayed over.  But what good is a steam launch without coals?"
+
+"He might have bought some at a wharf down the river."
+
+"He might, sir, but it weren't his way.  Many a time I've heard him
+call out at the prices they charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I don't
+like that wooden-legged man, wi' his ugly face and outlandish talk.
+What did he want always knockin' about here for?"
+
+"A wooden-legged man?" said Holmes, with bland surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir, a brown, monkey-faced chap that's called more'n once for my
+old man.  It was him that roused him up yesternight, and, what's more,
+my man knew he was comin', for he had steam up in the launch.  I tell
+you straight, sir, I don't feel easy in my mind about it."
+
+"But, my dear Mrs. Smith," said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders, "You
+are frightening yourself about nothing.  How could you possibly tell
+that it was the wooden-legged man who came in the night?  I don't quite
+understand how you can be so sure."
+
+"His voice, sir.  I knew his voice, which is kind o' thick and foggy.
+He tapped at the winder,--about three it would be.  'Show a leg,
+matey,' says he:  'time to turn out guard.'  My old man woke up
+Jim,--that's my eldest,--and away they went, without so much as a word
+to me.  I could hear the wooden leg clackin' on the stones."
+
+"And was this wooden-legged man alone?"
+
+"Couldn't say, I am sure, sir.  I didn't hear no one else."
+
+"I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam launch, and I have heard
+good reports of the--Let me see, what is her name?"
+
+"The Aurora, sir."
+
+"Ah!  She's not that old green launch with a yellow line, very broad in
+the beam?"
+
+"No, indeed.  She's as trim a little thing as any on the river. She's
+been fresh painted, black with two red streaks."
+
+"Thanks.  I hope that you will hear soon from Mr. Smith.  I am going
+down the river; and if I should see anything of the Aurora I shall let
+him know that you are uneasy.  A black funnel, you say?"
+
+"No, sir.  Black with a white band."
+
+"Ah, of course.  It was the sides which were black. Good-morning, Mrs.
+Smith.--There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson.  We shall take
+it and cross the river.
+
+"The main thing with people of that sort," said Holmes, as we sat in
+the sheets of the wherry, "is never to let them think that their
+information can be of the slightest importance to you.  If you do, they
+will instantly shut up like an oyster.  If you listen to them under
+protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want."
+
+"Our course now seems pretty clear," said I.
+
+"What would you do, then?"
+
+"I would engage a launch and go down the river on the track of the
+Aurora."
+
+"My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task.  She may have touched at
+any wharf on either side of the stream between here and Greenwich.
+Below the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing-places for
+miles.  It would take you days and days to exhaust them, if you set
+about it alone."
+
+"Employ the police, then."
+
+"No.  I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is
+not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would
+injure him professionally.  But I have a fancy for working it out
+myself, now that we have gone so far."
+
+"Could we advertise, then, asking for information from wharfingers?"
+
+"Worse and worse!  Our men would know that the chase was hot at their
+heels, and they would be off out of the country.  As it is, they are
+likely enough to leave, but as long as they think they are perfectly
+safe they will be in no hurry.  Jones's energy will be of use to us
+there, for his view of the case is sure to push itself into the daily
+press, and the runaways will think that every one is off on the wrong
+scent."
+
+"What are we to do, then?" I asked, as we landed near Millbank
+Penitentiary.
+
+"Take this hansom, drive home, have some breakfast, and get an hour's
+sleep.  It is quite on the cards that we may be afoot to-night again.
+Stop at a telegraph-office, cabby!  We will keep Toby, for he may be of
+use to us yet."
+
+We pulled up at the Great Peter Street post-office, and Holmes
+despatched his wire.  "Whom do you think that is to?" he asked, as we
+resumed our journey.
+
+"I am sure I don't know."
+
+"You remember the Baker Street division of the detective police force
+whom I employed in the Jefferson Hope case?"
+
+"Well," said I, laughing.
+
+"This is just the case where they might be invaluable.  If they fail, I
+have other resources; but I shall try them first.  That wire was to my
+dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his gang
+will be with us before we have finished our breakfast."
+
+It was between eight and nine o'clock now, and I was conscious of a
+strong reaction after the successive excitements of the night. I was
+limp and weary, befogged in mind and fatigued in body.  I had not the
+professional enthusiasm which carried my companion on, nor could I look
+at the matter as a mere abstract intellectual problem.  As far as the
+death of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little good of him, and
+could feel no intense antipathy to his murderers.  The treasure,
+however, was a different matter.  That, or part of it, belonged
+rightfully to Miss Morstan.  While there was a chance of recovering it
+I was ready to devote my life to the one object.  True, if I found it
+it would probably put her forever beyond my reach.  Yet it would be a
+petty and selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as
+that.  If Holmes could work to find the criminals, I had a tenfold
+stronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure.
+
+A bath at Baker Street and a complete change freshened me up
+wonderfully.  When I came down to our room I found the breakfast laid
+and Homes pouring out the coffee.
+
+"Here it is," said he, laughing, and pointing to an open newspaper.
+"The energetic Jones and the ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up
+between them.  But you have had enough of the case. Better have your
+ham and eggs first."
+
+I took the paper from him and read the short notice, which was headed
+"Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood."
+
+"About twelve o'clock last night," said the Standard, "Mr. Bartholomew
+Sholto, of Pondicherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found dead in his room
+under circumstances which point to foul play.  As far as we can learn,
+no actual traces of violence were found upon Mr. Sholto's person, but a
+valuable collection of Indian gems which the deceased gentleman had
+inherited from his father has been carried off.  The discovery was
+first made by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who had called at the
+house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother of the deceased.  By a singular
+piece of good fortune, Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the
+detective police force, happened to be at the Norwood Police Station,
+and was on the ground within half an hour of the first alarm.  His
+trained and experienced faculties were at once directed towards the
+detection of the criminals, with the gratifying result that the
+brother, Thaddeus Sholto, has already been arrested, together with the
+housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, an Indian butler named Lal Rao, and a
+porter, or gatekeeper, named McMurdo.  It is quite certain that the
+thief or thieves were well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones's
+well-known technical knowledge and his powers of minute observation
+have enabled him to prove conclusively that the miscreants could not
+have entered by the door or by the window, but must have made their way
+across the roof of the building, and so through a trap-door into a room
+which communicated with that in which the body was found.  This fact,
+which has been very clearly made out, proves conclusively that it was
+no mere haphazard burglary.  The prompt and energetic action of the
+officers of the law shows the great advantage of the presence on such
+occasions of a single vigorous and masterful mind.  We cannot but think
+that it supplies an argument to those who would wish to see our
+detectives more decentralized, and so brought into closer and more
+effective touch with the cases which it is their duty to investigate."
+
+"Isn't it gorgeous!" said Holmes, grinning over his coffee-cup. "What
+do you think of it?"
+
+"I think that we have had a close shave ourselves of being arrested for
+the crime."
+
+"So do I.  I wouldn't answer for our safety now, if he should happen to
+have another of his attacks of energy."
+
+At this moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear Mrs.
+Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and
+dismay.
+
+"By heaven, Holmes," I said, half rising, "I believe that they are
+really after us."
+
+"No, it's not quite so bad as that.  It is the unofficial force,--the
+Baker Street irregulars."
+
+As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the
+stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and
+ragged little street-Arabs.  There was some show of discipline among
+them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in
+line and stood facing us with expectant faces.  One of their number,
+taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging
+superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little
+scarecrow.
+
+"Got your message, sir," said he, "and brought 'em on sharp. Three bob
+and a tanner for tickets."
+
+"Here you are," said Holmes, producing some silver.  "In future they
+can report to you, Wiggins, and you to me.  I cannot have the house
+invaded in this way.  However, it is just as well that you should all
+hear the instructions.  I want to find the whereabouts of a steam
+launch called the Aurora, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red
+streaks, funnel black with a white band.  She is down the river
+somewhere.  I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith's landing-stage
+opposite Millbank to say if the boat comes back.  You must divide it
+out among yourselves, and do both banks thoroughly.  Let me know the
+moment you have news.  Is that all clear?"
+
+"Yes, guv'nor," said Wiggins.
+
+"The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat.
+Here's a day in advance.  Now off you go!"  He handed them a shilling
+each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them a moment
+later streaming down the street.
+
+"If the launch is above water they will find her," said Holmes, as he
+rose from the table and lit his pipe.  "They can go everywhere, see
+everything, overhear every one.  I expect to hear before evening that
+they have spotted her.  In the mean while, we can do nothing but await
+results.  We cannot pick up the broken trail until we find either the
+Aurora or Mr. Mordecai Smith."
+
+"Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say.  Are you going to bed,
+Holmes?"
+
+"No:  I am not tired.  I have a curious constitution.  I never remember
+feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.  I am
+going to smoke and to think over this queer business to which my fair
+client has introduced us.  If ever man had an easy task, this of ours
+ought to be.  Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the other man
+must, I should think, be absolutely unique."
+
+"That other man again!"
+
+"I have no wish to make a mystery of him,--to you, anyway.  But you
+must have formed your own opinion.  Now, do consider the data.
+Diminutive footmarks, toes never fettered by boots, naked feet,
+stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, small poisoned darts.  What do
+you make of all this?"
+
+"A savage!" I exclaimed.  "Perhaps one of those Indians who were the
+associates of Jonathan Small."
+
+"Hardly that," said he.  "When first I saw signs of strange weapons I
+was inclined to think so; but the remarkable character of the footmarks
+caused me to reconsider my views.  Some of the inhabitants of the
+Indian Peninsula are small men, but none could have left such marks as
+that.  The Hindoo proper has long and thin feet.  The sandal-wearing
+Mohammedan has the great toe well separated from the others, because
+the thong is commonly passed between.  These little darts, too, could
+only be shot in one way. They are from a blow-pipe.  Now, then, where
+are we to find our savage?"
+
+"South American," I hazarded.
+
+He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky volume from the shelf.
+"This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being published.
+It may be looked upon as the very latest authority.  What have we here?
+'Andaman Islands, situated 340 miles to the north of Sumatra, in the
+Bay of Bengal.'  Hum! hum! What's all this?  Moist climate, coral
+reefs, sharks, Port Blair, convict-barracks, Rutland Island,
+cottonwoods--Ah, here we are. 'The aborigines of the Andaman Islands
+may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race upon this
+earth, though some anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the
+Digger Indians of America, and the Terra del Fuegians.  The average
+height is rather below four feet, although many full-grown adults may
+be found who are very much smaller than this.  They are a fierce,
+morose, and intractable people, though capable of forming most devoted
+friendships when their confidence has once been gained.'  Mark that,
+Watson.  Now, then, listen to this.  'They are naturally hideous,
+having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes, and distorted
+features.  Their feet and hands, however, are remarkably small.  So
+intractable and fierce are they that all the efforts of the British
+official have failed to win them over in any degree.  They have always
+been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the survivors with their
+stone-headed clubs, or shooting them with their poisoned arrows.  These
+massacres are invariably concluded by a cannibal feast.'  Nice, amiable
+people, Watson!  If this fellow had been left to his own unaided
+devices this affair might have taken an even more ghastly turn.  I
+fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small would give a good deal not to
+have employed him."
+
+"But how came he to have so singular a companion?"
+
+"Ah, that is more than I can tell.  Since, however, we had already
+determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very
+wonderful that this islander should be with him.  No doubt we shall
+know all about it in time.  Look here, Watson; you look regularly done.
+Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep."
+
+He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he
+began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,--his own, no doubt, for
+he had a remarkable gift for improvisation.  I have a vague remembrance
+of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow.
+Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound,
+until I found myself in dream-land, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan
+looking down upon me.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+A Break in the Chain
+
+It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and refreshed.
+Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save that he had
+laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked across at me,
+as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and troubled.
+
+"You have slept soundly," he said.  "I feared that our talk would wake
+you."
+
+"I heard nothing," I answered.  "Have you had fresh news, then?"
+
+"Unfortunately, no.  I confess that I am surprised and disappointed.  I
+expected something definite by this time. Wiggins has just been up to
+report.  He says that no trace can be found of the launch.  It is a
+provoking check, for every hour is of importance."
+
+"Can I do anything?  I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for
+another night's outing."
+
+"No, we can do nothing.  We can only wait.  If we go ourselves, the
+message might come in our absence, and delay be caused.  You can do
+what you will, but I must remain on guard."
+
+"Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil
+Forrester.  She asked me to, yesterday."
+
+"On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?" asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in
+his eyes.
+
+"Well, of course Miss Morstan too.  They were anxious to hear what
+happened."
+
+"I would not tell them too much," said Holmes.  "Women are never to be
+entirely trusted,--not the best of them."
+
+I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment.  "I shall be
+back in an hour or two," I remarked.
+
+"All right!  Good luck!  But, I say, if you are crossing the river you
+may as well return Toby, for I don't think it is at all likely that we
+shall have any use for him now."
+
+I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a
+half-sovereign, at the old naturalist's in Pinchin Lane.  At Camberwell
+I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night's adventures, but
+very eager to hear the news.  Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of
+curiosity.  I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the
+more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke of Mr.
+Sholto's death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it.
+With all my omissions, however, there was enough to startle and amaze
+them.
+
+"It is a romance!" cried Mrs. Forrester.  "An injured lady, half a
+million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian.
+They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl."
+
+"And two knight-errants to the rescue," added Miss Morstan, with a
+bright glance at me.
+
+"Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don't
+think that you are nearly excited enough.  Just imagine what it must be
+to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!"
+
+It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no
+sign of elation at the prospect.  On the contrary, she gave a toss of
+her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took small
+interest.
+
+"It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious," she said. "Nothing
+else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly
+and honorably throughout.  It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful
+and unfounded charge."
+
+It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I
+reached home.  My companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he
+had disappeared.  I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but
+there was none.
+
+"I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out," I said to Mrs.
+Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.
+
+"No, sir.  He has gone to his room, sir.  Do you know, sir," sinking
+her voice into an impressive whisper, "I am afraid for his health?"
+
+"Why so, Mrs. Hudson?"
+
+"Well, he's that strange, sir.  After you was gone he walked and he
+walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of
+his footstep.  Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and
+every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with 'What is
+that, Mrs. Hudson?'  And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can
+hear him walking away the same as ever.  I hope he's not going to be
+ill, sir.  I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine,
+but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't know how ever I
+got out of the room."
+
+"I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson," I
+answered.  "I have seen him like this before.  He has some small matter
+upon his mind which makes him restless."  I tried to speak lightly to
+our worthy landlady, but I was myself somewhat uneasy when through the
+long night I still from time to time heard the dull sound of his tread,
+and knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this involuntary
+inaction.
+
+At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of
+feverish color upon either cheek.
+
+"You are knocking yourself up, old man," I remarked.  "I heard you
+marching about in the night."
+
+"No, I could not sleep," he answered.  "This infernal problem is
+consuming me.  It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle,
+when all else had been overcome.  I know the men, the launch,
+everything; and yet I can get no news.  I have set other agencies at
+work, and used every means at my disposal.  The whole river has been
+searched on either side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith heard
+of her husband.  I shall come to the conclusion soon that they have
+scuttled the craft.  But there are objections to that."
+
+"Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent."
+
+"No, I think that may be dismissed.  I had inquiries made, and there is
+a launch of that description."
+
+"Could it have gone up the river?"
+
+"I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party
+who will work up as far as Richmond.  If no news comes to-day, I shall
+start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat.
+But surely, surely, we shall hear something."
+
+We did not, however.  Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or from
+the other agencies.  There were articles in most of the papers upon the
+Norwood tragedy.  They all appeared to be rather hostile to the
+unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto.  No fresh details were to be found,
+however, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the
+following day.  I walked over to Camberwell in the evening to report
+our ill success to the ladies, and on my return I found Holmes dejected
+and somewhat morose.  He would hardly reply to my questions, and busied
+himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which involved
+much heating of retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at last in a
+smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the small hours
+of the morning I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes which told
+me that he was still engaged in his malodorous experiment.
+
+In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him
+standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket,
+and a coarse red scarf round his neck.
+
+"I am off down the river, Watson," said he.  "I have been turning it
+over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it.  It is worth
+trying, at all events."
+
+"Surely I can come with you, then?" said I.
+
+"No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my
+representative.  I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that
+some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent
+about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to
+act on your own judgment if any news should come.  Can I rely upon you?"
+
+"Most certainly."
+
+"I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can hardly
+tell yet where I may find myself.  If I am in luck, however, I may not
+be gone so very long.  I shall have news of some sort or other before I
+get back."
+
+I had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time.  On opening the Standard,
+however, I found that there was a fresh allusion to the business.
+"With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy," it remarked, "we have
+reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more complex and
+mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has shown that
+it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have been in any
+way concerned in the matter.  He and the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone,
+were both released yesterday evening.  It is believed, however, that
+the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and that it is being
+prosecuted by Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard, with all his
+well-known energy and sagacity.  Further arrests may be expected at any
+moment."
+
+"That is satisfactory so far as it goes," thought I.  "Friend Sholto is
+safe, at any rate.  I wonder what the fresh clue may be; though it
+seems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a blunder."
+
+I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye
+caught an advertisement in the agony column.  It ran in this way:
+
+"Lost.--Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith's
+Wharf at or about three o'clock last Tuesday morning in the steam
+launch Aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white
+band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give
+information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith's Wharf, or at 221b Baker Street,
+as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch Aurora."
+
+This was clearly Holmes's doing.  The Baker Street address was enough
+to prove that.  It struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be
+read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the natural
+anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.
+
+It was a long day.  Every time that a knock came to the door, or a
+sharp step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either Holmes
+returning or an answer to his advertisement.  I tried to read, but my
+thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted
+and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered,
+some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning.  Might he be suffering
+from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and
+speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises?  I
+had never known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may
+occasionally be deceived.  He was likely, I thought, to fall into error
+through the over-refinement of his logic,--his preference for a subtle
+and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay
+ready to his hand.  Yet, on the other hand, I had myself seen the
+evidence, and I had heard the reasons for his deductions.  When I
+looked back on the long chain of curious circumstances, many of them
+trivial in themselves, but all tending in the same direction, I could
+not disguise from myself that even if Holmes's explanation were
+incorrect the true theory must be equally outre and startling.
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell, an
+authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a person
+than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me.  Very different was he,
+however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who
+had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood.  His
+expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.
+
+"Good-day, sir; good-day," said he.  "Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I
+understand."
+
+"Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back.  But perhaps you would
+care to wait.  Take that chair and try one of these cigars."
+
+"Thank you; I don't mind if I do," said he, mopping his face with a red
+bandanna handkerchief.
+
+"And a whiskey-and-soda?"
+
+"Well, half a glass.  It is very hot for the time of year; and I have
+had a good deal to worry and try me.  You know my theory about this
+Norwood case?"
+
+"I remember that you expressed one."
+
+"Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it.  I had my net drawn
+tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in the
+middle of it.  He was able to prove an alibi which could not be shaken.
+From the time that he left his brother's room he was never out of sight
+of some one or other.  So it could not be he who climbed over roofs and
+through trap-doors.  It's a very dark case, and my professional credit
+is at stake.  I should be very glad of a little assistance."
+
+"We all need help sometimes," said I.
+
+"Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir," said he, in
+a husky and confidential voice.  "He's a man who is not to be beat.  I
+have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I never saw
+the case yet that he could not throw a light upon.  He is irregular in
+his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories, but, on
+the whole, I think he would have made a most promising officer, and I
+don't care who knows it.  I have had a wire from him this morning, by
+which I understand that he has got some clue to this Sholto business.
+Here is the message."
+
+He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me.  It was
+dated from Poplar at twelve o'clock.  "Go to Baker Street at once," it
+said.  "If I have not returned, wait for me.  I am close on the track
+of the Sholto gang.  You can come with us to-night if you want to be in
+at the finish."
+
+"This sounds well.  He has evidently picked up the scent again," said I.
+
+"Ah, then he has been at fault too," exclaimed Jones, with evident
+satisfaction.  "Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes.  Of
+course this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an
+officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is some one at
+the door.  Perhaps this is he."
+
+A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and
+rattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. Once or
+twice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at
+last he made his way to our door and entered.  His appearance
+corresponded to the sounds which we had heard.  He was an aged man,
+clad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his
+throat.  His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing
+was painfully asthmatic.  As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his
+shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs.  He had
+a colored scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face save
+a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and long gray
+side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable
+master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.
+
+"What is it, my man?" I asked.
+
+He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.
+
+"Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?" said he.
+
+"No; but I am acting for him.  You can tell me any message you have for
+him."
+
+"It was to him himself I was to tell it," said he.
+
+"But I tell you that I am acting for him.  Was it about Mordecai
+Smith's boat?"
+
+"Yes.  I knows well where it is.  An' I knows where the men he is after
+are.  An' I knows where the treasure is.  I knows all about it."
+
+"Then tell me, and I shall let him know."
+
+"It was to him I was to tell it," he repeated, with the petulant
+obstinacy of a very old man.
+
+"Well, you must wait for him."
+
+"No, no; I ain't goin' to lose a whole day to please no one.  If Mr.
+Holmes ain't here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself.  I
+don't care about the look of either of you, and I won't tell a word."
+
+He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.
+
+"Wait a bit, my friend," said he.  "You have important information, and
+you must not walk off.  We shall keep you, whether you like or not,
+until our friend returns."
+
+The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney Jones
+put his broad back up against it, he recognized the uselessness of
+resistance.
+
+"Pretty sort o' treatment this!" he cried, stamping his stick. "I come
+here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my life, seize
+me and treat me in this fashion!"
+
+"You will be none the worse," I said.  "We shall recompense you for the
+loss of your time.  Sit over here on the sofa, and you will not have
+long to wait."
+
+He came across sullenly enough, and seated himself with his face
+resting on his hands.  Jones and I resumed our cigars and our talk.
+Suddenly, however, Holmes's voice broke in upon us.
+
+"I think that you might offer me a cigar too," he said.
+
+We both started in our chairs.  There was Holmes sitting close to us
+with an air of quiet amusement.
+
+"Holmes!" I exclaimed.  "You here!  But where is the old man?"
+
+"Here is the old man," said he, holding out a heap of white hair. "Here
+he is,--wig, whiskers, eyebrows, and all.  I thought my disguise was
+pretty good, but I hardly expected that it would stand that test."
+
+"Ah, You rogue!" cried Jones, highly delighted.  "You would have made
+an actor, and a rare one.  You had the proper workhouse cough, and
+those weak legs of yours are worth ten pound a week. I thought I knew
+the glint of your eye, though.  You didn't get away from us so easily,
+You see."
+
+"I have been working in that get-up all day," said he, lighting his
+cigar.  "You see, a good many of the criminal classes begin to know
+me,--especially since our friend here took to publishing some of my
+cases:  so I can only go on the war-path under some simple disguise
+like this.  You got my wire?"
+
+"Yes; that was what brought me here."
+
+"How has your case prospered?"
+
+"It has all come to nothing.  I have had to release two of my
+prisoners, and there is no evidence against the other two."
+
+"Never mind.  We shall give you two others in the place of them. But
+you must put yourself under my orders.  You are welcome to all the
+official credit, but you must act on the line that I point out.  Is
+that agreed?"
+
+"Entirely, if you will help me to the men."
+
+"Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat--a
+steam launch--to be at the Westminster Stairs at seven o'clock."
+
+"That is easily managed.  There is always one about there; but I can
+step across the road and telephone to make sure."
+
+"Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of resistance."
+
+"There will be two or three in the boat.  What else?"
+
+"When we secure the men we shall get the treasure.  I think that it
+would be a pleasure to my friend here to take the box round to the
+young lady to whom half of it rightfully belongs.  Let her be the first
+to open it.--Eh, Watson?"
+
+"It would be a great pleasure to me."
+
+"Rather an irregular proceeding," said Jones, shaking his head.
+"However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink at
+it.  The treasure must afterwards be handed over to the authorities
+until after the official investigation."
+
+"Certainly.  That is easily managed.  One other point.  I should much
+like to have a few details about this matter from the lips of Jonathan
+Small himself.  You know I like to work the detail of my cases out.
+There is no objection to my having an unofficial interview with him,
+either here in my rooms or elsewhere, as long as he is efficiently
+guarded?"
+
+"Well, you are master of the situation.  I have had no proof yet of the
+existence of this Jonathan Small.  However, if you can catch him I
+don't see how I can refuse you an interview with him."
+
+"That is understood, then?"
+
+"Perfectly.  Is there anything else?"
+
+"Only that I insist upon your dining with us.  It will be ready in half
+an hour.  I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little
+choice in white wines.--Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits
+as a housekeeper."
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The End of the Islander
+
+Our meal was a merry one.  Holmes could talk exceedingly well when he
+chose, and that night he did choose.  He appeared to be in a state of
+nervous exaltation.  I have never known him so brilliant.  He spoke on
+a quick succession of subjects,--on miracle-plays, on medieval pottery,
+on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the
+war-ships of the future,--handling each as though he had made a special
+study of it.  His bright humor marked the reaction from his black
+depression of the preceding days.  Athelney Jones proved to be a
+sociable soul in his hours of relaxation, and faced his dinner with the
+air of a bon vivant.  For myself, I felt elated at the thought that we
+were nearing the end of our task, and I caught something of Holmes's
+gaiety.  None of us alluded during dinner to the cause which had
+brought us together.
+
+When the cloth was cleared, Holmes glanced at his watch, and filled up
+three glasses with port.  "One bumper," said he, "to the success of our
+little expedition.  And now it is high time we were off.  Have you a
+pistol, Watson?"
+
+"I have my old service-revolver in my desk."
+
+"You had best take it, then.  It is well to be prepared.  I see that
+the cab is at the door.  I ordered it for half-past six."
+
+It was a little past seven before we reached the Westminster wharf, and
+found our launch awaiting us.  Holmes eyed it critically.
+
+"Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat?"
+
+"Yes,--that green lamp at the side."
+
+"Then take it off."
+
+The small change was made, we stepped on board, and the ropes were cast
+off.  Jones, Holmes, and I sat in the stern.  There was one man at the
+rudder, one to tend the engines, and two burly police-inspectors
+forward.
+
+"Where to?" asked Jones.
+
+"To the Tower.  Tell them to stop opposite Jacobson's Yard."
+
+Our craft was evidently a very fast one.  We shot past the long lines
+of loaded barges as though they were stationary.  Holmes smiled with
+satisfaction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her behind us.
+
+"We ought to be able to catch anything on the river," he said.
+
+"Well, hardly that.  But there are not many launches to beat us."
+
+"We shall have to catch the Aurora, and she has a name for being a
+clipper.  I will tell you how the land lies, Watson.  You recollect how
+annoyed I was at being balked by so small a thing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical
+analysis.  One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work
+is the best rest.  So it is.  When I had succeeded in dissolving the
+hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came back to our problem of the
+Sholtos, and thought the whole matter out again.  My boys had been up
+the river and down the river without result.  The launch was not at any
+landing-stage or wharf, nor had it returned.  Yet it could hardly have
+been scuttled to hide their traces,--though that always remained as a
+possible hypothesis if all else failed.  I knew this man Small had a
+certain degree of low cunning, but I did not think him capable of
+anything in the nature of delicate finesse.  That is usually a product
+of higher education.  I then reflected that since he had certainly been
+in London some time--as we had evidence that he maintained a continual
+watch over Pondicherry Lodge--he could hardly leave at a moment's
+notice, but would need some little time, if it were only a day, to
+arrange his affairs.  That was the balance of probability, at any rate."
+
+"It seems to me to be a little weak," said I.  "It is more probable
+that he had arranged his affairs before ever he set out upon his
+expedition."
+
+"No, I hardly think so.  This lair of his would be too valuable a
+retreat in case of need for him to give it up until he was sure that he
+could do without it.  But a second consideration struck me.  Jonathan
+Small must have felt that the peculiar appearance of his companion,
+however much he may have top-coated him, would give rise to gossip, and
+possibly be associated with this Norwood tragedy.  He was quite sharp
+enough to see that.  They had started from their head-quarters under
+cover of darkness, and he would wish to get back before it was broad
+light.  Now, it was past three o'clock, according to Mrs. Smith, when
+they got the boat.  It would be quite bright, and people would be about
+in an hour or so.  Therefore, I argued, they did not go very far.  They
+paid Smith well to hold his tongue, reserved his launch for the final
+escape, and hurried to their lodgings with the treasure-box. In a
+couple of nights, when they had time to see what view the papers took,
+and whether there was any suspicion, they would make their way under
+cover of darkness to some ship at Gravesend or in the Downs, where no
+doubt they had already arranged for passages to America or the
+Colonies."
+
+"But the launch?  They could not have taken that to their lodgings."
+
+"Quite so.  I argued that the launch must be no great way off, in spite
+of its invisibility.  I then put myself in the place of Small, and
+looked at it as a man of his capacity would.  He would probably
+consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would
+make pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track.  How,
+then, could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when wanted?
+I wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes.  I could
+only think of one way of doing it.  I might land the launch over to
+some boat-builder or repairer, with directions to make a trifling
+change in her.  She would then be removed to his shed or yard, and so
+be effectually concealed, while at the same time I could have her at a
+few hours' notice."
+
+"That seems simple enough."
+
+"It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be
+overlooked.  However, I determined to act on the idea.  I started at
+once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all the yards down
+the river.  I drew blank at fifteen, but at the
+sixteenth--Jacobson's--I learned that the Aurora had been handed over
+to them two days ago by a wooden-legged man, with some trivial
+directions as to her rudder.  'There ain't naught amiss with her
+rudder,' said the foreman.  'There she lies, with the red streaks.'  At
+that moment who should come down but Mordecai Smith, the missing owner?
+He was rather the worse for liquor.  I should not, of course, have
+known him, but he bellowed out his name and the name of his launch.  'I
+want her to-night at eight o'clock,' said he,--'eight o'clock sharp,
+mind, for I have two gentlemen who won't be kept waiting.'  They had
+evidently paid him well, for he was very flush of money, chucking
+shillings about to the men.  I followed him some distance, but he
+subsided into an ale-house:  so I went back to the yard, and, happening
+to pick up one of my boys on the way, I stationed him as a sentry over
+the launch.  He is to stand at water's edge and wave his handkerchief
+to us when they start.  We shall be lying off in the stream, and it
+will be a strange thing if we do not take men, treasure, and all."
+
+"You have planned it all very neatly, whether they are the right men or
+not," said Jones; "but if the affair were in my hands I should have had
+a body of police in Jacobson's Yard, and arrested them when they came
+down."
+
+"Which would have been never.  This man Small is a pretty shrewd
+fellow.  He would send a scout on ahead, and if anything made him
+suspicious lie snug for another week."
+
+"But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, and so been led to their
+hiding-place," said I.
+
+"In that case I should have wasted my day. I think that it is a hundred
+to one against Smith knowing where they live.  As long as he has liquor
+and good pay, why should he ask questions?  They send him messages what
+to do.  No, I thought over every possible course, and this is the best."
+
+While this conversation had been proceeding, we had been shooting the
+long series of bridges which span the Thames.  As we passed the City
+the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of St.
+Paul's.  It was twilight before we reached the Tower.
+
+"That is Jacobson's Yard," said Holmes, pointing to a bristle of masts
+and rigging on the Surrey side.  "Cruise gently up and down here under
+cover of this string of lighters."  He took a pair of night-glasses
+from his pocket and gazed some time at the shore. "I see my sentry at
+his post," he remarked, "but no sign of a handkerchief."
+
+"Suppose we go down-stream a short way and lie in wait for them," said
+Jones, eagerly.  We were all eager by this time, even the policemen and
+stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was going forward.
+
+"We have no right to take anything for granted," Holmes answered. "It
+is certainly ten to one that they go down-stream, but we cannot be
+certain.  From this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and they
+can hardly see us.  It will be a clear night and plenty of light.  We
+must stay where we are.  See how the folk swarm over yonder in the
+gaslight."
+
+"They are coming from work in the yard."
+
+"Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one has some little
+immortal spark concealed about him.  You would not think it, to look at
+them.  There is no a priori probability about it.  A strange enigma is
+man!"
+
+"Some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.
+
+"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes.  "He remarks
+that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate
+he becomes a mathematical certainty.  You can, for example, never
+foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what
+an average number will be up to.  Individuals vary, but percentages
+remain constant.  So says the statistician. But do I see a
+handkerchief?  Surely there is a white flutter over yonder."
+
+"Yes, it is your boy," I cried.  "I can see him plainly."
+
+"And there is the Aurora," exclaimed Holmes, "and going like the devil!
+Full speed ahead, engineer.  Make after that launch with the yellow
+light.  By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves to have
+the heels of us!"
+
+She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind two
+or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up before we
+saw her.  Now she was flying down the stream, near in to the shore,
+going at a tremendous rate.  Jones looked gravely at her and shook his
+head.
+
+"She is very fast," he said.  "I doubt if we shall catch her."
+
+"We MUST catch her!" cried Holmes, between his teeth.  "Heap it on,
+stokers!  Make her do all she can!  If we burn the boat we must have
+them!"
+
+We were fairly after her now.  The furnaces roared, and the powerful
+engines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart.  Her sharp,
+steep prow cut through the river-water and sent two rolling waves to
+right and to left of us.  With every throb of the engines we sprang and
+quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows
+threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us.  Right ahead a
+dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and the swirl of
+white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was going.  We
+flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and out, behind
+this one and round the other.  Voices hailed us out of the darkness,
+but still the Aurora thundered on, and still we followed close upon her
+track.
+
+"Pile it on, men, pile it on!" cried Holmes, looking down into the
+engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,
+aquiline face.  "Get every pound of steam you can."
+
+"I think we gain a little," said Jones, with his eyes on the Aurora.
+
+"I am sure of it," said I.  "We shall be up with her in a very few
+minutes."
+
+At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with
+three barges in tow blundered in between us.  It was only by putting
+our helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before we could
+round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good two hundred
+yards.  She was still, however, well in view, and the murky uncertain
+twilight was setting into a clear starlit night.  Our boilers were
+strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated and creaked with
+the fierce energy which was driving us along.  We had shot through the
+Pool, past the West India Docks, down the long Deptford Reach, and up
+again after rounding the Isle of Dogs.  The dull blur in front of us
+resolved itself now clearly enough into the dainty Aurora.  Jones
+turned our search-light upon her, so that we could plainly see the
+figures upon her deck.  One man sat by the stern, with something black
+between his knees over which he stooped.  Beside him lay a dark mass
+which looked like a Newfoundland dog.  The boy held the tiller, while
+against the red glare of the furnace I could see old Smith, stripped to
+the waist, and shovelling coals for dear life.  They may have had some
+doubt at first as to whether we were really pursuing them, but now as
+we followed every winding and turning which they took there could no
+longer be any question about it.  At Greenwich we were about three
+hundred paces behind them.  At Blackwall we could not have been more
+than two hundred and fifty.  I have coursed many creatures in many
+countries during my checkered career, but never did sport give me such
+a wild thrill as this mad, flying man-hunt down the Thames.  Steadily
+we drew in upon them, yard by yard.  In the silence of the night we
+could hear the panting and clanking of their machinery.  The man in the
+stern still crouched upon the deck, and his arms were moving as though
+he were busy, while every now and then he would look up and measure
+with a glance the distance which still separated us.  Nearer we came
+and nearer. Jones yelled to them to stop.  We were not more than four
+boat's lengths behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace.  It
+was a clear reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and
+the melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other.  At our hail the man
+in the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clinched fists
+at us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a good-sized,
+powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride I could
+see that from the thigh downwards there was but a wooden stump upon the
+right side.  At the sound of his strident, angry cries there was
+movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck.  It straightened itself
+into a little black man--the smallest I have ever seen--with a great,
+misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair.  Holmes had
+already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this
+savage, distorted creature.  He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster
+or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that face was enough
+to give a man a sleepless night.  Never have I seen features so deeply
+marked with all bestiality and cruelty.  His small eyes glowed and
+burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were writhed back from
+his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a half animal fury.
+
+"Fire if he raises his hand," said Holmes, quietly.  We were within a
+boat's-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry.  I
+can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his legs
+far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with his
+hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light
+of our lantern.
+
+It was well that we had so clear a view of him.  Even as we looked he
+plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood, like
+a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out
+together.  He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of
+choking cough fell sideways into the stream.  I caught one glimpse of
+his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.  At the
+same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder and put
+it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the southern bank,
+while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a few feet.  We were
+round after her in an instant, but she was already nearly at the bank.
+It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon glimmered upon a wide
+expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant water and beds of
+decaying vegetation.  The launch with a dull thud ran up upon the
+mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush with the water.
+The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank its whole length
+into the sodden soil.  In vain he struggled and writhed.  Not one step
+could he possibly take either forwards or backwards.  He yelled in
+impotent rage, and kicked frantically into the mud with his other foot,
+but his struggles only bored his wooden pin the deeper into the sticky
+bank.  When we brought our launch alongside he was so firmly anchored
+that it was only by throwing the end of a rope over his shoulders that
+we were able to haul him out, and to drag him, like some evil fish,
+over our side.  The two Smiths, father and son, sat sullenly in their
+launch, but came aboard meekly enough when commanded.  The Aurora
+herself we hauled off and made fast to our stern.  A solid iron chest
+of Indian workmanship stood upon the deck.  This, there could be no
+question, was the same that had contained the ill-omened treasure of
+the Sholtos.  There was no key, but it was of considerable weight, so
+we transferred it carefully to our own little cabin.  As we steamed
+slowly up-stream again, we flashed our search-light in every direction,
+but there was no sign of the Islander.  Somewhere in the dark ooze at
+the bottom of the Thames lie the bones of that strange visitor to our
+shores.
+
+
+"See here," said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway.  "We were
+hardly quick enough with our pistols."  There, sure enough, just behind
+where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which we
+knew so well.  It must have whizzed between us at the instant that we
+fired.  Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy
+fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible
+death which had passed so close to us that night.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Great Agra Treasure
+
+Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done
+so much and waited so long to gain.  He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed
+fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all over his mahogany
+features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular
+prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be
+easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or
+thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray.  His
+face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and
+aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression
+when moved to anger.  He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his
+lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen,
+twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings.
+It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and
+contained countenance.  Once he looked up at me with a gleam of
+something like humor in his eyes.
+
+"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry that
+it has come to this."
+
+"And so am I, sir," he answered, frankly.  "I don't believe that I can
+swing over the job.  I give you my word on the book that I never raised
+hand against Mr. Sholto.  It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot
+one of his cursed darts into him.  I had no part in it, sir.  I was as
+grieved as if it had been my blood-relation.  I welted the little devil
+with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not
+undo it again."
+
+"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of my
+flask, for you are very wet.  How could you expect so small and weak a
+man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while you
+were climbing the rope?"
+
+"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The truth
+is that I hoped to find the room clear.  I knew the habits of the house
+pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually went down to
+his supper.  I shall make no secret of the business.  The best defence
+that I can make is just the simple truth.  Now, if it had been the old
+major I would have swung for him with a light heart.  I would have
+thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar.  But it's
+cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto, with whom I
+had no quarrel whatever."
+
+"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard.  He
+is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true
+account of the matter.  You must make a clean breast of it, for if you
+do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the
+poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached
+the room."
+
+"That he was, sir.  I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw
+him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through
+the window.  It fairly shook me, sir.  I'd have half killed Tonga for
+it if he had not scrambled off.  That was how he came to leave his
+club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say
+helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more than
+I can tell.  I don't feel no malice against you for it.  But it does
+seem a queer thing," he added, with a bitter smile, "that I who have a
+fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money should spend the first
+half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and am like to
+spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor.  It was an evil day
+for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet and had to do
+with the Agra treasure, which never brought anything but a curse yet
+upon the man who owned it.  To him it brought murder, to Major Sholto
+it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery for life."
+
+At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy shoulders
+into the tiny cabin.  "Quite a family party," he remarked.  "I think I
+shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we may all
+congratulate each other.  Pity we didn't take the other alive; but
+there was no choice.  I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it
+rather fine.  It was all we could do to overhaul her."
+
+"All is well that ends well," said Holmes.  "But I certainly did not
+know that the Aurora was such a clipper."
+
+"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that
+if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should never
+have caught her.  He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood business."
+
+"Neither he did," cried our prisoner,--"not a word.  I chose his launch
+because I heard that she was a flier.  We told him nothing, but we paid
+him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached our
+vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend, outward bound for the Brazils."
+
+"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to him.
+If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick in
+condemning them."  It was amusing to notice how the consequential Jones
+was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of the
+capture.  From the slight smile which played over Sherlock Holmes's
+face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon him.
+
+"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall land
+you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box.  I need hardly tell you that I
+am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing this.  It is
+most irregular; but of course an agreement is an agreement.  I must,
+however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector with you, since you
+have so valuable a charge.  You will drive, no doubt?"
+
+"Yes, I shall drive."
+
+"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.
+You will have to break it open.  Where is the key, my man?"
+
+"At the bottom of the river," said Small, shortly.
+
+"Hum!  There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble.  We have
+had work enough already through you.  However, doctor, I need not warn
+you to be careful.  Bring the box back with you to the Baker Street
+rooms.  You will find us there, on our way to the station."
+
+They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff,
+genial inspector as my companion.  A quarter of an hour's drive brought
+us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's.  The servant seemed surprised at so late
+a visitor.  Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she
+explained, and likely to be very late.  Miss Morstan, however, was in
+the drawing-room:  so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, leaving
+the obliging inspector in the cab.
+
+She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white
+diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and
+waist.  The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned
+back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and
+tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant
+hair.  One white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and
+her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy.  At the
+sound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright
+flush of surprise and of pleasure colored her pale cheeks.
+
+"I heard a cab drive up," she said.  "I thought that Mrs. Forrester had
+come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you.  What
+news have you brought me?"
+
+"I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down the
+box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my
+heart was heavy within me.  "I have brought you something which is
+worth all the news in the world.  I have brought you a fortune."
+
+She glanced at the iron box.  "Is that the treasure, then?" she asked,
+coolly enough.
+
+"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure.  Half of it is yours and half is
+Thaddeus Sholto's.  You will have a couple of hundred thousand each.
+Think of that!  An annuity of ten thousand pounds.  There will be few
+richer young ladies in England.  Is it not glorious?"
+
+I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that
+she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her
+eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.
+
+"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."
+
+"No, no," I answered, "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes.
+With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue
+which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very nearly
+lost it at the last moment."
+
+"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.
+
+I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her
+last,--Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora, the
+appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the
+wild chase down the Thames.  She listened with parted lips and shining
+eyes to my recital of our adventures.  When I spoke of the dart which
+had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared that she
+was about to faint.
+
+"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water.
+"I am all right again.  It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed
+my friends in such horrible peril."
+
+"That is all over," I answered.  "It was nothing.  I will tell you no
+more gloomy details.  Let us turn to something brighter. There is the
+treasure.  What could be brighter than that?  I got leave to bring it
+with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see it."
+
+"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said.  There was no
+eagerness in her voice, however.  It had struck her, doubtless, that it
+might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which
+had cost so much to win.
+
+"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it.  "This is Indian work,
+I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."
+
+"And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it.  "The box alone must
+be of some value.  Where is the key?"
+
+"Small threw it into the Thames," I answered.  "I must borrow Mrs.
+Forrester's poker."  There was in the front a thick and broad hasp,
+wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha.  Under this I thrust the end
+of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open
+with a loud snap.  With trembling fingers I flung back the lid.  We
+both stood gazing in astonishment.  The box was empty!
+
+No wonder that it was heavy.  The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch
+thick all round.  It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest
+constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb
+of metal or jewelry lay within it.  It was absolutely and completely
+empty.
+
+"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.
+
+As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great shadow
+seemed to pass from my soul.  I did not know how this Agra treasure had
+weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed.  It was
+selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize nothing save
+that the golden barrier was gone from between us.  "Thank God!" I
+ejaculated from my very heart.
+
+She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile.  "Why do you say
+that?" she asked.
+
+"Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand. She
+did not withdraw it.  "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man
+loved a woman.  Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips.
+Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you.  That is why I
+said, 'Thank God.'"
+
+"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to my
+side.  Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained
+one.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
+
+A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary
+time before I rejoined him.  His face clouded over when I showed him
+the empty box.
+
+"There goes the reward!" said he, gloomily.  "Where there is no money
+there is no pay.  This night's work would have been worth a tenner each
+to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there."
+
+"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man," I said.  "He will see that you are
+rewarded, treasure or no."
+
+The inspector shook his head despondently, however.  "It's a bad job,"
+he repeated; "and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think."
+
+His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank
+enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They
+had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had
+changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon
+the way.  My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless
+expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his wooden
+leg cocked over his sound one.  As I exhibited the empty box he leaned
+back in his chair and laughed aloud.
+
+"This is your doing, Small," said Athelney Jones, angrily.
+
+"Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it," he
+cried, exultantly.  "It is my treasure; and if I can't have the loot
+I'll take darned good care that no one else does.  I tell you that no
+living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the
+Andaman convict-barracks and myself.  I know now that I cannot have the
+use of it, and I know that they cannot.  I have acted all through for
+them as much as for myself. It's been the sign of four with us always.
+Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have done, and
+throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go to kith or kin
+of Sholto or of Morstan.  It was not to make them rich that we did for
+Achmet.  You'll find the treasure where the key is, and where little
+Tonga is.  When I saw that your launch must catch us, I put the loot
+away in a safe place.  There are no rupees for you this journey."
+
+"You are deceiving us, Small," said Athelney Jones, sternly.  "If you
+had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames it would have been
+easier for you to have thrown box and all."
+
+"Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover," he answered,
+with a shrewd, sidelong look.  "The man that was clever enough to hunt
+me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a
+river.  Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a
+harder job.  It went to my heart to do it, though.  I was half mad when
+you came up with us.  However, there's no good grieving over it.  I've
+had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not to cry
+over spilled milk."
+
+"This is a very serious matter, Small," said the detective.  "If you
+had helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would have
+had a better chance at your trial."
+
+"Justice!" snarled the ex-convict.  "A pretty justice!  Whose loot is
+this, if it is not ours?  Where is the justice that I should give it up
+to those who have never earned it?  Look how I have earned it!  Twenty
+long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under the
+mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten
+by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed black-faced
+policeman who loved to take it out of a white man.  That was how I
+earned the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice because I
+cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that another may
+enjoy it!  I would rather swing a score of times, or have one of
+Tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and feel that
+another man is at his ease in a palace with the money that should be
+mine." Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this came out in
+a wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the handcuffs clanked
+together with the impassioned movement of his hands.  I could
+understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the man, that it was
+no groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed Major Sholto when
+he first learned that the injured convict was upon his track.
+
+"You forget that we know nothing of all this," said Holmes quietly.
+"We have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may
+originally have been on your side."
+
+"Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see that
+I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists.  Still,
+I bear no grudge for that.  It is all fair and above-board.  If you
+want to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you
+is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the glass
+beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
+
+"I am a Worcestershire man myself,--born near Pershore.  I dare say you
+would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look.  I
+have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is that
+I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if they would
+be so very glad to see me.  They were all steady, chapel-going folk,
+small farmers, well known and respected over the country-side, while I
+was always a bit of a rover.  At last, however, when I was about
+eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a
+girl, and could only get out of it again by taking the queen's shilling
+and joining the 3d Buffs, which was just starting for India.
+
+"I wasn't destined to do much soldiering, however.  I had just got past
+the goose-step, and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough
+to go swimming in the Ganges.  Luckily for me, my company sergeant,
+John Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was one of the
+finest swimmers in the service.  A crocodile took me, just as I was
+half-way across, and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon
+could have done it, just above the knee.  What with the shock and the
+loss of blood, I fainted, and should have drowned if Holder had not
+caught hold of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months in
+hospital over it, and when at last I was able to limp out of it with
+this timber toe strapped to my stump I found myself invalided out of
+the army and unfitted for any active occupation.
+
+"I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I
+was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year. However, my
+misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A man named
+Abelwhite, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an
+overseer to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work.  He
+happened to be a friend of our colonel's, who had taken an interest in
+me since the accident. To make a long story short, the colonel
+recommended me strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to be
+done on horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough knee
+left to keep good grip on the saddle.  What I had to do was to ride
+over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked, and to
+report the idlers.  The pay was fair, I had comfortable quarters, and
+altogether I was content to spend the remainder of my life in
+indigo-planting.  Mr. Abelwhite was a kind man, and he would often drop
+into my little shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white folk out
+there feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do here at
+home.
+
+"Well, I was never in luck's way long.  Suddenly, without a note of
+warning, the great mutiny broke upon us.  One month India lay as still
+and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were
+two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a
+perfect hell.  Of course you know all about it, gentlemen,--a deal more
+than I do, very like, since reading is not in my line.  I only know
+what I saw with my own eyes.  Our plantation was at a place called
+Muttra, near the border of the Northwest Provinces.  Night after night
+the whole sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and day after day
+we had small companies of Europeans passing through our estate with
+their wives and children, on their way to Agra, where were the nearest
+troops.  Mr. Abelwhite was an obstinate man.  He had it in his head
+that the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow over as
+suddenly as it had sprung up.  There he sat on his veranda, drinking
+whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the country was in a blaze
+about him.  Of course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, who, with his
+wife, used to do the book-work and the managing.  Well, one fine day
+the crash came.  I had been away on a distant plantation, and was
+riding slowly home in the evening, when my eye fell upon something all
+huddled together at the bottom of a steep nullah.  I rode down to see
+what it was, and the cold struck through my heart when I found it was
+Dawson's wife, all cut into ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and
+native dogs.  A little further up the road Dawson himself was lying on
+his face, quite dead, with an empty revolver in his hand and four
+Sepoys lying across each other in front of him.  I reined up my horse,
+wondering which way I should turn, but at that moment I saw thick smoke
+curling up from Abelwhite's bungalow and the flames beginning to burst
+through the roof.  I knew then that I could do my employer no good, but
+would only throw my own life away if I meddled in the matter.  From
+where I stood I could see hundreds of the black fiends, with their red
+coats still on their backs, dancing and howling round the burning
+house.  Some of them pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past
+my head; so I broke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late
+at night safe within the walls at Agra.
+
+"As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either. The
+whole country was up like a swarm of bees.  Wherever the English could
+collect in little bands they held just the ground that their guns
+commanded.  Everywhere else they were helpless fugitives.  It was a
+fight of the millions against the hundreds; and the cruellest part of
+it was that these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and gunners,
+were our own picked troops, whom we had taught and trained, handling
+our own weapons, and blowing our own bugle-calls.  At Agra there were
+the 3d Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops of horse, and a battery
+of artillery.  A volunteer corps of clerks and merchants had been
+formed, and this I joined, wooden leg and all.  We went out to meet the
+rebels at Shahgunge early in July, and we beat them back for a time,
+but our powder gave out, and we had to fall back upon the city.
+Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side,--which is not to
+be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were
+right in the heart of it.  Lucknow is rather better than a hundred
+miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south.  From every
+point on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder and
+outrage.
+
+"The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce
+devil-worshippers of all sorts.  Our handful of men were lost among the
+narrow, winding streets.  Our leader moved across the river, therefore,
+and took up his position in the old fort at Agra.  I don't know if any
+of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that old fort.  It
+is a very queer place,--the queerest that ever I was in, and I have
+been in some rum corners, too.  First of all, it is enormous in size.
+I should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres.  There is a
+modern part, which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and
+everything else, with plenty of room over.  But the modern part is
+nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes, and which
+is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes.  It is all full of
+great deserted halls, and winding passages, and long corridors twisting
+in and out, so that it is easy enough for folk to get lost in it.  For
+this reason it was seldom that any one went into it, though now and
+again a party with torches might go exploring.
+
+"The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it,
+but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had to be
+guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which was
+actually held by our troops.  We were short-handed, with hardly men
+enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns.  It was
+impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at every one of
+the innumerable gates.  What we did was to organize a central
+guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the
+charge of one white man and two or three natives.  I was selected to
+take charge during certain hours of the night of a small isolated door
+upon the southwest side of the building.  Two Sikh troopers were placed
+under my command, and I was instructed if anything went wrong to fire
+my musket, when I might rely upon help coming at once from the central
+guard.  As the guard was a good two hundred paces away, however, and as
+the space between was cut up into a labyrinth of passages and
+corridors, I had great doubts as to whether they could arrive in time
+to be of any use in case of an actual attack.
+
+"Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me, since
+I was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that.  For two nights I
+kept the watch with my Punjaubees.  They were tall, fierce-looking
+chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name, both old fighting-men
+who had borne arms against us at Chilian-wallah.  They could talk
+English pretty well, but I could get little out of them.  They
+preferred to stand together and jabber all night in their queer Sikh
+lingo.  For myself, I used to stand outside the gate-way, looking down
+on the broad, winding river and on the twinkling lights of the great
+city.  The beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells and
+howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were enough to
+remind us all night of our dangerous neighbors across the stream.
+Every two hours the officer of the night used to come round to all the
+posts, to make sure that all was well.
+
+"The third night of my watch was dark and dirty, with a small, driving
+rain.  It was dreary work standing in the gate-way hour after hour in
+such weather.  I tried again and again to make my Sikhs talk, but
+without much success.  At two in the morning the rounds passed, and
+broke for a moment the weariness of the night. Finding that my
+companions would not be led into conversation, I took out my pipe, and
+laid down my musket to strike the match. In an instant the two Sikhs
+were upon me.  One of them snatched my firelock up and levelled it at
+my head, while the other held a great knife to my throat and swore
+between his teeth that he would plunge it into me if I moved a step.
+
+"My first thought was that these fellows were in league with the
+rebels, and that this was the beginning of an assault.  If our door
+were in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the women and
+children be treated as they were in Cawnpore.  Maybe you gentlemen
+think that I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my
+word that when I thought of that, though I felt the point of the knife
+at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream,
+if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard.  The man who
+held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to it,
+he whispered, 'Don't make a noise.  The fort is safe enough.  There are
+no rebel dogs on this side of the river.'  There was the ring of truth
+in what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a dead man.
+I could read it in the fellow's brown eyes.  I waited, therefore, in
+silence, to see what it was that they wanted from me.
+
+"'Listen to me, Sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the
+one whom they called Abdullah Khan.  'You must either be with us now or
+you must be silenced forever.  The thing is too great a one for us to
+hesitate.  Either you are heart and soul with us on your oath on the
+cross of the Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown into
+the ditch and we shall pass over to our brothers in the rebel army.
+There is no middle way.  Which is it to be, death or life?  We can only
+give you three minutes to decide, for the time is passing, and all must
+be done before the rounds come again.'
+
+"'How can I decide?' said I.  'You have not told me what you want of
+me.  But I tell you now that if it is anything against the safety of
+the fort I will have no truck with it, so you can drive home your knife
+and welcome.'
+
+"'It is nothing against the fort,' said he.  'We only ask you to do
+that which your countrymen come to this land for.  We ask you to be
+rich.  If you will be one of us this night, we will swear to you upon
+the naked knife, and by the threefold oath which no Sikh was ever known
+to break, that you shall have your fair share of the loot.  A quarter
+of the treasure shall be yours.  We can say no fairer.'
+
+"'But what is the treasure, then?' I asked.  'I am as ready to be rich
+as you can be, if you will but show me how it can be done.'
+
+"'You will swear, then,' said he, 'by the bones of your father, by the
+honor of your mother, by the cross of your faith, to raise no hand and
+speak no word against us, either now or afterwards?'
+
+"'I will swear it,' I answered, 'provided that the fort is not
+endangered.'
+
+"'Then my comrade and I will swear that you shall have a quarter of the
+treasure which shall be equally divided among the four of us.'
+
+"'There are but three,' said I.
+
+"'No; Dost Akbar must have his share.  We can tell the tale to you
+while we await them.  Do you stand at the gate, Mahomet Singh, and give
+notice of their coming.  The thing stands thus, Sahib, and I tell it to
+you because I know that an oath is binding upon a Feringhee, and that
+we may trust you.  Had you been a lying Hindoo, though you had sworn by
+all the gods in their false temples, your blood would have been upon
+the knife, and your body in the water.  But the Sikh knows the
+Englishman, and the Englishman knows the Sikh.  Hearken, then, to what
+I have to say.
+
+"'There is a rajah in the northern provinces who has much wealth,
+though his lands are small.  Much has come to him from his father, and
+more still he has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and hoards
+his gold rather than spend it.  When the troubles broke out he would be
+friends both with the lion and the tiger,--with the Sepoy and with the
+Company's Raj.  Soon, however, it seemed to him that the white men's
+day was come, for through all the land he could hear of nothing but of
+their death and their overthrow.  Yet, being a careful man, he made
+such plans that, come what might, half at least of his treasure should
+be left to him.  That which was in gold and silver he kept by him in
+the vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones and the choicest
+pearls that he had he put in an iron box, and sent it by a trusty
+servant who, under the guise of a merchant, should take it to the fort
+at Agra, there to lie until the land is at peace. Thus, if the rebels
+won he would have his money, but if the Company conquered his jewels
+would be saved to him.  Having thus divided his hoard, he threw himself
+into the cause of the Sepoys, since they were strong upon his borders.
+By doing this, mark you, Sahib, his property becomes the due of those
+who have been true to their salt.
+
+"'This pretended merchant, who travels under the name of Achmet, is now
+in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort.  He has
+with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar, who
+knows his secret.  Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a
+side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose.
+Here he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet Singh and
+myself awaiting him.  The place is lonely, and none shall know of his
+coming.  The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no more, but the
+great treasure of the rajah shall be divided among us.  What say you to
+it, Sahib?'
+
+"In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a great and a sacred thing;
+but it is very different when there is fire and blood all round you and
+you have been used to meeting death at every turn. Whether Achmet the
+merchant lived or died was a thing as light as air to me, but at the
+talk about the treasure my heart turned to it, and I thought of what I
+might do in the old country with it, and how my folk would stare when
+they saw their ne'er-do-well coming back with his pockets full of gold
+moidores.  I had, therefore, already made up my mind.  Abdullah Khan,
+however, thinking that I hesitated, pressed the matter more closely.
+
+"'Consider, Sahib,' said he, 'that if this man is taken by the
+commandant he will be hung or shot, and his jewels taken by the
+government, so that no man will be a rupee the better for them. Now,
+since we do the taking of him, why should we not do the rest as well?
+The jewels will be as well with us as in the Company's coffers.  There
+will be enough to make every one of us rich men and great chiefs.  No
+one can know about the matter, for here we are cut off from all men.
+What could be better for the purpose? Say again, then, Sahib, whether
+you are with us, or if we must look upon you as an enemy.'
+
+"'I am with you heart and soul,' said I.
+
+"'It is well,' he answered, handing me back my firelock.  'You see that
+we trust you, for your word, like ours, is not to be broken.  We have
+now only to wait for my brother and the merchant.'
+
+"'Does your brother know, then, of what you will do?' I asked.
+
+"'The plan is his.  He has devised it.  We will go to the gate and
+share the watch with Mahomet Singh.'
+
+"The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just the beginning of
+the wet season.  Brown, heavy clouds were drifting across the sky, and
+it was hard to see more than a stone-cast.  A deep moat lay in front of
+our door, but the water was in places nearly dried up, and it could
+easily be crossed.  It was strange to me to be standing there with
+those two wild Punjaubees waiting for the man who was coming to his
+death.
+
+"Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded lantern at the other side
+of the moat.  It vanished among the mound-heaps, and then appeared
+again coming slowly in our direction.
+
+"'Here they are!' I exclaimed.
+
+"'You will challenge him, Sahib, as usual,' whispered Abdullah. 'Give
+him no cause for fear.  Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest
+while you stay here on guard.  Have the lantern ready to uncover, that
+we may be sure that it is indeed the man.'
+
+"The light had flickered onwards, now stopping and now advancing, until
+I could see two dark figures upon the other side of the moat.  I let
+them scramble down the sloping bank, splash through the mire, and climb
+half-way up to the gate, before I challenged them.
+
+"'Who goes there?' said I, in a subdued voice.
+
+"'Friends,' came the answer.  I uncovered my lantern and threw a flood
+of light upon them.  The first was an enormous Sikh, with a black beard
+which swept nearly down to his cummerbund.  Outside of a show I have
+never seen so tall a man.  The other was a little, fat, round fellow,
+with a great yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up in a
+shawl.  He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, for his hands
+twitched as if he had the ague, and his head kept turning to left and
+right with two bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he
+ventures out from his hole.  It gave me the chills to think of killing
+him, but I thought of the treasure, and my heart set as hard as a flint
+within me.  When he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup of joy
+and came running up towards me.
+
+"'Your protection, Sahib,' he panted,--'your protection for the unhappy
+merchant Achmet.  I have travelled across Rajpootana that I might seek
+the shelter of the fort at Agra.  I have been robbed and beaten and
+abused because I have been the friend of the Company.  It is a blessed
+night this when I am once more in safety,--I and my poor possessions.'
+
+"'What have you in the bundle?' I asked.
+
+"'An iron box,' he answered, 'which contains one or two little family
+matters which are of no value to others, but which I should be sorry to
+lose.  Yet I am not a beggar; and I shall reward you, young Sahib, and
+your governor also, if he will give me the shelter I ask.'
+
+"I could not trust myself to speak longer with the man.  The more I
+looked at his fat, frightened face, the harder did it seem that we
+should slay him in cold blood.  It was best to get it over.
+
+"'Take him to the main guard,' said I.  The two Sikhs closed in upon
+him on each side, and the giant walked behind, while they marched in
+through the dark gate-way.  Never was a man so compassed round with
+death.  I remained at the gate-way with the lantern.
+
+"I could hear the measured tramp of their footsteps sounding through
+the lonely corridors.  Suddenly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a
+scuffle, with the sound of blows.  A moment later there came, to my
+horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud
+breathing of a running man.  I turned my lantern down the long,
+straight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind,
+with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding
+like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife flashing in
+his hand.  I have never seen a man run so fast as that little merchant.
+He was gaining on the Sikh, and I could see that if he once passed me
+and got to the open air he would save himself yet.  My heart softened
+to him, but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and
+bitter.  I cast my firelock between his legs as he raced past, and he
+rolled twice over like a shot rabbit.  Ere he could stagger to his feet
+the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice in his side.  The man
+never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen.  I
+think myself that he may have broken his neck with the fall.  You see,
+gentlemen, that I am keeping my promise.  I am telling you every work
+of the business just exactly as it happened, whether it is in my favor
+or not."
+
+He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for the whiskey-and-water
+which Holmes had brewed for him.  For myself, I confess that I had now
+conceived the utmost horror of the man, not only for this cold-blooded
+business in which he had been concerned, but even more for the somewhat
+flippant and careless way in which he narrated it.  Whatever punishment
+was in store for him, I felt that he might expect no sympathy from me.
+Sherlock Holmes and Jones sat with their hands upon their knees, deeply
+interested in the story, but with the same disgust written upon their
+faces. He may have observed it, for there was a touch of defiance in
+his voice and manner as he proceeded.
+
+"It was all very bad, no doubt," said he.  "I should like to know how
+many fellows in my shoes would have refused a share of this loot when
+they knew that they would have their throats cut for their pains.
+Besides, it was my life or his when once he was in the fort.  If he had
+got out, the whole business would come to light, and I should have been
+court-martialled and shot as likely as not; for people were not very
+lenient at a time like that."
+
+"Go on with your story," said Holmes, shortly.
+
+"Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and I.  A fine weight he
+was, too, for all that he was so short.  Mahomet Singh was left to
+guard the door.  We took him to a place which the Sikhs had already
+prepared.  It was some distance off, where a winding passage leads to a
+great empty hall, the brick walls of which were all crumbling to
+pieces.  The earth floor had sunk in at one place, making a natural
+grave, so we left Achmet the merchant there, having first covered him
+over with loose bricks.  This done, we all went back to the treasure.
+
+"It lay where he had dropped it when he was first attacked.  The box
+was the same which now lies open upon your table.  A key was hung by a
+silken cord to that carved handle upon the top.  We opened it, and the
+light of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I have
+read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore.  It was
+blinding to look upon them.  When we had feasted our eyes we took them
+all out and made a list of them.  There were one hundred and
+forty-three diamonds of the first water, including one which has been
+called, I believe, 'the Great Mogul' and is said to be the second
+largest stone in existence.  Then there were ninety-seven very fine
+emeralds, and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, however,
+were small.  There were forty carbuncles, two hundred and ten
+sapphires, sixty-one agates, and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes,
+cats'-eyes, turquoises, and other stones, the very names of which I did
+not know at the time, though I have become more familiar with them
+since.  Besides this, there were nearly three hundred very fine pearls,
+twelve of which were set in a gold coronet.  By the way, these last had
+been taken out of the chest and were not there when I recovered it.
+
+"After we had counted our treasures we put them back into the chest and
+carried them to the gate-way to show them to Mahomet Singh.  Then we
+solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other and be true to our
+secret.  We agreed to conceal our loot in a safe place until the
+country should be at peace again, and then to divide it equally among
+ourselves.  There was no use dividing it at present, for if gems of
+such value were found upon us it would cause suspicion, and there was
+no privacy in the fort nor any place where we could keep them.  We
+carried the box, therefore, into the same hall where we had buried the
+body, and there, under certain bricks in the best-preserved wall, we
+made a hollow and put our treasure.  We made careful note of the place,
+and next day I drew four plans, one for each of us, and put the sign of
+the four of us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we should each
+always act for all, so that none might take advantage.  That is an oath
+that I can put my hand to my heart and swear that I have never broken.
+
+"Well, there's no use my telling you gentlemen what came of the Indian
+mutiny.  After Wilson took Delhi and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow the
+back of the business was broken.  Fresh troops came pouring in, and
+Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier. A flying column under
+Colonel Greathed came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies away from
+it.  Peace seemed to be settling upon the country, and we four were
+beginning to hope that the time was at hand when we might safely go off
+with our shares of the plunder.  In a moment, however, our hopes were
+shattered by our being arrested as the murderers of Achmet.
+
+"It came about in this way.  When the rajah put his jewels into the
+hands of Achmet he did it because he knew that he was a trusty man.
+They are suspicious folk in the East, however:  so what does this rajah
+do but take a second even more trusty servant and set him to play the
+spy upon the first?  This second man was ordered never to let Achmet
+out of his sight, and he followed him like his shadow.  He went after
+him that night and saw him pass through the doorway.  Of course he
+thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied for admission
+there himself next day, but could find no trace of Achmet.  This seemed
+to him so strange that he spoke about it to a sergeant of guides, who
+brought it to the ears of the commandant.  A thorough search was
+quickly made, and the body was discovered.  Thus at the very moment
+that we thought that all was safe we were all four seized and brought
+to trial on a charge of murder,--three of us because we had held the
+gate that night, and the fourth because he was known to have been in
+the company of the murdered man.  Not a word about the jewels came out
+at the trial, for the rajah had been deposed and driven out of India:
+so no one had any particular interest in them.  The murder, however,
+was clearly made out, and it was certain that we must all have been
+concerned in it.  The three Sikhs got penal servitude for life, and I
+was condemned to death, though my sentence was afterwards commuted into
+the same as the others.
+
+"It was rather a queer position that we found ourselves in then. There
+we were all four tied by the leg and with precious little chance of
+ever getting out again, while we each held a secret which might have
+put each of us in a palace if we could only have made use of it.  It
+was enough to make a man eat his heart out to have to stand the kick
+and the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have rice to eat and
+water to drink, when that gorgeous fortune was ready for him outside,
+just waiting to be picked up.  It might have driven me mad; but I was
+always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my time.
+
+"At last it seemed to me to have come.  I was changed from Agra to
+Madras, and from there to Blair Island in the Andamans.  There are very
+few white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had behaved well from
+the first, I soon found myself a sort of privileged person.  I was
+given a hut in Hope Town, which is a small place on the slopes of Mount
+Harriet, and I was left pretty much to myself.  It is a dreary,
+fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clearings was infested
+with wild cannibal natives, who were ready enough to blow a poisoned
+dart at us if they saw a chance.  There was digging, and ditching, and
+yam-planting, and a dozen other things to be done, so we were busy
+enough all day; though in the evening we had a little time to
+ourselves.  Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs for the
+surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his knowledge.  All the time I
+was on the lookout for a chance of escape; but it is hundreds of miles
+from any other land, and there is little or no wind in those seas:  so
+it was a terribly difficult job to get away.
+
+"The surgeon, Dr. Somerton, was a fast, sporting young chap, and the
+other young officers would meet in his rooms of an evening and play
+cards.  The surgery, where I used to make up my drugs, was next to his
+sitting-room, with a small window between us. Often, if I felt
+lonesome, I used to turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then,
+standing there, I could hear their talk and watch their play.  I am
+fond of a hand at cards myself, and it was almost as good as having one
+to watch the others.  There was Major Sholto, Captain Morstan, and
+Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in command of the native troops, and
+there was the surgeon himself, and two or three prison-officials,
+crafty old hands who played a nice sly safe game.  A very snug little
+party they used to make.
+
+"Well, there was one thing which very soon struck me, and that was that
+the soldiers used always to lose and the civilians to win.  Mind, I
+don't say that there was anything unfair, but so it was.  These
+prison-chaps had done little else than play cards ever since they had
+been at the Andamans, and they knew each other's game to a point, while
+the others just played to pass the time and threw their cards down
+anyhow.  Night after night the soldiers got up poorer men, and the
+poorer they got the more keen they were to play.  Major Sholto was the
+hardest hit.  He used to pay in notes and gold at first, but soon it
+came to notes of hand and for big sums.  He sometimes would win for a
+few deals, just to give him heart, and then the luck would set in
+against him worse than ever.  All day he would wander about as black as
+thunder, and he took to drinking a deal more than was good for him.
+
+"One night he lost even more heavily than usual.  I was sitting in my
+hut when he and Captain Morstan came stumbling along on the way to
+their quarters.  They were bosom friends, those two, and never far
+apart.  The major was raving about his losses.
+
+"'It's all up, Morstan,' he was saying, as they passed my hut. 'I shall
+have to send in my papers.  I am a ruined man.'
+
+"'Nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the shoulder.
+'I've had a nasty facer myself, but--'  That was all I could hear, but
+it was enough to set me thinking.
+
+"A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach: so I
+took the chance of speaking to him.
+
+"'I wish to have your advice, major,' said I.
+
+"'Well, Small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his lips.
+
+"'I wanted to ask you, sir,' said I, 'who is the proper person to whom
+hidden treasure should be handed over.  I know where half a million
+worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought perhaps the best
+thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the proper
+authorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence shortened for
+me.'
+
+"'Half a million, Small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if I was
+in earnest.
+
+"'Quite that, sir,--in jewels and pearls.  It lies there ready for any
+one.  And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is outlawed
+and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first comer.'
+
+"'To government, Small,' he stammered,--'to government.'  But he said
+it in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got him.
+
+"'You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the
+Governor-General?' said I, quietly.
+
+"'Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might repent.
+Let me hear all about it, Small.  Give me the facts.'
+
+"I told him the whole story, with small changes so that he could not
+identify the places.  When I had finished he stood stock still and full
+of thought.  I could see by the twitch of his lip that there was a
+struggle going on within him.
+
+"'This is a very important matter, Small,' he said, at last. 'You must
+not say a word to any one about it, and I shall see you again soon.'
+
+"Two nights later he and his friend Captain Morstan came to my hut in
+the dead of the night with a lantern.
+
+"'I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your own
+lips, Small,' said he.
+
+"I repeated it as I had told it before.
+
+"'It rings true, eh?' said he.  'It's good enough to act upon?'
+
+"Captain Morstan nodded.
+
+"'Look here, Small,' said the major.  'We have been talking it over, my
+friend here and I, and we have come to the conclusion that this secret
+of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but is a private
+concern of your own, which of course you have the power of disposing of
+as you think best.  Now, the question is, what price would you ask for
+it?  We might be inclined to take it up, and at least look into it, if
+we could agree as to terms.'  He tried to speak in a cool, careless
+way, but his eyes were shining with excitement and greed.
+
+"'Why, as to that, gentlemen,' I answered, trying also to be cool, but
+feeling as excited as he did, 'there is only one bargain which a man in
+my position can make.  I shall want you to help me to my freedom, and
+to help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take you into
+partnership, and give you a fifth share to divide between you.'
+
+"'Hum!' said he.  'A fifth share!  That is not very tempting.'
+
+"'It would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said I.
+
+"'But how can we gain your freedom?  You know very well that you ask an
+impossibility.'
+
+"'Nothing of the sort,' I answered.  'I have thought it all out to the
+last detail.  The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat fit
+for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time.  There
+are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras which would
+serve our turn well.  Do you bring one over. We shall engage to get
+aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any part of the Indian
+coast you will have done your part of the bargain.'
+
+"'If there were only one,' he said.
+
+"'None or all,' I answered.  'We have sworn it.  The four of us must
+always act together.'
+
+"'You see, Morstan,' said he, 'Small is a man of his word.  He does not
+flinch from his friend.  I think we may very well trust him.'
+
+"'It's a dirty business,' the other answered.  'Yet, as you say, the
+money would save our commissions handsomely.'
+
+"'Well, Small,' said the major, 'we must, I suppose, try and meet you.
+We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me where
+the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back to India
+in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'
+
+"'Not so fast,' said I, growing colder as he got hot.  'I must have the
+consent of my three comrades.  I tell you that it is four or none with
+us.'
+
+"'Nonsense!' he broke in.  'What have three black fellows to do with
+our agreement?'
+
+"'Black or blue,' said I, 'they are in with me, and we all go together.'
+
+"Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh,
+Abdullah Khan, and Dost Akbar were all present.  We talked the matter
+over again, and at last we came to an arrangement.  We were to provide
+both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort and mark the
+place in the wall where the treasure was hid.  Major Sholto was to go
+to India to test our story.  If he found the box he was to leave it
+there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was to
+lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to make our way, and
+finally to return to his duties.  Captain Morstan was then to apply for
+leave of absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we were to have a final
+division of the treasure, he taking the major's share as well as his
+own.  All this we sealed by the most solemn oaths that the mind could
+think or the lips utter.  I sat up all night with paper and ink, and by
+the morning I had the two charts all ready, signed with the sign of
+four,--that is, of Abdullah, Akbar, Mahomet, and myself.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my
+friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey.  I'll
+make it as short as I can.  The villain Sholto went off to India, but
+he never came back again.  Captain Morstan showed me his name among a
+list of passengers in one of the mail-boats very shortly afterwards.
+His uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and he had left the army,
+yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had treated us.  Morstan
+went over to Agra shortly afterwards, and found, as we expected, that
+the treasure was indeed gone.  The scoundrel had stolen it all, without
+carrying out one of the conditions on which we had sold him the secret.
+From that day I lived only for vengeance.  I thought of it by day and I
+nursed it by night.  It became an overpowering, absorbing passion with
+me.  I cared nothing for the law,--nothing for the gallows.  To escape,
+to track down Sholto, to have my hand upon his throat,--that was my one
+thought.  Even the Agra treasure had come to be a smaller thing in my
+mind than the slaying of Sholto.
+
+"Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one
+which I did not carry out.  But it was weary years before my time came.
+I have told you that I had picked up something of medicine.  One day
+when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander was
+picked up by a convict-gang in the woods.  He was sick to death, and
+had gone to a lonely place to die.  I took him in hand, though he was
+as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him
+all right and able to walk.  He took a kind of fancy to me then, and
+would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut.
+I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all the
+fonder of me.
+
+"Tonga--for that was his name--was a fine boatman, and owned a big,
+roomy canoe of his own.  When I found that he was devoted to me and
+would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked it
+over with him.  He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to an
+old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me up.  I
+gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of yams,
+cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes.
+
+"He was stanch and true, was little Tonga.  No man ever had a more
+faithful mate.  At the night named he had his boat at the wharf.  As it
+chanced, however, there was one of the convict-guard down there,--a
+vile Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring me.
+I had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance.  It was as if
+fate had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I left
+the island.  He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his carbine
+on his shoulder.  I looked about for a stone to beat out his brains
+with, but none could I see.  Then a queer thought came into my head and
+showed me where I could lay my hand on a weapon.  I sat down in the
+darkness and unstrapped my wooden leg.  With three long hops I was on
+him.  He put his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and
+knocked the whole front of his skull in.  You can see the split in the
+wood now where I hit him.  We both went down together, for I could not
+keep my balance, but when I got up I found him still lying quiet
+enough.  I made for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea.
+Tonga had brought all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and
+his gods.  Among other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some
+Andaman cocoa-nut matting, with which I made a sort of sail.  For ten
+days we were beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we
+were picked up by a trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah
+with a cargo of Malay pilgrims.  They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I
+soon managed to settle down among them.  They had one very good
+quality:  they let you alone and asked no questions.
+
+"Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and
+I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have you here until
+the sun was shining.  Here and there we drifted about the world,
+something always turning up to keep us from London.  All the time,
+however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at
+night.  A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep.  At last,
+however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England.
+I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to
+work to discover whether he had realized the treasure, or if he still
+had it.  I made friends with someone who could help me,--I name no
+names, for I don't want to get any one else in a hole,--and I soon
+found that he still had the jewels.  Then I tried to get at him in many
+ways; but he was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters, besides
+his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over him.
+
+"One day, however, I got word that he was dying.  I hurried at once to
+the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that, and,
+looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his sons
+on each side of him.  I'd have come through and taken my chance with
+the three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped, and I
+knew that he was gone.  I got into his room that same night, though,
+and I searched his papers to see if there was any record of where he
+had hidden our jewels.  There was not a line, however:  so I came away,
+bitter and savage as a man could be.  Before I left I bethought me that
+if I ever met my Sikh friends again it would be a satisfaction to know
+that I had left some mark of our hatred:  so I scrawled down the sign
+of the four of us, as it had been on the chart, and I pinned it on his
+bosom.  It was too much that he should be taken to the grave without
+some token from the men whom he had robbed and befooled.
+
+"We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs
+and other such places as the black cannibal.  He would eat raw meat and
+dance his war-dance:  so we always had a hatful of pennies after a
+day's work.  I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge, and for
+some years there was no news to hear, except that they were hunting for
+the treasure.  At last, however, came what we had waited for so long.
+The treasure had been found.  It was up at the top of the house, in Mr.
+Bartholomew Sholto's chemical laboratory.  I came at once and had a
+look at the place, but I could not see how with my wooden leg I was to
+make my way up to it.  I learned, however, about a trap-door in the
+roof, and also about Mr. Sholto's supper-hour.  It seemed to me that I
+could manage the thing easily through Tonga. I brought him out with me
+with a long rope wound round his waist. He could climb like a cat, and
+he soon made his way through the roof, but, as ill luck would have it,
+Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room, to his cost.  Tonga thought
+he had done something very clever in killing him, for when I came up by
+the rope I found him strutting about as proud as a peacock.  Very much
+surprised was he when I made at him with the rope's end and cursed him
+for a little blood-thirsty imp.  I took the treasure-box and let it
+down, and then slid down myself, having first left the sign of the four
+upon the table, to show that the jewels had come back at last to those
+who had most right to them.  Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the
+window, and made off the way that he had come.
+
+"I don't know that I have anything else to tell you.  I had heard a
+waterman speak of the speed of Smith's launch the Aurora, so I thought
+she would be a handy craft for our escape.  I engaged with old Smith,
+and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship.  He knew,
+no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was not in our
+secrets.  All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you, gentlemen, it
+is not to amuse you,--for you have not done me a very good turn,--but
+it is because I believe the best defence I can make is just to hold
+back nothing, but let all the world know how badly I have myself been
+served by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of the death of his son."
+
+"A very remarkable account," said Sherlock Holmes.  "A fitting wind-up
+to an extremely interesting case.  There is nothing at all new to me in
+the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your own
+rope.  That I did not know.  By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had
+lost all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat."
+
+"He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe
+at the time."
+
+"Ah, of course," said Holmes.  "I had not thought of that."
+
+"Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?" asked the
+convict, affably.
+
+"I think not, thank you," my companion answered.
+
+"Well, Holmes," said Athelney Jones, "You are a man to be humored, and
+we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and
+I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me.  I
+shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under
+lock and key.  The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors
+down-stairs.  I am much obliged to you both for your assistance.  Of
+course you will be wanted at the trial.  Good-night to you."
+
+"Good-night, gentlemen both," said Jonathan Small.
+
+"You first, Small," remarked the wary Jones as they left the room.
+"I'll take particular care that you don't club me with your wooden leg,
+whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman Isles."
+
+"Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked, after we
+had set some time smoking in silence.  "I fear that it may be the last
+investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your
+methods.  Miss Morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband
+in prospective."
+
+He gave a most dismal groan.  "I feared as much," said he.  "I really
+cannot congratulate you."
+
+I was a little hurt.  "Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my
+choice?" I asked.
+
+"Not at all.  I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I
+ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been
+doing.  She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she
+preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father.  But
+love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to
+that true cold reason which I place above all things.  I should never
+marry myself, lest I bias my judgment."
+
+"I trust," said I, laughing, "that my judgment may survive the ordeal.
+But you look weary."
+
+"Yes, the reaction is already upon me.  I shall be as limp as a rag for
+a week."
+
+"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call
+laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer
+and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow.  I often think of those lines
+of old Goethe,--
+
+  Schade dass die Natur nur EINEN Mensch aus Dir schuf,
+  Denn zum wuerdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.
+
+"By the way, a propos of this Norwood business, you see that they had,
+as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than
+Lal Rao, the butler:  so Jones actually has the undivided honor of
+having caught one fish in his great haul."
+
+"The division seems rather unfair," I remarked.  "You have done all the
+work in this business.  I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit,
+pray what remains for you?"
+
+"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the
+cocaine-bottle."  And he stretched his long white hand up for it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/theteethofthetiger b/files/books/unrelated/theteethofthetiger
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+++ b/files/books/unrelated/theteethofthetiger
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Teeth of the Tiger, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Teeth of the Tiger
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Release Date: July 30, 2004 [EBook #13058]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEETH OF THE TIGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         THE TEETH OF THE TIGER
+
+                           An Adventure Story
+
+                           BY MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+   Author of "Arsène Lupin," "The Hollow Needle," "The Crystal Stopper"
+
+                                  1914
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
+   II. A MAN DEAD
+  III. A MAN DOOMED
+   IV. THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
+    V. THE IRON CURTAIN
+   VI. THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
+  VII. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
+ VIII. THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
+   IX. LUPIN'S ANGER
+    X. GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
+   XI. ROUTED
+  XII. "HELP!"
+ XIII. THE EXPLOSION
+  XIV. THE "HATER"
+   XV. THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
+  XVI. WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
+ XVII. OPEN SESAME!
+XVIII. ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
+  XIX. "THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
+   XX. FLORENCE'S SECRET
+  XXI. LUPIN'S LUPINS
+
+
+
+
+The Teeth of the Tiger
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
+
+
+It was half-past four; M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police, was not yet
+back at the office. His private secretary laid on the desk a bundle of
+letters and reports which he had annotated for his chief, rang the bell
+and said to the messenger who entered by the main door:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet has sent for a number of people to see him at five
+o'clock. Here are their names. Show them into separate waiting-rooms, so
+that they can't communicate with one another, and let me have their cards
+when they come."
+
+The messenger went out. The secretary was turning toward the small door
+that led to his room, when the main door opened once more and admitted a
+man who stopped and leaned swaying over the back of a chair.
+
+"Why, it's you, Vérot!" said the secretary. "But what's happened? What's
+the matter?"
+
+Inspector Vérot was a very stout, powerfully built man, with a big neck
+and shoulders and a florid complexion. He had obviously been upset by
+some violent excitement, for his face, streaked with red veins and
+usually so apoplectic, seemed almost pale.
+
+"Oh, nothing, Monsieur le Secrétaire!" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes; you're not looking your usual self. You're gray in the
+face.... And the way you're perspiring...."
+
+Inspector Vérot wiped his forehead and, pulling himself together, said:
+
+"It's just a little tiredness.... I've been overworking myself lately: I
+was very keen on clearing up a case which Monsieur Desmalions had put in
+my hands. All the same, I have a funny sort of feeling--"
+
+"Will you have a pick-me-up?"
+
+"No, no; I'm more thirsty."
+
+"A glass of water?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I should like--I should like--"
+
+His voice faltered. He wore a troubled look, as if he had suddenly lost
+his power of getting out another word. But he recovered himself with an
+effort and asked:
+
+"Isn't Monsieur Desmalions here?"
+
+"No; he won't be back till five, when he has an important meeting."
+
+"Yes ... I know ... most important. That's what I'm here for. But
+I should have liked to see him first. I should so much have liked
+to see him!"
+
+The secretary stared at Vérot and said:
+
+"What a state you're in! Is your message so urgent as all that?"
+
+"It's very urgent, indeed. It has to do with a crime that took place a
+month ago, to the day. And, above all, it's a matter of preventing two
+murders which are the outcome of that other crime and which are to be
+committed to-night. Yes, to-night, inevitably, unless we take the
+necessary steps."
+
+"Sit down, Vérot, won't you?"
+
+"You see, the whole thing has been planned in such an infernal manner!
+You would never have imagined--"
+
+"Still, Vérot, as you know about it beforehand, and as Monsieur le Préfet
+is sure to give you full powers--"
+
+"Yes, of course, of course. But, all the same, it's terrible to think
+that I might miss him. So I wrote him this letter, telling him all I know
+about the business. I thought it safer."
+
+He handed the secretary a large yellow envelope and added:
+
+"And here's a little box as well; I'll leave it on this table. It
+contains something that will serve to complete and explain the contents
+of the letter."
+
+"But why don't you keep all that by you?"
+
+"I'm afraid to. They're watching me. They're trying to get rid of
+me. I shan't be easy in my mind until some one besides myself knows
+the secret."
+
+"Have no fear, Vérot. Monsieur le Préfet is bound to be back soon.
+Meanwhile, I advise you to go to the infirmary and ask for a pick-me-up."
+
+The inspector seemed undecided what to do. Once more he wiped away the
+perspiration that was trickling down his forehead. Then, drawing himself
+up, he left the office. When he was gone the secretary slipped the letter
+into a big bundle of papers that lay on the Prefect's desk and went out
+by the door leading to his own room.
+
+He had hardly closed it behind him when the other door opened once again
+and the inspector returned, spluttering:
+
+"Monsieur le Secrétaire ... it'd be better if I showed you--"
+
+The unfortunate man was as white as a sheet. His teeth were chattering.
+When he saw that the secretary was gone, he tried to walk across to his
+private room. But he was seized with an attack of weakness and sank into
+a chair, where he remained for some minutes, moaning helplessly:
+
+"What's the matter with me? ... Have I been poisoned, too? ... Oh, I
+don't like this; I don't like the look of this!"
+
+The desk stood within reach of his hand. He took a pencil, drew a
+writing-pad toward him and began to scribble a few characters. But he
+next stammered:
+
+"Why, no, it's not worth while. The Prefect will be reading my
+letter.... What on earth's the matter with me. I don't like this at all!"
+
+Suddenly he rose to his feet and called out:
+
+"Monsieur le Secrétaire, we've got ... we've got to ... It's for
+to-night. Nothing can prevent--"
+
+Stiffening himself with an effort of his whole will, he made for the door
+of the secretary's room with little short steps, like an automaton. But
+he reeled on the way--and had to sit down a second time.
+
+A mad terror shook him from head to foot; and he uttered cries which were
+too faint, unfortunately, to be heard. He realized this and looked round
+for a bell, for a gong; but he was no longer able to distinguish
+anything. A veil of darkness seemed to weigh upon his eyes.
+
+Then he dropped on his knees and crawled to the wall, beating the air
+with one hand, like a blind man, until he ended by touching some
+woodwork. It was the partition-wall.
+
+He crept along this; but, as ill-luck would have it, his bewildered brain
+showed him a false picture of the room, so that, instead of turning to
+the left as he should have done, he followed the wall to the right,
+behind a screen which concealed a third door.
+
+His fingers touched the handle of this door and he managed to open it. He
+gasped, "Help! Help!" and fell at his full length in a sort of cupboard
+or closet which the Prefect of Police used as a dressing-room.
+
+"To-night!" he moaned, believing that he was making himself heard and
+that he was in the secretary's room. "To-night! The job is fixed for
+to-night! You'll see ... The mark of the teeth! ... It's awful! ... Oh,
+the pain I'm in! ... It's the poison! Save me! Help!"
+
+The voice died away. He repeated several times, as though in a nightmare:
+
+"The teeth! the teeth! They're closing!"
+
+Then his voice grew fainter still; and inarticulate sounds issued from
+his pallid lips. His mouth munched the air like the mouth of one of those
+old men who seem to be interminably chewing the cud. His head sank lower
+and lower on his breast. He heaved two or three sighs; a great shiver
+passed through his body; and he moved no more.
+
+And the death-rattle began in his throat, very softly and rhythmically,
+broken only by interruptions in which a last instinctive effort appeared
+to revive the flickering life of the intelligence, and to rouse fitful
+gleams of consciousness in the dimmed eyes.
+
+The Prefect of Police entered his office at ten minutes to five. M.
+Desmalions, who had filled his post for the past three years with an
+authority that made him generally respected, was a heavily built man of
+fifty with a shrewd and intelligent face. His dress, consisting of a gray
+jacket-suit, white spats, and a loosely flowing tie, in no way suggested
+the public official. His manners were easy, simple, and full of
+good-natured frankness.
+
+He touched a bell, and when his secretary entered, asked:
+
+"Are the people whom I sent for here?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I gave orders that they were to wait in
+different rooms."
+
+"Oh, it would not have mattered if they had met! However, perhaps it's
+better as it is. I hope that the American Ambassador did not trouble to
+come in person?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Have you their cards?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Prefect of Police took the five visiting cards which his secretary
+handed him and read:
+
+"Mr. Archibald Bright, First Secretary United States Embassy; Maître
+Lepertuis, Solicitor; Juan Caceres, Attaché to the Peruvian Legation;
+Major Comte d'Astrignac, retired."
+
+The fifth card bore merely a name, without address or quality of
+any kind--
+
+DON LUIS PERENNA
+
+"That's the one I'm curious to see!" said M. Desmalions. "He interests me
+like the very devil! Did you read the report of the Foreign Legion?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I confess that this gentleman
+puzzles me, too."
+
+"He does, eh? Did you ever hear of such pluck? A sort of heroic madman,
+something absolutely wonderful! And then there's that nickname of Arsène
+Lupin which he earned among his messmates for the way in which he used
+to boss them and astound them! ... How long is it since the death of
+Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"It happened two years before your appointment, Monsieur le Préfet. His
+corpse and Mme. Kesselbach's were discovered under the ruins of a little
+chalet which was burnt down close to the Luxemburg frontier. It was found
+at the inquest that he had strangled that monster, Mrs. Kesselbach, whose
+crimes came to light afterward, and that he hanged himself after setting
+fire to the chalet."
+
+"It was a fitting end for that--rascal," said M. Desmalions, "and I
+confess that I, for my part, much prefer not having him to fight against.
+Let's see, where were we? Are the papers of the Mornington inheritance
+ready for me?"
+
+"On your desk, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Good. But I was forgetting: is Inspector Vérot here?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. I expect he's in the infirmary getting
+something to pull him together."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with him?"
+
+"He struck me as being in a queer state--rather ill."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+The secretary described his interview with Inspector Vérot.
+
+"And you say he left a letter for me?" said M. Desmalions with a worried
+air. "Where is it?"
+
+"Among the papers, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Very odd: it's all very odd. Vérot is a first-rate inspector, a very
+sober-minded fellow; and he doesn't get frightened easily. You might go
+and fetch him. Meanwhile, I'll look through my letters."
+
+The secretary hurried away. When he returned, five minutes later,
+he stated, with an air of astonishment, that he had not seen
+Inspector Vérot.
+
+"And what's more curious still," he added, "is that the messenger who saw
+him leave this room saw him come in again almost at once and did not see
+him go out a second time."
+
+"Perhaps he only passed through here to go to you."
+
+"To me, Monsieur le Préfet? I was in my room all the time."
+
+"Then it's incomprehensible."
+
+"Yes ... unless we conclude that the messenger's attention was distracted
+for a second, as Vérot is neither here nor next door."
+
+"That must be it. I expect he's gone to get some air outside; and he'll
+be back at any moment. For that matter, I shan't want him to start with."
+
+The Prefect looked at his watch.
+
+"Ten past five. You might tell the messenger to show those gentlemen
+in.... Wait, though--"
+
+M. Desmalions hesitated. In turning over the papers he had found Vérot's
+letter. It was a large, yellow, business envelope, with "Café du
+Pont-Neuf" printed at the top.
+
+The secretary suggested:
+
+"In view of Vérot's absence, Monsieur le Préfet, and of what he said, it
+might be as well for you to see what's in the letter first."
+
+M. Desmalions paused to reflect.
+
+"Perhaps you're right."
+
+And, making up his mind, he inserted a paper-knife into the envelope and
+cut it open. A cry escaped him.
+
+"Oh, I say, this is a little too much!"
+
+"What is it, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Why, look here, a blank ... sheet of paper! That's all the envelope
+contains!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"See for yourself--a plain sheet folded in four, with not a word on it."
+
+"But Vérot told me in so many words that he had said in that letter all
+that he knew about the case."
+
+"He told you so, no doubt, but there you are! Upon my word, if I
+didn't know Inspector Vérot, I should think he was trying to play a
+game with me."
+
+"It's a piece of carelessness, Monsieur le Préfet, at the worst."
+
+"No doubt, a piece of carelessness, but I'm surprised at him. It doesn't
+do to be careless when the lives of two people are at stake. For he must
+have told you that there is a double murder planned for to-night?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and under particularly alarming conditions;
+infernal was the word he used."
+
+M. Desmalions was walking up and down the room, with his hands behind his
+back. He stopped at a small table.
+
+"What's this little parcel addressed to me? 'Monsieur le Préfet de
+Police--to be opened in case of accident.'"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the secretary, "I was forgetting! That's from Inspector
+Vérot, too; something of importance, he said, and serving to complete and
+explain the contents of the letter."
+
+"Well," said M. Desmalions, who could not help laughing, "the letter
+certainly needs explaining; and, though there's no question of
+'accident,' I may as well open the parcel."
+
+As he spoke, he cut the string and discovered, under the paper, a box, a
+little cardboard box, which might have come from a druggist, but which
+was soiled and spoiled by the use to which it had been put.
+
+He raised the lid. Inside the box were a few layers of cotton wool, which
+were also rather dirty, and in between these layers was half a cake of
+chocolate.
+
+"What the devil does this mean?" growled the Prefect in surprise.
+
+He took the chocolate, looked at it, and at once perceived what was
+peculiar about this cake of chocolate, which was also undoubtedly the
+reason why Inspector Vérot had kept it. Above and below, it bore the
+prints of teeth, very plainly marked, very plainly separated one from the
+other, penetrating to a depth of a tenth of an inch or so into the
+chocolate. Each possessed its individual shape and width, and each was
+divided from its neighbours by a different interval. The jaws which had
+started eating the cake of chocolate had dug into it the mark of four
+upper and five lower teeth.
+
+M. Desmalions remained wrapped in thought and, with his head sunk on his
+chest, for some minutes resumed his walk up and down the room, muttering:
+
+"This is queer ... There's a riddle here to which I should like to know
+the answer. That sheet of paper, the marks of those teeth: what does it
+all mean?"
+
+But he was not the man to waste much time over a mystery which was bound
+to be cleared up presently, as Inspector Vérot must be either at the
+police office or somewhere just outside; and he said to his secretary:
+
+"I can't keep those five gentlemen waiting any longer. Please have them
+shown in now. If Inspector Vérot arrives while they are here, as he is
+sure to do, let me know at once. I want to see him as soon as he comes.
+Except for that, see that I'm not disturbed on any pretext, won't you?"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two minutes later the messenger showed in Maître Lepertuis, a stout,
+red-faced man, with whiskers and spectacles, followed by Archibald
+Bright, the Secretary of Embassy, and Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. M.
+Desmalions, who knew all three of them, chatted to them until he stepped
+forward to receive Major Comte d'Astrignac, the hero of La Chouïa, who
+had been forced into premature retirement by his glorious wounds. The
+Prefect was complimenting him warmly on his gallant conduct in Morocco
+when the door opened once more.
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, I believe?" said the Prefect, offering his hand to a
+man of middle height and rather slender build, wearing the military medal
+and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.
+
+The newcomer's face and expression, his way of holding himself, and his
+very youthful movements inclined one to look upon him as a man of forty,
+though there were wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and on the
+forehead, which perhaps pointed to a few years more. He bowed.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Is that you, Perenna?" cried Comte d'Astrignae. "So you are still among
+the living?"
+
+"Yes, Major, and delighted to see you again."
+
+"Perenna alive! Why, we had lost all sight of you when I left Morocco! We
+thought you dead."
+
+"I was a prisoner, that's all."
+
+"A prisoner of the tribesmen; the same thing!"
+
+"Not quite, Major; one can escape from anywhere. The proof stands
+before you."
+
+The Prefect of Police, yielding to an irresistible attraction to resist,
+spent some seconds in examining that powerful face, with the smiling
+glance, the frank and resolute eyes, and the bronzed complexion, which
+looked as if it had been baked and baked again by the sun.
+
+Then, motioning to his visitors to take chairs around his desk, M.
+Desmalions himself sat down and made a preliminary statement in clear and
+deliberate tones:
+
+"The summons, gentlemen, which I addressed to each of you, must have
+appeared to you rather peremptory and mysterious. And the manner in which
+I propose to open our conversation is not likely to diminish your
+surprise. But if you will attach a little credit to my method, you will
+soon realize that the whole thing is very simple and very natural. I will
+be as brief as I can."
+
+He spread before him the bundle of documents prepared for him by his
+secretary and, consulting his notes as he spoke, continued:
+
+"Over fifty years ago, in 1860, three sisters, three orphans, Ermeline,
+Elizabeth, and Armande Roussel, aged twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen
+respectively, were living at Saint-Etienne with a cousin named Victor,
+who was a few years younger. The eldest, Ermeline, was the first to leave
+Saint-Etienne. She went to London, where she married an Englishman of the
+name Mornington, by whom she had a son, who was christened Cosmo.
+
+"The family was very poor and went through hard times. Ermeline
+repeatedly wrote to her sisters to ask for a little assistance. Receiving
+no reply, she broke off the correspondence altogether. In 1870 Mr. and
+Mrs. Mornington left England for America. Five years later they were
+rich. Mr. Mornington died in 1878; but his widow continued to administer
+the fortune bequeathed to her and, as she had a genius for business and
+speculation, she increased this fortune until it attained a colossal
+figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred
+million francs."
+
+The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect's hearers. He saw
+the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:
+
+"You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Comte d'Astrignac. "He was in Morocco
+when Perenna and I were fighting there."
+
+"Just so," said M. Desmalions. "Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel
+about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear,
+and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of
+course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and
+Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago
+as the result of a most stupid accident."
+
+"A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le
+Préfet?" asked the secretary of the American Embassy. "It was mentioned
+in the papers and reported to us at the embassy."
+
+"Yes," said Desmalions. "To assist his recovery from a long attack of
+influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by
+his doctor's orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate
+of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last
+occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in
+with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours."
+
+The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:
+
+"Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maître Lepertuis?"
+
+"Absolutely, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions continued:
+
+"The next morning, Maître Lepertuis called here and, for reasons which
+you will understand when you have heard the document read, showed me
+Cosmo Mornington's will, which had been placed in his hands."
+
+While the Prefect was looking through the papers, Maître Lepertuis added:
+
+"I may be allowed to say that I saw my client only once before I was
+summoned to his death-bed; and that was on the day when he sent for me to
+come to his room in the hotel to hand me the will which he had just made.
+This was at the beginning of his influenza. In the course of conversation
+he told me that he had been making some inquiries with a view to tracing
+his mother's family, and that he intended to pursue these inquiries
+seriously after his recovery. Circumstances, as it turned out, prevented
+his fulfilling his purpose."
+
+Meanwhile, the Prefect of Police had taken from among the documents an
+open envelope containing two sheets of paper. He unfolded the larger of
+the two and said:
+
+"This is the will. I will ask you to listen attentively while I read it
+and also the document attached to it."
+
+The others settled themselves in their chairs; and the Prefect read out:
+
+"The last will and testament of me, Cosmo Mornington, eldest son of
+Hubert Mornington and Ermeline Roussel, his wife, a naturalized citizen
+of the United States of America. I give and bequeath to my adopted
+country three fourths of my estate, to be employed on works of charity in
+accordance with the instructions, written in my hand, which Maître
+Lepertuis will be good enough to forward to the Ambassador of the United
+States. The remainder of my property, to the value of about one hundred
+million francs, consisting of deposits in various Paris and London banks,
+a list of which is in the keeping of Maître Lepertuis, I give and
+bequeath, in memory of my dear mother, to her favourite sister Elizabeth
+Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default of Elizabeth and her heirs,
+to her second sister Armande Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default
+of both sisters and their heirs, to their cousin Victor Roussel or his
+direct heirs.
+
+"In the event of my dying without discovering the surviving members of
+the Roussel family, or of the cousin of the three sisters, I request my
+friend Don Luis Perenna to make all the necessary investigations. With
+this object, I hereby appoint him the executor of my will in so far as
+concerns the European portion of my estate, and I beg him to undertake
+the conduct of the events that may arise after my death or in consequence
+of my death to consider himself my representative and to act in all
+things for the benefit of my memory and the accomplishment of my wishes.
+In gratitude for this service and in memory of the two occasions on which
+he saved my life, I give and bequeath to the said Don Luis Perenna the
+sum of one million francs."
+
+The Prefect stopped for a few seconds. Don Luis murmured:
+
+"Poor Cosmo! ... I should not have needed that inducement to carry out
+his last wishes."
+
+M. Desmalions continued his reading:
+
+"Furthermore, if, within three months of my death, the investigations
+made by Don Luis Perenna and by Maître Lepertuis have led to no result;
+if no heir and no survivor of the Roussel family have come forward to
+receive the bequest, then the whole hundred million francs shall
+definitely, all later claims notwithstanding, accrue to my friend Don
+Luis Perenna. I know him well enough to feel assured that he will employ
+this fortune in a manner which shall accord with the loftiness of his
+schemes and the greatness of the plans which he described to me so
+enthusiastically in our tent in Morocco."
+
+M. Desmalions stopped once more and raised his eyes to Don Luis, who
+remained silent and impassive, though a tear glistened on his lashes.
+Comte d'Astrignac said:
+
+"My congratulations, Perenna."
+
+"Let me remind you, Major," he answered, "that this legacy is subject to
+a condition. And I swear that, if it depends on me, the survivors of the
+Roussel family shall be found."
+
+"I'm sure of it," said the officer. "I know you."
+
+"In any case," asked the Prefect of Police of Don Luis, "you do not
+refuse this conditional legacy?"
+
+"Well, no," said Perenna, with a laugh. "There are things which one
+can't refuse."
+
+"My question," said the Prefect, "was prompted by the last paragraph of
+the will: 'If, for any reason, my friend Perenna should refuse this
+legacy, or if he should have died before the date fixed for its payment,
+I request the Ambassador of the United States and the Prefect of Police
+for the time being to consult as to the means of building and maintaining
+in Paris a university confined to students and artists of American
+nationality and to devote the money to this purpose. And I hereby
+authorize the Prefect of Police in any case to receive a sum of three
+hundred thousand francs out of my estate for the benefit of the Paris
+Police Fund.'"
+
+M. Desmalions folded the paper and took up another.
+
+"There is a codicil to the will. It consists of a letter which Mr.
+Mornington wrote to Maître Lepertuis some time after and which explains
+certain points with greater precision:
+
+"I request Maître Lepertuis to open my will on the day after my death, in
+the presence of the Prefect of Police, who will be good enough to keep
+the matter an entire secret for a month. One month later, to the day, he
+will have the kindness to summon to his office Maître Lepertuis, Don Luis
+Perenna, and a prominent member of the United States Embassy. Subsequent
+to the reading of the will, a cheque for one million francs shall be
+handed to my friend and legatee Don Luis Perenna, after a simple
+examination of his papers and a simple verification of his identity. I
+should wish this verification to be made as regards the personality by
+Major Comte d'Astrignac, who was his commanding officer in Morocco, and
+who unfortunately had to retire prematurely from the army; and as regards
+birth by a member of the Peruvian Legation, as Don Luis Perenna, though
+retaining his Spanish nationality, was born in Peru.
+
+"Furthermore, I desire that my will be not communicated to the Roussel
+heirs until two days later, at Maître Lepertuis's office. Finally--and
+this is the last expression of my wishes as regards the disposal of my
+estate and the method of proceeding with that disposal--the Prefect of
+Police will be good enough to summon the persons aforesaid to his office,
+for a second time, at a date to be selected by himself, not less than
+sixty nor more than ninety days after the first meeting. Then and not
+till then will the definite legatee be named and proclaimed according to
+his rights, nor shall any be so named and proclaimed unless he be present
+at this meeting, at the conclusion of which Don Luis Perenna, who must
+also attend it, shall become the definite legatee if, as I have said, no
+survivor nor heir of the Roussel sisters or of their cousin Victor have
+come forward to claim the bequest."
+
+Replacing both documents in the envelope the Prefect of Police concluded:
+
+"You have now, gentlemen, heard the will of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, which
+explains your presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of
+my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the
+Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations.
+But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator's
+directions.
+
+"Don Luis Perenna's papers, which he sent me, at my request, a fortnight
+ago, have been examined by myself and are perfectly in order. As regards
+his birth, I wrote and begged his Excellency the Peruvian minister to
+collect the most precise information."
+
+"The minister entrusted this mission to me," said Señor Caceres, the
+Peruvian attaché. "It offered no difficulties. Don Luis Perenna comes of
+an old Spanish family which emigrated thirty years ago, but which
+retained its estates and property in Europe. I knew Don Luis's father in
+America; and he used to speak of his only son with the greatest
+affection. It was our legation that informed the son, three years ago, of
+his father's death. I produce a copy of the letter sent to Morocco."
+
+"And I have the original letter here, among the documents forwarded by
+Don Luis Perenna to the Prefect of Police. Do you, Major, recognize
+Private Perenna, who fought under your orders in the Foreign Legion?"
+
+"I recognize him," said Comte d'Astrignac.
+
+"Beyond the possibility of a mistake?"
+
+"Beyond the possibility of a mistake and without the least feeling of
+hesitation."
+
+The Prefect of Police, with a laugh, hinted:
+
+"You recognize Private Perenna, whom the men, carried away by a sort of
+astounded admiration of his exploits, used to call Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied the major sharply, "the one whom the
+men called Arsène Lupin, but whom the officers called simply the Hero,
+the one who we used to say was as brave as d'Artagnan, as strong as
+Porthos...."
+
+"And as mysterious as Monte Cristo," said the Prefect of Police,
+laughing. "I have all this in the report which I received from the Fourth
+Regiment of the Foreign Legion. It is not necessary to read the whole of
+it; but it contains the unprecedented fact that Private Perenna, in the
+space of two years' time, received the military medal, received the
+Legion of Honour for exceptional services, and was mentioned fourteen
+times in dispatches. I will pick out a detail here and there."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg of you," protested Don Luis. "These are
+trivial matters, of no interest to anybody; and I do not see the
+reason...."
+
+"There is every reason, on the contrary," declared M. Desmalions. "You
+gentlemen are here not only to hear a will read, but also to authorize
+its execution as regards the only one of its clauses that is to be
+carried out at once, the payment of a legacy of a million francs. It
+is necessary, therefore, that all of you should know what there is to
+know of the personality of the legatee. Consequently, I propose to
+continue ..."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, rising and making for
+the door, "you will allow me ..."
+
+"Right about turn! Halt! ... Eyes front!" commanded Major d'Astrignac in
+a jesting tone.
+
+He dragged Don Luis back to the middle of the room and forced him
+into a chair.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "I plead for mercy for my old
+comrade-in-arms, whose modesty would really be put to too severe a test
+if the story of his prowess were read out in front of him. Besides, the
+report is here; and we can all of us consult it for ourselves. Without
+having seen it, I second every word of praise that it contains; and I
+declare that, in the course of my whole military career, I have never met
+a soldier who could compare with Private Perenna. And yet I saw plenty of
+fine fellows over there, the sort of demons whom you only find in the
+Legion and who will get themselves cut to bits for the sheer pleasure of
+the thing, for the lark of it, as they say, just to astonish one another.
+
+"But not one of them came anywhere near Perenna. The chap whom we
+nicknamed d'Artagnan, Porthos, and de Bussy deserved to be classed with
+the most amazing heroes of legend and history. I have seen him perform
+feats which I should not care to relate, for fear of being treated as an
+impostor; feats so improbable that to-day, in my calmer moments, I wonder
+if I am quite sure that I did see them. One day, at Settat, as we were
+being pursued--"
+
+"Another word, Major," cried Don Luis, gayly, "and this time I really
+will go out! I must say you have a nice way of sparing my modesty!"
+
+"My dear Perenna," replied Comte d'Astrignac, "I always told you that you
+had every good quality and only one fault, which was that you were not a
+Frenchman."
+
+"And I always answered, Major, that I was French on my mother's side and
+a Frenchman in heart and temperament. There are things which only a
+Frenchman can do."
+
+The two men again gripped each other's hands affectionately.
+
+"Come," said the Prefect, "we'll say no more of your feats of prowess,
+Monsieur, nor of this report. I will mention one thing, however, which is
+that, after two years, you fell into an ambush of forty Berbers, that you
+were captured, and that you did not rejoin the Legion until last month."
+
+"Just so, Monsieur le Préfet, in time to receive my discharge, as my five
+years' service was up."
+
+"But how did Mr. Cosmo Mornington come to mention you in his will, when,
+at the time when he was making it, you had disappeared from view for
+eighteen months?"
+
+"Cosmo and I used to correspond."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes; and I had informed him of my approaching escape and my return
+to Paris."
+
+"But how did you manage it? Where were you? And how did you find the
+means? ..."
+
+Don Luis smiled without answering.
+
+"Monte Cristo, this time," said M. Desmalions. "The mysterious
+Monte Cristo."
+
+"Monte Cristo, if you like, Monsieur le Préfet. In point of fact, the
+mystery of my captivity and escape is a rather strange one. It may be
+interesting to throw some light upon it one of these days. Meanwhile, I
+must ask for a little credit."
+
+A silence ensued. M. Desmalions once more inspected this curious
+individual; and he could not refrain from saying, as though in obedience
+to an association of ideas for which he himself was unable to account:
+
+"One word more, and one only. What were your comrades' reasons for giving
+you that rather odd nickname of Arsène Lupin? Was it just an allusion to
+your pluck, to your physical strength?"
+
+"There was something besides, Monsieur le Préfet: the discovery of a very
+curious theft, of which certain details, apparently incapable of
+explanation, had enabled me to name the perpetrator."
+
+"So you have a gift for that sort of thing?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, a certain knack which I had the opportunity of
+employing in Africa on more than one occasion. Hence my nickname of
+Arsène Lupin. It was soon after the death of the man himself, you know,
+and he was much spoken of at the time."
+
+"Was it a serious theft?"
+
+"It was rather; and it happened to be committed upon Cosmo Mornington,
+who was then living in the Province of Oran. That was really what started
+our relations."
+
+There was a fresh silence; and Don Luis added:
+
+"Poor Cosmo! That incident gave him an unshakable confidence in my little
+detective talents. He was always saying, 'Perenna, if I die murdered'--he
+had a fixed notion in his head that he would meet with a violent
+death--'if I die murdered, swear that you will pursue the culprit.'"
+
+"His presentiment was not justified," said the Prefect of Police. "Cosmo
+Mornington was not murdered."
+
+"That's where you make a mistake, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
+
+M. Desmalions gave a start.
+
+"What! What's that? Cosmo Mornington--?"
+
+"I say that Cosmo Mornington did not die, as you think, of a carelessly
+administered injection, but that he died, as he feared he would, by
+foul play."
+
+"But, Monsieur, your assertion is based on no evidence whatever!"
+
+"It is based on fact, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Were you there? Do you know anything?"
+
+"I was not there. A month ago I was still with the colours. I even admit
+that, when I arrived in Paris, not having seen the newspapers regularly,
+I did not know of Cosmo's death. In fact, I learned it from you just now,
+Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur, you cannot know more about it than I do, and you
+must accept the verdict of the doctor."
+
+"I am sorry, but his verdict fails to satisfy me."
+
+"But look here, Monsieur, what prompts you to make the accusation? Have
+you any evidence?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What evidence?"
+
+"Your own words, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"My own words? What do you mean?"
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. You began by saying that Cosmo
+Mornington had taken up medicine and practised it with great skill;
+next, you said that he had given himself an injection which,
+carelessly administered, set up inflammation and caused his death
+within a few hours."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I maintain that a man who practises medicine
+with great skill and who is accustomed to treating sick people, as Cosmo
+Mornington was, is incapable of giving himself a hypodermic injection
+without first taking every necessary antiseptic precaution. I have seen
+Cosmo at work, and I know how he set about things."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, the doctor just wrote a certificate as any doctor will when there
+is no sort of clue to arouse his suspicions."
+
+"So your opinion is--"
+
+"Maître Lepertuis," asked Perenna, turning to the solicitor, "did you
+notice nothing unusual when you were summoned to Mr. Mornington's
+death-bed?"
+
+"No, nothing. Mr. Mornington was in a state of coma."
+
+"It's a strange thing in itself," observed Don Luis, "that an injection,
+however badly administered, should produce such rapid results. Were there
+no signs of suffering?"
+
+"No ... or rather, yes.... Yes, I remember the face showed brown patches
+which I did not see on the occasion of my first visit."
+
+"Brown patches? That confirms my supposition Cosmo Mornington was
+poisoned."
+
+"But how?" exclaimed the Prefect.
+
+"By some substance introduced into one of the phials of
+glycero-phosphate, or into the syringe which the sick man employed."
+
+"But the doctor?" M. Desmalions objected.
+
+"Maître Lepertuis," Perenna continued, "did you call the doctor's
+attention to those brown patches?"
+
+"Yes, but he attached no importance to them."
+
+"Was it his ordinary medical adviser?"
+
+"No, his ordinary medical adviser, Doctor Pujol, who happens to be a
+friend of mine and who had recommended me to him as a solicitor, was ill.
+The doctor whom I saw at his death-bed must have been a local
+practitioner."
+
+"I have his name and address here," said the Prefect of Police, who had
+turned up the certificate. "Doctor Bellavoine, 14 Rue d'Astorg."
+
+"Have you a medical directory, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+M. Desmalions opened a directory and turned over the pages. Presently
+he declared:
+
+"There is no Doctor Bellavoine; and there is no doctor living at 14 Rue
+d'Astorg."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+A MAN DEAD
+
+
+The declaration was followed by a silence of some length. The Secretary
+of the American Embassy and the Peruvian attaché had followed the
+conversation with eager interest. Major d'Astrignac nodded his head with
+an air of approval. To his mind, Perenna could not be mistaken.
+
+The Prefect of Police confessed:
+
+"Certainly, certainly ... we have a number of circumstances here ... that
+are fairly ambiguous.... Those brown patches; that doctor.... It's a case
+that wants looking into." And, questioning Don Luis Perenna as though in
+spite of himself, he asked, "No doubt, in your opinion, there is a
+possible connection between the murder ... and Mr. Mornington's will?"
+
+"That, Monsieur le Préfet, I cannot tell. If there is, we should have to
+suppose that the contents of the will were known. Do you think they can
+have leaked out, Maître Lepertuis?"
+
+"I don't think so, for Mr. Mornington seemed to behave with great
+caution."
+
+"And there's no question, is there, of any indiscretion committed in
+your office?"
+
+"By whom? No one handled the will except myself; and I alone have the
+key of the safe in which I put away documents of that importance
+every evening."
+
+"The safe has not been broken into? There has been no burglary at
+your office?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You saw Cosmo Mornington in the morning?"
+
+"Yes, on a Friday morning."
+
+"What did you do with the will until the evening, until you locked it
+away up your safe?"
+
+"I probably put it in the drawer of my desk."
+
+"And the drawer was not forced?"
+
+Maître Lepertuis seemed taken aback and made no reply.
+
+"Well?" asked Perenna.
+
+"Well, yes, I remember ... there was something that day ... that
+same Friday."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes. When I came in from lunch I noticed that the drawer was not locked,
+although I had locked it beyond the least doubt. At the time I attached
+comparatively little importance to the incident. To-day, I understand, I
+understand--"
+
+Thus, little by little, were all the suppositions conceived by Don Luis
+verified: suppositions resting, it is true, upon just one or two clues,
+but yet containing an amount of intuition, of divination, that was really
+surprising in a man who had been present at none of the events between
+which he traced the connection so skilfully.
+
+"We will lose no time, Monsieur," said the Prefect of Police, "in
+checking your statements, which you will confess to be a little
+venturesome, by the more positive evidence of one of my detectives who
+has the case in charge ... and who ought to be here by now."
+
+"Does his evidence bear upon Cosmo Mornington's heirs?" asked the
+solicitor.
+
+"Upon the heirs principally, because two days ago he telephoned to me
+that he had collected all the particulars, and also upon the very points
+which--But wait: I remember that he spoke to my secretary of a murder
+committed a month ago to-day.... Now it's a month to-day since Mr. Cosmo
+Mornington--"
+
+M. Desmalions pressed hard on a bell. His private secretary at
+once appeared.
+
+"Inspector Vérot?" asked the Prefect sharply.
+
+"He's not back yet."
+
+"Have him fetched! Have him brought here! He must be found at all costs
+and without delay."
+
+He turned to Don Luis Perenna.
+
+"Inspector Vérot was here an hour ago, feeling rather unwell, very much
+excited, it seems, and declaring that he was being watched and followed.
+He said he wanted to make a most important statement to me about the
+Mornington case and to warn the police of two murders which are to be
+committed to-night ... and which would be a consequence of the murder of
+Cosmo Mornington."
+
+"And he was unwell, you say?"
+
+"Yes, ill at ease and even very queer and imagining things. By way of
+being prudent, he left a detailed report on the case for me. Well, the
+report is simply a blank sheet of letter-paper.
+
+"Here is the paper and the envelope in which I found it, and here is a
+cardboard box which he also left behind him. It contains a cake of
+chocolate with the marks of teeth on it."
+
+"May I look at the two things you have mentioned, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Yes, but they won't tell you anything."
+
+"Perhaps so--"
+
+Don Luis examined at length the cardboard box and the yellow envelope,
+on which were printed the words, "Café du Pont-Neuf." The others awaited
+his words as though they were bound to shed an unexpected light. He
+merely said:
+
+"The handwriting is not the same on the envelope and the box. The writing
+on the envelope is less plain, a little shaky, obviously imitated."
+
+"Which proves--?"
+
+"Which proves, Monsieur le Préfet, that this yellow envelope does not
+come from your detective. I presume that, after writing his report at a
+table in the Café du Pont-Neuf and closing it, he had a moment of
+inattention during which somebody substituted for his envelope another
+with the same address, but containing a blank sheet of paper."
+
+"That's a supposition!" said the Prefect.
+
+"Perhaps; but what is certain, Monsieur le Préfet, is that your
+inspector's presentiments are well-grounded, that he is being closely
+watched, that the discoveries about the Mornington inheritance which he
+has succeeded in making are interfering with criminal designs, and that
+he is in terrible danger."
+
+"Come, come!"
+
+"He must be rescued, Monsieur le Préfet. Ever since the commencement of
+this meeting I have felt persuaded that we are up against an attempt
+which has already begun. I hope that it is not too late and that your
+inspector has not been the first victim."
+
+"My dear sir," exclaimed the Prefect of Police, "you declare all this
+with a conviction which rouses my admiration, but which is not enough to
+establish the fact that your fears are justified. Inspector Vérot's
+return will be the best proof."
+
+"Inspector Vérot will not return."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because he has returned already. The messenger saw him return."
+
+"The messenger was dreaming. If you have no proof but that man's
+evidence--"
+
+"I have another proof, Monsieur le Préfet, which Inspector Vérot himself
+has left of his presence here: these few, almost illegible letters which
+he scribbled on this memorandum pad, which your secretary did not see him
+write and which have just caught my eye. Look at them. Are they not a
+proof, a definite proof that he came back?"
+
+The Prefect did not conceal his perturbation. The others all seemed
+impressed. The secretary's return but increased their apprehensions:
+nobody had seen Inspector Vérot.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis, "I earnestly beg you to have the
+office messenger in."
+
+And, as soon as the messenger was there, he asked him, without even
+waiting for M. Desmalions to speak:
+
+"Are you sure that Inspector Vérot entered this room a second time?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"And that he did not go out again?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"And your attention was not distracted for a moment?"
+
+"Not for a moment."
+
+"There, Monsieur, you see!" cried the Prefect. "If Inspector Vérot were
+here, we should know it."
+
+"He is here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Excuse my obstinacy, Monsieur le Préfet, but I say that, when some one
+enters a room and does not go out again, he is still in that room."
+
+"Hiding?" said M. Desmalions, who was growing more and more irritated.
+
+"No, but fainting, ill--dead, perhaps."
+
+"But where, hang it all?"
+
+"Behind that screen."
+
+"There's nothing behind that screen, nothing but a door."
+
+"And that door--?"
+
+"Leads to a dressing-room."
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, Inspector Vérot, tottering, losing his head,
+imagining himself to be going from your office to your secretary's room,
+fell into your dressing-room."
+
+M. Desmalions ran to the door, but, at the moment of opening it, shrank
+back. Was it apprehension, the wish to withdraw himself from the
+influence of that astonishing man, who gave his orders with such
+authority and who seemed to command events themselves?
+
+Don Luis stood waiting imperturbably, in a deferential attitude.
+
+"I cannot believe--" said M. Desmalions.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I would remind you that Inspector Vérot's
+revelations may save the lives of two persons who are doomed to die
+to-night. Every minute lost is irreparable."
+
+M. Desmalions shrugged his shoulders. But that man mastered him with the
+power of his conviction; and the Prefect opened the door.
+
+He did not make a movement, did not utter a cry. He simply muttered:
+
+"Oh, is it possible!--"
+
+By the pale gleam of light that entered through a ground-glass window
+they saw the body of a man lying on the floor.
+
+"The inspector! Inspector Vérot!" gasped the office messenger,
+running forward.
+
+He and the secretary raised the body and placed it in an armchair in the
+Prefect's office.
+
+Inspector Vérot was still alive, but so little alive that they could
+scarcely hear the beating of his heart. A drop of saliva trickled from
+the corner of his mouth. His eyes were devoid of all expression. However,
+certain muscles of the face kept moving, perhaps with the effort of a
+will that seemed to linger almost beyond life.
+
+Don Luis muttered:
+
+"Look, Monsieur le Préfet--the brown patches!"
+
+The same dread unnerved all. They began to ring bells and open doors and
+call for help.
+
+"Send for the doctor!" ordered M. Desmalions. "Tell them to bring a
+doctor, the first that comes--and a priest. We can't let the poor man--"
+
+Don Luis raised his arm to demand silence.
+
+"There is nothing more to be done," he said. "We shall do better to
+make the most of these last moments. Have I your permission, Monsieur
+le Préfet?"
+
+He bent over the dying man, laid the swaying head against the back of the
+chair, and, in a very gentle voice, whispered:
+
+"Vérot, it's Monsieur le Préfet speaking to you. We should like a few
+particulars about what is to take place to-night. Do you hear me, Vérot?
+If you hear me, close your eyelids."
+
+The eyelids were lowered. But was it not merely chance? Don Luis went on:
+
+"You have found the heirs of the Roussel sisters, that much we know; and
+it is two of those heirs who are threatened with death. The double murder
+is to be committed to-night. But what we do not know is the name of those
+heirs, who are doubtless not called Roussel. You must tell us the name.
+
+"Listen to me: you wrote on a memorandum pad three letters which seem to
+form the syllable Fau.... Am I right? Is this the first syllable of a
+name? Which is the next letter after those three? Close your eyes when I
+mention the right letter. Is it 'b?' Is it 'c?'"
+
+But there was now not a flicker in the inspector's pallid face. The head
+dropped heavily on the chest. Vérot gave two or three sighs, his frame
+shook with one great shiver, and he moved no more.
+
+He was dead.
+
+The tragic scene had been enacted so swiftly that the men who were
+its shuddering spectators remained for a moment confounded. The
+solicitor made the sign of the cross and went down on his knees. The
+Prefect murmured:
+
+"Poor Vérot!... He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of
+his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to--and who knows?
+Perhaps he might have been saved--he came back here in the hope of
+communicating his secret. Poor Vérot!--"
+
+"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.
+
+"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.
+
+Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for
+the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor
+aside and said:
+
+"There is no doubt that Inspector Vérot was poisoned. Look at his
+wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation
+round it."
+
+"Then he was pricked in that place?"
+
+"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may
+have wished, because death did not ensue until some hours later."
+
+The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the
+office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for.
+The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attaché, considering
+their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly
+complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration.
+
+Next came the turn of Major d'Astrignac, who shook his former subordinate
+by the hand with obvious affection. And Maître Lepertais and Perenna,
+having fixed an appointment for the payment of the legacy, were
+themselves on the point of leaving, when M. Desmalions entered briskly.
+
+"Ah, so you're still here, Don Luis Perenna! I'm glad of that. I have an
+idea: those three letters which you say you made out on the
+writing-table, are you sure they form the syllable Fau?"
+
+"I think so, Monsieur le Préfet. See for yourself: are not these an 'F,'
+an 'A' and a 'U?' And observe that the 'F' is a capital, which made me
+suspect that the letters are the first syllable of a proper name."
+
+"Just so, just so," said M. Desmalions. "Well, curiously enough, that
+syllable happens to be--But wait, we'll verify our facts--"
+
+M. Desmalions searched hurriedly among the letters which his secretary
+had handed him on his arrival and which lay on a corner of the table.
+
+"Ah, here we are!" he exclaimed, glancing at the signature of one of the
+letters. "Here we are! It's as I thought: 'Fauville.' ... The first
+syllable is the same.... Look, 'Fauville,' just like that, without
+Christian name or initials. The letter must have been written in a
+feverish moment: there is no date nor address.... The writing is shaky--"
+
+And M. Desmalions read out:
+
+"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
+
+"A great danger is hanging over my head and over the head of my son.
+Death is approaching apace. I shall have to-night, or to-morrow morning
+at the latest, the proofs of the abominable plot that threatens us. I ask
+leave to bring them to you in the course of the morning. I am in need of
+protection and I call for your assistance.
+
+"Permit me to be, etc. FAUVILLE."
+
+"No other designation?" asked Perenna. "No letter-heading?"
+
+"None. But there is no mistake. Inspector Vérot's declarations agree too
+evidently with this despairing appeal. It is clearly M. Fauville and his
+son who are to be murdered to-night. And the terrible thing is that, as
+this name of Fauville is a very common one, it is impossible for our
+inquiries to succeed in time."
+
+"What, Monsieur le Préfet? Surely, by straining every nerve--"
+
+"Certainly, we will strain every nerve; and I shall set all my men to
+work. But observe that we have not the slightest clue."
+
+"Oh, it would be awful!" cried Don Luis. "Those two creatures doomed to
+death; and we unable to save them! Monsieur le Préfet, I ask you to
+authorize me--"
+
+He had not finished speaking when the Prefect's private secretary entered
+with a visiting-card in his hand.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, this caller was so persistent.... I hesitated--"
+
+M. Desmalions took the card and uttered an exclamation of mingled
+surprise and joy.
+
+"Look, Monsieur," he said to Perenna.
+
+And he handed him the card.
+
+ _Hippolyte Fauville,
+   Civil Engineer.
+14 bis Boulevard Suchet._
+
+"Come," said M. Desmalions, "chance is favouring us. If this M. Fauville
+is one of the Roussel heirs, our task becomes very much easier."
+
+"In any case, Monsieur le Préfet," the solicitor interposed, "I must
+remind you that one of the clauses of the will stipulates that it shall
+not be read until forty-eight hours have elapsed. M. Fauville, therefore,
+must not be informed--"
+
+The door was pushed open and a man hustled the messenger aside and
+rushed in.
+
+"Inspector ... Inspector Vérot?" he spluttered. "He's dead, isn't he? I
+was told--"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, he is dead."
+
+"Too late! I'm too late!" he stammered.
+
+And he sank into a chair, clasping his hands and sobbing:
+
+"Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!"
+
+He was a pale, hollow-cheeked, sickly looking man of about fifty.
+His head was bald, above a forehead lined with deep wrinkles. A
+nervous twitching affected his chin and the lobes of his ears. Tears
+stood in his eyes.
+
+The Prefect asked:
+
+"Whom do you mean, Monsieur? Inspector Vérot's murderers? Are you able to
+name them, to assist our inquiry?"
+
+Hippolyte Fauville shook his head.
+
+"No, no, it would be useless, for the moment.... My proofs would not be
+sufficient.... No, really not."
+
+He had already risen from his chair and stood apologizing:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I have disturbed you unnecessarily, but I wanted to
+know.... I was hoping that Inspector Vérot might have escaped.... His
+evidence, joined to mine, would have been invaluable. But perhaps he was
+able to tell you?"
+
+"No, he spoke of this evening--of to-night--"
+
+Hippolyte Fauville started.
+
+"This evening! Then the time has come!... But no, it's impossible, they
+can't do anything to me yet.... They are not ready--"
+
+"Inspector Vérot declared, however, that the double murder would be
+committed to-night."
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, he was wrong there.... I know all about
+it.... To-morrow evening at the earliest ... and we will catch them in a
+trap.... Oh, the scoundrels!"
+
+Don Luis went up to him and asked:
+
+"Your mother's name was Ermeline Roussel, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, Ermeline Roussel. She is dead now."
+
+"And she was from Saint-Etienne?"
+
+"Yes. But why these questions?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet will tell you to-morrow. One word more." He opened
+the cardboard box left by Inspector Vérot. "Does this cake of chocolate
+mean anything to you? These marks?"
+
+"Oh, how awful!" said the civil engineer, in a hoarse tone. "Where did
+the inspector find it?"
+
+He dropped into his chair again, but only for a moment; then, drawing
+himself up, he hurried toward the door with a jerky step.
+
+"I'm going, Monsieur le Préfet, I'm going. To-morrow morning I'll show
+you.... I shall have all the proofs.... And the police will protect
+me.... I am ill, I know, but I want to live! I have the right to
+live ... and my son, too.... And we will live.... Oh, the scoundrels!--"
+
+And he ran, stumbling out, like a drunken man.
+
+M. Desmalions rose hastily.
+
+"I shall have inquiries made about that man's circumstances.... I shall
+have his house watched. I've telephoned to the detective office already.
+I'm expecting some one in whom I have every confidence."
+
+Don Luis said:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg you, with an earnestness which you will
+understand, to authorize me to pursue the investigation. Cosmo
+Mornington's will makes it my duty and, allow me to say, gives me the
+right to do so. M. Fauville's enemies have given proofs of extraordinary
+cleverness and daring. I want to have the honour of being at the post of
+danger to-night, at M. Fauville's house, near his person."
+
+The Prefect hesitated. He was bound to reflect how greatly to Don Luis
+Perenna's interest it was that none of the Mornington heirs should be
+discovered, or at least be able to come between him and the millions
+of the inheritance. Was it safe to attribute to a noble sentiment of
+gratitude, to a lofty conception of friendship and duty, that strange
+longing to protect Hippolyte Fauville against the death that
+threatened him?
+
+For some seconds M. Desmalions watched that resolute face, those
+intelligent eyes, at once innocent and satirical, grave and smiling, eyes
+through which you could certainly not penetrate their owner's baffling
+individuality, but which nevertheless looked at you with an expression of
+absolute frankness and sincerity. Then he called his secretary:
+
+"Has any one come from the detective office?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet; Sergeant Mazeroux is here."
+
+"Please have him shown in."
+
+And, turning to Perenna:
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is one of our smartest detectives. I used to employ
+him together with that poor Vérot when I wanted any one more than
+ordinarily active and sharp. He will be of great use to you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux entered. He was a short, lean, wiry man, whose drooping
+moustache, heavy eyelids, watery eyes and long, lank hair gave him a most
+doleful appearance.
+
+"Mazeroux," said the Prefect, "you will have heard, by this time, of your
+comrade Vérot's death and of the horrible circumstances attending it. We
+must now avenge him and prevent further crimes. This gentleman, who knows
+the case from end to end, will explain all that is necessary. You will
+work with him and report to me to-morrow morning."
+
+This meant giving a free hand to Don Luis Perenna and relying on his
+power of initiative and his perspicacity. Don Luis bowed:
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Préfet. I hope that you will have no reason to
+regret the trust which you are good enough to place in me."
+
+And, taking leave of M. Desmalions and Maître Lepertuis, he went out with
+Sergeant Mazeroux.
+
+As soon as they were outside, he told Mazeroux what he knew. The
+detective seemed much impressed by his companion's professional gifts and
+quite ready to be guided by his views.
+
+They decided first to go to the Café du Pont-Neuf. Here they learned that
+Inspector Vérot, who was a regular customer of the place, had written a
+long letter there that morning. And the waiter remembered that a man at
+the next table, who had entered the café at almost the same time as the
+inspector, had also asked for writing-paper and called twice for yellow
+envelopes.
+
+"That's it," said Mazeroux to Don Luis. "As you suspected, one letter has
+been substituted for the other."
+
+The description given by the waiter was pretty explicit: a tall man, with
+a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a
+tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony
+walking-stick with a handle shaped like a swan's head.
+
+"That's something for the police to go upon," said Mazeroux.
+
+They were leaving the café when Don Luis stopped his companion.
+
+"One moment."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"We've been followed."
+
+"Followed? What next? And by whom, pray?"
+
+"No one that matters. I know who it is and I may as well settle his
+business and have done with it. Wait for me. I shall be back; and I'll
+show you some fun. You shall see one of the 'nuts,' I promise you."
+
+He returned in a minute with a tall, thin man with his face set in
+whiskers. He introduced him:
+
+"M. Mazeroux, a friend of mine, Señor Caceres, an attaché at the Peruvian
+Legation. Señor Caceres took part in the interview at the Prefect's just
+now. It was he who, on the Peruvian Minister's instructions, collected
+the documents bearing upon my identity." And he added gayly: "So you were
+looking for me, dear Señor Caceres. Indeed, I expected, when we left the
+police office--"
+
+The Peruvian attaché made a sign and pointed to Sergeant Mazeroux.
+Perenna replied:
+
+"Oh, pray don't mind M. Mazeroux! You can speak before him; he is the
+soul of discretion. Besides, he knows all about the business."
+
+The attaché was silent. Perenna made him sit down in front of him.
+
+"Speak without beating about the bush, dear Señor Caceres. It's a subject
+that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It
+saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, rather,
+more money. How much?"
+
+The Peruvian had a final hesitation, gave a glance at Don Luis's
+companion, and then, suddenly making up his mind, said in a dull voice:
+
+"Fifty thousand francs!"
+
+"Oh, by Jove, by Jove!" cried Don Luis. "You're greedy, you know! What do
+you say, M. Mazeroux? Fifty thousand francs is a lot of money. Especially
+as--Look here, my dear Caceres, let's go over the ground again.
+
+"Three years ago I had the honour of making your acquaintance in Algeria,
+when you were touring the country. At the same time, I understood the
+sort of man you were; and I asked you if you could manage, in three
+years, with my name of Perenna, to fix me up a Spanish-Peruvian identity,
+furnished with unquestionable papers and respectable ancestors. You said,
+'Yes,' We settled the price: twenty thousand francs. Last week, when the
+Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned
+that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.
+
+"Everything was ready, as it happened. With the papers of a deceased
+Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had
+faked me up a first-rate civic status. We arranged what you were to say
+before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand. We were
+quits. What more do you want?"
+
+The Pervian attaché did not betray the least embarrassment. He put his
+two elbows on the table and said, very calmly:
+
+"Monsieur, when treating with you, three years ago, I thought I was
+dealing with a gentleman who, hiding himself under the uniform of the
+Foreign Legion, wished to recover the means to live respectably
+afterward. To-day, I have to do with the universal legatee of Cosmo
+Mornington, with a man who, to-morrow, under a false name, will receive
+the sum of one million francs and, in a few months, perhaps, the sum of a
+hundred millions. That's quite a different thing."
+
+The argument seemed to strike Don Luis. Nevertheless, he objected:
+
+"And, if I refuse--?"
+
+"If you refuse, I shall inform the solicitor and the Prefect of Police
+that I made an error in my inquiry and that there is some mistake about
+Don Luis Perenna. In consequence of which you will receive nothing at all
+and very likely find yourself in jail."
+
+"With you, my worthy sir."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Of course: on a charge of forgery and tampering with registers. For you
+don't imagine that I should take it lying down."
+
+The attaché did not reply. His nose, which was a very big one, seemed to
+lengthen out still farther between his two long whiskers.
+
+Don Luis began to laugh.
+
+"Come, Señor Caceres, don't pull such a face! No one's going to hurt you.
+Only don't think that you can corner me. Better men than you have tried
+and have broken their backs in the process. And, upon my word, you don't
+cut much of a figure when you're doing your best to diddle your
+fellowmen.
+
+"You look a bit of a mug, in fact, Caceres: a bit of a mug is what you
+look. So it's understood, what? We lay down our arms. No more base
+designs against our excellent friend Perenna. Capital, Señor Caceres,
+capital. And now I'll be magnanimous and prove to you that the decent man
+of us two is--the one whom any one would have thought!"
+
+He produced a check-book on the Crédit Lyonnais.
+
+"Here, my dear chap. Here's twenty thousand francs as a present from
+Cosmo Mornington's legatee. Put it in your pocket and look pleasant. Say
+thank you to the kind gentleman, and make yourself scarce without turning
+your head any more than if you were one of old man Lot's daughters. Off
+you go: hoosh!"
+
+This was said in such a manner that the attaché obeyed Don Luis Perenna's
+injunctions to the letter. He smiled as he pocketed the check, said thank
+you twice over, and made off without turning his head.
+
+"The low hound!" muttered Don Luis. "What do you say to that, Sergeant?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux was looking at him in stupefaction, with his eyes
+starting from his head.
+
+"Well, but, Monsieur--"
+
+"What, Sergeant?"
+
+"Well, but, Monsieur, who are you?"
+
+"Who am I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Didn't they tell you? A Peruvian nobleman, or a Spanish nobleman, I
+don't know which. In short, Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"Bunkum! I've just heard--"
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, late of the Foreign Legion."
+
+"Enough of that, Monsieur--"
+
+"Medaled and decorated with a stripe on every seam."
+
+"Once more, Monsieur, enough of that; and come along with me to
+the Prefect."
+
+"But, let me finish, hang it! I was saying, late private in the Foreign
+Legion.... Late hero.... Late prisoner of the Sureté.... Late Russian
+prince.... Late chief of the detective service.... Late--"
+
+"But you're mad!" snarled the sergeant. "What's all this story?"
+
+"It's a true story, Sergeant, and quite genuine. You ask me who I am; and
+I'm telling you categorically. Must I go farther back? I have still more
+titles to offer you: marquis, baron, duke, archduke, grand-duke,
+petty-duke, superduke--the whole 'Almanach de Gotha,' by Jingo! If any
+one told me that I had been a king, by all that's holy, I shouldn't dare
+swear to the contrary!"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux put out his own hands, accustomed to rough work, seized
+the seemingly frail wrists of the man addressing him and said:
+
+"No nonsense, now. I don't know whom I've got hold of, but I shan't let
+you go. You can say what you have to say at the Prefect's."
+
+"Don't speak so loud, Alexandre."
+
+The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant's
+powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don Luis grinned:
+
+"Don't you know me, you idiot?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux did not utter a word. His eyes started still farther
+from his head. He tried to understand and remained absolutely dumfounded.
+
+The sound of that voice, that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness
+allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and
+lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all
+and which only one person used to give him, years ago. Was it possible?
+
+"The chief!" he stammered. "The chief!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"No, no, because--"
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Because you're dead."
+
+"Well, what about it? D'you think it interferes with my living,
+being dead?"
+
+And, as the other seemed more and more perplexed, he laid his hand on his
+shoulder and said:
+
+"Who put you into the police office?"
+
+"The Chief Detective, M. Lenormand."
+
+"And who was M. Lenormand?"
+
+"The chief."
+
+"You mean Arsène Lupin, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Alexandre, don't you know that it was much more difficult for
+Arsène Lupin to be Chief Detective--and a masterly Chief Detective he
+was--than to be Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion,
+to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre
+eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking
+the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:
+
+"All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No,
+not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I
+remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other
+bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!"
+
+Perenna shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Alexandre, you're an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn't
+enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"All your maneuvers, Chief."
+
+"My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?"
+
+"Look here, Chief--"
+
+"Why, I'm out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more
+about it than you do. It's Providence that chucked this legacy at me,
+without so much as shouting, 'Heads!' And it's in obedience to the
+decrees of--"
+
+"Then--?"
+
+"It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural
+heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions
+that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an
+honest man?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Yes, but, if I don't fulfil it as an honest man: is that what you mean?"
+
+"Chief--"
+
+"Well, my lad, if you notice the least thing in my conduct that
+dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's
+conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar
+me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is
+that enough for you?"
+
+"It's not enough for it to be enough for me, Chief."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"There are the others."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"Suppose you're nabbed?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"You can be betrayed."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Your old mates."
+
+"Gone away. I've sent them out of France."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"That's my secret. I left you at the police office, in case I should
+require your services; and you see that I was right."
+
+"But suppose the police discover your real identity?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They'll arrest you."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They can't arrest me."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"You've said it yourself, fat-head: a first-class, tremendous,
+indisputable reason."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"_I'm dead_!"
+
+Mazeroux seemed staggered. The argument struck him fully. He at once
+perceived it, with all its common sense and all its absurdity. And
+suddenly he burst into a roar of laughter which bent him in two and
+convulsed his doleful features in the oddest fashion:
+
+"Oh, Chief, just the same as always!... Lord, how funny!... Will I come
+along? I should think I would! As often as you like! You're dead and
+buried and put out of sight!... Oh, what a joke, what a joke!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hippolyte Fauville, civil engineer, lived on the Boulevard Suchet, near
+the fortifications, in a fair-sized private house having on its left a
+small garden in which he had built a large room that served as his study.
+The garden was thus reduced to a few trees and to a strip of grass along
+the railings, which were covered with ivy and contained a gate that
+opened on the Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary's office at Passy,
+where Mazeroux, on Perenna's instructions, gave his name and asked to
+have M. Fauville's house watched during the night by two policemen who
+were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The
+commissary agreed to the request.
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in the neighbourhood. At nine o'clock
+they reached the front door of the house.
+
+"Alexandre," said Perenna.
+
+"Yes, Chief?"
+
+"You're not afraid?"
+
+"No, Chief. Why should I be?"
+
+"Why? Because, in defending M. Fauville and his son, we are attacking
+people who have a great interest in doing away with them and because
+those people seem pretty wide-awake. Your life, my life: a breath, a
+trifle. You're not afraid?"
+
+"Chief," replied Mazeroux, "I can't say if I shall ever know what it
+means to be afraid. But there's one case in which I certainly shall
+never know."
+
+"What case is that, old chap?"
+
+"As long as I'm by your side, Chief."
+
+And firmly he rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+A MAN DOOMED
+
+
+The door was opened by a manservant. Mazeroux sent in his card.
+
+Hippolyte received the two visitors in his study. The table, on which
+stood a movable telephone, was littered with books, pamphlets, and
+papers. There were two tall desks, with diagrams and drawings, and some
+glass cases containing reduced models, in ivory and steel, of apparatus
+constructed or invented by the engineer.
+
+A large sofa stood against the wall. In one corner was a winding
+staircase that led to a circular gallery. An electric chandelier hung
+from the ceiling.
+
+Mazeroux, after stating his quality and introducing his friend Perenna
+as also sent by the Prefect of Police, at once expounded the object of
+their visit.
+
+M. Desmalions, he said, was feeling anxious on the score of very serious
+indications which he had just received and, without waiting for the next
+day's interview, begged M. Fauville to take all the precautions which his
+detectives might advise.
+
+Fauville at first displayed a certain ill humour.
+
+"My precautions are taken, gentlemen, and well taken. And, on the other
+hand, I am afraid that your interference may do harm."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By arousing the attention of my enemies and preventing me, for that
+reason, from collecting proofs which I need in order to confound them."
+
+"Can you explain--?"
+
+"No, I cannot ... To-morrow, to-morrow morning--not before."
+
+"And if it's too late?" Don Luis interjected.
+
+"Too late? To-morrow?"
+
+"Inspector Vérot told M. Desmalions's secretary that the two murders
+would take place to-night. He said it was fatal and irrevocable."
+
+"To-night?" cried Fauville angrily. "I tell you no! Not to-night.
+I'm sure of that. There are things which I know, aren't there, which
+you do not?"
+
+"Yes," retorted Don Luis, "but there may also be things which Inspector
+Vérot knew and which you don't know. He had perhaps learned more of your
+enemies' secrets than you did. The proof is that he was suspected, that a
+man carrying an ebony walking-stick was seen watching his movements,
+that, lastly, he was killed."
+
+Hippolyte Fauville's self-assurance decreased. Perenna took advantage of
+this to insist; and he insisted to such good purpose that Fauville,
+though without withdrawing from his reserve, ended by yielding before a
+will that was stronger than his own.
+
+"Well, but you surely don't intend to spend the night in here?"
+
+"We do indeed."
+
+"Why, it's ridiculous! It's sheer waste of time! After all, looking at
+things from the worst--And what do you want besides?"
+
+"Who lives in the house?"
+
+"Who? My wife, to begin with. She has the first floor."
+
+"Mme. Fauville is not threatened?"
+
+"No, not at all. It's I who am threatened with death; I and my son
+Edmond. That is why, for the past week, instead of sleeping in my regular
+bedroom, I have locked myself up in this room. I have given my work as a
+pretext; a quantity of writing which keeps me up very late and for which
+I need my son's assistance."
+
+"Does he sleep here, then?"
+
+"He sleeps above us, in a little room which I have had arranged for him.
+The only access to it is by this inner staircase."
+
+"Is he there now?"
+
+"Yes, he's asleep."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"But the fact that you have changed your room shows that you feared some
+one would attack you. Whom had you in mind? An enemy living in the house?
+One of your servants? Or people from the outside? In that case, how could
+they get in? The whole question lies in that."
+
+"To-morrow, to-morrow," replied Fauville, obstinately. "I will explain
+everything to-morrow--"
+
+"Why not to-night?" Perenna persisted.
+
+"Because I want proofs, I tell you; because the mere fact of my talking
+may have terrible consequences--and I am frightened; yes, I'm
+frightened--"
+
+He was trembling, in fact, and looked so wretched and terrified that Don
+Luis insisted no longer.
+
+"Very well," he said, "I will only ask your permission, for my comrade
+and myself, to spend the night where we can hear you if you call."
+
+"As you please, Monsieur. Perhaps, after all, that will be best."
+
+At that moment one of the servants knocked and came in to say that his
+mistress wished to see the master before she went out. Madame Fauville
+entered almost immediately. She bowed pleasantly as Perenna and Mazeroux
+rose from their chairs.
+
+She was a woman between thirty and thirty-five, a woman of a bright and
+smiling beauty, which she owed to her blue eyes, to her wavy hair, to all
+the charm of her rather vapid but amiable and very pretty face. She wore
+a long, figured-silk cloak over an evening dress that showed her fine
+shoulders.
+
+Her husband said, in surprise
+
+"Are you going out to-night?"
+
+"You forget," she said. "The Auverards offered me a seat in their box at
+the opera; and you yourself asked me to look in at Mme. d'Ersingen's
+party afterward--"
+
+"So I did, so I did," he said. "It escaped my memory; I am working so
+hard."
+
+She finished buttoning her gloves and asked:
+
+"Won't you come and fetch me at Mme. d'Ersingen's?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"They would like it."
+
+"But I shouldn't. Besides, I don't feel well enough."
+
+"Then I'll make your apologies for you."
+
+"Yes, do."
+
+She drew her cloak around her with a graceful gesture, and stood for a
+few moments, without moving, as though seeking a word of farewell.
+Then she said:
+
+"Edmond's not here! I thought he was working with you?"
+
+"He was feeling tired."
+
+"Is he asleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wanted to kiss him good-night."
+
+"No, you would only wake him. And here's your car; so go, dear. Amuse
+yourself."
+
+"Oh, amuse myself!" she said. "There's not much amusement about the opera
+and an evening party."
+
+"Still, it's better than keeping one's room."
+
+There was some little constraint. It was obviously one of those
+ill-assorted households in which the husband, suffering in health and not
+caring for the pleasures of society, stays at home, while the wife seeks
+the enjoyments to which her age and habits entitle her.
+
+As he said nothing more, she bent over and kissed him on the forehead.
+Then, once more bowing to the two visitors, she went out. A moment later
+they heard the sound of the motor driving away.
+
+Hippolyte Fauville at once rose and rang the bell. Then he said:
+
+"No one here has any idea of the danger hanging over me. I have confided
+in nobody, not even in Silvestre, my own man, though he has been in my
+service for years and is honesty itself."
+
+The manservant entered.
+
+"I am going to bed, Silvestre," said M. Fauville. "Get everything ready."
+
+Silvestre opened the upper part of the great sofa, which made a
+comfortable bed, and laid the sheets and blankets. Next, at his master's
+orders, he brought a jug of water, a glass, a plate of biscuits, and a
+dish of fruit.
+
+M. Fauville ate a couple of biscuits and then cut a dessert-apple. It was
+not ripe. He took two others, felt them, and, not thinking them good, put
+them back as well. Then he peeled a pear and ate it.
+
+"You can leave the fruit dish," he said to his man. "I shall be glad of
+it, if I am hungry during the night.... Oh, I was forgetting! These two
+gentlemen are staying. Don't mention it to anybody. And, in the morning,
+don't come until I ring."
+
+The man placed the fruit dish on the table before retiring. Perenna, who
+was noticing everything, and who was afterward to remember every smallest
+detail of that evening, which his memory recorded with a sort of
+mechanical faithfulness, counted three pears and four apples in the dish.
+
+Meanwhile, Fauville went up the winding staircase, and, going along the
+gallery, reached the room where his son lay in bed.
+
+"He's fast asleep," he said to Perenna, who had joined him.
+
+The bedroom was a small one. The air was admitted by a special system of
+ventilation, for the dormer window was hermetically closed by a wooden
+shutter tightly nailed down.
+
+"I took the precaution last year," Hippolyte Fauville explained. "I used
+to make my electrical experiments in this room and was afraid of being
+spied upon, so I closed the aperture opening on the roof."
+
+And he added in a low voice:
+
+"They have been prowling around me for a long time."
+
+The two men went downstairs again.
+
+Fauville looked at his watch.
+
+"A quarter past ten: bedtime, I am exceedingly tired, and you will
+excuse me--"
+
+It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves
+comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the
+passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them
+good-night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had
+appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden
+attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw
+the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he
+shook with fever and anguish.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Perenna.
+
+"I'm frightened! I'm frightened!" he said.
+
+"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can
+easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
+
+Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with
+distorted features, stammering:
+
+"If there were ten of you--if there were twenty of you with me, you need
+not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they
+please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector
+Vérot--they will kill me--and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards!
+My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!"
+
+He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:
+
+"O God, have pity on me! I can't die! I can't let my son die! Have pity
+on me, I beseech Thee!"
+
+He sprang to his feet and led Perenna to a glass-fronted case, which
+he rolled back on its brass castors, revealing a small safe built
+into the wall.
+
+"You will find my whole story here, written up day by day for the past
+three years. If anything should happen to me, revenge will be easy."
+
+He hurriedly turned the letters of the padlock and, with a key which he
+took from his pocket, opened the safe.
+
+It was three fourths empty; but on one of the shelves, between some piles
+of papers, was a diary bound in drab cloth, with a rubber band round it.
+He took the diary, and, emphasizing his words, said:
+
+"There, look, it's all in here. With this, the hideous business can
+be reconstructed.... There are my suspicions first and then my
+certainties.... Everything, everything ... how to trap them and how
+to do for them.... You'll remember, won't you? A diary bound in drab
+cloth.... I'm putting it back in the safe."
+
+Gradually his calmness returned. He pushed back the glass case, tidied a
+few papers, switched on the electric lamp above his bed, put out the
+lights in the middle of the ceiling, and asked Don Luis and Mazeroux to
+leave him.
+
+Don Luis, who was walking round the room and examining the iron shutters
+of the two windows, noticed a door opposite the entrance door and asked
+the engineer about it.
+
+"I use it for my regular clients," said Fauville, "and sometimes I go out
+that way."
+
+"Does it open on the garden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it properly closed?"
+
+"You can see for yourself; it's locked and bolted with a safety bolt.
+Both keys are on my bunch; so is the key of the garden gate."
+
+He placed the bunch of keys on the table with his pocket-book and, after
+first winding it, his watch.
+
+Don Luis, without troubling to ask permission, took the keys and
+unfastened the lock and the bolt. A flight of three steps brought him to
+the garden. He followed the length of the narrow border. Through the ivy
+he saw and heard the two policemen pacing up and down the boulevard. He
+tried the lock of the gate. It was fastened.
+
+"Everything's all right," he said when he returned, "and you can be easy.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," said the engineer, seeing Perenna and Mazeroux out.
+
+Between his study and the passage were two doors, one of which was padded
+and covered with oilcloth. On the other side, the passage was separated
+from the hall by a heavy curtain.
+
+"You can go to sleep," said Perenna to his companion. "I'll sit up."
+
+"But surely, Chief, you don't think that anything's going to happen!"
+
+"I don't think so, seeing the precautions which we've taken. But,
+knowing Inspector Vérot as you did, do you think he was the man to
+imagine things?"
+
+"No, Chief."
+
+"Well, you know what he prophesied. That means that he had his reasons
+for doing so. And therefore I shall keep my eyes open."
+
+"We'll take it in turns, Chief; wake me when it's my time to watch."
+
+Seated motionlessly, side by side, they exchanged an occasional remark.
+Soon after, Mazeroux fell asleep. Don Luis remained in his chair without
+moving, his ears pricked up. Everything was quiet in the house. Outside,
+from time to time, the sound of a motor car or of a cab rolled by. He
+could also hear the late trains on the Auteuil line.
+
+He rose several times and went up to the door. Not a sound. Hippolyte
+Fauville was evidently asleep.
+
+"Capital!" said Perenna to himself. "The boulevard is watched. No one can
+enter the room except by this way. So there is nothing to fear."
+
+At two o'clock in the morning a car stopped outside the house, and one of
+the manservants, who must have been waiting in the kitchen, hastened to
+the front door. Perenna switched off the light in the passage, and,
+drawing the curtain slightly aside, saw Mme. Fauville enter, followed by
+Silvestre.
+
+She went up. The lights on the staircase were put out. For half an hour
+or so there was a sound overhead of voices and of chairs moving. Then all
+was silence.
+
+And, amid this silence, Perenna felt an unspeakable anguish arise within
+him, he could not tell why. But it was so violent, the impression became
+so acute, that he muttered:
+
+"I shall go and see if he's asleep. I don't expect that he has bolted
+the doors."
+
+He had only to push both doors to open them; and, with his electric
+lantern in his hand, he went up to the bed. Hippolyte Fauville was
+sleeping with his face turned to the wall.
+
+Perenna gave a smile of relief. He returned to the passage and,
+shaking Mazeroux:
+
+"Your turn, Alexandre."
+
+"No news, Chief?"
+
+"No, none; he's asleep."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I've had a look at him."
+
+"That's funny; I never heard you. It's true, though, I've slept
+like a pig."
+
+He followed Perenna into the study, and Perenna said:
+
+"Sit down and don't wake him. I shall take forty winks."
+
+He had one more turn at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained
+conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with
+a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the
+life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle of the
+early suburban trains.
+
+People began to stir inside the house. The daylight trickled in
+through the crannies of the shutters, and the room gradually became
+filled with light.
+
+"Let's go away," said Sergeant Mazeroux. "It would be better for him not
+to find us here."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" said Don Luis, with an imperious gesture.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You'll wake him up."
+
+"But you can see I'm not waking him," said Mazeroux, without
+lowering his tone.
+
+"That's true, that's true," whispered Don Luis, astonished that the sound
+of that voice had not disturbed the sleeper.
+
+And he felt himself overcome with the same anguish that had seized upon
+him in the middle of the night, a more clearly defined anguish, although
+he would not, although he dared not, try to realize the reason of it.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Chief? You're looking like nothing on earth.
+What is it?"
+
+"Nothing--nothing. I'm frightened--"
+
+Mazeroux shuddered.
+
+"Frightened of what? You say that just as he did last night."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... and for the same reason."
+
+"But--?"
+
+"Don't you understand? Don't you understand that I'm wondering--?"
+
+"No; what?"
+
+"If he's not dead!"
+
+"But you're mad, Chief!"
+
+"No.... I don't know.... Only, only ... I have an impression of death--"
+
+Lantern in hand, he stood as one paralyzed, opposite the bed; and he
+who was afraid of nothing in the world had not the courage to throw the
+light on Hippolyte Fauville's face. A terrifying silence rose and
+filled the room.
+
+"Oh, Chief, he's not moving!"
+
+"I know ... I know ... and I now see that he has not moved once during
+the night. And that's what frightens me."
+
+He had to make a real effort in order to step forward. He was now almost
+touching the bed.
+
+The engineer did not appear to breathe.
+
+This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.
+
+It was icy cold.
+
+Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.
+
+"The window! Open the window!" he cried.
+
+And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte
+Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.
+
+"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"
+
+"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.
+
+For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at
+the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a
+sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed
+along the gallery, and darted into the attic.
+
+Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a
+cadaverous face, dead, too.
+
+"Dash it all! Dash it all!" repeated Mazeroux.
+
+Never, perhaps, in the course of his adventurous career, had Perenna
+experienced such a knockdown blow. It gave him a feeling of extreme
+lassitude, depriving him of all power of speech or movement. Father and
+son were dead! They had been killed during that night! A few hours
+earlier, though the house was watched and every outlet hermetically
+closed, both had been poisoned by an infernal puncture, even as Inspector
+Vérot was poisoned, even as Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.
+
+"Dash it all!" said Mazeroux once more. "It was not worth troubling about
+the poor devils and performing such miracles to save them!"
+
+The exclamation conveyed a reproach. Perenna grasped it and admitted:
+
+"You are right, Mazeroux; I was not equal to the job."
+
+"Nor I, Chief."
+
+"You ... you have only been in this business since yesterday evening--"
+
+"Well, so have you, Chief!"
+
+"Yes, I know, since yesterday evening, whereas the others have been
+working at it for weeks and weeks. But, all the same, these two are dead;
+and I was there, I, Lupin, was there! The thing has been done under my
+eyes; and I saw nothing! I saw nothing! How is it possible?"
+
+He uncovered the poor boy's shoulders, showing the mark of a puncture at
+the top of the arm.
+
+"The same mark--the same mark obviously that we shall find on the
+father.... The lad does not seem to have suffered, either.... Poor little
+chap! He did not look very strong.... Never mind, it's a nice face; what
+a terrible blow for his mother when she learns!"
+
+The detective sergeant wept with anger and pity, while he kept on
+mumbling:
+
+"Dash it all!... Dash it all!"
+
+"We shall avenge them, eh, Mazeroux?"
+
+"Rather, Chief! Twice over!"
+
+"Once will do, Mazeroux. But it shall be done with a will."
+
+"That I swear it shall!"
+
+"You're right; let's swear. Let us swear that this dead pair shall be
+avenged. Let us swear not to lay down our arms until the murderers of
+Hippolyte Fauville and his son are punished as they deserve."
+
+"I swear it as I hope to be saved, Chief."
+
+"Good!" said Perenna. "And now to work. You go and telephone at once to
+the police office. I am sure that M. Desmalions will approve of your
+informing him without delay. He takes an immense interest in the case."
+
+"And if the servants come? If Mme. Fauville--?"
+
+"No one will come till we open the doors; and we shan't open them except
+to the Prefect of Police. It will be for him, afterward, to tell Mme.
+Fauville that she is a widow and that she has no son. Go! Hurry!"
+
+"One moment, Chief; we are forgetting something that will help us
+enormously."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The little drab-cloth diary in the safe, in which M. Fauville describes
+the plot against him."
+
+"Why, of course!" said Perenna. "You're right ... especially as he
+omitted to mix up the letters of the lock last night, and the key is on
+the bunch which he left lying on the table."
+
+They ran down the stairs.
+
+"Leave this to me," said Mazeroux. "It's more regular that you shouldn't
+touch the safe."
+
+He took the bunch, moved the glass case, and inserted the key with a
+feverish emotion which Don Luis felt even more acutely than he did. They
+were at last about to know the details of the mysterious story. The dead
+man himself would betray the secret of his murderers.
+
+"Lord, what a time you take!" growled Don Luis.
+
+Mazeroux plunged both hands into the crowd of papers that encumbered the
+iron shelf.
+
+"Well, Mazeroux, hand it over."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The diary."
+
+"I can't Chief."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It's gone."
+
+Don Luis stifled an oath. The drab-cloth diary, which the engineer had
+placed in the safe before their eyes, had disappeared.
+
+Mazeroux shook his head.
+
+"Dash it all! So they knew about that diary!"
+
+"Of course they did; and they knew plenty of other things besides.
+We've not seen the end of it with those fellows. There's no time to
+lose. Ring up!"
+
+Mazeroux did so and soon received the answer that M. Desmalions was
+coming to the telephone. He waited.
+
+In a few minutes Perenna, who had been walking up and down, examining
+different objects in the room, came and sat down beside Mazeroux. He
+seemed thoughtful. He reflected for some time. But then, his eyes falling
+on the fruit dish, he muttered:
+
+"Hullo! There are only three apples instead of four. Then he ate
+the fourth."
+
+"Yes," said Mazeroux, "he must have eaten it."
+
+"That's funny," replied Perenna, "for he didn't think them ripe."
+
+He was silent once more, sat leaning his elbows on the table, visibly
+preoccupied; then, raising his head, he let fall these words:
+
+"The murder was committed before we entered the room, at half-past
+twelve exactly."
+
+"How do you know, Chief?"
+
+"M. Fauville's murderer or murderers, in touching the things on the
+table, knocked down the watch which M. Fauville had placed there.
+They put it back; but the fall had stopped it. And it stopped at
+half-past twelve."
+
+"Then, Chief, when we settled ourselves here, at two in the morning, it
+was a corpse that was lying beside us and another over our heads?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But how did those devils get in?"
+
+"Through this door, which opens on the garden, and through the gate that
+opens on the Boulevard Suchet."
+
+"Then they had keys to the locks and bolts?"
+
+"False keys, yes."
+
+"But the policemen watching the house outside?"
+
+"They are still watching it, as that sort watch a house, walking from
+point to point without thinking that people can slip into a garden
+while they have their backs turned. That's what took place in coming
+and going."
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux seemed flabbergasted. The criminals' daring, their
+skill, the precision of their acts bewildered him.
+
+"They're deuced clever," he said.
+
+"Deuced clever, Mazeroux, as you say; and I foresee a tremendous battle.
+By Jupiter, with what a vim they set to work!"
+
+The telephone bell rang. Don Luis left Mazeroux to his conversation with
+the Prefect, and, taking the bunch of keys, easily unfastened the lock
+and the bolt of the door and went out into the garden, in the hope of
+there finding some trace that should facilitate his quest.
+
+As on the day before, he saw, through the ivy, two policemen walking
+between one lamp-post and the next. They did not see him. Moreover,
+anything that might happen inside the house appeared to be to them a
+matter of total indifference.
+
+"That's my great mistake," said Perenna to himself. "It doesn't do to
+entrust a job to people who do not suspect its importance."
+
+His investigations led to the discovery of some traces of footsteps on
+the gravel, traces not sufficiently plain to enable him to distinguish
+the shape of the shoes that had left them, yet distinct enough to confirm
+his supposition. The scoundrels had been that way.
+
+Suddenly he gave a movement of delight. Against the border of the path,
+among the leaves of a little clump of rhododendrons, he saw something
+red, the shape of which at once struck him. He stooped. It was an
+apple, the fourth apple, the one whose absence from the fruit dish he
+had noticed.
+
+"Excellent!" he said. "Hippolyte Fauville did not eat it. One of them
+must have carried it away--a fit of appetite, a sudden hunger--and it
+must have rolled from his hand without his having time to look for it and
+pick it up."
+
+He took up the fruit and examined it.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, with a start. "Can it be possible?"
+
+He stood dumfounded, a prey to real excitement, refusing to admit the
+inadmissible thing which nevertheless presented itself to his eyes
+with the direct evidence of actuality. Some one had bitten into the
+apple; into the apple which was too sour to eat. And the teeth had
+left their mark!
+
+"Is it possible?" repeated Don Luis. "Is it possible that one of them
+can have been guilty of such an imprudence! The apple must have
+fallen without his knowing ... or he must have been unable to find it
+in the dark."
+
+He could not get over his surprise. He cast about for plausible
+explanations. But the fact was there before him. Two rows of teeth,
+cutting through the thin red peel, had left their regular, semicircular
+bite clearly in the pulp of the fruit. They were clearly marked on the
+top, while the lower row had melted into a single curved line.
+
+"The teeth of the tiger!" murmured Perenna, who could not remove his eyes
+from that double imprint. "The teeth of the tiger! The teeth that had
+already left their mark on Inspector Vérot's piece of chocolate! What a
+coincidence! It can hardly be fortuitous. Must we not take it as certain
+that the same person bit into this apple and into that cake of chocolate
+which Inspector Vérot brought to the police office as an incontestable
+piece of evidence?"
+
+He hesitated a second. Should he keep this evidence for himself, for the
+personal inquiry which he meant to conduct? Or should he surrender it to
+the investigations of the police? But the touch of the object filled him
+with such repugnance, with such a sense of physical discomfort, that he
+flung away the apple and sent it rolling under the leaves of the shrubs.
+
+And he repeated to himself:
+
+"The teeth of the tiger! The teeth of the wild beast!"
+
+He locked the garden door behind him, bolted it, put back the keys on the
+table and said to Mazeroux:
+
+"Have you spoken to the Chief of Police?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is he coming?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Didn't he order you to telephone for the commissary of police?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That means that he wants to see everything by himself. So much the
+better. But the detective office? The public prosecutor?"
+
+"He's told them."
+
+"What's the matter with you, Alexandre? I have to drag your answers out
+of you. Well, what is it? You're looking at me very queerly. What's up?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's all right. I expect this business has turned your head. And no
+wonder.... The Prefect won't enjoy himself, either, ... especially as he
+put his faith in me a bit light-heartedly and will be called upon to give
+an explanation of my presence here. By the way, it's much better that you
+should take upon yourself the responsibility for all that we have done.
+Don't you agree? Besides, it'll do you all the good in the world.
+
+"Put yourself forward, flatly; suppress me as much as you can; and, above
+all--I don't suppose that you will have any objection to this little
+detail--don't be such a fool as to say that you went to sleep for a
+single second, last night, in the passage. First of all, you'd only be
+blamed for it. And then ... well, that's understood, eh? So we have only
+to say good-bye.
+
+"If the Prefect wants me, as I expect he will, telephone to my address,
+Place du Palais-Bourbon. I shall be there. Good-bye. It is not necessary
+for me to assist at the inquiry; my presence would be out of place.
+Good-bye, old chap."
+
+He turned toward the door of the passage.
+
+"Half a moment!" cried Mazeroux.
+
+"Half a moment?... What do you mean?"
+
+The detective sergeant had flung himself between him and the door and was
+blocking his way.
+
+"Yes, half a moment ... I am not of your opinion. It's far better that
+you should wait until the Prefect comes."
+
+"But I don't care a hang about your opinion!"
+
+"May be; but you shan't pass."
+
+"What! Why, Alexandre, you must be ill!"
+
+"Look here, Chief," said Mazeroux feebly. "What can it matter to you?
+It's only natural that the Prefect should wish to speak to you."
+
+"Ah, it's the Prefect who wishes, is it?... Well, my lad, you can tell
+him that I am not at his orders, that I am at nobody's orders, and that,
+if the President of the Republic, if Napoleon I himself were to bar my
+way ... Besides, rats! Enough said. Get out of the road!"
+
+"You shall not pass!" declared Mazeroux, in a resolute tone,
+extending his arms.
+
+"Well, I like that!"
+
+"You shall not pass."
+
+"Alexandre, just count ten."
+
+"A hundred, if you like, but you shall not...."
+
+"Oh, blow your catchwords! Get out of this."
+
+He seized Mazeroux by both shoulders, made him spin round on his
+heels and, with a push, sent him floundering over the sofa. Then he
+opened the door.
+
+"Halt, or I fire!"
+
+It was Mazeroux, who had scrambled to his feet and now stood with his
+revolver in his hand and a determined expression on his face.
+
+Don Luis stopped in amazement. The threat was absolutely indifferent to
+him, and the barrel of that revolver aimed at him left him as cold as
+could be. But by what prodigy did Mazeroux, his former accomplice, his
+ardent disciple, his devoted servant, by what prodigy did Mazeroux dare
+to act as he was doing?
+
+Perenna went up to him and pressed gently on the detective's
+outstretched arm.
+
+"Prefect's orders?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," muttered the sergeant, uncomfortably.
+
+"Orders to keep me here until he comes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And if I betrayed an intention of leaving, to prevent me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By every means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Even by putting a bullet through my skin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Perenna reflected; and then, in a serious voice:
+
+"Would you have fired, Mazeroux?"
+
+The sergeant lowered his head and said faintly:
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+Perenna looked at him without anger, with a glance of affectionate
+sympathy; and it was an absorbing sight for him to see his former
+companion dominated by such a sense of discipline and duty. Nothing was
+able to prevail against that sense, not even the fierce admiration, the
+almost animal attachment which Mazeroux retained for his master.
+
+"I'm not angry, Mazeroux. In fact, I approve. Only you must tell me the
+reason why the Prefect of Police--"
+
+The detective did not reply, but his eyes wore an expression of such
+sadness that Don Luis started, suddenly understanding.
+
+"No," he cried, "no!... It's absurd ... he can't have thought
+that!... And you, Mazeroux, do you believe me guilty?"
+
+"Oh, I, Chief, am as sure of you as I am of myself!... You don't take
+life!... But, all the same, there are things ... coincidences--"
+
+"Things ... coincidences ..." repeated Don Luis slowly.
+
+He remained pensive; and, in a low voice, he said:
+
+"Yes, after all, there's truth in what you say.... Yes, it all fits
+in.... Why didn't I think of it?... My relations with Cosmo Mornington,
+my arrival in Paris in time for the reading of the will, my insisting on
+spending the night here, the fact that the death of the two Fauvilles
+undoubtedly gives me the millions.... And then ... and then ... why, he's
+absolutely right, your Prefect of Police!... All the more so as.... Well,
+there, I'm a goner!"
+
+"Come, come, Chief!"
+
+"A dead-goner, old chap; you just get that into your head. Not as Arsène
+Lupin, ex-burglar, ex-convict, ex-anything you please--I'm unattackable
+on that ground--but as Don Luis Perenna, respectable man, residuary
+legatee, and the rest of it. And it's too stupid! For, after all, who
+will find the murderers of Cosmo, Vérot, and the two Fauvilles, if they
+go clapping me into jail?"
+
+"Come, come, Chief--"
+
+"Shut up! ... Listen!"
+
+A motor car was stopping on the boulevard, followed by another. It
+was evidently the Prefect and the magistrates from the public
+prosecutor's office.
+
+Don Luis took Mazeroux by the arm.
+
+"There's only one way out of it, Alexandre! Don't say you went to sleep."
+
+"I must, Chief."
+
+"You silly ass!" growled Don Luis. "How is it possible to be such an ass!
+It's enough to disgust one with honesty. What am I to do, then?"
+
+"Discover the culprit, Chief."
+
+"What! ... What are you talking about?"
+
+Mazeroux, in his turn, took him by the arm and, clutching him with a sort
+of despair, said, in a voice choked with tears:
+
+"Discover the culprit, Chief. If not, you're done for ... that's
+certain ... the Prefect told me so. ... The police want a
+culprit ... they want him this evening.... One has got to be
+found.... It's up to you to find him."
+
+"What you have, Alexandre, is a merry wit."
+
+"It's child's play for you, Chief. You have only to set your mind to it."
+
+"But there's not the least clue, you ass!"
+
+"You'll find one ... you must ... I entreat you, hand them over
+somebody.... It would be more than I could bear if you were arrested.
+You, the chief, accused of murder! No, no.... I entreat you, discover the
+criminal and hand him over.... You have the whole day to do it in...and
+Lupin has done greater things than that!"
+
+He was stammering, weeping, wringing his hands, grimacing with every
+feature of his comic face. And it was really touching, this grief, this
+dismay at the approach of the danger that threatened his master.
+
+M. Desmalions's voice was heard in the hall, through the curtain that
+closed the passage. A third motor car stopped on the boulevard, and a
+fourth, both doubtless laden with policemen.
+
+The house was surrounded, besieged.
+
+Perenna was silent.
+
+Beside him, anxious-faced, Mazeroux seemed to be imploring him.
+
+A few seconds elapsed.
+
+Then Perenna declared, deliberately:
+
+"Looking at things all round, Alexandre, I admit that you have seen the
+position clearly and that your fears are fully justified. If I do not
+manage to hand over the murderer or murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and
+his son to the police in a few hours from now, it is I, Don Luis Perenna,
+who will be lodged in durance vile on the evening of this Thursday, the
+first of April."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
+
+
+It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the Prefect of Police
+entered the study in which the incomprehensible tragedy of that double
+murder had been enacted.
+
+He did not even bow to Don Luis; and the magistrates who accompanied him
+might have thought that Don Luis was merely an assistant of Sergeant
+Mazeroux, if the chief detective had not made it his business to tell
+them, in a few words, the part played by the stranger.
+
+M. Desmalions briefly examined the two corpses and received a rapid
+explanation from Mazeroux. Then, returning to the hall, he went up to a
+drawing-room on the first floor, where Mme. Fauville, who had been
+informed of his visit, joined him almost at once.
+
+Perenna, who had not stirred from the passage, slipped into the hall
+himself. The servants of the house, who by this time had heard of the
+murder, were crossing it in every direction. He went down the few stairs
+leading to a ground-floor landing, on which the front door opened.
+
+There were two men there, of whom one said:
+
+"You can't pass."
+
+"But--"
+
+"You can't pass: those are our orders."
+
+"Your orders? Who gave them?"
+
+"The Prefect himself."
+
+"No luck," said Perenna, laughing. "I have been up all night and I am
+starving. Is there no way of getting something to eat?"
+
+The two policemen exchanged glances and one of them beckoned to Silvestre
+and spoke to him. Silvestre went toward the dining-room, and returned
+with a horseshoe roll.
+
+"Good," thought Don Luis, after thanking him. "This settles it. I'm
+nabbed. That's what I wanted to know. But M. Desmalions is deficient in
+logic. For, if it's Arsène Lupin whom he means to detain here, all these
+worthy plain-clothesmen are hardly enough; and, if it's Don Luis Perenna,
+they are superfluous, because the flight of Master Perenna would deprive
+Master Perenna of every chance of seeing the colour of my poor Cosmo's
+shekels. Having said which, I will take a chair."
+
+He resumed his seat in the passage and awaited events.
+
+Through the open door of the study he saw the magistrates pursuing
+their investigations. The divisional surgeon made a first examination
+of the two bodies and at once recognized the same symptoms of poisoning
+which he himself had perceived, the evening before, on the corpse of
+Inspector Vérot.
+
+Next, the detectives took up the bodies and carried them to the adjoining
+bedrooms which the father and son formerly occupied on the second floor
+of the house.
+
+The Prefect of Police then came downstairs; and Don Luis heard him say to
+the magistrates:
+
+"Poor woman! She refused to understand.... When at last she understood,
+she fell to the ground in a dead faint. Only think, her husband and her
+son at one blow!... Poor thing!"
+
+From that moment Perenna heard and saw nothing. The door was shut. The
+Prefect must afterward have given some order through the outside, through
+the communication with the front door offered by the garden, for the two
+detectives came and took up their positions in the hall, at the entrance
+to the passage, on the right and left of the dividing curtain.
+
+"One thing's certain," thought Don Luis. "My shares are not booming. What
+a state Alexandre must be in! Oh, what a state!"
+
+At twelve o'clock Silvestre brought him some food on a tray.
+
+And the long and painful wait began anew.
+
+In the study and in the house, the inquiry, which had been adjourned for
+lunch, was resumed. Perenna heard footsteps and the sound of voices on
+every side. At last, feeling tired and bored, he leaned back in his chair
+and fell asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was four o'clock when Sergeant Mazeroux came and woke him. As he led
+him to the study, Mazeroux whispered:
+
+"Well, have you discovered him?"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"The murderer."
+
+"Of course!" said Perenna. "It's as easy as shelling peas!"
+
+"That's a good thing!" said Mazeroux, greatly relieved and failing to see
+the joke. "But for that, as you saw for yourself, you would have been
+done for."
+
+Don Luis entered. In the room were the public prosecutor, the examining
+magistrate, the chief detective, the local commissary of police, two
+inspectors, and three constables in uniform.
+
+Outside, on the Boulevard Suchet, shouts were raised; and, when the
+commissary and his three policemen went out, by the Prefect's orders, to
+listen to the crowd, the hoarse voice of a newsboy was heard shouting:
+
+"The double murder on the Boulevard Suchet! Full particulars of the death
+of Inspector Vérot! The police at a loss!--"
+
+Then, when the door was closed, all was silent.
+
+"Mazeroux was quite right," thought Don Luis. "It's I or the other one:
+that's clear. Unless the words that will be spoken and the facts that
+will come to light in the course of this examination supply me with some
+clue that will enable me to give them the name of that mysterious X,
+they'll surrender me this evening for the people to batten on. Attention,
+Lupin, old chap, the great game is about to commence!"
+
+He felt that thrill of delight which always ran through him at the
+approach of the great struggles. This one, indeed, might be numbered
+among the most terrible that he had yet sustained.
+
+He knew the Prefect's reputation, his experience, his tenacity, and the
+keen pleasure which he took in conducting important inquiries and in
+personally pushing them to a conclusion before placing them in the
+magistrate's hands; and he also knew all the professional qualities of
+the chief detective, and all the subtlety, all the penetrating logic
+possessed by the examining magistrate.
+
+The Prefect of Police himself directed the attack. He did so in a
+straightforward fashion, without beating about the bush, and in a rather
+harsh voice, which had lost its former tone of sympathy for Don Luis. His
+attitude also was more formal and lacked that geniality which had struck
+Don Luis on the previous day.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "circumstances having brought about that, as the
+residuary legatee and representative of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, you spent
+the night on this ground floor while a double murder was being committed
+here, we wish to receive your detailed evidence as to the different
+incidents that occurred last night."
+
+"In other words, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, replying directly to
+the attack, "in other words, circumstances having brought about that you
+authorized me to spend the night here, you would like to know if my
+evidence corresponds at all points with that of Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Meaning that the part played by myself strikes you as suspicious?"
+
+M. Desmalions hesitated. His eyes met Don Luis's eyes; and he was visibly
+impressed by the other's frank glance. Nevertheless he replied, plainly
+and bluntly:
+
+"It is not for you to ask me questions, Monsieur."
+
+Don Luis bowed.
+
+"I am at your orders, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Please tell us what you know."
+
+Don Luis thereupon gave a minute account of events, after which M.
+Desmalions reflected for a few moments and said:
+
+"There is one point on which we want to be informed. When you entered
+this room at half-past two this morning and sat down beside M. Fauville,
+was there nothing to tell you that he was dead?"
+
+"Nothing, Monsieur le Préfet. Otherwise, Sergeant Mazeroux and I would
+have given the alarm."
+
+"Was the garden door shut?"
+
+"It must have been, as we had to unlock it at seven o'clock."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"With the key on the bunch."
+
+"But how could the murderers, coming from the outside, have opened it?"
+
+"With false keys."
+
+"Have you a proof which allows you to suppose that it was opened with
+false keys?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Therefore, until we have proofs to the contrary, we are bound to believe
+that it was not opened from the outside, and that the criminal was inside
+the house."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Préfet, there was no one here but Sergeant Mazeroux
+and myself!"
+
+There was a silence, a pause whose meaning admitted of no doubt.
+M. Desmalions's next words gave it an even more precise value.
+
+"You did not sleep during the night?"
+
+"Yes, toward the end."
+
+"You did not sleep before, while you were in the passage?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+Don Luis remained undecided for a moment; but how could he hope that the
+honest and scrupulous Mazeroux had disobeyed the dictates of his
+conscience?
+
+He replied:
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux went to sleep in his chair and did not wake until Mme.
+Fauville returned, two hours later."
+
+There was a fresh silence, which evidently meant:
+
+"So, during the two hours when Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep, it was
+physically possible for you to open the door and kill the two Fauvilles."
+
+The examination was taking the course which Perenna had foreseen; and
+the circle was drawing closer and closer around him. His adversary was
+conducting the contest with a logic and vigour which he admired
+without reserve.
+
+"By Jove!" he thought. "How difficult it is to defend one's self when one
+is innocent. There's my right wing and my left wing driven in. Will my
+centre be able to stand the assault?"
+
+M. Desmalions, after a whispered colloquy with the examining magistrate,
+resumed his questions in these terms:
+
+"Yesterday evening, when M. Fauville opened his safe in your presence and
+the sergeant's, what was in the safe?"
+
+"A heap of papers, on one of the shelves; and, among those papers, the
+diary in drab cloth which has since disappeared."
+
+"You did not touch those papers?"
+
+"Neither the papers nor the safe, Monsieur le Préfet. Sergeant Mazeroux
+must have told you that he made me stand aside, to insure the regularity
+of the inquiry."
+
+"So you never came into the slightest contact with the safe?"
+
+"Not the slightest."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at the examining magistrate and nodded his head. Had
+Perenna been able to doubt that a trap was being laid for him, a glance
+at Mazeroux would have told him all about it. Mazeroux was ashen gray.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Desmalions continued:
+
+"You have taken part in inquiries, Monsieur, in police inquiries.
+Therefore, in putting my next question to you, I consider that I am
+addressing it to a tried detective."
+
+"I will answer your question, Monsieur le Préfet, to the best of
+my ability."
+
+"Here it is, then: Supposing that there were at this moment in the safe
+an object of some kind, a jewel, let us say, a diamond out of a tie pin,
+and that this diamond had come from a tie pin which belonged to somebody
+whom we knew, somebody who had spent the night in this house, what would
+you think of the coincidence?"
+
+"There we are," said Perenna to himself. "There's the trap. It's clear
+that they've found something in the safe, and next, that they imagine
+that this something belongs to me. Good! But, in that case, we must
+presume, as I have not touched the safe, that the thing was taken from me
+and put in the safe to compromise me. But I did not have a finger in this
+pie until yesterday; and it is impossible that, during last night, when I
+saw nobody, any one can have had time to prepare and contrive such a
+determined plot against me. So--"
+
+The Prefect of Police interrupted this silent monologue by repeating:
+
+"What would be your opinion?"
+
+"There would be an undeniable connection between that person's presence
+in the house and the two crimes that had been committed."
+
+"Consequently, we should have the right at least to suspect the person?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That is your view?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+M. Desmalions produced a piece of tissue paper from his pocket and took
+from it a little blue stone, which he displayed.
+
+"Here is a turquoise which we found in the safe. It belongs, without a
+shadow of a doubt, to the ring which you are wearing on your finger."
+
+Don Luis was seized with a fit of rage. He half grated, through his
+clenched teeth:
+
+"Oh, the rascals! How clever they are! But no, I can't believe--"
+
+He looked at his ring, which was formed of a large, clouded, dead
+turquoise, surrounded by a circle of small, irregular turquoises, also of
+a very pale blue. One of these was missing; and the one which M.
+Desmalions had in his hand fitted the place exactly.
+
+"What do you say?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+"I say that this turquoise belongs to my ring, which was given me by
+Cosmo Mornington on the first occasion that I saved his life."
+
+"So we are agreed?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, we are agreed."
+
+Don Luis Perenna began to walk across the room, reflecting. The movement
+which the two detectives made toward the two doors told him that his
+arrest was provided for. A word from M. Desmalions, and Sergeant Mazeroux
+would be forced to take his chief by the collar.
+
+Don Luis once more gave a glance toward his former accomplice. Mazeroux
+made a gesture of entreaty, as though to say:
+
+"Well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you give up the criminal?
+Quick, it's time!"
+
+Don Luis smiled.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the Prefect, in a tone that now entirely
+lacked the sort of involuntary politeness which he had shown since the
+commencement of the examination.
+
+"The matter? The matter?--"
+
+Perenna seized a chair by the back, spun it round and sat down upon it,
+with the simple remark:
+
+"Let's talk!"
+
+And this was said in such a way and the movement executed with so much
+decision that the Prefect muttered, as though wavering:
+
+"I don't quite see--"
+
+"You soon will, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And, speaking in a slow voice, laying stress on every syllable that he
+uttered, he began:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the position is as clear as daylight. Yesterday
+evening you gave me an authorization which involves your responsibility
+most gravely. The result is that what you now want, at all costs and
+without delay, is a culprit. And that culprit is to be myself. By way of
+incriminating evidence, you have the fact of my presence here, the fact
+the door was locked on the inside, the fact that Sergeant Mazeroux was
+asleep while the crime was committed, and the fact of the discovery of
+the turquoise in the safe. All this is crushing, I admit. Added to it,"
+he continued, "we have the terrible presumption that I had every interest
+in the removal of M. Fauville and his son, inasmuch as, if there is no
+heir of Cosmo Mornington's in existence, I come into a hundred million
+francs. Exactly. There is therefore nothing for me to do, Monsieur le
+Préfet, but to go with you to the lockup or else--"
+
+"Or else what?"
+
+"Or else hand over to you the criminal, the real criminal."
+
+The Prefect of Police smiled and took out his watch.
+
+"I'm waiting," he said.
+
+"It will take me just an hour, Monsieur le Préfet, and no more, if you
+give me every latitude. And the search of the truth, it seems to me, is
+worth a little patience."
+
+"I'm waiting," repeated M. Desmalions.
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux, please tell Silvestre, the manservant, that Monsieur
+le Préfet wishes to see him."
+
+Upon a sign from M. Desmalions, Mazeroux went out.
+
+Don Luis explained his motive.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, whereas the discovery of the turquoise constitutes
+in your eyes an extremely serious proof against me, to me it is a
+revelation of the highest importance. I will tell you why. That turquoise
+must have fallen from my ring last evening and rolled on the carpet.
+
+"Now there are only four persons," he continued, "who can have noticed
+this fall when it happened, picked up the turquoise and, in order to
+compromise the new adversary that I was, slipped it into the safe. The
+first of those four persons is one of your detectives, Sergeant Mazeroux,
+of whom we will not speak. The second is dead: I refer to M. Fauville. We
+will not speak of him. The third is Silvestre, the manservant. I should
+like to say a few words to him. I shall not take long."
+
+Silvestre's examination, in fact, was soon over. He was able to prove
+that, pending the return of Mme. Fauville, for whom he had to open the
+door, he had not left the kitchen, where he was playing at cards with the
+lady's maid and another manservant.
+
+"Very well," said Perenna. "One word more. You must have read in this
+morning's papers of the death of Inspector Vérot and seen his portrait."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know Inspector Vérot?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Still, it is probable that he came here yesterday, during the day."
+
+"I can't say," replied the servant. "M. Fauville used to receive many
+visitors through the garden and let them in himself."
+
+"You have no more evidence to give?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Please tell Mme. Fauville that Monsieur le Préfet would be very much
+obliged if he could have a word with her."
+
+Silvestre left the room.
+
+The examining magistrate and the public prosecutor had drawn nearer in
+astonishment.
+
+The Prefect exclaimed:
+
+"What, Monsieur! You don't mean to pretend that Mme. Fauville is
+mixed up--"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, Mme. Fauville is the fourth person who may have seen
+the turquoise drop out of my ring."
+
+"And what then? Have we the right, in the absence of any real proof,
+to suppose that a woman can kill her husband, that a mother can
+poison her son?"
+
+"I am supposing nothing, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Then--?"
+
+Don Luis made no reply. M. Desmalions did not conceal his irritation.
+However, he said:
+
+"Very well; but I order you most positively to remain silent. What
+questions am I to put to Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"One only, Monsieur le Préfet: ask Mme. Fauville if she knows any one,
+apart from her husband, who is descended from the sisters Roussel."
+
+"Why that question?"
+
+"Because, if that descendant exists, it is not I who will inherit the
+millions, but he; and then it will be he and not I who would be
+interested in the removal of M. Fauville and his son."
+
+"Of course, of course," muttered M. Desmalions. "But even so, this
+new trail--"
+
+Mme. Fauville entered as he was speaking. Her face remained charming and
+pretty in spite of the tears that had reddened her eyelids and impaired
+the freshness of her cheeks. But her eyes expressed the scare of terror;
+and the obsession of the tragedy imparted to all her attractive
+personality, to her gait and to her movements, something feverish and
+spasmodic that was painful to look upon.
+
+"Pray sit down, Madame," said the Prefect, speaking with the height
+of deference, "and forgive me for inflicting any additional emotion
+upon you. But time is precious; and we must do everything to make
+sure that the two victims whose loss you are mourning shall be
+avenged without delay."
+
+Tears were still streaming from her beautiful eyes; and, with a sob, she
+stammered:
+
+"If the police need me, Monsieur le Préfet--"
+
+"Yes, it is a question of obtaining a few particulars. Your husband's
+mother is dead, is she not?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Am I correct in saying that she came from Saint-Etienne and that her
+maiden name was Roussel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Elizabeth Roussel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Had your husband any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Therefore there is no descendant of Elizabeth Roussel living?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Very well. But Elizabeth Roussel had two sisters, did she not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ermeline Roussel, the elder, went abroad and was not heard of again. The
+other, the younger--"
+
+"The other was called Armande Roussel. She was my mother."
+
+"Eh? What do you say?"
+
+"I said my mother's maiden name was Armande Roussel, and I married my
+cousin, the son of Elizabeth Roussel."
+
+The statement had the effect of a thunderclap. So, upon the death of
+Hippolyte Fauville and his son Edmond, the direct descendants of the
+eldest sister, Cosmo Mornington's inheritance passed to the other
+branch, that of Armande Roussel; and this branch was represented so far
+by Mme. Fauville!
+
+The Prefect of Police and the examining magistrate exchanged glances
+and both instinctively turned toward Don Luis Perenna, who did not
+move a muscle.
+
+"Have you no brother or sister, Madame?" asked the Prefect.
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, I am the only one."
+
+The only one! In other words, now that her husband and son were dead,
+Cosmo Mornington's millions reverted absolutely and undeniably to her, to
+her alone.
+
+Meanwhile, a hideous idea weighed like a nightmare upon the magistrates
+and they could not rid themselves of it: the woman sitting before them
+was the mother of Edmond Fauville. M. Desmalions had his eyes on Don Luis
+Perenna, who wrote a few words on a card and handed it to the Prefect.
+
+M. Desmalions, who was gradually resuming toward Don Luis his courteous
+attitude of the day before, read it, reflected a moment, and put this
+question to Mme. Fauville:
+
+"What was your son Edmond's age?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"You look so young--"
+
+"Edmond was not my son, but my stepson, the son of my husband by his
+first wife, who died,"
+
+"Ah! So Edmond Fauville--" muttered the Prefect, without finishing
+his sentence.
+
+In two minutes the whole situation had changed. In the eyes of the
+magistrates, Mme. Fauville was no longer the widow and mother who must on
+no account be attacked. She had suddenly become a woman whom
+circumstances compelled them to cross-examine. However prejudiced they
+might be in her favour, however charmed by the seductive qualities of her
+beauty, they were inevitably bound to ask themselves, whether for some
+reason or other, for instance, in order to be alone in the enjoyment of
+the enormous fortune, she had not had the madness to kill her husband and
+to kill the boy who was only her husband's son. In any case, the question
+was there, calling for a solution.
+
+The Prefect of Police continued:
+
+"Do you know this turquoise?"
+
+She took the stone which he held out to her and examined it without the
+least sign of confusion.
+
+"No," she said. "I have an old-fashioned turquoise necklace, which I
+never wear, but the stones are larger and none of them has this
+irregular shape."
+
+"We found this one in the safe," said M. Desmalions. "It forms part of a
+ring belonging to a person whom we know."
+
+"Well," she said eagerly, "you must find that person."
+
+"He is here," said the Prefect, pointing to Don Luis, who had been
+standing some way off and who had not been noticed by Mme. Fauville.
+
+She started at the sight of Perenna and cried, very excitedly:
+
+"But that gentleman was here yesterday evening! He was talking to my
+husband--and so was that other gentleman," she said, referring to
+Sergeant Mazeroux. "You must question them, find out why they were here.
+You understand that, if the turquoise belonged to one of them--"
+
+The insinuation was direct, but clumsy; and it lent the greatest weight
+to Perenna's unspoken argument:
+
+"The turquoise was picked up by some one who saw me yesterday and who
+wishes to compromise me. Apart from M. Fauville and the detective
+sergeant, only two people saw me: Silvestre, the manservant, and Mme.
+Fauville. Consequently, as Silvestre is outside the question, I accuse
+Mme. Fauville of putting the turquoise in the safe."
+
+M. Desmalions asked:
+
+"Will you let me see the necklace, Madame?"
+
+"Certainly. It is with my other jewels, in my wardrobe. I will go for
+it."
+
+"Pray don't trouble, Madame. Does your maid know the necklace?"
+
+"Quite well."
+
+"In that case, Sergeant Mazeroux will tell her what is wanted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not a word was spoken during the few minutes for which Mazeroux was
+absent. Mme. Fauville seemed absorbed in her grief. M. Desmalions kept
+his eyes fixed on her.
+
+The sergeant returned, carrying a very large box containing a number of
+jewel-cases and loose ornaments.
+
+M. Desmalions found the necklace, examined it, and realized, in fact,
+that the stones did not resemble the turquoise and that none of them was
+missing. But, on separating two jewel cases in order to take out a tiara
+which also contained blue stones, he made a gesture of surprise.
+
+"What are these two keys?" he asked, pointing to two keys identical in
+shape and size with those which opened the lock and the bolt of the
+garden door.
+
+Mme. Fauville remained very calm. Not a muscle of her face moved. Nothing
+pointed to the least perturbation on account of this discovery. She
+merely said:
+
+"I don't know. They have been there a long time."
+
+"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "try them on that door."
+
+Mazeroux did so. The door opened.
+
+"Yes," said Mme. Fauville. "I remember now, my husband gave them to me.
+They were duplicates of his own keys--"
+
+The words were uttered in the most natural tone and as though the speaker
+did not even suspect the terrible charge that was forming against her.
+
+And nothing was more agonizing than this tranquillity. Was it a sign of
+absolute innocence, or the infernal craft of a criminal whom nothing is
+able to stir? Did she realize nothing of the tragedy which was taking
+place and of which she was the unconscious heroine? Or did she guess the
+terrible accusation which was gradually closing in upon her on every side
+and which threatened her with the most awful danger? But, in that case,
+how could she have been guilty of the extraordinary blunder of keeping
+those two keys?
+
+A series of questions suggested itself to the minds of all those present.
+The Prefect of Police put them as follows:
+
+"You were out, Madame, were you not, when the murders were committed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You were at the opera?"
+
+"Yes; and I went on to a party at the house of one of my friends, Mme.
+d'Ersingen."
+
+"Did your chauffeur drive you?"
+
+"To the opera, yes. But I sent him back to his garage; and he came to
+fetch me at the party."
+
+"I see," said M. Desmalions. "But how did you go from the opera to Mme.
+d'Ersingen's?"
+
+For the first time, Mme. Fauville seemed to understand that she was the
+victim of a regular cross-examination; and her look and attitude betrayed
+a certain uneasiness. She replied:
+
+"I took a motor cab."
+
+"In the street?"
+
+"On the Place de l'Opéra."
+
+"At twelve o'clock, therefore?"
+
+"No, at half-past eleven: I left before the opera was over."
+
+"You were in a hurry to get to your friend's?"
+
+"Yes ... or rather--"
+
+She stopped; her cheeks were scarlet; her lips and chin trembled; and
+she asked:
+
+"Why do you ask me all these questions?"
+
+"They are necessary, Madame. They may throw a light on what we want to
+know. I beg you, therefore, to answer them. At what time did you reach
+your friend's house?"
+
+"I hardly know. I did not notice the time."
+
+"Did you go straight there?"
+
+"Almost."
+
+"How do you mean, almost?"
+
+"I had a little headache and told the driver to go up the Champs
+Elysées and the Avenue du Bois--very slowly--and then down the Champs
+Elysées again--"
+
+She was becoming more and more embarrassed. Her voice grew indistinct.
+She lowered her head and was silent.
+
+Certainly her silence contained no confession, and there was nothing
+entitling any one to believe that her dejection was other than a
+consequence of her grief. But yet she seemed so weary as to give the
+impression that, feeling herself lost, she was giving up the fight. And
+it was almost a feeling of pity that was entertained for this woman
+against whom all the circumstances seemed to be conspiring, and who
+defended herself so badly that her cross-examiner hesitated to press her
+yet further.
+
+M. Desmalions, in fact, wore an irresolute air, as if the victory had
+been too easy, and as if he had some scruple about pursuing it.
+
+Mechanically he observed Perenna, who passed him a slip of paper, saying:
+
+"Mme. d'Ersingen's telephone number."
+
+M. Desmalions murmured:
+
+"Yes, true, they may know--"
+
+And, taking down the receiver, he asked for number 325.04. He was
+connected at once and continued:
+
+"Who is that speaking?... The butler? Ah! Is Mme. d'Ersingen at
+home?... No?... Or Monsieur?... Not he, either?... Never mind, you can
+tell me what I want to know. I am M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police,
+and I need certain information. At what time did Mme. Fauville come last
+night?... What do you say?... Are you sure?... At two o'clock in the
+morning?... Not before?... And she went away?... In ten minutes
+time?... Good ... But you're certain you are not mistaken about the
+time when she arrived? I must know this positively: it is most
+important.... You say it was two o'clock in the morning? Two o'clock in
+the morning?... Very well.... Thank you."
+
+When M. Desmalions turned round, he saw Mme. Fauville standing beside him
+and looking at him with an expression of mad anguish. And one and the
+same idea occurred to the mind of all the onlookers. They were in the
+presence either of an absolutely innocent woman or else of an exceptional
+actress whose face lent itself to the most perfect simulation of
+innocence.
+
+"What do you want?" she stammered. "What does this mean? Explain
+yourself!"
+
+Then M. Desmalions asked simply:
+
+"What were you doing last night between half-past eleven in the evening
+and two o'clock in the morning?"
+
+It was a terrifying question at the stage which the examination had
+reached, a fatal question implying:
+
+"If you cannot give us an exact and strict account of the way in which
+you employed your time while the crime was being committed, we have the
+right to conclude that you were not alien to the murder of your husband
+and stepson--"
+
+She understood it in this sense and staggered on her feet, moaning:
+
+"It's horrible!... horrible!"
+
+The Prefect repeated:
+
+"What were you doing? The question must be quite easy to answer."
+
+"Oh," she cried, in the same piteous tone, "how can you believe!... Oh,
+no, no, it's not possible! How can you believe!"
+
+"I believe nothing yet," he said. "Besides, you can establish the truth
+with a single word."
+
+It seemed, from the movement of her lips and the sudden gesture of
+resolution that shook her frame, as though she were about to speak that
+word. But all at once she appeared stupefied and dumfounded, pronounced a
+few unintelligible syllables, and fell huddled into a chair, sobbing
+convulsively and uttering cries of despair.
+
+It was tantamount to a confession. At the very least, it was a confession
+of her inability to supply the plausible explanation which would have put
+an end to the discussion.
+
+The Prefect of Police moved away from her and spoke in a low voice to the
+examining magistrate and the public prosecutor. Perenna and Sergeant
+Mazeroux were left alone together, side by side.
+
+Mazeroux whispered:
+
+"What did I tell you? I knew you would find out! Oh, what a man you are!
+The way you managed!"
+
+He was beaming at the thought that the chief was clear of the matter and
+that he had no more crows to pluck with his, Mazeroux's, superiors, whom
+he revered almost as much as he did the chief. Everybody was now agreed;
+they were "friends all round"; and Mazeroux was choking with delight.
+
+"They'll lock her up, eh?"
+
+"No," said Perenna. "There's not enough 'hold' on her for them to issue
+a warrant."
+
+"What!" growled Mazeroux indignantly. "Not enough hold? I hope, in any
+case, that you won't let her go. She made no bones, you know, about
+attacking you! Come, Chief, polish her off, a she-devil like that!"
+
+Don Luis remained pensive. He was thinking of the unheard-of
+coincidences, the accumulation of facts that bore down on Mme. Fauville
+from every side. And the decisive proof which would join all these
+different facts together and give to the accusation the grounds which it
+still lacked was one which Perenna was able to supply. This was the marks
+of the teeth in the apple hidden among the shrubs in the garden. To the
+police these would be as good as any fingerprint, all the more as they
+could compare the marks with those on the cake of chocolate.
+
+Nevertheless, he hesitated; and, concentrating his anxious attention, he
+watched, with mingled feelings of pity and repulsion, that woman who, to
+all seeming, had killed her husband and her husband's son. Was he to give
+her the finishing stroke? Had he the right to play the part of judge? And
+supposing he were wrong?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meantime, M. Desmalions had walked up to him and, while pretending to
+speak to Mazeroux, was really asking Perenna:
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+Mazeroux shook his head. Perenna replied:
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that, if this woman is guilty, she is
+defending herself, for all her cleverness, with inconceivable lack
+of skill."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Meaning that she was doubtless only a tool in the hands of an
+accomplice."
+
+"An accomplice?"
+
+"Remember, Monsieur le Préfet, her husband's exclamation in your office
+yesterday: 'Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!' There is, therefore, at
+least one accomplice, who perhaps is the same as the man who was present,
+as Sergeant Mazeroux must have told you, in the Café du Pont-Neuf when
+Inspector Vérot was last there: a man with a reddish-brown beard,
+carrying an ebony walking-stick with a silver handle. So that--"
+
+"So that," said M. Desmalions, completing the sentence, "by arresting
+Mme. Fauville to-day, merely on suspicion, we have a chance of laying our
+hands on the accomplice."
+
+Perenna did not reply. The Prefect continued, thoughtfully:
+
+"Arrest her ... arrest her.... We should need a proof for that.... Did
+you receive no clue?"
+
+"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet. True, my search was only summary."
+
+"But ours was most minute. We have been through every corner of
+the room."
+
+"And the garden, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"The garden also."
+
+"With the same care?"
+
+"Perhaps not.... But I think--"
+
+"I think, on the contrary, Monsieur le Préfet, that, as the murderers
+passed through the garden in coming and going, there might be a chance--"
+
+"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "go outside and make a more thorough
+inspection."
+
+The sergeant went out. Perenna, who was once more standing at one side,
+heard the Prefect of Police repeating to the examining magistrate:
+
+"Ah, if we only had a proof, just one! The woman is evidently guilty. The
+presumption against her is too great! ... And then there are Cosmo
+Mornington's millions.... But, on the other hand, look at her ... look at
+all the honesty in that pretty face of hers, look at all the sincerity of
+her grief."
+
+She was still crying, with fitful sobs and starts of indignant protest
+that made her clench her fists. At one moment she took her tear-soaked
+handkerchief, bit it with her teeth and tore it, after the manner of
+certain actresses.
+
+Perenna saw those beautiful white teeth, a little wide, moist and
+gleaming, rending the dainty cambric. And he thought of the marks of
+teeth on the apple. And he was seized with an extreme longing to know the
+truth. Was it the same pair of jaws that had left its impress in the pulp
+of the fruit?
+
+Mazeroux returned. M. Desmalions moved briskly toward the sergeant, who
+showed him the apple which he had found under the ivy. And Perenna at
+once realized the supreme importance which the Prefect of Police attached
+to Mazeroux's explanations and to his unexpected discovery.
+
+A conversation of some length took place between the magistrates and
+ended in the decision which Don Luis foresaw. M. Desmalions walked
+across the room to Mme. Fauville. It was the catastrophe. He reflected
+for a second on the manner in which he should open this final contest,
+and then he asked:
+
+"Are you still unable, Madame, to tell us how you employed your time
+last night?"
+
+She made an effort and whispered:
+
+"Yes, yes.... I took a taxi and drove about. ... I also walked a
+little--"
+
+"That is a fact which we can easily verify when we have found the
+driver of the taxi. Meanwhile, there is an opportunity of removing the
+somewhat ... grievous impression which your silence has left on our
+minds."
+
+"I am quite ready--"
+
+"It is this: the person or one of the persons who took part in the
+crime appears to have bitten into an apple which was afterward thrown
+away in the garden and which has just been found. To put an end to any
+suppositions concerning yourself, we should like you to perform the
+same action."
+
+"Oh, certainly!" she cried, eagerly. "If this is all you need to
+convince you--"
+
+She took one of the three apples which Desmalions handed her from the
+dish and lifted it to her mouth.
+
+It was a decisive act. If the two marks resembled each other, the proof
+existed, assured and undeniable.
+
+Before completing her movement, she stopped short, as though seized with
+a sudden fear.... Fear of what? Fear of the monstrous chance that might
+be her undoing? Or fear rather of the dread weapon which she was about to
+deliver against herself? In any case nothing accused her with greater
+directness than this last hesitation, which was incomprehensible if she
+was innocent, but clear as day if she was guilty!
+
+"What are you afraid of, Madame?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," she said, shuddering. "I don't know.... I am afraid
+of everything.... It is all so horrible--"
+
+"But, Madame, I assure you that what we are asking of you has no sort of
+importance and, I am persuaded, can only have a fortunate result for you.
+If you don't mind, therefore--"
+
+She raised her hand higher and yet higher, with a slowness that betrayed
+her uneasiness. And really, in the fashion in which things were
+happening, the scene was marked by a certain solemnity and tragedy that
+wrung every heart.
+
+"And, if I refuse?" she asked, suddenly.
+
+"You are absolutely entitled to refuse," said the Prefect of Police. "But
+is it worth while, Madame? I am sure that your counsel would be the first
+to advise you--"
+
+"My counsel?" she stammered, understanding the formidable meaning
+conveyed by that reply.
+
+And, suddenly, with a fierce resolve and the almost ferocious air that
+contorts the face when great dangers threaten, she made the movement
+which they were pressing her to make. She opened her mouth. They saw
+the gleam of the white teeth. At one bite, the white teeth dug into
+the fruit.
+
+"There you are, Monsieur," she said.
+
+M. Desmalions turned to the examining magistrate.
+
+"Have you the apple found in the garden?"
+
+"Here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions put the two apples side by side.
+
+And those who crowded round him, anxiously looking on, all uttered one
+exclamation.
+
+The two marks of teeth were identical.
+
+Identical! Certainly, before declaring the identity of every detail, the
+absolute analogy of the marks of each tooth, they must wait for the
+results of the expert's report. But there was one thing which there was
+no mistaking and that was the complete similarity of the two curves.
+
+In either fruit the rounded arch was bent according to the same
+inflection. The two semicircles could have fitted one into the other,
+both very narrow, both a little long-shaped and oval and of a restricted
+radius which was the very character of the jaw.
+
+The men did not speak a word. M. Desmalions raised his head. Mme.
+Fauville did not move, stood livid and mad with terror. But all the
+sentiments of terror, stupor and indignation that she might simulate with
+her mobile face and her immense gifts as an actress, did not prevail
+against the compelling proof that presented itself to every eye.
+
+The two imprints were identical! The same teeth had bitten into
+both apples!
+
+"Madame--" the Prefect of Police began.
+
+"No, no," she cried, seized with a fit of fury, "no, it's not
+true.... This is all just a nightmare.... No, you are never going to
+arrest me? I in prison! Why, it's horrible!... What have I done? Oh, I
+swear that you are mistaken--"
+
+She took her head between her hands.
+
+"Oh, my brain is throbbing as if it would burst! What does all this mean?
+I have done no wrong.... I knew nothing. It was you who told me this
+morning.... Could I have suspected? My poor husband ... and that dear
+Edmond who loved me ... and whom I loved! Why should I have killed them?
+Tell me that! Why don't you answer?" she demanded. "People don't commit
+murder without a motive.... Well?... Well?... Answer me, can't you?"
+
+And once more convulsed with anger, standing in an aggressive
+attitude, with her clenched hands outstretched at the group of
+magistrates, she screamed:
+
+"You're no better than butchers ... you have no right to torture a woman
+like this.... Oh, how horrible! To accuse me ... to arrest me ... for
+nothing! ... Oh, it's abominable! ... What butchers you all are! ... And
+it's you in particular," addressing Perenna, "it's you--yes, I know--it's
+you who are the enemy.
+
+"Oh, I understand! You had your reasons, you were here last
+night.... Then why don't they arrest you? Why not you, as you were
+here and I was not and know nothing, absolutely nothing of what
+happened.... Why isn't it you?"
+
+The last words were pronounced in a hardly intelligible fashion. She had
+no strength left. She had to sit down, with her head bent over her knees,
+and she wept once more, abundantly.
+
+Perenna went up to her and, raising her forehead and uncovering the
+tear-stained face, said:
+
+"The imprints of teeth in both apples are absolutely identical. There is
+therefore no doubt whatever but that the first comes from you as well as
+the second."
+
+"No!" she said.
+
+"Yes," he affirmed. "That is a fact which it is materially impossible to
+deny. But the first impression may have been left by you before last
+night, that is to say, you may have bitten that apple yesterday, for
+instance--"
+
+She stammered:
+
+"Do you think so? Yes, perhaps, I seem to remember--yesterday morning--"
+
+But the Prefect of Police interrupted her.
+
+"It is useless, Madame; I have just questioned your servant, Silvestre.
+He bought the fruit himself at eight o'clock last evening. When M.
+Fauville went to bed, there were four apples in the dish. At eight
+o'clock this morning there were only three. Therefore the one found in
+the garden is incontestably the fourth; and this fourth apple was marked
+last night. And the mark is the mark of your teeth."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"It was not I ... it was not I ... that mark is not mine."
+
+"But--"
+
+"That mark is not mine.... I swear it as I hope to be saved.... And I
+also swear that I shall die, yes, die.... I prefer death to prison.... I
+shall kill myself.... I shall kill myself--"
+
+Her eyes were staring before her. She stiffened her muscles and made a
+supreme effort to rise from her chair. But, once on her feet, she
+tottered and fell fainting on the floor.
+
+While she was being seen to, Mazeroux beckoned to Don Luis and whispered:
+
+"Clear out, Chief."
+
+"Ah, so the orders are revoked? I'm free?"
+
+"Chief, take a look at the beggar who came in ten minutes ago and who's
+talking to the Prefect. Do you know him?"
+
+"Hang it all!" said Perenna, after glancing at a large red-faced man who
+did not take his eyes off him. "Hang it, it's Weber, the deputy chief!"
+
+"And he's recognized you, Chief! He recognized Lupin at first sight.
+There's no fake that he can't see through. He's got the knack of it.
+Well, Chief, just think of all the tricks you've played on him and ask
+yourself if he'll stick at anything to have his revenge!"
+
+"And you think he has told the Prefect?"
+
+"Of course he has; and the Prefect has ordered my mates to keep you in
+view. If you make the least show of trying to escape them, they'll
+collar you."
+
+"In that case, there's nothing to be done?"
+
+"Nothing to be done? Why, it's a question of putting them off your scent
+and mighty quickly!"
+
+"What good would that do me, as I'm going home and they know where I
+live?"
+
+"Eh, what? Can you have the cheek to go home after what's happened?"
+
+"Where do you expect me to sleep? Under the bridges?"
+
+"But, dash it all, don't you understand that, after this job, there will
+be the most infernal stir, that you're compromised up to the neck as it
+is, and that everybody will turn against you?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Drop the business."
+
+"And the murderers of Cosmo Mornington and the Fauvilles?"
+
+"The police will see to that."
+
+"Alexandre, you're an ass."
+
+"Then become Lupin again, the invisible, impregnable Lupin, and do your
+own fighting, as you used to. But in Heaven's name don't remain Perenna!
+It is too dangerous. And don't occupy yourself officially with a business
+in which you are not interested."
+
+"The things you say, Alexandre! I am interested in it to the tune of a
+hundred millions. If Perenna does not stick to his post, the hundred
+millions will be snatched from under his nose. And, on the one occasion
+when I can earn a few honest centimes, that would be most annoying."
+
+"And, if they arrest you?"
+
+"No go! I'm dead!"
+
+"Lupin is dead. But Perenna is alive."
+
+"As they haven't arrested me to-day, I'm easy in my mind."
+
+"It's only put off. And the orders are strict from this moment onward.
+They mean to surround your house and to keep watch day and night."
+
+"Capital. I always was frightened at night."
+
+"But, good Lord! what are you hoping for?"
+
+"I hope for nothing, Alexandre. I am sure. I am sure now that they will
+not dare arrest me."
+
+"Do you imagine that Weber will stand on ceremony?"
+
+"I don't care a hang about Weber. Without orders, Weber can do nothing."
+
+"But they'll give him his orders."
+
+"The order to shadow me, yes; to arrest me, no. The Prefect of Police has
+committed himself about me to such an extent that he will be obliged to
+back me up. And then there's this: the whole affair is so absurd, so
+complicated, that you people will never find your way out of it alone.
+Sooner or later, you will come and fetch me. For there is no one but
+myself able to fight such adversaries as these: not you nor Weber, nor
+any of your pals at the detective office. I shall expect your visit,
+Alexandre."
+
+On the next day an expert examination identified the tooth prints on the
+two apples and likewise established the fact that the print on the cake
+of chocolate was similar to the others.
+
+Also, the driver of a taxicab came and gave evidence that a lady engaged
+him as she left the opera, told him to drive her straight to the end of
+the Avenue Henri Martin, and left the cab on reaching that spot.
+
+Now the end of the Avenue Henri Martin was within five minutes' walk of
+the Fauvilles' house.
+
+The man was brought into Mme. Fauville's presence and recognized
+her at once.
+
+What had she done in that neighbourhood for over an hour?
+
+Marie Fauville was taken to the central lockup, was entered on the
+register, and slept, that night, at the Saint-Lazare prison.
+
+That same day, when the reporters were beginning to publish details of
+the investigation, such as the discovery of the tooth prints, but when
+they did not yet know to whom to attribute them, two of the leading
+dailies used as a headline for their article the very words which Don
+Luis Perenna had employed to describe the marks on the apple, the
+sinister words which so well suggested the fierce, savage, and so to
+speak, brutal character of the incident:
+
+"THE TEETH OF THE TIGER."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+THE IRON CURTAIN
+
+
+It is sometimes an ungrateful task to tell the story of Arsène Lupin's
+life, for the reason that each of his adventures is partly known to the
+public, having at the time formed the subject of much eager comment,
+whereas his biographer is obliged, if he would throw light upon what is
+not known, to begin at the beginning and to relate in full detail all
+that which is already public property.
+
+It is because of this necessity that I am compelled to speak once more of
+the extreme excitement which the news of that shocking series of crimes
+created in France, in Europe and throughout the civilized world. The
+public heard of four murders practically all at once, for the particulars
+of Cosmo Mornington's will were published two days later.
+
+There was no doubt that the same person had killed Cosmo Mornington,
+Inspector Vérot, Fauville the engineer, and his son Edmond. The same
+person had made the identical sinister bite, leaving against himself or
+herself, with a heedlessness that seemed to show the avenging hand of
+fate, a most impressive and incriminating proof, a proof which made
+people shudder as they would have shuddered at the awful reality: the
+marks of his or her teeth, the teeth of the tiger!
+
+And, in the midst of all this bloodshed, at the most tragic moment
+of the dismal tragedy, behold the strangest of figures emerging from
+the darkness!
+
+An heroic adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight,
+had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot,
+divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of
+Inspector Vérot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own
+hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature whose beautiful white
+teeth fitted the marks as precious stones fit their settings, received a
+cheque for a million francs on the day after these exploits and, finally,
+found himself the probable heir to an immense fortune.
+
+And here was Arsène Lupin coming to life again!
+
+For the public made no mistake about that, and, with wonderful intuition,
+proclaimed aloud that Don Luis Perenna was Arsène Lupin, before a close
+examination of the facts had more or less confirmed the supposition.
+
+"But he's dead!" objected the doubters.
+
+To which the others replied:
+
+"Yes, Dolores Kesselbach's corpse was recovered under the still smoking
+ruins of a little chalet near the Luxemburg frontier and, with it, the
+corpse of a man whom the police identified as Arsène Lupin. But
+everything goes to show that the whole scene was contrived by Lupin, who,
+for reasons of his own, wanted to be thought dead. And everything shows
+that the police accepted and legalized the theory of his death only
+because they wished to be rid of their everlasting adversary.
+
+"As a proof, we have the confidences made by Valenglay, who was Prime
+Minister at the time and whom the chances of politics have just replaced
+at the head of the government. And there is the mysterious incident on
+the island of Capri when the German Emperor, just as he was about to be
+buried under a landslip, was saved by a hermit who, according to the
+German version, was none other than Arsène Lupin."
+
+To this came a fresh objection:
+
+"Very well; but read the newspapers of the time: ten minutes
+afterward, the hermit flung himself into the sea from Tiberius' Leap."
+And the answer:
+
+"Yes, but the body was never found. And, as it happens, we know that a
+steamer picked up a man who was making signals to her and that this
+steamer was on her way to Algiers. Well, a few days later, Don Luis
+Perenna enlisted in the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbes."
+
+Of course, the controversy upon which the newspapers embarked on this
+subject was carried on discreetly. Everybody was afraid of Lupin; and the
+journalists maintained a certain reserve in their articles, confined
+themselves to comparing dates and pointing out coincidences, and
+refrained from speaking too positively of any Lupin that might lie hidden
+under the mask of Perenna.
+
+But, as regards the private in the Foreign Legion and his stay in
+Morocco, they took their revenge and let themselves go freely.
+
+Major d'Astrignac had spoken. Other officers, other comrades of
+Perenna's, related what they had seen. The reports and daily orders
+concerning him were published. And what became known as "The Hero's
+Idyll" began to take the form of a sort of record each page of which
+described the maddest and unlikeliest of facts.
+
+At Médiouna, on the twenty-fourth of March, the adjutant, Captain Pollex,
+awarded Private Perenna four days' cells on a charge of having broken out
+of camp past two sentries after evening roll call, contrary to orders,
+and being absent without leave until noon on the following day. Perenna,
+the report went on to say, brought back the body of his sergeant, killed
+in ambush. And in the margin was this note, in the colonel's hand:
+
+"The colonel commanding doubles Private Perenna's award, but mentions his
+name in orders and congratulates and thanks him."
+
+After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being
+obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna
+asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a _kasbah_.
+
+"How many men do you want, Perenna?"
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"What! Surely you don't propose to cover a retreat all by yourself?"
+
+"What pleasure would there be in dying, sir, if others were to die as
+well as I?"
+
+At his request, they left him a dozen rifles, and divided with him the
+cartridges that remained. His share came to seventy-five.
+
+The detachment got away without being further molested. Next day, when
+they were able to return with reinforcements, they surprised the Moors
+lying in wait around the _kasbah_, but afraid to approach. The ground was
+covered with seventy-five of their killed.
+
+Our men drove them off. They found Private Perenna stretched on the floor
+of the _kasbah_. They thought him dead. He was asleep!
+
+He had not a single cartridge left. But each of his seventy-five bullets
+had gone home.
+
+What struck the imagination of the public most, however, was Major Comte
+d'Astrignac's story of the battle of Dar-Dbibarh. The major confessed
+that this battle, which relieved Fez at the moment when we thought that
+all was lost and which created such a sensation in France, was won before
+it was fought and that it was won by Perenna, alone!
+
+At daybreak, when the Moorish tribes were preparing for the attack,
+Private Perenna lassoed an Arab horse that was galloping across the
+plain, sprang on the animal, which had no saddle, bridle, nor any sort of
+harness, and without jacket, cap, or arms, with his white shirt bulging
+out and a cigarette between his teeth, charged, with his hands in his
+trousers-pockets!
+
+He charged straight toward the enemy, galloped through their camp, riding
+in and out among the tents, and then left it by the same place by which
+he had gone in.
+
+This quite inconceivable death ride spread such consternation among the
+Moors that their attack was half-hearted and the battle was won without
+resistance.
+
+This, together with numberless other feats of bravado, went to make up
+the heroic legend of Perenna. It threw into relief the superhuman energy,
+the marvellous recklessness, the bewildering fancy, the spirit of
+adventure, the physical dexterity, and the coolness of a singularly
+mysterious individual whom it was impossible not to take for Arsène
+Lupin, but a new and greater Arsène Lupin, dignified, idealized, and
+ennobled by his exploits.
+
+One morning, a fortnight after the double murder in the Boulevard
+Suchet, this extraordinary man, who aroused such eager interest and who
+was spoken of on every side as a fabulous and more or less impossible
+being: one morning, Don Luis Perenna dressed himself and went the rounds
+of his house.
+
+It was a comfortable and roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at
+the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count
+Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and
+taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle.
+Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get
+rid of the visitors--journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers--attracted
+by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.
+
+After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked
+across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the
+windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this
+mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one
+whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
+
+"Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this
+has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."
+
+He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up,
+after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making
+notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for
+interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.
+
+"Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."
+
+She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and
+Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that
+referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the
+proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.
+
+Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had
+attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave
+and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of
+her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a
+cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a
+halo of light and gayety around her.
+
+Her voice had a soft and musical tone which Perenna loved to hear; and,
+himself a little perplexed by Mlle. Levasseur's attitude of reserve, he
+wondered what she could think of him, of his mode of life, and of all
+that the newspapers had to tell of his mysterious past.
+
+"Nothing new?" he asked, as he glanced at the headings of the articles.
+
+She read the reports relating to Mme. Fauville; and Don Luis could see
+that the police investigations were making no headway. Marie Fauville
+still kept to her first method, that of weeping, making a show of
+indignation, and assuming entire ignorance of the facts upon which she
+was being examined.
+
+"It's ridiculous," he said, aloud. "I have never seen any one defend
+herself so clumsily."
+
+"Still, if she's innocent?"
+
+It was the first time that Mlle. Levasseur had uttered an opinion or
+rather a remark upon the case. Don Luis looked at her in great surprise.
+
+"So you think her innocent, Mademoiselle?"
+
+She seemed ready to reply and to explain the meaning of her
+interruption. It was as though she were removing her impassive mask and
+about to allow her face to adopt a more animated expression under the
+impulse of her inner feelings. But she restrained herself with a visible
+effort, and murmured:
+
+"I don't know. I have no views."
+
+"Possibly," he said, watching her with curiosity, "but you have a doubt:
+a doubt which would be permissible if it were not for the marks left by
+Mme. Fauville's own teeth. Those marks, you see, are something more than
+a signature, more than a confession of guilt. And, as long as she is
+unable to give a satisfactory explanation of this point--"
+
+But Marie Fauville vouchsafed not the slightest explanation of this or of
+anything else. She remained impenetrable. On the other hand, the police
+failed to discover her accomplice or accomplices, or the man with the
+ebony walking-stick and the tortoise-shell glasses whom the waiter at the
+Café du Pont-Neuf had described to Mazeroux and who seemed to have played
+a singularly suspicious part. In short, there was not a ray of light
+thrown upon the subject.
+
+Equally vain was all search for the traces of Victor, the Roussel
+sister's first cousin, who would have inherited the Mornington bequest in
+the absence of any direct heirs.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Perenna.
+
+"No," said Mlle. Levasseur, "there is an article in the _Echo de
+France_--"
+
+"Relating to me?"
+
+"I presume so, Monsieur. It is called, 'Why Don't They Arrest Him?'"
+
+"That concerns me," he said, with a laugh.
+
+He took the newspaper and read:
+
+"Why do they not arrest him? Why go against logic and prolong an
+unnatural situation which no decent man can understand? This is the
+question which everybody is asking and to which our investigations enable
+us to furnish a precise reply.
+
+"Two years ago, in other words, three years after the pretended death of
+Arsène Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had
+discovered that Arsène Lupin was really none other than one Floriani,
+born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be
+inscribed, on the page relating to this Floriani, with the word
+'Deceased,' followed by the words 'Under the alias of Arsène Lupin.'
+
+"Consequently, to bring Arsène Lupin back to life, there would be wanted
+something more than the undeniable proof of his existence, which would
+not be impossible. The most complicated wheels in the administrative
+machine would have to be set in motion, and a decree obtained from the
+Council of State.
+
+"Now it would seem that M. Valenglay, the Prime Minister, together with
+the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries
+capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to
+avoid. Bring Arsène Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with
+that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? No, no,
+and again no!
+
+"And thus is brought about this unprecedented, inadmissible,
+inconceivable, disgraceful situation, that Arsène Lupin, the hardened
+thief, the impenitent criminal, the robber-king, the emperor of burglars
+and swindlers, is able to-day, not clandestinely, but in the sight and
+hearing of the whole world, to pursue the most formidable task that he
+has yet undertaken, to live publicly under a name which is not his own,
+but which he has incontestably made his own, to destroy with impunity
+four persons who stood in his way, to cause the imprisonment of an
+innocent woman against whom he himself has accumulated false evidence,
+and at the end of all, despite the protests of common sense and thanks
+to an unavowed complicity, to receive the hundred millions of the
+Mornington legacy.
+
+"There is the ignominious truth in a nutshell. It is well that it should
+be stated. Let us hope, now that it stands revealed, that it will
+influence the future conduct of events."
+
+"At any rate, it will influence the conduct of the idiot who wrote that
+article," said Lupin, with a grin.
+
+He dismissed Mlle. Levasseur and rang up Major d'Astrignac on the
+telephone.
+
+"Is that you, Major? Perenna speaking."
+
+"Yes, what is it?"
+
+"Have you read the article in the _Echo de France_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Would it bore you very much to call on that gentleman and ask for
+satisfaction in my name?"
+
+"Oh! A duel!"
+
+"It's got to be, Major. All these sportsmen are wearying me with their
+lucubrations. They must be gagged. This fellow will pay for the rest."
+
+"Well, of course, if you're bent on it--"
+
+"I am, very much."
+
+       *       *       *       *        *
+
+The preliminaries were entered upon without delay. The editor of the
+_Echo de France_ declared that the article had been sent in without a
+signature, typewritten, and that it had been published without his
+knowledge; but he accepted the entire responsibility.
+
+That same day, at three o'clock, Don Luis Perenna, accompanied by Major
+d'Astrignac, another officer, and a doctor, left the house in the Place
+du Palais-Bourbon in his car, and, followed by a taxi crammed with the
+detectives engaged in watching him, drove to the Parc des Princes.
+
+While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac
+took Don Luis aside.
+
+"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much
+truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real
+name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care
+about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that,
+whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be
+to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing
+that worries me."
+
+"Speak out, Major."
+
+"Give me your word that you won't kill this man."
+
+"Two months in bed, Major; will that suit you?"
+
+"Too long. A fortnight."
+
+"Done."
+
+The two adversaries took up their positions. At the second encounter, the
+editor of the _Echo de France_ fell, wounded in the chest.
+
+"Oh, that's too bad of you, Perenna!" growled the Comte d'Astrignac. "You
+promised me--"
+
+"And I've kept my promise, Major."
+
+The doctors were examining the injured man. Presently one of them
+rose and said:
+
+"It's nothing. Three weeks' rest, at most. Only a third of an inch more,
+and he would have been done for."
+
+"Yes, but that third of an inch isn't there," murmured Perenna.
+
+Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the
+Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which
+was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the
+article in the _Echo de France_.
+
+In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to
+the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were
+playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to
+the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper
+round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at
+that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he
+mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.
+
+He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the
+article printed in the _Echo de France_. And the whole article was there,
+written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added,
+struck out, and begun anew.
+
+He called the coachman and asked him:
+
+"Where does this ball of string come from?"
+
+"The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been
+that little she-devil of a Mirza who--"
+
+"And when did you wind the string round the paper?"
+
+"Yesterday evening, Monsieur."
+
+"Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?"
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur, I can't say. I wanted something to wind my
+string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling
+all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night."
+
+Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle.
+Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one
+fact remained: the article in the _Echo de France_ had been written, as
+the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in
+the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house.
+
+The enemy was inside the fortress.
+
+But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
+
+All the remainder of the afternoon Don Luis continued anxious, annoyed by
+the mystery that surrounded him, incensed at his own inaction, and
+especially at that threatened arrest, which certainly caused him no
+uneasiness, but which hampered his movements.
+
+Accordingly, when he was told at about ten o'clock that a man who gave
+the name of Alexandre insisted on seeing him, he had the man shown in;
+and when he found himself face to face with Mazeroux, but Mazeroux
+disguised beyond recognition and huddled in an old cloak, he flung
+himself on him as on a prey, hustling and shaking him.
+
+"So it's you, at last?" he cried. "Well, what did I tell you? You can't
+make head or tail of things at the police office and you've come for me!
+Confess it, you numskull! You've come to fetch me! Oh, how funny it all
+is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and
+that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of
+that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one
+has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you
+answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the
+thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and
+I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by
+my watch. Well, you were saying--"
+
+"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.
+
+"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It
+has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one
+we saw at the Café du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Vérot was
+murdered?"
+
+"Yes, it has."
+
+"Have you found his traces?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, come along, find your tongue!"
+
+"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter.
+There was another customer in the cafe; and this other customer, whom I
+ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard
+him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground
+station for Neuilly."
+
+"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you
+ferreted him out?"
+
+"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule.
+Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind
+him and taking nothing but two trunks."
+
+"What about the post-office?"
+
+"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the
+description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days
+to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters.
+He has not been there for some time."
+
+"Is the correspondence in his name?"
+
+"No, initials."
+
+"Were they able to remember them?"
+
+"Yes: B.R.W.8."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow
+officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that
+a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of
+tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of
+the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme.
+Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the
+crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this--"
+
+"That will do; be off!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Get!"
+
+"Then I don't see you again?"
+
+"Meet me in half an hour outside our man's place."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"Marie Fauville's accomplice."
+
+"But you don't know--"
+
+"The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace,
+No. 8. Go! And don't look such a fool."
+
+He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed
+him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.
+
+He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the
+detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty
+outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab
+to Neuilly.
+
+He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for
+him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a
+courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
+
+"Is this number eight?"
+
+"Yes, Chief, but tell me how--"
+
+"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
+
+He gave two or three great gasps.
+
+"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was
+getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you
+want me to tell you?"
+
+He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
+
+"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person
+is choosing initials for his address at a _poste restante_ he doesn't
+pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a
+meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable
+that other person easily to remember the address."
+
+"And in this case?"
+
+"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the
+neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters,
+'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter.
+So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three
+letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for
+which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the
+English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the
+cocoanut."
+
+Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
+
+"And what do you think, Chief?"
+
+"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the
+first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself ... I say
+to myself ... I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish
+mysterious little hole and that this house--Hush! Listen--"
+
+He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the
+slamming of a door.
+
+Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the
+outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell
+full on his face.
+
+"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
+
+"I believe you're right."
+
+"It's he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did
+you see the eyeglasses--and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!"
+
+"Calm yourself and let's go after him."
+
+The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into
+the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up,
+gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.
+
+At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and
+entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He
+went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that
+took them to Auteuil.
+
+"That's funny," said Mazeroux. "He's doing exactly what he did a
+fortnight ago. This is where he was seen."
+
+The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he
+reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house
+in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.
+
+He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for
+some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then
+continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the
+Bois de Boulogne.
+
+"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
+
+Mazeroux stopped him.
+
+"What do you mean, Chief?"
+
+"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for
+a better moment."
+
+"What! Why, it's impossible!"
+
+"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
+
+"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
+
+"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
+
+"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
+
+"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do
+you want?"
+
+"In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want
+something that I haven't got."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A warrant. I haven't a warrant."
+
+Mazeroux's accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don
+Luis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.
+
+"You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I'll soon show you if I
+need a warrant!"
+
+"You'll show me nothing," cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion's
+arm. "You shan't touch the man."
+
+"One would think he was your mother!"
+
+"Come, Chief."
+
+"But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man," shouted Don Luis, angrily,
+"if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?"
+
+"Easily. He's going home. I'll inform the commissary of police. He will
+telephone to headquarters; and to-morrow morning--"
+
+"And suppose the bird has flown?"
+
+"I have no warrant."
+
+"Do you want me to sign you one, idiot?"
+
+But Don Luis mastered his rage. He felt that all his arguments would be
+shattered to pieces against the sergeant's obstinacy, and that, if
+necessary, Mazeroux would go to the length of defending the enemy against
+him. He simply said in a sententious tone:
+
+"One ass and you make a pair of asses; and there are as many asses as
+there are people who try to do police work with bits of paper,
+signatures, warrants, and other gammon. Police work, my lad, is done with
+one's fists. When you come upon the enemy, hit him. Otherwise, you stand
+a chance of hitting the air. With that, good-night. I'm going to bed.
+Telephone to me when the job is done."
+
+He went home, furious, sick of an adventure in which he had not had elbow
+room, and in which he had had to submit to the will, or, rather, to the
+weakness of others.
+
+But next morning when he woke up his longing to see the police lay hold
+of the man with the ebony stick, and especially the feeling that his
+assistance would be of use, impelled him to dress as quickly as he could.
+
+"If I don't come to the rescue," he thought, "they'll let themselves be
+done in the eye. They're not equal to a contest of this kind."
+
+Just then Mazeroux rang up and asked to speak to him. He rushed to a
+little telephone box which his predecessor had fitted up on the first
+floor, in a dark recess that communicated only with his study, and
+switched on the electric light.
+
+"Is that you, Alexandre?"
+
+"Yes, Chief. I'm speaking from a wine shop near the house on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace."
+
+"What about our man?"
+
+"The bird's still in the nest. But we're only just in time."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, he's packed his trunk. He's going away this morning."
+
+"How do they know?"
+
+"Through the woman who manages for him. She's just come to the house and
+will let us in."
+
+"Does he live alone?"
+
+"Yes, the woman cooks his meals and goes away in the evening. No one ever
+calls except a veiled lady who has paid him three visits since he's been
+here. The housekeeper was not able to see what she was like. As for him,
+she says he's a scholar, who spends his time reading and working."
+
+"And have you a warrant?"
+
+"Yes, we're going to use it."
+
+"I'll come at once."
+
+"You can't! We've got Weber at our head. Oh, by the way, have you heard
+the news about Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"About Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"Yes, she tried to commit suicide last night."
+
+"What! Tried to commit suicide!"
+
+Perenna had uttered an exclamation of astonishment and was very much
+surprised to hear, almost at the same time, another cry, like an echo, at
+his elbow. Without letting go the receiver, he turned round and saw that
+Mlle. Levasseur was in the study a few yards away from him, standing with
+a distorted and livid face. Their eyes met. He was on the point of
+speaking to her, but she moved away, without leaving the room, however.
+
+"What the devil was she listening for?" Don Luis wondered. "And why that
+look of dismay?"
+
+Meanwhile, Mazeroux continued:
+
+"She said, you know, that she would try to kill herself. But it must have
+taken a goodish amount of pluck."
+
+"But how did she do it?" Perenna asked.
+
+"I'll tell you another time. They're calling me. Whatever you do, Chief,
+don't come."
+
+"Yes," he replied, firmly, "I'm coming. After all, the least I can do is
+to be in at the death, seeing that it was I who found the scent. But
+don't be afraid. I shall keep in the background."
+
+"Then hurry, Chief. We're delivering the attack in ten minutes."
+
+"I'll be with you before that."
+
+He quickly hung up the receiver and turned on his heel to leave the
+telephone box. The next moment he had flung himself against the farther
+wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click
+above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape
+being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a
+terrible thud.
+
+Another second and the huge mass would have crushed him. He could feel it
+whizzing by his head. And he had never before experienced the anguish of
+danger so intensely.
+
+After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified,
+with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself
+upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was
+unsurmountable.
+
+It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to
+the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and
+covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of
+rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel
+fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically.
+
+He was a prisoner. In a sudden fit of rage he banged at the metal with
+his fists. He remembered that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study. If she
+had not yet left the room--and surely she could not have left it when the
+thing happened--she would hear the noise. She was bound to hear it. She
+would be sure to come back, give the alarm, and rescue him.
+
+He listened. He shouted. No reply. His voice died away against the walls
+and ceiling of the box in which he was shut up, and he felt that the
+whole house--drawing-rooms, staircases, and passages--remained deaf to
+his appeal.
+
+And yet ... and yet ... Mlle. Levasseur--
+
+"What does it mean?" he muttered. "What can it all mean?"
+
+And motionless now and silent, he thought once more of the girl's strange
+attitude, of her distraught face, of her haggard eyes. And he also began
+to wonder what accident had released the mechanism which had hurled the
+formidable iron curtain upon him, craftily and ruthlessly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
+
+
+A group consisting of Deputy Chief Detective Weber, Chief Inspector
+Ancenis, Sergeant Mazeroux, three inspectors, and the Neuilly commissary
+of police stood outside the gate of No. 8 Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
+
+Mazeroux was watching the Avenue de Madrid, by which Don Luis would have
+to come, and began to wonder what had happened; for half an hour had
+passed since they telephoned to each other, and Mazeroux could find no
+further pretext for delaying the work.
+
+"It's time to make a move," said Weber. "The housekeeper is making
+signals to us from the window: the joker's dressing."
+
+"Why not nab him when he comes out?" objected Mazeroux. "We shall capture
+him in a moment."
+
+"And if he cuts off by another outlet which we don't know of?" said the
+deputy chief. "You have to be careful with these beggars. No, let's beard
+him in his den. It's more certain."
+
+"Still--"
+
+"What's the matter with you, Mazeroux?" asked the deputy chief, taking
+him on one side. "Don't you see that our men are getting restive? They're
+afraid of this sportsman. There's only one way, which is to set them on
+him as if he were a wild beast. Besides, the business must be finished by
+the time the Prefect comes,"
+
+"Is he coming?"
+
+"Yes. He wants to see things for himself. The whole affair interests him
+enormously. So, forward! Are you ready, men? I'm going to ring."
+
+The bell sounded; and the housekeeper at once came and half opened the
+gate.
+
+Although the orders were to observe great quiet, so as not to alarm the
+enemy too soon, the fear which he inspired was so intense that there
+was a general rush; and all the detectives crowded into the courtyard,
+ready for the fight. But a window opened and some one cried from the
+second floor:
+
+"What's happening?"
+
+The deputy chief did not reply. Two detectives, the chief inspector, the
+commissary, and himself entered the house, while the others remained in
+the courtyard and made any attempt at flight impossible.
+
+The meeting took place on the first floor. The man had come down, fully
+dressed, with his hat on his head; and the deputy chief roared:
+
+"Stop! Hands up! Are you Hubert Lautier?"
+
+The man seemed disconcerted. Five revolvers were levelled at him. And yet
+no sign of fear showed in his face; and he simply said:
+
+"What do you want, Monsieur? What are you here for?"
+
+"We are here in the name of the law, with a warrant for your arrest."
+
+"A warrant for my arrest?"
+
+"A warrant for the arrest of Hubert Lautier, residing at 8 Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace."
+
+"But it's absurd!" said the man. "It's incredible! What does it mean?
+What for?"
+
+They took him by both arms, without his offering the least resistance,
+pushed him into a fairly large room containing no furniture but three
+rush-bottomed chairs, an armchair, and a table covered with big books.
+
+"There," said the deputy chief. "Don't stir. If you attempt to move, so
+much the worse for you."
+
+The man made no protest. While the two detectives held him by the
+collar, he seemed to be reflecting, as though he were trying to
+understand the secret causes of an arrest for which he was totally
+unprepared. He had an intelligent face, a reddish-brown beard, and a
+pair of blue-gray eyes which now and again showed a certain hardness of
+expression behind his glasses. His broad shoulders and powerful neck
+pointed to physical strength.
+
+"Shall we tie his wrists?" Mazeroux asked the deputy chief.
+
+"One second. The Prefect's coming; I can hear him. Have you searched the
+man's pockets? Any weapons?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No flask, no phial? Nothing suspicious?"
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+M. Desmalions arrived and, while watching the prisoner's face, talked
+in a low voice with the deputy chief and received the particulars of
+the arrest.
+
+"This is good business," he said. "We wanted this. Now that both
+accomplices are in custody, they will have to speak; and everything will
+be cleared up. So there was no resistance?"
+
+"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"No matter, we will remain on our guard."
+
+The prisoner had not uttered a word, but still wore a thoughtful look, as
+though trying to understand the inexplicable events of the last few
+minutes. Nevertheless, when he realized that the newcomer was none other
+than the Prefect of Police, he raised his head and looked at M.
+Desmalions, who asked him:
+
+"It is unnecessary to tell you the cause of your arrest, I presume?"
+
+He replied, in a deferential tone:
+
+"Excuse me, Monsieur le Préfet, but I must ask you, on the contrary, to
+inform me. I have not the least idea of the reason. Your detectives have
+made a grave mistake which a word, no doubt, will be enough to set right.
+That word I wish for, I insist upon--"
+
+The Prefect shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"You are suspected of taking part in the murder of Fauville, the civil
+engineer, and his son Edmond."
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead?"
+
+The cry was spontaneous, almost unconscious; a bewildered cry of dismay
+from a man moved to the depths of his being. And his dismay was supremely
+strange, his question, trying to make them believe in his ignorance,
+supremely unexpected.
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead?"
+
+He repeated the question in a hoarse voice, trembling all over as he
+spoke.
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead? What are you saying? Is it possible that he can be
+dead? And how? Murdered? Edmond, too?"
+
+The Prefect once more shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The mere fact of your calling M. Fauville by his Christian name shows
+that you knew him intimately. And, even if you were not concerned in his
+murder, it has been mentioned often enough in the newspapers during the
+last fortnight for you to know of it."
+
+"I never read a newspaper, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"What! You mean to tell me--?"
+
+"It may sound improbable, but it is quite true. I lead an industrious
+life, occupying myself solely with scientific research, in view of a
+popular work which I am preparing, and I do not take the least part or
+the least interest in outside things. I defy any one to prove that I have
+read a newspaper for months and months past. And that is why I am
+entitled to say that I did not know of Hippolyte Fauville's murder."
+
+"Still, you knew M. Fauville."
+
+"I used to know him, but we quarrelled."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Family affairs."
+
+"Family affairs! Were you related, then?"
+
+"Yes. Hippolyte was my cousin."
+
+"Your cousin! M. Fauville was your cousin! But ... but then ... Come, let
+us have the rights of the matter. M. Fauville and his wife were the
+children of two sisters, Elizabeth and Armande Roussel. Those two sisters
+had been brought up with a first cousin called Victor."
+
+"Yes, Victor Sauverand, whose grandfather was a Roussel. Victor Sauverand
+married abroad and had two sons. One of them died fifteen years ago; the
+other is myself."
+
+M. Desmalions gave a start. His excitement was manifest. If that man was
+telling the truth, if he was really the son of that Victor whose record
+the police had not yet been able to trace, then, owing to this very fact,
+since M. Fauville and his son were dead and Mme. Fauville, so to speak,
+convicted of murder and forfeiting her rights, they had arrested the
+final heir to Cosmo Mornington. But why, in a moment of madness, had he
+voluntarily brought this crushing indictment against himself?
+
+He continued:
+
+"My statements seem to surprise you, Monsieur le Préfet. Perhaps they
+throw a light on the mistake of which I am a victim?"
+
+He expressed himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably
+well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his
+revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures taken
+against him.
+
+Without replying to the question, the Prefect of Police asked him:
+
+"So your real name is--"
+
+"Gaston Sauverand."
+
+"Why do you call yourself Hubert Lautier?"
+
+The man had a second of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted
+an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes
+flickered and he said:
+
+"That does not concern the police; it concerns no one but myself."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled:
+
+"That is a poor argument. Will you use the same when I ask you why you
+live in hiding, why you left the Avenue du Roule, where you used to live,
+without leaving an address behind you, and why you receive your letters
+at the post-office under initials?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, those are matters of a private character, which
+affect only my conscience. You have no right to question me about them."
+
+"That is the exact reply which we are constantly receiving at every
+moment from your accomplice."
+
+"My accomplice?"
+
+"Yes, Mme. Fauville."
+
+"Mme. Fauville!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand had uttered the same cry as when he heard of the death
+of the engineer; and his stupefaction seemed even greater, combined as it
+was with an anguish that distorted his features beyond recognition.
+
+"What?... What?... What do you say? Marie!... No, you don't mean it! It's
+not true!"
+
+M. Desmalions considered it useless to reply, so absurd and childish
+was this affectation of knowing nothing about the tragedy on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Gaston Sauverand, beside himself, with his eyes starting from his
+head, muttered:
+
+"Is it true? Is Marie the victim of the same mistake as myself? Perhaps
+they have arrested her? She, she in prison!"
+
+He raised his clenched fists in a threatening manner against all the
+unknown enemies by whom he was surrounded, against those who were
+persecuting him, those who had murdered Hippolyte Fauville and delivered
+Marie Fauville to the police.
+
+Mazeroux and Chief Inspector Ancenis took hold of him roughly. He made a
+movement of resistance, as though he intended to thrust back his
+aggressors. But it was only momentary; and he sank into a chair and
+covered his face with his hands:
+
+"What a mystery!" he stammered. "I don't understand! I don't
+understand--"
+
+Weber, who had gone out a few minutes before, returned. M.
+Desmalions asked:
+
+"Is everything ready?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, I have had the taxi brought up to the gate
+beside your car."
+
+"How many of you are there?"
+
+"Eight. Two detectives have just arrived from the commissary's."
+
+"Have you searched the house?"
+
+"Yes. It's almost empty, however. There's nothing but the indispensable
+articles of furniture and some bundles of papers in the bedroom."
+
+"Very well. Take him away and keep a sharp lookout."
+
+Gaston Sauverand walked off quietly between the deputy chief and
+Mazeroux. He turned round in the doorway.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, as you are making a search, I entreat you to take
+care of the papers on the table in my bedroom. They are notes that have
+cost me a great deal of labour in the small hours of the night. Also--"
+
+He hesitated, obviously embarrassed.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I must tell you--something--"
+
+He was looking for his words and seemed to fear the consequences of them
+at the same time that he uttered them. But he suddenly made up his mind.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, there is in this house--somewhere--a packet of
+letters which I value more than my life. It is possible that those
+letters, if misinterpreted, will furnish a weapon against me; but no
+matter. The great thing is that they should be safe. You will see. They
+include documents of extreme importance. I entrust them to your
+keeping--to yours alone, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"The hiding-place is easily found. All you have to do is to go to the
+garret above my bedroom and press on a nail to the right of the window.
+It is an apparently useless nail, but it controls a hiding-place outside,
+under the slates of the roof, along the gutter."
+
+He moved away between the two men. The Prefect called them back.
+
+"One second. Mazeroux, go up to the garret and bring me the letters."
+
+Mazeroux went out and returned in a few minutes. He had been unable to
+work the spring.
+
+The Prefect ordered Chief Inspector Ancenis to go up with Mazeroux and to
+take the prisoner, who would show them how to open the hiding-place. He
+himself remained in the room with Weber, awaiting the result of the
+search, and began to read the titles of the volumes piled upon the table.
+
+They were scientific books, among which he noticed works on chemistry:
+"Organic Chemistry" and "Chemistry Considered in Its Relations with
+Electricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He was
+turning over the pages of one of them, when he seemed to hear shouts.
+
+The Prefect rushed to the door, but had not crossed the threshold when a
+pistol shot echoed down the staircase and there was a yell of pain.
+
+Immediately after came two more shots, accompanied by cries, the sound of
+a struggle, and yet another shot.
+
+Tearing upstairs, four steps at a time, with an agility not to be
+expected from a man of his build, the Prefect of Police, followed by the
+deputy chief, covered the second flight and came to a third, which was
+narrower and steeper. When he reached the bend, a man's body, staggering
+above him, fell into his arms: it was Mazeroux, wounded.
+
+On the stairs lay another body, lifeless, that of Chief Inspector
+Ancenis.
+
+Above them, in the frame of a small doorway, stood Gaston Sauverand, with
+a savage look on his face and his arm outstretched. He fired a fifth shot
+at random. Then, seeing the Prefect of Police, he took deliberate aim.
+
+The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and
+gave himself up for lost. But, at that exact second, a shot was
+discharged from behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before
+he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man
+who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body,
+propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the
+detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.
+
+Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated,
+but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and
+leaping into space from the third floor.
+
+"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall
+never capture him alive!"
+
+"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Préfet. See, he's picking himself
+up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the
+gate. He's hardly limping."
+
+"But where are my men?"
+
+"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the
+shots, seeing to the wounded--"
+
+"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.
+
+"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.
+
+There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide
+at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief
+had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their
+seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's
+leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain
+number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap
+the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed
+at the fugitive.
+
+"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.
+
+The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last
+long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from
+him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he
+ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at
+last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the
+detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.
+
+When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief
+inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second
+floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few
+minutes later he was dead.
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being
+dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to
+the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly
+into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout
+aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the
+chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the
+murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit
+the sergeant in the shoulder.
+
+And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced
+detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to
+possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of
+unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled
+both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast
+clear, escaped.
+
+M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed:
+
+"He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were
+all shams. Oh, the scoundrel!"
+
+He went down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. On the boulevard
+he met one of the detectives who had given chase to the murderer and who
+was returning quite out of breath.
+
+"Well?" he asked anxiously,
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, he turned down the first street, where there was a
+motor waiting for him. The engine must have been working, for our man
+outdistanced us at once."
+
+"But what about my car?"
+
+"You see, Monsieur le Préfet, by the time it was started--"
+
+"Was the motor that picked him up a hired one?"
+
+"Yes, a taxi."
+
+"Then we shall find it. The driver will come of his own accord when he
+has seen the newspapers."
+
+Weber shook his head.
+
+"Unless the driver is himself a confederate, Monsieur le Préfet.
+Besides, even if we find the cab, aren't we bound to suppose that Gaston
+Sauverand will know how to front the scent? We shall have trouble,
+Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Yes," whispered Don Luis, who had been present at the first
+investigation and who was left alone for a moment with Mazeroux. "Yes,
+you will have trouble, especially if you let the people you capture take
+to their heels. Eh, Mazeroux, what did I tell you last night? But, still,
+what a scoundrel! And he's not alone, Alexandre. I'll answer for it that
+he has accomplices--and not a hundred yards from my house--do you
+understand? From my house."
+
+After questioning Mazeroux upon Sauverand's attitude and the other
+incidents of the arrest, Don Luis went back to the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The inquiry which he had to make related to events that were certainly
+quite as strange as those which he had just witnessed; and while the
+part played by Gaston Sauverand in the pursuit of the Mornington
+inheritance deserved all his attention, the behaviour of Mlle. Levasseur
+puzzled him no less.
+
+He could not forget the cry of terror that escaped the girl while he was
+telephoning to Mazeroux, nor the scared expression of her face. Now it
+was impossible to attribute that cry and that expression to anything
+other than the words which he had uttered in reply to Mazeroux:
+
+"What! Mme. Fauville tried to commit suicide!"
+
+The fact was certain; and the connection between the announcement of the
+attempt and Mlle. Levasseur's extreme emotion was too obvious for Perenna
+not to try to draw conclusions.
+
+He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to
+the telephone box. This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low,
+had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn
+up, leaving the arch uncovered. Under the hanging, among the moldings of
+the cornice, was a button that had only to be pressed to bring down the
+iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.
+
+He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments
+proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in
+perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention. Was he
+then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him? But what could
+be her motive?
+
+He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the
+explanation which he was resolved to demand from her. However, the
+minutes passed and he did not ring. He saw her through the window as she
+walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her
+hips. A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.
+
+All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars. He was ill
+at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one
+of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them
+seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling. Eager to act, the
+moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers
+of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his
+adversaries.
+
+But, at twelve o'clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered
+the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which
+showed that the household was aware of Don Luis's ambiguous position:
+
+"Sir, it's the Prefect of Police!"
+
+"Eh?" said Perenna. "Where is he?"
+
+"Downstairs, sir. I did not know what to do, at first ... and I thought
+of telling Mlle. Levasseur. But--"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Here is his card, sir."
+
+Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions's name. He
+went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror,
+looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Half a dozen men were walking
+about. He recognized them. They were his usual watchers, those whom he
+had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their
+observation.
+
+"No others?" he said to himself. "Come, we have nothing to fear, and the
+Prefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me. It was what
+I expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life."
+
+M. Desmalions entered without a word. All that he did was to bend his
+head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow. As for
+Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to
+disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.
+
+Don Luis took no direct notice of this attitude, but, in revenge,
+ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair. M.
+Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands
+behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.
+
+The silence was prolonged. Don Luis waited patiently. Then, suddenly, the
+Prefect stopped and said:
+
+"When you left the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Monsieur, did you go
+straight home?"
+
+Don Luis did not demur to this cross-examining manner and answered:
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Here, to your study?"
+
+"Here, to my study."
+
+M. Desmalions paused and then went on:
+
+"I left thirty or forty minutes after you and drove to the police office
+in my car. There I received this express letter. Read it. You will see
+that it was handed in at the Bourse at half-past nine."
+
+Don Luis took the letter and read the following words, written in
+capital letters:
+
+This is to inform you that Gaston Sauverand, after making his escape,
+rejoined his accomplice Perenna, who, as you know, is none other than
+Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin gave you Sauverand's address in order to get
+rid of him and to receive the Mornington inheritance. They were
+reconciled this morning, and Arsène Lupin suggested a safe hiding-place
+to Sauverand. It is easy to prove their meeting and their complicity.
+Sauverand handed Lupin the half of the walking-stick which he had carried
+away unawares. You will find it under the cushions of a sofa standing
+between the two windows of Perenna's study.
+
+Don Luis shrugged his shoulders. The letter was absurd; for he had not
+once left his study. He folded it up quietly and handed it to the Prefect
+of Police without comment. He was resolved to let M. Desmalions take the
+initiative in the conversation.
+
+The Prefect asked:
+
+"What is your reply to the accusation?"
+
+"None, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Still, it is quite plain and easy to prove or disprove."
+
+"Very easy, indeed, Monsieur le Préfet; the sofa is there, between
+the windows."
+
+M. Desmalions waited two or three seconds and then walked to the sofa and
+moved the cushions. Under one of them lay the handle end of the
+walking-stick.
+
+Don Luis could not repress a gesture of amazement and anger. He had not
+for a second contemplated the possibility of such a miracle; and it took
+him unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing
+to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had
+been seen in Gaston Sauverand's hands and which Sauverand had carried
+away by mistake.
+
+"I have the other half on me," said the Prefect of Police, replying to
+the unspoken objection. "Deputy Chief Weber himself picked it up on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace. Here it is."
+
+He produced it from the inside pocket of his overcoat and tried it. The
+ends of the two pieces fitted exactly.
+
+There was a fresh pause. Perenna was confused, as were those, invariably,
+upon whom he himself used to inflict this kind of defeat and humiliation.
+He could not get over it. By what prodigy had Gaston Sauverand managed,
+in that short space of twenty minutes, to enter the house and make his
+way into this room? Even the theory of an accomplice living in the house
+did not do much to make the phenomenon easier to understand.
+
+"It upsets all my calculations," he thought, "and I shall have to go
+through the mill this time. I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville's
+accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise. But M. Desmalions will
+never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has
+tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me
+and procuring my arrest."
+
+"Well," exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, "answer! Defend yourself!"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, it is not for me to defend myself,"
+
+M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled:
+
+"In that case ... in that case ... since you confess ... since--"
+
+He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it. A whistle,
+and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.
+
+"Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Préfet?" asked Don
+Luis.
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. He let go the window latch and started
+walking about the room again. And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering
+why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself
+in front of him, and said:
+
+"And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not
+having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless
+proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise
+yourself? Suppose I took only the services which you have already
+rendered us into consideration? In a word, suppose I left you free?"
+
+Perenna could not help smiling. Notwithstanding the affair of the
+walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment
+when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course
+which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to
+Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet. They wanted him.
+
+"Free?" he asked. "No more supervision? Nobody shadowing my movements?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers
+succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain
+coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures
+against me?"
+
+"Those measures shall not be taken."
+
+"Then I have nothing to fear?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?"
+
+"At any rate, he will act as though he did, won't you, Weber?"
+
+The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an
+expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed:
+
+"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure of gaining the victory and
+of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the
+authorities."
+
+And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of
+exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis
+Perenna's superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had
+already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to
+back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak,
+the command of affairs.
+
+It was a flattering compliment. Was it addressed only to Don Luis
+Perenna? And had Lupin, the terrible, undaunted Lupin, no right to claim
+his share? Was it possible to believe that M. Desmalions, in his heart of
+hearts, did not admit the identity of the two persons?
+
+Nothing in the Prefect's attitude gave any clue to his secret thoughts.
+He was suggesting to Don Luis Perenna one of those compacts which the
+police are often obliged to conclude in order to gain their ends. The
+compact was concluded, and no more was said upon the subject.
+
+"Do you want any particulars of me?" asked the Prefect of Police.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. The papers spoke of a notebook found in poor
+Inspector Vérot's pocket. Did the notebook contain a clue of any kind?"
+
+"No. Personal notes, lists of disbursements, that's all. Wait, I was
+forgetting, there was a photograph of a woman, about which I have not yet
+been able to obtain the least information. Besides, I don't suppose that
+it bears upon the case and I have not sent it to the newspapers. Look,
+here it is."
+
+Perenna took the photograph which the Prefect handed him and gave a start
+that did not escape M. Desmalions's eye.
+
+"Do you know the lady?"
+
+"No. No, Monsieur le Préfet. I thought I did; but no, there's merely a
+resemblance--a family likeness, which I will verify if you can leave the
+photograph with me till this evening."
+
+"Till this evening, yes. When you have done with it, give it back to
+Sergeant Mazeroux, whom I will order to work in concert with you in
+everything that relates to the Mornington case."
+
+The interview was now over. The Prefect went away. Don Luis saw him to
+the door. As M. Desmalions was about to go down the steps, he turned and
+said simply:
+
+"You saved my life this morning. But for you, that scoundrel Sauverand--"
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet!" said Don Luis, modestly protesting.
+
+"Yes, I know, you are in the habit of doing that sort of thing. All the
+same, you must accept my thanks."
+
+And the Prefect of Police made a bow such as he would really have made to
+Don Luis Perenna, the Spanish noble, the hero of the Foreign Legion. As
+for Weber, he put his two hands in his pockets, walked past with the look
+of a muzzled mastiff, and gave his enemy a glance of fierce hatred.
+
+"By Jupiter!" thought Don Luis. "There's a fellow who won't miss me when
+he gets the chance to shoot!"
+
+Looking through a window, he saw M. Desmalions's motor car drive off. The
+detectives fell in behind the deputy chief and left the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. The siege was raised.
+
+"And now to work!" said Don Luis. "My hands are free, and we shall make
+things hum."
+
+He called the butler.
+
+"Serve lunch; and ask Mlle. Levasseur to come and speak to me
+immediately after."
+
+He went to the dining-room and sat down, placing on the table the
+photograph which M. Desmalions had left behind; and, bending over it, he
+examined it attentively. It was a little faded, a little worn, as
+photographs have a tendency to become when they lie about in pocket-books
+or among papers; but the picture was quite clear. It was the radiant
+picture of a young woman in evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders,
+with flowers and leaves in her hair and a smile upon her face.
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur, Mlle. Levasseur," he said. "Is it possible!"
+
+In a corner was a half-obliterated and hardly visible signature. He made
+out, "Florence," the girl's name, no doubt. And he repeated:
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur, Florence Levasseur. How did her photograph come to be
+in Inspector Vérot's pocket-book? And what is the connection between
+this adventure and the reader of the Hungarian count from whom I took
+over the house?"
+
+He remembered the incident of the iron curtain. He remembered the article
+in the _Echo de France_, an article aimed against him, of which he had
+found the rough draft in his own courtyard. And, above all, he thought of
+the problem of that broken walking-stick conveyed into his study.
+
+And, while his mind was striving to read these events clearly, while he
+tried to settle the part played by Mlle. Levasseur, his eyes remained
+fixed upon the photograph and he gazed absent-mindedly at the pretty
+lines of the mouth, the charming smile, the graceful curve of the neck,
+the admirable sweep of the shoulders.
+
+The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room.
+Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of
+water which he had just filled for himself. She sprang forward, seized
+his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it
+smashed to pieces.
+
+"Have you drunk any of it? Have you drunk any of it?" she gasped, in a
+choking voice.
+
+He replied:
+
+"No, not yet. Why?"
+
+She stammered:
+
+"The water in that bottle ... the water in that bottle--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It's poisoned!"
+
+He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely:
+
+"What's that? Poisoned! Are you certain? Speak!"
+
+In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed.
+Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants
+whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Vérot, the
+corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though
+he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have
+escaped the deadly action of this. It was a poison that did not forgive,
+that killed, surely and fatally.
+
+The girl was silent. He raised his voice in command:
+
+"Answer me! Are you certain?"
+
+"No ... it was an idea that entered my head--a presentiment ... certain
+coincidences--"
+
+It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.
+
+"Come, come," he cried, "I want to know the truth: You're not certain
+that the water in this bottle is poisoned?"
+
+"No ... it's possible--"
+
+"Still, just now--"
+
+"I thought so. But no ... no!"
+
+"It's easy to make sure," said Perenna, putting out his hand for the
+water bottle.
+
+She was quicker than he, seized it and, with one blow, broke it against
+the table.
+
+"What are you doing?" he said angrily.
+
+"I made a mistake. And so there is no need to attach any importance--"
+
+Don Luis hurriedly left the dining-room. By his orders, the water which
+he drank was drawn from a filter that stood in a pantry at the end of the
+passage leading from the dining-room to the kitchens and beyond. He ran
+to it and took from a shelf a bowl which he filled with water from the
+filter. Then, continuing to follow the passage, which at this spot
+branched off toward the yard, he called Mirza, the puppy, who was playing
+by the stables.
+
+"Here," he said, putting the bowl in front of her.
+
+The puppy began to drink. But she stopped almost at once and stood
+motionless, with her paws tense and stiff. A shiver passed through the
+little body. The dog gave a hoarse groan, spun round two or three
+times, and fell.
+
+"She's dead," he said, after touching the animal.
+
+Mlle. Levasseur had joined him. He turned to her and rapped out:
+
+"You were right about the poison--and you knew it. How did you know it?"
+
+All out of breath, she checked the beating of her heart and answered:
+
+"I saw the other puppy drinking in the pantry. She's dead. I told the
+coachman and the chauffeur. They're over there, in the stable. And I ran
+to warn you."
+
+"In that case, there was no doubt about it. Why did you say that you were
+not certain that the water was poisoned, when--"
+
+The chauffeur and the coachman were coming out of the stables. Leading
+the girl away, Perenna said:
+
+"We must talk about this. We'll go to your rooms."
+
+They went back to the bend in the passage. Near the pantry where the
+filter was, another passage ran, ending in a flight of three steps, with
+a door at the top of the steps. Perenna opened this door. It was the
+entrance to the rooms occupied by Mlle. Levasseur. They went into a
+sitting-room.
+
+Don Luis closed the entrance door and the door of the sitting-room.
+
+"And now," he said, in a resolute tone, "you and I will have an
+explanation."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
+
+
+Two lodges, belonging to the same old-time period as the house itself,
+stood at the extreme right and left of the low wall that separated the
+front courtyard from the Place du Palais-Bourbon. These lodges were
+joined to the main building, situated at the back of the courtyard, by a
+series of outhouses. On one side were the coach-houses, stables,
+harness-rooms, and garage, with the porter's lodge at the end; on the
+other side, the wash-houses, kitchens, and offices, ending in the lodge
+occupied by Mlle. Levasseur.
+
+This lodge had only a ground floor, consisting of a dark entrance hall
+and one large room, most of which served as a sitting-room, while the
+rest, arranged as a bedroom, was really only a sort of alcove. A curtain
+hid the bed and wash-hand-stand. There were two windows looking out on
+the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
+
+It was the first time that Don Luis had set foot in Mlle. Levasseur's
+room. Engrossed though he was with other matters, he felt its charm. It
+was very simply furnished: some old mahogany chairs and armchairs, a
+plain, Empire writing-table, a round table with one heavy, massive leg,
+and some book-shelves. But the bright colour of the linen curtains
+enlivened the room. On the walls hung reproductions of famous pictures,
+drawings of sunny buildings and landscapes, Italian villas, Sicilian
+temples....
+
+The girl remained standing. She had resumed her composure, and her face
+had taken on the enigmatical expression so difficult to fathom,
+especially as she had assumed a deliberate air of dejection, which
+Perenna guessed was intended to hide her excitement and alertness,
+together with the tumultuous feelings which even she had great difficulty
+in controlling.
+
+Her eyes looked neither timorous nor defiant. It really seemed as though
+she had nothing to fear from the explanation.
+
+Don Luis kept silent for some little time. It was strange and it annoyed
+him to feel it, but he experienced a certain embarrassment in the
+presence of this woman, against whom he was inwardly bringing the most
+serious charges. And, not daring to put them into words, not daring to
+say plainly what he thought, he began:
+
+"You know what happened in this house this morning?"
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes, when I had finished speaking on the telephone."
+
+"I know now. I heard it from the servants, from the butler."
+
+"Not before?"
+
+"How could I have known earlier?"
+
+She was lying. It was impossible that she should be speaking the truth.
+And yet in what a calm voice she had replied!
+
+He went on:
+
+"I will tell you, in a few words, what happened. I was leaving the
+telephone box, when the iron curtain, concealed in the upper part of
+the wall, fell in front of me. After making sure that there was nothing
+to be done, I simply resolved, as I had the telephone by me, to call in
+the assistance of one of my friends. I rang up Major d'Astrignac. He
+came at once and, with the help of the butler, let me out. Is that what
+you heard?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur. I had gone to my room, which explains why I knew nothing
+of the incident or of Major d'Astrignac's visit."
+
+"Very well. It appears, however, from what I learned when I was released,
+that the butler and, for that matter, everybody in the house, including
+yourself, knew of the existence of that iron curtain."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And how did you know it?"
+
+"Through Baron Malonyi. He told me that, during the Revolution, his
+great-grandmother, on the mother's side, who then occupied this house and
+whose husband was guillotined, remained hidden in that recess for
+thirteen months. At that time the curtain was covered with woodwork
+similar to that of the room."
+
+"It's a pity that I wasn't informed of it, for, after all, I was very
+nearly crushed to death."
+
+This possibility did not seem to move the girl. She said:
+
+"It would be a good thing to look at the mechanism and see why it became
+unfastened. It's all very old and works badly."
+
+"The mechanism works perfectly. I tested it. An accident is not enough to
+account for it."
+
+"Who could have done it, if it was not an accident?"
+
+"Some enemy whom I am unable to name."
+
+"He would have been seen."
+
+"There was only one person who could have seen him--yourself. You
+happened to pass through my study as I was telephoning and I heard your
+exclamation of fright at the news about Mme. Fauville."
+
+"Yes, it gave me a shock. I pity the woman so very much, whether she is
+guilty or not."
+
+"And, as you were close to the arch, with your hand within reach of the
+spring, the presence of an evildoer would not have escaped your notice."
+
+She did not lower her eyes. A slight flush overspread her face,
+and she said:
+
+"Yes, I should at least have met him, for, from what I gather, I went out
+a few seconds before the accident."
+
+"Quite so," he said. "But what is so curious and unlikely is that you did
+not hear the loud noise of the curtain falling, nor my shouts and all the
+uproar I created."
+
+"I must have closed the door of the study by that time. I heard nothing."
+
+"Then I am bound to presume that there was some one hidden in my study at
+that moment, and that this person is a confederate of the ruffians who
+committed the two murders on the Boulevard Suchet; for the Prefect of
+Police has just discovered under the cushions of my sofa the half of a
+walking-stick belonging to one of those ruffians."
+
+She wore an air of great surprise. This new incident seemed really to be
+quite unknown to her. He came nearer and, looking her straight in the
+eyes, said:
+
+"You must at least admit that it's strange."
+
+"What's strange?"
+
+"This series of events, all directed against me. Yesterday, that draft of
+a letter which I found in the courtyard--the draft of the article
+published in the _Echo de France_. This morning, first the crash of the
+iron curtain just as I was passing under it, next, the discovery of that
+walking-stick, and then, a moment ago, the poisoned water bottle--"
+
+She nodded her head and murmured:
+
+"Yes, yes--there is an array of facts--"
+
+"An array of facts so significant," he said, completing her sentence
+meaningly, "as to remove the least shadow of doubt. I can feel absolutely
+certain of the immediate intervention of my most ruthless and daring
+enemy. His presence here is proved. He is ready to act at any moment. His
+object is plain," explained Don Luis. "By means of the anonymous article,
+by means of that half of the walking-stick, he meant to compromise me and
+have me arrested. By the fall of the curtain he meant to kill me or at
+least to keep me imprisoned for some hours. And now it's poison, the
+cowardly poison which kills by stealth, which they put in my water to-day
+and which they will put in my food to-morrow. And next it will be the
+dagger and then the revolver and then the rope, no matter which, so long
+as I disappear; for that is what they want: to get rid of me.
+
+"I am the adversary, I am the man they're afraid of, the man who will
+discover the secret one day and pocket the millions which they're after.
+I am the interloper. I stand mounting guard over the Mornington
+inheritance. It's my turn to suffer. Four victims are dead already. I
+shall be the fifth. So Gaston Sauverand has decided: Gaston Sauverand or
+some one else who's managing the business."
+
+Perenna's eyes narrowed.
+
+"The accomplice is here, in this house, in the midst of everything, by my
+side. He is lying in wait for me. He is following every step I take. He
+is living in my shadow. He is waiting for the time and place to strike
+me. Well, I have had enough of it. I want to know, I will know, and I
+shall know. Who is he?"
+
+The girl had moved back a little way and was leaning against the round
+table. He took another step forward and, with his eyes still fixed on
+hers, looking in that immobile face for a quivering sign of fear or
+anxiety, he repeated, with greater violence:
+
+"Who is the accomplice? Who in the house has sworn to take my life?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps there is no plot, as you
+think, but just a series of chance coincidences--"
+
+He felt inclined to say to her, with his habit of adopting a familiar
+tone toward those whom he regarded as his adversaries:
+
+"You're lying, dearie, you're lying. The accomplice is yourself, my
+beauty. You alone overheard my conversation on the telephone with
+Mazeroux, you alone can have gone to Gaston Sauverand's assistance,
+waited for him in a motor at the corner of the boulevard, and arranged
+with him to bring the top half of the walking-stick here. You're the
+beauty that wants to kill me, for some reason which I do not know. The
+hand that strikes me in the dark is yours, sweetheart."
+
+But it was impossible for him to treat her in this fashion; and he was so
+much exasperated at not being able to proclaim his certainty in words of
+anger and indignation that he took her fingers and twisted them
+violently, while his look and his whole attitude accused the girl even
+more forcibly than the bitterest words.
+
+He mastered himself and released his grip. The girl freed herself with a
+quick movement, indicating repulsion and hatred. Don Luis said:
+
+"Very well. I will question the servants. If necessary I shall dismiss
+any whom I suspect."
+
+"No, don't do that," she said eagerly. "You mustn't. I know them all."
+
+Was she going to defend them? Was she yielding to a scruple of conscience
+at the moment when her obstinacy and duplicity were on the point of
+causing her to sacrifice a set of servants whose conduct she knew to be
+beyond reproach? Don Luis received the impression that the glance which
+she threw at him contained an appeal for pity. But pity for whom? For the
+others? Or for herself?
+
+They were silent for a long time. Don Luis, standing a few steps away
+from her, thought of the photograph, and was surprised to find in the
+real woman all the beauty of the portrait, all that beauty which he had
+not observed hitherto, but which now struck him as a revelation. The
+golden hair shone with a brilliancy unknown to him. The mouth wore a less
+happy expression, perhaps, a rather bitter expression, but one which
+nevertheless retained the shape of the smile. The curve of the chin, the
+grace of the neck revealed above the dip of the linen collar, the line of
+the shoulders, the position of the arms, and of the hands resting on her
+knees: all this was charming and very gentle and, in a manner, very
+seemly and reassuring. Was it possible that this woman should be a
+murderess, a poisoner?
+
+He said:
+
+"I forget what you told me that your Christian name was. But the name you
+gave me was not the right one."
+
+"Yes, it was," she said.
+
+"Your name is Florence: Florence Levasseur."
+
+She started.
+
+"What! Who told you? Florence? How do you know?"
+
+"Here is your photograph, with your name on it almost illegible."
+
+"Oh!" she said, amazed at seeing the picture. "I can't believe it!
+Where does it come from? Where did you get it from?" And, suddenly, "It
+was the Prefect of Police who gave it to you, was it not? Yes, it was
+he, I'm sure of it. I am sure that this photograph is to identify me
+and that they are looking for me, for me, too. And it's you again, it's
+you again--"
+
+"Have no fear," he said. "The print only wants a few touches to alter the
+face beyond recognition. I will make them. Have no fear."
+
+She was no longer listening to him. She gazed at the photograph with all
+her concentrated attention and murmured:
+
+"I was twenty years old.... I was living in Italy. Dear me, how happy I
+was on the day when it was taken! And how happy I was when I saw my
+portrait!... I used to think myself pretty in those days.... And then it
+disappeared.... It was stolen from me like other things that had already
+been stolen from me, at that time--"
+
+And, sinking her voice still lower, speaking her name as if she were
+addressing some other woman, some unhappy friend, she repeated:
+
+"Florence.... Florence--"
+
+Tears streamed down her cheeks.
+
+"She is not one of those who kill," thought Don Luis. "I can't believe
+that she is an accomplice. And yet--and yet--"
+
+He moved away from her and walked across the room from the window to the
+door. The drawings of Italian landscapes on the wall attracted his
+attention. Next, he read the titles of the books on the shelves. They
+represented French and foreign works, novels, plays, essays, volumes of
+poetry, pointing to a really cultivated and varied taste.
+
+He saw Racine next to Dante, Stendhal near Edgar Allan Poe, Montaigne
+between Goethe and Virgil. And suddenly, with that extraordinary faculty
+which enabled him, in any collection of objects, to perceive details
+which he did not at once take in, he noticed that one of the volumes of
+an English edition of Shakespeare's works did not look exactly like the
+others. There was something peculiar about the red morocco back,
+something stiff, without the cracks and creases which show that a book
+has been used.
+
+It was the eighth volume. He took it out, taking care not to be heard.
+
+He was not mistaken. The volume was a sham, a mere set of boards
+surrounding a hollow space that formed a box and thus provided a regular
+hiding-place; and, inside this book, he caught sight of plain note-paper,
+envelopes of different kinds, and some sheets of ordinary ruled paper,
+all of the same size and looking as if they had been taken from a
+writing-pad.
+
+And the appearance of these ruled sheets struck him at once. He
+remembered the look of the paper on which the article for the _Echo de
+France_ had been drafted. The ruling was identical, and the shape and
+size appeared to be the same.
+
+On lifting the sheets one after the other, he saw, on the last but one, a
+series of lines consisting of words and figures in pencil, like notes
+hurriedly jotted down.
+
+He read:
+
+"House on the Boulevard Suchet.
+"First letter. Night of 15 April.
+"Second. Night of 25th.
+"Third and fourth. Nights of 5 and 15 May.
+"Fifth and explosion. Night of 25 May."
+
+And, while noting first that the date of the first night was that of the
+actual day, and next that all these dates followed one another at
+intervals of ten days, he remarked the resemblance between the writing
+and the writing of the rough draft.
+
+The draft was in a notebook in his pocket. He was therefore in a
+position to verify the similarity of the two handwritings and of the two
+ruled sheets of paper. He took his notebook and opened it. The draft was
+not there.
+
+"Gad," he snarled, "but this is a bit too thick!"
+
+And, at the same time, he remembered clearly that, when he was
+telephoning to Mazeroux in the morning, the notebook was in the pocket of
+his overcoat and that he had left his overcoat on a chair near the
+telephone box. Now, at that moment, Mlle. Levasseur, for no reason, was
+roaming about the study. What was she doing there?
+
+"Oh, the play-actress!" thought Perenna, raging within himself. "She was
+humbugging me. Her tears, her air of frankness, her tender memories: all
+bunkum! She belongs to the same stock and the same gang as Marie
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand. Like them, she is an accomplished liar
+and actress from her slightest gesture down to the least inflection of
+her innocent voice."
+
+He was on the point of having it all out with her and confounding her.
+This time, the proof was undeniable. Dreading an inquiry which might have
+brought the facts home to her, she had been unwilling to leave the draft
+of the article in the adversary's hands.
+
+How could he doubt, from this moment, that she was the accomplice
+employed by the people who were working the Mornington affair and trying
+to get rid of him? Had he not every right to suppose that she was
+directing the sinister gang, and that, commanding the others with her
+audacity and her intelligence, she was leading them toward the obscure
+goal at which they were aiming?
+
+For, after all, she was free, entirely free in her actions and movements.
+The windows opening on the Place du Palais-Bourbon gave her every
+facility for leaving the house under cover of the darkness and coming in
+again unknown to anybody.
+
+It was therefore quite possible that, on the night of the double crime,
+she was among the murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and his son. It was
+quite possible that she had taken part in the murders, and even that the
+poison had been injected into the victims by her hand, by that little,
+white, slender hand which he saw resting against the golden hair.
+
+A shudder passed through him. He had softly put back the paper in the
+book, restored the book in its place, and moved nearer to the girl.
+
+All of a sudden, he caught himself studying the lower part of her
+face, the shape of her jaw! Yes, that was what he was making every
+effort to guess, under the curve of the cheeks and behind the veil of
+the lips. Almost against his will, with personal anguish mingled with
+torturing curiosity, he stared and stared, ready to force open those
+closed lips and to seek the reply to the terrifying problem that
+suggested itself to him.
+
+Those teeth, those teeth which he did not see, were not they the teeth
+that had left the incriminating marks in the fruit? Which were the teeth
+of the tiger, the teeth of the wild beast: these, or the other woman's?
+
+It was an absurd supposition, because the marks had been recognized as
+made by Marie Fauville. But was the absurdity of a supposition a
+sufficient reason for discarding it?
+
+Himself astonished at the feelings that agitated him, fearing lest he
+should betray himself, he preferred to cut short the interview and, going
+up to the girl, he said to her, in an imperious and aggressive tone:
+
+"I wish all the servants in the house to be discharged. You will give
+them their wages, pay them such compensation as they ask for, and see
+that they leave to-day, definitely. Another staff of servants will arrive
+this evening. You will be here to receive them."
+
+She made no reply. He went away, taking with him the uncomfortable
+impression that had lately marked his relations with Florence. The
+atmosphere between them always remained heavy and oppressive. Their words
+never seemed to express the private thoughts of either of them; and their
+actions did not correspond with the words spoken. Did not the
+circumstances logically demand the immediate dismissal of Florence
+Levasseur as well? Yet Don Luis did not so much as think of it.
+
+Returning to his study, he at once rang up Mazeroux and, lowering his
+voice so as not to let it reach the next room, he said:
+
+"Is that you, Mazeroux?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has the Prefect placed you at my disposal?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, tell him that I have sacked all my servants and that I have given
+you their names and instructed you to have an active watch kept on them.
+We must look among them for Sauverand's accomplice. Another thing: ask
+the Prefect to give you and me permission to spend the night at Hippolyte
+Fauville's house."
+
+"Nonsense! At the house on the Boulevard Suchet?"
+
+"Yes, I have every reason to believe that something's going to
+happen there."
+
+"What sort of thing?"
+
+"I don't know. But something is bound to take place. And I insist on
+being at it. Is it arranged?"
+
+"Right, Chief. Unless you hear to the contrary, I'll meet you at nine
+o'clock this evening on the Boulevard Suchet."
+
+Perenna did not see Mlle. Levasseur again that day. He went out in the
+course of the afternoon, and called at the registry office, where he
+chose some servants: a chauffeur, a coachman, a footman, a cook, and so
+on. Then he went to a photographer, who made a new copy of Mlle.
+Levasseur's photograph. Don Luis had this touched up and faked it
+himself, so that the Prefect of Police should not perceive the
+substitution of one set of features for another.
+
+He dined at a restaurant and, at nine o'clock, joined Mazeroux on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Since the Fauville murders the house had been left in the charge of the
+porter. All the rooms and all the locks had been sealed up, except the
+inner door of the workroom, of which the police kept the keys for the
+purposes of the inquiry.
+
+The big study looked as it did before, though the papers had been removed
+and put away and there were no books and pamphlets left on the
+writing-table. A layer of dust, clearly visible by the electric light,
+covered its black leather and the surrounding mahogany.
+
+"Well, Alexandre, old man," cried Don Luis, when they had made themselves
+comfortable, "what do you say to this? It's rather impressive, being here
+again, what? But, this time, no barricading of doors, no bolts, eh? If
+anything's going to happen, on this night of the fifteenth of April,
+we'll put nothing in our friends' way. They shall have full and entire
+liberty. It's up to them, this time."
+
+Though joking, Don Luis was nevertheless singularly impressed, as he
+himself said, by the terrible recollection of the two crimes which he had
+been unable to prevent and by the haunting vision of the two dead bodies.
+And he also remembered with real emotion the implacable duel which he had
+fought with Mme. Fauville, the woman's despair and her arrest.
+
+"Tell me about her," he said to Mazeroux. "So she tried to kill herself?"
+
+"Yes," said Mazeroux, "a thoroughgoing attempt, though she had to make
+it in a manner which she must have hated. She hanged herself in strips
+of linen torn from her sheets and underclothing and twisted together.
+She had to be restored by artificial respiration. She is out of danger
+now, I believe, but she is never left alone, for she swore she would do
+it again."
+
+"She has made no confession?"
+
+"No. She persists in proclaiming her innocence."
+
+"And what do they think at the public prosecutor's? At the Prefect's?"
+
+"Why should they change their opinion, Chief? The inquiries confirm every
+one of the charges brought against her; and, in particular, it has been
+proved beyond the possibility of dispute that she alone can have touched
+the apple and that she can have touched it only between eleven o'clock at
+night and seven o'clock in the morning. Now the apple bears the
+undeniable marks of her teeth. Would you admit that there are two sets of
+jaws in the world that leave the same identical imprint?"
+
+"No, no," said Don Luis, who was thinking of Florence Levasseur. "No,
+the argument allows of no discussion. We have here a fact that is clear
+as daylight; and the imprint is almost tantamount to a discovery in the
+act. But then how, in the midst of all this, are we to explain the
+presence of -----"
+
+"Whom, Chief?"
+
+"Nobody. I had an idea worrying me. Besides, you see, in all this there
+are so many unnatural things, such queer coincidences and
+inconsistencies, that I dare not count on a certainty which the reality
+of to-morrow may destroy."
+
+They went on talking for some time, in a low voice, studying the question
+in all its bearings.
+
+At midnight they switched off the electric light in the chandelier and
+arranged that each should go to sleep in turn.
+
+And the hours went by as they had done when the two sat up before, with
+the same sounds of belated carriages and motor cars; the same railway
+whistles; the same silence.
+
+The night passed without alarm or incident of any kind. At daybreak the
+life out of doors was resumed; and Don Luis, during his waking hours, had
+not heard a sound in the room except the monotonous snoring of his
+companion.
+
+"Can I have been mistaken?" he wondered. "Did the clue in that volume of
+Shakespeare mean something else? Or did it refer to events of last year,
+events that took place on the dates set down?"
+
+In spite of everything, he felt overcome by a strange uneasiness as the
+dawn began to glimmer through the half-closed shutters. A fortnight
+before, nothing had happened either to warn him; and yet there were two
+victims lying near him when he woke.
+
+At seven o'clock he called out:
+
+"Alexandre!"
+
+"Eh? What is it, Chief?"
+
+"You're not dead?"
+
+"What's that? Dead? No, Chief; why should I be?"
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Well, that's a good 'un! Why not you?"
+
+"Oh, it'll be my turn soon! Considering the intelligence of those
+scoundrels, there's no reason why they should go on missing me."
+
+They waited an hour longer. Then Perenna opened a window and threw back
+the shutter.
+
+"I say, Alexandre, perhaps you're not dead, but you're certainly
+very green."
+
+Mazeroux gave a wry laugh:
+
+"Upon my word, Chief, I confess that I had a bad time of it when I was
+keeping watch while you were asleep."
+
+"Were you afraid?"
+
+"To the roots of my hair. I kept on thinking that something was going to
+happen. But you, too, Chief, don't look as if you had been enjoying
+yourself. Were you also--"
+
+He interrupted himself, on seeing an expression of unbounded astonishment
+on Don Luis's face.
+
+"What's the matter, Chief?"
+
+"Look! ... on the table ... that letter--"
+
+He looked. There was a letter on the writing-table, or, rather, a
+letter-card, the edges of which had been torn along the perforation
+marks; and they saw the outside of it, with the address, the stamp, and
+the postmarks.
+
+"Did you put that there, Alexandre?"
+
+"You're joking, Chief. You know it can only have been you."
+
+"It can only have been I ... and yet it was not I."
+
+"But then--"
+
+Don Luis took the letter-card and, on examining it, found that the
+address and the postmarks had been scratched out so as to make it
+impossible to read the name of the addressee or where he lived, but
+that the place of posting was quite clear, as was the date: Paris, 4
+January, 19--.
+
+"So the letter is three and a half months old," said Don Luis.
+
+He turned to the inside of the letter. It contained a dozen lines and he
+at once exclaimed:
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville's signature!"
+
+"And his handwriting," observed Mazeroux. "I can tell it at a glance.
+There's no mistake about that. What does it all mean? A letter written by
+Hippolyte Fauville three months before his death?"
+
+Perenna read aloud:
+
+"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:
+
+"I can only, alas, confirm what I wrote to you the other day: the plot is
+thickening around me! I do not yet know what their plan is and still less
+how they mean to put it into execution; but everything warns me that the
+end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes. How strangely she looks at me
+sometimes!
+
+"Oh, the shame of it! Who would ever have thought her capable of it?
+
+"I am a very unhappy man, my dear friend."
+
+"And it's signed Hippolyte Fauville," Mazeroux continued, "and I declare
+to you that it's actually in his hand ... written on the fourth of
+January of this year to a friend whose name we don't know, though we
+shall dig him out somehow, that I'll swear. And this friend will
+certainly give us the proofs we want."
+
+Mazeroux was becoming excited.
+
+"Proofs? Why, we don't need them! They're here. M. Fauville himself
+supplies them: 'The end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes.' 'Her'
+refers to his wife, to Marie Fauville, and the husband's evidence
+confirms all that we knew against her. What do you say, Chief?"
+
+"You're right," replied Perenna, absent-mindedly, "you're right; the
+letter is final. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Who the devil can have brought it? Somebody must have entered the room
+last night while we were here. Is it possible? For, after all, we should
+have heard. That's what astounds me."
+
+"It certainly looks like it."
+
+"Just so. It was a queer enough job a fortnight ago. But, still, we were
+in the passage outside, while they were at work in here, whereas, this
+time, we were here, both of us, close to this very table. And, on this
+table, which had not the least scrap of paper on it last night, we find
+this letter in the morning."
+
+A careful inspection of the place gave them no clue to put them on the
+track. They went through the house from top to bottom and ascertained for
+certain that there was no one there in hiding. Besides, supposing that
+any one was hiding there, how could he have made his way into the room
+without attracting their attention? There was no solving the problem.
+
+"We won't look any more," said Perenna, "it's no use. In matters of this
+sort, some day or other the light enters by an unseen cranny and
+everything gradually becomes clear. Take the letter to the Prefect of
+Police, tell him how we spent the night, and ask his permission for both
+of us to come back on the night of the twenty-fifth of April. There's to
+be another surprise that night; and I'm dying to know if we shall receive
+a second letter through the agency of some Mahatma."
+
+They closed the doors and left the house.
+
+While they were walking to the right, toward La Muette, in order to take
+a taxi, Don Luis chanced to turn his head to the road as they reached the
+end of the Boulevard Suchet. A man rode past them on a bicycle. Don Luis
+just had time to see his clean-shaven face and his glittering eyes fixed
+upon himself.
+
+"Look out!" he shouted, pushing Mazeroux so suddenly that the sergeant
+lost his balance.
+
+The man had stretched out his hand, armed with a revolver. A shot
+rang out. The bullet whistled past the ears of Don Luis, who had
+bobbed his head.
+
+"After him!" he roared. "You're not hurt, Mazeroux?"
+
+"No, Chief."
+
+They both rushed in pursuit, shouting for assistance. But, at that early
+hour, there are never many people in the wide avenues of this part of the
+town. The man, who was making off swiftly, increased his distance, turned
+down the Rue Octave-Feuillet, and disappeared.
+
+"All right, you scoundrel, I'll catch you yet!" snarled Don Luis,
+abandoning a vain pursuit.
+
+"But you don't even know who he is, Chief."
+
+"Yes, I do: it's he."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The man with the ebony stick. He's cut off his beard and shaved his
+face, but I knew him for all that. It was the man who was taking
+pot-shots at us yesterday morning, from the top of his stairs on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace, the one who killed Inspector Ancenis. The
+blackguard! How did he know that I had spent the night at Fauville's?
+Have I been followed then and spied on? But by whom? And why? And how?"
+
+Mazeroux reflected and said:
+
+"Remember, Chief, you telephoned to me in the afternoon to give me an
+appointment. For all you know, in spite of lowering your voice, you may
+have been heard by somebody at your place."
+
+Don Luis did not answer. He thought of Florence.
+
+That morning Don Luis's letters were not brought to him by Mlle.
+Levasseur, nor did he send for her. He caught sight of her several times
+giving orders to the new servants. She must afterward have gone back to
+her room, for he did not see her again.
+
+In the afternoon he rang for his car and drove to the house on the
+Boulevard Suchet, to pursue with Mazeroux, by the Prefect's instructions,
+a search that led to no result whatever.
+
+It was ten o'clock when he came in. The detective sergeant and he had
+some dinner together. Afterward, wishing also to examine the home of the
+man with the ebony stick, he got into his car again, still accompanied by
+Mazeroux, and told the man to drive to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
+
+The car crossed the Seine and followed the right bank.
+
+"Faster," he said to his new chauffeur, through the speaking-tube. "I'm
+accustomed to go at a good pace."
+
+"You'll have an upset one fine day, Chief," said Mazeroux.
+
+"No fear," replied Don Luis. "Motor accidents are reserved for fools."
+
+They reached the Place de l'Alma. The car turned to the left.
+
+"Straight ahead!" cried Don Luis. "Go up by the Trocadéro."
+
+The car veered back again. But suddenly it gave three or four lurches in
+the road, took the pavement, ran into a tree and fell over on its side.
+
+In a few seconds a dozen people were standing round. They broke one of
+the windows and opened the door. Don Luis was the first.
+
+"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all right. And you, Alexandre?"
+
+They helped the sergeant out. He had a few bruises and a little pain, but
+no serious injury.
+
+Only the chauffeur had been thrown from his seat and lay motionless on
+the pavement, bleeding from the head. He was carried into a chemist's
+shop and died in ten minutes.
+
+Mazeroux had gone in with the poor victim and, feeling pretty well
+stunned, had himself been given a pick-me-up. When he went back to the
+motor car he found two policemen entering particulars of the accident in
+their notebooks and taking evidence from the bystanders; but the chief
+was not there.
+
+Perenna in fact had jumped into a taxicab and driven home as fast as he
+could. He got out in the square, ran through the gateway, crossed the
+courtyard, and went down the passage that led to Mlle. Levasseur's
+quarters. He leaped up the steps, knocked, and entered without waiting
+for an answer.
+
+The door of the room that served as a sitting-room was opened and
+Florence appeared. He pushed her back into the room, and said, in a tone
+furious with indignation:
+
+"It's done. The accident has occurred. And yet none of the old servants
+can have prepared it, because they were not there and because I was out
+with the car this afternoon. Therefore, it must have been late in the
+day between six and nine o'clock, that somebody went to the garage and
+filed the steering-rod three quarters through."
+
+"I don't understand. I don't understand," she said, with a scared look.
+
+"You understand perfectly well that the accomplice of the ruffians cannot
+be one of the new servants, and you understand perfectly well that the
+job was bound to succeed and that it did succeed, beyond their hopes.
+There is a victim, who suffers instead of myself."
+
+"But tell me what has happened, Monsieur! You frighten me! What accident?
+What was it?"
+
+"The motor car was overturned. The chauffeur is dead."
+
+"Oh," she said, "how horrible! And you think that I can have--Oh, dead,
+how horrible! Poor man!"
+
+Her voice grew fainter. She was standing opposite to Perenna, close up
+against him. Pale and swooning, she closed her eyes, staggered.
+
+He caught her in his arms as she fell. She tried to release herself, but
+had not the strength; and he laid her in a chair, while she moaned,
+repeatedly:
+
+"Poor man! Poor man!"
+
+Keeping one of his arms under the girl's head, he took a handkerchief in
+the other hand and wiped her forehead, which was wet with perspiration,
+and her pallid cheeks, down which the tears streamed.
+
+She must have lost consciousness entirely, for she surrendered herself to
+Perenna's cares without the least resistance. And he, making no further
+movement, began anxiously to examine the mouth before his eyes, the mouth
+with the lips usually so red, now bloodless and discoloured.
+
+Gently passing one of his fingers over each of them, with a continuous
+pressure, he separated them, as one separates the petals of a flower; and
+the two rows of teeth appeared.
+
+They were charming, beautifully shaped, and beautifully white; a little
+smaller perhaps than Mme. Fauville's, perhaps also arranged in a wider
+curve. But what did he know? Who could say that their bite would not
+leave the same imprint? It was an improbable supposition, an impossible
+miracle, he knew. And yet the circumstances were all against the girl and
+pointed to her as the most daring, cruel, implacable, and terrible of
+criminals.
+
+Her breathing became regular. He perceived the cool fragrance of her
+mouth, intoxicating as the scent of a rose. In spite of himself, he bent
+down, came so close, so close that he was seized with giddiness and had
+to make a great effort to lay the girl's head on the back of the chair
+and to take his eyes from the fair face with the half-parted lips.
+
+He rose to his feet and went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
+
+
+Of all these events the public knew only of the attempted suicide of Mme.
+Fauville, the capture and escape of Gaston Sauverand, the murder of Chief
+Inspector Ancenis, and the discovery of a letter written by Hippolyte
+Fauville. This was enough, however, to reawaken their curiosity, as they
+were already singularly puzzled by the Mornington case and took the
+greatest interest in all the movements, however slight, of the mysterious
+Don Luis Perenna, whom they insisted on confusing with Arsène Lupin.
+
+He was, of course, credited with the brief capture of the man with the
+ebony walking-stick. It was also known that he had saved the life of the
+Prefect of Police, and that, finally, having at his own request spent the
+night in the house on the Boulevard Suchet, he had become the recipient
+of Hippolyte Fauville's famous letter. And all this added immensely to
+the excitement of the aforesaid public.
+
+But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set to
+Don Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in the
+anonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eight
+hours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the iron
+curtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by the
+deliberately prepared motor accident.
+
+Florence's share in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And,
+now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly established
+by the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays,
+while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths of
+Chief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how to
+explain the part played, in the midst of all these catastrophes, by that
+enigmatical girl?
+
+Strangely enough, life went on as usual at the house in the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon, as though nothing out of the way had happened there.
+Every morning Florence Levasseur sorted Don Luis's post in his presence
+and read out the newspaper articles referring to himself or bearing upon
+the Mornington case.
+
+Not a single allusion was made to the fierce fight that had been waged
+against him for two days. It was as though a truce had been proclaimed
+between them; and the enemy appeared to have ceased his attacks for the
+moment. Don Luis felt easy, out of the reach of danger; and he talked to
+the girl with an indifferent air, as he might have talked to anybody.
+
+But with what a feverish interest he studied her unobserved! He
+watched the expression of her face, at once calm and eager, and a
+painful sensitiveness which showed under the placid mask and which,
+difficult to control, revealed itself in the frequent quivering of the
+lips and nostrils.
+
+"Who are you? Who are you?" he felt inclined to exclaim. "Will nothing
+content you, you she-devil, but to deal out murder all round? And do you
+want my death also, in order to attain your object? Where do you come
+from and where are you making for?"
+
+On reflection, he was convinced of a certainty that solved a problem
+which had preoccupied him for a long time--namely, the mysterious
+connection between his own presence in the mansion in the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon and the presence of a woman who was manifestly wreaking
+her hatred on him.
+
+He now understood that he had not bought the house by accident. In making
+the purchase he had been persuaded by an anonymous offer that reached him
+in the form of a typewritten prospectus. Whence did this offer come, if
+not from Florence, who wished to have him near her in order to spy upon
+him and wage war upon him?
+
+"Yes," he thought, "that is where the truth lies. As the possible heir
+of Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy,
+and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. And
+it is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who has
+committed murder.
+
+"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Her
+innocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity?
+And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank look
+who have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
+
+He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. What was it
+that made him connect these two women at every moment in his mind? He
+had loved one of them, that monster Dolores, and had strangled her with
+his own hands. Was fate now leading him toward a like love and a
+similar murder?
+
+When Florence left him he would experience a sense of satisfaction and
+breathe more easily, as though released from an oppressive weight, but he
+would run to the window and see her crossing the courtyard and be still
+waiting when the girl whose scented breath he had felt upon his face
+passed to and fro.
+
+One morning she said to him:
+
+"The papers say that it will be to-night."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes," she said, showing him an article in one of the newspapers.
+"This is the twenty-fifth; and, according to the information of the
+police, supplied, they say, by you, there should be a letter delivered
+in the house on the Boulevard Suchet every tenth day, and the house is
+to be destroyed by an explosion on the day when the fifth and last
+letter appears."
+
+Was she defying him? Did she wish to make him understand that, whatever
+happened, whatever the obstacles, the letters would appear, those
+mysterious letters prophesied on the list which he had found in the
+eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays?
+
+He looked at her steadily. She did not flinch. He answered:
+
+"Yes, this is the night. I shall be there. Nothing in the world will
+prevent me."
+
+She was on the point of replying, but once more controlled her feelings.
+
+That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arranged
+with Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.
+
+Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In the
+evening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might go
+out at that time.
+
+At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville's
+workroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmen
+were with him.
+
+Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:
+
+"They distrust me. Own up to it."
+
+"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you.
+Only, M. Weber maintains--and he is not the only one--that you fake up
+all these occurrences yourself."
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and getting
+her condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and two
+men. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."
+
+They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.
+
+This time, after making a minute search of the little room in which
+Fauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors and
+shutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.
+
+Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.
+
+The night passed without incident of any kind.
+
+But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that there
+was a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was a
+letter on the table!
+
+When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief took
+the letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any one
+else read it.
+
+Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published the
+declarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was Hippolyte
+Fauville's:
+
+"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seen
+him! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turned
+up and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It was
+almost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of his
+ebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!
+
+"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is in
+Paris! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he is
+in Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it means
+certain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at that
+man's hands! He has already robbed me of my happiness; and now he wants
+my life. I am terrified."
+
+So Fauville knew that the man with the ebony walking-stick, that Gaston
+Sauverand, was designing to kill him. Fauville declared it most
+positively, by evidence written in his own hand; and the letter,
+moreover, corroborating the words that had escaped Gaston Sauverand at
+his arrest, showed that the two men had at one time had relations with
+each other, that they were no longer friends, and that Gaston Sauverand
+had promised never to come to Paris.
+
+A little light was therefore being shed on the darkness of the Mornington
+case. But, on the other hand, how inconceivable was the mystery of that
+letter found on the table in the workroom!
+
+Five men had kept watch, five of the smartest men obtainable; and yet, on
+that night, as on the night of the fifteenth of April, an unknown hand
+had delivered the letter in a room with barricaded doors and windows,
+without their hearing a sound or discovering any signs that the
+fastenings of the doors or windows had been tampered with.
+
+The theory of a secret outlet was at once raised, but had to be
+abandoned after a careful examination of the walls and after an
+interview with the contractor who had built the house, from Fauville's
+own plans, some years ago.
+
+It is unnecessary once more to recall what I may describe as the flurry
+of the public. The deed, in the circumstances, assumed the appearance of
+a sleight-of-hand trick. People felt tempted to look upon it as the
+recreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act of
+a person employing unknown methods.
+
+Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at all
+points, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth of
+April, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth of
+May? No one doubted it, because Don Luis had said so and because
+everybody felt that Don Luis could not be mistaken. All through the night
+of the fifth of May there was a crowd on the Boulevard Suchet; and
+quidnuncs and night birds of every kind came trooping up to hear the
+latest news.
+
+The Prefect of Police, greatly impressed by the first two miracles, had
+determined to see the next one for himself, and was present in person on
+the third night.
+
+He came accompanied by several inspectors, whom he left in the garden, in
+the passage, and in the attic on the upper story. He himself took up his
+post on the ground floor with Weber, Mazeroux, and Don Luis Perenna.
+
+Their expectations were disappointed; and this was M. Desmalions's fault.
+In spite of the express opinion of Don Luis, who deprecated the
+experiment as useless, the Prefect had decided not to turn off the
+electric light, so that he might see if the light would prevent the
+miracle. Under these conditions no letter could appear, and no letter did
+appear. The miracle, whether a conjuring trick or a criminal's device,
+needed the kindly aid of the darkness.
+
+There were therefore ten days lost, always presuming that the diabolical
+postman would dare to repeat his attempt and produce the third
+mysterious letter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowd
+gathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the least
+sound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon the
+Fauvilles' house.
+
+This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand
+on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned
+on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his
+attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by
+one of the men with him.
+
+Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustling
+noise, had interrupted the silence.
+
+M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter lay
+not on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.
+
+Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale as
+death.
+
+M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.
+
+They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.
+
+That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for the
+really extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelled
+all the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on the
+eighth of February, with no visible address, it said:
+
+"No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheep
+led to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the last
+moment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs.
+I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that they
+still love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry,
+and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written,
+understand what I say, it is written in Marie's own hand; 'Have patience,
+my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for him
+who stands between us. He shall disappear.'
+
+"My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters
+(and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretched
+creature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revenge
+me. Au revoir. Perhaps good-bye."
+
+Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named and
+accused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to the
+riddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: Marie
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
+
+Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington's will, for they
+had begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness to
+come into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But the
+first idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion:
+Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
+
+One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent to
+whom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder,
+and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, was
+exercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the most
+Machiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in the
+background?
+
+To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpected
+manner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A week
+later, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for the
+name of her husband's old friend and at which she maintained the most
+stubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned to
+her cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece of
+glass which she had managed to hide.
+
+Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it
+before eight o'clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of
+bed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way
+to catch a train.
+
+Don Luis was greatly upset.
+
+"Is she dead?" he exclaimed.
+
+"No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what's the good?"
+
+"How do you mean, what's the good?"
+
+"She'll do it again, of course. She's set her mind upon it. And, one day
+or another--"
+
+"Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the
+attempt on her life?"
+
+"No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking
+it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the
+mysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husband
+to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, 'My
+dear fellow,' or, 'My dear friend,' This M. Langernault could do no more
+than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of
+which she was the victim."
+
+"But," said Don Luis, "if there is any one to prove her innocence, why
+does she begin by opening her veins?"
+
+"She doesn't care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants is
+rest and death."
+
+"Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides in
+death. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the
+truth is not impossible to discover."
+
+"What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginning
+to understand?"
+
+"Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of
+those letters just seems to me a sign--"
+
+He reflected for a moment and continued:
+
+"Have they reëxamined the erased addresses of the three letters?"
+
+"Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault."
+
+"Where does this Langernault live?"
+
+"According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme."
+
+"Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?"
+
+"No, but they have the name of the nearest town."
+
+"What town is that?"
+
+"Alençon."
+
+"And is that where you're going?"
+
+"Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway. I shall take the
+train at the Invalides."
+
+"You mean you will come with me in my motor."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"We will both of us go, my lad. I want to be doing something; the
+atmosphere of this house is deadly for me."
+
+"What are you talking about, Chief?"
+
+"Nothing. I know."
+
+Half an hour later they were flying along the Versailles Road. Perenna
+himself was driving his open car and driving it in such a way that
+Mazeroux, almost stifling, kept blurting out, at intervals:
+
+"Lord, what a pace! Dash it all, how you're letting her go, Chief! Aren't
+you afraid of a smash? Remember the other day--"
+
+They reached Alençon in time for lunch. When they had done, they went to
+the chief post-office. Nobody knew the name of Langernault there.
+Besides, Damigni had its own post-office, though the presumption was that
+M. Langernault had his letters addressed _poste restante_ at Alençon.
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux went on to the village of Damigni. Here again the
+postmaster knew no one of the name of Langernault; and this in spite of
+the fact that Damigni contained only about a thousand inhabitants.
+
+"Let's go and call on the mayor," said Perenna.
+
+At the mayor's Mazeroux stated who he was and mentioned the object of his
+visit. The mayor nodded his head.
+
+"Old Langernault? I should think so. A decent fellow: used to run a
+business in the town."
+
+"And accustomed, I suppose, to fetch his letters at Alençon post-office?"
+
+"That's it, every day, for the sake of the walk."
+
+"And his house?"
+
+"Is at the end of the village. You passed it as you came along."
+
+"Can we see it?"
+
+"Well, of course ... only--"
+
+"Perhaps he's not at home?"
+
+"Certainly not! The poor, dear man hasn't even set foot in the house
+since he left it the last time, four years ago!"
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Why, he's been dead these four years!"
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux exchanged a glance of amazement.
+
+"So he's dead?" said Don Luis.
+
+"Yes, a gunshot."
+
+"What's that!" cried Perenna. "Was he murdered?"
+
+"No, no. They thought so at first, when they picked him up on the floor
+of his room; but the inquest proved that it was an accident. He was
+cleaning his gun, and it went off and sent a load of shot into his
+stomach. All the same, we thought it very queer in the village. Daddy
+Langernault, an old hunter before the Lord, was not the man to commit an
+act of carelessness."
+
+"Had he money?"
+
+"Yes; and that's just what clinched the matter: they couldn't find a
+penny of it!"
+
+Don Luis remained thinking for some time and then asked:
+
+"Did he leave any children, any relations of the same name?"
+
+"Nobody, not even a cousin. The proof is that his property--it's called
+the Old Castle, because of the ruins on it--has reverted to the State.
+The authorities have had the doors of the house sealed up, and locked the
+gate of the park. They are waiting for the legal period to expire in
+order to take possession."
+
+"And don't sightseers go walking in the park, in spite of the walls?"
+
+"Not they. In the first place, the walls are very high. And then--and
+then the Old Castle has had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood ever
+since I can remember. There has always been a talk of ghosts: a pack of
+silly tales. But still--"
+
+Perenna and his companion could not get over their surprise.
+
+"This is a funny affair," exclaimed Don Luis, when they had left the
+mayor's. "Here we have Fauville writing his letters to a dead man--and to
+a dead man, by the way, who looks to me very much as if he had been
+murdered."
+
+"Some one must have intercepted the letters."
+
+"Obviously. But that does not do away with the fact that he wrote them to
+a dead man and made his confidences to a dead man and told him of his
+wife's criminal intentions."
+
+Mazeroux was silent. He, too, seemed greatly perplexed.
+
+They spent part of the afternoon in asking about old Langernault's
+habits, hoping to receive some useful clue from the people who had known
+him. But their efforts led to nothing.
+
+At six o'clock, as they were about to start, Don Luis found that the car
+had run out of petrol and sent Mazeroux in a trap to the outskirts of
+Alençon to fetch some. He employed the delay in going to look at the Old
+Castle outside the village.
+
+He had to follow a hedged road leading to an open space, planted with
+lime trees, where a massive wooden gate stood in the middle of a wall.
+The gate was locked. Don Luis walked along the wall, which was, in fact,
+very high and presented no opening. Nevertheless, he managed to climb
+over by means of the branches of a tree.
+
+The park consisted of unkept lawns, overgrown with large wild flowers,
+and grass-covered avenues leading on the right to a distant mound,
+thickly dotted with ruins, and, on the left, to a small, tumbledown house
+with ill-fitting shutters.
+
+He was turning in this direction, when he was much surprised to perceive
+fresh footprints on a border which had been soaked with the recent rain.
+And he could see that these footprints had been made by a woman's boots,
+a pair of elegant and dainty boots.
+
+"Who the devil comes walking here?" he thought.
+
+He found more footprints a little farther, on another border which the
+owner of the boots had crossed, and they led him away from the house,
+toward a series of clumps of trees where he saw them twice more. Then he
+lost sight of them for good.
+
+He was standing near a large, half-ruined barn, built against a very tall
+bank. Its worm-eaten doors seemed merely balanced on their hinges. He
+went up and looked through a crack in the wood. Inside the windowless
+barn was in semi-darkness, for but little light came through the openings
+stopped up with straw, especially as the day was beginning to wane. He
+was able to distinguish a heap of barrels, broken wine-presses, old
+ploughs, and scrap-iron of all kinds.
+
+"This is certainly not where my fair stroller turned her steps," thought
+Don Luis. "Let's look somewhere else."
+
+Nevertheless, he did not move. He had noticed a noise in the barn.
+
+He listened and heard nothing. But as he wanted to get to the bottom of
+things he forced out a couple of planks with his shoulder and stepped in.
+
+The breach which he had thus contrived admitted a little light. He could
+see enough to make his way between two casks, over some broken window
+frames, to an empty space on the far side.
+
+His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as he went on. For all that, he
+knocked his head against something which he had not perceived, something
+hanging up above, something rather hard which, when set in motion, swung
+to and fro with a curious grating sound.
+
+It was too dark to see. Don Luis took an electric lantern from his pocket
+and pressed the spring.
+
+"Damn it all!" he swore, falling back aghast.
+
+Above him hung a skeleton!
+
+And the next moment he uttered another oath. A second skeleton hung
+beside the first!
+
+They were both fastened by stout ropes to rings fixed in the rafters of
+the barn. Their heads dangled from the slip-knots. The one against which
+Perenna had struck was still moving slightly and the bones clicked
+together with a gruesome sound.
+
+He dragged forward a rickety table, propped it up as best he could, and
+climbed onto it to examine the two skeletons more closely. They were
+turned toward each other, face to face. The first was considerably bigger
+than the second. They were obviously the skeletons of a man and a woman.
+Even when they were not moved by a jolt of any kind, the wind blowing
+through the crevices in the barn set them lightly swinging to and fro, in
+a sort of very slow, rhythmical dance.
+
+But what perhaps was most impressive in this ghastly spectacle was the
+fact that each of the skeletons, though deprived of every rag of
+clothing, still wore a gold ring, too wide now that the flesh had
+disappeared, but held, as in hooks, by the bent joints of the fingers.
+
+He slipped off the rings with a shiver of disgust, and found that they
+were wedding rings. Each bore a date inside, the same date, 12 August,
+1887, and two names: "Alfred--Victorine."
+
+"Husband and wife," he murmured. "Is it a double suicide? Or a murder?
+But how is it possible that the two skeletons have not yet been
+discovered? Can one conceive that they have been here since the death of
+old Langernault, since the government has taken possession of the estate
+and made it impossible for anybody to walk in?"
+
+He paused to reflect.
+
+"Anybody? I don't know about that, considering that I saw footprints in
+the garden, and that a woman has been there this very day!"
+
+The thought of the unknown visitor engrossed him once more, and he got
+down from the table. In spite of the noise which he had heard, it was
+hardly to be supposed that she had entered the barn. And, after a few
+minutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left,
+a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground not
+far from where he stood.
+
+They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objects
+and implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that the
+visitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-place
+and made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?
+
+Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send
+the light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but an
+arsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed what
+had happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, he
+walked quickly to the ladder and went up.
+
+Suddenly, at the very moment when he reached the level of the floor,
+there was a fresh noise, a fresh clatter of things falling: and a form
+rose from the heap of rubbish with a terrible gesture.
+
+It was swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe
+cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a
+second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded
+him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder.
+The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to the
+floor below.
+
+But he had seen.
+
+He had seen the dreadful face of Gaston Sauverand, and, behind the man of
+the ebony walking-stick, wan and livid in the rays of the electric light,
+the distorted features of Florence Levasseur!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+LUPIN'S ANGER
+
+
+He remained for one moment motionless and speechless. Above was a perfect
+clatter of things being pushed about, as though the besieged were
+building themselves a barricade. But to the right of the electric rays,
+diffused daylight entered through an opening that was suddenly exposed;
+and he saw, in front of this opening, first one form and then another
+stooping in order to escape over the roofs.
+
+He levelled his revolver and fired, but badly, for he was thinking of
+Florence and his hand trembled. Three more shots rang out. The bullets
+rattled against the old scrap-iron in the loft. The fifth shot was
+followed by a cry of pain. Don Luis once more rushed up the ladder.
+
+Slowly making his way through the tangle of farm implements and over some
+cases of dried rape seed forming a regular rampart, he at last, after
+bruising and barking his shins, succeeded in reaching the opening, and
+was greatly surprised, on passing through it, to find himself on level
+ground. It was the top of the sloping bank against which the barn stood.
+
+He descended the slope at haphazard, to the left of the barn, and passed
+in front of the building, but saw nobody. He then went up again on the
+right; and although the flat part was very narrow, he searched it
+carefully for, in the growing darkness of the twilight, he had every
+reason to fear renewed attacks from the enemy.
+
+He now became aware of something which he had not perceived before. The
+bank ran along the top of the wall, which at this spot was quite
+sixteen feet high. Gaston Sauverand and Florence had, beyond a doubt,
+escaped this way.
+
+Perenna followed the wall, which was fairly wide, till he came to a lower
+part, and here he jumped into a ploughed field skirting a little wood
+toward which the fugitives must have run He started exploring it, but,
+realizing its denseness, he at once saw that it was waste of time to
+linger in pursuit.
+
+He therefore returned to the village, while thinking over this, his
+latest exploit. Once again Florence and her accomplice had tried to get
+rid of him. Once again Florence figured prominently in this network of
+criminal plots.
+
+At the moment when chance informed Don Luis that old Langernault had
+probably died by foul play, at the moment when chance, by leading him to
+Hanged Man's Barn, as he christened it, brought him into the presence of
+two skeletons, Florence appeared as a murderous vision, as an evil
+genius who was seen wherever death had passed with its trail of blood
+and corpses.
+
+"Oh, the loathsome creature!" he muttered, with a shudder. "How can she
+have so fair a face, and eyes of such haunting beauty, so grave, sincere,
+and almost guileless?"
+
+In the church square, outside the inn, Mazeroux, who had returned, was
+filling the petrol tank of the motor and lighting the lamps. Don Luis saw
+the mayor of Damigni crossing the square. He took him aside.
+
+"By the way, Monsieur le Maire, did you ever hear any talk in the
+district, perhaps two years ago, of the disappearance of a couple forty
+or fifty years of age? The husband's name was Alfred--"
+
+"And the wife's Victorine, eh?" the mayor broke in. "I should think so!
+The affair created some stir. They lived at Alengon on a small, private
+income; they disappeared between one day and the next; and no one has
+since discovered what became of them, any more than a little hoard,
+some twenty thousand francs or so, which they had realized the day
+before by the sale of their house. I remember them well. Dedessuslamare
+their name was."
+
+"Thank you, Monsieur le Maire," said Perenna, who had learned all that he
+wanted to know.
+
+The car was ready. A minute after he was rushing toward Alençon
+with Mazeroux.
+
+"Where are we going, Chief?" asked the sergeant.
+
+"To the station. I have every reason to believe, first, that Sauverand
+was informed this morning--in what way remains to be seen--of the
+revelations made last night by Mme. Fauville relating to old Langernault;
+and, secondly, that he has been prowling around and inside old
+Langernault's property to-day for reasons that also remain to be seen.
+And I presume that he came by train and that he will go back by train."
+
+Perenna's supposition was confirmed without delay. He was told at the
+railway station that a gentleman and a lady had arrived from Paris at two
+o'clock, that they had hired a trap at the hotel next door, and that,
+having finished their business, they had gone back a few minutes ago, by
+the 7:40 express. The description of the lady and gentleman corresponded
+exactly with that of Florence and Sauverand.
+
+"Off we go!" said Perenna, after consulting the timetable. "We are an
+hour behind. We may catch up with the scoundrel at Le Mans."
+
+"We'll do that, Chief, and we'll collar him, I swear: him and his lady,
+since there are two of them."
+
+"There are two of them, as you say. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+Don Luis waited to reply until they were seated and the engine started,
+when he said:
+
+"Only, my boy, you will keep your hands off the lady."
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Do you know who she is? Have you a warrant against her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then shut up."
+
+"But--"
+
+"One word more, Alexandre, and I'll set you down beside the road. Then
+you can make as many arrests as you please."
+
+Mazeroux did not breathe another word. For that matter the speed at which
+they at once began to go hardly left him time to raise a protest. Not a
+little anxious, he thought only of watching the horizon and keeping a
+lookout for obstacles.
+
+The trees vanished on either side almost unseen. Their foliage overhead
+made a rhythmical sound as of moaning waves. Night insects dashed
+themselves to death against the lamps.
+
+"We shall get there right enough," Mazeroux ventured to observe. "There's
+no need to put on the pace."
+
+The speed increased and he said no more.
+
+Villages, plains, hills; and then, suddenly in the midst of the darkness,
+the lights of a large town, Le Mans.
+
+"Do you know the way to the station, Alexandre?"
+
+"Yes, Chief, to the right and then straight on."
+
+Of course they ought to have gone to the left. They wasted seven or eight
+minutes in wandering through the streets and receiving contradictory
+instructions. When the motor pulled up at the station the train was
+whistling.
+
+Don Luis jumped out, rushed through the waiting-room, found the doors
+shut, jostled the railway officials who tried to stop him, and reached
+the platform.
+
+A train was about to start on the farther line. The last door was banged
+to. He ran along the carriages, holding on to the brass rails.
+
+"Your ticket, sir! Where's your ticket?" shouted an angry collector.
+
+Don Luis continued to fly along the footboards, giving a swift glance
+through the panes, thrusting aside the persons whose presence at the
+windows prevented him from seeing, prepared at any moment to burst into
+the compartment containing the two accomplices.
+
+He did not see them in the end carriages. The train started. And suddenly
+he gave a shout: they were there, the two of them, by themselves! He had
+seen them! They were there: Florence, lying on the seat, with her head on
+Sauverand's shoulder, and he, leaning over her, with his arms around her!
+
+Mad with rage he flung back the bottom latch and seized the handle of the
+carriage door. At the same moment he lost his balance and was pulled off
+by the furious ticket collector and by Mazeroux, who bellowed:
+
+"Why, you're mad, Chief! you'll kill yourself!"
+
+"Let go, you ass!" roared Don Luis. "It's they! Let me be, can't you!"
+
+The carriages filed past. He tried to jump on to another footboard.
+But the two men were clinging to him, some railway porters came to
+their assistance, the station-master ran up. The train moved out of
+the station.
+
+"Idiots!" he shouted. "Boobies! Pack of asses that you are, couldn't you
+leave me alone? Oh, I swear to Heaven--!"
+
+With a blow of his left fist he knocked the ticket collector down; with a
+blow of his right he sent Mazeroux spinning; and shaking off the porters
+and the station-master, he rushed along the platform to the luggage-room,
+where he took flying leaps over several batches of trunks, packing-cases,
+and portmanteaux.
+
+"Oh, the perfect fool!" he mumbled, on seeing that Mazeroux had let the
+power down in the car. "Trust him, if there's any blunder going!"
+
+Don Luis had driven his car at a fine rate during the day; but that night
+the pace became vertiginous. A very meteor flashed through the suburbs of
+Le Mans and hurled itself along the highroad. Perenna had but one thought
+in his head: to reach the next station, which was Chartres, before the
+two accomplices, and to fly at Sauverand's throat. He saw nothing but
+that: the savage grip of his two hands that would set Florence
+Levasseur's lover gasping in his agony.
+
+"Her lover! Her lover!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth. "Why, of course,
+that explains everything! They have combined against their accomplice,
+Marie Fauville; and it is she alone, poor devil, who will pay for the
+horrible series of crimes!"
+
+"Is she their accomplice even?" he wondered. "Who knows? Who knows if
+that pair of demons are not capable, after killing Hippolyte and his son,
+of having plotted the ruin of Marie Fauville, the last obstacle that
+stood between them and the Mornington inheritance? Doesn't everything
+point to that conclusion? Didn't I find the list of dates in a book
+belonging to Florence? Don't the facts prove that the letters were
+communicated by Florence?...
+
+"Those letters accuse Gaston Sauverand as well. But how does that affect
+things? He no longer loves Marie, but Florence. And Florence loves him.
+She is his accomplice, his counsellor, the woman who will live by his
+side and benefit by his fortune.... True, she sometimes pretends to be
+defending Marie Fauville. Play-acting! Or perhaps remorse, fright at the
+thought of all that she has done against her rival, and of the fate that
+awaits the unhappy woman!
+
+"But she is in love with Sauverand. And she continues to carry on the
+struggle without pity and without respite. And that is why she wanted to
+kill me, the interloper whose insight she dreaded. And she hates me and
+loathes me--"
+
+To the hum of the engine and the sighing of the trees, which bent down at
+the approach, he murmured incoherent words. The recollection of the two
+lovers clasped in each other's arms made him cry aloud with jealousy. He
+wanted to be revenged. For the first time in his life, the longing, the
+feverish craving to kill set his brain boiling.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled suddenly. "The engine's misfiring! Mazeroux!
+Mazeroux!"
+
+"What, Chief! Did you know that I was here?" exclaimed Mazeroux, emerging
+from the shadow in which he sat hidden.
+
+"You jackass! Do you think that the first idiot who comes along can hang
+on to the footboard of my car without my knowing it? You must be feeling
+comfortable down there!"
+
+"I'm suffering agonies, and I'm shivering with cold."
+
+"That's right, it'll teach you. Tell me, where did you buy your petrol?"
+
+"At the grocer's."
+
+"At a thief's, you mean. It's muck. The plugs are getting sooted up."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Can't you hear the misfiring, you fool?"
+
+The motor, indeed, at moments seemed to hesitate. Then everything became
+normal again. Don Luis forced the pace. Going downhill they appeared to
+be hurling themselves into space. One of the lamps went out. The other
+was not as bright as usual. But nothing diminished Don Luis's ardour.
+
+There was more misfiring, fresh hesitations, followed by efforts, as
+though the engine was pluckily striving to do its duty. And then suddenly
+came the final failure, a dead stop at the side of the road, a stupid
+breakdown.
+
+"Confound it!" roared Don Luis. "We're stuck! Oh, this is the last
+straw!"
+
+"Come, Chief, we'll put it right. And we'll pick up Sauverand at Paris
+instead of Chartres, that's all."
+
+"You infernal ass! The repairs will take an hour! And then she'll break
+down again. It's not petrol, it's filth they've foisted on you."
+
+The country stretched around them to endless distances, with no other
+lights than the stars that riddled the darkness of the sky.
+
+Don Luis was stamping with fury. He would have liked to kick the motor to
+pieces. He would have liked--
+
+It was Mazeroux who "caught it," in the hapless sergeant's own words. Don
+Luis took him by the shoulders, shook him, loaded him with insults and
+abuse and, finally, pushing him against the roadside bank and holding him
+there, said, in a broken voice of mingled hatred and sorrow.
+
+"It's she, do you hear, Mazeroux? it's Sauverand's companion who has done
+everything. I'm telling you now, because I'm afraid of relenting. Yes, I
+am a weak coward. She has such a grave face, with the eyes of a child.
+But it's she, Mazeroux. She lives in my house. Remember her name:
+Florence Levasseur. You'll arrest her, won't you? I might not be able to.
+My courage fails me when I look at her. The fact is that I have never
+loved before.
+
+"There have been other women--but no, those were fleeting fancies--not
+even that: I don't even remember the past! Whereas Florence--! You must
+arrest her, Mazeroux. You must deliver me from her eyes. They burn into
+me like poison. If you don't deliver me I shall kill her as I killed
+Dolores--or else they will kill me--or--Oh, I don't know all the ideas
+that are driving me wild--!
+
+"You see, there's another man," he explained. "There's Sauverand, whom
+she loves. Oh, the infamous pair! They have killed Fauville and the boy
+and old Langernault and those two in the barn and others besides: Cosmo
+Mornington, Vérot, and more still. They are monsters, she most of
+all--And if you saw her eyes-"
+
+He spoke so low that Mazeroux could hardly hear him. He had let go his
+hold of Mazeroux and seemed utterly cast down with despair, a surprising
+symptom in a man of his amazing vigour and authority.
+
+"Come, Chief," said the sergeant, helping him up. "This is all stuff and
+nonsense. Trouble with women: I've had it like everybody else. Mme.
+Mazeroux--yes, I got married while you were away--Mme. Mazeroux turned
+out badly herself, gave me the devil of a time, Mme. Mazeroux did. I'll
+tell you all about it, Chief, how Mme. Mazeroux rewarded my kindness."
+
+He led Don Luis gently to the car and settled him on the front seat.
+
+"Take a rest, Chief. It's not very cold and there are plenty of furs. The
+first peasant that comes along at daybreak, I'll send him to the next
+town for what we want--and for food, too, for I'm starving. And
+everything will come right; it always does with women. All you have to do
+is to kick them out of your life--except when they anticipate you and
+kick themselves out.... I was going to tell you: Mme. Mazeroux--"
+
+Don Luis was never to learn what had happened with Mme. Mazeroux. The
+most violent catastrophies had no effect upon the peacefulness of his
+slumbers. He was asleep almost at once.
+
+It was late in the morning when he woke up. Mazeroux had had to wait till
+seven o'clock before he could hail a cyclist on his way to Chartres.
+
+They made a start at nine o'clock. Don Luis had recovered all his
+coolness. He turned to his sergeant.
+
+"I said a lot last night that I did not mean to say. However, I don't
+regret it. Yes, it is my duty to do everything to save Mme. Fauville and
+to catch the real culprit. Only the task falls upon myself; and I swear
+that I shan't fail in it. This evening Florence Levasseur shall sleep in
+the lockup!"
+
+"I'll help you, Chief," replied Mazeroux, in a queer tone of voice.
+
+"I need nobody's help. If you touch a single hair of her head, I'll do
+for you. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+"Then hold your tongue."
+
+His anger was slowly returning and expressed itself in an increase of
+speed, which seemed to Mazeroux a revenge executed upon himself. They
+raced over the cobble-stones of Chartres. Rambouillet, Chevreuse, and
+Versailles received the terrifying vision of a thunderbolt tearing across
+them from end to end.
+
+Saint-Cloud. The Bois de Boulogne ...
+
+On the Place de la Concorde, as the motor was turning toward the
+Tuileries, Mazeroux objected:
+
+"Aren't you going home, Chief?"
+
+"No. There's something more urgent first: we must relieve Marie Fauville
+of her suicidal obsession by letting her know that we have discovered the
+criminals."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I want to see the Prefect of Police."
+
+"M. Desmalions is away and won't be back till this afternoon."
+
+"In that case the examining magistrate."
+
+"He doesn't get to the law courts till twelve; and it's only eleven now."
+
+"We'll see."
+
+Mazeroux was right: there was no one at the law courts.
+
+Don Luis lunched somewhere close by; and Mazeroux, after calling at the
+detective office, came to fetch him and took him to the magistrate's
+corridor. Don Luis's excitement, his extraordinary restlessness, did not
+fail to strike Mazeroux, who asked:
+
+"Are you still of the same mind, Chief?"
+
+"More than ever. I looked through the newspapers at lunch. Marie
+Fauville, who was sent to the infirmary after her second attempt, has
+again tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall of the
+room. They have put a straitjacket on her. But she is refusing all food.
+It is my duty to save her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By handing over the real criminal. I shall inform the magistrate in
+charge of the case; and this evening I shall bring you Florence Levasseur
+dead or alive."
+
+"And Sauverand?"
+
+"Sauverand? That won't take long. Unless--"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless I settle his business myself, the miscreant!"
+
+"Chief!"
+
+"Oh, dry up!"
+
+There were some reporters near them waiting for particulars. He
+recognized them and went up to them.
+
+"You can say, gentlemen, that from to-day I am taking up the defence of
+Marie Fauville and devoting myself entirely to her cause."
+
+They all protested: was it not he who had had Mme. Fauville arrested? Was
+it not he who had collected a heap of convicting proofs against her?
+
+"I shall demolish those proofs one by one," he said. "Marie Fauville is
+the victim of wretches who have hatched the most diabolical plot against
+her, and whom I am about to deliver up to justice."
+
+"But the teeth! The marks of the teeth!"
+
+"A coincidence! An unparalleled coincidence, but one which now strikes me
+as a most powerful proof of innocence. I tell you that, if Marie Fauville
+had been clever enough to commit all those murders, she would also have
+been clever enough not to leave behind her a fruit bearing the marks of
+her two rows of teeth."
+
+"But still--"
+
+"She is innocent! And that is what I am going to tell the examining
+magistrate. She must be informed of the efforts that are being made in
+her favour. She must be given hope at once. If not, the poor thing will
+kill herself and her death will be on the conscience of all who accused
+an innocent woman. She must--"
+
+At that moment he interrupted himself. His eyes were fixed on one of the
+journalists who was standing a little way off listening to him and
+taking notes.
+
+He whispered to Mazeroux:
+
+"Could you manage to find out that beggar's name? I can't remember where
+on earth I've seen him before."
+
+But an usher now opened the door of the examining magistrate, who, on
+receiving Don Perenna's card, had asked to see him at once. He stepped
+forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly
+turned to his companion with a cry of rage:
+
+"It's he! It was Sauverand in disguise. Stop him! He's made off. Run,
+can't you?"
+
+He himself darted away followed by Mazeroux and a number of warders and
+journalists, He soon outdistanced them, so that, three minutes later, he
+heard no one more behind him. He had rushed down the staircase of the
+"Mousetrap," and through the subway leading from one courtyard to the
+other. Here two people told him that they had met a man walking at a
+smart pace.
+
+The track was a false one. He became aware of this, hunted about, lost a
+good deal of time, and managed to discover that Sauverand had left by the
+Boulevard du Palais and joined a very pretty, fair-haired woman--Florence
+Levasseur, obviously--on the Quai de l'Horloge. They had both got into
+the motor bus that runs from the Place Saint-Michel to the Gare
+Saint-Lazare.
+
+Don Luis went back to a lonely little street where he had left his car in
+the charge of a boy. He set the engine going and drove at full speed to
+the Gare Saint-Lazare, From the omnibus shelter he went off on a fresh
+track which also proved to be wrong, lost quite another hour, returned to
+the terminus, and ended by learning for certain that Florence had stepped
+by herself into a motor bus which would take her toward the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. Contrary to all his expectations, therefore, the girl
+must have gone home.
+
+The thought of seeing her again roused his anger to its highest pitch.
+All the way down the Rue Royale and across the Place de la Concorde he
+kept blurting out words of revenge and threats which he was itching to
+carry out. He would abuse Florence. He would sting her with his insults.
+He felt a bitter and painful need to hurt the odious creature.
+
+But on reaching the Place du Palais-Bourbon he pulled up short. His
+practised eye had counted at a glance, on the right and left, a
+half-dozen men whose professional look there was no mistaking. And
+Mazeroux, who had caught sight of him, had spun round on his heel and was
+hiding under a gateway.
+
+He called him:
+
+"Mazeroux!"
+
+The sergeant appeared greatly surprised to hear his name and came up
+to the car.
+
+"Hullo, the Chief!"
+
+His face expressed such embarrassment that Don Luis felt his fears taking
+definite shape.
+
+"Look here, is it for me that you and your men are hanging about outside
+my house?"
+
+"There's a notion, Chief," replied Mazeroux, looking very uncomfortable.
+"You know that you're in favour all right!"
+
+Don Luis gave a start. He understood. Mazeroux had betrayed his
+confidence. To obey his scruples of conscience as well as to rescue the
+chief from the dangers of a fatal passion, Mazeroux had denounced
+Florence Levasseur.
+
+Perenna clenched his fists in an effort of his whole being to stifle his
+boiling rage. It was a terrible blow. He received a sudden intuition of
+all the blunders which his mad jealousy had made him commit since the day
+before, and a presentiment of the irreparable disasters that might result
+from them. The conduct of events was slipping from him.
+
+"Have you the warrant?" he asked.
+
+Mazeroux spluttered:
+
+"It was quite by accident. I met the Prefect, who was back. We spoke of
+the young lady's business. And, as it happened, they had discovered that
+the photograph--you know, the photograph of Florence Levasseur which the
+Prefect lent you--well, they have discovered that you faked it. And then
+when I mentioned the name of Florence, the Prefect remembered that that
+was the name."
+
+"Have you the warrant?" Don Luis repeated, in a harsher tone.
+
+"Well, you see, I couldn't help it.... M. Desmalions, the magistrate--"
+
+If the Place du Palais Bourbon had been deserted at that moment, Don
+Luis would certainly have relieved himself by a swinging blow
+administered to Mazeroux's chin according to the most scientific rules
+of the noble art. And Mazeroux foresaw this contingency, for he
+prudently kept as far away as possible and, to appease the chief's
+anger, intended a whole litany of excuses:
+
+"It was for your good, Chief.... I had to do it ... Only think! You
+yourself told me: 'Rid me of the creature!' said you. I'm too weak.
+You'll arrest her, won't you? Her eyes burn into me--like poison! Well,
+Chief, could I help it? No, I couldn't, could I? Especially as the
+deputy chief--"
+
+"Ah! So Weber knows?"
+
+"Why, yes! The Prefect is a little suspicious of you since he understood
+about the faking of the portrait. So M. Weber is coming back in an hour,
+perhaps, with reinforcements. Well, I was saying, the deputy chief had
+learnt that the woman who used to go to Gaston Sauverand's at
+Neuilly--you know, the house on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace--was fair
+and very good looking, and that her name was Florence. She even used to
+stay the night sometimes."
+
+"You lie! You lie!" hissed Perenna.
+
+All his spite was reviving. He had been pursuing Florence with intentions
+which it would have been difficult for him to put into words. And now
+suddenly he again wanted to destroy her; and this time consciously. In
+reality he no longer knew what he was doing. He was acting at haphazard,
+tossed about in turns by the most diverse passions, a prey to that
+inordinate love which impels us as readily to kill the object of our
+affections as to die in an attempt to save her.
+
+A newsboy passed with a special edition of the _Paris-Midi_, showing in
+great black letters:
+
+"SENSATIONAL DECLARATION BY DON LUIS PERENNA
+
+"MME. FAUVILLE IS INNOCENT.
+
+"IMMINENT ARREST OF THE TWO CRIMINALS"
+
+"Yes, yes," he said aloud. "The drama is drawing to an end. Florence is
+about to pay her debt to society. So much the worse for her."
+
+He started his car again and drove through the gate. In the courtyard he
+said to his chauffeur, who came up:
+
+"Turn her around and don't put her up. I may be starting again at
+any moment."
+
+He sprang out and asked the butler:
+
+"Is Mlle. Levasseur in?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she's in her room."
+
+"She was away yesterday, wasn't she?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she received a telegram asking her to go to the country to see
+a relation who was ill. She came back last night."
+
+"I want to speak to her. Send her to me. At once."
+
+"In the study, sir?"
+
+"No, upstairs, in the boudoir next to my bedroom."
+
+This was a small room on the second floor which had once been a lady's
+boudoir, and he preferred it to his study since the attempt at murder of
+which he had been the object. He was quieter up there, farther away; and
+he kept his important papers there. He always carried the key with him: a
+special key with three grooves to it and an inner spring.
+
+Mazeroux had followed him into the courtyard and was keeping close behind
+him, apparently unobserved by Perenna, who having so far appeared not to
+notice it. He now, however, took the sergeant by the arm and led him to
+the front steps.
+
+"All is going well. I was afraid that Florence, suspecting something,
+might not have come back. But she probably doesn't know that I saw her
+yesterday. She can't escape us now."
+
+They went across the hall and up the stairs to the first floor. Mazeroux
+rubbed his hands.
+
+"So you've come to your senses, Chief?"
+
+"At any rate I've made up my mind. I will not, do you hear, I will not
+have Mme. Fauville kill herself; and, as there is no other way of
+preventing that catastrophe, I shall sacrifice Florence."
+
+"Without regret?"
+
+"Without remorse."
+
+"Then you forgive me?"
+
+"I thank you."
+
+And he struck him a clean, powerful blow under the chin. Mazeroux fell
+without a moan, in a dead faint on the steps of the second flight.
+
+Halfway up the stairs was a dark recess that served as a lumber room
+where the servants kept their pails and brooms and the soiled household
+linen. Don Luis carried Mazeroux to it, and, seating him comfortably on
+the floor, with his back to a housemaid's box, he stuffed his
+handkerchief into his mouth, gagged him with a towel, and bound his
+wrists and ankles with two tablecloths. The other ends of these he
+fastened to a couple of strong nails. As Mazeroux was slowly coming to
+himself, Don Luis said:
+
+"I think you have all you want. Tablecloths--napkins--something in your
+mouth in case you're hungry. Eat at your ease. And then take a little
+nap, and you'll wake up as fresh as paint."
+
+He locked him in and glanced at his watch.
+
+"I have an hour before me. Capital!"
+
+At that moment his intention was to insult Florence, to throw up all her
+scandalous crimes in her face, and, in this way, to force a written and
+signed confession from her. Afterward, when Marie Fauville's safety was
+insured, he would see. Perhaps he would put Florence in his motor and
+carry her off to some refuge from which, with the girl for a hostage, he
+would be able to influence the police. Perhaps--But he did not seek to
+anticipate events. What he wanted was an immediate, violent explanation.
+
+He ran up to his bedroom on the second floor and dipped his face into
+cold water. Never had he experienced such a stimulation of his whole
+being, such an unbridling of his blind instincts.
+
+"It's she!" he spluttered. "I hear her! She is at the bottom of the
+stairs. At last! Oh, the joy of having her in front of me! Face to face!
+She and I alone!"
+
+He returned to the landing outside the boudoir. He took the key from his
+pocket. The door opened.
+
+He uttered a great shout: Gaston Sauverand was there! In that locked room
+Gaston Sauverand was waiting for him, standing with folded arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
+
+
+Gaston Sauverand!
+
+Instinctively, Don Luis took a step back, drew his revolver, and aimed it
+at the criminal:
+
+"Hands up!" he commanded. "Hands up, or I fire!"
+
+Sauverand did not appear to be put out. He nodded toward two revolvers
+which he had laid on a table beyond his reach and said:
+
+"There are my arms. I have come here not to fight, but to talk."
+
+"How did you get in?" roared Don Luis, exasperated by this display of
+calmness. "A false key, I suppose? But how did you get hold of the key?
+How did you manage it?"
+
+The other did not reply. Don Luis stamped his foot:
+
+"Speak, will you? Speak! If not--"
+
+But Florence ran into the room. She passed him by without his trying to
+stop her, flung herself upon Gaston Sauverand, and, taking no heed of
+Perenna's presence, said:
+
+"Why did you come? You promised me that you wouldn't. You swore it
+to me. Go!"
+
+Sauverand released himself and forced her into a chair.
+
+"Let me be, Florence. I promised only so as to reassure you. Let me be."
+
+"No, I will not!" exclaimed the girl eagerly. "It's madness! I won't have
+you say a single word. Oh, please, please stop!"
+
+He bent over her and smoothed her forehead, separating her mass of
+golden hair.
+
+"Let me do things my own way, Florence," he said softly.
+
+She was silent, as though disarmed by the gentleness of his voice; and he
+whispered more words which Don Luis could not hear and which seemed to
+convince her.
+
+Perenna had not moved. He stood opposite them with his arm outstretched
+and his finger on the trigger, aiming at the enemy. When Sauverand
+addressed Florence by her Christian name, he started from head to foot
+and his finger trembled. What miracle kept him from shooting? By what
+supreme effort of will did he stifle the jealous hatred that burnt him
+like fire? And here was Sauverand daring to stroke Florence's hair!
+
+He lowered his arm. He would kill them later, do with them what he
+pleased, since they were in his power, and since nothing henceforth could
+snatch them from his vengeance.
+
+He took Sauverand's two revolvers and laid them in a drawer. Then he went
+back to the door, intending to lock it. But hearing a sound on the
+first-floor landing, he leant over the balusters. The butler was coming
+upstairs with a tray in his hand.
+
+"What is it now?"
+
+"An urgent letter, sir, for Sergeant Mazeroux."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is with me. Give me the letter and don't let me be
+disturbed again."
+
+He tore open the envelope. The letter, hurriedly written in pencil and
+signed by one of the inspectors on duty outside the house, contained
+these words:
+
+"Look out, Sergeant. Gaston Sauverand is in the house. Two people living
+opposite say that the girl who is known hereabouts as the lady
+housekeeper came in at half-past one, before we took up our posts. She
+was next seen at the window of her lodge.
+
+"A few moments after, a small, low door, used for the cellars and
+situated under the lodge, was opened, evidently by her. Almost at the
+same time a man entered the square, came along the wall, and slipped in
+through the cellar door. According to the description it was Gaston
+Sauverand. So look out, Sergeant. At the least alarm, at the first signal
+from you, we shall come in."
+
+Don Luis reflected. He now understood how the scoundrel had access to his
+house, and how, hidden in the safest of retreats, he was able to escape
+every attempt to find him. He was living under the roof of the very man
+who had declared himself his most formidable adversary.
+
+"Come on," he said to himself. "The fellow's score is settled--and so is
+his young lady's. They can choose between the bullets in my revolver and
+the handcuffs of the police."
+
+He had ceased to think of his motor standing ready below. He no longer
+dreamt of flight with Florence. If he did not kill the two of them, the
+law would lay its hand upon them, the hand that does not let go. And
+perhaps it was better so, that society itself should punish the two
+criminals whom he was about to hand over to it.
+
+He shut the door, pushed the bolt, faced his two prisoners again and,
+taking a chair, said to Sauverand:
+
+"Let us talk."
+
+Owing to the narrow dimensions of the room they were all so close
+together that Don Luis felt as if he were almost touching the man whom he
+loathed from the very bottom of his heart. Their two chairs were hardly a
+yard asunder. A long table, covered with books, stood between them and
+the windows, which, hollowed out of the very thick wall, formed a recess,
+as is usual in old houses.
+
+Florence had turned her chair away from the light, and Don Luis could not
+see her face clearly. But he looked straight into Gaston Sauverand's face
+and watched it with eager curiosity; and his anger was heightened by the
+sight of the still youthful features, the expressive mouth, and the
+intelligent eyes, which were fine in spite of their hardness.
+
+"Well? Speak!" said Don Luis, in a commanding tone. "I have agreed to a
+truce, but a momentary truce, just long enough to say what is necessary.
+Are you afraid now that the time has arrived? Do you regret the step
+which you have taken?"
+
+The man smiled calmly and said:
+
+"I am afraid of nothing, and I do not regret coming, for I have a very
+strong intuition that we can, that we are bound to, come to an
+understanding."
+
+"An understanding!" protested Don Luis with a start.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"A compact! An alliance between you and me!"
+
+"Why not? It is a thought which I had already entertained more than once,
+which took a more precise shape in the magistrates' corridor, and which
+finally decided me when I read the announcement which you caused to be
+made in the special edition of this paper: 'Sensational declaration by
+Don Luis Perenna. Mme. Fauville is innocent!'"
+
+Gaston Sauverand half rose from his chair and, carefully picking his
+words, emphasizing them with sharp gestures, he whispered:
+
+"Everything lies, Monsieur, in those four words. Do those four words
+which you have written, which you have uttered publicly and
+solemnly--'Mme. Fauville is innocent'--do they express your real mind? Do
+you now absolutely believe in Marie Fauville's innocence?"
+
+Don Luis shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Mme. Fauville's innocence has nothing to do with the case. It is a
+question not of her, but of you, of you two and myself. So come straight
+to the point and as quickly as you can. It is to your interest even more
+than to mine."
+
+"To our interest?"
+
+"You forget the third heading to the article," cried Don Luis. "I did
+more than proclaim Marie Fauville's innocence. I also announced--read for
+yourself--The 'imminent arrest of the criminals.'"
+
+Sauverand and Florence rose together, with the same unguarded movement.
+
+"And, in your view, the criminals are--?" asked Sauverand.
+
+"Why, you know as well as I do: they are the man with the ebony
+walking-stick, who at any rate cannot deny having murdered Chief
+Inspector Ancenis, and the woman who is his accomplice in all his crimes.
+Both of them must remember their attempts to assassinate me: the revolver
+shot on the Boulevard Suchet; the motor smash causing the death of my
+chauffeur; and yesterday again, in the barn--you know where--the barn
+with the two skeletons hanging from the rafters: yesterday--you
+remember--the scythe, the relentless scythe, which nearly beheaded me."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Well, then, the game is lost. You must pay up; and all the more so as
+you have foolishly put your heads into the lion's mouth."
+
+"I don't understand. What does all this mean?"
+
+"It simply means that they know Florence Levasseur, that they know you
+are both here, that the house is surrounded, and that Weber, the deputy
+chief detective, is on his way."
+
+Sauverand appeared disconcerted by this unexpected threat. Florence,
+standing beside him, had turned livid. A mad anguish distorted her
+features. She stammered:
+
+"Oh, it is awful! No, no, I can't endure it!"
+
+And, rushing at Don Luis:
+
+"Coward! Coward! It's you who are betraying us! Coward! Oh, I knew that
+you were capable of the meanest treachery! There you stand like an
+executioner! Oh, you villain, you coward!"
+
+She fell into her chair, exhausted and sobbing, with her hand to her
+face.
+
+Don Luis turned away. Strange to say, he experienced no sense of pity;
+and Florence's tears affected him no more than her insults had done, no
+more than if he had never loved the girl. He was glad of this release.
+The horror with which she filled him had killed his love.
+
+But, when he once more stood in front of them after taking a few steps
+across the room, he saw that they were holding each other's hands, like
+two friends in distress, trying to give each other courage; and, again
+yielding to a sudden impulse of hatred, for a moment beside himself, he
+gripped the man's arm:
+
+"I forbid you--By what right--? Is she your wife? Your mistress? Then--"
+
+His voice became perplexed. He himself felt the strangeness of that fit
+of anger which suddenly revealed, in all its force and all its blindness,
+a passion which he thought dead. And he blushed, for Gaston Sauverand was
+looking at him in amazement; and he did not doubt that the enemy had
+penetrated his secret.
+
+A long pause followed, during which he met Florence's eyes, hostile eyes,
+full of rebellion and disdain. Had she, too, guessed?
+
+He dared not speak another word. He waited for Sauverand's explanation.
+And, while waiting, he gave not a thought to the coming revelations, nor
+to the tremendous problems of which he was at last about to know the
+solution, nor to the tragic events at hand.
+
+He thought of one thing only, thought of it with the fevered throbbing of
+his whole being, thought of what he was on the point of learning about
+Florence, about the girl's affections, about her past, about her love for
+Sauverand. That alone interested him.
+
+"Very well," said Sauverand. "I am caught in a trap. Fate must take its
+course. Nevertheless, can I speak to you? It is the only wish that
+remains to me."
+
+"Speak," replied Don Luis. "The door is locked. I shall not open it until
+I think fit. Speak."
+
+"I shall be brief," said Gaston Sauverand. "For one thing, what I can
+tell you is not much. I do not ask you to believe it, but to listen to it
+as if I were possibly telling the truth, the whole truth."
+
+And he expressed himself in the following words:
+
+"I never met Hippolyte and Marie Fauville, though I used to correspond
+with them--you will remember that we were all cousins--until five
+years ago, when chance brought us together at Palmero. They were
+passing the winter there while their new house on the Boulevard Suchet
+was being built.
+
+"We spent five months at Palmero, seeing one another daily. Hippolyte and
+Marie were not on the best of terms. One evening after they had been
+quarrelling more violently than usual I found her crying. Her tears upset
+me and I could not longer conceal my secret. I had loved Marie from the
+first moment when we met. I was to love her always and to love her more
+and more."
+
+"You lie!" cried Don Luis, losing his self-restraint. "I saw the two of
+you yesterday in the train that brought you back from Alençon--"
+
+Gaston Sauverand looked at Florence. She sat silent, with her hands to
+her face and her elbows on her knees. Without replying to Don Luis's
+exclamation, he went on:
+
+"Marie also loved me. She admitted it, but made me swear that I would
+never try to obtain from her more than the purest friendship would allow.
+I kept my oath. We enjoyed a few weeks of incomparable happiness.
+Hippolyte Fauville, who had become enamoured of a music-hall singer, was
+often away.
+
+"I took a good deal of trouble with the physical training of the little
+boy Edmond, whose health was not what it should be. And we also had with
+us, between us, the best of friends, the most devoted and affectionate
+counsellor, who staunched our wounds, kept up our courage, restored our
+gayety, and bestowed some of her own strength and dignity upon our love.
+Florence was there."
+
+Don Luis felt his heart beating faster. Not that he attached the least
+credit to Gaston Sauverand's words; but he had every hope of arriving,
+through those words, at the real truth. Perhaps, also, he was
+unconsciously undergoing the influence of Gaston Sauverand, whose
+apparent frankness and sincerity of tone caused him a certain surprise.
+
+Sauverand continued:
+
+"Fifteen years before, my elder brother, Raoul Sauverand, had picked up
+at Buenos Aires, where he had gone to live, a little girl, the orphan
+daughter of some friends. At his death he entrusted the child, who was
+then fourteen, to an old nurse who had brought me up and who had
+accompanied my brother to South America. The old nurse brought the child
+to me and herself died of an accident a few days after her arrival in
+France.... I took the little girl to Italy to friends, where she worked
+and studied and became--what she is.
+
+"Wishing to live by her own resources, she accepted a position as teacher
+in a family. Later I recommended her to my Fauville cousins with whom I
+found her at Palmero as governess to the boy Edmond and especially as the
+friend, the dear and devoted friend, of Marie Fauville.... She was mine,
+also, at that happy time, which was so sunny and all too short. Our
+happiness, in fact--the happiness of all three of us--was to be wrecked
+in the most sudden and tantalizing fashion.
+
+"Every evening I used to write in a diary the daily life of my love, an
+uneventful life, without hope or future before it, but eager and radiant.
+Marie Fauville was extolled in it as a goddess. Kneeling down to write, I
+sang litanies of her beauty, and I also used to invent, as a poor
+compensation, wholly imaginary scenes, in which she said all the things
+which she might have said but did not, and promised me all the happiness
+which we had voluntarily renounced.
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville found the diary.... His anger was something terrible.
+His first impulse was to get rid of Marie. But in the face of his wife's
+attitude, of the proofs of her innocence which she supplied, of her
+inflexible refusal to consent to a divorce, and of her promise never to
+see me again, he recovered his calmness.... I left, with death in my
+soul. Florence left, too, dismissed. And never, mark me, never, since
+that fatal hour, did I exchange a single word with Marie. But an
+indestructible love united us, a love which neither absence nor time was
+to weaken."
+
+He stopped for a moment, as though to read in Don Luis's face the effect
+produced by his story. Don Luis did not conceal his anxious attention.
+What astonished him most was Gaston Sauverand's extraordinary calmness,
+the peaceful expression of his eyes, the quiet ease with which he set
+forth, without hurrying, almost slowly and so very simply, the story of
+that family tragedy.
+
+"What an actor!" he thought.
+
+And as he thought it, he remembered that Marie Fauville had given him the
+same impression. Was he then to hark back to his first conviction and
+believe Marie guilty, a dissembler like her accomplice, a dissembler like
+Florence? Or was he to attribute a certain honesty to that man?
+
+He asked:
+
+"And afterward?"
+
+"Afterward I travelled about. I resumed my life of work and pursued my
+studies wherever I went, in my bedroom at the hotels, and in the public
+laboratories of the big towns."
+
+"And Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"She lived in Paris in her new house. Neither she nor her husband ever
+referred to the past."
+
+"How do you know? Did she write to you?"
+
+"No. Marie is a woman who does not do her duty by halves; and her sense
+of duty is strict to excess. She never wrote to me. But Florence, who had
+accepted a place as secretary and reader to Count Malonyi, your
+predecessor in this house, used often to receive Marie's visits in her
+lodge downstairs.
+
+"They did not speak of me once, did they, Florence? Marie would not have
+allowed it. But all her life and all her soul were nothing but love and
+passionate memories. Isn't that so, Florence?
+
+"At last," he went on slowly, "weary of being so far away from her, I
+returned to Paris. That was our undoing.... It was about a year ago. I
+took a flat in the Avenue du Roule and went to it in the greatest
+secrecy, so that Hippolyte Fauville might not know of my return. I was
+afraid of disturbing Marie's peace of mind. Florence alone knew, and came
+to see me from time to time. I went out little, only after dark, and in
+the most secluded parts of the Bois. But it happened--for our most heroic
+resolutions sometimes fail us--one Wednesday night, at about eleven
+o'clock, my steps led me to the Boulevard Suchet, without my noticing it,
+and I went past Marie's house.
+
+"It was a warm and fine night and, as luck would have it, Marie was at
+her window. She saw me, I was sure of it, and knew me; and my happiness
+was so great that my legs shook under me as I walked away.
+
+"After that I passed in front of her house every Wednesday evening; and
+Marie was nearly always there, giving me this unhoped-for and ever-new
+delight, in spite of the fact that her social duties, her quite natural
+love of amusement, and her husband's position obliged her to go out a
+great deal."
+
+"Quick! Why can't you hurry?" said Don Luis, urged by his longing to know
+more. "Look sharp and come to the facts. Speak!"
+
+He had become suddenly afraid lest he should not hear the remainder of
+the explanation; and he suddenly perceived that Gaston Sauverand's words
+were making their way into his mind as words that were perhaps not
+untrue. Though he strove to fight against them, they were stronger than
+his prejudices and triumphed over his arguments.
+
+The fact is, that deep down in his soul, tortured with love and jealousy,
+there was something that disposed him to believe this man in whom
+hitherto he had seen only a hated rival, and who was so loudly
+proclaiming, in Florence's very presence, his love for Marie.
+
+"Hurry!" he repeated. "Every minute is precious!"
+
+Sauverand shook his head.
+
+"I shall not hurry. All my words were carefully thought out before I
+decided to speak. Every one of them is essential. Not one of them can be
+omitted, for you will find the solution of the problem not in facts
+presented anyhow, separated one from the other, but in the concatenation
+of the facts, and in a story told as faithfully as possible."
+
+"Why? I don't understand."
+
+"Because the truth lies hidden in that story."
+
+"But that truth is your innocence, isn't it?"
+
+"It is Marie's innocence."
+
+"But I don't dispute it!"
+
+"What is the use of that if you can't prove it?"
+
+"Exactly! It's for you to give me proofs."
+
+"I have none."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I tell you, I have no proof of what I am asking you to believe."
+
+"Then I shall not believe it!" cried Don Luis angrily. "No, and again no!
+Unless you supply me with the most convincing proofs, I shall refuse to
+believe a single word of what you are going to tell me."
+
+"You have believed everything that I have told you so far," Sauverand
+retorted very simply.
+
+Don Luis offered no denial. He turned his eyes to Florence Levasseur; and
+it seemed to him that she was looking at him with less aversion, and as
+though she were wishing with all her might that he would not resist the
+impressions that were forcing themselves upon him. He muttered:
+
+"Go on with your story."
+
+And there was something really strange about the attitude of those two
+men, one making his explanation in precise terms and in such a way as to
+give every word its full value, the other listening attentively and
+weighing every one of those words; both controlling their excitement;
+both as calm in appearance as though they were seeking the philosophical
+solution in a case of conscience. What was going on outside did not
+matter. What was to happen presently did not count.
+
+Before all, whatever the consequences of their inactivity at this moment
+when the circle of the police was closing in around them, before all it
+was necessary that one should speak and the other listen.
+
+"We are coming," said Sauverand, in his grave voice, "we are coming to
+the most important events, to those of which the interpretation, which is
+new to you, but strictly true, will make you believe in our good faith.
+Ill luck having brought me across Hippolyte Fauville's path in the course
+of one of my walks in the Bois, I took the precaution of changing my
+abode and went to live in the little house on the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, where Florence came to see me several times.
+
+"I was even careful to keep her visits a secret and, moreover, to refrain
+from corresponding with her except through the _poste restante_. I was
+therefore quite easy in my mind.
+
+"I worked in perfect solitude and in complete security. I expected
+nothing. No danger, no possibility of danger, threatened us. And, I may
+say, to use a commonplace but very accurate expression, that what
+happened came as an absolute bolt from the blue. I heard at the same
+time, when the Prefect of Police and his men broke into my house and
+proceeded to arrest me, I heard at the same time and for the first time
+of the murder of Hippolyte Fauville, the murder of Edmond, and the arrest
+of my adored Marie."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Don Luis, in a renewed tone of aggressive wrath.
+"Impossible! Those facts were a fortnight old. I cannot allow that you
+had not heard of them."
+
+"Through whom?"
+
+"Through the papers," exclaimed Don Luis. "And, more certainly still,
+through Mlle. Levasseur."
+
+"Through the papers?" said Sauverand. "I never used to read them. What!
+Is that incredible? Are we under an obligation, an inevitable necessity,
+to waste half an hour a day in skimming through the futilities of
+politics and the piffle of the news columns? Is your imagination
+incapable of conceiving a man who reads nothing but reviews and
+scientific publications?
+
+"The fact is rare, I admit," he continued. "But the rarity of a fact is
+no proof against it. On the other hand, on the very morning of the crime
+I had written to Florence saying that I was going away for three weeks
+and bidding her good-bye. I changed my mind at the last moment; but this
+she did not know; and, thinking that I had gone, not knowing where I was,
+she was unable to inform me of the crime, of Marie's arrest, or, later,
+when an accusation was brought against the man with the ebony
+walking-stick, of the search that was being made for me."
+
+"Exactly!" declared Don Luis. "You cannot pretend that the man with the
+ebony walking-stick, the man who followed Inspector Vérot to the Café du
+Pont-Neuf and purloined his letter--"
+
+"I am not the man," Sauverand interrupted.
+
+And, when Don Luis shrugged his shoulders, he insisted, in a more
+forcible tone of voice:
+
+"I am not that man. There is some inexplicable mistake in all this, but I
+have never set foot in the Café du Pont-Neuf. I swear it. You must accept
+this statement as positively true. Besides, it agrees entirely with the
+retired life which I was leading from necessity and from choice. And, I
+repeat, I knew nothing.
+
+"The thunderbolt was unexpected. And it was precisely for this reason,
+you must understand, that the shock produced in me an equally unexpected
+reaction, a state of mind diametrically opposed to my real nature, an
+outburst of my most savage and primitive instincts. Remember, Monsieur,
+that they had laid hands upon what to me was the most sacred thing on
+earth. Marie was in prison. Marie was accused of committing two
+murders!... I went mad.
+
+"At first controlling myself, playing a part with the Prefect of Police,
+then overthrowing every obstacle, shooting Chief Inspector Ancenis,
+shaking off Sergeant Mazeroux, jumping from the window, I had only one
+thought in my head--that of escape. Once free, I should save Marie. Were
+there people in my way? So much the worse for them.
+
+"By what right did those people dare to attack the most blameless of
+women? I killed only one man that day! I would have killed ten! I would
+have killed twenty! What was Chief Inspector Ancenis's life to me? What
+cared I for the lives of any of those wretches? They stood between Marie
+and myself; and Marie was in prison!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand made an effort which contracted every muscle of his face
+to recover the coolness that was gradually leaving him. He succeeded in
+doing so, but his voice, nevertheless, remained tremulous, and the fever
+with which he was consumed shook his frame in a manner which he was
+unable to conceal.
+
+He continued:
+
+"At the corner of the street down which I turned after outdistancing the
+Prefect's men on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Florence saved me just as
+I believed that all was lost. Florence had known everything for a
+fortnight past. She learnt the news of the double murder from the papers,
+those papers which she used to read out to you, and which you discussed
+with her. And it was by being with you, by listening to you, that she
+acquired the opinion which everything that happened tended to confirm:
+the opinion that Marie's enemy, her only enemy, was yourself."
+
+"But why? Why?"
+
+"Because she saw you at work," exclaimed Sauverand, "because it was more
+to your interest than to that of any one else that first Marie and then I
+should not come between you and the Mornington inheritance, and lastly--"
+
+"What?"
+
+Gaston Sauverand hesitated and then said, plainly:
+
+"Lastly, because she knew your real name beyond a doubt, and because she
+felt that Arsène Lupin was capable of anything."
+
+They were both silent; and their silence, at such a moment, was
+impressive to a degree. Florence remained impassive under Don Luis
+Perenna's gaze; and he was unable to discern on her sealed face any of
+the feelings with which she must needs be stirred.
+
+Gaston Sauverand continued:
+
+"It was against Arsène Lupin, therefore, that Florence, Marie's terrified
+friend, engaged in the struggle. It was to unmask Lupin that she wrote or
+rather inspired the article of which you found the original in a ball of
+string. It was Lupin whom she spied upon, day by day, in this house. It
+was Lupin whom she heard one morning telephoning to Sergeant Mazeroux and
+rejoicing in my imminent arrest. It was to save me from Lupin that she
+let down the iron curtain in front of him, at the risk of an accident,
+and took a taxi to the corner of the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, where she
+arrived too late to warn me, as the detectives had already entered my
+house, but in time to screen me from their pursuit.
+
+"Her mistrust and terror-stricken hatred of you were told to me in an
+instant," Sauverand declared. "During the twenty minutes which we
+employed in throwing our assailants off the scent, she hurriedly sketched
+the main lines of the business and described to me in a few words the
+leading part which you were playing in it; and we then and there prepared
+a counter-attack upon you, so that you might be suspected of complicity.
+
+"While I was sending a message to the Prefect of Police, Florence went
+home and hid under the cushions of your sofa the end of the stick
+which I had kept in my hand without thinking. It was an ineffective
+parry and missed its aim. But the fight had begun; and I threw myself
+into it headlong.
+
+"Monsieur, to understand my actions thoroughly, you must remember that I
+was a student, a man leading a solitary life, but also an ardent lover. I
+would have spent all my life in work, asking no more from fate than to
+see Marie at her window from time to time at night. But, once she was
+being persecuted, another man arose within me, a man of action, bungling,
+certainly, and inexperienced, but a man who was ready to stick at
+nothing, and who, not knowing how to save Marie Fauville, had no other
+object before him than to do away with that enemy of Marie's to whom he
+was entitled to ascribe all the misfortunes that had befallen the woman
+he loved.... This started the series of my attempts upon your life.
+Brought into your house, concealed in Florence's own rooms, I
+tried--unknown to her: that I swear--to poison you."
+
+He paused for an instant to mark the effect of his words, then went on:
+
+"Her reproaches, her abhorrence of such an act, would perhaps have moved
+me, but, I repeat, I was mad, quite mad; and your death seemed to me to
+imply Marie's safety. And, one morning, on the Boulevard Suchet, where I
+had followed you, I fired a revolver at you.
+
+"The same evening your motor car, tampered with by myself--remember,
+Florence's rooms are close to the garage--carried you, I hoped, to your
+death, together with Sergeant Mazeroux, your confederate.... That time
+again you escaped my vengeance. But an innocent man, the chauffeur who
+drove you, paid for you with his life; and Florence's despair was such
+that I had to yield to her entreaties and lay down my arms.
+
+"I myself, terrified by what I had done, shattered by the remembrance of
+my two victims, changed my plans and thought only of saving Marie by
+contriving her escape from prison....
+
+"I am a rich man. I lavished money upon Marie's warders, without,
+however, revealing my intentions. I entered into relations with the
+prison tradesmen and the staff of the infirmary. And every day, having
+procured a card of admission as a law reporter, I went to the law courts,
+to the examining magistrates' corridor, where I hoped to meet Marie, to
+encourage her with a look, a gesture, perhaps to slip a few words of
+comfort into her hand...."
+
+Sauverand moved closer to Don Luis.
+
+"Her martyrdom continued. You struck her a most terrible blow with that
+mysterious business of Hippolyte Fauville's letters. What did those
+letters mean? Where did they come from? Were we not entitled to
+attribute the whole plot to you, to you who introduced them into the
+horrible struggle?
+
+"Florence watched you, I may say, night and day. We sought for a clue, a
+glimmer of light in the darkness.... Well, yesterday morning, Florence
+saw Sergeant Mazeroux arrive. She could not overhear what he said to you,
+but she caught the name of a certain Langernault and the name of Damigni,
+the village where Langernault lived. She remembered that old friend of
+Hippolyte Fauville's. Were the letters not addressed to him and was it
+not in search of him that you were going off in the motor with Sergeant
+Mazeroux?...
+
+"Half an hour later we were in the train for Alençon. A carriage took us
+from the station to just outside Damigni, where we made our inquiries
+with every possible precaution. On learning what you must also know, that
+Langernault was dead, we resolved to visit his place, and we had
+succeeded in effecting an entrance when Florence saw you in the grounds.
+Wishing at all costs to avoid a meeting between you and myself, she
+dragged me across the lawn and behind the bushes. You followed us,
+however, and when a barn appeared in sight she pushed one of the doors
+which half opened and let us through. We managed to slip quickly through
+the lumber in the dark and knocked up against a ladder. This we climbed
+and reached a loft in which we took shelter. You entered at that
+moment....
+
+"You know the rest: how you discovered the two hanging skeletons; how
+your attention was drawn to us by an imprudent movement of Florence; your
+attack, to which I replied by brandishing the first weapon with which
+chance provided me; lastly, our flight through the window in the roof,
+under the fire of your revolver. We were free. But in the evening, in the
+train, Florence fainted. While bringing her to I perceived that one of
+your bullets had wounded her in the shoulder. The wound was slight and
+did not hurt her, but it was enough to increase the extreme tension of
+her nerves. When you saw us--at Le Mans station wasn't it?--she was
+asleep, with her head on my shoulder."
+
+Don Luis had not once interrupted the latter part of this narrative,
+which was told in a more and more agitated voice and quickened by an
+accent of profound truth. Thanks to a superhuman effort of attention, he
+noted Sauverand's least words and actions in his mind. And as these words
+were uttered and these actions performed, he received the impression of
+another woman who rose up beside the real Florence, a woman unspotted and
+innocent of all the shame which he had attributed to her on the strength
+of events.
+
+Nevertheless, he did not yet give in. How could Florence possibly be
+innocent? No, no, the evidence of his eyes, which had seen, and the
+evidence of his reason, which had judged, both rebelled against any such
+contention.
+
+He would not admit that Florence could suddenly be different from what
+she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster.
+No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a
+skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to
+differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish the light
+from the darkness.
+
+He was lying! He was lying! And yet how sweet were the lies he told! How
+beautiful was that imaginary Florence, the Florence compelled by destiny
+to commit acts which she loathed, but free of all crime, free of remorse,
+humane and pitiful, with her clear eyes and her snow-white hands! And how
+good it was to yield to this fantastic dream!
+
+Gaston Sauverand was watching the face of his former enemy. Standing
+close to Don Luis, his features lit up with the expression of
+feelings and passions which he no longer strove to check, he asked,
+in a low voice:
+
+"You believe me, don't you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Perenna, hardening himself to resist the man's
+influence.
+
+"You must!" cried Sauverand, with a fierce outburst of violence. "You
+must believe in the strength of my love. It is the cause of everything.
+My hatred for you comes only from my love. Marie is my life. If she were
+dead, there would be nothing for me to do but die. Oh, this morning, when
+I read in the papers that the poor woman had opened her veins--and
+through your fault, after Hippolyte's letters accusing her--I did not
+want to kill you so much as to inflict upon you the most barbarous
+tortures! My poor Marie, what a martyrdom she must be enduring!...
+
+"As you were not back, Florence and I wandered about all morning to have
+news of her: first around the prison, next to the police office and the
+law courts. And it was there, in the magistrates' corridor, that I saw
+you. At that moment you were mentioning Marie Fauville's name to a number
+of journalists; and you told them that Marie Fauville was innocent; and
+you informed them of the evidence which you possessed in Marie's favour!
+
+"My hatred ceased then and there, Monsieur. In one second the enemy had
+become the ally, the master to whom one kneels. So you had had the
+wonderful courage to repudiate all your work and to devote yourself to
+Marie's rescue! I ran off, trembling with joy and hope, and, as I joined
+Florence, I shouted, 'Marie is saved! He proclaims her innocent! I must
+see him and speak to him!'...
+
+"We came back here. Florence refused to lay down her arms and begged me
+not to carry out my plan before your new attitude in the case was
+confirmed by deeds. I promised everything that she asked. But my mind was
+made up. And my will was still further strengthened when I had read your
+declaration in the newspaper. I would place Marie's fate in your hands
+whatever happened and without an hour's delay, I waited for your return
+and came up here."
+
+He was no longer the same man who had displayed such coolness at the
+commencement of the interview. Exhausted by his efforts and by a struggle
+that had lasted for weeks, costing him so much fruitless energy, he was
+now trembling; and clinging to Don Luis, with one of his knees on the
+chair beside which Don Luis was standing, he stammered:
+
+"Save her, I implore you! You have it in your power. Yes, you can do
+anything. I learnt to know you in fighting you. There was more than
+your genius defending you against me; there is a luck that protects
+you. You are different from other men. Why, the mere fact of your not
+killing me at once, though I had pursued you so savagely, the fact of
+your listening to the inconceivable truth of the innocence of all three
+of us and accepting it as admissible, surely these constitute an
+unprecedented miracle.
+
+"While I was waiting for you and preparing to speak to you, I received
+an intuition of it all!" he exclaimed. "I saw clearly that the man who
+was proclaiming Marie's innocence with nothing to guide him but his
+reason, I saw that this man alone could save her and that he would save
+her. Ah, I beseech you, save her--and save her at once. Otherwise it
+will be too late.
+
+"In a few days Marie will have ended her life. She cannot go on living in
+prison. You see, she means to die. No obstacle can prevent her. Can any
+one be prevented from committing suicide? And how horrible if she were to
+die!... Oh, if the law requires a criminal I will confess anything that I
+am asked to. I will joyfully accept every charge and pay every penalty,
+provided that Marie is free! Save her!... I did not know, I do not yet
+know the best thing to be done! Save her from prison and death, save her,
+for God's sake, save her!"
+
+Tears flowed down his anguish-stricken face. Florence also was crying,
+bowed down with sorrow. And Perenna suddenly felt the most terrible dread
+steal over him.
+
+Although, ever since the beginning of the interview, a fresh conviction
+had gradually been mastering him, it was only as it were a glance that he
+became aware of it. Suddenly he perceived that his belief in Sauverand's
+words was unrestricted, and that Florence was perhaps not the loathsome
+creature that he had had the right to think, but a woman whose eyes did
+not lie and whose face and soul were alike beautiful.
+
+Suddenly he learnt that the two people before him, as well as Marie
+Fauville, for love of whom they had fought so unskilful a fight, were
+imprisoned in an iron circle which their efforts would not succeed in
+breaking. And that circle traced by an unknown hand he, Perenna, had
+drawn tighter around them with the most ruthless determination.
+
+"If only it is not too late!" he muttered.
+
+He staggered under the shock of the sensations and ideas that crowded
+upon him. Everything clashed in his brain with tragic violence:
+certainty, joy, dismay, despair, fury. He was struggling in the clutches
+of the most hideous nightmare; and he already seemed to see a detective's
+heavy hand descending on Florence's shoulder.
+
+"Come away! Come away!" he cried, starting up in alarm. "It is madness
+to remain!"
+
+"But the house is surrounded," Sauverand objected.
+
+"And then? Do you think that I will allow for a second--? No, no, come!
+We must fight side by side. I shall still entertain some doubts, that is
+certain. You must destroy them; and we will save Mme. Fauville."
+
+"But the detectives round the house?"
+
+"We'll manage them."
+
+"Weber, the deputy chief?"
+
+"He's not here. And as long as he's not here I'll take everything on
+myself. Come, follow me, but at some little distance. When I give the
+signal and not till then--"
+
+He drew the bolt and turned the handle of the door. At that moment some
+one knocked. It was the butler.
+
+"Well?" asked Don Luis. "Why am I disturbed?"
+
+"The deputy chief detective, M. Weber, is here, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+ROUTED
+
+
+Don Luis had certainly expected this formidable blow; and yet it appeared
+to take him unawares, and he repeated more than once:
+
+"Ah, Weber is here! Weber is here!"
+
+All his buoyancy left him, and he felt like a retreating army which,
+after almost making good its escape, suddenly finds itself brought to a
+stop by a steep mountain. Weber was there--that is to say, the chief
+leader of the enemies, the man who would be sure to plan the attack and
+the resistance in such a manner as to dash Perenna's hopes to the ground.
+With Weber at the head of the detectives, any attempt to force a way out
+would have been absurd.
+
+"Did you let him in?" he asked.
+
+"You did not tell me not to, sir."
+
+"Is he alone?"
+
+"No, sir, the deputy chief has six men with him. He has left them in the
+courtyard."
+
+"And where is he?"
+
+"He asked me to take him to the first floor. He expected to find you in
+your study, sir."
+
+"Does he know now that I am with Sergeant Mazeroux and Mlle. Levasseur?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Perenna thought for a moment and then said:
+
+"Tell him that you have not found me and that you are going to look for
+me in Mlle. Levasseur's rooms. Perhaps he will go with you. All the
+better if he does."
+
+And he locked the door again.
+
+The struggle through which he had just passed did not show itself on his
+face; and, now that all was lost, now that he was called upon to act, he
+recovered that wonderful composure which never abandoned him at decisive
+moments. He went up to Florence. She was very pale and was silently
+weeping. He said:
+
+"You must not be frightened, Mademoiselle. If you obey me implicitly, you
+will have nothing to fear."
+
+She did not reply and he saw that she still mistrusted him. And he almost
+rejoiced at the thought that he would compel her to believe in him.
+
+"Listen to me," he said to Sauverand. "In case I should not succeed after
+all, there are still several things which you must explain."
+
+"What are they?" asked Sauverand, who had lost none of his coolness.
+
+Then, collecting all his riotous thoughts, resolved to omit nothing, but
+at the same time to speak only what was essential, Don Luis asked, in a
+calm voice:
+
+"Where were you on the morning before the murder, when a man carrying an
+ebony walking-stick and answering to your description entered the Cafe du
+Pont-Neuf immediately after Inspector Vérot?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Are you sure that you did not go out?"
+
+"Absolutely sure. And I am also sure that I have never been to the Cafe
+du Pont-Neuf, of which I had never even heard."
+
+"Good. Next question. Why, when you learned all about this business, did
+you not go to the Prefect of Police or the examining magistrate? It would
+have been simpler for you to give yourself up and tell the exact truth
+than to engage in this unequal fight."
+
+"I was thinking of doing so. But I at once realized that the plot hatched
+against me was so clever that no bare statement of the truth would have
+been enough to convince the authorities. They would never have believed
+me. What proof could I supply? None at all--whereas, on the other hand,
+the proofs against us were overwhelming and undeniable. Were not the
+marks of the teeth evidence of Marie's undoubted guilt? And were not my
+silence, my flight, the shooting of Chief Inspector Ancenis so many
+crimes? No, if I would rescue Marie, I must remain free."
+
+"But she could have spoken herself?"
+
+"And confessed our love? Apart from the fact that her womanly modesty
+would have prevented her, what good would it have done? On the contrary,
+it meant lending greater weight to the accusation. That was just what
+happened when Hippolyte Fauville's letters, appearing one by one,
+revealed to the police the as yet unknown motives of the crimes imputed
+to us. We loved each other."
+
+"How do you explain the letters?"
+
+"I can't explain them. We did not know of Fauville's jealousy. He kept it
+to himself. And then, again, why did he suspect us? What can have put it
+into his head that we meant to kill him? Where did his fears, his
+nightmares, come from? It is a mystery. He wrote that he had letters of
+ours in his possession: what letters?"
+
+"And the marks of the teeth, those marks which were undoubtedly made by
+Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"I don't know. It is all incomprehensible."
+
+"You don't know either what she can have done after leaving the opera
+between twelve and two in the morning?"
+
+"No. She was evidently lured into a trap. But how and by whom? And why
+does she not say what she was doing? More mystery."
+
+"You were seen that evening, the evening of the murders, at Auteuil
+station. What were you doing there?"
+
+"I was going to the Boulevard Suchet and I passed under Marie's windows.
+Remember that it was a Wednesday. I came back on the following Wednesday,
+and, still knowing nothing of the tragedy or of Marie's arrest, I came
+back again on the second Wednesday, which was the evening on which you
+found out where I lived and informed Sergeant Mazeroux against me."
+
+"Another thing. Did you know of the Mornington inheritance?"
+
+"No, nor Florence either; and we have every reason to think that Marie
+and her husband knew no more about it than we did."
+
+"That barn at Damigni: was it the first time that you had entered it?"
+
+"Yes; and our astonishment at the sight of the two skeletons hanging from
+the rafters equalled yours."
+
+Don Luis was silent. He cast about for a few seconds longer to see if he
+had any more questions to ask. Then he said:
+
+"That is all I wanted to know. Are you, on your side, certain that
+everything that is necessary has been said?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a serious moment. It is possible that we may not meet again. Now
+you have not given me a single proof of your statements."
+
+"I have told you the truth. To a man like yourself, the truth is enough.
+As for me, I am beaten. I give up the struggle, or, rather, I place
+myself under your orders. Save Marie."
+
+"I will save the three of you," said Perenna. "The fourth of the
+mysterious letters is to make its appearance to-morrow: that leaves ample
+time for us to lay our heads together and study the matter fully. And
+to-morrow evening I shall go there and, with the help of all that you
+have told me, I shall prove the innocence of you all. The essential thing
+is to be present at the meeting on the twenty-fifth of May."
+
+"Please think only of Marie. Sacrifice me, if necessary. Sacrifice
+Florence even. I am speaking in her name as well as my own when I tell
+you that it is better to desert us than to jeopardize the slightest
+chance of success."
+
+"I will save the three of you," Perenna repeated.
+
+He pushed the door ajar and, after listening outside, said:
+
+"Don't move. And don't open the door to anybody, on any pretext whatever,
+before I come to fetch you. I shall not be long."
+
+He locked the door behind him and went down to the first floor. He did
+not feel those high spirits which usually cheered him on the eve of his
+great battles. This time, Florence Levasseur's life and liberty were at
+stake; and the consequences of a defeat seemed to him worse than death.
+
+Through the window on the landing he saw the detectives guarding the
+courtyard. He counted six of them. And he also saw the deputy chief at
+one of the windows of his study, watching the courtyard and keeping in
+touch with his detectives.
+
+"By Jove!" he thought, "he's sticking to his post. It will be a tough
+job. He suspects something. However, let's make a start!"
+
+He went through the drawing-room and entered his study. Weber saw him.
+The two enemies were face to face.
+
+There was a few seconds' silence before the duel opened, the duel which
+was bound to be swift and vigorous, without the least sign of weakness or
+distraction on either side. It could not last longer than three minutes.
+
+The deputy chief's face bore an expression of mingled joy and anxiety.
+For the first time he had permission, he had orders, to fight that
+accursed Don Luis, against whom he had never yet been able to satisfy
+his hatred. And his delight was all the greater because he held every
+trump, whereas Don Luis had put himself in the wrong by defending
+Florence Levasseur and tampering with the girl's portrait. On the other
+hand, Weber did not forget that Don Luis was identical with Arsène
+Lupin; and this consideration caused him a certain uneasiness. He was
+obviously thinking:
+
+"The least blunder, and I'm done for."
+
+He crossed swords with a jest.
+
+"I see that you were not in Mlle. Levasseur's lodge, as your man
+pretended."
+
+"My man spoke in accordance with my instructions, I was in my bedroom,
+upstairs. But I wanted to finish the job before I came down."
+
+"And is it done?"
+
+"It's done. Florence Levasseur and Gaston Sauverand are in my room,
+gagged and bound. You have only to accept delivery of the goods."
+
+"Gaston Sauverand!" cried Weber. "Then it was he who was seen coming in?"
+
+"Yes. He was simply living with Florence Levasseur, whose lover he is."
+
+"Oho!" said the deputy chief, in a bantering tone. "Her lover!"
+
+"Yes; and when Sergeant Mazeroux brought Florence Levasseur to my room,
+to question her out of hearing of the servants, Sauverand, foreseeing the
+arrest of his mistress, had the audacity to join us. He tried to rescue
+her from our hands."
+
+"And you checkmated him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was clear that the deputy chief did not believe one word of the story.
+He knew through M. Desmalions and Mazeroux that Don Luis was in love with
+Florence; and Don Luis was not the man even through jealousy to hand over
+a woman whom he loved. He increased his attention.
+
+"Good business!" he said. "Take me up to your room. Was it a hard
+struggle?"
+
+"Not very. I managed to disarm the scoundrel. All the same, Mazeroux got
+stabbed in the thumb."
+
+"Nothing serious?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no; but he has gone to have his wound dressed at the
+chemist's."
+
+The deputy chief stopped, greatly surprised.
+
+"What! Isn't Mazeroux in your room with the two prisoners?"
+
+"I never told you that he was."
+
+"No, but your butler--"
+
+"The butler made a mistake. Mazeroux went out a few minutes before
+you came."
+
+"It's funny," said Weber, watching Don Luis closely, "but my men all
+think he's here. They haven't seen him go out."
+
+"They haven't seen him go out?" echoed Don Luis, pretending to feel
+anxious. "But, then, where can he be? He told me he wanted to have his
+thumb seen to."
+
+The deputy chief was growing more and more suspicious. Evidently Perenna
+was trying to get rid of him by sending him in search of the sergeant.
+
+"I will send one of my men," he said. "Is the chemist's near?"
+
+"Just around the corner, in the Rue de Bourgogne. Besides, we can
+telephone."
+
+"Oh, we can telephone!" muttered Weber.
+
+He was quite at a loss and looked like a man who does not know what is
+going to happen next. He moved slowly toward the instrument, while
+barring the way to Don Luis to prevent his escaping. Don Luis
+therefore retreated to the telephone box, as if forced to do so, took
+down the receiver with one hand, and, calling, "Hullo! Hullo! Saxe,
+2409," with the other hand, which was resting against the wall, he cut
+one of the wires with a pair of pliers which he had taken off the
+table as he passed.
+
+"Hullo! Are you there? Is that 2409? Are you the
+chemist?... Hullo!... Sergeant Mazeroux of the detective service is with
+you, isn't he? Eh? What? What do you say? But it's too awful! Are you
+sure? Do you mean to say the wound is poisoned?"
+
+Without thinking what he was doing, the deputy chief pushed Don Luis
+aside and took hold of the receiver. The thought of the poisoned wound
+was too much for him.
+
+"Are you there?" he cried, keeping an eye on Don Luis and motioning to
+him not to go away. "Are you there? ... Eh? ... It's Deputy Chief Weber,
+of the detective office, speaking.... Hullo! Are you there? ... I want to
+know about Sergeant Mazeroux. ... Are you there?. . . Oh, hang it, why
+don't you answer!"
+
+Suddenly he let go the instrument, looked at the wires, perceived that
+they had been cut, and turned round, showing a face that clearly
+expressed the thought in his mind.
+
+"That's done it. I've been tricked!"
+
+Perenna was standing a couple of yards behind him, leaning carelessly
+against the woodwork of the arch, with his left hand passed between
+his back and the woodwork. He was smiling, smiling pleasantly, kindly,
+and genially:
+
+"Don't move!" he said, with a gesture of his right hand.
+
+Weber, more frightened by that smile than he would have been by threats,
+took good care not to move.
+
+"Don't move," repeated Don Luis, in a very queer voice. "And, whatever
+you do, don't be alarmed. You shan't be hurt, I promise you. Just five
+minutes in a dark cell for a naughty little boy. Are you ready? One two,
+three! Bang!"
+
+He stood aside and pressed the button that worked the iron curtain. The
+heavy panel came crashing to the floor. The deputy chief was a prisoner.
+
+"That's a hundred millions gone to Jericho," grinned Don Luis. "A pretty
+trick, but a bit expensive. Good-bye, Mornington inheritance! Good-bye,
+Don Luis Perenna! And now, my dear Lupin, if you don't want Weber to take
+his revenge, beat a retreat and in good order. One, two; left, right;
+left, right!"
+
+As he spoke, he locked, on the inside, the folding doors between the
+drawing-room and the first-floor anteroom; then, returning to his study,
+he locked the door between this room and the drawing-room.
+
+The deputy chief was banging at the iron curtain with all his might and
+shouting so loud that they were bound to hear him outside through the
+open window.
+
+"You're not making half enough noise, deputy!" cried Don Luis. "Let's see
+what we can do."
+
+He took his revolver and fired off three bullets, one of which broke a
+pane. Then he quickly left his study by a small, massive door, which he
+carefully closed behind him. He was now in a secret passage which ran
+round both rooms and ended at another door leading to the anteroom. He
+opened this door wide and was thus able to hide behind it.
+
+Attracted by the shots and the noise, the detectives were already rushing
+through the hall and up the staircase. When they reached the first floor
+and had gone through the anteroom, as the drawing-room doors were locked,
+the only outlet open to them was the passage, at the end of which they
+could hear the deputy shouting. They all six darted down it.
+
+When the last of them had vanished round the bend in the passage, Don
+Luis softly pushed back the door that concealed him and locked it
+like the rest. The six detectives were as safely imprisoned as the
+deputy chief.
+
+"Bottled!" muttered Don Luis. "It will take them quite five minutes to
+realize the situation, to bang at the locked doors, and to break down one
+of them. In five minutes we shall be far away."
+
+He met two of his servants running up with scared faces, the chauffeur
+and the butler. He flung each of them a thousand-franc note and said to
+the chauffeur:
+
+"Set the engine going, there's a sportsman, and let no one near the
+machine to block my way. Two thousand francs more for each of you if I
+get off in the motor. Don't stand staring at me like that: I mean what I
+say. Two thousand francs apiece: it's for you to earn it. Look sharp!"
+
+He himself went up the second flight without undue haste, remaining
+master of himself. But, on the last stair, he was seized with such a
+feeling of elation that he shouted:
+
+"Victory! The road is clear!"
+
+The boudoir door was opposite. He opened it and repeated:
+
+"Victory! But there's not a second to lose. Follow me."
+
+He entered. A stifled oath escaped his lips.
+
+The room was empty.
+
+"What!" he stammered. "What does this mean? They're gone.... Florence--"
+
+Certainly, unlikely though it seemed, he had hitherto supposed that
+Sauverand possessed a false key to the lock. But how could they both have
+escaped, in the midst of the detectives? He looked around him. And then
+he understood.
+
+In the recess containing the window, the lower part of the wall, which
+formed a very wide box underneath the casement, had the top of its
+woodwork raised and resting against the panes, exactly like the lid of a
+chest. And inside the open chest he saw the upper rungs of a narrow
+descending ladder.
+
+In a second, Don Luis conjured up the whole story of the past: Count
+Malonyi's ancestress hiding in the old family mansion, escaping the
+search of the perquisitors, and in this way living throughout the
+revolutionary troubles. Everything was explained. A passage contrived in
+the thickness of the wall led to some distant outlet. And this was how
+Florence used to come and go through the house; this was how Gaston went
+in and out in all security; and this also was how both of them were able
+to enter his room and surprise his secrets.
+
+"Why not have told me?" he wondered. "A lingering suspicion, I suppose--"
+
+But his eyes were attracted by a sheet of paper on the table. With
+a feverish hand, Gaston Sauverand had scribbled the following lines
+in pencil:
+
+"We are trying to escape so as not to compromise you. If we are caught,
+it can't be helped. The great thing is that you should be free. All our
+hopes are centred in you."
+
+Below were two words written by Florence: "Save Marie."
+
+"Ah," he murmured, disconcerted by the turn of events and not knowing
+what to decide, "why, oh, why did they not obey my instructions? We are
+separated now--"
+
+Downstairs the detectives were battering at the door of the passage in
+which they were imprisoned. Perhaps he would still have time to reach his
+motor before they succeeded in breaking down the door. Nevertheless, he
+preferred to take the same road as Florence and Sauverand, which gave him
+the hope of saving them and of rescuing them in case of danger.
+
+He therefore stepped over the side of the chest, placed his foot on the
+top rung and went down. Some twenty bars brought him to the middle of the
+first floor. Here, by the light of his electric lantern, he entered a
+sort of low, vaulted tunnel, dug, as he thought, in the wall, and so
+narrow that he could only walk along it sideways.
+
+Thirty yards farther there was a bend, at right angles; and next, at the
+end of another tunnel of the same length, a trapdoor, which stood open,
+revealing the rungs of a second ladder. He did not doubt that the
+fugitives had gone this way.
+
+It was quite light at the bottom. Here he found himself in a cupboard
+which was also open and which, on ordinary occasions, must have been
+covered by curtains that were now drawn. This cupboard faced a bed that
+filled almost the whole space of an alcove. On passing through the alcove
+and reaching a room from which it was separated only by a slender
+partition, to his great surprise, he recognized Florence's sitting-room.
+
+This time, he knew where he was. The exit, which was not secret, as it
+led to the Place du Palais-Bourbon, but nevertheless very safe, was that
+which Sauverand generally used when Florence admitted him.
+
+Don Luis therefore went through the entrance hall and down the steps and,
+a little way before the pantry, came upon the cellar stairs. He ran down
+these and soon recognized the low door that served to admit the
+wine-casks. The daylight filtered in through a small, grated spy-hole. He
+groped till he found the lock. Glad to have come to the end of his
+expedition, he opened the door.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled, leaping back and clutching at the lock, which
+he managed to fasten again.
+
+Two policemen in uniform were guarding the exit, two policemen who had
+tried to seize him as he appeared.
+
+Where did those two men come from? Had they prevented the escape of
+Sauverand and Florence? But in that case Don Luis would have met the two
+fugitives, as he had come by exactly the same road as they.
+
+"No," he thought, "they effected their flight before the exit was
+watched. But, by Jove! it's my turn to clear out; and that's not easy.
+Shall I let myself be caught in my burrow like a rabbit?"
+
+He went up the cellar stairs again, intending to hasten matters, to slip
+into the courtyard through the outhouses, to jump into his motor, and to
+clear a way for himself. But, when he was just reaching the yard, near
+the coach-house, he saw four detectives, four of those whom he had
+imprisoned, come up waving their arms and shouting. And he also became
+aware of a regular uproar near the main gate and the porter's lodge. A
+number of men were all talking together, raising their voices in violent
+discussion.
+
+Perhaps he might profit by this opportunity to steal outside under cover
+of the disorder. At the risk of being seen, he put out his head. And what
+he saw astounded him.
+
+Gaston Sauverand stood with his back to the wall of the lodge, surrounded
+by policemen and detectives who pushed and insulted him. The handcuffs
+were on his wrists.
+
+Gaston Sauverand a prisoner! What had happened between the two fugitives
+and the police?
+
+His heart wrung with anguish, he leaned out still farther. But he did not
+see Florence. The girl had no doubt succeeded in escaping.
+
+Weber's appearance on the steps and the deputy chief's first words
+confirmed his hopes. Weber was mad with rage. His recent captivity and
+the humiliation of his defeat exasperated him.
+
+"Ah!" he roared, as he saw the prisoner. "There's one of them, at any
+rate! Gaston Sauverand! Choice game, that!... Where did you catch him?"
+
+"On the Place du Palais-Bourbon," said one of the inspectors. "We saw him
+slinking out through the cellar door."
+
+"And his accomplice, the Levasseur girl?"
+
+"We missed her, Deputy Chief. She was the first out."
+
+"And Don Luis? You haven't let him leave the house, I hope? I gave
+orders."
+
+"He tried to get out through the cellar door five minutes after."
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"One of the men in uniform posted outside the door."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The beggar went back into the cellar."
+
+Weber gave a shout of delight.
+
+"We've got him! And it's a nasty business for him! Charge of resisting
+the police!... Complicity ... We shall be able to unmask him at last.
+Tally-ho, my lads, tally-ho! Two men to guard Sauverand, four men on the
+Place du Palais-Bourbon, revolver in hand. Two men on the roof. The rest
+stick to me. We'll begin with the Levasseur girl's room and we'll take
+his room next. Hark, forward, my lads!"
+
+Don Luis did not wait for the enemies' attack. Knowing their intentions,
+he beat a retreat, unseen, toward Florence's rooms. Here, as Weber did
+not yet know the short cut through the outhouses, he had time to make
+sure that the trapdoor was in perfect working order, and that there was
+no reason why they should discover the existence of a secret cupboard at
+the back of the alcove, behind the curtains of the bed.
+
+Once inside the passage, he went up the first staircase, followed the
+long corridor contrived in the wall, climbed the ladder leading to the
+boudoir, and, perceiving that this second trapdoor fitted the woodwork so
+closely that no one could suspect anything, he closed it over him. A few
+minutes later he heard the noise of men making a search above his head.
+
+And so, on the twenty-fourth of May, at five o'clock in the afternoon,
+the position was as follows: Florence Levasseur with a warrant out
+against her, Gaston Sauverand in prison, Marie Fauville in prison and
+refusing all food, and Don Luis, who believed in their innocence and who
+alone could have saved them, Don Luis was being blockaded in his own
+house and hunted down by a score of detectives.
+
+As for the Mornington inheritance, there could be no more question of
+that, because the legatee, in his turn, had set himself in open rebellion
+against society.
+
+"Capital!" said Don Luis, with a grin. "This is life as I understand it.
+The question is a simple one and may be put in different ways. How can a
+wretched, unwashed beggar, with not a penny in his pocket, make a fortune
+in twenty-four hours without setting foot outside his hovel? How can a
+general, with no soldiers and no ammunition left, win a battle which he
+has lost? In short, how shall I, Arsène Lupin, manage to be present
+to-morrow evening at the meeting which will be held on the Boulevard
+Suchet and to behave in such a way as to save Marie Fauville, Florence
+Levasseur, Gaston Sauverand, and my excellent friend Don Luis Perenna in
+the bargain?"
+
+Dull blows came from somewhere. The men must be hunting the roofs and
+sounding the walls.
+
+Don Luis stretched himself flat on the floor, hid his face in his folded
+arms and, shutting his eyes, murmured:
+
+"Let's think."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+"HELP!"
+
+
+When Lupin afterward told me this episode of the tragic story, he said,
+not without a certain self-complacency:
+
+"What astonished me then, and what astonishes me still, as one of the
+most amazing victories on which I am entitled to pride myself, is that I
+was able to admit Sauverand and Marie Fauville's innocence on the spot,
+as a problem solved once and for all. It was a first-class performance, I
+swear, and surpassed the most famous deductions of the most famous
+investigators both in psychological value and in detective merit.
+
+"After all, taking everything into account, there was not the shadow of a
+fresh fact to enable me to alter the verdict. The charges accumulated
+against the two prisoners were the same, and were so grave that no
+examining magistrate would have hesitated for a second to commit them for
+trial, nor any jury to bring them in guilty. I will not speak of Marie
+Fauville: you had only to think of the marks of her teeth to be
+absolutely certain. But Gaston Sauverand, the son of Victor Sauverand and
+consequently the heir of Cosmo Mornington--Gaston Sauverand, the man with
+the ebony walking-stick and the murderer of Chief Inspector Ancenis--was
+he not just as guilty as Marie Fauville, incriminated with her by the
+mysterious letters, incriminated by the very revelation of the husband
+whom they had killed?
+
+"And yet why did that sudden change take place in me?" he asked. "Why did
+I go against the evidence? Why did I credit an incredible fact? Why did I
+admit the inadmissible? Why? Well, no doubt, because truth has an accent
+that rings in the ears in a manner all its own. On the one side, every
+proof, every fact, every reality, every certainty; on the other, a story,
+a story told by one of the three criminals, and therefore, presumptively,
+absurd and untrue from start to finish. But a story told in a frank
+voice, a clear, dispassionate, closely woven story, free from
+complications or improbabilities, a story which supplied no positive
+solution, but which, by its very honesty, obliged any impartial mind to
+reconsider the solution arrived at. I believed the story."
+
+The explanation which Lupin gave me was not complete. I asked:
+
+"And Florence Levasseur?"
+
+"Florence?"
+
+"Yes, you don't tell me what you thought. What was your opinion about
+her? Everything tended to incriminate her not only in your eyes, because,
+logically speaking, she had taken part in all the attempts to murder you,
+but also in the eyes of the police. They knew that she used to pay
+Sauverand clandestine visits at his house on the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace. They had found her photograph in Inspector Vérot's
+memorandum-book, and then--and then all the rest: your accusations, your
+certainties. Was all that modified by Sauverand's story? To your mind,
+was Florence innocent or guilty?"
+
+He hesitated, seemed on the point of replying directly and frankly to my
+question, but could not bring himself to do so, and said:
+
+"I wished to have confidence. In order to act, I must have full and
+entire confidence, whatever doubts might still assail me, whatever
+darkness might still enshroud this or that part of the adventure. I
+therefore believed. And, believing, I acted according to my belief."
+
+Acting, to Don Luis Perenna, during those hours of forced inactivity,
+consisted solely in perpetually repeating to himself Gaston Sauverand's
+account of the events. He tried to reconstitute it in all its details, to
+remember the very least sentences, the apparently most insignificant
+phrases. And he examined those sentences, scrutinized those phrases one
+by one, in order to extract such particle of the truth as they contained.
+
+For the truth was there. Sauverand had said so and Perenna did not doubt
+it. The whole sinister affair, all that constituted the case of the
+Mornington inheritance and the tragedy of the Boulevard Suchet, all that
+could throw light upon the plot hatched against Marie Fauville, all that
+could explain the undoing of Sauverand and Florence--all this lay in
+Sauverand's story. Don Luis had only to understand, and the truth would
+appear like the moral which we draw from some obscure fable.
+
+Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggested
+itself to his mind, he at once replied:
+
+"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will not
+enlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truth
+lies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any other
+way? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attaching
+undue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearance
+of the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess is
+Gaston Sauverand's story. Must I not make use of it?"
+
+And, once again, as when one follows a path by another person's tracks,
+he began to live through the adventure which Sauverand had been through.
+He compared it with the picture of it which he had imagined until then.
+The two were in opposition; but could not the very clash of their
+opposition be made to produce a spark of light?
+
+"Here is what he said," he thought, "and there is what I believed. What
+does the difference mean? Here is the thing that was, and there is the
+thing that appeared to be. Why did the criminal wish the thing that was
+to appear under that particular aspect? To remove all suspicion from him?
+But, in that case, was it necessary that suspicion should fall precisely
+on those on whom it did?"
+
+The questions came crowding one upon the other. He sometimes answered
+them at random, mentioning names and uttering words in succession, as
+though the name mentioned might be just that of the criminal, and the
+words uttered those which contained the unseen reality.
+
+Then at once he would take up the story again, as schoolboys do when
+parsing and analyzing a passage, in which each expression is
+carefully sifted, each period discussed, each sentence reduced to its
+essential value.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hours and hours passed. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he gave a
+start. He took out his watch. By the light of his electric lamp he saw
+that it was seventeen minutes to twelve.
+
+"So at seventeen minutes to twelve at night," he said, "I fathomed
+the mystery."
+
+He tried to control his emotion, but it was too great; and his nerves
+were so immensely staggered by the trial that he began to shed tears. He
+had caught sight of the appalling truth, all of a sudden, as when at
+night one half sees a landscape under a lightning-flash.
+
+There is nothing more unnerving than this sudden illumination when we
+have been groping and struggling in the dark. Already exhausted by his
+physical efforts and by the want of food, from which he was beginning to
+suffer, he felt the shock so intensely that, without caring to think a
+moment longer, he managed to go to sleep, or, rather, to sink into sleep,
+as one sinks into the healing waters of a bath.
+
+When he woke, in the small hours, alert and well despite the
+discomfort of his couch, he shuddered on thinking of the theory which
+he had accepted; and his first instinct was to doubt it. He had, so to
+speak, no time.
+
+All the proofs came rushing to his mind of their own accord and at once
+transformed the theory into one of those certainties which it would be
+madness to deny. It was that and nothing else. As he had foreseen, the
+truth lay recorded in Sauverand's story. And he had not been mistaken,
+either, in saying to Mazeroux that the manner in which the mysterious
+letters appeared had put him on the track of the truth.
+
+And the truth was terrible. He felt, at the thought of it, the same fears
+that had maddened Inspector Vérot when, already tortured by the poison,
+he stammered:
+
+"Oh, I don't like this, I don't like the look of this!... The whole thing
+has been planned in such an infernal manner!"
+
+Infernal was the word! And Don Luis remained stupefied at the revelation
+of a crime which looked as if no human brain could have conceived it.
+
+For two hours more he devoted all his mental powers to examining the
+situation from every point of view. He was not much disturbed about the
+result, because, being now in possession of the terrible secret, he had
+nothing more to do but make his escape and go that evening to the meeting
+on the Boulevard Suchet, where he would show them all how the murder was
+committed.
+
+But when, wishing to try his chance of escaping, he went up through the
+underground passage and climbed to the top of the upper ladder--that is
+to say, to the level of the boudoir--he heard through the trapdoor the
+voices of men in the room.
+
+"By Jove!" he said to himself, "the thing is not so simple as I thought!
+In order to escape the minions of the law I must first leave my prison;
+and here is at least one of the exits blocked. Let's look at the other."
+
+He went down to Florence's apartments and worked the mechanism,
+which consisted of a counterweight. The panel of the cupboard moved
+in the groove.
+
+Driven by horror and hoping to find some provisions which enable him to
+withstand a siege without being reduced to famine, he was about to pass
+through the alcove, behind the curtains, when he was stopped short by a
+sound of footsteps. Some one had entered the room.
+
+"Well, Mazeroux, have you spent the night here? Nothing new!"
+
+Don Luis recognized the Prefect of Police by his voice; and the question
+put by the Prefect told him, first, that Mazeroux had been released from
+the dark closet where he had bound him up, and, secondly, that the
+sergeant was in the next room. Fortunately, the sliding panel had worked
+without the least sound; and Don Luis was able to overhear the
+conversation between the two men.
+
+"No, nothing new, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Mazeroux.
+
+"That's funny. The confounded fellow must be somewhere. Or can he have
+got away over the roof?"
+
+"Impossible, Monsieur le Préfet," said a third voice, which Don Luis
+recognized as that of Weber, the deputy chief detective. "Impossible. We
+made certain yesterday, that unless he has wings--"
+
+"Then what do you think, Weber?"
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that he is concealed in the house. This is
+an old house and probably contains some safe hiding-place--"
+
+"Of course, of course," said M. Desmalions, whom Don Luis, peeping
+through the curtains, saw walking to and fro in front of the alcove.
+"You're right; and we shall catch him in his burrow. Only, is it really
+necessary?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet!"
+
+"Well, you know my opinion on the subject, which is also the Prime
+Minister's opinion. Unearthing Lupin would be a blunder which we should
+end by regretting. After all, he's become an honest man, you know; he's
+useful to us and he does no harm--"
+
+"No harm, Monsieur le Préfet? Do you think so?" said Weber stiffly.
+
+M. Desmalions burst out laughing.
+
+"Oh, of course, yesterday's trick, the telephone trick! You must admit it
+was funny. The Premier had to hold his sides when I told him of it."
+
+"Upon my word, I see nothing to laugh at!"
+
+"No, but, all the same, the rascal is never at a loss. Funny or not, the
+trick was extraordinarily daring. To cut the telephone wire before your
+eyes and then blockade you behind that iron curtain! By the way,
+Mazeroux, you must get the telephone repaired this morning, so as to keep
+in touch with the office. Have you begun your search in these two rooms?"
+
+"As you ordered, Monsieur le Préfet. The deputy chief and I have been
+hunting round for the last hour."
+
+"Yes," said M. Desmalions, "that Florence Levasseur strikes me as a
+troublesome creature. She is certainly an accomplice. But what were her
+relations with Sauverand and what was her connection with Don Luis
+Perenna? That's what I should like to know. Have you discovered nothing
+in her papers?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet," said Mazeroux. "Nothing but bills and
+tradesmen's letters."
+
+"And you, Weber?"
+
+"I've found something very interesting, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+Weber spoke in a triumphant tone, and, in answer to M. Desmalions's
+question, went on:
+
+"This is a volume of Shakespeare, Monsieur le Préfet, Volume VIII. You
+will see that, contrary to the other volumes, the inside is empty and the
+binding forms a secret receptacle for hiding documents."
+
+"Yes. What sort of documents?"
+
+"Here they are: sheets of paper, blank sheets, all but three. One of
+them gives a list of the dates on which the mysterious letters were
+to appear."
+
+"Oho!" said M. Desmalions. "That's a crushing piece of evidence
+against Florence Levasseur. And also it tells us where Don Luis got
+his list from."
+
+Perenna listened with surprise: he had utterly forgotten this particular;
+and Gaston Sauverand had made no reference to it in his narrative. And
+yet it was a strange and serious detail. From whom had Florence received
+that list of dates?
+
+"And what's on the other two sheets?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+Don Luis pricked up his ears. Those two other sheets had escaped his
+attention on the day of his interview with Florence in this room.
+
+"Here is one of them," said Weber.
+
+M. Desmalions took the paper and read:
+
+"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
+it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"Yes," he said, "the famous explosion which Don Luis foretold and which
+is to accompany the fifth letter, as announced on the list of dates.
+Tush! We have plenty of time, as there have been only three letters and
+the fourth is due to-night. Besides, blowing up that house on the
+Boulevard Suchet would be no easy job, by Jove! Is that all?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber, producing the third sheet, "would you
+mind looking at these lines drawn in pencil and enclosed in a large
+square containing some other smaller squares and rectangles of all sizes?
+Wouldn't you say that it was the plan of a house?"
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+"It is the plan of the house in which we are," declared Weber solemnly.
+"Here you see the front courtyard, the main building, the porter's lodge,
+and, over there, Mlle. Levasseur's lodge. From this lodge, a dotted line,
+in red pencil, starts zigzagging toward the main building. The
+commencement of this line is marked by a little red cross which stands
+for the room in which we are, or, to be more correct, the alcove. You
+will see here something like the design of a chimney, or, rather, a
+cupboard--a cupboard recessed behind the bed and probably hidden by the
+curtains."
+
+"But, in that case, Weber," said M. Desmalions, "this dotted line must
+represent a passage leading from this lodge to the main building. Look,
+there is also a little red cross at the other end of the line."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, there is another cross. We shall discover
+later for certain what position it marks. But, meanwhile, and acting on
+a mere guess, I have posted some men in a small room on the second floor
+where the last secret meeting between Don Luis, Florence Levasseur, and
+Gaston Sauverand was held yesterday. And, meanwhile, at any rate, we
+hold one end of the line and, through that very fact, we know Don Luis
+Perenna's retreat."
+
+There was a pause, after which the deputy chief resumed in a more and
+more solemn voice:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, yesterday I suffered a cruel outrage at the hands of
+that man. It was witnessed by our subordinates. The servants must be
+aware of it. The public will know of it before long. This man has brought
+about the escape of Florence Levasseur. He tried to bring about the
+escape of Gaston Sauverand. He is a ruffian of the most dangerous type.
+Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure that you will not refuse me leave to dig
+him out of his hole. Otherwise--otherwise, Monsieur le Préfet, I shall
+feel obliged to hand in my resignation."
+
+"With good reasons to back it up!" said the Prefect, laughing. "There's
+no doubt about it; you can't stomach the trick of the iron curtain. Well,
+go ahead! It's Don Luis's own lookout; he's brought it on himself.
+Mazeroux, ring me up at the office as soon as the telephone is put right.
+And both of you meet me at the Fauvilles' house this evening. Don't
+forget it's the night for the fourth letter."
+
+"There won't be any fourth letter, Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because between this and then Don Luis will be under lock and key."
+
+"Oh, so you accuse Don Luis also of--"
+
+Don Luis did not wait to hear more. He softly retreated to the cupboard,
+took hold of the panel and pushed it back without a sound.
+
+So his hiding-place was known!
+
+"By Jingo," he growled, "this is a bit awkward! I'm in a nice plight!"
+
+He had run halfway along the underground passage, with the intention of
+reaching the other exit. But he stopped.
+
+"It's not worth while, as the exit's watched. Well, let's see; am I to
+let myself be collared? Wait a bit, let's see--"
+
+Already there came from the alcove below a noise of blows striking on the
+panel, the hollow sound of which had probably attracted the deputy
+chief's attention. And, as Weber was not compelled to take the same
+precautions as Don Luis, and seemed to be breaking down the panel without
+delaying to look for the mechanism, the danger was close at hand.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" muttered Don Luis. "This is too silly. What shall I
+do? Have a dash at them? Ah, if I had all my strength!"
+
+But he was exhausted by want of food. His legs shook beneath him and his
+brain seemed to lack its usual clearness.
+
+The increasing violence of the blows in the alcove drove him, in spite of
+all, toward the upper exit; and, as he climbed the ladder, he moved his
+electric lantern over the stones of the wall and the wood of the
+trapdoor. He even tried to lift the door with his shoulder. But he again
+heard a sound of footsteps above his head. The men were still there.
+
+Then, consumed with fury and helpless, he awaited the deputy's coming.
+
+A crash came from below; its echo spread through the tunnel, followed by
+a tumult of voices.
+
+"That's it," he said to himself. "The handcuffs, the lockup, the cell!
+Good Lord, what luck--and what nonsense! And Marie Fauville, who's sure
+to do away with herself. And Florence--Florence--"
+
+Before extinguishing his lantern, he cast its light around him for the
+last time.
+
+At a couple of yards' distance from the ladder, about three quarters of
+the way up and set a little way back, there was a big stone missing from
+the inner wall, leaving a space just large enough to crouch in.
+
+Although the recess did not form much of a hiding-place, it was just
+possible that they might omit to inspect it. Besides, Don Luis had no
+choice. At all events, after putting out the light, he leaned toward the
+edge of the hole, reached it, and managed to scramble in by bending
+himself in two.
+
+Weber, Mazeroux, and their men were coming along. Don Luis propped
+himself against the back of his hiding-hole to avoid as far as possible
+the glare of the lanterns, of which he was beginning to see the gleams.
+And an amazing thing happened: the stone against which he was pushing
+toppled over slowly, as though moving on a pivot, and he fell backward
+into a second cavity situated behind it.
+
+He quickly drew his legs after him and the stone swung back as slowly as
+before, not, however, without sending down a quantity of small stones,
+crumbling from the wall and half covering his legs.
+
+"Well, well!" he chuckled. "Can Providence be siding with virtue and
+righteousness?"
+
+He heard Mazeroux's voice saying:
+
+"Nobody! And here's the end of the passage. Unless he ran away as we
+came--look, through the trapdoor at the top of this ladder."
+
+Weber replied:
+
+"Considering the slope by which we've come, it's certain that the
+trapdoor is on a level with the second floor. Well, the other little
+cross ought to mark the boudoir on the second floor, next to Don Luis's
+bedroom. That's what I supposed, and why I posted three of our men there.
+If he's tried to get out on that side, he's caught."
+
+"We've only got to knock," said Mazeroux. "Our men will find the trapdoor
+and let us out. If not, we will break it down."
+
+More blows echoed down the passage. Fifteen or twenty minutes after, the
+trapdoor gave way, and other voices now mingled with Weber's and
+Mazeroux's.
+
+During this time, Don Luis examined his domain and perceived how
+extremely small it was. The most that he could do was to sit in it. It
+was a gallery, or, rather, a sort of gut, a yard and a half long and
+ending in an orifice, narrower still, heaped up with bricks. The walls,
+besides, were formed of bricks, some of which were lacking; and the
+building-stones which these should have kept in place crumbled at the
+least touch. The ground was strewn with them.
+
+"By Jove!" thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shall
+risk being buried alive! A pleasant prospect!"
+
+Not only this, but the fear of making a noise kept him motionless. As a
+matter of fact, he was close to two rooms occupied by the detectives,
+first the boudoir and then the study, for the boudoir, as he knew, was
+over that part of his study which included the telephone box.
+
+The thought of this suggested another. On reflection, remembering that he
+used sometimes to wonder how Count Malonyi's ancestress had managed to
+keep alive behind the curtain on the days when she had to hide there, he
+realized that there must have been a communication between the secret
+passage and what was now the telephone box, a communication too narrow to
+admit a person's body, but serving as a ventilating shaft.
+
+As a precaution, in case the secret passage was discovered, a stone
+concealed the upper aperture of this shaft. Count Malonyi must have
+closed up the lower end when he restored the wainscoting of the study.
+
+So there he was, imprisoned in the thickness of the walls, with no very
+definite intention beyond that of escaping from the clutches of the
+police. More hours passed.
+
+Gradually, tortured with hunger and thirst, he fell into a heavy sleep,
+disturbed by painful nightmares which he would have given much to be able
+to throw off. But he slept too deeply to recover consciousness until
+eight o'clock in the evening.
+
+When he woke up, feeling very tired, he saw his position in an
+unexpectedly hideous light and, at the same time, so accurately that,
+yielding to a sudden change of opinion marked by no little fear, he
+resolved to leave his hiding-place and give himself up. Anything was
+better than the torture which he was enduring and the dangers to which
+longer waiting exposed him.
+
+But, on turning round to reach the entrance to his hole, he perceived
+first that the stone did not swing over when merely pushed, and, next,
+after several attempts, that he could not manage to find the mechanism
+which no doubt worked the stone. He persisted. His exertions were all in
+vain. The stone did not budge. Only, at each exertion, a few bits of
+stone came crumbling from the upper part of the wall and still further
+narrowed the space in which he was able to move.
+
+It cost him a considerable effort to master his excitement and to
+say, jokingly:
+
+"That's capital! I shall be reduced now to calling for help. I, Arsène
+Lupin! Yes, to call in the help of those gentlemen of the police.
+Otherwise, the odds on my being buried alive will increase every minute.
+They're ten to one as it is!"
+
+He clenched his fists.
+
+"Hang it! I'll get out of this scrape by myself! Call for help? Not if
+I know it!"
+
+He summoned up all his energies to think, but his jaded brain gave him
+none but confused and disconnected ideas. He was haunted by Florence's
+image and by Marie Fauville's as well.
+
+"It's to-night that I'm to save them," he said to himself. "And I
+certainly will save them, as they are not guilty and as I know the real
+criminal. But how shall I set about it to succeed?"
+
+He thought of the Prefect of Police, of the meeting that was to take
+place at Fauville's house on the Boulevard Suchet. The meeting had begun.
+The police were watching the house. And this reminded him of the sheet of
+paper found by Weber in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, and of
+the sentence written on it, which the Prefect had read out:
+
+"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
+it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"Yes," thought Don Luis, accepting M. Desmalions's reasoning, "yes, in
+ten days' time. As there have been only three letters, the fourth will
+appear to-night; and the explosion will not take place until the fifth
+letter appears--that is in ten days from now."
+
+He repeated:
+
+"In ten days--with the fifth letter--in ten days--"
+
+And suddenly he gave a start of fright. A horrible vision had flashed
+across his mind, a vision only too real. The explosion was to occur that
+very night! And all at once, knowing that he knew the truth, all at
+once, in a revival of his usual clear-sightedness, he accepted the
+theory as certain.
+
+No doubt only three letters had appeared out of the mysterious darkness,
+but four letters ought to have appeared, because one of them had appeared
+not on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason which
+Don Luis knew. Besides, it was not a question of all this. It was not a
+question of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters,
+amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim to any
+certainty,
+
+No; one thing alone stood out above the situation: the sentence, "Bear in
+mind that the explosion is independent of the letters." And, as the
+explosion was put down for the night of the twenty-fifth of May, it would
+occur that very night, at three o'clock in the morning!
+
+"Help! Help!" he cried.
+
+This time he did not hesitate. So far, he had had the courage to remain
+huddled in his prison and to wait for the miracle that might come to his
+assistance; but he preferred to face every danger and undergo every
+penalty rather than abandon the Prefect of Police, Weber, Mazeroux, and
+their companions to the death that threatened them.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+Fauville's house would be blown up in three or four hours. That he knew
+with the greatest certainty. Just as punctually as the mysterious letters
+had reached their destination in spite of all the obstacles in the way,
+so the explosion would occur at the hour named. The infernal artificer of
+the accursed work had wished it so. At three o'clock in the morning there
+would be nothing left of the Fauvilles' house.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+He recovered enough strength to raise desperate shouts and to make his
+voice carry beyond the stones and beyond the wainscoting.
+
+Then, when there seemed to be no answer to his call, he stopped
+and listened for a long time. There was not a sound. The silence
+was absolute.
+
+Thereupon a terrible anguish covered him with a cold sweat. Supposing the
+detectives had ceased to watch the upper floors and confined themselves
+to spending the night in the rooms on the ground floor?
+
+He madly took a brick and struck it repeatedly against the stone that
+closed the entrance, hoping that the noise would spread through the
+house. But an avalanche of small stones, loosened by the blows, at once
+fell upon him, knocking him down again and fixing him where he lay.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+More silence--a great, ruthless silence.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+He felt that his shouts did not penetrate the walls that stifled him.
+Besides, his voice was growing fainter and fainter, producing a hoarse
+groan that died away in his strained throat.
+
+He ceased his cries and again listened, with all his anxious attention,
+to the great silence that surrounded as with layers of lead the stone
+coffin in which he lay imprisoned. Still nothing, not a sound. No one
+would come, no one could come to his assistance.
+
+He continued to be haunted by Florence's name and image. And he thought
+also of Marie Fauville, whom he had promised to save. But Marie would die
+of starvation. And, like her, like Gaston Sauverand and so many others,
+he in his turn was the victim of this monstrous horror.
+
+An incident occurred to increase his dismay. All of a sudden his electric
+lantern, which he had left alight to dispel the terrors of the darkness,
+went out. It was eleven o'clock at night.
+
+He was overcome with a fit of giddiness. He could hardly breathe in the
+close and vitiated air. His brain suffered, as it were, a physical and
+exceedingly painful ailment, from the repetition of images that seemed to
+encrust themselves there; and it was always Florence's beautiful features
+or Marie's livid face. And, in his distraught brain, while Marie lay
+dying, he heard the explosion at the Fauvilles' house and saw the Prefect
+of Police and Mazeroux lying hideously mutilated, dead.
+
+A numbness crept over him. He fell into a sort of swoon, in which he
+continued to stammer confused syllables:
+
+"Florence--Marie--Marie--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+THE EXPLOSION
+
+
+The fourth mysterious letter! The fourth of those letters "posted by the
+devil and delivered by the devil," as one of the newspapers expressed it!
+
+We all of us remember the really extraordinary agitation of the public as
+the night of the twenty-fifth of May drew near. And fresh news increased
+this interest to a yet higher degree.
+
+People heard in quick succession of the arrest of Sauverand, the flight
+of his accomplice, Florence Levasseur, Don Luis Perenna's secretary, and
+the inexplicable disappearance of Perenna himself, whom they insisted,
+for the best of reasons, on identifying with Arsène Lupin.
+
+The police, assured from this moment of victory and having nearly all the
+actors in the tragedy in their power, had gradually given way to
+indiscretion; and, thanks to the particulars revealed to this or that
+journalist, the public knew of Don Luis's change of attitude, suspected
+his passion for Florence Levasseur and the real cause of his
+right-about-face, and thrilled with excitement as they saw that
+astonishing figure enter upon a fresh struggle.
+
+What was he going to do? If he wanted to save the woman he loved from
+prosecution and to release Marie and Sauverand from prison, he would have
+to intervene some time that night, to take part, somehow or other, in the
+event at hand, and to prove the innocence of the three accomplices,
+either by arresting the invisible bearer of the fourth letter or by
+suggesting some plausible explanation. In short, he would have to be
+there; and that was interesting indeed!
+
+And then the news of Marie Fauville was not good. With unwavering
+obstinacy she persisted in her suicidal plans. She had to be artificially
+fed; and the doctors in the infirmary at Saint-Lazare did not conceal
+their anxiety. Would Don Luis Perenna arrive in time?
+
+Lastly, there was that one other thing, the threat of an explosion which
+was to blow up Hippolyte Fauville's house ten days after the delivery of
+the fourth letter, a really impressive threat when it was remembered that
+the enemy had never announced anything that did not take place at the
+stated hour. And, although it was still ten days--at least, so people
+thought--from the date fixed for the catastrophe, the threat made the
+whole business look more and more sinister.
+
+That evening, therefore, a great crowd made its way, through La Muette
+and Auteuil, to the Boulevard Suchet, a crowd coming not only from Paris,
+but also from the suburbs and the provinces. The spectacle was exciting,
+and people wanted to see.
+
+They saw only from a distance, for the police had barred the approaches
+a hundred yards from either side of the house and were driving into the
+ditches of the fortifications all those who managed to climb the
+opposite slope.
+
+The sky was stormy, with heavy clouds revealed at intervals by the light
+of a silver moon. There were lightning-flashes and peals of distant
+thunder. Men sang. Street-boys imitated the noises of animals. People
+formed themselves into groups on the benches and pavements and ate and
+drank while discussing the matter.
+
+A part of the night was spent in this way and nothing happened to reward
+the patience of the crowd, who began to wonder, somewhat wearily, if they
+would not do better to go home, seeing that Sauverand was in prison and
+that there was every chance that the fourth letter would not appear in
+the same mysterious way as the others.
+
+And yet they did not go: Don Luis Perenna was due to come!
+
+From ten o'clock in the evening the Prefect of Police and his secretary
+general, the chief detective and Weber, his deputy, Sergeant Mazeroux,
+and two detectives were gathered in the large room in which Fauville had
+been murdered. Fifteen more detectives occupied the remaining rooms,
+while some twenty others watched the roofs, the outside of the house, and
+the garden.
+
+Once again a thorough search had been made during the afternoon, with no
+better results than before. But it was decided that all the men should
+keep awake. If the letter was delivered anywhere in the big room, they
+wanted to know and they meant to know who brought it. The police do not
+recognize miracles.
+
+At twelve o'clock M. Desmalions had coffee served to his subordinates. He
+himself took two cups and never ceased walking from one end to the other
+of the room, or climbing the staircase that led to the attic, or going
+through the passage and hall. Preferring that the watch should be
+maintained under the most favourable conditions, he left all the doors
+opened and all the electric lights on.
+
+Mazeroux objected:
+
+"It has to be dark for the letter to come. You will remember, Monsieur le
+Préfet, that the other experiment was tried before and the letter was not
+delivered."
+
+"We will try it again," replied M. Desmalions, who, in spite of
+everything, was really afraid of Don Luis's interference, and increased
+his measures to make it impossible.
+
+Meanwhile, as the night wore on, the minds of all those present became
+impatient. Prepared for the angry struggle as they were, they longed for
+the opportunity to show their strength. They made desperate use of their
+ears and eyes.
+
+At one o'clock there was an alarm that showed the pitch which the nervous
+tension had reached. A shot was fired on the first floor, followed by
+shouts. On inquiry, it was found that two detectives, meeting in the
+course of a round, had not recognized each other, and one of them had
+discharged his revolver in the air to inform his comrades.
+
+In the meantime the crowd outside had diminished, as M. Desmalions
+perceived on opening the garden gate. The orders had been relaxed and
+sightseers were allowed to come nearer, though they were still kept at a
+distance from the pavement.
+
+Mazeroux said:
+
+"It is a good thing that the explosion is due in ten days' time and not
+to-night, Monsieur le Préfet; otherwise, all those good people would be
+in danger as well as ourselves."
+
+"There will be no explosion in ten days' time, any more than there will
+be a letter to-night," said M. Desmalions, shrugging his shoulders. And
+he added, "Besides, on that day, the orders will be strict."
+
+It was now ten minutes past two.
+
+At twenty-five minutes past, as the Prefect was lighting a cigar, the
+chief detective ventured to joke:
+
+"That's something you will have to do without, next time, Monsieur le
+Préfet. It would be too risky."
+
+"Next time," said M. Desmalions, "I shall not waste time in keeping
+watch. For I really begin to think that all this business with the
+letters is over."
+
+"You can never tell," suggested Mazeroux.
+
+A few minutes more passed. M. Desmalions had sat down. The others also
+were seated. No one spoke.
+
+And suddenly they all sprang up, with one movement, and the same
+expression of surprise.
+
+A bell had rung.
+
+They at once heard where the sound came from.
+
+"The telephone," M. Desmalions muttered.
+
+He took down the receiver.
+
+"Hullo! Who are you?"
+
+A voice answered, but so distant and so faint that he could only catch an
+incoherent noise and exclaimed:
+
+"Speak louder! What is it? Who are you?"
+
+The voice spluttered out a few syllables that seemed to astound him.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "I don't understand. Please repeat what you said. Who
+is it speaking?"
+
+"Don Luis Perenna," was the answer, more distinctly this time.
+
+The Prefect made as though to hang up the receiver; and he growled:
+
+"It's a hoax. Some rotter amusing himself at our expense."
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of himself, he went on in a gruff voice:
+
+"Look here, what is it? You say you're Don Luis Perenna?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+"What's the time!"
+
+The Prefect made an angry gesture, not so much because of the
+ridiculous question as because he had really recognized Don Luis's
+voice beyond mistake.
+
+"Well?" he said, controlling himself. "What's all this about?
+Where are you?"
+
+"At my house, above the iron curtain, in the ceiling of my study."
+
+"In the ceiling!" repeated the Prefect, not knowing what to think.
+
+"Yes; and more or less done for, I confess."
+
+"We'll send and help you out," said M. Desmalions, who was beginning to
+enjoy himself.
+
+"Later on, Monsieur le Préfet. First answer me. Quickly! If not, I don't
+know that I shall have the strength. What's the time?"
+
+"Oh, look here!"
+
+"I beg of you--"
+
+"It's twenty minutes to three."
+
+"Twenty minutes to three!"
+
+It was as though Don Luis found renewed strength in a sudden fit of fear.
+His weak voice recovered its emphasis, and, by turns imperious,
+despairing, and beseeching, full of a conviction which he did his utmost
+to impart to M. Desmalions, he said:
+
+"Go away, Monsieur le Préfet! Go, all of you; leave the house. The house
+will be blown up at three o'clock. Yes, yes, I swear it will. Ten days
+after the fourth letter means now, because there has been a ten days'
+delay in the delivery of the letters. It means now, at three o'clock in
+the morning. Remember what was written on the sheet which Deputy Chief
+Weber handed you this morning: 'The explosion is independent of the
+letters. It will take place at three o'clock in the morning.' At three
+o'clock in the morning, to-day, Monsieur le Préfet!" The voice faltered
+and then continued:
+
+"Go away, please. Let no one remain in the house. You must believe me. I
+know everything about the business. And nothing can prevent the threat
+from being executed. Go, go, go! This is horrible; I feel that you do not
+believe me--and I have no strength left. Go away, every one of you!"
+
+He said a few more words which M. Desmalions could not make out. Then the
+voice ceased; and, though the Prefect still heard cries, it seemed to him
+that those cries were distant, as though the instrument were no longer
+within the reach of the mouth that uttered them.
+
+He hung up the receiver.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, with a smile, "it is seventeen to three. In
+seventeen minutes we shall all be blown up together. At least, that is
+what our good friend Don Luis Perenna declares."
+
+In spite of the jokes with which this threat was met, there was a general
+feeling of uneasiness. Weber asked:
+
+"Was it really Don Luis, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Don Luis in person. He has gone to earth in some hiding-hole in his
+house, above the study; and his fatigue and privations seem to have
+unsettled him a little. Mazeroux, go and ferret him out--unless this is
+just some fresh trick on his part. You have your warrant."
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux went up to M. Desmalions. His face was pallid.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, did _he_ tell you that we were going to be
+blown up?"
+
+"He did. He relies on the note which M. Weber found in a volume of
+Shakespeare. The explosion is to take place to-night."
+
+"At three o'clock in the morning?"
+
+"At three o'clock in the morning--that is to say, in less than a quarter
+of an hour."
+
+"And do you propose to remain, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"What next, Sergeant? Do you imagine that we are going to obey that
+gentleman's fancies?"
+
+Mazeroux staggered, hesitated, and then, despite all his natural
+deference, unable to contain himself, exclaimed:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, it's not a fancy. I have worked with Don Luis. I
+know the man. If he tells you that something is going to happen, it's
+because he has his reasons."
+
+"Absurd reasons."
+
+"No, no, Monsieur le Préfet," Mazeroux pleaded, growing more and more
+excited. "I swear that you must listen to him. The house will be blown
+up--he said so--at three o'clock. We have a few minutes left. Let us go.
+I entreat you, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"In other words, you want us to run away."
+
+"But it's not running away, Monsieur le Préfet. It's a simple precaution.
+After all, we can't risk--You, yourself, Monsieur le Préfet--"
+
+"That will do."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Préfet, as Don Luis said--"
+
+"That will do, I say!" repeated the Prefect harshly. "If you're afraid,
+you can take advantage of the order which I gave you and go off after
+Don Luis."
+
+Mazeroux clicked his heels together and, old soldier that he was,
+saluted:
+
+"I shall stay here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And he turned and went back to his place at a distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence followed. M. Desmalions began to walk up and down the room, with
+his hands behind his back. Then, addressing the chief detective and the
+secretary general:
+
+"You are of my opinion, I hope?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Well, of course! To begin with, that supposition is based on nothing
+serious. And, besides, we are guarded, aren't we? Bombs don't come
+tumbling on one's head like that. It takes some one to throw them. Well,
+how are they to come? By what way?"
+
+"Same way as the letters," the secretary general ventured to suggest.
+
+"What's that? Then you admit--?"
+
+The secretary general did not reply and M. Desmalions did not complete
+his sentence. He himself, like the others, experienced that same feeling
+of uneasiness which gradually, as the seconds sped past, was becoming
+almost intolerably painful.
+
+Three o'clock in the morning! ... The words kept on recurring to his
+mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There
+was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown up, by the mere
+effect of an infernal and all-powerful will?
+
+"It's senseless, absolutely senseless!" he cried, stamping his foot.
+
+But, on looking at his companions, he was amazed to see how drawn their
+faces were; and he felt his courage sink in a strange way. He was
+certainly not afraid; and the others were no more afraid than he. But all
+of them, from the chiefs to the simple detectives, were under the
+influence of that Don Luis Perenna whom they had seen accomplishing such
+extraordinary feats, and who had shown such wonderful ability throughout
+this mysterious adventure.
+
+Consciously or unconsciously, whether they wished it or no, they looked
+upon him as an exceptional being endowed with special faculties, a
+being of whom they could not think without conjuring up the image of
+the amazing Arsène Lupin, with his legend of daring, genius, and
+superhuman insight.
+
+And Lupin was telling them to fly. Pursued and hunted as he was, he
+voluntarily gave himself up to warn them of their danger. And the danger
+was immediate. Seven minutes more, six minutes more--and the house would
+be blown up.
+
+With great simplicity, Mazeroux went on his knees, made the sign of the
+cross, and said his prayers in a low voice. The action was so impressive
+that the secretary general and the chief detective made a movement as
+though to go toward the Prefect of Police.
+
+M. Desmalions turned away his head and continued his walk up and down the
+room. But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over
+the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna's authority, his ardent
+entreaties, his frenzied conviction--all this upset him. He had seen
+Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in
+the present circumstances, to neglect the man's warning.
+
+"Let's go," he said.
+
+The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if
+those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of
+a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or
+disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates
+of prudence.
+
+They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.
+
+"No," he said, "go on; I'll follow you."
+
+He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.
+
+In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all
+the plain-clothesmen had assembled, he sent them out of the house
+together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the
+detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:
+
+"Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back
+as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in
+half an hour."
+
+"And you, Monsieur le Préfet?" whispered Mazeroux, "You won't remain
+here, I hope?"
+
+"No, that I shan't!" he said, laughing. "If I take our friend Perenna's
+advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!"
+
+"There is only two minutes left."
+
+"Our friend Perenna spoke of three o'clock, not of two minutes to
+three. So--"
+
+He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief
+detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications
+opposite the house.
+
+"Perhaps we ought to stoop down," suggested Mazeroux.
+
+"Let's stoop, by all means," said the Prefect, still in a good humour.
+"But, honestly, if there's no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my
+head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous."
+
+"There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Préfet," declared Mazeroux.
+
+"What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!"
+
+"You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd
+anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the
+beating of their hearts. It was interminable.
+
+Three o'clock sounded from somewhere.
+
+"You see," grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, "you see! There's
+nothing, thank goodness!"
+
+And he growled:
+
+"It's idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could any one imagine such
+nonsense!"
+
+Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof
+of a neighbouring building.
+
+Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and,
+the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that
+they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and
+smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like
+the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano
+had erupted.
+
+"Look sharp!" shouted the Prefect of Police, darting forward. "Telephone
+for the engines, quick, in case of fire!"
+
+He caught Mazeroux by the arm:
+
+"Run to my motor; you'll see her a hundred yards down the boulevard. Tell
+the man to drive you to Don Luis, and, if you find him, release him and
+bring him here."
+
+"Under arrest, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Under arrest? You're mad!"
+
+"But, if the deputy chief--"
+
+"The deputy chief will keep his mouth shut. I'll see to that. Be off!"
+
+Mazeroux fulfilled his mission, not with greater speed than if he had
+been sent to arrest Don Luis, for Mazeroux was a conscientious man, but
+with extraordinary pleasure. The fight which he had been obliged to wage
+against the man whom he still called "the chief" had often distressed him
+to the point of tears. This time he was coming to help him, perhaps to
+save his life.
+
+That afternoon the deputy chief had ceased his search of the house, by M.
+Desmalions's orders, as Don Luis's escape seemed certain, and left only
+three men on duty. Mazeroux found them in a room on the ground floor,
+where they were sitting up in turns. In reply to his questions, they
+declared that they had not heard a sound.
+
+He went upstairs alone, so as to have no witnesses to his interview with
+the governor, passed through the drawing-room and entered the study.
+
+Here he was overcome with anxiety, for, after turning on the light, the
+first glance revealed nothing to his eyes.
+
+"Chief!" he cried, repeatedly. "Where are you, Chief?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"And yet," thought Mazeroux, "as he telephoned, he can't be far away."
+
+In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from
+its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of
+brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the
+light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the
+ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But
+the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not
+see the captive's head.
+
+He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was
+reassured by the warmth of its touch.
+
+"Is that you, Mazeroux?" asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to
+come from very far away.
+
+"Yes, it's I. You're not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?"
+
+"No, only stunned--and a bit faint--from hunger.... Listen to me."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk.... You'll find--"
+
+"Yes, Chief?"
+
+"An old stick of chocolate."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I'm famished."
+
+Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a
+gayer voice:
+
+"That's better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread
+and some water."
+
+"I'll be back at once, Chief."
+
+"Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur's room and the secret
+passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top."
+
+And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the
+hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.
+
+The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught
+hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh dear!" he moaned, in a voice full of pity. "What a
+position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug
+down, where you lay, and gone on digging--for more than a yard! And it
+took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!"
+
+When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of
+bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:
+
+"Yes, it took the devil's own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap's
+ideas are whirling in his head and he can't use his brain, upon my word,
+all he asks is to die? And then there was no air, you see. I couldn't
+breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I
+was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a
+jelly. But there, I was thinking of that confounded business of the
+explosion and I wanted to warn you at all costs, and I dug away at my
+tunnel. What a job! And then, oof! I felt space at last!
+
+"I got my hand through and next my arm. Where was I? Why, over the
+telephone, of course! I knew that at once by feeling the wall and finding
+the wires. Then it took me quite half an hour to get hold of the
+instrument. I couldn't reach it with my arm.
+
+"I managed at last with a piece of string and a slip-knot to fish up the
+receiver and hold it near my mouth, or, say, at ten inches from my mouth.
+And then I shouted and roared to make my voice carry; and, all the time,
+I was in pain. And then, at last, my string broke.... And then--and
+then--I hadn't an ounce of strength left in my body. Besides, you fellows
+had been warned; and it was for you to get yourselves out of the mess."
+
+He looked at Mazeroux and asked him, as though certain of the reply:
+
+"The explosion took place, didn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+"At three o'clock exactly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And of course M. Desmalions had the house cleared?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"At the last minute?"
+
+"At the last minute."
+
+Don Luis laughed and said:
+
+"I knew he would wait about and not give way until the crucial moment.
+You must have had a bad time of it, my poor Mazeroux, for of course you
+agreed with me from the start."
+
+He kept on eating while he talked; and each mouthful seemed to bring back
+a little of his usual animation.
+
+"Funny thing, hunger!" he said. "Makes you feel so light-headed. I must
+practise getting used to it, however."
+
+"At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for
+nearly forty-eight hours."
+
+"Ah, that comes of having a sound constitution, with something to fall
+back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time
+to shave and have a bath."
+
+When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs
+and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then,
+getting up, said:
+
+"Now, let's be off."
+
+"But there's no hurry, Chief. Why don't you lie down for a few hours? The
+Prefect can wait."
+
+"You're mad! What about Marie Fauville?"
+
+"Marie Fauville?"
+
+"Why, of course! Do you think I'm going to leave her in prison, or
+Sauverand, either? There's not a second to lose, old chap."
+
+Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his
+wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three,
+just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.
+
+However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk,
+and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.
+
+"Very flattering to my pride," said Don Luis to Mazeroux, "most
+flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over
+the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a
+hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from
+little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless
+pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit
+of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have
+you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!'
+And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn't built up
+of modesty--"
+
+They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they
+had to alight from the car. Mazeroux passed through the cordon of police
+protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope
+across the road.
+
+"Wait for me here, Chief. I'll tell the Prefect of Police."
+
+On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a
+few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the
+explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the
+ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning
+cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville's
+built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the
+electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had
+not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of
+furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.
+
+"Come with me, Chief," said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him
+toward the engineer's workroom.
+
+A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the
+passage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from
+the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the
+explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have
+anticipated.
+
+M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the
+night in the room and several important persons from the public
+prosecutor's office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone,
+refusing to meet his enemy.
+
+Don Luis's arrival caused great excitement. The Prefect at once came up
+to him and said:
+
+"All our thanks, Monsieur. Your insight is above praise. You have
+saved our lives; and these gentlemen and I wish to tell you so most
+emphatically. In my case, it is the second time that I have to
+thank you."
+
+"There is a very simple way of thanking me, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don
+Luis, "and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end."
+
+"Your task?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. My action of last night is only the beginning.
+The conclusion is the release of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Am I asking too much, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"One can always ask, but the request should be reasonable. And the
+innocence of those people does not depend on me."
+
+"No; but it depends on you, Monsieur le Préfet, to let them know if I
+prove their innocence to you."
+
+"Yes, I agree, if you prove it beyond dispute."
+
+"Just so."
+
+Don Luis's calm assurance impressed M. Desmalions in spite of everything
+and even more than on the former occasions; and he suggested:
+
+"The results of the hasty inspection which we have made will perhaps help
+you. For instance, we are certain that the bomb was placed by the
+entrance to the passage and probably under the boards of the floor."
+
+"Please do not trouble, Monsieur le Préfet. These are only secondary
+details. The great thing now is that you should know the whole truth, and
+that not only through words."
+
+The Prefect had come closer. The magistrate and detectives were standing
+round Don Luis, watching his lips and movements with feverish impatience.
+Was it possible that that truth, as yet so remote and vague, in spite of
+all the importance which they attached to the arrests already effected,
+was known at last?
+
+It was a solemn moment. Every one was on tenterhooks. The manner in which
+Don Luis had foretold the explosion lent the value of an accomplished
+fact to his predictions; and the men whom he had saved from the terrible
+catastrophe were almost ready to accept as certainties the most
+improbable statements which a man of his stamp might make.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "you waited in vain last night for the
+fourth letter to make its appearance. We shall now be able, by an
+unexpected miracle of chance, to be present at the delivery of the
+letter. You will then know that it was the same hand that committed all
+the crimes--and you will know whose hand that was."
+
+And, turning to Mazeroux:
+
+"Sergeant, will you please make the room as dark as you can? The
+shutters are gone; but you might draw the curtains across the windows
+and close the doors. Monsieur le Préfet, is it by accident that the
+electric light is on?"
+
+"Yes, by accident. We will have it turned out."
+
+"One moment. Have any of you gentlemen a pocket lantern about you? Or,
+no, it doesn't matter. This will do."
+
+There was a candle in a sconce. He took it and lit it.
+
+Then he switched off the electric light.
+
+There was a half darkness, amid which the flame of the candle flickered
+in the draught from the windows. Don Luis protected the flame with his
+hand and moved to the table.
+
+"I do not think that we shall be kept waiting long," he said. "As I
+foresee it, there will be only a few seconds before the facts speak for
+themselves and better than I could do."
+
+Those few seconds, during which no one broke the silence, were
+unforgettable. M. Desmalions has since declared, in an interview in which
+he ridicules himself very cleverly, that his brain, over-stimulated by
+the fatigues of the night and by the whole scene before him, imagined the
+most unlikely events, such as an invasion of the house by armed
+assailants, or the apparition of ghosts and spirits.
+
+He had the curiosity, however, he said, to watch Don Luis. Sitting on
+the edge of the table, with his head thrown a little back and his
+eyes roaming over the ceiling, Don Luis was eating a piece of bread
+and nibbling at a cake of chocolate. He seemed very hungry, but quite
+at his ease.
+
+The others maintained that tense attitude which we put on at moments of
+great physical effort. Their faces were distorted with a sort of
+grimace. They were haunted by the memory of the explosion as well as
+obsessed by what was going to happen. The flame of the candle cast
+shadows on the wall.
+
+More seconds elapsed than Don Luis Perenna had said, thirty or forty
+seconds, perhaps, that seemed endless. Then Perenna lifted the candle a
+little and said:
+
+"There you are."
+
+They had all seen what they now saw almost as soon as he spoke. A letter
+was descending from the ceiling. It spun round slowly, like a leaf
+falling from a tree without being driven by the wind. It just touched Don
+Luis and alighted on the floor between two legs of the table.
+
+Picking up the paper and handing it to M. Desmalions, Don Luis said:
+
+"There you are, Monsieur le Préfet. This is the fourth letter, due
+last night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+THE "HATER"
+
+
+M. Desmalions looked at him without understanding, and looked from him to
+the ceiling. Perenna said:
+
+"Oh, there's no witchcraft about it; and, though no one has thrown that
+letter from above, though there is not the smallest hole in the ceiling,
+the explanation is quite simple!"
+
+"Quite simple, is it?" said M. Desmalions.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. It all looks like an extremely complicated
+conjuring trick, done almost for fun. Well, I say that it is quite
+simple--and, at the same time, terribly tragic. Sergeant Mazeroux, would
+you mind drawing back the curtains and giving us as much light as
+possible?"
+
+While Mazeroux was executing his orders and M. Desmalions glancing at the
+fourth letter, the contents of which were unimportant and merely
+confirmed the previous ones, Don Luis took a pair of steps which the
+workmen had left in the corner, set it up in the middle of the room and
+climbed to the top, where, seated astride, he was able to reach the
+electric chandelier.
+
+It consisted of a broad, circular band in brass, beneath which was a
+festoon of crystal pendants. Inside were three lamps placed at the
+corners of a brass triangle concealing the wires.
+
+He uncovered the wires and cut them. Then he began to take the whole
+fitting to pieces. To hasten matters, he asked for a hammer and broke up
+the plaster all round the clamps that held the chandelier in position.
+
+"Lend me a hand, please," he said to Mazeroux.
+
+Mazeroux went up the steps; and between them they took hold of the
+chandelier and let it slide down the uprights. The detectives caught it
+and placed it on the table with some difficulty, for it was much heavier
+than it looked.
+
+On inspection, it proved to be surmounted by a cubical metal box,
+measuring about eight inches square, which box, being fastened inside the
+ceiling between the iron clamps, had obliged Don Luis to knock away the
+plaster that concealed it.
+
+"What the devil's this?" exclaimed M. Desmalions.
+
+"Open it for yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: there's a lid to it,"
+said Perenna.
+
+M. Desmalions raised the lid. The box was filled with springs and wheels,
+a whole complicated and detailed mechanism resembling a piece of
+clockwork.
+
+"By your leave, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
+
+He took out one piece of machinery and discovered another beneath it,
+joined to the first by the gearing of two wheels; and the second was more
+like one of those automatic apparatuses which turn out printed slips.
+
+Right at the bottom of the box, just where the box touched the
+ceiling, was a semicircular groove, and at the edge of it was a letter
+ready for delivery.
+
+"The last of the five letters," said Don Luis, "doubtless continuing the
+series of denunciations. You will notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that the
+chandelier originally had a fourth lamp in the centre. It was obviously
+removed when the chandelier was altered, so as to make room for the
+letters to pass."
+
+He continued his detailed explanations:
+
+"So the whole set of letters was placed here, at the bottom. A clever
+piece of machinery, controlled by clockwork, took them one by one at the
+appointed time, pushed them to the edge of the groove concealed between
+the lamps and the pendants, and projected them into space."
+
+None of those standing around Don Luis spoke, and all of them seemed
+perhaps a little disappointed. The whole thing was certainly very clever;
+but they had expected something better than a trick of springs and
+wheels, however surprising.
+
+"Have patience, gentlemen," said Don Luis. "I promised you something
+ghastly; and you shall have it."
+
+"Well, I agree," said the Prefect of Police, "that this is where the
+letters started from. But a good many points remain obscure; and, apart
+from this, there is one fact in particular which it seems impossible to
+understand. How were the criminals able to adapt the chandelier in this
+way? And, in a house guarded by the police, in a room watched night and
+day, how were they able to carry out such a piece of work without being
+seen or heard?"
+
+"The answer is quite easy, Monsieur le Préfet: the work was done before
+the house was guarded by the police."
+
+"Before the murder was committed, therefore?"
+
+"Before the murder was committed."
+
+"And what is to prove to me that that is so?"
+
+"You have said so yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: because it could not have
+been otherwise."
+
+"But do explain yourself, Monsieur!" cried M. Desmalions, with a gesture
+of irritation. "If you have important things to tell us, why delay?"
+
+"It is better, Monsieur le Préfet, that you should arrive at the truth in
+the same way as I did. When you know the secret of the letters, the truth
+is much nearer than you think; and you would have already named the
+criminal if the horror of his crime had not been so great as to divert
+all suspicion from him."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at him attentively. He felt the importance of
+Perenna's every word and he was really anxious.
+
+"Then, according to you," he said, "those letters accusing Madame
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were placed there with the sole object of
+ruining both of them?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"And, as they were placed there before the crime, the plot must have been
+schemed before the murder?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, before the murder. From the moment that we
+admit the innocence of Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, we are obliged
+to conclude that, as everything accuses them, this is due to a series of
+deliberate acts. Mme. Fauville was out on the night of the murder: a
+plot! She was unable to say how she spent her time while the murder was
+being committed: a plot! Her inexplicable drive in the direction of La
+Muette and her cousin Sauverand's walk in the neighbourhood of the house:
+plots! The marks left in the apple by those teeth, by Mme. Fauville's own
+teeth: a plot and the most infernal of all!
+
+"I tell you, everything is plotted beforehand, everything is, so to
+speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered. Everything takes
+place at the appointed time. Nothing is left to chance. It is a work very
+nicely pieced together, worthy of the most skilful artisan, so solidly
+constructed that outside happenings have not been able to throw it out of
+gear; and that the scheme works exactly, precisely, imperturbably, like
+the clockwork in this box, which is a perfect symbol of the whole
+business and, at the same time, gives a most accurate explanation of it,
+because the letters denouncing the murderers were duly posted before the
+crime and delivered after the crime on the dates and at the hours
+foreseen."
+
+M. Desmalions remained thinking for a time and then objected:
+
+"Still, in the letters which he wrote, M. Fauville accuses his wife."
+
+"He does."
+
+"We must therefore admit either that he was right in accusing her or that
+the letters are forged?"
+
+"They are not forged. All the experts have recognized M. Fauville's
+handwriting."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"Then--"
+
+Don Luis did not finish his sentence; and M. Desmalions felt the breath
+of the truth fluttering still nearer round him.
+
+The others, one and all as anxious as himself, were silent. He muttered:
+
+"I do not understand--"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, you do. You understand that, if the sending of
+those letters forms an integrate part of the plot hatched against Mme.
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, it is because their contents were prepared
+in such a way as to be the undoing of the victims."
+
+"What! What! What are you saying?"
+
+"I am saying what I said before. Once they are innocent, everything that
+tells against them is part of the plot."
+
+Again there was a long silence. The Prefect of Police did not conceal
+his agitation. Speaking very slowly, with his eyes fixed on Don Luis's
+eyes, he said:
+
+"Whoever the culprit may be, I know nothing more terrible than this work
+of hatred."
+
+"It is an even more improbable work than you can imagine, Monsieur le
+Préfet," said Perenna, with growing animation, "and it is a hatred of
+which you, who do not know Sauverand's confession, cannot yet estimate
+the violence. I understood it completely as I listened to the man; and,
+since then, all my thoughts have been overpowered by the dominant idea of
+that hatred. Who could hate like that? To whose loathing had Marie
+Fauville and Sauverand been sacrificed? Who was the inconceivable person
+whose perverted genius had surrounded his two victims with chains so
+powerfully forged?
+
+"And another idea came to my mind, an earlier idea which had already
+struck me several times and to which I have already referred in Sergeant
+Mazeroux's presence: I mean the really mathematical character of the
+appearance of the letters. I said to myself that such grave documents
+could not be introduced into the case at fixed dates unless some primary
+reason demanded that those dates should absolutely be fixed. What
+reason? If a _human_ agency had been at work each time, there would
+surely have been some irregularity dependent on this especially after
+the police had become cognizant of the matter and were present at the
+delivery of the letters.
+
+"Well," Perenna continued, "in spite of every obstacle, the letters
+continued to come, as though they could not help it. And thus the reason
+of their coming gradually dawned upon me: they came mechanically, by some
+invisible process set going once and for all and working with the blind
+certainty of a physical law. This was a case not of a conscious
+intelligence and will, but just of material necessity.... It was the
+clash of these two ideas--the idea of the hatred pursuing the innocent
+and the idea of that machinery serving the schemes of the 'hater'--it was
+their clash that gave birth to the little spark of light. When brought
+into contact, the two ideas combined in my mind and suggested the
+recollection that Hippolyte Fauville was an engineer by profession!"
+
+The others listened to him with a sort of uneasy oppression. What was
+gradually being revealed of the tragedy, instead of relieving the
+anxiety, increased it until it became absolutely painful.
+
+M. Desmalions objected:
+
+"Granting that the letters arrived on the dates named, you will
+nevertheless have noted that the hour varied on each occasion.
+
+"That is to say, it varied according as we watched in the dark or not,
+and that is just the detail which supplied me with the key to the
+riddle. If the letters--and this was an indispensable precaution, which
+we are now able to understand--were delivered only under cover of the
+darkness, it must be because a contrivance of some kind prevented them
+from appearing when the electric light was on, and because that
+contrivance was controlled by a switch inside the room. There is no
+other explanation possible.
+
+"We have to do with an automatic distributor that delivers the
+incriminating letters which it contains by clockwork, releasing them only
+between this hour and that on such and such a night fixed in advance and
+only at times when the electric light is off. You have the apparatus
+before you. No doubt the experts will admire its ingenuity and confirm my
+assertions. But, given the fact that it was found in the ceiling of this
+room, given the fact that it contained letters written by M. Fauville, am
+I not entitled to say that it was constructed by M. Fauville, the
+electrical engineer?"
+
+Once more the name of M. Fauville returned, like an obsession; and each
+time the name stood more clearly defined. It was first M. Fauville; then
+M. Fauville, the engineer; then M. Fauville, the electrical engineer. And
+thus the picture of the "hater," as Don Luis said, appeared in its
+accurate outlines, giving those men, used though they were to the
+strangest criminal monstrosities, a thrill of terror. The truth was now
+no longer prowling around them. They were already fighting with it, as
+you fight with an adversary whom you do not see but who clutches you by
+the throat and brings you to the ground.
+
+And the Prefect of Police, summing up all his impressions, said, in a
+strained voice:
+
+"So M. Fauville wrote those letters in order to ruin his wife and the man
+who was in love with her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In that case--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Knowing, at the same time, that he was threatened with death, he wished,
+if ever the threat was realized, that his death should be laid to the
+charge of his wife and her friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And, in order to avenge himself on their love for each other and to
+gratify his hatred of them both, he wanted the whole set of facts to
+point to them as guilty of the murder of which he would be the victim?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So that--so that M. Fauville, in one part of his accursed work,
+was--what shall I say?--the accomplice of his own murder. He dreaded
+death. He struggled against it. But he arranged that his hatred should
+gain by it. That's it, isn't it? That's how it is?"
+
+"Almost, Monsieur le Préfet. You are following the same stages by which I
+travelled and, like myself, you are hesitating before the last truth,
+before the truth which gives the tragedy its sinister character and
+deprives it of all human proportions."
+
+The Prefect struck the table with his two fists and, in a sudden fit of
+revolt, cried:
+
+"It's ridiculous! It's a perfectly preposterous theory! M. Fauville
+threatened with death and contriving his wife's ruin with that
+Machiavellian perseverance? Absurd! The man who came to my office, the
+man whom you saw, was thinking of only one thing: how to escape dying! He
+was obsessed by one dread alone, the dread of death.
+
+"It is not at such moments," the Prefect emphasized, "that a man fits up
+clockwork and lays traps, especially when those traps cannot take effect
+unless he dies by foul play. Can you see M. Fauville working at his
+automatic machine, putting in with his own hands letters which he has
+taken the pains to write to a friend three months before and intercept,
+arranging events so that his wife shall appear guilty and saying,
+'There! If I die murdered, I'm easy in my mind: the person to be
+arrested will be Marie!'
+
+"No, you must confess, men don't take these gruesome precautions. Or, if
+they do--if they do, it means that they're sure of being murdered. It
+means that they agree to be murdered. It means that they are at one with
+the murderer, so to speak, and meet him halfway. In short, it means--"
+
+He interrupted himself, as if the sentences which he had spoken had
+surprised him. And the others seemed equally disconcerted. And all of
+them unconsciously drew from those sentences the conclusions which they
+implied, and which they themselves did not yet fully perceive.
+
+Don Luis did not remove his eyes from the Prefect, and awaited the
+inevitable words.
+
+M. Desmalions muttered:
+
+"Come, come, you are not going to suggest that he had agreed--"
+
+"I suggest nothing, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis. "So far, you have
+followed the logical and natural trend of your thoughts; and that brings
+you to your present position."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, but I am showing you the absurdity of your theory. It
+can't be correct, and we can't believe in Marie Fauville's innocence
+unless we are prepared to suppose an unheard-of thing, that M. Fauville
+took part in his own murder. Why, it's laughable!"
+
+And he gave a laugh; but it was a forced laugh and did not ring true.
+
+"For, after all," he added, "you can't deny that that is where we stand."
+
+"I don't deny it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, M. Fauville, as you say, took part in his own murder."
+
+This was said in the quietest possible fashion, but with an air of such
+certainty that no one dreamed of protesting. After the work of deduction
+and supposition which Don Luis had compelled his hearers to undertake,
+they found themselves in a corner which it was impossible for them to
+leave without stumbling against unanswerable objections.
+
+There was no longer any doubt about M. Fauville's share in his own death.
+But of what did that share consist? What part had he played in the
+tragedy of hatred and murder? Had he played that part, which ended in the
+sacrifice of his life, voluntarily or under compulsion? Who, when all was
+said and done, had served as his accomplice or his executioner?
+
+All these questions came crowding upon the minds of M. Desmalions and the
+others. They thought of nothing but of how to solve them, and Don Luis
+could feel certain that his solution was accepted beforehand. From that
+moment he had but to tell his story of what had happened without fear of
+contradiction. He did so briefly, after the manner of a succinct report
+limited to essentials:
+
+"Three months before the crime, M. Fauville wrote a series of letters
+to one of his friends, M. Langernault, who, as Sergeant Mazeroux will
+have told you, Monsieur le Préfet, had been dead for several years, a
+fact of which M. Fauville cannot have been ignorant. These letters were
+posted, but were intercepted by some means which it is not necessary
+that we should know for the moment. M. Fauville erased the postmarks
+and the addresses and inserted the letters in a machine constructed for
+the purpose, of which he regulated the works so that the first letter
+should be delivered a fortnight after his death and the others at
+intervals of ten days.
+
+"At this moment it is certain that his plan was concerted down to the
+smallest detail. Knowing that Sauverand was in love with his wife,
+watching Sauverand's movements, he must obviously have noticed that his
+detested rival used to pass under the windows of the house every
+Wednesday and that Marie Fauville would go to her window.
+
+"This is a fact of the first importance, one which was exceedingly
+valuable to me; and it will impress you as being equal to a material
+proof. Every Wednesday evening, I repeat, Sauverand used to wander round
+the house. Now note this: first, the crime prepared by M. Fauville was
+committed on a Wednesday evening; secondly, it was at her husband's
+express request that Mme. Fauville went out that evening to go to the
+opera and to Mme. d'Ersinger's."
+
+Don Luis stopped for a few seconds and then continued:
+
+"Consequently, on the morning of that Wednesday, everything was ready,
+the fatal clock was wound up, the incriminating machinery was working to
+perfection, and the proofs to come would confirm the immediate proofs
+which M. Fauville held in reserve. Better still, Monsieur le Préfet, you
+had received from him a letter in which he told you of the plot hatched
+against him, and he implored your assistance for the morning of the next
+day--that is to say, _after his death_!
+
+"Everything, in short, led him to think that things would go according to
+the 'hater's' wishes, when something occurred that nearly upset his
+schemes: the appearance of Inspector Vérot, who had been sent by you,
+Monsieur le Préfet, to collect particulars about the Mornington heirs.
+What happened between the two men? Probably no one will ever know. Both
+are dead; and their secret will not come to life again. But we can at
+least say for certain that Inspector Vérot was here and took away with
+him the cake of chocolate on which the teeth of the tiger were seen for
+the first time, and also that Inspector Vérot succeeded, thanks to
+circumstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M.
+Fauville's projects."
+
+"This we know," explained Don Luis, "because Inspector Vérot said so in
+his own agonizing words; because it was through him that we learned that
+the crime was to take place on the following night; and because he had
+set down his discoveries in a letter which was stolen from him.
+
+"And Fauville knew it also, because, to get rid of the formidable enemy
+who was thwarting his designs, he poisoned him; because, when the poison
+was slow in acting, he had the audacity, under a disguise which made him
+look like Sauverand and which was one day to turn suspicion against
+Sauverand, he had the audacity and the presence of mind to follow
+Inspector Vérot to the Café du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of
+explanation which Inspector Vérot wrote you, to substitute a blank sheet
+of paper for it, and then to ask a passer-by, who might become a witness
+against Sauverand, the way to the nearest underground station for
+Neuilly, where Sauverand lived! There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+Don Luis spoke with increasing force, with the ardour that springs from
+conviction; and his logical and closely argued speech seemed to conjure
+up the actual truth,
+
+"There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet," he repeated. "There's your
+scoundrel. And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear
+inspired by Inspector Vérot's possible revelations was such, that, before
+putting into execution the horrible deed which he had planned, he came to
+the police office to make sure that his victim was no longer alive and
+had not been able to denounce him.
+
+"You remember the scene, Monsieur le Préfet, the fellow's agitation and
+fright: 'To-morrow evening,' he said. Yes, it was for the morrow that he
+asked for your help, because he knew that everything would be over that
+same evening and that next day the police would be confronted with a
+murder, with the two culprits against whom he himself had heaped up the
+charges, with Marie Fauville, whom he had, so to speak, accused in
+advance....
+
+"That was why Sergeant Mazeroux's visit and mine to his house, at nine
+o'clock in the evening, embarrassed him so obviously. Who were those
+intruders? Would they not succeed in shattering his plan? Reflection
+reassured him, even as we, by our insistence, compelled him to give way."
+
+"After all, what he did care?" asked Perenna.
+
+"His measures were so well taken that no amount of watching could destroy
+them or even make the watchers aware of them. What was to happen would
+happen in our presence and unknown to us. Death, summoned by him, would
+do its work.... And the comedy, the tragedy, rather, ran its course. Mme.
+Fauville, whom he was sending to the opera, came to say good-night. Then
+his servant brought him something to eat, including a dish of apples.
+Then followed a fit of rage, the agony of the man who is about to die and
+who fears death and a whole scene of deceit, in which he showed us his
+safe and the drab-cloth diary which was supposed to contain the story of
+the plot. ... That ended matters.
+
+"Mazeroux and I retired to the hall passage, closing the door after us;
+and M. Fauville remained alone and free to act. Nothing now could prevent
+the fulfilment of his wishes. At eleven o'clock in the evening, Mme.
+Fauville--to whom no doubt, in the course of the day, imitating
+Sauverand's handwriting, he had sent a letter--one of those letters which
+are always torn up at once, in which Sauverand entreated the poor woman
+to grant him an interview at the Ranelagh--Mme. Fauville would leave the
+opera and, before going to Mme. d'Ersinger's party, would spend an hour
+not far from the house.
+
+"On the other hand, Sauverand would be performing his usual Wednesday
+pilgrimage less than half a mile away, in the opposite direction. During
+this time the crime would be committed.
+
+"Both of them would come under the notice of the police, either by M.
+Fauville's allusions or by the incident at the Cafe du Pont-Neuf; both of
+them, moreover, would be incapable either of providing an alibi or of
+explaining their presence so near the house: were not both of them bound
+to be accused and convicted of the crime? ... In the most unlikely event
+that some chance should protect them, there was an undeniable proof lying
+ready to hand in the shape of the apple containing the very marks of
+Marie Fauville's teeth! And then, a few weeks later, the last and
+decisive trick, the mysterious arrival at intervals of ten days, of the
+letters denouncing the pair. So everything was settled.
+
+"The smallest details were foreseen with infernal clearness. You
+remember, Monsieur le Préfet, that turquoise which dropped out of my
+ring and was found in the safe? There were only four persons who
+could have seen it and picked it up. M. Fauville was one of them.
+Well, he was just the one, whom we all excepted; and yet it was he
+who, to cast suspicion upon me and to forestall an interference which
+he felt would be dangerous, seized the opportunity and placed the
+turquoise in the safe! ...
+
+"This time the work was completed. Fate was about to be fulfilled.
+Between the 'hater' and his victims there was but the distance of one
+act. The act was performed. M. Fauville died."
+
+Don Luis ceased. His words were followed by a long silence; and he felt
+certain that the extraordinary story which he had just finished telling
+met with the absolute approval of his hearers. They did not discuss, they
+believed. And yet it was the most incredible truth that he was asking
+them to believe.
+
+M. Desmalions asked one last question.
+
+"You were in that passage with Sergeant Mazeroux. There were detectives
+outside the house. Admitting that M. Fauville knew that he was to be
+killed that night and at that very hour of the night, who can have
+killed him and who can have killed his son? There was no one within
+these four walls."
+
+"There was M. Fauville."
+
+A sudden clamour of protests arose. The veil was promptly torn; and the
+spectacle revealed by Don Luis provoked, in addition to horror, an
+unforeseen outburst of incredulity and a sort of revolt against the too
+kindly attention which had been accorded to those explanations. The
+Prefect of Police expressed the general feeling by exclaiming:
+
+"Enough of words! Enough of theories! However logical they may seem, they
+lead to absurd conclusions."
+
+"Absurd in appearance, Monsieur le Préfet; but how do we know that M.
+Fauville's unheard-of conduct is not explained by very natural reasons?
+Of course, no one dies with a light heart for the mere pleasure of
+revenge. But how do we know that M. Fauville, whose extreme emaciation
+and pallor you must have noted as I did, was not stricken by some mortal
+illness and that, knowing himself doomed--"
+
+"I repeat, enough of words!" cried the Prefect. "You go only by
+suppositions. What I want is proofs, a proof, only one. And we are still
+waiting for it."
+
+"Here it is, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Eh? What's that you say?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, when I removed the chandelier from the plaster that
+supported it, I found, outside the upper surface of the metal box, a
+sealed envelope. As the chandelier was placed under the attic occupied by
+M. Fauville's son, it is evident that M. Fauville was able, by lifting
+the boards of the floor in his son's room, to reach the top of the
+machine which he had contrived. This was how, during that last night, he
+placed this sealed envelope in position, after writing on it the date of
+the murder, '31 March, 11 P.M.,' and his signature, 'Hippolyte
+Fauville.'"
+
+M. Desmalions opened the envelope with an eager hand. His first glance at
+the pages of writing which it contained made him give a start.
+
+"Oh, the villain, the villain!" he said. "How was it possible for such a
+monster to exist? What a loathsome brute!"
+
+In a jerky voice, which became almost inaudible at times owing to his
+amazement, he read:
+
+"The end is reached. My hour is striking. Put to sleep by me, Edmond is
+dead without having been roused from his unconsciousness by the fire of
+the poison. My own death-agony is beginning. I am suffering all the
+tortures of hell. My hand can hardly write these last lines. I suffer,
+how I suffer! And yet my happiness is unspeakable.
+
+"This happiness dates back to my visit to London, with Edmond, four
+months ago. Until then, I was dragging on the most hideous existence,
+hiding my hatred of the woman who detested me and who loved another,
+broken down in health, feeling myself already eaten up with an
+unrelenting disease, and seeing my son grow daily more weak and languid.
+
+"In the afternoon I consulted a great physician and I no longer had the
+least doubt left: the malady that was eating into me was cancer. And I
+knew besides that, like myself, my son Edmond was on the road to the
+grave, incurably stricken with consumption.
+
+"That same evening I conceived the magnificent idea of revenge. And such
+a revenge! The most dreadful of accusations made against a man and a
+woman in love with each other! Prison! The assizes! Penal servitude! The
+scaffold! And no assistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope!
+Accumulated proofs, proofs so formidable as to make the innocent
+themselves doubt their own innocence and remain hopelessly and helplessly
+dumb. What a revenge!... And what a punishment! To be innocent and to
+struggle vainly against the very facts that accuse you, the very
+certainty that proclaims you guilty.
+
+"And I prepared everything with a glad heart. Each happy thought, each
+invention made me shout with laughter. Lord, how merry I was! You would
+think that cancer hurts: not a bit of it! How can you suffer physical
+pain when your soul is quivering with delight? Do you think I feel the
+hideous burning of the poison at this moment?
+
+"I am happy. The death which I have inflicted on myself is the beginning
+of their torment. Then why live and wait for a natural death which to
+them would mean the beginning of their happiness? And as Edmond had to
+die, why not save him a lingering illness and give him a death which
+would double the crime of Marie and Sauverand?
+
+"The end is coming. I had to break off: the pain was too much for me. Now
+to pull myself together.... How silent everything is! Outside the house
+and in the house are emissaries of the police watching over my crime. At
+no great distance, Marie, in obedience to my letter, is hurrying to the
+trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is
+roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.
+
+"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip!
+Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope
+round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Vérot this
+morning and followed him to the Café du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony
+walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady
+poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this
+apple, madam, this apple which you did _not_ bite into and which all the
+same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance!
+Jump! Skip!
+
+"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented
+Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I
+invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely
+thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed
+day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second
+letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely
+done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!
+
+"And what amuses me--for I am laughing now--is to think that nobody will
+know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not
+the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.
+
+"Nobody will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when
+the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the
+hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning
+of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The
+bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier
+will explode it at the hour aforesaid.
+
+"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I
+pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the
+needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector
+Vérot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any
+one know? No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.
+
+"Unless--unless some miracle happens--unless the bomb leaves the walls
+standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of
+intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads
+which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle
+and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in
+discovering this final letter.
+
+"It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist.
+But, after all, what do I care? Marie and Sauverand will be at the
+bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated
+forever. And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the
+hands of chance.
+
+"There, that's finished. I have only to sign. My hand shakes more and
+more. The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops. I am
+suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy! Aha, my
+friends, you were waiting for my death!
+
+"You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me
+stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill! And you were both of
+you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for
+my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you,
+united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the
+wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be
+joined together in holy matrimony. Bless you, my children!
+
+"The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner
+will read the marriage service. Oh, the delight of it! I suffer
+agonies--but oh, the delight! What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes
+death a joy! I am happy in dying. Marie is in prison. Sauverand is
+weeping in the condemned man's cell. The door opens....
+
+"Oh, horror! the men in black! They walk up to the bed: 'Gaston
+Sauverand, your appeal is rejected. Courage! Be a man!' Oh, the cold,
+dark morning--the scaffold! It's your turn, Marie, your turn! Would you
+survive your lover? Sauverand is dead: it's your turn. See, here's a
+rope for you. Or would you rather have poison? Die, will you, you hussy!
+Die with your veins on fire--as I am doing, I who hate you--hate
+you--hate you!"
+
+M. Desmalions ceased, amid the silent astonishment of all those present.
+He had great difficulty in reading the concluding lines, the writing
+having become almost wholly shapeless and illegible.
+
+He said, in a low voice, as he stared at the paper: "'Hippolyte
+Fauville,' The signature is there. The scoundrel found a last remnant
+of strength to sign his name clearly. He feared that a doubt might be
+entertained of his villainy. And indeed how could any one have
+suspected it?"
+
+And, looking at Don Luis, he added:
+
+"It needed, to solve the mystery, a really exceptional power of insight
+and gifts to which we must all do homage, to which I do homage. All the
+explanations which that madman gave have been anticipated in the most
+accurate and bewildering fashion."
+
+Don Luis bowed and, without replying to the praise bestowed upon
+him, said:
+
+"You are right, Monsieur le Préfet; he was a madman, and one of the most
+dangerous kind, the lucid madman who pursues an idea from which nothing
+will make him turn aside. He pursued it with superhuman tenacity and with
+all the resources of his fastidious mind, enslaved by the laws of
+mechanics.
+
+"Another would have killed his victims frankly and brutally. He set his
+wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to
+time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he
+succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and
+because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."
+
+M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact,
+was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the
+necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the
+saving of Marie Fauville's life.
+
+"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must
+be told without delay. At the same time, I will send for the examining
+magistrate; and the case against her is sure to be dismissed at once."
+
+He swiftly gave orders for continuing the investigations and verifying
+Don Luis's theories. Then, turning to Perenna:
+
+"Come, Monsieur," he said. "It is right that Mme. Fauville should thank
+her rescuer. Mazeroux, you come, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meeting was over, that meeting in the course of which Don Luis had
+given the most striking proofs of his genius. Waging war, so to speak,
+upon the powers beyond the grave, he had forced the dead man to reveal
+his secret. He disclosed, as though he had been present throughout, the
+hateful vengeance conceived in the darkness and carried out in the tomb.
+
+M. Desmalions showed all his admiration by his silence and by certain
+movements of his head. And Perenna took a keen enjoyment in the strange
+fact that he, who was being hunted down by the police a few hours ago,
+should now be sitting in a motor car beside the head of that same force.
+
+Nothing threw into greater relief the masterly manner in which he had
+conducted the business and the importance which the police attached to
+the results obtained. The value of his collaboration was such that they
+were willing to forget the incidents of the last two days. The grudge
+which Weber bore him was now of no avail against Don Luis Perenna.
+
+M. Desmalions, meanwhile, began briefly to review the new solutions, and
+he concluded by still discussing certain points.
+
+"Yes, that's it ... there is not the least shadow of a doubt.... We
+agree.... It's that and nothing else. Still, one or two things remain
+obscure. First of all, the mark of the teeth. This, notwithstanding the
+husband's admission, is a fact which we cannot neglect."
+
+"I believe that the explanation is a very simple one, Monsieur le Préfet.
+I will give it to you as soon as I am able to support it with the
+necessary proofs."
+
+"Very well. But another question: how is it that Weber, yesterday
+morning, found that sheet of paper relating to the explosion in Mlle.
+Levasseur's room?"
+
+"And how was it," added Don Luis, laughing, "that I found there the list
+of the five dates corresponding with the delivery of the letters?"
+
+"So you are of my opinion?" said M. Desmalions. "The part played by Mlle.
+Levasseur is at least suspicious."
+
+"I believe that everything will be cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet, and
+that you need now only question Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand in
+order to dispel these last obscurities and remove all suspicion from
+Mlle. Levasseur."
+
+"And then," insisted M. Desmalions, "there is one more fact that strikes
+me as odd. Hippolyte Fauville does not once mention the Mornington
+inheritance in his confession. Why? Did he not know of it? Are we to
+suppose that there is no connection, beyond a mere casual coincidence,
+between the series of crimes and that bequest?"
+
+"There, I am entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Préfet. Hippolyte
+Fauville's silence as to that bequest perplexes me a little, I confess.
+But all the same I look upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main
+thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."
+
+Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the
+sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession
+written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines
+would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville,
+Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all
+interest in the matter.
+
+The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is
+still waiting to be pulled down.
+
+The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.
+
+"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him,
+it's urgent."
+
+Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to
+the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against
+the governor himself.
+
+"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her--"
+
+But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the
+prison governor's face.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I
+telephoned to the office, you know--"
+
+"Speak! What is it?"
+
+"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."
+
+M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary,
+followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.
+
+He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the rooms. Her pale face
+and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those
+which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and
+his son Edmond.
+
+Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:
+
+"But the poison--where did it come from?"
+
+"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her?
+Who gave them to her?"
+
+"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not
+put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at
+Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take
+poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge
+should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?
+
+Or rather--or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which
+was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's
+diabolical work?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying
+in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his
+bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.
+
+On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been
+passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie
+Fauville's death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
+
+
+On the fourth evening after the tragic events related, an old
+cab-driver, almost entirely hidden in a huge great-coat, rang at
+Perenna's door and sent up a letter to Don Luis. He was at once shown
+into the study on the first floor. Hardly taking time to throw off his
+great-coat, he rushed at Don Luis:
+
+"It's all up with you this time, Chief!" he exclaimed. "This is no moment
+for joking: pack up your trunks and be off as quick as you can!"
+
+Don Luis, who sat quietly smoking in an easy chair, answered:
+
+"Which will you have, Mazeroux? A cigar or a cigarette?"
+
+Mazeroux at once grew indignant.
+
+"But look here, Chief, don't you read the papers?"
+
+"Worse luck!"
+
+"In that case, the situation must appear as clear to you as it does to me
+and everybody else. During the last three days, since the double suicide,
+or, rather, the double murder of Marie Fauville and her cousin Gaston
+Sauverand, there hasn't been a newspaper but has said this kind of thing:
+'And, now that M. Fauville, his son, his wife, and his cousin Gaston
+Sauverand are dead, there's nothing standing between Don Luis Perenna and
+the Mornington inheritance!'
+
+"Do you understand what that means? Of course, people speak of the
+explosion on the Boulevard Suchet and of Fauville's posthumous
+revelations; and they are disgusted with that dirty brute of a Fauville;
+and they don't know how to praise your cleverness enough. But there is
+one fact that forms the main subject of every conversation and every
+discussion.
+
+"Now that the three branches of the Roussel family are extinct, who
+remains? Don Luis Perenna. In default of the natural heirs, who inherits
+the property? Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"Lucky dog!"
+
+"That's what people are saying, Chief. They say that this series of
+murders and atrocities cannot be the effort of chance coincidences, but,
+on the contrary, points to the existence of an all-powerful will which
+began with the murder of Cosmo Mornington and ended with the capture of
+the hundred millions. And to give a name to that will, they pitch on the
+nearest, that of the extraordinary, glorious, ill-famed, bewildering,
+mysterious, omnipotent, and ubiquitous person who was Cosmo Mornington's
+intimate friend and who, from the beginning, has controlled events and
+pieced them together, accusing and acquitting people, getting them
+arrested, and helping them to escape.
+
+"They say," he went on hurriedly, "that he manages the whole business and
+that, if he works it in accordance with his interests, there are a
+hundred millions waiting for him at the finish. And this person is Don
+Luis Perenna, in other words, Arsène Lupin, the man with the unsavoury
+reputation whom it would be madness not to think of in connection with so
+colossal a job."
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"That's what they say, Chief; I'm only telling you. As long as Mme.
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were alive, people did not give much
+thought to your claims as residuary legatee. But both of them died. Then,
+you see, people can't help remarking the really surprising persistence
+with which luck looks after Don Luis Perenna's interests. You know the
+legal maxim: _fecit cui prodest_. Who benefits by the disappearance of
+all the Roussel heirs? Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"The scoundrel!"
+
+"The scoundrel: that's the word which Weber goes roaring out all along
+the passages of the police office and the criminal investigation
+department. You are the scoundrel and Florence Levasseur is your
+accomplice. And hardly any one dares protest.
+
+"The Prefect of Police? What is the use of his defending you, of his
+remembering that you have saved his life twice over and rendered
+invaluable services to the police which he is the first to appreciate?
+What is the use of his going to the Prime Minister, though we all know
+that Valenglay protects you?
+
+"There are others besides the Prefect of Police! There are others besides
+the Prime Minister! There's the whole of the detective office, there's
+the public prosecutor's staff, there's the examining magistrate, the
+press and, above all, public opinion, which has to be satisfied and which
+calls for and expects a culprit. That culprit is yourself or Florence
+Levasseur. Or, rather, it's you and Florence Levasseur."
+
+Don Luis did not move a muscle of his face. Mazeroux waited a moment
+longer. Then, receiving no reply, he made a gesture of despair.
+
+"Chief, do you know what you are compelling me to do? To betray my duty.
+Well, let me tell you this: to-morrow morning you will receive a summons
+to appear before the examining magistrate. At the end of your
+examination, whatever questions may have been put to you and whatever you
+may have answered, you will be taken straight to the lockup. The warrant
+is signed. That is what your enemies have done."
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"And that's not all. Weber, who is burning to take his revenge, has asked
+for permission to watch your house from this day onward, so that you may
+not slip away as Florence Levasseur did. He will be here with his men in
+an hour's time. What do you say to that, Chief?"
+
+Without abandoning his careless attitude, Don Luis beckoned to Mazeroux.
+
+"Sergeant, just look under that sofa between the windows."
+
+Don Luis was serious. Mazeroux instinctively obeyed. Under the sofa was a
+portmanteau.
+
+"Sergeant, in ten minutes, when I have told my servants to go to bed,
+carry the portmanteau to 143 _bis_ Rue de Rivoli, where I have taken a
+small flat under the name of M. Lecocq."
+
+"What for, Chief? What does it mean?"
+
+"It means that, having no trustworthy person to carry that portmanteau
+for me, I have been waiting for your visit for the last three days."
+
+"Why, but--" stammered Mazeroux, in his confusion.
+
+"Why but what?"
+
+"Had you made up your mind to clear out?"
+
+"Of course I had! But why hurry? The reason I placed you in the detective
+office was that I might know what was being plotted against me. Since you
+tell me that I'm in danger, I shall cut my stick."
+
+And, as Mazeroux looked at him with increasing bewilderment, he tapped
+him on the shoulder and said severely:
+
+"You see, Sergeant, that it was not worth while to disguise yourself as a
+cab-driver and betray your duty. You should never betray your duty,
+Sergeant. Ask your own conscience: I am sure that it will judge you
+according to your deserts."
+
+Don Luis had spoken the truth. Recognizing how greatly the deaths of
+Marie Fauville and Sauverand had altered the situation, he considered it
+wise to move to a place of safety. His excuse for not doing so before was
+that he hoped to receive news of Florence Levasseur either by letter or
+by telephone. As the girl persisted in keeping silence, there was no
+reason why Don Luis should risk an arrest which the course of events made
+extremely probable.
+
+And in fact his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to
+the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry.
+
+"You've had a narrow escape, Chief. Weber heard this morning that the
+bird had flown. He's simply furious! And you must confess that the tangle
+is getting worse and worse. They're utterly at a loss at headquarters.
+They don't even know how to set about prosecuting Florence Levasseur.
+
+"You must have read about it in the papers. The examining magistrate
+maintains that, as Fauville committed suicide and killed his son Edmond,
+Florence Levasseur has nothing to do with the matter. In his opinion the
+case is closed on that side. Well, he's a good one, the examining
+magistrate! What about Gaston Sauverand's death? Isn't it as clear as
+daylight that Florence had a hand in it, as well as in all the rest?
+
+"Wasn't it in her room, in a volume of Shakespeare, that documents were
+found relating to M. Fauville's arrangements about the letters and the
+explosion? And then--"
+
+Mazeroux interrupted himself, frightened by the look in Don Luis's eyes
+and realizing that the chief was fonder of the girl then ever. Guilty or
+not, she inspired him with the same passion.
+
+"All right," said Mazeroux, "we'll say no more about it. The future will
+bear me out, you'll see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days passed. Mazeroux called as often as possible, or else telephoned
+to Don Luis all the details of the two inquiries that were being pursued
+at Saint-Lazare and at the Santé Prison.
+
+Vain inquiries, as we know. While Don Luis's statements relating to the
+electric chandelier and the automatic distribution of the mysterious
+letters were found to be correct, the investigation failed to reveal
+anything about the two suicides.
+
+At most, it was ascertained that, before his arrest, Sauverand had tried
+to enter into correspondence with Marie through one of the tradesmen
+supplying the infirmary. Were they to suppose that the phial of poison
+and the hypodermic syringe had been introduced by the same means? It was
+impossible to prove; and, on the other hand, it was impossible to
+discover how the newspaper cuttings telling of Marie's suicide had found
+their way into Gaston Sauverand's cell.
+
+And then the original mystery still remained, the unfathomable mystery of
+the marks of teeth in the apple. M. Fauville's posthumous confession
+acquitted Marie. And yet it was undoubtedly Marie's teeth that had marked
+the apple. The teeth that had been called the teeth of the tiger were
+certainly hers. Well, then!
+
+In short, as Mazeroux said, everybody was groping in the dark, so much
+so that the Prefect, who was called upon by the will to assemble the
+Mornington heirs at a date not less than three nor more than four months
+after the testator's decease, suddenly decided that the meeting should
+take place in the course of the following week and fixed it for the
+ninth of June.
+
+He hoped in this way to put an end to an exasperating case in which the
+police displayed nothing but uncertainty and confusion. They would decide
+about the inheritance according to circumstances and then close the
+proceedings. And gradually people would cease to talk about the wholesale
+slaughter of the Mornington heirs; and the mystery of the teeth of the
+tiger would be gradually forgotten.
+
+It was strange, but these last days, which were restless and feverish
+like all the days that come before great battles--and every one felt that
+this last meeting meant a great battle--were spent by Don Luis in an
+armchair on his balcony in the Rue de Rivoli, where he sat quietly
+smoking cigarettes, or blowing soap-bubbles which the wind carried toward
+the garden of the Tuileries.
+
+Mazeroux could not get over it.
+
+"Chief, you astound me! How calm and careless you look!"
+
+"I am calm and careless, Alexandre."
+
+"But what do you mean? Doesn't the case interest you? Don't you intend to
+avenge Mme. Fauville and Sauverand? You are openly accused and you sit
+here blowing soap-bubbles!"
+
+"There's no more delightful pastime, Alexandre."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I think, Chief? You've discovered the solution of
+the mystery!"
+
+"Perhaps I have, Alexandre, and perhaps I haven't."
+
+Nothing seemed to excite Don Luis. Hours and hours passed; and he did not
+stir from his balcony. The sparrows now came and ate the crumbs which he
+threw to them. It really seemed as if the case was coming to an end for
+him and as if everything was turning out perfectly.
+
+But, on the day of the meeting, Mazeroux entered with a letter in his
+hand and a scared look on his face.
+
+"This is for you, Chief. It was addressed to me, but with an envelope
+inside it in your name. How do you explain that?"
+
+"Quite easily, Alexandre. The enemy is aware of our cordial relations;
+and, as he does not know where I am staying--"
+
+"What enemy?"
+
+"I'll tell you to-morrow evening."
+
+Don Luis opened the envelope and read the following words, written
+in red ink:
+
+"There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means
+your death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your
+hand is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at that same
+moment the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
+chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin."
+
+Don Luis smiled.
+
+"Good," he said. "Things are taking shape,"
+
+"Do you think so, Chief?"
+
+"I do. And who gave you the letter?"
+
+"Ah, we've been lucky for once, Chief! The policeman to whom it was
+handed happened to live at Les Ternes, next door to the bearer of the
+letter. He knows the fellow well. It was a stroke of luck, wasn't it?"
+
+Don Luis sprang from his seat, radiant with delight.
+
+"What do you mean? Out with it! You know who it is?"
+
+"The chap's an indoor servant employed at a nursing-home in the Avenue
+des Ternes."
+
+"Let's go there. We've no time to lose."
+
+"Splendid, Chief! You're yourself again."
+
+"Well, of course! As long as there was nothing to do I was waiting for
+this evening and resting, for I can see that the fight will be
+tremendous. But, as the enemy has blundered at last, as he's given me a
+trail to go upon, there's no need to wait, and I'll get ahead of him.
+Have at the tiger, Mazeroux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was one o'clock in the afternoon when Don Luis and Mazeroux arrived at
+the nursing-home in the Avenue des Ternes. A manservant opened the door.
+Mazeroux nudged Don Luis. The man was doubtless the bearer of the letter.
+And, in reply to the sergeant's questions, he made no difficulty about
+saying that he had been to the police office that morning.
+
+"By whose orders?" asked Mazeroux.
+
+"The mother superior's."
+
+"The mother superior?"
+
+"Yes, the home includes a private hospital, which is managed by nuns."
+
+"Could we speak to the superior?"
+
+"Certainly, but not now: she has gone out."
+
+"When will she be in?"
+
+"Oh, she may be back at any time!"
+
+The man showed them into the waiting-room, where they spent over an hour.
+They were greatly puzzled. What did the intervention of that nun mean?
+What part was she playing in the case?
+
+People came in and were taken to the patients whom they had called to
+see. Others went out. There were also sisters moving silently to and fro
+and nurses dressed in their long white overalls belted at the waist.
+
+"We're not doing any good here, Chief," whispered Mazeroux.
+
+"What's your hurry? Is your sweetheart waiting for you?"
+
+"We're wasting our time."
+
+"I'm not wasting mine. The meeting at the Prefect's is not till five."
+
+"What did you say? You're joking, Chief! You surely don't intend to
+go to it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not? Well, the warrant--"
+
+"The warrant? A scrap of paper!"
+
+"A scrap of paper which will become a serious matter if you force the
+police to act. Your presence will be looked upon as a provocation--"
+
+"And my absence as a confession. A gentleman who comes into a hundred
+millions does not lie low on the day of the windfall. So I must attend
+that meeting, lest I should forfeit my claim. And attend it I will."
+
+"Chief!"
+
+A stifled cry was heard in front of them; and a woman, a nurse, who was
+passing through the room, at once started running, lifted a curtain, and
+disappeared.
+
+Don Luis rose, hesitating, not knowing what to do. Then, after four or
+five seconds of indecision, he suddenly rushed to the curtain and down
+a corridor, came up against a large, leather-padded door which had
+just closed, and wasted more time in stupidly fumbling at it with
+shaking hands.
+
+When he had opened it, he found himself at the foot of a back staircase.
+Should he go up it? On the right, the same staircase ran down to the
+basement. He went down it, entered a kitchen and, seizing hold of the
+cook, said to her, in an angry voice:
+
+"Has a nurse just gone out this way?"
+
+"Do you mean Nurse Gertrude, the new one?"
+
+"Yes, yes, quick! she's wanted upstairs."
+
+"Who wants her?"
+
+"Oh, hang it all, can't you tell me which way she went?"
+
+"Through that door over there."
+
+Don Luis darted away, crossed a little hall, and rushed out on to the
+Avenue des Ternes.
+
+"Well, here's a pretty race!" cried Mazeroux, joining him.
+
+Don Luis stood scanning the avenue. A motor bus was starting on the
+little square hard by, the Place Saint-Ferdinand.
+
+"She's inside it," he declared. "This time, I shan't let her go."
+
+He hailed a taxi.
+
+"Follow that motor bus, driver, at fifty yards' distance."
+
+"Is it Florence Levasseur?" asked Mazeroux.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A nice thing!" growled the sergeant. And, yielding to a sudden
+outburst: "But, look here, Chief, don't you see? Surely you're not as
+blind as all that!"
+
+Don Luis made no reply.
+
+"But, Chief, Florence Levasseur's presence in the nursing-home proves as
+clearly as A B C that it was she who told the manservant to bring me that
+threatening letter for you! There's not a doubt about it: Florence
+Levasseur is managing the whole business.
+
+"You know it as well as I do. Confess! It's possible that, during the
+last ten days, you've brought yourself, for love of that woman, to look
+upon her as innocent in spite of the overwhelming proofs against her. But
+to-day the truth hits you in the eye. I feel it, I'm sure of it. Isn't it
+so, Chief? I'm right, am I not? You see it for yourself?"
+
+This time Don Luis did not protest. With a drawn face and set eyes he
+watched the motor bus, which at that moment was standing still at the
+corner of the Boulevard Haussmann.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted to the driver.
+
+The girl alighted. It was easy to recognize Florence Levasseur under her
+nurse's uniform. She cast round her eyes as if to make sure that she was
+not being followed, and then took a cab and drove down the boulevard and
+the Rue de la Pépinière, to the Gare Saint-Lazare.
+
+Don Luis saw her from a distance climbing the steps that run up from the
+Cour de Rome; and, on following her, caught sight of her again at the
+ticket office at the end of the waiting hall.
+
+"Quick, Mazeroux!" he said. "Get out your detective card and ask the
+clerk what ticket she's taken. Run, before another passenger comes."
+
+Mazeroux hurried and questioned the ticket clerk and returned:
+
+"Second class for Rouen."
+
+"Take one for yourself."
+
+Mazeroux did so. They found that there was an express due to start in a
+minute. When they reached the platform Florence was stepping into a
+compartment in the middle of the train.
+
+The engine whistled.
+
+"Get in," said Don Luis, hiding himself as best he could. "Telegraph to
+me from Rouen; and I'll join you this evening. Above all, keep your
+eyes on her. Don't let her slip between your fingers. She's very
+clever, you know."
+
+"But why don't you come yourself, Chief? It would be much better--"
+
+"Out of the question. The train doesn't stop before Rouen; and I
+couldn't be back till this evening. The meeting at the Prefect's is at
+five o'clock."
+
+"And you insist on going?"
+
+"More than ever. There, jump in!"
+
+He pushed him into one of the end carriages. The train started and soon
+disappeared in the tunnel.
+
+Then Don Luis flung himself on a bench in a waiting room and remained
+there for two hours, pretending to read the newspapers. But his eyes
+wandered and his mind was haunted by the agonizing question that once
+more forced itself upon him: was Florence guilty or not?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was five o'clock exactly when Major Comte d'Astrignac, Maître
+Lepertuis, and the secretary of the American Embassy were shown into M.
+Desmalions's office. At the same moment some one entered the messengers'
+room and handed in his card.
+
+The messenger on duty glanced at the pasteboard, turned his head quickly
+toward a group of men talking in a corner, and then asked the newcomer:
+
+"Have you an appointment, sir?"
+
+"It's not necessary. Just say that I'm here: Don Luis Perenna."
+
+A kind of electric shock ran through the little group in the corner; and
+one of the persons forming it came forward. It was Weber, the deputy
+chief detective.
+
+The two men looked each other straight in the eyes. Don Luis smiled
+amiably. Weber was livid; he shook in every limb and was plainly striving
+to contain himself.
+
+Near him stood a couple of journalists and four detectives.
+
+"By Jove! the beggars are there for me!" thought Don Luis. "But their
+confusion shows that they did not believe that I should have the cheek to
+come. Are they going to arrest me?"
+
+Weber did not move, but in the end his face expressed a certain
+satisfaction as though he were saying:
+
+"I've got you this time, my fine fellow, and you shan't escape me."
+
+The office messenger returned and, without a word, led the way for Don
+Luis. Perenna passed in front of Weber with the politest of bows,
+bestowed a friendly little nod on the detectives, and entered.
+
+The Comte d'Astrignac hurried up to him at once, with hands outstretched,
+thus showing that all the tittle-tattle in no way affected the esteem in
+which he continued to hold Private Perenna of the Foreign Legion. But the
+Prefect of Police maintained an attitude of reserve which was very
+significant. He went on turning over the papers which he was examining
+and conversed in a low voice with the solicitor and the American
+Secretary of Embassy.
+
+Don Luis thought to himself:
+
+"My dear Lupin, there's some one going to leave this room with the
+bracelets on his wrists. If it's not the real culprit, it'll be you, my
+poor old chap."
+
+And he remembered the early part of the case, when he was in the workroom
+at Fauville's house, before the magistrates, and had either to deliver
+the criminal to justice or to incur the penalty of immediate arrest. In
+the same way, from the start to the finish of the struggle, he had been
+obliged, while fighting the invisible enemy, to expose himself to the
+attacks of the law with no means of defending himself except by
+indispensable victories.
+
+Harassed by constant onslaughts, never out of danger, he had successively
+hurried to their deaths Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, two innocent
+people sacrificed to the cruel laws of war. Was he at last about to fight
+the real enemy, or would he himself succumb at the decisive moment?
+
+He rubbed his hands with such a cheerful gesture that M. Desmalions
+could not help looking at him. Don Luis wore the radiant air of a man
+who is experiencing a pure joy and who is preparing to taste others
+even greater.
+
+The Prefect of Police remained silent for a moment, as though asking
+himself what that devil of a fellow could be so pleased with; then he
+fumbled through his papers once more and, in the end, said:
+
+"We have met again, gentlemen, as we did two months ago, to come to a
+definite conclusion about the Mornington inheritance. Señor Caceres, the
+attaché of the Peruvian legation, will not be here. I have received a
+telegram from Italy to tell me that Señor Caceres is seriously ill.
+However, his presence was not indispensable. There is no one lacking,
+therefore--except those, alas, whose claims this meeting would gladly
+have sanctioned, that is to say, Cosmo Mornington's heirs."
+
+"There is one other person absent, Monsieur le Préfet." M. Desmalions
+looked up. The speaker was Don Luis. The Prefect hesitated and then
+decided to ask him to explain.
+
+"Whom do you mean? What person?"
+
+"The murderer of the Mornington heirs."
+
+This time again Don Luis compelled attention and, in spite of the
+resistance which he encountered, obliged the others to take notice of
+his presence and to yield to his ascendancy. Whatever happened, they had
+to listen to him. Whatever happened, they had to discuss with him things
+which seemed incredible, but which were possible because he put them
+into words.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he asked, "will you allow me to set forth the facts
+of the matter as it now stands? They will form a natural sequel and
+conclusion of the interview which we had after the explosion on the
+Boulevard Suchet."
+
+M. Desmalions's silence gave Don Luis leave to speak. He at once
+continued:
+
+"It will not take long, Monsieur le Préfet. It will not take long for two
+reasons: first, because M. Fauville's confessions remain at our disposal
+and we know definitely the monstrous part which he played; and, secondly,
+because, after all, the truth, however complicated it may seem, is really
+very simple.
+
+"It all lies in the objection which you, Monsieur le Préfet, made to me
+on leaving the wrecked house on the Boulevard Suchet: 'How is it,' you
+asked, 'that the Mornington inheritance is not once mentioned in
+Hippolyte Fauville's confession?' It all lies in that, Monsieur le
+Préfet. Hippolyte Fauville did not say a word about the inheritance; and
+the reason evidently is that he did not know of it.
+
+"And the reason why Gaston Sauverand was able to tell me his whole
+sensational story without making the least allusion to the inheritance
+was that the inheritance played no sort of part in Gaston Sauverand's
+story. He, too, knew nothing of it before those events, any more than
+Marie Fauville did, or Florence Levasseur. There is no denying the
+fact: Hippolyte Fauville was guided by revenge and by revenge alone.
+If not, why should he have acted as he did, seeing that Cosmo
+Mornington's millions reverted to him by the fullest of rights?
+Besides, if he had wished to enjoy those millions, he would not have
+begun by killing himself.
+
+"One thing, therefore, is certain: the inheritance in no way affected
+Hippolyte Fauville's resolves or actions. And, nevertheless, one after
+the other, with inflexible regularity, as if they had been struck down in
+the very order called for by the terms of the Mornington inheritance,
+they all disappeared: Cosmo Mornington, then Hippolyte Fauville, then
+Edmond Fauville, then Marie Fauville, then Gaston Sauverand. First, the
+possessor of the fortune; next, all those whom he had appointed his
+legatees; and, I repeat, in the very order in which the will enabled them
+to lay claim to the fortune!"
+
+"Is it not strange?" asked Perenna, "and are we not bound to suppose that
+there was a controlling mind at the back of it all? Are we not bound to
+admit that the formidable contest was influenced by that inheritance, and
+that, above the hatred and jealousy of the loathsome Fauville, there
+loomed a being endowed with even more tremendous energy, pursuing a
+tangible aim and driving to their deaths, one by one, like so many
+numbered victims, all the unconscious actors in the tragedy of which he
+tied and of which he is now untying the threads?"
+
+Don Luis leaned forward and continued earnestly:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the public instinct so thoroughly agrees with me, a
+section of the police, with M. Weber, the deputy chief detective at its
+head, argues in a manner so exactly identical with my own, that the
+existence of that being is at once confirmed in every mind. There had to
+be some one to act as the controlling brain, to provide the will and the
+energy. That some one was myself. After all, why not? Did not I possess
+the condition which was indispensable to make any one interested in the
+murders? Was I not Cosmo Mornington's heir?
+
+"I will not defend myself. It may be that outside interference, it may be
+that circumstances, will oblige you, Monsieur le Préfet, to take
+unjustifiable measures against me; but I will not insult you by believing
+for one second that you can imagine the man whose acts you have been able
+to judge for the last two months capable of such crimes. And yet the
+public instinct is right in accusing me.
+
+"Apart from Hippolyte Fauville, there is necessarily a criminal; and that
+criminal is necessarily Cosmo Mornington's heir. As I am not the man,
+another heir of Cosmo Mornington exists. It is he whom I accuse, Monsieur
+le Préfet.
+
+"There is something more than a dead man's will in the wicked business
+that is being enacted before us. We thought for a time that there was
+only that; but there is something more. I have not been fighting a dead
+man all the time; more than once I have felt the very breath of life
+strike against my face. More than once I have felt the teeth of the tiger
+seeking to tear me.
+
+"The dead man did much, but he did not do everything. And, even then, was
+he alone in doing what he did? Was the being of whom I speak merely one
+who executed his orders? Or was he also the accomplice who helped him in
+his scheme? I do not know. But he certainly continued a work which he
+perhaps began by inspiring and which, in any case, he turned to his own
+profit, resolutely completed and carried out to the very end. And he did
+so because he knew of Cosmo Mornington's will. It is he whom I accuse,
+Monsieur le Préfet.
+
+"I accuse him at the very least of that part of the crimes and felonies
+which cannot be attributed to Hippolyte Fauville. I accuse him of
+breaking open the drawer of the desk in which Maître Lepertuis, Cosmo
+Mornington's solicitor, had put his client's will. I accuse him of
+entering Cosmo Mornington's room and substituting a phial containing a
+toxic fluid for one of the phials of glycero-phosphate which Cosmo
+Mornington used for his hypodermic injections. I accuse him of playing
+the part of a doctor who came to certify Cosmo Mornington's death and of
+delivering a false certificate. I accuse him of supplying Hippolyte
+Fauville with the poison which killed successively Inspector Vérot,
+Edmond Fauville, and Hippolyte Fauville himself. I accuse him of arming
+and turning against me the hand of Gaston Sauverand, who, acting under
+his advice and his instructions, tried three times to take my life and
+ended by causing the death of my chauffeur. I accuse him of profiting by
+the relations which Gaston Sauverand had established with the infirmary
+in order to communicate with Marie Fauville, and of arranging for Marie
+Fauville to receive the hypodermic syringe and the phial of poison with
+which the poor woman was able to carry out her plans of suicide."
+
+Perenna paused to note the effect of these charges. Then he went on:
+
+"I accuse him of conveying to Gaston Sauverand, by some unknown means,
+the newspaper cuttings about Marie Fauville's death and, at the same
+time, foreseeing the inevitable results of his act. To sum up, therefore,
+without mentioning his share in the other crimes--the death of Inspector
+Vérot, the death of my chauffeur--I accuse him of killing Cosmo
+Mornington, Edmond Fauville, Hippolyte Fauville, Marie Fauville, and
+Gaston Sauverand; in plain words, of killing all those who stood between
+the millions and himself. These last words, Monsieur le Préfet, will tell
+you clearly what I have in my mind.
+
+"When a man does away with five of his fellow creatures in order to
+secure a certain number of millions, it means that he is convinced that
+this proceeding will positively and mathematically insure his entering
+into possession of the millions. In short, when a man does away with a
+millionaire and his four successive heirs, it means that he himself is
+the millionaire's fifth heir. The man will be here in a moment."
+
+"What!"
+
+It was a spontaneous exclamation on the part of the Prefect of Police,
+who was forgetting the whole of Don Luis Perenna's powerful and closely
+reasoned argument, and thinking only of the stupefying apparition which
+Don Luis announced. Don Luis replied:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, his visit is the logical outcome of my accusations.
+Remember that Cosmo Mornington's will explicitly states that no heir's
+claim will be valid unless he is present at to-day's meeting."
+
+"And suppose he does not come?" asked the Prefect, thus showing that Don
+Luis's conviction had gradually got the better of his doubts.
+
+"He will come, Monsieur le Préfet. If not, there would have been no sense
+in all this business. Limited to the crimes and other actions of
+Hippolyte Fauville, it could be looked upon as the preposterous work of a
+madman. Continued to the deaths of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand,
+it demands, as its inevitable outcome, the appearance of a person who, as
+the last descendant of the Roussels of Saint-Etienne and consequently as
+Cosmo Mornington's absolute heir, taking precedence of myself, will come
+to claim the hundred millions which he has won by means of his incredible
+audacity."
+
+"And suppose he does not come?" M. Desmalions once more exclaimed, in a
+more vehement tone.
+
+"Then, Monsieur le Préfet, you may take it that I am the culprit; and you
+have only to arrest me. This day, between five and six o'clock, you will
+see before you, in this room, the person who killed the Mornington heirs.
+It is, humanly speaking, impossible that this should not be so.
+Consequently, the law will be satisfied in any circumstances. He or I:
+the position is quite simple."
+
+M. Desmalions was silent. He gnawed his moustache thoughtfully and walked
+round and round the table, within the narrow circle formed by the others.
+It was obvious that objections to the supposition were springing up in
+his mind. In the end, he muttered, as though speaking to himself:
+
+"No, no. For, after all, how are we to explain that the man should have
+waited until now to claim his rights?"
+
+"An accident, perhaps, Monsieur le Préfet, an obstacle of some kind. Or
+else--one can never tell--the perverse longing for a more striking
+sensation. And remember, Monsieur le Préfet, how minutely and subtly the
+whole business was worked. Each event took place at the very moment
+fixed by Hippolyte Fauville. Cannot we take it that his accomplice is
+pursuing this method to the end and that he will not reveal himself
+until the last minute?"
+
+M. Desmalions exclaimed, with a sort of anger:
+
+"No, no, and again no! It is not possible. If a creature monstrous enough
+to commit such a series of murders exists, he will not be such a fool as
+to deliver himself into our hands."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, he does not know the danger that threatens him if he
+comes here, because no one has even contemplated the theory of his
+existence. Besides, what risk does he run?"
+
+"What risk? Why, if he has really committed those murders--"
+
+"He has committed them, Monsieur le Préfet. He has _caused_ them to be
+committed, which is a different thing. And you now see where the man's
+unsuspected strength lies! He does not act in person. From the day
+when the truth appeared to me, I have succeeded in gradually
+discovering his means of action, in laying bare the machinery which he
+controls, the tricks which he employs. He does not act in person.
+There you have his method. You will find that it is the same
+throughout the series of murders.
+
+"In appearance, Cosmo Mornington died of the results of a carelessly
+administered injection. In reality, it was this man who caused the
+injection to prove fatal. In appearance, Inspector Vérot was killed by
+Hippolyte Fauville. In reality, it must have been this man who contrived
+the murder by pointing out the necessity to Fauville and, so to speak,
+guiding his hand. And, in the same way, in appearance, Fauville killed
+his son and committed suicide; Marie Fauville committed suicide; Gaston
+Sauverand committed suicide. In reality, it was this man who wanted them
+dead, who prompted them to commit suicide, and who supplied them with the
+means of death.
+
+"There you have the method, and there, Monsieur le Préfet, you have
+the man." And, in a lower voice, that contained a sort of
+apprehension, he added, "I confess that never before, in the course of
+a life that has been full of strange meetings, have I encountered a
+more terrifying person, acting with more devilish ability or greater
+psychological insight."
+
+His words created an ever-increasing sensation among his hearers. They
+really saw that invisible being. He took shape in their imaginations.
+They waited for him to arrive. Twice Don Luis had turned to the door and
+listened. And his action did more than anything else to conjure up the
+image of the man who was coming.
+
+M. Desmalions said:
+
+"Whether he acted in person or caused others to act, the law, once it has
+hold of him, will know how to--"
+
+"The law will find it no easy matter, Monsieur le Préfet! A man of his
+powers and resource must have foreseen everything, even his arrest, even
+the accusation of which he would be the subject; and there is little to
+be brought against him but moral charges without proofs."
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that the thing will be to accept his
+explanations as quite natural and not to show any distrust. What you
+want is to know who he is. Later on, before long, you will be able to
+unmask him."
+
+The Prefect of Police continued to walk round the table. Major
+d'Astrignac kept his eyes fixed on Perenna, whose coolness amazed him.
+The solicitor and the secretary of Embassy seemed greatly excited. In
+fact nothing could be more sensational than the thought that filled all
+their minds. Was the abominable murderer about to appear before them?
+
+"Silence!" said the Prefect, stopping his walk.
+
+Some one had crossed the anteroom.
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+The office messenger entered, carrying a card-tray. On the tray was a
+letter; and in addition there was one of those printed slips on which
+callers write their name and the object of their visit.
+
+M. Desmalions hastened toward the messenger. He hesitated a moment before
+taking up the slip. He was very pale. Then he glanced at it quickly.
+
+"Oh!" he said, with a start.
+
+He looked toward Don Luis, reflected, and then, taking the letter, he
+said to the messenger:
+
+"Is the bearer outside?"
+
+"In the anteroom, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Show the person in when I ring."
+
+The messenger left the room.
+
+M. Desmalions stood in front of his desk, without moving. For the second
+time Don Luis met his eyes; and a feeling of perturbation came over him.
+What was happening?
+
+With a sharp movement the Prefect of Police opened the envelope which he
+held in his hand, unfolded the letter and began to read it.
+
+The others watched his every gesture, watched the least change of
+expression on his face. Were Perenna's predictions about to be fulfilled?
+Was a fifth heir putting in his claim?
+
+The moment he had read the first lines, M. Desmalions looked up and,
+addressing Don Luis, murmured:
+
+"You were right, Monsieur. This is a claim."
+
+"On whose part, Monsieur le Préfet?" Don Luis could not help asking.
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. He finished reading the letter. Then he read
+it again, with the attention of a man weighing every word. Lastly, he
+read aloud:
+
+"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
+
+"A chance correspondence has revealed to me the existence of an unknown
+heir of the Roussel family. It was only to-day that I was able to
+procure the documents necessary for identifying this heir; and, owing to
+unforeseen obstacles, it is only at the last moment that I am able to
+send them to you _by the person whom they concern_. Respecting a secret
+which is not mine and wishing, as a woman, to remain outside a business
+in which I have been only accidentally involved, I beg you, Monsieur le
+Préfet, to excuse me if I do not feel called upon to sign my name to
+this letter."
+
+So Perenna had seen rightly and events were justifying his forecast. Some
+one was putting in an appearance within the period indicated. The claim
+was made in good time. And the very way in which things were happening at
+the exact moment was curiously suggestive of the mechanical exactness
+that had governed the whole business.
+
+The last question still remained: who was this unknown person, the
+possible heir, and therefore the five or six fold murderer? He was
+waiting in the next room. There was nothing but a wall between him
+and the others. He was coming in. They would see him. They would know
+who he was.
+
+The Prefect suddenly rang the bell.
+
+A few tense seconds elapsed. Oddly enough, M. Desmalions did not remove
+his eyes from Perenna. Don Luis remained quite master of himself, but
+restless and uneasy at heart.
+
+The door opened. The messenger showed some one in.
+
+It was Florence Levasseur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
+
+
+Don Luis was for one moment amazed. Florence Levasseur here! Florence,
+whom he had left in the train under Mazeroux's supervision and for whom
+it was physically impossible to be back in Paris before eight o'clock in
+the evening!
+
+Then, despite his bewilderment, he at once understood. Florence, knowing
+that she was being followed, had drawn them after her to the Gare
+Saint-Lazare and simply walked through the railway carriage, getting out
+on the other platform, while the worthy Mazeroux went on in the train to
+keep his eye on the traveller who was not there.
+
+But suddenly the full horror of the situation struck him. Florence was
+here to claim the inheritance; and her claim, as he himself had said, was
+a proof of the most terrible guilt.
+
+Acting on an irresistible impulse, Don Luis leaped to the girl's side,
+seized her by the arm and said, with almost malevolent force:
+
+"What are you doing here? What have you come for? Why did you not
+let me know?"
+
+M. Desmalions stepped between them. But Don Luis, without letting go of
+the girl's arm, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, don't you see that this is all a mistake? The
+person whom we are expecting, about whom I told you, is not this one. The
+other is keeping in the background, as usual. Why it's impossible that
+Florence Levasseur--"
+
+"I have no preconceived opinion on the subject of this young lady," said
+the Prefect of Police, in an authoritative voice. "But it is my duty to
+question her about the circumstances that brought her here; and I shall
+certainly do so."
+
+He released the girl from Don Luis's grasp and made her take a seat. He
+himself sat down at his desk; and it was easy to see how great an
+impression the girl's presence made upon him. It afforded so to speak an
+illustration of Don Luis's argument.
+
+The appearance on the scene of a new person, laying claim to the
+inheritance, was undeniably, to any logical mind, the appearance on the
+scene of a criminal who herself brought with her the proofs of her
+crimes. Don Luis felt this clearly and, from that moment, did not take
+his eyes off the Prefect of Police.
+
+Florence looked at them by turns as though the whole thing was the most
+insoluble mystery to her. Her beautiful dark eyes retained their
+customary serenity. She no longer wore her nurse's uniform; and her gray
+gown, very simply cut and devoid of ornaments, showed her graceful
+figure. She was grave and unemotional as usual.
+
+M. Desmalions said:
+
+"Explain yourself, Mademoiselle."
+
+She answered:
+
+"I have nothing to explain, Monsieur le Préfet. I have come to you on an
+errand which I am fulfilling without knowing exactly what it is about."
+
+"What do you mean? Without knowing what it is about?"
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. Some one in whom I have every
+confidence and for whom I entertain the greatest respect asked me to hand
+you certain papers. They appear to concern the question which is the
+object of your meeting to-day."
+
+"The question of awarding the Mornington inheritance?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know that, if this claim had not been made in the course of the
+present sitting, it would have had no effect?"
+
+"I came as soon as the papers were handed to me."
+
+"Why were they not handed to you an hour or two earlier?"
+
+"I was not there. I had to leave the house where I am staying, in a
+hurry."
+
+Perenna did not doubt that it was his intervention that upset the enemy's
+plans by causing Florence to take to flight.
+
+The Prefect continued:
+
+"So you are ignorant of the reasons why you received the papers?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"And evidently you are also ignorant of how far they concern you?"
+
+"They do not concern me, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled and, looking into Florence's eyes, said, plainly:
+
+"According to the letter that accompanies them, they concern you
+intimately. It seems that they prove, in the most positive manner, that
+you are descended from the Roussel family and that you consequently have
+every right to the Mornington inheritance."
+
+"I?"
+
+The cry was a spontaneous exclamation of astonishment and protest.
+
+And she at once went on, insistently:
+
+"I, a right to the inheritance? I have none at all, Monsieur le Préfet,
+none at all. I never knew Mr. Mornington. What is this story? There is
+some mistake."
+
+She spoke with great animation and with an apparent frankness that would
+have impressed any other man than the Prefect of Police. But how could he
+forget Don Luis's arguments and the accusation made beforehand against
+the person who would arrive at the meeting?
+
+"Give me the papers," he said.
+
+She took from her handbag a blue envelope which was not fastened down and
+which he found to contain a number of faded documents, damaged at the
+folds and torn in different places.
+
+He examined them amid perfect silence, read them through, studied them
+thoroughly, inspected the signatures and the seals through a magnifying
+glass, and said:
+
+"They bear every sign of being genuine. The seals are official."
+
+"Then, Monsieur le Préfet--?" said Florence, in a trembling voice.
+
+"Then, Mademoiselle, let me tell you that your ignorance strikes me as
+most incredible."
+
+And, turning to the solicitor, he said:
+
+"Listen briefly to what these documents contain and prove. Gaston
+Sauverand, Cosmo Mornington's heir in the fourth line, had, as you know,
+an elder brother, called Raoul, who lived in the Argentine Republic. This
+brother, before his death, sent to Europe, in the charge of an old nurse,
+a child of five who was none other than his daughter, a natural but
+legally recognized daughter whom he had had by Mlle. Levasseur, a French
+teacher at Buenos Ayres.
+
+"Here is the birth certificate. Here is the signed declaration written
+entirely in the father's hand. Here is the affidavit signed by the old
+nurse. Here are the depositions of three friends, merchants or
+solicitors at Buenos Ayres. And here are the death certificates of the
+father and mother.
+
+"All these documents have been legalized and bear the seals of the French
+consulate. For the present, I have no reason to doubt them; and I am
+bound to look upon Florence Levasseur as Raoul Sauverand's daughter and
+Gaston Sauverand's niece."
+
+"Gaston Sauvarand's niece? ... His niece?" stammered Florence.
+
+The mention of a father whom she had, so to speak, never known, left her
+unmoved. But she began to weep at the recollection of Gaston Sauverand,
+whom she loved so fondly and to whom she found herself linked by such a
+close relationship.
+
+Were her tears sincere? Or were they the tears of an actress able to play
+her part down to the slightest details? Were those facts really revealed
+to her for the first time? Or was she acting the emotions which the
+revelation of those facts would produce in her under natural conditions?
+
+Don Luis observed M. Desmalions even more narrowly than he did the girl,
+and tried to read the secret thoughts of the man with whom the decision
+lay. And suddenly he became certain that Florence's arrest was a matter
+resolved upon as definitely as the arrest of the most monstrous criminal.
+Then he went up to her and said:
+
+"Florence."
+
+She looked at him with her tear-dimmed eyes and made no reply.
+
+Slowly, he said:
+
+"To defend yourself, Florence--for, though I am sure you do not know it,
+you are under that obligation--you must understand the terrible position
+in which events have placed you.
+
+"Florence, the Prefect of Police has been led by the logical outcome of
+those events to come to the final conclusion that the person entering
+this room with an evident claim to the inheritance is the person who
+killed the Mornington heirs. You entered the room, Florence, and you are
+undoubtedly Cosmo Mornington's heir."
+
+He saw her shake from head to foot and turn as pale as death.
+Nevertheless, she uttered no word and made no gesture of protest.
+
+He went on:
+
+"It is a formal accusation. Do you say nothing in reply?"
+
+She waited some time and then declared:
+
+"I have nothing to say. The whole thing is a mystery. What would you have
+me reply? I do not understand!"
+
+Don Luis stood quivering with anguish in front of her. He stammered:
+
+"Is that all? Do you accept?"
+
+After a second, she said, in an undertone:
+
+"Explain yourself, I beg of you. What you mean, I suppose, is that, if I
+do not reply, I accept the accusation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Arrest--prison--"
+
+"Prison!"
+
+She seemed to be suffering hideously. Her beautiful features were
+distorted with fear. To her mind, prison evidently represented the
+torments undergone by Marie and Sauverand. It must mean despair, shame,
+death, all those horrors which Marie and Sauverand had been unable to
+avoid and of which she in her turn would become the victim.
+
+An awful sense of hopelessness overcame her, and she moaned:
+
+"How tired I am! I feel that there is nothing to be done! I am stifled by
+the mystery around me! Oh, if I could only see and understand!"
+
+There was another long pause. Leaning over her, M. Desmalions studied her
+face with concentrated attention. Then, as she did not speak, he put his
+hand to the bell on his table and struck it three times.
+
+Don Luis did not stir from where he stood, with his eyes despairingly
+fixed on Florence. A battle was raging within him between his love and
+generosity, which led him to believe the girl, and his reason, which
+obliged him to suspect her. Was she innocent or guilty? He did not know.
+Everything was against her. And yet why had he never ceased to love her?
+
+Weber entered, followed by his men. M. Desmalions spoke to him and
+pointed to Florence. Weber went up to her.
+
+"Florence!" said Don Luis.
+
+She looked at him and looked at Weber and his men; and, suddenly,
+realizing what was coming, she retreated, staggered for a moment,
+bewildered and fainting, and fell back in Don Luis's arms:
+
+"Oh, save me, save me! Do save me!"
+
+The action was so natural and unconstrained, the cry of distress so
+clearly denoted the alarm which only the innocent can feel, that Don
+Luis was promptly convinced. A fervent belief in her lightened his
+heart. His doubts, his caution, his hesitation, his anguish: all these
+vanished before a certainty that dashed upon him like an irresistible
+wave. And he cried:
+
+"No, no, that must not be! Monsieur le Préfet, there are things that
+cannot be permitted--"
+
+He stooped over Florence, whom he was holding so firmly in his arms that
+nobody could have taken her from him. Their eyes met. His face was close
+to the girl's. He quivered with emotion at feeling her throbbing, so
+weak, so utterly helpless; and he said to her passionately, in a voice
+too low for any but her to hear:
+
+"I love you, I love you.... Ah, Florence, if you only knew what I feel:
+how I suffer and how happy I am! Oh, Florence, I love you, I love you--"
+
+Weber had stood aside, at a sign from the Prefect, who wanted to witness
+the unexpected conflict between those two mysterious beings, Don Luis
+Perenna and Florence Levasseur.
+
+Don Luis unloosed his arms and placed the girl in a chair. Then, putting
+his two hands on her shoulders, face to face with her, he said:
+
+"Though you do not understand, Florence, I am beginning to understand a
+good deal; and I can already almost see my way in the mystery that
+terrifies you. Florence, listen to me. It is not you who are doing all
+this, is it? There is somebody else behind you, above you--somebody who
+gives you your instructions, isn't there, while you yourself don't know
+where he is leading you?"
+
+"Nobody is instructing me. What do you mean? Explain."
+
+"Yes, you are not alone in your life. There are many things which you do
+because you are told to do them and because you think them right and
+because you do not know their consequences or even that they can have any
+consequences. Answer my question: are you absolutely free? Are you not
+yielding to some influence?"
+
+The girl seemed to have come to herself, and her face recovered some of
+its usual calmness. Nevertheless, it seemed as if Don Luis's question
+made an impression on her.
+
+"No," she said, "there is no influence--none at all--I'm sure of it."
+
+He insisted, with growing eagerness:
+
+"No, you are not sure; don't say that. Some one is dominating you without
+your knowing it. Think for a moment. You are Cosmo Mornington's heir,
+heir to a fortune which you don't care about, I know, I swear! Well, if
+you don't want that fortune, to whom will it belong? Answer me. Is there
+any one who is interested or believes himself interested in seeing you
+rich? The whole question lies in that. Is your life linked with that of
+some one else? Is he a friend of yours? Are you engaged to him?"
+
+She gave a start of revolt.
+
+"Oh, never! The man of whom you speak is incapable--"
+
+"Ah," he cried, overcome with jealousy, "you confess it! So the man of
+whom I speak exists! I swear that the villain--"
+
+He turned toward M. Desmalions, his face convulsed with hatred. He made
+no further effort to contain himself:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, we are in sight of the goal. I know the road that
+will lead us to it. The wild beast shall be hunted down to-night, or
+to-morrow at least. Monsieur le Préfet, the letter that accompanied those
+documents, the unsigned letter which this young lady handed you, was
+written by the mother superior who manages a nursing-home in the Avenue
+des Ternes.
+
+"By making immediate inquiries at that nursing-home, by questioning the
+superior and confronting her with Mlle. Levasseur, we shall discover the
+identity of the criminal himself. But we must not lose a minute, or we
+shall be too late and the wild beast will have fled."
+
+His outburst was irresistible. There was no fighting against the violence
+of his conviction. Still, M. Desmalions objected:
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur could tell us--"
+
+"She will not speak, or at least not till later, when the man has been
+unmasked in her presence. Monsieur le Préfet, I entreat you to have the
+same confidence in me as before. Have not all my promises been fulfilled?
+Have confidence, Monsieur le Préfet; cast aside your doubts. Remember how
+Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were overwhelmed with charges, the
+most serious charges, and how they succumbed in spite of their innocence.
+
+"Does the law wish to see Florence Levasseur sacrificed as the two others
+were? And, besides, what I ask for is not her release, but the means to
+defend her--that is to say, an hour or two's delay. Let Deputy Chief
+Weber be responsible for her safe custody. Let your detectives go with
+us: these and more as well, for we cannot have too many to capture the
+loathsome brute in his lair."
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. After a brief moment he took Weber
+aside and talked to him for some minutes. M. Desmalions did not seem
+very favourably disposed toward Don Luis's request. But Weber was
+heard to say:
+
+"You need have no fear, Monsieur le Préfet. We run no risk."
+
+And M. Desmalions yielded.
+
+A few moments later Don Luis Perenna and Florence Levasseur took their
+seats in a motor car with Weber and two inspectors. Another car, filled
+with detectives, followed.
+
+The hospital was literally invested by the police force and Weber
+neglected none of the precautions of a regular siege.
+
+The Prefect of Police, who arrived in his own car, was shown by the
+manservant into the waiting-room and then into the parlour, where the
+mother superior came to him at once. Without delay or preamble of any
+sort he put his questions to her, in the presence of Don Luis, Weber,
+and Florence:
+
+"Reverend mother," he said, "I have a letter here which was brought to
+me at headquarters and which tells me of the existence of certain
+documents concerning a legacy. According to my information, this letter,
+which is unsigned and which is in a disguised hand, was written by you.
+Is that so?"
+
+The mother superior, a woman with a powerful face and a determined air,
+replied, without embarrassment:
+
+"That is so, Monsieur le Préfet. As I had the honour to tell you in my
+letter, I would have preferred, for obvious reasons, that my name should
+not be mentioned. Besides, the delivery of the documents was all that
+mattered. However, since you know that I am the writer, I am prepared to
+answer your questions."
+
+M. Desmalions continued, with a glance at Florence:
+
+"I will first ask you, Reverend Mother, if you know this young lady?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Florence was with us for six months as a nurse,
+a few years ago. She gave such satisfaction that I was glad to take her
+back this day fortnight. As I had read her story in the papers, I simply
+asked her to change her name. We had a new staff at the hospital, and it
+was therefore a safe refuge for her."
+
+"But, as you have read the papers, you must be aware of the accusations
+against her?"
+
+"Those accusations have no weight, Monsieur le Préfet, with any one who
+knows Florence. She has one of the noblest characters and one of the
+strictest consciences that I have ever met with."
+
+The Prefect continued:
+
+"Let us speak of the documents, Reverend Mother. Where do they
+come from?"
+
+"Yesterday, Monsieur le Préfet, I found in my room a communication in
+which the writer proposed to send me some papers that interested Florence
+Levasseur--"
+
+"How did any one know that she was here?" asked M. Desmalions,
+interrupting her.
+
+"I can't tell you. The letter simply said that the papers would be at
+Versailles, at the _poste restante_, in my name, on a certain day--that
+is to say, this morning. I was also asked not to mention them to anybody
+and to hand them at three o'clock this afternoon to Florence Levasseur,
+with instructions to take them to the Prefect of Police at once. I was
+also requested to have a letter conveyed to Sergeant Mazeroux."
+
+"To Sergeant Mazeroux! That's odd."
+
+"That letter appeared to have to do with the same business. Now, I am
+very fond of Florence. So I sent the letter, and this morning went to
+Versailles and found the papers there, as stated. When I got back,
+Florence was out. I was not able to hand them to her until her return, at
+about four o'clock."
+
+"Where were the papers posted?"
+
+"In Paris. The postmark on the envelope was that of the Avenue Niel,
+which happens to be the nearest office to this."
+
+"And did not the fact of finding that letter in your room strike you
+as strange?"
+
+"Certainly, Monsieur le Préfet, but no stranger than all the other
+incidents in the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless," continued M. Desmalions, who was watching Florence's pale
+face, "nevertheless, when you saw that the instructions which you
+received came from this house and that they concerned a person living in
+this house, did you not entertain the idea that that person--"
+
+"The idea that Florence had entered the room, unknown to me, for such a
+purpose?" cried the superior. "Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, Florence is
+incapable of doing such a thing!"
+
+The girl was silent, but her drawn features betrayed the feelings of
+alarm that upset her.
+
+Don Luis went up to her and said:
+
+"The mystery is clearing, Florence, isn't it? And you are suffering in
+consequence. Who put the letter in Mother Superior's room? You know,
+don't you? And you know who is conducting all this plot?"
+
+She did not answer. Then, turning to the deputy chief, the Prefect said:
+
+"Weber, please go and search the room which Mlle. Levasseur occupied."
+
+And, in reply to the nun's protest:
+
+"It is indispensable," he declared, "that we should know the reasons why
+Mlle. Levasseur preserves such an obstinate silence."
+
+Florence herself led the way. But, as Weber was leaving the room, Don
+Luis exclaimed:
+
+"Take care, Deputy Chief!"
+
+"Take care? Why?"
+
+"I don't know," said Don Luis, who really could not have said why
+Florence's behaviour was making him uneasy. "I don't know. Still, I
+warn you--"
+
+Weber shrugged his shoulders and, accompanied by the superior, moved
+away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She
+went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on
+either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very
+narrow passage ending in a door.
+
+This was her room. The door opened not inward, into the room, but
+outward, into the passage. Florence therefore drew it to her, stepping
+back as she did so, which obliged Weber to do likewise. She took
+advantage of this to rush in and close the door behind her so quickly
+that the deputy chief, when he tried to grasp the handle, merely
+struck the air.
+
+He made an angry gesture:
+
+"The baggage! She means to burn some papers!"
+
+And, turning to the superior:
+
+"Is there another exit to the room?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+He tried to open the door, but she had locked and bolted it. Then he
+stood aside to make way for one of his men, a giant, who, with one blow
+of his fist, smashed a panel.
+
+Weber pushed by him, put his arm through the opening, drew the bolt,
+turned the key, pulled open the door and entered.
+
+Florence was no longer in her room. A little open window opposite showed
+the way she had taken.
+
+"Oh, curse my luck!" he shouted. "She's cut off!"
+
+And, hurrying back to the staircase, he roared over the balusters:
+
+"Watch all the doors! She's got away! Collar her!"
+
+M. Desmalions came hurrying up. Meeting the deputy, he received his
+explanations and then went on to Florence's room. The open window looked
+out on a small inner yard, a sort of well which served to ventilate a
+part of the house. Some rain-pipes ran down the wall. Florence must have
+let herself down by them. But what coolness and what an indomitable will
+she must have displayed to make her escape in this manner!
+
+The detectives had already distributed themselves on every side to bar
+the fugitive's road. It soon became manifest that Florence, for whom they
+were hunting on the ground floor and in the basement, had gone from the
+yard into the room underneath her own, which happened to be the mother
+superior's; that she had put on a nun's habit; and that, thus disguised,
+she had passed unnoticed through the very men who were pursuing her.
+
+They rushed outside. But it was now dark; and every search was bound to
+be vain in so populous a quarter.
+
+The Prefect of Police made no effort to conceal his displeasure. Don Luis
+was also greatly disappointed at this flight, which thwarted his plans,
+and enlarged openly upon Weber's lack of skill.
+
+"I told you so, Deputy Chief! You should have taken your precautions.
+Mlle. Levasseur's attitude ought to have warned you. She evidently knows
+the criminal and wanted to go to him, ask him for explanations and, for
+all we can tell, save him, if he managed to convince her. And what will
+happen between them? When the villain sees that he is discovered, he will
+be capable of anything."
+
+M. Desmalions again questioned the mother superior and soon learned that
+Florence, before taking refuge in the nursing-home, had spent forty-eight
+hours in some furnished apartments on the Ile Saint-Louis.
+
+The clue was not worth much, but they could not neglect it. The Prefect
+of Police, who retained all his doubts with regard to Florence and
+attached extreme importance to the girl's capture, ordered Weber and his
+men to follow up this trail without delay. Don Luis accompanied the
+deputy chief.
+
+Events at once showed that the Prefect of Police was right. Florence had
+taken refuge in the lodging-house on the Ile Saint-Louis, where she had
+engaged a room under an assumed name. But she had no sooner arrived than
+a small boy called at the house, asked for her, and went away with her.
+
+They went up to her room and found a parcel done up in a newspaper,
+containing a nun's habit. The thing was obvious.
+
+Later, in the course of the evening, Weber succeeded in discovering the
+small boy. He was the son of the porter of one of the houses in the
+neighbourhood. Where could he have taken Florence? When questioned, he
+definitely refused to betray the lady who had trusted him and who had
+cried when she kissed him. His mother entreated him. His father boxed his
+ears. He was inflexible.
+
+In any case, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Florence had not
+left the Ile Saint-Louis or its immediate vicinity. The detectives
+persisted in their search all the evening. Weber established his
+headquarters in a tap room where every scrap of information was
+brought to him and where his men returned from time to time to receive
+his orders. He also remained in constant communication with the
+Prefect's office.
+
+At half-past ten a squad of detectives, sent by the Prefect, placed
+themselves at the deputy chief's disposal. Mazeroux, newly arrived from
+Rouen and furious with Florence, joined them.
+
+The search continued. Don Luis had gradually assumed its management; and
+it was he who, so to speak, inspired Weber to ring at this or that door
+and to question this or that person.
+
+At eleven o'clock the hunt still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the
+victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after
+midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of
+the island, at the end of the Quai d'Anjou.
+
+Two detectives stood waiting for them, surrounded by a small crowd of
+onlookers. They had just learned that, some distance farther away, on the
+Quai Henri IV, which does not form part of the island, a motor car had
+pulled up outside a house, that there was the noise of a dispute, and
+that the cab had subsequently driven off in the direction of Vincennes.
+
+They hastened to the Quai Henri IV and at once found the house. There was
+a door on the ground floor opening straight on the pavement. The taxi had
+stopped for a few minutes in front of this door. Two persons, a woman and
+a man leading her along, had left the ground floor flat. When the door of
+the taxi was shut, a man's voice had shouted from the inside:
+
+"Drive down the Boulevard Saint-Germain and along the quays. Then take
+the Versailles Road."
+
+But the porter's wife was able to furnish more precise particulars.
+Puzzled by the tenant of the ground floor, whom she had only seen once,
+in the evening, who paid his rent by checks signed in the name of Charles
+and who but very seldom came to his apartment, she had taken advantage of
+the fact that her lodge was next to the flat to listen to the sound of
+voices. The man and the woman were arguing. At one moment the man cried,
+in a louder tone:
+
+"Come with me, Florence. I insist upon it; and I will give you every
+proof of my innocence to-morrow morning. And, if you nevertheless
+refuse to become my wife, I shall leave the country. All my
+preparations are made."
+
+A little later he began to laugh and, again raising his voice, said:
+
+"Afraid of what, Florence? That I shall kill you perhaps? No, no, have
+no fear--"
+
+The portress had heard nothing more. But was this not enough to justify
+every alarm?
+
+Don Luis caught hold of the deputy chief:
+
+"Come along! I knew it: the man is capable of anything. It's the tiger!
+He means to kill her!"
+
+He rushed outside, dragging the deputy toward the two police
+motors waiting five hundred yards down. Meanwhile, Mazeroux was
+trying to protest:
+
+"It would be better to search the house, to pick up some clues--"
+
+"Oh," shouted Don Luis, increasing his pace, "the house and the clues
+will keep! ... But he's gaining ground, the ruffian--and he has Florence
+with him--and he's going to kill her! It's a trap! ... I'm sure of it--"
+
+He was shouting in the dark, dragging the two men along with
+irresistible force.
+
+They neared the motors.
+
+"Get ready!" he ordered as soon as he was in sight. "I'll drive myself."
+
+He tried to get into the driver's seat. But Weber objected and pushed him
+inside, saying:
+
+"Don't trouble--the chauffeur knows his business. He'll drive faster than
+you would."
+
+Don Luis, the deputy chief, and two detectives crowded into the cab;
+Mazeroux took his seat beside the chauffeur.
+
+"Versailles Road!" roared Don Luis.
+
+The car started; and he continued:
+
+"We've got him! You see, it's a magnificent opportunity. He must be going
+pretty fast, but without forcing the pace, because he doesn't think we're
+after him. Oh, the villain, we'll make him sit up! Quicker, driver! But
+what the devil are we loaded up like this for? You and I, Deputy Chief,
+would have been enough. Hi, Mazeroux, get down and jump into the other
+car! That'll be better, won't it, Deputy? It's absurd--"
+
+He interrupted himself; and, as he was sitting on the back seat, between
+the deputy chief and a detective, he rose toward the window and muttered:
+
+"Why, look here, what's the idiot doing? That's not the road! I say, what
+does this mean?"
+
+A roar of laughter was the only answer. It came from Weber, who was
+shaking with delight. Don Luis stifled an oath and, making a tremendous
+effort, tried to leap from the car. Six hands fell upon him and held him
+motionless. The deputy chief had him by the throat. The detectives
+clutched his arms. There was no room for him to struggle within the
+restricted space of the small car; and he felt the cold iron of a
+revolver on his temple.
+
+"None of your nonsense," growled Weber, "or I'll blow out your brains, my
+boy! Aha! you didn't expect this! It's Weber's revenge, eh?"
+
+And, when Perenna continued to wriggle, he went on, in a
+threatening tone:
+
+"You'll have only yourself to blame, mind!... I'm going to count three:
+one, two--"
+
+"But what's it all about?" bellowed Don Luis.
+
+"Prefect's orders, received just now."
+
+"What orders?"
+
+"To take you to the lockup if the Florence girl escaped us again."
+
+"Have you a warrant?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"And what next?"
+
+"What next? Nothing: the Sante--the examining magistrate--"
+
+"But, hang it all, the tiger's making tracks meanwhile! Oh, rot! Is it
+possible to be so dense? What mugs those fellows are! Oh, dash it!"
+
+He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into
+the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver
+out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a
+blow of his fist.
+
+But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He
+understood this, and his rage increased.
+
+"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at
+the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a
+job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and
+they lock up the honest man--while the villain makes himself scarce! And
+he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence ..."
+
+Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was
+magnificent in his helpless violence.
+
+They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew
+himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of
+hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted
+Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so
+wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in
+breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.
+
+"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay:
+yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the
+Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game.
+My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."
+
+He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:
+
+"Arsène Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this:
+'Arsène Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important
+business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be
+very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate
+my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."
+
+The governor of the prison had opened the jail book.
+
+"You can enter my name, Monsieur le Directeur," said Don Luis. "Put down
+'Arsène Lupin.'"
+
+The governor smiled and said:
+
+"I should find a difficulty in putting down any other. It's on the
+warrant: 'Arsène Lupin, alias Don Luis Perenna.'"
+
+Don Luis felt a little shudder pass through him at the sound of those
+words. The fact that he was arrested under the name of Arsène Lupin made
+his position doubly dangerous.
+
+"Ah," he said, "so they've resolved--"
+
+"I should think so!" said Weber, in a tone of triumph. "We've resolved to
+take the bull by the horns and to go straight for Lupin. Plucky of us,
+eh? Never fear, we'll show you something better than that!"
+
+Don Luis did not flinch. Turning to Mazeroux again, he said:
+
+"Don't forget my instructions, Mazeroux."
+
+But there was a fresh blow in store for him. The sergeant did not answer
+his remark. Don Luis watched him closely and once more gave a start. He
+had just perceived that Mazeroux also was surrounded by men who were
+holding him tight. And the poor sergeant stood silently shedding tears.
+
+Weber's liveliness increased.
+
+"You'll have to excuse him, Lupin. Sergeant Mazeroux accompanies you to
+prison, though not in the same cell."
+
+"Ah!" said Don Luis, drawing himself up. "Is Mazeroux put into jail?"
+
+"Prefect's orders, warrant duly executed."
+
+"And on what charge?"
+
+"Accomplice of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Mazeroux my accomplice? Get out! Mazeroux? The most honest man that
+ever lived!"
+
+"The most honest man that ever lived, as you say. That didn't prevent
+people from going to him when they wanted to write to you or prevent him
+from bringing you the letters. Which proves that he knew where you were
+hanging out. And there's a good deal more which we'll explain to you,
+Lupin, in good time. You'll have plenty of fun, I assure you."
+
+Don Luis murmured:
+
+"My poor Mazeroux!"
+
+Then, raising his voice, he said:
+
+"Don't cry, old chap. It's just a matter of the remainder of the night.
+Yes, I'll share my cards with you and we'll turn the king and mark game
+in a very few hours. Don't cry. I've got a much finer berth waiting for
+you, a more honourable and above all a more lucrative position. I have
+just what you want.
+
+"You don't imagine, surely, that I wasn't prepared for this! Why, you
+know me! Take it from me: I shall be at liberty to-morrow, and the
+government, after setting you free, will pitch you into a colonelcy or
+something, with a marshal's pay attached to it. So don't cry, Mazeroux."
+
+Then, addressing Weber, he said to him in the voice of a principal giving
+an order, and knowing that the order will be executed without discussion:
+
+"Monsieur, I will ask you to fulfil the confidential mission which I was
+entrusting to Mazeroux. First, inform the Prefect of Police that I have a
+communication of the very highest importance to make to the Prime
+Minister. Next, discover the tiger's tracks at Versailles before the
+night is over. I know your merit, Monsieur, and I rely entirely upon your
+diligence and your zeal. Meet me at twelve o'clock to-morrow."
+
+And, still maintaining his attitude of a principal who has given his
+instructions, he allowed himself to be taken to his cell.
+
+It was ten to one. For the last fifty minutes the enemy had been bowling
+along the highroad, carrying off Florence like a prey which it now seemed
+impossible to snatch from him.
+
+The door was locked and bolted.
+
+Don Luis reflected:
+
+"Even presuming that Monsieur le Prefect consents to ring up Valenglay,
+he won't do so before the morning. So they've given the villain eight
+hours' start before I'm free. Eight hours! Curse it!"
+
+He thought a little longer, then shrugged his shoulders with the air of
+one who, for the moment, has nothing better to do than wait, and flung
+himself on his mattress, murmuring:
+
+"Hushaby, Lupin!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+OPEN SESAME!
+
+
+In spite of his usual facility for sleep, Don Luis slept for three hours
+at most. He was racked with too much anxiety; and, though his plan of
+conduct was worked out mathematically, he could not help foreseeing all
+the obstacles which were likely to frustrate that plan. Of course, Weber
+would speak to M. Desmalions. But would M. Desmalions telephone to
+Valenglay?
+
+"He is sure to telephone," Don Luis declared, stamping his foot. "It
+doesn't let him in for anything. And at the same time, he would be
+running a big risk if he refused, especially as Valenglay must have
+been consulted about my arrest and is obviously kept informed of all
+that happens."
+
+He next asked himself what exactly Valenglay could do, once he was told.
+For, after all, was it not too much to expect that the head of the
+government, that the Prime Minister, should put himself out to obey the
+injunctions and assist the schemes of M. Arsène Lupin?
+
+"He will come!" he cried, with the same persistent confidence. "Valenglay
+doesn't care a hang for form and ceremony and all that nonsense. He will
+come, even if it is only out of curiosity, to learn what the Kaiser's
+friend can have to say to him. Besides, he knows me! I am not one of
+those beggars who inconvenience people for nothing. There's always
+something to be gained by meeting me. He'll come!"
+
+But another question at once presented itself to his mind. Valenglay's
+coming in no way implied his consent to the bargain which Perenna meant
+to propose to him. And even if Don Luis succeeded in convincing him, what
+risks remained! How many doubtful points to overcome! And then the
+possibilities of failure!
+
+Would Weber pursue the fugitive's motor car with the necessary decision
+and boldness? Would he get on the track again? And, having got on the
+track, would he be certain not to lose it?
+
+And then--and then, even supposing that all the chances were favourable,
+was it not too late? Taking for granted that they hunted down the wild
+beast, that they drove him to bay, would he not meanwhile have killed his
+prey? Knowing himself beaten, would a monster of that kind hesitate to
+add one more murder to the long list of his crimes?
+
+And this, to Don Luis, was the crowning terror. After all the
+difficulties which, in his stubbornly confident imagination, he had
+managed to surmount, he was brought face to face with the horrible vision
+of Florence being sacrificed, of Florence dead!
+
+"Oh, the torture of it!" he stammered. "I alone could have succeeded; and
+they shut me up!"
+
+He hardly put himself out to inquire into the reasons for which M.
+Desmalions, suddenly changing his mind, had consented to his arrest, thus
+bringing back to life that troublesome Arsène Lupin with whom the police
+had not hitherto cared to hamper themselves. No, that did not interest
+him. Florence alone mattered. And the minutes passed; and each minute
+wasted brought Florence nearer to her doom.
+
+He remembered a similar occasion when, some years before, he waited in
+the same way for the door of his cell to open and the German Emperor to
+appear. But how much greater was the solemnity of the present moment!
+Before, it was at the very most his liberty that was at stake. This time
+it was Florence's life which fate was about to offer or refuse him.
+
+"Florence! Florence!" he kept repeating, in his despair.
+
+He no longer had a doubt of her innocence. Nor did he doubt that the
+other loved her and had carried her off not so much for the hostage of
+a coveted fortune as for a love spoil, which a man destroys if he
+cannot keep it.
+
+"Florence! Florence!"
+
+He was suffering from an extraordinary fit of depression. His defeat
+seemed irretrievable. There was no question of hastening after Florence,
+of catching the murderer. Don Luis was in prison under his own name of
+Arsène Lupin; and the whole problem lay in knowing how long he would
+remain there, for months or for years!
+
+It was then that he fully realized what his love for Florence meant. He
+perceived that it took the place in his life of his former passions, his
+craving for luxury, his desire for mastery, his pleasure in fighting, his
+ambition, his revenge. For two months he had been struggling to win her
+and for nothing else. The search after the truth and the punishment of
+the criminal were to him no more than means of saving Florence from the
+dangers that threatened her.
+
+If Florence had to die, if it was too late to snatch her from the enemy,
+in that case he might as well remain in prison. Arsène Lupin spending the
+rest of his days in a convict settlement was a fitting end to the spoilt
+life of a man who had not even been able to win the love of the only
+woman he had really loved.
+
+It was a passing mood and, being totally opposed to Don Luis's nature,
+finished abruptly in a state of utter confidence which no longer admitted
+the least particle of anxiety or doubt. The sun had risen. The cell
+gradually became filled with daylight. And Don Luis remembered that
+Valenglay reached his office on the Place Beauveau at seven o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+From this moment he felt absolutely calm. Coming events presented an
+entirely different aspect to him, as though they had, so to speak, turned
+right round. The contest seemed to him easy, the facts free from
+complications. He understood as clearly as if the actions had been
+performed that his will could not but be obeyed. The deputy chief must
+inevitably have made a faithful report to the Prefect of Police. The
+Prefect of Police must inevitably that morning have transmitted Arsène
+Lupin's request to Valenglay.
+
+Valenglay would inevitably give himself the pleasure of an interview with
+Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin would inevitably, in the course of that
+interview, obtain Valenglay's consent. These were not suppositions, but
+certainties; not problems awaiting solution, but problems already solved.
+Starting from A and continuing along B and C, you arrive, whether you
+wish it or not, at D.
+
+Don Luis began to laugh:
+
+"Come, come, Arsène, old chap, remember that you brought Mr. Hohenzollern
+all the way from his Brandenburg Marches. Valenglay does not live as far
+as that, by Jove! And, if necessary, you can put yourself out a
+little.... That's it: I'll consent to take the first step. I will go and
+call on M. de Beauveau. M. Valenglay, it is a pleasure to see you."
+
+He went gayly to the door, pretending that it was open and that he had
+only to walk through to be received when his turn came.
+
+He repeated this child's play three times, bowing low and long, as though
+holding a plumed hat in his hand, and murmuring:
+
+"Open sesame!"
+
+At the fourth time, the door opened, and a warder appeared.
+
+Don Luis said, in a ceremonious tone:
+
+"I hope I have not kept the Prime Minister waiting?"
+
+There were four inspectors in the corridor.
+
+"Are these gentlemen my escort?" he asked. "That's right. Announce Arsène
+Lupin, grandee of Spain, his most Catholic Majesty's cousin. My lords, I
+follow you. Turnkey, here are twenty crowns for your pains, my friend."
+
+He stopped in the corridor.
+
+"By Jupiter, no gloves; and I haven't shaved since yesterday!"
+
+The inspectors had surrounded him and were pushing him a little roughly.
+He seized two of them by the arm. They groaned.
+
+"That'll teach you," he said. "You've no orders to thrash me, have you?
+Nor even to handcuff me? That being so, young fellows, behave!"
+
+The prison governor was standing in the hall.
+
+"I've had a capital night, my dear governor," said Don "Your C.T.C. rooms
+are the very acme of comfort. I'll see that the Lockup Arms receives a
+star in the 'Baedeker.' Would you like me to write you a testimonial in
+your jail book? You wouldn't? Perhaps you hope to see me again? Sorry, my
+dear governor, but it's impossible. I have other things to do."
+
+A motor car was waiting in the yard. Don Luis stepped in with the four
+detectives:
+
+"Place Beauveau," he said to the driver.
+
+"No, Rue Vineuse," said one of the detectives, correcting him.
+
+"Oho!" said Don Luis. "His Excellency's private residence! His Excellency
+prefers that my visit should be kept secret. That's a good sign. By the
+way, dear friends, what's the time?"
+
+His question remained unanswered. And as the detectives had drawn the
+blinds, he was unable to consult the clocks in the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until he was at Valenglay's, in the Prime Minister's little
+ground-floor flat near the Trocadero, that he saw a clock on the
+mantelpiece:
+
+"A quarter to seven!" he exclaimed. "Good! There's not been much
+time lost."
+
+Valenglay's study opened on a flight of steps that ran down to a
+garden filled with aviaries. The room itself was crammed with books
+and pictures.
+
+A bell rang, and the detectives went out, following the old maidservant
+who had shown them in. Don Luis was left alone.
+
+He was still calm, but nevertheless felt a certain uneasiness, a longing
+to be up and doing, to throw himself into the fray; and his eyes kept on
+involuntarily returning to the face of the clock. The minute hand seemed
+endowed with extraordinary speed.
+
+At last some one entered, ushering in a second person. Don Luis
+recognized Valenglay and the Prefect of Police.
+
+"That's it," he thought. "I've got him."
+
+He saw this by the sort of vague sympathy perceptible on the old
+Premier's lean and bony face. There was not a sign of arrogance, nothing
+to raise a barrier between the Minister and the suspicious individual
+whom he was receiving: just a manifest, playful curiosity and sympathy,
+It was a sympathy which Valenglay had never concealed, and of which he
+even boasted when, after Arsène Lupin's sham death, he spoke of the
+adventurer and the strange relations between them.
+
+"You have not changed," he said, after looking at him for some time.
+"Complexion a little darker, a trifle grayer over the temples,
+that's all."
+
+And putting on a blunt tone, he asked:
+
+"And what is it you want?"
+
+"An answer first of all, Monsieur le Président du Conseil. Has Deputy
+Chief Weber, who took me to the lockup last night, traced the motor cab
+in which Florence Levasseur was carried off?"
+
+"Yes, the motor stopped at Versailles. The persons inside it hired
+another cab which is to take them to Nantes. What else do you ask for,
+besides that answer?"
+
+"My liberty, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"At once, of course?" said Valenglay, beginning to laugh.
+
+"In thirty or thirty-five minutes at most."
+
+"At half-past seven, eh?"
+
+"Half-past seven at latest, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"And why your liberty?"
+
+"To catch the murderer of Cosmo Mornington, of Inspector Vérot, and of
+the Roussel family."
+
+"Are you the only one that can catch him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Still, the police are moving. The wires are at work. The murderer will
+not leave France. He shan't escape us."
+
+"You can't find him."
+
+"Yes, we can."
+
+"In that case he will kill Florence Levasseur. She will be the
+scoundrel's seventh victim. And it will be your doing."
+
+Valenglay paused for a moment and then resumed:
+
+"According to you, contrary to all appearances, and contrary to the
+well-grounded suspicions of Monsieur le Préfet de Police, Florence
+Levasseur is innocent?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely, Monsieur le Président!"
+
+"And you believe her to be in danger of death?"
+
+"She is in danger of death."
+
+"Are you in love with her?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Valenglay experienced a little thrill of enjoyment. Lupin in love! Lupin
+acting through love and confessing his love! But how exciting!
+
+He said:
+
+"I have followed the Mornington case from day to day and I know every
+detail of it. You have done wonders, Monsieur. It is evident that, but
+for you, the case would never have emerged from the mystery that
+surrounded it at the start. But I cannot help noticing that there are
+certain flaws in it.
+
+"These flaws, which astonished me on your part, are more easy to
+understand when we know that love was the primary motive and the object
+of your actions. On the other hand, and in spite of what you say,
+Florence Levasseur's conduct, her claims as the heiress, her unexpected
+escape from the hospital, leave little doubt in our minds as to the part
+which she is playing."
+
+Don Luis pointed to the clock:
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre, it is getting late."
+
+Valenglay burst out laughing.
+
+"I never met any one like you! Don Luis Perenna, I am sorry that I am not
+some absolute monarch. I should make you the head of my secret police."
+
+"A post which the German Emperor has already offered me."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"And I refused it."
+
+Valenglay laughed heartily; but the clock struck seven. Don Luis began to
+grow anxious. Valenglay sat down and, coming straight to the point, said,
+in a serious voice:
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, on the first day of your reappearance--that is to
+say, at the very moment of the murders on the Boulevard Suchet--Monsieur
+le Préfet de Police and I made up our minds as to your identity. Perenna
+was Lupin.
+
+"I have no doubt that you understood the reason why we did not wish to
+bring back to life the dead man that you were, and why we granted you a
+sort of protection. Monsieur le Préfet de Police was entirely of my
+opinion. The work which you were pursuing was a salutary work of justice;
+and your assistance was so valuable to us that we strove to spare you any
+sort of annoyance. As Don Luis Perenna was fighting the good fight, we
+left Arsène Lupin in the background. Unfortunately--"
+
+Valenglay paused again and declared:
+
+"Unfortunately, Monsieur le Préfet de Police last night received a
+denunciation, supported by detailed proofs, accusing you of being
+Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Don Luis. "That is a statement which no one is able
+to prove by material evidence. Arsène Lupin is dead."
+
+"If you like," Valenglay agreed. "But that does not show that Don Luis
+Perenna is alive."
+
+"Don Luis Perenna has a duly legalized existence, Monsieur le President."
+
+"Perhaps. But it is disputed."
+
+"By whom? There is only one man who would have the right; and to accuse
+me would be his own undoing. I cannot believe him to be stupid enough--"
+
+"Stupid enough, no; but crafty enough, yes."
+
+"You mean Caceres, the Peruvian attaché?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he is abroad!"
+
+"More than that: he is a fugitive from justice, after embezzling the
+funds of his legation. But before leaving the country he signed a
+statement that reached us yesterday evening, declaring that he faked up a
+complete record for you under the name of Don Luis Perenna. Here is your
+correspondence with him and here are all the papers establishing the
+truth of his allegations. Any one will be convinced, on examining them,
+first, that you are not Don Luis Perenna, and, secondly, that you are
+Arsène Lupin."
+
+Don Luis made an angry gesture.
+
+"That blackguard of a Caceres is a mere tool," he snarled. "The other
+man's behind him, has paid him, and is controlling his actions. It's the
+scoundrel himself; I recognize his touch. He has once more tried to get
+rid of me at the decisive moment."
+
+"I am quite willing to believe it," said the Prime Minister. "But as all
+these documents, according to the letter that came with them, are only
+photographs, and as, if you are not arrested this morning, the originals
+are to be handed to a leading Paris newspaper to-night, we are obliged to
+take note of the accusation."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Président," exclaimed Don Luis, "as Caceres is abroad
+and as the scoundrel who bought the papers of him was also obliged to
+take to flight before he was able to execute his threats, there is no
+fear now that the documents will be handed to the press."
+
+"How do we know? The enemy must have taken his precautions. He may have
+accomplices."
+
+"He has none."
+
+"How do we know?"
+
+Don Luis looked at Valenglay and said:
+
+"What is it that you really wish to say, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"I will tell you. Although pressure was brought to bear upon us by
+Caceres's threats, Monsieur le Préfet de Police, anxious to see all
+possible light shed on the plot played by Florence Levasseur, did not
+interfere with your last night's expedition. As that expedition led to
+nothing, he determined, at any rate, to profit by the fact that Don Luis
+had placed himself at our disposal and to arrest Arsène Lupin.
+
+"If we now let him go the documents will certainly be published; and
+you can see the absurd and ridiculous position in which that will place
+us in the eyes of the public. Well, at this very moment, you ask for
+the release of Arsène Lupin, a release which would be illegal, uncalled
+for, and inexcusable. I am obliged, therefore, to refuse it, and I do
+refuse it."
+
+He ceased; and then, after a few seconds, he added:
+
+"Unless--"
+
+"Unless?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"Unless--and this is what I wanted to say--unless you offer me in
+exchange something so extraordinary and so tremendous that I could
+consent to risk the annoyance which the absurd release of Arsène Lupin
+would bring down upon my head."
+
+"But, Monsieur le President, surely, if I bring you the real criminal,
+the murderer of--"
+
+"I don't need your assistance for that."
+
+"And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le Président, to return
+the moment my task is done and give myself up?"
+
+Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice,
+addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:
+
+"Come, Arsène Lupin," he said, "play the game! If you really want to have
+your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business,
+and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence
+Levasseur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible
+actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is
+now, when Florence Levasseur has taken to her heels, that you come and
+ask me for your liberty! Very well, but damn it, set a price to it and
+don't haggle with me!"
+
+"I am not haggling, Monsieur le Président," declared Don Luis, in a very
+straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly
+much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were
+twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once
+Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to
+try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope.
+I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had
+made up my mind to do."
+
+He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with
+another on equal terms.
+
+"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President,
+will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister
+of my country."
+
+And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable
+by syllable:
+
+"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on
+my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with
+Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to
+constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you--"
+
+He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
+
+"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
+
+The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to
+provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences
+which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay
+remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present,
+the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.
+
+And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to
+momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost
+importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M.
+Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.
+
+"I positively insist," said Don Luis, "that Monsieur le Préfet de Police
+shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one
+else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its
+correctness in certain particulars."
+
+"Speak!" said Valenglay.
+
+His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's
+proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not
+believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that
+demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious
+adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly
+and frankly.
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"Will you allow me?" he asked.
+
+Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a
+small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table,
+placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position,
+and resumed:
+
+"There is one matter, Monsieur le Président, which puzzled Monsieur le
+Préfet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be
+made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsène
+Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with
+the Foreign Legion."
+
+"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.
+
+"And they led--?"
+
+"To nothing."
+
+"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Président. It will not take me long."
+
+Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.
+
+"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My
+capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Préfet de Police and to all who
+subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that
+I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow
+myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is
+justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.
+
+"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le Président, that I enlisted in the
+Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in
+consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die,
+and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for
+which I longed.
+
+"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled.
+Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought
+of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking
+feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire
+for action.
+
+"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day
+to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more
+unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was
+for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer
+enough to satisfy my craving for activity.
+
+"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my
+whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but
+which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself
+surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I
+allowed myself to be captured.
+
+"That is the whole story, Monsieur le Président. As a prisoner, I was
+free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned
+out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important
+nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on
+the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little
+cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the
+guard of some ten men. They packed off at once; and, after a week's march
+which I found pretty arduous, for I was on foot, with my hands tied
+behind my back, following a mounted party, they stopped on a narrow
+upland commanded by rocky slopes and covered with skeletons mouldering
+among the stones and with remains of French swords and other weapons.
+
+"Here they planted a stake in the ground and fastened me to it. I
+gathered from the behaviour of my captors and from a few words which I
+overheard that my death was decided on. They meant to cut off my ears,
+nose, and tongue, and then my head.
+
+"However, they began by preparing their repast. They went to a well close
+by, ate and drank and took no further notice of me except to laugh at me
+and describe the various treats they held in store for me.... Another
+night passed. The torture was postponed until the morning, a time that
+suited them better. At break of day they crowded round me, uttering yells
+and shouts with which were mingled the shrill cries of the women.
+
+"When my shadow covered a line which they had marked on the sand the
+night before, they ceased their din, and one of them, who was to perform
+the surgical operations prescribed for me, stepped forward and ordered me
+to put out my tongue. I did so. He took hold of it with a corner of his
+burnous and, with his other hand, drew his dagger from its sheath.
+
+"I shall never forget the ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of
+his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself
+by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's
+stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything
+but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade,
+just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a
+splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and
+snatched his dagger from him.
+
+"The same stupefaction followed: this dagger was also broken off at the
+hilt. The next thing was a general tumult, in which one and all
+brandished their knives. But all of them uttered howls of rage.
+
+"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were
+smashed.... The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this
+incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly
+hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge
+pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst
+out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire.
+He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire....
+
+"All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was
+fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like
+thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols,
+carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the
+muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!
+
+"It was a regular miracle. You should have seen their faces. I never
+laughed so much in my life; and this completed their bewilderment.
+
+"Some ran to the tents for more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their
+arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and
+laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other
+means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with,
+the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me
+with. And there were over forty of them!
+
+"The old chief picked up a bulky stone and stepped toward me, his
+features distorted with hatred. He raised himself to his full height,
+lifted the huge block, with the assistance of two of his men, above my
+head and dropped it--in front of me, on the stake! It was a staggering
+sight for the poor old man. I had, in one second, unfastened my bonds and
+sprung backward; and I was standing at three paces from him, with my
+hands outstretched before me, and holding in those outstretched hands the
+two revolvers which had been taken from me on the day of my capture!
+
+"What followed was the business of a few seconds. The chief now began
+to laugh as I had laughed, sarcastically. To his mind, in the disorder
+of his brain, those two revolvers with which I threatened him could
+have no more effect than the useless weapons which had spared my life.
+He took up a large pebble and raised his hand to hurl it at my face.
+His two assistants did the same. And all the others were prepared to
+follow his example.
+
+"'Hands down!' I cried, 'or I fire!' The chief let fly his stone. At the
+same moment three shots rang out. The chief and his two men fell dead to
+the ground. 'Who's next?' I asked, looking round the band.
+
+"Forty-two Moors remained. I had eleven bullets left. As none of the men
+budged, I slipped one of my revolvers under my arm and took from my
+pocket two small boxes of cartridges containing fifty more bullets. And
+from my belt I drew three great knives, all of them nicely tapering and
+pointed. Half of the troop made signs of submission and drew up in line
+behind me. The other half capitulated a moment after. The battle was
+over. It had not lasted four minutes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
+
+
+Don Luis ceased. A smile of amusement played round his lips. The
+recollection of those four minutes seemed to divert him immensely.
+
+Valenglay and the Prefect of Police, who were neither of them men to be
+unduly surprised at courage and coolness, had listened to him,
+nevertheless, and were now looking at him in bewildered silence. Was it
+possible for a human being to carry heroism to such unlikely lengths?
+
+Meanwhile, he went up to the other side of the chimney and pointed to a
+larger map, representing the French roads.
+
+"You told me, Monsieur le Président, that the scoundrel's motor car had
+left Versailles and was going toward Nantes?"
+
+"Yes; and all our arrangements are made to arrest him either on the way,
+or else at Nantes or at Saint-Nazaire, where he may intend to take ship."
+
+Don Luis Perenna followed with his forefinger the road across France,
+stopping here and there, marking successive stages. And nothing could
+have been more impressive than this dumb show.
+
+The man that he was, preserving his composure amid the overthrow of all
+that he had most at heart, seemed by his calmness to dominate time and
+circumstances. It was as though the murderer were running away at one end
+of an unbreakable thread of which Don Luis held the other, and as though
+Don Luis could stop his flight at any time by a mere movement of his
+finger and thumb.
+
+As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of
+cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along,
+subject to his despotic will.
+
+He went back to the table and continued:
+
+"The battle was over. And there was no question of its being resumed. My
+forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror,
+against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with
+one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner. There was no other
+explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed. I was a
+sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet."
+
+Valenglay laughed and said:
+
+"Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you
+must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as
+being little less than miraculous."
+
+"Monsieur le Président, do you know a curious short story of Balzac's
+called 'A Passion in the Desert?'"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the key to the riddle lies in that."
+
+"Does it? I don't quite see. You were not under the claws of a tigress.
+There, was no tigress to tame in this instance."
+
+"No, but there were women."
+
+"Eh? How do you mean?"
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis gayly, "I should not
+like to shock you. But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on
+that week's march included women; and women are a little like Balzac's
+tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break
+in, until you make friends of them."
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, "but that needs time."
+
+"I had a week."
+
+"And complete liberty of action."
+
+"No, no, Monsieur le Président. The eyes are enough to start with. The
+eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to
+know you better. After that, the merest opportunity--"
+
+"And did an opportunity offer?"
+
+"Yes, one night. I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was. I
+knew that the chief's favourite was alone in her tent close by. I went
+there. I left her an hour afterward."
+
+"And the tigress was tamed?"
+
+"Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac's: tamed and blindly submissive."
+
+"But there were several of them?"
+
+"I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty. I was afraid
+of rivalry. But all went well: the favourite was not jealous, far from
+it. And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute. In short,
+I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted
+and suspected by nobody.
+
+"My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place.
+My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night. They
+dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them. They removed the bullets
+from the pistols. They damped the powder. Everything was ready for
+ringing up the curtain."
+
+Valenglay bowed.
+
+"My compliments! You are a man of resource. And your scheme was not
+lacking in charm. For I take it that your five ladies were pretty?"
+
+Don Luis put on a bantering expression. He closed his eyes, as if to
+recall his bliss, and let fall the one word:
+
+"Hags!"
+
+The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in
+a hurry to finish his story, at once went on:
+
+"In any case, they saved my life, the hussies, and their aid never failed
+me. My forty-two watch-dogs, deprived of their arms and shaking with fear
+in those solitudes where everything is a trap and where death lies in
+wait for you at any minute, gathered round me as their real protector.
+When we joined the great tribe to which they belonged I was their actual
+chief. And it took me less than three months of dangers faced in common,
+of ambushes defeated under my advice, of raids and pillages effected by
+my direction, to become the chief also of the whole tribe.
+
+"I spoke their language, I practised their religion, I wore their
+dress, I conformed to their customs: alas! had I not five wives?
+Henceforward, my dream, which had gradually taken definite shape in my
+mind, became possible.
+
+"I sent one of my most faithful adherents to France, with sixty letters
+to hand to sixty men whose names and addresses he learned by heart.
+Those sixty men were sixty associates whom Arsène Lupin had disbanded
+before he threw himself from the Capri cliffs. All had retired from
+business, with a hundred thousand francs apiece in ready money and a
+small trade or public post to keep them occupied. I had provided one
+with a tobacconist's shop, another with a job as a park-keeper, others
+with sinecures in the government offices. In short, they were
+respectable citizens.
+
+"To all of them--whether public servants, farmers, municipal
+councillors, grocers, sacristans, or what not--I wrote the same letter,
+made the same offer, and gave the same instructions in case they should
+accept.... Monsieur le Président, I thought that, of the sixty, ten or
+fifteen at most would come and join me: sixty came, Monsieur le
+President, sixty, and not one less! Sixty men punctually arrived at the
+appointed place.
+
+"On the day fixed, at the hour named, my old armed cruiser, the
+_Ascendam_, which they had brought back, anchored in the mouth of the
+Wady Draa, on the Atlantic coast, between Cape Nun and Cape Juby. Two
+longboats plied to and fro and landed my friends and the munitions of war
+which they had brought with them: camp furniture, quick-firing guns,
+ammunition, motor-boats, stores and provisions, trading wares, glass
+beads, and cases of gold as well, for my sixty good men and true had
+insisted on turning their share of the old profits into cash and on
+putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had
+received from their governor....
+
+"Need I say more, Monsieur le Président? Must I tell you what a chief
+like Arsène Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of
+that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and
+well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was
+unparalleled.
+
+"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which
+we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas
+range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism,
+of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger
+and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....
+
+"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might
+and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le Président du Conseil!
+You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Préfet de Police! The beggars!
+Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.
+
+"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the
+case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his
+fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger,
+Monsieur le Président. There were the Growler and the Masher, who
+achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the
+brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were
+Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le
+Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."
+
+"And there was Arsène Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by
+this list of Homeric heroes.
+
+"And there was Arsène Lupin," repeated Don Luis.
+
+He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:
+
+"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le Président. I will not speak of him,
+for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell
+about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside
+what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South
+Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsène Lupin really show what
+he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that
+was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and
+Caesar achieved no more striking results.
+
+"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsène Lupin conquered a
+kingdom twice the size of France. From the Berbers of Morocco, from the
+indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from
+the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast,
+under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the
+Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.
+
+"A kingdom of deserts and swamps? Partly, but a kingdom all the same,
+with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom
+with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors. This is the kingdom
+which I offer to France, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
+
+Valenglay did not conceal his amazement. Greatly excited and even
+perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor,
+with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered:
+
+"Explain yourself; be more precise."
+
+Don Luis answered:
+
+"Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I will not remind you of the events of
+the last few years. France, resolving to pursue a splendid dream of
+dominion over North Africa, has had to part with a portion of the Congo.
+I propose to heal the painful wound by giving her thirty times as much as
+she has lost. And I turn the magnificent and distant dream into an
+immediate certainty by joining the small slice of Morocco which you have
+conquered to Senegal at one blow.
+
+"To-day, Greater France in Africa exists. Thanks to me, it is a solid and
+compact expanse. Millions of square miles of territory and a coastline
+stretching for several thousand miles from Tunis to the Congo, save for a
+few insignificant interruptions."
+
+"It's a Utopia," Valenglay protested.
+
+"It's a reality."
+
+"Nonsense! It will take us twenty years' fighting to achieve."
+
+"It will take you exactly five minutes!" cried Don Luis, with
+irresistible enthusiasm. "What I offer you is not the conquest of an
+empire, but a conquered empire, duly pacified and administered, in full
+working order and full of life. My gift is a present, not a future gift.
+
+"I, too, Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I, Arsène Lupin, had cherished
+a splendid dream. After toiling and moiling all my life, after knowing
+all the ups and downs of existence, richer than Croesus, because all the
+wealth of the world was mine, and poorer than Job, because I had
+distributed all my treasures, surfeited with everything, tired of
+unhappiness, and more tired still of happiness, sick of pleasure, of
+passion, of excitement, I wanted to do something that is incredible in
+the present day: to reign!
+
+"And a still more incredible phenomenon: when this thing was
+accomplished, when the dead Arsène Lupin had come to life again as a
+sultan out of the Arabian Nights, as a reigning, governing, law-giving
+Arsène Lupin, head of the state and head of the church, I determined, in
+a few years, at one stroke, to tear down the screen of rebel tribes
+against which you were waging a desultory and tiresome war in the north
+of Morocco, while I was quietly and silently building up my kingdom at
+the back of it.
+
+"Then, face to face with France and as powerful as herself, like a
+neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I,
+Arsène Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The
+Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan
+of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon,
+all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, son of Allah,
+I, I, I, Arsène Lupin!'
+
+"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free--for a
+man like Arsène Lupin has no right to grow old--I should have signed the
+treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on
+France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids,
+pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I
+am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my
+all-powerful will: 'Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania!'"
+
+Don Luis uttered all these words in a strong voice, but without emphasis,
+with the very simple emotion and pride of a man who has done much and who
+knows the value of what he has done. There were but two ways of replying
+to him: by a shrug of the shoulders, as one replies to a madman, or by
+the silence that expresses reflection and approval.
+
+The Prime Minister and the Prefect of Police said nothing, but their
+looks betrayed their secret thoughts. And deep down within themselves
+they felt that they were in the presence of an absolutely exceptional
+specimen of mankind, created to perform immoderate actions and fashioned
+by his own hand for a superhuman destiny.
+
+Don Luis continued:
+
+"It was a fine curtain, was it not, Monsieur le Président du Conseil? And
+the end was worthy of the work. I should have been happy to have had it
+so. Arsène Lupin dying on a throne, sceptre in hand, would have been a
+spectacle not devoid of glamour. Arsène Lupin dying with his title of
+Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania and benefactor of France: what an
+apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they
+are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning
+me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace
+to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his hour
+upon the stage.
+
+"Arsène I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I
+repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her
+from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four
+hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the
+Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le Président du Conseil?"
+
+"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say,
+my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang
+it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting
+morsel. We'll risk the experiment."
+
+Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought
+that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of
+sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream
+that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.
+
+He asked:
+
+"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"None."
+
+"I can show you treaties, documents to prove--"
+
+"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead.
+You are free."
+
+The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.
+
+Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.
+
+"One word more, Monsieur le Président," he said, stopping. "Among my
+former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his
+inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to
+Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through
+the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in
+the detective service."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence,
+as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le
+Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the
+police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by
+Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that
+was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the
+collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."
+
+"Oho!"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg
+you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged
+by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the
+rank of colonial inspector."
+
+"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear
+Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying
+where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we
+have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."
+
+"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.
+
+"I hope so. Our men are on the track."
+
+"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town,
+at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have
+to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are
+wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."
+
+"By what miracle?"
+
+"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"Very well. Is there anything you want?"
+
+"This map of France."
+
+"Take it."
+
+"And a couple of revolvers."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two
+revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"
+
+"No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty
+thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."
+
+"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some
+one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the
+things taken from you."
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of
+the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But
+the money--"
+
+He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight
+twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer
+shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes
+and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring,
+and some pills.
+
+"The wherewithal to escape," he said, "to live and--to die. Good-bye,
+Monsieur le Président."
+
+In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go
+free. Don Luis asked:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars
+about the brute's car?"
+
+"Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It's a deep-yellow car, belonging to
+the Compagnie des Comètes. The driver's seat is on the left. He's wearing
+a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak."
+
+"Thank you, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And he left the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour's
+conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the
+decisive battle.
+
+He went off at a run. At the Trocadéro he jumped into a taxi.
+
+"Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!" he cried. "Full speed! Forty francs!"
+
+The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the
+Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.
+
+None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don
+Luis ran to the sheds. The owners' names were written over the doors.
+
+"Davanne," he muttered. "That's the man I want."
+
+The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red
+face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a
+monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.
+
+Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that
+he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:
+
+"Monsieur," he said, unfolding his map of France, "I want to catch up
+some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by
+motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight
+o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver
+who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles
+an hour, including stoppages--in twelve hours' time--that is to say, at
+twelve o'clock--our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and
+reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map."
+
+"Les Ponts-de-Drive," agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.
+
+"Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start
+from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o'clock in the morning and travel at
+the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping--in four hours'
+time--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--it would reach Les
+Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a
+passenger?"
+
+"Sometimes she does."
+
+"We'll start at once. What are your terms?"
+
+"It depends. Who are you?"
+
+"Arsène Lupin."
+
+"The devil you are!" exclaimed Davanne, a little taken aback.
+
+"I am Arsène Lupin. You must know the best part of what has happened from
+reading about it in the papers. Well, Florence Levasseur was kidnapped
+last night. I want to save her. What's your price?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's too much!"
+
+"Perhaps, but the adventure amuses me. It will be an advertisement."
+
+"Very well. But your silence is necessary until to-morrow. I'll buy it.
+Here's twenty thousand francs."
+
+Ten minutes later Don Luis was dressed in an airman's suit, cap, and
+goggles; and an aeroplane rose to a height of two thousand five hundred
+feet to avoid the air currents, flew above the Seine, and darted due west
+across France.
+
+Versailles, Maintenon, Chartres....
+
+Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane. France had achieved the
+conquest of the air while he was fighting with the Legion and in the
+plains of the Sahara. Nevertheless, sensitive though he was to new
+impressions--and what more exciting impression could he have than
+this?--he did not experience the heavenly delight of the man who for the
+first time soars above the earth. What monopolized his thoughts,
+strained his nerves, and excited his whole being to an exquisite degree
+was the as yet impossible but inevitable sight of the motor which they
+were pursuing.
+
+Amid the tremendous swarm of things beneath them, amid the unexpected din
+of the wings and the engine, in the immensity of the sky, in the infinity
+of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted
+no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and
+brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey
+whom the distraught quarry has no chance of escaping.
+
+Nogent-le-Rotrou, La Ferté-Bernard, Le Mans....
+
+The two companions did not exchange a single word. Before him Perenna
+saw Davanne's broad back and powerful neck and shoulders. But, by
+bending his head a little, he saw the boundless space beneath him; and
+nothing interested him but the white ribbon of road that ran from town
+to town and from village to village, at times quite straight, as though
+a hand had stretched it, and at others lazily winding, broken by a river
+or a church.
+
+On this ribbon, at some place always closer and closer, were Florence and
+her abductor!
+
+He never doubted it! The yellow taxi was continuing its patient and
+plucky little effort. Mile after mile, through plains and villages,
+fields and forests, it was making Angers, with Les Ponts-de-Drive after,
+and, right at the end of the ribbon, the unattainable goal: Nantes,
+Saint-Nazaire, the steamer ready to start, and victory for the
+scoundrel....
+
+He laughed at the idea. As if there could be a question of any victory
+but his, the victory of the falcon over its prey, the victory of the
+flying bird over the game that runs afoot! Not for a second did he
+entertain the thought that the enemy might have slunk away by taking
+another road.
+
+There are some certainties that are equivalent to facts. And this one
+was so great that it seemed to him that his adversaries were obliged
+to comply with it. The car was travelling along the road to Nantes.
+It would cover an average of twenty miles an hour. And as he himself
+was travelling at the rate of sixty miles, the encounter would take
+place at the spot named, Les Ponts-de-Drive, and at the hour named,
+twelve o'clock.
+
+A cluster of houses, a huge castle, towers, steeples: Angers....
+
+Don Luis asked Davanne the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.
+
+Already Angers was a vanished vision. Once more the open country, broken
+up with many-coloured fields. Through it all, a road.
+
+And, on that road, a yellow motor.
+
+The yellow motor! The brute's motor! The motor with Florence Levasseur!
+
+Don Luis's joy contained no surprise. He knew so well that this was bound
+to happen!
+
+Davanne turned round and cried:
+
+"That's the one, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, go straight for them."
+
+The airship dipped through space and caught up the car almost at once.
+Then Davanne slowed his engine and kept at six hundred feet above the car
+and a little way behind.
+
+From here they made out all the details. The driver was seated on the
+left. He wore a gray cap with a black peak. It was one of the deep-yellow
+taxis of the Compagnie des Comètes. It was the taxi which they were
+pursuing. And Florence was inside with her abductor.
+
+"At last," thought Don Luis, "I have them!"
+
+They flew for some time, keeping the same distance.
+
+Davanne waited for a signal which Don Luis was in no hurry to give. He
+was revelling in the sensation of his power, with a force made up of
+mingled pride, hatred, and cruelty. He was indeed the eagle hovering
+overhead with its talons itching to rend live flesh. Escaped from the
+cage in which he had been imprisoned, released from the bonds that
+fastened him, he had come all the way at full flight and was ready to
+swoop upon the helpless prey.
+
+He lifted himself in his seat and gave Davanne his instructions:
+
+"Be careful," he said, "not to brush too close by them. They might put a
+bullet into us."
+
+Another minute passed.
+
+Suddenly they saw that, half a mile ahead, the road divided into three,
+thus forming a very wide open space which was still further extended by
+two triangular patches of grass where the three roads met.
+
+"Now?" asked Davanne, turning to Don Luis.
+
+The surrounding country was deserted.
+
+"Off you go!" cried Don Luis.
+
+The aeroplane seemed to shoot down suddenly, as though driven by an
+irresistible force, which sent it flying like an arrow toward the mark.
+It passed at three hundred feet above the car, and then, all at once,
+checking its career, choosing the spot at which it meant to hit the
+target, calmly, silently, like a night-bird, steering clear of the trees
+and sign-posts, it alighted softly on the grass of the crossroads.
+
+Don Luis sprang out and ran toward the motor, which was coming along at a
+rapid pace. He stood in the middle of the road, levelled his two
+revolvers, and shouted:
+
+"Stop, or I fire!"
+
+The terrified driver put on both brakes. The car pulled up.
+
+Don Luis rushed to one of the doors.
+
+"Thunder!" he roared, discharging one of his revolvers for no reason and
+smashing a window-pane.
+
+There was no one in the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+"THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
+
+
+The power that had impelled Don Luis to battle and victory was so intense
+that it suffered, so to speak, no cheek. Disappointment, rage,
+humiliation, torture, were all swallowed up in an immediate desire for
+action and information, together with a longing to continue the chase.
+The rest was but an incident of no importance, which would soon be very
+simply explained.
+
+The petrified taxi-driver was gazing wildly at the peasants coming from
+the distant farms, attracted by the sound of the aeroplane. Don Luis took
+him by the throat and put the barrel of his revolver to the man's temple:
+
+"Tell me what you know--or you're a dead man."
+
+And when the unhappy wretch began to stammer out entreaties:
+
+"It's no use moaning, no use hoping for assistance.... Those people won't
+get here in time. So there's only one way of saving yourself: speak! Last
+night a gentleman came to Versailles from Paris in a taxi, left it and
+took yours: is that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The gentleman had a lady with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he engaged you to take him to Nantes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he changed his mind on the way and told you to put him down?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Before we got to Mans, in a little road on the right, with a sort of
+coach-house, looking like a shed, a hundred yards down it. They both got
+out there."
+
+"And you went on?"
+
+"He paid me to."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Five hundred francs. And there was another fare waiting at Nantes that I
+was to pick up and bring back to Paris for a thousand francs more."
+
+"Do you believe in that other fare?"
+
+"No. I think he wanted to put people off the scent by sending them after
+me to Nantes while he branched off. Still, I had my money."
+
+"And, when you left them, weren't you curious to see what happened?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Take care! A movement of my finger and I blow out your brains. Speak!"
+
+"Well, yes, then. I went back on foot, behind a bank covered with trees.
+The man had opened the coach-house and was starting a small limousine
+car. The lady did not want to get in. They argued pretty fiercely. He
+threatened and begged by turns. But I could not hear what they said. She
+seemed very tired. He gave her a glass of water, which he drew from a tap
+in the wall. Then she consented. He closed the door on her and took his
+seat at the wheel."
+
+"A glass of water!" cried Don Luis. "Are you sure he put nothing else
+into the glass?"
+
+The driver seemed surprised at the question and then answered:
+
+"Yes, I think he did. He took something from his pocket."
+
+"Without the lady's knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, she didn't see."
+
+Don Luis mastered his horror. After all it was impossible that the
+villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without
+anything to warrant so great a hurry. No, it was more likely that he had
+employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence's
+brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through
+what towns he was taking her.
+
+"And then," he repeated, "she decided to step in?"
+
+"Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver's seat. I went
+away then."
+
+"Before knowing which direction they took?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being
+followed?"
+
+"Certainly. He did nothing but put his head out of the window."
+
+"Did the lady cry out at all?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Would you know him again if you saw him?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I shouldn't. At Versailles it was dark. And this morning I
+was too far away. Besides, it's curious, but the first time he struck me
+as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short
+man, as though bent in two. I can't understand it at all."
+
+Don Luis reflected. It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary
+questions. Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was
+approaching the crossroads. There were two others behind it. And the
+groups of peasants were now quite near. He must finish the business.
+
+He said to the chauffeur:
+
+"I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don't do that,
+my man: it would be foolish of you. Here's a thousand-franc note for
+you. Only, if you blab, I'll make you repent it. That's all I have to
+say to you."
+
+He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic,
+and asked:
+
+"Can we start?"
+
+"Whenever you like. Where are we going?"
+
+Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every
+side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him.
+He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle
+of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain
+might carry Florence. But he pulled himself together. He did not allow
+himself to hesitate. He refused even to reflect.
+
+He was determined to find out, and to find out everything, at once,
+without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous
+intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.
+
+And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer
+without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing
+should not seem to embarrass him. With his eyes glued to the map, he
+placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had
+asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers
+route, he knew the answer to the question.
+
+The name of a town had struck him and made the truth appear like a flash
+of lightning: Alençon! Then and there, by the light of his memory, he
+penetrated the mystery.
+
+He repeated:
+
+"Where are we going? Back again, bearing to the left."
+
+"Any particular place?"
+
+"Alençon."
+
+"All right," said Davanne. "Lend a hand, some of you. I can make an easy
+start from that field just there."
+
+Don Luis and a few others helped him, and the preparations were soon
+made. Davanne tested his engine. Everything was in perfect order.
+
+At that moment a powerful racing car, with a siren yelling like a vicious
+animal, came tearing along the Angers Road and promptly stopped. Three
+men got out and rushed up to the driver of the yellow taxicab. Don Luis
+recognized them. They were Weber, the deputy chief, and the men who had
+taken him to the lockup the night before, sent by the Prefect of Police
+to follow up the scoundrel's tracks.
+
+They had a brief interchange of words with the cab-driver, which seemed
+to put them out; and they kept on gesticulating and plying him with fresh
+questions while looking at their watches and consulting their road maps.
+
+Don Luis went up to them. He was unrecognizable, with his head wrapped
+in his aviation cap and his face concealed by his goggles. Changing
+his voice:
+
+"The birds have flown, Mr. Deputy Chief," he said.
+
+Weber looked at him in utter amazement,
+
+Don Luis grinned.
+
+"Yes, flown. Our friend from the Ile Saint Louis is an artful dodger,
+you know. My lord's in his third motor. After the yellow car of which
+you heard at Versailles last night, he took another at Le
+Mans--destination unknown."
+
+The deputy chief opened his eyes in amazement. Who was this person who
+was mentioning facts that had been telephoned to police headquarters only
+at two o'clock that morning? He gasped:
+
+"But who are you, Monsieur?"
+
+"What? Don't you know me? What's the good of making appointments with
+people? You strain every nerve to be punctual, and then they ask you who
+you are! Come, Weber, confess that you're doing it to annoy me. Must you
+gaze on my features in broad daylight? Here goes!"
+
+He raised his mask.
+
+"Arsène Lupin!" spluttered the detective.
+
+"At your service, young fellow: on foot, in the saddle, and in mid air.
+That's where I'm going now. Good-bye."
+
+And so great was Weber's astonishment at seeing Arsène Lupin, whom he had
+taken to the lockup twelve hours before, standing in front of him, free,
+at two hundred and forty miles from Paris, that Don Luis, as he went back
+to Davanne, thought:
+
+"What a crusher! I've knocked him out in one round. There's no hurry. The
+referee will count ten at least three times before Weber can say
+'Mother!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Davanne was ready. Don Luis climbed into the monoplane. The peasants
+pushed at the wheels. The machine started.
+
+"North-northeast," Don Luis ordered. "Ninety miles an hour. Ten
+thousand francs."
+
+"We've the wind against us," said Davanne.
+
+"Five thousand francs extra for the wind," shouted Don Luis.
+
+He admitted no obstacle in his haste to reach Damigni. He now understood
+the whole thing and, harking back to the very beginning, he was surprised
+that his mind had never perceived the connection between the two
+skeletons hanging in the barn and the series of crimes resulting from the
+Mornington inheritance. Stranger still, how was it that the almost
+certain murder of Langernault, Hippolyte Fauville's old friend, had not
+afforded him all the clues which it contained? The crux of the sinister
+plot lay in that.
+
+Who could have intercepted, on Fauville's behalf, the letters of
+accusation which Fauville was supposed to write to his old friend
+Langernault, except some one in the village or some one who had lived in
+the village?
+
+And now everything was clear. It was the nameless scoundrel who had
+started his career of crime by killing old Langernault and then the
+Dedessuslamare couple. The method was the same as later on: it was not
+direct murder, but anonymous murder, murder by suggestion. Like
+Mornington the American, like Fauville the engineer, like Marie, like
+Gaston Sauverand, old Langernault had been craftily done away with and
+the Dedessuslamare couple driven to commit suicide in the barn.
+
+It was from there that the tiger had come to Paris, where later he was to
+find Fauville and Cosmo Mornington and plot the tragic affair of the
+inheritance.
+
+And it was there that he was now returning!
+
+There was no doubt about that. To begin with, the fact that he had
+administered a narcotic to Florence constituted an indisputable proof.
+Was he not obliged to put Florence to sleep in order to prevent her from
+recognizing the landscape at Alençon and Damigni, or the Old Castle,
+which she had explored with Gaston Sauverand?
+
+On the other hand, the Le Mans-Angers-Nantes route, which had been taken
+to put the police on a false track, meant only an extra hour or two, at
+most, for any one motoring to Alençon. Lastly, that coach-house near a
+big town, that limousine waiting, ready charged with petrol, showed that
+the villain, when he intended to visit his retreat, took the precaution
+of stopping at Le Mans, in order to go from there, in his limousine, to
+Langernault's deserted estate.
+
+He would therefore reach his lair at ten o'clock that morning. And he
+would arrive there with Florence Levasseur dead asleep!
+
+The question forced itself upon him, the terrible persistent
+question--what did he mean to do with Florence Levasseur?
+
+"Faster! Faster!" cried Don Luis.
+
+Now that he knew the scoundrel's haunt, the man's scheme became
+hideously evident to him. Feeling himself hunted down, lost, an object
+of hatred and terror to Florence, whose eyes were now opened to the true
+state of things, what plan could he have in mind except his invariable
+plan of murder?
+
+"Faster!" cried Don Luis. "We're making no headway. Go faster,
+can't you?"
+
+Florence murdered! Perhaps the crime was not yet accomplished. No, it
+could not be! Killing takes time. It is preceded by words, by the offer
+of a bargain, by threats, by entreaties, by a wholly unspeakable scene.
+But the thing was being prepared, Florence was going to die!
+
+Florence was going to die by the hand of the brute who loved her. For he
+loved her: Don Luis had an intuition of that monstrous love; and he was
+bound to believe that such a love could only end in torture and
+bloodshed.
+
+Sablé ... Sillé-le-Guillaume....
+
+The earth sped beneath them. The trees and houses glided by like shadows.
+
+And then Alençon.
+
+It was hardly more than a quarter to two when they landed in a meadow
+between the town and Damigni. Don Luis made inquiries. A number of motor
+cars had passed along the road to Damigni, including a small limousine
+driven by a gentleman who had turned down a crossroad. And this crossroad
+led to the woods at the back of Langernault's estate, the Old Castle.
+
+Don Luis's conviction was so firm that, after taking leave of Davanne, he
+helped him to start on his homeward flight. He had no further need of
+him. He needed nobody. The final duel was at hand.
+
+He ran along, guided by the tracks of the tires in the dust, and followed
+the crossroad. To his great surprise this road went nowhere near the wall
+behind the barn from which he had jumped a few weeks before. After
+clearing the woods, Don Luis came out into a large untilled space where
+the road turned back toward the estate and ended at an old two-winged
+gate protected with iron sheets and bars.
+
+The limousine had gone in that way.
+
+"And I must get in this way, too," thought Don Luis. "I must get in at
+all costs and immediately, without wasting time in looking for an opening
+or a handy tree."
+
+Now the wall was thirteen feet high at this spot. Don Luis got in. How he
+managed it, by what superhuman effort, he himself could not have said
+after he had done it.
+
+Somehow or other, by hanging on to invisible projections, by digging a
+knife which he had borrowed from Davanne into the interstices between the
+stones, he managed it.
+
+And when he was on the other side he discovered the tracks of the tires
+running to the left, toward a part of the grounds which he did not know,
+more undulating than the other and broken up with little hills and ruined
+buildings covered with thick curtains of ivy.
+
+Deserted though the rest of the park was, this portion seemed much more
+uncivilized, in spite of the ragged remains of box and laurel hedges
+that stood here and there amidst the nettles and brambles, and the
+luxuriant swarm of tall wild-flowers, valerian, mullein, hemlock,
+foxglove, and angelica.
+
+Suddenly, on turning the corner of an old hedge of clipped yews, Don Luis
+saw the limousine, which had been left, or, rather, hidden there in a
+hollow. The door was open. The disorder of the inside of the car, the rug
+hanging over the footboard, a broken window, a cushion on the floor, all
+bore witness to a struggle. The scoundrel had no doubt taken advantage of
+the fact that Florence was asleep to tie her up; and on arriving, when he
+tried to take her out of the car, Florence must have clutched at
+everything that offered.
+
+Don Luis at once verified the correctness of his theory. As he went along
+the very narrow, grass-grown path that led up the slope, he saw that the
+grass was uniformly pressed down.
+
+"Oh, the villain!" he thought. "The villain! He doesn't carry his victim,
+he drags her!"
+
+If he had listened only to his instinct, he would have rushed to
+Florence's rescue. But his profound sense of what to do and what to avoid
+saved him from committing any such imprudence. At the first alarm, at the
+least sound, the tiger would have throttled his prey. To escape this
+hideous catastrophe, Don Luis must take him by surprise and then and
+there deprive him of his power of action. He controlled himself,
+therefore, and slowly and cautiously mounted the incline.
+
+The path ran upward between heaps of stones and fallen buildings, and
+among clumps of shrubs overtopped by beeches and oaks. The place was
+evidently the site of the old feudal castle which had given the estate
+its name; and it was here, near the top, that the scoundrel had selected
+one of his retreats.
+
+The trail continued over the trampled herbage. And Don Luis even caught
+sight of something shining on the ground, in a tuft of grass. It was a
+ring, a tiny and very simple ring, consisting of a gold circlet and two
+small pearls, which he had often noticed on Florence's finger. And the
+fact that caught his attention was that a blade of grass passed and
+repassed and passed a third time through the inside of the ring, like a
+ribbon that had been rolled round it deliberately.
+
+"It's a clear signal," said Perenna to himself. "The villain probably
+stopped here to rest; and Florence, bound up; but with her fingers free,
+was able to leave this evidence of her passage."
+
+So the girl still hoped. She expected assistance. And Don Luis reflected
+with emotion that it was perhaps to him that this last desperate appeal
+was addressed.
+
+Fifty steps farther--and this detail pointed to the rather curious
+fatigue experienced by the scoundrel--there was a second halt and a
+second clue, a flower, a field-sage, which the poor little hand had
+picked and plucked of its petals. Next came the print of the five fingers
+dug into the ground, and next a cross drawn with a pebble. And in this
+way he was able to follow, minute by minute, all the successive stages of
+the horrible journey.
+
+The last stopping-place was near. The climb became steeper and rougher.
+The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles. On the right the
+Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky.
+On the left was a strip of wall with a mantelpiece still clinging to it.
+
+Twenty steps farther Don Luis stopped. He seemed to hear something.
+
+He listened. He was not mistaken. The sound was repeated, and it was the
+sound of laughter. But such an awful laugh! A strident laugh, evil as the
+laughter of a devil, and so shrill! It was more like the laugh of a
+woman, of a madwoman.
+
+Again silence. Then another noise, the noise of an implement striking the
+ground, then silence again.
+
+And this was happening at a distance which Don Luis estimated at a
+hundred yards.
+
+The path ended in three steps cut in the earth. At the top was a fairly
+large plateau, also encumbered with rubbish and ruins. In the centre,
+opposite Don Luis, stood a screen of immense laurels planted in a
+semicircle. The marks of trodden grass led up to it.
+
+Don Luis was a little surprised, for the screen presented an impenetrable
+outline. He walked on and found that there had once been a cutting, and
+that the branches had ended by meeting again. They were easy to push
+aside; and it was through here that the scoundrel must have passed. To
+all appearances he was there now, at the end of his journey, not far
+away, occupied in some sinister task.
+
+Indeed the air was rent by a chuckle, so close by that Don Luis gave a
+start and felt as if the scoundrel were laughing beforehand at his
+intervention. He remembered the letter with the words written in red ink:
+
+There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means your
+death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your hand
+is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at the same moment
+the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
+chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!
+
+The whole letter passed through his brain, with its formidable threat.
+And he felt a shiver of fear. But no fear could stay the man that he was.
+He had already taken hold of the branches with his hands and was clearing
+a way for himself.
+
+He stopped. A last bulwark of leaves hid him from sight. He pulled some
+of them aside at the level of his eyes.
+
+And he saw ...
+
+First of all, he saw Florence, alone at this moment, lying on the
+ground, bound, at thirty yards in front of him; and he at once
+perceived, to his intense delight, from certain movements of her head
+that she was still alive. He had come in time. Florence was not dead.
+She would not die. That was a certainty against which nothing could
+prevail. Florence would not die.
+
+Then he examined the things around. To the right and left of where he
+stood the screen of laurels curved and embraced a sort of arena in which,
+among yews that had once been clipped into cones, lay capitals, columns,
+broken pieces of arches and vaults, obviously placed there to adorn the
+formal garden that had been laid out on the ruins of the ancient
+donjon-keep.
+
+In the middle was a small circular space reached by two narrow paths, one
+of which presented the same traces of trodden grass and was a
+continuation of that by which Don Luis had come, while the other
+intersected the first at right angles and joined the two ends of the
+screen of shrubs.
+
+Opposite was a confused heap of broken stones and natural rocks, cemented
+with clay, bound together by the roots of gnarled trees, the whole
+forming at the back of the picture a small, shallow grotto, full of
+crevices that admitted the light. The floor, which Don Luis could easily
+distinguish, consisted of three or four flagstones.
+
+Florence Levasseur lay inside this grotto, bound hand and foot, looking
+like the victim of some mysterious sacrifice about to be performed on the
+altar of the grotto, in the amphitheatre of this old garden closed by the
+wall of tall laurels and overlooked by a pile of ancestral ruins.
+
+In spite of the distance, Don Luis was able to make out every detail of
+her pale face. Though convulsed with anguish, it still retained a certain
+serenity, an expression of waiting and even of expectancy, as if
+Florence, believing, until the last moment, in the possibility of a
+miracle, had not yet relinquished all hope of life.
+
+Nevertheless, though she was not gagged, she did not call for help.
+Perhaps she thought that it was useless, and that the road which she had
+strewn with the marks of her passing was more likely to bring assistance
+to her side than cries, which the villain would soon have stifled.
+Strange to say, it seemed to Don Luis as if the girl's eyes were
+obstinately fixed on the very spot where he was hiding. Possibly she
+suspected his presence. Possibly she foresaw his help.
+
+Suddenly Don Luis clutched one of his revolvers and half raised his arm,
+ready to take aim. The sacrificer, the butcher, had just appeared, not
+far from the altar on which the victim lay.
+
+He came from between two rocks, of which a bush marked the intervening
+space, which apparently afforded but a very low outlet, for he still
+walked as though bent double, with his head bowed and his long arms
+swinging so low as to touch the ground.
+
+He went to the grotto and gave his horrible chuckle:
+
+"You're still there, I see," he said. "No sign of the rescuer? Perseus is
+a little late, I fear. He'd better hurry!"
+
+The tone of his voice was so shrill that Don Luis heard every word, and
+so odd, so unhuman, that it gave him a feeling of physical discomfort.
+He gripped his revolver tightly, prepared to shoot at the first
+suspicious movement.
+
+"He'd better hurry!" repeated the scoundrel, with a laugh. "If not, all
+will be over in five minutes. You see that I'm a man of method, eh,
+Florence, my darling?"
+
+He picked up something from the ground. It was a stick shaped like a
+crutch. He put it under his left arm and, still bent in two, began to
+walk like a man who has not the strength to stand erect. Then suddenly
+and with no apparent cause to explain his change of attitude, he drew
+himself up and used his crutch as he would a cane. He then walked round
+the outside of the grotto, making a careful inspection, the meaning of
+which escaped Don Luis for the time.
+
+He was of a good height in this position; and Don Luis easily
+understood why the driver of the yellow taxi, who had seen him under
+two such different aspects, was unable to say whether he was very tall
+or very short.
+
+But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any
+prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He relapsed into his
+first attitude.
+
+The man was a cripple, smitten with some disease that affected his powers
+of locomotion. He was excessively thin. Don Luis also saw his pallid
+face, his cavernous cheeks, his hollow temples, his skin the colour of
+parchment: the face of a sufferer from consumption, a bloodless face.
+
+When he had finished his inspection, he came up to Florence and said:
+
+"Though you've been very good, baby, and haven't screamed so far, we'd
+better take our precautions and remove any possibility of a surprise by
+giving you a nice little gag to wear, don't you think?"
+
+He stooped over her and wound a large handkerchief round the lower part
+of her face. Then, bending still farther down, he began to speak to her
+in a very low voice, talking almost into her ear. But wild bursts of
+laughter, horrible to hear, interrupted this whispering.
+
+Feeling the imminence of the danger, dreading some movement on the
+wretch's part, a sudden murderous attack, the prompt prick of a poisoned
+needle, Don Luis had levelled his revolver and, confident of his skill,
+waited events.
+
+What was happening over there? What were the words spoken? What infamous
+bargain was the villain proposing to Florence? At what shameful price
+could she obtain her release?
+
+The cripple stepped back angrily, shouting in furious accents:
+
+"But don't you understand that you are done for? Now that I have nothing
+more to fear, now that you have been silly enough to come with me and
+place yourself in my power, what hope have you left? To move me, perhaps:
+is that it? Because I'm burning with passion, you imagine--? Oh, you
+never made a greater mistake, my pet! I don't care a fig if you do die.
+Once dead, you cease to count....
+
+"What else? Perhaps you consider that, being crippled, I shall not have
+the strength to kill you? But there's no question of my killing you,
+Florence. Have you ever known me kill people? Never! I'm much too big a
+coward, I should be frightened, I should shake all over. No, no,
+Florence, I shan't touch you, and yet--
+
+"Here, look what's going to happen, see for yourself. I tell you the
+thing's managed in my own style.... And, whatever you do, don't be
+afraid. It's only a preliminary warning."
+
+He had moved away and, helping himself with his hands, holding on to the
+branches of a tree, he climbed up the first layers of rock that formed
+the grotto on the right. Here he knelt down. There was a small pickaxe
+lying beside him. He took it and gave three blows to the nearest heap of
+stones. They came tumbling down in front of the grotto.
+
+Don Luis sprang from his hiding-place with a roar of terror. He had
+suddenly realized the position: The grotto, the accumulation of boulders,
+the piles of granite, everything was so placed that its equilibrium could
+be shattered at any moment, and that Florence ran the risk of being
+buried under the rubbish. It was not a question, therefore, of slaying
+the villain, but of saving Florence on the spot.
+
+He was halfway across in two or three seconds. But here, in one of those
+mental flashes which are even quicker than the maddest rush, he became
+aware that the tracks of trampled grass did not cross the central circus
+and that the scoundrel had gone round it. Why? That was one of the
+questions which instinct, ever suspicious, puts, but which reason has not
+the time to answer. Don Luis went straight ahead. And he had no sooner
+set foot on the place than the catastrophe occurred.
+
+It all happened with incredible suddenness, as though he had tried to
+walk on space and found himself hurled into it. The ground gave way
+beneath him. The clods of grass separated, and he fell.
+
+He fell down a hole which was none other than the mouth of a well four
+feet wide at most, the curb of which had been cut down level with the
+ground. Only this was what took place: as he was running very fast, his
+impetus flung him against the opposite wall in such a way that his
+forearms lay on the outer ledge and his hands were able to clutch at the
+roots of plants.
+
+So great was his strength that he might just have been able to drag
+himself up by his wrists. But responding to the attack, the scoundrel had
+at once hurried to meet his assailant and was now standing at ten paces
+from Don Luis, threatening him with his revolver:
+
+"Don't move!" he cried, "or I'll smash you!"
+
+Don Luis was thus reduced to helplessness, at the risk of receiving the
+enemy's fire.
+
+Their eyes met for a few seconds. The cripple's were burning with fever,
+like the eyes of a sick man.
+
+Crawling along, watching Don Luis's slightest movement, he came and
+squatted beside the well. The revolver was levelled in his outstretched
+hand. And his infernal chuckle rang out again:
+
+"Lupin! Lupin! That's done it! Lupin's dive!... What a mug you must be! I
+warned you, you know, warned you in blood-red ink. Remember my words:
+'The place of your death is chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!'
+And here you are! So you're not in prison? You warded off that stroke,
+you rogue, you! Fortunately, I foresaw events and took my precautions.
+What do you say to it? What do you think of my little scheme? I said to
+myself, 'All the police will come rushing at my heels. But there's only
+one who's capable of catching me, and that's Lupin. So we'll show him the
+way, we'll lead him on the leash all along a little path scraped clean by
+the victim's body.'
+
+"And then a few landmarks, scattered here and there. First, the fair
+damsel's ring, with a blade of grass twisted round it; farther on a
+flower without its petals; farther on the marks of five fingers in the
+ground; next, the sign of the cross.' No mistaking them, was there? Once
+you thought me fool enough to give Florence time to play
+Hop-o'-my-Thumb's game, it was bound to lead you straight to the mouth of
+the well, to the clods of turf which I dabbed across it, last month, in
+anticipation of this windfall.
+
+"Remember: 'The snare is laid.' And a snare after my own style, Lupin;
+one of the best! Oh, I love getting rid of people with their kind
+assistance. We work together like friends and partners. You've caught the
+notion, haven't you?
+
+"I don't do my own job. The others do it for me, hanging themselves or
+giving themselves careless injections--unless they prefer the mouth of a
+well, as you seem to do, Lupin. My poor old chap, what a sticky mess
+you're in! I never saw such a face, never, on my word! Florence, do look
+at the expression on your swain's mobile features!"
+
+He broke off, seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched
+arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking
+under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing
+weaker before his eyes. Don Luis's fingers, which had first gripped the
+roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of the wall. And
+his shoulders were sinking lower and lower into the well.
+
+"We've done it!" spluttered the villain, in the midst of his convulsions
+of merriment. "Lord, how good it is to laugh! Especially when one so
+seldom does. Yes, I'm a wet blanket, I am; a first-rate man at a funeral!
+You've never seen me laugh, Florence, have you? But this time it's really
+too amusing. Lupin in his hole and Florence in her grotto; one dancing a
+jig above the abyss and the other at her last gasp under her mountain.
+What a sight!
+
+"Come, Lupin, don't tire yourself! What's the use of those grimaces?
+You're not afraid of eternity, are you? A good man like you, the Don
+Quixote of modern times! Come, let yourself go. There's not even any
+water in the well to splash about in. No, it's just a nice little slide
+into infinity. You can't so much as hear the sound of a pebble when you
+drop it in; and just now I threw a piece of lighted paper down and lost
+sight of it in the dark. Brrrr! It sent a cold shiver down my back!
+
+"Come, be a man. It'll only take a moment; and you've been through worse
+than that! ... Good, you nearly did it then. You're making up your mind
+to it.... I say, Lupin! ... Lupin! ... Aren't you going to say good-bye?
+Not a smile, not a word of thanks? Au revoir, Lupin, an revoir--"
+
+He ceased. He watched for the appalling end which he had so cleverly
+prepared and of which all the incidents were following close on one
+another in accordance with his inflexible will.
+
+It did not take long. The shoulders had gone down; the chin; and then the
+mouth convulsed with the death-grin; and then the eyes, drunk with
+terror; and then the forehead and the hair: the whole head, in short, had
+disappeared.
+
+The cripple sat gazing wildly, as though in ecstasy, motionless, with an
+expression of fierce delight, and without a word that could trouble the
+silence and interrupt his hatred.
+
+At the edge of the abyss nothing remained but the hands, the obstinate,
+stubborn, desperate, heroic hands, the poor, helpless hands which alone
+still lived, and which, gradually, retreating toward death, yielded and
+fell back and let go.
+
+The hands had slipped. For a moment the fingers held on like claws. So
+natural was the effort which they made that it looked as if they did not
+even yet despair, unaided, of resuscitating and bringing back to the
+light of day the corpse already entombed in the darkness. And then they
+in their turn gave way. And then--and then, suddenly, there was nothing
+more to be seen and nothing more to be heard.
+
+The cripple started to his feet, as though released by a spring, and
+yelled with delight:
+
+"Oof! That's done it! Lupin in the bottomless pit! One more adventure
+finished! Oof!"
+
+Turning in Florence's direction, he once more danced his dance of death.
+He raised himself to his full height and then suddenly crouched down
+again, throwing about his legs like the grotesque, ragged limbs of a
+scarecrow. And he sang and whistled and belched forth insults and hideous
+blasphemies.
+
+Then he came back to the yawning mouth of the well and, standing some way
+off, as if still afraid to come nearer, he spat into it three times.
+
+Nor was this enough for his hatred. There were some broken pieces of
+statuary on the ground. He took a carved head, rolled it along the grass,
+and sent it crashing down the well. A little farther away was a stack of
+old, rusty cannon balls. These also he rolled to the edge and pushed in.
+Five, ten, fifteen cannon balls went scooting down, one after the other,
+banging against the walls with a loud and sinister noise which the echo
+swelled into the angry roar of distant thunder.
+
+"There, take that, Lupin! I'm sick of you, you dirty cad!
+That's for the spokes you put in my wheel, over that damned
+inheritance! ... Here, take this, too!... And this!... And
+this!... Here's a chocolate for you in case you're hungry.... Do you
+want another? Here you are, old chap! catch!"
+
+He staggered, seized with a sort of giddiness, and had to squat on his
+haunches. He was utterly spent. However, obeying a last convulsion, he
+still found the strength to kneel down by the well, and leaning over the
+darkness, he stammered, breathlessly:
+
+"Hi! I say! Corpse! Don't go knocking at the gate of hell at once!... The
+little girl's joining you in twenty minutes.... Yes, that's it, at four
+o'clock.... You know I'm a punctual man and keep my appointments to the
+minute.... She'll be with you at four o'clock exactly.
+
+"By the way, I was almost forgetting: the inheritance--you know,
+Mornington's hundred millions--well, that's mine. Why, of course! You
+can't doubt that I took all my precautions! Florence will explain
+everything presently.... It's very well thought out--you'll
+see--you'll see--"
+
+He could not get out another word. The last syllables sounded more
+like hiccoughs. The sweat poured from his hair and his forehead, and
+he sank to the ground, moaning like a dying man tortured by the last
+throes of death.
+
+He remained like that for some minutes, with his head in his hands,
+shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in
+each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a
+thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept
+spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain,
+he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of
+which he greedily drank two or three mouthfuls.
+
+He at once revived, as though he had swallowed warmth and strength. His
+eyes grew calmer, his mouth shaped itself into a horrible smile. He
+turned to Florence and said:
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, pretty one; I'm not gone yet, and I've plenty of
+time to attend to you. And then, after that, there'll be no more worries,
+no more of that scheming and fighting that wears one out. A nice, quiet,
+uneventful life for me! ... With a hundred millions one can afford to
+take life easy, eh, little girl? ... Come on, I'm feeling much better!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+FLORENCE'S SECRET
+
+
+It was time for the second act of the tragedy. Don Luis Perenna's death
+was to be followed by that of Florence. Like some monstrous butcher, the
+cripple passed from one to the other with no more compassion than if he
+were dealing with the oxen in a slaughter-house.
+
+Still weak in his limbs, he dragged himself to where the girl lay,
+took a cigarette from a gun-metal case, and, with a final touch of
+cruelty, said:
+
+"When this cigarette is quite burnt out, Florence, it will be your turn.
+Keep your eyes on it. It represents the last minutes of your life reduced
+to ashes. Keep your eyes on it, Florence, and think.
+
+"I want you to understand this: all the owners of the estate, and old
+Langernault in particular, have always considered that the heap of rocks
+and stones overhanging your head was bound to fall to pieces sooner or
+later. And I myself, for years, with untiring patience, believing in a
+favourable opportunity, have amused myself by making it crumble away
+still more, by undermining it with the rain water, in short, by working
+at it in such a way that, upon my word, I can't make out how the thing
+keeps standing at all. Or, rather, I do understand.
+
+"The few strokes with the pickaxe which I gave it just now were merely
+intended for a warning. But I have only to give one more stroke in the
+right place, and knock out a little brick wedged in between two lumps of
+stone, for the whole thing to tumble to the ground like a house of cards.
+
+"A little brick, Florence," he chuckled, "a tiny little brick which
+chance placed there, between two blocks of stone, and has kept in
+position until now. Out comes the brick, down come the blocks, and
+there's your catastrophe!"
+
+He took breath and continued:
+
+"After that? After that, Florence, this: either the smash will take
+place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if any one
+should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly
+visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with
+which you are tied.
+
+"What will the law think then? Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive
+from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed
+her. That's all. A few prayers for the rash creature's soul, and not
+another word.
+
+"As for me--as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead--I
+shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth
+every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for
+a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred
+millions."
+
+He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and
+added, calmly:
+
+"I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them. That's the
+prettiest part of it. I shall claim them because I'm entitled to them;
+and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering,
+how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal
+right to them. And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible
+to bring up the least sort of proof against me."
+
+He moved closer.
+
+"There's not a charge that can hurt me. Suspicions, yes, moral
+presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material
+evidence. Nobody knows me. One person has seen me as a tall man, another
+as a short man. My very name is unknown. All my murders have been
+committed anonymously. All my murders are more like suicides, or can be
+explained as suicides.
+
+"I tell you the law is powerless. With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur
+dead, there's no one to bear witness against me. Even if they arrested
+me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence. I
+shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in
+people's nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors. But I shall
+possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess
+the friendship of all decent men!
+
+"I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it's all over. There's
+nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I
+have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocket-book here, and
+which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did
+not intend to burn them in a few minutes and send the ashes to the bottom
+of the well.
+
+"So you see, Florence, all my measures are taken. You need not hope
+for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one
+knows where I have brought you, and Arsène Lupin is no longer alive.
+Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice. The ending is in
+your own hands: either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you
+accept my love."
+
+There was a moment of silence, then:
+
+"Answer me yes or no. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If
+it's no, you die. If it's yes, I shall release you. We will go from here
+and, later, when your innocence is proved--and I'll see to that--you
+shall become my wife. Is the answer yes, Florence?"
+
+He put the question to her with real anxiety and with a restrained
+passion that set his voice trembling. His knees dragged over the
+flagstones. He begged and threatened, hungering to be entreated and, at
+the same time, almost eager for a refusal, so great was his natural
+murderous impulse.
+
+"Is it yes, Florence? A nod, the least little nod, and I shall believe
+you implicitly, for you never lie and your promise is sacred. Is it yes,
+Florence? Oh, Florence, answer me! It is madness to hesitate. Your life
+depends on a fresh outburst of my anger. Answer me! Here, look, my
+cigarette is out. I'm throwing it away, Florence. A sign of your head: is
+the answer yes or no?"
+
+He bent over her and shook her by the shoulders, as if to force her to
+make the sign which he asked for. But suddenly seized with a sort of
+frenzy, he rose to his feet and exclaimed:
+
+"She's crying! She's crying! She dares to weep! But, wretched girl, do
+you think that I don't know what you're crying for? I know your secret,
+pretty one, and I know that your tears do not come from any fear of
+dying. You? Why, you fear nothing! No, it's something else! Shall I tell
+you your secret? Oh, I can't, I can't--though the words scorch my lips.
+Oh, cursed woman, you've brought it on yourself! You yourself want to
+die, Florence, as you're crying--you yourself want to die--"
+
+While he was speaking he hastened to get to work and prepare the horrible
+tragedy. The leather pocket-book which he had mentioned as containing the
+papers was lying on the ground; he put it in his pocket. Then, still
+trembling, he pulled off his jacket and threw it on the nearest bush.
+Next, he took up the pickaxe and climbed the lower stones, stamping with
+rage and shouting:
+
+"It's you who have asked to die, Florence! Nothing can prevent it now.
+I can't even see your head, if you make a sign. It's too late! You
+asked for it and you've got it! Ah, you're crying! You dare to cry!
+What madness!"
+
+He was standing almost above the grotto, on the right. His anger made him
+draw himself to his full height. He looked horrible, hideous, atrocious.
+His eyes filled with blood as he inserted the bar of the pickaxe between
+the two blocks of granite, at the spot where the brick was wedged in.
+Then, standing on one side, in a place of safety, he struck the brick,
+struck it again. At the third stroke the brick flew out.
+
+What happened was so sudden, the pyramid of stones and rubbish came
+crashing with such violence into the hollow of the grotto and in front of
+the grotto, that the cripple himself, in spite of his precautions, was
+dragged down by the avalanche and thrown upon the grass. It was not a
+serious fall, however, and he picked himself up at once, stammering:
+
+"Florence! Florence!"
+
+Though he had so carefully prepared the catastrophe, and brought it about
+with such determination, its results seemed suddenly to stagger him. He
+hunted for the girl with terrified eyes. He stooped down and crawled
+round the chaos shrouded in clouds of dust. He looked through the
+interstices. He saw nothing.
+
+Florence was buried under the ruins, dead, invisible, as he had
+anticipated.
+
+"Dead!" he said, with staring eyes and a look of stupor on his face.
+"Dead! Florence is dead!"
+
+Once again he lapsed into a state of absolute prostration, which
+gradually slackened his legs, brought him to the ground and paralyzed
+him. His two efforts, following so close upon each other and ending in
+disasters of which he had been the immediate witness, seemed to have
+robbed him of all his remaining energy.
+
+With no hatred in him, since Arsène Lupin no longer lived, with no love,
+since Florence was no more, he looked like a man who has lost his last
+motive for existence.
+
+Twice his lips uttered the name of Florence. Was he regretting his
+friend? Having reached the last of that appalling series of crimes, was
+he imagining the several stages, each marked with a corpse? Was something
+like a conscience making itself felt deep down in that brute? Or was it
+not rather the sort of physical torpor that numbs the sated beast of
+prey, glutted with flesh, drunk with blood, a torpor that is almost
+voluptuousness?
+
+Nevertheless, he once more repeated Florence's name, and tears rolled
+down his cheeks.
+
+He lay long in this condition, gloomy and motionless; and when, after
+again taking a few sips of his medicine, he went back to his work, he
+did so mechanically, with none of that gayety which had made him hop
+on his legs and set about his murder as though he were going to a
+pleasure party.
+
+He began by returning to the bush from which Lupin had seen him emerge.
+Behind this bush, between two trees, was a shelter containing tools and
+arms, spades, rakes, guns, and rolls of wire and rope.
+
+Making several journeys, he carried them to the well, intending to throw
+them down it before he went away. He next examined every particle of the
+little mound up which he had climbed, in order to make sure that he was
+not leaving the least trace of his passage.
+
+He made a similar examination of those parts of the lawn on which he had
+stepped, except the path leading to the well, the inspection of which he
+kept for the last. He brushed up the trodden grass and carefully smoothed
+the trampled earth.
+
+He was obviously anxious and seemed to be thinking of other things, while
+at the same time mechanically doing those things which a murderer knows
+by force of habit that it is wise to do.
+
+One little incident seemed to wake him up. A wounded swallow fell to the
+ground close by where he stood. He stooped, caught it, and crushed it in
+his hands, kneading it like a scrap of crumpled paper. And his eyes shone
+with a savage delight as he gazed at the blood that trickled from the
+poor bird and reddened his hands.
+
+But, when he flung the shapeless little body into a furze bush, he saw on
+the spikes in the bush a hair, a long, fair hair; and all his depression
+returned at the memory of Florence.
+
+He knelt in front of the ruined grotto. Then, breaking two sticks
+of wood, he placed the pieces in the form of a cross under one of
+the stones.
+
+As he was bending over, a little looking-glass slipped from his waistcoat
+pocket and, striking a pebble, broke. This sign of ill luck made a great
+impression on him, He cast a suspicious look around him and, shivering
+with nervousness, as though he felt threatened by the invisible powers,
+he muttered:
+
+"I'm afraid--I'm afraid. Let's go away--"
+
+His watch now marked half-past four. He took his jacket from the shrub on
+which he had hung it, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and put his hand
+in the right-hand outside pocket, where he had placed the pocket-book
+containing his papers:
+
+"Hullo!" he said, in great surprise. "I was sure I had--"
+
+He felt in the left outside pocket, then in the handkerchief-pocket,
+then, with feverish excitement, in both the inside pockets. The
+pocket-book was not there. And, to his extreme amazement, all the
+other things which he was absolutely certain that he had left in the
+pockets of his jacket were gone: his cigarette-case, his box of
+matches, his notebook.
+
+He was flabbergasted. His features became distorted. He spluttered
+incomprehensible words, while the most terrible thought took hold of his
+mind so forcibly as to become a reality: there was some one within the
+precincts of the Old Castle.
+
+There was some one within the precincts of the Old Castle! And this some
+one was now hiding near the ruins, in the ruins perhaps! And this some
+one had seen him! And this some one had witnessed the death of Arsène
+Lupin and the death of Florence Levasseur! And this some one, taking
+advantage of his heedlessness and knowing from his words that the papers
+existed, had searched his jacket and rifled the pockets!
+
+His eyes expressed the alarm of a man accustomed to work in the darkness
+unperceived, and who suddenly becomes aware that another's eyes have
+surprised him at his hateful task and that he is being watched in every
+movement for the first time in his life.
+
+Whence did that look come that troubled him as the daylight troubles a
+bird of the night? Was it an intruder hiding there by accident, or an
+enemy bent upon his destruction? Was it an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, a
+friend of Florence, one of the police? And was this adversary satisfied
+with his stolen booty, or was he preparing to attack him?
+
+The cripple dared not stir. He was there, exposed to assault, on open
+ground, with nothing to protect him against the blows that might come
+before he even knew where the adversary was.
+
+At last, however, the imminence of the danger gave him back some of his
+strength. Still motionless, he inspected his surroundings with an
+attention so keen that it seemed as if no detail could escape him. He
+would have sighted the most indistinct shape among the stones of the
+ruined pile, or in the bushes, or behind the tall laurel screen.
+
+Seeing nobody, he came along, supporting himself on his crutch. He walked
+without the least sound of his feet or of the crutch, which probably had
+a rubber shoe at the end of it. His raised right hand held a revolver.
+His finger was on the trigger. The least effort of his will, or even less
+than that, a spontaneous injunction of his instinct, was enough to put a
+bullet into the enemy.
+
+He turned to the left. On this side, between the extreme end of the
+laurels and the first fallen rocks, there was a little brick path which
+was more likely the top of a buried wall. The cripple followed this path,
+by which the enemy might have reached the shrub on which the jacket hung
+without leaving any traces.
+
+The last branches of the laurels were in his way, and he pushed them
+aside. There was a tangled mass of bushes. To avoid this, he skirted the
+foot of the mound, after which he took a few more steps, going round a
+huge rock. And then, suddenly, he started back and almost lost his
+balance, while his crutch fell to the ground and his revolver slipped
+from his hand.
+
+What he had seen, what he saw, was certainly the most terrifying sight
+that he could possibly have beheld. Opposite him, at ten paces distance,
+with his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed, and one shoulder
+resting lightly against the rocky wall, stood not a man: it was not a
+man, and could not be a man, for this man, as the cripple knew, was
+dead, had died the death from which there is no recovery. It was
+therefore a ghost; and this apparition from the tomb raised the
+cripple's terror to its highest pitch.
+
+He shivered, seized with a fresh attack of fever and weakness. His
+dilated pupils stared at the extraordinary phenomenon. His whole being,
+filled with demoniacal superstition and dread, crumpled up under the
+vision to which each second lent an added horror.
+
+Incapable of flight, incapable of defence, he dropped upon his knees.
+And he could not take his eyes from that dead man, whom hardly an hour
+before he had buried in the depths of a well, under a shroud of iron
+and granite.
+
+Arsène Lupin's ghost!
+
+A man you take aim at, you fire at, you kill. But a ghost! A thing which
+no longer exists and which nevertheless disposes of all the supernatural
+powers! What was the use of struggling against the infernal machinations
+of that which is no more? What was the use of picking up the fallen
+revolver and levelling it at the intangible spirit of Arsène Lupin?
+
+And he saw an incomprehensible thing occur: the ghost took its hands out
+of its pockets. One of them held a cigarette-case; and the cripple
+recognized the same gun-metal case for which he had hunted in vain. There
+was therefore not a doubt left that the creature who had ransacked the
+jacket was the very same who now opened the case, picked out a cigarette
+and struck a match taken from a box which also belonged to the cripple!
+
+O miracle! A real flame came from the match! O incomparable marvel!
+Clouds of smoke rose from the cigarette, real smoke, of which the cripple
+at once knew the particular smell!
+
+He hid his head in his hands. He refused to see more. Whether ghost
+or optical illusion, an emanation from another world, or an image
+born of his remorse and proceeding from himself, it should torture
+his eyes no longer.
+
+But he heard the sound of a step approaching him, growing more and more
+distinct as it came closer! He felt a strange presence moving near him!
+An arm was stretched out! A hand fell on his shoulder! That hand clutched
+his flesh with an irresistible grip! And he heard words spoken by a voice
+which, beyond mistake, was the human and living voice of Arsène Lupin!
+
+"Why, my dear sir, what a state we're getting ourselves into! Of course,
+I understand that my sudden return seems an unusual and even an
+inconvenient proceeding, but still it does not do to be so uncontrollably
+impressed. Men have seen much more extraordinary things than that, such
+as Joshua staying the sun, and more sensational disasters, such as the
+Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
+
+"The wise man reduces events to their proper proportions and judges them,
+not by their action upon his own destiny, but by the way in which they
+influence the fortunes of the world. Now confess that your little mishap
+is purely individual and does not affect the equilibrium of the solar
+system. You know what Marcus Aurelius says, on page 84, of Charpentier's
+edition--"
+
+The cripple had plucked up courage to raise his head; and the real state
+of things now became so obviously apparent that he could no longer get
+away from the undeniable fact: Arsène Lupin was not dead! Arsène Lupin
+whom he had hurled into the bowels of the earth and crushed as surely as
+an insect is crushed with a hammer; Arsène Lupin was not dead!
+
+How to explain so astounding a mystery the cripple did not even stop to
+wonder. One thing alone mattered: Arsène Lupin was not dead. Arsène Lupin
+looked and spoke as a living man does. Arsène Lupin was not dead. He
+breathed, he smiled, he talked, he lived!
+
+And it was so certainly life that the scoundrel saw before him that,
+obeying a sudden impulse of his nature and of his hatred for life, he
+flattened himself to his full length, reached his revolver, seized it,
+and fired.
+
+He fired; but it was too late. Don Luis had caused the weapon to swerve
+with a kick of his boot. Another kick sent it flying out of the
+cripple's hand.
+
+The villain ground his teeth with fury and at once began hurriedly to
+fumble in his pockets.
+
+"Is this what you're looking for, sir?" asked Don Luis, holding up a
+hypodermic syringe filled with a yellow fluid. "Excuse me, but I was
+afraid lest you should prick yourself by mistake. That would have been a
+fatal prick, would it not? And I should never have forgiven myself."
+
+The cripple was disarmed. He hesitated for a moment, surprised that the
+enemy did not attack him more violently, and sought to profit by the
+delay. His small, blinking eyes wandered around him, looking for
+something to throw. But an idea seemed to strike him and to restore his
+confidence little by little; and, in a new and really unexpected fit of
+delight, he indulged in one of his loudest chuckles:
+
+"And what about Florence?" he shouted. "Don't forget Florence! For I've
+got you there! I can miss you with my revolver and you can steal my
+poison; but I have another means of hitting you, right in the heart. You
+can't live without Florence, can you? Florence's death means your own
+sentence, doesn't it? If Florence is dead, you'll put the rope round your
+own neck, won't you, won't you, won't you?"
+
+"Yes. If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!"
+
+"She is dead!" cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment,
+hopping about on his knees. "She's dead, quite, quite dead! What am I
+saying? She's more than dead! A dead person retains the appearance of a
+live one for a time; but this is much better: there's no corpse here,
+Lupin; just a mess of flesh and bone!
+
+"The whole scaffolding of rocks has come down on top of her! You can
+picture it, eh? What a sight! Come, quick, it's your turn to kick the
+bucket. Would you like a length of rope? Ha, ha, ha! It's enough to make
+one die with laughing. Didn't I say that you'd meet at the gates of hell?
+Quick, your sweetheart's waiting for you. Do you hesitate? Where's your
+old French politeness? You can't keep a lady waiting, you know. Hurry up,
+Lupin! Florence is dead!"
+
+He said this with real enjoyment, as though the mere word of death
+appeared to him delicious.
+
+Don Luis had not moved a muscle. He simply nodded his head and said:
+
+"What a pity!"
+
+The cripple seemed petrified. All his joyous contortions, all his
+triumphal pantomime, stopped short. He blurted out:
+
+"Eh? What did you say?"
+
+"I say," declared Don Luis, preserving his calm and courteous demeanour
+and refraining from echoing the cripple's familiarity, "I say, my dear
+sir, that you have done very wrong. I never met a finer nature nor one
+more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur. The incomparable
+beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a
+better treatment. It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a
+masterpiece of womankind had ceased to be."
+
+The cripple remained astounded. Don Luis's serene manner dismayed him. He
+said, in a blank voice:
+
+"I tell you, she has ceased to be. Haven't you seen the grotto? Florence
+no longer exists!"
+
+"I refuse to believe it," said Don Luis quietly. "If that were so,
+everything would look different. The sky would be clouded; the birds
+would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb. But the
+birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be: the
+honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet. How could
+Florence be dead?"
+
+A long silence followed upon these words. The two enemies, at three paces
+distance, looked into each other's eyes: Don Luis still as cool as ever,
+the cripple a prey to the maddest anguish. The monster understood.
+Obscure as the truth was, it shone forth before him with all the light of
+a blinding certainty: Florence also was alive! Humanly and physically
+speaking, the thing was not possible; but the resurrection of Don Luis
+was likewise an impossibility; and yet Don Luis was alive, with not a
+scratch on his face, with not a speck of dust on his clothes.
+
+The monster felt himself lost. The man who held him in the hollow of his
+implacable hand was one of those men whose power knows no bounds. He was
+one of those men who escape from the jaws of death and who triumphantly
+snatch from death those of whom they have taken charge.
+
+The monster retreated, dragging himself slowly backward on his knees
+along the little brick path.
+
+He retreated. He passed by the confused heap of stones that covered the
+place where the grotto had been, and did not turn his eyes in that
+direction, as if he were definitely convinced that Florence had come
+forth safe and sound from the appalling sepulchre.
+
+He retreated. Don Luis, who no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy
+unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no
+further attention to him.
+
+He retreated.
+
+And suddenly, after a glance at his enemy, he spun round, drew himself up
+on his slack legs with an effort, and started running toward the well.
+
+He was twenty paces from it. He covered one half, three quarters of the
+distance. Already the mouth opened before him. He put out his arms, with
+the movement of a man about to dive, and shot forward.
+
+His rush was stopped. He rolled over on the ground, dragged back
+violently, with his arms fixed so firmly to his body that he was
+unable to stir.
+
+It was Don Luis, who had never wholly lost sight of him, who had made a
+slip-knot to his rope and who had lassoed the cripple at the moment when
+he was going to fling himself down the abyss. The cripple struggled for a
+few moments. But the slip-knot bit into his flesh. He ceased moving.
+Everything was over.
+
+Then Don Luis Perenna, holding the other end of the lasso, came up to him
+and bound him hand and foot with what remained of the rope. The operation
+was carefully performed. Don Luis repeated it time after time, using the
+coils of rope which the cripple had brought to the well and gagging him
+with a handkerchief. And, while applying himself to his work, he
+explained, with affected politeness:
+
+"You see, sir, people always come to grief through excessive
+self-confidence. They never imagine that their adversaries can have
+resources which they themselves do not possess. For instance, when you
+got me to fall into your trap, how could you have supposed, my dear sir,
+that a man like myself, a man like Arsène Lupin, hanging on the brim of a
+well, with his arms resting on the brim and his feet against the inner
+wall, would allow himself to drop down it like the first silly fool that
+comes along?
+
+"Look here: you were fifteen or twenty yards away; and do you think that
+I had not the strength to leap out nor the courage to face the bullets of
+your revolver, when it was a question of saving Florence Levasseur's life
+and my own? Why, my poor sir, the tiniest effort would have been enough,
+believe me!
+
+"My reason for not making the effort was that I had something better to
+do, something infinitely better. I will tell you why, that is, if you
+care to know. Do you?
+
+"Well, then, at the very first moment, my knees and feet, propped against
+the inner wall, had smashed in a thick layer of plaster which closed up
+an old excavation in the well; and this I at once perceived. It was a
+stroke of luck, wasn't it? And it changed the whole situation. My plan
+was settled at once. While I went on acting my little part of the
+gentleman about to tumble down an abyss, putting on the most scared face,
+the most staring eyes, the most hideous grin, I enlarged that excavation,
+taking care to throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way
+that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second
+when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into
+my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins.
+
+"I was saved, because the retreat was dug out on the side where you were
+moving and because, being dark itself, it cast no light. All that I now
+had to do was to wait.
+
+"I listened quietly to your threatening speeches. I let the things you
+flung down the well go past me. And, when I thought you had gone back to
+Florence, I was preparing to leave my refuge, to return to the light of
+day, and to fall upon you from behind, when--"
+
+Don Luis turned the cripple over, as though he were a parcel which he was
+tying up with string, and continued:
+
+"Have you ever been to Tancarville, the old feudal castle in Normandy, on
+the banks of the Seine? Haven't you? Well, you must know that, outside
+the ruins of the keep, there is an old well which, like many other wells
+of the period, possesses the peculiarity of having two openings, one at
+the top, facing the sky, and the other a little lower down, hollowed out
+sideways in the wall and leading to one of the rooms of the keep.
+
+"At Tancarville this second opening is nowadays closed with a grating.
+Here it was walled up with a layer of small stones and plaster. And it
+was just the recollection of Tancarville that made me stay, all the more
+as there was no hurry, since you had had the kindness to inform me that
+Florence would not join me in the next world until four o'clock. I
+therefore inspected my refuge and soon realized that, as I had already
+felt by intuition, it was the foundation of a building which was now
+demolished and which had the garden laid out on its ruins.
+
+"Well, I went on, groping my way and following the direction which, above
+ground, would have taken me to the grotto. My presentiments were not
+deceived. A gleam of daylight made its way at the top of a staircase of
+which I had struck the bottom step. I went up it and heard the sound of
+your voice."
+
+Don Luis turned the cripple over and over and was pretty rough about it.
+Then he resumed:
+
+"I wish to impress upon you, my dear sir, that the upshot would have been
+exactly similar if I had attacked you directly and from the start in the
+open air. But, having said this, I confess that chance favoured me to
+some purpose. It has often failed me, in the course of our struggle, but
+this time I had no cause to complain.
+
+"I felt myself in such luck that I never doubted for a second that,
+having found the entrance to the subterranean passage, I should also find
+the way out. As a matter of fact, I had only to pull gently at the slight
+obstacle of a few stacked bricks which hid the opening in order to make
+my exit amid the remains of the castle keep.
+
+"Guided by the sound of your voice, I slipped through the stones and thus
+reached the back of the grotto in which Florence lay. Amusing, wasn't it?
+
+"You can imagine what fun it was to hear you make your little speeches:
+'Answer me, yes or no, Florence. A movement of your head will decide your
+fate. If it's yes, I shall release you. If it's no, you die. Answer me,
+Florence! A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?' And the end,
+above all, was delicious, when you scrambled to the top of the grotto and
+started roaring from up there: 'It's you who have asked to die, Florence.
+You asked for it and you've got it!'
+
+"Just think what a joke it was: at that moment there was no one in the
+grotto! Not a soul! With one effort, I had drawn Florence toward me and
+put her under shelter. And all that you were able to crush with your
+avalanche of rocks was one or two spiders, perhaps, and a few flies
+dozing on the flagstones.
+
+"The trick was done and the farce was nearly finished. Act first: Arsène
+Lupin saved. Act second: Florence Levasseur saved. Act third and last:
+the monster vanquished ... absolutely and with a vengeance!"
+
+Don Luis stood up and contemplated his work with a satisfied eye.
+
+"You look like a sausage, my son!" he cried, yielding at last to his
+sarcastic nature and his habit of treating his enemies familiarly. "A
+regular sausage! A bit on the thin side, perhaps: a saveloy for poor
+people! But there, you don't much care what you look like, I suppose?
+Besides, you're rather like that at all times; and, in any case, you're
+just the thing for the little display of indoor gymnastics which I have
+in mind for you. You'll see: it's an idea of my own, a really original
+idea. Don't be impatient: we shan't be long."
+
+He took one of the guns which the cripple had brought to the well and
+tied to the middle of the gun the end of a twelve or fifteen yards'
+length of rope, fastening the other end to the cords with which the
+cripple was bound, just behind his back. He next took his captive round
+the body and held him over the well:
+
+"Shut your eyes, if you feel at all giddy. And don't be frightened. I'll
+be very careful. Ready?"
+
+He put the cripple down the yawning hole and next took hold of the rope
+which he had just fastened. Then, little by little, inch by inch,
+cautiously, so that it should not knock against the sides of the well,
+the bundle was let down at arm's length.
+
+When it reached a depth of twelve yards or so, the gun stopped its
+further descent and there it remained, slung in the dark and in the exact
+centre of the narrow circumference.
+
+Don Luis set light to a number of pieces of paper, which went whirling
+down, shedding their sinister gleams upon the walls. Then, unable to
+resist the craving for a last speech, he leaned over, as the scoundrel
+had done, and grinned:
+
+"I selected the place with care, so that you shouldn't catch cold. I'm
+bound to look after you, you see. I promised Florence that I wouldn't
+kill you; and I promised the French Government to hand you over alive as
+soon as possible. Only, as I didn't know what to do with you until
+to-morrow morning, I've hung you up in the air.
+
+"It's a pretty trick, isn't it? And you ought to appreciate it, for it's
+so like your own way of doing things. Just think: the gun is resting on
+its two ends, with hardly an inch to spare. So, if you start wriggling,
+or moving, or even breathing too hard, either the barrel or the butt
+end'll give way; and down you go! As for me, I've nothing to do with it!
+
+"If you die, it'll be a pretty little case of suicide. All you've got to
+do, old chap, is to keep quiet. And the beauty of my little contrivance
+is that it will give you a foretaste of the few nights that will precede
+your last hour, when they cut off your head. From this moment forward you
+are alone with your conscience, face to face with what you perhaps call
+your soul, without anything to disturb your silent soliloquy. It's nice
+and thoughtful of me, isn't it? ...
+
+"Well, I'll leave you. And remember: not a movement, not a sigh, not a
+wink, not a throb of the heart! And, above all, no larks! If you start
+larking, you're in the soup. Meditate: that's the best thing you can do.
+Meditate and wait. Good-bye, for the present!"
+
+And Don Luis, satisfied with his homily, went off, muttering:
+
+"That's all right. I won't go so far as Eugène Sue, who says that great
+criminals should have their eyes put out. But, all the same, a little
+corporal punishment, nicely seasoned with fear, is right and proper and
+good for the health and morals."
+
+Don Luis walked away and, taking the brick path round the ruins, turned
+down a little road, which ran along the outer wall to a clump of fir
+trees, where he had brought Florence for shelter.
+
+She was waiting for him, still aching from the horrible suffering which
+she had endured, but already in full possession of her pluck, mistress of
+herself, and apparently rid of all anxiety as to the issue of the fight
+between Don Luis and the cripple.
+
+"It's finished," he said, simply. "To-morrow I will hand him over to
+the police."
+
+She shuddered. But she did not speak; and he observed her in silence.
+
+It was the first time that they were alone together since they had been
+separated by so many tragedies, and next hurled against each other like
+sworn enemies. Don Luis was so greatly excited that, in the end, he could
+utter only insignificant sentences, having no connection with the
+thoughts that came rushing through his mind.
+
+"We shall find the motor car if we follow this wall and then strike off
+to the left.... Do you think you can manage to walk so far? ... When
+we're in the car, we'll go to Alençon. There's a quiet hotel close to the
+chief square. You can wait there until things take a more favourable turn
+for you--and that won't be long, as the criminal is caught."
+
+"Let's go," she said.
+
+He dared not offer to help her. For that matter, she stepped out firmly
+and her graceful body swung from her hips with the same even rhythm as
+usual. Don Luis once again felt all his old admiration and all his ardent
+love for her. And yet that had never seemed more remote than at this
+moment when he had saved her life by untold miracles of energy.
+
+She had not vouchsafed him a word of thanks nor yet one of those milder
+glances which reward an effort made; and she remained the same as on the
+first day, the mysterious creature whose secret soul he had never
+understood, and upon whom not even the storm of terrible events had cast
+the faintest light.
+
+What were her thoughts? What were her wishes? What aim was she pursuing?
+These were obscure problems which he could no longer hope to solve.
+Henceforth each of them must go his own way in life and each of them
+could only remember the other with feelings of anger and spite.
+
+"No!" he said to himself, as she took her place in the limousine. "No!
+The separation shall not take place like that. The words that have to be
+spoken between us shall be spoken; and, whether she wishes or not, I will
+tear the veil that hides her."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The journey did not take long. At Alençon Don Luis entered Florence in
+the visitors' book under the first name that occurred to him and left her
+to herself. An hour later he came and knocked at her door.
+
+This time again he had not the courage at once to ask her the question
+which he had made up his mind to put to her. Besides, there were other
+points which he wished to clear up.
+
+"Florence," he said, "before I hand over that man, I should like to know
+what he was to you."
+
+"A friend, an unhappy friend, for whom I felt pity," she declared. "I
+find it difficult to-day to understand my compassion for such a monster.
+But, some years ago, when I first met him, I became attached to him
+because of his wretchedness, his physical weakness, and all the symptoms
+of death which he bore upon him even then. He had the opportunity of
+doing me a few services; and, though he led a hidden life, which worried
+me in certain respects, he gradually and without my knowing it acquired a
+considerable influence over me.
+
+"I believed in his insight, in his will, in his absolute devotion; and,
+when the Mornington case started, it was he, as I now realize, who guided
+my actions and, later, those of Gaston Sauverand. It was he who compelled
+me to practise lying and deceit, persuading me that he was working for
+Marie Fauville's safety. It was he who inspired us with such suspicion of
+yourself and who taught us to be so silent, where he and his affairs were
+concerned, that Gaston Sauverand did not even dare mention him in his
+interview with you.
+
+"I don't know how I can have been so blind. But it was so. Nothing opened
+my eyes. Nothing made me suspect for a moment that harmless, ailing
+creature, who spent half his life in hospitals or nursing-homes, who
+underwent every possible sort of operation, and who, if he did sometimes
+speak to me of his love, must have known that he could not hope to--"
+
+Florence did not finish her sentence. Her eyes had encountered Don Luis's
+eyes; and she received a deep impression that he was not listening to
+what she said. He was looking at her; and that was all. The words she
+uttered passed unheard.
+
+To Don Luis any explanation concerning the tragedy itself mattered
+nothing, so long as he was not enlightened on the one point that
+interested him, on Florence's private thoughts about himself, thoughts of
+aversion, of contempt. Outside that, anything that she could say was vain
+and tedious.
+
+He went up to her and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"Florence, you know what I feel for you, do you not?"
+
+She blushed, taken aback, as though the question was the very last that
+she expected to hear. Nevertheless, she did not lower her eyes, and she
+answered frankly:
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"But, perhaps," he continued, more eagerly, "you do not know how deeply I
+feel it? Perhaps you do not know that my life has no other aim but you?"
+
+"I know that also," she said.
+
+"Then, if you know it," he said, "I must conclude that it was just that
+which caused your hostility to me. From the beginning I tried to be your
+friend and I tried only to defend you. And yet from the beginning I felt
+that for you I was the object of an aversion that was both instinctive
+and deliberate. Never did I see in your eyes anything but coldness,
+dislike, contempt, and even repulsion.
+
+"At moments of danger, when your life or your liberty was at stake, you
+risked committing any imprudence rather than accept my assistance. I was
+the enemy, the man to be distrusted, the man capable of every infamy, the
+man to be avoided, and to be thought of only with a sort of dread. Isn't
+that hatred? Is there anything but hatred to explain such an attitude?"
+
+Florence did not answer at once. She seemed to be putting off the moment
+at which to speak the words that rose to her lips. Her face, thin and
+drawn with weariness and pain, was gentler than usual.
+
+"Yes," she said, "there are other things than hatred to explain that
+attitude."
+
+Don Luis was dumfounded. He did not quite understand the meaning of the
+reply; but Florence's tone of voice disconcerted him beyond measure, and
+he also saw that Florence's eyes no longer wore their usual scornful
+expression and that they were filled with smiling charm. And it was the
+first time that Florence had smiled in his presence.
+
+"Speak, speak, I entreat you!" he stammered.
+
+"I mean to say that there is another feeling which explains coldness,
+mistrust, fear, and hostility. It is not always those whom we detest that
+we avoid with the greatest fear; and, if we avoid them, it is often
+because we are afraid of ourselves, because we are ashamed, because we
+rebel and want to resist and want to forget and cannot--"
+
+She stopped; and, when he wildly stretched out his arms to her, as if
+beseeching her to say more and still more, she nodded her head, thus
+telling him that she need not go on speaking for him to read to the
+very bottom of her soul and discover the secret of love which she kept
+hidden there.
+
+Don Luis staggered on his feet. He was intoxicated with happiness, almost
+suffered physical pain from that unexpected happiness. After the horrible
+minutes through which he had passed amid the impressive surroundings of
+the Old Castle, it appeared to him madness to admit that such
+extraordinary bliss could suddenly blossom forth in the commonplace
+setting of that room at a hotel.
+
+He could have longed for space around him, forest, mountains, moonlight,
+a radiant sunset, all the beauty and all the poetry of the earth. With
+one rush, he had reached the very acme of happiness. Florence's very life
+came before him, from the instant of their meeting to the tragic moment
+when the cripple, bending over her and seeing her eyes filled with tears,
+had shouted:
+
+"She's crying! She's crying! What madness! But I know your secret,
+Florence! And you're crying! Florence, Florence, you yourself want to
+die!"
+
+It was a secret of love, a passionate impulse which, from the first day,
+had driven her all trembling toward Don Luis. Then it had bewildered her,
+filled her with fear, appeared to her as a betrayal of Marie and
+Sauverand and, by turns urging her toward and drawing her away from the
+man whom she loved and whom she admired for his heroism and loyalty,
+rending her with remorse and overwhelming her as though it were a crime,
+had ended by delivering her, feeble and disabled, to the diabolical
+influence of the villain who coveted her.
+
+Don Luis did not know what to do, did not know in what words to express
+his rapture. His lips trembled. His eyes filled with tears. His nature
+prompted him to take her in his arms, to kiss her as a child kisses, full
+on the lips, with a full heart. But a feeling of intense respect
+paralyzed his yearning. And, overcome with emotion, he fell at Florence's
+feet, stammering words of love and adoration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+LUPIN'S LUPINS
+
+
+Next morning, a little before eight o'clock, Valenglay was talking in his
+own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
+
+"So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He'll come?"
+
+"I haven't the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come
+with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business.
+He will come, for pride's sake, at the last stroke of eight."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. As
+things now stand, with Florence Levasseur's life in the balance, if he
+has not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bring
+him back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur is
+dead and that he, Arsène Lupin, is dead."
+
+"Whereas Lupin is immortal," said Valenglay, laughing. "You're right.
+Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished than
+I if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung up
+from Angers yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. He
+had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned
+to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted
+coach-house.
+
+"You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and that
+we shall know the results. Listen: eight o'clock!"
+
+At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stopped
+outside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders had
+been given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
+
+To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly not
+unexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have been
+surprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed that
+astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to
+pass the bounds of human possibility.
+
+"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
+
+"It's done, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"Have you collared the scoundrel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By Jove!" said Valenglay. "You're a fine fellow!" And he went on to ask,
+"An ogre, of course? An evil, undaunted brute?--"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Président, a cripple, a degenerate, responsible for his
+actions, certainly, but a man in whom the doctors will find every form of
+wasting illness: disease of the spinal cord, tuberculosis, and all the
+rest of it."
+
+"And is that the man whom Florence Levasseur loved?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président!" Don Luis violently protested. "Florence never
+loved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as any one would for a
+fellow-creature doomed to an early death; and it was out of pity that she
+allowed him to hope that she might marry him later, at some time in the
+vague future."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président, of that and of a good deal more besides, for
+I have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued:
+"Monsieur le Président, now that the man is caught, it will be easy for
+the police to find out every detail of his life. But meanwhile I can sum
+up that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it,
+and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the
+story of the Mornington case.
+
+"Jean Vernocq was born at Alençon and brought up at old M. Langernault's
+expense. He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of their
+money and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknown
+thief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in their
+despair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.
+
+"This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M.
+Langernault, Jean Vernocq's protector, who was ill at the time. After his
+recovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shot
+in the abdomen. The gun had been loaded without the old fellow's
+knowledge. By whom? By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron's
+cash box the night before ...
+
+"In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thus
+amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers
+containing evidence of Florence Levasseur's birth and of her right to all
+the inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers which
+the friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who brought
+Florence over from America. By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended by
+discovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.
+
+"He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, giving
+up his whole life to her service. At that time he did not yet know what
+profit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from his
+relations with her.
+
+"Suddenly everything became different. An indiscreet word let fall by a
+solicitor's clerk told him of a will in Maître Lepertuis's drawer which
+would be interesting to look at. He obtained a sight of it by bribing the
+clerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note. The will,
+as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington's; and in it Cosmo Mornington
+bequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and of
+Victor Sauverand....
+
+"Jean Vernocq saw his chance. A hundred million francs! To get hold of
+that sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying health
+and strength from the world's great healers, all that he had to do was
+first to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritance
+and Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to make
+Florence his wife.
+
+"Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of Hippolyte
+Fauville's old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel
+family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Five
+persons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington;
+next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond,
+his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
+
+"With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself to
+the American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phials
+which Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
+
+"But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had secured
+through his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind he
+soon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty to
+contend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wife
+and on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he took
+occasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, to
+suggest to Fauville's terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide of
+which you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
+
+"In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, and
+without appearing in the business, without Fauville's even suspecting the
+action brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths of
+Fauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilish
+expedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accuse
+him, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
+
+"There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention of
+Inspector Vérot. Inspector Vérot died. And there was only one danger in
+the future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conduct
+Vernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the terms
+of Cosmo Mornington's will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first by
+giving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in and
+Florence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to
+have me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
+
+"He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able to
+come and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florence
+and later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and the
+cunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
+
+"When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville and
+Gaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; Gaston
+Sauverand died.
+
+"So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The police
+pursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for the
+payment of the inheritance was at hand.
+
+"This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst of
+the fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home in
+the Avenue des Ternes. From there he conducted his operations, thanks to
+his influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to the
+mother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior's orders and
+ignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence went
+to the meeting at the Prefect's office, and herself brought the documents
+relating to her.
+
+"Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near
+the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which,
+at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to
+compromise him in any case.
+
+"You know the rest, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis, concluding his
+statement. "Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the part
+which she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by the
+terrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-home
+where the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought:
+to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he had
+to say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, on
+the pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieur
+le Président."
+
+Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story of
+the most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heard
+it perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threw
+by contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the
+man who had fought for the good cause.
+
+"And you found them?" he asked.
+
+"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le Président. It was
+time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by
+sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a
+block of stone."
+
+"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her
+death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."
+
+"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le Président, and Florence
+refused."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed
+to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing
+the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her
+property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will
+in favor of Jean Vernocq.
+
+"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the mere
+fact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents proving
+her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass
+to her own legal and settled heir.
+
+"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of
+any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him
+after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led a
+quiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added them
+up--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of his
+stamp, the one made up for the other."
+
+"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.
+
+"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he had
+taken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents which
+the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great
+criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte
+Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned
+that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a
+memorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alençon to intercept Fauville's
+letters to old Langernault.
+
+"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Vérot overheard a
+conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed
+Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and that
+Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum,
+which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare
+and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare
+belonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are his
+correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attaché, and the letters
+denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the
+press. Here--
+
+"But need I say more, Monsieur le Président? You have the complete
+evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the
+accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were
+strictly true."
+
+"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"
+
+"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."
+
+"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't
+be alarmed. He won't escape."
+
+"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and the
+business seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remains
+unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the
+marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have
+been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent though
+she was. Monsieur le Préfet declares that you have solved this problem."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I was
+right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with
+Mme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."
+
+"Come, come!"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when
+he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."
+
+"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling
+logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,
+hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that
+a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were
+loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to
+strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several
+months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
+
+"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the
+marks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his
+death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he
+put the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, and
+did, destroy."
+
+Don Luis's explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simple
+that the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, the
+whole charge, everything that had caused Marie's despair and death and
+the death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely small
+detail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of people
+who had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of the
+teeth of the tiger.
+
+The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparently
+invincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme.
+Fauville's teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world were
+able, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth,
+Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
+
+Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on which
+Mme. Fauville's innocence became known, the problem had remained
+unsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea:
+that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way than
+by a live bite of that same tooth!
+
+"It's like the egg of Columbus," said Valenglay, laughing. "It had to be
+thought of."
+
+"You are right, Monsieur le Président. People don't think of those
+things. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the period
+when Arsène Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and as
+Prince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merely
+an anagram of Arsène Lupin? Well, it's just the same to-day: Luis Perenna
+also is an anagram of Arsène Lupin. The two names are composed of the
+same eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was the
+second time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg of
+Columbus again! It had to be thought of!"
+
+Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that
+devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to
+bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this
+last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and
+impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting
+charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible
+adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to
+catch the public napping!
+
+The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
+
+"Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keeping
+your word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep my word. You
+are free."
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Président. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+"He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Préfet de Police has
+arranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of either
+of you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should not
+remain Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He is
+bound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or even
+suspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington's legal
+heiress and will receive the hundred millions."
+
+"She will not keep it, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Florence Levasseur doesn't want the money. It has been the cause of
+unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Cosmo Mornington's hundred millions will be wholly devoted to
+making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the
+northern Congo."
+
+"In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?" said Valenglay,
+laughing. "By Jove, it's a fine work and I second it with all my heart.
+An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, Don
+Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the
+debts--of Arsène Lupin!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which
+had brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailing
+they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison
+himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.
+
+On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found
+his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand
+dignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication and
+precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several
+secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Léauty, commanding
+the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all
+the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest
+of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult
+to explain.
+
+The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes
+standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to
+pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular
+constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing
+empire in full working order.
+
+Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He has now been back for over two years. Every one remembers the stir
+caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy was
+renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsène Lupin's arrest.
+But what could the authorities do?
+
+Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsène
+Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and
+people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsène Lupin
+was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of
+bringing Arsène Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.
+
+He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming
+valleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest little
+pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with
+bright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays,
+in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who
+was Arsène Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.
+
+He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful
+features, and a young man's bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her
+pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded
+by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.
+
+Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They are
+unfortunate people imploring the master's aid, victims of oppression,
+weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who have
+been ruined by their passions.
+
+For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his full
+attention, the help of his far-seeing advice, his experience, his
+strength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fight
+the good fight once more.
+
+And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect's office or some
+subordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to his
+judgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to
+the business.
+
+In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and
+philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates
+his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes
+at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble
+carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsène
+carnation."
+
+But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer.
+During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn
+and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants,
+standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of
+all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.
+
+They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the
+two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's
+lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of
+soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the
+thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the
+entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with
+this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:
+
+"And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow."
+
+You will say that this is a confession. But why not?
+
+In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his
+house--the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac,
+who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou--Don Luis is not afraid to
+speak of Arsène Lupin.
+
+"I used to see a great deal of him," he says. "He was not a bad man. I
+will not go so far as to compare him with the Seven Sages, or even to
+hold him up as an example to future generations, but still we must judge
+him with a certain indulgence.
+
+"He did a vast amount of good and a moderate amount of harm. Those who
+suffered through him deserved what they got; and fate would have punished
+them sooner or later if he had not forestalled her. Between a Lupin who
+selected his victims among the ruck of wicked rich men and some big
+company promoter who deliberately ruins numbers of poor people, would you
+hesitate for a moment? Does not Lupin come out best?
+
+"And, on the other hand, what a host of good actions! What countless
+proofs of disinterested generosity! A burglar? I admit it. A swindler? I
+don't deny it. He was all that. But he was something more than that. And,
+while he amused the gallery with his skill and ingenuity, he roused the
+general enthusiasm in other ways.
+
+"People laughed at his practical jokes, but they loved his pluck, his
+courage, his adventurous spirit, his contempt for danger, his shrewd
+insight, his unfailing good humour, his reckless energy: all qualities
+that stood out at a period when the most active virtues of our race had
+reached their zenith, the period of the motor car and the aeroplane....
+
+"One day," he said, as a joke, "I should like my epitaph to read, 'Here
+lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.'" That was quite correct. He was a master
+of adventure.
+
+"And, if the spirit of adventure led him too often to put his hand in
+other people's pockets, it also led him to battlefields where it gives
+those who are worthy opportunity to fight and win titles of distinction
+which are not within reach of all. It was there that he gained his. It is
+there that you should see him at work, spending his strength braving
+death, and defying destiny. And it is because of this that you must
+forgive him, even if he did sometimes get the better of a commissary of
+police or steal the watch of an examining magistrate. Let us show some
+indulgence to our professors of energy."
+
+And, nodding his head, Don Luis concludes:
+
+"Then, you see, he had another virtue which is not to be despised. It is
+a virtue for which we should be grateful to him in these gray days of
+ours: he knew how to smile!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Teeth of the Tiger, by Maurice Leblanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thevalleyoffear b/files/books/unrelated/thevalleyoffear
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..585d0e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thevalleyoffear
@@ -0,0 +1,7166 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Valley of Fear, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Valley of Fear
+
+Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Posting Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3289]
+Release Date: June, 2002
+Last Updated: March 10, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF FEAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Brannan
+
+
+
+
+
+THE VALLEY OF FEAR
+
+By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+Part 1--The Tragedy of Birlstone
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1--The Warning
+
+
+
+“I am inclined to think--” said I.
+
+“I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.
+
+I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll
+admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. “Really, Holmes,”
+ said I severely, “you are a little trying at times.”
+
+He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate
+answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted
+breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had
+just drawn from its envelope. Then he took the envelope itself, held it
+up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and the
+flap.
+
+“It is Porlock's writing,” said he thoughtfully. “I can hardly doubt
+that it is Porlock's writing, though I have seen it only twice before.
+The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive. But if it is
+Porlock, then it must be something of the very first importance.”
+
+He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation
+disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.
+
+“Who then is Porlock?” I asked.
+
+“Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but
+behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he
+frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever
+to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is
+important, not for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in
+touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal
+with the lion--anything that is insignificant in companionship with what
+is formidable: not only formidable, Watson, but sinister--in the highest
+degree sinister. That is where he comes within my purview. You have
+heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?”
+
+“The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--”
+
+“My blushes, Watson!” Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.
+
+“I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.”
+
+“A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. “You are developing a certain
+unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to
+guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are uttering libel
+in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and the wonder of it!
+The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the
+controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or
+marred the destiny of nations--that's the man! But so aloof is he
+from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his
+management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have
+uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension
+as a solatium for his wounded character. Is he not the celebrated author
+of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied
+heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the
+scientific press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce?
+Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be your
+respective roles! That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser
+men, our day will surely come.”
+
+“May I be there to see!” I exclaimed devoutly. “But you were speaking of
+this man Porlock.”
+
+“Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way
+from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound link--between
+ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able
+to test it.”
+
+“But no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”
+
+“Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock. Led
+on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged by the
+judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to him by
+devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance information which
+has been of value--that highest value which anticipates and prevents
+rather than avenges crime. I cannot doubt that, if we had the cipher, we
+should find that this communication is of the nature that I indicate.”
+
+Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose and,
+leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which ran as
+follows:
+
+534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41 DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE 26
+BIRLSTONE 9 47 171
+
+“What do you make of it, Holmes?”
+
+“It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information.”
+
+“But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?”
+
+“In this instance, none at all.”
+
+“Why do you say 'in this instance'?”
+
+“Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the
+apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the intelligence
+without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is clearly a reference
+to the words in a page of some book. Until I am told which page and
+which book I am powerless.”
+
+“But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?”
+
+“Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page in
+question.”
+
+“Then why has he not indicated the book?”
+
+“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is
+the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing
+cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are
+undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from it.
+Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does
+not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is more
+probable, the very volume to which these figures refer.”
+
+Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the
+appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were
+expecting.
+
+“The same writing,” remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, “and
+actually signed,” he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the
+epistle. “Come, we are getting on, Watson.” His brow clouded, however,
+as he glanced over the contents.
+
+“Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our
+expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come to
+no harm.
+
+“DEAR MR. HOLMES [he says]:
+
+“I will go no further in this matter. It is too dangerous--he suspects
+me. I can see that he suspects me. He came to me quite unexpectedly
+after I had actually addressed this envelope with the intention of
+sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to cover it up. If he had
+seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read suspicion in his
+eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can now be of no use to you.
+
+“FRED PORLOCK.”
+
+Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his
+fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.
+
+“After all,” he said at last, “there may be nothing in it. It may be
+only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may have
+read the accusation in the other's eyes.”
+
+“The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty.”
+
+“No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they
+mean. There is one predominant 'He' for all of them.”
+
+“But what can he do?”
+
+“Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the first brains of
+Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there
+are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared
+out of his senses--kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon
+its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit.
+The one is clear and firm. The other hardly legible.”
+
+“Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?”
+
+“Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case, and
+possibly bring trouble on him.”
+
+“No doubt,” said I. “Of course.” I had picked up the original cipher
+message and was bending my brows over it. “It's pretty maddening to
+think that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper, and
+that it is beyond human power to penetrate it.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the
+unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations. “I
+wonder!” said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “Perhaps
+there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let us
+consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This man's reference
+is to a book. That is our point of departure.”
+
+“A somewhat vague one.”
+
+“Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon it,
+it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications have we as to this
+book?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher message
+begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it as a working
+hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the cipher refers.
+So our book has already become a LARGE book, which is surely something
+gained. What other indications have we as to the nature of this large
+book? The next sign is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?”
+
+“Chapter the second, no doubt.”
+
+“Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the
+page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if
+page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first
+one must have been really intolerable.”
+
+“Column!” I cried.
+
+“Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not
+column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to
+visualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a
+considerable length, since one of the words is numbered in the document
+as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the limits of what
+reason can supply?”
+
+“I fear that we have.”
+
+“Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear
+Watson--yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been an unusual one, he
+would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he had intended, before his
+plans were nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope. He says so
+in his note. This would seem to indicate that the book is one which he
+thought I would have no difficulty in finding for myself. He had it--and
+he imagined that I would have it, too. In short, Watson, it is a very
+common book.”
+
+“What you say certainly sounds plausible.”
+
+“So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in
+double columns and in common use.”
+
+“The Bible!” I cried triumphantly.
+
+“Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even
+if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any volume
+which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty's
+associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he
+could hardly suppose that two copies would have the same pagination.
+This is clearly a book which is standardized. He knows for certain that
+his page 534 will exactly agree with my page 534.”
+
+“But very few books would correspond with that.”
+
+“Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to
+standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess.”
+
+“Bradshaw!”
+
+“There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous
+and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly lend itself
+to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate Bradshaw. The
+dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason. What then is
+left?”
+
+“An almanac!”
+
+“Excellent, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the
+spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac. It
+is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double
+column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I
+remember right, quite garrulous towards the end.” He picked the volume
+from his desk. “Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of
+print dealing, I perceive, with the trade and resources of British
+India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.' Not,
+I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred and twenty-seven
+is 'Government'; which at least makes sense, though somewhat irrelevant
+to ourselves and Professor Moriarty. Now let us try again. What does the
+Mahratta government do? Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are
+undone, my good Watson! It is finished!”
+
+He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows
+bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy,
+staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation
+from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a
+second yellow-covered volume in his hand.
+
+“We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!” he cried. “We are
+before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the seventh of
+January, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It is more than
+likely that Porlock took his message from the old one. No doubt he would
+have told us so had his letter of explanation been written. Now let us
+see what page 534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is 'There,'
+which is much more promising. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is
+'is'--'There is' “--Holmes's eyes were gleaming with excitement, and his
+thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the words--“'danger.' Ha!
+Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. 'There is danger--may--come--very
+soon--one.' Then we have the name 'Douglas'--'rich--country--now--at
+Birlstone--House--Birlstone--confidence--is--pressing.' There, Watson!
+What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had
+such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it.”
+
+I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as he
+deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.
+
+“What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!” said I.
+
+“On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well,” said Holmes. “When
+you search a single column for words with which to express your meaning,
+you can hardly expect to get everything you want. You are bound to leave
+something to the intelligence of your correspondent. The purport is
+perfectly clear. Some deviltry is intended against one Douglas,
+whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country gentleman. He is
+sure--'confidence' was as near as he could get to 'confident'--that it
+is pressing. There is our result--and a very workmanlike little bit of
+analysis it was!”
+
+Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work,
+even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he
+aspired. He was still chuckling over his success when Billy swung open
+the door and Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard was ushered into the
+room.
+
+Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec MacDonald
+was far from having attained the national fame which he has now
+achieved. He was a young but trusted member of the detective force, who
+had distinguished himself in several cases which had been intrusted
+to him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional physical
+strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no
+less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind his
+bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and a
+hard Aberdonian accent.
+
+Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success,
+his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. For
+this reason the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his amateur
+colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness with which
+he consulted Holmes in every difficulty. Mediocrity knows nothing higher
+than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and MacDonald had
+talent enough for his profession to enable him to perceive that there
+was no humiliation in seeking the assistance of one who already stood
+alone in Europe, both in his gifts and in his experience. Holmes was
+not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant of the big Scotchman, and
+smiled at the sight of him.
+
+“You are an early bird, Mr. Mac,” said he. “I wish you luck with your
+worm. I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot.”
+
+“If you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the truth,
+I'm thinking, Mr. Holmes,” the inspector answered, with a knowing grin.
+“Well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill. No, I won't
+smoke, I thank you. I'll have to be pushing on my way; for the early
+hours of a case are the precious ones, as no man knows better than your
+own self. But--but--”
+
+The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of
+absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the sheet upon
+which I had scrawled the enigmatic message.
+
+“Douglas!” he stammered. “Birlstone! What's this, Mr. Holmes? Man, it's
+witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you get those
+names?”
+
+“It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to solve. But
+why--what's amiss with the names?”
+
+The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed astonishment.
+“Just this,” said he, “that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House was
+horribly murdered last night!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2--Sherlock Holmes Discourses
+
+
+
+It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It
+would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited
+by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in
+his singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long
+overstimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual
+perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the
+horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face
+showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who sees
+the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated solution.
+
+“Remarkable!” said he. “Remarkable!”
+
+“You don't seem surprised.”
+
+“Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised. Why should I be surprised?
+I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which I know to be
+important, warning me that danger threatens a certain person. Within
+an hour I learn that this danger has actually materialized and that
+the person is dead. I am interested; but, as you observe, I am not
+surprised.”
+
+In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts about
+the letter and the cipher. MacDonald sat with his chin on his hands and
+his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.
+
+“I was going down to Birlstone this morning,” said he. “I had come to
+ask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here. But from
+what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London.”
+
+“I rather think not,” said Holmes.
+
+“Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!” cried the inspector. “The papers will be full
+of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the mystery
+if there is a man in London who prophesied the crime before ever it
+occurred? We have only to lay our hands on that man, and the rest will
+follow.”
+
+“No doubt, Mr. Mac. But how do you propose to lay your hands on the
+so-called Porlock?”
+
+MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him. “Posted
+in Camberwell--that doesn't help us much. Name, you say, is assumed. Not
+much to go on, certainly. Didn't you say that you have sent him money?”
+
+“Twice.”
+
+“And how?”
+
+“In notes to Camberwell post office.”
+
+“Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?”
+
+“No.”
+
+The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. “Why not?”
+
+“Because I always keep faith. I had promised when he first wrote that I
+would not try to trace him.”
+
+“You think there is someone behind him?”
+
+“I know there is.”
+
+“This professor that I've heard you mention?”
+
+“Exactly!”
+
+Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced
+towards me. “I won't conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in
+the C.I.D. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over this
+professor. I made some inquiries myself about the matter. He seems to be
+a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man.”
+
+“I'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent.”
+
+“Man, you can't but recognize it! After I heard your view I made it my
+business to see him. I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the talk got
+that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a globe,
+and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book; but I don't mind
+saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good Aberdeen
+upbringing. He'd have made a grand meenister with his thin face and gray
+hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put his hand on my shoulder
+as we were parting, it was like a father's blessing before you go out
+into the cold, cruel world.”
+
+Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. “Great!” he said. “Great! Tell me,
+Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I suppose,
+in the professor's study?”
+
+“That's so.”
+
+“A fine room, is it not?”
+
+“Very fine--very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“You sat in front of his writing desk?”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?”
+
+“Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my face.”
+
+“It would be. Did you happen to observe a picture over the professor's
+head?”
+
+“I don't miss much, Mr. Holmes. Maybe I learned that from you. Yes, I
+saw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at
+you sideways.”
+
+“That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze.”
+
+The inspector endeavoured to look interested.
+
+“Jean Baptiste Greuze,” Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and
+leaning well back in his chair, “was a French artist who flourished
+between the years 1750 and 1800. I allude, of course to his working
+career. Modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion formed
+of him by his contemporaries.”
+
+The inspector's eyes grew abstracted. “Hadn't we better--” he said.
+
+“We are doing so,” Holmes interrupted. “All that I am saying has a
+very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone
+Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it.”
+
+MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. “Your thoughts
+move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two,
+and I can't get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the
+connection between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?”
+
+“All knowledge comes useful to the detective,” remarked Holmes. “Even
+the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled
+La Jeune Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand
+francs--more than forty thousand pounds--at the Portalis sale may start
+a train of reflection in your mind.”
+
+It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.
+
+“I may remind you,” Holmes continued, “that the professor's salary can
+be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is seven
+hundred a year.”
+
+“Then how could he buy--”
+
+“Quite so! How could he?”
+
+“Ay, that's remarkable,” said the inspector thoughtfully. “Talk away,
+Mr. Holmes. I'm just loving it. It's fine!”
+
+Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration--the
+characteristic of the real artist. “What about Birlstone?” he asked.
+
+“We've time yet,” said the inspector, glancing at his watch. “I've a cab
+at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But about
+this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you had never
+met Professor Moriarty.”
+
+“No, I never have.”
+
+“Then how do you know about his rooms?”
+
+“Ah, that's another matter. I have been three times in his rooms, twice
+waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.
+Once--well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective.
+It was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his
+papers--with the most unexpected results.”
+
+“You found something compromising?”
+
+“Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have now seen
+the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy man. How
+did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a station
+master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven hundred a year.
+And he owns a Greuze.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Surely the inference is plain.”
+
+“You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an
+illegal fashion?”
+
+“Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of
+exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web
+where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention
+the Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own
+observation.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's more
+than interesting--it's just wonderful. But let us have it a little
+clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where does the
+money come from?”
+
+“Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?”
+
+“Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I
+don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things
+and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not
+business.”
+
+“Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a
+master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts.”
+
+“Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man.”
+
+“Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would
+be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day
+at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles--even Professor
+Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,
+to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent.
+commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all
+been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things
+about Moriarty which may interest you.”
+
+“You'll interest me, right enough.”
+
+“I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with
+this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,
+pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every
+sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran,
+as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself. What do you
+think he pays him?”
+
+“I'd like to hear.”
+
+“Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see--the American
+business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It's more
+than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains
+and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my business
+to hunt down some of Moriarty's checks lately--just common innocent
+checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn on six
+different banks. Does that make any impression on your mind?”
+
+“Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?”
+
+“That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should know
+what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the
+bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Credit Lyonnais
+as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I
+commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty.”
+
+Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the
+conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his
+practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the matter
+in hand.
+
+“He can keep, anyhow,” said he. “You've got us side-tracked with your
+interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark
+that there is some connection between the professor and the crime. That
+you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can we for
+our present practical needs get any further than that?”
+
+“We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is, as
+I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an
+unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as
+we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first
+place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his
+people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in
+his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this murdered man--this
+Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the arch-criminal's
+subordinates--had in some way betrayed the chief. His punishment
+followed, and would be known to all--if only to put the fear of death
+into them.”
+
+“Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the ordinary
+course of business. Was there any robbery?”
+
+“I have not heard.”
+
+“If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in
+favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it on a
+promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to manage
+it. Either is possible. But whichever it may be, or if it is some third
+combination, it is down at Birlstone that we must seek the solution. I
+know our man too well to suppose that he has left anything up here which
+may lead us to him.”
+
+“Then to Birlstone we must go!” cried MacDonald, jumping from his chair.
+“My word! it's later than I thought. I can give you, gentlemen, five
+minutes for preparation, and that is all.”
+
+“And ample for us both,” said Holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to
+change from his dressing gown to his coat. “While we are on our way, Mr.
+Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it.”
+
+“All about it” proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was
+enough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of
+the expert's closest attention. He brightened and rubbed his thin hands
+together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. A long
+series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there was a
+fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special
+gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That
+razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.
+
+Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and
+his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for
+work reached him. Leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to
+MacDonald's short sketch of the problem which awaited us in Sussex. The
+inspector was himself dependent, as he explained to us, upon a scribbled
+account forwarded to him by the milk train in the early hours of the
+morning. White Mason, the local officer, was a personal friend, and
+hence MacDonald had been notified much more promptly than is usual at
+Scotland Yard when provincials need their assistance. It is a very cold
+scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is generally asked to run.
+
+“DEAR INSPECTOR MACDONALD [said the letter which he read to us]:
+
+“Official requisition for your services is in separate envelope. This is
+for your private eye. Wire me what train in the morning you can get for
+Birlstone, and I will meet it--or have it met if I am too occupied. This
+case is a snorter. Don't waste a moment in getting started. If you can
+bring Mr. Holmes, please do so; for he will find something after his own
+heart. We would think the whole had been fixed up for theatrical
+effect if there wasn't a dead man in the middle of it. My word! it IS a
+snorter.”
+
+“Your friend seems to be no fool,” remarked Holmes.
+
+“No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge.”
+
+“Well, have you anything more?”
+
+“Only that he will give us every detail when we meet.”
+
+“Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he had been
+horribly murdered?”
+
+“That was in the inclosed official report. It didn't say 'horrible':
+that's not a recognized official term. It gave the name John Douglas. It
+mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the discharge of
+a shotgun. It also mentioned the hour of the alarm, which was close on
+to midnight last night. It added that the case was undoubtedly one of
+murder, but that no arrest had been made, and that the case was one
+which presented some very perplexing and extraordinary features. That's
+absolutely all we have at present, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, Mr. Mac. The
+temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane
+of our profession. I can see only two things for certain at present--a
+great brain in London, and a dead man in Sussex. It's the chain between
+that we are going to trace.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3--The Tragedy of Birlstone
+
+
+
+Now for a moment I will ask leave to remove my own insignificant
+personality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived upon
+the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards. Only in
+this way can I make the reader appreciate the people concerned and the
+strange setting in which their fate was cast.
+
+The village of Birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of
+half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of Sussex.
+For centuries it had remained unchanged; but within the last few years
+its picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a number of
+well-to-do residents, whose villas peep out from the woods around. These
+woods are locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of the great Weald
+forest, which thins away until it reaches the northern chalk downs.
+A number of small shops have come into being to meet the wants of the
+increased population; so there seems some prospect that Birlstone may
+soon grow from an ancient village into a modern town. It is the centre
+for a considerable area of country, since Tunbridge Wells, the nearest
+place of importance, is ten or twelve miles to the eastward, over the
+borders of Kent.
+
+About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for its
+huge beech trees, is the ancient Manor House of Birlstone. Part of this
+venerable building dates back to the time of the first crusade, when
+Hugo de Capus built a fortalice in the centre of the estate, which had
+been granted to him by the Red King. This was destroyed by fire in
+1543, and some of its smoke-blackened corner stones were used when, in
+Jacobean times, a brick country house rose upon the ruins of the feudal
+castle.
+
+The Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned
+windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early
+seventeenth century. Of the double moats which had guarded its more
+warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served
+the humble function of a kitchen garden. The inner one was still there,
+and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in depth,
+round the whole house. A small stream fed it and continued beyond it,
+so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never ditchlike or
+unhealthy. The ground floor windows were within a foot of the surface of
+the water.
+
+The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and
+windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants
+of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this
+right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but
+actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. By thus
+renewing the custom of the old feudal days the Manor House was converted
+into an island during the night--a fact which had a very direct bearing
+upon the mystery which was soon to engage the attention of all England.
+
+The house had been untenanted for some years and was threatening to
+moulder into a picturesque decay when the Douglases took possession of
+it. This family consisted of only two individuals--John Douglas and his
+wife. Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person. In
+age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a
+grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous
+figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth.
+He was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners,
+giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some far
+lower horizon than the county society of Sussex.
+
+Yet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more
+cultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the
+villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending
+their smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a remarkably
+rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an excellent song.
+He appeared to have plenty of money, which was said to have been gained
+in the California gold fields, and it was clear from his own talk and
+that of his wife that he had spent a part of his life in America.
+
+The good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by
+his democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter
+indifference to danger. Though a wretched rider, he turned out at every
+meet, and took the most amazing falls in his determination to hold
+his own with the best. When the vicarage caught fire he distinguished
+himself also by the fearlessness with which he reentered the building
+to save property, after the local fire brigade had given it up as
+impossible. Thus it came about that John Douglas of the Manor House had
+within five years won himself quite a reputation in Birlstone.
+
+His wife, too, was popular with those who had made her acquaintance;
+though, after the English fashion, the callers upon a stranger who
+settled in the county without introductions were few and far between.
+This mattered the less to her, as she was retiring by disposition, and
+very much absorbed, to all appearance, in her husband and her domestic
+duties. It was known that she was an English lady who had met Mr.
+Douglas in London, he being at that time a widower. She was a beautiful
+woman, tall, dark, and slender, some twenty years younger than her
+husband; a disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the contentment of
+their family life.
+
+It was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that
+the confidence between the two did not appear to be complete, since the
+wife was either very reticent about her husband's past life, or else, as
+seemed more likely, was imperfectly informed about it. It had also been
+noted and commented upon by a few observant people that there were signs
+sometimes of some nerve-strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas, and that
+she would display acute uneasiness if her absent husband should ever
+be particularly late in his return. On a quiet countryside, where all
+gossip is welcome, this weakness of the lady of the Manor House did not
+pass without remark, and it bulked larger upon people's memory when the
+events arose which gave it a very special significance.
+
+There was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was, it
+is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time of
+the strange happenings which will now be narrated brought his name
+prominently before the public. This was Cecil James Barker, of Hales
+Lodge, Hampstead.
+
+Cecil Barker's tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the main
+street of Birlstone village; for he was a frequent and welcome visitor
+at the Manor House. He was the more noticed as being the only friend
+of the past unknown life of Mr. Douglas who was ever seen in his new
+English surroundings. Barker was himself an undoubted Englishman; but by
+his remarks it was clear that he had first known Douglas in America and
+had there lived on intimate terms with him. He appeared to be a man of
+considerable wealth, and was reputed to be a bachelor.
+
+In age he was rather younger than Douglas--forty-five at the most--a
+tall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved, prize-fighter
+face, thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of masterful black eyes
+which might, even without the aid of his very capable hands, clear a way
+for him through a hostile crowd. He neither rode nor shot, but spent his
+days in wandering round the old village with his pipe in his mouth, or
+in driving with his host, or in his absence with his hostess, over the
+beautiful countryside. “An easy-going, free-handed gentleman,” said
+Ames, the butler. “But, my word! I had rather not be the man that
+crossed him!” He was cordial and intimate with Douglas, and he was no
+less friendly with his wife--a friendship which more than once seemed
+to cause some irritation to the husband, so that even the servants were
+able to perceive his annoyance. Such was the third person who was one of
+the family when the catastrophe occurred.
+
+As to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of a
+large household to mention the prim, respectable, and capable Ames, and
+Mrs. Allen, a buxom and cheerful person, who relieved the lady of some
+of her household cares. The other six servants in the house bear no
+relation to the events of the night of January 6th.
+
+It was at eleven forty-five that the first alarm reached the small local
+police station, in charge of Sergeant Wilson of the Sussex Constabulary.
+Cecil Barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door and pealed
+furiously upon the bell. A terrible tragedy had occurred at the Manor
+House, and John Douglas had been murdered. That was the breathless
+burden of his message. He had hurried back to the house, followed within
+a few minutes by the police sergeant, who arrived at the scene of the
+crime a little after twelve o'clock, after taking prompt steps to warn
+the county authorities that something serious was afoot.
+
+On reaching the Manor House, the sergeant had found the drawbridge
+down, the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of wild
+confusion and alarm. The white-faced servants were huddling together in
+the hall, with the frightened butler wringing his hands in the doorway.
+Only Cecil Barker seemed to be master of himself and his emotions;
+he had opened the door which was nearest to the entrance and he had
+beckoned to the sergeant to follow him. At that moment there arrived
+Dr. Wood, a brisk and capable general practitioner from the village.
+The three men entered the fatal room together, while the horror-stricken
+butler followed at their heels, closing the door behind him to shut out
+the terrible scene from the maid servants.
+
+The dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in the
+centre of the room. He was clad only in a pink dressing gown, which
+covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his bare feet.
+The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood
+on the table. One glance at the victim was enough to show the healer
+that his presence could be dispensed with. The man had been horribly
+injured. Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the
+barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that this
+had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole charge
+in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had
+been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge more
+destructive.
+
+The country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous
+responsibility which had come so suddenly upon him. “We will touch
+nothing until my superiors arrive,” he said in a hushed voice, staring
+in horror at the dreadful head.
+
+“Nothing has been touched up to now,” said Cecil Barker. “I'll answer
+for that. You see it all exactly as I found it.”
+
+“When was that?” The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.
+
+“It was just half-past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I was
+sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was not
+very loud--it seemed to be muffled. I rushed down--I don't suppose it
+was thirty seconds before I was in the room.”
+
+“Was the door open?”
+
+“Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroom
+candle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some minutes
+afterward.”
+
+“Did you see no one?”
+
+“No. I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushed
+out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. Mrs. Allen, the
+housekeeper, came and took her away. Ames had arrived, and we ran back
+into the room once more.”
+
+“But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.”
+
+“Yes, it was up until I lowered it.”
+
+“Then how could any murderer have got away? It is out of the question!
+Mr. Douglas must have shot himself.”
+
+“That was our first idea. But see!” Barker drew aside the curtain, and
+showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent.
+“And look at this!” He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge of
+blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill. “Someone has
+stood there in getting out.”
+
+“You mean that someone waded across the moat?”
+
+“Exactly!”
+
+“Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he must
+have been in the water at that very moment.”
+
+“I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the
+window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never
+occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not
+let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible.”
+
+“Horrible enough!” said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and
+the terrible marks which surrounded it. “I've never seen such injuries
+since the Birlstone railway smash.”
+
+“But, I say,” remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common
+sense was still pondering the open window. “It's all very well your
+saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is,
+how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up?”
+
+“Ah, that's the question,” said Barker.
+
+“At what o'clock was it raised?”
+
+“It was nearly six o'clock,” said Ames, the butler.
+
+“I've heard,” said the sergeant, “that it was usually raised at sunset.
+That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year.”
+
+“Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea,” said Ames. “I couldn't raise it
+until they went. Then I wound it up myself.”
+
+“Then it comes to this,” said the sergeant: “If anyone came from
+outside--IF they did--they must have got in across the bridge before
+six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room
+after eleven.”
+
+“That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last thing
+before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That brought him
+in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got away through the
+window and left his gun behind him. That's how I read it; for nothing
+else will fit the facts.”
+
+The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the
+floor. The initials V.V. and under them the number 341 were rudely
+scrawled in ink upon it.
+
+“What's this?” he asked, holding it up.
+
+Barker looked at it with curiosity. “I never noticed it before,” he
+said. “The murderer must have left it behind him.”
+
+“V.V.--341. I can make no sense of that.”
+
+The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. “What's V.V.?
+Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?”
+
+It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of
+the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker pointed
+to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.
+
+“Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday,” he said. “I saw him
+myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above it.
+That accounts for the hammer.”
+
+“We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it,” said the sergeant,
+scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. “It will want the best
+brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing. It will be a
+London job before it is finished.” He raised the hand lamp and walked
+slowly round the room. “Hullo!” he cried, excitedly, drawing the window
+curtain to one side. “What o'clock were those curtains drawn?”
+
+“When the lamps were lit,” said the butler. “It would be shortly after
+four.”
+
+“Someone had been hiding here, sure enough.” He held down the light, and
+the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. “I'm bound to
+say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker. It looks as if the man got
+into the house after four when the curtains were drawn, and before six
+when the bridge was raised. He slipped into this room, because it was
+the first that he saw. There was no other place where he could hide,
+so he popped in behind this curtain. That all seems clear enough. It
+is likely that his main idea was to burgle the house; but Mr. Douglas
+chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him and escaped.”
+
+“That's how I read it,” said Barker. “But, I say, aren't we wasting
+precious time? Couldn't we start out and scout the country before the
+fellow gets away?”
+
+The sergeant considered for a moment.
+
+“There are no trains before six in the morning; so he can't get away
+by rail. If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds that
+someone will notice him. Anyhow, I can't leave here myself until I am
+relieved. But I think none of you should go until we see more clearly
+how we all stand.”
+
+The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.
+“What's this mark?” he asked. “Could this have any connection with the
+crime?”
+
+The dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and
+exposed as high as the elbow. About halfway up the forearm was a curious
+brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in vivid relief
+upon the lard-coloured skin.
+
+“It's not tattooed,” said the doctor, peering through his glasses. “I
+never saw anything like it. The man has been branded at some time as
+they brand cattle. What is the meaning of this?”
+
+“I don't profess to know the meaning of it,” said Cecil Barker; “but I
+have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years.”
+
+“And so have I,” said the butler. “Many a time when the master has
+rolled up his sleeves I have noticed that very mark. I've often wondered
+what it could be.”
+
+“Then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow,” said the sergeant.
+“But it's a rum thing all the same. Everything about this case is rum.
+Well, what is it now?”
+
+The butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing at
+the dead man's outstretched hand.
+
+“They've taken his wedding ring!” he gasped.
+
+“What!”
+
+“Yes, indeed. Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the
+little finger of his left hand. That ring with the rough nugget on it
+was above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger. There's
+the nugget and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone.”
+
+“He's right,” said Barker.
+
+“Do you tell me,” said the sergeant, “that the wedding ring was BELOW
+the other?”
+
+“Always!”
+
+“Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you call
+the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the nugget
+ring back again.”
+
+“That is so!”
+
+The worthy country policeman shook his head. “Seems to me the sooner we
+get London on to this case the better,” said he. “White Mason is a smart
+man. No local job has ever been too much for White Mason. It won't be
+long now before he is here to help us. But I expect we'll have to look
+to London before we are through. Anyhow, I'm not ashamed to say that it
+is a deal too thick for the likes of me.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4--Darkness
+
+
+
+At three in the morning the chief Sussex detective, obeying the urgent
+call from Sergeant Wilson of Birlstone, arrived from headquarters in a
+light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter. By the five-forty train in
+the morning he had sent his message to Scotland Yard, and he was at the
+Birlstone station at twelve o'clock to welcome us. White Mason was
+a quiet, comfortable-looking person in a loose tweed suit, with a
+clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body, and powerful bandy legs
+adorned with gaiters, looking like a small farmer, a retired gamekeeper,
+or anything upon earth except a very favourable specimen of the
+provincial criminal officer.
+
+“A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald!” he kept repeating. “We'll
+have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it. I'm hoping
+we will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it and
+messing up all the trails. There has been nothing like this that I can
+remember. There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr. Holmes,
+or I am mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos will have
+a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the Westville Arms.
+There's no other place; but I hear that it is clean and good. The man
+will carry your bags. This way, gentlemen, if you please.”
+
+He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective. In ten
+minutes we had all found our quarters. In ten more we were seated in the
+parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of those events
+which have been outlined in the previous chapter. MacDonald made an
+occasional note; while Holmes sat absorbed, with the expression of
+surprised and reverent admiration with which the botanist surveys the
+rare and precious bloom.
+
+“Remarkable!” he said, when the story was unfolded, “most remarkable! I
+can hardly recall any case where the features have been more peculiar.”
+
+“I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason in great
+delight. “We're well up with the times in Sussex. I've told you now
+how matters were, up to the time when I took over from Sergeant Wilson
+between three and four this morning. My word! I made the old mare go!
+But I need not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out; for there
+was nothing immediate that I could do. Sergeant Wilson had all the
+facts. I checked them and considered them and maybe added a few of my
+own.”
+
+“What were they?” asked Holmes eagerly.
+
+“Well, I first had the hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to
+help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if Mr.
+Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his mark
+upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. But there was no
+stain.”
+
+“That, of course, proves nothing at all,” remarked Inspector MacDonald.
+“There has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the hammer.”
+
+“Quite so. It doesn't prove it wasn't used. But there might have been
+stains, and that would have helped us. As a matter of fact there were
+none. Then I examined the gun. They were buckshot cartridges, and, as
+Sergeant Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so that,
+if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged. Whoever
+fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take no chances
+of missing his man. The sawed gun was not more than two foot long--one
+could carry it easily under one's coat. There was no complete maker's
+name; but the printed letters P-E-N were on the fluting between the
+barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut off by the saw.”
+
+“A big P with a flourish above it, E and N smaller?” asked Holmes.
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Pennsylvania Small Arms Company--well-known American firm,” said
+Holmes.
+
+White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner looks
+at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the difficulties
+that perplex him.
+
+“That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. Wonderful!
+Wonderful! Do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world in
+your memory?”
+
+Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.
+
+“No doubt it is an American shotgun,” White Mason continued. “I seem
+to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of
+America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to
+me. There is some evidence then, that this man who entered the house and
+killed its master was an American.”
+
+MacDonald shook his head. “Man, you are surely travelling overfast,”
+ said he. “I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in the
+house at all.”
+
+“The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of
+boots in the corner, the gun!”
+
+“Nothing there that could not have been arranged. Mr. Douglas was an
+American, or had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker. You don't
+need to import an American from outside in order to account for American
+doings.”
+
+“Ames, the butler--”
+
+“What about him? Is he reliable?”
+
+“Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos--as solid as a rock. He has been
+with Douglas ever since he took the Manor House five years ago. He has
+never seen a gun of this sort in the house.”
+
+“The gun was made to conceal. That's why the barrels were sawed. It
+would fit into any box. How could he swear there was no such gun in the
+house?”
+
+“Well, anyhow, he had never seen one.”
+
+MacDonald shook his obstinate Scotch head. “I'm not convinced yet
+that there was ever anyone in the house,” said he. “I'm asking you to
+conseedar” (his accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in his
+argument) “I'm asking you to conseedar what it involves if you suppose
+that this gun was ever brought into the house, and that all these
+strange things were done by a person from outside. Oh, man, it's just
+inconceivable! It's clean against common sense! I put it to you, Mr.
+Holmes, judging it by what we have heard.”
+
+“Well, state your case, Mr. Mac,” said Holmes in his most judicial
+style.
+
+“The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed. The ring
+business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private
+reason. Very good. Here is a man who slips into a house with the
+deliberate intention of committing murder. He knows, if he knows
+anything, that he will have a deeficulty in making his escape, as the
+house is surrounded with water. What weapon would he choose? You would
+say the most silent in the world. Then he could hope when the deed was
+done to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and to get away
+at his leisure. That's understandable. But is it understandable that
+he should go out of his way to bring with him the most noisy weapon he
+could select, knowing well that it will fetch every human being in the
+house to the spot as quick as they can run, and that it is all odds that
+he will be seen before he can get across the moat? Is that credible, Mr.
+Holmes?”
+
+“Well, you put the case strongly,” my friend replied thoughtfully.
+“It certainly needs a good deal of justification. May I ask, Mr. White
+Mason, whether you examined the farther side of the moat at once to see
+if there were any signs of the man having climbed out from the water?”
+
+“There were no signs, Mr. Holmes. But it is a stone ledge, and one could
+hardly expect them.”
+
+“No tracks or marks?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Ha! Would there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down to
+the house at once? There may possibly be some small point which might be
+suggestive.”
+
+“I was going to propose it, Mr. Holmes; but I thought it well to put you
+in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything should
+strike you--” White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.
+
+“I have worked with Mr. Holmes before,” said Inspector MacDonald. “He
+plays the game.”
+
+“My own idea of the game, at any rate,” said Holmes, with a smile. “I go
+into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the police. If
+I have ever separated myself from the official force, it is because they
+have first separated themselves from me. I have no wish ever to score at
+their expense. At the same time, Mr. White Mason, I claim the right to
+work in my own way and give my results at my own time--complete rather
+than in stages.”
+
+“I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all we
+know,” said White Mason cordially. “Come along, Dr. Watson, and when the
+time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book.”
+
+We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded elms
+on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,
+weather-stained and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their summits a
+shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of
+Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and oaks
+around it as one only sees in rural England, then a sudden turn, and the
+long, low Jacobean house of dingy, liver-coloured brick lay before
+us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut yews on each side of it. As we
+approached it, there was the wooden drawbridge and the beautiful broad
+moat as still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold, winter sunshine.
+
+Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of
+births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of fox
+hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have
+cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange, peaked
+roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and
+terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long
+sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front, I felt that no more
+fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy.
+
+“That's the window,” said White Mason, “that one on the immediate right
+of the drawbridge. It's open just as it was found last night.”
+
+“It looks rather narrow for a man to pass.”
+
+“Well, it wasn't a fat man, anyhow. We don't need your deductions, Mr.
+Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through all right.”
+
+Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Then he
+examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.
+
+“I've had a good look, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason. “There is nothing
+there, no sign that anyone has landed--but why should he leave any
+sign?”
+
+“Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?”
+
+“Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay.”
+
+“How deep is it?”
+
+“About two feet at each side and three in the middle.”
+
+“So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in
+crossing.”
+
+“No, a child could not be drowned in it.”
+
+We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by a quaint, gnarled,
+dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames. The poor old fellow was white
+and quivering from the shock. The village sergeant, a tall, formal,
+melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of Fate. The doctor had
+departed.
+
+“Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?” asked White Mason.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Then you can go home. You've had enough. We can send for you if we
+want you. The butler had better wait outside. Tell him to warn Mr. Cecil
+Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that we may want a word with
+them presently. Now, gentlemen, perhaps you will allow me to give you
+the views I have formed first, and then you will be able to arrive at
+your own.”
+
+He impressed me, this country specialist. He had a solid grip of fact
+and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way
+in his profession. Holmes listened to him intently, with no sign of that
+impatience which the official exponent too often produced.
+
+“Is it suicide, or is it murder--that's our first question, gentlemen,
+is it not? If it were suicide, then we have to believe that this man
+began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it; that he then
+came down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a corner behind
+the curtain in order to give the idea someone had waited for him, opened
+the window, put blood on the--”
+
+“We can surely dismiss that,” said MacDonald.
+
+“So I think. Suicide is out of the question. Then a murder has been
+done. What we have to determine is, whether it was done by someone
+outside or inside the house.”
+
+“Well, let's hear the argument.”
+
+“There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one or the other
+it must be. We will suppose first that some person or persons inside
+the house did the crime. They got this man down here at a time when
+everything was still and yet no one was asleep. They then did the
+deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world so as to tell
+everyone what had happened--a weapon that was never seen in the house
+before. That does not seem a very likely start, does it?”
+
+“No, it does not.”
+
+“Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given only a
+minute at the most had passed before the whole household--not Mr. Cecil
+Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames and all
+of them were on the spot. Do you tell me that in that time the guilty
+person managed to make footmarks in the corner, open the window, mark
+the sill with blood, take the wedding ring off the dead man's finger,
+and all the rest of it? It's impossible!”
+
+“You put it very clearly,” said Holmes. “I am inclined to agree with
+you.”
+
+“Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by
+someone from outside. We are still faced with some big difficulties;
+but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. The man got into the
+house between four-thirty and six; that is to say, between dusk and the
+time when the bridge was raised. There had been some visitors, and the
+door was open; so there was nothing to prevent him. He may have been
+a common burglar, or he may have had some private grudge against Mr.
+Douglas. Since Mr. Douglas has spent most of his life in America, and
+this shotgun seems to be an American weapon, it would seem that the
+private grudge is the more likely theory. He slipped into this room
+because it was the first he came to, and he hid behind the curtain.
+There he remained until past eleven at night. At that time Mr. Douglas
+entered the room. It was a short interview, if there were any interview
+at all; for Mrs. Douglas declares that her husband had not left her more
+than a few minutes when she heard the shot.”
+
+“The candle shows that,” said Holmes.
+
+“Exactly. The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than half
+an inch. He must have placed it on the table before he was attacked;
+otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell. This shows
+that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the room. When Mr.
+Barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was out.”
+
+“That's all clear enough.”
+
+“Well, now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. Mr. Douglas
+enters the room. He puts down the candle. A man appears from behind the
+curtain. He is armed with this gun. He demands the wedding ring--Heaven
+only knows why, but so it must have been. Mr. Douglas gave it up. Then
+either in cold blood or in the course of a struggle--Douglas may have
+gripped the hammer that was found upon the mat--he shot Douglas in
+this horrible way. He dropped his gun and also it would seem this queer
+card--V.V. 341, whatever that may mean--and he made his escape through
+the window and across the moat at the very moment when Cecil Barker was
+discovering the crime. How's that, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing.”
+
+“Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else is
+even worse!” cried MacDonald. “Somebody killed the man, and whoever it
+was I could clearly prove to you that he should have done it some other
+way. What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be cut off like that?
+What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence was his one chance of
+escape? Come, Mr. Holmes, it's up to you to give us a lead, since you
+say Mr. White Mason's theory is unconvincing.”
+
+Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion, missing
+no word that was said, with his keen eyes darting to right and to left,
+and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.
+
+“I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr.
+Mac,” said he, kneeling down beside the body. “Dear me! these injuries
+are really appalling. Can we have the butler in for a moment?... Ames,
+I understand that you have often seen this very unusual mark--a branded
+triangle inside a circle--upon Mr. Douglas's forearm?”
+
+“Frequently, sir.”
+
+“You never heard any speculation as to what it meant?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. It is undoubtedly
+a burn. Now, I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece of plaster at
+the angle of Mr. Douglas's jaw. Did you observe that in life?”
+
+“Yes, sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning.”
+
+“Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before?”
+
+“Not for a very long time, sir.”
+
+“Suggestive!” said Holmes. “It may, of course, be a mere coincidence, or
+it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had reason
+to apprehend danger. Had you noticed anything unusual in his conduct,
+yesterday, Ames?”
+
+“It struck me that he was a little restless and excited, sir.”
+
+“Ha! The attack may not have been entirely unexpected. We do seem to
+make a little progress, do we not? Perhaps you would rather do the
+questioning, Mr. Mac?”
+
+“No, Mr. Holmes, it's in better hands than mine.”
+
+“Well, then, we will pass to this card--V.V. 341. It is rough cardboard.
+Have you any of the sort in the house?”
+
+“I don't think so.”
+
+Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each
+bottle on to the blotting paper. “It was not printed in this room,” he
+said; “this is black ink and the other purplish. It was done by a thick
+pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should say. Can
+you make anything of the inscription, Ames?”
+
+“No, sir, nothing.”
+
+“What do you think, Mr. Mac?”
+
+“It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the same
+with his badge upon the forearm.”
+
+“That's my idea, too,” said White Mason.
+
+“Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far our
+difficulties disappear. An agent from such a society makes his way into
+the house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off with this
+weapon, and escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a card beside the
+dead man, which will, when mentioned in the papers, tell other members
+of the society that vengeance has been done. That all hangs together.
+But why this gun, of all weapons?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“And why the missing ring?”
+
+“Quite so.”
+
+“And why no arrest? It's past two now. I take it for granted that since
+dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out for a wet
+stranger?”
+
+“That is so, Mr. Holmes.”
+
+“Well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready,
+they can hardly miss him. And yet they HAVE missed him up to now!”
+ Holmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the blood
+mark on the sill. “It is clearly the tread of a shoe. It is remarkably
+broad; a splay-foot, one would say. Curious, because, so far as one can
+trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one would say it was a
+more shapely sole. However, they are certainly very indistinct. What's
+this under the side table?”
+
+“Mr. Douglas's dumb-bells,” said Ames.
+
+“Dumb-bell--there's only one. Where's the other?”
+
+“I don't know, Mr. Holmes. There may have been only one. I have not
+noticed them for months.”
+
+“One dumb-bell--” Holmes said seriously; but his remarks were
+interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
+
+A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us. I
+had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom I had
+heard. His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning glance
+from face to face.
+
+“Sorry to interrupt your consultation,” said he, “but you should hear
+the latest news.”
+
+“An arrest?”
+
+“No such luck. But they've found his bicycle. The fellow left his
+bicycle behind him. Come and have a look. It is within a hundred yards
+of the hall door.”
+
+We found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive
+inspecting a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of evergreens
+in which it had been concealed. It was a well used Rudge-Whitworth,
+splashed as from a considerable journey. There was a saddlebag with
+spanner and oilcan, but no clue as to the owner.
+
+“It would be a grand help to the police,” said the inspector, “if these
+things were numbered and registered. But we must be thankful for what
+we've got. If we can't find where he went to, at least we are likely to
+get where he came from. But what in the name of all that is wonderful
+made the fellow leave it behind? And how in the world has he got away
+without it? We don't seem to get a gleam of light in the case, Mr.
+Holmes.”
+
+“Don't we?” my friend answered thoughtfully. “I wonder!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5--The People of the Drama
+
+
+
+“Have you seen all you want of the study?” asked White Mason as we
+reentered the house.
+
+“For the time,” said the inspector, and Holmes nodded.
+
+“Then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of some of the
+people in the house. We could use the dining room, Ames. Please come
+yourself first and tell us what you know.”
+
+The butler's account was a simple and a clear one, and he gave a
+convincing impression of sincerity. He had been engaged five years
+before, when Douglas first came to Birlstone. He understood that Mr.
+Douglas was a rich gentleman who had made his money in America. He had
+been a kind and considerate employer--not quite what Ames was used
+to, perhaps; but one can't have everything. He never saw any signs of
+apprehension in Mr. Douglas: on the contrary, he was the most fearless
+man he had ever known. He ordered the drawbridge to be pulled up every
+night because it was the ancient custom of the old house, and he liked
+to keep the old ways up.
+
+Mr. Douglas seldom went to London or left the village; but on the day
+before the crime he had been shopping at Tunbridge Wells. He (Ames) had
+observed some restlessness and excitement on the part of Mr. Douglas
+that day; for he had seemed impatient and irritable, which was unusual
+with him. He had not gone to bed that night; but was in the pantry at
+the back of the house, putting away the silver, when he heard the bell
+ring violently. He heard no shot; but it was hardly possible he would,
+as the pantry and kitchens were at the very back of the house and there
+were several closed doors and a long passage between. The housekeeper
+had come out of her room, attracted by the violent ringing of the bell.
+They had gone to the front of the house together.
+
+As they reached the bottom of the stairs he had seen Mrs. Douglas coming
+down it. No, she was not hurrying; it did not seem to him that she was
+particularly agitated. Just as she reached the bottom of the stair Mr.
+Barker had rushed out of the study. He had stopped Mrs. Douglas and
+begged her to go back.
+
+“For God's sake, go back to your room!” he cried. “Poor Jack is dead!
+You can do nothing. For God's sake, go back!”
+
+After some persuasion upon the stairs Mrs. Douglas had gone back.
+She did not scream. She made no outcry whatever. Mrs. Allen, the
+housekeeper, had taken her upstairs and stayed with her in the bedroom.
+Ames and Mr. Barker had then returned to the study, where they had found
+everything exactly as the police had seen it. The candle was not lit at
+that time; but the lamp was burning. They had looked out of the window;
+but the night was very dark and nothing could be seen or heard. They had
+then rushed out into the hall, where Ames had turned the windlass which
+lowered the drawbridge. Mr. Barker had then hurried off to get the
+police.
+
+Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.
+
+The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it went, a
+corroboration of that of her fellow servant. The housekeeper's room was
+rather nearer to the front of the house than the pantry in which Ames
+had been working. She was preparing to go to bed when the loud ringing
+of the bell had attracted her attention. She was a little hard of
+hearing. Perhaps that was why she had not heard the shot; but in any
+case the study was a long way off. She remembered hearing some sound
+which she imagined to be the slamming of a door. That was a good deal
+earlier--half an hour at least before the ringing of the bell. When Mr.
+Ames ran to the front she went with him. She saw Mr. Barker, very pale
+and excited, come out of the study. He intercepted Mrs. Douglas, who was
+coming down the stairs. He entreated her to go back, and she answered
+him, but what she said could not be heard.
+
+“Take her up! Stay with her!” he had said to Mrs. Allen.
+
+She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to soothe
+her. She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but made no other
+attempt to go downstairs. She just sat in her dressing gown by her
+bedroom fire, with her head sunk in her hands. Mrs. Allen stayed with
+her most of the night. As to the other servants, they had all gone
+to bed, and the alarm did not reach them until just before the police
+arrived. They slept at the extreme back of the house, and could not
+possibly have heard anything.
+
+So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination save
+lamentations and expressions of amazement.
+
+Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness. As to the occurrences of
+the night before, he had very little to add to what he had already told
+the police. Personally, he was convinced that the murderer had escaped
+by the window. The bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion, on that
+point. Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other possible way of
+escaping. He could not explain what had become of the assassin or why he
+had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his. He could not possibly
+have been drowned in the moat, which was at no place more than three
+feet deep.
+
+In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder. Douglas
+was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life of which he
+never spoke. He had emigrated to America when he was a very young man.
+He had prospered well, and Barker had first met him in California, where
+they had become partners in a successful mining claim at a place called
+Benito Canyon. They had done very well; but Douglas had suddenly sold
+out and started for England. He was a widower at that time. Barker had
+afterwards realized his money and come to live in London. Thus they had
+renewed their friendship.
+
+Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was hanging
+over his head, and he had always looked upon his sudden departure from
+California, and also his renting a house in so quiet a place in England,
+as being connected with this peril. He imagined that some secret
+society, some implacable organization, was on Douglas's track, which
+would never rest until it killed him. Some remarks of his had given him
+this idea; though he had never told him what the society was, nor how
+he had come to offend it. He could only suppose that the legend upon the
+placard had some reference to this secret society.
+
+“How long were you with Douglas in California?” asked Inspector
+MacDonald.
+
+“Five years altogether.”
+
+“He was a bachelor, you say?”
+
+“A widower.”
+
+“Have you ever heard where his first wife came from?”
+
+“No, I remember his saying that she was of German extraction, and I have
+seen her portrait. She was a very beautiful woman. She died of typhoid
+the year before I met him.”
+
+“You don't associate his past with any particular part of America?”
+
+“I have heard him talk of Chicago. He knew that city well and had worked
+there. I have heard him talk of the coal and iron districts. He had
+travelled a good deal in his time.”
+
+“Was he a politician? Had this secret society to do with politics?”
+
+“No, he cared nothing about politics.”
+
+“You have no reason to think it was criminal?”
+
+“On the contrary, I never met a straighter man in my life.”
+
+“Was there anything curious about his life in California?”
+
+“He liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the mountains. He
+would never go where other men were if he could help it. That's why I
+first thought that someone was after him. Then when he left so suddenly
+for Europe I made sure that it was so. I believe that he had a warning
+of some sort. Within a week of his leaving half a dozen men were
+inquiring for him.”
+
+“What sort of men?”
+
+“Well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd. They came up to the claim
+and wanted to know where he was. I told them that he was gone to Europe
+and that I did not know where to find him. They meant him no good--it
+was easy to see that.”
+
+“Were these men Americans--Californians?”
+
+“Well, I don't know about Californians. They were Americans, all right.
+But they were not miners. I don't know what they were, and was very glad
+to see their backs.”
+
+“That was six years ago?”
+
+“Nearer seven.”
+
+“And then you were together five years in California, so that this
+business dates back not less than eleven years at the least?”
+
+“That is so.”
+
+“It must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with such
+earnestness for as long as that. It would be no light thing that would
+give rise to it.”
+
+“I think it shadowed his whole life. It was never quite out of his
+mind.”
+
+“But if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what it was, don't
+you think he would turn to the police for protection?”
+
+“Maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected against.
+There's one thing you should know. He always went about armed. His
+revolver was never out of his pocket. But, by bad luck, he was in his
+dressing gown and had left it in the bedroom last night. Once the bridge
+was up, I guess he thought he was safe.”
+
+“I should like these dates a little clearer,” said MacDonald. “It is
+quite six years since Douglas left California. You followed him next
+year, did you not?”
+
+“That is so.”
+
+“And he had been married five years. You must have returned about the
+time of his marriage.”
+
+“About a month before. I was his best man.”
+
+“Did you know Mrs. Douglas before her marriage?”
+
+“No, I did not. I had been away from England for ten years.”
+
+“But you have seen a good deal of her since.”
+
+Barker looked sternly at the detective. “I have seen a good deal of HIM
+since,” he answered. “If I have seen her, it is because you cannot
+visit a man without knowing his wife. If you imagine there is any
+connection--”
+
+“I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker. I am bound to make every inquiry which
+can bear upon the case. But I mean no offense.”
+
+“Some inquiries are offensive,” Barker answered angrily.
+
+“It's only the facts that we want. It is in your interest and everyone's
+interest that they should be cleared up. Did Mr. Douglas entirely
+approve your friendship with his wife?”
+
+Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped convulsively
+together. “You have no right to ask such questions!” he cried. “What has
+this to do with the matter you are investigating?”
+
+“I must repeat the question.”
+
+“Well, I refuse to answer.”
+
+“You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your refusal is in
+itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had not something to
+conceal.”
+
+Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his strong black
+eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. Then he looked up with a smile.
+“Well, I guess you gentlemen are only doing your clear duty after all,
+and I have no right to stand in the way of it. I'd only ask you not to
+worry Mrs. Douglas over this matter; for she has enough upon her just
+now. I may tell you that poor Douglas had just one fault in the world,
+and that was his jealousy. He was fond of me--no man could be fonder of
+a friend. And he was devoted to his wife. He loved me to come here, and
+was forever sending for me. And yet if his wife and I talked together or
+there seemed any sympathy between us, a kind of wave of jealousy would
+pass over him, and he would be off the handle and saying the wildest
+things in a moment. More than once I've sworn off coming for that
+reason, and then he would write me such penitent, imploring letters that
+I just had to. But you can take it from me, gentlemen, if it was my last
+word, that no man ever had a more loving, faithful wife--and I can say
+also no friend could be more loyal than I!”
+
+It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector MacDonald
+could not dismiss the subject.
+
+“You are aware,” said he, “that the dead man's wedding ring has been
+taken from his finger?”
+
+“So it appears,” said Barker.
+
+“What do you mean by 'appears'? You know it as a fact.”
+
+The man seemed confused and undecided. “When I said 'appears' I meant
+that it was conceivable that he had himself taken off the ring.”
+
+“The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may have removed
+it, would suggest to anyone's mind, would it not, that the marriage and
+the tragedy were connected?”
+
+Barker shrugged his broad shoulders. “I can't profess to say what it
+means,” he answered. “But if you mean to hint that it could reflect in
+any way upon this lady's honour”--his eyes blazed for an instant, and
+then with an evident effort he got a grip upon his own emotions--“well,
+you are on the wrong track, that's all.”
+
+“I don't know that I've anything else to ask you at present,” said
+MacDonald, coldly.
+
+“There was one small point,” remarked Sherlock Holmes. “When you entered
+the room there was only a candle lighted on the table, was there not?”
+
+“Yes, that was so.”
+
+“By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“You at once rang for help?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And it arrived very speedily?”
+
+“Within a minute or so.”
+
+“And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and that
+the lamp had been lighted. That seems very remarkable.”
+
+Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. “I don't see that it was
+remarkable, Mr. Holmes,” he answered after a pause. “The candle threw a
+very bad light. My first thought was to get a better one. The lamp was
+on the table; so I lit it.”
+
+“And blew out the candle?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look
+from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something of
+defiance in it, turned and left the room.
+
+Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would wait
+upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied that she would meet
+us in the dining room. She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman
+of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very
+different from the tragic and distracted figure I had pictured. It is
+true that her face was pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured
+a great shock; but her manner was composed, and the finely moulded hand
+which she rested upon the edge of the table was as steady as my own.
+Her sad, appealing eyes travelled from one to the other of us with a
+curiously inquisitive expression. That questioning gaze transformed
+itself suddenly into abrupt speech.
+
+“Have you found anything out yet?” she asked.
+
+Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than of
+hope in the question?
+
+“We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas,” said the inspector.
+“You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.”
+
+“Spare no money,” she said in a dead, even tone. “It is my desire that
+every possible effort should be made.”
+
+“Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon the
+matter.”
+
+“I fear not; but all I know is at your service.”
+
+“We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually see--that
+you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?”
+
+“No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to return to my
+room.”
+
+“Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.”
+
+“I put on my dressing gown and then came down.”
+
+“How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the
+stair by Mr. Barker?”
+
+“It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon time at
+such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He assured me that I could
+do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs again. It
+was all like some dreadful dream.”
+
+“Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs
+before you heard the shot?”
+
+“No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear
+him go. He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous of
+fire. It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of.”
+
+“That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas. You have
+known your husband only in England, have you not?”
+
+“Yes, we have been married five years.”
+
+“Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and
+might bring some danger upon him?”
+
+Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. “Yes,” she said at
+last, “I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over him. He
+refused to discuss it with me. It was not from want of confidence in
+me--there was the most complete love and confidence between us--but
+it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from me. He thought I
+should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was silent.”
+
+“How did you know it, then?”
+
+Mrs. Douglas's face lit with a quick smile. “Can a husband ever carry
+about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion
+of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his
+American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I knew it by
+certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected
+strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies,
+that he believed they were on his track, and that he was always on
+his guard against them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been
+terrified if ever he came home later than was expected.”
+
+“Might I ask,” asked Holmes, “what the words were which attracted your
+attention?”
+
+“The Valley of Fear,” the lady answered. “That was an expression he has
+used when I questioned him. 'I have been in the Valley of Fear. I am not
+out of it yet.'--'Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?' I have
+asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual. 'Sometimes I
+think that we never shall,' he has answered.”
+
+“Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?”
+
+“I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his
+head. 'It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,'
+he said. 'Please God it shall never fall upon you!' It was some real
+valley in which he had lived and in which something terrible had
+occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell you no more.”
+
+“And he never mentioned any names?”
+
+“Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident
+three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that came
+continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror.
+McGinty was the name--Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he recovered
+who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. 'Never of
+mine, thank God!' he answered with a laugh, and that was all I could get
+from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster McGinty and the
+Valley of Fear.”
+
+“There is one other point,” said Inspector MacDonald. “You met Mr.
+Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged
+to him there? Was there any romance, anything secret or mysterious,
+about the wedding?”
+
+“There was romance. There is always romance. There was nothing
+mysterious.”
+
+“He had no rival?”
+
+“No, I was quite free.”
+
+“You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken. Does
+that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some enemy of his old life
+had tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason
+could he have for taking his wedding ring?”
+
+For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile
+flickered over the woman's lips.
+
+“I really cannot tell,” she answered. “It is certainly a most
+extraordinary thing.”
+
+“Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have put
+you to this trouble at such a time,” said the inspector. “There are some
+other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they arise.”
+
+She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance
+with which she had just surveyed us. “What impression has my evidence
+made upon you?” The question might as well have been spoken. Then, with
+a bow, she swept from the room.
+
+“She's a beautiful woman--a very beautiful woman,” said MacDonald
+thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. “This man Barker
+has certainly been down here a good deal. He is a man who might be
+attractive to a woman. He admits that the dead man was jealous, and
+maybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. Then there's
+that wedding ring. You can't get past that. The man who tears a wedding
+ring off a dead man's--What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest
+thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. “Ames,” he said, when the butler
+entered, “where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?”
+
+“I'll see, sir.”
+
+He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the garden.
+
+“Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night when
+you joined him in the study?”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I brought him his
+boots when he went for the police.”
+
+“Where are the slippers now?”
+
+“They are still under the chair in the hall.”
+
+“Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know which
+tracks may be Mr. Barker's and which from outside.”
+
+“Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained with
+blood--so indeed were my own.”
+
+“That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. Very
+good, Ames. We will ring if we want you.”
+
+A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought with him
+the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had observed, the soles of
+both were dark with blood.
+
+“Strange!” murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window and
+examined them minutely. “Very strange indeed!”
+
+Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper
+upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled in
+silence at his colleagues.
+
+The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native accent
+rattled like a stick upon railings.
+
+“Man,” he cried, “there's not a doubt of it! Barker has just marked the
+window himself. It's a good deal broader than any bootmark. I mind that
+you said it was a splay-foot, and here's the explanation. But what's the
+game, Mr. Holmes--what's the game?”
+
+“Ay, what's the game?” my friend repeated thoughtfully.
+
+White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his
+professional satisfaction. “I said it was a snorter!” he cried. “And a
+real snorter it is!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6--A Dawning Light
+
+
+
+The three detectives had many matters of detail into which to inquire;
+so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn. But
+before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which
+flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange
+designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an
+old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful that
+it was welcome to my somewhat jangled nerves.
+
+In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget, or remember only
+as some fantastic nightmare, that darkened study with the sprawling,
+bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and
+tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident occurred,
+which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister impression in
+my mind.
+
+I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the
+end farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge.
+On the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone
+approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat.
+As I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the deep
+tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine laughter.
+
+An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes
+lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my
+presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had
+been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away from
+her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still quivered
+with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat forward, his
+hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile
+upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant--but it was just one instant
+too late--they resumed their solemn masks as my figure came into view.
+A hurried word or two passed between them, and then Barker rose and came
+towards me.
+
+“Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but am I addressing Dr. Watson?”
+
+I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the
+impression which had been produced upon my mind.
+
+“We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and
+speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?”
+
+I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my mind's
+eye that shattered figure on the floor. Here within a few hours of the
+tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing together behind a
+bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted the lady with reserve.
+I had grieved with her grief in the dining room. Now I met her appealing
+gaze with an unresponsive eye.
+
+“I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted,” said she.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. “It is no business of mine,” said I.
+
+“Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized--”
+
+“There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize,” said Barker quickly.
+“As he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.”
+
+“Exactly,” said I, “and so I will beg leave to resume my walk.”
+
+“One moment, Dr. Watson,” cried the woman in a pleading voice. “There is
+one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone else
+in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You know
+Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone
+else can. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his
+knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to the
+detectives?”
+
+“Yes, that's it,” said Barker eagerly. “Is he on his own or is he
+entirely in with them?”
+
+“I really don't know that I should be justified in discussing such a
+point.”
+
+“I beg--I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you will
+be helping us--helping me greatly if you will guide us on that point.”
+
+There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the
+instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her will.
+
+“Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,” I said. “He is his own
+master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time, he
+would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were working on
+the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything which would
+help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this I can say
+nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you wanted
+fuller information.”
+
+So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still
+seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the far
+end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly together,
+and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was our
+interview that was the subject of their debate.
+
+“I wish none of their confidences,” said Holmes, when I reported to him
+what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor House
+in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about five with
+a ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for him. “No
+confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes to an
+arrest for conspiracy and murder.”
+
+“You think it will come to that?”
+
+He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour. “My dear Watson, when
+I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you in touch
+with the whole situation. I don't say that we have fathomed it--far from
+it--but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell--”
+
+“The dumb-bell!”
+
+“Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the fact
+that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell? Well, well, you need not
+be downcast; for between ourselves I don't think that either Inspector
+Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the overwhelming
+importance of this incident. One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete
+with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the
+imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!”
+
+He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with
+mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement. The mere sight of his
+excellent appetite was an assurance of success; for I had very clear
+recollections of days and nights without a thought of food, when his
+baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin, eager
+features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete mental
+concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook
+of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case,
+rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered
+statement.
+
+“A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising
+lie--that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting
+point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker's story is
+corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are both
+lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem. Why are
+they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard to
+conceal? Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie and
+reconstruct the truth.
+
+“How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy fabrication
+which simply could not be true. Consider! According to the story given
+to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had been
+committed to take that ring, which was under another ring, from the dead
+man's finger, to replace the other ring--a thing which he would surely
+never have done--and to put that singular card beside his victim. I say
+that this was obviously impossible.
+
+“You may argue--but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson,
+to think that you will do so--that the ring may have been taken before
+the man was killed. The fact that the candle had been lit only a short
+time shows that there had been no lengthy interview. Was Douglas, from
+what we hear of his fearless character, a man who would be likely to
+give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or could we conceive of
+his giving it up at all? No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone with
+the dead man for some time with the lamp lit. Of that I have no doubt at
+all.
+
+“But the gunshot was apparently the cause of death. Therefore the shot
+must have been fired some time earlier than we are told. But there
+could be no mistake about such a matter as that. We are in the presence,
+therefore, of a deliberate conspiracy upon the part of the two people
+who heard the gunshot--of the man Barker and of the woman Douglas.
+When on the top of this I am able to show that the blood mark on the
+windowsill was deliberately placed there by Barker, in order to give
+a false clue to the police, you will admit that the case grows dark
+against him.
+
+“Now we have to ask ourselves at what hour the murder actually did
+occur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house; so
+it was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they
+had all gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in
+the pantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us this
+afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in the
+study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all shut.
+
+“It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. It is not so far
+down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when it was
+very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extent muffled
+when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly was in this
+instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the silence of the night
+it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's room. She is, as she
+has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less she mentioned in her
+evidence that she did hear something like a door slamming half an hour
+before the alarm was given. Half an hour before the alarm was given
+would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt that what she heard was
+the report of the gun, and that this was the real instant of the murder.
+
+“If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs. Douglas,
+presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have been doing
+from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought them down,
+until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and summoned the
+servants. What were they doing, and why did they not instantly give
+the alarm? That is the question which faces us, and when it has been
+answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve our problem.”
+
+“I am convinced myself,” said I, “that there is an understanding between
+those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sit laughing at
+some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder.”
+
+“Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what
+occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are
+aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are
+few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let any man's
+spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body. Should I
+ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling
+which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my
+corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It was badly stage-managed;
+for even the rawest investigators must be struck by the absence of the
+usual feminine ululation. If there had been nothing else, this incident
+alone would have suggested a prearranged conspiracy to my mind.”
+
+“You think then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty of
+the murder?”
+
+“There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson,” said
+Holmes, shaking his pipe at me. “They come at me like bullets. If you
+put it that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know the truth about the murder, and
+are conspiring to conceal it, then I can give you a whole-souled answer.
+I am sure they do. But your more deadly proposition is not so clear. Let
+us for a moment consider the difficulties which stand in the way.
+
+“We will suppose that this couple are united by the bonds of a guilty
+love, and that they have determined to get rid of the man who stands
+between them. It is a large supposition; for discreet inquiry among
+servants and others has failed to corroborate it in any way. On the
+contrary, there is a good deal of evidence that the Douglases were very
+attached to each other.”
+
+“That, I am sure, cannot be true,” said I, thinking of the beautiful
+smiling face in the garden.
+
+“Well at least they gave that impression. However, we will suppose that
+they are an extraordinarily astute couple, who deceive everyone upon
+this point, and conspire to murder the husband. He happens to be a man
+over whose head some danger hangs--”
+
+“We have only their word for that.”
+
+Holmes looked thoughtful. “I see, Watson. You are sketching out a theory
+by which everything they say from the beginning is false. According
+to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret society, or
+Valley of Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else. Well, that is a
+good sweeping generalization. Let us see what that brings us to. They
+invent this theory to account for the crime. They then play up to the
+idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proof of the existence of
+some outsider. The stain on the windowsill conveys the same idea. So
+does the card on the body, which might have been prepared in the house.
+That all fits into your hypothesis, Watson. But now we come on the
+nasty, angular, uncompromising bits which won't slip into their places.
+Why a cut-off shotgun of all weapons--and an American one at that? How
+could they be so sure that the sound of it would not bring someone on to
+them? It's a mere chance as it is that Mrs. Allen did not start out to
+inquire for the slamming door. Why did your guilty couple do all this,
+Watson?”
+
+“I confess that I can't explain it.”
+
+“Then again, if a woman and her lover conspire to murder a husband,
+are they going to advertise their guilt by ostentatiously removing his
+wedding ring after his death? Does that strike you as very probable,
+Watson?”
+
+“No, it does not.”
+
+“And once again, if the thought of leaving a bicycle concealed outside
+had occurred to you, would it really have seemed worth doing when the
+dullest detective would naturally say this is an obvious blind, as the
+bicycle is the first thing which the fugitive needed in order to make
+his escape.”
+
+“I can conceive of no explanation.”
+
+“And yet there should be no combination of events for which the wit of
+man cannot conceive an explanation. Simply as a mental exercise, without
+any assertion that it is true, let me indicate a possible line of
+thought. It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination
+the mother of truth?
+
+“We will suppose that there was a guilty secret, a really shameful
+secret in the life of this man Douglas. This leads to his murder by
+someone who is, we will suppose, an avenger, someone from outside.
+This avenger, for some reason which I confess I am still at a loss
+to explain, took the dead man's wedding ring. The vendetta might
+conceivably date back to the man's first marriage, and the ring be taken
+for some such reason.
+
+“Before this avenger got away, Barker and the wife had reached the room.
+The assassin convinced them that any attempt to arrest him would lead
+to the publication of some hideous scandal. They were converted to
+this idea, and preferred to let him go. For this purpose they probably
+lowered the bridge, which can be done quite noiselessly, and then raised
+it again. He made his escape, and for some reason thought that he could
+do so more safely on foot than on the bicycle. He therefore left his
+machine where it would not be discovered until he had got safely away.
+So far we are within the bounds of possibility, are we not?”
+
+“Well, it is possible, no doubt,” said I, with some reserve.
+
+“We have to remember, Watson, that whatever occurred is certainly
+something very extraordinary. Well, now, to continue our supposititious
+case, the couple--not necessarily a guilty couple--realize after the
+murderer is gone that they have placed themselves in a position in
+which it may be difficult for them to prove that they did not themselves
+either do the deed or connive at it. They rapidly and rather clumsily
+met the situation. The mark was put by Barker's bloodstained slipper
+upon the windowsill to suggest how the fugitive got away. They obviously
+were the two who must have heard the sound of the gun; so they gave the
+alarm exactly as they would have done, but a good half hour after the
+event.”
+
+“And how do you propose to prove all this?”
+
+“Well, if there were an outsider, he may be traced and taken. That would
+be the most effective of all proofs. But if not--well, the resources of
+science are far from being exhausted. I think that an evening alone in
+that study would help me much.”
+
+“An evening alone!”
+
+“I propose to go up there presently. I have arranged it with the
+estimable Ames, who is by no means wholehearted about Barker. I shall
+sit in that room and see if its atmosphere brings me inspiration. I'm
+a believer in the genius loci. You smile, Friend Watson. Well, we shall
+see. By the way, you have that big umbrella of yours, have you not?”
+
+“It is here.”
+
+“Well, I'll borrow that if I may.”
+
+“Certainly--but what a wretched weapon! If there is danger--”
+
+“Nothing serious, my dear Watson, or I should certainly ask for your
+assistance. But I'll take the umbrella. At present I am only awaiting
+the return of our colleagues from Tunbridge Wells, where they are at
+present engaged in trying for a likely owner to the bicycle.”
+
+It was nightfall before Inspector MacDonald and White Mason came back
+from their expedition, and they arrived exultant, reporting a great
+advance in our investigation.
+
+“Man, I'll admeet that I had my doubts if there was ever an outsider,”
+ said MacDonald, “but that's all past now. We've had the bicycle
+identified, and we have a description of our man; so that's a long step
+on our journey.”
+
+“It sounds to me like the beginning of the end,” said Holmes. “I'm sure
+I congratulate you both with all my heart.”
+
+“Well, I started from the fact that Mr. Douglas had seemed disturbed
+since the day before, when he had been at Tunbridge Wells. It was at
+Tunbridge Wells then that he had become conscious of some danger. It was
+clear, therefore, that if a man had come over with a bicycle it was
+from Tunbridge Wells that he might be expected to have come. We took the
+bicycle over with us and showed it at the hotels. It was identified at
+once by the manager of the Eagle Commercial as belonging to a man named
+Hargrave, who had taken a room there two days before. This bicycle and
+a small valise were his whole belongings. He had registered his name
+as coming from London, but had given no address. The valise was London
+made, and the contents were British; but the man himself was undoubtedly
+an American.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Holmes gleefully, “you have indeed done some solid
+work while I have been sitting spinning theories with my friend! It's a
+lesson in being practical, Mr. Mac.”
+
+“Ay, it's just that, Mr. Holmes,” said the inspector with satisfaction.
+
+“But this may all fit in with your theories,” I remarked.
+
+“That may or may not be. But let us hear the end, Mr. Mac. Was there
+nothing to identify this man?”
+
+“So little that it was evident that he had carefully guarded himself
+against identification. There were no papers or letters, and no marking
+upon the clothes. A cycle map of the county lay on his bedroom table. He
+had left the hotel after breakfast yesterday morning on his bicycle, and
+no more was heard of him until our inquiries.”
+
+“That's what puzzles me, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason. “If the fellow
+did not want the hue and cry raised over him, one would imagine that he
+would have returned and remained at the hotel as an inoffensive tourist.
+As it is, he must know that he will be reported to the police by the
+hotel manager and that his disappearance will be connected with the
+murder.”
+
+“So one would imagine. Still, he has been justified of his wisdom up
+to date, at any rate, since he has not been taken. But his
+description--what of that?”
+
+MacDonald referred to his notebook. “Here we have it so far as they
+could give it. They don't seem to have taken any very particular stock
+of him; but still the porter, the clerk, and the chambermaid are all
+agreed that this about covers the points. He was a man about five foot
+nine in height, fifty or so years of age, his hair slightly grizzled, a
+grayish moustache, a curved nose, and a face which all of them described
+as fierce and forbidding.”
+
+“Well, bar the expression, that might almost be a description of Douglas
+himself,” said Holmes. “He is just over fifty, with grizzled hair and
+moustache, and about the same height. Did you get anything else?”
+
+“He was dressed in a heavy gray suit with a reefer jacket, and he wore a
+short yellow overcoat and a soft cap.”
+
+“What about the shotgun?”
+
+“It is less than two feet long. It could very well have fitted into
+his valise. He could have carried it inside his overcoat without
+difficulty.”
+
+“And how do you consider that all this bears upon the general case?”
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes,” said MacDonald, “when we have got our man--and you
+may be sure that I had his description on the wires within five minutes
+of hearing it--we shall be better able to judge. But, even as it stands,
+we have surely gone a long way. We know that an American calling himself
+Hargrave came to Tunbridge Wells two days ago with bicycle and valise.
+In the latter was a sawed-off shotgun; so he came with the deliberate
+purpose of crime. Yesterday morning he set off for this place on his
+bicycle, with his gun concealed in his overcoat. No one saw him arrive,
+so far as we can learn; but he need not pass through the village
+to reach the park gates, and there are many cyclists upon the road.
+Presumably he at once concealed his cycle among the laurels where it
+was found, and possibly lurked there himself, with his eye on the house,
+waiting for Mr. Douglas to come out. The shotgun is a strange weapon to
+use inside a house; but he had intended to use it outside, and there it
+has very obvious advantages, as it would be impossible to miss with it,
+and the sound of shots is so common in an English sporting neighbourhood
+that no particular notice would be taken.”
+
+“That is all very clear,” said Holmes.
+
+“Well, Mr. Douglas did not appear. What was he to do next? He left his
+bicycle and approached the house in the twilight. He found the bridge
+down and no one about. He took his chance, intending, no doubt, to make
+some excuse if he met anyone. He met no one. He slipped into the first
+room that he saw, and concealed himself behind the curtain. Thence he
+could see the drawbridge go up, and he knew that his only escape was
+through the moat. He waited until quarter-past eleven, when Mr. Douglas
+upon his usual nightly round came into the room. He shot him and
+escaped, as arranged. He was aware that the bicycle would be described
+by the hotel people and be a clue against him; so he left it there and
+made his way by some other means to London or to some safe hiding place
+which he had already arranged. How is that, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“Well, Mr. Mac, it is very good and very clear so far as it goes. That
+is your end of the story. My end is that the crime was committed half an
+hour earlier than reported; that Mrs. Douglas and Barker are both in
+a conspiracy to conceal something; that they aided the murderer's
+escape--or at least that they reached the room before he escaped--and
+that they fabricated evidence of his escape through the window, whereas
+in all probability they had themselves let him go by lowering the
+bridge. That's my reading of the first half.”
+
+The two detectives shook their heads.
+
+“Well, Mr. Holmes, if this is true, we only tumble out of one mystery
+into another,” said the London inspector.
+
+“And in some ways a worse one,” added White Mason. “The lady has never
+been in America in all her life. What possible connection could she have
+with an American assassin which would cause her to shelter him?”
+
+“I freely admit the difficulties,” said Holmes. “I propose to make a
+little investigation of my own to-night, and it is just possible that it
+may contribute something to the common cause.”
+
+“Can we help you, Mr. Holmes?”
+
+“No, no! Darkness and Dr. Watson's umbrella--my wants are simple. And
+Ames, the faithful Ames, no doubt he will stretch a point for me. All my
+lines of thought lead me back invariably to the one basic question--why
+should an athletic man develop his frame upon so unnatural an instrument
+as a single dumb-bell?”
+
+It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary excursion.
+We slept in a double-bedded room, which was the best that the little
+country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I was partly
+awakened by his entrance.
+
+“Well, Holmes,” I murmured, “have you found anything out?”
+
+He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall,
+lean figure inclined towards me. “I say, Watson,” he whispered, “would
+you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with
+softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?”
+
+“Not in the least,” I answered in astonishment.
+
+“Ah, that's lucky,” he said, and not another word would he utter that
+night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7--The Solution
+
+
+
+Next morning, after breakfast, we found Inspector MacDonald and White
+Mason seated in close consultation in the small parlour of the local
+police sergeant. On the table in front of them were piled a number of
+letters and telegrams, which they were carefully sorting and docketing.
+Three had been placed on one side.
+
+“Still on the track of the elusive bicyclist?” Holmes asked cheerfully.
+“What is the latest news of the ruffian?”
+
+MacDonald pointed ruefully to his heap of correspondence.
+
+“He is at present reported from Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton,
+Derby, East Ham, Richmond, and fourteen other places. In three of
+them--East Ham, Leicester, and Liverpool--there is a clear case against
+him, and he has actually been arrested. The country seems to be full of
+the fugitives with yellow coats.”
+
+“Dear me!” said Holmes sympathetically. “Now, Mr. Mac and you, Mr. White
+Mason, I wish to give you a very earnest piece of advice. When I went
+into this case with you I bargained, as you will no doubt remember, that
+I should not present you with half-proved theories, but that I should
+retain and work out my own ideas until I had satisfied myself that they
+were correct. For this reason I am not at the present moment telling you
+all that is in my mind. On the other hand, I said that I would play the
+game fairly by you, and I do not think it is a fair game to allow you
+for one unnecessary moment to waste your energies upon a profitless
+task. Therefore I am here to advise you this morning, and my advice to
+you is summed up in three words--abandon the case.”
+
+MacDonald and White Mason stared in amazement at their celebrated
+colleague.
+
+“You consider it hopeless!” cried the inspector.
+
+“I consider your case to be hopeless. I do not consider that it is
+hopeless to arrive at the truth.”
+
+“But this cyclist. He is not an invention. We have his description, his
+valise, his bicycle. The fellow must be somewhere. Why should we not get
+him?”
+
+“Yes, yes, no doubt he is somewhere, and no doubt we shall get him; but
+I would not have you waste your energies in East Ham or Liverpool. I am
+sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result.”
+
+“You are holding something back. It's hardly fair of you, Mr. Holmes.”
+ The inspector was annoyed.
+
+“You know my methods of work, Mr. Mac. But I will hold it back for the
+shortest time possible. I only wish to verify my details in one way,
+which can very readily be done, and then I make my bow and return to
+London, leaving my results entirely at your service. I owe you too much
+to act otherwise; for in all my experience I cannot recall any more
+singular and interesting study.”
+
+“This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes. We saw you when we returned from
+Tunbridge Wells last night, and you were in general agreement with our
+results. What has happened since then to give you a completely new idea
+of the case?”
+
+“Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you that I would, some hours
+last night at the Manor House.”
+
+“Well, what happened?”
+
+“Ah, I can only give you a very general answer to that for the moment.
+By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and interesting
+account of the old building, purchasable at the modest sum of one penny
+from the local tobacconist.”
+
+Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving of the
+ancient Manor House, from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear Mr. Mac,
+when one is in conscious sympathy with the historical atmosphere of
+one's surroundings. Don't look so impatient; for I assure you that even
+so bald an account as this raises some sort of picture of the past in
+one's mind. Permit me to give you a sample. 'Erected in the fifth year
+of the reign of James I, and standing upon the site of a much older
+building, the Manor House of Birlstone presents one of the finest
+surviving examples of the moated Jacobean residence--'”
+
+“You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!”
+
+“Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!--the first sign of temper I have detected in you.
+Well, I won't read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly upon the
+subject. But when I tell you that there is some account of the taking
+of the place by a parliamentary colonel in 1644, of the concealment of
+Charles for several days in the course of the Civil War, and finally
+of a visit there by the second George, you will admit that there are
+various associations of interest connected with this ancient house.”
+
+“I don't doubt it, Mr. Holmes; but that is no business of ours.”
+
+“Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the
+essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique
+uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. You will excuse
+these remarks from one who, though a mere connoisseur of crime, is still
+rather older and perhaps more experienced than yourself.”
+
+“I'm the first to admit that,” said the detective heartily. “You get to
+your point, I admit; but you have such a deuced round-the-corner way of
+doing it.”
+
+“Well, well, I'll drop past history and get down to present-day facts. I
+called last night, as I have already said, at the Manor House. I did not
+see either Barker or Mrs. Douglas. I saw no necessity to disturb them;
+but I was pleased to hear that the lady was not visibly pining and that
+she had partaken of an excellent dinner. My visit was specially made
+to the good Mr. Ames, with whom I exchanged some amiabilities, which
+culminated in his allowing me, without reference to anyone else, to sit
+alone for a time in the study.”
+
+“What! With that?” I ejaculated.
+
+“No, no, everything is now in order. You gave permission for that, Mr.
+Mac, as I am informed. The room was in its normal state, and in it I
+passed an instructive quarter of an hour.”
+
+“What were you doing?”
+
+“Well, not to make a mystery of so simple a matter, I was looking for
+the missing dumb-bell. It has always bulked rather large in my estimate
+of the case. I ended by finding it.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Ah, there we come to the edge of the unexplored. Let me go a little
+further, a very little further, and I will promise that you shall share
+everything that I know.”
+
+“Well, we're bound to take you on your own terms,” said the inspector;
+“but when it comes to telling us to abandon the case--why in the name of
+goodness should we abandon the case?”
+
+“For the simple reason, my dear Mr. Mac, that you have not got the first
+idea what it is that you are investigating.”
+
+“We are investigating the murder of Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone
+Manor.”
+
+“Yes, yes, so you are. But don't trouble to trace the mysterious
+gentleman upon the bicycle. I assure you that it won't help you.”
+
+“Then what do you suggest that we do?”
+
+“I will tell you exactly what to do, if you will do it.”
+
+“Well, I'm bound to say I've always found you had reason behind all your
+queer ways. I'll do what you advise.”
+
+“And you, Mr. White Mason?”
+
+The country detective looked helplessly from one to the other. Holmes
+and his methods were new to him. “Well, if it is good enough for the
+inspector, it is good enough for me,” he said at last.
+
+“Capital!” said Holmes. “Well, then, I should recommend a nice, cheery
+country walk for both of you. They tell me that the views from Birlstone
+Ridge over the Weald are very remarkable. No doubt lunch could be got at
+some suitable hostelry; though my ignorance of the country prevents me
+from recommending one. In the evening, tired but happy--”
+
+“Man, this is getting past a joke!” cried MacDonald, rising angrily from
+his chair.
+
+“Well, well, spend the day as you like,” said Holmes, patting him
+cheerfully upon the shoulder. “Do what you like and go where you will,
+but meet me here before dusk without fail--without fail, Mr. Mac.”
+
+“That sounds more like sanity.”
+
+“All of it was excellent advice; but I don't insist, so long as you are
+here when I need you. But now, before we part, I want you to write a
+note to Mr. Barker.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I'll dictate it, if you like. Ready?
+
+“Dear Sir:
+
+“It has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in the hope
+that we may find some--”
+
+“It's impossible,” said the inspector. “I've made inquiry.”
+
+“Tut, tut! My dear sir, please do what I ask you.”
+
+“Well, go on.”
+
+“--in the hope that we may find something which may bear upon our
+investigation. I have made arrangements, and the workmen will be at work
+early to-morrow morning diverting the stream--”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“--diverting the stream; so I thought it best to explain matters
+beforehand.
+
+“Now sign that, and send it by hand about four o'clock. At that hour we
+shall meet again in this room. Until then we may each do what we like;
+for I can assure you that this inquiry has come to a definite pause.”
+
+Evening was drawing in when we reassembled. Holmes was very serious in
+his manner, myself curious, and the detectives obviously critical and
+annoyed.
+
+“Well, gentlemen,” said my friend gravely, “I am asking you now to
+put everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves
+whether the observations I have made justify the conclusions to which
+I have come. It is a chill evening, and I do not know how long our
+expedition may last; so I beg that you will wear your warmest coats.
+It is of the first importance that we should be in our places before it
+grows dark; so with your permission we shall get started at once.”
+
+We passed along the outer bounds of the Manor House park until we came
+to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced it. Through
+this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed Holmes
+until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to the main
+door and the drawbridge. The latter had not been raised. Holmes crouched
+down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three followed his
+example.
+
+“Well, what are we to do now?” asked MacDonald with some gruffness.
+
+“Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,”
+ Holmes answered.
+
+“What are we here for at all? I really think that you might treat us
+with more frankness.”
+
+Holmes laughed. “Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life,”
+ said he. “Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls
+insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our profession, Mr.
+Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the
+scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap
+upon the shoulder--what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick
+inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the
+triumphant vindication of bold theories--are these not the pride and the
+justification of our life's work? At the present moment you thrill with
+the glamour of the situation and the anticipation of the hunt. Where
+would be that thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? I only
+ask a little patience, Mr. Mac, and all will be clear to you.”
+
+“Well, I hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will come
+before we all get our death of cold,” said the London detective with
+comic resignation.
+
+We all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil was a
+long and bitter one. Slowly the shadows darkened over the long, sombre
+face of the old house. A cold, damp reek from the moat chilled us to
+the bones and set our teeth chattering. There was a single lamp over the
+gateway and a steady globe of light in the fatal study. Everything else
+was dark and still.
+
+“How long is this to last?” asked the inspector finally. “And what is it
+we are watching for?”
+
+“I have no more notion than you how long it is to last,” Holmes answered
+with some asperity. “If criminals would always schedule their movements
+like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of
+us. As to what it is we--Well, THAT'S what we are watching for!”
+
+As he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured by
+somebody passing to and fro before it. The laurels among which we lay
+were immediately opposite the window and not more than a hundred feet
+from it. Presently it was thrown open with a whining of hinges, and we
+could dimly see the dark outline of a man's head and shoulders looking
+out into the gloom. For some minutes he peered forth in furtive,
+stealthy fashion, as one who wishes to be assured that he is unobserved.
+Then he leaned forward, and in the intense silence we were aware of the
+soft lapping of agitated water. He seemed to be stirring up the moat
+with something which he held in his hand. Then suddenly he hauled
+something in as a fisherman lands a fish--some large, round object which
+obscured the light as it was dragged through the open casement.
+
+“Now!” cried Holmes. “Now!”
+
+We were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our stiffened
+limbs, while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang violently at the
+bell. There was the rasping of bolts from the other side, and the amazed
+Ames stood in the entrance. Holmes brushed him aside without a word and,
+followed by all of us, rushed into the room which had been occupied by
+the man whom we had been watching.
+
+The oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had seen from
+outside. It was now in the hand of Cecil Barker, who held it towards us
+as we entered. Its light shone upon his strong, resolute, clean-shaved
+face and his menacing eyes.
+
+“What the devil is the meaning of all this?” he cried. “What are you
+after, anyhow?”
+
+Holmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a sodden bundle
+tied together with cord which lay where it had been thrust under the
+writing table.
+
+“This is what we are after, Mr. Barker--this bundle, weighted with a
+dumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of the moat.”
+
+Barker stared at Holmes with amazement in his face. “How in thunder came
+you to know anything about it?” he asked.
+
+“Simply that I put it there.”
+
+“You put it there! You!”
+
+“Perhaps I should have said 'replaced it there,'” said Holmes. “You will
+remember, Inspector MacDonald, that I was somewhat struck by the absence
+of a dumb-bell. I drew your attention to it; but with the pressure of
+other events you had hardly the time to give it the consideration which
+would have enabled you to draw deductions from it. When water is near
+and a weight is missing it is not a very far-fetched supposition that
+something has been sunk in the water. The idea was at least worth
+testing; so with the help of Ames, who admitted me to the room, and the
+crook of Dr. Watson's umbrella, I was able last night to fish up and
+inspect this bundle.
+
+“It was of the first importance, however, that we should be able to
+prove who placed it there. This we accomplished by the very obvious
+device of announcing that the moat would be dried to-morrow, which had,
+of course, the effect that whoever had hidden the bundle would most
+certainly withdraw it the moment that darkness enabled him to do so. We
+have no less than four witnesses as to who it was who took advantage
+of the opportunity, and so, Mr. Barker, I think the word lies now with
+you.”
+
+Sherlock Holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside the lamp
+and undid the cord which bound it. From within he extracted a dumb-bell,
+which he tossed down to its fellow in the corner. Next he drew forth a
+pair of boots. “American, as you perceive,” he remarked, pointing to
+the toes. Then he laid upon the table a long, deadly, sheathed knife.
+Finally he unravelled a bundle of clothing, comprising a complete set of
+underclothes, socks, a gray tweed suit, and a short yellow overcoat.
+
+“The clothes are commonplace,” remarked Holmes, “save only the overcoat,
+which is full of suggestive touches.” He held it tenderly towards the
+light. “Here, as you perceive, is the inner pocket prolonged into the
+lining in such fashion as to give ample space for the truncated fowling
+piece. The tailor's tab is on the neck--'Neal, Outfitter, Vermissa,
+U.S.A.' I have spent an instructive afternoon in the rector's library,
+and have enlarged my knowledge by adding the fact that Vermissa is a
+flourishing little town at the head of one of the best known coal and
+iron valleys in the United States. I have some recollection, Mr. Barker,
+that you associated the coal districts with Mr. Douglas's first wife,
+and it would surely not be too far-fetched an inference that the V.V.
+upon the card by the dead body might stand for Vermissa Valley, or that
+this very valley which sends forth emissaries of murder may be that
+Valley of Fear of which we have heard. So much is fairly clear. And
+now, Mr. Barker, I seem to be standing rather in the way of your
+explanation.”
+
+It was a sight to see Cecil Barker's expressive face during this
+exposition of the great detective. Anger, amazement, consternation, and
+indecision swept over it in turn. Finally he took refuge in a somewhat
+acrid irony.
+
+“You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you had better tell us some
+more,” he sneered.
+
+“I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr. Barker;
+but it would come with a better grace from you.”
+
+“Oh, you think so, do you? Well, all I can say is that if there's any
+secret here it is not my secret, and I am not the man to give it away.”
+
+“Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker,” said the inspector quietly,
+“we must just keep you in sight until we have the warrant and can hold
+you.”
+
+“You can do what you damn please about that,” said Barker defiantly.
+
+The proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far as he was
+concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face to realize that
+no peine forte et dure would ever force him to plead against his will.
+The deadlock was broken, however, by a woman's voice. Mrs. Douglas had
+been standing listening at the half opened door, and now she entered the
+room.
+
+“You have done enough for now, Cecil,” said she. “Whatever comes of it
+in the future, you have done enough.”
+
+“Enough and more than enough,” remarked Sherlock Holmes gravely. “I have
+every sympathy with you, madam, and should strongly urge you to have
+some confidence in the common sense of our jurisdiction and to take the
+police voluntarily into your complete confidence. It may be that I am
+myself at fault for not following up the hint which you conveyed to me
+through my friend, Dr. Watson; but, at that time I had every reason to
+believe that you were directly concerned in the crime. Now I am
+assured that this is not so. At the same time, there is much that is
+unexplained, and I should strongly recommend that you ask Mr. Douglas to
+tell us his own story.”
+
+Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes's words. The
+detectives and I must have echoed it, when we were aware of a man who
+seemed to have emerged from the wall, who advanced now from the gloom
+of the corner in which he had appeared. Mrs. Douglas turned, and in
+an instant her arms were round him. Barker had seized his outstretched
+hand.
+
+“It's best this way, Jack,” his wife repeated; “I am sure that it is
+best.”
+
+“Indeed, yes, Mr. Douglas,” said Sherlock Holmes, “I am sure that you
+will find it best.”
+
+The man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who comes from
+the dark into the light. It was a remarkable face, bold gray eyes, a
+strong, short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a square, projecting chin,
+and a humorous mouth. He took a good look at us all, and then to my
+amazement he advanced to me and handed me a bundle of paper.
+
+“I've heard of you,” said he in a voice which was not quite English and
+not quite American, but was altogether mellow and pleasing. “You are the
+historian of this bunch. Well, Dr. Watson, you've never had such a story
+as that pass through your hands before, and I'll lay my last dollar on
+that. Tell it your own way; but there are the facts, and you can't miss
+the public so long as you have those. I've been cooped up two days, and
+I've spent the daylight hours--as much daylight as I could get in that
+rat trap--in putting the thing into words. You're welcome to them--you
+and your public. There's the story of the Valley of Fear.”
+
+“That's the past, Mr. Douglas,” said Sherlock Holmes quietly. “What we
+desire now is to hear your story of the present.”
+
+“You'll have it, sir,” said Douglas. “May I smoke as I talk? Well, thank
+you, Mr. Holmes. You're a smoker yourself, if I remember right, and
+you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two days with tobacco in your
+pocket and afraid that the smell will give you away.” He leaned against
+the mantelpiece and sucked at the cigar which Holmes had handed him.
+“I've heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I never guessed that I should meet you.
+But before you are through with that,” he nodded at my papers, “you will
+say I've brought you something fresh.”
+
+Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with the greatest
+amazement. “Well, this fairly beats me!” he cried at last. “If you
+are Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, then whose death have we been
+investigating for these two days, and where in the world have you
+sprung from now? You seemed to me to come out of the floor like a
+jack-in-a-box.”
+
+“Ah, Mr. Mac,” said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefinger, “you
+would not read that excellent local compilation which described the
+concealment of King Charles. People did not hide in those days without
+excellent hiding places, and the hiding place that has once been used
+may be again. I had persuaded myself that we should find Mr. Douglas
+under this roof.”
+
+“And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr. Holmes?”
+ said the inspector angrily. “How long have you allowed us to waste
+ourselves upon a search that you knew to be an absurd one?”
+
+“Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac. Only last night did I form my views
+of the case. As they could not be put to the proof until this evening, I
+invited you and your colleague to take a holiday for the day. Pray what
+more could I do? When I found the suit of clothes in the moat, it at
+once became apparent to me that the body we had found could not have
+been the body of Mr. John Douglas at all, but must be that of the
+bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was possible.
+Therefore I had to determine where Mr. John Douglas himself could be,
+and the balance of probability was that with the connivance of his wife
+and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such conveniences
+for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could make his final
+escape.”
+
+“Well, you figured it out about right,” said Douglas approvingly. “I
+thought I'd dodge your British law; for I was not sure how I stood under
+it, and also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all off my
+track. Mind you, from first to last I have done nothing to be ashamed
+of, and nothing that I would not do again; but you'll judge that for
+yourselves when I tell you my story. Never mind warning me, Inspector:
+I'm ready to stand pat upon the truth.
+
+“I'm not going to begin at the beginning. That's all there,” he
+indicated my bundle of papers, “and a mighty queer yarn you'll find it.
+It all comes down to this: That there are some men that have good cause
+to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they had got
+me. So long as I am alive and they are alive, there is no safety in
+this world for me. They hunted me from Chicago to California, then they
+chased me out of America; but when I married and settled down in this
+quiet spot I thought my last years were going to be peaceable.
+
+“I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I pull her
+into it? She would never have a quiet moment again; but would always be
+imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something, for I may have dropped a
+word here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you gentlemen had
+seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter. She told you all she
+knew, and so did Barker here; for on the night when this thing happened
+there was mighty little time for explanations. She knows everything now,
+and I would have been a wiser man if I had told her sooner. But it was a
+hard question, dear,” he took her hand for an instant in his own, “and I
+acted for the best.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over in
+Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It was only
+a glimpse; but I have a quick eye for these things, and I never doubted
+who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all--one who has
+been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these years. I
+knew there was trouble coming, and I came home and made ready for it. I
+guessed I'd fight through it all right on my own, my luck was a proverb
+in the States about '76. I never doubted that it would be with me still.
+
+“I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the park.
+It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that buckshot gun of
+his before ever I could draw on him. After the bridge was up--my mind
+was always more restful when that bridge was up in the evenings--I put
+the thing clear out of my head. I never dreamed of his getting into the
+house and waiting for me. But when I made my round in my dressing
+gown, as was my habit, I had no sooner entered the study than I scented
+danger. I guess when a man has had dangers in his life--and I've had
+more than most in my time--there is a kind of sixth sense that waves
+the red flag. I saw the signal clear enough, and yet I couldn't tell you
+why. Next instant I spotted a boot under the window curtain, and then I
+saw why plain enough.
+
+“I'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good light
+from the hall lamp through the open door. I put down the candle and
+jumped for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel. At the same moment he
+sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at him with the
+hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down on the floor. He
+dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a moment later he'd got
+his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock it; but I had got hold of
+it before he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we wrestled for it
+all ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the man that lost his
+grip.
+
+“He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too
+long. Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe we just jolted it
+off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there I
+was, staring down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin. I'd recognized
+him in the township, and again when he sprang for me; but his own mother
+wouldn't recognize him as I saw him then. I'm used to rough work; but I
+fairly turned sick at the sight of him.
+
+“I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying down.
+I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her. It was no
+sight for a woman. I promised I'd come to her soon. I said a word or two
+to Barker--he took it all in at a glance--and we waited for the rest to
+come along. But there was no sign of them. Then we understood that they
+could hear nothing, and that all that had happened was known only to
+ourselves.
+
+“It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly dazzled
+by the brilliance of it. The man's sleeve had slipped up and there was
+the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. See here!”
+
+The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff
+to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we had
+seen upon the dead man.
+
+“It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it all
+clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and figure, about the
+same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil! I brought
+down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour Barker and I had
+put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found him. We tied all his
+things into a bundle, and I weighted them with the only weight I could
+find and put them through the window. The card he had meant to lay upon
+my body was lying beside his own.
+
+“My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding ring,”
+ he held out his muscular hand, “you can see for yourselves that I had
+struck the limit. I have not moved it since the day I was married, and
+it would have taken a file to get it off. I don't know, anyhow, that I
+should have cared to part with it; but if I had wanted to I couldn't.
+So we just had to leave that detail to take care of itself. On the other
+hand, I brought a bit of plaster down and put it where I am wearing one
+myself at this instant. You slipped up there, Mr. Holmes, clever as
+you are; for if you had chanced to take off that plaster you would have
+found no cut underneath it.
+
+“Well, that was the situation. If I could lie low for a while and then
+get away where I could be joined by my 'widow' we should have a chance
+at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives. These devils would
+give me no rest so long as I was above ground; but if they saw in the
+papers that Baldwin had got his man, there would be an end of all my
+troubles. I hadn't much time to make it all clear to Barker and to my
+wife; but they understood enough to be able to help me. I knew all about
+this hiding place, so did Ames; but it never entered his head to connect
+it with the matter. I retired into it, and it was up to Barker to do the
+rest.
+
+“I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. He opened the
+window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the murderer
+escaped. It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up there was
+no other way. Then, when everything was fixed, he rang the bell for all
+he was worth. What happened afterward you know. And so, gentlemen, you
+can do what you please; but I've told you the truth and the whole truth,
+so help me God! What I ask you now is how do I stand by the English
+law?”
+
+There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.
+
+“The English law is in the main a just law. You will get no worse than
+your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas. But I would ask you how did this
+man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or where to
+hide to get you?”
+
+“I know nothing of this.”
+
+Holmes's face was very white and grave. “The story is not over yet, I
+fear,” said he. “You may find worse dangers than the English law, or
+even than your enemies from America. I see trouble before you, Mr.
+Douglas. You'll take my advice and still be on your guard.”
+
+And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with me
+for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of Birlstone, and far also
+from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey which ended
+with the strange story of the man who had been known as John Douglas.
+I wish you to journey back some twenty years in time, and westward some
+thousands of miles in space, that I may lay before you a singular and
+terrible narrative--so singular and so terrible that you may find it
+hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so did it occur.
+
+Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished. As
+you read on you will find that this is not so. And when I have detailed
+those distant events and you have solved this mystery of the past, we
+shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where this, like so
+many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.
+
+
+
+
+
+Part 2--The Scowrers
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1--The Man
+
+
+
+It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a severe
+winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton Mountains.
+The steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open, and the evening
+train which connects the long line of coal-mining and iron-working
+settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep gradients which
+lead from Stagville on the plain to Vermissa, the central township which
+lies at the head of Vermissa Valley. From this point the track sweeps
+downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and the purely agricultural
+county of Merton. It was a single track railroad; but at every
+siding--and they were numerous--long lines of trucks piled with coal and
+iron ore told of the hidden wealth which had brought a rude population
+and a bustling life to this most desolate corner of the United States of
+America.
+
+For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had traversed
+it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush water
+pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black crag and
+tangled forest. Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable woods upon
+their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains, white snow, and
+jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long, winding, tortuous
+valley in the centre. Up this the little train was slowly crawling.
+
+The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,
+bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. The
+greater number of these were workmen returning from their day's toil in
+the lower part of the valley. At least a dozen, by their grimed faces
+and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed themselves
+miners. These sat smoking in a group and conversed in low voices,
+glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the car, whose
+uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.
+
+Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who might
+have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the company, with
+the exception of one young man in a corner by himself. It is with this
+man that we are concerned. Take a good look at him; for he is worth it.
+
+He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one would
+guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd, humorous gray eyes
+which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks round through
+his spectacles at the people about him. It is easy to see that he is of
+a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious to be friendly to
+all men. Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and
+communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile. And yet
+the man who studied him more closely might discern a certain firmness
+of jaw and grim tightness about the lips which would warn him that there
+were depths beyond, and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman
+might conceivably leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to
+which he was introduced.
+
+Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and
+receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself to
+uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the fading
+landscape.
+
+It was not a cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there pulsed
+the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great heaps of
+slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the high shafts
+of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of mean, wooden
+houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline themselves in
+light, were scattered here and there along the line, and the frequent
+halting places were crowded with their swarthy inhabitants.
+
+The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts for
+the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs of the
+crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the rude, strong
+workers who did it.
+
+The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of
+mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new to
+him. At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which he
+referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes. Once from
+the back of his waist he produced something which one would hardly have
+expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a man. It was
+a navy revolver of the largest size. As he turned it slantwise to the
+light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells within the drum
+showed that it was fully loaded. He quickly restored it to his secret
+pocket, but not before it had been observed by a working man who had
+seated himself upon the adjoining bench.
+
+“Hullo, mate!” said he. “You seem heeled and ready.”
+
+The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “we need them sometimes in the place I come from.”
+
+“And where may that be?”
+
+“I'm last from Chicago.”
+
+“A stranger in these parts?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You may find you need it here,” said the workman.
+
+“Ah! is that so?” The young man seemed interested.
+
+“Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?”
+
+“Nothing out of the way.”
+
+“Why, I thought the country was full of it. You'll hear quick enough.
+What made you come here?”
+
+“I heard there was always work for a willing man.”
+
+“Are you a member of the union?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“Then you'll get your job, I guess. Have you any friends?”
+
+“Not yet; but I have the means of making them.”
+
+“How's that, then?”
+
+“I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen. There's no town without a
+lodge, and where there is a lodge I'll find my friends.”
+
+The remark had a singular effect upon his companion. He glanced round
+suspiciously at the others in the car. The miners were still whispering
+among themselves. The two police officers were dozing. He came across,
+seated himself close to the young traveller, and held out his hand.
+
+“Put it there,” he said.
+
+A hand-grip passed between the two.
+
+“I see you speak the truth,” said the workman. “But it's well to make
+certain.” He raised his right hand to his right eyebrow. The traveller
+at once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.
+
+“Dark nights are unpleasant,” said the workman.
+
+“Yes, for strangers to travel,” the other answered.
+
+“That's good enough. I'm Brother Scanlan, Lodge 341, Vermissa Valley.
+Glad to see you in these parts.”
+
+“Thank you. I'm Brother John McMurdo, Lodge 29, Chicago. Bodymaster J.H.
+Scott. But I am in luck to meet a brother so early.”
+
+“Well, there are plenty of us about. You won't find the order more
+flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa Valley.
+But we could do with some lads like you. I can't understand a spry man
+of the union finding no work to do in Chicago.”
+
+“I found plenty of work to do,” said McMurdo.
+
+“Then why did you leave?”
+
+McMurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled. “I guess those chaps
+would be glad to know,” he said.
+
+Scanlan groaned sympathetically. “In trouble?” he asked in a whisper.
+
+“Deep.”
+
+“A penitentiary job?”
+
+“And the rest.”
+
+“Not a killing!”
+
+“It's early days to talk of such things,” said McMurdo with the air of
+a man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended. “I've
+my own good reasons for leaving Chicago, and let that be enough for you.
+Who are you that you should take it on yourself to ask such things?”
+ His gray eyes gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from behind his
+glasses.
+
+“All right, mate, no offense meant. The boys will think none the worse
+of you, whatever you may have done. Where are you bound for now?”
+
+“Vermissa.”
+
+“That's the third halt down the line. Where are you staying?”
+
+McMurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.
+“Here is the address--Jacob Shafter, Sheridan Street. It's a boarding
+house that was recommended by a man I knew in Chicago.”
+
+“Well, I don't know it; but Vermissa is out of my beat. I live at
+Hobson's Patch, and that's here where we are drawing up. But, say,
+there's one bit of advice I'll give you before we part: If you're
+in trouble in Vermissa, go straight to the Union House and see Boss
+McGinty. He is the Bodymaster of Vermissa Lodge, and nothing can happen
+in these parts unless Black Jack McGinty wants it. So long, mate! Maybe
+we'll meet in lodge one of these evenings. But mind my words: If you are
+in trouble, go to Boss McGinty.”
+
+Scanlan descended, and McMurdo was left once again to his thoughts.
+Night had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were
+roaring and leaping in the darkness. Against their lurid background
+dark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with the
+motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank and
+roar.
+
+“I guess hell must look something like that,” said a voice.
+
+McMurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his seat
+and was staring out into the fiery waste.
+
+“For that matter,” said the other policeman, “I allow that hell must BE
+something like that. If there are worse devils down yonder than some we
+could name, it's more than I'd expect. I guess you are new to this part,
+young man?”
+
+“Well, what if I am?” McMurdo answered in a surly voice.
+
+“Just this, mister, that I should advise you to be careful in choosing
+your friends. I don't think I'd begin with Mike Scanlan or his gang if I
+were you.”
+
+“What the hell is it to you who are my friends?” roared McMurdo in a
+voice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the
+altercation. “Did I ask you for your advice, or did you think me such
+a sucker that I couldn't move without it? You speak when you are spoken
+to, and by the Lord you'd have to wait a long time if it was me!” He
+thrust out his face and grinned at the patrolmen like a snarling dog.
+
+The two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the
+extraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been
+rejected.
+
+“No offense, stranger,” said one. “It was a warning for your own good,
+seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place.”
+
+“I'm new to the place; but I'm not new to you and your kind!” cried
+McMurdo in cold fury. “I guess you're the same in all places, shoving
+your advice in when nobody asks for it.”
+
+“Maybe we'll see more of you before very long,” said one of the
+patrolmen with a grin. “You're a real hand-picked one, if I am a judge.”
+
+“I was thinking the same,” remarked the other. “I guess we may meet
+again.”
+
+“I'm not afraid of you, and don't you think it!” cried McMurdo. “My
+name's Jack McMurdo--see? If you want me, you'll find me at Jacob
+Shafter's on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I'm not hiding from you, am
+I? Day or night I dare to look the like of you in the face--don't make
+any mistake about that!”
+
+There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the
+dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged
+their shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.
+
+A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there
+was a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on the
+line. McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to start off
+into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.
+
+“By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops,” he said in a voice of
+awe. “It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show you the
+road. I'm passing Shafter's on the way to my own shack.”
+
+There was a chorus of friendly “Good-nights” from the other miners
+as they passed from the platform. Before ever he had set foot in it,
+McMurdo the turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.
+
+The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way
+even more depressing. Down that long valley there was at least a certain
+gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting smoke,
+while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments in the
+hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous excavations.
+But the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and squalor. The broad
+street was churned up by the traffic into a horrible rutted paste of
+muddy snow. The sidewalks were narrow and uneven. The numerous gas-lamps
+served only to show more clearly a long line of wooden houses, each with
+its veranda facing the street, unkempt and dirty.
+
+As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by a
+row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and gaming
+houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but generous wages.
+
+“That's the Union House,” said the guide, pointing to one saloon which
+rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. “Jack McGinty is the boss
+there.”
+
+“What sort of a man is he?” McMurdo asked.
+
+“What! have you never heard of the boss?”
+
+“How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in
+these parts?”
+
+“Well, I thought his name was known clear across the country. It's been
+in the papers often enough.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“Well,” the miner lowered his voice--“over the affairs.”
+
+“What affairs?”
+
+“Good Lord, mister! you are queer, if I must say it without offense.
+There's only one set of affairs that you'll hear of in these parts, and
+that's the affairs of the Scowrers.”
+
+“Why, I seem to have read of the Scowrers in Chicago. A gang of
+murderers, are they not?”
+
+“Hush, on your life!” cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and
+gazing in amazement at his companion. “Man, you won't live long in these
+parts if you speak in the open street like that. Many a man has had the
+life beaten out of him for less.”
+
+“Well, I know nothing about them. It's only what I have read.”
+
+“And I'm not saying that you have not read the truth.” The man looked
+nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he
+feared to see some lurking danger. “If killing is murder, then God knows
+there is murder and to spare. But don't you dare to breathe the name
+of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every whisper
+goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it pass. Now,
+that's the house you're after, that one standing back from the street.
+You'll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a man as lives in
+this township.”
+
+“I thank you,” said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new acquaintance
+he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the dwelling
+house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.
+
+It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had
+expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of the
+German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a
+pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with
+surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of colour
+over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it
+seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful picture;
+the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and gloomy
+surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black slag-heaps
+of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. So entranced was
+he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she who broke the
+silence.
+
+“I thought it was father,” said she with a pleasing little touch of a
+German accent. “Did you come to see him? He is down town. I expect him
+back every minute.”
+
+McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes
+dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.
+
+“No, miss,” he said at last, “I'm in no hurry to see him. But your house
+was recommended to me for board. I thought it might suit me--and now I
+know it will.”
+
+“You are quick to make up your mind,” said she with a smile.
+
+“Anyone but a blind man could do as much,” the other answered.
+
+She laughed at the compliment. “Come right in, sir,” she said. “I'm Miss
+Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter's daughter. My mother's dead, and I run the
+house. You can sit down by the stove in the front room until father
+comes along--Ah, here he is! So you can fix things with him right away.”
+
+A heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path. In a few words McMurdo
+explained his business. A man of the name of Murphy had given him the
+address in Chicago. He in turn had had it from someone else. Old Shafter
+was quite ready. The stranger made no bones about terms, agreed at once
+to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of money. For seven
+dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board and lodging.
+
+So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice, took
+up his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step which was
+to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a far distant
+land.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 2--The Bodymaster
+
+
+
+McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly. Wherever he was the folk
+around soon knew it. Within a week he had become infinitely the most
+important person at Shafter's. There were ten or a dozen boarders there;
+but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a
+very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an evening when they
+gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the
+brightest, and his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a
+magnetism which drew good humour from all around him.
+
+And yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway
+carriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled the
+respect and even the fear of those who met him. For the law, too, and
+all who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which
+delighted some and alarmed others of his fellow boarders.
+
+From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the
+daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had set
+eyes upon her beauty and her grace. He was no backward suitor. On
+the second day he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he
+repeated the same story with an absolute disregard of what she might say
+to discourage him.
+
+“Someone else?” he would cry. “Well, the worse luck for someone else!
+Let him look out for himself! Am I to lose my life's chance and all my
+heart's desire for someone else? You can keep on saying no, Ettie: the
+day will come when you will say yes, and I'm young enough to wait.”
+
+He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his pretty,
+coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of experience and
+of mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and finally her love. He
+could talk of the sweet valleys of County Monaghan from which he came,
+of the lovely, distant island, the low hills and green meadows of which
+seemed the more beautiful when imagination viewed them from this place
+of grime and snow.
+
+Then he was versed in the life of the cities of the North, of Detroit,
+and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of Chicago, where he had
+worked in a planing mill. And afterwards came the hint of romance, the
+feeling that strange things had happened to him in that great city,
+so strange and so intimate that they might not be spoken of. He spoke
+wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into
+a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her
+dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy--those two qualities
+which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love.
+
+
+McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper for he was a
+well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, and he had not
+found occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the
+Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of his omission, however, by
+a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, the fellow member whom he had met
+in the train. Scanlan, the small, sharp-faced, nervous, black-eyed man,
+seemed glad to see him once more. After a glass or two of whisky he
+broached the object of his visit.
+
+“Say, McMurdo,” said he, “I remembered your address, so I made bold
+to call. I'm surprised that you've not reported to the Bodymaster. Why
+haven't you seen Boss McGinty yet?”
+
+“Well, I had to find a job. I have been busy.”
+
+“You must find time for him if you have none for anything else. Good
+Lord, man! you're a fool not to have been down to the Union House and
+registered your name the first morning after you came here! If you run
+against him--well, you mustn't, that's all!”
+
+McMurdo showed mild surprise. “I've been a member of the lodge for over
+two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were so pressing as
+all that.”
+
+“Maybe not in Chicago.”
+
+“Well, it's the same society here.”
+
+“Is it?”
+
+Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something sinister in
+his eyes.
+
+“Isn't it?”
+
+“You'll tell me that in a month's time. I hear you had a talk with the
+patrolmen after I left the train.”
+
+“How did you know that?”
+
+“Oh, it got about--things do get about for good and for bad in this
+district.”
+
+“Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them.”
+
+“By the Lord, you'll be a man after McGinty's heart!”
+
+“What, does he hate the police too?”
+
+Scanlan burst out laughing. “You go and see him, my lad,” said he as
+he took his leave. “It's not the police but you that he'll hate if you
+don't! Now, take a friend's advice and go at once!”
+
+
+It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing
+interview which urged him in the same direction. It may have been that
+his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or that they
+had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his good German
+host; but, whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper beckoned the
+young man into his private room and started on the subject without any
+circumlocution.
+
+“It seems to me, mister,” said he, “that you are gettin' set on my
+Ettie. Ain't that so, or am I wrong?”
+
+“Yes, that is so,” the young man answered.
+
+“Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain't no manner of use.
+There's someone slipped in afore you.”
+
+“She told me so.”
+
+“Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you who it
+vas?”
+
+“No, I asked her; but she wouldn't tell.”
+
+“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to
+frighten you avay.”
+
+“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.
+
+“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him. It
+is Teddy Baldwin.”
+
+“And who the devil is he?”
+
+“He is a boss of Scowrers.”
+
+“Scowrers! I've heard of them before. It's Scowrers here and Scowrers
+there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are the
+Scowrers?”
+
+The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did
+who talked about that terrible society. “The Scowrers,” said he, “are
+the Eminent Order of Freemen!”
+
+The young man stared. “Why, I am a member of that order myself.”
+
+“You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it--not if
+you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a veek.”
+
+“What's wrong with the order? It's for charity and good fellowship. The
+rules say so.”
+
+“Maybe in some places. Not here!”
+
+“What is it here?”
+
+“It's a murder society, that's vat it is.”
+
+McMurdo laughed incredulously. “How can you prove that?” he asked.
+
+“Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman and
+Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and little
+Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a voman in this
+valley vat does not know it?”
+
+“See here!” said McMurdo earnestly. “I want you to take back what you've
+said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do before I quit
+this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a stranger in the town.
+I belong to a society that I know only as an innocent one. You'll
+find it through the length and breadth of the States, but always as an
+innocent one. Now, when I am counting upon joining it here, you tell me
+that it is the same as a murder society called the Scowrers. I guess you
+owe me either an apology or else an explanation, Mr. Shafter.”
+
+“I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses of the
+one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is the other
+vat vill strike you. We have proved it too often.”
+
+“That's just gossip--I want proof!” said McMurdo.
+
+“If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget that you
+are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But you
+vill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot have you here. Is it not bad
+enough that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and that I dare
+not turn him down, but that I should have another for my boarder? Yes,
+indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!”
+
+
+McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his
+comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found her alone
+in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his troubles into
+her ear.
+
+“Sure, your father is after giving me notice,” he said. “It's little I
+would care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie, though it's only
+a week that I've known you, you are the very breath of life to me, and I
+can't live without you!”
+
+“Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don't speak so!” said the girl. “I have told
+you, have I not, that you are too late? There is another, and if I have
+not promised to marry him at once, at least I can promise no one else.”
+
+“Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?”
+
+The girl sank her face into her hands. “I wish to heaven that you had
+been first!” she sobbed.
+
+McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. “For God's sake,
+Ettie, let it stand at that!” he cried. “Will you ruin your life and
+my own for the sake of this promise? Follow your heart, acushla! 'Tis a
+safer guide than any promise before you knew what it was that you were
+saying.”
+
+He had seized Ettie's white hand between his own strong brown ones.
+
+“Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!”
+
+“Not here?”
+
+“Yes, here.”
+
+“No, no, Jack!” His arms were round her now. “It could not be here.
+Could you take me away?”
+
+A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended by
+setting like granite. “No, here,” he said. “I'll hold you against the
+world, Ettie, right here where we are!”
+
+“Why should we not leave together?”
+
+“No, Ettie, I can't leave here.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“I'd never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven out.
+Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free folks in a free
+country? If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come between?”
+
+“You don't know, Jack. You've been here too short a time. You don't know
+this Baldwin. You don't know McGinty and his Scowrers.”
+
+“No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't believe
+in them!” said McMurdo. “I've lived among rough men, my darling, and
+instead of fearing them it has always ended that they have feared
+me--always, Ettie. It's mad on the face of it! If these men, as your
+father says, have done crime after crime in the valley, and if everyone
+knows them by name, how comes it that none are brought to justice? You
+answer me that, Ettie!”
+
+“Because no witness dares to appear against them. He would not live a
+month if he did. Also because they have always their own men to swear
+that the accused one was far from the scene of the crime. But surely,
+Jack, you must have read all this. I had understood that every paper in
+the United States was writing about it.”
+
+“Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it was a
+story. Maybe these men have some reason in what they do. Maybe they are
+wronged and have no other way to help themselves.”
+
+“Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so! That is how he speaks--the
+other one!”
+
+“Baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?”
+
+“And that is why I loathe him so. Oh, Jack, now I can tell you the
+truth. I loathe him with all my heart; but I fear him also. I fear him
+for myself; but above all I fear him for father. I know that some great
+sorrow would come upon us if I dared to say what I really felt. That is
+why I have put him off with half-promises. It was in real truth our only
+hope. But if you would fly with me, Jack, we could take father with us
+and live forever far from the power of these wicked men.”
+
+Again there was the struggle upon McMurdo's face, and again it set like
+granite. “No harm shall come to you, Ettie--nor to your father either.
+As to wicked men, I expect you may find that I am as bad as the worst of
+them before we're through.”
+
+“No, no, Jack! I would trust you anywhere.”
+
+McMurdo laughed bitterly. “Good Lord! how little you know of me! Your
+innocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is passing in mine.
+But, hullo, who's the visitor?”
+
+The door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in with
+the air of one who is the master. He was a handsome, dashing young
+man of about the same age and build as McMurdo himself. Under his
+broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had not troubled to remove, a
+handsome face with fierce, domineering eyes and a curved hawk-bill of a
+nose looked savagely at the pair who sat by the stove.
+
+Ettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm. “I'm glad to
+see you, Mr. Baldwin,” said she. “You're earlier than I had thought.
+Come and sit down.”
+
+Baldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at McMurdo. “Who is
+this?” he asked curtly.
+
+“It's a friend of mine, Mr. Baldwin, a new boarder here. Mr. McMurdo,
+may I introduce you to Mr. Baldwin?”
+
+The young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.
+
+“Maybe Miss Ettie has told you how it is with us?” said Baldwin.
+
+“I didn't understand that there was any relation between you.”
+
+“Didn't you? Well, you can understand it now. You can take it from me
+that this young lady is mine, and you'll find it a very fine evening for
+a walk.”
+
+“Thank you, I am in no humour for a walk.”
+
+“Aren't you?” The man's savage eyes were blazing with anger. “Maybe you
+are in a humour for a fight, Mr. Boarder!”
+
+“That I am!” cried McMurdo, springing to his feet. “You never said a
+more welcome word.”
+
+“For God's sake, Jack! Oh, for God's sake!” cried poor, distracted
+Ettie. “Oh, Jack, Jack, he will hurt you!”
+
+“Oh, it's Jack, is it?” said Baldwin with an oath. “You've come to that
+already, have you?”
+
+“Oh, Ted, be reasonable--be kind! For my sake, Ted, if ever you loved
+me, be big-hearted and forgiving!”
+
+“I think, Ettie, that if you were to leave us alone we could get this
+thing settled,” said McMurdo quietly. “Or maybe, Mr. Baldwin, you will
+take a turn down the street with me. It's a fine evening, and there's
+some open ground beyond the next block.”
+
+“I'll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands,” said his
+enemy. “You'll wish you had never set foot in this house before I am
+through with you!”
+
+“No time like the present,” cried McMurdo.
+
+“I'll choose my own time, mister. You can leave the time to me. See
+here!” He suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon his forearm a
+peculiar sign which appeared to have been branded there. It was a circle
+with a triangle within it. “D'you know what that means?”
+
+“I neither know nor care!”
+
+“Well, you will know, I'll promise you that. You won't be much older,
+either. Perhaps Miss Ettie can tell you something about it. As to you,
+Ettie, you'll come back to me on your knees--d'ye hear, girl?--on
+your knees--and then I'll tell you what your punishment may be. You've
+sowed--and by the Lord, I'll see that you reap!” He glanced at them both
+in fury. Then he turned upon his heel, and an instant later the outer
+door had banged behind him.
+
+For a few moments McMurdo and the girl stood in silence. Then she threw
+her arms around him.
+
+“Oh, Jack, how brave you were! But it is no use, you must fly!
+To-night--Jack--to-night! It's your only hope. He will have your life.
+I read it in his horrible eyes. What chance have you against a dozen of
+them, with Boss McGinty and all the power of the lodge behind them?”
+
+McMurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushed her back
+into a chair. “There, acushla, there! Don't be disturbed or fear for me.
+I'm a Freeman myself. I'm after telling your father about it. Maybe I am
+no better than the others; so don't make a saint of me. Perhaps you hate
+me too, now that I've told you as much?”
+
+“Hate you, Jack? While life lasts I could never do that! I've heard that
+there is no harm in being a Freeman anywhere but here; so why should
+I think the worse of you for that? But if you are a Freeman, Jack, why
+should you not go down and make a friend of Boss McGinty? Oh, hurry,
+Jack, hurry! Get your word in first, or the hounds will be on your
+trail.”
+
+“I was thinking the same thing,” said McMurdo. “I'll go right now and
+fix it. You can tell your father that I'll sleep here to-night and find
+some other quarters in the morning.”
+
+The bar of McGinty's saloon was crowded as usual; for it was the
+favourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town. The man
+was popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition which formed a
+mask, covering a great deal which lay behind it. But apart from this
+popularity, the fear in which he was held throughout the township, and
+indeed down the whole thirty miles of the valley and past the mountains
+on each side of it, was enough in itself to fill his bar; for none could
+afford to neglect his good will.
+
+Besides those secret powers which it was universally believed that he
+exercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high public official, a
+municipal councillor, and a commissioner of roads, elected to the
+office through the votes of the ruffians who in turn expected to receive
+favours at his hands. Assessments and taxes were enormous; the public
+works were notoriously neglected, the accounts were slurred over by
+bribed auditors, and the decent citizen was terrorized into paying
+public blackmail, and holding his tongue lest some worse thing befall
+him.
+
+Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty's diamond pins became more
+obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous vest, and
+his saloon stretched farther and farther, until it threatened to absorb
+one whole side of the Market Square.
+
+McMurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloon and made his way
+amid the crowd of men within, through an atmosphere blurred with tobacco
+smoke and heavy with the smell of spirits. The place was brilliantly
+lighted, and the huge, heavily gilt mirrors upon every wall reflected
+and multiplied the garish illumination. There were several bartenders
+in their shirt sleeves, hard at work mixing drinks for the loungers who
+fringed the broad, brass-trimmed counter.
+
+At the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigar stuck
+at an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood a tall, strong,
+heavily built man who could be none other than the famous McGinty
+himself. He was a black-maned giant, bearded to the cheek-bones, and
+with a shock of raven hair which fell to his collar. His complexion was
+as swarthy as that of an Italian, and his eyes were of a strange dead
+black, which, combined with a slight squint, gave them a particularly
+sinister appearance.
+
+All else in the man--his noble proportions, his fine features, and his
+frank bearing--fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner which he
+affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow, whose heart
+would be sound however rude his outspoken words might seem. It was only
+when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless, were turned upon a man
+that he shrank within himself, feeling that he was face to face with
+an infinite possibility of latent evil, with a strength and courage and
+cunning behind it which made it a thousand times more deadly.
+
+Having had a good look at his man, McMurdo elbowed his way forward with
+his usual careless audacity, and pushed himself through the little
+group of courtiers who were fawning upon the powerful boss, laughing
+uproariously at the smallest of his jokes. The young stranger's bold
+gray eyes looked back fearlessly through their glasses at the deadly
+black ones which turned sharply upon him.
+
+“Well, young man, I can't call your face to mind.”
+
+“I'm new here, Mr. McGinty.”
+
+“You are not so new that you can't give a gentleman his proper title.”
+
+“He's Councillor McGinty, young man,” said a voice from the group.
+
+“I'm sorry, Councillor. I'm strange to the ways of the place. But I was
+advised to see you.”
+
+“Well, you see me. This is all there is. What d'you think of me?”
+
+“Well, it's early days. If your heart is as big as your body, and
+your soul as fine as your face, then I'd ask for nothing better,” said
+McMurdo.
+
+“By Gar! you've got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow,” cried the
+saloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious
+visitor or to stand upon his dignity.
+
+“So you are good enough to pass my appearance?”
+
+“Sure,” said McMurdo.
+
+“And you were told to see me?”
+
+“I was.”
+
+“And who told you?”
+
+“Brother Scanlan of Lodge 341, Vermissa. I drink your health Councillor,
+and to our better acquaintance.” He raised a glass with which he had
+been served to his lips and elevated his little finger as he drank it.
+
+McGinty, who had been watching him narrowly, raised his thick black
+eyebrows. “Oh, it's like that, is it?” said he. “I'll have to look a bit
+closer into this, Mister--”
+
+“McMurdo.”
+
+“A bit closer, Mr. McMurdo; for we don't take folk on trust in these
+parts, nor believe all we're told neither. Come in here for a moment,
+behind the bar.”
+
+There was a small room there, lined with barrels. McGinty carefully
+closed the door, and then seated himself on one of them, biting
+thoughtfully on his cigar and surveying his companion with those
+disquieting eyes. For a couple of minutes he sat in complete silence.
+McMurdo bore the inspection cheerfully, one hand in his coat pocket,
+the other twisting his brown moustache. Suddenly McGinty stooped and
+produced a wicked-looking revolver.
+
+“See here, my joker,” said he, “if I thought you were playing any game
+on us, it would be short work for you.”
+
+“This is a strange welcome,” McMurdo answered with some dignity, “for
+the Bodymaster of a lodge of Freemen to give to a stranger brother.”
+
+“Ay, but it's just that same that you have to prove,” said McGinty, “and
+God help you if you fail! Where were you made?”
+
+“Lodge 29, Chicago.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“June 24, 1872.”
+
+“What Bodymaster?”
+
+“James H. Scott.”
+
+“Who is your district ruler?”
+
+“Bartholomew Wilson.”
+
+“Hum! You seem glib enough in your tests. What are you doing here?”
+
+“Working, the same as you--but a poorer job.”
+
+“You have your back answer quick enough.”
+
+“Yes, I was always quick of speech.”
+
+“Are you quick of action?”
+
+“I have had that name among those that knew me best.”
+
+“Well, we may try you sooner than you think. Have you heard anything of
+the lodge in these parts?”
+
+“I've heard that it takes a man to be a brother.”
+
+“True for you, Mr. McMurdo. Why did you leave Chicago?”
+
+“I'm damned if I tell you that!”
+
+McGinty opened his eyes. He was not used to being answered in such
+fashion, and it amused him. “Why won't you tell me?”
+
+“Because no brother may tell another a lie.”
+
+“Then the truth is too bad to tell?”
+
+“You can put it that way if you like.”
+
+“See here, mister, you can't expect me, as Bodymaster, to pass into the
+lodge a man for whose past he can't answer.”
+
+McMurdo looked puzzled. Then he took a worn newspaper cutting from an
+inner pocket.
+
+“You wouldn't squeal on a fellow?” said he.
+
+“I'll wipe my hand across your face if you say such words to me!” cried
+McGinty hotly.
+
+“You are right, Councillor,” said McMurdo meekly. “I should apologize.
+I spoke without thought. Well, I know that I am safe in your hands. Look
+at that clipping.”
+
+McGinty glanced his eyes over the account of the shooting of one Jonas
+Pinto, in the Lake Saloon, Market Street, Chicago, in the New Year week
+of 1874.
+
+“Your work?” he asked, as he handed back the paper.
+
+McMurdo nodded.
+
+“Why did you shoot him?”
+
+“I was helping Uncle Sam to make dollars. Maybe mine were not as good
+gold as his, but they looked as well and were cheaper to make. This man
+Pinto helped me to shove the queer--”
+
+“To do what?”
+
+“Well, it means to pass the dollars out into circulation. Then he said
+he would split. Maybe he did split. I didn't wait to see. I just killed
+him and lighted out for the coal country.”
+
+“Why the coal country?”
+
+“'Cause I'd read in the papers that they weren't too particular in those
+parts.”
+
+McGinty laughed. “You were first a coiner and then a murderer, and you
+came to these parts because you thought you'd be welcome.”
+
+“That's about the size of it,” McMurdo answered.
+
+“Well, I guess you'll go far. Say, can you make those dollars yet?”
+
+McMurdo took half a dozen from his pocket. “Those never passed the
+Philadelphia mint,” said he.
+
+“You don't say!” McGinty held them to the light in his enormous hand,
+which was hairy as a gorilla's. “I can see no difference. Gar! you'll be
+a mighty useful brother, I'm thinking! We can do with a bad man or two
+among us, Friend McMurdo: for there are times when we have to take our
+own part. We'd soon be against the wall if we didn't shove back at those
+that were pushing us.”
+
+“Well, I guess I'll do my share of shoving with the rest of the boys.”
+
+“You seem to have a good nerve. You didn't squirm when I shoved this gun
+at you.”
+
+“It was not me that was in danger.”
+
+“Who then?”
+
+“It was you, Councillor.” McMurdo drew a cocked pistol from the side
+pocket of his peajacket. “I was covering you all the time. I guess my
+shot would have been as quick as yours.”
+
+“By Gar!” McGinty flushed an angry red and then burst into a roar of
+laughter. “Say, we've had no such holy terror come to hand this many a
+year. I reckon the lodge will learn to be proud of you.... Well, what
+the hell do you want? And can't I speak alone with a gentleman for five
+minutes but you must butt in on us?”
+
+The bartender stood abashed. “I'm sorry, Councillor, but it's Ted
+Baldwin. He says he must see you this very minute.”
+
+The message was unnecessary; for the set, cruel face of the man himself
+was looking over the servant's shoulder. He pushed the bartender out and
+closed the door on him.
+
+“So,” said he with a furious glance at McMurdo, “you got here first, did
+you? I've a word to say to you, Councillor, about this man.”
+
+“Then say it here and now before my face,” cried McMurdo.
+
+“I'll say it at my own time, in my own way.”
+
+“Tut! Tut!” said McGinty, getting off his barrel. “This will never do.
+We have a new brother here, Baldwin, and it's not for us to greet him in
+such fashion. Hold out your hand, man, and make it up!”
+
+“Never!” cried Baldwin in a fury.
+
+“I've offered to fight him if he thinks I have wronged him,” said
+McMurdo. “I'll fight him with fists, or, if that won't satisfy him,
+I'll fight him any other way he chooses. Now, I'll leave it to you,
+Councillor, to judge between us as a Bodymaster should.”
+
+“What is it, then?”
+
+“A young lady. She's free to choose for herself.”
+
+“Is she?” cried Baldwin.
+
+“As between two brothers of the lodge I should say that she was,” said
+the Boss.
+
+“Oh, that's your ruling, is it?”
+
+“Yes, it is, Ted Baldwin,” said McGinty, with a wicked stare. “Is it you
+that would dispute it?”
+
+“You would throw over one that has stood by you this five years in
+favour of a man that you never saw before in your life? You're not
+Bodymaster for life, Jack McGinty, and by God! when next it comes to a
+vote--”
+
+The Councillor sprang at him like a tiger. His hand closed round the
+other's neck, and he hurled him back across one of the barrels. In his
+mad fury he would have squeezed the life out of him if McMurdo had not
+interfered.
+
+“Easy, Councillor! For heaven's sake, go easy!” he cried, as he dragged
+him back.
+
+McGinty released his hold, and Baldwin, cowed and shaken gasping for
+breath, and shivering in every limb, as one who has looked over the very
+edge of death, sat up on the barrel over which he had been hurled.
+
+“You've been asking for it this many a day, Ted Baldwin--now you've got
+it!” cried McGinty, his huge chest rising and falling. “Maybe you think
+if I was voted down from Bodymaster you would find yourself in my shoes.
+It's for the lodge to say that. But so long as I am the chief I'll have
+no man lift his voice against me or my rulings.”
+
+“I have nothing against you,” mumbled Baldwin, feeling his throat.
+
+“Well, then,” cried the other, relapsing in a moment into a bluff
+joviality, “we are all good friends again and there's an end of the
+matter.”
+
+He took a bottle of champagne down from the shelf and twisted out the
+cork.
+
+“See now,” he continued, as he filled three high glasses. “Let us drink
+the quarrelling toast of the lodge. After that, as you know, there can
+be no bad blood between us. Now, then the left hand on the apple of my
+throat. I say to you, Ted Baldwin, what is the offense, sir?”
+
+“The clouds are heavy,” answered Baldwin
+
+“But they will forever brighten.”
+
+“And this I swear!”
+
+The men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed between
+Baldwin and McMurdo
+
+“There!” cried McGinty, rubbing his hands. “That's the end of the black
+blood. You come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and that's
+a heavy hand in these parts, as Brother Baldwin knows--and as you will
+damn soon find out, Brother McMurdo, if you ask for trouble!”
+
+“Faith, I'd be slow to do that,” said McMurdo. He held out his hand to
+Baldwin. “I'm quick to quarrel and quick to forgive. It's my hot Irish
+blood, they tell me. But it's over for me, and I bear no grudge.”
+
+Baldwin had to take the proffered hand; for the baleful eye of the
+terrible Boss was upon him. But his sullen face showed how little the
+words of the other had moved him.
+
+McGinty clapped them both on the shoulders. “Tut! These girls! These
+girls!” he cried. “To think that the same petticoats should come between
+two of my boys! It's the devil's own luck! Well, it's the colleen inside
+of them that must settle the question; for it's outside the jurisdiction
+of a Bodymaster--and the Lord be praised for that! We have enough on us,
+without the women as well. You'll have to be affiliated to Lodge 341,
+Brother McMurdo. We have our own ways and methods, different from
+Chicago. Saturday night is our meeting, and if you come then, we'll make
+you free forever of the Vermissa Valley.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 3--Lodge 341, Vermissa
+
+
+
+On the day following the evening which had contained so many exciting
+events, McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter's and took up
+his quarters at the Widow MacNamara's on the extreme outskirts of the
+town. Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had occasion
+shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged together.
+There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an easy-going old
+Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they had a freedom for
+speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in common.
+
+Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his meals
+there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by no means
+broken. On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as the weeks
+went by.
+
+In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it safe to take out the
+coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of brothers
+from the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each carrying away
+in his pocket some examples of the false money, so cunningly struck that
+there was never the slightest difficulty or danger in passing it. Why,
+with such a wonderful art at his command, McMurdo should condescend to
+work at all was a perpetual mystery to his companions; though he made it
+clear to anyone who asked him that if he lived without any visible means
+it would very quickly bring the police upon his track.
+
+One policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck
+would have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm.
+After the first introduction there were few evenings when he did not
+find his way to McGinty's saloon, there to make closer acquaintance with
+“the boys,” which was the jovial title by which the dangerous gang who
+infested the place were known to one another. His dashing manner and
+fearlessness of speech made him a favourite with them all; while the
+rapid and scientific way in which he polished off his antagonist in
+an “all in” bar-room scrap earned the respect of that rough community.
+Another incident, however, raised him even higher in their estimation.
+
+Just at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered
+with the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the mine police. This was
+a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to supplement
+the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were perfectly helpless
+in the face of the organized ruffianism which terrorized the district.
+There was a hush as he entered, and many a curious glance was cast at
+him; but the relations between policemen and criminals are peculiar
+in some parts of the States, and McGinty himself, standing behind his
+counter, showed no surprise when the policeman enrolled himself among
+his customers.
+
+“A straight whisky; for the night is bitter,” said the police officer.
+“I don't think we have met before, Councillor?”
+
+“You'll be the new captain?” said McGinty.
+
+“That's so. We're looking to you, Councillor, and to the other leading
+citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this township.
+Captain Marvin is my name.”
+
+“We'd do better without you, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty coldly; “for
+we have our own police of the township, and no need for any imported
+goods. What are you but the paid tool of the capitalists, hired by them
+to club or shoot your poorer fellow citizen?”
+
+“Well, well, we won't argue about that,” said the police officer
+good-humouredly. “I expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but we
+can't all see it the same.” He had drunk off his glass and had turned to
+go, when his eyes fell upon the face of Jack McMurdo, who was scowling
+at his elbow. “Hullo! Hullo!” he cried, looking him up and down. “Here's
+an old acquaintance!”
+
+McMurdo shrank away from him. “I was never a friend to you nor any other
+cursed copper in my life,” said he.
+
+“An acquaintance isn't always a friend,” said the police captain,
+grinning. “You're Jack McMurdo of Chicago, right enough, and don't you
+deny it!”
+
+McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “I'm not denying it,” said he. “D'ye
+think I'm ashamed of my own name?”
+
+“You've got good cause to be, anyhow.”
+
+“What the devil d'you mean by that?” he roared with his fists clenched.
+
+“No, no, Jack, bluster won't do with me. I was an officer in Chicago
+before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago
+crook when I see one.”
+
+McMurdo's face fell. “Don't tell me that you're Marvin of the Chicago
+Central!” he cried.
+
+“Just the same old Teddy Marvin, at your service. We haven't forgotten
+the shooting of Jonas Pinto up there.”
+
+“I never shot him.”
+
+“Did you not? That's good impartial evidence, ain't it? Well, his death
+came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for shoving
+the queer. Well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you and
+me--and perhaps I'm going further than my duty in saying it--they could
+get no clear case against you, and Chicago's open to you to-morrow.”
+
+“I'm very well where I am.”
+
+“Well, I've given you the pointer, and you're a sulky dog not to thank
+me for it.”
+
+“Well, I suppose you mean well, and I do thank you,” said McMurdo in no
+very gracious manner.
+
+“It's mum with me so long as I see you living on the straight,” said
+the captain. “But, by the Lord! if you get off after this, it's another
+story! So good-night to you--and good-night, Councillor.”
+
+He left the bar-room; but not before he had created a local hero.
+McMurdo's deeds in far Chicago had been whispered before. He had put off
+all questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have greatness
+thrust upon him. But now the thing was officially confirmed. The bar
+loafers crowded round him and shook him heartily by the hand. He was
+free of the community from that time on. He could drink hard and show
+little trace of it; but that evening, had his mate Scanlan not been at
+hand to lead him home, the feted hero would surely have spent his night
+under the bar.
+
+On a Saturday night McMurdo was introduced to the lodge. He had thought
+to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of Chicago; but there
+were particular rites in Vermissa of which they were proud, and these
+had to be undergone by every postulant. The assembly met in a large
+room reserved for such purposes at the Union House. Some sixty members
+assembled at Vermissa; but that by no means represented the full
+strength of the organization, for there were several other lodges in
+the valley, and others across the mountains on each side, who exchanged
+members when any serious business was afoot, so that a crime might be
+done by men who were strangers to the locality. Altogether there were
+not less than five hundred scattered over the coal district.
+
+In the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table. At
+the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which some
+members of the company were already turning their eyes. McGinty sat at
+the head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of tangled black
+hair, and a coloured purple stole round his neck, so that he seemed to
+be a priest presiding over some diabolical ritual. To right and left
+of him were the higher lodge officials, the cruel, handsome face of Ted
+Baldwin among them. Each of these wore some scarf or medallion as emblem
+of his office.
+
+They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the
+company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the
+ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their seniors.
+Among the older men were many whose features showed the tigerish,
+lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it was difficult
+to believe that these eager and open-faced young fellows were in very
+truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds had suffered such
+complete moral perversion that they took a horrible pride in their
+proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest respect at the man
+who had the reputation of making what they called “a clean job.”
+
+To their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous thing
+to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured them,
+and whom in many cases they had never seen in their lives. The crime
+committed, they quarrelled as to who had actually struck the fatal
+blow, and amused one another and the company by describing the cries and
+contortions of the murdered man.
+
+At first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at
+the time which this narrative describes their proceedings were
+extraordinarily open, for the repeated failure of the law had proved to
+them that, on the one hand, no one would dare to witness against them,
+and on the other they had an unlimited number of stanch witnesses upon
+whom they could call, and a well-filled treasure chest from which they
+could draw the funds to engage the best legal talent in the state. In
+ten long years of outrage there had been no single conviction, and
+the only danger that ever threatened the Scowrers lay in the victim
+himself--who, however outnumbered and taken by surprise, might and
+occasionally did leave his mark upon his assailants.
+
+McMurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one
+would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer room
+by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could hear the
+murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or twice he caught
+the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were discussing his
+candidacy. Then there entered an inner guard with a green and gold sash
+across his chest.
+
+“The Bodymaster orders that he shall be trussed, blinded, and entered,”
+ said he.
+
+The three of them removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right
+arm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it fast.
+They next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the upper
+part of his face, so that he could see nothing. He was then led into the
+assembly hall.
+
+It was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood. He heard the
+rustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of McGinty
+sounded dull and distant through the covering of his ears.
+
+“John McMurdo,” said the voice, “are you already a member of the Ancient
+Order of Freemen?”
+
+He bowed in assent.
+
+“Is your lodge No. 29, Chicago?”
+
+He bowed again.
+
+“Dark nights are unpleasant,” said the voice.
+
+“Yes, for strangers to travel,” he answered.
+
+“The clouds are heavy.”
+
+“Yes, a storm is approaching.”
+
+“Are the brethren satisfied?” asked the Bodymaster.
+
+There was a general murmur of assent.
+
+“We know, Brother, by your sign and by your countersign that you are
+indeed one of us,” said McGinty. “We would have you know, however, that
+in this county and in other counties of these parts we have certain
+rites, and also certain duties of our own which call for good men. Are
+you ready to be tested?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Are you of stout heart?”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Take a stride forward to prove it.”
+
+As the words were said he felt two hard points in front of his eyes,
+pressing upon them so that it appeared as if he could not move forward
+without a danger of losing them. None the less, he nerved himself to
+step resolutely out, and as he did so the pressure melted away. There
+was a low murmur of applause.
+
+“He is of stout heart,” said the voice. “Can you bear pain?”
+
+“As well as another,” he answered.
+
+“Test him!”
+
+It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out, for an
+agonizing pain shot through his forearm. He nearly fainted at the sudden
+shock of it; but he bit his lip and clenched his hands to hide his
+agony.
+
+“I can take more than that,” said he.
+
+This time there was loud applause. A finer first appearance had never
+been made in the lodge. Hands clapped him on the back, and the hood
+was plucked from his head. He stood blinking and smiling amid the
+congratulations of the brothers.
+
+“One last word, Brother McMurdo,” said McGinty. “You have already sworn
+the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and you are aware that the punishment
+for any breach of it is instant and inevitable death?”
+
+“I am,” said McMurdo.
+
+“And you accept the rule of the Bodymaster for the time being under all
+circumstances?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Then in the name of Lodge 341, Vermissa, I welcome you to its
+privileges and debates. You will put the liquor on the table, Brother
+Scanlan, and we will drink to our worthy brother.”
+
+McMurdo's coat had been brought to him; but before putting it on he
+examined his right arm, which still smarted heavily. There on the flesh
+of the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and red, as
+the branding iron had left it. One or two of his neighbours pulled up
+their sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.
+
+“We've all had it,” said one; “but not all as brave as you over it.”
+
+“Tut! It was nothing,” said he; but it burned and ached all the same.
+
+When the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all been
+disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded. McMurdo, accustomed
+only to the prosaic performances of Chicago, listened with open ears and
+more surprise than he ventured to show to what followed.
+
+“The first business on the agenda paper,” said McGinty, “is to read the
+following letter from Division Master Windle of Merton County Lodge 249.
+He says:
+
+“Dear Sir:
+
+“There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae & Sturmash, coal owners
+near this place. You will remember that your lodge owes us a return,
+having had the service of two brethren in the matter of the patrolman
+last fall. You will send two good men, they will be taken charge of by
+Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address you know. He will show
+them when to act and where. Yours in freedom,
+
+“J.W. WINDLE D.M.A.O.F.”
+
+“Windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the
+loan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him.” McGinty
+paused and looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes. “Who
+will volunteer for the job?”
+
+Several young fellows held up their hands. The Bodymaster looked at them
+with an approving smile.
+
+“You'll do, Tiger Cormac. If you handle it as well as you did the last,
+you won't be wrong. And you, Wilson.”
+
+“I've no pistol,” said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.
+
+“It's your first, is it not? Well, you have to be blooded some time. It
+will be a great start for you. As to the pistol, you'll find it waiting
+for you, or I'm mistaken. If you report yourselves on Monday, it will be
+time enough. You'll get a great welcome when you return.”
+
+“Any reward this time?” asked Cormac, a thick-set, dark-faced,
+brutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname of
+“Tiger.”
+
+“Never mind the reward. You just do it for the honour of the thing.
+Maybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom of
+the box.”
+
+“What has the man done?” asked young Wilson.
+
+“Sure, it's not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done. He
+has been judged over there. That's no business of ours. All we have to
+do is to carry it out for them, same as they would for us. Speaking of
+that, two brothers from the Merton lodge are coming over to us next week
+to do some business in this quarter.”
+
+“Who are they?” asked someone.
+
+“Faith, it is wiser not to ask. If you know nothing, you can testify
+nothing, and no trouble can come of it. But they are men who will make a
+clean job when they are about it.”
+
+“And time, too!” cried Ted Baldwin. “Folk are gettin' out of hand in
+these parts. It was only last week that three of our men were turned
+off by Foreman Blaker. It's been owing him a long time, and he'll get it
+full and proper.”
+
+“Get what?” McMurdo whispered to his neighbour.
+
+“The business end of a buckshot cartridge!” cried the man with a loud
+laugh. “What think you of our ways, Brother?”
+
+McMurdo's criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of
+the vile association of which he was now a member. “I like it well,”
+ said he. “'Tis a proper place for a lad of mettle.”
+
+Several of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.
+
+“What's that?” cried the black-maned Bodymaster from the end of the
+table.
+
+“'Tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste.”
+
+McMurdo rose to his feet for an instant. “I would say, Eminent
+Bodymaster, that if a man should be wanted I should take it as an honour
+to be chosen to help the lodge.”
+
+There was great applause at this. It was felt that a new sun was pushing
+its rim above the horizon. To some of the elders it seemed that the
+progress was a little too rapid.
+
+“I would move,” said the secretary, Harraway, a vulture-faced old
+graybeard who sat near the chairman, “that Brother McMurdo should wait
+until it is the good pleasure of the lodge to employ him.”
+
+“Sure, that was what I meant; I'm in your hands,” said McMurdo.
+
+“Your time will come, Brother,” said the chairman. “We have marked you
+down as a willing man, and we believe that you will do good work in
+these parts. There is a small matter to-night in which you may take a
+hand if it so please you.”
+
+“I will wait for something that is worth while.”
+
+“You can come to-night, anyhow, and it will help you to know what
+we stand for in this community. I will make the announcement later.
+Meanwhile,” he glanced at his agenda paper, “I have one or two more
+points to bring before the meeting. First of all, I will ask the
+treasurer as to our bank balance. There is the pension to Jim Carnaway's
+widow. He was struck down doing the work of the lodge, and it is for us
+to see that she is not the loser.”
+
+“Jim was shot last month when they tried to kill Chester Wilcox of
+Marley Creek,” McMurdo's neighbour informed him.
+
+“The funds are good at the moment,” said the treasurer, with the
+bankbook in front of him. “The firms have been generous of late. Max
+Linder & Co. paid five hundred to be left alone. Walker Brothers sent in
+a hundred; but I took it on myself to return it and ask for five. If I
+do not hear by Wednesday, their winding gear may get out of order. We
+had to burn their breaker last year before they became reasonable. Then
+the West Section Coaling Company has paid its annual contribution. We
+have enough on hand to meet any obligations.”
+
+“What about Archie Swindon?” asked a brother.
+
+“He has sold out and left the district. The old devil left a note for us
+to say that he had rather be a free crossing sweeper in New York than a
+large mine owner under the power of a ring of blackmailers. By Gar! it
+was as well that he made a break for it before the note reached us! I
+guess he won't show his face in this valley again.”
+
+An elderly, clean-shaved man with a kindly face and a good brow rose
+from the end of the table which faced the chairman. “Mr. Treasurer,” he
+asked, “may I ask who has bought the property of this man that we have
+driven out of the district?”
+
+“Yes, Brother Morris. It has been bought by the State & Merton County
+Railroad Company.”
+
+“And who bought the mines of Todman and of Lee that came into the market
+in the same way last year?”
+
+“The same company, Brother Morris.”
+
+“And who bought the ironworks of Manson and of Shuman and of Van Deher
+and of Atwood, which have all been given up of late?”
+
+“They were all bought by the West Gilmerton General Mining Company.”
+
+“I don't see, Brother Morris,” said the chairman, “that it matters to us
+who buys them, since they can't carry them out of the district.”
+
+“With all respect to you, Eminent Bodymaster, I think it may matter very
+much to us. This process has been going on now for ten long years.
+We are gradually driving all the small men out of trade. What is the
+result? We find in their places great companies like the Railroad or the
+General Iron, who have their directors in New York or Philadelphia, and
+care nothing for our threats. We can take it out of their local bosses;
+but it only means that others will be sent in their stead. And we are
+making it dangerous for ourselves. The small men could not harm us. They
+had not the money nor the power. So long as we did not squeeze them too
+dry, they would stay on under our power. But if these big companies find
+that we stand between them and their profits, they will spare no pains
+and no expense to hunt us down and bring us to court.”
+
+There was a hush at these ominous words, and every face darkened as
+gloomy looks were exchanged. So omnipotent and unchallenged had they
+been that the very thought that there was possible retribution in the
+background had been banished from their minds. And yet the idea struck a
+chill to the most reckless of them.
+
+“It is my advice,” the speaker continued, “that we go easier upon the
+small men. On the day that they have all been driven out the power of
+this society will have been broken.”
+
+Unwelcome truths are not popular. There were angry cries as the speaker
+resumed his seat. McGinty rose with gloom upon his brow.
+
+“Brother Morris,” said he, “you were always a croaker. So long as the
+members of this lodge stand together there is no power in the United
+States that can touch them. Sure, have we not tried it often enough in
+the lawcourts? I expect the big companies will find it easier to pay
+than to fight, same as the little companies do. And now, Brethren,”
+ McGinty took off his black velvet cap and his stole as he spoke, “this
+lodge has finished its business for the evening, save for one small
+matter which may be mentioned when we are parting. The time has now come
+for fraternal refreshment and for harmony.”
+
+Strange indeed is human nature. Here were these men, to whom murder was
+familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the family,
+some man against whom they had no personal feeling, without one thought
+of compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or helpless
+children, and yet the tender or pathetic in music could move them to
+tears. McMurdo had a fine tenor voice, and if he had failed to gain the
+good will of the lodge before, it could no longer have been withheld
+after he had thrilled them with “I'm Sitting on the Stile, Mary,” and
+“On the Banks of Allan Water.”
+
+In his very first night the new recruit had made himself one of the most
+popular of the brethren, marked already for advancement and high office.
+There were other qualities needed, however, besides those of good
+fellowship, to make a worthy Freeman, and of these he was given an
+example before the evening was over. The whisky bottle had passed round
+many times, and the men were flushed and ripe for mischief when their
+Bodymaster rose once more to address them.
+
+“Boys,” said he, “there's one man in this town that wants trimming up,
+and it's for you to see that he gets it. I'm speaking of James Stanger
+of the Herald. You've seen how he's been opening his mouth against us
+again?”
+
+There was a murmur of assent, with many a muttered oath. McGinty took a
+slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“LAW AND ORDER!”
+
+That's how he heads it.
+
+“REIGN OF TERROR IN THE COAL AND IRON DISTRICT
+
+“Twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations which
+proved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst. From that
+day these outrages have never ceased, until now they have reached a
+pitch which makes us the opprobrium of the civilized world. Is it for
+such results as this that our great country welcomes to its bosom the
+alien who flies from the despotisms of Europe? Is it that they shall
+themselves become tyrants over the very men who have given them shelter,
+and that a state of terrorism and lawlessness should be established
+under the very shadow of the sacred folds of the starry Flag of Freedom
+which would raise horror in our minds if we read of it as existing
+under the most effete monarchy of the East? The men are known. The
+organization is patent and public. How long are we to endure it? Can we
+forever live--
+
+“Sure, I've read enough of the slush!” cried the chairman, tossing the
+paper down upon the table. “That's what he says of us. The question I'm
+asking you is what shall we say to him?”
+
+“Kill him!” cried a dozen fierce voices.
+
+“I protest against that,” said Brother Morris, the man of the good brow
+and shaved face. “I tell you, Brethren, that our hand is too heavy in
+this valley, and that there will come a point where in self-defense
+every man will unite to crush us out. James Stanger is an old man. He
+is respected in the township and the district. His paper stands for all
+that is solid in the valley. If that man is struck down, there will be a
+stir through this state that will only end with our destruction.”
+
+“And how would they bring about our destruction, Mr. Standback?” cried
+McGinty. “Is it by the police? Sure, half of them are in our pay and
+half of them afraid of us. Or is it by the law courts and the judge?
+Haven't we tried that before now, and what ever came of it?”
+
+“There is a Judge Lynch that might try the case,” said Brother Morris.
+
+A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.
+
+“I have but to raise my finger,” cried McGinty, “and I could put two
+hundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end.”
+ Then suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into
+a terrible frown, “See here, Brother Morris, I have my eye on you, and
+have had for some time! You've no heart yourself, and you try to take
+the heart out of others. It will be an ill day for you, Brother Morris,
+when your own name comes on our agenda paper, and I'm thinking that it's
+just there that I ought to place it.”
+
+Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under
+him as he fell back into his chair. He raised his glass in his trembling
+hand and drank before he could answer. “I apologize, Eminent Bodymaster,
+to you and to every brother in this lodge if I have said more than I
+should. I am a faithful member--you all know that--and it is my fear
+lest evil come to the lodge which makes me speak in anxious words. But I
+have greater trust in your judgment than in my own, Eminent Bodymaster,
+and I promise you that I will not offend again.”
+
+The Bodymaster's scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words. “Very
+good, Brother Morris. It's myself that would be sorry if it were needful
+to give you a lesson. But so long as I am in this chair we shall be a
+united lodge in word and in deed. And now, boys,” he continued, looking
+round at the company, “I'll say this much, that if Stanger got his full
+deserts there would be more trouble than we need ask for. These editors
+hang together, and every journal in the state would be crying out for
+police and troops. But I guess you can give him a pretty severe warning.
+Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?”
+
+“Sure!” said the young man eagerly.
+
+“How many will you take?”
+
+“Half a dozen, and two to guard the door. You'll come, Gower, and you,
+Mansel, and you, Scanlan, and the two Willabys.”
+
+“I promised the new brother he should go,” said the chairman.
+
+Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not
+forgotten nor forgiven. “Well, he can come if he wants,” he said in a
+surly voice. “That's enough. The sooner we get to work the better.”
+
+The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken
+song. The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren
+remained there. The little band who had been told off for duty passed
+out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along the sidewalk
+so as not to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold night, with a
+half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty, star-spangled sky. The men
+stopped and gathered in a yard which faced a high building. The words,
+“Vermissa Herald” were printed in gold lettering between the brightly
+lit windows. From within came the clanking of the printing press.
+
+“Here, you,” said Baldwin to McMurdo, “you can stand below at the door
+and see that the road is kept open for us. Arthur Willaby can stay with
+you. You others come with me. Have no fears, boys; for we have a dozen
+witnesses that we are in the Union Bar at this very moment.”
+
+It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or two
+revellers upon their way home. The party crossed the road, and, pushing
+open the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin and his men rushed in and
+up the stair which faced them. McMurdo and another remained below.
+From the room above came a shout, a cry for help, and then the sound of
+trampling feet and of falling chairs. An instant later a gray-haired man
+rushed out on the landing.
+
+He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came
+tinkling down to McMurdo's feet. There was a thud and a groan. He was on
+his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they fell
+upon him. He writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under the
+blows. The others ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face set in
+an infernal smile, was hacking at the man's head, which he vainly
+endeavoured to defend with his arms. His white hair was dabbled with
+patches of blood. Baldwin was still stooping over his victim, putting in
+a short, vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when McMurdo
+dashed up the stair and pushed him back.
+
+“You'll kill the man,” said he. “Drop it!”
+
+Baldwin looked at him in amazement. “Curse you!” he cried. “Who are you
+to interfere--you that are new to the lodge? Stand back!” He raised his
+stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out of his pocket.
+
+“Stand back yourself!” he cried. “I'll blow your face in if you lay a
+hand on me. As to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the Bodymaster that
+the man was not to be killed--and what are you doing but killing him?”
+
+“It's truth he says,” remarked one of the men.
+
+“By Gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!” cried the man below. “The windows
+are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole town here inside of five
+minutes.”
+
+There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little group
+of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and nerving
+itself to action. Leaving the limp and motionless body of the editor
+at the head of the stair, the criminals rushed down and made their way
+swiftly along the street. Having reached the Union House, some of them
+mixed with the crowd in McGinty's saloon, whispering across the bar to
+the Boss that the job had been well carried through. Others, and among
+them McMurdo, broke away into side streets, and so by devious paths to
+their own homes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 4--The Valley of Fear
+
+
+
+When McMurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his
+initiation into the lodge. His head ached with the effect of the drink,
+and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and swollen. Having his
+own peculiar source of income, he was irregular in his attendance at his
+work; so he had a late breakfast, and remained at home for the morning
+writing a long letter to a friend. Afterwards he read the Daily Herald.
+In a special column put in at the last moment he read:
+
+OUTRAGE AT THE HERALD OFFICE--EDITOR SERIOUSLY INJURED.
+
+It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more
+familiar than the writer could have been. It ended with the statement:
+
+The matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly be hoped
+that their exertions will be attended by any better results than in
+the past. Some of the men were recognized, and there is hope that a
+conviction may be obtained. The source of the outrage was, it need
+hardly be said, that infamous society which has held this community in
+bondage for so long a period, and against which the Herald has taken so
+uncompromising a stand. Mr. Stanger's many friends will rejoice to hear
+that, though he has been cruelly and brutally beaten, and though he has
+sustained severe injuries about the head, there is no immediate danger
+to his life.
+
+Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester rifles,
+had been requisitioned for the defense of the office.
+
+McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a hand
+which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when there
+was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note which had
+just been handed in by a lad. It was unsigned, and ran thus:
+
+I should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your house.
+You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill. If you will come
+there now, I have something which it is important for you to hear and
+for me to say.
+
+McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he could not
+imagine what it meant or who was the author of it. Had it been in a
+feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of one
+of those adventures which had been familiar enough in his past life. But
+it was the writing of a man, and of a well educated one, too. Finally,
+after some hesitation, he determined to see the matter through.
+
+Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the town.
+In summer it is a favourite resort of the people, but in winter it is
+desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view not only of the whole
+straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath, with its
+scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each side of it,
+and of the wooded and white-capped ranges flanking it.
+
+McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until he
+reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer gaiety.
+Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his hat drawn
+down and the collar of his overcoat turned up. When he turned his face
+McMurdo saw that it was Brother Morris, he who had incurred the anger of
+the Bodymaster the night before. The lodge sign was given and exchanged
+as they met.
+
+“I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo,” said the older man,
+speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate ground.
+“It was kind of you to come.”
+
+“Why did you not put your name to the note?”
+
+“One has to be cautious, mister. One never knows in times like these how
+a thing may come back to one. One never knows either who to trust or who
+not to trust.”
+
+“Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.”
+
+“No, no, not always,” cried Morris with vehemence. “Whatever we say,
+even what we think, seems to go back to that man McGinty.”
+
+“Look here!” said McMurdo sternly. “It was only last night, as you know
+well, that I swore good faith to our Bodymaster. Would you be asking me
+to break my oath?”
+
+“If that is the view you take,” said Morris sadly, “I can only say that
+I am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me. Things have come
+to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their thoughts to each
+other.”
+
+McMurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed
+somewhat in his bearing. “Sure I spoke for myself only,” said he. “I am
+a newcomer, as you know, and I am strange to it all. It is not for me to
+open my mouth, Mr. Morris, and if you think well to say anything to me I
+am here to hear it.”
+
+“And to take it back to Boss McGinty!” said Morris bitterly.
+
+“Indeed, then, you do me injustice there,” cried McMurdo. “For myself I
+am loyal to the lodge, and so I tell you straight; but I would be a poor
+creature if I were to repeat to any other what you might say to me in
+confidence. It will go no further than me; though I warn you that you
+may get neither help nor sympathy.”
+
+“I have given up looking for either the one or the other,” said Morris.
+“I may be putting my very life in your hands by what I say; but, bad as
+you are--and it seemed to me last night that you were shaping to be as
+bad as the worst--still you are new to it, and your conscience cannot
+yet be as hardened as theirs. That was why I thought to speak with you.”
+
+“Well, what have you to say?”
+
+“If you give me away, may a curse be on you!”
+
+“Sure, I said I would not.”
+
+“I would ask you, then, when you joined the Freeman's society in Chicago
+and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross your mind that
+you might find it would lead you to crime?”
+
+“If you call it crime,” McMurdo answered.
+
+“Call it crime!” cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion. “You
+have seen little of it if you can call it anything else. Was it crime
+last night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till the
+blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that crime--or what else would
+you call it?”
+
+“There are some would say it was war,” said McMurdo, “a war of two
+classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could.”
+
+“Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman's
+society at Chicago?”
+
+“No, I'm bound to say I did not.”
+
+“Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It was just a benefit club
+and a meeting place for one's fellows. Then I heard of this place--curse
+the hour that the name first fell upon my ears!--and I came to better
+myself! My God! to better myself! My wife and three children came with
+me. I started a drygoods store on Market Square, and I prospered well.
+The word had gone round that I was a Freeman, and I was forced to join
+the local lodge, same as you did last night. I've the badge of shame on
+my forearm and something worse branded on my heart. I found that I was
+under the orders of a black villain and caught in a meshwork of crime.
+What could I do? Every word I said to make things better was taken as
+treason, same as it was last night. I can't get away; for all I have in
+the world is in my store. If I leave the society, I know well that it
+means murder to me, and God knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man,
+it is awful--awful!” He put his hands to his face, and his body shook
+with convulsive sobs.
+
+McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “You were too soft for the job,” said
+he. “You are the wrong sort for such work.”
+
+“I had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among
+them. I was chosen for a job. If I backed down I knew well what would
+come to me. Maybe I'm a coward. Maybe it's the thought of my poor little
+woman and the children that makes me one. Anyhow I went. I guess it will
+haunt me forever.
+
+“It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range yonder.
+I was told off for the door, same as you were last night. They could
+not trust me with the job. The others went in. When they came out
+their hands were crimson to the wrists. As we turned away a child was
+screaming out of the house behind us. It was a boy of five who had seen
+his father murdered. I nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet I
+had to keep a bold and smiling face; for well I knew that if I did not
+it would be out of my house that they would come next with their bloody
+hands and it would be my little Fred that would be screaming for his
+father.
+
+“But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in
+this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good Catholic; but the
+priest would have no word with me when he heard I was a Scowrer, and I
+am excommunicated from my faith. That's how it stands with me. And I see
+you going down the same road, and I ask you what the end is to be. Are
+you ready to be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do anything to
+stop it?”
+
+“What would you do?” asked McMurdo abruptly. “You would not inform?”
+
+“God forbid!” cried Morris. “Sure, the very thought would cost me my
+life.”
+
+“That's well,” said McMurdo. “I'm thinking that you are a weak man and
+that you make too much of the matter.”
+
+“Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the valley!
+See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that
+the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of
+the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is
+in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man,
+and you will learn for yourself.”
+
+“Well, I'll let you know what I think when I have seen more,” said
+McMurdo carelessly. “What is very clear is that you are not the man for
+the place, and that the sooner you sell out--if you only get a dime a
+dollar for what the business is worth--the better it will be for you.
+What you have said is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I thought you were
+an informer--”
+
+“No, no!” cried Morris piteously.
+
+“Well, let it rest at that. I'll bear what you have said in mind,
+and maybe some day I'll come back to it. I expect you meant kindly by
+speaking to me like this. Now I'll be getting home.”
+
+“One word before you go,” said Morris. “We may have been seen together.
+They may want to know what we have spoken about.”
+
+“Ah! that's well thought of.”
+
+“I offer you a clerkship in my store.”
+
+“And I refuse it. That's our business. Well, so long, Brother Morris,
+and may you find things go better with you in the future.”
+
+That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside the
+stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its framework was
+filled with the huge figure of Boss McGinty. He passed the sign, and
+then seating himself opposite to the young man he looked at him steadily
+for some time, a look which was as steadily returned.
+
+“I'm not much of a visitor, Brother McMurdo,” he said at last. “I guess
+I am too busy over the folk that visit me. But I thought I'd stretch a
+point and drop down to see you in your own house.”
+
+“I'm proud to see you here, Councillor,” McMurdo answered heartily,
+bringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard. “It's an honour that I
+had not expected.”
+
+“How's the arm?” asked the Boss.
+
+McMurdo made a wry face. “Well, I'm not forgetting it,” he said; “but
+it's worth it.”
+
+“Yes, it's worth it,” the other answered, “to those that are loyal and
+go through with it and are a help to the lodge. What were you speaking
+to Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this morning?”
+
+The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer
+prepared. He burst into a hearty laugh. “Morris didn't know I could earn
+a living here at home. He shan't know either; for he has got too much
+conscience for the likes of me. But he's a good-hearted old chap. It was
+his idea that I was at a loose end, and that he would do me a good turn
+by offering me a clerkship in a drygoods store.”
+
+“Oh, that was it?”
+
+“Yes, that was it.”
+
+“And you refused it?”
+
+“Sure. Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four
+hours' work?”
+
+“That's so. But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Well, I guess because I tell you not. That's enough for most folk in
+these parts.”
+
+“It may be enough for most folk; but it ain't enough for me,
+Councillor,” said McMurdo boldly. “If you are a judge of men, you'll
+know that.”
+
+The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an instant
+round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head of his companion.
+Then he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere fashion.
+
+“You're a queer card, for sure,” said he. “Well, if you want reasons,
+I'll give them. Did Morris say nothing to you against the lodge?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor against me?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, that's because he daren't trust you. But in his heart he is not
+a loyal brother. We know that well. So we watch him and we wait for
+the time to admonish him. I'm thinking that the time is drawing near.
+There's no room for scabby sheep in our pen. But if you keep company
+with a disloyal man, we might think that you were disloyal, too. See?”
+
+“There's no chance of my keeping company with him; for I dislike the
+man,” McMurdo answered. “As to being disloyal, if it was any man but you
+he would not use the word to me twice.”
+
+“Well, that's enough,” said McGinty, draining off his glass. “I came
+down to give you a word in season, and you've had it.”
+
+“I'd like to know,” said McMurdo, “how you ever came to learn that I had
+spoken with Morris at all?”
+
+McGinty laughed. “It's my business to know what goes on in this
+township,” said he. “I guess you'd best reckon on my hearing all that
+passes. Well, time's up, and I'll just say--”
+
+But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion. With a
+sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces glared
+in at them from under the peaks of police caps. McMurdo sprang to his
+feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as he became
+conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his head. A man
+in uniform advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his hand. It was
+Captain Marvin, once of Chicago, and now of the Mine Constabulary. He
+shook his head with a half-smile at McMurdo.
+
+“I thought you'd be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of
+Chicago,” said he. “Can't keep out of it, can you? Take your hat and
+come along with us.”
+
+“I guess you'll pay for this, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty. “Who are
+you, I'd like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and molest
+honest, law-abiding men?”
+
+“You're standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty,” said the police
+captain. “We are not out after you, but after this man McMurdo. It is
+for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty.”
+
+“He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct,” said the
+Boss.
+
+“By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own
+conduct some of these days,” the captain answered. “This man McMurdo
+was a crook before ever he came here, and he's a crook still. Cover him,
+Patrolman, while I disarm him.”
+
+“There's my pistol,” said McMurdo coolly. “Maybe, Captain Marvin, if you
+and I were alone and face to face you would not take me so easily.”
+
+“Where's your warrant?” asked McGinty. “By Gar! a man might as well live
+in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the police.
+It's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I reckon.”
+
+“You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, Councillor.
+We'll look after ours.”
+
+“What am I accused of?” asked McMurdo.
+
+“Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at the Herald
+office. It wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder charge.”
+
+“Well, if that's all you have against him,” cried McGinty with a laugh,
+“you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right now. This
+man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight, and I can
+bring a dozen to prove it.”
+
+“That's your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court to-morrow.
+Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don't want a gun
+across your head. You stand wide, Mr. McGinty; for I warn you I will
+stand no resistance when I am on duty!”
+
+So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and
+his boss were forced to accept the situation. The latter managed to have
+a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.
+
+“What about--” he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining plant.
+
+“All right,” whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place
+under the floor.
+
+“I'll bid you good-bye,” said the Boss, shaking hands. “I'll see Reilly
+the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. Take my word for it that
+they won't be able to hold you.”
+
+“I wouldn't bet on that. Guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him if
+he tries any games. I'll search the house before I leave.”
+
+He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant. When he
+had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters. Darkness
+had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the streets were
+nearly deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group, and emboldened
+by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.
+
+“Lynch the cursed Scowrer!” they cried. “Lynch him!” They laughed and
+jeered as he was pushed into the police station. After a short, formal
+examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the common
+cell. Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the night
+before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial next
+morning.
+
+But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the
+Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer with a
+straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles of
+whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious night,
+without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.
+
+Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate could not
+possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. On the one
+hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that the light
+was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed, and that it was
+difficult for them to swear to the identity of the assailants; although
+they believed that the accused were among them. Cross examined by the
+clever attorney who had been engaged by McGinty, they were even more
+nebulous in their evidence.
+
+The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise by
+the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond the fact
+that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. He added that he
+knew them to be Scowrers, since no one else in the community could
+possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been threatened on
+account of his outspoken editorials. On the other hand, it was clearly
+shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including
+that high municipal official, Councillor McGinty, that the men had been
+at a card party at the Union House until an hour very much later than
+the commission of the outrage.
+
+Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to an
+apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had been put,
+together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the police for
+their officious zeal.
+
+The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which McMurdo
+saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and waved. But
+there were others who sat with compressed lips and brooding eyes as the
+men filed out of the dock. One of them, a little, dark-bearded, resolute
+fellow, put the thoughts of himself and comrades into words as the
+ex-prisoners passed him.
+
+“You damned murderers!” he said. “We'll fix you yet!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 5--The Darkest Hour
+
+
+
+If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's
+popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and
+acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge should have
+done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new record
+in the annals of the society. Already he had earned the reputation of a
+good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper,
+who would not take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself.
+But in addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that
+among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to devise a
+bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable of carrying
+it out. “He'll be the boy for the clean job,” said the oldsters to one
+another, and waited their time until they could set him to his work.
+
+McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this was
+a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce bloodhound
+in leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some day he
+would slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the lodge, Ted
+Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the stranger and hated
+him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as
+to laugh.
+
+But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,
+one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it. Ettie
+Shafter's father would have nothing more to do with him, nor would he
+allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply in love to
+give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned her of what
+would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as a criminal.
+
+One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him, possibly
+for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him from those
+evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to his house, as
+he had often begged her to do, and made her way into the room which he
+used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table, with his back turned
+and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came
+over her--she was still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she
+pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly
+upon his bended shoulders.
+
+If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only in
+turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned on her, and
+his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same instant with the
+other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. For an instant
+he stood glaring. Then astonishment and joy took the place of the
+ferocity which had convulsed his features--a ferocity which had sent
+her shrinking back in horror as from something which had never before
+intruded into her gentle life.
+
+“It's you!” said he, mopping his brow. “And to think that you should
+come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do
+than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling,” and he held out his
+arms, “let me make it up to you.”
+
+But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear which
+she had read in the man's face. All her woman's instinct told her that
+it was not the mere fright of a man who is startled. Guilt--that was
+it--guilt and fear!
+
+“What's come over you, Jack?” she cried. “Why were you so scared of me?
+Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have looked at
+me like that!”
+
+“Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so
+lightly on those fairy feet of yours--”
+
+“No, no, it was more than that, Jack.” Then a sudden suspicion seized
+her. “Let me see that letter you were writing.”
+
+“Ah, Ettie, I couldn't do that.”
+
+Her suspicions became certainties. “It's to another woman,” she cried.
+“I know it! Why else should you hold it from me? Was it to your wife
+that you were writing? How am I to know that you are not a married
+man--you, a stranger, that nobody knows?”
+
+“I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You're the only one woman
+on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!”
+
+He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but
+believe him.
+
+“Well, then,” she cried, “why will you not show me the letter?”
+
+“I'll tell you, acushla,” said he. “I'm under oath not to show it, and
+just as I wouldn't break my word to you so I would keep it to those who
+hold my promise. It's the business of the lodge, and even to you it's
+secret. And if I was scared when a hand fell on me, can't you understand
+it when it might have been the hand of a detective?”
+
+She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his arms
+and kissed away her fears and doubts.
+
+“Sit here by me, then. It's a queer throne for such a queen; but it's
+the best your poor lover can find. He'll do better for you some of these
+days, I'm thinking. Now your mind is easy once again, is it not?”
+
+“How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a criminal
+among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear you are in
+court for murder? 'McMurdo the Scowrer,' that's what one of our boarders
+called you yesterday. It went through my heart like a knife.”
+
+“Sure, hard words break no bones.”
+
+“But they were true.”
+
+“Well, dear, it's not so bad as you think. We are but poor men that are
+trying in our own way to get our rights.”
+
+Ettie threw her arms round her lover's neck. “Give it up, Jack! For my
+sake, for God's sake, give it up! It was to ask you that I came here
+to-day. Oh, Jack, see--I beg it of you on my bended knees! Kneeling here
+before you I implore you to give it up!”
+
+He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.
+
+“Sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking. How could I
+give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my comrades?
+If you could see how things stand with me you could never ask it of me.
+Besides, if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don't suppose that the
+lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?”
+
+“I've thought of that, Jack. I've planned it all. Father has saved some
+money. He is weary of this place where the fear of these people darkens
+our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly together to Philadelphia or
+New York, where we would be safe from them.”
+
+McMurdo laughed. “The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it could not
+stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?”
+
+“Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father
+came from--anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!”
+
+McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. “Sure, it is the second time I
+have heard the valley so named,” said he. “The shadow does indeed seem
+to lie heavy on some of you.”
+
+“It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted Baldwin
+has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what do you
+suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those dark, hungry
+eyes of his when they fall on me!”
+
+“By Gar! I'd teach him better manners if I caught him at it! But see
+here, little girl. I can't leave here. I can't--take that from me once
+and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will try to
+prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.”
+
+“There is no honour in such a matter.”
+
+“Well, well, it's just how you look at it. But if you'll give me six
+months, I'll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to look
+others in the face.”
+
+The girl laughed with joy. “Six months!” she cried. “Is it a promise?”
+
+“Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the furthest we
+will leave the valley behind us.”
+
+It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something. There
+was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate future.
+She returned to her father's house more light-hearted than she had ever
+been since Jack McMurdo had come into her life.
+
+It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society
+would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the organization
+was wider and more complex than the simple lodge. Even Boss McGinty was
+ignorant as to many things; for there was an official named the County
+Delegate, living at Hobson's Patch farther down the line, who had power
+over several different lodges which he wielded in a sudden and arbitrary
+way. Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-haired rat of a
+man, with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance which was charged with
+malice. Evans Pott was his name, and even the great Boss of Vermissa
+felt towards him something of the repulsion and fear which the huge
+Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous Robespierre.
+
+One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo's fellow boarder, received a note from
+McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that he was
+sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had instructions
+to act in the neighbourhood; though it was best for the cause that no
+particulars as to their objects should be given. Would the Bodymaster
+see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their lodgings and
+comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty added that it
+was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union House, and that,
+therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo and Scanlan would put the
+strangers up for a few days in their boarding house.
+
+The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack. Lawler
+was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad in an old
+black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged, grizzled
+beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant preacher. His
+companion Andrews was little more than a boy, frank-faced and cheerful,
+with the breezy manner of one who is out for a holiday and means to
+enjoy every minute of it. Both men were total abstainers, and behaved
+in all ways as exemplary members of the society, with the one simple
+exception that they were assassins who had often proved themselves to
+be most capable instruments for this association of murder. Lawler had
+already carried out fourteen commissions of the kind, and Andrews three.
+
+They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their deeds
+in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride of men
+who had done good and unselfish service for the community. They were
+reticent, however, as to the immediate job in hand.
+
+“They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink,” Lawler
+explained. “They can count on us saying no more than we should. You must
+not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County Delegate that we
+obey.”
+
+“Sure, we are all in it together,” said Scanlan, McMurdo's mate, as the
+four sat together at supper.
+
+“That's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home of the
+killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other job in the
+past. But till the work is done we say nothing.”
+
+“There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say to,” said
+McMurdo, with an oath. “I suppose it isn't Jack Knox of Ironhill that
+you are after. I'd go some way to see him get his deserts.”
+
+“No, it's not him yet.”
+
+“Or Herman Strauss?”
+
+“No, nor him either.”
+
+“Well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but I'd be glad to know.”
+
+Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.
+
+In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo were
+quite determined to be present at what they called “the fun.” When,
+therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo heard them creeping down
+the stairs he awakened Scanlan, and the two hurried on their clothes.
+When they were dressed they found that the others had stolen out,
+leaving the door open behind them. It was not yet dawn, and by the light
+of the lamps they could see the two men some distance down the street.
+They followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the deep snow.
+
+The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they were
+at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here three men were
+waiting, with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short, eager conversation.
+Then they all moved on together. It was clearly some notable job which
+needed numbers. At this point there are several trails which lead to
+various mines. The strangers took that which led to the Crow Hill, a
+huge business which was in strong hands which had been able, thanks to
+their energetic and fearless New England manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to
+keep some order and discipline during the long reign of terror.
+
+Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making their
+way, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.
+
+McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight of the
+men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over them, and from the heart
+of it there came the sudden scream of a steam whistle. It was the
+ten-minute signal before the cages descended and the day's labour began.
+
+When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were
+a hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their
+fingers; for it was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in a little group
+under the shadow of the engine house. Scanlan and McMurdo climbed a heap
+of slag from which the whole scene lay before them. They saw the mine
+engineer, a great bearded Scotchman named Menzies, come out of the
+engine house and blow his whistle for the cages to be lowered.
+
+At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a clean-shaved,
+earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. As he came forward
+his eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless, under the engine
+house. The men had drawn down their hats and turned up their collars to
+screen their faces. For a moment the presentiment of Death laid its cold
+hand upon the manager's heart. At the next he had shaken it off and saw
+only his duty towards intrusive strangers.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked as he advanced. “What are you loitering there
+for?”
+
+There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and shot him in
+the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and helpless
+as if they were paralyzed. The manager clapped his two hands to the
+wound and doubled himself up. Then he staggered away; but another of the
+assassins fired, and he went down sidewise, kicking and clawing among
+a heap of clinkers. Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a roar of rage at the
+sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the murderers; but was met by
+two balls in the face which dropped him dead at their very feet.
+
+There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an inarticulate
+cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their
+six-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and scattered,
+some of them rushing wildly back to their homes in Vermissa.
+
+When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to the
+mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning, without
+a single witness being able to swear to the identity of these men who in
+front of a hundred spectators had wrought this double crime.
+
+Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat subdued, for
+it was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes, and
+it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The horrible
+screams of the dead manager's wife pursued them as they hurried to the
+town. McMurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed no sympathy for the
+weakening of his companion.
+
+“Sure, it is like a war,” he repeated. “What is it but a war between us
+and them, and we hit back where we best can.”
+
+There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that night,
+not only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the Crow Hill
+mine, which would bring this organization into line with the other
+blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of the district, but also
+over a distant triumph which had been wrought by the hands of the lodge
+itself.
+
+It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over five good
+men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in return three
+Vermissa men should be secretly selected and sent across to kill William
+Hales of Stake Royal, one of the best known and most popular mine owners
+in the Gilmerton district, a man who was believed not to have an enemy
+in the world; for he was in all ways a model employer. He had insisted,
+however, upon efficiency in the work, and had, therefore, paid off
+certain drunken and idle employees who were members of the all-powerful
+society. Coffin notices hung outside his door had not weakened his
+resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he found himself
+condemned to death.
+
+The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin, who sprawled
+now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had been chief of the
+party. His flushed face and glazed, bloodshot eyes told of sleeplessness
+and drink. He and his two comrades had spent the night before among
+the mountains. They were unkempt and weather-stained. But no heroes,
+returning from a forlorn hope, could have had a warmer welcome from
+their comrades.
+
+The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of
+laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at nightfall,
+taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his horse must be
+at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the cold that he could not lay
+his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him out and shot him again and
+again. He had screamed for mercy. The screams were repeated for the
+amusement of the lodge.
+
+“Let's hear again how he squealed,” they cried.
+
+None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing, and
+they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men were to
+be relied upon.
+
+There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up
+while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body.
+It had been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were
+harmless folk who were not connected with the mines, so they were
+sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall
+them. And so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to all
+such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had hurried
+off into the mountains where unbroken nature comes down to the very
+edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps. Here they were, safe and sound,
+their work well done, and the plaudits of their companions in their
+ears.
+
+It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had fallen even
+darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the moment of
+victory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have no
+time to steady themselves after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking out
+upon the scene of his operations with his brooding and malicious eyes,
+had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. That very night, as
+the half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on the arm and led
+him aside into that inner room where they had their first interview.
+
+“See here, my lad,” said he, “I've got a job that's worthy of you at
+last. You'll have the doing of it in your own hands.”
+
+“Proud I am to hear it,” McMurdo answered.
+
+“You can take two men with you--Manders and Reilly. They have been
+warned for service. We'll never be right in this district until Chester
+Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks of every lodge in
+the coal fields if you can down him.”
+
+“I'll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find him?”
+
+McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the corner
+of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page torn from
+his notebook.
+
+“He's the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company. He's a hard citizen,
+an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle. We've had two
+tries at him; but had no luck, and Jim Carnaway lost his life over it.
+Now it's for you to take it over. That's the house--all alone at the
+Iron Dike crossroad, same as you see here on the map--without another
+within earshot. It's no good by day. He's armed and shoots quick and
+straight, with no questions asked. But at night--well, there he is with
+his wife, three children, and a hired help. You can't pick or choose.
+It's all or none. If you could get a bag of blasting powder at the front
+door with a slow match to it--”
+
+“What's the man done?”
+
+“Didn't I tell you he shot Jim Carnaway?”
+
+“Why did he shoot him?”
+
+“What in thunder has that to do with you? Carnaway was about his house
+at night, and he shot him. That's enough for me and you. You've got to
+settle the thing right.”
+
+“There's these two women and the children. Do they go up too?”
+
+“They have to--else how can we get him?”
+
+“It seems hard on them; for they've done nothing.”
+
+“What sort of fool's talk is this? Do you back out?”
+
+“Easy, Councillor, easy! What have I ever said or done that you should
+think I would be after standing back from an order of the Bodymaster of
+my own lodge? If it's right or if it's wrong, it's for you to decide.”
+
+“You'll do it, then?”
+
+“Of course I will do it.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the house and
+make my plans. Then--”
+
+“Very good,” said McGinty, shaking him by the hand. “I leave it with
+you. It will be a great day when you bring us the news. It's just the
+last stroke that will bring them all to their knees.”
+
+McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had been so
+suddenly placed in his hands. The isolated house in which Chester Wilcox
+lived was about five miles off in an adjacent valley. That very night he
+started off all alone to prepare for the attempt. It was daylight before
+he returned from his reconnaissance. Next day he interviewed his two
+subordinates, Manders and Reilly, reckless youngsters who were as elated
+as if it were a deer-hunt.
+
+Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and one
+of them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was used in the
+quarries. It was two in the morning before they came to the lonely
+house. The night was a windy one, with broken clouds drifting swiftly
+across the face of a three-quarter moon. They had been warned to be on
+their guard against bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously, with
+their pistols cocked in their hands. But there was no sound save the
+howling of the wind, and no movement but the swaying branches above
+them.
+
+McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was still
+within. Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a hole in it
+with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was well alight he and
+his two companions took to their heels, and were some distance off,
+safe and snug in a sheltering ditch, before the shattering roar of the
+explosion, with the low, deep rumble of the collapsing building, told
+them that their work was done. No cleaner job had ever been carried out
+in the bloodstained annals of the society.
+
+But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out should all
+have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the various victims, and
+knowing that he was marked down for destruction, Chester Wilcox had
+moved himself and his family only the day before to some safer and less
+known quarters, where a guard of police should watch over them. It was
+an empty house which had been torn down by the gunpowder, and the grim
+old colour sergeant of the war was still teaching discipline to the
+miners of Iron Dike.
+
+“Leave him to me,” said McMurdo. “He's my man, and I'll get him sure if
+I have to wait a year for him.”
+
+A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for
+the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was reported in the
+papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an open
+secret that McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.
+
+Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were the deeds
+of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over the great
+and rich district which was for so long a period haunted by their
+terrible presence. Why should these pages be stained by further crimes?
+Have I not said enough to show the men and their methods?
+
+These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one
+may read the details of them. There one may learn of the shooting of
+Policemen Hunt and Evans because they had ventured to arrest two members
+of the society--a double outrage planned at the Vermissa lodge and
+carried out in cold blood upon two helpless and disarmed men. There also
+one may read of the shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she was nursing her
+husband, who had been beaten almost to death by orders of Boss McGinty.
+The killing of the elder Jenkins, shortly followed by that of his
+brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch, the blowing up of the
+Staphouse family, and the murder of the Stendals all followed hard upon
+one another in the same terrible winter.
+
+Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear. The spring had come with
+running brooks and blossoming trees. There was hope for all Nature bound
+so long in an iron grip; but nowhere was there any hope for the men and
+women who lived under the yoke of the terror. Never had the cloud above
+them been so dark and hopeless as in the early summer of the year 1875.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 6--Danger
+
+
+
+It was the height of the reign of terror. McMurdo, who had already
+been appointed Inner Deacon, with every prospect of some day succeeding
+McGinty as Bodymaster, was now so necessary to the councils of his
+comrades that nothing was done without his help and advice. The more
+popular he became, however, with the Freemen, the blacker were the
+scowls which greeted him as he passed along the streets of Vermissa. In
+spite of their terror the citizens were taking heart to band themselves
+together against their oppressors. Rumours had reached the lodge of
+secret gatherings in the Herald office and of distribution of firearms
+among the law-abiding people. But McGinty and his men were undisturbed
+by such reports. They were numerous, resolute, and well armed. Their
+opponents were scattered and powerless. It would all end, as it had done
+in the past, in aimless talk and possibly in impotent arrests. So said
+McGinty, McMurdo, and all the bolder spirits.
+
+It was a Saturday evening in May. Saturday was always the lodge night,
+and McMurdo was leaving his house to attend it when Morris, the weaker
+brother of the order, came to see him. His brow was creased with care,
+and his kindly face was drawn and haggard.
+
+“Can I speak with you freely, Mr. McMurdo?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“I can't forget that I spoke my heart to you once, and that you kept it
+to yourself, even though the Boss himself came to ask you about it.”
+
+“What else could I do if you trusted me? It wasn't that I agreed with
+what you said.”
+
+“I know that well. But you are the one that I can speak to and be safe.
+I've a secret here,” he put his hand to his breast, “and it is just
+burning the life out of me. I wish it had come to any one of you but me.
+If I tell it, it will mean murder, for sure. If I don't, it may bring
+the end of us all. God help me, but I am near out of my wits over it!”
+
+McMurdo looked at the man earnestly. He was trembling in every limb. He
+poured some whisky into a glass and handed it to him. “That's the physic
+for the likes of you,” said he. “Now let me hear of it.”
+
+Morris drank, and his white face took a tinge of colour. “I can tell
+it to you all in one sentence,” said he. “There's a detective on our
+trail.”
+
+McMurdo stared at him in astonishment. “Why, man, you're crazy,” he
+said. “Isn't the place full of police and detectives and what harm did
+they ever do us?”
+
+“No, no, it's no man of the district. As you say, we know them, and it
+is little that they can do. But you've heard of Pinkerton's?”
+
+“I've read of some folk of that name.”
+
+“Well, you can take it from me you've no show when they are on your
+trail. It's not a take-it-or-miss-it government concern. It's a dead
+earnest business proposition that's out for results and keeps out
+till by hook or crook it gets them. If a Pinkerton man is deep in this
+business, we are all destroyed.”
+
+“We must kill him.”
+
+“Ah, it's the first thought that came to you! So it will be up at the
+lodge. Didn't I say to you that it would end in murder?”
+
+“Sure, what is murder? Isn't it common enough in these parts?”
+
+“It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to be
+murdered. I'd never rest easy again. And yet it's our own necks that may
+be at stake. In God's name what shall I do?” He rocked to and fro in his
+agony of indecision.
+
+But his words had moved McMurdo deeply. It was easy to see that he
+shared the other's opinion as to the danger, and the need for meeting
+it. He gripped Morris's shoulder and shook him in his earnestness.
+
+“See here, man,” he cried, and he almost screeched the words in his
+excitement, “you won't gain anything by sitting keening like an old wife
+at a wake. Let's have the facts. Who is the fellow? Where is he? How did
+you hear of him? Why did you come to me?”
+
+“I came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me. I told you
+that I had a store in the East before I came here. I left good friends
+behind me, and one of them is in the telegraph service. Here's a letter
+that I had from him yesterday. It's this part from the top of the page.
+You can read it yourself.”
+
+This was what McMurdo read:
+
+How are the Scowrers getting on in your parts? We read plenty of them
+in the papers. Between you and me I expect to hear news from you before
+long. Five big corporations and the two railroads have taken the thing
+up in dead earnest. They mean it, and you can bet they'll get there!
+They are right deep down into it. Pinkerton has taken hold under their
+orders, and his best man, Birdy Edwards, is operating. The thing has got
+to be stopped right now.
+
+“Now read the postscript.”
+
+Of course, what I give you is what I learned in business; so it goes no
+further. It's a queer cipher that you handle by the yard every day and
+can get no meaning from.
+
+McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his listless
+hands. The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was the abyss before
+him.
+
+“Does anyone else know of this?” he asked.
+
+“I have told no one else.”
+
+“But this man--your friend--has he any other person that he would be
+likely to write to?”
+
+“Well, I dare say he knows one or two more.”
+
+“Of the lodge?”
+
+“It's likely enough.”
+
+“I was asking because it is likely that he may have given some
+description of this fellow Birdy Edwards--then we could get on his
+trail.”
+
+“Well, it's possible. But I should not think he knew him. He is just
+telling me the news that came to him by way of business. How would he
+know this Pinkerton man?”
+
+McMurdo gave a violent start.
+
+“By Gar!” he cried, “I've got him. What a fool I was not to know it.
+Lord! but we're in luck! We will fix him before he can do any harm. See
+here, Morris, will you leave this thing in my hands?”
+
+“Sure, if you will only take it off mine.”
+
+“I'll do that. You can stand right back and let me run it. Even your
+name need not be mentioned. I'll take it all on myself, as if it were to
+me that this letter has come. Will that content you?”
+
+“It's just what I would ask.”
+
+“Then leave it at that and keep your head shut. Now I'll get down to the
+lodge, and we'll soon make old man Pinkerton sorry for himself.”
+
+“You wouldn't kill this man?”
+
+“The less you know, Friend Morris, the easier your conscience will be,
+and the better you will sleep. Ask no questions, and let these things
+settle themselves. I have hold of it now.”
+
+Morris shook his head sadly as he left. “I feel that his blood is on my
+hands,” he groaned.
+
+“Self-protection is no murder, anyhow,” said McMurdo, smiling grimly.
+“It's him or us. I guess this man would destroy us all if we left
+him long in the valley. Why, Brother Morris, we'll have to elect you
+Bodymaster yet; for you've surely saved the lodge.”
+
+And yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more seriously
+of this new intrusion than his words would show. It may have been his
+guilty conscience, it may have been the reputation of the Pinkerton
+organization, it may have been the knowledge that great, rich
+corporations had set themselves the task of clearing out the Scowrers;
+but, whatever his reason, his actions were those of a man who is
+preparing for the worst. Every paper which would incriminate him was
+destroyed before he left the house. After that he gave a long sigh of
+satisfaction; for it seemed to him that he was safe. And yet the danger
+must still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way to the lodge
+he stopped at old man Shafter's. The house was forbidden him; but
+when he tapped at the window Ettie came out to him. The dancing Irish
+deviltry had gone from her lover's eyes. She read his danger in his
+earnest face.
+
+“Something has happened!” she cried. “Oh, Jack, you are in danger!”
+
+“Sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart. And yet it may be wise that we
+make a move before it is worse.”
+
+“Make a move?”
+
+“I promised you once that I would go some day. I think the time is
+coming. I had news to-night, bad news, and I see trouble coming.”
+
+“The police?”
+
+“Well, a Pinkerton. But, sure, you wouldn't know what that is, acushla,
+nor what it may mean to the likes of me. I'm too deep in this thing, and
+I may have to get out of it quick. You said you would come with me if I
+went.”
+
+“Oh, Jack, it would be the saving of you!”
+
+“I'm an honest man in some things, Ettie. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your
+bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever pull you down one
+inch from the golden throne above the clouds where I always see you.
+Would you trust me?”
+
+She put her hand in his without a word. “Well, then, listen to what I
+say, and do as I order you, for indeed it's the only way for us. Things
+are going to happen in this valley. I feel it in my bones. There may be
+many of us that will have to look out for ourselves. I'm one, anyhow. If
+I go, by day or night, it's you that must come with me!”
+
+“I'd come after you, Jack.”
+
+“No, no, you shall come WITH me. If this valley is closed to me and
+I can never come back, how can I leave you behind, and me perhaps in
+hiding from the police with never a chance of a message? It's with me
+you must come. I know a good woman in the place I come from, and it's
+there I'd leave you till we can get married. Will you come?”
+
+“Yes, Jack, I will come.”
+
+“God bless you for your trust in me! It's a fiend out of hell that I
+should be if I abused it. Now, mark you, Ettie, it will be just a word
+to you, and when it reaches you, you will drop everything and come right
+down to the waiting room at the depot and stay there till I come for
+you.”
+
+“Day or night, I'll come at the word, Jack.”
+
+Somewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for escape had
+been begun, McMurdo went on to the lodge. It had already assembled, and
+only by complicated signs and countersigns could he pass through the
+outer guard and inner guard who close-tiled it. A buzz of pleasure
+and welcome greeted him as he entered. The long room was crowded, and
+through the haze of tobacco smoke he saw the tangled black mane of the
+Bodymaster, the cruel, unfriendly features of Baldwin, the vulture face
+of Harraway, the secretary, and a dozen more who were among the leaders
+of the lodge. He rejoiced that they should all be there to take counsel
+over his news.
+
+“Indeed, it's glad we are to see you, Brother!” cried the chairman.
+“There's business here that wants a Solomon in judgment to set it
+right.”
+
+“It's Lander and Egan,” explained his neighbour as he took his seat.
+“They both claim the head money given by the lodge for the shooting
+of old man Crabbe over at Stylestown, and who's to say which fired the
+bullet?”
+
+McMurdo rose in his place and raised his hand. The expression of his
+face froze the attention of the audience. There was a dead hush of
+expectation.
+
+“Eminent Bodymaster,” he said, in a solemn voice, “I claim urgency!”
+
+“Brother McMurdo claims urgency,” said McGinty. “It's a claim that by
+the rules of this lodge takes precedence. Now Brother, we attend you.”
+
+McMurdo took the letter from his pocket.
+
+“Eminent Bodymaster and Brethren,” he said, “I am the bearer of ill news
+this day; but it is better that it should be known and discussed, than
+that a blow should fall upon us without warning which would destroy us
+all. I have information that the most powerful and richest organizations
+in this state have bound themselves together for our destruction, and
+that at this very moment there is a Pinkerton detective, one Birdy
+Edwards, at work in the valley collecting the evidence which may put a
+rope round the necks of many of us, and send every man in this room into
+a felon's cell. That is the situation for the discussion of which I have
+made a claim of urgency.”
+
+There was a dead silence in the room. It was broken by the chairman.
+
+“What is your evidence for this, Brother McMurdo?” he asked.
+
+“It is in this letter which has come into my hands,” said McMurdo. He
+read the passage aloud. “It is a matter of honour with me that I can
+give no further particulars about the letter, nor put it into your
+hands; but I assure you that there is nothing else in it which can
+affect the interests of the lodge. I put the case before you as it has
+reached me.”
+
+“Let me say, Mr. Chairman,” said one of the older brethren, “that I have
+heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name of being the best man
+in the Pinkerton service.”
+
+“Does anyone know him by sight?” asked McGinty.
+
+“Yes,” said McMurdo, “I do.”
+
+There was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.
+
+“I believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands,” he continued with an
+exulting smile upon his face. “If we act quickly and wisely, we can cut
+this thing short. If I have your confidence and your help, it is little
+that we have to fear.”
+
+“What have we to fear, anyhow? What can he know of our affairs?”
+
+“You might say so if all were as stanch as you, Councillor. But this man
+has all the millions of the capitalists at his back. Do you think there
+is no weaker brother among all our lodges that could not be bought? He
+will get at our secrets--maybe has got them already. There's only one
+sure cure.”
+
+“That he never leaves the valley,” said Baldwin.
+
+McMurdo nodded. “Good for you, Brother Baldwin,” he said. “You and I
+have had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night.”
+
+“Where is he, then? Where shall we know him?”
+
+“Eminent Bodymaster,” said McMurdo, earnestly, “I would put it to you
+that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge. God
+forbid that I should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as a
+word of gossip got to the ears of this man, there would be an end of
+any chance of our getting him. I would ask the lodge to choose a trusty
+committee, Mr. Chairman--yourself, if I might suggest it, and Brother
+Baldwin here, and five more. Then I can talk freely of what I know and
+of what I advise should be done.”
+
+The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen. Besides
+the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-faced secretary,
+Harraway, Tiger Cormac, the brutal young assassin, Carter, the
+treasurer, and the brothers Willaby, fearless and desperate men who
+would stick at nothing.
+
+The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for there was a
+cloud upon the men's spirits, and many there for the first time began to
+see the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in that serene sky under which
+they had dwelt so long. The horrors they had dealt out to others
+had been so much a part of their settled lives that the thought of
+retribution had become a remote one, and so seemed the more startling
+now that it came so closely upon them. They broke up early and left
+their leaders to their council.
+
+“Now, McMurdo!” said McGinty when they were alone. The seven men sat
+frozen in their seats.
+
+“I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards,” McMurdo explained. “I need
+not tell you that he is not here under that name. He's a brave man, but
+not a crazy one. He passes under the name of Steve Wilson, and he is
+lodging at Hobson's Patch.”
+
+“How do you know this?”
+
+“Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the time,
+nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter; but now
+I'm sure it's the man. I met him on the cars when I went down the
+line on Wednesday--a hard case if ever there was one. He said he was
+a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted to know all he could
+about the Scowrers and what he called 'the outrages' for a New York
+paper. Asked me every kind of question so as to get something. You bet
+I was giving nothing away. 'I'd pay for it and pay well,' said he, 'if
+I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.' I said what I thought
+would please him best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar bill for my
+information. 'There's ten times that for you,' said he, 'if you can find
+me all that I want.'”
+
+“What did you tell him, then?”
+
+“Any stuff I could make up.”
+
+“How do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?”
+
+“I'll tell you. He got out at Hobson's Patch, and so did I. I chanced
+into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.
+
+“'See here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'I guess we should
+charge double rates for this.'--'I guess you should,' said I. He had
+filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for all we
+could make of it. 'He fires a sheet of this off every day,' said the
+clerk. 'Yes,' said I; 'it's special news for his paper, and he's scared
+that the others should tap it.' That was what the operator thought and
+what I thought at the time; but I think differently now.”
+
+“By Gar! I believe you are right,” said McGinty. “But what do you allow
+that we should do about it?”
+
+“Why not go right down now and fix him?” someone suggested.
+
+“Ay, the sooner the better.”
+
+“I'd start this next minute if I knew where we could find him,” said
+McMurdo. “He's in Hobson's Patch; but I don't know the house. I've got a
+plan, though, if you'll only take my advice.”
+
+“Well, what is it?”
+
+“I'll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I'll find him through the
+operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I'll tell him that
+I'm a Freeman myself. I'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for
+a price. You bet he'll tumble to it. I'll tell him the papers are at my
+house, and that it's as much as my life would be worth to let him come
+while folk were about. He'll see that that's horse sense. Let him come
+at ten o'clock at night, and he shall see everything. That will fetch
+him sure.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You can plan the rest for yourselves. Widow MacNamara's is a lonely
+house. She's as true as steel and as deaf as a post. There's only
+Scanlan and me in the house. If I get his promise--and I'll let you know
+if I do--I'd have the whole seven of you come to me by nine o'clock.
+We'll get him in. If ever he gets out alive--well, he can talk of Birdy
+Edwards's luck for the rest of his days!”
+
+“There's going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton's or I'm mistaken. Leave it
+at that, McMurdo. At nine to-morrow we'll be with you. You once get the
+door shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 7--The Trapping of Birdy Edwards
+
+
+
+As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and
+very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It was on the
+extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from the road. In any
+other case the conspirators would have simply called out their man, as
+they had many a time before, and emptied their pistols into his body;
+but in this instance it was very necessary to find out how much he knew,
+how he knew it, and what had been passed on to his employers.
+
+It was possible that they were already too late and that the work had
+been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have their revenge
+upon the man who had done it. But they were hopeful that nothing
+of great importance had yet come to the detective's knowledge, as
+otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to write down and
+forward such trivial information as McMurdo claimed to have given him.
+However, all this they would learn from his own lips. Once in their
+power, they would find a way to make him speak. It was not the first
+time that they had handled an unwilling witness.
+
+McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed. The police seemed to take
+particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin--he who had
+claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago--actually addressed him
+as he waited at the station. McMurdo turned away and refused to speak
+with him. He was back from his mission in the afternoon, and saw McGinty
+at the Union House.
+
+“He is coming,” he said.
+
+“Good!” said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains
+and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling
+through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had
+made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible,
+therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had
+risen before him the night before.
+
+“Do you reckon he knows much?” he asked anxiously.
+
+McMurdo shook his head gloomily. “He's been here some time--six weeks
+at the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at
+the prospect. If he has been working among us all that time with the
+railroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results, and
+that he has passed them on.”
+
+“There's not a weak man in the lodge,” cried McGinty. “True as steel,
+every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.
+What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I've a mind to
+send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating up
+and see what they can get from him.”
+
+“Well, there would be no harm in that,” McMurdo answered. “I won't deny
+that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to
+harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though
+he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that
+squeals. But still it is not for me to stand between him and you.”
+
+“I'll fix the old devil!” said McGinty with an oath. “I've had my eye on
+him this year past.”
+
+“Well, you know best about that,” McMurdo answered. “But whatever you
+do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair
+is settled up. We can't afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of all
+days.”
+
+“True for you,” said McGinty. “And we'll learn from Birdy Edwards
+himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first. Did
+he seem to scent a trap?”
+
+McMurdo laughed. “I guess I took him on his weak point,” he said. “If he
+could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he's ready to follow it into
+hell. I took his money,” McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of dollar
+notes, “and as much more when he has seen all my papers.”
+
+“What papers?”
+
+“Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions and
+books of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right down to
+the end of everything before he leaves.”
+
+“Faith, he's right there,” said McGinty grimly. “Didn't he ask you why
+you didn't bring him the papers?”
+
+“As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain
+Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!”
+
+“Ay, I heard of that,” said McGinty. “I guess the heavy end of this
+business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when
+we've done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the man
+living at Hobson's Patch and you being there to-day.”
+
+McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “If we handle it right, they can never
+prove the killing,” said he. “No one can see him come to the house after
+dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now see here,
+Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask you to fit the others
+into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He comes at ten. He
+is to tap three times, and me to open the door for him. Then I'll get
+behind him and shut it. He's our man then.”
+
+“That's all easy and plain.”
+
+“Yes; but the next step wants considering. He's a hard proposition. He's
+heavily armed. I've fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to be on his
+guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in it
+where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be shooting, and
+somebody is going to be hurt.”
+
+“That's so.”
+
+“And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township on
+top of it.”
+
+“I guess you are right.”
+
+“This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room--same as
+you saw when you had a chat with me. I'll open the door for him, show
+him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I get
+the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how things are
+shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked papers. As he is
+reading them I will jump for him and get my grip on his pistol arm.
+You'll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker the better; for
+he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. But I
+allow that I can hold him till you come.”
+
+“It's a good plan,” said McGinty. “The lodge will owe you a debt for
+this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the man
+that's coming after me.”
+
+“Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit,” said McMurdo; but
+his face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.
+
+When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim
+evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith &
+Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the detective was
+to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in the
+centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of the other sides were
+windows. There were no shutters on these: only light curtains which drew
+across. McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must have struck
+him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting. Yet its
+distance from the road made it of less consequence. Finally he discussed
+the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer, was an
+inoffensive little man who was too weak to stand against the opinion of
+his comrades, but was secretly horrified by the deeds of blood at which
+he had sometimes been forced to assist. McMurdo told him shortly what
+was intended.
+
+“And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep
+clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning.”
+
+“Well, indeed then, Mac,” Scanlan answered. “It's not the will but the
+nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at the
+colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I'm not made for
+it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the worse
+of me, I'll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves for the
+evening.”
+
+The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly respectable
+citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have read
+little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorseless eyes.
+There was not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddened a
+dozen times before. They were as hardened to human murder as a butcher
+to sheep.
+
+Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the formidable
+Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a long,
+scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible fidelity
+where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no notion
+of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter, was
+a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, and
+a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the actual
+details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain.
+The two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows with
+determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy, dark
+youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of his
+disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under the roof
+of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.
+
+Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened
+to prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were
+already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their ferocity.
+Cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant--it had been
+lighted, for the nights were still cold.
+
+“That will do,” said he, with an oath.
+
+“Ay,” said Baldwin, catching his meaning. “If he is strapped to that, we
+will have the truth out of him.”
+
+“We'll have the truth out of him, never fear,” said McMurdo. He had
+nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair was
+on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. The others marked
+it and applauded.
+
+“You are the one to handle him,” said the Boss approvingly. “Not a
+warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It's a pity there
+are no shutters to your windows.”
+
+McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter. “Sure
+no one can spy upon us now. It's close upon the hour.”
+
+“Maybe he won't come. Maybe he'll get a sniff of danger,” said the
+secretary.
+
+“He'll come, never fear,” McMurdo answered. “He is as eager to come as
+you can be to see him. Hark to that!”
+
+They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested halfway
+to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.
+
+“Hush!” McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance went
+round the circle, and hands were laid upon their weapons.
+
+“Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered, as he went from the
+room, closing the door carefully behind him.
+
+With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps of their
+comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the outer door. There
+were a few words as of greeting. Then they were aware of a strange step
+inside and of an unfamiliar voice. An instant later came the slam of the
+door and the turning of the key in the lock. Their prey was safe within
+the trap. Tiger Cormac laughed horribly, and Boss McGinty clapped his
+great hand across his mouth.
+
+“Be quiet, you fool!” he whispered. “You'll be the undoing of us yet!”
+
+There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed
+interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger
+upon his lip.
+
+He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A subtle
+change had come over him. His manner was as of one who has great work to
+do. His face had set into granite firmness. His eyes shone with a fierce
+excitement behind his spectacles. He had become a visible leader of men.
+They stared at him with eager interest; but he said nothing. Still with
+the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.
+
+“Well!” cried Boss McGinty at last. “Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards here?”
+
+“Yes,” McMurdo answered slowly. “Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy
+Edwards!”
+
+There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room
+might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a
+kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white
+faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set
+motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a
+bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window, while the
+curtains were torn from their hangings.
+
+At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged
+for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the
+stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind the
+sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.
+
+“You're safer there, Councillor,” said the man whom they had known as
+McMurdo. “And you, Baldwin, if you don't take your hand off your pistol,
+you'll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord that made
+me--There, that will do. There are forty armed men round this house,
+and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you have. Take their
+pistols, Marvin!”
+
+There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles. The
+men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat round the
+table.
+
+“I'd like to say a word to you before we separate,” said the man who
+had trapped them. “I guess we may not meet again until you see me on the
+stand in the courthouse. I'll give you something to think over between
+now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can put my cards
+on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton's. I was chosen to break
+up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to play. Not a soul, not
+one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing it. Only
+Captain Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it's over to-night,
+thank God, and I am the winner!”
+
+The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable
+hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.
+
+“Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my chance
+of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and there are
+sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this night. I'll tell
+you this, that when I was put upon this job I never believed there was
+such a society as yours. I thought it was paper talk, and that I would
+prove it so. They told me it was to do with the Freemen; so I went to
+Chicago and was made one. Then I was surer than ever that it was just
+paper talk; for I found no harm in the society, but a deal of good.
+
+“Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys. When
+I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it wasn't a
+dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after it. I never killed a man
+in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my life. Those I gave you were as
+good as any others; but I never spent money better. But I knew the way
+into your good wishes and so I pretended to you that the law was after
+me. It all worked just as I thought.
+
+“So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your councils.
+Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can say what they
+like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth? The night I joined
+you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn him, for there was no
+time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when you would have killed him.
+If ever I have suggested things, so as to keep my place among you, they
+were things which I knew I could prevent. I could not save Dunn and
+Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that their murderers
+are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that when I blew his house
+in he and his folk were in hiding. There was many a crime that I could
+not stop; but if you look back and think how often your man came home
+the other road, or was down in town when you went for him, or stayed
+indoors when you thought he would come out, you'll see my work.”
+
+“You blasted traitor!” hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.
+
+“Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. You and
+your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts. It took
+a man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women that you
+held under your grip. There was just one way of doing it, and I did it.
+You call me a traitor; but I guess there's many a thousand will call me
+a deliverer that went down into hell to save them. I've had three months
+of it. I wouldn't have three such months again if they let me loose
+in the treasury at Washington for it. I had to stay till I had it all,
+every man and every secret right here in this hand. I'd have waited
+a little longer if it hadn't come to my knowledge that my secret was
+coming out. A letter had come into the town that would have set you wise
+to it all. Then I had to act and act quickly.
+
+“I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I'll
+die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley. Now,
+Marvin, I'll keep you no more. Take them in and get it over.”
+
+There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed note to
+be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had
+accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the early hours of the
+morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special train
+which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift, unbroken
+journey out of the land of danger. It was the last time that ever either
+Ettie or her lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten days later
+they were married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as witness of the
+wedding.
+
+The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their
+adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they
+struggled. In vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed by blackmail
+out of the whole countryside--was spent like water in the attempt to
+save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from one who knew
+every detail of their lives, their organization, and their crimes was
+unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. At last after so many
+years they were broken and scattered. The cloud was lifted forever from
+the valley.
+
+McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the
+last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his fate. Fifty-odd
+had various degrees of imprisonment. The work of Birdy Edwards was
+complete.
+
+And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was another
+hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted Baldwin, for one,
+had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had several others
+of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten years they were out of the
+world, and then came a day when they were free once more--a day which
+Edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would be an end of his life of
+peace. They had sworn an oath on all that they thought holy to have his
+blood as a vengeance for their comrades. And well they strove to keep
+their vow!
+
+From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that
+it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under a
+changed name to California, and it was there that the light went for a
+time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was nearly
+killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in a lonely
+canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he amassed a fortune.
+At last there came a warning to him that the bloodhounds were on his
+track once more, and he cleared--only just in time--for England. And
+thence came the John Douglas who for a second time married a worthy
+mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex county gentleman, a life
+which ended with the strange happenings of which we have heard.
+
+
+
+
+Epilogue
+
+
+
+The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was
+referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he was
+acquitted as having acted in self-defense.
+
+“Get him out of England at any cost,” wrote Holmes to the wife. “There
+are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has escaped.
+There is no safety for your husband in England.”
+
+Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from our
+minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into our
+letter box. “Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!” said this singular epistle.
+There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at the quaint
+message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.
+
+“Deviltry, Watson!” he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.
+
+Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that
+a gentleman wished to see Mr. Holmes, and that the matter was of the
+utmost importance. Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil
+Barker, our friend of the moated Manor House. His face was drawn and
+haggard.
+
+“I've had bad news--terrible news, Mr. Holmes,” said he.
+
+“I feared as much,” said Holmes.
+
+“You have not had a cable, have you?”
+
+“I have had a note from someone who has.”
+
+“It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will always
+be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you that they started
+together for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable from Mrs.
+Douglas this morning:
+
+“'Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one knows how
+accident occurred.'
+
+“'IVY DOUGLAS.'”
+
+“Ha! It came like that, did it?” said Holmes thoughtfully. “Well, I've
+no doubt it was well stage-managed.”
+
+“You mean that you think there was no accident?”
+
+“None in the world.”
+
+“He was murdered?”
+
+“Surely!”
+
+“So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive nest
+of criminals--”
+
+“No, no, my good sir,” said Holmes. “There is a master hand here. It is
+no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters. You can tell an
+old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see
+one. This crime is from London, not from America.”
+
+“But for what motive?”
+
+“Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole
+unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A
+great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction
+of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer--an absurd
+extravagance of energy--but the nut is very effectually crushed all the
+same.”
+
+“How came this man to have anything to do with it?”
+
+“I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the business
+was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were well advised.
+Having an English job to do, they took into partnership, as any foreign
+criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. From that moment
+their man was doomed. At first he would content himself by using his
+machinery in order to find their victim. Then he would indicate how the
+matter might be treated. Finally, when he read in the reports of the
+failure of this agent, he would step in himself with a master touch. You
+heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor House that the coming danger
+was greater than the past. Was I right?”
+
+Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger. “Do
+not tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that no one
+can ever get level with this king devil?”
+
+“No, I don't say that,” said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking
+far into the future. “I don't say that he can't be beat. But you must
+give me time--you must give me time!”
+
+We all sat in silence for some minutes while those fateful eyes still
+strained to pierce the veil.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Valley of Fear, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thewidowlerouge b/files/books/unrelated/thewidowlerouge
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..355ad68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/files/books/unrelated/thewidowlerouge
@@ -0,0 +1,14696 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Widow Lerouge, by Emile Gaboriau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Widow Lerouge
+       The Lerouge Case
+
+Author: Emile Gaboriau
+
+Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #3802]
+Last Updated: September 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIDOW LEROUGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Moynihan; Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEROUGE CASE
+
+By Emile Gaboriau
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+On Thursday, the 6th of March, 1862, two days after Shrove Tuesday, five
+women belonging to the village of La Jonchere presented themselves at
+the police station at Bougival.
+
+They stated that for two days past no one had seen the Widow Lerouge,
+one of their neighbours, who lived by herself in an isolated cottage.
+They had several times knocked at the door, but all in vain. The
+window-shutters as well as the door were closed; and it was impossible
+to obtain even a glimpse of the interior.
+
+This silence, this sudden disappearance alarmed them. Apprehensive of
+a crime, or at least of an accident, they requested the interference of
+the police to satisfy their doubts by forcing the door and entering the
+house.
+
+Bougival is a pleasant riverside village, peopled on Sundays by crowds
+of boating parties. Trifling offences are frequently heard of in its
+neighbourhood, but crimes are rare.
+
+The commissary of police at first refused to listen to the women, but
+their importunities so fatigued him that he at length acceded to their
+request. He sent for the corporal of gendarmes, with two of his
+men, called into requisition the services of a locksmith, and, thus
+accompanied, followed the neighbours of the Widow Lerouge.
+
+La Jonchere owes some celebrity to the inventor of the sliding railway,
+who for some years past has, with more enterprise than profit, made
+public trials of his system in the immediate neighbourhood. It is
+a hamlet of no importance, resting upon the slope of the hill which
+overlooks the Seine between La Malmaison and Bougival. It is about
+twenty minutes’ walk from the main road, which, passing by Rueil and
+Port-Marly, goes from Paris to St. Germain, and is reached by a steep
+and rugged lane, quite unknown to the government engineers.
+
+The party, led by the gendarmes, followed the main road which here
+bordered the river until it reached this lane, into which it turned, and
+stumbled over the rugged inequalities of the ground for about a hundred
+yards, when it arrived in front of a cottage of extremely modest yet
+respectable appearance. This cottage had probably been built by some
+little Parisian shopkeeper in love with the beauties of nature; for
+all the trees had been carefully cut down. It consisted merely of two
+apartments on the ground floor with a loft above. Around it extended a
+much-neglected garden, badly protected against midnight prowlers, by
+a very dilapidated stone wall about three feet high, and broken and
+crumbling in many places. A light wooden gate, clumsily held in its
+place by pieces of wire, gave access to the garden.
+
+“It is here,” said the women.
+
+The commissary stopped. During his short walk, the number of his
+followers had been rapidly increasing, and now included all the
+inquisitive and idle persons of the neighbourhood. He found himself
+surrounded by about forty individuals burning with curiosity.
+
+“No one must enter the garden,” said he; and, to ensure obedience, he
+placed the two gendarmes on sentry before the entrance, and advanced
+towards the house, accompanied by the corporal and the locksmith.
+
+He knocked several times loudly with his leaded cane, first at the door,
+and then successively at all the window shutters. After each blow, he
+placed his ear against the wood and listened. Hearing nothing, he turned
+to the locksmith.
+
+“Open!” said he.
+
+The workman unstrapped his satchel, and produced his implements. He had
+already introduced a skeleton key into the lock, when a loud exclamation
+was heard from the crowd outside the gate.
+
+“The key!” they cried. “Here is the key!”
+
+A boy about twelve years old playing with one of his companions, had
+seen an enormous key in a ditch by the roadside; he had picked it up and
+carried it to the cottage in triumph.
+
+“Give it to me youngster,” said the corporal. “We shall see.”
+
+The key was tried, and it proved to be the key of the house.
+
+The commissary and the locksmith exchanged glances full of sinister
+misgivings. “This looks bad,” muttered the corporal. They entered the
+house, while the crowd, restrained with difficulty by the gendarmes,
+stamped with impatience, or leant over the garden wall, stretching their
+necks eagerly, to see or hear something of what was passing within the
+cottage.
+
+Those who anticipated the discovery of a crime, were unhappily not
+deceived. The commissary was convinced of this as soon as he crossed the
+threshold. Everything in the first room pointed with a sad eloquence to
+the recent presence of a malefactor. The furniture was knocked about,
+and a chest of drawers and two large trunks had been forced and broken
+open.
+
+In the inner room, which served as a sleeping apartment, the disorder
+was even greater. It seemed as though some furious hand had taken a
+fiendish pleasure in upsetting everything. Near the fireplace, her face
+buried in the ashes, lay the dead body of Widow Lerouge. All one side of
+the face and the hair were burnt; it seemed a miracle that the fire had
+not caught her clothing.
+
+“Wretches!” exclaimed the corporal. “Could they not have robbed, without
+assassinating the poor woman?”
+
+“But where has she been wounded?” inquired the commissary, “I do not see
+any blood.”
+
+“Look! here between the shoulders,” replied the corporal; “two fierce
+blows, by my faith. I’ll wager my stripes she had no time to cry out.”
+
+He stooped over the corpse and touched it.
+
+“She is quite cold,” he continued, “and it seems to me that she is no
+longer very stiff. It is at least thirty-six hours since she received
+her death-blow.”
+
+The commissary began writing, on the corner of a table, a short official
+report.
+
+“We are not here to talk, but to discover the guilty,” said he to the
+corporal. “Let information be at once conveyed to the justice of the
+peace, and the mayor, and send this letter without delay to the Palais
+de Justice. In a couple of hours, an investigating magistrate can be
+here. In the meanwhile, I will proceed to make a preliminary inquiry.”
+
+“Shall I carry the letter?” asked the corporal of gendarmes.
+
+“No, send one of your men; you will be useful to me here in keeping
+these people in order, and in finding any witnesses I may want. We
+must leave everything here as it is. I will install myself in the other
+room.”
+
+A gendarme departed at a run towards the station at Rueil; and the
+commissary commenced his investigations in regular form, as prescribed
+by law.
+
+“Who was Widow Lerouge? Where did she come from? What did she do? Upon
+what means, and how did she live? What were her habits, her morals, and
+what sort of company did she keep? Was she known to have enemies? Was
+she a miser? Did she pass for being rich?”
+
+The commissary knew the importance of ascertaining all this: but
+although the witnesses were numerous enough, they possessed but
+little information. The depositions of the neighbours, successively
+interrogated, were empty, incoherent, and incomplete. No one knew
+anything of the victim, who was a stranger in the country. Many
+presented themselves as witnesses moreover, who came forward less to
+afford information than to gratify their curiosity. A gardener’s wife,
+who had been friendly with the deceased, and a milk-woman with whom
+she dealt, were alone able to give a few insignificant though precise
+details.
+
+In a word, after three hours of laborious investigation, after having
+undergone the infliction of all the gossip of the country, after
+receiving evidence the most contradictory, and listened to commentaries
+the most ridiculous, the following is what appeared the most reliable to
+the commissary.
+
+Twelve years before, at the beginning of 1850, the woman Lerouge had
+made her appearance at Bougival with a large wagon piled with furniture,
+linen, and her personal effects. She had alighted at an inn, declaring
+her intention of settling in the neighbourhood, and had immediately gone
+in quest of a house. Finding this one unoccupied, and thinking it would
+suit her, she had taken it without trying to beat down the terms, at
+a rental of three hundred and twenty francs payable half yearly and in
+advance, but had refused to sign a lease.
+
+The house taken, she occupied it the same day, and expended about a
+hundred francs on repairs.
+
+She was a woman about fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, well
+preserved, active, and in the enjoyment of excellent health. No one
+knew her reasons for taking up her abode in a country where she was an
+absolute stranger. She was supposed to have come from Normandy, having
+been frequently seen in the early morning to wear a white cotton cap.
+This night-cap did not prevent her dressing very smartly during the day;
+indeed, she ordinarily wore very handsome dresses, very showy ribbons
+in her caps, and covered herself with jewels like a saint in a chapel.
+Without doubt she had lived on the coast, for ships and the sea recurred
+incessantly in her conversation.
+
+She did not like speaking of her husband who had, she said, perished
+in a shipwreck. But she had never given the slightest detail. On one
+particular occasion she had remarked, in presence of the milk-woman and
+three other persons, “No woman was ever more miserable than I during my
+married life.” And at another she had said, “All new, all fine! A new
+broom sweeps clean. My defunct husband only loved me for a year!”
+
+Widow Lerouge passed for rich, or at the least for being very well off
+and she was not a miser. She had lent a woman at La Malmaison sixty
+francs with which to pay her rent, and would not let her return them.
+At another time she had advanced two hundred francs to a fisherman of
+Port-Marly. She was fond of good living, spent a good deal on her food,
+and bought wine by the half cask. She took pleasure in treating her
+acquaintances, and her dinners were excellent. If complimented on her
+easy circumstances, she made no very strong denial. She had frequently
+been heard to say, “I have nothing in the funds, but I have everything I
+want. If I wished for more, I could have it.”
+
+Beyond this, the slightest allusion to her past life, her country, or
+her family had never escaped her. She was very talkative, but all she
+would say would be to the detriment of her neighbours. She was supposed,
+however, to have seen the world, and to know a great deal. She was very
+distrustful and barricaded herself in her cottage as in a fortress. She
+never went out in the evening, and it was well known that she got tipsy
+regularly at her dinner and went to bed very soon afterwards. Rarely had
+strangers been seen to visit her; four or five times a lady accompanied
+by a young man had called, and upon one occasion two gentlemen, one
+young, the other old and decorated, had come in a magnificent carriage.
+
+In conclusion, the deceased was held in but little esteem by her
+neighbours. Her remarks were often most offensive and odious in the
+mouth of a woman of her age. She had been heard to give a young girl
+the most detestable counsels. A pork butcher, belonging to Bougival,
+embarrassed in his business, and tempted by her supposed wealth, had at
+one time paid her his addresses. She, however, repelled his advances,
+declaring that to be married once was enough for her. On several
+occasions men had been seen in her house; first of all, a young one, who
+had the appearance of a clerk of the railway company; then another,
+a tall, elderly man, very sunburnt, who was dressed in a blouse, and
+looked very villainous. These men were reported to be her lovers.
+
+Whilst questioning the witnesses, the commissary wrote down their
+depositions in a more condensed form, and he had got so far, when the
+investigating magistrate arrived, attended by the chief of the detective
+police, and one of his subordinates.
+
+M. Daburon was a man thirty-eight years of age, and of prepossessing
+appearance; sympathetic notwithstanding his coldness; wearing upon his
+countenance a sweet, and rather sad expression. This settled melancholy
+had remained with him ever since his recovery, two years before, from a
+dreadful malady, which had well-nigh proved fatal.
+
+Investigating magistrate since 1859, he had rapidly acquired the most
+brilliant reputation. Laborious, patient, and acute, he knew with
+singular skill how to disentangle the skein of the most complicated
+affair, and from the midst of a thousand threads lay hold to the right
+one. None better than he, armed with an implacable logic, could
+solve those terrible problems in which X--in algebra, the unknown
+quantity--represents the criminal. Clever in deducing the unknown from
+the known, he excelled in collecting facts, and in uniting in a
+bundle of overwhelming proofs circumstances the most trifling, and in
+appearance the most insignificant.
+
+Although possessed of qualifications for his office so numerous and
+valuable, he was tremblingly distrustful of his own abilities and
+exercised his terrible functions with diffidence and hesitation. He
+wanted audacity to risk those sudden surprises so often resorted to by
+his colleagues in the pursuit of truth.
+
+Thus it was repugnant to his feelings to deceive even an accused person,
+or to lay snares for him; in fact the mere idea of the possibility of a
+judicial error terrified him. They said of him in the courts, “He is
+a trembler.” What he sought was not conviction, nor the most probable
+presumptions, but the most absolute certainty. No rest for him until the
+day when the accused was forced to bow before the evidence; so much
+so that he had been jestingly reproached with seeking not to discover
+criminals but innocents.
+
+The chief of detective police was none other than the celebrated Gevrol.
+He is really an able man, but wanting in perseverance, and liable to be
+blinded by an incredible obstinacy. If he loses a clue, he cannot bring
+himself to acknowledge it, still less to retrace his steps. His audacity
+and coolness, however, render it impossible to disconcert him; and
+being possessed of immense personal strength, hidden under a most
+meagre appearance, he has never hesitated to confront the most daring of
+malefactors.
+
+But his specialty, his triumph, his glory, is a memory of faces, so
+prodigious as to exceed belief. Let him see a face for five minutes, and
+it is enough. Its possessor is catalogued, and will be recognised at any
+time. The impossibilities of place, the unlikelihood of circumstances,
+the most incredible disguises will not lead him astray. The reason for
+this, so he pretends, is because he only looks at a man’s eyes, without
+noticing any other features.
+
+This faculty was severely tested some months back at Poissy, by the
+following experiment. Three prisoners were draped in coverings so as
+to completely disguise their height. Over their faces were thick veils,
+allowing nothing of the features to be seen except the eyes, for which
+holes had been made; and in this state they were shown to Gevrol.
+
+Without the slightest hesitation he recognised the prisoners and named
+them. Had chance alone assisted him?
+
+The subordinate Gevrol had brought with him, was an old offender,
+reconciled to the law. A smart fellow in his profession, crafty as
+a fox, and jealous of his chief, whose abilities he held in light
+estimation. His name was Lecoq.
+
+The commissary, by this time heartily tired of his responsibilities,
+welcomed the investigating magistrate and his agents as liberators. He
+rapidly related the facts collected and read his official report.
+
+“You have proceeded very well,” observed the investigating magistrate.
+“All is stated clearly; yet there is one fact you have omitted to
+ascertain.”
+
+“What is that, sir?” inquired the commissary.
+
+“On what day was Widow Lerouge last seen, and at what hour?”
+
+“I was coming to that presently. She was last seen and spoken to on the
+evening of Shrove Tuesday, at twenty minutes past five. She was then
+returning from Bougival with a basketful of purchases.”
+
+“You are sure of the hour, sir?” inquired Gevrol.
+
+“Perfectly, and for this reason; the two witnesses who furnished me
+with this fact, a woman named Tellier and a cooper who lives hard by,
+alighted from the omnibus which leaves Marly every hour, when they
+perceived the widow in the cross-road, and hastened to overtake her.
+They conversed with her and only left her when they reached the door of
+her own house.”
+
+“And what had she in her basket?” asked the investigating magistrate.
+
+“The witnesses cannot say. They only know that she carried two sealed
+bottles of wine, and another of brandy. She complained to them of
+headache, and said, ‘Though it is customary to enjoy oneself on Shrove
+Tuesday, I am going to bed.’”
+
+“So, so!” exclaimed the chief of detective police. “I know where to
+search!”
+
+“You think so?” inquired M. Daburon.
+
+“Why, it is clear enough. We must find the tall sunburnt man, the
+gallant in the blouse. The brandy and the wine were intended for his
+entertainment. The widow expected him to supper. He came, sure enough,
+the amiable gallant!”
+
+“Oh!” cried the corporal of gendarmes, evidently scandalised, “she was
+very old, and terribly ugly!”
+
+Gevrol surveyed the honest fellow with an expression of contemptuous
+pity. “Know, corporal,” said he, “that a woman who has money is always
+young and pretty, if she desires to be thought so!”
+
+“Perhaps there is something in that,” remarked the magistrate; “but it
+is not what strikes me most. I am more impressed by the remark of this
+unfortunate woman. ‘If I wished for more, I could have it.’”
+
+“That also attracted my attention,” acquiesced the commissary.
+
+But Gevrol no longer took the trouble to listen. He stuck to his
+own opinion, and began to inspect minutely every corner of the room.
+Suddenly he turned towards the commissary. “Now that I think of it,”
+ cried he, “was it not on Tuesday that the weather changed? It had been
+freezing for a fortnight past, and on that evening it rained. At what
+time did the rain commence here?”
+
+“At half-past nine,” answered the corporal. “I went out from supper to
+make my circuit of the dancing halls, when I was overtaken opposite the
+Rue des Pecheurs by a heavy shower. In less than ten minutes there was
+half an inch of water in the road.”
+
+“Very well,” said Gevrol. “Then if the man came after half-past nine his
+shoes must have been very muddy. If they were dry, he arrived sooner.
+This must have been noticed, for the floor is a polished one. Were there
+any imprints of footsteps, M. Commissary?”
+
+“I must confess we never thought of looking for them.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the chief detective, in a tone of irritation, “that is
+vexatious!”
+
+“Wait,” added the commissary; “there is yet time to see if there are
+any, not in this room, but in the other. We have disturbed absolutely
+nothing there. My footsteps and the corporal’s will be easily
+distinguished. Let us see.”
+
+As the commissary opened the door of the second chamber, Gevrol stopped
+him. “I ask permission, sir,” said he to the investigating magistrate,
+“to examine the apartment before any one else is permitted to enter. It
+is very important for me.”
+
+“Certainly,” approved M. Daburon.
+
+Gevrol passed in first, the others remaining on the threshold. They
+all took in at a glance the scene of the crime. Everything, as the
+commissary had stated, seemed to have been overturned by some furious
+madman. In the middle of the room was a table covered with a fine linen
+cloth, white as snow. Upon this was placed a magnificent wineglass of
+the rarest manufacture, a very handsome knife, and a plate of the finest
+porcelain. There was an opened bottle of wine, hardly touched, and
+another of brandy, from which about five or six small glassfuls had been
+taken.
+
+On the right, against the wall, stood two handsome walnut-wood
+wardrobes, with ornamental locks; they were placed one on each side of
+the window; both were empty, and the contents scattered about on all
+sides. There were clothing, linen, and other effects unfolded, tossed
+about, and crumpled. At the end of the room, near the fireplace, a large
+cupboard used for keeping the crockery was wide open. On the other side
+of the fireplace, an old secretary with a marble top had been forced,
+broken, smashed into bits, and rummaged, no doubt, to its inmost
+recesses. The desk, wrenched away, hung by a single hinge. The drawers
+had been pulled out and thrown upon the floor.
+
+To the left of the room stood the bed, which had been completely
+disarranged and upset. Even the straw of the mattress had been pulled
+out and examined.
+
+“Not the slightest imprint,” murmured Gevrol disappointed. “He must have
+arrived before half-past nine. You can all come in now.”
+
+He walked right up to the corpse of the widow, near which he knelt.
+
+“It can not be said,” grumbled he, “that the work is not properly done!
+the assassin is no apprentice!”
+
+Then looking right and left, he continued: “Oh! oh! the poor devil was
+busy with her cooking when he struck her; see her pan of ham and eggs
+upon the hearth. The brute hadn’t patience enough to wait for the
+dinner. The gentleman was in a hurry, he struck the blow fasting;
+therefore he can’t invoke the gayety of dessert in his defense!”
+
+“It is evident,” said the commissary to the investigating magistrate,
+“that robbery was the motive of the crime.”
+
+“It is probable,” answered Gevrol in a sly way; “and that accounts for
+the absence of the silver spoons from the table.”
+
+“Look here! Some pieces of gold in this drawer!” exclaimed Lecoq, who
+had been searching on his own account, “just three hundred and twenty
+francs!”
+
+“Well, I never!” cried Gevrol, a little disconcerted. But he soon
+recovered from his embarrassment, and added: “He must have forgotten
+them; that often happens. I have known an assassin, who, after
+accomplishing the murder, became so utterly bewildered as to depart
+without remembering to take the plunder, for which he had committed the
+crime. Our man became excited perhaps, or was interrupted. Some one may
+have knocked at the door. What makes me more willing to think so is,
+that the scamp did not leave the candle burning. You see he took the
+trouble to put it out.”
+
+“Pooh!” said Lecoq. “That proves nothing. He is probably an economical
+and careful man.”
+
+The investigations of the two agents were continued all over the house;
+but their most minute researches resulted in discovering absolutely
+nothing; not one piece of evidence to convict; not the faintest
+indication which might serve as a point of departure. Even the dead
+woman’s papers, if she possessed any, had disappeared. Not a letter, not
+a scrap of paper even, to be met with. From time to time Gevrol stopped
+to swear or grumble. “Oh! it is cleverly done! It is a tiptop piece of
+work! The scoundrel is a cool hand!”
+
+“Well, what do you make of it?” at length demanded the investigating
+magistrate.
+
+“It is a drawn game monsieur,” replied Gevrol. “We are baffled for the
+present. The miscreant has taken his measures with great precaution;
+but I will catch him. Before night, I shall have a dozen men in pursuit.
+Besides, he is sure to fall into our hands. He has carried off the plate
+and the jewels. He is lost!”
+
+“Despite all that,” said M. Daburon, “we are no further advanced than we
+were this morning!”
+
+“Well!” growled Gevrol. “A man can only do what he can!”
+
+“Ah!” murmured Lecoq in a low tone, perfectly audible, however, “why is
+not old Tirauclair here?”
+
+“What could he do more than we have done?” retorted Gevrol, directing a
+furious glance at his subordinate. Lecoq bowed his head and was silent,
+inwardly delighted at having wounded his chief.
+
+“Who is old Tirauclair?” asked M. Daburon. “It seems to me that I have
+heard the name, but I can’t remember where.”
+
+“He is an extraordinary man!” exclaimed Lecoq. “He was formerly a clerk
+at the Mont de Piete,” added Gevrol; “but he is now a rich old fellow,
+whose real name is Tabaret. He goes in for playing the detective by way
+of amusement.”
+
+“And to augment his revenues,” insinuated the commissary.
+
+“He?” cried Lecoq. “No danger of that. He works so much for the glory
+of success that he often spends money from his own pocket. It’s
+his amusement, you see! At the Prefecture we have nicknamed him
+‘Tirauclair,’ from a phrase he is constantly in the habit of repeating.
+Ah! he is sharp, the old weasel! It was he who in the case of that
+banker’s wife, you remember, guessed that the lady had robbed herself,
+and who proved it.”
+
+“True!” retorted Gevrol; “and it was also he who almost had poor Dereme
+guillotined for killing his wife, a thorough bad woman; and all the
+while the poor man was innocent.”
+
+“We are wasting our time, gentlemen,” interrupted M. Daburon. Then,
+addressing himself to Lecoq, he added:--“Go and find M. Tabaret. I have
+heard a great deal of him, and shall be glad to see him at work here.”
+
+Lecoq started off at a run, Gevrol was seriously humiliated. “You have
+of course, sir, the right to demand the services of whom you please,”
+ commenced he, “but yet--”
+
+“Do not,” interrupted M. Daburon, “let us lose our tempers, M. Gevrol.
+I have known you for a long time, and I know your worth; but to-day we
+happen to differ in opinion. You hold absolutely to your sunburnt man
+in the blouse, and I, on my side, am convinced that you are not on the
+right track!”
+
+“I think I am right,” replied the detective, “and I hope to prove it. I
+shall find the scoundrel, be he whom he may!”
+
+“I ask nothing better,” said M. Daburon.
+
+“Only, permit me, sir, to give--what shall I say without failing in
+respect?--a piece of advice?”
+
+“Speak!”
+
+“I would advise you, sir, to distrust old Tabaret.”
+
+“Really? And for what reason?”
+
+“The old fellow allows himself to be carried away too much by
+appearances. He has become an amateur detective for the sake of
+popularity, just like an author; and, as he is vainer than a peacock,
+he is apt to lose his temper and be very obstinate. As soon as he finds
+himself in the presence of a crime, like this one, for example, he
+pretends he can explain everything on the instant. And he manages to
+invent a story that will correspond exactly with the situation. He
+professes, with the help of one single fact, to be able to reconstruct
+all the details of an assassination, as a savant pictures an
+antediluvian animal from a single bone. Sometimes he divines correctly;
+very often, though, he makes a mistake. Take, for instance, the case of
+the tailor, the unfortunate Dereme, without me--”
+
+“I thank you for your advice,” interrupted M. Daburon, “and will profit
+by it. Now commissary,” he continued, “it is most important to ascertain
+from what part of the country Widow Lerouge came.”
+
+The procession of witnesses under the charge of the corporal of
+gendarmes were again interrogated by the investigating magistrate.
+
+But nothing new was elicited. It was evident that Widow Lerouge had been
+a singularly discreet woman; for, although very talkative, nothing in
+any way connected with her antecedents remained in the memory of the
+gossips of La Jonchere.
+
+All the people interrogated, however, obstinately tried to impart to
+the magistrate their own convictions and personal conjectures. Public
+opinion sided with Gevrol. Every voice denounced the tall sunburnt man
+with the gray blouse. He must surely be the culprit. Everyone remembered
+his ferocious aspect, which had frightened the whole neighbourhood. He
+had one evening menaced a woman, and another day beaten a child. They
+could point out neither the child nor the woman; but no matter: these
+brutal acts were notoriously public. M. Daburon began to despair of
+gaining the least enlightenment, when some one brought the wife of a
+grocer of Bougival, at whose shop the victim used to deal, and a child
+thirteen years old, who knew, it was said, something positive.
+
+The grocer’s wife first made her appearance. She had heard Widow Lerouge
+speak of having a son still living.
+
+“Are you quite sure of that?” asked the investigating magistrate.
+
+“As of my existence,” answered the woman, “for, on that evening, yes, it
+was evening, she was, saving your presence, a little tipsy. She remained
+in my shop more than an hour.”
+
+“And what did she say?”
+
+“I think I see her now,” continued the shopkeeper: “she was leaning
+against the counter near the scales, jesting with a fisherman of Marly,
+old Husson, who can tell you the same; and she called him a fresh water
+sailor. ‘My husband,’ said she, ‘was a real sailor, and the proof is,
+he would sometimes remain years on a voyage, and always used to bring me
+back cocoanuts. I have a son who is also a sailor, like his dead father,
+in the imperial navy.’”
+
+“Did she mention her son’s name?”
+
+“Not that time, but another evening, when she was, if I may say so, very
+drunk. She told us that her son’s name was Jacques, and that she had not
+seen him for a very long time.”
+
+“Did she speak ill of her husband?”
+
+“Never! She only said he was jealous and brutal, though a good man at
+bottom, and that he led her a miserable life. He was weak-headed, and
+forged ideas out of nothing at all. In fact he was too honest to be
+wise.”
+
+“Did her son ever come to see her while she lived here?”
+
+“She never told me of it.”
+
+“Did she spend much money with you?”
+
+“That depends. About sixty francs a month; sometimes more, for she
+always buys the best brandy. She paid cash for all she bought.”
+
+The woman knowing no more was dismissed. The child, who was now brought
+forward, belonged to parents in easy circumstances. Tall and strong
+for his age, he had bright intelligent eyes, and features expressive of
+watchfulness and cunning. The presence of the magistrate did not seem to
+intimidate him in the least.
+
+“Let us hear, my boy,” said M. Daburon, “what you know.”
+
+“Well, sir, a few days ago, on Sunday last, I saw a man at Madame
+Lerouge’s garden-gate.”
+
+“At what time of the day?”
+
+“Early in the morning. I was going to church, to serve in the second
+mass.”
+
+“Well,” continued the magistrate, “and this man was tall and sunburnt,
+and dressed in a blouse?”
+
+“No, sir, on the contrary, he was short, very fat, and old.”
+
+“You are sure you are not mistaken?”
+
+“Quite sure,” replied the urchin, “I saw him close face to face, for I
+spoke to him.”
+
+“Tell me, then, what occurred?”
+
+“Well, sir, I was passing when I saw this fat man at the gate. He
+appeared very much vexed, oh! but awfully vexed! His face was red, or
+rather purple, as far as the middle of his head, which I could see very
+well, for it was bare, and had very little hair on it.”
+
+“And did he speak to you first?”
+
+“Yes, sir, he saw me, and called out, ‘Halloa! youngster!’ as I came
+up to him, and he asked me if I had got a good pair of legs? I answered
+yes. Then he took me by the ear, but without hurting me, and said,
+‘Since that is so, if you will run an errand for me, I will give you
+ten sous. Run as far as the Seine; and when you reach the quay, you will
+notice a large boat moored. Go on board, and ask to see Captain Gervais:
+he is sure to be there. Tell him that he can prepare to leave, that I am
+ready.’ Then he put ten sous in my hand; and off I went.”
+
+“If all the witnesses were like this bright little fellow,” murmured the
+commissary, “what a pleasure it would be!”
+
+“Now,” said the magistrate, “tell us how you executed your commission?”
+
+“I went to the boat, sir, found the man, and I told him; and that’s
+all.”
+
+Gevrol, who had listened with the most lively attention, leaned over
+towards the ear of M. Daburon, and said in a low voice: “Will you permit
+me, sir, to ask the brat a few questions?”
+
+“Certainly, M. Gevrol.”
+
+“Come now, my little friend,” said Gevrol, “if you saw this man again,
+would you know him?”
+
+“Oh, yes!”
+
+“Then there was something remarkable about him?”
+
+“Yes, I should think so! his face was the colour of a brick!”
+
+“And is that all?”
+
+“Well, yes, sir.”
+
+“But you must remember how he was dressed; had he a blouse on?”
+
+“No; he wore a jacket. Under the arms were very large pockets, and from
+out of one of them peeped a blue spotted handkerchief.”
+
+“What kind of trousers had he on?”
+
+“I do not remember.”
+
+“And his waistcoat?”
+
+“Let me see,” answered the child. “I don’t think he wore a waistcoat.
+And yet,--but no, I remember he did not wear one; he had a long cravat,
+fastened near his neck by a large ring.”
+
+“Ah!” said Gevrol, with an air of satisfaction, “you are a bright boy;
+and I wager that if you try hard to remember you will find a few more
+details to give us.”
+
+The boy hung down his head, and remained silent. From the knitting of
+his young brows, it was plain he was making a violent effort of memory.
+“Yes,” cried he suddenly, “I remember another thing.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“The man wore very large rings in his ears.”
+
+“Bravo!” cried Gevrol, “here is a complete description. I shall find the
+fellow now. M. Daburon can prepare a warrant for his appearance whenever
+he likes.”
+
+“I believe, indeed, the testimony of this child is of the highest
+importance,” said M. Daburon; and turning to the boy added, “Can you
+tell us, my little friend, with what this boat was loaded?”
+
+“No, sir, I couldn’t see because it was decked.”
+
+“Which way was she going, up the Seine or down?”
+
+“Neither, sir, she was moored.”
+
+“We know that,” said Gevrol. “The magistrate asks you which way the prow
+of the boat was turned,--towards Paris or towards Marly?”
+
+“The two ends of the boat seemed alike to me.”
+
+The chief of the detective of police made a gesture of disappointment.
+
+“At least,” said he, addressing the child again, “you noticed the name
+of the boat? you can read I suppose. One should always know the names of
+the boats one goes aboard of.”
+
+“No, I didn’t see any name,” said the little boy.
+
+“If this boat was moored at the quay,” remarked M. Daburon, “it was
+probably noticed by the inhabitants of Bougival.”
+
+“That is true, sir,” approved the commissary.
+
+“Yes,” said Gevrol, “and the sailors must have come ashore. I shall find
+out all about it at the wine shop. But what sort of a man was Gervais,
+the master, my little friend?”
+
+“Like all the sailors hereabouts, sir.”
+
+The child was preparing to depart when M. Daburon recalled him.
+
+“Before you go, my boy, tell me, have you spoken to any one of this
+meeting before to-day?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I told all to mamma when I got back from church, and gave her
+the ten sous.”
+
+“And you have told us the whole truth?” continued the magistrate. “You
+know that it is a very grave matter to attempt to impose on justice. She
+always finds it out, and it is my duty to warn you that she inflicts the
+most terrible punishment upon liars.”
+
+The little fellow blushed as red as a cherry, and held down his head.
+
+“I see,” pursued M. Daburon, “that you have concealed something from us.
+Don’t you know that the police know everything?”
+
+“Pardon! sir,” cried the boy, bursting into tears,--“pardon. Don’t
+punish me, and I will never do so again.”
+
+“Tell us, then, how you have deceived us?”
+
+“Well, sir, it was not ten sous that the man gave me, it was twenty
+sous. I only gave half to mamma; and I kept the rest to buy marbles
+with.”
+
+“My little friend,” said the investigating magistrate, “for this time I
+forgive you. But let it be a lesson for the remainder of your life. You
+may go now, and remember it is useless to try and hide the truth; it
+always comes to light!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The two last depositions awakened in M. Daburon’s mind some slight
+gleams of hope. In the midst of darkness, the humblest rush-light
+acquires brilliancy.
+
+“I will go at once to Bougival, sir, if you approve of this step,”
+ suggested Gevrol.
+
+“Perhaps you would do well to wait a little,” answered M. Daburon. “This
+man was seen on Sunday morning; we will inquire into Widow Lerouge’s
+movements on that day.”
+
+Three neighbours were called. They all declared that the widow had
+kept her bed all Sunday. To one woman who, hearing she was unwell,
+had visited her, she said, “Ah! I had last night a terrible accident.”
+ Nobody at the time attached any significance to these words.
+
+“The man with the rings in his ears becomes more and important,” said
+the magistrate, when the woman had retired. “To find him again is
+indispensable: you must see to this, M. Gevrol.”
+
+“Before eight days, I shall have him,” replied the chief of detective
+police, “if I have to search every boat on the Seine, from its source
+to the ocean. I know the name of the captain, Gervais. The navigation
+office will tell me something.”
+
+He was interrupted by Lecoq, who rushed into the house breathless. “Here
+is old Tabaret,” he said. “I met him just as he was going out. What a
+man! He wouldn’t wait for the train, but gave I don’t know how much to a
+cabman; and we drove here in fifty minutes!”
+
+Almost immediately, a man appeared at the door, whose aspect it must be
+admitted was not at all what one would have expected of a person who had
+joined the police for honour alone. He was certainly sixty years old and
+did not look a bit younger. Short, thin, and rather bent, he leant
+on the carved ivory handle of a stout cane. His round face wore that
+expression of perpetual astonishment, mingled with uneasiness, which
+has made the fortunes of two comic actors of the Palais-Royal theatre.
+Scrupulously shaved, he presented a very short chin, large and good
+natured lips, and a nose disagreeably elevated, like the broad end of
+one of Sax’s horns. His eyes of a dull gray, were small and red at the
+lids, and absolutely void of expression; yet they fatigued the observer
+by their insupportable restlessness. A few straight hairs shaded his
+forehead, which receded like that of a greyhound, and through their
+scantiness barely concealed his long ugly ears. He was very comfortably
+dressed, clean as a new franc piece, displaying linen of dazzling
+whiteness, and wearing silk gloves and leather gaiters. A long and
+massive gold chain, very vulgar-looking, was twisted thrice round his
+neck, and fell in cascades into the pocket of his waistcoat.
+
+M. Tabaret, surnamed Tirauclair, stood at the threshold, and bowed
+almost to the ground, bending his old back into an arch, and in the
+humblest of voices asked, “The investigating magistrate has deigned to
+send for me?”
+
+“Yes!” replied M. Daburon, adding under his breath; “and if you are a
+man of any ability, there is at least nothing to indicate it in your
+appearance.”
+
+“I am here,” continued the old fellow, “completely at the service of
+justice.”
+
+“I wish to know,” said M. Daburon, “whether you can discover some clue
+that will put us upon the track of the assassin. I will explain the--”
+
+“Oh, I know enough of it!” interrupted old Tabaret. “Lecoq has told me
+the principal facts, just as much as I desire to know.”
+
+“Nevertheless--” commenced the commissary of police.
+
+“If you will permit me, I prefer to proceed without receiving any
+details, in order to be more fully master of my own impressions. When
+one knows another’s opinion it can’t help influencing one’s judgment.
+I will, if you please, at once commence my researches, with Lecoq’s
+assistance.”
+
+As the old fellow spoke, his little gray eyes dilated, and became
+brilliant as carbuncles. His face reflected an internal satisfaction;
+even his wrinkles seemed to laugh. His figure became erect, and his step
+was almost elastic, as he darted into the inner chamber.
+
+He remained there about half an hour; then came out running, then
+re-entered and then again came out; once more he disappeared and
+reappeared again almost immediately. The magistrate could not help
+comparing him to a pointer on the scent, his turned-up nose even moved
+about as if to discover some subtle odour left by the assassin. All
+the while he talked loudly and with much gesticulation, apostrophising
+himself, scolding himself, uttering little cries of triumph or
+self-encouragement. He did not allow Lecoq to have a moment’s rest. He
+wanted this or that or the other thing. He demanded paper and a pencil.
+Then he wanted a spade; and finally he cried out for plaster of Paris,
+some water and a bottle of oil.
+
+When more than an hour had elapsed, the investigating magistrate began
+to grow impatient, and asked what had become of the amateur detective.
+
+“He is on the road,” replied the corporal, “lying flat in the mud, and
+mixing some plaster in a plate. He says he has nearly finished, and that
+he is coming back presently.”
+
+He did in fact return almost instantly, joyous, triumphant, looking at
+least twenty years younger. Lecoq followed him, carrying with the utmost
+precaution a large basket.
+
+“I have solved the riddle!” said Tabaret to the magistrate. “It is all
+clear now, and as plain as noon-day. Lecoq, my lad, put the basket on
+the table.”
+
+Gevrol at this moment returned from his expedition equally delighted.
+
+“I am on the track of the man with the earrings,” said he; “the boat
+went down the river. I have obtained an exact description of the master
+Gervais.”
+
+“What have you discovered, M. Tabaret!” asked the magistrate.
+
+The old fellow carefully emptied upon the table the contents of the
+basket,--a big lump of clay, several large sheets of paper, and three
+or four small lumps of plaster yet damp. Standing behind this table, he
+presented a grotesque resemblance to those mountebank conjurers who in
+the public squares juggle the money of the lookers-on. His clothes had
+greatly suffered; he was covered with mud up to the chin.
+
+“In the first place,” said he, at last, in a tone of affected modesty,
+“robbery has had nothing to do with the crime that occupies our
+attention.”
+
+“Oh! of course not!” muttered Gevrol.
+
+“I shall prove it,” continued old Tabaret, “by the evidence. By-and-by
+I shall offer my humble opinion as to the real motive. In the second
+place, the assassin arrived here before half-past nine; that is to
+say, before the rain fell. No more than M. Gevrol have I been able to
+discover traces of muddy footsteps; but under the table, on the spot
+where his feet rested, I find dust. We are thus assured of the hour.
+The widow did not in the least expect her visitor. She had commenced
+undressing, and was winding up her cuckoo clock when he knocked.”
+
+“These are absolute details!” cried the commissary.
+
+“But easily established,” replied the amateur. “You see this cuckoo
+clock above the secretary; it is one of those which run fourteen or
+fifteen hours at most, for I have examined it. Now it is more than
+probable, it is certain, that the widow wound it up every evening before
+going to bed. How, then, is it that the clock has stopped at five?
+Because she must have touched it. As she was drawing the chain, the
+assassin knocked. In proof, I show this chair standing under the clock,
+and on the seat a very plain foot-mark. Now look at the dress of the
+victim; the body of it is off. In order to open the door more quickly,
+she did not wait to put it on again, but hastily threw this old shawl
+over her shoulders.”
+
+“By Jove!” exclaimed the corporal, evidently struck.
+
+“The widow,” continued the old fellow, “knew the person who knocked.
+Her haste to open the door gives rise to this conjecture; what follows
+proves it. The assassin then gained admission without difficulty. He
+is a young man, a little above the middle height, elegantly dressed. He
+wore on that evening a high hat. He carried an umbrella, and smoked a
+trabucos cigar in a holder.”
+
+“Ridiculous!” cried Gevrol. “This is too much.”
+
+“Too much, perhaps,” retorted old Tabaret. “At all events, it is the
+truth. If you are not minute in your investigations, I cannot help it;
+anyhow, I am, I search, and I find. Too much, say you? Well deign to
+glance at these lumps of damp plaster. They represent the heels of the
+boots worn by the assassin, of which I found a most perfect impression
+near the ditch, where the key was picked up. On these sheets of paper,
+I have marked in outline the imprint of the foot which I cannot take
+up, because it is on some sand. Look! heel high, instep pronounced, sole
+small and narrow,--an elegant boot, belonging to a foot well cared for
+evidently. Look for this impression all along the path; and you will
+find it again twice. Then you will find it five times repeated in the
+garden where no one else had been; and these footprints prove, by
+the way, that the stranger knocked not at the door, but at the
+window-shutter, beneath which shone a gleam of light. At the entrance to
+the garden, the man leapt to avoid a flower bed! the point of the foot,
+more deeply imprinted than usual, shows it. He leapt more than two yards
+with ease, proving that he is active, and therefore young.”
+
+Old Tabaret spoke in a low voice, clear and penetrating: and his eye
+glanced from one to the other of his auditors, watching the impression
+he was making.
+
+“Does the hat astonish you, M. Gevrol?” he pursued. “Just look at the
+circle traced in the dust on the marble top of the secretary. Is it
+because I have mentioned his height that you are surprised? Take the
+trouble to examine the tops of the wardrobes and you will see that the
+assassin passed his hands across them. Therefore he is taller than I am.
+Do not say that he got on a chair, for in that case, he would have seen
+and would not have been obliged to feel. Are you astonished about the
+umbrella? This lump of earth shows an admirable impression not only of
+the end of the stick, but even of the little round piece of wood which
+is always placed at the end of the silk. Perhaps you cannot get over the
+statement that he smoked a cigar? Here is the end of a trabucos that
+I found amongst the ashes. Has the end been bitten? No. Has it been
+moistened with saliva? No. Then he who smoked it used a cigar-holder.”
+
+Lecoq was unable to conceal his enthusiastic admiration, and noiselessly
+rubbed his hands together. The commissary appeared stupefied, while
+M. Daburon was delighted. Gevrol’s face, on the contrary, was sensibly
+elongated. As for the corporal, he was overwhelmed.
+
+“Now,” continued the old fellow, “follow me closely. We have traced the
+young man into the house. How he explained his presence at this hour, I
+do not know; this much is certain, he told the widow he had not dined.
+The worthy woman was delighted to hear it, and at once set to work to
+prepare a meal. This meal was not for herself; for in the cupboard I
+have found the remains of her own dinner. She had dined off fish; the
+autopsy will confirm the truth of this statement. Besides you can see
+yourselves, there is but one glass on the table, and one knife. But
+who is this young man? Evidently the widow looked upon him as a man of
+superior rank to her own; for in the cupboard is a table-cloth still
+very clean. Did she use it? No. For her guest she brought out a clean
+linen one, her very best. It is for him this magnificent glass, a
+present, no doubt, and it is evident she did not often use this knife
+with the ivory handle.”
+
+“That is all true,” murmured M. Daburon, “very true.”
+
+“Now, then we have got the young man seated. He began by drinking a
+glass of wine, while the widow was putting her pan on the fire. Then,
+his heart failing him, he asked for brandy, and swallowed about five
+small glassfuls. After an internal struggle of ten minutes (the time it
+must have taken to cook the ham and eggs as much as they are), the young
+man arose and approached the widow, who was squatting down and leaning
+forward over her cooking. He stabbed her twice on the back; but she was
+not killed instantly. She half arose seizing the assassin by the hands;
+while he drew back, lifting her suddenly, and then hurling her down in
+the position in which you see her. This short struggle is indicated by
+the posture of the body; for, squatting down and being struck in the
+back, it is naturally on her back that she ought to have fallen. The
+murderer used a sharp narrow weapon, which was, unless I am deceived,
+the end of a foil, sharpened, and with the button broken off. By
+wiping the weapon upon his victim’s skirt, the assassin leaves us this
+indication. He was not, however, hurt in the struggle. The victim must
+have clung with a death-grip to his hands; but, as he had not taken off
+his lavender kid gloves,--”
+
+“Gloves! Why this is romance,” exclaimed Gevrol.
+
+“Have you examined the dead woman’s finger-nails, M. Gevrol? No. Well,
+do so, and then tell me whether I am mistaken. The woman, now dead,
+we come to the object of her assassination. What did this well-dressed
+young gentleman want? Money? Valuables? No! no! a hundred times no! What
+he wanted, what he sought, and what he found, were papers, documents,
+letters, which he knew to be in the possession of the victim. To find
+them, he overturned everything, upset the cupboards, unfolded the linen,
+broke open the secretary, of which he could not find the key, and even
+emptied the mattress of the bed. At last he found these documents. And
+then do you know what he did with them? Why, burned them, of course; not
+in the fire-place, but in the little stove in the front room. His end
+accomplished, what does he do next? He flies, carrying with him all
+that he finds valuable, to baffle detection, by suggesting a robbery. He
+wrapped everything he found worth taking in the napkin which was to have
+served him at dinner, and blowing out the candle, he fled, locking the
+door on the outside, and throwing the key into a ditch. And that is
+all.”
+
+“M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate, “your investigation is admirable; and
+I am persuaded your inferences are correct.”
+
+“Ah!” cried Lecoq, “is he not colossal, my old Tirauclair?”
+
+“Pyramidal!” cried Gevrol ironically. “I fear, however, your
+well-dressed young man must have been just a little embarrassed in
+carrying a bundle covered with a snow white napkin, which could be so
+easily seen from a distance.
+
+“He did not carry it a hundred leagues,” responded old Tabaret. “You may
+well believe, that, to reach the railway station, he was not fool enough
+to take the omnibus. No, he returned on foot by the shortest way, which
+borders the river. Now on reaching the Seine, unless he is more knowing
+than I take him to be, his first care was to throw this tell-tale bundle
+into the water.”
+
+“Do you believe so, M. Tirauclair?” asked Gevrol.
+
+“I don’t mind making a bet on it; and the best evidence of my belief
+is, that I have sent three men, under the surveillance of a gendarme, to
+drag the Seine at the nearest spot from here. If they succeed in finding
+the bundle, I have promised them a recompense.”
+
+“Out of your own pocket, old enthusiast?”
+
+“Yes, M. Gevrol, out of my own pocket.”
+
+“If they should however find this bundle!” murmured M. Daburon.
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of a gendarme, who said: “Here is a
+soiled table-napkin, filled with plate, money, and jewels, which these
+men have found; they claim the hundred francs’ reward, promised them.”
+
+Old Tabaret took from his pocket-book a bank note, which he handed to
+the gendarme. “Now,” demanded he, crushing Gevrol with one disdainful
+glance, “what thinks the investigating magistrate after this?”
+
+“That, thanks to your remarkable penetration, we shall discover--”
+
+He did not finish. The doctor summoned to make the post-mortem
+examination entered the room. That unpleasant task accomplished, it
+only confirmed the assertions and conjectures of old Tabaret. The doctor
+explained, as the old man had done, the position of the body. In his
+opinion also, there had been a struggle. He pointed out a bluish circle,
+hardly perceptible, round the neck of the victim, produced apparently
+by the powerful grasp of the murderer; finally he declared that Widow
+Lerouge had eaten about three hours before being struck.
+
+Nothing now remained except to collect the different objects which would
+be useful for the prosecution, and might at a later period confound
+the culprit. Old Tabaret examined with extreme care the dead woman’s
+finger-nails; and, using infinite precaution, he even extracted from
+behind them several small particles of kid. The largest of these pieces
+was not above the twenty-fifth part of an inch in length; but all the
+same their colour was easily distinguishable. He put aside also the part
+of the dress upon which the assassin had wiped his weapon. These with
+the bundle recovered from the Seine, and the different casts taken by
+the old fellow, were all the traces the murderer had left behind him.
+
+It was not much; but this little was enormous in the eyes of M. Daburon;
+and he had strong hopes of discovering the culprit. The greatest
+obstacle to success in the unravelling of mysterious crimes is in
+mistaking the motive. If the researches take at the first step a false
+direction, they are diverted further and further from the truth, in
+proportion to the length they are followed. Thanks to old Tabaret, the
+magistrate felt confident that he was in the right path.
+
+Night had come on. M. Daburon had now nothing more to do at La Jonchere;
+but Gevrol, who still clung to his own opinion of the guilt of the man
+with the rings in his ears, declared he would remain at Bougival. He
+determined to employ the evening in visiting the different wine shops,
+and finding if possible new witnesses. At the moment of departure, after
+the commissary and the entire party had wished M. Daburon good-night,
+the latter asked M. Tabaret to accompany him.
+
+“I was about to solicit that honour,” replied the old fellow. They set
+out together; and naturally the crime which had been discovered, and
+with which they were mutually preoccupied, formed the subject of their
+conversation.
+
+“Shall we, or shall we not, ascertain the antecedents of this woman!”
+ repeated old Tabaret. “All depends upon that now!”
+
+“We shall ascertain them, if the grocer’s wife has told the truth,”
+ replied M. Daburon. “If the husband of Widow Lerouge was a sailor, and
+if her son Jacques is in the navy, the minister of marine can furnish
+information that will soon lead to their discovery. I will write to the
+minister this very night.”
+
+They reached the station at Rueil, and took their places in the train.
+They were fortunate enough to secure a 1st class carriage to themselves.
+But old Tabaret was no longer disposed for conversation. He reflected,
+he sought, he combined; and in his face might easily be read the working
+of his thoughts. M. Daburon watched him curiously and felt singularly
+attracted by this eccentric old man, whose very original taste had led
+him to devote his services to the secret police of the Rue de Jerusalem.
+
+“M Tabaret,” he suddenly asked, “have you been long associated with the
+police?”
+
+“Nine years, M. Daburon, more than nine years; and permit me to confess
+I am a little surprised that you have never before heard of me.”
+
+“I certainly knew you by reputation,” answered M. Daburon; “but your
+name did not occur to me, and it was only in consequence of hearing you
+praised that I had the excellent idea of asking your assistance.
+But what, I should like to know, is your reason for adopting this
+employment?”
+
+“Sorrow, sir, loneliness, weariness. Ah! I have not always been happy!”
+
+“I have been told, though, that you are rich.”
+
+The old fellow heaved a deep sigh, which revealed the most cruel
+deceptions. “I am well off, sir,” he replied; “but I have not always
+been so. Until I was forty-five years old, my life was a series of
+absurd and useless privations. I had a father who wasted my youth,
+ruined my life, and made me the most pitiable of human creatures.”
+
+There are men who can never divest themselves of their professional
+habits. M. Daburon was at all times and seasons more or less an
+investigating magistrate.
+
+“How, M. Tabaret,” he inquired, “your father the author of all your
+misfortunes?”
+
+“Alas, yes, sir! I have forgiven him at last; but I used to curse him
+heartily. In the first transports of my resentment, I heaped upon his
+memory all the insults that can be inspired by the most violent hatred,
+when I learnt,--But I will confide my history to you, M. Daburon. When
+I was five and twenty years of age. I was earning two thousand francs a
+year, as a clerk at the Monte de Piete. One morning my father entered
+my lodging, and abruptly announced to me that he was ruined, and without
+food or shelter. He appeared in despair, and talked of killing himself.
+I loved my father. Naturally, I strove to reassure him; I boasted of my
+situation, and explained to him at some length, that, while I earned
+the means for living, he should want for nothing; and, to commence, I
+insisted that henceforth we should live together. No sooner said than
+done, and during twenty years I was encumbered with the old--”
+
+“What! you repent of your admirable conduct, M. Tabaret?”
+
+“Do I repent of it! That is to say he deserved to be poisoned by the
+bread I gave him.”
+
+M. Daburon was unable to repress a gesture of surprise, which did not
+escape the old fellow’s notice.
+
+“Hear, before you condemn me,” he continued. “There was I at
+twenty-five, imposing upon myself the severest privations for the sake
+of my father,--no more friends, no more flirtations, nothing. In the
+evenings, to augment our scanty revenues, I worked at copying law
+papers for a notary. I denied myself even the luxury of tobacco.
+Notwithstanding this, the old fellow complained without ceasing; he
+regretted his lost fortune; he must have pocket-money, with which to
+buy this, or that; my utmost exertions failed to satisfy him. Ah, heaven
+alone knows what I suffered! I was not born to live alone and grow old,
+like a dog. I longed for the pleasures of a home and a family. My dream
+was to marry, to adore a good wife, by whom I might be loved a little,
+and to see innocent healthy little ones gambolling about my knees. But
+pshaw! when such thoughts entered my heart and forced a tear or two from
+my eyes, I rebelled against myself. I said: ‘My lad, when you earn but
+three thousand francs a year, and have an old and cherished father to
+support, it is your duty to stifle such desires, and remain a bachelor.’
+And yet I met a young girl. It is thirty years now since that time;
+well! just look at me, I am sure I am blushing as red as a tomato.
+Her name was Hortense. Who can tell what has become of her? She was
+beautiful and poor. Well, I was quite an old man when my father died,
+the wretch, the--”
+
+“M. Tabaret!” interrupted the magistrate, “for shame, M. Tabaret!”
+
+“But I have already told you, I have forgiven him, sir. However, you
+will soon understand my anger. On the day of his death, looking in his
+secretary, I found a memorandum of an income of twenty thousand francs!”
+
+“How so! was he rich?”
+
+“Yes, very rich; for that was not all: he owned near Orleans a property
+leased for six thousand francs a year. He owned, besides, the house I
+now live in, where we lived together; and I, fool, sot, imbecile,
+stupid animal that I was, used to pay the rent every three months to the
+concierge!”
+
+“That was too much!” M. Daburon could not help saying.
+
+“Was it not, sir? I was robbing myself of my own money! To crown his
+hypocrisy, he left a will wherein he declared, in the name of Holy
+Trinity, that he had no other aim in view, in thus acting, than my own
+advantage. He wished, so he wrote, to habituate me to habits of good
+order and economy, and keep me from the commission of follies. And I was
+forty-five years old, and for twenty years I had been reproaching myself
+if ever I spent a single sou uselessly. In short, he had speculated on
+my good heart, he had . . . Bah! on my word, it is enough to disgust the
+human race with filial piety!”
+
+M. Tabaret’s anger, albeit very real and justified, was so highly
+ludicrous, that M. Daburon had much difficulty to restrain his laughter,
+in spite of the real sadness of the recital.
+
+“At least,” said he, “this fortune must have given you pleasure.”
+
+“Not at all, sir, it came too late. Of what avail to have the bread when
+one has no longer the teeth? The marriageable age had passed. I resigned
+my situation, however, to make way for some one poorer than myself. At
+the end of a month I was sick and tired of life; and, to replace the
+affections that had been denied me, I resolved to give myself a passion,
+a hobby, a mania. I became a collector of books. You think, sir, perhaps
+that to take an interest in books a man must have studied, must be
+learned?”
+
+“I know, dear M. Tabaret, that he must have money. I am acquainted with
+an illustrious bibliomaniac who may be able to read, but who is most
+certainly unable to sign his own name.”
+
+“This is very likely. I, too, can read; and I read all the books I
+bought. I collected all I could find which related, no matter how
+little, to the police. Memoirs, reports, pamphlets, speeches, letters,
+novels,--all suited me; and I devoured them. So much so, that little by
+little I became attracted towards the mysterious power which, from the
+obscurity of the Rue de Jerusalem, watches over and protects society,
+which penetrates everywhere, lifts the most impervious veils, sees
+through every plot, divines what is kept hidden, knows exactly the
+value of a man, the price of a conscience, and which accumulates in its
+portfolios the most terrible, as well as the most shameful secrets! In
+reading the memoirs of celebrated detectives, more attractive to me
+than the fables of our best authors I became inspired by an enthusiastic
+admiration for those men, so keen scented, so subtle, flexible as steel,
+artful and penetrating, fertile in expedients, who follow crime on
+the trail, armed with the law, through the rushwood of legality, as
+relentlessly as the savages of Cooper pursue their enemies in the depths
+of the American forests. The desire seized me to become a wheel of this
+admirable machine,--a small assistance in the punishment of crime
+and the triumph of innocence. I made the essay; and I found I did not
+succeed too badly.”
+
+“And does this employment please you?”
+
+“I owe to it, sir, my liveliest enjoyments. Adieu weariness! since I
+have abandoned the search for books to the search for men. I shrug my
+shoulders when I see a foolish fellow pay twenty-five francs for the
+right of hunting a hare. What a prize! Give me the hunting of a man!
+That, at least, calls the faculties into play, and the victory is not
+inglorious! The game in my sport is equal to the hunter; they both
+possess intelligence, strength, and cunning. The arms are nearly equal.
+Ah! if people but knew the excitement of these games of hide and seek
+which are played between the criminal and the detective, everybody
+would be wanting employment at the office of the Rue de Jerusalem. The
+misfortune is, that the art is becoming lost. Great crimes are now so
+rare. The race of strong fearless criminals has given place to the mob
+of vulgar pick-pockets. The few rascals who are heard of occasionally
+are as cowardly as foolish. They sign their names to their misdeeds, and
+even leave their cards lying about. There is no merit in catching them.
+Their crime found out, you have only to go and arrest them,--”
+
+“It seems to me, though,” interrupted M. Daburon, smiling, “that our
+assassin is not such a bungler.”
+
+“He, sir, is an exception; and I shall have greater delight in tracking
+him. I will do everything for that, I will even compromise myself if
+necessary. For I ought to confess, M. Daburon,” added he, slightly
+embarrassed, “that I do not boast to my friends of my exploits; I even
+conceal them as carefully as possible. They would perhaps shake hands
+with me less warmly did they know that Tirauclair and Tabaret were one
+and the same.”
+
+Insensibly the crime became again the subject of conversation. It was
+agreed, that, the first thing in the morning, M. Tabaret should install
+himself at Bougival. He boasted that in eight days he should examine
+all the people round about. On his side M. Daburon promised to keep him
+advised of the least evidence that transpired, and recall him, if by any
+chance he should procure the papers of Widow Lerouge.
+
+“To you, M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate in conclusion, “I shall be
+always at home. If you have any occasion to speak to me, do not hesitate
+to come at night as well as during the day. I rarely go out, and you
+will always find me either at my home, Rue Jacob, or in my office at the
+Palais de Justice. I will give orders for your admittance whenever you
+present yourself.”
+
+The train entered the station at this moment. M. Daburon, having called
+a cab, offered a seat to M. Tabaret. The old fellow declined.
+
+“It is not worth while,” he replied, “for I live, as I have had the
+honour of telling you, in the Rue St. Lazare, only a few steps from
+here.”
+
+“Till to-morrow, then!” said M. Daburon.
+
+“Till to-morrow,” replied old Tabaret; and he added, “We shall succeed.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+M. Tabaret’s house was in fact not more than four minutes’ walk from the
+railway terminus of St. Lazare. It was a fine building carefully kept,
+and which probably yielded a fine income though the rents were not too
+high. The old fellow found plenty of room in it. He occupied on the
+first floor, overlooking the street, some handsome apartments, well
+arranged and comfortably furnished, the principal of which was his
+collection of books. He lived very simply from taste, as well as habit,
+waited on by an old servant, to whom on great occasions the concierge
+lent a helping hand.
+
+No one in the house had the slightest suspicion of the avocations of the
+proprietor. Besides, even the humblest agent of police would be expected
+to possess a degree of acuteness for which no one gave M. Tabaret
+credit. Indeed, they mistook for incipient idiocy his continual
+abstraction of mind.
+
+It is true that all who knew him remarked the singularity of his
+habits. His frequent absences from home had given to his proceedings an
+appearance at once eccentric and mysterious. Never was young libertine
+more irregular in his habits than this old man. He came or failed to
+come home to his meals, ate it mattered not what or when. He went out
+at every hour of the day and night, often slept abroad, and even
+disappeared for entire weeks at a time. Then too he received the
+strangest visitors, odd looking men of suspicious appearance, and
+fellows of ill-favoured and sinister aspect.
+
+This irregular way of living had robbed the old fellow of much
+consideration. Many believed they saw in him a shameless libertine, who
+squandered his income in disreputable places. They would remark to one
+another, “Is it not disgraceful, a man of his age?”
+
+He was aware of all this tittle-tattle, and laughed at it. This did not,
+however, prevent many of his tenants from seeking his society and paying
+court to him. They would invite him to dinner, but he almost invariably
+refused.
+
+He seldom visited but one person of the house, but with that one he
+was very intimate, so much so indeed, that he was more often in her
+apartment, than in his own. She was a widow lady, who for fifteen years
+had occupied an apartment on the third floor. Her name was Madame Gerdy,
+and she lived with her son Noel, whom she adored.
+
+Noel Gerdy was a man thirty-three years of age, but looking older; tall
+and well made, with a noble and intelligent face, large black eyes, and
+black hair which curled naturally. An advocate, he passed for having
+great talent, and greater industry, and had already gained a certain
+amount of notoriety. He was an obstinate worker, cold and meditative,
+though devoted to his profession, and affected, with some ostentation,
+perhaps, a great rigidity of principle, and austerity of manners.
+
+In Madame Gerdy’s apartment, old Tabaret felt himself quite at home. He
+considered her as a relation, and looked upon Noel as a son. In spite
+of her fifty years, he had often thought of asking the hand of this
+charming widow, and was restrained less by the fear of a refusal than
+its consequence. To propose and to be rejected would sever the existing
+relations, so pleasurable to him. However, he had by his will, which
+was deposited with his notary constituted this young advocate his sole
+legatee; with the single condition of founding an annual prize of two
+thousand francs to be bestowed on the police agent who during the year
+had unravelled the most obscure and mysterious crime.
+
+Short as was the distance to his house, old Tabaret was a good quarter
+of an hour in reaching it. On leaving M. Daburon his thoughts reverted
+to the scene of the murder; and, so blinded was the old fellow to
+external objects, that he moved along the street, first jostled on the
+right, then on the left, by the busy passers by, advancing one step and
+receding two. He repeated to himself for the fiftieth time the words
+uttered by Widow Lerouge, as reported by the milk-woman. “If I wished
+for any more, I could have it.”
+
+“All is in that,” murmured he. “Widow Lerouge possessed some important
+secret, which persons rich and powerful had the strongest motives for
+concealing. She had them in her power, and that was her fortune. She
+made them sing to her tune; she probably went too far, and so they
+suppressed her. But of what nature was this secret, and how did she
+become possessed of it? Most likely she was in her youth a servant in
+some great family; and whilst there, she saw, heard, or discovered,
+something--What? Evidently there is a woman at the bottom of it. Did she
+assist her mistress in some love intrigue? What more probable? And in
+that case the affair becomes even more complicated. Not only must the
+woman be found but her lover also; for it is the lover who has moved in
+this affair. He is, or I am greatly deceived, a man of noble birth. A
+person of inferior rank would have simply hired an assassin. This man
+has not hung back; he himself has struck the blow and by that means
+avoiding the indiscretion or the stupidity of an accomplice. He is a
+courageous rascal, full of audacity and coolness, for the crime has
+been admirably executed. The fellow left nothing behind of a nature to
+compromise him seriously. But for me, Gevrol, believing in the robbery,
+would have seen nothing. Fortunately, however, I was there. But yet it
+can hardly be that,” continued the old man. “It must be something worse
+than a mere love affair.”
+
+Old Tabaret entered the porch of the house. The concierge seated by the
+window of his lodge saw him as he passed beneath the gas lamp.
+
+“Ah,” said he, “the proprietor has returned at last.”
+
+“So he has,” replied his wife, “but it looks as though his princess
+would have nothing to do with him to-night. He seems more loose than
+ever.”
+
+“Is it not positively indecent,” said the concierge, “and isn’t he in
+a state! His fair ones do treat him well! One of these fine mornings I
+shall have to take him to a lunatic asylum in a straight waistcoat.”
+
+“Look at him now!” interrupted his wife, “just look at him now, in the
+middle of the courtyard!”
+
+The old fellow had stopped at the extremity of the porch. He had taken
+off his hat, and, while talking to himself, gesticulated violently.
+
+“No,” said he, “I have not yet got hold of the clue, I am getting near
+it; but have not yet found it out.”
+
+He mounted the staircase, and rang his bell, forgetting that he had his
+latch-key in his pocket. His housekeeper opened the door.
+
+“What, is it you, sir,” said she, “and at this hour!”
+
+“What’s that you say?” asked the old fellow.
+
+“I say,” replied the housekeeper, “that it is more than half-past eight
+o’clock. I thought you were not coming back this evening. Have you at
+least dined?”
+
+“No, not yet.”
+
+“Well, fortunately I have kept your dinner warm. You can sit down to it
+at once.”
+
+Old Tabaret took his place at the table, and helped himself to soup,
+but mounting his hobby-horse again, he forgot to eat, and remained, his
+spoon in the air, as though suddenly struck by an idea.
+
+“He is certainly touched in the head,” thought Manette, the housekeeper.
+“Look at that stupid expression. Who in his senses would lead the life
+he does?” She touched him on the shoulder, and bawled in his ear, as if
+he were deaf,--“You do not eat. Are you not hungry?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” muttered he, trying mechanically to escape the voice that
+sounded in his ears, “I am very hungry, for since the morning I have
+been obliged--” He interrupted himself, remaining with his mouth open,
+his eyes fixed on vacancy.
+
+“You were obliged--?” repeated Manette.
+
+“Thunder!” cried he, raising his clenched fists towards the
+ceiling,--“heaven’s thunder! I have it!”
+
+His movement was so violent and sudden that the housekeeper was a little
+alarmed, and retired to the further end of the dining-room, near the
+door.
+
+“Yes,” continued he, “it is certain there is a child!”
+
+Manette approached him quickly. “A child?” she asked in astonishment.
+
+“What next!” cried he in a furious tone. “What are you doing there? Has
+your hardihood come to this that you pick up the words which escape me?
+Do me the pleasure to retire to your kitchen, and stay there until I
+call you.”
+
+“He is going crazy!” thought Manette, as she disappeared very quickly.
+
+Old Tabaret resumed his seat. He hastily swallowed his soup which was
+completely cold. “Why,” said he to himself, “did I not think of it
+before? Poor humanity! I am growing old, and my brain is worn out. For
+it is clear as day; the circumstances all point to that conclusion.”
+
+He rang the bell placed on the table beside him; the servant reappeared.
+
+“Bring the roast,” he said, “and leave me to myself.”
+
+“Yes,” continued he furiously carving a leg of Presale mutton--“Yes,
+there is a child, and here is his history! The Widow Lerouge, when a
+young woman, is in the service of a great lady, immensely rich. Her
+husband, a sailor, probably had departed on a long voyage. The lady had
+a lover--found herself enciente. She confided in the Widow Lerouge, and,
+with her assistance, accomplished a clandestine accouchement.”
+
+He called again.
+
+“Manette, the dessert, and get out!”
+
+Certainly such a master was unworthy of so excellent a cook as Manette.
+He would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten for diner, or even
+what he was eating at this moment; it was a preserve of pears.
+
+“But what,” murmured he, “has become of the child? Has it been
+destroyed? No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide,
+would be no longer formidable. The child has been preserved, and
+confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared. They have
+been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its
+birth and its existence. Here is the opening. The father is the man of
+the fine carriage; the mother is the lady who came with the handsome
+young man. Ha! ha! I can well believe the dear old dame wanted for
+nothing. She had a secret worth a farm in Brie. But the old lady was
+extravagant; her expenses and her demands have increased year by year.
+Poor humanity! She has leaned upon the staff too heavily, and broken it.
+She has threatened. They have been frightened, and said, ‘Let there be
+an end of this!’ But who has charged himself with the commission? The
+papa? No; he is too old. By jupiter! The son,--the child himself! He
+would save his mother, the brave boy! He has slain the witness and burnt
+the proofs!”
+
+Manette all this time, her ear to the keyhole, listened with all her
+soul; from time to time she gleaned a word, an oath, the noise of a blow
+upon the table; but that was all.
+
+“For certain,” thought she, “his women are running in his head.”
+
+Her curiosity overcame her prudence. Hearing no more, she ventured to
+open the door a little way. The old fellow caught her in the very act.
+
+“Monsieur wants his coffee?” stammered she timidly.
+
+“Yes, you may bring it to me,” he answered.
+
+He attempted to swallow his coffee at a gulp, but scalded himself so
+severely that the pain brought him suddenly from speculation to reality.
+
+“Thunder!” growled he; “but it is hot! Devil take the case! it has set
+me beside myself. They are right when they say I am too enthusiastic.
+But who amongst the whole lot of them could have, by the sole exercise
+of observation and reason, established the whole history of the
+assassination? Certainly not Gevrol, poor man! Won’t he feel vexed and
+humiliated, being altogether out of it. Shall I seek M. Daburon? No,
+not yet. The night is necessary to me to sift to the bottom all the
+particulars, and arrange my ideas systematically. But, on the other
+hand, if I sit here all alone, this confounded case will keep me in a
+fever of speculation, and as I have just eaten a great deal, I may get
+an attack of indigestion. My faith! I will call upon Madame Gerdy: she
+has been ailing for some days past. I will have a chat with Noel, and
+that will change the course of my ideas.”
+
+He got up from the table, put on his overcoat, and took his hat and
+cane.
+
+“Are you going out, sir?” asked Manette.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Shall you be late?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“But you will return to-night?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+One minute later, M. Tabaret was ringing his friend’s bell.
+
+Madame Gerdy lived in respectable style. She possessed sufficient for
+her wants; and her son’s practice, already large, had made them almost
+rich. She lived very quietly, and with the exception of one or two
+friends, whom Noel occasionally invited to dinner, received very few
+visitors. During more than fifteen years that M. Tabaret came familiarly
+to the apartments, he had only met the cure of the parish, one of Noel’s
+old professors, and Madame Gerdy’s brother, a retired colonel. When
+these three visitors happened to call on the same evening, an event
+somewhat rare, they played at a round game called Boston; on other
+evenings piquet or all-fours was the rule. Noel, however, seldom
+remained in the drawing-room, but shut himself up after dinner in
+his study, which with his bedroom formed a separate apartment to his
+mother’s, and immersed himself in his law papers. He was supposed to
+work far into the night. Often in winter his lamp was not extinguished
+before dawn.
+
+Mother and son absolutely lived for one another, as all who knew them
+took pleasure in repeating. They loved and honoured Noel for the care
+he bestowed upon his mother, for his more than filial devotion, for the
+sacrifices which all supposed he made in living at his age like an old
+man.
+
+The neighbours were in the habit of contrasting the conduct of this
+exemplary young man with that of M. Tabaret, the incorrigible old rake,
+the hairless dangler.
+
+As for Madame Gerdy, she saw nothing but her son in all the world. Her
+love had actually taken the form of worship. In Noel she believed she
+saw united all the physical and moral perfections. To her he seemed of a
+superior order to the rest of humanity. If he spoke, she was silent and
+listened: his word was a command, his advice a decree of Providence. To
+care for her son, study his tastes, anticipate his wishes, was the sole
+aim of her life. She was a mother.
+
+“Is Madame Gerdy visible?” asked old Tabaret of the girl who opened the
+door; and, without waiting for an answer, he walked into the room like
+a man assured that his presence cannot be inopportune, and ought to be
+agreeable.
+
+A single candle lighted the drawing-room, which was not in its
+accustomed order. The small marble-top table, usually in the middle of
+the room, had been rolled into a corner. Madame Gerdy’s large arm-chair
+was near the window; a newspaper, all crumpled, lay before it on the
+carpet.
+
+The amateur detective took in the whole at a glance.
+
+“Has any accident happened?” he asked of the girl.
+
+“Do not speak of it, sir: we have just had a fright! oh, such a fright!”
+
+“What was it? tell me quickly!”
+
+“You know that madame has been ailing for the last month. She has eaten
+I may say almost nothing. This morning, even, she said to me--”
+
+“Yes, yes! but this evening?”
+
+“After her dinner, madame went into the drawing-room as usual. She sat
+down and took up one of M. Noel’s newspapers. Scarcely had she begun to
+read, when she uttered a great cry,--oh, a terrible cry! We hastened to
+her; madame had fallen on to the floor, as one dead. M. Noel raised
+her in his arms, and carried her into her room. I wanted to fetch the
+doctor, sir, but he said there was no need; he knew what was the matter
+with her.”
+
+“And how is she now?”
+
+“She has come to her senses; that is to say, I suppose so; for M. Noel
+made me leave the room. All that I do know is, that a little while ago
+she was talking, and talking very loudly too, for I heard her. Ah, sir,
+it is all the same, very strange!”
+
+“What is strange?”
+
+“What I heard Madame Gerdy say to M. Noel.”
+
+“Ah ha! my girl!” sneered old Tabaret; “so you listen at key-holes, do
+you?”
+
+“No, sir, I assure you; but madame cried out like one lost. She said,--”
+
+“My girl!” interrupted old Tabaret severely, “one always hears wrong
+through key-holes. Ask Manette if that is not so.”
+
+The poor girl, thoroughly confused, sought to excuse herself.
+
+“Enough, enough!” said the old man. “Return to your work: you need not
+disturb M. Noel; I can wait for him very well here.”
+
+And satisfied with the reproof he had administered, he picked up the
+newspaper, and seated himself beside the fire, placing the candle near
+him so as to read with ease. A minute had scarcely elapsed when he in
+his turn bounded in his chair, and stifled a cry of instinctive terror
+and surprise. These were the first words that met his eye.
+
+“A horrible crime has plunged the village of La Jonchere in
+consternation. A poor widow, named Lerouge, who enjoyed the general
+esteem and love of the community, has been assassinated in her home. The
+officers of the law have made the usual preliminary investigations, and
+everything leads us to believe that the police are already on the track
+of the author of this dastardly crime.”
+
+“Thunder!” said old Tabaret to himself, “can it be that Madame Gerdy?--”
+
+The idea but flashed across his mind; he fell back into his chair, and,
+shrugging his shoulders, murmured,--
+
+“Really this affair of La Jonchere is driving me out of my senses! I
+can think of nothing but this Widow Lerouge. I shall be seeing her in
+everything now.”
+
+In the mean while, an uncontrollable curiosity made him peruse the
+entire newspaper. He found nothing with the exception of these lines, to
+justify or explain even the slightest emotion.
+
+“It is an extremely singular coincidence, at the same time,” thought
+the incorrigible police agent. Then, remarking that the newspaper was
+slightly torn at the lower part, and crushed, as if by a convulsive
+grasp, he repeated,--
+
+“It is strange!”
+
+At this moment the door of Madame Gerdy’s room opened, and Noel appeared
+on the threshold.
+
+Without doubt the accident to his mother had greatly excited him; for
+he was very pale and his countenance, ordinarily so calm, wore an
+expression of profound sorrow. He appeared surprised to see old Tabaret.
+
+“Ah, my dear Noel!” cried the old fellow. “Calm my inquietude. How is
+your mother?”
+
+“Madame Gerdy is as well as can be expected.”
+
+“Madame Gerdy!” repeated the old fellow with an air of astonishment; but
+he continued, “It is plain you have been seriously alarmed.”
+
+“In truth,” replied the advocate, seating himself, “I have experienced a
+rude shock.”
+
+Noel was making visibly the greatest efforts to appear calm, to listen
+to the old fellow, and to answer him. Old Tabaret, as much disquieted on
+his side, perceived nothing.
+
+“At least, my dear boy,” said he, “tell me how this happened?”
+
+The young man hesitated a moment, as if consulting with himself. No
+doubt he was unprepared for this point blank question, and knew not what
+answer to make; at last he replied,--
+
+“Madame Gerdy has suffered a severe shock in learning from a paragraph
+in this newspaper that a woman in whom she takes a strong interest has
+been assassinated.”
+
+“Ah!” replied old Tabaret.
+
+The old fellow was in a fever of embarrassment. He wanted to question
+Noel, but was restrained by the fear of revealing the secret of his
+association with the police. Indeed he had almost betrayed himself by
+the eagerness with which he exclaimed,--
+
+“What! your mother knew the Widow Lerouge?”
+
+By an effort he restrained himself, and with difficulty dissembled his
+satisfaction; for he was delighted to find himself so unexpectedly on
+the trace of the antecedents of the victim of La Jonchere.
+
+“She was,” continued Noel, “the slave of Madame Gerdy, devoted to her in
+every way! She would have sacrificed herself for her at a sign from her
+hand.”
+
+“Then you, my dear friend, you knew this poor woman!”
+
+“I had not seen her for a very long time,” replied Noel, whose voice
+seemed broken by emotion, “but I knew her well. I ought even to say I
+loved her tenderly. She was my nurse.”
+
+“She, this woman?” stammered old Tabaret.
+
+This time he was thunderstruck. Widow Lerouge Noel’s nurse? He was most
+unfortunate. Providence had evidently chosen him for its instrument, and
+was leading him by the hand. He was about to obtain all the information,
+which half an hour ago he had almost despaired of procuring. He remained
+seated before Noel amazed and speechless. Yet he understood, that,
+unless he would compromise himself, he must speak.
+
+“It is a great misfortune,” he murmured at last.
+
+“What it is for Madame Gerdy, I cannot say,” replied Noel with a gloomy
+air; “but, for me, it is an overwhelming misfortune! I am struck to
+the heart by the blow which has slain this poor woman. Her death, M.
+Tabaret, has annihilated all my dreams of the future, and probably
+overthrown my most cherished hopes. I had to avenge myself for cruel
+injuries; her death breaks the weapon in my hands, and reduces me to
+despair, to impotence. Alas! I am indeed unfortunate.”
+
+“You unfortunate?” cried old Tabaret, singularly affected by his dear
+Noel’s sadness. “In heaven’s name, what has happened to you?”
+
+“I suffer,” murmured the advocate, “and very cruelly. Not only do I fear
+that the injustice is irreparable; but here am I totally without defence
+delivered over to the shafts of calumny. I may be accused of inventing
+falsehood, of being an ambitious intriguer, having no regard for truth,
+no scruples of conscience.”
+
+Old Tabaret was puzzled. What connection could possibly exist between
+Noel’s honour and the assassination at La Jonchere? His brain was in
+a whirl. A thousand troubled and confused ideas jostled one another in
+inextricable confusion.
+
+“Come, come, Noel,” said he, “compose yourself. Who would believe any
+calumny uttered about you? Take courage, have you not friends? am I
+not here? Have confidence, tell me what troubles you, and it will be
+strange, indeed if between us two--”
+
+The advocate started to his feet, impressed by a sudden resolution.
+
+“Well! yes,” interrupted he, “yes, you shall know all. In fact, I am
+tired of carrying all alone a secret that is stifling me. The part I
+have been playing irritates and wearies me. I have need of a friend to
+console me. I require a counsellor whose voice will encourage me, for
+one is a bad judge of his own cause, and this crime has plunged me into
+an abyss of hesitations.”
+
+“You know,” replied M. Tabaret kindly, “that I regard you as my own son.
+Do not scruple to let me serve you.”
+
+“Know then,” commenced the advocate,--“but no, not here: what I have to
+say must not be overheard. Let us go into my study.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+When Noel and old Tabaret were seated face to face in Noel’s study, and
+the door had been carefully shut, the old fellow felt uneasy, and said:
+“What if your mother should require anything.”
+
+“If Madame Gerdy rings,” replied the young man drily, “the servant will
+attend to her.”
+
+This indifference, this cold disdain, amazed old Tabaret, accustomed as
+he was to the affectionate relations always existing between mother and
+son.
+
+“For heaven’s sake, Noel,” said he, “calm yourself. Do not allow
+yourself to be overcome by a feeling of irritation. You have, I see,
+some little pique against your mother, which you will have forgotten
+to-morrow. Don’t speak of her in this icy tone; but tell me what you
+mean by calling her Madame Gerdy?”
+
+“What I mean?” rejoined the advocate in a hollow tone,--“what I mean?”
+
+Then rising from his arm-chair, he took several strides about the room,
+and, returning to his place near the old fellow, said,--
+
+“Because, M. Tabaret, Madame Gerdy is not my mother!”
+
+This sentence fell like a heavy blow on the head of the amateur
+detective.
+
+“Oh!” he said, in the tone one assumes when rejecting an absurd
+proposition, “do you really know what you are saying, Noel? Is it
+credible? Is it probable?”
+
+“It is improbable,” replied Noel with a peculiar emphasis which was
+habitual to him: “it is incredible, if you will; but yet it is true.
+That is to say, for thirty-three years, ever since my birth, this woman
+has played a most marvellous and unworthy comedy, to ennoble and enrich
+her son,--for she has a son,--at my expense!”
+
+“My friend,” commenced old Tabaret, who in the background of the picture
+presented by this singular revelation saw again the phantom of the
+murdered Widow Lerouge.
+
+But Noel heard not, and seemed hardly in a state to hear. The young man,
+usually so cold, so self-contained, could no longer control his anger.
+At the sound of his own voice, he became more and more animated, as a
+good horse might at the jingling of his harness.
+
+“Was ever man,” continued he, “more cruelly deceived, more miserably
+duped, than I have been! I, who loved this woman, who knew not how to
+show my affection for her, who, for her sake, sacrificed my youth! How
+she must have laughed at me! Her infamy dates from the moment when for
+the first time she took me on her knees; and, until these few days past,
+she has sustained without faltering her execrable role. Her love for me
+was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses,
+lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I
+bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses? And for what was all
+this heroism of deception, this caution, this duplicity? To betray me
+more securely, to despoil me, to rob me, to give to her bastard all
+that lawfully appertained to me; my name, a noble name, my fortune, a
+princely inheritance!”
+
+“We are getting near it!” thought old Tabaret, who was fast relapsing
+into the colleague of M. Gevrol; then aloud he said, “This is very
+serious, all that you have been saying, my dear Noel, terribly serious.
+We must believe Madame Gerdy possessed of an amount of audacity and
+ability rarely to be met with in a woman. She must have been assisted,
+advised, compelled perhaps. Who have been her accomplices? She could
+never have managed this unaided; perhaps her husband himself.”
+
+“Her husband!” interrupted the advocate, with a laugh. “Ah! you too have
+believed her a widow. Pshaw! She never had a husband, the defunct Gerdy
+never existed. I was a bastard, dear M. Tabaret, very much a bastard;
+Noel, son of the girl Gerdy and an unknown father!”
+
+“Ah!” cried the old fellow; “that then was the reason why your marriage
+with Mademoiselle Levernois was broken off four years ago?”
+
+“Yes, my friend, that was the reason. And what misfortunes might have
+been averted by this marriage with a young girl whom I loved! However
+I did not complain to her whom I then called my mother. She wept, she
+accused herself, she seemed ready to die of grief: and I, poor fool! I
+consoled her as best I could, I dried her tears, and excused her in her
+own eyes. No, there was no husband. Do such women as she have husbands?
+She was my father’s mistress; and, on the day when he had had enough of
+her, he took up his hat and threw her three hundred thousand francs, the
+price of the pleasures she had given him.”
+
+Noel would probably have continued much longer to pour forth his furious
+denunciations; but M. Tabaret stopped him. The old fellow felt he was
+on the point of learning a history in every way similar to that which he
+had imagined; and his impatience to know whether he had guessed aright,
+almost caused him to forget to express any sympathy for his friend’s
+misfortunes.
+
+“My dear boy,” said he, “do not let us digress. You ask me for advice;
+and I am perhaps the best adviser you could have chosen. Come, then,
+to the point. How have you learned this? Have you any proofs? where are
+they?”
+
+The decided tone in which the old fellow spoke, should no doubt, have
+awakened Noel’s attention; but he did not notice it. He had not leisure
+to reflect. He therefore answered,--
+
+“I have known the truth for three weeks past. I made the discovery by
+chance. I have important moral proofs; but they are mere presumptive
+evidence. A word from Widow Lerouge, one single word, would have
+rendered them decisive. This word she cannot now pronounce, since they
+have killed her; but she had said it to me. Now, Madame Gerdy will deny
+all. I know her; with her head on the block, she will deny it. My father
+doubtless will turn against me. I am certain, and I possess proofs; now
+this crime makes my certitude but a vain boast, and renders my proofs
+null and void!”
+
+“Explain it all to me,” said old Tabaret after a pause--“all, you
+understand. We old ones are sometimes able to give good advice. We will
+decide what’s to be done afterwards.”
+
+“Three weeks ago,” commenced Noel, “searching for some old documents,
+I opened Madame Gerdy’s secretary. Accidentally I displaced one of the
+small shelves: some papers tumbled out, and a packet of letters fell in
+front of my eyes. A mechanical impulse, which I cannot explain, prompted
+me to untie the string, and, impelled by an invincible curiosity, I read
+the first letter which came to my hand.”
+
+“You did wrong,” remarked M. Tabaret.
+
+“Be it so; anyhow I read. At the end of ten lines, I was convinced that
+these letters were from my father, whose name, Madame Gerdy, in spite of
+my prayers, had always hidden from me. You can understand my emotion.
+I carried off the packet, shut myself up in this room, and devoured the
+correspondence from beginning to end.”
+
+“And you have been cruelly punished my poor boy!”
+
+“It is true; but who in my position could have resisted? These letters
+have given me great pain; but they afford the proof of what I just now
+told you.”
+
+“You have at least preserved these letters?”
+
+“I have them here, M. Tabaret,” replied Noel, “and, that you may
+understand the case in which I have requested your advice, I am going to
+read them to you.”
+
+The advocate opened one of the drawers of his bureau, pressed an
+invisible spring, and from a hidden receptacle constructed in the
+thick upper shelf, he drew out a bundle of letters. “You understand, my
+friend,” he resumed, “that I will spare you all insignificant details,
+which, however, add their own weight to the rest. I am only going to
+deal with the more important facts, treating directly of the affair.”
+
+Old Tabaret nestled in his arm-chair, burning with curiosity; his face
+and his eyes expressing the most anxious attention. After a selection,
+which he was some time in making, the advocate opened a letter, and
+commenced reading in a voice which trembled at times, in spite of his
+efforts to render it calm.
+
+
+“‘My dearly loved Valerie,’--
+
+
+“Valerie,” said he, “is Madame Gerdy.”
+
+“I know, I know. Do not interrupt yourself.”
+
+Noel then resumed.
+
+
+“‘My dearly loved Valerie,
+
+“‘This is a happy day. This morning I received your darling letter, I
+have covered it with kisses, I have re-read it a hundred times; and now
+it has gone to join the others here upon my heart. This letter, oh, my
+love! has nearly killed me with joy. You were not deceived, then; it was
+true! Heaven has blessed our love. We shall have a son.
+
+“‘I shall have a son, the living image of my adored Valerie! Oh! why are
+we separated by such an immense distance? Why have I not wings that I
+might fly to your feet and fall into your arms, full of the sweetest
+voluptuousness! No! never as at this moment have I cursed the fatal
+union imposed upon me by an inexorable family, whom my tears could not
+move. I cannot help hating this woman, who, in spite of me bears my
+name, innocent victim though she is of the barbarity of our parents.
+And, to complete my misery, she too will soon render me a father.
+Who can describe my sorrow when I compare the fortunes of these two
+children?
+
+“‘The one, the son of the object of my tenderest love, will have neither
+father nor family, nor even a name, since a law framed to make lovers
+unhappy prevents my acknowledging him. While the other, the son of
+my detested wife, by the sole fact of his birth, will be rich, noble,
+surrounded by devotion and homage, with a great position in the world.
+I cannot bear the thought of this terrible injustice! How it is to be
+prevented, I do not know: but rest assured I shall find a way. It is to
+him who is the most desired, the most cherished, the most beloved, that
+the greater fortune should come; and come to him it shall, for I so will
+it.’”
+
+
+“From where is that letter dated?” asked old Tabaret. The style in which
+it was written had already settled one point in his mind.
+
+“See,” replied Noel. He handed the letter to the old fellow, who read,--
+
+“Venice, December, 1828.”
+
+“You perceive,” resumed the advocate, “all the importance of this first
+letter. It is like a brief statement of the facts. My father, married in
+spite of himself, adores his mistress, and detests his wife. Both find
+themselves enceinte at the same time, and his feelings towards the two
+infants about to be born, are not at all concealed. Towards the end one
+almost sees peeping forth the germ of the idea which later on he will
+not be afraid to put into execution, in defiance of all law human or
+divine!”
+
+He was speaking as though pleading the cause, when old Tabaret
+interrupted him.
+
+“It is not necessary to explain it,” said he. “Thank goodness, what you
+have just read is explicit enough. I am not an adept in such matters, I
+am as simple as a juryman; however I understand it admirably so far.”
+
+“I pass over several letters,” continued Noel, “and I come to this one
+dated Jan. 23, 1829. It is very long, and filled with matters altogether
+foreign to the subject which now occupies us. However, it contains
+two passages, which attest the slow but steady growth of my father’s
+project. ‘A destiny, more powerful than my will, chains me to this
+country; but my soul is with you, my Valerie! Without ceasing, my
+thoughts rest upon the adored pledge of our love which moves within you.
+Take care, my darling, take care of yourself, now doubly precious. It
+is the lover, the father, who implores you. The last part of your letter
+wounds my heart. Is it not an insult to me, for you to express anxiety
+as to the future of our child! Oh heaven! she loves me, she knows me,
+and yet she doubts!’
+
+“I skip,” said Noel, “two pages of passionate rhapsody, and stop at
+these few lines at the end. ‘The countess’s condition causes her to
+suffer very much! Unfortunate wife! I hate and at the same time pity
+her. She seems to divine the reason of my sadness and my coldness. By
+her timid submission and unalterable sweetness, one would think she
+sought pardon for our unhappy union. Poor sacrificed creature! She also
+may have given her heart to another, before being dragged to the altar.
+Our fates would then be the same. Your good heart will pardon my pitying
+her.’
+
+“That one was my mother,” cried the advocate in a trembling voice. “A
+saint! And he asks pardon for the pity she inspires! Poor woman.”
+
+He passed his hands over his eyes, as if to force back his tears, and
+added,--
+
+“She is dead!”
+
+In spite of his impatience, old Tabaret dared not utter a word. Besides
+he felt keenly the profound sorrow of his young friend, and respected
+it. After a rather long silence, Noel raised his head, and returned to
+the correspondence.
+
+“All the letters which follow,” said he, “carry traces of the
+preoccupation of my father’s mind on the subject of his bastard son. I
+lay them, however, aside. But this is what strikes me in the one written
+from Rome, on March 5, 1829. ‘My son, our son, that is my great, my only
+anxiety. How to secure for him the future position of which I dream?
+The nobles of former times were not worried in this way. In those days
+I would have gone to the king, who, with a word, would have assured
+the child’s position in the world. To-day, the king who governs with
+difficulty his disaffected subjects can do nothing. The nobility has
+lost its rights, and the highest in the land are treated the same as
+the meanest peasants!’ Lower down I find,--‘My heart loves to picture to
+itself the likeness of our son. He will have the spirit, the mind, the
+beauty, the grace, all the fascinations of his mother. He will inherit
+from his father, pride, valour, and the sentiments of a noble race. And
+the other, what will he be like? I tremble to think of it. Hatred can
+only engender a monster. Heaven reserves strength and beauty for the
+children of love!’ The monster, that is I!” said the advocate, with
+intense rage. “Whilst the other--But let us ignore these preliminaries
+to an outrageous action. I only desired up to the present to show you
+the aberration of my father’s reason under the influence of his passion.
+We shall soon come to the point.”
+
+M. Tabaret was astonished at the strength of this passion, of which Noel
+was disturbing the ashes. Perhaps, he felt it all the more keenly on
+account of those expressions which recalled his own youth. He understood
+how irresistible must have been the strength of such a love and he
+trembled to speculate as to the result.
+
+“Here is,” resumed Noel, holding up a sheet of paper, “not one of those
+interminable epistles from which I have read you short extracts, but a
+simple billet. It is dated from Venice at the beginning of May; it is
+short but nevertheless decisive; ‘Dear Valerie,--Tell me, as near as
+possible, the probable date of your confinement. I await your reply
+with an anxiety you would imagine, could you but guess my projects with
+regard to our child.’
+
+“I do not know,” said Noel, “whether Madame Gerdy understood; anyhow
+she must have answered at once, for this is what my father wrote on the
+14th: ‘Your reply, my darling, is what I did not dare expect it to be.
+The project I had conceived is now practicable. I begin to feel more
+calm and secure. Our son shall bear my name; I shall not be obliged to
+separate myself from him. He shall be reared by my side, in my mansion,
+under my eyes, on my knees, in my arms. Shall I have strength enough to
+bear this excess of happiness? I have a soul for grief, shall I have
+one for joy? Oh! my adored one, oh! my precious child, fear nothing, my
+heart is vast, enough to love you both! I set out to-morrow for Naples,
+from whence I shall write to you at length. Happen what may, however,
+though I should have to sacrifice the important interests confided to
+me, I shall be in Paris for the critical hour. My presence will double
+your courage; the strength of my love will diminish your sufferings.’”
+
+“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Noel,” said old Tabaret, “do
+you know what important affairs detained your father abroad?”
+
+“My father, my old friend,” replied the advocate, “was, in spite of his
+youth, one of the friends, one of the confidants, of Charles X.; and he
+had been entrusted by him with a secret mission to Italy. My father is
+Count Rheteau de Commarin.”
+
+“Whew!” exclaimed the old fellow; and the better to engrave the name
+upon his memory, he repeated several times, between his teeth, “Rheteau
+de Commarin.”
+
+For a few minutes Noel remained silent. After having appeared to do
+everything to control his resentment, he seemed utterly dejected, as
+though he had formed the determination to attempt nothing to repair the
+injury he had sustained.
+
+“In the middle of the month of May, then,” he continued, “my father is
+at Naples. It is whilst there, that he, a man of prudence and sense,
+a dignified diplomatist, a nobleman, prompted by an insensate passion,
+dares to confide to paper this most monstrous of projects. Listen!
+
+“‘My adored one,--
+
+“‘It is Germain, my old valet, who will hand you this letter. I am
+sending him to Normandy, charged with a commission of the most delicate
+nature. He is one of those servitors who may be trusted implicitly.
+
+“‘The time has come for me to explain to you my projects respecting my
+son. In three weeks, at the latest, I shall be in Paris.
+
+“‘If my previsions are not deceited, the countess and you will be
+confined at the same time. An interval of three or four days will not
+alter my plan. This is what I have resolved.
+
+“‘My two children will be entrusted to two nurses of Normandy, where my
+estates are nearly all situated. One of these women, known to Germain,
+and to whom I am sending him, will be in our interests. It is to this
+person, Valerie, that our son will be confided. These two women will
+leave Paris the same day, Germain accompanying her who will have charge
+of the son of the countess.
+
+“‘An accident, devised beforehand, will compel these two women to pass
+one night on the road. Germain will arrange so they will have to sleep
+in the same inn, and in the same chamber! During the night, our nurse
+will change the infants in their cradles.
+
+“‘I have foreseen everything, as I will explain to you, and every
+precaution has been taken to prevent our secret from escaping. Germain
+has instructions to procure, while in Paris, two sets of baby linen
+exactly similar. Assist him with your advice.
+
+“‘Your maternal heart, my sweet Valerie, may perhaps bleed at the
+thought of being deprived of the innocent caresses of your child. You
+will console yourself by thinking of the position secured to him by your
+sacrifice. What excess of tenderness can serve him as powerfully as this
+separation? As to the other, I know your fond heart, you will cherish
+him. Will it not be another proof of your love for me? Besides, he will
+have nothing to complain of. Knowing nothing he will have nothing to
+regret; and all that money can secure in this world he shall have.
+
+“‘Do not tell me that this attempt is criminal. No, my well beloved, no.
+The success of our plan depends upon so many unlikely circumstances, so
+many coincidences, independent of our will, that, without the evident
+protection of Providence, we cannot succeed. If, then, success crowns
+our efforts, it will be because heaven decreed it.
+
+“‘Meanwhile I hope.’”
+
+
+“Just what I expected,” murmured old Tabaret.
+
+“And the wretched man,” cried Noel, “dares to invoke the aid of
+Providence! He would make heaven his accomplice!”
+
+“But,” asked the old fellow, “how did your mother,--pardon me, I would
+say, how did Madame Gerdy receive this proposition?”
+
+“She would appear to have rejected it, at first, for here are twenty
+pages of eloquent persuasion from the count, urging her to agree to it,
+trying to convince her. Oh, that woman!”
+
+“Come my child,” said M. Tabaret, softly, “try not to be too unjust. You
+seem to direct all your resentment against Madame Gerdy? Really, in my
+opinion, the count is far more deserving of your anger than she is.”
+
+“True,” interrupted Noel, with a certain degree of violence,--“true,
+the count is guilty, very guilty. He is the author of the infamous
+conspiracy, and yet I feel no hatred against him. He has committed a
+crime, but he has an excuse, his passion. Moreover, my father has not
+deceived me, like this miserable woman, every hour of my life, during
+thirty years. Besides, M. de Commarin has been so cruelly punished,
+that, at this present moment, I can only pardon and pity him.”
+
+“Ah! so he has been punished?” interrogated the old fellow.
+
+“Yes, fearfully, as you will admit. But allow me to continue. Towards
+the end of May, or, rather, during the first days of June, the count
+must have arrived in Paris, for the correspondence ceases. He saw Madame
+Gerdy, and the final arrangements of the conspiracy were decided on.
+Here is a note which removes all uncertainty on that point. On the day
+it was written, the count was on service at the Tuileries, and unable
+to leave his post. He has written it even in the king’s study, on the
+king’s paper; see the royal arms! The bargain has been concluded, and
+the woman who has consented to become the instrument of my father’s
+projects is in Paris. He informs his mistress of the fact.”
+
+
+“‘Dear Valerie,--Germain informs me of the arrival of your son’s, our
+son’s nurse. She will call at your house during the day. She is to be
+depended upon; a magnificent recompense ensures her discretion. Do not,
+however, mention our plans to her; for she has been given to
+understand that you know nothing. I wish to charge myself with the sole
+responsibility of the deed; it is more prudent. This woman is a native
+of Normandy. She was born on our estate, almost in our house. Her
+husband is a brave and honest sailor. Her name is Claudine Lerouge.
+
+“‘Be of good courage, my dear love I am exacting from you the greatest
+sacrifice that a lover can hope for from a mother. Heaven, you can no
+longer doubt it, protects us. Everything depends now upon our skill and
+our prudence, so that we are sure to succeed!’”
+
+
+On one point, at least, M. Tabaret was sufficiently enlightened. The
+researches into the past life of widow Lerouge were no longer difficult.
+He could not restrain an exclamation of satisfaction, which passed
+unnoticed by Noel.
+
+“This note,” resumed the advocate, “closes the count’s correspondence
+with Madame Gerdy.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed the old fellow, “you are in possession of nothing
+more?”
+
+“I have also ten lines, written many years later, which certainly have
+some weight, but after all are only a moral proof.”
+
+“What a misfortune!” murmured M. Tabaret. Noel laid on the bureau the
+letters he had held in his hand, and, turning towards his old friend, he
+looked at him steadily.
+
+“Suppose,” said he slowly and emphasising every syllable,--“suppose that
+all my information ends here. We will admit, for a moment, that I know
+nothing more than you do now. What is your opinion?”
+
+Old Tabaret remained some minutes without answering; he was estimating
+the probabilities resulting from M. de Commarin’s letters.
+
+“For my own part,” said he at length, “I believe on my conscience that
+you are not Madame Gerdy’s son.”
+
+“And you are right!” answered the advocate forcibly. “You will easily
+believe, will you not, that I went and saw Claudine. She loved me, this
+poor woman who had given me her milk, she suffered from the knowledge
+of the injustice that had been done me. Must I say it, her complicity in
+the matter weighed upon her conscience; it was a remorse too great for
+her old age. I saw her, I interrogated her, and she told me all. The
+count’s scheme, simply and yet ingeniously conceived, succeeded without
+any effort. Three days after my birth, the crime was committed, and I,
+poor, helpless infant, was betrayed, despoiled and disinherited by my
+natural protector, by my own father! Poor Claudine! She promised me her
+testimony for the day on which I should reclaim my rights!”
+
+“And she is gone, carrying her secret with her!” murmured the old fellow
+in a tone of regret.
+
+“Perhaps!” replied Noel, “for I have yet one hope. Claudine had in her
+possession several letters which had been written to her a long time
+ago, some by the count, some by Madame Gerdy, letters both imprudent
+and explicit. They will be found, no doubt, and their evidence will
+be decisive. I have held these letters in my hands, I have read them;
+Claudine particularly wished me to keep them, why did I not do so?”
+
+No! there was no hope on that side, and old Tabaret knew so better than
+any one. It was these very letters, no doubt, that the assassin of La
+Jonchere wanted. He had found them and had burnt them with the other
+papers, in the little stove. The old amateur detective was beginning to
+understand.
+
+“All the same,” said he, “from what I know of your affairs, which I
+think I know as well as my own, it appears to me that the count has not
+overwell kept the dazzling promises of fortune he made Madame Gerdy on
+your behalf.”
+
+“He never even kept them in the least degree, my old friend.”
+
+“That now,” cried the old fellow indignantly, “is even more infamous
+than all the rest.”
+
+“Do not accuse my father,” answered Noel gravely; “his connection with
+Madame Gerdy lasted a long time. I remember a haughty-looking man who
+used sometimes to come and see me at school, and who could be no other
+than the count. But the rupture came.”
+
+“Naturally,” sneered M. Tabaret, “a great nobleman--”
+
+“Wait before judging,” interrupted the advocate. “M. de Commarin had his
+reasons. His mistress was false to him, he learnt it, and cast her
+off with just indignation. The ten lines which I mentioned to you were
+written then.”
+
+Noel searched a considerable time among the papers scattered upon the
+table, and at length selected a letter more faded and creased than the
+others. Judging from the number of folds in the paper one could guess
+that it had been read and re-read many times. The writing even was here
+and there partly obliterated.
+
+“In this,” said he in a bitter tone, “Madame Gerdy is no longer the
+adored Valerie: ‘A friend, cruel as all true friends, has opened my
+eyes. I doubted. You have been watched, and today, unhappily, I can
+doubt no more. You, Valerie, you to whom I have given more than my life,
+you deceive me and have been deceiving me for a long time past. Unhappy
+man that I am! I am no longer certain that I am the father of your
+child.’”
+
+“But this note is a proof,” cried old Tabaret, “an overwhelming proof.
+Of what importance to the count would be a doubt of his paternity, had
+he not sacrificed his legitimate son to his bastard? Yes, you have said
+truly, his punishment has been severe.”
+
+“Madame Gerdy,” resumed Noel, “wished to justify herself. She wrote to
+the count; but he returned her letters unopened. She called on him,
+but he would not receive her. At length she grew tired of her useless
+attempts to see him. She knew that all was well over when the count’s
+steward brought her for me a legal settlement of fifteen thousand francs
+a year. The son had taken my place, and the mother had ruined me!”
+
+Three or four light knocks at the door of the study interrupted Noel.
+
+“Who is there?” he asked, without stirring.
+
+“Sir,” answered the servant from the other side of the door, “madame
+wishes to speak to you.”
+
+The advocate appeared to hesitate.
+
+“Go, my son,” advised M. Tabaret; “do not be merciless, only bigots have
+that right.”
+
+Noel arose with visible reluctance, and passed into Madame Gerdy’s
+sleeping apartment.
+
+“Poor boy!” thought M. Tabaret when left alone. “What a fatal discovery!
+and how he must feel it. Such a noble young man! such a brave heart!
+In his candid honesty he does not even suspect from whence the blow has
+fallen. Fortunately I am shrewd enough for two, and it is just when he
+despairs of justice, I am confident of obtaining it for him. Thanks to
+his information, I am now on the track. A child might now divine whose
+hand struck the blow. But how has it happened? He will tell me without
+knowing it. Ah! if I had one of those letters for four and twenty hours.
+He has probably counted them. If I ask for one, I must acknowledge my
+connection with the police. I had better take one, no matter which, just
+to verify the handwriting.”
+
+Old Tabaret had just thrust one of the letters into the depths of his
+capacious pocket, when the advocate returned.
+
+He was one of those men of strongly formed character, who never lose
+their self-control. He was very cunning and had long accustomed himself
+to dissimulation, that indispensable armour of the ambitious.
+
+As he entered the room nothing in his manner betrayed what had taken
+place between Madame Gerdy and himself. He was absolutely as calm as,
+when seated in his arm-chair, he listened to the interminable stories of
+his clients.
+
+“Well,” asked old Tabaret, “how is she now?”
+
+“Worse,” answered Noel. “She is now delirious, and no longer knows
+what she says. She has just assailed me with the most atrocious abuse,
+upbraiding me as the vilest of mankind! I really believe she is going
+out of her mind.”
+
+“One might do so with less cause,” murmured M. Tabaret; “and I think you
+ought to send for the doctor.”
+
+“I have just done so.”
+
+The advocate had resumed his seat before his bureau, and was rearranging
+the scattered letters according to their dates. He seemed to have
+forgotten that he had asked his old friend’s advice; nor did he appear
+in any way desirous of renewing the interrupted conversation. This was
+not at all what old Tabaret wanted.
+
+“The more I ponder over your history, my dear Noel,” he observed, “the
+more I am bewildered. I really do not know what resolution I should
+adopt, were I in your situation.”
+
+“Yes, my old friend,” replied the advocate sadly, “it is a situation
+that might well perplex even more profound experiences than yours.”
+
+The old amateur detective repressed with difficulty the sly smile, which
+for an instant hovered about his lips.
+
+“I confess it humbly,” he said, taking pleasure in assuming an air of
+intense simplicity, “but you, what have you done? Your first impulse
+must have been to ask Madame Gerdy for an explanation.”
+
+Noel made a startled movement, which passed unnoticed by old Tabaret,
+preoccupied as he was in trying to give the turn he desired to the
+conversation.
+
+“It was by that,” answered Noel, “that I began.”
+
+“And what did she say?”
+
+“What could she say! Was she not overwhelmed by the discovery?”
+
+“What! did she not attempt to exculpate herself?” inquired the detective
+greatly surprised.
+
+“Yes! she attempted the impossible. She pretended she could explain
+the correspondence. She told me . . . But can I remember what she said?
+Lies, absurd, infamous lies.”
+
+The advocate had finished gathering up his letters, without noticing the
+abstraction. He tied them together carefully, and replaced them in the
+secret drawer of his bureau.
+
+“Yes,” continued he, rising and walking backwards and forward across
+his study, as if the constant movement could calm his anger, “yes, she
+pretended she could show me I was wrong. It was easy, was it not, with
+the proofs I held against her? The fact is she adores her son, and her
+heart is breaking at the idea that he may be obliged to restitute what
+he has stolen from me. And I, idiot, fool, coward, almost wished not to
+mention the matter to her. I said to myself, I will forgive, for after
+all she has loved me! Loved? no. She would see me suffer the most
+horrible tortures, without shedding a tear, to prevent a single hair
+falling from her son’s head.”
+
+“She has probably warned the count,” observed old Tabaret, still
+pursuing his idea.
+
+“She may have tried, but cannot have succeeded, for the count has been
+absent from Paris for more than a month and is not expected to return
+until the end of the week.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“I wished to see the count my father, to speak with him.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes, I. Do you think that I shall not reclaim my own? Do you imagine
+that I shall not raise my voice. On what account should I keep silent,
+who have I to consider? I have rights, and I will make them good. What
+do you find surprising in that?”
+
+“Nothing, certainly, my friend. So then you called at M. de Commarin’s
+house?”
+
+“Oh! I did not decide on doing so all at once,” continued Noel. “At
+first my discovery almost drove me mad. Then I required time to reflect.
+A thousand opposing sentiments agitated me. At one moment, my fury
+blinded me; the next, my courage deserted me. I would, and I would not.
+I was undecided, uncertain, wild. The scandal that must arise from the
+publicity of such an affair terrified me. I desired, I still desire to
+recover my name, that much is certain. But on the eve of recovering it,
+I wish to preserve it from stain. I was seeking a means of arranging
+everything, without noise, without scandal.”
+
+“At length, however, you made up your mind?”
+
+“Yes, after a struggle of fifteen days, fifteen days of torture, of
+anguish! Ah! what I suffered in that time! I neglected my business,
+being totally unfit for work. During the day, I tried by incessant
+action to fatigue my body, that at night I might find forgetfulness
+in sleep. Vain hope! since I found these letters, I have not slept an
+hour.”
+
+From time to time, old Tabaret slyly consulted his watch. “M. Daburon
+will be in bed,” thought he.
+
+“At last one morning,” continued Noel, “after a night of rage, I
+determined to end all uncertainty. I was in that desperate state of
+mind, in which the gambler, after successive losses, stakes upon a card
+his last remaining coin. I plucked up courage, sent for a cab, and was
+driven to the de Commarin mansion.”
+
+The old amateur detective here allowed a sigh of satisfaction to escape
+him.
+
+“It is one of the most magnificent houses, in the Faubourg St. Germain,
+my friend, a princely dwelling, worthy a great noble twenty times
+millionaire; almost a palace in fact. One enters at first a vast
+courtyard, to the right and left of which are the stables, containing
+twenty most valuable horses, and the coach-houses. At the end rises the
+grand facade of the main building, majestic and severe, with its immense
+windows, and its double flight of marble steps. Behind the house is
+a magnificent garden, I should say a park, shaded by the oldest trees
+which perhaps exist in all Paris.”
+
+This enthusiastic description was not at all what M. Tabaret wanted. But
+what could he do, how could he press Noel for the result of his visit!
+An indiscreet word might awaken the advocate’s suspicions, and reveal to
+him that he was speaking not to a friend, but to a detective.
+
+“Were you then shown over the house and grounds?” asked the old fellow.
+
+“No, but I have examined them alone. Since I discovered that I was the
+only heir of the Rheteau de Commarin, I have found out the antecedents
+of my new family.
+
+“Standing before the dwelling of my ancestors,” continued Noel, “you
+cannot comprehend the excess of my emotion. Here, said I, is the house
+in which I was born. This is the house in which I should have been
+reared; and, above all, this is the spot where I should reign to-day,
+whereon I stand an outcast and a stranger, devoured by the sad and
+bitter memories, of which banished men have died. I compared my
+brother’s brilliant destinies with my sad and labourious career; and my
+indignation well nigh overmastered reason. The mad impulse stirred me
+to force the doors, to rush into the grand salon, and drive out the
+intruder,--the son of Madame Gerdy,--who had taken the place of the
+son of the Countess de Commarin! Out, usurper, out of this. I am master
+here. The propriety of legal means at once recurred to my distracted
+mind, however, and restrained me. Once more I stood before the
+habitation of my fathers. How I love its old sculptures, its grand old
+trees, its shaded walls, worn by the feet of my poor mother! I love
+all, even to the proud escutcheon, frowning above the principal doorway,
+flinging its defiance to the theories of this age of levellers.”
+
+This last phrase conflicted so directly with the code of opinions
+habitual to Noel, that old Tabaret was obliged to turn aside, to conceal
+his amusement.
+
+“Poor humanity!” thought he; “he is already the grand seigneur.”
+
+“On presenting myself,” continued the advocate, “I demanded to see the
+Count de Commarin. A Swiss porter, in grand livery, answered, the count
+was travelling, but that the viscount was at home. This ran counter to
+my designs; but I was embarked; so I insisted on speaking to the son in
+default of the father. The Swiss porter stared at me with astonishment.
+He had evidently seen me alight from a hired carriage, and so
+deliberated for some moments as to whether I was not too insignificant a
+person to have the honour of being admitted to visit the viscount.”
+
+“But tell me, have you seen him?” asked old Tabaret, unable to restrain
+his impatience.
+
+“Of course, immediately,” replied the advocate in a tone of bitter
+raillery. “Could the examination, think you, result otherwise than in
+my favour? No. My white cravat and black costume produced their natural
+effect. The Swiss porter entrusted me to the guidance of a chasseur with
+a plumed hat, who, led me across the yard to a superb vestibule, where
+five or six footmen were lolling and gaping on their seats. One of these
+gentlemen asked me to follow him. He led me up a spacious staircase,
+wide enough for a carriage to ascend, preceded me along an extensive
+picture gallery, guided me across vast apartments, the furniture of
+which was fading under its coverings, and finally delivered me into the
+hands of M. Albert’s valet. That is the name by which Madame Gerdy’s son
+is known, that is to say, my name.”
+
+“I understand, I understand.”
+
+“I had passed an inspection; now I had to undergo an examination. The
+valet desired to be informed who I was, whence I came, what was my
+profession, what I wanted and all the rest. I answered simply, that,
+quite unknown to the viscount, I desired five minutes’ conversation with
+him on a matter of importance. He left me, requesting me to sit down and
+wait. I had waited more than a quarter of an hour, when he reappeared.
+His master graciously deigned to receive me.”
+
+It was easy to perceive that the advocate’s reception rankled in his
+breast, and that he considered it an insult. He could not forgive Albert
+his lackeys and his valet. He forgot the words of the illustrious duke,
+who said, “I pay my lackeys to be insolent, to save myself the trouble
+and ridicule of being so.” Old Tabaret was surprised at his young
+friend’s display of bitterness, in speaking of these trivial details.
+
+“What narrow-mindedness,” thought he, “for a man of such intelligence!
+Can it be true that the arrogance of lackeys is the secret of the
+people’s hatred of an amiable and polite aristocracy?”
+
+“I was ushered into a small apartment,” continued Noel, “simply
+furnished, the only ornaments of which were weapons. These, ranged
+against the walls, were of all times and countries. Never have I seen
+in so small a space so many muskets, pistols, swords, sabres, and foils.
+One might have imagined himself in a fencing master’s arsenal.”
+
+The weapon used by Widow Lerouge’s assassin naturally recurred to the
+old fellow’s memory.
+
+“The viscount,” said Noel, speaking slowly, “was half lying on a divan
+when I entered. He was dressed in a velvet jacket and loose trousers of
+the same material, and had around his neck an immense white silk scarf.
+I do not cherish any resentment against this young man; he has never to
+his knowledge injured me: he was in ignorance of our father’s crime; I
+am therefore able to speak of him with justice. He is handsome, bears
+himself well, and nobly carries the name which does not belong to him.
+He is about my height, of the same dark complexion, and would resemble
+me, perhaps, if he did not wear a beard. Only he looks five or six
+years younger; but this is readily explained, he has neither worked,
+struggled, nor suffered. He is one of the fortunate ones who arrive
+without having to start, or who traverse life’s road on such soft
+cushions that they are never injured by the jolting of their carriage.
+On seeing me, he arose and saluted me graciously.”
+
+“You must have been dreadfully excited,” remarked old Tabaret.
+
+“Less than I am at this moment. Fifteen preparatory days of mental
+torture exhausts one’s emotions. I answered the question I saw upon
+his lips. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘you do not know me; but that is of little
+consequence. I come to you, charged with a very grave, a very sad
+mission, which touches the honour of the name you bear.’ Without doubt
+he did not believe me, for, in an impertinent tone, he asked me, ‘Shall
+you be long?’ I answered simply, ‘Yes.’”
+
+“Pray,” interrupted old Tabaret, now become very attentive, “do not omit
+a single detail; it may be very important, you understand.”
+
+“The viscount,” continued Noel, “appeared very much put out. ‘The fact
+is,’ he explained, ‘I had already disposed of my time. This is the hour
+at which I call on the young lady to whom I am engaged, Mademoiselle
+d’Arlange. Can we not postpone this conversation?’”
+
+“Good! another woman!” said the old fellow to himself.
+
+“I answered the viscount, that an explanation would admit of no delay;
+and, as I saw him prepare to dismiss me, I drew from my pocket the
+count’s correspondence, and presented one of the letters to him. On
+recognizing his father’s handwriting, he became more tractable, declared
+himself at my service, and asked permission to write a word of apology
+to the lady by whom he was expected. Having hastily written the note
+he handed it to his valet, and ordered him to send at once to Madame
+d’Arlange, He then asked me to pass into the next room, which was his
+library.”
+
+“One word,” interrupted the old fellow; “was he troubled on seeing the
+letters?”
+
+“Not the least in the world. After carefully closing the door, he
+pointed to a chair, seated himself, and said, ‘Now, sir, explain
+yourself.’ I had had time to prepare myself for this interview whilst
+waiting in the ante-room. I had decided to go straight to the point.
+‘Sir,’ said I, ‘my mission is painful. The facts I am about to reveal to
+you are incredible. I beg you, do not answer me until you have read the
+letters I have here. I beseech you, above all, to keep calm.’ He looked
+at me with an air of extreme surprise, and answered, ‘Speak! I can hear
+all.’ I stood up, and said, ‘Sir, I must inform you that you are not the
+legitimate son of M. de Commarin, as this correspondence will prove to
+you. The legitimate son exists; and he it is who sends me.’ I kept my
+eyes on his while speaking, and I saw there a passing gleam of fury.
+For a moment I thought he was about to spring at my throat. He soon
+recovered himself. ‘The letters,’ said he in a short tone. I handed them
+to him.”
+
+“How!” cried old Tabaret, “these letters,--the true ones? How
+imprudent!”
+
+“And why?”
+
+“If he had--I don’t know; but--” the old fellow hesitated.
+
+The advocate laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “I was there,”
+ said he in a hollow tone; “and I promise you the letters were in no
+danger.”
+
+Noel’s features assumed such an expression of ferocity that the old
+fellow was almost afraid, and recoiled instinctively. “He would have
+killed him,” thought he.
+
+“That which I have done for you this evening, my friend,” resumed the
+advocate, “I did for the viscount. I obviated, at least for the moment,
+the necessity of reading all of these hundred and fifty-six letters.
+I told him only to stop at those marked with a cross, and to carefully
+read the passages indicated with a red pencil.”
+
+“It was an abridgment of his penance,” remarked old Tabaret.
+
+“He was seated,” continued Noel, “before a little table, too fragile
+even to lean upon. I was standing with my back to the fireplace in which
+a fire was burning. I followed his slightest movements; and I scanned
+his features closely. Never in my life have I seen so sad a spectacle,
+nor shall I forget it, if I live for a thousand years. In less than five
+minutes his face changed to such an extent that his own valet would not
+have recognized him. He held his handkerchief in his hand, with which
+from time to time he mechanically wiped his lips. He grew paler and
+paler, and his lips became as white as his handkerchief. Large drops of
+sweat stood upon his forehead, and his eyes became dull and clouded, as
+if a film had covered them; but not an exclamation, not a sigh, not a
+groan, not even a gesture, escaped him. At one moment, I felt such pity
+for him that I was almost on the point of snatching the letters from his
+hands, throwing them into the fire and taking him in my arms, crying,
+‘No, you are my brother! Forget all; let us remain as we are and love
+one another!’”
+
+M. Tabaret took Noel’s hand, and pressed it. “Ah!” he said, “I recognise
+my generous boy.”
+
+“If I have not done this, my friend, it is because I thought to myself,
+‘Once these letters destroyed, would he recognise me as his brother?’”
+
+“Ah! very true.”
+
+“In about half an hour, he had finished reading; he arose, and facing me
+directly, said, ‘You are right, sir. If these letters are really written
+by my father, as I believe them to be, they distinctly prove that I am
+not the son of the Countess de Commarin.’ I did not answer. ‘Meanwhile,’
+continued he, ‘these are only presumptions. Are you possessed of
+other proofs?’ I expected, of course, a great many other objections.
+‘Germain,’ said I, ‘can speak.’ He told me that Germain had been dead
+for several years. Then I spoke of the nurse, Widow Lerouge--I explained
+how easily she could be found and questioned, adding that she lived at
+La Jonchere.”
+
+“And what said he, Noel, to this?” asked old Tabaret anxiously.
+
+“He remained silent at first, and appeared to reflect. All on a sudden
+he struck his forehead, and said, ‘I remember; I know her. I have
+accompanied my father to her house three times, and in my presence he
+gave her a considerable sum of money.’ I remarked to him that this was
+yet another proof. He made no answer, but walked up and down the room.
+At length he turned towards me, saying, ‘Sir, you know M. de Commarin’s
+legitimate son?’ I answered: ‘I am he.’ He bowed his head and murmured
+‘I thought so.’ He then took my hand and added, ‘Brother, I bear you no
+ill will for this.’”
+
+“It seems to me,” remarked old Tabaret, “that he might have left that to
+you to say, and with more reason and justice.”
+
+“No, my friend, for he is more ill-used than I. I have not been lowered,
+for I did not know, whilst he! . . . .”
+
+The old police agent nodded his head, he had to hide his thoughts, and
+they were stifling him.
+
+“At length,” resumed Noel, after a rather long pause, “I asked him what
+he proposed doing. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I expect my father in about eight
+or ten days. You will allow me this delay. As soon as he returns I will
+have an explanation with him, and justice shall be done. I give you my
+word of honour. Take back your letters and leave me to myself. This news
+has utterly overwhelmed me. In a moment I lose everything: a great
+name that I have always borne as worthily as possible, a magnificent
+position, an immense fortune, and, more than all that, perhaps, the
+woman who is dearer to me than life. In exchange, it is true, I shall
+find a mother. We will console each other. And I will try, sir, to make
+her forget you, for she must love you, and will miss you.’”
+
+“Did he really say that?”
+
+“Almost word for word.”
+
+“Hypocrite!” growled the old fellow between his teeth.
+
+“What did you say?” asked Noel.
+
+“I say that he is a fine young man; and I shall be delighted to make his
+acquaintance.”
+
+“I did not show him the letter referring to the rupture,” added
+Noel; “it is best that he should ignore Madame Gerdy’s misconduct. I
+voluntarily deprived myself of this proof, rather than give him further
+pain.”
+
+“And now?”
+
+“What am I to do? I am waiting the count’s return. I shall act more
+freely after hearing what he has to say. Tomorrow I shall ask permission
+to examine the papers belonging to Claudine. If I find the letters, I am
+saved; if not,--but, as I have told you, I have formed no plan since I
+heard of the assassination. Now, what do you advise?”
+
+“The briefest counsel demands long reflection,” replied the old fellow,
+who was in haste to depart. “Alas! my poor boy, what worry you have
+had!”
+
+“Terrible! and, in addition, I have pecuniary embarrassments.”
+
+“How! you who spend nothing?”
+
+“I have entered into various engagements. Can I now make use of Madame
+Gerdy’s fortune, which I have hitherto used as my own? I think not.”
+
+“You certainly ought not to. But listen! I am glad you have spoken of
+this; you can render me a service.
+
+“Very willingly. What is it?”
+
+“I have, locked up in my secretary, twelve or fifteen thousand francs,
+which trouble me exceedingly. You see, I am old, and not very brave, if
+any one heard I had this money--”
+
+“I fear I cannot--” commenced the advocate.
+
+“Nonsense!” said the old fellow. “To-morrow I will give them to you
+to take care of.” But remembering he was about to put himself at M.
+Daburon’s disposal, and that perhaps he might not be free on the morrow,
+he quickly added, “No, not to-morrow; but this very evening. This
+infernal money shall not remain another night in my keeping.”
+
+He hurried out, and presently reappeared, holding in his hand fifteen
+notes of a thousand francs each. “If that is not sufficient,” said he,
+handing them to Noel, “you can have more.”
+
+“Anyhow,” replied the advocate, “I will give you a receipt for these.”
+
+“Oh! never mind. Time enough to-morrow.”
+
+“And if I die to-night?”
+
+“Then,” said the old fellow to himself, thinking of his will, “I shall
+still be your debtor. Good-night!” added he aloud. “You have asked my
+advice, I shall require the night for reflection. At present my brain is
+whirling; I must go into the air. If I go to bed now, I am sure to have
+a horrible nightmare. Come, my boy; patience and courage. Who knows
+whether at this very hour Providence is not working for you?”
+
+He went out, and Noel, leaving his door open, listened to the sound of
+his footsteps as he descended the stairs. Almost immediately the cry of,
+“Open, if you please,” and the banging of the door apprised him that
+M. Tabaret had gone out. He waited a few minutes and refilled his lamp.
+Then he took a small packet from one of his bureau drawers, slipped
+into his pocket the bank notes lent him by his old friend, and left his
+study, the door of which he double-locked. On reaching the landing, he
+paused. He listened intently as though the sound of Madame Gerdy’s moans
+could reach him where he stood. Hearing nothing, he descended the stairs
+on tiptoe. A minute later, he was in the street.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Included in Madame Gerdy’s lease was a coach-house, which was used by
+her as a lumber room. Here were heaped together all the old rubbish
+of the household, broken pieces of furniture, utensils past service,
+articles become useless or cumbrous. It was also used to store the
+provision of wood and coal for the winter. This old coach-house had
+a small door opening on the street, which had been in disuse for many
+years; but which Noel had had secretly repaired and provided with a
+lock. He could thus enter or leave the house at any hour without the
+concierge or any one else knowing. It was by this door that the advocate
+went out, though not without using the utmost caution in opening
+and closing it. Once in the street, he stood still a moment, as if
+hesitating which way to go. Then, he slowly proceeded in the direction
+of the St. Lazare railway station, when a cab happening to pass, he
+hailed it. “Rue du Faubourg Montmarte, at the corner of the Rue de
+Provence,” said Noel, entering the vehicle, “and drive quick.”
+
+The advocate alighted at the spot named, and dismissed the cabman. When
+he had seen him drive off, Noel turned into the Rue de Provence, and,
+after walking a few yards, rang the bell of one of the handsomest houses
+in the street. The door was immediately opened. As Noel passed
+before him the concierge made a most respectful, and at the same time
+patronizing bow, one of those salutations which Parisian concierges
+reserve for their favorite tenants, generous mortals always ready to
+give. On reaching the second floor, the advocate paused, drew a key from
+his pocket, and opening the door facing him, entered as if at home. But
+at the sound of the key in the lock, though very faint, a lady’s maid,
+rather young and pretty, with a bold pair of eyes, ran toward him.
+
+“Ah! it is you, sir,” cried she.
+
+This exclamation escaped her just loud enough to be audible at the
+extremity of the apartment, and serve as a signal if needed. It was as
+if she had cried, “Take care!”
+
+Noel did not seem to notice it. “Madame is there?” asked he.
+
+“Yes, sir, and very angry too. This morning she wanted to send some one
+to you. A little while ago she spoke of going to find you, sir, herself.
+I have had much difficulty in prevailing on her not to disobey your
+orders.”
+
+“Very well,” said the advocate.
+
+“Madame is in the smoking room,” continued the girl “I am making her a
+cup of tea. Will you have one, sir?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Noel. “Show me a light, Charlotte.”
+
+He passed successively through a magnificent dining-room, a splendid
+gilded drawing-room in Louis XIV. style, and entered the smoking-room.
+This was a rather large apartment with a very high ceiling. Once inside
+one might almost fancy oneself three thousand miles from Paris, in
+the house of some opulent mandarin of the celestial Empire. Furniture,
+carpet, hangings, pictures, all had evidently been imported direct from
+Hong Kong or Shanghai. A rich silk tapestry representing brilliantly
+coloured figures, covered the walls, and hid the doors from view.
+All the empire of the sun and moon was depicted thereon in vermillion
+landscapes: corpulent mandarins surrounded by their lantern-bearers;
+learned men lay stupefied with opium, sleeping under their parasols;
+young girls with elevated eyebrows, stumbled upon their diminutive feet
+swathed in bandages. The carpet of a manufacture unknown to Europeans,
+was strewn with fruits and flowers, so true to nature that they might
+have deceived a bee. Some great artist of Pekin had painted on the silk
+which covered the ceiling numerous fantastic birds, opening on azure
+ground their wings of purple and gold. Slender rods of lacquer, inlaid
+with mother of pearl, bordered the draperies, and marked the angles of
+the apartment. Two fantastic looking chests entirely occupied one side
+of the room. Articles of furniture of capricious and incoherent forms,
+tables with porcelain tops, and chiffoniers of precious woods encumbered
+every recess or angle. There were also ornamental cabinets and shelves
+purchased of Lien-Tsi, the Tahan of Sou-Tcheou, the artistic city, and
+a thousand curiosities, both miscellaneous and costly, from the ivory
+sticks which are used instead of forks, to the porcelain teacups,
+thinner than soap bubbles,--miracles of the reign of Kien-Loung. A very
+large and very low divan piled up with cushions, covered with tapestry
+similar to the hangings, occupied one end of the room. There was no
+regular window, but instead a large single pane of glass, fixed into the
+wall of the house; in front of it was a double glass door with moveable
+panes, and the space between was filled with the most rare flowers. The
+grate was replaced by registers adroitly concealed, which maintained
+in the apartment a temperature fit for hatching silkworms, thus truly
+harmonising with the furniture.
+
+When Noel entered, a woman, still young, was reclining on the divan,
+smoking a cigarette. In spite of the tropical heat, she was enveloped
+in heavy Cashmere shawls. She was small, but then only small women can
+unite in their persons every perfection. Women who are above the medium
+height must be either essays, or errors of nature. No matter how lovely
+they may look, they invariably present some defect, like the work of a
+statuary, who, though possessed of genius, attempts for the first time
+sculpture on a grand scale. She was small, but her neck, her shoulders,
+and her arms had the most exquisite contours. Her hands with their
+tapering fingers and rosy nails looked like jewels preciously cared for.
+Her feet, encased in silken stockings almost as thin as a spider’s-web,
+were a marvel; not that they recalled the very fabulous foot which
+Cinderella thrust into the glass slipper; but the other, very real, very
+celebrated and very palpable foot, of which the fair owner (the lovely
+wife of a well-known banker) used to present the model either in bronze
+or in marble to her numerous admirers. Her face was, not beautiful, nor
+even pretty; but her features were such as one seldom forgets; for, at
+the first glance, they startled the beholder like a flash of lightning.
+Her forehead was a little high, and her mouth unmistakably large,
+notwithstanding the provoking freshness of her lips. Her eyebrows were
+so perfect they seem to have been drawn with India ink; but, unhappily
+the pencil had been used too heavily; and they gave her an unpleasant
+expression when she frowned. On the other hand, her smooth complexion
+had a rich golden pallor; and her black and velvety eyes possessed
+enormous magnetic power. Her teeth were of a pearly brilliancy and
+whiteness, and her hair, of prodigious opulence, was black and fine, and
+glossy as a raven’s wing.
+
+On perceiving Noel, as he pushed aside the silken hangings, she half
+arose and leaned upon her elbow. “So you have come at last?” she
+observed in a tone of vexation; “you are very kind.”
+
+The advocate felt almost suffocated by the oppressive temperature of the
+room. “How warm it is!” said he; “it is enough to stifle one!”
+
+“Do you find it so?” replied the young woman. “Well, I am actually
+shivering! It is true though, that I am very unwell. Waiting is
+unbearable to me, it acts upon my nerves; and I have been waiting for
+you ever since yesterday.”
+
+“It was quite impossible for me to come,” explained Noel, “quite
+impossible!”
+
+“You knew, however,” continued the lady, “that to-day was my settling
+day; and that I had several heavy accounts to settle. The tradesmen all
+came, and I had not a half-penny to give them. The coachmaker sent his
+bill, but there was no money. Then that old rascal Clergot, to whom I
+had given an acceptance for three thousand francs, came and kicked up a
+frightful row. How pleasant all this is!”
+
+Noel bowed his head like a schoolboy rebuked for having neglected his
+lessons. “It is but one day behind,” he murmured.
+
+“And that is nothing, is it?” retorted the young woman. “A man
+who respects himself, my friend, may allow his own signature to be
+dishonoured, but never that of his mistress! Do you wish to destroy
+my credit altogether? You know very well that the only consideration I
+receive is what my money pays for. So as soon as I am unable to pay, it
+will be all up with me.”
+
+“My dear Juliette,” began the advocate gently.
+
+“Oh, yes! that’s all very fine,” interrupted she. “Your dear Juliette!
+your adored Juliette! so long as you are here it is really charming;
+but no sooner are you outside than you forget everything. Do you ever
+remember then that there is such a person as Juliette?”
+
+“How unjust you are!” replied Noel. “Do you not know that I am always
+thinking of you; have I not proved it to you a thousand times? Look
+here! I am going to prove it to you again this very instant.” He
+withdrew from his pocket the small packet he had taken out of his bureau
+drawer, and, undoing it, showed her a handsome velvet casket. “Here,”
+ said he exultingly, “is the bracelet you longed for so much a week ago
+at Beaugrau’s.”
+
+Madame Juliette, without rising, held out her hand to take the casket,
+and, opening it with the utmost indifference, just glanced at the jewel,
+and merely said, “Ah!”
+
+“Is this the one you wanted?” asked Noel.
+
+“Yes, but it looked much prettier in the shop window.” She closed the
+casket, and threw it carelessly on to a small table near her.
+
+“I am unfortunate this evening,” said the advocate, much mortified.
+
+“How so?”
+
+“I see plainly the bracelet does not please you.”
+
+“Oh, but it does. I think it lovely . . . besides, it will complete the
+two dozen.”
+
+It was now Noel’s turn to say: “Ah! . . .” and as Juliette said nothing,
+he added: “Well, if you are pleased, you do not show it.”
+
+“Oh! so that is what you are driving at!” cried the lady. “I am not
+grateful enough to suit you! You bring me a present, and I ought at once
+to pay cash, fill the house with cries of joy, and throw myself upon my
+knees before you, calling you a great and magnificent lord!”
+
+Noel was unable this time to restrain a gesture of impatience, which
+Juliette perceived plainly enough, to her great delight.
+
+“Would that be sufficient?” continued she. “Shall I call Charlotte,
+so that she may admire this superb bracelet, this monument of your
+generosity? Shall I have the concierge up, and call the cook to tell
+them how happy I am to possess such a magnificent lover.”
+
+The advocate shrugged his shoulders like a philosopher, incapable of
+noticing a child’s banter. “What is the use of these insulting jests?”
+ said he. “If you have any real complaint against me, better to say so
+simply and seriously.”
+
+“Very well,” said Juliette, “let us be serious. And, that being so, I
+will tell you it would have been better to have forgotten the bracelet,
+and to have brought me last night or this morning the eight thousand
+francs I wanted.”
+
+“I could not come.”
+
+“You should have sent them; messengers are still to be found at the
+street-corners.”
+
+“If I neither brought nor sent them, my dear Juliette, it was because I
+did not have them. I had trouble enough in getting them promised me for
+to-morrow. If I have the sum this evening, I owe it to a chance upon
+which I could not have counted an hour ago; but by which I profited, at
+the risk of compromising myself.”
+
+“Poor man!” said Juliette, with an ironical touch of pity in her
+voice. “Do you dare to tell me you have had difficulty in obtaining ten
+thousand francs,--you?”
+
+“Yes,--I!”
+
+The young woman looked at her lover, and burst into a fit of laughter.
+“You are really superb when you act the poor young man!” said she.
+
+“I am not acting.”
+
+“So you say, my own. But I see what you are aiming at. This amiable
+confession is the preface. To-morrow you will declare that your affairs
+are very much embarrassed, and the day after to-morrow . . . Ah! you are
+becoming very avaricious. It is a virtue you used not to possess. Do you
+not already regret the money you have given me?”
+
+“Wretched woman!” murmured Noel, fast losing patience.
+
+“Really,” continued the lady, “I pity you, oh! so much. Unfortunate
+lover! Shall I get up a subscription for you? In your place, I would
+appeal to public charity.”
+
+Noel could stand it no longer, in spite of his resolution to remain
+calm. “You think it a laughing matter?” cried he. “Well! let me tell
+you, Juliette, I am ruined, and I have exhausted my last resources! I am
+reduced to expedients!”
+
+The eyes of the young woman brightened. She looked at her lover
+tenderly. “Oh, if ‘twas only true, my big pet!” said she. “If I only
+could believe you!”
+
+The advocate was wounded to the heart. “She believes me,” thought he;
+“and she is glad. She detests me.”
+
+He was mistaken. The idea that a man had loved her sufficiently to ruin
+himself for her, without allowing even a reproach to escape him, filled
+this woman with joy. She felt herself on the point of loving the man,
+now poor and humbled, whom she had despised when rich and proud. But the
+expression of her eyes suddenly changed, “What a fool I am,” cried she,
+“I was on the point of believing all that, and of trying to console
+you. Don’t pretend that you are one of those gentlemen who scatter their
+money broadcast. Tell that to somebody else, my friend! All men in our
+days calculate like money-lenders. There are only a few fools who ruin
+themselves now, some conceited youngsters, and occasionally an amorous
+old dotard. Well, you are a very calm, very grave, and very serious
+fellow, but above all, a very strong one.”
+
+“Not with you, anyhow,” murmured Noel.
+
+“Come now, stop that nonsense! You know very well what you are about.
+Instead of a heart, you have a great big double zero, just like a
+Homburg. When you took a fancy to me, you said to yourself, ‘I will
+expend so much on passion,’ and you have kept your word. It is an
+investment, like any other, in which one receives interest in the form
+of pleasure. You are capable of all the extravagance in the world, to
+the extent of your fixed price of four thousand francs a month! If it
+required a franc more you would very soon take back your heart and
+your hat, and carry them elsewhere; to one or other of my rivals in the
+neighborhood.”
+
+“It is true,” answered the advocate, coolly. “I know how to count, and
+that accomplishment is very useful to me. It enables me to know exactly
+how and where I have got rid of my fortune.”
+
+“So you really know?” sneered Juliette.
+
+“And I can tell you, madam,” continued he. “At first you were not very
+exacting, but the appetite came with eating. You wished for luxury,
+you have it; splendid furniture, you have it; a complete establishment,
+extravagant dresses, I could refuse you nothing. You required a
+carriage, a horse, I gave them you. And I do not mention a thousand
+other whims. I include neither this Chinese cabinet nor the two dozen
+bracelets. The total is four hundred thousand francs!”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“As one can be who has had that amount, and has it no longer.”
+
+“Four hundred thousand francs, only fancy! Are there no centimes?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then, my dear friend, if I make up my bill, you will still owe me
+something.”
+
+The entrance of the maid with the tea-tray interrupted this amorous
+duet, of which Noel had experienced more than one repetition. The
+advocate held his tongue on account of the servant. Juliette did the
+same on account of her lover, for she had no secrets from Charlotte, who
+had been with her three years, and with whom she had shared everything,
+sometimes even her lovers.
+
+Madame Juliette Chaffour was a Parisienne. She was born about 1839,
+somewhere in the upper end of the Faubourg Montmarte. Her father was
+unknown. Her infancy was a long alternation of beatings and caresses,
+equally furious. She had lived as best she could, on sweetmeats and
+damaged fruit; so that now her stomach could stand anything. At twelve
+years old she was as thin as a nail, as green as a June apple, and more
+depraved than the inmates of the prison of St. Lazare. Prudhomme would
+have said that this precocious little hussy was totally destitute of
+morality. She had not the slightest idea what morality was. She thought
+the world was full of honest people living like her mother, and her
+mother’s friends. She feared neither God nor devil, but she was afraid
+of the police. She dreaded also certain mysterious and cruel persons,
+whom she had heard spoken of, who dwell near the Palais de Justice, and
+who experience a malicious pleasure in seeing pretty girls in trouble.
+As she gave no promise of beauty, she was on the point of being placed
+in a shop, when an old and respectable gentleman, who had known her
+mamma some years previously, accorded her his protection. This
+old gentleman, prudent and provident like all old gentlemen, was a
+connoisseur, and knew that to reap one must sow. He resolved first of
+all to give his protege just a varnish of education. He procured masters
+for her, who in less than three years taught her to write, to play the
+piano, and to dance. What he did not procure her, however, was a lover.
+She therefore found one for herself, an artist who taught her nothing
+very new, but who carried her off to offer her half of what he
+possessed, that is to say nothing. At the end of three months, having
+had enough of it, she left the nest of her first love, with all she
+possessed tied up in a cotton pocket handkerchief.
+
+During the four years which followed, she led a precarious existence,
+sometimes with little else to live upon but hope, which never wholly
+abandons a young girl who knows she has pretty eyes. By turns she sunk
+to the bottom, or rose to the surface of the stream in which she found
+herself. Twice had fortune in new gloves come knocking at her door, but
+she had not the sense to keep her. With the assistance of a strolling
+player, she had just appeared on the stage of a small theatre, and
+spoken her lines rather well, when Noel by chance met her, loved her,
+and made her his mistress. Her advocate, as she called him, did not
+displease her at first. After a few months, though, she could not bear
+him. She detested him for his polite and polished manners, his manly
+bearing, his distinguished air, his contempt, which he did not care
+to hide, for all that is low and vulgar, and, above all, for his
+unalterable patience, which nothing could tire. Her great complaint
+against him was that he was not at all funny, and also, that he
+absolutely declined to conduct her to those places where one can give
+a free vent to one’s spirits. To amuse herself, she began to squander
+money; and her aversion for her lover increased at the same rate as her
+ambition and his sacrifices. She rendered him the most miserable of men,
+and treated him like a dog; and this not from any natural badness of
+disposition, but from principle. She was persuaded that a woman is
+beloved in proportion to the trouble she causes and the mischief she
+does.
+
+Juliette was not wicked, and she believed she had much to complain of.
+The dream of her life was to be loved in a way which she felt, but could
+scarcely have explained. She had never been to her lovers more than a
+plaything. She understood this; and, as she was naturally proud, the
+idea enraged her. She dreamed of a man who would be devoted enough to
+make a real sacrifice for her, a lover who would descend to her level,
+instead of attempting to raise her to his. She despaired of ever meeting
+such a one. Noel’s extravagance left her as cold as ice. She believed he
+was very rich, and singularly, in spite of her greediness, she did
+not care much for money. Noel would have won her easier by a brutal
+frankness that would have shown her clearly his situation. He lost her
+love by the delicacy of his dissimulation, that left her ignorant of the
+sacrifices he was making for her.
+
+Noel adored Juliette. Until the fatal day he saw her, he had lived like
+a sage. This, his first passion, burned him up; and, from the disaster,
+he saved only appearances.
+
+The four walls remained standing, but the interior of the edifice was
+destroyed. Even heroes have their vulnerable parts, Achilles died from
+a wound in the heel. The most artfully constructed armour has a flaw
+somewhere. Noel was assailable by means of Juliette, and through her
+was at the mercy of everything and every one. In four years, this
+model young man, this advocate of immaculate reputation, this austere
+moralist, had squandered not only his own fortune on her, but Madame
+Gerdy’s also. He loved her madly, without reflection, without measure,
+with his eyes shut. At her side, he forgot all prudence, and thought out
+loud. In her boudoir, he dropped his mask of habitual dissimulation, and
+his vices displayed themselves, at ease, as his limbs in a bath. He felt
+himself so powerless against her, that he never essayed to struggle. She
+possessed him. Once or twice he attempted to firmly oppose her ruinous
+caprices; but she had made him pliable as the osier. Under the dark
+glances of this girl, his strongest resolutions melted more quickly than
+snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power
+to make him forget all by a smile, a tear, or a kiss. Away from the
+enchantress, reason returned at intervals, and, in his lucid moments,
+he said to himself, “She does not love me. She is amusing herself at
+my expense!” But the belief in her love had taken such deep root in his
+heart that he could not pluck it forth. He made himself a monster of
+jealousy, and then argued with himself respecting her fidelity. On
+several occasions he had strong reasons to doubt her constancy, but he
+never had the courage to declare his suspicions. “If I am not mistaken,
+I shall either have to leave her,” thought he, “or accept everything in
+the future.” At the idea of a separation from Juliette, he trembled,
+and felt his passion strong enough to compel him to submit to the lowest
+indignity. He preferred even these heartbreaking doubts to a still more
+dreadful certainty.
+
+The presence of the maid who took a considerable time in arranging the
+tea-table gave Noel an opportunity to recover himself. He looked at
+Juliette; and his anger took flight. Already he began to ask himself if
+he had not been a little cruel to her. When Charlotte retired, he came
+and took a seat on the divan beside his mistress, and attempted to put
+his arms round her. “Come,” said he in a caressing tone, “you have been
+angry enough for this evening. If I have done wrong, you have punished
+me sufficiently. Kiss me, and make it up.”
+
+She repulsed him angrily, and said in a dry tone,--“Let me alone! How
+many times must I tell you that I am very unwell this evening.”
+
+“You suffer, my love?” resumed the advocate, “where? Shall I send for
+the doctor?”
+
+“There is no need. I know the nature of my malady; it is called ennui.
+You are not at all the doctor who could do anything for me.”
+
+Noel rose with a discouraged air, and took his place at the side of the
+tea-table, facing her. His resignation bespoke how habituated he had
+become to these rebuffs. Juliette snubbed him; but he returned always,
+like the poor dog who lies in wait all day for the time when his
+caresses will not be inopportune. “You have told me very often during
+the last few months, that I bother you. What have I done?” he asked.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Well, then, why--?”
+
+“My life is nothing more than a continual yawn,” answered the young
+woman; “is it my fault? Do you think it very amusing to be your
+mistress? Look at yourself. Does there exist another being as sad,
+as dull as you, more uneasy, more suspicious, devoured by a greater
+jealousy!”
+
+“Your reception of me, my dear Juliette,” ventured Noel “is enough to
+extinguish gaiety and freeze all effusion. Then one always fears when
+one loves!”
+
+“Really! Then one should seek a woman to suit oneself, or have her made
+to order; shut her up in the cellar, and have her brought upstairs once
+a day, at the end of dinner, during dessert, or with the champagne just
+by way of amusement.”
+
+“I should have done better not to have come,” murmured the advocate.
+
+“Of course. I am to remain alone here, without anything to occupy me
+except a cigarette and a stupid book, that I go to sleep over? Do you
+call this an existence, never to budge out of the house even?”
+
+“It is the life of all the respectable women that I know,” replied the
+advocate drily.
+
+“Then I cannot compliment them on their enjoyment. Happily, though, I
+am not a respectable woman, and I can tell you I am tired of living
+more closely shut up than the wife of a Turk, with your face for sole
+amusement.”
+
+“You live shut up, you?”
+
+“Certainly!” continued Juliette, with increased bitterness. “Come, have
+you ever brought one of your friends here? No, you hide me. When
+have you offered me your arm for a walk? Never, your dignity would be
+sullied, if you were seen in my company. I have a carriage. Have you
+entered it half a dozen times? Perhaps; but then you let down the
+blinds! I go out alone. I walk about alone!”
+
+“Always the same refrain,” interrupted Noel, anger getting the better of
+him, “always these uncalled for complaints. As though you had still to
+learn the reason why this state of things exists.”
+
+“I know well enough,” pursued the young woman, “that you are ashamed of
+me. Yet I know many bigger swells then you, who do not mind being seen
+with their mistresses. My lord trembles for his fine name of Gerdy that
+I might sully, while the sons of the most noble families are not afraid
+of showing themselves in public places in the company of the stupidest
+of kept women.”
+
+At last Noel could stand it no longer, to the great delight of Madame
+Chaffour.
+
+“Enough of these recriminations!” cried he, rising. “If I hide our
+relations, it is because I am constrained to do so. Of what do you
+complain? You have unrestrained liberty; and you use it, too, and
+so largely that your actions altogether escape me. You accuse me of
+creating a vacuum around you. Who is to blame? Did I grow tired of a
+happy and quiet existence? My friends would have come to see us in a
+home in accordance with a modest competence. Can I bring them here? On
+seeing all this luxury, this insolent display of my folly, they would
+ask each other where I obtained all the money I have spent on you. I
+may have a mistress, but I have not the right to squander a fortune that
+does not belong to me. If my acquaintances learnt to-morrow that it is I
+who keep you, my future prospects would be destroyed. What client would
+confide his interests to the imbecile who ruined himself for the woman
+who has been the talk of all Paris? I am not a great lord, I have
+neither an historical name to tarnish, nor an immense fortune to lose. I
+am plain Noel Gerdy, a advocate. My reputation is all that I possess. It
+is a false one, I admit. Such as it is, however, I must keep it, and I
+will keep it.”
+
+Juliette who knew her Noel thoroughly, saw that she had gone far
+enough. She determined, therefore, to put him in a good humor again. “My
+friend,” said she, tenderly, “I did not wish to cause you pain. You must
+be indulgent, I am so horribly nervous this evening.”
+
+This sudden change delighted the advocate, and almost sufficed to calm
+his anger. “You will drive me mad with your injustice,” said he. “While
+I exhaust my imagination to find what can be agreeable to you, you are
+perpetually attacking my gravity; yet it is not forty-eight hours since
+we were plunged in all the gaiety of the carnival. I kept the fete of
+Shrove Tuesday like a student. We went to a theatre; I then put on a
+domino, and accompanied you to the ball at the opera, and even invited
+two of my friends to sup with us.”
+
+“It was very gay indeed!” answered the young woman, making a wry face.
+
+“So I think.”
+
+“Do you! Then you are not hard to please. We went to the Vaudeville, it
+is true, but separately, as we always do, I alone above, you below. At
+the ball you looked as though you were burying the devil. At the supper
+table your friends were as melancholy as a pair of owls. I obeyed your
+orders by affecting hardly to know you. You imbibed like a sponge,
+without my being able to tell whether you were drunk or not.”
+
+“That proves,” interrupted Noel, “that we ought not to force our tastes.
+Let us talk of something else.”
+
+He took a few steps in the room, then looking at his watch said: “Almost
+one o’clock; my love, I must leave you.”
+
+“What! you are not going to remain?”
+
+“No, to my great regret; my mother is dangerously ill.”
+
+He unfolded and counted out on the table the bank notes he had received
+from old Tabaret.
+
+“My little Juliette,” said he, “here are not eight thousand francs, but
+ten thousand. You will not see me again for a few days.”
+
+“Are you leaving Paris, then?”
+
+“No; but my entire time will be absorbed by an affair of immense
+importance to myself. If I succeed in my undertaking, my dear, our
+future happiness is assured, and you will then see whether I love you!”
+
+“Oh, my dear Noel, tell me what it is.”
+
+“I cannot now.”
+
+“Tell me I beseech you,” pleaded the young woman, hanging round his
+neck, raising herself upon the tips of her toes to press her lips to
+his. The advocate embraced her; and his resolution seemed to waver.
+
+“No,” said he at length, “seriously I cannot. Of what use to awaken in
+you hopes which can never be realized? Now, my darling, listen to me.
+Whatever may happen, understand, you must under no pretext whatever
+again come to my house, as you once had the imprudence to do. Do not
+even write to me. By disobeying, you may do me an irreparable injury. If
+any accident occurs, send that old rascal Clergot to me. I shall have
+a visit from him the day after to-morrow, for he holds some bills of
+mine.”
+
+Juliette recoiled, menacing Noel with a mutinous gesture. “You will not
+tell me anything?” insisted she.
+
+“Not this evening, but very soon,” replied the advocate, embarrassed by
+the piercing glance of his mistress.
+
+“Always some mystery!” cried Juliette, piqued at the want of success
+attending her blandishments.
+
+“This will be the last, I swear to you!”
+
+“Noel, my good man,” said the young woman in a serious tone, “you are
+hiding something from me. I understand you, as you know; for several
+days past there has been something or other the matter with you, you
+have completely changed.”
+
+“I swear to you, Juliette--”
+
+“No, swear nothing; I should not believe you. Only remember, no attempt
+at deceiving me, I forewarn you. I am a woman capable of revenge.”
+
+The advocate was evidently ill at ease. “The affair in question,”
+ stammered he, “can as well fail as succeed.”
+
+“Enough,” interrupted Juliette; “your will shall be obeyed. I promise
+that. Come, sir, kiss me. I am going to bed.”
+
+The door was hardly shut upon Noel when Charlotte was installed on the
+divan near her mistress. Had the advocate been listening at the door,
+he might have heard Madame Juliette saying, “No, really, I can no longer
+endure him. What a bore he is, my girl. Ah! if I was not so afraid of
+him, wouldn’t I leave him at once? But he is capable of killing me!”
+
+The girl vainly tried to defend Noel; but her mistress did not listen.
+She murmured, “Why does he absent himself, and what is he plotting? An
+absence of eight days is suspicious. Can he by any chance intend to be
+married? Ah! if I only knew. You weary me to death, my good Noel, and I
+am determined to leave you to yourself one of these fine mornings; but
+I cannot permit you to quit me first. Supposing he is going to get
+married? But I will not allow it. I must make inquiries.”
+
+Noel, however, was not listening at the door. He went along the Rue de
+Provence as quickly as possible, gained the Rue St. Lazare, and entered
+the house as he had departed, by the stable door. He had but just sat
+down in his study, when the servant knocked.
+
+“Sir,” cried she, “in heaven’s name answer me!”
+
+He opened the door and said impatiently, “What is it?”
+
+“Sir,” stammered the girl in tears, “this is the third time I have
+knocked, and you have not answered. Come, I implore you. I am afraid
+madame is dying!”
+
+He followed her to Madame Gerdy’s room. He must have found the poor
+woman terribly changed, for he could not restrain a movement of terror.
+The invalid struggled painfully beneath her coverings. Her face was of
+a livid paleness, as though there was not a drop of blood left in her
+veins; and her eyes, which glittered with a sombre light, seemed filled
+with a fine dust. Her hair, loose and disordered, falling over her
+cheeks and upon her shoulders, contributed to her wild appearance.
+She uttered from time to time a groan hardly audible, or murmured
+unintelligible words. At times, a fiercer pang than the former ones
+forced a cry of anguish from her. She did not recognise Noel.
+
+“You see, sir,” said the servant.
+
+“Yes. Who would have supposed her malady could advance so rapidly?
+Quick, run to Dr. Herve’s, tell him to get up, and to come at once, tell
+him it is for me.” And he seated himself in an arm-chair, facing the
+suffering woman.
+
+Dr. Herve was one of Noel’s friends, an old school-fellow, and the
+companion of his student days. The doctor’s history differed in
+nothing from that of most young men, who, without fortune, friends,
+or influence, enter upon the practice of the most difficult, the most
+hazardous of professions that exist in Paris, where one sees so many
+talented young doctors forced, to earn their bread, to place themselves
+at the disposition of infamous drug vendors. A man of remarkable courage
+and self-reliance, Herve, his studies over, said to himself, “No, I will
+not go and bury myself in the country, I will remain in Paris, I will
+there become celebrated. I shall be surgeon-in-chief of an hospital, and
+a knight of the Legion of Honour.”
+
+To enter upon this path of thorns, leading to a magnificent triumphal
+arch, the future academician ran himself twenty thousand francs in debt
+to furnish a small apartment. Here, armed with a patience which
+nothing could fatigue, an iron resolution that nothing could subdue, he
+struggled and waited. Only those who have experienced it can understand
+what sufferings are endured by the poor, proud man, who waits in a black
+coat, freshly shaven, with smiling lips, while he is starving of hunger!
+The refinements of civilization have inaugurated punishments which put
+in the shade the cruelties of the savage. The unknown physician must
+begin by attending the poor who cannot pay him. Sometimes too the
+patient is ungrateful. He is profuse in promises whilst in danger; but,
+when cured, he scorns the doctor, and forgets to pay him his fee.
+
+After seven years of heroic perseverance, Herve has secured at last
+a circle of patients who pay him. During this he lived and paid the
+exorbitant interest of his debt, but he is getting on. Three or four
+pamphlets, and a prize won without much intrigue, have attracted public
+attention to him. But he is no longer the brave young enthusiast, full
+of the faith and hope that attended him on his first visits. He still
+wishes, and more than ever, to acquire distinction, but he no longer
+expects any pleasure from his success. He used up that feeling in the
+days when he had not wherewith to pay for his dinner. No matter how
+great his fortune may be in the days to come, he has already paid too
+dearly for it. For him future success is only a kind of revenge.
+Less than thirty-five years old, he is already sick of the world, and
+believes in nothing. Under the appearance of universal benevolence he
+conceals universal scorn. His finesse, sharpened by the grindstone
+of adversity, has become mischievous. And, while he sees through all
+disguises worn by others, he hides his penetration carefully under a
+mask of cheerful good nature and jovialness. But he is kind, he loves
+his friends, and is devoted to them.
+
+He arrived, hardly dressed, so great had been his haste. His first words
+on entering were, “What is the matter?”
+
+Noel pressed his hand in silence, and by way of answer, pointed to the
+bed. In less than a minute, the doctor seized the lamp, examined the
+sick woman, and returned to his friend. “What has happened?” he asked
+sharply. “It is necessary I should know.”
+
+The advocate started at the question. “Know what?” stammered he.
+
+“Everything!” answered Herve. “She is suffering from inflammation of the
+brain. There is no mistaking that. It is by no means a common complaint,
+in spite of the constant working of that organ. What can have caused
+it? There appears to be no injury to the brain or its bony covering, the
+mischief, then, must have been caused by some violent emotion, a great
+grief, some unexpected catastrophe . . .”
+
+Noel interrupted his friend by a gesture, and drew him into the
+embrasure of the window. “Yes, my friend,” said he in a low tone,
+“Madame Gerdy has experienced great mental suffering, she has been
+frightfully tortured by remorse. Listen, Herve. I will confide our
+secret to your honour and your friendship. Madame Gerdy is not my
+mother; she despoiled me, to enrich her son with my fortune and my name.
+Three weeks ago I discovered this unworthy fraud; she knows it, and
+the consequences terrify her. Ever since, she has been dying minute by
+minute.”
+
+The advocate expected some exclamations of astonishment, and a host
+of questions from his friend; but the doctor received the explanation
+without remark, as a simple statement, indispensable to his
+understanding the case.
+
+“Three weeks,” he murmured; “then, that explains everything. Has she
+appeared to suffer much during the time?”
+
+“She complained of violent headaches, dimness of sight, and intolerable
+pains in her ears, she attributed all that though to megrims. Do
+not, however, conceal anything from me, Herve; is her complaint very
+serious?”
+
+“So serious, my friend, so invariably fatal, that I am almost
+undertaking a hopeless task in attempting a cure.”
+
+“Ah! good heaven!”
+
+“You asked for the truth, and I have told it you. If I had that courage,
+it was because you told me this poor woman is not your mother. Nothing
+short of a miracle can save her; but this miracle we may hope and
+prepare for. And now to work!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The clock of the St. Lazare terminus was striking eleven as old Tabaret,
+after shaking hands with Noel, left his house, still bewildered by what
+he had just heard. Obliged to restrain himself at the time, he now fully
+appreciated his liberty of action. It was with an unsteady gait that
+he took his first steps in the street, like the toper, who, after being
+shut up in a warm room, suddenly goes out into the open air. He was
+beaming with pleasure, but at the same time felt rather giddy, from that
+rapid succession of unexpected revelations, which, so he thought, had
+suddenly placed him in possession of the truth.
+
+Notwithstanding his haste to arrive at M. Daburon’s he did not take a
+cab. He felt the necessity of walking. He was one of those who require
+exercise to see things clearly. When he moved about his ideas fitted and
+classified themselves in his brain, like grains of wheat when shaken in
+a bushel. Without hastening his pace, he reached the Rue de la Chaussee
+d’Antin, crossed the Boulevard with its resplendent cafes, and turned to
+the Rue Richelieu.
+
+He walked along, unconscious of external objects, tripping and stumbling
+over the inequalities of the sidewalk, or slipping on the greasy
+pavement. If he followed the proper road, it was a purely mechanical
+impulse that guided him. His mind was wandering at random through the
+field of probabilities, and following in the darkness the mysterious
+thread, the almost imperceptible end of which he had seized at La
+Jonchere.
+
+Like all persons labouring under strong emotion without knowing it, he
+talked aloud, little thinking into what indiscreet ears his exclamations
+and disjointed phrases might fall. At every step, we meet in Paris
+people babbling to themselves, and unconsciously confiding to the four
+winds of heaven their dearest secrets, like cracked vases that allow
+their contents to steal away. Often the passers-by mistake these
+eccentric monologuists for lunatics. Sometimes the curious follow them,
+and amuse themselves by receiving these strange confidences. It was
+an indiscretion of this kind which told the ruin of Riscara the rich
+banker. Lambreth, the assassin of the Rue de Venise, betrayed himself in
+a similar manner.
+
+“What luck!” exclaimed old Tabaret. “What an incredible piece of good
+fortune! Gevrol may dispute it if he likes, but after all, chance is the
+cleverest agent of the police. Who would have imagined such a history? I
+was not, however, very far from the reality. I guessed there was a
+child in the case. But who would have dreamed of a substitution?--an old
+sensational effect, that playwrights no longer dare make use of. This
+is a striking example of the danger of following preconceived ideas in
+police investigation. We are affrighted at unlikelihood; and, as in this
+case, the greatest unlikelihood often proves to be the truth. We
+retire before the absurd, and it is the absurd that we should examine.
+Everything is possible. I would not take a thousand crowns for what
+I have learnt this evening. I shall kill two birds with one stone. I
+deliver up the criminal; and I give Noel a hearty lift up to recover his
+title and his fortune. There, at least; is one who deserves what he will
+get. For once I shall not be sorry to see a lad get on, who has been
+brought up in the school of adversity. But, pshaw! he will be like all
+the rest. Prosperity will turn his brain. Already he begins to prate of
+his ancestors. . . . Poor humanity he almost made me laugh. . . . But
+it is mother Gerdy who surprises me most. A woman to whom I would have
+given absolution without waiting to hear her confess. When I think that
+I was on the point of proposing to her, ready to marry her! B-r-r-r!”
+
+At this thought, the old fellow shivered. He saw himself married, and
+all on a sudden, discovering the antecedents of Madame Tabaret, becoming
+mixed up with a scandalous prosecution, compromised, and rendered
+ridiculous.
+
+“When I think,” he continued, “that my worthy Gevrol is running after
+the man with the earrings! Run, my boy, run! Travel is a good thing for
+youth. Won’t he be vexed? He will wish me dead. But I don’t care. If any
+one wishes to do me an injury, M. Daburon will protect me. Ah! there is
+one to whom I am going to do a good turn. I can see him now, opening his
+eyes like saucers, when I say to him, ‘I have the rascal!’ He can boast
+of owing me something. This investigation will bring him honour, or
+justice is not justice. He will, at least, be made an officer of the
+Legion of Honour. So much the better! I like him. If he is asleep, I am
+going to give him an agreeable awaking. Won’t he just overpower me with
+questions! He will want to know everything at once.”
+
+Old Tabaret, who was now crossing the Pont des Saints-Peres, stopped
+suddenly. “But the details!” said he. “By Jove! I have none. I only know
+the bare facts.” He resumed his walk, and continued, “They are right
+at the office, I am too enthusiastic; I jump at conclusions, as Gevrol
+says. When I was with Noel, I should have cross-examined him, got hold
+of a quantity of useful details; but I did not even think of doing so.
+I drank in his words. I would have had him tell the story in a sentence.
+All the same, it is but natural; when one is pursuing a stag, one does
+not stop to shoot a blackbird. But I see very well now, I did not draw
+him out enough. On the other hand, by questioning him more, I might have
+awakened suspicions in Noel’s mind, and led him to discover that I am
+working for the Rue de Jerusalem. To be sure, I do not blush for my
+connection with the police, I am even vain of it; but at the same time,
+I prefer that no one should know of it. People are so stupid, that
+they detest the police, who protect them; I must be calm and on my best
+behaviour, for here I am at the end of my journey.”
+
+M. Daburon had just gone to bed, but had given orders to his servant; so
+that M. Tabaret had but to give his name, to be at once conducted to the
+magistrate’s sleeping apartment. At sight of his amateur detective,
+M. Daburon raised himself in his bed, saying, “There is something
+extraordinary! What have you discovered? have you got a clue?”
+
+“Better than that,” answered the old fellow, smiling with pleasure.
+
+“Speak quickly!”
+
+“I know the culprit!”
+
+Old Tabaret ought to have been satisfied; he certainly produced an
+effect. The magistrate bounded in his bed. “Already!” said he. “Is it
+possible?”
+
+“I have the honour to repeat to you, sir,” resumed the old fellow, “that
+I know the author of the crime of La Jonchere.”
+
+“And I,” said M. Daburon, “I proclaim you the greatest of all
+detectives, past or future. I shall certainly never hereafter undertake
+an investigation without your assistance.”
+
+“You are too kind, sir. I have had little or nothing to do in the
+matter. The discovery is due to chance alone.”
+
+“You are modest, M. Tabaret. Chance assists only the clever, and it is
+that which annoys the stupid. But I beg you will be seated and proceed.”
+
+Then with the lucidness and precision of which few would have believed
+him capable, the old fellow repeated to the magistrate all that he had
+learned from Noel. He quoted from memory the extracts from the letters,
+almost without changing a word.
+
+“These letters,” added he, “I have seen; and I have even taken one, in
+order to verify the writing. Here it is.”
+
+“Yes,” murmured the magistrate--“Yes, M. Tabaret, you have discovered
+the criminal. The evidence is palpable, even to the blind. Heaven has
+willed this. Crime engenders crime. The great sin of the father has made
+the son an assassin.”
+
+“I have not given you the names, sir,” resumed old Tabaret. “I wished
+first to hear your opinion.”
+
+“Oh! you can name them,” interrupted M. Daburon with a certain degree
+of animation, “no matter how high he may have to strike, a French
+magistrate has never hesitated.”
+
+“I know it, sir, but we are going very high this time. The father who
+has sacrificed his legitimate son for the sake of his bastard is Count
+Rheteau de Commarin, and the assassin of Widow Lerouge is the bastard,
+Viscount Albert de Commarin!”
+
+M. Tabaret, like an accomplished artist, had uttered these words slowly,
+and with a deliberate emphasis, confidently expecting to produce a
+great impression. His expectation was more than realized. M. Daburon
+was struck with stupor. He remained motionless, his eyes dilated with
+astonishment. Mechanically he repeated like a word without meaning which
+he was trying to impress upon his memory: “Albert de Commarin! Albert de
+Commarin!”
+
+“Yes,” insisted old Tabaret, “the noble viscount. It is incredible, I
+know.” But he perceived the alteration in the magistrate’s face, and
+a little frightened, he approached the bed. “Are you unwell, sir?” he
+asked.
+
+“No,” answered M. Daburon, without exactly knowing what he said. “I am
+very well; but the surprise, the emotion,--”
+
+“I understand that,” said the old fellow.
+
+“Yes, it is not surprising, is it? I should like to be alone a few
+minutes. Do not leave the house though; we must converse at some length
+on this business. Kindly pass into my study, there ought still to be a
+fire burning there. I will join you directly.”
+
+Then M. Daburon slowly got out of bed, put on a dressing gown, and
+seated himself, or rather fell, into an armchair. His face, to which
+in the exercise of his austere functions he had managed to give the
+immobility of marble, reflected the most cruel agitation; while his
+eyes betrayed the inward agony of his soul. The name of Commarin,
+so unexpectedly pronounced, awakened in him the most sorrowful
+recollections, and tore open a wound but badly healed. This name
+recalled to him an event which had rudely extinguished his youth and
+spoilt his life. Involuntarily, he carried his thoughts back to this
+epoch, so as to taste again all its bitterness. An hour ago, it had
+seemed to him far removed, and already hidden in the mists of the past;
+one word had sufficed to recall it, clear and distinct. It seemed to him
+now that this event, in which the name of Albert de Commarin was mixed
+up, dated from yesterday. In reality nearly two years elapsed since.
+
+Pierre-Marie Daburon belonged to one of the oldest families of Poitou.
+Three or four of his ancestors had filled successively the most
+important positions in the province. Why, then, had they not bequeathed
+a title and a coat of arms to their descendants?
+
+The magistrate’s father possesses, round about the ugly modern chateau
+which he inhabits, more than eight hundred thousand francs’ worth of the
+most valuable land. By his mother, a Cottevise-Luxe, he is related to
+the highest nobility of Poitou, one of the most exclusive that exists in
+France, as every one knows.
+
+When he received his nomination in Paris, his relationship caused him to
+be received at once by five or six aristocratic families, and it was not
+long before he extended his circle of acquaintance.
+
+He possessed, however, none of the qualifications which ensure social
+success. He was cold and grave even to sadness, reserved and timid
+even to excess. His mind wanted brilliancy and lightness; he lacked
+the facility of repartee, and the amiable art of conversing without a
+subject; he could neither tell a lie, nor pay an insipid compliment.
+Like most men who feel deeply, he was unable to interpret his
+impressions immediately. He required to reflect and consider within
+himself.
+
+However, he was sought after for more solid qualities than these: for
+the nobleness of his sentiments, his pleasant disposition, and the
+certainty of his connections. Those who knew him intimately quickly
+learned to esteem his sound judgment, his keen sense of honour, and to
+discover under his cold exterior a warm heart, an excessive sensibility,
+and a delicacy almost feminine. In a word, although he might be eclipsed
+in a room full of strangers or simpletons, he charmed all hearts in a
+smaller circle, where he felt warmed by an atmosphere of sympathy.
+
+He accustomed himself to go about a great deal. He reasoned, wisely
+perhaps, that a magistrate can make better use of his time than by
+remaining shut up in his study, in company with books of law. He thought
+that a man called upon to judge others, ought to know them, and for that
+purpose study them. An attentive and discreet observer, he examined the
+play of human interests and passions, exercised himself in disentangling
+and manoeuvring at need the strings of the puppets he saw moving around
+him. Piece by piece, so to say, he laboured to comprehend the working
+of the complicated machine called society, of which he was charged to
+overlook the movements, regulate the springs, and keep the wheels in
+order.
+
+And on a sudden, in the early part of the winter of 1860 and 1861, M.
+Daburon disappeared. His friends sought for him, but he was nowhere to
+be met with. What could he be doing? Inquiry resulted in the discovery
+that he passed nearly all his evenings at the house of the Marchioness
+d’Arlange. The surprise was as great as it was natural.
+
+This dear marchioness was, or rather is,--for she is still in the land
+of the living,--a personage whom one would consider rather out of date.
+She is surely the most singular legacy bequeathed us by the eighteenth
+century. How, and by what marvellous process she had been preserved
+such as we see her, it is impossible to say. Listening to her, you would
+swear that she was yesterday at one of those parties given by the queen
+where cards and high stakes were the rule, much to the annoyance of
+Louis XIV., and where the great ladies cheated openly in emulation of
+each other.
+
+Manners, language, habits, almost costume, she has preserved everything
+belonging to that period about which authors have written only to
+display the defects. Her appearance alone will tell more than an
+exhaustive article, and an hour’s conversation with her, more than a
+volume.
+
+She was born in a little principality, where her parents had taken
+refuge whilst awaiting the chastisements and repentance of an erring and
+rebellious people. She had been brought up amongst the old nobles of
+the emigration, in some very ancient and very gilded apartment, just as
+though she had been in a cabinet of curiosities. Her mind had awakened
+amid the hum of antediluvian conversations, her imagination had first
+been aroused by arguments a little less profitable than those of an
+assembly of deaf persons convoked to decide upon the merits of the work
+of some distinguished musician. Here she imbibed a fund of ideas, which,
+applied to the forms of society of to-day, are as grotesque as would
+be those of a child shut up until twenty years of age in an Assyrian
+museum.
+
+The first empire, the restoration, the monarchy of July, the second
+republic, the second empire, have passed beneath her windows, but she
+has not taken the trouble to open them. All that has happened since ‘89
+she considers as never having been. For her it is a nightmare from which
+she is still awaiting a release. She has looked at everything, but then
+she looks through her own pretty glasses which show her everything as
+she would wish it, and which are to be obtained of dealers in illusions.
+
+Though over sixty-eight years old she is as straight as a poplar, and
+has never been ill. She is vivacious, and active to excess, and can only
+keep still when asleep, or when playing her favorite game of piquet. She
+has her four meals a day, eats like a vintager, and takes her wine neat.
+She professes an undisguised contempt for the silly women of our century
+who live for a week on a partridge, and inundate with water grand
+sentiments which they entangle in long phrases. She has always been, and
+still is, very positive, and her word is prompt and easily understood.
+She never shrinks from using the most appropriate word to express her
+meaning. So much the worse, if some delicate ears object! She heartily
+detests hypocrisy.
+
+She believes in God, but she believes also in M. de Voltaire, so that
+her devotion is, to say the least, problematical. However, she is on
+good terms with the curate of her parish, and is very particular about
+the arrangement of her dinner on the days she honours him with an
+invitation to her table. She seems to consider him a subaltern, very
+useful to her salvation, and capable of opening the gate of paradise for
+her.
+
+Such as she is, she is shunned like the plague. Everybody dreads her
+loud voice, her terrible indiscretion, and the frankness of speech which
+she affects, in order to have the right of saying the most unpleasant
+things which pass through her head. Of all her family, there only
+remains her granddaughter, whose father died very young.
+
+Of a fortune originally large, and partly restored by the indemnity
+allowed by the government, but since administered in the most careless
+manner, she has only been able to preserve an income of twenty thousand
+francs, which diminishes day by day. She is, also, proprietor of the
+pretty little house which she inhabits, situated near the Invalides,
+between a rather narrow court-yard, and a very extensive garden.
+
+So circumstanced, she considers herself the most unfortunate of God’s
+creatures, and passes the greater part of her life complaining of her
+poverty. From time to time, especially after some exceptionally bad
+speculation, she confesses that what she fears most is to die in a
+pauper’s bed.
+
+A friend of M. Daburon’s presented him one evening to the Marchioness
+d’Arlange, having dragged him to her house in a mirthful mood, saying,
+“Come with me, and I will show you a phenomenon, a ghost of the past in
+flesh and bone.”
+
+The marchioness rather puzzled the magistrate the first time he was
+admitted to her presence. On his second visit, she amused him very much;
+for which reason, he came again. But after a while she no longer amused
+him, though he still continued a faithful and constant visitor to the
+rose-coloured boudoir wherein she passed the greater part of her life.
+
+Madame d’Arlange conceived a violent friendship for him, and became
+eloquent in his praises.
+
+“A most charming young man,” she declared, “delicate and sensible! What
+a pity he is not born!” (Her ladyship meant born of noble parentage,
+but used the phrase as ignoring the fact of the unfortunates who are
+not noble having been born at all) “One can receive him though, all
+the same; his forefathers were very decent people, and his mother was a
+Cottevise who, however, went wrong. I wish him well, and will do all I
+can to push him forward.”
+
+The strongest proof of friendship he received from her was, that she
+condescended to pronounce his name like the rest of the world. She had
+preserved that ridiculous affectation of forgetfulness of the names of
+people who were not of noble birth, and who in her opinion had no right
+to names. She was so confirmed in this habit, that, if by accident she
+pronounced such a name correctly, she immediately repeated it with some
+ludicrous alteration. During his first visit, M. Daburon was extremely
+amused at hearing his name altered every time she addressed him.
+Successively she made it Taburon, Dabiron, Maliron, Laliron, Laridon;
+but, in three months time, she called him Daburon as distinctly as if he
+had been a duke of something, and a lord of somewhere.
+
+Occasionally she exerted herself to prove to the worthy magistrate that
+he was a nobleman, or at least ought to be. She would have been happy,
+if she could have persuaded him to adopt some title, and have a helmet
+engraved upon his visiting cards.
+
+“How is it possible,” said she, “that your ancestors, eminent, wealthy,
+and influential, never thought of being raised from the common herd
+and securing a title for their descendants? Today you would possess a
+presentable pedigree.--”
+
+“My ancestors were wise,” responded M. Daburon. “They preferred being
+foremost among their fellow-citizens to becoming last among the nobles.”
+
+Upon which the marchioness explained, and proved to demonstration, that
+between the most influential and wealthy citizen and the smallest scion
+of nobility, there was an abyss that all the money in the world could
+not fill up.
+
+They who were so surprised at the frequency of the magistrate’s
+visits to this celebrated “relic of the past” did not know that lady’s
+granddaughter, or, at least, did not recollect her; she went out so
+seldom! The old marchioness did not care, so she said, to be bothered
+with a young spy who would be in her way when she related some of her
+choice anecdotes.
+
+Claire d’Arlange was just seventeen years old. She was extremely
+graceful and gentle in manner, and lovely in her natural innocence. She
+had a profusion of fine light brown hair, which fell in ringlets over
+her well-shaped neck and shoulders. Her figure was still rather slender;
+but her features recalled Guide’s most celestial faces. Her blue eyes,
+shaded by long lashes of a hue darker than her hair, had above all an
+adorable expression.
+
+A certain air of antiquity, the result of her association with her
+grandmother, added yet another charm to the young girl’s manner. She had
+more sense, however, than her relative; and, as her education had not
+been neglected, she had imbibed pretty correct ideas of the world in
+which she lived. This education, these practical ideas, Claire owed
+to her governess, upon whose shoulders the marchioness had thrown the
+entire responsibility of cultivating her mind.
+
+This governess, Mademoiselle Schmidt, chosen at hazard, happened by
+the most fortunate chance to be both well informed and possessed of
+principle. She was, what is often met with on the other side of
+the Rhine, a woman at once romantic and practical, of the tenderest
+sensibility and the severest virtue. This good woman, while she carried
+her pupil into the land of sentimental phantasy and poetical imaginings,
+gave her at the same time the most practical instruction in matters
+relating to actual life. She revealed to Claire all the peculiarities
+of thought and manner that rendered her grandmother so ridiculous, and
+taught her to avoid them, but without ceasing to respect them.
+
+Every evening, on arriving at Madame d’Arlange’s, M. Daburon was sure to
+find Claire seated beside her grandmother, and it was for that that
+he called. Whilst listening with an inattentive ear to the old lady’s
+rigmaroles and her interminable anecdotes of the emigration, he gazed
+upon Claire, as a fanatic upon his idol. Often in his ecstasy he forgot
+where he was for the moment and became absolutely oblivious of the old
+lady’s presence, although her shrill voice was piercing the tympanum
+of his ear like a needle. Then he would answer her at cross-purposes,
+committing the most singular blunders, which he labored afterwards to
+explain. But he need not have taken the trouble. Madame d’Arlange did
+not perceive her courtier’s absence of mind; her questions were of such
+a length, that she did not care about the answers. Having a listener,
+she was satisfied, provided that from time to time he gave signs of
+life.
+
+When obliged to sit down to play piquet, he cursed below his breath the
+game and its detestable inventor. He paid no attention to his cards.
+He made mistakes every moment, discarding what he should keep in
+and forgetting to cut. The old lady was annoyed by these continual
+distractions, but she did scruple to profit by them. She looked at the
+discard, changed the cards which did not suit her, while she audaciously
+scored points she never made, and pocketed the money thus won without
+shame or remorse.
+
+M. Daburon’s timidity was extreme, and Claire was unsociable to excess,
+they therefore seldom spoke to each other. During the entire winter, the
+magistrate did not directly address the young girl ten times; and, on
+these rare occasions, he had learned mechanically by heart the phrase he
+proposed to repeat to her, well knowing that, without this precaution,
+he would most likely be unable to finish what he had to say.
+
+But at least he saw her, he breathed the same air with her, he heard her
+voice, whose pure and harmonious vibrations thrilled his very soul.
+
+By constantly watching her eyes, he learned to understand all their
+expressions. He believed he could read in them all her thoughts, and
+through them look into her soul like through an open window.
+
+“She is pleased to-day,” he would say to himself; and then he would
+be happy. At other times, he thought, “She has met with some annoyance
+to-day;” and immediately he became sad.
+
+The idea of asking for her hand many times presented itself to his
+imagination; but he never dared to entertain it. Knowing, as he did,
+the marchioness’s prejudices, her devotion to titles, her dread of any
+approach to a misalliance, he was convinced she would shut his mouth
+at the first word by a very decided “no,” which she would maintain. To
+attempt the thing would be to risk, without a chance of success, his
+present happiness which he thought immense, for love lives upon its own
+misery.
+
+“Once repulsed,” thought he, “the house is shut against me; and then
+farewell to happiness, for life will end for me.” Upon the other
+hand, the very rational thought occurred to him that another might
+see Mademoiselle d’Arlange, love her, and, in consequence, ask for and
+obtain her. In either case, hazarding a proposal, or hesitating still,
+he must certainly lose her in the end. By the commencement of spring,
+his mind was made up.
+
+One fine afternoon, in the month of April, he bent his steps towards the
+residence of Madame d’Arlange, having truly need of more bravery than
+a soldier about to face a battery. He, like the soldier, whispered to
+himself, “Victory or death!” The marchioness who had gone out shortly
+after breakfast had just returned in a terrible rage, and was uttering
+screams like an eagle.
+
+This was what had taken place. She had some work done by a neighboring
+painter some eight or ten months before; and the workman had presented
+himself a hundred times to receive payment, without avail. Tired of this
+proceeding, he had summoned the high and mighty Marchioness d’Arlange
+before the Justice of the Peace.
+
+This summons had exasperated the marchioness; but she kept the matter
+to herself, having decided, in her wisdom, to call upon the judge and
+request him to reprimand the insolent painter who had dared to plague
+her for a paltry sum of money. The result of this fine project may be
+guessed. The judge had been compelled to eject her forcibly from his
+office; hence her fury.
+
+M. Daburon found her in the rose-colored boudoir half undressed, her
+hair in disorder, red as a peony, and surrounded by the debris of the
+glass and china which had fallen under her hands in the first moments of
+her passion. Unfortunately, too, Claire and her governess were gone out.
+A maid was occupied in inundating the old lady with all sorts of waters,
+in the hope of calming her nerves.
+
+She received Daburon as a messenger direct from Providence. In a little
+more than half an hour, she told her story, interlarded with numerous
+interjections and imprecations.
+
+“Do you comprehend this judge?” cried she. “He must be some frantic
+Jacobin,--some son of the furies, who washed their hands in the blood of
+their king. Ah! my friend, I read stupor and indignation in your glance.
+He listened to the complaint of that impudent scoundrel whom I enabled
+to live by employing him! And when I addressed some severe remonstrances
+to this judge, as it was my duty to do, he had me turned out! Do you
+hear? turned out!”
+
+At this painful recollection, she made a menacing gesture with her arm.
+In her sudden movement, she struck a handsome scent bottle that her maid
+held in her hand. The force of the blow sent it to the other end of the
+room, where it broke into pieces.
+
+“Stupid, awkward fool!” cried the marchioness, venting her anger upon
+the frightened girl.
+
+M. Daburon, bewildered at first, now endeavored to calm her
+exasperation. She did not allow him to pronounce three words.
+
+“Happily you are here,” she continued; “you are always willing to serve
+me, I know. I count upon you! you will exercise your influence, your
+powerful friends, your credit, to have this pitiful painter and this
+miscreant of a judge flung into some deep ditch, to teach them the
+respect due to a woman of my rank.”
+
+The magistrate did not permit himself even to smile at this imperative
+demand. He had heard many speeches as absurd issue from her lips without
+ever making fun of them. Was she not Claire’s grandmother? for that
+alone he loved and venerated her. He blessed her for her granddaughter,
+as an admirer of nature blesses heaven for the wild flower that delights
+him with its perfume.
+
+The fury of the old lady was terrible; nor was it of short duration. At
+the end of an hour, however, she was, or appeared to be, pacified. They
+replaced her head-dress, repaired the disorder of her toilette, and
+picked up the fragments of broken glass and china. Vanquished by her
+own violence, the reaction was immediate and complete. She fell back
+helpless and exhausted into an arm-chair.
+
+This magnificent result was due to the magistrate. To accomplish it, he
+had had to use all his ability, to exercise the most angelic patience,
+the greatest tact. His triumph was the more meritorious, because he
+came completely unprepared for this adventure, which interfered with his
+intended proposal. The first time that he had felt sufficient courage
+to speak, fortune seemed to declare against him, for this untoward event
+had quite upset his plans.
+
+Arming himself, however, with his professional eloquence, he talked the
+old lady into calmness. He was not so foolish as to contradict her. On
+the contrary, he caressed her hobby. He was humorous and pathetic by
+turns. He attacked the authors of the revolution, cursed its errors,
+deplored its crimes, and almost wept over its disastrous results.
+Commencing with the infamous Marat he eventually reached the rascal of a
+judge who had offended her. He abused his scandalous conduct in good set
+terms, and was exceedingly severe upon the dishonest scamp of a painter.
+However, he thought it best to let them off the punishment they so
+richly deserved; and ended by suggesting that it would perhaps be
+prudent, wise, noble even to pay.
+
+The unfortunate word “pay” brought Madame d’Arlange to her feet in the
+fiercest attitude.
+
+“Pay!” she screamed. “In order that these scoundrels may persist in
+their obduracy! Encourage them by a culpable weakness! Never! Besides to
+pay one must have money! and I have none!”
+
+“Why!” said M. Daburon, “it amounts to but eighty-seven francs!”
+
+“And is that nothing?” asked the marchioness; “you talk very foolishly,
+my dear sir. It is easy to see that you have money; your ancestors were
+people of no rank; and the revolution passed a hundred feet above their
+heads. Who can tell whether they may not have been the gainers by it? It
+took all from the d’Arlanges. What will they do to me, if I do not pay?”
+
+“Well, madame, they can do many things; almost ruin you, in costs. They
+may seize your furniture.”
+
+“Alas!” cried the old lady, “the revolution is not ended yet. We shall
+all be swallowed up by it, my poor Daburon! Ah! you are happy, you who
+belong to the people! I see plainly that I must pay this man without
+delay, and it is frightfully sad for me, for I have nothing, and am
+forced to make such sacrifices for the sake of my grandchild!”
+
+This statement surprised the magistrate so strongly that involuntarily
+he repeated half-aloud, “Sacrifices?”
+
+“Certainly!” resumed Madame d’Arlange. “Without her, would I have to
+live as I am doing, refusing myself everything to make both ends meet?
+Not a bit of it! I would invest my fortune in a life annuity. But I
+know, thank heaven, the duties of a mother; and I economise all I can
+for my little Claire.”
+
+This devotion appeared so admirable to M. Daburon, that he could not
+utter a word.
+
+“Ah! I am terribly anxious about this dear child,” continued the
+marchioness. “I confess M. Daburon, it makes me giddy when I wonder how
+I am to marry her.”
+
+The magistrate reddened with pleasure. At last his opportunity had
+arrived; he must take advantage of it at once.
+
+“It seems to me,” stammered he, “that to find Mademoiselle Claire a
+husband ought not to be difficult.”
+
+“Unfortunately, it is. She is pretty enough, I admit, although rather
+thin, but, now-a-days, beauty goes for nothing. Men are so mercenary
+they think only of money. I do not know of one who has the manhood to
+take a d’Arlange with her bright eyes for a dowry.”
+
+“I believe that you exaggerate,” remarked M. Daburon, timidly.
+
+“By no means. Trust to my experience which is far greater than yours.
+Besides, when I find a son-in-law, he will cause me a thousand troubles.
+Of this, I am assured by my lawyer. I shall be compelled, it seems, to
+render an account of Claire’s patrimony. As if ever I kept accounts!
+It is shameful! Ah! if Claire had any sense of filial duty, she would
+quietly take the veil in some convent. I would use every effort to pay
+the necessary dower; but she has no affection for me.”
+
+M. Daburon felt that now was the time to speak. He collected his
+courage, as a good horseman pulls his horse together when going to leap
+a hedge, and in a voice, which he tried to render firm, he said: “Well!
+Madame, I believe I know a party who would suit Mademoiselle Claire,--an
+honest man, who loves her, and who will do everything in the world to
+make her happy.”
+
+“That,” said Madame d’Arlange, “is always understood.”
+
+“The man of whom I speak,” continued the magistrate, “is still young,
+and is rich. He will be only too happy to receive Mademoiselle Claire
+without a dowry. Not only will he decline an examination of your
+accounts of guardianship, but he will beg you to invest your fortune as
+you think fit.”
+
+“Really! Daburon, my friend, you are by no means a fool!” exclaimed the
+old lady.
+
+“If you prefer not to invest your fortune in a life-annuity, your
+son-in-law will allow you sufficient to make up what you now find
+wanting.”
+
+“Ah! really I am stifling,” interrupted the marchioness. “What! you know
+such a man, and have never yet mentioned him to me! You ought to have
+introduced him long ago.”
+
+“I did not dare, madame, I was afraid--”
+
+“Quick! tell me who is this admirable son-in-law, this white blackbird?
+where does he nestle?”
+
+The magistrate felt a strange fluttering of the heart; he was going
+to stake his happiness on a word. At length he stammered, “It is I,
+madame!”
+
+His voice, his look, his gesture were beseeching. He was surprised at
+his own audacity, frightened at having vanquished his timidity, and was
+on the point of falling at the old lady’s feet. She, however, laughed
+until the tears came into her eyes, then shrugging her shoulders, she
+said: “Really, dear Daburon is too ridiculous, he will make me die of
+laughing! He is so amusing!” After which she burst out laughing again.
+But suddenly she stopped, in the very height of her merriment, and
+assumed her most dignified air. “Are you perfectly serious in all you
+have told me, M. Daburon?” she asked.
+
+“I have stated the truth,” murmured the magistrate.
+
+“You are then very rich?”
+
+“I inherited, madame, from my mother, about twenty thousand francs a
+year. One of my uncles, who died last year, bequeathed me over a hundred
+thousand crowns. My father is worth about a million. Were I to ask him
+for the half to-morrow, he would give it to me; he would give me all
+his fortune, if it were necessary to my happiness, and be but too well
+contented, should I leave him the administration of it.”
+
+Madame d’Arlange signed to him to be silent; and, for five good minutes
+at least, she remained plunged in reflection, her forehead resting in
+her hands. At length she raised her head.
+
+“Listen,” said she. “Had you been so bold as to make this proposal to
+Claire’s father, he would have called his servants to show you the door.
+For the sake of our name I ought to do the same; but I cannot do so. I
+am old and desolate; I am poor; my grandchild’s prospects disquiet me;
+that is my excuse. I cannot, however, consent to speak to Claire of this
+horrible misalliance. What I can promise you, and that is too much,
+is that I will not be against you. Take your own measures; pay your
+addresses to Mademoiselle d’Arlange, and try to persuade her. If she
+says ‘yes,’ of her own free will, I shall not say ‘no.’”
+
+M. Daburon, transported with happiness, could almost have embraced the
+old lady. He thought her the best, the most excellent of women, not
+noticing the facility with which this proud spirit had been brought to
+yield. He was delirious, almost mad.
+
+“Wait!” said the old lady; “your cause is not yet gained. Your mother,
+it is true, was a Cottevise, and I must excuse her for marrying so
+wretchedly; but your father is simple M. Daburon. This name, my dear
+friend, is simply ridiculous. Do you think it will be easy to make a
+Daburon of a young girl who for nearly eighteen years has been called
+d’Arlange?”
+
+This objection did not seem to trouble the magistrate.
+
+“After all,” continued the old lady, “your father gained a Cottevise,
+so you may win a d’Arlange. On the strength of marrying into noble
+families, the Daburons may perhaps end by ennobling themselves. One last
+piece of advice; you believe Claire to be just as she looks,--timid,
+sweet, obedient. Undeceive yourself, my friend. Despite her innocent
+air, she is hardy, fierce, and obstinate as the marquis her father, who
+was worse than an Auvergne mule. Now you are warned. Our conditions are
+agreed to, are they not? Let us say no more on the subject. I almost
+wish you to succeed.”
+
+This scene was so present to the magistrate’s mind, that as he sat at
+home in his arm-chair, though many months had passed since these events,
+he still seemed to hear the old lady’s voice, and the word “success”
+ still sounded in his ears.
+
+He departed in triumph from the d’Arlange abode, which he had entered
+with a heart swelling with anxiety. He walked with his head erect, his
+chest dilated, and breathing the fresh air with the full strength of his
+lungs. He was so happy! The sky appeared to him more blue, the sun
+more brilliant. This grave magistrate felt a mad desire to stop the
+passers-by, to press them in his arms, to cry to them,--“Have you heard?
+The marchioness consents!”
+
+He walked, and the earth seemed to him to give way beneath his
+footsteps; it was either too small to carry so much happiness, or else
+he had become so light that he was going to fly away towards the stars.
+
+What castles in the air he built upon what Madame d’Arlange had said to
+him! He would tender his resignation. He would build on the banks of the
+Loire, not far from Tours, an enchanting little villa. He already saw
+it, with its facade to the rising sun, nestling in the midst of flowers,
+and shaded with wide-spreading trees. He furnished this dwelling in the
+most luxuriant style. He wished to provide a marvellous casket, worthy
+the pearl he was about to possess. For he had not a doubt; not a cloud
+obscured the horizon made radiant by his hopes, no voice at the bottom
+of his heart raised itself to cry, “Beware!”
+
+From that day, his visits to the marchioness became more frequent.
+He might almost be said to live at her house. While he preserved his
+respectful and reserved demeanour towards Claire, he strove assiduously
+to be something in her life. True love is ingenious. He learnt to
+overcome his timidity, to speak to the well-beloved of his soul, to
+encourage her to converse with him, to interest her. He went in quest
+of all the news, to amuse her. He read all the new books, and brought to
+her all that were fit for her to read.
+
+Little by little he succeeded, thanks to the most delicate persistence,
+in taming this shy young girl. He began to perceive that her fear of him
+had almost disappeared, that she no longer received him with the cold
+and haughty air which had previously kept him at a distance. He felt
+that he was insensibly gaining her confidence. She still blushed when
+she spoke to him; but she no longer hesitated to address the first word.
+She even ventured at times to ask him a question. If she had heard a
+play well spoken of and wished to know the subject, M. Daburon would at
+once go to see it, and commit a complete account of it to writing, which
+he would send her through the post. At times she intrusted him with
+trifling commissions, the execution of which he would not have exchanged
+for the Russian embassy.
+
+Once he ventured to send her a magnificent bouquet. She accepted it with
+an air of uneasy surprise, but begged him not to repeat the offering.
+
+The tears came to his eyes; he left her presence broken-hearted, and the
+unhappiest of men. “She does not love me,” thought he, “she will never
+love me.” But, three days after, as he looked very sad, she begged him
+to procure her certain flowers, then very much in fashion, which she
+wished to place on her flower-stand. He sent enough to fill the house
+from the garret to the cellar. “She will love me,” he whispered to
+himself in his joy.
+
+These events, so trifling but yet so great, had not interrupted the
+games of piquet; only the young girl now appeared to interest herself
+in the play, nearly always taking the magistrate’s side against the
+marchioness. She did not understand the game very well; but, when
+the old gambler cheated too openly, she would notice it, and say,
+laughingly,--“She is robbing you, M. Daburon,--she is robbing you!” He
+would willingly have been robbed of his entire fortune, to hear that
+sweet voice raised on his behalf.
+
+It was summer time. Often in the evening she accepted his arm, and,
+while the marchioness remained at the window, seated in her arm-chair,
+they walked around the lawn, treading lightly upon the paths spread with
+gravel sifted so fine that the trailing of her light dress effaced the
+traces of their footsteps. She chatted gaily with him, as with a beloved
+brother, while he was obliged to do violence to his feelings, to refrain
+from imprinting a kiss upon the little blonde head, from which the light
+breeze lifted the curls and scattered them like fleecy clouds. At such
+moments, he seemed to tread an enchanted path strewn with flowers, at
+the end of which appeared happiness.
+
+When he attempted to speak of his hopes to the marchioness, she would
+say: “You know what we agreed upon. Not a word. Already does the
+voice of conscience reproach me for lending my countenance to such an
+abomination. To think that I may one day have a granddaughter calling
+herself Madame Daburon! You must petition the king, my friend, to change
+your name.”
+
+If instead of intoxicating himself with dreams of happiness, this acute
+observer had studied the character of his idol, the effect might have
+been to put him upon his guard. In the meanwhile, he noticed singular
+alterations in her humour. On certain days, she was gay and careless
+as a child. Then, for a week, she would remain melancholy and dejected.
+Seeing her in this state the day following a ball, to which her
+grandmother had made a point of taking her, he dared to ask her the
+reason of her sadness.
+
+“Oh! that,” answered she, heaving a deep sigh, “is my secret,--a secret
+of which even my grandmother knows nothing.”
+
+M. Daburon looked at her. He thought he saw a tear between her long
+eyelashes.
+
+“One day,” continued she, “I may confide in you: it will perhaps be
+necessary.”
+
+The magistrate was blind and deaf. “I also,” answered he, “have a
+secret, which I wish to confide to you in return.”
+
+When he retired towards midnight, he said to himself, “To-morrow I will
+confess everything to her.” Then passed a little more than fifty days,
+during which he kept repeating to himself,--“To-morrow!”
+
+It happened at last one evening in the month of August; the heat all
+day had been overpowering; towards dusk a breeze had risen, the leaves
+rustled; there were signs of a storm in the atmosphere.
+
+They were seated together at the bottom of the garden, under the arbour,
+adorned with exotic plants, and, through the branches, they perceived
+the fluttering gown of the marchioness, who was taking a turn after her
+dinner. They had remained a long time without speaking, enjoying the
+perfume of the flowers, the calm beauty of the evening.
+
+M. Daburon ventured to take the young girl’s hand. It was the first
+time, and the touch of her fine skin thrilled through every fibre of his
+frame, and drove the blood surging to his brain.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” stammered he, “Claire--”
+
+She turned towards him her beautiful eyes, filled with astonishment.
+
+“Forgive me,” continued he, “forgive me. I have spoken to your
+grandmother, before daring to raise my eyes to you. Do you not
+understand me? A word from your lips will decide my future happiness or
+misery. Claire, mademoiselle, do not spurn me: I love you!”
+
+While the magistrate was speaking, Mademoiselle d’Arlange looked at him
+as though doubtful of the evidence of her senses; but at the words, “I
+love you!” pronounced with the trembling accents of the most devoted
+passion, she disengaged her hand sharply, and uttered a stifled cry.
+
+“You,” murmured she, “is this really you?”
+
+M. Daburon, at this the most critical moment of his life was powerless
+to utter a word. The presentiment of an immense misfortune oppressed his
+heart. What were then his feelings, when he saw Claire burst into tears.
+She hid her face in her hands, and kept repeating,--
+
+“I am very unhappy, very unhappy!”
+
+“You unhappy?” exclaimed the magistrate at length, “and through me?
+Claire, you are cruel! In heaven’s name, what have I done? What is the
+matter? Speak! Anything rather then this anxiety which is killing me.”
+
+He knelt before her on the gravelled walk, and again made an attempt to
+take her hand. She repulsed him with an imploring gesture.
+
+“Let me weep,” said she: “I suffer so much, you are going to hate me,
+I feel it. Who knows! you will, perhaps, despise me, and yet I swear
+before heaven that I never expected what you have just said to me, that
+I had not even a suspicion of it!”
+
+M. Daburon remained upon his knees, awaiting his doom.
+
+“Yes,” continued Claire, “you will think you have been the victim of a
+detestable coquetry. I see it now! I comprehend everything! It is not
+possible, that, without a profound love, a man can be all that you
+have been to me. Alas! I was but a child. I gave myself up to the great
+happiness of having a friend! Am I not alone in the world, and as if
+lost in a desert? Silly and imprudent, I thoughtlessly confided in you,
+as in the best, the most indulgent of fathers.”
+
+These words revealed to the unfortunate magistrate the extent of
+his error. The same as a heavy hammer, they smashed into a thousand
+fragments the fragile edifice of his hopes. He raised himself slowly,
+and, in a tone of involuntary reproach, he repeated,--“Your father!”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange felt how deeply she had wounded this man whose
+intense love she dare not even fathom. “Yes,” she resumed, “I love you
+as a father! Seeing you, usually so grave and austere, become for me
+so good, so indulgent, I thanked heaven for sending me a protector to
+replace those who are dead.”
+
+M. Daburon could not restrain a sob; his heart was breaking.
+
+“One word,” continued Claire,--“one single word, would have enlightened
+me. Why did you not pronounce it! It was with such happiness that I
+leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said
+to myself, ‘I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the
+overflow of mine!’ Ah! why was not my confidence greater? Why did I
+withhold my secret from you? I might have avoided this fearful calamity.
+I ought to have told you long since. I no longer belong to myself freely
+and with happiness, I have given my life to another.”
+
+To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such
+was M. Daburon’s fate; his sufferings are not to be described.
+
+“Far better to have spoken,” answered he; “yet no. I owe to your
+silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of
+enchanting dreams. This shall be my share of life’s happiness.”
+
+The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange. Her beautiful face had the whiteness and the
+immobility of marble. Heavy tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It
+seemed to M. Daburon that he was beholding the frightful spectacle of a
+weeping statue.
+
+“You love another,” said he at length, “another! And your grandmother
+does not know it. Claire, you can only have chosen a man worthy of your
+love. How is it the marchioness does not receive him?”
+
+“There are certain obstacles,” murmured Claire, “obstacles which perhaps
+we may never be able to remove; but a girl like me can love but once.
+She marries him she loves, or she belongs to heaven!”
+
+“Certain obstacles!” said M. Daburon in a hollow voice. “You love a man,
+he knows it, and he is stopped by obstacles?”
+
+“I am poor,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “and his family is
+immensely rich. His father is cruel, inexorable.”
+
+“His father,” cried the magistrate, with a bitterness he did not dream
+of hiding, “his father, his family, and that withholds him! You are
+poor, he is rich, and that stops him! And yet he knows you love him!
+Ah! why am I not in his place? and why have I not the entire universe
+against me? What sacrifice can compare with love? such as I understand
+it. Nay, would it be a sacrifice? That which appears most so, is it not
+really an immense joy? To suffer, to struggle, to wait, to hope always,
+to devote oneself entirely to another; that is my idea of love.”
+
+“It is thus I love,” said Claire with simplicity.
+
+This answer crushed the magistrate. He could understand it. He knew that
+for him there was no hope; but he felt a terrible enjoyment in torturing
+himself, and proving his misfortune by intense suffering.
+
+“But,” insisted he, “how have you known him, spoken to him? Where? When?
+Madame d’Arlange receives no one.”
+
+“I ought now to tell you everything, sir,” answered Claire proudly.
+“I have known him for a long time. It was at the house of one of my
+grandmother’s friends, who is a cousin of his,--old Mademoiselle Goello,
+that I saw him for the first time. There we spoke to each other; there
+we meet each other now.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed M. Daburon, whose eyes were suddenly opened, “I remember
+now. A few days before your visit to Mademoiselle Goello, you are gayer
+than usual; and, when you return, you are often sad.”
+
+“That is because I see how much he is pained by the obstacles he cannot
+overcome.”
+
+“Is his family, then, so illustrious,” asked the magistrate harshly,
+“that it disdains alliance with yours?”
+
+“I should have told you everything, without waiting to be questioned,
+sir,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “even his name. He is called
+Albert de Commarin.”
+
+The marchioness at this moment, thinking she had walked enough,
+was preparing to return to her rose-coloured boudoir. She therefore
+approached the arbour, and exclaimed in her loud voice:--
+
+“Worthy magistrate, piquet awaits you.”
+
+Mechanically the magistrate arose, stammering, “I am coming.”
+
+Claire held him back. “I have not asked you to keep my secret, sir,”
+ said she.
+
+“O mademoiselle!” said M. Daburon, wounded by this appearance of doubt.
+
+“I know,” resumed Claire, “that I can count upon you; but, come what
+will, my tranquillity is gone.”
+
+M. Daburon looked at her with an air of surprise; his eyes questioned
+her.
+
+“It is certain,” continued she, “that what I, a young and inexperienced
+girl, have failed to see, has not passed unnoticed by my grandmother.
+That she has continued to receive you is a tacit encouragement of your
+addresses; which I consider, permit me to say, as very honourable to
+myself.”
+
+“I have already mentioned, mademoiselle,” replied the magistrate, “that
+the marchioness has deigned to authorise my hopes.”
+
+And briefly he related his interview with Madame d’Arlange, having the
+delicacy, however, to omit absolutely the question of money, which had
+so strongly influenced the old lady.
+
+“I see very plainly what effect this will have on my peace,” said Claire
+sadly. “When my grandmother learns that I have not received your homage,
+she will be very angry.”
+
+“You misjudge me, mademoiselle,” interrupted M. Daburon. “I have nothing
+to say to the marchioness. I will retire, and all will be concluded. No
+doubt she will think that I have altered my mind!”
+
+“Oh! you are good and generous, I know!”
+
+“I will go away,” pursued M. Daburon; “and soon you will have forgotten
+even the name of the unfortunate whose life’s hopes have just been
+shattered.”
+
+“You do not mean what you say,” said the young girl quickly.
+
+“Well, no. I cherish this last illusion, that later on you will remember
+me with pleasure. Sometimes you will say, ‘He loved me,’ I wish all the
+same to remain your friend, yes, your most devoted friend.”
+
+Claire, in her turn, clasped M. Daburon’s hands, and said with great
+emotion:--“Yes, you are right, you must remain my friend. Let us forget
+what has happened, what you have said to-night, and remain to me, as in
+the past, the best, the most indulgent of brothers.”
+
+Darkness had come, and she could not see him; but she knew he was
+weeping, for he was slow to answer.
+
+“Is it possible,” murmured he at length, “what you ask of me? What! is
+it you who talk to me of forgetting? Do you feel the power to forget?
+Do you not see that I love you a thousand times more than you love--”
+ He stopped, unable to pronounce the name of Commarin; and then, with an
+effort he added: “And I shall love you always.”
+
+They had left the arbour, and were now standing not far from the steps
+leading to the house.
+
+“And now, mademoiselle,” resumed M. Daburon, “permit me to say, adieu!
+You will see me again but seldom. I shall only return often enough to
+avoid the appearance of a rupture.”
+
+His voice trembled, so that it was with difficulty he made it distinct.
+
+“Whatever may happen,” he added, “remember that there is one unfortunate
+being in the world who belongs to you absolutely. If ever you have need
+of a friend’s devotion, come to me, come to your friend. Now it is over
+. . . I have courage. Claire, mademoiselle, for the last time, adieu!”
+
+She was but little less moved than he was. Instinctively she approached
+him, and for the first and last time he touched lightly with his cold
+lips the forehead of her he loved so well. They mounted the steps, she
+leaning on his arm, and entered the rose-coloured boudoir where the
+marchioness was seated, impatiently shuffling the cards, while awaiting
+her victim.
+
+“Now, then, incorruptible magistrate,” cried she.
+
+But M. Daburon felt sick at heart. He could not have held the cards. He
+stammered some absurd excuses, spoke of pressing affairs, of duties to
+be attended to, of feeling suddenly unwell, and went out, clinging to
+the walls.
+
+His departure made the old card-player highly indignant. She turned to
+her grand-daughter, who had gone to hide her confusion away from the
+candles of the card table, and asked, “What is the matter with Daburon
+this evening?”
+
+“I do not know, madame,” stammered Claire.
+
+“It appears to me,” continued the marchioness, “that the little
+magistrate permits himself to take singular liberties. He must be
+reminded of his proper place, or he will end by believing himself our
+equal.”
+
+Claire tried to explain the magistrate’s conduct: “He has been
+complaining all the evening, grandmamma; perhaps he is unwell.”
+
+“And what if he is?” exclaimed the old lady. “Is it not his duty to
+exercise some self-denial, in return for the honour of our company? I
+think I have already related to you the story of your granduncle, the
+Duke de St Hurluge, who, having been chosen to join the king’s card
+party on their return from the chase, played all through the evening and
+lost with the best grace in the world two hundred and twenty pistoles.
+All the assembly remarked his gaiety and his good humour. On the
+following day only it was learned, that, during the hunt, he had fallen
+from his horse, and had sat at his majesty’s card table with a broken
+rib. Nobody made any remark, so perfectly natural did this act of
+ordinary politeness appear in those days. This little Daburon, if he is
+unwell, would have given proof of his breeding by saying nothing about
+it, and remaining for my piquet. But he is as well as I am. Who can tell
+what games he has gone to play elsewhere!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+M. Daburon did not return home on leaving Mademoiselle d’Arlange. All
+through the night he wandered about at random, seeking to cool his
+heated brow, and to allay his excessive weariness.
+
+“Fool that I was!” said he to himself, “thousand times fool to have
+hoped, to have believed, that she would ever love me. Madman! how
+could I have dared to dream of possessing so much grace, nobleness, and
+beauty! How charming she was this evening, when her face was bathed in
+tears! Could anything be more angelic? What a sublime expression her
+eyes had in speaking of him! How she must love him! And I? She loves me
+as a father, she told me so,--as a father! And could it be otherwise?
+Is it not justice? Could she see a lover in a sombre and severe-looking
+magistrate, always as sad as his black coat? Was it not a crime to dream
+of uniting that virginal simplicity to my detestable knowledge of the
+world? For her, the future is yet the land of smiling chimeras; and long
+since experience has dissipated all my illusions. She is as young as
+innocence, and I am as old as vice.”
+
+The unfortunate magistrate felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. He
+understood Claire, and excused her. He reproached himself for having
+shown her how he suffered; for having cast a shadow upon her life. He
+could not forgive himself for having spoken of his love. Ought he not
+to have foreseen what had happened?--that she would refuse him, that he
+would thus deprive himself of the happiness of seeing her, of hearing
+her, and of silently adoring her?
+
+“A young and romantic girl,” pursued he, “must have a lover she can
+dream of,--whom she can caress in imagination, as an ideal, gratifying
+herself by seeing in him every great and brilliant quality, imagining
+him full of nobleness, of bravery, of heroism. What would she see,
+if, in my absence, she dreamed of me? Her imagination would present me
+dressed in a funeral robe, in the depth of a gloomy dungeon, engaged
+with some vile criminal. Is it not my trade to descend into all moral
+sinks, to stir up the foulness of crime? Am I not compelled to wash
+in secrecy and darkness the dirty linen of the most corrupt members of
+society? Ah! some professions are fatal. Ought not the magistrate, like
+the priest, to condemn himself to solitude and celibacy? Both know all,
+they hear all, their costumes are nearly the same; but, while the priest
+carries consolation in the folds of his black robe, the magistrate
+conveys terror. One is mercy, the other chastisement. Such are the
+images a thought of me would awaken; while the other,--the other--”
+
+The wretched man continued his headlong course along the deserted quays.
+He went with his head bare, his eyes haggard. To breathe more freely, he
+had torn off his cravat and thrown it to the winds.
+
+Sometimes, unconsciously, he crossed the path of a solitary wayfarer,
+who would pause, touched with pity, and turn to watch the retreating
+figure of the unfortunate wretch he thought deprived of reason. In a
+by-road, near Grenelle, some police officers stopped him, and tried to
+question him. He mechanically tendered them his card. They read it, and
+permitted him to pass, convinced that he was drunk.
+
+Anger,--a furious anger, began to replace his first feeling of
+resignation. In his heart arose a hate, stronger and more violent than
+even his love for Claire. That other, that preferred one, that haughty
+viscount, who could not overcome those paltry obstacles, oh, that he had
+him there, under his knee!
+
+At that moment, this noble and proud man, this severe and grave
+magistrate experienced an irresistible longing for vengeance. He began
+to understand the hate that arms itself with a knife, and lays in ambush
+in out-of-the-way places; which strikes in the dark, whether in front
+or from behind matters little, but which strikes, which kills, whose
+vengeance blood alone can satisfy.
+
+At that very hour he was supposed to be occupied with an inquiry
+into the case of an unfortunate, accused of having stabbed one of her
+wretched companions. She was jealous of the woman, who had tried to
+take her lover from her. He was a soldier, coarse in manners, and always
+drunk.
+
+M. Daburon felt himself seized with pity for this miserable creature,
+whom he had commenced to examine the day before. She was very ugly, in
+fact truly repulsive; but the expression of the eyes, when speaking of
+her soldier, returned to the magistrate’s memory.
+
+“She loves him sincerely,” thought he. “If each one of the jurors had
+suffered what I am suffering now, she would be acquitted. But how many
+men in this world have loved passionately? Perhaps not one in twenty.”
+
+He resolved to recommend this girl to the indulgence of the tribunal,
+and to extenuate as much as possible her guilt.
+
+For he himself had just determined upon the commission of a crime. He
+was resolved to kill Albert de Commarin.
+
+During the rest of the night he became all the more determined in this
+resolution, demonstrating to himself by a thousand mad reasons, which he
+found solid and inscrutable, the necessity for and the justifiableness
+of this vengeance.
+
+At seven o’clock in the morning, he found himself in an avenue of the
+Bois de Boulogne, not far from the lake. He made at once for the Porte
+Maillot, procured a cab, and was driven to his house.
+
+The delirium of the night continued, but without suffering. He was
+conscious of no fatigue. Calm and cool, he acted under the power of an
+hallucination, almost like a somnambulist.
+
+He reflected and reasoned, but without his reason. As soon as he arrived
+home he dressed himself with care, as was his custom formerly when
+visiting the Marchioness d’Arlange, and went out. He first called at an
+armourer’s and bought a small revolver, which he caused to be carefully
+loaded under his own eyes, and put it into his pocket. He then called on
+the different persons he supposed capable of informing him to what club
+the viscount belonged. No one noticed the strange state of his mind, so
+natural were his manners and conversations.
+
+It was not until the afternoon that a young friend of his gave him the
+name of Albert de Commarin’s club, and offered to conduct him thither,
+as he too was a member.
+
+M. Daburon accepted warmly, and accompanied his friend. While passing
+along, he grasped with frenzy the handle of the revolver which he kept
+concealed, thinking only of the murder he was determined to commit, and
+the means of insuring the accuracy of his aim.
+
+“This will make a terrible scandal,” thought he, “above all if I do not
+succeed in blowing my own brains out. I shall be arrested, thrown
+into prison, and placed upon my trial at the assizes. My name will be
+dishonoured! Bah! what does that signify? Claire does not love me, so
+what care I for all the rest? My father no doubt will die of grief, but
+I must have my revenge!”
+
+On arriving at the club, his friend pointed out a very dark young man,
+with a haughty air, or what appeared so to him, who, seated at a table,
+was reading a review. It was the viscount.
+
+M. Daburon walked up to him without drawing his revolver. But when
+within two paces, his heart failed him; he turned suddenly and fled,
+leaving his friend astonished at a scene, to him, utterly inexplicable.
+
+Only once again will Albert de Commarin be as near death.
+
+On reaching the street, it seemed to M. Daburon that the ground was
+receding from beneath him, that everything was turning around him. He
+tried to cry out, but could not utter a sound; he struck at the air with
+his hands, reeled for an instant, and then fell all of a heap on the
+pavement.
+
+The passers-by ran and assisted the police to raise him. In one of his
+pockets they found his address, and carried him home. When he recovered
+his senses, he was in his bed, at the foot of which he perceived his
+father.
+
+“What has happened?” he asked. With much caution they told him, that
+for six weeks he had wavered between life and death. The doctors had
+declared his life saved; and, now that reason was restored, all would go
+well.
+
+Five minutes’ conversation exhausted him. He shut his eyes, and tried to
+collect his ideas; but they whirled hither and thither wildly, as autumn
+leaves in the wind. The past seemed shrouded in a dark mist; yet, in
+the midst of the darkness and confusion, all that concerned Mademoiselle
+d’Arlange stood out clear and luminous. All his actions from the moment
+when he embraced Claire appeared before him. He shuddered, and his hair
+was in a moment soaking with perspiration.
+
+He had almost become an assassin. The proof that he was restored to full
+possession of his faculties was, that a question of criminal law crossed
+his brain.
+
+“The crime committed,” said he to himself, “should I have been
+condemned? Yes. Was I responsible? No. Is crime merely the result of
+mental alienation? Was I mad? Or was I in that peculiar state of mind
+which usually precedes an illegal attempt? Who can say? Why have not all
+judges passed through an incomprehensible crisis such as mine? But who
+would believe me, were I to recount my experience?”
+
+Some days later, he was sufficiently recovered to tell his father all.
+The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders, and assured him it was but a
+reminiscence of his delirium.
+
+The good old man was moved at the story of his son’s luckless wooing,
+without seeing therein, however, an irreparable misfortune. He advised
+him to think of something else, placed at his disposal his entire
+fortune, and recommended him to marry a stout Poitevine heiress, very
+gay and healthy, who would bear him some fine children. Then, as his
+estate was suffering by his absence, he returned home. Two months later,
+the investigating magistrate had resumed his ordinary avocations. But
+try as he would, he only went through his duties like a body without a
+soul. He felt that something was broken.
+
+Once he ventured to pay a visit to his old friend, the marchioness. On
+seeing him, she uttered a cry of terror. She took him for a spectre, so
+much was he changed in appearance.
+
+As she dreaded dismal faces, she ever after shut her door to him.
+
+Claire was ill for a week after seeing him. “How he loved me,” thought
+she! “It has almost killed him! Can Albert love me as much?” She did not
+dare to answer herself. She felt a desire to console him, to speak to
+him, attempt something; but he came no more.
+
+M. Daburon was not, however, a man to give way without a struggle. He
+tried, as his father advised him, to distract his thoughts. He sought
+for pleasure, and found disgust, but not forgetfulness. Often he went
+so far as the threshold of debauchery; but the pure figure of Claire,
+dressed in white garments, always barred the doors against him.
+
+Then he took refuge in work, as in a sanctuary; condemned himself to the
+most incessant labour, and forbade himself to think of Claire, as the
+consumptive forbids himself to meditate upon his malady.
+
+His eagerness, his feverish activity, earned him the reputation of an
+ambitious man, who would go far; but he cared for nothing in the world.
+
+At length, he found, not rest, but that painless benumbing which
+commonly follows a great catastrophe. The convalescence of oblivion was
+commencing.
+
+These were the events, recalled to M. Daburon’s mind when old Tabaret
+pronounced the name of Commarin. He believed them buried under the ashes
+of time; and behold they reappeared, just the same as those characters
+traced in sympathetic ink when held before a fire. In an instant they
+unrolled themselves before his memory, with the instantaneousness of a
+dream annihilating time and space.
+
+During some minutes, he assisted at the representation of his own life.
+At once actor and spectator, he was there seated in his arm-chair,
+and at the same time he appeared on the stage. He acted, and he judged
+himself.
+
+His first thought, it must be confessed, was one of hate, followed by
+a detestable feeling of satisfaction. Chance had, so to say, delivered
+into his hands this man preferred by Claire, this man, now no longer a
+haughty nobleman, illustrious by his fortune and his ancestors, but the
+illegitimate offspring of a courtesan. To retain a stolen name, he had
+committed a most cowardly assassination. And he, the magistrate, was
+about to experience the infinite gratification of striking his enemy
+with the sword of justice.
+
+But this was only a passing thought. The man’s upright conscience
+revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.
+
+“Is anything,” it cried, “more monstrous than the association of these
+two ideas,--hatred and justice? Can a magistrate, without despising
+himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect
+that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy? Has an
+investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers
+in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment
+against him?”
+
+M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during
+the year, when commencing a fresh investigation: “And I also, I almost
+stained myself with a vile murder!”
+
+And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and
+hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.
+
+All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention;
+but could he himself forget it? Was not this, of all others, a case in
+which he should decline to be mixed up? Ought he not to withdraw, and
+wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the
+task of avenging him in the name of society?
+
+“No,” said he, “it would be a cowardice unworthy of me.”
+
+A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man. “If I save
+him,” murmured he, “if for Claire’s sake I leave him his honour and his
+life. But how can I save him? To do so I shall be obliged to suppress
+old Tabaret’s discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his
+silence. We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running
+after some imaginary murderer. Is this practicable? Besides, to spare
+Albert is to defame Noel; it is to assure impunity to the most odious of
+crimes. In short, it is still sacrificing justice to my feelings.”
+
+The magistrate suffered greatly. How choose a path in the midst of
+so many perplexities! Impelled by different interests, he wavered,
+undecided between the most opposite decisions, his mind oscillating from
+one extreme to the other.
+
+What could he do? His reason after this new and unforeseen shock vainly
+sought to regain its equilibrium.
+
+“Resign?” said he to himself. “Where, then, would be my courage? Ought
+I not rather to remain the representative of the law, incapable of
+emotion, insensible to prejudice? am I so weak that, in assuming my
+office, I am unable to divest myself of my personality? Can I not, for
+the present, make abstraction of the past? My duty is to pursue this
+investigation. Claire herself would desire me to act thus. Would she wed
+a man suspected of a crime? Never. If he is innocent, he will be saved;
+if guilty, let him perish!”
+
+This was very sound reasoning; but, at the bottom of his heart, a
+thousand disquietudes darted their thorns. He wanted to reassure
+himself.
+
+“Do I still hate this young man?” he continued. “No, certainly. If
+Claire has preferred him to me, it is to Claire and not to him I owe my
+suffering. My rage was no more than a passing fit of delirium. I will
+prove it, by letting him find me as much a counsellor as a magistrate.
+If he is not guilty, he shall make use of all the means in my power to
+establish his innocence. Yes, I am worthy to be his judge. Heaven, who
+reads all my thoughts, sees that I love Claire enough to desire with all
+my heart the innocence of her lover.”
+
+Only then did M. Daburon seem to be vaguely aware of the lapse of time.
+It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
+
+“Goodness!” cried he; “why, old Tabaret is waiting for me. I shall
+probably find him asleep.”
+
+But M. Tabaret was not asleep. He had noticed the passage of time no
+more than the magistrate.
+
+Ten minutes had sufficed him to take an inventory of the contents of M.
+Daburon’s study, which was large, and handsomely furnished in accordance
+with his position and fortune. Taking up a lamp, he first admired six
+very valuable pictures, which ornamented the walls; he then examined
+with considerable curiosity some rare bronzes placed about the room, and
+bestowed on the bookcase the glance of a connoisseur.
+
+After which, taking an evening paper from the table, he approached the
+hearth, and seated himself in a vast armchair.
+
+He had not read a third of the leading article, which, like all leading
+articles of the time, was exclusively occupied with the Roman question,
+when, letting the paper drop from his hands, he became absorbed
+in meditation. The fixed idea, stronger than one’s will, and more
+interesting to him than politics, brought him forcibly back to La
+Jonchere, where lay the murdered Widow Lerouge. Like the child who again
+and again builds up and demolishes his house of cards, he arranged and
+entangled alternately his chain of inductions and arguments.
+
+In his own mind there was certainly no longer a doubt as regards this
+sad affair, and it seemed to him that M. Daburon shared his opinions.
+But yet, what difficulties there still remained to encounter!
+
+There exists between the investigating magistrate and the accused a
+supreme tribunal, an admirable institution which is a guarantee for all,
+a powerful moderator, the jury.
+
+And the jury, thank heaven! do not content themselves with a moral
+conviction. The strongest probabilities cannot induce them to give an
+affirmative verdict.
+
+Placed upon a neutral ground, between the prosecution and the defence,
+it demands material and tangible proofs. Where the magistrate would
+condemn twenty times for one, in all security of conscience, the jury
+acquit for lack of satisfying evidence.
+
+The deplorable execution of Lesurques has certainly assured impunity to
+many criminals; but, it is necessary to say it justifies hesitation in
+receiving circumstantial evidence in capital crimes.
+
+In short, save where a criminal is taken in the very act, or confesses
+his guilt, it is not certain that the minister of justice can secure a
+conviction. Sometimes the judge of inquiry is as anxious as the accused
+himself. Nearly all crimes are in some particular point mysterious,
+perhaps impenetrable to justice and the police; and the duty of the
+advocate is, to discover this weak point, and thereon establish his
+client’s defence. By pointing out this doubt to the jury, he insinuates
+in their minds a distrust of the entire evidence; and frequently the
+detection of a distorted induction, cleverly exposed, can change the
+face of a prosecution, and make a strong case appear to the jury a weak
+one. This uncertainty explains the character of passion which is so
+often perceptible in criminal trials.
+
+And, in proportion to the march of civilisation, juries in important
+trials will become more timid and hesitating. The weight of
+responsibility oppresses the man of conscientious scruple. Already
+numbers recoil from the idea of capital punishment; and, whenever a jury
+can find a peg to hang a doubt on, they will wash their hands of the
+responsibility of condemnation. We have seen numbers of persons signing
+appeals for mercy to a condemned malefactor, condemned for what crime?
+Parricide! Every juror, from the moment he is sworn, weighs infinitely
+less the evidence he has come to listen to than the risk he runs of
+incurring the pangs of remorse. Rather than risk the condemnation of one
+innocent man, he will allow twenty scoundrels to go unpunished.
+
+The accusation must then come before the jury, armed at all points, with
+abundant proofs. A task often tedious to the investigating magistrate,
+and bristling with difficulties, is the arrangement and condensation of
+this evidence, particularly when the accused is a cool hand, certain of
+having left no traces of his guilt. Then from the depths of his dungeon
+he defies the assault of justice, and laughs at the judge of inquiry. It
+is a terrible struggle, enough to make one tremble at the responsibility
+of the magistrate, when he remembers, that after all, this man
+imprisoned, without consolation or advice, may be innocent. How hard is
+it, then for the judge to resist his moral convictions!
+
+Even when presumptive evidence points clearly to the criminal,
+and common sense recognises him, justice is at times compelled to
+acknowledge her defeat, for lack of what the jury consider sufficient
+proof of guilt. Thus, unhappily, many crimes escape punishment. An old
+advocate-general said one day that he knew as many as three assassins,
+living rich, happy, and respected, who would probably end by dying in
+their beds, surrounded by their families, and being followed to
+the grave with lamentations, and praised for their virtues in their
+epitaphs.
+
+At the idea that a murderer might escape the penalty of his crime, and
+steal away from the assize court, old Tabaret’s blood fairly boiled in
+his veins, as at the recollection of some deadly insult.
+
+Such a monstrous event, in his opinion, could only proceed from the
+incapacity of those charged with the preliminary inquiry, the clumsiness
+of the police, or the stupidity of the investigating magistrate.
+
+“It is not I,” he muttered, with the satisfied vanity of success, “who
+would ever let my prey escape. No crime can be committed, of which the
+author cannot be found, unless, indeed, he happens to be a madman, whose
+motive it would be difficult to understand. I would pass my life in
+pursuit of a criminal, before avowing myself vanquished, as Gevrol has
+done so many times.”
+
+Assisted by chance, he had again succeeded, so he kept repeating to
+himself, but what proofs could he furnish to the accusation, to that
+confounded jury, so difficult to convince, so precise and so cowardly?
+What could he imagine to force so cunning a culprit to betray himself?
+What trap could he prepare? To what new and infallible stratagem could
+he have recourse?
+
+The amateur detective exhausted himself in subtle but impracticable
+combinations, always stopped by that exacting jury, so obnoxious to
+the agents of the Rue de Jerusalem. He was so deeply absorbed in his
+thoughts that he did not hear the door open, and was utterly unconscious
+of the magistrate’s presence.
+
+M. Daburon’s voice aroused him from his reverie.
+
+“You will excuse me, M. Tabaret, for having left you so long alone.”
+
+The old fellow rose and bowed respectfully.
+
+“By my faith, sir,” replied he, “I have not had the leisure to perceive
+my solitude.”
+
+M. Daburon crossed the room, and seated himself, facing his agent before
+a small table encumbered with papers and documents relating to the
+crime. He appeared very much fatigued.
+
+“I have reflected a good deal,” he commenced, “about this affair--”
+
+“And I,” interrupted old Tabaret, “was just asking myself what was
+likely to be the attitude assumed by the viscount at the moment of his
+arrest. Nothing is more important, according to my idea, than his manner
+of conducting himself then. Will he fly into a passion? Will he attempt
+to intimidate the agents? Will he threaten to turn them out of the
+house? These are generally the tactics of titled criminals. My opinion,
+however, is, that he will remain perfectly cool. He will declare himself
+the victim of a misunderstanding, and insist upon an immediate interview
+with the investigating magistrate. Once that is accorded him, he will
+explain everything very quickly.”
+
+The old fellow spoke of matters of speculation in such a tone of
+assurance that M. Daburon was unable to repress a smile.
+
+“We have not got as far as that yet,” said he.
+
+“But we shall, in a few hours,” replied M. Tabaret quickly. “I presume
+you will order young M. de Commarin’s arrest at daybreak.”
+
+The magistrate trembled, like the patient who sees the surgeon deposit
+his case of instruments upon the table on entering the room.
+
+The moment for action had come. He felt now what a distance lies between
+a mental decision and the physical action required to execute it.
+
+“You are prompt, M. Tabaret,” said he; “you recognize no obstacles.”
+
+“None, having ascertained the criminal. Who else can have committed this
+assassination? Who but he had an interest in silencing Widow Lerouge,
+in suppressing her testimony, in destroying her papers? He, and only he.
+Poor Noel! who is as dull as honesty, warned him, and he acted. Should
+we fail to establish his guilt, he will remain de Commarin more than
+ever; and my young advocate will be Noel Gerdy to the grave.”
+
+“Yes, but--”
+
+The old man fixed his eyes upon the magistrate with a look of
+astonishment.
+
+“You see, then, some difficulties, sir?” he asked.
+
+“Most decidedly!” replied M. Daburon. “This is a matter demanding the
+utmost circumspection. In cases like the present, one must not strike
+until the blow is sure, and we have but presumptions. Suppose we are
+mistaken. Justice, unhappily, cannot repair her errors. Her hand once
+unjustly placed upon a man, leaves an imprint of dishonour that can
+never be effaced. She may perceive her error, and proclaim it aloud,
+but in vain! Public opinion, absurd and idiotic, will not pardon the man
+guilty of being suspected.”
+
+It was with a sinking heart that the old fellow listened to these
+remarks. He would not be withheld by such paltry considerations.
+
+“Our suspicions are well grounded,” continued the magistrate. “But,
+should they lead us into error, our precipitation would be a terrible
+misfortune for this young man, to say nothing of the effect it would
+have in abridging the authority and dignity of justice, of weakening
+the respect which constitutes her power. Such a mistake would call for
+discussion, provoke examination, and awaken distrust, at an epoch in our
+history when all minds are but too much disposed to defy the constituted
+authorities.”
+
+He leaned upon the table, and appeared to reflect profoundly.
+
+“I have no luck,” thought old Tabaret. “I have to do with a trembler.
+When he should act, he makes speeches; instead of signing warrants, he
+propounds theories. He is astounded at my discovery, and is not equal to
+the situation. Instead of being delighted by my appearance with the news
+of our success, he would have given a twenty-franc piece, I dare say, to
+have been left undisturbed. Ah! he would very willingly have the little
+fishes in his net, but the big ones frighten him. The big fishes are
+dangerous, and he prefers to let them swim away.”
+
+“Perhaps,” said M. Daburon, aloud, “it will suffice to issue a
+search-warrant, and a summons for the appearance of the accused.”
+
+“Then all is lost!” cried old Tabaret.
+
+“And why, pray?”
+
+“Because we are opposed by a criminal of marked ability. A most
+providential accident has placed us upon his track. If we give him time
+to breathe, he will escape.”
+
+The only answer was an inclination of the head, which M. Daburon may
+have intended for a sign of assent.
+
+“It is evident,” continued the old fellow, “that our adversary has
+foreseen everything, absolutely everything, even the possibility of
+suspicion attaching to one in his high position. Oh! his precautions
+are all taken. If you are satisfied with demanding his appearance, he
+is saved. He will appear before you as tranquilly as your clerk, as
+unconcerned as if he came to arrange the preliminaries of a duel. He
+will present you with a magnificent _alibi_, an _alibi_ that can not be
+gainsayed. He will show you that he passed the evening and the night
+of Tuesday with personages of the highest rank. In short, his little
+machine will be so cleverly constructed, so nicely arranged, all its
+little wheels will play so well, that there will be nothing left for you
+but to open the door and usher him out with the most humble apologies.
+The only means of securing conviction is to surprise the miscreant by
+a rapidity against which it is impossible he can be on his guard. Fall
+upon him like a thunder-clap, arrest him as he wakes, drag him hither
+while yet pale with astonishment, and interrogate him at once. Ah! I
+wish I were an investigating magistrate.”
+
+Old Tabaret stopped short, frightened at the idea that he had been
+wanting in respect; but M. Daburon showed no sign of being offended.
+
+“Proceed,” said he, in a tone of encouragement, “proceed.”
+
+“Suppose, then,” continued the detective, “I am the investigating
+magistrate. I cause my man to be arrested, and, twenty minutes later,
+he is standing before me. I do not amuse myself by putting questions to
+him, more or less subtle. No, I go straight to the mark. I overwhelm him
+at once by the weight of my certainty, prove to him so clearly that I
+know everything, that he must surrender, seeing no chance of escape.
+I should say to him, ‘My good man, you bring me an _alibi_; it is very
+well; but I am acquainted with that system of defence. It will not do
+with me. I know all about the clocks that don’t keep proper time, and
+all the people who never lost sight of you. In the meantime, this is
+what you did. At twenty minutes past eight, you slipped away adroitly;
+at thirty-five minutes past eight, you took the train at the St Lazare
+station; at nine o’clock, you alighted at the station at Rueil, and
+took the road to La Jonchere; at a quarter past nine, you knocked at the
+window-shutter of Widow Lerouge’s cottage. You were admitted. You asked
+for something to eat, and, above all, something to drink. At twenty
+minutes past nine, you planted the well-sharpened end of a foil between
+her shoulders. You killed her! You then overturned everything in the
+house, and burned certain documents of importance; after which, you tied
+up in a napkin all the valuables you could find, and carried them off,
+to lead the police to believe the murder was the work of a robber. You
+locked the door, and threw away the key. Arrived at the Seine, you threw
+the bundle into the water, then hurried off to the railway station on
+foot, and at eleven o’clock you reappeared amongst your friends.
+Your game was well played; but you omitted to provide against two
+adversaries, a detective, not easily deceived, named Tirauclair, and
+another still more clever, named chance. Between them, they have got the
+better of you. Moreover, you were foolish to wear such small boots, and
+to keep on your lavender kid gloves, besides embarrassing yourself with
+a silk hat and an umbrella. Now confess your guilt, for it is the only
+thing left you to do, and I will give you permission to smoke in your
+dungeon some of those excellent trabucos you are so fond of, and which
+you always smoke with an amber mouthpiece.’”
+
+During this speech, M. Tabaret had gained at least a couple of inches in
+height, so great was his enthusiasm. He looked at the magistrate, as if
+expecting a smile of approbation.
+
+“Yes,” continued he, after taking breath, “I would say that, and nothing
+else; and, unless this man is a hundred times stronger than I suppose
+him to be, unless he is made of bronze, of marble, or of steel, he would
+fall at my feet and avow his guilt.”
+
+“But supposing he were of bronze,” said M. Daburon, “and did not fall at
+your feet, what would you do next?”
+
+The question evidently embarrassed the old fellow.
+
+“Pshaw!” stammered he; “I don’t know; I would see; I would search; but
+he would confess.”
+
+After a prolonged silence, M. Daburon took a pen, and hurriedly wrote a
+few lines.
+
+“I surrender,” said he. “M. Albert de Commarin shall be arrested;
+that is settled. The different formalities to be gone through and
+the perquisitions will occupy some time, which I wish to employ in
+interrogating the Count de Commarin, the young man’s father, and your
+friend M. Noel Gerdy, the young advocate. The letters he possesses are
+indispensable to me.”
+
+At the name of Gerdy, M. Tabaret’s face assumed a most comical
+expression of uneasiness.
+
+“Confound it,” cried he, “the very thing I most dreaded.”
+
+“What?” asked M. Daburon.
+
+“The necessity for the examination of those letters. Noel will discover
+my interference. He will despise me: he will fly from me, when he knows
+that Tabaret and Tirauclair sleep in the same nightcap. Before eight
+days are past, my oldest friends will refuse to shake hands with me, as
+if it were not an honour to serve justice. I shall be obliged to change
+my residence, and assume a false name.”
+
+He almost wept, so great was his annoyance. M. Daburon was touched.
+
+“Reassure yourself, my dear M. Tabaret,” said he. “I will manage that
+your adopted son, your Benjamin, shall know nothing. I will lead him to
+believe I have reached him by means of the widow’s papers.”
+
+The old fellow seized the magistrate’s hand in a transport of gratitude,
+and carried it to his lips. Oh! thanks, sir, a thousand thanks! I should
+like to be permitted to witness the arrest; and I shall be glad to
+assist at the perquisitions.”
+
+“I intended to ask you to do so, M. Tabaret,” answered the magistrate.
+
+The lamps paled in the gray dawn of the morning; already the rumbling of
+vehicles was heard; Paris was awaking.
+
+“I have no time to lose,” continued M. Daburon, “if I would have all my
+measures well taken. I must at once see the public prosecutor, whether
+he is up or not. I shall go direct from his house to the Palais de
+Justice, and be there before eight o’clock; and I desire, M. Tabaret,
+that you will there await my orders.”
+
+The old fellow bowed his thanks and was about to leave, when the
+magistrate’s servant appeared.
+
+“Here is a note, sir,” said he, “which a gendarme has just brought from
+Bougival. He waits an answer.”
+
+“Very well,” replied M. Daburon. “Ask the man to have some refreshment;
+at least offer him a glass of wine.”
+
+He opened the envelope. “Ah!” he cried, “a letter from Gevrol;” and he
+read:
+
+
+“‘To the investigating magistrate. Sir, I have the honour to inform you,
+that I am on the track of the man with the earrings. I heard of him at
+a wine shop, which he entered on Sunday morning, before going to Widow
+Lerouge’s cottage. He bought, and paid for two litres of wine; then,
+suddenly striking his forehead, he cried, “Old fool! to forget that
+to-morrow is the boat’s fete day!” and immediately called for three
+more litres. According to the almanac the boat must be called the
+Saint-Martin. I have also learned that she was laden with grain. I write
+to the Prefecture at the same time as I write to you, that inquiries may
+be made at Paris and Rouen. He will be found at one of those places. I
+am in waiting, sir, etc.’”
+
+
+“Poor Gevrol!” cried old Tabaret, bursting with laughter. “He sharpens
+his sabre, and the battle is over. Are you not going to put a stop to
+his inquiries, sir?”
+
+“No; certainly not,” answered M. Daburon; “to neglect the slightest clue
+often leads one into error. Who can tell what light we may receive from
+this mariner?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+On the same day that the crime of La Jonchere was discovered, and
+precisely at the hour that M. Tabaret made his memorable examination
+in the victim’s chamber, the Viscount Albert de Commarin entered his
+carriage, and proceeded to the Northern railway station, to meet his
+father.
+
+The young man was very pale: his pinched features, his dull eyes, his
+blanched lips, in fact his whole appearance denoted either overwhelming
+fatigue or unusual sorrow. All the servants had observed, that, during
+the past five days, their young master had not been in his ordinary
+condition: he spoke but little, ate almost nothing, and refused to see
+any visitors. His valet noticed that this singular change dated from
+the visit, on Sunday morning, of a certain M. Noel Gerdy, who had been
+closeted with him for three hours in the library.
+
+The Viscount, gay as a lark until the arrival of this person, had, from
+the moment of his departure, the appearance of a man at the point of
+death. When setting forth to meet his father, the viscount appeared to
+suffer so acutely that M. Lubin, his valet, entreated him not to go out;
+suggesting that it would be more prudent to retire to his room, and call
+in the doctor.
+
+But the Count de Commarin was exacting on the score of filial duty, and
+would overlook the worst of youthful indiscretions sooner than what he
+termed a want of reverence. He had announced his intended arrival
+by telegraph, twenty-four hours in advance; therefore the house was
+expected to be in perfect readiness to receive him, and the absence of
+Albert at the railway station would have been resented as a flagrant
+omission of duty.
+
+The viscount had been but five minutes in the waiting-room, when the
+bell announced the arrival of the train. Soon the doors leading on
+to the platform were opened, and the travelers crowded in. The throng
+beginning to thin a little, the count appeared, followed by a servant,
+who carried a travelling pelisse lined with rare and valuable fur.
+
+The Count de Commarin looked a good ten years less than his age. His
+beard and hair, yet abundant, were scarcely gray. He was tall and
+muscular, held himself upright, and carried his head high. His
+appearance was noble, his movements easy. His regular features presented
+a study to the physiognomist, all expressing easy, careless good
+nature, even to the handsome, smiling mouth; but in his eyes flashed the
+fiercest and the most arrogant pride. This contrast revealed the secret
+of his character. Imbued quite as deeply with aristocratic prejudice
+as the Marchioness d’Arlange, he had progressed with his century or at
+least appeared to have done so. As fully as the marchioness, he held in
+contempt all who were not noble; but his disdain expressed itself in a
+different fashion. The marchioness proclaimed her contempt loudly and
+coarsely; the count had kept eyes and ears open and had seen and heard
+a good deal. She was stupid, and without a shade of common sense. He was
+witty and sensible, and possessed enlarged views of life and politics.
+She dreamed of the return of the absurd traditions of a former age;
+he hoped for things within the power of events to bring forth. He was
+sincerely persuaded that the nobles of France would yet recover slowly
+and silently, but surely, all their lost power, with its prestige and
+influence.
+
+In a word, the count was the flattered portrait of his class; the
+marchioness its caricature. It should be added, that M. de Commarin knew
+how to divest himself of his crushing urbanity in the company of his
+equals. There he recovered his true character, haughty, self-sufficient,
+and intractable, enduring contradiction pretty much as a wild horse the
+application of the spur. In his own house, he was a despot.
+
+Perceiving his father, Albert advanced towards him. They shook hands
+and embraced with an air as noble as ceremonious, and, in less than
+a minute, had exchanged all the news that had transpired during the
+count’s absence. Then only did M. de Commarin perceive the alteration in
+his son’s face.
+
+“You are unwell, viscount,” said he.
+
+“Oh, no, sir,” answered Albert, laconically.
+
+The count uttered “Ah!” accompanied by a certain movement of the head,
+which, with him, expressed perfect incredulity; then, turning to his
+servant, he gave him some orders briefly.
+
+“Now,” resumed he, “let us go quickly to the house. I am in haste to
+feel at home; and I am hungry, having had nothing to-day, but some
+detestable broth, at I know not what way station.”
+
+M. de Commarin had returned to Paris in a very bad temper, his journey
+to Austria had not brought the results he had hoped for. To crown his
+dissatisfaction, he had rested, on his homeward way, at the chateau of
+an old friend, with whom he had had so violent a discussion that they
+had parted without shaking hands. The count was hardly seated in his
+carriage before he entered upon the subject of this disagreement.
+
+“I have quarrelled with the Duke de Sairmeuse,” said he to his son.
+
+“That seems to me to happen whenever you meet,” answered Albert, without
+intending any raillery.
+
+“True,” said the count: “but this is serious. I passed four days at his
+country-seat, in a state of inconceivable exasperation. He has entirely
+forfeited my esteem. Sairmeuse has sold his estate of Gondresy, one of
+the finest in the north of France. He has cut down the timber, and
+put up to auction the old chateau, a princely dwelling, which is to be
+converted into a sugar refinery; all this for the purpose, as he says,
+of raising money to increase his income!”
+
+“And was that the cause of your rupture?” inquired Albert, without much
+surprise.
+
+“Certainly it was! Do you not think it a sufficient one?”
+
+“But, sir, you know the duke has a large family, and is far from rich.”
+
+“What of that? A French noble who sells his land commits an unworthy
+act. He is guilty of treason against his order!”
+
+“Oh, sir,” said Albert, deprecatingly.
+
+“I said treason!” continued the count. “I maintain the word. Remember
+well, viscount, power has been, and always will be, on the side of
+wealth, especially on the side of those who hold the soil. The men of
+‘93 well understood this principle, and acted upon it. By impoverishing
+the nobles, they destroyed their prestige more effectually than by
+abolishing their titles. A prince dismounted, and without footmen, is
+no more than any one else. The Minister of July, who said to the people,
+‘Make yourselves rich,’ was not a fool. He gave them the magic formula
+for power. But they have not the sense to understand it. They want to
+go too fast. They launch into speculations, and become rich, it is true;
+but in what? Stocks, bonds, paper,--rags, in short. It is smoke they are
+locking in their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which
+pays eight or ten per cent, to investing in vines or corn which will
+return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns
+a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as
+large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as
+patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object,
+pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him
+aside. He knows that stocks may rise or fall, fortunes be won or lost on
+‘change; but the land always remains,--the real standard of wealth. To
+become landholders, the peasant starves himself, wears sabots in winter;
+and the imbeciles who laugh at him will be astonished by and by when he
+makes his ‘93, and the peasant becomes a baron in power if not in name.”
+
+“I do not understand the application,” said the viscount.
+
+“You do not understand? Why, what the peasant is doing is what the
+nobles ought to have done! Ruined, their duty was to reconstruct their
+fortunes. Commerce is interdicted to us; be it so: agriculture remains.
+Instead of grumbling uselessly during the half-century, instead of
+running themselves into debt, in the ridiculous attempt to support an
+appearance of grandeur, they ought to have retreated to their provinces,
+shut themselves up in their chateaux; there worked, economised, denied
+themselves, as the peasant is doing, purchased the land piece by piece.
+Had they taken this course, they would to-day possess France. Their
+wealth would be enormous; for the value of land rises year after year.
+I have, without effort, doubled my fortune in thirty years. Blauville,
+which cost my father a hundred crowns in 1817, is worth to-day more
+than a million: so that, when I hear the nobles complain, I shrug the
+shoulder. Who but they are to blame? They impoverish themselves from
+year to year. They sell their land to the peasants. Soon they will be
+reduced to beggary, and their escutcheons. What consoles me is, that
+the peasant, having become the proprietor of our domains will then be
+all-powerful, and will yoke to his chariot wheels these traders in scrip
+and stocks, whom he hates as much as I execrate them myself.”
+
+The carriage at this moment stopped in the court-yard of the de Commarin
+mansion, after having described that perfect half-circle, the glory of
+coachmen who preserve the old tradition.
+
+The count alighted first, and leaning upon his son’s arm, ascended the
+steps of the grand entrance. In the immense vestibule, nearly all the
+servants, dressed in rich liveries, stood in a line. The count gave them
+a glance, in passing, as an officer might his soldiers on parade, and
+proceeded to his apartment on the first floor, above the reception
+rooms.
+
+Never was there a better regulated household than that of the Count
+de Commarin. He possessed in a high degree the art, more rare than is
+generally supposed, of commanding an army of servants. The number of his
+domestics caused him neither inconvenience nor embarrassment. They were
+necessary to him. So perfect was the organisation of this household,
+that its functions were performed like those of a machine,--without
+noise, variation, or effort.
+
+Thus when the count returned from his journey, the sleeping hotel was
+awakened as if by the spell of an enchanter. Each servant was at his
+post; and the occupations, interrupted during the past six weeks,
+resumed without confusion. As the count was known to have passed the day
+on the road, the dinner was served in advance of the usual hour. All the
+establishment, even to the lowest scullion, represented the spirit
+of the first article of the rules of the house, “Servants are not to
+execute orders, but anticipate them.”
+
+M. de Commarin had hardly removed the traces of his journey, and changed
+his dress, when his butler announced that the dinner was served.
+
+He went down at once; and father and son met upon the threshold of the
+dining-room. This was a large apartment, with a very high ceiling,
+as were all the rooms of the ground floor, and was most magnificently
+furnished. The count was not only a great eater, but was vain of his
+enormous appetite. He was fond of recalling the names of great men,
+noted for their capacity of stomach. Charles V. devoured mountains of
+viands. Louis XIV. swallowed at each repast as much as six ordinary men
+would eat at a meal. He pretended that one can almost judge of men’s
+qualities by their digestive capacities; he compared them to lamps,
+whose power of giving light is in proportion to the oil they consume.
+
+During the first half hour, the count and his son both remained silent.
+M. de Commarin ate conscientiously, not perceiving or not caring to
+notice that Albert ate nothing, but merely sat at the table as if to
+countenance him. The old nobleman’s ill-humour and volubility returned
+with the dessert, apparently increased by a Burgundy of which he was
+particularly fond, and of which he drank freely.
+
+He was partial, moreover, to an after dinner argument, professing a
+theory that moderate discussion is a perfect digestive. A letter which
+had been delivered to him on his arrival, and which he had found time to
+glance over, gave him at once a subject and a point of departure.
+
+“I arrived home but an hour ago;” said he, “and I have already received
+a homily from Broisfresnay.”
+
+“He writes a great deal,” observed Albert.
+
+“Too much; he consumes himself in ink. He mentions a lot more of his
+ridiculous projects and vain hopes, and he mentions a dozen names of men
+of his own stamp who are his associates. On my word of honour, they seem
+to have lost their senses! They talk of lifting the world, only
+they want a lever and something to rest it on. It makes me die with
+laughter!”
+
+For ten minutes the count continued to discharge a volley of abuse and
+sarcasm against his best friends, without seeming to see that a great
+many of their foibles which he ridiculed were also a little his own.
+
+“If,” continued he more seriously,--“if they only possessed a little
+confidence in themselves, if they showed the least audacity! But
+no! they count upon others to do for them what they ought to do for
+themselves. In short, their proceedings are a series of confessions of
+helplessness, of premature declarations of failure.”
+
+The coffee having been served, the count made a sign, and the servants
+left the room.
+
+“No,” continued he, “I see but one hope for the French aristocracy, but
+one plank of salvation, one good little law, establishing the right of
+primogeniture.”
+
+“You will never obtain it.”
+
+“You think not? Would you then oppose such a measure, viscount?”
+
+Albert knew by experience what dangerous ground his father was
+approaching, and remained silent.
+
+“Let us put it, then, that I dream of the impossible!” resumed the
+count. “Then let the nobles do their duty. Let all the younger sons and
+the daughters of our great families forego their rights, by giving up
+the entire patrimony to the first-born for five generations, contenting
+themselves each with a couple of thousand francs a year. By that means
+great fortunes can be reconstructed, and families, instead of being
+divided by a variety of interests, become united by one common desire.”
+
+“Unfortunately,” objected the viscount, “the time is not favorable to
+such devotedness.”
+
+“I know it, sir,” replied the count quickly; “and in my own house I have
+the proof of it. I, your father, have conjured you to give up all
+idea of marrying the granddaughter of that old fool, the Marchioness
+d’Arlange. And all to no purpose; for I have at last been obliged to
+yield to your wishes.”
+
+“Father--” Albert commenced.
+
+“It is well,” interrupted the count. “You have my word; but remember my
+prediction: you will strike a fatal blow at our house. You will be one
+of the largest proprietors in France; but have half a dozen children,
+and they will be hardly rich. If they also have as many, you will
+probably see your grandchildren in poverty!”
+
+“You put all at the worst, father.”
+
+“Without doubt: it is the only means of pointing out the danger, and
+averting the evil. You talk of your life’s happiness. What is that? A
+true noble thinks of his name above all. Mademoiselle d’Arlange is
+very pretty, and very attractive; but she is penniless. I had found an
+heiress for you.”
+
+“Whom I should never love!”
+
+“And what of that? She would have brought you four millions in her
+apron,--more than the kings of to-day give their daughters. Besides
+which she had great expectations.”
+
+The discussion upon this subject would have been interminable, had
+Albert taken an active share in it; but his thoughts were far away. He
+answered from time to time so as not to appear absolutely dumb, and then
+only a few syllables. This absence of opposition was more irritating to
+the count than the most obstinate contradiction. He therefore directed
+his utmost efforts to excite his son to argue.
+
+However he was vainly prodigal of words, and unsparing in unpleasant
+allusions, so that at last he fairly lost his temper, and, on receiving
+a laconic reply, he burst forth: “Upon my word, the butler’s son would
+say the same as you! What blood have you in your veins? You are more
+like one of the people than a Viscount de Commarin!”
+
+There are certain conditions of mind in which the least conversation
+jars upon the nerves. During the last hour, Albert had suffered an
+intolerable punishment. The patience with which he had armed himself at
+last escaped him.
+
+“Well, sir,” he answered, “if I resemble one of the people, there are
+perhaps good reasons for it.”
+
+The glance with which the viscount accompanied his speech was so
+expressive that the count experienced a sudden shock. All his animation
+forsook him, and in a hesitating voice, he asked: “What is that you say,
+viscount?”
+
+Albert had no sooner uttered the sentence than he regretted his
+precipitation, but he had gone too far to stop.
+
+“Sir,” he replied with some embarrassment, “I have to acquaint you with
+some important matters. My honour, yours, the honour of our house, are
+involved. I intended postponing this conversation till to-morrow, not
+desiring to trouble you on the evening of your return. However, as you
+wish me to explain, I will do so.”
+
+The count listened with ill-concealed anxiety. He seemed to have divined
+what his son was about to say, and was terrified at himself for having
+divined it.
+
+“Believe me, sir,” continued Albert slowly, “whatever may have been
+your acts, my voice will never be raised to reproach you. Your constant
+kindness to me--”
+
+M. de Commarin held up his hand. “A truce to preambles; let me have the
+facts without phrases,” said he sternly.
+
+Albert was some time without answering, he hesitated how to commence.
+
+“Sir,” said he at length, “during your absence, I have read all your
+correspondence with Madame Gerdy. All!” added he, emphasising the word,
+already so significant.
+
+The count, as though stung by a serpent, started up with such violence
+that he overturned his chair.
+
+“Not another word!” cried he in a terrible voice. “I forbid you to
+speak!” But he no doubt soon felt ashamed of his violence, for he
+quietly raised his chair, and resumed in a tone which he strove to
+render light and rallying: “Who will hereafter refuse to believe in
+presentiments? A couple of hours ago, on seeing your pale face at
+the railway station, I felt that you had learned more or less of this
+affair. I was sure of it.”
+
+There was a long silence. With one accord, father and son avoided
+letting their eyes meet, lest they might encounter glances too eloquent
+to bear at so painful a moment.
+
+“You were right, sir,” continued the count, “our honour is involved. It
+is important that we should decide on our future conduct without delay.
+Will you follow me to my room?”
+
+He rang the bell, and a footman appeared almost immediately.
+
+“Neither the viscount nor I am at home to any one,” said M. de Commarin,
+“no matter whom.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The revelation which had just taken place, irritated much more than
+it surprised the Count de Commarin. For twenty years, he had been
+constantly expecting to see the truth brought to light. He knew that
+there can be no secret so carefully guarded that it may not by some
+chance escape; and his had been known to four people, three of whom were
+still living.
+
+He had not forgotten that he had been imprudent enough to trust it to
+paper, knowing all the while that it ought never to have been written.
+How was it that he, a prudent diplomat, a statesman, full of precaution,
+had been so foolish? How was it that he had allowed this fatal
+correspondence to remain in existence! Why had he not destroyed, at no
+matter what cost, these overwhelming proofs, which sooner or later might
+be used against him? Such imprudence could only have arisen from an
+absurd passion, blind and insensible, even to madness.
+
+So long as he was Valerie’s lover, the count never thought of asking
+the return of his letters from his beloved accomplice. If the idea had
+occurred to him, he would have repelled it as an insult to the character
+of his angel. What reason could he have had to suspect her discretion?
+None. He would have been much more likely to have supposed her desirous
+of removing every trace, even the slightest, of what had taken place.
+Was it not her son who had received the benefits of the deed, who had
+usurped another’s name and fortune?
+
+When eight years after, believing her to be unfaithful, the count had
+put an end to the connection which had given him so much happiness he
+thought of obtaining possession of this unhappy correspondence. But he
+knew not how to do so. A thousand reasons prevented his moving in the
+matter.
+
+The principal one was, that he did not wish to see this woman, once so
+dearly loved. He did not feel sufficiently sure either of his anger or
+of his firmness. Could he, without yielding, resist the tearful pleading
+of those eyes, which had so long held complete sway over him?
+
+To look again upon this mistress of his youth would, he feared, result
+in his forgiving her; and he had been too cruelly wounded in his pride
+and in his affection to admit the idea of a reconciliation.
+
+On the other hand, to obtain the letters though a third party was
+entirely out of the question. He abstained, then, from all action,
+postponing it indefinitely. “I will go to her,” said he to himself; “but
+not until I have so torn her from my heart that she will have become
+indifferent to me. I will not gratify her with the sight of my grief.”
+
+So months and years passed on; and finally he began to say and believe
+that it was too late. And for now more than twenty years, he had never
+passed a day without cursing his inexcusable folly. Never had he been
+able to forget that above his head a danger more terrible than the sword
+of Damocles hung, suspended by a thread, which the slightest accident
+might break.
+
+And now that thread had broken. Often, when considering the possibility
+of such a catastrophe, he had asked himself how he should avert it? He
+had formed and rejected many plans: he had deluded himself, like all men
+of imagination, with innumerable chimerical projects, and now he found
+himself quite unprepared.
+
+Albert stood respectfully, while his father sat in his great armorial
+chair, just beneath the large frame in which the genealogical tree
+of the illustrious family of Rheteau de Commarin spread its luxuriant
+branches. The old gentleman completely concealed the cruel apprehensions
+which oppressed him. He seemed neither irritated nor dejected; but
+his eyes expressed a haughtiness more than usually disdainful, and a
+self-reliance full of contempt.
+
+“Now viscount,” he began in a firm voice, “explain yourself. I need say
+nothing to you of the position of a father, obliged to blush before his
+son; you understand it, and will feel for me. Let us spare each other,
+and try to be calm. Tell me, how did you obtain your knowledge of this
+correspondence?”
+
+Albert had had time to recover himself, and prepare for the present
+struggle, as he had impatiently waited four days for this interview.
+
+The difficulty he experienced in uttering the first words had now given
+place to a dignified and proud demeanor. He expressed himself clearly
+and forcibly, without losing himself in those details which in serious
+matters needlessly defer the real point at issue.
+
+“Sir,” he replied, “on Sunday morning, a young man called here, stating
+that he had business with me of the utmost importance. I received
+him. He then revealed to me that I, alas! am only your natural son,
+substituted through your affection, for the legitimate child borne you
+by Madame de Commarin.”
+
+“And did you not have this man kicked out of doors?” exclaimed the
+count.
+
+“No, sir. I was about to answer him very sharply, of course; but,
+presenting me with a packet of letters, he begged me to read them before
+replying.”
+
+“Ah!” cried M. de Commarin, “you should have thrown them into the fire,
+for there was a fire, I suppose? You held them in your hands; and they
+still exist! Why was I not there?”
+
+“Sir!” said Albert, reproachfully. And, recalling the position Noel had
+occupied against the mantelpiece, and the manner in which he stood, he
+added,--“Even if the thought had occurred to me, it was impracticable.
+Besides, at the first glance, I recognised your handwriting. I therefore
+took the letters, and read them.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“And then, sir, I returned the correspondence to the young man, and
+asked for a delay of eight days; not to think over it myself--there
+was no need of that,--but because I judged an interview with you
+indispensable. Now, therefore, I beseech you, tell me whether this
+substitution really did take place.
+
+“Certainly it did,” replied the count violently, “yes, certainly. You
+know that it did, for you have read what I wrote to Madame Gerdy, your
+mother.”
+
+Albert had foreseen, had expected this reply; but it crushed him
+nevertheless.
+
+There are misfortunes so great, that one must constantly think of them
+to believe in their existence. This flinching, however, lasted but an
+instant.
+
+“Pardon me, sir,” he replied. “I was almost convinced; but I had not
+received a formal assurance of it. All the letters that I read spoke
+distinctly of your purpose, detailed your plan minutely; but not one
+pointed to, or in any way confirmed, the execution of your project.”
+
+The count gazed at his son with a look of intense surprise. He
+recollected distinctly all the letters; and he could remember, that,
+in writing to Valerie, he had over and over again rejoiced at their
+success, thanking her for having acted in accordance with his wishes.
+
+“You did not go to the end of them, then, viscount,” he said, “you did
+not read them all?”
+
+“Every line, sir, and with an attention that you may well understand.
+The last letter shown me simply announced to Madame Gerdy the arrival
+of Claudine Lerouge, the nurse who was charged with accomplishing the
+substitution. I know nothing beyond that.”
+
+“These proofs amount to nothing,” muttered the count. “A man may form a
+plan, cherish it for a long time, and at the last moment abandon it; it
+often happens so.”
+
+He reproached himself for having answered so hastily. Albert had had
+only serious suspicions, and he had changed them to certainty. What
+stupidity!
+
+“There can be no possible doubt,” he said to himself; “Valerie has
+destroyed the most conclusive letters, those which appeared to her the
+most dangerous, those I wrote after the substitution. But why has she
+preserved these others, compromising enough in themselves? and why,
+after having preserved them, has she let them go out of her possession?”
+
+Without moving, Albert awaited a word from the count. What would it be?
+No doubt, the old nobleman was at that moment deciding what he should
+do.
+
+“Perhaps she is dead!” said M. de Commarin aloud.
+
+And at the thought that Valerie was dead, without his having again seen
+her, he started painfully. His heart, after more than twenty years of
+voluntary separation, still suffered, so deeply rooted was this first
+love of his youth. He had cursed her; at this moment he pardoned her.
+True, she had deceived him; but did he not owe to her the only years of
+happiness he had ever known? Had she not formed all the poetry of his
+youth? Had he experienced, since leaving her, one single hour of joy
+or forgetfulness? In his present frame of mind, his heart retained only
+happy memories, like a vase which, once filled with precious perfumes,
+retains the odour until it is destroyed.
+
+“Poor woman!” he murmured.
+
+He sighed deeply. Three or four times his eyelids trembled, as if a tear
+were about to fall. Albert watched him with anxious curiosity. This was
+the first time since the viscount had grown to man’s estate that he had
+surprised in his father’s countenance other emotion than ambition or
+pride, triumphant or defeated. But M. de Commarin was not the man to
+yield long to sentiment.
+
+“You have not told me, viscount,” he said, “who sent you that messenger
+of misfortune.”
+
+“He came in person, sir, not wishing, he told me to mix any others up in
+this sad affair. The young man was no other than he whose place I have
+occupied,--your legitimate son, M. Noel Gerdy himself.”
+
+“Yes,” said the count in a low tone, “Noel, that is his name, I
+remember.” And then, with evident hesitation, he added: “Did he speak to
+you of his--of your mother?”
+
+“Scarcely, sir. He only told me that he came unknown to her; that he had
+accidentally discovered the secret which he revealed to me.”
+
+M. de Commarin asked nothing further. There was more for him to learn.
+He remained for some time deep in thought. The decisive moment had come;
+and he saw but one way to escape.
+
+“Come, viscount,” he said, in a tone so affectionate that Albert was
+astonished, “do not stand; sit down here by me, and let us discuss
+this matter. Let us unite our efforts to shun, if possible, this great
+misfortune. Confide in me, as a son should in his father. Have you
+thought of what is to be done? have you formed any determination?”
+
+“It seems to me, sir, that hesitation is impossible.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“My duty, father, is very plain. Before your legitimate son, I ought
+to give way without a murmur, if not without regret. Let him come. I
+am ready to yield to him everything that I have so long kept from him
+without a suspicion of the truth--his father’s love, his fortune and his
+name.”
+
+At this most praiseworthy reply, the old nobleman could scarcely
+preserve the calmness he had recommended to his son in the earlier part
+of the interview. His face grew purple; and he struck the table with his
+fist more furiously than he had ever done in his life. He, usually so
+guarded, so decorous on all occasions, uttered a volley of oaths that
+would not have done discredit to an old cavalry officer.
+
+“And I tell you, sir, that this dream of yours shall never take place.
+No; that it sha’n’t. I swear it. I promise you, whatever happens,
+understand, that things shall remain as they are; because it is my will.
+You are Viscount de Commarin, and Viscount de Commarin you shall remain,
+in spite of yourself, if necessary. You shall retain the title to your
+death, or at least to mine; for never, while I live, shall your absurd
+idea be carried out.”
+
+“But, sir,” began Albert, timidly.
+
+“You are very daring to interrupt me while I am speaking, sir,”
+ exclaimed the count. “Do I not know all your objections beforehand? You
+are going to tell me that it is a revolting injustice, a wicked robbery.
+I confess it, and grieve over it more than you possibly can. Do you
+think that I now for the first time repent of my youthful folly? For
+twenty years, sir, I have lamented my true son; for twenty years I have
+cursed the wickedness of which he is the victim. And yet I learnt how to
+keep silence, and to hide the sorrow and remorse which have covered my
+pillow with thorns. In a single instant, your senseless yielding would
+render my long sufferings of no avail. No, I will never permit it!”
+
+The count read a reply on his son’s lips: he stopped him with a
+withering glance.
+
+“Do you think,” he continued, “that I have never wept over the thought
+of my legitimate son passing his life struggling for a competence? Do
+you think that I have never felt a burning desire to repair the wrong
+done him? There have been times, sir, when I would have given half of my
+fortune simply to embrace that child of a wife too tardily appreciated.
+The fear of casting a shadow of suspicion upon your birth prevented me.
+I have sacrificed myself to the great name I bear. I received it from my
+ancestors without a stain. May you hand it down to your children equally
+spotless! Your first impulse was a worthy one, generous and noble;
+but you must forget it. Think of the scandal, if our secret should
+be disclosed to the public gaze. Can you not foresee the joy of our
+enemies, of that herd of upstarts which surrounds us? I shudder at the
+thought of the odium and the ridicule which would cling to our name. Too
+many families already have stains upon their escutcheons; I will have
+none on mine.”
+
+M. de Commarin remained silent for several minutes, during which Albert
+did not dare say a word, so much had he been accustomed since infancy to
+respect the least wish of the terrible old gentleman.
+
+“There is no possible way out of it,” continued the count. “Can I
+discard you to-morrow, and present this Noel as my son, saying, ‘Excuse
+me, but there has been a slight mistake; this one is the viscount?’ And
+then the tribunals will get hold of it. What does it matter who is named
+Benoit, Durand, or Bernard? But, when one is called Commarin, even but
+for a single day, one must retain that name through life. The same
+moral does not do for everyone; because we have not the same duties to
+perform. In our position, errors are irreparable. Take courage, then,
+and show yourself worthy of the name you bear. The storm is upon you;
+raise your head to meet it.”
+
+Albert’s impassibility contributed not a little to increase M. de
+Commarin’s irritation. Firm in an unchangeable resolution, the viscount
+listened like one fulfilling a duty: and his face reflected no emotion.
+The count saw that he was not shaken.
+
+“What have you to reply?” he asked.
+
+“It seems to me sir, that you have no idea of all the dangers which I
+foresee. It is difficult to master the revolts of conscience.”
+
+“Indeed!” interrupted the count contemptuously; “your conscience
+revolts, does it? It has chosen its time badly. Your scruples come
+too late. So long as you saw that your inheritance consisted of an
+illustrious title and a dozen or so of millions, it pleased you. To-day
+the name appears to you laden with a heavy fault, a crime, if you will;
+and your conscience revolts. Renounce this folly. Children, sir, are
+accountable to their fathers; and they should obey them. Willing or
+unwilling, you must be my accomplice; willing or unwilling, you must
+bear the burden, as I have borne it. And, however much you may suffer,
+be assured your sufferings can never approach what I have endured for so
+many years.”
+
+“Ah, sir!” cried Albert, “is it then I, the dispossessor, who has made
+this trouble? is it not, on the contrary, the dispossessed! It is not I
+who you have to convince, it is M. Noel Gerdy.”
+
+“Noel!” repeated the count.
+
+“Your legitimate son, yes, sir. You act as if the issue of this unhappy
+affair depended solely upon my will. Do you then, imagine that M. Gerdy
+will be so easily disposed of, so easily silenced? And, if he should
+raise his voice, do you hope to move him by the considerations you have
+just mentioned?”
+
+“I do not fear him.”
+
+“Then you are wrong, sir, permit me to tell you. Suppose for a moment
+that this young man has a soul sufficiently noble to relinquish his
+claim upon your rank and your fortune. Is there not now the accumulated
+rancour of years to urge him to oppose you? He cannot help feeling a
+fierce resentment for the horrible injustice of which he has been the
+victim. He must passionately long for vengeance, or rather reparation.”
+
+“He has no proofs.”
+
+“He has your letters, sir.”
+
+“They are not decisive, you yourself have told me so.”
+
+“That is true, sir; and yet they convinced me, who have an interest in
+not being convinced. Besides, if he needs witnesses, he will find them.”
+
+“Who? Yourself, viscount?”
+
+“Yourself, sir. The day when he wishes it, you will betray us. Suppose
+you were summoned before a tribunal, and that there, under oath, you
+should be required to speak the truth, what answer would you make?”
+
+M. de Commarin’s face darkened at this very natural supposition. He
+hesitated, he whose honour was usually so great.
+
+“I would save the name of my ancestors,” he said at last.
+
+Albert shook his head doubtfully. “At the price of a lie, my father,”
+ he said. “I never will believe it. But let us suppose even that. He will
+then call Madame Gerdy.”
+
+“Oh, I will answer for her!” cried the count, “her interests are the
+same as ours. If necessary, I will see her. Yes,” he added with an
+effort, “I will call on her, I will speak to her; and I will guarantee
+that she will not betray us.”
+
+“And Claudine,” continued the young man; “will she be silent, too?”
+
+“For money, yes; and I will give her whatever she asks.”
+
+“And you would trust, father, to a paid silence, as if one could ever
+be sure of a purchased conscience? What is sold to you may be sold to
+another. A certain sum may close her mouth; a larger will open it.”
+
+“I will frighten her.”
+
+“You forget, father, that Claudine Lerouge was Noel Gerdy’s nurse, that
+she takes an interest in his happiness, that she loves him. How do you
+know that he has not already secured her aid? She lives at Bougival. I
+went there, I remember, with you. No doubt, he sees her often; perhaps
+it is she who put him on the track of this correspondence. He spoke to
+me of her, as though he were sure of her testimony. He almost proposed
+my going to her for information.”
+
+“Alas!” cried the count, “why is not Claudine dead instead of my
+faithful Germain?”
+
+“You see, sir,” concluded Albert, “Claudine Lerouge would alone render
+all your efforts useless.”
+
+“Ah, no!” cried the count; “I shall find some expedient.”
+
+The obstinate old gentleman was not willing to give in to this argument,
+the very clearness of which blinded him. The pride of his blood
+paralyzed his usual practical good sense. To acknowledge that he was
+conquered humiliated him, and seemed to him unworthy of himself. He did
+not remember to have met during his long career an invincible resistance
+or an absolute impediment. He was like all men of imagination, who
+fall in love with their projects, and who expect them to succeed on all
+occasions, as if wishing hard was all that was necessary to change their
+dreams into realities.
+
+Albert this time broke the silence, which threatened to be prolonged.
+
+“I see, sir,” he said, “that you fear, above all things, the publicity
+of this sad history; the possible scandal renders you desperate. But,
+unless we yield, the scandal will be terrible. There will be a trial
+which will be the talk of all Europe. The newspapers will print the
+facts, accompanied by heavens knows what comments of their own. Our
+name, however the trial results, will appear in all the papers of the
+world. This might be borne, if we were sure of succeeding; but we are
+bound to lose, my father, we shall lose. Then think of the exposure!
+think of the dishonour branded upon us by public opinion.”
+
+“I think,” said the count, “that you can have neither respect nor
+affection for me, when you speak in that way.”
+
+“It is my duty, sir, to point out to you the evils I see threatening,
+and which there is yet time to shun. M. Noel Gerdy is your legitimate
+son, recognize him, acknowledge his just pretensions, and receive him.
+We can make the change very quietly. It is easy to account for it,
+through a mistake of the nurse, Claudine Lerouge, for instance. All
+parties being agreeable, there can be no trouble about it. What is
+to prevent the new Viscount de Commarin from quitting Paris, and
+disappearing for a time? He might travel about Europe for four or five
+years; by the end of that time, all will be forgotten, and no one will
+remember me.”
+
+M. de Commarin was not listening; he was deep in thought.
+
+“But instead of contesting, viscount,” he cried, “we might compromise.
+We may be able to purchase these letters. What does this young fellow
+want? A position and a fortune? I will give him both. I will make him
+as rich as he can wish. I will give him a million; if need be, two,
+three,--half of all I possess. With money, you see, much money--”
+
+“Spare him, sir; he is your son.”
+
+“Unfortunately! and I wish him to the devil! I will see him, and he will
+agree to what I wish. I will prove to him the bad policy of the earthen
+pot struggling with the iron kettle; and, if he is not a fool, he will
+understand.”
+
+The count rubbed his hands while speaking. He was delighted with this
+brilliant plan of negotiation. It could not fail to result favorably. A
+crowd of arguments occurred to his mind in support of it. He would buy
+back again his lost rest.
+
+But Albert did not seem to share his father’s hopes, “You will perhaps
+think it unkind in me, sir,” said he, sadly, “to dispel this last
+illusion of yours; but I must. Do not delude yourself with the idea of
+an amicable arrangement; the awakening will only be the more painful.
+I have seen M. Gerdy, my father, and he is not one, I assure you, to be
+intimidated. If there is an energetic will in the world, it is his.
+He is truly your son; and his expression, like yours, shows an iron
+resolution, that may be broken but never bent. I can still hear his
+voice trembling with resentment, while he spoke to me. I can still see
+the dark fire of his eyes. No, he will never accept a compromise. He
+will have all or nothing; and I cannot say that he is wrong. If you
+resist, he will attack you without the slightest consideration. Strong
+in his rights, he will cling to you with stubborn animosity. He will
+drag you from court to court; he will not stop short of utter defeat or
+complete triumph.”
+
+Accustomed to absolute obedience from his son, the old nobleman was
+astounded at this unexpected obstinacy.
+
+“What is your object in saying all this?” he asked.
+
+“It is this, sir. I should utterly despise myself, if I did not spare
+your old age this greatest of calamities. Your name does not belong to
+me; I will take my own. I am your natural son; I will give up my place
+to your legitimate son. Permit me to withdraw with at least the honour
+of having freely done my duty. Do not force me to wait till I am driven
+out in disgrace.”
+
+“What!” cried the count, stunned, “you will abandon me? You refuse to
+help me, you turn against me, you recognize the rights of this man in
+spite of my wishes?”
+
+Albert bowed his head. He was much moved, but still remained firm.
+
+“My resolution is irrevocably taken,” he replied. “I can never consent
+to despoil your son.”
+
+“Cruel, ungrateful boy!” cried M. de Commarin. His wrath was such,
+that, when he found he could do nothing by abuse, he passed at once to
+jeering. “But no,” he continued, “you are great, you are noble, you are
+generous; you are acting after the most approved pattern of chivalry,
+viscount, I should say, my dear M. Gerdy; after the fashion of
+Plutarch’s time! So you give up my name and my fortune, and you leave
+me. You will shake the dust from your shoes upon the threshold of my
+house; and you will go out into the world. I see only one difficulty in
+your way. How do you expect to live, my stoic philosopher? Have you a
+trade at your fingers’ ends, like Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Emile? Or,
+worthy M. Gerdy, have you learned economy from the four thousand francs
+a month I allow you for waxing your moustache? Perhaps you have made
+money on the Bourse! Then my name must have seemed very burdensome to
+you to bear, since you so eagerly introduced it into such a place! Has
+dirt, then, so great an attraction for you that you must jump from
+your carriage so quickly? Say, rather, that the company of my friends
+embarrasses you, and that you are anxious to go where you will be among
+your equals.”
+
+“I am very wretched, sir,” replied Albert to this avalanche of insults,
+“and you would crush me!”
+
+“You wretched! Well, whose fault is it? But let us get back to my
+question. How and on what will you live?”
+
+“I am not so romantic as you are pleased to say, sir. I must confess
+that, as regards the future, I have counted upon your kindness. You are
+so rich, that five hundred thousand francs would not materially affect
+your fortune; and, on the interest of that sum, I could live quietly, if
+not happily.”
+
+“And suppose I refuse you this money?”
+
+“I know you well enough, sir, to feel sure that you will not do so. You
+are too just to wish that I alone should expiate wrongs that are not of
+my making. Left to myself, I should at my present age have achieved a
+position. It is late for me to try and make one now; but I will do my
+best.”
+
+“Superb!” interrupted the count; “you are really superb! One never heard
+of such a hero of romance. What a character! But tell me, what do you
+expect from all this astonishing disinterestedness?”
+
+“Nothing, sir.”
+
+The count shrugged his shoulders, looked sarcastically at his son, and
+observed: “The compensation is very slight. And you expect me to believe
+all this! No, sir, mankind is not in the habit of indulging in such fine
+actions for its pleasure alone. You must have some reason for acting so
+grandly; some reason which I fail to see.”
+
+“None but what I have already told you.”
+
+“Therefore it is understood you intend to relinquish everything;
+you will even abandon your proposed union with Mademoiselle Claire
+d’Arlange? You forget that for two years I have in vain constantly
+expressed my disappointment of this marriage.”
+
+“No, sir. I have seen Mademoiselle Claire; I have explained my unhappy
+position to her. Whatever happens, she has sworn to be my wife.”
+
+“And do you think that Madame d’Arlange will give her granddaughter to
+M. Gerdy?”
+
+“We hope so, sir. The marchioness is sufficiently infected with
+aristocratic ideas to prefer a nobleman’s bastard to the son of some
+honest tradesman; but should she refuse, we would await her death,
+though without desiring it.”
+
+The calm manner in which Albert said this enraged the count.
+
+“Can this be my son?” he cried. “Never! What blood have you then in your
+veins, sir? Your worthy mother alone might tell us, provided, however,
+she herself knows.”
+
+“Sir,” cried Albert menacingly, “think well before you speak! She is
+my mother, and that is sufficient. I am her son, not her judge. No one
+shall insult her in my presence, I will not permit it, sir; and I will
+suffer it least of all from you.”
+
+The count made great efforts to keep his anger within bounds, but
+Albert’s behavior thoroughly enraged him. What, his son rebelled, he
+dared to brave him to his face, he threatened him! The old fellow jumped
+from his chair, and moved towards the young man as if he would strike
+him.
+
+“Leave the room,” he cried, in a voice choking with rage, “leave the
+room instantly! Retire to your apartments, and take care not to leave
+them without my orders. To-morrow I will let you know my decision.”
+
+Albert bowed respectfully, but without lowering his eyes and walked
+slowly to the door. He had already opened it, when M. de Commarin
+experienced one of those revulsions of feeling, so frequent in violent
+natures.
+
+“Albert,” said he, “come here and listen to me.”
+
+The young man turned back, much affected by this change.
+
+“Do not go,” continued the count, “until I have told you what I think.
+You are worthy of being the heir of a great house, sir. I may be angry
+with you; but I can never lose my esteem for you. You are a noble man,
+Albert. Give me your hand.”
+
+It was a happy moment for these two men, and such a one as they had
+scarcely ever experienced in their lives, restrained as they had been by
+cold etiquette. The count felt proud of his son, and recognised in
+him himself at that age. For a long time their hands remained clasped,
+without either being able to utter a word.
+
+At last, M. de Commarin resumed his seat.
+
+“I must ask you to leave me, Albert,” he said kindly. “I must be alone
+to reflect, to try and accustom myself to this terrible blow.”
+
+And, as the young man closed the door, he added, as if giving vent to
+his inmost thoughts, “If he, in whom I have placed all my hope, deserts
+me, what will become of me? And what will the other one be like?”
+
+Albert’s features, when he left the count’s study, bore traces of the
+violent emotions he had felt during the interview. The servants whom he
+met noticed it the more, as they had heard something of the quarrel.
+
+“Well,” said an old footman who had been in the family thirty years,
+“the count has had another unhappy scene with his son. The old fellow
+has been in a dreadful passion.”
+
+“I got wind of it at dinner,” spoke up a valet de chambre: “the count
+restrained himself enough not to burst out before me; but he rolled his
+eyes fiercely.”
+
+“What can be the matter?”
+
+“Pshaw! that’s more than they know themselves. Why, Denis, before
+whom they always speak freely, says that they often wrangle for hours
+together, like dogs, about things which he can never see through.”
+
+“Ah,” cried out a young fellow, who was being trained to service, “if
+I were in the viscount’s place, I’d settle the old gent pretty
+effectually!”
+
+“Joseph, my friend,” said the footman pointedly, “you are a fool. You
+might give your father his walking ticket very properly, because you
+never expect five sous from him; and you have already learned how to
+earn your living without doing any work at all. But the viscount, pray
+tell me what he is good for, what he knows how to do? Put him in the
+centre of Paris, with only his fine hands for capital, and you will
+see.”
+
+“Yes, but he has his mother’s property in Normandy,” replied Joseph.
+
+“I can’t for the life of me,” said the valet de chambre, “see what
+the count finds to complain of; for his son is a perfect model, and
+I shouldn’t be sorry to have one like him. There was a very different
+pair, when I was in the Marquis de Courtivois’s service. He was one
+who made it a point never to be in good humor. His eldest son, who is
+a friend of the viscount’s, and who comes here occasionally, is a pit
+without a bottom, as far as money is concerned. He will fritter away a
+thousand-franc note quicker than Joseph can smoke a pipe.”
+
+“But the marquis is not rich,” said a little old man, who himself had
+perhaps the enormous wages of fifteen francs; “he can’t have more than
+sixty thousand francs’ income at the most.”
+
+“That’s why he gets angry. Every day there is some new story about
+his son. He had an apartment in the house; he went in and out when he
+pleased; he passed his nights in gaming and drinking; he cut up so with
+the actresses that the police had to interfere. Besides all this, I have
+many a time had to help him up to his room, and put him to bed, when the
+waiters from the restaurants brought him home in a carriage, so drunk
+that he could scarcely say a word.”
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed Joseph enthusiastically, “this fellow’s service must be
+mighty profitable.”
+
+“That was according to circumstances. When he was at play, he was lavish
+with his money; but he always lost: and, when he was drunk, he had a
+quick temper, and didn’t spare the blows. I must do him the justice to
+say, though, that his cigars were splendid. But he was a ruffian; while
+the viscount here is a true child of wisdom. He is severe upon our
+faults, it is true; but he is never harsh nor brutal to his servants.
+Then he is uniformly generous; which in the long run pays us best. I
+must say that he is better than the majority, and that the count is very
+unreasonable.”
+
+Such was the judgment of the servants. That of society was perhaps less
+favorable.
+
+The Viscount de Commarin was not one of those who possess the rather
+questionable and at times unenviable accomplishment of pleasing every
+one. He was wise enough to distrust those astonishing personages who
+are always praising everybody. In looking about us, we often see men of
+success and reputation, who are simply dolts, without any merit except
+their perfect insignificance. That stupid propriety which offends
+no one, that uniform politeness which shocks no one’s vanity, have
+peculiarly the gift of pleasing and of succeeding.
+
+One cannot meet certain persons without saying, “I know that face; I
+have seen it somewhere, before;” because it has no individuality, but
+simply resembles faces seen in a common crowd. It is precisely so with
+the minds of certain other people. When they speak, you know exactly
+what they are going to say; you have heard the same thing so many times
+already from them, you know all their ideas by heart. These people are
+welcomed everywhere: because they have nothing peculiar about them; and
+peculiarity, especially in the upper classes, is always irritating and
+offensive; they detest all innovations.
+
+Albert was peculiar; consequently much discussed, and very differently
+estimated. He was charged with sins of the most opposite character, with
+faults so contradictory that they were their own defence. Some accused
+him, for instance, of entertaining ideas entirely too liberal for one
+of his rank; and, at the same time, others complained of his excessive
+arrogance. He was charged with treating with insulting levity the most
+serious questions, and was then blamed for his affectation of gravity.
+People knew him scarcely well enough to love him, while they were
+jealous of him and feared him.
+
+He wore a bored look in all fashionable reunions, which was considered
+very bad taste. Forced by his relations, by his father, to go into
+society a great deal, he was bored, and committed the unpardonable sin
+of letting it be seen. Perhaps he had been disgusted by the constant
+court made to him, by the rather coarse attentions which were never
+spared the noble heir of one of the richest families in France. Having
+all the necessary qualities for shining, he despised them. Dreadful sin!
+He did not abuse his advantages; and no one ever heard of his getting
+into a scrape.
+
+He had had once, it was said, a very decided liking for Madame Prosny,
+perhaps the naughtiest, certainly the most mischievous woman in Paris;
+but that was all. Mothers who had daughters to dispose of upheld him;
+but, for the last two years, they had turned against him, when his love
+for Mademoiselle d’Arlange became well known.
+
+At the club they rallied him on his prudence. He had had, like others,
+his run of follies; but he had soon got disgusted with what it is the
+fashion to call pleasure. The noble profession of bon vivant appeared
+to him very tame and tiresome. He did not enjoy passing his nights at
+cards; nor did he appreciate the society of those frail sisters, who in
+Paris give notoriety to their lovers. He affirmed that a gentleman
+was not necessarily an object of ridicule because he would not expose
+himself in the theatre with these women. Finally, none of his friends
+could ever inoculate him with a passion for the turf.
+
+As doing nothing wearied him, he attempted, like the parvenu, to give
+some meaning to life by work. He purposed, after a while, to take part
+in public affairs; and, as he had often been struck with the gross
+ignorance of many men in power, he wished to avoid their example. He
+busied himself with politics; and this was the cause of all his quarrels
+with his father. The one word of “liberal” was enough to throw the count
+into convulsions; and he suspected his son of liberalism, ever since
+reading an article by the viscount, published in the “Revue des Deux
+Mondes.”
+
+His ideas, however, did not prevent his fully sustaining his rank. He
+spent most nobly on the world the revenue which placed his father and
+himself a little above it. His establishment, distinct from the count’s,
+was arranged as that of a wealthy young gentleman’s ought to be. His
+liveries left nothing to be desired; and his horses and equipages were
+celebrated. Letters of invitation were eagerly sought for to the grand
+hunting parties, which he formed every year towards the end of October
+at Commarin,--an admirable piece of property, covered with immense
+woods.
+
+Albert’s love for Claire--a deep, well-considered love--had contributed
+not a little to keep him from the habits and life of the pleasant and
+elegant idleness indulged in by his friends. A noble attachment is
+always a great safeguard. In contending against it, M. de Commarin had
+only succeeded in increasing its intensity and insuring its continuance.
+This passion, so annoying to the count, was the source of the most
+vivid, the most powerful emotions in the viscount. Ennui was banished
+from his existence.
+
+All his thoughts took the same direction; all his actions had but one
+aim. Could he look to the right or the left, when, at the end of his
+journey, he perceived the reward so ardently desired? He resolved that
+he would never have any wife but Claire; his father absolutely refused
+his consent. The effort to change this refusal had long been the
+business of his life. Finally, after three years of perseverance, he
+had triumphed; the count had given his consent. And now, just as he was
+reaping the happiness of success, Noel had arrived, implacable as fate,
+with his cursed letters.
+
+On leaving M. de Commarin, and while slowly mounting the stairs which
+led to his apartments, Albert’s thoughts reverted to Claire. What was
+she doing at that moment? Thinking of him no doubt. She knew that the
+crisis would come that very evening, or the next day at the latest. She
+was probably praying. Albert was thoroughly exhausted; his head felt
+dizzy, and seemed ready to burst. He rang for his servant, and ordered
+some tea.
+
+“You do wrong in not sending for the doctor, sir,” said Lubin, his
+valet. “I ought to disobey you, and send for him myself.”
+
+“It would be useless,” replied Albert sadly; “he could do nothing for
+me.”
+
+As the valet was leaving the room, he added,--“Say nothing about my
+being unwell to any one, Lubin; it is nothing at all. If I should feel
+worse, I will ring.”
+
+At that moment, to see any one, to hear a voice, to have to reply, was
+more than he could bear. He longed to be left entirely to himself.
+
+After the painful emotions arising from his explanations with the count,
+he could not sleep. He opened one of the library windows, and looked
+out. It was a beautiful night: and there was a lovely moon. Seen at this
+hour, by the mild, tremulous evening light, the gardens attached to
+the mansion seemed twice their usual size. The moving tops of the great
+trees stretched away like an immense plain, hiding the neighbouring
+houses; the flower-beds, set off by the green shrubs, looked like great
+black patches, while particles of shell, tiny pieces of glass, and
+shining pebbles sparkled in the carefully kept walks. The horses stamped
+in the stable and the rattling of their halter chains against the bars
+of the manger could be distinctly heard. In the coach-house the men were
+putting away for the night the carriage, always kept ready throughout
+the evening, in case the count should wish to go out.
+
+Albert was reminded by these surroundings, of the magnificence of his
+past life. He sighed deeply.
+
+“Must I, then, lose all this?” he murmured. “I can scarcely, even for
+myself, abandon so much splendour without regret; and thinking of
+Claire makes it hard indeed. Have I not dreamed of a life of exceptional
+happiness for her, a result almost impossible to realise without
+wealth?”
+
+Midnight sounded from the neighbouring church of St. Clotilde, and as
+the night was chilly, he closed the window, and sat down near the fire,
+which he stirred. In the hope of obtaining a respite from his
+thoughts, he took up the evening paper, in which was an account of the
+assassination at La Jonchere; but he found it impossible to read: the
+lines danced before his eyes. Then he thought of writing to Claire. He
+sat down at his desk, and wrote, “My dearly loved Claire,” but he could
+go no further; his distracted brain could not furnish him with a single
+sentence.
+
+At last, at break of day, he threw himself on to a sofa, and fell into a
+heavy sleep peopled with phantoms.
+
+At half-past nine in the morning, he was suddenly awakened, by the noise
+of the door being hastily opened. A servant entered, with a scared look
+on his face, and so out of breath from having come up the stairs four at
+a time, that he could scarcely speak.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “viscount, be quick, fly and hide, save yourself, they
+are here, it is the--”
+
+A commissary of police, wearing his sash, appeared at the door. He
+was followed by a number of men, among whom M. Tabaret could be seen,
+keeping as much out of sight as possible.
+
+The commissary approached Albert.
+
+“You are,” he asked, “Guy Louis Marie Albert de Rheteau de Commarin?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+The commissary placed his hand upon him, while pronouncing the usual
+formula: “M. de Commarin, in the name of the law I arrest you.”
+
+“Me, sir? me?”
+
+Albert, aroused suddenly from his painful dreams, seemed hardly to
+comprehend what was taking place, seemed to ask himself,--“Am I really
+awake? Is not this some hideous nightmare?”
+
+He threw a stupid, astonished look upon the commissary of police, his
+men, and M. Tabaret, who had not taken his eyes off him.
+
+“Here is the warrant,” added the commissary, unfolding the paper.
+
+Mechanically Albert glanced over it.
+
+“Claudine assassinated!” he cried.
+
+Then very low, but distinct enough to be heard by the commissary, by one
+of his officers, and by old Tabaret, he added,--“I am lost!”
+
+While the commissary was making inquiries, which immediately follow
+all arrests, the police officers spread through the apartments, and
+proceeded to a searching examination of them. They had received orders
+to obey M. Tabaret, and the old fellow guided them in their search,
+made them ransack drawers and closets, and move the furniture to look
+underneath or behind. They seized a number of articles belonging to the
+viscount,--documents, manuscripts, and a very voluminous correspondence;
+but it was with especial delight that M. Tabaret put his hands on
+certain articles, which were carefully described in their proper order
+in the official report:
+
+1. In the ante-room, hung with all sorts of weapons, a broken foil was
+found behind a sofa. This foil has a peculiar handle, and is unlike
+those commonly sold. It is ornamented with the count’s coronet, and
+the initials A. C. It has been broken at about the middle; and the end
+cannot be found. When questioned, the viscount declared that he did not
+know what had become of the missing end.
+
+2. In the dressing-room, a pair of black cloth trousers was discovered
+still damp, and bearing stains of mud or rather of mould. All one side
+is smeared with greenish moss, like that which grows on walls. On the
+front are numerous rents; and one near the knee is about four inches
+long. These trousers had not been hung up with the other clothes; but
+appear to have been hidden between two large trunks full of clothing.
+
+3. In the pocket of the above mentioned trousers was found a pair of
+lavender kid gloves. The palm of the right hand glove bears a large
+greenish stain, produced by grass or moss. The tips of the fingers
+have been worn as if by rubbing. Upon the backs of both gloves are some
+scratches, apparently made by finger-nails.
+
+4. There were also found in the dressing-room two pairs of boots, one of
+which, though clean and polished, was still very damp; and an umbrella
+recently wetted, the end of which was still covered with a light
+coloured mud.
+
+5. In a large room, called the library, were found a box of cigars of
+the trabucos brand, and on the mantel-shelf a number of cigar-holders in
+amber and meerschaum.
+
+The last article noted down, M. Tabaret approached the commissary of
+police.
+
+“I have everything I could desire,” he whispered.
+
+“And I have finished,” replied the commissary. “Our prisoner does not
+appear to know exactly how to act. You heard what he said. He gave in at
+once. I suppose YOU will call it lack of experience.”
+
+“In the middle of the day,” replied the amateur detective in a whisper,
+“he would not have been quite so crestfallen. But early in the morning,
+suddenly awakened, you know--Always arrest a person early in the
+morning, when he’s hungry, and only half awake.”
+
+“I have questioned some of the servants. Their evidence is rather
+peculiar.”
+
+“Very well; we shall see. But I must hurry off and find the
+investigating magistrate, who is impatiently expecting me.”
+
+Albert was beginning to recover a little from the stupor into which he
+had been plunged by the entrance of the commissary of police.
+
+“Sir,” he asked, “will you permit me to say a few words in your presence
+to the Count de Commarin? I am the victim of some mistake, which will be
+very soon discovered.”
+
+“It’s always a mistake,” muttered old Tabaret.
+
+“What you ask is impossible,” replied the commissary. “I have special
+orders of the strictest sort. You must not henceforth communicate with
+a living soul. A cab is in waiting below. Have the goodness to accompany
+me to it.”
+
+In crossing the vestibule, Albert noticed a great stir among the
+servants; they all seemed to have lost their senses. M. Denis gave some
+orders in a sharp, imperative tone. Then he thought he heard that the
+Count de Commarin had been struck down with apoplexy. After that, he
+remembered nothing. They almost carried him to the cab which drove off
+as fast as the two little horses could go. M. Tabaret had just hastened
+away in a more rapid vehicle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The visitor who risks himself in the labyrinth of galleries and
+stairways in the Palais de Justice, and mounts to the third story in
+the left wing, will find himself in a long, low-studded gallery, badly
+lighted by narrow windows, and pierced at short intervals by little
+doors, like a hall at the ministry or at a lodging-house.
+
+It is a place difficult to view calmly, the imagination makes it appear
+so dark and dismal.
+
+It needs a Dante to compose an inscription to place above the doors
+which lead from it. From morning to night, the flagstones resound under
+the heavy tread of the gendarmes, who accompany the prisoners. You can
+scarcely recall anything but sad figures there. There are the parents or
+friends of the accused, the witnesses, the detectives. In this gallery,
+far from the sight of men, the judicial curriculum is gone through with.
+
+Each one of the little doors, which has its number painted over it in
+black, opens into the office of a judge of inquiry. All the rooms are
+just alike: if you see one, you have seen them all. They have nothing
+terrible nor sad in themselves; and yet it is difficult to enter one of
+them without a shudder. They are cold. The walls all seem moist with
+the tears which have been shed there. You shudder, at thinking of the
+avowals wrested from the criminals, of the confessions broken with sobs
+murmured there.
+
+In the office of the judge of inquiry, Justice clothes herself in none
+of that apparel which she afterwards dons in order to strike fear into
+the masses. She is still simple, and almost disposed to kindness. She
+says to the prisoner,--
+
+“I have strong reasons for thinking you guilty; but prove to me your
+innocence, and I will release you.”
+
+On entering one of these rooms, a stranger would imagine that he got
+into a cheap shop by mistake. The furniture is of the most primitive
+sort, as is the case in all places where important matters are
+transacted. Of what consequence are surroundings to the judge hunting
+down the author of a crime, or to the accused who is defending his life?
+
+A desk full of documents for the judge, a table for the clerk, an
+arm-chair, and one or two chairs besides comprise the entire furniture
+of the antechamber of the court of assize. The walls are hung with green
+paper; the curtains are green, and the floors are carpeted in the same
+color. Monsieur Daburon’s office bore the number fifteen.
+
+M. Daburon had arrived at his office in the Palais de Justice at nine
+o’clock in the morning, and was waiting. His course resolved upon,
+he had not lost an instant, understanding as well as old Tabaret the
+necessity for rapid action. He had already had an interview with the
+public prosecutor, and had arranged everything with the police.
+
+Besides issuing the warrant against Albert, he had summoned the Count de
+Commarin, Madame Gerdy, Noel, and some of Albert’s servants, to appear
+before him with as little delay as possible.
+
+He thought it essential to question all these persons before examining
+the prisoner. Several detectives had started off to execute his orders,
+and he himself sat in his office, like a general commanding an army,
+who sends off his aide-de-camp to begin the battle, and who hopes that
+victory will crown his combinations.
+
+Often, at this same hour, he had sat in this office, under circumstances
+almost identical. A crime had been committed, and, believing he had
+discovered the criminal, he had given orders for his arrest. Was not
+that his duty? But he had never before experienced the anxiety of mind
+which disturbed him now. Many a time had he issued warrants of arrest,
+without possessing even half the proofs which guided him in the present
+case. He kept repeating this to himself; and yet he could not quiet his
+dreadful anxiety, which would not allow him a moment’s rest.
+
+He wondered why his people were so long in making their appearance. He
+walked up and down the room, counting the minutes, drawing out his watch
+three times within a quarter of an hour, to compare it with the clock.
+Every time he heard a step in the passage, almost deserted at that
+hour, he moved near the door, stopped and listened. At length some
+one knocked. It was his clerk, whom he had sent for. There was nothing
+particular in this man; he was tall rather than big, and very slim.
+His gait was precise, his gestures were methodical, and his face was as
+impassive as if it had been cut out of a piece of yellow wood. He was
+thirty-four years of age and during fifteen years had acted as clerk
+to four investigating magistrates in succession. He could hear the most
+astonishing things without moving a muscle. His name was Constant.
+
+He bowed to the magistrate, and excused himself for his tardiness. He
+had been busy with some book-keeping, which he did every morning; and
+his wife had had to send after him.
+
+“You are still in good time,” said M. Daburon: “but we shall soon have
+plenty of work: so you had better get your paper ready.”
+
+Five minutes later, the usher introduced M. Noel Gerdy. He entered
+with an easy manner, like an advocate who was well acquainted with the
+Palais, and who knew its winding ways. He in no wise resembled, this
+morning, old Tabaret’s friend; still less could he have been recognized
+as Madame Juliette’s lover. He was entirely another being, or rather he
+had resumed his every-day bearing. From his firm step, his placid
+face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and
+excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the
+night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at
+least one who had filled his mother’s place.
+
+What a contrast between him and the magistrate!
+
+M. Daburon had not slept either: but one could easily see that in his
+feebleness, in his anxious look, in the dark, circles about his eyes.
+His shirt-front was all rumpled, and his cuffs were far from clean.
+Carried away by the course of events, the mind had forgotten the body.
+Noel’s well-shaved chin, on the contrary, rested upon an irreproachably
+white cravat; his collar did not show a crease; his hair and his
+whiskers had been most carefully brushed. He bowed to M. Daburon, and
+held out the summons he had received.
+
+“You summoned me, sir,” he said; “and I am here awaiting your orders.”
+
+The investigating magistrate had met the young advocate several times in
+the lobbies of the Palais; and he knew him well by sight. He remembered
+having heard M. Gerdy spoken of as a man of talent and promise,
+whose reputation was fast rising. He therefore welcomed him as a
+fellow-workman, and invited him to be seated.
+
+The preliminaries common in the examinations of all witnesses ended;
+the name, surname, age, place of business, and so on having been written
+down, the magistrate, who had followed his clerk with his eyes while he
+was writing, turned towards Noel.
+
+“I presume you know, M. Gerdy,” he began, “the matters in connection
+with which you are troubled with appearing before me?”
+
+“Yes, sir, the murder of that poor old woman at La Jonchere.”
+
+“Precisely,” replied M. Daburon. Then, calling to mind his promise to
+old Tabaret, he added, “If justice has summoned you so promptly, it
+is because we have found your name often mentioned in Widow Lerouge’s
+papers.”
+
+“I am not surprised at that,” replied the advocate: “we were greatly
+interested in that poor woman, who was my nurse; and I know that Madame
+Gerdy wrote to her frequently.”
+
+“Very well; then you can give me some information about her.”
+
+“I fear, sir, that it will be very incomplete. I know very little about
+this poor old Madame Lerouge. I was taken from her at a very early
+age; and, since I have been a man, I have thought but little about her,
+except to send her occasionally a little aid.”
+
+“You never went to visit her?”
+
+“Excuse me. I have gone there to see her many times, but I remained only
+a few minutes. Madame Gerdy, who has often seen her, and to whom she
+talked of all her affairs, could have enlightened you much better than
+I.”
+
+“But,” said the magistrate, “I expect shortly to see Madame Gerdy here;
+she, too, must have received a summons.”
+
+“I know it, sir, but it is impossible for her to appear. She is ill in
+bed.”
+
+“Seriously?”
+
+“So seriously that you will be obliged, I think, to give up all hope of
+her testimony. She is attacked with a disease which, in the words of my
+friend, Dr. Herve, never forgives. It is something like inflammation of
+the brain, if I am not mistaken. It may be that her life will be saved,
+but she will never recover her reason. If she does not die, she will be
+insane.”
+
+M. Daburon appeared greatly vexed. “This is very annoying,” he muttered.
+“And you think, my dear sir, that it will be impossible to obtain any
+information from her?”
+
+“It is useless even to hope for it. She has completely lost her reason.
+She was, when I left her, in such a state of utter prostration that I
+fear she can not live through the day.”
+
+“And when was she attacked by this illness?”
+
+“Yesterday evening.”
+
+“Suddenly?”
+
+“Yes, sir; at least, apparently so, though I myself think she has been
+unwell for the last three weeks at least. Yesterday, however, on rising
+from dinner, after having eaten but little, she took up a newspaper;
+and, by a most unfortunate hazard, her eyes fell exactly upon the lines
+which gave an account of this crime. She at once uttered a loud cry,
+fell back in her chair, and thence slipped to the floor, murmuring, ‘Oh,
+the unhappy man, the unhappy man!’”
+
+“The unhappy woman, you mean.”
+
+“No, sir. She uttered the words I have just repeated. Evidently the
+exclamation did not refer to my poor nurse.”
+
+Upon this reply, so important and yet made in the most unconscious tone,
+M. Daburon raised his eyes to the witness. The advocate lowered his
+head.
+
+“And then?” asked the magistrate, after a moment’s silence, during which
+he had taken a few notes.
+
+“Those words, sir, were the last spoken by Madame Gerdy. Assisted by our
+servant, I carried her to her bed. The doctor was sent for; and, since
+then, she has not recovered consciousness. The doctor--”
+
+“It is well,” interrupted M. Daburon. “Let us leave that for the
+present. Do you know, sir, whether Widow Lerouge had any enemies?”
+
+“None that I know of, sir.”
+
+“She had no enemies? Well, now tell me, does there exist to your
+knowledge any one having the least interest in the death of this poor
+woman?”
+
+As he asked this question the investigating magistrate kept his eyes
+fixed on Noel’s, not wishing him to turn or lower his head.
+
+The advocate started, and seemed deeply moved. He was disconcerted; he
+hesitated, as if a struggle was going on within him.
+
+Finally, in a voice which was by no means firm, he replied, “No, no
+one.”
+
+“Is that really true?” asked the magistrate, looking at him more
+searchingly. “You know no one whom this crime benefits, or whom it might
+benefit,--absolutely no one?”
+
+“I know only one thing, sir,” replied Noel; “and that is, that, as far
+as I am concerned, it has caused me an irreparable injury.”
+
+“At last,” thought M. Daburon, “we have got at the letters; and I have
+not betrayed poor old Tabaret. It would be too bad to cause the least
+trouble to that zealous and invaluable man.” He then added aloud: “An
+injury to you, my dear sir? You will, I hope, explain yourself.”
+
+Noel’s embarrassment, of which he had already given some signs, appeared
+much more marked.
+
+“I am aware, sir,” he replied, “that I owe justice not merely the truth,
+but the whole truth; but there are circumstances involved so delicate
+that the conscience of a man of honour sees danger in them. Besides, it
+is very hard to be obliged to unveil such sad secrets, the revelation of
+which may sometimes--”
+
+M. Daburon interrupted with a gesture. Noel’s sad tone impressed him.
+Knowing, beforehand, what he was about to hear, he felt for the young
+advocate. He turned to his clerk.
+
+“Constant!” said he in a peculiar tone. This was evidently a signal; for
+the tall clerk rose methodically, put his pen behind his ear, and went
+out in his measured tread.
+
+Noel appeared sensible of this kindness. His face expressed the
+strongest gratitude; his look returned thanks.
+
+“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he said with suppressed warmth,
+“for your considerateness. What I have to say is very painful; but it
+will be scarcely an effort to speak before you now.”
+
+“Fear nothing,” replied the magistrate; “I will only retain of your
+deposition, my dear sir, what seems to me absolutely indispensable.”
+
+“I feel scarcely master of myself, sir,” began Noel; “so pray pardon
+my emotion. If any words escape me that seem charged with bitterness,
+excuse them; they will be involuntary. Up to the past few days, I always
+believed that I was the offspring of illicit love. My history is short.
+I have been honourably ambitious; I have worked hard. He who has no
+name must make one, you know. I have passed a quiet life, retired and
+austere, as people must, who, starting at the foot of the ladder, wish
+to reach the top. I worshipped her whom I believed to be my mother; and
+I felt convinced that she loved me in return. The stain of my birth had
+some humiliations attached to it; but I despised them. Comparing my
+lot with that of so many others, I felt that I had more than common
+advantages. One day, Providence placed in my hands all the letters which
+my father, the Count de Commarin, had written to Madame Gerdy during
+the time she was his mistress. On reading these letters, I was convinced
+that I was not what I had hitherto believed myself to be,--that Madame
+Gerdy was not my mother!”
+
+And, without giving M. Daburon time to reply, he laid before him the
+facts which, twelve hours before, he had related to M. Tabaret. It
+was the same story, with the same circumstances, the same abundance of
+precise and conclusive details; but the tone in which it was told was
+entirely changed. When speaking to the old detective, the young
+advocate had been emphatic and violent; but now, in the presence of the
+investigating magistrate, he restrained his vehement emotions.
+
+One might imagine that he adapted his style to his auditors, wishing to
+produce the same effect on both, and using the method which would best
+accomplish his purpose.
+
+To an ordinary mind like M. Tabaret’s he used the exaggeration of anger;
+but to a man of superior intelligence like M. Daburon, he employed the
+exaggeration of restraint. With the detective he had rebelled against
+his unjust lot; but with the magistrate he seemed to bow, full of
+resignation, before a blind fatality.
+
+With genuine eloquence and rare facility of expression, he related his
+feelings on the day following the discovery,--his grief, his perplexity,
+his doubts.
+
+To support this moral certainty, some positive testimony was needed.
+Could he hope for this from the count or from Madame Gerdy, both
+interested in concealing the truth? No. But he had counted upon that of
+his nurse,--the poor old woman who loved him, and who, near the close of
+her life, would be glad to free her conscience from this heavy load. She
+was dead now; and the letters became mere waste paper in his hands.
+
+Then he passed on to his explanation with Madame Gerdy, and he gave the
+magistrate even fuller details than he had given his old neighbour.
+
+She had, he said, at first utterly denied the substitution, but he
+insinuated that, plied with questions, and overcome by the evidence, she
+had, in a moment of despair, confessed all, declaring, soon after,
+that she would retract and deny this confession, being resolved at all
+hazards that her son should preserve his position.
+
+From this scene, in the advocate’s judgment, might be dated the first
+attacks of the illness, to which she was now succumbing.
+
+Noel then described his interview with the Viscount de Commarin. A few
+inaccuracies occurred in his narrative, but so slight that it would have
+been difficult to charge him with them. Besides, there was nothing in
+them at all unfavourable to Albert.
+
+He insisted, on the contrary, upon the excellent impression which that
+young man had made on him. Albert had received the revelation with a
+certain distrust, it is true, but with a noble firmness at the same
+time, and, like a brave heart, was ready to bow before the justification
+of right.
+
+In fact, he drew an almost enthusiastic portrait of this rival, who
+had not been spoiled by prosperity, who had left him without a look of
+hatred, towards whom he felt himself drawn, and who after all was his
+brother.
+
+M. Daburon listened to Noel with the most unremitting attention, without
+allowing a word, a movement, or a frown, to betray his feelings.
+
+“How, sir,” observed the magistrate when the young man ceased speaking,
+“could you have told me that, in your opinion, no one was interested in
+Widow Lerouge’s death?”
+
+The advocate made no reply.
+
+“It seems to me,” continued M. Daburon, “that the Viscount de Commarin’s
+position has thereby become almost impregnable. Madame Gerdy is insane;
+the count will deny all; your letters prove nothing. It is evident that
+the crime is of the greatest service to this young man, and that it was
+committed at a singularly favourable moment.”
+
+“Oh sir!” cried Noel, protesting with all his energy, “this insinuation
+is dreadful.”
+
+The magistrate watched the advocate’s face narrowly. Was he speaking
+frankly, or was he but playing at being generous? Could it really be
+that he had never had any suspicion of this?
+
+Noel did not flinch under the gaze, but almost immediately
+continued,--“What reason could this young man have for trembling, or
+fearing for his position? I did not utter one threatening word, even
+indirectly. I did not present myself like a man who, furious at being
+robbed, demands that everything which had been taken from him should be
+restored on the spot. I merely presented the facts to Albert, saying,
+‘Here is the truth? what do you think we ought to do? Be the judge.’”
+
+“And he asked you for time?”
+
+“Yes. I had suggested his accompanying me to see Widow Lerouge, whose
+testimony might dispel all doubts; he did not seem to understand me. But
+he was well acquainted with her, having visited her with the count, who
+supplied her, I have since learned, liberally with money.”
+
+“Did not this generosity appear to you very singular?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Can you explain why the viscount did not appear disposed to accompany
+you?”
+
+“Certainly. He had just said that he wished, before all, to have an
+explanation with his father, who was then absent, but who would return
+in a few days.”
+
+The truth, as all the world knows, and delights in proclaiming, has an
+accent which no one can mistake. M. Daburon had not the slightest doubt
+of his witness’s good faith. Noel continued with the ingenuous candour
+of an honest heart which suspicion has never touched with its
+bat’s wing: “The idea of treating at once with my father pleased me
+exceedingly. I thought it so much better to wash all one’s dirty linen
+at home, I had never desired anything but an amicable arrangement. With
+my hands full of proofs, I should still recoil from a public trial.”
+
+“Would you not have brought an action?”
+
+“Never, sir, not at any price. Could I,” he added proudly, “to regain my
+rightful name, begin by dishonouring it?”
+
+This time M. Daburon could not conceal his sincere admiration.
+
+“A most praiseworthy feeling, sir,” he said.
+
+“I think,” replied Noel, “that it is but natural. If things came to the
+worst, I had determined to leave my title with Albert. No doubt the name
+of Commarin is an illustrious one; but I hope that, in ten years
+time, mine will be more known. I would, however, have demanded a
+large pecuniary compensation. I possess nothing: and I have often been
+hampered in my career by the want of money. That which Madame Gerdy owed
+to the generosity of my father was almost entirely spent. My education
+had absorbed a great part of it; and it was long before my profession
+covered my expenses. Madame Gerdy and I live very quietly; but,
+unfortunately, though simple in her tastes, she lacks economy and
+system; and no one can imagine how great our expenses have been. But
+I have nothing to reproach myself with, whatever happens. At the
+commencement, I could not keep my anger well under control; but now I
+bear no ill-will. On learning of the death of my nurse, though, I cast
+all my hopes into the sea.”
+
+“You were wrong, my dear sir,” said the magistrate. “I advise you to
+still hope. Perhaps, before the end of the day, you will enter into
+possession of your rights. Justice, I will not conceal from you, thinks
+she has found Widow Lerouge’s assassin. At this moment, Viscount Albert
+is doubtless under arrest.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Noel, with a sort of stupor: “I was not, then,
+mistaken, sir, in the meaning of your words. I dreaded to understand
+them.”
+
+“You have not mistaken me, sir,” said M. Daburon. “I thank you for
+your sincere straightforward explanations; they have eased my task
+materially. To-morrow,--for today my time is all taken up,--we will
+write down your deposition together if you like. I have nothing more to
+say, I believe, except to ask you for the letters in your possession,
+and which are indispensable to me.”
+
+“Within an hour, sir, you shall have them,” replied Noel. And
+he retired, after having warmly expressed his gratitude to the
+investigating magistrate.
+
+Had he been less preoccupied, the advocate might have perceived at the
+end of the gallery old Tabaret, who had just arrived, eager and happy,
+like a bearer of great news as he was.
+
+His cab had scarcely stopped at the gate of the Palais de Justice
+before he was in the courtyard and rushing towards the porch. To see him
+jumping more nimbly than a fifth-rate lawyer’s clerk up the steep flight
+of stairs leading to the magistrate’s office, one would never have
+believed that he was many years on the shady side of fifty. Even he
+himself had forgotten it. He did not remember how he had passed the
+night; he had never before felt so fresh, so agile, in such spirits; he
+seemed to have springs of steel in his limbs.
+
+He burst like a cannon-shot into the magistrate’s office, knocking up
+against the methodical clerk in the rudest of ways, without even asking
+his pardon.
+
+“Caught!” he cried, while yet on the threshold, “caught, nipped,
+squeezed, strung, trapped, locked! We have got the man.”
+
+Old Tabaret, more Tirauclair than ever, gesticulated with such comical
+vehemence and such remarkable contortions that even the tall clerk
+smiled, for which, however, he took himself severely to task on going to
+bed that night.
+
+But M. Daburon, still under the influence of Noel’s deposition, was
+shocked at this apparently unseasonable joy; although he felt the safer
+for it. He looked severely at old Tabaret, saying,--“Hush, sir; be
+decent, compose yourself.”
+
+At any other time, the old fellow would have felt ashamed at having
+deserved such a reprimand. Now, it made no impression on him.
+
+“I can’t be quiet,” he replied. “Never has anything like this been known
+before. All that I mentioned has been found. Broken foil, lavender kid
+gloves slightly frayed, cigar-holder; nothing is wanting. You shall have
+them, sir, and many other things besides. I have a little system of my
+own, which appears by no means a bad one. Just see the triumph of my
+method of induction, which Gevrol ridiculed so much. I’d give a hundred
+francs if he were only here now. But no; my Gevrol wants to nab the
+man with the earrings; he is just capable of doing that. He is a fine
+fellow, this Gevrol, a famous fellow! How much do you give him a year
+for his skill?”
+
+“Come, my dear M. Tabaret,” said the magistrate, as soon as he could get
+in a word, “be serious, if you can, and let us proceed in order.”
+
+“Pooh!” replied the old fellow, “what good will that do? It is a clear
+case now. When they bring the fellow before you, merely show him the
+particles of kid taken from behind the nails of the victim, side by side
+with his torn gloves, and you will overwhelm him. I wager that he will
+confess all, hic et nunc,--yes, I wager my head against his; although
+that’s pretty risky; for he may get off yet! Those milk-sops on the jury
+are just capable of according him extenuating circumstances. Ah! all
+those delays are fatal to justice! Why if all the world were of my mind,
+the punishment of rascals wouldn’t take such a time. They should be
+hanged as soon as caught. That’s my opinion.”
+
+M. Daburon resigned himself to this shower of words. As soon as the old
+fellow’s excitement had cooled down a little, he began questioning him.
+He even then had great trouble in obtaining the exact details of the
+arrest; details which later on were confirmed by the commissary’s
+official report.
+
+The magistrate appeared very surprised when he heard that Albert had
+exclaimed, “I am lost!” at sight of the warrant. “That,” muttered he,
+“is a terrible proof against him.”
+
+“I should think so,” replied old Tabaret. “In his ordinary state, he
+would never have allowed himself to utter such words; for they in fact
+destroy him. We arrested him when he was scarcely awake. He hadn’t been
+in bed, but was lying in a troubled sleep, upon a sofa, when we arrived.
+I took good care to let a frightened servant run in in advance, and to
+follow closely upon him myself, to see the effect. All my arrangements
+were made. But, never fear, he will find a plausible excuse for this
+fatal exclamation. By the way, I should add that we found on the floor,
+near by, a crumpled copy of last evening’s ‘Gazette de France,’ which
+contained an account of the assassination. This is the first time that a
+piece of news in the papers ever helped to nab a criminal.”
+
+“Yes,” murmured the magistrate, deep in thought, “yes, you are a
+valuable man, M. Tabaret.” Then, louder, he added, “I am thoroughly
+convinced; for M. Gerdy has just this moment left me.”
+
+“You have seen Noel!” cried the old fellow. On the instant all his proud
+self-satisfaction disappeared. A cloud of anxiety spread itself like
+a veil over his beaming countenance. “Noel here,” he repeated. Then he
+timidly added: “And does he know?”
+
+“Nothing,” replied M. Daburon. “I had no need of mentioning your name.
+Besides, had I not promised absolute secrecy?”
+
+“Ah, that’s all right,” cried old Tabaret. “And what do you think sir,
+of Noel?”
+
+“His is, I am sure, a noble, worthy heart,” said the magistrate; “a
+nature both strong and tender. The sentiments which I heard him express
+here, and the genuineness of which it is impossible to doubt, manifested
+an elevation of soul, unhappily, very rare. Seldom in my life have I met
+with a man who so won my sympathy from the first. I can well understand
+one’s pride in being among his friends.”
+
+“Just what I said; he has precisely the same effect upon every one. I
+love him as though he were my own child; and, whatever happens, he
+will inherit almost the whole of my fortune: yes, I intend leaving him
+everything. My will is made, and is in the hands of M. Baron, my notary.
+There is a small legacy, too, for Madame Gerdy; but I am going to have
+the paragraph that relates to that taken out at once.”
+
+“Madame Gerdy, M. Tabaret, will soon be beyond all need of worldly
+goods.”
+
+“How, what do you mean? Has the count--”
+
+“She is dying, and is not likely to live through the day; M. Gerdy told
+me so himself.”
+
+“Ah! heavens!” cried the old fellow, “what is that you say? Dying? Noel
+will be distracted; but no: since she is not his mother, how can it
+affect him? Dying! I thought so much of her before this discovery. Poor
+humanity! It seems as though all the accomplices are passing away at
+the same time; for I forgot to tell you, that, just as I was leaving
+the Commarin mansion, I heard a servant tell another that the count had
+fallen down in a fit on learning the news of his son’s arrest.”
+
+“That will be a great misfortune for M. Gerdy.”
+
+“For Noel?”
+
+“I had counted upon M. de Commarin’s testimony to recover for him all
+that he so well deserves. The count dead, Widow Lerouge dead, Madame
+Gerdy dying, or in any event insane, who then can tell us whether the
+substitution alluded to in the letters was ever carried into execution?”
+
+“True,” murmured old Tabaret; “it is true! And I did not think of it.
+What fatality! For I am not deceived; I am certain that--”
+
+He did not finish. The door of M. Daburon’s office opened, and the Count
+de Commarin himself appeared on the threshold, as rigid as one of those
+old portraits which look as though they were frozen in their gilded
+frames. The nobleman motioned with his hand, and the two servants who
+had helped him up as far as the door, retired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+It was indeed the Count de Commarin, though more like his shadow. His
+head, usually carried so high, leant upon his chest; his figure was
+bent; his eyes had no longer their accustomed fire; his hands trembled.
+The extreme disorder of his dress rendered more striking still the
+change which had come over him. In one night, he had grown twenty years
+older. This man, yesterday so proud of never having bent to a storm,
+was now completely shattered. The pride of his name had constituted his
+entire strength; that humbled, he seemed utterly overwhelmed. Everything
+in him gave way at once; all his supports failed him at the same time.
+His cold, lifeless gaze revealed the dull stupor of his thoughts.
+He presented such a picture of utter despair that the investigating
+magistrate slightly shuddered at the sight. M. Tabaret looked
+frightened, and even the clerk seemed moved.
+
+“Constant,” said M. Daburon quickly, “go with M. Tabaret, and see if
+there’s any news at the Prefecture.”
+
+The clerk left the room, followed by the detective, who went away
+regretfully. The count had not noticed their presence; he paid no
+attention to their departure.
+
+M. Daburon offered him a seat, which he accepted with a sad smile. “I
+feel so weak,” said he, “you must excuse my sitting.”
+
+Apologies to an investigating magistrate! What an advance in
+civilisation, when the nobles consider themselves subject to the law,
+and bow to its decrees! Every one respects justice now-a-days, and fears
+it a little, even when only represented by a simple and conscientious
+investigating magistrate.
+
+“You are, perhaps, too unwell, count,” said the magistrate, “to give me
+the explanations I had hoped for.”
+
+“I am better, thank you,” replied M. de Commarin, “I am as well as could
+be expected after the shock I have received. When I heard of the crime
+of which my son is accused, and of his arrest, I was thunderstruck.
+I believed myself a strong man; but I rolled in the dust. My servants
+thought me dead. Why was it not so? The strength of my constitution,
+my physician tells me, was all that saved me; but I believe that heaven
+wishes me to live, that I may drink to the bitter dregs my cup of
+humiliation.”
+
+He stopped suddenly, nearly choked by a flow of blood that rose to his
+mouth.
+
+The investigating magistrate remained standing near the table, almost
+afraid to move.
+
+After a few moments’ rest, the count found relief, and
+continued,--“Unhappy man that I am! ought I not to have expected it?
+Everything comes to light sooner or later. I am punished for my great
+sin,--pride. I thought myself out of reach of the thunderbolt; and I
+have been the means of drawing down the storm upon my house. Albert an
+assassin! A Viscount de Commarin arraigned before a court of assize! Ah,
+sir, punish me, also; for I alone and long ago, laid the foundation of
+this crime. Fifteen centuries of spotless fame end with me in infamy.”
+
+M. Daburon considered Count de Commarin’s conduct unpardonable, and had
+determined not to spare him.
+
+He had expected to meet a proud, haughty noble, almost unmanageable; and
+he had resolved to humble his arrogance.
+
+Perhaps the harsh treatment he had received of old from the Marchioness
+d’Arlange had given him, unconsciously, a slight grudge against the
+aristocracy.
+
+He had vaguely thought of certain rather severe remarks, which were to
+overcome the old nobleman, and bring him to a sense of his position.
+
+But when he found himself in the presence of such a sincere repentance,
+his indignation changed to profound pity; and he began to wonder how he
+could assuage the count’s grief.
+
+“Write, sir,” continued M. de Commarin with an exaltation of which he
+did not seem capable ten minutes before,--“write my avowal and suppress
+nothing. I have no longer need of mercy nor of tenderness. What have
+I to fear now? Is not my disgrace public? Must not I, Count Rheteau
+de Commarin appear before the tribunal, to proclaim the infamy of our
+house? Ah! all is lost now, even honour itself. Write, sir; for I wish
+that all the world shall know that I am the most deserving of blame. But
+they shall also know that the punishment has been already terrible, and
+that there was no need for this last and awful trial.”
+
+The count stopped for a moment, to concentrate and arrange his memory.
+
+He soon continued, in a firmer voice, and adapting his tone to what he
+had to say, “When I was of Albert’s age, sir, my parents made me marry,
+in spite of my protestations, the noblest and purest of young girls. I
+made her the most unhappy of women. I could not love her. I cherished a
+most passionate love for a mistress, who had trusted herself to me, and
+whom I had loved for a long time. I found her rich in beauty, purity and
+mind. Her name was Valerie. My heart is, so to say, dead and cold in me,
+sir, but, ah! when I pronounce that name, it still has a great effect
+upon me. In spite of my marriage, I could not induce myself to part from
+her, though she wished me to. The idea of sharing my love with another
+was revolting to her. No doubt she loved me then. Our relations
+continued. My wife and my mistress became mothers at nearly the same
+time. This coincidence suggested to me the fatal idea of sacrificing
+my legitimate son to his less fortunate brother. I communicated this
+project to Valerie. To my great surprise, she refused it with horror.
+Already the maternal instinct was aroused within her; she would not be
+separated from her child. I have preserved, as a monument of my folly,
+the letters which she wrote to me at that time. I re-read them only last
+night. Ah! why did I not listen to both her arguments and her prayers?
+It was because I was mad. She had a sort of presentiment of the evil
+which overwhelms me to-day. But I came to Paris;--I had absolute
+control over her. I threatened to leave her, never to see her again. She
+yielded; and my valet and Claudine Lerouge were charged with this wicked
+substitution. It is, therefore, the son of my mistress who bears the
+title of Viscount de Commarin, and who was arrested but a short time
+ago.”
+
+M. Daburon had not hoped for a declaration so clear, and above all
+so prompt. He secretly rejoiced for the young advocate whose noble
+sentiments had quite captivated him.
+
+“So, count,” said he, “you acknowledge that M. Noel Gerdy is the issue
+of your legitimate marriage, and that he alone is entitled to bear your
+name?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Alas! I was then more delighted at the success of my project
+than I should have been over the most brilliant victory. I was so
+intoxicated with the joy of having my Valerie’s child there, near me,
+that I forgot everything else. I had transferred to him a part of my
+love for his mother; or, rather, I loved him still more, if that be
+possible. The thought that he would bear my name, that he would inherit
+all my wealth, to the detriment of the other, transported me with
+delight. The other, I hated; I could not even look upon him. I do not
+recollect having kissed him twice. On this point Valerie, who was
+very good, reproached me severely. One thing alone interfered with my
+happiness. The Countess de Commarin adored him whom she believed to be
+her son, and always wished to have him on her knees. I cannot express
+what I suffered at seeing my wife cover with kisses and caresses the
+child of my mistress. But I kept him from her as much as I could; and
+she, poor woman! not understanding what was passing within me, imagined
+that I was doing everything to prevent her son loving her. She died,
+sir, with this idea, which poisoned her last days. She died of sorrow;
+but saint-like, without a complaint, without a murmur, pardon upon her
+lips and in her heart.”
+
+Though greatly pressed for time, M. Daburon did not venture to interrupt
+the count, to ask him briefly for the immediate facts of the case. He
+knew that fever alone gave him this unnatural energy, to which at any
+moment might succeed the most complete prostration. He feared, if he
+stopped him for an instant, that he would not have strength enough to
+resume.
+
+“I did not shed a single tear,” continued the count. “What had she been
+in my life? A cause of sorrow and remorse. But God’s justice, in advance
+of man’s was about to take a terrible revenge. One day, I was warned
+that Valerie was deceiving me, and had done so for a long time. I could
+not believe it at first; it seemed to me impossible, absurd. I would
+have sooner doubted myself than her. I had taken her from a garret,
+where she was working sixteen hours a day to earn a few pence; she owed
+all to me. I had made her so much a part of myself that I could not
+credit her being false. I could not induce myself to feel jealous.
+However, I inquired into the matter; I had her watched; I even acted the
+spy upon her myself. I had been told the truth. This unhappy woman had
+another lover, and had had him for more than ten years. He was a cavalry
+officer. In coming to her house he took every precaution. He usually
+left about midnight; but sometimes he came to pass the night, and in
+that case went away in the early morning. Being stationed near Paris, he
+frequently obtained leave of absence and came to visit her; and he would
+remain shut up in her apartments until his time expired. One evening,
+my spies brought me word that he was there. I hastened to the house. My
+presence did not embarrass her. She received me as usual, throwing her
+arms about my neck. I thought that my spies had deceived me; and I was
+going to tell her all, when I saw upon the piano a buckskin glove, such
+as are worn by soldiers. Not wishing a scene, and not knowing to what
+excess my anger might carry me, I rushed out of the place without saying
+a word. I have never seen her since. She wrote to me. I did not open her
+letters. She attempted to force her way into my presence, but in vain;
+my servants had orders that they dared not ignore.”
+
+Could this be the Count de Commarin, celebrated for his haughty
+coldness, for his reserve so full of disdain, who spoke thus, who opened
+his whole life without restrictions, without reserve? And to whom? To a
+stranger.
+
+But he was in one of those desperate states, allied to madness, when all
+reflection leaves us, when we must find some outlet for a too powerful
+emotion. What mattered to him this secret, so courageously borne for
+so many years? He disburdened himself of it, like the poor man, who,
+weighed down by a too heavy burden, casts it to the earth without
+caring where it falls, nor how much it may tempt the cupidity of the
+passers-by.
+
+“Nothing,” continued he, “no, nothing, can approach to what I then
+endured. My very heartstrings were bound up in that woman. She was like
+a part of myself. In separating from her, it seemed to me that I was
+tearing away a part of my own flesh. I cannot describe the furious
+passions her memory stirred within me. I scorned her and longed for her
+with equal vehemence. I hated her, and I loved her. And, to this day,
+her detestable image has been ever present to my imagination. Nothing
+can make me forget her. I have never consoled myself for her loss. And
+that is not all, terrible doubts about Albert occurred to me. Was I
+really his father? Can you understand what my punishment was, when I
+thought to myself, ‘I have perhaps sacrificed my own son to the child
+of an utter stranger.’ This thought made me hate the bastard who
+called himself Commarin. To my great affection for him succeeded an
+unconquerable aversion. How often, in those days I struggled against
+an insane desire to kill him! Since then, I have learned to subdue my
+aversion; but I have never completely mastered it. Albert, sir, has been
+the best of sons. Nevertheless, there has always been an icy barrier
+between us, which he was unable to explain. I have often been on the
+point of appealing to the tribunals, of avowing all, of reclaiming my
+legitimate heir; but regard for my rank has prevented me. I recoiled
+before the scandal. I feared the ridicule or disgrace that would attach
+to my name; and yet I have not been able to save it from infamy.”
+
+The old nobleman remained silent, after pronouncing these words. In a
+fit of despair, he buried his face in his hands, and two great tears
+rolled silently down his wrinkled cheeks.
+
+In the meantime, the door of the room opened slightly, and the tall
+clerk’s head appeared.
+
+M. Daburon signed to him to enter, and then addressing M. de Commarin,
+he said in a voice rendered more gentle by compassion: “Sir, in the eyes
+of heaven, as in the eyes of society, you have committed a great sin;
+and the results, as you see, are most disastrous. It is your duty to
+repair the evil consequences of your sin as much as lies in your power.”
+
+“Such is my intention, sir, and, may I say so? my dearest wish.”
+
+“You doubtless understand me,” continued M. Daburon.
+
+“Yes, sir,” replied the old man, “yes, I understand you.”
+
+“It will be a consolation to you,” added the magistrate, “to learn that
+M. Noel Gerdy is worthy in all respects of the high position that you
+are about to restore to him. He is a man of great talent, better
+and worthier than any one I know. You will have a son worthy of his
+ancestors. And finally, no one of your family has disgraced it, sir, for
+Viscount Albert is not a Commarin.”
+
+“No,” rejoined the count quickly, “a Commarin would be dead at this
+hour; and blood washes all away.”
+
+The old nobleman’s remark set the investigating magistrate thinking
+profoundly.
+
+“Are you then sure,” said he, “of the viscount’s guilt?”
+
+M. de Commarin gave the magistrate a look of intense surprise.
+
+“I only arrived in Paris yesterday evening,” he replied; “and I am
+entirely ignorant of all that has occurred. I only know that justice
+would not proceed without good cause against a man of Albert’s rank. If
+you have arrested him, it is quite evident that you have something more
+than suspicion against him,--that you possess positive proofs.”
+
+M. Daburon bit his lips, and, for a moment, could not conceal a feeling
+of displeasure. He had neglected his usual prudence, had moved too
+quickly. He had believed the count’s mind entirely upset; and now he had
+aroused his distrust. All the skill in the world could not repair such
+an unfortunate mistake. A witness on his guard is no longer a witness to
+be depended upon; he trembles for fear of compromising himself, measures
+the weight of the questions, and hesitates as to his answers.
+
+On the other hand, justice, in the form of a magistrate, is disposed to
+doubt everything, to imagine everything, and to suspect everybody.
+How far was the count a stranger to the crime at La Jonchere? Although
+doubting Albert’s paternity, he would certainly have made great efforts
+to save him. His story showed that he thought his honour in peril just
+as much as his son. Was he not the man to suppress, by every means, an
+inconvenient witness? Thus reasoned M. Daburon. And yet he could not
+clearly see how the Count de Commarin’s interests were concerned in the
+matter. This uncertainty made him very uneasy.
+
+“Sir,” he asked, more sternly, “when were you informed of the discovery
+of your secret?”
+
+“Last evening, by Albert himself. He spoke to me of this sad story, in a
+way which I now seek in vain to explain, unless--”
+
+The count stopped short, as if his reason had been struck by the
+improbability of the supposition which he had formed.
+
+“Unless!--” inquired the magistrate eagerly.
+
+“Sir,” said the count, without replying directly, “Albert is a hero, if
+he is not guilty.”
+
+“Ah!” said the magistrate quickly, “have you, then, reason to think him
+innocent?”
+
+M. Daburon’s spite was so plainly visible in the tone of his words that
+M. de Commarin could and ought to have seen the semblance of an insult.
+He started, evidently offended, and rising, said: “I am now no more a
+witness for, than I was a moment ago a witness against. I desire only to
+render what assistance I can to justice, in accordance with my duty.”
+
+“Confound it,” said M. Daburon to himself, “here I have offended him
+now! Is this the way to do things, making mistake after mistake?”
+
+“The facts are these,” resumed the count. “Yesterday, after having
+spoken to me of these cursed letters, Albert began to set a trap to
+discover the truth,--for he still had doubts, Noel Gerdy not having
+obtained the complete correspondence. An animated discussion arose
+between us. He declared his resolution to give way to Noel. I, on the
+other hand, was resolved to compromise the matter, cost what it might.
+Albert dared to oppose me. All my efforts to convert him to my views
+were useless. Vainly I tried to touch those chords in his breast which I
+supposed the most sensitive. He firmly repeated his intention to retire
+in spite of me, declaring himself satisfied, if I would consent to allow
+him a modest competence. I again attempted to shake him, by showing him
+that his marriage, so ardently looked forward to for two years, would be
+broken off by this blow. He replied that he felt sure of the constancy
+of his betrothed, Mademoiselle d’Arlange.”
+
+This name fell like a thunderbolt upon the ears of the investigating
+magistrate. He jumped in his chair. Feeling that his face was turning
+crimson, he took up a large bundle of papers from his table, and,
+to hide his emotion, he raised them to his face, as though trying to
+decipher an illegible word. He began to understand the difficult duty
+with which he was charged. He knew that he was troubled like a child,
+having neither his usual calmness nor foresight. He felt that he
+might commit the most serious blunders. Why had he undertaken this
+investigation? Could he preserve himself quite free from bias? Did he
+think his will would be perfectly impartial? Gladly would he put off
+to another time the further examination of the count; but could he?
+His conscience told him that this would be another blunder. He renewed,
+then, the painful examination.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “the sentiments expressed by the viscount are very fine,
+without doubt; but did he not mention Widow Lerouge?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the count, who appeared suddenly to brighten, as by the
+remembrance of some unnoticed circumstances,--“yes, certainly.”
+
+“He must have shown you that this woman’s testimony rendered a struggle
+with M. Gerdy impossible.”
+
+“Precisely; sir; and, aside from the question of duty, it was upon that
+that he based his refusal to follow my wishes.”
+
+“It will be necessary, count, for you to repeat to me very exactly all
+that passed between the viscount and yourself. Appeal, then, I beseech
+you, to your memory, and try to repeat his own words as nearly as
+possible.”
+
+M. de Commarin could do so without much difficulty. For some little
+time, a salutary reaction had taken place within him. His blood, excited
+by the persistence of the examination, moved in its accustomed course.
+His brain cleared itself.
+
+The scene of the previous evening was admirably presented to his memory,
+even to the most insignificant details. The sound of Albert’s voice was
+still in his ears; he saw again his expressive gestures. As his story
+advanced, alive with clearness and precision, M. Daburon’s conviction
+became more confirmed.
+
+The magistrate turned against Albert precisely that which the day before
+had won the count’s admiration.
+
+“What wonderful acting!” thought he. “Tabaret is decidedly possessed
+of second sight. To his inconceivable boldness, this young man joins an
+infernal cleverness. The genius of crime itself inspires him. It is a
+miracle that we are able to unmask him. How well everything was foreseen
+and arranged? How marvellously this scene with his father was brought
+about, in order to procure doubt in case of discovery? There is not
+a sentence which lacks a purpose, which does not tend to ward off
+suspicion. What refinement of execution! What excessive care for
+details! Nothing is wanting, not even the great devotion of his
+betrothed. Has he really informed Claire? Probably I might find out;
+but I should have to see her again, to speak to her. Poor child! to love
+such a man! But his plan is now fully exposed. His discussion with the
+count was his plank of safety. It committed him to nothing, and gained
+time. He would of course raise objections, since they would only end by
+binding him the more firmly in his father’s heart. He could thus make a
+merit of his compliance, and would ask a reward for his weakness. And,
+when Noel returned to the charge, he would find himself in presence of
+the count, who would boldly deny everything, politely refuse to have
+anything to do with him and would possibly have him driven out of the
+house, as an impostor and forger.”
+
+It was a strange coincidence, but yet easily explained, that M. de
+Commarin, while telling his story, arrived at the same ideas as the
+magistrate, and at conclusions almost identical. In fact, why that
+persistence with respect to Claudine? He remembered plainly, that, in
+his anger, he had said to his son, “Mankind is not in the habit of
+doing such fine actions for its own satisfaction.” That great
+disinterestedness was now explained.
+
+When the count had ceased speaking, M. Daburon said: “I thank you, sir.
+I can say nothing positive; but justice has weighty reasons to believe
+that, in the scene which you have just related to me, Viscount Albert
+played a part previously arranged.”
+
+“And well arranged,” murmured the count; “for he deceived me!”
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of Noel, who carried under his arm a
+black shagreen portfolio, ornamented with his monogram.
+
+The advocate bowed to the old gentleman, who in his turn rose and
+retired politely to the end of the room.
+
+“Sir,” said Noel, in an undertone to the magistrate, “you will find all
+the letters in this portfolio. I must ask permission to leave you at
+once, as Madame Gerdy’s condition grows hourly more alarming.”
+
+Noel had raised his voice a little, in pronouncing these last words; and
+the count heard them. He started, and made a great effort to restrain
+the question which leaped from his heart to his lips.
+
+“You must however give me a moment, my dear sir,” replied the
+magistrate.
+
+M. Daburon then quitted his chair, and, taking the advocate by the hand,
+led him to the count.
+
+“M. de Commarin,” said he, “I have the honour of presenting to you M.
+Noel Gerdy.”
+
+M. de Commarin was probably expecting some scene of this kind: for not a
+muscle of his face moved: he remained perfectly calm. Noel, on his side,
+was like a man who had received a blow on the head; he staggered, and
+was obliged to seek support from the back of a chair.
+
+Then these two, father and son, stood face to face, apparently deep in
+thought, but in reality examining one another with mutual distrust, each
+striving to gather something of the other’s thoughts.
+
+M. Daburon had augured better results from this meeting, which he had
+been awaiting ever since the count’s arrival. He had expected that this
+abrupt presentation would bring about an intensely pathetic scene, which
+would not give his two witnesses time for reflection. The count
+would open his arms: Noel would throw himself into them; and this
+reconciliation would only await the sanction of the tribunals, to be
+complete.
+
+The coldness of the one, the embarrassment of the other, disconcerted
+his plans. He therefore thought it necessary to intervene.
+
+“Count,” said he reproachfully, “remember that it was only a few minutes
+ago that you admitted that M. Gerdy was your legitimate son.”
+
+M. de Commarin made no reply; to judge from his lack of emotion, he
+could not have heard.
+
+So Noel, summoning all his courage, ventured to speak first,--“Sir,” he
+stammered, “I entertain no--”
+
+“You may call me father,” interrupted the haughty old man, in a tone
+which was by no means affectionate. Then addressing the magistrate he
+said: “Can I be of any further use to you, sir?”
+
+“Only to hear your evidence read over,” replied M. Daburon, “and to sign
+it if you find everything correct. You can proceed, Constant,” he added.
+
+The tall clerk turned half round on his chair and commenced. He had
+a peculiar way of jabbering over what he had scrawled. He read very
+quickly, all at a stretch, without paying the least attention to either
+full stops or commas, questions or replies; but went on reading as long
+as his breath lasted. When he could go on no longer, he took a breath,
+and then continued as before. Unconsciously, he reminded one of a diver,
+who every now and then raises his head above water, obtains a supply of
+air, and disappears again. Noel was the only one to listen attentively
+to the reading, which to unpractised ears was unintelligible. It
+apprised him of many things which it was important for him to know. At
+last Constant pronounced the words, “In testimony whereof,” etc., which
+end all official reports in France.
+
+He handed the pen to the count, who signed without hesitation. The old
+nobleman then turned towards Noel.
+
+“I am not very strong,” he said; “you must therefore, my son,”
+ emphasizing the word, “help your father to his carriage.”
+
+The young advocate advanced eagerly. His face brightened, as he passed
+the count’s arm through his own. When they were gone, M. Daburon could
+not resist a impulse of curiosity. He hastened to the door, which he
+opened slightly; and, keeping his body in the background that he might
+not himself be seen, he looked out into the passage. The count and Noel
+had not yet reached the end. They were going slowly. The count seemed to
+drag heavily and painfully along; the advocate took short steps, bending
+slightly towards his father; and all his movements were marked with the
+greatest solicitude. The magistrate remained watching them until they
+passed out of sight at the end of the gallery. Then he returned to his
+seat, heaving a deep sigh.
+
+“At least,” thought he, “I have helped to make one person happy. The day
+will not be entirely a bad one.”
+
+But he had no time to give way to his thoughts, the hours flew by so
+quickly. He wished to interrogate Albert as soon as possible; and he had
+still to receive the evidence of several of the count’s servants, and
+the report of the commissary of police charged with the arrest. The
+servants who had been waiting their turn a long while were now
+brought in without delay, and examined separately. They had but little
+information to give; but the testimony of each was so to say a fresh
+accusation. It was easy to see that all believed their master guilty.
+
+Albert’s conduct since the beginning of the fatal week, his least words,
+his most insignificant movements, were reported, commented upon, and
+explained.
+
+The man who lives in the midst of thirty servants is like an insect in
+a glass box under the magnifying glass of a naturalist. Not one of his
+acts escapes their notice: he can scarcely have a secret of his own;
+and, if they cannot divine what it is, they at least know that he has
+one. From morn till night he is the point of observation for thirty
+pairs of eyes, interested in studying the slightest changes in his
+countenance.
+
+The magistrate obtained, therefore, an abundance of those frivolous
+details which seem nothing at first; but the slightest of which may, at
+the trial, become a question of life or death.
+
+By combining these depositions, reconciling them and putting them in
+order, M. Daburon was able to follow his prisoner hour by hour from the
+Sunday morning.
+
+Directly Noel left, the viscount gave orders that all visitors should be
+informed that he had gone into the country. From that moment, the whole
+household perceived that something had gone wrong with him, that he was
+very much annoyed, or very unwell.
+
+He did not leave his study on that day, but had his dinner brought up to
+him. He ate very little,--only some soup, and a very thin fillet of
+sole with white wine. While eating, he said to M. Contois, the butler:
+“Remind the cook to spice the sauce a little more, in future,” and then
+added in a low tone, “Ah! to what purpose?” In the evening he dismissed
+his servants from all duties, saying, “Go, and amuse yourselves.” He
+expressly warned them not to disturb him unless he rang.
+
+On the Monday, he did not get up until noon, although usually an early
+riser. He complained of a violent headache, and of feeling sick.
+He took, however a cup of tea. He ordered his brougham, but almost
+immediately countermanded the order. Lubin, his valet, heard him say:
+“I am hesitating too much;” and a few moments later, “I must make up my
+mind.” Shortly afterwards he began writing.
+
+He then gave Lubin a letter to carry to Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange,
+with orders to deliver it only to herself or to Mademoiselle Schmidt,
+the governess. A second letter, containing two thousand franc notes,
+was intrusted to Joseph, to be taken to the viscount’s club. Joseph
+no longer remembered the name of the person to whom the letter was
+addressed; but it was not a person of title. That evening, Albert only
+took a little soup, and remained shut up in his room.
+
+He rose early on the Tuesday. He wandered about the house, as though he
+were in great trouble, or impatiently awaiting something which did not
+arrive. On his going into the garden, the gardener asked his advice
+concerning a lawn. He replied, “You had better consult the count upon
+his return.”
+
+He did not breakfast any more than the day before. About one o’clock, he
+went down to stables, and caressed, with an air of sadness, his favorite
+mare, Norma. Stroking her neck, he said, “Poor creature! poor old girl!”
+
+At three o’clock, a messenger arrived with a letter. The viscount took
+it, and opened it hastily. He was then near the flower-garden. Two
+footmen distinctly heard him say, “She cannot resist.” He returned to
+the house, and burnt the letter in the large stove in the hall.
+
+As he was sitting down to dinner, at six o’clock, two of his friends,
+M. de Courtivois and the Marquis de Chouze, insisted upon seeing him,
+in spite of all orders. They would not be refused. These gentlemen were
+anxious for him to join them in some pleasure party, but he declined,
+saying that he had a very important appointment.
+
+At dinner he ate a little more than on the previous days. He even asked
+the butler for a bottle of Chateau-Lafitte, the whole of which he drank
+himself. While taking his coffee, he smoked a cigar in the dining room,
+contrary to the rules of the house. At half-past seven, according to
+Joseph and two footmen, or at eight according to the Swiss porter and
+Lubin, the viscount went out on foot, taking an umbrella with him. He
+returned home at two o’clock in the morning, and at once dismissed his
+valet, who had waited up for him.
+
+On entering the viscount’s room on the Wednesday, the valet was struck
+with the condition in which he found his master’s clothes. They were
+wet, and stained with mud; the trousers were torn. He ventured to make
+a remark about them. Albert replied, in a furious manner, “Throw the old
+things in a corner, ready to be given away.”
+
+He appeared to be much better all that day. He breakfasted with a good
+appetite; and the butler noticed that he was in excellent spirits. He
+passed the afternoon in the library, and burnt a pile of papers.
+
+On the Thursday, he again seemed very unwell. He was scarcely able to go
+and meet the count. That evening, after his interview with his father,
+he went to his room looking extremely ill. Lubin wanted to run for the
+doctor: he forbade him to do so, or to mention to any one that he was
+not well.
+
+Such was the substance of twenty large pages, which the tall clerk
+had covered with writing, without once turning his head to look at the
+witnesses who passed by in their fine livery.
+
+M. Daburon managed to obtain this evidence in less than two hours.
+Though well aware of the importance of their testimony, all these
+servants were very voluble. The difficulty was, to stop them when they
+had once started. From all they said, it appeared that Albert was a very
+good master,--easily served, kind and polite to his servants. Wonderful
+to relate! there were found only three among them who did not appear
+perfectly delighted at the misfortune which had befallen the family.
+Two were greatly distressed. M. Lubin, although he had been an object of
+especial kindness, was not one of these.
+
+The turn of the commissary of police had now come. In a few words, he
+gave an account of the arrest, already described by old Tabaret. He did
+not forget to mention the one word “Lost,” which had escaped Albert; to
+his mind, it was a confession. He then delivered all the articles seized
+in the Viscount de Commarin’s apartments.
+
+The magistrate carefully examined these things, and compared them
+closely with the scraps of evidence gathered at La Jonchere. He soon
+appeared, more than ever, satisfied with the course he had taken.
+
+He then placed all these material proofs upon his table, and covered
+them over with three or four large sheets of paper.
+
+The day was far advanced; and M. Daburon had no more than sufficient
+time to examine the prisoner before night. He now remembered that he had
+tasted nothing since morning; and he sent hastily for a bottle of wine
+and some biscuits. It was not strength, however, that the magistrate
+needed; it was courage. All the while that he was eating and drinking,
+his thoughts kept repeating this strange sentence, “I am about to appear
+before the Viscount de Commarin.” At any other time, he would have
+laughed at the absurdity of the idea, but, at this moment, it seemed to
+him like the will of Providence.
+
+“So be it,” said he to himself; “this is my punishment.”
+
+And immediately he gave the necessary orders for Viscount Albert to be
+brought before him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Albert scarcely noticed his removal from home to the seclusion of the
+prison. Snatched away from his painful thoughts by the harsh voice of
+the commissary, saying. “In the name of the law I arrest you,” his
+mind, completely upset, was a long time in recovering its equilibrium,
+Everything that followed appeared to him to float indistinctly in a
+thick mist, like those dream-scenes represented on the stage behind a
+quadruple curtain of gauze.
+
+To the questions put to him he replied, without knowing what he said.
+Two police agents took hold of his arms, and helped him down the stairs.
+He could not have walked down alone. His limbs, which bent beneath him,
+refused their support. The only thing he understood of all that was said
+around him was that the count had been struck with apoplexy; but even
+that he soon forgot.
+
+They lifted him into the cab, which was waiting in the court-yard at the
+foot of the steps, rather ashamed at finding itself in such a place; and
+they placed him on the back seat. Two police agents installed themselves
+in front of him while a third mounted the box by the side of the driver.
+During the drive, he did not at all realize his situation. He lay
+perfectly motionless in the dirty, greasy vehicle. His body, which
+followed every jolt, scarcely allayed by the worn-out springs, rolled
+from one side to the other and his head oscillated on his shoulders,
+as if the muscles of his neck were broken. He thought of Widow Lerouge. He
+recalled her as she was when he went with his father to La Jonchere. It
+was in the spring-time; and the hawthorn blossoms scented the air.
+The old woman, in a white cap, stood at her garden gate: she spoke
+beseechingly. The count looked sternly at her as he listened, then,
+taking some gold from his purse, he gave it to her.
+
+On arriving at their destination they lifted him out of the cab, the
+same way as they had lifted him in at starting.
+
+During the formality of entering his name in the jail-book in the dingy,
+stinking record office, and whilst replying mechanically to everything,
+he gave himself up with delight to recollections of Claire. He went back
+to the time of the early days of their love, when he doubted whether he
+would ever have the happiness of being loved by her in return; when they
+used to meet at Mademoiselle Goello’s.
+
+This old maid had a house on the left bank of the Seine furnished in
+the most eccentric manner. On all the dining-room furniture, and on the
+mantel-piece, were placed a dozen or fifteen stuffed dogs, of various
+breeds, which together or successively had helped to cheer the maiden’s
+lonely hours. She loved to relate stories of these pets whose affection
+had never failed her. Some were grotesque, others horrible. One
+especially, outrageously stuffed seemed ready to burst. How many times
+he and Claire had laughed at it until the tears came!
+
+The officials next began to search him. This crowning humiliation, these
+rough hands passing all over his body brought him somewhat to himself,
+and roused his anger. But it was already over; and they at once dragged
+him along the dark corridors, over the filthy, slippery floor. They
+opened a door, and pushed him into a small cell. He then heard them lock
+and bolt the door.
+
+He was a prisoner, and, in accordance with special orders, in solitary
+confinement. He immediately felt a marked sensation of comfort. He was
+alone.
+
+No more stifled whispers, harsh voices, implacable questions, sounded
+in his ears. A profound silence reigned around. It seemed to him that he
+had forever escaped from society; and he rejoiced at it. He would have
+felt relieved, had this even been the silence of the grave. His body,
+as well as his mind, was weighed down with weariness. He wanted to
+sit down, when he perceived a small bed, to the right, in front of the
+grated window, which let in the little light there was. This bed was as
+welcome to him as a plank would be to a drowning man. He threw himself
+upon it, and lay down with delight; but he felt cold, so he unfolded
+the coarse woollen coverlid, and wrapping it about him, was soon sound
+asleep.
+
+In the corridor, two detectives, one still young, the other rather old,
+applied alternately their eyes and ears to the peep-hole in the door,
+watching every movement of the prisoner; “What a fellow he is!” murmured
+the younger officer. “If a man has no more nerve than that, he ought
+to remain honest. He won’t care much about his looks the morning of his
+execution, eh, M. Balan?”
+
+“That depends,” replied the other. “We must wait and see. Lecoq told me
+that he was a terrible rascal.”
+
+“Ah! look he arranges his bed, and lies down. Can he be going to sleep?
+That’s good! It’s the first time I ever saw such a thing.”
+
+“It is because, comrade, you have only had dealings with the smaller
+rogues. All rascals of position--and I have had to do with more than
+one--are this sort. At the moment of arrest, they are incapable of
+anything; their heart fails them; but they recover themselves next day.”
+
+“Upon my word, one would say he has gone to sleep! What a joke!”
+
+“I tell you, my friend,” added the old man, pointedly, “that nothing
+is more natural. I am sure that, since the blow was struck, this young
+fellow has hardly lived: his body has been all on fire. Now he knows
+that his secret is out; and that quiets him.”
+
+“Ha, ha! M. Balan, you are joking: you say that that quiets him?”
+
+“Certainly. There is no greater punishment, remember, than anxiety;
+everything is preferable. If you only possessed an income of ten
+thousand francs, I would show you a way to prove this. I would tell you
+to go to Hamburg and risk your entire fortune on one chance at rouge et
+noir. You could relate to me, afterwards, what your feelings were while
+the ball was rolling. It is, my boy, as though your brain was being torn
+with pincers, as though molten lead was being poured into your bones, in
+place of marrow. This anxiety is so strong, that one feels relieved, one
+breathes again, even when one has lost. It is ruin; but then the anxiety
+is over.”
+
+“Really, M. Balan, one would think that you yourself had had just such
+an experience.”
+
+“Alas!” sighed the old detective, “it is to my love for the queen of
+spades, my unhappy love, that you owe the honour of looking through
+this peephole in my company. But this fellow will sleep for a couple of
+hours, do not lose sight of him; I am going to smoke a cigarette in the
+courtyard.”
+
+Albert slept four hours. On awaking his head seemed clearer than it had
+been ever since his interview with Noel. It was a terrible moment for
+him, when, for the first time he became fully aware of his situation.
+
+“Now, indeed,” said he, “I require all my courage.”
+
+He longed to see some one, to speak, to be questioned, to explain. He
+felt a desire to call out.
+
+“But what good would that be?” he asked himself. “Some one will be
+coming soon.” He looked for his watch, to see what time it was, and
+found that they had taken it away. He felt this deeply; they were
+treating him like the most abandoned of villains. He felt in his
+pockets: they had all been carefully emptied. He thought now of his
+personal appearance; and, getting up, he repaired as much as possible
+the disorder of his toilet. He put his clothes in order, and dusted
+them; he straightened his collar, and re-tied his cravat. Then pouring
+a little water on his handkerchief, he passed it over his face, bathing
+his eyes which were greatly inflamed. Then he endeavoured to smooth his
+beard and hair. He had no idea that four lynx eyes were fixed upon him
+all the while.
+
+“Good!” murmured the young detective: “see how our cock sticks up his
+comb, and smooths his feathers!
+
+“I told you,” put in Balan, “that he was only staggered. Hush! he is
+speaking, I believe.”
+
+But they neither surprised one of those disordered gestures nor one of
+those incoherent speeches, which almost always escape from the feeble
+when excited by fear, or from the imprudent ones who believe in the
+discretion of their cells. One word alone, “honour,” reached the ears of
+the two spies.
+
+“These rascals of rank,” grumbled Balan, “always have this word in their
+mouths. That which they most fear is the opinion of some dozen friends,
+and several thousand strangers, who read the ‘Gazette des Tribunaux.’
+They only think of their own heads later on.”
+
+When the gendarmes came to conduct Albert before the investigating
+magistrate, they found him seated on the side of his bed, his feet
+pressed upon the iron rail, his elbows on his knees, and his head buried
+in his hands. He rose, as they entered, and took a few steps towards
+them; but his throat was so dry that he was scarcely able to speak. He
+asked for a moment, and, turning towards the little table, he filled and
+drank two large glassfuls of water in succession.
+
+“I am ready!” he then said. And, with a firm step, he followed the
+gendarmes along the passage which led to the Palais de Justice.
+
+M. Daburon was just then in great anguish. He walked furiously up and
+down his office, awaiting the prisoner. Again, and for the twentieth
+time since morning, he regretted having engaged in the business.
+
+“Curse this absurd point of honour, which I have obeyed,” he inwardly
+exclaimed. “I have in vain attempted to reassure myself by the aid
+of sophisms. I was wrong in not withdrawing. Nothing in the world can
+change my feelings towards this young man. I hate him. I am his judge;
+and it is no less true, that at one time I longed to assassinate him. I
+faced him with a revolver in my hand: why did I not present it and fire?
+Do I know why? What power held my finger, when an almost insensible
+pressure would have sufficed to kill him? I cannot say. Why is not he
+the judge, I the assassin? If the intention was as punishable as the
+deed, I ought to be guillotined. And it is under such conditions that I
+dare examine him!”
+
+Passing before the door he heard the heavy footsteps of the gendarmes in
+the passage.
+
+“It is he,” he said aloud and then hastily seated himself at his table,
+bending over his portfolios, as though striving to hide himself. If
+the tall clerk had used his eyes, he would have noticed the singular
+spectacle of an investigating magistrate more agitated than the prisoner
+he was about to examine. But he was blind to all around him; and, at
+this moment, he was only aware of an error of fifteen centimes, which
+had slipped into his accounts, and which he was unable to rectify.
+
+Albert entered the magistrate’s office with his head erect. His features
+bore traces of great fatigue and of sleepless nights. He was very pale;
+but his eyes were clear and sparkling.
+
+The usual questions which open such examinations gave M. Daburon an
+opportunity to recover himself. Fortunately, he had found time in the
+morning to prepare a plan, which he had now simply to follow.
+
+“You are aware, sir,” he commenced in a tone of perfect politeness,
+“that you have no right to the name you bear?”
+
+“I know, sir,” replied Albert, “that I am the natural son of M. de
+Commarin. I know further that my father would be unable to recognise me,
+even if he wished to, since I was born during his married life.”
+
+“What were your feelings upon learning this?”
+
+“I should speak falsely, sir, if I said I did not feel very bitterly.
+When one is in the high position I occupied, the fall is terrible.
+However, I never for a moment entertained the thought of contesting M.
+Noel Gerdy’s rights. I always purposed, and still purpose, to yield, I
+have so informed M. de Commarin.”
+
+M. Daburon expected just such a reply; and it only strengthened his
+suspicions. Did it not enter into the line of defence which he had
+foreseen? It was now his duty to seek some way of demolishing this
+defence, in which the prisoner evidently meant to shut himself up like a
+tortoise in its shell.
+
+“You could not oppose M. Gerdy,” continued the magistrate, “with any
+chance of success. You had, indeed on your side, the count, and your
+mother; but M. Gerdy was in possession of evidence that was certain to
+win his cause, that of Widow Lerouge.”
+
+“I have never doubted that, sir.”
+
+“Now,” continued the magistrate, seeking to hide the look which he
+fastened upon Albert, “justice supposes that, to do away with the only
+existing proof, you have assassinated Widow Lerouge.”
+
+This terrible accusation, terribly emphasised, caused no change in
+Albert’s features. He preserved the same firm bearing, without bravado.
+
+“Before God,” he answered, “and by all that is most sacred on earth,
+I swear to you, sir, that I am innocent! I am at this moment a
+close prisoner, without communication with the outer world, reduced
+consequently to the most absolute helplessness. It is through your
+probity that I hope to demonstrate my innocence.”
+
+“What an actor!” thought the magistrate. “Can crime be so strong as
+this?”
+
+He glanced over his papers, reading certain passages of the preceding
+depositions, turning down the corners of certain pages which contained
+important information. Then suddenly he resumed, “When you were
+arrested, you cried out, ‘I am lost,’ what did you mean by that?”
+
+“Sir,” replied Albert, “I remember having uttered those words. When I
+knew of what crime I was accused, I was overwhelmed with consternation.
+My mind was, as it were, enlightened by a glimpse of the future. In a
+moment, I perceived all the horror of my situation. I understood the
+weight of the accusation, its probability, and the difficulties I
+should have in defending myself. A voice cried out to me, ‘Who was most
+interested in Claudine’s death?’ And the knowledge of my imminent peril
+forced from me the exclamation you speak of.”
+
+His explanation was more than plausible, was possible, and even likely.
+It had the advantage, too, of anticipating the axiom, “Search out the
+one whom the crime will benefit!” Tabaret had spoken truly, when he said
+that they would not easily make the prisoner confess.
+
+M. Daburon admired Albert’s presence of mind, and the resources of his
+perverse imagination.
+
+“You do indeed,” continued the magistrate, “appear to have had the
+greatest interest in this death. Moreover, I will inform you that
+robbery was not the object of the crime. The things thrown into the
+Seine have been recovered. We know, also, that all the widow’s papers
+were burnt. Could they compromise any one but yourself? If you know of
+any one, speak.”
+
+“What can I answer, sir? Nothing.”
+
+“Have you often gone to see this woman?”
+
+“Three or four times with my father.”
+
+“One of your coachmen pretends to have driven you there at least ten
+times.”
+
+“The man is mistaken. But what matters the number of visits?”
+
+“Do you recollect the arrangements of the rooms? Can you describe them?”
+
+“Perfectly, sir: there were two. Claudine slept in the back room.”
+
+“You were in no way a stranger to Widow Lerouge. If you had knocked one
+evening at her window-shutter, do you think she would have let you in?”
+
+“Certainly, sir, and eagerly.”
+
+“You have been unwell these last few days?”
+
+“Very unwell, to say the least, sir. My body bent under the weight of
+a burden too great for my strength. It was not, however, for want of
+courage.”
+
+“Why did you forbid your valet, Lubin, to call in the doctor?”
+
+“Ah, sir, how could the doctor cure my disease? All his science could
+not make me the legitimate son of the Count de Commarin.”
+
+“Some very singular remarks made by you were overheard. You seemed to be
+no longer interested in anything concerning your home. You destroyed a
+large number of papers and letters.”
+
+“I had decided to leave the count, sir. My resolution explains my
+conduct.”
+
+Albert replied promptly to the magistrate’s questions, without the
+least embarrassment, and in a confident tone. His voice, which was
+very pleasant to the ear, did not tremble. It concealed no emotion; it
+retained its pure and vibrating sound.
+
+M. Daburon deemed it wise to suspend the examination for a short time.
+With so cunning an adversary, he was evidently pursuing a false course.
+To proceed in detail was folly, he neither intimidated the prisoner,
+nor made him break through his reserve. It was necessary to take him
+unawares.
+
+“Sir,” resumed the magistrate, abruptly, “tell me exactly how you passed
+your time last Tuesday evening, from six o’clock until midnight?”
+
+For the first time, Albert seemed disconcerted. His glance, which had,
+till then, been fixed upon the magistrate, wavered.
+
+“During Tuesday evening,” he stammered, repeating the phrase to gain
+time.
+
+“I have him,” thought the magistrate, starting with joy, and then added
+aloud, “yes, from six o’clock until midnight.”
+
+“I am afraid, sir,” answered Albert, “it will be difficult for me to
+satisfy you. I haven’t a very good memory.”
+
+“Oh, don’t tell me that!” interrupted the magistrate. “If I had asked
+what you were doing three months ago, on a certain evening, and at a
+certain hour, I could understand your hesitation; but this is about
+Tuesday, and it is now Friday. Moreover, this day, so close, was the
+last of the carnival; it was Shrove Tuesday. That circumstance ought to
+help your memory.”
+
+“That evening, I went out walking,” murmured Albert.
+
+“Now,” continued the magistrate, “where did you dine?”
+
+“At home, as usual.”
+
+“No, not as usual. At the end of your meal, you asked for a bottle of
+Bordeaux, of which you drank the whole. You doubtless had need of some
+extra excitement for your subsequent plans.”
+
+“I had no plans,” replied the prisoner with very evident uneasiness.
+
+“You make a mistake. Two friends came to seek you. You replied to them,
+before sitting down to dinner, that you had a very important engagement
+to keep.”
+
+“That was only a polite way of getting rid of them.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Can you not understand, sir? I was resigned, but not comforted. I was
+learning to get accustomed to the terrible blow. Would not one seek
+solitude in the great crisis of one’s life?”
+
+“The prosecution pretends that you wished to be left alone, that you
+might go to La Jonchere. During the day, you said, ‘She can not resist
+me.’ Of whom were you speaking?”
+
+“Of some one to whom I had written the evening before, and who had
+replied to me. I spoke the words, with her letter still in my hands.”
+
+“This letter was, then, from a woman?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What have you done with it?”
+
+“I have burnt it.”
+
+“This precaution leads one to suppose that you considered the letter
+compromising.”
+
+“Not at all, sir; it treated entirely of private matters.”
+
+M. Daburon was sure that this letter came from Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
+Should he nevertheless ask the question, and again hear pronounced the
+name of Claire, which always aroused such painful emotions within him?
+He ventured to do so, leaning over his papers, so that the prisoner
+could not detect his emotion.
+
+“From whom did this letter come?” he asked.
+
+“From one whom I can not name.”
+
+“Sir,” said the magistrate severely, “I will not conceal from you
+that your position is greatly compromised. Do not aggravate it by this
+culpable reticence. You are here to tell everything, sir.”
+
+“My own affairs, yes, not those of others.”
+
+Albert gave this last answer in a dry tone. He was giddy, flurried,
+exasperated, by the prying and irritating mode of the examination, which
+scarcely gave him time to breathe. The magistrate’s questions fell upon
+him more thickly than the blows of the blacksmith’s hammer upon the
+red-hot iron which he is anxious to beat into shape before it cools.
+
+The apparent rebellion of his prisoner troubled M. Daburon a great deal.
+He was further extremely surprised to find the discernment of the old
+detective at fault; just as though Tabaret were infallible. Tabaret
+had predicted an unexceptionable _alibi_; and this _alibi_ was not
+forthcoming. Why? Had this subtle villain something better than that?
+What artful defence had he to fall back upon? Doubtless he kept in
+reserve some unforeseen stroke, perhaps irresistible.
+
+“Gently,” thought the magistrate. “I have not got him yet.” Then he
+quickly added aloud: “Continue. After dinner what did you do?”
+
+“I went out for a walk.”
+
+“Not immediately. The bottle emptied, you smoked a cigar in the
+dining-room, which was so unusual as to be noticed. What kind of cigars
+do you usually smoke?”
+
+“Trabucos.”
+
+“Do you not use a cigar-holder, to keep your lips from contact with the
+tobacco?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” replied Albert, much surprised at this series of questions.
+
+“At what time did you go out?”
+
+“About eight o’clock.”
+
+“Did you carry an umbrella?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where did you go?”
+
+“I walked about.”
+
+“Alone, without any object, all the evening?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Now trace out your wanderings for me very carefully.”
+
+“Ah, sir, that is very difficult to do! I went out simply to walk about,
+for the sake of exercise, to drive away the torpor which had depressed
+me for three days. I don’t know whether you can picture to yourself my
+exact condition. I was half out of my mind. I walked about at hazard
+along the quays. I wandered through the streets,--”
+
+“All that is very improbable,” interrupted the magistrate. M. Daburon,
+however, knew that it was at least possible. Had not he himself, one
+night, in a similar condition, traversed all Paris? What reply could he
+have made, had some one asked him next morning where he had been, except
+that he had not paid attention, and did not know? But he had forgotten
+this; and his previous hesitations, too, had all vanished.
+
+As the inquiry advanced, the fever of investigation took possession
+of him. He enjoyed the emotions of the struggle, his passion for his
+calling became stronger than ever.
+
+He was again an investigating magistrate, like the fencing master, who,
+once practising with his dearest friend, became excited by the clash of
+the weapons, and, forgetting himself, killed him.
+
+“So,” resumed M. Daburon, “you met absolutely no one who can affirm that
+he saw you? You did not speak to a living soul? You entered no place,
+not even a cafe or a theatre, or a tobacconist’s to light one of your
+favourite trabucos?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Well, it is a great misfortune for you, yes, a very great misfortune;
+for I must inform you, that it was precisely during this Tuesday
+evening, between eight o’clock and midnight, that Widow Lerouge was
+assassinated. Justice can point out the exact hour. Again, sir, in your
+own interest, I recommend you to reflect,--to make a strong appeal to
+your memory.”
+
+This pointing out of the exact day and hour of the murder seemed to
+astound Albert. He raised his hand to his forehead with a despairing
+gesture. However he replied in a calm voice,--“I am very unfortunate,
+sir: but I can recollect nothing.”
+
+M. Daburon’s surprise was immense. What, not an _alibi_? Nothing? This
+could be no snare nor system of defence. Was, then, this man as cunning
+as he had imagined? Doubtless. Only he had been taken unawares. He had
+never imagined it possible for the accusation to fall upon him; and it
+was almost by a miracle it had done so.
+
+The magistrate slowly raised, one by one, the large pieces of paper that
+covered the articles seized in Albert’s rooms.
+
+“We will pass,” he continued, “to the examination of the charges which
+weigh against you. Will you please come nearer? Do you recognize these
+articles as belonging to yourself?”
+
+“Yes, sir, they are all mine.”
+
+“Well, take this foil. Who broke it?”
+
+“I, sir, in fencing with M. de Courtivois, who can bear witness to it.”
+
+“He will be heard. Where is the broken end?”
+
+“I do not know. You must ask Lubin, my valet.”
+
+“Exactly. He declares that he has hunted for it, and cannot find it. I
+must tell you that the victim received the fatal blow from the sharpened
+end of a broken foil. This piece of stuff, on which the assassin wiped
+his weapon, is a proof of what I state.”
+
+“I beseech you, sir, to order a most minute search to be made. It is
+impossible that the other half of the foil is not to be found.”
+
+“Orders shall be given to that effect. Look, here is the exact imprint
+of the murderer’s foot traced on this sheet of paper. I will place one
+of your boots upon it and the sole, as you perceive, fits the tracing
+with the utmost precision. This plaster was poured into the hollow left
+by the heel: you observe that it is, in all respects, similar in shape
+to the heels of your own boots. I perceive, too, the mark of a peg,
+which appears in both.”
+
+Albert followed with marked anxiety every movement of the magistrate.
+It was plain that he was struggling against a growing terror. Was
+he attacked by that fright which overpowers the guilty when they see
+themselves on the point of being confounded. To all the magistrate’s
+remarks, he answered in a low voice,--“It is true--perfectly true.”
+
+“That is so,” continued M. Daburon; “yet listen further, before
+attempting to defend yourself. The criminal had an umbrella. The end of
+this umbrella sank in the clayey soil; the round of wood which is placed
+at the end of the silk, was found moulded in the clay. Look at this clod
+of clay, raised with the utmost care; and now look at your umbrella.
+Compare the rounds. Are they alike, or not?”
+
+“These things, sir,” attempted Albert, “are manufactured in large
+quantities.”
+
+“Well, we will pass over that proof. Look at this cigar end, found on
+the scene of the crime, and tell me of what brand it is, and how it was
+smoked.”
+
+“It is a trabucos, and was smoked in a cigar-holder.”
+
+“Like these?” persisted the magistrate, pointing to the cigars and the
+amber and meerschaum-holders found in the viscount’s library.
+
+“Yes!” murmured Albert, “it is a fatality--a strange coincidence.”
+
+“Patience, that is nothing, as yet. The assassin wore gloves. The
+victim, in the death struggle, seized his hands; and some pieces of kid
+remained in her nails. These have been preserved, and are here. They are
+of a lavender colour, are they not? Now, here are the gloves which you
+wore on Tuesday. They, too, are lavender, and they are frayed. Compare
+these pieces of kid with your own gloves. Do they not correspond? Are
+they not of the same colour, the same skin?”
+
+It was useless to deny it, equivocate, or seek subterfuges. The evidence
+was there, and it was irrefutable. While appearing to occupy himself
+solely with the objects lying upon his table, M. Daburon did not lose
+sight of the prisoner. Albert was terrified. A cold perspiration bathed
+his temples, and glided drop by drop down his cheeks. His hands trembled
+so much that they were of no use to him. In a chilling voice he kept
+repeating: “It is horrible, horrible!”
+
+“Finally,” pursued the inexorable magistrate, “here are the trousers you
+wore on the evening of the murder. It is plain that not long ago they
+were very wet; and, besides the mud on them, there are traces of earth.
+Besides that they are torn at the knees. We will admit, for the moment
+that you might not remember where you went on that evening; but who
+would believe that you do not know when you tore your trousers and how
+you frayed your gloves?”
+
+What courage could resist such assaults? Albert’s firmness and energy
+were at an end. His brain whirled. He fell heavily into a chair,
+exclaiming,--“It is enough to drive me mad!”
+
+“Do you admit,” insisted the magistrate, whose gaze had become firmly
+fixed upon the prisoner, “do you admit that Widow Lerouge could only
+have been stabbed by you?”
+
+“I admit,” protested Albert, “that I am the victim of one of those
+terrible fatalities which make men doubt the evidence of their reason. I
+am innocent.”
+
+“Then tell me where you passed Tuesday evening.”
+
+“Ah, sir!” cried the prisoner, “I should have to--” But, restraining
+himself, he added in a faint voice, “I have made the only answer that I
+can make.”
+
+M. Daburon rose, having now reached his grand stroke.
+
+“It is, then, my duty,” said he, with a shade of irony, “to supply your
+failure of memory. I am going to remind you of where you went and what
+you did. On Tuesday evening at eight o’clock, after having obtained from
+the wine you drank, the dreadful energy you needed, you left your home.
+At thirty-five minutes past eight, you took the train at the St. Lazare
+station. At nine o’clock, you alighted at the station at Rueil.”
+
+And, not disdaining to employ Tabaret’s ideas, the investigating
+magistrate repeated nearly word for word the tirade improvised the night
+before by the amateur detective.
+
+He had every reason, while speaking, to admire the old fellow’s
+penetration. In all his life, his eloquence had never produced so
+striking an effect. Every sentence, every word, told. The prisoner’s
+assurance, already shaken, fell little by little, just like the outer
+coating of a wall when riddled with bullets.
+
+Albert was, as the magistrate perceived, like a man, who, rolling to
+the bottom of a precipice, sees every branch and every projecture which
+might retard his fall fail him, and who feels a new and more painful
+bruise each time his body comes in contact with them.
+
+“And now,” concluded the investigating magistrate, “listen to good
+advice: do not persist in a system of denying, impossible to sustain.
+Give in. Justice, rest assured, is ignorant of nothing which it is
+important to know. Believe me; seek to deserve the indulgence of your
+judges, confess your guilt.”
+
+M. Daburon did not believe that his prisoner would still persist
+in asserting his innocence. He imagined he would be overwhelmed and
+confounded, that he would throw himself at his feet, begging for mercy.
+But he was mistaken.
+
+Albert, in spite of his great prostration, found, in one last effort
+of his will, sufficient strength to recover himself and again
+protest,--“You are right, sir,” he said in a sad, but firm voice;
+“everything seems to prove me guilty. In your place, I should have
+spoken as you have done; yet all the same, I swear to you that I am
+innocent.”
+
+“Come now, do you really--” began the magistrate.
+
+“I am innocent,” interrupted Albert; “and I repeat it, without the least
+hope of changing in any way your conviction. Yes, everything speaks
+against me, everything, even my own bearing before you. It is true, my
+courage has been shaken by these incredible, miraculous, overwhelming
+coincidences. I am overcome, because I feel the impossibility of proving
+my innocence. But I do not despair. My honour and my life are in the
+hands of God. At this very hour when to you I appear lost,--for I in no
+way deceive myself, sir,--I do not despair of a complete justification.
+I await confidently.”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked the magistrate.
+
+“Nothing but what I say, sir.”
+
+“So you persist in denying your guilt?”
+
+“I am innocent.”
+
+“But this is folly--”
+
+“I am innocent.”
+
+“Very well,” said M. Daburon; “that is enough for to-day. You will hear
+the official report of your examination read, and will then be taken
+back to solitary confinement. I exhort you to reflect. Night will
+perhaps bring on a better feeling; if you wish at any time to speak
+to me, send word, and I will come to you. I will give orders to that
+effect. You may read now, Constant.”
+
+When Albert had departed under the escort of the gendarmes, the
+magistrate muttered in a low tone, “There’s an obstinate fellow for
+you.” He certainly no longer entertained the shadow of a doubt. To him,
+Albert was as surely the murderer as if he had admitted his guilt
+Even if he should persist in his system of denial to the end of the
+investigation, it was impossible, that, with the proofs already in the
+possession of the police, a true bill should not be found against him.
+He was therefore certain of being committed for trial at the assizes. It
+was a hundred to one, that the jury would bring in a verdict of guilty.
+
+Left to himself, however, M. Daburon did not experience that intense
+satisfaction, mixed with vanity, which he ordinarily felt after he had
+successfully conducted an examination, and had succeeded in getting
+his prisoner into the same position as Albert. Something disturbed and
+shocked him. At the bottom of his heart, he felt ill at ease. He had
+triumphed; but his victory gave him only uneasiness, pain, and vexation.
+A reflection so simple that he could hardly understand why it had not
+occurred to him at first, increased his discontent, and made him angry
+with himself.
+
+“Something told me,” he muttered, “that I was wrong to undertake this
+business. I am punished for not having obeyed that inner voice. I ought
+to have declined to proceed with the investigation. The Viscount
+de Commarin, was, all the same, certain to be arrested, imprisoned,
+examined, confounded, tried, and probably condemned. Then, being in no
+way connected with the trial, I could have reappeared before Claire. Her
+grief will be great. As her friend, I could have soothed her, mingled
+my tears with hers, calmed her regrets. With time, she might have been
+consoled, and perhaps have forgotten him. She could not have helped
+feeling grateful to me, and then who knows--? While now, whatever may
+happen, I shall be an object of loathing to her: she will never be able
+to endure the sight of me. In her eyes I shall always be her lover’s
+assassin. I have with my own hands opened an abyss! I have lost her a
+second time, and by my own fault.”
+
+The unhappy man heaped the bitterest reproaches upon himself. He was in
+despair. He had never so hated Albert,--that wretch, who, stained with
+a crime, stood in the way of his happiness. Then too he cursed old
+Tabaret! Alone, he would not have decided so quickly. He would have
+waited, thought over the matter, matured his decision, and certainly
+have perceived the inconveniences, which now occurred to him. The old
+fellow, always carried away like a badly trained bloodhound, and full
+of stupid enthusiasm, had confused him, and led him to do what he now so
+much regretted.
+
+It was precisely this unfavorable moment that M. Tabaret chose for
+reappearing before the magistrate. He had just been informed of the
+termination of the inquiry; and he arrived, impatient to know what had
+passed, swelling with curiosity, and full of the sweet hope of hearing
+of the fulfilment of his predictions.
+
+“What answers did he make?” he asked even before he had closed the door.
+
+“He is evidently guilty,” replied the magistrate, with a harshness very
+different to his usual manner.
+
+Old Tabaret, who expected to receive praises by the basketful, was
+astounded at this tone! It was therefore, with great hesitancy that he
+offered his further services.
+
+“I have come,” he said modestly, “to know if any investigations are
+necessary to demolish the _alibi_ pleaded by the prisoner.”
+
+“He pleaded no _alibi_,” replied the magistrate, dryly.
+
+“How,” cried the detective, “no _alibi_? Pshaw! I ask pardon: he has of
+course then confessed everything.”
+
+“No,” said the magistrate impatiently, “he has confessed nothing. He
+acknowledges that the proofs are decisive: he cannot give an account of
+how he spent his time; but he protests his innocence.”
+
+In the centre of the room, M. Tabaret stood with his mouth wide open,
+and his eyes staring wildly, and altogether in the most grotesque
+attitude his astonishment could effect. He was literally thunderstruck.
+In spite of his anger, M. Daburon could not help smiling; and even
+Constant gave a grin, which on his lips was equivalent to a paroxysm of
+laughter.
+
+“Not an _alibi_, nothing?” murmured the old fellow. “No explanations?
+The idea! It is inconceivable! Not an _alibi_? We must then be mistaken:
+he cannot be the criminal. That is certain!”
+
+The investigating magistrate felt that the old amateur must have been
+waiting the result of the examination at the wine shop round the corner,
+or else that he had gone mad.
+
+“Unfortunately,” said he, “we are not mistaken. It is but too clearly
+shown that M. de Commarin is the murderer. However, if you like, you can
+ask Constant for his report of the examination, and read it over while I
+put these papers in order.”
+
+“Very well,” said the old fellow with feverish anxiety.
+
+He sat down in Constant’s chair, and, leaning his elbows on the table,
+thrusting his hands in his hair, he in less than no time read the
+report through. When he had finished, he arose with pale and distorted
+features.
+
+“Sir,” said he to the magistrate in a strange voice, “I have been the
+involuntary cause of a terrible mistake. This man is innocent.”
+
+“Come, come,” said M. Daburon, without stopping his preparations for
+departure, “you are going out of your mind, my dear M. Tabaret. How,
+after all that you have read there, can--”
+
+“Yes, sir, yes: it is because I have read this that I entreat you to
+pause, or we shall add one more mistake to the sad list of judicial
+errors. Read this examination over carefully; there is not a reply
+but which declares this unfortunate man innocent, not a word but which
+throws out a ray of light. And he is still in prison, still in solitary
+confinement?”
+
+“He is; and there he will remain, if you please,” interrupted the
+magistrate. “It becomes you well to talk in this manner, after the way
+you spoke last night, when I hesitated so much.”
+
+“But, sir,” cried the old detective, “I still say precisely the same.
+Ah, wretched Tabaret! all is lost; no one understands you. Pardon me,
+sir, if I lack the respect due to you; but you have not grasped my
+method. It is, however, very simple. Given a crime, with all the
+circumstances and details, I construct, bit by bit, a plan of
+accusation, which I do not guarantee until it is entire and perfect. If
+a man is found to whom this plan applies exactly in every particular
+the author of the crime is found: otherwise, one has laid hands upon
+an innocent person. It is not sufficient that such and such particulars
+seem to point to him; it must be all or nothing. This is infallible.
+Now, in this case, how have I reached the culprit? Through proceeding by
+inference from the known to the unknown. I have examined his work; and I
+have formed an idea of the worker. Reason and logic lead us to what? To
+a villain, determined, audacious, and prudent, versed in the business.
+And do you think that such a man would neglect a precaution that would
+not be omitted by the stupidest tyro? It is inconceivable. What! this
+man is so skillful as to leave such feeble traces that they escape
+Gevrol’s practised eye, and you think he would risk his safety by
+leaving an entire night unaccounted for? It’s impossible! I am as sure
+of my system as of a sum that has been proved. The assassin has an
+_alibi_. Albert has pleaded none; then he is innocent.”
+
+M. Daburon surveyed the detective pityingly, much as he would
+have looked at a remarkable monomaniac. When the old fellow had
+finished,--“My worthy M. Tabaret,” the magistrate said to him: “you have
+but one fault. You err through an excess of subtlety, you accord too
+freely to others the wonderful sagacity with which you yourself are
+endowed. Our man has failed in prudence, simply because he believed his
+rank would place him above suspicion.”
+
+“No, sir, no, a thousand times no. My culprit,--the true one,--he whom
+we have missed catching, feared everything. Besides, does Albert defend
+himself? No. He is overwhelmed because he perceives coincidences so
+fatal that they appear to condemn him, without a chance of escape. Does
+he try to excuse himself? No. He simply replies, ‘It is terrible.’ And
+yet all through his examination I feel reticence that I cannot explain.”
+
+“I can explain it very easily; and I am as confident as though he had
+confessed everything. I have more than sufficient proofs for that.”
+
+“Ah, sir, proofs! There are always enough of those against an arrested
+man. They existed against every innocent man who was ever condemned.
+Proofs! Why, I had them in quantities against Kaiser, the poor little
+tailor, who--”
+
+“Well,” interrupted the magistrate, hastily, “if it is not he, the most
+interested one, who committed the crime, who then is it? His father, the
+Count de Commarin?”
+
+“No: the true assassin is a young man.”
+
+M. Daburon had arranged his papers, and finished his preparations. He
+took up his hat, and, as he prepared to leave, replied: “You must then
+see that I am right. Come and see me by-and-by, M. Tabaret, and make
+haste and get rid of all your foolish ideas. To-morrow we will talk the
+whole matter over again. I am rather tired to-night.” Then he added,
+addressing his clerk, “Constant, look in at the record office, in case
+the prisoner Commarin should wish to speak to me.”
+
+He moved towards the door; but M. Tabaret barred his exit.
+
+“Sir,” said the old man, “in the name of heaven listen to me! He is
+innocent, I swear to you. Help me, then, to find the real culprit. Sir,
+think of your remorse should you cause an--”
+
+But the magistrate would not hear more. He pushed old Tabaret quickly
+aside, and hurried out.
+
+The old man now turned to Constant. He wished to convince him. Lost
+trouble: the tall clerk hastened to put his things away, thinking of his
+soup, which was getting cold.
+
+So that M. Tabaret soon found himself locked out of the room and alone
+in the dark passage. All the usual sounds of the Palais had ceased: the
+place was silent as the tomb. The old detective desperately tore his
+hair with both hands.
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, “Albert is innocent; and it is I who have cast
+suspicion upon him. It is I, fool that I am, who have infused into the
+obstinate spirit of this magistrate a conviction that I can no longer
+destroy. He is innocent and is yet enduring the most horrible anguish.
+Suppose he should commit suicide! There have been instances of wretched
+men, who in despair at being falsely accused have killed themselves in
+their cells. Poor boy! But I will not abandon him. I have ruined him: I
+will save him! I must, I will find the culprit; and he shall pay dearly
+for my mistake, the scoundrel!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+After seeing the Count de Commarin safely in his carriage at the
+entrance of the Palais de Justice, Noel Gerdy seemed inclined to leave
+him. Resting one hand against the half-opened carriage door, he bowed
+respectfully, and said: “When, sir, shall I have the honour of paying my
+respects to you?”
+
+“Come with me now,” said the old nobleman.
+
+The advocate, still leaning forward, muttered some excuses. He had, he
+said, important business: he must positively return home at once.
+
+“Come,” repeated the count, in a tone which admitted no reply.
+
+Noel obeyed.
+
+“You have found your father,” said M. de Commarin in a low tone; “but I
+must warn you, that at the same time you lose your independence.”
+
+The carriage started; and only then did the count notice that Noel
+had very modestly seated himself opposite him. This humility seemed to
+displease him greatly.
+
+“Sit here by my side, sir,” he exclaimed; “are you not my son?”
+
+The advocate, without replying, took his seat by the side of the
+terrible old man, but occupied as little room as possible.
+
+He had been very much upset by his interview with M. Daburon; for he
+retained none of his usual assurance, none of that exterior coolness by
+which he was accustomed to conceal his feelings. Fortunately, the ride
+gave him time to breathe, and to recover himself a little.
+
+On the way from the Palais de Justice to the De Commarin mansion, not a
+word passed between the father and son. When the carriage stopped before
+the steps leading to the principal entrance, and the count got out with
+Noel’s assistance, there was great commotion among the servants.
+
+There were, it is true, few of them present, nearly all having been
+summoned to the Palais; but the count and the advocate had scarcely
+disappeared, when, as if by enchantment, they were all assembled in
+the hall. They came from the garden, the stables, the cellar, and the
+kitchen. Nearly all bore marks of their calling. A young groom appeared
+with his wooden shoes filled with straw, shuffling about on the marble
+floor like a mangy dog on a Gobelin tapestry. One of them recognised
+Noel as the visitor of the previous Sunday; and that was enough to set
+fire to all these gossip-mongers, thirsting for scandal.
+
+Since morning, moreover, the unusual events at the De Commarin mansion
+had caused a great stir in society. A thousand stories were
+circulated, talked over, corrected, and added to by the ill-natured
+and malicious,--some abominably absurd, others simply idiotic. Twenty
+people, very noble and still more proud, had not been above sending
+their most intelligent servants to pay a little visit among the count’s
+retainers, for the sole purpose of learning something positive. As
+it was, nobody knew anything; and yet everybody pretended to be fully
+informed.
+
+Let any one explain who can this very common phenomenon: A crime is
+committed; justice arrives, wrapped in mystery; the police are still
+ignorant of almost everything; and yet details of the most minute
+character are already circulated about the streets.
+
+“So,” said a cook, “that tall dark fellow with the whiskers is the
+count’s true son!”
+
+“You are right,” said one of the footmen who had accompanied M. de
+Commarin; “as for the other, he is no more his son than Jean here; who,
+by the way, will be kicked out of doors, if he is caught in this part of
+the house with his dirty working-shoes on.”
+
+“What a romance,” exclaimed Jean, supremely indifferent to the danger
+which threatened him.
+
+“Such things constantly occur in great families,” said the cook.
+
+“How ever did it happen?”
+
+“Well, you see, one day, long ago, when the countess who is now dead was
+out walking with her little son, who was about six months old, the child
+was stolen by gypsies. The poor lady was full of grief; but above all,
+was greatly afraid of her husband, who was not over kind. What did she
+do? She purchased a brat from a woman, who happened to be passing;
+and, never having noticed his child, the count has never known the
+difference.”
+
+“But the assassination!”
+
+“That’s very simple. When the woman saw her brat in such a nice berth,
+she bled him finely, and has kept up a system of blackmailing all along.
+The viscount had nothing left for himself. So he resolved at last to put
+an end to it, and come to a final settling with her.”
+
+“And the other, who is up there, the dark fellow?”
+
+The orator would have gone on, without doubt, giving the most
+satisfactory explanations of everything, if he had not been interrupted
+by the entrance of M. Lubin, who came from the Palais in company of
+young Joseph. His success, so brilliant up to this time, was cut short,
+just like that of a second-rate singer when the star of the evening
+comes on the stage. The entire assembly turned towards Albert’s valet,
+all eyes questioning him. He of course knew all, he was the man they
+wanted. He did not take advantage of his position, and keep them
+waiting.
+
+“What a rascal!” he exclaimed at first. “What a villainous fellow is
+this Albert!”
+
+He entirely did away with the “Mr.” and the “Viscount,” and met with
+general approval for doing so.
+
+“However,” he added, “I always had my doubts. The fellow didn’t
+please me by half. You see now to what we are exposed every day in our
+profession, and it is dreadfully disagreeable. The magistrate did not
+conceal it from me. ‘M. Lubin,’ said he, ‘it is very sad for a man
+like you to have waited on such a scoundrel.’ For you must know, that,
+besides an old woman over eighty years old, he also assassinated a young
+girl of twelve. The little child, the magistrate told me, was chopped
+into bits.”
+
+“Ah!” put in Joseph; “he must have been a great fool. Do people do those
+sort of things themselves when they are rich, and when there are so many
+poor devils who only ask to gain their living?”
+
+“Pshaw!” said M. Lubin in a knowing tone; “you will see him come out of
+it as white as snow. These rich men can do anything.”
+
+“Anyhow,” said the cook, “I’d willingly give a month’s wages to be a
+mouse, and to listen to what the count and the tall dark fellow are
+talking about. Suppose some one went up and tried to find out what is
+going on.”
+
+This proposition did not meet with the least favour. The servants
+knew by experience that, on important occasions, spying was worse than
+useless.
+
+M. de Commarin knew all about servants from infancy. His study was,
+therefore, a shelter from all indiscretion. The sharpest ear placed at
+the keyhole could hear nothing of what was going on within, even when
+the master was in a passion, and his voice loudest. One alone, Denis,
+the count’s valet, had the opportunity of gathering information; but he
+was well paid to be discreet, and he was so.
+
+At this moment, M. de Commarin was sitting in the same arm-chair on
+which the evening before he had bestowed such furious blows while
+listening to Albert.
+
+As soon as he left his carriage, the old nobleman recovered his
+haughtiness. He became even more arrogant in his manner, than he had
+been humble when before the magistrate, as though he were ashamed of
+what he now considered an unpardonable weakness.
+
+He wondered how he could have yielded to a momentary impulse, how his
+grief could have so basely betrayed him.
+
+At the remembrance of the avowals wrested from him by a sort of
+delirium, he blushed, and reproached himself bitterly. The same as
+Albert, the night before, Noel, having fully recovered himself, stood
+erect, cold as marble, respectful, but no longer humble.
+
+The father and son exchanged glances which had nothing of sympathy nor
+friendliness.
+
+They examined one another, they almost measured each other, much as
+two adversaries feel their way with their eyes before encountering with
+their weapons.
+
+“Sir,” said the count at length in a harsh voice, “henceforth this house
+is yours. From this moment you are the Viscount de Commarin; you regain
+possession of all the rights of which you were deprived. Listen, before
+you thank me. I wish, at once, to relieve you of all misunderstanding.
+Remember this well, sir; had I been master of the situation, I would
+never have recognised you: Albert should have remained in the position
+in which I placed him.”
+
+“I understand you, sir,” replied Noel. “I don’t think that I could
+ever bring myself to do an act like that by which you deprived me of
+my birthright; but I declare that, if I had the misfortune to do so, I
+should afterwards have acted as you have. Your rank was too conspicuous
+to permit a voluntary acknowledgment. It was a thousand times better to
+suffer an injustice to continue in secret, than to expose the name to
+the comments of the malicious.”
+
+This answer surprised the count, and very agreeably too. But he wouldn’t
+let his satisfaction be seen, and it was in a still harsher voice that
+he resumed.
+
+“I have no claim, sir, upon your affection; I do not ask for it, but I
+insist at all times upon the utmost deference. It is traditional in our
+house, that a son shall never interrupt his father when he is speaking;
+that, you have just been guilty of. Neither do children judge their
+parents; that also you have just done. When I was forty years of age my
+father was in his second childhood; but I do not remember ever having
+raised my voice above his. This said, I continue. I provided the
+necessary funds for the expenses of Albert’s household completely,
+distinct from my own, for he had his own servants, horses, and
+carriages; and besides that I allowed the unhappy boy four thousand
+francs a month. I have decided in order to put a stop to all foolish
+gossip, and to make your position the easier, that you should live on
+a grander scale; this matter concerns myself. Further, I will increase
+your monthly allowance to six thousand francs; which I trust you
+will spend as nobly as possible, giving the least possible cause for
+ridicule. I cannot too strongly exhort you to the utmost caution. Keep
+close watch over yourself. Weigh your words well. Study your slightest
+actions. You will be the point of observation of the thousands of
+impertinent idlers who compose our world; your blunders will be their
+delight. Do you fence?”
+
+“Moderately well.”
+
+“That will do! Do you ride?”
+
+“No; but in six months I will be a good horseman, or break my neck.”
+
+“You must become a horseman, and not break anything. Let us proceed.
+You will, of course, not occupy Albert’s apartments. They will be walled
+off, as soon as I am free of the police. Thank heaven! the house is
+large. You will occupy the other wing; and there will be a separate
+entrance to your apartments, by another staircase. Servants, horses,
+carriages, furniture, such as become a viscount, will be at your
+service, cost what it may, within forty-eight hours. On the day of your
+taking possession, you must look as though you had been installed there
+for years. There will be a great scandal; but that cannot be avoided. A
+prudent father might send you away for a few months to the Austrian or
+Russian courts; but, in this instance, such prudence would be absurd.
+Much better a dreadful outcry, which ends quickly, than low murmurs
+which last forever. Dare public opinion; and, in eight days, it will
+have exhausted its comments, and the story will have become old. So,
+to work! This very evening the workmen shall be here; and, in the first
+place, I must present you to my servants.”
+
+To put his purpose into execution, the count moved to touch the
+bell-rope. Noel stopped him.
+
+Since the commencement of this interview, the advocate had wandered in
+the regions of the thousand and one nights, the wonderful lamp in his
+hand. The fairy reality cast into the shade his wildest dreams. He was
+dazzled by the count’s words, and had need of all his reason to struggle
+against the giddiness which came over him, on realising his great good
+fortune. Touched by a magic wand, he seemed to awake to a thousand novel
+and unknown sensations. He rolled in purple, and bathed in gold.
+
+But he knew how to appear unmoved. His face had contracted the habit of
+guarding the secret of the most violent internal excitement. While all
+his passions vibrated within him, he appeared to listen with a sad and
+almost indifferent coldness.
+
+“Permit me, sir,” he said to the count “without overstepping the bounds
+of the utmost respect, to say a few words. I am touched more than I
+can express by your goodness; and yet I beseech you, to delay its
+manifestation. The proposition I am about to suggest may perhaps appear
+to you worthy of consideration. It seems to me that the situation
+demands the greatest delicacy on my part. It is well to despise public
+opinion, but not to defy it. I am certain to be judged with the utmost
+severity. If I install myself so suddenly in your house, what will be
+said? I shall have the appearance of a conqueror, who thinks little,
+so long as he succeeds, of passing over the body of the conquered. They
+will reproach me with occupying the bed still warm from Albert’s body.
+They will jest bitterly at my haste in taking possession. They will
+certainly compare me to Albert, and the comparison will be to my
+disadvantage, since I should appear to triumph at a time when a great
+disaster has fallen upon our house.”
+
+The count listened without showing any signs of disapprobation,
+struck perhaps by the justice of these reasons. Noel imagined that his
+harshness was much more feigned than real; and this idea encouraged him.
+
+“I beseech you then, sir,” he continued, “to permit me for the present
+in no way to change my mode of living, By not showing myself, I leave
+all malicious remarks to waste themselves in air,--I let public opinion
+the better familiarise itself with the idea of a coming change. There
+is a great deal in not taking the world by surprise. Being expected, I
+shall not have the air of an intruder on presenting myself. Absent,
+I shall have the advantages which the unknown always possess; I shall
+obtain the good opinion of all those who have envied Albert; and I
+shall secure as champions all those who would to-morrow assail me, if
+my elevation came suddenly upon them. Besides, by this delay, I shall
+accustom myself to my abrupt change of fortune. I ought not to bring
+into your world, which is now mine, the manners of a parvenu. My name
+ought not to inconvenience me, like a badly fitting coat.”
+
+“Perhaps it would be wisest,” murmured the count.
+
+This assent, so easily obtained, surprised Noel. He got the idea that
+the count had only wished to prove him, to tempt him. In any case,
+whether he had triumphed by his eloquence, or whether he had simply
+shunned a trap, he had succeeded. His confidence increased; he recovered
+all his former assurance.
+
+“I must add, sir,” he continued, “that there are a few matters
+concerning myself which demand my attention. Before entering upon my new
+life, I must think of those I am leaving behind me. I have friends and
+clients. This event has surprised me, just as I am beginning to reap the
+reward of ten years of hard work and perseverance. I have as yet only
+sown; I am on the point of reaping. My name is already known; I have
+obtained some little influence. I confess, without shame, that I have
+heretofore professed ideas and opinions that would not be suited to this
+house; and it is impossible in the space of a day--”
+
+“Ah!” interrupted the count in a bantering tone, “you are a liberal. It
+is a fashionable disease. Albert also was a great liberal.”
+
+“My ideas, sir,” said Noel quickly, “were those of every intelligent man
+who wishes to succeed. Besides, have not all parties one and the same
+aim--power? They merely take different means of reaching it. I will not
+enlarge upon this subject. Be assured, sir, that I shall know how to
+bear my name, and think and act as a man of my rank should.”
+
+“I trust so,” said M. de Commarin; “and I hope that you will never make
+me regret Albert.”
+
+“At least, sir, it will not be my fault. But, since you have mentioned
+the name of that unfortunate young man, let us occupy ourselves about
+him.”
+
+The count cast a look of distrust upon Noel.
+
+“What can now be done for Albert?” he asked.
+
+“What, sir!” cried Noel with ardour, “would you abandon him, when he
+has not a friend left in the world? He is still your son, sir, he is
+my brother; for thirty years he has borne the name of Commarin. All the
+members of a family are jointly liable. Innocent, or guilty, he has a
+right to count upon us; and we owe him our assistance.”
+
+“What do you then hope for, sir?” asked the count.
+
+“To save him, if he is innocent; and I love to believe that he is. I am
+an advocate, sir, and I wish to defend him. I have been told that I
+have some talent; in such a cause I must have. Yes, however strong the
+charges against him may be, I will overthrow them. I will dispel all
+doubts. The truth shall burst forth at the sound of my voice. I will
+find new accents to imbue the judges with my own conviction. I will save
+him, and this shall be my last cause.”
+
+“And if he should confess,” said the count, “if he has already
+confessed?”
+
+“Then, sir,” replied Noel with a dark look, “I will render him the last
+service, which in such a misfortune I should ask of a brother, I will
+procure him the means of avoiding judgment.”
+
+“That is well spoken, sir,” said the count, “very well, my son!”
+
+And he held out his hand to Noel, who pressed it, bowing a respectful
+acknowledgment. The advocate took a long breath. At last he had found
+the way to this haughty noble’s heart; he had conquered, he had pleased
+him.
+
+“Let us return to yourself, sir,” continued the count. “I yield to the
+reasons which you have suggested. All shall be done as you desire. But
+do not consider this a precedent. I never change my plans, even though
+they are proved to be bad, and contrary to my interests. But at least
+nothing prevents your remaining here from to-day, and taking your meals
+with me. We will, first of all, see where you can be lodged, until you
+formally take possession of the apartments which are to be prepared for
+you.”
+
+Noel had the hardihood to again interrupt the old nobleman.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “when you bade me follow you here, I obeyed you, as was
+my duty. Now another and a sacred duty calls me away. Madame Gerdy is
+at this moment dying. Ought I to leave the deathbed of her who filled my
+mother’s place?”
+
+“Valerie!” murmured the count. He leaned upon the arm of his chair, his
+face buried in his hands; in one moment the whole past rose up before
+him.
+
+“She has done me great harm,” he murmured, as if answering his thoughts.
+“She has ruined my whole life; but ought I to be implacable? She is
+dying from the accusation which is hanging over Albert our son. It was
+I who was the cause of it all. Doubtless, in this last hour, a word from
+me would be a great consolation to her. I will accompany you, sir.”
+
+Noel started at this unexpected proposal.
+
+“O sir!” said he hastily, “spare yourself, pray, a heart-rending sight.
+Your going would be useless. Madame Gerdy exists probably still; but
+her mind is dead. Her brain was unable to resist so violent a shock. The
+unfortunate woman would neither recognise nor understand you.”
+
+“Go then alone,” sighed the count, “go, my son!”
+
+The words “my son,” pronounced with a marked emphasis, sounded like a
+note of victory in Noel’s ears.
+
+He bowed to take his leave. The count motioned him to wait.
+
+“In any case,” he said, “a place at table will be set for you here. I
+dine at half-past six precisely. I shall be glad to see you.”
+
+He rang. His valet appeared.
+
+“Denis,” said he, “none of the orders I may give will affect this
+gentleman. You will tell this to all the servants. This gentleman is at
+home here.”
+
+The advocate took his leave; and the count felt great comfort in being
+once more alone. Since morning, events had followed one another with
+such bewildering rapidity that his thoughts could scarcely keep pace
+with them. At last, he was able to reflect.
+
+“That, then,” said he to himself, “is my legitimate son. I am sure of
+his birth, at any rate. Besides I should be foolish to disown him, for I
+find him the exact picture of myself at thirty. He is a handsome fellow,
+Noel, very handsome. His features are decidedly in his favour. He
+is intelligent and acute. He knows how to be humble without lowering
+himself, and firm without arrogance. His unexpected good fortune does
+not turn his head. I augur well of a man who knows how to bear himself
+in prosperity. He thinks well; he will carry his title proudly. And yet
+I feel no sympathy with him; it seems to me that I shall always regret
+my poor Albert. I never knew how to appreciate him. Unhappy boy! To
+commit such a vile crime! He must have lost his reason. I do not like
+the look of this one’s eye. They say that he is perfect. He expresses,
+at least, the noblest and most appropriate sentiments. He is gentle
+and strong, magnanimous, generous, heroic. He is without malice, and is
+ready to sacrifice himself to repay me for what I have done for him.
+He forgives Madame Gerdy; he loves Albert. It is enough to make one
+distrust him. But all young men now-a-days are so. Ah! we live in a
+happy age. Our children are born free from all human shortcomings. They
+have neither the vices, the passions, nor the tempers of their fathers;
+and these precocious philosophers, models of sagacity and virtue, are
+incapable of committing the least folly. Alas! Albert, too, was perfect;
+and he has assassinated Claudine! What will this one do?--All the same,”
+ he added, half-aloud, “I ought to have accompanied him to see Valerie!”
+
+And, although the advocate had been gone at least a good ten minutes,
+M. de Commarin, not realising how the time had passed, hastened to the
+window, in the hope of seeing Noel in the court-yard, and calling him
+back.
+
+But Noel was already far away. On leaving the house, he took a cab and
+was quickly driven to the Rue St. Lazare.
+
+On reaching his own door, he threw rather than gave five francs to the
+driver, and ran rapidly up the four flights of stairs.
+
+“Who has called to see me?” he asked of the servant.
+
+“No one, sir.”
+
+He seemed relieved from a great anxiety, and continued in a calmer tone,
+“And the doctor?”
+
+“He came this morning, sir,” replied the girl, “while you were out; and
+he did not seem at all hopeful. He came again just now, and is still
+here.”
+
+“Very well. I will go and speak to him. If any one calls, show them into
+my study, and let me know.”
+
+On entering Madame Gerdy’s chamber, Noel saw at a glance that no change
+for the better had taken place during his absence. With fixed eyes
+and convulsed features, the sick woman lay extended upon her back. She
+seemed dead, save for the sudden starts, which shook her at intervals,
+and disarranged the bedclothes.
+
+Above her head was placed a little vessel, filled with ice water, which
+fell drop by drop upon her forehead, covered with large bluish spots.
+The table and mantel-piece were covered with little pots, medicine
+bottles, and half-emptied glasses. At the foot of the bed, a piece of
+rag stained with blood showed that the doctor had just had recourse to
+leeches.
+
+Near the fireplace, where was blazing a large fire, a nun of the order
+of St. Vincent de Paul was kneeling, watching a saucepan. She was a
+young woman, with a face whiter than her cap. Her immovably placid
+features, her mournful look, betokened the renunciation of the flesh,
+and the abdication of all independence of thought.
+
+Her heavy grey costume hung about her in large ungraceful folds. Every
+time she moved, her long chaplet of beads of coloured box-wood, loaded
+with crosses and copper medals, shook and trailed along the floor with a
+noise like a jingling of chains.
+
+Dr. Herve was seated on a chair opposite the bed, watching, apparently
+with close attention, the nun’s preparations. He jumped up as Noel
+entered.
+
+“At last you are here,” he said, giving his friend a strong grasp of the
+hand.
+
+“I was detained at the Palais,” said the advocate, as if he felt the
+necessity of explaining his absence; “and I have been, as you may well
+imagine, dreadfully anxious.”
+
+He leant towards the doctor’s ear, and in a trembling voice asked:
+“Well, is she at all better?”
+
+The doctor shook his head with an air of deep discouragement.
+
+“She is much worse,” he replied: “since morning bad symptoms have
+succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.”
+
+He checked himself. The advocate had seized his arm and was pressing it
+with all his might. Madame Gerdy stirred a little, and a feeble groan
+escaped her.
+
+“She heard you,” murmured Noel.
+
+“I wish it were so,” said the doctor; “It would be most encouraging.
+But I fear you are mistaken. However, we will see.” He went up to Madame
+Gerdy, and, whilst feeling her pulse, examined her carefully; then, with
+the tip of his finger, he lightly raised her eyelid.
+
+The eye appeared dull, glassy, lifeless.
+
+“Come, judge for yourself; take her hand, speak to her.”
+
+Noel, trembling all over, did as his friend wished. He drew near, and,
+leaning over the bed, so that his mouth almost touched the sick woman’s
+ear, he murmured: “Mother, it is I, Noel, your own Noel. Speak to me,
+make some sign, do you hear me, mother?”
+
+It was in vain; she retained her frightful immobility. Not a sign of
+intelligence crossed her features.
+
+“You see,” said the doctor, “I told you the truth.”
+
+“Poor woman!” sighed Noel, “does she suffer?”
+
+“Not at present.”
+
+The nun now rose; and she too came beside the bed.
+
+“Doctor,” said she: “all is ready.”
+
+“Then call the servant, sister, to help us. We are going to apply a
+mustard poultice.”
+
+The servant hastened in. In the arms of the two women, Madame Gerdy was
+like a corpse, whom they were dressing for the last time. She was as
+rigid as though she were dead. She must have suffered much and long,
+poor woman, for it was pitiable to see how thin she was. The nun
+herself was affected, although she had become habituated to the sight of
+suffering. How many invalids had breathed their last in her arms during
+the fifteen years that she had gone from pillow to pillow!
+
+Noel, during this time, had retired into the window recess, and pressed
+his burning brow against the panes.
+
+Of what was he thinking, while she who had given him so many proofs of
+maternal tenderness and devotion was dying a few paces from him? Did
+he regret her? was he not thinking rather of the grand and magnificent
+existence which awaited him on the other side of the river, at the
+Faubourg St. Germain? He turned abruptly round on hearing his friend’s
+voice.
+
+“It is done,” said the doctor; “we have only now to wait the effect
+of the mustard. If she feels it, it will be a good sign; if it has no
+effect, we will try cupping.”
+
+“And if that does not succeed?”
+
+The doctor answered only with a shrug of the shoulders, which showed his
+inability to do more.
+
+“I understand your silence, Herve,” murmured Noel. “Alas! you told me
+last night she was lost.”
+
+“Scientifically, yes; but I do not yet despair. It is hardly a year ago
+that the father-in-law of one of our comrades recovered from an almost
+identical attack; and I saw him when he was much worse than this;
+suppuration had set in.”
+
+“It breaks my heart to see her in this state,” resumed Noel. “Must she
+die without recovering her reason even for one moment? Will she not
+recognise me, speak one word to me?”
+
+“Who knows? This disease, my poor friend, baffles all foresight. Each
+moment, the aspect may change, according as the inflammation affects
+such or such a part of the brain. She is now in a state of utter
+insensibility, of complete prostration of all her intellectual
+faculties, of coma, of paralysis so to say; to-morrow, she may be seized
+with convulsions, accompanied with a fierce delirium.”
+
+“And will she speak then?”
+
+“Certainly; but that will neither modify the nature nor the gravity of
+the disease.”
+
+“And will she recover her reason?”
+
+“Perhaps,” answered the doctor, looking fixedly at his friend; “but why
+do you ask that?”
+
+“Ah, my dear Herve, one word from Madame Gerdy, only one, would be of
+such use to me!”
+
+“For your affair, eh! Well, I can tell you nothing, can promise you
+nothing. You have as many chances in your favour as against you;
+only, do not leave her. If her intelligence returns, it will be only
+momentary, try and profit by it. But I must go,” added the doctor; “I
+have still three calls to make.”
+
+Noel followed his friend. When they reached the landing, he asked: “You
+will return?”
+
+“This evening, at nine. There will be no need of me till then. All
+depends upon the watcher. But I have chosen a pearl. I know her well.”
+
+“It was you, then, who brought this nun?”
+
+“Yes, and without your permission. Are you displeased?”
+
+“Not the least in the world. Only I confess--”
+
+“What! you make a grimace. Do your political opinions forbid your having
+your mother, I should say Madame Gerdy, nursed by a nun of St. Vincent?”
+
+“My dear Herve, you--”
+
+“Ah! I know what you are going to say. They are adroit, insinuating,
+dangerous, all that is quite true. If I had a rich old uncle whose heir
+I expected to be, I shouldn’t introduce one of them into his house.
+These good creatures are sometimes charged with strange commissions.
+But, what have you to fear from this one? Never mind what fools say.
+Money aside, these worthy sisters are the best nurses in the world.
+I hope you will have one when your end comes. But good-bye; I am in a
+hurry.”
+
+And, regardless of his professional dignity, the doctor hurried down
+the stairs; while Noel, full of thought, his countenance displaying the
+greatest anxiety, returned to Madame Gerdy.
+
+At the door of the sick-room, the nun awaited the advocate’s return.
+
+“Sir,” said she, “sir.”
+
+“You want something of me, sister?”
+
+“Sir, the servant bade me come to you for money; she has no more, and
+had to get credit at the chemist’s.”
+
+“Excuse me, sister,” interrupted Noel, seemingly very much vexed;
+“excuse me for not having anticipated your request; but you see I am
+rather confused.”
+
+And, taking a hundred-franc note out of his pocket-book, he laid it on
+the mantel piece.
+
+“Thanks, sir,” said the nun; “I will keep an account of what I spend. We
+always do that,” she added; “it is more convenient for the family. One
+is so troubled at seeing those one loves laid low by illness. You have
+perhaps not thought of giving this poor lady the sweet aid of our
+holy religion! In your place, sir, I should send without delay for a
+priest,--”
+
+“What, now, sister? Do you not see the condition she is in? She is the
+same as dead; you saw that she did not hear my voice.”
+
+“That is of little consequence, sir,” replied the nun; “you will always
+have done your duty. She did not answer you; but are you sure that she
+will not answer the priest? Ah, you do not know all the power of the
+last sacraments! I have seen the dying recover their intelligence and
+sufficient strength to confess, and to receive the sacred body of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. I have often heard families say that they do not wish
+to alarm the invalid, that the sight of the minister of our Lord might
+inspire a terror that would hasten the final end. It is a fatal error.
+The priest does not terrify; he reassures the soul, at the beginning of
+its long journey. He speaks in the name of the God of mercy, who comes
+to save, not to destroy. I could cite to you many cases of dying people
+who have been cured simply by contact with the sacred balm.”
+
+The nun spoke in a tone as mournful as her look. Her heart was evidently
+not in the words which she uttered. Without doubt, she had learned them
+when she first entered the convent. Then they expressed something
+she really felt, she spoke her own thoughts; but, since then, she had
+repeated the words over and over again to the friends of every sick
+person that she attended, until they lost all meaning so far as she was
+concerned. To utter them became simply a part of her duties as nurse,
+the same as the preparation of draughts, and the making of poultices.
+
+Noel was not listening to her; his thoughts were far away.
+
+“Your dear mother,” continued the nun, “this good lady that you love
+so much, no doubt trusted in her religion. Do you wish to endanger her
+salvation? If she could speak in the midst of her cruel sufferings--”
+
+The advocate was on the point of replying, when the servant announced
+that a gentleman, who would not give his name, wished to speak with him
+on business.
+
+“I will come,” he said quickly.
+
+“What do you decide, sir?” persisted the nun.
+
+“I leave you free, sister, to do as you may judge best.”
+
+The worthy woman began to recite her lesson of thanks, but to no
+purpose. Noel had disappeared with a displeased look; and almost
+immediately she heard his voice in the next room, saying: “At last you
+have come, M. Clergeot, I had almost given you up!”
+
+The visitor, whom the advocate had been expecting, is a person well
+known in the Rue St. Lazare, round about the Rue de Provence, the
+neighbourhood of Notre Dame de Lorette, and all along the exterior
+Boulevards, from the Chaussee des Martyrs to the Rond-Point of the old
+Barriere de Clichy.
+
+M. Clergeot is no more a usurer than M. Jourdin’s father was a
+shopkeeper. Only, as he has lots of money, and is very obliging, he
+lends it to his friends; and, in return for this kindness, he consents
+to receive interest, which varies from fifteen to five hundred per cent.
+
+The excellent man positively loves his clients, and his honesty is
+generally appreciated. He has never been known to seize a debtor’s
+goods; he prefers to follow him up without respite for ten years, and
+tear from him bit by bit what is his due.
+
+He lives near the top of the Rue de la Victoire. He has no shop, and yet
+he sells everything saleable, and some other things, too, that the law
+scarcely considers merchandise. Anything to be useful or neighbourly.
+He often asserts that he is not very rich. It is possibly true. He is
+whimsical more than covetous, and fearfully bold. Free with his money
+when one pleases him, he would not lend five francs, even with a
+mortgage on the Chateau of Ferrieres as guarantee, to whosoever does
+not meet with his approval. However, he often risks his all on the most
+unlucky cards.
+
+His preferred customers consist of women of doubtful morality,
+actresses, artists, and those venturesome fellows who enter upon
+professions which depend solely upon those who practice them, such as
+lawyers and doctors.
+
+He lends to women upon their present beauty, to men upon their future
+talent. Slight pledges! His discernment, it should be said, however,
+enjoys a great reputation. It is rarely at fault. A pretty girl
+furnished by Clergeot is sure to go far. For an artist to be in
+Clergeot’s debt was a recommendation preferable to the warmest
+criticism.
+
+Madame Juliette had procured this useful and honourable acquaintance for
+her lover.
+
+Noel, who well knew how sensitive this worthy man was to kind
+attentions, and how pleased by politeness, began by offering him a seat,
+and asking after his health. Clergeot went into details. His teeth were
+still good; but his sight was beginning to fail. His legs were no
+longer so steady, and his hearing was not all that could be desired. The
+chapter of complaints ended--“You know,” said he, “why I have called.
+Your bills fall due to-day; and I am devilishly in need of money. I have
+one of ten, one of seven, and a third of five thousand francs, total,
+twenty-two thousand francs.”
+
+“Come, M. Clergeot,” replied Noel, “do not let us have any joking.”
+
+“Excuse me,” said the usurer; “I am not joking at all.”
+
+“I rather think you are though. Why, it’s just eight days ago to-day
+that I wrote to tell you that I was not prepared to meet the bills, and
+asked for a renewal!”
+
+“I recollect very well receiving your letter.”
+
+“What do you say to it, then?”
+
+“By my not answering the note, I supposed that you would understand
+that I could not comply with your request; I hoped that you would exert
+yourself to find the amount for me.”
+
+Noel allowed a gesture of impatience to escape him.
+
+“I have not done so,” he said; “so take your own course. I haven’t a
+sou.”
+
+“The devil. Do you know that I have renewed these bills four times
+already?”
+
+“I know that the interest has been fully and promptly paid, and at a
+rate which cannot make you regret the investment.”
+
+Clergeot never likes talking about the interest he received. He pretends
+that it is humiliating.
+
+“I do not complain; I only say that you take things too easily with me.
+If I had put your signature in circulation all would have been paid by
+now.”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“Yes, you would have found means to escape being sued. But you say to
+yourself: ‘Old Clergeot is a good fellow.’ And that is true. But I am
+so only when it can do me no harm. Now, to-day, I am absolutely in
+great need of my money. Ab--so--lute--ly,” he added, emphasising each
+syllable.
+
+The old fellow’s decided tone seemed to disturb the advocate.
+
+“Must I repeat it?” he said; “I am completely drained, com--plete--ly!”
+
+“Indeed?” said the usurer; “well, I am sorry for you; but I shall have
+to sue you.”
+
+“And what good will that do? Let us play above board, M. Clergeot. Do
+you care to increase the lawyers’ fees? You don’t do you? Even though,
+you may put me to great expense, will that procure you even a centime?
+You will obtain judgment against me. Well, what then? Do you think of
+putting in an execution? This is not my home; the lease is in Madame
+Gerdy’s name.”
+
+“I know all that. Besides, the sale of everything here would not cover
+the amount.”
+
+“Then you intend to put me in prison, at Clichy! Bad speculation, I warn
+you, my practice will be lost, and, you know, no practice, no money.”
+
+“Good!” cried the worthy money-lender. “Now you are talking nonsense!
+You call that being frank. Pshaw! If you supposed me capable of half
+the cruel things you have said, my money would be there in your drawer,
+ready for me.”
+
+“A mistake! I should not know where to get it, unless by asking Madame
+Gerdy, a thing I would never do.”
+
+A sarcastic and most irritating little laugh, peculiar to old Clergeot,
+interrupted Noel.
+
+“It would be no good doing that,” said the usurer; “mamma’s purse has
+long been empty; and if the dear creature should die now,--they tell
+me she is very ill,--I would not give two hundred napoleons for the
+inheritance.”
+
+The advocate turned red with passion, his eyes glittered; but he
+dissembled, and protested with some spirit.
+
+“We know what we know,” continued Clergeot quietly. “Before a man risks
+his money, he takes care to make some inquiries. Mamma’s remaining bonds
+were sold last October. Ah! the Rue de Provence is an expensive place!
+I have made an estimate, which is at home. Juliette is a charming woman,
+to be sure; she has not her equal, I am convinced; but she is expensive,
+devilish expensive.”
+
+Noel was enraged at hearing his Juliette thus spoke of by this
+honourable personage. But what reply could he make? Besides, none of
+us are perfect; and M. Clergeot possessed the fault of not properly
+appreciating women, which doubtless arises from the business
+transactions he has had with them. He is charming in his business
+with the fair sex, complimenting and flattering them; but the coarsest
+insults would be less revolting than his disgusting familiarity.
+
+“You have gone too fast,” he continued, without deigning to notice his
+client’s ill looks; “and I have told you so before. But, you would not
+listen; you are mad about the girl. You can never refuse her anything.
+Fool! When a pretty girl wants anything, you should let her long for it
+for a while; she has then something to occupy her mind and keep her from
+thinking of a quantity of other follies. Four good strong wishes, well
+managed, ought to last a year. You don’t know how to look after your own
+interests. I know that her glance would turn the head of a stone saint;
+but you should reason with yourself, hang it! Why, there are not ten
+girls in Paris who live in such style! And do you think she loves you
+any the more for it? Not a bit. When she has ruined you, she’ll leave
+you in the lurch.”
+
+Noel accepted the eloquence of his prudent banker like a man without an
+umbrella accepts a shower.
+
+“What is the meaning of all this!” he asked.
+
+“Simply that I will not renew your bills. You understand? Just now, if
+you try very hard, you will be able to hand me the twenty-two thousand
+francs in question. You need not frown: you will find means to do so to
+prevent my seizing your goods,--not here, for that would be absurd, but
+at your little woman’s apartments. She would not be at all pleased, and
+would not hesitate to tell you so.”
+
+“But everything there belongs to her; and you have no right--”
+
+“What of that? She will oppose the seizure, no doubt, and I expect her
+to do so; but she will make you find the requisite sum. Believe me, you
+had best parry the blow. I insist on being paid now. I won’t give you
+any further delay; because, in three months’ time, you will have used
+your last resources. It is no use saying ‘No,’ like that. You are in one
+of those conditions that must be continued at any price. You would burn
+the wood from your dying mother’s bed to warm this creature’s feet.
+Where did you obtain the ten thousand francs that you left with her the
+other evening? Who knows what you will next attempt to procure money?
+The idea of keeping her fifteen days, three days, a single day more, may
+lead you far. Open your eyes. I know the game well. If you do not leave
+Juliette, you are lost. Listen to a little good advice, gratis. You must
+give her up, sooner or later, mustn’t you? Do it to-day, then.”
+
+As you see, our worthy Clergeot never minces the truth to his customers,
+when they do not keep their engagements. If they are displeased, so much
+the worse for them! His conscience is at rest. He would never join in
+any foolish business.
+
+Noel could bear it no longer: and his anger burst forth.
+
+“Enough,” he cried decidedly. “Do as you please, M. Clergeot, but have
+done with your advice. I prefer the lawyer’s plain prose. If I have
+committed follies, I can repair them, and in a way that would surprise
+you. Yes, M. Clergeot, I can procure twenty-two thousand francs; I could
+have a hundred thousand to-morrow morning, if I saw fit. They would
+only cost me the trouble of asking for them. But that I will not do.
+My extravagance, with all due deference to you, will remain a secret as
+heretofore. I do not choose that my present embarrassed circumstances
+should be even suspected. I will not relinquish, for your sake, that at
+which I have been aiming, the very day it is within my grasp.”
+
+“He resists,” thought the usurer; “he is less deeply involved than I
+imagined.”
+
+“So,” continued the advocate, “put your bills in the hands of your
+lawyer. Let him sue me. In eight days, I shall be summoned to appear
+before the Tribunal de Commerce, and I shall ask for the twenty-five
+days’ delay, which the judges always grant to an embarrassed debtor.
+Twenty-five and eight, all the world over, make just thirty-three days.
+That is precisely the respite I need. You have two alternatives: either
+accept from me at once a new bill for twenty-four thousand francs
+payable in six weeks, or else, as I have an appointment, go off to your
+lawyer.”
+
+“And in six weeks,” replied the usurer, “you will be in precisely the
+same condition you are to-day. And forty-five days more of Juliette will
+cost--”
+
+“M. Clergeot,” interrupted Noel, “long before that time, my position
+will be completely changed. But I have finished,” he added rising; “and
+my time is valuable.”
+
+“One moment, you impatient fellow!” exclaimed the good-natured banker,
+“you said twenty-four thousand francs at forty-five days?”
+
+“Yes. That is about seventy-five per cent,--pretty fair interest.”
+
+“I never cavil about interest,” said M. Clergeot; “only--” He looked
+slyly at Noel scratching his chin violently, a movement which in him
+indicated how insensibly his brain was at work. “Only,” he continued, “I
+should very much like to know what you are counting upon.”
+
+“That I will not tell you. You will know it ere long, in common with all
+the world.”
+
+“I have it!” cried M. Clergeot, “I have it! You are going to marry! You
+have found an heiress, of course, your little Juliette told me something
+of the sort this morning. Ah! you are going to marry! Is she pretty? But
+no matter. She has a full purse, eh? You wouldn’t take her without that.
+So you are going to start a home of your own?”
+
+“I did not say so.”
+
+“That’s right. Be discreet. But I can take a hint. One word more. Beware
+of the storm; your little woman has a suspicion of the truth. You are
+right; it wouldn’t do to be seeking money now. The slightest inquiry
+would be sufficient to enlighten your father-in-law as to your financial
+position, and you would lose the damsel. Marry and settle down. But get
+rid of Juliette, or I won’t give five francs for the fortune. So it is
+settled: prepare a new bill for twenty-four thousand francs, and I will
+call for it when I bring you the old ones on Monday.”
+
+“You haven’t them with you, then?”
+
+“No. And to be frank, I confess that, knowing well I should get nothing
+from you, I left them with others at my lawyer’s. However, you may rest
+easy: you have my word.”
+
+M. Clergeot made a pretence of retiring; but just as he was going out,
+he returned quickly.
+
+“I had almost forgotten,” said he; “while you are about it, you can make
+the bill for twenty-six thousand francs. Your little woman ordered some
+dresses, which I shall deliver to-morrow; in this way they will be paid
+for.”
+
+The advocate began to remonstrate. He certainly did not refuse to pay,
+only he thought he ought to be consulted when any purchases were made.
+He didn’t like this way of disposing of his money.
+
+“What a fellow!” said the usurer, shrugging his shoulders; “do you want
+to make the girl unhappy for nothing at all? She won’t let you off yet,
+my friend. You may be quite sure she will eat up your new fortune also.
+And you know, if you need any money for the wedding, you have but to
+give me some guarantee. Procure me an introduction to the notary, and
+everything shall be arranged. But I must go. On Monday then.”
+
+Noel listened, to make sure that the usurer had actually gone. When he
+heard him descending the staircase, “Scoundrel!” he cried, “miserable
+thieving old skinflint! Didn’t he need a lot of persuading? He had quite
+made up his mind to sue me. It would have been a pleasant thing had
+the count come to hear of it. Vile usurer! I was afraid, one moment, of
+being obliged to tell him all.”
+
+While inveighing thus against the money-lender, the advocate looked at
+his watch.
+
+“Half-past five already,” he said.
+
+His indecision was great. Ought he to go and dine with his father? Could
+he leave Madame Gerdy? He longed to dine at the de Commarin mansion;
+yet, on the other hand, to leave a dying woman!
+
+“Decidedly,” he murmured, “I can’t go.”
+
+He sat down at his desk, and with all haste wrote a letter of apology
+to his father. Madame Gerdy, he said, might die at any moment; he must
+remain with her. As he bade the servant give the note to a messenger, to
+carry it to the count, a sudden thought seemed to strike him.
+
+“Does madame’s brother,” he asked, “know that she is dangerously ill?”
+
+“I do not know, sir,” replied the servant, “at any rate, I have not
+informed him.”
+
+“What, did you not think to send him word? Run to his house quickly.
+Have him sought for, if he is not at home; he must come.”
+
+Considerably more at ease, Noel went and sat in the sick-room. The lamp
+was lighted; and the nun was moving about the room as though quite at
+home, dusting and arranging everything, and putting it in its place. She
+wore an air of satisfaction, that Noel did not fail to notice.
+
+“Have we any gleam of hope, sister?” he asked.
+
+“Perhaps,” replied the nun. “The priest has been here, sir; your dear
+mother did not notice his presence; but he is coming back. That is not
+all. Since the priest was here, the poultice has taken admirably. The
+skin is quite reddened. I am sure she feels it.”
+
+“God grant that she does, sister!”
+
+“Oh, I have already been praying! But it is important not to leave her
+alone a minute. I have arranged all with the servant. After the doctor
+has been, I shall lie down, and she will watch until one in the morning.
+I will then take her place and--”
+
+“You shall both go to bed, sister,” interrupted Noel, sadly. “It is I,
+who could not sleep a wink, who will watch through this night.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Old Tabaret did not consider himself defeated, because he had been
+repulsed by the investigating magistrate, already irritated by a long
+day’s examination. You may call it a fault, or an accomplishment; but
+the old man was more obstinate than a mule. To the excess of despair to
+which he succumbed in the passage outside the magistrate’s office, there
+soon succeeded that firm resolution which is the enthusiasm called forth
+by danger. The feeling of duty got the upper hand. Was it a time to
+yield to unworthy despair, when the life of a fellow-man depended on
+each minute? Inaction would be unpardonable. He had plunged an innocent
+man into the abyss; and he must draw him out, he alone, if no one would
+help him. Old Tabaret, as well as the magistrate, was greatly fatigued.
+On reaching the open air, he perceived that he, too, was in want of
+food. The emotions of the day had prevented him from feeling hungry;
+and, since the previous evening, he had not even taken a glass of water.
+He entered a restaurant on the Boulevard, and ordered dinner.
+
+While eating, not only his courage, but also his confidence came
+insensibly back to him. It was with him, as with the rest of mankind;
+who knows how much one’s ideas may change, from the beginning to the
+end of a repast, be it ever so modest! A philosopher has plainly
+demonstrated that heroism is but an affair of the stomach.
+
+The old fellow looked at the situation in a much less sombre light. He
+had plenty of time before him! A clever man could accomplish a great
+deal in a month! Would his usual penetration fail him now? Certainly
+not. His great regret was, his inability to let Albert know that some
+one was working for him.
+
+He was entirely another man, as he rose from the table; and it was with
+a sprightly step that he walked towards the Rue St. Lazare. Nine o’clock
+struck as the concierge opened the door for him. He went at once up to
+the fourth floor to inquire after the health of his former friend, her
+whom he used to call the excellent, the worthy Madame Gerdy.
+
+It was Noel who let him in, Noel, who had doubtless been thinking of
+the past, for he looked as sad as though the dying woman was really his
+mother.
+
+In consequence of this unexpected circumstance, old Tabaret could not
+avoid going in for a few minutes, though he would much have preferred
+not doing so. He knew very well, that, being with the advocate, he would
+be unavoidably led to speak of the Lerouge case; and how could he do
+this, knowing, as he did, the particulars much better than his young
+friend himself, without betraying his secret? A single imprudent word
+might reveal the part he was playing in this sad drama. It was, above
+all others, from his dear Noel, now Viscount de Commarin, that he wished
+entirely to conceal his connection with the police.
+
+But, on the other hand, he thirsted to know what had passed between the
+advocate and the count. His ignorance on this single point aroused his
+curiosity. However, as he could not withdraw he resolved to keep close
+watch upon his language and remain constantly on his guard.
+
+The advocate ushered the old man into Madame Gerdy’s room. Her
+condition, since the afternoon, had changed a little; though it was
+impossible to say whether for the better or the worse. One thing was
+evident, her prostration was not so great. Her eyes still remained
+closed; but a slight quivering of the lids was evident. She constantly
+moved on her pillow, and moaned feebly.
+
+“What does the doctor say?” asked old Tabaret, in that low voice one
+unconsciously employs in a sick room.
+
+“He has just gone,” replied Noel; “before long all will be over.”
+
+The old man advanced on tip-toe, and looked at the dying woman with
+evident emotion.
+
+“Poor creature!” he murmured; “God is merciful in taking her. She
+perhaps suffers much; but what is this pain compared to what she would
+feel if she knew that her son, her true son, was in prison, accused of
+murder?”
+
+“That is what I keep thinking,” said Noel, “to console myself for this
+sight. For I still love her, my old friend; I shall always regard her
+as a mother. You have heard me curse her, have you not? I have twice
+treated her very harshly. I thought I hated her; but now, at the moment
+of losing her, I forget every wrong she has done me, only to remember
+her tenderness. Yes, for her, death is far preferable! And yet I do not
+think, no, I cannot think her son guilty.”
+
+“No! what, you too?”
+
+Old Tabaret put so much warmth and vivacity into this exclamation, that
+Noel looked at him with astonishment. He felt his face grow red, and he
+hastened to explain himself. “I said, ‘you too,’” he continued, “because
+I, thanks perhaps to my inexperience, am persuaded also of this young
+man’s innocence. I cannot in the least imagine a man of his rank
+meditating and accomplishing so cowardly a crime. I have spoken with
+many persons on this matter which has made so much noise; and everybody
+is of my opinion. He has public opinion in his favor; that is already
+something.”
+
+Seated near the bed, sufficiently far from the lamp to be in the shade,
+the nun hastily knitted stockings destined for the poor. It was a purely
+mechanical work, during which she usually prayed. But, since old Tabaret
+entered the room, she forgot her everlasting prayers whilst listening
+to the conversation. What did it all mean? Who could this woman be? And
+this young man who was not her son, and who yet called her mother,
+and at the same time spoke of a true son accused of being an assassin?
+Before this she had overheard mysterious remarks pass between Noel and
+the doctor. Into what strange house had she entered? She was a little
+afraid; and her conscience was sorely troubled. Was she not sinning? She
+resolved to tell all to the priest, when he returned.
+
+“No,” said Noel, “no, M. Tabaret; Albert has not public opinion for him.
+We are sharper than that in France, as you know. When a poor devil is
+arrested, entirely innocent, perhaps, of the crime charged against him,
+we are always ready to throw stones at him. We keep all our pity for
+him, who, without doubt guilty, appears before the court of assize. As
+long as the justice hesitates, we side with the prosecution against the
+prisoner. The moment it is proved that the man is a villain, all our
+sympathies are in his favour. That is public opinion. You understand,
+however, that it affects me but little. I despise it to such an extent,
+that if, as I dare still hope, Albert is not released, I will defend
+him. Yes, I have told the Count de Commarin, my father, as much. I will
+be his counsel, and I will save him.”
+
+Gladly would the old man have thrown himself on Noel’s neck. He longed
+to say to him: “We will save him together.” But he restrained himself.
+Would not the advocate despise him, if he told him his secret! He
+resolved, however, to reveal all should it become necessary, or should
+Albert’s position become worse. For the time being, he contented himself
+with strongly approving his young friend.
+
+“Bravo! my boy,” said he; “you have a noble heart. I feared to see you
+spoiled by wealth and rank; pardon me. You will remain, I see, what you
+have always been in your more humble position. But, tell me, you have,
+then, seen your father, the count?”
+
+Now, for the first time, Noel seemed to notice the nun’s eyes, which,
+lighted by eager curiosity, glittered in the shadow like carbuncles.
+With a look, he drew the old man’s attention to her, and said: “I have
+seen him; and everything is arranged to my satisfaction. I will tell you
+all, in detail, by-and-by, when we are more at ease. By this bedside, I
+am almost ashamed of my happiness.”
+
+M. Tabaret was obliged to content himself with this reply and this
+promise. Seeing that he would learn nothing that evening, he spoke
+of going to bed, declaring himself tired out by what he had had to do
+during the day. Noel did not ask him to stop. He was expecting, he said,
+Madame Gerdy’s brother, who had been sent for several times, but who
+was not at home. He hardly knew how he could again meet this brother,
+he added: he did not yet know what conduct he ought to pursue. Should
+he tell him all? It would only increase his grief. On the other hand,
+silence would oblige him to play a difficult part. The old man advised
+him to say nothing; he could explain all later on.
+
+“What a fine fellow Noel is!” murmured old Tabaret, as he regained
+his apartments as quietly as possible. He had been absent from home
+twenty-four hours; and he fully expected a formidable scene with his
+housekeeper. Mannette was decidedly out of temper, and declared once
+for all, that she would certainly seek a new place if her master did not
+change his conduct.
+
+She had remained up all night, in a terrible fright, listening to the
+least sound on the stairs, expecting every moment to see her master
+brought home on a litter, assassinated. There had been great commotion
+in the house. M. Gerdy had gone down a short time after her master, and
+she had seen him return two hours later. After that, they had sent for
+the doctor. Such goings on would be the death of her, without counting
+that her constitution was too weak to allow her to sit up so late. But
+Mannette forgot that she did not sit up on her master’s account nor on
+Noel’s but was expecting one of her old friends, one of those handsome
+Gardes de Paris who had promised to marry her, and for whom she had
+waited in vain, the rascal!
+
+She burst forth in reproaches, while she prepared her master’s bed,
+too sincere, she declared, to keep anything on her mind, or to keep her
+mouth closed, when it was a question of his health and reputation. M.
+Tabaret made no reply, not being in the mood for argument. He bent his
+head to the storm, and turned his back to the hail. But, as soon as
+Mannette had finished what she was about, he put her out of the room,
+and double locked the door.
+
+He busied himself in forming a new line of battle, and in deciding upon
+prompt and active measures. He rapidly examined the situation. Had
+he been deceived in his investigations? No. Were his calculations of
+probabilities erroneous? No. He had started with a positive fact, the
+murder. He had discovered the particulars; his inferences were correct,
+and the criminal was evidently such as he had described him. The man M.
+Daburon had had arrested could not be the criminal. His confidence in a
+judicial axiom had led him astray, when he pointed to Albert.
+
+“That,” thought he, “is the result of following accepted opinions and
+those absurd phrases, all ready to hand, which are like mile-stones
+along a fool’s road! Left free to my own inspirations, I should have
+examined this case more thoroughly, I would have left nothing to chance.
+The formula, ‘Seek out the one whom the crime benefits’ may often be
+as absurd as true. The heirs of a man assassinated are in reality all
+benefited by the murder; while the assassin obtains at most the victim’s
+watch and purse. Three persons were interested in Widow Lerouge’s
+death:--Albert, Madame Gerdy, and the Count de Commarin. It is plain to
+me that Albert is not the criminal. It is not Madame Gerdy, who is dying
+from the shock caused by the unexpected announcement of the crime. There
+remains, then, the Count. Can it be he? If so, he certainly did not do
+it himself. He must have hired some wretch, a wretch of good position,
+if you please, wearing patent leather boots of a good make, and smoking
+trabucos cigars with an amber mouth-piece. These well-dressed
+villains ordinarily lack nerve. They cheat, they forge; but they don’t
+assassinate. Supposing, though, that the count did get hold of some
+dare-devil fellow. He would simply have replaced one accomplice by
+another still more dangerous. That would be idiotic, and the count is a
+sensible man. He, therefore, had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
+To be quite sure though, I will make some inquiries about him. Another
+thing, Widow Lerouge, who so readily exchanged the children while
+nursing them, would be very likely to undertake a number of other
+dangerous commissions. Who can say that she has not obliged other
+persons who had an equal interest in getting rid of her? There is a
+secret, I am getting at it, but I do not hold it yet. One thing is
+certain though, she was not assassinated to prevent Noel recovering his
+rights. She must have been suppressed for some analogous reason, by a
+bold and experienced scoundrel, prompted by similar motives to those
+of which I suspected Albert. It is, then, in that direction that I must
+follow up the case now. And, above all, I must obtain the past history
+of this obliging widow, and I will have it too, for in all probability
+the particulars which have been written for from her birthplace will
+arrive tomorrow.”
+
+Returning to Albert, old Tabaret weighed the charges which were brought
+against the young man, and reckoned the chances which he still had in
+favour of his release.
+
+“From the look of things,” he murmured, “I see only luck and myself,
+that is to say absolutely nothing, in his favor at present. As to the
+charges, they are countless. However, it is no use going over them.
+It is I who amassed them; and I know what they are worth! At once
+everything and nothing. What do signs prove, however striking they may
+be, in cases where one ought to disbelieve even the evidence of one’s
+own senses? Albert is a victim of the most remarkable coincidences; but
+one word might explain them. There have been many such cases. It was
+even worse in the matter of the little tailor. At five o’clock, he
+bought a knife, which he showed to ten of his friends, saying, ‘This is
+for my wife, who is an idle jade, and plays me false with my workmen.’
+In the evening, the neighbours heard a terrible quarrel between the
+couple, cries, threats, stampings, blows; then suddenly all was quiet.
+The next day, the tailor had disappeared from his home, and the wife was
+discovered dead, with the very same knife buried to the hilt between her
+shoulders. Ah, well! it turned out it was not the husband who had stuck
+it there; it was a jealous lover. After that, what is to be believed?
+Albert, it is true, will not give an account of how he passed Tuesday
+evening. That does not affect me. The question for me is not to prove
+where he was, but that he was not at La Jonchere. Perhaps, after all,
+Gevrol is on the right track. I hope so, from the bottom of my
+heart. Yes; God grant that he may be successful. My vanity and my mad
+presumption will deserve the slight punishment of his triumph over me.
+What would I not give to establish this man’s innocence? Half of my
+fortune would be but a small sacrifice. If I should not succeed! If,
+after having caused the evil, I should find myself powerless to undo
+it!”
+
+Old Tabaret went to bed, shuddering at this last thought. He fell
+asleep, and had a terrible nightmare. Lost in that vulgar crowd, which,
+on the days when society revenges itself, presses about the Place de la
+Rouquette and watches the last convulsions of one condemned to death,
+he attended Albert’s execution. He saw the unhappy man, his hands bound
+behind his back, his collar turned down, ascend, supported by a priest,
+the steep flight of steps leading on to the scaffold. He saw him
+standing upon the fatal platform, turning his proud gaze upon the
+terrified assembly beneath him. Soon the eyes of the condemned man met
+his own; and, bursting his cords, he pointed him, Tabaret, out to the
+crowd, crying, in a loud voice: “That man is my assassin.” Then a great
+clamour arose to curse the detective. He wished to escape; but his feet
+seemed fixed to the ground. He tried at least to close his eyes; he
+could not. A power unknown and irresistible compelled him to look.
+Then Albert again cried out: “I am innocent; the guilty one is----” He
+pronounced a name; the crowd repeated this name, and he alone did not
+catch what it was. At last the head of the condemned man fell.
+
+M. Tabaret uttered a loud cry, and awoke in a cold perspiration. It took
+him some time to convince himself that nothing was real of what he had
+just heard and seen, and that he was actually in his own house, in
+his own bed. It was only a dream! But dreams sometimes are, they say,
+warnings from heaven. His imagination was so struck with what had just
+happened that he made unheard of efforts to recall the name pronounced
+by Albert. Not succeeding, he got up and lighted his candle. The
+darkness made him afraid, the night was full of phantoms. It was no
+longer with him a question of sleep. Beset with these anxieties, he
+accused himself most severely, and harshly reproached himself for the
+occupation he had until then so delighted in. Poor humanity!
+
+He was evidently stark mad the day when he first had the idea of seeking
+employment in the Rue de Jerusalem. A noble hobby, truly, for a man of
+his age, a good quiet citizen of Paris, rich, and esteemed by all! And
+to think that he had been proud of his exploits, that he had boasted of
+his cunning, that he had plumed himself on his keenness of scent, that
+he had been flattered by that ridiculous sobriquet, “Tirauclair.” Old
+fool! What could he hope to gain from that bloodhound calling? All sorts
+of annoyance, the contempt of the world, without counting the danger of
+contributing to the conviction of an innocent man. Why had he not taken
+warning by the little tailor’s case.
+
+Recalling his few satisfactions of the past, and comparing them with his
+present anguish, he resolved that he would have no more to do with it.
+Albert once saved, he would seek some less dangerous amusement, and one
+more generally appreciated. He would break the connection of which he
+was ashamed, and the police and justice might get on the best they could
+without him.
+
+At last the day, which he had awaited with feverish impatience, dawned.
+To pass the time, he dressed himself slowly, with much care, trying to
+occupy his mind with needless details, and to deceive himself as to the
+time by looking constantly at the clock, to see if it had not stopped.
+In spite of all this delay, it was not eight o’clock when he presented
+himself at the magistrate’s house, begging him to excuse, on account of
+the importance of his business, a visit too early not to be indiscreet.
+
+Excuses were superfluous. M. Daburon was never disturbed by a call at
+eight o’clock in the morning. He was already at work. He received the
+old amateur detective with his usual kindness, and even joked with him
+a little about his excitement of the previous evening. Who would have
+thought his nerves were so sensitive? Doubtless the night had brought
+deliberation. Had he recovered his reason? or had he put his hand on the
+true criminal?
+
+This trifling tone in a magistrate, who was accused of being grave
+even to a fault, troubled the old man. Did not this quizzing hide a
+determination not to be influenced by anything that he could say?
+He believed it did; and it was without the least deception that he
+commenced his pleading.
+
+He put the case more calmly this time, but with all the energy of a
+well-digested conviction. He had appealed to the heart, he now appealed
+to reason; but, although doubt is essentially contagious, he neither
+succeeded in convincing the magistrate, nor in shaking his opinion. His
+strongest arguments were of no more avail against M. Daburon’s absolute
+conviction than bullets made of bread crumbs would be against a
+breastplate. And there was nothing very surprising in that.
+
+Old Tabaret had on his side only a subtle theory, mere words; M. Daburon
+possessed palpable testimony, facts. And such was the peculiarity of
+the case, that all the reasons brought forward by the old man to justify
+Albert simply reacted against him, and confirmed his guilt.
+
+A repulse at the magistrate’s hands had entered too much into M.
+Tabaret’s anticipations for him to appear troubled or discouraged. He
+declared that, for the present, he would insist no more; he had full
+confidence in the magistrate’s wisdom and impartiality. All he wished
+was to put him on his guard against the presumptions which he himself
+unfortunately had taken such pains to inspire.
+
+He was going, he added, to busy himself with obtaining more information.
+They were only at the beginning of the investigation; and they were
+still ignorant of very many things, even of Widow Lerouge’s past life.
+More facts might come to light. Who knew what testimony the man with the
+earrings, who was being pursued by Gevrol, might give? Though in a great
+rage internally, and longing to insult and chastise he whom he inwardly
+styled a “fool of a magistrate,” old Tabaret forced himself to be humble
+and polite. He wished, he said, to keep well posted up in the different
+phases of the investigation, and to be informed of the result of future
+interrogations. He ended by asking permission to communicate with
+Albert, He thought his services deserved this slight favour. He desired
+an interview of only ten minutes without witnesses.
+
+M. Daburon refused this request. He declared, that, for the present, the
+prisoner must continue to remain strictly in solitary confinement.
+By way of consolation, he added that, in three or four days, he might
+perhaps be able to reconsider this decision, as the motives which
+prompted it would then no longer exist.
+
+“Your refusal is cruel, sir,” said M. Tabaret; “but I understand it, and
+submit.”
+
+That was his only complaint: and he withdrew almost immediately, fearing
+that he could no longer master his indignation. He felt that, besides
+the great happiness of saving an innocent man, compromised by his
+imprudence, he would experience unspeakable delight in avenging himself
+for the magistrate’s obstinacy.
+
+“Three or four days,” he muttered, “that is the same as three or four
+years to the unfortunate prisoner. He takes things quite at his ease,
+this charming magistrate. But I must find out the real truth of the case
+between now and then.”
+
+Yes, M. Daburon only required three or four days to wring a confession
+from Albert, or at least to make him abandon his system of defence.
+
+The difficulty of the prosecution was not being able to produce any
+witness who had seen the prisoner during the evening of Shrove Tuesday.
+
+One deposition alone to that effect would have such great weight, that
+M. Daburon, as soon as Tabaret had left him, turned all his attention
+in that direction. He could still hope for a great deal. It was only
+Saturday, the day of the murder was remarkable enough to fix people’s
+memories, and up till then there had not been time to start a proper
+investigation.
+
+He arranged for five of the most experienced detectives in the secret
+service to be sent to Bougival, supplied with photographs of the
+prisoner. They were to scour the entire country between Rueil and
+La Jonchere, to inquire everywhere, and make the most minute
+investigations. The photographs would greatly aid their efforts. They
+had orders to show them everywhere and to everybody and even to leave a
+dozen about the neighbourhood, as they were furnished with a sufficient
+number to do so. It was impossible, that, on an evening when so many
+people were about, no one had noticed the original of the portrait
+either at the railway station at Rueil or upon one of the roads which
+lead to La Jonchere, the high road, and the path by the river.
+
+These arrangements made, the investigating magistrate proceeded to the
+Palais de Justice, and sent for Albert. He had already in the morning
+received a report, informing him hour by hour of the acts, gestures, and
+utterances of the prisoner, who had been carefully watched. Nothing in
+him, the report said, betrayed the criminal. He seemed very sad, but not
+despairing. He had not cried out, nor threatened, nor cursed justice,
+nor even spoken of a fatal error. After eating lightly, he had gone to
+the window of his cell, and had there remained standing for more than an
+hour. Then he laid down, and had quietly gone to sleep.
+
+“What an iron constitution!” thought M. Daburon, when the prisoner
+entered his office.
+
+Albert was no longer the despairing man who, the night before,
+bewildered with the multiplicity of charges, surprised by the rapidity
+with which they were brought against him, had writhed beneath the
+magistrate’s gaze, and appeared ready to succumb. Innocent or guilty,
+he had made up his mind how to act; his face left no doubt of that. His
+eyes expressed that cold resolution of a sacrifice freely made, and
+a certain haughtiness which might be taken for disdain, but which
+expressed the noble resentment of an injured man. In him could be
+seen the self-reliant man, who might be shaken but never overcome by
+misfortune.
+
+On beholding him, the magistrate understood that he would have to
+change his mode of attack. He recognized one of those natures which are
+provoked to resistance when assailed, and strengthened when menaced.
+He therefore gave up his former tactics, and attempted to move him by
+kindness. It was a hackneyed trick, but almost always successful, like
+certain pathetic scenes at theatres. The criminal who has girt up his
+energy to sustain the shock of intimidation, finds himself without
+defence against the wheedling of kindness, the greater in proportion to
+its lack of sincerity. Now M. Daburon excelled in producing affecting
+scenes. What confessions he had obtained with a few tears! No one knew
+so well as he how to touch those old chords which vibrate still even in
+the most corrupt hearts: honour, love, and family ties.
+
+With Albert, he became kind and friendly, and full of the liveliest
+compassion. Unfortunate man! how greatly he must suffer, he whose whole
+life had been like one long enchantment. How at a single blow everything
+about him had fallen in ruins. Who could have foreseen all this at
+the time when he was the one hope of a wealthy and illustrious house!
+Recalling the past, the magistrate pictured to him the most touching
+reminiscences of his early youth, and stirred up the ashes of all
+his extinct affections. Taking advantage of all that he knew of the
+prisoner’s life, he tortured him by the most mournful allusions to
+Claire. Why did he persist in bearing alone his great misfortune? Had he
+no one in the world who would deem it happiness to share his sufferings?
+Why this morose silence? Should he not rather hasten to reassure her
+whose very life depended upon his? What was necessary for that? A single
+word. Then he would be, if not free, at least returned to the world. His
+prison would become a habitable abode, no more solitary confinement; his
+friends would visit him, he might receive whomsoever he wished to see.
+
+It was no longer the magistrate who spoke; it was a father, who, no
+matter what happens, always keeps in the recesses of his heart, the
+greatest indulgence for his child.
+
+M. Daburon did even more. For a moment he imagined himself in Albert’s
+position. What would he have done after the terrible revelation? He
+scarcely dared ask himself. He understood the motive which prompted the
+murder of Widow Lerouge; he could explain it to himself; he could almost
+excuse it. (Another trap.) It was certainly a great crime, but in no way
+revolting to conscience or to reason. It was one of those crimes which
+society might, if not forget, at least forgive up to a certain point,
+because the motive was not a shameful one. What tribunal would fail
+to find extenuating circumstances for a moment of frenzy so excusable.
+Besides was not the Count de Commarin the more guilty of the two? Was it
+not his folly that prepared the way for this terrible event? His son was
+the victim of fatality, and was in the highest degree to be pitied.
+
+M. Daburon spoke for a long time upon this text, seeking those things
+most suitable in his opinion to soften the hardened heart of an
+assassin. And he arrived always at the same conclusion,--the wisdom
+of confessing. But he wasted his eloquence precisely as M. Tabaret had
+wasted his. Albert appeared in no way affected. His answers were of the
+shortest. He began and ended as on the first occasion, by protesting his
+innocence.
+
+One test, which has often given the desired result, still remained to be
+tried.
+
+On this same day, Saturday, Albert was confronted with the corpse of
+Widow Lerouge. He appeared impressed by the sad sight, but no more than
+anyone would be, if forced to look at the victim of an assassination
+four days after the crime. One of the bystanders having exclaimed: “Ah,
+if she could but speak!” he replied: “That would be very fortunate for
+me.”
+
+Since morning, M. Daburon had not gained the least advantage. He had had
+to acknowledge the failure of his manoeuvres; and now this last attempt
+had not succeeded either. The prisoner’s continued calmness filled to
+overflowing the exasperation of this man so sure of his guilt. His spite
+was evident to all, when, suddenly ceasing his wheedling, he harshly
+gave the order to re-conduct the prisoner to his cell.
+
+“I will compel him to confess!” he muttered between his teeth.
+
+Perhaps he regretted those gentle instruments of investigation of the
+middle ages, which compelled the prisoner to say whatever one wished to
+hear. Never, thought he, did any one ever meet a culprit like this. What
+could he reasonably hope for from his system of persistent denial? This
+obstinacy, absurd in the presence of such absolute proofs, drove the
+magistrate into a rage. Had Albert confessed his guilt, he would have
+found M. Daburon disposed to pity him; but as he denied it, he opposed
+himself to an implacable enemy.
+
+It was the very falseness of the situation which misled and blinded this
+magistrate, naturally so kind and generous. Having previously wished
+Albert innocent, he now absolutely longed to prove him guilty, and that
+for a hundred reasons which he was unable to analyze. He remembered,
+too well, his having had the Viscount de Commarin for a rival, and his
+having nearly assassinated him. Had he not repented even to remorse his
+having signed the warrant of arrest, and his having accepted the duty of
+investigating the case. Old Tabaret’s incomprehensible change of opinion
+troubled him, too.
+
+All these feelings combined, inspired M. Daburon with a feverish hatred,
+and urged him on in the path which he had chosen. It was now less the
+proofs of Albert’s guilt which he sought for than the justification of
+his own conduct as magistrate. The investigation became embittered like
+a personal matter.
+
+In fact, were the prisoner innocent, he would become inexcusable in his
+own eyes; and, in proportion as he reproached himself the more severely,
+and as the knowledge of his own failings grew, he felt the more disposed
+to try everything to conquer his former rival, even to abusing his own
+power. The logic of events urged him on. It seemed as though his honour
+itself was at stake; and he displayed a passionate activity, such as he
+had never before been known to show in any investigation.
+
+M. Daburon passed all Sunday in listening to the reports of the
+detectives he had sent to Bougival.
+
+They had spared no trouble, they stated, but they could report nothing
+new.
+
+They had heard many people speak of a woman, who pretended, they said,
+to have seen the assassin leave Widow Lerouge’s cottage; but no one
+had been able to point this woman out to them, or even to give them her
+name.
+
+They all thought it their duty, however, to inform the magistrate that
+another inquiry was going on at the same time as theirs. It was directed
+by M. Tabaret, who personally scoured the country round about in a
+cabriolet drawn by a very swift horse. He must have acted with great
+promptness; for, no matter where they went, he had been there before
+them. He appeared to have under his orders a dozen men, four of whom at
+least certainly belonged to the Rue de Jerusalem. All the detectives had
+met him; and he had spoken to them. To one, he had said: “What the deuce
+are you showing this photograph for? In less than no time you will have
+a crowd of witnesses, who, to earn three francs, will describe some one
+more like the portrait than the portrait itself.”
+
+He had met another on the high-road, and had laughed at him.
+
+“You are a simple fellow,” he cried out, “to hunt for a hiding man on
+the high-way; look a little aside, and you may find him.”
+
+Again he had accosted two who were together in a cafe at Bougival, and
+had taken them aside.
+
+“I have him,” he said to them. “He is a smart fellow; he came by
+Chatois. Three people have seen him--two railway porters and a third
+person whose testimony will be decisive, for she spoke to him. He was
+smoking.”
+
+M. Daburon became so angry with old Tabaret, that he immediately started
+for Bougival, firmly resolved to bring the too zealous man back to
+Paris, and to report his conduct in the proper quarter. The journey,
+however, was useless. M. Tabaret, the cabriolet, the swift horse, and
+the twelve men had all disappeared, or at least were not to be found.
+
+On returning home, greatly fatigued, and very much out of temper, the
+investigating magistrate found the following telegram from the chief of
+the detective force awaiting him; it was brief, but to the point:
+
+
+“ROUEN, Sunday.
+
+“The man is found. This evening we start for Paris. The most valuable
+testimony. GEVROL.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+On the Monday morning, at nine o’clock, M. Daburon was preparing to
+start for the Palais de Justice, where he expected to find Gevrol and
+his man, and perhaps old Tabaret. His preparations were nearly made,
+when his servant announced that a young lady, accompanied by another
+considerably older, asked to speak with him. She declined giving
+her name, saying, however, that she would not refuse it, if it was
+absolutely necessary in order to be received.
+
+“Show them in,” said the magistrate.
+
+He thought it must be a relation of one or other of the prisoners, whose
+case he had had in hand when this fresh crime occurred. He determined to
+send her away quickly. He was standing before the fireplace, seeking
+for an address in a small china plate filled with visiting cards. At
+the sound of the opening of the door, at the rustling of a silk dress
+gliding by the window, he did not take the trouble to move, nor deign
+even to turn his head. He contented himself with merely casting a
+careless glance into the mirror.
+
+But he immediately started with a movement of dismay, as if he had seen
+a ghost. In his confusion, he dropped the card-plate, which fell noisily
+on to the hearth, and broke into a thousand pieces.
+
+“Claire!” he stammered, “Claire!”
+
+And as if he feared equally either being deceived by an illusion or
+actually seeing her whose name he had uttered, he turned slowly round.
+
+It was truly Mademoiselle d’Arlange. This young girl, usually so proud
+and reserved, had had the courage to come to his house alone, or almost
+so, for her governess, whom she had left in the ante-room, could hardly
+count. She was evidently obeying some powerful emotion, since it made
+her forget her habitual timidity.
+
+Never, even in the time when a sight of her was his greatest happiness,
+had she appeared to him more fascinating. Her beauty, ordinarily
+veiled by a sweet sadness, was bright and shining. Her features had an
+animation which he had never seen in them before. In her eyes, rendered
+more brilliant by recent tears but partly wiped away, shone the noblest
+resolution. One could see that she was conscious of performing a great
+duty, and that she performed it, if not with pleasure, at least with
+that simplicity which in itself is heroism.
+
+She advanced calm and dignified, and held out her hand to the magistrate
+in that English style that some ladies can render so gracefully.
+
+“We are always friends, are we not?” asked she, with a sad smile.
+
+The magistrate did not dare take the ungloved hand she held out to him.
+He scarcely touched it with the tips of his fingers, as though he feared
+too great an emotion.
+
+“Yes,” he replied indistinctly, “I am always devoted to you.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange sat down in the large armchair, where, two nights
+previously, old Tabaret had planned Albert’s arrest. M. Daburon remained
+standing leaning against his writing-table.
+
+“You know why I have come?” asked the young girl.
+
+With a nod, he replied in the affirmative.
+
+He divined her object only too easily; and he was asking himself whether
+he would be able to resist prayers from such a mouth. What was she about
+to ask of him? What could he refuse her? Ah, if he had but foreseen
+this? He had not yet got over his surprise.
+
+“I only knew of this dreadful event yesterday,” pursued Claire; “my
+grandmother considered it best to hide it from me, and, but for my
+devoted Schmidt, I should still be ignorant of it all. What a night I
+have passed! At first I was terrified; but, when they told me that all
+depended upon you, my fears were dispelled. It is for my sake, is it
+not, that you have undertaken this investigation? Oh, you are good, I
+know it! How can I ever express my gratitude?”
+
+What humiliation for the worthy magistrate were these heartfelt thanks!
+Yes, he had at first thought of Mademoiselle d’Arlange, but since--He
+bowed his head to avoid Claire’s glance, so pure and so daring.
+
+“Do not thank me, mademoiselle,” he stammered, “I have not the claim
+that you think upon your gratitude.”
+
+Claire had been too troubled herself, at first, to notice the
+magistrate’s agitation. The trembling of his voice attracted her
+attention; but she did not suspect the cause. She thought that her
+presence recalled sad memories, that he doubtless still loved her,
+and that he suffered. This idea saddened her, and filled her with
+self-reproach.
+
+“And yet, sir,” she continued, “I thank you all the same. I might never
+have dared go to another magistrate, to speak to a stranger! Besides,
+what value would another attach to my words, not knowing me? While you,
+so generous, will re-assure me, will tell me by what awful mistake he
+has been arrested like a villain and thrown into prison.”
+
+“Alas!” sighed the magistrate, so low that Claire scarcely heard him,
+and did not understand the terrible meaning of the exclamation.
+
+“With you,” she continued, “I am not afraid. You are my friend, you told
+me so; you will not refuse my prayers. Give him his liberty quickly. I
+do not know exactly of what he is accused, but I swear to you that he is
+innocent.”
+
+Claire spoke in the positive manner of one who saw no obstacle in the
+way of the very simple and natural desire which she had expressed. A
+formal assurance given by her ought to be amply sufficient; with a
+word, M. Daburon would repair everything. The magistrate was silent. He
+admired that saint-like ignorance of everything, that artless and frank
+confidence which doubted nothing. She had commenced by wounding him,
+unconsciously, it is true, but he had quite forgotten that.
+
+He was really an upright man, as good as the best, as is proved from
+the fact that he trembled at the moment of unveiling the fatal truth. He
+hesitated to pronounce the words which, like a whirlwind, would overturn
+the fragile edifice of this young girl’s happiness. He who had been so
+humiliated, so despised, he was going to have his revenge; and yet
+he did not experience the least feeling of a shameful, though easily
+understood, satisfaction.
+
+“And if I should tell you, mademoiselle,” he commenced, “that M. Albert
+is not innocent?”
+
+She half-raised herself with a protesting gesture.
+
+He continued, “If I should tell you that he is guilty?”
+
+“Oh, sir!” interrupted Claire, “you cannot think so!”
+
+“I do think so, mademoiselle,” exclaimed the magistrate in a sad voice,
+“and I must add that I am morally certain of it.”
+
+Claire looked at the investigating magistrate with profound amazement.
+Could it be really he who was speaking thus. Had she heard him aright?
+Did she understand? She was far from sure. Had he answered seriously?
+Was he not deluding her by a cruel unworthy jest? She asked herself this
+scarcely knowing what she did: for to her everything appeared possible,
+probable, rather than that which he had said.
+
+Not daring to raise his eyes, he continued in a tone, expressive of the
+sincerest pity, “I suffer cruelly for you at this moment, mademoiselle;
+but I have the sad courage to tell you the truth, and you must summon
+yours to hear it. It is far better that you should know everything from
+the mouth of a friend. Summon, then, all your fortitude; strengthen your
+noble soul against a most dreadful misfortune. No, there is no mistake.
+Justice has not been deceived. The Viscount de Commarin is accused of
+an assassination; and everything, you understand me, proves that he
+committed it.”
+
+Like a doctor, who pours out drop by drop a dangerous medicine, M.
+Daburon pronounced this last sentence slowly, word by word. He watched
+carefully the result, ready to cease speaking, if the shock was too
+great. He did not suppose that this young girl, timid to excess, with a
+sensitiveness almost a disease, would be able to hear without flinching
+such a terrible revelation. He expected a burst of despair, tears,
+distressing cries. She might perhaps faint away; and he stood ready to
+call in the worthy Schmidt.
+
+He was mistaken. Claire drew herself up full of energy and courage. The
+flame of indignation flushed her cheeks, and dried her tears.
+
+“It is false,” she cried, “and those who say it are liars! He cannot
+be--no, he cannot be an assassin. If he were here, sir, and should
+himself say, ‘It is true,’ I would refuse to believe it; I would still
+cry out, ‘It is false!’”
+
+“He has not yet admitted it,” continued the magistrate, “but he will
+confess. Even if he should not, there are more proofs than are needed to
+convict him. The charges against him are as impossible to deny as is the
+sun which shines upon us.”
+
+“Ah! well,” interrupted Mademoiselle d’Arlange, in a voice filled
+with emotion, “I assert, I repeat, that justice is deceived. Yes,” she
+persisted, in answer to the magistrate’s gesture of denial, “yes, he is
+innocent. I am sure of it; and I would proclaim it, even were the whole
+world to join with you in accusing him. Do you not see that I know him
+better even than he can know himself, that my faith in him is absolute,
+as is my faith in God, that I would doubt myself before doubting him?”
+
+The investigating magistrate attempted timidly to make an objection;
+Claire quickly interrupted him.
+
+“Must I then, sir,” said she, “in order to convince you, forget that I
+am a young girl, and that I am not talking to my mother, but to a man!
+For his sake I will do so. It is four years, sir, since we first loved
+each other. Since that time, I have not kept a single one of my thoughts
+from him, nor has he hid one of his from me. For four years, there has
+never been a secret between us; he lived in me, as I lived in him.
+I alone can say how worthy he is to be loved; I alone know all that
+grandeur of soul, nobleness of thought, generosity of feelings, out of
+which you have so easily made an assassin. And I have seen him, oh! so
+unhappy, while all the world envied his lot. He is, like me, alone in
+the world; his father never loved him. Sustained one by the other, we
+have passed through many unhappy days; and it is at the very moment our
+trials are ending that he has become a criminal? Why? tell me, why?”
+
+“Neither the name nor the fortune of the Count de Commarin would descend
+to him, mademoiselle; and the knowledge of it came upon him with a
+sudden shock. One old woman alone was able to prove this. To maintain
+his position, he killed her.”
+
+“What infamy,” cried the young girl, “what a shameful, wicked, calumny!
+I know, sir, that story of fallen greatness; he himself told me of it.
+It is true, that for three days this misfortune unmanned him; but, if he
+was dismayed, it was on my account more than his own. He was distressed
+at thinking that perhaps I should be grieved, when he confessed to me
+that he could no longer give me all that his love dreamed of. I grieved?
+Ah! what to me are that great name, that immense wealth? I owe to them
+the only unhappiness I have ever known. Was it, then, for such things
+that I loved him? It was thus that I replied to him; and he, so sad,
+immediately recovered his gaiety. He thanked me, saying, ‘You love me;
+the rest is of no consequence.’ I chided him, then, for having doubted
+me; and after that, you pretend that he cowardly assassinated an old
+woman? You would not dare repeat it.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange ceased speaking, a smile of victory on her lips.
+That smile meant, “At last I have attained my end: you are conquered;
+what can you reply to all that I have said?”
+
+The investigating magistrate did not long leave this smiling illusion to
+the unhappy child. He did not perceive how cruel and offensive was his
+persistence. Always the same predominant idea! In persuading Claire, he
+would justify his own conduct to himself.
+
+“You do not know, mademoiselle,” he resumed, “how a sudden calamity may
+effect a good man’s reason. It is only at the time a thing escapes us
+that we feel the greatness of the loss. God preserve me from doubting
+all that you have said; but picture to yourself the immensity of the
+blow which struck M. de Commarin. Can you say that on leaving you he did
+not give way to despair? Think of the extremities to which it may
+have led him. He may have been for a time bewildered, and have acted
+unconsciously. Perhaps this is the way the crime should be explained.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s face grew deathly pale, and betrayed the utmost
+terror. The magistrate thought that at last doubt had begun to effect
+her pure and noble belief.
+
+“He must, then, have been mad,” she murmured.
+
+“Possibly,” replied the magistrate; “and yet the circumstances of the
+crime denote a well-laid plan. Believe me, then, mademoiselle, and do
+not be too confident. Pray, and wait patiently for the issue of this
+terrible trial. Listen to my voice, it is that of a friend. You used to
+have in me the confidence a daughter gives to her father, you told me
+so; do not, then, refuse my advice. Remain silent and wait. Hide your
+grief to all; you might hereafter regret having exposed it. Young,
+inexperienced, without a guide, without a mother, alas! you sadly
+misplaced your first affections.”
+
+“No, sir, no,” stammered Claire. “Ah!” she added, “you talk like the
+rest of the world, that prudent and egotistical world, which I despise
+and hate.”
+
+“Poor child,” continued M. Daburon, pitiless even in his compassion,
+“unhappy young girl! This is your first deception! Nothing more terrible
+could be imagined; few women would know how to bear it. But you are
+young; you are brave; your life will not be ruined. Hereafter you will
+feel horrified at this crime. There is no wound, I know by experience,
+which time does not heal.”
+
+Claire tried to grasp what the magistrate was saying, but his words
+reached her only as confused sounds, their meaning entirely escaped her.
+
+“I do not understand you, sir,” she said. “What advice, then, do you
+give me?”
+
+“The only advice that reason dictates, and that my affection for you can
+suggest, mademoiselle. I speak to you as a kind and devoted brother.
+I say to you: ‘Courage, Claire, resign yourself to the saddest, the
+greatest sacrifice which honour can ask of a young girl. Weep, yes, weep
+for your deceived love; but forget it. Pray heaven to help you do so. He
+whom you have loved is no longer worthy of you.’”
+
+The magistrate stopped slightly frightened. Mademoiselle d’Arlange had
+become livid.
+
+But though the body was weak, the soul still remained firm.
+
+“You said, just now,” she murmured, “that he could only have committed
+this crime in a moment of distraction, in a fit of madness?”
+
+“Yes, it is possible.”
+
+“Then, sir, not knowing what he did, he can not be guilty.”
+
+The investigating magistrate forgot a certain troublesome question which
+he put to himself one morning in bed after his illness.
+
+“Neither justice nor society, mademoiselle,” he replied, “can take that
+into account. God alone, who sees into the depths of our hearts, can
+judge, can decide those questions which human justice must pass by. In
+our eyes, M. de Commarin is a criminal. There may be certain extenuating
+circumstances to soften the punishment; but the moral effect will be the
+same. Even if he were acquitted, and I wish he may be, but without hope,
+he will not be less unworthy. He will always carry the dishonour, the
+stain of blood cowardly shed. Therefore, forget him.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange stopped the magistrate with a look in which
+flashed the strongest resentment.
+
+“That is to say,” she exclaimed, “that you counsel me to abandon him in
+his misfortune. All the world deserts him; and your prudence advises me
+to act with the world. Men behave thus, I have heard, when one of their
+friends is down; but women never do. Look about you; however humiliated,
+however wretched, however low, a man may be, you will always find a
+woman near to sustain and console him. When the last friend has boldly
+taken to flight, when the last relation has abandoned him, woman
+remains.”
+
+The magistrate regretted having been carried away perhaps a little too
+far. Claire’s excitement frightened him. He tried, but in vain, to stop
+her.
+
+“I may be timid,” she continued with increasing energy, “but I am no
+coward. I chose Albert voluntarily from amongst all. Whatever happens,
+I will never desert him. No, I will never say, ‘I do not know this man.’
+He would have given me half of his prosperity, and of his glory. I
+will share, whether he wishes it or not, half of his shame and of his
+misfortune. Between two, the burden will be less heavy to bear. Strike!
+I will cling so closely to him that no blow shall touch him without
+reaching me, too. You counsel me to forget him. Teach me, then, how to.
+I forget him? Could I, even if I wished? But I do not wish it. I love
+him. It is no more in my power to cease loving him than it is to
+arrest, by the sole effort of my will, the beating of my heart. He is a
+prisoner, accused of murder. So be it. I love him. He is guilty! What
+of that? I love him. You will condemn him, you will dishonour him.
+Condemned and dishonoured, I shall love him still. You will send him
+to a convict prison. I will follow him; and in the prison, under the
+convict’s dress, I will yet love him. If he falls to the bottom of the
+abyss, I will fall with him. My life is his, let him dispose of it. No,
+nothing will separate me from him, nothing short of death! And, if he
+must mount the scaffold, I shall die, I know it, from the blow which
+kills him.”
+
+M. Daburon had buried his face in his hands. He did not wish Claire to
+perceive a trace of the emotion which affected him.
+
+“How she loves him!” he thought, “how she loves him!”
+
+His mind was sunk in the darkest thoughts. All the stings of jealousy
+were rending him. What would not be his delight, if he were the object
+of so irresistible a passion as that which burst forth before him! What
+would he not give in return! He had, too, a young and ardent soul, a
+burning thirst for love. But who had ever thought of that? He had been
+esteemed, respected, perhaps feared, but not loved; and he never would
+be. Was he, then, unworthy of it? Why do so many men pass through life
+dispossessed of love, while others, the vilest beings sometimes, seem to
+possess a mysterious power, which charms and seduces, and inspires those
+blind and impetuous feelings which to assert themselves rush to the
+sacrifice all the while longing for it? Have women, then, no reason, no
+discernment?
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s silence brought the magistrate back to the
+reality. He raised his eyes to her. Overcome by the violence of her
+emotion, she lay back in her chair, and breathed with such difficulty
+that M. Daburon feared she was about to faint. He moved quickly towards
+the bell, to summon aid; but Claire noticed the movement, and stopped
+him.
+
+“What would you do?” she asked.
+
+“You seemed suffering so,” he stammered, “that I----”
+
+“It is nothing, sir,” replied she. “I may seem weak; but I am not so. I
+am strong, believe me, very strong. It is true that I suffer, as I never
+believed that one could suffer. It is cruel for a young girl to have to
+do violence to all her feelings. You ought to be satisfied, sir. I have
+torn aside all veils; and you have read even the inmost recesses of
+my heart. But I do not regret it; it was for his sake. That which I do
+regret is my having lowered my self so far as to defend him; but he will
+forgive me that one doubt. Your assurance took me unawares. A man
+like him does not need defence; his innocence must be proved; and, God
+helping me, I will prove it.”
+
+As Claire was half-rising to depart, M. Daburon detained her by a
+gesture. In his blindness, he thought he would be doing wrong to leave
+this poor young girl in the slightest way deceived. Having gone so far
+as to begin, he persuaded himself that his duty bade him go on to the
+end. He said to himself, in all good faith, that he would thus preserve
+Claire from herself, and spare her in the future many bitter regrets.
+The surgeon who has commenced a painful operation does not leave it
+half-finished because the patient struggles, suffers, and cries out.
+
+“It is painful, Mademoiselle,--” he began.
+
+Claire did not let him finish.
+
+“Enough, sir,” said she; “all that you can say will be of no avail. I
+respect your unhappy conviction. I ask, in return, the same regard for
+mine. If you were truly my friend, I would ask you to aid me in the task
+of saving him, to which I am about to devote myself. But, doubtless, you
+would not do so.”
+
+“If you knew the proofs which I possess, mademoiselle,” he said in a
+cold tone, which expressed his determination not to give way to anger,
+“if I detailed them to you, you would no longer hope.”
+
+“Speak, sir,” cried Claire imperiously.
+
+“You wish it, mademoiselle? Very well; I will give you in detail all the
+evidence we have collected. I am entirely yours, as you are aware. But
+yet, why should I harass you with all these proofs? There is one which
+alone is decisive. The murder was committed on the evening of Shrove
+Tuesday; and the prisoner cannot give an account of what he did on that
+evening. He went out, however, and only returned home about two o’clock
+in the morning, his clothes soiled and torn, and his gloves frayed.”
+
+“Oh! enough, sir, enough!” interrupted Claire, whose eyes beamed once
+more with happiness. “You say it was on Shrove Tuesday evening?”
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Ah! I was sure,” she cried triumphantly. “I told you truly that he
+could not be guilty.”
+
+She clasped her hands, and, from the movement of her lips, it was
+evident that she was praying. The expression of the most perfect faith
+represented by some of the Italian painters illuminated her beautiful
+face while she rendered thanks to God in the effusion of her gratitude.
+
+The magistrate was so disconcerted, that he forgot to admire her. He
+awaited an explanation.
+
+“Well?” he asked impatiently.
+
+“Sir,” replied Claire, “if that is your strongest proof, it exists no
+longer. Albert passed the entire evening you speak of with me.”
+
+“With you?” stammered the magistrate.
+
+“Yes, with me, at my home.”
+
+M. Daburon was astounded. Was he dreaming? He hardly knew.
+
+“What!” he exclaimed, “the viscount was at your house? Your grandmother,
+your companion, your servants, they all saw him and spoke to him?”
+
+“No, sir; he came and left in secret. He wished no one to see him; he
+desired to be alone with me.”
+
+“Ah!” said the magistrate with a sigh of relief. The sigh signified:
+“It’s all clear--only too evident. She is determined to save him, at the
+risk even of compromising her reputation. Poor girl! But has this idea
+only just occurred to her?”
+
+The “Ah!” was interpreted very differently by Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
+She thought that M. Daburon was astonished at her consenting to receive
+Albert.
+
+“Your surprise is an insult, sir,” said she.
+
+“Mademoiselle!”
+
+“A daughter of my family, sir, may receive her betrothed without danger
+of anything occurring for which she would have to blush.”
+
+She spoke thus, and at the same time was red with shame, grief, and
+anger. She began to hate M. Daburon.
+
+“I had no such insulting thought as you imagine, mademoiselle,” said the
+magistrate. “I was only wondering why M. de Commarin went secretly to
+your house, when his approaching marriage gave him the right to present
+himself openly at all hours. I still wonder, how, on such a visit, he
+could get his clothes in the condition in which we found them.”
+
+“That is to say, sir,” replied Claire bitterly, “that you doubt my
+word!”
+
+“The circumstances are such, mademoiselle,--”
+
+“You accuse me, then, of falsehood, sir. Know that, were we criminals,
+we should not descend to justifying ourselves; we should never pray nor
+ask for pardon.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s haughty, contemptuous tone could only anger the
+magistrate. How harshly she treated him! And simply because he would not
+consent to be her dupe.
+
+“Above all, mademoiselle,” he answered severely, “I am a magistrate; and
+I have a duty to perform. A crime has been committed. Everything points
+to M. Albert de Commarin as the guilty man. I arrest him; I examine him;
+and I find overwhelming proofs against him. You come and tell me that
+they are false; that is not enough. So long as you addressed me as a
+friend, you found me kind and gentle. Now it is the magistrate to whom
+you speak: and it is the magistrate who answers, ‘Prove it.’”
+
+“My word, sir,--”
+
+“Prove it!”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange rose slowly, casting upon the magistrate a look
+full of astonishment and suspicion.
+
+“Would you, then, be glad, sir,” she asked, “to find Albert guilty?
+Would it give you such great pleasure to have him convicted? Do you then
+hate this prisoner, whose fate is in your hands? One would almost think
+so. Can you answer for your impartiality? Do not certain memories weigh
+heavily in the scale? Are you sure that you are not, armed with the law,
+revenging yourself upon a rival?”
+
+“This is too much,” murmured the magistrate, “this is too much!”
+
+“Do you know the unusual, the dangerous position we are in at this
+moment? One day, I remember, you declared your love for me. It appeared
+to me sincere and honest; it touched me. I was obliged to refuse you,
+because I loved another; and I pitied you. Now that other is accused
+of murder, and you are his judge; and I find myself between you two,
+praying to you for him. In undertaking the investigation you acquired an
+opportunity to help him; and yet you seem to be against him.”
+
+Every word Claire uttered fell upon M. Daburon’s heart like a slap on
+his face. Was it really she who was speaking? Whence came this sudden
+boldness, which made her choose all those words which found an echo in
+his heart?
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said he, “your grief has been too much for you. From you
+alone could I pardon what you have just said. Your ignorance of things
+makes you unjust. If you think that Albert’s fate depends upon my
+pleasure, you are mistaken. To convince me is nothing; it is necessary
+to convince others. That I should believe you is all very natural, I
+know you. But what weight will others attach to your testimony, when
+you go to them with a true story--most true, I believe, but yet highly
+improbable?”
+
+Tears came into Claire’s eyes.
+
+“If I have unjustly offended you, sir,” said she, “pardon me; my
+unhappiness makes me forget myself.”
+
+“You cannot offend me, mademoiselle,” replied the magistrate. “I have
+already told you that I am devoted to your service.”
+
+“Then sir, help me to prove the truth of what I have said. I will tell
+you everything.”
+
+M. Daburon was fully convinced that Claire was seeking to deceive him;
+but her confidence astonished him. He wondered what fable she was about
+to concoct.
+
+“Sir,” began Claire, “you know what obstacles have stood in the way of
+my marriage with Albert. The Count de Commarin would not accept me for
+a daughter-in-law, because I am poor, I possess nothing. It took Albert
+five years to triumph over his father’s objections. Twice the count
+yielded; twice he recalled his consent, which he said had been extorted
+from him. At last, about a month ago, he gave his consent of his own
+accord. But these hesitations, delays, refusals, had deeply hurt my
+grandmother. You know her sensitive nature; and, in this case, I must
+confess she was right. Though the wedding day had been fixed, the
+marchioness declared that we should not be compromised nor laughed at
+again for any apparent haste to contract a marriage so advantageous,
+that we had often before been accused of ambition. She decided,
+therefore, that, until the publication of the banns, Albert should
+only be admitted into the house every other day, for two hours in the
+afternoon, and in her presence. We could not get her to alter this
+determination. Such was the state of affairs, when, on Sunday morning,
+a note came to me from Albert. He told me that pressing business would
+prevent his coming, although it was his regular day. What could have
+happened to keep him away? I feared some evil. The next day I awaited
+him impatiently and distracted, when his valet brought Schmidt a
+note for me. In that letter, sir, Albert entreated me to grant him
+an interview. It was necessary, he wrote, that he should have a long
+conversation with me, alone, and without delay. Our whole future, he
+added, depended upon this interview. He left me to fix the day and hour,
+urging me to confide in no one. I did not hesitate. I sent him word to
+meet me on the Tuesday evening, at the little garden gate, which opens
+into an unfrequented street. To inform me of his presence, he was to
+knock just as nine o’clock chimed at the Invalides. I knew that my
+grandmother had invited a number of her friends for that evening; and I
+thought that, by pretending a headache, I might retire early, and so be
+free. I expected, also, that Madame d’Arlange would keep Schmidt with
+her.”
+
+“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” interrupted M. Daburon, “what day did you
+write to M. Albert?”
+
+“On Tuesday.”
+
+“Can you fix the hour?”
+
+“I must have sent the letter between two and three o’clock.”
+
+“Thanks, mademoiselle. Continue, I pray.”
+
+“All my anticipations,” continued Claire, “were realised. I retired
+during the evening, and I went into the garden a little before the
+appointed time. I had procured the key of the little door; and I at
+once tried it. Unfortunately, I could not make it turn, the lock was so
+rusty. I exerted all my strength in vain. I was in despair, when nine
+o’clock struck. At the third stroke, Albert knocked. I told him of the
+accident; and I threw him the key, that he might try and unlock the
+door. He tried, but without success. I then begged him to postpone our
+interview. He replied that it was impossible, that what he had to say
+admitted of no delay; that, during three days he had hesitated about
+confiding in me, and had suffered martyrdom, and that he could endure it
+no longer. We were speaking, you must understand, through the door. At
+last, he declared that he would climb over the wall. I begged him not to
+do so, fearing an accident. The wall is very high, as you know; the top
+is covered with pieces of broken glass, and the acacia branches stretch
+out above like a hedge. But he laughed at my fears, and said that,
+unless I absolutely forbade him to do so, he was going to attempt
+to scale the wall. I dared not say no; and he risked it. I was very
+frightened, and trembled like a leaf. Fortunately, he is very active,
+and got over without hurting himself. He had come, sir, to tell me of
+the misfortune which had befallen him. We first of all sat down upon the
+little seat you know of, in front of the grove; then, as the rain was
+falling, we took shelter in the summer house. It was past midnight when
+Albert left me, quieted and almost gay. He went back in the same manner,
+only with less danger, because I made him use the gardener’s ladder,
+which I laid down alongside the wall when he had reached the other
+side.”
+
+This account, given in the simplest and most natural manner, puzzled M.
+Daburon. What was he to think?
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he asked, “had the rain commenced to fall when M. Albert
+climbed over the wall?”
+
+“No, sir, the first drops fell when we were on the seat. I recollect
+it very well, because he opened his umbrella, and I thought of Paul and
+Virginia.”
+
+“Excuse me a minute, mademoiselle,” said the magistrate.
+
+He sat down at his desk, and rapidly wrote two letters. In the first, he
+gave orders for Albert to be brought at once to his office in the Palais
+de Justice. In the second, he directed a detective to go immediately to
+the Faubourg St. Germain to the d’Arlange house, and examine the wall
+at the bottom of the garden, and make a note of any marks of its having
+been scaled, if any such existed. He explained that the wall had been
+climbed twice, both before and during the rain; consequently the marks
+of the going and returning would be different from each other.
+
+He enjoined upon the detective to proceed with the utmost caution, and
+to invent a plausible pretext which would explain his investigations.
+
+Having finished writing, the magistrate rang for his servant, who soon
+appeared.
+
+“Here,” said he, “are two letters, which you must take to my clerk,
+Constant. Tell him to read them, and to have the orders they contain
+executed at once,--at once, you understand. Run, take a cab, and be
+quick! Ah! one word. If Constant is not in my office, have him sought
+for; he will not be far off, as he is waiting for me. Go quickly!”
+
+M. Daburon then turned and said to Claire: “Have you kept the letter,
+mademoiselle, in which M. Albert asked for this interview?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I even think I have it with me.”
+
+She arose, felt in her pocket, and drew out a much crumpled piece of
+paper.
+
+“Here it is!”
+
+The investigating magistrate took it. A suspicion crossed his mind. This
+compromising letter happened to be very conveniently in Claire’s pocket;
+and yet young girls do not usually carry about with them requests for
+secret interviews. At a glance, he read the ten lines of the note.
+
+“No date,” he murmured, “no stamp, nothing at all.”
+
+Claire did not hear him; she was racking her brain to find other proofs
+of the interview.
+
+“Sir,” said she suddenly, “it often happens, that when we wish to be,
+and believe ourselves alone, we are nevertheless observed. Summon, I
+beseech you, all of my grandmother’s servants, and inquire if any of
+them saw Albert that night.”
+
+“Inquire of your servants! Can you dream of such a thing, mademoiselle?”
+
+“What, sir? You fear that I shall be compromised. What of that, if he is
+only freed?”
+
+M. Daburon could not help admiring her. What sublime devotion in this
+young girl, whether she spoke the truth or not! He could understand the
+violence she had been doing to her feelings during the past hour, he who
+knew her character so well.
+
+“That is not all,” she added; “the key which I threw to Albert, he did
+not return it to me; he must have forgotten to do so. If it is found in
+his possession, it will well prove that he was in the garden.”
+
+“I will give orders respecting it, mademoiselle.”
+
+“There is still another thing,” continued Claire; “while I am here, send
+some one to examine the wall.”
+
+She seemed to think of everything.
+
+“That is already done, mademoiselle,” replied M. Daburon. “I will not
+hide from you that one of the letters which I have just sent off ordered
+an examination of your grandmother’s wall, a secret examination, though,
+be assured.”
+
+Claire rose joyfully, and for the second time held out her hand to the
+magistrate.
+
+“Oh, thanks!” she said, “a thousand thanks! Now I can well see that you
+are with me. But I have still another idea: Albert ought to have the
+note I wrote on Tuesday.”
+
+“No, mademoiselle, he burnt it.”
+
+Claire drew back. She imagined she felt a touch of irony in the
+magistrate’s reply. There was none, however. M. Daburon remembered the
+letter thrown into the fire by Albert on the Tuesday afternoon. It could
+only been the one Claire had sent him. It was to her, then, that the
+words, “She cannot resist me,” applied. He understood, now, the action
+and the remark.
+
+“Can you understand, mademoiselle,” he next asked, “how M. de Commarin
+could lead justice astray, and expose me to committing a most deplorable
+error, when it would have been so easy to have told me all this?”
+
+“It seems to me, sir, that an honourable man cannot confess that he has
+obtained a secret interview from a lady, until he has full permission
+from her to do so. He ought to risk his life sooner than the honour of
+her who has trusted in him; but be assured Albert relied on me.”
+
+There was nothing to reply to this; and the sentiments expressed by
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange gave a meaning to one of Albert’s replies in the
+examination.
+
+“This is not all yet, mademoiselle,” continued the magistrate; “all that
+you have told me here, you must repeat in my office, at the Palais de
+Justice. My clerk will take down your testimony, and you must sign
+it. This proceeding will be painful to you; but it is a necessary
+formality.”
+
+“Ah, sir, I will do so with pleasure. What can I refuse, when I know
+that he is in prison? I was determined to do everything. If he had
+been tried at the assizes, I would have gone there. Yes, I would have
+presented myself, and there before all I would have told the truth.
+Doubtless,” she added sadly, “I should have been greatly compromised. I
+should have been looked upon as a heroine of romance; but what matters
+public opinion, the blame or approval of the world, since I am sure of
+his love?”
+
+She rose from her seat, readjusting her cloak and the strings of her
+bonnet.
+
+“Is it necessary,” she asked, “that I should await the return of the
+police agents who are examining the wall?”
+
+“It is needless, mademoiselle.”
+
+“Then,” she continued in a sweet voice, “I can only beseech you,” she
+clasped her hands, “conjure you,” her eyes implored, “to let Albert out
+of prison.”
+
+“He shall be liberated as soon as possible; I give you my word.”
+
+“Oh, to-day, dear M. Daburon, to-day, I beg of you, now, at once! Since
+he is innocent, be kind, for you are our friend. Do you wish me to go
+down on my knees?”
+
+The magistrate had only just time to extend his arms, and prevent her.
+
+He was choking with emotion, the unhappy man! Ah! how much he envied the
+prisoner’s lot!
+
+“That which you ask of me is impossible, mademoiselle,” said he in
+an almost inaudible voice, “impracticable, upon my honour. Ah! if it
+depended upon me alone, I could not, even were he guilty, see you weep,
+and resist.”
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange, hitherto so firm, could no longer restrain her
+sobs.
+
+“Miserable girl that I am!” she cried, “he is suffering, he is in
+prison; I am free, and yet I can do nothing for him! Great heaven!
+inspire me with accents to touch the hearts of men! At whose feet must I
+cast myself to obtain his pardon?”
+
+She suddenly stopped, surprised at having uttered such a word.
+
+“Pardon!” she repeated fiercely; “he has no need of pardon. Why am I
+only a woman? Can I not find one man who will help me? Yes,” she said
+after a moment’s reflection, “there is one man who owes himself to
+Albert; since he it was who put him in this position,--the Count de
+Commarin. He is his father, and yet he has abandoned him. Ah, well! I
+will remind him that he still has a son.”
+
+The magistrate rose to see her to the door; but she had already
+disappeared, taking the kind-hearted Schmidt with her.
+
+M. Daburon, more dead than alive, sank back again in his chair. His eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+“And that is what she is!” he murmured. “Ah! I made no vulgar choice! I
+had divined and understood all her good qualities.”
+
+He had never loved her so much; and he felt that he would never be
+consoled for not having won her love in return. But, in the midst of his
+meditations, a sudden thought passed like a flash across his brain.
+
+Had Claire spoken the truth? Had she not been playing a part previously
+prepared? No, most decidedly no! But she might have been herself
+deceived, might have been the dupe of some skillful trick.
+
+In that case old Tabaret’s prediction was now realised.
+
+Tabaret had said: “Look out for an indisputable _alibi_.”
+
+How could he show the falsity of this one, planned in advance, affirmed
+by Claire, who was herself deceived?
+
+How could he expose a plan, so well laid that the prisoner had been
+able without danger to await certain results, with his arms folded, and
+without himself moving in the matter?
+
+And yet, if Claire’s story were true, and Albert innocent!
+
+The magistrate struggled in the midst of inextricable difficulties,
+without a plan, without an idea.
+
+He arose.
+
+“Oh!” he said in a loud voice, as though encouraging himself, “at the
+Palais, all will be unravelled.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+M. Daburon had been surprised at Claire’s visit.
+
+M. de Commarin was still more so, when his valet whispered to him that
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange desired a moment’s conversation with him.
+
+M. Daburon had broken a handsome card-plate; M. de Commarin, who was at
+breakfast, dropped his knife on his plate.
+
+Like the magistrate he exclaimed, “Claire!”
+
+He hesitated to receive her, fearing a painful and disagreeable scene.
+She could only have, as he knew, a very slight affection for him, who
+had for so long repulsed her with such obstinacy. What could she want
+with him? To inquire about Albert, of course. And what could he reply?
+
+She would probably have some nervous attack or other; and he would
+be thoroughly upset. However, he thought of how much she must have
+suffered; and he pitied her.
+
+He felt that it would be cruel, as well as unworthy of him, to keep away
+from her who was to have been his daughter-in-law, the Viscountess de
+Commarin.
+
+He sent a message, asking her to wait a few minutes in one of the little
+drawing-rooms on the ground floor.
+
+He did not keep her waiting long, his appetite having been destroyed by
+the mere announcement of her visit. He was fully prepared for anything
+disagreeable.
+
+As soon as he appeared, Claire saluted him with one of those graceful,
+yet highly dignified bows, which distinguished the Marchioness
+d’Arlange.
+
+“Sir--,” she began.
+
+“You come, do you not, my poor child, to obtain news of the unhappy
+boy?” asked M. de Commarin.
+
+He interrupted Claire, and went straight to the point, in order to get
+the disagreeable business more quickly over.
+
+“No sir,” replied the young girl, “I come, on the contrary, to bring you
+news. Albert is innocent.”
+
+The count looked at her most attentively, persuaded that grief had
+affected her reason; but in that case her madness was very quiet.
+
+“I never doubted it,” continued Claire; “but now I have the most
+positive proof.”
+
+“Are you quite sure of what you are saying?” inquired the count, whose
+eyes betrayed his doubt.
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange understood his thoughts; her interview with M.
+Daburon had given her experience.
+
+“I state nothing which is not of the utmost accuracy,” she replied,
+“and easily proved. I have just come from M. Daburon, the investigating
+magistrate, who is one of my grandmother’s friends; and, after what I
+told him, he is convinced that Albert is innocent.”
+
+“He told you that, Claire!” exclaimed the count. “My child, are you
+sure, are you not mistaken?”
+
+“No, sir. I told him something, of which every one was ignorant, and
+of which Albert, who is a gentleman, could not speak. I told him that
+Albert passed with me, in my grandmother’s garden, all that evening on
+which the crime was committed. He had asked to see me--”
+
+“But your word will not be sufficient.”
+
+“There are proofs, and justice has them by this time.”
+
+“Heavens! Is it really possible?” cried the count, who was beside
+himself.
+
+“Ah, sir!” said Mademoiselle d’Arlange bitterly, “you are like the
+magistrate; you believed in the impossible. You are his father, and
+you suspected him! You do not know him, then. You were abandoning him,
+without trying to defend him. Ah, I did not hesitate one moment!”
+
+One is easily induced to believe true that which one is anxiously
+longing for. M. de Commarin was not difficult to convince. Without
+thinking, without discussion, he put faith in Claire’s assertions. He
+shared her convictions, without asking himself whether it were wise or
+prudent to do so.
+
+Yes, he had been overcome by the magistrate’s certitude, he had told
+himself that what was most unlikely was true; and he had bowed his head.
+One word from a young girl had upset this conviction. Albert innocent!
+The thought descended upon his heart like heavenly dew.
+
+Claire appeared to him like a bearer of happiness and hope.
+
+During the last three days, he had discovered how great was his
+affection for Albert. He had loved him tenderly, for he had never been
+able to discard him, in spite of his frightful suspicions as to his
+paternity.
+
+For three days, the knowledge of the crime imputed to his unhappy son,
+the thought of the punishment which awaited him, had nearly killed the
+father. And after all he was innocent!
+
+No more shame, no more scandalous trial, no more stains upon the
+escutcheon; the name of Commarin would not be heard at the assizes.
+
+“But, then, mademoiselle,” asked the count, “are they going to release
+him?”
+
+“Alas! sir, I demanded that they should at once set him at liberty. It
+is just, is it not, since he is not guilty? But the magistrate replied
+that it was not possible; that he was not the master; that Albert’s fate
+depended on many others. It was then that I resolved to come to you for
+aid.”
+
+“Can I then do something?”
+
+“I at least hope so. I am only a poor girl, very ignorant; and I know
+no one in the world. I do not know what can be done to get him released
+from prison. There ought, however, to be some means for obtaining
+justice. Will you not try all that can be done, sir, you, who are his
+father?”
+
+“Yes,” replied M. de Commarin quickly, “yes, and without losing a
+minute.”
+
+Since Albert’s arrest, the count had been plunged in a dull stupor. In
+his profound grief, seeing only ruin and disaster about him, he had done
+nothing to shake off this mental paralysis. Ordinarily very active,
+he now sat all day long without moving. He seemed to enjoy a condition
+which prevented his feeling the immensity of his misfortune. Claire’s
+voice sounded in his ear like the resurrection trumpet. The frightful
+darkness was dispelled; he saw a glimmering in the horizon; he recovered
+the energy of his youth.
+
+“Let us go,” he said.
+
+Suddenly the radiance in his face changed to sadness, mixed with anger.
+
+“But where,” he asked. “At what door shall we knock with any hope of
+success? In the olden times, I would have sought the king. But to-day!
+Even the emperor himself cannot interfere with the law. He will tell me
+to await the decision of the tribunals, that he can do nothing. Wait!
+And Albert is counting the minutes in mortal agony! We shall certainly
+have justice; but to obtain it promptly is an art taught in schools that
+I have not frequented.”
+
+“Let us try, at least, sir,” persisted Claire. “Let us seek out judges,
+generals, ministers, any one. Only lead me to them. I will speak; and
+you shall see if we do not succeed.”
+
+The count took Claire’s little hands between his own, and held them a
+moment pressing them with paternal tenderness.
+
+“Brave girl!” he cried, “you are a noble, courageous woman, Claire! Good
+blood never fails. I did not know you. Yes, you shall be my daughter;
+and you shall be happy together, Albert and you. But we must not rush
+about everywhere, like wild geese. We need some one to tell us whom we
+should address,--some guide, lawyer, advocate. Ah!” he cried, “I have
+it,--Noel!”
+
+Claire raised her eyes to the count’s in surprise.
+
+“He is my son,” replied M. de Commarin, evidently embarrassed, “my
+other son, Albert’s brother. The best and worthiest of men,” he added,
+repeating quite appropriately a phrase already uttered by M. Daburon.
+“He is a advocate; he knows all about the Palais; he will tell us what
+to do.”
+
+Noel’s name, thus thrown into the midst of this conversation so full of
+hope, oppressed Claire’s heart.
+
+The count perceived her affright.
+
+“Do not feel anxious, dear child,” he said. “Noel is good; and I will
+tell you more, he loves Albert. Do not shake your head so; Noel told me
+himself, on this very spot, that he did not believe Albert guilty. He
+declared that he intended doing everything to dispel the fatal mistake,
+and that he would be his advocate.”
+
+These assertions did not seem to reassure the young girl. She thought
+to herself, “What then has this Noel done for Albert?” But she made no
+remark.
+
+“I will send for him,” continued M. de Commarin; “he is now with
+Albert’s mother, who brought him up, and who is now on her deathbed.”
+
+“Albert’s mother!”
+
+“Yes, my child. Albert will explain to you what may perhaps seem to you
+an enigma. Now time presses. But I think--”
+
+He stopped suddenly. He thought, that, instead of sending for Noel at
+Madame Gerdy’s, he might go there himself. He would thus see Valerie!
+and he had longed to see her again so much!
+
+It was one of those actions which the heart urges, but which one does
+not dare risk, because a thousand subtle reasons and interests are
+against it.
+
+One wishes, desires, and even longs for it; and yet one struggles,
+combats, and resists. But, if an opportunity occurs, one is only too
+happy to seize it; then one has an excuse with which to silence one’s
+conscience.
+
+In thus yielding to the impulse of one’s feelings, one can say: “It was
+not I who willed it, it was fate.”
+
+“It will be quicker, perhaps,” observed the count, “to go to Noel.”
+
+“Let us start then, sir.”
+
+“I hardly know though, my child,” said the old gentleman, hesitating,
+“whether I may, whether I ought to take you with me. Propriety--”
+
+“Ah, sir, propriety has nothing to do with it!” replied Claire
+impetuously. “With you, and for his sake, I can go anywhere. Is it not
+indispensable that I should give some explanations? Only send word to my
+grandmother by Schmidt, who will come back here and await my return. I
+am ready, sir.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said the count.
+
+Then, ringing the bell violently, he called to the servant, “My
+carriage.”
+
+In descending the steps, he insisted upon Claire’s taking his arm.
+The gallant and elegant politeness of the friend of the Count d’Artois
+reappeared.
+
+“You have taken twenty years from my age,” he said; “it is but right
+that I should devote to you the youth you have restored to me.”
+
+As soon as Claire had entered the carriage, he said to the footman: “Rue
+St. Lazare, quick!”
+
+Whenever the count said “quick,” on entering his carriage, the
+pedestrians had to get out of the way. But the coachman was a skillful
+driver, and arrived without accident.
+
+Aided by the concierge’s directions, the count and the young girl went
+towards Madame Gerdy’s apartments. The count mounted slowly, holding
+tightly to the balustrade, stopping at every landing to recover his
+breath. He was, then, about to see her again! His emotion pressed his
+heart like a vice.
+
+“M. Noel Gerdy?” he asked of the servant.
+
+The advocate had just that moment gone out. She did not know where he
+had gone; but he had said he should not be out more than half an hour.
+
+“We will wait for him, then,” said the count.
+
+He advanced; and the servant drew back to let them pass. Noel had
+strictly forbidden her to admit any visitors; but the Count de Commarin
+was one of those whose appearance makes servants forget all their
+orders.
+
+Three persons were in the room into which the servant introduced the
+count and Mademoiselle d’Arlange.
+
+They were the parish priest, the doctor, and a tall man, an officer
+of the Legion of Honour, whose figure and bearing indicated the old
+soldier.
+
+They were conversing near the fireplace, and the arrival of strangers
+appeared to astonish them exceedingly.
+
+In bowing, in response to M. de Commarin’s and Claire’s salutations,
+they seemed to inquire their business: but this hesitation was brief,
+for the soldier almost immediately offered Mademoiselle d’Arlange a
+chair.
+
+The count considered that his presence was inopportune; and he thought
+that he was called upon to introduce himself, and explain his visit.
+
+“You will excuse me, gentlemen,” said he, “if I am indiscreet. I did not
+think of being so when I asked to wait for Noel, whom I have the most
+pressing need of seeing. I am the Count de Commarin.”
+
+At this name, the old soldier let go the back of the chair which he was
+still holding and haughtily raised his head. An angry light flashed in
+his eyes, and he made a threatening gesture. His lips moved, as if he
+were about to speak; but he restrained himself, and retired, bowing his
+head, to the window.
+
+Neither the count nor the two other men noticed his strange behaviour;
+but it did not escape Claire.
+
+While Mademoiselle d’Arlange sat down rather surprised, the count, much
+embarrassed at his position, went up to the priest, and asked in a low
+voice, “What is, I pray, M. l’Abbe; Madame Gerdy’s condition?”
+
+The doctor, who had a sharp ear, heard the question, and approached
+quickly.
+
+He was very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to a person as
+celebrated as the Count de Commarin, and to become acquainted with him.
+
+“I fear, sir,” he said, “that she cannot live throughout the day.”
+
+The count pressed his hand against his forehead, as though he had felt a
+sudden pain there. He hesitated to inquire further.
+
+After a moment of chilling silence, he resolved to go on.
+
+“Does she recognise her friends?” he murmured.
+
+“No, sir. Since last evening, however, there has been a great change.
+She was very uneasy all last night: she had moments of fierce delirium.
+About an hour ago, we thought she was recovering her senses, and we sent
+for M. l’Abbe.”
+
+“Very needlessly, though,” put in the priest, “and it is a sad
+misfortune. Her reason is quite gone. Poor woman! I have known her ten
+years. I have been to see her nearly every week; I never knew a more
+worthy person.”
+
+“She must suffer dreadfully,” said the doctor.
+
+Almost at the same instant, and as if to bear out the doctor’s words,
+they heard stifled cries from the next room, the door of which was
+slightly open.
+
+“Do you hear?” exclaimed the count, trembling from head to foot.
+
+Claire understood nothing of this strange scene. Dark presentiments
+oppressed her; she felt as though she were enveloped in an atmosphere of
+evil. She grew frightened, rose from her chair, and drew near the count.
+
+“She is, I presume, in there?” asked M. de Commarin.
+
+“Yes, sir,” harshly answered the old soldier, who had also drawn near.
+
+At any other time, the count would have noticed the soldier’s tone,
+and have resented it. Now, he did not even raise his eyes. He remained
+insensible to everything. Was she not there, close to him? His thoughts
+were in the past; it seemed to him but yesterday that he had quitted her
+for the last time.
+
+“I should very much like to see her,” he said timidly.
+
+“That is impossible.” replied the old soldier.
+
+“Why?” stammered the count.
+
+“At least, M. de Commarin,” replied the soldier, “let her die in peace.”
+
+The count started, as if he had been struck. His eyes encountered the
+officer’s; he lowered them like a criminal before his judge.
+
+“Nothing need prevent the count’s entering Madame Gerdy’s room,” put in
+the doctor, who purposely saw nothing of all this. “She would probably
+not notice his presence; and if--”
+
+“Oh, she would perceive nothing!” said the priest. “I have just spoken
+to her, taken her hand, she remained quite insensible.”
+
+The old soldier reflected deeply.
+
+“Enter,” said he at last to the count; “perhaps it is God’s will.”
+
+The count tottered so that the doctor offered to assist him. He gently
+motioned him away.
+
+The doctor and the priest entered with him; Claire and the old soldier
+remained at the threshold of the door, facing the bed.
+
+The count took three or four steps, and was obliged to stop. He wished
+to, but could not go further.
+
+Could this dying woman really be Valerie?
+
+He taxed his memory severely; nothing in those withered features,
+nothing in that distorted face, recalled the beautiful, the adored
+Valerie of his youth. He did not recognise her.
+
+But she knew him, or rather divined his presence. With supernatural
+strength, she raised herself, exposing her shoulders and emaciated arms;
+then pushing away the ice from her forehead, and throwing back her still
+plentiful hair, bathed with water and perspiration, she cried, “Guy!
+Guy!”
+
+The count trembled all over.
+
+He did not perceive that which immediately struck all the other persons
+present--the transformation in the sick woman. Her contracted features
+relaxed, a celestial joy spread over her face, and her eyes, sunken by
+disease, assumed an expression of infinite tenderness.
+
+“Guy,” said she in a voice heartrending by its sweetness, “you have come
+at last! How long, O my God! I have waited for you! You cannot think
+what I have suffered by your absence. I should have died of grief, had
+it not been for the hope of seeing you again. Who kept you from me?
+Your parents again? How cruel of them! Did you not tell them that no one
+could love you here below as I do? No, that is not it; I remember. You
+were angry when you left me. Your friends wished to separate us; they
+said that I was deceiving you with another. Who have I injured that I
+should have so many enemies! They envied my happiness; and we were so
+happy! But you did not believe the wicked calumny, you scorned it, for
+are you not here?”
+
+The nun, who had risen on seeing so many persons enter the sick room,
+opened her eyes with astonishment.
+
+“I deceive you?” continued the dying woman; “only a madman would
+believe it. Am I not yours, your very own, heart and soul? To me you are
+everything: and there is nothing I could expect or hope for from another
+which you have not already given me. Was I not yours, alone, from the
+very first? I never hesitated to give myself entirely to you; I felt
+that I was born for you, Guy, do you remember? I was working for a lace
+maker, and was barely earning a living. You told me you were a poor
+student; I thought you were depriving yourself for me. You insisted on
+having our little apartment on the Quai Saint-Michel done up. It was
+lovely, with the new paper all covered with flowers, which we hung
+ourselves. How delightful it was! From the window, we could see the
+great trees of the Tuileries gardens; and by leaning out a little we
+could see the sun set through the arches of the bridges. Oh, those happy
+days! The first time that we went into the country together, one Sunday,
+you brought me a more beautiful dress than I had ever dreamed of, and
+such darling little boots, that it was a shame to walk out in them! But
+you had deceived me! You were not a poor student. One day, when taking
+my work home, I met you in an elegant carriage, with tall footmen,
+dressed in liveries covered with gold lace, behind. I could not believe
+my eyes. That evening you told me the truth, that you were a nobleman
+and immensely rich. O my darling, why did you tell me?”
+
+Had she her reason, or was this a mere delirium?
+
+Great tears rolled down the Count de Commarin’s wrinkled face, and the
+doctor and the priest were touched by the sad spectacle of an old man
+weeping like a child.
+
+Only the previous evening, the count had thought his heart dead; and now
+this penetrating voice was sufficient to regain the fresh and powerful
+feelings of his youth. Yet, how many years had passed away since then!
+
+“After that,” continued Madame Gerdy, “we left the Quai Saint-Michel.
+You wished it; and I obeyed, in spite of my apprehensions. You told me,
+that, to please you, I ought to look like a great lady. You provided
+teachers for me, for I was so ignorant that I scarcely knew how to sign
+my name. Do you remember the queer spelling in my first letter? Ah, Guy,
+if you had really only been a poor student! When I knew that you were so
+rich, I lost my simplicity, my thoughtlessness, my gaiety. I feared that
+you would think me covetous, that you would imagine that your fortune
+influenced my love. Men who, like you, have millions, must be unhappy!
+They must be always doubting and full of suspicions, they can never be
+sure whether it is themselves or their gold which is loved, and this
+awful doubt makes them mistrustful, jealous, and cruel. Oh my dearest,
+why did we leave our dear little room? There, we were happy. Why did you
+not leave me always where you first found me? Did you not know that the
+sight of happiness irritates mankind? If we had been wise, we would have
+hid ours like a crime. You thought to raise me, but you only sunk me
+lower. You were proud of our love; you published it abroad. Vainly I
+asked you in mercy to leave me in obscurity, and unknown. Soon the whole
+town knew that I was your mistress. Every one was talking of the money
+you spent on me. How I blushed at the flaunting luxury you thrust upon
+me! You were satisfied, because my beauty became celebrated; I wept,
+because my shame became so too. People talked about me, as those women
+who make their lovers commit the greatest follies. Was not my name in
+the papers? And it was through the same papers that I heard of your
+approaching marriage. Unhappy woman! I should have fled from you, but I
+had not the courage. I resigned myself, without an effort, to the most
+humiliating, the most shameful of positions. You were married; and I
+remained your mistress. Oh, what anguish I suffered during that terrible
+evening. I was alone in my own home, in that room so associated with
+you; and you were marrying another! I said to myself, ‘At this moment,
+a pure, noble young girl is giving herself to him.’ I said again, ‘What
+oaths is that mouth, which has so often pressed my lips, now taking?’
+Often since that dreadful misfortune, I have asked heaven what crime I
+had committed that I should be so terribly punished? This was the crime.
+I remained your mistress, and your wife died. I only saw her once, and
+then scarcely for a minute, but she looked at you, and I knew that she
+loved you as only I could. Ah, Guy, it was our love that killed her!”
+
+She stopped exhausted, but none of the bystanders moved. They listened
+breathlessly, and waited with feverish emotion for her to resume.
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not the strength to remain standing; she had
+fallen upon her knees, and was pressing her handkerchief to her mouth to
+keep back her sobs. Was not this woman Albert’s mother?
+
+The worthy nun was alone unmoved; she had seen, she said to herself,
+many such deliriums before. She understood absolutely nothing of what
+was passing.
+
+“These people are very foolish,” she muttered, “to pay so much attention
+to the ramblings of a person out of her mind.”
+
+She thought she had more sense than the others, so, approaching the bed,
+she began to cover up the sick woman.
+
+“Come, madame,” said she, “cover yourself, or you will catch cold.”
+
+“Sister!” remonstrated the doctor and priest at the same moment.
+
+“For God’s sake!” exclaimed the soldier, “let her speak.”
+
+“Who,” continued the sick woman, unconscious of all that was passing
+about her, “who told you I was deceiving you? Oh, the wretches! They set
+spies upon me; they discovered that an officer came frequently to see
+me. But that officer was my brother, my dear Louis! When he was eighteen
+years old, and being unable to obtain work, he enlisted, saying to my
+mother, that there would then be one mouth the less in the family. He
+was a good soldier, and his officers always liked him. He worked whilst
+with his regiment; he taught himself, and he quickly rose in rank. He
+was promoted a lieutenant, then captain, and finally became major. Louis
+always loved me; had he remained in Paris I should not have fallen. But
+our mother died, and I was left all alone in this great city. He was a
+non-commissioned officer when he first knew that I had a lover; and
+he was so enraged that I feared he would never forgive me. But he did
+forgive me, saying that my constancy in my error was its only excuse.
+Ah, my friend, he was more jealous of your honour than you yourself! He
+came to see me in secret, because I placed him in the unhappy position
+of blushing for his sister. I had condemned myself never to speak of
+him, never to mention his name. Could a brave soldier confess that his
+sister was the mistress of a count? That it might not be known, I took
+the utmost precautions, but alas! only to make you doubt me. When Louis
+knew what was said, he wished in his blind rage to challenge you; and
+then I was obliged to make him think that he had no right to defend me.
+What misery! Ah, I have paid dearly for my years of stolen happiness!
+But you are here, and all is forgotten. For you do believe me, do you
+not, Guy? I will write to Louis; he will come, he will tell you that I
+do not lie, and you cannot doubt his, a soldier’s word.”
+
+“Yes, on my honour,” said the old soldier, “what my sister says is the
+truth.”
+
+The dying woman did not hear him; she continued in a voice panting
+from weariness: “How your presence revives me. I feel that I am growing
+stronger. I have nearly been very ill. I am afraid I am not very pretty
+today; but never mind, kiss me!”
+
+She opened her arms, and thrust out her lips as if to kiss him.
+
+“But it is on one condition, Guy, that you will leave me my child? Oh! I
+beg of you, I entreat you not to take him from me; leave him to me.
+What is a mother without her child? You are anxious to give him
+an illustrious name, an immense fortune. No! You tell me that this
+sacrifice will be for his good. No! My child is mine; I will keep him.
+The world has no honours, no riches, which can replace a mother’s love.
+You wish to give me in exchange, that other woman’s child. Never! What!
+you would have that woman embrace my boy! It is impossible. Take away
+this strange child from me; he fills me with horror; I want my own! Ah,
+do not insist, do not threaten me with anger, do not leave me. I should
+give in, and then, I should die. Guy, forget this fatal project, the
+thought of it alone is a crime. Cannot my prayers, my tears, can nothing
+move you? Ah, well, God will punish us. All will be discovered. The day
+will come when these children will demand a fearful reckoning. Guy, I
+foresee the future; I see my son coming towards me, justly angered.
+What does he say, great heaven! Oh, those letters, those letters, sweet
+memories of our love! My son, he threatens me! He strikes me! Ah, help!
+A son strike his mother. Tell no one of it, though. O my God, what
+torture! Yet he knows well that I am his mother. He pretends not to
+believe me. Lord, this is too much! Guy! pardon! oh, my only friend! I
+have neither the power to resist, nor the courage to obey you.”
+
+At this moment the door opening on to the landing opened, and Noel
+appeared, pale as usual, but calm and composed. The dying woman saw him,
+and the sight affected her like an electric shock. A terrible shudder
+shook her frame; her eyes grew inordinately large, her hair seemed to
+stand on end. She raised herself on her pillows, stretched out her
+arm in the direction where Noel stood, and in a loud voice exclaimed,
+“Assassin!”
+
+She fell back convulsively on the bed. Some one hastened forward: she
+was dead.
+
+A deep silence prevailed.
+
+Such is the majesty of death, and the terror which accompanies it, that,
+in its presence, even the strongest and most sceptical bow their heads.
+
+For a time, passions and interests are forgotten. Involuntarily we
+are drawn together, when some mutual friend breathes his last in our
+presence.
+
+All the bystanders were deeply moved by this painful scene, this last
+confession, wrested so to say from the delirium.
+
+And the last word uttered by Madame Gerdy, “assassin,” surprised no one.
+
+All, excepting the nun, knew of the awful accusation which had been made
+against Albert.
+
+To him they applied the unfortunate mother’s malediction.
+
+Noel seemed quite broken hearted. Kneeling by the bedside of her who had
+been as a mother to him, he took one of her hands, and pressed it close
+to his lips.
+
+“Dead!” he groaned, “she is dead!”
+
+The nun and the priest knelt beside him, and repeated in a low voice the
+prayers for the dead.
+
+They implored God to shed his peace and mercy on the departed soul.
+
+They begged for a little happiness in heaven for her who had suffered so
+much on earth.
+
+Fallen into a chair, his head thrown back, the Count de Commarin was
+more overwhelmed and more livid than this dead woman, his old love, once
+so beautiful.
+
+Claire and the doctor hastened to assist him.
+
+They undid his cravat, and took off his shirt collar, for he was
+suffocating. With the help of the old soldier, whose red, tearful
+eyes, told of suppressed grief, they moved the count’s chair to the
+half-opened window to give him a little air. Three days before, this
+scene would have killed him. But the heart hardens by misfortune, like
+hands by labour.
+
+“His tears have saved him,” whispered the doctor to Claire.
+
+M. de Commarin gradually recovered, and, as his thoughts became clearer,
+his sufferings returned.
+
+Prostration follows great mental shocks. Nature seems to collect her
+strength to sustain the misfortune. We do not feel all its intensity at
+once; it is only afterwards that we realize the extent and profundity of
+the evil.
+
+The count’s gaze was fixed upon the bed where lay Valerie’s body. There,
+then, was all that remained of her. The soul, that soul so devoted and
+so tender, had flown.
+
+What would he not have given if God would have restored that unfortunate
+woman to life for a day, or even for an hour? With what transports
+of repentance he would have cast himself at her feet, to implore her
+pardon, to tell her how much he detested his past conduct! How had
+he acknowledged the inexhaustible love of that angel? Upon a mere
+suspicion, without deigning to inquire, without giving her a hearing,
+he had treated her with the coldest contempt. Why had he not seen her
+again? He would have spared himself twenty years of doubt as to Albert’s
+birth. Instead of an isolated existence, he would have led a happy,
+joyous life.
+
+Then he remembered the countess’s death. She also had loved him, and had
+died of her love.
+
+He had not understood them; he had killed them both.
+
+The hour of expiation had come; and he could not say: “Lord, the
+punishment is too great.”
+
+And yet, what punishment, what misfortunes, during the last five days!
+
+“Yes,” he stammered, “she predicted it. Why did I not listen to her?”
+
+Madame Gerdy’s brother pitied the old man, so severely tried. He held
+out his hand.
+
+“M. de Commarin,” he said, in a grave, sad voice, “my sister forgave
+you long ago, even if she ever had any ill feeling against you. It is my
+turn to-day; I forgive you sincerely.”
+
+“Thank you, sir,” murmured the count, “thank you!” and then he added:
+“What a death!”
+
+“Yes,” murmured Claire, “she breathed her last in the idea that her son
+was guilty of a crime. And we were not able to undeceive her.”
+
+“At least,” cried the count, “her son should be free to render her his
+last duties; yes, he must be. Noel!”
+
+The advocate had approached his father, and heard all.
+
+“I have promised, father,” he replied, “to save him.”
+
+For the first time, Mademoiselle d’Arlange was face to face with Noel.
+Their eyes met, and she could not restrain a movement of repugnance,
+which the advocate perceived.
+
+“Albert is already saved,” she said proudly. “What we ask is, that
+prompt justice shall be done him; that he shall be immediately set at
+liberty. The magistrate now knows the truth.”
+
+“The truth?” exclaimed the advocate.
+
+“Yes; Albert passed at my house, with me, the evening the crime was
+committed.”
+
+Noel looked at her surprised; so singular a confession from such a
+mouth, without explanation, might well surprise him.
+
+She drew herself up haughtily.
+
+“I am Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange, sir,” said she.
+
+M. de Commarin now quickly ran over all the incidents reported by
+Claire.
+
+When he had finished, Noel replied: “You see, sir, my position at this
+moment, to-morrow--”
+
+“To-morrow?” interrupted the count, “you said, I believe, to-morrow!
+Honour demands, sir, that we act to-day, at this moment. You can show
+your love for this poor woman much better by delivering her son than by
+praying for her.”
+
+Noel bowed low.
+
+“To hear your wish, sir, is to obey it,” he said; “I go. This evening,
+at your house, I shall have the honour of giving you an account of my
+proceedings. Perhaps I shall be able to bring Albert with me.”
+
+He spoke, and, again embracing the dead woman, went out.
+
+Soon the count and Mademoiselle d’Arlange also retired.
+
+The old soldier went to the Mayor, to give notice of the death, and to
+fulfil the necessary formalities.
+
+The nun alone remained, awaiting the priest, which the cure had promised
+to send to watch the corpse.
+
+The daughter of St. Vincent felt neither fear nor embarrassment, she had
+been so many times in a similar position. Her prayers said, she arose
+and went about the room, arranging everything as it should be in the
+presence of death. She removed all traces of the illness, put away the
+medicine bottles, burnt some sugar upon the fire shovel, and, on a table
+covered with a white cloth at the head of the bed, placed some lighted
+candles, a crucifix with holy water, and a branch of palm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Greatly troubled and perplexed by Mademoiselle d’Arlange’s revelations,
+M. Daburon was ascending the stairs that led to the offices of the
+investigating magistrates, when he saw old Tabaret coming towards him.
+The sight pleased him, and he at once called out: “M. Tabaret!”
+
+But the old fellow, who showed signs of the most intense agitation, was
+scarcely disposed to stop, or to lose a single minute.
+
+“You must excuse me, sir,” he said, bowing, “but I am expected at home.”
+
+“I hope, however--”
+
+“Oh, he is innocent,” interrupted old Tabaret. “I have already some
+proofs; and before three days--But you are going to see Gevrol’s man
+with the earrings. He is very cunning, Gevrol; I misjudged him.”
+
+And without listening to another word, he hurried away, jumping down
+three steps at a times, at the risk of breaking his neck.
+
+M. Daburon, greatly disappointed, also hastened on.
+
+In the passage, on a bench of rough wood before his office door, Albert
+sat awaiting him, under the charge of a Garde de Paris.
+
+“You will be summoned immediately, sir,” said the magistrate to the
+prisoner, as he opened his door.
+
+In the office, Constant was talking with a skinny little man, who
+might have been taken, from his dress, for a well-to-do inhabitant of
+Batignolles, had it not been for the enormous pin in imitation gold
+which shone in his cravat, and betrayed the detective.
+
+“You received my letters?” asked M. Daburon of his clerk.
+
+“Your orders have been executed, sir; the prisoner is without, and here
+is M. Martin, who this moment arrived from the neighbourhood of the
+Invalides.”
+
+“That is well,” said the magistrate in a satisfied tone. And, turning
+towards the detective, “Well, M. Martin,” he asked, “what did you see?”
+
+“The walls had been scaled, sir.”
+
+“Lately?”
+
+“Five or six days ago.”
+
+“You are sure of this?”
+
+“As sure as I am that I see M. Constant at this moment mending his pen.”
+
+“The marks are plain?”
+
+“As plain as the nose on my face, sir, if I may so express myself. The
+thief--it was done by a thief, I imagine,” continued M. Martin, who was
+a great talker--“the thief entered the garden before the rain, and went
+away after it, as you had conjectured. This circumstance is easy to
+establish by examining the marks on the wall of the ascent and the
+descent on the side towards the street. These marks are several
+abrasions, evidently made by feet of some one climbing. The first are
+clean; the others, muddy. The scamp--he was a nimble fellow--in getting
+in, pulled himself up by the strength of his wrists; but when going
+away, he enjoyed the luxury of a ladder, which he threw down as soon as
+he was on the top of the wall. It is to see where he placed it, by holes
+made in the ground by the fellow’s weight; and also by the mortar which
+has been knocked away from the top of the wall.”
+
+“Is that all?” asked the magistrate.
+
+“Not yet, sir. Three of the pieces of glass which cover the top of the
+wall have been removed. Several of the acacia branches, which extend
+over the wall have been twisted or broken. Adhering to the thorns of
+one of these branches, I found this little piece of lavender kid, which
+appears to me to belong to a glove.”
+
+The magistrate eagerly seized the piece of kid.
+
+It had evidently come from a glove.
+
+“You took care, I hope, M. Martin,” said M. Daburon, “not to attract
+attention at the house where you made this investigation?”
+
+“Certainly, sir. I first of all examined the exterior of the wall at my
+leisure. After that, leaving my hat at a wine shop round the corner,
+I called at the Marchioness d’Arlange’s house, pretending to be the
+servant of a neighbouring duchess, who was in despair at having lost a
+favourite, and, if I may so speak, an eloquent parrot. I was very
+kindly given permission to explore the garden; and, as I spoke as
+disrespectfully as possible of my pretended mistress they, no doubt,
+took me for a genuine servant.”
+
+“You are an adroit and prompt fellow, M. Martin,” interrupted the
+magistrate. “I am well satisfied with you; and I will report you
+favourably at headquarters.”
+
+He rang his bell, while the detective, delighted at the praise he had
+received, moved backwards to the door, bowing the while.
+
+Albert was then brought in.
+
+“Have you decided, sir,” asked the investigating magistrate without
+preamble, “to give me a true account of how you spent last Tuesday
+evening?”
+
+“I have already told you, sir.”
+
+“No, sir, you have not; and I regret to say that you lied to me.”
+
+Albert, at this apparent insult, turned red, and his eyes flashed.
+
+“I know all that you did on that evening,” continued the magistrate,
+“because justice, as I have already told you, is ignorant of nothing
+that it is important for it to know.”
+
+Then, looking straight into Albert’s eyes, he continued slowly: “I have
+seen Mademoiselle Claire d’Arlange.”
+
+On hearing that name, the prisoner’s features, contracted by a firm
+resolve not to give way, relaxed.
+
+It seemed as though he experienced an immense sensation of delight, like
+a man who escapes almost by a miracle from an imminent danger which he
+had despaired of avoiding. However, he made no reply.
+
+“Mademoiselle d’Arlange,” continued the magistrate, “has told me where
+you were on Tuesday evening.”
+
+Albert still hesitated.
+
+“I am not setting a trap for you,” added M. Daburon; “I give you my word
+of honour. She has told me all, you understand?”
+
+This time Albert decided to speak.
+
+His explanations corresponded exactly with Claire’s; not one detail
+more. Henceforth, doubt was impossible.
+
+Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not been imposed upon. Either Albert was
+innocent, or she was his accomplice.
+
+Could she knowingly be the accomplice of such an odious crime? No; she
+could not even be suspected of it.
+
+But who then was the assassin?
+
+For, when a crime has been committed, justice demands a culprit.
+
+“You see, sir,” said the magistrate severely to Albert, “you did deceive
+me. You risked your life, sir, and, what is also very serious, you
+exposed me, you exposed justice, to commit a most deplorable mistake.
+Why did you not tell me the truth at once?”
+
+“Mademoiselle d’Arlange, sir,” replied Albert, “in according me a
+meeting, trusted in my honour.”
+
+“And you would have died sooner than mention that interview?”
+ interrupted M. Daburon with a touch of irony. “That is all very fine,
+sir, and worthy of the days of chivalry!”
+
+“I am not the hero that you suppose, sir,” replied the prisoner simply.
+“If I told you that I did not count on Claire, I should be telling a
+falsehood. I was waiting for her. I knew that, on learning of my arrest,
+she would brave everything to save me. But her friends might have hid it
+from her; and that was what I feared. In that event, I do not think,
+so far as one can answer for oneself, that I should have mentioned her
+name.”
+
+There was no appearance of bravado. What Albert said, he thought and
+felt. M. Daburon regretted his irony.
+
+“Sir,” he said kindly, “you must return to your prison. I cannot release
+you yet; but you will be no longer in solitary confinement. You will be
+treated with every attention due to a prisoner whose innocence appears
+probable.”
+
+Albert bowed, and thanked him; and was then removed.
+
+“We are now ready for Gevrol,” said the magistrate to his clerk.
+
+The chief of detectives was absent: he had been sent for from the
+Prefecture of Police; but his witness, the man with the earrings, was
+waiting in the passage.
+
+He was told to enter.
+
+He was one of those short, thick-set men, powerful as oaks, who look as
+though they could carry almost any weight on their broad shoulders.
+
+His white hair and whiskers set off his features, hardened and tanned
+by the inclemency of the weather, the sea winds and the heat of the
+tropics.
+
+He had large callous black hands, with big sinewy fingers which must
+have possessed the strength of a vice.
+
+Great earrings in the form of anchors hung from his ears. He was dressed
+in the costume of a well-to-do Normandy fisherman, out for a holiday.
+
+The clerk was obliged to push him into the office, for this son of the
+ocean was timid and abashed when on shore.
+
+He advanced, balancing himself first on one leg, then on the other, with
+that irregular walk of the sailor, who, used to the rolling and tossing
+of the waves, is surprised to find anything immovable beneath his feet.
+
+To give himself confidence, he fumbled over his soft felt hat, decorated
+with little lead medals, like the cap of king Louis XI. of devout
+memory, and also adorned with some if that worsted twist made by the
+young country girls, on a primitive frame composed of four or five pins
+stuck in a hollow cork.
+
+M. Daburon examined him, and estimated him at a glance. There was no
+doubt but that he was the sunburnt man described by one of the witnesses
+at La Jonchere.
+
+It was also impossible to doubt his honesty. His open countenance
+displayed sincerity and good nature.
+
+“Your name?” demanded the investigating magistrate.
+
+“Marie Pierre Lerouge.”
+
+“Are you, then, related to Claudine Lerouge?”
+
+“I am her husband, sir.”
+
+What, the husband of the victim alive, and the police ignorant of his
+existence!
+
+Thus thought M. Daburon.
+
+What, then, does this wonderful progress in invention accomplish?
+
+To-day, precisely as twenty years ago, when Justice is in doubt, it
+requires the same inordinate loss of time and money to obtain the
+slightest information.
+
+On Friday, they had written to inquire about Claudine’s past life; it
+was now Monday, and no reply had arrived.
+
+And yet photography was in existence, and the electric telegraph. They
+had at their service a thousand means, formerly unknown; and they made
+no use of them.
+
+“Every one,” said the magistrate, “believed her a widow. She herself
+pretended to be one.”
+
+“Yes, for in that way she partly excused her conduct. Besides, it was an
+arrangement between ourselves. I had told her that I would have nothing
+more to do with her.”
+
+“Indeed? Well, you know that she is dead, victim of an odious crime?”
+
+“The detective who brought me here told me of it, sir,” replied the
+sailor, his face darkening. “She was a wretch!” he added in a hollow
+voice.
+
+“How? You, her husband, accuse her?”
+
+“I have but too good reason to do so, sir. Ah, my dead father, who
+foresaw it all at the time, warned me! I laughed, when he said, ‘Take
+care, or she will dishonour us all.’ He was right. Through her, I
+have been hunted down by the police, just like some skulking thief.
+Everywhere that they inquired after me with their warrant, people must
+have said ‘Ah, ha, he has then committed some crime!’ And here I am
+before a magistrate! Ah, sir, what a disgrace! The Lerouges have been
+honest people, from father to son, ever since the world began.
+Inquire of all who have ever had dealings with me, they will tell you,
+‘Lerouge’s word is as good as another man’s writing.’ Yes, she was a
+wicked woman; and I have often told her that she would come to a bad
+end.”
+
+“You told her that?”
+
+“More than a hundred times, sir.”
+
+“Why? Come, my friend, do not be uneasy, your honour is not at stake
+here, no one questions it. When did you warn her so wisely?”
+
+“Ah, a long time ago, sir,” replied the sailor, “the first time was more
+than thirty years back. She had ambition even in her blood; she wished
+to mix herself up in the intrigues of the great. It was that that ruined
+her. She said that one got money for keeping secrets; and I said that
+one got disgraced and that was all. To help the great to hide their
+villainies, and to expect happiness from it, is like making your bed of
+thorns, in the hope of sleeping well. But she had a will of her own.”
+
+“You were her husband, though,” objected M. Daburon, “you had the right
+to command her obedience.”
+
+The sailor shook his head, and heaved a deep sigh.
+
+“Alas, sir! it was I who obeyed.”
+
+To proceed by short inquiries with a witness, when you have no idea of
+the information he brings, is but to lose time in attempting to gain it.
+When you think you are approaching the important fact, you may be just
+avoiding it. It is much better to give the witness the rein, and to
+listen carefully, putting him back on the track should he get too
+far away. It is the surest and easiest method. This was the course
+M. Daburon adopted, all the time cursing Gevrol’s absence, as he by a
+single word could have shortened by a good half the examination, the
+importance of which, by the way, the magistrate did not even suspect.
+
+“In what intrigues did your wife mingle?” asked he. “Go on, my friend,
+tell me everything exactly; here, you know, we must have not only the
+truth, but the whole truth.”
+
+Lerouge placed his hat on a chair. Then he began alternately to pull
+his fingers, making them crack almost sufficiently to break them, and
+ultimately scratched his head violently. It was his way of arranging his
+ideas.
+
+“I must tell you,” he began, “that it will be thirty-five years on St.
+John’s day since I fell in love with Claudine. She was a pretty, neat,
+fascinating girl, with a voice sweeter than honey. She was the most
+beautiful girl in our part of the country, straight as a mast, supple as
+a willow, graceful and strong as a racing boat. Her eyes sparkled like
+old cider; her hair was black, her teeth as white as pearls, and her
+breath was as fresh as the sea breeze. The misfortune was, that she
+hadn’t a sou, while we were in easy circumstances. Her mother, who was
+the widow of I can’t say how many husbands, was, saving your presence,
+a bad woman, and my father was the worthiest man alive. When I spoke to
+the old fellow of marrying Claudine he swore fiercely, and eight
+days after, he sent me to Porto on a schooner belonging to one of our
+neighbours, just to give me a change of air. I came back, at the end of
+six months, thinner than a marling spike, but more in love than ever.
+Recollections of Claudine scorched me like a fire. I could scarcely eat
+or drink; but I felt that she loved me a little in return, for I was a
+fine young fellow, and more than one girl had set her cap at me. Then
+my father, seeing that he could do nothing, that I was wasting away,
+and was on the road to join my mother in the cemetery, decided to let
+me complete my folly. So one evening, after we had returned from fishing
+and I got up from supper without tasting it, he said to me, ‘Marry
+the hag’s daughter, and let’s have no more of this.’ I remember it
+distinctly, because, when I heard the old fellow call my love such a
+name, I flew into a great passion, and almost wanted to kill him. Ah,
+one never gains anything by marrying in opposition to one’s parents!”
+
+The worthy fellow was lost in the midst of his recollections. He was
+very far from his story. The investigating magistrate attempted to bring
+him back into the right path, “Come to the point,” he said.
+
+“I am going to, sir; but it was necessary to begin at the beginning.
+I married. The evening after the wedding, and when the relatives and
+guests had departed, I was about to join my wife, when I perceived my
+father all alone in a corner weeping. The sight touched my heart, and
+I had a foreboding of evil; but it quickly passed away. It is so
+delightful during the first six months one passes with a dearly loved
+wife! One seems to be surrounded by mists that change the very rocks
+into palaces and temples so completely that novices are taken in. For
+two years, in spite of a few little quarrels, everything went on nicely.
+Claudine managed me like a child. Ah, she was cunning! She might have
+seized and bound me, and carried me to market and sold me, without my
+noticing it. Her great fault was her love of finery. All that I earned,
+and my business was very prosperous, she put on her back. Every week
+there was something new, dresses, jewels, bonnets, the devil’s baubles,
+which the dealers invent for the perdition of the female sex. The
+neighbors chattered, but I thought it was all right. At the baptism
+of our son, who was called Jacques after my father, to please her, I
+squandered all I had economized during my youth, more than three hundred
+pistoles, with which I had intended purchasing a meadow that lay in the
+midst of our property.”
+
+M. Daburon was boiling over with impatience, but he could do nothing.
+
+“Go on, go on,” he said every time Lerouge seemed inclined to stop.
+
+“I was well enough pleased,” continued the sailor, “until one morning
+I saw one of the Count de Commarin’s servants entering our house; the
+count’s chateau is only about a mile from where I lived on the other
+side of the town. It was a fellow named Germain whom I didn’t like at
+all. It was said about the country that he had been mixed up in the
+seduction of poor Thomassine, a fine young girl who lived near us; she
+appears to have pleased the count, and one day suddenly disappeared. I
+asked my wife what the fellow wanted; she replied that he had come to
+ask her to take a child to nurse. I would not hear of it at first, for
+our means were sufficient to allow Claudine to keep all her milk for
+our own child. But she gave me the very best of reasons. She said she
+regretted her past flirtations and her extravagance. She wished to
+earn a little money, being ashamed of doing nothing while I was killing
+myself with work. She wanted to save, to economize, so that our child
+should not be obliged in his turn to go to sea. She was to get a very
+good price, that we could save up to go towards the three hundred
+pistoles. That confounded meadow, to which she alluded, decided me.”
+
+“Did she not tell you of the commission with which she was charged?”
+ asked the magistrate.
+
+This question astonished Lerouge. He thought that there was good reason
+to say that justice sees and knows everything.
+
+“Not then,” he answered, “but you will see. Eight days after, the
+postman brought a letter, asking her to go to Paris to fetch the
+child. It arrived in the evening. ‘Very well,’ said she, ‘I will start
+to-morrow by the diligence.’ I didn’t say a word then; but next morning,
+when she was about to take her seat in the diligence, I declared that I
+was going with her. She didn’t seem at all angry, on the contrary. She
+kissed me, and I was delighted. At Paris, she was to call for the little
+one at a Madame Gerdy’s, who lived on the Boulevard. We arranged that
+she should go alone, while I awaited for her at our inn. After she
+had gone, I grew uneasy. I went out soon after, and prowled about near
+Madame Gerdy’s house, making inquiries of the servants and others; I
+soon discovered that she was the Count de Commarin’s mistress. I felt
+so annoyed that, if I had been master, my wife should have come away
+without the little bastard. I am only a poor sailor, and I know that
+a man sometimes forgets himself. One takes too much to drink, for
+instance, or goes out on the loose with some friends; but that a man
+with a wife and children should live with another woman and give her
+what really belongs to his legitimate offspring, I think is bad--very
+bad. Is it not so, sir?”
+
+The investigating magistrate moved impatiently in his chair. “Will
+this man never come to the point,” he muttered. “Yes, you are perfectly
+right,” he added aloud; “but never mind your thoughts. Go on, go on!”
+
+“Claudine, sir, was more obstinate than a mule. After three days of
+violent discussion, she obtained from me a reluctant consent, between
+two kisses. Then she told me that we were not going to return home by
+the diligence. The lady, who feared the fatigue of the journey for her
+child, had arranged that we should travel back by short stages, in her
+carriage, and drawn by her horses. For she was kept in grand style. I
+was ass enough to be delighted, because it gave me a chance to see the
+country at my leisure. We were, therefore, installed with the children,
+mine and the other, in an elegant carriage, drawn by magnificent
+animals, and driven by a coachman in livery. My wife was mad with joy;
+she kissed me over and over again, and chinked handfuls of gold in my
+face. I felt as foolish as an honest husband who finds money in his
+house which he didn’t earn himself. Seeing how I felt, Claudine, hoping
+to pacify me, resolved to tell me the whole truth. ‘See here,’ she said
+to me,--”
+
+Lerouge stopped, and, changing his tone, said, “You understand that it
+is my wife who is speaking?”
+
+“Yes, yes. Go on.”
+
+“She said to me, shaking her pocket full of money, ‘See here, my man, we
+shall always have as much of this as ever we may want, and this is why:
+The count, who also had a legitimate child at the same time as this
+bastard, wishes that this one shall bear his name instead of the other;
+and this can be accomplished, thanks to me. On the road, we shall meet
+at the inn, where we are to sleep, M. Germain and the nurse to whom they
+have entrusted the legitimate son. We shall be put in the same room,
+and, during the night, I am to change the little ones, who have been
+purposely dressed alike. For this the count gives me eight thousand
+francs down, and a life annuity of a thousand francs.’”
+
+“And you!” exclaimed the magistrate, “you, who call yourself an honest
+man, permitted such villainy, when one word would have been sufficient
+to prevent it?”
+
+“Sir, I beg of you,” entreated Lerouge, “permit me to finish.”
+
+“Well, continue!”
+
+“I could say nothing at first, I was so choked with rage. I must have
+looked terrible. But she, who was generally afraid of me when I was in
+a passion, burst out laughing, and said, ‘What a fool you are! Listen,
+before turning sour like a bowl of milk. The count is the only one who
+wants this change made; and he is the one that’s to pay for it. His
+mistress, this little one’s mother, doesn’t want it at all; she merely
+pretended to consent, so as not to quarrel with her lover, and because
+she has got a plan of her own. She took me aside, during my visit in her
+room, and, after having made me swear secrecy on a crucifix, she told
+me that she couldn’t bear the idea of separating herself from her babe
+forever, and of bringing up another’s child. She added that, if I would
+agree not to change the children, and not to tell the count, she would
+give me ten thousand francs down, and guarantee me an annuity equal to
+the one the count had promised me. She declared, also, that she could
+easily find out whether I kept my word, as she had made a mark of
+recognition on her little one. She didn’t show me the mark; and I have
+examined him carefully, but can’t find it. Do you understand now? I
+merely take care of this little fellow here. I tell the count that I
+have changed the children; we receive from both sides, and Jacques will
+be rich. Now kiss your little wife who has more sense than you, you old
+dear!’ That, sir, is word for word what Claudine said to me.”
+
+The rough sailor drew from his pocket a large blue-checked handkerchief,
+and blew his nose so violently that the windows shook. It was his way of
+weeping.
+
+M. Daburon was confounded. Since the beginning of this sad affair, he
+had encountered surprise after surprise. Scarcely had he got his ideas
+in order on one point, when all his attention was directed to another.
+
+He felt himself utterly routed. What was he about to learn now? He
+longed to interrogate quickly, but he saw that Lerouge told his story
+with difficulty, laboriously disentangling his recollections; he was
+guided by a single thread which the least interruption might seriously
+entangle.
+
+“What Claudine proposed to me,” continued the sailor, “was villainous;
+and I am an honest man. But she kneaded me to her will as easily as a
+baker kneads dough. She turned my heart topsy-turvy: she made me see
+white as snow that which was really as black as ink. How I loved her!
+She proved to me that we were wronging no one, that we were making
+little Jacques’s fortune, and I was silenced. At evening we arrived at
+some village; and the coachman, stopping the carriage before an inn,
+told us we were to sleep there. We entered, and who do you think we saw?
+That scamp, Germain, with a nurse carrying a child dressed so exactly
+like the one we had that I was startled. They had journeyed there, like
+ourselves, in one of the count’s carriages. A suspicion crossed my mind.
+How could I be sure that Claudine had not invented the second story
+to pacify me? She was certainly capable of it. I was enraged. I had
+consented to the one wickedness, but not to the other. I resolved not
+to lose sight of the little bastard, swearing that they shouldn’t change
+it; so I kept him all the evening on my knees, and to be all the more
+sure, I tied my handkerchief about his waist. Ah! the plan had been well
+laid. After supper, some one spoke of retiring, and then it turned out
+that there were only two double-bedded rooms in the house. It seemed as
+though it had been built expressly for the scheme. The innkeeper said
+that the two nurses might sleep in one room, and Germain and myself in
+the other. Do you understand, sir? Add to this, that during the evening
+I had surprised looks of intelligence passing between my wife and
+that rascally servant, and you can imagine how furious I was. It was
+conscience that spoke; and I was trying to silence it. I knew very well
+that I was doing wrong; and I almost wished myself dead. Why is it that
+women can turn an honest man’s conscience about like a weather-cock with
+their wheedling?”
+
+M. Daburon’s only reply was a heavy blow of his fist on the table.
+
+Lerouge proceeded more quickly.
+
+“As for me, I upset that arrangement, pretending to be too jealous to
+leave my wife a minute. They were obliged to give way to me. The other
+nurse went up to bed first. Claudine and I followed soon afterwards. My
+wife undressed and got into bed with our son and the little bastard. I
+did not undress. Under the pretext that I should be in the way of the
+children, I installed myself in a chair near the bed, determined not to
+shut my eyes, and to keep close watch. I put out the candle, in order to
+let the women sleep, though I could not think of doing so myself; and I
+thought of my father, and of what he would say, if he ever heard of my
+behaviour. Towards midnight, I heard Claudine moving. I held my breath.
+She was getting out of bed. Was she going to change the children? Now,
+I knew that she was not; then, I felt sure that she was. I was beside
+myself, and seizing her by the arm, I commenced to beat her roughly,
+giving free vent to all that I had on my heart. I spoke in a loud voice,
+the same as when I am on board ship in a storm; I swore like a fiend, I
+raised a frightful disturbance. The other nurse cried out as though she
+were being murdered. At this uproar, Germain rushed in with a lighted
+candle. The sight of him finished me. Not knowing what I was doing, I
+drew from my pocket a long Spanish knife, which I always carried, and
+seizing the cursed bastard, I thrust the blade through his arm, crying,
+‘This way, at least, he can’t be changed without my knowing it; he is
+marked for life!’”
+
+Lerouge could scarcely utter another word. Great drops of sweat stood
+out upon his brow, then, trickling down his cheeks, lodged in the deep
+wrinkles of his face. He panted; but the magistrate’s stern glance
+harassed him, and urged him on, like the whip which flogs the negro
+slave overcome with fatigue.
+
+“The little fellow’s wound,” he resumed, “was terrible. It bled
+dreadfully, and he might have died; but I didn’t think of that. I was
+only troubled about the future, about what might happen afterwards. I
+declared that I would write out all that had occurred, and that everyone
+should sign it. This was done; we could all four write. Germain didn’t
+dare resist; for I spoke with knife in hand. He wrote his name first,
+begging me to say nothing about it to the count, swearing that, for his
+part, he would never breathe a word of it, and pledging the other nurse
+to a like secrecy.”
+
+“And have you kept this paper?” asked M. Daburon.
+
+“Yes, sir, and as the detective to whom I confessed all, advised me to
+bring it with me, I went to take it from the place where I always kept
+it, and I have it here.”
+
+“Give it to me.”
+
+Lerouge took from his coat pocket an old parchment pocket-book, fastened
+with a leather thong, and withdrew from it a paper yellowed by age and
+carefully sealed.
+
+“Here it is,” said he. “The paper hasn’t been opened since that accursed
+night.”
+
+And, in fact, when the magistrate unfolded it, some dust fell out, which
+had been used to keep the writing, when wet, from blotting.
+
+It was really a brief description of the scene, described by the old
+sailor. The four signatures were there.
+
+“What has become of the witnesses who signed this declaration?” murmured
+the magistrate, speaking to himself.
+
+Lerouge, who thought the question was put to him, replied, “Germain is
+dead. I have been told that he was drowned when out rowing. Claudine
+has just been assassinated; but the other nurse still lives. I even know
+that she spoke of the affair to her husband, for he hinted as much
+to me. His name is Brosette, and she lives in the village of Commarin
+itself.”
+
+“And what next?” asked the magistrate, after having taken down the name
+and address.
+
+“The next day, sir, Claudine managed to pacify me, and extorted a
+promise of secrecy. The child was scarcely ill at all; but he retained
+an enormous scar on his arm.”
+
+“Was Madame Gerdy informed of what took place?”
+
+“I do not think so, sir. But I would rather say that I do not know.”
+
+“What! you do not know?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I swear it. You see my ignorance comes from what happened
+afterwards.”
+
+“What happened, then?”
+
+The sailor hesitated.
+
+“That, sir, concerns only myself, and--”
+
+“My friend,” interrupted the magistrate, “you are an honest man, I
+believe; in fact, I am sure of it. But once in your life, influenced by
+a wicked woman, you did wrong, you became an accomplice in a very guilty
+action. Repair that error by speaking truly now. All that is said here,
+and which is not directly connected with the crime, will remain secret;
+even I will forget it immediately. Fear nothing, therefore; and, if you
+experience some humiliation, think that it is your punishment for the
+past.”
+
+“Alas, sir,” answered the sailor, “I have been already greatly punished;
+and it is a long time since my troubles began. Money, wickedly acquired,
+brings no good. On arriving home, I bought the wretched meadow for much
+more than it was worth; and the day I walked over it, feeling that is
+was actually mine, closed my happiness. Claudine was a coquette; but she
+had a great many other vices. When she realised how much money we had
+these vices showed themselves, just like a fire, smouldering at the
+bottom of the hold, bursts forth when you open the hatches. From
+slightly greedy as she had been, she became a regular glutton. In our
+house there was feasting without end. Whenever I went to sea, she would
+entertain the worst women in the place; and there was nothing too good
+or too expensive for them. She would get so drunk that she would have to
+be put to bed. Well, one night, when she thought me at Rouen, I returned
+unexpectedly. I entered, and found her with a man. And such a man, sir!
+A miserable looking wretch, ugly, dirty, stinking; shunned by everyone;
+in a word the bailiff’s clerk. I should have killed him, like the vermin
+that he was; it was my right, but he was such a pitiful object. I took
+him by the neck and pitched him out of the window, without opening it!
+It didn’t kill him. Then I fell upon my wife, and beat her until she
+couldn’t stir.”
+
+Lerouge spoke in a hoarse voice, every now and then thrusting his fists
+into his eyes.
+
+“I pardoned her,” he continued; “but the man who beats his wife and then
+pardons her is lost. In the future, she took better precautions, became
+a greater hypocrite, and that was all. In the meanwhile, Madame Gerdy
+took back her child; and Claudine had nothing more to restrain her.
+Protected and counselled by her mother, whom she had taken to live with
+us, on the pretence of looking after Jacques, she managed to deceive me
+for more than a year. I thought she had given up her bad habits, but not
+at all; she lived a most disgraceful life. My house became the resort of
+all the good-for-nothing rogues in the country, for whom my wife brought
+out bottles of wine and brandy, whenever I was away at sea, and they got
+drunk promiscuously. When money failed, she wrote to the count or his
+mistress, and the orgies continued. Occasionally I had doubts which
+disturbed me; and then without reason, for a simple yes or no, I would
+beat her until I was tired, and then I would forgive her, like a coward,
+like a fool. It was a cursed life. I don’t know which gave me the most
+pleasure, embracing her or beating her. My neighbors despised me, and
+turned their backs on me; they believed me an accomplice or a willing
+dupe. I heard, afterwards, that they believed I profited by my wife’s
+misconduct; while in reality she paid her lovers. At all events, people
+wondered where all the money came from that was spent in my house. To
+distinguish me from a cousin of mine, also named Lerouge, they tacked
+an infamous word on to my name. What disgrace! And I knew nothing of all
+the scandal, no, nothing. Was I not the husband? Fortunately, though, my
+poor father was dead.”
+
+M. Daburon pitied the speaker sincerely.
+
+“Rest a while, my friend,” he said; “compose yourself.”
+
+“No,” replied the sailor, “I would rather get through with it quickly.
+One man, the priest, had the charity to tell me of it. If ever he should
+want Lerouge! Without losing a minute, I went and saw a lawyer, and
+asked him how an honest sailor who had had the misfortune to marry a
+hussy ought to act. He said that nothing could be done. To go to law was
+simply to publish abroad one’s own dishonour, while a separation would
+accomplish nothing. When once a man has given his name to a woman, he
+told me, he cannot take it back; it belongs to her for the rest of her
+days, and she has a right to dispose of it. She may sully it, cover it
+with mire, drag it from wine shop to wine shop, and her husband can do
+nothing. That being the case, my course was soon taken. That same day, I
+sold the fatal meadow, and sent the proceeds of it to Claudine, wishing
+to keep nothing of the price of shame. I then had a document drawn up,
+authorising her to administer our property, but not allowing her either
+to sell or mortgage it. Then I wrote her a letter in which I told her
+that she need never expect to hear of me again, that I was nothing more
+to her, and that she might look upon herself as a widow. That same night
+I went away with my son.”
+
+“And what became of your wife after your departure?”
+
+“I cannot say, sir; I only know that she quitted the neighbourhood a
+year after I did.”
+
+“You have never lived with her since?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“But you were at her house three days before the crime was committed.”
+
+“That is true, but it was absolutely necessary. I had had much trouble
+to find her, no one knew what had become of her. Fortunately my notary
+was able to procure Madame Gerdy’s address; he wrote to her, and that
+is how I learnt that Claudine was living at La Jonchere. I was then at
+Rome. Captain Gervais, who is a friend of mine, offered to take me to
+Paris on his boat, and I accepted. Ah, sir, what a shock I experienced
+when I entered her house! My wife did not know me! By constantly telling
+everyone that I was dead, she had without a doubt ended by believing
+it herself. When I told her my name, she fell back in her chair. The
+wretched woman had not changed in the least; she had by her side a glass
+and a bottle of brandy--”
+
+“All this doesn’t explain why you went to seek your wife.”
+
+“It was on Jacques’s account, sir, that I went. The youngster has grown
+to be a man; and he wants to marry. For that, his mother’s consent was
+necessary; and I was taking to Claudine a document which the notary had
+drawn up, and which she signed. This is it.”
+
+M. Daburon took the paper, and appeared to read it attentively. After
+a moment he asked: “Have you thought who could have assassinated your
+wife?”
+
+Lerouge made no reply.
+
+“Do you suspect any one?” persisted the magistrate.
+
+“Well, sir,” replied the sailor, “what can I say? I thought that
+Claudine had wearied out the people from whom she drew money, like water
+from a well; or else getting drunk one day, she had blabbed too freely.”
+
+The testimony being as complete as possible, M. Daburon dismissed
+Lerouge, at the same time telling him to wait for Gevrol, who would take
+him to a hotel, where he might wait, at the disposal of justice, until
+further orders.
+
+“All your expenses will be paid you,” added the magistrate.
+
+Lerouge had scarcely left, when an extraordinary, unheard of,
+unprecedented event took place in the magistrate’s office. Constant, the
+serious, impressive, immovable, deaf and dumb Constant, rose from his
+seat and spoke.
+
+He broke a silence of fifteen years. He forgot himself so far as to
+offer an opinion.
+
+“This, sir,” said he, “is a most extraordinary affair.”
+
+Very extraordinary, truly, thought M. Daburon, and calculated to rout
+all predictions, all preconceived opinions.
+
+Why had he, the magistrate, moved with such deplorable haste? Why before
+risking anything, had he not waited to possess all the elements of this
+important case, to hold all the threads of this complicated drama?
+
+Justice is accused of slowness; but it is this very slowness that
+constitutes its strength and surety, its almost infallibility. One
+scarcely knows what a time evidence takes to produce itself. There is no
+knowing what important testimony investigations apparently useless may
+reveal.
+
+When the entanglement of the various passions and motives seems
+hopeless, an unknown personage presents himself, coming from no one
+knows where, and it is he who explains everything.
+
+M. Daburon, usually the most prudent of men, had considered as simple
+one of the most complex of cases. He had acted in a mysterious crime,
+which demanded the utmost caution, as carelessly as though it were a
+case of simple misdemeanour. Why? Because his memory had not left him
+his free deliberation, judgment, and discernment. He had feared equally
+appearing weak and being revengeful. Thinking himself sure of his facts,
+he had been carried away by his animosity. And yet how often had he
+not asked himself: Where is duty? But then, when one is at all doubtful
+about duty, one is on the wrong road.
+
+The singular part of it all was that the magistrate’s faults sprang from
+his very honesty. He had been led astray by a too great refinement of
+conscience. The scruples which troubled him had filled his mind with
+phantoms, and had prompted in him the passionate animosity he had
+displayed at a certain moment.
+
+Calmer now, he examined the case more soundly. As a whole, thank heaven!
+there was nothing done which could not be repaired. He accused himself,
+however, none the less harshly. Chance alone had stopped him. At that
+moment he resolved that he would never undertake another investigation.
+His profession henceforth inspired him with an unconquerable loathing.
+Then his interview with Claire had re-opened all the old wounds in his
+heart, and they bled more painfully than ever. He felt, in despair, that
+his life was broken, ruined. A man may well feel so, when all women are
+as nothing to him except one, whom he may never dare hope to possess.
+Too pious a man to think of suicide, he asked himself with anguish what
+would become of him when he threw aside his magistrate’s robes.
+
+Then he turned again to the business in hand. In any case, innocent
+or guilty, Albert was really the Viscount de Commarin, the count’s
+legitimate son. But was he guilty? Evidently he was not.
+
+“I think,” exclaimed M. Daburon suddenly, “I must speak to the Count de
+Commarin. Constant, send to his house a message for him to come here at
+once; if he is not at home, he must be sought for.”
+
+M. Daburon felt that an unpleasant duty was before him. He would be
+obliged to say to the old nobleman: “Sir, your legitimate son is not
+Noel, but Albert.” What a position, not only painful, but bordering on
+the ridiculous! As a compensation, though, he could tell him that Albert
+was innocent.
+
+To Noel he would also have to tell the truth: hurl him to earth, after
+having raised him among the clouds. What a blow it would be! But,
+without a doubt, the count would make him some compensation; at least,
+he ought to.
+
+“Now,” murmured the magistrate, “who can be the criminal?”
+
+An idea crossed his mind, at first it seemed to him absurd. He rejected
+it, then thought of it again. He examined it in all its various aspects.
+He had almost adopted it, when M. de Commarin entered. M. Daburon’s
+messenger had arrived just as the count was alighting from his carriage,
+on returning with Claire from Madame Gerdy’s.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Old Tabaret talked, but he acted also.
+
+Abandoned by the investigating magistrate to his own resources, he set
+to work without losing a minute and without taking a moment’s rest.
+
+The story of the cabriolet, drawn by a swift horse, was exact in every
+particular.
+
+Lavish with his money, the old fellow had gathered together a dozen
+detectives on leave or rogues out of work; and at the head of these
+worthy assistants, seconded by his friend Lecoq, he had gone to
+Bougival.
+
+He had actually searched the country, house by house, with the obstinacy
+and the patience of a maniac hunting for a needle in a hay-stack.
+
+His efforts were not absolutely wasted.
+
+After three days’ investigation, he felt comparatively certain that the
+assassin had not left the train at Rueil, as all the people of Bougival,
+La Jonchere, and Marly do, but had gone on as far as Chatou.
+
+Tabaret thought he recognized him in a man described to him by the
+porters at that station as rather young, dark, and with black whiskers,
+carrying an overcoat and an umbrella.
+
+This person, who arrived by the train which left Paris for St. Germain
+at thirty-five minutes past eight in the evening, had appeared to be in
+a very great hurry.
+
+On quitting the station, he had started off at a rapid pace on the road
+which led to Bougival. Upon the way, two men from Marly and a woman from
+La Malmaison had noticed him on account of his rapid pace. He smoked as
+he hurried along.
+
+On crossing the bridge which joins the two banks of the Seine at
+Bougival, he had been still more noticed.
+
+It is usual to pay a toll on crossing this bridge; and the supposed
+assassin had apparently forgotten this circumstance. He passed without
+paying, keeping up his rapid pace, pressing his elbows to his side,
+husbanding his breath, and the gate-keeper was obliged to run after him
+for his toll.
+
+He seemed greatly annoyed at the circumstance, threw the man a ten sou
+piece, and hurried on, without waiting for the nine sous change.
+
+Nor was that all.
+
+The station master at Rueil remembered, that, two minutes before the
+quarter past ten train came up, a passenger arrived very agitated, and
+so out of breath that he could scarcely ask for a second class ticket
+for Paris.
+
+The appearance of this man corresponded exactly with the description
+given of him by the porters at Chatou, and by the gatekeeper at the
+bridge.
+
+Finally, the old man thought he was on the track of some one who entered
+the same carriage as the breathless passenger. He had been told of a
+baker living at Asnieres, and he had written to him, asking him to call
+at his house.
+
+Such was old Tabaret’s information, when on the Monday morning he called
+at the Palais de Justice, in order to find out if the record of Widow
+Lerouge’s past life had been received. He found that nothing had
+arrived, but in the passage he met Gevrol and his man.
+
+The chief of detectives was triumphant, and showed it too. As soon as
+he saw Tabaret, he called out, “Well, my illustrious mare’s-nest hunter,
+what news? Have you had any more scoundrels guillotined since the other
+day? Ah, you old rogue, you want to oust me from my place I can see!”
+
+The old man was sadly changed.
+
+The consciousness of his mistake made him humble and meek. These
+pleasantries, which a few days before would have made him angry, now
+did not touch him. Instead of retaliating, he bowed his head in such a
+penitent manner that Gevrol was astonished.
+
+“Jeer at me, my good M. Gevrol,” he replied, “mock me without pity; you
+are right, I deserve it all.”
+
+“Ah, come now,” said the chief, “have you then performed some new
+masterpiece, you impetuous old fellow?”
+
+Old Tabaret shook his head sadly.
+
+“I have delivered up an innocent man,” he said, “and justice will not
+restore him his freedom.”
+
+Gevrol was delighted, and rubbed his hands until he almost wore away the
+skin.
+
+“This is fine,” he sang out, “this is capital. To bring criminals to
+justice is of no account at all. But to free the innocent, by Jove! that
+is the last touch of art. Tirauclair, you are an immense wonder; and I
+bow before you.”
+
+And at the same time, he raised his hat ironically.
+
+“Don’t crush me,” replied the old fellow. “As you know, in spite of my
+grey hairs, I am young in the profession. Because chance served me three
+or four times, I became foolishly proud. I have learned too late that
+I am not all that I had thought myself; I am but an apprentice, and
+success has turned my head; while you, M. Gevrol, you are the master of
+all of us. Instead of laughing, pray help me, aid me with your
+advice and your experience. Alone, I can do nothing, while with your
+assistance----!”
+
+Gevrol is vain in the highest degree.
+
+Tabaret’s submission tickled his pretensions as a detective immensely;
+for in reality he thought the old man very clever. He was softened.
+
+“I suppose,” he said patronisingly, “you refer to the La Jonchere
+affair?”
+
+“Alas! yes, my dear M. Gevrol, I wished to work without you, and I have
+got myself into a pretty mess.”
+
+Cunning old Tabaret kept his countenance as penitent as that of a
+sacristan caught eating meat on a Friday; but he was inwardly laughing
+and rejoicing all the while.
+
+“Conceited fool!” he thought, “I will flatter you so much that you will
+end by doing everything I want.”
+
+M. Gevrol rubbed his nose, put out his lower lip, and said, “Ah,--hem!”
+
+He pretended to hesitate; but it was only because he enjoyed prolonging
+the old amateur’s discomfiture.
+
+“Come,” said he at last, “cheer up, old Tirauclair. I’m a good fellow at
+heart, and I’ll give you a lift. That’s kind, isn’t it? But, to-day, I’m
+too busy, I’ve an appointment to keep. Come to me to-morrow morning,
+and we’ll talk it over. But before we part I’ll give you a light to find
+your way with. Do you know who that witness is that I’ve brought?”
+
+“No; but tell me, my good M. Gevrol.”
+
+“Well, that fellow on the bench there, who is waiting for M. Daburon, is
+the husband of the victim of the La Jonchere tragedy!”
+
+“Is it possible?” exclaimed old Tabaret, perfectly astounded. Then,
+after reflecting a moment, he added, “You are joking with me.”
+
+“No, upon my word. Go and ask him his name; he will tell you that it is
+Pierre Lerouge.”
+
+“She wasn’t a widow then?”
+
+“It appears not,” replied Gevrol sarcastically, “since there is her
+happy spouse.”
+
+“Whew!” muttered the old fellow. “And does he know anything?”
+
+In a few sentences, the chief of detectives related to his amateur
+colleague the story that Lerouge was about to tell the investigating
+magistrate.
+
+“What do you say to that?” he asked when he came to the end.
+
+“What do I say to that?” stammered old Tabaret, whose countenance
+indicated intense astonishment; “what do I say to that? I don’t say
+anything. But I think,--no, I don’t think anything either!”
+
+“A slight surprise, eh?” said Gevrol, beaming.
+
+“Say rather an immense one,” replied Tabaret.
+
+But suddenly he started, and gave his forehead a hard blow with his
+fist.
+
+“And my baker!” he cried, “I will see you to-morrow, then, M. Gevrol.”
+
+“He is crazed,” thought the head detective.
+
+The old fellow was sane enough, but he had suddenly recollected the
+Asnieres baker, whom he had asked to call at his house. Would he still
+find him there?
+
+Going down the stairs he met M. Daburon; but, as one has already seen,
+he hardly deigned to reply to him.
+
+He was soon outside, and trotted off along the quays.
+
+“Now,” said he to himself, “let us consider. Noel is once more plain
+Noel Gerdy. He won’t feel very pleased, for he thought so much of having
+a great name. Pshaw! if he likes, I’ll adopt him. Tabaret doesn’t sound
+so well as Commarin, but it’s at least a name. Anyhow, Gevrol’s story
+in no way affects Albert’s situation nor my convictions. He is the
+legitimate son; so much the better for him! That however, would not
+prove his innocence to me, if I doubted it. He evidently knew nothing of
+these surprising circumstances, any more than his father. He must have
+believed as well as the count in the substitution having taken place.
+Madame Gerdy, too, must have been ignorant of these facts; they probably
+invented some story to explain the scar. Yes, but Madame Gerdy certainly
+knew that Noel was really her son, for when he was returned to her,
+she no doubt looked for the mark she had made on him. Then, when Noel
+discovered the count’s letters, she must have hastened to explain to
+him--”
+
+Old Tabaret stopped as suddenly as if further progress were obstructed
+by some dangerous reptile. He was terrified at the conclusion he had
+reached.
+
+“Noel, then, must have assassinated Widow Lerouge, to prevent her
+confessing that the substitution had never taken place, and have burnt
+the letters and papers which proved it!”
+
+But he repelled this supposition with horror, as every honest man drives
+away a detestable thought which by accident enters his mind.
+
+“What an old idiot I am!” he exclaimed, resuming his walk; “this is the
+result of the horrible profession I once gloried in following! Suspect
+Noel, my boy, my sole heir, the personification of virtue and honour!
+Noel, whom ten years of constant intercourse have taught me to esteem
+and admire to such a degree that I would speak for him as I would for
+myself! Men of his class must indeed be moved by terrible passions to
+cause them to shed blood; and I have always known Noel to have but two
+passions, his mother and his profession. And I dare even to breath a
+suspicion against this noble soul? I ought to be whipped! Old fool!
+isn’t the lesson you have already received sufficiently terrible? Will
+you never be more cautious?”
+
+Thus he reasoned, trying to dismiss his disquieting thoughts, and
+restraining his habits of investigation; but in his heart a tormenting
+voice constantly whispered, “Suppose it is Noel.”
+
+He at length reached the Rue St. Lazare. Before the door of his house
+stood a magnificent horse harnessed to an elegant blue brougham. At the
+sight of these he stopped.
+
+“A handsome animal!” he said to himself; “my tenants receive some swell
+people.”
+
+They apparently received visitors of an opposite class also, for, at
+that moment, he saw M. Clergeot came out, worthy M. Clergeot, whose
+presence in a house betrayed ruin just as surely as the presence of the
+undertakers announce a death. The old detective, who knew everybody, was
+well acquainted with the worthy banker. He had even done business with
+him once, when collecting books. He stopped him and said: “Halloa! you
+old crocodile, you have clients, then, in my house?”
+
+“So it seems,” replied Clergeot dryly, for he does not like being
+treated with such familiarity.
+
+“Ah! ah!” said old Tabaret. And, prompted by the very natural curiosity
+of a landlord who is bound to be very careful about the financial
+condition of his tenants, he added, “Who the deuce are you ruining now?”
+
+“I am ruining no one,” replied M. Clergeot, with an air of offended
+dignity. “Have you ever had reason to complain of me whenever we have
+done business together? I think not. Mention me to the young advocate
+up there, if you like; he will tell you whether he has reason to regret
+knowing me.”
+
+These words produced a painful impression on Tabaret. What, Noel, the
+prudent Noel, one of Clergeot’s customers! What did it mean? Perhaps
+there was no harm in it; but then he remembered the fifteen thousand
+francs he had lent Noel on the Thursday.
+
+“Yes,” said he, wishing to obtain some more information, “I know that M.
+Gerdy spends a pretty round sum.”
+
+Clergeot has the delicacy never to leave his clients undefended when
+attacked.
+
+“It isn’t he personally,” he objected, “who makes the money dance; its
+that charming little woman of his. Ah, she’s no bigger than your thumb,
+but she’d eat the devil, hoofs, horns, and all!”
+
+What! Noel had a mistress, a woman whom Clergeot himself, the friend of
+such creatures, considered expensive! The revelation, at such a moment,
+pierced the old man’s heart. But he dissembled. A gesture, a look, might
+awaken the usurer’s mistrust, and close his mouth.
+
+“That’s well known,” replied Tabaret in a careless tone. “Youth must
+have it’s day. But what do you suppose the wench costs him a year?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know! He made the mistake of not fixing a price with her.
+According to my calculation, she must have, during the four years that
+she has been under his protection, cost him close upon five hundred
+thousand francs.”
+
+Four years? Five hundred thousand francs! These words, these figures,
+burst like bombshells on old Tabaret’s brain. Half a million! In that
+case, Noel was utterly ruined. But then--
+
+“It is a great deal,” said he, succeeding by desperate efforts in hiding
+his emotion; “it is enormous. M. Gerdy, however, has resources.”
+
+“He!” interrupted the usurer, shrugging his shoulders. “Not even that!”
+ he added, snapping his fingers; “He is utterly cleaned out. But, if he
+owes you money, do not be anxious. He is a sly dog. He is going to be
+married; and I have just renewed bills of his for twenty-six thousand
+francs. Good-bye, M. Tabaret.”
+
+The usurer hurried away, leaving the poor old fellow standing like a
+milestone in the middle of the pavement. He experienced something of
+that terrible grief which breaks a father’s heart when he begins to
+realize that his dearly loved son is perhaps the worst of scoundrels.
+
+And, yet, such was his confidence in Noel that he again struggled with
+his reason to resist the suspicions which tormented him. Perhaps the
+usurer had been slandering his friend. People who lend their money
+at more than ten per cent are capable of anything. Evidently he had
+exaggerated the extent of Noel’s follies.
+
+And, supposing it were true? Have not many men done just such insane
+things for women, without ceasing to be honest?
+
+As he was about to enter his house, a whirlwind of silk, lace, and
+velvet, stopped the way. A pretty young brunette came out and jumped as
+lightly as a bird into the blue brougham.
+
+Old Tabaret was a gallant man, and the young woman was most charming,
+but he never even looked at her. He passed in, and found his concierge
+standing, cap in hand, and tenderly examining a twenty franc piece.
+
+“Ah, sir,” said the man, “such a pretty young person, and so lady-like!
+If you had only been here five minutes sooner.”
+
+“What lady? why?”
+
+“That elegant lady, who just went out, sir; she came to make some
+inquiries about M. Gerdy. She gave me twenty francs for answering her
+questions. It seems that the gentleman is going to be married; and she
+was evidently much annoyed about it. Superb creature! I have an idea
+that she is his mistress. I know now why he goes out every night.”
+
+“M. Gerdy?”
+
+“Yes, sir, but I never mentioned it to you, because he seemed to wish to
+hide it. He never asks me to open the door for him, no, not he. He slips
+out by the little stable door. I have often said to myself, ‘Perhaps he
+doesn’t want to disturb me; it is very thoughtful on his part, and he
+seems to enjoy it so.’”
+
+The concierge spoke with his eyes fixed on the gold piece. When he
+raised his head to examine the countenance of his lord and master, old
+Tabaret had disappeared.
+
+“There’s another!” said the concierge to himself. “I’ll bet a hundred
+sous, that he’s running after the superb creature! Run ahead, go it,
+old dotard, you shall have a little bit, but not much, for it’s very
+expensive!”
+
+The concierge was right. Old Tabaret was running after the lady in the
+blue brougham.
+
+“She will tell me all,” he thought, and with a bound he was in the
+street. He reached it just in time to see the blue brougham turn the
+corner of the Rue St. Lazare.
+
+“Heavens!” he murmured. “I shall lose sight of her, and yet she can tell
+me the truth.”
+
+He was in one of those states of nervous excitement which engender
+prodigies. He ran to the end of the Rue St. Lazare as rapidly as if he
+had been a young man of twenty.
+
+Joy! He saw the blue brougham a short distance from him in the Rue du
+Havre, stopped in the midst of a block of carriages.
+
+“I have her,” said he to himself. He looked all about him, but there was
+not an empty cab to be seen. Gladly would he have cried, like Richard
+the III., “My kingdom for a cab!”
+
+The brougham got out of the entanglement, and started off rapidly
+towards the Rue Tronchet. The old fellow followed.
+
+He kept his ground. The brougham gained but little upon him.
+
+While running in the middle of the street, at the same time looking out
+for a cab, he kept saying to himself: “Hurry on, old fellow, hurry on.
+When one has no brains, one must use one’s legs. Why didn’t you think to
+get this woman’s address from Clergeot? You must hurry yourself, my old
+friend, you must hurry yourself! When one goes in for being a detective,
+one should be fit for the profession, and have the shanks of a deer.”
+
+But he was losing ground, plainly losing ground. He was only halfway
+down the Rue Tronchet, and quite tired out; he felt that his legs could
+not carry him a hundred steps farther, and the brougham had almost
+reached the Madeleine.
+
+At last an open cab, going in the same direction as himself, passed by.
+He made a sign, more despairing than any drowning man ever made. The
+sign was seen. He made a supreme effort, and with a bound jumped into
+the vehicle without touching the step.
+
+“There,” he gasped, “that blue brougham, twenty francs!”
+
+“All right!” replied the coachman, nodding.
+
+And he covered his ill-conditioned horse with vigorous blows, muttering,
+“A jealous husband following his wife; that’s evident. Gee up!”
+
+As for old Tabaret, he was a long time recovering himself, his strength
+was almost exhausted.
+
+For more than a minute, he could not catch his breath. They were soon
+on the Boulevards. He stood up in the cab leaning against the driver’s
+seat.
+
+“I don’t see the brougham anywhere,” he said.
+
+“Oh, I see it all right, sir. But it is drawn by a splendid horse!”
+
+“Yours ought to be a better one. I said twenty francs; I’ll make it
+forty.”
+
+The driver whipped up his horse most mercilessly, and growled, “It’s no
+use, I must catch her. For twenty francs, I would have let her escape;
+for I love the girls, and am on their side. But, fancy! Forty francs! I
+wonder how such an ugly man can be so jealous.”
+
+Old Tabaret tried in every way to occupy his mind with other matters. He
+did not wish to reflect before seeing the woman, speaking with her, and
+carefully questioning her.
+
+He was sure that by one word she would either condemn or save her lover.
+
+“What! condemn Noel? Ah, well! yes.”
+
+The idea that Noel was the assassin harassed and tormented him, and
+buzzed in his brain, like the moth which flies again and again against
+the window where it sees a light.
+
+As they passed the Chaussee d’Antin, the brougham was scarcely thirty
+paces in advance. The cab driver turned, and said: “But the Brougham is
+stopping.”
+
+“Then stop also. Don’t lose sight of it; but be ready to follow it again
+as soon as it goes off.”
+
+Old Tabaret leaned as far as he could out of the cab.
+
+The young woman alighted, crossed the pavement, and entered a shop where
+cashmeres and laces were sold.
+
+“There,” thought the old fellow, “is where the thousand franc notes go!
+Half a million in four years! What can these creatures do with the money
+so lavishly bestowed upon them? Do they eat it? On the altar of what
+caprices do they squander these fortunes? They must have the devil’s own
+potions which they give to drink to the idiots who ruin themselves
+for them. They must possess some peculiar art of preparing and spicing
+pleasure; since, once they get hold of a man, he sacrifices everything
+before forsaking them.”
+
+The cab moved on once more, but soon stopped again.
+
+The brougham had made a fresh pause, this time in front of a curiosity
+shop.
+
+“The woman wants then to buy out half of Paris!” said old Tabaret to
+himself in a passion. “Yes, if Noel committed the crime, it was she
+who forced him to it. These are my fifteen thousand francs that she is
+frittering away now. How long will they last her? It must have been for
+money, then, that Noel murdered Widow Lerouge. If so, he is the lowest,
+the most infamous of men! What a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy!
+And to think that he would be my heir, if I should die here of rage! For
+it is written in my will in so many words, ‘I bequeath to my son, Noel
+Gerdy!’ If he is guilty, there isn’t a punishment sufficiently severe
+for him. But is this woman never going home?”
+
+The woman was in no hurry. The weather was charming, her dress
+irresistible, and she intended showing herself off. She visited three
+or four more shops, and at last stopped at a confectioner’s, where she
+remained for more than a quarter of an hour.
+
+The old fellow, devoured by anxiety, moved about and stamped in his cab.
+It was torture thus to be kept from the key to a terrible enigma by the
+caprice of a worthless hussy! He was dying to rush after her, to seize
+her by the arm, and cry out to her: “Home, wretched, creature, home at
+once! What are you doing here? Don’t you know that at this moment your
+lover, he whom you have ruined, is suspected of an assassination? Home,
+then, that I may question you, that I may learn from you whether he is
+innocent or guilty. For you will tell me, without knowing it. Ah! I have
+prepared a fine trap for you! Go home, then, this anxiety is killing
+me!”
+
+She returned to her carriage. It started off once more, passed up the
+Rue de Faubourg Montmarte, turned into the Rue de Provence, deposited
+its fair freight at her own door, and drove away.
+
+“She lives here,” said old Tabaret, with a sigh of relief.
+
+He got out of the cab, gave the driver his forty francs, bade him wait,
+and followed in the young woman’s footsteps.
+
+“The old fellow is patient,” thought the driver; “and the little
+brunette is caught.”
+
+The detective opened the door of the concierge’s lodge.
+
+“What is the name of the lady who just came in?” he demanded.
+
+The concierge did not seem disposed to reply.
+
+“Her name!” insisted the old man.
+
+The tone was so sharp, so imperative, that the concierge was upset.
+
+“Madame Juliette Chaffour,” he answered.
+
+“On what floor does she reside?”
+
+“On the second, the door opposite the stairs.”
+
+A minute later, the old man was waiting in Madame Juliette’s
+drawing-room. Madame was dressing, the maid informed him, and would be
+down directly.
+
+Tabaret was astonished at the luxury of the room. There was nothing
+flaring or coarse, or in bad taste. It was not at all like the apartment
+of a kept woman. The old fellow, who knew a good deal about such things,
+saw that everything was of great value. The ornaments on the mantelpiece
+alone must have cost, at the lowest estimate, twenty thousand francs.
+
+“Clergeot,” thought he, “didn’t exaggerate a bit.”
+
+Juliette’s entrance disturbed his reflections.
+
+She had taken off her dress, and had hastily thrown about her a loose
+black dressing-gown, trimmed with cherry-coloured satin. Her beautiful
+hair, slightly disordered after her drive, fell in cascades about her
+neck, and curled behind her delicate ears. She dazzled old Tabaret. He
+began to understand.
+
+“You wished, sir, to speak with me?” she inquired, bowing gracefully.
+
+“Madame,” replied M. Tabaret, “I am a friend of Noel Gerdy’s, I may say
+his best friend, and--”
+
+“Pray sit down, sir,” interrupted the young woman.
+
+She placed herself on a sofa, just showing the tips of her little feet
+encased in slippers matching her dressing-gown, while the old man sat
+down in a chair.
+
+“I come, madame,” he resumed, “on very serious business. Your presence
+at M. Gerdy’s--”
+
+“Ah,” cried Juliette, “he already knows of my visit? Then he must employ
+a detective.”
+
+“My dear child--” began Tabaret, paternally.
+
+“Oh! I know, sir, what your errand is. Noel has sent you here to scold
+me. He forbade my going to his house, but I couldn’t help it. It’s
+annoying to have a puzzle for a lover, a man whom one knows nothing
+whatever about, a riddle in a black coat and a white cravat, a sad and
+mysterious being--”
+
+“You have been imprudent.”
+
+“Why? Because he is going to get married? Why does he not admit it
+then?”
+
+“Suppose that it is not true.”
+
+“Oh, but it is! He told that old shark Clergeot so, who repeated it to
+me. Any way, he must be plotting something in that head of his; for the
+last month he has been so peculiar, he has changed so, that I hardly
+recognize him.”
+
+Old Tabaret was especially anxious to know whether Noel had prepared
+an _alibi_ for the evening of the crime. For him that was the grand
+question. If he had, he was certainly guilty; if not, he might still be
+innocent. Madame Juliette, he had no doubt, could enlighten him on that
+point.
+
+Consequently he had presented himself with his lesson all prepared, his
+little trap all set.
+
+The young woman’s outburst disconcerted him a little; but trusting to
+the chances of conversation, he resumed.
+
+“Will you oppose Noel’s marriage, then?”
+
+“His marriage!” cried Juliette, bursting out into a laugh; “ah, the poor
+boy! If he meets no worse obstacle than myself, his path will be smooth.
+Let him marry by all means, the sooner the better, and let me hear no
+more of him.”
+
+“You don’t love him, then?” asked the old fellow, surprised at this
+amiable frankness.
+
+“Listen, sir. I have loved him a great deal, but everything has an
+end. For four years, I, who am so fond of pleasure, have passed an
+intolerable existence. If Noel doesn’t leave me, I shall be obliged to
+leave him. I am tired of having a lover who is ashamed of me and who
+despises me.”
+
+“If he despises you, my pretty lady, he scarcely shows it here,” replied
+old Tabaret, casting a significant glance about the room.
+
+“You mean,” said she rising, “that he spends a great deal of money on
+me. It’s true. He pretends that he has ruined himself on my account;
+it’s very possible. But what’s that to me! I am not a grabbing
+woman; and I would much have preferred less money and more regard. My
+extravagance has been inspired by anger and want of occupation. M. Gerdy
+treats me like a mercenary woman; and so I act like one. We are quits.”
+
+“You know very well that he worships you.”
+
+“He? I tell you he is ashamed of me. He hides me as though I were some
+horrible disease. You are the first of his friends to whom I have ever
+spoken. Ask him how often he takes me out. One would think that my
+presence dishonoured him. Why, no longer ago than last Tuesday, we went
+to the theatre! He hired an entire box. But do you think that he sat
+in it with me? Not at all. He slipped away and I saw no more of him the
+whole evening.”
+
+“How so? Were you obliged to return home alone?”
+
+“No. At the end of the play, towards midnight, he deigned to reappear.
+We had arranged to go to the masked ball at the Opera and then to have
+some supper. Ah, it was amusing! At the ball, he didn’t dare to let down
+his hood, or take off his mask. At supper, I had to treat him like a
+perfect stranger, because some of his friends were present.”
+
+This, then, was the _alibi_ prepared in case of trouble. Juliette, had
+she been less carried away by her own feelings, would have noticed old
+Tabaret’s emotion, and would certainly have held her tongue. He was
+perfectly livid, and trembled like a leaf.
+
+“Well,” he said, making a great effort to utter the words, “the supper,
+I suppose, was none the less gay for that.”
+
+“Gay!” echoed the young woman, shrugging her shoulders; “you do not seem
+to know much of your friend. If you ever ask him to dinner, take good
+care not to give him anything to drink. Wine makes him as merry as a
+funeral procession. At the second bottle, he was more tipsy than a
+cork; so much so, that he lost nearly everything he had with him: his
+overcoat, purse, umbrella, cigar-case--”
+
+Old Tabaret couldn’t sit and listen any longer; he jumped to his feet
+like a raving madman.
+
+“Miserable wretch!” he cried, “infamous scoundrel! It is he; but I have
+him!”
+
+And he rushed out, leaving Juliette so terrified that she called her
+maid.
+
+“Child,” said she, “I have just made some awful blunder, have let some
+secret out. I am sure that something dreadful is going to happen; I feel
+it. That old rogue was no friend of Noel’s, he came to circumvent me,
+to lead me by the nose; and he succeeded. Without knowing it I must have
+spoken against Noel. What can I have said? I have thought carefully, and
+can remember nothing; but he must be warned though. I will write him a
+line, while you find a messenger to take it.”
+
+Old Tabaret was soon in his cab and hurrying towards the Prefecture of
+Police. Noel an assassin! His hate was without bounds, as formerly had
+been his confiding affection. He had been cruelly deceived, unworthily
+duped, by the vilest and the most criminal of men. He thirsted for
+vengeance; he asked himself what punishment would be great enough for
+the crime.
+
+“For he not only assassinated Claudine,” thought he, “but he so arranged
+the whole thing as to have an innocent man accused and condemned. And
+who can say that he did not kill his poor mother?”
+
+He regretted the abolition of torture, the refined cruelty of the middle
+ages: quartering, the stake, the wheel. The guillotine acts so quickly
+that the condemned man has scarcely time to feel the cold steel cutting
+through his muscles; it is nothing more than a fillip on the neck.
+Through trying so much to mitigate the pain of death, it has now become
+little more than a joke, and might be abolished altogether.
+
+The certainty of confounding Noel, of delivering him up to justice, of
+taking vengeance upon him, alone kept old Tabaret up.
+
+“It is clear,” he murmured, “that the wretch forgot his things at the
+railway station, in his haste to rejoin his mistress. Will they still be
+found there? If he has had the prudence to go boldly, and ask for them
+under a false name, I can see no further proofs against him. Madame
+Chaffour’s evidence won’t help me. The hussy, seeing her lover in
+danger, will deny what she has just told me; she will assert that Noel
+left her long after ten o’clock. But I cannot think he has dared to go
+to the railway station again.”
+
+About half way down the Rue Richelieu, M. Tabaret was seized with a
+sudden giddiness.
+
+“I am going to have an attack, I fear,” thought he. “If I die, Noel
+will escape, and will be my heir. A man should always keep his will
+constantly with him, to be able to destroy it, if necessary.”
+
+A few steps further on, he saw a doctor’s plate on a door; he stopped
+the cab, and rushed into the house. He was so excited, so beside
+himself, his eyes had such a wild expression, that the doctor was almost
+afraid of his peculiar patient, who said to him hoarsely: “Bleed me!”
+
+The doctor ventured an objection; but already the old fellow had taken
+off his coat, and drawn up one of his shirtsleeves.
+
+“Bleed me!” he repeated. “Do you want me to die?”
+
+The doctor finally obeyed, and old Tabaret came out quieted and
+relieved.
+
+An hour later, armed with the necessary power, and accompanied by a
+policeman, he proceeded to the lost property office at the St. Lazare
+railway station, to make the necessary search. It resulted as he had
+expected. He learnt that, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, there had
+been found in one of the second class carriages, of train No. 45, an
+overcoat and an umbrella. He was shown the articles; and he at once
+recognised them as belonging to Noel. In one of the pockets of the
+overcoat, he found a pair of lavender kid gloves, frayed and soiled, as
+well as a return ticket from Chatou, which had not been used.
+
+In hurrying on, in pursuit of the truth, old Tabaret knew only too well,
+what it was. His conviction, unwillingly formed when Clergeot had told
+him of Noel’s follies, had since been strengthened in a number of other
+ways. When with Juliette, he had felt positively sure, and yet, at this
+last moment, when doubt had become impossible, he was, on beholding the
+evidence arrayed against Noel, absolutely thunderstruck.
+
+“Onwards!” he cried at last. “Now to arrest him.”
+
+And, without losing an instant, he hastened to the Palais de Justice,
+where he hoped to find the investigating magistrate. Notwithstanding
+the lateness of the hour, M. Daburon was still in his office. He was
+conversing with the Count de Commarin, having related to him the facts
+revealed by Pierre Lerouge whom the count had believed dead many years
+before.
+
+Old Tabaret entered like a whirlwind, too distracted to notice the
+presence of a stranger.
+
+“Sir,” he cried, stuttering with suppressed rage, “we have discovered
+the real assassin! It is he, my adopted son, my heir, Noel!”
+
+“Noel!” repeated M. Daburon, rising. And then in a lower tone, he added,
+“I suspected it.”
+
+“A warrant is necessary at once,” continued the old fellow. “If we lose
+a minute, he will slip through our fingers. He will know that he is
+discovered, if his mistress has time to warn him of my visit. Hasten,
+sir, hasten!”
+
+M. Daburon opened his lips to ask an explanation; but the old detective
+continued: “That is not all. An innocent man, Albert, is still in
+prison.”
+
+“He will not be so an hour longer,” replied the magistrate; “a moment
+before your arrival, I had made arrangements to have him released. We
+must now occupy ourselves with the other one.”
+
+Neither old Tabaret nor M. Daburon had noticed the disappearance of the
+Count de Commarin. On hearing Noel’s name mentioned, he gained the door
+quietly, and rushed out into the passage.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Noel had promised to use every effort, to attempt even the impossible,
+to obtain Albert’s release. He in fact did interview the Public
+Prosecutor and some members of the bar, but managed to be repulsed
+everywhere. At four o’clock, he called at the Count de Commarin’s house,
+to inform his father of the ill success of his efforts.
+
+“The Count has gone out,” said Denis; “but if you will take the trouble
+to wait----”
+
+“I will wait,” answered Noel.
+
+“Then,” replied the valet, “will you please follow me? I have the
+count’s orders to show you into his private room.”
+
+This confidence gave Noel an idea of his new power. He was at home,
+henceforth, in that magnificent house, he was the master, the heir! His
+glance, which wandered over the entire room, noticed the genealogical
+tree, hanging on the wall. He approached it, and read.
+
+It was like a page, and one of the most illustrious, taken from the
+golden book of French nobility. Every name which has a place in our
+history was there. The Commarins had mingled their blood with all the
+great families; two of them had even married daughters of royalty. A
+warm glow of pride filled the advocate’s heart, his pulse beat quicker,
+he raised his head haughtily, as he murmured, “Viscount de Commarin!”
+
+The door opened. He turned, and saw the count entering. As Noel was
+about to bow respectfully, he was petrified by the look of hatred,
+anger, and contempt on his father’s face.
+
+A shiver ran through his veins; his teeth chattered; he felt that he was
+lost.
+
+“Wretch!” cried the count.
+
+And, dreading his own violence, the old nobleman threw his cane into a
+corner. He was unwilling to strike his son; he considered him unworthy
+of being struck by his hand. Then there was a moment of mortal silence,
+which seemed to both of them a century.
+
+At the same time their minds were filled with thoughts, which would
+require a volume to transcribe.
+
+Noel had the courage to speak first.
+
+“Sir,” he began.
+
+“Silence!” exclaimed the count hoarsely; “be silent! Can it be, heaven
+forgive me! that you are my son? Alas, I cannot doubt it now! Wretch!
+you knew well that you were Madame Gerdy’s son. Infamous villain! you
+not only committed this murder, but you did everything to cause an
+innocent man to be charged with your crime! Parricide! you have also
+killed your mother.”
+
+The advocate attempted to stammer forth a protest.
+
+“You killed her,” continued the count with increased energy, “if not
+by poison, at least by your crime. I understand all now; she was not
+delirious this morning. But you know as well as I do what she was
+saying. You were listening, and, if you dared to enter at that moment
+when one word more would have betrayed you, it was because you had
+calculated the effect of your presence. It was to you that she addressed
+her last word, ‘Assassin!’”
+
+Little by little, Noel had retired to the end of the room, and he stood
+leaning against the wall, his head thrown back, his hair on end, his
+look haggard. A convulsive trembling shook his frame. His face betrayed
+a terror most horrible to see, the terror of the criminal found out.
+
+“I know all, you see,” continued the count; “and I am not alone in my
+knowledge. At this moment, a warrant of arrest is issued against you.”
+
+A cry of rage like a hollow rattle burst from the advocate’s breast. His
+lips, which were hanging through terror, now grew firm. Overwhelmed in
+the very midst of his triumph, he struggled against this fright. He drew
+himself up with a look of defiance.
+
+M. de Commarin, without seeming to pay any attention to Noel, approached
+his writing table, and opened a drawer.
+
+“My duty,” said he, “would be to leave you to the executioner who awaits
+you; but I remember that I have the misfortune to be your father. Sit
+down; write and sign a confession of your crime. You will then find
+fire-arms in this drawer. May heaven forgive you!”
+
+The old nobleman moved towards the door. Noel with a sign stopped him,
+and drawing at the same time a revolver from his pocket, he said: “Your
+fire-arms are needless, sir; my precautions, as you see, are already
+taken; they will never catch me alive. Only----”
+
+“Only?” repeated the count harshly.
+
+“I must tell you, sir,” continued the advocate coldly, “that I do not
+choose to kill myself--at least, not at present.”
+
+“Ah!” cried M. de Commarin in disgust, “you are a coward!”
+
+“No, sir, not a coward; but I will not kill myself until I am sure that
+every opening is closed against me, that I cannot save myself.”
+
+“Miserable wretch!” said the count, threateningly, “must I then do it
+myself?”
+
+He moved towards the drawer, but Noel closed it with a kick.
+
+“Listen to me, sir,” said he, in that hoarse, quick tone, which men use
+in moments of imminent danger, “do not let us waste in vain words the
+few moments’ respite left me. I have committed a crime, it is true, and
+I do not attempt to justify it; but who laid the foundation of it, if
+not yourself? Now, you do me the favor of offering me a pistol. Thanks.
+I must decline it. This generosity is not through any regard for me.
+You only wish to avoid the scandal of my trial, and the disgrace which
+cannot fail to reflect upon your name.”
+
+The count was about to reply.
+
+“Permit me,” interrupted Noel imperiously. “I do not choose to kill
+myself; I wish to save my life, if possible. Supply me with the means
+of escape; and I promise you that I will sooner die than be captured. I
+say, supply me with means, for I have not twenty francs in the world.
+My last thousand franc note was nearly all gone the day when--you
+understand me. There isn’t sufficient money at home to give my mother a
+decent burial. Therefore, I say, give me some money.”
+
+“Never!”
+
+“Then I will deliver myself up to justice, and you will see what will
+happen to the name you hold so dear!”
+
+The count, mad with rage, rushed to his table for a pistol. Noel placed
+himself before him.
+
+“Oh, do not let us have any struggle,” said he coldly; “I am the
+strongest.”
+
+M. de Commarin recoiled. By thus speaking of the trial, of the scandal
+and of the disgrace, the advocate had made an impression upon him.
+
+For a moment hesitating between love for his name and his burning desire
+to see this wretch punished, the old nobleman stood undecided.
+
+Finally his feeling for his rank triumphed.
+
+“Let us end this,” he said in a tremulous voice, filled with the utmost
+contempt; “let us end this disgraceful scene. What do you demand of me?”
+
+“I have already told you, money, all that you have here. But make up
+your mind quickly.”
+
+On the previous Saturday the count had withdrawn from his bankers the
+sum he had destined for fitting up the apartments of him whom he thought
+was his legitimate child.
+
+“I have eighty thousand francs here,” he replied.
+
+“That’s very little,” said the advocate; “but give them to me. I will
+tell you though that I had counted on you for five hundred thousand
+francs. If I succeed in escaping my pursuers, you must hold at my
+disposal the balance, four hundred and twenty thousand francs. Will you
+pledge yourself to give them to me at the first demand? I will find some
+means of sending for them, without any risk to myself. At that price,
+you need never fear hearing of me again.”
+
+By way of reply, the count opened a little iron chest imbedded in the
+wall, and took out a roll of bank notes, which he threw at Noel’s feet.
+
+An angry look flashed in the advocate’s eyes, as he took one step
+towards his father.
+
+“Oh! take care!” he said threateningly; “people who, like me, have
+nothing to lose are dangerous. I can yet give myself up, and----”
+
+He stooped down, however, and picked up the notes.
+
+“Will you give me your word,” he continued, “to let me have the rest
+whenever I ask for them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I am going. Do not fear, I will be faithful to our compact, they
+shall not take me alive. Adieu, my father! in all this you are the true
+criminal, but you alone will go unpunished. Ah, heaven is not just. I
+curse you!”
+
+When, an hour later, the servants entered the count’s room, they found
+him stretched on the floor with his face against the carpet, and showing
+scarcely a sign of life.
+
+On leaving the Commarin house, Noel staggered up the Rue de
+l’Universite.
+
+It seemed to him that the pavement oscillated beneath his feet, and that
+everything about him was turning round. His mouth was parched, his eyes
+were burning, and every now and then a sudden fit of sickness overcame
+him.
+
+But, at the same time, strange to relate, he felt an incredible relief,
+almost delight. It was ended then, all was over; the game was lost. No
+more anguish now, no more useless fright and foolish terrors, no more
+dissembling, no more struggles. Henceforth he had nothing more to fear.
+His horrible part being played to the bitter end, he could now lay aside
+his mask and breathe freely.
+
+An irresistible weariness succeeded the desperate energy which, in the
+presence of the count, had sustained his impudent arrogance. All the
+springs of his organization, stretched for more than a week past far
+beyond their ordinary limits, now relaxed and gave way. The fever which
+for the last few days had kept him up failed him now; and, with the
+weariness, he felt an imperative need of rest. He experienced a great
+void, an utter indifference for everything.
+
+His insensibility bore a striking resemblance to that felt by persons
+afflicted with sea-sickness, who care for nothing, whom no sensations
+are capable of moving, who have neither strength nor courage to think,
+and who could not be aroused from their lethargy by the presence of any
+great danger, not even of death itself.
+
+Had any one come to him then he would never have thought of resisting,
+nor of defending himself; he would not have taken a step to hide
+himself, to fly, to save his head.
+
+For a moment he had serious thoughts of giving himself up, in order to
+secure peace, to gain quiet, to free himself from the anxiety about his
+safety.
+
+But he struggled against this dull stupor, and at last the reaction
+came, shaking off this weakness of mind and body.
+
+The consciousness of his position, and of his danger, returned to him.
+He foresaw, with horror, the scaffold, as one sees the depth of the
+abyss by the lightning flashes.
+
+“I must save my life,” he thought; “but how?”
+
+That mortal terror which deprives the assassin of even ordinary common
+sense seized him. He looked eagerly about him, and thought he noticed
+three or four passers-by look at him curiously. His terror increased.
+
+He began running in the direction of the Latin quarter without purpose,
+without aim, running for the sake of running, to get away, like Crime,
+as represented in paintings, fleeing under the lashes of the Furies.
+
+He very soon stopped, however, for it occurred to him that this
+extraordinary behaviour would attract attention.
+
+It seemed to him that everything in him betokened the murderer; he
+thought he read contempt and horror upon every face, and suspicion in
+every eye.
+
+He walked along, instinctively repeating to himself: “I must do
+something.”
+
+But he was so agitated that he was incapable of thinking or of planning
+anything.
+
+When he still hesitated to commit the crime, he had said to himself; “I
+may be discovered.” And with that possibility in view, he had perfected
+a plan which should put him beyond all fear of pursuit. He would do
+this and that; he would have recourse to this ruse, he would take that
+precaution. Useless forethought! Now, nothing he had imagined seemed
+feasible. The police were seeking him, and he could think of no place in
+the whole world where he would feel perfectly safe.
+
+He was near the Odeon theatre, when a thought quicker than a flash of
+lightning lit up the darkness of his brain.
+
+It occurred to him that as the police were doubtless already in pursuit
+of him, his description would soon be known to everyone, his white
+cravat and well trimmed whiskers would betray him as surely as though he
+carried a placard stating who he was.
+
+Seeing a barber’s shop, he hurried to the door; but, when on the point
+of turning the handle, he grew frightened.
+
+The barber might think it strange that he wanted his whiskers shaved
+off, and supposing he should question him!
+
+He passed on.
+
+He soon saw another barber’s shop, but the same fears as before again
+prevented his entering.
+
+Gradually night had fallen, and, with the darkness, Noel seemed to
+recover his confidence and boldness.
+
+After this great shipwreck in port, hope rose to the surface. Why should
+he not save himself? There had been many just such cases. He could go to
+a foreign country, change his name, begin his life over again, become a
+new man entirely. He had money; and that was the main thing.
+
+And, besides, as soon as his eighty thousand francs were spent, he had
+the certainty of receiving, on his first request, five or six times as
+much more.
+
+He was already thinking of the disguise he should assume, and of the
+frontier to which he should proceed, when the recollection of Juliette
+pierced his heart like a red hot iron.
+
+Was he going to leave without her, going away with the certainty of
+never seeing her again? What! he would fly, pursued by all the police
+of the civilized world, tracked like a wild beast, and she would remain
+peaceably in Paris? Was it possible? For whom then had he committed this
+crime? For her. Who would have reaped the benefits of it? She. Was it
+not just, then, that she should bear her share of the punishment?
+
+“She does not love me,” thought the advocate bitterly, “she never loved
+me. She would be delighted to be forever free of me. She will not regret
+me, for I am no longer necessary to her. An empty coffer is a useless
+piece of furniture. Juliette is prudent; she has managed to save a
+nice little fortune. Grown rich at my expense, she will take some other
+lover. She will forget me, she will live happily, while I--And I was
+about to go away without her!”
+
+The voice of prudence cried out to him: “Unhappy man! to drag a woman
+along with you, and a pretty woman too, is but to stupidly attract
+attention upon you, to render flight impossible, to give yourself up
+like a fool.”
+
+“What of that?” replied passion. “We will be saved or we will perish
+together. If she does not love me, I love her; I must have her! She will
+come, otherwise--”
+
+But how to see Juliette, to speak with her, to persuade her. To go to
+her house, was a great risk for him to run. The police were perhaps
+there already.
+
+“No,” thought Noel; “no one knows that she is my mistress. It will
+not be found out for two or three days and, besides, it would be more
+dangerous still to write.”
+
+He took a cab not far from the Carrefour de l’Observatoire, and in a
+low tone told the driver the number of the house in the Rue de Provence,
+which had proved so fatal to him. Stretched on the cushions of the cab,
+lulled by its monotonous jolts, Noel gave no thought to the future, he
+did not even think over what he should say to Juliette. No. He passed
+involuntarily in review the events which had brought on and hastened the
+catastrophe, like a man on the point of death, reviews the tragedy or
+the comedy of his life.
+
+Just one month before, ruined, at the end of his expedients and
+absolutely without resources, he had determined, cost what it might,
+to procure money, so as to be able to continue to keep Madame Juliette,
+when chance placed in his hands Count de Commarin’s correspondence.
+Not only the letters read to old Tabaret, and shown to Albert, but also
+those, which, written by the count when he believed the substitution an
+accomplished fact, plainly established it.
+
+The reading of these gave him an hour of mad delight.
+
+He believed himself the legitimate son; but his mother soon undeceived
+him, told him the truth, proved to him by several letters she had
+received from Widow Lerouge, called on Claudine to bear witness to it,
+and demonstrated it to him by the scar he bore.
+
+But a falling man never selects the branch he tries to save himself by.
+Noel resolved to make use of the letters all the same.
+
+He attempted to induce his mother to leave the count in his ignorance,
+so that he might thus blackmail him. But Madame Gerdy spurned the
+proposition with horror.
+
+Then the advocate made a confession of all his follies, laid bare his
+financial condition, showed himself in his true light, sunk in debt; and
+he finally begged his mother to have recourse to M. de Commarin.
+
+This also she refused, and prayers and threats availed nothing against
+her resolution. For a fortnight, there was a terrible struggle between
+mother and son, in which the advocate was conquered.
+
+It was then that the idea of murdering Claudine occurred to him.
+
+The unhappy woman had not been more frank with Madame Gerdy than
+with others, so that Noel really thought her a widow. Therefore, her
+testimony suppressed, who else stood in his way?
+
+Madame Gerdy, and perhaps the count. He feared them but little. If
+Madame Gerdy spoke, he could always reply: “After stealing my name for
+your son, you will do everything in the world to enable him to keep it.”
+ But how to do away with Claudine without danger to himself?
+
+After long reflection, the advocate thought of a diabolical stratagem.
+
+He burnt all the count’s letters establishing the substitution, and he
+preserved only those which made it probable.
+
+These last he went and showed to Albert, feeling sure, that, should
+justice ever discover the reason of Claudine’s death, it would naturally
+suspect he who appeared to have most interest in it.
+
+Not that he really wished Albert to be suspected of the crime, it was
+simply a precaution. He thought that he could so arrange matters
+that the police would waste their time in the pursuit of an imaginary
+criminal.
+
+Nor did he think of ousting the Viscount de Commarin and putting himself
+in his place. His plan was simply this; the crime once committed,
+he would wait; things would take their own course, there would be
+negotiations, and ultimately he would compromise the matter at the price
+of a fortune.
+
+He felt sure of his mother’s silence, should she ever suspect him guilty
+of the assassination.
+
+His plan settled, he decided to strike the fatal blow on the Shrove
+Tuesday.
+
+To neglect no precaution, he, that very same evening, took Juliette to
+the theatre, and afterwards to the masked ball at the opera. In case
+things went against him, he thus secured an unanswerable _alibi_.
+
+The loss of his overcoat only troubled him for a moment. On reflection,
+he reassured himself, saying: “Pshaw! who will ever know?”
+
+Everything had resulted in accordance with his calculations; it was, in
+his opinion, a matter of patience.
+
+But when Madame Gerdy read the account of the murder, the unhappy woman
+divined her son’s work, and, in the first paroxysms of her grief, she
+declared that she would denounce him.
+
+He was terrified. A frightful delirium had taken possession of his
+mother. One word from her might destroy him. Putting a bold face on it,
+however, he acted at once and staked his all.
+
+To put the police on Albert’s track was to guarantee his own safety,
+to insure to himself, in the event of a probable success, Count de
+Commarin’s name and fortune.
+
+Circumstances, as well as his own terror, increased his boldness and his
+ingenuity.
+
+Old Tabaret’s visit occurred just at the right moment.
+
+Noel knew of his connection with the police, and guessed that the old
+fellow would make a most valuable confidant.
+
+So long as Madame Gerdy lived, Noel trembled. In her delirium she
+might betray him at any moment. But when she had breathed her last, he
+believed himself safe. He thought it all over, he could see no further
+obstacle in his way; he was sure he had triumphed.
+
+And now all was discovered, just as he was about to reach the goal of
+his ambition. But how? By whom? What fatality had resuscitated a secret
+which he had believed buried with Madame Gerdy?
+
+But where is the use, when one is at the bottom of an abyss, of knowing
+which stone gave way, or of asking down what side one fell?
+
+The cab stopped in the Rue de Provence. Noel leaned out of the door, his
+eyes exploring the neighbourhood and throwing a searching glance into
+the depths of the hall of the house. Seeing no one, he paid the fare
+through the front window, before getting out of the cab, and, crossing
+the pavement with a bound, he rushed up stairs.
+
+Charlotte, at sight of him, gave a shout of joy.
+
+“At last it is you, sir!” she cried. “Ah, madame has been expecting you
+with the greatest impatience! She has been very anxious.”
+
+Juliette expecting him! Juliette anxious!
+
+The advocate did not stop to ask questions. On reaching this spot,
+he seemed suddenly to recover all his composure. He understood his
+imprudence; he knew the exact value of every minute he delayed here.
+
+“If any one rings,” said he to Charlotte, “don’t open the door. No
+matter what may be said or done, don’t open the door!”
+
+On hearing Noel’s voice, Juliette ran out to meet him. He pushed her
+gently into the salon, and followed, closing the door.
+
+There for the first time she saw his face.
+
+He was so changed; his look was so haggard that she could not keep from
+crying out, “What is the matter?”
+
+Noel made no reply; he advanced towards her and took her hand.
+
+“Juliette,” he demanded in a hollow voice, fastening his flashing eyes
+upon her,--“Juliette, be sincere; do you love me?”
+
+She instinctively felt that something dreadful had occurred: she
+seemed to breathe an atmosphere of evil; but she, as usual, affected
+indifference.
+
+“You ill-natured fellow,” she replied, pouting her lips most
+provokingly, “do you deserve--”
+
+“Oh, enough!” broke in Noel, stamping his feet fiercely. “Answer me,” he
+continued, bruising her pretty hands in his grasp, “yes, or no,--do you
+love me?”
+
+A hundred times had she played with her lover’s anger, delighting to
+excite him into a fury, to enjoy the pleasure of appeasing him with a
+word; but she had never seen him like this before.
+
+She had wronged him greatly; and she dared not complain of this his
+first harshness.
+
+“Yes, I love you,” she stammered, “do you not know it?”
+
+“Why?” replied the advocate, releasing her hands; “why? Because, if
+you love me you must prove it; if you love me, you must follow me at
+once,--abandon everything. Come, fly with me. Time presses----”
+
+The young girl was terrified.
+
+“Great heavens! what has happened?”
+
+“Nothing, except that I have loved you too much, Juliette. When I found
+I had no more money for your luxury, your caprices, I became wild. To
+procure money, I,--I committed a crime,--a crime; do you understand?
+They are pursuing me now. I must fly: will you follow me?”
+
+Juliette’s eyes grew wide with astonishment; but she doubted Noel.
+
+“A crime? You?” she began.
+
+“Yes, me! Would you know the truth? I have committed murder, an
+assassination. But it was all for you.”
+
+The advocate felt that Juliette would certainly recoil from him in
+horror. He expected that terror which a murderer inspires. He was
+resigned to it in advance. He thought that she would fly from him;
+perhaps there would be a scene. She might, who knows, have hysterics;
+might cry out, call for succor, for help, for aid. He was wrong.
+
+With a bound, Juliette flew to him, throwing herself upon him, her arms
+about his neck, and embraced him as she had never embraced him before.
+
+“Yes, I do love you!” she cried. “Yes, you have committed a crime for
+my sake, because you loved me. You have a heart. I never really knew you
+before!”
+
+It had cost him dear to inspire this passion in Madame Juliette; but
+Noel never thought of that.
+
+He experienced a moment of intense delight: nothing appeared hopeless to
+him now.
+
+But he had the presence of mind to free himself from her embrace.
+
+“Let us go,” he said; “the one great danger is, that I do not know from
+whence the attack comes. How they have discovered the truth is still a
+mystery to me.”
+
+Juliette remembered her alarming visitor of the afternoon; she
+understood it all.
+
+“Oh, what a wretched woman I am!” she cried, wringing her hands in
+despair; “it is I who have betrayed you. It occurred on Tuesday, did it
+not?”
+
+“Yes, Tuesday.”
+
+“Ah, then I have told all, without a doubt, to your friend, the old man
+I supposed you had sent, Tabaret!”
+
+“Has Tabaret been here?”
+
+“Yes; just a little while ago.”
+
+“Come, then,” cried Noel, “quickly; it’s a miracle that he hasn’t been
+back.”
+
+He took her arm, to hurry her away; but she nimbly released herself.
+
+“Wait,” said she. “I have some money, some jewels. I will take them.”
+
+“It is useless. Leave everything behind. I have a fortune, Juliette; let
+us fly!”
+
+She had already opened her jewel box, and was throwing everything of
+value that she possessed pell mell into a little travelling bag.
+
+“Ah, you are ruining me,” cried Noel, “you are ruining me!”
+
+He spoke thus; but his heart was overflowing with joy.
+
+“What sublime devotion! She loves me truly,” he said to himself; “for my
+sake, she renounces her happy life without hesitation; for my sake, she
+sacrifices all!”
+
+Juliette had finished her preparations, and was hastily tying on her
+bonnet, when the door-bell rang.
+
+“It is the police!” cried Noel, becoming, if possible, even more livid.
+
+The young woman and her lover stood as immovable as two statues, with
+great drops of perspiration on their foreheads, their eyes dilated, and
+their ears listening intently. A second ring was heard, then a third.
+
+Charlotte appeared walking on tip-toe.
+
+“There are several,” she whispered; “I heard them talking together.”
+
+Grown tired of ringing, they knocked loudly on the door. The sound of a
+voice reached the drawing-room, and the word “law” was plainly heard.
+
+“No more hope!” murmured Noel.
+
+“Don’t despair,” cried Juliette; “try the servants’ staircase!”
+
+“You may be sure they have not forgotten it.”
+
+Juliette went to see, and returned dejected and terrified. She bad
+distinguished heavy foot-steps on the landing, made by some one
+endeavouring to walk softly.
+
+“There must be some way of escape!” she cried fiercely.
+
+“Yes,” replied Noel, “one way. I have given my word. They are picking
+the lock. Fasten all the doors, and let them break them down; it will
+give me time.”
+
+Juliette and Charlotte ran to carry out his directions. Then Noel,
+leaning against the mantel piece, seized his revolver and pointed it at
+his breast.
+
+But Juliette, who had returned, perceiving the movement, threw herself
+upon her lover, but so violently that the revolver turned aside and
+went off. The shot took effect, the bullet entering Noel’s stomach. He
+uttered a frightful cry.
+
+Juliette had made his death a terrible punishment; she had prolonged his
+agony.
+
+He staggered, but remained standing, supporting himself by the mantel
+piece, while the blood flowed copiously from his wound.
+
+Juliette clung to him, trying to wrest the revolver from his grasp.
+
+“You shall not kill yourself,” she cried, “I will not let you. You are
+mine; I love you! Let them come. What can they do to you? If they
+put you in prison, you can escape. I will help you, we will bribe the
+jailors. Ah, we will live so happily together, no matter where, far away
+in America where no one knows us!”
+
+The outer door had yielded; the police were now picking the lock of the
+door of the ante-chamber.
+
+“Let me finish!” murmured Noel; “they must not take me alive!”
+
+And, with a supreme effort, triumphing over his dreadful agony, he
+released himself, and roughly pushed Juliette away. She fell down near
+the sofa.
+
+Then, he once more aimed his revolver at the place where he felt his
+heart beating, pulled the trigger and rolled to the floor.
+
+It was full time, for the police at that moment entered the room.
+
+Their first thought was, that before shooting himself, Noel had shot his
+mistress. They knew of cases where people had romantically desired
+to quit this world in company; and, moreover, had they not heard two
+reports? But Juliette was already on her feet again.
+
+“A doctor,” she cried, “a doctor! He can not be dead!”
+
+One man ran out; while the others, under old Tabaret’s direction, raised
+the body, and carried it to Madame Juliette’s bedroom where they laid it
+on the bed.
+
+“For his sake, I trust his wounds are mortal!” murmured the old
+detective, whose anger left him at the sight. “After all, I loved him as
+though he were my own child; his name is still in my will!”
+
+Old Tabaret stopped. Noel just then uttered a groan, and opened his
+eyes.
+
+“You see that he will live!” cried Juliette.
+
+The advocate shook his head feebly, and, for a moment, he tossed about
+painfully on the bed, passing his right hand first under his coat, and
+then under his pillow. He even succeeded in turning himself half-way
+towards the wall and then back again.
+
+Upon a sign, which was at once understood, someone placed another pillow
+under his head. Then in a broken, hissing voice, he uttered a few words:
+“I am the assassin,” he said. “Write it down, I will sign it; it will
+please Albert. I owe him that at least.”
+
+While they were writing, he drew Juliette’s head close to his lips.
+
+“My fortune is beneath the pillow,” he whispered. “I give it all to
+you.”
+
+A flow of blood rose to his mouth; and they all thought him dead. But he
+still had strength enough to sign his confession, and to say jestingly
+to M. Tabaret, “Ah, ha, my friend, so you go in for the detective
+business, do you! It must be great fun to trap one’s friends in person!
+Ah, I have had a fine game; but, with three women in the play, I was
+sure to lose.”
+
+The death struggle commenced, and, when the doctor arrived, he could
+only announce the decease of M. Noel Gerdy, advocate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Some months later, one evening, at old Mademoiselle de Goello’s house,
+the Marchioness d’Arlange, looking ten years younger than when we saw
+her last, was giving her dowager friends an account of the wedding of
+her granddaughter Claire, who had just married the Viscount Albert de
+Commarin.
+
+“The wedding,” said she, “took place on our estate in Normandy, without
+any flourish of trumpets. My son-in-law wished it; for which I think he
+is greatly to blame. The scandal raised by the mistake of which he had
+been the victim, called for a brilliant wedding. That was my opinion,
+and I did not conceal it. But the boy is as stubborn as his father,
+which is saying a good deal; he persisted in his obstinacy. And my
+impudent granddaughter, obeying beforehand her future husband, also
+sided against me. It is, however, of no consequence; I defy anyone to
+find to-day a single individual with courage enough to confess that he
+ever for an instant doubted Albert’s innocence. I have left the young
+people in all the bliss of the honeymoon, billing and cooing like a
+pair of turtle doves. It must be admitted that they have paid dearly
+for their happiness. May they be happy then, and may they have lots of
+children, for they will have no difficulty in bringing them up and in
+providing for them. I must tell you that, for the first time in his
+life, and probably for the last, the Count de Commarin has behaved like
+an angel! He has settled all his fortune on his son, absolutely all. He
+intends living alone on one of his estates. I am afraid the poor dear
+old man will not live long. I am not sure that he has entirely recovered
+from that last attack. Anyhow, my grandchild is settled, and grandly
+too. I know what it has cost me, and how economical I shall have to be.
+But I do not think much of those parents who hesitate at any pecuniary
+sacrifice when their children’s happiness is at stake.”
+
+The marchioness forgot, however, to state that, a week before the
+wedding, Albert freed her from a very embarrassing position, and had
+discharged a considerable amount of her debts.
+
+Since then, she had not borrowed more than nine thousand francs of him;
+but she intends confessing to him some day how greatly she is annoyed by
+her upholsterer, by her dressmaker, by three linen drapers, and by five
+or six other tradesmen.
+
+Ah, well, she is all the same a worthy woman; she never says anything
+against her son-in-law!
+
+Retiring to his father’s home in Poitou, after sending in his
+resignation, M. Daburon has at length found rest; forgetfulness will
+come later on. His friends do not yet despair of inducing him to marry.
+
+Madame Juliette is quite consoled for the loss of Noel. The eighty
+thousand francs hidden by him under the pillow were not taken from her.
+They are nearly all gone now though. Before long the sale of a handsome
+suite of furniture will be announced.
+
+Old Tabaret, alone, is indelibly impressed. After having believed in the
+infallibility of justice, he now sees every where nothing but judicial
+errors.
+
+The ex-amateur detective doubts the very existence of crime, and
+maintains that the evidence of one’s senses proves nothing. He
+circulates petitions for the abolition of capital punishment, and has
+organised a society for the defence of poor and innocent prisoners.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Widow Lerouge, by Emile Gaboriau
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/thewomanofmystery b/files/books/unrelated/thewomanofmystery
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman of Mystery, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Woman of Mystery
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Illustrator: Albert Matzke
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2011 [EBook #34931]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Unmasked and helpless, she maintained an attitude of
+challenge and defiance]
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY
+
+BY MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+AUTHOR OF "CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN,"
+"THE TEETH OF THE TIGER," ETC.
+
+NEW YORK
+THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916.
+
+BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+I.      THE MURDER                                         9
+II.     THE LOCKED ROOM                                   23
+III.    THE CALL TO ARMS                                  39
+IV.     A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH                           59
+V.      THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY                     77
+VI.     WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN                         94
+VII.    H. E. R. M.                                      108
+VIII.   ÉLISABETH'S DIARY                                126
+IX.     A SPRIG OF EMPIRE                                141
+X.      75 OR 155?                                       156
+XI.     "YSERY, MISERY"                                  167
+XII.    MAJOR HERMANN                                    182
+XIII.   THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE                             198
+XIV.    A MASTERPIECE OF KULTUR                          220
+XV.     PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY                        236
+XVI.    THE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLE                          258
+XVII.   THE LAW OF THE CONQUEROR                         277
+XVIII.  HILL 132                                         292
+XIX.    HOHENZOLLERN                                     310
+XX.     THE DEATH PENALTY--AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT      330
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MURDER
+
+
+"Suppose I were to tell you," said Paul Delroze, "that I once stood face
+to face with him on French. . . ."
+
+Élisabeth looked up at him with the fond expression of a bride to whom
+the least word of the man she loves is a subject of wonder:
+
+"You have seen William II. in France?"
+
+"Saw him with my own eyes; and I have never forgotten a single one of
+the details that marked the meeting. And yet it happened very long ago."
+
+He was speaking with a sudden seriousness, as though the revival of that
+memory had awakened the most painful thoughts in his mind.
+
+"Tell me about it, won't you, Paul?" asked Élisabeth.
+
+"Yes, I will," he said. "In any case, though I was only a child at the
+time, the incident played so tragic a part in my life that I am bound
+to tell you the whole story."
+
+The train stopped and they got out at Corvigny, the last station on the
+local branch line which, starting from the chief town in the department,
+runs through the Liseron Valley and ends, fifteen miles from the
+frontier, at the foot of the little Lorraine city which Vauban, as he
+tells us in his "Memoirs," surrounded "with the most perfect demilunes
+imaginable."
+
+The railway-station presented an appearance of unusual animation. There
+were numbers of soldiers, including many officers. A crowd of
+passengers--tradespeople, peasants, workmen and visitors to the
+neighboring health-resorts served by Corvigny--stood amid piles of
+luggage on the platform, awaiting the departure of the next train for
+the junction.
+
+It was the last Thursday in July, the Thursday before the mobilization
+of the French army.
+
+Élisabeth pressed up against her husband:
+
+"Oh, Paul," she said, shivering with anxiety, "if only we don't have
+war!"
+
+"War! What an idea!"
+
+"But look at all these people leaving, all these families running away
+from the frontier!"
+
+"That proves nothing."
+
+"No, but you saw it in the paper just now. The news is very bad. Germany
+is preparing for war. She has planned the whole thing. . . . Oh, Paul,
+if we were to be separated! . . . I should know nothing about you . . .
+and you might be wounded . . . and . . ."
+
+He squeezed her hand:
+
+"Don't be afraid, Élisabeth. Nothing of the kind will happen. There
+can't be war unless somebody declares it. And who would be fool enough,
+criminal enough, to do anything so abominable?"
+
+"I am not afraid," she said, "and I am sure that I should be very brave
+if you had to go. Only . . . only it would be worse for us than for
+anybody else. Just think, darling: we were only married this morning!"
+
+At this reference to their wedding of a few hours ago, containing so
+great a promise of deep and lasting joy, her charming face lit up, under
+its halo of golden curls, with a smile of utter trustfulness; and she
+whispered:
+
+"Married this morning, Paul! . . . So you can understand that my load of
+happiness is not yet very heavy."
+
+There was a movement among the crowd. Everybody gathered around the
+exit. A general officer, accompanied by two aides-de-camp, stepped out
+into the station-yard, where a motor-car stood waiting for him. The
+strains were heard of a military band; a battalion of light infantry
+marched down the road. Next came a team of sixteen horses, driven by
+artillery-men and dragging an enormous siege-piece which, in spite of
+the weight of its carriage, looked light, because of the extreme length
+of the gun. A herd of bullocks followed.
+
+Paul, who was unable to find a porter, was standing on the pavement,
+carrying the two traveling-bags, when a man in leather gaiters, green
+velveteen breeches and a shooting-jacket with horn buttons, came up to
+him and raised his cap:
+
+"M. Paul Delroze?" he said. "I am the keeper at the château."
+
+He had a powerful, open face, a skin hardened by exposure to the sun and
+the cold, hair that was already turning gray and that rather uncouth
+manner often displayed by old servants whose place allows them a certain
+degree of independence. For seventeen years he had lived on the great
+estate of Ornequin, above Corvigny, and managed it for Élisabeth's
+father, the Comte d'Andeville.
+
+"Ah, so you're Jérôme?" cried Paul. "Good! I see you had the Comte
+d'Andeville's letter. Have our servants come?"
+
+"They arrived this morning, sir, the three of them; and they have been
+helping my wife and me to tidy up the house and make it ready to receive
+the master and the mistress."
+
+He took off his cap again to Élisabeth, who said:
+
+"Then you remember me, Jérôme? It is so long since I was here!"
+
+"Mlle. Élisabeth was four years old then. It was a real sorrow for my
+wife and me when we heard that you would not come back to the house
+. . . nor Monsieur le Comte either, because of his poor dead wife. So
+Monsieur le Comte does not mean to pay us a little visit this year?"
+
+"No, Jérôme, I don't think so. Though it is so many years ago, my father
+is still very unhappy."
+
+Jérôme took the bags and placed them in a fly which he had ordered at
+Corvigny. The heavy luggage was to follow in the farm-cart.
+
+It was a fine day and Paul told them to lower the hood. Then he and his
+wife took their seats.
+
+"It's not a very long drive," said the keeper. "Under ten miles. But
+it's up-hill all the way."
+
+"Is the house more or less fit to live in?" asked Paul.
+
+"Well, it's not like a house that has been lived in; but you'll see for
+yourself, sir. We've done the best we could. My wife is so pleased that
+you and the mistress are coming! You'll find her waiting for her at the
+foot of the steps. I told her that you would be there between half-past
+six and seven. . . ."
+
+The fly drove off.
+
+"He seems a decent sort of man," said Paul to Élisabeth, "but he can't
+have much opportunity for talking. He's making up for lost time."
+
+The street climbed the steep slope of the Corvigny hills and
+constituted, between two rows of shops, hotels and public buildings, the
+main artery of the town, blocked on this day with unaccustomed traffic.
+Then it dipped and skirted Vauban's ancient bastions. Next came a
+switchback road across a plain commanded on the right and left by the
+two forts known as the Petit and the Grand Jonas.
+
+As they drove along this winding road, which meandered through fields of
+oats and wheat beneath the leafy vault formed overhead by the
+close-ranked poplars, Paul Delroze came back to the episode of his
+childhood which he had promised to tell to Élisabeth:
+
+"As I said, Élisabeth, the incident is connected with a terrible
+tragedy, so closely connected that the two form only one episode in my
+memory. The tragedy was much talked about at the time; and your father,
+who was a friend of my father's, as you know, heard of it through the
+newspapers. The reason why he did not mention it to you was that I asked
+him not to, because I wanted to be the first to tell you of events . . .
+so painful to myself."
+
+Their hands met and clasped. He knew that every one of his words would
+find a ready listener; and, after a brief pause, he continued:
+
+"My father was one of those men who compel the sympathy and even the
+affection of all who know them. He had a generous, enthusiastic,
+attractive nature and an unfailing good-humor, took a passionate
+interest in any fine cause and any fine spectacle, loved life and
+enjoyed it with a sort of precipitate haste. He enlisted in 1870 as a
+volunteer, earned his lieutenant's commission on the battlefield and
+found the soldier's heroic existence so well suited to his tastes that
+he volunteered a second time for Tonkin, and a third to take part in
+the conquest of Madagascar. . . . On his return from this campaign, in
+which he was promoted to captain and received the Legion of Honor, he
+married. Six years later he was a widower."
+
+"You were like me, Paul," said Élisabeth. "You hardly enjoyed the
+happiness of knowing your mother."
+
+"No, for I was only four years old. But my father, who felt my mother's
+death most cruelly, bestowed all his affection upon me. He made a point
+of personally giving me my early education. He left nothing undone to
+perfect my physical training and to make a strong and plucky lad of me.
+I loved him with all my heart. To this day I cannot think of him without
+genuine emotion. . . . When I was eleven years old, I accompanied him on
+a journey through France, which he had put off for years because he
+wanted me to take it with him at an age when I could understand its full
+meaning. It was a pilgrimage to the identical places and along the roads
+where he had fought during the terrible year."
+
+"Did your father believe in the possibility of another war?"
+
+"Yes; and he wanted to prepare me for it. 'Paul,' he said, 'I have no
+doubt that one day you will be facing the same enemy whom I fought
+against. From this moment pay no attention to any fine words of peace
+that you may hear, but hate that enemy with all the hatred of which you
+are capable. Whatever people may say, he is a barbarian, a
+vain-glorious, bloodthirsty brute, a beast of prey. He crushed us once
+and he will not rest content until he has crushed us again and, this
+time, for good. When that day comes, Paul, remember all the journeys
+which we have made together. Those which you will take will mark so many
+triumphant stages, I am sure of it. But never forget the names of these
+places, Paul; never let your joy in victory wipe out their names of
+sorrow and humiliation: Froeschwiller, Mars-la-Tour, Saint-Privat and
+the rest. Mind, Paul, and remember!' And he then smiled. 'But why should
+I trouble? He himself, the enemy, will make it his business to arouse
+hatred in the hearts of those who have forgotten and those who have not
+seen. Can he change? Not he! You'll see, Paul, you'll see. Nothing that
+I can say to you will equal the terrible reality. They are monsters.'"
+
+Paul Delroze ceased. His wife asked him a little timidly:
+
+"Do you think your father was absolutely right?"
+
+"He may have been influenced by cruel recollections that were too recent
+in his memory. I have traveled a good deal in Germany, I have even lived
+there, and I believe that the state of men's minds has altered. I
+confess, therefore, that I sometimes find a difficulty in understanding
+my father's words. And yet . . . and yet they very often disturb me. And
+then what happened afterwards is so inexplicable."
+
+The carriage had slackened its pace. The road was rising slowly towards
+the hills that overhang the Liseron Valley. The sun was setting in the
+direction of Corvigny. They passed a diligence, laden with trunks, and
+two motor cars crowded with passengers and luggage. A picket of cavalry
+galloped across the fields.
+
+"Let's get out and walk," said Paul Delroze.
+
+They followed the carriage on foot; and Paul continued:
+
+"The rest of what I have to tell you, Élisabeth, stands out in my memory
+in very precise details, that seem to emerge as though from a thick fog
+in which I cannot see a thing. For instance, I just know that, after
+this part of our journey, we were to go from Strasburg to the Black
+Forest. Why our plans were changed I cannot tell. . . . I can see myself
+one morning in the station at Strasburg, stepping into the train for the
+Vosges . . . yes, for the Vosges. . . . My father kept on reading a
+letter which he had just received and which seemed to gratify him. The
+letter may have affected his arrangements; I don't know. We lunched in
+the train. There was a storm brewing, it was very hot and I fell asleep,
+so that all I can remember is a little German town where we hired two
+bicycles and left our bags in the cloak-room. It's all very vague in my
+mind. We rode across the country."
+
+"But don't you remember what the country was like?"
+
+"No, all I know is that suddenly my father said: 'There, Paul, we're
+crossing the frontier; we're in France now.' Later on--I can't say how
+long after--he stopped to ask his road of a peasant, who showed him a
+short-cut through the woods. But the road and the short-cut are nothing
+more in my mind than an impenetrable darkness in which my thoughts are
+buried. . . . Then, all of a sudden, the darkness is rent and I see,
+with astonishing plainness, a glade in the wood, tall trees, velvety
+moss and an old chapel. And the rain falls in great, thick drops, and my
+father says, 'Let's take shelter, Paul.' Oh, how I remember the sound of
+his voice and how exactly I picture the little chapel, with its walls
+green with damp! We went and put our bicycles under shelter at the back,
+where the roof projected a little way beyond the choir. Just then the
+sound of a conversation reached us from the inside and we heard the
+grating of a door that opened round the corner. Some one came out and
+said, in German, 'There's no one here. Let us make haste.' At that
+moment we were coming round the chapel, intending to go in by this side
+door; and it so happened that my father, who was leading the way,
+suddenly found himself in the presence of the man who had spoken in
+German. Both of them stepped back, the stranger apparently very much
+annoyed and my father astounded at the unexpected meeting. For a second
+or two, perhaps, they stood looking at each other without moving. I
+heard my father say, under his breath, 'Is it possible? The Emperor?'
+And I myself, surprised as I was at the words, had not a doubt of it,
+for I had often seen the Kaiser's portrait; the man in front of us was
+the German Emperor."
+
+"The German Emperor?" echoed Élisabeth. "You can't mean that!"
+
+"Yes, the Emperor in France! He quickly lowered his head and turned the
+velvet collar of his great, flowing cape right up to the brim of his
+hat, which was pulled down over his eyes. He looked towards the chapel.
+A lady came out, followed by a man whom I hardly saw, a sort of servant.
+The lady was tall, a young woman still, dark and rather good-looking.
+. . . The Emperor seized her arm with absolute violence and dragged her
+away, uttering angry words which we were unable to hear. They took the
+road by which we had come, the road leading to the frontier. The servant
+had hurried into the woods and was walking on ahead. 'This really is a
+queer adventure,' said my father, laughing. 'What on earth is William
+doing here? Taking the risk in broad daylight, too! I wonder if the
+chapel possesses some artistic interest. Come and see, Paul.' . . . We
+went in. A dim light made its way through a window black with dust and
+cobwebs. But this dim light was enough to show us some stunted pillars
+and bare walls and not a thing that seemed to deserve the honor of an
+imperial visit, as my father put it, adding, 'It's quite clear that
+William came here as a tripper, at hazard, and that he is very cross at
+having his escapade discovered. I expect the lady who was with him told
+him that he was running no danger. That would account for his irritation
+and his reproaches.'"
+
+Paul broke off again. Élisabeth nestled up against him timidly.
+Presently he continued:
+
+"It's curious, isn't it, Élisabeth, that all these little details, which
+really were comparatively unimportant for a boy of my age, should have
+been recorded faithfully in my mind, whereas so many other and much more
+essential facts have left no trace at all. However, I am telling you all
+this just as if I still had it before my eyes and as if the words were
+still sounding in my ears. And at this very moment I can see, as plainly
+as I saw her at the moment when we left the chapel, the Emperor's
+companion coming back and crossing the glade with a hurried step; and I
+can hear her say to my father, 'May I ask a favor of you, monsieur?' She
+had been running and was out of breath, but did not wait for him to
+answer and at once added, 'The gentleman you saw would like to speak to
+you.' This was said in perfect French without the least accent. . . . My
+father hesitated. But his hesitation seemed to shock her as though it
+were an unspeakable offense against the person who had sent her; and she
+said, in a harsher tone, 'Surely you do not mean to refuse!' 'Why not?'
+said my father, with obvious impatience. 'I am not here to receive
+orders.' She restrained herself and said, 'It is not an order, it is a
+wish.' 'Very well,' said my father, 'I will agree to the interview. I
+will wait for your friend here.' She seemed shocked. 'No, no,' she
+said, 'you must . . .' 'I must put myself out, must I?' cried my father,
+in a loud voice. 'You expect me to cross the frontier to where somebody
+is condescending to expect me? I am sorry, madam, but I will not consent
+to that. Tell your friend that if he fears an indiscretion on my part he
+can set his mind at rest. Come along, Paul.' He took off his hat to the
+lady and bowed. But she barred his way: 'No, no,' she said, 'you must do
+what I ask. What is a promise of discretion worth? The thing must be
+settled one way or the other; and you yourself will admit. . . .' Those
+were the last words I heard. She was standing opposite my father in a
+violent and hostile attitude. Her face was distorted with an expression
+of fierceness that terrified me. Oh, why did I not foresee what was
+going to happen? . . . But I was so young! And it all came so quickly!
+. . . She walked up to my father and, so to speak, forced him back to
+the foot of a large tree, on the right of the chapel. They raised their
+voices. She made a threatening gesture. He began to laugh. And suddenly,
+immediately, she whipped out a knife--I can see the blade now, flashing
+through the darkness--and stabbed him in the chest, twice . . . twice,
+there, full in the chest. My father fell to the ground."
+
+Paul Delroze stopped, pale with the memory of the crime.
+
+"Oh," faltered Élisabeth, "your father was murdered? . . . My poor
+Paul, my poor darling!" And in a voice of anguish she asked, "What
+happened next, Paul? Did you cry out?"
+
+"I shouted, I rushed towards him, but a hand caught me in an
+irresistible grip. It was the man, the servant, who had darted out of
+the woods and seized me. I saw his knife raised above my head. I felt a
+terrible blow on my shoulder. Then I also fell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LOCKED ROOM
+
+
+The carriage stood waiting for them a little way ahead. They had sat
+down by the roadside on reaching the upland at the top of the ascent.
+The green, undulating valley of the Liseron opened up before them, with
+its little winding river escorted by two white roads which followed its
+every turn. Behind them, under the setting sun, some three hundred feet
+below, lay the clustering mass of Corvigny. Two miles in front of them
+rose the turrets of Ornequin and the ruins of the old castle.
+
+Terrified by Paul's story, Élisabeth was silent for a time. Then she
+said:
+
+"Oh, Paul, how terrible it all is! Were you very badly hurt?"
+
+"I can remember nothing until the day when I woke up in a room which I
+did not know and saw a nun and an old lady, a cousin of my father's, who
+were nursing me. It was the best room of an inn somewhere between
+Belfort and the frontier. Twelve days before, at a very early hour in
+the morning, the innkeeper had found two bodies, all covered with blood,
+which had been laid there during the night. One of the bodies was quite
+cold. It was my poor father's. I was still breathing, but very slightly.
+. . . I had a long convalescence, interrupted by relapses and fits of
+delirium, in which I tried to make my escape. My old cousin, the only
+relation I had left, showed me the most wonderful and devoted kindness.
+Two months later she took me home with her. I was very nearly cured of
+my wound, but so greatly affected by my father's death and by the
+frightful circumstances surrounding it that it was several years before
+I recovered my health completely. As to the tragedy itself. . . ."
+
+"Well?" asked Élisabeth, throwing her arm round her husband's neck, with
+an eager movement of protection.
+
+"Well, they never succeeded in fathoming the mystery. And yet the police
+conducted their investigations zealously and scrupulously, trying to
+verify the only information which they were able to employ, that which I
+gave them. All their efforts failed. You know, my information was very
+vague. Apart from what had happened in the glade and in front of the
+chapel, I knew nothing. I could not tell them where to find the chapel,
+nor where to look for it, nor in what part of the country the tragedy
+had occurred."
+
+"But still you had taken a journey, you and your father, to reach that
+part of the country; and it seems to me that, by tracing your road back
+to your departure from Strasburg. . . ."
+
+"Well, of course they did their best to follow up that track; and the
+French police, not content with calling in the aid of the German police,
+sent their shrewdest detectives to the spot. But this is exactly what
+afterwards, when I was of an age to think out things, struck me as so
+strange: not a single trace was found of our stay at Strasburg. You
+quite understand? Not a trace of any kind. Now, if there was one thing
+of which I was absolutely certain, it was that we had spent at least two
+days and nights at Strasburg. The magistrate who had the case in hand,
+looking upon me as a child and one who had been badly knocked about and
+upset, came to the conclusion that my memory must be at fault. But I
+knew that this was not so; I knew it then and I know it still."
+
+"What then, Paul?"
+
+"Well, I cannot help seeing a connection between the total elimination
+of undeniable facts--facts easily checked or reconstructed, such as the
+visit of a Frenchman and his son to Strasburg, their railway journey,
+the leaving of their luggage in the cloak-room of a town in Alsace, the
+hiring of a couple of bicycles--and this main fact, that the Emperor was
+directly, yes, directly mixed up in the business."
+
+"But this connection must have been as obvious to the magistrate's mind
+as to yours, Paul."
+
+"No doubt; but neither the examining magistrate nor any of his
+colleagues and the other officials who took my evidence was willing to
+admit the Emperor's presence in Alsace on that day."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because the German newspapers stated that he was in Frankfort at that
+very hour."
+
+"In Frankfort?"
+
+"Of course, he is stated to be wherever he commands and never at a place
+where he does not wish his presence known. At any rate, on this point
+also I was accused of being in error and the inquiry was thwarted by an
+assemblage of obstacles, impossibilities, lies and alibis which, to my
+mind, revealed the continuous and all-powerful action of an unlimited
+authority. There is no other explanation. Just think: how can two French
+subjects put up at a Strasburg hotel without having their names entered
+in the visitors' book? Well, whether because the book was destroyed or a
+page torn out, no record whatever of the names was found. So there was
+one proof, one clue gone. As for the hotel proprietor and waiters, the
+railway booking clerks and porters, the man who owned the bicycles:
+these were so many subordinates, so many accomplices, all of whom
+received orders to be silent; and not one of them disobeyed."
+
+"But afterwards, Paul, you must have made your own search?"
+
+"I should think I did! Four times since I came of age I have been over
+the whole frontier from Switzerland to Luxemburg, from Belfort to
+Longwy, questioning the inhabitants, studying the country. I have spent
+hours and hours in cudgeling my brains in the vain hope of extracting
+the slightest recollection that would have given me a gleam of light.
+But all without result. There was not one fresh glimmer amid all that
+darkness. Only three pictures showed through the dense fog of the past,
+pictures of the place and the things which witnessed the crime: the
+trees in the glade, the old chapel and the path leading through the
+woods. And then there was the figure of the Emperor and . . . the figure
+of the woman who killed my father."
+
+Paul had lowered his voice. His face was distorted with grief and
+loathing.
+
+"As for her," he went on, "if I live to be a hundred, I shall see her
+before my eyes as something standing out in all its details under the
+full light of day. The shape of her lips, the expression of her eyes,
+the color of her hair, the special character of her walk, the rhythm of
+her movements, the outline of her body: all this is recorded within
+myself, not as a vision which I summon up at will, but as something that
+forms part of my very being. It is as though, during my delirium, all
+the mysterious powers of my brain had collaborated to assimilate
+entirely those hateful memories. There was a time when all this was a
+morbid obsession: nowadays, I suffer only at certain hours, when the
+night is coming in and I am alone. My father was murdered; and the woman
+who murdered him is alive, unpunished, happy, rich, honored, pursuing
+her work of hatred and destruction."
+
+"Would you know her again if you saw her, Paul?"
+
+"Would I know her again! I should know her among a thousand. Even if she
+were disfigured by age, I should discover in the wrinkles of the old
+woman that she had become the face of the younger woman who stabbed my
+father to death on that September evening. Know her again! Why, I
+noticed the very shade of the dress she wore! It seems incredible, but
+there it is. A gray dress, with a black lace scarf over the shoulders;
+and here, in the bodice, by way of a brooch, a heavy cameo, set in a
+gold snake with ruby eyes. You see, Élisabeth, I have not forgotten and
+I never shall forget."
+
+He ceased. Élisabeth was crying. The past which her husband had revealed
+to her was filling her with the same sense of horror and bitterness. He
+drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead.
+
+"You are right not to forget," she said. "The murder will be punished
+because it has to be punished. But you must not let your life be subject
+to these memories of hatred. There are two of us now and we love each
+other. Let us look towards the future."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Château d'Ornequin is a handsome sixteenth century building of
+simple design, with four peaked turrets, tall windows with denticulated
+pinnacles and a light balustrade projecting above the first story. The
+esplanade is formed by well-kept lawns which surround the courtyard and
+lead on the right and left to gardens, woods and orchards. One side of
+these lawns ends in a broad terrace overlooking the valley of the
+Liseron. On this terrace, in a line with the house, stand the majestic
+ruins of a four-square castle-keep.
+
+The whole wears a very stately air. The estate, surrounded by farms and
+fields, demands active and careful working for its maintenance. It is
+one of the largest in the department.
+
+Seventeen years before, at the sale held upon the death of the last
+Baron d'Ornequin, Élisabeth's father, the Comte d'Andeville, bought it
+at his wife's desire. He had been married for five years and had
+resigned his commission in the cavalry in order to devote himself
+entirely to the woman he loved. A chance journey brought them to
+Ornequin just as the sale, which had hardly been advertised in the local
+press, was about to be held. Hermine d'Andeville fell in love with the
+house and the domain; and the Count, who was looking for an estate whose
+management would occupy his spare time effected the purchase through his
+lawyer by private treaty.
+
+During the winter that followed, he directed from Paris the work of
+restoration which was necessitated by the state of disrepair in which
+the former owner had left the house. M. d'Andeville wished it to be not
+only comfortable but also elegant; and, little by little, he sent down
+all the tapestries, pictures, objects of art and knicknacks that
+adorned his house in Paris.
+
+They were not able to take up their residence until August. They then
+spent a few delightful weeks with their dear Élisabeth, at this time
+four years old, and their son, Bernard, a lusty boy to whom the Countess
+had given birth that same year. Hermine d'Andeville was devoted to her
+children and never went beyond the confines of the park. The Count
+looked after his farms and shot over his coverts, accompanied by Jérôme,
+his gamekeeper, a worthy Alsatian, who had been in the late owner's
+service and who knew every yard of the estate.
+
+At the end of October, the Countess took cold; the illness that followed
+was pretty serious; and the Comte d'Andeville decided to take her and
+the children to the south. A fortnight later she had a relapse; and in
+three days she was dead.
+
+The Count experienced the despair which makes a man feel that life is
+over and that, whatever happens, he will never again know the sense of
+joy nor even an alleviation of any sort. He lived not so much for the
+sake of his children as to cherish within himself the cult of her whom
+he had lost and to perpetuate a memory which now became the sole reason
+of his existence.
+
+He was unable to return to the Château d'Ornequin, where he had known
+too perfect a happiness; on the other hand, he would not have strangers
+live there; and he ordered Jérôme to keep the doors and shutters closed
+and to lock up the Countess' boudoir and bedroom in such a way that no
+one could ever enter. Jérôme was also to let the farms and to collect
+the tenants' rents.
+
+This break with the past was not enough to satisfy the Count. It seems
+strange in a man who existed only for the sake of his wife's memory, but
+everything that reminded him of her--familiar objects, domestic
+surroundings, places and landscapes--became a torture to him; and his
+very children filled him with a sense of discomfort which he was unable
+to overcome. He had an elder sister, a widow, living in the country, at
+Chaumont. He placed his daughter Élisabeth and his son Bernard in her
+charge and went abroad.
+
+Aunt Aline was the most devoted and unselfish of women; and under her
+care Élisabeth enjoyed a grave, studious and affectionate childhood in
+which her heart developed together with her mind and her character. She
+received the education almost of a boy, together with a strong moral
+discipline. At the age of twenty, she had grown into a tall, capable,
+fearless girl, whose face, inclined by nature to be melancholy,
+sometimes lit up with the fondest and most innocent of smiles. It was
+one of those faces which reveal beforehand the pangs and raptures held
+in store by fate. The tears were never far from her eyes, which seemed
+as though troubled by the spectacle of life. Her hair, with its bright
+curls, lent a certain gaiety to her appearance.
+
+At each visit that the Comte d'Andeville paid his daughter between his
+wanderings he fell more and more under her charm. He took her one winter
+to Spain and the next to Italy. It was in this way that she became
+acquainted with Paul Delroze at Rome and met him again at Naples and
+Syracuse, from which town Paul accompanied the d'Andevilles on a long
+excursion through Sicily. The intimacy thus formed attached the two
+young people by a bond of which they did not realize the full strength
+till the time came for parting.
+
+Like Élisabeth, Paul had been brought up in the country and, again like
+her, by a fond kinswoman who strove, by dint of loving care, to make him
+forget the tragedy of his childhood. Though oblivion failed to come, at
+any rate she succeeded in continuing his father's work and in making of
+Paul a manly and industrious lad, interested in books, life and the
+doings of mankind. He went to school and, after performing his military
+service, spent two years in Germany, studying some of his favorite
+industrial and mechanical subjects on the spot.
+
+Tall and well set up, with his black hair flung back from his rather
+thin face, with its determined chin, he made an impression of strength
+and energy.
+
+His meeting with Élisabeth revealed to him a world of ideas and emotions
+which he had hitherto disdained. For him as for her it was a sort of
+intoxication mingled with amazement. Love created in them two new souls,
+light and free as air, whose ready enthusiasm and expansiveness formed
+a sharp contrast with the habits enforced upon them by the strict
+tendency of their lives. On his return to France he asked for
+Élisabeth's hand in marriage and obtained her consent.
+
+On the day of the marriage contract, three days before the wedding, the
+Comte d'Andeville announced that he would add the Château d'Ornequin to
+Élisabeth's dowry. The young couple decided that they would live there
+and that Paul should look about in the valleys of the neighboring
+manufacturing district for some works which he could buy and manage.
+
+They were married on Thursday, the 30th of July, at Chaumont. It was a
+quiet wedding, because of the rumors of war, though the Comte
+d'Andeville, on the strength of information to which he attached great
+credit, declared that no war would take place. At the breakfast in which
+the two families took part, Paul made the acquaintance of Bernard
+d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother, a schoolboy of barely seventeen, whose
+holidays had just begun. Paul took to him, because of his frank bearing
+and high spirits; and it was arranged that Bernard should join them in a
+few days at Ornequin. At one o'clock Élisabeth and Paul left Chaumont by
+train. They were going hand-in-hand to the château where the first years
+of their marriage were to be spent and perhaps all that happy and
+peaceful future which opens up before the dazzling eyes of lovers.
+
+It was half-past six o'clock when they saw Jérôme's wife standing at the
+foot of the steps. Rosalie was a stout, motherly body with ruddy,
+mottled cheeks and a cheerful face.
+
+Before dining, they took a hurried turn in the garden and went over the
+house. Élisabeth could not contain her emotion. Though there were no
+memories to excite her, she seemed, nevertheless, to rediscover
+something of the mother whom she had known for such a little while,
+whose features she could not remember and who had here spent the last
+happy days of her life. For her, the shade of the dead woman still trod
+those garden paths. The great, green lawns exhaled a special fragrance.
+The leaves on the trees rustled in the wind with a whisper which she
+seemed already to have heard in that same spot and at the same hour of
+the day, with her mother listening beside her.
+
+"You seem depressed, Élisabeth," said Paul.
+
+"Not depressed, but unsettled. I feel as though my mother were welcoming
+us to this place where she thought she was to live and where we have
+come with the same intention. And I somehow feel anxious. It is as
+though I were a stranger, an intruder, disturbing the rest and peace of
+the house. Only think! My mother has been here all alone for such a
+time! My father would never come here; and I was telling myself that we
+have no right to come here either, with our indifference for everything
+that is not ourselves."
+
+Paul smiled:
+
+"Élisabeth, my darling, you are simply feeling that impression of
+uneasiness which one always feels on arriving at a new place in the
+evening."
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I daresay you are right. . . . But I can't
+shake off the uneasiness; and that is so unlike me. Do you believe in
+presentiments, Paul?"
+
+"No, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't either," she said, laughing and giving him her lips.
+
+They were surprised to find that the rooms of the house looked as if
+they had been constantly inhabited. By the Count's orders, everything
+had remained as it was in the far-off days of Hermine d'Andeville. The
+knickknacks were there, in the same places, and every piece of
+embroidery, every square of lace, every miniature, all the handsome
+eighteenth century chairs, all the Flemish tapestry, all the furniture
+which the Count had collected in the old days to add to the beauty of
+his house. They were thus entering from the first into a charming and
+home-like setting.
+
+After dinner they returned to the gardens, where they strolled to and
+fro in silence, with their arms entwined round each other's waists. From
+the terrace they looked down upon the dark valley, with a few lights
+gleaming here and there. The old castle-keep raised its massive ruins
+against a pale sky, in which a remnant of vague light still lingered.
+
+"Paul," said Élisabeth, in a low voice, "did you notice, as we went over
+the house, a door closed with a great padlock?"
+
+"In the middle of the chief corridor, near your bedroom, you mean?"
+
+"Yes. That was my poor mother's boudoir. My father insisted that it
+should be locked, as well as the bedroom leading out of it; and Jérôme
+put a padlock on the door and sent him the key. No one has set foot in
+it since. It is just as my mother left it. All her own things--her
+unfinished work, her books--are there. And on the wall facing the door,
+between the two windows that have always been kept shut, is her
+portrait, which my father had ordered a year before of a great painter
+of his acquaintance, a full-length portrait which, I understand, is the
+very image of her. Her _prie-Dieu_ is beside it. This morning my father
+gave me the key of the boudoir and I promised him that I would kneel
+down on the _prie-Dieu_ and say a prayer before the portrait of the
+mother whom I hardly knew and whose features I cannot imagine, for I
+never even had a photograph of her."
+
+"Really? How was that?"
+
+"You see, my father loved my mother so much that, in obedience to a
+feeling which he himself was unable to explain, he wished to be alone in
+his recollection of her. He wanted his memories to be hidden deep down
+in himself, so that nothing would remind him of her except his own will
+and his grief. He almost begged my pardon for it this morning, said
+that perhaps he had done me a wrong; and that is why he wants us to go
+together, Paul, on this first evening, and pray before the picture of my
+poor dead mother."
+
+"Let us go now, Élisabeth."
+
+Her hand trembled in her husband's hand as they climbed the stairs to
+the first floor. Lamps had been lighted all along the passage. They
+stopped in front of a tall, wide door surmounted with gilded carvings.
+
+"Unfasten the lock, Paul," said Élisabeth.
+
+Her voice shook as she spoke. She handed him the key. He removed the
+padlock and seized the door-handle. But Élisabeth suddenly gripped her
+husband's arm:
+
+"One moment, Paul, one moment! I feel so upset. This is the first time
+that I shall look on my mother's face . . . and you, my dearest, are
+beside me. . . . I feel as if I were becoming a little girl again."
+
+"Yes," he said, pressing her hand passionately, "a little girl and a
+grown woman in one."
+
+Comforted by the clasp of his hand, she released hers and whispered:
+
+"We will go in now, Paul darling."
+
+He opened the door and returned to the passage to take a lamp from a
+bracket on the wall and place it on the table. Meanwhile, Élisabeth had
+walked across the room and was standing in front of the picture. Her
+mother's face was in the shadow and she altered the position of the
+lamp so as to throw the full light upon it.
+
+"How beautiful she is, Paul!"
+
+He went up to the picture and raised his head. Élisabeth sank to her
+knees on the _prie-Dieu_. But presently, hearing Paul turn round, she
+looked up at him and was stupefied by what she saw. He was standing
+motionless, livid in the face, his eyes wide open, as though gazing at
+the most frightful vision.
+
+"Paul," she cried, "what's the matter?"
+
+He began to make for the door, stepping backwards, unable to take his
+eyes from the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville. He was staggering like a
+drunken man; and his arms beat the air around him.
+
+"That . . . that . . ." he stammered, hoarsely.
+
+"Paul," Élisabeth entreated, "what is it? What are you trying to say?"
+
+"That . . . that is the woman who killed my father!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CALL TO ARMS
+
+
+The hideous accusation was followed by an awful silence. Élisabeth was
+now standing in front of her husband, striving to understand his words,
+which had not yet acquired their real meaning for her, but which hurt
+her as though she had been stabbed to the heart.
+
+She moved towards him and, with her eyes in his, spoke in a voice so low
+that he could hardly hear:
+
+"You surely can't mean what you said, Paul? The thing is too monstrous!"
+
+He replied in the same tone:
+
+"Yes, it is a monstrous thing. I don't believe it myself yet. I refuse
+to believe it."
+
+"Then--it's a mistake, isn't it?--Confess it, you've made a mistake."
+
+She implored him with all the distress that filled her being, as though
+she were hoping to make him yield. He fixed his eyes again on the
+accursed portrait, over his wife's shoulder, and shivered from head to
+foot:
+
+"Oh, it is she!" he declared, clenching his fists. "It is she--I
+recognize her--it is the woman who killed my----"
+
+A shock of protest ran through her body; and, beating her breast, she
+cried:
+
+"My mother! My mother a murderess! My mother, whom my father used to
+worship and went on worshiping! My mother, who used to hold me on her
+knee and kiss me!--I have forgotten everything about her except that,
+her kisses and her caresses! And you tell me that she is a murderess!"
+
+"It is true."
+
+"Oh, Paul, you must not say anything so horrible! How can you be
+positive, such a long time after? You were only a child; and you saw so
+little of the woman . . . hardly a few minutes . . ."
+
+"I saw more of her than it seems humanly possible to see," exclaimed
+Paul, loudly. "From the moment of the murder her image never left my
+sight. I have tried to shake it off at times, as one tries to shake off
+a nightmare; but I could not. And the image is there, hanging on the
+wall. As sure as I live, it is there; I know it as I should know your
+image after twenty years. It is she . . . why, look, on her breast, that
+brooch set in a gold snake! . . . a cameo, as I told you, and the
+snake's eyes . . . two rubies! . . . and the black lace scarf around the
+shoulders! It's she, I tell you, it's the woman I saw!"
+
+A growing rage excited him to frenzy; and he shook his fist at the
+portrait of Hermine d'Andeville.
+
+"Hush!" cried Élisabeth, under the torment of his words. "Hold your
+tongue! I won't allow you to . . ."
+
+She tried to put her hand on his mouth to compel him to silence. But
+Paul made a movement of repulsion, as though he were shrinking from his
+wife's touch; and the movement was so abrupt and so instinctive that she
+fell to the ground sobbing while he, incensed, exasperated by his sorrow
+and hatred, impelled by a sort of terrified hallucination that drove him
+back to the door, shouted:
+
+"Look at her! Look at her wicked mouth, her pitiless eyes! She is
+thinking of the murder! . . . I see her, I see her! . . . She goes up to
+my father . . . she leads him away . . . she raises her arm . . . and
+she kills him! . . . Oh, the wretched, monstrous woman! . . ."
+
+He rushed from the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paul spent the night in the park, running like a madman wherever the
+dark paths led him, or flinging himself, when tired out, on the grass
+and weeping, weeping endlessly.
+
+Paul Delroze had known no suffering save from his memory of the murder,
+a chastened suffering which, nevertheless, at certain periods became
+acute until it smarted like a fresh wound. This time the pain was so
+great and so unexpected that, notwithstanding his usual self-mastery and
+his well-balanced mind, he utterly lost his head. His thoughts, his
+actions, his attitudes, the words which he yelled into the darkness
+were those of a man who has parted with his self-control.
+
+One thought and one alone kept returning to his seething brain, in which
+his ideas and impressions whirled like leaves in the wind; one terrible
+thought:
+
+"I know the woman who killed my father; and that woman's daughter is the
+woman whom I love."
+
+Did he still love her? No doubt, he was desperately mourning a happiness
+which he knew to be shattered; but did he still love Élisabeth? Could he
+love Hermine d'Andeville's daughter?
+
+When he went indoors at daybreak and passed Élisabeth's room, his heart
+beat no faster than before. His hatred of the murderess destroyed all
+else that might stir within him: love, affection, longing, or even the
+merest human pity.
+
+The torpor into which he sank for a few hours relaxed his nerves a
+little, but did not change his mental attitude. Perhaps, on the
+contrary, and without even thinking about it, he was still more
+unwilling than before to meet Élisabeth. And yet he wanted to know, to
+ascertain, to gather all the essential particulars and to make quite
+certain before taking the resolve that would decide the great tragedy of
+his life in one way or another.
+
+Above all, he must question Jérôme and his wife, whose evidence was of
+no small value, owing to the fact that they had known the Comtesse
+d'Andeville. Certain matters concerning the dates, for instance, might
+be cleared up forthwith.
+
+He found them in their lodge, both of them greatly excited, Jérôme with
+a newspaper in his hand and Rosalie making gestures of dismay.
+
+"It's settled, sir," cried Jérôme. "You can be sure of it: it's coming!"
+
+"What?" asked Paul.
+
+"Mobilization, sir, the call to arms. You'll see it does. I saw some
+gendarmes, friends of mine, and they told me. The posters are ready."
+
+Paul remarked, absent-mindedly:
+
+"The posters are always ready."
+
+"Yes, but they're going to stick them up at once, you'll see, sir. Just
+look at the paper. Those swine--you'll forgive me, sir, but it's the
+only word for them--those swine want war. Austria would be willing to
+negotiate, but in the meantime the others have been mobilizing for
+several days. Proof is, they won't let you cross into their country any
+more. And worse: yesterday they destroyed a French railway station, not
+far from here, and pulled up the rails. Read it for yourself, sir!"
+
+Paul skimmed through the stop-press telegrams, but, though he saw that
+they were serious, war seemed to him such an unlikely thing that he did
+not pay much attention to them.
+
+"It'll be settled all right," he said. "That's just their way of
+talking, with their hand on the sword-hilt; but I can't believe . . ."
+
+"You're wrong, sir," Rosalie muttered.
+
+He no longer listened, thinking only of the tragedy of his fate and
+casting about for the best means of obtaining the necessary replies from
+Jérôme. But he was not able to contain himself any longer and he
+broached the subject frankly:
+
+"I daresay you know, Jérôme, that madame and I have been to the Comtesse
+d'Andeville's room."
+
+The statement produced an extraordinary effect upon the keeper and his
+wife, as though it had been a sacrilege to enter that room so long kept
+locked, the mistress' room, as they called it among themselves.
+
+"You don't mean that, sir!" Rosalie blurted out.
+
+And Jérôme added:
+
+"No, of course not, for I sent the only key of the padlock, a safety-key
+it was, to Monsieur le Comte."
+
+"He gave it us yesterday morning," said Paul.
+
+And, without troubling further about their amazement, he proceeded
+straightaway to put his questions:
+
+"There is a portrait of the Comtesse d'Andeville between the two
+windows. When was it hung there?"
+
+Jérôme did not reply at once. He thought for a moment, looked at his
+wife, and then said:
+
+"Why, that's easily answered. It was when Monsieur le Comte sent all his
+furniture to the house . . . before they moved in."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+Paul's agony was unendurable during the three or four seconds before the
+reply.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+When the reply came at last it was decisive:
+
+"Well, it was in the spring of 1898."
+
+"Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight!"
+
+Paul repeated the words in a dull voice: 1898 was the year of his
+father's murder!
+
+Without stopping to reflect, with the coolness of an examining
+magistrate who does not swerve from the line which he has laid out, he
+asked:
+
+"So the Comte and Comtesse d'Andeville arrived . . ."
+
+"Monsieur le Comte and Madame le Comtesse arrived at the castle on the
+28th of August, 1898, and left for the south on the 24th of October."
+
+Paul now knew the truth, for his father was murdered on the 19th of
+September. And all the circumstances which depended on that truth, which
+explained it in its main details or which proceeded from it at once
+appeared to him. He remembered that his father was on friendly terms
+with the Comte d'Andeville. He said to himself that his father, in the
+course of his journey in Alsace, must have learnt that his friend
+d'Andeville was living in Lorraine and must have contemplated paying him
+a surprise visit. He reckoned up the distance between Ornequin and
+Strasburg, a distance which corresponded with the time spent in the
+train. And he asked:
+
+"How far is this from the frontier?"
+
+"Three miles and three-quarters, sir."
+
+"On the other side, at no great distance, there's a little German town,
+is there not?"
+
+"Yes, sir, Èbrecourt."
+
+"Is there a short-cut to the frontier?"
+
+"Yes, sir, for about half-way: a path at the other end of the park."
+
+"Through the woods?"
+
+"Through Monsieur le Comte's woods."
+
+"And in those woods . . ."
+
+To acquire total, absolute certainty, that certainty which comes not
+from an interpretation of the facts but from the facts themselves, which
+would stand out visible and palpable, all that he had to do was to put
+the last question: in those woods was not there a little chapel in the
+middle of a glade? Paul Delroze did not put the question. Perhaps he
+thought it too precise, perhaps he feared lest it should induce the
+gamekeeper to entertain thoughts and comparisons which the nature of the
+conversation was already sufficient to warrant. He merely asked:
+
+"Was the Comtesse d'Andeville away at all during the six weeks which she
+spent at Ornequin? For two or three days, I mean?"
+
+"No, sir, Madame le Comtesse never left the grounds."
+
+"She kept to the park?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Monsieur le Comte used to drive almost every afternoon to
+Corvigny or in the valley, but Madame la Comtesse never went beyond the
+park and the woods."
+
+Paul knew what he wanted to know. Not caring what Jérôme and his wife
+might think, he did not trouble to find an excuse for his strange series
+of apparently disconnected questions. He left the lodge and walked away.
+
+Eager though he was to complete his inquiry, he postponed the
+investigations which he intended to pursue outside the park. It was as
+though he dreaded to face the final proof, which had really become
+superfluous after those with which chance had supplied him. He therefore
+went back to the château and, at lunch-time, resolved to accept this
+inevitable meeting with Élisabeth. But his wife's maid came to him in
+the drawing-room and said that her mistress sent her excuses. Madame was
+not feeling very well and asked did monsieur mind if she took her lunch
+in her own room. He understood that she wished to leave him entirely
+free, refusing, on her side, to appeal to him on behalf of a mother whom
+she respected and, if necessary, submitting beforehand to whatever
+eventual decision her husband might make.
+
+Lunching by himself under the eyes of the butler and footman waiting at
+table, he felt in the utmost depths of his heart that his happiness was
+gone and that Élisabeth and he, thanks to circumstances for which
+neither of them was responsible, had on the very day of their marriage
+become enemies whom no power on earth could bring together. Certainly,
+he bore her no hatred and did not reproach her with her mother's crime;
+but unconsciously he was angry with her, as for a fault, inasmuch as
+she was her mother's daughter.
+
+For two hours after lunch he remained closeted with the portrait in the
+boudoir: a tragic interview which he wished to have with the murderess,
+so as to fill his eyes with her accursed image and give fresh strength
+to his memories. He examined every slightest detail. He studied the
+cameo, the swan with unfurled wings which it represented, the chasing of
+the gold snake that formed the setting, the position of the rubies and
+also the draping of the lace around the shoulders, not to speak of the
+shape of the mouth and the color of the hair and the outline of the
+face.
+
+It was undoubtedly the woman whom he had seen that September evening. A
+corner of the picture bore the painter's signature; and underneath, on
+the frame, was a scroll with the inscription:
+
+      Portrait of the Comtesse H.
+
+No doubt the portrait had been exhibited with that discreet reference to
+the Comtesse Hermine.
+
+"Now, then," said Paul. "A few minutes more, and the whole past will
+come to life again. I have found the criminal; I have now only to find
+the place of the crime. If the chapel is there, in the woods, the truth
+will be complete."
+
+He went for the truth resolutely. He feared it less now, because it
+could no longer escape his grasp. And yet how his heart beat, with
+great, painful throbs, and how he loathed the idea of taking the road
+leading to that other road along which his father had passed sixteen
+years before!
+
+A vague movement of Jérôme's hand had told him which way to go. He
+crossed the park in the direction of the frontier, bearing to his left
+and passing a lodge. At the entrance to the woods was a long avenue of
+fir-trees down which he went. Four hundred yards farther it branched
+into three narrow avenues. Two of these proved to end in impenetrable
+thickets. The third led to the top of a mound, from which he descended,
+still keeping to his left, by another avenue of fir-trees.
+
+In selecting this road, Paul realized that it was just this avenue of
+firs the appearance of which aroused in him, through some untold
+resemblance of shape and arrangement, memories clear enough to guide his
+steps. It ran straight ahead for some time and then took a sudden turn
+into a cluster of tall beeches whose leafy tops met overhead. Then the
+road sloped upwards; and, at the end of the dark tunnel through which he
+was walking, Paul perceived the glare of light that points to an open
+space.
+
+The anguish of it all made his knees give way beneath him; and he had to
+make an effort to proceed. Was it the glade in which his father had
+received his death-blow? The more that luminous space became revealed to
+his eyes, the more did he feel penetrated with a profound conviction. As
+in the room with the portrait, the past was recovering the very aspect
+of the truth in and before him.
+
+It was the same glade, surrounded by a ring of trees that presented the
+same picture and covered with a carpet of grass and moss which the same
+paths divided as of old. The same glimpse of sky was above him, outlined
+by the capricious masses of foliage. And there, on his left, guarded by
+two yew-trees which Paul recognized, was the chapel.
+
+The chapel! The little old massive chapel, whose lines had etched
+themselves like furrows into his brain! Trees grow, become taller, alter
+their form. The appearance of a glade is liable to change. Its paths
+will sometimes interlock in a different fashion. A man's memory can play
+him a trick. But a building of granite and cement is immutable. It takes
+centuries to give it the green-gray color that is the mark which time
+sets upon the stone; and this bloom of age never alters. The chapel that
+stood there, displaying a grimy-paned rose-window in its east front, was
+undoubtedly that from which the German Emperor had stepped, followed by
+the woman who, ten minutes later, committed the murder.
+
+Paul walked to the door. He wanted to revisit the place in which his
+father had spoken to him for the last time. It was a moment of tense
+emotion. The same little roof which had sheltered their bicycles
+projected at the back; and the door was the same, with its great rusty
+clamps and bars.
+
+He stood on the single step that led to it, raised the latch and pushed
+the door. But as he was about to enter, two men, hidden in the shadow on
+either side, sprang at him.
+
+One of them aimed a revolver full in his face. By some miracle, Paul
+noticed the gleaming barrel of the weapon just in time to stoop before
+the bullet could strike him. A second shot rang out, but he had hustled
+the man and now snatched the revolver from his hand, while his other
+aggressor threatened him with a dagger. He stepped backwards out of the
+chapel, with outstretched arm, and twice pulled the trigger. Each time
+there was a click but no shot. The mere fact, however, of his firing at
+the two scoundrels terrified them, and they turned tail and made off as
+fast as they could.
+
+Bewildered by the suddenness of the attack, Paul stood for a second
+irresolute. Then he fired at the fugitives again, but to no purpose. The
+revolver, which was obviously loaded in only two chambers, clicked but
+did not go off.
+
+He then started running after his assailants; and he remembered that
+long ago the Emperor and his companion, on leaving the chapel, had taken
+the same direction, which was evidently that of the frontier.
+
+Almost at the same moment the men, seeing themselves pursued, plunged
+into the wood and slipped in among the trees; but Paul, who was swifter
+of foot, rapidly gained ground on them, all the more so as he had gone
+round a hollow filled with bracken and brambles into which the others
+had ventured.
+
+Suddenly one of them gave a shrill whistle, probably a warning to some
+accomplice. Soon after they disappeared behind a line of extremely dense
+bushes. When he had passed through these, Paul saw at a distance of
+sixty yards before him a high wall which seemed to shut in the woods on
+every side. The men were half-way to it; and he perceived that they were
+making straight for a part of the wall containing a small door.
+
+Paul put on a spurt so as to reach the door before they had time to open
+it. The bare ground enabled him to increase his speed, whereas the men,
+who were obviously tired, had reduced theirs.
+
+"I've got them, the ruffians!" he murmured. "I shall at last know . . ."
+
+A second whistle sounded, followed by a guttural shout. He was now
+within twenty yards of them and could hear them speak.
+
+"I've got them, I've got them!" he repeated, with fierce delight.
+
+And he made up his mind to strike one of them in the face with the
+barrel of his revolver and to spring at the other's throat.
+
+But, before they even reached the wall, the door was pushed open from
+the outside and a third man appeared and let them through.
+
+Paul flung away the revolver; and his impetus was such and the effort
+which he made so great that he managed to seize the door and draw it to
+him.
+
+The door gave way. And what he then saw scared him to such a degree that
+he started backwards and did not even dream of defending himself against
+this fresh attack. The third man--Oh, hideous nightmare! Could it
+moreover be anything but a nightmare?--the third ruffian was raising a
+knife against him; and Paul knew his face . . . it was a face resembling
+the one which he had seen before, a man's face and not a woman's, but
+the same sort of face, undoubtedly the same sort: a face marked by
+fifteen additional years and by an even harder and more wicked
+expression, but the same sort of face, the same sort!
+
+And the man stabbed Paul, even as the woman of fifteen years ago, even
+as she who was since dead had stabbed Paul's father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paul Delroze staggered, but rather as the result of the nervous shock
+caused by the sudden appearance of this ghost of the past; for the blade
+of the dagger, striking the button on the shoulder-strap of his
+shooting-jacket, broke into splinters. Dazed and misty-eyed, he heard
+the sound of the door closing, the grating of the key in the lock and
+lastly the hum of a motor car starting on the other side of the wall.
+When Paul recovered from his torpor there was nothing left for him to
+do. The man and his two confederates were out of reach.
+
+Besides, for the moment he was utterly absorbed in the mystery of the
+likeness between the figure from the past and that which he had just
+seen. He could think of but one thing:
+
+"The Comtesse d'Andeville is dead; and here she is revived under the
+aspect of a man whose face is the very face which she would have to-day.
+Is it the face of some relation, of a brother of whom I never heard, a
+twin perhaps?"
+
+And he reflected:
+
+"After all, am I not mistaken? Am I not the victim of an hallucination,
+which would be only natural in the crisis through which I am passing?
+How do I know for certain that there is any connection between the
+present and the past? I must have a proof."
+
+The proof was ready to his hand; and it was so strong that Paul was not
+able to doubt for much longer. He caught sight of the remains of the
+dagger in the grass and picked up the handle. On it four letters were
+engraved as with a red-hot iron: an H, an E, an R and an M.
+
+H, E, R, M; the first four letters of Hermine! . . . At this moment,
+while he was staring at the letters which were to him so full of
+meaning, at this moment, a moment which Paul was never to forget, the
+bell of a church nearby began to ring in the most unusual manner: a
+regular, monotonous, uninterrupted ringing, which sounded at once brisk
+and unspeakably sinister.
+
+"The tocsin," he muttered to himself, without attaching the full sense
+to the word. And he added: "A fire somewhere, I expect."
+
+A few minutes later Paul had succeeded in climbing over the wall by
+means of the projecting branches of a tree. He found a further stretch
+of woods, crossed by a forest road. He followed the tracks of a motor
+car along this road and reached the frontier within an hour.
+
+A squad of German constabulary were sitting round the foot of the
+frontier post; and he saw a white road with Uhlans trotting along it. At
+the end of it was a cluster of red roofs and gardens. Was this the
+little town where his father and he had hired their bicycles that day,
+the little town of Èbrecourt?
+
+The melancholy bell never ceased. He noticed that the sound came from
+France; also that another bell was ringing somewhere, likewise in
+France, and a third from the direction of the Liseron; and all three on
+the same hurried note, as though sending forth a wild appeal around
+them.
+
+He repeated, anxiously:
+
+"The tocsin! . . . The alarm! . . . And it's being passed on from church
+to church. . . . Can it mean that . . ."
+
+But he drove away the terrifying thought. No, his ears were misleading
+him; or else it was the echo of a single bell thrown back in the hollow
+valleys and ringing over the plains.
+
+Meanwhile he was gazing at the white road which issued from the little
+German town, and he observed that a constant stream of horsemen was
+arriving there and spreading across-country. Also a detachment of French
+dragoons appeared on the ridge of a hill. The officer in command scanned
+the horizon through his field-glasses and then trotted off with his men.
+
+Thereupon, unable to go any farther, Paul walked back to the wall which
+he had climbed and found that the wall was prolonged around the whole of
+the estate, including the woods and the park. He learnt besides from an
+old peasant that it was built some twelve years ago, which explained why
+Paul had never found the chapel in the course of his explorations along
+the frontier. Once only, he now remembered, some one had told him of a
+chapel; but it was one situated inside a private estate; and his
+suspicions had not been aroused.
+
+While thus following the road that skirted the property, he came nearer
+to the village of Ornequin, whose church suddenly rose at the end of a
+clearing in the wood. The bell, which he had not heard for the last
+moment or two, now rang out again with great distinctness. It was the
+bell of Ornequin. It was frail, shrill, poignant as a lament and more
+solemn than a passing-bell, for all its hurry and lightness.
+
+Paul walked towards the sound. A charming village, all aflower with
+geraniums and Marguerites, stood gathered about its church. Silent
+groups were studying a white notice posted on the Mayor's office. Paul
+stepped forward and read the heading:
+
+      "Mobilization Order."
+
+At any other period of his life these words would have struck him with
+all their gloomy and terrific meaning. But the crisis through which he
+was passing was too powerful to allow room for any great emotion within
+him. He scarcely even contemplated the unavoidable consequences of the
+proclamation. Very well, the country was mobilizing: the mobilization
+would begin at midnight. . . . Very well, every one must go; he would
+go. . . . And this assumed in his mind the form of so imperative an act,
+the proportions of a duty which so completely exceeded every minor
+obligation and every petty individual need that he felt, on the
+contrary, a sort of relief at thus receiving from the outside the order
+that dictated his conduct. There was no hesitation possible. His duty
+lay before him: he must go.
+
+Go? In that case why not go at once? What was the use of returning to
+the house, seeing Élisabeth again, seeking a painful and futile
+explanation, granting or refusing a forgiveness which his wife did not
+ask of him, but which the daughter of Hermine d'Andeville did not
+deserve?
+
+In front of the principal inn a diligence stood waiting, marked,
+"Corvigny-Ornequin Railway Service." A few passengers were getting in.
+Without giving a further thought to a position which events were
+developing in their own way, he climbed into the diligence.
+
+At the Corvigny railway station he was told that his train would not
+leave for half an hour and that it was the last, as the evening train,
+which connected with the night express on the main line, was not
+running. Paul took his ticket and then asked his way to the jobmaster of
+the village. He found that the man owned two motor cars and arranged
+with him to have the larger of the two sent at once to the Château
+d'Ornequin and placed at Mme. Paul Delroze's disposal.
+
+And he wrote a short note to his wife:
+
+      "_Élisabeth:_
+
+      "Circumstances are so serious that I must ask you to
+      leave Ornequin. The trains have become very uncertain;
+      and I am sending you a motor car which will take you
+      to-night to your aunt at Chaumont. I suppose that the
+      servants will go with you and that, if there should be
+      war (which seems to me very unlikely, in spite of
+      everything), Jérôme and Rosalie will shut up the house
+      and go to Corvigny.
+
+      "As for me, I am joining my regiment. Whatever the
+      future may hold in store for us, Élisabeth, I shall
+      never forget the woman who was my bride and who bears
+      my name.
+
+      "PAUL DELROZE."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH
+
+
+It was nine o'clock; there was no holding the position; and the colonel
+was furious.
+
+He had brought his regiment in the middle of the night--it was in the
+first month of the war, on the 22nd of August, 1914--to the junction of
+those three roads one of which ran from Belgian Luxemburg. The Germans
+had taken possession of the lines of the frontier, seven or eight miles
+away, on the day before. The general commanding the division had
+expressly ordered that they were to hold the enemy in check until
+mid-day, that is to say, until the whole division was able to come up
+with them. The regiment was supported by a battery of seventy-fives.
+
+The colonel had drawn up his men in a dip in the ground. The battery was
+likewise hidden. And yet, at the first gleams of dawn, both regiment and
+battery were located by the enemy and lustily shelled.
+
+They moved a mile or more to the right. Five minutes later the shells
+fell and killed half a dozen men and two officers.
+
+A fresh move was effected, followed in ten minutes by a fresh attack.
+The colonel pursued his tactics. In an hour there were thirty men killed
+or wounded. One of the guns was destroyed. And it was only nine o'clock.
+
+"Damn it all!" cried the colonel. "How can they spot us like this?
+There's witchcraft in it."
+
+He was hiding, with his majors, the captain of artillery and a few
+dispatch-riders, behind a bank from above which the eye took in a rather
+large stretch of undulating upland. At no great distance, on the left,
+was an abandoned village, with some scattered farms in front of it, and
+there was not an enemy to be seen in all that deserted extent of
+country. There was nothing to show where the hail of shells was coming
+from. The seventy-fives had "searched" one or two points with no result.
+The firing continued.
+
+"Three more hours to hold out," growled the colonel. "We shall do it;
+but we shall lose a quarter of the regiment."
+
+At that moment a shell whistled between the officers and the
+dispatch-riders and plumped down into the ground. All sprang back,
+awaiting the explosion. But one man, a corporal, ran forward, lifted the
+shell and examined it.
+
+"You're mad, corporal!" roared the colonel. "Drop that shell and be
+quick about it."
+
+The corporal replaced the projectile quietly in the hole which it had
+made; and then without hurrying, went up to the colonel, brought his
+heels together and saluted:
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I wanted to see by the fuse how far off the enemy's
+guns are. It's two miles and fifty yards. That may be worth knowing."
+
+"By Jove! And suppose it had gone off?"
+
+"Ah, well, sir, nothing venture, nothing have!"
+
+"True, but, all the same, it was a bit thick! What's your name?"
+
+"Paul Delroze, sir, corporal in the third company."
+
+"Well, Corporal Delroze, I congratulate you on your pluck and I dare say
+you'll soon have your sergeant's stripes. Meanwhile, take my advice and
+don't do it again. . . ."
+
+He was interrupted by the sudden bursting of a shrapnel-shell. One of
+the dispatch-riders standing near him fell, hit in the chest, and an
+officer staggered under the weight of the earth that spattered against
+him.
+
+"Come," said the colonel, when things had restored themselves, "there's
+nothing to do but bow before the storm. Take the best shelter you can
+find; and let's wait."
+
+Paul Delroze stepped forward once more.
+
+"Forgive me, sir, for interfering in what's not my business; but we
+might, I think, avoid . . ."
+
+"Avoid the peppering? Of course, I have only to change our position
+again. But, as we should be located again at once. . . . There, my lad,
+go back to your place."
+
+Paul insisted:
+
+"It might be a question, sir, not of changing our position, but of
+changing the enemy's fire."
+
+"Really!" said the colonel, a little sarcastically, but nevertheless
+impressed by Paul's coolness. "And do you know a way of doing it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Give me twenty minutes, sir, and by that time the shells will be
+falling in another direction."
+
+The colonel could not help smiling:
+
+"Capital! You'll make them drop where you please, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"On that beet-field over there, fifteen hundred yards to the right?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The artillery-captain, who had been listening to the conversation, made
+a jest in his turn:
+
+"While you are about it, corporal, as you have already given me the
+distance and I know the direction more or less, couldn't you give it to
+me exactly, so that I may lay my guns right and smash the German
+batteries?"
+
+"That will be a longer job, sir, and much more difficult," said Paul.
+"Still, I'll try. If you don't mind examining the horizon, at eleven
+o'clock precisely, towards the frontier, I'll let off a signal."
+
+"What sort of signal?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. Three rockets, I expect."
+
+"But your signal will be no use unless you send it off immediately above
+the enemy's position."
+
+"Just so, sir."
+
+"And, to do that, you'll have to know it."
+
+"I shall, sir."
+
+"And to get there."
+
+"I shall get there, sir."
+
+Paul saluted, turned on his heel and, before the officers had time
+either to approve or to object, he slipped along the foot of the slope
+at a run, plunged on the left down a sort of hollow way, with bristling
+edges of brambles, and disappeared from sight.
+
+"That's a queer fellow," said the colonel. "I wonder what he really
+means to do."
+
+The young soldier's pluck and decision disposed the colonel in his
+favor; and, though he felt only a limited confidence in the result of
+the enterprise, he could not help looking at his watch, time after time,
+during the minutes which he spent with his officers, behind the feeble
+rampart of a hay-stack. They were terrible minutes, in which the
+commanding officer did not think for a moment of the danger that
+threatened himself, but only of the danger of the men in his charge,
+whom he looked upon as children.
+
+He saw them around him, lying at full length on the stubble, with their
+knapsacks over their heads, or snugly ensconced in the copses, or
+squatting in the hollows in the ground. The iron hurricane increased in
+violence. It came rushing down like a furious hail bent upon hastily
+completing its work of destruction. Men suddenly leapt to their feet,
+spun on their heels and fell motionless, amid the yells of the wounded,
+the shouts of the soldiers exchanging remarks and even jokes and, over
+everything, the incessant thunder of the bursting bomb-shells.
+
+And then, suddenly, silence! Total, definite silence, an infinite lull
+in the air and on the ground, giving a sort of ineffable relief!
+
+The colonel expressed his delight by bursting into a laugh:
+
+"By Jupiter, Corporal Delroze knows his way about! The crowning
+achievement would be for the beet-field to be shelled, as he promised."
+
+He had not finished speaking when a shell exploded fifteen hundred yards
+to the right, not in the beet-field, but a little in front of it. The
+second went too far. The third found the spot. And the bombardment began
+with a will.
+
+There was something about the performance of the task which the corporal
+had set himself that was at once so astounding and so mathematically
+accurate that the colonel and his officers had hardly a doubt that he
+would carry it out to the end and that, notwithstanding the
+insurmountable obstacles, he would succeed in giving the signal agreed
+upon.
+
+They never ceased sweeping the horizon with their field-glasses, while
+the enemy redoubled his efforts against the beet-field.
+
+At five minutes past eleven, a red rocket went up. It appeared a good
+deal farther to the right than they would have suspected. And it was
+followed by two others.
+
+Through his telescope the artillery-captain soon discovered a
+church-steeple that just showed above a valley which was itself
+invisible among the rise and fall of the plateau; and the spire of the
+steeple protruded so very little that it might well have been taken for
+a tree standing by itself. A rapid glance at the map showed that it was
+the village of Brumoy.
+
+Knowing, from the shell examined by the corporal, the exact distance of
+the German batteries, the captain telephoned his instructions to his
+lieutenant. Half an hour later the German batteries were silenced; and
+as a fourth rocket had gone up the seventy-fives continued to bombard
+the church as well as the village and its immediate neighborhood.
+
+At a little before twelve, the regiment was joined by a cyclists company
+riding ahead of the division. The order was given to advance at all
+costs.
+
+The regiment advanced, encountering no resistance, as it approached
+Brumoy, except a few rifle shots. The enemy's rearguard was falling
+back.
+
+The village was in ruins, with some of its houses still burning, and
+displayed a most incredible disorder of corpses, of wounded men, of dead
+horses, demolished guns and battered caissons and baggage-wagons. A
+whole brigade had been surprised at the moment, when, feeling certain
+that it had cleared the ground, it was about to march to the attack.
+
+But a shout came from the top of the church, the front and nave of which
+had fallen in and presented an appearance of indescribable chaos. Only
+the tower, perforated by gun-fire and blackened by the smoke from some
+burning joists, still remained standing, bearing by some miracle of
+equilibrium, the slender stone spire with which it was crowned. With his
+body leaning out of this spire was a peasant, waving his arms and
+shouting to attract attention.
+
+The officers recognized Paul Delroze.
+
+Picking their way through the rubbish, our men climbed the staircase
+that led to the platform of the tower. Here, heaped up against the
+little door admitting to the spire, were the bodies of eight Germans;
+and the door, which was demolished and had dropped crosswise, barred the
+entrance in such a way that it had to be chopped to pieces before Paul
+could be released.
+
+Toward the end of the afternoon, when it was manifest that the obstacles
+to the pursuit of the enemy were too serious to be overcome, the colonel
+embraced Corporal Delroze in front of the regiment mustered in the
+square.
+
+"Let's speak of your reward first," he said. "I shall recommend you for
+the military medal; and you will be sure to get it. And now, my lad,
+tell your story."
+
+And Paul stood answering questions in the middle of the circle formed
+around him by the officers and the non-commissioned officers of each
+company.
+
+"Why, it's very simple, sir," he said. "We were being spied upon."
+
+"Obviously; but who was the spy and where was he?"
+
+"I learnt that by accident. Beside the position which we occupied this
+morning, there was a village, was there not, with a church?"
+
+"Yes, but I had the village evacuated when I arrived; and there was no
+one in the church."
+
+"If there was no one in the church, sir, why did the weather-vane point
+the wind coming from the east, when it was blowing from the west? And
+why, when we changed our position, was the vane pointed in our
+direction?"
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And that was why, after obtaining your leave, I did not
+hesitate to slip into the church and to enter the steeple as stealthily
+as I could. I was not mistaken. There was a man there whom I managed to
+overmaster, not without difficulty."
+
+"The scoundrel! A Frenchman?"
+
+"No, sir, a German dressed up as a peasant."
+
+"He shall be shot."
+
+"No, sir, please. I promised him his life."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Well, you see, sir, I had to find out how he was keeping the enemy
+informed."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, it was simple enough! The church has a clock, facing the north, of
+which we could not see the dial, where we were. From the inside, our
+friend worked the hands so that the big hand, resting by turns on three
+or four figures, announced the exact distance at which we were from the
+church, in the direction pointed by the vane. This is what I next did
+myself; and the enemy at once, redirecting his fire by my indications,
+began conscientiously to shell the beet-field."
+
+"He did," said the colonel, laughing.
+
+"All that remained for me to do was to move on to the other
+observation-post, where the spy's messages were received. There I would
+learn the essential details which the spy himself did not know; I mean,
+where the enemy's batteries were hidden. I therefore ran to this place;
+and it was only on arriving here that I saw those batteries and a whole
+German brigade posted at the very foot of the church which did the duty
+of signaling-station."
+
+"But that was a mad piece of recklessness! Didn't they fire on you?"
+
+"I had put on the spy's clothes, sir, _their_ spy's. I can speak German,
+I knew the pass-word and only one of them knew the spy and that was the
+officer on observation-duty. Without the least suspicion, the general
+commanding the brigade sent me to him as soon as I told him that the
+French had discovered me and that I had managed to escape them."
+
+"And you had the cheek . . . ?"
+
+"I had to, sir; and besides I held all the trump cards. The officer
+suspected nothing; and, when I reached the platform from which he was
+sending his signals, I had no difficulty in attacking him and reducing
+him to silence. My business was done and I had only to give you the
+signals agreed upon."
+
+"Only that! In the midst of six or seven thousand men!"
+
+"I had promised you, sir, and it was eleven o'clock. The platform had on
+it all the apparatus required for sending day or night signals. Why
+shouldn't I use it? I lit a rocket, followed by a second and a third and
+then a fourth; and the battle commenced."
+
+"But those rockets were indications to draw our fire upon the very
+steeple where you were! It was you we were firing on!"
+
+"Oh, I assure you, sir, one doesn't think of those things at such
+moments! I welcomed the first shell that struck the church. And then the
+enemy left me hardly any time for reflection. Half-a-dozen fellows at
+once came climbing the tower. I accounted for some of them with my
+revolver; but a second assault came and, later on, still another. I had
+to take refuge behind the door that closes the spire. When they had
+broken it down, it served me as a barricade; and, as I had the arms and
+ammunition which I had taken from my first assailants and was
+inaccessible and very nearly invisible, I found it easy to sustain a
+regular siege."
+
+"While our seventy-fives were blazing away at you."
+
+"While our seventy-fives were releasing me, sir; for you can understand
+that, once the church was destroyed and the nave in flames, no one dared
+to venture up the tower. I had nothing to do, therefore, but wait
+patiently for your arrival."
+
+Paul Delroze had told his story in the simplest way and as though it
+concerned perfectly natural things. The colonel, after congratulating
+him again, confirmed his promotion to the rank of sergeant and said:
+
+"Have you nothing to ask me?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I should like to put a few more questions to the German spy
+whom I left behind me and, at the same time, to get back my uniform,
+which I hid."
+
+"Very well, you shall dine here and we'll give you a bicycle
+afterwards."
+
+Paul was back at the first church by seven o'clock in the evening. A
+great disappointment awaited him. The spy had broken his bonds and fled.
+
+All Paul's searching, in the church and village, was useless.
+Nevertheless, on one of the steps of the staircase, near the place where
+he had flung himself upon the spy, he picked up the dagger with which
+his adversary had tried to strike him. It was exactly similar to the
+dagger which he had picked up in the grass, three weeks before, outside
+the little gate in the Ornequin woods. It had the same three-cornered
+blade, the same brown horn handle and, on the handle, the same four
+letters: H, E, R, M.
+
+The spy and the woman who bore so strange a resemblance to Hermine
+d'Andeville, his father's murderess, both made use of an identical
+weapon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day, the division to which Paul's regiment belonged continued the
+offensive and entered Belgium after repulsing the enemy. But in the
+evening the general received orders to fall back.
+
+The retreat began. Painful as it was to one and all, it was doubly so
+perhaps to those of our troops which had been victorious at the start.
+Paul and his comrades in the third company could not contain themselves
+for rage and disappointment. During the half a day which they spent in
+Belgium, they saw the ruins of a little town that had been destroyed by
+the Germans, the bodies of eighty women who had been shot, old men hung
+up by their feet, stacks of murdered children. And they had to retire
+before those monsters!
+
+Some of the Belgian soldiers had attached themselves to the regiment;
+and, with faces that still bore traces of horror at the infernal visions
+which they had beheld, these men told of things beyond the conception of
+the most vivid imagination. And our fellows had to retire. They had to
+retire with hatred in their hearts and a mad desire for vengeance that
+made their hands close fiercely on their rifles.
+
+And why retire? It was not a question of being defeated, because they
+were falling back in good order, making sudden halts and delivering
+violent counter-attacks upon the disconcerted enemy. But his numbers
+overpowered all resistance. The wave of barbarians reformed itself. The
+place of each thousand dead was taken by two thousand of the living. And
+our men retired.
+
+One evening, Paul learnt one of the reasons for this retreat from a
+week-old newspaper; and he was painfully affected by the news. On the
+20th of August, Corvigny had been taken by assault, after some hours of
+bombardment effected under the most inexplicable conditions, whereas the
+stronghold was believed to be capable of holding out for at least some
+days, which would have strengthened our operations against the left
+flank of the Germans.
+
+So Corvigny had fallen; and the Château d'Ornequin, doubtless abandoned,
+as Paul himself hoped, by Jérôme and Rosalie, was now destroyed,
+pillaged and sacked with the methodical thoroughness which the Huns
+applied to their work of devastation. On this side, too, the furious
+horde were crowding precipitately.
+
+Those were sinister days, at the end of August, the most tragic days
+perhaps that France has ever passed through. Paris was threatened, a
+dozen departments were invaded. Death's icy breath hung over our gallant
+nation.
+
+It was on the morning of one of these days that Paul heard a cheerful
+voice calling to him from a group of young soldiers behind him:
+
+"Paul, Paul! I've got my way at last! Isn't it a stroke of luck?"
+
+Those young soldiers were lads who had enlisted voluntarily and been
+drafted into the regiment; and Paul at once recognized Élisabeth's
+brother, Bernard d'Andeville. He had no time to think of the attitude
+which he had best take up. His first impulse would have been to turn
+away; but Bernard had seized his two hands and was pressing them with an
+affectionate kindness which showed that the boy knew nothing as yet of
+the breach between Paul and his wife.
+
+"Yes, it's myself, old chap," he declared gaily. "I may call you old
+chap, mayn't I? It's myself and it takes your breath away, what? You're
+thinking of a providential meeting, the sort of coincidence one never
+sees: two brothers-in-law dropping into the same regiment. Well, it's
+not that: it happened at my express request. I said to the authorities,
+'I'm enlisting by way of a duty and pleasure combined,' or words to that
+effect. 'But, as a crack athlete and a prize-winner in every gymnastic
+and drill-club I ever joined, I want to be sent to the front straight
+away and into the same regiment as my brother-in-law, Corporal Paul
+Delroze.' And, as they couldn't do without my services, they packed me
+off here. . . . Well? You don't look particularly delighted . . . ?"
+
+Paul was hardly listening. He said to himself:
+
+"This is the son of Hermine d'Andeville. The boy who is now touching me
+is the son of the woman who killed . . ."
+
+But Bernard's face expressed such candor and such open-hearted pleasure
+at seeing him that he said:
+
+"Yes, I am. Only you're so young!"
+
+"I? I'm quite ancient. Seventeen the day I enlisted."
+
+"But what did your father say?"
+
+"Dad gave me leave. But for that, of course, I shouldn't have given him
+leave."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, he's enlisted, too."
+
+"At his age?"
+
+"Nonsense, he's quite juvenile. Fifty the day he enlisted! They found
+him a job as interpreter with the British staff. All the family under
+arms, you see. . . . Oh, I was forgetting, I've a letter for you from
+Élisabeth!"
+
+Paul started. He had deliberately refrained from asking after his wife.
+He now said, as he took the letter:
+
+"So she gave you this . . . ?"
+
+"No, she sent it to us from Ornequin."
+
+"From Ornequin? How can she have done that? Élisabeth left Ornequin on
+the day of mobilization, in the evening. She was going to Chaumont, to
+her aunt's."
+
+"Not at all. I went and said good-bye to our aunt: she hadn't heard from
+Élisabeth since the beginning of the war. Besides, look at the
+envelope: 'M. Paul Delroze, care of M. d'Andeville, Paris, etc.' And
+it's post-marked Ornequin and Corvigny."
+
+Paul looked and stammered:
+
+"Yes, you're right; and I can read the date on the post-mark: 18 August.
+The 18th of August . . . and Corvigny fell into the hands of the Germans
+two days later, on the 20th. So Élisabeth was still there."
+
+"No, no," cried Bernard, "Élisabeth isn't a child! You surely don't
+think she would have waited for the Huns, so close to the frontier! She
+would have left the château at the first sound of firing. And that's
+what she's telling you, I expect. Why don't you read her letter, Paul?"
+
+Paul, on his side, had no idea of what he was about to learn on reading
+the letter; and he opened the envelope with a shudder.
+
+What Élisabeth wrote was:
+
+      "_Paul_,
+
+      "I cannot make up my mind to leave Ornequin. A duty
+      keeps me here in which I shall not fail, the duty of
+      clearing my mother's memory. Do understand me, Paul.
+      My mother remains the purest of creatures in my eyes.
+      The woman who nursed me in her arms, for whom my
+      father retains all his love, must not be even
+      suspected. But you yourself accuse her; and it is
+      against you that I wish to defend her. To compel you
+      to believe me, I shall find the proofs that are not
+      necessary to convince me. And it seems to me that
+      those proofs can only be found here. So I shall stay.
+
+      "Jérôme and Rosalie are also staying on, though the
+      enemy is said to be approaching. They have brave
+      hearts, both of them, and you have nothing to fear, as
+      I shall not be alone.
+
+      ÉLISABETH DELROZE."
+
+Paul folded up the letter. He was very pale.
+
+Bernard asked:
+
+"She's gone, hasn't she?"
+
+"No, she's there."
+
+"But this is madness! What, with those beasts about! A lonely
+country-house! . . . But look here, Paul, she must surely know the
+terrible dangers that threaten her! . . . What can be keeping her there?
+Oh, it's too dreadful to think of. . . ."
+
+Paul stood silent, with a drawn face and clenched fists. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY
+
+
+Three weeks before, on hearing that war was declared, Paul had felt
+rising within him the immediate resolution to get killed at all costs.
+The tragedy of his life, the horror of his marriage with a woman whom he
+still loved in his heart, the certainty which he had acquired at the
+Château d'Ornequin: all this had affected him to such a degree that he
+came to look upon death as a boon. To him, war represented, from the
+first and without the least demur, death. However much he might admire
+the solemnly impressive and magnificently consoling events of those
+first few weeks--the perfect order of the mobilization, the enthusiasm
+of the soldiers, the wonderful unity that prevailed in France, the
+awakening of the souls of the nation--none of these great spectacles
+attracted his attention. Deep down within himself he had determined that
+he would perform acts of such kind that not even the most improbable
+hazard could succeed in saving him.
+
+Thus he thought that he had found the desired occasion on the first day.
+To overmaster the spy whose presence he suspected in the church steeple
+and then to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's lines, in order
+to signal the position, meant going to certain death. He went bravely.
+And, as he had a very clear sense of his mission, he fulfilled it with
+as much prudence as courage. He was ready to die, but to die after
+succeeding. And he found a strange unexpected joy in the act itself as
+well as in the success that attended it.
+
+The discovery of the dagger employed by the spy made a great impression
+on him. What connection did it establish between this man and the one
+who had tried to stab him? What was the connection between these two and
+the Comtesse d'Andeville, who had died sixteen years ago? And how, by
+what invisible links, were they all three related to that same work of
+treachery and spying of which Paul had surprised so many instances?
+
+But Élisabeth's letter, above all, came upon him as a very violent blow.
+She was over there, amidst the bullets and the shells, the hot fighting
+around the château, the madness and the fury of the victors, the
+burning, the shooting, the torturing and atrocities! She was there, she
+so young and beautiful, almost alone, with no one to defend her! And she
+was there because he, Paul, had not had the grit to go back to her and
+see her once more and take her away with him!
+
+These thoughts produced in Paul fits of depression from which he would
+suddenly awaken to thrust himself in the path of some danger, pursuing
+his mad enterprises to the end, come what might, with a quiet courage
+and a fierce obstinacy that filled his comrades with both surprise and
+admiration. And from that time onward he seemed to be seeking not so
+much death as the unspeakable ecstasy which a man feels in defying it.
+
+Then came the 6th of September, the day of the unheard-of miracle when
+our great general-in-chief, addressing his armies in words that will
+never perish, at last ordered them to fling themselves upon the enemy.
+The gallantly-borne but cruel retreat came to an end. Exhausted,
+breathless, fighting against odds for days, with no time for sleep, with
+no time to eat, marching only by force of prodigious efforts of which
+they were not even conscious, unable to say why they did not lie down in
+the road-side ditches to await death, such were the men who received the
+word of command:
+
+"Halt! About face! And now have at the enemy!"
+
+And they faced about. Those dying men recovered their strength. From the
+humblest to the most illustrious, each summoned up his will and fought
+as though the safety of France depended upon him alone. There were as
+many glorious heroes as there were soldiers. They were asked to conquer
+or die. They conquered.
+
+Paul shone in the front rank of the fearless. He himself knew that what
+he did and what he endured, what he tried to do and what he succeeded in
+doing surpassed the limits of reality. On the 6th and the 7th and the
+8th and again from the 11th to the 13th, despite his excessive fatigue,
+despite the deprivations of sleep and food which it seemed impossible
+for the human frame to resist, he had no other sensation than that of
+advancing and again advancing--and always advancing. Whether in sunshine
+or in shade, whether on the banks of the Marne or on the woody slopes of
+the Argonne, whether north or east, when his division was sent to
+reinforce the troops on the frontier, whether lying flat and creeping
+along in the plowed fields or on his feet and charging with the bayonet,
+he was always going forward and each step was a delivery and each step
+was a conquest.
+
+Each step also increased the hatred in his heart. Oh, how right his
+father had been to loathe those people! Paul now saw them at work. On
+every side were stupid devastation and unreasoning destruction, on every
+side arson, pillage and death, hostages shot, women murdered, bestially,
+for the love of the thing. Churches, country-houses, mansions of the
+rich and cabins of the poor: nothing remained. The very ruins had been
+razed to the ground, the very corpses tortured.
+
+O the delight of defeating such an enemy! Though reduced to half its
+full strength, Paul's regiment, released like a pack of hounds, never
+ceased biting at the wild beast which it was hunting. The quarry seemed
+more vicious and formidable the nearer it approached to the frontier;
+and our men kept rushing at it in the mad hope of giving it the
+death-stroke.
+
+One day Paul read on a sign-post at a cross-roads:
+
+      Corvigny, 14 Kil.
+      Ornequin, 31 Kil. 400.
+      The Frontier, 33 Kil. 200.
+
+Corvigny! Ornequin! A thrill passed through his frame when he saw those
+unexpected words. As a rule, absorbed as he was by the heat of the
+conflict and by his private cares, he paid little attention to the names
+of the places which he passed; and he learnt them only by chance. And
+now suddenly he was within so short a distance of the Château
+d'Ornequin! "Corvigny, 14 kilometers:" less than nine miles! . . . Were
+the French troops making for Corvigny, for the little fortified place
+which the Germans had taken by assault and taken under such strange
+conditions?
+
+That day, they had been fighting since daylight against an enemy whose
+resistance seemed to grow slacker and slacker. Paul, at the head of a
+squad of men, was sent to the village of Bléville with orders to enter
+it if the enemy had retired, but go no farther. And it was just beyond
+the last houses of the village that he saw the sign-post.
+
+At the time, he was not quite easy in his mind. A Taube had flown over
+the country a few minutes before. There was the possibility of an
+ambush.
+
+"Let's go back to the village," he said. "We'll barricade ourselves
+while we wait."
+
+But there was a sudden noise behind a wooded hill that interrupted the
+road in the Corvigny direction, a noise that became more and more
+definite, until Paul recognized the powerful throb of a motor, doubtless
+a motor carrying a quick-firing gun.
+
+"Crouch down in the ditch," he cried to his men. "Hide yourselves in the
+haystacks. Fix bayonets. And don't move any of you!"
+
+He had realized the danger of that motor's passing through the village,
+plunging in the midst of his company, scattering panic and then making
+off by some other way.
+
+He quickly climbed the split trunk of an old oak and took up his
+position in the branches a few feet above the road.
+
+The motor soon came in sight. It was, as he expected, an armored car,
+but one of the old pattern, which allowed the helmets and heads of the
+men to show above the steel plating.
+
+It came along at a smart pace, ready to dart forward in case of alarm.
+The men were stooping with bent backs. Paul counted half-a-dozen of
+them. The barrels of two Maxim guns projected beyond the car.
+
+He put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the driver, a fat
+Teuton with a scarlet face that seemed dyed with blood. Then, when the
+moment came, he calmly fired.
+
+"Charge, lads!" he cried, as he scrambled down from his tree.
+
+But it was not even necessary to take the car by storm. The driver,
+struck in the chest, had had the presence of mind to apply the brakes
+and pull up. Seeing themselves surrounded, the Germans threw up their
+hands:
+
+"_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"
+
+And one of them, flinging down his arms, leapt from the motor and came
+running up to Paul:
+
+"An Alsatian, sergeant, an Alsatian from Strasburg! Ah, sergeant, many's
+the day that I've been waiting for this moment!"
+
+While his men were taking the prisoners to the village, Paul hurriedly
+questioned the Alsatian:
+
+"Where has the car come from?"
+
+"Corvigny."
+
+"Any of your people there?"
+
+"Very few. A rearguard of two hundred and fifty Badeners at the most."
+
+"And in the forts?"
+
+"About the same number. They didn't think it necessary to mend the
+turrets and now they've been taken unprepared. They're hesitating
+whether to try and make a stand or to fall back on the frontier; and
+that's why we were sent to reconnoiter."
+
+"So we can go ahead?"
+
+"Yes, but at once, else they will receive powerful reinforcements, two
+divisions."
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-morrow. They're to cross the frontier, to-morrow, about the middle
+of the day."
+
+"By Jove! There's no time to be lost!" said Paul.
+
+While examining the guns and having the prisoners disarmed and searched,
+Paul was considering the best measures to take, when one of his men, who
+had stayed behind in the village, came and told him of the arrival of a
+French detachment, with a lieutenant in command.
+
+Paul hastened to tell the officer what had happened. Events called for
+immediate action. He offered to go on a scouting expedition in the
+captured motor.
+
+"Very well," said the officer. "I'll occupy the village and arrange to
+have the division informed as soon as possible."
+
+The car made off in the direction of Corvigny, with eight men packed
+inside. Two of them, placed in charge of the quick-firing guns, studied
+the mechanism. The Alsatian stood up, so as to show his helmet and
+uniform clearly, and scanned the horizon on every side.
+
+All this was decided upon and done in the space of a few minutes,
+without discussion and without delaying over the details of the
+undertaking.
+
+"We must trust to luck," said Paul, taking his seat at the wheel. "Are
+you ready to see the job through, boys?"
+
+"Yes; and further," said a voice which he recognized, just behind him.
+
+It was Bernard d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother. Bernard belonged to the
+9th company; and Paul had succeeded in avoiding him, since their first
+meeting, or at least in not speaking to him. But he knew that the
+youngster was fighting well.
+
+"Ah, so you're there?" he said.
+
+"In the flesh," said Bernard. "I came along with my lieutenant; and,
+when I saw you getting into the motor and taking any one who turned up,
+you can imagine how I jumped at the chance!" And he added, in a more
+embarrassed tone, "The chance of doing a good stroke of work, under your
+orders, and the chance of talking to you, Paul . . . for I've been
+unlucky so far. . . . I even thought that . . . that you were not as
+well-disposed to me as I hoped. . . ."
+
+"Nonsense," said Paul. "Only I was bothered. . . ."
+
+"You mean, about Élisabeth?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I see. All the same, that doesn't explain why there was something
+between us, a sort of constraint . . ."
+
+At that moment, the Alsatian exclaimed:
+
+"Lie low there! . . . Uhlans ahead! . . ."
+
+A patrol came trotting down a cross-road, turning the corner of a wood.
+He shouted to them, as the car passed:
+
+"Clear out, Kameraden! Fast as you can! The French are coming!"
+
+Paul took advantage of the incident not to answer his brother-in-law. He
+had forced the pace; and the motor was now thundering along, scaling
+the hills and shooting down them like a meteor.
+
+The enemy detachments became more numerous. The Alsatian called out to
+them or else by means of signs incited them to beat an immediate
+retreat.
+
+"It's the funniest thing to see," he said, laughing. "They're all
+galloping behind us like mad." And he added, "I warn you, sergeant, that
+at this rate we shall dash right into Corvigny. Is that what you want to
+do?"
+
+"No," replied Paul, "we'll stop when the town's in sight."
+
+"And, if we're surrounded?"
+
+"By whom? In any case, these bands of fugitives won't be able to oppose
+our return."
+
+Bernard d'Andeville spoke:
+
+"Paul," he said, "I don't believe you're thinking of returning."
+
+"You're quite right. Are you afraid?"
+
+"Oh, what an ugly word!"
+
+But presently Paul went on, in a gentler voice:
+
+"I'm sorry you came, Bernard."
+
+"Is the danger greater for me than for you and the others?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then do me the honor not to be sorry."
+
+Still standing up and leaning over the sergeant, the Alsatian pointed
+with his hand:
+
+"That spire straight ahead, behind the trees, is Corvigny. I calculate
+that, by slanting up the hills on the left, we ought to be able to see
+what's happening in the town."
+
+"We shall see much better by going inside," Paul remarked. "Only it's a
+big risk . . . especially for you, Alsatian. If they take you prisoner,
+they'll shoot you. Shall I put you down this side of Corvigny?"
+
+"You haven't studied my face, sergeant."
+
+The road was now running parallel with the railway. Soon, the first
+houses of the outskirts came in sight. A few soldiers appeared.
+
+"Not a word to these," Paul ordered. "It won't do to startle them . . .
+or they'll take us from behind at the critical moment."
+
+He recognized the station and saw that it was strongly held. Spiked
+helmets were coming and going along the avenues that led to the town.
+
+"Forward!" cried Paul. "If there's any large body of troops, it can only
+be in the square. Are the guns ready? And the rifles? See to mine for
+me, Bernard. And, at the first signal, independent fire!"
+
+The motor rushed at full speed into the square. As he expected, there
+were about a hundred men there, all massed in front of the church-steps,
+near their stacked rifles. The church was a mere heap of ruins; and
+almost all the houses in the square had been leveled to the ground by
+the bombardment.
+
+The officers, standing on one side, cheered and waved their hands on
+seeing the motor which they had sent out to reconnoiter and whose return
+they seemed to be expecting before making their decision about the
+defense of the town. There were a good many of them, their number no
+doubt including some communication officers. A general stood a head and
+shoulders above the rest. A number of cars were waiting some little
+distance away.
+
+The street was paved with cobble-stones and there was no raised pavement
+between it and the square. Paul followed it; but, when he was within
+twenty yards of the officers, he gave a violent turn of the wheel and
+the terrible machine made straight for the group, knocking them down and
+running over them, slanted off slightly, so as to take the stacks of
+rifles, and then plunged like an irresistible mass right into the middle
+of the detachment, spreading death as it went, amid a mad, hustling
+flight and yells of pain and terror.
+
+"Independent fire!" cried Paul, stopping the car.
+
+And the firing began from this impregnable blockhouse, which had
+suddenly sprung up in the center of the square, accompanied by the
+sinister crackle of the two Maxim guns.
+
+In five minutes, the square was strewn with killed and wounded men. The
+general and several officers lay dead. The survivors took to their
+heels.
+
+Paul gave the order to cease fire and took the car to the top of the
+avenue that led to the station. The troops from the station were
+hastening up, attracted by the shooting. A few volleys from the guns
+dispersed them.
+
+Paul drove three times quickly round the square, to examine the
+approaches. On every side the enemy was fleeing along the roads and
+paths to the frontier. And on every hand the inhabitants of Corvigny
+came out of their houses and gave vent to their delight.
+
+"Pick up and see to the wounded," Paul ordered. "And send for the
+bell-ringer, or some one who understands about the bells. It's urgent!"
+
+An aged sacristan appeared.
+
+"The tocsin, old man, the tocsin for all you're worth! And, when you're
+tired, have some one to take your place! The tocsin, without stopping
+for a second!"
+
+This was the signal which Paul had agreed upon with the French
+lieutenant, to announce to the division that the enterprise had
+succeeded and that the troops were to advance.
+
+It was two o'clock. At five, the staff and a brigade had taken
+possession of Corvigny and our seventy-fives were firing a few shells.
+By ten o'clock in the evening, the rest of the division having come up
+meantime, the Germans had been driven out of the Grand Jonas and the
+Petit Jonas and were concentrating before the frontier. It was decided
+to dislodge them at daybreak.
+
+"Paul," said Bernard to his brother-in-law, at the evening roll-call, "I
+have something to tell you, something that puzzles me, a very queer
+thing: you'll judge for yourself. Just now, I was walking down one of
+the streets near the church when a woman spoke to me. I couldn't make
+out her face or her dress at first, because it was almost dark, but she
+seemed to be a peasant-woman from the sound of her wooden shoes on the
+cobbles. 'Young man,' she said--and her way of expressing herself
+surprised me a little in a peasant-woman--'Young man, you may be able to
+tell me something I want to know.' I said I was at her service and she
+began, 'It's like this: I live in a little village close by. I heard
+just now that your army corps was here. So I came, because I wanted to
+see a soldier who belonged to it, only I don't know the number of his
+regiment. I believe he has been transferred, because I never get a
+letter from him; and I dare say he has not had mine. Oh, if you only
+happened to know him! He's such a good lad, such a gallant fellow.' I
+asked her to tell me his name; and she answered, 'Delroze, Corporal Paul
+Delroze.'"
+
+"What!" cried Paul. "Did she want me?"
+
+"Yes, Paul, and the coincidence struck me as so curious that I just gave
+her the number of your regiment and your company, without telling her
+that we were related. 'Good,' she said. 'And is the regiment at
+Corvigny?' I said it had just arrived. 'And do you know Paul Delroze?'
+'Only by name,' I answered. I can't tell you why I answered like that,
+or why I continued the conversation so as not to let her guess my
+surprise: 'He has been promoted to sergeant,' I said, 'and mentioned in
+dispatches. That's how I come to have heard his name. Shall I find out
+where he is and take you to him?' 'Not yet,' she said, 'not yet. I
+should be too much upset.'"
+
+"What on earth did she mean?"
+
+"I can't imagine. It struck me as more and more suspicious. Here was a
+woman looking for you eagerly and yet putting off the chance of seeing
+you. I asked her if she was very much interested in you and she said
+yes, that you were her son."
+
+"Her son!"
+
+"Up to then I am certain that she did not suspect for a second that I
+was cross-examining her. But my astonishment was so great that she drew
+back into the shadow, as though to put herself on the defensive. I
+slipped my hand into my pocket, pulled out my little electric lamp, went
+up to her, pressed the spring and flung the light full in her face. She
+seemed disconcerted and stood for a moment without moving. Then she
+quickly lowered a scarf which she wore over her head and, with a
+strength which I should never have believed, struck me on the arm and
+made me drop my lamp. Then came a second of absolute silence. I couldn't
+make out where she was: whether in front of me, or on the right or the
+left. There was no sound to tell me if she was there still or not. But I
+understood presently, when, after picking up my lamp and switching on
+the light again, I saw her two wooden shoes on the ground. She had
+stepped out of them and run away on her stocking-feet. I hunted for her,
+but couldn't find her. She had disappeared."
+
+Paul had listened to his brother-in-law's story with increasing
+attention.
+
+"Then you saw her face?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, quite distinctly! A strong face, with black hair and eyebrows and a
+look of great wickedness. . . . Her clothes were those of a
+peasant-woman, but too clean and too carefully put on: I felt somehow
+that they were a disguise."
+
+"About what age was she?"
+
+"Forty."
+
+"Would you know her again?"
+
+"Without a moment's hesitation."
+
+"What was the color of the scarf you mentioned?"
+
+"Black."
+
+"How was it fastened? In a knot?"
+
+"No, with a brooch."
+
+"A cameo?"
+
+"Yes, a large cameo set in gold. How did you know that?"
+
+Paul was silent for some time and then said:
+
+"I will show you to-morrow, in one of the rooms at Ornequin, a portrait
+which should bear a striking resemblance to the woman who spoke to you,
+the sort of resemblance that exists between two sisters perhaps . . . or
+. . . or . . ." He took his brother-in-law by the arm and, leading him
+along, continued, "Listen to me, Bernard. There are terrible things
+around us, in the present and the past, things that affect my life and
+Élisabeth's . . . and yours as well. Therefore, I am struggling in the
+midst of a hideous obscurity in which enemies whom I do not know have
+for twenty years been pursuing a scheme which I am quite unable to
+understand. In the beginning of the struggle, my father died, the victim
+of a murder. To-day it is I that am being threatened. My marriage with
+your sister is shattered and nothing can bring us together again, just
+as nothing will ever again allow you and me to be on those terms of
+friendship and confidence which we had the right to hope for. Don't ask
+me any questions, Bernard, and don't try to find out any more. One day,
+perhaps--and I do not wish that day ever to arrive--you will know why I
+begged for your silence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN
+
+
+Paul Delroze was awakened at dawn by the bugle-call. And, in the
+artillery duel that now began, he at once recognized the sharp, dry
+voice of the seventy-fives and the hoarse bark of the German
+seventy-sevens.
+
+"Are you coming, Paul?" Bernard called from his room. "Coffee is served
+downstairs."
+
+The brothers-in-law had found two little bedrooms over a publican's
+shop. While they both did credit to a substantial breakfast, Paul told
+Bernard the particulars of the occupation of Corvigny and Ornequin which
+he had gathered on the evening before:
+
+"On Wednesday, the nineteenth of August, Corvigny, to the great
+satisfaction of the inhabitants, still thought that it would be spared
+the horrors of war. There was fighting in Alsace and outside Nancy,
+there was fighting in Belgium; but it looked as if the German thrust
+were neglecting the route of invasion offered by the valley of the
+Liseron. The fact is that this road is a narrow one and apparently of
+secondary importance. At Corvigny, a French brigade was busily pushing
+forward the defense-works. The Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas were
+ready under their concrete cupolas. Our fellows were waiting."
+
+"And at Ornequin?" asked Bernard.
+
+"At Ornequin, we had a company of light infantry. The officers put up at
+the house. This company, supported by a detachment of dragoons,
+patrolled the frontier day and night. In case of alarm, the orders were
+to inform the forts at once and to retreat fighting. The evening of
+Wednesday was absolutely quiet. A dozen dragoons had galloped over the
+frontier till they were in sight of the little German town of Èbrecourt.
+There was not a movement of troops to be seen on that side, nor on the
+railway-line that ends at Èbrecourt. The night also was peaceful. Not a
+shot was fired. It is fully proved that at two o'clock in the morning
+not a single German soldier had crossed the frontier. Well, at two
+o'clock exactly, a violent explosion was heard, followed by four others
+at close intervals. These explosions were due to the bursting of five
+four-twenty shells which demolished straightway the three cupolas of the
+Grand Jonas and the two cupolas of the Petit Jonas."
+
+"What do you mean? Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier; and the
+four-twenties don't carry as far as that!"
+
+"That didn't prevent six more shells falling at Corvigny, all on the
+church or in the square. And these six shells fell twenty minutes later,
+that is to say, at the time when it was to be presumed that the alarm
+would have been given and that the Corvigny garrison would have
+assembled in the square. This was just what had happened; and you can
+imagine the carnage that resulted."
+
+"I agree; but, once more, the frontier was fifteen miles away. That
+distance must have given our troops time to form up again and to prepare
+for the attacks foretold by the bombardment. They had at least three or
+four hours before them."
+
+"They hadn't fifteen minutes. The bombardment was not over before the
+assault began. Assault isn't the word: our troops, those at Corvigny as
+well as those which hastened up from the two forts, were decimated and
+routed, surrounded by the enemy, shot down or obliged to surrender,
+before it was possible to organize any sort of resistance. It all
+happened suddenly under the blinding glare of flash-lights erected no
+one knew where or how. And the catastrophe was immediate. You may take
+it that Corvigny was invested, attacked, captured and occupied by the
+enemy, all in ten minutes."
+
+"But where did he come from? Where did he spring from?"
+
+"Nobody knows."
+
+"But the night-patrols on the frontier? The sentries? The company on
+duty at Ornequin?"
+
+"Never heard of again. No one knows anything, not a word, not a rumor,
+about those three hundred men whose business it was to keep watch and to
+warn the others. You can reckon up the Corvigny garrison, with the
+soldiers who escaped and the dead whom the inhabitants identified and
+buried. But the three hundred light infantry of Ornequin disappeared
+without leaving the shadow of a trace behind them, not a fugitive, not a
+wounded man, not a corpse, nothing at all."
+
+"It seems incredible. Whom did you talk to?"
+
+"I saw ten people last night who, for a month, with no one to interfere
+with them except a few soldiers of the Landsturm placed in charge of
+Corvigny, have pursued a minute inquiry into all these problems, without
+establishing so much as a plausible theory. One thing alone is certain:
+the business was prepared long ago, down to the slightest detail. The
+exact range had been taken of the forts, the cupolas, the church and the
+square; and the siege-gun had been placed in position before and
+accurately laid so that the eleven shells should strike the eleven
+objects aimed at. That's all. The rest is mystery."
+
+"And what about the château? And Élisabeth?"
+
+Paul had risen from his seat. The bugles were sounding the morning
+roll-call. The gun-fire was twice as intense as before. They both
+started for the square; and Paul continued:
+
+"Here, too, the mystery is bewildering and perhaps worse. One of the
+cross-roads that run through the fields between Corvigny and Ornequin
+has been made a boundary by the enemy which no one here had the right to
+overstep under pain of death."
+
+"Then Élisabeth . . . ?"
+
+"I don't know, I know nothing more. And it's terrible, this shadow of
+death lying over everything, over every incident. It appears--I have not
+been able to find out where the rumor originated--that the village of
+Ornequin, near the château, no longer exists. It has been entirely
+destroyed, more than that, annihilated; and its four hundred inhabitants
+have been sent away into captivity. And then . . ." Paul shuddered and,
+lowering his voice, went on, "And then . . . what did they do at the
+château? You can see the house, you can still see it at a distance, with
+its walls and turrets standing. But what happened behind those walls?
+What has become of Élisabeth? For nearly four weeks she has been living
+in the midst of those brutes, poor thing, exposed to every outrage!
+. . ."
+
+The sun had hardly risen when they reached the square. Paul was sent for
+by his colonel, who gave him the heartiest congratulations of the
+general commanding the division and told him that his name had been
+submitted for the military cross and for a commission as second
+lieutenant and that he was to take command of his section from now.
+
+"That's all," said the colonel, laughing. "Unless you have any further
+request to make."
+
+"I have two, sir."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"First, that my brother-in-law here, Bernard d'Andeville, may be at once
+transferred to my section as corporal. He's deserved it."
+
+"Very well. And next?"
+
+"My second request is that presently, when we move towards the frontier,
+my section may be sent to the Château d'Ornequin, which is on the direct
+route."
+
+"You mean that it is to take part in the attack on the château?"
+
+"The attack?" echoed Paul, in alarm. "Why, the enemy is concentrated
+along the frontier, four miles from the château!"
+
+"So it was believed, yesterday. In reality, the concentration took place
+at the Château d'Ornequin, an excellent defensive position where the
+enemy is hanging desperately while waiting for his reinforcements to
+come up. The best proof is that he's answering our fire. Look at that
+shell bursting over there . . . and, farther off, that shrapnel . . .
+two . . . three of them. Those are the guns which located the batteries
+which we have set up on the surrounding hills and which are now
+peppering them like mad. They must have twenty guns there."
+
+"Then, in that case," stammered Paul, tortured by a horrible thought,
+"in that case, that fire of our batteries is directed at . . ."
+
+"At them, of course. Our seventy-fives have been bombarding the Château
+d'Ornequin for the last hour."
+
+Paul uttered an exclamation of horror:
+
+"Do you mean to say, sir, that we're bombarding Ornequin? . . ."
+
+And Bernard d'Andeville, standing beside him, repeated, in an
+anguish-stricken voice:
+
+"Bombarding Ornequin? Oh, how awful!"
+
+The colonel asked, in surprise:
+
+"Do you know the place? Perhaps it belongs to you? Is that so? And are
+any of your people there?"
+
+"Yes, sir, my wife."
+
+Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in
+order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin
+quivered.
+
+On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering,
+three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted into position by traction
+engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives,
+assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel
+and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one
+of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic
+horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them,
+blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of
+those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to
+slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely
+said:
+
+"It looks as if the enemy's fire was slowing down. Perhaps they are
+retreating. . . ."
+
+Three shells bursting at the far end of the town, behind the church,
+belied this hope. The colonel shook his head:
+
+"Retreating? Not yet. The place is too important to them; they are
+waiting for reinforcements and they won't give way until our regiments
+take part in the game . . . which won't be long now."
+
+In fact, the order to advance was brought to the colonel a few moments
+later. The regiment was to follow the road and deploy in the meadows on
+the right.
+
+"Come along, gentlemen," he said to his officers. "Sergeant Delroze's
+section will march in front. His objective will be the Château
+d'Ornequin. There are two little short cuts. Take both of them."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+All Paul's sorrow and rage were intensified in a boundless need for
+action; when he marched off with his men, he felt an inexhaustible
+strength, felt capable of conquering the enemy's position all by
+himself. He moved from one to the other with the untiring hurry of a
+sheep-dog hustling his flock. He never ceased advising and encouraging
+his men:
+
+"You're one of the plucky ones, old chap, I know, you're no shirker.
+. . . Nor you either . . . Only you think too much about your skin, you
+keep grumbling, when you ought to be cheerful. . . . Who's downhearted,
+eh? There's a bit more collar-work to do and we're going to do it
+without looking behind us, what?"
+
+Overhead, the shells followed their march in the air, whistling and
+moaning and exploding till they formed a sort of canopy of steel and
+grape-shot.
+
+"Duck your heads! Lie down flat!" cried Paul.
+
+He himself remained standing, indifferent to the flight of the enemy's
+shells. But with what terror he listened to our own, those coming from
+behind, from all the hills hard by, whizzing ahead of them to carry
+destruction and death. Where would this one fall? And that one, where
+would its murderous rain of bullets and splinters descend?
+
+He was obsessed with the vision of his wife, wounded, dying, and kept on
+murmuring her name. For many days now, ever since the day when he learnt
+that Élisabeth had refused to leave the Château d'Ornequin, he could not
+think of her without a loving emotion that was never spoilt by any
+impulse of revolt, any movement of anger. He no longer mingled the
+detestable memories of the past with the charming reality of his love.
+When he thought of the hated mother, the image of the daughter no longer
+appeared before his mind. They were two creatures of a different race,
+having no connection one with the other. Élisabeth, full of courage,
+risking her life to obey a duty to which she attached a value greater
+than her life, acquired in Paul's eyes a singular dignity. She was
+indeed the woman whom he had loved and cherished, the woman whom he
+loved still.
+
+Paul stopped. He had ventured with his men into an open piece of ground,
+probably marked down in advance, which the enemy was now peppering with
+shrapnel. A number of men were hit.
+
+"Halt!" he cried. "Flat on your stomachs, all of you!"
+
+He caught hold of Bernard:
+
+"Lie down, kid, can't you? Why expose yourself unnecessarily? . . . Stay
+there. Don't move."
+
+He held him to the ground with a friendly pressure, keeping his arm
+round Bernard's neck and speaking to him with gentleness, as though he
+were trying to display to the brother all the affection that rose to his
+heart for his dear Élisabeth. He forgot the harsh words which he had
+addressed to Bernard and uttered quite different words, throbbing with a
+fondness which he had denied the evening before:
+
+"Don't move, youngster. You see, I had no business to bring you with me
+or to drag you into this hot place. I'm responsible for you and I'm not
+going to have you hurt."
+
+The fire diminished in intensity. By crawling over the ground, the men
+reached a double row of poplars which led them, by a gentle ascent,
+towards a ridge intersected by a hollow road. Paul, on climbing the
+slope which overlooked the Ornequin plateau, saw the ruins of the
+village in the distance, with its shattered church, and, farther to the
+left, a wilderness of trees and stones whence rose the walls of a
+building. This was the château. On every side around were blazing
+farmhouses, haystacks and barns.
+
+Behind the section, the French troops were scattering forward in all
+directions. A battery had taken up its position in the shelter of a wood
+close by and was firing incessantly. Paul could see the shells bursting
+over the château and among the ruins.
+
+Unable to bear the sight any longer, he resumed his march at the head of
+his section. The enemy's guns had ceased thundering, had doubtless been
+reduced to silence. But, when they were well within two miles of
+Ornequin, the bullets whistled around them and Paul saw a detachment of
+Germans falling back upon the village, firing as they went. And the
+seventy-fives and Rimailhos kept on growling. The din was terrible.
+
+Paul gripped Bernard by the arm and, in a quivering voice, said:
+
+"If anything happens to me, tell Élisabeth that I beg her to forgive me.
+Do you understand? I beg her to forgive me."
+
+He was suddenly afraid that fate would not allow him to see his wife
+again; and he realized that he had behaved to her with unpardonable
+cruelty, deserting her as though she were guilty of a fault which she
+had not committed and abandoning her to every form of distress and
+torment. And he walked on briskly, followed at a distance by his men.
+
+But, at the spot where the short cut joins the high road, in sight of
+the Liseron, a cyclist rode up to him. The colonel had ordered that the
+section should wait for the main body of the regiment in order to make
+an attack in full force.
+
+This was the cruelest test of all. Paul, a victim to ever-increasing
+excitement, trembled with fever and rage.
+
+"Come, Paul," said Bernard, "don't work yourself into such a state! We
+shall get there in time."
+
+"In time for what?" he retorted. "To find her dead or wounded? Or not to
+find her at all? Oh, hang it, why can't our guns stop their damned row?
+What are they shelling, now that the enemy's no longer replying? Dead
+bodies and demolished houses! . . ."
+
+"What about the rearguard covering the German retreat?"
+
+"Well, aren't we here, the infantry? This is our job. All we have to do
+is to send out our sharpshooters and follow up with a good
+bayonet-charge. . . ."
+
+At last the section set out again, reinforced by the remainder of the
+ninth company and under the command of the captain. A detachment of
+hussars galloped by, pricking towards the village to cut off the
+fugitives. The company swerved towards the château.
+
+Opposite them, all was silent as the grave. Was it a trap? Was there not
+every reason to believe that enemy forces, strongly entrenched and
+barricaded as these were, would prepare to offer a last resistance? And
+yet there was nothing suspicious in the avenue of old oaks that led to
+the front court, not a sign of life to be seen or heard.
+
+Paul and Bernard, still keeping ahead, with their fingers on the
+trigger of their rifles, searched the dim light of the underwood with a
+keen glance. Columns of smoke rose above the wall, which was now quite
+near, yawning with breach upon breach. As they approached, they heard
+moans, followed by the heart-rending sound of a death-rattle. It was the
+German wounded.
+
+And suddenly the earth shook as though an inner upheaval had shattered
+its crust and from the other side of the wall came a tremendous
+explosion, or rather a series of explosions, like so many peals of
+thunder. The air was darkened with a cloud of sand and dust which sent
+forth all sorts of stones and rubbish. The enemy had blown up the
+château.
+
+"That was meant for us, I expect," said Bernard. "We were to have been
+blown up at the same time. They were out in their calculations."
+
+When they had passed the gate, the sight of the mined court-yard, of the
+shattered turrets, of the demolished château, of the out-houses in
+flames, of the dying in their last throes and the thickly stacked
+corpses of the dead startled them into recoiling.
+
+"Forward! Forward!" shouted the colonel, galloping up. "There are troops
+that must have made off across the park."
+
+Paul knew the road, which he had covered a few weeks earlier in such
+tragic circumstances. He rushed across the lawns, among blocks of stone
+and uprooted trees. But, as he passed in sight of a little lodge that
+stood at the entrance to the wood, he stopped, nailed to the ground.
+And Bernard and all the men stood stupefied, opening their mouths wide
+with horror.
+
+Against the lodge, two corpses rested on their feet, fastened to rings
+in the wall by a single chain wound round their waists. Their bodies
+were bent over the chains and their arms hung to the ground.
+
+They were the corpses of a man and a woman. Paul recognized Jérôme and
+Rosalie. They had been shot.
+
+The chain continued beyond them. There was a third ring in the wall. The
+plaster was stained with blood and there were visible traces of bullets.
+There had been a third victim, without a doubt, and the body had been
+removed.
+
+As he approached, Paul noticed a splinter of bomb-shell embedded in the
+plaster. Around the hole thus formed, between the plaster and the
+splinter, was a handful of fair hair with golden lights in it, hair torn
+from the head of Élisabeth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+H. E. R. M.
+
+
+Paul's first feeling was an immense need of revenge, then and there, at
+all costs, a need outweighing any sense of horror or despair. He gazed
+around him, as though all the wounded men who lay dying in the park were
+guilty of the monstrous crime:
+
+"The cowards!" he snarled. "The murderers!"
+
+"Are you sure," stammered Bernard, "are you sure it's Élisabeth's hair?"
+
+"Why, of course I am. They've shot her as they shot the two others. I
+know them both: it's the keeper and his wife. Oh, the blackguards!
+. . ."
+
+He raised the butt of his rifle over a German dragging himself in the
+grass and was about to strike him, when the Colonel came up to him:
+
+"Hullo, Delroze, what are you doing? Where's your company?"
+
+"Oh, sir, if you only knew! . . ."
+
+He rushed up to his colonel. He looked like a madman and brandished his
+rifle as he spoke:
+
+"They've killed her, sir, yes, they've shot my wife. . . . Look, against
+the wall there, with the two people who were in her service. . . .
+They've shot her. . . . She was twenty years old, sir. . . . Oh, we
+must kill them all like dogs!"
+
+But Bernard was dragging him away:
+
+"Don't let us waste time, Paul; we can take our revenge on those who are
+still fighting. . . . I hear firing over there. Some of them are
+surrounded, I expect."
+
+Paul hardly knew what he was doing. He started running again, drunk with
+rage and grief.
+
+Ten minutes later, he had rejoined his company and was crossing the open
+space where his father had been stabbed. The chapel was in front of him.
+Farther on, instead of the little door that used to be in the wall, a
+great breach had been made, to admit the convoys of wagons for
+provisioning the castle. Eight hundred yards beyond it, a violent
+rifle-fire crackled over the fields, at the crossing of the road and the
+highway.
+
+A few dozen retreating Germans were trying to force their way through
+the hussars who had come by the high road. They were attacked from
+behind by Paul's company, but succeeded in taking shelter in a square
+patch of trees and copsewood, where they defended themselves with fierce
+energy, retiring step by step and dropping one after the other.
+
+"Why don't they surrender?" muttered Paul, who was firing continually
+and who was gradually being calmed by the heat of the fray. "You would
+think they were trying to gain time."
+
+"Look over there!" said Bernard, in a husky voice.
+
+Under the trees, a motor-car had just come from the frontier, crammed
+with German soldiers. Was it bringing reinforcements? No, the motor
+turned almost in its own length; and between it and the last of the
+combatants stood an officer in a long gray cloak, who, revolver in hand,
+exhorted them to persevere in their resistance, while he himself
+effected his retreat towards the car sent to his rescue.
+
+"Look, Paul," Bernard repeated, "look!"
+
+Paul was dumfounded. That officer to whom Bernard was calling his
+attention was . . . but no, it could not be. And yet . . .
+
+"What do you mean to suggest, Bernard?" he asked.
+
+"It's the same face," muttered Bernard, "the same face as yesterday, you
+know, Paul: the face of the woman who asked me those questions about
+you, Paul."
+
+And Paul on his side recognized beyond the possibility of a doubt the
+mysterious individual who had tried to kill him at the little door
+leading out of the park, the creature who presented such an
+unconceivable resemblance to his father's murderess, to the woman of the
+portrait, to Hermine d'Andeville, Élisabeth's mother and Bernard's.
+
+Bernard raised his rifle to fire.
+
+"No, don't do that!" cried Paul, terrified at the movement.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Let's try and take him alive."
+
+He darted forward in a mad rush of hatred, but the officer had run to
+the car. The German soldiers held out their hands and hoisted him into
+their midst. Paul shot the one who was seated at the wheel. The officer
+caught hold of it just as the car was about to strike a tree, changed
+the direction and, skilfully guiding the car past the intervening
+obstacles, drove it behind a bend in the ground and from there towards
+the frontier. He was saved.
+
+As soon as he was beyond the range of the bullets, the German soldiers
+who were still fighting surrendered.
+
+Paul was trembling with impotent fury. To him this individual
+represented every imaginable form of evil; and, from the first to the
+last minute of that long series of tragedies, murders, attempts at
+spying and assassination, treacheries and deliberate shootings, all
+conceived with the same object and the same spirit, that one figure
+stood out as the very genius of crime.
+
+Nothing short of the creature's death would have appeased Paul's hatred.
+It was he, the monster, Paul never entertained a doubt of it, who had
+ordered Élisabeth to be shot. Élisabeth shot! Oh, the shame of it! Oh,
+infernal vision that tormented him! . . .
+
+"Who is he?" he cried. "How can we find out? How can we get at him and
+torture him and kill him?"
+
+"Question a prisoner," said Bernard.
+
+The captain considered it wiser to advance no farther and ordered the
+company to fall back, so as to remain in touch with the remainder of the
+regiment. Paul was told off specially to occupy the château with his
+section and to take the prisoners there.
+
+He lost no time in questioning two or three non-commissioned officers
+and some of the soldiers, as they went. But he could obtain nothing but
+a mass of conflicting particulars from them, for they had arrived from
+Corvigny the day before and had only spent the night at the château.
+They did not even know the name of the officer in the flowing gray cloak
+for whom so many of them had sacrificed their lives. He was called the
+major; and that was all.
+
+"But still," Paul insisted, "he was your actual commanding officer?"
+
+"No. The leader of the rearguard detachment to which we belong is an
+Oberleutnant who was wounded by the exploding of the mines, when we ran
+away. We wanted to take him with us, but the major objected, leveling
+his revolver at us, telling us to march in front of him and threatening
+to shoot the first man who left him in the lurch. And just now, while we
+were fighting, he stood ten paces behind us and kept threatening us with
+his revolver to compel us to defend him. He shot three of us, as a
+matter of fact."
+
+"He was reckoning on the assistance of the car, wasn't he?"
+
+"Yes; and also on reinforcements which were to save us all, so he said.
+But only the car came; and it just saved him."
+
+"The Oberleutnant would know his name, of course. Is he badly wounded?"
+
+"He's got a broken leg. We made him comfortable in a lodge in the park."
+
+"The lodge against which your people put to death . . . those
+civilians?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They were nearing the lodge, a sort of little orangery into which the
+plants were taken in winter. Rosalie and Jérôme's bodies had been
+removed. But the sinister chain was still hanging on the wall, fastened
+to the three iron rings; and Paul once more beheld, with a shudder of
+dread, the marks left by the bullet and the little splinter of
+bomb-shell that kept Élisabeth's hair embedded in the plaster.
+
+A French bomb-shell! An added horror to the atrocity of the murder!
+
+It was therefore Paul who, on the day before, by capturing the armored
+motor-car and effecting his daring raid on Corvigny, thus opening the
+road to the French troops, had brought about the events that ended in
+his wife's being murdered! The enemy had revenged himself for his
+retreat by shooting the inhabitants of the château! Élisabeth fastened
+to the wall by a chain had been riddled with bullets. And, by a hideous
+irony, her corpse had received in addition the splinters of the first
+shells which the French guns had fired before night-fall, from the top
+of the hills near Corvigny.
+
+Paul pulled out the fragments of shell and removed the golden strands,
+which he put away religiously. He and Bernard then entered the lodge,
+where the Red Cross men had established a temporary ambulance. They
+found the Oberleutnant lying on a truss of straw, well looked after and
+able to answer questions.
+
+One point at once became quite clear, which was that the German troops
+which had garrisoned the Château d'Ornequin had, so to speak, never been
+in touch at all with those which, the day before, had retreated from
+Corvigny and the adjoining forts. The garrison had been evacuated
+immediately upon the arrival of the fighting troops, as though to avoid
+any indiscretion on the subject of what had happened during the
+occupation of the château.
+
+"At that moment," said the Oberleutnant, who belonged to the fighting
+force, not to the garrison, "it was seven o'clock in the evening. Your
+seventy-fives had already got the range of the château; and we found no
+one there but a number of generals and other officers of superior rank.
+Their baggage-wagons were leaving and their motors were ready to leave.
+I was ordered to hold out as long as I could to blow up the château. The
+major had made all the arrangements beforehand."
+
+"What was the major's name?"
+
+"I don't know. He was walking about with a young officer whom even the
+generals addressed with respect. This same officer called me over to him
+and charged me to obey the major 'as I would the emperor.'"
+
+"And who was the young officer?"
+
+"Prince Conrad."
+
+"A son of the Kaiser's?"
+
+"Yes. He left the château yesterday, late in the day."
+
+"And did the major spend the night here?"
+
+"I suppose so; at any rate, he was there this morning. We fired the
+mines and left . . . a bit late, for I was wounded near this lodge . . .
+near the wall. . . ."
+
+Paul mastered his emotion and said:
+
+"You mean, the wall against which your people shot three French
+civilians, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When were they shot?"
+
+"About six o'clock in the afternoon, I believe, before we arrived from
+Corvigny."
+
+"Who ordered them to be shot?"
+
+"The major."
+
+Paul felt the perspiration trickling from the top of his head down his
+neck and forehead. It was as he thought: Élisabeth had been shot by the
+orders of that nameless and more than mysterious individual whose face
+was the very image of the face of Hermine d'Andeville, Élisabeth's
+mother!
+
+He went on, in a trembling voice:
+
+"So there were three people shot? You're quite sure?"
+
+"Yes, the people of the château. They had been guilty of treachery."
+
+"A man and two women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But there were only two bodies fastened to the wall of the lodge."
+
+"Yes, only two. The major had the lady of the house buried by Prince
+Conrad's orders."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"He didn't tell me."
+
+"But why was she shot?"
+
+"I understand that she had got hold of some very important secrets."
+
+"They could have taken her away and kept her as a prisoner."
+
+"Certainly, but Prince Conrad was tired of her."
+
+Paul gave a start:
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+The officer resumed, with a smile that might mean anything:
+
+"Well, damn it all, everybody knows Prince Conrad! He's the Don Juan of
+the family. He'd been staying at the château for some weeks and had time
+to make an impression, had he not? . . . And then . . . and then to get
+tired. . . . Besides, the major maintained that the woman and her two
+servants had tried to poison the prince. So you see . . ."
+
+He did not finish his sentence. Paul was bending over him and, with a
+face distorted with rage, took him by the throat and shouted:
+
+"Another word, you dog, and I'll throttle the life out of you! Ah, you
+can thank your stars that you're wounded! . . . If you weren't . . . if
+you weren't . . . !"
+
+And Bernard, beside himself with rage, joined in:
+
+"Yes, you can think yourself lucky. As for your Prince Conrad, he's a
+swine, let me tell you . . . and I mean to tell _him_ so to his face.
+. . . He's a swine like all his beastly family and like the whole lot of
+you! . . ."
+
+They left the Oberleutnant utterly dazed and unable to understand a word
+of this sudden outburst. But, once outside, Paul had a fit of despair.
+His nerves relaxed. All his anger and all his hatred were changed into
+infinite depression. He could hardly contain his tears.
+
+"Come, Paul," exclaimed Bernard, "surely you don't believe a word
+. . . ?"
+
+"No, no, and again no! But I can guess what happened. That drunken brute
+of a prince must have tried to make eyes at Élisabeth and to take
+advantage of his position. Just think! A woman, alone and defenseless:
+that was a conquest worth making! What tortures the poor darling must
+have undergone, what humiliations! . . . A daily struggle, with threats
+and brutalities. . . . And, at the last moment, death, to punish her for
+her resistance. . . ."
+
+"We shall avenge her, Paul," said Bernard, in a low voice.
+
+"We shall; but shall I ever forget that it was on my account, through my
+fault, that she stayed here? I will explain what I mean later on; and
+you will understand how hard and unjust I have been. . . . And yet
+. . ."
+
+He stood gloomily thinking. He was haunted by the image of the major and
+he repeated:
+
+"And yet . . . and yet . . . there are things that seem so strange.
+. . ."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that afternoon, French troops kept streaming in through the valley
+of the Liseron and the village of Ornequin in order to resist any
+counter-attack by the enemy. Paul's section was resting; and he and
+Bernard took advantage of this to make a minute search in the park and
+among the ruins of the château. But there was no clue to reveal to them
+where Élisabeth's body lay hidden.
+
+At five o'clock, they gave Rosalie and Jérôme a decent burial. Two
+crosses were set up on a little mound strewn with flowers. An army
+chaplain came and said the prayers for the dead. And Paul was moved to
+tears when he knelt on the grave of those two faithful servants whose
+devotion had been their undoing.
+
+Then also Paul promised to avenge. And his longing for vengeance evoked
+in his mind, with almost painful intensity, the hated image of the
+major, that image which had now become inseparable from his
+recollections of the Comtesse d'Andeville.
+
+He led Bernard away from the grave and asked:
+
+"Are you sure that you were not mistaken in connecting the major and the
+supposed peasant-woman who questioned you at Corvigny?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Then come with me. I told you of a woman's portrait. We will go and
+look at it and you shall tell me what impression it makes upon you."
+
+Paul had noticed that that part of the castle which contained Hermine
+d'Andeville's bedroom and boudoir had not been entirely demolished by
+the explosion of either the mines or shells. It was possible that the
+boudoir was still in its former condition.
+
+The staircase had been destroyed; and they had to clamber up the
+shattered masonry in order to reach the first floor. Traces of the
+corridor were visible here and there. All the doors were gone; and the
+rooms presented an appearance of pitiful chaos.
+
+"It's here," said Paul, pointing to an open place between two pieces of
+wall that remained standing as by a miracle.
+
+It was indeed Hermine d'Andeville's boudoir, shattered and dilapidated,
+cracked from top to bottom and filled with plaster and rubbish, but
+quite recognizable and containing all the furniture which Paul had
+noticed on the evening of his marriage. The window-shutters darkened the
+room partly, but there was enough light for Paul to see the whereabouts
+of the wall opposite. And he at once exclaimed:
+
+"The portrait has been taken away!"
+
+It was a great disappointment to him and, at the same time, a proof of
+the great importance which his enemy attached to the portrait, which
+could only have been removed because it constituted an overwhelming
+piece of evidence.
+
+"I assure you," said Bernard, "that this does not affect my opinion in
+the least. There was no need to verify my conviction about the major and
+that peasant-woman at Corvigny. Whose portrait was it?"
+
+"I told you, a woman."
+
+"What woman? Was it a picture which my father hung there, one of the
+pictures of his collection?"
+
+"That was it," said Paul, welcoming the opportunity of throwing his
+brother-in-law off the scent.
+
+Opening one of the shutters, he saw a mark on the wall of the
+rectangular space which the picture used to occupy; and he was able to
+perceive, from certain details, that the removal had been effected in a
+hurry. For instance, the gilt scroll had dropped from the frame and was
+lying on the floor. Paul picked it up stealthily so that Bernard should
+not see the inscription engraved upon it.
+
+But, while he was examining the panel more attentively after Bernard had
+unfastened the other shutter, he gave an exclamation.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Bernard.
+
+"There . . . look . . . that signature on the wall . . . where the
+picture was: a signature and a date."
+
+It was written in pencil; two lines across the white plaster, at a man's
+height. The date, "Wednesday evening, 16 September, 1914," followed by
+the signature: "Major Hermann."
+
+Major Hermann! Even before Paul was aware of it, his eyes had seized
+upon a detail in which all the significance of those two lines of
+writing was concentrated; and, while Bernard came forward to look in his
+turn, he muttered, in boundless surprise:
+
+"Hermann! . . . Hermine! . . ."
+
+The two words were almost alike. Hermine began with the same letters as
+the Christian or surname which the major had written, after his rank, on
+the wall. Major Hermann! The Comtesse Hermine! H, E, R, M: The four
+letters on the dagger with which Paul had nearly been killed! H, E, R,
+M: the four letters on the dagger of the spy whom he had captured in the
+church-steeple!
+
+Bernard said:
+
+"It looks to me like a woman's writing. But, if so. . . ." And he
+continued thoughtfully, "If so . . . what conclusion are we to draw?
+Either the peasant-woman and Major Hermann are one and the same person,
+which means that the peasant-woman is a man or that the major is not, or
+else we are dealing with two distinct persons, a woman and a man. I
+believe that is how it is, in spite of the uncanny resemblance between
+that man and that woman. For, after all, how can we suppose that the
+same person can have written this signature yesterday evening, passed
+through the French lines and spoken to me at Corvigny disguised as a
+peasant-woman . . . and then be able to return here, disguised as a
+German major, blow up the house, take to flight and, after killing some
+of his own soldiers, make his escape in a motor-car?"
+
+Paul, absorbed by his thoughts, did not answer. Presently he went into
+the adjoining room, which separated the boudoir from the set of rooms
+which his wife had occupied. Of these nothing remained except debris.
+But the room in between had not suffered so very much; and it was very
+easy to see, by the wash-hand-stand and the condition of the bed, that
+it was used as a bedroom and that some one had slept in it the night
+before.
+
+On the table Paul found some German newspapers and a French one, dated
+10 September, in which the _communiqué_ telling of the great victory of
+the Marne was struck out with two great dashes in red pencil and
+annotated with the word "Lies!" followed by the initial H.
+
+"We're in Major Hermann's room right enough," said Paul to Bernard.
+
+"And Major Hermann," Bernard declared, "burnt some compromising papers
+last night. Look at that heap of ashes in the fire-place." He stooped
+and picked up a few envelopes, a few half-burnt sheets of paper
+containing consecutive words, nothing but incoherent sentences. On
+turning his eyes to the bed, however, he saw under the bolster a parcel
+of clothes hidden or perhaps forgotten in the hurry of departure. He
+pulled them out and at once cried: "I say, just look at this!"
+
+"At what?" asked Paul, who was searching another part of the room.
+
+"These clothes, look, peasant clothes, the clothes I saw on the woman at
+Corvigny. There's no mistaking them: they are the same brown color and
+the same sort of serge stuff. And then here's the black-lace scarf which
+I told you about. . . ."
+
+"What's that?" exclaimed Paul, running up to him.
+
+"Here, see for yourself, it's a scarf of sorts and not one of the
+newest, either. How worn and torn it is! And the brooch I described to
+you is still in it. Do you see?"
+
+Paul had noticed the brooch at once with the greatest horror. What a
+terrible significance it lent to the discovery of the clothes in the
+room occupied by Major Hermann, the room next to Hermine d'Andeville's
+boudoir! The cameo was carved with a swan with its wings outspread and
+was set in a gold snake with ruby eyes. Paul had known that cameo since
+his early boyhood, from seeing it in the dress of the woman who killed
+his father, and he knew it also because he had seen it again, with every
+smallest detail reproduced, in the Comtesse Hermine's portrait. And now
+he was finding the actual brooch, stuck in the black-lace scarf among
+the Corvigny peasant-woman's clothes and left behind in Major Hermann's
+room!
+
+"This completes the evidence," said Bernard. "The fact that the clothes
+are here proves that the woman who asked me about you came back here
+last night; but what is the connection between her and that officer who
+is her living likeness? Is the person who questioned me about you the
+same as the individual who ordered Élisabeth to be shot two hours
+earlier? And who are these people? What band of murderers and spies have
+we run up against?"
+
+"They are simply Germans," was Paul's reply. "To them spying and
+murdering are natural and permissible forms of warfare . . . in a war,
+mark you, which they began and are carrying on in the midst of a
+perfectly peaceful period. I have told you so before, Bernard: we have
+been the victims of war for nearly twenty years. My father's murder
+opened the tragedy. And to-day we are mourning our poor Élisabeth. And
+that is not the end of it."
+
+"Still," said Bernard, "he has taken to flight."
+
+"We shall see him again, be sure of that. If he doesn't come back, I
+will go and find him. And, when that day comes. . . ."
+
+There were two easy-chairs in the room. Paul and Bernard resolved to
+spend the night there and, without further delay, wrote their names on
+the wall of the passage. Then Paul went back to his men, in order to see
+that they were comfortably settled in the barns and out-houses that
+remained standing. Here the soldier who served as his orderly, a decent
+Auvergnat called Gériflour, told him that he had dug out two pairs of
+sheets and a couple of clean mattresses from a little house next to the
+guard-room and that the beds were ready. Paul accepted the offer for
+Bernard and himself. It was arranged that Gériflour and one of his
+companions should go to the château and sleep in the two easy-chairs.
+
+The night passed without any alarm. It was a feverish and sleepless
+night for Paul, who was haunted by the thought of Élisabeth. In the
+morning he fell into a heavy slumber, disturbed by nightmares. The
+reveille woke him with a start. Bernard was waiting for him.
+
+The roll was called in the courtyard of the château. Paul noticed that
+his orderly, Gériflour, and the other man were missing.
+
+"They must be asleep," he said to Bernard. "Let's go and shake them
+awake."
+
+They went back, through the ruins, to the first floor and along the
+demolished bedroom. In the room which Major Hermann had occupied they
+found Private Gériflour, huddled on the bed, covered with blood, dead.
+His friend was lying back in one of the chairs, also dead. There was no
+disorder, no trace of a struggle around the bodies. The two soldiers
+must have been killed in their sleep.
+
+Paul at once saw the weapon with which they had been murdered. It was a
+dagger with the letters H, E, R, M. on the handle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ÉLISABETH'S DIARY
+
+
+This double murder, following upon a series of tragic incidents all of
+which were closely connected, was the climax to such an accumulation of
+horrors and of shocking disasters that the two young men did not utter a
+word or stir a limb. Death, whose breath they had already felt so often
+on the battlefield, had never appeared to them under a more hateful or
+forbidding guise.
+
+Death! They beheld it, not as an insidious disease that strikes at
+hazard, but as a specter creeping in the shadow, watching its adversary,
+choosing its moment and raising its arm with deliberate intention. And
+this specter bore for them the very shape and features of Major Hermann.
+
+When Paul spoke at last, his voice had the dull, scared tone that seems
+to summon up the evil powers of darkness:
+
+"He came last night. He came and, as we had written our names on the
+wall, the names of Bernard d'Andeville and Paul Delroze which represent
+the names of two enemies in his eyes, he took the opportunity to rid
+himself of those two enemies. Persuaded that it was you and I who were
+sleeping in this room, he struck . . . and those whom he struck were
+poor Gériflour and his friend, who have died in our stead."
+
+After a long pause, he whispered:
+
+"They have died as my father died . . . and as Élisabeth died . . . and
+the keeper also and his wife; and by the same hand, by the same hand,
+Bernard, do you understand? . . . Yes, it's inadmissible, is it not? My
+brain refuses to admit it. . . . And yet it is always the same hand that
+holds the dagger . . . then and now."
+
+Bernard examined the dagger. At the sight of the four letters, he said:
+
+"That stands for Hermann, I suppose? Major Hermann?"
+
+"Yes," said Paul, eagerly. "Is it his real name, though? And who is he
+actually? I don't know. But what I do know is that the criminal who
+committed all those murders is the same who signs with these four
+letters, H, E, R, M."
+
+After giving the alarm to the men of his section and sending to inform
+the chaplain and the surgeons, Paul resolved to ask for a private
+interview with his colonel and to tell him the whole of the secret
+story, hoping that it might throw some light on the execution of
+Élisabeth and the assassination of the two soldiers. But he learnt that
+the colonel and his regiment were fighting on the other side of the
+frontier and that the 3rd Company had been hurriedly sent for, all but
+a detachment which was to remain at the château under Sergeant Delroze's
+orders. Paul therefore made his own investigation with his men.
+
+It yielded nothing. There was no possibility of discovering the least
+clue to the manner in which the murderer had made his way first into the
+park, next into the ruins and lastly into the bedroom. As no civilian
+had passed, were they to conclude that the perpetrator of the two crimes
+was one of the privates of the 3rd company? Obviously not. And yet what
+other theory was there to adopt?
+
+Nor did Paul discover anything to tell him of his wife's death or of the
+place where she was buried. And this was the hardest trial of all.
+
+He encountered the same ignorance among the German wounded as among the
+prisoners. They had all heard of the execution of a man and two women,
+but they had all arrived after the execution and after the departure of
+the troops that occupied the château.
+
+He went on to the village, thinking that they might know something
+there; that the inhabitants had some news to tell of the lady of the
+château, of the life she led, of her martyrdom and death. But Ornequin
+was empty, with not a woman even, not an old man left in it. The enemy
+must have sent all the inhabitants into Germany, doubtless from the
+start, with the manifest object of destroying every witness to his
+actions during the occupation and of creating a desert around the
+château.
+
+Paul in this way devoted three days to the pursuit of fruitless
+inquiries.
+
+"And yet," he said to Bernard, "Élisabeth cannot have disappeared
+entirely. Even if I cannot find her grave, can I not find the least
+trace of her existence? She lived here. She suffered here. I would give
+anything for a relic of her."
+
+They had succeeded in fixing upon the exact site of the room in which
+she used to sleep and even, in the midst of the ruins, the exact heap of
+stones and plaster that remained of it. It was all mixed up with the
+wreckage of the ground-floor rooms, into which the first-floor ceilings
+had been precipitated; and it was in this chaos, under the pile of walls
+and furniture reduced to dust and fragments, that one morning he picked
+up a little broken mirror, followed by a tortoise-shell hair-brush, a
+silver pen-knife and a set of scissors, all of which had belonged to
+Élisabeth.
+
+But what affected him even more was the discovery of a thick diary, in
+which he knew that his wife, before her marriage, used to note down her
+expenses, the errands or visits that had to be remembered and,
+occasionally, some more private details of her life. Now all that was
+left of her diary was the binding, with the date, 1914, and the part
+containing the entries for the first seven months of the year. All the
+sheets for the last five months had been not torn out but removed
+separately from the strings that fastened them to the binding.
+
+Paul at once thought to himself:
+
+"They were removed by Élisabeth, removed at her leisure, at a time when
+there was no hurry and when she merely wished to use those pages for
+writing on from day to day. What would she want to write? Just those
+more personal notes which she used formerly to put down in her diary
+between the entry of a disbursement and a receipt. And as there can have
+been no accounts to keep since my departure and as her existence was
+nothing but a hideous tragedy, there is no doubt that she confided her
+distress to those pages, her complaints, possibly her shrinking from
+me."
+
+That day, in Bernard's absence, Paul increased the thoroughness of his
+search. He rummaged under every stone and in every hole. The broken
+slabs of marble, the twisted lustres, the torn carpets, the beams
+blackened by the flames, he lifted them all. He persisted for hours. He
+divided the ruins into sections which he examined patiently in rotation;
+and, when the ruins refused to answer his questions, he renewed his
+minute investigations in the ground.
+
+His efforts were useless; and Paul knew that they were bound to be so.
+Élisabeth must have attached far too much value to those pages not to
+have either destroyed them or hidden them beyond the possibility of
+discovery. Unless:
+
+"Unless," he said to himself, "they have been stolen from her. The major
+must have kept a constant watch upon her. And, in that case, who knows?"
+
+An idea occurred to Paul's mind. After finding the peasant-woman's
+clothes and black lace scarf, he had left them on the bed, attaching no
+further importance to them; and he now asked himself if the major, on
+the night when he had murdered the two soldiers, had not come with the
+intention of fetching away the clothes, or at least the contents of
+their pockets, which he had not been able to do because they were hidden
+under Private Gériflour, who was sleeping on the top of them. Now Paul
+seemed to remember that, when unfolding that peasant's skirt and bodice,
+he had noticed a rustling of paper in one of the pockets. Was it not
+reasonable to conclude that this was Élisabeth's diary, which had been
+discovered and stolen by Major Hermann?
+
+Paul hastened to the room in which the murders had been committed,
+snatched up the clothes and looked through them:
+
+"Ah," he at once exclaimed, with genuine delight, "here they are!"
+
+There was a large, yellow envelope filled with the pages removed from
+the diary. These were crumpled and here and there torn; and Paul saw at
+a glance that the pages corresponded only with the months of August and
+September and that even some days in each of these months were missing.
+
+And he saw Élisabeth's handwriting.
+
+It was not a full or detailed diary. It consisted merely of notes, poor
+little notes in which a bruised heart found an outlet. At times, when
+they ran to greater length, an extra page had been added. The notes had
+been jotted down by day or night, anyhow, in ink and pencil; they were
+sometimes hardly legible; and they gave the impression of a trembling
+hand, of eyes veiled with tears and of a mind crazed with suffering.
+
+Paul was moved to the very depths of his being. He was alone and he
+read:
+
+
+                                        "_Sunday, 2 August._
+
+      "He ought not to have written me that letter. It is
+      too cruel. And why does he suggest that I should leave
+      Ornequin? The war? Does he think that, because there
+      is a chance of war, I shall not have the courage to
+      stay here and do my duty? How little he knows me! Then
+      he must either think me a coward or believe me capable
+      of suspecting my poor mother! . . . Paul, dear Paul,
+      you ought not to have left me. . . .
+
+
+                                        "_Monday, 3 August._
+
+      "Jérôme and Rosalie have been kinder and more
+      thoughtful than ever, now that the servants are gone.
+      Rosalie begged and prayed that I should go away, too.
+
+      "'And what about yourselves, Rosalie?' I said. 'Will
+      you go?'
+
+      "'Oh, we're people who don't matter, we have nothing
+      to fear! Besides, our place is here.'
+
+      "I said that so was mine; but I saw that she could not
+      understand.
+
+      "Jérôme, when I meet him, shakes his head and looks at
+      me sadly.
+
+
+                                       "_Tuesday, 4 August._
+
+      "I have not the least doubt of what my duty is. I
+      would rather die than turn my back on it. But how am I
+      to fulfil that duty and get at the truth? I am full of
+      courage; and yet I am always crying, as though I had
+      nothing better to do. The fact is that I am always
+      thinking of Paul. Where is he? What has become of him?
+      When Jérôme told me this morning that war was
+      declared, I thought that I should faint. So Paul is
+      going to fight. He will be wounded perhaps. He may be
+      killed. God knows if my true place is not somewhere
+      near him, in a town close to where he is fighting!
+      What have I to hope for in staying here? My duty to my
+      mother, yes, I know. Ah, mother, I beseech your
+      forgiveness . . . but, you see, I love my husband and
+      I am so afraid of anything happening to him! . . .
+
+
+                                      "_Thursday, 6 August._
+
+      "Still crying. I grow unhappier every day. But I feel
+      that, even if I became still more so, I would not
+      desist. Besides, how can I go to him when he does not
+      want to have anything more to do with me and does not
+      even write? Love me? Why, he loathes me! I am the
+      daughter of a woman whom he hates above all things in
+      the world. How unspeakably horrible! If he thinks like
+      that of my mother and if I fail in my task, we shall
+      never see each other again! That is the life I have
+      before me.
+
+
+                                        "_Friday, 7 August._
+
+      "I have made Jérôme and Rosalie tell me all about
+      mother. They only knew her for a few weeks, but they
+      remember her quite well; and what they said made me
+      feel so happy! She was so good, it seems, and so
+      pretty; everybody worshiped her.
+
+      "'She was not always very cheerful,' said Rosalie. 'I
+      don't know if it was her illness already affecting her
+      spirits, but there was something about her, when she
+      smiled, that went to one's heart.'
+
+      "My poor, darling mother!
+
+
+                                      "_Saturday, 8 August._
+
+      "We heard the guns this morning, a long way off. They
+      are fighting 25 miles away.
+
+      "Some French soldiers have arrived. I had seen some of
+      them pretty often from the terrace, marching down the
+      Liseron Valley. But these are going to stay at the
+      house. The captain made his apologies. So as not to
+      inconvenience me, he and his lieutenants will sleep
+      and have their meals in the lodge where Jérôme and
+      Rosalie used to live.
+
+
+                                        "_Sunday, 9 August._
+
+      "Still no news of Paul. I have given up trying to
+      write to him either. I don't want him to hear from me
+      until I have all the proofs. But what am I to do? How
+      can I get proofs of something that happened seventeen
+      years ago? Hunt about, think and reflect as I may, I
+      can find nothing.
+
+
+                                       "_Monday, 10 August._
+
+      "The guns never ceased booming in the distance.
+      Nevertheless, the captain tells me that there is
+      nothing to make one expect an attack by the enemy on
+      this side.
+
+
+                                      "_Tuesday, 11 August._
+
+      "A sentry posted in the woods, near the little door
+      leading out of the estate, has just been
+      killed--stabbed with a knife. They think that he must
+      have been trying to stop a man who wanted to get out
+      of the park. But how did the man get in?
+
+
+                                    "_Wednesday, 12 August._
+
+      "What can be happening? Here is something that has
+      made a great impression on me and seems impossible to
+      understand. There are other things besides which are
+      just as perplexing, though I can't say why. I am much
+      astonished that the captain and all his soldiers whom
+      I meet appear so indifferent and should even be able
+      to make jokes among themselves. I feel the sort of
+      depression that comes over one when a storm is at
+      hand. There must be something wrong with my nerves.
+
+      "Well, this morning. . . ."
+
+Paul stopped reading. The lower portion of the page containing the last
+few lines and the whole of the next page were torn out. It looked as if
+the major, after stealing Élisabeth's diary, had, for reasons best known
+to himself, removed the pages in which she set forth a certain incident.
+
+The diary continued:
+
+
+                                       "_Friday, 14 August._
+
+      "I felt I must tell the captain. I took him to the
+      dead tree covered with ivy and asked him to lie down
+      on the ground and listen. He did so very patiently and
+      attentively. But he heard nothing and ended by saying:
+
+      "'You see, madame, that everything is absolutely
+      normal.'
+
+      "'I assure you,' I answered, 'that two days ago there
+      was a confused sound from this tree, just at this
+      spot. And it lasted for several minutes.'
+
+      "He replied, smiling as he spoke:
+
+      "'We could easily have the tree cut down. But don't
+      you think, madame, that in the state of nervous
+      tension in which we all are we are liable to make
+      mistakes; that we are subject to hallucinations? For,
+      after all, where could the sound come from?'
+
+      "Of course, he was right. And yet I had heard and seen
+      for myself. . . .
+
+
+                                     "_Saturday, 15 August._
+
+      "Yesterday, two German officers were brought in and
+      were locked up in the wash-house, at the end of the
+      yard. This morning, there was nothing in the
+      wash-house but their uniforms. One can understand
+      their breaking open the door. But the captain has
+      found out that they made their escape in French
+      uniforms and that they passed the sentries, saying
+      that they had been sent to Corvigny.
+
+      "Who can have supplied them with those uniforms?
+      Besides, they had to know the password: who can have
+      given them that?
+
+      "It appears that a peasant woman called several days
+      in succession with eggs and milk, a woman rather too
+      well-dressed for her station, and that she hasn't been
+      here to-day. But there is nothing to prove her
+      complicity.
+
+
+                                       "_Sunday, 16 August._
+
+      "The captain has been strongly urging me to go away.
+      He is no longer cheerful. He seems very much
+      preoccupied:
+
+      "'We are surrounded by spies,' he said. 'And there is
+      every sign of the possibility of a speedy attack. Not
+      a big attack, intended to force a way through to
+      Corvigny, but an attempt to take the château by
+      surprise. It is my duty to warn you, madame, that we
+      may be compelled at any moment to fall back on
+      Corvigny and that it would be most imprudent for you
+      to stay.'
+
+      "I answered that nothing would change my resolution.
+      Jérôme and Rosalie also implored me to leave. But what
+      is the good? I intend to remain."
+
+Once again Paul stopped. There was a page missing in this section of the
+diary; and the next page, the one headed 18 August, was torn at the top
+and the bottom and contained only a fragment of what Élisabeth had
+written on that day:
+
+      ". . . and that is why I have not spoken of it in the
+      letter which I have just sent to Paul. He will know
+      that I am staying on and the reasons for my decision;
+      but he must not know of my hopes.
+
+      "Those hopes are still so vague and built on so
+      insignificant a detail. Still, I feel overjoyed. I do
+      not realize the meaning of that detail, but I feel its
+      importance. The captain is hurrying about, increasing
+      the patrols; the soldiers are polishing their arms and
+      crying out for the battle; the enemy may be taking up
+      his quarters at Èbrecourt, as they say: what do I
+      care? I have only one thought: have I found the key?
+      Am I on the right road? Let me think. . . ."
+
+The page was torn here, at the place where Élisabeth was about to
+explain things exactly. Was this a precautionary measure on Major
+Hermann's part? No doubt; but why?
+
+The first part of the page headed 19 August was likewise torn. The
+nineteenth was the day before t on which the Germans had carried
+Ornequin, Corvigny and the whole district by assault. What had Élisabeth
+written on that Wednesday afternoon? What had she discovered? What was
+preparing in the darkness?
+
+Paul felt a dread at his heart. He remembered that the first gunshot had
+thundered over Corvigny at two o'clock in the morning on Thursday and it
+was with an anxious mind that he read, on the second half of the page:
+
+
+                                                 "_11 p. m._
+
+      "I have got up and opened my window. Dogs are barking
+      on every side. They answer one another, stop, seem to
+      be listening and then begin howling again as I have
+      never heard them do before. When they cease, the
+      silence becomes impressive and I listen in my turn to
+      try and catch the indistinct sounds that keep them
+      awake.
+
+      "Those sounds seem to my ears also to exist. It is
+      something different from the rustling of the leaves.
+      It has nothing to do with the ordinary interruption to
+      the dead silence of the night. It comes from I can't
+      tell where; and the impression it makes on me is so
+      powerful that I ask myself at the same time whether I
+      am just listening to the beating of my heart or
+      whether I am hearing what might be the distant tramp
+      of a marching army.
+
+      "Oh, I must be mad! A marching army! And our outposts
+      on the frontier? And our sentries all around the
+      château? Why, there would be fighting, firing! . . .
+
+
+                                                  "_1 a. m._
+
+      "I did not stir from the window. The dogs were no
+      longer barking. Everything was asleep. And suddenly I
+      saw some one come from under the trees and go across
+      the lawn. I at first imagined it was one of our
+      soldiers. But, when whoever it was passed under my
+      window, there was just enough light in the sky for me
+      to make out a woman's figure. I thought for a moment
+      of Rosalie. But no, the figure was taller and moved
+      with a lighter and quicker step.
+
+      "I was on the point of waking Jérôme and giving the
+      alarm. I did not, however. The figure had disappeared
+      in the direction of the terrace. And all at once there
+      came the cry of a bird, which struck me as strange.
+      This was followed by a light that darted into the sky,
+      like a shooting star springing from the ground.
+
+      "After that, nothing. Silence, general restfulness.
+      Nothing more. And yet I dare not go back to bed. I am
+      frightened, without knowing why. All sorts of dangers
+      seem to come rushing from every corner of the horizon.
+      They draw closer, they surround me, they hem me in,
+      they suffocate me, crush me, I can't breathe. I'm
+      frightened . . . I'm frightened. . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SPRIG OF EMPIRE
+
+
+Paul clutched with convulsive fingers the heart-breaking diary to which
+Élisabeth had confided her anguish:
+
+"The poor angel!" he thought. "What she must have gone through! And this
+is only the beginning of the road that led to her death. . . ."
+
+He dreaded reading on. The hours of torture were near at hand, menacing
+and implacable, and he would have liked to call out to Élisabeth:
+
+"Go away, go away! Don't defy Fate! I have forgotten the past. I love
+you."
+
+It was too late. He himself, through his cruelty, had condemned her to
+suffer; and he must go on to the bitter end and witness every station of
+the Calvary of which he knew the last, terrifying stage.
+
+He hastily turned the pages. There were first three blank leaves, those
+dated 20, 21 and 22 August: days of confusion during which she had been
+unable to write. The pages of the 23rd and 24th were missing. These no
+doubt recounted what had happened and contained revelations concerning
+the inexplicable invasion.
+
+The diary began again at the middle of a torn page, the page belonging
+to Tuesday the 25th:
+
+      "'Yes, Rosalie, I feel quite well and I thank you for
+      looking after me so attentively.'
+
+      "'Then there's no more fever?'
+
+      "'No, Rosalie, it's gone.'
+
+      "'You said the same thing yesterday, ma'am, and the
+      fever came back . . . perhaps because of that visit.
+      . . . But the visit won't be to-day . . . it's not
+      till to-morrow. . . . I was told to let you know,
+      ma'am. . . . At 5 o'clock to-morrow. . . .'
+
+      "I made no answer. What is the use of rebelling? None
+      of the humiliating words that I shall have to hear
+      will hurt me more than what lies before my eyes: the
+      lawn invaded, horses picketed all over it, baggage
+      wagons and caissons in the walks, half the trees
+      felled, officers sprawling on the grass, drinking and
+      singing, and a German flag flapping from the balcony
+      of my window, just in front of me. Oh, the wretches!
+
+      "I close my eyes so as not to see. And that makes it
+      more horrible still. . . . Oh, the memory of that
+      night . . . and, in the morning, when the sun rose,
+      the sight of all those dead bodies! Some of the poor
+      fellows were still alive, with those monsters dancing
+      round them; and I could hear the cries of the dying
+      men asking to be put out of their misery.
+
+      "And then. . . . But I won't think of it or think of
+      anything that can destroy my courage and my hope.
+      . . .
+
+      "Paul, I always have you in my mind as I write my
+      diary. Something tells me that you will read it if
+      anything happens to me; and so I must have strength to
+      go on with it and to keep you informed from day to
+      day. Perhaps you can already understand from my story
+      what to me still seems very obscure. What is the
+      connection between the past and the present, between
+      the murder of long ago and the incomprehensible attack
+      of the other night? I don't know. I have told you the
+      facts in detail and also my theories. You will draw
+      your conclusions and follow up the truth to the end.
+
+
+                                    "_Wednesday, 26 August._
+
+      "There is a great deal of noise in the château. People
+      are moving about everywhere, especially in the rooms
+      above my bedroom. An hour ago, half a dozen motor vans
+      and the same number of motor cars drove onto the lawn.
+      The vans were empty. Two or three ladies sprang out of
+      each of the cars, German women, waving their hands and
+      laughing noisily. The officers ran up to welcome them;
+      and there were loud expressions of delight. Then they
+      all went to the house. What do they want?
+
+      "But I hear footsteps in the passage. . . . It is 5
+      o'clock. . . . Somebody is knocking at the door. . . .
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+      "There were five of them: he first and four officers
+      who kept bowing to him obsequiously. He said to them,
+      in a formal tone:
+
+      "'Attention, gentlemen. . . . I order you not to touch
+      anything in this room or in the other rooms reserved
+      for madame. As for the rest, except in the two big
+      drawing-rooms, it is yours. Keep anything here that
+      you want and take away what you please. It is war and
+      the law of war.'
+
+      "He pronounced those words, 'The law of war,' in a
+      tone of fatuous conviction and repeated:
+
+      "'As for madame's private apartments, not a thing is
+      to be moved. Do you understand? I know what is
+      becoming.'
+
+      "He looked at me as though to say:
+
+      "'What do you think of that? There's chivalry for you!
+      I could take it all, if I liked; but I'm a German and,
+      as such, I know what's becoming.'
+
+      "He seemed to expect me to thank him. I said:
+
+      "'Is this the pillage beginning? That explains the
+      empty motor vans.'
+
+      "'You don't pillage what belongs to you by the law of
+      war,' he answered.
+
+      "'I see. And the law of war does not extend to the
+      furniture and pictures in the drawing-rooms?'
+
+      "He turned crimson. Then I began to laugh:
+
+      "'I follow you,' I said. 'That's your share. Well
+      chosen. Nothing but rare and valuable things. The
+      refuse your servants can divide among them.'
+
+      "The officers turned round furiously. He became redder
+      still. He had a face that was quite round, hair, which
+      was too light, plastered down with grease and divided
+      in the middle by a faultless parting. His forehead
+      was low; and I was able to guess the effort going on
+      behind it, to find a repartee. At last he came up to
+      me and, in a voice of triumph, said:
+
+      "'The French have been beaten at Charleroi, beaten at
+      Morange, beaten everywhere. They are retreating all
+      along the line. The upshot of the war is settled.'
+
+      "Violent though my grief was, I did not wince. I
+      whispered:
+
+      "'You low blackguard!'
+
+      "He staggered. His companions caught what I said; and
+      I saw one put his hand on his sword-hilt. But what
+      would he himself do? What would he say? I could feel
+      that he was greatly embarrassed and that I had wounded
+      his self-esteem.
+
+      "'Madame,' he said, 'I daresay you don't know who I
+      am?'
+
+      "'Oh, yes!' I answered. 'You are Prince Conrad, a son
+      of the Kaiser's. And what then?'
+
+      "He made a fresh attempt at dignity. He drew himself
+      up. I expected threats and words to express his anger;
+      but no, his reply was a burst of laughter, the
+      affected laughter of a high and mighty lord, too
+      indifferent, too disdainful to take offense, too
+      intelligent to lose his temper.
+
+      "'The dear little Frenchwoman! Isn't she charming,
+      gentlemen? Did you hear what she said? The
+      impertinence of her! There's your true Parisian,
+      gentlemen, with all her roguish grace.'
+
+      "And, making me a great bow, with not another word, he
+      stalked away, joking as he went:
+
+      "'Such a dear little Frenchwoman! Ah, gentlemen, those
+      little Frenchwomen! . . .'
+
+             *       *       *       *       *
+
+      "The vans were at work all day, going off to the
+      frontier laden with booty. It was my poor father's
+      wedding present to us, all his collections so
+      patiently and fondly brought together; it was the dear
+      setting in which Paul and I were to have lived. What a
+      wrench the parting means to me!
+
+      "The war news is bad! I cried a great deal during the
+      day.
+
+      "Prince Conrad came. I had to receive him, for he sent
+      me word by Rosalie that, if I refused to see him, the
+      inhabitants of Ornequin would suffer the
+      consequences."
+
+Here Élisabeth again broke off her diary. Two days later, on the 29th,
+she went on:
+
+      "He came yesterday. To-day also. He tries to appear
+      witty and cultured. He talks literature and music,
+      Goethe, Wagner and so on. . . . I leave him to do his
+      own talking, however; and this throws him in such a
+      state of fury that he ended by exclaiming:
+
+      "'Can't you answer? It's no disgrace, even for a
+      Frenchwoman, to talk to Prince Conrad of Prussia!'
+
+      "'A woman doesn't talk to her gaoler.'
+
+      "He protested briskly:
+
+      "'But, dash it all, you're not in prison!'
+
+      "'Can I leave the château?'
+
+      "'You can walk about . . . in the grounds. . . .'
+
+      "'Between four walls, therefore, like a prisoner.'
+
+      "'Well, what do you want to do?'
+
+      "'To go away from here and live . . . wherever you
+      tell me to: at Corvigny, for instance.'
+
+      "'That is to say, away from me!'
+
+      "As I did not answer, he bent forward a little and
+      continued, in a low voice:
+
+      "'You hate me, don't you? Oh, I'm quite aware of it!
+      I've made a study of women. Only, it's Prince Conrad
+      whom you hate, isn't it? It's the German, the
+      conqueror. For, after all, there's no reason why you
+      should dislike the man himself. . . . And, at this
+      moment, it's the man who is in question, who is trying
+      to please you . . . do you understand? . . . So.
+      . . .'
+
+      "I had risen to my feet and faced him. I did not speak
+      a single word; but he must have seen in my eyes so
+      great an expression of disgust that he stopped in the
+      middle of his sentence, looking absolutely stupid.
+      Then, his nature getting the better of him, he shook
+      his fist at me, like a common fellow, and went off
+      slamming the door and muttering threats. . . ."
+
+The next two pages of the diary were missing. Paul was gray in the face.
+He had never suffered to such an extent as this. It seemed to him as
+though his poor dear Élisabeth were still alive before his eyes and
+feeling his eyes upon her. And nothing could have upset him more than
+the cry of distress and love which marked the page headed:
+
+
+                                              _1 September._
+
+      "Paul, my own Paul, have no fear. Yes, I tore up those
+      two pages because I did not wish you ever to know such
+      revolting things. But that will not estrange you from
+      me, will it? Because a savage dared to insult me, that
+      is no reason, surely, why I should not be worthy of
+      your love? Oh, the things he said to me, Paul, only
+      yesterday: his offensive remarks, his hateful threats,
+      his even more infamous promises . . . and then his
+      rage! . . . No, I will not repeat them to you. In
+      making a confidant of this diary, I meant to confide
+      to you my daily acts and thoughts. I believed that I
+      was only writing down the evidence of my grief. But
+      this is something different; and I have not the
+      courage. . . . Forgive my silence. It will be enough
+      for you to know the offense, so that you may avenge me
+      later. Ask me no more. . . ."
+
+And, pursuing this intention, Élisabeth now ceased to describe Prince
+Conrad's daily visits in detail; but it was easy to perceive from her
+narrative that the enemy persisted in hovering round her. It consisted
+of brief notes in which she no longer let herself go as before, notes
+which she jotted down at random, marking the days herself, without
+troubling about the printed headings.
+
+Paul trembled as he read on. And fresh revelations aggravated his dread:
+
+
+                                                "_Thursday._
+
+      "Rosalie asks them the news every morning. The French
+      retreat is continuing. They even say that it has
+      developed into a rout and that Paris has been
+      abandoned. The government has fled. We are done for.
+
+
+                            "_Seven o'clock in the evening._
+
+      "He is walking under my windows as usual. He has with
+      him a woman whom I have already seen many times at a
+      distance and who always wears a great peasant's cloak
+      and a lace scarf which hides her face. But, as a rule,
+      when he walks on the lawn he is accompanied by an
+      officer whom they call the major. This man also keeps
+      his head concealed, by turning up the collar of his
+      gray cloak.
+
+
+                                                  "_Friday._
+
+      "The soldiers are dancing on the lawn, while their
+      band plays German national hymns and the bells of
+      Ornequin are kept ringing with all their might. They
+      are celebrating the entrance of their troops into
+      Paris. It must be true, I fear! Their joy is the best
+      proof of the truth.
+
+
+                                                "_Saturday._
+
+      "Between my rooms and the boudoir where mother's
+      portrait used to hang is the room that was mother's
+      bedroom. This is now occupied by the major. He is an
+      intimate friend of the prince and an important person,
+      so they say. The soldiers know him only as Major
+      Hermann. He does not humble himself in the prince's
+      presence as the other officers do. On the contrary, he
+      seems to address him with a certain familiarity.
+
+      "At this minute they are walking side by side on the
+      gravel path. The prince is leaning on Major Hermann's
+      arm. I feel sure that they are talking about me and
+      that they are not at one. It looks almost as if Major
+      Hermann were angry.
+
+
+                              "_Ten o'clock in the morning._
+
+      "I was right. Rosalie tells me that they had a violent
+      scene.
+
+
+                                    "_Tuesday, 8 September._
+
+      "There is something strange in the behavior of all of
+      them. The prince, the major and the other officers
+      appear to be nervous about something. The soldiers
+      have ceased singing. There are sounds of quarreling.
+      Can things be turning in our favor?"
+
+
+                                                "_Thursday._
+
+      "The excitement is increasing. It seems that couriers
+      keep on arriving at every moment. The officers have
+      sent part of their baggage into Germany. I am full of
+      hope. But, on the other hand. . . .
+
+      "Oh, my dear Paul, if you knew the torture those
+      visits cause me! . . . He is no longer the bland and
+      honey-mouthed man of the early days. He has thrown off
+      the mask. . . . But, no, no, I will not speak of that!
+      . . .
+
+
+                                                  "_Friday._
+
+      "The whole of the village of Ornequin has been packed
+      off to Germany. They don't want a single witness to
+      remain of what happened during the awful night which I
+      described to you.
+
+
+                                          "_Sunday evening._
+
+      "They are defeated and retreating far from Paris. He
+      confessed as much, grinding his teeth and uttering
+      threats against me as he spoke. I am the hostage on
+      whom they are revenging themselves. . . .
+
+
+                                                 "_Tuesday._
+
+      "Paul, if ever you meet him in battle, kill him like a
+      dog. But do those people fight? Oh, I don't know what
+      I'm saying! My head is going round and round. Why did
+      I stay here? You ought to have taken me away, Paul, by
+      force. . . .
+
+      "Paul, what do you think he has planned? Oh, the
+      dastard! They have kept twelve of the Ornequin
+      villagers as hostages; and it is I, it is I who am
+      responsible for their lives! . . . Do you understand
+      the horror of it? They will live, or they will be
+      shot, one by one, according to my behavior. . . . The
+      thing seems too infamous to believe. Is he only trying
+      to frighten me? Oh, the shamefulness of such a threat!
+      What a hell to find one's self in! I would rather
+      die. . . .
+
+
+                             "_Nine o'clock in the evening._
+
+      "Die? No! Why should I die? Rosalie has been. Her
+      husband has come to an understanding with one of the
+      sentries who will be on duty to-night at the little
+      door in the wall, beyond the chapel. Rosalie is to
+      wake me up at three in the morning and we shall run
+      away to the big wood, where Jérôme knows of an
+      inaccessible shelter. Heavens, if we can only succeed!
+      . . .
+
+
+                                          "_Eleven o'clock._
+
+      "What has happened? Why have I got up? It's only a
+      nightmare. I am sure of that; and yet I am shaking
+      with fever and hardly able to write. . . . And why am
+      I afraid to drink the glass of water by my bedside, as
+      I am accustomed to do when I cannot sleep?
+
+      "Oh, such an abominable nightmare! How shall I ever
+      forget what I saw while I slept? For I was asleep,
+      that is certain. I had lain down to get a little rest
+      before running away; and I saw that woman's ghost in a
+      dream. . . . A ghost? It must have been one, for only
+      ghosts can enter through a bolted door; and her steps
+      made so little noise as she crept over the floor that
+      I scarcely heard the faintest rustling of her skirt.
+
+      "What had she come to do? By the glimmer of my
+      night-light I saw her go round the table and walk up
+      to my bed, cautiously, with her head lost in the
+      darkness of the room. I was so frightened that I
+      closed my eyes, in order that she might believe me to
+      be asleep. But the feeling of her very presence and
+      approach increased within me; and I was able clearly
+      to follow all her doings. She stooped over me and
+      looked at me for a long time, as though she did not
+      know me and wanted to study my face. How was it that
+      she did not hear the frantic beating of my heart? I
+      could hear hers and also the regular movement of her
+      breath. The agony I went through! Who was the woman?
+      What was her object?
+
+      "She ceased her scrutiny and went away, but not very
+      far. Through my eyelids I could half see her bending
+      beside me, occupied in some silent task; and at last I
+      became so certain that she was no longer watching me
+      that I gradually yielded to the temptation to open my
+      eyes. I wanted, if only for a second, to see her face
+      and what she was doing.
+
+      "I looked; and Heaven only knows by what miracle I had
+      the strength to keep back the cry that tried to force
+      its way through my lips! The woman who stood there and
+      whose features I was able to make out plainly by the
+      light of the night-light was. . . .
+
+      "Ah, I can't write anything so blasphemous! If the
+      woman had been beside me, kneeling down, praying, and
+      I had seen a gentle face smiling through its tears, I
+      should not have trembled before that unexpected vision
+      of the dead. But this distorted, fierce, infernal
+      expression, hideous with hatred and wickedness: no
+      sight in the world could have filled me with greater
+      terror. And it is perhaps for this reason, because
+      the sight was so extravagant and unnatural, that I did
+      not cry out and that I am now almost calm. _At the
+      moment when my eyes saw, I understood that I was the
+      victim of a nightmare._
+
+      "Mother, mother, you never wore and you never can wear
+      that expression. You were kind and gentle, were you
+      not? You used to smile; and, if you were still alive,
+      you would now be wearing that same kind and gentle
+      look? Mother, darling, since the terrible night when
+      Paul recognized your portrait, I have often been back
+      to that room, to learn to know my mother's face, which
+      I had forgotten: I was so young, mother, when you
+      died! And, though I was sorry that the painter had
+      given you a different expression from the one I should
+      have liked to see, at least it was not the wicked and
+      malignant expression of just now. Why should you hate
+      me? I am your daughter. Father has often told me that
+      we had the same smile, you and I, and also that your
+      eyes would grow moist with tears when you looked at
+      me. So you do not loathe me, do you? And I did dream,
+      did I not?
+
+      "Or, at least, if I was not dreaming when I saw a
+      woman in my room, I was dreaming when that woman
+      seemed to me to have your face. It was a delirious
+      hallucination, it must have been. I had looked at your
+      portrait so long and thought of you so much that I
+      gave the stranger the features which I knew; and it
+      was she, not you, who bore that hateful expression.
+
+      "And so I sha'n't drink the water. What she poured
+      into it must have been poison . . . or perhaps a
+      powerful sleeping-drug which would make me helpless
+      against the prince. . . . And I cannot but think of
+      the woman who sometimes walks with him. . . .
+
+      "As for me, I know nothing, I understand nothing, my
+      thoughts are whirling in my tired brain. . . .
+
+      "It will soon be three o'clock. . . . I am waiting for
+      Rosalie. It is a quiet night. There is not a sound in
+      the house or outside. . . .
+
+      "It is striking three. Ah, to be away from this! . . .
+      To be free! . . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+75 OR 155?
+
+
+Paul Delroze anxiously turned the page, as though hoping that the plan
+of escape might have proved successful; and he received, as it were, a
+fresh shock of grief on reading the first lines, written the following
+morning, in an almost illegible hand:
+
+      "We were denounced, betrayed. . . . Twenty men were
+      spying on our movements. . . . They fell upon us like
+      brutes. . . . I am now locked up in the park lodge. A
+      little lean-to beside it is serving as a prison for
+      Jérôme and Rosalie. They are bound and gagged. I am
+      free, but there are soldiers at the door. I can hear
+      them speaking to one another.
+
+
+                                          "_Twelve mid-day._
+
+      "It is very difficult for me to write to you, Paul.
+      The sentry on duty opens the door and watches my every
+      movement. They did not search me, so I was able to
+      keep the leaves of my diary; and I write to you
+      hurriedly, by scraps at a time, in a dark corner.
+      . . .
+
+      "My diary! Shall you find it, Paul? Will you know all
+      that has happened and what has become of me? If only
+      they don't take it from me! . . .
+
+      "They have brought me bread and water! I am still
+      separated from Rosalie and Jérôme. They have not given
+      them anything to eat.
+
+
+                                             "_Two o'clock._
+
+      "Rosalie has managed to get rid of her gag. She is now
+      speaking to me in an undertone through the wall. She
+      heard what the men who are guarding us said and she
+      tells me that Prince Conrad left last night for
+      Corvigny; that the French are approaching and that the
+      soldiers here are very uneasy. Are they going to
+      defend themselves, or will they fall back towards the
+      frontier? . . . It was Major Hermann who prevented our
+      escape. Rosalie says that we are done for. . . .
+
+
+                                           "_Half-past two._
+
+      "Rosalie and I had to stop speaking. I have just asked
+      her what she meant, why we should be done for. She
+      maintains that Major Hermann is a devil:
+
+      "'Yes, devil,' she repeated. 'And, as he has special
+      reasons for acting against you. . . .'
+
+      "'What reasons, Rosalie?'
+
+      "'I will explain later. But you may be sure that if
+      Prince Conrad does not come back from Corvigny in time
+      to save us, Major Hermann will seize the opportunity
+      to have all three of us shot. . . .'"
+
+Paul positively roared with rage when he saw the dreadful word set down
+in his poor Élisabeth's hand. It was on one of the last pages. After
+that there were only a few sentences written at random, across the
+paper, obviously in the dark, sentences that seemed breathless as the
+voice of one dying:
+
+      "The tocsin! . . . The wind carries the sound from
+      Corvigny. . . . What can it mean? . . . The French
+      troops? . . . Paul, Paul, perhaps you are with them!
+      . . .
+
+      "Two soldiers came in, laughing:
+
+      "'Lady's _kaput_! . . . All three _kaput_! . . . Major
+      Hermann said so: they're _kaput_!'
+
+      "I am alone again. . . . We are going to die. . . .
+      But Rosalie wants to talk to me and daren't. . . .
+
+
+                                            "_Five o'clock._
+
+      "The French artillery. . . . Shells bursting round the
+      château. . . . Oh, if one of them could hit me! . . .
+      I hear Rosalie's voice. . . . What has she to tell me?
+      What secret has she discovered?
+
+      "Oh, horror! Oh, the vile truth! Rosalie has spoken.
+      Dear God, I beseech Thee, give me time to write. . . .
+      Paul, you could never imagine. . . . You must be told
+      before I die. . . . Paul. . . ."
+
+The rest of the page was torn out; and the following pages, to the end
+of the month, were blank. Had Élisabeth had the time and the strength
+to write down what Rosalie had revealed to her?
+
+This was a question which Paul did not even ask himself. What cared he
+for those revelations and the darkness that once again and for good
+shrouded the truth which he could no longer hope to discover? What cared
+he for vengeance or Prince Conrad or Major Hermann or all those savages
+who tortured and slew women? Élisabeth was dead. She had, so to speak,
+died before his eyes. Nothing outside that fact was worth a thought or
+an effort. Faint and stupefied by a sudden fit of cowardice, his eyes
+still fixed on the diary in which his poor wife had jotted down the
+phases of the most cruel martyrdom imaginable, he felt an immense
+longing for death and oblivion steal slowly over him. Élisabeth was
+calling to him. Why go on fighting? Why not join her?
+
+Then some one tapped him on the shoulder. A hand seized the revolver
+which he was holding; and Bernard said:
+
+"Drop that, Paul. If you think that a soldier has the right to kill
+himself at the present time, I will leave you free to do so when you
+have heard what I have to say."
+
+Paul made no protest. The temptation to die had come to him, but almost
+without his knowing it; and, though he would perhaps have yielded to it,
+in a moment of madness, he was still in the state of mind in which a man
+soon recovers his consciousness.
+
+"Speak," he said.
+
+"It will not take long. Three minutes will give me time to explain.
+Listen to me. I see, from the writing, that you have found a diary kept
+by Élisabeth. Does it confirm what you knew?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When Élisabeth wrote it, was she threatened with death as well as
+Jérôme and Rosalie?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And all three were shot on the day when you and I arrived at Corvigny,
+that is to say, on Wednesday, the sixteenth?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was between five and six in the afternoon, on the day before the
+Thursday when we arrived here, at the Château d'Ornequin?"
+
+"Yes, but why these questions?"
+
+"Why? Look at this, Paul. I took from you and I hold in my hand the
+splinter of shell which you removed from the wall of the lodge at the
+exact spot where Élisabeth was shot. Here it is. There was a lock of
+hair still sticking to it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I had a talk just now with an adjutant of artillery, who was
+passing by the château; and the result of our conversation and of his
+inspection was that the splinter does not belong to a shell fired from a
+75-centimeter gun, but to a shell fired from a 155-centimeter gun, a
+Rimailho."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You don't understand, because you don't know or because you have
+forgotten what my adjutant reminded me of. On the Corvigny day,
+Wednesday the sixteenth, the batteries which opened fire and dropped a
+few shells on the château at the moment when the execution was taking
+place were all batteries of seventy-fives; and our one-five-five
+Rimailhos did not fire until the next day, Thursday, while we were
+marching against the château. Therefore, as Élisabeth was shot and
+buried at about 6 o'clock on the Wednesday evening, it is physically
+impossible for a splinter of a shell fired from a Rimailho to have taken
+off a lock of her hair, because the Rimailhos were not fired until the
+Thursday morning."
+
+"Then you mean to say. . . ." murmured Paul, in a husky voice.
+
+"I mean to say, how can we doubt that the Rimailho splinter was picked
+up from the ground on the Thursday morning and deliberately driven into
+the wall among some locks of hair cut off on the evening before?"
+
+"But you're crazy, Bernard! What object can there have been in that?"
+
+Bernard gave a smile:
+
+"Well, of course, the object of making people think that Élisabeth had
+been shot when she hadn't."
+
+Paul rushed at him and shook him:
+
+"You know something, Bernard, or you wouldn't be laughing! Can't you
+speak? How do you account for the bullets in the wall of the lodge? And
+the iron chain? And that third ring?"
+
+"Just so. There were too many stage properties. When an execution takes
+place, does one see marks of bullets like that? And did you ever find
+Élisabeth's body? How do you know that they did not take pity on her
+after shooting Jérôme and his wife? Or who can tell? Some one may have
+interfered. . . ."
+
+Paul felt some little hope steal over him. Élisabeth, after being
+condemned to death by Major Hermann, had perhaps been saved by Prince
+Conrad, returning from Corvigny before the execution.
+
+He stammered:
+
+"Perhaps . . . yes . . . perhaps. . . . And then there's this: Major
+Hermann knew of our presence at Corvigny--remember your meeting with
+that peasant woman--and wanted Élisabeth at any rate to be dead for us,
+so that we might give up looking for her. I expect Major Hermann
+arranged those properties, as you call them. How can I tell? Have I any
+right to hope?"
+
+Bernard came closer to him and said, solemnly:
+
+"It's not hope, Paul, that I'm bringing you, but a certainty. I wanted
+to prepare you for it. And now listen. My reason for asking those
+questions of the artillery adjutant was that I might check facts which I
+already knew. Yes, when I was at Ornequin village just now, a convoy of
+German prisoners arrived from the frontier. I was able to exchange a few
+words with one of them who had formed part of the garrison of the
+château. He had seen things, therefore. He knew. Well, Élisabeth was
+not shot. Prince Conrad prevented the execution."
+
+"What's that? What's that?" cried Paul, overcome with joy. "You're quite
+sure? She's alive?"
+
+"Yes, alive. . . . They've taken her to Germany."
+
+"But since then? For, after all, Major Hermann may have caught up with
+her and succeeded in his designs."
+
+"No."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Through that prisoner. The French lady whom he had seen here he saw
+this morning."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Not far from the frontier, in a village just outside Èbrecourt, under
+the protection of the man who saved her and who is certainly capable of
+defending her against Major Hermann."
+
+"What's that?" repeated Paul, but in a dull voice this time and with a
+face distorted with anger.
+
+"Prince Conrad, who seems to take his soldiering in a very amateurish
+spirit--he is looked upon as an idiot, you know, even in his own
+family--has made Èbrecourt his headquarters and calls on Élisabeth every
+day. There is no fear, therefore. . . ." But Bernard interrupted
+himself, and asked in amazement, "Why, what's the matter? You're gray in
+the face."
+
+Paul took his brother-in-law by the shoulders and shouted:
+
+"Élisabeth is lost. Prince Conrad has fallen in love with her--we heard
+that before, you know; and her diary is one long cry of distress--he has
+fallen in love with her and he never lets go his prey. Do you
+understand? He will stop at nothing!"
+
+"Oh, Paul, I can't believe. . . ."
+
+"At nothing, I tell you. He is not only an idiot, but a scoundrel and a
+blackguard. When you read the diary you will understand. . . . But
+enough of words, Bernard. What we have to do is to act and to act at
+once, without even taking time to reflect."
+
+"What do you propose?"
+
+"To snatch Élisabeth from that man's clutches, to deliver her."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Impossible? We are not eight miles from the place where my wife is a
+prisoner, exposed to that rascal's insults, and you think that I am
+going to stay here with my arms folded? Nonsense! We must show that we
+have blood in our veins! To work, Bernard! And if you hesitate I shall
+go alone."
+
+"You will go alone? Where?"
+
+"To Èbrecourt. I don't want any one with me. I need no assistance. A
+German uniform will be enough. I shall cross the frontier in the dark. I
+shall kill the enemies who have to be killed and to-morrow morning
+Élisabeth shall be here, free."
+
+Bernard shook his head and said, gently:
+
+"My poor Paul!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I should have been the first to agree and that we should
+have rushed to Élisabeth's rescue together, without counting the risk.
+Unfortunately. . . ."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, it's this, Paul: there is no intention on our side of taking a
+more vigorous offensive. They've sent for reserve and territorial
+regiments; and we are leaving."
+
+"Leaving?" stammered Paul, in dismay.
+
+"Yes, this evening. Our division is to start from Corvigny this evening
+and go I don't know where . . . to Rheims, perhaps, or Arras. North and
+west, in short. So you see, my poor chap, your plan can't be realized.
+Come, buck up. And don't look so distressed. It breaks my heart to see
+you. After all, Élisabeth isn't in danger. She will know how to defend
+herself. . . ."
+
+Paul did not answer. He remembered Prince Conrad's abominable words,
+quoted by Élisabeth in her diary:
+
+"It is war. It is the law, the law of war."
+
+He felt the tremendous weight of that law bearing upon him, but he felt
+at the same time that he was obeying it in its noblest and loftiest
+phase, the sacrifice of the individual to everything demanded by the
+safety of the nation.
+
+The law of war? No, the duty of war; and a duty so imperious that a man
+does not discuss it and that, implacable though it be, he must not even
+allow the merest quiver of a complaint to stir in his secret soul.
+Whether Élisabeth was faced by death or by dishonor did not concern
+Sergeant Paul Delroze and could not make him turn for a second from the
+path which he was ordered to follow. He was a soldier first and a man
+afterwards. He owed no duty save to France, his sorely-stricken and
+beloved country.
+
+He carefully folded up Élisabeth's diary and went out, followed by his
+brother-in-law.
+
+At nightfall he left the Château d'Ornequin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"YSERY, MISERY"
+
+
+Toul, Bar-le-Duc, Vitry-le-François. . . . The little towns sped past as
+the long train carried Paul and Bernard westwards into France. Other,
+numberless trains came before or after theirs, laden with troops and
+munitions of war. They reached the outskirts of Paris and turned north,
+passing through Beauvais, Amiens and Arras.
+
+It was necessary that they should arrive there first, on the frontier,
+to join the heroic Belgians and to join them as high up as possible.
+Every mile of ground covered was so much territory snatched from the
+invader during the long immobilized war that was in preparation.
+
+Second Lieutenant Paul Delroze--he had received his new rank in the
+course of the railway journey--accomplished the northward march as it
+were in a dream, fighting every day, risking his life every minute,
+leading his men with irresistible dash, but all as though he were doing
+it without his own cognizance, in obedience to the automatic operation
+of a predetermined will.
+
+While Bernard continued to stake his life with a laugh, as though in
+play, keeping up his comrade's courage with his own light-hearted pluck,
+Paul remained speechless and absent. Everything--fatigue, privations,
+the weather--seemed to him a matter of indifference.
+
+Nevertheless, it was an immense delight, as he would sometimes confess
+to Bernard, to be going towards the fighting line. He had the feeling
+that he was making for a definite object, the only one that interested
+him: Élisabeth's deliverance. Even though he was attacking this frontier
+and not the other, the eastern frontier, he was still rushing with all
+the strength of his hatred against the detested enemy. Whether that
+enemy was defeated here or there made little difference. In either case,
+Élisabeth would be free.
+
+"We shall succeed," said Bernard. "You may be sure that Élisabeth will
+outwit that swine. Meanwhile, we shall stampede the Huns, make a dash
+across Belgium, take Conrad in the rear and capture Èbrecourt. Doesn't
+the proposal make you smile? Oh, no, you never smile, do you, when you
+demolish a Hun? Not you! You've got a little way of laughing that tells
+me all about it. I say to myself, 'There's a bullet gone home,' or
+'That's done it: he's got one at the end of his toothpick!' For you've a
+way of your own of sticking them. Ah, lieutenant, how fierce we grow!
+Simply through practise in killing! And to think that it makes us
+laugh!"
+
+Roye, Lassigny, Chaulnes. . . . Later, the Bassée Canal and the River
+Lys. . . . And, later and at last, Ypres. Ypres! Here the two lines met,
+extended towards the sea. After the French rivers, after the Marne, the
+Aisne, the Oise and the Somme, a little Belgian stream was to run red
+with young men's blood. The terrible battle of the Yser was beginning.
+
+Bernard, who soon won his sergeant's stripes, and Paul Delroze lived in
+this hell until the early days of December. Together with half a dozen
+Parisians, a volunteer soldier, a reservist and a Belgian called
+Laschen, who had escaped from Roulers and joined the French in order to
+get at the enemy more quickly, they formed a little band who seemed
+proof against fire. Of the whole section commanded by Paul, only these
+remained; and, when the section was re-formed, they continued to group
+together. They claimed all the dangerous expeditions. And each time,
+when their task was fulfilled, they met again, safe and sound, without a
+scratch, as though they brought one another luck.
+
+During the last fortnight, the regiment, which had been pushed to the
+extreme point of the front, was flanked by the Belgian lines on the one
+side and the British lines on the other. Heroic assaults were delivered.
+Furious bayonet charges were made in the mud, even in the water of the
+flooded fields; and the Germans fell by the thousand and the ten
+thousand.
+
+Bernard was in the seventh heaven:
+
+"Tommy," he said to a little English soldier who was advancing by his
+side one day under a hail of shot and who did not understand a single
+word of French, "Tommy, no one admires the Belgians more than I do, but
+they don't stagger me, for the simple reason that they fight in our
+fashion; that is to say, like lions. The fellows who stagger me are you
+English beggars. You're different, you know. You have a way of your own
+of doing your work . . . and such work! No excitement, no fury. You keep
+all that bottled up. Oh, of course, you go mad when you retreat: that's
+when you're really terrible! You never gain as much ground as when
+you've lost a bit. Result: mashed Boches!"
+
+He paused and then continued:
+
+"I give you my word, Tommy, it fills us with confidence to have you by
+our side. Listen and I'll tell you a great secret. France is getting
+lots of applause just now; and she deserves it. We are all standing on
+our legs, holding our heads high and without boasting. We wear a smile
+on our faces and are quite calm, with clean souls and bright eyes. Well,
+the reason why we don't flinch, why we have confidence nailed to our
+hearts, is that you are with us. It's as I say, Tommy. Look here, do you
+know at what precise moment France felt just a little shaking at the pit
+of her stomach? During the retreat from Belgium? Not a bit of it! When
+Paris was within an ace of being sacked? Not at all. You give it up?
+Well, it was on the first day or two. At that time, you see, we knew,
+without saying so, without admitting it even to ourselves, that we were
+done for. There was no help for it. No time to prepare ourselves. Done
+for was what we were. And, though I say it as shouldn't, France behaved
+well. She marched straight to death without wincing, with her brightest
+smile and as gaily as if she were marching to certain victory. _Ave,
+Cæsar, morituri te salutant!_ Die? Why not, since our honor demands it?
+Die to save the world? Right you are! And then suddenly London rings us
+up on the telephone. 'Hullo! Who are you?' 'It's England speaking.'
+'Well?' 'Well, I'm coming in.' 'You don't mean it?' 'I do--with my last
+ship, with my last man, with my last shilling.' Then . . . oh, then
+there was a sudden change of front! Die? Rather not! No question of that
+now! Live, yes, and conquer! We two together will settle fate. From that
+day, France did not know a moment's uneasiness. The retreat? A trifle.
+Paris captured? A mere accident! One thing alone mattered: the final
+result. Fighting against England and France, there's nothing left for
+you Huns to do but go down on your knees. Here, Tommy, I'll start with
+that one: the big fellow at the foot of the tree. Down on your knees,
+you big fellow! . . . Hi! Tommy! Where are you off to? Calling you, are
+they? Good-by, Tommy. My love to England!"
+
+It was on the evening of that day, as the 3rd company were skirmishing
+near Dixmude, that an incident occurred which struck the two
+brothers-in-law as very odd. Paul suddenly felt a violent blow in the
+right side, just above the hip. He had no time to bother about it. But,
+on retiring to the trenches, he saw that a bullet had passed through the
+holster of his revolver and flattened itself against the barrel. Now,
+judging from the position which Paul had occupied, the bullet must have
+been fired from behind him; that is to say, by a soldier belonging to
+his company or to some other company of his regiment. Was it an
+accident? A piece of awkwardness?
+
+Two days later, it was Bernard's turn. Luck protected him, too. A bullet
+went through his knapsack and grazed his shoulder-blade.
+
+And, four days after that, Paul had his cap shot through: and, this time
+again, the bullet came from the French lines.
+
+There was no doubt about it therefore. The two brothers-in-law had
+evidently been aimed at; and the traitor, a criminal in the enemy's pay,
+was concealed in the French ranks.
+
+"It's as sure as eggs," said Bernard. "You first, then I, then you
+again. There's a touch of Hermann about this. The major must be at
+Dixmude."
+
+"And perhaps the prince, too," observed Paul.
+
+"Very likely. In any case, one of their agents has slipped in amongst
+us. How are we to get at him? Tell the colonel?"
+
+"If you like, Bernard, but don't speak of ourselves and of our private
+quarrel with the major. I did think for a moment of going to the
+colonel about it, but decided not to, as I did not want to drag in
+Élisabeth's name."
+
+There was no occasion, however, for them to warn their superiors. Though
+the attempts on the lives of Paul and Bernard were not repeated, there
+were fresh instances of treachery every day. French batteries were
+located and attacked; their movements were forestalled; and everything
+proved that a spying system had been organized on a much more methodical
+and active scale than anywhere else. They felt certain of the presence
+of Major Hermann, who was evidently one of the chief pivots of the
+system.
+
+"He is here," said Bernard, pointing to the German lines. "He is here
+because the great game is being played in those marshes and because
+there is work for him to do. And also he is here because we are."
+
+"How would he know?" Paul objected.
+
+And Bernard rejoined:
+
+"How could he fail to know?"
+
+One afternoon there was a meeting of the majors and the captains in the
+cabin which served as the colonel's quarters. Paul Delroze was summoned
+to attend it and was told that the general commanding the division had
+ordered the capture of a little house, standing on the left bank of the
+canal, which in ordinary times was inhabited by a ferryman. The Germans
+had strengthened and were holding it. The fire of their distant
+batteries, set up on a height on the other side, defended this
+block-house, which had formed the center of the fighting for some days.
+It had become necessary to take it.
+
+"For this purpose," said the colonel, "we have called for a hundred
+volunteers from the African companies. They will set out to-night and
+deliver the assault to-morrow morning. Our business will be to support
+them at once and, once the attack has succeeded, to repel the
+counter-attacks, which are sure to be extremely violent because of the
+importance of the position. You all of you know the position, gentlemen.
+It is separated from us by the marshes which our African volunteers will
+enter to-night . . . up to their waists, one might say. But to the right
+of the marshes, alongside of the canal, runs a tow-path by which we will
+be able to come to the rescue. This tow-path has been swept by the guns
+on both sides and is free for a great part. Still, half a mile before
+the ferryman's house there is an old lighthouse which was occupied by
+the Germans until lately and which we have just destroyed with our
+gun-fire. Have they evacuated it entirely? Is there a danger of
+encountering an advance post there? It would be a good thing if we could
+find out; and I thought of you, Delroze."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"It's not a dangerous job, but it's a delicate one; and it will have to
+make certain. I want you to start to-night. If the old lighthouse is
+occupied, come back. If not, send for a dozen reliable men and hide
+them carefully until we come up. It will make an excellent base."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Paul at once made his arrangements, called together his little band of
+Parisians and volunteers who, with the reservist and Laschen the
+Belgian, formed his usual command, warned them that he would probably
+want them in the course of the night and, at nine o'clock in the
+evening, set out, accompanied by Bernard d'Andeville.
+
+The fire from the enemy's guns kept them for a long time on the bank of
+the canal, behind a huge, uprooted willow-trunk. Then an impenetrable
+darkness gathered round them, so much so that they could not even
+distinguish the water of the canal.
+
+They crept rather than walked along, for fear of unexpected flashes of
+light. A slight breeze was blowing across the muddy fields and over the
+marshes, which quivered with the whispering of the reeds.
+
+"It's pretty dreary here," muttered Bernard.
+
+"Hold your tongue."
+
+"As you please, lieutenant."
+
+Guns kept booming at intervals for no reason, like dogs barking to make
+a noise amid the deep, nervous silence; and other guns at once barked
+back furiously, as if to make a noise in their turn and to prove that
+they were not asleep.
+
+And once more peace reigned. Nothing stirred in space. It was as though
+the very grass of the marshes had ceased to wave. And yet Bernard and
+Paul seemed to perceive the slow progress of the African volunteers who
+had set out at the same time as themselves, their long halts in the
+middle of the icy waters, their stubborn efforts.
+
+"Drearier and drearier," sighed Bernard.
+
+"You're very impressionable to-night," said Paul.
+
+"It's the Yser. You know what the men say: 'Yysery, misery!'"
+
+They dropped to the ground suddenly. The enemy was sweeping the path and
+the marshes with search-lights. There were two more alarms; and at last
+they reached the neighborhood of the old lighthouse without impediment.
+
+It was half-past eleven. With infinite caution they stole in between the
+demolished blocks of masonry and soon perceived that the post had been
+abandoned. Nevertheless, they discovered, under the broken steps of the
+staircase, an open trap-door and a ladder leading to a cellar which
+revealed gleams of swords and helmets. But Bernard, who was piercing the
+darkness from above with the rays of his electric lamp, declared:
+
+"There's nothing to fear, they're dead. The Huns must have thrown them
+in, after the recent bombardment."
+
+"Yes," said Paul. "And we must be prepared for the fact that they may
+send for the bodies. Keep guard on the Yser side, Bernard."
+
+"And suppose one of the beggars is still alive?"
+
+"I'll go down and see."
+
+"Turn out their pockets," said Bernard, as he moved away, "and bring us
+back their note-books. I love those. They're the best indications of the
+state of their souls . . . or rather of their stomachs."
+
+Paul went down. The cellar was a fairly large one. Half-a-dozen bodies
+lay spread over the floor, all lifeless and cold. Acting on Bernard's
+advice, he turned out the pockets and casually inspected the note-books.
+There was nothing interesting to attract his attention. But in the tunic
+of the sixth soldier whom he examined, a short, thin man, shot right
+through the head, he found a pocket-book bearing the name of Rosenthal
+and containing French and Belgian bank-notes and a packet of letters
+with Spanish, Dutch and Swiss postage stamps. The letters, all of which
+were in German, had been addressed to a German agent residing in France,
+whose name did not appear, and sent by him to Private Rosenthal, on
+whose body Paul discovered them. This private was to pass them on,
+together with a photograph, to a third person, referred to as his
+excellency.
+
+"Secret Service," said Paul, looking through them. "Confidential
+information. . . . Statistics. . . . What a pack of scoundrels!"
+
+But, on glancing at the pocket-book again, he saw an envelope which he
+tore open. Inside was a photograph; and Paul's surprise at the sight of
+it was so great that he uttered an exclamation. It represented the woman
+whose portrait he had seen in the locked room at Ornequin, the same
+woman, with the same lace scarf arranged in the identical way and with
+the same expression, whose hardness was not masked by its smile. And was
+this woman not the Comtesse Hermine d'Andeville, the mother of Élisabeth
+and Bernard?
+
+The print bore the name of a Berlin photographer. On turning it over,
+Paul saw something that increased his stupefaction. There were a few
+words of writing:
+
+      "_To Stéphane d'Andeville. 1902._"
+
+Stéphane was the Comte d'Andeville's Christian name!
+
+The photograph, therefore, had been sent from Berlin to the father of
+Élisabeth and Bernard in 1902, that is to say, four years after the
+Comtesse Hermine's death, so that Paul was faced with one of two
+solutions: either the photograph, taken before the Comtesse Hermine's
+death, was inscribed with the date of the year in which the count had
+received it; or else the Comtesse Hermine was still alive.
+
+And, in spite of himself, Paul thought of Major Hermann, whose memory
+was suggested to his troubled mind by this portrait, as it had been by
+the picture in the locked room. Hermann! Hermine! And here was Hermine's
+image discovered by him on the corpse of a German spy, by the banks of
+the Yser, where the chief spy, who was certainly Major Hermann, must
+even now be prowling.
+
+"Paul! Paul!"
+
+It was his brother-in-law calling him. Paul rose quickly, hid the
+photograph, being fully resolved not to speak of it to Bernard, and
+climbed the ladder.
+
+"Well, Bernard, what is it?"
+
+"A little troop of Boches. . . . I thought at first that they were a
+patrol, relieving the sentries, and that they would keep on the other
+side. But they've unmoored a couple of boats and are pulling across the
+canal."
+
+"Yes, I can hear them."
+
+"Shall we fire at them?" Bernard suggested.
+
+"No, it would mean giving the alarm. It's better to watch them. Besides,
+that's what we're here for."
+
+But at this moment there was a faint whistle from the tow-path. A
+similar whistle answered from the boat. Two other signals were exchanged
+at regular intervals.
+
+A church clock struck midnight.
+
+"It's an appointment," Paul conjectured. "This is becoming interesting.
+Follow me. I noticed a place below where I think we shall be safe
+against any surprise."
+
+It was a back-cellar separated from the first by a brick wall containing
+a breach through which they easily made their way. They rapidly filled
+up the breach with bricks that had fallen from the ceiling and the
+walls.
+
+They had hardly finished when a sound of steps was heard overhead and
+some words in German reached their ears. The troop of soldiers seemed to
+be fairly numerous. Bernard fixed the barrel of his rifle in one of the
+loop-holes in their barricade.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked Paul.
+
+"Making ready for them if they come. We can sustain a regular siege
+here."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Bernard. Listen. Perhaps we shall be able to catch a
+few words."
+
+"You may, perhaps. I don't know a syllable of German. . . ."
+
+A dazzling light suddenly filled the cellar. A soldier came down the
+ladder and hung a large electric lamp to a hook in the wall. He was
+joined by a dozen men; and the two brothers-in-law at once perceived
+that they had come to remove the dead.
+
+It did not take long. In a quarter of an hour's time, there was nothing
+left in the cellar but one body, that of Rosenthal, the spy.
+
+And an imperious voice above commanded:
+
+"Stay there, you others, and wait for us. And you, Karl, go down first."
+
+Some one appeared on the top rungs of the ladder. Paul and Bernard were
+astounded at seeing a pair of red trousers, followed by a blue tunic and
+the full uniform of a French private. The man jumped to the ground and
+cried:
+
+"I'm here, _Excellenz_. You can come now."
+
+And they saw Laschen, the Belgian, or rather the self-styled Belgian who
+had given his name as Laschen and who belonged to Paul's section. They
+now knew where the three shots that had been fired at them came from.
+The traitor was there. Under the light they clearly distinguished his
+face, the face of a man of forty, with fat, heavy features and
+red-rimmed eyes. He seized the uprights of the ladder so as to hold it
+steady. An officer climbed down cautiously, wrapped in a wide gray cloak
+with upturned collar.
+
+They recognized Major Hermann.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MAJOR HERMANN
+
+
+Resisting the surge of hatred that might have driven him to perform an
+immediate act of vengeance, Paul at once laid his hand on Bernard's arm
+to compel him to prudence. But he himself was filled with rage at the
+sight of that demon. The man who represented in his eyes every one of
+the crimes committed against his father and his wife, that man was
+there, in front of his revolver, and Paul must not budge! Nay more,
+circumstances had taken such a shape that, to a certainty, the man would
+go away in a few minutes, to commit other crimes, and there was no
+possibility of calling him to account.
+
+"Good, Karl," said the major, in German, addressing the so-called
+Belgian. "Good. You have been punctual. Well, what news is there?"
+
+"First of all, _Excellenz_," replied Karl, who seemed to treat the major
+with that deference mingled with familiarity which men show to a
+superior who is also their accomplice, "by your leave."
+
+He took off his blue tunic and put on that of one of the dead Germans.
+Then, giving the military salute:
+
+"That's better. You see, I'm a good German, _Excellenz_. I don't stick
+at any job. But this uniform chokes me.
+
+"Well, _Excellenz_, it's too dangerous a trade, plied in this way. A
+peasant's smock is all very well; but a soldier's tunic won't do. Those
+beggars know no fear; I am obliged to follow them; and I run the risk of
+being killed by a German bullet."
+
+"What about the two brothers-in-law?"
+
+"I fired at them three times from behind and three times I missed them.
+Couldn't be helped: they've got the devil's luck; and I should only end
+by getting caught. So, as you say, I'm deserting; and I sent the
+youngster who runs between me and Rosenthal to make an appointment with
+you."
+
+"Rosenthal sent your note on to me at headquarters."
+
+"But there was also a photograph, the one you know of, and a bundle of
+letters from your agents in France. I didn't want to have those proofs
+found on me if I was discovered."
+
+"Rosenthal was to have brought them to me himself. Unfortunately, he
+made a blunder."
+
+"What was that, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"Getting killed by a shell."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"There's his body at your feet."
+
+Karl merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"The fool!"
+
+"Yes, he never knew how to look after himself," added the major,
+completing the funeral oration. "Take his pocketbook from him, Karl. He
+used to carry it in an inside pocket of his woolen waistcoat."
+
+The spy stooped and, presently, said:
+
+"It's not there, _Excellenz_."
+
+"Then he put it somewhere else. Look in the other pockets."
+
+Karl did so and said:
+
+"It's not there either."
+
+"What! This is beyond me! Rosenthal never parted with his pocketbook. He
+used to keep it to sleep with; he would have kept it to die with."
+
+"Look for yourself, _Excellenz_."
+
+"But then . . . ?"
+
+"Some one must have been here recently and taken the pocketbook."
+
+"Who? Frenchmen?"
+
+The spy rose to his feet, was silent for a moment and then, going up to
+the major, said in a deliberate voice:
+
+"Not Frenchmen, _Excellenz_, but a Frenchman."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"_Excellenz_, Delroze started on a reconnaissance not long ago with his
+brother-in-law, Bernard d'Andeville. I could not get to know in which
+direction, but I know now. He came this way. He must have explored the
+ruins of the lighthouse and, seeing some dead lying about, turned out
+their pockets."
+
+"That's a bad business," growled the major. "Are you sure?"
+
+"Certain. He must have been here an hour ago at most. Perhaps," added
+Karl, with a laugh, "perhaps he's here still, hiding in some hole.
+. . ."
+
+Both of them cast a look around them, but mechanically; and the movement
+denoted no serious fear on their part. Then the major continued,
+pensively:
+
+"After all, that bundle of letters received by our agents, letters
+without names or addresses to them, doesn't matter so much. But the
+photograph is more important."
+
+"I should think so, _Excellenz_! Why, here's a photograph taken in 1902;
+and we've been looking for it, therefore, for the last twelve years. I
+manage, after untold efforts, to discover it among the papers which
+Comte Stéphane d'Andeville left behind at the outbreak of war. And this
+photograph, which you wanted to take back from the Comte d'Andeville, to
+whom you had been careless enough to give it, is now in the hands of
+Paul Delroze, M. d'Andeville's son-in-law, Élisabeth d'Andeville's
+husband and your mortal enemy!"
+
+"Well, I know all that," cried the major, who was obviously annoyed.
+"You needn't rub it in!"
+
+"_Excellenz_, one must always look facts in the face. What has been your
+constant object with regard to Paul Delroze? To conceal from him the
+truth as to your identity and therefore to turn his attention, his
+enquiries, his hatred, towards Major Hermann. That's so, is it not? You
+went to the length of multiplying the number of daggers engraved with
+the letters H, E, R, M and even of signing 'Major Hermann' on the panel
+where the famous portrait hung. In fact, you took every precaution, so
+that, when you think fit to kill off Major Hermann, Paul Delroze will
+believe his enemy to be dead and will cease to think of you. And now
+what happens? Why, in that photograph he possesses the most certain
+proof of the connection between Major Hermann and the famous portrait
+which he saw on the evening of his marriage, that is to say, between the
+present and the past."
+
+"True; but this photograph, found on the body of some dead soldier,
+would have no importance in his eyes unless he knew where it came from,
+for instance, if he could see his father-in-law."
+
+"His father-in-law is fighting with the British army within eight miles
+of Paul Delroze."
+
+"Do they know it?"
+
+"No, but an accident may bring them together. Moreover, Bernard and his
+father correspond; and Bernard must have told his father what happened
+at the Château d'Ornequin, at least in so far as Paul Delroze was able
+to piece the incidents together."
+
+"Well, what does that matter, so long as they know nothing of the other
+events? And that's the main thing. They could discover all our secrets
+through Élisabeth and find out who I am. But they won't look for her,
+because they believe her to be dead."
+
+"Are you sure of that, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+The two accomplices were standing close together, looking into each
+other's eyes, the major uneasy and irritated, the spy cunning.
+
+"Speak," said the major. "What do you want to say?"
+
+"Just this, _Excellenz_, that just now I was able to put my hand on
+Delroze's kit-bag. Not for long: two seconds, that's all; but long
+enough to see two things. . . ."
+
+"Hurry up, can't you?"
+
+"First, the loose leaves of that manuscript of which you took care to
+burn the more important papers, but of which, unfortunately, you mislaid
+a considerable part."
+
+"His wife's diary?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The major burst into an oath:
+
+"May I be damned for everlasting! One should burn everything in those
+cases. Oh, if I hadn't indulged that foolish curiosity! . . . And next?"
+
+"Oh, hardly anything, _Excellenz_! A bit of a shell, yes, a little bit
+of a shell; but I must say that it looked to me very like the splinter
+which you ordered me to drive into the wall of the lodge, after sticking
+some of Élisabeth's hair to it. What do you think of that, _Excellenz_?"
+
+The major stamped his foot with anger and let fly a new string of oaths
+and anathemas at the head of Paul Delroze.
+
+"What do you think of that?" repeated the spy.
+
+"You are right," cried the major. "His wife's diary will have given that
+cursed Frenchman a glimpse of the truth; and that piece of shell in his
+possession is a proof to him that his wife is perhaps still alive, which
+is the one thing I wanted to avoid. We shall never get rid of him now!"
+His rage seemed to increase. "Oh, Karl, he makes me sick and tired! He
+and his street-boy of a brother-in-law, what a pair of swankers! By God,
+I did think that you had rid me of them the night when we came back to
+their room at the château and found their names written on the wall! And
+you can understand that they won't let things rest, now that they know
+the girl isn't dead! They will look for her. They will find her. And, as
+she knows all our secrets . . . ! You ought to have made away with her,
+Karl!"
+
+"And the prince?" chuckled the spy.
+
+"Conrad is an ass! The whole of that family will bring us ill-luck and
+first of all to him who was fool enough to fall in love with that hussy.
+You ought to have made away with her at once, Karl--I told you--and not
+to have waited for the prince's return."
+
+Standing full in the light as he was, Major Hermann displayed the most
+appalling highwayman's face imaginable, appalling not because of the
+deformity of the features or any particular ugliness, but because of
+the most repulsive and savage expression, in which Paul once more
+recognized, carried to the very limits of paroxysm, the expression of
+the Comtesse Hermine, as revealed in her picture and the photograph. At
+the thought of the crime which had failed, Major Hermann seemed to
+suffer a thousand deaths, as though the murder had been a condition of
+his own life. He ground his teeth. He rolled his bloodshot eyes.
+
+In a distraught voice, clutching the shoulder of his accomplice with his
+fingers, he shouted, this time in French:
+
+"Karl, it is beginning to look as though we couldn't touch them, as
+though some miracle protected them against us. You've missed them three
+times lately. At the Château d'Ornequin you killed two others in their
+stead. I also missed him the other day at the little gate in the park.
+And it was in the same park, near the same chapel--you remember--sixteen
+years ago, when he was only a child, that you drove your knife into him.
+. . . Well, you started your blundering on that day."
+
+The spy gave an insolent, cynical laugh:
+
+"What did you expect, _Excellenz_? I was on the threshold of my career
+and I had not your experience. Here were a father and a little boy whom
+we had never set eyes on ten minutes before and who had done nothing to
+us except annoy the Kaiser. My hand shook, I confess. You, on the other
+hand: ah, you made neat work of the father, you did! One little touch
+of your little hand and the trick was done!"
+
+This time it was Paul who, slowly and carefully, slipped the barrel of
+his revolver into one of the breaches. He could no longer doubt, after
+Karl's revelations, that the major had killed his father. It was that
+creature whom he had seen, dagger in hand, on that tragic evening, that
+creature and none other! And the creature's accomplice of to-day was the
+accomplice of the earlier occasion, the satellite who had tried to kill
+Paul while his father was dying.
+
+Bernard, seeing what Paul did, whispered in his ear:
+
+"So you have made up your mind? We're to shoot him down?"
+
+"Wait till I give the signal," answered Paul. "But don't you fire at
+him, aim at the spy."
+
+In spite of everything, he was thinking of the inexplicable mystery of
+the bonds connecting Major Hermann with Bernard d'Andeville and his
+sister Élisabeth and he could not allow Bernard to be the one to carry
+out the act of justice. He himself hesitated, as one hesitates before
+performing an action of which one does not realize the full scope. Who
+was that scoundrel? What identity was Paul to ascribe to him? To-day,
+Major Hermann and chief of the German secret service; yesterday, Prince
+Conrad's boon companion, all-powerful at the Château d'Ornequin,
+disguising himself as a peasant-woman and prowling through Corvigny;
+long before that, an assassin, the Emperor's accomplice . . . and the
+lady of Ornequin: which of all these personalities, which were but
+different aspects of one and the same being, was the real one?
+
+Paul looked at the major in bewilderment, as he had looked at the
+photograph and, in the locked room, at the portrait of Hermine
+d'Andeville. Hermann, Hermine! In his mind the two names became merged
+into one. And he noticed the daintiness of the hands, white and small as
+a woman's hands. The tapering fingers were decked with rings set with
+precious stones. The booted feet, too, were delicately formed. The
+colorless face showed not a trace of hair. But all this effeminate
+appearance was belied by the grating sound of a hoarse voice, by
+heaviness of gait and movement and by a sort of barbarous strength.
+
+The major put his hands before his face and reflected for a few minutes.
+Karl watched him with a certain air of pity and seemed to be asking
+himself whether his master was not beginning to feel some kind of
+remorse at the thought of the crimes which he had committed. But the
+major threw off his torpor and, in a hardly audible voice, quivering
+with nothing but hatred, said:
+
+"On their heads be it, Karl! On their heads be it for trying to get in
+our path! I put away the father and I did well. One day it will be the
+son's turn. And now . . . now we have the girl to see to."
+
+"Shall I take charge of that, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"No, I have a use for you here and I must stay here myself. Things are
+going very badly. But I shall go down there early in January. I shall be
+at Èbrecourt on the morning of the tenth of January. The business must
+be finished forty-eight hours after. And it shall be finished, that I
+swear to you."
+
+He was again silent while the spy laughed loudly. Paul had stooped, so
+as to bring his eyes to the level of his revolver. It would be criminal
+to hesitate now. To kill the major no longer meant revenging himself and
+slaying his father's murderer: it meant preventing a further crime and
+saving Élisabeth. He had to act, whatever the consequences of his act
+might be. He made up his mind.
+
+"Are you ready?" he whispered to Bernard.
+
+"Yes. I am waiting for you to give the signal."
+
+He took aim coldly, waiting for the propitious moment, and was about to
+pull the trigger, when Karl said, in German: "I say, _Excellenz_, do you
+know what's being prepared for the ferryman's house?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"An attack, just that. A hundred volunteers from the African companies
+are on their way through the marshes now. The assault will be delivered
+at dawn. You have only just time to let them know at headquarters and to
+find out what precautions they intend to take."
+
+The major simply said:
+
+"They are taken."
+
+"What's that you say, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"I say, that they are taken. I had word from another quarter; and, as
+they attach great value to the ferryman's house, I telephoned to the
+officer in command of the post that we would send him three hundred men
+at five o'clock in the morning. The African volunteers will be caught in
+a trap. Not one of them will come back alive."
+
+The major gave a little laugh of satisfaction and turned up the collar
+of his cloak as he added:
+
+"Besides, to make doubly sure, I shall go and spend the night there
+. . . especially as I am beginning to wonder whether the officer
+commanding the post did not chance to send some men here with
+instructions to take the papers off Rosenthal, whom he knew to be dead."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"That'll do. Have Rosenthal seen to and let's be off."
+
+"Am I to go with you, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"No, there's no need. One of the boats will take me up the canal. The
+house is not forty minutes from here."
+
+In answer to the spy's call, three soldiers came down and hoisted the
+dead man's body to the trap-door overhead. Karl and the major both
+remained where they were, at the foot of the ladder, while Karl turned
+the light of the lantern, which he had taken down from the wall, towards
+the trap-door.
+
+Bernard whispered:
+
+"Shall we fire now?"
+
+"No," said Paul.
+
+"But . . ."
+
+"I forbid you."
+
+When the operation was over, the major said to Karl:
+
+"Give me a good light and see that the ladder doesn't slip."
+
+He went up and disappeared from sight.
+
+"All right," he said. "Hurry."
+
+The spy climbed the ladder in his turn. Their footsteps were heard
+overhead. The steps moved in the direction of the canal and there was
+not a sound.
+
+"What on earth came over you?" cried Bernard. "We shall never have
+another chance like that. The two ruffians would have dropped at the
+first shot."
+
+"And we after them," said Paul. "There were twelve of them up there. We
+should have been doomed."
+
+"But Élisabeth would have been saved, Paul! Upon my word, I don't
+understand you. Fancy having two monsters like that at our mercy and
+letting them go! The man who murdered your father and who is torturing
+Élisabeth was there; and you think of ourselves!"
+
+"Bernard," said Paul Delroze, "you didn't understand what they said at
+the end, in German. The enemy has been warned of the attack and of our
+plans against the ferryman's house. In a little while, the hundred
+volunteers who are stealing up through the marsh will be the victims of
+an ambush laid for them. We've got to save them first. We have no right
+to sacrifice our lives before performing that duty. And I am sure that
+you agree with me."
+
+"Yes," said Bernard. "But all the same it was a grand opportunity."
+
+"We shall have another and perhaps soon," said Paul, thinking of the
+ferryman's house to which Major Hermann was now on his way.
+
+"Well, what do you propose to do?"
+
+"I shall join the detachment of volunteers. If the lieutenant in command
+is of my opinion, he will not wait until seven to deliver the assault,
+but attack at once. And I shall be of the party."
+
+"And I?"
+
+"Go back to the colonel. Explain the position to him and tell him that
+the ferryman's house will be captured this morning and that we shall
+hold it until reinforcements come up."
+
+They parted with no more words and Paul plunged resolutely into the
+marshes.
+
+The task which he was undertaking did not meet with the obstacles he
+expected. After forty minutes of rather difficult progress, he heard the
+murmur of voices, gave the password and told the men to take him to the
+lieutenant.
+
+Paul's explanations at once convinced that officer: the job must either
+be abandoned or hurried on at once.
+
+The column went ahead. At three o'clock, guided by a peasant who knew a
+path where the men sank no deeper than their knees, they succeeded in
+reaching the neighborhood of the house unperceived. Then, when the alarm
+had been given by a sentry, the attack began.
+
+This attack, one of the finest feats of arms in the war, is too well
+known to need a detailed description here. It was extremely violent. The
+enemy, who was on his guard, made an equally vigorous defense. There was
+a tangle of barbed wire to be forced and many pitfalls to be overcome. A
+furious hand-to-hand fight took place first outside and then inside the
+house; and, by the time that the French had gained the victory after
+killing or taking prisoner the eighty-three Germans who defended it,
+they themselves had suffered losses which reduced their effective force
+by half.
+
+Paul was the first to leap into the trenches, the line of which ran
+beside the house on the left and was extended in a semicircle as far as
+the Yser. He had an idea: before the attack succeeded and before it was
+even certain that it would succeed, he wanted to cut off all retreat on
+the part of the fugitives.
+
+Driven back at first, he made for the bank, followed by three
+volunteers, stepped into the water, went up the canal and thus came to
+the other side of the house, where, as he expected, he found a bridge
+of boats.
+
+At that moment, he saw a figure disappearing in the darkness.
+
+"Stay here," he said to his men, "and let no one pass."
+
+He himself jumped out of the water, crossed the bridge and began to run.
+
+A searchlight was thrown on the canal bank and he again perceived the
+figure, thirty yards in front of him.
+
+A minute later, he shouted:
+
+"Halt, or I fire!"
+
+And, as the man continued to run, he fired, but aimed so as not to hit
+him.
+
+The fugitive stopped and fired his revolver four times, while Paul,
+stooping down, flung himself between his legs and brought him to the
+ground.
+
+The enemy, seeing that he was mastered, offered no resistance. Paul
+rolled his cloak round him and took him by the throat. With the hand
+that remained free, he threw the light of his pocket-lamp full on the
+other's face.
+
+His instinct had not deceived him: the man he held by the throat was
+Major Hermann.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE
+
+
+Paul Delroze did not speak a word. Pushing his prisoner in front of him,
+after tying the major's wrists behind his back, he returned to the
+bridge of boats in the darkness illumined by brief flashes of light.
+
+The fighting continued. But a certain number of the enemy tried to run
+away; and, when the volunteers who guarded the bridge received them with
+a volley of fire, the Germans thought that they had been cut off; and
+this diversion hastened their defeat.
+
+When Paul arrived, the combat was over. But the enemy was bound, sooner
+or later, to deliver a counter-attack, supported by the reinforcements
+that had been promised to the commandant; and the defense was prepared
+forthwith.
+
+The ferryman's house, which had been strongly fortified by the Germans
+and surrounded with trenches, consisted of a ground floor and an upper
+story of three rooms, now knocked into one. At the back of this large
+room, however, was a recess with a sloping roof, reached by three steps,
+which at one time had done duty as a servant's attic. Paul, who was
+entrusted with the arrangement of this upper floor, brought his prisoner
+here. He laid him on the floor, bound him with a cord and fastened him
+to a beam; and, while doing so, he was seized with such a paroxysm of
+hatred that he took him by the throat as though to strangle him.
+
+He mastered himself, however. After all, there was no hurry. Before
+killing the man or handing him over to the soldiers to be shot against
+the wall, why deny himself the supreme satisfaction of having an
+explanation with him?
+
+When the lieutenant entered, Paul said, so as to be heard by all and
+especially by the major:
+
+"I recommend that scoundrel to your care, lieutenant. It's Major
+Hermann, one of the chief spies in the German army. I have the proofs on
+me. Remember that, in case anything happens to me. And, if we should
+have to retreat. . . ."
+
+The lieutenant smiled:
+
+"There's no question of that. We shall not retreat, for the very good
+reason that I would rather blow up the shanty first. And Major Hermann,
+therefore, would be blown up with us. So make your mind easy."
+
+The two officers discussed the defensive measures to be adopted; and the
+men quickly got to work.
+
+First of all, the bridge of boats was unmade, trenches dug along the
+canal and the machine-guns turned to face the other way. Paul, on his
+first floor, had the sandbags moved from the one side of the house to
+the other and the less solid-looking portions of the wall shored up with
+beams.
+
+At half-past five, under the rays of the German flashlights, several
+shells fell round about. One of them struck the house. The big guns
+began to sweep the towpath.
+
+A few minutes before daybreak, a detachment of cyclists arrived by this
+path, with Bernard d'Andeville at their head. He explained that two
+companies and a section of sappers in advance of a complete battalion
+had started, but their progress was hampered by the enemy's shells and
+they were obliged to skirt the marshes, under the cover of the dyke
+supporting the towpath. This had slowed their march; and it would be an
+hour before they could arrive.
+
+"An hour," said the lieutenant. "It will be stiff work. Still, we can do
+it. So . . ."
+
+While he was giving new orders and placing the cyclists at their posts,
+Paul came up; and he was just going to tell Bernard of Major Hermann's
+capture, when his brother-in-law announced his news:
+
+"I say, Paul, dad's with me!"
+
+Paul gave a start:
+
+"Your father is here? Your father came with you?"
+
+"Just so; and in the most natural manner. You must know that he had been
+looking for an opportunity for some time. By the way, he has been
+promoted to interpreter lieutenant. . . ."
+
+Paul was no longer listening. He merely said to himself:
+
+"M. d'Andeville is here. . . . M. d'Andeville, the Comtesse Hermine's
+husband. He must know, surely. Is she alive or dead? Or has he been the
+dupe of a scheming woman to the end and does he still bear a loving
+recollection of one who has vanished from his life? But no, that's
+incredible, because there is that photograph, taken four years later and
+sent to him: sent to him from Berlin! So he knows; and then . . . ?"
+
+Paul was greatly perplexed. The revelations made by Karl the spy had
+suddenly revealed M. d'Andeville in a startling light. And now
+circumstances were bringing M. d'Andeville into Paul's presence, at the
+very time when Major Hermann had been captured.
+
+Paul turned towards the attic. The major was lying motionless, with his
+face against the wall.
+
+"Your father has remained outside?" Paul asked his brother-in-law.
+
+"Yes, he took the bicycle of a man who was riding near us and who was
+slightly wounded. Papa is seeing to him."
+
+"Go and fetch him; and, if the lieutenant doesn't object . . ."
+
+He was interrupted by the bursting of a shrapnel shell the bullets of
+which riddled the sandbags heaped up in the front of them. The day was
+breaking. They could see an enemy column looming out of the darkness a
+mile away at most.
+
+"Ready there!" shouted the lieutenant from below. "Don't fire a shot
+till I give the order. No one to show himself!"
+
+It was not until a quarter of an hour later and then only for four or
+five minutes that Paul and M. d'Andeville were able to exchange a few
+words. Their conversation, moreover, was so greatly hurried that Paul
+had no time to decide what attitude he should take up in the presence of
+Élisabeth's father. The tragedy of the past, the part which the Comtesse
+Hermine's husband played in that tragedy: all this was mingled in his
+mind with the defense of the block-house. And, in spite of their great
+liking for each other, their greeting was somewhat absent and
+distracted.
+
+Paul was ordering a small window to be stopped with a mattress. Bernard
+was posted at the other end of the room.
+
+M. d'Andeville said to Paul:
+
+"You're sure of holding out, aren't you?"
+
+"Absolutely, as we've got to."
+
+"Yes, you've got to. I was with the division yesterday, with the English
+general to whom I am attached as interpreter, when the attack was
+decided on. The position seems to be of essential importance; and it is
+indispensable that we should stick to it. I saw that this gave me an
+opportunity of seeing you, Paul, as I knew that your regiment was to be
+here. So I asked leave to accompany the contingent that had been ordered
+to. . . ."
+
+There was a fresh interruption. A shell came through the roof and
+shattered the wall on the side opposite to the canal.
+
+"Any one hurt?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+M. d'Andeville went on:
+
+"The strangest part of it was finding Bernard at your colonel's last
+night. You can imagine how glad I was to join the cyclists. It was my
+only chance of seeing something of my boy and of shaking you by the
+hand. . . . And then I had no news of my poor Élisabeth; and Bernard
+told me. . . ."
+
+"Ah," said Paul quickly, "has Bernard told you all that happened at the
+château?"
+
+"At least, as much as he knew; but there are a good many things that are
+difficult to understand; and Bernard says that you have more precise
+details. For instance, why did Élisabeth stay at the château?"
+
+"Because she wanted to," said Paul. "I was not told of her decision
+until later, by letter."
+
+"I know. But why didn't you take her with you, Paul?"
+
+"When I left Ornequin, I made all the necessary arrangements for her to
+go."
+
+"Good. But you ought not to have left Ornequin without her. All the
+trouble is due to that."
+
+M. d'Andeville had been speaking with a certain acerbity, and, as Paul
+did not answer, he asked again:
+
+"Why didn't you take Élisabeth away? Bernard said that there was
+something very serious, that you spoke of exceptional circumstances.
+Perhaps you won't mind explaining."
+
+Paul seemed to suspect a latent hostility in M. d'Andeville; and this
+irritated him all the more on the part of a man whose conduct now
+appeared to him so perplexing:
+
+"Do you think," he said, "that this is quite the moment?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes. We may be separated any minute. . . ."
+
+Paul did not allow him to finish. He turned abruptly towards his
+father-in-law and exclaimed:
+
+"You are right, sir! It's a horrible idea. It would be terrible if I
+were not able to reply to your questions or you to mine. Élisabeth's
+fate perhaps depends on the few words which we are about to speak. For
+we must know the truth between us. A single word may bring it to light;
+and there is no time to be lost. We must speak out now. . . . Whatever
+happens."
+
+His excitement surprised M. d'Andeville, who asked:
+
+"Wouldn't it be as well to call Bernard over?"
+
+"No, no," said Paul, "on no account! It's a thing that he mustn't know
+about, because it concerns. . . ."
+
+"Because it concerns whom?" asked M. d'Andeville, who was more and more
+astonished.
+
+A man standing near them was hit by a bullet and fell. Paul rushed to
+his assistance; but the man had been shot through the forehead and was
+dead. Two more bullets entered through an opening which was wider than
+it need be; and Paul ordered it to be partly closed up.
+
+M. d'Andeville, who had been helping him, pursued the conversation:
+
+"You were saying that Bernard must not hear because it concerns. . . ."
+
+"His mother," Paul replied.
+
+"His mother? What do you mean? His mother? It concerns my wife? I don't
+understand. . . ."
+
+Through the loopholes in the wall they could see three enemy columns
+advancing, above the flooded fields, moving forward on narrow causeways
+which converged towards the canal opposite the ferryman's house.
+
+"We shall fire when they are two hundred yards from the canal," said the
+lieutenant commanding the volunteers, who had come to inspect the
+defenses. "If only their guns don't knock the shanty about too much!"
+
+"Where are our reinforcements?" asked Paul.
+
+"They'll be here in thirty or forty minutes. Meantime the seventy-fives
+are doing good work."
+
+The shells were flying through space in both directions, some falling in
+the midst of the German columns, others around the blockhouse. Paul ran
+to every side, encouraging and directing the men. From time to time he
+went to the attic and looked at Major Hermann, who lay perfectly still.
+Then Paul returned to his post.
+
+He did not for a second cease to think of the duty incumbent on him as
+an officer and a combatant, nor for a second of what he had to say to M.
+d'Andeville. But these two mingled obsessions deprived him of all
+lucidity of mind! and he did not know how to come to an explanation with
+his father-in-law or how to unravel the tangled position. M. d'Andeville
+asked his question several times. He did not reply.
+
+The lieutenant's voice was raised:
+
+"Attention! . . . Present! . . . Fire! . . ."
+
+The command was repeated four times over. The nearest enemy column,
+decimated by the bullets, seemed to waver. But the others came up with
+it; and it formed up again.
+
+Two German shells burst against the house. The roof was carried away
+bodily, several feet of the frontage were demolished and three men
+killed.
+
+After the storm, a calm. But Paul had so clear a sense of the danger
+which threatened them all that he was unable to contain himself any
+longer. Suddenly making up his mind, addressing M. d'Andeville without
+further preamble, he said:
+
+"One word in particular. . . . I must know. . . . Are you quite sure
+that the Comtesse d'Andeville is dead?" And without waiting for the
+reply, he went on: "Yes, you think my question mad. It seems so to you
+because you do not know. But I am not mad; and I ask you to answer my
+question as you would do if I had the time to state the reasons that
+justify me in asking it. Is the Comtesse Hermine dead?"
+
+M. d'Andeville, restraining his feelings and consenting to adopt the
+hypothesis which Paul seemed to insist on, said:
+
+"Is there any reason that allows you to presume that my wife is still
+alive?"
+
+"There are very serious reasons, I might say, incontestable reasons."
+
+M. d'Andeville shrugged his shoulders and said, in a firm voice:
+
+"My wife died in my arms. My lips touched her icy hands, felt that chill
+of death which is so horrible in those we love. I myself dressed her, as
+she had asked, in her wedding gown; and I was there when they nailed
+down the coffin. Anything else?"
+
+Paul listened to him and thought to himself:
+
+"Has he spoken the truth? Yes, he has; and still how can I admit
+. . . ?"
+
+Speaking more imperiously, M. d'Andeville repeated:
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Yes," said Paul, "one more question. There was a portrait in the
+Comtesse d'Andeville's boudoir: was that her portrait?"
+
+"Certainly, her full length portrait."
+
+"Showing her with a black lace scarf over her shoulders?"
+
+"Yes, the kind of scarf she liked wearing."
+
+"And the scarf was fastened in front by a cameo set in a gold snake?"
+
+"Yes, it was an old cameo which belonged to my mother and which my wife
+always wore."
+
+Paul yielded to thoughtless impulse. M. d'Andeville's assertions seemed
+to him so many admissions; and, trembling with rage, he rapped out:
+
+"Monsieur, you have not forgotten, have you, that my father was
+murdered? We often spoke of it, you and I. He was your friend. Well, the
+woman who murdered him and whom I saw, the woman whose image has stamped
+itself on my brain wore a black lace scarf round her shoulders and a
+cameo set in a gold snake. And I found this woman's portrait in your
+wife's room. Yes, I saw her portrait on my wedding evening. Do you
+understand now? Do you understand or don't you?"
+
+It was a tragic moment between the two men. M. d'Andeville stood
+trembling, with his hands clutching his rifle.
+
+"Why is he trembling?" Paul asked himself; and his suspicions increased
+until they became an actual accusation. "Is it a feeling of protest or
+his rage at being unmasked that makes him shake like that? And am I to
+look upon him as his wife's accomplice? For, after all. . . ."
+
+He felt a fierce grip twisting his arm. M. d'Andeville, gray in the
+face, blurted out:
+
+"How dare you? How dare you suggest that my wife murdered your father?
+Why, you must be drunk! My wife, a saint in the sight of God and man!
+And you dare! Oh, I don't know what keeps me from smashing your face
+in!"
+
+Paul released himself roughly. The two men, shaking with a rage which
+was increased by the din of the firing and the madness of their quarrel,
+were on the verge of coming to blows while the shells and bullets
+whistled all around them.
+
+Then a new strip of wall fell to pieces. Paul gave his orders and, at
+the same time, thought of Major Hermann lying in his corner, to whom he
+could have brought M. d'Andeville like a criminal who is confronted with
+his accomplice. But why then did he not do so?
+
+Suddenly remembering the photograph of the Comtesse Hermine which he had
+found on Rosenthal's body, he took it from his pocket and thrust it in
+front of M. d'Andeville's eyes:
+
+"And this?" he shouted. "Do you know what this is? . . . There's a date
+on it, 1902, and you pretend that the Comtesse Hermine is dead! . . .
+Answer me, can't you? A photograph taken in Berlin and sent to you by
+your wife four years after her death!"
+
+M. d'Andeville staggered. It was as though all his rage had evaporated
+and was changing into infinite stupefaction. Paul brandished before his
+face the overwhelming proof constituted by that bit of cardboard. And
+he heard M. d'Andeville mutter:
+
+"Who can have stolen it from me? It was among my papers in Paris. . . .
+Why didn't I tear it up? . . ." Then he added, in a very low whisper,
+"Oh, Hermine, Hermine, my adored one!"
+
+Surely it was an avowal? But, if so, what was the meaning of an avowal
+expressed in those terms and with that declaration of love for a woman
+laden with crime and infamy?
+
+The lieutenant shouted from the ground floor:
+
+"Everybody into the trenches, except ten men. Delroze, keep the best
+shots and order independent firing."
+
+The volunteers, headed by Bernard, hurried downstairs. The enemy was
+approaching the canal, in spite of the losses which he had sustained. In
+fact, on the right and left, knots of pioneers, constantly renewed, were
+already striving with might and main to collect the boats stranded on
+the bank. The lieutenant in command of the volunteers formed his men
+into a first line of defense against the imminent assault, while the
+sharpshooters in the house had orders to kill without ceasing under the
+storm of shells.
+
+One by one, five of these marksmen fell.
+
+Paul and M. d'Andeville were here, there and everywhere, while
+consulting one another as to the commands to be given and the things to
+be done. There was not the least chance, in view of their great
+inferiority in numbers, that they would be able to resist. But there
+was some hope of their holding out until the arrival of the
+reinforcements, which would ensure the possession of the blockhouse.
+
+The French artillery, finding it impossible to secure an effective aim
+amid the confusion of the combatants, had ceased fire, whereas the
+German guns were still bombarding the house; and shells were bursting at
+every moment.
+
+Yet another man was wounded. He was carried into the attic and laid
+beside Major Hermann, where he died almost immediately.
+
+Outside, there was fighting on and even in the water of the canal, in
+the boats and around them. There were hand-to-hand contests amid general
+uproar, yells of execration and pain, cries of terror and shouts of
+victory. The confusion was so great that Paul and M. d'Andeville found
+it difficult to take aim.
+
+Paul said to his father-in-law:
+
+"I'm afraid we may be done for before assistance arrives. I am bound
+therefore to warn you that the lieutenant has made his arrangements to
+blow up the house. As you are here by accident, without any
+authorization that gives you the quality or duties of a combatant.
+. . ."
+
+"I am here as a Frenchman," said M. d'Andeville, "and I shall stay on to
+the end."
+
+"Then perhaps we shall have time to finish what we have to say, sir.
+Listen to me. I will be as brief as I can. But if you should see the
+least glimmer of light, please do not hesitate to interrupt me."
+
+He fully understood that there was a gulf of darkness between them and
+that, whether guilty or not, whether his wife's accomplice or her dupe,
+M. d'Andeville must know things which he, Paul, did not know and that
+these things could only be made plain by an adequate recital of what had
+happened.
+
+He therefore began to speak. He spoke calmly and deliberately, while M.
+d'Andeville listened in silence. And they never ceased firing, quietly
+loading, aiming and reloading, as though they were at practise. All
+around and above them death pursued its implacable work.
+
+Paul had hardly described his arrival at Ornequin with Élisabeth, their
+entrance into the locked room and his dismay at the sight of the
+portrait, when an enormous shell exploded over their heads, spattering
+them with shrapnel bullets.
+
+The four volunteers were hit. Paul also fell, wounded in the neck; and,
+though he suffered no pain, he felt that all his ideas were gradually
+fading into a mist without his being able to retain them. He made an
+effort, however, and by some miracle of will was still able to exercise
+a remnant of energy that allowed him to keep his hold on certain
+reflections and impressions. Thus he saw his father-in-law kneeling
+beside him and succeeded in saying to him:
+
+"Élisabeth's diary. . . . You'll find it in my kit-bag in camp . . .
+with a few pages written by myself . . . which will explain. . . . But
+first you must . . . Look, that German officer over there, bound up
+. . . he's a spy. . . . Keep an eye on him. . . . Kill him. . . . If
+not, on the tenth of January . . . but you will kill him, won't you?"
+
+Paul could speak no more. Besides, he saw that M. d'Andeville was not
+kneeling down to listen to him or help him, but that, himself shot, with
+his face bathed in blood, he was bending double and finally fell in a
+huddled heap, uttering moans that grew fainter and fainter.
+
+A great calm now descended on the big room, while the rifles crackled
+outside. The German guns were no longer firing. The enemy's
+counter-attack must be meeting with success; and Paul, incapable of
+moving, lay awaiting the terrible explosion foretold by the lieutenant.
+
+He pronounced Élisabeth's name time after time. He reflected that no
+danger threatened her now, because Major Hermann was also about to die.
+Besides, her brother Bernard would know how to defend her. But after a
+while this sort of tranquillity disappeared, changed into uneasiness and
+then into restless anxiety, giving way to a feeling of which every
+second that passed increased the torture. He could not tell whether he
+was haunted by a nightmare, by some morbid hallucination. It all
+happened on the side of the attic to which he had dragged Major
+Hermann. A soldier's dead body was lying between them. And it seemed, to
+his horror, as if the major had cut his bonds and were rising to his
+feet and looking around him.
+
+Paul exerted all his strength to open his eyes and keep them open. But
+an ever thicker shadow veiled them; and through this shadow he
+perceived, as one sees a confused sight in the darkness, the major
+taking off his cloak, stooping over the body, removing its blue coat and
+buttoning it on himself. Then he put the dead man's cap on his head,
+fastened his scarf round his neck, took the soldier's rifle, bayonet and
+cartridges and, thus transfigured, stepped down the three wooden stairs.
+
+It was a terrible vision. Paul would have been glad to doubt his eyes,
+to believe in some phantom image born of his fever and delirium. But
+everything confirmed the reality of what he saw; and it meant to him the
+most infernal suffering. The major was making his escape!
+
+Paul was too weak to contemplate the position in all its bearings. Was
+the major thinking of killing him and of killing M. d'Andeville? Did the
+major know that they were there, both of them wounded, within reach of
+his hand? Paul never asked himself these questions. One idea alone
+obsessed his failing mind. Major Hermann was escaping. Thanks to his
+uniform, he would mingle with the volunteers! By the aid of some
+signal, he would get back to the Germans! And he would be free! And he
+would resume his work of persecution, his deadly work, against
+Élisabeth!
+
+Oh, if the explosion had only taken place! If the ferryman's house could
+but be blown up and the major with it! . . .
+
+Paul still clung to this hope in his half-conscious condition. Meanwhile
+his reason was wavering. His thoughts became more and more confused. And
+he swiftly sank into that darkness in which one neither sees nor hears.
+. . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three weeks later the general commanding in chief stepped from his motor
+car in front of an old château in the Bourbonnais, now transformed into
+a military hospital. The officer in charge was waiting for him at the
+door.
+
+"Does Second Lieutenant Delroze know that I am coming to see him?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Take me to his room."
+
+Paul Delroze was sitting up. His neck was bandaged; but his features
+were calm and showed no traces of fatigue. Much moved by the presence of
+the great chief whose energy and coolness had saved France, he rose to
+the salute. But the general gave him his hand and exclaimed, in a kind
+and affectionate voice:
+
+"Sit down, Lieutenant Delroze. . . . I say lieutenant, for you were
+promoted yesterday. No, no thanks. By Jove, we are still your debtors!
+So you're up and about?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. The wound wasn't much."
+
+"So much the better. I'm satisfied with all my officers; but, for all
+that, we don't find fellows like you by the dozen. Your colonel has sent
+in a special report about you which sets forth such an array of acts of
+incomparable bravery that I have half a mind to break my own rule and to
+make the report public."
+
+"No, please don't, sir."
+
+"You are right, Delroze. It is the first attribute of heroism that it
+likes to remain anonymous; and it is France alone that must have all the
+glory for the time being. So I shall be content for the present to
+mention you once more in the orders of the day and to hand you the cross
+for which you were already recommended."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you, sir."
+
+"In addition, my dear fellow, if there's the least thing you want, I
+insist that you should give me this opportunity of doing it for you."
+
+Paul nodded his head and smiled. All this cordial kindness and
+attentiveness were putting him at his ease.
+
+"But suppose I want too much, sir?"
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"Very well, sir, I accept. And what I ask is this: first of all, a
+fortnight's sick leave, counting from Saturday, the ninth of January,
+the day on which I shall be leaving the hospital."
+
+"That's not a favor, that's a right."
+
+"I know, sir. But I must have the right to spend my leave where I
+please."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"And more than that: I must have in my pocket a permit written in your
+own hand, sir, which will give me every latitude to move about as I wish
+in the French lines and to call for any assistance that can be of use to
+me."
+
+The general looked at Paul for a moment, and said:
+
+"That's a serious request you're making, Delroze."
+
+"Yes, sir, I know it is. But the thing I want to undertake is serious
+too."
+
+"All right, I agree. Anything more?"
+
+"Yes, sir, Sergeant Bernard d'Andeville, my brother-in-law, took part as
+I did in the action at the ferryman's house. He was wounded like myself
+and brought to the same hospital, from which he will probably be
+discharged at the same time. I should like him to have the same leave
+and to receive permission to accompany me."
+
+"I agree. Anything more?"
+
+"Bernard's father, Comte Stéphane d'Andeville, second lieutenant
+interpreter attached to the British army, was also wounded on that day
+by my side. I have learnt that his wound, though serious, is not likely
+to prove fatal and that he has been moved to an English hospital, I
+don't know which. I would ask you to send for him as soon as he is well
+and to keep him on your staff until I come to you and report on the task
+which I have taken in hand."
+
+"Very well. Is that all?"
+
+"Very nearly, sir. It only remains for me to thank you for your kindness
+by asking you to give me a list of twenty French prisoners, now in
+Germany, in whom you take a special interest. Those twenty prisoners
+will be free in a fortnight from now at most."
+
+"Eh? What's that?"
+
+For all his coolness, the general seemed a little taken aback. He
+echoed:
+
+"Free in a fortnight from now! Twenty prisoners!"
+
+"I give you my promise, sir."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense."
+
+"It shall be as I say."
+
+"Whatever the prisoners' rank? Whatever their social position?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And by regular means, means that can be avowed?"
+
+"By means to which there can be no possible objection."
+
+The general looked at Paul again with the eye of a leader who is in the
+habit of judging men and reckoning them at their true value. He knew
+that the man before him was not a boaster, but a man of action and a
+man of his word, who went straight ahead and kept his promises. He
+replied:
+
+"Very well, Delroze, you shall have your list to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A MASTERPIECE OF KULTUR
+
+
+On the morning of Sunday, the tenth of January, Lieutenant Delroze and
+Sergeant d'Andeville stepped on to the platform at Corvigny, went to
+call on the commandant of the town and then took a carriage in which
+they drove to the Château d'Ornequin.
+
+"All the same," said Bernard, stretching out his legs in the fly, "I
+never thought that things would turn out as they have done when I was
+hit by a splinter of shrapnel between the Yser and the ferryman's house.
+What a hot corner it was just then! Believe me or believe me not, Paul,
+if our reinforcements hadn't come up, we should have been done for in
+another five minutes. We were jolly lucky!"
+
+"We were indeed," said Paul. "I felt that next day, when I woke up in a
+French ambulance!"
+
+"What I can't get over, though," Bernard continued, "is the way that
+blackguard of a Major Hermann made off. So you took him prisoner? And
+then you saw him unfasten his bonds and escape? The cheek of the rascal!
+You may be sure he got away safe and sound!"
+
+Paul muttered:
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it; and I don't doubt either that he means to
+carry out his threats against Élisabeth."
+
+"Bosh! We have forty-eight hours before us, as he gave his pal Karl the
+tenth of January as the date of his arrival and he won't act until two
+days later."
+
+"And suppose he acts to-day?" said Paul, in a husky voice.
+
+Notwithstanding his anguish, however, the drive did not seem long to
+him. He was at last approaching--and this time really--the object from
+which each day of the last four months had removed him to a greater
+distance. Ornequin was on the frontier; and Èbrecourt was but a few
+minutes from the frontier. He refused to think of the obstacles which
+would intervene before he could reach Èbrecourt, discover his wife's
+retreat and save her. He was alive. Élisabeth was alive. No obstacles
+existed between him and her.
+
+The Château d'Ornequin, or rather what remained of it--for even the
+ruins of the château had been subjected to a fresh bombardment in
+November--was serving as a cantonment for territorial troops, whose
+first line of trenches skirted the frontier. There was not much fighting
+on this side, because, for tactical reasons, it was not to the enemy's
+advantage to push too far forward. The defenses were of equal strength;
+and a very active watch was kept on either side.
+
+These were the particulars which Paul obtained from the territorial
+lieutenant with whom he lunched.
+
+"My dear fellow," concluded the officer, after Paul had told him the
+object of his journey, "I am altogether at your service; but, if it's a
+question of getting from Ornequin to Èbrecourt, you can make up your
+mind that you won't do it."
+
+"I shall do it all right."
+
+"It'll have to be through the air then," said the officer, with a laugh.
+
+"No."
+
+"Or underground."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"There you're wrong. We wanted ourselves to do some sapping and mining.
+It was no use. We're on a deposit of rock in which it's impossible to
+dig."
+
+It was Paul's turn to smile:
+
+"My dear chap, if you'll just be kind enough to lend me for one hour
+four strong men armed with picks and shovels, I shall be at Èbrecourt
+to-night."
+
+"I say! Four men to dig a six-mile tunnel through the rock in an hour!"
+
+"That's ample. Also, you must promise absolute secrecy both as to the
+means employed and the rather curious discoveries to which they are
+bound to lead. I shall make a report to the general commanding in chief;
+but no one else is to know."
+
+"Very well, I'll select my four fellows for you myself. Where am I to
+bring them to you?"
+
+"On the terrace, near the donjon."
+
+This terrace commands the Liseron from a height of some hundred and
+fifty feet and, in consequence of a loop in the river, is exactly
+opposite Corvigny, whose steeple and the neighboring hills are seen in
+the distance. Of the castle-keep nothing remains but its enormous base,
+which is continued by the foundation-walls, mingled with natural rocks,
+which support the terrace. A garden extends its clumps of laurels and
+spindle-trees to the parapet.
+
+It was here that Paul went. Time after time he strode up and down the
+esplanade, leaning over the river and inspecting the blocks that had
+fallen from the keep under the mantle of ivy.
+
+"Now then," said the lieutenant, on arriving with his men. "Is this your
+starting-point? I warn you we are standing with our backs to the
+frontier."
+
+"Pooh!" replied Paul, in the same jesting tone. "All roads lead to
+Berlin!"
+
+He pointed to a circle which he had marked out with stakes, and set the
+men to work:
+
+"Go ahead, my lads."
+
+They began to throw up, within a circle of three yards in circumference,
+a soil consisting of vegetable mold in which, in twenty minutes' time,
+they had dug a hole five feet deep. Here they came upon a layer of
+stones cemented together; and their work now became much more difficult,
+for the cement was of incredible hardness and they were only to break it
+up by inserting their picks into the cracks. Paul followed the
+operations with anxious attention.
+
+After an hour, he told them to stop. He himself went down into the hole
+and then went on digging, but slowly and as though examining the effect
+of every blow that he struck.
+
+"That's it!" he said, drawing himself up.
+
+"What?" asked Bernard.
+
+"The ground on which we are standing is only a floor of the big
+buildings that used to adjoin the old keep, buildings which were razed
+to the ground centuries ago and on the top of which this garden was laid
+out."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, in clearing away the soil, I have broken through the ceiling of
+one of the old rooms. Look."
+
+He took a stone, placed it right in the center of the narrower opening
+which he himself had made and let it drop. The stone disappeared. A dull
+sound followed almost immediately.
+
+"All that need now be done is for the men to widen the entrance. In the
+meantime, we will go and fetch a ladder and lights: as much light as
+possible."
+
+"We have pine torches," said the officer.
+
+"That will do capitally."
+
+Paul was right. When the ladder was let down and he had descended with
+the lieutenant and Bernard, they saw a very large hall, whose vaults
+were supported by massive pillars which divided it, like a church of
+irregular design, into two main naves, with narrower and lower
+side-aisles.
+
+But Paul at once called his companions' attention to the floor of those
+two naves:
+
+"A concrete flooring, do you see? . . . And, look there, as I expected,
+two rails running along one of the upper galleries! . . . And here are
+two more rails in the other gallery! . . ."
+
+"But what does it all mean?" exclaimed Bernard and the lieutenant.
+
+"It means simply this," said Paul, "that we have before us what is
+evidently the explanation of the great mystery surrounding the capture
+of Corvigny and its two forts."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Corvigny and its two forts were demolished in a few minutes, weren't
+they? Where did those gunshots come from, considering that Corvigny is
+fifteen miles from the frontier and that not one of the enemy's guns had
+crossed the frontier? They came from here, from this underground
+fortress."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Here are the rails on which they moved the two gigantic pieces which
+were responsible for the bombardment."
+
+"I say! You can't bombard from the bottom of a cavern! Where are the
+embrasures?"
+
+"The rails will take us there. Show a good light, Bernard. Look, here's
+a platform mounted on a pivot. It's a good size, eh? And here's the
+other platform."
+
+"But the embrasures?"
+
+"In front of you, Bernard."
+
+"That's a wall."
+
+"It's the wall which, together with the rock of the hill, supports the
+terrace above the Liseron, opposite Corvigny. And two circular breaches
+were made in the wall and afterwards closed up again. You can see the
+traces of the closing quite plainly."
+
+Bernard and the lieutenant could not get over their astonishment:
+
+"Why, it's an enormous work!" said the officer.
+
+"Absolutely colossal!" replied Paul. "But don't be too much surprised,
+my dear fellow. It was begun sixteen or seventeen years ago, to my own
+knowledge. Besides, as I told you, part of the work was already done,
+because we are in the lower rooms of the old Ornequin buildings; and,
+having found them, all they had to do was to arrange them according to
+the object which they had in view. There is something much more
+astounding, though!"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"The tunnel which they had to build in order to bring their two pieces
+here."
+
+"A tunnel?"
+
+"Well, of course! How do you expect they got here? Let's follow the
+rails, in the other direction, and we'll soon come to the tunnel."
+
+As he anticipated, the two sets of rails joined a little way back and
+they saw the yawning entrance to a tunnel about nine feet wide and the
+same height. It dipped under ground, sloping very gently. The walls were
+of brick. No damp oozed through the walls; and the ground itself was
+perfectly dry.
+
+"Èbrecourt branch-line," said Paul, laughing. "Seven miles in the shade.
+And that is how the stronghold of Corvigny was bagged. First, a few
+thousand men passed through, who killed off the little Ornequin garrison
+and the posts on the frontier and then went on to the town. At the same
+time, the two huge guns were brought up, mounted and trained upon sites
+located beforehand. When these had done their business, they were
+removed and the holes stopped up. All this didn't take two hours."
+
+"But to achieve those two decisive hours the Kaiser worked for seventeen
+years, bless him!" said Bernard. "Well, let's make a start."
+
+"Would you like my men to go with you?" suggested the lieutenant.
+
+"No, thank you. It's better that my brother-in-law and I should go by
+ourselves. If we find, however, that the enemy has destroyed his tunnel,
+we will come back and ask for help. But it will astonish me if he has.
+Apart from the fact that he has taken every precaution lest the
+existence of the tunnel should be discovered, he is likely to have kept
+it intact in case he himself might want to use it again."
+
+And so, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the two brothers-in-law
+started on their walk down the imperial tunnel, as Bernard called it.
+They were well armed, supplied with provisions and ammunition and
+resolved to pursue the adventure to the end.
+
+In a few minutes, that is to say, two hundred yards farther on, the
+light of their pocket-lantern showed them the steps of a staircase on
+their right.
+
+"First turning," remarked Paul. "I take it there must be at least three
+of them."
+
+"Where does the staircase lead to?"
+
+"To the château, obviously. And, if you want to know to what part, I
+say, to the room with the portrait. There's no doubt that this is the
+way by which Major Hermann entered the château on the evening of the day
+when we attacked it. He had his accomplice Karl with him. Seeing our
+names written on the wall, they stabbed the two men sleeping in the
+room, Private Gériflour and his comrade."
+
+Bernard d'Andeville stopped short:
+
+"Look here, Paul, you've been bewildering me all day. You're acting with
+the most extraordinary insight, going straight to the right place at
+which to dig, describing all that happened as if you had been there,
+knowing everything and foreseeing everything. I never suspected you of
+that particular gift. Have you been studying Sherlock Holmes?"
+
+"Not even Arsène Lupin," said Paul, moving on again. "But I've been ill
+and I have thought things over. Certain passages in Élisabeth's diary,
+in which she spoke of her perplexing discoveries, gave me the first
+hint. I began by asking myself why the Germans had taken such pains to
+create a desert all around the château. And in this way, putting two and
+two together, drawing inference after inference, examining the past and
+the present, remembering my meeting with the German Emperor and a
+number of things which are all linked together, I ended by coming to the
+conclusion that there was bound to be a secret communication between the
+German and the French sides of the frontier, terminating at the exact
+place from which it was possible to fire on Corvigny. It seemed to me
+that, _a priori_, this place must be the terrace; and I became quite
+sure of it when, just now, I saw on the terrace a dead tree, overgrown
+with ivy, near which Élisabeth thought that she heard sounds coming from
+underground. From that moment, I had nothing to do but get to work."
+
+"And your object is . . . ?" asked Bernard.
+
+"I have only one object: to deliver Élisabeth."
+
+"Your plan?"
+
+"I haven't one. Everything will depend on circumstances; but I am
+convinced that I am on the right track."
+
+In fact all his surmises were proving to be correct. In ten minutes they
+reached a space where another tunnel, also supplied with rails, branched
+off to the right.
+
+"Second turning," said Paul. "Corvigny Road. It was down here that the
+Germans marched to the town and took our troops by surprise before they
+even had time to assemble; it was down here that the peasant-woman went
+who accosted you in the evening. The outlet must be at some distance
+from the town, perhaps in a farm belonging to the supposed
+peasant-woman."
+
+"And the third turning?" said Bernard.
+
+"Here it is."
+
+"Another staircase?"
+
+"Yes; and I have no doubt that it leads to the chapel. We may safely
+presume that, on the day when my father was murdered, the Emperor had
+come to examine the works which he had ordered and which were being
+executed under the supervision of the woman who accompanied him. The
+chapel, which at that time was not inside the walls of the park, is
+evidently one of the exits from the secret network of roads of which we
+are following the main thoroughfare."
+
+Paul saw two more of these ramifications, which, judging from their
+position and direction, must issue near the frontier, thus completing a
+marvelous system of espionage and invasion.
+
+"It's wonderful," said Bernard. "It's admirable. If this isn't Kultur, I
+should like to know what is. One can see that these people have the true
+sense of war. The idea of digging for twenty years at a tunnel intended
+for the possible bombardment of a tiny fortress would never have
+occurred to a Frenchman. It needs a degree of civilization to which we
+can't lay claim. Did you ever know such beggars!"
+
+His enthusiasm increased still further when he observed that the roof of
+the tunnel was supplied with ventilating-shafts. But at last Paul
+enjoined him to keep silent or to speak in a whisper:
+
+"You can imagine that, as they thought fit to preserve their lines of
+communication, they must have done something to make them unserviceable
+to the French. Èbrecourt is not far off. Perhaps there are
+listening-posts, sentries posted at the right places. These people leave
+nothing to chance."
+
+One thing that lent weight to Paul's remark was the presence, between
+the rails, of those cast-iron slabs which covered the chambers of mines
+laid in advance, so that they could be exploded by electricity. The
+first was numbered five, the second four; and so on. Paul and Bernard
+avoided them carefully; and this delayed their progress, for they no
+longer dared switch on their lamps except at brief intervals.
+
+At about seven o'clock they heard or rather they seemed to hear confused
+sounds of life and movement on the ground overhead. They felt deeply
+moved. The soil above them was German soil; and the echo brought the
+sounds of German life.
+
+"It's curious, you know, that the tunnel isn't better watched and that
+we have been able to come so far without accident."
+
+"We'll give them a bad mark for that," said Bernard. "Kultur has made a
+slip."
+
+Meanwhile a brisker draught blew along the walls. The outside air
+entered in cool gusts; and they suddenly saw a distant light through the
+darkness. It was stationary. Everything around it seemed still, as
+though it were one of those fixed signals which are put up near a
+railway.
+
+When they came closer, they perceived that it was the light of an
+electric arc-lamp, that it was burning inside a shed standing at the
+exit of the tunnel and its rays were cast upon great white cliffs and
+upon little mounds of sand and pebbles.
+
+Paul whispered:
+
+"Those are quarries. By placing the entrance to their tunnel there, they
+were able to continue their works in time of peace without attracting
+attention. You may be sure that those so-called quarries were worked
+very discreetly, in a compound to which the workmen were confined."
+
+"What Kultur!" Bernard repeated.
+
+He felt Paul's hand grip his arm. Something had passed in front of the
+light, like a shadow rising and falling immediately after.
+
+With infinite caution they crawled up to the shed and raised themselves
+until their eyes were on a level with the windows. Inside were half a
+dozen soldiers, all lying down, or rather sprawling one across the
+other, among empty bottles, dirty plates, greasy paper wrappers and
+remnants of broken victuals. They were the men told off to guard the
+tunnel; and they were dead-drunk.
+
+"More Kultur," said Bernard.
+
+"We're in luck," said Paul, "and I now understand why the watch is so
+ill-kept: this is Sunday."
+
+There was a telegraph-apparatus on a table and a telephone on the wall;
+and Paul saw under a glass case a switch-board with five brass handles,
+which evidently corresponded by electric wires with the five
+mine-chambers in the tunnel.
+
+When they passed on, Bernard and Paul continued to follow the rails
+along the bed of a narrow channel, hollowed out of the rock, which led
+them to an open space bright with many lights. A whole village lay
+before them, consisting of barracks inhabited by soldiers whom they saw
+moving to and fro. They went outside it. They then noticed the sound of
+a motor-car and the blinding rays of two head-lights; and, after
+climbing a fence and passing through a shrubbery, they saw a large villa
+lit up from top to bottom.
+
+The car stopped in front of the doorstep, where some footmen were
+standing, as well as a guard of soldiers. Two officers and a lady
+wrapped in furs alighted. When the car turned, the lights revealed a
+large garden, contained within very high walls.
+
+"It is just as I thought," said Paul. "This forms the counterpart of the
+Château d'Ornequin. At either end there are strong walls which allow
+work to be done unobserved by prying eyes. The terminus is in the open
+air here, instead of underground, as it is down there; but at least the
+quarries, the work-yards, the barracks, the garrison, the villa
+belonging to the staff, the garden, the stables, all this military
+organization is surrounded by walls and no doubt guarded on the outside
+by sentries. That explains why one is able to move about so freely
+inside."
+
+At that moment, a second motor-car set down three officers and then
+joined the other in the coach-house.
+
+"There's a dinner-party on," said Bernard.
+
+They resolved to approach as near as they could, under cover of the
+thick clumps of shrubs planted along the carriage-drive which surrounded
+the house.
+
+They waited for some time; and then, from the sound of voices and
+laughter that came from the ground-floor, at the back, they concluded
+that this must be the scene of the banquet and that the guests were
+sitting down to dinner. There were bursts of song, shouts of applause.
+Outside, nothing stirred. The garden was deserted.
+
+"The place seems quiet," said Paul. "I shall ask you to give me a leg up
+and to keep hidden yourself."
+
+"You want to climb to the ledge of one of the windows? What about the
+shutters?"
+
+"I don't expect they're very close. You can see the light shining
+through the middle."
+
+"Well, but why are you doing it? There is no reason to bother about this
+house more than any other."
+
+"Yes, there is. You yourself told me that one of the wounded prisoners
+said Prince Conrad had taken up his quarters in a villa outside
+Èbrecourt. Now this one, standing in the middle of a sort of entrenched
+camp and at the entrance to the tunnel, seems to me marked out. . . ."
+
+"Not to mention this really princely dinner-party," said Bernard,
+laughing. "You're right. Up you go."
+
+They crossed the walk. With Bernard's assistance, Paul was easily able
+to grip the ledge above the basement floor and to hoist himself to the
+stone balcony.
+
+"That's it," he said. "Go back to where we were and whistle in case of
+danger."
+
+After bestriding the balustrade, he carefully loosened one of the
+shutters by passing first his fingers and then his hand through the
+intervening space; and he succeeded in unfastening the bolt. The
+curtains, being crossed inside, enabled him to move about unseen; but
+they were open at the top, leaving an inverted triangle through which he
+could see by climbing on to the balustrade.
+
+He did so and then bent forward and looked.
+
+The sight that met his eyes was such and gave him so horrible a blow
+that his legs began to shake beneath him. . . .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY
+
+
+A table running parallel with the three windows of the room. An
+incredible collection of bottles, decanters and glasses, hardly leaving
+room for the dishes of cake and fruit. Ornamental side-dishes flanked by
+bottles of champagne. A basket of flowers surrounded by liqueur-bottles.
+
+Twenty persons were seated at table, including half-a-dozen women in
+low-necked dresses. The others were officers, covered with gold lace and
+orders.
+
+In the middle, facing the window, sat Prince Conrad, presiding over the
+banquet, with a lady on his right and another on his left. And it was
+the sight of these three, brought together in the most improbable
+defiance of the logic of things, that caused Paul to undergo a torture
+which was renewed from moment to moment.
+
+That one of the two women should be there, on the prince's right,
+sitting stiff-backed in her plum-colored stuff gown, with a black-lace
+scarf half-hiding her short hair, was easy to understand. But the other
+woman, to whom Prince Conrad kept turning with a clumsy affectation of
+gallantry, that woman whom Paul contemplated with horror-struck eyes and
+whom he would have liked to strangle where she sat, what was she doing
+there? What was Élisabeth doing in the midst of those tipsy officers and
+dubious German women, beside Prince Conrad and beside the monstrous
+creature who was pursuing her with her hatred?
+
+The Comtesse Hermine d'Andeville! Élisabeth d'Andeville! The mother and
+the daughter! There was no plausible argument that would allow Paul to
+apply any other description to the prince's two companions. And
+something happened to give this description its full value of hideous
+reality when, a moment later, Prince Conrad rose to his feet, with a
+glass of champagne in his hand, and shouted:
+
+"_Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!_ Here's to the health of our very wideawake friend!"
+
+"_Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!_" shouted the band of guests. "The Comtesse
+Hermine!"
+
+She took up a glass, emptied it at a draught and began to make a speech
+which Paul could not hear, while the others did their best to listen
+with a fervent attention which was all the more meritorious in view of
+their copious libations.
+
+And Élisabeth also sat and listened. She was wearing a gray gown which
+Paul knew well, quite a simple frock, cut very high in the neck and with
+sleeves that came down to her wrists. But from her throat a wonderful
+necklace, consisting of four rows of large pearls, hung over her bodice;
+and this necklace Paul did not know.
+
+"The wretch! The wretch!" he spluttered.
+
+She was smiling. Yes, he saw on the younger woman's lips a smile
+provoked by something that Prince Conrad said as he bent over her. And
+the prince gave such a boisterous laugh that the Comtesse Hermine, who
+was still speaking, called him to order by tapping him on the hand with
+her fan.
+
+The whole scene was a horrible one for Paul; and he suffered such
+scorching anguish that his one idea was to get away, to see no more, to
+abandon the struggle and to drive this hateful wife of his out of his
+life and out of his memory.
+
+"She is a true daughter of the Comtesse Hermine," he thought, in
+despair.
+
+He was on the point of going, when a little incident held him back.
+Élisabeth raised to her eyes a handkerchief which she held crumpled in
+the hollow of her hand and furtively wiped away a tear that was ready to
+flow. At the same time he perceived that she was terribly pale, not with
+a factitious pallor, which until then he had attributed to the crudeness
+of the light, but with a real and deathly pallor. It was as though all
+the blood had fled from her poor face. And, after all, what a melancholy
+smile was that which had twisted her lips in response to the prince's
+jest!
+
+"But then what is she doing here?" Paul asked himself. "Am I not
+entitled to regard her as guilty and to suppose that her tears are due
+to remorse? She has become cowardly through fear, threats and the wish
+to live; and now she is crying."
+
+He continued to insult her in his thoughts; but gradually he felt a
+great pity steal over him for the woman who had not had the strength to
+endure her intolerable trials.
+
+Meanwhile, the Comtesse Hermine made an end of her speech. She drank
+again, swallowing bumper after bumper and each time flinging her glass
+behind her. The officers and their women followed her example.
+Enthusiastic _Hochs_ were raised from every side; and, in a drunken fit
+of patriotism, the prince got on his feet and struck up "_Deutschland
+über Alles_," the others joining in the chorus with a sort of frenzy.
+
+Élisabeth had put her elbows on the table and her hands before her face,
+as though trying to isolate herself from her surroundings. But the
+prince, still standing and bawling, took her two arms and brutally
+forced them apart:
+
+"None of your monkey-tricks, pretty one!"
+
+She gave a movement of repulsion which threw him beside himself.
+
+"What's all this? Sulking? And blubbering? A nice thing! And, bless my
+soul, what do I see? Madame's glass is full!"
+
+He took the glass and, with a shaky hand, put it to Élisabeth's lips:
+
+"Drink my health, child! The health of your lord and master! What's
+this? You refuse? . . . Ah, I see, you don't like champagne! Quite
+right! Down with champagne! What you want is hock, good Rhine wine, eh,
+baby? You're thinking of one of your country's songs: 'We held it once,
+your German Rhine! It babbled in our brimming glass!' Rhine wine,
+there!"
+
+With one movement, the officers rose and started shouting:
+
+            _Die Wacht am Rhein_
+
+    "They shall not have our German Rhine,
+    Tho' like a flock of hungry crows
+    They shriek their lust . . ."
+
+"No, they shan't have it," rejoined the prince, angrily, "but you shall
+drink it, little one!"
+
+Another glass had been filled. Once more he tried to force Élisabeth to
+lift it to her lips; and, when she pushed it away, he began to whisper
+in her ear, while the wine dribbled over her dress.
+
+Everybody was silent, waiting to see what would happen. Élisabeth turned
+paler than ever, but did not move. The prince, leaning over her, showed
+the face of a brute who alternately threatens, pleads, commands and
+insults. It was a heart-rending sight. Paul would have given his life to
+see Élisabeth yield to a fit of disgust and stab her insulter. Instead
+of that, she threw back her head, closed her eyes and half-swooning,
+accepted the chalice and swallowed a few mouthfuls.
+
+The prince gave a shout of triumph as he waved the glass on high; then
+he put his lips, avidly, to the place at which she had drunk and emptied
+it at a draught.
+
+"_Hoch! Hoch!_" he roared. "Up, comrades! Every one on his chair, with
+one foot on the table! Up, conquerors of the world! Sing the strength of
+Germany! Sing German gallantry!
+
+    "'The Rhine, the free, the German Rhine
+    They shall not have while gallant boys
+    Still tell of love to slender maids. . . .'
+
+"Élisabeth, I have drunk Rhine wine from your glass. Élisabeth, I know
+what you are thinking. Her thoughts are of love, my comrades! I am the
+master! Oh, Parisienne! . . . You dear little Parisienne! . . . It's
+Paris we want! . . . Oh, Paris, Paris! . . ."
+
+His foot slipped. The glass fell from his hand and smashed against the
+neck of a bottle. He dropped on his knees on the table, amid a crash of
+broken plates and glasses, seized a flask of liqueur and rolled to the
+floor, stammering:
+
+"We want Paris. . . . Paris and Calais. . . . Papa said so. . . . The
+Arc de Triomphe! . . . The Café Anglais! . . . A _cabinet particulier_
+at the Café Anglais! . . ."
+
+The uproar suddenly stopped. The Comtesse Hermine's imperious voice was
+raised in command:
+
+"Go away, all of you! Go home! And be quick about it, gentlemen, if you
+please."
+
+The officers and the ladies soon made themselves scarce. Outside, on the
+other side of the house, there was a great deal of whistling. The cars
+at once drove up from the garage. A general departure took place.
+
+Meanwhile the Countess had beckoned to the servants and, pointing to
+Prince Conrad, said:
+
+"Carry him to his room."
+
+The prince was removed at once. Then the Comtesse Hermine went up to
+Élisabeth.
+
+Not five minutes had elapsed since the prince rolled under the table;
+and, after the din of the banquet, a great silence reigned in the
+disorderly room where the two women were now by themselves. Élisabeth
+had once more hidden her head in her hands and was weeping violently
+with sobs that shook her shoulders. The Comtesse Hermine sat down beside
+her and gently touched her on the arm.
+
+The two women looked at each other without a word. It was a strange
+glance that they exchanged, a glance laden with mutual hatred. Paul did
+not take his eyes from them. As he watched the two of them, he could not
+doubt that they had met before and that the words which they were about
+to speak were but the sequel and conclusion of some earlier discussion.
+But what discussion? And what did Élisabeth know of the Comtesse
+Hermine? Did she accept that woman, for whom she felt such loathing, as
+her mother?
+
+Never were two human beings distinguished by a greater difference in
+physical appearance and above all by expressions of face denoting more
+opposite natures. And yet how powerful was the series of proofs that
+linked them together! These were no longer proofs, but rather the
+factors of so actual a reality that Paul did not even dream of
+discussing them. Besides, M. d'Andeville's confusion when confronted
+with the countess' photograph, a photograph taken in Berlin some years
+after her pretended death, showed that M. d'Andeville was an accessory
+to that pretended death and perhaps an accessory to many other things.
+
+And Paul came back to the question provoked by the agonizing encounter
+between the mother and daughter: what did Élisabeth know of it all? What
+insight had she been able to obtain into the whole monstrous
+conglomeration of shame, infamy, treachery and crime? Was she accusing
+her mother? And, feeling herself crushed under the weight of the crimes,
+did she hold her responsible for her own lack of courage?
+
+"Yes, of course she does," thought Paul. "But why so much hatred? There
+is a hatred between them which only death can quench. And the longing to
+kill is perhaps even more violent in the eyes of Élisabeth than in
+those of the woman who has come to kill her."
+
+Paul felt this impression so keenly that he really expected one or the
+other to take some immediate action; and he began to cast about for a
+means of saving Élisabeth. But an utterly unforeseen thing happened. The
+Comtesse Hermine took from her pocket one of those large road-maps which
+motorists use, placed her finger at one spot, followed the red line of a
+road to another spot and, stopping, spoke a few words that seemed to
+drive Élisabeth mad with delight.
+
+She seized the countess by the arm and began to talk to her feverishly,
+in words interrupted by alternate laughing and sobbing, while the
+countess nodded her head and seemed to be saying:
+
+"That's all right. . . . We are agreed. . . . Everything shall be as you
+wish. . . ."
+
+Paul thought that Élisabeth was actually going to kiss her enemy's hand,
+for she seemed overcome with joy and gratitude; and he was anxiously
+wondering into what new trap the poor thing had fallen, when the
+countess rose, walked to a door and opened it.
+
+She beckoned to some one outside and then came back again.
+
+A man entered, dressed in uniform. And Paul now understood. The man whom
+the Comtesse Hermine was admitting was Karl the spy, her confederate,
+the agent of her designs, the man whom she was entrusting with the task
+of killing Élisabeth, whose last hour had struck.
+
+Karl bowed. The Comtesse Hermine introduced the man to Élisabeth and
+then, pointing to the road and the two places on the map, explained what
+was expected of him. He took out his watch and made a gesture as though
+to say:
+
+"It shall be done at such-and-such a time."
+
+Thereupon, at the countess' suggestion, Élisabeth left the room.
+
+Although Paul had not caught a single word of what was said, this brief
+scene was, for him, pregnant with the plainest and most terrifying
+significance. The countess, using her absolute power and taking
+advantage of the fact that Prince Conrad was asleep, was proposing a
+plan of escape to Élisabeth, doubtless a flight by motor-car, towards a
+spot in the neighboring district thought out in advance. Élisabeth was
+accepting this unhoped-for deliverance. And the flight would take place
+under the management and protection of Karl!
+
+The trap was so well-laid and Élisabeth, driven mad with suffering, was
+rushing into it so confidently that the two accomplices, on being left
+alone, looked at each other and laughed. The trick was really too easy;
+and there was no merit in succeeding under such conditions.
+
+There next took place between them, even before any explanation was
+entered into, a short pantomime: two movements, no more; but they were
+marked with diabolical cynicism. With his eyes fixed on the countess,
+Karl the spy opened his jacket and drew a dagger half-way out of its
+sheath. The countess made a sign of disapproval and handed the scoundrel
+a little bottle which he took with a shrug of the shoulders, apparently
+saying:
+
+"As you please! It's all the same to me!"
+
+Then, sitting side by side, they embarked on a lively conversation, the
+countess giving her instructions, while Karl expressed his approval or
+his dissent.
+
+Paul had a feeling that, if he did not master his dismay, if he did not
+stop the disordered beating of his heart, Élisabeth was lost. To save
+her, he must keep his brain absolutely clear and take immediate
+resolutions, as circumstances demanded, without giving himself time to
+reflect or hesitate. And these resolutions he could only take at a
+venture and perhaps erroneously, because he did not really know the
+enemy's plans. Nevertheless he cocked his revolver.
+
+He was at that moment presuming that, when Élisabeth was ready to start,
+she would return to the room and go away with the spy; but presently the
+countess struck a bell on the table and spoke a few words to the servant
+who appeared. The man went out. Paul heard two whistles, followed by the
+hum of an approaching motor.
+
+Karl looked through the open door and down the passage. Then he turned
+to the countess, as though to say:
+
+"Here she is. . . . She's coming down the stairs. . . ."
+
+Paul now understood that Élisabeth would go straight to the car and that
+Karl would join her there. If so, it was a case for immediate action.
+
+For a second he remained undecided. Should he take advantage of the fact
+that Karl was still there, burst into the room and shoot both him and
+the countess dead? It would mean saving Élisabeth, because it was only
+those two miscreants who had designs upon her life. But he dreaded the
+failure of so daring an attempt and, jumping from the balcony, he called
+Bernard.
+
+"Élisabeth is going off in a motor-car. Karl is with her and has been
+told to poison her. Get out your revolver and come with me."
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"We shall see."
+
+They went round the villa, slipping through the bushes that bordered the
+drive. The whole place, moreover, was deserted.
+
+"Listen," said Bernard, "there's a car going off."
+
+Paul, at first greatly alarmed, protested:
+
+"No, no, it's only the noise of the engine."
+
+In fact, when they came within sight of the front of the house, they saw
+at the foot of the steps a closed car surrounded by a group of some
+dozen soldiers. Its head-lamps, while lighting up one part of the
+garden, left the spot where Paul and Bernard stood in darkness.
+
+A woman came down the steps and disappeared inside the car.
+
+"Élisabeth," said Paul. "And here comes Karl. . . ."
+
+The spy stopped on the bottom step and gave his orders to the soldier
+who acted as chauffeur. Paul caught a syllable here and there.
+
+Their departure was imminent. Another moment and, if Paul raised no
+obstacle, the car would carry off the assassin and his victim. It was a
+horrible minute, for Paul Delroze felt all the danger attending an
+interference which would not even possess the merit of being effective,
+since Karl's death would not prevent the Comtesse Hermine from pursuing
+her ends.
+
+Bernard whispered:
+
+"Surely you don't mean to carry away Élisabeth? There's a whole picket
+of sentries there."
+
+"I mean to do only one thing, to do for Karl."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then they'll take us prisoners. We shall be questioned, cross-examined;
+there will be a scandal. Prince Conrad will take the matter up."
+
+"And we shall be shot. I confess that your plan . . ."
+
+"Can you propose a better one?"
+
+He broke off. Karl the spy had flown into a rage and was storming at
+his chauffeur; and Paul heard him shout:
+
+"You damned ass! You're always doing it! No petrol. . . . Where do you
+think we shall find petrol in the middle of the night? There's some in
+the garage, is there? Then run and fetch it, you fat-head! . . . And
+where's my fur-coat? You've forgotten it? Go and get it at once. I shall
+drive the car myself. I've no use for fools like you! . . ."
+
+The soldier started running. And Paul at once observed that he himself
+would be able to reach the garage, of which he saw the lights, without
+having to leave the protecting darkness.
+
+"Come," he said to Bernard. "I have an idea: you'll see what it is."
+
+With the sound of their footsteps deadened by a grassy lawn, they made
+for that part of the out-houses containing the stables and motor-sheds,
+which they were able to enter unseen by those without. The soldier was
+in a back-room, the door of which was open. From their hiding-place they
+saw him take from a peg a great goat-skin coat, which he threw over his
+shoulder, and lay hold of four tins of petrol. Thus laden, he left the
+back-room and passed in front of Paul and Bernard.
+
+The trick was soon done. Before he had time to cry out, he was knocked
+down, rendered motionless and gagged.
+
+"That's that," said Paul. "Now give me his great-coat and his cap. I
+would rather have avoided this disguise; but, if you want to be sure of
+a thing, you mustn't stick at the means."
+
+"Then you're going to risk it?" asked Bernard. "Suppose Karl doesn't
+recognize his chauffeur?"
+
+"He won't even think of looking at him."
+
+"But if he speaks to you?"
+
+"I shan't answer. Besides, once we are outside the grounds, I shall have
+nothing to fear from him."
+
+"And what am I to do?"
+
+"You? Bind your prisoner carefully and lock him up in some safe place.
+Then go back to the shrubbery beyond the window with the balcony. I hope
+to join you there with Élisabeth some time during the middle of the
+night; and we shall simply have to go back by the tunnel. If by accident
+you don't see me return . . ."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, then go back alone before it gets light."
+
+"But . . ."
+
+Paul was already moving away. He was in the mood in which a man refuses
+to consider the actions which he has decided to perform. Moreover, the
+event seemed to prove that he was right. Karl received him with abusive
+language, but without paying the least attention to this supernumerary
+for whom he could not show enough contempt. The spy put on his fur-coat,
+sat down at the wheel and began to handle the levers while Paul took
+his seat beside him.
+
+The car was starting, when a voice from the doorstep called, in a tone
+of command:
+
+"Karl! Stop!"
+
+Paul felt a moment's anxiety. It was the Comtesse Hermine. She went up
+to the spy and, lowering her voice, said, in French:
+
+"I want you, Karl, to be sure . . . But your driver doesn't know French,
+does he?"
+
+"He hardly knows German, _Excellenz_. He's an idiot. You can speak
+freely."
+
+"What I was going to say is, don't use more than ten drops out of the
+bottle, else. . . ."
+
+"Very well, _Excellenz_. Anything more?"
+
+"Write to me in a week's time if everything has gone off well. Write to
+our Paris address and not before: it would be useless."
+
+"Then you're going back to France, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"Yes, my plan is ripe."
+
+"The same plan?"
+
+"Yes. The weather is in our favor. It has been raining for days and the
+staff have told me that they mean to act on their side. So I shall be
+there to-morrow evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb
+. . ."
+
+"That's it, a touch of the thumb, no more. I've worked at it myself and
+everything's ready. But you spoke to me of another plan, to complete the
+first; and I confess that that one . . ."
+
+"It's got to be done. Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will
+be the end of the run on the black."
+
+"And have you the Kaiser's consent?"
+
+"I didn't ask for it. It's one of those undertakings one doesn't talk
+about."
+
+"But this one is terribly dangerous, _Excellenz_."
+
+"Can't be helped."
+
+"Sha'n't you want me over there, _Excellenz_?"
+
+"No. Get rid of the chit for us. That will be enough for the present.
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, _Excellenz_."
+
+The spy released the brakes. The car started.
+
+The drive which ran round the central lawn led to a lodge which stood
+beside the garden-gate and which served as a guard-room. The high walls
+surrounding the grounds rose on either side of it.
+
+An officer came out of the lodge. Karl gave the pass-word,
+"Hohenstaufen." The gate was opened and the motor dashed down a
+high-road which first passed through the little town of Èbrecourt and
+next wound among low hills.
+
+So Paul Delroze, at an hour before midnight, was alone in the open
+country, with Élisabeth and Karl the spy. If he succeeded in mastering
+the spy, as he did not doubt that he could, Élisabeth would be free.
+There would then remain nothing to do but to return to Prince Conrad's
+villa, with the aid of the pass-word, and pick up Bernard there. Once
+the adventure was completed in accordance with Paul's designs, the
+tunnel would bring back all the three of them to the Château d'Ornequin.
+
+Paul therefore gave way to the delight that was stealing over him.
+Élisabeth was with him, under his protection: Élisabeth, whose courage,
+no doubt, had yielded under the weight of her trials, but who had a
+claim upon his indulgence because her misfortunes were due to his fault.
+He forgot, he wished to forget all the ugly phases in the tragedy, in
+order to think only of the end that was near at hand, his wife's triumph
+and deliverance.
+
+He watched the road attentively, so as not to miss his way when
+returning, and planned out his attack, fixing it at the first stop which
+they would have to make. He resolved that he would not kill the spy, but
+that he would stun him with a blow of his fist and, after knocking him
+down and binding him, throw him into some wood by the road-side.
+
+They came to a fair-sized market-town, then two villages and then a town
+where they had to stop and show the car's papers. It was past eleven.
+
+Then once more they were driving along country lanes which ran through a
+series of little woods whose trees lit up as they passed.
+
+At that moment, the light of the lamps began to fail. Karl slackened
+speed. He growled:
+
+"You dolt, can't you even keep your lamps alight? Have you got any
+carbide?"
+
+Paul did not reply. Karl went on cursing his luck. Suddenly, he put on
+the brakes, with an oath:
+
+"You blasted idiot! One can't go on like this. . . . Here, stir your
+stumps and light up."
+
+Paul sprang from his seat, while the car drew up by the road-side. The
+time had come to act.
+
+He first attended to the lamps, keeping an eye upon the spy's movements
+and taking care to stand outside the rays. Karl got down, opened the
+door of the car, and started a conversation which Paul could not hear.
+Then he came back to where Paul was:
+
+"Well, pudding-head, haven't you done yet?"
+
+Paul had his back turned to him, attending to his work and waiting for
+the propitious moment when the spy, coming two steps nearer, would be
+within his reach.
+
+A minute elapsed. He clenched his fists. He foresaw the exact movement
+which he would have to make and was on the point of making it, when
+suddenly he felt himself seized round the body from behind and brought
+to the ground without being able to offer the least resistance.
+
+"Thunder and lightning!" cried the spy, holding him down with his knee.
+"So that's why you wouldn't answer? . . . It struck me somehow that you
+were behaving queerly. . . . And then I never gave it another thought.
+. . . It was the lamp, just now, that threw a light on your side-face.
+. . . But who is the fellow I've got hold of? Some dog of a Frenchman,
+may be?"
+
+Paul had stiffened his muscles and believed for a moment that he would
+succeed in escaping from the other's grip. The enemy's strength was
+yielding; Paul gradually seemed to master him; and he exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, a Frenchman, Paul Delroze, the one you used to try and kill, the
+husband of Élisabeth, your victim. . . . Yes, it's I; and I know who you
+are: you're Laschen, the sham Belgian; you're Karl the spy."
+
+He stopped. The spy, who had only weakened his effort to draw a dagger
+from his belt, was now raising it against him:
+
+"Ah, Paul Delroze! . . . God's truth, this'll be a lucky trip! . . .
+First the husband and then the wife. . . . Ah, so you came running into
+my clutches! . . . Here, take this, my lad! . . ."
+
+Paul saw the gleam of a blade flashing above his face. He closed his
+eyes, uttering Élisabeth's name.
+
+Another second; and three shots rang out in rapid succession. Some one
+was firing from behind the group formed by the two adversaries.
+
+The spy swore a hideous oath. His grip became relaxed. The weapon in the
+hand trembled and he fell flat on the ground, moaning:
+
+"Oh, the cursed woman! . . . That cursed woman! . . . I ought to have
+strangled her in the car. . . . I knew this would happen. . . ."
+
+His voice failed him. He stammered:
+
+"I've got it this time. . . . Oh, that cursed woman! . . . And the pain
+. . . !"
+
+Then he was silent. A few convulsions, a dying gasp and that was all.
+
+Paul had leapt to his feet. He ran to the woman who had saved his life
+and who was still holding her revolver in her hand:
+
+"Élisabeth!" he cried, wild with delight.
+
+But he stopped, with his arms outstretched. In the dark, the woman's
+figure did not seem to him to be Élisabeth's, but a taller and broader
+figure. He blurted out, in a tone of infinite anguish:
+
+"Élisabeth . . . is it you? . . . Is it really you? . . ."
+
+And at the same time he intuitively knew the answer which he was about
+to hear:
+
+"No," said the woman, "Mme. Delroze started a little before us, in
+another motor. Karl and I were to join her."
+
+Paul remembered that car, of which he and Bernard had thought that he
+heard the sound when going round the villa. As the two starts had taken
+place with an interval of a few minutes at most between them, he cried:
+
+"Let us be quick then and lose no time. . . . By putting on speed, we
+shall be sure to catch them. . . ."
+
+But the woman at once objected:
+
+"It's impossible, because the two cars have taken different roads."
+
+"What does that matter, if they lead to the same point. Where are they
+taking Mme. Delroze?"
+
+"To a castle belonging to the Comtesse Hermine."
+
+"And where is that castle?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know? But this is terrible! At least, you know its name.
+
+"No, I don't. Karl never told me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLE
+
+
+In the terrible state of distress into which those last words threw him,
+Paul felt the need of some immediate action, even as he had done at the
+sight of the banquet given by Prince Conrad. Certainly, all hope was
+lost. His plan, which was to use the tunnel before the alarm was raised,
+his plan was shattered. Granting that he succeeded in finding Élisabeth
+and delivering her, a very unlikely contingency, at what moment would
+this take place? And how was he afterwards to escape the enemy and
+return to France?
+
+No, henceforward space and time were both against him. His defeat was
+such that there was nothing for it but to resign himself and await the
+final blow.
+
+And yet he did not flinch. He saw that any weakness would be
+irreparable. The impulse that had carried him so far must be continued
+unchecked and with more vigor than ever.
+
+He walked up to the spy. The woman was stooping over the body and
+examining it by the light of one of the lamps which she had taken down.
+
+"He's dead, isn't he?" asked Paul.
+
+"Yes, he's dead. Two bullets hit him in the back." And she murmured, in
+a broken voice, "It's horrible, what I've done. I've killed him myself!
+But it's not a murder, sir, is it? And I had the right to, hadn't I?
+. . . But it's horrible all the same . . . I've killed Karl!"
+
+Her face, which was young and still rather pretty, though common, was
+distorted. Her eyes seemed glued to the corpse.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Paul.
+
+She replied, sobbing:
+
+"I was his sweetheart . . . and better than that . . . or rather worse.
+He had taken an oath that he would marry me. . . . But Karl's oath! He
+was such a liar, sir, such a coward! . . . Oh, the things I know of him!
+. . . I myself, simply through holding my tongue, gradually became his
+accomplice. He used to frighten me so! I no longer loved him, but I was
+afraid of him and obeyed him . . . with such loathing, at the end! . . .
+And he knew how I loathed him. He used often to say, 'You are quite
+capable of killing me some day or other.' No, sir, I did think of it,
+but I should never have had the courage. It was only just now, when I
+saw that he was going to stab you . . . and above all when I heard your
+name. . . ."
+
+"My name? What has that to do with it?"
+
+"You are Madame Delroze's husband."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I know her. Not for long, only since to-day. This morning, Karl,
+on his way from Belgium, passed through the town where I was and took me
+to Prince Conrad's. He told me I was to be lady's maid to a French lady
+whom we were going to take to a castle. I knew what that meant. I should
+once more have to be his accomplice, to inspire confidence. And then I
+saw that French lady, I saw her crying; and she was so gentle and kind
+that I felt sorry for her. I promised to rescue her . . . Only, I never
+thought that it would be in this way, by killing Karl. . . ."
+
+She drew herself up suddenly and said, in a hard voice:
+
+"But it had to be, sir. It was bound to happen, for I knew too much
+about him. It had to be he or I. . . . It was he . . . and I can't help
+it and I'm not sorry. . . . He was the wickedest wretch on earth; and,
+with people like him, one mustn't hesitate. No, I am not sorry."
+
+Paul asked:
+
+"He was devoted to the Comtesse Hermine, was he not?"
+
+She shuddered and lowered her voice to reply:
+
+"Oh, don't speak of her, please! She is more terrible still; and she is
+still alive. Ah, if she should ever suspect!"
+
+"Who is the woman?"
+
+"How can I tell? She comes and goes, she is the mistress wherever she
+may be. . . . People obey her as they do the Emperor. Everybody fears
+her . . . as they do her brother."
+
+"Her brother?"
+
+"Yes, Major Hermann."
+
+"What's that? Do you mean to say that Major Hermann is her brother?"
+
+"Why, of course! Besides, you have only to look at him. He is the very
+image of the Comtesse Hermine!"
+
+"Have you ever seen them together?"
+
+"Upon my word, I can't remember. Why do you ask?"
+
+Time was too precious for Paul to insist. The woman's opinion of the
+Comtesse Hermine did not matter much. He asked:
+
+"She is staying at the prince's?"
+
+"For the present, yes. The prince is on the first floor, at the back;
+she is on the same floor, but in front."
+
+"If I let her know that Karl has had an accident and that he has sent
+me, his chauffeur, to tell her, will she see me?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Does she know Karl's chauffeur, whose place I took?"
+
+"No. He was a soldier whom Karl brought with him from Belgium."
+
+Paul thought for a moment and then said:
+
+"Lend me a hand."
+
+They pushed the body towards the ditch by the road-side, rolled it in
+and covered it with dead branches.
+
+"I shall go back to the villa," he said. "You walk on until you come to
+the first cluster of houses. Wake the people and tell them the story of
+how Karl was murdered by his chauffeur and how you ran away. The time
+which it will take to inform the police, to question you and to
+telephone to the villa is more than I need."
+
+She took alarm:
+
+"But the Comtesse Hermine?"
+
+"Have no fear there. Granting that I do not deprive her of her power of
+doing mischief, how could she suspect you, when the
+police-investigations will hold me alone to account for everything?
+Besides, we have no choice."
+
+And, without more words, he started the engine, took his seat at the
+wheel and, in spite of the woman's frightened entreaties, drove off.
+
+He drove off with the same eagerness and decision as though he were
+fulfilling the conditions of some new plan of which he had fixed every
+detail beforehand and as though he felt sure of its success.
+
+"I shall see the countess," he said to himself. "She will either be
+anxious as to Karl's fate and want me to take her to him at once or she
+will see me in one of the rooms in the villa. In either case I shall
+find a method of compelling her to reveal the name of the castle in
+which Élisabeth is a prisoner. I shall even compel her to give me the
+means of delivering her and helping her to escape."
+
+But how vague it all was! The obstacles in the way! The impossibilities!
+How could he expect circumstances to be so complaisant as first to blind
+the countess' eyes to the facts and next to deprive her of all
+assistance? A woman of her stamp was not likely to let herself be taken
+in by words or subdued by threats.
+
+No matter, Paul would not entertain the thought of failure. Success lay
+at the end of his undertaking; and in order to achieve it more quickly
+he increased the pace, rushing his car like a whirlwind along the roads
+and hardly slackening speed as he passed through villages and towns.
+
+"Hohenstaufen!" he cried to the sentry posted outside the wall.
+
+The officer of the picket, after questioning him, sent him on to the
+sergeant in command of the post at the front-door. The sergeant was the
+only one who had free access to the villa; and he would inform the
+countess.
+
+"Very well," said Paul. "I'll put up my car first."
+
+In the garage, he turned off his lights; and, as he went towards the
+villa, he thought that it might be well, before going back to the
+sergeant, to look up Bernard and learn if his brother-in-law had
+succeeded in discovering anything.
+
+He found him behind the villa, in the clumps of shrubs facing the window
+with the balcony.
+
+"You're by yourself?" said Bernard, anxiously.
+
+"Yes, the job failed. Élisabeth was in an earlier motor."
+
+"What an awful thing!"
+
+"Yes, but it can be put right. And you . . . what about the chauffeur?"
+
+"He's safely hidden away. No one will see him . . . at least not before
+the morning, when other chauffeurs come to the garage."
+
+"Very well. Anything else?"
+
+"There was a patrol in the grounds an hour ago. I managed to keep out of
+sight."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I made my way as far as the tunnel. The men were beginning to
+stir. Besides, there was something that made them jolly well pull
+themselves together!"
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"The sudden arrival of a certain person of our acquaintance, the woman I
+met at Corvigny, who is so remarkably like Major Hermann."
+
+"Was she going the rounds?"
+
+"No, she was leaving."
+
+"Yes, I know, she means to leave."
+
+"She has left."
+
+"Oh, nonsense! I can't believe that. There was no immediate hurry about
+her departure for France."
+
+"I saw her go, though."
+
+"How? By what road?"
+
+"The tunnel, of course! Do you imagine that the tunnel serves no further
+purpose? That was the road she took, before my eyes, under the most
+comfortable conditions, in an electric trolley driven by a brakesman. No
+doubt, since the object of her journey was, as you say, to get to
+France, they shunted her on to the Corvigny branch. That was two hours
+ago. I heard the trolley come back."
+
+The disappearance of the Comtesse Hermine was a fresh blow to Paul. How
+was he now to find, how to deliver Élisabeth? What clue could he trust
+in this darkness, in which each of his efforts was ending in disaster?
+
+He pulled himself together, made an act of will and resolved to
+persevere in the adventure until he attained his object. He asked
+Bernard if he had seen nothing more.
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"Nobody going or coming in the garden?"
+
+"No. The servants have gone to bed. The lights are out."
+
+"All the lights?"
+
+"All except one, there, over our heads."
+
+The light was on the first floor, at a window situated above the window
+through which Paul had watched Prince Conrad's supper-party. He asked:
+
+"Was that light put on while I was up on the balcony?"
+
+"Yes, towards the end."
+
+"From what I was told," Paul muttered, "that must be Prince Conrad's
+room. He's drunk and had to be carried upstairs."
+
+"Yes, I saw some shadows at that time; and nothing has moved since."
+
+"He's evidently sleeping off his champagne. Oh, if one could only see,
+if one could get into the room!"
+
+"That's easily done," said Bernard.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Through the next room, which must be the dressing-room. They've left
+the window open, no doubt to give the prince a little air."
+
+"But I should want a ladder . . ."
+
+"There's one hanging on the wall of the coach-house. Shall I get it for
+you?"
+
+"Yes, do," said Paul eagerly. "Be quick."
+
+A whole new scheme was taking shape in his mind, similar in some
+respects to his first plan of campaign and likely, he thought, to lead
+to a successful issue.
+
+He made certain that the approaches to the villa on either side were
+deserted and that none of the soldiers on guard had moved away from the
+front-door. Then, when Bernard was back, he placed the ladder in
+position and leant it against the wall. They went up.
+
+The open window belonged, as they expected, to the dressing-room and the
+light from the bedroom showed through the open door. Not a sound came
+from that other room except a loud snoring. Paul put his head through
+the doorway.
+
+Prince Conrad was lying fast asleep across his bed, like a loose-jointed
+doll, clad in his uniform, the front of which was covered with stains.
+He was sleeping so soundly that Paul was able to examine the room at his
+ease. There was a sort of little lobby between it and the passage, with
+a door at either end. He locked and bolted both doors, so that they were
+now alone with Prince Conrad, while it was impossible for them to be
+heard from the outside.
+
+"Come on," said Paul, when they had apportioned the work to be done.
+
+And he placed a twisted towel over the prince's face and tried to insert
+the ends into his mouth while Bernard bound his wrists and ankles with
+some more towels. All this was done in silence. The prince offered no
+resistance and uttered not a cry. He had opened his eyes and lay staring
+at his aggressors with the air of a man who does not understand what is
+happening to him, but is seized with increasing dread as he becomes
+aware of his danger.
+
+"Not much pluck about William's son and heir," chuckled Bernard. "Lord,
+what a funk he's in! Hi, young-fellow-my-lad, pull yourself together!
+Where's your smelling-bottle?"
+
+Paul had at last succeeded in cramming half the towel into his mouth. He
+lifted him up and said:
+
+"Now let's be off."
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Take him away."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To France."
+
+"To France?"
+
+"Well, of course. We've got him; he'll have to help us."
+
+"They won't let him through."
+
+"And the tunnel?"
+
+"Out of the question. They're keeping too close a watch now."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+He took his revolver and pointed it at Prince Conrad:
+
+"Listen to me," he said. "Your head is too muddled, I dare say, to take
+in any questions. But a revolver is easy to understand, isn't it? It
+talks a very plain language, even to a man who is drunk and shaking all
+over with fright. Well, if you don't come with me quietly, if you
+attempt to struggle or to make a noise, if my friend and I are in danger
+for a single moment, you're done for. You can feel the barrel of my
+revolver on your temple: Well, it's there to blow out your brains. Do
+you agree to my conditions?"
+
+The prince nodded his head.
+
+"Good," said Paul. "Bernard, undo his legs, but fasten his arms along
+his body. . . . That's it. . . . And now let's be off."
+
+The descent of the ladder was easily accomplished and they walked
+through the shrubberies to the fence which separated the garden from the
+yard containing the barracks. Here they handed the prince across to
+each other, like a parcel, and then, taking the same road as when they
+came, they reached the quarries.
+
+The night was bright enough to allow them to see their way; and,
+moreover, they had in front of them a diffused glow which seemed to rise
+from the guard-house at the entrance to the tunnel. And indeed all the
+lights there were burning; and the men were standing outside the shed,
+drinking coffee.
+
+A soldier was pacing up and down in front of the tunnel, with his rifle
+on his shoulder.
+
+"We are two," whispered Bernard. "There are six of them; and, at the
+first shot fired, they will be joined by some hundreds of Boches who are
+quartered five minutes away. It's a bit of an unequal struggle, what do
+you say?"
+
+What increased the difficulty to the point of making it insuperable was
+that they were not really two but three and that their prisoner hampered
+them most terribly. With him it was impossible to hurry, impossible to
+run away. They would have to think of some stratagem to help them.
+
+Slowly, cautiously, stealing along in such a way that not a stone rolled
+from under their footsteps or the prince's, they described a circle
+around the lighted space which brought them, after an hour, close to the
+tunnel, under the rocky slopes against which its first buttresses were
+built.
+
+"Stay there," said Paul to Bernard, speaking very low, but just loud
+enough for the prince to hear. "Stay where you are and remember my
+instructions. First of all, take charge of the prince, with your
+revolver in your right hand and with your left hand on his collar. If he
+struggles, break his head. That will be a bad business for us, but just
+as bad for him. I shall go back to a certain distance from the shed and
+draw off the five men on guard. Then the man doing sentry down there
+will either join the rest, in which case you go on with the prince, or
+else he will obey orders and remain at his post, in which case you fire
+at him and wound him . . . and go on with the prince."
+
+"Yes, I shall go on, but the Boches will come after me and catch us up."
+
+"No, they won't."
+
+"If you say so. . . ."
+
+"Very well, that's understood. And you, sir," said Paul to the prince,
+"do you understand? Absolute submission; if not, the least carelessness,
+a mere mistake may cost you your life."
+
+Bernard whispered in his brother-in-law's ear:
+
+"I've picked up a rope; I shall fasten it round his neck; and, if he
+jibs, he'll feel a sharp tug to recall him to the true state of things.
+Only, Paul, I warn you that, if he takes it into his head to struggle, I
+am incapable of killing him just like that, in cold blood."
+
+"Don't worry. He's too much afraid to struggle. He'll go with you like
+a lamb to the other end of the tunnel. When you get there, lock him up
+in some corner of the château, but don't tell any one who he is."
+
+"And you, Paul?"
+
+"Never mind about me."
+
+"Still . . ."
+
+"We both stand the same risk. We're going to play a terribly dangerous
+game and there's every chance of our losing it. But, if we win, it means
+Élisabeth's safety. So we must go for it boldly. Good-bye, Bernard, for
+the present. In ten minutes everything will be settled one way or the
+other."
+
+They embraced and Paul walked away.
+
+As he had said, this one last effort could succeed only through
+promptness and audacity; and it had to be made in the spirit in which a
+man makes a desperate move. Ten minutes more would see the end of the
+adventure. Ten minutes and he would be either victorious or a dead man.
+
+Every action which he performed from that moment was as orderly and
+methodical as if he had had time to think it out carefully and to ensure
+its inevitable success, whereas in reality he was forming a series of
+separate decisions as he went along and as the tragic circumstances
+seemed to call for them.
+
+Taking a roundabout way and keeping to the slopes of the mounds formed
+by the sand thrown up in the works, he reached the hollow
+communication-road between the quarries and the garrison-camp. On the
+last of these rounds, his foot struck a block of stone which gave way
+beneath him. On stooping and groping with his hands, he perceived that
+this block held quite a heap of sand and pebbles in position behind it.
+
+"That's what I want," he said, without a moment's reflection.
+
+And, giving the stone a mighty kick, he sent the heap shooting into the
+road with a roar like an avalanche.
+
+Paul jumped down among the stones, lay flat on his chest and began to
+scream for help, as though he had met with an accident.
+
+From where he lay, it was impossible, owing to the winding of the road,
+to hear him in the barracks; but the least cry was bound to carry as far
+as the shed at the mouth of the tunnel, which was only a hundred yards
+away at most. The soldiers on guard came running along at once.
+
+He counted only five of them. In an almost unintelligible voice, he gave
+incoherent, gasping replies to the corporal's questions and conveyed the
+impression that he had been sent by Prince Conrad to bring back the
+Comtesse Hermine.
+
+Paul was quite aware that his stratagem had no chance of succeeding
+beyond a very brief space of time; but every minute gained was of
+inestimable value, because Bernard would make use of it on his side to
+take action against the sixth man, the sentry outside the tunnel, and to
+make his escape with Prince Conrad. Perhaps that man would come as
+well. Or else perhaps Bernard would get rid of him without using his
+revolver and therefore without attracting attention.
+
+And Paul, gradually raising his voice, was spluttering out vague
+explanations, which only irritated without enlightening the corporal,
+when a shot rang out, followed by two others.
+
+For the moment the corporal hesitated, not knowing for certain where the
+sound came from. The men stood away from Paul and listened. Thereupon he
+passed through them and walked straight on, without their realizing, in
+the darkness, that it was he who was moving away. Then, at the first
+turn, he started running and reached the shed in a few strides.
+
+Twenty yards in front of him, at the mouth of the tunnel, he saw Bernard
+struggling with Prince Conrad, who was trying to escape. Near them, the
+sentry was dragging himself along the ground and moaning.
+
+Paul saw clearly what he had to do. To lend Bernard a hand and with him
+attempt to run the risk of flight would have been madness, because their
+enemies would inevitably have caught them up and in any case Prince
+Conrad would have been set free. No, the essential thing was to stop the
+rush of the five other men, whose shadows were already appearing at the
+bend in the road, and thus to enable Bernard to get away with the
+prince.
+
+Half-hidden behind the shed, he aimed his revolver at them and cried:
+
+"Halt!"
+
+The corporal did not obey and ran on into the belt of light. Paul fired.
+The German fell, but only wounded, for he began to command in a savage
+tone:
+
+"Forward! Go for him! Forward, can't you, you funks!"
+
+The men did not stir a step. Paul seized a rifle from the stack which
+they had made of theirs near the shed and, while taking aim at them, was
+able to give a glance backwards and to see that Bernard had at last
+mastered Prince Conrad and was leading him well into the tunnel.
+
+"It's only a question of holding out for five minutes," thought Paul,
+"so that Bernard may go as far as possible."
+
+And he was so calm at this moment that he could have counted those
+minutes by the steady beating of his pulse.
+
+"Forward! Rush at him! Forward!" the corporal kept clamoring, having
+doubtless seen the figures of the two fugitives, though without
+recognizing Prince Conrad.
+
+Rising to his knees, he fired a revolver-shot at Paul, who replied by
+breaking his arm with a bullet. And yet the corporal went on shouting at
+the top of his voice:
+
+"Forward! There are two of them making off through the tunnel! Forward!
+Here comes help!"
+
+It was half-a-dozen soldiers from the barracks, who had run up at the
+sound of the shooting. Paul had now made his way into the shed. He broke
+a window-pane and fired three shots. The soldiers made for shelter; but
+others arrived, took their orders from the corporal and dispersed; and
+Paul saw them scrambling up the adjoining slopes in order to head him
+off. He fired his rifle a few more times; but what was the good? All
+hope of resistance had long since disappeared.
+
+He persevered, however, killing his adversaries at intervals, firing
+incessantly and thus gaining all the time possible. But he saw that the
+enemy was maneuvering with the object of first circumventing him and
+then making for the tunnel and chasing the fugitives.
+
+Paul set his teeth. He was really aware of each second that passed, of
+each of those inappreciable seconds which increased Bernard's distance.
+
+Three men disappeared down the yawning mouth of the tunnel; then a
+fourth; then a fifth. Moreover, the bullets were now beginning to rain
+upon the shed.
+
+Paul made a calculation:
+
+"Bernard must be six or seven hundred yards away. The three men pursuing
+him have gone fifty yards . . . seventy-five yards now. That's all
+right."
+
+A serried mass of Germans were coming towards the shed. It was evidently
+not believed that Paul was alone, so quickly did he fire. This time
+there was nothing for it but to surrender.
+
+"It's time," he thought. "Bernard is outside the danger-zone."
+
+He suddenly rushed at the board containing the handles which
+corresponded with the mine-chambers in the tunnel, smashed the glass
+with the butt-end of his rifle and pulled down the first handle and the
+second.
+
+The earth seemed to shake. A thunderous roar rolled under the tunnel and
+spread far and long, like a reverberating echo.
+
+The way was blocked between Bernard d'Andeville and the eager pack that
+was trying to catch him. Bernard could take Prince Conrad quietly to
+France.
+
+Then Paul walked out of the shed, raising his arms in the air and
+crying, in a cheerful voice:
+
+"_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"
+
+Ten men surrounded him in a moment; and the officer who commanded them
+shouted, in a frenzy of rage:
+
+"Let him be shot! . . . At once . . . at once! . . . Let him be shot!
+. . ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LAW OF THE CONQUEROR
+
+
+Brutally handled though he was, Paul offered no resistance; and, while
+they were pushing him with needless violence towards a perpendicular
+part of the cliff, he continued his inner calculations:
+
+"It is mathematically certain that the two explosions took place at
+distances of three hundred and four hundred yards, respectively. I can
+therefore also take it as certain that Bernard and Prince Conrad were on
+the far side and that the men in pursuit were on this side. So all is
+for the best."
+
+Docilely and with a sort of chaffing complacency he submitted to the
+preparations for his execution. The twelve soldiers entrusted with it
+were already drawn up in line under the bright rays of an electric
+search-light and were only waiting for the order. The corporal whom he
+had wounded early in the fight dragged himself up to him and snarled:
+
+"Shot! . . . You're going to be shot, you dirty _Franzose_!"
+
+He answered, with a laugh:
+
+"Not a bit of it! Things don't happen as quickly as all that."
+
+"Shot!" repeated the other. "_Herr Leutnant_ said so."
+
+"Well, what's he waiting for, your _Herr Leutnant_?"
+
+The lieutenant was making a rapid investigation at the entrance to the
+tunnel. The men who had gone down it came running back, half-asphyxiated
+by the fumes of the explosion. As for the sentry, whom Bernard had been
+forced to get rid of, he was losing blood so profusely that it was no
+use trying to obtain any fresh information from him.
+
+At that moment, news arrived from the barracks, where they had just
+learnt, through a courier sent from the villa, that Prince Conrad had
+disappeared. The officers were ordered to double the guard and to keep a
+good lookout, especially at the approaches.
+
+Of course, Paul had counted on this diversion or some other of the same
+kind which would delay his execution. The day was beginning to break and
+he had little doubt that, Prince Conrad having been left dead drunk in
+his bedroom, one of his servants had been told to keep a watch on him.
+Finding the doors locked, the man must have given the alarm. This would
+lead to an immediate search.
+
+But what surprised Paul was that no one suspected that the prince had
+been carried off through the tunnel. The sentry was lying unconscious
+and was unable to speak. The men had not realized that, of the two
+fugitives seen at a distance, one was dragging the other along. In
+short, it was thought that the prince had been assassinated. His
+murderers must have flung his body into some corner of the quarries and
+then taken to flight. Two of them had succeeded in escaping. The third
+was a prisoner. And nobody for a second entertained the least suspicion
+of an enterprise whose audacity simply surpassed imagination.
+
+In any case there could no longer be any question of shooting Paul
+without a preliminary inquiry, the results of which must first be
+communicated to the highest authorities. He was taken to the villa,
+where he was divested of his German overcoat, carefully searched and
+lastly was locked up in a bedroom under the protection of four stalwart
+soldiers.
+
+He spent several hours in dozing, glad of this rest, which he needed so
+badly, and feeling very easy in his mind, because, now that Karl was
+dead, the Comtesse Hermine absent and Élisabeth in a place of safety,
+there was nothing for him to do but to await the normal course of
+events.
+
+At ten o'clock he was visited by a general who endeavored to question
+him and who, receiving no satisfactory replies, grew angry, but with a
+certain reserve in which Paul observed the sort of respect which people
+feel for noted criminals. And he said to himself:
+
+"Everything is going as it should. This visit is only a preliminary to
+prepare me for the coming of a more serious ambassador, a sort of
+plenipotentiary."
+
+He gathered from the general's words that they were still looking for
+the prince's body. They were now in fact looking for it beyond the
+immediate precincts, for a new clue, provided by the discovery and the
+revelations of the chauffeur whom Paul and Bernard had imprisoned in the
+garage, as well as by the departure and return of the motor car, as
+reported by the sentries, widened the field of investigation
+considerably.
+
+At twelve o'clock Paul was provided with a substantial meal. The
+attentions shown to him increased. Beer was served with the lunch and
+afterwards coffee.
+
+"I shall perhaps be shot," he thought, "but with due formality and not
+before they know exactly who the mysterious person is whom they have the
+honor of shooting, not to mention the motives of his enterprise and the
+results obtained. Now I alone am able to supply the details.
+Consequently . . ."
+
+He so clearly felt the strength of his position and the necessity in
+which his enemies stood to contribute to the success of his plan that he
+was not surprised at being taken, an hour later, to a small drawing-room
+in the villa, before two persons all over gold lace, who first had him
+searched once more and then saw that he was fastened up with more
+elaborate care than ever.
+
+"It must," he thought, "be at least the imperial chancellor coming all
+the way from Berlin to see me . . . unless indeed . . ."
+
+Deep down within himself, in view of the circumstances, he could not
+help foreseeing an even more powerful intervention than the
+chancellor's; and, when he heard a motor car stop under the windows of
+the villa and saw the fluster of the two gold-laced individuals, he was
+convinced that his anticipations were being fully confirmed.
+
+Everything was ready. Even before any one appeared, the two individuals
+drew themselves up and stood to attention; and the soldiers, stiffer
+still, looked like dolls out of a Noah's ark.
+
+The door opened. And a whirlwind entrance took place, amid a jingling of
+spurs and saber. The man who arrived in this fashion at once gave an
+impression of feverish haste and of imminent departure. What he intended
+to do he must accomplish within the space of a few minutes.
+
+At a sign from him, all those present quitted the room.
+
+The Emperor and the French officer were left face to face. And the
+Emperor immediately asked, in an angry voice:
+
+"Who are you? What did you come to do? Who are your accomplices? By
+whose orders were you acting?"
+
+It was difficult to recognize in him the figure represented by his
+photographs and the illustrations in the newspapers, for the face had
+aged into a worn and wasted mask, furrowed with wrinkles and disfigured
+with yellow blotches.
+
+Paul was quivering with hatred, not so much a personal hatred aroused by
+the recollection of his own sufferings as a hatred made up of horror and
+contempt for the greatest criminal imaginable. And, despite his absolute
+resolve not to depart from the usual formulas and the rules of outward
+respect, he answered:
+
+"Let them untie me!"
+
+The Emperor started. It was the first time certainly that any one had
+spoken to him like that; and he exclaimed:
+
+"Why, you're forgetting that a word will be enough to have you shot! And
+you dare! Conditions! . . ."
+
+Paul remained silent. The Emperor strode up and down, with his hand on
+the hilt of his sword, which he dragged along the carpet. Twice he
+stopped and looked at Paul; and, when Paul did not move an eyelid, he
+resumed his march, with an increasing display of indignation. And, all
+of a sudden, he pressed the button of an electric bell:
+
+"Untie him!" he said to the men who hurried into the room.
+
+When released from his bonds, Paul rose up and stood like a soldier in
+the presence of his superior officer.
+
+The room was emptied once again. Then the Emperor went up to Paul and,
+leaving a table as a barrier between them, asked, still in a harsh
+voice:
+
+"Prince Conrad?"
+
+Paul answered:
+
+"Prince Conrad is not dead, sir; he is well."
+
+"Ah!" said the Kaiser, evidently relieved. And, still reluctant to come
+to the point, he continued: "That does not affect matters in so far as
+you are concerned. Assault . . . espionage . . . not to speak of the
+murder of one of my best servants. . . ."
+
+"Karl the spy, sir? I killed him in self-defense."
+
+"But you did kill him? Then for that murder and for the rest you shall
+be shot."
+
+"No, sir. Prince Conrad's life is security for mine."
+
+The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"If Prince Conrad is alive he will be found."
+
+"No, sir, he will not be found."
+
+"There is not a place in Germany where my searching will fail to find
+him," he declared, striking the table with his fist.
+
+"Prince Conrad is not in Germany, sir."
+
+"Eh? What's that? Then where is he?"
+
+"In France."
+
+"In France!"
+
+"Yes, sir, in France, at the Château d'Ornequin, in the custody of my
+friends. If I am not back with them by six o'clock to-morrow evening,
+Prince Conrad will be handed over to the military authorities."
+
+The Emperor seemed to be choking, so much so that his anger suddenly
+collapsed and that he did not even seek to conceal the violence of the
+blow. All the humiliation, all the ridicule that would fall upon him and
+upon his dynasty and upon the empire if his son were a prisoner, the
+loud laughter that would ring through the whole world at the news, the
+assurance which the possession of such a hostage would give to the
+enemy; all this showed in his anxious look and in the stoop of his
+shoulders.
+
+Paul felt the thrill of victory. He held that man as firmly as you hold
+under your knee the beaten foe who cries out for mercy; and the balance
+of the forces in conflict was so definitely broken in his favor that the
+Kaiser's very eyes, raised to Paul's, gave him a sense of his triumph.
+
+The Emperor was able to picture the various phases of the drama enacted
+during the previous night: the arrival through the tunnel, the
+kidnapping by the way of the tunnel, the exploding of the mines to
+ensure the flight of the assailants; and the mad daring of the adventure
+staggered him. He murmured:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+Paul relaxed slightly from his rigid attitude. He placed a quivering
+hand upon the table between them and said, in a grave tone:
+
+"Sixteen years ago, sir, in the late afternoon of a September day, you
+inspected the works of the tunnel which you were building from Èbrecourt
+to Corvigny under the guidance of a person--how shall I describe
+her--of a person highly placed in your secret service. At the moment
+when you were leaving a little chapel which stands in the Ornequin
+woods, you met two Frenchmen, a father and son--you remember, sir? It
+was raining--and the meeting was so disagreeable to you that you allowed
+a gesture of annoyance to escape you. Ten minutes later, the lady who
+accompanied you returned and tried to take one of the Frenchmen, the
+father, back with her to German territory, alleging as a pretext that
+you wished to speak to him. The Frenchman refused. The woman murdered
+him before his son's eyes. His name was Delroze. He was my father."
+
+The Kaiser had listened with increasing astonishment. It seemed to Paul
+that his color had become more jaundiced than ever. Nevertheless he kept
+his countenance under Paul's gaze. To him the death of that M. Delroze
+was one of those minor incidents over which an emperor does not waste
+time. Did he so much as remember it?
+
+He therefore declined to enter into the details of a crime which he had
+certainly not ordered, though his indulgence for the criminal had made
+him a party to it, and he contented himself, after a pause, with
+observing:
+
+"The Comtesse Hermine is responsible for her own actions."
+
+"And responsible only to herself," Paul retorted, "seeing that the
+police of her country refused to let her be called to account for this
+one."
+
+The Emperor shrugged his shoulders, with the air of a man who scorns to
+discuss questions of German morality and higher politics. He looked at
+his watch, rang the bell, gave notice that he would be ready to leave in
+a few minutes and, turning to Paul, said:
+
+"So it was to avenge your father's death that you carried off Prince
+Conrad?"
+
+"No, sir, that is a question between the Comtesse Hermine and me; but
+with Prince Conrad I have another matter to settle. When Prince Conrad
+was staying at the Château d'Ornequin, he pestered with his attentions a
+lady living in the house. Finding himself rebuffed by her, he brought
+her here, to his villa, as a prisoner. The lady bears my name; and I
+came to fetch her."
+
+It was evident from the Emperor's attitude that he knew nothing of the
+story and that his son's pranks were a great source of worry to him.
+
+"Are you sure?" he asked. "Is the lady here?"
+
+"She was here last night, sir. But the Comtesse Hermine resolved to do
+away with her and gave her into the charge of Karl the spy, with
+instructions to take her out of Prince Conrad's reach and poison her."
+
+"That's a lie!" cried the Emperor. "A damnable lie!"
+
+"There is the bottle which the Comtesse Hermine handed to Karl the
+spy."
+
+"And then? And then?" said the Kaiser, in an angry voice.
+
+"Then, sir, as Karl the spy was dead and as I did not know the place to
+which my wife had been taken, I came back here. Prince Conrad was
+asleep. With the aid of one of my friends, I brought him down from his
+room and sent him into France through the tunnel."
+
+"And I suppose, in return for his liberty, you want the liberty of your
+wife?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But I don't know where she is!" exclaimed the Emperor.
+
+"She is in a country house belonging to the Comtesse Hermine. Perhaps,
+if you would just think, sir . . . a country house a few hours off by
+motor car, say, a hundred or a hundred and twenty miles at most."
+
+The Emperor, without speaking, kept tapping the table angrily with the
+pommel of his sword. Then he said:
+
+"Is that all you ask?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What? You want something more?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the release of twenty French prisoners whose names appear on
+a list given me by the French commander-in-chief."
+
+This time the Emperor sprang to his feet with a bound:
+
+"You're mad! Twenty prisoners! And officers, I expect? Commanders of
+army corps? Generals?"
+
+"The list also contains the names of privates, sir."
+
+The Emperor refused to listen. His fury found expression in wild
+gestures and incoherent words. His eyes shot terrible glances at Paul.
+The idea of taking his orders from that little French subaltern, himself
+a captive and yet in a position to lay down the law, must have been
+fearfully unpleasant. Instead of punishing his insolent enemy, he had to
+argue with him and to bow his head before his outrageous proposals. But
+he had no choice. There was no means of escape. He had as his adversary
+one whom not even torture would have caused to yield.
+
+And Paul continued:
+
+"Sir, my wife's liberty against Prince Conrad's liberty would really not
+be a fair bargain. What do you care, sir, whether my wife is a prisoner
+or free? No, it is only reasonable that Prince Conrad's release should
+be the object of an exchange which justifies it. And twenty French
+prisoners are none too many. . . . Besides, there is no need for this to
+be done publicly. The prisoners can come back to France, one by one, if
+you prefer, as though in exchange for German prisoners of the same rank
+. . . so that . . ."
+
+The irony of these conciliatory words, intended to soften the bitterness
+of defeat and to conceal the blow struck at the imperial pride under the
+guise of a concession! Paul thoroughly relished those few minutes. He
+received the impression that this man, upon whom a comparatively slight
+injury to his self-respect inflicted so great a torment, must be
+suffering more seriously still at seeing his gigantic scheme come to
+nothing under the formidable onslaught of destiny.
+
+"I am nicely revenged," thought Paul to himself. "And this is only the
+beginning!"
+
+The capitulation was at hand. The Emperor declared:
+
+"I shall see. . . . I will give orders. . . ."
+
+Paul protested:
+
+"It would be dangerous to wait, sir. Prince Conrad's capture might
+become known in France . . ."
+
+"Well," said the Emperor, "bring Prince Conrad back and your wife shall
+be restored to you the same day."
+
+But Paul was pitiless. He insisted on being treated with entire
+confidence:
+
+"No, sir," he said, "I do not think that things can happen just like
+that. My wife is in a most horrible position; and her very life is at
+stake. I must ask to be taken to her at once. She and I will be in
+France this evening. It is imperative that we should be in France this
+evening."
+
+He repeated the words in a very firm tone and added:
+
+"As for the French prisoners, sir, they can be returned under such
+conditions as you may be pleased to state. I will give you a list of
+their names with the places at which they are interned."
+
+Paul took a pencil and a sheet of paper. When he had finished writing,
+the Emperor snatched the list from him and his face immediately became
+convulsed. At each name he seemed to shake with impotent rage. He
+crumpled the paper into a ball, as though he had resolved to break off
+the whole arrangement. But, all of a sudden, abandoning his resistance,
+with a hurried movement, as though feverishly determined to have done
+with an exasperating business, he rang the bell three times.
+
+An orderly officer entered with a brisk step and brought his heels
+together before the Kaiser.
+
+The Emperor reflected a few seconds longer. Then he gave his commands:
+
+"Take Lieutenant Delroze in a motor car to Schloss Hildensheim and bring
+him back with his wife to the Èbrecourt outposts. On this day week, meet
+him at the same point on our lines. He will be accompanied by Prince
+Conrad and you by the twenty French prisoners whose names are on this
+list. You will effect the exchange in a discreet manner, which you will
+fix upon with Lieutenant Delroze. That will do. Keep me informed by
+personal reports."
+
+This was uttered in a jerky, authoritative tone, as though it were a
+series of measures which the Emperor had adopted of his own initiative,
+without undergoing pressure of any kind and by the mere exercise of his
+imperial will.
+
+And, having thus settled the matter, he walked out, carrying his head
+high, swaggering with his sword and jingling his spurs.
+
+"One more victory to his credit! What a play-actor!" thought Paul, who
+could not help laughing, to the officer's great horror.
+
+He heard the Emperor's motor drive away. The interview had lasted hardly
+ten minutes.
+
+A moment later he himself was outside, hastening along the road to
+Hildensheim.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+HILL 132
+
+
+What a ride it was! And how gay Paul Delroze felt! He was at last
+attaining his object; and this time it was not one of those hazardous
+enterprises which so often end in cruel disappointment, but the logical
+outcome and reward of his efforts. He was beyond the reach of the least
+shade of anxiety. There are victories--and his recent victory over the
+Emperor was one of them--which involve the disappearance of every
+obstacle. Élisabeth was at Hildensheim Castle and he was on his way to
+the castle and nothing would stop him.
+
+He seemed to recognize by the daylight features in the landscape which
+had been hidden from him by the darkness of the night before: a hamlet
+here, a village there, a river which he had skirted. He saw the string
+of little road-side woods, and he saw the ditch by which he had fought
+with Karl the spy.
+
+It took hardly more than another hour to reach the hill which was topped
+by the feudal fortress of Hildensheim. It was surrounded by a wide moat,
+spanned by a draw-bridge. A suspicious porter made his appearance, but
+a few words from the officer caused the doors to be flung open.
+
+Two footmen hurried down from the castle and, in reply to Paul's
+question, said that the French lady was walking near the pond. He asked
+the way and said to the officer:
+
+"I shall go alone. We shall start very soon."
+
+It had been raining. A pale winter sun, stealing through the heavy
+clouds, lit up the lawns and shrubberies. Paul went along a row of
+hot-houses and climbed an artificial rockery whence trickled the thin
+stream of a waterfall which formed a large pool set in a frame of dark
+fir trees and alive with swans and wild duck.
+
+At the end of the pool was a terrace adorned with statues and stone
+benches. And there he saw Élisabeth.
+
+Paul underwent an indescribable emotion. He had not spoken to his wife
+since the outbreak of war. Since that day, Élisabeth had suffered the
+most horrible trials and had suffered them for the simple reason that
+she wished to appear in her husband's eyes as a blameless wife, the
+daughter of a blameless mother.
+
+And now he was about to meet her again at a time when none of the
+accusations which he had brought against the Comtesse Hermine could be
+rebuffed and when Élisabeth herself had roused Paul to such a pitch of
+indignation by her presence at Prince Conrad's supper-party! . . .
+
+But how long ago it all seemed! And how little it mattered! Prince
+Conrad's blackguardism, the Comtesse Hermine's crimes, the ties of
+relationship that might unite the two women, all the struggles which
+Paul had passed through, all his anguish, all his rebelliousness, all
+his loathing, were but so many insignificant details, now that he saw at
+twenty paces from him his unhappy darling whom he loved so well. He no
+longer thought of the tears which she had shed and saw nothing but her
+wasted figure, shivering in the wintry wind.
+
+He walked towards her. His steps grated on the gravel path; and
+Élisabeth turned round.
+
+She did not make a single gesture. He understood, from the expression of
+her face, that she did not see him, really, that she looked upon him as
+a phantom rising from the mists of dreams and that this phantom must
+often float before her deluded eyes.
+
+She even smiled at him a little, such a sad smile that Paul clasped his
+hands and was nearly falling on his knees:
+
+"Élisabeth. . . . Élisabeth," he stammered.
+
+Then she drew herself up and put her hand to her heart and turned even
+paler than she had been the evening before, seated between Prince Conrad
+and Comtesse Hermine. The image was emerging from the realm of mist; the
+reality grew plainer before her eyes and in her brain. This time she saw
+Paul!
+
+He ran towards her, for she seemed on the point of falling. But she
+recovered herself, put out her hands to make him stay where he was and
+looked at him with an effort as though she would have penetrated to the
+very depths of his soul to read his thoughts.
+
+Paul, trembling with love from head to foot, did not stir. She murmured:
+
+"Ah, I see that you love me . . . that you have never ceased to love me!
+. . . I am sure of it now . . ."
+
+She kept her arms outstretched, however, as though against an obstacle,
+and he himself did not attempt to come closer. All their life and all
+their happiness lay in their eyes; and, while her gaze wildly
+encountered his, she went on:
+
+"They told me that you were a prisoner. Is it true, then? Oh, how I have
+implored them to take me to you! How low I have stooped! I have even had
+to sit down to table with them and laugh at their jokes and wear jewels
+and pearl necklaces which he has forced upon me. All this in order to
+see you! . . . And they kept on promising. And then, at length, they
+brought me here last night and I thought that they had tricked me once
+more . . . or else that it was a fresh trap . . . or that they had at
+last made up their minds to kill me. . . . And now here you are, here
+you are, Paul, my own darling! . . ."
+
+She took his face in her two hands and, suddenly, in a voice of despair:
+
+"But you are not going just yet? You will stay till to-morrow, surely?
+They can't take you from me like that, after a few minutes? You're
+staying, are you not? Oh, Paul, all my courage is gone . . . don't leave
+me! . . ."
+
+She was greatly surprised to see him smile:
+
+"What's the matter? Why, my dearest, how happy you look!"
+
+He began to laugh and this time, drawing her to him with a masterful air
+that admitted of no denial, he kissed her hair and her forehead and her
+cheeks and her lips; and he said:
+
+"I am laughing because there is nothing to do but to laugh and kiss you.
+I am laughing also because I have been imagining so many silly things.
+Yes, just think, at that supper last night, I saw you from a distance
+. . . and I suffered agonies: I accused you of I don't know what. . . .
+Oh, what a fool I was!"
+
+She could not understand his gaiety; and she said again:
+
+"How happy you are! How can you be so happy?"
+
+"There is no reason why I should not be," said Paul, still laughing.
+
+"Come, look at things as they are: you and I are meeting after
+unheard-of misfortunes. We are together; nothing can separate us; and
+you wouldn't have me be glad?"
+
+"Do you mean to say that nothing can separate us?" she asked, in a voice
+quivering with anxiety.
+
+"Why, of course! Is that so strange?"
+
+"You are staying with me? Are we to live here?"
+
+"No, not that! What an idea! You're going to pack up your things at
+express speed and we shall be off."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Where to? To France, of course. When you think of it, that's the only
+country where one's really comfortable."
+
+And, when she stared at him in amazement, he said:
+
+"Come, let's hurry. The car's waiting; and I promised Bernard--yes, your
+brother Bernard--that we should be with him to-night. . . . Are you
+ready? But why that astounded look? Do you want to have things explained
+to you? But, my very dearest, it will take hours and hours to explain
+everything that's happened to yourself and me. You've turned the head of
+an imperial prince . . . and then you were shot . . . and then . . . and
+then . . . Oh, what does it all matter? Must I force you to come away
+with me?"
+
+All at once she understood that he was speaking seriously; and, without
+taking her eyes from him, she asked:
+
+"Is it true? Are we free?"
+
+"Absolutely free."
+
+"We're going back to France?"
+
+"Immediately."
+
+"We have nothing more to fear?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+The tension from which she was suffering suddenly relaxed. She in her
+turn began to laugh, yielding to one of those fits of uncontrollable
+mirth which find vent in every sort of childish nonsense. She could have
+sung, she could have danced for sheer joy. And yet the tears flowed down
+her cheeks. And she stammered:
+
+"Free! . . . it's all over! . . . Have I been through much? . . . Not at
+all! . . . Oh, you know that I had been shot? Well, I assure you, it
+wasn't so bad as all that. . . . I will tell you about it and lots of
+other things. . . . And you must tell me, too. . . . But how did you
+manage? You must be cleverer than the cleverest, cleverer than the
+unspeakable Conrad, cleverer than the Emperor! Oh, dear, how funny it
+is, how funny! . . ."
+
+She broke off and, seizing him forcibly by the arm, said:
+
+"Let us go, darling. It's madness to remain another second. These people
+are capable of anything. They look upon no promise as binding. They are
+scoundrels, criminals. Let's go. . . . Let's go. . . ."
+
+They went away.
+
+Their journey was uneventful. In the evening, they reached the lines on
+the front, facing Èbrecourt.
+
+The officer on duty, who had full powers, had a reflector lit and
+himself, after ordering a white flag to be displayed, took Élisabeth and
+Paul to the French officer who came forward.
+
+The officer telephoned to the rear. A motor car was sent; and, at nine
+o'clock, Paul and Élisabeth pulled up at the gates of Ornequin and Paul
+asked to have Bernard sent for. He met him half-way:
+
+"Is that you, Bernard?" he said. "Listen to me and don't let us waste a
+minute. I have brought back Élisabeth. Yes, she's here, in the car. We
+are off to Corvigny and you're coming with us. While I go for my bag and
+yours, you give instructions to have Prince Conrad closely watched. He's
+safe, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then hurry. I want to get at the woman whom you saw last night as she
+was entering the tunnel. Now that she's in France, we'll hunt her down."
+
+"Don't you think, Paul, that we should be more likely to find her tracks
+by ourselves going back into the tunnel and searching the place where it
+opens at Corvigny?"
+
+"We can't afford the time. We have arrived at a phase of the struggle
+that demands the utmost haste."
+
+"But, Paul, the struggle is over, now that Élisabeth is saved."
+
+"The struggle will never be over as long as that woman lives."
+
+"Well, but who is she?"
+
+Paul did not answer.
+
+At ten o'clock they all three alighted outside the station at Corvigny.
+There were no more trains. Everybody was asleep. Paul refused to be put
+off, went to the military guard, woke up the adjutant, sent for the
+station-master, sent for the booking-clerk and, after a minute inquiry,
+succeeded in establishing the fact that on that same Monday morning a
+woman supplied with a pass in the name of Mme. Antonin had taken a
+ticket for Château-Thierry. She was the only woman traveling alone. She
+was wearing a Red Cross uniform. Her description corresponded at all
+points with that of the Comtesse Hermine.
+
+"It's certainly she," said Paul, when they had taken their rooms for the
+night at the hotel near the station. "There's no doubt about it. It's
+the only way she could go from Corvigny. And it's the way that we shall
+go to-morrow morning, at the same time that she did. I hope that she
+will not have time to carry out the scheme that has brought her to
+France. In any case, this is a great opportunity; and we must make the
+most of it."
+
+"But who is the woman?" Bernard asked again.
+
+"Who is she? Ask Élisabeth to tell you. We have an hour left in which to
+discuss certain details and then we must go to bed. We need rest, all
+three of us."
+
+They started on the Tuesday morning. Paul's confidence was unshaken.
+Though he knew nothing of the Comtesse Hermine's intentions, he felt
+sure that he was on the right road. And, in fact, they were told several
+times that a Red Cross nurse, traveling first-class and alone, had
+passed through the same stations on the day before.
+
+They got out at Château-Thierry late in the afternoon. Paul made his
+inquiries. On the previous evening, the nurse had driven away in a Red
+Cross motor car which was waiting at the station. This car, according to
+the papers carried by the driver, belonged to one of the ambulances
+working to the rear of Soissons; but the exact position of the ambulance
+was not known.
+
+This was near enough for Paul, however. Soissons was in the battle line.
+
+"Let's go to Soissons," he said.
+
+The order signed by the commander-in-chief which he had on him gave him
+full power to requisition a motor car and to enter the fighting zone.
+They reached Soissons at dinner-time.
+
+The outskirts, ruined by the bombardment, were deserted. The town itself
+seemed abandoned for the greater part. But as they came nearer to the
+center a certain animation prevailed in the streets. Companies of
+soldiers passed at a quick pace. Guns and ammunition wagons trotted by.
+In the hotel to which they went on the Grande Place, a hotel containing
+a number of officers, there was general excitement, with much coming and
+going and even a little disorder.
+
+Paul and Bernard asked the reason. They were told that, for some days
+past, we had been successfully attacking the slopes opposite Soissons,
+on the other side of the Aisne. Two days before, some battalions of
+light infantry and African troops had taken Hill 132 by assault. On the
+following day, we held the positions which we had won and carried the
+trenches on the Dent de Crouy. Then, in the course of the Monday night
+at a time when the enemy was delivering a violent counter-attack, a
+curious thing happened. The Aisne, which was swollen as the result of
+the heavy rains, overflowed its banks and carried away all the bridges
+at Villeneuve and Soissons.
+
+The rise of the Aisne was natural enough; but, high though the river
+was, it did not explain the destruction of the bridges; and this
+destruction, coinciding with the German counter-attack and apparently
+due to suspect reasons which had not yet been cleared up, had
+complicated the position of the French troops by making the dispatch of
+reinforcements almost impossible. Our men had held the hill all day, but
+with difficulty and with great losses. At this moment, a part of the
+artillery was being moved back to the right bank of the Aisne.
+
+Paul and Bernard did not hesitate in their minds for a second. In all
+this they recognized the Comtesse Hermine's handiwork. The destruction
+of the bridges, the German attacks, those two incidents which happened
+on the very night of her arrival were, beyond a doubt, the outcome of a
+plan conceived by her, the execution of which had been prepared for the
+time when the rains were bound to swell the river and proved the
+collaboration existing between the countess and the enemy's staff.
+
+Besides, Paul remembered the sentences which she had exchanged with Karl
+the spy outside the door of Prince Conrad's villa:
+
+"I am going to France . . . everything is ready. The weather is in our
+favor; and the staff have told me. . . . So I shall be there to-morrow
+evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb. . . ."
+
+She had given that touch of the thumb. All the bridges had been tampered
+with by Karl or by men in his pay and had now broken down.
+
+"It's she, obviously enough," said Bernard. "And, if it is, why look so
+anxious? You ought to be glad, on the contrary, because we are now
+positively certain of laying hold of her."
+
+"Yes, but shall we do so in time? When she spoke to Karl, she uttered
+another threat which struck me as much more serious. As I told you, she
+said, 'Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will be the end of
+the run on the black.' And, when the spy asked her if she had the
+Emperor's consent, she answered that it was unnecessary and that this
+was one of the undertakings which one doesn't talk about. You
+understand, Bernard, it's not a question of the German attack or the
+destruction of the bridges: that is honest warfare and the Emperor knows
+all about it. No, it's a question of something different, which is
+intended to coincide with other events and give them their full
+significance. The woman can't think that an advance of half a mile or a
+mile is an incident capable of ending what she calls the run on the
+black. Then what is at the back of it all? I don't know; and that
+accounts for my anxiety."
+
+Paul spent the whole of that evening and the whole of the next day,
+Wednesday the 13th, in making prolonged searches in the streets of the
+town or along the banks of the Aisne. He had placed himself in
+communication with the military authorities. Officers and men took part
+in his investigations. They went over several houses and questioned a
+number of the inhabitants.
+
+Bernard offered to go with him; but Paul persisted in refusing:
+
+"No. It is true, the woman doesn't know you; but she must not see your
+sister. I am asking you therefore to stay with Élisabeth, to keep her
+from going out and to watch over her without a moment's intermission,
+for we have to do with the most terrible enemy imaginable."
+
+The brother and sister therefore passed the long hours of that day with
+their faces glued to the window-panes. Paul came back at intervals to
+snatch a meal. He was quivering with hope.
+
+"She's here," he said. "She must have left those who were with her in
+the motor car, dropped her nurse's disguise and is now hiding in some
+hole, like a spider behind its web. I can see her, telephone in hand,
+giving her orders to a whole band of people, who have taken to earth
+like herself and made themselves invisible like her. But I am beginning
+to perceive her plan and I have one advantage over her, which is that
+she believes herself in safety. She does not know that her accomplice,
+Karl, is dead. She does not know of Élisabeth's release. She does not
+know of our presence here. I've got her, the loathsome beast, I've got
+her."
+
+The news of the battle, meanwhile, was not improving. The retreating
+movement on the left bank continued. At Crouy, the severity of their
+losses and the depth of the mud stopped the rush of the Moroccan troops.
+A hurriedly-constructed pontoon bridge went drifting down-stream.
+
+When Paul made his next appearance, at six o'clock in the evening, there
+were a few drops of blood on his sleeve. Élisabeth took alarm.
+
+"It's nothing," he said, with a laugh. "A scratch; I don't know how I
+got it."
+
+"But your hand; look at your hand. You're bleeding!"
+
+"No, it's not my blood. Don't be frightened. Everything's all right."
+
+Bernard said:
+
+"You know the commander-in-chief came to Soissons this morning."
+
+"Yes, so it seems. All the better. I should like to make him a present
+of the spy and her gang. It would be a handsome gift."
+
+He went away for another hour and then came back and had dinner.
+
+"You look as though you were sure of things now," said Bernard.
+
+"One can never be sure of anything. That woman is the very devil."
+
+"But you know where she's hiding?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what are you waiting for?"
+
+"I'm waiting for nine o'clock. I shall take a rest till then. Wake me up
+at a little before nine."
+
+The guns never ceased booming in the distant darkness. Sometimes a shell
+would fall on the town with a great crash. Troops passed in every
+direction. Then there would be brief intervals of silence, in which the
+sounds of war seemed to hang in suspense; and it was those minutes which
+perhaps were most formidable and significant.
+
+Paul woke of himself. He said to his wife and Bernard:
+
+"You know, you're coming, too. It will be rough work, Élisabeth, very
+rough work. Are you certain that you're equal to it?"
+
+"Oh, Paul . . . But you yourself are looking so pale."
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's the excitement. Not because of what is going to
+happen. But, in spite of all my precautions, I shall be afraid until the
+last moment that the adversary will escape. A single act of
+carelessness, a stroke of ill-luck that gives the alarm . . . and I
+shall have to begin all over again. . . . Never mind about your
+revolver, Bernard."
+
+"What!" cried Bernard. "Isn't there going to be any fighting in this
+expedition of yours?"
+
+Paul did not reply. According to his custom, he expressed himself during
+or after action. Bernard took his revolver.
+
+The last stroke of nine sounded as they crossed the Grande Place, amid a
+darkness stabbed here and there by a thin ray of light issuing from a
+closed shop. A group of soldiers were massed in the forecourt of the
+cathedral, whose shadowy bulk they felt looming overhead.
+
+Paul flashed the light from an electric lamp upon them and asked the one
+in command:
+
+"Any news, sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir. No one has entered the house and no one has gone out."
+
+The sergeant gave a low whistle. In the middle of the street, two men
+emerged from the surrounding gloom and approached the group.
+
+"Any sound in the house?"
+
+"No, sergeant."
+
+"Any light behind the shutters?"
+
+"No, sergeant."
+
+Then Paul marched ahead and, while the others, in obedience to his
+instructions, followed him without making the least noise, he stepped on
+resolutely, like a belated wayfarer making for home.
+
+They stopped at a narrow-fronted house, the ground-floor of which was
+hardly distinguishable in the darkness of the night. Three steps led to
+the door. Paul gave four sharp taps and, at the same time, took a key
+from his pocket and opened the door.
+
+He switched on his electric lamp again in the passage and, while his
+companions continued as silent as before, turned to a mirror which rose
+straight from the flagged floor. He gave four little taps on the mirror
+and then pushed it, pressing one side of it. It masked the aperture of a
+staircase which led to the basement; and Paul sent the light of his
+lantern down the well.
+
+This appeared to be a signal, the third signal agreed upon, for a voice
+from below, a woman's voice, but hoarse and rasping in its tones, asked:
+
+"Is that you, Daddy Walter?"
+
+The moment had come to act. Without answering, Paul rushed down the
+stairs, taking four steps at a time. He reached the bottom just as a
+massive door was closing, almost barring his access to the cellar.
+
+He gave a strong push and entered.
+
+The Comtesse Hermine was there, in the semi-darkness, motionless,
+hesitating what to do.
+
+Then suddenly she ran to the other end of the cellar, seized a revolver
+on the table, turned round and fired.
+
+The hammer clicked, but there was no report.
+
+She repeated the action three times; and the result, was three times the
+same.
+
+"It's no use going on," said Paul, with a laugh. "The charge has been
+removed."
+
+The countess uttered a cry of rage, opened the drawer of the table and,
+taking another revolver, pulled the trigger four times, without
+producing a sound.
+
+"You may as well drop it," laughed Paul. "This one has been emptied,
+too; and so has the one in the other drawer: so have all the firearms in
+the house, for that matter."
+
+Then, when she stared at him in amazement, without understanding, dazed
+by her own helplessness, he bowed and introduced himself, just in two
+words, which meant so much:
+
+"Paul Delroze."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HOHENZOLLERN
+
+
+The cellar, though smaller, looked like one of those large vaulted
+basement halls which prevail in the Champagne district. Walls spotlessly
+clean, a smooth floor with brick paths running across it, a warm
+atmosphere, a curtained-off recess between two wine vats, chairs,
+benches and rugs all went to form not only a comfortable abode, out of
+the way of the shells, but also a safe refuge for any one who stood in
+fear of indiscreet visits.
+
+Paul remembered the ruins of the old lighthouse on the bank of the Yser
+and the tunnel from Ornequin to Èbrecourt. So the struggle was still
+continuing underground: a war of trenches and cellars, a war of spying
+and trickery, the same unvarying, stealthy, disgraceful, suspicious,
+criminal methods.
+
+Paul had put out his lantern, and the room was now only dimly lit by an
+oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, whose rays, thrown downward by an
+opaque shade, cast a white circle in which the two of them stood by
+themselves. Élisabeth and Bernard remained in the background, in the
+shadow.
+
+The sergeant and his men had not appeared, but they could be heard at
+the foot of the stairs.
+
+The countess did not move. She was dressed as on the evening of the
+supper at Prince Conrad's villa. Her face showed no longer any fear or
+alarm, but rather an effort of thought, as though she were trying to
+calculate all the consequences of the position now revealed to her. Paul
+Delroze? With what object was he attacking her? His intention--and this
+was evidently the idea that gradually caused the Comtesse Hermine's
+features to relax--his intention no doubt was to procure his wife's
+liberty.
+
+She smiled. Élisabeth a prisoner in Germany: what a trump card for
+herself, caught in a trap but still able to command events!
+
+At a sign from Paul, Bernard stepped forward and Paul said to the
+countess:
+
+"My brother-in-law. Major Hermann, when he lay trussed up in the
+ferryman's house, may have seen him, just as he may have seen me. But,
+in any case, the Comtesse Hermine--or, to be more exact, the Comtesse
+d'Andeville--does not know or at least has forgotten her son, Bernard
+d'Andeville."
+
+She now seemed quite reassured, still wearing the air of one fighting
+with equal or even more powerful weapons. She displayed no confusion at
+the sight of Bernard, and said, in a careless tone:
+
+"Bernard d'Andeville is very like his sister Élisabeth, of whom
+circumstances have allowed me to see a great deal lately. It is only
+three days since she and I were having supper with Prince Conrad. The
+prince is very fond of Élisabeth, and he is quite right, for she is
+charming . . . and so amiable!"
+
+Paul and Bernard both made the same movement, which would have ended in
+their flinging themselves upon the countess, if they had not succeeded
+in restraining their hatred. Paul pushed aside his brother-in-law, of
+whose intense anger he was conscious, and replied to his adversary's
+challenge in an equally casual tone:
+
+"Yes, I know all about it; I was there. I was even present at her
+departure. Your friend Karl offered me a seat in his car and we went off
+to your place at Hildensheim: a very handsome castle, which I should
+have liked to see more thoroughly. . . . But it is not a safe house to
+stay at; in fact, it is often deadly; and so . . ."
+
+The countess looked at him with increasing disquiet. What did he mean to
+convey? How did he know these things? She resolved to frighten him in
+his turn, so as to gain some idea of the enemy's plans, and she said, in
+a hard voice:
+
+"Yes, deadly is the word. The air there is not good for everybody."
+
+"A poisonous air."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And are you nervous about Élisabeth?"
+
+"Frankly, yes. The poor thing's health is none of the best, as it is;
+and I shall not be easy . . ."
+
+"Until she's dead, I suppose?"
+
+She waited a second or two and then retorted, speaking very clearly, so
+that Paul might take in the meaning of her words:
+
+"Yes, until she is dead. . . . And that can't be far off . . . if it has
+not happened already."
+
+There was a pause of some length. Once more, in the presence of that
+woman, Paul felt the same craving to commit murder, the same craving to
+gratify his hatred. She must be killed. It was his duty to kill her, it
+was a crime not to obey that duty.
+
+Élisabeth was standing three paces back, in the dark. Slowly, without a
+word, Paul turned in her direction, pressed the spring of his lantern
+and flashed the light full on his wife's face.
+
+Not for a moment did he suspect the violent effect which his action
+would have on the Comtesse Hermine. A woman like her was incapable of
+making a mistake, of thinking herself the victim of an hallucination or
+the dupe of a resemblance. No, she at once accepted the fact that Paul
+had delivered his wife and that Élisabeth was standing in front of her.
+But how was so disastrous an event possible? Élisabeth, whom three days
+before she had left in Karl's hands; Élisabeth, who at this very moment
+ought to be either dead or a prisoner in a German fortress, the access
+to which was guarded by more than two million German soldiers: Élisabeth
+was here! She had escaped Karl in less than three days! She had fled
+from Hildensheim Castle and passed through the lines of those two
+million Germans!
+
+The Comtesse Hermine sat down with distorted features at the table that
+served her as a rampart and, in her fury, dug her clenched fists into
+her cheeks. She realized the position. The time was past for jesting or
+defiance. The time was past for bargaining. In the hideous game which
+she was playing, the last chance of victory had suddenly slipped from
+her grasp. She must yield before the conqueror; and that conqueror was
+Paul Delroze.
+
+She stammered:
+
+"What do you propose to do? What is your object? To murder me?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"We are not murderers. You are here to be tried. The penalty which you
+will suffer will be the sentence passed upon you after a lawful trial,
+in which you will be able to defend yourself."
+
+A shiver ran through her; and she protested:
+
+"You have no right to try me; you are not judges."
+
+At that moment there was a noise on the stairs. A voice cried:
+
+"Eyes front!"
+
+And, immediately after, the door, which had remained ajar, was flung
+open, admitting three officers in their long cloaks.
+
+Paul hastened towards them and gave them chairs in that part of the room
+which the light did not reach. A fourth arrived, who was also received
+by Paul and took a seat to one side, a little farther away.
+
+Élisabeth and Paul were close together.
+
+Paul went back to his place in front and, standing beside the table,
+said:
+
+"There are your judges. I am the prosecutor."
+
+And forthwith, without hesitation, as though he had settled beforehand
+all the counts of the indictment which he was about to deliver, speaking
+in a tone deliberately free from any trace of anger or hatred, he said:
+
+"You were born at Hildensheim Castle, of which your grandfather was the
+steward. The castle was given to your father after the war of 1870. Your
+name is really Hermine: Hermine von Hohenzollern. Your father used to
+boast of that name of Hohenzollern, though he had no right to it; but
+the extraordinary favor in which he stood with the old Emperor prevented
+any one from contesting his claim. He served in the campaign of 1870 as
+a colonel and distinguished himself by the most outrageous acts of
+cruelty and rapacity. All the treasures that adorn Hildensheim Castle
+come from France; and, to complete the brazenness of it, each object
+bears a note giving the place from which it came and the name of the
+owner from whom it was stolen. In addition, in the hall there is a
+marble slab inscribed in letters of gold with the name of all the French
+villages burnt by order of His Excellency Colonel Count Hohenzollern.
+The Kaiser has often visited the castle. Each time he passes in front
+of that marble slab he salutes."
+
+The countess listened without paying much heed. This story obviously
+seemed to her of but indifferent importance. She waited until she
+herself came into question.
+
+Paul continued:
+
+"You inherited from your father two sentiments which dominate your whole
+existence. One of these is an immoderate love for the Hohenzollern
+dynasty, with which your father appears to have been connected by the
+hazard of an imperial or rather a royal whim. The other is a fierce and
+savage hatred for France, which he regretted not to have injured as
+deeply as he would have liked. Your love for the dynasty you
+concentrated wholly, as soon as you had achieved womanhood, upon the man
+who represents it now, so much so that, after entertaining the unlikely
+hope of ascending the throne, you forgave him everything, even his
+marriage, even his ingratitude, to devote yourself to him body and soul.
+Married by him first to an Austrian prince, who died a mysterious death,
+and then to a Russian prince, who died an equally mysterious death, you
+worked solely for the greatness of your idol. At the time when war was
+declared between England and the Transvaal, you were in the Transvaal.
+At the time of the Russo-Japanese war, you were in Japan. You were
+everywhere: at Vienna, when the Crown Prince Rudolph was assassinated;
+at Belgrade when King Alexander and Queen Draga were assassinated. But
+I will not linger over the part played by you in diplomatic events. It
+is time that I came to your favorite occupation, the work which for the
+last twenty years you have carried on against France."
+
+An expression of wickedness and almost of happiness distorted the
+Comtesse Hermine's features. Yes, indeed, that was her favorite
+occupation. She had devoted all her strength to it and all her perverse
+intelligence.
+
+"And even so," added Paul, "I shall not linger over the gigantic work of
+preparation and espionage which you directed. I have found one of your
+accomplices, armed with a dagger bearing your initials, even in a
+village of the Nord, in a church-steeple. All that happened was
+conceived, organized and carried out by yourself. The proofs which I
+collected, your correspondent's letters and your own letters, are
+already in the possession of the court. But what I wish to lay special
+stress upon is that part of your work which concerns the Château
+d'Ornequin. It will not take long: a few facts, linked together by
+murders, will be enough."
+
+There was a further silence. The countess prepared to listen with a sort
+of anxious curiosity. Paul went on:
+
+"It was in 1894 that you suggested to the Emperor the piercing of a
+tunnel from Èbrecourt to Corvigny. After the question had been studied
+by the engineers, it was seen that this work, this '_kolossal_' work,
+was not possible and could not be effective unless possession was first
+obtained of the Château d'Ornequin. As it happened, the owner of the
+property was in a very bad state of health. It was decided to wait. But,
+as he seemed in no hurry to die, you came to Corvigny. A week later, he
+died. Murder the first."
+
+"You lie! You lie!" cried the countess. "You have no proof. I defy you
+to produce a proof."
+
+Paul, without replying, continued:
+
+"The château was put up for sale and, strange to say, without the least
+advertisement, secretly, so to speak. Now what happened was that the man
+of business whom you had instructed bungled the matter so badly that the
+château was declared sold to the Comte d'Andeville, who took up his
+residence there in the following year, with his wife and his two
+children. This led to anger and confusion and lastly a resolve to start
+work, nevertheless, and to begin boring at the site of a little chapel
+which, at that time, stood outside the walls of the park. The Emperor
+came often to Èbrecourt. One day, on leaving the chapel, he was met and
+recognized by my father and myself. Two minutes later, you were
+accosting my father. He was stabbed and killed. I myself received a
+wound. Murder the second. A month later, the Comtesse d'Andeville was
+seized with a mysterious illness and went down to the south to die."
+
+"You lie!" cried the countess, again. "Those are all lies! Not a single
+proof! . . ."
+
+"A month later," continued Paul, still speaking very calmly, "M.
+d'Andeville, who had lost his wife, took so great a dislike to Ornequin
+that he decided never to go back to it. Your plan was carried out at
+once. Now that the château was free, it became necessary for you to
+obtain a footing there. How was it done? By buying over the keeper,
+Jérôme, and his wife. That wretched couple, who certainly had the excuse
+that they were not Alsatians, as they pretended to be, but of Luxemburg
+birth, accepted the bribe. Thenceforth you were at home, free to come to
+Ornequin as and when you pleased. By your orders, Jérôme even went to
+the length of keeping the death of the Comtesse Hermine, the real
+Comtesse Hermine, a secret. And, as you also were a Comtesse Hermine and
+as no one knew Mme. d'Andeville, who had led a secluded life, everything
+went off well. Moreover, you continued to multiply your precautions.
+There was one, among others, that baffled me. A portrait of the Comtesse
+d'Andeville hung in the boudoir which she used to occupy. You had a
+portrait painted of yourself, of the same size, so as to fit the frame
+inscribed with the name of the countess; and this portrait showed you
+under the same outward aspect, wearing the same clothes and ornaments.
+In short, you became what you had striven to appear from the outset and
+indeed during the lifetime of Mme. d'Andeville, whose dress you were
+even then beginning to copy: you became the Comtesse Hermine
+d'Andeville, at least during the period of your visits to Ornequin.
+There was only one danger, the possibility of M. d'Andeville's
+unexpected return. To ward this off with certainty, there was but one
+remedy, murder. You therefore managed to become acquainted with M.
+d'Andeville, which enabled you to watch his movements and correspond
+with him. Only, something happened on which you had not reckoned. I mean
+to say that a feeling which was really surprising in a woman like
+yourself began gradually to attach you to the man whom you had chosen as
+a victim. I have placed among the exhibits a photograph of yourself
+which you sent to M. d'Andeville from Berlin. At that time, you were
+hoping to induce him to marry you; but he saw through your schemes, drew
+back and broke off the friendship."
+
+The countess had knitted her brows. Her lips were distorted. The
+lookers-on divined all the humiliation which she had undergone and all
+the bitterness which she had retained in consequence. At the same time,
+she felt no shame, but rather an increasing surprise at thus seeing her
+life divulged down to the least detail and her murderous past dragged
+from the obscurity in which she believed it buried.
+
+"When war was declared," Paul continued, "your work was ripe. Stationed
+in the Èbrecourt villa, at the entrance to the tunnel, you were ready.
+My marriage to Élisabeth d'Andeville, my sudden arrival at the château,
+my amazement at seeing the portrait of the woman who had killed my
+father: all this was told you by Jérôme and took you a little by
+surprise. You had hurriedly to lay a trap in which I, in my turn, was
+nearly assassinated. But the mobilization rid you of my presence. You
+were able to act. Three weeks later, Corvigny was bombarded, Ornequin
+taken, Élisabeth a prisoner of Prince Conrad's. . . . That, for you, was
+an indescribable period. It meant revenge; and also, thanks to you, it
+meant the great victory, the accomplishment--or nearly so--of the great
+dream, the apotheosis of the Hohenzollerns! Two days more and Paris
+would be captured; two months more and Europe was conquered. The
+intoxication of it! I know of words which you uttered at that time and I
+have read lines written by you which bear witness to an absolute
+madness: the madness of pride, the madness of boundless power, the
+madness of cruelty; a barbarous madness, an impossible, superhuman
+madness. . . . And then, suddenly, the rude awakening, the battle of the
+Marne! Ah, I have seen your letters on this subject, too! And I know no
+finer revenge. A woman of your intelligence was bound to see from the
+first, as you did see, that it meant the breakdown of every hope and
+certainty. You wrote that to the Emperor, yes, you wrote it! I have a
+copy of your letter. . . . Meanwhile, defense became necessary. The
+French troops were approaching. Through my brother-in-law, Bernard, you
+learnt that I was at Corvigny. Would Élisabeth be delivered, Élisabeth
+who knew all your secrets? No, she must die. You ordered her to be
+executed. Everything was made ready. And, though she was saved, thanks
+to Prince Conrad, and though, in default of her death, you had to
+content yourself with a mock execution intended to cut short my
+inquiries, at least she was carried off like a slave. And you had two
+victims for your consolation: Jérôme and Rosalie. Your accomplices,
+smitten with tearful remorse by Élisabeth's tortures, tried to escape
+with her. You dreaded their evidence against you: they were shot.
+Murders the third and fourth. And the next day there were two more, two
+soldiers whom you had killed, taking them for Bernard and myself.
+Murders the fifth and sixth."
+
+Thus was the whole drama reconstructed in all its tragic phases and in
+accordance with the order of the events and murders. And it was a
+horrible thing to look upon this woman, guilty of so many crimes, walled
+in by destiny, trapped in this cellar, face to face with her mortal
+enemies. And yet how was it that she did not appear to have lost all
+hope? For such was the case; and Bernard noticed it.
+
+"Look at her," he said, going up to Paul. "She has twice already
+consulted her watch. Any one would think that she was expecting a
+miracle or something more, a direct, inevitable aid which is to arrive
+at a definite hour. See, her eyes are glancing about. . . . She is
+listening for something. . . ."
+
+"Order all the soldiers at the foot of the stairs to come in," Paul
+answered. "There is no reason why they should not hear what I have
+still to say."
+
+And, turning towards the countess, he said, in tones which gradually
+betrayed more feeling:
+
+"We are coming to the last act. All this part of the contest you
+conducted under the aspect of Major Hermann, which made it easier for
+you to follow the armies and play your part as chief spy. Hermann,
+Hermine. . . . The Major Hermann whom, when necessary, you passed off as
+your brother was yourself, Comtesse Hermine. And it was you whose
+conversation I overheard with the sham Laschen, or rather Karl the spy,
+in the ruins of the lighthouse on the bank of the Yser. And it was you
+whom I caught and bound in the attic of the ferryman's house. Ah, what a
+fine stroke you missed that day! Your three enemies lay wounded, within
+reach of your hand, and you ran away without seeing them, without making
+an end of them! And you knew nothing further about us, whereas we knew
+all about your plans. An appointment for the 10th of January at
+Èbrecourt, that ill-omened appointment which you made with Karl while
+telling him of your implacable determination to do away with Élisabeth.
+And I was there, punctually, on the 10th of January! I looked on at
+Prince Conrad's supper-party! And I was there, after the supper, when
+you handed Karl the poison. I was there, on the driver's seat of the
+motor-car, when you gave Karl your last instructions. I was everywhere!
+And that same evening Karl died. And the next night I kidnaped Prince
+Conrad. And the day after, that is to say, two days ago, holding so
+important a hostage and thus compelling the Emperor to treat with me, I
+dictated conditions of which the first was the immediate release of
+Élisabeth. The Emperor gave way. And here you see us!"
+
+In all this speech, a speech which showed the Comtesse Hermine with what
+implacable energy she had been hunted down, there was one word which
+overwhelmed her as though it related the most terrible of catastrophes.
+She stammered:
+
+"Dead? You say that Karl is dead?"
+
+"Shot down by his mistress at the moment when he was trying to kill me,"
+cried Paul, once again mastered by his hatred. "Shot down like a mad
+dog! Yes, Karl the spy is dead; and even after his death he remained the
+traitor that he had been all his life. You were asking for my proofs: I
+discovered them on Karl's person! It was in his pocket-book that I read
+the story of your crimes and found copies of your letters and some of
+the originals as well. He foresaw that sooner or later, when your work
+was accomplished, you would sacrifice him to secure your own safety; and
+he revenged himself in advance. He avenged himself just as Jérôme the
+keeper and his wife Rosalie revenged themselves, when about to be shot
+by your orders, by revealing to Élisabeth the mysterious part which you
+played at the Château d'Ornequin. So much for your accomplices! You kill
+them, but they destroy you. It is no longer I who accuse you, it is
+they. Your letters and their evidence are in the hands of your judges.
+What answer have you to make?"
+
+Paul was standing almost against her. They were separated at the most by
+a corner of the table; and he was threatening her with all his anger and
+all his loathing. She retreated towards the wall, under a row of pegs
+from which hung skirts and blouses, a whole wardrobe of various
+disguises. Though surrounded, caught in a trap, confounded by an
+accumulation of proofs, unmasked and helpless, she maintained an
+attitude of challenge and defiance. The game did not yet seem lost. She
+had some trump cards left in her hand; and she said:
+
+"I have no answer to make. You speak of a woman who has committed
+murders; and I am not that woman. It is not a question of proving that
+the Comtesse Hermine is a spy and a murderess: it is a question of
+proving that I am the Comtesse Hermine. Who can prove that?"
+
+"_I_ can!"
+
+Sitting apart from the three officers whom Paul had mentioned as
+constituting the court was a fourth, who had listened as silently and
+impassively as they. He stepped forward. The light of the lamp shone on
+his face. The countess murmured:
+
+"Stéphane d'Andeville. . . . Stéphane. . . ."
+
+It was the father of Élisabeth and Bernard. He was very pale, weakened
+by the wounds which he had received and from which he was only beginning
+to recover.
+
+He embraced his children. Bernard expressed his surprise and delight at
+seeing him there.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I had a message from the commander-in-chief and I came
+the moment Paul sent for me. Your husband is a fine fellow, Élisabeth.
+He told me what had happened when we met a little while ago. And I now
+see all that he has done . . . to crush that viper!"
+
+He had taken up his stand opposite the countess; and his hearers felt
+beforehand the full importance of the words which he was about to speak.
+For a moment, she lowered her head before him. But soon her eyes once
+more flashed defiance; and she said:
+
+"So you, too, have come to accuse me? What have you to say against me?
+Lies, I suppose? Infamies? . . ."
+
+There was a long pause after those words. Then, speaking slowly, he
+said:
+
+"I come, in the first place, as a witness to give the evidence as to
+your identity for which you were asking just now. You introduced
+yourself to me long ago by a name which was not your own, a name under
+which you succeeded in gaining my confidence. Later, when you tried to
+bring about a closer relationship between us, you revealed to me who you
+really were, hoping in this way to dazzle me with your titles and your
+connections. It is therefore my right and my duty to declare before God
+and man that you are really and truly the Countess Hermine von
+Hohenzollern. The documents which you showed me were genuine. And it
+was just because you were the Countess von Hohenzollern that I broke off
+relations which in any case were painful and disagreeable to me, for
+reasons which I should have been puzzled to state. That is my evidence."
+
+"It is infamous evidence!" she cried, in a fury. "Lying evidence, as I
+said it would be! Not a proof!"
+
+"Not a proof?" echoed the Comte d'Andeville, moving closer to her and
+shaking with rage. "What about this photograph, signed by yourself,
+which you sent me from Berlin? This photograph in which you had the
+impudence to dress up like my wife? Yes, you, you! You did this thing!
+You thought that, by trying to make your picture resemble that of my
+poor loved one, you would rouse in my breast feelings favorable to
+yourself! And you did not feel that what you were doing was the worst
+insult, the worst outrage that you could offer to the dead! And you
+dared, you, you, after what had happened . . ."
+
+Like Paul Delroze a few minutes before, the count was standing close
+against her, threatening her with his hatred. She muttered, in a sort of
+embarrassment:
+
+"Well, why not?"
+
+He clenched his fists and said:
+
+"As you say, why not? I did not know at the time what you were . . . and
+I knew nothing of the tragedy . . . of the tragedy of the past. . . . It
+is only to-day that I have been able to compare the facts. And, whereas
+I repulsed you at that time with a purely instinctive repulsion, I
+accuse you now with unparalleled execration . . . now when I know, yes,
+know, with absolute certainty. Long ago, when my poor wife was dying,
+time after time the doctor said to me, 'It's a strange illness. She has
+bronchitis and pneumonia, I know; and yet there are things which I don't
+understand, symptoms--why conceal it?--symptoms of poisoning.' I used to
+protest. The theory seemed impossible! My wife poisoned? And by whom? By
+you, Comtesse Hermine, by you! I declare it to-day. By you! I swear it,
+as I hope to be saved. Proofs? Why, your whole life bears witness
+against you. Listen, there is one point on which Paul Delroze failed to
+shed light. He did not understand why, when you murdered his father, you
+wore clothes like those of my wife. Why did you? For this hateful reason
+that, even at that time, my wife's death was resolved upon and that you
+already wished to create in the minds of those who might see you a
+confusion between the Comtesse d'Andeville and yourself. The proof is
+undeniable. My wife stood in your way: you killed her. You guessed that,
+once my wife was dead, I should never come back to Ornequin; and you
+killed my wife. Paul Delroze, you have spoken of six murders. This is
+the seventh: the murder of the Comtesse d'Andeville."
+
+The count had raised his two clenched fists and was shaking them in the
+Comtesse Hermine's face. He was trembling with rage and seemed on the
+point of striking her. She, however, remained impassive. She made no
+attempt to deny this latest accusation. It was as though everything had
+become indifferent to her, this unexpected charge as well as all those
+already leveled at her. She appeared to have no thought of impending
+danger or of the need of replying. Her mind was elsewhere. She was
+listening to something other than those words, seeing something other
+than what was before her eyes; and, as Bernard had remarked, it was as
+though she were preoccupied with outside happenings rather than with the
+terrible position in which she found herself.
+
+But why? What was she hoping for?
+
+A minute elapsed; and another minute.
+
+Then, somewhere in the cellar, in the upper part of it, there was a
+sound, a sort of click.
+
+The countess drew herself up. And she listened with all her concentrated
+attention and with an expression of such eagerness that nobody disturbed
+the tremendous silence. Paul Delroze and M. d'Andeville had
+instinctively stepped back to the table. And the Comtesse Hermine went
+on listening. . . .
+
+Suddenly, above her head, in the very thickness of the vaulted ceiling,
+an electric bell rang . . . only for a few seconds. . . . Four peals of
+equal length. . . . And that was all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DEATH PENALTY--AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
+
+
+The Comtesse Hermine started up triumphantly; and this movement of hers
+was even more dramatic than the inexplicable vibration of that electric
+bell. She gave a cry of fierce delight, followed by an outburst of
+laughter. The whole expression of her face changed. It denoted no more
+anxiety, no more of that tension indicating a groping and bewildered
+mind, nothing but insolence, assurance, scorn and intense pride.
+
+"Fools!" she snarled. "Fools! So you really believed--oh, what
+simpletons you Frenchmen are!--that you had me caught like a rat in a
+trap? Me! Me! . . ."
+
+The words rushed forth so volubly, so hurriedly, that her utterance was
+impeded. She became rigid, closing her eyes for a moment. Then,
+summoning up a great effort of will, she put out her right arm, pushed
+aside a chair and uncovered a little mahogany slab with a brass switch,
+for which she felt with her hand while her eyes remained turned on Paul,
+on the Comte d'Andeville, on his son and on the three officers. And, in
+a dry, cutting voice, she rapped out:
+
+"What have I to fear from you now? You wish to know if I am the Countess
+von Hohenzollern? Yes, I am. I don't deny it, I even proclaim the fact.
+The actions which you, in your stupid way, call murders, yes, I
+committed them all. It was my duty to the Emperor, to the greater
+Germany. . . . A spy? Not at all. Simply a German woman. And what a
+German woman does for her country is rightly done. So let us have no
+more silly phrases, no more babbling about the past. Nothing matters but
+the present and the future. And I am once more mistress of the present
+and the future both. Thanks to you, I am resuming the direction of
+events; and we shall have some amusement. . . . Shall I tell you
+something? All that has happened here during the past few days was
+prepared by myself. The bridges carried away by the river were sapped at
+their foundations by my orders. Why? For the trivial purpose of making
+you fall back? No doubt, that was necessary first: we had to announce a
+victory. Victory or not, it shall be announced; and it will have its
+effect, that I promise you. But I wanted something better; and I have
+succeeded."
+
+She stopped and then, leaning her body towards her hearers, continued,
+in a lower voice:
+
+"The retreat, the disorder among your troops, the need of opposing our
+advance and bringing up reinforcements must needs compel your
+commander-in-chief to come here and take counsel with his generals. For
+months past, I have been lying in wait for him. It was impossible for me
+to get within reach of him. So what was I to do? Why, of course, as I
+couldn't go to him, I must make him come to me and lure him to a place,
+chosen by myself, where I had made all my arrangements. Well, he has
+come. My arrangements are made. And I have only to act. . . . I have
+only to act! He is here, in a room at the little villa which he occupies
+whenever he comes to Soissons. He is there, I know it. I was waiting for
+the signal which one of my men was to give me. You have heard the signal
+yourselves. So there is no doubt about it. The man whom I want is at
+this moment deliberating with his generals in a house which I know and
+which I have had mined. He has with him a general commanding an army and
+another general, the commander of an army corps. Both are of the ablest.
+There are three of them, not to speak of their subordinates. And I have
+only to make a movement, understand what I say, a single movement, I
+have only to touch this lever to blow them all up, together with the
+house in which they are. Am I to make that movement?"
+
+There was a sharp click. Bernard d'Andeville had cocked his revolver:
+
+"We must kill the beast!" he cried.
+
+Paul rushed at him, shouting:
+
+"Hold your tongue! And don't move a finger!"
+
+The countess began laughing again; and her laugh was full of wicked
+glee:
+
+"You're right, Paul Delroze, my man. You take in the situation, you do.
+However quickly that young booby may fire his bullet at me, I shall
+always have time to pull the lever. And that's what you don't want,
+isn't it? That's what these other gentlemen and you want to avoid at all
+costs . . . even at the cost of my liberty, eh? For that is how the
+matter stands, alas! All my fine plan is falling to pieces because I am
+in your hands. But I alone am worth as much as your three great
+generals, am I not? And I have every right to spare them in order to
+save myself. So are we agreed? Their lives against mine! And at once!
+. . . Paul Delroze, I give you one minute in which to consult your
+friends. If in one minute, speaking in their name and your own, you do
+not give me your word of honor that you consider me free and that I
+shall receive every facility for crossing the Swiss frontier, then . . .
+then heigh-ho, up we go, as the children say! . . . Oh, how I've got
+you, all of you! And the humor of it! Hurry up, friend Delroze, your
+word! Yes, that's all I ask. Hang it, the word of a French officer! Ha,
+ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Her nervous, scornful laugh went on ringing through the dead silence.
+And it happened gradually that its tone rang less surely, like words
+that fail to produce the intended effect. It rang false, broke and
+suddenly ceased.
+
+And she stood in dumb amazement: Paul Delroze had not budged, nor had
+any of the officers nor any of the soldiers in the room.
+
+She shook her fist at them:
+
+"You're to hurry, do you hear? . . . You have one minute, my French
+friends, one minute and no more! . . ."
+
+Not a man moved.
+
+She counted the seconds in a low voice and announced them aloud by tens.
+
+At the fortieth second, she stopped, with an anxious look on her face.
+Those present were as motionless as before. Then she yielded to a fit of
+fury:
+
+"Why, you must be mad!" she cried. "Don't you understand? Oh, perhaps
+you don't believe me? Yes, that's it, they don't believe me! They can't
+imagine that it's possible! Possible? Why, it's your own soldiers who
+worked for me! Yes, by laying telephone-lines between the post-office
+and the villa used for head-quarters! My assistants had only to tap the
+wires and the thing was done: the mine-chamber Under the villa was
+connected with this cellar. Do you believe me now?"
+
+Her hoarse, panting voice ceased. Her misgivings, which had become more
+and more marked, distorted her features. Why did none of those men move?
+Why did they pay no attention to her orders? Had they taken the
+incredible resolution to accept whatever happened rather than show her
+mercy?
+
+"Look here," she said, "you understand me, surely? Or else you have all
+gone mad! Come, think of it: your generals, the effect which their death
+would cause, the tremendous impression of our power which it would give!
+. . . And the confusion that would follow! The retreat of your troops!
+The disorganization of the staff! . . . Come, come! . . ."
+
+It seemed as if she was trying to convince them; nay, more, as if she
+was beseeching them to look at things from her point of view and to
+admit the consequence which she had attributed to her action. For her
+plan to succeed, it was essential that they should consent to act
+logically. Otherwise . . . otherwise . . .
+
+Suddenly she seemed to recoil against the humiliating sort of
+supplication to which she had been stooping. Resuming her threatening
+attitude, she cried:
+
+"So much the worse for them! So much the worse for them! It will be you
+who have condemned them! So you insist upon it? We are quite agreed?
+. . . And then I suppose you think you've got me! Come, come now! Even
+if you show yourselves pig-headed, the Comtesse Hermine has not said her
+last word! You don't know the Comtesse Hermine! The Comtesse Hermine
+never surrenders! . . ."
+
+She was possessed by a sort of frenzy and was horrible to look at.
+Twisting and writhing with rage, hideous of face, aged by fully twenty
+years, she suggested the picture of a devil burning in the flames of
+hell. She cursed. She blasphemed. She gave vent to a string of oaths.
+She even laughed, at the thought of the catastrophe which her next
+movement would produce. And she spluttered:
+
+"All right! It's you, it's you who are the executioners! . . . Oh, what
+folly! . . . So you will have it so? But they must be mad! Look at them,
+calmly sacrificing their generals, their commander-in-chief, in their
+stupid obstinacy. Well, so much the worse for them! You have insisted on
+it. I hold you responsible. A word from you, a single word. . . ."
+
+She had a last moment of hesitation. With a fierce and unyielding face
+she stared at those stubborn men who seemed to be obeying an implacable
+command. Not one of them budged.
+
+Then it seemed as if, at the moment of taking the fatal decision, she
+was overcome with such an outburst of voluptuous wickedness that it made
+her forget the horror of her own position. She simply said:
+
+"May God's will be done and my Emperor gain the victory!"
+
+Stiffening her body, her eyes staring before her, she touched the switch
+with her finger.
+
+The effect was almost immediate. Through the outer air, through the
+vaulted roof, the sound of the explosion reached the cellar. The ground
+seemed to shake, as though the vibration had spread through the bowels
+of the earth.
+
+Then came silence. The Comtesse Hermine listened for a few seconds
+longer. Her face was radiant with joy. She repeated:
+
+"So that my Emperor may gain the victory!"
+
+And suddenly, bringing her arm down to her side, she thrust herself
+backwards, among the skirts and blouses against which she was leaning,
+and seemed actually to sink into the wall and disappear from sight.
+
+A heavy door closed with a bang and, almost at the same moment, a shot
+rang through the cellar. Bernard had fired at the row of clothes. And he
+was rushing towards the hidden door when Paul collared him and held him
+where he stood.
+
+Bernard struggled in Paul's grasp:
+
+"But she's escaping us! . . . Why can't you let me go after her? . . .
+Look here, surely you remember the Èbrecourt tunnel and the system of
+electric wires? This is the same thing exactly! And here she is getting
+away! . . ."
+
+He could not understand Paul's conduct. And his sister was as indignant
+as himself. Here was the foul creature who had killed their mother, who
+had stolen their mother's name and place; and they were allowing her to
+escape.
+
+"Paul," she cried, "Paul, you must go after her, you must make an end of
+her! . . . Paul, you can't forget all that she has done!"
+
+Élisabeth did not forget. She remembered the Château d'Ornequin and
+Prince Conrad's villa and the evening when she had been compelled to
+toss down a bumper of champagne and the bargain enforced upon her and
+all the shame and torture to which she had been put.
+
+But Paul paid no attention to either the brother or the sister, nor did
+the officers and soldiers. All observed the same rigidly impassive
+attitude, seemed unaffected by what was happening.
+
+Two or three minutes passed, during which a few words were exchanged in
+whispers, while not a soul stirred. Broken down and shattered with
+excitement, Élisabeth wept. Bernard's flesh crept at the sound of his
+sister's sobs and he felt as if he was suffering from one of those
+nightmares in which we witness the most horrible sights without having
+the strength or the power to act.
+
+And then something happened which everybody except Bernard and Élisabeth
+seemed to think quite natural. There was a grating sound behind the row
+of clothes. The invisible door moved on its hinges. The clothes parted
+and made way for a human form which was flung on the ground like a
+bundle.
+
+Bernard d'Andeville uttered an exclamation of delight. Élisabeth looked
+and laughed through her tears. It was the Comtesse Hermine, bound and
+gagged.
+
+Three gendarmes entered after her:
+
+"We've delivered the goods, sir," one of them jested, with a fat, jolly
+chuckle. "We were beginning to get a bit nervous and to wonder if you'd
+guessed right and if this was really the way she meant to clear out by.
+But, by Jove, sir, the baggage gave us some work to do. A proper
+hell-cat! She struggled and bit like a badger. And the way she yelled!
+Oh, the vixen!" And, to the soldiers, who were in fits of laughter,
+"Mates, this bit of game was just what we wanted to finish off our day's
+hunting. It's a grand bag; and Lieutenant Delroze scented the trail
+finely. There's a picture for you! A whole gang of Boches in one day!
+. . . Look out, sir, what are you doing? Mind the beast's fangs!"
+
+Paul was stooping over the spy. He loosened her gag, which seemed to be
+hurting her. She at once tried to call out, but succeeded only in
+uttering stifled and incoherent syllables. Nevertheless, Paul was able
+to make out a few words, against which he protested:
+
+"No," he said, "not even that to console you. The game is lost. And
+that's the worst punishment of all, isn't it? To die without having done
+the harm you meant to do. And such harm, too!"
+
+He rose and went up to the group of officers. The three, having
+fulfilled their functions as judges, were talking together; and one of
+them said to Paul:
+
+"Well played, Delroze. My best congratulations."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I would have prevented this attempt to escape. But I
+wanted to heap up every possible proof against the woman and not only to
+accuse her of the crimes which she has committed, but to show her to you
+in the act of committing crime."
+
+"Ay; and there's nothing half-hearted about the vixen! But for you,
+Delroze, the villa would have been blown up with all my staff and myself
+into the bargain! . . . But what was the explosion which we heard?"
+
+"A condemned building, sir, which had already been demolished by the
+shells and which the commandant of the fortress wanted to get rid of. We
+only had to divert the electric wire which starts from here."
+
+"So the whole gang is captured?"
+
+"Yes, sir, thanks to a spy whom I had the luck to lay my hands on just
+now and who told me what I had to do in order to get in here. He had
+first revealed the Comtesse Hermine's plan in full detail, together with
+the names of all his accomplices. It was arranged that the man was to
+let the countess know, at ten o'clock this evening, by means of that
+electric bell, if you were holding a council in your villa. The notice
+was given, but by one of our own soldiers, acting under my orders."
+
+"Well done; and, once more, thank you, Delroze."
+
+The general stepped into the circle of light. He was tall and powerfully
+built. His upper lip was covered with a thick white mustache.
+
+There was a movement of surprise among those present. Bernard
+d'Andeville and his sister came forward. The soldiers stood to
+attention. They had recognized the general commanding-in-chief. With him
+were the two generals of whom the countess had spoken.
+
+The gendarmes had pushed the spy against the wall opposite. They untied
+her legs, but had to support her, because her knees were giving way
+beneath her.
+
+And her face expressed unspeakable amazement even more than terror. With
+wide-open eyes she stared at the man whom she had meant to kill, the man
+whom she believed to be dead and who was alive and who would shortly
+pronounce the inevitable sentence of death upon her.
+
+Paul repeated:
+
+"To die without having done the harm you intended to do, that is the
+really terrible thing, is it not?"
+
+The commander-in-chief was alive! The hideous and tremendous plot had
+failed! He was alive and so were his officers and so was every one of
+the spy's enemies. Paul Delroze, Stéphane d'Andeville, Bernard,
+Élisabeth, those whom she had pursued with her indefatigable hatred:
+they were all there! She was about to die gazing at the vision, so
+horrible for her, of her enemies reunited and happy.
+
+And above all she was about to die with the thought that everything was
+lost. Her great dream was shattered to pieces. Her Emperor's throne was
+tottering. The very soul of the Hohenzollerns was departing with the
+Comtesse Hermine. And all this was plainly visible in her haggard eyes,
+from which gleams of madness flashed at intervals.
+
+The general said to one of those with him:
+
+"Have you given the order? Are they shooting the lot?"
+
+"Yes, this evening, sir."
+
+"Very well, we'll begin with this woman. And at once. Here, where we
+are."
+
+The spy gave a start. With a distortion of all her features she
+succeeded in shifting her gag; and they heard her beseeching for mercy
+in a torrent of words and moans.
+
+"Let us go," said the commander-in-chief.
+
+He felt two burning hands press his own. Élisabeth was leaning towards
+him and entreating him with tears.
+
+Paul introduced his wife. The general said, gently:
+
+"I see that you feel pity, madame, in spite of all that you have gone
+through. But you must have no pity, madame. Of course it is the pity
+which we cannot help feeling for those about to die. But we must have no
+pity for these people or for members of their race. They have placed
+themselves beyond the pale of mankind; and we must never forget it. When
+you are a mother, madame, you will teach your children a feeling to
+which France was a stranger and which will prove a safeguard in the
+future: hatred of the Huns."
+
+He took her by the arm in a friendly fashion and led her towards the
+door:
+
+"Allow me to see you out. Are you coming, Delroze? You must need rest
+after such a day's work."
+
+They went out.
+
+The spy was shrieking:
+
+"Mercy! Mercy!"
+
+The soldiers were already drawn up in line along the opposite wall.
+
+The count, Paul and Bernard waited for a moment. She had killed the
+Comte d'Andeville's wife. She had killed Bernard's mother and Paul's
+father. She had tortured Élisabeth. And, though their minds were
+troubled, they felt the great calm which the sense of justice gives. No
+hatred stirred them. No thought of vengeance excited them.
+
+The gendarmes had fastened the spy by the waistband to a nail in the
+wall, to hold her up. They now stood aside.
+
+Paul said to her:
+
+"One of the soldiers here is a priest. If you need his assistance.
+. . ."
+
+But she did not understand. She did not listen. She merely saw what was
+happening and what was about to happen; and she stammered without
+ceasing:
+
+"Mercy! . . . Mercy! . . . Mercy! . . ."
+
+They went out. When they came to the top of the staircase, a word of
+command reached their ears:
+
+"Present! . . ."
+
+Lest he should hear more, Paul slammed the inner and outer hall-doors
+behind him.
+
+Outside was the open air, the good pure air with which men love to fill
+their lungs. Troops were marching along, singing as they went. Paul and
+Bernard learnt that the battle was over and our positions definitely
+assured. Here also the Comtesse Hermine had failed. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days later, at the Château d'Ornequin, Second Lieutenant Bernard
+d'Andeville, accompanied by twelve men, entered the casemate,
+well-warmed and well-ventilated, which served as a prison for Prince
+Conrad.
+
+On the table were some bottles and the remains of an ample repast. The
+prince lay sleeping on a bed against the wall. Bernard tapped him on the
+shoulder:
+
+"Courage, sir."
+
+The prisoner sprang up, terrified:
+
+"Eh? What's that?"
+
+"I said, courage, sir. The hour has come."
+
+Pale as death, the prince stammered:
+
+"Courage? . . . Courage? . . . I don't understand. . . . Oh Lord, oh
+Lord, is it possible?"
+
+"Everything is always possible," said Bernard, "and what has to happen
+always happens, especially calamities." And he suggested, "A glass of
+rum, sir, to pull you together? A cigarette?"
+
+"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" the prince repeated, trembling like a leaf.
+
+Mechanically he took the cigarette offered him. But it fell from his
+lips after the first few puffs.
+
+"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" he never ceased stammering.
+
+And his distress increased when he saw the twelve men waiting, with
+their rifles at rest. He wore the distraught look of the condemned man
+who beholds the outline of the guillotine in the pale light of the dawn.
+They had to carry him to the terrace, in front of a strip of broken
+wall.
+
+"Sit down, sir," said Bernard.
+
+Even without this invitation, the wretched man would have been incapable
+of standing on his feet. He sank upon a stone.
+
+The twelve soldiers took up their position facing him. He bent his head
+so as not to see; and his whole body jerked like that of a dancing doll
+when you pull its strings.
+
+A moment passed; and Bernard asked, in a kind and friendly tone:
+
+"Would you rather have it front or back?"
+
+The prince, utterly overwhelmed, did not reply; and Bernard exclaimed:
+
+"I'm afraid you're not very well, sir. Come, your royal highness must
+pull yourself together. You have lots of time. Lieutenant Delroze won't
+be here for another ten minutes. He was very keen on being present at
+this--how shall I put it?--at this little ceremony. And really he will
+be disappointed in your appearance. You're green in the face, sir."
+
+Still displaying the greatest interest and as though seeking to divert
+the prince's thoughts, he said:
+
+"What can I tell you, sir, by way of news? You know that your friend
+the Comtesse Hermine is dead, I suppose? Ha, ha, that makes you prick up
+your ears, I see! It's quite true: that good and great woman was
+executed the other day at Soissons. And, upon my word, she cut just as
+poor a figure as you are doing now, sir. They had to hold her up. And
+the way she yelled and screamed for mercy! There was no pose about her,
+no dignity. But I can see that your thoughts are straying. Bother! What
+can I do to cheer you up? Ah, I have an idea! . . ."
+
+He took a little paper-bound book from his pocket:
+
+"Look here, sir, I'll read to you. Of course, a Bible would be more
+appropriate; only I haven't one on me. And the great thing, after all,
+is to help you to forget; and I know nothing better for a German who
+prides himself on his country and his army than this little book. We'll
+dip into it together, shall we? It's called _German Crimes as Related by
+German Eye-witnesses_. It consists of extracts from the diaries of your
+fellow-countrymen. It is therefore one of those irrefutable documents
+which earn the respect of German science. I'll open it at random. Here
+goes. 'The inhabitants fled from the village. It was a horrible sight.
+All the houses were plastered with blood; and the faces of the dead were
+hideous to see. We buried them all at once; there were sixty of them,
+including a number of old women, some old men, a woman about to become a
+mother, and three children who had pressed themselves against one
+another and who died like that. All the survivors were turned out; and
+I saw four little boys carrying on two sticks a cradle with a child of
+five or six months in it. The whole village was sacked. And I also saw a
+mother with two babies and one of them had a great wound in the head and
+had lost an eye.'"
+
+Bernard stopped to address the prince:
+
+"Interesting reading, is it not, sir?"
+
+And he went on:
+
+"'_26 August._ The charming village of Gué d'Hossus, in the Ardennes,
+has been burnt to the ground, though quite innocent, as it seems to me.
+They tell me that a cyclist fell from his machine and that the fall made
+his rifle go off of its own accord, so they fired in his direction.
+After that, they simply threw the male inhabitants into the flames.'
+Here's another bit: '_25 August._' This was in Belgium. 'We have shot
+three hundred of the inhabitants of the town. Those who survived the
+volleys were told off to bury the rest. You should have seen the women's
+faces!'"
+
+And the reading continued, interrupted by judicious reflections which
+Bernard emitted in a placid voice, as though he were commenting on an
+historical work. Prince Conrad, meanwhile, seemed on the verge of
+fainting.
+
+When Paul arrived at the Château d'Ornequin and, alighting from his car,
+went to the terrace, the sight of the prince and the careful
+stage-setting with the twelve soldiers told him of the rather uncanny
+little comedy which Bernard was playing. He uttered a reproachful
+protest:
+
+"I say! Bernard!"
+
+The young man exclaimed, in an innocent voice:
+
+"Ah, Paul, so you've come? Quick! His royal highness and I were waiting
+for you. We shall be able to finish off this job at last!"
+
+He went and stood in front of his men at ten paces from the prince:
+
+"Are you ready, sir? Ah, I see you prefer it front way! . . . Very well,
+though I can't say that you're very attractive seen from the front.
+However. . . . Oh, but look here, this will never do! Don't bend your
+legs like that, I beg of you. Hold yourself up, do! And please look
+pleasant. Now then; keep your eyes on my cap. . . . I'm counting: one
+. . . two . . . Look pleasant, can't you?"
+
+He had lowered his head and was holding a pocket camera against his
+chest. Presently he squeezed the bulb, the camera clicked and Bernard
+exclaimed:
+
+"There! I've got you! Sir, I don't know how to thank you. You have been
+_so_ kind, _so_ patient. The smile was a little forced perhaps, like the
+smile of a man on his way to the gallows, and the eyes were like the
+eyes of a corpse. Otherwise the expression was quite charming. A
+thousand thanks."
+
+Paul could not help laughing. Prince Conrad had not fully grasped the
+joke. However, he felt that the danger was past and he was now trying to
+put a good face on things, like a gentleman accustomed to bear any sort
+of misfortune with dignified contempt.
+
+Paul said:
+
+"You are free, sir. I have an appointment with one of the Emperor's
+aides-de-camp on the frontier at three o'clock to-day. He is bringing
+twenty French prisoners and I am to hand your royal highness over to him
+in exchange. Pray, step into the car."
+
+Prince Conrad obviously did not grasp a word of what Paul was saying.
+The appointment on the frontier, the twenty prisoners and the rest were
+just so many phrases which failed to make any impression on his
+bewildered brain. But, when he had taken his seat and when the motor-car
+drove slowly round the lawn, he saw something that completed his
+discomfiture. Élisabeth stood on the grass and made him a smiling
+curtsey.
+
+It was an obvious hallucination. He rubbed his eyes with a flabbergasted
+air which so clearly indicated what was in his mind that Bernard said:
+
+"Make no mistake, sir. It's my sister all right. Yes, Paul Delroze and I
+thought we had better go and fetch her in Germany. So we turned up our
+Baedeker, asked for an interview with the Emperor and it was His Majesty
+himself who, with his usual good grace. . . . Oh, by the way, sir, you
+must expect to receive a wigging from the governor! His Majesty is
+simply furious with you. Such a scandal, you know! Behaving like a
+rotter, you know! You're in for a bad time, sir!"
+
+The exchange took place at the hour named. The twenty prisoners were
+handed over. Paul Delroze took the aide-de-camp aside:
+
+"Sir," he said, "you will please tell the Emperor that the Comtesse
+Hermine von Hohenzollern made an attempt to assassinate the
+commander-in-chief. She was arrested by me, tried by court-martial and
+sentenced and has been shot by the commander-in-chief's orders. I am in
+possession of a certain number of her papers, especially private letters
+to which I have no doubt that the Emperor himself attaches the greatest
+importance. They will be returned to His Majesty on the day when the
+Château d'Ornequin recovers all its furniture, pictures and other
+valuables. I wish you good-day, sir."
+
+It was over. Paul had won all along the line. He had delivered Élisabeth
+and revenged his father's death. He had destroyed the head of the German
+secret service and, by insisting on the release of the twenty French
+prisoners, kept all the promises which he had made to the general
+commanding-in-chief. He had every right to be proud of his work.
+
+On the way back, Bernard asked:
+
+"So I shocked you just now?"
+
+"You more than shocked me," said Paul, laughing. "You made me feel
+indignant."
+
+"Indignant! Really? Indignant, quotha! Here's a young bounder who tries
+to take your wife from you and who is let off with a few days' solitary
+confinement! Here's one of the leaders of those highwaymen who go about
+committing murder and pillage; and he goes home free to start pillaging
+and murdering again! Why, it's absurd! Just think: all those scoundrels
+who wanted war--emperors and princes and emperors' and princes'
+wives--know nothing of war but its pomp and its tragic beauty and
+absolutely nothing of the agony that falls upon humbler people! They
+suffer morally in the dread of the punishment that awaits them, but not
+physically, in their flesh and in the flesh of their flesh. The others
+die. They go on living. And, when I have this unparalleled opportunity
+of getting hold of one of them, when I might take revenge on him and his
+confederates and shoot him in cold blood, as they shoot our sisters and
+our wives, you think it out of the way that I should put the fear of
+death into him for just ten minutes! Why, if I had listened to sound
+human and logical justice, I ought to have visited him with some
+trifling torture which he would never have forgotten, such as cutting
+off one of the ears or the tip of his nose!"
+
+"You're perfectly right," said Paul.
+
+"There, you see, you agree with me! I should have cut off the tip of his
+nose! What a fool I was not to do it, instead of resting content with
+giving him a wretched lesson which he will have forgotten by to-morrow!
+What an ass I am! However, my one consolation is that I have taken a
+photograph which will constitute a priceless document: the face of a
+Hohenzollern in the presence of death. Oh, I ask you, did you see his
+face? . . ."
+
+The car was passing through Ornequin village. It was deserted. The Huns
+had burnt down every house and taken away all the inhabitants, driving
+them before them like troops of slaves.
+
+But they saw, seated amid the ruins, a man in rags. He was an old man.
+He stared at them foolishly, with a madman's eyes. Beside him a child
+was holding forth its arms, poor little arms from which the hands were
+gone. . . .
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
+original edition have been corrected.
+
+In the Table of Contents, "Elisabeth's Diary" was changed to
+"Élisabeth's Diary".
+
+In Chapter I, "was standin on the pavement" was changed to "was standing
+on the pavement".
+
+In Chapter II, "The estate surrounded by farms and fields" was changed
+to "The estate, surrounded by farms and fields", and "Élisazeth suddenly
+gripped her husband's arm" was changed to "Élisabeth suddenly gripped
+her husband's arm".
+
+In Chapter III, a quotation marks were added after "Confess it, you've
+made a mistake" and "the wretched, monstrous woman", and "a regular,
+montononous, uninterrupted ringing" was changed to "a regular,
+monotonous, uninterrupted ringing".
+
+In Chapter IV, "_That's a queer fellow_, said he colonel" was changed to
+"_That's a queer fellow_, said the colonel", and "care of M.
+D'Andeville" was changed to "care of M. d'Andeville".
+
+In Chapter V, "but got no farther" was changed to "but go no farther".
+
+In Chapter VI, "echoed Paul, is alarm" was changed to "echoed Paul, in
+alarm", "ought to be cheerful. . ." was changed to "ought to be
+cheerful. . . .", and "rather a serious of explosions" was changed to
+"rather a series of explosions".
+
+In Chapter VII, a missing period was added after "at a man's height".
+
+In Chapter XIII, a single quote (') was changed to a double quote (")
+after "You're sure of holding out, aren't you?", "essential imporance"
+was changed to "essential importance", and a quotation mark was added
+after "Is it really you? . . ."
+
+In Chapter XVI, "He'll go with you like a limb" was changed to "He'll go
+with you like a lamb".
+
+In Chapter XVII, a single quote (') was changed to a double quote (")
+after "A damnable lie!"
+
+In Chapter XVIII, "his recest victory over the Emperor" was changed to
+"his recent victory over the Emperor", and "I shall take a rest till
+them" was changed to "I shall take a rest till then".
+
+In Chapter XIX, "I have found one of your occomplices" was changed to "I
+have found one of your accomplices", a quotation mark was added after
+"went down to the south to die", and "telling him of your inplacable
+determination" was changed to "telling him of your implacable
+determination".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman of Mystery, by Maurice Leblanc
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diff --git a/files/books/unrelated/wutheringheights b/files/books/unrelated/wutheringheights
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+CHAPTER I
+1801.—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.  This is certainly a beautiful country!  In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society.  A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us.  A capital fellow!  He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
+‘Mr. Heathcliff?’ I said.
+A nod was the answer.
+‘Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir.  I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts—’
+‘Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,’ he interrupted, wincing.  ‘I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it—walk in!’
+The ‘walk in’ was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, ‘Go to the Deuce:’ even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.
+When he saw my horse’s breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the court,—‘Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood’s horse; and bring up some wine.’
+‘Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,’ was the reflection suggested by this compound order.  ‘No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cutters.’
+Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy.  ‘The Lord help us!’ he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.
+Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling.  ‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.  Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.  Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.
+Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date ‘1500,’ and the name ‘Hareton Earnshaw.’  I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium.
+One stop brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby or passage: they call it here ‘the house’ pre-eminently.  It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls.  One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof.  The latter had never been under-drawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it.  Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge.  The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade.  In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.
+The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters.  Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner.  But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living.  He is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.  Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness.  He’ll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again.  No, I’m running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him.  Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me.  Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.
+While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me.  I ‘never told my love’ vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return—the sweetest of all imaginable looks.  And what did I do?  I confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.  By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.
+I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch.  My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl.
+‘You’d better let the dog alone,’ growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot.  ‘She’s not accustomed to be spoiled—not kept for a pet.’  Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, ‘Joseph!’
+Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-à-vis the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements.  Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees.  I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us.  This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre.  I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establishing peace.
+Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don’t think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping.  Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.
+‘What the devil is the matter?’ he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.
+‘What the devil, indeed!’ I muttered.  ‘The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir.  You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!’
+‘They won’t meddle with persons who touch nothing,’ he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table.  ‘The dogs do right to be vigilant.  Take a glass of wine?’
+‘No, thank you.’
+‘Not bitten, are you?’
+‘If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.’  Heathcliff’s countenance relaxed into a grin.
+‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood.  Here, take a little wine.  Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them.  Your health, sir?’
+I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his humour took that turn.  He—probably swayed by prudential consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant—relaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,—a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement.  I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit to-morrow.  He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion.  I shall go, notwithstanding.  It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.
+CHAPTER II
+Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold.  I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights.  On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.—I dine between twelve and one o’clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)—on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders.  This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles’ walk, arrived at Heathcliff’s garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower.
+On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb.  Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
+‘Wretched inmates!’ I ejaculated, mentally, ‘you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality.  At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time.  I don’t care—I will get in!’  So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently.  Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.
+‘What are ye for?’ he shouted.  ‘T’ maister’s down i’ t’ fowld.  Go round by th’ end o’ t’ laith, if ye went to spake to him.’
+‘Is there nobody inside to open the door?’ I hallooed, responsively.
+‘There’s nobbut t’ missis; and shoo’ll not oppen ’t an ye mak’ yer flaysome dins till neeght.’
+‘Why?  Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?’
+‘Nor-ne me!  I’ll hae no hend wi’t,’ muttered the head, vanishing.
+The snow began to drive thickly.  I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind.  He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received.  It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the ‘missis,’ an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected.  I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat.  She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute.
+‘Rough weather!’ I remarked.  ‘I’m afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants’ leisure attendance: I had hard work to make them hear me.’
+She never opened her mouth.  I stared—she stared also: at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
+‘Sit down,’ said the young man, gruffly.  ‘He’ll be in soon.’
+I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance.
+‘A beautiful animal!’ I commenced again.  ‘Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam?’
+‘They are not mine,’ said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied.
+‘Ah, your favourites are among these?’ I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats.
+‘A strange choice of favourites!’ she observed scornfully.
+Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits.  I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.
+‘You should not have come out,’ she said, rising and reaching from the chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.
+Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance.  She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there.  The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold.
+‘I don’t want your help,’ she snapped; ‘I can get them for myself.’
+‘I beg your pardon!’ I hastened to reply.
+‘Were you asked to tea?’ she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.
+‘I shall be glad to have a cup,’ I answered.
+‘Were you asked?’ she repeated.
+‘No,’ I said, half smiling.  ‘You are the proper person to ask me.’
+She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child’s ready to cry.
+Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us.  I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic’s assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.  In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state.
+‘You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!’ I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful; ‘and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space.’
+‘Half an hour?’ he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; ‘I wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in.  Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes?  People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.’
+‘Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morning—could you spare me one?’
+‘No, I could not.’
+‘Oh, indeed!  Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.’
+‘Umph!’
+‘Are you going to mak’ the tea?’ demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.
+‘Is he to have any?’ she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.
+‘Get it ready, will you?’ was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started.  The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature.  I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.  When the preparations were finished, he invited me with—‘Now, sir, bring forward your chair.’  And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.
+I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it.  They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every-day countenance.
+‘It is strange,’ I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and receiving another—‘it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I’ll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart—’
+‘My amiable lady!’ he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face.  ‘Where is she—my amiable lady?’
+‘Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.’
+‘Well, yes—oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone.  Is that it?’
+Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it.  I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife.  One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years.  The other did not look seventeen.
+Then it flashed upon me—‘The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course.  Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed!  A sad pity—I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice.’  The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not.  My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.
+‘Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,’ said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise.  He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.
+‘Ah, certainly—I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy,’ I remarked, turning to my neighbour.
+This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault.  But he seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse, muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.
+‘Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,’ observed my host; ‘we neither of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead.  I said she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.’
+‘And this young man is—’
+‘Not my son, assuredly.’
+Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.
+‘My name is Hareton Earnshaw,’ growled the other; ‘and I’d counsel you to respect it!’
+‘I’ve shown no disrespect,’ was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself.
+He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible.  I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle.  The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time.
+The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather.  A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.
+‘I don’t think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,’ I could not help exclaiming.  ‘The roads will be buried already; and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.’
+‘Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch.  They’ll be covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them,’ said Heathcliff.
+‘How must I do?’ I continued, with rising irritation.
+There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its place.  The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out—‘Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i’ idleness un war, when all on ’ems goan out!  Bud yah’re a nowt, and it’s no use talking—yah’ll niver mend o’yer ill ways, but goa raight to t’ divil, like yer mother afore ye!’
+I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door.  Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer.
+‘You scandalous old hypocrite!’ she replied.  ‘Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil’s name?  I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I’ll ask your abduction as a special favour!  Stop! look here, Joseph,’ she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; ‘I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it.  The red cow didn’t die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!’
+‘Oh, wicked, wicked!’ gasped the elder; ‘may the Lord deliver us from evil!’
+‘No, reprobate! you are a castaway—be off, or I’ll hurt you seriously!  I’ll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the limits I fix shall—I’ll not say what he shall be done to—but, you’ll see!  Go, I’m looking at you!’
+The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating ‘wicked’ as he went.  I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress.
+‘Mrs. Heathcliff,’ I said earnestly, ‘you must excuse me for troubling you.  I presume, because, with that face, I’m sure you cannot help being good-hearted.  Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!’
+‘Take the road you came,’ she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her.  ‘It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give.’
+‘Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won’t whisper that it is partly your fault?’
+‘How so?  I cannot escort you.  They wouldn’t let me go to the end of the garden wall.’
+‘You!  I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night,’ I cried.  ‘I want you to tell me my way, not to show it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.’
+‘Who?  There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I.  Which would you have?’
+‘Are there no boys at the farm?’
+‘No; those are all.’
+‘Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.’
+‘That you may settle with your host.  I have nothing to do with it.’
+‘I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,’ cried Heathcliff’s stern voice from the kitchen entrance.  ‘As to staying here, I don’t keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.’
+‘I can sleep on a chair in this room,’ I replied.
+‘No, no!  A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!’ said the unmannerly wretch.
+With this insult my patience was at an end.  I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste.  It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other.  At first the young man appeared about to befriend me.
+‘I’ll go with him as far as the park,’ he said.
+‘You’ll go with him to hell!’ exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore.  ‘And who is to look after the horses, eh?’
+‘A man’s life is of more consequence than one evening’s neglect of the horses: somebody must go,’ murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.
+‘Not at your command!’ retorted Hareton.  ‘If you set store on him, you’d better be quiet.’
+‘Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,’ she answered, sharply.
+‘Hearken, hearken, shoo’s cursing on ’em!’ muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering.
+He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.
+‘Maister, maister, he’s staling t’ lanthern!’ shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat.  ‘Hey, Gnasher!  Hey, dog!  Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him!’
+On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation.  Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out—on their peril to keep me one minute longer—with several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.
+The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded.  I don’t know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer.  This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar.  She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.
+‘Well, Mr. Earnshaw,’ she cried, ‘I wonder what you’ll have agait next?  Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones?  I see this house will never do for me—look at t’ poor lad, he’s fair choking!  Wisht, wisht; you mun’n’t go on so.  Come in, and I’ll cure that: there now, hold ye still.’
+With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen.  Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.
+I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof.  He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.
+CHAPTER III
+While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly.  I asked the reason.  She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious.
+Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed.  The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows.  Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself.  In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.  I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.
+The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.  This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.
+In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.  I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee.  It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription—‘Catherine Earnshaw, her book,’ and a date some quarter of a century back.  I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all.  Catherine’s library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left.  Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand.  At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,—rudely, yet powerfully sketched.  An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
+‘An awful Sunday,’ commenced the paragraph beneath.  ‘I wish my father were back again.  Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening.
+‘All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing anything but reading their Bibles, I’ll answer for it—Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake.  A vain idea!  The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, “What, done already?”  On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.
+‘“You forget you have a master here,” says the tyrant.  “I’ll demolish the first who puts me out of temper!  I insist on perfect sobriety and silence.  Oh, boy! was that you?  Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.”  Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of.  We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser.  I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables.  He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks:
+‘“T’ maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o’ered, und t’ sound o’ t’ gospel still i’ yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking!  Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! there’s good books eneugh if ye’ll read ’em: sit ye down, and think o’ yer sowls!”
+‘Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us.  I could not bear the employment.  I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book.  Heathcliff kicked his to the same place.  Then there was a hubbub!
+‘“Maister Hindley!” shouted our chaplain.  “Maister, coom hither!  Miss Cathy’s riven th’ back off ‘Th’ Helmet o’ Salvation,’ un’ Heathcliff’s pawsed his fit into t’ first part o’ ‘T’ Brooad Way to Destruction!’  It’s fair flaysome that ye let ’em go on this gait.  Ech! th’ owd man wad ha’ laced ’em properly—but he’s goan!”
+‘Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, “owd Nick” would fetch us as sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent.  I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman’s cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter.  A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.’
+* * * * * *
+I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.
+‘How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!’ she wrote.  ‘My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I can’t give over.  Poor Heathcliff!  Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders.  He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place—’
+* * * * * *
+I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print.  I saw a red ornamented title—‘Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.’  And while I was, half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep.  Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper!  What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night?  I don’t remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.
+I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality.  I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide.  The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim’s staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated.  For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence.  Then a new idea flashed across me.  I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text—‘Seventy Times Seven;’ and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the ‘First of the Seventy-First,’ and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.
+We came to the chapel.  I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there.  The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman’s stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets.  However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin!  Where he searched for them, I cannot tell.  He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion.  They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
+Oh, how weary I grow.  How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived!  How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done.  I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the ‘First of the Seventy-First.’  At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.
+‘Sir,’ I exclaimed, ‘sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse.  Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat.  The four hundred and ninety-first is too much.  Fellow-martyrs, have at him!  Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!’
+‘Thou art the Man!’ cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion.  ‘Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved!  The First of the Seventy-First is come.  Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written.  Such honour have all His saints!’
+With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim’s staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his.  In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces.  Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man’s hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me.  And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult?  What had played Jabez’s part in the row?  Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes!  I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.
+This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement.  The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten.  ‘I must stop it, nevertheless!’ I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!  The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in—let me in!’  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.  ‘Catherine Linton,’ it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton?  I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton)—‘I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!’  As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window.  Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.  ‘How can I!’ I said at length.  ‘Let me go, if you want me to let you in!’  The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.  I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!  ‘Begone!’ I shouted.  ‘I’ll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.’  ‘It is twenty years,’ mourned the voice: ‘twenty years.  I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’  Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.  I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.  To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed.  I sat shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.  At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, ‘Is any one here?’  I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff’s accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet.  With this intention, I turned and opened the panels.  I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.
+Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him.  The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.
+‘It is only your guest, sir,’ I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice further.  ‘I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare.  I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
+‘Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood!  I wish you were at the—’ commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady.  ‘And who showed you up into this room?’ he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions.  ‘Who was it?  I’ve a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment?’
+‘It was your servant Zillah,’ I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments.  ‘I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it.  I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense.  Well, it is—swarming with ghosts and goblins!  You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you.  No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!’
+‘What do you mean?’ asked Heathcliff, ‘and what are you doing?  Lie down and finish out the night, since you are here; but, for heaven’s sake! don’t repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!’
+‘If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me!’ I returned.  ‘I’m not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again.  Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the mother’s side?  And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a changeling—wicked little soul!  She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I’ve no doubt!’
+Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff’s with Catherine’s name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened.  I blushed at my inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add—‘The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in—’  Here I stopped afresh—I was about to say ‘perusing those old volumes,’ then it would have revealed my knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I went on—‘in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge.  A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or—’
+‘What can you mean by talking in this way to me!’ thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence.  ‘How—how dare you, under my roof?—God! he’s mad to speak so!’  And he struck his forehead with rage.
+I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of ‘Catherine Linton’ before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control.  Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it.  I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion.  Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: ‘Not three o’clock yet!  I could have taken oath it had been six.  Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!’
+‘Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,’ said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm’s shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes.  ‘Mr. Lockwood,’ he added, ‘you may go into my room: you’ll only be in the way, coming down-stairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.’
+‘And for me, too,’ I replied.  ‘I’ll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I’ll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion.  I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town.  A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.’
+‘Delightful company!’ muttered Heathcliff.  ‘Take the candle, and go where you please.  I shall join you directly.  Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house—Juno mounts sentinel there, and—nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages.  But, away with you!  I’ll come in two minutes!’
+I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense.  He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.  ‘Come in! come in!’ he sobbed.  ‘Cathy, do come.  Oh, do—once more!  Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’  The spectre showed a spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.
+There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension.  I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together, enabled me to rekindle my candle.  Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.
+Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other.  We were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose.  He cast a sinister look at the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced the operation of stuffing a three-inch pipe with tobacco.  My presence in his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for remark: he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and puffed away.  I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came.
+A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a ‘good-morning,’ but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison sotto voce, in a series of curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts.  He glanced over the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat.  I guessed, by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch, made a movement to follow him.  He noticed this, and thrust at an inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.
+It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze.  She held her hand interposed between the furnace-heat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face.  I was surprised to see Heathcliff there also.  He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan.
+‘And you, you worthless—’ he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash—.  ‘There you are, at your idle tricks again!  The rest of them do earn their bread—you live on my charity!  Put your trash away, and find something to do.  You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight—do you hear, damnable jade?’
+‘I’ll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,’ answered the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair.  ‘But I’ll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!’
+Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously acquainted with its weight.  Having no desire to be entertained by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted dispute.  Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay.  That was not long.  I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable ice.
+My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor.  It was well he did, for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday’s walk left pictured in my mind.  I had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.
+We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there.  Our adieux were limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own resources; for the porter’s lodge is untenanted as yet.  The distance from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate.  At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.
+My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains.  I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged up-stairs; whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.
+CHAPTER IV
+What vain weathercocks we are!  I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable—I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.
+‘You have lived here a considerable time,’ I commenced; ‘did you not say sixteen years?’
+‘Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her; after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.’
+‘Indeed.’
+There ensued a pause.  She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her own affairs, and those could hardly interest me.  However, having studied for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated—‘Ah, times are greatly changed since then!’
+‘Yes,’ I remarked, ‘you’ve seen a good many alterations, I suppose?’
+‘I have: and troubles too,’ she said.
+‘Oh, I’ll turn the talk on my landlord’s family!’ I thought to myself.  ‘A good subject to start!  And that pretty girl-widow, I should like to know her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more probable, an exotic that the surly indigenae will not recognise for kin.’  With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so much inferior.  ‘Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?’ I inquired.
+‘Rich, sir!’ she returned.  ‘He has nobody knows what money, and every year it increases.  Yes, yes, he’s rich enough to live in a finer house than this: but he’s very near—close-handed; and, if he had meant to flit to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more.  It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!’
+‘He had a son, it seems?’
+‘Yes, he had one—he is dead.’
+‘And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?’
+‘Yes.’
+‘Where did she come from originally?’
+‘Why, sir, she is my late master’s daughter: Catherine Linton was her maiden name.  I nursed her, poor thing!  I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would remove here, and then we might have been together again.’
+‘What!  Catherine Linton?’ I exclaimed, astonished.  But a minute’s reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine.  ‘Then,’ I continued, ‘my predecessor’s name was Linton?’
+‘It was.’
+‘And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff?  Are they relations?’
+‘No; he is the late Mrs. Linton’s nephew.’
+‘The young lady’s cousin, then?’
+‘Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother’s, the other on the father’s side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister.’
+‘I see the house at Wuthering Heights has “Earnshaw” carved over the front door.  Are they an old family?’
+‘Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us—I mean, of the Lintons.  Have you been to Wuthering Heights?  I beg pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!’
+‘Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think, not very happy.’
+‘Oh dear, I don’t wonder!  And how did you like the master?’
+‘A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean.  Is not that his character?
+‘Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone!  The less you meddle with him the better.’
+‘He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.  Do you know anything of his history?’
+‘It’s a cuckoo’s, sir—I know all about it: except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first.  And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock!  The unfortunate lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated.’
+‘Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to sit and chat an hour.’
+‘Oh, certainly, sir!  I’ll just fetch a little sewing, and then I’ll sit as long as you please.  But you’ve caught cold: I saw you shivering, and you must have some gruel to drive it out.’
+The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain.  This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday.  She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.
+Before I came to live here, she commenced—waiting no farther invitation to her story—I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton’s father, and I got used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to.  One fine summer morning—it was the beginning of harvest, I remember—Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came down-stairs, dressed for a journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me—for I sat eating my porridge with them—and he said, speaking to his son, ‘Now, my bonny man, I’m going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you?  You may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!’  Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip.  He did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes.  He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said good-bye, and set off.
+It seemed a long while to us all—the three days of his absence—and often did little Cathy ask when he would be home.  Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look.  Then it grew dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed to stay up; and, just about eleven o’clock, the door-latch was raised quietly, and in stepped the master.  He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killed—he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.
+‘And at the end of it to be flighted to death!’ he said, opening his great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms.  ‘See here, wife!  I was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.’
+We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine’s; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand.  I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for?  What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad?  The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner.  Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it.  Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.
+Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored: then, both began searching their father’s pockets for the presents he had promised them.  The former was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners.  They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow.  By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw’s door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber.  Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house.
+This was Heathcliff’s first introduction to the family.  On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened him ‘Heathcliff’: it was the name of a son who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname.  Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn’t reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.
+He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame.  This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him.  He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.
+So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs. Earnshaw’s death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent’s affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries.  I sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea.  Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn’t wit to guess that I was compelled to do it.  However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over.  The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial.  Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble.
+He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing to me, and praised me for my care.  I was vain of his commendations, and softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley lost his last ally: still I couldn’t dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude.  He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes.  As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one.  Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley—
+‘You must exchange horses with me: I don’t like mine; and if you won’t I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you’ve given me this week, and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.’  Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears.  ‘You’d better do it at once,’ he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): ‘you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you’ll get them again with interest.’  ‘Off, dog!’ cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay.  ‘Throw it,’ he replied, standing still, ‘and then I’ll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.’  Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it.  ‘Take my colt, Gipsy, then!’ said young Earnshaw.  ‘And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan.—And take that, I hope he’ll kick out your brains!’
+Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall; he was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could.  I was surprised to witness how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention; exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered the house.  I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises on the horse: he minded little what tale was told since he had what he wanted.  He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will hear.
+CHAPTER V
+In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail.  He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable.  A nothing vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits.  This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill-turn.  It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child’s pride and black tempers.  Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley’s manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it.
+At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—‘Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.’
+I hoped heartily we should have peace now.  It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed.  I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame.  We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder.  He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.  By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained.  He was relentless in worrying him about his soul’s concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly.  He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw’s weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.
+Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute’s security that she wouldn’t be in mischief.  Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going—singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same.  A wild, wicked slip she was—but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her.  She was much too fond of Heathcliff.  The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account.  In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know.
+Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime.  His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning Joseph’s religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most—showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his only when it suited his own inclination.  After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night.  ‘Nay, Cathy,’ the old man would say, ‘I cannot love thee, thou’rt worse than thy brother.  Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God’s pardon.  I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!’  That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.
+But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw’s troubles on earth.  He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side.  A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done).  Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father’s knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap.  I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair—it pleased him rarely to see her gentle—and saying, ‘Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?’  And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, ‘Why cannot you always be a good man, father?’  But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep.  She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast.  Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him.  We all kept as mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed.  He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle and looked at him.  I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to ‘frame up-stairs, and make little din—they might pray alone that evening—he had summut to do.’
+‘I shall bid father good-night first,’ said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her.  The poor thing discovered her loss directly—she screamed out—‘Oh, he’s dead, Heathcliff! he’s dead!’  And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.
+I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven.  He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson.  I could not guess the use that either would be of, then.  However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me; the other said he would come in the morning.  Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children’s room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them.  The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.
+CHAPTER VI
+Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and—a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left—he brought a wife with him.  What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father.
+She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account.  Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners.  I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly—‘Are they gone yet?’  Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping—and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn’t know; but she felt so afraid of dying!  I imagined her as little likely to die as myself.  She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds.  I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her.  We don’t in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first.
+Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his absence.  He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back-kitchen, and leave the house for him.  Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention.
+She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning.  Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical.  A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy.  He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm.
+Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields.  They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him.  He would not even have seen after their going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper.  But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at.  The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge; and many a time I’ve cried to myself to watch them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures.  One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting-room, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere.  We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible: and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night.  The household went to bed; and I, too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return.  In a while, I distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate.  I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking.  There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone.
+‘Where is Miss Catherine?’ I cried hurriedly.  ‘No accident, I hope?’  ‘At Thrushcross Grange,’ he answered; ‘and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.’  ‘Well, you will catch it!’ I said: ‘you’ll never be content till you’re sent about your business.  What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?’  ‘Let me get off my wet clothes, and I’ll tell you all about it, Nelly,’ he replied.  I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued—‘Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire.  Do you think they do?  Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don’t answer properly?’  ‘Probably not,’ I responded.  ‘They are good children, no doubt, and don’t deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct.’  ‘Don’t cant, Nelly,’ he said: ‘nonsense!  We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping—Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot.  You’ll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow.  We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window.  The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed.  Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw—ah! it was beautiful—a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers.  Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sisters had it entirely to themselves.  Shouldn’t they have been happy?  We should have thought ourselves in heaven!  And now, guess what your good children were doing?  Isabella—I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy—lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her.  Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them.  The idiots!  That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it.  We laughed outright at the petted things; we did despise them!  When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room?  I’d not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton’s at Thrushcross Grange—not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley’s blood!’
+‘Hush, hush!’ I interrupted.  ‘Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?’
+‘I told you we laughed,’ he answered.  ‘The Lintons heard us, and with one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and then a cry, “Oh, mamma, mamma!  Oh, papa!  Oh, mamma, come here.  Oh, papa, oh!”  They really did howl out something in that way.  We made frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee.  I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell down.  “Run, Heathcliff, run!” she whispered.  “They have let the bull-dog loose, and he holds me!”  The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard his abominable snorting.  She did not yell out—no! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow.  I did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat.  A beast of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting—“Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!”  He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker’s game.  The dog was throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver.  The man took Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I’m certain, but from pain.  He carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance.  “What prey, Robert?” hallooed Linton from the entrance.  “Skulker has caught a little girl, sir,” he replied; “and there’s a lad here,” he added, making a clutch at me, “who looks an out-and-outer!  Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease.  Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this.  Mr. Linton, sir, don’t lay by your gun.”  “No, no, Robert,” said the old fool.  “The rascals knew that yesterday was my rent-day: they thought to have me cleverly.  Come in; I’ll furnish them a reception.  There, John, fasten the chain.  Give Skulker some water, Jenny.  To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too!  Where will their insolence stop?  Oh, my dear Mary, look here!  Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?”  He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror.  The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping—“Frightful thing!  Put him in the cellar, papa.  He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant.  Isn’t he, Edgar?”
+‘While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and laughed.  Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her.  They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere.  “That’s Miss Earnshaw?” he whispered to his mother, “and look how Skulker has bitten her—how her foot bleeds!”
+‘“Miss Earnshaw?  Nonsense!” cried the dame; “Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy!  And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning—surely it is—and she may be lamed for life!”
+‘“What culpable carelessness in her brother!” exclaimed Mr. Linton, turning from me to Catherine.  “I’ve understood from Shielders”’ (that was the curate, sir) ‘“that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism.  But who is this?  Where did she pick up this companion?  Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool—a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.”
+‘“A wicked boy, at all events,” remarked the old lady, “and quite unfit for a decent house!  Did you notice his language, Linton?  I’m shocked that my children should have heard it.”
+‘I recommenced cursing—don’t be angry, Nelly—and so Robert was ordered to take me off.  I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly, secured the door again.  The curtains were still looped up at one corner, and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out.  She sat on the sofa quietly.  Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her treatment and mine.  Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance.  Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons—a dim reflection from her own enchanting face.  I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them—to everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?’
+‘There will more come of this business than you reckon on,’ I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light.  ‘You are incurable, Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if he won’t.’  My words came truer than I desired.  The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious.  And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest.  Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible.
+CHAPTER VII
+Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas.  By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved.  The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there ‘lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.  Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, ‘Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty!  I should scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now.  Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?’  ‘Isabella has not her natural advantages,’ replied his wife: ‘but she must mind and not grow wild again here.  Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things—Stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls—let me untie your hat.’
+I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments.  She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff.  Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends.
+Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first.  If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine’s absence, he had been ten times more so since.  Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water.  Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months’ service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded.  He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected.  ‘Is Heathcliff not here?’ she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.
+‘Heathcliff, you may come forward,’ cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself.  ‘You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.’
+Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, ‘Why, how very black and cross you look! and how—how funny and grim!  But that’s because I’m used to Edgar and Isabella Linton.  Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?’
+She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.
+‘Shake hands, Heathcliff,’ said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; ‘once in a way that is permitted.’
+‘I shall not,’ replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; ‘I shall not stand to be laughed at.  I shall not bear it!’  And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again.
+‘I did not mean to laugh at you,’ she said; ‘I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least!  What are you sulky for?  It was only that you looked odd.  If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!’
+She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his.
+‘You needn’t have touched me!’ he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand.  ‘I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.’
+With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper.
+After playing lady’s-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph’s affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs.  He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy’s attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness.  They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that ‘naughty swearing boy.’
+Under these circumstances I remained solitary.  I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless purity of my particular care—the scoured and well-swept floor.  I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying.  It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him.  He was not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom.
+‘Make haste, Heathcliff!’ I said, ‘the kitchen is so comfortable; and Joseph is up-stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.’
+He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me.
+‘Come—are you coming?’ I continued.  ‘There’s a little cake for each of you, nearly enough; and you’ll need half-an-hour’s donning.’
+I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him.  Catherine supped with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other.  His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies.  He managed to continue work till nine o’clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber.  Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back.  In the morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour on to the moors; not re-appearing till the family were departed for church.  Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit.  He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly—‘Nelly, make me decent, I’m going to be good.’
+‘High time, Heathcliff,’ I said; ‘you have grieved Catherine: she’s sorry she ever came home, I daresay!  It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you.’
+The notion of envying Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.
+‘Did she say she was grieved?’ he inquired, looking very serious.
+‘She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.’
+‘Well, I cried last night,’ he returned, ‘and I had more reason to cry than she.’
+‘Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach,’ said I.  ‘Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.  But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in.  You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say—you know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress.  And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I’ll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does.  You are younger, and yet, I’ll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don’t you feel that you could?’
+Heathcliff’s face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed.
+‘But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome or me more so.  I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!’
+‘And cried for mamma at every turn,’ I added, ‘and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.  Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit!  Come to the glass, and I’ll let you see what you should wish.  Do you mark those two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil’s spies?  Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes.  Don’t get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its dessert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.’
+‘In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton’s great blue eyes and even forehead,’ he replied.  ‘I do—and that won’t help me to them.’
+‘A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,’ I continued, ‘if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.  And now that we’ve done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don’t think yourself rather handsome?  I’ll tell you, I do.  You’re fit for a prince in disguise.  Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together?  And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England.  Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!’
+So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court.  He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in winter.  Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces.
+I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other.  They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph ‘keep the fellow out of the room—send him into the garret till dinner is over.  He’ll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute.’
+‘Nay, sir,’ I could not avoid answering, ‘he’ll touch nothing, not he: and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.’
+‘He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark,’ cried Hindley.  ‘Begone, you vagabond!  What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you?  Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks—see if I won’t pull them a bit longer!’
+‘They are long enough already,’ observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway; ‘I wonder they don’t make his head ache.  It’s like a colt’s mane over his eyes!’
+He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff’s violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival.  He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his grip) and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck; who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place.  Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless.  I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar’s nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling.  His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all.
+‘You should not have spoken to him!’ she expostulated with Master Linton.  ‘He was in a bad temper, and now you’ve spoilt your visit; and he’ll be flogged: I hate him to be flogged!  I can’t eat my dinner.  Why did you speak to him, Edgar?’
+‘I didn’t,’ sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket-handkerchief.  ‘I promised mamma that I wouldn’t say one word to him, and I didn’t.’
+‘Well, don’t cry,’ replied Catherine, contemptuously; ‘you’re not killed.  Don’t make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet!  Hush, Isabella!  Has anybody hurt you?’
+‘There, there, children—to your seats!’ cried Hindley, bustling in.  ‘That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely.  Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists—it will give you an appetite!’
+The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast.  They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had befallen them.  Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk.  I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her.  ‘An unfeeling child,’ I thought to myself; ‘how lightly she dismisses her old playmate’s troubles.  I could not have imagined her to be so selfish.’  She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down again: her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them.  She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion.  I did not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals.
+In the evening we had a dance.  Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency.  We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers.  They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them.  After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees.  Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.
+Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed.  They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people.  She made no stay at the stairs’-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him.  He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards.  I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her.  Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within.  The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again.  When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour’s, to be removed from the sound of our ‘devil’s psalmody,’ as it pleased him to call it.  I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday’s dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once.  He went down: I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away.  He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation.  On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely—‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back.  I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last.  I hope he will not die before I do!’
+‘For shame, Heathcliff!’ said I.  ‘It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.’
+‘No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,’ he returned.  ‘I only wish I knew the best way!  Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out: while I’m thinking of that I don’t feel pain.’
+‘But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you.  I’m annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed!  I could have told Heathcliff’s history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.’
+* * * * *
+Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding.  ‘Sit still, Mrs. Dean,’ I cried; ‘do sit still another half-hour.  You’ve done just right to tell the story leisurely.  That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style.  I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less.’
+‘The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.’
+‘No matter—I’m not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours.  One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.’
+‘You shouldn’t lie till ten.  There’s the very prime of the morning gone long before that time.  A person who has not done one-half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.’
+‘Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon.  I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.’
+‘I hope not, sir.  Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw—’
+‘No, no, I’ll allow nothing of the sort!  Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss’s neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?’
+‘A terribly lazy mood, I should say.’
+‘On the contrary, a tiresomely active one.  It is mine, at present; and, therefore, continue minutely.  I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on.  They do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things.  I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year’s standing.  One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.’
+‘Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,’ observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.
+‘Excuse me,’ I responded; ‘you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion.  Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class.  I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think.  You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.’
+Mrs. Dean laughed.
+‘I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,’ she said; ‘not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year’s end to year’s end; but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood.  You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man’s daughter.  However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip’s fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty-three years ago.’
+CHAPTER VIII
+On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born.  We were busy with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.
+‘Oh, such a grand bairn!’ she panted out.  ‘The finest lad that ever breathed!  But the doctor says missis must go: he says she’s been in a consumption these many months.  I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she’ll be dead before winter.  You must come home directly.  You’re to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night.  I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!’
+‘But is she very ill?’ I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet.
+‘I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,’ replied the girl, ‘and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man.  She’s out of her head for joy, it’s such a beauty!  If I were her I’m certain I should not die: I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth.  I was fairly mad at him.  Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps forward, and says he—“Earnshaw, it’s a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son.  When she came, I felt convinced we shouldn’t keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the winter will probably finish her.  Don’t take on, and fret about it too much: it can’t be helped.  And besides, you should have known better than to choose such a rush of a lass!”’
+‘And what did the master answer?’ I inquired.
+‘I think he swore: but I didn’t mind him, I was straining to see the bairn,’ and she began again to describe it rapturously.  I, as zealous as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was very sad for Hindley’s sake.  He had room in his heart only for two idols—his wife and himself: he doted on both, and adored one, and I couldn’t conceive how he would bear the loss.
+When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door; and, as I passed in, I asked, ‘how was the baby?’
+‘Nearly ready to run about, Nell!’ he replied, putting on a cheerful smile.
+‘And the mistress?’ I ventured to inquire; ‘the doctor says she’s—’
+‘Damn the doctor!’ he interrupted, reddening.  ‘Frances is quite right: she’ll be perfectly well by this time next week.  Are you going up-stairs? will you tell her that I’ll come, if she’ll promise not to talk.  I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must—tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.’
+I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, ‘I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying.  Well, say I promise I won’t speak: but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!’
+Poor soul!  Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day.  When Kenneth warned him that his medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn’t put him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, ‘I know you need not—she’s well—she does not want any more attendance from you!  She never was in a consumption.  It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool.’
+He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up to-morrow, a fit of coughing took her—a very slight one—he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.
+As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands.  Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him.  For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament.  He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation.  The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay.  I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would.  Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; and because it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove.
+The master’s bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff.  His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint.  And, truly, it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period.  He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity.  I could not half tell what an infernal house we had.  The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton’s visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception.  At fifteen she was the queen of the country-side; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature!  I own I did not like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to me, though.  She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression.  He was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace.  It used to hang on one side, and his wife’s on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was.  Can you make that out?
+Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression.  It formed a sweet picture.  The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the figure almost too graceful.  I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual.  I marvelled much how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of Catherine Earnshaw.
+‘A very agreeable portrait,’ I observed to the house-keeper.  ‘Is it like?’
+‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘but he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.’
+Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her five-weeks’ residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality; gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first—for she was full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one.  In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a ‘vulgar young ruffian,’ and ‘worse than a brute,’ she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise.
+Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly.  He had a terror of Earnshaw’s reputation, and shrunk from encountering him; and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility: the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if he could not be gracious, kept out of the way.  I rather think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends meeting at all; for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his absence; and when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff, she dared not treat his sentiments with indifference, as if depreciation of her playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her.  I’ve had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery.  That sounds ill-natured: but she was so proud it became really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened into more humility.  She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to confide in me: there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser.
+Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it.  He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of.  In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning.  His childhood’s sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away.  He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level.  Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances.
+Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him.  On the before-named occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother’s absence, and was then preparing to receive him.
+‘Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?’ asked Heathcliff.  ‘Are you going anywhere?’
+‘No, it is raining,’ she answered.
+‘Why have you that silk frock on, then?’ he said.  ‘Nobody coming here, I hope?’
+‘Not that I know of,’ stammered Miss: ‘but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff.  It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were gone.’
+‘Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,’ observed the boy.  ‘I’ll not work any more to-day: I’ll stay with you.’
+‘Oh, but Joseph will tell,’ she suggested; ‘you’d better go!’
+‘Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will take him till dark, and he’ll never know.’
+So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down.  Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted brows—she found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion.  ‘Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,’ she said, at the conclusion of a minute’s silence.  ‘As it rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good.’
+‘Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,’ he persisted; ‘don’t turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours!  I’m on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they—but I’ll not—’
+‘That they what?’ cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance.  ‘Oh, Nelly!’ she added petulantly, jerking her head away from my hands, ‘you’ve combed my hair quite out of curl!  That’s enough; let me alone.  What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?’
+‘Nothing—only look at the almanack on that wall;’ he pointed to a framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued, ‘The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me.  Do you see?  I’ve marked every day.’
+‘Yes—very foolish: as if I took notice!’ replied Catherine, in a peevish tone.  ‘And where is the sense of that?’
+‘To show that I do take notice,’ said Heathcliff.
+‘And should I always be sitting with you?’ she demanded, growing more irritated.  ‘What good do I get?  What do you talk about?  You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!’
+‘You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy!’ exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation.
+‘It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.
+Her companion rose up, but he hadn’t time to express his feelings further, for a horse’s feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summon she had received.  Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out.  The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect.  He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that’s less gruff than we talk here, and softer.
+‘I’m not come too soon, am I?’ he said, casting a look at me: I had begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser.
+‘No,’ answered Catherine.  ‘What are you doing there, Nelly?’
+‘My work, Miss,’ I replied.  (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.)
+She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, ‘Take yourself and your dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don’t commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!’
+‘It’s a good opportunity, now that master is away,’ I answered aloud: ‘he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence.  I’m sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me.’
+‘I hate you to be fidgeting in my presence,’ exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.
+‘I’m sorry for it, Miss Catherine,’ was my response; and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation.
+She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm.  I’ve said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, ‘Oh, Miss, that’s a nasty trick!  You have no right to nip me, and I’m not going to bear it.’
+‘I didn’t touch you, you lying creature!’ cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage.  She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze.
+‘What’s that, then?’ I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her.
+She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water.
+‘Catherine, love!  Catherine!’ interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed.
+‘Leave the room, Ellen!’ she repeated, trembling all over.
+Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out complaints against ‘wicked aunt Cathy,’ which drew her fury on to his unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him.  In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest.  He drew back in consternation.  I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement.  The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip.
+‘That’s right!’ I said to myself.  ‘Take warning and begone!  It’s a kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition.’
+‘Where are you going?’ demanded Catherine, advancing to the door.
+He swerved aside, and attempted to pass.
+‘You must not go!’ she exclaimed, energetically.
+‘I must and shall!’ he replied in a subdued voice.
+‘No,’ she persisted, grasping the handle; ‘not yet, Edgar Linton: sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper.  I should be miserable all night, and I won’t be miserable for you!’
+‘Can I stay after you have struck me?’ asked Linton.
+Catherine was mute.
+‘You’ve made me afraid and ashamed of you,’ he continued; ‘I’ll not come here again!’
+Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle.
+‘And you told a deliberate untruth!’ he said.
+‘I didn’t!’ she cried, recovering her speech; ‘I did nothing deliberately.  Well, go, if you please—get away!  And now I’ll cry—I’ll cry myself sick!’
+She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious earnest.  Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there he lingered.  I resolved to encourage him.
+‘Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,’ I called out.  ‘As bad as any marred child: you’d better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to grieve us.’
+The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten.  Ah, I thought, there will be no saving him: he’s doomed, and flies to his fate!  And so it was: he turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacy—had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers.
+Intelligence of Mr. Hindley’s arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her chamber.  I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master’s fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun.
+CHAPTER IX
+He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the act of stowing his son away in the kitchen cupboard.  Hareton was impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beast’s fondness or his madman’s rage; for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being flung into the fire, or dashed against the wall; and the poor thing remained perfectly quiet wherever I chose to put him.
+‘There, I’ve found it out at last!’ cried Hindley, pulling me back by the skin of my neck, like a dog.  ‘By heaven and hell, you’ve sworn between you to murder that child!  I know how it is, now, that he is always out of my way.  But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the carving-knife, Nelly!  You needn’t laugh; for I’ve just crammed Kenneth, head-downmost, in the Black-horse marsh; and two is the same as one—and I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest till I do!’
+‘But I don’t like the carving-knife, Mr. Hindley,’ I answered; ‘it has been cutting red herrings.  I’d rather be shot, if you please.’
+‘You’d rather be damned!’ he said; ‘and so you shall.  No law in England can hinder a man from keeping his house decent, and mine’s abominable!  Open your mouth.’  He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point between my teeth: but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his vagaries.  I spat out, and affirmed it tasted detestably—I would not take it on any account.
+‘Oh!’ said he, releasing me, ‘I see that hideous little villain is not Hareton: I beg your pardon, Nell.  If it be, he deserves flaying alive for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin.  Unnatural cub, come hither!  I’ll teach thee to impose on a good-hearted, deluded father.  Now, don’t you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?  It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something fierce—get me a scissors—something fierce and trim!  Besides, it’s infernal affectation—devilish conceit it is, to cherish our ears—we’re asses enough without them.  Hush, child, hush!  Well then, it is my darling! wisht, dry thy eyes—there’s a joy; kiss me.  What! it won’t?  Kiss me, Hareton!  Damn thee, kiss me!  By God, as if I would rear such a monster!  As sure as I’m living, I’ll break the brat’s neck.’
+Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father’s arms with all his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him up-stairs and lifted him over the banister.  I cried out that he would frighten the child into fits, and ran to rescue him.  As I reached them, Hindley leant forward on the rails to listen to a noise below; almost forgetting what he had in his hands.  ‘Who is that?’ he asked, hearing some one approaching the stairs’-foot.  I leant forward also, for the purpose of signing to Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come further; and, at the instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a sudden spring, delivered himself from the careless grasp that held him, and fell.
+There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw that the little wretch was safe.  Heathcliff arrived underneath just at the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the accident.  A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above.  It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge.  Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton’s skull on the steps; but, we witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my precious charge pressed to my heart.  Hindley descended more leisurely, sobered and abashed.
+‘It is your fault, Ellen,’ he said; ‘you should have kept him out of sight: you should have taken him from me!  Is he injured anywhere?’
+‘Injured!’ I cried angrily; ‘if he is not killed, he’ll be an idiot!  Oh!  I wonder his mother does not rise from her grave to see how you use him.  You’re worse than a heathen—treating your own flesh and blood in that manner!’  He attempted to touch the child, who, on finding himself with me, sobbed off his terror directly.  At the first finger his father laid on him, however, he shrieked again louder than before, and struggled as if he would go into convulsions.
+‘You shall not meddle with him!’ I continued.  ‘He hates you—they all hate you—that’s the truth!  A happy family you have; and a pretty state you’re come to!’
+‘I shall come to a prettier, yet, Nelly,’ laughed the misguided man, recovering his hardness.  ‘At present, convey yourself and him away.  And hark you, Heathcliff! clear you too quite from my reach and hearing.  I wouldn’t murder you to-night; unless, perhaps, I set the house on fire: but that’s as my fancy goes.’
+While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and poured some into a tumbler.
+‘Nay, don’t!’ I entreated.  ‘Mr. Hindley, do take warning.  Have mercy on this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself!’
+‘Any one will do better for him than I shall,’ he answered.
+‘Have mercy on your own soul!’ I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass from his hand.
+‘Not I!  On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to perdition to punish its Maker,’ exclaimed the blasphemer.  ‘Here’s to its hearty damnation!’
+He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go; terminating his command with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or remember.
+‘It’s a pity he cannot kill himself with drink,’ observed Heathcliff, muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut.  ‘He’s doing his very utmost; but his constitution defies him.  Mr. Kenneth says he would wager his mare that he’ll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the common course befall him.’
+I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep.  Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn.  It turned out afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when he flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire and remained silent.
+I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began,—
+It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat,
+The mither beneath the mools heard that,
+when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her head in, and whispered,—‘Are you alone, Nelly?’
+‘Yes, Miss,’ I replied.
+She entered and approached the hearth.  I, supposing she was going to say something, looked up.  The expression of her face seemed disturbed and anxious.  Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and she drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence.  I resumed my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.
+‘Where’s Heathcliff?’ she said, interrupting me.
+‘About his work in the stable,’ was my answer.
+He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze.  There followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two trickle from Catherine’s cheek to the flags.  Is she sorry for her shameful conduct?—I asked myself.  That will be a novelty: but she may come to the point—as she will—I sha’n’t help her!  No, she felt small trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.
+‘Oh, dear!’ she cried at last.  ‘I’m very unhappy!’
+‘A pity,’ observed I.  ‘You’re hard to please; so many friends and so few cares, and can’t make yourself content!’
+‘Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?’ she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it.
+‘Is it worth keeping?’ I inquired, less sulkily.
+‘Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out!  I want to know what I should do.  To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I’ve given him an answer.  Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.’
+‘Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?’ I replied.  ‘To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool.’
+‘If you talk so, I won’t tell you any more,’ she returned, peevishly rising to her feet.  ‘I accepted him, Nelly.  Be quick, and say whether I was wrong!’
+‘You accepted him!  Then what good is it discussing the matter?  You have pledged your word, and cannot retract.’
+‘But say whether I should have done so—do!’ she exclaimed in an irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.
+‘There are many things to be considered before that question can be answered properly,’ I said, sententiously.  ‘First and foremost, do you love Mr. Edgar?’
+‘Who can help it?  Of course I do,’ she answered.
+Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of twenty-two it was not injudicious.
+‘Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?’
+‘Nonsense, I do—that’s sufficient.’
+‘By no means; you must say why?’
+‘Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.’
+‘Bad!’ was my commentary.
+‘And because he is young and cheerful.’
+‘Bad, still.’
+‘And because he loves me.’
+‘Indifferent, coming there.’
+‘And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.’
+‘Worst of all.  And now, say how you love him?’
+‘As everybody loves—You’re silly, Nelly.’
+‘Not at all—Answer.’
+‘I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says.  I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether.  There now!’
+‘And why?’
+‘Nay; you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill-natured!  It’s no jest to me!’ said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to the fire.
+‘I’m very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,’ I replied.  ‘You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you.  The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed the four former attractions.’
+‘No, to be sure not: I should only pity him—hate him, perhaps, if he were ugly, and a clown.’
+‘But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world: handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is.  What should hinder you from loving them?’
+‘If there be any, they are out of my way: I’ve seen none like Edgar.’
+‘You may see some; and he won’t always be handsome, and young, and may not always be rich.’
+‘He is now; and I have only to do with the present.  I wish you would speak rationally.’
+‘Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton.’
+‘I don’t want your permission for that—I shall marry him: and yet you have not told me whether I’m right.’
+‘Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present.  And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about.  Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you.  All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle?’
+‘Here! and here!’ replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast: ‘in whichever place the soul lives.  In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!’
+‘That’s very strange!  I cannot make it out.’
+‘It’s my secret.  But if you will not mock at me, I’ll explain it: I can’t do it distinctly; but I’ll give you a feeling of how I feel.’
+She seated herself by me again: her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trembled.
+‘Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?’ she said, suddenly, after some minutes’ reflection.
+‘Yes, now and then,’ I answered.
+‘And so do I.  I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.  And this is one: I’m going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of it.’
+‘Oh! don’t, Miss Catherine!’ I cried.  ‘We’re dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us.  Come, come, be merry and like yourself!  Look at little Hareton! he’s dreaming nothing dreary.  How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!’
+‘Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude!  You remember him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing: nearly as young and innocent.  However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen: it’s not long; and I’ve no power to be merry to-night.’
+‘I won’t hear it, I won’t hear it!’ I repeated, hastily.
+I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe.  She was vexed, but she did not proceed.  Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time.
+‘If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.’
+‘Because you are not fit to go there,’ I answered.  ‘All sinners would be miserable in heaven.’
+‘But it is not for that.  I dreamt once that I was there.’
+‘I tell you I won’t hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine!  I’ll go to bed,’ I interrupted again.
+She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.
+‘This is nothing,’ cried she: ‘I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.  That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other.  I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it.  It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.’
+Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence.  Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly.  He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further.  My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure; but I started, and bade her hush!
+‘Why?’ she asked, gazing nervously round.
+‘Joseph is here,’ I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his cartwheels up the road; ‘and Heathcliff will come in with him.  I’m not sure whether he were not at the door this moment.’
+‘Oh, he couldn’t overhear me at the door!’ said she.  ‘Give me Hareton, while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you.  I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Heathcliff has no notion of these things.  He has not, has he?  He does not know what being in love is!’
+‘I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you,’ I returned; ‘and if you are his choice, he’ll be the most unfortunate creature that ever was born!  As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all!  Have you considered how you’ll bear the separation, and how he’ll bear to be quite deserted in the world?  Because, Miss Catherine—’
+‘He quite deserted! we separated!’ she exclaimed, with an accent of indignation.  ‘Who is to separate us, pray?  They’ll meet the fate of Milo!  Not as long as I live, Ellen: for no mortal creature.  Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.  Oh, that’s not what I intend—that’s not what I mean!  I shouldn’t be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded!  He’ll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime.  Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least.  He will, when he learns my true feelings towards him.  Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.’
+‘With your husband’s money, Miss Catherine?’ I asked.  ‘You’ll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I’m hardly a judge, I think that’s the worst motive you’ve given yet for being the wife of young Linton.’
+‘It is not,’ retorted she; ‘it is the best!  The others were the satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar’s sake, too, to satisfy him.  This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself.  I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you.  What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here?  My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself.  If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.  My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.  Nelly, I am Heathcliff!  He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.  So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; and—’
+She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it forcibly away.  I was out of patience with her folly!
+‘If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss,’ I said, ‘it only goes to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying; or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl.  But trouble me with no more secrets: I’ll not promise to keep them.’
+‘You’ll keep that?’ she asked, eagerly.
+‘No, I’ll not promise,’ I repeated.
+She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our conversation; and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed Hareton, while I made the supper.  After it was cooked, my fellow-servant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr. Hindley; and we didn’t settle it till all was nearly cold.  Then we came to the agreement that we would let him ask, if he wanted any; for we feared particularly to go into his presence when he had been some time alone.
+‘And how isn’t that nowt comed in fro’ th’ field, be this time?  What is he about? girt idle seeght!’ demanded the old man, looking round for Heathcliff.
+‘I’ll call him,’ I replied.  ‘He’s in the barn, I’ve no doubt.’
+I went and called, but got no answer.  On returning, I whispered to Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure; and told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her brother’s conduct regarding him.  She jumped up in a fine fright, flung Hareton on to the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself; not taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk would have affected him.  She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we should wait no longer.  He cunningly conjectured they were staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing.  They were ‘ill eneugh for ony fahl manners,’ he affirmed.  And on their behalf he added that night a special prayer to the usual quarter-of-an-hour’s supplication before meat, and would have tacked another to the end of the grace, had not his young mistress broken in upon him with a hurried command that he must run down the road, and, wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and make him re-enter directly!
+‘I want to speak to him, and I must, before I go upstairs,’ she said.  ‘And the gate is open: he is somewhere out of hearing; for he would not reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could.’
+Joseph objected at first; she was too much in earnest, however, to suffer contradiction; and at last he placed his hat on his head, and walked grumbling forth.  Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the floor, exclaiming—‘I wonder where he is—I wonder where he can be!  What did I say, Nelly?  I’ve forgotten.  Was he vexed at my bad humour this afternoon?  Dear! tell me what I’ve said to grieve him?  I do wish he’d come.  I do wish he would!’
+‘What a noise for nothing!’ I cried, though rather uneasy myself.  ‘What a trifle scares you!  It’s surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to speak to us in the hay-loft.  I’ll engage he’s lurking there.  See if I don’t ferret him out!’
+I departed to renew my search; its result was disappointment, and Joseph’s quest ended in the same.
+‘Yon lad gets war und war!’ observed he on re-entering.  ‘He’s left th’ gate at t’ full swing, and Miss’s pony has trodden dahn two rigs o’ corn, and plottered through, raight o’er into t’ meadow!  Hahsomdiver, t’ maister ‘ull play t’ devil to-morn, and he’ll do weel.  He’s patience itsseln wi’ sich careless, offald craters—patience itsseln he is!  Bud he’ll not be soa allus—yah’s see, all on ye!  Yah mun’n’t drive him out of his heead for nowt!’
+‘Have you found Heathcliff, you ass?’ interrupted Catherine.  ‘Have you been looking for him, as I ordered?’
+‘I sud more likker look for th’ horse,’ he replied.  ‘It ’ud be to more sense.  Bud I can look for norther horse nur man of a neeght loike this—as black as t’ chimbley! und Heathcliff’s noan t’ chap to coom at my whistle—happen he’ll be less hard o’ hearing wi’ ye!’
+It was a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined to thunder, and I said we had better all sit down; the approaching rain would be certain to bring him home without further trouble.  However, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity.  She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no repose; and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road: where, heedless of my expostulations and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright.  She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good passionate fit of crying.
+About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury.  There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire.  We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us; and Joseph swung on to his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the patriarchs Noah and Lot, and, as in former times, spare the righteous, though he smote the ungodly.  I felt some sentiment that it must be a judgment on us also.  The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr. Earnshaw; and I shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet living.  He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion vociferate, more clamorously than before, that a wide distinction might be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master.  But the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed; excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawlless to catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes.  She came in and lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to the back, and putting her hands before it.
+‘Well, Miss!’ I exclaimed, touching her shoulder; ‘you are not bent on getting your death, are you?  Do you know what o’clock it is?  Half-past twelve.  Come, come to bed! there’s no use waiting any longer on that foolish boy: he’ll be gone to Gimmerton, and he’ll stay there now.  He guesses we shouldn’t wait for him till this late hour: at least, he guesses that only Mr. Hindley would be up; and he’d rather avoid having the door opened by the master.’
+‘Nay, nay, he’s noan at Gimmerton,’ said Joseph.  ‘I’s niver wonder but he’s at t’ bothom of a bog-hoile.  This visitation worn’t for nowt, and I wod hev’ ye to look out, Miss—yah muh be t’ next.  Thank Hivin for all!  All warks togither for gooid to them as is chozzen, and piked out fro’ th’ rubbidge!  Yah knaw whet t’ Scripture ses.’  And he began quoting several texts, referring us to chapters and verses where we might find them.
+I, having vainly begged the wilful girl to rise and remove her wet things, left him preaching and her shivering, and betook myself to bed with little Hareton, who slept as fast as if everyone had been sleeping round him.  I heard Joseph read on a while afterwards; then I distinguished his slow step on the ladder, and then I dropped asleep.
+Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the fireplace.  The house-door was ajar, too; light entered from its unclosed windows; Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen hearth, haggard and drowsy.
+‘What ails you, Cathy?’ he was saying when I entered: ‘you look as dismal as a drowned whelp.  Why are you so damp and pale, child?’
+‘I’ve been wet,’ she answered reluctantly, ‘and I’m cold, that’s all.’
+‘Oh, she is naughty!’ I cried, perceiving the master to be tolerably sober.  ‘She got steeped in the shower of yesterday evening, and there she has sat the night through, and I couldn’t prevail on her to stir.’
+Mr. Earnshaw stared at us in surprise.  ‘The night through,’ he repeated.  ‘What kept her up? not fear of the thunder, surely?  That was over hours since.’
+Neither of us wished to mention Heathcliff’s absence, as long as we could conceal it; so I replied, I didn’t know how she took it into her head to sit up; and she said nothing.  The morning was fresh and cool; I threw back the lattice, and presently the room filled with sweet scents from the garden; but Catherine called peevishly to me, ‘Ellen, shut the window.  I’m starving!’  And her teeth chattered as she shrank closer to the almost extinguished embers.
+‘She’s ill,’ said Hindley, taking her wrist; ‘I suppose that’s the reason she would not go to bed.  Damn it!  I don’t want to be troubled with more sickness here.  What took you into the rain?’
+‘Running after t’ lads, as usuald!’ croaked Joseph, catching an opportunity from our hesitation to thrust in his evil tongue.  ‘If I war yah, maister, I’d just slam t’ boards i’ their faces all on ’em, gentle and simple!  Never a day ut yah’re off, but yon cat o’ Linton comes sneaking hither; and Miss Nelly, shoo’s a fine lass! shoo sits watching for ye i’ t’ kitchen; and as yah’re in at one door, he’s out at t’other; and, then, wer grand lady goes a-courting of her side!  It’s bonny behaviour, lurking amang t’ fields, after twelve o’ t’ night, wi’ that fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff!  They think I’m blind; but I’m noan: nowt ut t’ soart!—I seed young Linton boath coming and going, and I seed yah’ (directing his discourse to me), ‘yah gooid fur nowt, slattenly witch! nip up and bolt into th’ house, t’ minute yah heard t’ maister’s horse-fit clatter up t’ road.’
+‘Silence, eavesdropper!’ cried Catherine; ‘none of your insolence before me!  Edgar Linton came yesterday by chance, Hindley; and it was I who told him to be off: because I knew you would not like to have met him as you were.’
+‘You lie, Cathy, no doubt,’ answered her brother, ‘and you are a confounded simpleton!  But never mind Linton at present: tell me, were you not with Heathcliff last night?  Speak the truth, now.  You need not be afraid of harming him: though I hate him as much as ever, he did me a good turn a short time since that will make my conscience tender of breaking his neck.  To prevent it, I shall send him about his business this very morning; and after he’s gone, I’d advise you all to look sharp: I shall only have the more humour for you.’
+‘I never saw Heathcliff last night,’ answered Catherine, beginning to sob bitterly: ‘and if you do turn him out of doors, I’ll go with him.  But, perhaps, you’ll never have an opportunity: perhaps, he’s gone.’  Here she burst into uncontrollable grief, and the remainder of her words were inarticulate.
+Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse, and bade her get to her room immediately, or she shouldn’t cry for nothing!  I obliged her to obey; and I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we reached her chamber: it terrified me.  I thought she was going mad, and I begged Joseph to run for the doctor.  It proved the commencement of delirium: Mr. Kenneth, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her dangerously ill; she had a fever.  He bled her, and he told me to let her live on whey and water-gruel, and take care she did not throw herself downstairs or out of the window; and then he left: for he had enough to do in the parish, where two or three miles was the ordinary distance between cottage and cottage.
+Though I cannot say I made a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master were no better, and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong as a patient could be, she weathered it through.  Old Mrs. Linton paid us several visits, to be sure, and set things to rights, and scolded and ordered us all; and when Catherine was convalescent, she insisted on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange: for which deliverance we were very grateful.  But the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness: she and her husband both took the fever, and died within a few days of each other.
+Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and haughtier than ever.  Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunder-storm; and, one day, I had the misfortune, when she had provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance on her: where indeed it belonged, as she well knew.  From that period, for several months, she ceased to hold any communication with me, save in the relation of a mere servant.  Joseph fell under a ban also: he would speak his mind, and lecture her all the same as if she were a little girl; and she esteemed herself a woman, and our mistress, and thought that her recent illness gave her a claim to be treated with consideration.  Then the doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much; she ought to have her own way; and it was nothing less than murder in her eyes for any one to presume to stand up and contradict her.  From Mr. Earnshaw and his companions she kept aloof; and tutored by Kenneth, and serious threats of a fit that often attended her rages, her brother allowed her whatever she pleased to demand, and generally avoided aggravating her fiery temper.  He was rather too indulgent in humouring her caprices; not from affection, but from pride: he wished earnestly to see her bring honour to the family by an alliance with the Lintons, and as long as she let him alone she might trample on us like slaves, for aught he cared!  Edgar Linton, as multitudes have been before and will be after him, was infatuated: and believed himself the happiest man alive on the day he led her to Gimmerton Chapel, three years subsequent to his father’s death.
+Much against my inclination, I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights and accompany her here. Little Hareton was nearly five years old, and I had just begun to teach him his letters.  We made a sad parting; but Catherine’s tears were more powerful than ours.  When I refused to go, and when she found her entreaties did not move me, she went lamenting to her husband and brother.  The former offered me munificent wages; the latter ordered me to pack up: he wanted no women in the house, he said, now that there was no mistress; and as to Hareton, the curate should take him in hand, by-and-by.  And so I had but one choice left: to do as I was ordered.  I told the master he got rid of all decent people only to run to ruin a little faster; I kissed Hareton, said good-by; and since then he has been a stranger: and it’s very queer to think it, but I’ve no doubt he has completely forgotten all about Ellen Dean, and that he was ever more than all the world to her and she to him!
+* * * * *
+At this point of the housekeeper’s story she chanced to glance towards the time-piece over the chimney; and was in amazement on seeing the minute-hand measure half-past one.  She would not hear of staying a second longer: in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of her narrative myself.  And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs.
+CHAPTER X
+A charming introduction to a hermit’s life!  Four weeks’ torture, tossing, and sickness!  Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!  And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring!
+Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call.  About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse—the last of the season.  Scoundrel!  He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him.  But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches?  This is quite an easy interval.  I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting.  Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale?  I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone.  Yes: I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years; and the heroine was married.  I’ll ring: she’ll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully.  Mrs. Dean came.
+‘It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,’ she commenced.
+‘Away, away with it!’ I replied; ‘I desire to have—’
+‘The doctor says you must drop the powders.’
+‘With all my heart!  Don’t interrupt me.  Come and take your seat here.  Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials.  Draw your knitting out of your pocket—that will do—now continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day.  Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar’s place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways?’
+‘He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I couldn’t give my word for any.  I stated before that I didn’t know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your leave, I’ll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you.  Are you feeling better this morning?’
+‘Much.’
+‘That’s good news.’
+* * * * *
+I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect.  She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection.  They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly.  It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.  There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference?  I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour.  He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account.  He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed.  Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it.  Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before.  The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him.  I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness.
+It ended.  Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one’s interest was not the chief consideration in the other’s thoughts.  On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering.  It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building.  I set my burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,—‘Nelly, is that you?’
+It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar.  I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps.  Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair.  He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself.  ‘Who can it be?’ I thought.  ‘Mr. Earnshaw?  Oh, no!  The voice has no resemblance to his.’
+‘I have waited here an hour,’ he resumed, while I continued staring; ‘and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death.  I dared not enter.  You do not know me?  Look, I’m not a stranger!’
+A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular.  I remembered the eyes.
+‘What!’ I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement.  ‘What! you come back?  Is it really you?  Is it?’
+‘Yes, Heathcliff,’ he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within.  ‘Are they at home? where is she?  Nelly, you are not glad! you needn’t be so disturbed.  Is she here?  Speak!  I want to have one word with her—your mistress.  Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her.’
+‘How will she take it?’ I exclaimed.  ‘What will she do?  The surprise bewilders me—it will put her out of her head!  And you are Heathcliff!  But altered!  Nay, there’s no comprehending it.  Have you been for a soldier?’
+‘Go and carry my message,’ he interrupted, impatiently.  ‘I’m in hell till you do!’
+He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed.  At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door.
+They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen).  Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side.  Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful.  I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, ‘A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma’am.’
+‘What does he want?’ asked Mrs. Linton.
+‘I did not question him,’ I answered.
+‘Well, close the curtains, Nelly,’ she said; ‘and bring up tea.  I’ll be back again directly.’
+She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was.
+‘Some one mistress does not expect,’ I replied.  ‘That Heathcliff—you recollect him, sir—who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw’s.’
+‘What! the gipsy—the ploughboy?’ he cried.  ‘Why did you not say so to Catherine?’
+‘Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,’ I said.  ‘She’d be sadly grieved to hear you.  She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off.  I guess his return will make a jubilee to her.’
+Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court.  He unfastened it, and leant out.  I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly: ‘Don’t stand there, love!  Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular.’  Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew up-stairs, breathless and wild; too excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity.
+‘Oh, Edgar, Edgar!’ she panted, flinging her arms round his neck.  ‘Oh, Edgar darling!  Heathcliff’s come back—he is!’  And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze.
+‘Well, well,’ cried her husband, crossly, ‘don’t strangle me for that!  He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure.  There is no need to be frantic!’
+‘I know you didn’t like him,’ she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight.  ‘Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now.  Shall I tell him to come up?’
+‘Here,’ he said, ‘into the parlour?’
+‘Where else?’ she asked.
+He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him.  Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression—half angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness.
+‘No,’ she added, after a while; ‘I cannot sit in the kitchen.  Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders.  Will that please you, dear?  Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere?  If so, give directions.  I’ll run down and secure my guest.  I’m afraid the joy is too great to be real!’
+She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her.
+‘You bid him step up,’ he said, addressing me; ‘and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd.  The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.’
+I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter.  He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking.  But the lady’s glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then she seized Linton’s reluctant fingers and crushed them into his.  Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff.  He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like.  His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army.  His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton’s; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation.  A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace.  My master’s surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him.  Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak.
+‘Sit down, sir,’ he said, at length.  ‘Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.’
+‘And I also,’ answered Heathcliff, ‘especially if it be anything in which I have a part.  I shall stay an hour or two willingly.’
+He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it.  He did not raise his to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers.  They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment.  Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff’s hands again, and laughed like one beside herself.
+‘I shall think it a dream to-morrow!’ she cried.  ‘I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more.  And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don’t deserve this welcome.  To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!’
+‘A little more than you have thought of me,’ he murmured.  ‘I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself.  Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time!  Nay, you’ll not drive me off again.  You were really sorry for me, were you?  Well, there was cause.  I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!’
+‘Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,’ interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness.  ‘Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to-night; and I’m thirsty.’
+She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room.  The meal hardly endured ten minutes.  Catherine’s cup was never filled: she could neither eat nor drink.  Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful.  Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer.  I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton?
+‘No, to Wuthering Heights,’ he answered: ‘Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning.’
+Mr. Earnshaw invited him! and he called on Mr. Earnshaw!  I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone.  Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak?  I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away.
+About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me.
+‘I cannot rest, Ellen,’ she said, by way of apology.  ‘And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness!  Edgar is sulky, because I’m glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy.  He always contrives to be sick at the least cross!  I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.’
+‘What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?’ I answered.  ‘As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised: it’s human nature.  Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them.’
+‘But does it not show great weakness?’ pursued she.  ‘I’m not envious: I never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella’s yellow hair and the whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the family exhibit for her.  Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper.  It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me.  But they are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same.’
+‘You’re mistaken, Mrs. Linton,’ said I.  ‘They humour you: I know what there would be to do if they did not.  You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires.  You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you.’
+‘And then we shall fight to the death, sha’n’t we, Nelly?’ she returned, laughing.  ‘No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton’s love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn’t wish to retaliate.’
+I advised her to value him the more for his affection.
+‘I do,’ she answered, ‘but he needn’t resort to whining for trifles.  It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone’s regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy.  He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I’m sure he behaved excellently!’
+‘What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?’ I inquired.  ‘He is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!’
+‘He explained it,’ she replied.  ‘I wonder as much as you.  He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living; and finally, desired him to walk in.  There were some persons sitting at cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening: to which he consented.  Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn’t trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured.  But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton.  He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother’s covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other.’
+‘It’s a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!’ said I.  ‘Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?’
+‘None for my friend,’ she replied: ‘his strong head will keep him from danger; a little for Hindley: but he can’t be made morally worse than he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm.  The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity!  I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence.  Oh, I’ve endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly!  If that creature knew how bitter, he’d be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance.  It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I.  However, it’s over, and I’ll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything hereafter!  Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a proof, I’ll go make my peace with Edgar instantly.  Good-night!  I’m an angel!’
+In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine’s exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine.
+Heathcliff—Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future—used the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion.  Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected.  He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling.  My master’s uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space.
+His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest.  She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated.  Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference.  Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one’s power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff’s disposition: to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged.  And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping.  He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff’s deliberate designing.
+We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something.  She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience.  We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes.  But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor.  Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine’s harshness which made her unhappy.
+‘How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?’ cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion.  ‘You are surely losing your reason.  When have I been harsh, tell me?’
+‘Yesterday,’ sobbed Isabella, ‘and now!’
+‘Yesterday!’ said her sister-in-law.  ‘On what occasion?’
+‘In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!’
+‘And that’s your notion of harshness?’ said Catherine, laughing.  ‘It was no hint that your company was superfluous?  We didn’t care whether you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff’s talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears.’
+‘Oh, no,’ wept the young lady; ‘you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there!’
+‘Is she sane?’ asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me.  ‘I’ll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it could have had for you.’
+‘I don’t mind the conversation,’ she answered: ‘I wanted to be with—’
+‘Well?’ said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence.
+‘With him: and I won’t be always sent off!’ she continued, kindling up.  ‘You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!’
+‘You are an impertinent little monkey!’ exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise.  ‘But I’ll not believe this idiotcy!  It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliff—that you consider him an agreeable person!  I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?’
+‘No, you have not,’ said the infatuated girl.  ‘I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!’
+‘I wouldn’t be you for a kingdom, then!’ Catherine declared, emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely.  ‘Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness.  Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone.  I’d as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter’s day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him!  It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head.  Pray, don’t imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior!  He’s not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.  I never say to him, “Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;” I say, “Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged:” and he’d crush you like a sparrow’s egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge.  I know he couldn’t love a Linton; and yet he’d be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin.  There’s my picture: and I’m his friend—so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap.’
+Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation.
+‘For shame! for shame!’ she repeated, angrily.  ‘You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!’
+‘Ah! you won’t believe me, then?’ said Catherine.  ‘You think I speak from wicked selfishness?’
+‘I’m certain you do,’ retorted Isabella; ‘and I shudder at you!’
+‘Good!’ cried the other.  ‘Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.’—
+‘And I must suffer for her egotism!’ she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room.  ‘All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation.  But she uttered falsehoods, didn’t she?  Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?’
+‘Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,’ I said.  ‘He’s a bird of bad omen: no mate for you.  Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can’t contradict her.  She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is.  Honest people don’t hide their deeds.  How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors?  They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came.  They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago—it was Joseph who told me—I met him at Gimmerton: “Nelly,” he said, “we’s hae a crowner’s ‘quest enow, at ahr folks’.  One on ’em ’s a’most getten his finger cut off wi’ hauding t’ other fro’ stickin’ hisseln loike a cawlf.  That’s maister, yeah knaw, ’at ’s soa up o’ going tuh t’ grand ’sizes.  He’s noan feared o’ t’ bench o’ judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on ’em, not he!  He fair likes—he langs to set his brazened face agean ’em!  And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he’s a rare ’un.  He can girn a laugh as well ’s onybody at a raight divil’s jest.  Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t’ Grange?  This is t’ way on ’t:—up at sun-down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can’le-light till next day at noon: then, t’fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham’er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i’ thur lugs fur varry shame; un’ the knave, why he can caint his brass, un’ ate, un’ sleep, un’ off to his neighbour’s to gossip wi’ t’ wife.  I’ course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur’s goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur’s son gallops down t’ broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t’ pikes!”  Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff’s conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?’
+‘You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!’ she replied.  ‘I’ll not listen to your slanders.  What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world!’
+Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time to reflect.  The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual.  Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her.  She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window.  I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips.  Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable.
+‘Come in, that’s right!’ exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire.  ‘Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose.  Heathcliff, I’m proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself.  I expect you to feel flattered.  Nay, it’s not Nelly; don’t look at her!  My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty.  It lies in your own power to be Edgar’s brother!  No, no, Isabella, you sha’n’t run off,’ she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly.  ‘We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!’
+‘Catherine!’ said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, ‘I’d thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke!  Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression.’
+As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor.
+‘By no means!’ cried Mrs. Linton in answer.  ‘I won’t be named a dog in the manger again.  You shall stay: now then!  Heathcliff, why don’t you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news?  Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you.  I’m sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen?  And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday’s walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable.’
+‘I think you belie her,’ said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them.  ‘She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!’
+And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.  The poor thing couldn’t bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer’s with crescents of red.
+‘There’s a tigress!’ exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain.  ‘Begone, for God’s sake, and hide your vixen face!  How foolish to reveal those talons to him.  Can’t you fancy the conclusions he’ll draw?  Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution—you must beware of your eyes.’
+‘I’d wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,’ he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her.  ‘But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy?  You were not speaking the truth, were you?’
+‘I assure you I was,’ she returned.  ‘She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration.  But don’t notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that’s all.  I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.’
+‘And I like her too ill to attempt it,’ said he, ‘except in a very ghoulish fashion.  You’d hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Linton’s.’
+‘Delectably!’ observed Catherine.  ‘They are dove’s eyes—angel’s!’
+‘She’s her brother’s heir, is she not?’ he asked, after a brief silence.
+‘I should be sorry to think so,’ returned his companion.  ‘Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven!  Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour’s goods; remember this neighbour’s goods are mine.’
+‘If they were mine, they would be none the less that,’ said Heathcliff; ‘but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we’ll dismiss the matter, as you advise.’
+From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts.  The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening.  I saw him smile to himself—grin rather—and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment.
+I determined to watch his movements.  My heart invariably cleaved to the master’s, in preference to Catherine’s side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she—she could not be called opposite, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings.  I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent.  His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also.  His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining.  I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy.
+CHAPTER XI
+Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I’ve got up in a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm.  I’ve persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people talked regarding his ways; and then I’ve recollected his confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re-entering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word.
+One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to Gimmerton.  It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry.  I came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your left hand; a rough sand-pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T. G.  It serves as a guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village.  The sun shone yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all at once a gush of child’s sensations flowed into my heart.  Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before.  I gazed long at the weather-worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth with a piece of slate.  ‘Poor Hindley!’ I exclaimed, involuntarily.  I started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight into mine!  It vanished in a twinkling; but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the Heights.  Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse: supposing he should be dead!  I thought—or should die soon!—supposing it were a sign of death!  The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb.  The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate.  That was my first idea on observing an elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars.  Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, my Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since.
+‘God bless thee, darling!’ I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears.  ‘Hareton, it’s Nelly!  Nelly, thy nurse.’
+He retreated out of arm’s length, and picked up a large flint.
+‘I am come to see thy father, Hareton,’ I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognised as one with me.
+He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity.  You may be certain this grieved more than angered me.  Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him.  He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him.  I showed another, keeping it out of his reach.
+‘Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?’ I inquired.  ‘The curate?’
+‘Damn the curate, and thee!  Gie me that,’ he replied.
+‘Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it,’ said I.  ‘Who’s your master?’
+‘Devil daddy,’ was his answer.
+‘And what do you learn from daddy?’ I continued.
+He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher.  ‘What does he teach you?’ I asked.
+‘Naught,’ said he, ‘but to keep out of his gait.  Daddy cannot bide me, because I swear at him.’
+‘Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?’ I observed.
+‘Ay—nay,’ he drawled.
+‘Who, then?’
+‘Heathcliff.’
+‘I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff.’
+‘Ay!’ he answered again.
+Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the sentences—‘I known’t: he pays dad back what he gies to me—he curses daddy for cursing me.  He says I mun do as I will.’
+‘And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?’ I pursued.
+‘No, I was told the curate should have his—teeth dashed down his—throat, if he stepped over the threshold—Heathcliff had promised that!’
+I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate.  He went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley, Heathcliff appeared on the door-stones; and I turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin.  This is not much connected with Miss Isabella’s affair: except that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange: even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs. Linton’s pleasure.
+The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some pigeons in the court.  She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort.  Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew.  Now, as soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the house-front.  I was standing by the kitchen-window, but I drew out of sight.  He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something: she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm.  She averted her face: he apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer.  There was another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her.
+‘Judas!  Traitor!’ I ejaculated.  ‘You are a hypocrite, too, are you?  A deliberate deceiver.’
+‘Who is, Nelly?’ said Catherine’s voice at my elbow: I had been over-intent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance.
+‘Your worthless friend!’ I answered, warmly: ‘the sneaking rascal yonder.  Ah, he has caught a glimpse of us—he is coming in!  I wonder will he have the heart to find a plausible excuse for making love to Miss, when he told you he hated her?’
+Mrs. Linton saw Isabella tear herself free, and run into the garden; and a minute after, Heathcliff opened the door.  I couldn’t withhold giving some loose to my indignation; but Catherine angrily insisted on silence, and threatened to order me out of the kitchen, if I dared to be so presumptuous as to put in my insolent tongue.
+‘To hear you, people might think you were the mistress!’ she cried.  ‘You want setting down in your right place!  Heathcliff, what are you about, raising this stir?  I said you must let Isabella alone!—I beg you will, unless you are tired of being received here, and wish Linton to draw the bolts against you!’
+‘God forbid that he should try!’ answered the black villain.  I detested him just then.  ‘God keep him meek and patient!  Every day I grow madder after sending him to heaven!’
+‘Hush!’ said Catherine, shutting the inner door!  ‘Don’t vex me.  Why have you disregarded my request?  Did she come across you on purpose?’
+‘What is it to you?’ he growled.  ‘I have a right to kiss her, if she chooses; and you have no right to object.  I am not your husband: you needn’t be jealous of me!’
+‘I’m not jealous of you,’ replied the mistress; ‘I’m jealous for you.  Clear your face: you sha’n’t scowl at me!  If you like Isabella, you shall marry her.  But do you like her?  Tell the truth, Heathcliff!  There, you won’t answer.  I’m certain you don’t.’
+‘And would Mr. Linton approve of his sister marrying that man?’ I inquired.
+‘Mr. Linton should approve,’ returned my lady, decisively.
+‘He might spare himself the trouble,’ said Heathcliff: ‘I could do as well without his approbation.  And as to you, Catherine, I have a mind to speak a few words now, while we are at it.  I want you to be aware that I know you have treated me infernally—infernally!  Do you hear?  And if you flatter yourself that I don’t perceive it, you are a fool; and if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot: and if you fancy I’ll suffer unrevenged, I’ll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while!  Meantime, thank you for telling me your sister-in-law’s secret: I swear I’ll make the most of it.  And stand you aside!’
+‘What new phase of his character is this?’ exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in amazement.  ‘I’ve treated you infernally—and you’ll take your revenge!  How will you take it, ungrateful brute?  How have I treated you infernally?’
+‘I seek no revenge on you,’ replied Heathcliff, less vehemently.  ‘That’s not the plan.  The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him; they crush those beneath them.  You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able.  Having levelled my palace, don’t erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.  If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I’d cut my throat!’
+‘Oh, the evil is that I am not jealous, is it?’ cried Catherine.  ‘Well, I won’t repeat my offer of a wife: it is as bad as offering Satan a lost soul.  Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery.  You prove it.  Edgar is restored from the ill-temper he gave way to at your coming; I begin to be secure and tranquil; and you, restless to know us at peace, appear resolved on exciting a quarrel.  Quarrel with Edgar, if you please, Heathcliff, and deceive his sister: you’ll hit on exactly the most efficient method of revenging yourself on me.’
+The conversation ceased.  Mrs. Linton sat down by the fire, flushed and gloomy.  The spirit which served her was growing intractable: she could neither lay nor control it.  He stood on the hearth with folded arms, brooding on his evil thoughts; and in this position I left them to seek the master, who was wondering what kept Catherine below so long.
+‘Ellen,’ said he, when I entered, ‘have you seen your mistress?’
+‘Yes; she’s in the kitchen, sir,’ I answered.  ‘She’s sadly put out by Mr. Heathcliff’s behaviour: and, indeed, I do think it’s time to arrange his visits on another footing.  There’s harm in being too soft, and now it’s come to this—.’  And I related the scene in the court, and, as near as I dared, the whole subsequent dispute.  I fancied it could not be very prejudicial to Mrs. Linton; unless she made it so afterwards, by assuming the defensive for her guest.  Edgar Linton had difficulty in hearing me to the close.  His first words revealed that he did not clear his wife of blame.
+‘This is insufferable!’ he exclaimed.  ‘It is disgraceful that she should own him for a friend, and force his company on me!  Call me two men out of the hall, Ellen.  Catherine shall linger no longer to argue with the low ruffian—I have humoured her enough.’
+He descended, and bidding the servants wait in the passage, went, followed by me, to the kitchen.  Its occupants had recommenced their angry discussion: Mrs. Linton, at least, was scolding with renewed vigour; Heathcliff had moved to the window, and hung his head, somewhat cowed by her violent rating apparently.  He saw the master first, and made a hasty motion that she should be silent; which she obeyed, abruptly, on discovering the reason of his intimation.
+‘How is this?’ said Linton, addressing her; ‘what notion of propriety must you have to remain here, after the language which has been held to you by that blackguard?  I suppose, because it is his ordinary talk you think nothing of it: you are habituated to his baseness, and, perhaps, imagine I can get used to it too!’
+‘Have you been listening at the door, Edgar?’ asked the mistress, in a tone particularly calculated to provoke her husband, implying both carelessness and contempt of his irritation.  Heathcliff, who had raised his eyes at the former speech, gave a sneering laugh at the latter; on purpose, it seemed, to draw Mr. Linton’s attention to him.  He succeeded; but Edgar did not mean to entertain him with any high flights of passion.
+‘I’ve been so far forbearing with you, sir,’ he said quietly; ‘not that I was ignorant of your miserable, degraded character, but I felt you were only partly responsible for that; and Catherine wishing to keep up your acquaintance, I acquiesced—foolishly.  Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous: for that cause, and to prevent worse consequences, I shall deny you hereafter admission into this house, and give notice now that I require your instant departure.  Three minutes’ delay will render it involuntary and ignominious.'
+Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye full of derision.
+‘Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!’ he said.  ‘It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles.  By God!  Mr. Linton, I’m mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!’
+My master glanced towards the passage, and signed me to fetch the men: he had no intention of hazarding a personal encounter.  I obeyed the hint; but Mrs. Linton, suspecting something, followed; and when I attempted to call them, she pulled me back, slammed the door to, and locked it.
+‘Fair means!’ she said, in answer to her husband’s look of angry surprise.  ‘If you have not courage to attack him, make an apology, or allow yourself to be beaten.  It will correct you of feigning more valour than you possess.  No, I’ll swallow the key before you shall get it!  I’m delightfully rewarded for my kindness to each!  After constant indulgence of one’s weak nature, and the other’s bad one, I earn for thanks two samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity!  Edgar, I was defending you and yours; and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick, for daring to think an evil thought of me!’
+It did not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the master.  He tried to wrest the key from Catherine’s grasp, and for safety she flung it into the hottest part of the fire; whereupon Mr. Edgar was taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale.  For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely.  He leant on the back of a chair, and covered his face.
+‘Oh, heavens!  In old days this would win you knighthood!’ exclaimed Mrs. Linton.  ‘We are vanquished! we are vanquished!  Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice.  Cheer up! you sha’n’t be hurt!  Your type is not a lamb, it’s a sucking leveret.’
+‘I wish you joy of the milk-blooded coward, Cathy!’ said her friend.  ‘I compliment you on your taste.  And that is the slavering, shivering thing you preferred to me!  I would not strike him with my fist, but I’d kick him with my foot, and experience considerable satisfaction.  Is he weeping, or is he going to faint for fear?’
+The fellow approached and gave the chair on which Linton rested a push.  He’d better have kept his distance: my master quickly sprang erect, and struck him full on the throat a blow that would have levelled a slighter man.  It took his breath for a minute; and while he choked, Mr. Linton walked out by the back door into the yard, and from thence to the front entrance.
+‘There! you’ve done with coming here,’ cried Catherine.  ‘Get away, now; he’ll return with a brace of pistols and half-a-dozen assistants.  If he did overhear us, of course he’d never forgive you.  You’ve played me an ill turn, Heathcliff!  But go—make haste!  I’d rather see Edgar at bay than you.’
+‘Do you suppose I’m going with that blow burning in my gullet?’ he thundered.  ‘By hell, no!  I’ll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel-nut before I cross the threshold!  If I don’t floor him now, I shall murder him some time; so, as you value his existence, let me get at him!’
+‘He is not coming,’ I interposed, framing a bit of a lie.  ‘There’s the coachman and the two gardeners; you’ll surely not wait to be thrust into the road by them!  Each has a bludgeon; and master will, very likely, be watching from the parlour-windows to see that they fulfil his orders.’
+The gardeners and coachman were there: but Linton was with them.  They had already entered the court.  Heathcliff, on the second thoughts, resolved to avoid a struggle against three underlings: he seized the poker, smashed the lock from the inner door, and made his escape as they tramped in.
+Mrs. Linton, who was very much excited, bade me accompany her up-stairs.  She did not know my share in contributing to the disturbance, and I was anxious to keep her in ignorance.
+‘I’m nearly distracted, Nelly!’ she exclaimed, throwing herself on the sofa.  ‘A thousand smiths’ hammers are beating in my head!  Tell Isabella to shun me; this uproar is owing to her; and should she or any one else aggravate my anger at present, I shall get wild.  And, Nelly, say to Edgar, if you see him again to-night, that I’m in danger of being seriously ill.  I wish it may prove true.  He has startled and distressed me shockingly!  I want to frighten him.  Besides, he might come and begin a string of abuse or complainings; I’m certain I should recriminate, and God knows where we should end!  Will you do so, my good Nelly?  You are aware that I am no way blamable in this matter.  What possessed him to turn listener?  Heathcliff’s talk was outrageous, after you left us; but I could soon have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing.  Now all is dashed wrong; by the fool’s craving to hear evil of self, that haunts some people like a demon!  Had Edgar never gathered our conversation, he would never have been the worse for it.  Really, when he opened on me in that unreasonable tone of displeasure after I had scolded Heathcliff till I was hoarse for him, I did not care hardly what they did to each other; especially as I felt that, however the scene closed, we should all be driven asunder for nobody knows how long!  Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend—if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I’ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own.  That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity!  But it’s a deed to be reserved for a forlorn hope; I’d not take Linton by surprise with it.  To this point he has been discreet in dreading to provoke me; you must represent the peril of quitting that policy, and remind him of my passionate temper, verging, when kindled, on frenzy.  I wish you could dismiss that apathy out of that countenance, and look rather more anxious about me.’
+The stolidity with which I received these instructions was, no doubt, rather exasperating: for they were delivered in perfect sincerity; but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence; and I did not wish to ‘frighten’ her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness.  Therefore I said nothing when I met the master coming towards the parlour; but I took the liberty of turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together.  He began to speak first.
+‘Remain where you are, Catherine,’ he said; without any anger in his voice, but with much sorrowful despondency.  ‘I shall not stay.  I am neither come to wrangle nor be reconciled; but I wish just to learn whether, after this evening’s events, you intend to continue your intimacy with—’
+‘Oh, for mercy’s sake,’ interrupted the mistress, stamping her foot, ‘for mercy’s sake, let us hear no more of it now!  Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever: your veins are full of ice-water; but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance.’
+‘To get rid of me, answer my question,’ persevered Mr. Linton.  ‘You must answer it; and that violence does not alarm me.  I have found that you can be as stoical as anyone, when you please.  Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me?  It is impossible for you to be my friend and his at the same time; and I absolutely require to know which you choose.’
+‘I require to be let alone!’ exclaimed Catherine, furiously.  ‘I demand it!  Don’t you see I can scarcely stand?  Edgar, you—you leave me!’
+She rang the bell till it broke with a twang; I entered leisurely.  It was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages!  There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters!  Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear.  He told me to fetch some water.  She had no breath for speaking.  I brought a glass full; and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face.  In a few seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned up her eyes, while her cheeks, at once blanched and livid, assumed the aspect of death.  Linton looked terrified.
+‘There is nothing in the world the matter,’ I whispered.  I did not want him to yield, though I could not help being afraid in my heart.
+‘She has blood on her lips!’ he said, shuddering.
+‘Never mind!’ I answered, tartly.  And I told him how she had resolved, previous to his coming, on exhibiting a fit of frenzy.  I incautiously gave the account aloud, and she heard me; for she started up—her hair flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally.  I made up my mind for broken bones, at least; but she only glared about her for an instant, and then rushed from the room.  The master directed me to follow; I did, to her chamber-door: she hindered me from going further by securing it against me.
+As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask whether she would have some carried up.  ‘No!’ she replied, peremptorily.  The same question was repeated at dinner and tea; and again on the morrow after, and received the same answer.  Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife’s occupations.  Isabella and he had had an hour’s interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff’s advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself and him.
+CHAPTER XII
+While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books that he never opened—wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation—and she fasted pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet; I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body.  I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady’s name, since he might not hear her voice.  I determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as I thought at first.
+Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying.  That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar’s ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast.  She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning.  ‘Oh, I will die,’ she exclaimed, ‘since no one cares anything about me.  I wish I had not taken that.’  Then a good while after I heard her murmur, ‘No, I’ll not die—he’d be glad—he does not love me at all—he would never miss me!’
+‘Did you want anything, ma’am?’ I inquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated manner.
+‘What is that apathetic being doing?’ she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face.  ‘Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead?’
+‘Neither,’ replied I; ‘if you mean Mr. Linton.  He’s tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is continually among his books, since he has no other society.’
+I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder.
+‘Among his books!’ she cried, confounded.  ‘And I dying!  I on the brink of the grave!  My God! does he know how I’m altered?’ continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall.  ‘Is that Catherine Linton?   He imagines me in a pet—in play, perhaps.  Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest?  Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I’ll choose between these two: either to starve at once—that would be no punishment unless he had a heart—or to recover, and leave the country.  Are you speaking the truth about him now?  Take care.  Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life?’
+‘Why, ma’am,’ I answered, ‘the master has no idea of your being deranged; and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger.’
+‘You think not?  Cannot you tell him I will?’ she returned.  ‘Persuade him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!’
+‘No, you forget, Mrs. Linton,’ I suggested, ‘that you have eaten some food with a relish this evening, and to-morrow you will perceive its good effects.’
+‘If I were only sure it would kill him,’ she interrupted, ‘I’d kill myself directly!  These three awful nights I’ve never closed my lids—and oh, I’ve been tormented!  I’ve been haunted, Nelly!  But I begin to fancy you don’t like me.  How strange!  I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.  And they have all turned to enemies in a few hours: they have, I’m positive; the people here.  How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces!  Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be so dreadful to watch Catherine go.  And Edgar standing solemnly by to see it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to his house, and going back to his books!  What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying?’
+She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton’s philosophical resignation.  Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window.  We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north-east, and I objected.  Both the expressions flitting over her face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor’s injunction that she should not be crossed.  A minute previously she was violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species: her mind had strayed to other associations.
+‘That’s a turkey’s,’ she murmured to herself; ‘and this is a wild duck’s; and this is a pigeon’s.  Ah, they put pigeons’ feathers in the pillows—no wonder I couldn’t die!  Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down.  And here is a moor-cock’s; and this—I should know it among a thousand—it’s a lapwing’s.  Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor.  It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming.  This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons.  Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come.  I made him promise he’d never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn’t.  Yes, here are more!  Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly?  Are they red, any of them?  Let me look.’
+‘Give over with that baby-work!’ I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls.  ‘Lie down and shut your eyes: you’re wandering.  There’s a mess!  The down is flying about like snow.’
+I went here and there collecting it.
+‘I see in you, Nelly,’ she continued dreamily, ‘an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders.  This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool.  That’s what you’ll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now.  I’m not wandering: you’re mistaken, or else I should believe you really were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Penistone Crags; and I’m conscious it’s night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.’
+‘The black press? where is that?’ I asked.  ‘You are talking in your sleep!’
+‘It’s against the wall, as it always is,’ she replied.  ‘It does appear odd—I see a face in it!’
+‘There’s no press in the room, and never was,’ said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.
+‘Don’t you see that face?’ she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror.
+And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.
+‘It’s behind there still!’ she pursued, anxiously.  ‘And it stirred.  Who is it?  I hope it will not come out when you are gone!  Oh!  Nelly, the room is haunted!  I’m afraid of being alone!’
+I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass.
+‘There’s nobody here!’ I insisted.  ‘It was yourself, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a while since.’
+‘Myself!’ she gasped, ‘and the clock is striking twelve!  It’s true, then! that’s dreadful!’
+Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes.  I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek—the shawl had dropped from the frame.
+‘Why, what is the matter?’ cried I.  ‘Who is coward now?  Wake up!  That is the glass—the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and there am I too by your side.’
+Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame.
+‘Oh, dear!  I thought I was at home,’ she sighed.  ‘I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights.  Because I’m weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously.  Don’t say anything; but stay with me.  I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.’
+‘A sound sleep would do you good, ma’am,’ I answered: ‘and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again.’
+‘Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!’ she went on bitterly, wringing her hands.  ‘And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice.  Do let me feel it—it comes straight down the moor—do let me have one breath!’  To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds.  A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post.  She lay still now, her face bathed in tears.  Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child.
+‘How long is it since I shut myself in here?’ she asked, suddenly reviving.
+‘It was Monday evening,’ I replied, ‘and this is Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, at present.’
+‘What! of the same week?’ she exclaimed.  ‘Only that brief time?’
+‘Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,’ observed I.
+‘Well, it seems a weary number of hours,’ she muttered doubtfully: ‘it must be more.  I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate.  As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor.  I couldn’t explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me!  I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice.  Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I’ll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason.  I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect.  I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank!  I did not recall that they had been at all.  I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff.  I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top!  I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair.  I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause.  But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world.  You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled!  Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me!  You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet!  Oh, I’m burning!  I wish I were out of doors!  I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them!  Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?  I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.  Open the window again wide: fasten it open!  Quick, why don’t you move?’
+‘Because I won’t give you your death of cold,’ I answered.
+‘You won’t give me a chance of life, you mean,’ she said, sullenly.  ‘However, I’m not helpless yet; I’ll open it myself.’
+And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife.  I entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire.  But I soon found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings).  There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible—still she asserted she caught their shining.
+‘Look!’ she cried eagerly, ‘that’s my room with the candle in it, and the trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph’s garret.  Joseph sits up late, doesn’t he?  He’s waiting till I come home that he may lock the gate.  Well, he’ll wait a while yet.  It’s a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey!  We’ve braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come.  But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture?  If you do, I’ll keep you.  I’ll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won’t rest till you are with me.  I never will!’
+She paused, and resumed with a strange smile.  ‘He’s considering—he’d rather I’d come to him!  Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard.  You are slow!  Be content, you always followed me!’
+Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr. Linton entered.  He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour.
+‘Oh, sir!’ I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber.  ‘My poor mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all; pray, come and persuade her to go to bed.  Forget your anger, for she’s hard to guide any way but her own.’
+‘Catherine ill?’ he said, hastening to us.  ‘Shut the window, Ellen!  Catherine! why—’
+He was silent.  The haggardness of Mrs. Linton’s appearance smote him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified astonishment.
+‘She’s been fretting here,’ I continued, ‘and eating scarcely anything, and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening, and so we couldn’t inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it ourselves; but it is nothing.’
+I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned.  ‘It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?’ he said sternly.  ‘You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!’  And he took his wife in his arms, and looked at her with anguish.
+At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her abstracted gaze.  The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her.
+‘Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?’ she said, with angry animation.  ‘You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never!  I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations now—I see we shall—but they can’t keep me from my narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I’m bound before spring is over!  There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me!’
+‘Catherine, what have you done?’ commenced the master.  ‘Am I nothing to you any more?  Do you love that wretch Heath—’
+‘Hush!’ cried Mrs. Linton.  ‘Hush, this moment!  You mention that name and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window!  What you touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill-top before you lay hands on me again.  I don’t want you, Edgar: I’m past wanting you.  Return to your books.  I’m glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone.’
+‘Her mind wanders, sir,’ I interposed.  ‘She has been talking nonsense the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and she’ll rally.  Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.’
+‘I desire no further advice from you,’ answered Mr. Linton.  ‘You knew your mistress’s nature, and you encouraged me to harass her.  And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days!  It was heartless!  Months of sickness could not cause such a change!’
+I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another’s wicked waywardness.  ‘I knew Mrs. Linton’s nature to be headstrong and domineering,’ cried I: ‘but I didn’t know that you wished to foster her fierce temper!  I didn’t know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff.  I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant’s wages!  Well, it will teach me to be careful next time.  Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself!’
+‘The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen Dean,’ he replied.
+‘You’d rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?’ said I.  ‘Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to Miss, and to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison the mistress against you?’
+Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation.
+‘Ah!  Nelly has played traitor,’ she exclaimed, passionately.  ‘Nelly is my hidden enemy.  You witch!  So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us!  Let me go, and I’ll make her rue!  I’ll make her howl a recantation!’
+A maniac’s fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to disengage herself from Linton’s arms.  I felt no inclination to tarry the event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I quitted the chamber.
+In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly, evidently by another agent than the wind.  Notwithstanding my hurry, I stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world.  My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than vision, Miss Isabella’s springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp.  I quickly released the animal, and lifted it into the garden.  I had seen it follow its mistress up-stairs when she went to bed; and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so.  While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses’ feet galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought: though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o’clock in the morning.
+Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street; and my account of Catherine Linton’s malady induced him to accompany me back immediately.  He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before.
+‘Nelly Dean,’ said he, ‘I can’t help fancying there’s an extra cause for this.  What has there been to do at the Grange?  We’ve odd reports up here.  A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a trifle; and that sort of people should not either.  It’s hard work bringing them through fevers, and such things.  How did it begin?’
+‘The master will inform you,’ I answered; ‘but you are acquainted with the Earnshaws’ violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all.  I may say this; it commenced in a quarrel.  She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit.  That’s her account, at least: for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up.  Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions.’
+‘Mr. Linton will be sorry?’ observed Kenneth, interrogatively.
+‘Sorry? he’ll break his heart should anything happen!’ I replied.  ‘Don’t alarm him more than necessary.’
+‘Well, I told him to beware,’ said my companion; ‘and he must bide the consequences of neglecting my warning!  Hasn’t he been intimate with Mr. Heathcliff lately?’
+‘Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange,’ answered I, ‘though more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because the master likes his company.  At present he’s discharged from the trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss Linton which he manifested.  I hardly think he’ll be taken in again.’
+‘And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?’ was the doctor’s next question.
+‘I’m not in her confidence,’ returned I, reluctant to continue the subject.
+‘No, she’s a sly one,’ he remarked, shaking his head.  ‘She keeps her own counsel!  But she’s a real little fool.  I have it from good authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with him!  My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that: when it was to be he didn’t hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp!’
+This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most of the way back.  The little dog was yelping in the garden yet.  I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me.  On ascending to Isabella’s room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty.  Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton’s illness might have arrested her rash step.  But what could be done now?  There was a bare possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly.  I could not pursue them, however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with confusion; still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second grief!  I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly composed countenance to announce him.  Catherine lay in a troubled sleep: her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy; he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully expressive features.
+The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity.  To me, he signified the threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect.
+I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations.  Every one was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she slept: her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sister-in-law.  I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight.  One of the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting up-stairs, open-mouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying: ‘Oh, dear, dear!  What mun we have next?  Master, master, our young lady—’
+‘Hold your noise!’ cried, I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner.
+‘Speak lower, Mary—What is the matter?’ said Mr. Linton.  ‘What ails your young lady?’
+‘She’s gone, she’s gone!  Yon’ Heathcliff’s run off wi’ her!’ gasped the girl.
+‘That is not true!’ exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation.  ‘It cannot be: how has the idea entered your head?  Ellen Dean, go and seek her.  It is incredible: it cannot be.’
+As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion.
+‘Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,’ she stammered, ‘and he asked whether we weren’t in trouble at the Grange.  I thought he meant for missis’s sickness, so I answered, yes.  Then says he, “There’s somebody gone after ’em, I guess?”  I stared.  He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse’s shoe fastened at a blacksmith’s shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith’s lass had got up to spy who they were: she knew them both directly.  And she noticed the man—Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob’dy could mistake him, besides—put a sovereign in her father’s hand for payment.  The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain.  Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them.  The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.’
+I ran and peeped, for form’s sake, into Isabella’s room; confirming, when I returned, the servant’s statement.  Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word.
+‘Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back,’ I inquired.  ‘How should we do?’
+‘She went of her own accord,’ answered the master; ‘she had a right to go if she pleased.  Trouble me no more about her.  Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.’
+And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it.
+CHAPTER XIII
+For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever.  No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her.  Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxiety—in fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity—he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine’s life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self.
+The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March.  Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together.
+‘These are the earliest flowers at the Heights,’ she exclaimed.  ‘They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow.  Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?’
+‘The snow is quite gone down here, darling,’ replied her husband; ‘and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors: the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full.  Catherine, last spring at this time, I was longing to have you under this roof; now, I wish you were a mile or two up those hills: the air blows so sweetly, I feel that it would cure you.’
+‘I shall never be there but once more,’ said the invalid; ‘and then you’ll leave me, and I shall remain for ever.  Next spring you’ll long again to have me under this roof, and you’ll look back and think you were happy to-day.’
+Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding.  We knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially removed by a change of scene.  The master told me to light a fire in the many-weeks’ deserted parlour, and to set an easy-chair in the sunshine by the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects round her: which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations investing her hated sick chamber.  By evening she seemed greatly exhausted; yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till another room could be prepared.  To obviate the fatigue of mounting and descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present—on the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move from one to the other, leaning on Edgar’s arm.  Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was.  And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton’s heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger’s grip, by the birth of an heir.
+I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff.  It appeared dry and cold; but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it.  Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter, which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon.  I’ll read it: for I keep it yet.  Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.
+* * * * *
+Dear Ellen, it begins,—I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill.  I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer what I sent him.  Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you.
+Inform Edgar that I’d give the world to see his face again—that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine!  I can’t follow it though—(these words are underlined)—they need not expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please; taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection.
+The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone.  I want to ask you two questions: the first is,—How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here?  I cannot recognise any sentiment which those around share with me.
+The second question I have great interest in; it is this—Is Mr. Heathcliff a man?  If so, is he mad?  And if not, is he a devil?  I sha’n’t tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon.  Don’t write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar.
+Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be.  It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them.  I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream!
+The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors; by that, I judged it to be six o’clock; and my companion halted half an hour, to inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farm-house, and your old fellow-servant, Joseph, issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle.  He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit.  His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under-lip, and turn away.  Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables; reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle.
+Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen—a dingy, untidy hole; I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge.  By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth.
+‘This is Edgar’s legal nephew,’ I reflected—‘mine in a manner; I must shake hands, and—yes—I must kiss him.  It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning.’
+I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said—‘How do you do, my dear?’
+He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend.
+‘Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?’ was my next essay at conversation.
+An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not ‘frame off’ rewarded my perseverance.
+‘Hey, Throttler, lad!’ whispered the little wretch, rousing a half-bred bull-dog from its lair in a corner.  ‘Now, wilt thou be ganging?’ he asked authoritatively.
+Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter.  Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and replied—‘Mim! mim! mim!  Did iver Christian body hear aught like it?  Mincing un’ munching!  How can I tell whet ye say?’
+‘I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!’ I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.
+‘None o’ me!  I getten summut else to do,’ he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I’m sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.
+I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself.  After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine’s with all their beauty annihilated.
+‘What’s your business here?’ he demanded, grimly.  ‘Who are you?’
+‘My name was Isabella Linton,’ I replied.  ‘You’ve seen me before, sir.  I’m lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here—I suppose, by your permission.’
+‘Is he come back, then?’ asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.
+‘Yes—we came just now,’ I said; ‘but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.’
+‘It’s well the hellish villain has kept his word!’ growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the ‘fiend’ deceived him.
+I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re-fastened the door.  There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter-dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust.  I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom!  Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer.  He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again.
+You’ll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles: I could not overpass them!  I questioned with myself—where must I turn for comfort? and—mind you don’t tell Edgar, or Catherine—above every sorrow beside, this rose pre-eminent: despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff!  I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling.
+I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals.  I listened to detect a woman’s voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping.  I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened surprise.  Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed—‘I’m tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed!  Where is the maid-servant?  Direct me to her, as she won’t come to me!’
+‘We have none,’ he answered; ‘you must wait on yourself!’
+‘Where must I sleep, then?’ I sobbed; I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.
+‘Joseph will show you Heathcliff’s chamber,’ said he; ‘open that door—he’s in there.’
+I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone—‘Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt—don’t omit it!’
+‘Well!’ I said.  ‘But why, Mr. Earnshaw?’  I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.
+‘Look here!’ he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel.  ‘That’s a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not?  I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door.  If once I find it open he’s done for; I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him.  You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!’
+I surveyed the weapon inquisitively.  A hideous notion struck me: how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument!  I took it from his hand, and touched the blade.  He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was covetousness.  He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment.
+‘I don’t care if you tell him,’ said he.  ‘Put him on his guard, and watch for him.  You know the terms we are on, I see: his danger does not shock you.’
+‘What has Heathcliff done to you?’ I asked.  ‘In what has he wronged you, to warrant this appalling hatred?  Wouldn’t it be wiser to bid him quit the house?’
+‘No!’ thundered Earnshaw; ‘should he offer to leave me, he’s a dead man: persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess!  Am I to lose all, without a chance of retrieval?  Is Hareton to be a beggar?  Oh, damnation!  I will have it back; and I’ll have his gold too; and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul!  It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!’
+You’ve acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master’s habits.  He is clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least.  I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant’s ill-bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable.  He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen.  Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by.  The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, ‘I’ll make the porridge!’  I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit.  ‘Mr. Earnshaw,’ I continued, ‘directs me to wait on myself: I will.  I’m not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve.’
+‘Gooid Lord!’ he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle.  ‘If there’s to be fresh ortherings—just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev’ a mistress set o’er my heead, it’s like time to be flitting.  I niver did think to see t’ day that I mud lave th’ owld place—but I doubt it’s nigh at hand!’
+This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance.  It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water.  Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation.
+‘Thear!’ he ejaculated.  ‘Hareton, thou willn’t sup thy porridge to-neeght; they’ll be naught but lumps as big as my neive.  Thear, agean!  I’d fling in bowl un’ all, if I wer ye!  There, pale t’ guilp off, un’ then ye’ll hae done wi’ ‘t.  Bang, bang.  It’s a mercy t’ bothom isn’t deaved out!’
+It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip.  I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily.  The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that ‘the barn was every bit as good’ as I, ‘and every bit as wollsome,’ and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited.  Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.
+‘I shall have my supper in another room,’ I said.  ‘Have you no place you call a parlour?’
+‘Parlour!’ he echoed, sneeringly, ‘parlour!  Nay, we’ve noa parlours.  If yah dunnut loike wer company, there’s maister’s; un’ if yah dunnut loike maister, there’s us.’
+‘Then I shall go up-stairs,’ I answered; ‘show me a chamber.’
+I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk.  With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed.
+‘Here’s a rahm,’ he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges.  ‘It’s weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in.  There’s a pack o’ corn i’ t’ corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye’re feared o’ muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o’ t’ top on’t.’
+The ‘rahm’ was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle.
+‘Why, man,’ I exclaimed, facing him angrily, ‘this is not a place to sleep in.  I wish to see my bed-room.’
+‘Bed-rume!’ he repeated, in a tone of mockery.  ‘Yah’s see all t’ bed-rumes thear is—yon’s mine.’
+He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigo-coloured quilt, at one end.
+‘What do I want with yours?’ I retorted.  ‘I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?’
+‘Oh! it’s Maister Hathecliff’s ye’re wanting?’ cried he, as if making a new discovery.  ‘Couldn’t ye ha’ said soa, at onst? un’ then, I mud ha’ telled ye, baht all this wark, that that’s just one ye cannut see—he allas keeps it locked, un’ nob’dy iver mells on’t but hisseln.’
+‘You’ve a nice house, Joseph,’ I could not refrain from observing, ‘and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs!  However, that is not to the present purpose—there are other rooms.  For heaven’s sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!’
+He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting, before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one.  There was a carpet—a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor.  The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls.  I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,—‘This here is t’ maister’s.’  My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted.  I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose.
+‘Whear the divil?’ began the religious elder.  ‘The Lord bless us!  The Lord forgie us!  Whear the hell wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome nowt!  Ye’ve seen all but Hareton’s bit of a cham’er.  There’s not another hoile to lig down in i’ th’ hahse!’
+I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground; and then seated myself at the stairs’-head, hid my face in my hands, and cried.
+‘Ech! ech!’ exclaimed Joseph.  ‘Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy!  Howsiver, t’ maister sall just tum’le o’er them brooken pots; un’ then we’s hear summut; we’s hear how it’s to be.  Gooid-for-naught madling! ye desarve pining fro’ this to Chrustmas, flinging t’ precious gifts o’God under fooit i’ yer flaysome rages!  But I’m mista’en if ye shew yer sperrit lang.  Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye?  I nobbut wish he may catch ye i’ that plisky.  I nobbut wish he may.’
+And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with him; and I remained in the dark.  The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects.  An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley.  I fancy it knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge; while I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief.  Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw’s tread in the passage; my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway.  The dog’s endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a scutter down-stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping.  I had better luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door.  Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed.  I had found shelter in Hareton’s room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,—‘They’s rahm for boath ye un’ yer pride, now, I sud think i’ the hahse.  It’s empty; ye may hev’ it all to yerseln, un’ Him as allus maks a third, i’ sich ill company!’
+Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation; and the minute I flung myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept.  My slumber was deep and sweet, though over far too soon.  Mr. Heathcliff awoke me; he had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing there?  I told him the cause of my staying up so late—that he had the key of our room in his pocket.  The adjective our gave mortal offence.  He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine; and he’d—but I’ll not repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct: he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence!  I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.  He told me of Catherine’s illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar’s proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him.
+I do hate him—I am wretched—I have been a fool!  Beware of uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange.  I shall expect you every day—don’t disappoint me!—Isabella.
+CHAPTER XIV
+As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton’s situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me.
+‘Forgiveness!’ said Linton.  ‘I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen.  You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I’m sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she’ll be happy.  It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.’
+‘And you won’t write her a little note, sir?’ I asked, imploringly.
+‘No,’ he answered.  ‘It is needless.  My communication with Heathcliff’s family shall be as sparing as his with mine.  It shall not exist!’
+Mr. Edgar’s coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella.  I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed.  I entered without knocking.  There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented!  I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady’s place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster.  But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her.  Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head.  Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening.  Hindley was not there.  Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair.  He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better.  So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern!  She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter.  I shook my head.  She wouldn’t understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought.  Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said—‘If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her.  You needn’t make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us.’
+‘Oh, I have nothing,’ I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once.  ‘My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present.  He sends his love, ma’am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up.’
+Mrs. Heathcliff’s lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window.  Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine.  I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin.  I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton’s example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil.
+‘Mrs. Linton is now just recovering,’ I said; ‘she’ll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you’ll shun crossing her way again: nay, you’ll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I’ll inform you Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me.  Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty!’
+‘That is quite possible,’ remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: ‘quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon.  But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his duty and humanity? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his?  Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you’ll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I will see her!  What do you say?’
+‘I say, Mr. Heathcliff,’ I replied, ‘you must not: you never shall, through my means.  Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether.’
+‘With your aid that may be avoided,’ he continued; ‘and should there be danger of such an event—should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence—why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes!  I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me.  And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him.  You may look incredulous, if you please!  I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his.  The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood!  But, till then—if you don’t believe me, you don’t know me—till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!’
+‘And yet,’ I interrupted, ‘you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.’
+‘You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?’ he said.  ‘Oh, Nelly! you know she has not!  You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me!  At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again.  And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt.  Two words would comprehend my future—death and hell: existence, after losing her, would be hell.  Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton’s attachment more than mine.  If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.  And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him.  Tush!  He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse.  It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?’
+‘Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,’ cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity.  ‘No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won’t hear my brother depreciated in silence!’
+‘Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn’t he?’ observed Heathcliff, scornfully.  ‘He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity.’
+‘He is not aware of what I suffer,’ she replied.  ‘I didn’t tell him that.’
+‘You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?’
+‘To say that I was married, I did write—you saw the note.’
+‘And nothing since?’
+‘No.’
+‘My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,’ I remarked.  ‘Somebody’s love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn’t say.’
+‘I should guess it was her own,’ said Heathcliff.  ‘She degenerates into a mere slut!  She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early.  You’d hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home.  However, she’ll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I’ll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.’
+‘Well, sir,’ returned I, ‘I hope you’ll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve.  You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly.  Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn’t have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.’
+‘She abandoned them under a delusion,’ he answered; ‘picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion.  I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished.  But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don’t perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself.  It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her.  I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that!  And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me!  A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you!  If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks.  Can I trust your assertion, Isabella?  Are you sure you hate me?  If I let you alone for half a day, won’t you come sighing and wheedling to me again?  I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed.  But I don’t care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it.  She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness.  The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself.  But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury!  Now, was it not the depth of absurdity—of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her?  Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is.  She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I’ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back!  But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law.  I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what’s more, she’d thank nobody for dividing us.  If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!’
+‘Mr. Heathcliff,’ said I, ‘this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she’ll doubtless avail herself of the permission.  You are not so bewitched, ma’am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?’
+‘Take care, Ellen!’ answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner’s endeavours to make himself detested.  ‘Don’t put faith in a single word he speaks.  He’s a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being!  I’ve been told I might leave him before; and I’ve made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it!  Only, Ellen, promise you’ll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine.  Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha’n’t obtain it—I’ll die first!  I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me!  The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!’
+‘There—that will do for the present!’ said Heathcliff.  ‘If you are called upon in a court of law, you’ll remember her language, Nelly!  And take a good look at that countenance: she’s near the point which would suit me.  No; you’re not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be.  Go up-stairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private.  That’s not the way: up-stairs, I tell you!  Why, this is the road upstairs, child!’
+He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering—‘I have no pity!  I have no pity!  The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!  It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.’
+‘Do you understand what the word pity means?’ I said, hastening to resume my bonnet.  ‘Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?’
+‘Put that down!’ he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart.  ‘You are not going yet.  Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay.  I swear that I meditate no harm: I don’t desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her.  Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I’ll return there to-night; and every night I’ll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering.  If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay.  If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols.  But wouldn’t it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master?  And you could do it so easily.  I’d warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief.’
+I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer’s house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton’s tranquillity for his satisfaction.  ‘The commonest occurrence startles her painfully,’ I said.  ‘She’s all nerves, and she couldn’t bear the surprise, I’m positive.  Don’t persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he’ll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!’
+‘In that case I’ll take measures to secure you, woman!’ exclaimed Heathcliff; ‘you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow morning.  It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don’t desire it: you must prepare her—ask her if I may come.  You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her.  To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house?  She thinks you are all spies for her husband.  Oh, I’ve no doubt she’s in hell among you!  I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels.  You say she is often restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity?  You talk of her mind being unsettled.  How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation?  And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity!  From pity and charity!  He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares?  Let us settle it at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman?  Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request?  Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!’
+Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement.  I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton’s next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn’t be there, and my fellow-servants should be equally out of the way.  Was it right or wrong?  I fear it was wrong, though expedient.  I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine’s mental illness: and then I remembered Mr. Edgar’s stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last.  Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton’s hand.
+But here is Kenneth; I’ll go down, and tell him how much better you are.  My history is dree, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning.
+Dree, and dreary!  I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me.  But never mind!  I’ll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean’s bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff’s brilliant eyes.  I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother.
+CHAPTER XV
+Another week over—and I am so many days nearer health, and spring!  I have now heard all my neighbour’s history, at different sittings, as the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations.  I’ll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed.  She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don’t think I could improve her style.
+In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place; and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and didn’t want to be threatened or teased any more.  I had made up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how its receipt would affect Catherine.  The consequence was, that it did not reach her before the lapse of three days.  The fourth was Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to church.  There was a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow.  He departed, and I went up-stairs.
+Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual.  Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck.  Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change.  The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond—you would have said out of this world.  Then, the paleness of her face—its haggard aspect having vanished as she recovered flesh—and the peculiar expression arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened; and—invariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should think—refuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay.
+A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals.  I believe Linton had laid it there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her amusement.  She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of smiles and kisses.  At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good.
+Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear.  It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf.  At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season of steady rain.  And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all; but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no recognition of material things either by ear or eye.
+‘There’s a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,’ I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee.  ‘You must read it immediately, because it wants an answer.  Shall I break the seal?’  ‘Yes,’ she answered, without altering the direction of her eyes.  I opened it—it was very short.  ‘Now,’ I continued, ‘read it.’  She drew away her hand, and let it fall.  I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed that at last I resumed—‘Must I read it, ma’am?  It is from Mr. Heathcliff.’
+There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas.  She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it; and when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning eagerness.
+‘Well, he wishes to see you,’ said I, guessing her need of an interpreter.  ‘He’s in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring.’
+As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger.  Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly.  The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity.  With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber.  He did not hit the right room directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms.
+He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face!  The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there—she was fated, sure to die.
+‘Oh, Cathy!  Oh, my life! how can I bear it?’ was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair.  And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.
+‘What now?’ said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices.  ‘You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff!  And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied!  I shall not pity you, not I.  You have killed me—and thriven on it, I think.  How strong you are!  How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?’
+Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.
+‘I wish I could hold you,’ she continued, bitterly, ‘till we were both dead!  I shouldn’t care what you suffered.  I care nothing for your sufferings.  Why shouldn’t you suffer?  I do!  Will you forget me?  Will you be happy when I am in the earth?  Will you say twenty years hence, “That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw?  I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past.  I’ve loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!”  Will you say so, Heathcliff?’
+‘Don’t torture me till I’m as mad as yourself,’ cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.
+The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture.  Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also.  Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping.  As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.
+‘Are you possessed with a devil,’ he pursued, savagely, ‘to talk in that manner to me when you are dying?  Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me?  You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!  Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?’
+‘I shall not be at peace,’ moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation.  She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly—
+‘I’m not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff.  I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me!  Come here and kneel down again!  You never harmed me in your life.  Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words!  Won’t you come here again?  Do!’
+Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion.  She bent round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us.  Mrs. Linton’s glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new sentiment in her.  After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed; addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:—
+‘Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave.  That is how I’m loved!  Well, never mind.  That is not my Heathcliff.  I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he’s in my soul.  And,’ added she musingly, ‘the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all.  I’m tired of being enclosed here.  I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.  Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me—very soon that will be altered.  I shall be sorry for you.  I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all.  I wonder he won’t be near me!’  She went on to herself.  ‘I thought he wished it.  Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now.  Do come to me, Heathcliff.’
+In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair.  At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate.  His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively.  An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible.  He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy.  I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity.
+A movement of Catherine’s relieved me a little presently: she put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly—
+‘You teach me now how cruel you’ve been—cruel and false.  Why did you despise me?  Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy?  I have not one word of comfort.  You deserve this.  You have killed yourself.  Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you—they’ll damn you.  You loved me—then what right had you to leave me?  What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?  Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.  I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.  So much the worse for me that I am strong.  Do I want to live?  What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?’
+‘Let me alone.  Let me alone,’ sobbed Catherine.  ‘If I’ve done wrong, I’m dying for it.  It is enough!  You left me too: but I won’t upbraid you!  I forgive you.  Forgive me!’
+‘It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,’ he answered.  ‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes!  I forgive what you have done to me.  I love my murderer—but yours!  How can I?’
+They were silent—their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other’s tears.  At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.
+I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch.
+‘Service is over,’ I announced.  ‘My master will be here in half an hour.’
+Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never moved.
+Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing.  Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer.
+‘Now he is here,’ I exclaimed.  ‘For heaven’s sake, hurry down!  You’ll not meet any one on the front stairs.  Do be quick; and stay among the trees till he is fairly in.’
+‘I must go, Cathy,’ said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion’s arms.  ‘But if I live, I’ll see you again before you are asleep.  I won’t stray five yards from your window.’
+‘You must not go!’ she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed.  ‘You shall not, I tell you.’
+‘For one hour,’ he pleaded earnestly.
+‘Not for one minute,’ she replied.
+‘I must—Linton will be up immediately,’ persisted the alarmed intruder.
+He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act—she clung fast, gasping: there was mad resolution in her face.
+‘No!’ she shrieked.  ‘Oh, don’t, don’t go.  It is the last time!  Edgar will not hurt us.  Heathcliff, I shall die!  I shall die!’
+‘Damn the fool!  There he is,’ cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat.  ‘Hush, my darling!  Hush, hush, Catherine!  I’ll stay.  If he shot me so, I’d expire with a blessing on my lips.’
+And there they were fast again.  I heard my master mounting the stairs—the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified.
+‘Are you going to listen to her ravings?’ I said, passionately.  ‘She does not know what she says.  Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself?  Get up!  You could be free instantly.  That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did.  We are all done for—master, mistress, and servant.’
+I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise.  In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine’s arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down.
+‘She’s fainted, or dead,’ I thought: ‘so much the better.  Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.’
+Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage.  What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his arms.
+‘Look there!’ he said.  ‘Unless you be a fiend, help her first—then you shall speak to me!’
+He walked into the parlour, and sat down.  Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody.  Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend.  I did not.  I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night.
+‘I shall not refuse to go out of doors,’ he answered; ‘but I shall stay in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow.  I shall be under those larch-trees.  Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not.’
+He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence.
+CHAPTER XVI
+About twelve o’clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months’ child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar.  The latter’s distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk.  A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir.  I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son’s.  An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing!  It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence.  We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be.
+Next morning—bright and cheerful out of doors—stole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow.  Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut.  His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but his was the hush of exhausted anguish, and hers of perfect peace.  Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared.  And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest.  I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: ‘Incomparably beyond and above us all!  Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!’
+I don’t know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me.  I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter—the Eternity they have entered—where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.  I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton’s, when he so regretted Catherine’s blessed release!  To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last.  One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her corpse.  It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.
+Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir?  I’d give a great deal to know.
+I declined answering Mrs. Dean’s question, which struck me as something heterodox.  She proceeded:
+Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we’ll leave her with her Maker.
+The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air.  The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff.  If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange; unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton.  If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within.  I wished, yet feared, to find him.  I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know.  He was there—at least, a few yards further in the park; leant against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him.  He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber.  They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke:—‘She’s dead!’ he said; ‘I’ve not waited for you to learn that.  Put your handkerchief away—don’t snivel before me.  Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!’
+I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others.  When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground.
+‘Yes, she’s dead!’ I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks.  ‘Gone to heaven, I hope; where we may, every one, join her, if we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good!’
+‘Did she take due warning, then?’ asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer.  ‘Did she die like a saint?  Come, give me a true history of the event.  How did—?’
+He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare.  ‘How did she die?’ he resumed, at last—fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.
+‘Poor wretch!’ I thought; ‘you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men!  Why should you be anxious to conceal them?  Your pride cannot blind God!  You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation.’
+‘Quietly as a lamb!’ I answered, aloud.  ‘She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep; and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!’
+‘And—did she ever mention me?’ he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear to hear.
+‘Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody from the time you left her,’ I said.  ‘She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days.  Her life closed in a gentle dream—may she wake as kindly in the other world!’
+‘May she wake in torment!’ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion.  ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end!  Where is she?  Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where?  Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings!  And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then!  The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe.  I know that ghosts have wandered on earth.  Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!  Oh, God! it is unutterable!  I cannot live without my life!  I cannot live without my soul!’
+He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.  I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night.  It hardly moved my compassion—it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so.  But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed.  He was beyond my skill to quiet or console!
+Mrs. Linton’s funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing-room.  Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and—a circumstance concealed from all but me—Heathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose.  I held no communication with him: still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu.  He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise.  Indeed, I shouldn’t have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse’s face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine’s neck.  Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own.  I twisted the two, and enclosed them together.
+Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants.  Isabella was not asked.
+The place of Catherine’s interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside.  It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost buries it.  Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves.
+CHAPTER XVII
+That Friday made the last of our fine days for a month.  In the evening the weather broke: the wind shifted from south to north-east, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow.  On the morrow one could hardly imagine that there had been three weeks of summer: the primroses and crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts; the larks were silent, the young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened.  And dreary, and chill, and dismal, that morrow did creep over!  My master kept his room; I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery: and there I was, sitting with the moaning doll of a child laid on my knee; rocking it to and fro, and watching, meanwhile, the still driving flakes build up the uncurtained window, when the door opened, and some person entered, out of breath and laughing!  My anger was greater than my astonishment for a minute.  I supposed it one of the maids, and I cried—‘Have done!  How dare you show your giddiness here; What would Mr. Linton say if he heard you?’
+‘Excuse me!’ answered a familiar voice; ‘but I know Edgar is in bed, and I cannot stop myself.’
+With that the speaker came forward to the fire, panting and holding her hand to her side.
+‘I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights!’ she continued, after a pause; ‘except where I’ve flown.  I couldn’t count the number of falls I’ve had.  Oh, I’m aching all over!  Don’t be alarmed!  There shall be an explanation as soon as I can give it; only just have the goodness to step out and order the carriage to take me on to Gimmerton, and tell a servant to seek up a few clothes in my wardrobe.’
+The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff.  She certainly seemed in no laughing predicament: her hair streamed on her shoulders, dripping with snow and water; she was dressed in the girlish dress she commonly wore, befitting her age more than her position: a low frock with short sleeves, and nothing on either head or neck.  The frock was of light silk, and clung to her with wet, and her feet were protected merely by thin slippers; add to this a deep cut under one ear, which only the cold prevented from bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised, and a frame hardly able to support itself through fatigue; and you may fancy my first fright was not much allayed when I had had leisure to examine her.
+‘My dear young lady,’ I exclaimed, ‘I’ll stir nowhere, and hear nothing, till you have removed every article of your clothes, and put on dry things; and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton to-night, so it is needless to order the carriage.’
+‘Certainly I shall,’ she said; ‘walking or riding: yet I’ve no objection to dress myself decently.  And—ah, see how it flows down my neck now!  The fire does make it smart.’
+She insisted on my fulfilling her directions, before she would let me touch her; and not till after the coachman had been instructed to get ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did I obtain her consent for binding the wound and helping to change her garments.
+‘Now, Ellen,’ she said, when my task was finished and she was seated in an easy-chair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before her, ‘you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine’s baby away: I don’t like to see it!  You mustn’t think I care little for Catherine, because I behaved so foolishly on entering: I’ve cried, too, bitterly—yes, more than any one else has reason to cry.  We parted unreconciled, you remember, and I sha’n’t forgive myself.  But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise with him—the brute beast!  Oh, give me the poker!  This is the last thing of his I have about me:’ she slipped the gold ring from her third finger, and threw it on the floor.  ‘I’ll smash it!’ she continued, striking it with childish spite, ‘and then I’ll burn it!’ and she took and dropped the misused article among the coals.  ‘There! he shall buy another, if he gets me back again.  He’d be capable of coming to seek me, to tease Edgar.  I dare not stay, lest that notion should possess his wicked head!  And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he?  And I won’t come suing for his assistance; nor will I bring him into more trouble.  Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here; though, if I had not learned he was out of the way, I’d have halted at the kitchen, washed my face, warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to anywhere out of the reach of my accursed—of that incarnate goblin!  Ah, he was in such a fury!  If he had caught me!  It’s a pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength: I wouldn’t have run till I’d seen him all but demolished, had Hindley been able to do it!’
+‘Well, don’t talk so fast, Miss!’ I interrupted; ‘you’ll disorder the handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed again.  Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing: laughter is sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!’
+‘An undeniable truth,’ she replied.  ‘Listen to that child!  It maintains a constant wail—send it out of my hearing for an hour; I sha’n’t stay any longer.’
+I rang the bell, and committed it to a servant’s care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining with us.
+‘I ought, and I wished to remain,’ answered she, ‘to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home.  But I tell you he wouldn’t let me!  Do you think he could bear to see me grow fat and merry—could bear to think that we were tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort?  Now, I have the satisfaction of being sure that he detests me, to the point of its annoying him seriously to have me within ear-shot or eyesight: I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred; partly arising from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original aversion.  It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England, supposing I contrived a clear escape; and therefore I must get quite away.  I’ve recovered from my first desire to be killed by him: I’d rather he’d kill himself!  He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I’m at my ease.  I can recollect yet how I loved him; and can dimly imagine that I could still be loving him, if—no, no!  Even if he had doted on me, the devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow.  Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well.  Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory!’
+‘Hush, hush!  He’s a human being,’ I said.  ‘Be more charitable: there are worse men than he is yet!’
+‘He’s not a human being,’ she retorted; ‘and he has no claim on my charity.  I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me.  People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him: and I would not, though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood for Catherine!  No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn’t!’  And here Isabella began to cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she recommenced.  ‘You asked, what has driven me to flight at last?  I was compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity.  Pulling out the nerves with red hot pincers requires more coolness than knocking on the head.  He was worked up to forget the fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous violence.  I experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him: the sense of pleasure woke my instinct of self-preservation, so I fairly broke free; and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a signal revenge.
+‘Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral.  He kept himself sober for the purpose—tolerably sober: not going to bed mad at six o’clock and getting up drunk at twelve.  Consequently, he rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.
+‘Heathcliff—I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house from last Sunday till to-day.  Whether the angels have fed him, or his kin beneath, I cannot tell; but he has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a week.  He has just come home at dawn, and gone up-stairs to his chamber; locking himself in—as if anybody dreamt of coveting his company!  There he has continued, praying like a Methodist: only the deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed, was curiously confounded with his own black father!  After concluding these precious orisons—and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse and his voice was strangled in his throat—he would be off again; always straight down to the Grange!  I wonder Edgar did not send for a constable, and give him into custody!  For me, grieved as I was about Catherine, it was impossible to avoid regarding this season of deliverance from degrading oppression as a holiday.
+‘I recovered spirits sufficient to bear Joseph’s eternal lectures without weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot of a frightened thief than formerly.  You wouldn’t think that I should cry at anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable companions.  I’d rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than with “t’ little maister” and his staunch supporter, that odious old man!  When Heathcliff is in, I’m often obliged to seek the kitchen and their society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers; when he is not, as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself; and he does not interfere with my arrangements.  He is quieter now than he used to be, if no one provokes him: more sullen and depressed, and less furious.  Joseph affirms he’s sure he’s an altered man: that the Lord has touched his heart, and he is saved “so as by fire.”  I’m puzzled to detect signs of the favourable change: but it is not my business.
+‘Yester-evening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late on towards twelve.  It seemed so dismal to go up-stairs, with the wild snow blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the kirk-yard and the new-made grave!  I dared hardly lift my eyes from the page before me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place.  Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand; perhaps meditating on the same subject.  He had ceased drinking at a point below irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three hours.  There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle.  Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed.  It was very, very sad: and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy had vanished from the world, never to be restored.
+‘The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch: Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual; owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm.  That entrance was fastened, and we heard him coming round to get in by the other.  I rose with an irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and look at me.
+‘“I’ll keep him out five minutes,” he exclaimed.  “You won’t object?”
+‘“No, you may keep him out the whole night for me,” I answered.  “Do! put the key in the lock, and draw the bolts.”
+‘Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front; he then came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed from his: as he both looked and felt like an assassin, he couldn’t exactly find that; but he discovered enough to encourage him to speak.
+‘“You, and I,” he said, “have each a great debt to settle with the man out yonder!  If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to discharge it.  Are you as soft as your brother?  Are you willing to endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?”
+‘“I’m weary of enduring now,” I replied; “and I’d be glad of a retaliation that wouldn’t recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”
+‘“Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!” cried Hindley.  “Mrs. Heathcliff, I’ll ask you to do nothing; but sit still and be dumb.  Tell me now, can you?  I’m sure you would have as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend’s existence; he’ll be your death unless you overreach him; and he’ll be my ruin.  Damn the hellish villain!  He knocks at the door as if he were master here already!  Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock strikes—it wants three minutes of one—you’re a free woman!”
+‘He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his breast, and would have turned down the candle.  I snatched it away, however, and seized his arm.
+‘“I’ll not hold my tongue!” I said; “you mustn’t touch him.  Let the door remain shut, and be quiet!”
+‘“No!  I’ve formed my resolution, and by God I’ll execute it!” cried the desperate being.  “I’ll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and Hareton justice!  And you needn’t trouble your head to screen me; Catherine is gone.  Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I cut my throat this minute—and it’s time to make an end!”
+‘I might as well have struggled with a bear, or reasoned with a lunatic.  The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his intended victim of the fate which awaited him.
+‘“You’d better seek shelter somewhere else to-night!” I exclaimed, in rather a triumphant tone.  “Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you persist in endeavouring to enter.”
+‘“You’d better open the door, you—” he answered, addressing me by some elegant term that I don’t care to repeat.
+‘“I shall not meddle in the matter,” I retorted again.  “Come in and get shot, if you please.  I’ve done my duty.”
+‘With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire; having too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any anxiety for the danger that menaced him.  Earnshaw swore passionately at me: affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of names for the base spirit I evinced.  And I, in my secret heart (and conscience never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for him should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing for me should he send Heathcliff to his right abode!  As I sat nursing these reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly through.  The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security.  His hair and clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark.
+‘“Isabella, let me in, or I’ll make you repent!” he “girned,” as Joseph calls it.
+‘“I cannot commit murder,” I replied.  “Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with a knife and loaded pistol.”
+‘“Let me in by the kitchen door,” he said.
+‘“Hindley will be there before me,” I answered: “and that’s a poor love of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow!  We were left at peace in our beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of winter returns, you must run for shelter!  Heathcliff, if I were you, I’d go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog.  The world is surely not worth living in now, is it?  You had distinctly impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can’t imagine how you think of surviving her loss.”
+‘“He’s there, is he?” exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap.  “If I can get my arm out I can hit him!”
+‘I’m afraid, Ellen, you’ll set me down as really wicked; but you don’t know all, so don’t judge.  I wouldn’t have aided or abetted an attempt on even his life for anything.  Wish that he were dead, I must; and therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on Earnshaw’s weapon and wrenched it from his grasp.
+‘The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its owner’s wrist.  Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up the flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket.  He then took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and sprang in.  His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and the flow of blood, that gushed from an artery or a large vein.  The ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags, holding me with one hand, meantime, to prevent me summoning Joseph.  He exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from finishing him completely; but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle.  There he tore off the sleeve of Earnshaw’s coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness; spitting and cursing during the operation as energetically as he had kicked before.  Being at liberty, I lost no time in seeking the old servant; who, having gathered by degrees the purport of my hasty tale, hurried below, gasping, as he descended the steps two at once.
+‘“What is ther to do, now? what is ther to do, now?”
+‘“There’s this to do,” thundered Heathcliff, “that your master’s mad; and should he last another month, I’ll have him to an asylum.  And how the devil did you come to fasten me out, you toothless hound?  Don’t stand muttering and mumbling there.  Come, I’m not going to nurse him.  Wash that stuff away; and mind the sparks of your candle—it is more than half brandy!”
+‘“And so ye’ve been murthering on him?” exclaimed Joseph, lifting his hands and eyes in horror.  “If iver I seed a seeght loike this!  May the Lord—”
+‘Heathcliff gave him a push on to his knees in the middle of the blood, and flung a towel to him; but instead of proceeding to dry it up, he joined his hands and began a prayer, which excited my laughter from its odd phraseology.  I was in the condition of mind to be shocked at nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors show themselves at the foot of the gallows.
+‘“Oh, I forgot you,” said the tyrant.  “You shall do that.  Down with you.  And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper?  There, that is work fit for you!”
+‘He shook me till my teeth rattled, and pitched me beside Joseph, who steadily concluded his supplications, and then rose, vowing he would set off for the Grange directly.  Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and though he had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this.  He was so obstinate in his resolution, that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to compel from my lips a recapitulation of what had taken place; standing over me, heaving with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the account in answer to his questions.  It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man that Heathcliff was not the aggressor; especially with my hardly-wrung replies.  However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him that he was alive still; Joseph hastened to administer a dose of spirits, and by their succour his master presently regained motion and consciousness.  Heathcliff, aware that his opponent was ignorant of the treatment received while insensible, called him deliriously intoxicated; and said he should not notice his atrocious conduct further, but advised him to get to bed.  To my joy, he left us, after giving this judicious counsel, and Hindley stretched himself on the hearthstone.  I departed to my own room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily.
+‘This morning, when I came down, about half an hour before noon, Mr. Earnshaw was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius, almost as gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney.  Neither appeared inclined to dine, and, having waited till all was cold on the table, I commenced alone.  Nothing hindered me from eating heartily, and I experienced a certain sense of satisfaction and superiority, as, at intervals, I cast a look towards my silent companions, and felt the comfort of a quiet conscience within me.  After I had done, I ventured on the unusual liberty of drawing near the fire, going round Earnshaw’s seat, and kneeling in the corner beside him.
+‘Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated his features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone.  His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet then: his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness.  Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief.  In his case, I was gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn’t miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.’
+‘Fie, fie, Miss!’ I interrupted.  ‘One might suppose you had never opened a Bible in your life.  If God afflict your enemies, surely that ought to suffice you.  It is both mean and presumptuous to add your torture to his!’
+‘In general I’ll allow that it would be, Ellen,’ she continued; ‘but what misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a hand in it?  I’d rather he suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings and he might know that I was the cause.  Oh, I owe him so much.  On only one condition can I hope to forgive him.  It is, if I may take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; for every wrench of agony return a wrench: reduce him to my level.  As he was the first to injure, make him the first to implore pardon; and then—why then, Ellen, I might show you some generosity.  But it is utterly impossible I can ever be revenged, and therefore I cannot forgive him.  Hindley wanted some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was.
+‘“Not as ill as I wish,” he replied.  “But leaving out my arm, every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps!”
+‘“Yes, no wonder,” was my next remark.  “Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm: she meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her.  It’s well people don’t really rise from their grave, or, last night, she might have witnessed a repulsive scene!  Are not you bruised, and cut over your chest and shoulders?”
+‘“I can’t say,” he answered, “but what do you mean?  Did he dare to strike me when I was down?”
+‘“He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,” I whispered.  “And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because he’s only half man: not so much, and the rest fiend.”
+‘Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe; who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him: the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features.
+‘“Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy,” groaned the impatient man, writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle.
+‘“Nay, it’s enough that he has murdered one of you,” I observed aloud.  “At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff.  After all, it is preferable to be hated than loved by him.  When I recollect how happy we were—how happy Catherine was before he came—I’m fit to curse the day.”
+‘Most likely, Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said, than the spirit of the person who said it.  His attention was roused, I saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs.  I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully.  The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision.
+‘“Get up, and begone out of my sight,” said the mourner.
+‘I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was hardly intelligible.
+‘“I beg your pardon,” I replied.  “But I loved Catherine too; and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply.  Now, that she’s dead, I see her in Hindley: Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and her—”
+‘“Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!” he cried, making a movement that caused me to make one also.
+‘“But then,” I continued, holding myself ready to flee, “if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture!  She wouldn’t have borne your abominable behaviour quietly: her detestation and disgust must have found voice.”
+‘The back of the settle and Earnshaw’s person interposed between me and him; so instead of endeavouring to reach me, he snatched a dinner-knife from the table and flung it at my head.  It struck beneath my ear, and stopped the sentence I was uttering; but, pulling it out, I sprang to the door and delivered another; which I hope went a little deeper than his missile.  The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush on his part, checked by the embrace of his host; and both fell locked together on the hearth.  In my flight through the kitchen I bid Joseph speed to his master; I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chair-back in the doorway; and, blessed as a soul escaped from purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road; then, quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks, and wading through marshes: precipitating myself, in fact, towards the beacon-light of the Grange.  And far rather would I be condemned to a perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night, abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again.’
+Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea; then she rose, and bidding me put on her bonnet, and a great shawl I had brought, and turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she stepped on to a chair, kissed Edgar’s and Catherine’s portraits, bestowed a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage, accompanied by Fanny, who yelped wild with joy at recovering her mistress.  She was driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood: but a regular correspondence was established between her and my master when things were more settled.  I believe her new abode was in the south, near London; there she had a son born a few months subsequent to her escape.  He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing, peevish creature.
+Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she lived.  I refused to tell.  He remarked that it was not of any moment, only she must beware of coming to her brother: she should not be with him, if he had to keep her himself.  Though I would give no information, he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of residence and the existence of the child.  Still, he didn’t molest her: for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose.  He often asked about the infant, when he saw me; and on hearing its name, smiled grimly, and observed: ‘They wish me to hate it too, do they?’
+‘I don’t think they wish you to know anything about it,’ I answered.
+‘But I’ll have it,’ he said, ‘when I want it.  They may reckon on that!’
+Fortunately its mother died before the time arrived; some thirteen years after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve, or a little more.
+On the day succeeding Isabella’s unexpected visit I had no opportunity of speaking to my master: he shunned conversation, and was fit for discussing nothing.  When I could get him to listen, I saw it pleased him that his sister had left her husband; whom he abhorred with an intensity which the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to allow.  So deep and sensitive was his aversion, that he refrained from going anywhere where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff.  Grief, and that together, transformed him into a complete hermit: he threw up his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his park and grounds; only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or early morning before other wanderers were abroad.  But he was too good to be thoroughly unhappy long.  He didn’t pray for Catherine’s soul to haunt him.  Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.  He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world; where he doubted not she was gone.
+And he had earthly consolation and affections also.  For a few days, I said, he seemed regardless of the puny successor to the departed: that coldness melted as fast as snow in April, and ere the tiny thing could stammer a word or totter a step it wielded a despot’s sceptre in his heart.  It was named Catherine; but he never called it the name in full, as he had never called the first Catherine short: probably because Heathcliff had a habit of doing so.  The little one was always Cathy: it formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with her; and his attachment sprang from its relation to her, far more than from its being his own.
+I used to draw a comparison between him and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex myself to explain satisfactorily why their conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances.  They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children; and I could not see how they shouldn’t both have taken the same road, for good or evil.  But, I thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man.  When his ship struck, the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel.  Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he trusted God; and God comforted him.  One hoped, and the other despaired: they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them.  But you’ll not want to hear my moralising, Mr. Lockwood; you’ll judge, as well as I can, all these things: at least, you’ll think you will, and that’s the same.  The end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected; it followed fast on his sister’s: there were scarcely six months between them.  We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state preceding it; all that I did learn was on occasion of going to aid in the preparations for the funeral.  Mr. Kenneth came to announce the event to my master.
+‘Well, Nelly,’ said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early not to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, ‘it’s yours and my turn to go into mourning at present.  Who’s given us the slip now, do you think?’
+‘Who?’ I asked in a flurry.
+‘Why, guess!’ he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on a hook by the door.  ‘And nip up the corner of your apron: I’m certain you’ll need it.’
+‘Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?’ I exclaimed.
+‘What! would you have tears for him?’ said the doctor.  ‘No, Heathcliff’s a tough young fellow: he looks blooming to-day.  I’ve just seen him.  He’s rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his better half.’
+‘Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth?’ I repeated impatiently.
+‘Hindley Earnshaw!  Your old friend Hindley,’ he replied, ‘and my wicked gossip: though he’s been too wild for me this long while.  There!  I said we should draw water.  But cheer up!  He died true to his character: drunk as a lord.  Poor lad!  I’m sorry, too.  One can’t help missing an old companion: though he had the worst tricks with him that ever man imagined, and has done me many a rascally turn.  He’s barely twenty-seven, it seems; that’s your own age: who would have thought you were born in one year?’
+I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton’s death: ancient associations lingered round my heart; I sat down in the porch and wept as for a blood relation, desiring Mr. Kenneth to get another servant to introduce him to the master.  I could not hinder myself from pondering on the question—‘Had he had fair play?’  Whatever I did, that idea would bother me: it was so tiresomely pertinacious that I resolved on requesting leave to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in the last duties to the dead.  Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless condition in which he lay; and I said my old master and foster-brother had a claim on my services as strong as his own.  Besides, I reminded him that the child Hareton was his wife’s nephew, and, in the absence of nearer kin, he ought to act as its guardian; and he ought to and must inquire how the property was left, and look over the concerns of his brother-in-law.  He was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he bid me speak to his lawyer; and at length permitted me to go.  His lawyer had been Earnshaw’s also: I called at the village, and asked him to accompany me.  He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone; affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar.
+‘His father died in debt,’ he said; ‘the whole property is mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor’s heart, that he may be inclined to deal leniently towards him.’
+When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything carried on decently; and Joseph, who appeared in sufficient distress, expressed satisfaction at my presence.  Mr. Heathcliff said he did not perceive that I was wanted; but I might stay and order the arrangements for the funeral, if I chose.
+‘Correctly,’ he remarked, ‘that fool’s body should be buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind.  I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately!  We broke in this morning, for we heard him sporting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle: flaying and scalping would not have wakened him.  I sent for Kenneth, and he came; but not till the beast had changed into carrion: he was both dead and cold, and stark; and so you’ll allow it was useless making more stir about him!’
+The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered:
+‘I’d rayther he’d goan hisseln for t’ doctor!  I sud ha’ taen tent o’ t’ maister better nor him—and he warn’t deead when I left, naught o’ t’ soart!’
+I insisted on the funeral being respectable.  Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way there too: only, he desired me to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket.  He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow: if anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed.  I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect: it was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house.  He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are mine!  And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!’  The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this speech: he played with Heathcliff’s whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, ‘That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir.  There is nothing in the world less yours than he is!’
+‘Does Linton say so?’ he demanded.
+‘Of course—he has ordered me to take him,’ I replied.
+‘Well,’ said the scoundrel, ‘we’ll not argue the subject now: but I have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one; so intimate to your master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt to remove it.  I don’t engage to let Hareton go undisputed; but I’ll be pretty sure to make the other come!  Remember to tell him.’
+This hint was enough to bind our hands.  I repeated its substance on my return; and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no more of interfering.  I’m not aware that he could have done it to any purpose, had he been ever so willing.
+The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights: he held firm possession, and proved to the attorney—who, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Linton—that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee.  In that manner Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father’s inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant, deprived of the advantage of wages: quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged.
+CHAPTER XVIII
+The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were the happiest of my life: my greatest troubles in their passage rose from our little lady’s trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in common with all children, rich and poor.  For the rest, after the first six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton’s dust.  She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house: a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws’ handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons’ fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair.  Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections.  That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble her: for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never fierce: it was deep and tender.  However, it must be acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts.  A propensity to be saucy was one; and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be good tempered or cross.  If a servant chanced to vex her, it was always—‘I shall tell papa!’  And if he reproved her, even by a look, you would have thought it a heart-breaking business: I don’t believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her.  He took her education entirely on himself, and made it an amusement.  Fortunately, curiosity and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar: she learned rapidly and eagerly, and did honour to his teaching.
+Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself.  Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one else.  Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel, the only building she had approached or entered, except her own home.  Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her: she was a perfect recluse; and, apparently, perfectly contented.  Sometimes, indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe—
+‘Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills?  I wonder what lies on the other side—is it the sea?’
+‘No, Miss Cathy,’ I would answer; ‘it is hills again, just like these.’
+‘And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?’ she once asked.
+The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice; especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow.  I explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree.
+‘And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?’ she pursued.
+‘Because they are a great deal higher up than we are,’ replied I; ‘you could not climb them, they are too high and steep.  In winter the frost is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have found snow under that black hollow on the north-east side!’
+‘Oh, you have been on them!’ she cried gleefully.  ‘Then I can go, too, when I am a woman.  Has papa been, Ellen?’
+‘Papa would tell you, Miss,’ I answered, hastily, ‘that they are not worth the trouble of visiting.  The moors, where you ramble with him, are much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world.’
+‘But I know the park, and I don’t know those,’ she murmured to herself.  ‘And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest point: my little pony Minny shall take me some time.’
+One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a desire to fulfil this project: she teased Mr. Linton about it; and he promised she should have the journey when she got older.  But Miss Catherine measured her age by months, and, ‘Now, am I old enough to go to Penistone Crags?’ was the constant question in her mouth.  The road thither wound close by Wuthering Heights.  Edgar had not the heart to pass it; so she received as constantly the answer, ‘Not yet, love: not yet.’
+I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her husband.  Her family were of a delicate constitution: she and Edgar both lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts.  What her last illness was, I am not certain: I conjecture, they died of the same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close.  She wrote to inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a four-months’ indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible; for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands.  Her hope was that Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her: his father, she would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or education.  My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her request: reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to answer this; commanding Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park, even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied.
+He was away three weeks.  The first day or two my charge sat in a corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing: in that quiet state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an interval of impatient, fretful weariness; and being too busy, and too old then, to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might entertain herself.  I used to send her on her travels round the grounds—now on foot, and now on a pony; indulging her with a patient audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned.
+The summer shone in full prime; and she took such a taste for this solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful tales.  I did not fear her breaking bounds; because the gates were generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone, if they had stood wide open.  Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced.  Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o’clock, and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan; and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts: a horse, and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers.  I got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her wide-brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come back early.  The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea.  One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned; but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction: I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself.  There was a labourer working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds.  I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady.
+‘I saw her at morn,’ he replied: ‘she would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight.’
+You may guess how I felt at hearing this news.  It struck me directly she must have started for Penistone Crags.  ‘What will become of her?’ I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the high-road.  I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect, far or near.  The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff’s place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them.  ‘And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them,’ I reflected, ‘and been killed, or broken some of her bones?’  My suspense was truly painful; and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear.  I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance.  A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered: she had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw.
+‘Ah,’ said she, ‘you are come a-seeking your little mistress!  Don’t be frightened.  She’s here safe: but I’m glad it isn’t the master.’
+‘He is not at home then, is he?’ I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm.
+‘No, no,’ she replied: ‘both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won’t return this hour or more.  Step in and rest you a bit.’
+I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother’s when a child.  Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton—now a great, strong lad of eighteen—who stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment: comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth.
+‘Very well, Miss!’ I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance.  ‘This is your last ride, till papa comes back.  I’ll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!’
+‘Aha, Ellen!’ she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side.  ‘I shall have a pretty story to tell to-night; and so you’ve found me out.  Have you ever been here in your life before?’
+‘Put that hat on, and home at once,’ said I.  ‘I’m dreadfully grieved at you, Miss Cathy: you’ve done extremely wrong!  It’s no use pouting and crying: that won’t repay the trouble I’ve had, scouring the country after you.  To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in; and you stealing off so!  It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith in you any more.’
+‘What have I done?’ sobbed she, instantly checked.  ‘Papa charged me nothing: he’ll not scold me, Ellen—he’s never cross, like you!’
+‘Come, come!’ I repeated.  ‘I’ll tie the riband.  Now, let us have no petulance.  Oh, for shame!  You thirteen years old, and such a baby!’
+This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and retreating to the chimney out of my reach.
+‘Nay,’ said the servant, ‘don’t be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean.  We made her stop: she’d fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be uneasy.  Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should: it’s a wild road over the hills.’
+Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too awkward to speak; though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion.
+‘How long am I to wait?’ I continued, disregarding the woman’s interference.  ‘It will be dark in ten minutes.  Where is the pony, Miss Cathy?  And where is Phoenix?  I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so please yourself.’
+‘The pony is in the yard,’ she replied, ‘and Phoenix is shut in there.  He’s bitten—and so is Charlie.  I was going to tell you all about it; but you are in a bad temper, and don’t deserve to hear.’
+I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue.  Hareton and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still; till I cried, in great irritation,—‘Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is you’d be glad enough to get out.’
+‘It’s your father’s, isn’t it?’ said she, turning to Hareton.
+‘Nay,’ he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully.
+He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his own.
+‘Whose then—your master’s?’ she asked.
+He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and turned away.
+‘Who is his master?’ continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me.  ‘He talked about “our house,” and “our folk.”  I thought he had been the owner’s son.  And he never said Miss: he should have done, shouldn’t he, if he’s a servant?’
+Hareton grew black as a thunder-cloud at this childish speech.  I silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for departure.
+‘Now, get my horse,’ she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stable-boys at the Grange.  ‘And you may come with me.  I want to see where the goblin-hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the fairishes, as you call them: but make haste!  What’s the matter?  Get my horse, I say.’
+‘I’ll see thee damned before I be thy servant!’ growled the lad.
+‘You’ll see me what!’ asked Catherine in surprise.
+‘Damned—thou saucy witch!’ he replied.
+‘There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company,’ I interposed.  ‘Nice words to be used to a young lady!  Pray don’t begin to dispute with him.  Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone.’
+‘But, Ellen,’ cried she, staring fixed in astonishment, ‘how dare he speak so to me?  Mustn’t he be made to do as I ask him?  You wicked creature, I shall tell papa what you said.—Now, then!’
+Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprang into her eyes with indignation.  ‘You bring the pony,’ she exclaimed, turning to the woman, ‘and let my dog free this moment!’
+‘Softly, Miss,’ answered she addressed; ‘you’ll lose nothing by being civil.  Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master’s son, he’s your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.’
+‘He my cousin!’ cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.
+‘Yes, indeed,’ responded her reprover.
+‘Oh, Ellen! don’t let them say such things,’ she pursued in great trouble.  ‘Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman’s son.  That my—’ she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.
+‘Hush, hush!’ I whispered; ‘people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn’t keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad.’
+‘He’s not—he’s not my cousin, Ellen!’ she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea.
+I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton’s approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine’s first thought on her father’s return would be to seek an explanation of the latter’s assertion concerning her rude-bred kindred.  Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought.  Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew.
+I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow; who was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game.  Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.  Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances.  Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill; thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that course of oppression: he had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to ill-treatment, in Heathcliff’s judgment.  He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice.  And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrow-minded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family.  And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their ‘offald ways,’ so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton’s faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property.  If the lad swore, he wouldn’t correct him: nor however culpably he behaved.  It gave Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths: he allowed that the lad was ruined: that his soul was abandoned to perdition; but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it.  Hareton’s blood would be required at his hands; and there lay immense consolation in that thought.  Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations.  I don’t pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little.  The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was near, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley’s time were not now enacted within its walls.  The master was too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is yet.
+This, however, is not making progress with my story.  Miss Cathy rejected the peace-offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and Phoenix.  They came limping and hanging their heads; and we set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us.  I could not wring from my little lady how she had spent the day; except that, as I supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags; and she arrived without adventure to the gate of the farm-house, when Hareton happened to issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train.  They had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them: that formed an introduction.  Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was going; and asked him to show her the way: finally, beguiling him to accompany her.  He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty other queer places.  But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw.  I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant; and Heathcliff’s housekeeper hurt hers by calling him her cousin.  Then the language he had held to her rankled in her heart; she who was always ‘love,’ and ‘darling,’ and ‘queen,’ and ‘angel,’ with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a stranger!  She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father.  I explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn’t bear that prospect: she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake.  After all, she was a sweet little girl.
+CHAPTER XIX
+A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master’s return. Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter, and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew.  Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back; and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of her ‘real’ cousin.  The evening of their expected arrival came.  Since early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now attired in her new black frock—poor thing! her aunt’s death impressed her with no definite sorrow—she obliged me, by constant worrying, to walk with her down through the grounds to meet them.
+‘Linton is just six months younger than I am,’ she chattered, as we strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under shadow of the trees.  ‘How delightful it will be to have him for a playfellow!  Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was lighter than mine—more flaxen, and quite as fine.  I have it carefully preserved in a little glass box; and I’ve often thought what a pleasure it would be to see its owner.  Oh! I am happy—and papa, dear, dear papa!  Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run.’
+She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was impossible: she couldn’t be still a minute.
+‘How long they are!’ she exclaimed.  ‘Ah, I see, some dust on the road—they are coming!  No!  When will they be here?  May we not go a little way—half a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile?  Do say Yes: to that clump of birches at the turn!’
+I refused staunchly.  At length her suspense was ended: the travelling carriage rolled in sight.  Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms as soon as she caught her father’s face looking from the window.  He descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves.  While they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton.  He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been winter.  A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master’s younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had.  The latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to close the door, and leave him undisturbed; for the journey had fatigued him.  Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the servants.
+‘Now, darling,’ said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted at the bottom of the front steps: ‘your cousin is not so strong or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time since; therefore, don’t expect him to play and run about with you directly.  And don’t harass him much by talking: let him be quiet this evening, at least, will you?’
+‘Yes, yes, papa,’ answered Catherine: ‘but I do want to see him; and he hasn’t once looked out.’
+The carriage stopped; and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the ground by his uncle.
+‘This is your cousin Cathy, Linton,’ he said, putting their little hands together.  ‘She’s fond of you already; and mind you don’t grieve her by crying to-night.  Try to be cheerful now; the travelling is at an end, and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you please.’
+‘Let me go to bed, then,’ answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine’s salute; and he put his fingers to remove incipient tears.
+‘Come, come, there’s a good child,’ I whispered, leading him in.  ‘You’ll make her weep too—see how sorry she is for you!’
+I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on as sad a countenance as himself, and returned to her father.  All three entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready.  I proceeded to remove Linton’s cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table; but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh.  My master inquired what was the matter.
+‘I can’t sit on a chair,’ sobbed the boy.
+‘Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea,’ answered his uncle patiently.
+He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his fretful ailing charge.  Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down.  Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side.  At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby.  This pleased him, for he was not much better: he dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile.
+‘Oh, he’ll do very well,’ said the master to me, after watching them a minute.  ‘Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen.  The company of a child of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by wishing for strength he’ll gain it.’
+‘Ay, if we can keep him!’ I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that.  And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights?  Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they’ll be.  Our doubts were presently decided—even earlier than I expected.  I had just taken the children up-stairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep—he would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case—I had come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that Mr. Heathcliff’s servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with the master.
+‘I shall ask him what he wants first,’ I said, in considerable trepidation.  ‘A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the instant they have returned from a long journey.  I don’t think the master can see him.’
+Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now presented himself in the hall.  He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat.
+‘Good-evening, Joseph,’ I said, coldly.  ‘What business brings you here to-night?’
+‘It’s Maister Linton I mun spake to,’ he answered, waving me disdainfully aside.
+‘Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular to say, I’m sure he won’t hear it now,’ I continued.  ‘You had better sit down in there, and entrust your message to me.’
+‘Which is his rahm?’ pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed doors.
+I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day.  Mr. Linton had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition—
+‘Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn’t goa back ‘bout him.’
+Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow overcast his features: he would have pitied the child on his own account; but, recalling Isabella’s hopes and fears, and anxious wishes for her son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved bitterly at the prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart how it might be avoided.  No plan offered itself: the very exhibition of any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory: there was nothing left but to resign him.  However, he was not going to rouse him from his sleep.
+‘Tell Mr. Heathcliff,’ he answered calmly, ‘that his son shall come to Wuthering Heights to-morrow.  He is in bed, and too tired to go the distance now.  You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is very precarious.’
+‘Noa!’ said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air.  ‘Noa! that means naught.  Hathecliff maks noa ‘count o’ t’ mother, nor ye norther; but he’ll heu’ his lad; und I mun tak’ him—soa now ye knaw!’
+‘You shall not to-night!’ answered Linton decisively.  ‘Walk down stairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have said.  Ellen, show him down.  Go—’
+And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room of him and closed the door.
+‘Varrah weell!’ shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off.  ‘To-morn, he’s come hisseln, and thrust him out, if ye darr!’
+CHAPTER XX
+To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine’s pony; and, said he—‘As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or bad, you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter: she cannot associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in ignorance of his proximity; lest she should be restless, and anxious to visit the Heights.  Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and he has been obliged to leave us.’
+Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o’clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling; but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late journey.
+‘My father!’ he cried, in strange perplexity.  ‘Mamma never told me I had a father.  Where does he live?  I’d rather stay with uncle.’
+‘He lives a little distance from the Grange,’ I replied; ‘just beyond those hills: not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty.  And you should be glad to go home, and to see him.  You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you.’
+‘But why have I not heard of him before?’ asked Linton.  ‘Why didn’t mamma and he live together, as other people do?’
+‘He had business to keep him in the north,’ I answered, ‘and your mother’s health required her to reside in the south.’
+‘And why didn’t mamma speak to me about him?’ persevered the child.  ‘She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago.  How am I to love papa?  I don’t know him.’
+‘Oh, all children love their parents,’ I said.  ‘Your mother, perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you.  Let us make haste.  An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much preferable to an hour’s more sleep.’
+‘Is she to go with us,’ he demanded, ‘the little girl I saw yesterday?’
+‘Not now,’ replied I.
+‘Is uncle?’ he continued.
+‘No, I shall be your companion there,’ I said.
+Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study.
+‘I won’t go without uncle,’ he cried at length: ‘I can’t tell where you mean to take me.’
+I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to meet his father; still he obstinately resisted any progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master’s assistance in coaxing him out of bed.  The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive assurances that his absence should be short: that Mr. Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally ill-founded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way.  The pure heather-scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny, relieved his despondency after a while.  He began to put questions concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and liveliness.
+‘Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?’ he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue.
+‘It is not so buried in trees,’ I replied, ‘and it is not quite so large, but you can see the country beautifully all round; and the air is healthier for you—fresher and drier.  You will, perhaps, think the building old and dark at first; though it is a respectable house: the next best in the neighbourhood.  And you will have such nice rambles on the moors.  Hareton Earnshaw—that is, Miss Cathy’s other cousin, and so yours in a manner—will show you all the sweetest spots; and you can bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study; and, now and then, your uncle may join you in a walk: he does, frequently, walk out on the hills.’
+‘And what is my father like?’ he asked.  ‘Is he as young and handsome as uncle?’
+‘He’s as young,’ said I; ‘but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether.  He’ll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he’ll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own.’
+‘Black hair and eyes!’ mused Linton.  ‘I can’t fancy him.  Then I am not like him, am I?’
+‘Not much,’ I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyes—his mother’s eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit.
+‘How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me!’ he murmured.  ‘Has he ever seen me?  If he has, I must have been a baby.  I remember not a single thing about him!’
+‘Why, Master Linton,’ said I, ‘three hundred miles is a great distance; and ten years seem very different in length to a grown-up person compared with what they do to you.  It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity; and now it is too late.  Don’t trouble him with questions on the subject: it will disturb him, for no good.’
+The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden-gate.  I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance.  He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode.  But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within.  Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door.  It was half-past six; the family had just finished breakfast: the servant was clearing and wiping down the table.  Joseph stood by his master’s chair telling some tale concerning a lame horse; and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield.
+‘Hallo, Nelly!’ said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me.  ‘I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself.  You’ve brought it, have you?  Let us see what we can make of it.’
+He got up and strode to the door: Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping curiosity.  Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three.
+‘Sure-ly,’ said Joseph after a grave inspection, ‘he’s swopped wi’ ye, Maister, an’ yon’s his lass!’
+Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh.
+‘God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Hav’n’t they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly?  Oh, damn my soul! but that’s worse than I expected—and the devil knows I was not sanguine!’
+I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter.  He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father’s speech, or whether it were intended for him: indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father.  But he clung to me with growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff’s taking a seat and bidding him ‘come hither’ he hid his face on my shoulder and wept.
+‘Tut, tut!’ said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin.  ‘None of that nonsense!  We’re not going to hurt thee, Linton—isn’t that thy name?  Thou art thy mother’s child, entirely!  Where is my share in thee, puling chicken?’
+He took off the boy’s cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector.
+‘Do you know me?’ asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble.
+‘No,’ said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear.
+‘You’ve heard of me, I daresay?’
+‘No,’ he replied again.
+‘No!  What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me!  You are my son, then, I’ll tell you; and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed.  Now, don’t wince, and colour up!  Though it is something to see you have not white blood.  Be a good lad; and I’ll do for you.  Nelly, if you be tired you may sit down; if not, get home again.  I guess you’ll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and this thing won’t be settled while you linger about it.’
+‘Well,’ replied I, ‘I hope you’ll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or you’ll not keep him long; and he’s all you have akin in the wide world, that you will ever know—remember.’
+‘I’ll be very kind to him, you needn’t fear,’ he said, laughing.  ‘Only nobody else must be kind to him: I’m jealous of monopolising his affection.  And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some breakfast.  Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work.  Yes, Nell,’ he added, when they had departed, ‘my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his successor.  Besides, he’s mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children to till their fathers’ lands for wages.  That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives!  But that consideration is sufficient: he’s as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master tends his own.  I have a room up-stairs, furnished for him in handsome style; I’ve engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from twenty miles’ distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn.  I’ve ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I’ve arranged everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his associates.  I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride; and I’m bitterly disappointed with the whey-faced, whining wretch!’
+While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milk-porridge, and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it.  I saw the old man-servant shared largely in his master’s scorn of the child; though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour.
+‘Cannot ate it?’ repeated he, peering in Linton’s face, and subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard.  ‘But Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little ’un; and what wer gooid enough for him’s gooid enough for ye, I’s rayther think!’
+‘I sha’n’t eat it!’ answered Linton, snappishly.  ‘Take it away.’
+Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.
+‘Is there aught ails th’ victuals?’ he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff’s nose.
+‘What should ail them?’ he said.
+‘Wah!’ answered Joseph, ‘yon dainty chap says he cannut ate ’em.  But I guess it’s raight!  His mother wer just soa—we wer a’most too mucky to sow t’ corn for makking her breead.’
+‘Don’t mention his mother to me,’ said the master, angrily.  ‘Get him something that he can eat, that’s all.  What is his usual food, Nelly?’
+I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received instructions to prepare some.  Come, I reflected, his father’s selfishness may contribute to his comfort.  He perceives his delicate constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably.  I’ll console Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff’s humour has taken.  Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheep-dog.  But he was too much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words—
+‘Don’t leave me!  I’ll not stay here!  I’ll not stay here!’
+Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come forth.  I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief guardianship ended.
+CHAPTER XXI
+We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however, ‘if I can get him’; and there were no hopes of that.  This promise poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him.
+When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was never to be seen.  I could gather from her that he continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate.  She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together.  There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour: or else lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort.
+‘And I never know such a fainthearted creature,’ added the woman; ‘nor one so careful of hisseln.  He will go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening.  Oh! it’s killing, a breath of night air!  And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph’s bacca-pipe is poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk, milk for ever—heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter; and there he’ll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him—Hareton is not bad-natured, though he’s rough—they’re sure to part, one swearing and the other crying.  I believe the master would relish Earnshaw’s thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son; and I’m certain he would be fit to turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln.  But then he won’t go into danger of temptation: he never enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him up-stairs directly.’
+I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us.  Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village?  She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards.  That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor; she lives there still.
+Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy reached sixteen.  On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late mistress’s death.  Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight.  Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement.  This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.
+‘So make haste, Ellen!’ she cried.  ‘I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made their nests yet.’
+‘That must be a good distance up,’ I answered; ‘they don’t breed on the edge of the moor.’
+‘No, it’s not,’ she said.  ‘I’ve gone very near with papa.’
+I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter.  She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure.  She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days.  It’s a pity she could not be content.
+‘Well,’ said I, ‘where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy?  We should be at them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.’
+‘Oh, a little further—only a little further, Ellen,’ was her answer, continually.  ‘Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.’
+But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps.  I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow.  Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.
+Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse.  The Heights were Heathcliff’s land, and he was reproving the poacher.
+‘I’ve neither taken any nor found any,’ she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement.  ‘I didn’t mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs.’
+Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who ‘papa’ was?
+‘Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,’ she replied.  ‘I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn’t have spoken in that way.’
+‘You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?’ he said, sarcastically.
+‘And what are you?’ inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker.  ‘That man I’ve seen before.  Is he your son?’
+She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.
+‘Miss Cathy,’ I interrupted, ‘it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently.  We really must go back.’
+‘No, that man is not my son,’ answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside.  ‘But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest.  Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house?  You’ll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome.’
+I whispered Catherine that she mustn’t, on any account, accede to the proposal: it was entirely out of the question.
+‘Why?’ she asked, aloud.  ‘I’m tired of running, and the ground is dewy: I can’t sit here.  Let us go, Ellen.  Besides, he says I have seen his son.  He’s mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags.  Don’t you?’
+‘I do.  Come, Nelly, hold your tongue—it will be a treat for her to look in on us.  Hareton, get forwards with the lass.  You shall walk with me, Nelly.’
+‘No, she’s not going to any such place,’ I cried, struggling to release my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the door-stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed.  Her appointed companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by the road-side, and vanished.
+‘Mr. Heathcliff, it’s very wrong,’ I continued: ‘you know you mean no good.  And there she’ll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever we return; and I shall have the blame.’
+‘I want her to see Linton,’ he answered; ‘he’s looking better these few days; it’s not often he’s fit to be seen.  And we’ll soon persuade her to keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?’
+‘The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I suffered her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad design in encouraging her to do so,’ I replied.
+‘My design is as honest as possible.  I’ll inform you of its whole scope,’ he said.  ‘That the two cousins may fall in love, and get married.  I’m acting generously to your master: his young chit has no expectations, and should she second my wishes she’ll be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton.’
+‘If Linton died,’ I answered, ‘and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine would be the heir.’
+‘No, she would not,’ he said.  ‘There is no clause in the will to secure it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about.’
+‘And I’m resolved she shall never approach your house with me again,’ I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming.
+Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path, hastened to open the door.  My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury.  Linton stood on the hearth.  He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes.  He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen.  His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.
+‘Now, who is that?’ asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy.  ‘Can you tell?’
+‘Your son?’ she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the other.
+‘Yes, yes,’ answered he: ‘but is this the only time you have beheld him?  Think!  Ah! you have a short memory.  Linton, don’t you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?’
+‘What, Linton!’ cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name.  ‘Is that little Linton?  He’s taller than I am!  Are you Linton?’
+The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in the appearance of each.  Catherine had reached her full height; her figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole aspect sparkling with health and spirits.  Linton’s looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing.  After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone.
+‘And you are my uncle, then!’ she cried, reaching up to salute him.  ‘I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first.  Why don’t you visit at the Grange with Linton?  To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?’
+‘I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,’ he answered.  ‘There—damn it!  If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton: they are thrown away on me.’
+‘Naughty Ellen!’ exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses.  ‘Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering.  But I’ll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa.  Won’t you be glad to see us?’
+‘Of course,’ replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors.  ‘But stay,’ he continued, turning towards the young lady.  ‘Now I think of it, I’d better tell you.  Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he’ll put a veto on your visits altogether.  Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it.’
+‘Why did you quarrel?’ asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.
+‘He thought me too poor to wed his sister,’ answered Heathcliff, ‘and was grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he’ll never forgive it.’
+‘That’s wrong!’ said the young lady: ‘some time I’ll tell him so.  But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel.  I’ll not come here, then; he shall come to the Grange.’
+‘It will be too far for me,’ murmured her cousin: ‘to walk four miles would kill me.  No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every morning, but once or twice a week.’
+The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.
+‘I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,’ he muttered to me.  ‘Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil.  Now, if it had been Hareton!—Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation?  I’d have loved the lad had he been some one else.  But I think he’s safe from her love.  I’ll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly.  We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen.  Oh, confound the vapid thing!  He’s absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.—Linton!’
+‘Yes, father,’ answered the boy.
+‘Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel’s nest?  Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.’
+‘Wouldn’t you rather sit here?’ asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again.
+‘I don’t know,’ she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active.
+He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire.  Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton.  Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered.  The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair.
+‘Oh, I’ll ask you, uncle,’ cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper’s assertion.  ‘That is not my cousin, is he?’
+‘Yes,’ he, replied, ‘your mother’s nephew.  Don’t you like him!’
+Catherine looked queer.
+‘Is he not a handsome lad?’ he continued.
+The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff’s ear.  He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority.  But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming—
+‘You’ll be the favourite among us, Hareton!  She says you are a—What was it?  Well, something very flattering.  Here! you go with her round the farm.  And behave like a gentleman, mind!  Don’t use any bad words; and don’t stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets.  Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can.’
+He watched the couple walking past the window.  Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion.  He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger’s and an artist’s interest.  Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration.  She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation.
+‘I’ve tied his tongue,’ observed Heathcliff.  ‘He’ll not venture a single syllable all the time!  Nelly, you recollect me at his age—nay, some years younger.  Did I ever look so stupid: so “gaumless,” as Joseph calls it?’
+‘Worse,’ I replied, ‘because more sullen with it.’
+‘I’ve a pleasure in him,’ he continued, reflecting aloud.  ‘He has satisfied my expectations.  If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much.  But he’s no fool; and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself.  I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though.  And he’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance.  I’ve got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness.  I’ve taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak.  Don’t you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine.  But there’s this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver.  Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go.  His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing.  I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware of.  And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me!  You’ll own that I’ve outmatched Hindley there.  If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring’s wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!’
+Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea.  I made no reply, because I saw that he expected none.  Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine’s society for fear of a little fatigue.  His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap.
+‘Get up, you idle boy!’ he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness.
+‘Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives.’
+Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth.  The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown.
+‘It’s some damnable writing,’ he answered.  ‘I cannot read it.’
+‘Can’t read it?’ cried Catherine; ‘I can read it: it’s English.  But I want to know why it is there.’
+Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited.
+‘He does not know his letters,’ he said to his cousin.  ‘Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?’
+‘Is he all as he should be?’ asked Miss Cathy, seriously; ‘or is he simple: not right?  I’ve questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me.  I can hardly understand him, I’m sure!’
+Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly; who certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.
+‘There’s nothing the matter but laziness; is there, Earnshaw?’ he said.  ‘My cousin fancies you are an idiot.  There you experience the consequence of scorning “book-larning,” as you would say.  Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?’
+‘Why, where the devil is the use on’t?’ growled Hareton, more ready in answering his daily companion.  He was about to enlarge further, but the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment: my giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of amusement.
+‘Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?’ tittered Linton.  ‘Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can’t open your mouth without one.  Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!’
+‘If thou weren’t more a lass than a lad, I’d fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!’ retorted the angry boor, retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification! for he was conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it.
+Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door-way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton’s faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill-nature they evinced.  I began to dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap.
+We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner; but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of our prolonged absence.  As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted: but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them.
+‘Aha!’ she cried, ‘you take papa’s side, Ellen: you are partial I know; or else you wouldn’t have cheated me so many years into the notion that Linton lived a long way from here.  I’m really extremely angry; only I’m so pleased I can’t show it!  But you must hold your tongue about my uncle; he’s my uncle, remember; and I’ll scold papa for quarrelling with him.’
+And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of her mistake.  She did not mention the visit that night, because she did not see Mr. Linton.  Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin; and still I was not altogether sorry: I thought the burden of directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me.  But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will.
+‘Papa!’ she exclaimed, after the morning’s salutations, ‘guess whom I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors.  Ah, papa, you started! you’ve not done right, have you, now?  I saw—but listen, and you shall hear how I found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about Linton’s coming back!’
+She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences; and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded.  Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton’s near neighbourhood from her?  Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy?
+‘It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff,’ she answered.
+‘Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy?’ he said.  ‘No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity.  I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my account; so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again.  I meant to explain this some time as you grew older, and I’m sorry I delayed it.’
+‘But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa,’ observed Catherine, not at all convinced; ‘and he didn’t object to our seeing each other: he said I might come to his house when I pleased; only I must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella.  And you won’t.  You are the one to be blamed: he is willing to let us be friends, at least; Linton and I; and you are not.’
+My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her uncle-in-law’s evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property.  He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton’s death.  ‘She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him!’ was his constant bitter reflection; and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer.  Miss Cathy—conversant with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed—was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse.  She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view of human nature—excluded from all her studies and all her ideas till now—that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject.  He merely added: ‘You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and family; now return to your old employments and amusements, and think no more about them.’
+Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside.
+‘Oh, fie, silly child!’ I exclaimed.  ‘If you had any real griefs you’d be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety.  You never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine.  Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world: how would you feel, then?  Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more.’
+‘I’m not crying for myself, Ellen,’ she answered, ‘it’s for him.  He expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he’ll be so disappointed: and he’ll wait for me, and I sha’n’t come!’
+‘Nonsense!’ said I, ‘do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him?  Hasn’t he Hareton for a companion?  Not one in a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two afternoons.  Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no further about you.’
+‘But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?’ she asked, rising to her feet.  ‘And just send those books I promised to lend him?  His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were.  May I not, Ellen?’
+‘No, indeed! no, indeed!’ replied I with decision.  ‘Then he would write to you, and there’d never be an end of it.  No, Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see that it is done.’
+‘But how can one little note—?’ she recommenced, putting on an imploring countenance.
+‘Silence!’ I interrupted.  ‘We’ll not begin with your little notes.  Get into bed.’
+She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my entrance.
+‘You’ll get nobody to take that, Catherine,’ I said, ‘if you write it; and at present I shall put out your candle.’
+I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my hand and a petulant ‘cross thing!’  I then quitted her again, and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours.  The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came from the village; but that I didn’t learn till some time afterwards.  Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves.  She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it.
+One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of folded paper.  My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock.  Having opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber.  Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence—daily almost, it must have been—from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by her.  The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love-letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source.  Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart.  Whether they satisfied Cathy I don’t know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me.  After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.
+Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out.  I went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy’s affectionate composition.  It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin’s: very pretty and very silly.  I shook my head, and went meditating into the house.  The day being wet, she could not divert herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer.  Her father sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings.  Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single ‘Oh!’ and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance.  Mr. Linton looked up.
+‘What is the matter, love?  Have you hurt yourself?’ he said.
+His tone and look assured her he had not been the discoverer of the hoard.
+‘No, papa!’ she gasped.  ‘Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs—I’m sick!’
+I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.
+‘Oh, Ellen! you have got them,’ she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were enclosed alone.  ‘Oh, give them to me, and I’ll never, never do so again!  Don’t tell papa.  You have not told papa, Ellen? say you have not?  I’ve been exceedingly naughty, but I won’t do it any more!’
+With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.
+‘So,’ I exclaimed, ‘Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems: you may well be ashamed of them!  A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it’s good enough to be printed!  And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him?  I hav’n’t shown it yet, but you needn’t imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets.  For shame! and you must have led the way in writing such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I’m certain.’
+‘I didn’t!  I didn’t!’ sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart.  ‘I didn’t once think of loving him till—’
+‘Loving!’ cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word.  ‘Loving!  Did anybody ever hear the like!  I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn.  Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life!  Now here is the babyish trash.  I’m going with it to the library; and we’ll see what your father says to such loving.’
+She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them—do anything rather than show them.  And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scold—for I esteemed it all girlish vanity—I at length relented in a measure, and asked,—‘If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?’
+‘We don’t send playthings,’ cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame.
+‘Nor anything at all, then, my lady?’ I said.  ‘Unless you will, here I go.’
+‘I promise, Ellen!’ she cried, catching my dress.  ‘Oh, put them in the fire, do, do!’
+But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne.  She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two.
+‘One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton’s sake!’
+I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney.
+‘I will have one, you cruel wretch!’ she screamed, darting her hand into the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the expense of her fingers.
+‘Very well—and I will have some to exhibit to papa!’  I answered, shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door.
+She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to finish the immolation.  It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment.  I descended to tell my master that the young lady’s qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while.  She wouldn’t dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect.  Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, ‘Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them.’  And, henceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets.
+CHAPTER XXII
+Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared.  Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.
+Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise.  She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his.
+On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November—a fresh watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds—dark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain—I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers.  She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited—and that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance.  She went sadly on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race.  And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek.  I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts.  On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal.  In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending.  From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs—my nursery lore—to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.
+‘Look, Miss!’ I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree.  ‘Winter is not here yet.  There’s a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist.  Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?’  Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length—‘No, I’ll not touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?’
+‘Yes,’ I observed, ‘about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run.  You’re so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you.’
+‘No,’ she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.
+‘Catherine, why are you crying, love?’ I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder.  ‘You mustn’t cry because papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.’
+She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs.
+‘Oh, it will be something worse,’ she said.  ‘And what shall I do when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself?  I can’t forget your words, Ellen; they are always in my ear.  How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead.’
+‘None can tell whether you won’t die before us,’ I replied.  ‘It’s wrong to anticipate evil.  We’ll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five.  My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last.  And suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you have counted, Miss.  And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?’
+‘But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,’ she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation.
+‘Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,’ I replied.  ‘She wasn’t as happy as Master: she hadn’t as much to live for.  All you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy!  I’ll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make.’
+‘I fret about nothing on earth except papa’s illness,’ answered my companion.  ‘I care for nothing in comparison with papa.  And I’ll never—never—oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him.  I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by this: I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him better than myself.’
+‘Good words,’ I replied.  ‘But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don’t forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.’
+As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy’s present station.  In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it.  I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared.  But the return was no such easy matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes and black-berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending.  I, like a fool, didn’t recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming—‘Ellen! you’ll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter’s lodge.  I can’t scale the ramparts on this side!’
+‘Stay where you are,’ I answered; ‘I have my bundle of keys in my pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I’ll go.’
+Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I tried all the large keys in succession.  I had applied the last, and found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching sound arrested me.  It was the trot of a horse; Cathy’s dance stopped also.
+‘Who is that?’ I whispered.
+‘Ellen, I wish you could open the door,’ whispered back my companion, anxiously.
+‘Ho, Miss Linton!’ cried a deep voice (the rider’s), ‘I’m glad to meet you.  Don’t be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain.’
+‘I sha’n’t speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,’ answered Catherine.  ‘Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the same.’
+‘That is nothing to the purpose,’ said Heathcliff.  (He it was.)  ‘I don’t hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your attention.  Yes; you have cause to blush.  Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh?  You deserved, both of you, flogging for that!  You especially, the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns out.  I’ve got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I’ll send them to your father.  I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn’t you?  Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond.  He was in earnest: in love, really.  As true as I live, he’s dying for you; breaking his heart at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually.  Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily; and he’ll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!’
+‘How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?’ I called from the inside.  ‘Pray ride on!  How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods?  Miss Cathy, I’ll knock the lock off with a stone: you won’t believe that vile nonsense.  You can feel in yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger.’
+‘I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,’ muttered the detected villain.  ‘Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don’t like your double-dealing,’ he added aloud.  ‘How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the “poor child”? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones?  Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not spoken truth: do, there’s a darling!  Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him; and don’t, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error.  I swear, on my salvation, he’s going to his grave, and none but you can save him!’
+The lock gave way and I issued out.
+‘I swear Linton is dying,’ repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me.  ‘And grief and disappointment are hastening his death.  Nelly, if you won’t let her go, you can walk over yourself.  But I shall not return till this time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin.’
+‘Come in,’ said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.
+He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed—‘Miss Catherine, I’ll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less.  I’ll own that he’s with a harsh set.  He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best medicine.  Don’t mind Mrs. Dean’s cruel cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him.  He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don’t hate him, since you neither write nor call.’
+I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay.  Our hurry prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined instinctively that Catherine’s heart was clouded now in double darkness.  Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true.
+The master had retired to rest before we came in.  Cathy stole to his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep.  She returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library.  We took our tea together; and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was weary.  I got a book, and pretended to read.  As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it appeared, at present, her favourite diversion.  I suffered her to enjoy it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff’s assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide.  Alas!  I hadn’t skill to counteract the effect his account had produced: it was just what he intended.
+‘You may be right, Ellen,’ she answered; ‘but I shall never feel at ease till I know.  And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don’t write, and convince him that I shall not change.’
+What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity?  We parted that night—hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress’s pony.  I couldn’t bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was founded on fact.
+CHAPTER XXIII
+The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning—half frost, half drizzle—and temporary brooks crossed our path—gurgling from the uplands.  My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things.  We entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own affirmation.
+Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth.  Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself.  I asked if the master was in?  My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder.
+‘Na—ay!’ he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose.  ‘Na—ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough.’
+‘Joseph!’ cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner room.  ‘How often am I to call you?  There are only a few red ashes now.  Joseph! come this moment.’
+Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no ear for this appeal.  The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably.  We knew Linton’s tones, and entered.
+‘Oh, I hope you’ll die in a garret, starved to death!’ said the boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.
+He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.
+‘Is that you, Miss Linton?’ he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined.  ‘No—don’t kiss me: it takes my breath.  Dear me!  Papa said you would call,’ continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine’s embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite.  ‘Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those—those detestable creatures won’t bring coals to the fire.  It’s so cold!’
+I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself.  The invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.
+‘Well, Linton,’ murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, ‘are you glad to see me?  Can I do you any good?’
+‘Why didn’t you come before?’ he asked.  ‘You should have come, instead of writing.  It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters.  I’d far rather have talked to you.  Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else.  I wonder where Zillah is!  Will you’ (looking at me) ‘step into the kitchen and see?’
+I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied—‘Nobody is out there but Joseph.’
+‘I want to drink,’ he exclaimed fretfully, turning away.  ‘Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it’s miserable!  And I’m obliged to come down here—they resolved never to hear me up-stairs.’
+‘Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?’ I asked, perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.
+‘Attentive?  He makes them a little more attentive at least,’ he cried.  ‘The wretches!  Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me!  I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.’
+Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it.  He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.
+‘And are you glad to see me?’ asked she, reiterating her former question and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.
+‘Yes, I am.  It’s something new to hear a voice like yours!’ he replied.  ‘But I have been vexed, because you wouldn’t come.  And papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time.  But you don’t despise me, do you, Miss—?’
+‘I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,’ interrupted my young lady.  ‘Despise you?  No!  Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living.  I don’t love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?’
+‘Not many,’ answered Linton; ‘but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence.  Do say you will.  I think I should not be peevish with you: you’d not provoke me, and you’d always be ready to help me, wouldn’t you?’
+‘Yes,’ said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: ‘if I could only get papa’s consent, I’d spend half my time with you.  Pretty Linton!  I wish you were my brother.’
+‘And then you would like me as well as your father?’ observed he, more cheerfully.  ‘But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife; so I’d rather you were that.’
+‘No, I should never love anybody better than papa,’ she returned gravely.  ‘And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me.’
+Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father’s aversion to her aunt.  I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue.  I couldn’t succeed till everything she knew was out.  Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false.
+‘Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,’ she answered pertly.
+‘My papa scorns yours!’ cried Linton.  ‘He calls him a sneaking fool.’
+‘Yours is a wicked man,’ retorted Catherine; ‘and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says.  He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did.’
+‘She didn’t leave him,’ said the boy; ‘you sha’n’t contradict me.’
+‘She did,’ cried my young lady.
+‘Well, I’ll tell you something!’ said Linton.  ‘Your mother hated your father: now then.’
+‘Oh!’ exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.
+‘And she loved mine,’ added he.
+‘You little liar!  I hate you now!’ she panted, and her face grew red with passion.
+‘She did! she did!’ sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant, who stood behind.
+‘Hush, Master Heathcliff!’ I said; ‘that’s your father’s tale, too, I suppose.’
+‘It isn’t: you hold your tongue!’ he answered.  ‘She did, she did, Catherine! she did, she did!’
+Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against one arm.  He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph.  It lasted so long that it frightened even me.  As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had done: though she said nothing.  I held him till the fit exhausted itself.  Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently.  Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire.
+‘How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?’ I inquired, after waiting ten minutes.
+‘I wish she felt as I do,’ he replied: ‘spiteful, cruel thing!  Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life.  And I was better to-day: and there—’ his voice died in a whimper.
+‘I didn’t strike you!’ muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent another burst of emotion.
+He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice.
+‘I’m sorry I hurt you, Linton,’ she said at length, racked beyond endurance.  ‘But I couldn’t have been hurt by that little push, and I had no idea that you could, either: you’re not much, are you, Linton?  Don’t let me go home thinking I’ve done you harm.  Answer! speak to me.’
+‘I can’t speak to you,’ he murmured; ‘you’ve hurt me so that I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough.  If you had it you’d know what it was; but you’ll be comfortably asleep while I’m in agony, and nobody near me.  I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights!’  And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.
+‘Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,’ I said, ‘it won’t be Miss who spoils your ease: you’d be the same had she never come.  However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you’ll get quieter when we leave you.’
+‘Must I go?’ asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him.  ‘Do you want me to go, Linton?’
+‘You can’t alter what you’ve done,’ he replied pettishly, shrinking from her, ‘unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever.’
+‘Well, then, I must go?’ she repeated.
+‘Let me alone, at least,’ said he; ‘I can’t bear your talking.’
+She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed.  We were recalled by a scream.  Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can.  I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him.  Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.
+‘I shall lift him on to the settle,’ I said, ‘and he may roll about as he pleases: we can’t stop to watch him.  I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you.  Now, then, there he is!  Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he’ll be glad to lie still.’
+She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood.  She tried to put it more comfortably.
+‘I can’t do with that,’ he said; ‘it’s not high enough.’
+Catherine brought another to lay above it.
+‘That’s too high,’ murmured the provoking thing.
+‘How must I arrange it, then?’ she asked despairingly.
+He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support.
+‘No, that won’t do,’ I said.  ‘You’ll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff.  Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot remain five minutes longer.’
+‘Yes, yes, we can!’ replied Cathy.  ‘He’s good and patient now.  He’s beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come again.  Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn’t come, if I have hurt you.’
+‘You must come, to cure me,’ he answered.  ‘You ought to come, because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely!  I was not as ill when you entered as I am at present—was I?’
+‘But you’ve made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.—I didn’t do it all,’ said his cousin.  ‘However, we’ll be friends now.  And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?’
+‘I told you I did,’ he replied impatiently.  ‘Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee.  That’s as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together.  Sit quite still and don’t talk: but you may sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad—one of those you promised to teach me; or a story.  I’d rather have a ballad, though: begin.’
+Catherine repeated the longest she could remember.  The employment pleased both mightily.  Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner.
+‘And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?’ asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.
+‘No,’ I answered, ‘nor next day neither.’  She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear.
+‘You won’t go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!’ I commenced, when we were out of the house.  ‘You are not dreaming of it, are you?’
+She smiled.
+‘Oh, I’ll take good care,’ I continued: ‘I’ll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else.’
+‘I can get over the wall,’ she said laughing.  ‘The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler.  And besides, I’m almost seventeen: I’m a woman.  And I’m certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him.  I’m older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not?  And he’ll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing.  He’s a pretty little darling when he’s good.  I’d make such a pet of him, if he were mine.  We should never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other?  Don’t you like him, Ellen?’
+‘Like him!’ I exclaimed.  ‘The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens.  Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he’ll not win twenty.  I doubt whether he’ll see spring, indeed.  And small loss to his family whenever he drops off.  And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he’d be.  I’m glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.’
+My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech.  To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.
+‘He’s younger than I,’ she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, ‘and he ought to live the longest: he will—he must live as long as I do.  He’s as strong now as when he first came into the north; I’m positive of that.  It’s only a cold that ails him, the same as papa has.  You say papa will get better, and why shouldn’t he?’
+‘Well, well,’ I cried, ‘after all, we needn’t trouble ourselves; for listen, Miss,—and mind, I’ll keep my word,—if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived.’
+‘It has been revived,’ muttered Cathy, sulkily.
+‘Must not be continued, then,’ I said.
+‘We’ll see,’ was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear.
+We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence.  As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the mischief.  On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since.
+My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low.  It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had.  The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton’s room she appeared at my bedside.  Her day was divided between us; no amusement usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched.  She must have had a warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me.  I said her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I generally needed nothing after six o’clock, thus the evening was her own.  Poor thing!  I never considered what she did with herself after tea.  And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers, instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.
+CHAPTER XXIV
+At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about the house.  And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak.  We were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused.  She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour; then came frequent questions.
+‘Ellen, are not you tired?  Hadn’t you better lie down now?  You’ll be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.’
+‘No, no, dear, I’m not tired,’ I returned, continually.
+Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for her occupation.  It changed to yawning, and stretching, and—
+‘Ellen, I’m tired.’
+‘Give over then and talk,’ I answered.
+That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes.  The following night she seemed more impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a headache, and left me.  I thought her conduct odd; and having remained alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of up-stairs in the dark.  No Catherine could I discover up-stairs, and none below.  The servants affirmed they had not seen her.  I listened at Mr. Edgar’s door; all was silence.  I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle, and seated myself in the window.
+The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk about the garden, for refreshment.  I did detect a figure creeping along the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young mistress: on its emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms.  He stood a considerable period, viewing the carriage-road through the grounds; then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and reappeared presently, leading Miss’s pony; and there she was, just dismounted, and walking by its side.  The man took his charge stealthily across the grass towards the stable.  Cathy entered by the casement-window of the drawing-room, and glided noiselessly up to where I awaited her.  She put the door gently too, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself.  The surprise petrified her an instant: she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood fixed.
+‘My dear Miss Catherine,’ I began, too vividly impressed by her recent kindness to break into a scold, ‘where have you been riding out at this hour?  And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale?  Where have you been?  Speak!’
+‘To the bottom of the park,’ she stammered.  ‘I didn’t tell a tale.’
+‘And nowhere else?’ I demanded.
+‘No,’ was the muttered reply.
+‘Oh, Catherine!’ I cried, sorrowfully.  ‘You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn’t be driven to uttering an untruth to me.  That does grieve me.  I’d rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a deliberate lie.’
+She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my neck.
+‘Well, Ellen, I’m so afraid of you being angry,’ she said.  ‘Promise not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth: I hate to hide it.’
+We sat down in the window-seat; I assured her I would not scold, whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she commenced—
+‘I’ve been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I’ve never missed going a day since you fell ill; except thrice before, and twice after you left your room.  I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every evening, and to put her back in the stable: you mustn’t scold him either, mind.  I was at the Heights by half-past six, and generally stayed till half-past eight, and then galloped home.  It was not to amuse myself that I went: I was often wretched all the time.  Now and then I was happy: once in a week perhaps.  At first, I expected there would be sad work persuading you to let me keep my word to Linton: for I had engaged to call again next day, when we quitted him; but, as you stayed up-stairs on the morrow, I escaped that trouble.  While Michael was refastening the lock of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick, and couldn’t come to the Grange; and how papa would object to my going: and then I negotiated with him about the pony.  He is fond of reading, and he thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he offered, if I would lend him books out of the library, to do what I wished: but I preferred giving him my own, and that satisfied him better.
+‘On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits; and Zillah (that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayer-meeting and Hareton Earnshaw was off with his dogs—robbing our woods of pheasants, as I heard afterwards—we might do what we liked.  She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good-natured, and Linton sat in the arm-chair, and I in the little rocking chair on the hearth-stone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer.  I needn’t repeat that, because you would call it silly.
+‘One time, however, we were near quarrelling.  He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly.  That was his most perfect idea of heaven’s happiness: mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy.  He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee.  I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish.  At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each other and were friends.
+‘After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us, and we’d have a game at blindman’s-buff; she should try to catch us: you used to, you know, Ellen.  He wouldn’t: there was no pleasure in it, he said; but he consented to play at ball with me.  We found two in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores and shuttlecocks.  One was marked C., and the other H.; I wished to have the C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff, his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn’t like it.  I beat him constantly: and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his chair.  That night, though, he easily recovered his good humour: he was charmed with two or three pretty songs—your songs, Ellen; and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following evening; and I promised.  Minny and I went flying home as light as air; and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet, darling cousin, till morning.
+‘On the morrow I was sad; partly because you were poorly, and partly that I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions: but it was beautiful moonlight after tea; and, as I rode on, the gloom cleared.  I shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself; and what delights me more, my pretty Linton will.  I trotted up their garden, and was turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my bridle, and bid me go in by the front entrance.  He patted Minny’s neck, and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak to him.  I only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick him.  He answered in his vulgar accent, “It wouldn’t do mitch hurt if it did;” and surveyed its legs with a smile.  I was half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: “Miss Catherine!  I can read yon, now.”
+‘“Wonderful,” I exclaimed.  “Pray let us hear you—you are grown clever!”
+‘He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name—“Hareton Earnshaw.”
+‘“And the figures?” I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a dead halt.
+‘“I cannot tell them yet,” he answered.
+‘“Oh, you dunce!” I said, laughing heartily at his failure.
+‘The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt.  I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him.  He reddened—I saw that by the moonlight—dropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity.  He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own name; and was marvellously discomfited that I didn’t think the same.’
+‘Stop, Miss Catherine, dear!’—I interrupted.  ‘I shall not scold, but I don’t like your conduct there.  If you had remembered that Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how improper it was to behave in that way.  At least, it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton; and probably he did not learn merely to show off: you had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt; and he wished to remedy it and please you.  To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding.  Had you been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude?  He was as quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were; and I’m hurt that he should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so unjustly.’
+‘Well, Ellen, you won’t cry about it, will you?’ she exclaimed, surprised at my earnestness.  ‘But wait, and you shall hear if he conned his A B C to please me; and if it were worth while being civil to the brute.  I entered; Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to welcome me.
+‘“I’m ill to-night, Catherine, love,” he said; “and you must have all the talk, and let me listen.  Come, and sit by me.  I was sure you wouldn’t break your word, and I’ll make you promise again, before you go.”
+‘I knew now that I mustn’t tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke softly and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way.  I had brought some of my nicest books for him: he asked me to read a little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door open: having gathered venom with reflection.  He advanced direct to us, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat.
+‘“Get to thy own room!” he said, in a voice almost inarticulate with passion; and his face looked swelled and furious.  “Take her there if she comes to see thee: thou shalln’t keep me out of this.  Begone wi’ ye both!”
+‘He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing him into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly longing to knock me down.  I was afraid for a moment, and I let one volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out.  I heard a malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering.
+‘“I wer sure he’d sarve ye out!  He’s a grand lad!  He’s getten t’ raight sperrit in him!  He knaws—ay, he knaws, as weel as I do, who sud be t’ maister yonder—Ech, ech, ech!  He made ye skift properly!  Ech, ech, ech!”
+‘“Where must we go?” I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old wretch’s mockery.
+‘Linton was white and trembling.  He was not pretty then, Ellen: oh, no! he looked frightful; for his thin face and large eyes were wrought into an expression of frantic, powerless fury.  He grasped the handle of the door, and shook it: it was fastened inside.
+‘“If you don’t let me in, I’ll kill you!—If you don’t let me in, I’ll kill you!” he rather shrieked than said.  “Devil! devil!—I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you!”
+Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again.
+‘“Thear, that’s t’ father!” he cried.  “That’s father!  We’ve allas summut o’ either side in us.  Niver heed, Hareton, lad—dunnut be ‘feard—he cannot get at thee!”
+‘I took hold of Linton’s hands, and tried to pull him away; but he shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed.  At last his cries were choked by a dreadful fit of coughing; blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell on the ground.  I ran into the yard, sick with terror; and called for Zillah, as loud as I could.  She soon heard me: she was milking the cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work, she inquired what there was to do?  I hadn’t breath to explain; dragging her in, I looked about for Linton.  Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing up-stairs.  Zillah and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and said I shouldn’t go in: I must go home.  I exclaimed that he had killed Linton, and I would enter.  Joseph locked the door, and declared I should do “no sich stuff,” and asked me whether I were “bahn to be as mad as him.”  I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared.  She affirmed he would be better in a bit, but he couldn’t do with that shrieking and din; and she took me, and nearly carried me into the house.
+‘Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head!  I sobbed and wept so that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such sympathy with stood opposite: presuming every now and then to bid me “wisht,” and denying that it was his fault; and, finally, frightened by my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly agitation.  Still, I was not rid of him: when at length they compelled me to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly issued from the shadow of the road-side, and checked Minny and took hold of me.
+‘“Miss Catherine, I’m ill grieved,” he began, “but it’s rayther too bad—”
+‘I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder me.  He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home more than half out of my senses.
+‘I didn’t bid you good-night that evening, and I didn’t go to Wuthering Heights the next: I wished to go exceedingly; but I was strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead, sometimes; and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering Hareton.  On the third day I took courage: at least, I couldn’t bear longer suspense, and stole off once more.  I went at five o’clock, and walked; fancying I might manage to creep into the house, and up to Linton’s room, unobserved.  However, the dogs gave notice of my approach.  Zillah received me, and saying “the lad was mending nicely,” showed me into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid on a little sofa, reading one of my books.  But he would neither speak to me nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen: he has such an unhappy temper.  And what quite confounded me, when he did open his mouth, it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the uproar, and Hareton was not to blame!  Unable to reply, except passionately, I got up and walked from the room.  He sent after me a faint “Catherine!”  He did not reckon on being answered so: but I wouldn’t turn back; and the morrow was the second day on which I stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no more.  But it was so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it was properly formed.  It had appeared wrong to take the journey once; now it seemed wrong to refrain.  Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny; I said “Yes,” and considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the hills.  I was forced to pass the front windows to get to the court: it was no use trying to conceal my presence.
+‘“Young master is in the house,” said Zillah, as she saw me making for the parlour.  I went in; Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the room directly.  Linton sat in the great arm-chair half asleep; walking up to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true—
+‘“As you don’t like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last meeting: let us say good-bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no wish to see me, and that he mustn’t invent any more falsehoods on the subject.”
+‘“Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine,” he answered.  “You are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better.  Papa talks enough of my defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it natural I should doubt myself.  I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me, frequently; and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate everybody!  I am worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost always; and, if you choose, you may say good-bye: you’ll get rid of an annoyance.  Only, Catherine, do me this justice: believe that if I might be as sweet, and as kind, and as good as you are, I would be; as willingly, and more so, than as happy and as healthy.  And believe that your kindness has made me love you deeper than if I deserved your love: and though I couldn’t, and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and repent it; and shall regret and repent it till I die!”
+‘I felt he spoke the truth; and I felt I must forgive him: and, though we should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again.  We were reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed: not entirely for sorrow; yet I was sorry Linton had that distorted nature.  He’ll never let his friends be at ease, and he’ll never be at ease himself!  I have always gone to his little parlour, since that night; because his father returned the day after.
+‘About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we were the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled: now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings: but I’ve learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the latter.  Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me: I have hardly seen him at all.  Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him abusing poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before.  I can’t tell how he knew of it, unless he listened.  Linton had certainly behaved provokingly: however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I interrupted Mr. Heathcliff’s lecture by entering and telling him so.  He burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of the matter.  Since then, I’ve told Linton he must whisper his bitter things.  Now, Ellen, you have heard all.  I can’t be prevented from going to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting misery on two people; whereas, if you’ll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of none.  You’ll not tell, will you?  It will be very heartless, if you do.’
+‘I’ll make up my mind on that point by to-morrow, Miss Catherine,’ I replied.  ‘It requires some study; and so I’ll leave you to your rest, and go think it over.’
+I thought it over aloud, in my master’s presence; walking straight from her room to his, and relating the whole story: with the exception of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton.  Mr. Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me.  In the morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of her confidence, and she learnt also that her secret visits were to end.  In vain she wept and writhed against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on Linton: all she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and give him leave to come to the Grange when he pleased; but explaining that he must no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights.  Perhaps, had he been aware of his nephew’s disposition and state of health, he would have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation.
+CHAPTER XXV
+‘These things happened last winter, sir,’ said Mrs. Dean; ‘hardly more than a year ago.  Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months’ end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them!  Yet, who knows how long you’ll be a stranger?  You’re too young to rest always contented, living by yourself; and I some way fancy no one could see Catherine Linton and not love her.  You smile; but why do you look so lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why—?’
+‘Stop, my good friend!’ I cried.  ‘It may be very possible that I should love her; but would she love me?  I doubt it too much to venture my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my home is not here.  I’m of the busy world, and to its arms I must return.  Go on.  Was Catherine obedient to her father’s commands?’
+‘She was,’ continued the housekeeper.  ‘Her affection for him was still the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger: he spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he could bequeath to guide her.  He said to me, a few days afterwards, “I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call.  Tell me, sincerely, what you think of him: is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect of improvement, as he grows a man?”
+‘“He’s very delicate, sir,” I replied; “and scarcely likely to reach manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his father; and if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond her control: unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent.  However, master, you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him and see whether he would suit her: it wants four years and more to his being of age.”’
+Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton Kirk.  It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and the sparely-scattered gravestones.
+‘I’ve prayed often,’ he half soliloquised, ‘for the approach of what is coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it.  I thought the memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks, to be carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow!  Ellen, I’ve been very happy with my little Cathy: through winter nights and summer days she was a living hope at my side.  But I’ve been as happy musing by myself among those stones, under that old church: lying, through the long June evenings, on the green mound of her mother’s grave, and wishing—yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it.  What can I do for Cathy?  How must I quit her?  I’d not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff’s son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss.  I’d not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing!  But should Linton be unworthy—only a feeble tool to his father—I cannot abandon her to him!  And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant spirit, I must persevere in making her sad while I live, and leaving her solitary when I die.  Darling!  I’d rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.’
+‘Resign her to God as it is, sir,’ I answered, ‘and if we should lose you—which may He forbid—under His providence, I’ll stand her friend and counsellor to the last.  Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don’t fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.’
+Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter.  To her inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt sure of his recovering.  On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed—‘You’ll surely not go out to-night, sir?’
+He answered,—‘No, I’ll defer it this year a little longer.’  He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and, had the invalid been presentable, I’ve no doubt his father would have permitted him to come.  As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange; but his uncle’s kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided.
+That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own.  Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine’s company, then.
+‘I do not ask,’ he said, ‘that she may visit here; but am I never to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her to come to mine?  Do, now and then, ride with her towards the Heights; and let us exchange a few words, in your presence!  We have done nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me: you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself.  Dear uncle! send me a kind note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross Grange.  I believe an interview would convince you that my father’s character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also.  You inquire after my health—it is better; but while I remain cut off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?’
+Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his request; because he could not accompany Catherine.  He said, in summer, perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family.  Linton complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations: but his father kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with empty promises.
+Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining.  Though he had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady’s fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain—or at least return in a short time to—the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had any one, I believe: no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us.  I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursuing his object.  I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened with defeat by death.
+CHAPTER XXVI
+Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin.  It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads.  On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,—‘Maister Linton wer just o’ this side th’ Heights: and he’d be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.’
+‘Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,’ I observed: ‘he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once.’
+‘Well, we’ll turn our horses’ heads round when we reach him,’ answered my companion; ‘our excursion shall lie towards home.’
+But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze.  He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards.  Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,—‘Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning.  How ill you do look!’
+Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse than usual?
+‘No—better—better!’ he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed.
+‘But you have been worse,’ persisted his cousin; ‘worse than when I saw you last; you are thinner, and—’
+‘I’m tired,’ he interrupted, hurriedly.  ‘It is too hot for walking, let us rest here.  And, in the morning, I often feel sick—papa says I grow so fast.’
+Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her.
+‘This is something like your paradise,’ said she, making an effort at cheerfulness.  ‘You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the place and way each thought pleasantest?  This is nearly yours, only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is nicer than sunshine.  Next week, if you can, we’ll ride down to the Grange Park, and try mine.’
+Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation.  His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment.  An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner.  The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult.  Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart.  That proposal, unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of agitation.  He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would remain another half-hour, at least.
+‘But I think,’ said Cathy, ‘you’d be more comfortable at home than sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six months; you have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I could amuse you, I’d willingly stay.’
+‘Stay to rest yourself,’ he replied.  ‘And, Catherine, don’t think or say that I’m very unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that make me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me.  Tell uncle I’m in tolerable health, will you?’
+‘I’ll tell him that you say so, Linton.  I couldn’t affirm that you are,’ observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of what was evidently an untruth.
+‘And be here again next Thursday,’ continued he, shunning her puzzled gaze.  ‘And give him my thanks for permitting you to come—my best thanks, Catherine.  And—and, if you did meet my father, and he asked you about me, don’t lead him to suppose that I’ve been extremely silent and stupid: don’t look sad and downcast, as you are doing—he’ll be angry.’
+‘I care nothing for his anger,’ exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be its object.
+‘But I do,’ said her cousin, shuddering.  ‘Don’t provoke him against me, Catherine, for he is very hard.’
+‘Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?’ I inquired.  ‘Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred?’
+Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me: she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and annoy.
+‘Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?’ she whispered in my ear, at last.  ‘I can’t tell why we should stay.  He’s asleep, and papa will be wanting us back.’
+‘Well, we must not leave him asleep,’ I answered; ‘wait till he wakes, and be patient.  You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated!’
+‘Why did he wish to see me?’ returned Catherine.  ‘In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious mood.  It’s just as if it were a task he was compelled to perform—this interview—for fear his father should scold him.  But I’m hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure; whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance.  And, though I’m glad he’s better in health, I’m sorry he’s so much less pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me.’
+‘You think he is better in health, then?’ I said.
+‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘because he always made such a great deal of his sufferings, you know.  He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell papa; but he’s better, very likely.’
+‘There you differ with me, Miss Cathy,’ I remarked; ‘I should conjecture him to be far worse.’
+Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if any one had called his name.
+‘No,’ said Catherine; ‘unless in dreams.  I cannot conceive how you manage to doze out of doors, in the morning.’
+‘I thought I heard my father,’ he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us.  ‘You are sure nobody spoke?’
+‘Quite sure,’ replied his cousin.  ‘Only Ellen and I were disputing concerning your health.  Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we separated in winter?  If you be, I’m certain one thing is not stronger—your regard for me: speak,—are you?’
+The tears gushed from Linton’s eyes as he answered, ‘Yes, yes, I am!’  And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner.
+Cathy rose.  ‘For to-day we must part,’ she said.  ‘And I won’t conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting; though I’ll mention it to nobody but you: not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff.’
+‘Hush,’ murmured Linton; ‘for God’s sake, hush!  He’s coming.’  And he clung to Catherine’s arm, striving to detain her; but at that announcement she hastily disengaged herself, and whistled to Minny, who obeyed her like a dog.
+‘I’ll be here next Thursday,’ she cried, springing to the saddle.  ‘Good-bye.  Quick, Ellen!’
+And so we left him, scarcely conscious of our departure, so absorbed was he in anticipating his father’s approach.
+Before we reached home, Catherine’s displeasure softened into a perplexed sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague, uneasy doubts about Linton’s actual circumstances, physical and social: in which I partook, though I counselled her not to say much; for a second journey would make us better judges.  My master requested an account of our ongoings.  His nephew’s offering of thanks was duly delivered, Miss Cathy gently touching on the rest: I also threw little light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide and what to reveal.
+CHAPTER XXVII
+Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth rapid alteration of Edgar Linton’s state.  The havoc that months had previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours.  Catherine we would fain have deluded yet; but her own quick spirit refused to delude her: it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful probability, gradually ripening into certainty.  She had not the heart to mention her ride, when Thursday came round; I mentioned it for her, and obtained permission to order her out of doors: for the library, where her father stopped a short time daily—the brief period he could bear to sit up—and his chamber, had become her whole world.  She grudged each moment that did not find her bending over his pillow, or seated by his side.  Her countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my master gladly dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a happy change of scene and society; drawing comfort from the hope that she would not now be left entirely alone after his death.
+He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall, that, as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in mind; for Linton’s letters bore few or no indications of his defective character.  And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from correcting the error; asking myself what good there would be in disturbing his last moments with information that he had neither power nor opportunity to turn to account.
+We deferred our excursion till the afternoon; a golden afternoon of August: every breath from the hills so full of life, that it seemed whoever respired it, though dying, might revive.  Catherine’s face was just like the landscape—shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient; and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that passing forgetfulness of its cares.
+We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected before.  My young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was resolved to stay a very little while, I had better hold the pony and remain on horseback; but I dissented: I wouldn’t risk losing sight of the charge committed to me a minute; so we climbed the slope of heath together.  Master Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this occasion: not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like fear.
+‘It is late!’ he said, speaking short and with difficulty.  ‘Is not your father very ill?  I thought you wouldn’t come.’
+‘Why won’t you be candid?’ cried Catherine, swallowing her greeting.  ‘Why cannot you say at once you don’t want me?  It is strange, Linton, that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose, apparently to distress us both, and for no reason besides!’
+Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half ashamed; but his cousin’s patience was not sufficient to endure this enigmatical behaviour.
+‘My father is very ill,’ she said; ‘and why am I called from his bedside?  Why didn’t you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn’t keep it?  Come!  I desire an explanation: playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can’t dance attendance on your affectations now!’
+‘My affectations!’ he murmured; ‘what are they?  For heaven’s sake, Catherine, don’t look so angry!  Despise me as much as you please; I am a worthless, cowardly wretch: I can’t be scorned enough; but I’m too mean for your anger.  Hate my father, and spare me for contempt.’
+‘Nonsense!’ cried Catherine in a passion.  ‘Foolish, silly boy!  And there! he trembles: as if I were really going to touch him!  You needn’t bespeak contempt, Linton: anybody will have it spontaneously at your service.  Get off!  I shall return home: it is folly dragging you from the hearth-stone, and pretending—what do we pretend?  Let go my frock!  If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn such pity.  Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is.  Rise, and don’t degrade yourself into an abject reptile—don’t!’
+With streaming face and an expression of agony, Linton had thrown his nerveless frame along the ground: he seemed convulsed with exquisite terror.
+‘Oh!’ he sobbed, ‘I cannot bear it!  Catherine, Catherine, I’m a traitor, too, and I dare not tell you!  But leave me, and I shall be killed!  Dear Catherine, my life is in your hands: and you have said you loved me, and if you did, it wouldn’t harm you.  You’ll not go, then? kind, sweet, good Catherine!  And perhaps you will consent—and he’ll let me die with you!’
+My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise him.  The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and she grew thoroughly moved and alarmed.
+‘Consent to what?’ she asked.  ‘To stay! tell me the meaning of this strange talk, and I will.  You contradict your own words, and distract me!  Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart.  You wouldn’t injure me, Linton, would you?  You wouldn’t let any enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it?  I’ll believe you are a coward, for yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend.’
+‘But my father threatened me,’ gasped the boy, clasping his attenuated fingers, ‘and I dread him—I dread him!  I dare not tell!’
+‘Oh, well!’ said Catherine, with scornful compassion, ‘keep your secret: I’m no coward.  Save yourself: I’m not afraid!’
+Her magnanimity provoked his tears: he wept wildly, kissing her supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out.  I was cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my good will; when, hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff almost close upon us, descending the Heights.  He didn’t cast a glance towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton’s sobs to be audible; but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn’t avoid doubting, he said—
+‘It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly.  How are you at the Grange?  Let us hear.  The rumour goes,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘that Edgar Linton is on his death-bed: perhaps they exaggerate his illness?’
+‘No; my master is dying,’ I replied: ‘it is true enough.  A sad thing it will be for us all, but a blessing for him!’
+‘How long will he last, do you think?’ he asked.
+‘I don’t know,’ I said.
+‘Because,’ he continued, looking at the two young people, who were fixed under his eye—Linton appeared as if he could not venture to stir or raise his head, and Catherine could not move, on his account—‘because that lad yonder seems determined to beat me; and I’d thank his uncle to be quick, and go before him!  Hallo! has the whelp been playing that game long?  I did give him some lessons about snivelling.  Is he pretty lively with Miss Linton generally?’
+‘Lively? no—he has shown the greatest distress,’ I answered.  ‘To see him, I should say, that instead of rambling with his sweetheart on the hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor.’
+‘He shall be, in a day or two,’ muttered Heathcliff.  ‘But first—get up, Linton!  Get up!’ he shouted.  ‘Don’t grovel on the ground there up, this moment!’
+Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless fear, caused by his father’s glance towards him, I suppose: there was nothing else to produce such humiliation.  He made several efforts to obey, but his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell back again with a moan.  Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean against a ridge of turf.
+‘Now,’ said he, with curbed ferocity, ‘I’m getting angry and if you don’t command that paltry spirit of yours—damn you! get up directly!’
+‘I will, father,’ he panted.  ‘Only, let me alone, or I shall faint.  I’ve done as you wished, I’m sure.  Catherine will tell you that I—that I—have been cheerful.  Ah! keep by me, Catherine; give me your hand.’
+‘Take mine,’ said his father; ‘stand on your feet.  There now—she’ll lend you her arm: that’s right, look at her.  You would imagine I was the devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror.  Be so kind as to walk home with him, will you?  He shudders if I touch him.’
+‘Linton dear!’ whispered Catherine, ‘I can’t go to Wuthering Heights: papa has forbidden me.  He’ll not harm you: why are you so afraid?’
+‘I can never re-enter that house,’ he answered.  ‘I’m not to re-enter it without you!’
+‘Stop!’ cried his father.  ‘We’ll respect Catherine’s filial scruples.  Nelly, take him in, and I’ll follow your advice concerning the doctor, without delay.’
+‘You’ll do well,’ replied I.  ‘But I must remain with my mistress: to mind your son is not my business.’
+‘You are very stiff,’ said Heathcliff, ‘I know that: but you’ll force me to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your charity.  Come, then, my hero.  Are you willing to return, escorted by me?’
+He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial.  However I disapproved, I couldn’t hinder her: indeed, how could she have refused him herself?  What was filling him with dread we had no means of discerning; but there he was, powerless under its grip, and any addition seemed capable of shocking him into idiotcy.  We reached the threshold; Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed—‘My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable to-day: sit down, and allow me to shut the door.’
+He shut and locked it also.  I started.
+‘You shall have tea before you go home,’ he added.  ‘I am by myself.  Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are off on a journey of pleasure; and, though I’m used to being alone, I’d rather have some interesting company, if I can get it.  Miss Linton, take your seat by him.  I give you what I have: the present is hardly worth accepting; but I have nothing else to offer.  It is Linton, I mean.  How she does stare!  It’s odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me!  Had I been born where laws are less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening’s amusement.’
+He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, ‘By hell!  I hate them.’
+‘I am not afraid of you!’ exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear the latter part of his speech.  She stepped close up; her black eyes flashing with passion and resolution.  ‘Give me that key: I will have it!’ she said.  ‘I wouldn’t eat or drink here, if I were starving.’
+Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table.  He looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness; or, possibly, reminded, by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited it.  She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out of his loosened fingers: but her action recalled him to the present; he recovered it speedily.
+‘Now, Catherine Linton,’ he said, ‘stand off, or I shall knock you down; and, that will make Mrs. Dean mad.’
+Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents again.  ‘We will go!’ she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause the iron muscles to relax; and finding that her nails made no impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply.  Heathcliff glanced at me a glance that kept me from interfering a moment.  Catherine was too intent on his fingers to notice his face.  He opened them suddenly, and resigned the object of dispute; but, ere she had well secured it, he seized her with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall.
+At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously.  ‘You villain!’ I began to cry, ‘you villain!’  A touch on the chest silenced me: I am stout, and soon put out of breath; and, what with that and the rage, I staggered dizzily back and felt ready to suffocate, or to burst a blood-vessel.  The scene was over in two minutes; Catherine, released, put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not sure whether her ears were off or on.  She trembled like a reed, poor thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered.
+‘I know how to chastise children, you see,’ said the scoundrel, grimly, as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped to the floor.  ‘Go to Linton now, as I told you; and cry at your ease!  I shall be your father, to-morrow—all the father you’ll have in a few days—and you shall have plenty of that.  You can bear plenty; you’re no weakling: you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again!’
+Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud.  Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that the correction had alighted on another than him.  Mr. Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea himself.  The cups and saucers were laid ready.  He poured it out, and handed me a cup.
+‘Wash away your spleen,’ he said.  ‘And help your own naughty pet and mine.  It is not poisoned, though I prepared it.  I’m going out to seek your horses.’
+Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere.  We tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside: we looked at the windows—they were too narrow for even Cathy’s little figure.
+‘Master Linton,’ I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, ‘you know what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or I’ll box your ears, as he has done your cousin’s.’
+‘Yes, Linton, you must tell,’ said Catherine.  ‘It was for your sake I came; and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse.’
+‘Give me some tea, I’m thirsty, and then I’ll tell you,’ he answered.  ‘Mrs. Dean, go away.  I don’t like you standing over me.  Now, Catherine, you are letting your tears fall into my cup.  I won’t drink that.  Give me another.’  Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face.  I felt disgusted at the little wretch’s composure, since he was no longer in terror for himself.  The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights; so I guessed he had been menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us there; and, that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears.
+‘Papa wants us to be married,’ he continued, after sipping some of the liquid.  ‘And he knows your papa wouldn’t let us marry now; and he’s afraid of my dying if we wait; so we are to be married in the morning, and you are to stay here all night; and, if you do as he wishes, you shall return home next day, and take me with you.’
+‘Take you with her, pitiful changeling!’ I exclaimed.  ‘You marry?  Why, the man is mad! or he thinks us fools, every one.  And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you?  Are you cherishing the notion that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband?  You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your dastardly puling tricks: and—don’t look so silly, now!  I’ve a very good mind to shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile conceit.’
+I did give him a slight shaking; but it brought on the cough, and he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine rebuked me.
+‘Stay all night?  No,’ she said, looking slowly round.  ‘Ellen, I’ll burn that door down but I’ll get out.’
+And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly, but Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again.  He clasped her in his two feeble arms sobbing:—‘Won’t you have me, and save me? not let me come to the Grange?  Oh, darling Catherine! you mustn’t go and leave, after all.  You must obey my father—you must!’
+‘I must obey my own,’ she replied, ‘and relieve him from this cruel suspense.  The whole night!  What would he think?  He’ll be distressed already.  I’ll either break or burn a way out of the house.  Be quiet!  You’re in no danger; but if you hinder me—Linton, I love papa better than you!’  The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff’s anger restored to the boy his coward’s eloquence.  Catherine was near distraught: still, she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn, persuading him to subdue his selfish agony.  While they were thus occupied, our jailor re-entered.
+‘Your beasts have trotted off,’ he said, ‘and—now Linton! snivelling again?  What has she been doing to you?  Come, come—have done, and get to bed.  In a month or two, my lad, you’ll be able to pay her back her present tyrannies with a vigorous hand.  You’re pining for pure love, are you not? nothing else in the world: and she shall have you!  There, to bed!  Zillah won’t be here to-night; you must undress yourself.  Hush! hold your noise!  Once in your own room, I’ll not come near you: you needn’t fear.  By chance, you’ve managed tolerably.  I’ll look to the rest.’
+He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and the latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze.  The lock was re-secured.  Heathcliff approached the fire, where my mistress and I stood silent.  Catherine looked up, and instinctively raised her hand to her cheek: his neighbourhood revived a painful sensation.  Anybody else would have been incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness, but he scowled on her and muttered—‘Oh! you are not afraid of me?  Your courage is well disguised: you seem damnably afraid!’
+‘I am afraid now,’ she replied, ‘because, if I stay, papa will be miserable: and how can I endure making him miserable—when he—when he—Mr. Heathcliff, let me go home!  I promise to marry Linton: papa would like me to: and I love him.  Why should you wish to force me to do what I’ll willingly do of myself?’
+‘Let him dare to force you,’ I cried.  ‘There’s law in the land, thank God! there is; though we be in an out-of-the-way place.  I’d inform if he were my own son: and it’s felony without benefit of clergy!’
+‘Silence!’ said the ruffian.  ‘To the devil with your clamour!  I don’t want you to speak.  Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction.  You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow.  As to your promise to marry Linton, I’ll take care you shall keep it; for you shall not quit this place till it is fulfilled.’
+‘Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I’m safe!’ exclaimed Catherine, weeping bitterly.  ‘Or marry me now.  Poor papa!  Ellen, he’ll think we’re lost.  What shall we do?’
+‘Not he!  He’ll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off for a little amusement,’ answered Heathcliff.  ‘You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to the contrary.  And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement at your age; and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that man only your father.  Catherine, his happiest days were over when your days began.  He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did, at least); and it would just do if he cursed you as he went out of it.  I’d join him.  I don’t love you!  How should I?  Weep away.  As far as I can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter; unless Linton make amends for other losses: and your provident parent appears to fancy he may.  His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly.  In his last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his; and kind to her when he got her.  Careful and kind—that’s paternal.  But Linton requires his whole stock of care and kindness for himself.  Linton can play the little tyrant well.  He’ll undertake to torture any number of cats, if their teeth be drawn and their claws pared.  You’ll be able to tell his uncle fine tales of his kindness, when you get home again, I assure you.’
+‘You’re right there!’ I said; ‘explain your son’s character.  Show his resemblance to yourself: and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think twice before she takes the cockatrice!’
+‘I don’t much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now,’ he answered; ‘because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along with her, till your master dies.  I can detain you both, quite concealed, here.  If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and you’ll have an opportunity of judging!’
+‘I’ll not retract my word,’ said Catherine.  ‘I’ll marry him within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards.  Mr. Heathcliff, you’re a cruel man, but you’re not a fiend; and you won’t, from mere malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness.  If papa thought I had left him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live?  I’ve given over crying: but I’m going to kneel here, at your knee; and I’ll not get up, and I’ll not take my eyes from your face till you look back at me!  No, don’t turn away! do look! you’ll see nothing to provoke you.  I don’t hate you.  I’m not angry that you struck me.  Have you never loved anybody in all your life, uncle? never?  Ah! you must look once.  I’m so wretched, you can’t help being sorry and pitying me.’
+‘Keep your eft’s fingers off; and move, or I’ll kick you!’ cried Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her.  ‘I’d rather be hugged by a snake.  How the devil can you dream of fawning on me?  I detest you!’
+He shrugged his shoulders: shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh crept with aversion; and thrust back his chair; while I got up, and opened my mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse.  But I was rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat that I should be shown into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered.  It was growing dark—we heard a sound of voices at the garden-gate.  Our host hurried out instantly: he had his wits about him; we had not.  There was a talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone.
+‘I thought it had been your cousin Hareton,’ I observed to Catherine.  ‘I wish he would arrive!  Who knows but he might take our part?’
+‘It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange,’ said Heathcliff, overhearing me.  ‘You should have opened a lattice and called out: but I could swear that chit is glad you didn’t.  She’s glad to be obliged to stay, I’m certain.’
+At learning the chance we had missed, we both gave vent to our grief without control; and he allowed us to wail on till nine o’clock.  Then he bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah’s chamber; and I whispered my companion to obey: perhaps we might contrive to get through the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight.  The window, however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was safe from our attempts; for we were fastened in as before.  We neither of us lay down: Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched anxiously for morning; a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain to my frequent entreaties that she would try to rest.  I seated myself in a chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many derelictions of duty; from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of my employers sprang.  It was not the case, in reality, I am aware; but it was, in my imagination, that dismal night; and I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I.
+At seven o’clock he came, and inquired if Miss Linton had risen.  She ran to the door immediately, and answered, ‘Yes.’  ‘Here, then,’ he said, opening it, and pulling her out.  I rose to follow, but he turned the lock again.  I demanded my release.
+‘Be patient,’ he replied; ‘I’ll send up your breakfast in a while.’
+I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine asked why I was still shut up?  He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away.  I endured it two or three hours; at length, I heard a footstep: not Heathcliff’s.
+‘I’ve brought you something to eat,’ said a voice; ‘oppen t’ door!’
+Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me all day.
+‘Tak’ it,’ he added, thrusting the tray into my hand.
+‘Stay one minute,’ I began.
+‘Nay,’ cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could pour forth to detain him.
+And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the next night; and another, and another.  Five nights and four days I remained, altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton once every morning; and he was a model of a jailor: surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion.
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approached—lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the room.  It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm.
+‘Eh, dear!  Mrs. Dean!’ she exclaimed.  ‘Well! there is a talk about you at Gimmerton.  I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you’d been found, and he’d lodged you here!  What! and you must have got on an island, sure?  And how long were you in the hole?  Did master save you, Mrs. Dean?  But you’re not so thin—you’ve not been so poorly, have you?’
+‘Your master is a true scoundrel!’ I replied.  ‘But he shall answer for it.  He needn’t have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!’
+‘What do you mean?’ asked Zillah.  ‘It’s not his tale: they tell that in the village—about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to Earnshaw, when I come in—“Eh, they’s queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I went off.  It’s a sad pity of that likely young lass, and cant Nelly Dean.”  He stared.  I thought he had not heard aught, so I told him the rumour.  The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said, “If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah.  Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room.  You can tell her to flit, when you go up; here is the key.  The bog-water got into her head, and she would have run home quite flighty; but I fixed her till she came round to her senses.  You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire’s funeral.”’
+‘Mr. Edgar is not dead?’ I gasped.  ‘Oh! Zillah, Zillah!’
+‘No, no; sit you down, my good mistress,’ she replied; ‘you’re right sickly yet.  He’s not dead; Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another day.  I met him on the road and asked.’
+Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened below, for the way was free.  On entering the house, I looked about for some one to give information of Catherine.  The place was filled with sunshine, and the door stood wide open; but nobody seemed at hand.  As I hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my attention to the hearth.  Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes.  ‘Where is Miss Catherine?’ I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching him thus, alone.  He sucked on like an innocent.
+‘Is she gone?’ I said.
+‘No,’ he replied; ‘she’s upstairs: she’s not to go; we won’t let her.’
+‘You won’t let her, little idiot!’ I exclaimed.  ‘Direct me to her room immediately, or I’ll make you sing out sharply.’
+‘Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there,’ he answered.  ‘He says I’m not to be soft with Catherine: she’s my wife, and it’s shameful that she should wish to leave me.  He says she hates me and wants me to die, that she may have my money; but she shan’t have it: and she shan’t go home!  She never shall!—she may cry, and be sick as much as she pleases!’
+He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to drop asleep.
+‘Master Heathcliff,’ I resumed, ‘have you forgotten all Catherine’s kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through wind and snow to see you?  She wept to miss one evening, because you would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times too good to you: and now you believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both.  And you join him against her.  That’s fine gratitude, is it not?’
+The corner of Linton’s mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his lips.
+‘Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?’ I continued.  ‘Think for yourself!  As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any.  And you say she’s sick; and yet you leave her alone, up there in a strange house!  You who have felt what it is to be so neglected!  You could pity your own sufferings; and she pitied them, too; but you won’t pity hers!  I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see—an elderly woman, and a servant merely—and you, after pretending such affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease.  Ah! you’re a heartless, selfish boy!’
+‘I can’t stay with her,’ he answered crossly.  ‘I’ll not stay by myself.  She cries so I can’t bear it.  And she won’t give over, though I say I’ll call my father.  I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn’t sleep.’
+‘Is Mr. Heathcliff out?’ I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin’s mental tortures.
+‘He’s in the court,’ he replied, ‘talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says uncle is dying, truly, at last.  I’m glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him.  Catherine always spoke of it as her house.  It isn’t hers!  It’s mine: papa says everything she has is mine.  All her nice books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out; but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine.  And then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young.  That was yesterday—I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her.  The spiteful thing wouldn’t let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me.  I shrieked out—that frightens her—she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother’s portrait; the other she attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it.  He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me; she refused, and he—he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.’
+‘And were you pleased to see her struck?’ I asked: having my designs in encouraging his talk.
+‘I winked,’ he answered: ‘I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard.  Yet I was glad at first—she deserved punishing for pushing me: but when papa was gone, she made me come to the window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth, and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can’t speak for pain.  I don’t like to think so; but she’s a naughty thing for crying continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I’m afraid of her.’
+‘And you can get the key if you choose?’ I said.
+‘Yes, when I am up-stairs,’ he answered; ‘but I can’t walk up-stairs now.’
+‘In what apartment is it?’ I asked.
+‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘I shan’t tell you where it is.  It is our secret.  Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know.  There! you’ve tired me—go away, go away!’  And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut his eyes again.
+I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring a rescue for my young lady from the Grange.  On reaching it, the astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar’s door: but I bespoke the announcement of it myself.  How changed I found him, even in those few days!  He lay an image of sadness and resignation awaiting his death.  Very young he looked: though his actual age was thirty-nine, one would have called him ten years younger, at least.  He thought of Catherine; for he murmured her name.  I touched his hand, and spoke.
+‘Catherine is coming, dear master!’ I whispered; ‘she is alive and well; and will be here, I hope, to-night.’
+I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence: he half rose up, looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon.  As soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at the Heights.  I said Heathcliff forced me to go in: which was not quite true.  I uttered as little as possible against Linton; nor did I describe all his father’s brutal conduct—my intentions being to add no bitterness, if I could help it, to his already over-flowing cup.
+He divined that one of his enemy’s purposes was to secure the personal property, as well as the estate, to his son: or rather himself; yet why he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together.  However, he felt that his will had better be altered: instead of leaving Catherine’s fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children, if she had any, after her.  By that means, it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die.
+Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney, and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young lady of her jailor.  Both parties were delayed very late.  The single servant returned first.  He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his re-entrance; and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village that must be done; but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning.  The four men came back unaccompanied also.  They brought word that Catherine was ill: too ill to quit her room; and Heathcliff would not suffer them to see her.  I scolded the stupid fellows well for listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master; resolving to take a whole bevy up to the Heights, at day-light, and storm it literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us.  Her father shall see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be killed on his own doorstones in trying to prevent it!
+Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble.  I had gone down-stairs at three o’clock to fetch a jug of water; and was passing through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front door made me jump.  ‘Oh! it is Green,’ I said, recollecting myself—‘only Green,’ and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately.  I put the jug on the banister and hastened to admit him myself.  The harvest moon shone clear outside.  It was not the attorney.  My own sweet little mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, ‘Ellen, Ellen!  Is papa alive?’
+‘Yes,’ I cried: ‘yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with us again!’
+She wanted to run, breathless as she was, up-stairs to Mr. Linton’s room; but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron.  Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say, she should be happy with young Heathcliff.  She stared, but soon comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me she would not complain.
+I couldn’t abide to be present at their meeting.  I stood outside the chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed, then.  All was composed, however: Catherine’s despair was as silent as her father’s joy.  She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy.
+He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so.  Kissing her cheek, he murmured,—‘I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!’ and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed.  None could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a struggle.
+Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose.  It was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave.  He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay in obeying my master’s summons.  Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs crossed the latter’s mind, to disturb him, after his daughter’s arrival.
+Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the place.  He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit.  He would have carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his family.  There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud protestations against any infringement of its directions.  The funeral was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to stay at the Grange till her father’s corpse had quitted it.
+She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the risk of liberating her.  She heard the men I sent disputing at the door, and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff’s answer.  It drove her desperate.  Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father re-ascended.  He had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once.  Catherine stole out before break of day.  She dared not try the doors lest the dogs should raise an alarm; she visited the empty chambers and examined their windows; and, luckily, lighting on her mother’s, she got easily out of its lattice, and on to the ground, by means of the fir-tree close by.  Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his timid contrivances.
+CHAPTER XXIX
+The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the library; now musing mournfully—one of us despairingly—on our loss, now venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future.
+We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange; at least during Linton’s life: he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper.  That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for; and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my home and my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress; when a servant—one of the discarded ones, not yet departed—rushed hastily in, and said ‘that devil Heathcliff’ was coming through the court: should he fasten the door in his face?
+If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time.  He made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name: he was master, and availed himself of the master’s privilege to walk straight in, without saying a word.  The sound of our informant’s voice directed him to the library; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door.
+It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside.  We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband.  Heathcliff advanced to the hearth.  Time had little altered his person either.  There was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference.  Catherine had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him.
+‘Stop!’ he said, arresting her by the arm.  ‘No more runnings away!  Where would you go?  I’m come to fetch you home; and I hope you’ll be a dutiful daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience.  I was embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business: he’s such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you’ll see by his look that he has received his due!  I brought him down one evening, the day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him afterwards.  I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves.  In two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then my presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees me often, though I am not near.  Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and, whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he’s your concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.’
+‘Why not let Catherine continue here,’ I pleaded, ‘and send Master Linton to her?  As you hate them both, you’d not miss them: they can only be a daily plague to your unnatural heart.’
+‘I’m seeking a tenant for the Grange,’ he answered; ‘and I want my children about me, to be sure.  Besides, that lass owes me her services for her bread.  I’m not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after Linton is gone.  Make haste and get ready, now; and don’t oblige me to compel you.’
+‘I shall,’ said Catherine.  ‘Linton is all I have to love in the world, and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me to him, you cannot make us hate each other.  And I defy you to hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!’
+‘You are a boastful champion,’ replied Heathcliff; ‘but I don’t like you well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment, as long as it lasts.  It is not I who will make him hateful to you—it is his own sweet spirit.  He’s as bitter as gall at your desertion and its consequences: don’t expect thanks for this noble devotion.  I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as strong as I: the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for strength.’
+‘I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son.  But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him.  Mr. Heathcliff you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery.  You are miserable, are you not?  Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?  Nobody loves you—nobody will cry for you when you die!  I wouldn’t be you!’
+Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies.
+‘You shall be sorry to be yourself presently,’ said her father-in-law, ‘if you stand there another minute.  Begone, witch, and get your things!’
+She scornfully withdrew.  In her absence I began to beg for Zillah’s place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer it on no account.  He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures.  Having studied Mrs. Linton’s, he said—‘I shall have that home.  Not because I need it, but—’  He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile—‘I’ll tell you what I did yesterday!  I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it.  I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again—it is hers yet!—he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton’s side, damn him!  I wish he’d been soldered in lead.  And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I’m laid there, and slide mine out too; I’ll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to us he’ll not know which is which!’
+‘You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!’ I exclaimed; ‘were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?’
+‘I disturbed nobody, Nelly,’ he replied; ‘and I gave some ease to myself.  I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you’ll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there.  Disturbed her?  No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years—incessantly—remorselessly—till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil.  I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.’
+‘And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then?’ I said.
+‘Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!’ he answered.  ‘Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort?  I expected such a transformation on raising the lid—but I’m better pleased that it should not commence till I share it.  Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed.  It began oddly.  You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit!  I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us!  The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow.  In the evening I went to the churchyard.  It blew bleak as winter—all round was solitary.  I didn’t fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there.  Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself—“I’ll have her in my arms again!  If she be cold, I’ll think it is this north wind that chills me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.”  I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might—it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down.  “If I can only get this off,” I muttered, “I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!” and I wrenched at it more desperately still.  There was another sigh, close at my ear.  I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind.  I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth.  A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb.  I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled.  Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home.  You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see her there.  I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.  Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door.  It was fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance.  I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers.  I looked round impatiently—I felt her by me—I could almost see her, and yet I could not!  I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning—from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse!  I had not one.  She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me!  And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I’ve been the sport of that intolerable torture!  Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton’s.  When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in.  When I went from home I hastened to return; she must be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain!  And when I slept in her chamber—I was beaten out of that.  I couldn’t lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see.  And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night—to be always disappointed!  It racked me!  I’ve often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me.  Now, since I’ve seen her, I’m pacified—a little.  It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!’
+Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead; his hair clung to it, wet with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject.  He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence.  I didn’t like to hear him talk!  After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture, took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at better advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled.
+‘Send that over to-morrow,’ said Heathcliff to me; then turning to her, he added: ‘You may do without your pony: it is a fine evening, and you’ll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights; for what journeys you take, your own feet will serve you.  Come along.’
+‘Good-bye, Ellen!’ whispered my dear little mistress.
+As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice.  ‘Come and see me, Ellen; don’t forget.’
+‘Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!’ said her new father.  ‘When I wish to speak to you I’ll come here.  I want none of your prying at my house!’
+He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my heart, she obeyed.  I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden.  Heathcliff fixed Catherine’s arm under his: though she disputed the act at first evidently; and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley, whose trees concealed them.
+CHAPTER XXX
+I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she left: Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her, and wouldn’t let me pass.  He said Mrs. Linton was ‘thrang,’ and the master was not in.  Zillah has told me something of the way they go on, otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living.  She thinks Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk.  My young lady asked some aid of her when she first came; but Mr. Heathcliff told her to follow her own business, and let his daughter-in-law look after herself; and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrow-minded, selfish woman.  Catherine evinced a child’s annoyance at this neglect; repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong.  I had a long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one day when we foregathered on the moor; and this is what she told me.
+‘The first thing Mrs. Linton did,’ she said, ‘on her arrival at the Heights, was to run up-stairs, without even wishing good-evening to me and Joseph; she shut herself into Linton’s room, and remained till morning.  Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent for? her cousin was very ill.
+‘“We know that!” answered Heathcliff; “but his life is not worth a farthing, and I won’t spend a farthing on him.”
+‘“But I cannot tell how to do,” she said; “and if nobody will help me, he’ll die!”
+‘“Walk out of the room,” cried the master, “and let me never hear a word more about him!  None here care what becomes of him; if you do, act the nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him.”
+‘Then she began to bother me, and I said I’d had enough plague with the tiresome thing; we each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on Linton: Mr. Heathcliff bid me leave that labour to her.
+‘How they managed together, I can’t tell.  I fancy he fretted a great deal, and moaned hisseln night and day; and she had precious little rest: one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes.  She sometimes came into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain beg assistance; but I was not going to disobey the master: I never dare disobey him, Mrs. Dean; and, though I thought it wrong that Kenneth should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or complain, and I always refused to meddle.  Once or twice, after we had gone to bed, I’ve happened to open my door again and seen her sitting crying on the stairs’-top; and then I’ve shut myself in quick, for fear of being moved to interfere.  I did pity her then, I’m sure: still I didn’t wish to lose my place, you know.
+‘At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me out of my wits, by saying, “Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying—I’m sure he is, this time.  Get up, instantly, and tell him.”
+‘Having uttered this speech, she vanished again.  I lay a quarter of an hour listening and trembling.  Nothing stirred—the house was quiet.
+‘She’s mistaken, I said to myself.  He’s got over it.  I needn’t disturb them; and I began to doze.  But my sleep was marred a second time by a sharp ringing of the bell—the only bell we have, put up on purpose for Linton; and the master called to me to see what was the matter, and inform them that he wouldn’t have that noise repeated.
+‘I delivered Catherine’s message.  He cursed to himself, and in a few minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room.  I followed.  Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands folded on her knees.  Her father-in-law went up, held the light to Linton’s face, looked at him, and touched him; afterwards he turned to her.
+‘“Now—Catherine,” he said, “how do you feel?”
+‘She was dumb.
+‘“How do you feel, Catherine?” he repeated.
+‘“He’s safe, and I’m free,” she answered: “I should feel well—but,” she continued, with a bitterness she couldn’t conceal, “you have left me so long to struggle against death alone, that I feel and see only death!  I feel like death!”
+‘And she looked like it, too!  I gave her a little wine.  Hareton and Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and heard our talk from outside, now entered.  Joseph was fain, I believe, of the lad’s removal; Hareton seemed a thought bothered: though he was more taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton.  But the master bid him get off to bed again: we didn’t want his help.  He afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself.
+‘In the morning, he sent me to tell her she must come down to breakfast: she had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she was ill; at which I hardly wondered.  I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he replied,—“Well, let her be till after the funeral; and go up now and then to get her what is needful; and, as soon as she seems better, tell me.”’
+Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah; who visited her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled.
+Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton’s will.  He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week’s absence, when his uncle died.  The lands, being a minor, he could not meddle with.  However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them in his wife’s right and his also: I suppose legally; at any rate, Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.
+‘Nobody,’ said Zillah, ‘ever approached her door, except that once, but I; and nobody asked anything about her.  The first occasion of her coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon.  She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn’t bear any longer being in the cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn’t hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she heard Heathcliff’s horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a Quaker: she couldn’t comb them out.
+‘Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays:’ the kirk, you know, has no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean; and they call the Methodists’ or Baptists’ place (I can’t say which it is) at Gimmerton, a chapel.  ‘Joseph had gone,’ she continued, ‘but I thought proper to bide at home.  Young folks are always the better for an elder’s over-looking; and Hareton, with all his bashfulness, isn’t a model of nice behaviour.  I let him know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been always used to see the Sabbath respected; so he had as good leave his guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed.  He coloured up at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes.  The train-oil and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute.  I saw he meant to give her his company; and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be presentable; so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion.  He grew sullen, and began to swear.
+‘Now, Mrs. Dean,’ Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner, ‘you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton; and happen you’re right: but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg lower.  And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her, now?  She’s as poor as you or I: poorer, I’ll be bound: you’re saying, and I’m doing my little all that road.’
+Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid; and she flattered him into a good humour; so, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former insults, he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper’s account.
+‘Missis walked in,’ she said, ‘as chill as an icicle, and as high as a princess.  I got up and offered her my seat in the arm-chair.  No, she turned up her nose at my civility.  Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come to the settle, and sit close by the fire: he was sure she was starved.
+‘“I’ve been starved a month and more,” she answered, resting on the word as scornful as she could.
+‘And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both of us.  Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and discovered a number of books on the dresser; she was instantly upon her feet again, stretching to reach them: but they were too high up.  Her cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage to help her; she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand.
+‘That was a great advance for the lad.  She didn’t thank him; still, he felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained; nor was he daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his finger: he contented himself with going a bit farther back and looking at her instead of the book.  She continued reading, or seeking for something to read.  His attention became, by degrees, quite centred in the study of her thick silky curls: her face he couldn’t see, and she couldn’t see him.  And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching; he put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird.  He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in such a taking.
+‘“Get away this moment!  How dare you touch me?  Why are you stopping there?” she cried, in a tone of disgust.  “I can’t endure you!  I’ll go upstairs again, if you come near me.”
+‘Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do: he sat down in the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another half hour; finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me.
+‘“Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah?  I’m stalled of doing naught; and I do like—I could like to hear her!  Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask of yourseln.”
+‘“Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma’am,” I said, immediately.  “He’d take it very kind—he’d be much obliged.”
+‘She frowned; and looking up, answered—
+‘“Mr. Hareton, and the whole set of you, will be good enough to understand that I reject any pretence at kindness you have the hypocrisy to offer!  I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you!  When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off.  But I won’t complain to you!  I’m driven down here by the cold; not either to amuse you or enjoy your society.”
+‘“What could I ha’ done?” began Earnshaw.  “How was I to blame?”
+‘“Oh! you are an exception,” answered Mrs. Heathcliff.  “I never missed such a concern as you.”
+‘“But I offered more than once, and asked,” he said, kindling up at her pertness, “I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you—”
+‘“Be silent!  I’ll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your disagreeable voice in my ear!” said my lady.
+‘Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him! and unslinging his gun, restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer.  He talked now, freely enough; and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude: but the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to condescend to our company, more and more.  However, I took care there should be no further scorning at my good nature: ever since, I’ve been as stiff as herself; and she has no lover or liker among us: and she does not deserve one; for, let them say the least word to her, and she’ll curl back without respect of any one.  She’ll snap at the master himself, and as good as dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows.’
+At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me: but Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton in an independent house; and I can see no remedy, at present, unless she could marry again; and that scheme it does not come within my province to arrange.
+* * * * *
+Thus ended Mrs. Dean’s story.  Notwithstanding the doctor’s prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look out for another tenant to take the place after October.  I would not pass another winter here for much.
+CHAPTER XXXI
+Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty.  I went to the Heights as I proposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not conscious of anything odd in her request.  The front door stood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered.  The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen.  I took particular notice of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages.
+I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home?  He answered, No; but he would be in at dinner-time.  It was eleven o’clock, and I announced my intention of going in and waiting for him; at which he immediately flung down his tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute for the host.
+We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful in preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked more sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first.  She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness as before; never returning my bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.
+‘She does not seem so amiable,’ I thought, ‘as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe.  She’s a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.’
+Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen.  ‘Remove them yourself,’ she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done; and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in her lap.  I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean’s note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton—but she asked aloud, ‘What is that?’  And chucked it off.
+‘A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,’ I answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it should be imagined a missive of my own.  She would gladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her; he seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first.  Thereat, Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin, after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could.  Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a few questions to me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home; and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy:
+‘I should like to be riding Minny down there!  I should like to be climbing up there!  Oh!  I’m tired—I’m stalled, Hareton!’  And she leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness: neither caring nor knowing whether we remarked her.
+‘Mrs. Heathcliff,’ I said, after sitting some time mute, ‘you are not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it strange you won’t come and speak to me.  My housekeeper never wearies of talking about and praising you; and she’ll be greatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter and said nothing!’
+She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,—
+‘Does Ellen like you?’
+‘Yes, very well,’ I replied, hesitatingly.
+‘You must tell her,’ she continued, ‘that I would answer her letter, but I have no materials for writing: not even a book from which I might tear a leaf.’
+‘No books!’ I exclaimed.  ‘How do you contrive to live here without them? if I may take the liberty to inquire.  Though provided with a large library, I’m frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and I should be desperate!’
+‘I was always reading, when I had them,’ said Catherine; ‘and Mr. Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy my books.  I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks.  Only once, I searched through Joseph’s store of theology, to his great irritation; and once, Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in your room—some Latin and Greek, and some tales and poetry: all old friends.  I brought the last here—and you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing!  They are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall.  Perhaps your envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures?  But I’ve most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those!’
+Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her accusations.
+‘Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge,’ I said, coming to his rescue.  ‘He is not envious, but emulous of your attainments.  He’ll be a clever scholar in a few years.’
+‘And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,’ answered Catherine.  ‘Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders he makes!  I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday: it was extremely funny.  I heard you; and I heard you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you couldn’t read their explanations!’
+The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it.  I had a similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean’s anecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I observed,—‘But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.’
+‘Oh!’ she replied, ‘I don’t wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations!  Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth!  Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice.’
+Hareton’s chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.  I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood.  He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine’s lap, exclaiming,—‘Take them!  I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!’
+‘I won’t have them now,’ she answered.  ‘I shall connect them with you, and hate them.’
+She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it from her.  ‘And listen,’ she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion.
+But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue.  The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin’s sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor.  He afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire.  I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen.  I fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated from them; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies also.  He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path.  Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.
+‘Yes that’s all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!’ cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration with indignant eyes.
+‘You’d better hold your tongue, now,’ he answered fiercely.
+And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass.  But ere he had crossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder asked,—‘What’s to do now, my lad?’
+‘Naught, naught,’ he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude.
+Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.
+‘It will be odd if I thwart myself,’ he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him.  ‘But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more!  How the devil is he so like?  I can hardly bear to see him.’
+He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in.  There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance.  I had never remarked there before; and he looked sparer in person.  His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.
+‘I’m glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,’ he said, in reply to my greeting; ‘from selfish motives partly: I don’t think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation.  I’ve wondered more than once what brought you here.’
+‘An idle whim, I fear, sir,’ was my answer; ‘or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away.  I shall set out for London next week; and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it.  I believe I shall not live there any more.’
+‘Oh, indeed; you’re tired of being banished from the world, are you?’ he said.  ‘But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won’t occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from any one.’
+‘I’m coming to plead off nothing about it,’ I exclaimed, considerably irritated.  ‘Should you wish it, I’ll settle with you now,’ and I drew my note-book from my pocket.
+‘No, no,’ he replied, coolly; ‘you’ll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return: I’m not in such a hurry.  Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome.  Catherine! bring the things in: where are you?’
+Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.
+‘You may get your dinner with Joseph,’ muttered Heathcliff, aside, ‘and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.’
+She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation to transgress.  Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.
+With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade adieu early.  I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.
+‘How dreary life gets over in that house!’ I reflected, while riding down the road.  ‘What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!’
+CHAPTER XXXII
+1802.—This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton.  The ostler at a roadside public-house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,—‘Yon’s frough Gimmerton, nah!  They’re allas three wick’ after other folk wi’ ther harvest.’
+‘Gimmerton?’ I repeated—my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy.  ‘Ah!  I know.  How far is it from this?’
+‘Happen fourteen mile o’er th’ hills; and a rough road,’ he answered.
+A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange.  It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn.  Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again.  Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours.
+I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone.  The grey church looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier.  I distinguished a moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves.  It was sweet, warm weather—too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer August, I’m sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes.  In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.
+I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear.  I rode into the court.  Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe.
+‘Is Mrs. Dean within?’ I demanded of the dame.
+‘Mistress Dean?  Nay!’ she answered, ‘she doesn’t bide here: shoo’s up at th’ Heights.’
+‘Are you the housekeeper, then?’ I continued.
+‘Eea, aw keep th’ hause,’ she replied.
+‘Well, I’m Mr. Lockwood, the master.  Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder?  I wish to stay all night.’
+‘T’ maister!’ she cried in astonishment.  ‘Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming?  Yah sud ha’ send word.  They’s nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t’ place: nowt there isn’t!’
+She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed.  I would go out for a walk; and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in.  No sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary.  She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return.  Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion.  An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted the court.
+‘All well at the Heights?’ I inquired of the woman.
+‘Eea, f’r owt ee knaw!’ she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders.
+I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front—one fading, and the other brightening—as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road branching off to Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling.  Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon.  I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock—it yielded to my hand.  That is an improvement, I thought.  And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees.
+Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a coal-district, a fine red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable.  But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows.  I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered.
+‘Con-trary!’ said a voice as sweet as a silver bell.  ‘That for the third time, you dunce!  I’m not going to tell you again. Recollect, or I’ll pull your hair!’
+‘Contrary, then,’ answered another, in deep but softened tones. ‘And now, kiss me, for minding so well.’
+‘No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.’
+The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him.  His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention.  Its owner stood behind; her light, shining ringlets blending, at intervals, with his brown looks, as she bent to superintend his studies; and her face—it was lucky he could not see her face, or he would never have been so steady.  I could; and I bit my lip in spite, at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides staring at its smiting beauty.
+The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses; which, however, he generously returned.  Then they came to the door, and from their conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors.  I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw’s heart, if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very mean and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen.  There was unobstructed admittance on that side also; and at the door sat my old friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from musical accents.
+‘I’d rayther, by th’ haulf, hev’ ’em swearing i’ my lugs fro’h morn to neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!’ said the tenant of the kitchen, in answer to an unheard speech of Nelly’s.  ‘It’s a blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t’ blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and all t’ flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th’ warld!  Oh! ye’re a raight nowt; and shoo’s another; and that poor lad ’ll be lost atween ye.  Poor lad!’ he added, with a groan; ‘he’s witched: I’m sartin on’t.  Oh, Lord, judge ’em, for there’s norther law nor justice among wer rullers!’
+‘No! or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose,’ retorted the singer.  ‘But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and never mind me.  This is “Fairy Annie’s Wedding”—a bonny tune—it goes to a dance.’
+Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced; and recognising me directly, she jumped to her feet, crying—‘Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood!  How could you think of returning in this way?  All’s shut up at Thrushcross Grange.  You should have given us notice!’
+‘I’ve arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay,’ I answered.  ‘I depart again to-morrow.  And how are you transplanted here, Mrs. Dean? tell me that.’
+‘Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went to London, and stay till you returned.  But, step in, pray! Have you walked from Gimmerton this evening?’
+‘From the Grange,’ I replied; ‘and while they make me lodging room there, I want to finish my business with your master; because I don’t think of having another opportunity in a hurry.’
+‘What business, sir?’ said Nelly, conducting me into the house. ‘He’s gone out at present, and won’t return soon.’
+‘About the rent,’ I answered.
+‘Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle,’ she observed; ‘or rather with me.  She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act for her: there’s nobody else.’
+I looked surprised.
+‘Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff’s death, I see,’ she continued.
+‘Heathcliff dead!’ I exclaimed, astonished.  ‘How long ago?’
+‘Three months since: but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I’ll tell you all about it.  Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you?’
+‘I want nothing: I have ordered supper at home.  You sit down too. I never dreamt of his dying!  Let me hear how it came to pass.  You say you don’t expect them back for some time—the young people?’
+‘No—I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles: but they don’t care for me.  At least, have a drink of our old ale; it will do you good: you seem weary.’
+She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking whether ‘it warn’t a crying scandal that she should have followers at her time of life?  And then, to get them jocks out o’ t’ maister’s cellar!  He fair shaamed to ‘bide still and see it.’
+She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness.  And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff’s history.  He had a ‘queer’ end, as she expressed it.
+I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine’s sake. My first interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had altered so much since our separation.  Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted me, and he was tired of seeing Catherine: I must make the little parlour my sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement; and, by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles, that had formed her amusement at the Grange; and flattered myself we should get on in tolerable comfort.  The delusion did not last long.  Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew on; for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her frequently, and she complained of loneliness: she preferred quarrelling with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude.  I did not mind their skirmishes: but Hareton was often obliged to seek the kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself! and though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him—and though he was always as sullen and silent as possible—after a while, she changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder how he could endure the life he lived—how he could sit a whole evening staring into the fire, and dozing.
+‘He’s just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?’ she once observed, ‘or a cart-horse?  He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have!  Do you ever dream, Hareton?  And, if you do, what is it about?  But you can’t speak to me!’
+Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look again.
+‘He’s, perhaps, dreaming now,’ she continued.  ‘He twitched his shoulder as Juno twitches hers.  Ask him, Ellen.’
+‘Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you up-stairs, if you don’t behave!’ I said.  He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his fist, as if tempted to use it.
+‘I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,’ she exclaimed, on another occasion.  ‘He is afraid I shall laugh at him.  Ellen, what do you think?  He began to teach himself to read once; and, because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it: was he not a fool?’
+‘Were not you naughty?’ I said; ‘answer me that.’
+‘Perhaps I was,’ she went on; ‘but I did not expect him to be so silly.  Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now?  I’ll try!’
+She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck.
+‘Well, I shall put it here,’ she said, ‘in the table-drawer; and I’m going to bed.’
+Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed.  But he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to her great disappointment.  I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness and indolence: her conscience reproved her for frightening him off improving himself: she had done it effectually.  But her ingenuity was at work to remedy the injury: while I ironed, or pursued other such stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me.  When Hareton was there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book lying about: that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire, the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it.  On fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the court or garden the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and said she was tired of living: her life was useless.
+Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment.  Owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen.  His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home.  The consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and tranquillity, till he made it up again.  It suited Catherine to have him there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up-stairs more than ever: and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might accompany me.
+On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen.  Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window-panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate.  At a notice that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to the hearthstone.  I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but, presently, I heard her begin—‘I’ve found out, Hareton, that I want—that I’m glad—that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not grown so cross to me, and so rough.’
+Hareton returned no answer.
+‘Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?’ she continued.
+‘Get off wi’ ye!’ he growled, with uncompromising gruffness.
+‘Let me take that pipe,’ she said, cautiously advancing her hand and abstracting it from his mouth.
+Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the fire.  He swore at her and seized another.
+‘Stop,’ she cried, ‘you must listen to me first; and I can’t speak while those clouds are floating in my face.’
+‘Will you go to the devil!’ he exclaimed, ferociously, ‘and let me be!’
+‘No,’ she persisted, ‘I won’t: I can’t tell what to do to make you talk to me; and you are determined not to understand.  When I call you stupid, I don’t mean anything: I don’t mean that I despise you.  Come, you shall take notice of me, Hareton: you are my cousin, and you shall own me.’
+‘I shall have naught to do wi’ you and your mucky pride, and your damned mocking tricks!’ he answered.  ‘I’ll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you again.  Side out o’ t’ gate, now, this minute!’
+Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip, and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob.
+‘You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton,’ I interrupted, ‘since she repents of her sauciness.  It would do you a great deal of good: it would make you another man to have her for a companion.’
+‘A companion!’ he cried; ‘when she hates me, and does not think me fit to wipe her shoon!  Nay, if it made me a king, I’d not be scorned for seeking her good-will any more.’
+‘It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me!’ wept Cathy, no longer disguising her trouble.  ‘You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and more.’
+‘You’re a damned liar,’ began Earnshaw: ‘why have I made him angry, by taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and despised me, and—Go on plaguing me, and I’ll step in yonder, and say you worried me out of the kitchen!’
+‘I didn’t know you took my part,’ she answered, drying her eyes; ‘and I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me: what can I do besides?’
+She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand.  He blackened and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground.  Catherine, by instinct, must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss.  The little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the window, quite demurely.  I shook my head reprovingly, and then she blushed and whispered—‘Well! what should I have done, Ellen?  He wouldn’t shake hands, and he wouldn’t look: I must show him some way that I like him—that I want to be friends.’
+Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful, for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes.
+Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to ‘Mr. Hareton Earnshaw,’ she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the present to its destined recipient.
+‘And tell him, if he’ll take it, I’ll come and teach him to read it right,’ she said; ‘and, if he refuse it, I’ll go upstairs, and never tease him again.’
+I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my employer.  Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee.  He did not strike it off, either.  I returned to my work.  Catherine leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her cousin.  He trembled, and his face glowed: all his rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him: he could not summon courage, at first, to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured petition.
+‘Say you forgive me, Hareton, do.  You can make me so happy by speaking that little word.’
+He muttered something inaudible.
+‘And you’ll be my friend?’ added Catherine, interrogatively.
+‘Nay, you’ll be ashamed of me every day of your life,’ he answered; ‘and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.’
+‘So you won’t be my friend?’ she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and creeping close up.
+I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies.
+The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home.  He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder; and confounded at his favourite’s endurance of her proximity: it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night.  His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day’s transactions.  At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.
+‘Tak’ these in to t’ maister, lad,’ he said, ‘and bide there.  I’s gang up to my own rahm.  This hoile’s neither mensful nor seemly for us: we mun side out and seearch another.’
+‘Come, Catherine,’ I said, ‘we must “side out” too: I’ve done my ironing.  Are you ready to go?’
+‘It is not eight o’clock!’ she answered, rising unwillingly.
+‘Hareton, I’ll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I’ll bring some more to-morrow.’
+‘Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak’ into th’ hahse,’ said Joseph, ‘and it’ll be mitch if yah find ’em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!’
+Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing up-stairs: lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton.
+The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions.  Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived in the end to reach it.
+You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff’s heart.  But now, I’m glad you did not try.  The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two.  I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there won’t be a happier woman than myself in England!
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as heretofore.  She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden, where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.
+I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief half-hour; the black-currant trees were the apple of Joseph’s eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them.
+‘There!  That will be all shown to the master,’ I exclaimed, ‘the minute it is discovered.  And what excuse have you to offer for taking such liberties with the garden?  We shall have a fine explosion on the head of it: see if we don’t!  Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit than to go and make that mess at her bidding!’
+‘I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s,’ answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled; ‘but I’ll tell him I did it.’
+We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff.  I held the mistress’s post in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table.  Catherine usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton; and I presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than she had in her hostility.
+‘Now, mind you don’t talk with and notice your cousin too much,’ were my whispered instructions as we entered the room.  ‘It will certainly annoy Mr. Heathcliff, and he’ll be mad at you both.’
+‘I’m not going to,’ she answered.
+The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in his plate of porridge.
+He dared not speak to her there: he dared hardly look; and yet she went on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh.  I frowned, and then she glanced towards the master: whose mind was occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced; and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity.  Afterwards she turned, and recommenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh.  Mr. Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly surveyed our faces, Catherine met it with her accustomed look of nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred.
+‘It is well you are out of my reach,’ he exclaimed.  ‘What fiend possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes?  Down with them! and don’t remind me of your existence again.  I thought I had cured you of laughing.’
+‘It was me,’ muttered Hareton.
+‘What do you say?’ demanded the master.
+Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession.  Mr. Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast and his interrupted musing.  We had nearly finished, and the two young people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further disturbance during that sitting: when Joseph appeared at the door, revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage committed on his precious shrubs was detected.  He must have seen Cathy and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech difficult to understand, he began:—
+‘I mun hev’ my wage, and I mun goa!  I hed aimed to dee wheare I’d sarved fur sixty year; and I thowt I’d lug my books up into t’ garret, and all my bits o’ stuff, and they sud hev’ t’ kitchen to theirseln; for t’ sake o’ quietness.  It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I thowt I could do that!  But nah, shoo’s taan my garden fro’ me, and by th’ heart, maister, I cannot stand it!  Yah may bend to th’ yoak an ye will—I noan used to ’t, and an old man doesn’t sooin get used to new barthens.  I’d rayther arn my bite an’ my sup wi’ a hammer in th’ road!’
+‘Now, now, idiot!’ interrupted Heathcliff, ‘cut it short!  What’s your grievance?  I’ll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly.  She may thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.’
+‘It’s noan Nelly!’ answered Joseph.  ‘I sudn’t shift for Nelly—nasty ill nowt as shoo is.  Thank God! shoo cannot stale t’ sowl o’ nob’dy!  Shoo wer niver soa handsome, but what a body mud look at her ‘bout winking.  It’s yon flaysome, graceless quean, that’s witched our lad, wi’ her bold een and her forrard ways—till—Nay! it fair brusts my heart!  He’s forgotten all I’ve done for him, and made on him, and goan and riven up a whole row o’ t’ grandest currant-trees i’ t’ garden!’ and here he lamented outright; unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and Earnshaw’s ingratitude and dangerous condition.
+‘Is the fool drunk?’ asked Mr. Heathcliff.  ‘Hareton, is it you he’s finding fault with?’
+‘I’ve pulled up two or three bushes,’ replied the young man; ‘but I’m going to set ’em again.’
+‘And why have you pulled them up?’ said the master.
+Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
+‘We wanted to plant some flowers there,’ she cried.  ‘I’m the only person to blame, for I wished him to do it.’
+‘And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?’ demanded her father-in-law, much surprised.  ‘And who ordered you to obey her?’ he added, turning to Hareton.
+The latter was speechless; his cousin replied—‘You shouldn’t grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land!’
+‘Your land, insolent slut!  You never had any,’ said Heathcliff.
+‘And my money,’ she continued; returning his angry glare, and meantime biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.
+‘Silence!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Get done, and begone!’
+‘And Hareton’s land, and his money,’ pursued the reckless thing.  ‘Hareton and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!’
+The master seemed confounded a moment: he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate.
+‘If you strike me, Hareton will strike you,’ she said; ‘so you may as well sit down.’
+‘If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I’ll strike him to hell,’ thundered Heathcliff.  ‘Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him against me?  Off with her!  Do you hear?  Fling her into the kitchen!  I’ll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!’
+Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.
+‘Drag her away!’ he cried, savagely.  ‘Are you staying to talk?’  And he approached to execute his own command.
+‘He’ll not obey you, wicked man, any more,’ said Catherine; ‘and he’ll soon detest you as much as I do.’
+‘Wisht! wisht!’ muttered the young man, reproachfully; ‘I will not hear you speak so to him.  Have done.’
+‘But you won’t let him strike me?’ she cried.
+‘Come, then,’ he whispered earnestly.
+It was too late: Heathcliff had caught hold of her.
+‘Now, you go!’ he said to Earnshaw.  ‘Accursed witch! this time she has provoked me when I could not bear it; and I’ll make her repent it for ever!’
+He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release her locks, entreating him not to hurt her that once.  Heathcliff’s black eyes flashed; he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers relaxed; he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed intently in her face.  Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine, said, with assumed calmness—‘You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you some time!  Go with Mrs. Dean, and keep with her; and confine your insolence to her ears.  As to Hareton Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I’ll send him seeking his bread where he can get it!  Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar.  Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you!  Leave me!’
+I led my young lady out: she was too glad of her escape to resist; the other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner.  I had counselled Catherine to dine up-stairs; but, as soon as he perceived her vacant seat, he sent me to call her.  He spoke to none of us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that he should not return before evening.
+The two new friends established themselves in the house during his absence; where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her offering a revelation of her father-in-law’s conduct to his father.  He said he wouldn’t suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement: if he were the devil, it didn’t signify; he would stand by him; and he’d rather she would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr. Heathcliff.  Catherine was waxing cross at this; but he found means to make her hold her tongue, by asking how she would like him to speak ill of her father?  Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master’s reputation home to himself; and was attached by ties stronger than reason could break—chains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen.  She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff; and confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit between him and Hareton: indeed, I don’t believe she has ever breathed a syllable, in the latter’s hearing, against her oppressor since.
+When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher.  I came in to sit with them, after I had done my work; and I felt so soothed and comforted to watch them, that I did not notice how time got on.  You know, they both appeared in a measure my children: I had long been proud of one; and now, I was sure, the other would be a source of equal satisfaction.  His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred; and Catherine’s sincere commendations acted as a spur to his industry.  His brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility to their aspect: I could hardly fancy it the same individual I had beheld on the day I discovered my little lady at Wuthering Heights, after her expedition to the Crags.  While I admired and they laboured, dusk drew on, and with it returned the master.  He came upon us quite unexpectedly, entering by the front way, and had a full view of the whole three, ere we could raise our heads to glance at him.  Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter, or more harmless sight; and it will be a burning shame to scold them.  The red fire-light glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.
+They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff: perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw.  The present Catherine has no other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or not.  With Hareton the resemblance is carried farther: it is singular at all times, then it was particularly striking; because his senses were alert, and his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity.  I suppose this resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff: he walked to the hearth in evident agitation; but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man: or, I should say, altered its character; for it was there yet.  He took the book from his hand, and glanced at the open page, then returned it without any observation; merely signing Catherine away: her companion lingered very little behind her, and I was about to depart also, but he bid me sit still.
+‘It is a poor conclusion, is it not?’ he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: ‘an absurd termination to my violent exertions?  I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished!  My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me.  But where is the use?  I don’t care for striking: I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand!  That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity.  It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.
+‘Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I’m in its shadow at present.  I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly remember to eat and drink.  Those two who have left the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony.  About her I won’t speak; and I don’t desire to think; but I earnestly wish she were invisible: her presence invokes only maddening sensations.  He moves me differently: and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I’d never see him again!  You’ll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so,’ he added, making an effort to smile, ‘if I try to describe the thousand forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies.  But you’ll not talk of what I tell you; and my mind is so eternally secluded in itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another.
+‘Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being; I felt to him in such a variety of ways, that it would have been impossible to have accosted him rationally.  In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her.  That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her?  I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags!  In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image!  The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance.  The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!  Well, Hareton’s aspect was the ghost of my immortal love; of my wild endeavours to hold my right; my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and my anguish—
+‘But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it will let you know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no benefit; rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer: and it partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go on together.  I can give them no attention any more.’
+‘But what do you mean by a change, Mr. Heathcliff?’ I said, alarmed at his manner: though he was neither in danger of losing his senses, nor dying, according to my judgment: he was quite strong and healthy; and, as to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark things, and entertaining odd fancies.  He might have had a monomania on the subject of his departed idol; but on every other point his wits were as sound as mine.
+‘I shall not know that till it comes,’ he said; ‘I’m only half conscious of it now.’
+‘You have no feeling of illness, have you?’ I asked.
+‘No, Nelly, I have not,’ he answered.
+‘Then you are not afraid of death?’ I pursued.
+‘Afraid?  No!’ he replied.  ‘I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death.  Why should I?  With my hard constitution and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head.  And yet I cannot continue in this condition!  I have to remind myself to breathe—almost to remind my heart to beat!  And it is like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea.  I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it.  They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I’m convinced it will be reached—and soon—because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfilment.  My confessions have not relieved me; but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which I show.  O God!  It is a long fight; I wish it were over!’
+He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself, till I was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience had turned his heart to an earthly hell.  I wondered greatly how it would end.  Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, even by looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt: he asserted it himself; but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have conjectured the fact.  You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood: and at the period of which I speak, he was just the same as then; only fonder of continued solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in company.
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+For some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy.  He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed sufficient sustenance for him.
+One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and out at the front door.  I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning I found he was still away.  We were in April then: the weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom.  After breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with my work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she beguiled Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig and arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the influence of Joseph’s complaints.  I was comfortably revelling in the spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose roots for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr. Heathcliff was coming in.  ‘And he spoke to me,’ she added, with a perplexed countenance.
+‘What did he say?’ asked Hareton.
+‘He told me to begone as fast as I could,’ she answered.  ‘But he looked so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to stare at him.’
+‘How?’ he inquired.
+‘Why, almost bright and cheerful.  No, almost nothing—very much excited, and wild, and glad!’ she replied.
+‘Night-walking amuses him, then,’ I remarked, affecting a careless manner: in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain the truth of her statement; for to see the master looking glad would not be an every-day spectacle.  I framed an excuse to go in.  Heathcliff stood at the open door; he was pale, and he trembled: yet, certainly, he had a strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face.
+‘Will you have some breakfast?’ I said.  ‘You must be hungry, rambling about all night!’  I wanted to discover where he had been, but I did not like to ask directly.
+‘No, I’m not hungry,’ he answered, averting his head, and speaking rather contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the occasion of his good humour.
+I felt perplexed: I didn’t know whether it were not a proper opportunity to offer a bit of admonition.
+‘I don’t think it right to wander out of doors,’ I observed, ‘instead of being in bed: it is not wise, at any rate this moist season.  I daresay you’ll catch a bad cold or a fever: you have something the matter with you now!’
+‘Nothing but what I can bear,’ he replied; ‘and with the greatest pleasure, provided you’ll leave me alone: get in, and don’t annoy me.’
+I obeyed: and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.
+‘Yes!’ I reflected to myself, ‘we shall have a fit of illness.  I cannot conceive what he has been doing.’
+That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up plate from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting.
+‘I’ve neither cold nor fever, Nelly,’ he remarked, in allusion to my morning’s speech; ‘and I’m ready to do justice to the food you give me.’
+He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct.  He laid them on the table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out.  We saw him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and Earnshaw said he’d go and ask why he would not dine: he thought we had grieved him some way.
+‘Well, is he coming?’ cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.
+‘Nay,’ he answered; ‘but he’s not angry: he seemed rarely pleased indeed; only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice; and then he bid me be off to you: he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else.’
+I set his plate to keep warm on the fender; and after an hour or two he re-entered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer: the same unnatural—it was unnatural—appearance of joy under his black brows; the same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a kind of smile; his frame shivering, not as one shivers with chill or weakness, but as a tight-stretched cord vibrates—a strong thrilling, rather than trembling.
+I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should?  And I exclaimed—‘Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff?  You look uncommonly animated.’
+‘Where should good news come from to me?’ he said.  ‘I’m animated with hunger; and, seemingly, I must not eat.’
+‘Your dinner is here,’ I returned; ‘why won’t you get it?’
+‘I don’t want it now,’ he muttered, hastily: ‘I’ll wait till supper.  And, Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away from me.  I wish to be troubled by nobody: I wish to have this place to myself.’
+‘Is there some new reason for this banishment?’ I inquired.  ‘Tell me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff?  Where were you last night?  I’m not putting the question through idle curiosity, but—’
+‘You are putting the question through very idle curiosity,’ he interrupted, with a laugh.  ‘Yet I’ll answer it.  Last night I was on the threshold of hell.  To-day, I am within sight of my heaven.  I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!  And now you’d better go!  You’ll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you, if you refrain from prying.’
+Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed; more perplexed than ever.
+He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on his solitude; till, at eight o’clock, I deemed it proper, though unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him.  He was leaning against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out: his face was turned to the interior gloom.  The fire had smouldered to ashes; the room was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still, that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable, but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large stones which it could not cover.  I uttered an ejaculation of discontent at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one after another, till I came to his.
+‘Must I close this?’ I asked, in order to rouse him; for he would not stir.
+The light flashed on his features as I spoke.  Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view!  Those deep black eyes!  That smile, and ghastly paleness!  It appeared to me, not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and, in my terror, I let the candle bend towards the wall, and it left me in darkness.
+‘Yes, close it,’ he replied, in his familiar voice.  ‘There, that is pure awkwardness!  Why did you hold the candle horizontally?  Be quick, and bring another.’
+I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph—‘The master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire.’  For I dared not go in myself again just then.
+Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went: but he brought it back immediately, with the supper-tray in his other hand, explaining that Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till morning.  We heard him mount the stairs directly; he did not proceed to his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed: its window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get through; and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of which he had rather we had no suspicion.
+‘Is he a ghoul or a vampire?’ I mused.  I had read of such hideous incarnate demons.  And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost through his whole course; and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to that sense of horror.  ‘But where did he come from, the little dark thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?’ muttered Superstition, as I dozed into unconsciousness.  And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself with imagining some fit parentage for him; and, repeating my waking meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations; at last, picturing his death and funeral: of which, all I can remember is, being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, ‘Heathcliff.’  That came true: we were.  If you enter the kirkyard, you’ll read, on his headstone, only that, and the date of his death.
+Dawn restored me to common sense.  I rose, and went into the garden, as soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his window.  There were none.  ‘He has stayed at home,’ I thought, ‘and he’ll be all right to-day.’  I prepared breakfast for the household, as was my usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master came down, for he lay late.  They preferred taking it out of doors, under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them.
+On my re-entrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below.  He and Joseph were conversing about some farming business; he gave clear, minute directions concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more exaggerated.  When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him.  He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together.
+‘Come now,’ I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, ‘eat and drink that, while it is hot: it has been waiting near an hour.’
+He didn’t notice me, and yet he smiled.  I’d rather have seen him gnash his teeth than smile so.
+‘Mr. Heathcliff! master!’ I cried, ‘don’t, for God’s sake, stare as if you saw an unearthly vision.’
+‘Don’t, for God’s sake, shout so loud,’ he replied.  ‘Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves?’
+‘Of course,’ was my answer; ‘of course we are.’
+Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure.  With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.
+Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards’ distance.  And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea.  The fancied object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away.  I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.
+I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and saying that on the next occasion I needn’t wait: I might set the things down and go.  Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate.
+The hours crept anxiously by: another evening came.  I did not retire to rest till late, and when I did, I could not sleep.  He returned after midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath.  I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and descended.  It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings.
+I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff’s step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan.  He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul.  I had not courage to walk straight into the apartment; but I desired to divert him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders.  It drew him forth sooner than I expected.  He opened the door immediately, and said—‘Nelly, come here—is it morning?  Come in with your light.’
+‘It is striking four,’ I answered.  ‘You want a candle to take up-stairs: you might have lit one at this fire.’
+‘No, I don’t wish to go up-stairs,’ he said.  ‘Come in, and kindle me a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room.’
+‘I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any,’ I replied, getting a chair and the bellows.
+He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction; his heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for common breathing between.
+‘When day breaks I’ll send for Green,’ he said; ‘I wish to make some legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and while I can act calmly.  I have not written my will yet; and how to leave my property I cannot determine.  I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth.’
+‘I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff,’ I interposed.  ‘Let your will be a while: you’ll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet!  I never expected that your nerves would be disordered: they are, at present, marvellously so, however; and almost entirely through your own fault.  The way you’ve passed these three last days might knock up a Titan.  Do take some food, and some repose.  You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both.  Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes blood-shot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep.’
+‘It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,’ he replied.  ‘I assure you it is through no settled designs.  I’ll do both, as soon as I possibly can.  But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms’ length of the shore!  I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest.  Well, never mind Mr. Green: as to repenting of my injustices, I’ve done no injustice, and I repent of nothing.  I’m too happy; and yet I’m not happy enough.  My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.’
+‘Happy, master?’ I cried.  ‘Strange happiness!  If you would hear me without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you happier.’
+‘What is that?’ he asked.  ‘Give it.’
+‘You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff,’ I said, ‘that from the time you were thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life; and probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period.  You must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space to search it now.  Could it be hurtful to send for some one—some minister of any denomination, it does not matter which—to explain it, and show you how very far you have erred from its precepts; and how unfit you will be for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?’
+‘I’m rather obliged than angry, Nelly,’ he said, ‘for you remind me of the manner in which I desire to be buried.  It is to be carried to the churchyard in the evening.  You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany me: and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my directions concerning the two coffins!  No minister need come; nor need anything be said over me.—I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.’
+‘And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?’ I said, shocked at his godless indifference.  ‘How would you like it?’
+‘They won’t do that,’ he replied: ‘if they did, you must have me removed secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not annihilated!’
+As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired to his den, and I breathed freer.  But in the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a wild look, bid me come and sit in the house: he wanted somebody with him.  I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone.
+‘I believe you think me a fiend,’ he said, with his dismal laugh: ‘something too horrible to live under a decent roof.’  Then turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly,—‘Will you come, chuck?  I’ll not hurt you.  No! to you I’ve made myself worse than the devil.  Well, there is one who won’t shrink from my company!  By God! she’s relentless.  Oh, damn it!  It’s unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear—even mine.’
+He solicited the society of no one more.  At dusk he went into his chamber.  Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning and murmuring to himself.  Hareton was anxious to enter; but I bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him.  When he came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned.  He was better, and would be left alone; so the doctor went away.
+The following evening was very wet: indeed, it poured down till day-dawn; and, as I took my morning walk round the house, I observed the master’s window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in.  He cannot be in bed, I thought: those showers would drench him through.  He must either be up or out.  But I’ll make no more ado, I’ll go boldly and look.’
+Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant; quickly pushing them aside, I peeped in.  Mr. Heathcliff was there—laid on his back.  His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile.  I could not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still.  The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill; no blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more: he was dead and stark!
+I hasped the window; I combed his black long hair from his forehead; I tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it.  They would not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too!  Taken with another fit of cowardice, I cried out for Joseph.  Joseph shuffled up and made a noise, but resolutely refused to meddle with him.
+‘Th’ divil’s harried off his soul,’ he cried, ‘and he may hev’ his carcass into t’ bargin, for aught I care!  Ech! what a wicked ’un he looks, girning at death!’ and the old sinner grinned in mockery.  I thought he intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing himself, he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights.
+I felt stunned by the awful event; and my memory unavoidably recurred to former times with a sort of oppressive sadness.  But poor Hareton, the most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much.  He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest.  He pressed its hand, and kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from contemplating; and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs naturally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel.
+Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died.  I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days, fearing it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not abstain on purpose: it was the consequence of his strange illness, not the cause.
+We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished.  Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended the whole attendance.  The six men departed when they had let it down into the grave: we stayed to see it covered.  Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds—and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly.  But the country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house.  Idle tales, you’ll say, and so say I.  Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on ’em looking out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his death:—and an odd thing happened to me about a month ago.  I was going to the Grange one evening—a dark evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
+‘What is the matter, my little man?’ I asked.
+‘There’s Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t’ nab,’ he blubbered, ‘un’ I darnut pass ’em.’
+I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on so I bid him take the road lower down.  He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat.  Yet, still, I don’t like being out in the dark now; and I don’t like being left by myself in this grim house: I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.
+‘They are going to the Grange, then?’ I said.
+‘Yes,’ answered Mrs. Dean, ‘as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year’s Day.’
+‘And who will live here then?’
+‘Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company.  They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.’
+‘For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?’ I observed.
+‘No, Mr. Lockwood,’ said Nelly, shaking her head.  ‘I believe the dead are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.’
+At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.
+‘They are afraid of nothing,’ I grumbled, watching their approach through the window.  ‘Together, they would brave Satan and all his legions.’
+As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at the moon—or, more correctly, at each other by her light—I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door; and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant’s gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
+My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk.  When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months: many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.
+I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton’s only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff’s still bare.
+I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.